Den of Slack

The Den of Slack is a sink for productivity -- a siren's call to WARPies and those like them. It is not designed to serve this purpose -- designing things takes effort -- it merely comes to be. Why hasn't that Senior Prospect resident not applied to grad school yet? The Den of Slack. Why is there, at all hours of the day, always someone sleeping in the first floor common room of Fitch? It's the Den of Slack. What keeps the Odd Quadders under wraps? The Den of Slack: at once the pinnacle and the chasm, the heartwood and its decay, eternally the source of balance in the Odd Quad.

The Den is typically equipped with a giant collection of Magic cards, bean bag chairs and other furnishings you might find left out by the side of the road, at least three video game systems, and numerous games to go with them. One would think, as the Den serves many people, that each system would need many controllers, but this is not the case, as the sort that frequent the Den are perfectly content to watch each other level up in the RPG of the moment.

While there may always be a specific physical location on campus called the Den, just as home is where the heart is, the Den of Slack is really wherever slack is a true constant, a way of life that has seeped into the very bones if its denizens.

History

The origins of the Den of Slack are shrouded in mystery. (Would any crusty people care to enlighten us?) Here are the Dens of recent history:

• 2002-2003: The primary Den of Slack was the north-central common room on the third floor of Fitch, the common room of Evan Hiller '03. However, the true Den sprawled across most of the third floor of Fitch, including one entire common room dedicated to Warhammer tables, and another, the common room of Josh Ain and Rachelle Hassan '03, in which Josh's original card game, Thesis, was developed. This year's Den was also notable for a couch so thoroughly destroyed by generations of college students that it had to be laid on its side to be functional.

• 2003-2004: The Den was located across the central section of first-floor Fitch. The north-central common room (home of Jon Hendrickson '04, Evan Gee '04, and Hale Simon '05) was the main den of slack, with furniture and television firmly in place. The Fitch 1st floor south-central common room, whose adjoining rooms were home to Zach Kung '04, Hale Simon '05, Niko White '04, served as an annex and Magic card repository. When Kat Jong '07 abandoned her Lehman entry in Fall 2003 to sleep in a corner of the Den -- one of few such relocations not for purposes of sex -- the Den of 2003-4 was distinguished in having a permanent resident.

• 2004-2005: The official Den of Slack was Fitch 206, home of Jeff Dougherty '05 and Jake Mandel '05, but was relatively empty due to Jeff's thesis crushing his slack time like a grape. This Den was notable for its focus on folding nylon lawn furniture. While this Den hosted audiovisual presentations of WARPly interest (mostly Buffy and Firefly), actual socialization generally took place across the hall, in Ben Steinhurst '05 and Zach Sullivan '05's common room, which featured actual furniture.

• 2005-2006: This year, the Den has remained in Fitch 206 as the common room has been taken over by Amanda R. Van Rhyn '06 and Caroline Toy '06. It remains a relatively quiet space but is entirely functional for a wide range of WARP activities. Most of the furniture is real (and much of it is inherited from '05s), but the Jeff and Jake Memorial Lawn Chair serves as a monument to the Dens of the past.

Affiliations

The Den has at one time been a headquarters or primary meeting place for

• WARP
• Magic Club

Notable Denizens

Every inhabitant of the Den of Slack has been a beautiful and unique snowflake. (Yes, even Evan Gee.)