I’ve been a long-time enjoyer of history, and working in the archives lets me see anew the storied halls of IHS straight from the students who have come before us. They allow us toexperience the world as they did, through their minds and ideas that survive long after they have graduated. Please, above all else, enjoy!
November 1919
ROOM 201
Dear Boys:
We presume by now that you have heard all (?) the details of our famous “baby” party. Still, we have decided to tell you about it straight. It was surely your misfortune that you were not there to see “Kay” Fisher. We all join in sending you our sympathy except “Kay,” who is bashful and doesn’t want her name in print. Nevertheless, she was there in full regalia and a sight for the gods. “Happy” Heard also added to the general effect. But we’re getting away from the point.
How you would have enjoyed our program! Helen Covell charmed us, as usual, by her wonderful performance on the piano.
We had a lot of long, difficult pieces spoken, too. We all did act really grown-up, but—really grown-up, but—ssh! we’re going to tell on the chaperons. They refused to do anything except eat “all day suckers” and they wouldn’t even stop long enough to have their pictures taken. However, you can see us all in it, dolls and dolls’ carriages, too.
We regret to say that we missed a certain young gentleman who declared he was coming as the photographer’s assistant. Perhaps he forgot the pass-word. Hard luck, Norm. !
OH! We must hurry. The w.k. Editor of this w.k. Paper will censor our touching farewell if we don’t. Next we’re going to let you suffer while we tell you all about the eats. We had two great big market baskets of the best sandwiches ever and more salad—mighty good pickles, too. Ask Marion B. how she liked the pickled peaches. We might add that these were the only pickled “peaches” present. And oh! yes. There was angel food cake. Bartie cut it and we suspect that only about half ever found its way to the gym. But never mind. We promised not to tell on her.
There were one hundred suckers to begin with but the chaperons ate half and the other fifty disappeared earlier in the day as the committee of two were seen frequently to slink into The Tattler
office and emerge with a guilty look and their hands behind them. The committee had also hidden five pounds of chocolates in the desk and it was surprising how many times it was necessary to go in and see if you boys had found them. Well! Well! The afore mentioned Ed. has cut us short.
Goo’ bye, boys,
THE GIRLS.
June 1896
OPHELIA’S SOLILOQUY
To wed or not to wed, that is the question—
Whether ‘tis nobler as old maids to suffer
The pangs and heart aches of our single fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by proposing end them?
To cry—to sleep—to snore
And in our sleep to dream we mend
The trousers and the soiled, manly socks
That flesh will tear through—’tis an occupation
Devoutly (?) to be wished. To dust—to sweep,
To wash, perchance to scrub, aye there’s the rub,
For in domestic life what scraps may come
When we may scuffle till St. Jacob’s Oil
Must heal our wounds. Here’s the respect
That makes calamity of spinsterhood,
For who would bear the wrinkle and gray hairs of time
The matron’s scorn, the bachelor’s contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the men’s delay,
The insolence of maidens, the spurns
That patient spinsters from the unworthy bear;
When she herself, might here a partner take
By a Leap Year pop. Who would burdens bear
To mourn and pine under a single life
But for the dead of something after marriage
The undiscovered country from whose bourne
No spinster e’er returns,—puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of.
Thus caution doth make cowards of us all
And thus our last resource for matrimony,
Shall vanish with our leap year privilege,
And propositions of great pith and moment
In view of this are left for e’er unsaid
And lose the name of action.
—Ex.
January 1930
ALL AROUND DEVELOPMENT
The question, “What shall I do with my life?” is frequently asked by students graduating from high school. It is often hard for boys and girls who expect to enter college to decide upon which course they expect to pursue through life. Nevertheless, it is natural for them to at length choose a certain profession.
The changing times have brought a new feature into the United States. The twentieth century has been named “The Age of Professionalism.” There are many professionalists who feel that their particular vocation is the only worth while one. It is most absurd to have such an opinion. The result of this opinion is that they are unable to converse intelligently upon any other subject than their own particular profession, be it current events or otherwise. Thus, there is a great possibility of becoming narrow minded. I am sure there is nothing more unpleasant than a narrow minded person.
You will recall in the reading of Sir Roger de Coverly that the people of the early eighteenth century topics were discussed. This was indeed a great help in broadening men’s mind for they could see their mistakes clearly after the discussion ended. We should have something similar to this in our modern day.
However, the point is that we should study to be something in life, but have an interest in all around development. We have all heard the statement, “Together we stand, divided we fall.” Are we going to work together or shall we choose to fall?
FRENCH
The study of French is an awful puzzle
It does its best, our brains to befuzzle
Now there are some things I’ve wanted to ask,
I’m glad that I’ve gotten a good chance at last.
If the feminine of “beau” is “belle,”
Why isn’t a feminine hat a “chopelle”?
We’re told at first, that “dans” means “in,”
But to say “dans Pans” is considered a sin.
“Vevir de” and “depuis quard,”
Are two things I simply cannot understand.
I have an awful time with subjunctive conjugation
And the teacher has hysterics, from original translation.
At accents I’m an awful shot.
When they are there, I put them not.
If I load my paper up with them,
The teacher marks them off again.
Most verbs take “avoir,” some take “ete”
Vevir, aller, mourir, and raitre.
Idioms just drive me wild
Besides them, vocabulary’s mild;
Thank goodness declension has not come yet
But that something worse will, is a pretty safe bet.
If I should ever go to France,
Believe me, I’d take an awful chance,
For the way I speak their language fair,
They’d never recognize it there.
November 1999
MOVIE REVIEWS
American Beauty
American Beauty, a brilliant tale of passion, loneliness, and youth regained, is, in my opinion, the best film of the year. Though it recognizes the absurdity and emptiness of our contemporary lives, this film is still able to confront our standards of happiness, love, and success. Stirring up a wide range of emotions, it is often very funny, and yet desperately sad at the same time.
Kevin Spacey masterfully portrays Lester Burnham, a suburban father who is disgusted with his thankless job and trapped in a loveless marriage to Carolyn (Annette Benning), a status-seeking real estate agent. Jane (Thora Birch), their moody teenage daughter, despises them both. Lester, realizing that he has lost his fire, decides it is never too late to regain it. His fantasies about Jane’s best friend, Angela, the blond seductress played by Mena Suvari, spurs him to try to recapture his youth. He quits his job, pumps up, gets high, listens to rock and roll, and bluntly tells everyone what he thinks.
Kevin Spacey has already been mentioned as an Oscar contender, but even the minor roles are fascinating and well acted. There is intensity and depth in all of the characters: in Lester and his family, in Angela, who is much more than meets the eye, in Ricky Fitts (Wes Bentley), the eccentric ‘boy next-door,’ in Ricky’s ex-marine father, and his broken, beaten down mother.
American Beauty is powerful, touching, and inspirational. It doesn’t recycle the plots from past films and leaves the audience truly satisfied.
Being John Malkovich
When watching movies, a common gripe I have is unoriginality: “Yeah, that was a good movie,” I’ll say, “but I could have thought of that.” One film that did not make me say this was Spike Jonze’s surreal epic meditation on escapism, puppetry, and truly bizarre love triangles, Being John Malkovich.
A completely unrecognizable John Cusack stars as Craig, an out-of-work puppeteer. Craig lives with his wife, Lotte, played by an equally unglamorous Cameron Diaz, an animal-obsessed pet store employee. As the movie builds, Craig applies for, and gets, a job filing papers on the 7 1/2th floor of an old building, designed for the “small” wife of the millionaire who constructed it. Soon after, he falls for a co-worker named Maxine, who does not fall for him. At around this point, the movie takes a turn from the somewhat strange to the downright bizarre. Craig, moving a filing cabinet,
finds a secret passageway. He does what any red-blooded American puppeteer would do, and enters the passageway. It leads inside the consciousness of John Malkovich, star of stage and screen and all-around creepy guy. After fifteen minutes of Malkovichness, Craig is deposited outside the New Jersey turnpike. Things get much weirder from here, but I won’t tell you too much other than that there is a climactic chase scene through Mr. Malkovich’s subconscious. And that a monkey’s childhood trauma plays a key role in the plot. You get the idea.
In case I have not made this clear, Being John Malkovich is a very strange film. While there is a message about the human desire to be someone else, and the dangerous situations it can cause, this aspect seems almost tacked on. You get the feeling director Jonze, known previously for original music videos like Weezer’s “Buddy Holly,” is more interested in playing with his script’s concepts and characters than actually saying anything meaningful, or even telling a coherent story. Speaking of which, it must be mentioned that the jumbled ending, in which the film attempts to make quasi-logical sense out of everything that has happened, leaves something to be desired. Despite this, the film gets by on the sheer weirdness of these concepts. Cusack and Diaz are convincingly quirky, and John Malkovich does an excellent job portraying himself. This movie’s originality impressed me in ways that far better movies have been failing to lately. I was amused, provoked, and entertained by Being John Malkovich, but I’ll be waiting for Spike Jonze to come out with a movie that he puts his heart into.
-Jonah Gold ’00
Fight Club
The first rule of Fight Club is you do not talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is that you do NOT TALK about Fight Club. Then there are rules three through eight, but who really cares about those. Starring Edward Norton, one of the best actors in Hollywood, and Brad Pitt, one of the worst actors in Hollywood, Fight Club is a mental mind screw that will leave you stuck in your seat. When you finally do get up, you will feel drunk, and want to throw up. After you throw up you will either say, “by God, that was the best movie I ever saw,” or “holy crap, that should be banned from theatres.” Personally, I think that’s a mark of a fine movie.
I cannot begin to praise this movie enough. First off, Edward Norton is seriously one of the best actors in the business. He should have won best actor for American History X, but that little Italian clown stole it. Fight Club is an utter tour de force for Norton, and solidifies him in the amazing catagory with Denzel Washington and Johnny Depp. As for Brad Pitt, I was amazed at the quality of his performance. He has found his calling, and it’s to play psychos. Let’s look at his career: in 12 Monkeys he ruled, in Legends of the Fall, he sucked, in Interview with a Vampire he ruled, in Seven Years in Tibet he sucked. Do we see a pattern? When he’s a psycho, he’s good, when he’s not, he sucks. Luckily he plays a psycho in Fight Club.
Really, it’s a course in Philosophy. If you’re looking for it, you can see a hell of a lot of Camus, a smattering of Kant, and even some Kierkgaard, not to mention a whole base of Descartes. But why would you be looking? Your eyes are going to be too dazed to take notice. A complete sensory overload, Fight Club is American Beauty amped up and shoved down your throat. Not for the light hearted, it makes its point through shock, and pure power of emotion. Instead of leading through it by the hand, it tosses twists a knife in your stomach until you’re crying for it to stop. But that’s the point. That’s what makes it so good. Not for what you see, but for what you feel. By the time you realized that you were being screwed with, it’s too late.
I have yet to tell you what his movie is about. I’m not going to either. It’s not important. No, it’s not about boxing. Yes, it is violent. No, the point is not that we should all beat the tar out of each other. And yes, it is violent. That’s all you have to know. This is required watching for all thinking men.
-Jimmy Moody ’00