Maria Elwan
Eng 440 October 30, 2012
Field Log Entry #1 Walk about on UNM Campus
Penny
and I started our observation at the SUB and found a performance of SCRAP, a
student performance group, which was acting out a mini-performance of what we believed
to be their upcoming play, Rosencrantz
and Guildenstern are Dead. This production was a recreated tale from
Shakespeare’s Hamlet only with a
twist. The play was being acted out with a homo-erotic flavor. The performance
was being carried out in the lower level of the sub on the mid-section stage.
There were not many spectators in the audience seating. We counted two guys and
five girls, that seemed to be friends of the actors.
We
then left the SUB and stopped in front of Mitchell Hall and chatted with the
Rainbow Men, two middle-aged hippies and their dog-Almuerzo. The dog was a
sweet pit-bull, friendly to students, but not so friendly to other male dogs. The
Rainbow Men had been on campus all week, selling hemp bracelets and necklaces. They
were on their way to winter in Mexico and attend the Rainbow Festival, thus
their name Rainbow Men.
We
bid a bon-voyage to the Rainbow men and proceeded to the seats at the end of
Mitchell Hall (toward Science Learning Building) and sat and observed those who
walked by.
UNM
has a huge collection of young men and women on skateboards. Penny who knows
much more about this subject than me, starting pointing out ‘distinctions’
between skaters. Some skaters use their boards for transportation and some just
like to hang out on campus and practice their technique. I documented the following groups:
a. Late
teens to early 20s in usual skater attire, t-shirt and baggy Capri’s.
b. Girl skaters prefer long boards. One girl in
particular on a long board was wearing a fancy, flashy hoody and shorts, and her
hair was curled. She was more preppy looking than some other boarders we
observed. I learned that long boards seem to be a crossover from surfing and
have migrated from California.
c. We
also observed a young man sitting behind us, who seemed to be a serious
student, sitting outside reading and had his short board alongside of him. He
was dressed more like a typical student not in hipster attire.
I enjoyed our little
field observation and became aware of the subtle differences between the skater
groups on campus.
On my way to the SUB, I encountered a “Save the Children” grassroots promoter. He acted more as a paid sales person than a supporter. He spoke in a way that made him seem more interested in meeting a quota of forty people than truly helping the cause, commenting on his having gotten many “one-time gifts.” He showed interest in the smell of a passerby’s cigarettes, commenting on the brand. He made small talk, uncomfortably, but friendly, discussing personal background—alcoholic father, clean 15 years; fiancé who took intro to psych class and psycho-analyzes him. His casual dress with the Save the Children uniform shirt on over another shirt also hinted that he was more fulfilling a job than really supporting a cause of his choosing.
ReplyDeleteWe stopped into the SUB where we spent some time watching a student performance group, called SCRAP, who were giving a demonstration to promote their upcoming performance of “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.” I would have assumed that any live performance group that was trying to draw a crowd to a for-profit event by holding a free demonstration would be off-book, either performing previously prepared sketches or acting completely by improvisation. Instead, the group performed unpracticed readings from scripts. They seemed unorganized and did not draw much of a crowd. The scripts seemed to contain a lot of cursing and LGBT-centered material, but in a way that was crass and designed to produce a shock effect. Most of the crowd that watched from the seats seemed to be members of the group who were not currently involved in the piece on stage. They were dressed very casually. There were many more females than males.
We headed out to the plaza to observe the skaters we had seen upon entering the SUB. They weren’t in their usual spot, so we headed toward the duck pond where we found the skaters mingling with a couple older hippies who were selling hemp jewelry. The hippies advertized their merchandise by shouting out things such as, “get your hippy shit” and “Real hippy jewelry. I’ve got the dreads to prove it.” When we approached them to look at their setup, we greeted them and asked how they were.“I’m blessed,” was the reply, followed by “Too blessed to be stressed.” They had an unneutered male pitbull, Almuerzo (Spanish for “brunch”), wandering off-leash and playing with a dog that apparently belonged to one of the skaters. The hippy told us his dog pees on toddlers and doesn’t like male dogs, but is otherwise friendly. I was surprised to notice the men had a stick of incense burning on the grass, because I would have expected them to be more environmentally conscious and not pose fire danger to a desert city. They also had a package of “cigarette rollies” on the grass next to them, which I suppose goes along with the need for incense. The man wore a tie dyed shirt and frayed jeans and appeared rather unwashed. He discussed traveling across the country from city to city and a lack of transportation.
The skaters who were visiting with the hippies were of the variety we later dubbed the “Loiterers.” This “class” usually hangs out in the plaza between the library and humanities buildings, showing off their skills. They hang out on campus to skate as a pastime, unlike some of the other skaters we observed. This pair had an afro and a longer hair cut, wore t-shirts, and baggy capris. They were clean, but very casual. The one with the dog paid more attention to its actions and exerted more control over dog than what the hippies did with Almuerzo. Neither skater was very talkative, but they were friendly and engaged in a reserved manner.
ReplyDeleteAfter leaving the hippies and skaters at the duck pond, we sat in front of Mitchell hall and observed other skaters on campus, dividing them into categories. Besides the “Loiterers” listed above, there seemed to be two types of “Student” skaters—long boarders and short boarders. Unlike the Loiterers, Students used their boards more as their form of transportation across campus, rather than just a pastime. The short boarders seemed to mostly travel alone at rapid paces, like they had somewhere to be. Long boarders traveled more leisurely, often carrying their boards and walking with non-boarders. The long boards also seemed to show less wear and tear than the short boards, as they seemed to be more of a fashion assessor. Long boarders tended to dress in a more “preppy” or “surfer-like” fashion. More females used long boards. These females wore bright colors and had carefully styled hair. Many of the short boarders carried bigger backpacks. Some were even studying, leading us to wonder if the skaters who preferred the short boards might be more serious students than the long boarders. The short boarders fashions also seemed to vary more. Some were color coordinated. Some wore skinny jeans or tighter pants than what the Loiterers had. Some had faux hawks, while others looked more hipster. Generally, though, they looked less like “rich kids” than the long boarders.