Dartmouth is finally excited about something, it seems, and his name is Bill Clinton. Who would have guessed that Clinton's arrival and the relocation of Commencement would have caused such an uproar, so much ill-will amongst the '95s?
I can see their point though. After paying $100,000 for a degree from Dartmouth, most people agree that the least we deserve is a decent Commencement, and the football field just seems wrong.
Since I want to graduate on the Green next year, I've already decided how to correct the problem. One year early, I propose a Commencement speaker for the class of '96: Nell. I do not know Nell's last name, nor do I know her address, but if I tried I bet I could find out both. Nell isn't actually a real person, but sometimes I blur reality and fantasy and think she is.
For those of you still in the dark, Nell is the title character of the movie "Nell," which starred Jodie Foster and Liam Neeson, and which I am single-handedly trying to turn into a huge cult film.
A few reasons why Nell would be a great Commencement speaker:
No one would understand what Nell was saying unless they were highly fluent in Nellspeak. This wouldn't be much different from any regular Commencement speech, which from my experience, no one listens to and rarely makes sense anyway. And seeing as how Nellspeak is far more lyrical than Clintonspeak, at least Nell's speech would sound nice.
Seeing as how Nell is not on the news every night, and that by the time the '96 Commencement rolls around, her movie will be collecting dust on video shelves, she certainly wouldn't attract hundreds of millions of people and force us to graduate on the football field. With Nell, we could have graduation anywhere we want, and since we're fiddling with the traditions already, I say we let Nell speak in the Hop while that annoying omnipresent guy with the guitar plays music in the background and drowns out everything she says. That way, if graduation gets boring, we can just go get a breakfast sandwich (which is now available for lunch or even dinner) or some of that weird Coffee Frost soda that kills plants.
Nell is a great role model. She lives on her own in a furnished treehouse without financial assistance from her parents. She likes Smartfood popcorn (lovingly referred to as "pahcau"). Also, she has good taste in music, and she's a good singer, evidenced by a beautiful rendition of "Crazy" ("Crayee") in the film.
What might Nell say at our graduation? Something cool, I bet. Maybe it would go like this. "Nell vah pro aw yo. Yo ah sma peopa, an Nell thi yo aw go vah fah ih ya lif. Dartma a veh spesa play, an yo ah veh spesa peopa. Nell la yo. No tay tay to go ih rea worl. I be yo gayan anj." I will leave this untranslated so you can all practice your Nellspeak for when Nell arrives; feel free to blitz me for the official translation. And I bet we'd be in tears at the end of the speech, and we'd mumble things like "Nell a beaufah speeka" or " I wah be lie Nell" to each other.
The main reason that Nell should speak, though, is that she is the ultimate symbol of our generation. She doesn't get a job; she just hangs out on a rock doing weird Martha Graham-type dance moves, which is probably what I'll be doing over the summer what with my job prospects looking so good.
Best of all though, Nell is tough. She grew up on her own and kept her place up nicely. When the doctors wanted to do to her what they did to E.T., she went to court and made the jury cry (Despite her pleas to the contrary -- "Don cry aw Nell" --they were crying!) Perhaps the O.J. Simpson defense team could hire her.
So while the '95s will be getting President Clinton, I'm convinced the '96s will have Nell. And when Nell runs for President of the United States next year, and defeats Clinton by running on the Friends of Nell ticket, then I too will be able to tell my children that a President spoke at my graduation. And they'll say to me, "Presa Nell, wha a gra hona. Yo musta be vah pro grahpaw."
