(T)issue

April 5, 2013

There But the Grace of God Go I

I’ve long believed the surest sign of a good mind is an understanding that things could be another way without allowing for the possibility of your resistance, through the agencies of people and institutions and objects that do not encircle or overlap yours. If there is a person here you love that person could instead be at Dartmouth caressing another and unaware of your existence; if you are right-handed your arm could instead be broken as a young child and you a lefty as a result; if today your father is a good father or a bad one he could instead swerve to miss an animal and drown in a cold river six months ago.

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Drunk Eating Club

Damien* is a frat bro, infamous on the Princeton campus for his trust fund and sexual aggression, and he has something to say. “Write this down,” he says to me. “Damien does not like women.” I ask why not. “Because they’re not cool.” Why not? “Because I can’t relate to them.”

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Spring Breakers

Spring Breakers arrived in theaters last Friday only to confuse audiences around the country. The film begins practically pornographically, bare breasts splashed with beer and tan rears occupying the entire movie screen, accompanied by the aggressive sounds of Skrillex. It then flashes forward to the mundane and fictitious Kentucky College where four girls find they don’t have enough money to fund a spring break getaway to Florida.

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Visualizing God

There is a debate among medieval Jewish philosophers about the permissibility of conceiving of God in physical form. Maimonides, heavily influenced by Aristotelian philosophy, lists the non-corporeality of God as one of the thirteen core principles of faith, and writes in his legal code that anyone who says that God has a body is a heretic with no position in the World to Come.

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Eight Feet

“Has a dude ever peed in your vag?” This is the provocative question posed at the beginning of Eight Feet. In this engaging drama-comedy written by Rafi Abrahams ’13 and directed by Rachel Alter ’14, four college students trapped in a basement bedroom during a snowstorm find themselves reconciling this urine-related trauma.

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Dayton Martindale

His face was well-preserved, but the body was so frail. The outline of his ribcage protruded grotesquely against his sunken stomach. He was dead, and he looked it. A warm tear ran down my cheek as I read and re-read the placard standing next to the coffin: “Here lies Dayton Martindale.” I was sad, and I was scared.

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Game of Shows

Starting this week and every Sunday at 9 P.M. the fantastical Game of Thrones will be doing battle with the hip new season of Mad Men. So to which one of the two should you loyally devote your Sunday evenings, and which will you leave by the DVR to pick up on a lazy summer day?

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Zumba Nation: From an Uncoordinated First-Timer

I bounded through the dance studio’s door, hiding my apprehension under several layers of brightly colored spandex. I had never been to Zumba before. In fact, I have only ever attended one aerobics class in my short 18 years. It was in Rome, and a classmate who convinced me that it would be fun dragged me along. Obviously, my friend and I defined “fun” very differently.

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Zumba Nation: From a Sore Overenthusiast

As a frequent yoga-goer and a hopeful future yoga-instructor, I brushed off a glow-in-the-dark Zumba class as another easy, minimal-cardio workout. The sensations in my body the next day suggested otherwise. I had gone to Zumba a few times before, … Read More

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Zumba Nation: From a Weak Soldier

When the Body Combat instructor pushed to the front of the crowd and introduced herself, I could not help but be reminded of a bygone era. Her thick pink headband, stretch pants, and neon athletic top made her seem as if she had just arrived in a time machine from an 80s aerobics class. Of course, I have never experienced the 80s for myself, so I cannot be sure that all aerobics instructors wore such tight, shiny fabric, but the movies of the time seem to indicate they did.

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Food & Intimacy

Gabrielle Hamilton is looking at me like she’s deciding if I’m worthy of her hawk-like gaze. Her restaurant is called “Prune” and is lauded by restaurant critics but also by my mother, who sent me pictures of her meal there last year when I had typhoid and was on a steady diet of white rice and bananas. I cried with envy.

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Detour

Money, lawns. Against the least I swerve. I have weathered this strictness crying of past regrets so many!

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Underland

Her feet too weak too soon release the handlebars of the trapeze. She plunges towards the black hole of the trampoline.

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Verbatim

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Overheard during initiations

Dude: CAN I EAT THIS CAN I EAT THIS CAN I EAT THIS

Overheard in Foulke

Theta: Can you eat matzah during Passover?

Overheard in Frist

Preppy girl: No one at Lawrenceville even wore Sperrys until I started wearing them.

Overheard in German class

French sophomore: You haven’t been to Europe. You don’t know what expensive means.

Overheard on campus

Zealous parent (to tour guide): Could you point out where these meal club homes are, so we can tour them?

Overheard in Rocky Dining Hall

Girl, on matzah: I think the dining hall made a mistake and ordered too many of those really gross crackers...They’re like everywhere!

Overheard in Rocky Dining Hall

Preview host: Is it appropriate to make a human centipede out of your prefrosh?

Overheard in Spelman

St. A’s sophomore: I just wanted to ironically be in a frat.

Overheard in the package room

Distraught girl: My parents have never mailed me anything, and on the day I start my diet, they mail me TEN POUNDS OF CANDY.

Overheard in America

Dude wearing cowboy hat: Stop invoking civil rights. It’s not a thing.

Overheard in Butler

RCA, to sophomore: Why are you bringing alcohol into my sub-free bulding?
Sophomore: Fuck.

Overheard at dinner

Ivy senior, on famous Chinese human rights activist: Was he a cool dude?
Tower senior, having just dined with said activist: Well, he looks like a scrub, ’cause he’s blind.

Overheard en route to a pregame

Sophomore girl 1: I wish I had dressed for the theme.
Sophomore girl 2: Honestly when you’re drunk nobody notices. All people notice is fat.

Overheard outside Whitman

Sophomore dude, looking at a
ruined Ivy pass: I know freshman girls who would still blow you for it.

Overheard in Whitman

Rower: What did that cook want?
Guy in cool shirt: He wanted to know where I got my shirt and I was like, “Well, it’s my dad’s shirt.” And he was like, “Where’d your dad get it?” And I told him Guatemala. And he was like, “Yeah, I know, I’m from Guatemala, my parents make those shirts.”

Overheard in Forbes

Concerned citizen: You do irresponsible things that could get you arrested, like urinating on people.
TI sophomore: But that’s in TI, so it’s okay.

Overheard in a Sheraton

Overheard in a Sheraton
Yo-Yo Ma, to Nass staffer: Are you in an EATING CLUB?

Overheard in Frist

Frazzled Ivy senior: My tux is back in the city. I’m going to look like a middle class fool for Titanic night.