the infamous mod 6 winter/spring 1982

I started Hamphire on B2 short-side in Merrill dorm. My still friend Kurt Ehrenberg lived in the next room over. Mary Ellis and Warren Hays lived on the long-side. In the Spring I took over Kurt's L-shaped room and Kurt moved to the Greenwich donuts, some of the on-campus apartments that happened to be in buildings shaped like donuts. I kept Kurt's old room for four semesters (it was a good room) until I left for Berkeley. Mary moved up to D4 in Dakin (the other "traditional" dorm) the next fall. That was the center of much socializing and the D4 lounge was a big hang-out. Mary and Warren wound up breaking up and Mary started seeing Staats Abrams who lived on E4. Beth Bellman lived over on F4 and her girlfriend Bonne Beste lived on D4. Tom Hays lived on E4 with Tony Orlow, JF, and Audrey Carangelo. There was a tremendous amount of energy in those halls.

When I returned to Hampshire after California I lived on the top floor of Mod 54 in Enfield (on-campus apartments that were just like very cheap prefab condos) with good friend Kurt and Warren Goldstien a/k/a Warren Peace. While that was fun I spent an enormous amount of time at the new hangout Mod 6 in Greenwich which Audrey had founded with JF and Tony and this bizarre couple Fred and Nancy, who shared the double. Mod 6 was desirable because it only had four rooms, most mods were much bigger. If Hampshire was an experimental college Mod 6 was definitely on the frontier. It was full of so many intense personalities. Warren wound up showing up from Berkeley to add much fuel to the fire. For the Spring Fred and Nancy were out and I was in getting the double to myself. That was the Winter and Spring of 1982. By the time I moved in the whole living room was one big collage. I think our brains became a collage. Even Steve Parker turned up for a while. In the meantime I was trying to finish my Division II and my last Division I exam so I could graduate ontime and escape my parents' wrath, who because of the nature of Hampshire were completely in the dark as to my academic progress. Thinking back it makes me weary just to even dream of the amount of frenetic energy that living in Mod 6 entailed. I remember the Mod 6 Rules (somewhat coopted from the Band Flipper): 1) Don't be Stupid. 2)Make Art. 3) Don't Make Any Art That is Stupid. 4) Do or Say Whatever is on Your Mind. 5) Don't Do or Say Anything that is Stupid. 6) Have a Nice Day! I wrote the odd ones, Tony wrote the even ones. It definitely had a certain flow to it. I remember Tony and Kurt laughing hysterically when they joked about telling a new Mod 54 inhabitant that the only rule at Mod 54 was don't shit on the floor. Of course it was the infamous Aleister Crowley who proclaimed "Do as Thou Wilt Shall be the Whole of the Law" so don't shit on the floor isn't that far off. Anyway, I can't even really describe my time in Mod 6, other than it was very, very, intense and I survived with my sanity intact (or did I?) and managed to pass my last Division I and Division II on the day before the deadline, just barely. Wow, talk about stress. Plus I just used to think so hard back then. I was definitely determined to figure everything out. So after school let out Tony and I took off for Alaska and when I came back I moved to Mod 76 in Prescott which was an awesome place that was quite a bit more down to earth.