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One Brown junior is proving once and for all that the pen is truly mightier than the sword. Julie McDuff '09 has established herself as Brown's foremost practitioner of figures of speech.
The Sultan of the Simile first discovered her unusual talent whilst perusing the Brown Daily Herald over breakfast in the Ratty with her roommate Emily Brent '09. Upon completing her copy, she turned to Brent and loudly declared that she might as well wipe her ass with the paper.
Confused by this statement, Brent asked her room- and breakfast-mate if she actually intended to use the BDH as toilet paper, pointing out that it would be coarse and likely leave ink stains in unwanted places.
"That's when Julie turned to me and said 'no you idiot, it's a metaphor.' I don't think I'll ever forget those words. I haven't read the BDH since and I couldn't be happier," recalled Brent.
Impressed with the impact of her simplistic, albeit apt, comment, the Metaphor Monarch (who at the time was more of a Metaphor Archduke, or maybe just a loosely related member of the royal metaphor family) turned her gaze to bigger and better things.
"I figured if I could get Brent to stop reading the BDH by comparing it to a sanitary product, then there's no telling what I can accomplish. Imagine if I could convince New Yorkers to think of the Post as a giant tampon!" said McDuff in an exclusive interview with the Noser, which the BDH was completely incapable of getting.
That weekend, while dancing at a party at the Theta Delta Chi fraternity on Patriot's Court, her High-Perboleness observed that there were almost no females in her immediate vicinity. She turned to her faithful sidekick Brent and commented that the party was "a total sausage-fest." The football players immediately took notice of the situation and the party promptly disbanded.
"It wasn't actually a sausage-fest, mind you. I mean, nobody was wearing lederhosen or anything. But it was a great way of illustrating that there were like zero girls there," said Evan Carberry '08, wide receiver and co-ed party enthusiast.
Swaying the opinions of football players and possibly brain-damaged roommates is certainly a feat unto itself, but the Raja of Rhetoric has recently begun pursuing enterprises that would dazzle even the most accomplished of orators.
"I like to think of myself as a kind of linguistic superhero, a parable prophet if you will," said McDuff. "Why, just the other day I convinced a group of teenage girls to vote in the Presidential Election by explaining that it was just like the political version of American Idol. Sure, Jim Lehrer might not have Ryan Seacrest's smile, but he is a well-known bus enthusiast, according to Wikipedia."
Last week alone, McDuff put out a structural fire in downtown Providence by telling the building that it was actually just burning with passion; saved a kitten that was stuck in a tree by explaining to the animal that it wasn't actually stuck, it was just hiding from the ground; and convinced Louis Restaurant to stay open for dinner by accusing it of being the call girl of eateries.
Although McDuff seems to have rendered the Fire Department, Police Department, and local government completely useless for the time being, she has managed to remain without enemies for the most part. However, there is no telling how many out-of-work city officials might be demanding her resignation at present if they could only stop thinking of themselves as pawns in a giant game of chess. For now, the Dictator of Discourse lives on.
