On March 2, 2004, the Argus published “My weekend’s been pretty good,” a Wespeak by Gabriel Greenberg ’04. We object to Greenberg’s editorial on several grounds: he displays flagrant disrespect for the five under-valued days of the week; he reports biased and poorly researched information and he grossly misrepresents the true events of his weekend.
Greenberg’s account fails to appropriately problematize the dominant hierarchical discourse of days, which underrates the potential “fun value” of weekdays, placing a “fun premium” on weekend days. Greenberg writes, “[M]y weekend…has been pretty damn good,” effectively rendering invisible the non-weekend days. Moreover, Greenberg’s conflation of Thursday and the weekend undermines Thursday’s legitimacy as a potentially enjoyable weekday.
Furthermore, Greenberg does not adequately recognize his position as a fun-privileged member of the greater Wesleyan community. Those of us who spent the weekend in our thesis carrels – or talking about how we were supposed to be there – felt silenced by Greenberg’s descriptions of frolicking in the sunshine.
“Good weekends are totally offensive,” an outraged Arli Christian ’04 told us upon reading Greenberg’s Wespeak. We couldn’t agree more.
And even if Greenberg must express his elation at all of the “fun” he was having, this does not warrant his egregious abuse of emotive punctuation.
Another thing, Greenberg: research before you write. Was the Boogie Club performing outside of Olin on Saturday? Or was it merely rehearsing? Your lack of attention to details such as these is further demonstrated by your omission of “Lightning” as a Midwestern name for the game known to you as “Knockout.” We felt that you privileged the East and West coasts over the central glom.
We would be remiss in our response if we did not conclude by mentioning that Greenberg’s Wespeak is not only biased, but also a brazen misrepresentation of the truth. Eye-witness testimony confirms that on the Saturday morning in question, Greenberg was miserable. He was spotted hung-over, slavishly mopping his kitchen floor wearing an apron over his bare chest to the taunts and jeers of his housemates.
In a community that emphasizes honesty and truth, Greenberg was morally bound to represent his weekend fully and accurately – a duty which he utterly failed to fulfill. Moreover, frankly, his weekend sounds pretty lame. So thanks for sharing, Mr. Greenberg… but no thanks.
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