You know that sound people make when they’re holding in a laugh, but they also make it when they’re mocking something? The one where it’s this nasal-guttural sound that’s technically the beginning of a chuckle but sounds dangerously close to a snorting sound.
Yeah, that sound is really hard to transliterate. I’ve experimented for a while, and I decided that “Phhttrrrbbh” is the closest you’re gonna get.
For instance: If I were to say, “Hey, I’m concerned the Young Trustee open forums are going to be overflowing, do you think we should tell them to move them to someplace bigger?” you would be correct to respond, “Phhttrrrbbh!”
With all the options open for Duke students this Halloweekend, there were a lot of opportunities to dismissively “Phhttrrrbbh” things.
Among the “Phhttrrrbbh-able”:
Watching the World Series. Who watches baseball anymore, really? Thirty years ago, when the Pittsburgh (where?) Pirates beat the Baltimore Orioles (what-now?), almost 38 million people watched it. Adjusted for inflation, that’s like a billion people. Today, a game between the Pirates and Orioles would draw about six viewers, likely single obese men aged 35 to 50 who haven’t showered in the previous month before the game. Last year’s World Series (a real doozy, if you ask me) drew less than 14 million.
This year, it’s a competition between the team most hated around the nation (the Yankees) and the team most hated in their own town (the Phillies). Major League Baseball could not have orchestrated a more loathsome World Series.
In fact, although I moan and groan about the decline of baseball, I didn’t even watch the World Series. I spent my Halloween chilling at Devil’s Eve staring at guys’ crotches as they walked by. Normally, that sort of attention is welcome, but when a few approached me to talk about where we go from here, I explained to them that it was part of my costume. I was Alex Rodriguez, reverted to his normal choke-artist form just in time for the October Classic, just watching balls go by. I guess these conversations sort of improved the look, as it inevitably led to me striking out with men aboard.
Speaking of which, Devil’s Eve was pretty “Phhttrrrbbh-able.” After Chapel Hill decided to again restrict access to one of the best Halloween parties in the country, Campus Council swooped in and filled the void—and then some! Not only was there a costume contest, there was also a live performance of the Thriller dance! Like, omg, wow!
Phhttrrrbbh.
Okay, so maybe you weren’t watching the World Series or lame-ing the night away at Devil’s Eve. You could have gone to see the Duke Players Lab performance of “Nevermore”…. Phhttrrrbbh.
It’s true, there’s nothing that says Halloween like a death-metal infused re-interpretation of the Gothic Wonder-boy in the Gothic Wonderland (translation: Edgar Allen Poe at Duke University). And a raven that crows at you as you walk by it on the Plaza all week does kinda set the mood for a Halloween experience so sombre and grotesque that you can only spell s-o-m-b-r-e the British way.
Because if there’s one thing to be said about modern-day Halloween celebration, it’s that it stays true to its Pagan ritual roots. Oct. 31 is all about phantasms and fright.
Phhttrrrbbh.
Let’s get real, the only “non-Phhttrrrbbh-able” Halloween activities were the party at Shooters II (theme: Who the hell cares? It’s the same as Shooters every other night, but now there’s orange and black streamers. Why do they even bother decorating the place?) and its Erwin and section tributaries.
Halloween has rightly become an evening for liberating bacchanalia, where you can dress up as zombie or the swine flu and have no one judge you for it.
And I wouldn’t be doing my job as a Chronicle columnist if I didn’t also mention that we girls can dress like skanks. But that’s just so oversimplified. There are pirate skanks and princess skanks and ironic skanks and even Alien skanks. It’s not fair to lump us all together.
Not to mention, it’s not truly skanky to revel in the freedom we get from Halloween. The whole point is that the normal rules of decorum no longer apply. The whole universe stops for us to have a good time without worrying about our clothes for once. Heck, even the time-space continuum opened up at 2 a.m., as the end of Daylight Savings Time sent us hurling an hour backwards through time. So there’s obviously higher forces in play here, trying to let us dress how we like for a night.
So no mourning the death of traditional Halloween activities. Would you prefer we return to celebrating the warding off of ghouls and other paranormal spirits?
Phhttrrrbbh!
Charlotte Simmons is just baiting for criticism when she uses the word “skanks.” She actually finds that kind of offensive herself, but needs to maintain her streak!