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May 26, 2005
Goodbyes
When the futons get moved and the stuff gets shipped and the friends start to leave, one reflects on how anti-climactic the end of year always seems. On the one hand, you're sad and don't want to leave; on the other, you desperately want finals and moving (which always sucks) to end as soon as possible. It seems unfair for move-out to coincide with stressful finals period, but so it goes.
For my part, my month-long blog hiatus will come to a close once I finish my junior paper and move out. By the middle of next week, this blog will live once more as I clear out the intellectual attic, so to speak, and transition into a bassoon-filled Aspen summer.
And even though my academic work for the term remains uncompleted (the aforementioned junior paper), it's tempting to reflect on the Year That Was. But what I find in the past can no longer be expressed in words. Memories become images instead of stories, melodies instead of narratives. Which is why so much can be said with glances.
With the Eliot fire alarm (inexplicably blustery weather leads to short-circuit) blaring goodbye to my roommate Bill who left moments ago, and myself therefore unable to sleep quite yet, I read through some of the goodbye emails I have filed away in my "Friends" folder, and let myself remember their pain. For as long as I can remember, I have relived sadness over inside my mind until the pieces foreign to me (as pain is always misunderstanding) are assimilated into the present.
This process, while effective at restoring balance, has the unfortunate side effect of often leaving me estranged from the people I once deeply loved: as I come to understand the past, I am often incapable of meeting them again in the present. Is reconciliation possible? Reconciliation with you, you who understood me as well as I understood you, which is to say, not very (this one I may actually get, and soon)? Reconciliation with you, you whose beautiful idealism I mercilessly crushed beneath my grasping for adulthood (I still miss you)? Reconciliation with you, with whom I always found so much potential, but never enough time?
But lest all this dwelling in the past make the reader nervous at my nostalgia, I hasten to add: I wouldn't change a thing about the past, because otherwise, I would not be who I am. If I had to do it all over again, I would. And you can't ask for a better goodbye than that.
Posted by David Richmond at 2:10 AM EDT | Comments (2) | TrackBack
May 18, 2005
Dammit, What Was That?
Just came across Musipedia, a wiki (linked database editable/expandable by anyone) full of melodies. It allows you to search by singing the tune into the computer or by giving the general melodic contour (using this thing called the Parson's Code). So. Incredibly. Cool.
Posted by David Richmond at 10:48 AM EDT | Comments (1) | TrackBack
May 14, 2005
What We Do
Ben Shahn, The Shape of Content (Charles Eliot Norton Lectures on Poetry, 1956-1957):
The public function of art has always been one of creating a community. This is not necessarily its intention, but it is its result...It is the images we hold in common, the characters of novels and plays, the great buildings, the complex pictorial images and their meanings, and the symbolized concepts, principles, and great ideas of philosophy and religion that have created the human community. The incidental items of reality remain without value or common recognition until they are symbolized, recreated, and imbued with value. The potato field and the auto repair shop remain without quality or awareness or the sense of community until they are turned into literature by a Faulkner or a Steinbeck or a Thomas Wolfe or into art by a Van Gogh.
The world shapes the artist, and in turn the artist shapes the world.
Posted by David Richmond at 8:52 AM EDT | TrackBack
May 9, 2005
H Bomb
So this year's issue of H Bomb is out, the sex magazine -- magazine about sex, if you're charitable -- that caused quite a stir when it was approved and, finally, debuted. Now that the fuss has died down, you might be wondering: what does DR think about H Bomb? Actually, you probably weren't thinking that, but I'm the one with the blog.
First, the good. The overall attention to detail in production and presentation is impressive. The photographic work comes off as sexy in an artsy way, not sexy in a pornographic way. Well done there. And you have to admire the editorial intent of the magazine. Sex in college -- and relationships -- is the giant elephant in the room, not only here at Harvard but in society at large.
But therein lies H Bomb's failure. Because the very reason said giant elephant exists is because none of us has any clue what we're doing: sex and its related emotions are confusing, to put it mildly. H Bomb claims to provoke us to think openly about the sexual culture at Harvard, but perhaps we don't "think openly" about it because such an inquiry proves to be largely unproductive.
Consider Katharina Cieplak-von Baldegg's article on the culture of "hooking up", which combines an overwrought, more-sophisticated-than-thou prose style with lack of any substantive insight. Or consider the attempt by Gigi Garmendia (Miss "Harvard boys don't ask me out because they have no balls" -- she fails to consider that they might have other reasons, but I'm sure they'll overlook her lack of modesty) to describe her love life during her time abroad in Paris, ultimately with the aim, apparently, of passing judgement on the dating culture at Harvard. Her strong prose voice is contradicted by the fact, patently obvious from her disjunct musings, that she has no more of an idea of what she wants in love, sex, and romance than any other Harvard student.
But the magazine was saved, for me, by the profile of Laurel Holland near the end. Laurel's graceful, ever-cheerful presence never fails to make me genuinely smile, and she's in fine form here; responding to the question "Is Sex Better at Harvard?" she answers:
Oh yeah, DEFINITELY better. Paper-thin walls, narrow squeaky bed, and the added bonus of the walk-through. Très sexy.
A girl who knows not to take life (and sex, and datings, and relationships) too seriously -- now there's something I know would make an immediate and discernible difference in dating at Harvard.
Posted by David Richmond at 1:08 PM EDT | Comments (1) | TrackBack
May 4, 2005
Reading Period
Reading through friend's panicked away messages, a new definition of reading period occurs to me. Reading Period: that point in time during which you at first panic, but then relax after you realize that no matter how screwed you are, one of your colleagues is screwed worse.
Posted by David Richmond at 6:39 PM EDT | TrackBack
Laugh of the Day
Publicly, Gwen would pretend to be thrilled, but the truth was that all she had really wanted to do was make out with a toad.
Brilliant.
Posted by David Richmond at 11:50 AM EDT | TrackBack
Social Narcissism
I often enjoy Jason Lurie's columns in The Crimson becuase I usually wind up knowing the supposedly-anonymous references he makes. Take today's column, critiquing (among other things) the programs the science departments are devising to attract and keep more women in the natural sciences:
Perhaps the worst aspect of these programs is that they take away funding that might otherwise go towards actually solving the problem. For example, one extremely talented female science concentrator I know transferred to a prestigious technical university after just one year at Harvard. Why? Because she had exhausted the science courses she wanted to take here; her new school has a larger selection of courses that interest her.
<sarcasm>Hehehe I know who he's talking about!! How socially titillating!</sarcasm> (and for the record, she is brilliant)
But it's the self-effacing columns I find most charming:
There was the beauty who has been engaged for 18 months and the senior who "forgot to mention" she had a boyfriend. Then there was the young woman who abruptly stopped returning my calls and e-mails and the one who insisted that I not refer to our trips to the movies as "going out" or "dates." And I must not neglect the girl who said -- and this is a direct quote -- "I'm not ready to date anyone now, and not you when I am."
Yes indeed, I know two of these girls. I have respect for this guy. Not afraid to speak his mind, and keeps his sense of humor.
Posted by David Richmond at 10:03 AM EDT | TrackBack
May 2, 2005
Ground Zero
If it wasn't obvious from this post, I'm going to be living in Ground Zero next year with thirteen other people. Ground Zero, for the non-Harvard types, is a collection of suites on the fourth floor of B and C entry in Eliot House that consists of a large number of single bedrooms plus a very large (375+ square feet) common room, making it perfect for parties, other large gatherings, and generally hanging out. Perhaps the main reason why myself and the 13 other people who will be living there with me next year went for the room is because we wanted a place to all live close together. Since we're, you know, friends.
Ground Zero is also an egalitarian asset for the house. Which is to say, The Fourteen would disappoint lots of people if we chose to bar the doors of our ununsually large common room to the Eliot House community and the Harvard community at large. Such a thought certainly never crossed my mind, at least; from the moment we started talking about Ground Zero, various members of The Fourteen immediately started concocting all sorts of schemes. Buzzard Club and Tutorial (the latter apparently independently conceived by the sometimes-brilliant Andy Jorgensen as "Happy Hour in Ground Zero") have been discussed on the more off-the-wall side. And I myself am also excited about the prospect of throwing more traditionally college bump-and-grind affairs, especially since, between The Fourteen, we're involved in dozens of extracurricular groups, most of which throw parties from time to time and will likely be requesting the use of Ground Zero to do so. Plus there's House and UC grants.
And besides, I'd argue that no one in the junior class is more integrated into Eliot House life than The Fourteen. If you're in Eliot House, your house is our house and our house is your house. We understand this.
I would have thought that all of this would be implicitly understood, except that myself and other members of The Fourteen have been independently hearing rumors from separate sources that "we're not going to be throwing parties in Ground Zero next year". Typically this rumor is presented as fact. As it was presented to me: "I hear people in Eliot are pissed that you got GZ, because you're not planning to throw parties." It's as if thirteen of The Fourteen were unsubscribed from eliot-list, one member sent an email out saying "Dear Eliot House: FYI, we will not be throwing parties in Ground Zero next year. Thanks!" and then resubscribed the other thirteen, because everyone seems to know about this planned lack of parties -- except for us.
I haven't been able to track down the source of this rumor, but it's categorically false. And I'm actually rather upset about it. But to whomever started it: we'll be very happy to prove you wrong.
Posted by David Richmond at 8:20 PM EDT | TrackBack
May 1, 2005
Looking for a laugh?
Try this. Unbelievably hilarious. Here's an, er, taste:
Or as Mrs. Bush noted on Saturday night about her husband and the ranch in Texas: "George didn't know much about ranches when we bought the place. Andover and Yale don't have real strong ranching programs. But I'm proud of George. He's learned a lot about ranching since that first year when he tried to milk the horse. What's worse, it was a male horse."
Posted by David Richmond at 11:06 PM EDT | TrackBack
Sidekick blogging
My friend Drew won the use of a Buck Rogers-style T-Mobile Sidekick for a month from thefacebook.com's social network survey run by Harvard Professor Mobius, from which I am now blogging. I'd give you links to some of that stuff but I can't go searching for relevant stuff without losing this page (no popups or tabs). But you do have Google.
Even discounting for the novelty factor, this is really cool.
UPDATE: (8:10pm) For some reason the Sidekick couldn't get Moveable Type to rebuild the primary index after publishing this post, so it didn't appear on the site, and I had to rebuild it from a hardline. Nevertheless, I have seen the future and it is mobile. And awesome.
While I'm at it: Sidekick factsheet; Professor Mobius; Crimson FM article on his research using thefacebook.com.
Posted by David Richmond at 7:53 PM EDT | TrackBack