jester fall 2016
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Fun Fact: Saber Tooth Squirrels don’t just eat acorns. They also eat cereal from Westside Market.
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Westside Market 2840 Broadway Corner of 110th St. 212-222-3367 Open 24 hours!
MEMORIAL
table of contents
Jester presents...
Letters to the Editor 4 Deaths 4 Editaurus 5 Corrections 6 Ryan Lochte ‘murdered’ on Dancing with the Stars 6 Ask Mildred 7 10 Years Later: Snuggles Memorial Service 7 Lists 8 So Your Child Got Eaten by an Alligator 10 Quiz! How far has your intelligence declined in 2016? 11 BREAKING NEWS: More on Moore 12 The Ninth and Final Life of Kevin Spacey 12 Seen on Campus 12 A Chilling End in Badger Den 13 Going, Going... Can’t Get Fucking Rid of… 14 Ode to Cannons 14 Barnard Alumni Raise $10 Million for Funeral of Beloved Magnolia 15 In the Time of Salmon Shorts and Read Receipts 16 R.I.P Wired Earphones: A Nation in Crisis 16 Brexit: The Britain that Was 16 Fidelity’s More Dead Than Your Tinder Profile 17 Goodbye, Sweet Taylor 17 Mr. and Mrs. Smith 18 Death of Democracy in Turkey 18 Historical Cover 19
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Letters to the Editor
Dear Jester, I sneezed during the national anthem at a WNBA game. Does that make me un-American? Yours, Dale Bobby, Jr. Dear Dale,
Dear Jester,
We are not familiar with the Walrus Narcotic Bureau of Alabama and therefore cannot comment on their policies. Most likely, you are a terrible person and hate America, but feel free to contact that organization for clarification.
My girlfriend has a latex allergy, so I use the wrappers instead. Sincerely, Chad Dear Chad, Can we have the condoms for our next Charity Water Balloon Fight? Thanks! Best, Jester Dear Jester, I’m worried about homegrown terrorist attacks. How can I best ensure that my rice cooker doesn’t explode? If it does will I be on the no fly list? From, Concerned Home Cook
You’re already on the no-fly list. We went over this many times. Remember the Incident at LAX? 10 hours in the TSA holding cell ring any bells? Unplug the cooker when the rice is done. Also, my checking account is running low. Can I hit you up? And maybe get in on the rice? Love, Your son Jester
Brangelina: the eighth kid that no one knew about finally emerged from the lair. Your Soul Cycle instructor: felt the Bern too hard.
Dear Mom,
Brittni Smith: one too many pumps of vanilla sugar free syrup in that PSL. Usher’s self respect: that smiley face fooled no one. The pilot of Brad Pitt’s private jet: blame it on those complimentary nips of wine, or so Brad says. The entire state of Michigan: Flint was just the beginning. Shock value of communism: comrades suffocated under sea of pamphlets. American journalism: Wolf Blitzer’s wallet found in the Chelsea pressure cooker.
Dear Jester, I was severely disappointed in your recent profile of the Dalai Lama. You mentioned his baldness, and yet failed to report that it is not natural but in fact the result of a painstaking shaving regimen. #FreeTibet From, Xi Jinping Dear Eleven, We are sorry for the omission. Please accept our complimentary membership to the Shave of the Month Club for a full three months. We value your continued subscription to this free publication. Have a lovely day. Regards, Jester
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DEATHS
Best, Jester
Ivanka’s modeling career: She had to focus on pretending to get a college degree. Justin Bieber: If you can’t show off your newest tattoo on Instagram, do you really exist? Oprah: Gayle King forced herself onto the cover of O Magazine and O couldn’t take it. Your one pair of high heeled shoes: succumbed to the concrete jungle. Alex the weed dealer: his job was outsourced to Leafly and he couldn’t feed his family. Every single member of the Columbia Marching Band, buried deep deep down with their goddamn fucking loud instruments.
EDITAURUS JESTER Editor-in-Chief Cary Chapman Managing Editor Lily Whiteman Secretary Henrietta Steventon Treasurer Cat Gioino Staff Writers Supryia Ambwani Charlotte de Anda Michelle Goff Ovie Lattimore Claire Noyer Cover Art Aurian Carter Layout Design Sam Doss
DEAR READER, As I ponder the contents of our Memorial issue, from “In the Time of Salmon Shorts and Read Receipts” to “So Your Child Got Eaten by an Alligator,” I can't help but feel a swell of pride for Jester. We have spun 20 pages of pure humor from the murky fog of our brains like so many bees vomiting honey from the depths of... fuck. What is that, a mixed metaphor? Or is it just plain obnoxious? What I'm trying to articulate, and for this sentence you should picture me in the costume of a Roman senator speaking from the roof of Butler library, is that writing itself is a kind of memorial building. With this exalted publication, we are leaving a literary legacy not just for Jester writers that follow in our weary footsteps, although that is truer than a lie could ever hope to be, but also for the Columbia community at large and yes, the entire world. I wouldn't go so far as to say that our Memorial issue makes us humble writers immortal, but it gets us pretty darn close. And what better magazine to grace with our presence than one with such historic roots as Jester? Indeed, we were founded in 1901 and have been disseminating our brilliance ever since. Is there funnier stuff out there? Probably. Are there more effective ways to leave a legacy than publishing a humor magazine that about two people read? I'm going to answer that question with another question: why do I keep asking rhetorical questions that I don't want to answer? There is a nagging voice—I think it’s Chelsea Perretti’s—at the back of my head that keeps whispering, “Jester is just a whole bunch of losers
trying to cope with their problems by making fun of people and stuffing Oreos in their faces. You know it. I know it. Everyone on the Ivy League Snapchat story knows it.” So maybe Jester doesn't do much to memorialize our lives in literary glory. I'll admit, there are a few other things I could read for pleasure if I had the time. Time! Oh, if only we had more! If only we could put a pin in time, could preserve a specific moment for eternity in some kind of physical testament to our fleeting presence on this planet. After all, words are nothing more than the limited range of human throat noises chopped up like so many fruits in a Vitamix. These artificial sound smoothies have nothing on the Egyptian pyramids or the Great Wall of China. Paper crumbles, stone endures. Maybe, just maybe, there's hope for Jester magazine. The unread copies will pile up like so many layers of sedimentary rock, and future geologists will have a good chuckle over page seven, or even page ten. Stonemasons will descend on the Jester quarry when the geologists are through to carve statues of their genitals. The remaining rock and gravel of the Memorial Issue will be ground into cement to be used for the Barnard Library Renovation 5.0. Monuments put on this Earth by ancient civilizations have been built from more unlikely materials. Haven't they? Your Editor-in-Chief, Cary Chapman
The Jester of Columbia, Established 1901, is Columbia University’s most laughable humor magazine. Jester is published as often as four times a year and is distributed free of charge to the Columbia community. Please limit one copy per person. Views, ideas, opinions, or unsavory epithets expressed in Jester do not necessarily reflect those of Columbia University, its student body, or even the wise-ass college students who wrote them. Any similarities to actual people, places, or events are coincidental or satirical in nature. For information on getting involved, advertising, or our personal lives, please contact jestersubmissions@gmail.com. Also, visit us online at columbiajester.com and follow us on Facebook (Jester of Columbia) and Twitter (@CUJester). 5
Ryan Lochte ‘murdered’ on Dancing with the Stars Ryan Lochte’s Mother has released a statement claiming that her son, Ryan, was savagely murdered on Dancing with the Stars during his appearance on the show. According to Mrs. Lochte, Ryan communicated with his mother through a ouiji board to inform her that he had been stabbed multiple times whilst appearing on the show, ultimately leading to his untimely death. According to Mr. Lochte, a group of large half-reptile, half human hybrid creatures, bedecked in communist regalia, forced their way into the studio, riding in on two tanks which they then parked in the middle of the dance floor. The creatures proceeded to dismount from the aforementioned tanks and threatened Ryan with missile launchers, interspersing their harassment with praise for his unrivalled athletic ability. Video footage from the television programme
In our Politics issue, we called Trump a “Dickhead.” This should have been “Colossal Dickhead.”
In our Learning Difficulties issue, we published an article titled, “Dyslexia in the Classroom,” This should have been “Dlsyxia ni teh Calsromo.”
CORREC
We would like to retract everything that Gay Talese has ever written for Jester, including his article on the impact of caffeine on learning and memory in lab rats.
TIONS
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suggests that Ryan Lochte was merely approached at a light jog by two rather chubby, non-threatening individuals, who it is believed did not so much as make any kind of physical contact with Mr Lochte before being escorted out of the studio. The last clip of Mr. Lochte from the programme appeared to show him in good health, grinning in the white suit he donned for his performance. However, the Lochte family maintains that Ryan was definitely brutally murdered on the show and will hold a funeral for their son later this week. Meanwhile, after a long struggle to find a replacement for Ryan Lochte, the network has luckily managed to find another contestant with a past of avoiding real punishment due to being white, rich and decent at swimming. Brock Turner will dance the tango with Lochte’s former partner Cheryl Burke, next week on the show.
In our Hydration issue, we said that drinking 17 cups of coconut oil was a regular part of Kim Kardashian’s beauty regimen. We have since been notified that the actual amount is 37 cups.
HENRIETTA STEVENTON
We would like to formally apologize to everyone who took our article “Smarter When Wasted” as an endorsement of drunken emails to faculty members. This was meant merely in a figurative sense, the same way “please watch the gap between the train and the platform” is a metaphor for our own mortality.
In our Election issue, we stated Hillary Clinton’s age as 68. In light of the revelations of the Presidential Debate, Hillary’s fight against ISIS her entire adult life would put her at a weathered 30. According to Article 2, Section I of the Constitution, a presidential candidate must be 35 years of age. #underagehillary
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Years Later:
Snuggles Memorial Service
Bethesda, MD: Scores of grieving family members and friends descended upon the P. T. Barnum Strip Mall on Friday for the tenth annual memorial service in memory of Snuggles Brown. Dr. Harold Brown, Bethesda’s most beloved rodent orthopedist, delivered the keynote address, citing Snuggles’ deep impact on the Brown family.
reality stimulation of what it’s like to be a hamster competing against rats. Entering the stimulation, grieving humans were asked to confront their own preconceptions of a “rat race” and how that term is too easily appropriated by Homo sapiens cultures from its original significance as a charity fun run amongst rodents to raise money for PETA.
“Who rescued who?” Dr. Brown said, tears beginning to formulate in the corners of his bespectacled eyes, “I ask you again: who rescued who?” He then proceeded to answer his own rhetorical question with, “Snuggles rescued us. Not the other way around.”
“Snuggles trained for years on that hamster wheel,” Donald Brown, Dr. Brown’s sixteenyear-old human son, said to this reporter, “Years. And where did that get him?” The young man paused to take a croissant from the refreshment table featuring, as in previous years, all of Snuggles’ favorite foods, before continuing, “He was eaten alive by those rats. Like literally eaten alive.”
The service lasted over three hours and included a virtual
Before returning to their soulless cubicle jobs, service attendees participated in a charity fun run to raise money for Dr. Brown’s rodent orthopedic rehabilitation clinic. At the time of print, three people and seven hamsters were in intensive care at Bethesda Hospital recovering from injuries sustained by rats in the race.
Dear Mildred... Dear Mildred, I really hit it off with this boy on Tinder and he’s asked me to send topless photos. We’ve been talking for 2 weeks and he’s in Delta Sig, so I really feel I can trust him. I don’t want to be slutty though by sending nudes through Tinder. What should I do?! Xoxo Thirsty Frosh Dear Karen Greenberg, Everyone has seen you at Delta Sig parties, so no need to worry about your already heavily tarnished reputation! You’re right, sending nudes on Tinder is kind of slutty (#noslutshamingbutyou’reawhore), so we would recommend finding this boy on Bumble and sending nudes that way! Remember, boobs on Bumble is classy, tits on Tinder is trash. Xoxo Mildred Dear Mildred, I’m a freshman in Barnard College and I’m having so much trouble meeting boys. I had a guy I was kind of seeing back at high school but we decided to take a break because we were going to different schools. I keep seeing all these pictures of him with girls at parties and meanwhile I’m sat in my dorm masturbating to Gertrude Stein because I haven’t seen anyone with a penis in weeks! I love Barnard and my classes are great and I love my friends here but it’s so hard to meet boys at an all girl’s college! Help!! Frustratedly yours, Camille. Dear Camille, Walk across Broadway. All the best,
CARY CHAPMAN
Mildred
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S T S LI
Things Chad lost in an Uber
Underwear Nothing Your twelve-year-old sequin dress Your wedding dress Whatever the corpse has on Kimono Lady Gaga’s meat dress Penguin onesie Trash bag Yeezys
What to wear to a funeral
Your dignity The hamster you thought was a good idea Your beach bod Harry Williams Earphone jack Cheese wrapper Blue ray player in Butler
Salad bar in John Jay Keebler Elf’s Tree Sell them to Pike Your childhood bedroom Hawaii A shark tank A water park Flint’s water supply Lawn outside Philosophy building Columbia Campus
That $25 bonsai tree you bought on the sidewalk Someone named Mildred Mildred’s ex-lover Moaning Myrtle Unsafe spaces Uncensored speech Unknown skeleton found handcuffed in stacks
So you lost a body… what to put in the casket
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His virginity His phone His second son His lacrosse stick His contract with the devil His lawyer’s number Vineyard Vines gift card A single Sperry A Make America Great Again hat
What died on the Columbia campus
Salmon shorts Chubbies Dorothy Nemo His Budlight six pack His actual abs That thing that holds your sunglasses on your head Econ TA’s phone number Beverage cozy
Best places to spread your loved one’s ashes
Last week’s trash Your broken rice cooker Your next victim Your ex (see above) Your middle school English essays Your college English essays That kid in class who wouldn’t shut up The Pompeii statue outside Butler The tortoise you mummified as a kid A whole bunch of double stuff oreos Used band aids Your dreams Used tampons you had to pay for That email that should have included an attachment
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So Your Child Got Eaten by an Alligator It’s your typical dinner party. Old people are spewing out endless nonsense that they’ve picked up over the years, someone’s kids are totally out of control, there’s a creepy single guy there that you’re not sure even knows the host, and then there’s the couple that brings everyone down. They’re bringing everyone down, you see, because they’re child’s just been eaten by an alligator. Is nothing innocent anymore? Can a couple really not travel to Florida without having to worry that their kin will be dragged underwater by a giant reptile? Someone’s got to break the ice though right? So you take a stab at it. “So when little Jimmy was being dragged down, did you try and grab him before he was fully submerged?” “The alligator just acted too quickly,” Jimmy’s mother states defensively, “We were looking the other way, and before we knew it, little Jimmy was gone. There is a part of us however, that thinks Jimmy’s found a home down there with the other Alligators. We’re sick of everyone just assuming that he’s been eaten. Alligators come up for air. He could just be living a reptilian life now.” Blank stares.
I wish someone would look at me the way Chico looks at pizza. 10
“And you know,” mother Jimmy continues, “He had what we thought was eczema, but it could have been the beginning of scales, maybe he was just meant to live with alligators. Maybe that was his purpose.” Whatever brings you solace mother Jimmy. Let me just say, people’s children don’t just get eaten by alligators. Poor Jimmy had his fate set out for him the minute he exited his mother’s vagina. And for the rest of mother Jimmy’s life, when she’s mourning the death of her child, or his exit from homosapienism, she will have, what I think, is the honor of telling people that her child was in fact killed by an alligator. Why, the very reason he is not standing with us today, is because in the armpit of the world that is Florida, a giant reptile launched out of the water and dragged her child away. I’d like to take this time to give Pixar a hint hint… I’m seeing a movie idea in your future. P.S. RIP little Jimmy
CLAIRE NOYER
Your US News and World Report ranking has deteriorated. You think Donald Trump is a decent human being. You have starting eating mayonnaise. You are planning on not voting at all. You have sustained a debilitating head injury. You spend $8 on a kale smoothie. You quit your job and moved to Canada. You found yourself intrigued by Starbuck’s new Chili Mocha. You can’t get enough of dem Snapchat filters. You own anything that says “But first, coffee.” You declared a major in English. You declared a major in Economics. You tried to convince yourself that you actually enjoy the taste of Soylent.
Quiz! How far has your intelligence declined in 2016?
Check all that apply to you in the past year:
You dropped out of college to be the next Mark Zuckerberg. You joined Jester Magazine. You thought that you needed a tank top advertising your love of Soul Cycle. You consciously decided to eat cookies for dinner. You started calling your best friend “bitch.” You got bangs. You started dreaming in memes. You thought that you could actually major in unafraid. You wore sunglasses indoors.
art by CARY CHAPMAN
Count your responses and see your results: 0-4: 5-9: 10-14: 15-19: 20-24: 25-30:
Bullshit. You’re lying to yourself and you know it. Given all the shit that happened in 2016, you’re doing okay for yourself. You need to reevaluate your life choices. You should consider joining Jester if you haven’t already. You’ve gone from a pretty smart cookie to a fucking cake pop. You are the dumbest human being on the planet ever.
You thought getting less than 7 hours of sleep made you cool. You started checking LinkedIn like you used to check Facebook. You stopped to listen to people on the street with clipboards. You went to TD Bank without taking a free pen. You went to Whole Foods without taking a free sample. Your IQ score has gone down. You started reading Daily Mail’s Snapchat stories. You are taking this quiz seriously.
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BREAKING NEWS
Jester has confirmed that Henry Moore’s Reclining Figure statue, which is soon to be erected in front of Lowe library, is not a Moore sculpture at all, but rather the plaster cast figure of Quinta Maximillius, a Pompeiiian prostitute whose working position was naturally preserved by the pyroclastic flows that occurred during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79AD. Her plaster cast was displayed alongside those of the literally dozens of men that were found surrounding Quinta at the time of her death. The figure had been a feature of the historical display at Pompeii, hailed as the ‘longest recorded sexual encounter of all time’. Historians estimate that the amount of money Quinta would have earned for her bodily services by 2016 is 3 denarii, which in today’s money is 2 million US dollars, and a drink at a bar. The plaster cast was discovered as missing at the end of last year and Italian authorities have been searching for it ever since. Jester reached out to Caecilius Grumio, the curator of the exhibit, for comment. Unfortunately, none of the Jester staff speaks a word of Italian but from his body language, Mr. Grumio seemed to be very upset indeed. Columbia University has yet to comment but inside sources from within Columbia’s administrative offices have agreed that an ancient prostitute does not best represent the morals of the university. President Bollinger has hinted that the statue may be gifted to Florida State University, where the statue will feel ‘right at home’.
HENRIETTA STEVENTON
Seen on Campus Karen Greenberg at every single Delta Sig party. Spies from Overheard@Barnard on the lookout for salmon shorts. The inflatable rat eating a stroller. Baby not found. Discarded Columbia sweatshirt, found brutally stuffed into empty Sweetgreen container. Twenty-something male holding stack of soggy textbooks walking too quickly for his own good. Trail of mysterious sidewalk stains, Broadway and 113th. Styrofoam coffee cup halfway full of tears.
The Ninth and Final Life of Kevin Spacey It’s been a long time since American Beauty and L.A. Confidential and now that Spacey finds himself in “this summer’s Purrrrfect comedy,” it’s evident that his tenure as Go-To Leading Dramatic Actor is fast running out. House of Cards was good while it lasted, but sagging jowls can only sag so far before they sag out of DILF land. The Acting Career of Kevin Spacey was a well groomed fellow and we are sad to note his passing. He went through different stages of growth. He enjoyed keeping a small flower garden at his home in East Sussex. Every Monday and Thursday night, Kevin Spacey’s Acting Career enjoyed an evening out at his favorite pub. He was quite the cider connoisseur. Wednesdays and Fridays he took long walks on the beach. On Sundays he could be seen sneaking into Mrs. Bushwick’s loft apartment. We remember him fondly. But now he is gone. Move over Spacey. Joaquin Phoenix coming through. LILY WHITEMAN
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A Chilling End in Badger Den A few years ago, Percy Foster’s half-eaten corpse was found in a badger den in Wales. Just like the aftershocks of the sunset over the British Empire, badger deaths within its territory are dismissed as quotidian, so this shouldn’t have made news. But make news it did. Foster turned out to be Gordon Ramsay’s midget porn double who had a strange affection for making love to badgers before smothering them inside Idiot Sandwiches. This news took both the porn and culinary industries by storm. Some dubious sources reported Ramsay’s former mistress tearfully reminiscing about how Foster’s manhood was superior to the chef’s. Some confidential sources even claim that Ramsay smashed a tea set against a wall of sycophantic contestants before breaking down over the agony of no longer being able to have sex with
himself. This should have been an open-andshut case: a sex act gone terribly wrong, a few heartbroken survivors, and intense media speculation. However, it came to light that the police station near the scene of Foster’s death possessed no evidence of the cold-blooded murder that had occurred under its watch. No murderous badgers had been charged with the brutal murder of the object of the passion of countless cooking show rejects. Moreover, when desperate spice grinders dug up his grave, they found nothing but a DVD of Foster’s masterpiece, “Two Soup Spoons Stuck Up Gordie’s Bare Half-Moon.” So where was Percy Foster? The more one tried to find him, the thicker the soup became. Fans of his great work searched high and low to locate him. A few sightings were reported in places as far apart as Honolulu, Pyongyang,
and Darfur, but his traces disappeared before his legions of fans could descend upon these tranquil, family-centric locales with their debauchery. Disheartened, they began watching Searcy Hayes’ gay Ted Cruz impressions instead. All of a sudden, not long ago, a video of Joey the Midget getting a blowjob next to a swimming pool emerged. Joey was paler and calmer than Percy, but his fans didn’t take long to begin claiming that Joey was Percy. Joey maintains that he is, in fact, Joey. He claims that he has always been called Joey and that Percys can never get co-stars as attractive as the ones that Joeys get. However, what cements the fact that he is not Joey- at least in the eyes of this brilliant, Ivy League-educated journalist- is the fact that he refuses to make love to badgers. Otters, he says, are better at arousing organs in need of resurrection. SUPRIYA AMBWANI
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ODE TO CANNONS
Going, Going... Can’t Fucking Get Rid Of... Phi Gamma Delta. Although FIJI is in its 150th year and life support should have been pulled long ago, FIJI trundles on. Truculently, FIJI has clung to both existence and validity. Homeless like the panhandlers in front of Morton William’s, about as drunk, at least twice as annoying. In 2005, Columbia decided to re-instate FIJI as a campus presence. This was after its charter was revoked in 1998 due to “behavior that was not consistent with the standards of the Greek community.” Which, if you’ve ever had the pleasure of sweating through a Beta party, makes you wonder how bad FIJI must have been. Maybe their mediocrity was so earth shattering, even Columbia couldn’t bare the shame. And yet FIJI struggles on. Will it die? Couldn’t we pull the plug? A mercy killing. A wiping of the hands. But no. 14
That would not be Columbia. No, we must cling to old white men and a Common Core older than the news of Brangelina’s Demise. And as one of our editors can vouch, they don’t make the best dates either. An un-shared Hungarian pastry and a trip to Duane Reade for blue solo cups (gotta represent) is not a good date. And an awkward rendezvous in EC for a PhiG party (because the frat’s house is no more) is not a nice night out. Just FYFIJII. ADDENDUM: Henrietta (Jester Secretary) would like to state that she is in no way affiliated with this article and would very much like to be excluded from this narrative, one she has never asked to be a part of. #rushfiji LILY WHITEMAN
Barnard Alumni Raise $10 Million for Funeral of Beloved Magnolia New York is a concrete jungle, punctuated in a few bright places by a burst of oxygen-producing flora. The greyness of the city, especially in every season, combined with the dim outlook of 18-22 year-olds reading anything by any “great author” make for an academic experience that can be dangerously depressing were it not for trees like Barnard College’s notorious magnolia tree. The beloved arbor, alias Maggie, was so rooted in the Barnard collective unconscious that the women’s liberal arts college had no trouble spending $40,000 on moving the tree to make room for the new library. Then nature had to throw everyone a curve ball and kill off the tree, prompting tears and hair tearing in the Homerian tradition across campus. Fortunately, a group of Barnard’s
richest alumni have banded together for their fallen hero, not to replace it (that would be blasphemous to the memory of dear Maggie) but rather to embalm it. The $10 million, largely raised through the sale of feminist zines with a few paltry contributions by the two alumni who sold out to Goldman Sachs, will go towards the Egyptian style mummification of the trunk by nondenominational priests with animal masks on their heads. The process will also include gold encasing of each twig as well as a 32-ton gold coffin, and a funeral lasting one year and a day. Virginia Woolf’s ghost will give the funereal address, and anyone on the Barnard campus who eats breakfast at a time other than midnight will be murdered in her sleep. CARY CHAPMAN
BREAKING NEWS NEW YORK CITY - Late Tuesday morning, witnesses at Columbia University reported hearing a deafening wail emanating from the President’s office. Investigators later discovered that the victim was Lee C. Bollinger, who was found shaking and clutching his desk. Medical Examiners on the scene report that the President was displaying symptoms of shock after reading the US News & World Report. Columbia University has fallen from from the #4 spot and is now in a tie with Stanford University for #5. President Bollinger has been airlifted to his estate in the Hamptons, where he is expected to make a full recovery. Charlotte de Anda contributed reporting live on the ground for this story.
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R.I.P Wired Earphones:
A NATION IN CRISIS
Apple is up to its classic capitalist exploitation once again. Except this time they’re targeting the poor, helpless first world children burdened with the privilege of owning Apple products. Apple’s cruel indignities continue as the corporate behemoth announced its decision to senselessly murder wired headphones. “It’s one thing to have some kid in Indonesia making your shit, but you start messing with our kids here… that’s where I draw the line,” said Denise Palmer, a first grade public school teacher. With the cruel unforeseen death of wired earphones, children everywhere in America are struggling to learn how to untie basic knots without the daily practice they once had of pulling out their iPhones and iPods and untangling the wires. Without the consistent repetition of untying earphones, experts fear that today’s youth simply lack the resources to be able to face any type of knot, puzzle and even basic math questions. Knots in shoelaces? Better get out a pair of scissors, as only boy and girls scouts now posses the knowledge to battle knots. The death of wired headphones hasn’t only affected the nation’s children, but also the mentally ill. Citizens can now no longer identify the difference between those who are crazy and having in-depth conversations with themselves, and those who are just having obnoxiously loud public phone calls. Mental health experts can’t agree on who is in more dire need, and what type of medication to administer to whom. These problems are only scratching the surface of what the nation currently faces without wired earphones. Without a wire acting as a safety harness, phones are being dropped and cracked at unprecedented rates. The ability to make a move on your crush by sharing a song is now rendered mute, as invading someone’s personal space to share an ear bud is no longer socially acceptable. And if earphones were easy to lose in the past, keeping track of them now is borderline impossible. The list of crises goes on, begging the question, was the death of the wired earphone the death of our country? Many are answering in the affirmative, as the nation continues to mourn. OVIE LATTIMORE
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In the Time of Salmon Shorts and Read Reciepts Human decency is dead. Perhaps it’s been dead a long time, but it deserves a memorial. It meant something once; it meant leaving the toilet seat down; it meant that Android didn’t have read receipts. Human decency was a cup of afternoon tea no mention anywhere of kale anything; human decency was the time before leggings or the t-shirt dress; when there was no gluten free pizza; when the patriarchy was taken for granted, cigarettes didn’t cause cancer, and Ernest Hemingway wasn’t an asshole. Human decency was the ability to speak in language so flowery that whomever you were insulting couldn’t decipher what you’d said before you were halfway down the street in the opposite direction. But now frat bois wear salmon shorts and everyone wears black to class on Thursdays. Farewell Halcyon days of innocent, pretentious bliss!
LILY WHITEMAN
Brexit:
The Britain that Was
We used to look across the pond in fervent, aggressive disdain, fully aware of all our rugged individualist shortcomings in comparison to our dear old disowned mother England. And even if Brexit has got nothing on Trump, it is still jarring to see our better, former half making such bad life decisions. Leaving for college is supposed to mean leaving behind all that sibling-style drama. The EU was the shit. Or at least it was the closest thing to the shit we could hope to ask for as self-interested and self-indulgent millennials. But now, picture Donald Trump Jr.'s butt chin cruising the aisles of a Whole Foods with an Ed Sheeran song playing in the background. Stiff upper BBC, chaps. Keep calm and carry on toward a world of pain, overpriced produce, and idiotic nationalism. LILY WHITEMAN
Goodbye, Sweet Taylor
Dearly Beloved, We gather here today not to mourn the loss of Taylor Snake Swift, but to celebrate her life. Born to rich stockbroker parents in suburban Pennsylvania, Taylor grew up loving music and theater. At the tender age of 14, she moved to Nashville, with nothing but a guitar, a big dream, and her father’s influence and fortune. With her money and white feminine charms alone, she gained the attention of several record label companies and eventually was signed to Big Machine Records, which her father coincidentally bought a $120,000 stake in! The Lord truly does work in mysterious ways. From there, she had a clear path to success and stardom. Her sweet country girl demeanor was cute, but not threatening, and boy, could she write a break up song. She gave the public a peek into her personal life, and her revolving series of white boyfriends while expertly maintaining her country girl reputation. Her “Girl Squad,”
composed of various models, singers, and known reanimated troll doll Lena Dunham, was the envy of every white feminist in the country. Some people were so envious that they stormed her stage and snatched the microphone from her. After graciously forgiving Big Scary Kanye with her song Innocent, Taylor moved on to write 1989, one of the best-selling pop albums of all time. But that brutish Kanye couldn’t stay quiet for long. Four tracks into his lightly anticipated album, he calls our sweet Taylor a “bitch” and says that he made her famous, which we all know she did herself by publicly dissing her ex-boyfriends! Tay bravely stood up for herself at the Grammys, expertly defending her title as America’s Sweetheart. Little did she know, Krafty Kim would produce “illegally” recorded videos of Taylor seemingly approving the lyric. Taylor fought her best fight,
begging that Slut Kim to leave her out of this narrative, but Kim crusaded on, crushing our poor girl where she stood. May she rest in peace. Goodbye, sweet Taylor. A source that attended the memorial service tells Jester that at the conclusion of the service, held in Karlie Kloss’s NYU dorm, Selena Gomez began hysterically wailing and pulling her hair out, as per the Ancient Egyptian funeral tradition.
CHARLOTTE DE ANDA
Fidelity Is More Dead Than Your Tinder Profile
You’re 156 days into Netflix and chill, and dinner dates, and beach days, and whatever else couples do, and you’re hit with, “well babe, I didn’t think we were like dating, dating.” Gen X boys, or Gen Z boys, or millennials, or fuck boys, or whatever you want to call them, all want some sort of semblance of a girlfriend, without any real responsibility of having to be a boyfriend. Which, I personally think, can get a LITTLE tricky for the girl on the receiving end, but hey, sharing is caring. I was once dating someone for four months and one night when we were hanging out I happened to catch him on Tinder. I asked, very politely, “do you think that when you’re
sitting right next to me you could, I don’t know, not be on Tinder?” He looked up, rattled, but certainly not rattled enough, and said, “oh my god, it’s a joke, it’s pretty hilarious.” Raise your hand if you think it’s hilarious. But lets look at this on a grander scale. Regardless if you’ve been seeing someone for a month, you’ve been “dating” for years, you’re engaged, or married, it seems no matter what and no matter who you are, you’re gonna get screwed, figuratively, and, hopefully, literally. If Jay Z has to cheat on Beyonce, do any of us really stand a chance? And if Brad can’t even keep it in his pants for Angelia I think all hope is lost. So, RIP, fidelity, may you one day be resurrected. CLAIRE NOYER
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Mr. and Mrs. Smith... … need to go back to that therapist. Hard to imagine that the sex wasn’t still a 10, but maybe the quality of sex and number of adopted children is an inverse ratio. Brangelina was so good while it lasted. Any picture of the two of them was an advertisement for the ideal threesome. But now any reality
of some such threesome would have to be either total fanfiction or some hard core hate sex. These were a great two years, but every ending is a new beginning and the divorce means that now Brad and Angie are on the market. And if I were you, I stop reading this and get crackin’ on that because someone’s got to beat Jennifer to the chase. But actually, nevermind, don’t move. That someone will be me. LILY WHITEMAN
Death of Democracy in Turkey
Boris Johnson, Britain’s illustrious foreign affairs minister, won a poetry competition in which he wrote about Erdogan sodomising goats. However, it has come to light that Erdogan sodomises more than just goats and dissidents- he had intimate relations with the alleged leader of Turkey’s recent failed coup. Videos have emerged of Recep Tayyip Erdogan (or his identical twin) doing Fethullah Gulen goat-style in every single one of the 1000 bedrooms in Erdogan’s new Presidential Palace. Unfortunately, their affair took a sour turn a few years ago. Gulen exiled himself to Pennsylvania whilst Erdogan dealt with this brutal heartbreak by attacking religious minorities in Turkey. After firing his shrink for refusing to be his rebound guy, Erdogan decided to deal with his repressed homosexuality by butchering women’s rights in Turkey. Asad, the glorious leader of the Free World of Syria, was turned on 18
when he heard about Erdogan’s new rocate by destroying every remnant of repressive policies. Finally, another western-style human rights in Turkey. Middle-Eastern leader who didn’t care He thought he would be able to break about human rights! After a highly the spell that had attracted Gulen to publicised love affair, they joined the Land of Trump by doing so. Unforced to murder the people who were fortunately, even after Erdogan jailed fighting Daesh. Putin, always ready and tortured the entire leadership of for an autocratic orgy, jumped right in. Turkey for the love of Gulen, the latter However, in spite of his newfound refused to return. lovers keeping his bed warm and the Well, this love affair died faster Kurds on fire, Erdogan continued to than Turkish democracy could yell, think about his original love, Gulen. “Kebab!” SUPRIYA AMBWANI Gulen, on the other hand, was too enamored by glorious American cheeseburgers to return to his native land, much to the chagrin of his former lover. ErdoGulen gan, annoyed by this extreme manifestation of western capitalism that kept him away from the love of his life, decided to recipErdogan Johnson
HISTORICAL COVER
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