American Obsession

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From the top of the white granite campanile, a great bell tolled twice. The quavery tones echoed around the wide brick quadrangle that formed the core of the Purblind University campus. With its lecture halls' stately parapets, steeply sloping roofs, tall windows and ivy-covered walls, as well as its broad, curving walkways, Purblind seemed an idealized vision of an American institution of higher learning. Under the whistle of the winter wind, one could almost hear a sweater-clad glee club humming a rousing drinking song.

But appearances could be deceptive.

There was no glee club at Purblind University. Nor was there a tower bell. The peals came from a digital recording of a sixteenth-century church clock in Bruges, Belgium, and the recording was amplified and played through huge audio speakers concealed in the top of the campanile.

Likewise, Purblind had no athletic teams. No school paper.

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