The silence here will continue for about a week longer. I’m currently working on a project for the business capstone class, Strategic Management with Dr. White. While this project is mostly removing me from civilization, I’m learning more about McDonald’s than I ever wanted to know.

For your entertainment, I’ll pass along something I found out about the McDonald’s logo from reading an article in Architecture Magazine:

Those restaurants [the originals] featured a yellow arch at either end of the building, which, to passing motorists, appeared as an M. For an untrained architect, it was an extraordinary, almost Venturian combination of logo and architecture, building and sign. Kroc replaced the old buildings with brick walls and a mansard roof, and psychologist and design consultant Louis Cheskin convinced the company to retain the symbolic arches (calling them “mother McDonald’s breasts”) and to collapse them into the now-famous symbol.

Now that I’ve forever changed your outlook on the golden arches, we’ll switch to a new topic.

And now for something completely different.

Immediately after I’m done with the project, I’ll be performing with the University Singers this coming Friday, March 4, at the Florence Kopleff Recital Hall. We will be performing Haydn’s Nelson Mass at 7:30. The concert is free, so I would highly encourage all of you to attend.

Album 88 recently started up a public interest show on Friday mornings at 10:00 a.m. This coming Friday, the topic is the Belt Line. Ryan Gravel and I will be the guests, so tune in and hear out Ryan’s wisdom.

I found this in the 1992 edition of the Rampway yearbook (back when Ga. State had a yearbook). Questions submitted by freshmen:

• When do we find out what books we need to buy for our classes?
• Why don’t you have a meeting that would help us learn how to schedule our classes?
• How are students supposed to get from class to class on the first day of school if they do not know their way around?
• Are the professors as mean as they say?
• What does the “H” stand for in Dean H. King Buttermore’s name? Hamlet, Herman, or Horhay? Just wondering. It seems to me that nobody knows.
• Does anyone ever get tickets for jaywalking?
• How do we figure out which classes we need to sign up for?
• Is college life as hard as everyone says it is?
• Where do we go or what number do we call to rent a parking space at MARTA?
• How do I know which classes are the core classes that I have to have?
• Does it take long to adapt to college life?
• How can we complete this evaluation if we have not participated in all the events listed?
• Did I win?
• How do I balance work, school, study, and sleep in a 24 hour period?
• Tell me one thing that GSU can offer me that another university can’t.
• How do we register for classes?
• How do we know what to take?
• How should we manage our schedule?
• How do we know what times and days are available for our classes?
• Can I take classes during the summer for extra credit toward graduating early?
• Where am I?
• Has anyone ever been hit by an automobile?
• Where is the nearest liquor store?
• If I joined the Greek Life, will it take up a lot of my time and interfere with my job?
• How many times can you go through Rush?
• What’s on the 5th floor of the Urban Life Building?

Yesterday the AJC ran a front page story about the proposed design for the new home for the Atlanta Symphony. The design is remarkably ugly, features a lot of dead space surrounding the building, and includes a raised walkway that doesn’t seem to serve much purpose. So I sent in a letter, which got published today:

Flash unnecessary

While the Midtown Alliance and the city of Atlanta have worked hard to turn Midtown into the living community it is today, they are turning a blind eye to the principles of good urban design in accepting the new symphony hall proposal (”A grace note for city,” Page One, Feb. 9).

A concert hall does not need to be a giant block of cheese in order to be great. For an example, look at Carnegie Hall.

JOE WINTER, Smyrna