The Mad Hatter’s (Gin &) Tea Party took guests on a trip down the rabbit hole into an immersive, 1.5 hour-long experience hosted by the Hatter himself and some of his equally mad friends. Guests enjoyed 3 crazy craft cocktails in this mad tea party.

What does Henry David Thoreau’s retreat into the natural world at Walden Pond have to do with our modern culture of distraction and technological immersion? We learned how Thoreau’s interest in the peace of nature was fueled by his distress at the information culture of the 19th century when the telegraph brought news to Americans at a startlingly brisk pace and the railroad moved goods across the country with breathtaking speed. Thoreau is one of our earliest writers about technology overload, and wrote powerfully about the need to rest the mind and retreat from eternally asking, “What news?” We took a look at how Thoreau also understood the possible interweaving of technology into nature, as in his fascination with the telegraph wires and trains that ran right past Walden pond.  

Having the freedom to make choices for oneself is among the most prized rights a person can have. But this preference for choice may only go so far. Professor Mary Steffel discussed the burden of making choices and how when we delegate so many of the choices in our lives it helps us pass the burden of choice to someone else.