Stop Taking Pictures of Your Food

Next time, use snapchat

We need to get one thing straight: I don’t give a flying fuck about what you ate for dinner last night. Or a regular fuck, for that matter. So I don’t—repeat, DO NOT—want to see any more pictures of your goddamn food on my newsfeed.

That means you, study-abroaders. Oooh, look at you and your curry. Guess what, you puff of spicy flatulence? I can get delectable mostly-authentic cuisine delivered to the cozy warmth of the sorority house. You had to go to Europe. I’m sorry— who’s winning here?

Anna Karenina: The Movie, The Review

Also: Russian Cleavage

Yes, I saw Anna Karenina for free a day in advance of the US release. Shit was awesome and it was all thanks to some poor marketing intern that probably thought we were a serious publication. LOLZ AMIRITE? We waited in line (skipped by some bitches that recognized each other, but whatevs) and grabbed our seats after paying an enormous amount of money for a pittance of popcorn. Some rows were “reserved” for some “real critics” or some other bullshit, so we sat way in the back.

Sherman Ave Freshman Guide: Bicycles at NU

Testicular cancer? No way bro.

Before I came to Northwestern, it had been 3 years since I had ridden a bicycle for, well, socially acceptable purposes. Like most high school students, I felt that riding a bicycle was incredibly lame compared to owning a car, and even though most students at my high school did not own a car, getting a ride from your mom was still considered cooler than riding your bicycle (LOGIC BOMB). Nowadays, riding your bike is “hip,” “cool,” “environmentally friendly,” “a political endorsement of socialism,” etc. At Northwestern, riding your bike is a super viable way of getting to such important locations as: the student center that no one is close to; that place on Clarke that’s practically off-campus but for some reason they have classes there; your local alcohol purveyor; and many more. It’s important to understand whether owning and operating a bicycle at NU is the right decision for you. The following is a personal 2^nd amendment-centric manifesto confessional sexual novel handy guide on biking at NU.

The Road Not Taken: Other possible directions for One Direction

This is an insult to America and hoodies everywhere.

We all thought that the era of the boy band was over once New Kids on the Block released this soul-crushing monster of a video. After NKOTB, like many other depressing vestiges of our diaper years, started trying to capitalize on their adolescent success by filming yucky middle-aged versions of themselves hitting on scantily clad women in the early stages of a trophy wife wrinkly-tan, it seemed that the final page of the horrendous pulpy magazine of Boy Band Lore had finally been turned. I mean, no one likes greasy old men without recognizable talent (at least, no one without clinically diagnosable issues).

So the dust had nearly settled on the era of the Boy Band. For a few years there, I could’ve believed in Markwell (ohwaitnoicouldntomgwtfishedoing). One of the three genres of music that I absolutely hate had finally been starved of any sort of positive attention and seemed to be crumbling into a well-deserved oblivion.

BUT THEN.

THIS BULLSHIT.

One Direction is, inexplicably, making Boy Bands a thing again. I picture Dr. Frankenstein reinvigorating the entire sorry cadre of N*Sync (minus JT, who miraculously avoided death by bringing SexyBack) with a single jolt of candy-colored lightning from The Sky, aka the UK version of X-Factor. The “Igor” in this metaphor is some stupid fucking preteen who stopped vigorously masturbating to an Edward Cullen-inspired fantasy fiction blog for long enough to watch a YouTube clip her British cyberpal sent her.

Walking the red carpet to Douche Convention 2K12

So Who the fuck Is One Direction? You may be wondering, if you’re the type of person who has been living in a happy fantasyland matrix where Fleet Foxes string flowers and prayer flags across Pitchfork, Of Monsters and Men’s album has finally broken the top ten, and The boner-worthy Lollapalooza lineup is getting the acclaim that it deserves.

Until a few days ago, I was that person – a blissfully unaware hipster, tuned into my own Spotify and out of the pop culture loop. Now I’m Morpheus. And now that you’re reading this wake-up call you’re Neo.  And since we’re not in the Matrix anymore but rather in a media-saturated music-less wasteland, you should probably wake the fuck up.

One Direction is a British-Irish Boy Band that will probably dominate the cover of TigerBeat and consume the sexual fantasies of the “prepubescent girls with braces” demographic for the next few years. And they are SELLING MORE ALBUMS THAN MOST OTHER ONES RIGHT NOW. This is a travesty that must be halted. The UK has come up with a lot of good things – the Beatles, divorce, and Shakespeare come to mind – and a lot of bad things, like food made out of unappetizing organs and those curly wigs that judges wear. One Direction belongs to the latter category and must be stopped. How to stop them short of methods that would warrant my arrest, dear reader, is a mystery to me. In lieu of multiple-count homicide, I’ve brainstormed a short list of the “directions” I’d like One Direction to take. These choices all constitute satisfying ends for the band, namely, out of my radar, but remember: ultimately, there can only be One Direction for these pseudo-musical turds. Choose wisely.

Possible Direction 1: Into Japan
You may have heard the phrase “I’m big in Japan” from a witty friend as a sort of self-deprecating joke. Or maybe I’m weird and it’s more of an esoteric Tom Waits reference than anything else (THERE’S A T-SHIRT THOUGH GUYS IT’S TOTALLY A THING). Either way, the phrase references the fact that no one really knows what’s going on there, so if you’re big in Japan it doesn’t really matter to people in the USA. Mostly because we’re egocentric assholes, but also because styles like this one are big in Japan and, despite all of her efforts, Snooki hasn’t really reached that level yet. Plus, Japan is an island. And it has way too many people on it. If One Direction isn’t trampled in a freak-Tokyo-subway accident or killed in a haunted house a la The Grudge, at least its members will blend into the crowd of short skinny people in candy-colored clothing. Even if they don’t blend in, they’ll be Big in Japan – and therefore small in every other sense. Lolz.

Possible Direction 2: Down The Mariana Trench
At 6.78 miles below sea level, The Mariana Trench is the deepest place in the world. Nothing lives down there, especially melodic mediocrity and eunuchs with soft hands. I mean, there’s 15,570 pounds per square inch of pressure down in ol’ Mariana – that’s about 50 jumbo jets on the average-sized person, 100 on fatass Rush Limbaugh. The skinny little pricks that comprise One Direction would be boy pancakes. As pancakes, their stupid fucking vocal cords, shiny hairdos, and winning smiles would be incapable of making Simon Cowell gloat anymore. Just like their voices pre-autotune, the boyz of One Direction would be utterly, incomprehensibly flat.

Glad the puppies made it through Satan's anus alright.

Possible Direction 3: Through Satan’s Rectum
Does this last one really require an explanation? Although I am a pretty committed atheist, a girl can dream. And I dream of the possibility of One Direction’s ending as a piece of excrement being pushed through the colon of the Supreme Evil Being. You could say I’m a sentimental gal, I guess 😉

In sum: One Direction is pissing on music more blatantly than Brother Jürgen Taintsdorf pisses on the steps of tech after fratting it up on Friday nights. Heinousness to the heinous power.

An ode to Northwestern memes

In the great Northwestern University student tradition of never doing anything original ever, we have succeeded in completely ripping off funny Madison students and made our very own Facebook group for Northwestern-themed memes. And even before Madison made their group, Sherman Ave’s very own Evander Jones and Ross Packingham engaged in a daylong meme duel on Facebook, laying waste to the timelines around them with their brutal label-based humor bludgeons. If you were Facebook friends with them and missed out on these two wunderkinds making memes of each other and generally raping newsfeeds everywhere, I feel bad for you. It would be akin to taking Professor Bailey’s Human Sexuality class and skipping the optional after-class discussions.

But even though it’s not original, Northwestern Memes is awesome. I mean, nobody cares if you’re copying someone else as long as you do it better, and we are definitely doing it better. My complete and utter lack of interest in Madison has prevented me from even perusing their meme group, but I can’t imagine it being anywhere as good as Northwestern Memes.

I love memes. Who doesn’t? They’re hilarious. In our modern ADD society, they offer quick, digestible little nuggets of insight and satire about our modern culture. They are the Internet at its greatest, smartest, and funniest. Sometimes they even reference such awesome things as Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings, which if you haven’t seen or read Lord of the Rings then you probably aren’t a Nerdwestern Northwestern student.

As a result, I love Northwestern Memes. I’m going to break down why I love Northwestern Memes into a list for you. Here’s why:

1. My last three articles have been thousand-word slogfests about coffee and/or Newt Gingrich, and I’m sure you’re all tired of it.
2. Sherman Ave is even better at doing lists than we are at making YouTube videos that get 10,000 hits in two days, so this is pretty much guaranteed to be awesome.
3. I want to write an easily digestible reflection on the easily digestible nature of memes.

See? Wasn’t that an awesome little list? Wasn’t it easily readable? Yes it was. Everybody loves lists, just like everybody loves memes. So without further ado, here’s a list of why I love Northwestern Memes:

Some of Them are Funny
Since Northwestern is full of people who are smart and aware of trends, some students have significant experience with memes, and it shows. Some of these memes would be genuinely funny even by the standards of the greater Internet, just as there are some students here who would be considered hot at any college. Just not many. Which leads me to my second reason for loving Northwestern Memes…

Some of Them are Spectacularly Unfunny
Yes! Hoo ha! Most people posting pics to this group are clearly making memes for the first time. Thus, we find ourselves faced with people who don’t understand memes, people who don’t understand specific memes, people who are just not funny, and people who are kind of funny but are fitting long-winded jokes onto a small meme template. It’s always fun to watch people fail. This is why everyone loves this year’s GOP presidential race.* What’s that? I sound like a condescending hipster? Well, I’m not the only one…

Meme Haughtiness
Some people hate hipsters. I love them. I find them hilarious, especially when the thing they’re being hipster about is silly and meaningless. Like say, the ability to make memes. Some of the very first posts in Northwestern Memes were warnings about how we were in for a flood of bad memes. And we kind of were…but it was still hilarious that people decided to lord their knowledge of the Internet as if it made them intellectually superior.**

It’s All a Giant Conspiracy
Turns out that all these “___ Memes” groups were started by one guy as an advertisement for an all-encompassing “Campus Memes” website he’s making. It’s a conspiracy! As if you didn’t already have enough reasons to love Northwestern Memes, here’s another: it has something in common with the assassination of JFK!

Ah, yes. But as much as I love Northwestern Memes, I do have one suggestion for improvement. Two words: more fucksaws. The memes are coming a mile a minute now, so maybe one slipped by me, but I have yet to see a single meme mention a single fucksaw. What’s the deal, Northwestern? Jokes about Asians are funny enough, but “I’m tired of talking about fucksaws” was probably the last line cut from the “Shit Nobody Says” video. I know the Keg is gone and Lodge is closed and stuff, but c’mon guys. Fucksaws, I tell you.

Other than that, keep on tracking.

——————————————————————————————————————————
*Sorry, I just couldn’t stop myself from referencing it. I’m done now though. I promise.
**Morson alert!

The Shoulder Thing

As a member of society with an available soapbox, I feel that it is necessary to warn you of a disgusting phenomenon in our society. This little-known gesture of disdain and douchiness has plagued middle schools for ages, but seeing its use among the heinously classy students of Northwestern brings me to my knees.

It is commonly known as “The Shoulder Thing.”

Imagine, for example, a group of friends have formed a circle. They are having a very deep and intimate conversation in which minds are being enlightened and lives are being changed.

A friend or acquaintance overhears snippet of said conversation and wishes to contribute.

However, the shoulders of persons A and B are too close together, and the new member cannot contribute to the conversation.

This is known as “The Shoulder Thing.”

Persons A and B are Motherfuckers because they can hear their friend knocking on the conversation’s door, politely requesting entry with his presence, and don’t move. Person C is also Motherfucker because he is physically looking into the face of the shunned and doesn’t say anything.

So much douchery is implied, and the Motherfuckers don’t even have the decency to outright shun the outsider. They strand him on the outside, disappointed and confused, like a freshmen girl calling Saferide at 3:27 AM when she finally thinks the line won’t be busy only to find that she’s too late and they’re no longer open, and now she’s either got to ask a frat bro she barely knows to walk her all the way south, go alone and risk running into the Smartphone Pirates, or hook up with a guy to get a place for the night.

Typically, circles of Motherfuckers will simply ignore the presence of the outsider, interrupting his stuttered attempts at contribution as if to say, “You are not worth the time it takes me to listen to your comment. You are not worth a momentary pity nod. However, my comment is incredibly important and significantly more valuable than whatever you are going to say.” Seriously, even Kanye, the most narcissistic of disruptive douchebags, was gonna let Taylor finish. Hell, Kanye even let Taylor start.

Here is an illustration of how to properly do The Shoulder Thing. As demonstrated, Persons A and B angle their shoulders so as to be enlightened by the insightful remark about to be made by their acquaintance.

You and your friends are tight. You are tighter than a hipster’s pants, tighter than a nun’s poontang, tighter than Kate Upton in an A-cup. We get it. The inside jokes are enough to make potential newcomers awkwardly excuse themselves from a conversation with a comment like, “I’ll be over there jerking off in your Apple Jacks, because it’s more visibly appreciative of my input.” You probably don’t like the outsider, or you’d welcome them. But you don’t have to be such a Motherfucker about it.

You must be the heinous you wish to see in the world.

Things That Suck: Coffee

Coffee: Sir Twattingworth's anti-heroin

Fuck coffee.

I feel like a stranger in a strange land. Not because I’m the protagonist of a Robert Heinlein novel, but because I don’t drink caffeine. I’ll pause a moment to let your mouths fall agape as you shout “WAIT WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAATTTT.”

True story. I’ve never drunk coffee in my life. Okay, wait, there was that one time when I was a curious young four-year-old and my dad let me taste his coffee and I was so horrified that I jerked violently and spilled it all over my Charlie Brown pajama pants. But other than that I have usually abstained from the black stuff. And from Red Bull. And Monster, too. Fuck that shit.

Final exams may be over at Northwestern, but I know there are a bunch of other poor unfortunate souls out there who still have to cram months’ worth of learning into their skulls before exams. As a result they may, in all their mortal vulnerability, be tempted to turn to the evil that is caffeinated beverages. I am here to hold up my hand and say the same thing I would say to anyone planning to read Roberto Bolaño’s novel 2666: Don’t do it!

My body is like this temple, in that it is a temple.

That’s a picture of a temple. I included it in this article because, like the Baha’i Temple, my body is a temple. When I stay up till four in the morning writing a six page essay about what Henry David Thoreau would think about the Weather Underground, I do so simply on the sober strength of my own fucking willpower. I understand that if you start thinking about this metaphor, some obvious contradictions might jump out at you like the T-Rex face in my old dinosaur pop-up book. But I’ll remind you that most temples have alcohol in them. You can put wine into a temple without damaging it, and Christians have done so for ages. But something tells me that if you shot lightning at a temple to “give it energy,” you would really just blow up the temple. That’s my visualization of inserting caffeine into a human system.

Shoot a temple with lightning and it will never be intact again. Give me Red Bull and I will never sleep again. I have enough trouble as it is. The first time I stayed up past midnight on a day that wasn’t New Year’s Eve, it was all over for me. Once I crossed that threshold, it became impossible for me to ever fall asleep before midnight again. At night my productivity goes up, and I suddenly remember all the Grantland articles I wanted to read and all the episodes of Dragon Ball Z that I wanted to watch that I somehow forgot about during the daytime. Before I know it, it’s 2:30 and somehow the knowledge that I have to telemarket for three hours the next day doesn’t stop me from looking up YouTube clips of old Martin Luther King, Jr. speeches until my eyelids finally take executive action and shut themselves, only to be jarred awake hours later by an alarm just in time to swallow a mouthful of Cocoa Puffs before huffing it to my French class with all possible speed. No rest for the weary, and I am nothing if not weary.

I am not alone here. I have friends who drink coffee like it’s water. As a result, they go to bed at midnight and wake up at six every day. They think they’re fully functioning modern human beings. I think they’re more like zombie robots in danger of falling apart at any second. I don’t want to see that happen, so I’m finally coming out against the horrid black stuff.

She is hot. Coffee is awful.

That’s a subjective take on the general suckiness of caffeinated drinks, so I’ll throw in an objective approach as well. I feel like I shouldn’t have to mention this, since it is as inherently obvious as the blueness of the sky or the hotness of Kate Middleton, but caffeine is gross. Coffee is gross, and everybody secretly knows it. I’m not just talking about the people who pour mounds of sugar into their mugs to deaden their sorry souls to the fact that they’re drinking liquid poop. I’m talking about everyone. We all seem to have agreed to forget that coffee is disgusting, the way we all agreed to forget that George W. Bush was appointed President by the Supreme Court.

And not just coffee. Red Bull is gross too. I admit, I’ve tasted it a few times, and I’d sooner hang out with Michele Bachmann for a few hours than repeat the experience. But even if I hadn’t been capable of offering this personal testimony of awfulness, surely the list of ingredients – which looks like something Walter White might cook up in his basement to pay for chemotherapy – would probably be convincing enough. 4Loko actually tastes kind of good, but it’s illegal, so that’s a given. I won’t even talk about 5 hour energy drinks until they make better commercials. If my RTVF roommate could make a better commercial than the one you put on TV, you probably don’t deserve to exist, let alone be talked about in the valuable Internet real estate that is this website.

Would you rather drink coffee or eat poop?

I realize that this anti-caffeine argument is difficult. Sometimes the AP curriculum makes it seem as if the College Board just assumes that every AP student is injecting caffeine into their eyeballs (Either that or no one told them about the existence of time-consuming extracurriculars, but either way they’re a bunch of douchemuffins who gave me too much homework in high school). Then there’s the necessity of being a hipster in order to have any social currency in this hyper media-literate world. That means you need to read Pitchfork regularly and wear clothes originally designed for girls Europeans, but it mainly means that you need to spend a majority of your time in darkly lit indie cafes sipping black energy so you’re wide awake and prepared to unleash a shitstorm of ironic Tweets the next time Bon Iver releases a workout video. Caffeine has been so prevalent in our society for so long that we just accept it as a given fact of life. But the fact that people in the Eighties were accustomed to the idea of nuclear Armageddon didn’t make it okay. Nuclear holocaust is never okay, and neither is coffee, and don’t let Henry Kissinger tell you any different.

Society seems to have ordered its priorities like this:
1. Work
2. Sleep

But that is so, so wrong. Our society has forgotten the value of sleep. Let me tell you, there was one Saturday earlier this quarter when I slept until 3 pm. It was the greatest day of my life. We all need sleep to recuperate from the horrid heinousness of everyday life, and coffee prevents that. It sucks. Finals suck. Life sucks too. But you just need to get over it. Do it all natural or not at all, that’s my motto. Sleep well, my friends.

(And for those of you wondering about the fate of my aforementioned Charlie Brown pajama pants: They did not survive their encounter with coffee, and were promptly retired to the dustbin of history. The world is a worse place for it).

Top 10 Least Advisable Halloween Costumes

Awww, costumes used to be so cute...

It’s almost that time of the year again! No, not off-year election day. Sadly, not the end of finals yet. And no, we’re not even talking about my birthday. But something even more exciting is happening this weekend: Halloween!

Halloween at Northwestern is a magical experience, when the female undergrad population is magically transformed from Harvard rejects into sexy cheerleaders, sexy members of the Greek pantheon, sexy animals — even sexy Abraham Lincoln and John Wilkes Booth — while the guys are left to dress up as “writers” and try to get sexy Hilary Clinton’s phone number. But considering Northwestern’s proud tradition of outlandishly offensive Halloween costumes, it seemed necessary to take a brief moment to warn the student body of ten potential costumes that might not fit with the spirit of the holiday.*

10. Tim Pawlenty’s Presidential Campaign
The reanimated dead have always held a special place in American culture. That’s why zombies and Barbara Walters are still so popular today. But as cool as a zombie costume can be for Halloween, Tim Pawlenty’s presidential aspirations just aren’t such a good idea to bring back to life in costume form. Besides, nobody would even know your name.

Sir Twattingworth and Ross Packingham on a typical Wednesday night

9. Sir Edward Twattingworth III
Unless you’re going to a party with a “heinous” theme, you should probably avoid dressing up as Sir Edward Twattingworth III. As much as we’d love to see our fans don Twattingworth’s characteristic Ed Hardy t-shirt, camouflage parachute pants, gold chains, and bowler hat, we don’t want anybody to get mistaken for an ETHS sophomore and thrown out of a frat basement. If you want to show your support for Sir Twattingworth, we suggest dressing up as his betrothed to be, Pippa Middleton.

8. Dan Persa’s Achilles Tendon
Too soon, asshole. That broken tendon was more heartbreaking to the NU student population than the closing of Pomegranate, and more disappointing than watching a Northwestern secondary in pass protection. Somebody’s going to sack you for a loss like Kain Colter facing the blitz.

The good thing about the Qaddafi regime: nobody was bold enough to make the mistake of offering Almond Joys for Halloween

7. Colonel Qaddafi
This should be a pretty easy costume to cobble together. All you really need is to grow out some poor facial hair (easy enough for most Northwestern students), borrow your grandpa’s old sunglasses, and commit numerous crimes against humanity (start by playing Nickelback at every party you attend). The only drawback: that hipster in the Mubarak costume insisting that he was into Arab regimes before it was cool.

6. Fucksaw
Hilarious as this might still be, nobody wants to party with a dude wearing a dildo on his head. Alternative costume idea: dress as Professor J. Michael Bailey. All this requires is making incendiary comments about the basis of homosexuality, violating numerous ethical standards about psychology research, and showing everybody you meet foot fetish videos.

AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

5. Amy Winehouse
For somebody who already looked like a cross between a zombified Helena Bonham Carter and a New Orleans streetwalker while she was living, Ms. Winehouse might not be the best choice for this Halloween. Something about “insensitivity” might come up throughout the course of the night. Unless, of course, you use her death from alcohol poisoning as a public service announcement about the danger of imbibing, in which case your costume might be ill-advised for other reasons.

4. Chet Haze
This might seem brilliant at first, but upon further examination, dressing up as a talentless self-obsessed douche might not be a great idea. Especially as the odds of both you and Chet wearing the same black dago-t to a party are much higher on Halloween.

3. The 1%
This one just hits a little close to home. Seeing as many Northwestern students actually occupy the 1%, it can be kind of hard to protest inequality at an elite institution. Besides, it’s much easier and enjoyable to occupy The Keg than it is to stand outside of Kellogg in the Chicago fall to protest the future I-bankers of America.

2. Herman Cain
Side-stepping the whole potential “blackface” thing, this costume would probably involve a “9-9-9” Plan (i.e. doing 9 shots, getting 9 orders of chicken fries from BK, and urinating on nine university buildings), wearing a Godfather’s Pizza box instead of pants, and running for positions you are under-qualified for.

Partner costume: Casey Anthony before and after

1. Casey Anthony
Tempting, but don’t. Just don’t.