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The Spin on Willy
Apr. 12th, 2008 10:14 amAs promised, here is a brief report on the viewing of a documentary important to Rice people.
Yesterday Bon and I went to the premiere of "180 - The Spin on Willy's Statue", an event hosted by the Alumni Association, and a collaboration of the Rice Historical Society and the Rice Engineering Alumni. April 11 is the 20th anniversary of the most famous prank in Rice history, the turning of the statue of the university founder. The 1-ton bronze statue was lifted at a height of 18', spun around, and set back in place on its dais, all without the use of motorized lifting equipment.
The alumni event whatever you would call a sausage-fest, only it was mostly bluehairs instead of men. (There ought to be a word for this.) I suppose anything associated with the Alumni groups would be this way by default, but it surprised me not to see more of my contemporaries. I was present at Rice at the time of the turning, and I did have an adventure associated with the turning, but I wasn't part of the prankster crew and didn't even really know any of the main group.
The film itself was enjoyable. There were a lot of good laughing moments; I particularly enjoyed the commentary from RUPD. Key points:
* Much like the Curse of Tutankhamen, it appears that William Marsh Rice's ghostly hand has risen from his grave, and its cursed touch has fallen upon the hairlines of the conspirators. I'm just sayin'.
* I was amused to learn that they were feverishly working on just about everything up until minutes before the turning, and in fact they were several hours late to their window of time. RICE STUDENTS.
* The music was pretty 80's-characteristic. I wasn't listening to much Yaz at the time, but it still set the scene.
* My chief gripe was the editing. There were a lot of ragged cuts, particularly in the middle of interviews with people, and it was disconcerting.
* I feel the documentary did a great job of depicting what I really hope people remember, which is that other than a few select fuddy-duddies in the school administration, just about everybody in the universe thought the prank was great fun and a harmless good time. Were the conspirators to unearth the original teeshirt lithograph and run another print of shirts, they could make ONE MILLION DOLLARS. And since they have endowed an engineering fund at Rice, I think that could be a decent if small-scale contributor to the pool.
I didn't say for the Q&A as I had other plans, but I thought the documentary itself was a good time. Any Rice person will enjoy the viewing of it; most non-Rice persons will likely not give a shit.
Yesterday Bon and I went to the premiere of "180 - The Spin on Willy's Statue", an event hosted by the Alumni Association, and a collaboration of the Rice Historical Society and the Rice Engineering Alumni. April 11 is the 20th anniversary of the most famous prank in Rice history, the turning of the statue of the university founder. The 1-ton bronze statue was lifted at a height of 18', spun around, and set back in place on its dais, all without the use of motorized lifting equipment.
The alumni event whatever you would call a sausage-fest, only it was mostly bluehairs instead of men. (There ought to be a word for this.) I suppose anything associated with the Alumni groups would be this way by default, but it surprised me not to see more of my contemporaries. I was present at Rice at the time of the turning, and I did have an adventure associated with the turning, but I wasn't part of the prankster crew and didn't even really know any of the main group.
The film itself was enjoyable. There were a lot of good laughing moments; I particularly enjoyed the commentary from RUPD. Key points:
* Much like the Curse of Tutankhamen, it appears that William Marsh Rice's ghostly hand has risen from his grave, and its cursed touch has fallen upon the hairlines of the conspirators. I'm just sayin'.
* I was amused to learn that they were feverishly working on just about everything up until minutes before the turning, and in fact they were several hours late to their window of time. RICE STUDENTS.
* The music was pretty 80's-characteristic. I wasn't listening to much Yaz at the time, but it still set the scene.
* My chief gripe was the editing. There were a lot of ragged cuts, particularly in the middle of interviews with people, and it was disconcerting.
* I feel the documentary did a great job of depicting what I really hope people remember, which is that other than a few select fuddy-duddies in the school administration, just about everybody in the universe thought the prank was great fun and a harmless good time. Were the conspirators to unearth the original teeshirt lithograph and run another print of shirts, they could make ONE MILLION DOLLARS. And since they have endowed an engineering fund at Rice, I think that could be a decent if small-scale contributor to the pool.
I didn't say for the Q&A as I had other plans, but I thought the documentary itself was a good time. Any Rice person will enjoy the viewing of it; most non-Rice persons will likely not give a shit.
