Arbitrary Issue

September 30, 2004

Bob Ross Turns 80

Bob Ross, perhaps the most important mainstream American artist of the 1980s, is undergoing a resurgence of late.

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The Selected Sex Lives of Filipina Maids

Outside #01-239, the post office in Lucky Plaza, they leer at her, and she wonders what the three of them are doing there. Don’t Bangladeshi workers belong in Little India?

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ambergris

from far away the scent of amber-greased bodies
under the gray electric blue lights

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“Silver City”

“Junior can’t learn to read if he’s high on crack!”
This most delightful of exclamations comes perhaps halfway through Silver City, indie director John Sayles’s uneven attempt at political satire.

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Mystery Suitcase

It’s mid-September, and your room is set up at last. Your chair is here, your toes are toasty in the A.M. thanks to a whimsically shagged carpet you bought at Wal-Mart, your creamy walls glow with the efflorescence of a thousand late nineteenth-century French advertisements purchased from the student poster agency.

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Pleading for “Slow Motion”

On November 26th, 2003, rapper Soulja Slim was gunned down outside of the duplex he had bought for his mother in the Chantilly neighborhood of New Orleans.

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A Talk with Malkiel

JG:  What does it mean to be Dean of the College?
DM:  Dean of the College means that I’m responsible for undergraduate education, curriculum, academic advising, academic regulations, the academic standing of the students…

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I like you best when your lines are blurry

I like you best when your lines are blurry,
and your words melt from mouth to air

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This Could Be Anywhere

Poem on creation and destruction of fiction and reality.

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Verbatim

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Overheard outside McCosh: a girl dressed in a white polo shirt and plaid skirt talks with her guy friend

Guy: Why's your collar up? Quick, put it down!
[Girl weakly tries to put her collar down.]
Girl: I can't! It's stuck!
Guy: You liar!

Overheard at Wu Dining Hall

Girl 1: So, when do the British celebrate Thanksgiving?
Girl 2: (Incredulous staring, awkward silence)

Overheard at Frist

Guy: Can I have a bite of your pizza?
Girl: Why don't you just get your own?
Guy: I can't. I'll get fat. All of the fat tends to deposit itself on my torso.
Girl: (laughing)
Guy: No seriously... But not my thighs, they're good. And I have a nice ass.

Overheard in the Nass office

Male English major 1: Nunokawa's so cool. I would pick him as an advisor if he didn't do Victorian shit.
Male English major 2: Well, what if you could have his body?
Male English major 1: Nunokawa has an awesome body! He works out all the time.

Overheard in a history seminar

Professor: Every question becomes a meta-question. Today you live in meta-land... my great-grandparents lived in Yiddish land.
(Later in the seminar)
Professor: We were all glad when the Nass stopped putting professor quotations in Verbatim.

Overheard at Triumph

Guy 1: Yeah, so I hooked up with this really hot girl last night.
Guy 2: What'd you do?
Guy 1: We made out on the dance floor at one of the eating clubs.
Guy 1: Dude, that doesn't count. That's like hookup inflation.
(Editor's note: Actually, it does count. It's called a dance floor kiss, or "DFK" for short. As in, Guy 1 totally DFK'd a hot girl last night. A variation is the tap room kiss ("TRK").)

Overheard in 1903 courtyard

Girl 1: You have to take care of me... I'm so drunk.
Girl 2 (confused): But you're tall.
Girl 1: But I'm thin.

Overheard outside of McCosh: 2 sorority girls discussing rush

Sorority girl 1: I have a huge emergency... I need to borrow your car.
Sorority girl 2: What's the emergency?
Sorority girl 1: I need to go get costumes.