February 24, 2012 Print Edition

Reaching New Grounds (p.19)
Plans to renovate Gateway Arch grounds arise
Alex La Mar & Robert Hiller, Reporters

An effort by CityArchRiver 2015 tp renovate the Gateway Arch grounds to coincide with its 50th anniversary will begin construction in late 2013 or early 2014.  Plans for the renovations include a new entrance to the underground museum and building a pedestrian lid over I-70 among other things.  Below are student options that were not featured in the Feb. 24 issue of the Image.

“I’ll just have to wait and see, but it sounds like an awesome idea.”
-Senior Kevin Klipfel

“I think that downtown St. Louis has lost a lot of its potential in the last 50 years, and I think that doing renovations downtown can bring peo0ple from the suburbs down to downtown more often and make it a place worth going.”
-Senior Jacob Lee

“It would be really nice if they came up with an easier way to get up in the arch.  I’ve only been on it once since it’s such a hassle to get into.”
-Senior Carter Franke

“I think it’s a great idea to get people to come and visit it.”
-Senior Mary Welchans

For more information about the project, visit www.cityarchriver.org.

Embrace your inner nerd (p. 20)
Willard breaks down nerd culture
Danielle Slauter, Asst. Entertainment Editor

Television
There are certain shows that I am highly nerdy about.  News Radio, Arrested Development, Doctor Who, Battlestar Galactica, Mad Men, The Wire, and Justified (starring Tim Olyphant, or, to the nerdly, Tim Oly-phant-astic!) are all obsessions that I could talk for hours about the minutia of the story, characters, or episodes.  Nerdity is different from fandom.  You can enjoy The Office and watch episodes multiple times.  But a nerd can tell you what the name of the Dwight-based character was in Michael Scott’s script, Threat Level Midnight!  Trekkers are the original nerds who obsessed over the details and tech-babble of the shows.

Movie
This is a category that I think is more socially acceptable than others, and thus the level of nerdity is more specialized.  If you think about it, it is pretty hard to be a nerd about art.  If you know a lot about art, you are an art historian.  Movies are kind of the same thing.  A movie nerd would have to be someone who obsesses over particular films, like Star Wars.  Know the name of Han Solo’s ship (The Millenium Falcon) is not that nerdy.  Knowing the “handle” of the storm trooper that Luke impersonates on the Death Star (TK-421) is very nerdy.  Knowing a lot about the films of Wong Kar-Wai or Judd Apatow, those do not seem that nerdy.  With that said, I am fairly fluent in film of all kinds, and fairly nerdy about a lot of them (Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, etc.)

Books
This is similar to art and film.  It is hard to be a book nerd, unless it is over a specific set of books or series.  I have read a lot about J.R.R. Tolkien and the Lord of the Rings, but I am not sure I could identify the difference between a Lord of the Rings scholar and nerd.  Perhaps having read the Harry Potter series, you would not be a nerd.  What level of knowledge though would make one a Harry Potter nerd versus a Harry Potter scholar?

Video games
This is clearly an example of nerdity.  Almost every videogame that is part of a series, has its own history, mythology, recurring characters, issues, etc.  If you know any level of trivia from the Final Fantasy series, Halo, etc. you are clearly a nerd.

Pop culture
This is a little more difficult, because pop culture is seen as more socially acceptable to be knowledgeable about.  Pop music, for instance, use to be an easy way to nerd-out.  If you could name all the different personnel in Yes from album to album, you were a music nerd.  If you could rank albums by the Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, or some other equally prolific group by the categories of “Masterpiece,” “Good,” “Careful,” and “For Fans Only,” you were a nerd.  Now, though, I am not sure that there are as many bands that have that longevity, nor does an album have the same mystique that it use to.  If you know the producer of Def Leppard’s albums who married Shania Twain, you are a music nerd. Other aspects of pop culture, such as reality television or celebrity gossip, might be fairly nerdly, but, again, a lot of this knowledge is considered to be more acceptable.   Someone who could name every winner of Survivor, in order, would definitely be a Survivor nerd.  Someone who could relate all the controversy that Paris Hilton has gathered over the years, would be a biographer.