Law Follies is a minor event. There is no doubt about that. If not for a few hasty emails and Facebook posts, it’s likely nobody would know about it and the audience would just be its writing staff laughing at each other’s jokes.
Yet, this year, there was a buzz leading up to Follies. All anybody could talk about was the protracted roasting that a much nicer, funnier, and well-liked institution—Ultra Vires, of course—was to be subjected to.
Word got out beforehand. The UV team took the prudent step of getting collectively shitfaced in order to steel itself. There was even talk of a pre-emptive strike against the increasingly fascistic Law Follies cognoscenti: imagine all the righteous indignation of a typical UV opinion piece, but magnified tenfold and way more bellicose.
Good thing we held off. What a waste of newsprint and valuable Internet space that would have been. The reviews are in, and there is an unquestionable consensus: Follies fell flat.
The much-anticipated roasting of this paper? It never happened. All we got was some scant, passing mention during one of the host’s rambling, incoherent, and unapologetically nationalistic monologues. Most of the audience didn’t even notice it.
This is unacceptable. The dismissive way it was handed down—by some skinny-ass bitch, no less—borders on a neo-colonial perpetuation of inequitable dispersal of denigration. As such, Ultra Vires is pleased to announce that it is launching a thoroughly probing inquiry into this conspicuously absent assailment.
The full report, expected to run upwards of forty pages, will be released in several installments next Fall. Stay tuned.
