Grinnell College

On weeknights the Danish Maid Bakery finishes baking its pastries at 2 a.m. If you’re up late studying (or doing anything else for that matter), it’s traditional to take a quick run downtown to get something fresh out of the oven.

The traditional outdoor Alice party began in 1980, died out in the ‘90s, and has recently been revived. The main point of Alice is to get as “trippy” as possible, in the literal, hallucinogenic sense of the word. While not everyone at Alice is actually tripping, the party focuses on activities that could be really cool in an altered state, like making tie-dye shirts and mixing a giant batch of home-made playdough in a kiddie pool.

On the last day of finals, a sizable chunk of High Street is blocked off from early in the afternoon until early evening. A beer truck is pulled in, a live campus band strikes up, and couches, tables, and chairs are hauled out into the street. Normally, the cops look the other way, and everyone parties like there’s no tomorrow. Most students say the main purpose of Block Party is to get extremely drunk, but on a nice summer day after you’ve won your freedom from a hard school, sitting out in the sun with a bunch of friends is fun any way you look at it.

It’s a tradition to scrawl graffiti on the walls of the bathroom on Burling 4th. Some of the scribbles are profound, and some are petty, but it does contribute to the unique place that the most remote corner of the library holds in many Grinnellian’s hearts. The Burling 4th Bathroom also has a reputation for being the location of many scandalous encounters.

By far the most popular drinking game at Grinnell, this beloved sport involves an ice cube tray, a quarter, and a whole lot of beer. The ice cube tray is set up in a line away from the person whose turn it is with a full beer cup directly behind it. The idea is to bounce the quarter into the ice cube tray. If you succeed in getting it in the tray, count how many ice cubes away from the front the quarter landed; this represents the number of chugs of beer involved. If the quarter lands on the right side of the tray, you select one other person playing the game to take that many chugs. If it lands on the left side, you drink that many chugs of beer. If the quarter lands in the last two cube compartments, everyone has to put their hands up next to their head (moose-antler style) and scream “Moose!” The last person who does this has to drink the whole cup of beer (known as the “Moose Cup”). If the person playing gets the quarter into the cup, he or she has to drink the Moose Cup. The tray moves on to the next person as soon as the person playing misses. Most students are introduced to this game their freshman year.

One Acts is a theater tradition on campus that has been going on for years. These short plays are student directed and acted, and each lasts for about 15 minutes to half-an-hour. They’re usually played in The Wall Performance Lab in Bucksbaum for two nights, and like most plays, they sell out quickly, so get a ticket early. The types of plays range from conventional to extremely experimental. Some are actually student-written.

This late spring event is something of a spoof on the Olympics, complete with a faculty-lit flaming toilet bowl to kick off the games. The ensuing events are basically beer sports, including keg stands and the like. Recently, the administration decreed that the beer used must be non-alcoholic, but while the beverage in the games may be O’Douls, the beer kegs in nearby residence halls are anything but.

Around finals, a student art show is held in Faulconer Gallery. All students can submit works, and a professional artist judges the pieces and decides which ones to include in the show. The judge also decides which piece is the best in the show. Two runners-up are also named.

These are the two formal dances at Grinnell that take place, as the name suggests, every winter and spring. The dress code is very formal. Men wear tuxes or suits and women wear dresses fit for Prom night. High-class pre-parties with fancy foods are the norm, and most people get a bit drunk before hitting the dance floor in front of a live jazz band. Sometimes, campus groups host a dance class before the waltz so people actually know what to do when the waltzing music starts. Normally, students end up looking like fools, but it’s a blast all the same.

Near the end of the school year, Grinnell hosts a spoof film festival where students submit movies that run under five minutes. Tickets always disappear early, but it is fairly simple to make fake ones using the right kind of paper and a high-quality copy machine (don’t ask me how I know this). A panel of judges hands out zany-looking trophies to the best films, and a series of prank awards for all the runners-up. The event has spawned campus classics such as “Racquetball Tunak Tunak Tun,” which follows a racquetball game set to the title song all over campus, and “Burling: I Do It All The Time,” a music video for the Violent Femmes song “Kiss Off” set in Burling library, both of which are available on Phynd.