As you sink into the post-finals lethargy of winter break, wrapping the presents you lovingly swiped at the bookstore ("Nana would want a deck of Dartmouth playing cards, right?"), we're right there with you. You may have noticed that we've been edging into hibernation mode for about a week now, with one or two posts a day as our version of metabolic depression.

Now all goes dark until January. Not sure about you all, but we plan to spend our holiday rediscovering the joys of going to sleep sober. May your chestnuts roast evenly, may your ironically intended gifts be received as such, and may you return with eggnog-soaked tales with which to stuff our inbox.

See you in the new year!

December 22, 2006 6:10 PM by Chris Beam | Link | Comments (24) | Read more: IvyGate

In the third installment of Blog Man on Campus, our occasional Ivy bloviation spotlight, our correspondent cries "Cornell!" and hears an echo ...

Elliott Back's Cornell blog is the definitive source for stuff that happens at Cornell. (When stuff happens, that is.) Elliott is an alum with an entire network of blogs to his name -- this one is more concerned with what comes out of Cornell, rather than its daily life. You might not have known, for example, that Cornell researchers have produced a self-healing robot. And let's give Cornellians their due for advancing a groundbreaking study on why teenagers do stupid things even though, it turns out, they spend 170 more milliseconds than adults weighing the pros and cons of whether to, say, have unprotected sex, ride with a drunk driver, or apply to Cornell.

Handy! Oh, and occasionally ugly, twisted and morally depraved. In June there was Elliott's sick fascination with a student's death; in multiple updates, he wondered aloud whether "he committed suicide because of academic pressure from his parents ... Without a Cornell degree, there's no way he could have gone to medical school and fulfilled their family's desires." He also parsed the student's personal web pages for clues, morbidly highlighting passages like a lit major and asking "If anyone would like to leave an anonymous tip as to why [redacted] killed himself, send me an email." His breathless coverage of another student's disappearance in May 2005 betrays the same lack of tact. If Natalee Holloway had gone to Cornell, Back may have hyperventilated to death himself.

So. Cornell Blog. Fun tidbits, gruesome rubbernecking. Have at it.

December 21, 2006 5:45 PM by Nick Summers | Link | Comments (4) | Read more: Blog Man on Campus , Cornell

In our third installment of ivyTunes, we witness an epic battle of the bands that, shockingly, interests some people outside the Ivies. Our critic has the mic:

In case you don't know, Bishop Allen is a Brooklyn-based indie band beloved by the MP3 blogosphere for its polite, quirky pop and gimmicky plan to release one EP per month for all of 2006. (They're two short with 11 days to go. Cram, guys, cram!) To be honest, Bishop Allen's stuff doesn't bother me -- it's well-crafted and charmingly off-kilter, if completely inoffensive and somewhat samey-sounding (listen here). Which was a pleasant surprise considering that BA cofounders Justin Rice (of Andrew Bujalski fame) and Christian Rudder graduated from, um, some school up in Boston. Well, in Cambridge actually. No, not MIT. The other one. I mean, look at these people. -->

... and hello The Main Drag, the new "Song Search" victors. Not that a whole lot has changed. In a surprise turn of events worthy of M. Night Shyamalan (I mean that pejoratively) the Main Drag is -- spoiler alert! -- also heavy on the Harvard. The winning song, "Jagged Gorgeous Winter," was written by John Drake (recent alum), Matt Boch (senior) and Adam Arrigo (who just graduated from some school called "Tufts"). Although the group cites pretty much every cool indie band as an influence -- Arcade Fire, The Books, Animal Collective, Broken Social Scene -- they're clearly obsessed (to the point of shameless imitation) with the uncoolest indie band of all: Death Cab for Cutie. Arrigo, the singer, was either born with the same thin, sweet, desperate voice as Ben Gibbard or has labored mightily to perfect his impersonation. Really, it's a little eerie. On the plus side, the songwriting is accomplished, the arrangements dynamic and the production packed with smartly skewed electronic elements. 

Continue reading "ivyTunes: The Mussy-Haired, Reedy-Voiced, Straight-Outta-Cambridge Indie Rock Smackdown" »

December 20, 2006 6:42 PM by Chris Beam | Link | Comments (6) | Read more: Andrew Bujalski , Harvard , ivyTunes

Whenever we traffic in Ivy stereotypes, it's mostly in jest. The Brown blazers, the Princeton tweedies, the Yale omnisexuals. We're just having fun -- it's not like these horrific caricatures actually exist.

If only. Thanks to the combined power of YouTube and the public servants at Inside Higher Ed, we will never have to apologize for another object-in-Harvardian-rectal-cavity remark again. Because somewhere in the bowels of Harvard's economics department, someone thought it would be a good idea to make a welcome video for incoming students. And who do they choose as the department's public face? The respected Harvey Mansfield Amartya Sen? The beloved Greg Mankiw? Nope. They choose John Y. Campbell and Edward L. Glaeser, two professors who undoubtedly mean well, but whose screen presence rates somewhere between that of Al Gore and a modest pile of cucumber salad.

The results, below, are tremendous. Just don't forget to pinch yourself every ten seconds as a reminder that these people are real -- and utterly oblivious to their own absurdity. (Not for long: a repentant Ed Glaeser called the video "an act of folly" in an e-mail to Inside Higher Ed.) Also, is it just us or is Glaeser doing a spot-on Steve Carrell?: 

Then came the inevitable spoofs. Neither is as funny as the original, but they both have their moments:

December 18, 2006 10:44 PM by Chris Beam | Link | Comments (10) | Read more: Harvard , YouTube

We're sure juggling is hard and all, and this clip, from the Yale Anti-Gravity Society, is certainly impressive. We'd probably kill ourselves just by attempting three of the bowling pins, whereas the YAGS guys use flaming torches and what appear to be scimitars. Honestly, though, we're pretty sure our grandmother could have edited a better promo video with nothing but a spool of 8mm filmstock, Scotch tape, and her teeth. And setting the whole thing to the Transiberian Orchestra's goofy "Appalachian Snowfall" and using up every last video transition in Final Cut Pro does little to dispel juggling's reputation as a refuge for well-coordinated outcasts.

Unless, of course, it's one big joke -- which it clearly is. After all, these are the guys who put on a show last semester entitled "The Iliad - with juggling." The group's leadership positions include "Minister of Armaments" and "Minister of Fresh Blood." So good luck, guys: if keeping ten fiery sticks aloft at once doesn't translate into social and romantic success ... well, then there's something very wrong with this world.

December 18, 2006 2:06 PM by Nick Summers | Link | Comments (12) | Read more: Yale , YouTube , juggling

When it comes to fixing public education, ideas abound. Standardized testing. Charter schools. KIPP-like behavioral reform. But these supposed solutions pale when set against the latest pedagogical theory to hit America's public schools: "Impossible is Nothing."

We know, we know, it's dead. Which is probably why one first-year Teach for America corps member thought it safe to turn would-be i-banker Aleksey Vayner's ubiquitous maxim (well, technically Adidas had it first) into classroom philosophy. A poster in a New York TFA office reads as follows, according to a tipster:

NYC Corps Members are Building the Movement

Sean Reidy, TFA '06, 7th grade math, Bronx

Sean is building the movement by investing his students in his class motto, "Impossible is nothing." Students believe they can and will succeed in math class. They dress up on test days and have learned what it means to dress for success. Almost two thirds of Seans' seventh grade students joined the Mathletes, an after school club where students can compete against each other in challenging math questions.

For the record: Anything remotely connected to Vayner that also involves "dress up" is highly suspect. But who knows, maybe Vayner will get the last laugh after patching up our nation's troubled education system. Whether that happens before or after the inevitable daytime talk show "Aleksey!", we can't say.

December 18, 2006 9:09 AM by Chris Beam | Link | Comments (10) | Read more: aleksey vayner , teach for america

You know those useless but entertaining online translation programs? We’re starting to think the WB is like one of those, except for life. With the right combination of jump cuts, reverse video, Jimmy Eat World, and splashy cut-out freeze frames, they could make a Senate confirmation hearing look like an episode of Room Raiders.

So you can guess what happens when the WB decides to start producing hosting college tour videos. Behold theU, the cinematic lovechild that would emerge if Mischa Barton had relations with a Princeton Review handbook. TheU’s founder, 25-year-old Columbia pseudo-alum Doug Imbruce, says he got the got the idea while watching “MTV Cribs.” It shows. Here’s theU’s narrator on Brown University: “Brown is like the token cool mom of the Ivy Leagues.” Or her thoughts on the World's Greatest University: “Harvard won’t reveal its selection criteria, but it’s clear that talent, ambition, and genius are key.” They even have the lovable Penn frat boy, caught on camera in his natural habitat: “I don’t remember Spring Fling. I’ve been told I had a really good time. I had relations with a tree. It might have been an elm, might have been a cedar. I don’t really know.”

There are some inspired moments, like when a narrator points out that “Princeton definitely isn’t a crazy hookup scene” as we watch boys and girls juggling pins on a lawn. We know TheU means well. Of course, it also means to do well, by making shit-tons of money off terrified, TV-happy high-schoolers for whom an endorsement from “Everwood”s Chris Pratt seals Brown as their first choice.

Brown tour:

Harvard tour:

Penn tour:

December 15, 2006 10:26 AM by Chris Beam | Link | Comments (18) | Read more: Admissions , Brown , Harvard , Penn , YouTube

The glitz, the glamour, the gift bags ...

We flew a little too close to the sun.

We apologize: We handled the 2006 Weblog Awards all wrong. Encouraging you guys to vote for us, then asking again, then undoing another button and leaning forward to ask yet again -- we tainted this blog, a well-tended quad of pristine sarcasm, with the stench of earnestness.

And frankly, we're ashamed. It's a little like waking up after a bender to realize what you've wrought. (Suffice it to say that we once got up and sleep-peed in our sock drawer at like 8 in the morning, in full view of two stunned friends visiting from high school -- and this post-Bloggies nausea feels even worse.)

To quote a role model: I was wack. Today we leave those posts behind as The Sincerity That Shall Not Be Named, and fully endorse Prof. Michael Berube for Best Educational Blog 2006. He's neck-and-neck with SpunkyHomeSchool -- a blog that's actually defunct but has rabid acolytes with adept at getting out the vote. Berube seems like a funny guy (and half of us are alums of the same hockey team), but mainly we just want to see the tension play out between the academy and the homeschooling army.

December 14, 2006 4:41 PM by Nick Summers | Link | Comments (26) | Read more: endorsements , weblog awards

In the second installment of Blog Man on Campus, our occasional Ivy bloviation spotlight, our correspondent finds yet more worthwhile scrawlings somewhere outside Boston ...

Kameron Collins '09 is a Harvard student, and black, and his blog I am not my Hair deals in part with those issues. But his blog isn't about what it's like to be black and at Harvard –- it's about what it's like to be lots of things. What it's like to be anybody at Harvard. What it's like to miss dating but be scared of it. What it's like to smile when you see a white person get pulled over and wonder if it makes you a bad person.

So, yes, he's just another self-aware, sexually frustrated denizen of Cambridge. So why is his standard this-is-my-life-and-these-are-my-frustrations format so addictive?

Maybe because it's so quotable: "Of course ugly people are bitter. Ugly people at Harvard are, I think, even worse – because not only are they bitter, they're passionate about it." To which the only thing I can think to add is: Seriously!

This is not to say that Harvardhair is all Kameron all the time. The blog is particularly strong where it deals with race, especially since it's so difficult for anybody to talk about it on campus. Kameron avoids abstractions and delves right into uncomfortable particulars. Why, he wonders, does the stereotype of the "average nice white guy" have no hispanic or African counterpart? The closest one he can identify is the Upstanding Black Gentleman, who isn't average at all. Also, you gotta hand it to anyone ballsy enough to post poetry on his blog.

Kameron, may the ladies boys swarm to your blog. And if not that, to your inevitable book deal.

UPDATE 1:55 p.m.:  Whoops! A friend of Kameron's emails us to correct that last line.

December 14, 2006 11:10 AM by Chris Beam | Link | Comments (19) | Read more: Blog Man on Campus , Harvard

With all but three newspapers shut down for finals, RagTime, our daily dailies roundup, goes dark till January as well. We'd like to sloppily thank the RT crew (You know who you are! So cute how you don't want your names associated with this!) for filing it each day at the crack of lunch; you were funny, comprehensive, and became informed about the Ivy League, and for that we apologize.

Given even a taste of freedom, we assume several if not all of them will flee for the gorges. Interested in taking up the yoke and becoming a RagTime correspondent next semester? Email us, preferably in bullet points, with an inappropriate headline.

December 13, 2006 2:01 PM by Nick Summers | Link | Comments (2) | Read more: RagTime

Good sketch comedy is an endangered animal on most campuses, but we hear that Yale's Suite 13 is at the top of the food chain. Their humor is risky to the point of self-harm, their pranks are wicked (apparently they got the YDN to review a fake modern art show), and their performances -- usually in lecture halls -- are famous for the free flow of substances.

A little background, if you care (if not, skip down to the next graf): They started off as a sort of anti-comedy comedy group after at least one of the founding members didn't get into The Fifth Humour. In a 2002 Yale Herald piece, founder David Fabricant '04 described his audition: "I was asked to do a little improv ... so I pulled down my pants, wrote all over my body with a Sharpie, and screamed about how I couldn't get laid. They asked me to stop and, needless to say, didn't give me a callback." But now the group has achieved its own kind of selectivity. As they tell auditioners on their website: "Suite 13 is not Seinfeld, Monty Python, or McSweeney's. Suite 13 is fucked up."

Long story short, the Yale brass must have caught wind (or actually smelled) that a show was in the works, prompting a Suite 13 member to send out this sad announcement:

From: [Redacted]
Date: Dec 12, 2006 7:25 PM
Subject: Suite 13 Show Cancelled (Because of Police Oppression)
To: the.condemned; rumpusdiscusslist

Dear Unlucky Recipient,

I'm very sorry to have to inform you that the Suite 13 Show planned
for tonight (Dec 12), has been canceled.

Due to circumstances completely beyond our control, and of which we
became aware half an hour ago, police were going to be sent to
supervise our show. Since a key part of the Suite 13 experience is our
and the audience's blatant disregard for the law, we've decided,
reluctantly, to cancel this show rather than betray everything we
stand for by holding a dry show.

I'm sorry for the late notice, and especially sorry to anyone who
went to Street Hall before getting this email. I just learned about
this travesty myself, and I wrote you as soon as I could.

We're looking into rescheduling to a time and place which will be
police-free, but the the show probably won't happen till next
semester. We'll let you know.

Thanks, sorry, and fuck the police.

--George

This is a crime beyond all reason. We actually had the privilege of catching a Suite 13 show in the fall of 2003 in august Sheffield-Sterling-Strathcona Hall; we're not sure if it's possible to hotbox a lecture hall with 30-foot ceilings, but the audience gave it the ol' Eli try.

The show was a solid A performance even before the final, jaw-dropping sketch: "3rd Grade Geography Class," where cast members playing schoolchildren had to take shots of Jack Daniels every time they missed a question. Except every time, the teacher would offer to go one-for-one, until by the end he had consumed maybe a dozen shots, plus shotgunning two beers in a finale that had the lecture hall on its feet. MADD, you may address complaints here; just know that it was Awe. Some.

December 13, 2006 12:20 AM by Chris Beam | Link | Comments (13) | Read more: Drinking , Yale , improv

Harvard Square's Lame Duck Books store caused an uproar Monday when the Crimson reported it had lost two irreplaceable Jorge Luis Borges manuscripts worth almost $1 million. But the store, and the international literary community, unclenched its collective buttocks just as quickly yesterday when Lame Duck owner John Wronoski announced that the precious documents were in the store all along -- "accidentally" hidden in the sleeve of a photo binder.

"It doesn't get more surreal than that. This is like a Borges short story," [employee Saúl] Roll said about the fact that the manuscript was found on the day the Crimson story was published.

Assistant Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures Mariano Siskind, whose specialities include 20th century Latin American literature, said Borges would have liked the mystery surrounding the manuscripts’ disappearance.

About that "mystery": Call us crazy, but Encyclopedia Brown might call this The Case of the Scary Gangster Motherfucker Pictured Above. He's not, it's fair to say, your average bookworm. Look, for all we know that guy is John Wronoski, but given that A) his skull is shinier than his leather jacket and B) we're scared to death of his I'll-Kill-You stare, we're pretty sure he's the muscle, and that somewhere in Cambridge is a sticky-fingered lit major with two broken kneecaps.

(Also, what is that guy in the background doing? Maybe trying to pull a vise off his head?)

December 12, 2006 11:29 PM by Nick Summers | Link | Comments (4) | Read more: Harvard , crime

It's no surprise that Brown has a group of students who regularly dress up as pirates. That they do so while singing a cappella and calling themselves "ARRR!!!" is impressive even by Brown standards of dedicated lunacy.

A correspondent tells us that ARRR!!! ("three r's, three !'s") performed a holiday concert Sunday night. Rather than unleashing the usual harmless irony we've come to expect from pirates, they proceeded to burn every religious group there with the following questionable rendition of “Oh Come All Ye Faithful”:

Oh come all ye faithful
Easily Offended
After you hear our song
Your hearts won't be pure.
Jews, Christians, Arabs
No one is off limits
So if you are tight-ass
Locate the nearest exit
(It may be behind you)
Follow the lights...

...

As [Mary] was sleeping
Three wise-men came a-creeping
And back behind the ferns
The wisemen took their turns
And now her loin burns
with Christ the Lord

Later lyrics detailed Chanukah raids on Jewish cities, the difficulties of squaring buccaneer life with Ramadan restrictions, and numbering STDs acquired to the 12 days of Christmas. (Between this and reports of roaming ninjas, Brown is drowning in its own kitsch). No audio of the concert, but here are a few tracks from their recent album, "Spontaneous Rumbustion!":

ARRR!!! - All For Me Grog

powered by ODEO

ARRR!!! - Donkey-riding:

powered by ODEO

Benj "Captain Boxfoot" Kamm, Brown '06, informs us that if you want to buy the CD, "it's only $7 for 21 rockin' shanties. ... email arrr@arrr.net."

December 12, 2006 11:32 AM by Chris Beam | Link | Comments (7) | Read more: Brown , pirates

Despite being nerdy enough to have a blog, we've never really known what the word "p3wn" means. Regardless, we're pretty sure that's exactly what Michael Berube is doing to us now. If you don't know what we mean, take a look at the latest numbers coming out of the Weblog Awards vote tally. Berube's lead has become so unspeakably huge, we're embarrassed to even link to the poll. Come on, people. Where's the overcompetitive spirit that earned you that fat envelope?

Truth be told, this Berube guy is starting to grow on us. He plays hockey. His list of sworn enemies includes David Horowitz (read some choice parry-thrust here). And he tells off insane commenters on our own blog. Who knows what he's like in the classroom, but online, he seems like a stand-up guy.

Which is by no means to suggest he deserves to win. Given his numbers, Berube must have armies hitting up every computer lab, wireless hub, and Apple Store in the state of Pennsylvania. No doubt his American lit students are hacking the Weblog Awards mainframe as we speak. Meanwhile, our silence has cost us: about the only difference we can detect between voting on Sunday (when we were down 50) and Monday (500) is that we haven't written a GOTV update. So damn propriety, screw bloggish indifference, and to hell with this Penn State charmer!

Vote! And don't stop voting until you see Michael Berube's willowy concession speech atop his blog! Although: Whatever happens with Berube, we'll bite the suicide capsule before we let the homeschoolers take the trophy.

December 12, 2006 1:06 AM by Chris Beam | Link | Comments (21) | Read more: weblog awards

• Columbia: It's been 70 years. Just say you're sorry. [Spec]
• Harvard: Handwritten Borges stories valued to $500,000. And they were here just a second ago... [Crimson]
• Harvard: "Naked Ladies Brunch" a totally chaste, charitable disappointment [Crimson]
• Princeton: Because looking both ways is so ... pedestrian [DP]
  

December 11, 2006 7:11 PM by RagTime | Link | Comments (2) | Read more: Columbia , Harvard , Princeton , RagTime

The last time we checked in with PennTV, the rogue camera crew was loose in Providence, grilling a very confused skateboarder about love. Now the guys (a group we're pretty sure exists, by the way; can't find an official web page) have conquered Cambridge, polling Harvardians on the tameness of what little social scene there is. It's highly enjoyable -- though we have to say, we're not surprised.

December 11, 2006 4:22 PM by Nick Summers | Link | Comments (13) | Read more: Harvard , Penn , YouTube

You may have noticed, a few months back, a curious new addition at IvyGate: an advertisement. See it there, up top? That's IvySport, IvyGate's lovable meathead uncle. It being the holiday season and all, we thought we'd give our first beloved advertiser a big, wet kiss in the form of this post. Thanks to IvySport, we can provide you with up-to-the-semester news and gossip about the world's most admired/hated schools, and still feed our habit kids.

So when it's time to buy yourself that sweet vintage Harvard crew jersey, or that Princeton paperweight (it's so heavy!), save yourself the walk to the campus bookstore -- the Internet is so much closer! Clothing, kitchen appliances, ore -- if you can think of it, chances are you can get it with your school's name on it. May your future be full of Dartmouth snowpants, Brown water pipes, and Cornell Zambonis.

And here's a bonus: Between now and Dec. 31, you can get $8 off any purchase of $10 or more. Just enter "ivygate8" as the coupon code.

We now return to your regularly scheduled libel.

December 11, 2006 1:37 PM by Chris Beam | Link | Comments (5) | Read more: advertising

This is the story of a boy, and a video camera, and a downright reasonable argument.

It's ... hard to ... explain the appeal of this clip from ... the Daily Pennsylvanian's Stephen Morse. The narration is halt ... ing, the voice guileless; we've watched this 11 times on repeat and we're not stopping anytime soon. "The broken light is merely taped ... up with duct tape! What is the city of Philadelphia doing to us?"

Reporting from 33rd and Locust, "debatably the most ... heinous intersection on campus":

After the jump, a classic 1997 SportsCenter commercial that bears an uncanny similarity...

Continue reading "YouTube Monday: Even Penn's Golf Carts Are Almost Mowing Down Students! (UPDATED)" »

December 11, 2006 12:27 PM by Nick Summers | Link | Comments (10) | Read more: Penn , YouTube

We know that with finals ruining your vision and will to live, the last thing you want is to read more text. So, in the spirit of illiteracy, we give you an (almost) all-YouTube Monday. Close the Islamic Civ reader, switch the brain to "off," and enjoy the pretty colors ...

After Cornell hockey's titanic victory over Harvard, Crimson fans no doubt accused them of everything from bribery to juicing. Little did they know Cornell's secret is far more inventive: a futuristic ice treadmill. Here's the video, via Deadspin:

December 11, 2006 1:29 AM by Chris Beam | Link | Comments (4) | Read more: Cornell , Sports , hockey

All right everyone. We don't usually ask much of you. But desperate times call for desperate blog posts. See the man/force of nature to the right? This is your enemy. Know his face. For if we don't act soon, that face will haunt your dreams and ours night after night, at least through winter break.

He is Michael Berube, our urgently new archnemesis. His blog, michaelberube.com, is currently leading IvyGate in the campaign for Best Educational Blog at the 2006 Weblog Awards by 80-odd votes. Clearly this cannot stand.

So here's the plan: Vote! Then make all your friends vote! Then vote again! Seriously, make voting part of your daily routine. The rules allow for a new ballot every 24 hours, and we fully expect your sedentary finals lifestyle to whisk us across the finish line in first place, nine days from now.

But as a precaution, our rapid response team is standing by, ready to loose Berube attack ads upon the electorate in the event that his lead surges into the triple digits. As such, Berube-related rumors, allegations and blackmail fodder of the flimsiest kind should be sent immediately to ivygate@gmail.com. Oh and did we mention, vote?

The 2006 Weblog Awards -- Best Education Blog [Click here to vote]

December 8, 2006 6:08 PM by Nick Summers | Link | Comments (32) | Read more: IvyGate , weblog awards

The Ivy League has a proud tradition of pretentious theater, the infamous 1974 production of Aristophanes' The Frogs in the Yale swimming pool being the pinnacle. Joining the club today is a Brown staging of Sartre's The Flies -- a wartime allegory already deeply infected with the p-word. We're always suckers for a good gimmick, so imagine our pleasure when we heard they'll be releasing 30,000 fruitflies during the performance.

Sorry, but this is awesome. To keep the flies from escaping, they'll not only be enclosing the seven-by-seven-foot stage in netting -- they'll be putting the audience inside, too. Apparently they had a biochem concentrator breed the flies especially for the play. Can you seriously make that many? How has a disgruntled science major not unleashed like a jillion drosophilae melanogaster [Ed.: Vocab, motherfuckers] in the cafeteria as a prank yet?

December 8, 2006 5:56 PM by Chris Beam | Link | Comments (8) | Read more: Brown , theater

It's the second installment of ivyTunes, our new music column. Our critic has the mic:

Okay. I admit it. I'm addicted to snark. Which isn't unusual for a twentysomething, male, Ivy League Lower Manhattanite desperate to hide his surburban breeding beneath layers of ironic pop-culture expertise and expensively distressed clothing. But your MP3s are seriously aggravating my condition. Like "The Guns," by Silencer (Yale '03). I, for one, wish this song sounded more silent.

But don't get me wrong. From time to time even I fall in love with a band -- truly, madly, deeply. And Columbia's Vampire Weekend (three '06ers, one '07) is one of those bands. Usually, Ivy League acts are bad because they're Ivy League. You know: competent but uninspired. No rough edges. Irrationally sure of themselves. And totally derivative. If you're smart enough, talented enough or connected enough to get into an Ivy, you probably don't need rock 'n' roll to save your life. At that point it's just another extracurricular.

But Vampire Weekend manages, against all odds, to make its Iviness a virtue. In rock, brainy usually means bad. Here, it's thrilling. "Oxford Comma" borrows its name from the superfluous punctuation mark, then rhymes it with "lama," "English drama" and "Dharamsala" (a town in northern India, according to Google). "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" harnesses the loose energy of 1980s Congolese dance music to do the girl-meets-boy thing -- complete with cameos from Louis Vuitton, reggaeton, Peter Gabriel and the United Colors of Benetton. And the preppiest VW number, "Walcott," reads like a map of coastal New England, namechecking Hyannisport, Mystic, Wellfleet and Provincetown. On all three tracks, the percussion is simple. The keyboards are simpler. And the melodies are hardly Mozart. But it's such sturdy, well-arranged and absurdly catchy stuff that I found myself hitting repeat for hours on end.

Alright, this is making me uncomfortable. Please return to sending in crap music. I know you have it in you.

RIGHT-CLICK TO DOWNLOAD: 

Vampire Weekend - Oxford Comma [MP3]
Vampire Weekend - Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa [MP3]
Vampire Weekend - Walcott [MP3]
More: Official site | MySpace
Debut album out later this month.

Want your band to be considered for ivyTunes? Email tracks to ivygate@gmail.com.

December 8, 2006 2:54 PM by Nick Summers | Link | Comments (23) | Read more: Columbia , Yale , ivyTunes

• Columbia: The best open bar on campus, plus you eventually get paid. [Spec]
• Penn: If 500 people join this Facebook group, my girlfriend will agree to a threesome. Wait, wrong pledge. [DP]
• Penn: In unprecedented move, someone turns down Harvard for Penn. No, not actually. [DP]
• Princeton: What he means by "smart enough to disagree with your boss at Lehman" is "smart enough to realize I'm messing with you." [Prince]

December 8, 2006 1:06 PM by RagTime | Link | Comments (1) | Read more: Columbia , Penn , Princeton , RagTime

College is full of ill-fated magazine startups. Just ask Harvard's Scene, a training-wheels Vanity Fair minus the journalism. Let us turn our collective attention to Princeton's upcoming Oh-So-Fresh Magazine (please, O.S.F.), a "lifestyle and entertainment" publication with a rather unfortunate name. Guys: How can you possibly expect to avoid "douchebag" remarks when you call your magazine "Oh So Fresh"?

In an interview with the Princetonian, editor-in-chief Harrison Schaen '08 describes it as "a combination of GQ and Rolling Stone." So far, so good. But suddenly, as if hit by the hyperbole truck, he starts unleashing quote after Vayner-worthy quote:

• "When I was in high school, I said to my friends, 'By the time I'll be 21, I'm going to start a revolution.' "

• "You have to have your 'in,'" Schaen said. "It's not about what you know, it's about who you know. We know who to talk to. We know executive heads, we know producers, and that's how OSF serves as the medium between the University and the entertainment world."
  

• "What sets us apart is our contacts," Schaen said. "We have contacts with MGM, Sony and Paramount, as well as major record labels. It's all about getting your name out there and having someone who matters look at you, and that's what we intend to do with OSF magazine."
  

We hope, for the sake of everyone involved, the Prince reporter botched these quotes. Even Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Paul Muldoon, a Princeton prof contributing a piece to the first issue, fails to say anything substantive: "Universities have to be alert to what's happening in the world," he says. "The academy is about making sense of the world. What else are we to make sense of? And the world is very varied."

We know starting a publication is no small feat -- you gotta commend Schaen a hundred percent for that. But a friendly word of advice: Pick up a publicist when you hire the rest of the staff. (Wait, we just re-read the Princetonian piece. You already have a publicist. You already have a publicist for your undergraduate magazine? On second thought, maybe that's the problem.)

December 8, 2006 11:09 AM by Chris Beam | Link | Comments (34) | Read more: Princeton , this is why people hate the ivy league

The editors of the Dartmouth Review may have said they're sorry (sort of) yesterday. But if editor-in-chief Dan Linsalata '07 is really interested in burying the hatche--er, smoothing things over, he might want to see about changing the poorly chosen advertisements that are still up on the paper's official site. (That one on the right actually doesn't rotate in with the others; we're not sure why.)

December 8, 2006 10:12 AM by Nick Summers | Link | Comments (5) | Read more: Dartmouth , dartmouth review

Finally -- some recognition for the Ivy League.

We found out yesterday that IvyGate, for reasons that are not quite clear, is up for "Best Educational Blog" in the 2006 Weblog Awards. Aw shucks, false modesty, etc: Honestly, we're pretty happy, and we have to give all credit to you guys (specifically, your keeping the inbox chin-deep in gossip).

The other finalists actually, um, appear interested in pedagogy and helping people, but nevertheless we intend to mop the floor with them. May God save Eduwonk.com if he tries to get in our way.

And that's where you come in. Voting just started at the Weblog Awards homepage and stays open for the next 10 days. If you're one of the four readers who doesn't hate us, please help us Diebold the shit out of this thing -- it's weird, but they let you vote once a day. So expect us to issue a reminder or six. Together, between our relentless self-promotion and your need to do anything besides study for finals, we can win this thing, and finally bring the Ivy League some long-overdue attention after so many years of obscurity.

Seriously, though: Thanks. Now go vote! Early, often, and from multiple computers!

The 2006 Weblog Awards -- Best Education Blog [Click here to vote]

December 7, 2006 8:15 PM by Nick Summers | Link | Comments (11) | Read more: IvyGate , weblog awards

You know, when Jared Kushner, Harvard '03, bought the New York Observer in July [Ed.: Private to non-news dorks and/or the poor: It's a pink weekly newspaper with often unbeatable stuff on Manhattan media, real estate and gossip] we were all up in his wheelhouse. Sure, he was a rich snot, but if we had that kind of loot we'd do exactly the same thing: buy a cool paper on the cheap and start raising hell. We wished the golden boy and his gold well.

Then we found out Papa Kushner bought Jared's Harvard acceptance letter with a $2.5 mil bribe donation, and didn't hear a lot of cool stuff out of Observer headquarters. And now the guy's dropping $1.8 billion on a single office tower in Manhattan.

At what point does impressively rich become filthy rich? Yeah, probably somewhere around the time you buy a Manhattan skyscraper. Maybe real estate just doesn't excite us as much as catty pink newsprint, but we're a little worried our friend Jar Jar is jumping a whole tank of sharks with this move. It's like we're only 25 minutes into the movie, but Charles Foster Kane is already about to crash and burn.

December 7, 2006 4:35 PM by Nick Summers | Link | Comments (8) | Read more: Harvard , jared kushner

• Columbia: Bollinger  to Harvard: You think I'm just going to take you back after you dumped me for that slut Summers?  [Spec]
• Harvard: Next week's headline: 'Three-time scholarship winner found murdered.' [Crimson]
• Penn: Hyperventilating students' brains explode as they realize they can't find the papers they e-mailed to themselves. [DP]
• Yale: University reopens pool, now with less pee. [YDN]

December 7, 2006 1:12 PM by RagTime | Link | Comments (1) | Read more: Columbia , Harvard , Penn , RagTime , Yale