oscar wilde house: council with masks

[nibot]

So, the Oscar Wilde House was the Berkeley co-op where I lived for one or two years (depending on how you count), and with which I am hopelessly enamored. Maybe the house grows in awesomeness in my mind, having been gone for a year--but all my visits have substantiated my appreciation of the place, and then some, so maybe It's All True. It was (is!) a house full of friends--there was always someone in the living room to talk to, always someone with whom to go randomly adventuring. What I appreciated most about the co-op situation were the simple things, like having dinner ready every night and a house full of friends to eat it with. And having a house we could be proud of: I always enjoyed giving tours, showing off the everything from enviable rooftop with its splendid views to the way we sorted our trash at least three ways and the workshift board and how everybody knew what his or her jobs were, the way dinner got cooked, and so forth. I'm not sure how it being a queer-themed house affected things: at first I was intimidated by that, and then just as quickly I forgot about it--acclimatized or something. The house threw the best parties, too; the pajamawama was particularly fine (no preparation required, just walk down stairs!). I made so many good friends at that house, it boggles the mind.

* * *

Every two weeks we held "house council," the biweekly meeting where house decisions were made. Frequently long and boring and sometimes acrimonious, it wasn't always the funnest thing. But sometimes it was.

The meetings were conducted by whatever variant of Roberts Rules of Order came to the collective mind, augmented by various other signals. Like snapping your fingers if you agree with what someone's saying. Or raising your hand in different ways to indicate "question" or "point of information."

One time we made masks. Notice these have separate facial expression pieces that are held up, like Jeff's that says "No".


Stevie, Jenny Jo, Xylar, Jeff, [Arom?], [Beau?]


Jenny Jo (cryptoquip), Xylar, and Jeff (caerglas). And a tray of s'mores made for the meeting.


Stevie and Jenny Jo

I believe these pictures are from November 2003, right after I returned from my summer at CERN.

Comments

[october31st.livejournal.com]

Oh man, I crave s'mores now.

[forvrkate.livejournal.com]

I want to make my own super-cool mask...

[nibot.livejournal.com]

first day of class, in section. with different facial expression pieces to show different levels of understanding (woefully confued, tentatively okay, eureka!, confident)?

[nibot.livejournal.com]

excellent.

[nibot.livejournal.com]

found it?

[librastorm.livejournal.com]

If that was from fall 2003, it would have been my first semester in two years of not living at Wilde :(