On the last day of classes at Reed College, the prestigious, small, liberal-arts school in Portland, Ore., placards go up on the borders of campus, announcing to outsiders that for the next two days, the general public is not welcome here. That's to allow "Reedies" (and their invited guests) to celebrate in private the end of their notoriously rigorous classes by blowing off steam at the college's annual "Renn Fayre" event, held this past weekend. It's a hedonistic display of shiny spandex costumes, glitter, painted breasts, lube wrestling, over-the-top public makeout sessions, neon, theses torched in a giant bonfire outside Hauser Library, fireworks, and screaming that can be heard from blocks away.
Think of Renn Fayre as higher education's Burning Man; or Woodstock, without the legendary rock acts. It's a raucous, raging outdoor party, replete with current and former students hoisting one another upon their shoulders and tackling their giggling classmates to the champagne-soaked turf.
And it's no fun sober. To be a teetotaling bystander among the blotto masses at Renn Fayre is to feel like one of those kids lining the walls at the junior-high dance, desperate to exude that "I am having a fantastic time" expression that only looks authentic if you are actually having a fantastic time.
That's why some Reedies are less than stoked about U.S. Attorney Dwight Holton's best effort to clamp down on drug use at the affair, a case made so forcefully in a recent meeting with Reed president Colin Diver that it left Diver wondering whether he might wind up in jail, prosecuted under a federal statute that was enacted by Congress to stiffen penalties on the proprietors of crack houses.
Yes, crack houses. Holton did not actually threaten to lock Diver up. But he did end a meeting that he insists was more about "What can we do to help?" by referencing the statute, which carries a 20-year prison sentence and a $500,000 fine. And when pressed, Holton says he could actually imagine using it, if the college knowingly allowed the kind of open-air drug peddling and usage around which Renn Fayre is long rumored to revolve. "I don't lose any sleep whatsoever at the prospect that I'm going to end up in jail or with a $500,000 fine," Diver told NEWSWEEK. "But it would really, really be unpleasant if either I or the board of trustees were hauled into court on an investigation into whether we were running a crack house. This would not be fun."
Renn Fayre eh? Crack Houses eh? Champagne soaked turf with chicks and drugs eh? Sounds like im taking to a trip to Oregon boys and girls. Asa ama Lanka, sayonara, goodbye and cya fucking later. I mean dont get me wrong I love Mission Hill and drinking beers in my yard watching the cops drive by every 15 minutes but really, i will fucking hitch hike all the way across the United States with my dick tied behind my back if i knew it was gonna get me to the majical and mysterious place of serenity known as Renn Fayre. Shit, if I have a daughter im gonna name her Renn Fayre, it would go along perfect with her brother Stimpy Fayre. I even heard that the place is so magical that when Renn fayre is over all the students just hop on their pet unicorns and fly away to a place of peacfulness kinda like in the movie Avatar..... but not as gay.
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