Oberlin Blogs
John West ’10
Entries from this blogger
And Now Presenting...
September 29, 2010
In this post: John's list of the top five ways to procrastinate at Oberlin!
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The Newsies
August 14, 2010
In this post: freshman rituals, changed names, sneaking out of windows, newspapers, The Review security notebook, and much, much more!
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Skunked
April 26, 2010
In this post: skunks, skunk orgies, band names unbecoming of Baroque ensembles, indescribable smells, the philosophy of Eeyore, the curse of the Obie, and much, much more.
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Broken Spring
April 3, 2010
In this post: vegetable gardening, homemade compost bins, the anti-rot properties of cedar, sleep, Wilder Voice, inscrutable comics, the Coal River Valley, Obie activism, and much, much more.
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The Students Are Coming, the Students Are Coming II
February 7, 2010
In this post: the pseudo-triumphant return of John blogging, how freshmen walk, atrophied vocal chords, dinner parties, what I've been doing, what other people have been doing, shameless self-promotion, and much, much more.
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The Life Pastoral (With Pictures!)
October 23, 2009
In this post: on-campus fall breaks, laziness, pan-seared steak recipes, Spike Jonze v. Spike Lee, Oberlin Levittown, a shameless plug for the Wilder Voice website, cornfields, yes, that's right, more on cornfields.
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Hot Cross Buns
October 8, 2009
In this post: notes on being double-degree, funny looks, historical performance, me on a soapbox (figuratively), rants on authorial intent, more apocryphal stories, why I play the recorder, musical temperament, A440 Hz, the varieties of recorders, a picture, clips of my junior recital, and Tom DeLay dancing with the stars.
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The Road Not Taken
September 27, 2009
In this post: the Montreal International Recorder Competition, recorders that look like plumbing, apocryphal stories, adorable taxi drivers, the death of punk, and Glenn Beck killing a frog.
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Semi-Productive Procrastination
September 10, 2009
In this post: whining, zingers, too many words, neuroses, a moral, unplayable atonal blah blah blah, a payoff for those who wade through 900-odd words.
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The Students Are Coming, the Students Are Coming
August 29, 2009
In this post: summer projects, the end of summer projects, things one learns in the summer, Infinite Monkey, homemade bookcases, X-Men , produce stands in rural Ohio, pictures of my apartment.
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The Secret Lives of Coffee Mugs
August 19, 2009
In this post: coffee mugs, unions (viz. Teamsters and AFSCME), near-death experiences, pictures I may or may not have incorrectly uploaded even though I've been given two sets of instructions on how to upload photos because I'm practically a Luddite, Oberlin vignettes.
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Pleasant, Pleasant, Pleasant
August 10, 2009
In this post: two apologies, meta-blogging, Rust Belt aesthetics, an Oberlin vignette, pacts with readers, and overwrought prose.
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I Disagree
June 4, 2009
In this post: potentially job ending disagreement, politics at Oberlin, liberal ironists vs. liberal revolutionaries, debates to stay up late for, Fox News, and please don't fire me .
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There is Nothing Depressing in this Post
April 14, 2009
In this post: blogger pizza parties, ritualistic animal sacrifice, more Mad Max , The Bell Jar , happy things, literal clowns, figurative sharks, pacts with readers.
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Dread! Dismay! Zeitgeist!
March 31, 2009
In this post: doom, gloom, our inevitable demise, American Ragnarök, Funky Winkerbean, armed revolution, barbarians at the gates, political Pentecostalism.
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Of What Use is a Newborn Child?
March 11, 2009
In this post: Mad Max , our inevitable doom, The Communist Manifesto , superempirical virtues in theory choice, Stanley Fish, those problematic humanities, and a way-too-long post.
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The Annals of Blogging
February 18, 2009
In this post: sub-standard writing, naval-gazing, other people's impenetrable prose, my impenetrable prose, private readings, A-List magazines, and burnt mouths.
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On Rejection
January 26, 2009
In this post: rejection letters, romantic rejection, my petty impulses, The Kenyon Review , and children's publishing.
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Me vs. My Bookshelf
January 19, 2009
In this post: the inadequacy of my wit, avoidance of bad ad copy, books I should read, and Nick Hornby.
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O Little Town of Oberlin
January 5, 2009
In this post: countercyclical economics, Main Street v. the Big Box, student migratory patterns, the Evangelical Vatican, yoga, and a poor ending.
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The Last Week
December 17, 2008
This utter lack of warmth and sun, combined with the rampant insomnia and overwhelming amount of work, makes the campus seem less like sweet, pastoral, rural Ohio and more like a scene from Doctor Zhivago.
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It's a Problem of Nomenclature
December 9, 2008
I think a die a little bit every time someone uses the word Obie to describe a person who goes to Oberlin (as in: We Obies love to hate things ). I think The Grape --one of Oberlin College's many publications--described the word as (and I'm paraphrasing here) "used only by The Review and the Admissions Department."
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Doing the Layout
November 25, 2008
There's something to be said for a small liberal-arts college in a backwater hamlet a charming slice of small-town America that has two newspapers. And there's something more to be said a college that has two newspapers ( The Oberlin Review , The Oberlin Grape --for which I am a copy editor), three non-fiction magazines ( Wilder Voice , Vox , In Solidarity ), a literary journal (formerly The Plum Creek Review , formerly Enchiridion , now The Plum Creek Review --again), a genre-fiction magazine ( Spiral ) and doesn't have a journalism department.
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Notes on an Election
November 7, 2008
So, yes, I'm eschewing that obligatory hello my name is John. I'm a blogger. I'm really cool. Here's some stuff about me post, at least for the time being. Bios are dreadfully difficult to write, and, though my fellow bloggers have been covering Oberlin's reaction to this latest election pretty darn well , I figured I might as well add my two cents.