My last year in high school I went out with an older woman.  She was a freshman at UCLA.  Judy was embarrassed to have me visit her in her dorm, so we would meet at the newest landmark on the Westwood campus, the Inverted Fountain.  It was a round pool.  Water gushes from a channel around the circumference across a bed of sand-colored rocks, then cascades down a hole near-but not at-the center. It's a bit like a large, asymmetrical toilet.The Inverted Fountain was conceived on the whim of the university's chancellor, who disdained fountains that merely "squirt water in the air." It was a great novelty, and of course was soon imitated.  UCLA's cross-town rival USC built one, with a larger, hexagonal hole, so it looks less like a toilet. Other non-traditional fountains also improved on the UCLA model: the Horace Dodge Fountain in Detroit shoots water down from a ring into a stone barrel, and so looks more like a primitive shower than a toilet.  The Princess...(Read Full Post)