Black Friday, This Weekend

Black Friday, the epic rock opera music thesis of Sam Ottinger '09, debuts tonight and is playing until Saturday at the '92 Theater.

This description is from early last semester, but according to Aural Wes the show still promises to be a macabre musical tale of American consumerism and blind religious rapture:

This opera is inspired by God, Death and the mall. The music, a mix of stoner metal/drone/jazz/classical & tom waits. The place, anytown U.S.A. Shopping Mall built inside of a MEGA-CHURCH. The day, Black Friday, the annal orgy consumer culture. The people, Seven sinners left behind after the rapture by a Zeus like Demi-god who urges them on as they decide their fates. There's a chorus of shoppers, a chorus of angels and demons, a pervert who loves God more than anything but can't help watching women change, an alcoholic security guard, a money grubbing evangelist and a power crazed prophet. EVERYONE DIES...almost...

Free Preview:
Wednesday, Feb 25th: 11:00pm
(No ticket necessary, just show up)

Performances:
Thursday, Feb 26th: 8:00pm
Friday, Feb 27th: 8:00pm
Saturday, Feb 28th: 2:00pm and 9:00 pm
(tickets available for free at the box office the day of the performance)

The show will run about two hours, including a fifteen-minute intermission.

More info on Facebook and Aural Wes.

"Ghost Machine" More Than Ghost Machine

The ghostly senior art project of Matthew Valades '08 in a basement tunnel of the Art Studio (artist and art pictured above and below) is featured in today's Hartford Courant, as is the Wesleying post about it.

Buried in a dank corner of Wesleyan University's art studio, it hangs from the ceiling, bathed in cold blue light and aimed into space. Sometimes, it turns itself on, purring with loud, rhythmic thrums. Its purpose? Speculation on campus swirls. The machine might cause you to hallucinate, someone posted on "Wesleying," a student-run blog, maybe even see ghosts. Students and professors who paint and sculpt on the floors above it don't know who put it there or what it does.

...There's no sign posted to explain where the installation begins or ends, or any advertising to draw an audience. News of it spread on campus by word-of-mouth and the Internet. "It's viral," said Kuivila.

Valades thinks that reaction suits the installation's guerrilla nature. He's a bit miffed that some people boil it down to the "ghost machine," but added, "If it gets people down here and thinking about [the hallway], I guess that's the point."

...When he's not adjusting the installation's decor, Valades enjoys seeing how people react to it. Some take it in stride. Others, not so much — as one recent post on the Wesleyan student blog attests.

"how does it work??" the anonymous poster wrote. "ugh i pass it all the time but never know what to do."

Yeah what's up, this is Wesleying and legitimate news sources source us. Check out this sound installation, maybe you will hallucinate or something!

Full article: A Strange Machine's Making Noise at Wesleyan

Congratulations Thesis Writers! (Part 2)

As a thesis writer myself, I wanted to share this poem with the Wesleying readership because it describes pretty excellently what I and many others went through today. I'm specifically directing this toward everyone who turned in a thesis, but it also applies to anyone who's ever worked really hard on a paper or problem set or some other undertaking, stayed up way too late, and then experienced the rush of turning it in. Which is... pretty much everyone who reads this blog.

Trying To Write
by Elizabeth Smart

That day i finished
A small piece
For an obscure magazine
I popped it in the box

And such a starry elation
Came over me
That I got whistled at in the street
For the first time in a long time.

I was dirty and roughly dressed
And had circles under my eyes
And far far from flirtation
But so full of completion
Of a deed duly done
An act of consummation
That the freedom and force it engendered
Shone and spun
Out of my old raincoat.

It must have looked like love
Or a fabulous free holiday
To the young men sauntering
Down Berwick Street.
I still think this is most mysterious
For while I was writing it
It was gritty it felt like self-abuse
Constipation, desperately unsocial.
But done done done
Everything in the world
Flowed back
Like a huge bonus.

Senior Art Theses at Zilkha

This is late (reception was yesterday afternoon), but senior art theses are on display at Zilkha until Sunday, featuring work by:

Hunter King
Zachary Davis
Joshua Pavlacky
Karla Hargrave
Chaz Ganster
Stephanie Calvert

Worth checking out! No pictures available, but they are more interesting than this post describes them to be.

Senior Thesis Art Exhibition

Round one of the studio theses has begun! See the work in Zilkha Tuesday, March 25 (today) through Sunday, March 30 between 12 and 4 (apparently Zilkha is open til 8 on Fridays, which I didn't know). The reception for this week's theses is tomorrow from 4-6.

This week's artists:

Ben Ahles
Brad Alexander
Daniel Meyer
Martin Schapiro
Amanda Sim

What: Senior Art Theses
Where: Zilkha
When: Reception is Wednesday, March 26, 4-6pm and the show is up til Sunday

Thesis Writing Tips

Jesse Wegman '96 posted these thesis writing tips yeeears ago but they are still incredibly good. Here are a couple:

5. Begin research immediately - Again, April 12 may seem far off during the dog days of September, but the days, weeks, and months seem to pass by exponentially faster as the year progresses. Start to use time that you normally would not consider using for academic work (e.g., Saturday and Sunday mornings); often, it seems the mind is more settled at these times.

6. Get to know the library inside out - however much you detest it in there, you will need it far more than you realize, especially Interlibrary Loan (ILL) - This wonderful service was absolutely indispensable to me and many of my friends throughout the year. While Wesleyan has a large number of journals, they are often missing the one you need. And think about it: you can get virtually any article anywhere in the world, for free, within two weeks, usually shorter. How can you pass that up?

7. Establish a note-taking system - If I had had a consistent method of gathering information from the beginning, my work would have been infinitely easier. Whatever method works for you, do it and keep doing it. As the amount of material you gather increases, and you have to bring it all together, coherent notes will help a great deal.

8. Don't throw away anything - Anything.

9. Set deadlines - This was probably the single most important thing for me. The deadlines that I established with my tutor kept me writing on a regular basis, and turning in chapters even if they weren't done. This makes you feel like you're moving along and progressing, which is essential in keeping up your morale.

More here.

Thesis reading: "A Novel Idea: Short Fictions"

Arijit Sen '07 will be reading his senior thesis "A Novel Idea: Short Fictions" this weekend.

Date: Saturday, May 5
Time: 8:00 PM
Place: Memorial Chapel
Cost: Free