Every summer my friends went to camp. My "Jewish friends" as my mother called them. And they were. Jewish. I just didn't have any other friends so I never understood the distinction. They came back with ankle bracelets and tans, mix tapes and new slang. T-shirts I would never have. Jokes I would never get. And just a hint of a New York accent.
Only parents who don't love their children" my mom pathologized when I questioned my campless existence, "send their kids to camp.
The next summer when I went to camp, I camp prepared. M&Ms and blank tapes. A little fan and a lot of film. I was ready. For arts, for crafts, for someone to get her period. And I guess I got it. Not my period! (next summer) but enough of a memory to understand camp: The flagpole. The bell. The lake. The promiscuous 11 year olds who brought vodka in their suitcases and boys in the woods while I ate my M&Ms and shaved the bottom halves of my legs.
Camp Camp: Where Fantasy Island Meets Lord of the Flies is straight-up nostalgia for those chlorine-filled days and vodka-gagging nights. It includes tall tales from Sloane Crosley (I Was Told There'd Be Cake), Rachael Sklar (Eat the Press), and some others writers I should probably know but don't. Radar focuses on one chapter — 20 Acts of Violence That Say I Love You — to examine the intersection of creativity and violence (great corner!).
The boys' bunk was like a peewee Abu Ghraib, where torture was standard behavior. . . . In the words of one, 'To be on the wrong end of a rat tail or an atomic wedgie meant that the counselor noticed you — that in a perverse way, you had arrived.'"
Arrived like at a truck stop. Where boys would wait till the victim was asleep and shine a flashlight on either side of his head. Yell "TRUCK" to wake him. He would freak out, thinking he was in the middle of the highway.
Love like that, but worse.
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