spike CONTENTS volume 14 number 1 Features “I opened for Wavy Gravy” Jon Peters interviews the erstwhile staff of Spike’s predecessor, Sock, and learns about the terrible fate that will one day befall him as well. /10 Head in the Clouds If Earthlings want to find intelligent life in outer space, they’re going to have to create it themselves. The Space Brain, explained. By Mark Skaden. /12 Draw the Line Think underground comix and the funny pages are worlds apart? Michelle Crouch shows you how, with a little elbow grease, Cathy can be just as edgy as Clowes. /16 The Heart of a Squirrel The Stanford prison experiment and Milgram’s obedience studies famously revealed the essential asshole-ness of human nature, but what do they say about our furry friends? Cole Armstrong reports. /24 Southpaw Putting the Fun Back in Fun-Size Post-apocalyptic love: the quiz -- Four characters is search of a plot -- Lonely Man’s Gift Guide, Holiday ‘06-- Diagramming Joyce-- Ponies, Ponies, Ponies!--Lists, Lists, Lists!-- A hitchhik- er’s lament /6 spike fall 2006 1 contents Travel International Affairs Meet Me at Mulligan’s Carson Young searches the nation for the elusive A Common Enemy hamdog; The Sleepy American’s global naps. /15 Keith Blaha says it’s Mongolia, precocious children say it’s hayfever. /23 Advice In Love and Trouble Reviews Sophie Hagen channels a grumpy Shaker-ess to assist the lovelorn; Nicholas LaRacuente channels a calcula- In Praise of Sir Rufus Velvetpaws tor to assist the numerically-challenged. /18 Michelle Crouch on Cat High, Dennis Hogan on M, a middle schooler in a horse-themed shirt on classic Diet and Fitness rock. /26 Point-Counterpoint Pets The Eatist Manifesto v. Fuck Eating /19 Pups and Lovers Spikonomics Tips for breeders with shy sheep and bashful bitches. /29 Screw the 9-to-5 Other Studies show that having a job is lame. Wouldn’t it be easier to go on welfare, rob yuppies, or perform com- Mailbag /4 pensated sex acts? Xiaoxia Zhuang and Evan Lonsdale Letter(s) from the Editor(s) /5 explore the possibilites and poke fun at the most disad- They’re Just Like Us! /9, 14, 30 vantaged sectors of American society. /20 Classified /31 2 spike fall 2006 planning ahead MAY 2007 S M T W Th F S May Day, Canadian Man, Remem- Art Opening! Birth of the Labour Day ber Car Phones? Elimination: Mahavira you F-ing a Retrospective commie. on Urine as a Medium in Contemporary Art 1 2 3 4 5 Call Your Your Room- Remember, Celebrate mate Is Trim- Step on a Bug! Make a Freezer Eat Space Ice Grandpa or Popsicle!! Cream!!! child predator Mediocrity! You’re ming His/Her list updated Out-Out of Pubic Hair Hope You Like today. the Will. with Your Neapolitan Electric Razor. 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Bea Arthur’s This Day in Birthday Only 2,057 Alsakan History, 1813: National Days until Independence Creamed Chipped Brush Your MIME Cat’s Teeth 2012! Day Beef Invented TIME Day No, Bea, Thank You for Being a Friend. 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 This Day In Today Is the National History, 1921: Think about Schindler’s First Day of Female Death of Ar- Space Brain. List: The Ballet TEEN chibald Primrose, The Rest of Condom Opens at the CHOICE U. K. Prime Your Life. Day Minister. He is Met AWARDS remembered for doing little of consequence and owning a lot of 20 racehorses. 21 22 23 24 25 26 Professors Yess! World Popula- Buy a Venus Smoke a Fatty tion Set to Flytrap. DID Blunt Day Reach 7 Bil- YOU KNOW lion at 12:15 You Can Feed It p.m. Today. Sausage? 27 28 29 30 31 spike fall 2006 3 letters SPIKE WOULD DIE 4 U EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Michelle "Old Guard" Crouch MANAGING EDITOR Jonathan "New Wave" Peters STAFF Dear Spike, Grow a pair. -- the Goose. Cole "Obedience" Armstrong Keith "Warlord" Blaha Dear Spike, Dear Spike, Aaron "R. Cranium" Brecher Sophie "Helpline" Hagen Thank you for requesting information Since many years I haven’t seen a on paid medical studies. To participate Dennis "Nice Ascot" Hogan rifle in your hand. Can you hear the Nick "Mathelete" LaRacuente in untested drug trials, you must meet drums, Fernando? Do you still recall the following requirements: Benjamin "New Face in Hell" Schultz the frightful night we crossed the Rio Mark "Way of the Buffalo" Skaden -Ages 18 to 45. Grande? I can see it in your eyes, how -Body weight between 99 and 275 lbs. Carson "Young Turk" Young proud you were to fight for freedom Xiaoxia "Crushaholic" Zhuang -Pass a urine test for drug abuse. in this land. -No tobacco use in the past 3 months. There was something in the air -Must be sexually inactive or surgically that night. The stars were bright, CONTRIBUTORS sterilized. Fernando. They were shining -No known sensitivity to baker’s yeast or Lefty "Wayward Son" Wayland there for you and me-- for liberty, Bertram "Meuhh" Peckinpaw Kool-aid Magic Twist flavor beverage. Fernando. Though I never thought -Willing to be monitored overnight in Evan "007" Lonsdale that we could lose, there’s no regret. G. Solomon Jackson "III" IV case of life-threatening side affects. If I had to do the same again I would, my friend, Fernando. Compensation: Up to $2000 LAYOUT TUTOR Wistfully, Alexandra "Doesn't Even Go Here" Jones ABBA -Pharmaceutical Company Dear Spike, Dear Pharmaceutical Company, OTHER BACKHANDED You had us at “paid”! - Spike COMPLIMENTS Thank you for requesting Interesting Face information on compensated egg Popcorn Movie Hello: A very nice freshman just called donation. Unfortunately, you are too Adult Contemporary me from Swarthmore to get a pledge short and have relatives with colon (I promised $50.) Anyhow, he is from cancer and we don’t want your grubby West Bloomfield and has done some little genes. OTHER GENRES open mikes with poetry, so I told him Laughcore to email you and see if you ever would Signed, Parents-to-be Post-prog have a poet on your show. Mock Rock He was very polite and I told him Dear Spike, I would pledge if he put in the While I’m just as interested in Delta comments that improving Sharples Burke as the next person, I think five Send all correspondence and submissions food and hours should be the highest articles in one issue is a little over the to: Spike priority (he said the fundraising was top. c/o Michelle "Treble Kicker" Crouch for the “most immediate” priorities at Swarthmore College Swat!) -- Kelsey M. Pettigrew 500 College Avenue Swarthmore, PA 19081 Will be in touch later! Spike is free to the students, faculty, and [email protected] staff of Swarthmore College. All others All submissions subject to editing and Love, can pay $38,000 a year to the college (and ridicule. Mom receive housing and a liberal-arts educa- tion absolutely free) or $10 a year to Spike at the address on the right. 4 spike fall 2006 dear reader, Letter from the Editor Well, I’d be remiss if I didn’t start this off by acknowledging that, like any undergraduate organization, Spike is destined to shed its skin every four-odd years and become a new beast. John C. Williams and Joe Kille (who will always occupy a special but perhaps unenviable position in our hearts) are gone, and meetings are instead full of disarmingly fresh-faced greenhorns. Jon makes sure people actually turn in things on time these days, and we even have a gmail account. Imagine! This semester’s been something like Spike boot camp, getting down to the fundamentals of whatever the hell it is exactly that we do here. Our little publication is many things to many people— an amusing diversion, an obscene pretension, emergency toilet paper—but it is at its most basic level a magazine. What makes it different from, say, The New Yorker or The Weekly World News? Besides professionalism and money and more than two issues a year, I mean. We imagined what it would be like if US Weekly’s “Stars! They’re Just Like US!” feature appeared within these pages, or if one of our humanities-major staff writers was suddenly hired at Scientific American. In the process, we had to ask ourselves what it is that makes Spike ...Spike. What’s in the magic fairy dust we sprinkle over things to make them funny? I’ll give you a hint: it’s not ketamine. Please, everyone, stop asking me if it’s ketamine. We’ve called this issue “Pastiche,” not just in the sense of a jocular parody but also in terms of its collage aesthetic. Collage is a technique that comes in handy when you start to get that feeling that everything has been said, or that every good book/song/tv pilot already has been written, or that everything you have ever loved has been co-opted by mainstream suckitude (or maybe just that you should have graduated last year). It’s a way of taking pre-produced words and images and mangling them to the point that their meaning is pointedly opposite of the original intent, which is great when you feel incapable of creating the words and images yourself. Because in an era when authors are churning out books like The End of History, The End of Art, and The End of Faith, it seems hard to believe in the idea of creation.