Visala Alagappan
Q: Can you say your name? A: Visala Tamara Alagappan Q: Where does that come from? A: It’s an Indian name from Chennai, which is in the south of India. More specifically it’s from this community which is south of Chennai called Chettinad. My dad was born in Thailand and he came to New York […]
Strangers
How do great friendships form, exactly? Sometime between laughing hysterically at a joke about lizard sex and walking home together as the sun goes up. Sometime after you make an embarrassing purchase together at 7-Eleven. Sometime after you share a near-death experience. Somewhere down the line when your texts to each other loose all grammatical correctness and you start addressing each other solely with either pet names or crude profanities.
Goldie’s Guilt
I learned my lesson long ago: there is no place for “Zahava” in Starbucks. For many years, in the overpriced land of hissing espresso machines and foamed upper lips and green-clad baristas, Zahava didn’t exist. Instead, for the ten minutes I spent each day ordering coffee, I was Zoe, or Sarah, or Lauren. It was easier that way. But I resolved recently to tell the truth about my name.
Movement & Images of Latin America
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.
Facebook Superstars
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.
Group Ecology
Welfome to Princhips, where it’s reproductive season again. A group of horny superorganisms called student groups are vying for your attention and panting for your consent.
Notary Phone
Like any child of the millennium I’ve moved through several cell phones. Each served as a safety blanket, a confidant, a sort of external hard drive for my social life.
What’s in a Dash?
Cemeteries are not really my scene. In my lifetime thus far, I have been blessed enough to not have to watch the body of a loved one be lowered down into physical oblivion. That is not to say that I have never been to a cemetery; I have gone with close friends for support. The ritual tends to be the same: find the place of burial, replace the wilted flowers with fresh ones, and reflect on the life that now lives on in spirit.
Sinner Sticks
I could always count on Crackhead Preacher to make his grand appearance on Friday afternoons. Dressed in a red pleather suit and gold glitter shades with massive dollar signs on each lens, Crackhead Preacher would bust into the store and beseech the humble workers of Dominos to “GIVE to the LORD, so then the LORD will GIVE.”
The Closer
My parents’ room had the smallest TV in the house. My mom was already under the covers and I was watching while kneeling to her left on my dad’s side of the bed. He arrived home from a business trip right around the eighth inning—just in time to see Jorge Posada drop a game-tying bloop double into shallow centerfield off an absolutely dominating Pedro Martinez.
A Look at People-Watching
Driving back to campus from sailing practice a few weeks ago, I partook in one of my habitual pastimes: people-watching. No, it’s not that creepy lustful gaze, or the serial killer glare that people sometimes give. It’s just my face, watching.
The Mare’s Teaching
During breaks from Princeton, instead of lounging on the couch, I can be found somewhere on Route 95, clutching a Ziploc bag full of carrots and heading to northern Massachusetts with my mother. It’s our ritual—a necessary pilgrimage to visit the members of our family who are too big to live at home with us, but no less loved for it.
Arts on the Edge
I can only feel “settled” into a new semester once I have designed my walking routes in between classes and extracurricular activities. Knowing which paths I will take, which arches I will cross under, and which familiar faces I will pass all remedy the inevitable, stressful shuffle of a new time of the year. I like being able to gauge how much time I must leave myself to get to a class or a meeting on time. But there are two places that I have yet to smoothly integrate into my walking routes: 185 Nassau St. and New South. This is very unsettling.
The son-poem continues
The son-poem continues / by these pastoral lines , / in my ears put / by father , as / words of the mouth of / the poem ‘ s / father , on a short morning / saunter / he set out on alone /