Friday, November 1– Oh, Swalloween. The whole campus turns out in their elaborate costumes, the music is always solid, the common room is well decorated—it’s fun, but it’s also a little… pedestrian, isn’t it? Yes, Swalloween is a good party. And “Nighthawks” is a good painting, and Bach’s Cello Prelude in G is really pretty. But there’s an unshakable feeling that having a great night at Swalloween is just a little bit like having a blast at a theme park.

It’s a party that’s just in a completely different category than all others. Everyone wants to celebrate Halloween, and it’s not like we have a system for trick-or-treating, so everyone comes out of the woodworks every Halloweekend to contribute to a party energy that just isn’t sustainable every other weekend. It’s almost sad, though: can’t every party have a dance floor so crowded you’re literally pressed against people from every angle while Deceptacon blasts from the speakers? Perhaps we should invent more holidays to maximize these experiences. Petition to end Field Work Term a week earlier so we can have Valentine’s Day parties? Should we be celebrating Labor Day?

If a day ever comes where Swalloween is genuinely bad, or unenjoyable, it would be safe to assume that would be a mark of a complete downward spiral of Bennington College as a whole. That, or there was some sort of entirely inconceivable national tragedy that unfolded that afternoon that has somehow snuffed the Halloween spirit of the entire country.

It’s a party with a reputation so established there seems to always be a group of tall men in the crowd who definitely are not Bennington students. Which just means they knew—if there was a party that was basically guaranteed to be good, it would be ol’ reliable, Swalloween.

Is there still a slight hollowness to it all? Maybe. Is Swalloween kind of like a party dressed up in a party costume? Perhaps. But would it even matter if was? Probably not. Sure, it’s a sort of hollow simulacrum of a crazy night, but it’s an effective simulacrum, and at the end of the night, most of us had a nice time. Do you approach a sack of candy with a critical culinary eye? No. You eat it, and—even if your stomach hurts a little bit afterwards—it tastes good.

Phew. After all that, I think I need to catch some fresh air. How about going for a nice walk? At night? When it’s good and chilly outside? Maybe into North Bennington? Does Welling Townhouse sound good? Well, on Saturday night, for everyone who still hadn’t gotten their fill of costumes, the Townhouse hosted an it’s-still-Halloween-themed party.

There was every reason to expect it to be a good time: Townhouse is an intentional community, and, a Townhouse party is an intentional party. To go, you have to know where Townhouse is—which seems like a low bar, but you would be shocked how many people fail to clear it—and either know people who live there or be confident enough to stand around even though you don’t. And you have to go on a long walk in the cold, or drive and park, or hitch a ride in the shuttle. It’s a more confident crowd than usual—one where everyone really wanted to be there.

And because Townhouse is a literal house, the whole thing feels conditional in a way you don’t get with your average common room. You’ve been invited into a space, and you have to match their energy. Drinking isn’t the focus, and if you started throwing up in their bathroom, you would actually feel ashamed.

Unlike at most parties, where “dancing” involves standing in a circle and bobbing up and down with your feet planted on the ground, at Townhouse, the dancers are dance students, the dance floor is carpeted, and people spin and sway and shake and move. It’s inspiring, and educational, and even a little intimidating. Being on the dance floor has to be earned—it feels cultured in a way you don’t get anywhere else. Oh, and the music is always really, really good, too. Would any other house play Omar Souleyman?

So add all of this together, and you usually get a really fun, tasteful—dare we say, refined?—party. Unfortunately, none of this mattered on Saturday night, because people just didn’t show up. At the advertised start time of 10:30, effectively no-one besides residents was there. An hour later, there were enough people that the party at least felt like it had nominally started—but then the issue was retention. People left almost as soon as they arrived, and the party was left to limp along for the rest of the night.

There were two successful Townhouse parties last term. One was in the deep of winter, when there was literal ice and snow covering the roads. And the other saw attendance so good the cops came. What happened? You might be able to chalk some of it up to people being tired out from Friday night, but the real nail in the coffin was something usually unthinkable for Bennington—another party, not just unofficial, but—gasp!—not even located in actual college housing.

Yes, it’s true. For once, there were three parties in a Bennington weekend. It seems safe to say that the competing party at the Brick House was what ultimately did Townhouse in. Was the slightly shorter walk what tipped the balance? Do Brick House residents have slightly more social cachet? Regardless, by the end of the night, even the residents of Townhouse themselves were abandoning ship and making the walk over—a sign of failure if there ever was one.

It’s unclear if Brick House was ever bigger than the Townhouse party. One source said that there was for a time a “crowd” gathered outside, though the Lens, unfortunately, was unable to confirm this firsthand. It is also possible that there were just two weird, sparse parties.

Either way, Saturday night was an unsettling glimpse into a alternate collegiate party universe—one with beer instead of house drinks, word-of-mouth invitations instead of posters, locations that you can’t find on Google Maps or a campus directory, where there is music, but no dancing, and everyone feels just a little out of place the entire time. And though it was a weekend filled with ghosts, skeletons, spooks, freaks, haunts and ghouls galore—well, perhaps that was really the scariest thing of all.