Disco-Pigs

The Ronettes’ “Be My Baby” lyrics light up the bottom of the screen. Shadow puppets pack a suitcase. Johann Strauss takes over for Vera Lynn in a Doctor Strangelove-inspired closing montage. Sprawled across YouTube, Facebook, and Zoom, this is interdisciplinary theater at its most inventive.

As an art form, theater is defined by hands-on collaboration, the thrill of live performance, and the real-time connections that audiences forge with the actors and the story onstage. None of those defining elements of theater seem feasible in the age of social distancing. Still, Columbia and Barnard’s theater department faculty never considered canceling the senior thesis festival for directing students.

You read What to chill about when applying to college, but surely there's stuff to worry about too right? Right!

In "The Republic," Plato imagines a world in which man follows only his basest desires. It would be, he says, a sort of "city of pigs." Plato's thought plays a central role in a Columbia education. We read him in Contemporary Civilization and myriad philosophy classes, and his name is up there on the façade of Butler, the place where all the greatest people in history have their names carved. Yet, even those of us who have not read Plato have been deeply influenced by his writings: Our daily lives here are an embodiment of his thought. For Columbia is a city of pigs.more This glorious Acropolis in Morningside is a place of splendor nonpareil. Its soaring edifices, shimmering lawns, and majestic gates make it a true oasis in midst of dingy Gotham. Or at least, they should. Unfortunately, a small but powerful cohort of our fellow Columbians has been waging a silent war on this campus. These Columbians have taken the exhortation to make this campus their homes too far. For they treat it, most literally, like their homes—if they treat their homes the way Amy Winehouse treats her central nervous system. They toss their cigarette butts on College Walk (mere feet from the containers expressly intended to catch these butts) and their gum wrappers on Low Steps. In Butler, they leave their empties in lavatory sinks and the detritus of their late-night snacking on every carrel. They remember the first half of the ancient bathroom rhyme, but not the half that tells us to "flush it down." A few weeks ago, someone splattered an entire container of lasagna at the base of that hallowed revolving molar next to the Law School. Perhaps it was an offering made to sate the voracious appetites of the gods of human squalor. It was once said, admittedly with a hint of sarcasm, that the Ivy League is the cradle of the best and the brightest. At Columbia, we are assuredly the best at littering and the brightest stars of sloppiness. Whither our reverence for Alma Mater? We defile her with our dross. Some may say that Columbia employs people to keep our campus tidy. That is true. But it is no one's job to clean up your filth. If your own mother did not teach you that, we pray your "nurturing mother"—for that is what "alma mater" means—can. Perhaps we need to add another text to the Core Curriculum—something by that august philosopher of yore, Miss Emily Post. Take heed of the old adage, "Cleanliness is next to godliness." Next time you're perched on the grand marble steps of Low Library or sitting on the pristine emerald grass outside Philosophy Hall and you have an urge to fling garbage about, think twice. For it is those who sully the campus who give this city of pigs its name. These are the swine who walk among us. Take a long look at yourself. You may not think yourself porcine. But even if you don't look like a pig or oink like a pig, if you act like one, you probably are one. Thomas Rhiel recused himself from the writing of this editorial because he is a neat freak.

Good afternoon. If you're still in bed, never mind. If you're on the road or in the skies, travel safe and avoid all impending storms. In the spirit of the holidays and all that, we don't have a daily paper for you today, but we'll be back in print on Monday. Spectrum won't be updating as frequently over break, because you know, bloggers need a holiday too. Email tips@columbiaspectator.com if anything exciting happens. If you are traveling somewhere by air, FlightAware, a nifty live-tracking site that lets you find out your flight information, has its Misery Map (aptly named? Or just more fatalistic?) to visualize flight data live. If you do happen to be stuck at an airport, or in your bed because of a serious case of inertia, you could always watch the best Thanksgiving episodes of Friends. And if those aren't nostalgic enough, look at when strangely unsettling giant pigs could fly over New York city during the 1932 Macy's Day Parade.