Arts Look of the Week The Eighth Page

Look of the Week: Going Bananas for Bananas PA!

The snow falls across the desolate landscape of West Quad East. The wind blows, chilling the skin of students as they walk along the path. They slip and slide on the ice while many onlookers stand inside Common taking pleasure (and Snapchats) of the cold students’ humiliating diggers. Then, lo and behold, out from the doors of the library walks a large, long, yellow fruit: the beloved banana. After closer inspection, it becomes apparent that this life-sized banana has not only legs, but also a face: the banana is, in fact, Chiquita Dole ’16, a new Lower from the world’s largest banana producer: India.* She stood out for “Look of the Week” because she has so boldly decided to start peelin’ away from a ripe bunch of other new Lower friends. Dole made the decision to don the costume at the start of Winter Term. Many questions followed her around campus: Is this a psyche? Why the h-e-double-bendy-straw are you dressed as a banana? More importantly, does your costume also function as a phone? Unfortunately, the hopes of many speculators were dashed when Dole admitted, “No, my costume is not a psych, and no, it is not a banana-phone.” In reality, this unusual garb partly spawned from a tradition back at home. For Dole, this means a small town nestled among the high banana trees, where her family has been farming bananas for over four generations. In February, as the harvest season begins, the costume is said to bring luck to the thousands of farmers whose work has begun. True story. Rather than trying to escape from her culture and conform to the Andover Bubble, Dole, a new member of Team DGAF (Don’t Give a Fusarium— a fungal disease that often wreaks havoc on the banana crop), decided to bring her costume with her to school this term. On the first of February she wore the costume for the first time, to the amazement of everyone. Students have called her style “unprecedented,” “visionary,” and “groundbreaking.” The beloved Twitter account @BananasPA has been going apes over it! Apart from the costume’s cultural significance, Dole also decided to sport the banana gear in order to emphasize the public safety hazard of the paths covered with slippery “black ice.” Scientists have theorized that wearing a banana costume will raise public awareness by roughly 347 percent, which is over three times more effective than more commonly used techniques such as skyplane.** Unfortunately, there’S NOw banana that can raise as much awareness as the belovéd, humorous Public Safety Group Emails! Without a doubt Dole has set a new precedent for fashion at Andover, influencing the taste of students from all grades. Just this week, in a desperate attempt to emulate Dole, over 20 Juniors were spotted in banana costumes. The trend seems to be spreading quickly across campus, and on behalf of Features, we hope that Dole will continue to set progressive winter fashion for years to come. NOTE: *All places and statistics mentioned in this article concerning banana production are true. **except for this one