the cant of can't

i learned a new word yesterday and also a little about some local, um, shall we say color? quite literally. but let me begin by saying that a friend and i were eager to attend a calligraphy display. she brought her guidebook from college to breakfast and everything. (it having been authored by the same man whose work was being shown). while waiting for our table, we looked at the serifs and beautiful arches of each letter. the new word was "cant" as in the angle of holding the pen and paper when doing the lettering. (my pal, incidentally, has the most beautiful hand for calligraphy that i have ever seen). we were excited!
how could we have known that when we got to the campus and looked for the library that we would be greeted with an entirely different "can't" instead? at first, we didn't notice anything unusual; some outdoor theater props and students hanging out, your typical liberal arts college scene. the further we walked, however, we noticed blue people running down the hill. as they got closer, it became evident that they were people wearing nothing but blue paint. lines and lines of students dressed in everything from crowns to clowns...they told us the campus was closed. (ever felt like you stood out in a crowd for looking too normal?) what a new angle this was.
and it was true, the librarian literally would not let us in to look at the art because of a student festival celebrating the end of their semester. "you can't go in", he said. really!?
we might try again, we might not. while i'm practicing with paper and ink in the meantime, the word cant has taken on a whole new meaning...