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Opinion

A letter to President Gogue: 
keep our sculptures fertile

James Davis
Opinion Columnist

Dear President Jay Gogue:

What's up? How's being president going for you? Me, I'm good. It's getting warmer outside, which is good. It's nice to be able to wear shorts again. 

All pleasantries aside, though, I'd like to say I'm a big supporter of yours. To put it frankly, you, Dr. Gogue, rock. You're a president and a doctor and, from what I understand, a chancellor, like in Germany. That's a lot! Here I am thinking I'm busy with school. I bet I'll never be president.

Hey, I think I saw you last semester at a luncheon or an awards banquet or something like that. (You probably go to a bunch of these.) I think you may have even shaken my hand. I know you can't be expected to remember every hand you've shaken nor every person attached to these hands, but let me refresh your memory: I was wearing a gray suit with — I think — brown loafers, a white shirt and a red tie. It's a nice suit, and I wear it a lot, seeing as how it is my only suit. I'm tall — well, pretty tall. From what I remember, your handshake was firm and assertive, a nice handshake. I hope to shake it again.

Before I begin, I want to ask you about your name. From what I've gathered, it's pronounced "googe," which seems really counterintuitive to normal English phonetics. If I didn't know better, I'd say "gog" or "gogoo" or maybe even "gouge." Thankfully, I do know better, but I worry about those who don't know better and about their potential for future embarrassment. Maybe this should be addressed in the student handbook. 

Anyway, I suppose what I really want to talk to you about is the sculpture. I'm sure you know the one I'm talking about. It's in front of the M.D. Anderson Memorial Library — not the one with all the little letters and whatnot but the big, tall, rusty one that looks vaguely like a DNA strand. It's a nice sculpture and everything, but it's surrounded by this pool of water for what seems like no reason at all. 

I don't know where I heard this — maybe from one of my professors, probably from one of my friends — but word has it that water used to shoot from the top of this structure. Then, some time ago, they shut this water off because the idea of fluid emerging from a vertical construction was deemed too phallic.

Now, I don't know how much credence I should lend to this rumor. If it is true, though, doesn't that seem a little, I don't know, cowardly? I mean, phallicism is in the eye of the beholder (personally, I don't think it looks like a phallus at all), so why give in to a few people's politically correct whining? How is a big, impotent phallus in front of the library any better than a fecund one? Is this the message we want to send to our students? Our prospective students? Our faculty? Our staff? Our benefactors? 

Dr. Gogue, I don't know how much control you have over these affairs. For all I know, you protested this decision. For all I know, you were the one who shut if off. Either way, I figured if anyone could do something about this, it'd be you. Could you pull some strings and get the water flowing again? This is just for consistency's sake. As a university, we should have the courage of our convictions. Don't you agree? 

That's all for now. Hope Mardi Gras treated you well. Happy March! Write me back whenever the inspiration strikes you.

All the best,
James Davis
concerned student, longtime fan

Davis, an opinion columnist for The Daily Cougar, 
can be reached at jpdavis@uh.edu.