Somebody has to make all those violins

For the past week Oberlin has been invaded by dozens upon dozens of campers, from soccer camps, to baroque music camps, to Scottish arts camps. Basically what this means a combination of things, one being that sitting in my office--always the wrong office--I'm barraged by lost children who make random requests that I have no business helping them with; the other being that there are bagpipe sounds coming from everywhere.

Fortunately, last night I had the good fortune of stumbling upon a yearly conference of violin and violin bow makers. I was attracted to this even based upon the sheer level of ruckus they were causing from Tank, more commotion than the hardcore/folk punk show--which they later ended up attending--was turning out. Some of us decided to walk over to see what all of the fuss was about and discovered a porch laden with smashed violin pieces, boozed up craftsmen from across the globe, and a badminton court with the racquets replaced with violins. That's right, badminton played with actual violins as racquets. After playing a few matches with our inebriated hosts we extended in invite to come get their ho-down across the street to a folk-punk band from Minneapolis (where else?). All-in-all the night proved yet again that the kids and the grown ups all love to get wasted and dance to some fiddlin.