{the b-side]
HOW-TO
DO IT BY THE BOOK
How TO HAVE SEX IN THE GRAD
By the Daily Arts Staff
Thursday, September 21, 2006 - The Michigan Daily - 3B
By now, you've heard all the
conventional rites of passage
at the University. Don't step
on the "M" until you've taken your
first blue book exam. Walk through
the fountain during orientation. Get
onto the roof of a University build-
ing sometime in your undergradu-
ate career. Have sex in the Harlan
Hatcher Graduate Library's stacks
before graduating.
Getting busy in the silent shelves
of one of the University's largest col-
lections is a must for the more dar-
ing lovers of Michigan's undergrads.
After all, Trojan just ranked us the
third safest school in the nation
when it comes to education regard-
ing sexual health. We might as well
celebrate, and everyone knows that
the best way to spice up your love life
is to shake things up. All it takes is a
little guidance (and real-life cojones)
to make it easier for you to have your
"O." Right between the "N" and "P."
Trust us. We've done it.
Step 1: Pick your time.
This step is critical to a) help you
find an empty carrel and b)keep from
getting caught. Avoid the library at
all costs during midterms and finals.
Not only are hundreds of people
studying right on top of each other
while they nurse their stress-induced
colds, it's also a lot harder to get in
the groove when people are shush-
ing you over the tops of the carrels.
Coming is hard when you're being
asked to leave.
Step 2: Gather your equipment.
This varies from couple to couple,
although we don't recommend any-
thing that makes noise over a few
decibels (i.e. whips, chains, sex toys).
What's required are a few key pieces
of clothing. For girls, skirts are pretty
much de rigueur - slip the panties
down, spread the knees, you're all
set. Also, skirts provide an excellent
contingency excuse in the absolute
worst-case, highly-unlikely possibil-
ity that someone walks in. For all
they know, you're just sitting on his
lap. As for the boysroomy attire will
help you get where you want without
too much fuss. Boxers are a must.
There's no room for tighty-whiteys
- literally. Same-sex couples and
groups can adapt these techniques to
fit their own requirements.
A few other things will also make
your love session less viewer-friendly
- a newspaper or something simi-
lar to tape over the small window in
the door of each carrel. And to carry
your paraphernalia? Backpacks are
a good idea. It's a university, people,
and you'll look less suspicious if you
give off the appearance of using the
library for, say, studying.
Step 3: Choose your location.
There are several floors of stacks
in the library that offer dozens of
private-study carrels - exactly
what you want for your bibliophilic
adventure. Stay away from carrels
with large windows facing other
buildings, where the cubicle caddies
might easily get an eyeful. Cruise the
floors before you settle down. What
you're looking for is as much solitude
as possible, so the fewer students,the
better, unless you're an exhibition-
ist. (In which case, by all means)
Oh, to be young and hopeful on the mean streets of Hollywood
By Jeffrey Bloomer
Managing Editor
Josh Hartnett is fucking a
decidedly glammed-down Hilary
Swank, brooding deliberately at
the corpse of a cut-in-half starlet
and turning down the disrobed
advances of a '40s-era Scarlett
Johansson, and I'm depressed. The
Minneapolis-bred actor led still
another great cast last weekend
in still another dead-end movie
("The Black Dahlia"). It was an
event the cheerful editorial crew
at Metacritic.com found as ample
inspiration for a not-so-nice jux-
taposition poking fun at the star's
(former) career. At the top of the
website's columns for featured
theatrical and DVD releases this
past week is "The Black Dahlia"
and "Lucky Number Slevin,"
respectively, featuring side-by-
side photos of a troubled-looking
Hartnett with a "yellow" warning
label, indicating that both movies
were widely dismissed by critics.
In both films Hartnett plays
the bewildered head of a large
cast of more distinguished actors
(who, of course, dominate the
scene-stealing bit parts and throw
the big dumb Midwesterner into
a tailspin). Each film became a
commercial failure, especially
"Slevin," and Hartnett's two dili-
gently clueless performances were
so expected that few even saw fit
to comment on them.
The somber tale of rising talent
overrun by publicity blitzkrieg has
become a familiar one for young
Hollywood. Elegiac profiles
("Hey, remember him!?") in mag-
azines are now customary as nos-
talgic filler sandwiched between
more prominent stories about The
Next Big Things. Fellow hunk-for-
the-highest-bidder Orlando Bloom
infamously fits this mold, and
most recently, Gretchen Mol -
who finally earned muted praise
for her disarming turn last spring
as pin-up icon Bettie Page in "The
Notorious Bettie Page" - spoke
out against the ravenous media
for slowing her career, launched
by such films as "The Thirteenth
Floor" (a flop) and "Rounders"
(people like it now, didn't then).
In a recent interview she mused
about out her 1998 cover shoot for
Vanity Fair, which she points to
as the chief cause for her career's
downturn: "I know how it felt in
the moment, which was, 'Uh oh,
that was bad, it was wrong, it didn't
work and now it's harder to get
jobs.' ... I've certainly spent time
thinking about it and analyzing it
to the point where it feels like it
happened to somebody else. It was
just the timing, really. It was just
funny that the (cover) would have
so much impact."
She may well be right, but in
Hartnett's case, he actually had
something to lose from the over-
exposure. After a quiet debut as
Jamie Lee Curtis's son in "Hal-
loween H20" (no less than the
sixth sequel in the franchise), the
handsome down-home boy with
the disarming smile became hot
property in Hollywood, and within
a year he was garnering real praise
as resident lady-killer Trip Fon-
taine in "The Virgin Suicides." He
didn't turn enough heads as a prep-
school Iago in "O" and turned too
many as the least convincing third
of the faux-storybook love tri-
angle in "Pearl Harbor." A parade
of modest hits ("40 Days and 40
Nights") and ugly failures ("Hol-
lywood Homicide") punctuated
his early career, and now in 2006,
his only two releases (both of
which he headlined) have tanked.
His future prospects aren't looking
so hot, either: He's currently film-
ing "30 Days of Night," a movie
about a killer gang of vampires
who descend on an Alaskan town
during the polar night.
Like Bloom, Hartnett has
to find niche roles to stand out
(Bloom does period well, Hart-
nett excels more at catalytic sup-
porting characters), a fact that
even he seems to recognize: Prob-
ably the most news he's made in
the past few years was his long-
time shunning of Warner Bros.
execs who had hoped to land
him for the title role in "Super-
man Returns," which he turned
down because he didn't want to
be typecast. It would have been a
defining moment in his career if it
hadn't come amid a string of flops
that suggest he wasn't making a
statement, he was actively trying
to sabotage his career. It's easy to
turn down roles when you're not
offered any.
Still, despite the apparent better
judgment of the American audi-
ence, all of this comes from a gen-
uine belief that Hartnett has shown
promise, and, like his many, many
contemporaries, has no idea what
to do with it. You can't self-righ-
teously turn down the ultimate
lead role in a movie like "Super-
man" (even if the movie turned out
to be a bust) until you've earned a
fraction of the kind of exposure it
would provide. Don't pick screen-
"Careful, I kill things very easily. My career, for example."