The Cornell Daily Sun (https://cornellsun.com/tag/arts_column/)
After one of the most important people in my life was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer during my senior year of high school, I experienced a period of early maturity in which I became intimately aware of how important time is. I was no longer able to relate to the friends I surrounded myself with since childhood and I no longer recognized myself.
A few weeks ago, former Arts editor Troy Sherman ‘18 and I decided to ruin our February break. Instead of going on a trip with friends, catching up on sleep and work or just spending time thinking and relaxing, we chose to spend a good portion of the break in close quarters, reading pages and pages of near-nonsense. When others asked us what we planned to do over break, we’d respond, with a mix of self-conscious amusement and embarrassment, “We’re going to read Finnegans Wake aloud.”
Why? I’m not entirely sure, looking back, how the seed of this idea was first planted. I’m an avid fan of the Irish writer James Joyce, and I think at some point last semester I realized that if I didn’t read Finnegans Wake — his final and by far most difficult work — now, while I’m in college and have friends like Troy that will do ridiculous, simultaneously self-flagellating and self-indulgent things like this with me, then I might never read it.
So this is a fashion column. What does that mean? Well, I talk about fashion, style and clothing and it’s printed in a columnar shape. Like any good social scientist, I say basically whatever I want, but try to back it up with some sort of solid evidence. With a substantial amount of vigorous wit and idiosyncrasies, I assert my opinions and analyses of trends past and present. But first and foremost I am here to help you look good, feel good and know your shit (like me, of course).
Happy Slope Day Cornellians! I hope at least a few of you are still sober enough to read the Sun. And I hope that the actual sun is shining. Today is a more than usually auspicious day for my usually oh-so-humble column.
Why, you ask? Well, I’ll tell you. The reasons are twofold. First, today, as you may know, is Slope Day. It is a day about music. Sort of. And admittedly less so this year than usual. (Though T.I.’s fake gunshots may have been pushing it as well.)
As a stand-in for Slope Day, and as a pre-celebration to the most important holiday of my year (my birthday), I’m seeing Beyoncé do her thing at Bercy Stadium on Cinco de Mayo (May 5th for all of you gringos). RING THE ALARM! It will be a veritable fiesta.
I’ve been thinking about this show for a long time — nearly my whole semester — because I’ve had the tickets since December, and five months is a lot of delayed gratification.
(By the way, if you think I was over-zealous in purchasing early, you know the tickets would have sold out if I didn’t pounce. Regardless of the French’s stereotypical snootiness, I’ll be damned if they don’t wanna get down with B, too.)
I have had a particularly difficult time writing this, my final article. I wish that I could say that the difficulty is derived from the pressure of capping off two years of fine work, but the truth is that I happen to be brain dead after a night of drinking. I suppose that is not a valid excuse; after all, Hemingway was always drunk and what he managed to produce was halfway decent. As I reflect on the debauchery that was last night and whether this headache was truly worth it, I cannot help but contemplate life after graduation and how different it may be.
A few weeks ago, I was contentedly sprawled across the couch and enjoying my requisite weekend-at-home House / Law and Order SVU combo marathon-extraordinaire, when my mom casually interjected, “Have you read today’s Newsday?” I, seething from the interruption, responded, “You know I don’t read that shit.” She glanced at the screen. “How many times have you seen this episode?” Umm … “How about ENOUGH?” She turned off the TV and Hugh’s face flickered into the darkness. “Read this,” she insisted. “It’s very interesting.”
Last week, I did an unprecedented thing. I changed, for the first time in almost two years, the music on my iPod. I realize that this is a sad confession for a music columnist to have to make, but I blame it entirely on laziness. I even blame my reason for finally changing the tunes on laziness. I was procrastinating. As usual.
My boredom and lack of schoolwork has inspired productive new heights for my Internet identity.
Yesterday morning, as I was creeping on M.I.A. and Diplo’s Twitter cat fight, it suddenly dawned on me that I was no more than a no-good creeper, since I don’t know either of them … and since I didn’t even have a Twitter to call my own. So, while surfing a website to which I didn’t belong, reading M.I.A.’s comments, like, “u r a [“c u next Tuesday”] get a grrl,” was when I realized: today would be the first day of the rest of my Internet life.
I would get a Twitter.