PLAY IS NOT (____)Meet the PLAY panelists!

In perhaps the worst sign yet for the slowly gestating fall staff of the Daily Northwestern, PLAY seems to be fully staffed up. In fact, editor Dani Garcia notified everyone in the world — yeah, on the listserv, but come on, who are you, Abe Rakov? — that the panelists had been hired as early as August 21. I haven't even hired deputies or assistants, but that's another story.

Anyways. Here are this fall's cultural geniuses, with some clues as to their aesthetic leanings.

Let us begin with PLAY groupie Oriana Schwindt, (that's what she looks like on Facebook) who always seems to find herself somewhere on the masthead. She thinks we should stop downloading mp3s and save the music industry. That pretty much ends the discussion, doesn't it? Dani Garcia, feckless idealists have stormed the keep! Shit shit shit.

Then there is Kate Bernot. She got away from the usual PLAY bitchwork (read: writing about anything involving the Jones Great Room) by writing the Freshman Guide's obligatory kinda-anti-Greek essay. It was called "Why I Did Not Rush," which sounds deceptively authoritative. Ooh, it was full of caustic remarks about the "'sisterhood' atmosphere." I really liked it. There is hope! Onwards.

The list of panelists also includes someone with testicles, which is maybe surprising. There he is! In case you couldn't tell from the photo, he wrote music criticism for PLAY in the past, just like Oriana. He also wrote for the freshman guide. It had advice, like Paint the Rock! and Go to Dillo Day! as if that were a choice. Ew, Steve Berger.

Best for last, dudes. Kasia Galazka, who looks really kind of hot in her Facebook photo, will be the last cultural doyenne of the PLAY spread. She also spent some time writing about middling bands — Alkaline Trio, and it goes on — and then did some indentured servitude for Emmet Sullivan's freshman guide as well. Apparently she is something of a hypochondriac, which, much as we might like it, will not prevent this thing from appearing once a week in the world's most entralling magazine.