Dirty Water for Elephants

I read "Water for Elephants." Everyone told me to do it.



Water for Elephants was an okay book. Cleanly written. Digests easily. A good book for a plane, here you need something for 4 hours to take your brain away. It was solid, but not very interesting. In part because the characters weren’t very… spicy.

Warning: Lots of pictures. Tons.

Characters:


Jacob= Jimmie Stewart + Harry Potter. In college to become a vet, disaster brings him to the circus.




August= Christian Bale + Handlebar Mustache. Attractive, abusive, crazy.




Marlene: Jessica Alba. Pretty, rich, weak idiot.

---

Plot---

Jacob: I shall care for nothing.

Circus clowns: It's the circus, you ninny.

Jacob: I shall care for animals.

August: I am charming and highly competent. This boy seems like an excellent lackey. Come, lackey! I will enjoy breaking you! Would you like to wear my suit? It can be a metaphor!

Jacob: I don't... understand... I thought... but you're my boss.

Clowns: Oi, watch the show.


----A circus ensues, followed by circus, cooch, hooch and poverty----


Jacob: Gosh, that Marlene is pretty.

August: My wife is indeed attractive. _pause_ If you smile at her, I will fuck you with a hook and feed you to the clowns.

Jacob: Ah, it is time to run away now. Where were the hookers?

August: My hook is right here, boy. Whenever you want it.


--- There is mad drama because Jacob likes Marlene ---


Marlene: Jacob, don't get upset when August beats me. He can't help it.

Jacob: Angry.

August: I am bigger than you in all ways.

Jacob: You are a bad man.

August: You cannot control your manhood.

Jacob: You’re insane.

Marlene: I am going to cry!

August: I had carnal relations with your mother last night.

Jacob: My mother has been dead for months.


--- Cut scene: fight ---



Ringleader: I make poor business decisions. La la! Elephants for everyone! La la la! I love Rosie!

Poor people: I’m quite hungry.

Ringleader: But don’t you like the elephant, hobos? Don’t you identify with Rosie’s downtrodden, abused, denigrated form, wrestled from an exotic land across the sea? Doesn’t she make you feel majestic and large?

Readers: I think it might be a metaphor for the swollen American dream…

Poor people: No, not really.

Rosie, the elephant: Czesc.

Jacob: She speaks Polish, guys.

August: Listen to me, Rosie, or I will pretend you are like all women and start hitting you until you do what I want.

Rosie: Dude, that was not Polish.

August: This has angered me. It’s punishment time.

Rosie: I am going to cry enormous elephant tears. Skurwysyn.

Readers: This is so poignant!


---Marlene and Jacob make out and feel guilty.---


Marlene: Running away with an older man and joining the circus was an unexpectedly bad idea!

Jacob: Marlene, you're so pretty when you go into hysterics. Your mouth makes an oh shape.


---Circus occurs, followed by historically accurate portrayals of the national malaise.---


August: Guys, I'm not angry anymore. Remember, Marlene? Me? Lovely husband? I bought you a shiny thing! Let’s dance!

Marlene: I knew you were still wonderful and charming! Lovey!

Jacob: But… too good… to be true…

August: You’re like a son to me, kiddo.

Marlene: Let’s have a dance party and eat oysters while the people outside starve to death on poisoned moonshine!

August: We can all dance together! Yay!

Jacob: Um… Okay.

Marlene: Hurray! I will hug Jacob in a platonic manner.

August: …I lied. I am still angry. More than before.

Marlene: ... Please don't hit me with the elephant whip.

Jacob: Also, please don't hit the elephant with the whip. FYI.


---Drama. There is more.--

---

A Taste of Water

"I look up just as he flicks the cigarette. It arcs through the air and lands in Rosie's open mouth, sizzling as it hits her tongue. She roars, panicked, throwing her head and fishing inside her mouth with her trunk. August marches off. I turn back to Rosie. She stares at me, a look of unspeakable sadness on her face. Her amber eyes are filled with tears."



August is not just beating his hot wife, but he's also abusive to non-native animals. An utter cad.

CAD:







And now you know what I think.

Circus Parties and Finales

"It must be Thursday," Ben said. I poked my head up from my straddle-stretch and saw most of my classmates taping their wrists and putting leg braces on their ankles. We were getting bedraggled, after countless handstands, cartwheels, and rope climbs. Yet as the weeks wound down, we got closer and closer as a group. In class, we were taught not to be competitive. We were never set against each other -- we were partners, coaches to each other. Afterward, I didn't feel jealous or inadequate towards my peers. It made it easy to be friends.

At the beginning of the month, we had class, ate lunch together at some local restaurant, and then split up, either to shadow classes or to wander Seattle. It wasn't a very cohesive group -- outside of circus, we didn't have so many similarities. Some of us were extrovert-dance-party-dance people, others were more... chill. When we went to an arcade, I forgot that not everyone likes shooting zombies, playing pinball, and rocking out on DDR. I believed these were intrinsic "good things," like sunlight and cotton candy. It seems that not everyone enjoys large dark rooms with flashing lights, violence, and loud noises.

But as the weeks went on, we gelled. There were circus parties on Saturday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday with dancing, massage circles, cooking, and games. Part of getting good at various circus skills is learning how to hyperextend your shoulders, arch your back, and make your abs hard as stones. Games become absurd and physical -- flexibility tests involving a broom, a push-up game with beer bottles, a bending game with a paper bag, and tipsy handstand contests. We did the things you aren't supposed to try at home.


On Thursday, we got in to see Teatro Zinzanni, a lavish dinner theater circus. Through school, we got a massive discount so the whole class and four teachers went. Teatro Zinzanni is a real-life Moulin Rouge, the stage and seated areas overlapping with mirrors, red velvet, elaborate costumes, feathers, glitter, and hats. The acts collide with a 5-course dinner, with acrobats doing flips off the tables, and the dinner plates being spun.

Though we were sitting in the outer ring (yay, discount!) we still saw an amazing show. The highlight was Les Petits Freres, three incredibly skilled acrobats with a great slapstick routine. Their finishing move was a three-high (person on another's shoulders, on another's shoulders) that they got into from lying down. The whole circus-school crowd, squashed into two booths, erupted with applause. We stood, cheered, and didn't sit down. After weeks of practice, we all knew, in every tired little muscle, how hard that move was.


Les Petits Freres!



Chef Caesar!

Audience participation was integral to the show. The maestro, Chef Caesar, pulled up a number of people, mostly women, to flirt with. But the big deal was when he needed a replacement and needed to find "three virile men" to choose from. Our group all pointed at Terry, one of our teachers who's a really gifted physical performer. He's Charlie Chaplin, if Chaplin could do aerial rope. We pointed at him, cheering. Except rather than Terry, the "Chef" winked at Yoshi. Yoshi, your narrator's boyfriend, was one of the selected.

The other two guys were big, all-American boys, blue-eyed and straight-haired. One was big and manly, the other was young and manly. Yoshi is 5'3'', slim with long hair and a goatee. The odds seemed a bit stacked. "Chef Caesar" serenaded the two other guys first, cooing over their bulging muscles and masculine charms... then approached Yoshi. I waited for the seemingly-inevitable barrage of short jokes.

Instead, Caesar started singing Jesus Christ Superstar. He finished a few verses of the theme song as well as "I Don't Know How to Love Him." The host hugged him, yelling, "You're back! I'm so glad you're back! Baby, baby Jesus, you sacred stud!" In the audience, the circus crowd exploded with laughter. Yoshi isn't a very Jesus-like guy. He's a neuroscience major from Texas.

In order to win Caesar's crown, the three guys had to dance to "She's a Lady (Woah, Woah, Woah)." The game: every time Tom Jones sung the word "Lady," the man would have to point to a lady. While looking sexy. The first two guys went up, one by one and did an okay job. In the back, one of the waitress/performers gave Yoshi two pieces of advice:
1. "Take it off."
2. "Show them that Jesus could dance."

And Yoshi did. We've been doing dance warm-ups for the past 3 weeks -- both modern, ballet, and hip-hop. Yoshi served it up, stripped off his jacket, and pointed at ladies. The crowd crowned him victor and he got a little medal that said WINNER!


The next day, we had our final performance of "Look what I learned!" with individual acts and a big group number. Given none of us knew any of this before, it was amazing how much and how fast we had learned. Some of the others in the group excelled at one thing or another: rope, tightwire, trampoline, acrobalance, etc. For me... I didn't find a specialty, but I did find an area to improve in. For two weeks, I was scared of the trapeze. I couldn't get the most basic move, the "basket hang." It's not complicated, but I don't like holding myself upside down. Sticking my butt over my head is different from most other things in my life. But after I nailed the basket hang a few days ago... I got less scared of the trapeze. So, I made a short routine. Three of our coaches gave me advice on form and taught me some new moves (mermaid! bird's nest!). I shook out my newly-calloused hands and put on a little act.

We finished up with a few pyramids, doing slapstick-style interludes. The best was the "running man" number. Two duos stood face-to-face, grasping the other's wrists, making a little square platform that someone could balance a foot on. Or he could pantomime running a marathon, a la Prefontaine, with the duos whistling the "Chariots of Fire" theme. Then, we had a picnic lunch, did more handstands, went to a contra dance, and had a party.

This has been the best Winter Term I could imagine.

Seattle, the city of neighborhoods.

After two weeks of circus school, I have bruises on my arm from hula hooping too hard, a cut lip from a bad handstand, big cuts on my foot from aerial rope, as well as more arm strength, new friends, better handstands, more confidence and balance. I'm stronger than ever before.

While circus school eats up over 20 hours a week, I do recognize a world outside of the tumbling mats and trampolines: Seattle.

I've been to Seattle once before, to visit colleges when I was a high school junior. My mother pointed out that college was more than your classes -- it was where you were living for four years. College had to be livable.

One of my priorities for college was getting out of New York. The east coast mentality doesn't resonate with me. While I like my ethnically diverse food, towers and subways, I've got a fondness for places with shared eye-contact and repeated meetings. I don't like to rush, and I'm not so fond of stress. Going west seemed obligatory. So my parents and I looked on the map and idly poked around. I didn't really know what I wanted in a college -- big/small, rural/urban -- so it seemed better to go by location and scope it out.

"I've never been to Seattle," I said, imagining gray skies, coffee, comic books and indie bands.

"When's spring break?" my parents asked.

In five days, I visited Puget Sound, U-Dub (University of Washington), Evergreen State, and Reed. I loved the classes at Puget Sound, the architecture at U-Dub, the artsy vibe of Evergreen, and the academic vigor of Reed. All of them were brilliant, though none of them felt like home. Given the pace of the trip, my mother and I didn't get much of a chance to poke around, but we liked the misty city we passed through. We would come back one day, we decided.

That day has come.

Yoshi and I struck it lucky: we're staying with a wonderful young couple. Karina, an Oberlin alum, read a little note in the local alumni newsletter and thought: "Yeah, I'll put up two circus kids." Bless her. She and her husband, Chris, have been incredibly welcoming. They've got full-time jobs and do capoera, kajukenbo and dance on the side, so they're pretty busy, but when we've had some shared time, we've hung out.

Karina and Chris live in the Central District, about 10 minutes by bus from the International District, Pioneer Square, and downtown. Delicious Vietnamese/Thai/Ethiopian/Chinese/Japanese restaurants are minutes away. We've been able to get bubble tea every other night. Otherwise, we've explored.

Seattle's downtown closes up at about 6:00, every day, which is super-weird. When we first got here, the lack of folks around a commercial area seemed rather creepy. With all the alleyways and fog, it seemed like a horror movie, just waiting to happen. Apparently, the present temperature (mid-40s) is considered "cold." People stay in, rather than trolling the streets for excitement.

Aside from downtown, we've wandered through Fremont, Beacon Hill, Green Lake, Georgetown, the International District, Central District, UWashington, Kirkland and Madrona. We've haggled for pizza, gone contra dancing, taken yoga, drunk bubble tea, gone shopping at Uwajimaya , talked to Native American art dealers and organic pizza makers, been harassed by homeless women, gotten into fights, eaten potluck burrito dinners, and been lost on buses. We've heard riot-folk and good stand-up comedy.

It's been great. While I miss the pulsing, busy, friendliness of Oberlin, I love the city in the sea.

Off to Circus School!

Given my recent activities - teaching a circus arts Exco, producing a circus show and organizing OCircus - it seemed easy to decide my Winter Term project. Right now, I'm in Seattle, studying at SANCA, the School for Acrobatics and New Circus Arts. To put it succinctly, this school is going to kick my ass.

One of the purposes of Winter Term is to give Obies the ability to use resources that the college can't provide. My first Winter Term, I went to Hawaii to work on my godparents' orchid farm and learn about permaculture. My second year, I lived in Guadalajara, taking 4 hours of Spanish classes a day and living with a Mexican family. Last year, I split my term between home and Oberlin, working on an independent writing project. Over the last few years, I've spent more and more time working on OCircus and need more guidance, both in terms of skills and experience. Though learning from one another is valuable, it's also good to have the perspective of a professional from the field - someone who can be a mentor.

SANCA was founded by a professional rigger and a nurse, five years ago. Chuck, the rigger, had gotten into gymnastics rather late in life, using the muscles he built as a construction worker/stunt double. He started teaching acrobalance informally, and one of his students got a bright idea. Jo, an inner-city nurse, was noticing higher rates of childhood obesity, and few cures. Circus was a non-competitive, but very physically intense activity - wouldn't it be great to start a school, open to all ages and backgrounds, to build confidence, skill and strength through various circus arts?

These days, SANCA is run by about sixteen teachers, five of whom are Oberlin alumni. Besides teaching classes, they do outreach in middle schools throughout the greater Seattle area. As we have a really strong connection here, SANCA designed a special 3-week intensive course, just for Oberlin students. We're taking a three-hour classes each day, shadowing/assisting in other classes for five hours a week, and we can attend any additional adult classes with spaces open.

Class is hardcore. We spend about a half-hour doing warm-ups: jogging, stretching, dancing, moving, and then move on to skills. We've tackled crazy jumps on the trampolines, climbed rope, twisted around the aerial silks, walked on a tightwire, run on a rolling globe, hung on the trapeze and a German Wheel, as well as juggled, balanced, and tumbled. For three hours, with about four ittie-bittie breaks. I can genuinely say it's the most physically intense thing I've ever done. I love it.

After class, the priority is simple: food. Protein, in particular, as so much of the activity is anaerobic. Yesterday, my class got lunch at Stellar, where the pizza really was... stellar. It was really great to just sit back and eat tasty food with people I'd spent hours sweating around. After lunch, I shadowed two youth classes. Phew. Running after little kids isn't exactly exercise, but it is exhausting. Watching the nine-year-olds do things that I can't is particularly humbling. One of the little girls was an incredible gymnast, excelling at aerial rope tricks, her long blond braid dangling into the rope.

The little kid group I had afterwards was adorable. At first, I had trouble spotting handstands because their hips were so far away. Even so, they all high-fived "Coach Aries" at the end. I am a rock star to four-year-olds.

After five and a half hours of circus, adult acrobalance class was... difficult. After doing head-stands for the second time that day, I wanted to curl up in a ball and nap for hours. Exhaustion aside, I learned a lot.

A bit of terminology: acrobalance is the art of two or more people manipulating each other through space. If you've seen a human pyramid, or a piggy-back ride, that's simple acrobalance. One person is the base, who stays in contact with the ground. The base moves the flyer in complex and fairly precarious positions. Generally the lighter person is the flyer; however, the moves are more about physics than strength. A small flyer can still support a larger base, but it's a lot harder.



One of the coolest things we went over were two-highs, where the flyer stands on the base's trapezius muscle, while the base grips their legs and presses down with their head. If all goes right, the flyer is locked in, totally safe, five feet above the ground. A good base can walk around with their flyer. At the end of class, I got to base a two-high, resting the co-founder of SANCA between my shoulders.

Right now, my entire body aches. My neck is afire. My rhomboid is iffy. My thighs are confused. My biceps are in agony. This is perfect.

More about Seattle life soon. For now, bed!

Is this safe? Safe enough.

Most events at Oberlin start a little late. Timeliness is a virtue, of course, but most shows are friendly to stragglers. Especially at the Cat in the Cream - the line for cookies gets pretty insane. Given that, we expected to close the doors at 8:10, anticipating that by 8:00, the show's start time, we wouldn't have much of a crowd.

Except by 8:00, every seat was taken. And by 8:05, the room was packed.

When Ed started playing accordion with Erika on piano - meant as background "settle it down now" music - the audience took it as an overture. They sat still, went quiet and rapt. I choked down a blissful squeal as Chris and Greg ran up from the audience, yelling, "Welcome, to the Johnson Family Circus!"

Because I'm in an act, I don't watch the whole show. But the parts I saw were brilliant. Jim's act was phenomenal - he worked the crowd into a screaming ball of delight as his LED poi cut new colors into my eyes. The jugglers nailed most of their throws. Amanda's facial expressions were priceless. Greg and Chris added new lines to their scenes, so the dialogue was even punchier.

There were no disasters, no missed cues, the step didn't break this time... It was polished. And good. I felt so proud of every single person involved.

The show's tone was well-balanced. There were cute acts, like the hula-hooper with self-esteem issues, the stepdancer who triumphs over other bullying steppers, the bellydancer who gets the stagehand-clown, an independent mermaid and a ballet act. Then, there were more mature acts, like mine... a bed of nails act.

Over the summer, I saw a circus cabaret in NYC called Vicious Vaudeville that incorporated a bed of nails into a strongman sideshow act very successfully. We like success; we wanted to emulate. So, over Fall Break, Yoshi, Amanda, Nikki, Erin and Atty built this terrifying looking object with the nails spaced an inch apart. It was meant for Yoshi.

But when Yoshi lay down on it, it hurt him. A lot.

But when I lay on it, it didn't. It tickled.

The way a bed of nails act works is basic physics. The amount of surface area you have spread over the nails, the easier it is. Weight and pressure gets distributed evenly - the more nails you cover, the less painful it is. If you drop an apple on the bed, the nails will rip through the apple. If I walked on the bed, the nails would go through my feet. That would be bad.

But, if I lie down on them with my torso flat, my weight more or less evenly distributed... all is well. It's also a helpful thing that I'm really tall (nearly 6 feet) and have a bit of flub around my stomach. It hurt Yoshi most because he's both smaller and slimmer than me. When he lies down, the nails hit bone and muscle, with less surface area to compensate. On me, they hit flub and muscle. Flub is malleable - bones aren't.

Of course, enough people have seen the county fair boards where any volunteer can lie on a bed of nails without a whit of pain tolerance or training. This is why I complicate things, by using less surface area, doing low-level contortion and by ... uh... not wearing a lot of clothes.

Is this safe? Safe enough.

Do I have a spotter? I have two at the ready, a bit offstage!

Does it hurt? Yes, but no.

Should I worry about tetanus? Yes.

Am I going to worry about tetanus? No.

Is it fun? Yes. Oh, yes. In the audience's glare, my adrenaline peaked and my ability to feel pain decreased. For the full houses we brought in, I landed two moves I hadn't before - a split with my hands up, and a cool stretch on my belly. I felt like a million bucks.

I love the circus. I love this show. I love all of you weird, incestuous bastards. It is my great pleasure to work with you all.


--


(Regarding Stress)
Aries: It's super weird, my nose randomly started bleeding in class. It was like my face was menstruating.
Yoshi: It could be humidity change. Or a brain tumor. Hopefully not the latter.

Johnson Family Circus!

There's an expectation in circus that you have a life... outside of circus. While theater shows demand hours and hours of presence at rehearsals and such, circus is always a bit more low key.

What do I mean, low key?

Well, the show is a week away and we still haven't choreographed the finale. The set loads in today; the performers use the space on Monday. We go up Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

We're putting up the show in my favorite venue on campus - the Cat in the Cream. The Cat in the Cream is the best coffeehouse / jazz / folk / poetry venue that I could imagine. It's big, yet intimate, seating about 200 people tops. On the stage - which has taken a lot of abuse - there's a Steinway. The back wall is covered by a huge mural of musicians, in a style reminiscent of a more upbeat Orozco. The light and sound operating boards aren't too hard to use, the space gets pretty warm. All the shows are free.

And, they sell cookies. Big, homemade cookies.

The premise for this show is pretty sweet - we're the Johnson Family Circus, a slightly campy vaudeville traveling show. It's got a nice meta quality to it, describing Oberlin (and the circus) to a tee - we may not be blood relations, but we are a family. It's going to be fun - the Mother and Father emcee characters have great chemistry. The acts are solid.

It's a funny bunch - circus always attracts an interesting mix of dance-theater types and math-science types. The folks who bellydance and the folks who juggle share the stage. We've got a nice mix of ages for this show; there were some really talented first years who gravitated towards the circus: Joe is a professional clown, who's traveled from Sri Lanka to South America, doing clowning with Patch Adams; Greg is a relaxed Conservatory student who's a great improviser. We have live musicians - Erika on the piano; Ed on accordion and Jim on drums - all of whom composed music for the show. The leadership is pretty democratic: we determined the show's theme by popular vote, there are 3 directors (Liz, Rachel and Daniel) and a producer (me) who workshop all of the acts. Everyone does their own choreography- the directors and I just clean things up.

Everyone has the same attitude: this is fun.

You need to have a lot of good humor to get through circus, because performances are uncertain. The trick might fail. The jugglers may botch their tricks. The gymnasts might hurt themselves; the acrobalancers might drop each other; Ed might not land his backflip; I might spear myself on my bed of nails... there's a lot of built-in nervousness. That's why folks watch with baited breath for us to fail... and that's why we do it. If you're too serious, the act is dull; if you're too silly, you might hurt yourself.

It's all about balance - sometimes we fall, sometimes we don't. As long as we have fun (and don't fall too hard), everything is okay.

Halloween, the best holiday.

Halloween on a Friday Night. A great thing.

Earlier in the week, the college's costume "shop" sold the old costumes from shows and operas past. I clocked in pretty well, nabbing a leather dress (!), suspenders, shorts, a skort, a black blazer, a shirt/sweater and a hat for $22. I really love the feel of these clothes- most of them were used for about 3 weeks at most on an opera; I like feeling like a "character," sometimes. The costume sale itself is always a lot of fun, and a study in co-operation. Too many people cram into the lobby of Hall Auditorium; there's one bathroom, 2 mirrors, and not much privacy. There's a problem that when you put your own stuff down to try other things on, someone might unknowingly try to purchase your clothes. Although there's so little space, so many pairs of amazing cheap clothes and so few opportunities to see what you look like, students get more polite. There was a quiet line by the mirror to scope out how well the new top hat (or blazer, or pants) looked.

Sadly, I used none of those clothes for my costume. I went as Bettie Page, which is hard to do, in public. For the sake of Oberlin College, I won't do too much description. Suffice to say, I looked classy. Bettie Page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bettie_Page

We had a special day in astronomy- Prof. Stinebring had to go to a huge conference, so the observing staff taught a lesson about the life cycle of our sun. To make things a bit more exciting (Halloween and all...) they wanted some circus stuff there. So, I gathered a few jugglers; Ali was already in Astronomy and prepared to spin poi for glory and honor. The performers did an awesome job; they were used to show different fazes of solar activity, as stars move from the Main Sequence, to Red Giants, Planetary Nebulae and White Dwarfs.

After class, I finished my weekly response for Professor "Captain" Kirk Ormand, then went to TGIF. During the warm months, TGIF is a big outdoor party in Wilder Bowl, right by the Student Union. Sometimes there's a dj, sometimes, a live band. Students chill out, relax after a week of work. The circus uses the time to give lessons, juggle and mess around for a while. Given the oncoming train of winter (despite the 65* temperature)... there was no outdoor music, as normally, but there were still many people about.

A bunch of folks were in costume - Poison Ivy, Rorschach, Dr. J and Mr. Hyde, a Romance Novel Character, Harley Quinn, Starbuck, Scarecrow, Spider Jerusalem. There was a Belle and Prince Charming who kissed theatrically in the center of the quad; we applauded. I sat on the grass and listened to a folk duo on fiddle and guitar for a while; a Tuxedo Mask gave me a slim rose.

Orville taught me some new acrobalance moves, so I can lift more tiny people around. My favorite was the "lazy man's sit-up," in which I, the base, lay on the ground, knees bent and arms up at a 90 degree angle. My flier (tiny person = flier) stands on me in a funny way, a foot on each of my thighs and their hands on my hands. When they lean back, I do a sit-up and move to standing, with them standing on my thighs. Basically, it makes the Tiny Person look super-strong, when it's actually physics that's super-strong.

In preparation for Halloween, Ma'ayan took out the media lab in the library. Mudd Library is an absolute fantasy castle- there are a kazillion little rooms that all have magical purposes, that you never know until you need it. There are screening rooms, a computer store, a theatre, statues, writing centers, study carrels, womb chairs, group study rooms, huge computer labs, a silent floor, a sunbathing roof, rainbow couches, storage, old printing presses, a "dock" and a photo studio. A hundred Rooms of Requirement.

This one was on the fourth floor and was a full studio, made for photoshoots. It looked like something for Hollywood, not our very 70's library. About 20 people filtered in and out, throughout the night. It was a blast; there were posed gunfights and cross-canon flirtations (Mrs. Lovette + Poison Ivy). We got pretty giggly under the bright lights.

I love this holiday.

After photos, I went to The Breakfast show at the Sco and danced for 2 straight hours. The Sauce opened and were incredible, as usual; the Breakfast was very danceable, rock-jazz-jam with little openers of songs from cartoons. Looking around the crowd was surreal: elves danced with cavemen, Clockwork Orange droogs moshed around, zombies and faeries flowed around the sides of the stage, a dinosaur waggled its tail to the beat.

As for me, I thrashed. Thrashing in Bettie Page shoes... was a poor choice. I staggered home, brushed my teeth and collapsed.

I woke up 20 minutes before work, still in my Bettie Page costume. It's amazing how fast I can shower, change clothes, brush my hair and put in my contacts. I took an extra minute to fold my costume, giving my respects to Ms. Page.

Thanks, atmosphere!

On Wednesday, I had my lab for astronomy. To call it a lab feels a bit unfair: we looked at the summer sky for about an hour after taking a long walk through the soccer fields. There’s very little air pollution in Oberlin, so the dark is really.. dark. I couldn’t see the crowd of Astronomy students (there were about 40 of us out there) until I was right next to them. Besides my professor, there were three helpers and two upper-level students who act as tutors for the class. One of them, Everett, who I met in my first year at a swing dance, explained some of the basics – Cassiopaea! Polaris! Then, I stared at the moon and Jupiter though these crazily powerful telescopes and listened to Professor S explain what caused stars to twinkle.
“Do you like to breathe?” he asked. We all nodded. “Well, thank the atmosphere!” he continued jubilantly, going on to explain how the density of the atmosphere (generated by the horizon, due to Earth’s middle-heavy shape) caused stars to glimmer as their light reflected through. Professor S is probably one of the most cheerful, jubilant lecturers I’ve ever heard. He also says the word “sky” in a very warm, sweet way.
With a green laser, so powerful that he had to put it away when a plane flew by, Professor S pointed out the Summer Triangle: Vega, Deneb and Altair. I can find it everywhere now.

---

Circus Arts Exco went really well today. We’re a day behind in the syllabus, but as a group, we’ve started to work together. There’s comradery growing between the circus core and the new folks. I love teaching this group; it’s gorgeous to watch folks work together. As we’re going to be doing a lot of constructive criticism later, it’s important to get to know each other.

Otherwise, OCircus is kicking-off. We’ve got a weekend booked for the Fall show at the Cat and the Cream, so November will be a crazy, crazy month.

Still around

Exco Fair, staple of my college life.

For two glorious hours, the Root Room (the old Reading Room) becomes a mad bazaar of tables, stuffed with students selling their awesome classes. Excos (Experimental College Classes) are student and community taught- the popular ones are Swing Dance, Tango, Steel Drum and Calvin and Hobbes. The new ones- Swedish Language Exco, Astrology, Buffy, Knitting and Grass-Roots Organizing- looked pretty sweet too. I really want to play Calvinball before I graduate this fine institution.

I'm teaching Circus Arts Exco, to do both skillshare and individual performance work. I hawked for two straight hours in the vein of: "You, step right up and join the circus, miss, you're so pretty, I bet you'd look prettier upside down-backwards-on fire!" It was successful: I got about 40 names for a 12 person class. Gah. In the end, I had to waitlist people I cared about/wanted to accept. It was painful to have to pass over my friends to do a more random, equitable selection.

First meeting of the class went well. It had 16 people, which was a good size. I spent a bunch of time prepping and it all worked out. We did mostly improv/dance exercises.

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Contra danced!

Emma was calling and stoked the crowd. I danced with Grey, Jeremy, Glenn, Nathaniel, Kokoteca and Sean and saw... the whole dancing crew, inclding some new, lovely freshmen. All of the town dancers thought I was set to graduate, so they asked variations of "How's the fifth year coming along" or "What the hell are you doing here still?" In a charming way, of course.

Left soaked with sweat. My feet are an unholy terror.