52 Comments
Name, school: Michael Snyder, CC
Claim to fame: Amongst friends, amateur gastronome; general enthusiasm for wine, gin, bitters, and pork products; general antipathy toward vegans. Secondarily, campus theater.
Where are you going? Staying in the city for the summer, then moving to Santiago, Chile in August for six months to write for The Santiago Times. After that, the future is unclear, but ideally I plan to live nomadically for a couple of years before returning to the States to do graduate work in English literature.
Three things you learned at Columbia:
- People who live in Butler and make a point of telling you just how much work they have to do are miserable and boring and not any smarter than you are.
- In every class there is someone really irritating, and someone who speaks rarely but profoundly—often many of the former, rarely more than one of the latter. No exceptions.
- 5 o’clock is cocktail hour, no matter where you are or what else you have to do.
Justify your existence in 30 words or fewer: I’d rather not.
Any war stories from the War on Fun? I had a beer confiscated on the Steps once by a public safety officer. Then again, at least once a semester I’ve had someone ask if the beverage in my brown bag is alcoholic and take my word for it when I’ve said ‘nope,’ not to mention the number of times my suspiciously hand-rolled smoking implements have been quietly overlooked in public. All in all I’ve come out relatively unscathed.
Would you rather give up oral sex or cheese? Imagine oral sex at 90. Valdeón and Stilton last a lifetime.
Any advice for the Class of 2014?
- Go to office hours; most professors want to interact with students and are incredibly personable.
- Go abroad.
- Stay in the city every summer if you possibly can (unless following my above advise and going abroad).
- Have a sense of classroom decorum—silence in seminars is a waste; speaking too much in lectures is presumptuous.
- Invest in good liquor.
- Never use the word ‘problematize.’
Any regrets? I didn’t stick with my foreign language after high school, and I absolutely should have. Otherwise, there are some classes I wish I’d taken, a few I wish I hadn’t, but no—when push comes to shove I don’t think I’d do anything differently.
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52 Comments
@Anonymous Translation: I’m a lard-prone, cranky, melodramatic alcoholic who jizzed over The Wasteland and learned to write via Oscar Wilde’s caricatures without realizing they were caricatures.
In my brief face to face experience, Michael actually came off as a nice human being, so I’m hoping this is actually an exercise in parody. If it isn’t, please DO justify your existence, cut that studied New England lockjaw out of your internal voice, and put down the turn of the century mixology guide. And someone link this post on lookatthisfuckinghipster.com.
@Well... I quite enjoyed this SW. Negronis at cocktail hour, Mr. Snyder?
@mm negronis
@okay bwog... MORE SWs PLEASE! ENOUGH WITH THIS SHIT!
@Sgt. Grumbles Who says “cocktail hour”?! It’s called HAPPY HOUR, bitch!
@Anonymous michael snyder is great !
@Anonymous He also takes the cake in the full-of-himself category
@columbia's classiest man for those who know him, this is merely stating the obvious: michael snyder is one of columbia’s classiest men.
for those who do not know him, you should. intelligent, witty, well-dressed, well-versed in gastronomy, and certainly an eloquent writer, he takes the cake in the classy category.
@only here are ‘classy’ and ‘snobby’ so easily confused
@yeah that was mostly classy in mao’s sense of the word
@Michael Snyder Fan http://twitter.com/monsieursnydes
@He actually sounds really cool.
He just has the balls to say what you keep to yourself. I’m glad he was honest and despite the haters this is exceedingly well written, and true.
Have fun writing news!
@It never fails to amaze me how often people mistake purple prose for “exceedingly well written.”
@... it never fails to amaze me how much legitimacy anonymous comments in the internet seem to grant people incredible analytical talents that seem t far surpass anything with a name attached to it.
funnily enough, Captcha: in spineless
@Might just be me, but — what does this mean?
@Anonymous Really? “Purple prose”? On the thread where we were making fun of poor Michael Snyder’s pretentiousness? And besides, just because writing is aware that it’s pretty, doesn’t mean it’s not pretty. The sentence with the semicolon was a perfectly fine student imitation of Jane Austen/Lady Bracknell.
Anyway, I met this guy once, and he seemed cool. And he’s a very talented performer. Good choice, bwog, good SW, Michael.
@I'd like to feed him my prosciutto… What are you making that face for? He said he liked pork.
@Anonymous I’m mostly just upset about the “problematize” comment :'(
@Anonymous michael snyder can serenade me with v114 any time
@Valdeon is the most overrated blue in the world. I kid you not.
@midwesterner That’s a pretty mean leg cross he’s got going there. I’ll wager every hour is cock tail hour.
@This is like a little kid doing his best impression of the “sophisticated grown-up”; it’s just not a very good impression.
He does do a fine job of overwriting, though:
“Amongst friends, amateur gastronome; general enthusiasm for wine, gin, bitters, and pork products; general antipathy toward vegans. Secondarily, campus theater.”
I pity The Santiago Times!
@and anyway... isn’t it LOS santiago times?
@hm Stay in the city every summer if you possibly can (unless following my above advise and going abroad).
*advice
@Anonymous yes, sometimes people make typos
@Anonymous Michael Snyder is amazing and so not pretentious. He’s a wonderful friend and a man of immense class and style.
@Anonymous A hipsters hips don’t lie
@my my i would still hang out with him, regardless of his pretentiousness. it sounds like he makes a mean drink, and would know how to eat well.
and please. don’t pretend like you’re not pretentious. YOU GO TO COLUMBIA?!?!?!
@Anonymous let’s all go be pretentious together! we can drink out of paper bags on the steps, wearing skinny jeans and little knit hats (because it’s so chilly, brrr), talk about our favorite french films, and discount the theories of every philosopher we’ve read at columbia. wait, i might be serious.
YAY FOR COLUMBIA. i am serious. we’re not all pretentious! but this man does seem silly.
@my my columbia is the only place that can complain about not being pretentious whilst retaining the essence of pretentiousness.
we’re the anti-hater hater’s hater school. as a senior i’ve come to appreciate the fact that we can even be pretentious about trying avoid pretentiousness, or alternatively try to pretentiously be pretentious because any other way it would just seem pretentious–and not simply “be”.
and we hate things that we hate because other people don’t hate them. or enjoy things that other people hate because that’s just the way we do it.
i think it’s our own version of campus spirit. varsity show v 114 put it best–morningside hates.
YAY FOR COLUMBIA!
@cc student meat-eaters that hate vegans are in the same boat as vegans that hate meat-eaters.
@This kid sounds really pretentious. Ugh.
@how can you be vegan and eat cheese
@kraft singles aren’t even real cheese, that’s why
@flails at veganism http://www.kraftrecipes.com/Products/ProductInfoDisplay.aspx?SiteId=1&Product=2100061526
@yay I love flailing at veganism!
I also enjoy flailing at birds in the hopes they will flail back.
@i'd give him oral.
— vegan person in lecture who talks too much and enjoys slices of kraft american cheese with a box of wine.
@anony mouse michael snyder is a gentleman and a scholar
@2150 i love this!
@Anonymous Oh man Michael Snyder is the top. So not tooley. but friends with Dooley.
@Speaking of which, I actually CANNOT wait for Dooley’s SW next year. Starting the countdown already… I might be joking. About the countdown.
@Anonymous “In every class there is someone really irritating, and someone who speaks rarely but profoundly—often many of the former, rarely more than one of the latter. No exceptions.”
Stunning lack of self-awareness here.
@really now you are completely spot-on. Michael, you’re really talented, but come on. You are definitely one of those irritating people sometimes. You’re just very self-entitled. Yes, I get it, you think you’re smart, OK? Now let’s move on.
@yes “Have a sense of classroom decorum—silence in seminars is a waste; speaking too much in lectures is presumptuous.”
Sounds like someone was in my class this semester. The poor (way too nice) professor could barely get two words out before someone interrupted him with their own opinion or with a little story or with a comment on his tie. In a seminar, sure. In a class with almost 100 people? Not so cool.
@I've never known Michael Snyder but he is one of the most talented men on this campus
@doesn't stop him... from being a tool.
@anonymous Advice for ’14 is spot on
@BLAH BLAH kind of seems like a tool…
@He could be really nice but.. Yeah. Pretty much.
It’s a combination of the picture and his constant hammering of the fact that he likes wine/alcohol (we got it at the third allusion).
@TOOL ALERT kind of seems like an asshole. way to throw butlerites under the bus!!!
@seas kid ERP ERP TOOL ALERT ERP ERP
SLOW DOWN – DOUCHEBAGGERY AHEAD
@Yeah... Kinda been wondering about that for a while…