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In This Issue

• The Spec's Front Page (PDF)
• Matthew Fox Strips Naked, Insults Graduates
• Krishna vs. Christianity
• Last Book of Potter Pilfered, Rowling "Shocked"
• Secret Society No Longer Secret to Sniffer-Outers of Secrecy
• New York's Preschools Seek Swingset Leaders
• Bitches Got the Right to Shut the Fuck Up
• Before They Were Great Quotations
• An Inconvenient Truth Is Unsafe at Any Speed
• Spectator Copy Editor Shares Typical Evening
• Dancing Tops Crappy American Exports to UK
• Columbia Spectator: Op-Eds (PDF)
• Spec Staff Editorial: What the Fuck, Man
• Spec Sexportations: Delivering Our Children
• Spec PERSPECTIVES: Importance of History
• Spec: Corrections
• Spec: Letters to the Editor
• Prezbo v. Hamiltron
• THEY Watch

Austin Mitchell

Wendy Donoghue

Director of Admissions

All Souls School

1157 Lexington Avenue

New York, NY 10021

Dear Ms. Donoghue,

    As All Souls School is one of Manhattan’s premier preschools and you are almost certain to be terribly busy (my parents routinely remark that this is “crunch time” for preschool admissions), it seemed to me a good idea to write you a letter briefly summarizing my application to the Class of 2011.

    First, let me say that I feel I can appreciate the difficulty of your position.  Picking from a group of applicants so qualified as the one with which you are most certainly faced is no easy feat.  At Gymboree just yesterday, I saw two of my classmates build a tower of blocks a full five blocks in height.  It stood proudly and teetered not a whisker, falling only when the two young engineers decided to destroy it so as to put the blocks in their mouths.

    As for myself, I humbly present a dispassionate list of my diversions.

    To begin with what may be your most pressing concern, I have been training over the past several months with my mother to use a toilet.  I currently spend about ten hours a day diaperless, and I gain at my current pace roughly two hours a month, with only a handful of public accidents to my name.

    Furthermore, I am learning to speak, and at the moment my vocabulary stands at slightly less than 200 words.  I am often able to express my feelings in speech, this week having said three times to my father, “Me hungee,” whereupon he fed me—I am discovering that others may respond to my vocalizations.  Turning the pages of the picture books from which my parents read to me has also become a treasured pastime.

    Physically, my faculties are, if I may say so, developmentally ahead of schedule.  On more than one occasion, I have caught a ball that was thrown to me softly, and I can throw a ball myself several feet.  Chairs are by now easy for me to use, although to be frank, tall steps and some doorknobs still give me trouble.  Also, my parents discovered with apparent dismay that I’ve developed the ability to help myself to the contents of the pantry.  (They stumbled on that discovery last week, when my mother entered our kitchen and found me dancing on a large pile of powdered sugar.)

    You are also wondering, I’m sure, about the development of my social skills.  They are above average.  I am rarely combative while on play dates, and without being submissive, I am usually able to deal with ungenerous peers with a simple “No!  Mine!  Miiiine!”  My mother and I are quite close, though, and some have remarked that I am a bit “clingy.”  I can assure you that this would not be a problem for me at All Souls; if my mother is allowed to come into the classroom with me on my first day, she will be able to leave not long afterwards, when I am distracted from my crying by a crayon or a picture of a dog.

    Finally, my father, a leading economist at the World Bank, sits on the board of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  For her part, my dear mother is a celebrated philanthropist in the fields of higher education and the fine arts.

    I look forward very much to meeting you at the play date you have been kind enough to organize for All Souls applicants.  If I may elucidate anything about my application for you, please do not hesitate to call me at home and speak to my parents.  I would have liked very much to speak to you personally, but I will be unable to communicate more than simple, two-word phrases until I am at least a year older.

Sincerely,

Lillybell Colvin