By Reece M. Krantz ’16
THE ROUNDUP
BLAM hopes to increase production value of its annual arts magazine this year with a new publication office, which also serves as faculty workspace.
The workspace is near the west end of Brophy Hall’s second floor. Maintenance crews renovated the space this summer.
Mr. John Damaso ’97 is an advisor to BLAM, otherwise known as Brophy Literary Arts Magazine, and the satirical newspaper The Wrangler. The focus he said he tries to achieve is in his position is to showcase student arts and literary examples.
BLAM is a group that meets all year discussing literature and art. Their annual end of the year magazine is what they are commonly know for.
This year they hope to increase their involvement by including Summit writing and “Broetry”, a sort of poetry contest.
In the past, BLAM has had no permanent home at Brophy; they have worked in practically every building for the past six years.
Brian Thorpe ’15 was highly involved with BLAM last year and worked as an editor.
“Last year, my title was the Junior Managing Editor.” Thorpe said “This basically means that I worked closely with my senior counterpart, Ryan Frankel ’14, in organizing BLAM events and sub-committees, as well as participating in the general creation of the magazine.”
This new office is a change to their system that should be for the better, according to the advisor, allowing higher production value and content.
“Office is a generous term. In the past they have been operating in a various different spaces. Usually in B202. Production has been everywhere,” Mr. Damaso said. “This is the 7th year of BLAM and in those last years we produced in in E301 and info commons.”
The new office has been a faculty workspace for the past few years and has only recently been inquired for use by BLAM. Previously, BLAM has worked in a variety of places.
“The workplace situation before the office was a bit haphazard,” Thorpe said “We were storing materials in the back of the Info Commons and had some complications with printing, so our organization left much to be desired.”
It was designed for teachers to do work when they share classes with others, but it was recently renovated and now is a much larger, open space to do productive work.
“The new office is huge for us. It will allow us to have a concentrated, organized area to work, which I think will be conducive to a better work product.” Thorpe said.
The space will still accommodate teachers as well as The Wrangler and BLAM. The space is well acclimated to suit all the parties involved.
“Hopefully after a year, we discover that it suits the needs of all the share holders.” Mr. Damaso said. “If it accommodates teachers and The Wrangler and BLAM, then I can definitely see it as a permanent solution.”
In the future Mr. Damaso said he hopes that if it does become permanent, BLAM builds as part of the foundation of Brophy.
“The plan is to build a little prestige and a little worth in the community,” Mr. Damaso said. “Speech and debate has their sort of space, so do sports teams. We want a place for them to work and thrive.”