A few weeks back, hundreds of soon-to-be Emersonians descended on our campus for Admitted Students Day like newborns, goo-goo-ing on Duck Tours and ga-ga-ing into cannolis from Modern Pastry. Their eyes were wide, their outfits were sharp, and as their arms flew every which way in eager points and hugs, I couldn’t help but smile and shake my head.
Since my own Admitted Students Day three years ago, I have somehow become unc. And not just unc, but an unc who’ll be leaving this campus for good tomorrow.
Before shipping out to the barista job market like a recruit on a Freedom Bird to ‘Nam, I’ll be spending my final semester in Los Angeles, and I’ve barely given any consideration to what I’m leaving behind. I don’t mean the obvious comforts — the Lion’s Den, or the rower-less gym, or the Plan B vending machine in the mailroom — but the tiny Emerson miracles that my peers continue to fawn over each day, in between bouts of insomnia-induced brain fog and Tito’s-induced brain fog.
The unsung heroes, if you will.
These are the attractions your kiss-ass theatre and performance tour guide won’t mention, because they can’t, and because you won’t understand them until you’ve settled in a good while and discovered them yourselves. But I’m not being watched by admissions, so I can give you the real scoop on what transpires here. Thus, in honor of my West Coast escape, I’ve decided to put together a parting list of our Boston campus’ most special-est attractions.
Read it and weep. Or laugh. But just remember, incoming freshmen, you’re stuck here for four years, so you might as well answer every tap desk question while you still can.
The bathrooms in 172 Tremont
Here’s a fun story: All throughout middle and high school, and during freshman year of college, I was terrified of pooing in the wild because I couldn’t handle other people doing it beside me. Instead, I would hold it in all day, which would lead to intense gastrointestinal distress, and probably did more to hurt my stomach long term than the obscene amount of buffalo chicken wraps I’ve consumed from the Max.
Of course, the one time I tried one of the communal bathrooms in Little Building, a guy sat down in the next stall over, asked me if I was “ready for the thunder,” and unleashed a bowl buffet so fierce I had nightmares.
And then a guy peeked over the urinal at my penis, like, two days later.
Thusly, when I simply couldn’t hold it, I began waddling all the way from Boylston to 172 Tremont, where I could choose from one of the obscene number of private, single-serving bathrooms — all of which were clean, aesthetically pleasing, and thick-walled enough to block out the sound from both neighbors and creeps. I take my dumps in-suite now, but I’ll never forget what a service 172 did for me in those trying times. Let’s flush one out.
The bagel cutter in the Dining Center
We all have that pal who screws up constantly, makes our lives hell, and should probably be on academic probation — but we love them anyway. Turn that person into a kitchen appliance, and you get the bagel cutter in the Dining Center, which, in “slicing” your bagel, actually just flattens it into something that doesn’t resemble a bagel anymore. Is it a squinty sorta half-oval? A trapezoid?
The answer is “whatever you want!” This school doesn’t want to force any ideology on you!
But please, just don’t be one of those people who use a butter knife to cut their everything bagel in half. That’s the coward’s way out. I never met my great-grandfather, who fought at Pearl Harbor, but if he were here right now, I imagine he’d expound some inspirational something about these being the moments that make a man — they didn’t yet have women back then — and, later, put a satisfied smile on your face when you waltz through that great door in the sky. We owe it to our friend, the cutter, to have a little patience and a little grace, because I’m sure it never asked its blade slot to be so damn narrow.
Use it often, and know that half the fun is getting your fingers in there and ripping the other half of the bagel yourself. Even if you get poppy seed gunk under your nails.
“Director’s Statements” on Instagram
I would be remiss if I didn’t shout out the tireless, put-upon artistic vessels of this campus, who never go a day without reminding us how amazing they are. If you’re a visual and media arts major like me, be prepared for four years of Instagram follow requests from student film accounts, all of which desperately want you to be their boom operator because the other guy dropped out last minute.
The first question you might ask upon receiving one of these follow requests is, “Well, isn’t that logline just ‘The King of Comedy’?” Yes. Always yes.
And the second question might be, “Well, what the hell is a ‘Director’s Statement’?” Fear not, budding Emersonian; speaking from my experience creating one of these fake-deep “Director’s Statements” my sophomore year, let me tell you: This statement isn’t just a statement, but a complex soliloquy about what inspired this person’s zany satire on race, gender, class, coming of age, etc. Maybe they wrote the first draft in high school, or maybe it was the first story they ever wrote, or maybe it was inspired by one of the many vague challenges affecting “our generation.”
Regardless, their words should matter to you a great deal. These people aren’t just classmates of yours, but the future Spielbergs, and Reichardts, and Terry Malicks; if we don’t stop and listen to them talk about themselves, we’ll kick ourselves in 40 years when they’re accepting their Las Vegas Film Critics Society awards.
A tidbit of advice: If you want to catch up with these filmmaking laureates, drop everything you’re doing right now and go produce a script. Any script. Maybe a script about a lonely guy framed for murder by a girl he meets on a dating app that’s really a hamfisted metaphor for how the internet is killing our interpersonal skills — that sounds like an Emerson banger!
Deli chips
In Boston, when the days grow cold and the streets grow whiny with wind, you’ll shiver yourself into a seasonal depression. During the moments when my 10mg of Lexapro isn’t enough to take the edge off, I lie back in bed and think about the housemade chips that pop up in the Backstage Deli — the freshly fried ones, slicking the inside of their baggies with grease.
The best chips I’ve ever had, no doubt, and a tribute to the rugged, golden brown spuds slaughtered in pursuit of their perfection.
I’ve been a longtime deli visitor, though it hasn’t always been a walk in the park. To this day, I still feel self-conscious ordering my “chicken caesar wrap, light dressing, add tomatoes,” because I’m scared I’m becoming my sister: 18, F, caucasian. One time, I coulda sworn one of the — amazing, by the way — deli ladies just called me a “gringo,” and another time I got caught forgetting to pay for a Muscle Milk from the fridge. Yet the thing that kept me coming back each time was those goddang chips.
I used to eat so many of them before they started mysteriously disappearing and reappearing at random times. Tragically, they haven’t been in the Deli for a hot minute now, so I stake out the online dining hall menu in hopes that they’ll serve them at the “Show & Tell” station during lunch, and that I’ll be able to take a cup full of them back to my suite. Last week I did that, but my suitemate threw the cup out before I could demolish them.
Suffice it to say, we’re no longer on speaking terms. What am I to do now, freshie, without the reliable crunch that anchored my soul to these purple-and-yellow walls? Pray you find your own crunch on these mean streets, and pray the deep fryers-that-be don’t rip it from you.
