Resist the temptation to be lame
Tomorrow will be a good day.
It will be, no matter how much you complain about how the bands suck, or whine about how much work you have to do, or go off to visit your friends at Penn because Spring Fling is soooo much cooler. Bacchanal will be great in spite of all. this. negativity.
Look, I don’t know who the hell the bands are either, but I don’t care. It’s supposed to be sunny and 70 degrees, it’s a free concert, right here, just for us, and Holi is in the morning. I, too, participate in the Columbia varsity sport of kvetching—and often enjoy it—but right now this campus needs to take a serious chill pill and have some freaking fun.
Because that’s what Bacchanal is about.
Columbia is an extremely stressful place. Finally we’ve started learning that it’s ok to voice that sentiment, and a real effort has been made this year to keep the dialogue going. But what is the point of talking about wellness if we never act on it? And what’s the point of highlighting all of the attitudes that need to change if we don’t stop to recognize and take advantage of the positive things already happening around us?
Bacchanal is the one chance our entire community has to come together for the sole purpose of debauchery. It is the one time all year where we can take a collective sigh of relief and enjoy ourselves. It’s not about the music, or whether it’s on the Steps or South Lawn. It, unlike so many aspects of our lives, is not a competition between other schools or other students.
And it exists only because we allow it to remain that way. As soon as it becomes just another Saturday, just one less day before finals, just another New York concert no one cares about—that’s when we miss our opportunity. That’s when we defeat ourselves and allow the worst aspects of our tradition and ourselves to destroy one of the best.
So whatever you do, don’t go to Butler during Bacchanal. Don’t sit in your room, like a toddler throwing a tantrum, and listen to the bands you wished they’d booked. And don’t, when you know very well that you will be drunk on the Steps all afternoon, simply contribute to the negativity by loudly proclaiming to everyone within earshot how you will do these terrible things.
Just go. And have fun. With your friends, and with all of Columbia. Why was this ever questioned?
Grace Bickers is a Columbia College sophomore and Spec’s deputy editorial page editor. She’s quite excited about her class schedule next semester, but alas, still couldn’t get into Art Hum.
It was a good day too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWfbGGZE07M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVWEFf7PQEM
GUYS I LOVE IT HERE AND I LOVE EVERYONE AND I WILL LEARN TO LOVE WAVVES/CURREN$Y/BIG GIGANTIC AS A MOTHER ONLY CAN
DQ I LOVE YOU
Can non-Columbia students come to Bacchanal? Do they need IDs, etc to get into concert?
I feel like Spectrum has this belief for some reason that everyone who goes to Columbia is really lame and boring, and I’m not sure why that is… It seems like promoting this as a real thing and not just a fiction of the writers’ minds is going to make it seem to any prospective students that we are more boring than we actually are. Me and my friends, we aren’t bores. Dunno what your problem is.
I am just so proud of the blogger you’ve become, Baby Grasshopper. (Great post, is what I’m saying.)
I think it’s interesting that, while the last opinion article on Spectrum was about using one’s words wisely and appropriately, especially on the internet, this next article openly uses offensive ableist language (“lame”). I would very much appreciate that, in light of understanding how powerful words can be, that you remove such language from this article. Thank you.
Everything, literally everything, is potentially offensive if you’re willing to look hard enough to find something offensive about it. “Lame” has been used as a colloquialism for so long that probably 90% of the population in no way connects its meaning with any type of handicap. Additionally, using the term “lame” to describe a handicapped person has been basically completely not done for decades — long before either of us were born, I’m guessing. So why don’t you take a chill pill instead of trolling the internet constantly looking for something to be offended about?