Laura didn’t know what a WesCeleb was when we first asked to interview her, and even after we explained it, she didn’t think she was worthy of the status. Over the course of lunch at the vegan café, despite having to say hello to, hug or kiss nearly everyone who walked by, she still found time to talk to me about turning 20, biodiesel fuel and bike riding skills.
KATEY RICH: So it’s your birthday tomorrow. Is that scary for you?
LAURA GOLDHAMMER: It’s kind of a traumatic type of thing because, hey, I’m 20, people expect shit of me.
KR: So what are you going to do for your birthday?
LG: If there’s anything I’ve learned it’s that on your birthday you do whatever the f—k you want, so that’s what I’m going to do.
KR: (Bess Thaler ’04, sitting at the table with us, interjects “Are you going to hump a sheep?”)
LG: Hell yeah. (Another person asks if she’ll see her twin brother, Dan Goldhamer). I have a twin brother. He goes to Hampshire College.
KR: How often do you get to see each other?
LG: Maybe three or four times a semester. But we have telepathy.
KR: OK, I have to confess, I have your music on my iTunes. I don’t know how I got it, but I like it, and that’s kind of why we chose you to be a WesCeleb. So, would you consider yourself a folk singer?
LG: I’d say I’m pretty folky.
KR: How long have you been singing?
LG: Since freshman year of high school. I started playing guitar when I was an eighth-grader.
KR: You must have been a really cool eighth-grader.
LG: I was hip. I was the coolest.
KR: So, what are you going to do that people expect of you?
LG: I’m going to play folk music on Wednesday at Alpha Delt at 8. I’m opening for Rachel Garland from Berkeley, Ca. That’s what people expect of me—play a little guitar, a little banjo. Maybe I’ll bring some CDs.
KR: When did you record them?
LG: This recent one I recorded this summer, it’s called “The June Sessions.” I recorded it with my friend Natalie Tate from back home in Colorado.
KR: What was that experience like?
LG: It went really well. I’d been recording off and on for a long time. I guess I was like 15 when I started.
KR: (Emily Frost ’06 drops by and asks Laura about her avocado wrap. I ask Emily to tell a story about Laura).
Emily: One time Laura walked across the field playing her guitar at me. She was like a traveling bard.
KR: Are you trying to take your music to a label or anything like that?
LG: Well, going back to the “How was that experience?” question, it was good and kind of rushed. We were trying to get something together before we went off and played a bunch of shows in Telluride and other cities. We just played bars, and a farmer’s market and the wine festival in Telluride. We didn’t have as much time as we wanted. It’s a decent recording, but it’s not perfect. Over the years I’ve been developing contacts that I haven’t really pursued in terms of sending in recordings. Maybe when we get something we’re really happy with…
KR: Do you feel like it’s something you’ll do after graduation?
LG: I’d like to. I’d like to make it into a career, but I don’t know if it will happen. I do want to go around in a biodiesel van.
KR: Yeah, that was my next question. Tell me about your involvement in that. I know that bus was here a few weeks ago.
LG: About a year and a quarter ago I heard about what biodiesel was, and I was like “Oh, f—k, that’s amazing!” It turns waste into something positive. [Biodiesel fuel is vegetable grease converted to fuel.] So I researched it, and last spring I got a little grant to pursue biodiesel work at Wesleyan. I spent the grant and I got some materials to make a biodiesel processor. I also got a kit that converts a diesel car to run off vegetable oil. I was going to buy this diesel car from a kid who graduated last year, and he was going to bring it down this September, and he crashed it a week before. I’m looking for a diesel automobile, preferably something big like a van, but any diesel automobile will do.
KR: Is there any reason this isn’t hugely popular yet?
Well, it’s catching on. In Europe it’s pretty big—there’s a bunch of filling stations that sell biodiesel. I was just reading that in Denver they opened their first biodiesel filling station.
KR: Are you doing anything with it other than trying to get your hands on a diesel car?
LG: Surrounding that bus that was here, a lot of people with interest in it congregated. I’m trying to get a system operating for processing vegetable oil from the campus center and MoCon into biodiesel. I’ve been pursuing it with administrative people to find a space to do it. I want to do it in the Earth House basement, but I don’t think they’re big into that in terms of safety. I went to an environmental meeting down in Middletown, and I’m trying to get it to be a more Middletown-wide endeavor. Right now it’s really in the formulation stages.
KR: Had you done other activism on campus before?
LG: I hadn’t really been ultra-active in a lot of groups. I’d go to a lot of protests, especially last year, but I didn’t really have an ongoing commitment.
KR: So what else are you up to?
LG: I’m living in Earth House—we’re doing VegOut on Thursday, it’s going to be Thanksgiving themed. I’m trying to maintain friendships, I’m trying to be a good human being. I’m trying to do whatever the f—k I want on my birthday tomorrow.
KR: Got any plans yet?
LG: Raise hell. I’m going to cause a lot of trouble. I’ll do my favorite thing in the world to do, which is ride down Foss Hill on my bike, and when you get to the bottom, clutch the seat between your knees and put your arms out to the side. It’s like you’re flying.
KR: So, it’s kind of a WesCeleb tradition to have you tell a joke.
LG: I’ll tell the only joke that I ever made up. What do you call a person in a hurry?
KR: I don’t know.
LG: Russian. What do you call someone not in a hurry?
KR: I don’t know.
LG: Stalin.
KR: I like it. Is there anything else you want to say in your moment of WesCeleb-ness?
LG: I just want to say that I don’t know why I swallowed a fly. I guess I’ll die. I don’t know why you guys picked me for WesCeleb. I’m not interesting. I’m just regular. The rest of you all are crazy. I’m the regular one.
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