STEVE YANG, Features Editor

yangstev17@grinnell.edu

It’s a graceful name that rolls off the tongue effortlessly: Caliburmia. It was chosen by the four residents of 1026 High Street: Sam Catanzaro, Beau Bressler and Saw Min Maw (all’16) and Cole Miller ’17 to honor their origins: Catanzaro, Bressler and Miller are from California, and Saw Min Maw is from Burma. Hence, Caliburmia.

But it wasn’t always named Caliburmia, the residents will tell you. When Jon Sundby ’17 (currently abroad, and affectionately nicknamed Mr. Poopy Butthole) lived in Saw Min Maw’s current room, it was Wonderland, so-called because of the musical choices of the house.

“The name stemmed from listening to a lot of Stevie Wonder at the beginning of the semester,” Miller said.

Nowadays, Caliburmia’s inhabitants pride themselves on their cooking and fashion, which Catanzaro highlighted.

“We’re fashion forward. Everything is very progressive,” Catanzaro said. “Our decorations, very eclectic. But we do have the best spice rack on High Street.”

These Caliburmians are also proud of keeping their house clean, which they’ve noted is a difficult task but one to invest a lot of time and pride in. Numerous residents of the house have lived together previously, which has helped them get along and strive together for house cleanliness.

“It’s one of the cleaner houses on High Street,” Miller said. “We maintain this house. I like being in control of that.”

“People like nice houses, that’s why people come here,” Catanzaro agreed.

With its prime location close to both school and to social events, Caliburmia is a common destination for revelers and tennis players who want to indulge in its progressiveness.

“It’s the place you go to pre-party and post-party High Street, which comes with a bunch of tennis first-years,” Miller said.

“We do get very good squads though,” Bressler noted. “It’s always very chill.”

The house is relatively high-tech: a projector can be used to broadcast games on a living room wall. Bressler is a competitive Super Smash Bros player and Miller’s nickname in high school was “The Controller,” according to his fellow tenants. The quartet make frequent use of their Xbox, their WiiU, but most of all their beer die table, which possibly used to be named “The Book of Mormon” and is a beloved inheritance passed down from another house on High Street.

“She’s been with us for two years,” Saw Min Maw said of their beer die table. “She’s actually the fifth member of the house.”

“They’re great ‘not doing work’ accessories,” Catanzaro said of their much treasured items.

Naturally then, Caliburmia house traditions often center on the drinking of beer and the playing of die. All kinds of beer and people are welcome, but craft beer is preferred.

“There’s always die happening here,” Bressler said. “Random people are just getting trashed here.”

The house was also a hotspot on 10-10 and hosted a keg/die party, which the inhabitants said was “quite chill.” The house has plans to host a “Moose” party in the future, having already cultivated an appropriate aesthetic through their “wall of six packs.” Additionally, craft beer is always present for Friday dinners, which compliment another Caliburmian food tradition: eggs. So many eggs.

“We eat a lot of eggs,” Catanzaro said. “Eggs, onions, peppers, garlic and some type of meat. The five things we’re always eating.”

“The house should be called ‘Green Eggs and Sam,’” Saw Min Maw joked.

But eggs are more than just a breakfast item. They’re a tradition, and a source of love and admiration for the house.

“I haven’t poached an egg yet this year, but I should do that,” Catanzaro said. “I wrote my college essay on poaching eggs.”

The house has enjoyed its fair share of oddities: a bat that was hanging undetected on the house Christmas lights for a full hour before being noticed, Internet finally arriving in the house in February, the upstairs bathroom caving in and a bathroom door that is notoriously difficult to open.

“There’s no bathroom handle,” Bressler said. “Sometimes people get locked in and have to knock until somebody lets them out.”

And there are some annoyances the dwellers wanted to highlight: people randomly walking in and raiding the fridge, or “flocks” of people strolling in and playing die.

“We welcome everyone, but it’s kind of rude to walk into someone’s house and go through their fridge,” Catanzaro said.

The key to good health is diet and exercise, so Caliburmia features posters of tennis superstar Rafael Nadal in bare-skinned glory as an inspiration. It’s truly a sight to behold.

“Shirtless Rafael Nadal is about body positivity and all that,” Bressler explained. “It gives us incentive to work hard and to play good tennis.”

Nonetheless, the central focuses of 1026 High Street are friendship and blissful utopian living.

“I like living off campus because I feel like in some ideal world, this is what my life will be like,” Bressler said wistfully. “It’ll just be hanging out with the homies, playing WiiU and Xbox.”