Oberlin Blogs

Building a circus can be outrageously different from theater. Circus creates issues you don't have to worry about with theater: like insurance, or fire permits. And not having a script. Or a stage manager. This makes everything even MORE exciting than normal!

Tonight: Music party at Harkness, with Andrew Gombas, Birthday Kids, and Dos Mil Días De Fuego. Before that, I saw Spring Back, a dance show, so it's been... a long night. My ears hurt. My thighs hurt. I am super-duper happy.

That extra dash of terror because I don't really know what will happen next in my part is always exciting.

I went into the first lesson armed with ten years of violin lessons, one year of music theory, and a textbook.

Oberlin is a mecca for all things music, and not just because of the Conservatory. Cool awesome bands and musicians are here all the time, at a fraction of the cost of most performances in the real world.

For three weeks of the year, the walls of the Bent corridor (which I totally thought was just a descriptor, not the name of two illustrious alumni, up until last week) are graced with beautiful local artwork from students from the 9th Congressional District. I was ever so lucky to be there photographing it.

Forget that there was no hot water in my bathroom and that the hotel gym cost an extra $18 a day to work out at; I was delighted with our 13th floor window overlooking Lake Michigan, and the opportunity to spend some time with Linda, whom I adore.

There's more to the New York art scene than pretentiousness and Andy Warhol, but you certainly won't find it in this post. What you will find is a retrospective of some of the various art--both deliberate and not--that we happened to come across during our afternoon visit.

There is, in fact, only one magical way to schedule all the performances (AND hit every single "Welcome back to a new semester! We missed you!" activity AND manage to see all your friends who you missed all of winter term... which can all coincide sometimes).

The movie centered on Darius, a 15-year-old with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. Darius' brother Mario died of the same disease when he was 19, and Darius talks about his brother occasionally during the film.

She told me how excited she was about the reading, and went on with something to the effect of: "I feel like all you creative writing majors have this separate writing world you live in sometimes. It's obviously such a huge part of your lives, and yet most of the rest of us never get to be a part of it."

It's been over a week since the final performance of the Johnson Family Circus. I'm in an extraordinary position to continue reliving the show for days, weeks, even months after.