Forum | Staff Editorials
A thank you note to Method Man and Redman
Yo Meth and Red,
Your performance this weekend (or what we witnessed of it, through the unfortunate auditory version of beer goggles) was truly stellar, bringing “cool” to Wash. U. in a way it hasn’t known since that night in 1997 when a few freshmen created a drinking game based on utterances from their chemistry professor. Whether we witnessed your music from a vantage point of standing in an infinitely long pizza line, grinding in what became a literal passion pit or looking up at you in the midst of a crowd-surfing experience—the thrill of which is only matched by the time we got a 98 on our price theory exam—we couldn’t help but think one thing: Why can’t you be here all the time?
In all seriousness, we’re a pretty tightly wound community, and we think you really helped us loosen up. We were unsure as to whether or not we were chill enough to hang with you, but once you invited us to light our marijuana cigarettes on the Quad, we started to see what life would be like if you always hung out here. We didn’t know if you’d like our classes, but then you started to introduce questions of gender and sexuality, asking about female arousal and really getting at the thrust of contemporary debates.
There was just one more thing you could have done for us, and impressively, you pulled through in just one weekend. We’ve always liked the Kemper, but we feel like Wash. U. lacks something substantial in the realm of visual culture. You gave us that, in the form of a few well-done, emotionally driven pieces of chalkboard art.
Courtesy of Student Life staff
We thought that all W.I.L.D. would leave us with was a few unidentified hickeys and membership in a collective, unfortunate mid-midterms hangover, but imagine our thrill at seeing your profound contributions to this campus.
Even if you don’t want to come hang out again, we beg the administration to leave your chalk work here for posterity, acting as a visual catalyst to our highest of academic pursuits and reminding us of the impermeable nature of mass culture’s place in higher education. Moreover, we encourage our administrators to take strides to ensure that only gender theory and narcotics policy classes are taught in the classrooms that have been graced with your presence.
But then again, we suppose it’s not that peculiar that the two of you are so familiar with our needs as a community and as an institution. After all, you did get into Harvard, and most of us didn’t.
Peace,
The Editorial Board