BitLit

lazy-hazy-crazy days of summer

so, slight detour before i begin this post. something occurred to me as i typed in the title. are the lyrics lazy-hazy-crazy days, or daze? I could look it up, but I think I would rather ponder this on the bitlit blog for a while. Days simply denotes the passing of time during the summer season, but daze brings a whole new idea into the picture. Daze puts you in the mindset--lounging on the porch with a glass of lemonade in your hand, watching the clouds through the dimmed lenses of sunglasses, completely ignoring the passing of time. Oh, semantics.

Now that the warmer weather is here, much of everyone's time is spent on the Lit House porch with a glass of lemonade (that is, for the hour or so after I make it--people don't even wait for it to cool down before they chug it, which kind of defeats the purpose of lemonade in my opinion. What's the point of lukewarm lemonade?). And that brings me to something that's been on many people's mind. We need the awning back. I can't think of anyone who didn't enjoy the awning we rented for the Lit House rededication. The night before the event, everyone gathered outside under the awning and enjoyed the night air. The twinkle lights actually gave off sufficient light to read by. And as Zach noticed, the original plans of the house included an awning (you can check it out, the plans are framed near the front door of the house). It provides shade during the day, and might make it possible to work on a laptop out there. Really, I don't see a downside--Okay, cost might be an issue, but surely we can all brainstorm and come up with a creative, cheap solution (because what are we if not creative people?).

With the semester winding down, it's hard to imagine being without the Lit House and its community for the summer. At home, I am lacking the cast of characters that frequent this place, and as much as i love my old friends, they can't replace these people I've come to call my family. Also, we don't have a juicer, so making fresh-squeezed lemonade is a little harder. It's times like these that I actually wish I lived in Chestertown, so I could swing by and hang out with Kate and help her with the constant goings-on at the house.

Maybe I'll make a regular practice of driving down every weekend from New York. What the hell, it's only four hours without traffic...

I'll miss you all. KMR

PS: In case you were wondering, the recipe for perfect lemonade is equal parts water, sugar, and lemon juice, though i've started using a little less sugar. You dissolve the sugar in hot water and then mix in the lemon juice and refrigerate until cold. A nice touch is putting halves of lemons in the pitcher with the lemonade. Enjoy your summer, and may it be refreshing. KMR

A Brief History Lesson: It's More Interesting Than Finals Anyway.

I’m sitting here in the conference room. It’s warm outside, and I am very tired of working on anything of importance. At the direction of Kate, I have been looking for information on various other writers’ houses, and am now delving into the murky, and largely unknown history of our fine Rose O’Neill House. There is nothing online, not even a Wikipedia entry (which I have taken the liberty of creating.) All I have found is a copy of Washington: the College at Chester, a large, thick book, red bound, all about the history of the college. After only a few seconds of flipping pages, I now have a strong urge to buy it.

There are old photographs of buildings I have lived in, and worked in, and I can’t help but love, love, love sitting on top of history. New things don’t move me in the same way. I feel immensely happy about it.

But it does make me sad to read about history sometimes, and as I read the article in The College at Chester about Richmond House, our structural predecessor, I envy this Martin William’s ’75 and his experience, as I envy most every experience between 1965-1975. I feel that I live at the Lit House. I spend enough time here, lord knows, but it is not the same Lit House Mr. William’s knew. Torn down in ’82, there’s nothing left of Richmond House except the posters Professor Day kept.

My Lit. House, originally Bell House, was dedicated in 1985 as the Rose O’Neill House. I don’t know when it was built, I would probably have to go into Chestertonian records to find that, but it is still the product of that Richmond beginning. That house of fragile writers, breaking down bad prose and struggling with the long, blank verse. But somehow they seemed older then than I am now. They seemed infinitely wiser and freer. Maybe it was just that I was reading about it like a memoir from someone’s long lost best time of life. Everything looks better once it’s past.

There’s a lot about the house to learn, and here’s what I have learned in my searching. Three students used to have the privileged to live in Richmond House each year. It was a dirty place from what I gather, condemned furniture, filthy clothes, but it was also Bob Day’s office and Headquarters for the Associate Writing Programs.

I’m not sure when Richmond House was shut down, it seems to be around the time it was demolished, but O’Neill was opened in ’85 with the Letterpress Room to follow in ’87.

Bob Day served as director since Richmond House’s inception in 1970 all the way until 1997. Professor Mooney then took over until 2005, when Benjamin Anastas became interim director. In 2006 Josh Wolf Shenk became director, which seems to bring the house up to date. Murky history no longer.

So here I am in the future of the house. Is it better? Or worse? I can’t say. Everything nowadays seems to be about going forward and bridging the past, but do we even know what the past is? Well, here is some of the history. And we are still in it. It makes me happy, it makes me sad.

I suggest sitting down with a copy of The College At Chester. It has a lot of interesting info, and it's successfully distracting me from studying for finals.

(Also, please check out the Wikipedia page on the Lit House. Feel free to correct anything you find wrong. I am going to try to put some pictures on it as soon as I can.)

AEF

More Literary Craziness

So much to do, so little time!  Now that Nuruddin Farah's event is over, his broadside designed and 50 printed, the delicious food ingested, the wise words absorbed... there are further demands on my time! 

Next on my plate is the printing of 300 more of the Nuruddin broadsides, which I'll handle this weekend. 

Meanwhile, there are so many events in the next few days to devour my "free" time...

Tonight, the Senior Reading! 7:30-9:00pm

The Literary House, English Department, and Writer's Union present an evening of readings by the seniors, and refreshments aplenty. 

Featuring:  Bobby Bangert, Zach Bennett, Ericka Buet, Juliana Converse, Michelle Cook, Jeff Donovan. Leah Ganse, Caroline Herman, Reilly Joret, Ben Kozlowski, Marielle Latrick, Lindsay Lusby, Marian Robbins, Wes Schantz and Emma Sovich (me!)

I can't wait to hear what everyone's been working on!

Tomorrow, chivalry and zoo madness! 

At the 2nd Annual Jousting Tournament, "Horse" and rider teams compete for Imperishable Glory and Undying Renown in a wheelbarrow jousting tournament on the campus green.  Check out the photos from the innaugural tourny.    4:00-6:00 pm

At 7:00, the Writer's Theatre will release the menagerie at the Lit House in their Murder Mystery production.  With the tagline "Someone has killed the zookeeper, and the animals are loose!" it's gotta be good.  Kudos to the Writer's Theatre for giving balance to a year that began with Hannah Tinti and her Animal Crackers

Tomorrow and Saturday evenings:

[Edit:]

7:00 Another showing of the Writer's Theatre Murder Mystery!   [/edit]

8:00 pm both nights:  Juvenalia, by Wendy MacLeod, directed by Bobby Bangert '08.  This one, about modern college students' antics, is perhaps a bit less "literary" but well, it's Bobby, one of our own Lit House Fellows.  He seems to be directing for the sheer joy of it, since his senior thesis rocked Minta Martin's lounge last semester, which makes this production all the more exciting.  Hooray, I'm in the mood for a comedy!

So perhaps I'll push all my studying for comps, portfolio editing, and bookbinding to Sunday...

The House is in a state of uproar...

...for tonight we are joined by Pen World Voices/Washington College Fellow in International Letters Nuruddin Farah for coffee, desert, and reading - all kicking off at 7pm! Nuruddin's an all-around great guy. Charming, witty, sarcastic.

Emma and Mac are down in the Print Shop furiously cranking out 50 broadsides for the occasion! Fortuitously, the grounds crew has just finished mowing the lawn, so we're looking quite spiffy over here. The student workers have really come into their own in the past two weeks - learning which lawns they can steal flowers from without getting caught, finding exactly the right wording in an angry note about not moving the House furniture and pasting it to the front door. Good work, guys!

Literary House to be rededicated as a Center for Literature and Creative Life on campus

This Friday, April 11th, at 5pm the Rose O'Neill Literary House will celebrate its refurbishment and rededication as a Center for Literature and Creative Life on campus with a reception, ceremonial cake-cutting and student performances.

I hope you all can join us. You. Yes you! You are invited! And I do so hope I will see you there. Planning this rededication has been a bit like planning a wedding. White tent with twinkle lights? Check. Gigantic cake in the shape of the Lit House? Check. An open bar for the 21+ crowd? Check. Enough vegetable sushi to keep me happy? Check!

I'd love show off my handywork and celebrate with all of you, so please come - no rsvp necessary!

KAB

Looking Back on Sophie Kerr Weekend

Sophie Kerr Weekend has come and gone, and was a great ride all the way through.

For me, the weekend began unofficially on Thursday night, down in the print shop, where we chose some very strange paper and ink in which to record Jane Smiley's visit, and we began churning out broadsides. The unusual, somewhat contrasting, colors have a certain striking beauty to them, in my opinion.

Unexpectedly, later that night, we received another portent of the year to come, when we stayed up until the wee hours of the morning celebrating our admission into Middle Hall.

This focus on the coming semester continued on Friday, when the prospective students arrived. The prospective who would be staying with me was very enthused about Washington College, and claimed several times before he left that he was, without a doubt, coming here next year. When most of the prospectives had arrived, we began a tour of the campus, which was abruptly aborted when someone came up with the idea that we should show them some of the town before everything closed.

Forty-five minutes and a round of Stam's chocolate malts later, we returned to campus for Jane Smiley's reading. Smiley read excerpts from Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel and Ten Days in the Hills, impressing me enough that I was the first in line for a signed book. (I had rushed to my dorm and back right before the reading began to grab my copy of A Thousand Acres.)

After the reading was the dinner, where we mingled with the prospectives and ate tasty desserts. Smiley did another Q&A session, which is not fresh enough in my mind to write about accurately. We shamelessly skipped the Litrenta showing of A Thousand Acres, and proceeded to the Literary House, where we talked with the prospectives a while and watched the Writers' Union movie.

The next day, we saw significantly less of the prospectives, only seeing them when we took them to the breakfast in the morning and the print shop demonstration in the afternoon. During said print shop demonstration, another prospective spoke very enthusiastically with me, and informed me she'd applied early decision, so she'd also be here next year no matter what.

Later, we bid the prospectives farewell, and hoped that they would come to love the Literary House as much as we do. Tomorrow, advising day, we will cement our plans for the next semester, and the week of looking forward will, in my mind, end.

Sophie Kerr gets a lot of flack around here, but her Weekend sure rocked!

Sophie Kerr just gets no respect around here sometimes! I've heard her described as a "mediocre romance writer" a few times, and I'm certainly not going to try and disagree, since I've yet to read any of her books. But look at this woman! She's into black cats, cigarettes, and she wears large-brimmed hats. I'm okay with her. And she was also very nice to all of you, dear students, leaving you the largest undergraduate writing prize in the world!

The other half of her endowment goes to bringing great writers to campus each year - writers like Jane Smiley! Jane's weekend visit here was spectacular. It was great to meet all of the high school students who are considering coming here to Washington College, and I'm hoping to see some of them very soon here on campus, as freshmen!

Jane Smiley said she read some Sophie Kerr, as preparation for her visit here, and she seemed quite taken by her. I think it's time that we all read some of Sophie - her works are available in Miller Library and at The Bookplate, at 112 S. Cross Street in downtown Chestertown.

sugar and spice and everything nice

The students and I have been very excited at the prospect of our favorite Idiots of Idiots'Books having a small child. And so I'm happy to say that she has now been born and even though she's not ours, everyone here at the House is still really proud of her for deciding to come out and join us.

Matthew has been blogging about the artistic/literary birth over on his website, thebarnstorming.

I won't put up a picture of little Alden Elisabeth Swanson. Instead, I'll put up some pictures of what she'll look like in a year and a half. Enjoy.

Literature At The Margins kicks off tonight!

I just met Aaron Diaz, writer/illustrator of web comic Dresden Codak, and he's truly one of the gods in the pantheon of web-comic creators. And he's just the first of many amazing people to arrive for this weekend! Please join us for:

Two whole days of pop culture mayhem, food, and lectures celebrating the genres of literature that are oft ignored in an academic context!

Featuring:
S.T. JOSHI, Bram Stoker Award-winning H.P. Lovecraft scholar
AARON DIAZ, creator of web-comic Dresden Codak
JEPH JACQUES, creator of web-comic Questionable Content
PETER HECK, science fiction and mystery author

Friday, March 21st
6pm - A reading and Q&A with Peter Heck, author of the "Mark Twain Mysteries," detective stories featuring Mark Twain as a sleuth.

Saturday, March 22nd
1pm - A discussion with Aaron Diaz of Dresden Codak
2pm - A discussion with Jeph Jacques of Questionable Content
3pm - Q&A with Jacques and Diaz
4pm - A lecture by leading H.P. Lovecraft scholar S.T. Joshi
5pm - A panel discussion with S.T. Joshi and Peter Heck

Sound the trumpets, bang the drums, get the calvary...The Literature at the Margins festival is poised to begin!!

Today is the beginning of the Literature at the Margins Festival, and I am as excited as an english major indie geek meeting her webcomic idols.

Wait. I am an english major indie geek meeting her webcomic idols.

I can't believe that we've gotten from my middle of the night idea "I want to bring webcomicy people here" to me bringing it up at the very first programming committee meeting in Josh's office to the opening reception tonight.  I am excited, and most of all, proud at the work that we as students have done. For so many of us this was a second, or third...or fourth job, with our heavy course loads, and I have seen so much passion and dedication from my fellow students, and I can't thank them enough. Of course, there's the debt of gratitude to Kate and Josh, who without none of this would have ever been possible. And the house. Always thank the house.

I was reminising last night on the first time I ever heard of Questionable Contentl; I had strip no. 593 recited to me word-for-word on a drive in the pouring rain up to Portland by a dear friend of mine (now known as my boyfriend.) Intrigued, I went home, looked it up, and spend my next days off from work sitting glued to my computer screen reading every single issue. When I returned to work, I was well versed in QC, and it had so quickly endeared itself to me.

As for Dresden Codak, that same hooligan told me all about it, and I also devoured it, and of course I am completly in love with Tiny Carl Jung. I want Tiny Carl Jung to sit on my shoulder, and come to class with me, and drink his tiny cup of tea and read his tiny dream analysis while I take sociology notes or discuss stories in my fiction class. Tiny Carl Jung. I keep talking about Tiny Carl Jung, I know. Alas, there's nothing I can do about it but have tiny conversations.

The point is, I am grateful and excited and amazed and all of these things and running around doing a million and one things and going crazy and I kind of love it. I hope to see you all at six pm tonight, and one pm tomorrow.

-ALN