The Wake

The Mafia Club doesn’t sit around in three-piece suits. Its members don’t tote around guns, rope or wire, either. They do kill people though–figuratively speaking.

The Mafia Club is a group of students, currently all Frontier Hall freshmen, who gather in Coffman room 305 every Wednesday from 8-10pm to play the party game “Mafia.” The game is best played with eight or more people. Players are labeled as mafia, civilian, police officer, or as a moderator nicknamed “God.” During the game, only the mafia knows the other mafia members. The rest of the players only know their character’s identity. The game takes place during “day,” when the civilians try to eliminate mafia members by choosing a person to kill the next day. But at “night,” when the civilians close their eyes, the Mafia wake up, choose someone to kill, then go back to “sleep.” Then, the police officer “wakes up” and gets to point at one person to find out if that person is a civilian or a mafia member. If the police officer discovers a mafia member, he or she has to try and convince the civilians to kill that person without revealing his or her identity. Otherwise, the officer risks being killed by the mafia that night. The object of the game is to try and stay alive!

President Alison Kleinschmidt began playing the game this past summer with Vice President Emily Wallner and other friends. Deciding to make it an organized club, they recruited friends from Frontier to join. The club is laid-back, and Kleinschmidt describes their Wednesday nights as “[a] nice way to cut back and let loose in the middle of the week. Take two hours out of your evening and just have fun. And it’s healthy fun too”

The group plans to continue as long as they have members. Their upcoming plans include taking a break from Mafia to see Matrix: Revolutions on November 5th. If you are interested in learning more about the Mafia Club e-mail them at mafia@umn.edu.

After meeting with the Frontier Mafia, I headed to Middlebrook Hall to meet the members of the Elevator Music Club. This group of eight usually gathers once a week to sing, shake, drum and strum guitars in Middlebrook’s second elevator.

The idea of entertaining students in the elevator began two years ago when President Anthony Brown was a freshman living in the dorm. Bored one night, he and his friend, Taylor Stevenson, set up two chairs in the elevator to observe and make funny faces at people. As the year continued, they started bringing bongos and guitars into the elevator and began cultivating a following. The two continued as a pair the next year, and this year Brown decided to turn it into an official club.

Brown lives on the Arts Floor at Middlebrook, so at his house’s first meeting he asked if anyone was interested in participating. He got a big response. Usually, two or three members ride the elevator at one time to allow space for passengers to ride along. Though the group wants people to get on the elevator they’re performing in, sometimes people don’t think they should enter. Other times, groupies ride up and down in the elevator with the musicians so no one else has room to get in!

Though most residents enjoy the elevator music, some floors complain. Once, member Nicole Salm had a banana thrown at her when the doors opened on an angry floor. But more often, people are excited and appreciative of the group. The Elevator Music Club enjoys performing, meeting people, and brightening others’ days by relieving the elevator silence with live music.