A West Coast Odyssey -- a note from Edward Schwartz

Tim,

Here is a little story that I think will be of particular interest to my Trumbullian brethren (and sisters).

A West Coast Odyssey

Over school vacation week, I took a trip to San Diego with my family. My daughter and I were in Balboa Park, strolling through the sculpture garden next to the San Diego Museum of Art. Suddenly, my heart skipped a beat and I felt a familiar lump in my throat -- and a mild wave of nausea. Could it be? Was it possible?

I gingerly followed the stone walkway up to the beast... but not too close. "Breathe," I commanded myself. "It won't bite. After all, it's only... 'art'." I twirled the word around in my brain. "Yeah, right." Before me was a jumbled mass of giant iron disks, painted bright orange, and welded together at obscene angles -- obviously the work of a madman." I steadied my nerves and leaned in to read what I already knew would be printed on the brass plaque beneath.

"Odyssey, 1973. Tony Rosenthal."

"Noooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!'

"What's wrong, Daddy?" The voice brought me back into the hear-and-now. My daughter was leaning over my prostate form. I uncoiled from the fetal position and assured her that I would be OK. Eventually. "It's this statue," I tried to explain. "It is pretty ugly," my daughter observed astutely, "but it's not that bad."

"That's because you didn't have to stare at its evil twin for four long years."

At this point, Trumbullians reading this are all reaching for their antacid of choice. They understand in a visceral way the source of my revulsion. For our entire Yale careers, the Trumbull courtyard was dominated by the hideous grinning visage of "Odyssey II." It was a running joke, "Gee, I'd hate to see Odyssey I!" In drunken stupors, my friends and I would design elaborate schemes for upending the monstrosity and rolling it out the front gate, down Elm Street, and into the bowels of greater New Haven. Others dreamed to dismantling it or spray-painting it psychedelic colors in the middle of the night.

We were all, however, united in one thing. Our opinion that Odyssey II was just about the worst piece of art we had ever seen.

More than 20 years later, I had just about sanded the image of that piece of junk off my retinas when I came face-to-face with it's older brother. Let me just say that there is nothing about Odyssey to suggest that a sequel was a good idea.

So that I don't have to go through this trauma alone, I include a photograph below for the "benefit" of my fellow Trumbullians. I guess a Yale education really does stay with you forever...

All of it.

Next year, I think we'll vacation in Arizona.

Edward Schwartz
Trumbull '87