ann arbor is overrated.

The watchword for writers seeking to capture the essence of A2 seems to be “sweaty,” if you go by this Daily column on fiction with an Ann Arbor backdrop. Author Bharati Mukherjee depicts our town as “an equal parts hot-sweat sexy academic wonderland,” while a character in a Dean Bakopoulos novel counsels, “Do not, do fucking not … under any circumstances, fall in love with a woman in Ann Arbor,” warning of “warm narrow beds that smell of beer and salt and sweat.”

Another A2 blogger makes headlines: this time it’s The American Princess. But while we might not be making appearances on CNN or garnering coverage on NPR, don’t think we’ve been left out of the Tree Town publicity whirlwind. A recent Metromode Media story on “SE Michigan’s Blogger Nation” features our recent “admonition to the city’s residents to remember ‘there’s a war on’ when grieving the sub-par performance of the University of Michigan’s football team.” Yes, if there’s anything we hope readers get out of this blog, it’s that the citizens of A2 just don’t spend enough time making strident proclamations about national politics.

An anonymous blogger’s reign of snark over the defenseless citizens of A2 has come to an end as he is finally exposed. Johnny Quest, now known to be Paul Tassi of the Daily, was known for writing searing critiques of the shallow, status-obsessed Greek system on campus. Like this one, about Alpha Phi:

They do have the hottest, most diverse (hair color-wise of course) collection of girls on campus. Like I don’t really see how that can be argued against by any objective observer.

Or Sigma Kappa:

A few cute ones here and there, the hot ones less hot than the hottest Tri-Delts, but the hit ones less hit than the most hit Tri-Delts. So that makes them about average.

Now that is some subversive, paradigm-shattering stuff. As Neil Tambe writes in today’s Daily: “I hope the next Johnny Quest is as bold as the original, daring to speak freely in places that it is uncommon or uncomfortable to do so.” We can only hope that the relative hotness of Tri-Delts and Alpha Phis won’t go unexamined for much longer on a campus where this kind of hard-hitting social criticism is all too rare.