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Inside: Identities, Intra-Extracurriculars, and Imagination 09.15.2016 09.15.16 The Indy is outside Vol. XLVIII, No. 2 the classroom / bubble / box! filling in the blanks
CONTENTS Cover design by Audrey Effenberger ‘19 Inside: Identities, Intra-Extracurriculars, and Imagination
President Aditya Agrawal '17 3 What I’m Not Editor-in-Chief Caroline C. Cronin '18 Managing Editor Caroline Gentile ‘17 4 (cont’d) Production Editor Audrey Effenberger ‘19 Vice-President, Daniel Um ‘19 5 HUDS Rally Business 6 (cont’d) News Editor Pulkit Agarwal ‘19 7 Leaders Forum Forum Editor Hunter Richards ‘18 Arts Editor Andrew Lin ‘17 8 Evening with... Sports Editor Jess Clay ‘17 9 He Dreams Designers Yaara Yacoby '17 Alice Linder '17 10 Art of the Tailgate Abigail Parker '17
11 (cont’d) Staff Writers Andrew Adler ‘17 Peyton Fine '17 Ritchey Howe '17 As Harvard College's weekly undergraduate newsmagazine, Hannah Kates '18 the Harvard Independent provides in-depth, critical coverage of Dominique Luongo ‘17 issues and events of interest to the Harvard College community. Chris Riley '17 The Independent has no political affiliation; instead, it offers diverse Megan Sims ‘18 commentary on news, arts, sports, and student life. Shreya Vardhan ‘17 For publication information and general inquiries, contact Sally Yi ‘18 President Aditya Agrawal ([email protected]). Letters to the Editor and comments regarding the content of the publication should be addressed to Editor-in-Chief Caroline Cronin ([email protected]). To request or inquire regarding an email subscription, please email [email protected]. The Harvard Independent is published weekly during the academic year, except during vacations, by The Harvard Independent, Inc., Student Organization Center at Hilles, Box 201, 59 Shepard Street, Cambridge, MA 02138. Copyright © 2016 by The Harvard Independent. All rights reserved.
2 harvardindependent.com The Harvard Independent • 09.15.16 INDY FORUM What I’m Not Multiraciality in an increasingly mixed world. By AUDREY EFFENBERGER
o be honest, I’m a bit late to the game on US population self-identified as multiracial this. I don’t really keep up with sports in 2015. We occupy the space between culture Tin any capacity, aside from cheering [Race is] a and blood, between groups, between others. for Team USA every four years. When We have to figure out what that means not Colin Kaepernick started kneeling instead only to ourselves, but to others. of standing at attention for the national anthem, I didn’t hear about it through first- potent and poorly In practical terms, this means that people or secondhand sources – I got third-, fourth-, like Rodney Harrison may be right: if you and probably fifth-hand interpretations of weren’t raised black, and if you don’t really what he was (metaphorically) standing for, defined thing [...] “look black,” you aren’t black in the same and what that meant about the state of way that the leaders of Black Lives Matter America. are. You don’t face the same fights or the same consequences. Replace “black” with There was the one headline phrase that made up of cultural any other race, for any multiracial person of stuck with me, however. From Rodney any background, and the same statements Harrison: will probably hold true. There are ways that values, parentage others treat you based on what they see, “He’s not black.” ways to do with both blood and water, and In the interest of full disclosure, and ways that are both cruel and real. Regardless due to the wealth of personal information or parenting, raw of personal identity, the world imposes this that celebrity status makes accessible on on you. the internet, I can tell you that Colin Rand In my life, I have had my perceptions of my Kaepernick was born to a white woman blood, and the way own multiracial identity challenged in many and a black man, and then raised by an ways. In my eyes, I am closer to an Asian adoptive white family in Wisconsin and American raised in an Asian household, then California. He was a good student in you look... with the cultural marks to prove it. I was high school; he still is an amazing athlete a brief student of the Singapore math book in baseball, basketball, and most notably series. I am, bizarrely, a fan of the way that football. all Asian supermarkets smell (and if you He might be, in some ways, all-American. grew up going to Chinese supermarkets But undoubtedly, incontrovertibly, African- quantification, too, there is a laundry list of every Saturday, you know what I mean). I American is what he’s not. ways in which people have been identified am fluent enough in Chinese to talk about as “other.” From US blood quantum laws food and school. I was deeply sympathetic to Taking a step back from the incredibly to nineteenth-century slurs like mulatto, Amy Chua’s daughters when I was in eighth important political and social dialogue in quadroon, octoroon, or quintroon. grade. I could go on. which Kaepernick’s protest is playing a role, we can begin to see the complicated Ugly as that history may be, what racial But I’m tall with green eyes and not-black space that race takes in shaping these quantification gets at is the uncertainty in hair. My skin’s base tone is decidedly pink, conversations, and in shaping people’s deciding who is what race, and how that not yellow. In the eyes of most anyone else, lives. It’s a potent and poorly defined thing race becomes part of personal identity. This what I identify most closely to is exactly – made up of cultural values, parentage or anxiety is not going away. Through whatever what I am not. I do not receive insults about parenting, raw blood, and the way you look. circumstances, multiracial babies are born my immigration status, or backhanded This has been used to make people feel, and and will continue to be. According to the Pew compliments about my English or math to make them hurt. From the history of racial Research Center, almost seven percent of the scores. When such racist tensions exist in
The Harvard Independent • 09.15.16 harvardindependent.com 3 INDY FORUM What I’m Not, continued. the world, I cannot claim to fully understand Kaepernick and I are visually white-passing It’s important to know who we are. But them; despite never asking for it, I am – sometimes, that matters more than how sometimes, the most important thing is protected in a way that is uncomfortable to we identify or how we choose to use our what we’re not. acknowledge but no less real. identities. Audrey Effenberger (effenberger@college. It is hard to put into words what I feel Above football, patriotism, racism, police harvard.edu) wishes she were this about the space that I occupy, or the “other” I brutality, social justice, socioeconomic reform motivated to write an essay for her gen ed. may be to others. Every biracial, multiracial, – or beneath it all, as the bedrock of ourselves and/or mixed person can have a different – we have to consider race critically. Race personal identity with which to navigate does not go away, and for the multiracial the world. However, the inequalities of kids coming of age in this world, we have a our world are built on both physical and responsibility to ourselves to consider how intangible qualities, both blood and memory, we want to be seen. We have to be conscious inextricably intertwined. Whether Colin of how others see us.
Protestors gather along Mass Ave and in Harvard Yard. (Article page 5) Megan Sims
4 harvardindependent.com The Harvard Independent • 09.15.16 INDY NEWS When Harvard Workers are Under Attack, What Do We Do? HUDS and students rally as strike vote approaches.
By MEGAN SIMS
n Wednesday September 7th, dozens Action Movement, Protestors surround the John Harvard statute. of members of the Harvard and or SLAM, who spoke greater Boston community gathered at the rally, “Concretely, HUDS workers Harvard dining service.” Her speech, like so O many others given that day, was met with in a side room of University Lutheran are asking for at least $35,000 a year for Church to hear from HUDS workers and those who make themselves available to applause and cheers from the crowd. their allies about the impending worker’s work year-round, and to keep their current And indeed, Pappas has reason to be strike. It was a warm afternoon. Members healthcare plan. In doing so, the workers are afraid. Under Harvard’s proposed healthcare of the standing-room-only crowd fanned also fighting for basic dignity and respect, plan, co-pays would increase drastically, themselves and drank bottles of water and a Harvard that centers and cares for its jumping from $40 to $100 for an emergency from the cases provided. Many students students, workers, and faculty, the people room visit. For workers who are making less proudly sported Harvard gear—a subversive who make up this community.” than $35,000 a year with no overtime, an means of signaling their opposition to the increase in the cost of necessary healthcare University’s current treatment of its staff. Support for the strike does extend into the community beyond Harvard. Brian has the potential to be highly detrimental Harvard dining hall workers will vote Lang, the president of Local 26, the union of to the health of Harvard workers. “With its today on whether or not to strike. This vote which HUDS workers are members, spoke resources and visibility, Harvard has the comes after months of contract negotiations at the Wednesday rally. Lang spoke to the opportunity to be a leader and serve as a between HUDS workers and the University. problems with Harvard’s priorities—that model for other universities,” says Traslavina, Between the beginning of negotiations its endowment could fund the government “demonstrating that relationships between in June and now, Harvard has failed to of the city of Cambridge for decades, yet it institutions and their employees do not have address worker’s concerns regarding refuses to pay its dining hall workers enough to be exploitative, and setting an expectation affordable healthcare and a yearly living to live in the city in which they work. that universities have a responsibility to wage. According to the Facebook page of care for all members of their communities.” Anabela A. Pappas, a Cabot and Harvard’s Student Labor Action Movement, Following the gathering at the church, or SLAM, “Harvard recently raised a record Pforzheimer House dining hall worker, opened up about her personal investment hundreds marched with signs, posters, and $7 Billion…[but] refuses to guarantee a large boards sporting faces of 600 HUDS sustainable income…to all of its employees.” in healthcare. “As a diabetic for 35 years,” she said to the crowd in University Church, workers from every part of the university According to Camille Traslavina ’18, “I’ve never been so scared in my life. And through Harvard Square. The call-and- a member of Harvard’s Student Labor I shouldn’t have to be scared working for response chants of the group ranged from
The Harvard Independent • 09.15.16 harvardindependent.com 5 INDY NEWS the broad—“No justice, no peace”—to the which HUDS is a vital part. specific—“Hey Harvard you can’t hide, we can see your greedy side.” A fellow protestor From the beginning of freshman year, remarked as we lined the iron fence around HUDS workers are some of the people the yard “Is there any other side?” students first meet and some of the faces Harvard students see most frequently. As the vote on whether to strike John in Annenberg seems to learn every HUDS approaches, “SLAM is prepared to follow the freshman’s name and greet them each time workers’ lead and assist them in whatever they come in for a meal. HUDS workers ways they believe will be most helpful,” says keep us fed, ask us how our days are going, Traslavina. The value of such support was and show us kindness, often when we most evident at Wednesday’s rally. Along with need it. The student presence at the rally Rally, SLAM, representatives from the Harvard and growing support for the strike is proof Islamic Society, the Medical School’s Racial of the truth in one particular protest chant Justice Coalition, and the Harvard Students that rang through the yard on Wednesday— continued. Union-UAW spoke in support of HUDS “when Harvard workers are under attack, workers. The medical students, who showed what do we do? up sporting lab coats, were held up by HUDS and union leaders as representatives of the Stand up. Fight back.” and hopes that you will lend your support health impacts of Harvard’s policies, while Megan Sims (megansims@college. to the strike. undergrads represented the community of harvard.edu) is grateful for HUDS workers tinyurl.com/supportthestrike
Left: Quincy House dining hall worker Gregory Lee shows support for the strike. Right: SLAM member Lily Velona ‘18 leads call-and-response chants among the crowd on Mass Ave. Megan Sims
6 harvardindependent.com The Harvard Independent • 09.15.16 INDY NEWS The OSL Calls it The “SOCK” ...and other challenges presented at the Student Leaders Forum. By CAROLINE C. CRONIN
t the beginning of term, student leaders of all recognized Aundergraduate organizations received multiple emails from soch@ fas.harvard.edu regarding an upcoming Student Leaders Forum. It was made quite explicit in these emails that in order to receive funding, renew office or locker space, and register this year, each organization must send one representative to the Forum. This condition was stated before the allotted current concerns, but it allowed leaders of As a PAF and OSL intern, Brown agreed time of this Forum – which was 3 hours these organizations to find comfort in the to taking on the role of the facilitator in the – on last Thursday and Monday nights. fact that their peers also struggle with comp hopes that the Forum would “get concerns cuts and retention rates. out in the open.” The discussion sessions Therefore, when the kids who drew the certainly did that: in a moment of unity short straws (myself among them) finally Junior Berkeley Brown facilitated through complaining, our group bemoaned dragged their feet over to the Quad, the group discussions in both sessions of the the tricky manipulation of institutional Student Leaders Forum began. Dean Leaders Forum. Brown worked to make the memory of the undergraduates. Whether Khurana was introduced and began his conversation flow organically and to provide discussion or bonding or brainwashing was keynote speech. His tried and true address and open channel of communication between the administration’s goal for the Forum, is on the sacrifices Harvard has made for students of every kind of club. Brown also unclear. this country (second only to the two oldest felt the “discontented vibe” of the students military academies in America) seemed to present and could, as a student leader What is clear, and what needs to be loosely fit the occasion. And when embittered herself, relate. Brown proposed that though reiterated, is that Harvard students’ greatest laughter followed his joking evasion of a the social changes and required meetings resources are each other. There are so many question regarding social change and social such as these are met with aversion and eye- Harvard-unique experiences that we all space, we moved on. rolls, they at least lead students to “think share, and they help us to understand each critically about their organizations” and to other in this time of great “social change” at The other speakers included the new “rethink what it means to be a leader and run the College. The OSL is taking steps to assist Dean of Students Katie O’Dair, Associate an inclusive organization.” The discussion in and get to know the student body, and the Dean of Student Life David Friedrich, and our own session did pose such questions as student body – made of leaders, facilitators, the new Assistant Dean of Student Life Alex those. and peers of all sorts – needs to know itself. Miller. Both O’Dair and Miller commented on the barriers to entry into student What was most surprising to me and One thing we seem to know quite well organizations on campus. They implored pleasing to Brown was the “collaborative is how to pronounce the name of a certain the student leaders present to be “socially aspect of problem solving.” The groups concrete structure on the outskirts of campus. responsible” leaders. The emphasis seemed were composed of a mix of upper- The student leaders present expressed to lie on the plea to upperclassmen to make and underclassmen. An example of surprise in unison at the concluding underclassmen feel welcome. this collaboration occurred when the announcement that the SOCH – acronym for underclassman leader of a relatively new the Student Organization Center at Hilles – And then, it was time for the student student organization posed a question is pronounced “SOCK.” Interesting. leaders to converse. Broken into groups led regarding funding, and an upperclassman by facilitators, it was the chance for us to student answered willingly – even offering Caroline Cronin (ccronin01@college. discuss, vent, collaborate, and reflect. This her email address to contact her as a resource harvard.edu) thanks the OSL for the chance portion of the evening was not only much in the future. to meet with leaders of every variety and more indicative of student organizations’ address challenges facing students.
The Harvard Independent • 09.15.16 harvardindependent.com 7 INDY ARTS An Evening with Champions Skating stars descend on Bright-Landry. By TUSHAR DWIVEDI and funds for the Dana-Farber Cancer begin with. What no one, including myself, Institute in Boston. The event is entirely expected, however, was that the couple, in he night of Friday, September 9th, run by Harvard students, and features some their eighties and originally from the Soviet a large crowd gathered outside familiar Harvard faces in the cast as well. Union, were celebrating their wedding THarvard’s Bright-Landry Hockey anniversary that night. Tears abounded Center. The amalgamation of individuals Host Emily Hughes, 2006 Olympian and as the couple melted hearts through their standing under the imposing shadow of the a 2011 Harvard graduate, introduced the elegant and romantic skating. stadium ranged from elders in elegant dress highly distinguished and diverse cast before to freshmen who barely found the location they took the stage for the next three hours. … on time, slipping through a hole in the gate The first to do so was a solo performer— Selena Zhao, of the Class of 2020. Already As we walked out of the stadium after because they missed the front entrance. the show was over, students immediately The stadium inside reflected its exterior, as a 2015 Canadian Junior Champion, Selena represented the incoming freshman class clustered enthusiastically to discuss: we veterans of the show knew the wonder about planned to go back every year and babbled to occur while those inexperienced awaited with grace, precision, and incredible talent. There are few moments more inspirational continuously about each of the performers with uncertainty and curiosity. I, clearly, was from Harvard and around the world. The one of the latter: intrigued, unaware, and than seeing a classmate excel in such an incredible manner. altruistic vision of the organization, along just a little bit chilly. I had decided to attend with the sheer delicacy and excitement of on the recommendation of an upperclassman Selena was followed by an incredible the performance, made the Evening with friend, who described the event as “a lineup of skaters, including seven Olympians Champions an event to remember. compelling and elegant show on ice.” I looked and a number of individuals with other around the stadium, eager to find familiar impressive accolades. Each of them marked Not only did the Evening with Champions faces, and instead saw an arena only half their performance with a distinct choice of provide a much-appreciated diversion full. But as the host skated gracefully to the music and style of skating, which kept the from the intense nature of academic life center of the ice, all doubts were forgotten audience’s attention throughout the show. at Harvard, but it also lifted artistic and as the Evening with Champions began. The charitable spirits in us all. The show went lights dimmed, and the show commenced. Between the daring waltz jumps, salchows beyond a delightful evening treat and and toe-loops of the performers, however, became, for us all, a reminder. It reminds While Evening with Champions inspires was a moment of pure transience and fragile us that the stories of driven athletes, awe and wonder through the sheer beauty as Ludmila Belousova and Oleg empowered artists, long loves, and generous gracefulness and talent of its skaters, the Protopopov skated slowly to the center before hearts are all around us at Harvard. We ultimate purpose of the event is far greater. they began their performance. Possibly the must not take them for granted. The Evening with Champions show donates most distinguished set of Champions to date, the proceeds from donations and ticket sales as two-time Olympic gold medalists and Tushar Dwivedi (tushardwivedi@college. to the Jimmy Fund, an organization that four-time World Champions in pair skating, harvard.edu) looks forward to more employs grassroots efforts to raise awareness the couple was a highlight of the show to evenings with more champions!
8 harvardindependent.com The Harvard Independent • 09.15.16 INDY ARTS he dream was always the same for him now: the idle purchase of some item one Tday would slowly multiply by crawling twos and fours into a weekly and then a daily ritual, inviolate as the surety of the He Dreams in Monotony lethal pull of gravity and the noose, steadily By ANONYMOUS tightening its hold on the hapless dreamer A short story. whose purchases came to define and then consume him and fill his house, and then storage units and streets and eventually iron railings rusted solid atop each other to morphed into the wrecking balls that saw his town, his country, his continent, and form spiky barriers to further movement, and him tearing down his loyal old buildings for the world itself in the multiplied vastness huge battlements of sugar cubes attracted a shining new shipping complex, and as he of an endless set of uniform purchases, self- swarms of beady black ants, streaming from watched each old wall crumble, Mr. Dahlvin sustaining unto infinity. the gossamer-wing fragments of wallpaper felt the grip of his tortured dreams slipping they had already devoured. quietly away. The dreamer was one Mr. Dahlvin, a smallish businessman of stubby build The dream continued to grow and evolve And as business only continued to grow and rather tortured health. In his forty- with Mr. Dahlvin’s feeble career and weak, better, Mr. Dahlvin’s little business soon seventh year and plagued by rheumatism, stretch-marked belly. First the rooms ballooned into an empire greater than he a salt-crusted kidney, and the sharp odor of changed: the Chinese Chippendale tea rooms had ever imagined: the branch office whose fungal infection which emanated from his gave way to the barren volunteer dormitories iron balustrades and yellowing façade had armpits and inner thighs, Mr. Dahlvin owed for those men of his weak constitution who taunted him for so long soon saw a massive his flickering existence to the continual could not sign up for the military or police tumor of an addition which converted the ministrations of ten different doctors in corps drafts. And as Mr. Dahlvin moved whole complex into a massive Frankenstein the eight countries through which his away from accepting the meager meals of maze of twisting courtyards, corridors, and struggling import-export business made him his family’s impoverished table and the vintage lacquered parquet floors. Soon he continually cycle. Yet all their medications gruel of the volunteer corps, so too did his had five, and then ten warehouses, and in and the constant rumble of a portable home- dream reflect his new-found power: he in each of them one of his many doctors was dialysis kit did not abate the parade of minor his dreams soon came to purchase objects based, and as his business grew further ailments — colds, coughs, and bouts of every of his choice, and would vociferously track and dizzyingly further he found himself kind of flu — that relentlessly inflamed his them down to the ends of the earth with that swamped in consignments from shipping sweaty brow. awful, snowballing vigor which belied his companies he had forced into bankruptcy. sickly nature. It was during the tortured nights of Aisles upon aisles of wares, of all manner this continual ill health that Mr. Dahlvin’s In this way, Mr. Dahlvin led his tortured of strange and prosaic items, confronted Mr. dreams came to pass. As early as Mr. Dahlvin double-life. By day, he bought and sold Dahlvin in each of his warehouses, each of could recall, his fever dreams had started out unclaimed and unregistered shipments at which seemed almost to bulge at the walls as mere labyrinthine constructions, in which small ports all over Asia and South America from the sheer volume of the items contained Mr. Dahlvin would explore mazes composed before processing them in a dingy warehouse within. Frantically he began to construct of the dingy Chinese Chippendale tea-rooms opposite some nameless corporation’s rather new buildings, from new warehouses for the where he was forced to sip withered green historic-looking branch office in Laredo, endless wares to storage vaults for his ever- tea from cracked Delftware by an imposing Texas — and by night, to the low groan of expanding piles of cash to great furnaces for rotation of distant aunts and whose peeling, his air purifier and the drip-drip patter of the bills and books he and his accountants yellowed lacquer reminded him of his his humidifier, he purchased again without had begun to cook. The huge warehouses father’s asthmatic, mucosal cough. By his reproach or practical considerations unto had turned from grand objects of pride mid-teens, he came to notice with a yawning insanity. His ten doctors, spanning the whole and wealth into monstrous liabilities, and and then clawing anxiety the profusion of gamut of medicine, all knew of his quandary soon Mr. Dahlvin’s furnaces turned to the similar objects across the warren of rooms and had attempted all manner of therapies grim work of incinerating chandeliers and he imagined: some nights he saw the same to eliminate or otherwise influence the refrigerators, cheap sneakers and fine tea-set rendered in one, then two, then ten content of Mr. Dahlvin’s wearisome dream. lace – and the ever-growing pile of bills – to uniform, dusty ashes that themselves different colors across the infinite span of In this way, he shuffled through his life, the rooms he wandered. multiplied in the skies above his prison of an tormented perpetually by the stalking office and seemed to pile in his wheezy lungs Other nights in his adolescence produced shadows of things in his dreams and and frail musculature. And as the raging the duplication of varnished tables, cast- torturous ailments in his waking hours, fire in the last of his furnaces spiraled out iron lamps, sparkling chandeliers of and in this way he found his destiny of control and swallowed his last warehouse, yellowing crystal, all of which at first framed. First came the news of his tottering his lacquered floors, and his own gaunt body, arrayed themselves in each individual room business: the collapse of a faraway shipping he realized too late that his dreams would before revealing their multiplied forms. The company saw him and his tiny operation at consume him once more. duplication trebled and quintupled into once blessed and cursed with the remnants volumes of gasping, stupid matter that made of a vast business empire thrown on the Got a story you want to tell? Or a poem or work a shambles of the fussy decor the labyrinth’s consignment pile. In fevered strokes Mr. of art you want published? Send it in to the rooms attempted to enforce: stacks of Dahlvin expanded his business on the basis Indy arts desk (arts@harvardindependent. chamber pots tumbled and spilled their of the capital he had gained from this set com) and we’ll consider it – your story could contents all over the cheap oriental carpets, of transactions: one warehouse expansion be published here!
The Harvard Independent • 09.15.16 harvardindependent.com 9 INDY SPORTS ver the summer, The Independent’s becomes. There should be great quantities Sports Editorial Board was informed and some variety, ranging from cheap light Oof the results of a recent Megabus beer to cheap hard liquor. Money spent on The Art of survey. Against all odds, Harvard emerged better booze is better spent on more booze. as the #1 tailgating destination in the It’s a tailgate, not a Back Bay cocktail bar. Northeast (see attached graph). The Indy thus answers Megabus’ timeless question: There may be a small but vocal minority How do you throw the best tailgate? of teetotalers and temperance activists who the Tailgate tell you that you can have fun at the tailgate without alcohol. This theory is generally disavowed by top tailgate destinations. Note Necessary: that Brigham Young University did not How to host a crack the Megabus survey’s Top 10. top one! 1. Alcohol It is to the tailgate as oxygen is to the 2. People By THE SPORTS astronaut, and as meteor-free skies were Nearly as vital to a top tailgate as alcohol. to the dinosaurs. The crucial importance of This should really go without saying, but the EDITORIAL BOARD alcohol at a tailgate can be distilled thusly: Harvard crowd merits a special reminder: If so long as there is booze, so too is there a people do not attend the football game, or at floor as to how bad your tailgate can be. The least the preceding tailgate, it is hard to have more alcohol on hand, the higher this floor
10 harvardindependent.com The Harvard Independent • 09.15.16 INDY SPORTS Tailgate, continued. producing a literal tailgate at your tailgate. Some people, especially in our Northeasterly much of a tailgate. We recall once attending region, do not know what a literal tailgate – School talk. a Harvard football game at which we were is. We know this sounds absurd, but we are Nobody at a tailgate cares about your the only Harvard undergraduates present reminded of a friend of ours from Manhattan struggles with classes. Keep all school talk apart from the band. Attendance is a must. who once visited a ranch in Texas. At one restricted to the kids smoking cigarettes point, he stood behind a pickup truck outside the library at two in the morning. and somebody hollered at him, “Open the tailgate, Vince.” He proceeded to stare at Strongly Encouraged: the back of the pickup in much the same way as a colorblind person might stare at a – Excessive cell phone usage. Rubik’s cube, or a dog might stare at a rocket Phones should be used to communicate 3. Music ship. The very concept of the tailgate was where your tailgate is located, and nothing This requires a playlist of some sort, as unfathomable and unknowable as the else. Keep them in your pockets, not your and a means by which to play it. Boom- darkest corners of the universe. hands. boxes, car stereos, speakers plugged into We do not blame him for his struggles as By following these basic tailgate rented generators – all will suffice. Louder guidelines, you, too, can create a top tailgate is generally better, as the volume helps in a fish out of water. If a Texan went to New York, for instance, and someone hollered at destination in a Megabus survey. Better luck such an open space and helps drown out any next time, Bama. dissenting voices. Most genres work well, him to build the Chrysler Building, he might have struggled similarly. All this being said depending on the location of the tailgate The Indy Sports Editorial Board (sports@ and the tastes of the crowd. Whatever your in order to establish that many people do not know what a tailgate is, or how it operates. harvardindependent.com) is intrigued by preference, if you have enough alcohol on Megabus’ statistical analysis. hand, there will be less objection to the To clarify, a tailgate is the hinged back of a music. truck bed, which one can easily bring down so as to make it parallel to the earth. It Suggested genres: classic rock, country, operates by unlocking it and letting gravity rap, and house music. take its course. Condemned genres: classical, opera, show tunes, boy bands, and smooth jazz. 6. Games Anything that involves throwing an object 4. Grill is acceptable – be it cornhole, horseshoes, beer pong, or just tossing a football. Hell, Charcoal, gas, electric – anything that will bring a set of bocce balls if that’s more up heat a metal grate and cook whatever tops your alley. Excelling at such tailgate games it. The grill is meant for meat. Permissible lends more credence to forthcoming claims exceptions include hot dog buns, hamburger of how you could have done better than the buns, and corn. There are times and places guys on the football team. for grilled zucchini. A top tailgate is neither.
Recommended: Forbidden:
5. Vehicle – Bad attitudes. A top tailgate neither welcomes nor A vehicle is great for facilitating the creates bad attitudes. Keep them for after transportation of alcohol, people, music, the game, to sulk in defeat or jeer in triumph. and grills. But it is also the only means of
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12 harvardindependent.com The Harvard Independent • 09.15.16