April 13, 2001
Volume CXXXII, Number 21

 










  A Sympathetic Reaction
is not Enough

An extensive response to last week's
Farnbach letter

How to write a paper when your muse has completely vanished
 
 

    In bringing Dr. Gail Dines to campus this past week, Safe Space performed a great service to the Bowdoin community. Most people did not agree with everything Dines said, and some people agreed with nothing she said. However, for the first time in a long time, there was standing room only in Kresge Auditorium, and not for a concert or play, but for a lecture addressing the issue of violence against women.

Read the Article

 

    It's a good thing I'm writing this, instead of talking, because you might be distracted by the robotic click that emits from the cephalic end of my body every five seconds. That's the sound of my programmed grey matter that some would call a brain. Lots of people around here have one. Apparently, I fit into that category with about 99% of the student body. If you could be so kind, readers, as to wait one second while I find my head, the following response may be of some interest to you. I wouldn't have read last week's Letter to the Community if my roommate hadn't pointed it out to me. Thankfully, I did. As my eyes moved closer to the bottom of the page, I found myself growing increasingly angrier. Like giant, pulsing forehead- vein-angry. One of the first things the author, Dan Farnbach, mentions, is that for every "pissed-off" student like himself, who "actually bothers to articulate his or her thoughts," there are probably fifty or even 500 more who do not. Well, I'm pissed off.

Read the Article

 

    So, here I am. Waiting for divine inspiration to strike. I've been waiting for a while now, and well, I am yet to be struck. I'm not sure if my hair is supposed to streak white as it does when lightning strikes, but whatever the consequence, I know that I'm just not writing. Usually my muse hides in waiting 'til deadlines loom, and then she reveals herself. But this week, well, I think she's on vacation, and who wouldn't want to be? So, yeah, this muse thing really isn't, well, amusing. Patience only lasts so long when impending due dates are in just a few hours. Maybe she just doesn't know where to look for me. I've been hiding in the library all week; it's conceivable she thought I fell into a black hole, a vortex of time and space that is essentially the definition of a library. In fact, I'm here right now, in the basement of Hawthorne and Longfellow. What an interesting place this little computer room is.

Read the Article