Etienne Jaumet - At the Crack of DawnThe school that I work for, Ztown U, is about to acquire its second working Pennsylvania German nineteenth-century barn. Maybe take a moment to let all those modifiers sink in. ‘Pennsylvania German,’ ‘second,’ and ‘nineteenth-century’ are probably the most important ones to keep in mind. A crew of Amish builders are disassembling the barn in situ, labeling each piece, and preparing everything to be carted back to the campus. There’s apparently a video on a local newspaper’s website of all this hot beard-on-barn action. While other schools are doing cancer research or, I don’t know, buying and erecting humongous magnets, Ztown says pshaw to all that. Ztown says, Fuck Off, Progress! (actually a translation of the school’s Latin motto: Abi, Progressus!). In a way though, it does make sense. This place will never, ever be able to compete academically or financially with even the shittier state schools, so why not become the go-to place for a program that no one else would dream of developing, and only a handful of the loneliest, most misguided souls would pursue: Pennsylvania Dutch Heritage Studies. Unless one day colleges start offering Bawdy Wenches and Lively Ales as a major, I believe that Pennsylvania Dutch Studies will forever hold the crown of being a course of study custom-made for the once-and-future Renaissance Faire devotee (because: weird food—check; old and bizarre customs—check; strange clothes—check; somewhat different language—check). Make love with a corn stalk in one hand and a warm shoo-fly pie in the other.[BUY Night Music]