Last night I worked my appointed shift at Street Scenes, our school's annual fundraiser. It was Student Night. I like Student Night almost as much as I am certain to dislike the Adult Nights (though I won't be going over tonight, so I may never get the chance to actually know how unpleasant it may be). Adults smoke cigarettes and drink too much beer. I don't like to be around them when they do this. Student Night, however, is a pretty cool thing.

The halls are wrapped in mylar and imaginative configurations of crepe paper streamers. Last year my job was to help with that decoration, but this year I signed on to help supervise the auditorium during the Student Show. That could have been painful if the show was crummy, but it wasn't. The work consisted of taking tickets as the crowd entered - and of standing around looking official and useful while the show rolled along. I got to watch all three performances. And each was wonderful.

A musical review, the show began with our two senior pianists and a percussionist (each in tails) attacking something like "Dueling Chopsticks", followed by two trios of young women singing a whitebread pop-song duet whose name I forget. Then we get some slinky formal ballroom dancing, followed by an explosion into an odd American Bandstand bit that featured Girl Groups, Buddy Holly, The Supremes (a duo?), The Temptations, and Elton John (mysteriously leaping over the rougher, truer rock of the late sixties). Fun-pop seemed to be the standard. Let's keep it light and lively to showcase Bubbly Youth at its shiniest and happiest. The darkest moment was probably a shadowy rendition of "Looking for Love in All The Wrong Places" when the Bandstand segued into a Gilley's/Hee-Haw country stretch which finished the show.

The performance was all about Happiness and Youth and Energy. Simple flashy sets. Glorious technicolor costumes. Hyper-crispy choreography. Dead-on instrumental support. What some voices lacked in finesse they made up for in heart.

My roughest moment came as we opened the doors for the 9:15 show. I was supposed to take tickets but didn't get the chance, pushed aside by the rush for seats. After serving my school in such a manner, I wandered into the Carmel Rock Cafe and got to hear some substantial blues done just right, grounded in some fine hyper drumming by one of my own preposterously talented sophomores. Art everywhere. More art.

The whole evening was quite a hoot. The biggest thrill was to encounter very familiar people, my students of the past year and a half, in a different context - one in which, after having worked their butts off for many months, they are literally performing in a setting where the only meaningful evaluation is their own sense of a job well done. No one needs to slap a grade on any of this. It's a scene where abundant strengths are rightly celebrated and where weaknesses may be noted but are neither dwelt upon nor allowed to define the entire performance. Well, you may see where I'm headed with this. But we won't go there tonight.

Meanwhile, I've had a bit of time to see some movies. Yesterday afternoon I popped my copy of Tarkovsky's Andrei Rublev into the vcr. Three hours later I surfaced, a better man for the experience. Then this afternoon I stumbled onto a quiet little film from Canada called Strangers in Good Company. A group of old women get stranded in a remote Canadian countryside when their bus breaks down. It may not sound very promising, but it's a rich meditation on age, choices, friendship, death, and life. God bless the Independent Film Channel. On top of this wealth, I have also begun reading Salman Rushdie's first novel, Midnight's Children, which is certain to create a conflict tomorrow as I settle in to read those final drafts of junior papers. Ah well, what is life without conflict?