Kyle Ferrer remarked one Old Gold & Black production night that he hoped he would receive love letters as a response to his new and improved opinion section head shot.
It is the belief of these two fellow op-ed columnists that he should want to receive love letters about his alluring prose rather than his appearance. So, Kyle, here’s that love letter:
Don’t be misled by Kyle’s frat boy aesthetic and status as sports editor of the Old Gold & Black; this boy is the most profound and poetic contributor to the opinion section. His columns regularly leave us, for lack of a better term, “shook.”
While one of us writes almost exclusively about politics and the other prefers criticizing the public opinion of Chrissy Teigen, Kyle finds the deep meaning in seemingly routine aspects of life such as lying in the dark and taking long night rides. It’s one thing to be able to conceive of the meaning behind these things as philosophically as Kyle does; it’s another to put them into words so beautifully. How many other Lambda Chi Alpha brothers (no shade, Ren) can compose a passage like, “Dynamism of the mind makes the world more interesting. It vests meaning and enjoyment out of the ordinary. The hospital lights of objectivity melt into a ponderable and pleasurable subjective. Practice creativity in the dark, and the light becomes that much more interesting” or “When you put your hands on someone’s shoulders, you inevitably have to look them in the eyes?”
Kyle’s thought-provoking opinion columns make us curious as to what his academic pieces are like. (Side note: Kyle, what even is your major?). One of these fellow op-ed columnists, Lillian, is fortunate enough to have Kyle in her Education 201 class. For this class, students are required to submit an expanded form of an essay every two weeks. One day in class, after an essay was due, Lillian was sitting back-to-back with Kyle, furiously studying for her sociology test she had immediately after. Their professor, who was in front of them, said to Kyle something to the effect of “Your writing is absolutely beautiful.” Now, Lillian was so tempted to whip around in her seat and add: “I can only imagine how wonderful his academic writing is. I want to know so badly. His opinion pieces for the Old Gold & Black are some of the most poetic and thoughtful pieces of prose I’ve ever read. You should read one sometime.” But, alas, she was trying to cram in last-minute studying that she desperately needed.
One of the op-ed columnists would like to admit, anonymously, to having a writing crush on Kyle. She can’t help but get infatuated with his writing style. It’s a typical writing crush: she is speechless when she reads his pieces and always wants to read more. She knows his writing style is unattainable—it’s just not her style, and she has to come to terms with that. But, she can admire it from afar as long as Kyle keeps writing.
Impressively, Kyle built up an extensive reserve of op-ed columns over the summer and had been submitting one for every issue up until Oct. 5. We were surprised and concerned to realize on production night that he had not written and worry that he has run out of material for us to analyze over Thursday evening dinner. Kyle, there is a gaping hole in the opinion section without your contributions; your poetic prose and deep thoughts are desperately needed to counter Amanda’s cold political analyses and Lillian’s sarcastic and witty celebrity mic drops. Come back to the opinion section or you will have two unhappy Editorial Board colleagues.
Amanda Wilcox and Lillian Johnson contributed to this article.
