University of Kansas - Jayhawker Yearbook (Lawrence, KS)

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THE JAYHAWKER IJ I HE number of clubs that have sprung up on the Hill just since school started have reached astonish- ing proportions. We predict that soon the subdivision will be no end confusing. First of all there are two great divisions of Hill students; namely, the organized students and the unorganized students. And then of course the organized group is sub-divided into a good many fraternities and sororities. Now it is getting so that the fraternities and sororities are being sub- divided into even smaller units. The movement started last year, we think, with the formation of the Two-Thirty Club, whose members were those who made the library steps a social center every afternoon at that time. It was formed first semester and got to be such a habit that its members actually formed their second-semester schedules with an eye to that open period at two-thirty. Main activities, besides plain talking and a skilled variety of glazed-eyed loafing, were snow-ball fights that endangered the life of the more serious library students, and mass oaths to do more studying themselves. Started last year and going strong this year is the Thank God It ' s Friday Club, meeting every Friday afternoon on the Pi Phi sun porch to celebrate with pagan en- thusiasm the coming of the week-end. Its members include, besides the Pi Phi nit-wits, a sprinkling of Phi Gams, Sig Alphs, and others. Last year the darned fools bought a flock of these little tenant- store toy instruments that you hum into and organized their own swing band. This year they are Big Appleing and riding around in an old model-A shouting to everyone looking glum, Thank God, It ' s Friday! Resurrected from the past is the old X.O.D.U. (pronounced Exodu), comprising, as the name indicates, some Chi O ' s and D.U. ' s, mostly hellers. Let your imagination run wild on this one, and you won ' t be far wrong. At their weekly meetings they feature souvenirs, pulling up at the Chi O house about ten-thirty loaded down with salt cellars, glasses, menus, and odd signs. Latest is the O.M.G.G.L.S.N.C., the last three letters standing for Sunday Night Club. It ' s composed of three boys and dates who have officers, pledges, a handshake, and a motto. Which reminds me also of another bunch of five boys that get together every Sunday night to spend a quiet evening just wishing that they could have some beer, so they could have a real, old-fashioned Dutch lunch. They call themselves the Ye Gods, Sunday Night Again! Club. It ' s all kind of silly, and could probably be analyzed by a first-rate psychiatrist, but at the rate that the things are springing up, we could make a special column of them. keaton ItJluf.. ke: It just occurred to us the other day, as we were sitting in the Sour Owl hole-in-the-wall the other day, wishing our office was down that near the fountain, the real, fundamental reason behind the peculiar level of the magazine ' s intellect. Since we were sitting on the base of our spine, our eyes lit upon the intake of the ventilating system. Then we noticed that all the doors were closed tight. Since there are no windows, it was obvious that the situation was alarming. The ventilating system was pulling air out all the time and no more was coming in. You see, the Sour Owl is really produced in a small vaccuum. Didn ' t want to be nasty, but thought we ' d just mention it. Now that it ' s here, we wonder what caused it. The Big Apple should not be such a surprise, though. The dancing has been getting more and more open and more and more individual for a year or so. Remember, in about 1932 everyone held his partner

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I- The rushees started from house to house early next morning. It rained a little that day As they left, rushees prettied up for Inside, the sorority girls tried desperately to impress the rushees; the rushees, to impress the next house, exchanged impres- the sorority girls. These are the Alpha Chi ' s sions in whispers. These are in the Kappa hall At the teas, the girls looked like this. Here the Pi Phi ' s are talking fast After the teas, in midnight bull-sessions, they looked like this. These are the A.D.Pi ' s deciding some girls future Preferential dinners brought the curtain down. Squabbles and disappointments forgotten, actives and new pledges celebrated together. Gamma Phi ' s are giving this one

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OCTOBER 19-37 29 close and danced nice, conservative, walking steps to nice, conservative, sentimental tunes? Then we all began loosening up a little, occasionally trying that new-fangled side-wise rumba step. By this year, swinging one ' s partner out was a neat trick that all the better dancers had in their repertoire. Now, it ' s every man for himself. What has caused this trend no one quite agrees on. To us there is a marked similarity between truckin ' or suzy-q-ing and the old Charleston craze that swept the country in the middle twenties. That was just after the catastrophe of the World War; this is just after the catastrophe of the Great Depression. There may be no connection, but we kind of wonder. Perhaps, if dancing is really a spontaneous expression of one ' s spirit, we always try to express our joy or relief in dancing. Also, I think the tremendous popularity of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers had a lot to do with the trend in general. They looked good and above all so, so easy that we all saw no reason why we shouldn ' t try it too. Music had a lot to do with it too. No matter what you say, the kind of music you dance to has a lot to do with what kind of steps you do. For the past three or four years, swing music, with a definite neg- roid flavor, has been in the ascendency. It was in- evitable, then, that we try those slick negroid steps to go with it. What gets us is that some people think it is bad taste. Most of the more conservative fra- ternities on the campus frown on it. We don ' t see how anything that is so spontaneous and so in the mood and feeling of swing music, which no fra- ternity frowns on, can possibly be in bad taste. If it ' s natural, it ' s all right. If the Big Appiers are just doing it to make a spectacle of themselves and there are always some of that kind then we ' re out on it. That ' s about where we stand, while we wait breathlessly for some enterprising couple to try the Lindy Hop. Pi Piu Something has to be done about the Pi Phi phone system. I suppose some of them over there know how it works, but it ' s beyond our more simple understand- ing. We called there the other night, and it went something like this. We asked Operator for 415, she rang, and someone cooed Pi Phi House. We asked for Marianna Bantleon. After a short pause a new voice said, Yes? We said, Marianna-? But just then the first voice said, Marianna Bantleon, please. Whereupon the second voice said, Just a moment, please, and there was another pause, and a click, and several buzzes, and someone chirped, Pi Beta Phi! I said it had been answered, and there was another pause. Then a totally different voice said, Who did you want, please Even Pi Phi ' s sometimes aren ' t worth that much. Jl We are inveterate night owls, and we take a ter- rible beating for it. Our room-mate curses us heartily, sitting up in bed and giving us long lectures on what Society should do to individuals who sleep in the afternoon so they can sit up late studying at night. But somehow we still think we are right. Studying in the day-time, whether in the most crowded room of the library or in one ' s own cubbyhole at home, means a million little subconscious distracting elements either the sight of other people or the sound of other people; or the sense that one could be doing some- thing else; or the sight of sunlight outside. But at night everyone is asleep but the studier. The study lamp carves a little world out of a universe of dark- ness; the reality of the desk is the only reality at all. No one could help but study. Some night when our room-mate isn ' t too surly we ' ll tell him all about it.