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Hey y’all! I’m Zach Blumenfeld, colloquially referred to as Blumy, and I’m ecstatic to be returning to NSC for my sixth year on staff and eleventh year overall. I’m originally from Lincolnshire, IL, but am currently a junior at Vanderbilt University (hence the use of “y’all”—I’m a Southern gentleman now) where I am pursuing a double major in psychology and philosophy.
My true passion, though, is music—playing it, writing it, writing and talking about it, helping others make it. I host a weekly live music spotlight featuring student musicians on the university radio station (for which I also write biweekly blog posts), I am the director of a student-run recording studio, I volunteer teaching music to kids, and I am the bassist (and token Jewish member) of the Vanderbilt gospel choir.It shouldn’t come as a surprise, then, that one of my main goals this summer is to institutionalize guitar as a camp project the way Jeff McCormack made disc golf a North Star standard. When I’m not working on that, I’ll be teaching swimming, waterskiing, and fitness training, and working on the camper musical.
More about Zach
If you were stranded on a deserted island, what are three things you'd bring?
- A notebook, a pen, and Scarface (my beautiful acoustic guitar—I name my instruments)
Favorite special program at camp
- Friday Night Services
Your favorite TV or movie character
- Bernie, from Weekend at Bernie’s
Your best memory of camp.
- That’s tough, but probably playing folk songs and singing three-part harmonies in the Moose Room with Dylan Jacobs and Scott Goldberg.
Favorite Sports Teams
- Chicago Blackhawks, Chicago Bears, Vanderbilt Commodores
What would you choose for your last meal?
- My mom’s pot roast with mashed potatoes and green beans.
If you could be any animal, what would you be?
- A dolphin!
Your two favorite books
- The Magicians by Lev Grossman, The Stranger by Albert Camus
A secret hobby or skill that you have?
- I can balance Cheerios on the tip of my nose and then lick them into my mouth.
How has camp impacted you?
- In more ways than I can possibly fit here, or than you’d want to read. In brief: North Star is with me everywhere I go, in everything I do and say, in every relationship I build and every value I hold. I am the best version of myself at North Star, and it is the place where I am most comfortable with who I am; my wall is entirely down. That’s why I constantly strive to make the outside world more like camp—North Star is a place where any person can experience unparalleled emotional and social growth, something I know firsthand and have also seen in my peers and my campers over the years.
