Living La Vie Bohème

Rent" played this past weekend at the IU Auditorium. Never having seen it before, I accepted my friends' invitation to join them and watch the show from their nosebleed seats back in the 11th row of the balcony. I was touched by the portrayal of New York bohemians dealing with financial instability, drug addiction and HIV, all the while trying to create art and find a love that binds them as a family. Though the setting and living conditions of the characters are drastically different than anything a middle class, Midwestern suburban, white Anglo-Saxon Protestant such as myself is familiar with. They had an emotional strength that gave the story a sort of universality, and they were recognizable in a way I couldn't quite put my finger on -- until one of my companions pointed it out.\n"She's such a Collinsite," my friend leaned over and whispered to me as Maureen, the narrator's ex-girlfriend-turned-lesbian, performs her interpretation of "The Cat and the Fiddle" in protest of the landlord's eviction of homeless people from his lot. My friend was referring to the archetypal character type found among our fellow residents of the Collins Living Learning Center.\nThis type can be found both inside of Collins and beyond. Anyone with dreadlocks in their hair or a set of bongos in their room likely count themselves among their ranks. They can be found reading poetry at open mic nights in coffeehouses, playing hacky sack in People's Park or holding protests in Dunn Meadow. They are activists and artists -- throwbacks from a long-gone era, a dying breed.\nOn the surface, I had to admit my friend was right. The personalities being both celebrated and lampooned on stage had a lot in common with those who I counted among my neighbors in our little corner of campus on 10th and Woodlawn. Still, the comparison was less than perfect.\nTry, as they might, to present themselves as otherwise, few Collinsites are living "La Vie Bohème," as the cast of "Rent" describes it. Try as they might, they are unable to escape their middle class, Midwestern suburban WASPness. \nBecause of this, their protests will never be on a par with those of Stokely Carmichael and their poetry will not be quite up to snuff with Allen Ginsberg. On the other hand, they are well off enough to go to one of the best schools in the country, and unlike the characters of the musical, few are dying of AIDS. While their background may be boring, it's worth the trade.\nThough the Bloomington bohemians are not quite the genuine article, they are not caricatures to be laughed at, either. Like Maureen, with her wonderfully over-the-top description of the cow jumping over the moon, their intentions are good, their message is important and their spirit is unflinching. Those protests and that poetry may not ever be written about in history books or literary anthologies, but they still deserve to be heard.\nI could encourage you not to ostracize these Bloomington bohemians and embrace them as a part of the tapestry that is this town and this campus, but I won't. I won't encourage you to stop regarding them as outsiders, because every time a frat boy drives by Collins and shouts "hippie freaks," a Collinsite smiles and shouts back, "you're damn right we are!" You who don't respect them and don't accept them are fuel for their fire, and it'll be a cold night when that fire goes out.\nMaybe that's what links the Bloomington bohemians to their counterparts who took the stage this weekend -- not economic or health status, but the sense of difference in which art, love and community are created. \nEmbracing difference is the real way to live "La Vie Bohème"