This is reaching way back in the vault, but my freshman year I wrote a movie review on Beowulf, which was shot using the same motion capture techniques that were used in The Polar Express. It was supposed to make the action more lifelike and help us forget that we were watching computer-generated images, but the main result was that everyone just looked creepy. Anyway, I reviewed the movie for my college paper and was quite pleased with the final result. I also got to name-drop Steve Buscemi, which always makes for a successful review in my opinion.
Greatness, thy name is web editor
I wrote this highly self-aggrandizing and ridiculous piece for my college newspaper, The Current. It was part of our April Fool’s Issue, and the idea was to have the Web Editor (me) write an over-the-top story advertising our new website, which had recently launched. Needless to say, the assignment was a lot of fun to write and ended up being one of my favorite articles, because who doesn’t like talking about how awesome they are?
India in a Broken Mirror: The Shattering of the Idea of India in Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children
Abstract
Why is India able to function as a nation when it is home to the most diverse collection of people on the planet? What is the idea holding India together? Has this “idea of India” changed over the years? Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister, put forth the idea that Indians were united in their diversity. The history of India, Nehru asserted, has always been one of synthesis, of mixing disparate cultures until one cannot be separated from another, and that this amalgamation of cultures and identities has created the Indian identity. With his 1981 novel, Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie stretched the Nehruvian idea of India that the country was founded on to its breaking point. This paper examines the idea of India as proposed by Nehru in his The Discovery of India and how it is destroyed in Midnight’s Children by Indira Gandhi’s Emergency regime. It then seeks to place Midnight’s Children within a larger discussion on the idea of India that scholars and theoreticians are still holding today.
Weather Jokes Published in The Onion
Breezes like a lover’s sigh, pregnant with passion and unspoken romance
A murderous calm
No pressure system to bring storms whenever they’re ready
In-Depth Report on Student Government Budget
A month or two after this story was published, Student Government changed their budgetary regulations.
Cruisin with Carthage Article (Fall)
The Carthaginian
Fall 09:
By Isaac McQuistion, ’11
New Orleans was the site of the 2009 ELCA National Youth Gathering, an excellent opportunity for Carthage’s admissions department to talk to prospective students. In the past, a few reps from Carthage would be flown down for the week, help run an activity and represent the College, and then be flown back.
This year, we did something a little different. Instead of flying everyone in, a group of Carthage reps took a three-week road trip down to New Orleans and back. Our group included current Carthage students and Emily Gogulich, ’07, assistant director of alumni relations. Joining us on the trip were Jason Hartfield, ’12, Lauren Schoepke, ’12, and Alex Matzinger, ’11.
Cruisin’ with Carthage Article (Spring)
The Carthaginian (Alumni Magazine)
Spring 09:
By Isaac McQuistion, ’11
A good road trip is mythic. It encapsulates everything about a person, a land, a time. It is both intensely personal and undeniably cosmic, a vision of a miniaturized world suddenly inflated, expanded. The map has finally been unfolded and we discover that the grid we previously confined ourselves to has been obliterated. We are both infinitesimally smaller and more staggeringly indispensable than we could have possibly imagined. A good road trip is the past, present, and future; it is the world explained in an instant. A good road trip is mythic.
Cruisin’ With Carthage
It’s awfully selfish to think that alumni have the time and resources to come back and visit their alma mater. That’s why I proposed and helped develop the “Cruisin’ with Carthage” alumni road trip. The idea was that we would pack up a van and go to them, the alumni, and host events in their hometowns. As we were doing this, we also ran a website detailing our adventures through blogs, videos and interviews with alumni, and pictures, so that everyone associated with the college could follow us on our travels.
http://www.carthage.edu/news/roadtrip/2009/07/06/hit-the-road-jack/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Cruizin-with-Carthage/82151221463
