A whole bunch of annual crazy is building this week in Bloomington. To celebrate, Larry Buchanan of the IDS applied a popular Internet meme to an Indiana University tradition, creating the Periodic Table of Little 500:
Larry is a senior majoring in journalism and fine art who has a visual column in the IDS. In the past, he has drawn art depicting the changes on campus over four years and the hairstyles of IU presidents. Larry is also a coordinator of the Wisdom of Play’s Human Puzzle project.
Unlike some tables, this one doesn’t try to re-categorize all of the aspects of Little 5. Instead, the actual periodic table is replaced with names more appropriate to the week. There are some who would argue this meme should die: There are so many periodic tables, there is a periodic table of periodic tables. I’m a sucker for collections, however, and it is fun to look at all of the IU and Bloomington culture—past and present—retold in this form.