Stand and Deliver

“Put on your critical caps!” commands Jessica M. Marglin ’06. She’s very serious about this, because she has something very serious to say about the superiority of grapefruits to oranges. Marglin’s manifesto was just one of many given in a night specifically devoted to the cause, not of excellence in citrus fruits, but of manifestos themselves.

Harvard’s newly formed Manifesto Party, founded by Abigail S. Miller ’05 and Kyle R. McCarthy ’06, both frequent writers of manifestos, had its first event last Thursday evening in the Kronauer Space of Adams House. Dozens of the impassioned gathered to deliver manifestos ranging from “Fuck Literacy” to “Manifesto Against the Price Attached to Food.” The event also served as a launch for a new experimental ’zine known as Present.

Alexander C. Kaufman ’02-’04 delivered the less solemn “Yes Manifesto,” in which he asserted, “Saying no is lame and rarely makes you happy.” He says he made it up about an hour before the party.

Audience members who stayed through the first several manifestos were hand-fed cannoli from Mike’s Pastries, serving as props for a performative manifesto by Anna C. Walters ’05-’06 on “doing things for just no reason.” Walters says that the purpose of manifestos is to combat “constipation” in writing. She adds, “I started writing in the affirmative instead of the negative or ironic or critical.”

The evening was all about getting one’s ideas across, whatever they might be, without fear of the consequences. As audience member Neil G. Ellingson ’05 put it, “Part of the power is that the Manifesto Party doesn’t leave traces.”