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Real men wear scarves
How Do You Dance in Flip Flops? j Style Column
By Aymar Jean

THm DAILY DISH
New editor promises more thoughtfi
Michigan Review Editor Jh
By Donn M.

A: nn Arbor is not Paris, Lord knows it,
and a quick conversation with the aver-
age guy on this campus would probably
confrm it. Ask him to name a French fashion
house, and, if he can think of one, he'll surely
name Louis Vuitton. What makes him think
of that? He sees a Vuitton monogrammed bag
bouncing next to the backside of the girl he's
checking out.
My friend Madison, on the other hand, is not
of one these guys. He's the guy the other guys
sometimes, sadly, call a girl. Madison recently
spent a year in France and acquired there a flair
for style: jeans distressed to the point of destruc-
tion, playful T-shirts and meaty scarves. He once
sent me a photo of him wearing a black flower
on his blazer. He now sports a witty Mohawk
- witty, in my opinion, because he's black.
So Madison will be the first to tell you that
Ann Arbor is not Paris. Seeing him walk down
State Street on a football Saturday is like see-
ing Shaq play with the Huron High School
men's basketball team. Out of place and light
years ahead of the rest.
It shouldn't be this way. But college boys
seem as style-averse as the professors who
teach them.
Case in point: over the past year, I've had
a few guys tell me they don't wear scarves.


Scarves, of all things. Too diva, not manly,
they said. Men atMichigan do wear scarves,
obviously, but it's mostly functional. It's cold
outside. Experimenting with color or form is
not a guy thing. Not cool, dude.
This is part of a larger problem. If I see
another pair of ill-fitting jeans, dowdy running
shoes or backwards cap, I'm filing suit against
Abercrombie & Fitch, Old Navy and Nike for
conspiracy to mortify (I'm already drawing up
papers because in the past five minutes, I've
seen 20 such outfits go by).
Where does this fear of fashion come from?
Some of it is insecurity about masculinity, but
I'll leave that argument for the folks in Wom-
en's Studies.
Some of it, I'm sure, has to do with Euro-
phobia. It all became clear to me when I picked
up Joan DeJean's "Essence of Style," a recent
book by the University of Pennsylvania profes-
sor on how the French invented style and fash-
ion - la mode - en frangais.
La mode was, among other things, "those
ineffable little touches of fashion magic such
as the perfect way to drape the season's new
scarf," DeJean writes. And from the start, she
later states, fashion merchandising was "gen-
dered female."
Nothing is more French than a carefully

draped scarf, it seems, except perhaps cheese
and wine. So it's not surprising that the men
calling for "freedom fries" a few years ago were
the same ones with clunky shoes and poorly
managed hair. Nothing is more American than
dressing like you've just fallen out of bed.
My suspicions were confirmed when I saw an
entry on a random blog by a student at another
university - titled "I am the greatest man alive"
- while researching for this column:
What does France export? Handbags.
Perfume. Shoes. Scarves. Poodles. Mimes.
Cheese. All women's crap. America, on the
other hand, exports a variety of products,
from food to ammunition and fire arms. Those
French panzies are jealous of our economy
and way of life, because we make guns and
not any of that sissy shit.
Can you imagine the guy wearing socks
with sandals who's writing this drivel? To all
those who think France's chief exports are
only poodles and pansies, I say get over it.
There are plenty of ways to be manly and
stylish, and the fashion press is making it
easier for men to be in the know. Last year,
Cond6 Nast unveiled Cargo, a consumer-ori-
ented magazine for the everyday man, and
this month unleashed Men's Vogue (of course,
France and Italy have had a men's edition of

Vogue for years.). These already supplement
Details and GQ - which, in my opinion, are
much better anyway.
I am hopeful for Michigan. Since coming to
school this fall, I've seen a couple guys wear-
ing big sunglasses in green, red and white, and
I'm starting to see velvet blazers, which I think
Abercrombie started selling last year. Some
guys on campus are even realizing that tight
jeans, formerly queeny, are the best way to show
off thighs, butts and, well, everybody's favorite
package. Girls like that. I should know.
And as the weather gets nippy, guys should
not be afraid to play with winter wear - however
European it may seem. The fall runway collec-
tions were littered with all sorts of scarves: in
fur at Louis Vuitton, long and skinny at Burb-
erry, orange at Michael Kors, bright and shiny
at Etro, solid-colored and discreet at YSL.
You don't have to buy from these designers
but use them to get inspired.
Guys: don't be a fag, wear a pink scarf, buy
pants that fit, and, while you're at it, eat some
fries, frangais-style.
Aymar hopes people won't snicker when
they see him without a scarf and wearing
unflattering jeans. He can be reached at
acjean@umich.edu.

he Michigan Daily: What kind of conserva-
[ v e are you?
° James David Dickson: I like to think of
ryself as a Hamiltonian conservative. See, Ham-
jitn was what you could call the first big-gov-
eminent conservative, in that he departed from
Jefferson because he believed that you could use
the power of the government to do great things.
I have no problem with using the government to
achieve certain ends, which is why I depart from
a lot of conservatives.
I think part of the reason the libertarian ele-
ment of our paper seems to be fading a little
bit is because government action is now a fait
accompli. It's going to happen. So the way I
see it is, if everyone wants to use the govern-
ment to achieve their ends, we should at
least do the same to advance conservative
causes. So you've got things like faith-
based initiatives and even the war in Iraq.
TMD: With the campus political cli-
mate on campus having calmed down
since the Review was formed in the '80s,
and with the campus left being quite a bit less
radical now, do you think the Review's role on
campus has shifted?
JDD: I do feel that way, and I think this has been
a major source of tension between my generation
and the editors of the Review then. Because even
though Reagan was in office, Congress was very
Democratic at the time. And now we've had Bush
two terms, Congress has been Republican since I've
been here, so I feel like the people of my generation
kind of approach things with a winner's mentality.
There are a lot less battles to fight now. The extreme
left has kind of receded on this campus also, so we
don't need to be the other extreme.
You know, it's interesting that, if you look at
our writing about the war in Iraq, most of what we
wrote about was not per se in support of the war,
but it was shooting down radical, liberal, false argu-

ments against the war. So now, especially in the last
two years, since the war is a fact of the matter and
certain things are accepted now, we are trying to
advance more of a visionary idea of conservatism
and less just a reactionary one. And I think that's
moderated everyone.
TMD: Do you have a vision for the Review?
JDD: I definitely have a vision for the Review.
I think that in the past, our paper has been led by
people who maybe are upset with BAMN, or sim-
ply didn't like affirmative action - basically, people
who formed their political agenda in response to
what others did. I don't feel like that's the case
anymore because affirmative action is not this big
boogeyman that we have to argue against anymore
- I actually personally support affirmative action.
I haven't polled my edit board to see how they feel.
But I think that if you sum up the Review in one
sentence, this is not your older brother's Michigan
Review or your father's Michigan Review. We're
not afraid of liberals, we don't think that they're
these evil people, we don't think that all profes-
sors are tenured radicals. I want the Review to be
known as the intellectual capital of conservatism
on this campus. I want to bring us back to the point
where people can pick us up and read us and think
about something differently than they did before
they picked us up.
I'm not trying to create converts or anything like
that. I just want to get you thinking. And I think the
Review is going to be more of a paper that makes
people think this year than we have in the past.
TMD: So what were the problems with the
Review that needed to change?
JDD: I actually had an e-mail from a girl the
other day who had been recruited, and she's like,
"I'm really excited about the Review, and I think
it's really cool because it's the one place where a
white student can just, you know, be against affir-
mative action." And I e-mailed her back and said,

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Gameday and the flesh and the fan
Ann Arbor is Underrated I Campus Life Column
By Joe Kilduff

S tanding on the steel bleachers of the Big
House, the sun bouncing off our forearms,
we the fans find ourselves in a bowled
stadium of sacrifice. True, we have snaked
through the gates to simply enjoy a good game,
and, true, we have been drinking all morning to
simply enjoy a good buzz, but on our pleasure
quest we give away parts of ourselves. We give
our skin to the sun, and it burns; we give our
throats to passion and they grow hoarse. Dur-
ing a fourth quarter timeout, should we choose
to sit down for the first time since halftime, we
are told by fans, "Get your ass up!" Obligations
educational and occupational go on hold (In the
fourth quarter against Notre Dame, when Chad
Henne hit Mario Manningham in the end zone
to get us within a touchdown, a high-fiving guy
behind me says, "Now I know I won't make it to
work by three!"). '
Many of us realize, in the bleachers, that we
should have slept off the cement headache, the
rubbery hangover. But there's still the game. So
here we stand in screaming ritual, jangling keys,
tossing bodies in the air, hollering to a crescen-
do during kickoffs, extending ourselves, devout
as monks.
So it's disheartening to me that despite the
self-denial and flow of goodwill, we fans still do

many bad things for football. I understand this
pointedly because, lacking foresight, I brought a
visiting friend, Mike, a Notre Dame fan, into the
student section one dreamy Saturday afternoon.
"Joe, I want to wear my jersey, but I don't
want to get beat up," he said.
"We're in the English Department Graduate
section. If you upset them, they won't punch you,
they'll just write a poem about it," I answered.
This was to be, after living in Ann Arbor for
a year, my first game, so I did not know that the
English Department Graduate section is with-
out many English graduate students (they are
writing poems and dissertations) and that an
unofficial open-admission policy renders seat
and row number irrelevant: in short, I did not
know we would be surrounded by passionate
and severe undergraduate wolverines. I wore no
maize or blue to identify myself as a Wolverine,
so because I was with a Fighting Irish, I was just
as good as a Fighting Irish.
Before the game, though, we start on
Hoover Street, pregaming at a friend's house
where Mike and his blue-and-gold, No. 3
jersey and his ND trucker hat are mocked
but mocked jovially. But as the street swells
with fans marching west to the Big House,
the relaxed carnival mood darkens. Notre

Dame fans, a smattering of green shirts in the
maize-and-blue sea, pump their fists at Mike
and a guy dressed like a leprechaun trumpets
a horn. A cup of beer materializes in the air
and hits the guy on his green shoulder. At the
game, when the refs make a controversial call,
fans throw bottles, cups, programs and pom-
poms onto the field. Whenever Mike cheers or
claps for his team - and he does so in a ball-
breaking but lighthearted sort of way - he
is thrown savage glares from muscular under-
classmen. One time he is told by the high-fiv-
ing guy, "Buddy, you better keep it down, for
your own sake."
"Michigan fans are the most arrogant," Matt,
a young Notre Dame alum, told me at Grizzly
Peak the night before the game.
"You don't think fans are like that all over,"
I said.
"No. Michigan is the worst." Matt said
And Mike agreed, though at this point he has
yet to step into the Big House.
But fans are like that all over. Does Matt
know, for example, that marshmallows are
banned from Notre Dame stadium because
Irish fans were freezing them to stone hardness
and then throwing them at the heads of oppos-
ing fans? That over the last decade baseball fans,

football fans and basketball fans in cities from
Detroit to Chicago to New York have thrown
chairs, beer bottles, popcorn, snowballs and
themselves onto the field or court?
Wolverine fans are intense but we're not the
only ones doing bad things for sports. It would
be nice though, in this time of goodwill, that
when we next enter the Big House, against Min-
nesota, we don't threaten to tear the balls off the
closest Gopher fan.
Just before Mike and I put our beers down
at the gate and handed security our tickets, an
older man with a calm complexion approached
Mike. He wore a Michigan T-shirt.
"I just wanted to wish you guys good luck
today," he said, and he shook our hands.
"No, I go to school here," I said. "He's the
Irishmen."
The man puffed out a laugh. What was so
funny?
"I know how you two you feel," he said. "I
went here but my daughter and my money go to
Notre Dame."
Joe wants to do The Wave during the next
home football game. Tell him your favorite
football traditions. He can be reached at
kilduff@umich.edu.

The Weekend i-st

1 Th.a\v

09.23.05


Inaugural Concert
This celebration of the 125th anniversary
of the School of Music will include a per-
formance by the Michigan Chamber Players
and a welcome from new dean Christopher
Kendall. The concert will take place at
Rackham Auditorium at 7 p.m. The concert
is free and no tickets are required.
Back-to-school
Local rock bands Misty and Colic will per-
form at this eclectic event, which also features
hypnotist Jim Hokey and many other activi-
ties. The event will take place at the Michigan
League Ballroom and the Michigan League
Underground, starting at 7 p.m. Free.

Tally Hall
Local favorites Tally Hall will headline
a show at the Blind Pig Friday. The popu-
lar rock quintet will perform with special
guests Fred Thoman and Rai. The Blind
Pig is located at 208 S. First St. Doors open
at 9:30. $10 cover. 18 and older only.
saturday 09 ,(2405
Culture Bus
Arts at Michigan presents this bus trip
to the Arab American National Museum,
which will also feature dinner at LaShish
in Dearborn and dessert at the Sinbad Caf6.
The bus will depart from the Michigan
Museum of Art at 1 p.m. Tickets are $15 for
students and $20 for graduate students, fac-

ulty and staff and can be purchased at www.
michresfest.org.
Trotter Community Festival
As part of the grand reopening of the
William Monroe Trotter House, this festi-
val will feature food, film screenings, dance
instruction and many other activities. The
festival will take place at the William Mon-
roe Trotter House at 1443 Washtenaw, start-
ing at 4 p.m. Free.
Red Cross Benefit Concert
The 15-member group Nomo will be joined
by six other bands in a concert to benefit the Red
Cross relief effort for Hurricane Katrina. The
concert will take place at The Blind Pig. Doors
open at 9:30 p.m. $8 cover. $10 cover for under
21. 18 and over only.

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14B - The Michigan Daily - Thursday, September 22, 2005

The Michigan Daily -