Friday, February 25, 2011

the man who walked with sticks

The "hottest" Halloween party when I was in college was this massive dance party thrown every year by the art and architecture graduate students. They had it in this building about halfway up some giant hill (though now I'm wondering if I'm just imagining that it was on a hill due to the "psychological height" I was forced to climb in mustering the courage to attend this party).

Senior year my roommate and I dressed as basketball players from High School Musical for Halloween (age appropriate as ever). We arrived at the art and architecture party and it was something of a mad house. We went outside for fresh air (I think? Actually more likely is that we wandered around inside for 45 minutes and didn't see anyone we knew) and while we were loitering we heard this guy calling at us from the window of an empty room. He asked us if we had a lighter (we didn't) but he was friendly and we were bored and we started chatting and a few minutes later we found ourselves inside his art studio.

His costume was really great. He was a Popsicle... which doesn't sound like it would be so impressive but it was like POPSICLE TO THE MAX (well-tailored one-piece red jumpsuit that I'm pretty sure he had sewn himself; red face paint; surprisingly "real-looking" Popsicle stick affixed to his back). As he sipped on tea, he informed us that he had won the art grad school costume contest earlier that evening.

He also told us about his senior project: a one-man "performance" he was planning in which he was going to carry about seven or eight giant sticks from New Haven to New York. Yes, he was going to walk the 80 or so miles, schlepping these giant eight foot sticks all the way. (I'm pretty sure he used some "artist-y" euphemism for "stick," btw, but I can't remember what it was.) My roommate and I were totally in awe. This guy was a smoking enthusiast/costuming champion/performance artist dude in his late 20s; we were college seniors dressed as Zac Efron for Halloween.

A few months later, I thought he might be a good subject for a profile I had to do for a writing class, so I e-mailed him about meeting up for coffee. He arrived wearing a gold spandex outfit (pants and matching top), which I decided must have been his version of "jeans and a t-shirt" considering the nonchalant way he sauntered into the coffee shop. He told me about The Walk (which had been completed successfully some months earlier) and I listened rapturously.

Even though I ended up writing the profile about a music teacher at a New Haven public school instead, and even though I don't remember a thing he told me about the walk itself other than that he wore the same shirt the whole time, I still find myself thinking about him now and then as if he were a character in a movie I saw a few years ago that I keep meaning to re-watch.

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