In which Bwog daily editor Alexandra Muhler examines whether enormous infusions of the administration’s money can make a Thursday night on campus enjoyable.

The crowds were thick at Lerner tonight for an event excessively fond of wink-wink references to wink-wink cultural icons (event t-shirts had “Glass House Rocks” on the front and “Best Thursday Ever” on the back). Stepping into the packed building, I fretted over whether the awkwardness of running into half the people I know would be worth campus clubs’ booths, snacks, and performances.

A number of the club-dedicated tables and rooms were terrific. Alongside inappropriately sober community service clubs playing videos of starving children in Third World nations were spicier groups like Conversio Virium, which distributed a connect-the-dots worksheet inappropriate for publication on a family-oriented blog. Also notable was the Chinese Student Club’s tea-pong room, and the noticeably diminished skill of all its abstemious (2 IDs to drink) players.

The snack tables were many but had been torn through within an hour of doors’ opening. Still, Hershey’s kisses, and occasionally the finer bite-size candies, were plentiful on group tables. The Society of Undergraduate Chemists (who knew such a thing existed?) ingeniously prepared a mixed-berry ice cream, which tasted so mysterious that neither I nor any of the people I ate it with can describe it.

The performances were of mixed quality, though some were exhilarating.  The three northern walkways of Lerner made a bizarre stage. Larger groups used the space to great effect, working every level of the building and asserting their raunchiness all over the audience from every direction. Smaller groups seemed still more shrunken by the scale of their stage, and the detail of their movement was lost in the haphazard lighting. Sabor’s bunny-tailed spandex exertions were a veritable dance-extravaganza. Among the periodic performances in the smaller rooms, CU Belly Dance elicited real audience enthusiasm, culminating in a belly dance breakdown with the lights out.

But none of these small delights could match the miraculous transformation of drab Roone Arledge Auditorium into an inflatable wonderland. The blow-up realms of fun were out of bounds for wristbanded over-21s, and amply compensated for the enforced sobriety of us minors. Inflatable twister was unexpectedly challenging. American Gladiator-style combat and excessively-large-gloved boxing were a perfect way to blow off steam at the end of the week. Best of all was a game in which two competitors run as fast as they can down a lane while attached to a bungee-corded vest. Technically, the one who makes it furthest along the lane (marked by a Velcro bobbin attached to the median) wins, but the pleasure of jumping back at the furthest point of one’s run makes it a neck-spraining good time for all. Glass House Rocks, surprisingly, was a blast. But would it be too much to make a request for next year? Because a bouncy castle would be terrific.