It occurs to me, as I chase seven-year-old Brittany up the University Center stairs for the second time, that giving coffee to a child already in the overexcited throes of pre-Christmas celebration may have been a mistake.

p. But then, most of the children at last Saturday’s Green and Gold Christmas need no caffeine to have the collective energy of a preschool class on pixie sticks. Fueled by seemingly depthless reservoirs of holiday spirit, no child appears capable of walking between the attractions and games that dominate the top floor of the UC, but only running.

p. Some 160 children aged 4 to 13 were here last Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. to enjoy this Christmas festival. Started in the 1980s by the Residence Hall Association, Green and Gold Christmas is now run by a student group that broke off in the 1990s to organize the annual party, thrown to give children from low-income families a blend of holiday treats and carnival-style fun under the watchful eyes of positive role models.

p. “Some of these kids don’t have the strongest older influences,” says senior Kathleen McDuff, co-chair of the event with junior Randi Lassiter. “It’s good for them to have someone to look up to.”

p. Some of the 40 to 50 student volunteers, dubbed “sponsors,” signed up months ago at the Activity Fair. Others responded to Vice President for Student Affairs Sam Sadler’s campus-wide e-mail. Still others are filling community service requirements for fraternities. Today, it is young children, not professors, from whom these students will take orders in a magical four-hour period of child-adult role reversal.

p. Initially, upon arriving at the event, my intentions were strictly journalistic. I was to be a passive viewer obtruding on the festivities only to ask a question or two before melting back into the shadows, scribbling furiously.

p. While waiting, I saw a little girl in a brown jacket blinking sadly at the pandemonium. “Where are the people we’re supposed to go with?” she asked plaintively. My resolve to remain detached weakened. I promised to find her and her brother a sponsor. But the scene was chaotic, with student volunteers just as bewildered as the children swamped the check-in table. “Okay,” I said. “I’m the person you’re supposed to go with.”

p. The children beamed and trailed me to the line for the inflatable maze that occupied most of Chesapeake. The girl, wearing a T-shirt that said “Allergic to School,” was 7-year-old Brittany; the boy, sporting a Sponge Bob Squarepants shirt and an earring in his left ear, was 8-year-old Christian. The room was filled with the clamor of overjoyed children racing through the maze and playing tag around its edges. Sophomore Melissa McReynolds began a literal day-long chase after her ward, Keyshaun, 7, whose shirt bore the ironic slogan “Handsome Little Devil.”

p. “These guys will never run out of energy,” one sponsor wryly observed as his six children dragged him into the maze.

p. Even the enormous, lion-shaped inflatable bounce pit in Tidewater seemed to only double the children’s energy rather than expend it. A few were stationary long enough to make a pit stop at the arts and crafts tables ringing the lion, where one girl finished a homemade Christmas card: a sheet of black paper with the red-glitter entreaty: “I love you mom. Can you get me a sell phone?”

p. Brittany and Christian doodled for a while, then discovered the ball-toss in the hallway, where kids lined up by the dozen to toss wads of taped paper through a Christmas tree cut-out — for prizes, of course. Brittany walked away from this game bedecked in a trio of temporary tattoos. As I applied the third — a sleigh — to her cheek, I asked if she’d like a real tattoo one day. “A dragon. No, a princess,” she amended.

p. It’s one of the subtle signs, like the sporadic use of “ain’t,” that these children come from a different background than the average student at the College. When I asked Christian if he plays sports, he told me he wants to play football, but that it’s too expensive. Their mother is unemployed and there is brief mention of an older brother the two rarely see. McDuff will later tell me that for many of these children, Green and Gold Christmas is the only Christmas. This was the case for one applicant this year, she recalled, whose mother wrote on her child’s permission slip that her husband recently lost his Social Security benefits, and it is unlikely they will be able to afford many presents for their children.

p. At lunchtime, as the children devoured hot dogs and potato chips, McDuff announced that Santa Claus had arrived. A hundred voices squealed, temporarily drowning out the jangling, early-’90s remix of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” blaring over the speakers. Standing in the long line outside Chesapeake, the children eyed the beardless Santa with suspicion. “He’s not real,” Brittany pouted. But she and Christian forgot questions of authenticity when they reached the front of the line, asking with near-reverence for a Game Boy and a mini-motorcycle, respectively.

p. The best I could offer them was bags of dollar store goodies, pre-assembled as handouts for all the children. Keyshaun, in line behind us with a breathless McReynolds, declared, “I hope I get me a pistol!” His wish came true — among the treats inside his and Christian’s “boy” bags of goodies were, indeed, plastic toy guns. Hundreds of suction-tipped darts immediately filled the air.
Brittany, in the meantime, tired quickly of the plastic jewelry in her bag and dug out a set of pink plastic nails, asking me to glue them over her real ones. Bottle of Elmer’s in hand, I was reminded of third-grade sleepover parties. As a token of our girly bonding, Brittany pressed the second package of nails — these ones bright blue — into my hands.

p. At this point, near 2 p.m., the initial thrill of the games and inflatables began to wear off. Even Keyshaun had settled into a game of catch. It’s about this time that I escorted the children on a semi-illicit field trip to The Daily Grind, where Brittany seized on my coffee to recharge her flagging energy.

p. Though tiring, the children seem reluctant to leave. “Can we come back tomorrow?” a boy wearing an inside-out white tee and sporting a rocking horse tattoo on his forehead asked.

p. Brittany popped a similar question: “Will you be here tomorrow?”

p. “I will,” I explained, “but you’re not coming back tomorrow.”

p. “Oh,” she said.

p. In the Chesapeake Rooms, we all bid a goodbye that was surprisingly anti-climactic for a group that had spent the day sharing the universal joy of toy guns and fake jewelry. Watching the maze deflate and janitors scrape hot dog pieces off the Chesapeake carpet, I decided that if bonding over plastic nails and craft glue isn’t what Christmas is all about, then I don’t know what is.

By 6 p.m. on Dec. 16, a winter night will have long claimed the sky over the ancient Christopher Wren Building. During this season of skeletal trees and frost-covered fields, Williamsburg seems to contract on itself. Tourists crowd into the Govenor’s Palace more tightly; students huddle closer in Swem’s frigid corners. On this night, however, white clouds of mingled conversation will punctuate the early dark, and the solidarity of a student front against the cold will cement as candlelight rises in classroom windows across Old Campus. Searching for warmth, students will stand by one another, and as this year’s Yule Log ceremony begins, they will be reminded of the joy in our presence, the gifts we have in the season, in our families, in each other.

p. “Yule Log is about our shared traditions, our connections,” senior Laura Sauls said. “It really represents the feeling of community we are so proud of at William and Mary.”

p. The Yule Log tradition is annually co-sponsored by Mortar Board and Omicron Delta Kappa, a service and leadership fraternity. Sandwiched between two weeks of finals, at a time when the college experience may feel anything but joyous, the ceremony is designed to remind students that it is still a season of good cheer.

p. “Yule Log is one of those special William and Mary traditions,” ODK Vice President Amanda Nixon, a senior, said. “Finals can be a very stressful time period; students can be overwhelmed. This is an hour and a half when 100 students become one and we can be thankful for the season.”

p. ODK and Mortar Board also encourage students to share their thanks through Penny Wars, a competitive fundraiser between social classes. Students participate by donating money in the University Center during the last week of classes. Donations will also be accepted at the ceremony itself.

p. This year, Building Tomorrow has been selected to receive funds. “The point of [Penny Wars] is to make the ceremony something more giving, not something we do for ourselves,” Nixon said. “[Yule Log] becomes something we do as a college for the greater good.” Generosity is the basis of holiday spirit, and the season is a time to show appreciation for one another. By participating in the ceremony of the Yule Log, students will be embracing sentiments that have been a part of the College for over 70 years.

p. The Yule Log ceremony debuted in 1930 when Dr. Grace Landrum, dean of women at the College, orchestrated an elaborate ceremony with boars’ heads, burning logs and a cast of actors in colonial garb including the president. Today, while the ceremony is less elaborate the rituals are just as cheer-inducing.

p. “I love that Yule Log comes at a time of stress because the students need it,” Nixon explained. “Vice President [for Student Affairs Sam] Sadler’s rendition of ‘The Night Before Finals’ is always hilarious, and I don’t think there’s another college that gets to see their president in a Santa suit. This is absolutely not to be missed.”

p. The Yule Log ceremony appeals to all faiths, touching upon a host of religious and cultural practices from the lighting of the menorah as a celebration of Hanukkah to the singing of carols by the William and Mary Choir and The Gentlemen of the College. Ramadan, Kwanzaa and Diwali are also addressed in the ceremony. As always, students will be invited to brush the Yule log with a sprig of holly as it passes though the crowd, in remembrance of the stresses and hardships of the year past, before casting the sprig into the Great Hall’s roaring fireplace. Refreshments and general merriment are also on the agenda.

p. Come to the Wren Building on the side facing the Sunken Garden at 6 p.m. Dec. 16 to experience this College tradition for yourself. Bring your gloves, hat and the people who are a reason for giving thanks during the holidays.

College History Professor Scott Reynolds Nelson has published his book, “Steel Drivin’ Man: John Henry, the Untold Story of an American Legend” this past October. In it he chronicles the mysterious life behind the man whose life has inspired at least 200 folk songs. Critically acclaimed from its first release, the book has been welcomed with rapid sales and glowing reviews from the likes of The New York Times and Entertainment Weekly magazine.

p. Nelson specializes in southern U.S. history and culture. He had previously studied the life of John Henry, a famed railway laborer in the mid-19th century, whose burial site had never been found.

p. In 1998, Nelson set his computer desktop wallpaper to a picture of the old Richmond, Va. state penitentiary and its adjacent railroad. Nelson, who often listens to country, bluegrass and folk music for their historical relevance, noticed a white house in the picture. He recalled that in one of the many odes to John Henry there was described a “white house.” Nelson made the connection and contacted the excavation team, which had unearthed over 200 anonymous corpses beneath the penitentiary site years before. His speculation was correct: John Henry was a lost legend no longer — his bones were finally reclaimed. Upon this discovery, Nelson unraveled the previously unknown story behind the man memorialized in many a song and entrenched in American southern culture.

p. Professor Nelson experimented with a variety of methods to conduct his research. He examined traditional historical documents such as court records, engineering letters, personal letters and company reports. Additionally, Nelson followed a trail of oral interviews and song lyrics that, when pieced together, unveiled Henry’s history.

p. Born in 1847, Henry was from New Jersey, but came to Virginia when recruited for the Union Army during the Civil War. After the war, Henry stayed to reside in Virginia, but as an African-American quickly realized the inefficacy of the Reconstruction. Soon thereafter he was prosecuted under the Virginia Black Codes, laws made specifically to punish African Americans, and was incarcerated at the Richmond, Va. state penitentiary. The penitentiary leased him to the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal as an unpaid laborer.

p. It was in his tenure as a railway laborer that Henry would earn his fame. The many convicts condemned to repairing and laying tracks would sing songs to pass the time, songs that would endure for generations to come. Nelson estimates the songs were transmitted orally for at least 40 years prior to being popularized in country music. The recurrent theme in these work tunes, normally hummed and sung to the cadence of hammering, was to slow the pace of life. Many workingmen carried the motto that if you worked too hard, you would kill yourself — quite literally.

p. Hundreds of railway workers, including Henry, were eventually killed by what they called “consumption,” a condition we now know as acute silicosis. Granulated rock and metal produced from detonating rocks to clear passage for railways would accumulate in workers’ lungs and internal organs and inevitably kill them. With Nelson’s discovery that Henry’s remains were among the hundreds of unidentified workers buried under the penitentiary, he revealed not only the history of one man but of so many like him whose fleeting lives have faded from history.

p. One of Nelson’s greatest obstacles was the organization of the book. He defied the history code of writing in the third person and chose to write Henry’s story in the first person. Nelson said that the first person tense better conveyed the investigative experience of Henry’s historical quest, making the book “more interesting, fun and accessible.” Nelson also said that he wanted to appeal to a broader audience and opted to narrate the book to make it more relatable to readers.

p. Even before the release of “Steel Drivin’ Man,” Henry’s life has permeated American historical culture and music. Long-revered in country and bluegrass music, Henry has been the subject of songs by artists ranging from Bruce Springsteen to Van Morrison. Nelson said he is thrilled with the surprising success of his book and considers it an examination of and tribute to the life of a man whose mystique has finally been unveiled.

During the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s, the purchase of a radio was a seminal event. Families gathered around gargantuan radio sets in the evenings to listen to wartime news, dramatic radio plays and presidential speeches on just a few frequencies.

p. Now, radios are everywhere from personal vehicles to alarm clocks to showers, and have access to myriad listening options. However, as evidenced by the rapidly growing popularity of satellite radio, it is still not enough.

p. Satellite radio is the ultimate paradox: complete standardization with the widest variety of options ever available. Due to this nascent satellite technology, it is now possible to drive from Tacoma, Wash. to Washington, D.C. without ever touching the dial, changing the station or encountering a second of advertisement. Satellite radio subscribers have a wide variety of stations to choose from; however, the stations do not vary from coast to coast, meaning listeners do miss out on the flavor that local DJs provide as well as information on events specific to their area.

p. Just as during the era of terrestrial broadcasting when titans like Infinity Broadcasting and Clear Channel Communications were being accused of stripping radio of its diversity, the medium of satellite radio began to develop as a competitor of the AM/FM giants. Two major companies currently dominate the market for satellite radio and vie for the exponentially growing number of listeners, XM Radio and SIRIUS Satellite Radio. Although XM boasts more listeners than SIRIUS, Business and Industry magazine asserts that SIRIUS is expanding at a faster pace. Currently, the two companies together total approximately 11 million listeners, a significant number, but nowhere close to the average of 230 million weekly listeners that local radio stations receive nationwide, according to Arbitron, the radio ratings provider.

p. SIRIUS has grown at an astonishing rate. The company launched in July 2002. By late 2004, SIRIUS’ listeners still numbered only 60,000. When Howard Stern signed a $500 million deal in October 2004, that number rose to 600,000 strong. Less than two years later, SIRIUS now boasts more than 5 million subscribers. This increase marked a very dramatic growth in a short period of time.

p. SIRIUS, which promotes itself as “the best radio on radio,” boasts over 130 channels, including 69 featuring commercial-free music, and is the only radio station that broadcasts everything from the NFL as well as over 40 NBA and NHL games a week.
Steve Blatter, the senior vice president for music programming for SIRIUS, said that the company is successful because of its variety and exclusive content.

p. “We have an incredible number of niche channels, so there is something for everyone, like Elvisradio, which plays Elvis 24/7,” he said. “We also have MaximRadio, and Shade45, a station where Eminem picks all of the music, or Margaritaville, a Jimmy Buffet station. This is important because, for instance, in New York City, there is not a single alternative rock station or country music station.”

p. SIRIUS has also signed exclusive deals for original programming with Martha Stewart, Jimmy Buffet and Tony Hawk, not to mention its five-year contract with Stern.

p. SIRIUS and XM continue to make new exclusive deals to solidify their hold on the market. For instance, SIRIUS radios are currently offered as accessory options in vehicles manufactured by several automobile companies ranging from Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz to Chrysler, Dodge and Ford. This trend extends to the rental car market as well — Hertz currently offers SIRIUS in its rental vehicles at major locations around the country.

p. And that’s not all. In the battle to control this burgeoning market, the innovations just keep coming. SIRIUS recently launched Internet Radio, offering the same services online. Car subscribers still have the option of listening to SIRIUS online, but now it is possible to buy an internet subscription for over 75 channels of 100 percent commercial-free music, sports and talk radio. Internet radio caters to listeners who want to listen to the radio in more places than just their car, or those who do not drive regularly.

p. In further attempts to make itself accessible absolutely anywhere, SIRIUS recently came out with the Stiletto 100, a portable, iPod-size device that receives transmissions from SIRIUS satellites. The Stiletto also allows the owner to store up to 100 hours of tunes in MP3 or WMA format.

p. The satellite market is no longer a secret, and as is to be expected, competitor companies are trying- to edge their way into the radio niche market. Motorola has jumped on the concept of satellite radio in a new way. In addition to offering an internet radio service, which it calls “I-Radio,” Motorola allows customers to listen to a combination of up to six stations or playlists through their mobile phone.

p. The past five years have seen the boom of an industry that has been free for almost 100 years. Billions of dollars have been spent on talent and programming and consumers keep on signing up. This is just one of the components of the increase of technology and information at people’s fingertips, and it appears that it will continue to expand globally.

Becoming a piece of human sculpture might not be your idea of a good time, but it is for Sam Bandstra. The improv exercise “Museum of Modern Art” is only one of many hysterical games in the repertoire of Improvisational Theatre, in which Sam is the sole senior. He extends his off-the-cuff humor to his tours of the Christopher Wren Building, one of his job requirements as a proctor and member of the Spotswood Society. This week, this history major and funny man tells us about the Wren Chapel cross controversy, the Beer and Conversation Club and the story of Saint Norbert and the deadly spider.

p. **What’s your thesis?**

p. I’m translating a 12th-century Latin saint’s life. I’m analyzing it and how it embodies or doesn’t embody the ideas of 12th-century theology. Last semester, I was working on a paper and talking with Professor [Alison] Beach of the religious studies department. I told her I was interested in monasticism, so she told me she had this great book that was in Latin that nobody had ever used before. It was about this guy called Saint Norbert. Yeah, Saint Norbert, great name. I ended up using the book for part of a paper, and I was like, “Actually, I’d really like to do more research on it.”

p. Saint Norbert becomes this wandering preacher who creates this order of monks. He had a cool story. He was preparing to give Mass and he was filling the cup. This was right around the time when the idea that the wine actually turns into Christ’s blood was becoming popular. Right after he finishes transubstantiating it, this poisonous spider supposedly comes down from the ceiling of the cathedral, 100 feet up, and lands in the wine. The priest has to take the first drink, and he couldn’t just throw out the wine because he believed that it was Christ’s blood. So he drinks it and drinks the spider. He stands up there like, “I’m going to die. This is it.” All of a sudden his nose twitches and he sneezes and sneezes out the spider. So he survives and all is good.

p. **As a member of the Spotswood Society, you give tours of the Wren Building. How do you feel about the Wren Chapel cross controversy?**

p. I think people got a little worked up over it. Technically, it’s historically inaccurate for it to have been there. It was donated to the school in the 1930s from Bruton Parish. But I’m not crazy about the precedent it sets of removing a cross from a chapel. If it’s going to be acceptable anywhere, it’s got to be in a chapel. Part of the school’s history was training Anglican ministers. You have to have some respect for that. It’s unfortunate that a symbol of Christianity offends people, because it’s not meant to. I know I personally wouldn’t be offended if I went to what used to be a mosque and there was a crescent moon or what used to be a synagogue and there was a Star of David. I don’t see why people need to be offended by that. I see both sides and I understand both sides, but I just want to stop having my name and face in the paper, because I got yelled at a tailgate by a 50-year-old man. I’m waiting to get hate mail.

p. **So when you’re not doing all of this history-related stuff, you’re running Improvisational Theatre. How long have you been performing improv?**

p. I used to do a lot of plays in elementary, middle and high school. I think I did improv once on some church retreat some time in high school. I came here and I saw improv and I thought, “Oh, that’s funny.” My friend was like, “Actually, you’d be really good at that,” so I tried out and made call-backs but didn’t get in. One of the kids who was in IT and a junior at the time talked to me afterward and told me he didn’t make it the first time and to try next year. So I tried out the next year and made it, and now I run the whole shebang.

p. **What’s your favorite IT game?**

p. I really like our long-form stuff. If you give us a word of inspiration, we’ll do a 40-minute thing where characters come back and forth. My favorite game that we play is probably “Messages.” You leave, the audience writes messages, you come back and put them in your back pocket. You do your scene, and you’ll be like “As my pappy used to say …” and you pull out something. You’ll be doing a scene about, I don’t know, climbing a mountain and the message will say something about pudding. Then you have to incorporate that into the scene and make it work.

p. **I heard that you’re in a club called Beer and Conversation.**

p. It was a thing started by some people who graduated last year. It’s a bunch of guys who get together and have some beer. The joke is that whoever is hosting it says, “I’ll bring the beer, you bring the conversation.” It’s just hanging out; usually crazy stuff happens. Last year my friend Dan and I were walking over to the sailing house and he stopped to use a Port-a-Potty near Barrett. I pushed it over with him in it. Then somebody dropped their cell phone in the toilet this year. The B&C alumni will come back and check up on us, which is really obnoxious. We had a B&C reunion at Homecoming. The founders said that in 20 years they hope to come back and find the guys who are still doing it.

Fans of Meg Cabot will recognize her as the author of nearly 40 novels for adults and young adults alike, including such wildly successful books as “The Princess Diaries,” and “Size 12 Is Not Fat.” “Size 14 Is Not Fat Either,” the sequel to “Size 12,” further chronicles the escapades of washed up ex-pop star Heather Wells as she struggles to regain control of her life amid an ocean of murder, scandal and a little bit of Cabot’s signature romance.

p. As the assistant dorm director of Fischer Hall on the fictional campus of New York College, Heather deals with all sorts of student problems on a daily basis. However, no quantity of roommate complaints could have prepared her for the discovery of a student’s severed head in the cafeteria. Just like that, murder-solving is once again added to Heather’s job description and much as she may want to leave it to the professionals, the police seem less than enthused about digging for evidence. Left to her own research methods, Heather discovers some shocking truths, the consequences of which could be life-threatening.

p. “Size 14 Is Not Fat Either” is a funny, quirky, endearing piece of whodunit chick-lit. Each of Cabot’s extremely likable characters has his or her own unnecessary idiosyncrasies, affording nearly every reader someone with whom to identify. The story itself is equally as intriguing as its vivid characters, and the numerous threads of the book converge spectacularly to create a sensational, heart-pounding, page-turner of an ending. This tremendously well-written novel is as much a joy to read as any other of Cabot’s works; she never misses a mark.
In a recent phone interview, several of my peers and I had the opportunity to speak with Cabot about “Size 14 Is Not Fat Either.” The main idea behind the book is that of the quarter-life crisis, Cabot says, “I want to address … the 20s-crisis — what are you doing with your life? That’s really what I’m trying to talk about, and throwing in a little murder.”

p. Cabot tends to base her characters on acquaintances from her own life, which is one of the reasons their personalities are so stunningly real. “I do kind of base my characters on people I know. The real challenge is, as somebody who wants to remain friends with those people, you don’t want them to be able to recognize themselves — particularly if you’re writing about family members … and I’ve actually been really lucky because so far I’ve managed to disguise everybody so well that no one’s quite recognized themselves, but most of the people in this book are kind of based on actual, real human beings. One way Cabot designs her characters is based on files of particularly hilarious or interesting people she kept while working in a dorm. Still, some characters are based on people more integral in her life: “Heather, obviously, is based on me, except sadly I was never a pop star.”
Like Heather, Cabot was a dorm director at New York University for several years and draws upon her experiences at NYU and in the city itself while composing many aspects of the Heather Wells mysteries — including the crimes. While no murders ever occurred in the dorms during Cabot’s employment, the inspiration for the particularly grisly crime in “Size 14” came from the events surrounding a man named Dan Racowitz.

p. He “chop[ped] off the head of his roommate and boil[ed] it in a pot and [fed] her body to the homeless … As a girl from the Midwest, that was the first big news story when I moved [to New York] and I was like, ‘Oh my God. I want to go back home; this is insane’ — which is ironic because apparently a lot of serial killers come from the Midwest … I actually originally had the part where the girl’s remains were made into the meatloaf in the cafeteria and I ended up taking it out because it really was too gruesome, so actually the inspiration is more grotesque than what actually happens in the book.”

p. With her easily digestible style and definite flair for writing, Cabot’s popularity has skyrocketed and, to the delight of her fans, the author’s catalog is growing with it. “I’m starting to get popular, so my publishers are like, ‘We’ll take anything you’ve got,’ which is a great position to be in, but it can look like all you do is sit around and write … I have, like, five books coming out next month.”
“Size 14” is a fantastic novel, filled with all the humor, style and intelligence that a great chick-lit book should have. Its originality will delight even the most jaded reader. Look for the third Heather Wells mystery, “Big Boned,” in January 2008.