boating

This isn't a boating lake that's suddenly grown up in the middle of campus - no regatta here, despite the tents.  The canvas that's sprouted up everywhere heralds the Los Angeles Festival of Books this weekend (Alice is speaking on Sunday); that canoeing figure - actually, it's the reflecting pool again, and if one crouches down low enough when a maintenance man is speeding past on one of those little utility carts, trompe l'oeil is easily achieved.

Signs of spring, indeed ... today was the last class for which I'll really have to prepare until the very end of August.  Can that be true?   I still have the rhythms of the British academic year graven into me, and they don't match up easily with a LA day with temperatures in the 80s, jacaranda blossom on the trees, and students wearing very short shorts indeed.