Bring Dana to Life: The back of Dana is begging for a mural. Because of the Dana Center’s weird right triangle shape, the building has a large windowless rear, which both overlooks the baseball field and is adjacent to the football field. While I cherish the college’s red-brick aesthetic, and am generally opposed to garish displays of “school spirit,” a la Clemson, a mural of a hawk would be particularly fitting for the location (our teams are the Hawks, after all). The back wall is currently a visual void of off-white and HVAC systems. Thus, any change would be an improvement. Perhaps the Class of 2023 is brainstorming for a senior gift?

Ah, the lovely leaves: Fall foliage and its temporal beauty are things of eternal pride here on the Hilltop. I particularly enjoy the vibrancy of red maples this time of year; they are like autumnal fireworks frozen in time. Their beauty is particularly salient because of its fleeting nature. Like Daphne through the fingers of Apollo, so too escapes the autumn leaves and their excruciatingly temporal majesty.

Bouchard’s new book: Our beloved Professor Bouchard just released a new book, titled What News Horatio? Dispatches from Beyond the Castle Walls. It is a collection of poetry, with each poem evolving from a real, and ridiculous, news headline. My personal favorite is “Fire Department Shuts Down Gilford Strip Club for Safety Violations.” The headline is not as funny as, say, “Saudi Cleric Condemns Snowmen as Anti-Islamic,” but the portrait of a small-town fire chief begrudgingly hassling a small-town strip joint at the behest of priggish officials is tragically funny, as is much of the collection. As an added treat, Professor Bouchard included references or borrowed phrases from Shakespeare’s Hamlet throughout his poems. You can find What News Horatio? on Amazon.

A tribute to fall: Speaking of poetry, autumn leaves, and William Shakespeare, the bard wrote a famous account of this season. Sonnet 73, “That time of year thou mayst in me behold,” seems timely:

That time of year thou mayst in me behold, When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang; In me thou seest the twilight of such day As after sunset fadeth in the west, Which by and by black night doth take away, Death’s second self that seals up all in rest; In me thou seest the glowing of such fire That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, As the deathbed whereon it must expire, Consum’d with that which it was nourish’d by; This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong, To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.

Bring on the costumes: Halloween approaches, and as it does, I sometimes wonder which costumes will reign supreme. I think Marvel’s run at the top has ended. Sure, Spiderman will always be popular, but Morbius was a flop, fans didn’t love Love and Thunder, and I cannot picture too many Moon Knights running around on the 31st. The Boys received much talk; thus, we might see a few Deeps, Black Noirs, and Homelanders around campus, but the adult nature of the show might turn some away. Halloween Ends, the final installment of the sequel trilogy to the original Halloween movie, just came out. Depending on its reception, we might see some Michael Myers brandishing kitchen knives. For the ladies, Harley Quinn might make a reappearance. Hocus Pocus and Euphoria characters, as well as Starlight, are also possibilities.

Turn your attention East: The 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party will have begun by the time you read this. It is widely predicted that Xi Jinping will be re-elected as China’s Grand Poobah and Conqueror of the British Empire. This is notable, because Chinese communard despots tend to only stick around for two terms (how Washingtonian). May his reign be short and unpleasant.