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In a move sure to rock the Brown community and one member of that community especially, Max Locust '10 and Sammy Yalowitz '11 will release tomorrow the first issue of their new campus newspaper, the Brown Daily Harold, which will aim to fully chronicle the day-to-day life of Comparative Literature major Harold Pushkin '09.
Write Locust and Yalowitz in the inaugural issue's editorial, "We don't mean to challenge the Brown Daily Herald, but to supplement it. After all, how can we possibly expect one paper published five days a week, with about twelve pages of content every day, to chronicle all the events in the lives of nearly six thousand undergraduates? We may learn from the Herald that students complain there is too long a wait at Jo's salad bar, but only in the
Harold will you learn that Pushkin recently switched his go-to salad from Greek to Cobb." The new paper's front page is to be dominated by an article entitled "Life of Harold Pushkin '09 Dramatically Altered by Newspaper Chronicling It," which provides a detailed account of Pushkin's attempts to do work, sleep, make it to class on time, and generally carry out his life despite the group of reporters following him from place to place and constantly asking him detailed questions about what he has just done and plans to do next. "Some of the guys are okay," Pushkin said. "Like Mickey [Rudolph '12], whose beat is my lunches. It's cool 'cause now I have someone to eat with. But Nina [Monroe '10], who I guess is covering my showers, is pretty tough. It's always, 'Harold, are you conditioning in there? Harold, are you using that loofah?' No, I'm not using that loofah. Okay?"
Even more disruptive, according to Pushkin, is Jonas Marrow '12, a reporter on the sleep beat. "He's a cool guy and all," Pushkin said, "but he just kind of sits there and watches me sleep, and when he sees me move around he shouts 'What are you dreaming about now!' This one time I didn't want to be rude so I told him how in my dream I was on this ride at Disneyworld and my friend Ryan Stark from middle school was there. But then I asked him to set an alarm for me in case I'd forgotten to, and he gave me this whole lecture about how as a reporter he's not supposed to become part of the story. But then again, I guess he had a point." "It's just a little weird that I never met these people before," Pushkin said.
In the issue's editorial cartoon, Pushkin is shown tied to a wall in a dungeon with a book on a stand in front of him, while a large guard holds earphones and says, "You're going to read [James Joyce's] Ulysses the easy way, or the hard way," a clear reference to Pushkin's contemplation of buying a reading of Ulysses on CD due to his inability to work his way through the required text. When reached for comment, Pushkin seemed confused by the cartoon's narrow appeal. "I mean, it even took me a while," Pushkin said. "And plus, which way's supposed to be the hard way?"
In what may prove the paper's most divisive article, the Op-Ed page features a powerful piece by Thalia Shannon '10 entitled "Why Pushkin's Move to Not Hold the Faunce Door Open for Laura Conowitz '12 Was Wrong for Harold, Wrong for America." The explosive column shared its page with the reasoned argument of Sean Quigley '10, "Why Harold Should Wear Khakis More Often."
Locust and Yalowitz work on the paper almost full-time, and even plan to one-up what Yalowitz calls "the Brown so-called 'Daily' Herald" by publishing seven days a week. Though the two had to drop Crew and commit to taking only Literary Arts classes to create the necessary time, they voice no regrets. "The people," says Yalowitz, "have a right to know."
In fact, Locust and Yalowitz say they can envision a day when every student has his or her own publication. "I mean," Locust said, "I'm a pretty great guy. And tons of super interesting shit happens in my life all the time." Added Locust, "Just saying."
