The Wrap on Harvard's Dorm

A massive fiscal and artistic boondoggle is taking place at this very moment in Harvard Yard, and so far not a soul has made a peep, let alone stink, about it.

As I strolled through the Yard this weekend, I came upon a freshman dormitory wrapped entirely in plastic--clearly the work of the conceptualist artist and '70s icon, "Christo," who is better known for having enclosed a small Pacific island and the London Bridge entirely in Gore-tex.

Why, I pondered aloud, would the administration keep secret such a media "event," but then a kindly passer-by noted that Christo's fee for such an artistic "treatment" was undoubtedly equivalent to four years' tuition paid by the class of '96! No wonder the "patron of the arts" who heads Harvard kept the installation under wraps!

I am not opposed to university money being spent upon art--I think an enormous bronze clipper ship or the statue or hand-lasted shoe to commemorate New England's economic contributions to America would go a long ways toward livening up the Yard--but I question whether Christo's desire to "re-envision" everyday structure by enfolding them in sensuously undulating fabric is truly appropriate to an institution devoted precisely to propping up our nation's "everyday structures."

Maybe it's time Christo and Rudenstine call it a wrap." Jeff Moran   G-6