(Un)Stable Subjects?

Anyone who has witnessed Adwait Parker run a food sovereignty aff or a K of the stable subject, or read a whimsical post-tournament commentary or heard an interpretative reading of seventh grade test answers by Jake Gelfand, knows that there’s something special about Team Schreiber.

The St. Mark’s champion and his coach have some thoughts to share about debate, education, postmodernism, intellectualism, deconstructionism, and Robert Goulet. But, of course, when this interview began, Adwait was not yet the St. Mark’s champion. You see, this piece has been in the works…for some time.

They joined us today (and yesterday, and several months ago) for an exclusive, biting, sometimes nonsensical, always bizarre, and perhaps somewhat censored VBD interview, edited for mass consumption and yours to read on New Year’s Eve.

Jake Gelfand: Well, as you all know, I’m ignorant, so feel free to ignore my suggestions.

Adwait Parker: Shut up.

Jon Cruz: We’ll talk about some specific things in sections…and I’ll incorporate them into the old piece.

Fair enough?

JG: It’s fine with me if it’s fine with the human bunny.

AP: I AM NOT A BUNNY.

AP: But we’d be consenting to the vaguest language ever.

JC: O-M-G.

AP: “Specific things in sections…” “Incorporate.”

JG: I’ll sign my life away.

JC: [laughs]

AP: Let’s get our cyber on…

–
Then.

JC: What first attracted you two to LD?

JG: Its pouty lips.

AP: [laughs] WHAT?!

JG: Also, LD debaters are better dressed than policy people.

JC: [laughs] What about you, Adwait?

AP: Well, I was attracted when Mrs. [Renee] McClean [former advisor of the Schreiber debate team] made a visit to my middle school and talked about getting to go to Yale and Harvard.

JG: You were attracted to Mrs. McClean? I knew it.

AP: Hmm…well, in ninth grade, I walked into the social studies resource room in my school with a friend because he had to do something with someone or something like that. But when we walked in, there was a debate meeting going on.

Merve [Emre] FLIPPED OUT…I don’t know why. She basically told us to leave if we weren’t part of debate, so I got scared away.

Well then, in the summer before 10th grade, Mrs. McClean was holding practice to teach all the new kids debate.

JG: At that point, I was still in Minnesota.

AP: I was there at the practice, along with Petey [Gil].

JG: Meanwhile I was grading standardized tests and learning that Helen Keller had to overcome being “deaf, blind, and stupid.”

AP: Well Jake’s job, I’m sure, had even more value…every tournament has Helen Takela quotes.

JC: So when did you actually start debating?

JG: Every time I go to Canal Street.

AP: I debated a practice round I think like the first week of school.

I remember that I almost quit debate the night before because it was too hard to write a case on my own.

JC: What was the Schreiber team’s focus at that point, in terms of tournaments?

AP: It was really focused on teaching the new kids debate. It was a big deal that our first tournament of the year was Yale rather than a local one.

JG: Yale was a big deal only because I was there.

JC: You were there with Schreiber, or what?

JG: Not what.

JC: [laughs]

JG: I remember listening to a really boring conversation about religion in the hotel room.

JC: Oh? Tell more.

JG: It was the first time I met anyone besides Julia Bernstein. The tournament was horrendous, and I pledged never to return.

JC: Which explains Greenhill this year, I would imagine?

JG: When I coached in Minnesota we went to Greenhill, so I already knew it was excellent.

I don’t remember anything about Adwait except Ritesh [Chatterjee] decribing him as his younger clone, which, in hindsight, is amazingly inaccurate.

JC: I’ll withhold comment.

AP: [laughs] Me too!

JC: How did you first get in contact with Schreiber?

JG: I judged Julia at Lexington her junior year, and I had heard of Merve from her success on the circuit.

One summer, some debaters I knew spread the word at camp that I was looking for a school in New York to work, and that’s how I wound up finding Schreiber. I emailed Julia and was like, “Hi, remember me? I dropped you at Lexington. Hire me!”

She was more than happy to avoid ever having me judge her again.

JC: Was it your intense laptop typing or the oral critique that intimidated her most? [chuckles]

AP: Jake didn’t flow back then. He burned.

JG: Damn canned foods. I had no laptop, only an Etch-a-Sketch.

JC: What was the transition from local to national team like? Was there any awkwardness at Yale due to Jake’s debut?

JG: I didn’t really attempt to interfere with anyone other than Julia at first.

AP: But then he ruined my debate career.

JG: It’s true. I made him stop using Locke’s social contract as a criterion and replace it with enhancement of the capacity of the individual.

AP: That’s the value.

JG: Whatever.

JC: [laughs]

JG: I remember that at Bronx, Adwait and Andrew Gross asking me what shoegazer music was. Then Andrew went 0-7 and never competed again.

JC: [laughs]

AP: [laughs harder] It is so true!

JC: [laughs] How did you take this transition, Adwait?

AP: Well, I don’t think we transitioned then. I think it started this year. [Or, then, last year?]

JC: In what ways?

JG: There was a hint of esoteric theory last year. But this year we went off the deep end.

JC: What prompted that?

AP: I went to some random tournaments when Julia went last year, but it was this year that we started spending all my parents’ money.

JG: Actually none of our “insane” cases are weirder than the ones my debaters in Minnesota used.

AP: The cases are NOT insane.

JG: That’s why I used the quotes.

AP: I didn’t think it was stressed enough.

JC: Pay attention, Adwait! Besides, I love so many of your cases!

JG: So do I.

–
Aside. Again.

JC: This is random, but tell us more about Schreiber’s fascination with Robert Goulet.

AP: He’s so elegant. We feel he doesn’t get enough support. People use and abuse him.

JG: Masculine yet fashionable. He was excellent in The Naked Gun 2½. And his art rivals that of Modigliani and Picasso.

AP: It really does.

JG: He should play Dorian in the Confederacy movie.

AP: Most people don’t know that he has won a Tony, an Emmy, and a Grammy, but never an Oscar. We hope that that day will soon come.

JC: Most of us have learned of your Goulet-obsessed nature from your wonderfully complex, detailed post-tourney narratives. Tell us more about that.

JG: I wrote a bunch of painfully sincere reviews when I was coaching in Minnesota. The first one I posted was from Catholic Nationals in Pittsburgh, because the people I coached there made me do it to avenge their getting screwed. Then this year I guess the first one was Lakeland, right?

JC: It was amazing. I hope the Vassar one is less harsh. [chuckles]

JG: It’s just a pathetic attempt to generate some empathy.

JG: Without Pittsburgh as the location a tournament can only be so enjoyable. I’m hoping Baltimore [home of the CBI and Chesapeake Bay Round Robin, held several days before this section was conducted] will live up to my expectations, which reflect a lifetime of John Waters movies.

JC: I LOVE John Waters. Do you think Petey could fill Edward Furlong’s shoes in Pecker?

AP: [laughs hard]

JG: I can’t imagine Petey taking the modern art world seriously. But I’ll give him my enormous Canon Rebel and see what happens.

–
Finals. Verdict: victory.

JC: And now, for a painfully straightforward question: what was it like to win St. Mark’s?

AP: Oooh Lordy.

JG: Adwait’s 2AR sucked in finals.

AP: Jake made a point to scream that loudly as soon as we left the room, as the all the judges were within earshot.

JG: That’s how much power I have.

JC: That must have hurt your feelings.

AP: No, I agreed.

JG: Rejecting anti-critical ethic justifies being a huge jerk.

AP: Whatever that means.

JG: You know very well what it means.

AP: That whole day was a blur of refilling my water cup.

JG: Cup. That’s one way of putting it.

AP: You’re begging to be fired.

JG: I judged zero break rounds at St. Mark’s.

JC: [laughs] Why do you think that is?

AP: He wasn’t mutually preferred. Or preferred at all, for that matter.

JG: I was mutually hated.

JC: This interview is degenerating.

JG: Sorry.

JC: I enjoy watching it, I feel like I’m rubbernecking while the accident is actually happening or something. That makes no sense. Anyway.

AP: Is rubbernecking a 90s phrase?

JG: The 90s are so quotidian.

AP: The word quotidian is so quotidan. Shut up.

JC: The position that was run against your case in the final round generated a lot of discussion after the tournament. Was this the first time someone had made such an argument against a Schreiber case?

JG: No.

AP: Yes.

JG: It happened in semis.

AP: Just kidding. The same argument was made at the Greenhill Round Robin, under the blanket of “gamesmanship.”

JG: I’ve never heard the word gamesmanship outside LARPing before.

JC: [laughs]

JG: You’re really broadening my horizons, Adwait.

AP: Your horizons are already broad as is.

JC: You probably both love LARPing.

JG: As Eric Palmer would say, you just posited a truism.

AP: Matt Shield’s cases always start “The resolution posits a _____.”

JC: YOU MADE A GRAMMATICAL ERROR. I CANNOT BELIEVE YOU MADE AN ERROR WITH THE APOSTROPHE. Anyway.

AP: Shields’. Shields’s.

JC: Better.

JC: Do you think such an argument against your case positions is understandable?

JG: That’s apropos to Blake. Because I was so busy writing finals that i had no idea what our case positions said. [laughs] People were like, “the Althusser K was so complex,” and I had no idea what they were talking about.

In general, the most important thing is, if you don’t get it, call the case during cross-ex. I don’t understand why more people don’t do that. The key thing is, we aren’t trying to be incomprehensible.

AP: I think so much of the complaints come from people who haven’t read the literature. [Stephen] Babb pointed this out on the huge thread that surfaced after Marx.

JG: I mean, if someone perfectly understood Kant, they would be able to confuse people. The Marx case, and all of our other cases, are only based upon literature we know and find persuasive, whether it’s from the New York Times or Theory and Event.

JC: Would you describe any of your positions are more ’stock’ than others?

AP: When they’re based on less theory, yes.

JG: No. Some are more foundationalist than others. But none are stock.

I should qualify that. It’s very possible that people from Schreiber run cases I wouldn’t want them to, so that’s an exception to what I said right before that.

JC: Obviously all the case positions you run are based on literature you find persuasive and interesting. Does the literature reflect your own political and philosophical views?

JG: For me, yes, but with key exceptions.

JC: Such as?

JG: This topic is a perfect example: we have a negative case or two that I don’t really agree with, but I still think they’re acceptable. I mean, even a theorist that I really like, such as [Guy] Debord, is still worth criticizing.

AP: I have my own problems with the literature we cite. Like the overemphasis on language and discourse in shaping the world. But that just comes with the genre of literature, and doesn’t negate the intellectual value or truth of most of what these authors talk about.

JG: I completely agree. A good theorist is good because they make you think, and that will include criticizing them.

AP: But regardless of whether we agree or not, I think it’s more important that it’s interesting to read.

JC: When did you become confident in running these kinds of positions? Were you coaching such positions when you were in Minnesota?

JG: When I coached in Minnesota, my debaters weren’t as interested in “ctheory.” I always coach people based on their own interests, although I won’t deny that I try to shape them.

AP: I’m very shapely.

JG: Adwait’s curvaceous hips reflect his love for [Jean] Baudrillard. And who can resist that combo?

JC: That is so scandalous.

What kinds of positions did you coach in Minnesota, out of curiosity?

JG: I have no memory. You’d have to ask Andrew Chalfant. I mean, we certainly quoted sources that are far from stock.

–
Finals. Verdict: defeat.

JC: [laughs hard] Tell us about your post-Harvard final round thoughts.

JG: The round was simultaneously moist and firm.

AP: [laughs] Bring a tranquilizer dart gun, in case a judge feels the urge to criticize your case in the middle of cross-ex.

JG: Actually, my favorite moment was when Adwait accused his quarters opponent of essentializing poor people. After that, finals was only icing on the fritter.

–
Finals. Verdict: defeat. A recollection, later.

JC: Adwait, when did you become interested in critical theory?

AP: I remember talking to Jake about something at the Vassar Round Robin my junior year, and that something turned into the Derrida K, which I found interesting. It wasn’t until this summer that I really started reading real theory.

JG: Actually, I had the idea for the case in Minnesota, but my debaters didn’t like it, which hopefully proves I’m not forcing people to run cases against their will.

AP: Although the “Derrida K” is a misnomer, since it only had one Derrida card, one sentence long, which was only there for the first edit.

JG: Yes - the better version of that case had nothing by Derrida. And for that matter, I think Derrida is potentially the worst theorist to use in debate.

JC: Why is that?

AP: He’s French.

JC: [laughs]

JG: I’ll accept that answer in lieu of a legitimate one.

JC: Some people were very upset with that case in finals at Harvard. You ran it again at TOC?

JG: Really? I didn’t know.

AP: Yes, it completely gave the wrong idea of what “kritiks” are for those who already hated “kritiks.”

JG: There are people who post on certain debate fora that think “x is socially constructed” means “x is not real.”

AP: I can’t believe you just used the word “fora.”

AP: Oversimplifying a position is just as bad as lying about it.

JG: But a debater can be anti-intellectual in a round, and c’est la vie. A judge, on the other hand, no.

JC: Did you feel that the judges who voted you down were all being anti-intellectual?

AP: Not at all.

JG: No. But I do think they were being inflexible. Maybe not all, but some.

AP: I don’t know their reasons for decision, though, because i never got the ballots back, and Chetan [Hertzig] doesn’t remember, so I can’t say anything.

JG: The whole thing is asinine. I can judge a thousand stock positions, and though i hate them, I still judge the round. But there are judges that hear a non-stock position and treat it differently. That disgusts me and makes me literally feel sick.

–
Back again. An aside?

JC: [laughs] Well, two questions.

Adwait, how have your parents reacted to the more extensive traveling?

Jake, has sleeping on the floor of hotel rooms helped amplify your cheery, much-loved sarcasm, or diminish it?

AP: They freak out about school more than anything else.

JG: They trust Clay Aiken since he is a compassionate conservative and cares deeply about abstinence.

JC: [laughs]

JG: Sleeping on floors only amplifies my back problems.

AP: …and most likely vision…

JG: My parents couldn’t afford mattresses when we were growing up, so it’s very nostalgic.

JC: Hey, I’m thankful Schreiber is letting me pay for a floor to sleep on for the Chesapeake Bay Round Robin….

JG: Actually you’re sleeping in the bathtub. Sorry to disappoint you.

AP: Schreiber is all about the charity.

–
Thoughts from then.

JC: How have judges reacted to your case positions?

AP: Suicide.

JG: Vomit.

JC: Is that what you do during practice rounds with your debaters?

JG: No, I only do that at TOC tournaments.

AP: When tab allows him to judge. Apparently they found out what he really does in rounds at Harvard.

JG: Thank God.

The real reason Northeast tournaments don’t like me judging is because I throw off the speaker points by giving everyone 29s and 30s. I’m just so impressed by everyone; I can’t help it.

–
A while back.

JC: What are your favorite case positions you’ve run so far?

JG: Excavating the temporality of the national.

AP: Oooh yeah.

JC: Were the reactions vomit, suicide, or what?

JG: Pervasive nosebleeds.

AP: …at least in my second round at Lexington last year.

JC: Dare I ask, or should we leave it to the imagination?

AP: Well, according to our next case, there will be no imagination soon.

JG: Only EVIL emoticons.

JC: Is this going to debut at CBI, or at Vassar? [laughs]

JG: The March/April topic is going to be all about feminist psychoanalysis. So start prepping us out now!!

–
Once again.

JC: What are your favorite case positions that you’ve run in the past? Sorry for how ridiculous some of these questions are.

JG: Don’t be, that’s a great question. For me, the feminist aff from this year’s September/October resolution is a perfect example, because it was a really intelligent position that I agreed with.

AP: I liked a similar case.

JC: Can you describe it for readers at home who might not have heard it?

JG: Hopefully Adwait can, because I don’t have any memory.

AP: It was about heterosexual subordination instead of patriarchal subordination. I liked it because it forced me to rethink the definition of privacy. It was an aff case.

JC: Awesome.

JG: It argued how public conceptions of people naturalize assumptions about sexuality; how the transparent public couple is always a specific type.

JC: What was the reaction to the case?

JG: “Too many SAT words.”

JC: [chuckles]

AP: No, that was to the feminist case.

JG: That’s what I’m talking about; not the gay case.

AP: Well, the gay case had the term “fist-fucking” in it.

JC: Some people took exception to that, even though it’s from Michel Foucault’s own work.

AP: One coach in particular stormed into tab to complain about the case being given a win.

JG: We are the only team, as far as I know, to use queer theory.

JC: We’re busting out some Q on this topic.

AP: Bust away.

JG: Debaters love making fun of gay people.

JC: It’s unfortunate, and ridiculous.

JG: The unbelievable self-righteousness on VBD today proves how debaters love accusing other of being ignorant in exactly the wrong situations.

JC: I’m glad, though, that the debaters I spoke to about applications of queer theory this summer at VBI were receptive to the idea.

JG: For me, any time someone places themselves in a position to “call out” “offensive” people, I get nauseated. I love Ali G and Strangers with Candy and South Park. I honestly believe stuff like that does more for progressive politics than anything else.

JC: How so?

JG: By exposing bigotry as ludicrous. By encouraging us all to laugh at it.

–
There and back again.

JC: As a complete side note, since I didn’t ask earlier - how did you get into coaching, Jake? Did you debate in high school?

JG: I actually did debate, but it was useless. I got a job as a judge sophomore and junior years in college, and then the LD coach asked if I wanted to take his job. I coached in Minnesota for two years before I moved here.

JC: You mentioned that at Yale you were only there for Julia, at least at first. When and how did you become Schreiber’s official coach?

JG: I never did. I got hired by the school this year, but there’s a second coach who does administrative stuff in the school. So I’m technically the “co-advisor.”

JC: What’s one secret about Jake that you’re dying to share with the LD community, Adwait?

JG: I can’t wait to hear this.

AP: He has an obsession with [censored].

–
Also.

JC: What are your top five songs for karaoke night with Bietz?

JG: Oh God. I haven’t done five in his presence.

AP: Toni Braxton!

JG: But I have done “Nasty Girl” by Vanity 6, “Cars with the Boom” by L’Trimm…

AP: Say it: TONI. Uh uh. Toni Braxton. [laughs]

JG: My favorite karaoke song is simultaneously embarrassing and flaming. It’s “Like a Prayer.”

JC: YES.

JG: But I also enjoy “Dancing with Myself.”

–
Rejoinder.

JC: [laughs] Anything else?

AP: Yeah, I think that’s it, unless Jake remembers something.

JG: I can’t remember anything after all the nitrous I’ve done.

JC: Well, then, that’s a wrap.

JG: Thanks for the interview. I’m sure the VBD readers at home will be appropriately horrified.

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