It’s difficult for me to avoid skepticism when commercials are overly sentimental about their own brands. “It’s time to become better versions of ourselves,” narrates a deep, persuasive and compelling voice which overlays the empty airport powering to life.
Saturday mornings always give rise to endless possibilities. A few Saturdays ago, a friend and I decided to profit from the day by heading to New York City for the 6th annual “¡Fiesta! Celebrating Hispanic and Latin Cultures” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a day of cultural festivities featuring live folk dance performances and various workshops and activities in the large indoor halls and courtyards of the museum.
My ears picked up on it the moment I walked through the entryway. As I walked up the staircase to the lecture hall, I could clearly make out sentences of the conversation being had behind me. It felt out of place to me, belonging to a different time and place.
The people who introduced us to everything “social” and all things “innovative” have political positions and ideological stances that impact policy in real and tangible ways. As the language of entrepreneurship creeps into our vernacular, the politics of the entrepreneurial class creep into the halls of government.
In the “About Us” section of their website, the creators of theSkimm proclaim: “We see ourselves as a part of a generation where women are out-earning men in paychecks and degrees. We’ve grabbed our seats at the table, now it’s time to Skimm to the head.” I researched the daily newsletter after it was recommended to me as something “super helpful” by my brother’s wealthy, educated girlfriend who works in an art gallery.
To reach “Itinerant Languages of Photography”—one of the Art Museum’s two new temporary exhibits—one has to pass all that is not itinerant about the Museum. The entrance lies to the right of the Museum’s well-worn European mainstays. Each time I entered, I had to pass Washington’s confident gaze, his portrait serving as a reminder of what is permanent and perhaps most validated in the Museum, and what is not.
I’m sitting on one of the loveseats in the Starbucks on Nassau Street, weirdly conscious of my calves sticking to the cold leather seat covers, experiencing what I imagine only certain paparazzi have felt at the peaks of their careers. The strangeness of spending years seeing someone in two dimensions, only to have them sitting across from you, alive and fidgeting. Lorena Grundy gestures at my coffee cup.
As I stood in a fifteen-minute line for Nomad Pizza last Sunday at the installation celebration for President Eisgruber, I felt more like I was at Chris’s personal episode of “My Super Sweet Sixteen” than his inauguration. There was a famous band whose booking agent lists their price at over $100,000, free pizza and ice cream, bubble tea, and tons of Princeton swag.
Many fine newspapers have recently lamented over the future of our beautiful planet. We are told that polar bears grow hungry in the Arctic, oceans threaten to drown skyscrapers, and that we—poor, frail humans—must swelter as Earth becomes Furnace.
This summer I have taken it upon myself to tackle John Steinbeck’s American epic East of Eden, a modern retelling of the biblical Cain and Abel story set to the backdrop of post-Gold Rush era Northern California—that is, Steinbeck’s own backyard. Summer is, for students at least, that blessed time of intellectual freedom during which schoolwork means almost nothing to you and you are free to read, write, study, and contemplate whatever you wish.
I am fulfilling my destiny!” These are the words I heard billowing from a field to my left, as I thumped down a running path in Central Park. Startled, I looked towards the source of the voice; my eyes met a massive, sandstone obelisk, referred to as “Cleopatra’s Needle” by some, and “Central Park’s Dick” by others.
Looking for a place to start this article and overwhelmed by the weight of the subject matter before me, I do a quick experiment and type “virginity” into Google; I’m curious to see the most popular searches. “Virginity statistics, virginity auction, virginity quotes, virginity pledge” reads the list. The list doesn’t help much except to reestablish what I don’t want this article to be about.
