Irin Carmon

Midshipman Follows Family Naval Tradition
Vivacious and emphatic, Stephanie H. Hendricks ’05 is the picture of a well-adjusted, unabashedly preppy Harvard student. Yet for the past four years, she’s risen at dawn to trek to MIT for Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) exercises. This fall, Hendricks will trade in the Lacoste for a uniform as she trains to be a Naval intelligence officer in Virginia.

Elvis Mitchell Takes on Harvard
Elvis Mitchell likes to disarm. Even in person, the same arresting wit he unleashes on readers and fearful filmmakers in his New York Times reviews arrives untrammeled. “Am I keeping you up?” he quizzes me minutes after sitting down at the Carpenter Center’s Sert Gallery café. “You look like you’re dozing off. I can get you a cup of coffee.”

Shelter from the Storm: A night at the Harvard Square Homeless Shelter
Ray Muldoon is from East Boston, and he’ll be 24 in three days. He says he left Boston with eight dollars and a bag of weed, and became a stripper in Ohio en route to California. “You know what I did today?” he says. “I sat outside The Garage and watched people fall on the ice.” He’s restless, fingering the tattoos of Japanese characters and a cross he has on either side of his neck. “Physically, my body is telling me to go to sleep, but my mind is telling me to stay awake because I’d miss something. Except nothing ever happens.” How long has he been awake? “Days. Weeks. Years. It never ends.”

The Brattle Hosts a Feast for the Eyes
Despite the cherished pretensions some of us may hold about ourselves-that we are artistically savvy, that we are cosmopolitan aesthetes-it still takes a hell of a lot to get Harvard students out of the house and into some actual cultural consumption. Even if said cultural consumption is just around the corner. If your roommate isn’t in it, if the temperature’s dropped and you have a hot Friday night date with your problem set, it’s too easy to pass on the wealth of opportunities right in the Square.

Alums Wow, Fall Short At Pageant
Breaking records and shattering stereotypes, Harvard alums made a glittering double appearance at the Miss America competition last Saturday when two recent graduates made the top ten.

15 Questions for Laurie Gray (co-written with Peter L. Hopkins)
An interview with Miss Rhode Island, Harvard Class of 2003

Black and White and Crimson All Over
The outside world has long banked on the power of the Harvard name to sell newspapers, stand in as a gag for establishment elitism in endless substandard films, or provide a gauge for the nation’s culture wars. Sure, the media industry is littered with Harvard grads who sincerely believe that their alma mater is the center of the world—and make professional decisions accordingly—but this is only a part of the story of the love-hate relationship between Harvard and the media…with the world breathing down its neck, how much is Harvard influenced by its own press?

The Power of the H-Bomb
Welcome to the world of the H-Bomb, fabled weapon of the Harvard male: Tell a girl you go to Harvard, and she’ll fall at your feet. No matter who you were in high school, the myth goes, you’re a hot commodity once you manage to slip where you go to school into casual conversation.

Talking Trash (opinion article)
“Such parties dramatize only the worst of what we hear about so-called white trash. Clearly, to be poor and to live in a trailer means to be morally and intellectually vacuous, to be crude and uneducated and to have extremely poor personal hygiene. The white trash parties are not especially appalling or involved. In fact, like many social events round these parts, they’re more self-conscious and unenthused than audacious. Still, why have so few Harvard students, usually quick to protest prejudice, questioned the appropriateness of perpetuating such obviously offensive stereotypes?”