“I maybe thought I dreamed this, but it’s real.”
That’s the text I woke up to on Saturday morning. It’s in reference to a particularly spirited rendition of Dostoevsky’s The Idiot that graced the WCFM airwaves at 5:30 am — a rendition that, it should be noted, boasted banjo-strumming and harmonica-playing. (Sad that there isn’t a ‘strumming’ equivalent for harmonicas. Feels like it should have a special verb.)
We’re approaching the end of another year and another WCFM Read-a-thon has come and gone. From 4pm on Friday, December 6, to 4pm on Saturday, December 7, dedicated members of the Williams community read The Idiot on-air.
All things considered, it went remarkably well. We read a book and we read it in almost exactly 24 hours. We came and we saw and we conquered, basically.
Professor McWeeny got locked out of the station, Julian Spiro and Cathy McPartland didn’t sleep, I accidentally left Professor Cassiday in the Music Office for probably too long, Meyer made fun of me for mispronouncing Russian names, it snowed, it was cold, it was icy. But generally, everything worked out ok. Donuts and coffee were consumed, literature was heavily appreciated.
People stayed up late and got up early and sacrificed their tired bodies and tired minds for the noble cause of the 24-hour-Dostoevsky-readathon. And we thank everyone for their service.
See you again next year for another book and another 24 hours of no sleep/no rest/just read. We can’t wait.
– Phoebe Pallesen and Meyer Leff, Programming Directors