History's first booth
HUNT SPECIAL - Carnegie Mellon University’s springtime Carnival brings with it many beloved traditions, perhaps most recognizable of all, Booth, a weeklong mad sprint through constructing marvelously untrustworthy houses. But did you know that the roots of booth trace back to far before CMU’s founding? Back before the scientists of our society had invented steel, universities, or Scotsmen, one ancient society was building immense, elaborate towers and tearing them down in a hurry, a practice that has traced its way to our school today. Chasing the roots of CMU’s most beloved culture, we come to explore the city of Babylon.
CMU historians argue that Babylon’s legendary Tower of Babel, and its rapid unplanned disassembly in the second millennium, represents both the thematic and literal origin of the Booth tradition. Most objectively, CMU historians traced the westward adoption of caffeinated tea and largescale fermentation in pottery towards its convergence point on the lower Euphrates, which scholars theorize led to Babylon developing the remarkable insanity to begin construction. To this day, a similar concoction powers booth-building CMU students through what are, to a healthy citizen, hallucinogenic levels of sleep deprivation. The further parallels between the structures built both then and now are remarkable, leading our historians to envision that the modern resurgence of Booth in 1914 looked back towards history for inspiration. And despite the theological questions raised by the debatably divine nature of Babylon’s first ever teardown, various scholars take the point in stride: “If anyone could so directly affront God with a house alone, it would be a true CMU student.” And yet, the Spring Carnival Committee has yet to authorize a booth over two stories tall. Perhaps we have learned, despite ourselves.