Numéro Cinq

Spaceships Spotted in Montpelier?  Reflections on Close Encounters at VCFA.

By Richard Farrell

In Steven Spielberg’s 1977 blockbuster Close Encounters of the Third Kind, an alien spaceship scorches half of Roy Neary’s face as it flies over his truck. (Richard Dreyfus plays Neary.)  Like anyone shaken by such a sublime and weird experience, Roy becomes obsessed with finding the source of those lights.   (Call to Adventure.)

The Winooski River wraps around downtown Montpelier like an untied blue ribbon and drains mountain ranges to the northeast of town.  The river then meanders northwest toward Burlington, before it empties into Lake Champlain.  The word Winooski comes from the Abenaki language.  It means “wild onion.”

I walked in the door of Dewey Hall on that first day of grad school, collected a plastic bag filled with paper-thin sheets, and felt certain that I was more talented, more dedicated, more well-read and more likely to succeed in this program than anyone else.  I thought I had travelled further, worked harder, and understood the world better than most.  I believed my talent would be quickly rewarded.

Roy is the quintessential everyman: he has a wife, three kids, a dog, a modest brick house in Indiana, and a steady job.  Until baked by the alien lights, there is nothing unique or particularly interesting about his life.

Dewey Hall, the dormitory on campus, appears to be named for Admiral George Dewey.  Admiral Dewey commanded the U.S. Navy ships at the Battle of Manila Bay during the Spanish-American War, and issued the famous order, “You may fire when ready, Gridley.”  (Well, it’s famous to Annapolis alums who spent 4 years learning naval lore.)  George Dewey was born in Montpelier in 1837 and once attended Norwich University before heading off to the Naval Academy.  VCFA merged with Norwich from 1972 until 1993.

On that first night of my first residency, I ate dinner across a table from Douglas Glover in Dewey Hall cafeteria.  He tried to explain image patterning to me. I didn’t get it. Fortunately, I had read Elle before coming to Vermont, so I managed to stumble through my half of the conversation by talking about his book. I feigned intelligence and somehow choked down a few bites of whatever root-vegetable medley was on my plate.

After seeing the lights, Roy becomes obsessed by a strange shape.  The form mysteriously keeps appearing: in his pillow, his shaving cream, in the mud castle of a little boy, and in mashed potatoes.  He can’t identify the source of the shape, but it begins to occupy more and more of his waking thoughts.  He believes the shape holds the key to his understanding, but he vacillates, trying to decide if he should pursue this obsession or return to his normal life.  (Refusal of the call.)

Completed in 1872, College Hall rises atop Seminary Hill.  The venerable building originally served as a theological seminary and was constructed on the remains of a Civil War hospital for chronically ill vets.  College Green once served as a racetrack and fairgrounds.  I found no mention of ice rinks or July 4^th softball games.  The pipe organ was installed in 1884.

DG writes this: “Of course, what drives from a writer’s hand always remains secret, sometimes even from himself.  We surge toward the shapes we love without knowing why we love them.”   (from his essay “Reading a Mark Jarman Story” in The New Quarterly) From dinner, I walked across the snowy sidewalks to College Hall.  Continue reading »