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Odds and Ends Compiled and annotated by Paul Nagai '88 #978
Zibby Retires as NAP EverymanYup. It’s true. Walter Wilhelm Xebenezer Yergut Zabriskie called on several Alumni elders and broke the news. It was finally time. Someone (well, several someones, really) had to fill his shoes. The Torch Zibby had carried so long and perhaps too well would be passed to a new generation of men. Zibby will, of course, continue to guide (and occasionally cajole) these new leaders (and your editors). See the pair of letters titled “Men in Back” for a complete introduction to the new team. One of the great challenges facing the new leaders is nurturing the relationship between Alumni and Active members of the fraternity. Whether and how they will do this, I don’t know. But I do know it must be done. Some alumni forget that the body of Actives rolls over completely in about three years. That being true, contact between us alumni and our newest brothers and sisters on campus must be frequent. That contact must be energetically pursued. Only by this sort of effort will us Alumni have any direct knowledge of, and more importantly, any opportunity to build intergenerational communication and relationships. Without this effort, how will memories, fraternity history, and which finger with which to give the grip be passed on? Three year cycles easily forget, lose, or misunderstand information. You must take responsibility for visiting, meeting, and getting to know our Actives and passing on our traditions. How and where and when is this possible? Zibby and I spoke and wrote several times last year about his then pending “retirement.” In one of his letters, he enumerated a list of things that the Alumni must do (some of which Zibby himself has not been able to do himself in recent years) in order to strengthen the Golden Thread of NAP which connects us all. Here is his list:
Don Smith ‘53 #384, Chuck Carpenter ‘54 #389, and Chet Jaeger ‘47 #296 have taken responsibility for these tasks but there will certainly be opportunities for volunteers. So. What will you do? If you have an answer to this question, contact:
P. O. Box 846 Twain Harte, CA 95383 Andrew Hoyem ‘57 #464Andrew Hoyem’s Arion Press received a favorable write-up in the San Francisco Chronicle on Sunday, December 27, 1998. [It’s worth a click if you know Andrew or have an interest in fine printing! —Eds.]The focus of the article was on Hoyem’s current project, a Bible. This Bible will be a thing of beauty. It will also be “a huge challenge ... the greatest challenge of book-making,” said Andrew Hoyem, the publisher of Arion Press. It will be printed and bound mostly by hand. Hoyem has great hopes for this Bible. Arion’s prospectus says this edition “is intended to take its place in the tradition of grand Bibles, as a statement of typographic excellence at the end of the twentieth century.” “We are printing what will probably be the last folio Bible printed from metal type,” Hoyem said. He is aware that technology has overtaken the industry and that the next new edition of the oldest book may well be very different. “From 1455, Gutenberg, to 2000, and that’s it,” he said. The printing will be done on Arion’s letterpress; the books will be bound by hand. Hoyem’s San Francisco printing career began in 1961 with a very small press. By 1974, after several printing partnerships, Hoyem went out on his own. He called his firm Arion Press after a mythical Greek poet who was saved from drowning by a dolphin. The dolphin, intelligent and sleek, has been regarded as the mascot for fine printing for centuries.
I must say that Mart Pearson ‘80 #829 and Kayo [Jon Kott ‘80 #814. —Eds.] passed on a tremendous responsibility. They were true meisters of the day. Their management was good, their spirits high, their sense of responsibility and tradition emanated from their spot on the wall. And Mart was the perfect image of the skinny guy hauling those kegs effortlessly across the runway. A buck a cup—the beer and the company is free! And all the money from the Wash goes back into the Wash except for dinner at Trop Mex with all the stalwarts of the day. No skimming and no direct oversight from the frat. Only keeping up the good name of the Wash. Really, we thought of ourselves as meisters for the cause. It was not a frat event, but Nappies were the proud and selfless stewards of the tradition and most important social event in the 5 campuses. It was an honor to serve.
Once a meister, always a meister, always a meister to be!
Sheryl Gorsuch ‘83 #869 and Minot Weld ‘80 #880 succeeded Mart and Kao as kegmeisters in the fall of ‘80.
Ah yes, and what do I remember? The official title holder might be off, and dates may
certainly be a little waivery. Sheryl’s algae green early 70s full size station wagon
was the honorary boat. What a great car! That car took us everywhere for a year.
Life could not have been nearly as fun without the good cheer of Sheryl and that car.
John Carr ‘82 #886, myself, and Chris Totten ‘83 #884 (among others) served as peonies for
the Wash. We bought our kegs from the meat company
[Arrow Meat Company. —Eds.]
with the big cow on top out on Arrow highway east of the quarries. Nice folks selling to us marginal aged and clearly dubious delinquents. The meat company was great. Minot, who had by this time influenced myself and Totten into militant vegetarianism would scowl and cringe as we would weave between the hanging carcasses on our way to the beer room. I am glad we always remembered to flick the chunks of fat off the barrels before tapping them (generally before loading). Eventually, we just walked in, said hello and got our own barrels. It must have been quite funny to see us skinny dead heads waddling those barrels from the car to the steps. A hand truck would never have seemed right. It seems most Washes were 4-6 barrel days then.
Spring ‘81 Meisters were Peter LeCompte and Henry Flores ‘81 #882 ... and Henry’s white roadster. What was that beast Henry? DAB! John Carr and Totten always seemed present
Fall ‘81 was Peter LeCompte and John? or Chris Frost ‘83 #888? Or ... uh oh ... I was there, but all those pre-Wash Soaks and practice sessions for Phi Delta B. were wreaking havoc on the connections of my cerebral cortex, and when was the next Dead Show? Who was I? Sometimes I am amazed at the adaptability and survival instincts of the human college student. Even those of us on the edge then really have ended up as reasonably sound and responsible (and even professional) adults.
Spring ‘82 I don’t remember. Me? John Carr? John, help us out here ...
-Peter
Tom Harvey '90 #989, with the assistance of Charlie Annis '89 #993 and Joel Halverson '90 #1000, threw an Alumni Wash on October 10, 1998 at O'Rourke's Bench in Marin County. The Bench is up on the side of a hill near a large oak tree (fancy that) off of Panoramic Highway above Stinson Beach.
No pictures (fit for print in such a chaste publication) are extant. Many of the best (whether or not they are fit to print) are currently being held in the Sheriff Department’s evidence room).
Was it the warm Summer weather, the mid-afternoon gathering time, or the funky, appropriated venue? Or was it the chilly keg of Pacific Northwest ale, resting easily in the ice, that rendered the event a resounding success? For whatever reasons you might wish to offer, the Third Occasional Bay Area Alumni Wash held last June 20, 1998 set the standard by which all others will have to be measured. It is also the hardest of the three Alumni Washes to write about, since any account is obliged to rely on genuine reportage rather than making convenient use of outrageous fabrication, like the previous two. It raises the slippery question of what factors are necessary to produce an authentic Wash experience outside the Claremont city limits. But make no mistake: whatever those factors may be, this was a genuine Wash.
Mid-afternoon on a long Spring or early Summer day has always been Wash weather, and because most of us in the working world no longer have the liberty of Friday at 3:00, Saturday is a perfectly good substitute. It was about this time that in true Claremont fashion the keg arrived early, to a small, appreciative group gathered in the concrete courtyard of "Toxixity," Gunthar Hartwig’s ‘92 #1030 and Matt Garfein’s ‘93 #1042 base of operations in a nominally converted radiator shop in Oakland's gritty, light-industrial Northeast. From the start, this venue promised more than the restaurant locations of the previous two Washes. At a bar or restaurant, there is an unspoken restriction on movement and behavior; one is encouraged to relax, but only so far. At someone's house, on the other hand, a more expansive spirit of relaxation prevails, and if that house is really more of an art space, warehouse and experiment in adaptive reuse combined, the mood escalates to a level of celebration at the slightest encouragement.
I played the Washmeister—an unaccustomed role for me, having been content to play the acolyte in my college years—adopting a style of cautious driving I am ashamed to say I have rarely practiced even for my own child. I should hasten to add however, that my own unbarrel-shaped child weighs less than 100 pounds, is not filled with beer, and does not roll about unrestrained in the trunk when he rides. I took the corners gingerly on my keg-delivery route. Already lounging about on the haphazard lawn furniture were Gunthar, Matt, and Paul Nagai ‘88 #978, eager to sample the keg for quality, if nothing else.
And in true Wash fashion, it didn't take long for others to make their way through the chainlink portals of Toxixity and join the fun. It had never occurred to me before, but in addition to the weather, the time of day, an abundance of cold, free refreshment and good company, another vital element to a successful Wash is space. Space to move around, join conversations, drift into other conversations, and hover near the keg—if one so chooses—define the easygoing atmosphere of a Wash. It simply can't be duplicated when sitting around a table, where one is often forced to come up with something to say, rather than simply wandering off to refill one's cup.
By 5:00 the sun strafed the revelers with brilliant bursts of light from behind intermittent clouds, and the compound already held around 40 people. Nappies, family of Nappies and friends of Nappies were all there in equal abundance, as is proper. Most Venerable Alumnus went to Dan Calef, maggot number 788 from the class of '76, who had heeded the yen to do a little Washing and drove all the way from Livermore to do it. He was not disappointed. Also in attendance were Leslie Schiller ‘88 and Adam Pollock ‘88 #997, Dave (AGS) and Amy Lyford-Clegg ‘86 #934 and the other half of the Lyford family, Joe (you’ll remember Joe as the guitarist in Mental Floss) and Stephanie Brown (Pitzer). Lending a real savor of authenticity to the proceedings was the arrival of Paul and Susie Gould-Martin ‘84 #917, once so ubiquitous around the Greek Theatre of a Friday afternoon. The late ‘80s and early ‘90s were well-represented by Mark Hirsch ‘88 #953 and his wife, Shiho; Charlie Annis ‘89 #983; Ian Maxwell ‘93 #1093; Lara Wilcox ‘91 #1010; Paul Mathus ‘93 #1043; Barney Grubbs ‘93 #1061; Kate McKinley ‘90 #1012; Tania Abdul ‘95 #1108; and Friends of NAP Cynthia Kopec, Catherine (Mary) George, Jenny Martin, Marc Leandro, Chris Campbel, Yato Yoshida; Sam Bower, Charin Kidder; and Charlton Heston (well, that’s what the sign-in sheet says).
Proving that Claremont cannot boast a monopoly on pleasant accommodations, Gunthar proudly fired up the barbecue pit (a conveniently bisected oil drum) for the benefit of hungry Washers. Hamburgers, sausages, chicken and the occasional tofu dog (we were only a bare mile beyond the Berkeley city limits after all) were cooked by the assembled throng.
There is a certain apogee of the Wash experience, generally encountered, to use my own experience, during a lull in conversation or a trip outside the proceedings for some necessary function. When the sun beats down benignly, the music pulses and thumps irresistibly, and one's head reels from the pleasant fuzziness of it all: a defining moment. Is there a finer way to while away an afternoon? Is it any wonder why five, ten, twenty years or more out of school, we continue to hold these events?
When's the next one?
Marla Stone’s book,
“The Patron State: Culture and Politics in Fascist Italy,”
Princeton University Press,
is now available at bookstores and web-vendors near you.
Amazon.com describes the book this way:
As historians delve increasingly into the issues of political propaganda and visual art,
Marla Stone provides a penetrating explanation of Italian Fascist arts patronage, one
that explores the model of cultural consensus that set the Italian experience apart
from that of Nazi Germany. In this book, Stone confronts some standard assumptions about
the relationship between dictatorships and the arts. Even more so, she challenges
conventional thinking on modernism and its political uses. In the case of
Italy under Mussolini, authoritarian cultural politics were driven by a willingness to
co-opt a spectrum of aesthetic movements, from modernist to neo-classical.
Rather than legislate an “art of the state,” the Fascist regime continually experimented
with and revised its arts policy, as it pursued the support of artists and audiences.
By exploring such events as the Mostra della Rivoluzione Fascista of 1932 and the
evolution of the Venice Biennale, Stone offers an unparalleled analysis of the extensive
system of official art exhibitions, purchases, and commissions that injected official
taste into cultural production.
At the same time, the author assesses the tensions implicit in state intervention in
the arts—those between pluralism and propaganda, modernism and tradition, nationalism and
regionalism—and the way in which a nondemocratic but modernizing and market-oriented
polity handled them. Stone shows how official culture under
Fascism mobilized modern and avant-garde aesthetics, emerging mass culture techniques, and
a rhetoric of national culture to produce, during the 1930s, dynamic and
vibrant cultural forms. Her inquiry into Fascist intervention in the art world is
ultimately a cultural history of Fascist Italy, one with wide resonance
and broad interest.
About the Author
Marla Susan Stone is Assistant Professor of History at Occidental College.
She is the editor, with Harold James, of
When the Wall Came Down: Reactions to German Reunification,
and the author of numerous articles on European cultural politics.
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