By:Pam Hersh
Princeton University this spring has found itself in the midst of a frenzied feeding festival of farewells and filming of the famous, infamous and wannabe famous. No matter where I turn I stumble over someone shaking hands, hugging, high-fiving and recording all this on film still pictures, movie pictures, digital pictures.
This past week was particularly photo frenetic thanks to the MTV tryouts at Triumph Brewery, the Dan Rather interview of Professor Peter Singer on campus, the auditions for "A Beautiful Mind" also on campus, and a pro-life-for-deer demonstration on Nassau Street. For each of these events, the camera played a pivotal role with coverage in local and national media. Even the deer demonstrators, Princeton residents protesting shooting deer, were shot by film crews, whose footage made it onto NBC’s news Saturday night.
However wacky it was this week, it is going to get worse. The filming for "A Beautiful Mind" gets underway in a few weeks a time when not only the professional cameras will be in high gear, but all the amateur photographers will be armed with cameras. Everyone will be prepared for the possibility of a candid photo of star Russell Crowe, whose now ex-girlfriend, Meg Ryan, was the focus of numerous photos a few years ago when she starred in another Princeton-based film, "I.Q."
Simultaneous to this filming brouhaha will be the omnipresent retirement party activity of President Harold Shapiro. He is about to embark upon the long journey of countless official gatherings with faculty, staff, trustees, students, friends and community members who want to honor President Shapiro to mark his final months as president of Princeton University.
I also have heard that there will be several "unofficial" parties, even though no one has told me the difference between an official hors d’oeuvre and an unofficial one. Anyway, all of this will come to a frenzied photo finish at Princeton University’s Reunions/Graduation, the pinnacle of Kodak moments. In addition to the thousands of friends and family pictures, the photographers will be inspired by the return to campus of high-profile alumni and speakers.
What bugs me most about all this shutterbug activity is my own photo phobia. I feel very stressed about the possibility of being caught in a shower of clicking camera lenses. What happens if someone captures me as I in sloppy exercise attire slog through campus? Or as I stuff my mouth full of cheese doodles (with the orange, crumbs all over my face)? Or as I spill coffee all over myself?
The coffee spilling scene may be one that I might want to capture on film, considering what I recently discovered about value of coffee on the outside of one’s body. I just got back from a conference where the hotel spa featured coffee scrubs a "stimulating experience, exceptional effective body scrub, exfoliating impurities, relieving stress."
The spa offered a tall or grande or vente coffee scrub, and even a de-caf self tanner Starbucks in a body wrap to cure all your ills. I never indulged in this very pricey treatment, because I could not bring myself to be rubbed in the same substance that I pour into my body each morning.
For a lot less money, I could settle for the internal relief, by swallowing a vente latte or simply by spilling it all over myself. Besides, the thought of someone photographing me with cold coffee mud rubbed over me from head to toe causes me enormous angst.
At my age, this would not be a pretty picture and it might drive me to drink a shot of espresso.
