BY JEREMY BLACHMAN
LAST WEEK, THERE WAS A BIT OF controversy as The Crimson announced, just in time for Valentine’s Day, that Harvard had approved an undergraduate porn magazine. We get an ice rink, they get porn. Harvard quickly backtracked after the mainstream media firestorm made them realize maybe this wasn’t a good idea. “Where does your daughter go to school?” “Harvard.” “Oh, yeah, I saw her in their magazine…”
Professors’ seating charts would be so much more interesting. I know, I know. There simply aren’t enough opportunities out there for Harvard students who want to appear naked in the pages of a magazine, on video, or on the Internet, and it really is the school’s duty to make sure there’s a forum on campus for students who want to foreclose all opportunities to run for political office in the future, or to look their grandparents in the eye ever again. “Honey, you’ve always been good at writing. Why don’t you join a campus magazine.” “Well, okay. How about-?” “NO! NOT THAT ONE!” “But I would just be joining it for the articles….”
Actually, I shouldn’t have said the magazine was announced just in time for Valentine’s Day. It was actually just in time for President’s Day, in honor of President Clinton. Or maybe in honor of John Kerry, if the Internet rumors are true and he did in fact receive botox injections from an intern. I may be getting two rumors confused. The porn magazine may also have been in honor of Dennis Kucinich, who continues his search for love on the campaign trail with an appearance on “Blind Date” next week.
Most gifts for Valentine’s Day are not quite as romantic as the announcement of a new undergraduate porn magazine. They’re more like chocolate, or candy, or flowers. I saw something on the Internet where a circus website was selling a dozen long-stemmed red noses for Valentine’s Day. Those red clown noses. On stems. Interesting. For law students specifically, good Valentine’s Day gift ideas include a box of new Tortious Chocolates, from the Russell Stover Deep Pockets Candy Company, each filled with something to sue them over – razor blades, human organs, unlabeled peanuts for the nut-allergic, pork, fingernail clippings, hair, the date rape drug, the morning after pill… you get the point. Or The Vermont Teddy Bear Company’s “Corporate Lawyer Bear” who comes with bags under his eyes (bags filled with delicious Tortious Chocolates!), and a voice chip that screams out in pain every fifteen minutes or so. Also comes with money oozing out of every orifice. The perfect Valentine’s gift for a law student, of course, is a brand new Bluebook. How romantic!
The Law School is saving its announcement about a new porn magazine for Halloween. Or maybe Lent. Ten points if that makes sense to you, because I’m not even sure it makes sense to me. A Law School porn magazine would be kind of cool. Instead of scanning for the highest grades, law firms could scan for the largest, uh, yeah. Perhaps some students could get pro bono credit for posing, and others could get arrested. It could be run by the Legal Aid Bureau; it’s just a different kind of Aid than they’re used to. Yeah. 600 words about a porn magazine is hard.
In unrelated news, now that we’ve all received our grades online – 2Ls and 3Ls included – I expect I’m not alone in saying I liked them better on paper. We’re never satisfied, are we? Technology is great, but then we get all nostalgic about it. Remember how simple life was when our grades came on a piece of paper in the mail? A few years from now, the undergrads will join in this nostalgia too. Remember when our undergraduate porn magazine came on paper in the mailroom? Now that it’s on the Internet…. Hopefully not. But who knows.
Jeremy Blachman’s column appears weekly, and has never before included the word “porn.” He also posts commentary here.