#towk

God i love the culture around plate and blades on roshar like man that shit is so good

“I’m always serious.”

The One Who Knows: Who is it? (11/12)

Since the article ended after two papers, we didn’t have much to go off to try to find out who “the one who knows” might have been.

First off, both of these were published anonymously. Obviously, this complicates things a little bit.

Our first step was to try to match the names mentioned in the articles. There was a Forbes, a Miller, and a Williams. The easiest place to start for this is in the yearbooks (Tamanawas) and in the bulletins--when classes were still so small, everyone's names and even addresses were included in the bulletins. The Tamanawas from 1927 includes an Ernest Miller and an Evalyn Miller in the Senior Class, but no one else has a similar name. 

The next place to investigate is in the actual Trail staff who published the articles. We cross-referenced the listed staff in both editions of the the Trail (both 19 Apr 1929 and 26 April 1929) to see who shows up in both, and then compared this to copies within the next three years. If the author was a first year, they’d presumably be a senior three years later. Alternatively, we could cross-reference it backwards, with the assumption that the author was a senior. The only person I managed to identify who might be responsible was Minard Fassett, who was a Sigma Mu Chi member and a sports writer for the Trail, though he doesn’t appear very often.

The only problem with this sort of “archival sleuthing” is that it makes a lot of assumptions. First of all, it assumes that a single Trail employee wrote this entire thing. It could easily have been an anonymous submission or even a group effort. Secondly, it assumes that even if an employee of the Trail wrote it, that they were there for all four years of their college education. It even assumes that they spent all four years here on campus, and that they started writing for the Trail as a freshman, instead of maybe picking it up their second or third year. Any of these assumptions could easily be untrue.

What do you think? Care to do some sleuthing of your own? Feel free to check out the digitized copies we have of the Trail online or come in on your own to browse through some other things!

The One Who Knows: Evaluating? (10/12)

Unfortunately, last week’s post was the last section we can give you. We checked the next paper, the next year, searching for a continuation of this reimagining of the campus, but couldn’t find anything. Instead, we’re going to do some evaluating and explaining! So, as any prediction written 100 years ago, it correctly predicted a couple of things but most of the rest are questionable.

For example, we haven’t combined our radio and newspaper into one big jumble, but we do still have the Trail and KUPS 90.1 FM! The Trail still keeps up on campus news, though they don’t have anything writing down the news from across the universe (though that’s a pretty close definition of Twitter, if you ask me). KUPS isn’t news based at all, instead it’s 100% student DJed music.

There was an auditorium mentioned in Jones hall--we still have good old Jones Hall, but the auditorium no longer exists. Jones does look pretty much exactly the same as it did back in the 1920s, though by now it definitely is an old ivy-covered building. It still has old-fashioned stairs (though so do the rest of the buildings) and a door that leads out the back to the Color Post, and there aren’t quite a dozen other “ivy-covered buildings”, but there are at least two directly around Karlen Quad, being the Music building and Collins Library.

We don’t have any trams on campus, since campus is still small enough to walk from one end to the other quite comfortably. Some people might use bicycles, skateboards, longboards, or scooters, but I don’t think we’ll have to predict them building a light-rail any time soon.

Students and professors don’t wear togas (except on Halloween sometimes), and freshmen aren’t required to wear green anymore. This idea of freshmen wearing green is likely due to the old tradition started around 1916 of freshmen wearing green beanies--a tradition that the administration brought to an end in the 1950s because of the intense levels of hazing.

Probably the least accurate thing in the entire thing is the slang - though to be fair, slang is incredibly difficult to predict. Who would have guessed we’d be using things like “savage” or “on fleek” or “lit” even as recently as ten years ago? It’s just as likely someone will call a class a jungug a hundred years from today.

So what are your thoughts? We still have two more weeks of follow-up from here, so don’t think we’re done just yet.

The One Who Knows: Sees Big Buildings (9/12)

The two now went down a short stairway and out the Colorpost Door of Jones Hall. There Williams exclaimed aloud in surprise. Before his eyes stood a dozen tall and stately buildings of stone and brick, heavily overgrown with ivy. “Where did all these buildings come from?” he demanded.

“I dunno,” said the reporter. “They’ve been here ever since I can remember, which is some statement, considering I’ve whiffed every jungug (Editor’s note: “flunked every course.”) in the University.”

Don’t forget to submit here or tag #towk (The One Who Knows) on examples of what you think the student was seeing.  We’ll reblog what you send us - images, text, video, whatever - so feel free to send original work or things that remind you of the story!

The One Who Knows: Is Year 2021 (8/12)

You’re crazy. See,” as they came through the door into the old hallway in Jones Hall, “there’s a calendar that will prove it.”

“Well, I’ll be--surprised!” murmured the dumfounded sleeper. “When I dozed off, it was April 26, 1921 (N.B. we believe the author may have meant 1928 not 1921) and now it’s 2021. How do you explain that?”

“Simply another case of ‘Who Paid the Rent for Mrs. Van Winkle When Rip Van Winkle Went Away,’ as our new hit song says.”

Don’t forget to submit here or tag #towk (The One Who Knows) on examples of what you think the student was seeing.  We’ll reblog what you send us - images, text, video, whatever - so feel free to send original work or things that remind you of the story!

The One Who Knows: Don’t Have Any Classes (7/12)

“We don’t have any classes here,” said the news-sleuth.

“Say, listen, my name’s Williams, and I’m no dumb ox. I know we have classes here, because I just went to one last period.”

“And I,” retorted the other, “am as sure that there is no class hereas I am that today is April 26, 2021, or that--”

“Whoa there! Your date is all wrong,” interrupted Williams.

Don’t forget to submit here or tag #towk (The One Who Knows) on examples of what you think the student was seeing.  We’ll reblog what you send us - images, text, video, whatever - so feel free to send original work or things that remind you of the story!