my grandfather's clock

this is not about my grandfather's clock. i imagine my grandfather(s) have clock(s) but i don't know anything about them.

on friday, i distributed zines.

for much of the day, i wandered around campus and gave a zine about housing to admitted students who were visiting. this was really fun. people were by and large curious or interested. i tried to hand out zines to a tour groups, and the tour guides were occasionally upset by this, but never actually did anything. some of the people i tried to hand zines to said they had already gotten one from someone else, which made me happy.

for a couple hours, i tabled with some friends handing out a larger variety of zines. we tried to do it in the student life center but they kicked us out so we went to the library. the library was lovely and gave us no trouble. one of the staff members even came over and said they had to get back to work but they wanted some and they grabbed one of each.

there were a lot of other wonderful interactions that afternoon. i have so much love for all the shy people who came up, grabbed a zine or two, and didn't say much. i used to be there, and sometimes i still am. i had a lot of fun trying to coax square looking guys to come and grab some, and was successful in a few cases. 

a selection of the zines we had

the craziest interaction i had happened maybe half an hour before i packed up. a guy was walking past and i tried to catch his eye, gesturing at the sign we had that said free zines. after a couple attempts, he came over to the table, and i told him about the zines we had. he brushed right past that, and in a very thick english accent proceeded to ask me if i wanted the record he was holding, as he was trying to get rid of it. i asked him what it was, and he said it had some old songs on it including "my grandfather's clock" i told him i didn't know that one, and he broke into song. i don't think i can adequately recreate the experience. i took the record, he didn't take a zine, and he left.

the song, i've later learned, was written in 1876 by henry clay work and is popular among english brass bands and bluegrass musicians. i can't find an online version of the record, but you can listen to johnny cash's version if you'd like. or do your own research and tell me about it :)

the record also has a version of  drill ye tarriers drill on it, which is a song i quite like. you can listen to the uvm catamount singer's version below if you'd like, although it's a bit different than the version on the record. it is a good arrangement though. very similar to what i sung in high school, and really makes good use of splitting along bass/tenor and soprano/alto lines.

 

the record also had some others songs that i liked and hope to get to know better

the whole day was a really pleasant and rewarding experience. it's nice to meet so many new people, if only briefly, and add something positive to their day.