The Riffin' Griffin – A blog by and for Reed College alumni. Find posts by category listed below!

A Very Reedie Limerick

Reed hosted a limerick contest in 2015, and while many are too lewd to share here, a few struck me as particularly worth revisiting, ten years later.

There once was a poor kid so alien
to her family episcopalian
she became a red Reedie
and took up graffiti
in the form of a thesis Hegelian.
Anonymous Reedie

Would you believe me if I told you there were 17 theses listed in the library with “Hegel” in the title? That feels a little low, if I’m being honest…

Those debates on the Reed Facebook forum
Tend to bring out the worst trolly foram.
They stick out their tongues
And find themselves stung.
‘Cause to Olde Reed and Nu? They just bore ’em.
Anonymous Reedie

Thank goodness Reed (Unofficial) has settled down a bit in the last 11 years…

Reed’s symbol, our favorite Doyle owl
Must be stolen, lest someone cry foul.
Each and every theft Leaves some Reedies bereft
And incites other ones to the prowl.
Janet Svirsky ’64

The Doyle Owl makes me feel the need to wax poetic from time to time myself, for sure.

“Kids these days have gone soft in the head;
they should do it the old way, instead!”
Hey, it’s ok to mourn –
but no need for such scorn.
Every era’s Olde Reed will be dead.
Lev Navarre Chao ’12

Ah yes, the second most common motto at Reed, behind “Atheism, Communism, Free Love”–Olde Reed is Dead. I like Lev’s take on the matter, though!

Humming off to the Great Lawn,

The Prexy Ghost

X Marks the Midget: The Story of the Car Under the Library

Every school has one or two crazy incidents that get cemented in its history. Reed has many such cases, but the one that I would like to focus on is the car buried under the library. Some alumni still do not believe that this actually happened, but the photographic evidence suggests otherwise. According to the legends, a (at the time) certain student called Mark Verna ’87 had bought a car called an MG Midget. After graduation, the MG stayed in the east parking lot while Mark went off to find work. Eventually, the MG got moved off campus to the red house, which was an apartment that was frequently rented out to students during the 80s. Because the car had been neglected for so long, the neighbors soon called for the city to get rid of the MG.

This is when our band of merry heroes enter the scene: May 1988. A gaggle of students took it upon themselves to bury the car. Up the hill to the red house they trekked, and down the hill they dragged the MG Midget. Their final destination? The Hauser Library. At the time, an extension was being built, and there was a giant hole that was going to be filled with concrete for the foundation. That hole was going to be the MG’s final resting place.

An nighttime image of several people standing around a pit that contains a half-buried car

But, you see, simply dumping a car into the official hole would have gotten it removed with lots of angry people involved and tons of burned up cash, so instead the group decided to instead dig a hole under the hole. This way, the construction crew would not know until it was too late. Thus, the students began digging, for several hours. When they rolled the car into the new hole, they realized that the car still peeked out a little and that the hole was not deep enough, so the students decided to do some percussive modifications to the car, like popping the tires, and beating down the windshield so the car fit in the hole. They then filled in the hole with dirt and promptly left as if nothing ever happened. The story of the buried car later got lost in the wind tunnels of time and became more and more like a fairy tale.

There still is some speculation from various experts, who still do not quite believe that a car is indeed under the library. Their reasons range from digging such a perfect square hole takes a lot longer than a night, to the concrete structures in the photos don’t match up with the library exactly. Yet, the alums who participated in the burial of the car insist that there is indeed a car under the library and that the night’s events did in fact transpire. William Abernathy ’88 said, “I have to apologize to the experts, But there is a car down there.” Abernathy was the one who popped the tires. Still, this ranks as one of the top pranks to ever happen in Reed history.

A nighttime image of several people using tools to dig in dirt

In 2011, the Reed Magazine published a feature on this mystery. If you’re an armchair skeptic, I encourage you to read through the article, and top it off with the notes to the editor published in the following issue! More alumni chime in with their own evidence.

An alum named Dave Conlin ’88 wrote this limerick about the MG:

There once was a Reedie named Mark,
His MG the butt of a lark,
In a story from fairies,
Under the library now buried,
As the Pharaohs once did with their ark.

Tunneling my way to the Library,

William Clarke ’27

The Beautiful, the Soul Crushing, and the Leaking: A Brief History of the Buildings on Reed Campus

When walking around Reed College, one can see a lot of buildings in various styles. These different styles represent the changes in Reed’s history and can be defined into four types of architectural styles: collegiate gothic, modernist, post modernist, and contemporary modernist.

In the college’s beginning, most of the important buildings were built in the style of Collegiate Gothic. Buildings such as Eliot Hall and Old Dorm Block (ODB) were built with lots of brick and stone, and these buildings were emulating older buildings like the dorms of Princeton and University of Pennsylvania which in turn emulated gothic style architecture and even older college buildings like St. John’s College in Oxford. The architect Albert E. Doyle was the one who designed both ODB and Eliot using a slightly different style called Tudor style. In fact, the arch facing the Great Lawn on ODB, called ‘Sallyport,’ is a replica taken from a tudor manor called Compton Wynyates which was built in honor of Henry VIII. Eventually, Collegiate Gothic fell out of fashion in the 1920s and there was demand for a new style of buildings.

Eliot Hall and the Old Dorm Block in 1913, right after completion of ODB

After Doyle died in 1928, his protege Pietro Beluski took over and designed many of the buildings on campus. A change in architect meant a change in architectural style, and Belewski was a modernist. A couple of Beluski’s buildings on campus are the McNaughton, Foster, and Scholtz dorms that many alumni may not remember so fondly. (I have heard rumors that the paint job inside was a psychology thesis trying to see what colors would make students most likely to drop out.)

Unlike the detailed and beautiful architecture of Eliot and ODB, McNaughton, Foster, Scholtz were built with one word in mind: practicality. The school needed to house students and those buildings did the jobs perfectly. Another modernist building on campus is the psychology building, formerly the chemistry building. While one could say that the introduction of modernism on campus brought many buildings that did not fit with the style of Reed college, another can look at it more like Reed casting off a bourgeois influence.

The original modernist chemistry building

After a while, people wanted a break from the soul crushing bleakness of modernism; postmodernism was a way for architects to be playful with the designs of their buildings. Vollum Hall is a building on the Reed College campus that one could say was built in a postmodernist style; others would argue that it just looks really 70s. Another example would be the extension built onto the library. While it blends in with the older section of the library, it is not Tudor by design and contains many postmodern elements.

Finally, the most modern buildings on the Reed campus belong to the contemporary modernist architectural style. Two examples of this include the Performing Arts Building, and Reed’s newest dorm, Trillium. While not a full return to the hyper practicality of modernist architecture, there still was a belief that function mattered more than form. The Performing Arts Building was made to center all of the arts in one building, and so it has practice rooms for music, dance studios, etc., but it fits the design of other Reed buildings by its usage of brick. Trillium also uses brick, just not the red ones that we are used to seeing on the various buildings. The usage of bricks shows how architects are trying to make buildings pleasing to the eye or at the very least fit in with the other buildings while trying to make them as functional as possible.

The different buildings at Reed represent different eras of Reed College along with the hopes and desires of the various architects that built them. Taking a walk around Reed campus is a lot like traveling through different eras of Reed College. You are time traveling through the different periods of Reed and seeing what were the college’s needs, its hopes, and its dreams.

With An Eye On Campus,

William Clarke ’27

Reunions was so fun; maybe we should like, do this every year or something?

Reunions 2025 is over! Aside from the fact that I now have lost my only excuse for staying up unreasonably late and getting paid to do so, I enjoyed it. How about you? Did you meet new people? Catch up with old people? Do drugs? Actually, don’t answer that last one.

The audience of the All-Purpose Humanities Lecture

There were a lot of events to go to and many people to meet up with: over 1,000 attendees and nearly 100 events to attend! My personal favorite event was Paul Edison-Lahm ’83’s walking tour on the architecture of Reed, followed closely by the rugby game (celebrating 50 years of rugby at Reed!), and driving people around in a golf cart.

In case anyone did not know, there was also a scavenger hunt, made by Matt Giraud ’85, that took you all around the Reed campus (that’s what all the cryptic messages taped on various buildings was about). I was one of the lucky few who answered the call to go on the quest and send President Foster home.

For those who drank too much to remember, Friday was when everyone met up at the International Plaza and ate good food with Meatsmoke (where all the language houses are), and Saturday was on the Great Lawn, where everybody ate grilled meat while the light show was going on. I hope you, dear reader, also had as much fun as I did during Reunions, and I look forward to next year’s reunions. I’ve spotted myself a few times in the photos of the weekend–proof that I didn’t just eat grilled meat. Take a look yourself?

Doing a doughnut in a golf cart,

William

Oh The Humanities – Hum 110 Inspired Cocktails

Harry Mersmann ’82 helmed a Hum 110 Alumni Book Club this year, and he enriched his group’s virtual romp through the syllabus by creating a cocktail recipe for them to enjoy from their own homes. Harry shares these recipes with all who are interested, to accentuate their own visit to ancient Sumer and Babylon, Pharaonic Egypt, ancient Israel and Yehud, the Persian empire, and the archaic and classical Greek city-states.

Unit I: Gilgamesh / The Limits of Civilization: Walls and Other Boundaries

For Gilgamesh, given how much death there is in the text, I went simple with a Death in the Afternoon (1 ½ oz absinthe topped with 5oz sparkling wine), although Hemingway might have been cranky.

Unit II: Sinuhe & Eloquent Peasant / Hierarchies and Boundary Crossing

Sinuhe’s Journey Cocktail

Ingredients:

2 oz Pomegranate juice (symbolizing life and fertility)
1.5 oz Gin (representing the journeys and encounters)
0.5 oz Honey syrup (1:1 honey and water, for sweetness)
0.5 oz Fresh lemon juice (for balance)
1 oz Fresh cucumber juice (for a refreshing note)
A dash of cardamom bitters (to evoke the spices of the ancient world)
Fresh mint leaves (for garnish)
Pomegranate seeds (for garnish)

Method:

Prepare the Cucumber Juice: Blend fresh cucumber and strain to extract the juice.
Mix the Ingredients: In a cocktail shaker, combine pomegranate juice, gin, honey syrup, lemon juice, cucumber juice, and a dash of cardamom bitters.
Shake: Fill the shaker with ice and shake well until chilled.
Strain and Serve: Strain the mixture into a chilled glass filled with ice.
Garnish: Top with fresh mint leaves and a sprinkle of pomegranate seeds.
Enjoy: Sip and reflect on Sinuhe’s adventures and the rich tapestry of ancient Egypt.

Optional Twist:

For a sparkling version, top with a splash of soda water or sparkling wine to add effervescence, reminiscent of the Nile’s vitality.

This cocktail captures the essence of Sinuhe’s journey through the use of rich, vibrant flavors and symbolic ingredients, making it a delightful nod to the ancient narrative!

Unit III: Genesis / Making Order

The Forbidden Fruit

Ingredients:

1 oz Honeycrisp apple vodka
1 oz Peach Vodka
½ oz lemon juice
6 oz lemon-lime soda

Method:

Serve over ice in a Collins glass or even better, a hollowed-out pineapple, orange, papaya, or coconut. Garnish with your choice of earthly delights or an edible orchid.

Unit IV: Exodus and Theogony / Making Order II

The Burning Bush Cocktail

A fiery, aromatic drink with layers of flavor to evoke the spiritual and dramatic journey of Exodus.

Ingredients

2 oz mezcal (symbolizing the smoky presence of the burning bush)
1 oz pomegranate juice (representing the plagues and sacrifice, as pomegranate is a biblical fruit)
0.5 oz honey syrup (milk and honey: the Promised Land)
0.75 oz fresh lemon juice (purification and renewal)
Dash of bitters (reminders of bitterness in slavery)
Sprig of fresh rosemary (burning bush garnish)
Optional: edible gold dust (symbolizing wealth and idolatry, like the golden calf)

Method:

Add mezcal, pomegranate juice, honey syrup, lemon juice, and bitters to a shaker with ice.
Shake well until chilled.
Strain into a rocks glass over a large ice cube.
Light a sprig of rosemary on fire briefly, extinguish, and place it in the drink as a garnish to represent the burning bush.

Unit VII: The Oresteia / Democracy, Citizenship and Exclusion

The House of Atreus

Style: Smoked, complex, and bittersweet. A dark Greek twist on a Manhattan.

Ingredients:

2 oz Metaxa 7-Star Brandy (Greek brandy, smooth and spiced)
0.75 oz Sweet Vermouth (symbolic of the tangled web of fate)
0.25 oz Cherry Heering (for the bloodline… and the blood)
2 dashes Angostura bitters (for the bitter weight of justice)
1 dash orange bitters (citrusy contrast to balance fate and revenge)
Optional: A smoke rinse (burning rosemary or oak woodchip, for that sacrificial temple vibe)

Garnish:

Luxardo cherry speared through a bay leaf (bay for Apollo, the god who ultimately sanctions Orestes’ revenge)
Orange peel, flamed

Glassware:

Coupe or Nick & Nora

Instructions:

If using, prepare your smoke rinse by capturing smoke in the glass (burn a sprig of rosemary or woodchip, invert the glass over it for a few seconds).
In a mixing glass with ice, stir the brandy, sweet vermouth, Cherry Heering, and both bitters until well chilled.
Strain into the smoke-rinsed glass.
Garnish with the bay-leaf-cherry spear and a flamed orange peel.

Mood:

To be sipped slowly while contemplating divine justice, blood oaths, and the price of retribution. This is a drink that honors Clytemnestra’s cunning, Agamemnon’s arrogance, and Orestes’ tragic duty.

Unit VIII: Thucydides / Speech in Crisis

The Peloponnesian Old Fashioned

This is a brooding, contemplative take on the classic Old Fashioned. It combines Athenian elegance with Spartan austerity, symbolizing the war between ideals and realities. Aged spirits represent history’s weight, while bitters and herbs capture the war’s moral ambiguity. A cocktail best enjoyed slowly, in deep conversation about fate, politics, and the unchanging nature of human ambition.

Ingredients:

2 oz barrel-aged Greek Metaxa 12 Stars (or a quality brandy or bourbon if unavailable)
0.25 oz spiced honey syrup (honey, cinnamon, clove, black pepper)
2 dashes black walnut bitters
1 dash Peychaud’s bitters (for a hint of drama and complexity)
Expressed lemon peel
Sprig of thyme (symbolizing remembrance and valor)

Method:

Combine Metaxa (or chosen base spirit), spiced honey syrup, and bitters in a mixing glass with ice.
Stir deliberately, like a general weighing the cost of war.
Strain into a rocks glass over a large ice cube.
Express lemon peel over the drink and drop it in.
Garnish with a sprig of fresh thyme, slightly singed for aroma—like the smoldering remnants of a besieged city.

Unit VIII pt 2: Plato / Speech in Crisis

The Socratic Hemlock

This drink is a philosophical paradox in a glass—simple yet profound, herbal yet bright. It pays homage to Socrates’ calm acceptance of death in Apology and his rational refusal to escape prison in Crito. The name references the infamous poison Socrates drank, but this version invites reflection, not demise. This is a drink for those unafraid to examine their convictions—and to sit with questions that have no easy answers.

Ingredients:

1.5 oz gin (preferably herbaceous, like Hendrick’s or a Greek gin such as Grace)
0.5 oz green Chartreuse (symbolizing hemlock—bitter, herbal, mysterious)
0.5 oz fresh lemon juice (clarity and moral sharpness)
0.25 oz honey syrup (2:1 honey to water — tempering the bitterness with ethical sweetness)
1 dash celery bitters (a nod to the philosopher’s austerity and reason)
Fresh sage leaf (garnish—representing wisdom)

Method:

Shake all ingredients with ice.
Double strain into a coupe glass.
Garnish with a single sage leaf placed gently on the surface.
Optional: Serve with a small side of chilled water—mirroring Socratic dialogue: the companion to a deep experience.

I encourage you to craft a cocktail and sit down with the accompanying book from the syllabus; perhaps a few ounces of Metaxa help make Agamemnon more sympathetic!

Looking forward to mescal in Year Two,

Tess Buchannan ’21

Another Monkey Takes His Place in front of the Typewriter

Greetings one and all,

I am a new disembodied voice behind the Riffin Griffin. My name is William Clarke and I am a rising junior history major. I will be posting most of the new content on this blog, but that won’t stop other folks (or the Prexy ghost) from posting.

My favorite things to do at Reed include taking long walks in the Canyon and playing rugby with the other members of the rugby club. A couple of alumni related things that I am excited about is learning about the history of Reed from the alumni themselves, participating in Meatsmoke (despite the fact that I am still a student), and also learning about the architecture of Reed.

On the left: Not William; Center: Not William; Right: William

I love to listen to people talk about their time at Reed and any crazy stories that happened on the Reed Campus.

Eagerly Listening,

William Clarke ’27

Foster’s Quest: Reunions Scavenger Hunt

On an otherwise unremarkable spring day in 1915, William T. Foster, Reed’s first President, strolls toward Sallyport, lost in thought. Life is a course charted between knowledge and ignorance, light and dark, truth and fiction – indeed, between Lux and Nox, the two grotesques guarding the portal as he enters. Where to guide his nascent College, newly troubled by adversity? And it is this question, posed precisely between these two poles, exactly as he enters the portal, that bends the fabric of time toward an answer and propels him out the other side… into 2025!

Reunion-goers have the chance to pick up the quest–your task is to help him return to his time by deciphering 11 clues to 11 locations around Reed Campus, enjoying a rather pleasant tour while collecting one letter at each locale. Then, gathering together those letters, you have only to unscramble them into a four-word phrase and you have saved the day. But more: the first 250 to show their work at Prexy earn a special keepsake reward – and yes, boundless glory!The Scoutbook you’ll pick at Prexy contains valuable information to spark your quest, or pick up the trail at any of the 11 locations if you happen upon one over the weekend.

Scavenger hunt designed by Matt Giraud ’85

Goodbye…and Hello!

With theses completed and celebrations held at Renn Fayre, the seniors (myself included) prepare for their final day as Reed students and the event that will transform them into Reed alumni: Commencement.

Personally, I feel torn between a myriad of emotions. I’m relieved to be getting my degree and excited to move on to new exciting things, but I’m also nostalgic for the time I’ve spent at Reed and sad to be leaving the community I’ve become so ingrained in over the last four years.

I’ve been reminiscing on my underclassman years, and looking through photos from my entire time at Reed. How much I’ve changed and grown, and how Reed has shaped who I’ve become. I wonder how life will be outside of the Reed bubble and how my connections to this community will change as my class disperses into the world.

Working in the alumni office has definitely framed my outlook on the post Reed community positively though. The resources and connections available to us do not just vanish upon graduation (clearly, as I’m writing this blog for alumni). Knowing that the Reed community will still be there for me brings me comfort in spite of the uncertainty that the world outside Reed promises.

See you on the other side,

Soon to be Reed Alumna

Taliah Churchill ’25

Oh My Renn Fayre

As commencement and graduation draw ever closer so does the grandest celebration of the year at Reed College: Renn Fayre! You can read more about the history of Renn Fayre in a series of articles published through The Grail, a student-run creative magazine. I’m not here to tell you the history of Renn Fayre itself, but a short history of some of its best previous themes–all leading up to the reveal of this year’s theme, of course!

The first decades of Renn Fayre were Renaissance themed, or without a theme entirely. In the year 2000, an article in The Quest led to the first themed Renn Fayre:

Our magical weekend of joyous mayhem and drug-induced glory is only the beginning. The forces of Good and Evil are upon us […] There is only one answer. SUPERHEROES.

— Mistress of Costumery, The Quest, April 4, 2000

The success of a themed celebration took off, and in 2002, the Czars made the theme a riff of a classic film with: Bill and Ted’s Excellent RF. The campus came alive with creatures for the apocalypse theme of ’03.

The entrance to the library, decorated for the apocalypse

’05 was graced with a hot air balloon and a Ziggy Stardust theme!

The view through the Sallyport of festivities in 2005

The Body was the theme for 2009, which featured a giant vagina and a “boob room,” where the bean bag chairs had nipples. In the aughts, theme reveal videos became all the rage. During a ball held a few months before the semester’s finale, a Czar-made video would play to reveal the theme for the spring’s celebrations. The earliest one I can find is the reveal for 2010, where they blasted Daft Punk and revealed the Final Frontier theme.

In 2012, the Czars took a page from the HUM 110 syllabus and themed Renn Fayre: “Genesis”, although the theme was more broadly about the origins of creation, not limited to its namesake required reading. The great lawn was filled with little plastic flamingos in 2015 for the Miami Boom Boom Renn Fayre, which was surely a blast wilder than Spring Breaking in Miami proper.

Elvis Presley (impersonators), balloon arches, and gaudy decorations peppered Reed’s campus for the Sin City Renn Fayre of 2018, accompanied by the Vegas Chapel that was set up all weekend, pictured below. Rumor has it that some of the weddings performed were never formally annulled, and some of those Reedies are still married to this day…

A wedding ceremony in the Sallyport, officiated by Elvis

For 2019, the theme was Lucid Dreams (not the hit single by the late Juice WRLD, but the concept itself)! Student art projects for this Renn Fayre featured lights and colorful psychedelic iconography.

Jellyfish in the grove on the Great Lawn

I might be biased, as this was my first Renn Fayre, but I think the Pandemonium theme of 2022 was truly a sight to behold. A student put together a montage of thesis burnings, where the outfits and whimsy around campus are on full display.

While all of the themes listed above were amazing in their own right, I’m most excited for this year’s theme (and it’s definitely not because I’m a senior). This year’s theme is, drum roll please……. Cosmic Resurgence! The theme reveal video features intergalactic iconography of all sorts. I hope to see an abundance of aliens, astronauts, planets, moon dust, retro futuristic outfits, and disco gogo boots!

Did Renn Fayre in your time have themes? What were your favorites?

Preparing to burn my thesis,

Taliah Churchill ’25

Hail, Alma Mater, Reed

Reed College has an abundance of niche and quirky traditions and lore, but we also partake in some of the more standard college traditions. One such tradition is that of the Alma Mater anthem, Fair Reed. An often forgotten aspect of Reed culture and history, the Reed College song Fair Reed was proposed by Reed’s first president, William Trufant Foster, in 1910 or 1911. He also wrote the lyrics. The tune is to an old Scotch melody, “Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms”. I employ you to keep the tradition alive by reading the lyrics and maybe even giving it a sing, for without our collective memory this tradition may fade away.

~♪

Taliah Churchill ’25