BOOZE - Sept 28 2006
“You’re Not Supposed to Like It”
How To Drink Like a Hipster for Homecoming
It’s that time of the year again, dear readers, when the University’s children return to their great mother with open arms, a flood of alumni returning to celebrate Homecoming 2006. I’d like to congratulate the organizers of this year’s festivities for maintaining the intellectual integrity of our school with their plan of events. A literary event, an art exhibition, a former Massey Lecturer to speak, and a Canadian Indie darling to perform in concert; bravo, I say, bravo! God forbid our noble University would emulate the “Great Satan” down the street and celebrate our pride with a riotous football game, a raucous comedy act and a veritable booze fest! We are students, after all, not animals! I commend the administration for preventing such embarrassing tomfoolery!
Alright, perhaps I’m being a bit harsh. It is a time for celebration after all, and I suppose I can understand the average student wanting a bit of the old giggle water every now and then. And really, we art snobs can’t maintain a diet based solely on Spanish coffee and imported fair trade espresso. It just isn’t healthy.
Now, I would love to recommend you warm up for the Joel Plaskett Emergency with a nice glass of sherry or a 1961 French Bordeaux, but I realize it simply isn’t realistic. Not all of us can afford to indulge in such refined pleasures. Fortunately, there is a loophole for the poorer student.
The modern art snob, it seems, often takes the form of a “hipster”, an urban dweller who worships all things kitsch and lives life by the sword of irony. Despite often being wealthy trust fund kids who’ve convinced their parents to support them while they attempt to be artists, hipsters dress in thrift store clothes and decorate with dollar store novelties. Through the hipster, that which is old and cheesy becomes a necessity, and lower class customs become high fashion. In this ideology the poor art snob finds salvation; suddenly, it is acceptable, even “cool”, to drink value brand beer.
There are, of course, certain requirements to acknowledge. First of all, the beer must be overtly working class, none of this Coors Light or Molson Canadian garbage. Pabst Blue Ribbon is an excellent choice, as is Schlitz and Old Milwaukee. Brands like Red Cap are also attractive due to their quirkily shaped bottle. You’ll never see an alpha male with an inferiority complex carrying one of these things around.
The key is to look for a brand that you could imagine sitting around the house of some quarry worker in Sudbury. The label should have the same cheesy design it had when some small-time brewer threw it together forty years ago. Buy a two-four; if you’ve chosen right, it should be as cheap as a twelve-pack of any other brand.
After the first sip, you may gag and ask yourself “Why in the hell am I drinking this horse piss?” At this point, you should remember the advice related by Brooklyn-based TV show “The Burg” (www.theburg.tv): “If you actually like the beer you drink, how is that ironic or funny?”
Value brand beer provides a hip, cheap alternative to the higher quality brands already adopted by football-watching, Abercrombie-wearing students. Snobbery may often be associated with the finer things in life, but I assure you, it is more about being different than living a life of luxury. Drinking Corona with a lime is not being adventurous. It’s actually probably more trailer trash than PBR. Huh. So does that mean it is cool? Oh dear, hipster rhetoric is quite confusing.
I should also point out that if an art snob does have the money for expensive beer, it doesn’t give him or her an excuse to buy Stella Artois. Instead, the always open-minded art snob should browse the International section at the LCBO. A particularly passionate friend of mine at the University of Ottawa recommends trying “Bishop’s Finger”, an English beer with a hint of citrus, or “Saison Dupont”, a tasty, unfiltered Belgian beer. He also recommends studying the label on the bottle so you can impress your friends with an acute knowledge of the brewing process.
Whether rich or poor, for taste or for fashion, beer is the universally accepted holy water of the University student. We art snobs cannot ignore it. So we’ll do it right.
Godspeed this homecoming weekend.
Open Letter - Sept 22 2006
AN OPEN LETTER TO FIRST-YEARS
A Manifesto for Change
Ah, dear, dear readers! It is good to be back! To my old friends, hello again…I hope you were not too dismayed by my absence in last week’s issue. I must apologize, but as you can no doubt relate, I was so swept up in the excitement of returning to lectures and my dear old mistress Dana Porter I could hardly steady my hands to write a column! To my newest readers, you young eager first-years, welcome to Academia! Your University years will be among the best of your life, filled with independence, adventure and a chance to stand on the shoulders of intellectual giants to look down on those not as cultured as you.
It is understandable, I suppose, that many of you have become somewhat disillusioned during these first few weeks. I’ve seen you, oh yes, you; wandering around campus, a copy of Finnegan’s Wake under your arm, your messenger bag decorated with pins bearing socio-political statements, wondering why, perhaps, the buildings lack this fabled Ivy you always used to hear about. Why doesn’t the Davis Centre look more like the Grad House? Where are the dusty studies, the wood-paneled walls, the sense of tradition? Why are these professors not old and agitated? Why in God’s name are they young, hip and computer knowledgeable?
I’ve seen you, open-mouthed before the Bomber, wondering why the campus pub is not darker and danker, why it isn’t the type of place you can retreat with your Anthology of Russian Literature to discuss with like minds the genius of Bulgakov. Why, you ask, must the place be filled instead with “bros” sipping Bud Light and laughing at you because you happen to have the sensibility to wear a scarf through all seasons?
I’ve seen you. Too many of you, in fact. One can almost feel the colossal longing for film studies credits to be integrated into every Major plan. It gives me hope.
The future lies with you, dear friends. You are just beginning your stay here in Waterloo, and although I near the end of mine, I feel we can still rally together to change things. Here is what I propose:
Waterloo must undergo a revolution, one comparable in magnitude to Stalin’s Collectivization and Mao’s Great Leap Forward. Like those revolutions, the loss of human life will be accepted as necessary for progress. Together we will capture the spirit that has propelled Oxford and Harvard to the forefront of Academe.
All buildings will be surrounded by a complex outer shell of stone masonry. Every student will devote at least thirty hours a week to this monumental task, which will require every stone to be hand-placed and mortared. Architectural flourishes will be directed by the Religious Studies department and inspired by the Book of Revelation. To show our diversity, perhaps we will also include some Zoroastrian designs.
A rowing team will be established and become the pride and joy of our Athletic program. I suggest the little black lake by Health Services as a practice area. If this is successful, a dueling club will also be initiated. A selection of revolvers and sabers will be obtained by the Federation of Students for this purpose.
A formal UW Intelligentsia will be collected to act as an advisory body to Feds. It will be hierarchical, condescending, and completely out of touch with the lives of average students. It will however, have a much better knowledge of post-Modern philosophy and Norse mythology than you could ever imagine.
Greek and Latin will be made compulsory subjects for every Major plan. A proper university experience can not be without Latin. Concordia cum veritate. as my fellow Classicists will observe, roughly translates to “Latin is the Coolest”. As for Ancient Greek, a Greek friend of mine seems to attract all the arty girls, so I can’t imagine it being a bad thing.
All of the $25 million donated by David Cheriton will be diverted from the construction of a new Computer Science facility to the acquisition of a World-Renowned Sculpture Garden, one to rival Berkeley’s Rodin collection. The remaining funds will be used to replace the chapel at St. Jerome’s with a Gothic Medieval Church, resembling the Dreaming Spires of Oxford. Perhaps we should helicopter one over for authenticity’s sake.
Every professor will be required to wear tweed jackets with elbow patches, and be encouraged to hurry around campus with wildly unkempt hair, muttering to themselves and trying desperately to hold on to a disorganized mass of books and papers.
Thick woolen scarves bearing the University’s colours will be distributed to every student, and will be made mandatory whatever the season.
If these reforms can be carried out quickly, you will be able to forget the pain caused to you by unimaginative 1960s architecture and the ignorant “modern student”. That glorious day will be the true birth of the University, although the signs will be modified to suggest it was founded in the 13th century. This is my dream, and I know it is also yours. Let’s make it happen.
