A Guide to FM's 15 Hottest Issue

With a tongue in cheek and pinky in air, FM presents to you our final issue of the year, plein de P.R.E.P. in which even our dogs are dapper-ly decked. Check out Kayla, a preppy puppy puggle who is just as into repetition as we are. Jury's out on how she feels about alliteration. If she doesn't agree, though, we'll just wait 15 years.

And those 15 years will bring us to 390 years of Harvard history, a history we've decided to celebrate in this issue, in style and song. The songs belong to a playlist by Rachel Gibian '15, who—excuse us as we cough into our Paul Smith pocket square—is much more Canada than Cape. For preppy, you'll have to turn to our Harvard homegirl, Nora A. Tufano '13, and her break-down of the four types of Harvard prepsters.

For the oblivious (her favorite kind), we'll transition to the obvious, and the glamorous—the 15, if we can be so bold as to say, hottest. They're beautiful, and what's more, cooperating and intelligent and kind. We lament that we're most likely to see them in Lamont, and that they're more likely to pick up sports than editors. Plus, we've an interview with Henry A. Kissinger '50, world-renowned sixteenth hottest freshman.

S.V.P., DEARS, UNDERSTAND: We're laughing and cajoling; we're making a silly, Gawker. We know you know that we know even less about Hotchkiss than we do about Tufts. Like the House wars, it was never A Thing.

Here is where we must concede confession: We don't have any idea what we're doing. This issue is the product of non-ironic country music-loving cowboy hats and boots, of a "Springsteen" that is everything but New Jersey. 6 a.m. Coronas and conclusions that don't follow, about Florida sands and otters. (Why is it always about the otters?) When spelling p-r-e-p, we're sorely tempted to substitute an i-m where the r-e should be, and it's not because we’re more self-centered than down to repeat, and it's certainly not because of the second beer.

It might be because of the second beer, but there's a certain sentimentality that unfolds at seven in the morning, after nights and months spent with the team that made this issue what it is. It's the sort of sentimentality we're glad is missing in the bad trend alert by William R. Dingee '15 and, in a different way, from Reina A.E. Gattuso's Modern Love. And it's the sort of sentimentality that makes us appreciate, revere, and adore Mark J. Chiusano '12 and Elyssa A.L. Spitzer '12, for their hard work, precedent, and general lack of responsiblity-related bitchery. We think of you often, though less often than we think of pawn shops and ants.

IT'S FM, YET AGAIN: Someone once told us that we would adore those twice above, resent who we were under. Yeah, yeah, we said. Sure, we said. We get it. We knew what we were doing and we knew that spread belonged in the middle. No one told you, but you told us. Because that's the thing about you, you care too much. And we wish we had said more.

But there's a thing about us, too, and some things are worth repeating—that we learned from you. Design, photo, biz, execs: As seems to be the trend, this is where we went, this is what we saw, and this is how we changed. And all was possible because of you.

KATHRYN C. REED

MICHELLE B. TIMMERMAN

FM chairs