In July 2025, the Town of Poughkeepsie signed a contract with the International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) to acquire 100 acres of land off of Route Nine—between the IBM campus and the Locust Grove Estate—and use it to create a publicly accessible park. While the land is owned by IBM, it has never been developed and is currently inaccessible to the public.
The acquisition has been a multi-year process led by the Town of Poughkeepsie Planning Department. According to the Department, as of October 2025, the Town has raised a total of $1.1 million from a combination of state and local grants and a donation from Scenic Hudson, as well as an additional $100,000 from the Town’s Parks and Recreation budget. Despite a private appraisal valuing the land at $1.8 million, IBM has agreed to meet the Town’s proposed offer of $1.1 million.
Mike Welti, the Director of Municipal Development at the Town of Poughkeepsie Planning Department, has been leading the initiative. “It’s our intention to use it more as a natural space… There would be a need to create a trailhead and a parking area,” Welti told The Miscellany News “We envision maybe some trails with some scenic overlooks. There are some great views of the river when you get over to the western side of the property, but it is really
meant for passive recreation.”
Vassar Urban Studies major Anna Orginou ’28 reflected on what the space could mean to the Poughkeepsie community. Having visited both the IBM campus and the proposed park space, she was optimistic about the area’s potential. “I think [a park] would be a great use of the space. The
Letter to the Editor
The recent coverage by The Miscellany News of the ongoing contract negotiations between Vassar College workers and its administration reflected our community’s reality. The reporting showed workers openly expressing feelings of being unseen, under-resourced and underpaid.
These accounts should disturb every student here, because gratitude without solidarity is, at best, an empty gesture.
I admit I often fall into the lull of gratitude’s routine. When I think about the acknowledgments section of my thesis at the end of the next semester, I imagine thanking professors, classmates and family. I also want to recognize those who clean the dorms, run the dining hall and collect our trash. These workers are the unseen foundation of our education.
Yet, an everyday “hello” and “thank you” does not equal standing together with those who keep our campus running while they fight for living wages, safe working conditions and respect.
The Miscellany News’ News Editor Julian Balsley and Assistant News Editor Hadley Amato’s reporting highlighted the stakes clearly: Workers shared feelings of being unacknowledged by the administration and described a troubling lack of respect, as they were labeled unqualified and uneducated for the roles they hold.
Read Ben Kaplan’s analysis of Geese’s new album and rise to critical acclaim.
These issues add to insufficient workplace conditions. The most notable issue for students is the barely-functioning dishwasher in Gordon Commons. These are not minor grievances. They affect the safety, dignity and efficacy of the people caring for our campus. Workers are not here for the administration; they are here for you, the students.
Administrators quoted in the article spoke about “ongoing dialogue” and a commitment to “fair compensation, benefits and a healthy workplace culture.”
Those words matter. But words without measurable action fall short when workers describe a lived experience of stagnant wages and inadequate resources.
Members of the Working Student Coalition and Student Labor Dialogue have made it clear that Vassar cannot function without its workers—student solidarity matters immensely. When students show up, it undermines any argument suggesting workers are isolated or that their demands are parochial.
Students benefit from these services; we therefore have an ethical duty to move beyond polite gratitude to active support.
So what should that support look like? First, start by being informed. We are students, and critical thinking is part of our education. Second, make it visible
See Solidarity on page 14
OPINIONS
Julian Balsley interrogates the relationship between history and journalism.
entire IBM campus, that plot of land, is so underused right now, and it’s such prime real estate in the sense that it’s right next to the Hudson,” she said. “Having a space for people to be able to enjoy the nature that they live in and just have a nice place to go…would be very important for Pough-
Cormac Minarovich Guest Columnist
[CW: This article makes mention of murder, suicide and general violence]
Valedictorian-Salutatorian
Mur-
der-Suicide: The first Vassar ghost story I ever heard was one of its most famous: The Valedictorian-Salutatorian Murder-Suicide in Main House. Upon searching through old The Miscellany News articles cataloging the College’s ghosts, I found several variants of this story. The story goes that the valedictorian and salutatorian were roommates in Main House room 423, and the salutatorian pushed her friend out the window to take the coveted title for herself. Overwhelmed with guilt, she jumped out too (or hung herself, depending on the version). Another account says that they were not roommates, but nextdoor neighbors, and the salutatorian was jealous that the valedictorian had gotten the best room. Thais Soloman, Class of 1995, was the last person to live in the room and was allegedly driven out by the haunting. The room is no longer a dorm, officially for fire safety, because it can only be accessed by a single staircase. There are, however, other towers in Main that only have one staircase, so Soloman maintained that the real reason was the
On Oct. 8, visual artist Elana Herzog visited Vassar’s Taylor Hall auditorium to discuss an overview of her work. Herzog was born in Toronto, Canada, and earned her undergraduate degree at Bennington College where she began her work as an installation artist. Her interdisciplinary approach gained traction in the ’90s, establishing herself in the Brooklyn art scene. Now, Herzog’s catalog extends beyond New York, exhibiting in Connecticut and New Jersey, while also forming an international presence in countries such as Georgia and the United Arab Emirates.
Herzog’s early works consisted of the manipulation of household textiles such as curtains and bed sheets, often distorting these fabrics through other materials such as elastic. One of the notable pieces she touched on in her lecture was Untitled I, which features a shower curtain stretched by rubber bands and elastics to create dimension. Herzog discussed that the materials she used in her works, includingUntitled I, were often bought at dollar stores or salvaged at yard sales and flea markets. Her early works were often colorful, containing many different textures, infusing her art with a sense of playfulness. In her talk, Herzog acknowledged the absurdity of some of her projects, rejecting what she described
as the self-seriousness and humourless tendencies of the art world.
After working with domestic textiles, Herzog transitioned into elaborate installations using carpets and rugs. When making these pieces, Herzog would staple the textiles she created along preexisting patterns and then rip them away, only leaving certain remnants of the original design. Herzog stated that she often liked when these pieces worked in tandem with the environment they were in, making it difficult for the viewer to determine where the wall starts and the fabric ends. Thematically, this era of Herzog played with the idea of disintegration both as a physical and metaphorical concept.
Physically, the work appeared as if it was disintegrating, but it also served as an almost pessimistic viewpoint of where Herzog believed art was headed in the 1970s. She expressed that her abstract style comes as a response to the themes of 1970’s art and her desire to challenge whether art had truly reached its ceiling during the decade. The deterioration of her works can be interpreted as a mirroring of art in the ’70s—slowly withering away, losing its shape and identity. Her “violent” stapling of fabric also represented a sense of permanency in her art, as she was unable to preserve the piece once the exhibit was finished. Herzog explained being comfortable with this conclusion, claiming that
Ava Gurley covers the Las Vegas Aces’ success.
Madeline Nusbaum and Iggy Gutierrez Guest Reporters
Hadley Amato/The Miscellany News.
Hadley Amato Assistant News Editor
Your Move
Join the Vassar Chadwick Chess Club
Vassar Chadwick, which has met on the Vassar campus since the 1970s, draws both Vassar students and staff as well as people from around the mid-Hudson Valley, including youngsters, working folk from the community and retirees.
Come play tournament chess in a supportive community at 7pm on Mondays in Rockefeller Hall Rooms 101 & 104.
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Town of Poughkeepsie to turn IBM land into park
Continued from IBM on page 1 keepsie.”
In an interview with The Miscellany News, Welti emphasized the hands-off approach that the Town intends to create in the space, reiterating, “We’re not going to be clearing the property and developing ball fields or things like that.”
The acquisition continues Poughkeepsie’s relationship with IBM. The corporation opened its first manufacturing facility in Poughkeepsie in 1941, and not long after, opened several laboratories on one centralized campus in the surrounding suburbs. IBM’s presence allowed for the creation of around 8,000 new jobs in the mid-20th century. Their decision to locate in the Town of Poughkeepsie has reportedly contributed to the economic decline of various areas of downtown.
On IBM’s relationship with Poughkeepsie, Welti commented, “We’re happy that they’re here. We’re happy that they’re investing in the campus. I mean, those are well-paying jobs, those are buildings that are being repurposed where there’s infrastructure.”
Vassar Professor of Political Science and F. Thompson Chair Katherine Hite gave her insight on the IBM-Poughkeepsie relationship. Hite co-taught a course on the political economy of Poughkeepsie in Spring 2025. “For the Town of Poughkeepsie, I can imagine that IBM has been of benefit. I do not think that the same can be said for the City of Poughkeepsie,” Hite noted. Director of the International Studies Department Timothy Koechlin, who co-taught the Poughkeepsie course with Hite, echoed these sentiments. “IBM has abandoned and disrupted life in Poughkeepsie and the mid-Hudson valley dramatically. It owes the people of the mid-Hudson valley.”
Hite cited the separation of the Spackenkill High School from the Poughkeepsie City High School as a part of IBM’s lingering impact. “For me, this [the history] is best symbolized by IBM’s virtual creation of the Spackenkill neighborhood, which fought for many years, ultimately successfully, against both the PCSD (Poughkeepsie City School District) and the State of New York Department of Education, to establish its own public school district and high school,” Hite explained. She expanded, “It meant a separate, small, far more affluent, white public school district, at the cost of an important tax base and constituency for the PCSD.”
Today, Spackenkill High School (SHS) performs far better than Poughkeepsie High School (PHS) in numerous educational categories, boasting a 98 percent four year graduation rate, while Poughkeepsie High School’s four year graduation rate is 56 percent. SHS additionally has a chronic absenteeism rate of 18.3 percent, while PHS has a rate of 46.3 percent. Spackenkill High has predominantly white students,
while Poughkeepsie has predominantly lower-income students of color. To Hite, the apparent inequalities of the two high schools were inseparable from IBM’s presence in the Town of Poughkeepsie, explaining that the separation of the high schools and districts were done “all with IBM support.”
Discussing the legacy of IBM’s presence in Poughkeepsie, Hite questioned what else the company could do to make amends with the Town. “I have often wondered about what a significant IBM reparations project for the City of Poughkeepsie might look like… A new Poughkeepsie High School campus, say, with state-of-the-art facilities that match those of Spackenkill or Arlington? A magnet school program in the STEM at PHS, with area college faculty partnering with high school teachers? These are just two that come to mind,” Hite offered.
From the urban planning perspective, Welti expressed gratitude toward IBM for agreeing to sell the land at a lower price: “In the end, if this property turns out [to be] valued at $1.8 million, and we’re buying it for $1.1 [million], they’ve donated $700,000 of value, which is significant, and we appreciate it.” He continued, “We will be happy to talk about this as a winwin for us and for them as a good corporate citizen of the community… They should be
proud of it and we’re proud of it.”
To Visiting Assistant Professor of Geography John Elrick, the acquisition raises important questions about the tensions of private and public land-use in Poughkeepsie. Elrick stated of his experiences in the region: “Coming to Poughkeepsie and seeing how little public access there is to the waterfront was striking to me. I couldn’t believe it.” Speaking of the land proposal itself, which would grant open river-front access to the public, Elrick explained, “I’m for it. I’m for expanding the public realm and democratic control over the built environment.”
To Elrick, this initiative is symbolically important to challenge the prevailing American land-use culture. “In a country like ours [where] life chances [and] experiences are dictated by enactments of private property…bringing more space into the public realm [and] democratizing it is key if we want to build a more just and equitable world,” he explained.
Elrick and Koechlin also expressed their belief that both the Town and IBM would need to take additional steps after the acquisition to ensure that the proposed park leads to an equitable outcome. Koechlin voiced that simply creating the park would not be enough, asserting, “This seems ‘good,’ but IBM should do more. For starters, how about an endowment to fund the
development and maintenance of this public space?” Elrick similarly raised concerns about mobility being a potential barrier to people’s access to the park: “Is it going to be ‘public,’ but only really available to particular people with automobiles during certain times of the day?”
Elrick expanded on this to suggest that, if pushing back on land privatization is the goal, more structural changes would be necessary. “I’m not sure that’s something a planning department can achieve under contemporary circumstances. I think the movement [to challenge land privatization] has to be one rooted in social life, in political movements.” He expanded, “It would require a transformation of the state, into a state and set of institutions that are committed to social justice, to redistribution of wealth, to securing access to property that’s not privatized.”
Currently, the deal between the Town of Poughkeepsie and IBM has been contracted, and barring any unforeseen objection, the land is set to be sold in June 2026. The excitement of having a park on the land was clear from the perspective of Orginou, who concluded, “I think people having access to a beautiful space is a lot more important than we realize… I think being around a nice park and nature allows you to relax in a way that the IBM campus, right next to this said hiking trail, doesn’t.”
Herzog discusses installation work with Vassar students
Continued from HERZOG on page 1
removing her work added to the cyclical and routine nature of life, drawing a connection between art and the everyday.
At the end of Herzog’s discussion, she showed images of one of her most notable recent pieces, entitled “Global Floral.” “Global Floral” is an unleashing of all Herzog’s self-proclaimed maximalist tendencies, her most “graphic” work. Herzog experimented with printing different-sized images of a piece she had created to blanket the entirety
of a room with this image. She then used different textiles she had collected from around the world, such as Egypt, Russia and Finland, to overlay the existing wallpaper, creating dimension throughout the room. “I really liked her fabric work and the way she talked about her process was really interesting,” said Wyatt Keleshian ’26. “Except, one thing that a lot of people had qualms with was her use of Persian and Middle Eastern motifs while being a white woman and not really discussing where they came from.”
Herzog discussed that throughout her career, she has had the pleasure of traveling to many different countries, often shopping in local markets for textiles, and therefore experiencing the fabric labor force firsthand. The eclectic mix of fabrics gathered from these travels carries the piece’s idea of labor in the global textile industry, as well as ideas of cultural exchange and interconnectedness. She discussed that the vastness of this piece was meant to spark curiosity and sensory pleasure.
Herzog’s lecture not only allowed students to gain a deeper insight into her work, but also offered a Q&A at the end of talk, opening the floor to students with further questions or comments. “I really liked how she told her story in a very personable way,” said Willow Grote ’26. “Like, it just felt like we were talking one-on-one.” The Claflin Lectures, such as Herzog’s discussion earlier this month, are a way for students to become more exposed to different types of art, and have the opportunity to engage with artists firsthand.
Hadley Amato/The Miscellany News.
“One Battle After Another” is entertaining and insightful
“One Battle After Another,” released last month and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, lived up to its name for me; it was an exhausting watch. Not in a bad way, though—I was on the edge of my seat for its entire nearly three-hour runtime. The film is an action movie that simultaneously thrills you and allows you to feel the time pass while you are watching. It is also a family drama with prescient political commentary. I was initially excited to see how Anderson, who has a diverse filmography but is known for portraying intense, psychologically rich themes in his work, would tackle this more overtly political, less character-driven film. In an interview for his earlier film “Magnolia” (1999), he said his goal was to make an epic film about “family relationships” instead of “important social topics,” which did not interest him at the time. While this movie definitely dips its toes into some important social topics, it continuously returns to those ideas of family, love and loss.
The first act introduces us to the lofty but short-lived goals of a group of leftist revolutionaries called the French 75 as they execute missions, including freeing people from an immigration detention center and shutting down power grids. The key members of this group are Pat Calhoun (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor), who quickly fall in love with each other. At
the same time, Perfidia becomes involved with immigration enforcement officer Steven J. Lockjaw (Sean Penn). They have a complicated relationship; he fetishizes her as a Black woman, but she actually flips this power dynamic to manipulate him and avoid being arrested.
Unbeknownst to Pat, he becomes the biological father of her child, Charlene (Chase Infiniti). Penn gave one of my favorite performances of the film by capturing the perfect combination of evil and pitiful. Both Pat and Lockjaw want Perfidia to be something she simply is not; Pat wants her to stay and raise Charlene together, which she rejects by leaving him to continue working with the French 75. After she is eventually arrested, Lockjaw gives her the loaded offer of “the embrace of the federal government”, or legal protection if she betrays her comrades’ identities and lives with him, which she initially accepts before escaping and vanishing across the border. This messy love triangle works as an allegory for the entanglement of the personal and political, or how the state and the family at once reinforce and conflict with each other as institutions in America.
To see the ramifications of these actions and tensions, the movie skips forward 16 years. Pat and Charlene live in hiding under the aliases of Bob and Willa Ferguson in the sanctuary city of Baktan Cross, California; Bob is a paranoid stoner who needs to be virtually babysat by Willa, who has grown into a confident teenager. Lockjaw has sub-
limated his sexual frustration over Perfidia into a quest to join a white supremacist group comically named the Christmas Adventurers Club; he has decided to hunt down Bob and Willa to eliminate the evidence of his past involvement with Perfidia. To achieve this, he mobilizes the expansive apparatus of the authoritarian government in the film’s parallel-universe version of the United States— immigration enforcement officers, the local police and private entities, such as a morally conflicted bounty hunter—to terrorize Baktan Cross’ immigrant community and crash Willa’s high school prom, among other things.
The film’s portrayal of immigration crackdowns and broader government repression resonates deeply with the ICE raids within America throughout Trump’s second presidency so far. Importantly, though, the film has, according to Anderson, been in the works for years as a loose adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s 1990 novel “Vineland,” which dissects Reagan-era conservatism. The movie’s revolutionaries are represented through details that reflect the 1960s counterculture and the Black Panthers; ideas that still exist in our cultural imagination but have no material equivalent today. To view the film as simply a reaction to the current moment would be a disservice to understanding the historical basis of the issues it portrays. As Perfidia notes in a voiceover, 16 years after her escape, the world had changed very little in that time.
The movie, however, did fall a little short of perfect for me. My main gripe is that many
characters lack depth and true emotional development. The film obviously wants you to root for Willa, but it feels a bit like a process of elimination because everyone else is either so incredibly pathetic, like Bob and obviously Lockjaw, or sadly underutilized. For example, the convent of kickass ninja nuns that get about three minutes of screentime before they all get arrested. Justice for the nuns! Would I recommend it, though? Of course. There is so much more I could say about it. Here are just a few more things that really, really worked for me. First, the cinematography was incredible. Tense scenes like car chases are really effectively shot with a choppy, fast-paced mix of unsteady handheld footage, POV shots and disorienting angles. The scenes at Willa’s high school are short but are genuinely the most realistic media portrayals of young adults I have ever seen. It was very refreshing to watch something that resists the “Euphoria”-ization of the high school experience.
Ultimately, “One Battle After Another” gives a frankly terrifying portrayal of a government that can find out seemingly anything and do whatever it wants to people with no consequences. Without giving away the details, it also shows alternatives where one’s chosen family and community can triumph to come out the other side stronger than before. Really, “One Battle After Another” boils down to a new version of the family stories Anderson has been telling for decades, and there is nothing wrong with that.
Crafting the perfect week of TV
Whenthe weather starts to turn colder, the trees change color and schoolwork becomes more difficult, I like to turn my attention to TV. This time of year, for many, means a deep dive back into “Gilmore Girls” or “Friends,” but my problem is that those old standards can become far too all-consuming. I find myself procrastinating and couch-potato-ing because I become so attached to my fall rewatch. Instead, I fill my week with new releases. From Tuesday to Friday, I have curated a perfect week of fresh episodes to keep my TV consumption at a tolerable level, and I leave Monday and the weekends to catch up, or, if you are anything like my Terrace Apartment, dabble in some episodes of “Glee.”
Tuesday: “Dancing with the Stars”
Some people have “The Bachelor,” some people have “Love Island.” I have “Dancing with the Stars.” While I could not be happier that the past couple of seasons have newly captured the attention of audiences everywhere, I have long been a part of the “DWTS” fanbase. My mom got me tickets to see their live tour for my 13th birthday, and that is only one piece of concrete evidence that I have to prove my undying love for this ballroom dance competition. For those unfamiliar, the format is very similar to “Strictly Ballroom,” which is its British counterpart. Every season, 12 to 15 celebrities, ranging in both ages and, to be perfectly honest, actual celebrity status, are paired up with ballroom dancing professionals. While the celebrities change every season, the pros are much more consistent. Some of the people I remember watching in early middle school are very much still kicking and waltzing on the show currently. The pros act as teachers and choreographers, guiding their celebrity partner through a new routine and dance style every week. A panel of judges, who are simply too hilarious to ex-
plain in a mere paragraph, score their final product. Those results are then combined with viewers’ votes to eliminate one couple every week. If you are skeptical that ballroom dancing is not interesting enough for you, or you have no prior knowledge, I guarantee you that not only will you become completely invested in both the celebrity and their pro, but you will believe yourself to be the leading expert in cha-cha, jive and tango technique after a mere couple of episodes.
Wednesday: “Abbott Elementary”
Do you ever wish that you could have been tuning in to “The Office,” “30 Rock” or “Parks and Recreation” while they were airing every week? I know I do, which is why I count myself lucky to be able to have new episodes of “Abbott Elementary” to enjoy every week. They are tight episodes at around 20 minutes each, so it is truly the perfect show to watch as you are getting ready to go to sleep or if you need a quick brain break in the middle of studying. I personally consider “Abbott Elementary” to be a fun exercise in watching a true sitcom-style show and then having the patience to wait another week for the next episode. It allows me to enjoy each moment of the story and the ways in which the plot is relevant to the modern-day social and political environment. Beyond that, it is truly a laughout-loud show with so many jokes per minute that it captures my full attention every single week. For those who have not been tuning in, “Abbott Elementary” is a mockumentary-style sitcom created by and starring Quinta Brunson as a second-grade teacher at a school in West Philadelphia. Her and her band of fellow teachers embark on hilarious adventures to try and better their school, students and themselves. In its five-season run, the show has picked up several Emmy awards along the way and continues to be a powerhouse leader in reviving the popularity of sitcoms.
Thursday: “Survivor”
While I am a proud “Dancing with the Stars” fan, I might be an even bigger one of “Survivor.” My brother and I were forcibly encouraged away from Disney Channel and Nickelodeon shows as children, and so we found our entertainment in things like Food Network, HGTV and, above all, “Survivor.”
We watched it back in the time of themed seasons on different island locations, where a classic challenge was mud wrestling. After the pandemic, “Survivor” ushered in what they are calling the New Era. The format is slightly different: the time on the island is shorter, and it takes place in the same part of Fiji every season. But, even though original watchers might protest, it is still “Survivor.”
The players are a variety of ages, careers and personalities, and bring with them a deep knowledge of the game and how they want to be playing. Jeff Probst, the longtime host, is still one of the greatest announcers and interviewers to ever step foot onto a game show, with enough little pockets on his shirt and shorts to hide all the secrets of the universe in. This season has more heart and camaraderie than old “Survivor” ever did. This makes voting people out more emotional, and it is harder as a viewer to decide who to root for. The “Survivor” motto is “Outwit, Outplay, Outlast,” and those remain the core tenets of how the show is run and how players approach their time on the island.
Friday: “The Great British Baking Show”
“The Great British Baking Show” is the perfect excuse to tuck in after a long week and spend a night worrying about whether Paul Hollywood will think the crumb of the sponge is worthy of a handshake, rather than my next thesis deadline. “Bake-Off,” as it is referred to in its British home base, has the special ability to combine competition, humor and quirkiness. It is both exciting to watch and completely stress-free. Contestants are working hard on their bakes but also enjoying each other’s company and their interactions
with the hosts. When sent home, they react with more of a knowing head nod than a devastating meltdown. They are all amateur bakers and are often submitted to the show by family and friends, so there is a distinct lack of ego and severity, and instead a gratitude to be a part of the “Bake-Off” family. Each episode is dedicated to a type of baking, like chocolate, bread and pastry, or a strange, random theme like Back to School or Roaring ‘20s. The format is divided into three parts: the signature, the technical and the showstopper. The signature is a smaller challenge, with each contestant selecting unique flavors and designs on a classic bake. The technical is judged blindly, and the bakers must try their best to recreate a mystery bake with little instruction and no preparation. The showstopper is meant to be just that: a show-stopping, intricate, flavorful creation that aligns with that week’s theme. At the end of the episode, someone is celebrated as the Star Baker, while another baker must leave the tent. It is a show that both tugs at the heartstrings and reminds you not to take anything too seriously. I recommend whipping up some box-mix brownies so you can feel included in the baking, putting on your favorite pair of pajamas and spending Friday night in the world of “Bake-Off.”
For me, one of the things that streaming services have taken away from the TV world is the shared camaraderie of waiting for an episode and watching it live. People used to plan their entire weeks around “Seinfeld” or “Friends,” but now those privileges seem reserved for sports fans. This summer, “Love Island” and “The Summer I Turned Pretty” reinvigorated that must-watch feeling that we have been missing. So my plea is to keep that feeling going, to find a community brought together by a shared love for a show, dedicated to following a show through its season, and to give yourself something to look forward to each week rather than succumbing to the ever-enticing binge.
Madeleine Nicks Arts Editor
Ashton Spradling Guest Columnist
Sonically placing late October: An autumn playlist
Brendan Kennedy Columnist
Orange maple leaves are sprawled across the quad. Carhartt jackets and Mary Janes have reemerged as fashion staples. The Crafted Kup workers are tired of making one-too-many pumpkin chai lattes. With the end of midterms and the ruminations of “Halloweekend” forthcoming, post-October break at Vassar is a thrilling time. While some scramble to gather last-minute costumes, others long for a stroll at Sunset Lake, getting lost within the mixtures of the warm-colored foliage and the autumnal music streaming from their wired headphones.
This playlist is for the autumn yearners— for those who bask in the pumpkin spice candles and spend their nights watching 90s horror movies in their dorm. Throw on the thrifted sweaters, and take a drive through the potent Hudson Valley greenery while you enjoy a sonic trip through an autumn escapade.
1. “Young Folks” by Peter Bjorn and John Picture this: You are fresh off the Metro-North and ready for the return to classes. As you finally approach campus, you see the gothic exterior of the Main Library and the warm, great windows of Main Building. You feel a sense of comfort as “Young Folks” glides through your ears, its catchy whistle pop and playful percussion driving your sense of return. City-like, jumpy and slick, this song aids the feeling of returning to the blooming campus in October.
2. “A Greater Love” by Yves Tumor “Don’t you ever feel like the weather brings change?” That is what Yves Tumor questions in the final track of his 2020 album, “Heaven To a Tortured Mind.” Calm and euphoric, its distorted guitar riffs and slow drums place
you in a trance as you watch the red leaves on the quad fall in the wind. “Autumn pulls me back into slumber,” he states at the end of the track; perhaps as the excitement of returning to campus fades away, you find peace within the sultry vocals of Tumor.
3. “Doomsday” by MF DOOM (featuring Pebbles the Invisible Girl)
Classes are back in full swing by now, and you have mountains of work to complete before you can even think of braving the fabled Halloween Tent. As you take your morning strolls through the chilly late-October air, MF DOOM offers a lush, jazz-inspired freeform rap song for you to escape to. Rapping about the resurrection of a villainous persona, MF DOOM creates a soulful, gritty environment, perfect for a pleasant walk to class or a late-night contemplation.
4. “Wolf in the Breast” by Cocteau Twins
The midweek contemplation does not end with MF DOOM. In fact, the Cocteau Twins have you covered for hours of lounging on your favorite “pondering bench” on campus. “Wolf in the Breast” is for those who enjoy getting disoriented in the crimson landscapes, enhanced by the band’s ethereal vocals and dream-pop soundscape.
5. “Steeeam” by Shelly
It is time to dance out your academic stresses alone in your dorm. The weekend is upon you, and what is the big deal about an essay anyway? Twirl around the glow of your fairy light-lined room as you groove to Shelly’s twangy electric guitar and relaxed drums. Move into Clairo’s vocals and forget about your troubles as the cozy track wraps itself around you. For a moment, you believe that everything will be okay.
6. “Dust Bowl” by Ethel Cain
Everything is not okay. The late October
weather is getting the best of you as you wither away in the Main Library basement. It is rainy and cold and you do not think you will ever finish your work. Ethel Cain’s haunting, alt-rock music is the only thing you can bear. “Dust Bowl” is lagging, atmospheric and reminiscent of a dark autumn night. The beat drop punches you in the gut and motivates you to finally finish your assignments.
7. “Dracula” by Tame Impala
Things are looking up. Your costumes have arrived, your work is complete and you are enjoying your third pumpkin spice latte of the week. “Dracula” is upbeat and has a dance-forward disco sound. Its pulsing rhythm, along with Kevin Parker’s signature psychedelic vocals, makes you excited for the Halloweekend ahead. Nothing can bring you down.
8. “You’re Not the Only One I Know” by The Sundays
The sun is shining. Your classmates are jumping in piles of leaves. Pumpkins line the steps of the residential houses. Life could not be better, and The Sundays understand exactly how you feel. Harriet Wheller’s ethereal singing expresses a sense of defiant independence over shimmering, layered guitar. Its dreamy and introspective mood allows you to bask in the quintessential autumnal feelings.
9. “Luna” by The Smashing Pumpkins
The sun has set, and the full moon has commenced. As you yearn for the eerie feeling of Halloween, The Smashing Pumpkins sing about offering support and love to someone in this melancholic track. If the band’s name is not enough to get you in the Halloween spirit, the track’s blend of alternative rock and introspective lyrics will surely leave the haunting melody stuck in your brain.
10. “There Is a Light That Never Goes Out” by The Smiths
The autumnal love songs do not end there. As you gear up your costumes for the eventful night ahead, The Smiths accompany your yearning for a “Halloweekend” fling. Sultry, smooth and buoyant, The Smiths sing of finding intimacy in the darkest of times, such as a car crash. Gather your friends and swing to the jumpy production as you prepare for the approaching evening festivities.
11. “Silver Jubilee” by Audrey Hobert
With a night out on the Vassar campus upon you, it is time to party with your friends. Audrey Hobert’s recent album, “Who’s The Clown?” is the perfect combination of exciting, fresh production and sharp lyrics about being a young adult. The track’s hyperpop anthem consists of bright, energetic sound and lyrics about embracing the messy, joyful experiences of youth and friendships.
12. “Everything Is Embarrassing” by Sky Ferreira
The night has been conquered. Perhaps you made a fool of yourself in front of your peers. Perhaps you slipped and fell on the steps of the Town Houses. Perhaps you lost half of your costume along the way and look like a deconstructed mess. As you walk back from whatever mediocre party you were at, amidst the night breezes and smashed pumpkins on the campus path, you realize that nothing truly matters: It is a “Ferreira Fall” after all. Bask in this dance-pop alternative ballad and forget about whatever silly mistakes you might have made. It is Halloween anyway.
You can find this playlist on our website.
Collier departs from discord in “The Light For Days”
Grace Finke Assistant Arts Editor
English singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Jacob Collier has commonly been lauded as a modern musical prodigy. Throughout his career, Collier has been known for his complex arrangements, unintuitive harmonies and unconventional orchestrations. Collier, however, takes a more stripped-back approach for his sixth studio album, “The Light For Days.” The album is a delightful blend of covers and original songs that introduces a new yet welcome aspect of Collier’s music: simplicity.
Collier was first discovered through his YouTube channel, where he would post reharmonized arrangements of his favorite songs. His 2013 cover of Stevie Wonder’s “Don’t You Worry ‘Bout a Thing”—featuring layered vocal harmonies, upright bass, electric bass, keyboard and a variety of other instruments, all performed by Collier—notably caught the ear of American producer Quincy Jones, who jump-started Collier’s professional career. From then on, Collier continued to explore the limits of what could be considered music, from demonstrating his customized musical hardware to turning his live audiences into choirs.
Collier’s previous albums are quite the display of musical virtuosity, allowing what he refers to as his “creative infinity syndrome” to have free rein over his proj-
ects. Although I personally appreciate the overly complex and, at times, unintelligible aspects of his music, I definitely feel that I most enjoyed his music with a notebook in front of me, ready to analyze whatever I hear.
A common criticism of Collier’s music is that it is too technical and difficult for audiences without extensive knowledge of music theory to understand. While this may apply to his other albums, “The Light For Days” balances the intricacies of music with a style that appeals to broader audiences.
Featuring six original songs and five covers, this album is mostly based around Collier’s iconic five-string guitar, with some tracks featuring a 10-string guitar. Collier used this project as an opportunity to explore the different capabilities of the instrument, exploring alternative tunings and different strumming patterns.
When my other music-obsessed friends discuss Collier, we typically come to the same consensus: His genius shines the most when his work is contained within a specific concept. Some examples of this are his reharmonization of The Beach Boys’ “In My Room,” and his background vocals for Lizzy McAlpine’s “Erase Me” and SZA’s “Good Days.”
This balance of figuring out how to channel his talents while maintaining the integrity of the song is on full display in “The Light For Days.” By adding the constraint of using one instrument, Collier’s
experimentation is contained to the limits of what blends with the sonic and stylistic qualities of the guitar. The soft strummed chords and cascading chromatic scales in the guitar take the front seat, making this album feel like an extended duet between Collier and his instrument.
That is not to say that Collier loses his characteristic creativity in this record. “Keep an Eye On Summer” features dizzying modulations and ad-libs. This cover of The Beach Boys’ 1964 song feels incredibly reminiscent of the usual madness Collier’s music embodies. “Sweet Melody,” the only track that had me intensely focused and caused a spiral of headache-inducing analysis, is rhythmically disorienting, with a guitar line in septuple meter—meaning seven beats per measure—as the vocal line falls into a contrasting sextuple rhythm at the lyric, “Kiss me with your mouth open.”
The rest of this album, however, is relatively simple, featuring comprehensible rhythms and delightfully consonant harmonies. One personal highlight of this album was “Norwegian Wood,” originally performed by The Beatles. I had grown up listening to The Beatles and always enjoyed the mirroring of the melody between John Lennon’s vocals and the sitar, performed by George Harrison, as well as the unconventional mixolydian scale in this song’s melody.
Collier performs a stripped-back rendition of “Norwegian Wood,” staying true to the song’s original harmonic structure
and featuring an isolated melody in the vocal line. This track has a playful feel—as if Collier simply started recording a solo jam session—with its constant shift in focus between Collier’s baritone voice and his guitar.
The final song, “Something Heavy,” diverges from the orchestration of the rest of the album, featuring piano and synthesizers in addition to the guitar. While quite a contrast in character, this track’s placement at the end of the record ties it together in a poignant way. This gentle ballad is an expression of what I love about this album: Collier’s love for music is an underlying thread connecting the complexity and indulgence of his work.
Previously, my sentiments about Collier were that his foremost audience was himself, followed by the small cohort of people who treat music like an exercise in analysis. However, “The Light For Days” takes a different approach, simultaneously displaying Collier’s musical ability while still being a pleasant collection of melodies and harmonies. Even a song as complicated as “Sweet Melody” still embraces this gentler character, with the uneven rhythm creating a joyful, swinging sensation.
“The Light For Days” contains everything I love about Collier’s music and has slowly become one of my favorite albums of his. I certainly hope that he continues to explore this balance between intricacy and accessibility in his music, as I believe this quiet restraint is what makes this album so lovely.
Geese has arrived on their own terms… kind of
Ben Kaplan Assistant Arts Editor
Over the summer of 2024, I saw the upand-coming indie rock band Geese open for King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, who had an electrifying set at a former racing track in East Boston. Geese though, they kind of sucked. The goofy visuals behind them and covers of songs like “Out of Time” by the Rolling Stones did not really catch my attention as I stood in line for merch. By the time I made it over to the stage, they were just sort of noodling around whilst Gizzheads around me sipped IPAs and dropped acid. They just did not sound that good, which I have heard contributes to their mediocre reputation at outdoor venues, as opposed to the cramped hole-inthe-walls of Brooklyn they began in, where they apparently bring a lot more energy.
What they did have, though, and I noticed even then, was personality. Frontman Cameron Winter, even without the attention and charisma he has gained much of over the last year, still commanded the stage. He was a center of attention whilst crooning over the songs from the band’s last album “3D Country”—along with a loose demo for some song about taxes. The rest of the outfit exuded some kind of mix between a “Scooby-Doo”-esque friend group and a great band you see once in an Allston basement before they break up to focus on their studies at Berklee College of Music.
Fast forward to Winter, coming off of a more personal and blues-inspired approach in his solo album “Heavy Metal,” who has catapulted Geese to the level of success a New York rock band has not fully achieved since Julian Casablancas left behind his familial wealth for the streets of Alphabet City, beginning the early days of The Strokes. Geese’s new record, “Getting Killed,” could be an easy coronation, but it is not fully. Instead of sticking to the generically early 2020s sound of “3D Country”—a tight but somewhat amateur mix of “twee” indie rock with a soft edge of raucous country—“Getting Killed” has a very new but still approachable sound. Maybe the band has compromised on themselves in their new album in a few ways, and even the scene they hope to spearhead as well.
It takes a lot of guts to open your album with “Trinidad,” a track that, from the first seconds, introduces an element paramount to all of “Getting Killed”: heavy bass. It is lumbering in the mix and, along with the
looser approach on drums and guitar riffs, brings an attempted “art-rock” sensibility to the sound of nearly every song on the album. Back to “Trinidad,” it is a warning by the band that they are past most of their former naivety, with riffs popping in and out of the mix as Winter both hilariously and menacingly screams, “There’s a bomb in my car!” It slowly builds up to a growling bridge that, by the time it and the song have ended, leaves the listener with a level of subtle awe.
Is it kind of an “indie band tries to sound more experimental than they fundamentally are” song? Absolutely, no question about that. It is still an impressive display of production—especially in mixing—and artistic intent. Similarly, it is bold to end the album with “Long Island City Here I Come,” a longer and more expansive journey of a track that sees Winter toy around with his strained vocals and storytelling in ways I hope the band expands on in future projects.
Things are more relaxed for most of the middle of the album, as “Cobra” takes on a honky-tonk beat with lingering bluesy vocals, satisfying melodic harmonization and drooping guitar. Heavy bass and varied percussion, especially bongos, lay the foundation for jumpy, excited tracks like “100 Horses” and “Getting Killed,” with the highlight of this section being the slowly built-up “Islands of Men.” Vocally, especially in these more languid tracks, it becomes insanely clear—at least to me—that Winter may be the biggest Lou Reed fan since Andy Warhol. The euphoria of his singing on “3D Country” is now a growling yearning, especially noticeable on tracks like “Husbands” and “Bow Down.” This is nothing new if you listened to “Heavy Metal,” and this project pulls heavily in more ways than that from Winter’s solo work. There is a sense, almost apropos of older folksy Bob Dylan, that Winter is really trying to say something on a lot of tracks, like his statement that “there is only dance music in times of war” in “100 Horses.” At times, this album clicks very, very well. However it does have its flaws.
The sound Geese went for in this album, largely produced by Kenny Beats, can be unfocused and, at times, messy. This was clearly a goal of the band after the tightness of past songs like “I See Myself” or “Cowboy Nudes” from their previous album, but it has mixed results. As an avid fan of noodling, I will not harp on the band for
trying to open up the mix, but it can really feel unguided. These songs are just not long enough to fully capture the expansive noises they are trying to develop. This stands starkly opposed to something that Geese wants more than anything: to be the
pre-eminent band of something I would loosely call the “Bushwick scene.”
There is a reason people like albums such as “Manning Fireworks” by MJ Lenderman—it sticks to a singular sound and genre in a music landscape where the popular sound has become intrinsically mangled with so many differing influences to attract the most amount of listeners. At its very, very worst, “Getting Killed” thinks it is jamming when, in reality, it is a “monogenre-ization” of the indie rock scene as it currently stands. Not sure what to put in the back? Layer Winter whining and add in a bunch of bongos with a vague Latin influence. Not sure how to really add flow to the track? Tight riffs are back in “3D Country”;
now Geese have to do a melodic guitar section you could get better from any current psych-rock outfit. This album needed—if they really wanted to pull off the art-rock and “voice of a generation” gimmick they hoped to achieve as a band—Geese to keep the sound tighter.
This is not to say they should have experimented less. In fact, they need to experiment more. “Trinidad” and “Bow Down” truly stand out because the mix is toyed with and the traditional structures are left behind. It is also blasphemous that Winter, after an entire album displaying how his vocal style is perfect with the piano, decided to barely include the instrument at all in this project. There is a reason the emotional high point of this project is “Au Pays Du Cocaine”: It cuts out the unneeded noise and focuses entirely on a somber story which Winter ponders over before the track collapses on a noisy build-up that, comically, sounds to me a lot like “White Light/White Heat” by The Velvet Underground.
This is a good album, do not get me wrong. It sounds fresh, has some great lyrics courtesy of Winter’s prolific pen and has some true highlights. It is interesting how the album begins with a fiery declaration in “Trinidad” and ends in “Long Island City Here I Come,” a track that actually gives the percussion and Winter’s vocals time and space to really rise and fall. Throughout, there are some tracks that will definitely pass the test of time and make their way onto indie playlists for years to come. There are plenty of moments the band creates that give the “I cannot wait to mosh to when I see them in Brooklyn next month” feel. What, in my eyes, Geese needs to do to truly achieve the stewardship over this emerging indie rock scene that they so deeply desire is to be more like King Gizzard and not be afraid. Forget the critics, forget the punks in Bushwick and forget the pulls of the monogenre in modern music. Experiment and push until your art is truly yours and your sound belongs to you and no one else.
Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Attending a Halloween dog parade in the city
Lora Janczewski Columnist
Halloween is right around the corner. It is the day when people decorate their homes in cobwebs or anything else you would usually not like to find on your front porch, consume dentist-scaring quantities of sweets and dress up in incredibly niche costumes. Whether you love it, hate it or feel indifferent toward the festivities, there is something that can unite us all: a love for looking at cute animals, especially if they are grinning dogs walking in the Washington Square Park’s Annual Halloween Dog Parade.
On Saturday, Oct. 25, I attended the third Washington Square Park Halloween Dog Parade. I arrived there at a little past noon and was greeted by a swarm of wild land and water animals, ghouls and ghosts, and many beloved characters that had become lovely costumes for all kinds of dogs. Many were dressed incredibly and creatively—I was at a loss for words. Some people were matching with their furry friends, making the ultimate duo costumes: angels and devils, zookeepers
Recounting
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College trying to cover up the haunting.
Florence Cushing: One of Cushing House’s ghosts is none other than Florence Cushing, Class of 1874, herself. She inhabits the east wing of the building, sometimes wandering the hallways. She has reportedly been seen in the windows of several rooms, and one student claimed that every night as she went to sleep, she could feel a ghostly presence in the room. Florence’s favorite pastime is said to be slamming doors. While many credit this to drafts, others maintain that it is Florence.
Gertrude Angeline Bronson: On Halloween day, 1975, The Miscellany News proclaimed “Identity of Vassar Ghost Revealed; Bewitching Cover-up Since 1895.” At long last, the name of the ghost who tormented the residents of Main 318 was revealed: Gertrude Angeline Bronson. The residents of this room had long reported shadows lurking in the corners, returning to their room to find furniture moved around, doors slamming and opening when nobody was there.
The article claims that the College went to great lengths to cover up the presence of this ghost. Vassar was already short of housing and did not want to give up a room. Furthermore, the article claims that Dean Drouilhet, who had worked at the College for well over a half-century, did not want a ghost stealing her title of oldest person on campus. The College was so determined to cover this story up that The Miscellany News reporter on the story received an anonymous message offering a Joss single in exchange for ceasing the investigation.
When the story came to public attention, the initials “G. A. Bronson ’95” were found scrawled on the window. Digging through old Vassarions, The Miscellany News found her to be Gertrude Angeline Bronson, from the Class of 1895. They found quotes from her mentioning drunkenness, insanity and suicide, which reporters concluded was the reason for her death a year after graduation. The article alleges that the administration’s cover-up began then, listing the cause of death as typhoid fever, and continued till that moment.
and lions, and Scooby Doo and Shaggy. Some people carried their dressed-up companions, others were wheeled around in equally decorated pet strollers and still several walked side by side on leashes, ropes or on the chains of some ghostly apparition. I saw other people who, like me, had no dog beside them. We came to gawk and admire the waves of princess pooches and haunted hounds. After the parade, a new winner of the costume contest was announced. Congratulations to Jojo Bonjovi and Cruz for the cutest Guns N’ Roses display ever! I must say, though, that I was personally rooting for Mochi, who was dressed as Taylor Swift’s ring finger—talk about creativity!
The Halloween Dog Parade of New York City started as a small event in 1990 in Tompkins Square Park. It was hosted among a group of friends in an effort to create a lasting dog run in the park. This gathering quickly racked up numbers and became a tradition that turned into a proper event that people looked forward to attending in the city. Now, in Tompkins Square Park every October, hundreds of dogs dressed to impress waltz around
the East Village, followed by the oohs and aahs of smitten bystanders.
Although Tompkins Square Park’s Halloween Dog Parade has the grandest crowd and the liveliest group of participants, many more dog parades have popped up around the city and nearby neighborhoods. Now, you can find yearly dog parades in Washington Square Park, Riverside Park, Socrates Sculpture Park, Fort Greene Park and so many other parks in the city.
These Halloween pup parades may seem like a silly event to attend—simply an adorable way to kill some time on a slightly chillier weekend—but events like these are so much more important to the community and human connection than we may realize. When I attended the Washington Square Park parade, even just momentarily, I was met with many warm smiles, the laughter of those around me and strangers asking strangers to pet each other’s dogs. People exchanged names and adoption stories, numbers and groomer recommendations. It was lovely being a part of such an open community joined together by a love for animals and their furry friends. It
was refreshing to take in all the people talking to each other and making new friends on the spot when so much of our lives are spent avoiding eye contact with one another and being afraid of starting conversations with those we find interesting—even if we just want to say that a person’s dog looks cute. You could really tell that people were genuinely happy to be participating in the parade and that bystanders were also beyond satisfied to be there. People passing by stopped by to see what the event was about and stayed a while, and even then, they did not leave without getting to know the names of a few dogs and their owners. It goes to show just how much of a community-building event these experiences are and how important they are in making everyone’s day just a bit brighter.
Little traditions like these remind us to appreciate the simple pleasures of life. There is happiness in being able to dress up an excited dog, and there is joy in seeing and making connections with those around you. After attending this event, I can only hope that we get to see some dolled-up dogs on campus for Halloween soon!
the hauntings of Vassar College
mert graduated from Vassar in 1915, and then went on to be a chemistry professor. She died in 1932, allegedly by suicide. A half-century later, her spirit still dwelled in Sanders Chemistry (now Sanders Classroom). The iconic VSA President Jane Bishop ’72 (affectionately known to the student body as Il Doge) communicated with Olive Lammert via an Ouija board. When asked why she still haunted Sanders, Lammert replied, “Chemistry Bug Still,” and when asked why she killed herself, the simple reply was “Sadness.” The haunting seems to center on a memorial plaque with Lammert’s name on it, which migrated to the Mudd Building and then the Bridge with the Chemistry Department. The plaque was eventually retired because, no matter how it was hung, it would always fall—no doubt Olive finds the Bridge too modern.
The Ghost of Matthew Vassar: Matthew Vassar, the College’s famous and beloved founder, died in the College’s library (at the time housed in Main) in 1868 while reading his farewell speech to the Board of Trustees. Questions surround the mysterious circumstances of his death. Some rumors allege he was murdered by the Board of Trustees, who were seeking control over the College. They even finished reading off his speech after he died—no doubt with a few changes. His coffin was allegedly buried in catacombs beneath Main House, where it is said to remain to this day, though a headstone was erected elsewhere.
In 1914, The Poughkeepsie Enterprise published a piece claiming that a farmhouse on New Hackensack Road had three families move in and out in the space of four months, thanks to an apparition who frequently appeared to them—an apparition that they believed to be Matthew Vassar. The College later admitted that Matthew Vassar had once owned the farmhouse in question, though he had never lived in it. Even the New York Times published an article about it, according to the Vassar Encyclopedia
It has also been said that Matthew Vassar’s ghost still haunts the lower levels of Main to this day, lurking in offices, wandering the corridors at night, visiting both the spot of his death in the long ago-relocated library and his body buried below. Perhaps the trip to the farmhouse was just a brief need for a change of scenery. A 2009 Miscellany News
humor article claimed that Matthew’s spirit appeared to give a pep talk in the form of poetry to hundreds of students on a night during study week.
Matthew Vassar allegedly had his own runins with ghosts before becoming one himself. While rescuing one of his cows that had run off, he wrote in his autobiography that he was confronted by a headless figure. He also wrote about a recurring dream about a “Ghostly Apparition” which would appear to him with a finger outstretched.
Betsey Coffin Bates: One of Vassar’s bestknown ghost stories is about the Betsey Coffin Bates Hidden Room. As the name implies, nobody is sure where this secret and mysterious room is, or even if the mythical chamber actually exists. Different stories place it in the basements of Joss, Main, Raymond, Ely and the Library.
Betsey Bates was a professor at the college in the 1880s—the first woman to chair a department, or so the story goes. Beloved by her students, when she died, some of them built the room in her honor. Hidden well, the room lay dormant for many years. This mysterious chamber was said to have been discovered in 1930, when a professor noticed a strange noise emanating from beneath her office. Upon further investigation, she discovered a hidden room in the basement containing a number of strange artifacts. But most noticeable of all was the chill that ran down your spine upon entering. One could feel the presence of the spirit who haunted it, believed to be Betsey Coffin Bates herself.
The Friendly Ghost of Pratt House: Not all of Vassar’s spirits have ill will towards the living. Pratt House is also inhabited by a ghost who has a reputation unlike the rest. Said to live in the kitchen, this ghost will quietly help students from time to time. It is said that many students who spend a significant amount of time in Pratt will form friendships with this ghost.
While this ghost has an impeccable reputation in their treatment of Vassar students, the same cannot be said of those who do not belong to the Vassar community. The Pratt ghost lived and died in a time when Vassar had a closed campus, and people could not freely enter. The ghost has refused to change their ways, and now will terrorize anyone not
officially affiliated with Vassar. At one point, Pratt served as a guest house, but this stopped because of the ghost’s haunting. Students report that late at night they will hear mysterious voices, floorboards will creak without explanation and they will feel hands brush their arms only to turn around and see no one.
Rebecca, the ghost of Avery Hall: The most complete catalog of ghosts I found in The Miscellany News archives mentions Rebecca, the ghost of Avery Hall. If you are not a drama major, you may be thinking that Vassar does not have a building by that name, but think again. Vogelstein was once called Avery, and has gone through half a dozen names during its various uses. Students would often report hearing keys and seeing lights only to find they were alone. Rebecca will often steal things from students, but if you ask her nicely, she will return them. While generally considered a nuisance, a student falling from scaffolding once was saved by ghostly hands.
“Down With the Patriarchy”: The Haunting of Strong House: One article from the archives mentions a headless ghost in Strong House, but does not go into much detail. The other is Kathy, a lesbian from the 1970s. According to a 2018 humor article, she terrorized residents by dragging them out of bed, pulling fire alarms, blaring music and screaming about how society would be better without men. Vassar hired a Catholic exorcist to remove Kathy, but there was no success.
Other Ghost Stories: The Maid of Davidson House is said to ean people’s dorm rooms on the fifth floor. Maria Mitchell supposedly still haunts her Observatory. Vassar’s former president Sarah Gibson Blanding’s portrait in the Gold Parlor is always cold due to her continued presence there. Victor Levin ’82 haunts the room in Skinner named after him, with reports of a piano playing itself. The ghost of a security guard in Wimpfheimer will only show himself to other security guards. Minnie Blodgett paces a stairwell in the building named after her. Other Ghost stories mention ghosts living in Ely basement, the Chapel Organ, Thekla Hall, Williams House (RIP), Main cellar, Blodgett basement, Raymond attic, Sanders Physics, the upper level of Gordon Commons, Main House fourth floor, the Alumni House and more.
Professor Olive Lammert: Olive Lam-
From the desk
of Wren Buehler, Assistant Humor Editor
Everyone excited for Halloween: goths, children, guy who fucks spiders Breaking News
Vassar develops new Vampire Studies Department
Vassar College has announced plans to establish a Vampire Studies program, in which students will be able to declare a major or a correlate. The Vampire Studies Department will fall under the multidisciplinary studies umbrella, and will be housed in the Old Laundry Building. World-renowned vampire scholar Count Dracula will head up the program as the department chair, with Count Orlok, Edward Cullen, Carmilla and many more joining as professors.
“I am very excited for this new program,” said Nos Feratu ’28. “I am currently a biology major, but I vill be declaring a Vampire Studies correlate as soon as I can. I vould love to take a class vith Professor Dracula! And all the classes vork so vell vith my schedule.” All Vampire Studies classes will be held after the sun sets, and students will have the option to take classes while hanging upside down.
“Vhat fun it vill be to learn more about vampires!” said Vladimir Vamp ’29. “I have a somevhat…intimate knowledge of the sub-
ject already, but I vill be very excited to take a deep dive into the vampiric vorld.” Vamp had more to say about his excitement for the new department, but due to his longing, hungry stare directed at the interviewer’s neck, The Misc decided to end the conversation early.
The department will have two pathways for the major, Applied Vampirism and Vampire Theory. The applied pathway will have courses such as “Introduction to Biting,” “Prowling with a Purpose,” “Senior Stalking Seminar,” “Advanced Bat Transformation” and “Mastering Shadows.” The theoretical pathway’s courses include “Anatomy of a Fang,” “Studying Stoker,” “Vampiric Folklore,” “Introductory Transylvanian History” and “Society’s Mirror: A Lack of Reflection.” Correlates must also choose between the two pathways.
Not all students are thrilled about the new department. “It’s really annoying that the Deece is going garlic-free two days a week,” said Haley Brown ’27. “I mean, I get that none of the new professors can eat there, but if I don’t get my daily fix of garlic, I will go crazy and hurt myself and others.” On Tuesdays and Thursdays, the Grill at the Deece
will become “GRLC” for breakfast, lunch and dinner, serving foods made entirely without garlic to ensure safety for Vassar’s new vampiric students and faculty.
“I heard they might be bringing in Van Helsing as a guest lecturer!” said Zach Flisakowski ‘27. “That’s going to be super cool. His talk is going to be held in the room in Rocky with the comically large cage dangling from the ceiling above the podium. So fun!”
When asked about the legendary vampire hunter’s lecture, Associate Professor Count Orlok said “yes… so fun” and hid a giant sword behind his back.
“I am honored to be leading this department,” said Professor Count Dracula, new chair of the Vampire Studies Department. “This vill represent a new horizon in human-vampire relations, and I am thrilled that Vassar is taking steps to break down barriers. All of the students look so tasty–I mean, curious.” Professor Count Dracula refused to give further comments, instead sweeping out of the room dramatically as his cape blew behind him.
Vampire Studies will be open to all students, human and vampire. “I vill be teaching a class entitled ‘A Voman’s Guide to Vam-
pirism,’ vhich vill investigate vampirism through a feminist lens. The class vill be crosslisted vith the Vomen, Feminist, and Queer Studies Department,” said Professor Carmilla. “I aim to create a velcoming environment, vith open dialogues for human and vampire students alike.”
The College has also announced plans to convert the basement of Josselyn House into vampire-only dorms for the predicted influx of new vampire students. “I’m very sensitive to the needs of all Vassar students,” said Rich Horowitz, director of community expectations and housing. “There’s very little sunlight in the Joss basement, and it feels almost tomblike, which is the ideal environment for vampire students. Of course, students can live in any house they feel comfortable in, but the new Joss Vasement will be a dorm catered directly to their vampiric needs.” Upon hearing this announcement, Vladimir Vamp ’29 immediately requested a room change, while his roommate Eric breathed a sigh of relief and removed the crucifix from his neck.
The Vampire Studies Department will begin offering classes in the 2026-27 school year.
Image courtesy of Noa DeRosa-Anderson ‘28.
The little Irish boy who invented Halloween
Jacques O’Lantern Wunderkind
In honor of Halloween’s upcoming 45th anniversary, I—a famous and world-renowned historian—embarked on a quest to uncover the holiday’s true origins. After scouring primary sources, secondary sources, tertiary sources—truly all of the sources—I unearthed an astonishing tale. What I found was truly mind-blowing. As we don our spooky garb, I suggest we also take time to honor the wunderkind who started it all. The story begins in the City, on a gloomy day, 45 years ago. It was 1980. A young boy of Irish descent by the name of James “Jack” O’Lantern conceived the idea of Halloween out of a simple wish. O’Lantern, born and raised in the City, had always dreamed of the beautiful pumpkin
farms way out west. One day, his mama, in her thick Irish brogue, leaned down next to him and said, “Oh little lad, what would you like to be when you grow up?” O’Lantern proclaimed, with light flickering in his eyes, “A pumpkin, Mama. That’s all I wanna be.” The punks at school, glimpsing his sketches of pumpkins with eyes and mouths in the margins of his homework, ruthlessly bullied the little lad.
“You’ll never be a pumpkin. You’re just a boy,” they said, pelting him with eggs. With each egg to the face, little Jack’s spirit began to crack. Ha.
“Hey punk,” called a voice from the distance—like an angel, like a prophet. “Get a load of this!”
And boom, a football exploded from behind the corner at the speed of light, wiping
out each punk in a line of dominoes. The football’s owner revealed himself from behind the wall, reaching out his hand to a bewildered O’Lantern.
“The name’s Charles, Charles Brown. But you, young lad, you can call me Charlie.”
The two boys became fast friends, united by their lofty dreams. Jack, to be a pumpkin, of course, and Charlie, who dreamt of becoming a movie star, but was insecure of his single strand of hair. One day, as they took Charlie’s dog, Snoop, for a walk, Jack suggested they merge their two dreams. Imagine this: an autumnal movie about a pumpkin with a face on it. Charlie could be the star. Everything could come up roses.
“But everyone will make fun of you for being a pumpkin, Jack,” said a pessimistic Charlie.
“We’ll convince them all to dress up, so I’m not the only one in costume. It’ll be perfect. Everything will come up roses,” Jack continued.
“Good grief. This will never work,” insisted Charlie. “We need a slogan.”
Jack nodded in agreement, gazing at the stores across the street—a strip club called Trick and a frozen yogurt shop by the name of Treat.
“Zoo-Wee-Mama! I’ve got an epiphany!”
The rest is history.
You may be wondering how I know this story. Well, here’s the big reveal you’ve all been waiting for. I am Jack O’Lantern’s son! Gasp! My mother is French, hence the first name, Jacques. I am not actually a historian, just a small boy of Irish and French descent.
Josie Venner Garlic Wearer
Satan longs for good old days of infernal torture
Wren Buehler Harrying Hellkite
Local government official Great Satan
Lucifer J. Morningstar told reporters on Tuesday that he is “frankly, bored to death of this new-age bullshit,” and longs for the “good old days of infernal torture.” Taking a somber drag off a cigarette, he continued, “I mean, fuck, this job used to be all about the artistry. But now, it’s quantity over quality.”
“See,” Satan explained, “everybody’s going to hell nowadays. If it’s not shellfish, it’s mixed fabric. And if it’s not that, it’s gay thoughts. They’re not kidding when they say everyone’s a little bisexual.” Scratching his chin absentmindedly with his pitchfork, he carried on, “Used to be, everyone got their own personalized torment. Nowadays, we just triage by most practiced sin and torture them in batches.”
Satan asked Misc reporters, “You ever hear about the goof a couple years back? Whipgate, they called it? Yeah, with the masochist who got sent to the Dismal Pit of Whipping rather than the Dungeon of Boredom? That’s what happens when you do this shit bureau-
cratically. Back when it was just me running this place, we never had that kind of fuck-up.”
Satan, having finished his cigarette, swallowed the butt. “‘Course, all this is really because the big guy upstairs cut our funding. Said we could just make do with a lake of fire. Yeah, sure, I could, but then what the fuck am I doing with my acting degree, huh? What an asshole.”
He chuckled awkwardly, and continued, “I mean, but really, though, what a dick. Have you seen the shit that he lets you guys get away with? He won’t finance replacement blades for our Visceral Blender, and every time the Testicular Annihilator goes off wonky we get a talking-to, and yet he refuses to so much as smite a single mortal, let alone rain down pillars of flame!”
When asked what he was going to do about it, Satan announced that he would be taking some “me time.” “I’ve been saving the festering soul of Henry Kissinger for a rainy day, and I think I deserve some self-care. I’m gonna take a few weeks off to tinker with the finer details of the new Infinite Carpet Bombing Agony Machine. After that? Who knows.”
Cuomo to dress as predator for Oct. 31 campaign event
The former governor announced at a press conference on Wednesday that he would attend his Oct. 31 campaign event dressed as a predator. While intended to project how he would be tough on crime and confrontational with President Trump, the decision may have already backfired. Andrew Cuomo resigned as New York’s governor in 2021 amidst the first few of what have since grown to 13 allegations of sexual harassment. Within hours of the costume announcement, Cuomo tweeted that because of the backlash, he may instead go as his childhood icon Bill Cosby.
The press conference took place with less than a week to go until Election Day. Previously unknown Zohran Mamdani is the strong favorite and projected to win by double digits. Cuomo has been criticized for running a campaign that is both behind the times and
uninspiring. Despite this, the former governor voiced optimism. “We have completely reorganized our social media presence over the past week, which was the biggest reason we trailed Madalshami,” he said, handing out pamphlets with a QR code linking to his campaign’s recently created MySpace.
In addition to his past allegations, Cuomo has faced criticism over his approach to housing affordability. Sharing a solution to address both of these issues, he declared, “I want to apologize for my past wrongs. If I win, in order to regain the trust of the public, I will keep the door of the mayor’s mansion open to any woman in the city who doesn’t have a place to sleep.”
In July, it was reported that Cuomo’s housing plan was created by ChatGPT. The former governor has continued to use AI over the past month to create campaign advertisements. When asked if he had any regrets, he said there was only one. “If we had bought ChatGPT premium earlier in the campaign,
things would have gone drastically differently,” he stated. “Everything — from my speeches to my social media points — would have been superior.”
The New York City mayoral race has been rampant with controversy. Last year, incumbent Eric Adams was charged for accepting bribes from Turkey. He suspended his reelection campaign amidst poor polling and the emergence of yet another scandal, where one of his advisors handed a bag of potato chips full of cash to a reporter. Cuomo, meanwhile, has reportedly regularly been taking calls with President Trump. He dismissed those rumors today: “I’m ready to go after Trump as if he were the resident of a nursing home.”
Mamdani’s challengers have made his stance on the Middle East a center point of their attacks. The staunchly pro-Israel Cuomo offered in 2022 to serve on the legal team of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. When asked if he stood by those actions
considering the International Criminal Court’s warrant for his arrest, he said he can look past that. “I believe everyone deserves up to 13 get-out-of-jail-free cards.” He then pivoted to attack Mamdani. “Do you think Katz’s Deli has a right to exist?”
Sliwa made similar claims regarding his feelings towards Israel during a press conference of his own. When asked what first action he would take if elected, he answered without hesitation. “I will send the Guardian Angels to Gaza to defeat Hamas,” he said. Then questioned if he supported Mamdani’s proposed rent freeze, he answered with disgust: “Climate change is not real.”
One of Cuomo’s most remembered moments came during a 2017 press conference when, trying to appear progressive, he stated, “I am black, I am gay, I am disabled, I am a woman.” Now catering to conservative New Yorkers, he ended with a slogan similar in nature: “I am Donald Trump. I am Benjamin Netanyahu. I am Bill Cosby.”
MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE
Wren Buehler/The Miscellany News.
Noah Daube-Valois MySpace User
ARIES March 21 | April 19
HOROSCOPES
Emma daRosa Almond Joy Apologist
You know how people go Christmas caroling? You should go Halloween caroling tomorrow! Just stand outside of peoples houses and scream “HELP, PLEASE HELP, I’M BEING MURDERED FOR REAL!” It’ll add to the ambiance!
TAURUS April 20 | May 20
There is no need to dress sexy tomorrow. Can’t a nurse just be a nurse? A teacher just a teacher? It’s time to take a stand! Go as a normal cop tomorrow, I’m sure it will be just as effective. Everyone knows Vassar students love having sex with cops.
GEMINI May 21 | June 20
If you get super drunk in the tent on Saturday and have to pee, never fear! There’s a long forgotten Vassar tradition that you should totally bring back. Basically, you just pull your pants down, spin around really fast in a circle and start pissing! They call it a “Vassar Sprinkler.”
LIBRA Sept. 23 | Oct. 22
Eat all the Kit-Kats you can tonight. You never know what tomorrow will bring! Well… I do. But—no, I promised not to tell you. Just. Just enjoy the Kit-Kats while you can, kid… enjoy every. last. moment.
SCORPIO Oct. 23 | Nov. 21
Have you ever seen a baby dressed like a pumpkin? I know you’re all depressed because your friends weren’t super responsive to your group Watergate costume idea. (Maybe if you let someone else be Bob Woodward?) Anyway, just look at a baby dressed as a pumpkin. Adorable.
SAGITTARIUS Nov. 22 | Dec. 21
You need to stop dressing up in culturally appropriative costumes. Seriously dude. It’s not cool to pretend you’re someone whose parents used to keep 12 to 20 boiled eggs in the fridge for them to snack on. For some of us, that’s our real life.
CANCER June 21 | July 22
Scrambling for a last minute costume? Look no further, my friend! All you have to do is eat this entire newspaper and maybe eat a couple more newspapers just to be safe. Then … wait! You were supposed to finish reading before you ate it.
LEO July 23 | Aug. 22
VIRGO Aug. 23 | Sept. 22
WAIT! Don’t eat the paper! All the Cancers are screwed, but you can still do this epic last minute costume. Eat two to three newspapers, go to the hospital, run out with a gown on and an IV in. You’ll be the only person dressed as someone who went to the hospital for eating too much newspaper!
CAPRICORN Dec. 22 | Jan. 19
Have you guys heard of the switch witch? I thought it was so cool when someone told me about her. I mean a witch whose whole job it is to convince your boyfriend to let you wear the firefighter outfit this time? Wait … switching out your candy? No … that can’t be right.
AQUARIUS Jan. 20 | Feb. 18
God, you guys also need a last minute costume idea? I already knocked it out of the park with that paper eating thing, but I guess I’ll try again. Maybe just walk around with some of those star-shaped pasties and assless chaps on? You can go as someone who forgot to do laundry!
You should camp out outside the tent tonight for a good spot in line on Saturday. There’s no other way! You might miss all the sweaty gyrating, bad moshing and gross sweat-induced humidity! YOU CAN’T LET THAT HAPPEN GUYS.
PISCES Feb. 19 | March 20
You might get a tummy ache if you eat too much candy tomorrow! Instead, you should do a ritualistic sacrifice of all the candy into Sunset Lake. Wear a robe, bring some candles, really get into it. Not the Almond Joys though. You can deliver those to TA 35.
Gratitude means nothing without solidarity
Continued from Solidarity on page 1
and sustained: urge the Vassar Student Association to adopt concrete measures that back worker demands and show a commitment to worker-student solidarity. Third, be vocal: write to trustees, administrators and local union organizers.
Solidarity is not just performative. It is not a sign to hold for one afternoon and then forget. Solidarity is leverage; it enables ordinary people who rely on institutional resources to make collective claims on those resources.
Negotiating in good faith is essential for all parties. As the article notes, bargaining teams have met over 20 times since March. Good faith requires more than
polite language at the table; it requires proposals that recognize the ongoing sacrifices workers make and the realities of an economy where rent and basic costs have increased. If bargaining is meant to be done in “good faith,” bring humanity to the people whose livelihoods are at stake.
This is also a test of our educational values. If Vassar and its students claim to commit to social justice, but cannot ensure that the workers who sustain it receive the tools to perform their jobs and live with dignity, then those ideals are hollow. Students must question whether their campus upholds the principles that it teaches in the classroom. How ironic that I sit in a class discussing labor
exploitation while we rarely discuss the workplace conditions that allow such discussions.
Finally, remember that workplace dignity is not a zero-sum game. Fair wages and adequate resources for staff do not lessen the quality of education; they strengthen the community where learning happens. They create a campus where everyone can work with the respect and support they deserve—student and worker alike.
I will end as I began, with the acknowledgments section I have yet to write. When I finally write it, I will do more than thank the people who helped me directly. I will thank the workers of Vassar,
and I will translate that thanks into action by supporting their negotiations, which will determine whether their labor is treated with the dignity it deserves. So, I ask my fellow students, the next time you talk with a worker, think about what they truly do for you. They are not invisible fixtures; they are colleagues in the life of this college. They are not there to clean up after you; they are enabling you to receive a good education. Improve your life by helping others. It is the least we can do. If we truly mean what we say about community, let us demonstrate it through our actions.
In solidarity, Soren Fischer, a Vassar student.
Trump is a threat to our national
There is no document more integral to our nation, both culturally and legally, than the Constitution of the United States. It is pasted across the country:the halls of legislative buildings in Washington, D.C. and the 50 states, our classroom walls and even roads that bear its name. The reach of this great document stretches beyond our own borders, into the hearts of South American revolutionaries, freedom fighters in Southeast Asia and those that sought a better world at home.
This document is one that I love, as all Americans should. It enshrines, in our national-political soul, concepts that had not previously come together to define a nation: freedom of speech, freedom of the press, separation of powers, checks and balances and other less well-known but also crucial freedoms and rights. It creates in our national soul a vision for a better world, a free and fair nation, where all can live how they choose. This vision has yet to be fully realized, but the rights enshrined in our Constitution put us on the path towards it. Now we have a president, Donald Trump, who seeks to destroy those rights and destroy this vision that our founders gave us. His policies and decisions go directly against the First Amendment, in both spirit and letter of the law.
His attacks began with assaults on the integral free rights of our universities. As I outlined in a prior piece, academia is foundational to our nation, but what I failed to discuss was how his attacks are themselves attacks on our intrinsic liberties and their greater impact on civil society. Donald Trump has predicated his attacks on academic institutions upon many things, but one focus has been the allegations (which are false) of student speech in support of antisemitism and foreign terror—in essence, student usage of their integral right to free speech.
It is these allegations that have motivated him to disappear students such as Rümeysa Öztürk. Öztürk authored an op-ed, much like mine and many others, which criticized an element of American policy. The president had her taken from her home, tossed in a notoriously vicious detention center hundreds of miles away and refused to release her for months. He did this due entirely to her speech. She was a symbol of the greater crisis impacting our national soul—the attacks on free speech. He attacked the University of Virginia, Columbia University and others ostensibly
for not punishing pro-Palestinian students enough, targeting them for exercising free speech. He has worked tirelessly to strip away the fundamental freedom of speech
It is this spirit of protest that led our founders to the Boston Tea Party and to the fields of Lexington and Concord, where the fight for our nation’s existence began.
we are promised, this freedom which has allowed us to shine as a beacon of freedom for all those seeking refuge from despots like Kim Jong-Un or Vladimir Putin who silence critics with death.
Yet, as anybody who has been through a civics class will know, our First Amendment contains a commitment to freedom of the press. The freedom of the press is integral to maintaining a free people, as it is the press that exposes the secrets of tyrants and allows the people to keep the government in check. Yet, following in the tradition of historical tyrants who have suppressed the media, President Trump has chased after our journalists with a vicious fist. Just this month, his Secretary of Defense announced a new press policy for the Pentagon, which would bar journalists from reporting any stories on the military not preapproved by the administration. If they wanted to, for example, report on the sexual violence and drug trafficking epidemic at Fort Hood, they would first
America is a beautiful nation founded on beautiful ideals, and while we have never fully lived up to them, it is our duty to strive to reach them.
need approval from those who oversee Fort Hood.
This strategy, forcing journalists to jostle for approval from their overlords before publishing, is textbook suppression of the press. When media outlets from all sides,
including CNN, Fox News and Newsmax, resisted the repressive Pentagon rules, they were removed from their Pentagon reporting offices. Administration officials have targeted the press continuously, engaging in petty insults on X and openly espousing hateful rhetoric against the journalists who keep us free. President Trump and his cronies seek to destroy our press; they know that journalism is the people’s first defense, and they know they must kill it.
Freedom of assembly is another core freedom of ours. The right of the people to protest is integral to our freedoms— our ability to stand up and make our voices heard as a people in the streets is who we are. It is this spirit of protest that led our founders to the Boston Tea Party and to the fields of Lexington and Concord, where the fight for our nation’s existence began. Now, the Trump regime is working to annihilate this right. President Trump’s deployment
For all that many people today may scoff at the notion of mass resistance, considering it naive or useless, our Founding Fathers believed it was essential to do so, and an essential right we, the people, possess.
of the National Guard to smash demonstrations in Portland and Chicago is blatantly unconstitutional. He has sicced the military on protestors, referring to them as terrorists and “enemies from within.” His Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have fired various “nonlethal” weapons into crowds of protestors, including directly targeting faith leaders and journalists. He has made clear his intention to crush dissenting demonstrations, proclaiming “antifa” a terror threat and ordering federal law enforcement to investigate organizations and groups that organize against him. President Trump’s goal is clear: the destruction of our freedom of assembly so we cannot defend against his tyrannical ambitions.
Our founders painted a clear picture of what to do in moments such as these. Thomas Jefferson’s own personal seal contained the motto “Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God,” which he also suggested
soul
for the motto of America. In his eyes, and the eyes of all those who founded our nation, the people had the inherent right to resist a tyrannical government. They wrote
President Trump and his cronies seek to destroy our press; they know that journalism is the people’s first defense, and they know they must kill it.
clearly in the Declaration of Independence that when a government embraces despotism, “it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it.” For all that many people today may scoff at the notion of mass resistance, considering it naive or useless, our Founding Fathers believed it was essential to do so, and an essential right we, the people, possess. The founders made clear that we, the people, have the right and duty to stand up to a despotic government that seeks to destroy our nation’s very soul, like the one we see right now. We must embrace this right.
For generations, America has stood as a beacon of light in a world of darkness, in part because of these Constitutional liberties I have outlined, which President Trump now seeks to destroy. A hundred years ago, when my family came to this country fleeing tyranny, they saw the words inscribed on the Statue of Liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free,” and they followed that torch of freedom she holds and the words she is embedded with to this nation. Now, President Trump and his cronies seek to put out that flame. They seek to destroy this promised land of freedom that attracts so many. America is a beautiful nation founded on beautiful ideals, and while we have never fully lived up to them, it is our duty to strive to reach them. That struggle is difficult, but we have the duty to break down those hurdles. I vividly remember sitting in a sandwich shop listening to Kamala Harris concede and feeling despair. Now, coming on a year later, I feel the opposite. We are a mighty people, and we have defeated worse foes in the pursuit of our founders’ ideals of a free and fair nation. If we could defeat slavery, Jim Crow and fascism in Europe, then we can defeat it at home if we only have the strength to do what is necessary and right.
Eli Lerdau Guest Columnist
OPINIONS
Demanding bike path etiquette
Sadie Keesbury Games Editor
Ihavebeen quoted as saying: “If I could either have my bike or my laptop on campus, I would choose my bike.” Recently, though, I have been worried about the safety of bikers and pedestrians alike after having several riding friends take terrible tumbles, and several walking friends have expressed to me the fear that whizzes by them as bikers do.
Therefore, I propose three rectifications for Vassar College to stay a campus where people can bike and walk together, in beautiful multi-speed harmony, chains rattling, cowboy boots clomping, leather messenger bags squeaking and wheels turning all in one big chorus of safe, luxurious efficiency.
Signaling:
Oh, woe! The embarrassment of coming face to face with someone, not knowing which direction each of you is going to go: the steps to the same side, then the same side again, then a third, also the same side. It is a classic source of awkwardness. Oh, the danger when one of you is on a machine, hurtling 10 times the speed of the other. One of you will get run off the road. Let’s rectify this by signaling. Can you bike one-handed? If so, indicate your turns. If not, go out and practice until you
can. Give even just a little point. Show that you are turning. My favorite time to do it is while crossing the street. I do not want to get hit by a car; they do not want to hit me. Assuage the preemptive terror of all parties by making a decision, sharing that decision with the public and sticking to it. You are significantly less likely to collide with another biker, to have to unexpectedly brake for an indecisive walker or be run over in the Raymond Ave/Fulton rotary on your way to MyMarket. If it still happens even though you signaled, at least your communication skills were not to blame. How often can that be said about conflict?
On your left:
I thought my disdain for slow walkers would only be magnified when biking. Instead of disdain, I feel pity—if only you could teleport instantly to your classes, like I can on my bike. At the same time, you are impeding my teleportation, forcing me to slow my extremely chill no-handed ride through the quad, to brake behind you. I will bike walking speed behind you for a while, until I finally decide I have had enough, and weave in the wider spaces where the paths cross. Or, I will hop off the path, onto the grass. But the moment when I come back onto the pavement is the moment of greatest danger—when a wheel catches the side of
the pavement and throws me overboard. So, for the safety of everyone involved, I have started saying “on your left.” Or, if the walker is walking on the left already, just saying “coming up on you” or ringing my rusty bell will usually suffice. It is easy. People move over for you without fear that they are going to be sharing the path with a reckless driver. You have shown that you are not reckless by showing that you care about not running them over.
Helmets:
This point may be the most controversial at all—so controversial, in fact, that I cannot even bring myself to commit to it in my personal life. Helmets are objectively a safer way to ride a bike. Why have we decided that it is the worst style choice in the world? Workwear is in—what makes a bike helmet different from a Carhartt jacket, except that one is actually being used for its original purpose? Never have I seen someone wearing a helmet on campus and judged them as a loser. Instead, I have always admired their individuality and willingness to do what is right despite social pressures. Is that not what we are all going for anyway? I may not end up wearing my helmet when I bike from the Gordon Commons to Taylor Hall, but I know that I should be. I feel its absence on my crown. Maybe one day, I will end the hy-
pocrisy. For now, I know that I can commit to points one and two. And, if some braver soul than me commits to point three, I will happily join you.
If you bike, you are like me—fast and allowed on the walking paths. But, since you exist in this fast, privileged state, you need to use it responsibly. Tell people when you are coming. Show people where you are going. And wear your helmet. Be safe out there.
Journalism is essential to our collective memory
Julian Balsley News Editor
Lastyear, for an article on Vassar’s Vietnam War conference, I interviewed the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Fredrik Logevall. Near the end of our conversation, I asked him what he thought the role of history was. Logevall responded, “I think of it as our collective memory.”
A society without history, he said, is like an amnesiac: “You stumble around each day. You have no sense of where you’ve been… [and] therefore, have no sense really where you are or where you might be going.”
Doing good historical research is difficult enough without others silencing or hindering it. Journalism is an essential modern historical source. If history is our collective memory, journalism is our collective diary. It is our most important moments written in real time and, once published, etched forever.
The eminent Palestinian historian Rashid Khalidi once wrote, “The daily press is perhaps the most basic source for modern political history.” It is, in his words, “irreplaceable.” Good journalism is thus essential to good history.
That is a monumental responsibility. Journalists are, obviously, not perfect. However, many professional journalists working at the most impactful papers act shockingly cavalier about the enormous responsibility they hold by publishing works that will be cited as the truth for generations.
Take The New York Times The Times is considered the primary U.S. “newspaper of record,” meaning it is a major authority on U.S. and world news. In the lead-up to the Iraq War, The Times repeatedly published articles alleging that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was attempting to construct a nuclear weapon, giving the George W. Bush administration free ammunition to justify invading Iraq. On national television, Vice President Dick Cheney directly cited The Times’ reporting as evidence of
Iraq’s renewed quest for weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). On CNN, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice plagiarized a phrase directly from The Times: “We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.”
Times reporters repeatedly used untrustworthy sources as primary evidence and ignored experts who questioned this narrative. Sure enough, it was later proven that the paper had published outright falsehoods: Iraq had not been trying to procure WMDs.
The paper’s errors were so egregious that the editors published a long correction in May 2004. The correction detailed how the paper had reported manifestly untrue assertions and how editors up the chain of command had published unqualified claims without checking them. Even after learning that they had published falsehoods, editors buried correction articles deep in the paper, where few would read them. The paper at least partially understood the grave mistakes it had made and was continuing to make but did not want to own up to them on the front page. It may have been to save its reputation or to avoid contradicting the government so publicly. Either way, it was manifestly despicable journalism.
Experts estimate that over 100,000 Iraqi civilians were killed in the Iraq War as of 2013, likely a major undercount. The Times is partially responsible for these atrocities, since its reporting was publicly used as a justification for the invasion. In this light, a correction published after the fact cannot make up for the blood spilled with the paper’s help. The Times not only acted with disregard for its role as a primary source for the future but also irrevocably shaped the future itself. There is no way around it: Innocent Iraqis are dead because The Times, for months, knowingly, did not check its sources.
Those committing atrocities have also recognized that journalists on the ground are essential for future historical research.
The most prominent example today is Israel targeting Palestinian journalists and banning the international media throughout its two-year genocide against the Palestinian people of Gaza. Since October 2023, Israel has killed at least 190 Palestinian journalists reporting on its atrocities in the Gaza Strip—more than were killed across the world from 2020 to 2022. Israel has, in two years, killed more journalists than died in the Civil War, both World Wars, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the 1991 to 2001 Yugoslav Wars and the Afghanistan War, combined.
By deliberately killing Palestinian journalists, Israel is preventing the world from learning the full truth of its genocide as it unfolds. It is destroying sections of our collective diary, wiping out pieces of our collective memory that, once burned, can never be retrieved.
The U.S. government is also trying to prevent accurate reporting. On Oct. 15, almost the entire Pentagon press corps left rather than sign new War Department press restrictions. A major restriction was that all information, even if unclassified, must be approved by the government before publication. A press that can only publish state-sanctioned propaganda is not, to put it lightly, a free one.
If history is our collective memory, journalism is our collective diary. It is our most important moments written in real time and, once published, etched forever.
Journalism also ignores history, to the detriment of modern-day readers. Too often, journalists include too little or no con-
text in important articles. This is its own kind of historical silencing: Newspapers willingly sink us into the fog of historical amnesia by neglecting to include important history.
It is a journalist’s responsibility to inform readers, whenever possible, of relevant history. For example, articles in major papers like The Times, The Washington Post and the Associated Press about the Israeli-imposed famine on the Gaza Strip almost never mention that Israel has been blockading Gaza since 2007—one Times article in May 2025 did mention the blockade, and cited another piece on the siege from Oct. 7, 2023.
Israel began blockading Gaza as collective punishment after Hamas won a large majority in the 2006 parliamentary elections and took control of the Gaza Strip in 2007. For almost two decades, Israel calculated the number of calories necessary to keep Gaza’s population just above starvation levels, then only let in that amount of food. Under the blockade, Israel also blocked Palestinians’ access to agricultural land, fishing waters, building materials, medical resources, exportation and more. In 2022, unemployment was at 46.6 percent, one of the world’s highest rates. Over 60 percent of Gazans required food assistance to survive. Israel’s 16 years of engineered near-starvation is essential context to Israel’s current use of starvation as a method of genocide against the Palestinian people, yet journalists almost always ignore it.
Articles in major national papers are frequently severed from the past, leaving the reader with little understanding of how the events in the article came about. As Logevall rightly said, we are all amnesiacs in a fog without good history. Journalism can help to clear that fog, both as a vital historical source and here, in the present. But it can only do either if journalists understand their great responsibilities to the present and the future. We cannot let the fog close in.
Luke Jenkins/The Miscellany News.
Our goal with Brewers Ballin’ is to feature Vassar athletes who starred for their team the week previous to publishing. If you would like to nominate an athlete, please email hfrance@vassar.edu.
Brewers Ballin’: Lakhan’s season starts swimmingly Brewers Ballin’
Name: Kieran Lakhan
Year: First Year
Team: Men’s Swim & Dive
Stats: Kieran Lakhan ’29 is off to a hot start in his rookie campaign, helping the Brewers to a strong 2-1 start. Despite the tough loss against Brandeis on Oct. 25, Lakhan was a bright spark for the squad, notching two wins in the 100 yard and 200 yard breastroke events.
Statement: My season is going amazing so far and is everything I was hoping for. I love my team and how closely bonded we are. I really enjoy being able to represent Vassar and contributing to the team through swimming. While it’s only been a couple of months on the team, I couldn’t have done it without the support from my teammates, Coach Lisl, and Coach Jake. This past meet against Brandeis really set the stage for the future of this season, and I know our spirit, energy, and dedication from the team will only get stronger. The Vassar swim team has become a home away from home, and I am very satisfied with how my season is progressing, and I know it will continue to get even better.
Recently in Vassar Brewers sports
Women’s Soccer garners two Liberty League awards
Gianna Panarelli ’27 and Ava Holman ’29 earned Offensive Performer of the Week and Rookie of the Week, respectively. Panarelli earned her first career award after scoring two goals, including the game winner in a 3-2 comeback victory over Skidmore. Holman ’29 continued her strong rookie campaign with two goals and an assist over the weekend.
Women’s and Men’s Fencing kick off 2025 season
The Women’s and Men’s Fencing teams head up to Northampton, MA to compete in the Big One at Smith College. The Brewers are optimistic about this year’s campaign, returning two United States Fencing Coaches Association All-Americans in First-Team Epee selection Alexander North ’28 and Honorable Mention Sabre David Sagardi Diaz ’28
Men’s Squash Sweeps Liberty League Awards
Konstantinos Georgallides ’27 earned the league’s Performer of the Week award after a pair of wins in the Brewers’ 9-0 thwarting of Bard, while Aqeel Merchant ’29 notched a pair of wins to start his rookie season, including an 11-0,11-0, 11-0 sweep over Bard.
Image courtesy of Kieran Lakhan ’29.
Aces secure third ring in four years
Ava Gurley Guest Columnist
Last Friday, the Las Vegas Aces cemented a dynasty with their 97-86 win over the Phoenix Mercury, completing a perfect 4-0 sweep in the league’s first-ever best-ofseven WNBA Finals. Adding to their 2022 and 2023 titles, Las Vegas joins the Houston Comets as the only franchises in league history to win three or more championships within four years.
Aces star A’ja Wilson added more hardware to her trophy case, becoming the only player in WNBA history to win Regular Season MVP, Defensive Player of the Year, Finals MVP and the league scoring title all in one season. Averaging 28.5 points, 11.8 rebounds, 4.0 assists and 2.0 blocks in the Finals, Wilson has firmly placed herself in the GOAT conversation. Strong performances from guards Jackie Young and 2022 Finals MVP Chelsea Gray supported Wilson’s dominance, pushing Vegas past Phoenix for the sweep.
With a .500 win-loss record at the mid-season All-Star break, the Aces’ 2025 journey to the championship was an uphill battle. They suffered their worst loss in franchise history on Aug. 2 to the Minnesota Lynx, who beat them 111-58. This late-season blowout inspired the Aces to turn their team around, finishing the regular season on a 16-game win streak.
Despite the celebration in Vegas, a larger cloud hangs over the WNBA’s offseason in the form of league commissioner Cathy Engelbert. While presenting the championship and Finals MVP trophies after Game 4, Engelbert was met with heavy booing from fans reacting to ongoing tensions between her and several players,
most notably Lynx star and 2025 MVP runner-up Napheesa Collier. Collier accused Engelbert of malpractice at the leadership level, referencing comments in which the commissioner allegedly said of players’ low salaries: “Caitlin [Clark] should be grateful she makes $16 million off the court because without the platform that the WNBA gives her, “she wouldn’t make anything,” and that players should be “on their knees thanking their lucky stars for the media rights deal that I got them.”
These remarks, denied by Engelbert, stoked an existing wave of activism led by the WNBA Players Association (WNBPA), which has highlighted the league’s revenue-sharing disparity for months. Unlike NBA, NFL and NHL players who receive roughly 48-51% of league revenue, WNBA players receive just 9.3%. The WNBPA and other vocal players have pushed for salaries that reflect the league’s surging popularity and revenue growth, choosing to opt out early from the 2020 collective bargaining agreement (CBA) last October to seek new terms.
The league’s most recent proposal, released last week, includes a potential supermax salary of about $850,000 and a veteran minimum of around $300,000 starting in year one. Though this is an increase from the current $249,244 supermax and $78,831 veteran minimum, whether this offer will satisfy the players remains uncertain. The current CBA expires on Oct. 31, 2025, though a 60-day extension like the one used in 2019 remains an option. If an agreement is not reached, the WNBA would enter a lockout, suspending all league operations and potentially delaying or canceling the 2026 season.
The heightened animosity with the
league’s leadership is not limited to player salaries. Minnesota Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve was fined a league record $15,000 after a Sept. 25 semifinals ejection and subsequent comments on the poor quality of the league’s officiating, a problem she points to WNBA executives. Collier’s comments addressed officiating as well, as this year’s injury-riddled season sparked notable discourse about the status of physicality and officiating in the WNBA.
Engelbert has since struck a careful tone in public, saying she was “disheartened”
by the players’ comments and denying the quotes Collier attributed to her. “I’m a human too; I have a family,” she said, insisting the league cares about its players. Collier responded by canceling a scheduled meeting with the commissioner, stating Engelbert “pretty much pushed the relationship beyond repair.” With the CBA deadline approaching and tensions at such a high, the possibility of the newly crowned champions being able to defend their title in the 2026 season remains up in the air.
NBA Players emerge as must-see in 2025
Celtics this year, so will he prove himself as a reliable figurehead?
Basketball is officially back, and so are my way-too-early predictions. The NBA offseason was full of excitement and drama, so I have picked five players with exciting storylines and a lot to prove as ones to keep an eye on this NBA season.
5. Jaylen Brown (SF, Boston Celtics)
After a devastating end to the last NBA season, the Boston Celtics have a lot of questions left unanswered. Celtics superstar Jayson Tatum tore his Achilles tendon in a crushing loss to the New York Knicks in last year’s playoffs, which is a season-ending injury that can sometimes even be career-ending. The Celtics were a team built for winning a championship, but the core players were all on extremely large contracts, and it was not a sustainable model. So, this offseason, they were forced to dissolve the 2024 championship core. The 2023 acquisitions of Kristaps Porzingis and Jrue Holiday were both traded, as well as backup center Luke Kornet. Al Horford—the oldest veteran on the Celtics—decided to sign with the Golden State Warriors. Going into this season, only Jaylen Brown and Derrick White remain from the 2024 championship core. Brown has averaged 20+ points for the past six seasons as the number two option, landing himself a five-year, $300 million extension—the highest NBA contract ever at the time—and the 2024 Finals MVP. Now, it is the first-ever season where Brown will be the Celtics’ number one option. He will certainly have a large workload to carry the depleted
4. Luka Dončić (PG, Los Angeles Lakers)
The ’24-’25 NBA season was certainly one of the craziest years in Luka Dončić’s life. He came off one of his greatest seasons ever, leading the Dallas Mavericks to their first NBA championship since 2011, while also averaging a near 34-point triple-double. In 2024, he suffered a significant left calf strain on Christmas, which would sideline him for a month. Fearing health and conditioning concerns, the Mavericks GM traded Dončić to the Los Angeles Lakers in one of the biggest blockbusters of all time. He recovered from his injury and still managed to average 28 points per game in Los Angeles, leading them to the third seed in the Western Conference. However, they fell in the first round to the Minnesota Timberwolves in five games. Now, Dončić has his first offseason and full season in Los Angeles. This summer, he averaged 35 points per game for his home country of Slovenia for the FIBA Eurobasket and has appeared all over social media for his noticeably slimmer physique. In what will most likely be LeBron James’ last year in the NBA, will Dončić and the Lakers be able to fight for one more championship for the GOAT?
3. Cooper Flagg (PF, Dallas Mavericks)
The Duke Blue Devils did not win the NCAA Championship, but they did have one of the most stacked rosters of all time, being led by the No.1 overall pick Cooper Flagg. Flagg is only 18 years old, making him
one of the youngest rookies since James in 2003. His resume is already decorated: Naismith College Player of the Year, Gatorade National Player of the Year, High School national championship (Montverde Academy), college Final Four appearance (Duke University), and two summers ago, he was called up to practice with Team USA during Olympic training at 17, the youngest ever to do so. We know Flagg is going to be a special player, but what makes his situation even more eye-catching is that he was drafted to the Dallas Mavericks—an organization that had a 1.4 percent chance of winning the NBA draft lottery. The Mavericks are loaded with veteran superstars, such as Kyrie Irving, Klay Thompson and Anthony Davis, so adding the No.1 overall pick should make them a special team this year.
2. Kevin Durant (PF, Houston Rockets)
Kevin Durant is 36 years old and now on his fifth NBA team. For most players, this is the stage where they are not able to put up numbers anymore and find themselves bouncing around the league on minimum contracts. However, Durant has averaged 26+ points on 50%+ shooting for the past 14 years in a row and has shown no signs of slowing down. Durant is known for defying the odds, after coming back from a torn Achilles tendon during the 2019 NBA finals, which many believed he would never recover from. Although Durant has had individual success for so long, his team has yet to make it past the second round of the playoffs since he left the Warriors in 2020. I believe Durant’s stint in Houston will be different from
Brooklyn and Phoenix, as he is not joining a “big three.” Durant joined Kyrie Irving and James Harden on the Brooklyn Nets, and then Devin Booker and Bradly Beal on the Phoenix Suns—legends who were already established ball-dominant all-stars. On the Rockets, Durant is joining a superstar-less young team that was the second seed in the Western Conference last year, with a top-10 defense. Adding a perennial scorer like Durant is exactly the piece that the Rockets need to make a real playoff push.
1. Victor Wembanyama (C, San Antonio Spurs)
Victor Wembanyama (Wemby) is my top player to watch this NBA season. Wemby was averaging 24 points per game, 11 rebounds, and a whopping 3.8 blocks. After a rare shoulder injury ended his 2025 season in February, Wemby still ended up leading the league in blocks. Wemby’s wild summer went viral on social media, most notably when he traveled to the Shaolin Temple in China to undergo a 10-day intense Zen retreat with the Shaolin Monks. Photos surfaced of Wemby with a shaved head practicing Kung Fu, balance and meditation. The internet went crazy. In addition, Wemby was spotted training with 1994 and 1995 NBA Champion, Finals MVP, League MVP, and Defensive Player of the Year: Hakeem Olajuwon. At the start of the NBA preseason, Wemby weighed in at 245 lbs—a 30-pound increase from his rookie year. He measured in at 7’5”—a two inch increase in height. Wemby is going to be a force to reckon with this NBA season, and I believe he will propel the Spurs back to the playoffs.
Armaan Desai Sports Columnist
Image courtesy of Lorie Shaull via Wikimedia Commons.
Chess Puzzles
Introducing The Miscellany News Chess Puzzles:
Sharpen your tactical skills and win the game! In each puzzle, the goal is to checkmate the opposing king. To do so, the king must be checked by (in the path of) one of your pieces, and have no other place to go. Each solution is forced, which means after the correct move, the opposing side will only have moves that either prolong or move towards mate. For any beginners who don’t know how the pieces move, fret not, there are diagrams on The Miscellany News’ website to show this. Whether you’re a newcomer or a veteran, we hope you have fun cracking the solution to these puzzles: best of luck!
The Miscellany Crossword They Do It On Halloween
By: Sadie Keesbury
ACROSS
1. Not quite green or blue
5. Something to see in acts or in which to act
9. Bank payment method
14. Ladder piece
15. Car brand with four ring logo
16. Ω
17. *Little nuisance + extraterrestrial
19. Ionian, Dorian and Lydian, for three
20. Electric swimmer
21. What a 20A might do to defend itself
23. Defunct cars with a downwards arrow logo
28. Gentle lake movement
33. Seasons with rocks
34. From the same isle as the minotaur
35. Cop orgs.
36. Deceitful
38. A pirate’s favorite letter
39. A famous graveyard smash, or
a descriptor of the starred entries in this grid.
47. Aunt in España
50. Angry
51. Holding up the world?
53. Passions
54. Persistently creepy, maybe 55. Sega Master System competitor, abbr.
