• 
• Cornell: Coffee war escalattes. [Sun]
  
• Harvard: Escalator eats woman. [Crimson]
• Harvard: Harvard Square whorehouse operator guilty. [Crimson]
• Harvard: Columnist hates on Cosmo's sex tips. [Crimson]
• Princeton: Xiaoyan Ma '06 found dead. [Prince]
• Princeton: Students may have to skip extra week of classes. [Prince]
  

February 28, 2007 2:17 PM by Nick Summers | Link | Comments (3) | Read more: Cornell , Harvard , Princeton , RagTime

As we may have mentioned, this weekend we journeyed to No'th Cackalack as guests of the illustrious, happily moneyed Duke University. Between Skoal, sweet tea, and other firsts (hotel staff calling us "mister"), we took in the first Duke lacrosse game since The Business.

We tried mightily to prepare for our trip to Duke, but plans were thrown into chaos early: the Drawl-English language cassettes we ordered were lost in the mail, nowhere in Brooklyn would serve us sorghum, and then, the day of the trip, airport security confiscated our brand-new Axe Body Spray. How would we blend in with the natives now?!? We arrived in Durham in a fever, feelin' swell on 105 minutes of sleep, and set off for Duke's Koskinen stadium anyway. Historic game, versus hated Dartmouth, beautiful crisp afternoon: we don't need a map, sir, the sweet strains of ACC tailgating in the air will point the way.

Except. The pre-game tailgate in the stadium's lower parking lot -- the upper one was closed to accomodate the national media, which didn't really show up -- was nearly dead. A few SUVs with beer in the trunk; a coupla lifer Dartmouth fans with great-great-grandchildren swaddled in green. But nothing like the rollicking beerfest we'd imagined. Later, we found out a school VP had emailed the entire campus with a request to wear official Duke apparel proudly, leave signs at home, and generally put the ix-nay on the ape-ray okes-jay. ("We have much to gain as a community with our best effort and even more to lose with our worst") Amazingly, the students played along: not a single violent Dartmouth chant, no burning Mike Nifong in effigy, no nothing to make for the ultimate IvyGate post. It was clear, though, fans had done some research on the enemy for heckling purposes; one Dartmouth player with by the unfortunate name of Tim McVeigh got special attention. But for the most part, Duke lacrosse fans were ridiculously well behaved, especially for a sport where the goal is to crosscheck your opponents' faces in.

The few references to last year's non-season were remarkably mannered: girls wearing Reade Seligmann No. 8 jerseys. A lone parking lot banner supporting the players.  Ubiquitous "innocent" blue rubber bracelets.  T-shirt report: there was, like, one guy with a "Disbar Nifong" [Ed.: we really wanted to buy one, but couldn't find a seller -- little help, Duke readers?], and a couple creepy more were trying to sell a model with a circle-and-line-through "Duke Administration" -- they actually talked us out of buying one.

When the team took the field, it was to the crowd's unqualified roar. Lacrosse games usually get decent attendance, regulars there said, but nothing like this. In the crowd, there was a consensus that nobody was winning Duke's first game back but Duke, in a massacre. And so it was: After a year off the field, the Blue Devils turned an early 1-3 deficit into a 17-11 pimpwalk. They despatched Denver the next day too, 13-9, in the rain.

Where we went to school, most people think that you can have school spirit without sports. Some kids there even take pride in having crappy teams. But as we sat there on the bleachers, mint tobacco firmly implanted in lip, tongue conspicuously not in cheek, we found ourselves actually caring what happened to the kids running around the field with sticks. And it felt great. We're as lazy as ever, but suddenly the 40-minute bus rides uptown to Columbia's Baker Field seemed like they might have been worth it.

February 28, 2007 10:45 AM by Chris Beam | Link | Comments (9) | Read more: Drinking , Duke , Sports , field trip

• 
• Brown: Ruth Simmons' approval rating slightly higher than that of bunnies, candy canes. [BDH]
• Cornell: How To Get Tenure, Step One: Go on a hunger strike. [Sun]
• Columbia: Hillary Busis '10, now you shall know the curse of celebrity. [Spec]
• Dartmouth: Yes, there is a rapper named Young Ivy. [The D]
  
• Harvard: "What Is The What": A confusing title of staggering pretension. [Crimson]
• Penn: Grad student protesters wield hideous, ten-foot tall, zombie-like puppet of Amy Gutmann, then express surprise when she won't talk to them. [DP]
• Yale: Harvard 2007 presidential selection bears "eerie similarities" to Yale's in 1992. Spooky! [YDN]

February 27, 2007 6:14 PM by Chris Beam | Link | Comments (3) | Read more: Brown , Columbia , Cornell , Dartmouth , Harvard , Penn , RagTime

Pull up a chair, tuck in a napkin, it's time to lose our shit over sandwiches again. Today's installment is from Charlie Niesenbaum, the Cornell Daily Sun's official snack food columnist (sometimes we really, really love college papers) whose work just may surpass genius. Let us know what Stuff Between Bread we should get after next.

When it comes to sandwich culture, Cornell has a lot to offer. On-Campus Dining tries its best with purveyors such as Cascadeli, Mac's, Trillium and Bear Nasties. However, there can only be one true champ, only one that is truly "tasty-ass." That sandwich is the Hot Truck's Triple Suicide. 

For those who don't know, Hot Truck is the West Campus sandwich institution founded in 1960 that brought late night delicious to Cornell and invented French bread pizza. Just to clarify, this isn't fifth grade Friday school lunch, this is a one-third loaf of French bread loaded with cheese and sauce and baked fresh in the oven. How good are these sandwiches? When things get crazy at the Hot Truck wait times can stretch over an hour. At night. In sub-freezing temperatures. And in the snow. These sandwiches are that good.

The rest of the Hot Truck Menu pulls no punches with inventive items like the Krazy Korean, Mr. Pink, Ho-Ho, Re-Re and Flaming Turkey Bone (which the menu describes as containing "no actual flames, turkey or bones"). The Triple Suicide reigns over all of them.

According to the menu, the T-Sui comes with tomato sauce, mushrooms, sausage, pepperoni, mozzarella cheese and six meatballs. What the menu cannot describe is exactly how you feel after cramming one of these down after a typical night on the town. Every year more than one freshman makes the mistake of trying to scarf a whole T-Sui too quickly after a night of drinking. That is a mistake you make exactly once. But this meat monster doesn't like to be kept waiting either. Because of the tons of sauce, cheese and oil on the fresh toasted bread, Hot Truck subs don't keep well. My advice is, order the numerically challenged Half Triple-Suicide.

Besides our recent stint as a dream College in the classic 2004 teen comedy "The Perfect Score", Cornell isn't known for much besides suicide. So, if you are ever stopping by Cornell with two friends, try our Triple Suicide. It's to die for.

Continue reading "Tasty-Ass Sandwiches of the Ivy League: The Hot Truck Triple Suicide" »

February 27, 2007 4:41 PM by Nick Summers | Link | Comments (10) | Read more: Cornell , tasty-ass sandwiches of the ivy league

College love is a blessed thing. Common ground is easy to find with any potential mate. Options fairly force themselves on you (sometimes in a good way, sometimes not so much). And the stakes are so deliciously low, you can mess up with few consequences a semester abroad can't fix.

And then, on graduation day, it all ends. The tassels come off, and you discover a whole new, totally unwelcome aspect of romance: effort. Love will never be the same.

This fact was made painfully clear Friday night at an event hosted by the Ivy Singles Social Club of Washington, which our D.C. bureau chief felt obligated to crash. The largish crowd gathered on the top floor of a Spanish restaurant in Arlington.

A quick glance around the room put the average age at about 45. On the youthful end, you had a few recent post-docs, lawyers, consultants, many of them new to town. On the mature end, you had the fixtures -- people who had been attending Ivy singles events for years. Needless to say, these were not silver foxes. Makeup: caked. Hair: radioactive yellow. And when God was handing out bald spots, this group got a generous helping. We have a full head (for now) and felt like jailbait. One sweet woman did buy us a beer, but alas we forgot our permit for cougar-hunting.

Even among the veterans, the social rules of middle school dances held strong. Women huddled together, while a few stray men sipped their drinks against the wall, just sort of peering. Conversation was expectedly awkward. Lots about the event itself -- "Did you hear about the couple that met at one of these and got married?" Only one topic was off limits: graduation year. We touched this third rail a few times before realizing a gentleman never asks. At one point, a female friend of ours started talking to an older man, who volunteered that his passions were "tennis, beaches, and women." She asked if he preferred them in any particular order. "Depends which one I've had most recently," he replied. She excused herself as the conversation turned to surgery.

Throughout the evening, one horrifying thought loomed: in 20 years (or 10, or now), who among us will be attending these functions? The idea of using your school as a romantic crutch is upsetting -- until you realize you already do it all the time. Think about it: Events like this are like Facebook for people who don't know about the Internet. Our poke is their business card exchange. Still, though, there's sure to come a time when our diploma is -- yikes -- the sexiest thing about us. And suddenly, listing our passions to pretty young things at all-Ivy functions will seem like the most sensible move in the world. Tennis. Beaches. Women.

February 27, 2007 9:36 AM by Chris Beam | Link | Comments (8) | Read more: shudder

We're off, we're off to Duke! Bright and early tomorrow! (Odds we miss the 7:55 a.m. flight: 2:1.) It's feeling like a serendipitous weekend. The first men's lacrosse game since The Business is at 12:30, it's sunny, and we can't wait to blow through as much of the university's cash as possible. Wooo!

We asked our Duke correspondent for a fare-thee-well -- let's listen in!

What the hell are you two talking about? People: When these idiots cross the Mason-Dixon line tomorrow, they're in for some fun toxic culture shock. But they will also see a lacrosse game -- and all the of the attendant fatuousness that comes with the "healing" of an institution. While lots of people (esp the flagrantly unethical prosecutor Mike Nifong) have misbehaved since that awful party went wrong in March 2006, the worst are the "Group of 88" --  faculty members who are genuinely disappointed that a rape didn't occur, and some of whose number just today published another column in the Duke Chronicle.

Given their appalling assumption of guilt way past when it was defensible, it's hard to seriously listen to this long list of empty academic platitudes. But let's give it a whirl, because you smiley guys seriously have no idea what you're getting yourselves into. The following list of "facts" represent such a smug departure from reality as to cause one to file a transfer application:

Whatever happened at the lacrosse party last spring, three facts remain undisputed: racial epithets were used; a Duke student group hired two female strippers for the entertainment of young men; and underage drinking was encouraged.

Oh, those are the three undisputed facts? Not that three students were indicted for crimes that, the nation now agrees, so obviously did not occur? Not that the name of an institution was dragged through the dirt by overzealous media? Not that Duke's own faculty are still, one year later, trying to trash several students who have been all but exonerated by the accuser herself?

So what I suspect our pair of Ivy League ink-slingers will find this weekend is a student body sick of the sanctimony of its own faculty. Whatever happens, tomorrow's lax game will be one hell of a circus show. But what you won't see or hear much about is the latest woefully under-reported tidbit. Oh, you didn't know there was a new rape allegation? Thanks to Nifong, God knows what the truth is here, or in the future. Have a great time, guys!! XOXO, write me!

Us again. Well, now we're in the mood!! Seriously though, we have a big weekend planned. If you're at Duke and you want to show us around, get in touch. Everybody else, we'll see you lateish Monday.

February 23, 2007 4:15 PM by Nick Summers | Link | Comments (11) | Read more: Duke , field trip

• Brown: Pet tarantula actually more like a "feisty, scary-looking mouse" [Herald]
  
• Columbia: Breaking: College Republicans offensive; Pope Catholic [Spec]
• Cornell: Article on university snow policy written by somebody named Shoval. Creepy! [Sun]
• Harvard: Virgins are for pitying, not mocking [Crimson]
• Harvard: A student journalist's quest for a mature burgundy [Crimson]
• Penn: Reason #682 to give up on grad school [DP]
• Princeton: Jewish students found to identify with Israel; bears found to shit in woods [Prince]
  

February 23, 2007 1:15 PM by RagTime | Link | Comment | Read more: Brown , Columbia , Cornell , Harvard , Penn , Princeton , RagTime

Imagine: A president who didn't attend a school you play in lacrosse. Who isn't part of a century-old secret society. Who somehow managed to get where he or she is without a diploma written in Latin with a coat of arms at the top. Why, they-- they'll almost be in touch with the electorate!

That dystopian future may not be far off, from the look of things. Even a quick glance at the pool of candidates suggests our next president will probably have no idea what a "residential college" is. PoliticalInsider.com has done everything short of an IvyGate Index to evaluate how Ivy-saturated the 2008 race will be. The verdict: not very.

In contrast to previous cycles, the 2008 presidential field features candidates from lesser-known schools all across the nation, including Hamilton College, Gettysburg College, Manhattan College, and Oucahita Baptist University. Assuming General Wesley Clark (D) and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) throw their hats in the ring and former Vice President Al Gore (D) does not, only two of the 22 presidential candidates will have attended an Ivy League university for undergraduate studies (both at Columbia University) and only two more attended Ivy League graduate schools.

Click through to see all the schools the candidates attended, both grad and undergrad. And, of course, let that and that alone inform your voting decision.

February 23, 2007 10:09 AM by Chris Beam | Link | Comments (10) | Read more: politics

What goes around goes around goes around comes all the way back around.                            --JT

When Justin brought sexy back [Ed.: Thanks, btw], who could have known that he was describing the Harvard Crimson's Circle of Plagiarism? Stung by "borrowers" Victoria Ilyinsky and Kathleen Breeden in October, the Cambridge broadsheet now finds itself on the catching end of fake writing. The copy-and-paste karma comes in the form of the Michigan Daily's Devika Daga. One of apparently four articles the Ann Arbor music writer ganked -- a 2006 review of a French Kicks concert -- bears an uncanny similarity to a 2003 Crimson piece by new Gawker Weekend editor Leon Neyfakh. Read the latter:

The French Kicks are nobodies.

You’ve probably never heard of them, and neither has America. They’ve been mentioned in passing in the same breath as the Strokes and the Libertines—occasionally. Pillars of the rock renaissance—kind of. An exciting new band—if you’re into that scene—raising hairs and eyebrows and taking the country by storm—if they can get away with it.

And here's the Michigan Daily's homage:

You've probably never heard of the French Kicks, and neither has America. They've occasionally been mentioned in passing in the same breath as The Strokes and The Libertines. They're pillars of the rock renaissance - kind of. They're quite an exciting indie band, if you're into that scene, raising hairs and eyebrows and taking the country by storm - if they can get away with it.

Sweet cosmic chi no doubt, but all this plagiarism is getting tiresome. Can't we get some more original scandals up in this piece? In the meantime, let's not forget the real victims here. First the French Kicks get panned by the Crimson in '03. Now they get re-panned just because the Mich reviewer couldn't come up with a new word for "blows"?

February 22, 2007 10:54 AM by Chris Beam | Link | Comments (4) | Read more: Harvard , Harvard Crimson , gawker , plagiarism

With squirming delight we read the New York Observer's Princeton bicker takedown this morning, thrilling to each student's oblivious elitism, each eating club's repugnant practices, each Shermanesque detail.

To be honest, we weren't sure what we could possibly add to Spencer Morgan's exquisitely unsourced piece -- just go take it in now -- but readers at Princeton have filled us in on how the campus is reacting to a story that makes the social/cultural scene feel as friendly as Fallujah. One level-headed tipster reports:

Princetonian parents everywhere are probably hyperventilating, but all in all, it's a lot tamer than it could have been. ... Many of us are surprised that the reporter was able to attend several of the parties and get students to talk on the record. To my knowledge, most clubs make members sign an agreement saying they will never, ever, ever talk to the press, on pain of expulsion. When we heard the NYT was doing a story on bicker, for example, my club called a meeting where we were reminded to keep our big traps shut. But for the most part this article has elicited a minor shrug, since it's all old news to us. 

Another student, belonging to Ivy, messaged the club's listserv to joke that the misnamed Tamara "Watson" was in deep trouble:

In light of the dirty bicker that obviously took place, you have been retrohosed effective immediately.

To all the other new members, I love you despite any dirty bickering (which would NEVER happen in ivy anyway). You are all wonderful, and Spencer Morgan can stuff his own dick (if he has one) up his ass.

Naturally, not everyone took it as well. After the jump, read one outraged Tiger's email to Morgan. With critics like this, who needs supporters?

[Photo stolen from New York Observer's Melanie Flood until they make us take it down]

Continue reading "New York Observer Does God's Work Exposing Princeton Bicker Scene" »

February 21, 2007 5:42 PM by Nick Summers | Link | Comments (16) | Read more: Princeton , bicker , gawker , this is why people hate the ivy league

Continue reading "BDH: Brown Lacrosse Wooing Duke Rape Defendant" »

February 21, 2007 5:41 PM by Nick Summers | Link | Comments (14) | Read more: Brown , Duke , Sports , lacrosse , omg

• 
• Dartmouth: Individual bathrooms take all the fun out of gender-neutral housing [The D]
• Dartmouth: Senior "believes in sanctity of sexual intercourse"; does not to appear to have ever had any [The D]
• Harvard: Kirkland burglar enters girl's room, tries to escape arrest by hurling laptop at cops [Crimson]
• Harvard: Best column we've read in a while re: dry humping [Crimson]
• Penn: Professor Emeritus of Child Porno enters guilty plea [DP]
  

February 21, 2007 3:24 PM by Nick Summers | Link | Comments (9) | Read more: Dartmouth , Harvard , Penn , RagTime

Most art sucks. That's what L.A.'s late great art zine Coagula thought, and, after many hours squinting at art history slides and snickering through student-run exhibitions, we have to agree. If you've kept one eye on the campus art scene, chances are you've seen works ranging from distasteful to poorly executed to crimes against humanity. We feel your pain.

But we also know it doesn't have to be that way. Not every student photo has to depict a girl sitting by a window, or someone putting on make-up in a mirror (in black and white, of course). Not every painting must depict the Virgin Mary in menstrual blood. Call us crazy, but we think you can do better.

So it's in a spirit of blind optimism that we introduce IvyGate Galleries, a series of collections by artists in the Ivy League that suck a little less than average. (In other words: ivyTunes with pitchers. And yes, we are trying to beat another installment of that out of our critic.) Here's how it works: every so often, we post a bunch of works -- photos, paintings, sketches, animations -- by a different student artist, along with a wee bit of commentary. We're looking for stuff that's somehow surprising, arresting, confrontational -- in other words, stuff that will hold our ADD-infected readership's attention.

Our goal: to help artists reach a wider audience than their cluster of sweetly deceitful boosters, all while living out our wildest curatorial fantasies. It obviously depends on your submissions, so e-mail us your stuff at the usual.

Technical crap: Send sane-sized previews in advance of hi-res. Any medium is fine, as long as it works in our 2-D format. Understand we have a post width of 500 pixels (which can be linked to bigger files). We're pretty flex on who qualifies -- undergrad, grad, recent grad, pre-frosh, etc, I mean, what is art anyway, man?

February 21, 2007 11:16 AM by Chris Beam | Link | Comments (4) | Read more: IvyGate Galleries

Boy, has Borat fatigue sunk in deep. So deep, people are even getting fatigued by the fatigue. As far as we're concerned, Borat has gone the way of Dr. Evil, from universally imitated to comedic third rail.

So if this video feels a little dated, apologies. It was apparently screened at a holiday party for Princeton's molecular biology department.  The host, Dave Markowitz, is a grad student with a research interest in "automated 3D reconstruction of neuronal ultrastructure and connectivity from high-resolution serial imaging data." That he manages to do all that and grow a moustache like the one in the video is just impressive. Unfortunately, that's where his resemblance to Sacha Baron Cohen ends.

Did he really go eight minutes talking about molecular biology without any inbreeding jokes?

February 20, 2007 2:30 PM by Chris Beam | Link | Comments (2) | Read more: Princeton , YouTube

We always like hearing from readers, but this one takes the cake. Cake made in a dorm kitchen that Brown kids have recently had sex in.

It started when we posted an item Friday about freshman Brunonians' forniculinary use of hall common space. Within hours we heard from commenter "railedinthekitchen," laying claim that she had been the co-ed who put the "easy" in Easy Mac. That was quickly followed by "friendofrailedinthekitchen," who wrote: "i am sitting next to railedinthekitchen as i type this and I LOVE IT!!! well done. to think i was sleeping only feet away as this happened." This was the Mount Everest of IvyGate commenting as far as we were concerned -- and that was BEFORE "familypride" joined the thread, informing everyone that railedinthekitchen had "a proud sissy in upstate New York." (Somewhere, a father with one daughter at Brown and another upstate is breaking into a cold sweat.)

But friends, that was nothing compared to the email thread playing out in our inbox -- railedinthekitchen had, praise Josiah Carberry, included an actual address with her claim to infamy, and she indulged our OMG-peppered inquiries. Here is her personal account of the melon balling.

arright here's the scoop:

no it was not my boyfriend.  it was some random guy who i've been calling Ben for two weeks because i can never remember his actual name.  it was last saturday night... well technically sunday morning and yeah, obviously, it was good for me.  basically what happened is a bunch of people were chilling in my room and my roommate whom i love and adore kicked me out so we were wreaking havoc in the hallway and were scolded by our RC.  So we were switching locations and somehow me and Guy went to the kitchen to hook up because, let's face it, bathroom hookups are so last semester.  and at some point a girl who lives next to me walked in and was like OH MY GOD and ran into the hallway and announced it.  and after that the rumors spread around to the RC's who apparently decided to take action via email.  and yeah, i know you're wondering... we did keep going after the girl walked in.  and that email includes the longest run-on sentence ever.

And here we thought Emeril was the only one who went "Bam!" in the kitchen.

February 20, 2007 12:19 PM by Nick Summers | Link | Comments (5) | Read more: Brown , Dorm life , Sex , gawker

• 
• Brown: New album from Sun Zoo, white rapper straight outta Avon, CT. [BDH]
  
• Columbia: How one writer got an assignment, got wild, and learned to pole dance. [Spec]
  
• Cornell: Hate crime stabbings: A retrospective. [Sun]
• Cornell: Wikipedia does not a primary source make. [Sun]
• Harvard: Why Hahvahd kids should tawk like they're in Good Will Hunting. [Crimson]
• Harvard: Exploding Chinatown buses still popular for commuters. [Crimson]
  
• Penn: Check it out: they cut out a guy's heart. [DP]

February 20, 2007 8:44 AM by Chris Beam | Link | Comment | Read more: Brown , Columbia , Cornell , Harvard , Penn , RagTime

If the mailman can take the day off, so can we. But in the holiday spirit, we wanted to share with you this totally Ivy-irrelevant video. If you haven't seen it before, expect to spend the rest of the day watching it on repeat. If you're a history prof, please add it to the syllabus.

February 19, 2007 12:16 PM by Chris Beam | Link | Comments (6) | Read more: IvyGate , YouTube

We have a confession to make. We have a crush. Hint: she's a blogger. (No surprise there.) Double-hint: she's has a sex column. (Definitely no surprise.) But, sex blogging aside, she's been producing some of the most consistently hilarious, smart, playful, insightful, world-rocking, superlative-inducing (Jesus, look at us) articles we've seen among college publications. Ever. This stuff isn't just chuckle funny. It's slam-your-roommate's- head-through-a-window funny. It's not transcendental and it won't change your life. But it will make you want to jump in the air, e-mail all your friends, and dedicate the rest of your days to figuring out who the hell this anonymous wordsmith is.

OK, we're getting ahead of ourselves. The column is called The Belle Jar, and it runs on Columbia's peerless Bwog. (Disclosure: half of us used to work for Bwog's parent rag, The Blue and White.) So far the author -- female, gay, anonymous -- has written only three pieces, but they're each worth a close read. She tends toward the Linnaean (See? We feel like undergrads again), categorizing and sub-categorizing Columbia students. So far she's kept it simple: an introduction, a cross-section of Columbia's single scene, and, special for V-Day, a breakdown of relationships by type. You owe it to yourself to read them all. But for the attention-challenged, here are some snippets:

Continue reading "We Have a Crush on a Talented Lesbian Sex Blogger" »

February 16, 2007 5:48 PM by Chris Beam | Link | Comments (30) | Read more: Columbia , Sex , gawker , sex columns

• Brown: Providence's ho's fo sho: a retrospective [Herald]
  
• Dartmouth: Alcohol wins War on Alcohol* [The D]
• Harvard: National Association of Scholars concerned that female president at Harvard may hire females [Crimson]
• Harvard: Scarlett Johansson ohmigodohmigod!! [Crimson]
• Princeton: Mo' Pell Grants, mo' problems [Prince]
• Yale: Judge buys UMass prof's argument that he wants to grow pot for research purposes [YDN]
  

February 16, 2007 4:16 PM by RagTime | Link | Comments (1) | Read more: Brown , Dartmouth , Harvard , Princeton , RagTime , Yale

Ivy Leaguers: Is there anywhere they won't have sex?

Students at Brown, unimpressed by the rigid conventions of Yalies' recent fondness for romps in the hall showers, have taken the exhibitionist tack to creative new locations: the kitchens of freshman dorm Perkins. We've said it before and we'll say it again: this is what happens when you let kids design their own curricula.

Here's the stern email from a beleaguered grad student in (bless you, Brown) ethnomusicology. It doesn't explicitly mention sex, but our tipster notes that an RA would be unlikely to encourage smoking pot in "your room with the door shut, at the discretion of your roommate" -- plus, that second helpful link goes to Brown's page on healthy relationships, preventing STDs (tip: avoid sinks), etc.

Can't wait to see where exasperated academics scold students for having semipublic sex next!

From: First-year Residential Unit XX List
Sent: Thu 2/15/2007 4:05 PM
To: [redacted]
Subject: Perkins wide memo

Dear Perkinsonians,
I have been made aware that there has been some activity taking place in Perkins' kitchens that is inappropriate for public spaces. Not only does this negatively affect the comfort of our community, but it is also a hygiene and safety concern.  An appropriate place for certain activities would be your room with the door shut, at the discretion of your roommate.  Those who disrespect the community and the public spaces within it will be brought to the attention of administration.

For those with questions or concerns regarding health and safety issues, please refer to the Health Services and Health Education websites, links are below.  The Health Education site offers some good advice on a wide array of topics.

Health Services http://www.brown.edu/Student_Services/Health_Services/index.htm
Health Education http://www.brown.edu/Student_Services/Health_Services/Health_Education/

Best,

[redacted]
Graduate Student, Ethnomusicology
Community Director, Perkins 22
Brown University

February 16, 2007 10:35 AM by Nick Summers | Link | Comments (17) | Read more: Brown , Dorm life , Sex , Yale , gawker

Say you're a world-class institution whose public image has been badly damaged in the past year. It's time to restore your reputation as a haven of knowledge and scholarship, a destination for respected lecturers the world over. Who would be on your guest list? 

Um.

For reasons that remain deeply baffling, Duke University has invited us to talk to a group of students about blogging and new media. More ridiculous, they're flying us down and putting us up here. Frankly, it's the best argument we've ever heard against huge university endowments; we'll be handing out tuition refunds on frathouse porches when we head south on Feb. 24.

Just to make it loud and clear that our coverage can be bought and sold (Stanford! Universidad de Cancun! You listening?), we asked two Duke guys to explain what makes their school tick, and why IvyGate readers should care.

"Excuse me? Could you please get your God-damned hands off Duke's God-damned fully equipped 2007 Escalade?"

Ah, Duke: Often called the last exit on the New Jersey Turnpike, but with racial politics reminiscent of the first stop on the Underground Railroad, Duke is a study in country-fried contradiction. Like their spray-on tans, students walk around with an Ivy inferiority complex you can almost touch -- matched only by a funner-than-thou conviction that dare not be questioned. Steel your Ivy egos, kids: most Duke students actually did apply here as a first choice, and aren't using the school as an Ivy fallback.

Much of that is due to the fact that among the elite schools, Duke truly has one of the best social scenes. And by that I mean one of the most dangerous. This is not a laid-back place. In recent years, thanks to a heavy-handed crackdown on frats, the scene has shifted from kegs on the quad to dorm-hallway bottle shots to closed-door coke parties to tacky New South off-campus bars to sleazy off-campus houses to inevitable five-alarm national media crises.

There's no equivalent to Skull and Bones at Duke; our one secret society is, like, 40 years old. There's no Hasty Pudding, passing its grads along to Julliard ever year. Duke -- because of its youth and location -- is a place for people who aren't tapped into the ultra-premiere pipelines of the elite, but want to be. Hence the overwhelming hordes of "outer-outer borough" types from Long Island, Pennsylvania and Jersey crowding out the once-dominant Southern bloc. Hence the Escalades and tricked-out Beamers. Hence the all-consuming basketball worship and its implications of wealth redistribution. Also: birthplace of postmodernism. That's probably not even true but fuck it, nothing's more Duke than claiming to be the absolute first, best, biggest, whatever, even in the face of reasonable arguments to the contrary.

Duke is a place still unleavened by the WASPy pretensions of "subtlety" and "taste." Think of us as your wealthy country cousin who remains unaware that her antidepressants are not dinner-table conversation. We're Penn with a mastopexy; Dartmouth rolling on Sprewells; and Princeton rubbing your purple tracksuit and wondering aloud: "Is that velour?"

The national media has already pointed out, ad nauseum, how Duke can be tacky and classy at the same time. And that was before the lacrosse scandal. More on that later. For now, raise some SoCo to the enormous gothic phallus us Dukies live under for four hot years.

February 15, 2007 4:41 PM by Nick Summers | Link | Comments (36) | Read more: Duke , field trip

If you read this blog with any regularity, you know it's been a constant struggle to criticize 02138, a magazine we know we should hate but somehow, inexplicably (well, sometimes explicably), can't. What we can say, thanks to this spectacular item from Boston's Weekly Dig, is that 1) 02138 is not a happy place to be right now, and 2) it will be moving its unhappy ass to the unhappiness capital of the world: Manhattan.

The real juice, though, is on the editorial end. Dig invokes the "world of carnage" that is the magazine's masthead, which has already lost two executive editors and an editorial director, with a managing editor and two editors-at-large soon to peace. The strategy, a source tells them, "is to make it so ridiculously unhospitable that people quit -- they’re never fired."

Dig's coup of coups is a leaked editorial memo outlining ways to bring in more advertising without compromising editorial autonomy. Among those uncompromising ideas:

“Make as many photo shoots as possible fashion shoots. Let subjects know that readers will be very interested in their fashion, jewelry, accessory choices or, preferably, dress them. Whether or not we dress them, clothes should be credited. Next list [of influential Harvardians?—Ed.] should be shot this way.”

“Profiles through the lens of certain products: The last five electronics gadgets Jim Fallows bought to stay in touch from China, whats in Meg Whitmans briefcase as far as electronic devices, what are the last 10 wines Jen Rubell served at dinner parties; what is on Marisa Noel Browns holiday gift list, Darren Aronofskys ten rules for flying on his private jet.”

And then this apocalyptic vision:

“Cover a ridiculous or interesting wedding, first birthday party, retirement party or funeral in every issue. Offer alums incentives to alert us to such events (02138 onesies for new legacy babies)”

Is it our birthday? Feels like it. Thanks, Dig.

February 15, 2007 9:56 AM by Chris Beam | Link | Comment | Read more: 02138 , Harvard , omg

• 
• Brown: Herald calls bullshit on official explanation for academic intrigue [Herald]
  
• Columbia: Critical patisserie shortage allayed [Spec]
• Columbia: God damn it, like the commenters need another excuse to break out the "your school sucks" lines, whatever, here you go [Spec]
• Harvard: Also-ran Kagan says "Whatevs," breaks down sobbing [Crimson]
  
• Penn: DP investigation reveals grad student who tried to kill downstairs neighbors / international spies is crazy [DP]
• Penn/Princeton: Tigers coach Joe Scott works his magic as Princeton puts up feeblest effort against Penn since 1972 [DP]
• Princeton: Fake NYT reporter mystery solved! [Prince]

February 14, 2007 8:11 PM by Nick Summers | Link | Comments (16) | Read more: Brown , Columbia , Harvard , Penn , Princeton , RagTime

Just when we thought the "[object]-in-a-box" cultural phenomenon had breathed its last, here come the EMTs from Yale to blow another gust into its collapsed lungs. This time the object in question is the Senior Class Gift, a donation pool that "goes directly to fill gaps in financial aid, student life (club sports), facilities (renovations), faculty and curriculum development (international fellowships), etc," according to a class-wide e-mail sent out Monday.

Included in the e-mail was a link to this desperate plea:

These guys -- Dave Grisold '07 and Mike Rucker '07 -- will never be confused for troubadors. They probably would have been a lot better off pulling a Bunny and lip-syncing over a Whiffenpoof rendition. But for every clashing harmony, forced baritone, and tone-deaf falsetto, there's some Yalie out there who will give money for the sole reason that these guys made this movie. So propers for the philanthropy. But please -- let's all just close the box, seal it with duct tape, wrap it in chains, and hurl it into the gaping void from whence it came.

February 14, 2007 3:36 PM by Chris Beam | Link | Comments (11) | Read more: Yale , YouTube

A reader alerts us to a shocking piece in last week's Yale Daily News, headlined "Elm City Attracts Yuppies":

To the average Yale student, New Haven may be just another small college town. But to some Connecticut residents, New Haven’s downtown has established itself as a “hip spot” that increasingly draws the state’s young people with fine dining and unique boutiques.

This revitalized downtown has caught the attention of young professionals who want to live in a city with an affordable but high quality of life, according to some city officials. But as more professionals have moved into the city, many original residents have been priced out of living in New Haven. 

Wha? We haven't been to New Haven in nine months, but we were under the impression it was still basically the city from "Gears of War." This is, after all, the city that kicked off Back to School week with a West Nile Virus pandemic, and whose most venereable institutions (no typo) include Toad's. New Haven's crapitude is one of our geographic tenets, like Hanover's polar isolation, or how people in West Philadelphia have mustaches. Why -- if the Elm City is somehow on the upswing, we'll have to reevaluate everything.

Better click on over to the New Haven Register for some more familiar headlines. Let's see: manslaughter, no ... 50-year murder sentence, getting warmer ... OK, yep, Boy, 7, May Have Distributed Crack Cocaine to Classmates, that should do it.

February 14, 2007 11:30 AM by Nick Summers | Link | Comments (32) | Read more: Yale , new haven

Courtesy of a reader in Hanover, this is a picture of a gigantic snow sculpture. It has something to do with this. We share it in fulfillment of our policy regarding enormous things we get photographs of.

Please do not inundate our mailbox with pics of Harvard snow penises. 

February 13, 2007 6:23 PM by Nick Summers | Link | Comments (24) | Read more: Dartmouth

Tragic news from the Dirty: the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research laboratory -- better known as PEAR, best known as those crazies who think telekinesis exists and we are all X-Men -- is shutting down. For 28 years, the lab conducted research on ESP and the like, all to the media's delight and the scientific community's unending ridicule. What's most shocking isn't PEAR's closing but that it remained open for so long. Here's why, via the New York Times:

In one of PEAR’s standard experiments, the study participant would sit in front of an electronic box the size of a toaster oven, which flashed a random series of numbers just above and just below 100. Staff members instructed the person to simply “think high” or “think low” and watch the display. After thousands of repetitions — the equivalent of coin flips — the researchers looked for differences between the machine’s output and random chance.

Analyzing data from such trials, the PEAR team concluded that people could alter the behavior of these machines very slightly, changing about 2 or 3 flips out of 10,000. If the human mind could alter the behavior of such a machine, Dr. Jahn argued, then thought could bring about changes in many other areas of life — helping to heal disease, for instance, in oneself and others.

Absurd as it is, there's something oddly touching about top-flight scientists convinced "the truth is out there,"  working their asses off to one day make mind bullets a reality. Scientific progress can be such a buzzkill.

February 13, 2007 2:15 PM by Chris Beam | Link | Comments (1) | Read more: Princeton