Amongst Queers, Witches, and Freaks: Momus at Wesleyan, 1998

Momus, in case you didn’t know, is a Scottish musician with an eyepatch whose interests, according to Wikipedia, include identity, Japan, Rome, the avant-garde, time travel and sex. He almost had a hit in 1987 with “Hairstyle of the Devil” and has been doing his bizarre thing ever since. In 1998, he graced the “so-called Eclectic House” with his presence and fortunately for us kids, he wrote this spectacular account.

Although he (jokingly?) refers to Wes as the University of Connecticut, his description of our “Oasis of distilled hedonism”, our “self-righteous, temporary, trust-funded student escapism” may be more on point. From Eclectic, he proceeds to Womanist House, where he muses on identity politics and our “pseudo-liberal, politically correct puritanism.”

Aside from the joys of recognizing the familiar (“He’s talking about Eclectic, you guys! I threw up there once!”), Momus’ piece also makes you feel that 1998 was a very long time ago. The Magnetic Fields were the openers, and there’s something unmistakably 90s in the part about Womanism. I spent several minutes staring at the picture of the ’92 Theater and the Chapel trying to figure out what was weird about it before I realized that Zelnick (or as I call it, the Weird Glass Place) was missing. Even the formatting of the blog triggers nostalgia for the early days of the interwebs.

Some things change, some don’t. Check out the piece here.

Oh, and that girl he talked to at Eclectic with the wine glass on her head and the Sharpie tat? Amanda Palmer ’98. NBD.