stumped

I am baffled, stymied, stumped when it comes to explaining why I like this as much as I do. I think because it defies normal conventions of fall photography, despite the presence of a few lingering yellow leaves: rather than hitting tones of rust and umber and red and gold - of which there is plenty around, especially in this spookily warm November weather (as I left Murray this evening, there was even a girl sitting in the dark under a tree). This corner of Scott Hall is, however, determinedly non-autmnal in its cold artificial lighting: indeed, this is almost an underwater scene, clammy and grey green. But there's also something fragile about it - the tenacious last bits of foliage, the crumbling wall that makes it appropriate enough for a scene shuffling toward's the year's end - or at least towards Thanksgiving. I find it very hard to get my head around not Thanksgiving per se, but a country in which the academic semester screeches to a halt for three weekdays, and then grinds itself into motion again for two fraught weeks.