Featured Articles

On such topics as politics, sports and fitness, art, food, fashion, and social issues from our 2008 Spring Semester Issue.

Corpse Pose Juxtaposed

Words: Donald K | Photography: Bodyworlds.com

A League Of Their Own

Words: Alex Murphey | Photography: Coastal Carolina

El Amor, Francia

Words & Photography: Victoria Livinski

It has been a pleasure not receiving any letters from you, for all of my Post Offices are still busy delivering the Christmas presents and there is no need to put any extra pressure on them.

You have spent four months calling me your home and just when I started liking you, you had to leave. I still cannot believe that you were able to leave me… ME! The city of lights and romance, the most famous and you starving there without the French cheese, wine and éclairs? How do you keep sane without any strikes around the city? How do you feed your cultural appetite without going to the Louvre, Carnavalet or the Opera? And I hope you are continuing to speak French everyday, mademoiselle! Don’t fall behind with the new slang vocabulary! visited city in the world! I should have probably organized another airport strike so that you couldn’t leave.

It has been a few months since you left and I am concerned about your well being. How are you surviving without your favorite Parisian café? How do you keep up-to-date with politics without the long lunches with your philosophic classmates? Aren’t you starving there without the French cheese, wine and éclairs? How do you keep sane without any strikes around the city? How do you feed your cultural appetite without going to the Louvre, Carnavalet or the Opera? And I hope you are continuing to speak French everyday, mademoiselle! Don’t fall behind with the new slang vocabulary!

I haven’t changed much since you left. My streets are just as romantic and full of people as always. Remember how you especially loved my streets when it was raining? “Paris looks twice as bright and twice as big when it’s raining because of the reflections in the wet pavement,” you said about me. Remember the Belleville and Montsouris parks that you loved so much? I am overjoyed by seeing an increased number of hormonal couples cuddling on the benches of those parks. I miss the times when you came here to take pictures or to write infinite letters to family back home. While you lived here, you made friends from England, Germany, Mexico, Spain, Morocco, Denmark, Russia, Poland and Portugal. Do you 17 18 still keep in touch with them? How do you keep track of which one is from which country? Oh-la-la, remember all those French dinners you guys attempted to cook out of duck, or couscous or chestnuts (and failed miserably)? What about that Russian Cultural Party, after which people of at least 12 nationalities in your building were able to say two whole phrases in Russian? Remember that Chocolate Soireé that you guys put together during which everyone got dizzy from too much sugar?

How are your new classes going? Oh, I still remember that look on your face during your first class of International Economics, taught entirely in French. What a precious look of utter confusion, distress, anxiety and helplessness! It was amusing to watch you struggle with the French economics terms and business vocabulary. But my fun ended when about half way through the class you became so comfortable with the terms that you had no problem writing all exams in French. I bet your learning was expedited by the fact that economics sounds better in French than in English.

Your Salsa professor said hello and he asked whether you are continuing your dances. He also asked whether you have danced impulsively in a public place again, just as you did on the steps of Opera Garnier in the middle of the biggest and busiest boulevards in Paris. He knows there isn’t much public transportation in your current town so he is not worried that you would be dancing in the subway again, confusing the passengers.

Quatre Chemins café? She sends you a French bisou and she asked when you would stop by for more pastries. She said everybody in the Villette and Aubervilliers regions are missing you. I personally think she is lying because you didn’t know everybody in those areas, but the few people you got to know do miss you as well as your obsessive picture-taking.

Speaking of pictures, I feel underphotographed since you left. I am confident you are not going to stay away from me for too long. I can modestly say that you foolishly fell in love with me. You fell for my gorgeous looks, bohemian airs, my cultural wealth, unique history and just plain old charm.

Come back soon Victoria, for you still have so many things you wanted to do on my streets that you haven’t done yet. You didn’t ride those alienlooking bikes that I have, called Velibs; you still didn’t perform the Tecktonic style dance on the steps of the Grand Arch; you didn’t yet meet all of the 2.2 million faces that represent me. Come back home, Victoria.