I give up.
DRF
Wednesday, May 07, 2003
Monday, April 28, 2003
Mens’ Station
Daniel Foster
I found Jim in the toilet the other day,
Hands braced on the stained
Steel and porcelain of the sink.
I didn’t say Hi or make eye contact,
But went to the stall he had come out of
And pissed into the pink water.
Zipping my fly, I saw him in the mirror,
Pulling at the places where his long sleeves
Stuck to his forearms.
He told me once, when we were friends,
That it didn’t hurt much
Except for the first time.
I suppose it’s interesting—2003
And all of Jim’s little suicides;
Both men and women can bleed their burdens.
Daniel Foster
I found Jim in the toilet the other day,
Hands braced on the stained
Steel and porcelain of the sink.
I didn’t say Hi or make eye contact,
But went to the stall he had come out of
And pissed into the pink water.
Zipping my fly, I saw him in the mirror,
Pulling at the places where his long sleeves
Stuck to his forearms.
He told me once, when we were friends,
That it didn’t hurt much
Except for the first time.
I suppose it’s interesting—2003
And all of Jim’s little suicides;
Both men and women can bleed their burdens.
Wednesday, April 23, 2003
Jon the Martyr
Dan Foster
____High School gave us three-stories of brick-walled
Salvation, saturated with pupils and masters atop
A green belly of a hill. It looked invincible—
A massive brown chest of mortar and marble spreading
Its Golden Rule up and out into columned wings.
There was even a cupola for our clock-tower,
But none of us knew what that meant.
In the mornings we frosh would mass
Like pubescent locusts, buzzing and fluttering
Our way into its mouth. As the bells jarred and
We breathed the clapped chalk dust, some sat erect
In their molded desks, already fresh and antsy
With thoughts of Ivy Leagues and Blue Chips;
Some were born knowing but others would die
Searching…these mostly shuffled from box to box,
Niche to niche, clique to clique, unaware of what
They didn’t know and inescapably frumpy in their
Skins. And in the vast gray between were the
Stereotypes. They wore their masks and spoke their
Tongues and never much exerted themselves, resigned
To the almost not-unpleasant inevitability
That they would one day be issued sedans and three-
Bedroom ranches on quarter acre lots. But none of us
was ready for Jon. He shrieked silence until
The void was hoarse and penned his mantras
So hard into his forearms that they dug out
Flesh and nerve and vein, until pain became
Indistinguishable from pulse. We heard no Jon,
We spoke no Jon and so we saw no Jon. But Oh,
Christ, did Jon see us.
…At night when the cupola tolled queer hours
And _____ HS sat back on its haunches like a sphinx,
Jon gave himself to numbness and drifted to Littleton—
And to Waco and to Golgatha for that matter—
And plotted his revenge.
Dan Foster
____High School gave us three-stories of brick-walled
Salvation, saturated with pupils and masters atop
A green belly of a hill. It looked invincible—
A massive brown chest of mortar and marble spreading
Its Golden Rule up and out into columned wings.
There was even a cupola for our clock-tower,
But none of us knew what that meant.
In the mornings we frosh would mass
Like pubescent locusts, buzzing and fluttering
Our way into its mouth. As the bells jarred and
We breathed the clapped chalk dust, some sat erect
In their molded desks, already fresh and antsy
With thoughts of Ivy Leagues and Blue Chips;
Some were born knowing but others would die
Searching…these mostly shuffled from box to box,
Niche to niche, clique to clique, unaware of what
They didn’t know and inescapably frumpy in their
Skins. And in the vast gray between were the
Stereotypes. They wore their masks and spoke their
Tongues and never much exerted themselves, resigned
To the almost not-unpleasant inevitability
That they would one day be issued sedans and three-
Bedroom ranches on quarter acre lots. But none of us
was ready for Jon. He shrieked silence until
The void was hoarse and penned his mantras
So hard into his forearms that they dug out
Flesh and nerve and vein, until pain became
Indistinguishable from pulse. We heard no Jon,
We spoke no Jon and so we saw no Jon. But Oh,
Christ, did Jon see us.
…At night when the cupola tolled queer hours
And _____ HS sat back on its haunches like a sphinx,
Jon gave himself to numbness and drifted to Littleton—
And to Waco and to Golgatha for that matter—
And plotted his revenge.
Thursday, April 17, 2003
Sunday, April 13, 2003
The Lymerick Madness Continues...
(We here at The Enfranchised promise never to use inside jokes unless they are absolutely necessary. That being said here are a few.)
Ode to Daniel Timothy Bentley
By Daniel Richard Foster
There once was a man of Stanford
Who commanded a Mongolian horde
Which he led into battle
Just south of Seattle
And wound up on Microsoft's Board
Ode to Our Mutual Friend
By Daniel Richard Foster
There once was a Yaley named Sean
Whose speech inspired a yawn.
Till, with awe and surprise
The crowd looked down with their eyes
And noticed his trousers were gone.
Ode to Wishful Thinking
By Daniel Richard Foster
There was a parliamentary body
Whose delegates acted quite naughty.
Till, with consent of the chair
They were dragged out by the hair
And summarily flushed down the potty.
(We here at The Enfranchised promise never to use inside jokes unless they are absolutely necessary. That being said here are a few.)
Ode to Daniel Timothy Bentley
By Daniel Richard Foster
There once was a man of Stanford
Who commanded a Mongolian horde
Which he led into battle
Just south of Seattle
And wound up on Microsoft's Board
Ode to Our Mutual Friend
By Daniel Richard Foster
There once was a Yaley named Sean
Whose speech inspired a yawn.
Till, with awe and surprise
The crowd looked down with their eyes
And noticed his trousers were gone.
Ode to Wishful Thinking
By Daniel Richard Foster
There was a parliamentary body
Whose delegates acted quite naughty.
Till, with consent of the chair
They were dragged out by the hair
And summarily flushed down the potty.
Thursday, April 10, 2003
Happy Hour
Daniel R. Foster
The night is younger than either of us,
I tell him, and its future’s twice as bright.
So go for her, I say, drink her down—
This beauty’s all you need in a perfect fifth
Of Stoli: Transparent, Ice-Cold, Tasteless.
But he won’t have any of it; sorry bastard
Just limps his way back to a wobbly stool
To douse his blue-balls with another Dewars’,
Tells me ‘blah blah wife and blah fucking kids’
—Who gives a shit? Missus and the runts will
Still be there in the morning I tell him,
And with any luck, that beauty won’t. Wake up late
Enough and she’ll be gone, no continental breakfast
Or awkward sidelong glances across someone
Else’s sheets. Come on (I slap him on the shoulder),
We’re just machines that turn booze into piss,
Nothing else to it. ‘Not like I could anyway’
He says to his empty glass. Bullshit. Courage
Is overrated, all you need is a shot of Jack
And a lack of dignity (he doesn’t laugh).
Look, I don’t care about the coffee spoons
You measure out life with, or the flickering
Moment of your greatness. Whatever doesn’t
Kill you makes you drunker; life hands you lemons—
‘And I squeeze them into my eyes and cry for days.’
Oh for Chrissakes, then make it a whiskey sour,
‘I can’t stand the taste’ (he shakes his head).
Too bad (I sigh), though better me than you.
I straighten my tie and head off to that beauty
And call back to the poor bastard:
If alcohol tasted good…we’d all be dead.
Daniel R. Foster
The night is younger than either of us,
I tell him, and its future’s twice as bright.
So go for her, I say, drink her down—
This beauty’s all you need in a perfect fifth
Of Stoli: Transparent, Ice-Cold, Tasteless.
But he won’t have any of it; sorry bastard
Just limps his way back to a wobbly stool
To douse his blue-balls with another Dewars’,
Tells me ‘blah blah wife and blah fucking kids’
—Who gives a shit? Missus and the runts will
Still be there in the morning I tell him,
And with any luck, that beauty won’t. Wake up late
Enough and she’ll be gone, no continental breakfast
Or awkward sidelong glances across someone
Else’s sheets. Come on (I slap him on the shoulder),
We’re just machines that turn booze into piss,
Nothing else to it. ‘Not like I could anyway’
He says to his empty glass. Bullshit. Courage
Is overrated, all you need is a shot of Jack
And a lack of dignity (he doesn’t laugh).
Look, I don’t care about the coffee spoons
You measure out life with, or the flickering
Moment of your greatness. Whatever doesn’t
Kill you makes you drunker; life hands you lemons—
‘And I squeeze them into my eyes and cry for days.’
Oh for Chrissakes, then make it a whiskey sour,
‘I can’t stand the taste’ (he shakes his head).
Too bad (I sigh), though better me than you.
I straighten my tie and head off to that beauty
And call back to the poor bastard:
If alcohol tasted good…we’d all be dead.
Sunday, April 06, 2003
Sunday, March 30, 2003
Saturday, March 29, 2003
Monday, March 24, 2003
Uselysses
Daniel Lord Foster
It little profits that an idle fool,
With all the world’s virtue and vice to learn,
Should waste away in secondary school
And linger ‘til the worse does take its turn.
For little I have seen and less I’ve known,
Playing neither hero nor villain’s part;
Never have God’s graces or wrath been shown
To me, nor have I gone with hungry heart.
But I know the texts of a thousand arts
Begin and end with one sacrosanct word.
And, echoing from all bloody ramparts,
Its melodious, doomsday tolls are heard.
So I reach for where the western stars shine
With but that word, “love”, and fair Madeline.
Daniel Lord Foster
It little profits that an idle fool,
With all the world’s virtue and vice to learn,
Should waste away in secondary school
And linger ‘til the worse does take its turn.
For little I have seen and less I’ve known,
Playing neither hero nor villain’s part;
Never have God’s graces or wrath been shown
To me, nor have I gone with hungry heart.
But I know the texts of a thousand arts
Begin and end with one sacrosanct word.
And, echoing from all bloody ramparts,
Its melodious, doomsday tolls are heard.
So I reach for where the western stars shine
With but that word, “love”, and fair Madeline.
Why my conversations are the best ever:
(The names have been changed to protect the innocent)
FOSTERKID1: The Economist this week had a picture from a protest of a guy holding up a sign that said "Bush Has a Small Penis"
YaleBoy123: well i'll be damned... i DO have something in common with george w.
FOSTERKID1: nice
YaleBoy123: oh, so did you ever remember what exactly it was that you wanted to tell me?
FOSTERKID1: Fuckin A, no. I wish I had a dedicated line to you so every time I read something interesting in a book I can make some wry comment.
YaleBoy123: like your batman to my robin?
FOSTERKID1: "Holy Obnoxious Op-Ed Batman!"
(The names have been changed to protect the innocent)
FOSTERKID1: The Economist this week had a picture from a protest of a guy holding up a sign that said "Bush Has a Small Penis"
YaleBoy123: well i'll be damned... i DO have something in common with george w.
FOSTERKID1: nice
YaleBoy123: oh, so did you ever remember what exactly it was that you wanted to tell me?
FOSTERKID1: Fuckin A, no. I wish I had a dedicated line to you so every time I read something interesting in a book I can make some wry comment.
YaleBoy123: like your batman to my robin?
FOSTERKID1: "Holy Obnoxious Op-Ed Batman!"
Wednesday, March 19, 2003
My predictions:
Hostilities have not yet started in the Gulf, though the ultimatum delivered Monday ends in about 80 minutes.
But if I know Bush, he won't attack. Why? The element of surprise.
If you'll notice, he said hostilities would commence at a time of our choosing. The deadline will arrive... and then pass. Unceremoniously. And there will not yet be war.
We will wait. And there will not yet be war.
One day will pass, then two. A week. And a little before a fortnight later, there will be another press conference, at which Bush will reveal the grand purpose of his preparations for war.
To make the biggest April Fool's Prank. Ever.
Hostilities have not yet started in the Gulf, though the ultimatum delivered Monday ends in about 80 minutes.
But if I know Bush, he won't attack. Why? The element of surprise.
If you'll notice, he said hostilities would commence at a time of our choosing. The deadline will arrive... and then pass. Unceremoniously. And there will not yet be war.
We will wait. And there will not yet be war.
One day will pass, then two. A week. And a little before a fortnight later, there will be another press conference, at which Bush will reveal the grand purpose of his preparations for war.
To make the biggest April Fool's Prank. Ever.
Sunday, March 16, 2003
If the Enfranchised has slowed recently, it is because we writers have been pushing our feeble brains through the strenuous quadrathalon of classes [Foster's Note: I take a PENTATHALON of classes]. And if there's one thing the too-brief trip to the edge of my abilities has taught me, it's that I don't have enough intelligence to outdo human stupidity.
I could never imagine giving up the incorrect ("French Fries") for the inane ("Freedom Fries"). Nor would I have the audacity to propose shunning Tommy Hilfiger for the stylings of such "authentic" brands as Sean John and J.Lo. I can still hardly believe that there is one prep school for skiers and snowboarders, let alone several dozen. All this from the New York Times, which has not been New York's best humor periodical for at least the past 7 years.
At this moment, it seems obvious to me that it's easier to secure my fortune by lampooning the failures of others than attempting successes of my own. Some of you might miss the creation for the ranting, and I promise you as half-heartedly as any man ever has: when I get the time, I will return to my more properly artistic endeavors. Until then, I will restrict myself to that form of writing whose composition is easiest and fame most temporary: satire.
I could never imagine giving up the incorrect ("French Fries") for the inane ("Freedom Fries"). Nor would I have the audacity to propose shunning Tommy Hilfiger for the stylings of such "authentic" brands as Sean John and J.Lo. I can still hardly believe that there is one prep school for skiers and snowboarders, let alone several dozen. All this from the New York Times, which has not been New York's best humor periodical for at least the past 7 years.
At this moment, it seems obvious to me that it's easier to secure my fortune by lampooning the failures of others than attempting successes of my own. Some of you might miss the creation for the ranting, and I promise you as half-heartedly as any man ever has: when I get the time, I will return to my more properly artistic endeavors. Until then, I will restrict myself to that form of writing whose composition is easiest and fame most temporary: satire.
Thursday, March 13, 2003
Diet Coke was originally a ritual beverage of the ancient Greeks, known as shkohonaplasti (literally: Cancer Juice). Oompa Loompas picked aspartame berries and, after distilling for 94 minutes, created this holy drink. It was then known best as Ambrosia Lite, or drink of the lesser Gods, such as Thithiuth, God of Stigmatizing Speech Impediments and Pheremone, Goddess of Leg-Humping and Overcome Hangnails. It was dropped from the Latin Pantheon when it was found to induce anorexia in the Vestal Virgins. So begins the hidden history of Diet Coke.
The drink was resurrected during the days of Christ and considered as the official refreshment of the Last Supper. An early manuscript, recently recovered, has, "drink this carbonated sugar water in remembrance of me." 11th hour negotiations fell apart when Jesus refused to wear the logo of his prospective patch during crucifixion. We only narrowly escaped "give us this day our daily caffeine."
In Paris during the 20's, it was briefly experimented with as a hallucinogen. It was similar to absinthe in its despicable taste and powerful narcotic content, with the added benefit of carbonation, still a novelty to the pre-modernists. Its time had still not come, however, as writers found its high to be unsuitable to any writing more substantial than Jane Austen adaptations set in the as-yet-undeveloped Los Angeles. Diet Coke once more had to retreat from the limelight, waiting for its time to surface at last.
But when it did, it sure did. The Coca-Cola corporation could barely meet the demand and did everything they could to handicap the wunderkind that so badly bruised Original Coke's ego that New Coke had to be brought in temporarily during Original's covered up nervous breakdown. Even the hiring of Paula Abdul as a spokesperson did little to slow sales of this incomprehensible beverage.
Diet Coke is the last of a dying breed: overindulgences to be had. Restaurants, long the rightful home of gluttony, have been whittled down by the State of California to a shadow of their former themselves. Its laws prohibit the compulsive smoking that is, I am convinced, directly responsible for every decent word of literature written in the past three centuries. Its fashions, slowly propagating up from LA, conspire to shrink dishes until they resemble nothing so much as a true meal's leftovers. Its economics bring entrée-priced appetizers. Nothing is so depressing as trying to drown one's sorrows in mozzarella sticks that cost $1.20. Each.
So here I write in my beverage-induced inspiration. I managed to down a full gallon before the Denny's dispenser ran out and I shrank off, not making a fuss over their claimed all-you-can-drink policy. The thrill is leaving me as I type, but I still enjoy it. By now, my blood is brown and artificially sweet and no doubt my urine contains enough caffeine to explode the hearts of mice, babies, and other such small animals. Just the way I like it.
-Bentley
The drink was resurrected during the days of Christ and considered as the official refreshment of the Last Supper. An early manuscript, recently recovered, has, "drink this carbonated sugar water in remembrance of me." 11th hour negotiations fell apart when Jesus refused to wear the logo of his prospective patch during crucifixion. We only narrowly escaped "give us this day our daily caffeine."
In Paris during the 20's, it was briefly experimented with as a hallucinogen. It was similar to absinthe in its despicable taste and powerful narcotic content, with the added benefit of carbonation, still a novelty to the pre-modernists. Its time had still not come, however, as writers found its high to be unsuitable to any writing more substantial than Jane Austen adaptations set in the as-yet-undeveloped Los Angeles. Diet Coke once more had to retreat from the limelight, waiting for its time to surface at last.
But when it did, it sure did. The Coca-Cola corporation could barely meet the demand and did everything they could to handicap the wunderkind that so badly bruised Original Coke's ego that New Coke had to be brought in temporarily during Original's covered up nervous breakdown. Even the hiring of Paula Abdul as a spokesperson did little to slow sales of this incomprehensible beverage.
Diet Coke is the last of a dying breed: overindulgences to be had. Restaurants, long the rightful home of gluttony, have been whittled down by the State of California to a shadow of their former themselves. Its laws prohibit the compulsive smoking that is, I am convinced, directly responsible for every decent word of literature written in the past three centuries. Its fashions, slowly propagating up from LA, conspire to shrink dishes until they resemble nothing so much as a true meal's leftovers. Its economics bring entrée-priced appetizers. Nothing is so depressing as trying to drown one's sorrows in mozzarella sticks that cost $1.20. Each.
So here I write in my beverage-induced inspiration. I managed to down a full gallon before the Denny's dispenser ran out and I shrank off, not making a fuss over their claimed all-you-can-drink policy. The thrill is leaving me as I type, but I still enjoy it. By now, my blood is brown and artificially sweet and no doubt my urine contains enough caffeine to explode the hearts of mice, babies, and other such small animals. Just the way I like it.
-Bentley
Sunday, March 09, 2003
Saturday, March 08, 2003
The Price of Freedom, Episode 2.
By Bentley
"Goooooooood morning, Freedom and Atlantis!" The weak disc jockey impression ended and the wake up song replaced it. The wake up song was a shuttle tradition: meant to give a few minutes to the crew to shake off the morning grogginess they all felt. For most, it was because they had just woken up, but for a few, it was because they were never able to sleep. Today was "Space Oddity", a weak pun on the Anglicization of Foma Filatov's name.
"This is Ground Control to Major Tom," David Bowie's smooth voice sang as the astronauts slipped back into utilitarian consciousness. "Planet Earth is blue/And there's nothing I can do."
After an appropriate musical interlude, Capcom's voice pulled them firmly into the minute-by-minute existence men must live in them when their two-week's vacation costs more than they will make in their life.
"Big day today, Gentleman. And woman. We attach the Wallace Lab to Freedom. Finally, we'll have a space station that isn't just an outpost for three people at a time but is truly able to run as many experiments as we want.
"Colonel Warfield, well, you're doing a damn fine job commanding the shuttle, so we're going to keep you there. You'll be observing the construction of the space station, as well as the experiments on the space shuttle, and generally making sure your craft remains flight worthy. Message from your wife: she loves you.
"Major Daithwaite, you're actually going to be on Freedom today, observing the activities and helping the team to bring the new capsule up," Capcom's voice continued, preemptively overruling the objection Chris was scrambling to make when he heard his name. "We know you're the pilot of Atlantis, but Major Tom, err, Major Foma, I mean, Major Filatov is required by the Russian Air Force to do some flying every six months to keep his pilot's license. You already performed an excellent take-off and docking, yesterday you performed the main burn of the mission to lift the space station, and there's still deorbit left, so today, let Filatov pilot the shuttle one time around the station to get the module where it needs to be. In typical test pilot fashion, I have messages from about six girls, all of whome love you"
"Major Filatov, as we discussed, you'll be piloting the shuttle. Since you've already been in space for four months, no one seems to have anything new to say.
"Cosmonaut Lukin, you'll be on Atlantis observing, too. Try to make sure Filatov doesn't crash into anything.
"Captain Stanley, well, here's your chance to have the Space Station you keep bugging us for. You'll open up the module and start powering it up after the spacewalk happens. Your wife left a message for you: the judge accepted your faxed signature on the forms since you're not going to able to make it to court anytime soon. I'm sorry, that should have read, your 'ex'-wife left a message for you.
"Dr. Livingstone. Quite the day for you, Martha. You have greetings from your congressmen, your governor, your principal, just about everyone. Oh, the National Education Association, for being the first teacher-in-space to, well," the waking space behemoth was silent for a moment in silent remembrance of Christa McAuliffe's supreme sacrifice as the first teacher-in-space on Challenger. "For being the first teacher in space.
"Dr. Ford, you're of course one of the spacewalkers who's going to be making everybody else wait for him today. Oh, and the National Society of Black Engineers congratulates you. They say, 'Trevor Ford is exactly the type of role model young people need.'
"Dr. Gatsfield, you have no greetings from the National Society of Black Engineers, presumable because you're not Black.
"Dr. Ross, you have no greetings from the National Society of Black Engineers, presumably because you're not an engineer. Apparently Applied Physics just doesn't make the cut. Yes, even from MIT. Oh, and don't forget that you'll be the other astronaut on the spacewalk pulling the Wallace Lab into place.
"Mr. Wagner, your stockbroker called. He said all your shares fell, but since you sold most of them to finance this trip, your loss in the stock market was less than it would have been otherwise. So, always look on the bright side of life. Speaking of which..."
Sometimes the ground controllers played a second wake up song, on days they thought the crew needed extra time to prepare themselves. Today, apparently, Monty Python's "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" was appropriate. At least, it would make the world's most recent space tourist forget the loss of much of what he had worked his life for. Or at least, what his father and other male ancestors had worked most of their lives for.
"For life is quite absurd,
An' death's the final word,
You must always face the curtain with a bow,
Forget about your sin,
Give the audience a grin,
Enjoy it, it's you' last chance of the hour.
So, always look on the bright side of death,
Just before you draw your terminal breath."
To Be Continued...
By Bentley
"Goooooooood morning, Freedom and Atlantis!" The weak disc jockey impression ended and the wake up song replaced it. The wake up song was a shuttle tradition: meant to give a few minutes to the crew to shake off the morning grogginess they all felt. For most, it was because they had just woken up, but for a few, it was because they were never able to sleep. Today was "Space Oddity", a weak pun on the Anglicization of Foma Filatov's name.
"This is Ground Control to Major Tom," David Bowie's smooth voice sang as the astronauts slipped back into utilitarian consciousness. "Planet Earth is blue/And there's nothing I can do."
After an appropriate musical interlude, Capcom's voice pulled them firmly into the minute-by-minute existence men must live in them when their two-week's vacation costs more than they will make in their life.
"Big day today, Gentleman. And woman. We attach the Wallace Lab to Freedom. Finally, we'll have a space station that isn't just an outpost for three people at a time but is truly able to run as many experiments as we want.
"Colonel Warfield, well, you're doing a damn fine job commanding the shuttle, so we're going to keep you there. You'll be observing the construction of the space station, as well as the experiments on the space shuttle, and generally making sure your craft remains flight worthy. Message from your wife: she loves you.
"Major Daithwaite, you're actually going to be on Freedom today, observing the activities and helping the team to bring the new capsule up," Capcom's voice continued, preemptively overruling the objection Chris was scrambling to make when he heard his name. "We know you're the pilot of Atlantis, but Major Tom, err, Major Foma, I mean, Major Filatov is required by the Russian Air Force to do some flying every six months to keep his pilot's license. You already performed an excellent take-off and docking, yesterday you performed the main burn of the mission to lift the space station, and there's still deorbit left, so today, let Filatov pilot the shuttle one time around the station to get the module where it needs to be. In typical test pilot fashion, I have messages from about six girls, all of whome love you"
"Major Filatov, as we discussed, you'll be piloting the shuttle. Since you've already been in space for four months, no one seems to have anything new to say.
"Cosmonaut Lukin, you'll be on Atlantis observing, too. Try to make sure Filatov doesn't crash into anything.
"Captain Stanley, well, here's your chance to have the Space Station you keep bugging us for. You'll open up the module and start powering it up after the spacewalk happens. Your wife left a message for you: the judge accepted your faxed signature on the forms since you're not going to able to make it to court anytime soon. I'm sorry, that should have read, your 'ex'-wife left a message for you.
"Dr. Livingstone. Quite the day for you, Martha. You have greetings from your congressmen, your governor, your principal, just about everyone. Oh, the National Education Association, for being the first teacher-in-space to, well," the waking space behemoth was silent for a moment in silent remembrance of Christa McAuliffe's supreme sacrifice as the first teacher-in-space on Challenger. "For being the first teacher in space.
"Dr. Ford, you're of course one of the spacewalkers who's going to be making everybody else wait for him today. Oh, and the National Society of Black Engineers congratulates you. They say, 'Trevor Ford is exactly the type of role model young people need.'
"Dr. Gatsfield, you have no greetings from the National Society of Black Engineers, presumable because you're not Black.
"Dr. Ross, you have no greetings from the National Society of Black Engineers, presumably because you're not an engineer. Apparently Applied Physics just doesn't make the cut. Yes, even from MIT. Oh, and don't forget that you'll be the other astronaut on the spacewalk pulling the Wallace Lab into place.
"Mr. Wagner, your stockbroker called. He said all your shares fell, but since you sold most of them to finance this trip, your loss in the stock market was less than it would have been otherwise. So, always look on the bright side of life. Speaking of which..."
Sometimes the ground controllers played a second wake up song, on days they thought the crew needed extra time to prepare themselves. Today, apparently, Monty Python's "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" was appropriate. At least, it would make the world's most recent space tourist forget the loss of much of what he had worked his life for. Or at least, what his father and other male ancestors had worked most of their lives for.
"For life is quite absurd,
An' death's the final word,
You must always face the curtain with a bow,
Forget about your sin,
Give the audience a grin,
Enjoy it, it's you' last chance of the hour.
So, always look on the bright side of death,
Just before you draw your terminal breath."
To Be Continued...
Friday, March 07, 2003
The blog-ubiquitous links:
Article in the Stanford Daily (the *most* professional newspaper on campus):
Toledo Draws Mild Response
Followed today by the editorial:
Toledo a Suitable Choice (not yet online)
(Link now fixed for people who can't read my mind. Note: the humor here isn't the article, but the headline. Toledo? Toledo?! Toledo.)
Article in the Stanford Daily (the *most* professional newspaper on campus):
Toledo Draws Mild Response
Followed today by the editorial:
Toledo a Suitable Choice (not yet online)
(Link now fixed for people who can't read my mind. Note: the humor here isn't the article, but the headline. Toledo? Toledo?! Toledo.)
Thursday, March 06, 2003
Bentley, I offer this in friendship:
Cry on the outside and laugh on the inside.
Cut a stitch in time, pick up a penny on tails.
Procrastinate.
Masturbate.
Imitate.
Grab the bull by his balls and then run away.
Examine a gift horse's molars.
Wear white after labor day.
Ignore every bit of practical advice ever given to you by Benjamin Franklin.
Don't allow yourself the luxury of pondering all of Oscar Wilde's bittersweet musings.
Recognize altruisms as all-falsisms.
Disregard any list compiled by an ametaur that attempts to undo 5000 years of common sense.
Find your own fucking ethos.
Piss into the wind.
Eat with the wrong fork.
Eat with your hands.
Eat your hand.
Shoot your Ch'I all over her tits.
Publish a manifesto.
Don't listen to Emo.
Kiss the bad guy, save the night and kill the girl.
Ride on in from the sunrise.
The only way to become more interesting is to become more interest-ED.
--Fosteyricon.
Cry on the outside and laugh on the inside.
Cut a stitch in time, pick up a penny on tails.
Procrastinate.
Masturbate.
Imitate.
Grab the bull by his balls and then run away.
Examine a gift horse's molars.
Wear white after labor day.
Ignore every bit of practical advice ever given to you by Benjamin Franklin.
Don't allow yourself the luxury of pondering all of Oscar Wilde's bittersweet musings.
Recognize altruisms as all-falsisms.
Disregard any list compiled by an ametaur that attempts to undo 5000 years of common sense.
Find your own fucking ethos.
Piss into the wind.
Eat with the wrong fork.
Eat with your hands.
Eat your hand.
Shoot your Ch'I all over her tits.
Publish a manifesto.
Don't listen to Emo.
Kiss the bad guy, save the night and kill the girl.
Ride on in from the sunrise.
The only way to become more interesting is to become more interest-ED.
--Fosteyricon.
There is a time that needn't come in every man's life, but has in mine: the dawning realization that I am a bad person. In earlier years, potential shadowed reality. Later, tightly-held naivete blinded me to signs until fate threw enough undeniable sings that I could no longer ignore. Unlike most essays, I share this not because it is generally applicable but because it is so personal. You'll never have to experience this. You are a decent person. Today wasn't my best of days.
In vino veritas. Latin fails me (and I it), but the gist is "drunk ex-girlfriends are never a good thing." You wake up the next morning either with another body in your bed or not having slept because she managed to salt the wounds you never knew you had, even through your supposedly-healed armor. In my case, it was both. Like I said, weird day.
I am competent, but not incredible, in my ambitions and a failure in all else. My faults are too numerous to summarize and too shameful to specify. I am unworthy of my position, and must either improve myself, which is impossible, or remove myself from it, which is unthinkable.
So, if you're reading this, you're probably an acquaintance of mine or a friend of an acquaintance. If you're the former, please forgive me; if you're the latter, please apologize profusely on my behalf to our mutual acquaintance. I'm sure you all understand that I'm going to retreat to my metaphorical cave, and as soon as I get the proper building permits, my physical one.
-Bentley
In vino veritas. Latin fails me (and I it), but the gist is "drunk ex-girlfriends are never a good thing." You wake up the next morning either with another body in your bed or not having slept because she managed to salt the wounds you never knew you had, even through your supposedly-healed armor. In my case, it was both. Like I said, weird day.
I am competent, but not incredible, in my ambitions and a failure in all else. My faults are too numerous to summarize and too shameful to specify. I am unworthy of my position, and must either improve myself, which is impossible, or remove myself from it, which is unthinkable.
So, if you're reading this, you're probably an acquaintance of mine or a friend of an acquaintance. If you're the former, please forgive me; if you're the latter, please apologize profusely on my behalf to our mutual acquaintance. I'm sure you all understand that I'm going to retreat to my metaphorical cave, and as soon as I get the proper building permits, my physical one.
-Bentley
Wednesday, March 05, 2003
Ode.e.
Dan Foster
i sing of Falo bad at trig
Whose bloodless heart rejoiced in war:
A condescending subject-or
his wellbeloved proffesor (prig
Wesleyaner most distinctly read)
took erring falo soon in class;
but--through a host of overworked
TAs (first knocking out the head
of him) do through oily waters toll
that otherness which Arabs stroke
with Afghan rugs recently employed
anent this ruddy terroristhole,
While kindred Leftists provoke
allegience per glittering generalities--
Falo (being all too content
a corpse and wanting any rag
Upon what Zinn unto him gave)
Responds, without getting the ploy
"I will now burn your fucking flag"
Straightaway the tenured terd digressed
(Heading hurriedly towards the K Street protest)
But, though all kinds of professors
(A bored generation's redeyed pride)
their passive resistances were often terse
until for wear their Claritin
voices and berkenstocks were much the worse,
and egged the firstsemesterfrosh on
His rectum liberally with grease
by means of skillfully applied
epithets shouted from the street--
Falo (upon what were callused knees)
does most seriously repeat
"there is no shit I would not eat"
our residents,being of which
assertions duly notified
threw the pinkojohnill'ych
a great big party, where he died
Chomsky (of His commercy infantile)
i pay to see;and Falo,too
preposterously because
unless statistics lie he was
more brave than me:more blond than you.
Dan Foster
i sing of Falo bad at trig
Whose bloodless heart rejoiced in war:
A condescending subject-or
his wellbeloved proffesor (prig
Wesleyaner most distinctly read)
took erring falo soon in class;
but--through a host of overworked
TAs (first knocking out the head
of him) do through oily waters toll
that otherness which Arabs stroke
with Afghan rugs recently employed
anent this ruddy terroristhole,
While kindred Leftists provoke
allegience per glittering generalities--
Falo (being all too content
a corpse and wanting any rag
Upon what Zinn unto him gave)
Responds, without getting the ploy
"I will now burn your fucking flag"
Straightaway the tenured terd digressed
(Heading hurriedly towards the K Street protest)
But, though all kinds of professors
(A bored generation's redeyed pride)
their passive resistances were often terse
until for wear their Claritin
voices and berkenstocks were much the worse,
and egged the firstsemesterfrosh on
His rectum liberally with grease
by means of skillfully applied
epithets shouted from the street--
Falo (upon what were callused knees)
does most seriously repeat
"there is no shit I would not eat"
our residents,being of which
assertions duly notified
threw the pinkojohnill'ych
a great big party, where he died
Chomsky (of His commercy infantile)
i pay to see;and Falo,too
preposterously because
unless statistics lie he was
more brave than me:more blond than you.
Tuesday, March 04, 2003
Any romantic's admitted greatest fear is that their soulmate lives in China, Sri Lanka, Los Angeles, or some other exotic land and can never be known. But though fate can work in mysterious ways, it is not cruel and would never give with one hand only to taketh away with the other. This self-delusion is only to steal attention from the more rational and scarier fear: that their soulmate lives around the corner but still remains unknown.
This second fear is unbearable; the blame for loneliness lies squarely on the lonely. Your soulmate is everywhere and everyone. He is the man whose parking spot you stole. She is the DMV agent who won't cut you any slack. He is the father of the bully that beat up your only son. Because every person could be the one, you always have to be at your best. The stranger kind enough to hold your hair back as you puke could be your future wife. How could you live life like this, as a romantic? This is why I believe there doesn't exist a single woman in the world right for me. It makes my lonely life easier to justify.
This second fear is unbearable; the blame for loneliness lies squarely on the lonely. Your soulmate is everywhere and everyone. He is the man whose parking spot you stole. She is the DMV agent who won't cut you any slack. He is the father of the bully that beat up your only son. Because every person could be the one, you always have to be at your best. The stranger kind enough to hold your hair back as you puke could be your future wife. How could you live life like this, as a romantic? This is why I believe there doesn't exist a single woman in the world right for me. It makes my lonely life easier to justify.
"And that's why flames in space are spherical, or round." Martha Livingstone, Ph.D. explained as Captain James Stanley, USN blew out the flame. Maj. Chris Dathwaite, USAF tried to hold the camera steady in the three-dimensional freedom of weightlessness.
"Thank you, Freedom, for that excellent presentation on how life is up there," came the voice of a NASA television personality. "Now, Captain, you just got a few new visitors, right?"
James, who just seconds ago had been unwittingly competing for what oxygen we humans had been able to carry higher than it rightfully should have been, responded, "Exactly. Since Atlantis docked 2 days ago, the shuttle astronauts have been--"
"Like Martha?"
"Yes, Houston, shuttle astronauts, like Martha, or Chris behind the camera, or Jake floating off-screen to my right, have been extremely helpful in constructing our space station and conducting our experiments."
"It must have been humorous when your co-host came to shake your hand. When she arrived, you said, 'Dr. Livingstone, I presume'," the perpetual cheer over-inflected her question. She was, undoubtedly, one of those employees of the space consortium without an uttered promise for even a chance of a spaceshot; for her, NASA was not a path to the stars but a road to a paycheck. So she over-inflected in an attempt to hold the interest of the schoolchildren, present and future, who would sit through this thinly-veiled attempt at education.
"You needn't make unnecessary presumptions," James said tonelessly, "You can just ask if you want to know the answer."
"I mean, I meant," the voice was flustered at this refusal of banter, "did you actually say, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" when you met her?"
"No, why would I do that?"
"Well, cause you're Stanley, and she's Livingstone, and there was this case where, well, umm, Stanley rescued Livingstone, and that's what he said when they met."
"Well, space is not only a new frontier, but a different one. It seems like if I hold on to the cliches of old ones, I may be doing a disservice to both."
"Yes," the voice paused, no doubt trying to interpret frantic hand gestures from her producer, "well, thank you for being with us, Doctor and Captain. For Houston and Mission, I'm--"
"Besides," James interjected quickly enough that any perceived rudeness could be blamed on the several seconds the audio would take in its roundtrip between orbiter and orbited, "with all the supplies Atlantis just brought us, it seems in this case Livingstone is the rescuer."
"You didn't have to be so mean to her," Martha said as soon as the red light went out.
"I wasn't mean. I was explicating," Capt. Stanley said, "wasn't it supposed to be an educational show?"
"You two bicker like a married couple," Chris said, jumping in as he coiled the cord around the now-dormant camcorder.
"She was just trying to be amusing, and admittedly failing, like all DJ's and hosts do. It's just her job."
"Well, if her job description includes incompetence, I guess maybe I was a bit hard on her," Stanley said. He turned back the the rows and panels of buttons, switches and displays that commanded their home-above-our-home.
"I take it back," Chris said, "you argue more like a divorced couple."
As they spoke, they were gliding over the land beneath them, 5 miles every second. Tanks of oxygen and hydrogen stirred, cooled to scant degrees away from theoretical stasis, waiting to form water and generate electricity. Already-formed water waited to be converted by the sun's rays back into oxygen the astronauts could breath. Electrical signals pulsed from component to component over wire, fiber, and spacial ether to control the most imaginative beachhead humanity had realized. Chemicals with names unspellable were burning at a slow rate, waiting to be called upon to propel organisms of simple hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen where their vision will guide them and their ingenuity carry. Inches separated these men and women from the abhorrent vacuum surrounding their tenuous habitat that perpetually fell but, in a Newtonian twist, never landed. All in all, it was a normal day for the international space station Freedom and the space shuttle Atlantis. At least, if anything went wrong, they had each other, which is more than most people can say.
"Thank you, Freedom, for that excellent presentation on how life is up there," came the voice of a NASA television personality. "Now, Captain, you just got a few new visitors, right?"
James, who just seconds ago had been unwittingly competing for what oxygen we humans had been able to carry higher than it rightfully should have been, responded, "Exactly. Since Atlantis docked 2 days ago, the shuttle astronauts have been--"
"Like Martha?"
"Yes, Houston, shuttle astronauts, like Martha, or Chris behind the camera, or Jake floating off-screen to my right, have been extremely helpful in constructing our space station and conducting our experiments."
"It must have been humorous when your co-host came to shake your hand. When she arrived, you said, 'Dr. Livingstone, I presume'," the perpetual cheer over-inflected her question. She was, undoubtedly, one of those employees of the space consortium without an uttered promise for even a chance of a spaceshot; for her, NASA was not a path to the stars but a road to a paycheck. So she over-inflected in an attempt to hold the interest of the schoolchildren, present and future, who would sit through this thinly-veiled attempt at education.
"You needn't make unnecessary presumptions," James said tonelessly, "You can just ask if you want to know the answer."
"I mean, I meant," the voice was flustered at this refusal of banter, "did you actually say, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" when you met her?"
"No, why would I do that?"
"Well, cause you're Stanley, and she's Livingstone, and there was this case where, well, umm, Stanley rescued Livingstone, and that's what he said when they met."
"Well, space is not only a new frontier, but a different one. It seems like if I hold on to the cliches of old ones, I may be doing a disservice to both."
"Yes," the voice paused, no doubt trying to interpret frantic hand gestures from her producer, "well, thank you for being with us, Doctor and Captain. For Houston and Mission, I'm--"
"Besides," James interjected quickly enough that any perceived rudeness could be blamed on the several seconds the audio would take in its roundtrip between orbiter and orbited, "with all the supplies Atlantis just brought us, it seems in this case Livingstone is the rescuer."
"You didn't have to be so mean to her," Martha said as soon as the red light went out.
"I wasn't mean. I was explicating," Capt. Stanley said, "wasn't it supposed to be an educational show?"
"You two bicker like a married couple," Chris said, jumping in as he coiled the cord around the now-dormant camcorder.
"She was just trying to be amusing, and admittedly failing, like all DJ's and hosts do. It's just her job."
"Well, if her job description includes incompetence, I guess maybe I was a bit hard on her," Stanley said. He turned back the the rows and panels of buttons, switches and displays that commanded their home-above-our-home.
"I take it back," Chris said, "you argue more like a divorced couple."
As they spoke, they were gliding over the land beneath them, 5 miles every second. Tanks of oxygen and hydrogen stirred, cooled to scant degrees away from theoretical stasis, waiting to form water and generate electricity. Already-formed water waited to be converted by the sun's rays back into oxygen the astronauts could breath. Electrical signals pulsed from component to component over wire, fiber, and spacial ether to control the most imaginative beachhead humanity had realized. Chemicals with names unspellable were burning at a slow rate, waiting to be called upon to propel organisms of simple hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen where their vision will guide them and their ingenuity carry. Inches separated these men and women from the abhorrent vacuum surrounding their tenuous habitat that perpetually fell but, in a Newtonian twist, never landed. All in all, it was a normal day for the international space station Freedom and the space shuttle Atlantis. At least, if anything went wrong, they had each other, which is more than most people can say.
Wednesday, February 26, 2003
The oft mentioned but never properly cited cost of $30,000 per palm tree is not nearly as damning as a whining undergraduate would have us believe. The cost of these trees may be great, but so is the result. We attend not just a school, but an institution. Tour buses migrate up palm drive daily not to see our smiling faces but to appreciate the avenues and buildings we travel with hangover induced ingratitude. It is no less than shocking that so many students spending four years (seven for the truly artistic) finding themselves and their voices would deny Frederick Law Olmsted, our campus's architect, his self-expression. Stanford must be both a campus and a canvas. Besides, the palms' true purpose, best revealed at admit weekend, is one near and dear to my own heart: attracting high school students.
No one denies the palm trees are beautiful, only that the native Eucalypti would be as striking and definitely cheaper. Once they have repeated Mr. Olmsted's feats of designing Central Park and staying for a generation as the preeminent American landscape designer, I will agree with them. What they are truly arguing for is not effectiveness but cost-effectiveness. Judging the balance between cost and reward is so delicate a seesaw that I cannot condemn anyone for misjudging by a few degrees once I remember the Ram's Head Winter One Acts I spent 9 dollars viewing.
We should save our criticism for expenditures that because of their worthlessness could never be deemed acceptable. This is like the difference between every date I have ever taken a girl on (how was I to know beforehand that such expense would lead to such failure) and a Gaieties ticket (overpriced even at free). One such waste is the sign proclaiming "No Food or Drinks" hanging in every classroom I have been compelled to visit. Also in every classroom, I have seen flagrant violations of this rule, committed by teacher and student alike, ranging from a cup of tea to a potluck dinner. Contrary to popular belief, these signs are not free, nor even pardonably cheap. Considering the exorbitant charge for rekeying my dorm room incurred after my keys were lost by an ex-girlfriend of uncommon absent-mindedness but less-than-usual maliciousness, I reckon the cost of each sign at approximately $223.45.
Only the high schoolers who, every summer, spend thousands on summer school for the chance to spend thousands more on college school would still be scared enough of authority to ignore their keenly-evolved hungers. It would be cheaper to tattoo the rule on each of their foreheads so any glance around the classroom would remind them of the edict, without costing the university too much. We could even add a Stanford logo. Once the block S is recognized as a prestigious brand (ed note: pun), we could rent out these "billheads" to easily recoup the cost of body art and any incidental carpet cleaning costs.
The final and most damnable expenses are those that trade monetary resources for an opportunity and obligate to waste other kinds. We pay the College Board to administer the SAT's that figuratively kick us in the balls. Some pay dominatrices to literally do so. Upon reflection, the aforementioned Gaieties tickets perhaps belong more rightly to this sort. Included in this critique are buildings I-550 and I-560.
These hidden buildings are underground men's rooms. There are two schools of thought as to the proportion of bathrooms, and this scheme falls into neither. The first is that people should be judged not on the size of their bladders but on the shape of their genitals; men's and women's restrooms should always exist in a one-to-one pairwise correspondence. The second is that both physiological plumbing and societal pressures make fewer women occupy more bathrooms; we need a sort of three-fifths compromise for ladies' powder rooms. Without any empirical study, my subliminal feeling is that our architects favor the latter; whenever nature calls it is first answered by several wrong numbers in the guise of women's rooms. But when I do find a men's room, it is invariable vacant.
Not only has no person seriously suggested having more male toilets than female ones since days when society forced females to hide the shameful existence of their bladders by keeping a chamber pot in the jungle of their skirts and petticoats, these bathrooms were a bad idea at their inception and are doubly so now. If the olfactory environment created by sunken stalls does not frighten you, perhaps your logical skills would be better met by a publication like The Stanford Review (the smell is as pungent and damp today as it was in 1891). Today, however, that valuable square footage adds to the space shortage that both limits brilliance, as when departments exhaust their office capacity, and contains ineptitude, as when Cowell was torn down to make room for Darth Vaden. The legacy of devoting such precious land to an unusable bathroom is an embarrassment of former riches.
So what would I do, were I given the reins? I would keep Palm Drive as is; the Eucalyptus Drive contemporary sensibilities favor is not worth the less-than-visitor-or-biker-friendly Cactus Drive Post-Post-Modernism will eventually dictate. I would not spend another cent on signs, programs, clubs, or departments that offer nothing. I would remodel Buildings I-550 and -560 as residences for beleaguered grad students who, until now, had only metaphorically been living in the shitter. I will leave it as a thought exercise for each reader as to what action should be taken regarding AxeComm: do we cut funding and let them die a death of dearth of funds? Or should we rightly spend money and effort ensuring they and their kind are wiped from the face of this campus?
No one denies the palm trees are beautiful, only that the native Eucalypti would be as striking and definitely cheaper. Once they have repeated Mr. Olmsted's feats of designing Central Park and staying for a generation as the preeminent American landscape designer, I will agree with them. What they are truly arguing for is not effectiveness but cost-effectiveness. Judging the balance between cost and reward is so delicate a seesaw that I cannot condemn anyone for misjudging by a few degrees once I remember the Ram's Head Winter One Acts I spent 9 dollars viewing.
We should save our criticism for expenditures that because of their worthlessness could never be deemed acceptable. This is like the difference between every date I have ever taken a girl on (how was I to know beforehand that such expense would lead to such failure) and a Gaieties ticket (overpriced even at free). One such waste is the sign proclaiming "No Food or Drinks" hanging in every classroom I have been compelled to visit. Also in every classroom, I have seen flagrant violations of this rule, committed by teacher and student alike, ranging from a cup of tea to a potluck dinner. Contrary to popular belief, these signs are not free, nor even pardonably cheap. Considering the exorbitant charge for rekeying my dorm room incurred after my keys were lost by an ex-girlfriend of uncommon absent-mindedness but less-than-usual maliciousness, I reckon the cost of each sign at approximately $223.45.
Only the high schoolers who, every summer, spend thousands on summer school for the chance to spend thousands more on college school would still be scared enough of authority to ignore their keenly-evolved hungers. It would be cheaper to tattoo the rule on each of their foreheads so any glance around the classroom would remind them of the edict, without costing the university too much. We could even add a Stanford logo. Once the block S is recognized as a prestigious brand (ed note: pun), we could rent out these "billheads" to easily recoup the cost of body art and any incidental carpet cleaning costs.
The final and most damnable expenses are those that trade monetary resources for an opportunity and obligate to waste other kinds. We pay the College Board to administer the SAT's that figuratively kick us in the balls. Some pay dominatrices to literally do so. Upon reflection, the aforementioned Gaieties tickets perhaps belong more rightly to this sort. Included in this critique are buildings I-550 and I-560.
These hidden buildings are underground men's rooms. There are two schools of thought as to the proportion of bathrooms, and this scheme falls into neither. The first is that people should be judged not on the size of their bladders but on the shape of their genitals; men's and women's restrooms should always exist in a one-to-one pairwise correspondence. The second is that both physiological plumbing and societal pressures make fewer women occupy more bathrooms; we need a sort of three-fifths compromise for ladies' powder rooms. Without any empirical study, my subliminal feeling is that our architects favor the latter; whenever nature calls it is first answered by several wrong numbers in the guise of women's rooms. But when I do find a men's room, it is invariable vacant.
Not only has no person seriously suggested having more male toilets than female ones since days when society forced females to hide the shameful existence of their bladders by keeping a chamber pot in the jungle of their skirts and petticoats, these bathrooms were a bad idea at their inception and are doubly so now. If the olfactory environment created by sunken stalls does not frighten you, perhaps your logical skills would be better met by a publication like The Stanford Review (the smell is as pungent and damp today as it was in 1891). Today, however, that valuable square footage adds to the space shortage that both limits brilliance, as when departments exhaust their office capacity, and contains ineptitude, as when Cowell was torn down to make room for Darth Vaden. The legacy of devoting such precious land to an unusable bathroom is an embarrassment of former riches.
So what would I do, were I given the reins? I would keep Palm Drive as is; the Eucalyptus Drive contemporary sensibilities favor is not worth the less-than-visitor-or-biker-friendly Cactus Drive Post-Post-Modernism will eventually dictate. I would not spend another cent on signs, programs, clubs, or departments that offer nothing. I would remodel Buildings I-550 and -560 as residences for beleaguered grad students who, until now, had only metaphorically been living in the shitter. I will leave it as a thought exercise for each reader as to what action should be taken regarding AxeComm: do we cut funding and let them die a death of dearth of funds? Or should we rightly spend money and effort ensuring they and their kind are wiped from the face of this campus?
Tuesday, February 25, 2003
Sunday, February 23, 2003
Adolescence. Coming of Age. The Wonder Years. Self-Discovery. Puberty. Call it what you will. Its been done before, many times over, and by better hands than mine. Somewhere between jacking-off and getting your driver’s license you find yourself, or a suitable facsimile.
You go to the mall and you get yourself a couple of uniforms. You go to Sam Goody and you buy off the rack they put right out front for your convenience. You take your IQ and you divide that by your relative attractiveness on a scale of one to ten (please be honest). Then you add to that the total number of surnames employed by yourself, your siblings and your parents. Award bonus points if you were a bed-wetter and/or like to hurt small animals, and now you’re getting somewhere. If your number is between zero and ten, throw your hat into the Homecoming race. If it’s between ten and twenty, do your homework and try not to draw any attention to yourself, you’ll be issued a Taurus and a three-bedroom ranch on a quarter acre lot. If your number is between twenty and thirty, consult Karl Marx and/or your favorite angst-ridden musician. If your number is above thirty, write a novel.
You take the shiniest parts of yourself and, if you haven’t found your authorial voice yet, you pick a writer and you basically mad-lib in the names and dates. Since I have by now realized there are no authorial voices left, I've decided on F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Something about the way he writes his prose like poetry. I can’t explain it. Read the end of Gatsby. I don’t care if you don’t read a single word in chapters one through seven, read the last five fucking paragraphs in Chapter 8. The beauty. The trance-inducing, pins-and-needles, capricious and consciously ignorant beauty of the thing. Fuck. There is a foreboding hope, a nihilistic belief in those words that I don’t think any of Gen-X’s bittersweet overtures can match. It isn't beautiful because it's true, it's TRUE because it's BEAUTIFUL. Literary masturbation at its comeliest.
If you can just write it well enough it is. If you can only convince people of it it, its real. Step right up and get your identity. It’s the objectification of subjectivity.
Now I know, of course, that the preceding is bullshit. And in two years I’ll know that the following is bullshit too. But at ____teen you want to believe it, you NEED to believe it. You need to make your name in someone else’s brand, because the prospect of doing it naked and cold and all alone is stupefying. If you thought it’d make people understand you, you’d kill yourself. But then you’d be dead and they might not get it at all anyway. No, the problem with suicide is you can only do it once.
So instead you pick your scabs and you go on. Instead you wear a clever t-shirt. Instead you listen to the leading unpopular band. Instead you spend. Instead you booze. Instead you toke. Instead you fuck. Instead you live.
The point is I am not now, nor have I ever been a member of the Communist Party. Beyond that I don’t fucking know.
--Daniel "Vitamin" Foster
Saturday, February 22, 2003
Friday, February 21, 2003
From time to time, I hear the pseudo-socialists that populate fashionable campuses clamor about separating colleges from the economic pressures they feel and create. Such an idea is a product of idealism so sentimental it makes babies and puppy dogs alike vomit. Whether we measure wealth by dollars, shares of stock, shotgun shells, or virgins reserved for us in paradise, substantial universities will be economic institutions until societies no longer face any scarcities. Trying to reform colleges without changing society at large would be like filling your gas tank with hydrogen in the fervent hope that your Honda's four-cylinder internal combustion engine will turn into a fuel cell once it realizes the advantages of the new.
Part of the problem in discussing this issue has been that universities operate with an almost incomprehensible amount of money. Any sort of tower requires a great deal of funding to operate, and those made of ivory require more polishing than most. To put it in familiar terms: If my current alma mater, Stanford University, shut down tomorrow, it could give a dollar to every single man, woman, and child on the face of the Earth. Or it could give me 6 billion dollars, preferably in small un-marked bills. This godlike wealth deserves not only our respect and consideration but also a healthy dose of human sacrifice and graven image worship. I am not so vain in my abilities as a writer to think that this essay could form a holy text for the nascent religion of Educationism.
In a fortuitous and purely random coincidence, this topic is precisely large enough to require a series of mediocre and mildly repetitive essays on the subject. I accept this charge. I will discuss all the interesting aspects of educational economics, like tuition and financial aid, legacy admission, $30,000 palm trees, student group funding, and the like. Only in instances of uncommon desperation will I revert to the boring aspects like student theater, class distinctions, and textbook prices. For the sake of my readers, I promise to skewer celebrities like James Clark and Jane Fonda who fabricate excuses to renege on their pledges after the stock market has an off-week and they panic to find their hundreds of millions whittled down to the mere pittance of tens of millions. Throughout this series, I will highlight the stupidity of administrators and bureaucracies wherever they may exist (mainly because these stupidities exist anywhere either administrators or bureaucracies do). After tearing down, examining, and satirizing everything that is wrong with our system, I will put it back together in a new shape, a better shape: An educational system that every capable person may attend without incurring crushing debt. A system where money is spent only for the absolutely necessary or incredibly shiny. Where teachers are paid enough to attract, if not the best and brightest, at least the better and brighter. For this invaluable service, I require nothing more than your attention and consideration. And, during our half-price sale, 3 billion dollars in small, unmarked bills.
Part of the problem in discussing this issue has been that universities operate with an almost incomprehensible amount of money. Any sort of tower requires a great deal of funding to operate, and those made of ivory require more polishing than most. To put it in familiar terms: If my current alma mater, Stanford University, shut down tomorrow, it could give a dollar to every single man, woman, and child on the face of the Earth. Or it could give me 6 billion dollars, preferably in small un-marked bills. This godlike wealth deserves not only our respect and consideration but also a healthy dose of human sacrifice and graven image worship. I am not so vain in my abilities as a writer to think that this essay could form a holy text for the nascent religion of Educationism.
In a fortuitous and purely random coincidence, this topic is precisely large enough to require a series of mediocre and mildly repetitive essays on the subject. I accept this charge. I will discuss all the interesting aspects of educational economics, like tuition and financial aid, legacy admission, $30,000 palm trees, student group funding, and the like. Only in instances of uncommon desperation will I revert to the boring aspects like student theater, class distinctions, and textbook prices. For the sake of my readers, I promise to skewer celebrities like James Clark and Jane Fonda who fabricate excuses to renege on their pledges after the stock market has an off-week and they panic to find their hundreds of millions whittled down to the mere pittance of tens of millions. Throughout this series, I will highlight the stupidity of administrators and bureaucracies wherever they may exist (mainly because these stupidities exist anywhere either administrators or bureaucracies do). After tearing down, examining, and satirizing everything that is wrong with our system, I will put it back together in a new shape, a better shape: An educational system that every capable person may attend without incurring crushing debt. A system where money is spent only for the absolutely necessary or incredibly shiny. Where teachers are paid enough to attract, if not the best and brightest, at least the better and brighter. For this invaluable service, I require nothing more than your attention and consideration. And, during our half-price sale, 3 billion dollars in small, unmarked bills.
Thursday, February 20, 2003
Yes, we are the Enfranchised. Its like "the Enlightened" but with a bittersweet bite of self-conscious irony. White, middle-class and pissed off that nobody seems to think we've got anything to be pissed off about. As a people we are minorities of nothing; as individuals we are the ultimate minority.We are slow-mo Hobos in a PoMoWo. Our idea of multi-cultural is the food court at the mall. We are those subjects left out of subjectivity. We are the jagged center of the fragmented world. We know no movements, no trends, no wisdom. The pendulum continues its swing and we hold on for dear life. Is there room on the bookshelves and gallery walls for us? Or are doomed to a life lonely in endless WASP opportunity? We hereby seek to answer that and other questions. And we apologize in advance. We're sorry. We are truly and profoundly sorry.
-Fosterius
-Fosterius
We are The Enfranchised. We are the stereotypical. Our troubles are inconsequential. Since our writing is "bereft of substance", in the words of some, we turn to style. We promise you the best dog and pony show that studying dead white men can give. We will steal blatantly from sources you would not otherwise have heard of. Sources so obscure and magnificent that you will be wowed even as you turn to google to find the original. You won't find it there.
The Enfranchised: Plagiarism at its most original.
The Enfranchised: Plagiarism at its most original.
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