WELCOME TO SESSION 2!

A whole new batch of Beamers rolled through the gates yesterday afternoon and are already deep in the mix, taking swim tests, playing Froccer, singing around the campfire, and preparing each cabin’s booth for Sunday’s homemade carnival. Sound like fun? It is! We’ll give another holler in a few days. Meanwhile, be on the lookout for photos of Session 1′s completed Project, the Story of Machines that Never Flew.

As we anticipate tomorrow’s Session 2 Beamers’ arrival, we raise a glass of apple juice in salute to all the campers who made Session 1 such a pleasure.

Here’s to Embracio, The Glorious Revolution, Ecstatic Rabbits, The Guild of Respectable Jesters, Mrs. Juliana’s Reformatory for Well Bred Ladies, Le Chalet Beurre, BOB, and Zen Den.

Have a wonderful summer. See you next year.

Perhaps some of you were wondering whether those instruments you sent up three weeks ago were gathering dust in a corner of some cabin…

Presenting Beam Camp’s first ever Heavy Metal Marching Band. Special shout out to counselor Alec who oversaw rehearsals – Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs” never sounded better. Here are some shots from their debut appearance…video to follow somewhere down the road.

Another week of domains down!

This week’s highly delectable menu featured:

The Return of Bread
Beam Secret Message System
Gravity Racers
Knitting: The Sequel
Quetzalcoatl Rod Puppets
Turn the Hog Loose
Experimental Mapping
Mayan Full Body Puppets
Spooky Action
Globster
1-5-6-4

Big thanks to this week’s domain guests, Lea, Ed, Amber, Gerbo, and Nathaniel!

Our six waves – mixed age groups assigned to various aspects of “The Story of Machines That Never Flew” project – are in the thick of things now. Rather than rotating through departments as they did on last summer’s A Trip to the Sun movie, each group is responsible for a specific historically-inspired contraption. Leonardo da Vinci, Icarus, Sir George Cayley, Bill Goldfinch & Jack Best, and Thomas Walker – these are names to know, so get researching! Camper Henry L observed that it’s “kind of ironic that someone whose last name is Walker would want to fly.”

We were fortunate to get a lunchtime exclusive with representatives from two waves.

Angus of the Glorious Revolution has been welding with Wave 2. “We have to wear our masks when we do it. You can’t look at the light. There’s a solar panel on top of the mask that senses light and comes down.” As to Angus’ post-camp welding plans, “If my parents get me a welding machine, I will.”

Crockett, a resident of We Live Here, also of Wave 2, says, “Welding is really, really fun. The welding suits are bigger than our bodies. We kind of look like robots.”

Alejandro of Le Chalet Beurre and Wave 5 reports that they have built a steamer oven in order to bend wood in self-made jigs. Wow! Check ‘em out…

(and Lady GaGa)

Okay, folks playing along at home, feast your eyes on some action shots from our first week of domains! Can you match the photo to the Domain? Can you guess which Domain is so secret-filled that it is not pictured at all?

Session 1, Week 1 Domains:

Wild Permaculture
Creating a Vortex
Dungeon Explorations
Bread
Beginner Knitting
Guru
Punching In
Tap Anywhere
Sock Creatures

Hello again. While you’ve been eagerly checking, checking, checking, waiting for that next blog post to go live we spent our first few days at camp being extremely industrious. The day after arrival, each cabin embarked on a 3 day project.

Think you can build a snack cart – excuse me, I mean bear trap – in three days? Try seven & a half hours, the sum total allotted to Beam 3-day Domains.

Our labors culminated in an evening activity during which the nine projects (or project clusters) were revealed. Behold!

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Embracio! presented a giant parcel, many layers of wrapping thick, each layer containing an instruction as to who should unwrap the next layer. (“Pass the parcel to someone you’re glad to have met”…”Pass the parcel to someone who inspires you…”)

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The Guild of Respectable Jesters constructed and splatter painted a sturdy bookcase for the Beambrary, the perfect size to contain the comics, National Geographics and games previously housed in milk crates.

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Bob (It’s not a camper, it’s a cabin, see Fig 1-A) devised carnival games to be referred to variously as Bob-Toss, Bean-Bag-Toss, Bean-Toss, Beam-Toss, Bob-Bag Toss, Beam-Bag Toss and/or Bob’s Beam Bean Bag-Toss. A welcome addition to tether ball!

(Fig 1-A)

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The Ecstatic Rabbits not only designed and sewed cushions to up the Beambrary’s comfort level, they planted several fake books on its shelves, one of which contains a camper-penned ode to Beam.

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Zen Den Gentlemen’s Project was cloaked in mystery, requiring great quantities of blue foam, plaster, burlap, and scrap wood. Even their presentation was cloaked in mystery … They said it was a bookcase but it was so obviously a mysterious object, possibly positioned on its side. The hastily selected paperback books scattered atop the mystery object implied that the prankster spirit is alive and well. No surprise there. We are all waiting to see where it shows up next…

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j

The Glorious Revolution directed their considerable youthful energy into many small but mighty projects, including a foosball table, some silver leaves, a glider, and a multipurpose cane / mallet for use by a tiny, stooped old man. Max A’s project was a guitar-based treat, backed by counselor Christian on drum.

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We Live Here (see Fig 1-B, below) performed a great service for both Beam and the planet by devising a simple compost system, complete with signage educating us as to its correct use, and open registration for anyone interested interested in taking on a post-meal compost patrol shift.

(Fig 1-B)

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Madame Juliana’s Reformatory for Well Bred Ladies engaged in a game of Structural Telephone – creating sculptures with natural materials, drawings based on bunk mates’ sculptures, and then new sculptures based on the drawings of the original sculptures. For example:

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As to that snack delivery cart, the gentlemen of Le Chalet Beurre insist it’s a bear trap, but it’s sure proving itself an environmentally sound way of getting fruit, water, and Sun Chips down to the Snacklands. Also, the number of bears caught is holding firm at zero.

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Whoo, that’s a lot, and we’ve only just begun. This week sees the official launch of the Project, camp outs, and nine domains! Stay tuned. We’ll have an update for you later this week.

It was a quiet July 4 at Beam as we assembled on the dock at sunset to launch over a hundred origami boats, each bearing a small candle. Beautiful, as are the children who helped fold them.

We sat in silent contemplation of the beautiful sky over Parker Mountain (amazing, given that we also rented a cotton candy machine for the day) All of the boats remained afloat. Cabin by cabin, we said goodnight. The oldest campers were still on the dock to hear the booms of a more traditional celebration nearby.

When you are reunited with you Beam Camper, perhaps he or she will show you how to fold an origami sampan.

We know you are eager for more news. We will try to have some for you tomorrow (these things are a bit weather dependent…) Be listening for the bell.

To quote Horton Hears a Who...

…we are here, we are here, we are here, we are here!

We met the staff, moved into our bunks, feasted on spaghetti and meatballs, sang Happy Birthday to Roland of the Guild of Respectable Jesters, ate cake, and ended the night with a campfire. Our first full day at Beam began with Ninja stretches, led by Waterfront Director Alicia.

Don’t forget to write!
beamcamper@beamcamp.com

Emails are great, but nothing beats the excitement of correspondence that arrives via envelope. (As I’m sure you will agree after you spend the next 120 hours peering hopefully into your mailbox.) Here is probably a good place to issue a gentle reminder to resist the temptation to motivate your camper to write home by sending cookie-laden care packages. (That goes ditto for potato chips, candy, truffles, beef jerky, turkey jerky, tofurkey jerky, Grandma’s special peanut brittle… uh, grandma got that memo too, right? Tell her to show her love with stationery, stamps, a new t-shirt, photos of four-legged friends, photos of the rest of the family enjoying unlimited access to peanut brittle…)

Send to…
Camper’s name
c/o Beam Camp
55 Boy Scout Road
Strafford NH 03884

We hope you’ll enjoy watching us from afar for these next few weeks…

Right now in a basement architecture studio at Germany’s University of Kassel a class of 17 undergrads and masters students are working on “The Habitats of Parker Mountain,” the August 2011 Beam Project.

Wait, let me re-read that sentence. Wow.

I suppose this reality should astound me no more or less than the fact that every summer for the last six years a group of kids and counselors have collaborated on a solar powered movie or a Jungletopia or giant virus protein shells or the other mind-bending stuff that goes on at Beam. But, wow.

Danny and I just had our first Skype conference with the class that is led by the architects of pragmatopia, our August Project Masters. Marc, Antje and Kai of pragmatopia have constructed the syllabus for the Spring-Summer course called “Exploring Habitat” entirely around the process of designing the human-scale animal dwellings that Beam campers and staff will be building in August.

The first course assignment had each student choosing to research two animals native to southern New Hampshire out of a list of forty. On today’s conference call each student presented the results of their research in the form of how they would propose introducing their chosen animals to viewers of the finished Beam Project. They showed us what they built: puzzles, board games, elaborate habitat models, Advent calendar-like box constructions, among many other ideas to inform and engage.

We are humbled by the inventiveness and effort that these students are investing in this Project.

In the coming weeks we’ll share more updates on their progress. We’ll also tell you about how Wignall & Moore’s “The Story of Machines that Never Flew” for July gets off the ground (or at least is supposed to).

For 2010’s Beam Project, Visual Artist Daniela Kostova and Filmmaker Mike DeSeve proposed a solar-powered, blue-screen based movie production that reimagined George Melies’s 1902 silent classic, A Trip To The Moon. In Beam’s A Trip To The Sun, Industrialist Moretrust Wellman needs the help of Kristin, a twelve year-old blind girl, to achieve his monopolistic vision for harnessing the sun’s power. But Wellman soon finds out that Kristin has a vision all her own.

A Trip To The Sun was made by Beam Camp’s 95 campers and 25 staff, who shot the film on a 40-foot blue screen stage of their construction, using only the sun for lighting and solar energy to power the cameras.

If you’ve ever taken a look at Beam’s Philosophy page or been caught in a corner (sorry about that!) while I talked about camp, you’ll know that Beam Camp (and between a third and a half of my brain) was shaped by my mid-70s experiences as a camper at Lighthouse Music and Arts Camp of Pine Grove, PA.

I went to Lighthouse to learn how to play jazz on my saxophone. I got some world-class instruction from people like Hankus Netsky and Ed Jackson. But it wasn’t what they and the other adults at camp taught me or did for me that ended up making a critical impact. It was they way they were; their way of being.

The way Ed loved playing “Hard Times”, the way Gene Minor managed a concert band rehearsal (and his impatience), the way Hankus walked through camp and walked back through camp upon realizing what he forgot in the Eagle’s Coop, the way Don Hamilton did his straight-faced sex and drugs speech, the way Rob Howard so eagerly and gleefully anticipated his days off by singing the Commodores’ “Easy,” the way Larry Loebell shouted above his laryngitis to get hundreds of kids to reverse direction or volume, the way Lois Hamilton and Annette Fluhr made a torrentially rainy final performance day come off like nothing but sunshine, the way they talked to me as the second tenor player rather than the geeky (and perhaps sometimes distracted) 13-year old.

It’s possible that my counselors, a tuba player, a lead trumpet player and a trombone player, didn’t always like us, but they never held back on sharing their love with us. I tremble with awe, respect and gratitude for all of them still.

-Brian

One of our 2010 Mega-Domains. Please write for recipes.

An incredible video made by cabin Heliocentrics and their friends.

The opportunity to play with an enormous circular blue screen stage in the middle of the woods doesn’t come along very often. We’re happy to report that the Staff and Campers of Beam took advantage of the opportunity. While the 2010 Beam Project, A Trip To The Sun, was in its final stages of production (or the crunch phase as we called it at camp), The Shadow Movie was created. Take a look.

Week 4? Impossible! Seems like only yesterday we were building that cabin, waiting for the bus from NYC to rumble up the road. We’ve got a lot to ground to cover in the next week, as we barrel toward Friday night’s premiere party for A Trip to The Sun.

Emily introducing this week’s domain options

The final Domains of Beam 2010 are:

Sports Invention

Mosaic

Complaint Chorus

Magic Card Set

Operation Starlight 2

Finding Your Spirit Animal

Looming & Weaving

Song Parody

De Stijl Box

Petit Morceau

& the Art of Folding

Which could mean anything!!! You’ve got a week to mull those titles over. To give you some idea of the scope, here is an original ritual that arose from last week’s Rites of Passage domain.

The Food Appreciation Ritual
By Lucas, Angelo, and Eli

Prepare the ‘good food’ – reheated mini-sliders and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the vegetarians. Place the good food on paper trays set inside a triangle inscribed in the ground near the ritual fire.

All address the good food simultaneously for about a minute, after which the good food should be consciously appreciated as it is consumed.

The ritual’s authors present the supervising counselors with paper flowers.

All go to the fire, where the waste bucket of uneaten food from the most recently served meal symbolizes “bad food”. The bad food is addressed for a minute, after which the ritual’s authors each select a representative item from the waste bucket to put in the fire.

All silently watch the fire consume the “bad” food.

The ashes of the bad food are spread within the triangle, after which the triangle is rubbed out.

Dude Zoo, Heliocentrics, Big Willey Yacht Club, and the participants of Operation Starlight all camped out this week. Open Moebius and Banshee Avalanche are hoping the weather will allow them to do the same. How does a camp out differ from camp? For one thing you get s’mores. You can be really loud. You cook your own foodover an open fire. You sleep in a tent. You may come back in the morning to find your shoes tied together, or your bunk sign replaced.

Here’s what some Heliocentrics had to say about the experience…with the understanding that some of what happens at back camp stays at back camp:

Eloise: It was great.

Olive: Awesome.

Phoebe R: Amazing.

Fiona: It was so fun.

Eloise: It was very starry and not buggy.

(Top secret revelation of enviably wholesome fun)

Sophie: You guys! We’re not supposed to talk about that!

All: Yeah, we made a pact.

Interviewer: Did all of you guys have prior camp-out experience?

Annie: Not really. It was interesting. Not the most comfortable. I shared a tent with India, Claire and Bess, and they were really great.

Interviewer: Did you hear any interesting noises? A chipmunk that sounds like a bear, that kind of thing?

Phoebe R: We were SO LOUD!!!

Eloise: We stayed up ‘til about 12:30.

Sophie: And candy….

Interviewer: The candy we confiscated from Fiona’s package?

Fiona: Yes. And more.

Sophie: I had a sugar crash!

Eloise: I think all of us at one point in the night woke up at the bottom of the tent.

Olive: We slid down and it was so funny.

Sophie: We did Chubby Bunny*…well, I did.
(* Cram more marshmallows than can possibly fit in your mouth then say “Chubby Bunny” Just one example of the many nutritious, intellectual pursuits endorsed by Beam Camp.)

Olive: Me and Bess tied.

Phoebe R: I failed.

Sophie: We should’ve just eaten ‘em.

Phoebe R: I would’ve been sick.

Sophie: It was pretty humid and hot.

Fiona: Everyone got hyper.

Eloise: I got totally hyper.

Sophie: … Eloise?

Eloise: At one point, I was eating Milk Duds and I was like, “Myah, myah, myah, Heather, yook a’ me!”

Sophie: And then I told a joke that made everyone laugh.

Phoebe R: That’s a dumb joke.

Sophie: Yeah, but it’s funny, though.

Fiona: And you love telling it.

Sophie: I do.

IN OUR DOWN TIME

We play tetherball…

& Capture the Flag (Team Garbage in blue vs. Team Dander in red – this photo was taken moments before a daring Dander rescue mission freed a jail’s worth of prisoners from the shadow of the Flappet Tree)…

& construct homemade Slip N’ Slides…don’t worry, the staff tries em out first

OH NO!!! SUN CREATURES! RUN!!!!!

We’re kicking up a lot more than dust in our white wedding tent. Check out the TAL-to-the-ENT on display at Wednesday’s Variety Show. When cohosts India and Max started running out of corny jokes, Corey and Andrezj filled in. Anyone who had the time, desire, and energy to cobble together an act was guaranteed a slot. Skits! Songs! Tap Dancing! The sheer variety of it was so bangin’, it caused three of Domain Guest Raphael’s weather balloons to explode! KAPOW! A glimpse of the proceedings:

Speaking of Peeks, here’s a taste of this week’s Domains in action.

RITES OF PASSAGE

DEMO TIME

UFO

TAIKO DRUMMING

REPRESENT YOURSELF

OPERATION STARLIGHT

MASKS

LAYERS COLLAGE

KNITTING

DRAWING

BUNRAKU

ACTION PAINTING

LONG DISTANCE SWIM

CRYPTOZOOLOGY

A QUICK TIP FROM THE POST MISTRESS:
If you’re still hurting for a letter from the camper dearest your own personal heart, try creating a fill-in-the-blank and return form. Remember that Yes or No questions may result in a terse reply. Those who know what an adjective is could be nudged toward specifics with a cliffhanger such as “The food at lunch today was __(insert adjective here). Artistic campers might respond to a request for a drawing of some memorable domain… Some other topics that might rev them up are campfire, swimming, froccer (an unholy hybrid of frisbee and soccer) and snack.

Whoops, got to go before some kid gets to ring the Panano instead of me! Wait, some kid always gets to ring the Panano instead of me…
Flickr Video

BUTTERFLY!!!!

We like to do things a little differently here on Sundays, so a few days ago, we threw together some costumes, carved ten watermelons, turned one of our furthest-flung buildings into a mad scientist’s lab, and bobbed for apples in the Trout section. Halloween comes but once a year, but Beamoween is whenever and whatever you make it!

AFTER DINNER:

On evenings when we don’t have a massive, all-camp activity, cabin groups sometimes elect to join forces. Last night, as Big Willey Yacht Club, Banshee Avalanche and Pandora’s Bunk were enjoying a moonlit swim in the Trout Section, the gentlemen of Steambunk escorted the comparatively older ladies of Heliocentrics to a beachfront prom. Couples were matched up according to bunk placement within their cabins, music was provided by Al Green, and the paparazzi was out in full force to capture the fabulously dressed participants promenading on the dock.

PROJECT!!!!

There is light at the end of the Trip to the Sun tunnel! All pistons are firing. Filming is underway. The weather is cooperating!

DOMAINS
For those who’ve lost track of time, it’s WEEK 3! Which of course means a whole host of new domains. Which would you choose?

UFO
Drawing
Knitting
Taiko Drumming
Mask Making
Layers Collage
Rites of Passage
Demo Time Volume 1
Action Painting
Represent Yourself
Operation Starlight
Cryptozoology 2 (The Advanced Seminar)
Long Distance Swimming

Dept of Deja Vu:
Our campers may get bigger, but the dance remains the same.