Words VII, Fall Semester 2009

Something else marked the end of the semester, something that I cannot but mention. In the midst of all the birthday parties, another spark of spontaneity was also working its way to the big stage. In the style and spirit of Improv Everywhere, a few of us wrote our own original musical and performed it on the 18th of December in the dining hall. It happened on an unsuspecting Friday, and the very end of Finals week. Little napkin-holder advertisements were placed since a few days back to ‘suggest’ that people be at the dining hall at 6:15 on that very day, which made people wary of something happening, but did not give much away.

When the time came, the lights went dim, and our grand plan had been executed. Kelsey, ever so eager for Shenanigans, began with a song that I wrote—in fact, I wrote all the songs—that had to do with pasta and the meaning of life. My original version of the verses for the song had this:

Ignorant fool you cannot see beyond your food
Insolent girl you most definitely should
“Put down that fork”

There is no sight as sad as pasta
There is no happiness that it brings
There is no bite as bad as pasta’s
Sinful edible strings

There is no food as crude as pasta
There is no happiness within
There’s no noodle as crudele as pasta
Edible strings of sin

But in our agreed-upon final version we removed the middle paragraph because the mini-musical was too long. Which made me somewhat sad, but for the greater purpose, it was worth it.

Before and after these lines, the whole mini-musical contained many, many little gems of chuckle-inducing lyrics. In the larger abstraction, however, the story involved Eva being upset over the meaninglessness of life, but thankful for the constancy that pasta brings, Gregory frustrated with Eva’s bad grammar, and cynical of the world at large, Sampson annoyed at the folly of everyone, and everyone’s ignorance when it comes to social change, the King of the Dining Hall devil-may-care about life, and Giselle blissfully ignorant about life. Eva and the King seem to have something going on for them at the end, Giselle and Gregory fall in love and cure each other of their weaknesses, and Sampson remains annoyed at everyone. The musical is halted at its musical climax by guest star José Oscar Mur-Miranda who stood up and shouted “You’re at Olin; suck it up!” to the most thunderous applause.

We denied anything happened until a day after it didn’t happen.

This update of Words ends here. :)

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