The Undergraduate Chair
Two CARNIVALS PAST, Steve Flemer '5O, from Princeton, N. J., and Steve Johnson '50, a Schenectady, N. Y., student, co-designed a center-of-campus Carnival statue that Walter Prager named Schussteufel or "speed devil".
This year Steve Flemer repeats his success with a prize-winning grotesque and unnamed imp springing from a huge ski boot. Well established as a sculptor in this unusual snow and water medium, Steve likes to sketch along with his pencil and talk shop.
"The first idea that we had for a sculpture two years ago was an Indian lying on his back drinking beer out of a keg held between his feet. Well, we heard that the Dean wouldn't appreciate that "
Then Schussteu fel was born, an angular figure of plane surfaces and streaming frost feathers designed to gleam under the Carnival spotlights.
We built a clay model and Professor Minnich of Thayer School figured out the stresses and the weight. About 25 tons, because that wet snow weighs 64 pounds a cubic foot.
"A lot of people think that we pile up a solid chunk of ice and then sculpture it into shape. Actually it's a framework of two-by-sixes, hollow inside and covered with a net of chicken wire that holds the snow coating.
"Ross McKenney always cuts and notches the log framework and he does more for all the Winter Carnivals than most folks realize." Steve mentioned Ross's woodcraft shop where he spends a good deal of time.
He found a picture of the big Schussteufel and showed us where the cables angled down from the giant's waist, supposedly to keep the statue from toppling forward beyond his normal skier's stance. "A big crowd gathered to watch it dis- mantled. They released the cables, but she stayed right up there."
This year the tall designer, an architecture major and one of Ted Hunter's promising students, submitted two ideas to the Carnival committee. The first was a futuristic design that Steve had been considering for some time, one with plane surfaces, a thin pyramid pointing skyward, like a pylon tipped at an angle in a modern base.
"I felt that planes were better adapted to snow as a medium and that this slim model exemplified a cold crispness, almost the geometry of show flakes. But the D.O.C. committee thought it resembled a plastered wall—fresh, smooth, but not for Carnival."
Next Steve conjured up a jack-in-thebox. Ted Bamberger, the Carnvial statue crew chief, suggested that it be a jack-ina-ski-boot. The detailed clay model that followed took the D.O.C. committee by storm.
Two weeks ago the first chips flew at the center of the campus as builders started work on the '49 Carnival theme.
Jan. 6. Rain again. Only a few feeble snowflakes have fallen here this winter and they quickly dissolved in unseasonal showers. If April showers bring May flowers, what do January showers bring? Full-fledged ponds fill the hollows on the Green and a wading undergrad asks, "Where are the duckboards?"
A drab mud-streaked landscape and grey skies depressed the homecoming scene when College reconvened January 5, and tales of champagne bubbles and Christmas egg nog were only glimmers of brighter days.
The skiers ventured out to win a jump- ing meet at Lake Placid, but the D.O.C.'s Oak Hill ski lift has yet to carry a skier uphill. The three Dartmouth men who rented a ski hill in Norwich don't have much to say.
Perhaps the most disillusioned group of future skiers are the freshman ski recreation classes whose ears are still ringing with D.O.C. promises of bountiful winter sports. The rec skiers spent November flexing their knees and learning the nomenclature of a binding. Then instructors led them on cross-country runs around the golf course, all this a part of developing the right ski muscles.
Richard Swicker, a '52 from Mendham, N. J., says, "They lectured to us on the ski jumps and then about fifty of us went out to clear the rec class ski hill. That was okay. We've seen the old Carnival films and one day we had a great game of touch football.
"If it doesn't snow pretty soon, this will be the safest rec skiing that Dartmouth ever had. Also one of these days they have to award the annual trophy for the most enthusiastic skier in all the classes."
Eddie Jeremiah's hockeymen, who started their season workouts on a millpond in Quechee, Vermont, still survey a home hockey rink that looks more like a swimming pool. Games with Devens and a wellpolished Boston University team were called off because of bad ice, and many fans felt that the Indians needed more skating before tackling a team of B.U.'s caliber. If hockey is to survive seasons like this one, Dartmouth will probably have to give some serious thought to artificial ice. All the Indian opponents in the Pentagonal League—Brown, Yale, Harvard and Princeton—have the advantage of either artificial ice rinks on campus or access to such rinks in the local Gardens.
The Dartmouth Quarterly staff may edit a national literary magazine if present plans for expansion go through. The scheme includes a bid for national advertising and an intercollegiate editorial set-up that would make the new magazine a vehicle for the best college writing.
Since the Undergraduate Council has requested that the College name be withdrawn from the new magazine, the planners are shopping for a pertinent title that catches the eye and sums up the contents. Pulse led the other suggestions, until one sharp-eyed litterateur revealed that another college magazine went under the same title.
Pretty well formulated are plans for a nation-wide writing competition, and hard-cash payment for any stories accepted.
The circles under the eyes of one founder resemble smudges of printer's ink already and he says, "Plus fourteen hours a day on this magazine, plus two hours of preparation for each class—that is, in theory—leaves me twenty minutes every night for sleeping. Then if I have any outside hobbies, I end up with a 32-hour day."
That reminded him of the old stand-by, "Never let school work interfere with your education." And managing a national publication looks like a full set of headaches, even with a talented directorate.
IF THERE'S ANY SNOW by Carnival time, this is what the center-of-campus statue will be. Steve Flemer '50, designer, inspects his clay model.
