St. Edward's University offers a variety of entertainment throughout the year: Student Life events/activites; Hillfest, featuring a band and carnival-like actvities; musicals/plays put on by the theater department; sports; Omni performances; recitals (I myself have played in four piano recitals during my time at St. Ed's); and, most recently, a 2-3 day ACL-like music festival featuring the musical talent of our fellow students.
I could probably go on.
But in my three years here, I've noticed a different kind of entertainment streaming through and "performing" on the sidewalks and lawns of campus.
Every year, there seems to be a student or two using their down time to - sometimes unintentionally, I'm sure - "entertain" students who are walking to class or relaxing outside during their breaks.
I thought about this on the first day of the semester as a couple of acquaintances and I were watching a student create a tightrope between two trees on the Ragsdale lawn. We'll call him "the tightrope guy."
And so we watched "the tightrope guy's" less than acrobatic attempt to conquer the tightrope. He certainly got off to a rocky start, losing his balance before even taking a step. When that didn't work, he tried jumping and landing with both feet onto the tightrope...No, that didn't work either.
(Watching all of this, I was curious to know if he had practiced this before tightrope walking in public or if he thought maybe he'd just wing it...unless it was completely spontaneous, which would make happening to have a tightrope on hand kind of impressive - either that or raise some questions.)
After taking about ten minutes going back and forth between tightrope walking attempts and adjusting the rope around one of the trees, he conquered that tightrope, with about five steps (I suppose that's impressive for me, since I myself have taken zero steps across a tightrope...or even been near a tightrope for that matter.) He even gained a following - two students whom he gave a demonstration to before letting them give it a go (one being quite successful, the other holding her friend's hand and being so hesitant to take the first step that she stepped backwards, and I lost interest.)
But good for you, "tightrope guy" for sharing your unusual hobby with us! Perhaps the start of a tightrope club is in order.
One of my fellow "audience members" questioned if St. Ed's is secretly a clown college as he brought up another one of "the perhaps-unintentionally-keeps-us-entertained-with-their-unusual-hobbies guys," "the Samurai guy." Ok, not so sure if I remember ever seeing this guy, so I can't explain his "act," but I've heard of him, and he sounds self-explanatory.
Also mentioned as we were watching "the tightrope guy": "the unicycle guy," who unicycle-d past me a couple times today; the idea being to get the two together. I second that idea. (Club? "Tightroping for the advanced?")
Watching the tightrope guy also reminded me of last year's guy with an unusual hobby: "the juggling guy." And it wasn't the similar circus act that reminded me of him, but the realization that "the tightrope guy" is "the juggling guy." This leaves me curious as to what other tricks he might have in store for St. Ed's students during his time here (Or...is he secretly enrolled in some sort of acrobatic circus course?)
I think it's quite fitting that our campus has a bit of unusual "entertainment" going on (almost on a daily basis) as we are located in South Austin, which is known for its weirdness. And it's nice to know that if you're stuck on campus for whatever reason and can't roam the weird streets of Austin, the spontaneous entertainment and memorable characters will come to you.
No comments:
Post a Comment