I found this curious invitation nestled in a medium-sized cardboard box in Mudd Library. A middle-aged man with a likeness to Frank Zappa had wheeled a cart over with this box and three others just like it into the musty reading room where I was conducting my research after hearing that my grandfather, who graduated in 1937, was a part of this group.
Ah, the Hook-up: the quintessential college social experience. More
which survives the weekend to circulate ’til the next Thursday. Delightfully suggestive of scandal, the very term “hook-up” is perfectly suited to describing to one’s friends a wide array of encounters: specific enough to provide gossip fodder, vague enough to spare the listener unnecessary detail.
I only knew one member of 2 Dickinson Street, the vegetarian co-op also known as 2D, when I signed up for a meal, though I didn’t know him that well. I didn’t know anyone from my year joining next year, as my friends and I had all joined clubs or went independent.
It’s the little things you remember when you die. The children. The moments. Your face after achieving multiple simultaneous orgasms. The orgasms. The presidential campaigns, the incipient volcano underlying the western half of the continental U.S. It’s the little things … Read More
As the presidential election nears, many Princeton students have no doubt been scrutinizing the candidates’ respective stances on the issues, trying to figure out whom to choose.
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.
The main character, Jon, whom the composer named after himself, struggles with an unsuccessful career composing musicals (or did that meta just blow your mind?)
The link above the rest of the page was fresh and in red. It was urgent, it seemed. “J.D. Salinger, reclusive author of _The Catcher in the Rye_, dies at 91.” A few weeks ago, coming back from winter break, … Read More
Remember the song “Maps” and the video with lead singer Karen O crying with such sincerely that a thousand emo-boys fell in love overnight? The song was so good that it got the Yeah Yeah Yeahs a national TV gig … Read More
Toward the end of June, as the dog-days of summer fell upon New York City suddenly and definitely, I made a religious pilgrimage to Corona Park, Queens, to see Billy Graham’s supposedly Last Crusade. Riding a crowded 7 train out to Queens I felt a palpable sense of excitement….It was like going to a Mets game, only more diverse.
