That I spent the first 13 years of my life living with a Jamaican woman is always striking to those who best know me. Seldom, I suppose, is the topic broached in casual parley. So when I reveal I have … Read More
“TRUST but verify,” goes the Old Russian proverb, and such a maxim can apply to the Guggenheim’s current “RUSSIA!” exhibit, which seems to require further probing – further verification – to find the reason for the obvious compensation attempted by using all capital letters and an exclamation point in its title.
American vernacular explodes ecstatically, euphorically such that it becomes positively contagious—seeping into our speech patterns, our lives. The use of sexual terms augments our tendency and predisposition for this vernacular, but it too can be found in other languages. Ben … Read More
Tickling the teeth, the tongue, the lips, Dr. Rabinowitz-Drillstein would jab various metal objects into my mouth during my visits to his dentist office. Though the majority of dentists will have at their most depressed of times the faint scent of Scotch or some strong digestif, my humble tooth doctor lacked this characteristic, and quite mysteriously so.
Get the memo: Yeats isn’t just a poet, as is his overwhelming identity to the intellectual bourgeoisie. Just ask John Raimo ’08 or co-director Courtny Hopen about their Cuchulain Comforted, the name they’ll given for a selection of At the Hawk’s Well, On Baile’s Strand, and The Death of Cuchulain—three plays in a series of five Yeats wrote about the virile Irish mythical hero.
As a self-proclaimed solipsist, I have always attached much importance to my name and seen it manifest itself in the least expected of places. But in my pampered youth of Plaza teas surrounded by the redolence of a fine Cavendish … Read More
If anyone can pull off the role of satirical, socio-political prophet and shnooky belletrist, it’s Gary Shteyngart. The author of The Russian Debutante’s Handbook and Absurdistan, Shteyngart is one of the punchiest and funniest young novelists out there. His writing, colored and coarsened by the blunt cynicism of his 1970s upbringing in the Soviet Union, draws on intricate tessellations of classic Russian literature, self-deprecating Semitic humor, and current global politics. Being a Jew born in 1972 in the anti-Semitic Soviet Union and having immigrated to Queens in 1979, he has achieved status as a perpetual outsider, who can observe from remove and criticize with greater perspicacity.
Roger Q. Mason is controversy. Roger Q. Mason is change. Roger Q. Mason is revolution. “Every good revolution happens behind locked doors,” he proclaims, sealing the portals leading to Theatre Intime’s Charrier Room. He’s been directing rehearsals for seven weeks … Read More
For a kid with a fear of the dark, public bathrooms, flying, and dying alone, I embarked intrepidly on a transatlantic cruise that mirrored the intended route of the ill-fated Titanic of 1912 from port at Southampton to New York … Read More
Given the impenetrable penumbra of mystery surrounding the secret letter from the Center for Jewish Life (CJL) to President Shirley Tilghman about the Chabad Affair, one may question the current adequacy of the support for Jewish life at Princeton. Though … Read More
It all came to me freshman year while studying Russian syntax and reading some Puskin. I’m there with a semi-erect penis (a state in which I often find myself when studying anything Slavic) and snacking on a chocolate chip cookie … Read More
Out of all the streets in the world stretching from Nevsky Prospekt in St. Petersburg to Lombard Street in San Francisco, I have spent the most time traversing Witherspoon and Nassau here in my hometown of Princeton, watching the dynamic of businesses, the ebb and flow of success and decline.