Classes have been in session for almost three weeks as I write this, and Labor Day has come and gone. But it’s not until the Black Swamp Arts Festival that I feel fall has really started.
There are some dumb holidays in the calendar year. Personally I’ve never understood National Shame-Yourself-With-Public-Drunkenness Day, aka St. Patrick’s Day (observed on a twice-weekly basis by the very devout).
Black Swamp is in a different category, though. For twenty years now, the BSAF has been bringing a sunburst of live music and the visual arts into the center of a town that too often seems to deserve its unofficial nickname of ‘Boring Green’.
After it vanishes at the end of the weekend, we could go back to drinking to dull the pain of waiting for the next festival.
Or -and this is what I really recommend- we could take part in some of the other stuff that happens in town or on campus.
The sports teams competing under the banner of the savage falcon will continue to spread terror and glory in a brown-and-orange swath across the midwest.
But more happens on campus than sporting events, although you could be pardoned for not realizing that sometimes.
The creative writing program is sponsoring a reading series, mixing eminent authors like Barry Lopez (who wrote the National-Book-Award-winning and totally awesome “Arctic Dreams”) with newer voices. September’s featured author is Jane Bradley whose first novel “You Believers” is a harrowing tale of a young woman’s disappearance and the impact of one crime on a whole community. She’ll read in Prout Chapel at 7:30 p.m. on Sept. 13.
Maybe you prefer movies? “Tuesdays at the Gish” showcases weird and fun movies every week. For instance, The Ramones are scheduled to kick ass in Rock N’ Roll High School on Sept. 18, 7:30 p.m.
Not your kind of music? The College of Musical Arts has a festival series that starts this month.
The first act booked is Klezmer Madness on Sept. 29. Everyone likes Klez; some people just don’t know it yet.
And that’s just this month.
Let’s face it: this will be a tough fall. We live in a battleground state during a presidential election year, and political ads will be thickly plastered over all the media we see and hear.
The University faculty and the administration are in the final stages of negotiating a contract — a long drawn-out process that is likely to reach a contentious end. And, according to a guy I heard raving at the Free Speech Zone this week, we are mostly doomed to a fiery afterlife.
In the meantime, let’s meet in real space: in the arts festival, on campus, in theaters, wherever we can, to feed our heads and maybe even enrich the souls the preachers are so intent on saving.
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