Byline: Alex Costin

The Nose

I feel victorious over the Nazis. I feel ashamed.

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Obituary for a Lost Boy

When I called Rachel, she answered the phone cheerfully. I should have listened more carefully to that tone, should have let it linger longer before I brought the sky crashing down over her. Last year, around this time, just as the weather was starting to turn and leaves began popping up on all the trees, our uncle died in his sleep; our grandparents were visiting for the week and found him the next morning.

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Collection As Art

Included among the objects displayed in “Myself, I Think We Should Keep Collecting Titles,” the Lewis Center for the Arts’ sharp new exhibition of work by Dean of the Faculty and professor of computer science David Dobkin, are: snow globes, popsicle sticks, water bottle caps, Snapple lids, compact discs, keyboards, mother boards, paper tubes, credit cards, safety rings, fasteners, postcards, and pennies.

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Jackson Browne

I first got into Jackson Browne in that awkward phase of adolescence where nothing seems to really make sense and you’re caught between the comforts of youth and promise of adulthood.

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A Prince at Princeton

In September 1940, Japan’s prime minister, Konoe Fumimaro, concluded the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy, committing the three countries to support each other against the United States in the event of American entry into World War II.

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Glory Days

When maintenance came to clean Jadwin Gymnasium on the morning of November 2, 1978, they found litter on the gym floor, broken glass, and gouges in the basketball court a quarter inch deep.

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12 Years a Slave

Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave is tense and unflinching. Its relentless intensity and graphic brutality has been the defining feature in the media, but it is also an essential part of the film and the primary reason it could become the most important portrait of American slavery yet on camera.

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Reconciling Art and Artist

When I visited the Woody Allen papers before winter break, the allegations against Mr. Allen of sexual abuse had not yet resurfaced. Those accusations, presented by his daughter Dylan Farrow in the New York Times on February 1, have reignited an age-old debate about the relationship between an artist’s personal life and the content of his artwork.

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The New Garden Theatre

Once a small-town movie house that navigated the local market with bumbling charm, the Garden Theatre has grown into an exhibit of Old Princeton nostalgia under its new management. This is all well and good for Princeton’s polished and intellectual reputation, but I’ll miss the old Garden’s cozy modesty.

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Reborn in the USA

Campaigning for re-election in 1984, Ronald Reagan riled up a crowd in New Jersey by blasting Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.,” a song which sounds like a latter-day national anthem but which actually takes a critical stance on the Vietnam War and the state of American society left in its wake.

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November 13

That’s the first day. You just stay indoors and hope the terrorists don’t make house calls.

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An Interview with Princeton’s Resident Dylanologist

Talking about the Nobel Laureate with Professor Sean Wilentz

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