One or several elephants: this final issue’s back cover, which looks like a full-page ad for PNC bank because it is. We’d ask that you hereafter refrain from calling The Nass anything other than PNC Bank Presents the Nassau Weekly. The following is an abridged version of the toast I planned on delivering at the Thai Village dinner that our banker-collaborators only partially financed. 

Wow, so good to see you all here. (Applause). I had a really tough time putting this toast together. We put out more than 160 pages of student-written content each semester, so it’s a little tough to crystallize the whole of The Nass into these brief moments of speech. Usually when I talk about The Nass, I get real nationalist about the whole thing because it means so much to me. I care so deeply about the mission of this mag and the people that sustain it. (Pause to wipe tears). But I’m not going to get so sappy about it. Caring about this publication means engaging seriously with the eternal project of making it cooler. Brutal, unforgiving work. 

We’ve got money now. Our first ad in who knows how long. Over the summer, we’ll metamorphize. We’ll get sleeker, skinnier, cooler. No one’s going to believe exactly how much cooler we’ll get.  

Love, love, and more love, 

Charlie Nuermberger, EIC