“It’s like he’s staring into my soul…”
Picture it. Warren Hall, third floor. You’ve just gotten finished with a long day of classes at Zane Showker Hall, and you’re getting ready to go up and kick back and study for a spell up in the “airport lounge”. However, the goal of relaxation is shattered when you look up (or, from the vantage point of the airport lounge, over). There he is, the namesake of our University, large and in living color above the information desk. Things I’ve heard from other people about the portrait is that it seems like James Madison is watching over you. Almost as if the eyes in the picture are moving, watching you, like a portrait in a scary movie. One comment from an employee at Card Services was that she had heard that they were originally planning to place this decidedly frightening portrait above the Registration office, which is directly across from Card Services. The employee whom I spoke with at Card Services said she wouldn’t have been able to stand it if she had to stare at that thing all day, because she did not have the luxury of the fourth floor blocking her view of the higher wall. However, thankfully for her, James Madison was placed on the other side of Warren Hall, over the information desk. Now the astute reader may recognize this portrait from eBay. Besides terrorizing students, James Madison also watched over an auction for a PetSafe fence that a friend of mine was selling. I took the pictures of the unit with the Mavica up in the airport lounge, and guess who ended up in the background… good old James Madison. You can see the picture as featured in the auction by clicking here. Call it what you want, whether it be that James Madison scared off any potential bidders with that icy stare, or what have you, we received no bids, and no one used the Buy It Now feature when we listed it the first time. However, we used the same frightening picture of the fence with James Madison watching the auction for the second listing, and we actually got a little bid war going on there. Perhaps they were thinking, “Oh, no, I’ve got to win this auction so I can pay James Madison to leave me alone!” Or perhaps not. Still, there he is, staring into the soul of every student passing by him…
Date posted: February 19, 2001