Mascot-less, But Not For Long

As Cabot residents eat their goldfish and Dunster-ites pick up moose droppings, Quincy kids have started to feel a bit left out. To remedy their sadness, the Quincy HoCo launched a cutthroat search for a house mascot of their own last month.

“The main reason is intimidation,” explains Jack M. Marsh ’06, who is also a Crimson editor. House Master Robert Kirshner says he also wants to establish the people’s house as a force to be reckoned with, promising that Quincy’s new mascot will “Sumo-wrestle with the Moose on Cowperthwaite” once selected.

The house’s open list has been flooded with proposals, from Marsh’s cartoon “horse-thing”—the closest an animal drawing can come to a stick figure, this submission resembles a hairy fist more than any sort of mammal—to the Qube, the house library.

The latter would seem the more orthodox decision. Yet as Kirshner points out, “It’s a little hard to imagine what the personality of the Qube might be like—square but 3-dimensional?” The horse-thing, on the other hand, proved itself reliably shy yet loving.

Both proposals floundered in an online elimination poll.

Contestants in the run-off election are the Stallion, the Puma, the Dragon, the Penguin, and the Bull Terrier “Astra,” Kirshner’s canine. Votes have not yet been counted but victory is still very up-in-the-air, says Marsh, who is coordinating the process.

Campaigning has gotten pretty eccentric. “Horse-thing” creators, who include Marsh and his roommates, sent out a cartoon video depicting the bizarre character stomping on the words “other mascots.” Kirshner sent out incomprehensible e-mails to Quincy residents, signed by Astra and then distributed a flyer featuring a picture of the dog with the caption, “Vote me!”

Co-House Master Jayne Loader, concerned that Astra might be dog-napped by Adams residents, has been wary in throwing her support to her dog.

On the other hand, if the Gong had barked, wouldn’t it have been much less easy to steal? Not an endorsement. Just a thought.