Amherst Magazine, Winter 2009

Cover art
FEATURES
 

The Lonely Tower: The First War Memorial The Lonely Tower: The First War Memorial
The history of a lonely church steeple
By Emily Gold Boutilier
 

Mere Entertainment Mere Entertainment
The story and method behind improv comedy at Amherst
By Sarah Cassel '03
 

David Foster Wallace at Amherst David Foster Wallace at Amherst
Wallace, who died in September at age 44, was perhaps the greatest writer of his generation. But what was he like at Amherst?
Essays by Dale Peterson, Corey Washington '85, C. McLagan '85 and Sue Dickman '89
departments

College Row
Big win on Jeopardy! — Another bookstore gone — The mismeasure of woman — The lonely planets — A Nazi in Poland — And more

From the Folger
A 17th-century bay leaf

My Life
Javier Corrales, associate professor of political science

Sports
Band of brothers — The dream season

Amherst Creates
John Hanshaw '89's film festival — Novels by Jennifer Cody Epstein '88 and Harlan Coben '84 — Costume and set designer Marina Reti '01

What They Are Reading
Writer-in-Residence Daniel Hall

Letters

Lives of Consequence
David E. Meier '77

Mermaid

Back Cover
This supposed mermaid is one of the strangest objects to occupy space in the storeroom of the Mead Art Museum. Probably “sold to some trusting New England sailor or sea captain as an actual aquatic specimen,” says museum director Elizabeth Barker, the mermaid is likely to be half from the natural world and half contrived. See the mermaid and other “Oddities of the Mead Art Museum” in an audio slide show.

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