In the last weekend of parties before the long weekend, the first two second street houses, Leigh and Booth, attempted to show the campus a good time. But neither quite managed to hit the mark and an exhausted and weary campus will unfortunately have to leave unsatisfied.

To advertise, Leigh created posters of whale mouths, krill, etc. I personally think a whale’s ass would’ve been more accurate for how the party turned out.

“Baleighn,” for those who didn’t want to become a marine biologist and didn’t make their 8th birthday underwater themed, is a play on a whale’s bristle-like mouth mechanism to eat krill and filter out seawater. How the hell someone would dress to be conceptually vored into a whale’s mouth was beyond me, and most of the attendees. To be honest, I think I would’ve preferred an 8 year-olds birthday. At least then there’s the expectation of cake and happy attendees.

Although, campus tried to come to the party either out of boredom or masochism, the common room never filled up beyond a core group that stood close to the DJ table. The music was a garble of Serato-mixed sets that I doubt could’ve been performed without most people leaving in the first 20 minutes, even in Downcaf. People seemed to dwell outside in the hopes that eventually a song would play that makes standing in the cold on a Friday night worth it.

It’s not that Baleighn displayed a lack of effort or didn’t have the makings of a good party: Leigh’s dance floor was well decorated and avoided bathing the common room in a blue light so your crush can see every pore; the house made merch that will no doubt be worn with an infinite amount of plaid pajama bottoms for years to come. Just no one bit the lure Leigh was fishing with. Try again next time, or maybe just put on a screening of “Free Willy” instead.

On Saturday, as a vote of confidence, God decided to piss on Booth before their “Dollhouse” party. The theme inspired more confidence that a full Booth would happen— “Doll” is less of a tall order for the campus community to fulfill, especially when Booth was willing to set up their very own makeup counter outside the dining hall before the party. Sadly, the party also suffered from lackluster attendance.

The highlight of Booth, if you were lucky, was that cake was available in the hump bathroom. At first this seems amazing, until you remember that nothing at Bennington has been fully sanitary in decades and everyone has already gotten mono, or you’re just too drunk to care. Eating upstairs meant you missed a very disjointed arrangement of music that people waved light up sticks to. A milieu of 2000s and 2010s pop that gets people excited, but alas, is not enough to stay.

With weeks of terrible parties populating the first half of the spring term, we at The Bennington Lens have to ask: what the hell is going on? It could be purely poor choices for themes and planning, disinterest from the student body, or most insidiously, a recession indicator. Either way, I call on the higher ups to address this issue, on “How Bennington is not Meeting the Moment.” Our social lives depend on it.