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French lit obsessives might recall a character from Camus’s The Plague who spends years reworking the opening sentence of a novel. It’s a commentary on the human condition, or some shit…anyway, Butler library the Columbia library system, which has inspired everyone from Max Weber to Orhan Pamuk, could well have its own resident serial re-writer/tormented literatus. Meet Butler lounge denizen Marcos, C ’98, today’s victim of…
Why are you here?
I’m writing a novel.
What’s it about?
I have no idea.
How long have you been working on it?
Five years.
Why are you writing it here of all places?
I’m an alumnus…they have good coffee.
I notice you’re usually holding court with people at one of the booths…
I’m procrastinating.
So you aren’t here for the intellectual stimulation?
That and the procrastination.
Exhilarating! In other totally unrelated news: the New York Daily News has deemed upperclassman dive 1020 an accurate barometer of public opinion. 1020’s opinion: last night’s “Soprano’s” finale sucked ass.
-ARR
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@wait-- lower Ivy League?
@CRITIC BBBBOOOOOOORING!
@MAJOR JOHN HOWARD I was an English major and led the assault on Pegasus Bridge during the Normandy invasion. Now I am dead but my ghost can still communicate to you that English majors are among the best majors in the world are far better than Virginian major GEORGE WASHINGTON who was among the worst military leaders ever but nobody wanted to fire him because he was such a gentleman.
@Holy crap New favorite Bwog commenter?
@tttttest tttteeeesssttt
@sorry =( i’m an idiot.
@This interview should be published in the Bulletin, alongside the English Department course offerings, as a warning to all disillusioned freshmen.
@nah most english majors will wind up as advertising or marketing peons, if they don’t delay that humiliation by seven years by going to grad school in the naive hope of finding a teaching position somewhere palatable.
@LAWYERS Most of ’em end up as lawyers, at least here in the lower Ivy league
@I caught him I once caught him rubbing himself behind that bust of Marx
@DHI Sopranos had a great ending.
@Eew Marcos sounds sketchy.
@Novel? More like living in a hovel, amiriteguys?
If you’re writing a novel for five years, you better have some idea what the fuck it’s about. Get out of my library, spacewaster!
@this was lame.
@lifelong learner “Columbia University student Ron Schmitt, 39,”
that’s upperclass all right!
and butler inspired max weber? explain.
is marcos the guy with long hair who’s always talking about marx et al with several disciples gathered around him?
@ARR According to my edition, Weber researched The Protestant Work Ethic at Columbia, although it would be great to get some extra confirmation on that, especially since my edition is currently 300 miles away. Tao?