Last night I heard a little bit about the evolution of cannon technology and its influence on Renaissance French garden design, and Hagop Sandaldjian's fascination with human hair, at one of those post-modern academic English dept. conferences I've heard so much about, in a huge building that used to be the corporate headquarters of some hyphenated incarnation of Big Star Wars Defense Contractors Inc. but looks like a mall from the 80s, down to the occasional benches for the parents and old people and the patchy throngs of young guys and young girls walking though, except that all the young people somehow appear more wholesome than the usual mall tarts and suburban-style thugs.