Editor’s note: The following is a satirical article for The DisreGuardian, a series of articles published annually for The Guardian’s April Fool’s issue. Lifestyle will resume publishing normal content next week.
The finals week midnight scream is becoming a yearlong phenomenon.
When the construction near Center Hall is complete, a new metal tree will be installed outside of UC San Diego’s first Triton Alumni and Welcome Center.
The original artist, Terry Allen, returned to UCSD after four decades. Armed with a dozen Blue Yeti microphones, he recorded the midnight screams during Finals Week of Winter Quarter. His new tree will play this audio on repeat using speakers that rival jet engines.
Stuart Collection director and curator Jess Berlanga Taylor announced the new installation in a Truth Social post.
“Students’ suffering isn’t restricted to just one week; it’s prolonged, lasting the entire year,” Taylor wrote. “Soon, Tritons will have a permanent reminder of their impending academic doom.”
This project has had a mixed reception. Some students are concerned that the constant screaming will worsen their already abysmal mental health.
The trees are a reminder of UCSD’s constant efforts to tear itself down and rebuild, as seen with RIMAC, Center Hall, and the Triton statue — which was repaired after being damaged in a three-way battle between the Geisel Gooner, Chancellor Pradeep Khosla, and our very own Batman.
During the University’s expansion efforts in the 1980s, Allen installed his preserved and lead-encased trees. Silent Tree was placed in the shadow of Geisel Library to remind Tritons that we must sacrifice trees to make books — an unfamiliar concept to modern students.
The other two were installed with powerful speakers, playing specially composed songs, Aztec poems, duck calls, and haunting chants. The Stuart Collection claims students have named the area surrounding them the “Enchanted Forest.” The UCSD Guardian spoke with every single current student, and none of them had ever heard of that.
“In my first quarter, I was walking back to my dorm from Target at night when, out of nowhere, the trees started chanting!” student and local loudmouth Bernie Sanders said — no relation to the Vermont democratic socialist. “I had heard about the Talking Tree and decided to follow the sound. All I found was a group of shirtless frat boys covered in whipped cream pie doing a conga line through the forest — turns out that the speakers weren’t working at the time.”
