the apologist issue

April 13, 2006

Preppies-on-a-Rampage

We’re no longer collectively, psychically compelled to impose the old narrative on our news stories. Instead, in our state of informed, liberal, post-Katrina injustice-seeking, we’re reading for the other story. We’re reading for the story that shows our sensitivity and also reveals the depravity of the privileged classes, and maybe also diagnoses a generalized ‘what’s wrong with America’.

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We, the Students?

I have been involved with the Student Bill of Rights from its inception to its present state – and I am proud of this document. I am partly enthused and partly saddened by the controversy over the bill, although it … Read More

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Shows I Once Loved

Recently, feeling a sudden burst of wistfulness, I decided to see if some of shows I had once adored had in fact been worth my time. Some of them were, in fact, good, while others made me feel stupid for ever having watched them. The following is a list of the shows I reevaluated, in the order of the ages when I originally enjoyed and outgrew them.

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In Defense of Country Music

I am from Texas and I like country music. At Princeton, though, I have struggled to understand why people hate it so much. My friends have gone to disturbing lengths to relate country music to racism, sexism, homophobia, religious intolerance, … Read More

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Yeah…

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

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Three Reviews

There’s nothing here to live up to the beauty of “Do You Realize??” or the songcraft of The Soft Bulletin, instead, the Flaming Lips are dancing – and the tracks are as compulsively danceable as ever – yet in more openly dark territory. From the provocative opener’s “If you could make everybody poor just so you could be rich/ Would you do it?” to the anger of “Haven’t Got a Clue,” “Every time you state your case/ The more I want to punch your face,” there’s nothing like the optimistic reservation expressed earlier, it’s been supplanted by the gloomy question, “How do we keep going on?”

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Assault: 3, Silverman: 0

The Prince wants to know what happened at pickups. This year set a precedent for all manner of illegal and debauched activities and at the forefront of this tidal wave of sexual assault, underage drinking and bodily fluids, stood the … Read More

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The Joy of Prox

Proxing, he explained, is when someone goes to the gym and replaces another person’s prox with his or her own. Upon finding this new prox, the solicited party looks up the dorm address of whoever’s prox this is, and heads over there to “exchange proxes”. There, in the room, the person who switched proxes is waiting. Then they have sex. Then they have sex!? Then they have sex. Proxing is about casual sex.

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Verbatim

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Overheard in the Oval Office

Princeton Economics Professor Harvey Rosen: Capitalism without losses is like Christianity without Hell.
President George W. Bush: Harvey, stick to economics.

Overhead in Stephen’s Fitness Center

Guy1: You remember when you thought your internship had a casual dress code?
Guy2: That would have been rough wearing a polo shit on Wall Street. People might have thought I worked in a restaurant.

Overhead in Forbes Dining Hall

Guy1: I value gentlemanliness. Is this man a gentleman?
Guy2: Gee, I don't know, man. Tell us, dude -- do you consider yourself a gentleman?
Guy3: Hell, I'm the greatest gentlemen you'll ever meet. I hold doors open for broads and shit.