Columns

Columns

Jessie Borkan | College Is As College Does

December 6

It's 10 p.m. on a Wednesday night. Do you know what your roommates are wearing? If you are in college, chances are it's a bizarre mix of stripes, spandex and old T−shirts so eccentric hipsters would pay $3.75 for them at the Salvation Army. When I walk into my house, I never know what I'll find. Sometimes I am greeted by a crowd of classy−looking adults in real pants, shirts that fit and maybe even eyeliner. More often, however, I discover potentially crazy people on the couch, buried under a pile of blankets that I later identify as a combination of oversized sweatshirts, camp T−shirts, thermal leggings, men's underwear, animal sweaters, headbands and furry socks. I am no exception — once I am in for the night (and sometimes when I'm not) I can usually be found wearing at least three different patterns and often no pants. I put on several of my dad's old flannels at once plus T−shirts that have never seen the light of day, patterned boxers, striped knee high socks and my footies, which I believe normal people refer to as mukluks.

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Columns

Rory Parks | The Long-Suffering Sports Fan

December 2

As much as I might hate to admit it, I'm one of those people who would be easily overwhelmed by meeting a celebrity. If, say, Carrie Underwood approached me and asked me a question — which I'm fairly certain happened in my dream last night — I imagine I would turn into a drooling, blithering idiot. I mean, I was pretty star-struck when I saw David Hyde Pierce in "Spamalot."

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Columns

Ethan Landy | Call Me Junior

December 1

Let me take you back to 1976, when two guys named Steve (Jobs and Wozniak) founded the Apple Computer Company, the NBA merged with the ABA, "Rocky" came out in theaters — and Philadelphians soon had a statue celebrating a fictitious character played by Sly Stallone —  and Jimmy Carter was elected President. Oh, and Fred Savage was born. As you can see, it was a very good year.

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Columns

Griffin Pepper | Eight Girls and a Guy

December 1

Students often compare Thanksgiving Break to Spring Break, but the two couldn't be more different. Thanksgiving happens during that awful, stressful transition from midterm recovery to finals mode. It's usually grey and rainy and cold. Spring Break is a brighter time when the threat of finals dims under the shadow of blossoming trees and Spring Fling. But this Thanksgiving was more of a transformative period than I thought it would be.

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Columns

Emily Maretsky | Nice Shoes, Let's Date

November 23

Neither of my parents understand the subtle advantages of sending a text message instead of just making a phone call. I've tried to explain why it's easier to just ask a blunt question instead of making small talk or how it sometimes feels awkward calling someone you don't know well.

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Columns

Derek Schlom | I Blame Pop Culture

November 23

I'm drawing battle lines. In the war between realism versus escapism, the latter seems to always win handily when it comes to the general public's cultural preferences, at least on the commercial front. Box office receipts and television ratings overwhelmingly support the fact that we, as a whole, prefer crap with questionable entertainment value over movies with more "challenging" or "difficult" subject matter. Quality is apparently irrelevant; it seems that even if one film is vastly superior to the other, we'll still go for the cheap laughs or corny romance. But why?

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Columns

Alex Prewitt | Live from Mudville

November 23

Start a bonfire, break out the monotonous chants and go see a Rastafarian Shaman, because Tufts University is cursed.

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Columns

Rebecca Goldberg | Abroadway

November 19

There's something about being on a TV set that incites disillusionment. Up close, sets are two-dimensional, three-walled artifices that are too colorful and sterile to be lived in. When you're standing on set with four cameras, two boom mikes and 15 crew members staring you in the face, the whole enterprise suddenly seems less like magic and more like a sham.

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Columns

Ethan Frigon | The Beard Abides

November 19

When a coworker of mine gave me the idea for this column, he did so with the stipulation that I use the line "Bill Belichick is playing chess while every other NFL coach is playing checkers." Now I can't endorse that statement in good consciousness; it undersells the brilliance of the man who is clearly the best, most intelligent, most cunning, most daring, most fashionable coach in modern professional sports.

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Columns

Griffin Pepper | Eight Girls and a Guy

November 18

There are five movie posters hanging in my room back home. Three of them are of romantic comedies. I've received a number of comments from friends who come to visit. "Dude … you have a poster of ‘When Harry Met Sally' … you know that, right?"

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Columns

Rory Parks | The Long-Suffering Sports Fan

November 18

When Doug Flutie addressed the campus on Tuesday night as part of Tufts' Lecture Series, he discussed several of his experiences as a quarterback in the Canadian Football League. One of them in particular stands out. He talked about a play in which he tried to twist out of the grasp of an opposing defensive end, spun around to his blind side and turned directly into a brutal helmet-to-helmet hit laid on him by another defender that split his own helmet in two.

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Columns

Zach Drucker and Chris Poldoian | Bad Samaritans

November 18

Ah, Thanksgiving. A holiday combining two of our top three favorite things: family and gravy. Yet our third favorite thing, movies, is inexplicably absent. It makes no sense! Other holidays get their own movies. We could spend weeks rattling off Christmas movies; even Hannukah has Adam Sandler's "Eight Crazy Nights" (2002). What a "farkakte" movie that was! Halloween films get horror, and you can always count on a couple of romantic comedies in the middle of February. Even the relatively obscure Groundhog Day got the 1993 eponymous, existential comedy starring Bill Murray.

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Columns

Teddy Minch | Off Mic

November 17

The arrival of her memoir, "Going Rogue," further reinforces the fact that Sarah Palin refuses to go away. The folksy, not-even-one-term governor from Alaska has absolutely captivated a large number of American conservatives; Sarah PAC, the political action committee Palin created in January 2009, raised upwards of $730,000 in just five months, presumably to support a Palin 2012 presidential bid.

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Columns

Charles C. Laubacher | Ears Open

November 15

In last week's column, I reflected on some current trends in the music industry and ended by lamenting the imminent demise of the album. This week, in order to prove just how out of touch and behind the times I am, I'd like to address another worry I have about the changing tides of the music world: I don't think we've made enough room for live music.   

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Columns

Jesse Borkan | College is as college does

November 15

Emoticons are a phenomenon I have never quite been able to stomach. Nothing bodes worse for a potential friendship with me than a smiley face with a wink or a disjointed heart that has mathematical significance. It usually goes something like this: I am making plans with someone via text message. We decide to meet in Davis at 7. I say that this sounds good to me, and this is the reply I get: 

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Columns

Ethan Landy | Call Me Junior

November 13

Perfection. This weekend was all about it. And I'm not talking about the Indianapolis Colts or the New Orleans Saints.

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Columns

Ethan Frigon | The Beard Abides

November 12

Up to this point in his career, Chad Ochocinco (see: Johnson) has been most well-known for his elaborate — some would say obnoxious — touchdown celebrations and apparently lackluster grasp of the Spanish language. I say let the man dance.

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Columns

Rebecca Goldberg | Abroadway

November 12

In the fleeting dreams of my early childhood, I thought it would be cool to make my living as a writer. I didn't know what I wanted to write, though. In my tween years, I flitted between fantasies of being a movie critic, a TV columnist, a pop culture essayist and a comic book writer. And thanks in great part to the publication you now hold in your hands, I've gotten to try a little of all of these things (well, not comics — my brain just doesn't work that way). I still like to write, obviously, but I think I've gotten that pipe dream out of my system.

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Columns

Rory Parks | The Long-Suffering Sports Fan

November 11

Last week, I talked about the culture of forgiveness within sports and how it seems to take so little to accept an athlete who has cheated or committed a crime back into our good graces. There are, of course, a couple of conditions: The athlete needs to show remorse that we can accept as genuine, and he needs to continue to perform well on the field upon return.

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Columns

Zach Drucker and Chris Poldoian | Bad Samaritans

November 11

Nowadays, virtually all films are based on a prior story — whether it's a book, graphic novel, Broadway show or an "amazingly true" tale. Movie executives are desperate for ideas and, in their search to find original concepts, they have turned to the video game industry.

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