1. Thrilling documentary on Polaroids OR Lecture on the “influence” of dubstep music on the elderly?
A: Polaroid Documentary! Yes, this week Vassar will proudly embrace its hipster-dom, and declare Instagramming your Pesto Chicken Ciabatta (not-in-a-Ciabatta-but-in-a-Pita-and-not-with-chicken-but-with-tofu) too mainstream. Instead, the college will draw focus to the Polaroid, to make you remember that honestly, if you aren’t pickling fruit for the winter and reading by candlelight on candles made from wax you formed yourself, you have lost your way. It inspired me so much that I am writing this on a typewriter. It took me over three weeks. To write that sentence. I’ve also exposed myself to scarlet fever and refused to take the vaccine, because I am a true artist and because someone told me once that vaccine’s are SO early 2000s.
2. Tour of the Regal Galleria Mall Cinema with some authority figure named “Catherine Hill” OR A Screening of “The Clockwork Orange” at the Bardavon?
A: Clockwork Orange! At the Bardavon! Okay, so this actually happened LAST year during finals, BUT SERIOUSLY VASSAR, WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO DO? You want a lot of high-strung, already anxious “adults” who have spent their week being assigned homework and other tasks to watch some guy be forced to do things? Don’t you think that we should avoid get any funny ideas about aversion therapy? I’ve already been trying to train my roommate to bring me snacks from the vending machine every night at midnight like a Pavlovian dog. It seems to me that you are asking for open chaos and rebellion. Unless this is all part of the plan, and the reason it is being hosted at the Bardavon is to see if this will incite us to burst into furious song and dance, thus creating a perfect flash mob.
3. Calligraphy lessons with an “expert calligrapher” (!?!?!?) OR a “Best of George Costanza” night in the Villard Room in honor of his appearance on our campus?
A: Calligraphy lessons! Oh yeah. We are bringing back the lost arts here at Vassar. Bring your Polaroid camera with you, and take some pictures that appear to be vintage of your pretty and simultaneously pleasingly antique-y handwriting. Of course, only true old timers will be able to actually read your calligraphy, so now you can have a secret language with yourself! I’m sure your history professors will appreciate the authentic essays. You’ll probably still fail though, since your calligraphy is almost definitely illegible. You’re not the expert.
4. Native American Social Dances OR a “What are the possible cunning motivations behind the fact that the powers-that-be keep putting the spring concert on 4/20” Open Discussion in Sanders?
A: Native American Social Dances! As a person who knows her own share of Native American Social Dances (no, really, I do), there is no way I can make fun of that. I can, however, make fun of the fact that Vassar absolutely demands there to be a rain location, and the description of leading dances around “The Great Sycamore” is really undermined by the preceding print of “Rain Location: Powerhouse Theater.” You can’t just CHOOSE a spiritually significant sounding name and call that the same thing as a great Sycamore Vassar, you just can’t! We should totally just stab Caesar!!!! Sorry, got carried away there.