CornellWatch

When I attended the first Kitsch meeting of the Fall 2011 Semester I learned about the Ithaca Freeskool, a nonprofit volunteer community school inspired by similar getups in Santa Cruz, California. The conversation below was with volunteer Lily Gershon.

Shea: When did Ithaca Freeskool start?

Lily: Our earliest calendar is from 2007. Dirk Trachy and another early organizer had visited Santa Cruz California and seen their Freeskool in action. When they returned to Ithaca they started their own version here.

Shea: What is its main mission?

Lily: Freeskool is a grassroots, not for profit, all volunteer community building initiative that creates spaces where people teach and attend classes with one another without cost. Primarily, but not exclusively, geared towards adults, anyone can teach and anyone can attend. Freeskool fosters ties between people and provides access to skills and knowledge in an informal and empowering setting.

Shea: Tell me some logistics: cost of running the program, things the organization does to promote, etc.

Lily: We have three semesters a year. Each semester we need some money for printing, maybe 300 calendars at 10 cents each and the paper, maybe $20. Each semester we put up flyers, write press releases, email our mailing list and update our website and Facebook. We also just spread the word by telling people.

No one gets paid. Sometimes when we have money from grants or donations we make videos, buttons, and purchase snacks for social events.

Shea: Who are the staff members?

Lily: We don’t exactly have a “staff”, more like volunteers. They are me, Mckenzie Jones-Rounds, Dirk Trachy, Greg Rothman, Marina Gershon, Shira Golding and Ari Moore.

Shea: What are some of your favorite classes taught in the past?

Lily: Breakdancing, Capoiera, Mushroom Walk, Origami Night, Queer Erotica Writing Group, Bike Mechanics, Traditional and Experimental Animation, Improv class, DIY Movie Making.

Shea: For anyone just learning what Ithaca Freeskool is, what would you tell them?

Lily: Ithaca Freeskool is a group of people who organize free classes in and for the community. The classes are taught by anyone who has an interest in sharing their knowledge and skills. The classes are informal, held often in people’s homes, or public spaces. Anyone can attend. It’s a great way to discuss issues in a community and explore the kinds of things people are most currently interested in. And it’s an alternative to main stream education which often lacks flexibility and can be very costly. It’s a lot of fun participating in something that changes every semester, and brings in all the diverse interests of a community.

Questions about classes? Visit their website at ithacafreeskool.wordpress.com or e-mail the “staff” at ithaca_freeskool@riseup.net

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It’s no small feat to take one of the glitziest, most tech-heavy productions on Broadway and summarily cram it into the Risley theater.  Still, the Melodramatics’ production of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels makes the jump with aplomb, bringing charm and quirkiness into a show that never takes itself too seriously.

Ithaca College’s Eric Hagreen opens the show as aging con man Lawrence Jameson, looking strangely like a white-haired Chuck Bass.  He’s an expert at the game but rapidly growing tired with the oh-so-dull prospect of seducing bored, wealthy women out of their money.  As if on cue, out of the heavens stumbles Freddy Benson (IC’s Danny Bristoll), a small-change grifter looking to get glam.  Add in one hilariously corrupt French chief of police (Alex Mogil) and everyone’s favorite wide-eyed heroine (Sarah Charles), and watch the shenanigans ensue.

Despite the occasional technical foul or line flub (it was the final dress, after all), the show is a masterpiece of professional-level vocal talent.  And while there’s no Broadway-style spinning staircase, there is on-point comedic timing (dished out particularly viciously by Colleen Gburek’s Jolene Oaks) and a plot so full of twists that you, like Jameson’s conned women, will be left waking up the next morning feeling confused, but deeply, deeply satisfied.

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels opens Thursday, November 11 and plays for two weekends.  Get tickets (fast!) at melodramaticstickets.com.

You asked for it, folks (well, maybe not explicitly, but we could feel it), and we provided it: Kitsch Magazine is hosting its first-ever Burlesque Poetry Night!

Strap-ons and Sylvia Plath compilations optional.

Come cheer on your friends and mock your enemies as they struggle to read Keats through the haze of liquid-courage vodka tonics!

Level B, 11/11, 8:30-until we can’t stand to hear the sound of our own voices
$7 includes a $4 drink

See you there!

Most of us at Cornell know Barton Hall as the campus gymnasium, or the building where our most awful final exams take place.  But unbeknownst to many current Cornellians, there exists a group of individuals out there for whom Barton Hall is more than a giant room with excessive echo.  It is the site of the most legendary performance of one of the most influential bands of the century: The Grateful Dead.  It is no wonder then, that Dead enthusiasts that follow the band around the country would flock to the Dead Head mecca of Barton Hall for the Furthur concert on February 14^th, 2010. Read the rest of this entry »

On this lovely Thursday night (tonight, that is) at 8pm, I’m bringing the folks at IVY — that Ithaca College-produced show that Cornellians love to hate — to Willard Straight Hall’s Memorial Room for a sneak preview of their second season, which debuts April 14th. Come meet the people who pretend to be people who are supposed to represent you, Cornellian, in some approximate fashion. Yeah.

Another thing I’m working on is called Sneuth, which stands for snoop and sleuth (and maybe snark) all put into one clunky yet surprisingly cool-sounding neologism. Our first project is Alternatournell, an alternate look at Cornell in video form as above. Check it out, and tell prospective freshman about it PLEASE. The first installment will be out Monday. Even if you don’t like the video content (it’s jerky at times :/ ), Get Low is involved. TO THE WINDOWWW. TO THE WALLLL.

Since I’m really into alliteration and forcing myself to do things on a weekly basis, I’m introducing ‘Malgam Mondays. This start-off-the-week-on-the-informed-foot feature will, with a few exceptions, be a regurgitation/reanimation of the stuff I’ve starting posting to the News Ticker, which shows up on CornellWatch itself on the top right side but not on the main Kitsch-Ka-Blogs page. This way I can wipe it clean each week. Here’s the best of the boring things that happened since I started the Ticker. Click on for even more boring stuff.

Least appreciated Cornell alum in hot water over technicality: Ann Coulter voted in Connecticut while living in New York. In other news, no one really cares. Except maybe the person who photoshopped the image at left. [Cornell Insider] P.S. We apologize to any Nazis offended by the image.

Milstein hits new roadblock: The plans for the construction of Architecture building Milstein Hall have already taken 10 years to push through. But no! It must not go forward, claim annoying profs like Vincent Mulcahy, who doth protest the lack of accessibility to differently-abled persons: “A handicap [sic] person who might want to study architecture here, it’s impossible.” [News 10 Now]

The nerve!: Either CornellWatch is too young, too unread, and/or too unfabulous, or we got SNUBBED by USNews.com in their “Best Alternative Media Outlet 2008″ contest. Whatever. IvyGate is in dead last, so we’re going to try to be schadenfreude-y about that. [USNews.com]

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HOT OFF THE PRESSES: The Daily Sun made a landmark move today in deciding to print the columns of two writers known to be flamingly gay on the same exact page. It is unclear whether the publication itself was a heartwarming act of tolerance toward God-forsaken faggots or if the faggots in question, by some mischevious act such as they are wont to engage in, highjacked the electronic and mechanical methods by which the Sun normally engages in printing its newspaper thing. In any case, John-David Brown discussed his sinful acts of sodomy at length in his column, a column that was a narcissistic, self-indulgent litany of ” ‘interesting’ tidbits about [himself].” The one I speak of is number 13, a number known to be in violation of God’s Code because of the pagan belief that it is bad luck: “I have a premature ejactulation problem when I’m on Adderal or trying to be on top. Did you know that about me? I think not.” Did you know that I didn’t want to know that? I think so. And Peter Fritch’s column was equally, if not more, blasphemous:

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Last semester, conservatives bristled at the fact that their (parents’) hard-earned money was being spent on an event that instructed doe-eyed college kids in the wonderful, sinful ways of buttsex. They even showed up to protest! (And the Daily Sun caught it on video.) This semester’s Women’s Resource Center production was a bit less, shall we say, ass-positive; and, despite certain scatological inclinations, it was kinda disappointingly tame.

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