While at Brown (1995-99), Amir corresponded via email with his close friend Rebecca Deutsch. The following is a sampling of that correspondence…
Wednesday, October 18, 1995
I am the only person in my nine o’clock class who is awake. I think I participate in class more than anybody else in Brown. I bet other people think I am very annoying.
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Do you think it is good to be anti-social when the only reason you being unsocial is so people say wow, he’s so Holden Caulfieldish and aloof and cool and then you become very popular.
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Quote of the week:
“These paradigms of vanilla normality make me puke.” –Jon Wolfson
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Saturday, October 14, 1995
College is pretty cool. Academically it’s great. They really keep one busy here and I am learning a lot. I had figured it would be anti-intellectual compared to yeshiva, what with only four classes and all, but I think I am even working harder here than I did there.
I am taking:
-2nd semester calc
-political philosophy
-intro to object orientd programming (my favorite)
-twentieth century jewish fiction
Also, extra-curricularly there are always a lot of things to do that I am interested in. I am a member of the film society and the fantasy gaming society…
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The whole concept of friendship has got me very confused. Do you think a friend should be a person who has certain personality traits that you find appealing (i.e. s/he is into books you like, or movies you like, or plays the same sports as you), or do you just like anybody who is willing to reciprocate that affection? Most people seem to the latter. I am not sure if it is respectable or pathetic. Friendship is no more than a vestige of a pack instinct. That is my opinion on it.
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Monday, July 15, 1996
Rebecca,
I don’t think I ever told you what I am doing this summer. I have two-and-a-half jobs, all involving computers. My main job is programming for the psychology department here. I am programming experiments in human timing. In my current project a subject is presented with 100 boxes and is allowed to click on any which one. If the box is primed, the subject is rewarded by a sound clip from a movie or TV show. If it is not primed, then the subject is subjected to a very loud, harsh sound. The boxes are primed randomly. The idea is to check for patterns in ways in which the subjects search. My other job is researching how to program Windows sockets. Windows sockets (i.e. winsock) is a programming interface by way of which programmers can write bits and bytes on the internet. My half job, which I just started today and which I am not getting paid for, is that I am programming an interface for a project a post-doc is working on in the Brown CS department. I am doing this because I get a very special account and it is a good learning environment.
Tomorrow, I am going for an interview for a job teaching Hebrew school. I am a little nervous because I shaved my head into a crew cut and I think I might make a bad impression.
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Tuesday, July 16, 1996
Rebecca,
Why didn’t you go away for the summer? You can support yourself on summer job money…. It really feels good to be self-sufficient. It is pretty easy, too. Life really doesn’t take that much, (so you shouldn’t feel sorry for bums, you should just dismiss them as lazy (just kidding (I like nesting parentheses (it is a very computerish thing to do)))). Also, when you are away from your parents for a long time they are much nicer to you.
I just spoke to Mikey on the phone…Really, he is a tremendously decent man.
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Wednesday, August 07, 1996
Hi,
It kills me that girls are judged so much more leniently on personality matters. In order for a girl’s personality to be liked all she has to do is smile a lot and sit around and listen. With guys, if you are not saying something witty every ten seconds people dismiss you right out as a boring schleb. I want to be a woman.
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Friday, September 06, 1996
Hello Becks,
How’s your junior year going? You know, being a junior in college is pretty damn near adult, isn’t it?
Anyway, sorry I haven’t written, I have been very preoccupied with a lot of stuff. I have over-committed myself to too many things: I am working on the Virtual Reality project with the CS department, programming experiments for the psychology department, teaching Hebrew school, librarian for Hillel, pledging a fraternity and 3 work-intensive classes….
Last week, I went camping in the White Mountains and really fell in love with nature. The whole experience made me feel really very primal. It was very invigorating. I climbed a 4,000 ft mountain and now I really feel there is nothing I can’t do. There was a personality conflict with the rest of my group, though, and none of them liked me because they are all a bunch of wusses who don’t like to challenge themselves. What kind of classes are you taking? Are you taking CS?
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Did you know that in Hebrew, which is god’s language, there is no word for love? Ahava, which we use interchangeably for love and like, really doesn’t mean either of those, it means loyalty.
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Wednesday, September 18, 1996
It is great that you are reading Heart Of Darkness, but it is kind of sad that you are taking that kind of class when you can be really applying your mind to some greater discipline like math, physics, or C.S.
Lately, things are going very well for me. My fraternity is taking very good care of me and making sure that I am not getting bored socially. I am really pretty much enjoying it so far. It is very engrossing. I don’t know any better word for that. As pledges they keep us busy constantly and it is just a lot of fun. What they are tying to do mostly is indoctrinate us in the tradition. I kind of dig all the tradition… I have been getting about five hours of sleep a night and I feel great. The fraternity keeps me up late every night and then I get up at 7:30 for minyan, which we have just started here this year.
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Thursday, September 19, 1996
It is weird. I have a dual social life here in Brown. Half of it is Hillel, which I love, hanging out and meeting pleasant people… Then there is my fraternity life, which truthfully lives up to all stereotypes… It is actually truly pathetic. But in some ways it provides a strange counterbalance that I think I need. Hell, I don’t need it, who am I kidding. I am stuck in Gehenna, and that is the truth. I could pick up and leave but that is not as simple as it seems. I would be alienating a lot of people, and truthfully there are a lot of people that I do like. Nobody I couldn’t live without, though. But then on top of that there is the huge hassle of moving and finding a place to live…
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Friday, October 25, 1996
I really like having a roommate. I would be very lonely without a roommate. I think I am going to get married this summer so I don’t have to be without a roommate. I need that type of spiritual crutch so I don’t get lonely.
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In computer science class I am building a simulated computer. It is really cool. I am also designing this graphical robot that can shoot missiles out of his mouth and lasers from his eyes… I am feeling unimaginative. So next semester I signed up for creative writing. I was inspired because there were two girls from Ramaz here last weekend and they were only freshmen when we were seniors, but they knew who I was because they remembered my poems. That made me feel really great…
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Monday, November 11, 1996
…Anyway, I got to go home this weekend to Englewood and that seems to have done me a turn for the better. I got to see my grandma before she left to Israel and, although we can hardly speak a word to each other, it seemed to make her very happy just to sit next to me. It was nice to make her happy like that and it made me feel groovy inside. Also, I got to speak to my sister, who I recognize as the complete angel that she is, and she had a lot of good advice for me. Maybe you should speak to her, too. She is great at giving advice…
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Tuesday, January 21, 1997
Dear Becks,
I just got back to school yesterday and I moved into the Hebrew house here at Brown. So far it seems like a vast improvement over the frat. The house is much nicer. It is actually like a real house. We have a living room and kitchen and everything laid out for Mr. and Mrs. Joe family. My room even has its own bathroom and carpet. My new roommate is a computer science god who took three years off brown to work for apogee and write Duke Nukem. If you don’t know what that is, let me tell you that is something to be proud about…
I went on a breaks trip last week and that was great. What we did was go out into New York City for a week and volunteer in soup kitchens for lunch and at night we usually spoke to people who were professionally involved with hunger and homelessness in NYC…
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Monday, March 17, 1997
Hi Becks,
Anyway, what I was saying in my last letter was that I am going camping for a while next week in Virginia. I am really excited. I have only been camping once before and I have never been to the South at all. I have been to Florida once but that doesn’t really count. I like long car rides with friends. That is the best. I like to make everybody play these games that me and Jon used to play. One game is called memory game and it just goes that one person says a memory and the other person says one that it reminds them of. And so on. The other game is called trivial pursuit and it is just Trivial Pursuit without the cards, dice and board. The only part that is left is the questions and since you don’t have cards you have to think them up yourself. That is the fun part. I just hope it is not too cold when we go camping.
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Tuesday, April 15, 1997
How are you doing? As for me, everything is going very well. I had a great spring break camping and when spring comes and Ben and Jerry’s gives away free cones of ice cream, it is hard not to be chipper.
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Thursday, October 09, 1997
Hi Rebecca?
How’s life? I haven’t heard from you in a little while and I was wondering. I actually called you a couple of times this summer when I was in NJ but I was never able to get through. As for me, life is fine. I walk a tortuous path within the twilight of some large and looming madness that howls continuously from along the perimeter of my mind. Of the few people I have gotten to know in the slow and sordid course of my social history, I believe that only you could ever really understand the context of my self-loathing and the hubris it engenders. That is why I write you this letter. I think me and you, we share the same insanity. I still think of you every now and then and miss you. I miss certain aspects of myself as they pertained to you. It is funny, people leave your life and new people come in, but there are no substitutes.
–Amir