Dear Pennizens,

Here we are for round two. Good things come in twos. Two partridges. Two party system. Two genders. Second helpings of…partridge. The second issue of First Call is here just in time to help balance the ever  spiraling workload. We’ve seen perky little freshman heads begin to droop, ever so slightly, starting on the way towards the inevitable Senior “hunchback ‘o’ cynicism.” It’s a natural process, so nobody should be worried. You are going to want to have something to read, however.

This week’s issue brings tidings of both good and evil, joy and infection, celibacy and orgiastic gratification. While this issue may or may not  be as gay friendly as Penn, you will find many delightfully fruity pieces. Wonder at the modernist marvel of Van Pelt with Emily Magnuson. Experience the tears of soccer with Adam Goodman. Love the crossword, and it will love you back.

But every rose has its thorns, and FC is no different. The beast must be fed. Kelly Cataldo has found Avian Flu deep within the closet of pointy objects and photo albums of incarcerated relatives. Bird flu is back, and it will kill you. The good news is that it will kill me and my family first. One can only hope that Mick  Jagger will still be able to entertain himself with all the roaches.

At the very least it will give you something to do besides stage massive acts of collective social action levied against the post-industrial public sphere dominance of information by the technocratic, elitist likes of Mark Zuckerberg. Genocide in Sudan, chaos in the Middle East, high gas prices, the attack of leggings, river otter syphilis. These things don’t concern us. What concerns us is that some Harvard dropout is making our stalking that much more explicit. Shhhhh, Mark. What if she sees me coming?

*Phillip Glass is digging through your trash!*

Our generation defines itself once again in an embarrassing selfabstraction into the world of pseudo celebrity and the infinite cult of personality. We are unique. We are independent. We will not be defined

by your mini-feed, Zuckerberg. Just because we’re putting our phone numbers, addresses, photos, preferences and friendships on a highly visible internet site doesn’t mean we don’t still have our autonomy over our identities.

We like having our shit out there, and all of it, too. We just don’t want people to know that we like having it out there. Our secretive Facebook games suddenly laid bare strikes much too close to home, spotlighting the wanker in the bushes outside the house of the head cheerleader. How can you stalk anybody when News-Feed is doing it for you? The vulgarity of the act made blatant and broadcast to everybody, the perverse intimacy, the delicious visual asymmetry of a good stalk is obliterated. Suddenly, we’re all in the bushes with our pants down, and there’s nothing left to do but zip up, speak up and act out!

Now that the storm has passed, however, it’s time to just drop it. Stalking is once again possible, and no reasonably attractive freshman is safe from secretly prying eyes. Just the way God intended it to be. Instead of laboring the issue, let’s all just go back to who we were watching, and pretend the whole ugly affair never happened.

First Call Editors posted on UPenn’s Wall:

“Hello, Closet Minds! Enjoy your second issue and be sure to come back for more. Your greedy cerebral core will thank you.”

Andrew Pederson

Executive Editor

editors@firstcallmagazine.com