Loyal scene readers will know that there are few words in the English language finer than: “In this issue, an investigation by William Alden.” Well that’s exactly what we’ve got for you.

Once upon a spring, when scene was a just pre-frosh, William Alden lied to us, pouring the cruel poison of hope into such tender ears,…

Painfully, cruelly, importantly, he lied to us.

It was April 9, 2007, and night was falling on the LW courtyard, smothering the Old Campus rooftops with a warm and aromatic tranquility. “Colin Adamo is running for Pierson College Council on a goat platform!” the young writer intoned with the knowing air of a Machiavellian svengali. “He’s going to win,” he added, to boot.

Will, who for four seasons would run the scene office with an iron fist (from the fall of 2008 to the fall of 2009), was skillfully recruiting us, his future successors, with his trademark legerdemain and charm.

scene liked Will from the moment we met him, so we believed him then, on that balmy eve: “On what platform is he running?” scene asked its future editor in earnest.

“He wants to buy a goat for sustainability. He’s going to keep it in the LW courtyard, you know?”

“We don’t follow,” scene replied.

“It’ll eat trash,” Will explained. “Miraculously, goats eat trash: It’s true. And after Colin’s goat has eaten the trash, it’ll eat its own feces.”

“That’s amazing,” scene stammered, foot in mouth.

Right as rain, scene knew goats ate trash. But we were young, and Emma Allen was also there, so we were dumb. The next week, when scene returned to our respective high schools and British boarding schools, the same fish story circulated around the yard: In a world gone stark, raving mad, Yale was a bastion of sustainability, a land where there be goats.

And yet, three years later, there are no goats in the LW courtyard, and Will Alden is harping on the same chord: Yale is not as sustainable as it should and could be. The Machivellian prince-cum-Fisher-King sings his plea in the month of April. Thanks, T.S.

Who said goat? Where is said goat? Who is Colin Adamo? What is sustainability? scene hopes Will’s cover this week contains the answers to these complex and overdetermined questions and then some. We’re confusewd. Like the goat with its trash, we take what we can get because we’re hungry. May everyone stay hungry.