Preppy Grievances

Diving into LDS… my first service

So I shaved, put on a boring pair of chinos and a boring but classic white oxford with a simple diagonal striped tie because I didn’t want to stick out. I attended my first service of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and it was certainly an okay experience. I’ve had a fascination with mormon style, everything about it as a whole. And by style I mean the fashion in which they execute everything, not just what they wear. 

I love Mormon theology because it proves that any idea or belief, no matter how fucked up or strange, can be defended, justified, and proved logical if time is put into doing so. I think it teaches a lot about how we should approach the validity and relevance of all religions to our lives. 

I think a knowledge of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is hugely rewarding. It provides original, theologically sound answers to many of life’s big questions and is a fascinating christian alternative to older denominations. And besides being valuable, it’s just plain fascinating. It is America’s first major cult, centered around one city politically and geographically, with a population of believers exceeding any other non-orthodox christian denomination. Some of the ideas in their theology are genuinely crazy, but so many people believe them. And these people who believe them are amazingly kind and very normal.

At the first service, I sat down in a pew and, within minutes, a man from across the room (also wearing Ralph Lauren) approached me and began to speak. His name was Dan also, and he was an NYU law student. He assumed that I was one of them, probably because I was dressed exactly like every other male present and even more so because my hair was parted. We talked about majors and other bullshit until the service began. At first, we sang a series of 1800s sounding hymns, then three men spoke successively about their firm belief in the Mormon faith. Each speech ended with: “And that is why I believe the Book of Mormon and the teachings of Joseph Smith to be true.” It was fucking interesting because it revealed how mormonism is still a minority cult that has to indoctrinate its believers constantly in order to proliferate the still fledgling faith. Now that I think of it, though, it was a lot like the Nicene Creed I repeat every sunday at Eucharist. But see, that is why it is so fascinating! Mormonism reveals the similarities between orthodoxy and non-orthodoxy.

whatever: I suggest these books.

Mormon America - Revised and Updated Edition: The Power and the Promise by Richard Ostling and Joan K. Ostling

Line upon Line: Essays on Mormon Doctrine (Essays on Mormonism Series) by Gary James Bergera

No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith

This book gives the reader a good idea about who Joseph Smith really was so you can decide if you’re cool with him or not. 

 Oh, and of course…

The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ  

Some Summer Resolutions

1. Daniel 5000: The campaign to raise and save a total of 5000 dollars by the beginning of the academic year 2010-2011. 

2. Daniel 28: The campaign to reduce my waist size from 30 to a comfortably worn 28 in Rugby chinos. 

3. Straight Daniel: The campaign to revisit the male heterosexual aesthetic.

I think they’re all self-explanatory, and, hopefully, will be fully realized by the middle of septemberish.  

“No excuse to be so callous, dress yourself in bleeding madras”

-Vampire Weekend

A Day Trip to the Beach (not the Hamptons)

So my dear friend James Van Sweringen and I both happened to have a day off a few weeks ago. We searched our minds as to how we might occupy ourselves, and we decided we should take a leisurely day trip to Coney Island. Nothing seems more preppy than a day spent in the sun wearing ridiculously inappropriate clothing… which is what I elected to do. 

Coney Island left me with many life lessons, ones I will never forget. The main one of these was: never again return to Coney Island. It is not a beach escape from the stress of city life. It is ghetto, ghettoer than I thought ever possible. The subway doors opened and it smelt like China and McDonalds… or maybe that was the philippines I smelt. Who knows? It was wretched. But we could hear the waves of the atlantic in the distance, and we hoped they would wash away the mess that was lower income Brooklyn. 

They didn’t. The boardwalk was overpopulated with guidos, mamacitas, fat kids, tricks, hos, ho mamas, project people, every ghetto creature under the sun really. And though I will admit that it was a good experience, my first encounter with a genuine guido, I shan’t miss the exchange of words.

Van and I navigated through the throngs of people who, I realized at one point, viewed the world so differently from me. And I think it was obvious that we were like the oil floating at the top of the coney island water. 

This blog is about ridiculous people. Ghetto people are ridiculous; they really are, and I will always stand by this. My visit to Coney Island reminded me that I am equally ridiculous, though. Probably most NYU students are too. We’ve just grown used to our kind and no longer have the discriminating perception to gage our own absurdity. But things are not so simple. My friends at NYU don’t appreciate the sweaters I like to have on hand. They call it ridiculous, but that is only because they do not understand just as I do not understand why ghetto people like the Big Pony Polos from Ralph lauren and why NYU people who don’t always have sweaters around their necks. But I wrote this blog to clear the air, to explain, to show that there is some coherency to the prep lifestyle. I hope that my visit to Coney Island can emphasize one of the most important of lessons to my readers: preppiness is practical. 

No one else on Coney Island made sure to bring a cashmere cardigan in case the 99 degree weather changed. I did, and I do not regret it. As the sun dove into the horizon, a chill wind blew across the wharf, but unlike Van in his overly simplistic v-neck, I untied the cardigan around my neck and put it on, leaving me at a comfortable temperature. I wore that sweater around my neck throughout the unbearable heat because it is, at heart, practical. 

Van and I engaged in a series of other activities that day. From watching a Brooklyn Cyclones baseball game together to eating a Nathan’s hot dog, I experienced one of the most enjoyable days of the summer. This is not to say that it was perfect. I won’t miss the heat, the ghetto people, lack of civilization, Brooklyn, feeling terrified for my life, but especially the ghetto people. All in all, however, I had some great talks with my amigo Van and a less than decent pina colada with cheap rum.

Oh, yeah, the place got so ghetto at night that we had to eat dinner back in Manhattan.