It was a match made in mythological-heaven. In Greek lore, Pleiades is a group of seven sisters renowned for their beauty and immortalized by Zeus as a constellation. In the Harvard Bookstore, Pleiades is an obscure literary magazine published by Central Missouri State University. And in the Harvard social milieu, Pleiades is a recently formed quasi-sorority. FM played matchmaker, uniting the social club and the magazine to explore their eponymous obscurity.
Pleiades President Tanya F. Perkins ’04 was quick to dispel any suspicions of name plagiarism. “I am not surprised at all,” Perkins said of the Pleiades-Pleiades coincidence. Speculating upon the significance of the journal’s title, Pleiades member Katherine M. Dimengo ’04, a Crimson editor, cited the relevance of Greek and Roman mythology to modern literature and culture.Convinced that the name overlap was innocent coincidence, FM shifted gears from investigative reporter to section leader, asking the members of the social organization to analyze a selection from Pleiades. The girls listened attentively to a dramatic reading of “Blonde and All,” a poem by Matthew Lippman. Dimengo had a serious advantage as a concentrator in English and American Literature and Language. She rose to the scholarly challenge, confidently raising her hand. “Intellectually speaking, we know that America isn’t only blonde and blue-eyed, but the conception of the blonde is still an intriguing image and most guys and most girls probably couldn’t explain exactly why,” she said.The single blonde present, Bronwen E. Everill ’05 declined to use her personal experience to elaborate upon Dimengo’s compelling critical analysis. “Actually, I’m a fake blonde,” she admitted. Luz I. Gonzalez ’05 also seemed relieved that Dimengo had spoken for the group. She described Expos 20 as a semester of pain that she did not want to revisit ever again.Perkins finally linked the Pleiades poem back to life at Harvard. “The blonde woman in the poem is probably what most guys on this campus want,” she said. The members could not offer more insight on the Pleiades-Pleiades coincidence. They hadn’t heard of most of the writers published in the literary journal and only one of them had ever been to Missouri.
