Kidder Tower
Here's a no
brainer quiz -- what do these two images have in common?
Ok. So that wasn't as easy as you thought. (Yes, and no, if you said that they were both googled using an image search.)
Ez isn't surprised, however, because student test scores have been falling lately and if it doesn't have to do with Harry Potter, Super Mario, PlayStation or some Nintendo shit, you might as well be talking in Ukrainian or something.
So, here's the answer. Both represent objects that were named after famous people. That's right. The Oscar Meyer
Weiner and
Llenroc. If Oscar, like Ezra Cornell, had decided to use the reverse spelling of his last name, you'd be eating a
Reyem Weiner. With mustard please and to go. Fortunately, he was only interested in selling
hotdogs, not a university.
Ez wants to have something named after him. His little touch of immortality,
ok? Can you blame him? After all, walking around Ithaca and the colleges, can you honestly say that you can go one block without bumping into some one's colossal ego?
Fane Tower, Clinton Hall,
McGraw Hall,
Boldt Tower, A.D/ White this, A.D. White that, Goldwyn Smith,
etcetera,
etcetera. Did you know that Bill Mennen, the deodorant king, donated a dorm to Cornell? Originally he wanted it built in the shape of a speed stick but the architects in those days were still stuck in Gothic Revival mode.
Of course, it takes money, big money, to endow a building. Unfortunately, after working for Satan Industries for all these years,
Ez can't even afford to endow a bike rack. He did another
google search, out of curiosity, and discovered that there is a Kidder Building (shown here) and that it's home to Milton Community Schools (another example of an
eponym.) Maybe
Ez could sneak out there to Milton, MA and, under the cloak of darkness, install a phony name plate or corner stone.
The Kidder Building
Donated by Ezra Kidder, Blogger,
Philanthropist, All Around Nice Guy.
Ez would prefer not to have a disease named after him but. if that's the only option, make it a cognitive disease,
ok? Not some kind of debilitating form of leprosy or acne, right?
Imagine if
Ez had lived in places like Soviet Russia or 50's America, where having a bad attitude might get you labelled as diseased and stuck in a hospital, he might have lent his name to a particular diagnosis --
Kidder Disease. Defined as being out of step with the upbeat, smiley face, mamby pamby Zeitgeist of one's contemporaries; overly cynical, sardonic, picky and critical, likely to write underground blogs poking fun at cultural or political icons in one's community.
Comments invited at: ezrakidder@gmail.com - Peace, Ezra at 6:43 AM
