Editor's Note

Dear FM, I’ve heard whispers that it’s spooky season, and for me, spooky season is all about legends. The tale of sleepy hollow (my bedroom). The haunting of Emerson Hall (my upcoming Philosophy midterm). And this week, I’ve been thinking especially about two FM legends — our crown jewels, really — JKW and JL. For our cover story, this dynamic duo tackles Cambridge’s plans for reparations. In December, the American Freedmen Commission Ordinance — a first step toward reparations for slavery — seemed to pass through the Cambridge City Council quietly. But the radical ideas underpinning it have the potential to reshape reparations and racial justice initiatives around the country. You’ll be hard pressed to find scrutiny writers more incisive than JKW and JL, and for good reason — between them, this is their eighth scrut (!!). Elsewhere in the issue, SSL goes on a whirlwind of fifteen questions with Arthur Brooks, the professional French hornist turned conservative policy wonk turned professor of happiness. Did I mention he moved across the Atlantic to be with his now-wife after dating her for a week? In our first comper article of the semester, AWA spends a whole day staking out Annenberg to find out whether fellow freshmen are still open to eating with strangers. Drawing on MMFW’s legendary “Night Shift,” this saga is full of poignant observations, laugh-out-loud lines, and a surprising amount of cucumber. Just in time for midterm season, DRZ and IYG make a Venn Diagram comparing two unfortunate realities of Harvard: taking the T and getting a B. Finally, EMK closes out the issue with a typically-brilliant endpaper. Weaving in Zodiac legends and Bay Area landscapes, she reflects on learning to drive with her father and how her fears intertwine with his fearlessness. Her father, she writes, has big ideas: “the ones that soar and float.” It strikes me that this is not a bad description of EMK’s sentences, too. For every bit of spookiness this week, there is also gratitude: Thank you to SET, LPE, JND, OWZ, and especially XCZ for so many designs and a forthcoming glossy. To LLL, BHP, JJG, AYL, thank you for adding color, always. To MJH, EJS, and CY, thank you for humoring us. So many thanks are due to all FM Execs, especially CJK for checking so many CQs. Finally, an extra-special thanks to KT, for shoot solidarity, so many texts, and shouldering an entire magazine while I was concussed. FMLove, HD & KT