While Macalester is unfortunately incapable of bringing a potential presidential nominee to campus every day (though I’m sure Al Sharpton is available), to state the seemingly obvious, there is a plethora of worthwhile events one can attend on campus in any given week. Certainly the entertainment provided by Wednesday’s rally was both welcome and impressive. For those so inspired, it also offered a significant and impassioned political experience.

I attended solely to witness the sheer spectacle of it. Watching a political machine operate in peak form at such a critical juncture was far more entertaining than watching people make appearances in Café Mac at dinner. Beyond this, it offered a temporary reprieve from my usual Wednesday night activities, which consist of editing the sports section of The Mac Weekly. Not that I don’t love being an editor, but the opportunity to attend such an event takes precedence.

Perhaps an important extraction from this seemingly simple conclusion would involve taking a look at why attending such an event seems a welcome opportunity. A simple yet irrefutably valid response is the argument that I’ve made earlier: the event offers an entertaining, hopefully interesting break from the usual.

I wish to extend this idea specifically to weekends, when students have the most free time to attend on-campus extracurricular events, but usually turn to drinking as the default activity. Without discussing the merits of such activity, I can likely argue without significant objection that for many at Macalester, alcohol embodies “the usual” weekend. Accordingly, I would argue that a deviation from this norm should be welcome.

More specifically, events relating to the arts seem like the most significant deviation. The arts offer an opportunity for one to reflect on an experience individually, and beyond this, to interact personally with a particular work. Alternately, the aforementioned “usual” offers an opportunity only for distorted, generally worthless group reflection. I use reflection here very lightly, unless you, dear reader, happen to be Earnest Hemingway sitting on the Left Bank sipping absinthe.

To give a personal example of what I’ve been encouraging, last Saturday, Feb. 21, I attended a piano recital held in the Janet Wallace Fine Arts Center. Macalester Professor Mark Mazullo performed, along with fellow teacher and accomplished pianist Claudia Chen. The recital featured four-hand, two-piano and solo presentations.

It was likely the most worthwhile event I have attended since coming to Macalester. I intend no disrespect towards the other events which have taken place on campus, nor do I wish to belittle those which I have personally attended, as among these there are a number which stand out very impressively: Mac Players’ presentation of Darrio Fo’s Accidental Death of an Anarchist and economist William Grieder’s book-tour stop to name a few.

What stood out about the recital was the intimacy with which audiences could involve themselves in art. Perhaps the greater opportunity for this was afforded by the specific medium of presentation; perhaps my per sonal experience with piano heightened my reaction. Beyond this, however, is the more important concept I’m attempting to address.

Sitting at the recital, the audience was not collectively responding to jokes on a screen, a character’s awkward reaction on stage or a speaker’s controversial assertions. Nor were they drunkenly reacting and migrating with the herd. Instead, the recital afforded each person in the audience the opportunity to sit and immerse himself in each piece.

When Mazullo reached the climax of the final piece––the last in a series of Shostakovich Preludes and Fuges, which he prefaced with an introduction that placed them in a historical context––I was comfortably sitting in the midst of an experience far more rewarding individually than any weekend “usual,” and beyond this, far more rewarding than even a group-experienced artistic experience could afford me.

While a cohesive thesis for this article may be elusive, a sufficient closing thought would simply point to the opportunity such events provide, along with a suggestion to take advantage of this opportunity, even if it requires a deviation from what may be “the usual.”