Penn Masala, Penn's Hindi a cappella group, has produced a fairly amusing new music video about Facebook stalking. It has some frighteningly true-to-life moments (Seriously, who hasn't Photoshopped himself over a crush's boyfriend at some point?), plus the best pick-up line we've heard in a while: "I just want to add you."

But for a truly transcendent experience, you have to see the video for the song it parodies, Enrique Iglesias' "Hero." Because as usual, the least intentional humor wins. Take Enrique's watch cap -- it's a good thing he remembered that, out there in the blazing desert sun and all. We also enjoyed the part where he rubs down Jennifer Love Hewitt with handfuls of dollar bills (as if Nelly hadn't already explored that artistic ground in 2004's "Tip Drill"). Add Mickey Rourke and Mickey Rourke's aviators, JLH's gratuitously wet t-shirt, and Enrique's insistence on singing his last breath, and you realize why Penn Masala felt compelled to piggyback on the glory.

Allot yourself some time. These should really viewed as a double-feature:

January 31, 2007 5:43 PM by Chris Beam | Link | Comments (1) | Read more: Penn , YouTube , a cappella

Fifty-six comments. Fifty god-damned six comments.

Once again, you people confound us in every conceivable way. But we know when the people have spoken -- or, at least, an angry mob has assembled -- and so here is the triumphant return of RagTime, our daily dailies roundup. Except for now, it won't be quite so daily. We're gonna experiment with a M-T-F format for, like, three weeks, and then look at bumping up. Your input, as always, is treasured.

• Columbia: Students paid to look homeless, withhold earnings from panhandlers on principle [Spec]
• Dartmouth: Some Ivy student councils more irrelevant than others [The D]
  
• Harvard: Promising candidates continue to flock from the chance to lead Harvard [Crimson]
• Ivy League: Blog readers fucking insufferable [IvyGate]
  

January 31, 2007 3:31 PM by Nick Summers | Link | Comments (8) | Read more: Columbia , Dartmouth , Harvard , IvyGate , RagTime

Being the master of an undergraduate college at Yale is normally a cushy appointment. You get to host master's teas with Philip Seymour Hoffman and other celebs/talented people; liberally fund nude pictorial calendars; and generally be the "cool professor" who has lots of personal interaction with students.

Sometimes, though, you have to be the law. A Yale tipster shares this bulletin from Prof. Jon Holloway, master of Calhoun College:

From: Jonathan Holloway
To: All Calhoun Students
Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2007 9:10 AM
Subject: Showers Stalls are for Showering

OK, well THIS is the most awkward college-wide e-mail I've ever had to send....

The college showers are to be used by individuals for hygenic purposes only. They are not to be used by couples engaged in intimate activity--especially that kind of activity that leaves the showers in a decidedly less hygenic state.

Several times since the start of the spring term some Hounies have come across a couple having the time of their lives in a shower stall. Last night the shower flooded and the bathroom could not be used for over 90 minutes. To the as yet unidentified couple, this may be pleasureable and exciting for you but it is a violation of community standards. Please stop.

I really don't want to explore this matter any further as I respect your individual privacy. But such continued brazen public displays of affection will only invite public embarrassment. I beg of you, let's not go there.

JH

This is obvs our favorite reader tip in a long, long time. The fact that a man with a Ph.D. has to police students doing the excitement in the hall shower -- wait, scratch that, is threatening indiscreet students with public embarrassment ... we're betting this didn't come up when Yale offered Holloway the job.

January 31, 2007 11:00 AM by Nick Summers | Link | Comments (37) | Read more: Dorm life , Sex , Yale

The coolest part-time job in the Ivy League that we're aware of belonged to our friend Ben, who would go into a fertility clinic on a very high floor of the Empire State Building twice a week to help sterile couples make little Bens. The second-coolest part time job we're aware of belongs to Eric Shansby, Yale '07: he's the cartoonist for Gene Weingarten, a weekly columnist for The Washington Post, of whom we are depraved, slobbering fans.

It's hard not to like their working relationship, which in public seems to entail calling each other -- well, calling them what Ben did for spending money. Shansby, Weingarten told the Yale Daily News, is "meek looking. Totally unassuming. One detects, emanating from him, an eau d' nerd. And yet this little schmo is bootlegging a colossal ego." Shansby, for his part, thinks of Weingarten's columns as "long, tedious captions for my cartoons."

Recently, we randomly stumbled across Shansby's Wikipedia page, expecting the usual geekery of young people who have Wikipedia pages. Instead we found a parody we're really hoping came from Weingarten himself. We know, posting this virtually guarantees some humorless gnome will come along and disinfect the page. Sorry; if it does get scrubbed, there's an archive here. Snippets:

Notable Quotes 

"You know, look at me, I'm a genius. For fuck's sake, what do I have to do to prove to you son-of-a-bitches what I can do, and who I am? And don't you dare -- don't you dare fucking criticize my work like that! You who don't know anything about it. I would say I owe everything to Peanuts, really."
--Interview with the Hartford Courant, November 2005

"We either wait 20 to 30 years for them to die, or we — I don't know — we can assassinate them"
--Of the older generation of professional editorial cartoonists. Quoted in Lexington Herald-Leader, April 2004

"Grab your glocks when you see e-rac, call the cops when you see e-rac."
--From his upcoming album featuring the late Tupac Shakur, "Knee-Deep in Bitches"

"This sort of thing has got to be stopped. Bad philosophers are like slum landlords. It's my job to put them out of business."
--Reaction to a paper read to the Moral Sciences Club, as reported by Heinrich Ng

We fully expect that, when all is said and done, Shansby will have fathered many more children than Ben.

January 30, 2007 4:08 PM by Nick Summers | Link | Comments (2) | Read more: Yale

In the latest installment of Blog Man on Campus, our woman in cyberspace watches her moral universe disintegrate.

Ivy League Chic wears its erudition and penetrating insight like most people wear tight leather Gucci pants and D&G stilettos: not at all, not ever. Authored by a Cornell senior, Ivy League Chic is the perfect destination for those who tire of, you know, ideas.

First, let's get this out of the way: it's a fashion blog. So keep in mind that any criticism herein might actually register as high praise. For instance, "Blonde Belle," the writer and self-described "debutant" [sic], provides helpful tips on how to bring couture into the classroom. Couture, I've learned via Wikipedia, is that complicated handmade designer stuff that can be yours for the price of a small Carribbean island -- but luckily Belle has distilled some more affordable ideas out of the Chanel show. Like this $498 black dress. Here you will also find enlightening regular criticism of Britney Spears, complete with pictures, plus well-intentioned tutting at the former's association with Paris Hilton. She's only got your reputation in mind, Brit.

The blog actually does fill a gap in the cyber-Ivy community, which is stuffed with earnest young scholars pontificating through the lens of what they learned in Cultural Relativism 101 that morning. Belle is earnest but no scholar -- she uses a Capitol Hill invite-only reception to muse about the drab grays and browns the Senators wear. She also devotes a post to things that are like, so totally way more interesting than the State of the Union address, like the twist-off bottlecap. (Actually she's onto something there; there is never a bottle opener around when you need one ... particulary during the SOTU.) Her zeal can be cute, like her delight with an online quiz's findings that the celebrity she dresses most like is the adorable Reese Whitherspoon. (Belle threatened to kill herself if she was found stylistically similar to Tara Reid.)

But Belle can also be cruel. Witness her paparazzi'ing of an unsuspecting Cornellian, whom she photographed from behind for the purpose of generalizing about the too-goddamn-cold-to-look-nice population of college girls. The young lady's offense? Uggs, leggings, and a down jacket. Belle bravely discloses that she knows whereof she criticizes: She herself once wore a T-shirt and jeans to exams. It made her feel "icky."

Insecure but smart ladies who slogged frumpily through high school, dreaming of one day living somewhere where they would be judged not by the color of their eye makeup but by the content of their character, will be disheartened by this blog. You did not leave the mean girls behind in high school. They are following you. And taking pictures.

January 30, 2007 11:47 AM by Chris Beam | Link | Comments (13) | Read more: Blog Man on Campus , Cornell

People just don't like playing for Princeton men's basketball coach Joe Scott.

Scott, who has the unenviable role of filling the shoes of former coach John Thompson III, has been by all accounts a huge bust for the Tigers. And it's becoming increasingly clear that his personality has something to do with it. Scott, late of the top job at the Air Force academy, tends to start each season by kicking a few players off his team. This year was no exception (although Princeton did issue this hilarious "roster clarification" to make it seem like sophomore Geoff Kestler actually didn't leave the program, which, we're telling you, he did).

But now players are saving Scott the trouble of booting them by fleeing the team themselves. In early January, one the squad's top freshmen, Blake Wilson, announced he would be leaving Scott's program to transfer to St. Joseph's. Senior Max Schafer's minutes were cut so sharply he quit. And last week, recruiting site Scout.com broke news that the team's top recruit -- Jeff Peterson -- would break his commitment to Princeton (despite getting in early decision) and find another school to play for.

Princeton has a decent record overall, but they're 0-2 in Ivy play so far, including a loss to Cornell in which they scored just 35 points, the school's fewest ever in an Ivy game* since the introduction of the shot clock. For audio evidence of how grating Scott is, check out the sound of his voice here. Jesus -- we thought we'd never find another Princetonian as annoying to listen to as this guy.

January 29, 2007 3:56 PM by Nick Summers | Link | Comments (7) | Read more: Princeton , Sports , basketball

The backdrop to the New Year's Eve Yale a cappella brawl is finally taking shape -- and not, apparently, thanks to the police, who have all but botched the investigation. The San Francisco Chronicle ran an absurdly comprehensive* recount on Friday, using eyewitness accounts that "supported the Yale singers' contention this was an attack on them, not a fight."

The story is sprawling, with some key background on the Catholic school rivalry narrative that a few earlier stories have only alluded to. Our favorite detail: instigator Richard Aicardi (the Chron gave him anonymity, but that's him pictured above) arrived at the party wearing a Santa hat -- an unpromising start for a guy who, to say the least, comes off very poorly. A couple of snippets:

One of the Baker's Dozen group, Sharyar Aziz Jr., went to the kitchen to take a beer from the 30-pack the guest had brought and said the guest told him curtly, "That beer is not for you." ...

[Aziz] said the group of young men "was expressing we were a bunch of 'fags' and 'homos' and said they wanted to fight. They were saying, 'We are in the 415' " -- San Francisco's area code -- "and this was their territory. It was like something out of 'West Side Story.' "

Aziz said he told the young men, "There are 18 of us, and there are five or six of you, and we're not going to fight you."

A lawyer for the Aicardis, Frank Passaglia, disputes the media's characterization of the incident thus far:

"There was no attack," he said. "There was nothing planned. There was a lot of alcohol. The Yalies were drinking. Other people were drinking, and it was a mutual combat situation."

Passaglia said he was "really upset about the fact you have a bunch of influential people from back East from a very influential university who have gone out of their way to hire influential lawyers and political people who are exerting a lot of pressure to charge somebody."

"If this had been a party involving African Americans or Hispanics," Passaglia said, "I just don't think this kind of influence would have been exerted on the police and the DA's office, and the press would care less. But because these are Yalies, all of a sudden, it's been distorted."

Food for thought. But you know, if Passaglia wants to see distortions, he should take a look at Aziz's face.

(*but regrettably, does not further the Evan Gogel Bruise Hottie angle)

January 29, 2007 9:16 AM by Chris Beam | Link | Comments (10) | Read more: Yale , crime

Only a few things can shock us. Lena Chen entering a convent, perhaps, or Larry Summers getting a Mary Wollstonecraft tattoo.

But yesterday, we were shocked as if by a lightning bolt from the finger of God Himself, right after God had put on a fleece jacket. Spake a commenter:

Uh, we were kind of assuming no one would even notice we'd discontinued that. As we moved to our new publishing sked of two items/day, RagTime would have become a full third of our posts, and that would be ridiculous. Right? But now we're looking at the week's news, and there appears to be some fun headlines we missed.

So we'll just throw it out to you -- does anyone care / want RagTime back? Maybe do it as one weekly recap? We're assuming there'll be a resounding "no," but let us know in the comments.

January 26, 2007 5:04 PM by Nick Summers | Link | Comments (56) | Read more: RagTime

Grad students are, pretty much by default, creepy. Not undergrads, not yet professors, they're caught in the murky gray zone that's home to both legitimate career academics and social misfits with no job prospects.

Oh, and child molesters. A couple weeks ago, Penn discovered that Kurt Mitman, a first-year economics grad student, lived off-campus. In fact, he'd been commuting to school all year. From prison. Mitman was convicted in March 2005 for molesting a 14-year-old boy, and was attending classes as part of a daytime academic release program. Penn had no reason to suspect (unless, of course, they'd bothered Googling him): Mitman graduated from UVA with a dual degree in 2004, before going on to study econo-physics at Oxford as a Marshall scholar. It wasn't until Mitman's mother discovered on a sex offender database that her son was enrolled -- six months after he'd started taking classes -- that corrections officials told the university about Mitman's history.

Other than Mitman's little slip-up at genius camp -- the boy was a camper, he was a counselor -- his record is totally clean. That said, there was some ominous foreshadowing in an old UVA puff piece titled, "Curiosity drives Mitman's pursuits."

No word yet on whether he'll get to continue his studies at Penn. But if he does, you won't want him as a TA: Bucks County prison is a schlep, even for office hours.

January 26, 2007 12:13 PM by Chris Beam | Link | Comments (23) | Read more: Penn , crime , grad students

Zing!!

January 25, 2007 5:43 PM by Chris Beam | Link | Comments (11) | Read more: Yale , YouTube , please tip your waitresses , we'll be here all week

It's pretty much a rule that denying interest in being president is a prerequisite to becoming one. Or at least being cheeky, mysterious, and shamelessly disingenuous about it. But even by presidential search standards, the candidates in the search for Harvard's next commander-in-chief seem to be protesting too much. Categorical denials so extreme you'd think these people were swearing over a shoulder-high stack of Bibles piled on top of their mother's grave:

"I am absolutely committed to being Penn's president, and I am not interested in any other presidency." -- Penn President Amy Gutmann

"I can tell you that that he is very happy at Tufts and has no desire to leave." -- Spokesperson for Tufts President Lawrence Bacow

"She is focused on being chancellor of Syracuse." -- Spokesman for Syracuse Chancellor Nancy Cantor, stressing "repeatedly" that Cantor is not interested in the position

"I look forward to welcoming that person as a fellow president." -- Brown President Ruth Simmons, referring to the future Harvard prez

"President Tilghman has consistently said she believes she has the best job in academia." -- Spokeswomanfor Princeton President Shirley Tilghman

"I am quite confident that she has no interest at this time." -- Yale President Richard Levin, about former Yale Provost and Harvard presidential candidate Alison Richard

"I have no intention or desire to leave my current position, which I believe is the best position in higher education." -- Stanford Provost John Etchemendy

"What a foolish question. I already have a great job." -- Duke President Richard Broadhead

Ask a foolish question, get a toolish answer. These people respond like they'd just been asked to run the Dubuque Community College Media Studies program. Everyone knows they'd give their left tassle to reign over Harvard. Elena Kagan, please just declare yourself successor already and spare us the charade.

January 25, 2007 3:05 PM by Chris Beam | Link | Comments (19) | Read more: Harvard

Yale parents are known for their meticulous planning skills (Exhibit A: their children attend Yale) -- skills that, when it comes to graduation weekend, are on full display. Dinner at Union League, drinks at Zinc, and, of course, one of the 86 coveted suites at the storied Colony Inn. Some have been known to reserve their rooms at the Colony as much as a year in advance. (At some hotels, parents make graduation reservations upon their child's admission.)

But last month, Yale parents received some apocalyptic news: the Colony Inn will be renovating until fall 2007, throwing commencement planning into something out of the Left Behind books. "We are confident you will be delighted by the changes we have planned and look forward to welcoming you back in the future," reads the perky letter to guests, which we imagine them reading with a cancer diagnosis face. "We thank you for your support and sincerely appreciate your patience and understanding."

Surely. The announcement hasn't drawn much attention yet, and, according to the hotel's manager, parents haven't been complaining. Uh huh. In fact, the Colony has arranged for guests to be relocated to either the nearby Clarion Hotel or "university housing." Clarion, fair enough -- it's the "university housing" we're worried about. Something tells us Mr. and Mrs. Nigel T. Haversham IV may end up having to spoon on Nigel V's grubby futon. We expect fallout -- or, at the very least, some strenuous letter-writing. It'll be like a campus protest, but with stationery!

January 24, 2007 7:54 PM by Chris Beam | Link | Comments (10) | Read more: Yale , commencement

In the great pantheon of Ivy stereotypes, Dartmouth kids often get the worst of it. More isolated than Cornell. More conservative than Princeton. It's the one Ivy school, to be honest, that we've ever heard friends say they would never, ever consider attending.

But writing about the Ivy League has been unavoidably educational. And we're here to tell you that one area Dartmouth kids excel in, and should be pretty damn proud of, is mighty basic: having a lot of fun in their little corner of New Hampshire. People forget Animal House is based on Dart's Delta Alpha Delta fraternity, and we've always been touched by how much real love is paid the Big Green mascot, Keggy the Keg. (A picture of him enthusiastically greeting two small children is our computer desktop at home.)

Yesterday you saw the worst video produced by students in the history of the universe. (Or YouTube, at least.) Today you see the best.

January 24, 2007 10:21 AM by Nick Summers | Link | Comments (57) | Read more: Dartmouth , YouTube

Some people just know how to court controversy. Casey Ford Alexander, Princeton '09, is one of them. And as much as it pains us to shower attention on such a willing recipient, this guy has worked for it. Hard.

Witness the movie he made last semester, "gamefish," based on the suicide of Princeton student Manzili Davis '06 the previous spring. (The film is now up on mtvU's site -- check it out here.) The Princetonian dutifully covered the film because of its controversial subject matter and followed up with an editorial condemning it for what they called a lack of "tact, sensitivity and sensibility." (Something the Prince's editorial board has recently demonstrated in spades.) But the recurring theme in both pieces -- and in this cartoon, and in this March 2006 profile of "CFA" -- is Alexander's status as a "noted self-promoter," even though the Prince seems to have done most of the promotion for him. Here's the editorial:

It's clear to us that Alexander is looking for attention. Though writing an editorial condemning his film obviously grants his wish, we feel that his actions are inappropriate enough to warrant comment.

And that's just everything surrounding the movie. The film itself -- which we've watched twice now -- we're still trying to wrap our head around. From what we can tell, it's a film within a film within a film about the suicide. But somewhere between the shots of CFA showering, the overlapping folds of meta, and the bowel-shaking levels of pretension, we got totally lost. So we asked Alexander to kindly explain what's going on. Rambling, cobbled-together "interview" with Casey Ford Alexander after the jump. (Warning: What you read may enlighten you -- or just confuse you even further.)

Continue reading "Film Based on Princeton Suicide Somehow Draws Attention" »

January 23, 2007 10:43 PM by Chris Beam | Link | Comments (9) | Read more: Princeton

The most important article about politics we've ever read was called "Swimming With Sharks," and it was by Franklin Foer in a September 2005 piece in The New Republic. (It's behind a pay wall, but try clicking here, here and here.) Foer went inside that year's race for chairman of the College Republicans, a $75,000 position for which student candidates backslap, dealmake, fundraise and otherwise do Machiavelli proud. The details of the chicanery are simply too beautiful to go into, but suffice it to say that this system produced Karl Rove, Jack Abramoff, Grover Norquist and others; the highlight is an anecdote of outright deceit by a young Rove, who is actually promoted for his efforts by then-RNC chairman George H.W. Bush.

Getting to the point: after 4,000 words detailing how Republicans learn the basic blocking and tackling of politics -- they practice the "knife-fight" on each other first -- Foer pays a visit to the president of the College Dems. It's a boy who raised $2,000 for his uncontested campaign, or $198,000 less than his GOP counterpart; paid a salary of $0, he makes all his calls after 9 p.m., when his cell phone minutes are free. It's a pathetic comparison, and it explains a lot about the politics of the last quarter-century.

Why do we bring all this up? Because this is what the Harvard Dems do with their time:

January 23, 2007 11:14 AM by Nick Summers | Link | Comments (29) | Read more: Harvard , YouTube

When we last left "The Gates," Columbia Television's new soap opera, we were somewhere between R.E.M. and delta waves. Thank goodness someone roused us, we might have snoozed straight through Episode 2.

Only apparently the second episode is different from the first. So different, in fact, that it earned the soap a semifinalist spot in a contest hosted by SoapU, not to mention some non-derisive Spectator coverage. The show's creator, Davide "E. Kelley" Barillari '09, told Spec the show is so much better people "will think that I and the rest of the crew got fired."

Judge for yourself here. The clip is a little choppy, since the episode's running time is 40 minutes and they only show a 10-minute excerpt. But they seem to hit all the main points: coke O.D., clingy ex-girlf, mysterious study-abroad-related pregnancy, and what appears to be the least threatening Egyptian assassin ever filmed. You can also see the show's competitors for "best college soap." (We shudder to imagine the worst.)

If your time is precious, or of any value whatsoever, here's an even shorter teaser clip, featuring a cockblock by the apparent Egyptian assassin:

January 22, 2007 4:11 PM by Chris Beam | Link | Comments (5) | Read more: Columbia , YouTube

Some of the greatest loves in history were never meant to be. Shakespeare's RoMo and JuCap, undone by fate and feud ... Titanic's Jack and Rose, whose impervious love was on a pervious ship ... and Ivory Tower's Lisa Thompson and Adam James, cursed by Harvard's regulations on peer advisor-advisee relations.

It's time for another episode of the Harvard soap opera, and you know what that means! More echoey audio, strained dramatic timing and the most uncomfortably filmed sex since Dakota Fanning's latest. Look for no fewer than five queasy kiss scenes; if you'd like your libido back, stay tuned after the credits for a funny male striptease that'll make you forget what you just saw.

January 22, 2007 10:03 AM by Nick Summers | Link | Comments (10) | Read more: Harvard , Sex , YouTube , hrtv

It's been a while since we checked in on Harvard sex blogger Lena Chen, and boy has the li'l darlin' grown up. Yowza! Between her anonymity-busting, the ensuing media frenzy, and what appears to be a possible book deal, it's clear that writing provocatively about your sex life as a Harvard coed makes things happen fast. Who knew?

There have been bumps along the way, though. Note how she fell into the trap of responding to hate mail, and posting the social itinerary of an upcoming Elle-Does-NYC tour is, frankly, megalomaniacal. But otherwise, Sex and the Ivy appears to be alive and well-sated. Now she's a finalist for the Sex Blog Awards (Yup, more awards coverage, just like you guys have been asking for!!), so we're only doing our fraternal duty by kindly asking you to vote here. If her blog contains even a kernel of truth, chances are there's something in it for you.

January 19, 2007 6:11 PM by Chris Beam | Link | Comments (30) | Read more: Harvard , Sex

On good days, tips arrive in our inbox and we're all, "Hey, that's fun to write about." Or "Silly Ivy League kids, that's sure ripe for a tweaking!"

And then there's the day you learn about SimplySheena.com.

The personal web site of Columbia J-school student Sheena Tahilramani fairly begs to be ridiculed. It almost feels too easy -- but we've written about the vanity sites of sex bloggers before, and SimplySheena, with completely tame subject matter, manages to take the medium to new depths. It's actually because she's a legit journalism student that the enormous photo of herself on the home page is so absurd, demanding that she not be taken seriously.

That's her, in a low-cut dress, jeweled necklace, and a certain gaze -- that piercing, come-hither gaze 'neath which so many sources have surely melted. ("Do you want to do this on the record ... or on the pool table?") Click through and you'll find a bio that's largely relevant (L.A. Times internship, etc.) and impressive. Then there's this:

Sheena appeared on Wheel of Fortune in September 2004 and won the majority of her winnings in the first toss-up round. The answer was 'Boulder, Colorado.' She has been an in [sic] several television shows (ER, The Shield, Cold Case) and feature films (The Holiday and Blades of Glory).

(Emphasis, 'cause it's funny, ours.) On the "Contact" page you'll find a photo of Sheena dressed in nothing but newsprint (old Columbia Spectators) -- an image that must be really really hot, if you're Joseph Pulitzer. We remain untitillated, as we 1) recall from the high school newspaper mail room the disgusting amount of ink that can get onto your skin, and 2) are, you know, completely repulsed by the entire site in general.

UPDATE 2:59 p.m.: A friend at the Columbia Daily Spectator passes along this email from Tahilramani, sent unsolicited to the paper's general mailbox last Halloween. If the jury was somehow out on the charge of self-promotion before, we believe the verdict is now in. Read it after the jump:

Continue reading "J-Schooler Sure to Be Put on the Hard-Hitting Investigative Beat Now (UPDATE)" »

January 19, 2007 1:11 AM by Chris Beam | Link | Comments (55) | Read more: Columbia , omg

We'd like to say we stumbled upon Beauty and the Geek accidentally. Flipping channels before last week's Bush speech, maybe, or stepping on the remote when we got up from a marathon session with The Nichomachean Ethics. But the truth is, we consciously blocked out a chunk of our Wednesday to watch this program. And it has been the most rewarding decision of our lives.

If you haven't yet tasted the nectar, all you need to know is: seven knockouts, seven dweebs, zero flaws. The purported goal is to have everyone change by the end of the show, be it from hot ditz to sensitive hot ditz or from brainy shut-in to brainy shut-in with gelled hair. Whoever changes most -- and displays a few token skills along the way -- wins. But the real point, of course, is to exaggerate the guys' social decrepitude while getting the girls to say the dumbest shit imaginable.

The latter quest: victory. As for the former, we're not so sure, largely because of one Nate Dern, Havard '07. Dern, as far as we can tell, has no business being on the show. One geek's claim to fame is he "got a 1600 on his SAT." Another "owns 25,000 comic books." Dern started a Star Wars band. Oh, and he never wears deoderant. Which is gross, obvs, but the point is that he does original stuff assertively. And that's exactly the problem. Everything "uncool" about him -- and we can't believe we're saying this -- is actually cool.

So cool, in fact, that everything he does feels a little calculated, like he's out-smarting the producers. When the geeks had to paint a nude woman in last week's episode, the art he produced was frighteningly creative. When he suggests cutting his hair into a mullet, you know he'd pull it off. Not to mention he's a total extrovert. A friend of ours put it this way: "He's nerdy, but in that hipster way so all the girls would do him anyway." In other words, Nate Dern is a fraud.

Our prediction: Dern will make it far on charm, good looks and trucker hats. But he has way too many Facebook friends to win.

January 18, 2007 12:13 AM by Chris Beam | Link | Comments (23) | Read more: Harvard

We knew there was a reason we hadn't yet written about Jian Li, the high school senior who sued filed a civil rights complaint against Princeton for discrimination after they rejected his early application. (He claims they held his Asian ethnicity against him.) And boy are we glad we waited, since now he can probably add the Daily Princetonian as a defendant.

In yesterday's annual "joke" issue, the Prince ran, among other laugh-laugh-sigh satires, an op-ed by one "Lian Ji" titled, "Princeton University is racist against me, I mean, non-whites." "Hi Princeton! Remember me?" it starts off. "I so good at math and science. Perfect 2400 SAT score. Ring bell?" Having upturned that modest divet, they keep digging for another 550 or so words:

"What is wrong with you no color people? Yellow people make the world go round. We cook greasy food, wash your clothes and let you copy our homework. Brown people are catching up, too but not before the 2008 Beijing Olympics."

WOW. I mean, wow. After the year that brought us the Dartmouth Review Native American flap and Yale Rumpus' "Me Love You Long Time" ado, it's as if someone just pushed reset. Let's see that again! There should really be an award for the student(s) who, every year, think they will be the ones to transcend racism by displaying it in its crudest form. And who, every year, make utter fools of themselves (and learn that irony isn't a defense). So kind of them not to spell it "Orympics."

If this doesn't blow up in their faces, it's by the grace of God. Princetonian Editor-in-Chief Chanakya Sethi '07 told us he was "aware there were concerns" about the piece, but hasn't heard any direct complaints yet. Then again, students are in reading week. "If there are people who are concerned, I’m concerned," he said.

The best part is, the people responsible for running it -- the outgoing board, Sethi included -- won't even have to deal with the (still hypothetical) fallout. The hate mail, the meetings with deans, the sensitivity training seminars -- all will fall squarely on the shoulders of their successors. Thanks, fellas. It's been fun. Don't let the picketers hit you in the ass on the way out.

P.S. -- The Globe's must-read Brainiac had this first.

January 17, 2007 9:59 PM by Chris Beam | Link | Comments (44) | Read more: Admissions , Princeton , daily princetonian , protests

There is absolutely no reason to post this dated, irrelevant FOX News segment on Yale's Skull and Bones, aside from the fact that you must check out this expert guy's mustache. It makes us doubt the secret society's entire legitimacy. How can we get excited about clandestine tap night rituals when there's a walrus moustache hovering over it all?

January 17, 2007 2:26 PM by Nick Summers | Link | Comments (6) | Read more: Secret Societies , Yale , YouTube , skull and bones

When we wrote about the Battle of the Baker's Dozen last week -- the New Year's Eve assault of poor, defenseless Yale a cappella singers -- and included photos of the beating these guys took, readers reacted strongly. In comments and emails, they were horrified, outraged, and also, um, a little turned on.

Frequent commenter Columbia2010er was the first to venture out onto the contusion-fetish limb, writing "Is it wrong of me to say that the guy in the fourth picture is kind of hot?"

No, Columbia2010er, no it's not. Sadly, while there is an ongoing certified MEDIA FRENZY surrounding the brawl, no one is following up on the wounded beauty of Evan Gogel '10. But an IvyGate investigation has revealed that Gogel is even hotter when not bruised to shit, and ladies, it's his birf on Feb. 3. We're sure he'd love a heart-shaped icepack. More pics (seriously, check out his Facebook page, he's always surrounded by women) after the jump.

Continue reading "Evan Gogel Should Get Beat Up More Often" »

January 17, 2007 8:53 AM by Nick Summers | Link | Comments (22) | Read more: Yale , crime , hot

The Huffington Post's Rachel Sklar, who's been uncommonly good to this blog and uncommonly destructive to our sobriety, took our "Box in a Box" scoop last week and ran with it, finding that spokesbox Melissa Lamb, a Penn sophomore, isn't a one-woman show. Three others are part of the box team, and Lamb -- who ludicrously denied our outing of her by claiming she has an identical twin -- went on MSNBC with one of them, Leah Kauffman, the (actually very talented) voice box behind the hit song.

That's probably it from this corner -- the secret's out, the star prop sold on eBay for $1525, and we are completely, utterly out of box references. Until next time, genital wordplay fans!

January 16, 2007 4:25 PM by Chris Beam | Link | Comments (3) | Read more: Penn , Sex , YouTube

Maybe it's wrong to think that relationships among coddled Ivy Leaguers are more dysfunctional than most. But this story certainly doesn't kill the myth.

In this week's "Modern Love" column in the Times (the people who brought you the execrable, crowd-pleasing Shamu story), Ashley Cross recounts how she dated a Harvard guy who had been convicted of rape. It's a well-done piece -- honest, restrained, poignant. Which of course makes us wonder, 1) who is this Ashley Cross person and 2) will she date us despite our checkered past? Answering the second depends on figuring out the first. According to the Times bio, Cross "attends Columbia" -- a phrase as pliant and abused as "is a writer." A cursory search of the Columbia directory and Facebook yields nothing. (We sincerely hope this under construction vanity site isn't hers.) Will the real Ashley Cross please stand up, then send digits?

January 16, 2007 12:56 PM by Chris Beam | Link | Comments (11) | Read more: Harvard , Princeton , Sex

The politician offspring Facebook page: putting bread on the blogger's table since 2004. There was John Frist, then-Senate Majority Leader Bill's son, and his love of Natty Light-stocked utility belts. There was Bob Corker's daughter and her love of other women. But nothing can compare to this, the Holy Grail of political spawn on the Web: Barbara Bush has a Facebook page.

Or, if you prefer, the naked-party-attending, fake-ID-using, triple-fist-tailgating, luscious lush of a first daughter has a Facebook page, and we need to see it.

She's listed in the Yale and New York networks as "Barbara B," but only existing friends can click through. Surely, one of you has penetrated this elite circle and will sell her out for the thanks of a grateful, fiending nation. E-mail screen grabs to our tip line, and we'll take care of the rest. Others: friend request, friend request, friend request. Together, we can shatter what few token shards of young person normalcy Babs has left. Or just make her feel very, very popular.

January 16, 2007 9:06 AM by Chris Beam | Link | Comments (5) | Read more: Facebook , Yale , celebrities

[Ed.: This was written over break; we're just posting it now.]

NEW ORLEANS, Dec. 20 -- Come here. New Orleans, where half of us has been on vacation for five days, is a fantastic town, and it's hurting. We haven't had an unspectacular bite of food since our low, low JetBlue fare arrived; hotels are practically giving away rooms, and the locals couldn't be happier to see tourists. There's no lines, all the bars and museums are open, and one thing Hurricane Katrina didn't wash away is the city's open policy on open containers.

It's January, so you should be planning your spring break soon. Make it a New Orleans year, and whether you're doing the responsible tourist thing (walking tours of the Garden District; jazz at Preservation Hall) or the indulgent (bingeing on Abita and po' boys; attempting to talk to Cajuns), the result is still the same. You're pumping travel dollars back into the local economy, so as you puke hurricanes and muffulettas into a Bourbon Street gutter, know that you're engaging in what Tim Zagat calls "patriotic tourism."

(Photos by bobsummers.com, our nature photographer and author dad, after the jump.)

*UPDATE 6:10 p.m.:  Just a note of apology to people who thought this post was a joke. It's not. We want people to visit the place, but we see the tone got a little muddled because of the photos (now after the jump). Thanks, and sorry for the confusion.

Continue reading "Spring Break New Orleans: Patriotism Never Tasted So Good (UPDATED)" »

January 12, 2007 9:23 PM by Nick Summers | Link | Comments (12) | Read more: spring break

In general, we have a policy not to hate on projects into which students sink time, energy, and personal savings. College is a time for experimentation, and experimentation means mistakes. But when the word "hate" is actually in the name of the project in question ...

"Love|Hate," a new show screening on Harvard-Radcliffe Television, does for VH1 clip revue shows what Columbia's The Gates did for soap opera: make you wish they enforced age requirements for video cameras like they do for guns or rental cars. A panel of Disney-ready hosts throw out topics of discussion from crocs to Mark Foley to Larry Summers' resignation, with guest commentators riffing on each. First let's focus on the positive: Its hosts are enthusiastic and attractive. Its attitude is harmless. And it's only 19 minutes long.

But around a minute and a half, the thought will dawn on you: They're not joking. That is to say, they're telling jokes ... but they're not joking. Describing it is pointless, just watch:

January 12, 2007 12:47 PM by Chris Beam | Link | Comments (18) | Read more: Harvard , YouTube , hrtv