Because of my tendency to mumble vague feminist claims, or perhaps because of my decade-long ugly duckling phase, I have always been pinned with the word “jaded.” I suspect this is because my first crush called me “chipmunk face” too many times, so I eventually beat him up in second grade and then gave up on romance before I knew what it was.
If you want to determine how desperate a group of people are, just look at their heroes. So Saddam’s shiny new posthumous status as martyr surprises me not. As Saudi Arabian TV personality, Ahmad Mazin al-Shugairi relates, “The Arab world has been devoid of pride for a long time. The way Saddam acted in court and just before he was executed, with dignity and no fear, struck a chord with Arabs who are desperate for their own leaders to have pride too.”
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.
Slavoj Žižek seems like he is on the brink of a nervous breakdown when he lectures. He waves his arms wildly. He pulls at the front of his unassuming gray T-shirt. He grabs at the hair on his forehead. He … Read More
When Stephen Harper was elected the new Prime Minister of Canada, American liberals freaked out. I have one thing to say in response: chill out, seriously.
But, with the surge in oil prices and the resultant focus on the Middle East, Cairo and Egypt (along with pre-bombed Beirut) became virtual Meccas of Western culture. And, of course, with the Gucci and the McDonald’s came the fitness clubs. Appearing like empty candy wrappers after a night of THC-induced debauchery, these clubs came complete with ellipticals, aerobics classes and muscle-bound personal trainers. Catering to the Cairene elite, the gyms cover all the bases: massage parlors, multiple steam rooms, kickboxing and hip-hop classes and, of course, the smoothie bar
There are many pressing issues that weigh on the mind of our young student population: the war in Iraq, the upcoming elections, the deaths of Jacques Derrida and Christopher Reeve, beer-but in lieu of all that (except, perhaps, the latter-most) I’d like to talk about something that’s been bothering a burgeoning group of people: the nature of Jacob O. Gold.
In perhaps the greatest scoop of the year, specialists with the Nassau Weekly Department of Literary Espionage discovered an advance copy of J.M. Coetzee’s newest work in the men’s room stall of “The Mother of All Bathrooms” on the 300 … Read More
Schmitz’s real purpose is to marginalize 185 Nassau and a group of people who create. And how better to do this than to reduce all their striving to a simple exercise in what Edward Said terms “refinement”—the long, steady, reactionary march toward sameness, marked by a constant re-reading and emulating of a constricted Western canon. Anyone can write a villanelle in a vacuum, but the teaching of creativity, the encouragement of a fresh perspective—these demand an understanding of the physical world and of the writer’s particular circumstances.
Paris: city of romance, city of wine, cheese and…belligerent drunks? Gropers on the subway? Public urination? Though it is called the City of Lights, Paris, as I have come to know it, actually has a dark and seedy underbelly. Having … Read More
Yes, men were in _The Vagina Monologues_. And yes, Eve Ensler, playwright, strictly forbids this. But honestly, you probably wouldn’t notice them anyway. When they leave the stage after the introduction, they don’t really come back. Despite some intermittent appearances, … Read More
