Campus Conversations

So we beat Williams, and obviously the only method to adequately display our glee was to tear down the goal posts. That’ll show those cocky Williams players! Damn, we just ruined our own field. But no matter! We have an entire year until next season, and as no shards of metal managed to impale anyone as the posts hit the ground, it was an all-around good time, as most can attest. Except for maybe Scott Foster ’01, who said, “I was having a great time until the post I was hanging on fell on top of me.”

There was a surge of Amherst testosterone as people rushed to demolish the goal posts after the last whistle, but a good number of equally spirited men and women were out of commission, owing to heavy drinking since 10 a.m. of the numerous tailgates that lined the field serving everything from hot chocolate spiked with peppermint schnapps (delicious) to ice cold Natty lite (gross).

“I would have helped out but I was too incoherent at the time,” said Suli Jenkins ’03.

Thanks to the enthusiastic levelers, Amherst football players took away souvenirs of their historic win in the form of the most precious of metals: scrap metal. These innovative scrap metal hoarders are the true heroes.

Munchie Masterpieces

Remember when you were a kid and your mom yelled at you for turning your mashed potatoes into volcanoes, making gravy blast out of them, splattering all over the tablecloth and getting into people’s water glasses? Me neither.

But apparently, it’s something that other kids did. And in an attempt to recapture a sense of childhood whimsy, students gathered in the Campus Center atrium on Thursday afternoon to play with food. For her Marsh house project, Jen Kaufman ’03E provided a book with photographs for the regressing artists to use as a guide as they transformed fruits and veggies into animals and other objects of art.

“Most people tried to copy the book, but some people definitely added things or totally made their own,” Kaufman explained. “I’m not really sure what they were-they had, like, hats and cigars.”

Others were equally confused but delighted with the edible masterpieces. “I saw something with a banana peel that looked like a duck maybe, but I wasn’t sure if that’s what it was,” said Rachel Tischler ’03. “And it was upside down. But it was cute.” Kaufman herself constructed a sheep out of a pear. “It was the weirdest thing I’ve ever done,” she said.

Poet Politicos

Nuyorican poetry is back, thanks to La Causa and the Dark Souls Arts Collective. Nuyorican Slam master Luis Chaluisar ’86 and Sandra Maria Esteves, the godmother of Nuyorican poetry, shared their pride and troubles at “Voices for the Voiceless” last Friday and Saturday.

The intensity and energy of the slam poets made the front room come alive. “Sometimes people hum, sometimes people rhyme, and sometimes people sing,” said organizer Juan Rodriguez ’03. “He got the audience pumped.”

According to Rodriguez, “[Nuyorican is a] term used to address individuals of Puerto Rican descent that have either been born or raised in New York City, or whose lifestyles represent that.”

“Voices” was the first La Causa event to bring so many poets of such high caliber to campus, but it also included an art exhibit, break dancing and slam poetry. “Everything fit in really well together. There was political poetry, there was personal poetry, and poetry dedicated to other poets,” said Gabriela Serrano ’01, Culture Policy Representative of La Causa.

Attended by more than 400 students over two days, “Voices” was especially powerful for some Amherst students. “Things about the ghetto and inner city brought back memories of my childhood,” noted Rodriguez.

-S.W., K.W., Y.C.