Letter: Shame on who? Cameron is still crazy
(02/03/20 5:00am)
Dear David Sotolongo, Class of ‘82,
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Dear David Sotolongo, Class of ‘82,
In case you weren’t there or haven’t heard by now, the Walk-Up Line for the Duke-UNC men’s basketball game was an absolute nightmare.
Art is like moisturizer. It nourishes the mind and refreshes our capacity for emotion and empathy, while simultaneously working to create a better, cleaner version of ourselves for the future. It can wash away the toxic thoughts we have or it can call to attention the flaws in our being, whether we choose to ignore them or not.
Every once in a winter’s eve, a time comes when the void takes its hands from my shoulders and allows me to escape its cold, foul breath. The last instance was last week when I went to see John Mulaney at DPAC. Little did I know, the void was not finished with me that fateful Friday night.
My dad used to drive me from Charlotte to Durham in the winter. We would come to campus over Winter Break to see a cheap, easy win basketball game against some cupcake team because all the students were home and we could easily get a spot in the student section. I would jump up and down like the little spaz that I was and chant like I was a seasoned veteran of Section 17. Afterward, my dad would walk me around campus in the dark and I would talk about how much I loved Duke, our campus and the contenting absence of Carolina fans that haunted the halls of my elementary school. We would go to McDonald’s for some fries and would wonder why the bench closest to Cameron was Batman-themed, all before sitting in traffic on Erwin at the start of our long trip home. I would always fall asleep in the car, and he would always carry me inside and tuck me into bed. His worn-out little Duke fanatic.
Someone recently asked me what my greatest fear is. I assumed they wanted a real answer.
The breath of autumn carries red leaves in the afternoon, sighing at the beautifully dying world. I dream and smell and look for home, and I’m there, though it is impossibly far away.
There is a girl who walks quietly by sometimes, and I am in love with her. She has more than one name and more than one face, but she always sings softly and sweetly in the silence when she’s alone. She smiles with her eyes and looks with a purpose, with intensity, quick to anger and quick to forgive because hers is the passion and vitality that lives dormant in all living things finally set free to roam and observe and love. Her name is autumn. She is the beauty of death and the fleeting present soon to be carried off in the wind. Her name is winter. She is the biting cold and the hearth inside the window. She walks quietly by, in and out of existence, and I am in love with her.
Being raised in a Southern Baptist household taught me two things: one, that the devil will take any opportunity to enter and corrupt a young life, and two, that I should feel very, very bad. I’d like to take this time to address the former.
If you have never heard the name Saul Williams, you have been missing out on one of the most important legacies in the history of modern art. From Jimi Hendrix to Rage Against the Machine, from Public Enemy to N.W.A., the list of discontented artists seeking social justice through self-expression includes many names that stand out as figureheads of generations.