COMPREHENSIVE INTERNATIONAL EDITORIAL

The following is an editorial piece written and composed by COMPREHENSIVE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATE Leo Baum. In the text, composed for a variety of institutions of education, Baum, in monologue, various topics and several themes.

ABRIDGED PORTIONS OF COLLEGE ESSAYS THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN INCLUDED IF THE RECIPIENT WAS INSTEAD THE NEW YORKER OR SOME OTHER NATIONALLY CIRCULATED PUBLICATION

ABSTRACT

My name is Leo Baum and this is my college essay. I feel grateful to a degree nearly-unquantifiable at least once every other day for having been given a name that sounds like the name a man named Meyer Berkowitz might give himself while trying to make it in show business. I also love so completely hearing Mel Brooks (and others) reminisce about his (their) experience (experiences) in show business, and really, above all else, I just love the phrase show business in all of it’s strange self-indulgent glory. I enjoy Art Deco architecture and can usually use the term “mid-century modern” properly, though it is more than possible I conflate it with something more so Prairie Style. Please forgive me. 

I adore a Ms. Fran Lebowitz and her up-a-size checked blazers; and also the curmudgeon-ish brilliance with which she speaks, talks and verbalizes. I would so like to emulate this late 70’s style of essay writing––as in a series of short thoughts and anecdotes punctuated liberally and described superfluously. Please enjoy them as they follow, as they are surely worth at least as much as the sum of their parts. 

COFFEE AFTER DINNER

It is both logical and reasonable to me why formal restaurants––though I must mention: very few grammar school cafeterias––serve coffee after dinner. To speak in english-language maxims, “conversation is a pleasure second only to food,” and when the two are provided, in both conjunction and in sequence, the result of  pleasure is hardly comparable. I love to speak and talk with friends in Thai restaurants, and to speak and talk with family in Thai restaurants. I love Pad Thai, and also the company of great company. At synagogue or at a breakfast buffet, even in a younger youth I would fill the heat-treated foam cups––evocative of all of the colors in a Panera Bread––with half coffee and half half and half, and would sip at it lovingly and aspiringly intellectually, while in the other hand holding a full plate of only pineapple. 

My very favorite company is my own family. I’ve watched my dad write down ideas on the sides of opened yellowed envelopes, and I’ve listened as my mom explained how terribly unorganized that is, and that I really should organize the basement. I feel so astonishingly thankful for my parents, and for how it is that they have given me the capacity to now walk into airports and think immediately to myself “wow, so they used terrazzo in here too.” 

RHINESTONES, PLEASE!

I have always been rather performative, either on stage or when walking down sidewalks or on tile. I like to wear bright colors as they show more clearly in color photographs, and also think Ethyl Merman and Judy Garland were just so ahead of their times, respectively. 

The epitome and the greatest inspiration is always sitting with my Grandma (Bubbe) and her menagerie of friends. Ten minutes into any conversation, I become aware that I have begun doing a voice, with the voice being that of an older-Jewish-lady somewhere between the Upper-West-Side and Chicago. Today, it has nearly overtaken my regular speaking voice–––which is not so far off from that, anyway–––or the majority of the words I speak. Questions like “how was your day” can only be rebutted with “oh, did I have a day!” And anything and everything is “fabulous, wonderful, and terrific.” Anybody in a button-down shirt is “just so sharp,” and even if you can believe something, you “just can’t believe it.” 

CARTOON CHARACTER

I bought a pack of twelve pairs of thin socks at an online store, and recently I have become so gleeful when it so happens that I can match the color of my socks to the color of my shirt. It becomes almost as if everything from my upper heel to my lower shoulder is the very same color, and I find the effect both dazzling and hilarious. I think (know) that I want to be a cartoon character, if only in both in concept and in all other ways also. Bright, near fluorescent shades of Lacoste would show rather well in photographs, and it would be only so much easier to entertain. Surely my face would still be so far from as malleable as Jim Carry’s though there is some hope that I could execute a greater number of heightened facial expressions. I would love rubber shoes that make squeaky sounds on tile and carpet, and I can imagine that lifting measurably heavy objects would be at least marginally easier, as it often is shown to be for several anthropomorphic rabbit people. Now of course, I would not necessarily be so forced to remain in such a state as Disney has produced live-action films of nearly its entire catalog, however I think, given the proper Pantones and with kind shading, cartoon circumstances might be rather delightful and glittery. But only time will tell. 

THUS THEREFORE 

I know myself well as we share a bedroom, and I know with great conviction that I am happiest when I am frantic. I love production, and though I cannot paint, sculpt, or pastel (as a verb), I enjoy videotaping and writing and yelling loudly––either a cappella or with musical accompaniment. I love laughing, and even more so I adore making other people laugh, and honestly it’s most probably selfish. Satire is exciting and talk shows are true American Institution. This is my preoccupation, and this will be my occupation, and I want only so severely to be so occupied professionally, traversing several fields, proficient in many disciplines. I treasure and cherish Maxwell House and Sanka, and the KraftHeinz conglomerate for their continued production of both beloved products. 

THIS, THAT, AND THE OTHER THING

And from the perspective of utter vanity, I must draw great attention to the Oxford Shirts and khaki chinos covering the Columbia student body everywhere from 112th St. to 114th. The J. Crew Factory Store sells shirts nearly identical to the classic Brooks Brothers Oxfords, and this would be the greatest reason to invest in such attire. I did read The Preppy Handbook, and happily the tenants and postulates of the text remain as relevant and present as they could ever be. 

I will swear on a bible stacked on top of a second bible––doubly emphasizing––that all amounts of dynamic intellectual artistry ever could I compose would be so gratefully contributed to the Collaboration and connection of Columbia. 

I am so definitely aspiring constantly and always, I swear to God I couldn’t make it up, and despite not being an aspiring something like most aspirees, I am most definitely and completely and unwaveringly sure that I am aspiring, and I will continue to aspire, and I would love to aspire in greater quantities at higher qualities in an institution of higher education and also learning. 

Another project manifested itself over the duration of an extended stay in New York for a collegiate summer semester, where  I thought it would be compelling to invent/create some kind of a Charitable Parody––Charody––which would simultaneously draw attention to the absurdity in the process of generating charitable funding, while simultaneously thoughtfully generating charitable funding. I named it “ONE RED SHOELACE ON YOUR LEFT SHOE, bought and dyed 400 shoelaces, created websites, mission statements, 50 advertisements, contacted local news organizations, and encouraged hundreds of New Yorkers to wear one red shoelace on their left shoe for the benefit of several charitable organizations.  

It must be understood that the material here presented in this format via word processor was originally conceived on Yellow Legal Pad Paper. I’m finding it difficult to change the background color to yellow, though if you feel so inclined to copy-paste the following onto a separate document and change the page color to the proper yellow, I would surely there have no grievance.  

During Presidential and Midterm elections, I sleep on the sofa, allowing no distance between myself and the cable.

I love orange juice but despise mandarin oranges, and I don’t know enough about Eastern culture to understand why it is that mandarin oranges are often found on Asian Salads. My usual salads have fruits and candied pecans, though I must mention for your sake exclusively that my dear Bubbe recently made a Watermelon Salad, which included chunked watermelon, feta cheese, sliced cucumbers, and olive oil. She has since then made, and this is a rough approximation, zero subsequent Watermelon Salads, and my family has never been healthier or happier, conveniently in accordance with the frequent greatering for the new year, “Happy, Healthy!”

I would like to call and classify this a Manifesto, however I fear that in order for such a classification to be warranted and notarized, required would be a message, moral, or underlying motive. Surely there exists, if not only subconsciously, some kind of motive––maybe an emotive motive, though possibly one more passive––with some kind of societal benefit or quality of general improvement, though it is just as and more probably possibly the case that the actual motive would in fact be rather selfish and self-serving, and most definitely uncharitable. 

I find great amounts of joy in the consumption of drip coffee, not exclusively though definitely without excluding the sure energy and heightened awareness such provides, but also for its ability in elevating appearance to that of the refined intellectual, which is a feat comparable to the donning of tortoiseshell-framed glasses, with the effect intensified even more through combination. 

UNFINISHED SENTENCES 

And this isn’t to say that I’m so necessarily hyper capable in so many fields, though I am more than proficient in Adobe Photoshop and in every other game of Rummikub, 

But all things considered, and all included, and all idioms mentioned and exhausted, I swear to you that my topic or theme or driving force or, well I really don’t like those three terms and so I will shortly think of another one though I think regardless the point is clear, 

And weather there are in fact ulterior movies, and seasonally involving/regarding exterior and interior motives, there is most definitely 

The State Of The Application is STRONG.