Jody Abzug sent along a nice e-mail:

In answer to your class agent question — yes all in the class are cordially invited and welcome to become associates. Oh, that was my statement not an answer — hence my reason for being an art history/american studies not english major. In answer to your question all of the above. Typically associate agents have a core of people on their list. They may add and subtract names from time to time, but most likely switches occur when new associates join the team. These new associates will request classmates all of whom are on other associates’ lists. The shuffling begins. Head agents try to make certain all associates have several people on their list they requested. Some associates prefer to have people they know well on their list and others prefer people they’d like to get to know. This year was a special year so many classmates were contacted by more than one associate.

Not only does our blog give you reminisces and baby pictures — we provide key insights into how things really work. Jody was alos kind enough to send along a reminisces, thereby relieving me of the responsibility of posting another one.

Like you music — especially certain songs recall times at Williams. Yesterday I heard UB40s “Red Red Wine,” which I haven’t heard in ages and immediately I was transported back to Fall of 1984 and the freshman quad (luckily the twins woke me from my reverie in time to realize the traffic light had turned green). All of the Purple Rain’s sound track reminds me of
many DJ parties our freshman year. Although for anyone in Sage D that year the penultimate song was “On the Dark Side,” by the Beaver Brown Band (or something like that) — it was from the movie Eddie and the Cruisers and that song was played incessantly by Bob Long, Bill Boyd and Eric Reath (may he rest in peace).

In listing groups that played at Williams you missed 2 of the best — The Band and The Crazy Eights.

Of course, given our poetry-centric flavor on this blog, I can’t help linking to a bit of Rimbaud, the French poet whose life story provides some of the inspiration, I think, to the Eddie and the Cruisers movie. Here is another page about Rimbaud. Alas, I couldn’t find any poems that I liked, but suggestions will be gladly accepted. I considered posting a Rimbaud poem in the original French, but quickly realized that doing so would reveal me as the poseur that I am.