Bright College Years, with chocolate chips...
Saturday afternoon, I got to go to the 20th reunion of Yale Storyreading. Originally a rather creative study break put together by a few undergrads in Silliman College, in which they’d get together on Thursday night for a hour to eat milk and cookies and read children’s stories to each other, by the time I was invited, six years in, it had become a Yale tradition. At this point, it’s an institution.
Although I sometime delude myself into thinking I could get away with masquerading as an undergrad, the fact is that as a group, the small gang of us that were involved in the late eighties and early nineties look like a distinctly different demographic than the undergrads running the thing now. That’s right; we’re kind of old. But it was good to see everyone,![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
redbird and ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cattitude and John, with whom I’ve been completely out of touch despite the fact that they live in Manhattan, and David and Donna and Larry and Peter with whom I’ve been mostly out of touch, despite my frequent Boston visits, and Moses with whom I suppose I have a better excuse to be out of touch, though it was good to see him, and Leon who shows up in the most surprising places, though his being here is no surprise at all.
It was also a bit disturbing to realize that a visit to New Haven is not significantly further than my daily commute these days. I should really look into getting an alumni library card.
The old timers read children’s stuff, just as we always did: Kipling and Milne and silly stories about bad Christmases. The folks from the nineties read stuff that made really good-out loud reading, but not kids’ stuff: Thurber and Poe and “Philip Glass Buys a Loaf of Bread” and essays by Bart Giamatti and stories about war. Three hours is a long time to sit through a reading, even though not everyone who wanted to read got a chance.
After a dinner consisting, according to the organizers, of pizza and food, several of us tromped over to Silliman to alumni around. Campus was very quiet, for a Saturday night; I wonder if the students hd neglected to notice how nice the weather had gotten. We were thwarted in our attempt to see if our old routes in by climbing the gates still worked by the fact that the front gate was propped open. We walked up the five flights of stairs to the most magnificent room 1810, the Phoenix-John Lennon Memorial Triplex, but unfortunately no one was home. We left a note which I hope was more amusing than threatening for the current occupant, even if it did include the phrase “too bad they changed the locks”. We tromped through the reading room/library, up a few more different flights of stairs; I was a bit winded. I think I was in better shape as an undergraduate. I must have been, and disturbed the poor sods trying to study on a Saturday night, checking out what had changed and what hadn’t.
I don’t think I’ll go to any of the official Yale reunions; mass-produced nostalgia’s still not my style. But Story Reading’s 25th? Bear and I, we’ll be there.
Although I sometime delude myself into thinking I could get away with masquerading as an undergrad, the fact is that as a group, the small gang of us that were involved in the late eighties and early nineties look like a distinctly different demographic than the undergrads running the thing now. That’s right; we’re kind of old. But it was good to see everyone,
redbird and cattitude and John, with whom I’ve been completely out of touch despite the fact that they live in Manhattan, and David and Donna and Larry and Peter with whom I’ve been mostly out of touch, despite my frequent Boston visits, and Moses with whom I suppose I have a better excuse to be out of touch, though it was good to see him, and Leon who shows up in the most surprising places, though his being here is no surprise at all.It was also a bit disturbing to realize that a visit to New Haven is not significantly further than my daily commute these days. I should really look into getting an alumni library card.
The old timers read children’s stuff, just as we always did: Kipling and Milne and silly stories about bad Christmases. The folks from the nineties read stuff that made really good-out loud reading, but not kids’ stuff: Thurber and Poe and “Philip Glass Buys a Loaf of Bread” and essays by Bart Giamatti and stories about war. Three hours is a long time to sit through a reading, even though not everyone who wanted to read got a chance.
After a dinner consisting, according to the organizers, of pizza and food, several of us tromped over to Silliman to alumni around. Campus was very quiet, for a Saturday night; I wonder if the students hd neglected to notice how nice the weather had gotten. We were thwarted in our attempt to see if our old routes in by climbing the gates still worked by the fact that the front gate was propped open. We walked up the five flights of stairs to the most magnificent room 1810, the Phoenix-John Lennon Memorial Triplex, but unfortunately no one was home. We left a note which I hope was more amusing than threatening for the current occupant, even if it did include the phrase “too bad they changed the locks”. We tromped through the reading room/library, up a few more different flights of stairs; I was a bit winded. I think I was in better shape as an undergraduate. I must have been, and disturbed the poor sods trying to study on a Saturday night, checking out what had changed and what hadn’t.
I don’t think I’ll go to any of the official Yale reunions; mass-produced nostalgia’s still not my style. But Story Reading’s 25th? Bear and I, we’ll be there.
no subject
Time is a moment, sir....
"Philip Glass buys a loaf of bread," All in the timing: six one-act comedies. David Ives. New York: Dramatists Play Service, 1994.
no subject
You wrote: "Although I sometime delude myself into thinking I could get away with masquerading as an undergrad," You know, I find myself pondering a similar notion from time to time! No, I couldn't get away with it, but sometimes I wish I could turn back the clock. It's because I work on a university campus, and sometimes I feel wistful about my undergrad days--the classes, the politcal activism, the art I was into then! I also feel regretful, because I work on a university campus yet sometimes I don't feel a part of the university community; I only know a handful of our graduate law students by name, and have basically no contact with the undergrad population at Vandy.
btw, you should get an alumni library card!