Blacker Raises the Neon Pyramid
On the night of May 19, Blacker Hovse summoned students to quite the chimerical Interhovse: Ancient Egypt by way of glowstick fever dream. The invitation arrived less as an announcement than an incantation — “The pharaoh’s curse beckons you” — calling partygoers to “flood the courtyard at 10pm sharp” for what it promised would be a “body thumping blood pumping rave inside the neon pyramid.”
The result calibrated for maximal theatrical excess: pharaonic judgment, dayglo outfits, bass-heavy revelry, and the warmly absurd question of whether one’s heart was “worthy.” The beckoning call leaned into the usual Caltech-party register of mock-mythic grandeur, transmuting a courtyard party into a ritualized descent into neon antiquity.
The Interhouse featured the promised neon pyramid, a shimmering deluge from a model Nile, eschatological wall art, and a fluorescent mummy’s tomb. (Photos: Damian R. Wilson)
