power of the collective mind

Rene Descartes walks into a bar. The bartender says, “Would you like a drink?”
Descartes tilts his head and replies, “I think not.”
And vanishes.

I love that joke, but I love the theory of collective thought even more, although I think it might have been Hegel’s theory, not Descartes’. Maybe it was Durkheim. Bah. My point is that I have had some fantastic group encounters tonight that didn’t involve anything dirtier than a cafeteria table.

This evening, Maureen and I went to Red Raisins Café, the biggest cafeteria on campus, for a committee meeting for the International Society. Now, I’m not planning to head up some sort of committee, but if I can get a game of Journey To The End Of The Night or The Architect and The Urchin going, I would be pretty pleased. The group seemed enthusiastic and willing to try any and all activities that would involve Irish and international students. Heck, they’re screening this movie on Friday night for free, but they seem to be relying on word-of-mouth advertising.

Word-of-mouth can be a tricky thing. Like a game of telephone, the original story could get lost in the mix. Or, maybe it’s like the story Maureen and I heard at the meeting…

“Didja hear ‘bout the American student whose coat got stolen by some gipsy? Ya, I think his name was Andrew, or something…”

His name is Anthony, and he gave his coat to a Romanian girl “because she was beautiful,” but I suspect by tomorrow the rumor will say that he was actually kidnapped by a band of gypsies and escaped, but lost his coat.

After that, we met up with Sarah and Randi at Scholars Pub for our first dose of traditional Irish music. Sarah, who plays the violin, was the picture of joy. Randi, Maureen and I also got into it. There’s a snippet of video that I took. I loved the music and how easily the group responded to changes in song. I still don’t know if they were simply practicing or improvising, but I suppose it doesn’t really matter. They did it as a group, and that is something worth watching.