Dearest Massachusetts Technical Institute,
I understand that you are one of the world’s top-ranked research institutions. I write to express serious concerns about your student body’s alarming interest in indie rock and resulting lack of focus on discovering new shit.
Yesterday, I spent an enjoyable afternoon at your campus’s radio station recording a number of songs for a student radio show. When I arrived at M.I.T., I was greeted graciously by an illustrious member of your university’s Quantum Nanostructures and Nanofabrication Group. For the entire duration of my three-hour visit, this well-behaved, articulate young scholar remained intently focused on guiding my large van into a very small parking space, loading my dangerously-heavy musical equipment, providing me with food and wireless internet access, showing me where the bathroom is, and recording my indie rock music to the best of his ability. Throughout our meeting, he was considerate, mindful, gracious, selfless, and, unfortunately, totally distracted by indie rock from his primary educational missions: 1) researching quantum nanostructures, 2) participating in the activities of the Nanofabrication Group, and 3) most specifically, discovering new shit.
I began to worry about this misguided youth when, during the opening minutes of our meeting, he all-but-admitted that he preferred rock music’s lazy, drug-addled, beer-bottle strewn idylls to the harder, but ultimately more rewarding research of quantum nanostructures, participation in the activities of the Nanofabrication Group, and discovery of new shit. I report our exchange verbatim:
Edie Sedgwick: How’s it going?
Nanofabrication Group Member: Ok.
E.S.: Have you discovered any new shit lately?
N.G.M.: No.
E.S. Better discover some new shit soon. Isn’t that what you are supposed to do here?
N.G.M.: Discovering new shit ain’t easy. In fact, it’s fucking boring. Besides, I’m too busy compressing your vocals.
Before I could recover from the horror this exchange inspired, I saw a number of other M.I.T. students lazing about the campus radio station. Though the combined IQ of those assembled could power a small Midwestern city, these students idly shelved records, recorded PSA’s (public service announcements), sought telephone donations for the station’s financial support, and, in general, did not discover any new shit.
I understand that Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin, former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, current Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Ben Bernanke, and former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are all graduates of your institution. Certainly, these luminaries did not waste their time recording live sets by whimsical indie rock groups whose names will soon be consigned to the darkest corners of the dustbin of history. To prevent further distraction, I can only recommend shuttering the doors of your radio station as soon as possible and canceling all campus activities unrelated to researching quantum nanostructures, the broader activities of the Nanofabrication Group, and discovering new shit as quickly as possible.
In the name of the Risen Christ – no, in the name of Science – act soon!
Yours in struggle,
Edie Sedgwick
Edie Sedgwick, who is on tour, plays AS220 in Providence, Rhode Island tonight.
Quantum nanostructures are basically just made up bullshit so don’t sweat it. This kid will get wasted dancing in a club some night and invent a Pretentiousness Theorem of Everything and instantly get a Nobel Prize. It’s all a scam dude, look it up.
November 11, 2008 at 8:16 pmYou’re making it worse. I’m supposed to be discovering new shit too. Instead I’m reading yr. blog.
November 14, 2008 at 8:51 am
This is almost hilarious but it’s not.
November 11, 2008 at 7:15 pm