“Here’s to… the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes, the ones who see things differently…”
Enjoy an unaired version of Apple’s 1997 “Think Different” commercial that was narrated by Steve Jobs (via laughingsquid.com).
As noted on our sister blog, Sallyportal (‘Think Different”), the death of Steve Jobs (an “almost” alumnus) has occasioned many tributes to his “archetypal Reedie” persona. He was unconventional, driven, and a bit subversive. Reed coursework influenced him deeply, whether or not he was officially enrolled, especially his study of calligraphy at the hand of Robert Palladino. An article on Smithsonian.com has gone so far as to suggest that mastering the lettered hand led Jobs to think like an artist.
Steve Jobs’ sense of design and artistry set him apart from other engineers, to be sure, but I like to think that his intuition and personal taste are what made the first Macintosh, and consequent inventions, so distinctive. He is quoted as observing that “Taste is trying to expose yourself to the best things humans have done and then trying to bring those things into what you are doing.” This concept of applying human qualities to technological devices may be at the heart of the appeal. While the Smithsonian article talks about typography triggering emotion, an essay by Adam Penenberg ’85 takes this idea further by arguing that the design of Apple products moves people to “ascribe human values” to them.
New Reedies with alumni parents (or other relatives) qualify as members of a prestigious organization fondly referred to as O.R.G.Y (Offspring of Reed Generations of Yesteryear). They, along with family members, were invited to join other Reed legacies for a group photo on Wednesday, August 24. Gorgeous weather graced this photo shoot on the chapel steps, and everyone received an O.R.G.Y button to wear proudly!
Here’s a picture of some Reed alumni and their excited/nervous/non-plussed Reedie progeny (future alumni!).
Back row, left to right: John Selker ’81, Julia Selker, Sarah Stadler ’76, Natalie Cowan, Jesyca Hernstadt, Liane Hernstadt ’83
Middle row, left to right: Andrew Mason ’90, Sophia Helverson, Della Green, Marcia Kato ’75, Kata Martin, Holly Hurwitz ’79, Sam Jackson
Front row, left to right: Amelia Wolf, Lisa Rackner ’81 (not pictured), Nora Fisher Campbell, Michael Campbell ’81, Lauren Faris, Rob Faris ’80
by John Sheehy ’82
This fall, Oregon State University Press will publish a book drawn from the Reed Oral History Project entitled Comrades of the Quest: An Oral History of Reed College. The following excerpt from the book features the voices of students and academics who found their way to Reed in the 1920s and 1930s. It offers a sense of the socio-economic and cultural diversity of students at the time–many of them first-generation college students from small towns and farms–and also highlights some of the qualities of Reed College that attracted them.
You may order the full article in the summer issue of Oregon Historical Quarterly online.
Excerpt:
REED COLLEGE’S character–and its aspiration to be among the most intellectually demanding schools in the country–was already well established by its launch in 1911. William Trufant Foster, Reed’s first president, sought to make critical thinking the holy grail of the educational experience. He believed that if Reed was to be relevant in an educational landscape dominated by specialized research universities, it would be essential to impart to students the most rigorous possible set of intellectual skills and attitudes for informing every area of inquiry. In doing so, he worked to establish a new kind of college, one that would give renewed vitality to the liberal arts while preparing its graduates for the ever-widening dimensions of the modern world.
To insure the highest standards of intellectual rigor, Foster imposed a number of curricular hurdles, including a senior thesis and orals exam. To instill self-discipline and discourage students from working for grades instead of for learning, after 1915, professors gave no grades except on request after graduation. To stress democracy and inclusiveness, Foster banned fraternities and sororities as well as the sideshow amusements of intercollegiate sports. To ensure small, intimate classes, he adopted a ten-to-one student-to-faculty ratio and directed professors to focus on teaching, not research. Finally, to promote intellectual freedom and better capture students’ enthusiasm, Foster established a free electives curriculum.
By Travis Greenwood ’01
Sated by the luxe, campuswide feast on the Friday night of Centennial Reunions, an overflow audience settled into Vollum Lounge at 9 p.m. to hear Barry Hansen ’63, aka Dr. Demento, speak about the musical and cultural legacy of the late Frank Zappa and his prolific troupe of art-rock jesters, The Mothers of Invention. The Doctor opened his remarks with high praise for his subject, explaining that Zappa was one of the “half dozen most important artists” of his lifetime, a suggestion that visibly resonated with many in the audience, including the other elder statesmen in the room. In particular, Hansen cited Zappa’s adventurous blend of superb musicianship and subversive style, suggesting that both were original and enduring influences on the radio program he has hosted for more than 30 years now.
Alternating between archival video, excerpted recordings and most interestingly, snippets of interviews he had conducted with Zappa himself over a three-decade period, Hansen traced a biographical sketch that was informed by the deeper minutia that only a true musicologist would seek out. That said, Demento’s lecture was also richly personal: listening to his exchange with Zappa about the importance of music as an agent of change in society (and its apparent exclusion from political discourse!), one gets the feeling that the duo shared a genuine and conspiratorial connection. Ever the entertainer (and DJ knob twiddler), Hansen closed with one last Zappa track, “Stevie’s Spanking,” a rich mess of psychedelic guitar and (highly) satirical asides.
Sweep the mind
clean
like a field of dry stubble
when the constellations
of daisies have been mown
–Mary Barnard
Mary Barnard ’32 is arguably Reed’s most prominent creative artist. Her original poetry and translations of classic poetry influenced generations, including the Beat poets who followed her by one generation. Her 100th birthday was celebrated in 2009, so it is appropriate that the Reed Centennial honor her with a full day of lectures about her life, her work, and her influence (see “Alumni College: Letters 100: Experiencing Mary Barnard ’32” on Thursday, June 9).
It is also fitting that pre-eminent Barnard scholar, our own Sarah Barnsley ’95, should return to lead this seminar. Sarah was an exchange student from University of East Anglia for one year, and she now teaches at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her other research interests include American literature, poetry and poetics, modernism, gender and queer theory. Following her tenure as H.D. Fellow in American Literature at the Beinecke Library, Yale University, Sarah has completed a book manuscript, “‘A bright, particular excellence’: Mary Barnard, American Imagist.” She is also a poet in her own right.
Mary Barnard ’32 was born in Vancouver, Washington, and attended Reed College, where she discovered modernist poetry and Ezra Pound; she later initiated a long-distance correspondence with Pound that was to last nearly 40 years.
As noted by the Beinecke Library, “With Pound’s encouragement, Barnard began translating Sappho’s poetry from the Greek. Her translation, published in 1958, has never been out of print. Barnard’s own poems won her Poetry magazine’s Levinson Award when she was only 26 years old. Her shorter fiction was published in Harper’s Bazaar, The Yale Review, and The Kenyon Review. She later composed a book-length essay in verse entitled Time and the White Tigress and researched and published her own genealogy and various essays on mythology.”
The delightful and spirited memoir of her school days, Erato agonistes: Writing a creative thesis at Reed College in “The Golden Age”, is available in the bookstore.
Other speakers in the seminar will include Professor Anita Helle, Oregon State University, on Mary Barnard’s original poetry, and Professor Ellen K. Stauder, dean of the faculty and David Eddings Professor of English & Humanities, on Mary Barnard’s Sappho, in the morning sessions. Afternoon conference leaders will include, in addition, Elizabeth J. Bell ’87 MALS, Mary Barnard’s literary executor; and Anita Bigelow ’67, illustrator of Mary Barnard’s work.
THE LADD AND REED LEGACY: Building Portland 1851-2011
Tuesday, June 7, from 8 a.m. through 12:45 p.m.
The Ladd and Reed Legacy talk and tour during Centennial Reunions, organized by Richard Ross ’69 MAT, explores and celebrates the lasting impacts of two remarkable Oregon pioneer families on Portland’s development over a century and a half. William S. Ladd was Portland’s most prominent 19th-century business and civic leader, and Simeon Reed was Ladd’s foremost business partner and friend. Ladd and Reed shaped Portland and the Northwest by joint ventures over four decades, in public service, steamboats, telegraphs, macadam roads, model farms, railroads, and iron. Ladd and Reed both arrived in Portland in the 1850s, starting as pioneer liquor dealers, and served on the city council in the crude frontier village known as “Stumptown.” Their sturdy spouses, Amanda Wood Reed and Carolyn Elliott Ladd emigrated together by sea from Boston in 1854 and became lifelong friends.
As they prospered together, the Ladds and Reeds pursued a common vision of building a thriving Renaissance city out of soggy Stumptown. In turn, they were driving forces in the formation of Oregon’s educational, cultural, economic infrastructure, and model communities. Amanda Reed’s 1904 will set in motion the final Ladd and Reed partnership, the creation of Reed College (1911), with help from Ladd son and college trustee William M. Ladd. This program shows how the Ladd and Reed family vision built Portland’s strong neighborhoods, its civic, educational, and economic institutions, and the vibrant downtown of today.
Tour visits five Ladd and Reed living legacies:
1. Oregon Iron Company, Oregon Iron and Steel (1865-1894) Lake Oswego
Guides: Marylou Colver, Susanna Kuo, Lake Oswego historians
Dominant Northwest iron producer for the “Pittsburgh of the West.” Company town supplied construction of Northwest railroads, pipelines, bridges, and Portland’s ironfront buildings. Iron lands around Lake Oswego (Sucker Lake) became the basis of the 20th-century suburb.
2. The Ladd Carriage House (1883) SW Broadway
Guide: Jim Heuer, Friends of the Ladd Carriage House
Last remnant of the Ladd family’s former downtown estate and an elegant, rare survivor of prestigious 19th-century South Portland, where the Ladds and Reeds both lived.
3. The Reed Building (1890) SW 1st and Ankeny
Guide: Amy Kohnstamm, Mercy Corps
Simeon Reed’s solid four-story brick and stone warehouse, once in Portland’s business core at Skidmore Fountain, houses Mercy Corps world headquarters today.
4. Ladd’s Addition (1891)
Designed by William S. Ladd himself, thrives today as a national and regional icon for green and walkable neighborhoods and “New Urbanism.” First of many notable Portland neighborhoods created by the Ladd Estate Company under William M. Ladd out of Ladd farms and holdings: Laurelhurst (1909), Eastmoreland (1910), Dunthorpe, and Lake Oswego, all landmark communities of the 20th century.
5. Reed College (1911)
Celebrates its centennial in 2011-12, was endowed by Amanda Reed, on part of William S. Ladd’s Crystal Springs Farm donated by trustee William M. Ladd.
Schedule:
• 8 a.m. PowerPoint Talk at Vollum Lounge, Reed campus
• 8:30 a.m. Board a Raz bus at Eliot Circle for Lake Oswego
• 11:15 a.m. Ladd’s Addition, coffee break and restrooms at Palio (the Elm Room), Ladd Circle
• 12:45 p.m. Tour concludes with wrap-up comments on the founding of Reed College
The cost for this half-day tour is $20. Sign up by sending email to alumni@reed.edu.
Presenter and guide (except where noted):
Richard N Ross ’69, American Institute of Certified Planners
H: 503/235-8194 C: 503/807-0612 richardnross@earthlink.net
• Urban and regional planner in Oregon 1977-2011, teacher of Oregon and US history 1970-79
• BA in History Middlebury College, MAT Reed College, MUP Portland State University
• Led regional coalition to restore the Historic Columbia River Hwy (1986-92)
• Ladd’s Addition community leader and resident 1976-2011
Most people, when they go swimming, think it’s all about
them. But it’s actually all about
the water. Take the Reed pool for
example. What’s going on with the
water there? Nothing much. It just
lies there. There’s a good physics
reason for that. And when you go
swimming, the water still doesn’t do anything exciting. It keeps you afloat, and you kind of
stir it around and scatter waves about in all directions. But those waves are just small
fry. They’re just minnows. In June, at Centennial Reunions, we’re going to rouse a
leviathan.
The “Mother of All Waves” has lain dormant in the Reed pool
for all these years. We’re going
to enter her lair and wake her up.
To see her in action, that is our quest. Guided by Rubber Duckie and armed with the Pendulum of
Destiny, we will go in … and out … and in … and out … and in … and the wave will grow until the
spectators are shouting “Hey wait a minute! It’s getting too big!
It’s beginning to slosh onto the floor! Make them stop! Make them stop!”
And we will stop.
We will stop to paddle to the middle of the pool, there to be carried
back … and forth … and back … and forth … propelled and exhilarated by the
power of a wave of our own making.
But as we bask there, going back … and forth … and back … and forth … we
are left pondering that age-old question:
Between the human race on the one hand, and the laws of physics on the
other, who is the master? Who is
the master?
Here’s a chance for alumni to consider this question and get
a different kind of workout, either Thursday at 10:30 a.m. or Friday at 10:30 a.m.
So be sure to remember your swimsuit when you pack. And if you plan to join us, please send
a note to the course instructor, Brad Wright ’61, at bandrwright@yahoo.com so he’ll know
whom to expect.
I recently caught up with Travis Greenwood ’01, kitschy shirt connoisseur, to get the scoop on his efforts to collect and document Olde Reed t-shirts.
Please give us your vision for this project?
This project mixes personal and professional interests. I’ve always had collector tendencies, progressing from comic books to records and then, later, bicycles. These days, it’s all of the above, plus t-shirts, which is convenient because I write and edit a blog, “It Goes to 11,” for my employer. It’s focused (somewhat loosely) on t-shirts, t-shirts from the reel world, t-shirt trends, movie memes, the overlap there between and whatever else I stumble across on the web. Combine all of that with extremely fond memories of my Reed experience (I majored in history and managed KRRC) and here you have it, my contribution to the college’s collective history. Don’t say I never gave anything back to the community!
Seriously though, it dawned on me that the typical Reed experience was accompanied by several t-shirt traditions (experiential mile markers if you will), namely O-Week, Renn Fayre, and Beer Nation, but also encompassing several smaller events and tropes. Following from that, it seemed that someone–namely, me–should consolidate and archive material of this type online. If the Internet has room for LOL Cats, defamatory weekly newspapers (zinger!), and second-tier social networking sites, then certainly we can carve out a niche for our humble t-shirts, which when taken collectively, constitute an enormous and revealing trove of Reed minutia.
Does it have a catchy name?
I haven’t given much thought to the moniker, but a simple bit of brainstorming yields this bastardized gem:
“Atheism, Communism & Tee Love: A Pictorial History of Reed T-Shirts”
(groan…)
Have you heard the Reed myth about a group of people dressed in black druidic robes, marching in a hallowed procession that includes a cappella singing, torches, and a boar’s head on a pallet? Or perhaps you’ve witnessed it yourself on a frosty winter’s night? This curious scene isn’t just lore; it remains a beloved feature of the annual alumni holiday party. This yuletide celebration dates to the college’s early years, with the boar’s head procession appearing in the 1920s and becoming quite the beloved tradition.
