All Is Not Peachy With the Bellinis

Scene: The year is 1460. We are in the workshop of the painter Jacopo Bellini, who is with his son, Gentile.

Gentile: What are all these melon balls doing here?

Jacopo: We had some people over last night.

G: (Popping a melon ball in his mouth) "We"?

J: Use a toothpick.

G: Who? You and Giovanni?

J: Yes. Your brother and I showed some paintings.

G: That's called an opening. Who did you invite?

J: Whom.

G: (With an edge) Whom did you invite?

J: Clergy. It was last-minute. Giambellino and I...

G: (Interrupting) Spare me the loving diminutive: call him Giovanni.

J: Go easy on those melon balls.

G: It's hurtful to be excluded.

J: No one's excluding you.

G: Right. I'm sorry I'm not the greatest Venetian master of the 15th Century.

J: (Conciliatory) Gentile....

G: Your favoritism is obvious.

J: Giovanni's specialty is Madonnas. The Church wants a Madonna.

G: Who doesn't? It's not as if I can't handle paint.

J: Of course you can.

G: So let me do the Madonna.

J: (Long pause) Gentile, your work has a certain...hesitancy.

G: My lack of assurance is bashfulness. What's wrong with bashful paintings?

J: Nothing. But your brother...

G: (Interrupting) Yes, my younger, illegitimate brother.

J: Your name means "kind," yet sometimes I wonder....

G: It's hard to feel kind when my emotional and professional needs aren't met.

J: Perhaps you would like to help me with a portrait of Doge Malipiero.

G: What's Giovanni doing?

J: A Crucifixion.

G: Christ.

J: Obviously....

G: I know the subject of the Crucifixion. What I'm saying is that He's a bit more important than Doge Malipiero.

J: (Spreads his hands helplessly) What do you want from me?

G: Love, respect, decent commissions, my own living quarters, use of the boat Friday evenings....

J: If only you were as bashful as your pictures.

G: I'm the eldest son. Last month Giovanni was at work on the "Sacred Conversation." You asked me to re-paint the kitchen.

J: And you did a poor job.

G: You said "yellow."

J: I said "ochre." Your mother is unhappy.

G: Have you noticed how all Giovanni's Madonnas resemble Aunt Elsa?

J: Untrue.

G: Look closely.

J: I see gentle mystery.

G: The mystery is why he's fixated on a relative. A blood relative.

J: What are you implying? Stop gobbling melon and be candid.

G: You want candor?

J: I do.

G: Maybe the weak link isn't me.

(Jacopo stares at him)

G: Maybe it's you.

J: I am your father. The patriarch.

G: Try being a little less patriarchal and we might get along better.

J: You disappoint me.

G: Tell me something I don't know.

J: Not as a painter. As a son.

G: You know, psychology's not really your strong suit...

J: (Interrupting) I've tried to guide you....

G: Into oblivion.

J: But you are impatient. You must give yourself time.

G: Time? I'm 31. Statistically, I'll be dead in six years.

J: Think not of your honor on this earth.

G: That doesn't really work for me. Call me crazy, but I'm not a big believer in resurrection.

J: You liken yourself to Christ.

G: Who else is there?

J: You blaspheme.

G: Why don't we get Giovanni a big ermine cape and jeweled scepter? Then he can be doge and paint himself. You'd love that, wouldn't you?

J: Don't be absurd.

G: No, really. I've heard you glorify him every day of his life. And I've had it up to here. Next time you have an opening,
I expect to be invited. In the meantime...

J: (Interrupting) In the meantime, you'll paint the kitchen.

G: I already did.

J: Then re-paint it. Ochre.

Being Nineteen

My head's about to explode. With the possible exception of Princeton, the pressure's more intense here than at any other college in New Jersey. Just look at my desk: books stacked as high as the Tower of Babel, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and the Seattle Space Needle put together.

I love how they call it "reading period." What do they think I've been doing all semester? Here, read this text from Lenny: "Kickass party tonight at Jake's." Do you realize how much research I'm going to have to do? First of all, Jake who? What time? Where does he live? On or off-campus? Will I need wheels? Jesus, as if I don't have enough to do.

Then I've got the Sword of Damocles hanging over my head. My frat wants me to do a Christmas porno with Denise. But I already made a Halloween porno with Heather. I feel like one of those guys in the National Guard doing a third tour of duty. Stop-gap or whatever it's called. Denise isn't even my body type (plays rugby).

Lenny says my Halloween porno actually helped Heather fulfill a Women's Studies requirement. Typical. Just the way actresses in adult films are well compensated while actors earn squat. If I even mentioned my appearance in "Jack O' Lanterns" to a prof., I'd be suspended.

You'd think the Duke lacrosse scandal would have shown how mistaken college administrators can be about frats, but no, we're still the bad guys. Get a load of this: "Roundtable on the Future of Fraternities." Smack in the middle of reading period. I wonder if there'll be beer.

And I'm supposed to be Secret Santa for somebody whose name I can't even pronounce. I complained to Simon, who told me, "He's the smartest kid in Pakistan." That really doesn't help me. They don't have Christmas in Pakistan so he won't appreciate my gift. Not that I'm going to get him one. Do I have the time to go shopping? I should buy something for Denise, though, if we're going to be working together. Speaking of which, I should also be at study group now. We're supposed to have read Dickens's Hard Times. Tell me about it: 574 pages with next to no margins. I haven't even lifted the thing.

Maybe if I arrive with beer at study group, I won't have to say much. Can I bring beer into that part of the library? Probably. This e-mail says we're meeting near the open stacks. To me that sounds like a "yes."

You know what I hate with a passion? Anthropology. I can't believe it's my major. My cousin told me not to choose my classes based on class times, but the chance to sleep in Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday was just too tempting. I don't think even Claude Lévi-Strauss would turn down a five-day weekend.

Now I've got to call Brendan, who I hear bought his term paper from the very company I recommended. In fact, it's rumored Brendan bought the same term paper I did. I don't want to turn nasty, but if I have to write an anonymous note to the Disciplinary Committee accusing him of plagiarism, I will.

One thing I will not be doing is moving the Dumpster from next to our frat to the far side of the parking lot. Why don't they just call me Ishmael and ask me to harpoon Moby Dick like the Old Man in the Sea? My frat brothers say the Dumpster stinks. Guess what? So do most of my frat brothers. I'll move the Dumpster if I don't have to make "Snow Globes" with Denise. And if someone drives me to Delaware for Christmas break. My notice has been downstairs on the ride board for six weeks and last night I heard Jerry Thurston offer the guy from Pakistan a lift to Wilmington. OK, dude, that's my Secret Santa present to you: my seat in Jerry Thurston's SmartCar.

Thank God my Poli Sci final's being offered on the honor system. Bingo! Of course they expect you to write more than you would if you were trapped in a classroom, but I'm willing to put in the time.

This I am not going to: a holiday dinner to benefit UNICEF. Great scheduling, folks. I've got an invite to this guy Jake's, study group, and I have to make a porno before Wednesday. Plus the dinner's vegetarian.

It's time for some textual relations: I'll see if Marcy wants to hook up at midnight. But it's 43° out: I'm not walking over to her place. I can't believe this: just like that, she said "no." "Y not?" I want to know. "Work." Tell me about it. This place is too extreme. I need to step back from the brink and chill out. I wonder what's on TV.

Other Voices, Other Rooms

Truman Capote cited one of his major failings as not being able to speak Italian despite having lived in Italy for a combined total of nine years. I've lived here seven. Two more years and this magnificent writer and I will finally have something in common.

Although I've availed myself of costly classes, tiresome tapes, and a laminated four-page guide which lists nearly every major rule of the Italian language and the declensions of all tenses of regular and irregular verbs, I still have difficulty remembering that the word "flower" is masculine. But then, too, so is "feminist."

Parent-teacher conferences are excruciating. When my children were in first grade, I possessed the comprehension of a first grader. Now that they're in eighth grade, I'm up to fourth. I begin each meeting with a plea for the teacher to speak very slowly and remind her that my Italian is weak. We can sometimes pass an amiable three or four minutes unless joined by a second or third instructor. Then all hell breaks loose and a rapid clicking approximating language ensues as they become increasingly animated and I discouraged. On the upside, my limited comprehension allows me to blithely assume that my children excel at school here and have perfect behavior (a marked contrast from their performance in America). Unable to read the lengthy comments on their report cards, I am satisfied.

Being American and choosing to live in Italy with children is taken as a compliment by Italians. Living here without kids means you've simply retired, read Frances Mayes's books, purchased her calendars or products from her home furnishings line, attended her Under The Tuscan Sun Festival, or all five. So I find myself in rarefied settings from which I would certainly be excluded in the United States if people knew my family background, where I was educated, or how uninteresting I actually am.

When spoken at in rapid-fire Italian by a renowned psychiatrist in a 15th-Century palazzo, I find gestures amazingly helpful. Ditto when asked to peel sausage with an unusually dull knife in an intimidating aristocrat's rustic weekend retreat. I thank God for making the human head able to swivel no and nod yes. Those two words are really all you need to travel the globe: let foreigners do the heavy lifting.

Sure, I could try to express myself in Italian, but I don't yet know the words for "dull," "sausage," or "inexperience peeling Italian sausage with an unusually dull." I do, though, know the word for "knife." I could always shift to English (anyone who has attended school in Italy in the past 15 years, uses computers, teaches, or travels knows our language), but Italians often share my reluctance to sound stupid in someone else's vernacular and insist we speak Italian since we're "in Italia." When conversation flags, I gesticulate more frantically, making clear that my hands speak Italian even if my mouth doesn't.

As a fan of Tim Parks's writing, I was overjoyed to read that after a decade in Italy, he understood 80 percent of what was said to his face and 50 percent of what was uttered in his presence. This explained my low percentage of word recognition when answering the phone. I can now identify telemarketers (friendly), teachers (angry), and neighbors (friendly, then angry). On all others, I hang up.

Meanwhile, further research into Tim Parks's achievements (beginning with his graduation from Cambridge, continuing through his publication of numerous novels, memoirs, and critical studies, and culminating in his tenured position as a professor in Milan) revealed we had little in common. "And," said my wife helpfully, "he's married to an Italian."

Nonetheless, it's always possible to model yourself on someone and hope appeared on my horizon in the guise of a dismayingly limited American woman who's been here nine years. Watching her struggle to order tuna (tonno) at the fish market, Capote sprang instantly to mind. She expresses herself so boringly in English that I always suggest we speak Italian in order to salvage something of value from the encounter. I notice she makes many of my grammatical mistakes and is also not married to an Italian. Though we have little else in common, she's actually become one of my closest acquaintances. Particularly after she asked me how long I'd lived in Italy. "Seven years," she gasped, "but your Italian's so good."

From Sir, With Love

I've absorbed some heavy hits in my life, but none can compare to the pain I feel today as I inform you, my beloved students, that effective immediately I am resigning from the English department at McCloskey Technical High School. This is entirely my choice. While I am a contoversial teacher, I was not "forced out" by the administration. I do hope, however, that the following lines will serve to clarify my decision.

If there's one piece of advice I can impart to you, it would be "act on your beliefs." I believe in a country where one out of four children is not on foodstamps, where 46% of the Bronx population is not dependent on foodstamps, and where nine out of ten minority children have not, at one time or another, relied on foodstamps. In short, I believe in America and I believe in foodstamps, but I do not believe in an America where foodstamps are prevalent to such a degree.

Like Martin Luther King, Jr., Gandhi, and Nelson Mandela, I envision a better world. McCloskey Tech, as it is currently structured and run, is not that world. Many students come to McCloskey each morning with an insatiable hunger: a hunger for acceptance, for knowledge, and for the nutritious breakfast all the foodstamps in the world can't provide.

I began teaching when I learned of a teacher shortage in the inner city. Urban America issued a challenge and I responded with every fiber of my being, during every minute of my tenure here at McCloskey. But I am exhausted, my reserves of passion and imagination are spent. In attempting to meet the challenge of teaching, the profession has overly challenged me. The six weeks I've spent on the McCloskey faculty have taken a devastating toll.

None of this is your fault. My absence for the remainder of the school year is no reflection on you. But you are old enough now to watch me bear witness and to hear me speak power to truth as I confront the status quo.

Many of you showed minimal interest in the film I recently screened, "One Flew Over the Cukoo's Nest." But those of you who weren't talking, sleeping, drinking soda, smoking, or bringing each other to sexual climax may remember the scene in which McMurphy (Jack Nicholson) attempts to uproot a rectangular, marble bathroom fixture and hurl it through the window of the mental asylum where he is held captive. He fails (marble is a very heavy material, particularly when employed in an institutional setting) and the other inmates stare at him. "At least I tried," he tells them.

That is what I say to you today: "By God, I tried." To extend the metaphor, I am Jack Nicholson, you are the inmates, McCloskey is the mental ward, and the educational hierarchy here is the rectangular, marble bathroom fixture.

What do I mean by the "educational hierarchy"? I mean, specifically, my department chair, Dr. Edward Selvin. Allow me to explain something about the title "Dr." This prefix was originally intended for practioners of the art of medicine. Over time, those who earned Ph.D.'s in fields such as physics, chemical engineering, and astronomy began to refer to themselves as Dr. So-and-so. Edward Selvin holds a doctorate in education, but he is not a doctor. He is, in fact, a so-and-so. If you do only one thing to preserve my memory in the halls of McCloskey, please cease to refer to "Dr. Selvin." "Mr. Selvin" or "Ed" will do just fine.

You may think that I spent my time here fighting with you. Yes, we had our disagreements. You graffitied your books, the desks, our classroom, my text, and each other. In anger, I rashly called some of you indolent (lazy), apathetic (unfeeling), oppositional (obnoxious), and claimed you suffered from ennui. This last is a French word, but at least one of you should have been familiar with the other adjectives. Nontheless, my beef is not with you. It is with the theoretical rectangular, marble bathroom fixture: Edward Selvin.

I have won awards for my writing at the state level and was accepted into a prestigious seminar ("Literature of the Uncanny") my senior year of college. Thus when Mr. Selvin notified me that my lesson plans were "poorly written and incoherent," I was aghast (shocked). Do you know what was truly poorly written and incoherent? Mr. Selvin's evaluation of my lesson plans. I did not tell him then, but use this farewell now to alert him to the fact that "rummage" has two m's.

I corrected your essays, read your journals, and heard you crack wise in the halls. Quite simply, you burrowed into my heart. SJ, I'll never forget that Thursday afternoon when you told me of your uncle's death; Shaneequa, I hope you someday see Disneyworld; Leon, if you want to play for the Yankees, you can play for the Yankees; Tasha, a modelling career is within reach (but no more of those videos!); Tibbs, you're #1; Amber, you walk among dinosaurs (I'm sorry I won't be on next week's field trip to the Museum of Natural History).

To all of you I've known and cherished, peace. I will continue to fight the good fight and hope to effect societal change on a larger scale by enrolling in a screenwriting workshop in Tribeca for four days in January. You will live on in my screenplay (tentatively entitled "My Struggle"), which will be based on my time at McCloskey this fall. In the script, your names will be altered, but the dream will never die. You're all a part of me: the best part. Happy Halloween.

A Private Hanging

So many scenes between husbands and wives...contain the seeds of potential murder.--Sir John Mortimer

SHE: You know what I'm thinking?

HE: What are you thinking, angel?

SHE: That I'd finally like to hang that painting my dad gave us for a wedding present.

HE: O.K., great.

SHE: Really?

HE: Sure. I'll get a hammer and a nail.

SHE: Bring a big one.

HE: Big hammer or big nail?

SHE: Both.

HE: Voilà: here I am.

SHE: We need wire.

HE: Oh, right.

SHE: And eye-hooks.

HE: No problem.

SHE: How high on the back of the frame should you insert the eye-hooks?

HE: Does it matter?

SHE: No. Probably not. Insert them higher.

HE: (Grunting with exertion) I'm actually not inserting them; I'm screwing them into the frame.

SHE: Screw them in higher.

HE: Does it matter?

SHE: No. Probably not.

HE: Good. Because the left one's already in. Jesus.

SHE: What?

HE: What's this made of? Metal? Where did we buy this frame?

SHE: At a yard sale in Maine.

HE: Metal covered with a veneer of wood. Jesus. There goes the right one.

SHE: Is that enough wire?

HE: You think I need more.

SHE: Is that a question?

HE: Jesus. It's sharp.

SHE: That's why they call it wire, babe.

HE: Barbed wire is sharp.

SHE: Also other kinds.

HE: Tony Soprano could garrote someone with this.

SHE: I'm glad he's not here. Do you have a pencil?

HE: For what?

SHE: Marking the wall.

HE: How can I mark the wall if I'm holding the painting?

SHE: You hold the painting, I'll tell you the proper height, and then I'll step forward and mark the wall with the pencil.

HE: Okey-dokey. Maybe you could get the pencil.

SHE: Voilà.

HE: (Lifts the painting) So, we'll put it...here?

SHE: You're kidding, right?

HE: No.

SHE: It's a gift from my father.

HE: So you mentioned.

SHE: Pride of place.

HE: Meaning?

SHE: Over the sofa.

HE: Jesus.

SHE: Do you keep saying that because it's Sunday?

HE: The sofa's too wide. I can't hold the painting flush against the wall.

SHE: Does it need to be flush?

HE: Yes.

SHE: Maybe we'd better move the sofa.

HE: "We"?

SHE: Do you not want to do this?

HE: Do I want to move a horsehair sofa before I've read "The Week in Review" section of the paper? Not particularly.

SHE: You want to read the "Week in Review" and then move the sofa.

HE: I don't want to move the sofa, but as you can see, my knees are sinking into it.

SHE: Can you move your knees?

HE: Where? They're attached to my legs.

SHE: Move them in a less sinking motion. What are you doing?

HE: Removing my shirt.

SHE: May I ask why?

HE: Because if I'm going to (grunts) move a sofa, I don't want to (grunts) change my shirt.

SHE: Careful. Watch the painting.

HE: Can't you do that?

SHE: Please don't move the sofa while the painting's on it.

HE: Here. Hold the painting.

SHE: Oh. It's heavy.

HE: That I know.

SHE: You know what I'm thinking?

HE: I'm not David Copperfield.

SHE: David Copperfield's not a mind reader.

HE: Neither am I.

SHE: I'm thinking the painting might look better over there.

HE: What happened to pride of place?

SHE: It'll just look better over there.

HE: I already moved the sofa.

SHE: Just indulge me.

HE: Okey-dokey.

SHE: Does it look nice?

HE: It looks as nice as it can look.

SHE: Meaning?

HE: It's not a Kandinsky now, is it, love?

SHE: Well I'm sorry my father didn't give us a Kandinsky.

HE: So am I. What did he give us?

SHE: Do you really not know what this is?

HE: A barn?

SHE: It's the hull of a ship. Why would a barn be floating in water?

HE: I thought it was grass.

SHE: Black grass?

HE: Dark grass.

SHE: O.K., here. Take the painting.

HE: How about here?

SHE: Think.

HE: What?

SHE: You can't just choose a spot at random, some arbitrary place on the wall where it's just...floating.

HE: It is a ship.

SHE: To the left.

HE: More?

SHE: Right.

HE: Is that a command or praise?

SHE: A command. Further to the right.

HE: Here?

SHE: It won't help to be impatient. Less to the right.

HE: In other words: left.

SHE: Yes, good.

HE: Happy to hear it.

SHE: Now, a little higher.

HE: Here?

SHE: Higher.

HE: O.K.?

SHE: A wee bit higher.

HE: Here?

SHE: A smidgen.

HE: What? A smidgen of what?

SHE: Oh, you lost your place!

HE: Do you realize this is as heavy as a ship? It's as heavy as a barn. Or a ship that looks like a barn.

SHE: You don't want to do this, do you?

HE: (Sighs) Is this where I was?

SHE: Lower.

HE: Here?

SHE: Lower still.

HE: Now?

SHE: Move north-east.

HE: Me or the painting?

SHE: You. So I can see the painting. Perfect. That's great.

HE: Super.

SHE: Now where's that pencil?

Eric-san

Though raised in the United States, I am the eldest son of a Japanese mother and French father and have the sort of refined Eurasian looks which have served me well in poetry workshops. It was in one such workshop that the student next to me drew my attention to my beautifully-tapered fingers: "Each is like an exquisitely-carved ivory netsuke," she commented.

I remembered this after I'd been teaching English to Japanese businessmen in Kyoto for 16 months. The job had its moments, like when one fellow began speaking reverently about his "great uncle's decorative pond full of crap" (he meant carp), but the pay wasn't as great as I'd been led to believe and the classroom smelled like ammonia. One day while pretending to listen to Mr. Nobu Tanaka conjugate the verb "to swim," I glanced down at my hands. "Surely," I thought, "I can do more with these delicate gifts than erase chalkboards."

It was then that I began my journey into the very heart of Japan. For I had vowed to become a geisha. Not only Kyoto's first Eurasian geisha, but its first male geisha as well. This leap of double daring was to alter my life forever.

Few men appreciate the pain entailed in plucking hair from their knuckles. I am one of these men. After plucking my knuckles, I then waxed the back of my hands and forearms (ouch). What spurred me on was the knowledge that the rest of the geisha community in my district of Kyoto was adamantly set against my joining their ranks.

I've always thrived in the face of adversity and the few conversations I conducted with geisha convinced me that they possessed no qualities absent from my own character. I was also taller and seemed to have better posture than most.

No geisha ever forgets their first kimono and I was no exception. A glance at myself in the mirror in the richly-brocaded teal and crimson garment sent my heart racing. With my hair adorned with ornaments and done up in the style of a young geisha in the momoware style (meaning "split peach"), I was utterly transformed. My magnificent kimono was bound with a stunning obi (or sash) and my countenance painted a striking shade of white. Not to be too M. Butterflyish about it, but I looked ravishing. After using the restroom (note to self: in future visit the bathroom before donning kimono), I tottered out into the streets of Kyoto in the tall wooden shoes worn by apprentice geishas, prepared to conquer the world.

Being a man, I'd been unable to find a geisha to mentor me, but felt secure that I would soon progress from apprentice to full geisha under my own steam. The "gei" of "geisha" means arts and the word "geisha" actually means "artisan" or "artist." It was here that my poetry workshops at NYU and the Learning Annex paid off. Much of my poetry (particularly my early work) had centered on water, stone, and wood. Coincidentally, much Japanese poetry is also about these elements. Since water, stone, and wood are found in my verse, in Japanese poetry, or in both, they comprise the set-theoretic union of the two. Mathematically, this is expressed: Eric's poetry U Japanese poetry.

As a geisha, I had to master Japanese flute (I'd played recorder briefly in eighth grade), a small drum known as tsutsumi and an incredibly annoying stringed instrument called shamisen. I've never been musically inclined, but I knew my future male clients would be interested in one thing only: how I poured tea. And though I don't want to puncture the rice-paper screen of my modesty, let's just say that I do a damn fine tea ceremony.

For I grew up at the side of a Japanese mother who had the equivalent of an American Ph.D. yet was trapped in a drafty house in northwest Connecticut while my father was away on business ten months per year. During frequent snowstorms that wreaked havoc on our television reception, we had two choices: to drive by William Styron's house to see if he'd either constructed, destroyed, or constructed and destroyed a snowman, or to brew tea. We usually opted for the tea.

My first gig (a word nearly impossible to translate to the Japanese) came when an apprentice geisha toppled from her tall wooden shoes into a full-fledged geisha and fractured the latter's right tibia. In desperation, the teahouse phoned and asked if I could fill in.

Who's that famous actor who was an understudy in whatchamacallit when so-and-so fell ill and suddenly the rest was history? Well, think "All About Eve" with the Eve Harrrington role filled by a really good-looking guy from Connecticut.

As the door to the private room in the teahouse was rolled back, I came face to face with six Japanese businessmen and my face flushed with embarrassment. "Goddamnit," I realized, "it's Nobu Tanaka and the rest of my old English class."

I prayed that $4,600 worth of women's clothing and makeup would prevent them from recognizing me. They scrutinized me as I looked demurely at the floor, my ruby-red lips curled in an enigmatic half-smile. I was prepared to pour tea, flirt, sing a traditional Japanese ballad, or pretty much do anything to avoid detection.

"Eric-san?" asked Mr. Tanaka tentatively. I remained silent. Then he solemnly intoned, "I swim, you swim, he or she swims." "Yes, yes," I said impatiently, "very good." "Eric-san, you are now a...geisha?" "I'm an apprentice geisha, but your culture is so hidebound and myopic that I can't find a mentor." Tanaka responded proudly: "Today I find, yesterday I found, I have found."

"O.K., guys, you know what? Let's just make this a language class." The quick consensus was that this was a dreadful suggestion and that I should pour them sake. I agreed to this though I noticed several men peering up the length of my kimono sleeve while I did so. "Now, please play shamisen," they asked. "Oh, come on," I groaned. "Play, play," they implored. "USA! USA!" I picked up that hateful instrument and banged out a tune, thinking to myself, "At least in here it doesn't smell like ammonia."

The Chosen

Announcing that Vanderbilt intends to recruit Jewish students, the University's chancellor explained, "Jewish students by culture and by ability and by the very nature of their liveliness make a university a much more habitable place in terms of intellectual life"--The Wall Street Journal

We are currently engaged in assembling the most intellectually curious, accomplished, dynamic student body in the United States of America. We value those who esteem scholarship and are motivated to succeed. Our prospective applicants have that indefinable quality, that little something extra that sets them apart from the crowd. They're highly verbal, gregarious, opinionated, and they love to learn.

Do you enjoy films, be they the comedies of Woody Allen, the dramas of Steven Spielberg, or the documentaries of Frederick Wiseman? Do you particularly relish documentaries about your own people? Do you dream of writing, starring in, directing, reviewing, or merely discussing films about your own people (or any other people, for that matter)?

Do you love to laugh and to make others laugh? Do you have the same gift of laughter as Groucho Marx, Milton Berle, Jack Benny, Albert Brooks, Ben Stiller or Jon Stewart?

Is your surname a color: Gold, Silver, or Green? Or perhaps a variation on a color: Goldfine, Silverman, or Greenspan? Is your surname Rosen or a version thereof: Rosenberg, Rosenfeld, Rosenbaum, Rosencrantz, or Rosenquist? If so, we have exciting news: our university may well be for you.

We're rolling out the red carpet for those who hail from major metropolitan areas or suburbs with strong public school systems. We look for students with varied interests: if you play chess, organize and run an investment club at your school, have volunteered on a kibbutz, or have interned in a hospital where one or both of your parents is a specialist, please consider us.

We cherish strong communication and writing skills. If you possess the zeal and talent to become a columnist like Thomas Friedman or William Safire, an investigative reporter like Seymour Hersh or Jane Mayer, or are equipped with the business savvy to helm a major news organization like Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., we eagerly await your application. Whether you hope to contribute to society as a titan of literature like Bellow, Roth, Ozick, Mailer, or Salinger, or merely to give back philanthropically like Annenberg, Zuckerman, Bloomberg, Geffen, and Tisch, we urge you to apply.

Our ideal candidates have a solid background in math and science, four years of English and foreign language, and three of four grandparents who are Jewish. An applicant is expected to submit SAT I and II scores, an official transcript, two teacher recommendations, and proof that his or her birth mother is Jewish. (Please note that mothers who have converted to the Jewish faith may not have done so in a reform synagogue.)

We realize in a diverse society such as ours that members of minority groups are often sensitive to special treatment. Let us be perfectly clear: no one is being "targeted." We're simply trying to raise the intellectual tone on our campus, to stimulate thought, and to gather a group of individuals who prize the old-fashioned art of conversation.

We strive to select those who feel deeply, can be counted on to cry at weddings and other social occasions, debate issues well into the night, and above all, care. We're searching for what might be termed the "creative personality," who not only plays a stringed instrument, sculpts or paints, writes and performs monologues, but who expresses a zany, urban sensibility that captivates others.

We want catalysts: people who intend to be pioneers in law, medicine, business, journalism, entertainment, and academia. We hunger for those who ultimately will augment, transform, and dominate these fields.

If you're boisterous and effervescent, we want you. If you're feisty, combative, argumentative, outspoken, and controversial, we want you. If you're dynamic, explosive, formidable, and larger than life, we want you. We covet aesthetes, activists, and aspiring anesthesiologists. We applaud those who are passionately involved in this great enterprise called life.

If you've ever felt marginalized, misunderstood, denigrated, unappreciated, unfairly maligned or otherwise victimized, we are your promised land. We herald both your past and future accomplishments and bid you welcome. We implore you: consider yourself a member of our club.