NSA employee: I am too drunk to go to work. It’s a question of national security.
Me: You’re the rap game Edward Snowden.
NSA employee, stricken: No, no…we don’t joke about him.
Overheard at 7:15 am
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If You Have a Passport, Bless It
“Suddenly, I was back, surrounded by my classmates again. Curious to know why it had taken me so much longer than everyone else, they swarmed me with questions. I lied.”
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Gigi’s Tweets
A series of anecdotal WhatsApp messages from a Nass editor’s grandfather–he just got new hearing aids
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Morte à Morte au Cimetière du Père-Lachaise
The Nass’s first non-English drama: a ghostly Parisian dialogue
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Beet Blood
“Then salt and pepper. More than you think, because you never add a sufficient amount. Maybe because you are afraid.”
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Princeton’s Mediterranean Mosaic Hunt
In the 1930s, Princeton ran its own ‘grand’ colonial excavation in the Near East. What happened next?
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Lebensmittel
“Ha! You’ve done it! He’s clueless, blissfully unaware that you’re American, that you call the metro a Subway and practiced active-shooter drills in middle school.”
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It’s in Your Body
“Regardless of race, Americanness is still in your body. I can’t spot the distinction as well as, say, the Dominican-born jewelry vendor who could tell that my immigrant father was American. But I’ve seen some differences.”
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Bienvenidos (go home)
The pilot gave all of the instructions twice, once in English and once in Spanish. I had never heard “amarre el cinturón de seguridad” from that crackling airplane speaker. It was so much like just flying to a different state, but it was something new once I looked down at the bright blue ocean.…
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Opera-Italian
“I speak a sort of poetic Italian and German,” I tell people. “I could tell you the word for ‘woman’ or ‘flower’ or ‘moon’ (the classic subjects of opera and art song) but not ask you for the check.”
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Nass Recommends: Turandot
“I wasn’t aware that an opera house had nosebleeds, but here was my introduction. My eye was trained on that little screen for longer than the stage.”
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Mom and Dad are Splitting Up: Full Design
The Nass goes to the opera, joins crew, and participates in other mildly psychosexual activities.