A Question Of Taste

THE PREPPY HANDBOOK, published in 1980, lists more than two dozen phrases meaning "to vomit." This is no mistake. Perhaps more than any other group in recent decades, the youth of the 1980s revel in bad taste. For the generation that grew up with Saturday Night Live and Animal House, nothing is funnier than a well told puke joke.

It is to this mentality certainly a harmless one--that the nation's college bands have directed their efforts in recent years. Stories abound of university bands being banned from television performances after they spelled out massive profanities or formed gigantic phalluses on the nation's football fields. In years past, such activities were usually funny, and a good time was had by all.

The Harvard Band's performance at Saturday's football game against UMass indicates that the days of good humor are gone--leaving behind only bad taste. In a string of "jokes" which left few of the 20,000 spectators laughing, the band made light of the recent deaths of Marines in Lebanon and the tragic downing of Korean Airlines flight 007. Thankfully for traditionalists, the group did wind up its act Saturday by awkwardly converting "UNION" into "PUKE"--certainly no mean feat.

Last year, after the UMass contest, David Knapp, the president of that school, wrote to President Bok suggesting that the band clean up its act. The group has apparently responded by shifting its focus from the harmlessly obscene to the grotesque, making jokes about brutal massacres and bloody wars. The band may be slow to learn. But it should take Knapp's advice and remember the combination of bad taste and good humor that brought them success in years past.