You, sir, are drunk!"
"And you, Madame, are trying to destroy fun. But tomorrow, I shall be hung over in class and you will still be a clear and present danger to fun on this campus!"
I exchanged these angry words with Dean Nancy Weiss Malkiel, runner-up for the 2005 Coolest Malkiel Award, in the foyer of Prospect House after mooching free booze off a "Women in Deep-Sea Oceanography" reception. I had identified myself as J. Alfred Prufrock to the coat-checker, Hunter S. Thompson to the bartender and Jacques Cousteau Jr. to the lovely young professionals in attendance.
On my way out the door, I was caught by Dean Malkiel. She recognized me from my smug, Tom Delay-esque mug shot. She exclaimed, "You're an imposter! The only diving you've undertaken lately has involved your GPA!"
I thanked her and Ben Bernanke for their valiant efforts to fight inflation and tried to flee.
Sensing trouble, Dean Hillary Herbold and her military police rushed to the door to block my escape. They knew I was only a few yards from the McCosh lecture halls and if I succeeded in taking a seat there, no professor on campus would be able to identify me, so they sealed every exit. I was trapped. "Take him to the Guantanamo Room," she ordered.
All insurgents in the War on Fun had learned to fear the Guantanamo Room. The Princeton Justice Project, guardians of prisoners' inalienable right to cable TV, had condemned the room long ago, and yet, interrogations continued. In my head, I carefully repeated my name, bank and quintile. I feared I would crack under their techniques. President Tilghman walked into the room, switched on Cornel West's spoken-word album and stood back to watch me writhe in agony.
"Do you expect me to talk, Tilghman?" I screamed.
"No, Mr. Fraser, I expect you to sober up!" she replied with an evil grin.
"But if you kill me," I replied, "then Cullen Newton will come back to finish my job. And he knows what I know — about the Wythes Plan!"
She switched off the torture machine (err, boom box) and approached my chair. "Two words which you may have read in the paper, Mr. Fraser, which mean very little to you. Allow me to explain the full details of my plan to destroy fun as you know it."
"Years ago, in a genetics laboratory, I discovered DNA, but the credit was taken by the male oppressors Watson and Crick," she explained.
"Yeah, and Tipper Gore invented the Internet," I retorted. Dean Malkiel knocked me from an A to a B+, and I shut up.
"I realized that if I could change the genes of the University, I could reshape it. So I framed Fred Hargadon and brought in a new Dean of Admission who would recruit more future public servants and fewer consultants."
"That hasn't seemed to placate the Robertsons," I quipped. Dean Slaughter grimaced.
"I realized that nature and nurture might play equal roles in development, however, so I knew I had to change the environment, too," she continued.
"That's why you're trying to replace the eating clubs with four-year colleges!"
I exclaimed.
"That's right. But Meg Whitman's donation was only half of the plan. To truly destroy fun on campus, I knew we had to raze the Wawa," Tilghman gloated. "That's why we needed the $101 million from Peter Lewis — so we could build a performing arts center on the site of your precious drunk-food vendor. Now you and your anti-intellectual friends will have nowhere to go after playing your hideous drinking games."
A shiver ran down my spine, and I remembered reading an article in the 'Prince' ("New arts complex may force Wawa departure," Feb. 16, 2006). My God! The banning of the Nude Olympics, the substance-free housing, the closing of Campus Club, the election of Leslie-Bernard Joseph and now the eviction of Wawa — this was the final solution to the fun question! I knew that they would never let me live to relay this information to my readers.
Then, all of a sudden, Harvard President Lawrence Summers came crashing through the wall in a ROTC tank driven by Justice Samuel Alito. "Let the boy go," Larry boomed, "and I'll resign from my presidency."
Tilghman, Malkiel and Rapeleye glanced at each other. Dunne shifted his weight nervously. "You've got a deal," Tilghman announced.
They cut me loose. As I dashed toward Prospect Avenue before Ivy went off tap, Summers yelled after me, "Never, never, never give in!"
And I swore to myself I never would. Powell Fraser is a politics major from Atlanta, Georgia. He can be reached at pfraser@princeton.edu.
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An open letter to President Eisgruber and VP Calhoun concerning minoritized student safety
Patrick Jaojoco, Brandi Bushman, and Humza Gondal"We — the undersigned leaders, community members, and allies of cultural affinity groups of Princeton University — condemn in the strongest possible terms the University’s utter disregard for the safety and wellbeing of its students of color."
"We — the undersigned leaders, community members, and allies of cultural affinity groups of Princeton University — condemn in the strongest possible terms the University’s utter disregard for the safety and wellbeing of its students of color."
On the occupation of Clio Hall and the treatment of Graduate School staff
Cole M. Crittenden“There are real power differentials on this campus, and we all have an obligation to be mindful of them. The students, postdocs, and faculty who occupied Clio Hall seem to have abused their privileges in the ways they treated staff as an expression of protest. That is wrong.”
“There are real power differentials on this campus, and we all have an obligation to be mindful of them. The students, postdocs, and faculty who occupied Clio Hall seem to have abused their privileges in the ways they treated staff as an expression of protest. That is wrong.”
Regulations on ‘disruption’ restrict dialogue at Princeton. Let’s change the standard.
Rishi Khanna“When Princeton administrators suppress mere disruptions tied to progressive speech, they effectively suppress a substantial portion of the speech itself.”
“When Princeton administrators suppress mere disruptions tied to progressive speech, they effectively suppress a substantial portion of the speech itself.”
