THE UNDERGRADUATE CHAIR
We were browsing through the library the other day when our eye chanced upon a small volume on display in one of the cases. Only part way recovered from Winter Carnival weekend and rather desiring a few minutes break from the books, we read what was apparently one of the choicest sections:
Sheela was about to invite the seductive and easy Ookalik to his stone house for an hour of bodily pleasure and fun. Suddenly there was a thundering of heavy hooves and a herd of wild hairy mammoths charged into the settlement, trampling everything in their path. A shout went through the camp: "Stampede, stampede!" as the people reached for their bows and harpoons. The wild roaring tusked mammoths mewed and snorted, their nostrils distended in fear, and arrows whizzed through the air.
We were impressed as we read with what could well have been a pretty accurate, or at least colorful, description of Winter Carnival, the riot of the northlands.
The book, for bibliophiles who might be interested, is Feast of theMidnight Sun, A Story of the CanadianArctic by J. David Ford. It's out in hardback, and if not out in pulp paperback, probably should be.
On display over Carnival, appropriately, the book has the distinction, as the note beside it in the case says, of being "one of the worst books ever written about the north. The author was born in the Canadian Arctic, educated there on paper-back novels, and given further polish in the Canadian Army. A glance at the opening pages will make it clear that he has mastered all that the paper-back school of literature and barracks conversations could teach him."
Winter Carnival is indeed somewhat of a snowbound stampede. All but the most die-hard "bookers" are flushed out of the library, assistant professors and instructors beat it to the big cities, tourists from the nearby hills drift in with box cameras, the bells in Baker Library change their tune and keep time to the stamping hooves, and the rats in the West Lebanon dump go wild with the postponement of the popular rat-hunting expeditions. Everyone somehow is affected by Carnival.
In fact, the other day we talked with an old fellow all whiskered and bluedenimed whom we met while traveling the back-road, back-hills, dugout region of Vermont behind Norwich. He knew all about Carnival, and asked where we were from. "Ayup," he said with Santa Claus' sly wink, "them kids do have fun."
We acknowledged that they did indeed.
"Ayup," he continued. "Matter of fact, if I had to do it all over again, I'd get in a few good times myself. We ain't here always, you know." He had wanted to talk on some more; we could tell by the way he lit his pipe, but we left. He waved with his pipe in hand, somewhat deferentially.
Preparations for Carnival are taken very seriously. The Glee Club rehearses for months, and The Players thump around on the drum-like stage of Robinson Hall for equally as long. The Dartmouth and Jack-o-Lantern haggle over the right to print the souvenir program, as they do every year. Outdoors the students build roughly fifty snow statues, while the green men from Buildings and Grounds pick up the snow and shift it around. Myriad posters go up to serve as reminders that soon indeed it will be Carnival.
Winter Carnival, which over the years has become draped with an atmosphere of tradition, seems at the same time to have developed into what might best be termed a package-deala plight which smacks of commercialsville.
First there is the usual business of cleaning, decorating, and arranging one's room in a manner not unlike that of a Venus fly trap. Beverages are then obtained, impromptu parties are planned, tickets purchased, and excitement is generated: one sends a poster to his date.
When the date arrives Friday afternoon she is fed, and taken to Outdoor Evening, a gala eVent which features many expert skaters. The Carnival Queen is then crowned, and spends the rest of the weekend getting over it.
After O.E., as those who've been around a while call it, one goes to the theatre or to the premiere of the Glee Club's concert. Then there are parties to go to; everywhere there are parties in fraternities, in dormitories, in corridors, on sidewalks in front, between here and there, and all around the town - until three or so in the morning.
Saturday one wears ski togs and heads for the slopes to watch the competition or perhaps ski. Many couples just wander around between meals, tour the library, walk past the Orozco murals, count the number of students studying, or take President Dickey's suggestion for something to do when one doesn't have anything to do and count the number of fireplaces in College buildings.
Saturday night one heads again for the theatre, the concert, or parties, until, for some of the hard core, four Sunday morning.
Then it's Sunday, and one goes to the church of one's date's choice, heads afterwards downtown to wait in line for lunch, and prepares for the last of the weekend's parties.
Paradoxically, two interesting trends seem to have crept into the pageantry of the weekend and exist side by side. On the one hand, Carnival seems to have calmed down. There are fewer infractions of rules, the pace seems less rigorous, and there is a curious infusion of a large number of parents and some rather sneaky alumni who thought to slip in and try their hand once again at a college weekend.
On the other hand - ah, who would have thought it - Dartmouth has gone Rock 'n Roll. Conservatives, longhairs, music-lovers, indeed all except the students (and apparently the parents and alumni up to celebrate) would think the College on the Hill has gone over the hill.
We decided to check around a bit to get the full scoop on this Rock 'n Roll, which seems now intent upon giving the College a jumping start into its third century.
Walking into the first fraternity house with its walk cleared of the snow, we managed to corner two rather desperate-looking students. They, by their own admission, liked Rock 'n Roll.
"Why?" we asked.
"Well, that's sort of obvious," the more furry-headed of the two answered. "It's the repetitive base melody in the music and the rhythmic patterns which fulfill certain basic security needs in the listeners. Dig?"
"Yuh," we answered. "Could you elaborate?"
"Sure. It has the same predictability - that's the key idea —of say Bach's harpsichord concerto in C minor, or is it C major?" The furry-headed one turned to his friend for help, who shrugged. The friend looked sleepy, but seemed to respond normally.
We put a rock and roll record on to provoke (or so we hoped) a reaction which would be significant, perhaps even very revealing.
"What does this do to you?" we asked the friend, as the sound elicited sympathetic vibrations from every piece of furniture in the room.
The friend was joggling up and down in a sort of relaxed slouch, his sleepy eyes fixed at some point behind us. He blinked, and came closer, close enough for us to hear him murmur.
"Ah feel good," he said. "It makes me happy. I'm feelin' it."
We noted this, and turned to the furry-headed one, asking him just to tell us, say, the names of any Rock 'n Roll bands he knew of that played at the College over Carnival.
"Oh," he replied somewhat laconically, "Russ and the Rockets, The Northern Lights, The Orchids, The Wildcats, The Whirlwinds, The Re- jects, The Vikings, The Blackcats, The Throbbers, The Rebels, Bobby Huff and the Twisters, Freddie and the Woodchucks, and Terry and the Rabbit-Punchers. Note the single name and the animal imagery in the last couple of groups."
We left the two of them, both joggling, one studying economics, the other physics, and headed to more friendly, more familiar ground, with visions of a four-piece Rock 'n Roll combo that just won't quit joggling the roof off Hopkins Center.
Carnival was scarcely over this year when The Dartmouth appeared with an editorial which advocated making the Winter Carnival the longest celebration of the year. This could be accomplished, they suggested, by dividing Carnival into four parts, each part taking place on a different weekend in February. Likewise the entertainment and other events would be spread out, featuring a particular one each weekend. Finally, and in accord with the general scheme, on the first of the four weekends men with initials A to G would get dates, the next weekend men from G to O, and so on.
The Dartmouth's suggestions are merely an example of the kind of thinking that's going on, and the very fact of the editorial suggests there is a real problem here, that of overpopulation. We have asked around, and few people approved of The Dartmouth's suggestions. Others wished to wait and see what happened, while others said they were never here for Carnival, so they wouldn't know. Many acknowledged a growing commercialism and atrophy.
Carnival, still, is surely a big deal, and feelings about it are bound to be various and ambivalent. There is, however, a real pattern to Carnival, which is generally accepted. The tension builds up, and over the weekend, like a large distended, over-inflated balloon, the campus quivers and shudders, heaves a huge sigh, and, whoosh, the air is out, and Sunday night flattens out exhausted. The dates have left, and T.G.T.G. (Thank-God-They're-Gone) parties crop up here and there, where a few despairing souls view the dismal situation waste and wild, and try to pick up the frazzled ends of a misspent weekend.
The man from the Canadian Arctic surely had Carnival in mind when he wrote: All was quiet, the sibilant murmur of the hill of the troubled waters was barely audible. Male huskies no longer chased the female bitches. Arctic butterflies flitted over the swampy meadows. Arctic lichen had turned the sandy beaches a soft purple, green caribou willows dotted the barrens, multi-hued caribou moss grew in succulent clumps like huge sponges.
Fred Harris '11, founder of the Dartmouth Outing Club, crowns Geraldine Parkhurst, 1961 Queen of Snows. A student at Katharine Gibbs in Boston, her date was John Butler '61.
The Carnival theme "Prohibition Blues" was highlighted by a statute of Mr. Prohibition.
Richard Hall took first dorm prize in the Carnival Snow Sculpture Contest with its statue of the "Hangover Police" paddy wagon.
Beta Theta Pi's bullet-riddled "Be My Valentine," following theProhibition theme, was awarded first prize in the fraternity division.
John Dickey Jr. '63 was a point-winner in cross country in the Winter Carnival meet.
