By Max C. Bookman

M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes” blasts through a cell phone, interrupting me as I blankly stare out the window to the right of my desk. “All I wanna do is Bang Bang Bang Bang! and a Click! and a Ching! and-a take your mon-ay.” A sweet song, but the fact that it has become a ringtone means that it is rapidly approaching Overplayed Status.

A female voice comes from a few desks behind me, responding to the ringing phone with an enthusiastic “Hi! I’m at the library!” She’s not whispering. She’s not even pretending to whisper. Didn’t she see the big QUIET painted in blue on the column by the stairs?

Such a grave infraction of the library code would normally pass by if the conversation ended after,say, fifteen seconds. But it continues. “Oh, I’m not sure if I’m doing anything tonight,” she laments (loudly), “Really? Is he going to be there? No way.”

I don’t want to ask her to take the conversation elsewhere, so I decide to go downstairs to the Cyber Café while Ms. Paper Planes continues chatting. I may have only arrived ten minutes ago, but I’m tired and thirsty, and lookin’ for some lovin’ from the lovely Cyber Café ladies.

By Mark Dougherty

Sketchy, Funny, and Douchey may sound like the long lost three of the Seven Dwarves, but in reality they make up the three schools of what the average UVM male likes to call “game.” Every year, mid-April rolls around, and with it comes beautiful weather. The sun is shining, flowers are blooming, and the elements of attraction are in motion. Female students sunbathe innocently on the campus greens as young men half-heartedly take part in games of ultimate frisbee and football catches. At night, girls get dolled up in their best makeup and spring outfits before subjecting themselves to the calculated motives of their male counterparts, who have just ironed out their favorite old collared shirts themselves.

Unable to bridge the gap of conversation and social fluidity with their own sparkling personas, the young men of UVM retreat to the lowest form of human relation, game. Game is the process by which a young male projects an artificial personality that is seen as being universally relatable onto the opposite sex with the intention of attraction. These three schools utilize some of the most basic aspects of human nature to achieve the common goal of “slaying mad biddies.”

By Mac Smith

1. Wesley Snipes
Blade was recently sentenced to three years’ jail time for multiple tax evasion misdemeanors. Immediately following the sentence reading, Snipes subdued three guards with his vampire strength, crashed through the courtroom window, fell three stories and disappeared into the darkness. He was apprehended after a 17-hour manhunt.

2. Hillary Clinton
Clinton now boasts a lead in the popular vote over Barack Obama. The only problem is that she’s counting Florida and Michigan—two states that are not sanctioned democratic parties and therefore don’t count in the primary process. Clinton went even further to say that ABC had announced her lead. If we’re getting into hypothetical politics here, then I’m going to announce my plans right now to run against Hillary for president of the United States of Fantasyland.

By Max C. Bookman

“So what’s next after Pennsylvania?”

-CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer last Tuesday, as it became clear that Hillary Clinton was to win the Pennsylvania Democratic primary, breathing life into her protracted presidential campaign once again. The mainstream news media has profited heavily from this unprecedented nomination battle between Clinton and Obama, setting up each primary as a uniquely consequential, and wasting no time to stoke the fires for the next state. Well, the WT is sick of it. Thank God this is our last issue of the year – hopefully when we return in September, there will be some new news to report.

Our generation stands at a crossroads. We look to the right and see the status quo. We turn to the left and see the future that those in charge have prescribed for us. We choose neither. We walk forward, into the brush, into the unknown.

Throughout the past year, The Water Tower has tried to demonstrate that there is more than one right way to do things. UVM has more than one voice. We’ve tried to forge a print media that’s specific to our generation; one that doesn’t follow the norms of the past, but channels the powerful emotions that come from living in the 21st century, born in the latter half of the 1980’s. It’s a new world. At times crushingly cynical, at others disturbingly optimistic, The Water Tower bears witness to a changing school in these changing times.

Well, it looks like our friends over at The Vermont Cynic have taken note of the campus phenomenon that is The Water Tower. So, in a valid effort to cool-ify the 100 year-old campus paper (or is it 200?), The Cynic is launching a new life and style website called Phoebe. It features student-written articles, and launches today. As a strong supporter of alternative student publications on campus, The Water Tower wishes Phoebe the best of luck.

1. All the informal but strictly-observed ethics of waiting for a computer in the library go straight out the window. Students weave around the first floor computers like hungry sharks. The casual line that used to start near the reference desk is a waiting area for those who are inadaptable, unfit for the survival now needed in this academic climate.

2. At a time when no one wants to be immortalized in photographs, everyone comes to the naked bike-ride with their little digital 10 mega-pixel cameras. The spectacle turns into a veritable UVM paparazzi event. I guess there’s nothing quite like having a keepsake of some wildly drunk, anonymous student’s genitalia stored on your hard drive.

Couldn’t catch a name?

Submit your love anonymously to
www.thewatertowernews.com/iwantyousobad

Ochi chernye ochi strastnye
Ochi zhguchiye i prekrasniye
Kak lyublyu ya vas kak boyus ya vas
Znat’ uvidyel vas ya v nedobryii chas
I hope to get to know you, your beautiful eyes have caught me.
When: Thursday night
Where: Library
I saw: A Woman
I am: A Man
Meet me here: Fire escape, Williams, 6:15, Wednesday evening

Trying to Draw Meaning from the Absurd Corners of the Internet

Collectively, as a culture, and in accordance with the highly structured and formulaic “first world” society, we go on day after day with little hint evidence that human life is, in the words of existentialist Albert Camus, “absurd.” Quite simply, everything in our society has a purpose, exists for a reason, and it is around these objects and institutions that we devote our thinking; even the irrational world of human passions and emotions has been dissected by more than two millennia of philosophy and observation.

By Sally Wiebe

Okay everybody, I’m going to disclose my opinion bluntly: although you may have read and loved all three hundred pages of it, the book is not always better than the movie. Gasp! Harry Potter and Hobbit fans, hear me out. What I’m trying to get so many of you to understand, or at least change your perspective on, is that films offer great alternative takes on impressive pieces of literature. Maybe some of you have countless quibbles regarding the viewpoints of these adaptive screenwriters and directors, but they only decided on a film version of these novels because they too felt something powerful and compelling upon completing their reading.

By Lea McLellan

These past few weeks I’ve been observing the admitted students walking around campus with their dorky lanyards and eager parents. They’re checking out the gym facilities, peeking through the windows of my English class, and buying chicken fingers at Brennan’s. I saw one girl snap at her “ohmigod so annoying” mom outside the Davis Center. I’m not sure what the mom did to deserve her daughter’s disdain and evil glare, but I assume it had something to do with being “so annoying.” Ah, so young!

Watching these potential “first years” has been simultaneously amusing and surreal. I can’t help but wonder, did I look that lame? Did I wear the lanyard and carry the green bag of UVM pamphlets? I’d like to think that I was a whole lot cooler, but I wasn’t. I wore the nametag with my intended major. I dragged my mom and little brothers around campus. I marveled at the trendy undergrads with their hip sunglasses walking to class and playing Frisbee on the green.

By Bill Ottman

At this point, I’m not even sure what it means to be a hippie. It seems like it can mean anything from being a lazy stoner to an activist. The common thread is… that they all like music? They have long hair? A beard? They dance? They care about the environment?

Looking at Tent City and the Jailhouse, it was interesting to see people’s reactions to the whole thing. Most seemed to be totally on board with bringing actual social justice and free speech to UVM, giving lots of positive feedback, and signing the livable wage and divestment petitions. Of course, there were the crowds that would walk by, laugh, and shout profanities about “hippies,” while rebelliously putting a bottle in the trash can rather than the recycle bin. Well let me tell those hooligans, you showed us!

“Fucking hippies.” Yea, you know you’ve heard that before, but what is it that bothers people?

By Charles Winkleman

Has anybody else noticed the price of gas these days? If you don’t have a car you probably wouldn’t, but I just brought mine up to UVM and it cost me $80 to fill up. That’s ten hours worth of my wonderful minimum wage labor. On top of that, KKD and other fine eateries have raised their prices due to the rising cost of gas and wheat. Furthermore, when I go to buy my rice at Walmart for cheap prices, I’ll only be allowed to buy 4 bags of rice instead of my regular 6. Man, do I have it bad.

By Bridget Treco

One of my wisest roommates once said something along the lines of, “I feel like I’m living in an alternate reality because college is not the real world. Dorm life is not reality.” When I think about it, she’s exactly right. We come to college hearing that these are going to be the best four years of our lives, and although they probably will be, they’re also kind of misleading— real life is nothing like college.

A day in the life of Henry Toykles III

By Anya Brodrick, Illustrations by Alexander Whitehead
This section deconstructs the styles of today. The tripartite nature of the section demonstrates the intersection of image-word-mathematics.

Pre-Grad Day:

10:00 am: Slept through class (again). Whatever, he’s graduating soon.

10:22 am: Watches Flight of the Conchords from bed. Man, that’s a great show.

Taurus

Behold the strength and majesty of the mighty Taurus! Truly the greatest of all the astrological signs that ever were! And they definitely weren’t involved in any sort of bull-on-chick-in-cow-costume action, so stop asking before you get head-butted by a minotaur. What’s in store for Tauruses in the coming months? Well geez, what isn’t? Glorious grades, perpetually sunny weather, dancing women, and small European nations. Yup, you probably won’t be getting any of those. Don’t worry though, you’ll get something. I have a feeling that your birthday is coming up.

Also in your near future is a possibility for romance. Remember to keep an open mind and heart and great things may follow. Especially if you remember to say that you have an open mind and heart. Chicks love that shit. It makes them grow their feathers faster and thus start laying eggs sooner, thus providing a profitable source of nourishment (which is totally hot).

By Mac Smith

Weirder things have happened. Trillions of insects’ descending upon the Yankees in the playoffs last year, George Bush’s winning reelection, and a giant lizard’s destroying Tokyo all have long lasting legacies, but are for the most part unexplainable. But this is the story of one particularly interesting case: From 11AM-4PM last Tuesday, the entire UVM student body ran out of money.

It seems difficult to simply digest without any proof or cause, but seeing is believing. All money just up and vanished as if the universe were playing some sort of sick joke. I know because I was there.