Fare thee well, O kegs!
As this year’s Spring Fling fast approaches, I found myself looking back at old Wesleying posts about Spring Flings past. It all started with this absurdity, which I stumbled upon earlier this year. With little else to do now that my thesis is turned in, I decided to dig deeper and see what other fun/ny stuff I could find!
Here is the resulting round-up of interesting/notable Spring Fling-related posts. (Zach already did a deep dive into past performers, so I’ll stick to silly/snarky/spends-too-much-time-on-the-internet content I dug up on the blog.) Read on after the jump to find out what’s going on in the picture above and more!
2005:
If the latest Ask Wesleying question tickled your fancy, you may want to check out this photo snapped at Spring Fling ’05 (CW: image contains nudity).
2006:
Not a lot of Spring Fling ’06 content showed up in my search, but we did post this then-unconfirmed Spring Fling anecdote:
…during Spring Fling, students used to buy kegs and distribute them all over Foss Hill. When all of a sudden more than half of campus couldn’t legally imbibe alcohol, the keg tradition was called to a halt. The solution? We hear that one day before Spring Fling, enterprising Wes students went onto Foss Hill and buried the kegs, leaving only their pumps and nozzles above ground. Obviously this was a one-shot deal, but apparently it was a big hit.
2007:
After Spring Fling ’07, God themself hosted a game of Silent Football in the Butts C lounge. If you’re thinking of replicating this “hilarious, vibrant game of epic proportions,” here’s an overview that you could use as a starting point for figuring out how to play (please someone make this happen, and make sure to submit the event to us so we can share it with the rest of campus):
“Silent Football is a game that mirrors both the structure and the randomness of the universe. Hosted by Mr. Dictator, the goal of the game is to continue to pass around an imaginary football, which preserves the existence of the known universe. This is done in ways only explained at the beginning of each session; complicated, amusing rules can generally be assumed. Countering the preservation of the universe are “Outside Evil Chaotic Communist Forces,” who do everything within their power to stop the passing of the football, and to create situations so inherently ridiculous that the universe collapses in laughter.”
In perhaps my favorite post on the whole damn blog (and the post that prompted me to delve into our internet archive to fish around for more funny posts to populate this round-up), Justin reports on a keg-cert plan gone wrong:
It looks like a few of you may have a slightly more sober Spring Fling than intended. P-Safe just dug up two kegs buried under Foss Hill. Much to my dismay, the P-Safe officer on guard declined to pose with them.
The comments are also pretty great on this one:
brad: They must have used that fancy new metal detector.
Anonymous: fancy and hella expensive. Good to know money is allocated to keeping students safe and sober
Justin: I think it might’ve just been that there were uprooted patches of grass where the kegs were buried. But I could be wrong.
Braille: yeah, if anyone knows whether there were ACTUALLY any metal detectors on duty, please, please, please email us or post here, because I thought i’d just made that shit up, but someone said that it actually happened.. which would be ridiculous, so I’d like to know.
noa: We thought we were so clever burying porcelain kegs, but apparently they preempted us and had some sonar device to find those too.
You may have won this battle, P-Safe, but you’ll never win the war!
Next year we’re going to float kegs over foss hill with helium balloons and shoot them down during Spring Fling (a few balloons at a time so they come down slow). This was Evan Simco-Bednarsky’s idea. What a soldier.
If anyone is interested in making floating kegs (keg blimp? drone-powered kegs? are we high-tech enough for that now?) happen, hmu… (Sidebar: if anyone needs my wesleyan email for to make this happen, or for any other spring-specific, totally innocuous reasons *cough wescam szn cough* it’s mdfisher@wes ;) just putting that out there…)
some inspiration…
2008:
Not entirely sure what happened at Spring Fling ’08, but local blogger and radio show host Ed McKeon witnessed and documented a tense encounter:
Suddenly, a young woman, topless and distraught walked by, followed by a friend who persuaded her to get her blouse back on. The distraught woman and her friend struggled and argued across the length of the courtyard until a Wes Security SUV arrived, and the distraught woman was confronted. She struggled with the security personnel, and another security car arrived. She was handcuffed. The original responders were quickly followed by four Middletown Police Cars, an ambulance, and a fire truck. Whatever this sad young woman was struggling with, the response to her belligerence seemed a bit over-the-top. (There may be a legitimate reason for the response that I can’t fathom because I observed the entire altercation from a distance, and don’t know what kind of threat she represented.)
Needless to say, the combination of exuberant, end-of-the-semester, pre-finals over-indulgence, and on-high-alert safety personnel, creates an atmosphere that is, to say the least, tense.
2009:
Apparently in 2009, things got heated when the Argus and Wesleying publicly and confidently speculated about the Spring Fling Lineup. In a fit of un-copy-edited rage, the WSA posted their response to the rumors: “Argus and Wesleying are were ‘Full of Shit’.” (Sidebar: The old WSA website was updated regularly??? WSA 2020, here’s looking at you to bring your website up to par with the sites of yore!)
This one’s not technically about Spring Fling, but apparently way back when, there used to be a Fall version of Spring Fling (or at least another big Foss concert sponsored by the WSA) called Foss Hill Bandfire! Sure, it only had student bands, but there was also the added fun of “watch [ing] Prometheus light up the night, and keep[ing] warm and roast marshmallows around a bonfire.” Can we bring this back please and thank you???
Editor’s Note: [CW: death, gun violence, anti-Semitism, stalking] Spring Fling 2009 was cancelled when Wesleyan student Johanna Justin-Jinich was shot and killed at Broad Street Books. While the tone of this post is flippant, I feel it is important to take a step away from all that and seriously acknowledge and mourn the senseless death of this young woman. As a child, Justin-Jinich wrote Julia’s Star, a book exploring the very prejudices and anti-Semitic hatred that fueled her killer. The book was published after her death, and is now taught in local elementary schools by Wesleyan students and others. As anti-Semitic violence is on the rise and stalking continues to threaten victims’ lives, it is imperative that we remember the life of Johanna Justin-Jinich on the 10-year memorial of her death, and that we reaffirm our commitment to fighting such violence in all forms, wherever it appears. May her memory be a blessing.
2010:
Honestly, I’m just including this photo gallery because of the title: Like a Million Elephants and Silverback Orangutans: Scenes From Spring Fling ’10. I’m sure this is a reference to something about the performances, but I’m choosing to remain blissfully unaware and disproportionately entertained by imagining a million elephants and silverback orangutans partying it up on Foss.
2011:
Not everyone can party it up on Spring Fling (it is technically the first day of reading period, which is meant for studying and working on finals). Luckily, in 2011, we published “‘Do You Have Time For Spring Fling?’: Basic Algebra and Time Management” in which Alexander Hoyle ’13 worked out a pretty methodical way of calculating the finals grade you need to get the course grade you want. Probably worth checking out if you’re thinking of watching Spring Fling from Olin.
2012:
Another fairly normal post with a great title: Concert Committee Seeks Evil, Megalomaniacal Warlords. I guess it’s comforting to know that the WSA will always be soliciting applications for committees??
Also in 2012, the Powers That Be (the Educational Policy Committee) attempted to “eliminate a day for spring fling, schedule spring fling during reading period, and effectively reduce the number of days in reading period.” The WSA protested via resolution (another reliable constant), and after much debate, Spring Fling and Reading Period were saved through Spring 2019, and the Six-Year Plan for Fall 2019-Spring 2025 (I guess we’re doing six instead of five now?) appears to have kept Spring Fling and Reading Period the same as well! Long Live Spring Fling!
Also also in 2012, we shared this casual missive from everyone’s favorite coffee shop announcing that Espwesso would be closed for TWO WHOLE NIGHTS “in honor of that most wonderous holiday of spring.” Yeah, it’s a student run shop, and we get that no one wants that day-drunk-9-pm-hangover shift, but also, as frostedmoose so elegantly put it: “Y u deny me my drugzzz”???
Also also also in 2012 (big year!), the inaugural MASH happened, and we wrote about it, declaring: “Study: The Mash Exactly Like Spring Fling, Except Not.” Checks out.
2013:
In 2013, we got this funny headline (and less-fun reality of 3 years in a row of having Spring Fling indoors): “Ice Rink To Be Converted Into Swimming Pool Full of Liquor for Kendrick” And then the significantly-less-funny-and-fun reality of a true shitshow of a Spring Fling, which Zach reflected on in a 3000+ word post detailing the chaos and frustration that abounded (related, but not Spring-Fling-centric: this account of several other concert catastrophes in recent memory). Hopefully this year’s concert won’t be moved indoors, but if it does, let’s all try and avoid this kind of chaos, yeah?
2014:
In 2014, students were assured that “Spring Fling Will Be Outside Even if Meteors Hit Foss,” rain or shine, making it “the first outdoor Spring Fling since 2011 (and the first one for everyone but the seniors).”
Among a multitude of heart-warming anecdotes about everyone’s favorite raised landform, there were a few good Spring Fling mentions:
Spring Fling on like 6 different drugs freshman year –a moist-feeling JG ’14
I remember sitting at the feet of this kid I had a giant crush on, lying on my back watching Ghostface and Raekwon, getting lots of sun, being drunk as fuck, and thinking, “Damn, I’m a happy camper”. —IR ’14
I’m getting tired of scrolling, and Spring Flings ’15-’18 were recent enough that y’all can dig up any fun stuff on them yourselves, so I’ll leave you here. (But I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that time the Grateful Dead played Spring Fling!)
Happy Springing and Flinging to All—I hope this keeps you entertained until the concert on Thursday! And, as the resident mom of Wesleying (and of most of my friend groups lol) I’m obligated to remind you: wear (and re-apply!) sunscreen, imbibe responsibly, and as I always say, hydrate or die-drate!
hydrate or die-drate
— lil linguini? (@shirahdevorah) July 29, 2016