POOR TASTE

To the Editors of The Crimson:

Bill Beckett's review of 337 (Thursday) seems to lack a great deal of thought. Someone who says he has "always been skeptical" about yearbooks should not review them, but rather give that job to someone with an open mind. His major complaint is that the book does not catch "What Life Was Like for All of Us," and he is right. No yearbook can do that. So it might be better if Crimson reviewers with their Crimsonese cynicism stopped picking this bone year after year and spent their time looking more closely at what was in the book. This year's review glosses over months of thought and planning in two short not very thoughtful paragraphs. He misses the basic message of the Pre-Med article. Its author was trying to get behind the pre-med stereotype and look at individuals, but the reviewer, it seems, would rather have had him stick with the stereotypes.

The criticism of the House articles is justified. It is difficult to write a good article on a House (I know. I've tried twice.) because no two people's experiences of a House are the same. But here again, the reviewer seems to have missed the point. I am well aware that seven of the House articles mention food and that two Houses claim to have the best; I think that says something about life at Harvard and Radcliffe. People do talk about food a great deal and spend a lot of time trying to eat it. To talk about this may be too commonplace for Crimson tastes, but then I am not convinced that the Crimson offers an accurate reflection of student opinion anyway.

And then there's Lifestyles. As I have pointed out to many people, the Lifestyles section is 40 pages long, not eight. It includes three articles and three photo essays, not just the eight page color section. Look at the Table of Contents. Furthermore, I cannot understand why everyone is so excited about these pages. They portray a party -- different aspects of a party. Parties are one aspect of life here. If you keep that in mind, you might have a chance of understanding this section. People at Harvard and Radcliffe drink, they smoke dope, they dance, they play chess, occasionally they pass out on a couch, and they make love. What is the problem? Put it in a yearbook, and everyone gets upset. Sex is part of life here, and anyone who denies it is being naive. Does it belong in a yearbook? Yes, for the same reason that the football team, Glee Club, and pre-meds do. Is it in poor taste? No, I don't think so. To have written about Dunster House the way Bill Beckett suggests, probing the "intricate web of strong relationships among men and women," examining their "intellectual dependencies" and loving -- that, to me, would be in poor taste. Kenneth Meister   Managing Editor, 337