Otter Creek and Magritte

Earlier this week, I met some high school friends-- and their friends at SAIS-- at Brickskeller, a place in DC famous for having over 3,000 beers.

There was a temptation to try to show off by ordering Tusker or Efes or Mythos or Kirin, but I decided it was a good rule of thumb not to try to out-worldly future potential career diplomats, and I stuck to Otter Creek. It was also the cheapest thing on the menu.

(Otter Creek is a town near Burlington. Back when I was in high school, they had the best debate team in state for a year. Their champion debater had an extremely low, calm voice that really stood out as everyone else raised their voices as the round continued. I always envied that voice, and as a result, wanted to try the beer. Somehow, I don't think this has broad implications as a marketing technique.)

In general, the SAIS kids didn't vote and were proud of it. I promise, this is not my only topic of conversation, and in this case, I didn't bring it up, I swear, but of course, once it came up it had to be argued about. It's really depressing that people who will probably have a fair share of influence over American foreign policy-- and would certainly like to, at least-- don't think it's important to make it to the polls.

On the bathroom wall, someone had written "this is bathroom graffiti." Someone else (A 20th century art student? A freshman encountering Foucault for the first time? Someone with a brand new and tantalizing sharpie who was too drunk to be clever?) wrote under it "This is not bathroom graffiti." I thought it was just a Magritte spin off and then I realized it was different from the painting of the pipe. The painting was not a pipe because it was a painting. The bathroom graffiti was bathroom graffiti. I spent a little while trying to think what this meant. Then I was glad I didn't major in philosophy.