Get Over It
Posted on Tuesday, November 6, 2007 @ 6:58 pm
Filed Under Macalester College, Stories
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Macalester's Class of '82 Reunion theme was "Get Over It." This theme implied an unasked question: Was (is) the Macalester experience worth the price? The question came up by implication in those conversations with imperfectly-remembered classmates, by reference in a presentation exploring our responses to a reunion survey, and quite explicitly twice at the Class Dinner: Our hostess (Mary Morse Marti, I think) wandered around the topic for several minutes before explicitly raising the question as something she still found difficult to answer, and Macalester's President Brian Rosenberg told us he considers all the early-eighties classes to be problems because their members have largely detached themselves from the community. These concerns have causes.
Dear Old Macalester
Posted on Thursday, October 18, 2007 @ 9:31 pm
Filed Under History, Macalester College
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Every campus has a narrative, and that narrative shapes the college culture. These stories may emphasize unimportant details; they ignore entire decades. Macalester's, like most, begins with a founder, has a key figure who shaped the college, skips lightly through the decades, mentions some key teachers and graduates, describes a major crisis, and looks brightly to the future. To the best of my ability, here's the Macalester story.
Dale Warland Singers
Posted on Monday, May 31, 2004 @ 11:29 pm
Filed Under Joel, Macalester College, Stories
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It was probably our second rehearsal. We'd stumbled badly on a run-through, and Warland was isolating the technical problems. We worked on the rhythms for a time, added the words when he was confident we'd mastered the counts, and finally fit the music to the section. I'd forgotten I'd sung this at Mac. But I'd not forgotten Dale's teaching methods.
Summer Concert
Posted on Saturday, April 17, 2004 @ 1:28 pm
Filed Under Macalester College, Musick
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Macalester College had a student-run coffee house, No Exit, which lived behind the college grill in the Student Union's basement in the late '60s. It was a cozy, black-painted place with good entertainment, good sound, and decent food. Leo, who struck me as a young white man impersonating an old drunken blues singer, played there regularly when I was a freshman and a sophomore. (The music redeemed the act.)
Sweet Dreams
Posted on Thursday, February 12, 2004 @ 10:07 am
Filed Under Macalester College, Musick
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My first encounter with a stereo headset was in high school; my friend (and choir seatmate) Vik Berstis insisted that there was something magical about the device, and forced me to listen to--well, I really don't remember what. But I did agree about the magic.
