In the spirit of this week’s issue, I’ve been thinking about a number of things in pop culture that I seem to like for no apparent reason. Sometimes I hate myself for enjoying the following things, but enjoy them I do, however much guilt I may feel.
The political history of South Carolina is full of funny stories. Yet amid a landscape scarred by utter military catastrophe, deep racial injustice, and still bitter historical tragedy, these stories seem sometimes not so funny. Or maybe they’re funnier. During the presidency of Franklin Pierce, Congressman Preston Brooks cudgeled Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner nearly to death with his cane.
Hey there, Students. Are you feeling a little, well, chubbly-wubbly? Are your ankles a bit cankly? Are your hips bulbous and obscene? Are your cheeks filled to bursting with pie? Here at the Nassau Weekly we feel comfortable enough to … Read More
After reexamining my near-two years of motley New Jersey life, I can write with some assurance that my most traumatic Princetonian experience took place in transit, one December at seven-thirty in the company of a bike named Jen. I had … Read More
Many of you chose to avoid United 93 for various reasons. The trailer, some suggested, was manipulative. The lack of concrete information, it was said, means that no one should try to tell an incomplete story. The movie, my friends whined, will undoubtedly exploit the men and women who died that day, and should be shunned because of it. Now, there are indeed legitimate reasons not to see United 93. It is perhaps more difficult to watch than any recent American release – not due to the violence, which is sparse and effective, but due to the intense dread that settles into your stomach as you watch dozens of people prepare for what will most certainly not be an ordinary Tuesday
The Daily Princetonian is bad. We all know that. Their machinations have caused a great deal of trouble for those of us who enjoy spending time at various eating clubs, and, to put it bluntly, their staff either doesn’t know how to write, or is robbed of any talent by the publication itself. Accordingly, simply listing terrible stories of theirs would be redundant, so I have given this semester’s most uniquely awful articles their own awards. Without further ado, this is… The Worst of the Prince.
Apparently contemporary fiction is suffering from an infusion of effeminate, lazy, timid and predictable male writers. Or at least that’s the impression I get from the Canadian-based publisher Raincoast and the sprinkling of various reviewers who are championing former Nassau Weekly editor Nathan Sellyn ’04’s literary debut Indigenous Beasts as a “daring collection of fiction” from “a bold, young writer whose work is masculine, energetic, and shocking.” For the record, I have no idea what a “masculine” piece of fiction could be, beyond containing a bunch of tough-guy male characters (but, then again, so does a lot of gay erotica).
A couple Fridays ago, joined by the presidents of Kappa and Pi Phi, I spoke as the Theta representative at Take Back the Night. The evening was frantically managed, with speakers from what seemed like every organization on campus standing … Read More
One of the proclaimed ‘hallmarks’ of a Princeton education is the preceptorial session and, at first glance, it seems to be a model institution. The precept is an opportunity to engage closely with a course’s material in the company of … Read More
It was the first dance of the year, and we were eighth graders, the cream of the crop, the big kahunas, the head honchos…you get it. We were on top, and it was our year. Pulling up in our now … Read More
“Are you going to the James Baker lecture?” a guy sitting across the table from me recently asked his friends over dinner. “Who’s James Baker?” one of the friends answered. “You know – an important person who went here.” “Oh. … Read More
Elie Wiesel got mad at me once.
In 1996, I was attending Harvard Divinity School and taking a seminar with Wiesel at Boston University on “Literature of Prison.” The room was packed with fawning, silent, ‘participants’ who took down Wiesel’s pronouncements like they were revelation. We were reading books written from or about prison life: Dostoevsky, Solzhenitsyn, Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon, Primo Levi’s Survival in Auschwitz, Ariel Dorfman’s Death and the Maiden, Danilo Kis’ A Tomb for Boris Davidovich; a fantastic syllabus. After a while, one’s literary experience of prison becomes numbing, all bondage seems the same: the harsh labor, the capricious cruelty of guards, the rock-hardened souls