Yale’s famed coffee shop, The Yankee Doodle, unexpectedly shut its doors on Monday, leaving nostalgic Yalies confused, angry, and ready to write thousands of words to one another about how much they loved this restaurant that they don’t actually seem to frequent anymore. The “Doodle” – which actually sounds like a pretty neat place, a 280 square foot hole-in-the-wall with twelve stools and some skillets – shut its doors because the Beckwith family, which has owned it for over fifty-seven years (I can totally imagine Franny or Seymour hanging out there!) could no longer pay the rent.

But the Yale community isn’t letting this piece of history go gently into the night. Not since, well, not since last week when Zeta Psi did some very stupid things have we seen such an outcry in the pages of the Yale Daily News.

The over-the-top coverage has been nothing short of extraordinary: there have been columns, eulogies, and yes, even a poem (and it’s not “Yankee Doodle Went To Town”).

A sample:

[That era] went riding out of town yesterday with Yankee Doodle. And all that may be left are the reflections.”

Annette Walton, the Flower Lady, who spends her days on the intersection at which Yankee Doodle made its mark for 58 years, took the news particularly hard… “Oh my god, oh my god. I would have given them some flowers or something if I knew. I would have given them some flowers.”

An excerpt from the poem by YDN “Guest Poet” Mark J. Schenker:

I just can’t get it through my noodle:/ Someone up and yanked The Doodle! / I write as one who found it dandy:/ The food was good, and fast, and handy."

According to the YDN, owner Richard Beckwith has received “thousands of e-mails and phone calls in support of the Doodle” (thousands, YDN? Really?).

But not so fast! The Doodle might not be going anywhere, not just yet… After the jump: the Doodle’s planned resurrection.

Continue reading "Coffee Shop Closes, Yalies Go Batshit Crazy" »

January 31, 2008 1:14 PM by Jacob Savage | Link | Comments (16) | Read more:

Looking to fill the void in your voyeuristic reading routine now that Sex and the Ivy is gone? The Cornell Sun would like you to meet "Jenna B.," their anonymous biweekly sex columnist:

Twentyish dudes ago ... my first sexual endeavor concluded with a condom floating around lost inside my body for two days.

Thinking back to the glorious moment when the rubbery, slimy souvenir surfaced from the murky depths of my vag a couple of mornings after the incident (putting a stop to the nightmares in which I gave birth to a baby who had this condom growing out of its face in place of a nose), I wish I’d had the presence of mind to throw the thing in a jar and save it. ... On second thought, I’m glad I didn’t save it; it was kind of stinky.

Is that even possible? Superhuman physical feats aside, Jenna B. has hopped on the latest of Ivy daily trends: Uncomfortably vivid and rhapsodically grotesque descriptions of vaginas. You could make a whole college tour out of various campuses' vagina metaphors of choice! Yale likes its pie served with papayas, while Dartmouth dines on sugarbush, and Cornell... well...

Continue reading ""Murky Depths of My Vag": Jenna B. is the new Lena Chen, but anonymous and extra-icky" »

January 31, 2008 10:01 AM by Maureen O'Connor | Link | Comments (15) | Read more: Cornell , Cornell Daily Sun , Jenna B.

• Penn: Is AlliedBarton even screening these people? Maureen Rush says yes, but the results say no.
• Yale: Christianarchisti, this one goes out to you.
• Brown: Award for Best Headline Pun of the Day
• Columbia: Many platitudes for new Barnard prez. Yawn.
  
• Cornell: Midwestern girl confused by slang, marvels at "advent of Facebook." What is this, a panel of Family Circus?
• Harvard: Does this Harvard hoodie make me look like a douche? Yeah? Dammit.
  

January 31, 2008 9:15 AM by Maureen O'Connor | Link | Comments (11) | Read more: RagTime

• 
• Brown: Well fuck you too, MPAA.
• Columbia: "Columbia by all rights ought to be a great, world-renowned institution, yet it continually settles for mere excellence."
  
• Cornell: Some financial-aid envy.
  
• Dartmouth: "Any new chapter of the fraternity must participate in a “Men of Principle” program and sign a pledge that the chapter’s physical plant will be alcohol-free." John Belushi is spinning in his grave.
  
• Penn: "It was really high energy, everyone was really excited to welcome the new class," said College junior and president of Delta Delta Delta Rebecca Feldman. "Each girl had a sister waiting with a poster with her name on it." OMG YAY!
• Yale: The U.S. Senate wants to fuck Yale up.
  

January 28, 2008 12:43 PM by Jacob Savage | Link | Comments (36) | Read more:

IvyGate has learned that Penn's 2008 Commencement speaker will be none other than American presidential candidate Barack Obama. Yay Barack Obama! What a perfect choice.

Haha just kidding. Rumor has it that it's actually teevee's Emeril Lagasse, the raging boozehound chef who has like eight shows on the Food Network. Surely the Penn kids won't whine over this one, just like they didn't when famous actress Jodie Foster spoke in 2006. Way to flex those muscles, Penn!

Oof. Sucks to be you, Penn seniors, if this is the case. Bear in mind, however, that he's still better than the 2007 speaker, James Baker, who was a Republican.

UPDATE: The Daily Pennsylvanian, after IvyGate initially posted the rumor of Emeril Lagasse shortly before 1 a.m. Monday morning (Sunday night? Meh), followed our lead and today reported that the rumor was, in fact, a hoax. Whoever was behind this hoax does not have a great sense of humor, since Emeril Lagasse carries about the same level of celebrity and renown for which Penn will ultimately shell out in its upcoming selection.

Several hours after IvyGate posted the rumor -- as characterized by use of the word "rumor" -- the DP posted the rumor on its website, at the same time rightly indicating that their staunch ethics code puts them above the publishing of these kinds of "rumors": "However, even though IvyGate reported it, you won’t see a story with that news in today’s DP. When we hear about important events, we make sure the news is credible and seek confirmation before rushing to print." For those that haven't worked at a newspaper, this is, indeed, how our beloved institution of investigative print journalism functions, and oftentimes thrives.

After slogging through the muck for truth today, the DP confirmed with the school that Emeril Lagasse has not been selected as Commencement speaker. The DP was sweet enough to mention that dear old IvyGate reported the rumor first, and bless their kindly young souls for the shoutout. They did, however, err in noting that IvyGate had reported the story "as fact," which, again, contradicts IvyGate's use of the word "rumor."

Nice teamwork, DP! We report, You... go and do newspapery things with it.

January 28, 2008 12:52 AM by Jim Newell | Link | Comments (19) | Read more: Penn , commencement speakers , emeril lagasse

Adam Solomon (Y '10), "Co-President of the Committe for Freedom," passes on to us photographic evidence of the work of a gang of debonair vigilantes. Here's the backstory.

After the jump -- more pictures!

Continue reading "Last Post on "We Love Yale Sluts"-gate...We Promise" »

January 27, 2008 3:41 PM by Hal Parker | Link | Comments (41) | Read more: Yale , frats , inexplicably, burke , redemption of the male sex

• Cornell: Cornell's mascot: "Big Red Bear" who enjoys wearing a "myriad of outfits." Yeah.
  
• Dartmouth: Ours is a lost generation.
  
• Harvard: A picture of Charlize Theron is worth a thousand words about some lame Harvard tradtion.
  
• Penn: Isn't this like the plot of How High?
  
• Yale: Yale is fat. Is not, charges letter-writer.
  

January 26, 2008 12:23 AM by Hal Parker | Link | Comments (12) | Read more: RagTime

It looks like massive crime waves aren’t all that Penn has going for it. Touché! Somehow, someway, Penn is sending two of its own to compete in this Saturday’s Ms. Ameirica pageant (to be shown, bizarrely, on TLC): Rachel Brooks, a Masters candidate at Penn’s School of Government, and Lindsay Casmaer, '05.

Because I'm sure you're dying to know, here's the scoop: Rachel Brooks earned a Bachelor of Science degree from West Chester University and won Ms. Pennsylvania under the platform Autism Awareness: Unlocking the Mystery. She’s been busy making appearances around the state, etc. etc. But enough from me; here’s some Rachel on Rachel:

In addition to working with Susan on my talent I have been working out with my trainer AJ to get ready for swimsuit. I’ve never been pushed so hard in my life. He’s tough but good. Not only have I seen terrific changes in my body but I also feel stronger than ever. It honestly believe that I am in better shape now at almost 25, then when I was in dance company as a teenager. Thanks AJ! Working out is really helping me keep up my stamina, especially for all of the shopping trips I have take with Marlene.

After the jump: MORE PICTURES, and some Lindsay on Lindsay.

Continue reading "Ivy League to Win Ms. America, Maybe" »

January 25, 2008 4:30 PM by Jacob Savage | Link | Comments (14) | Read more:

WE LOVE YALE SLUTS-gate rumbles on. The Zeta Psi pledge photographed holding the sign, Giovanni Christodoulou '11, chooses a unique defense:

"I never even read the sign," Christodoulou, a wide receiver and defensive back for the Yale football team, said in the interview. "They gave me the sign, and I held it up."

Of all excuses, this has to be the one we least saw coming. Rumor has it the football star is also in trouble for wearing his team jacket during the misadventure, though we find it hard to believe anything on his body is more problematic than that bandana. Then again, it would suck to have bad hair in the one picture that gets you on the cover of the school newspaper and blasted across a zillion blogs, so we understand the dilemma.

January 24, 2008 9:53 PM by Maureen O'Connor | Link | Comments (31) | Read more: Yale , frats

A brief discontinuity in the IvyGate continuum: Around 2PM yesterday our post on papayagina abortion went dead, following Yale Daily News' removal of an online article about a pro-choice event where, among other things, students simulated abortions on papayas. YDN's explanation:

Out of concern for Rasha Khoury, whose quoted comments were being dangerously misinterpreted throughout the blogosphere, we removed the story yesterday afternoon from YaleDailyNews.com

Leave it to pro-lifers to get all dangerous with misinterpretation. (Does Francisco Nava have a blog?) Of course, YDN's removal of the story is slightly futile, since copies of the original are already circulating right-wing blogs. We also have a feeling the Eric Rudolphs of the world aren't the type to check facts. Khoury (Med '08) writes in today's YDN that the papayabortions were "to practice and demystify, not trivialize, the procedure."

Oddly, the trivializing forces of L'Affair Papaya are mostly on the other side. Dawn Eden, author of Thrill of the Chaste, hosted a contest to rewrite Yale's anthem "for all those liberal arts students ... about to learn how to suction a live baby out of the womb," a clear homage to conservative Clinton Taylor's "Taliban Boolah Boolah" fight song.

Continue reading "Pro-Lifers Protect Papaya Seeds' Right to Life" »

January 24, 2008 4:11 AM by Maureen O'Connor | Link | Comments (16) | Read more: Yale , Yale Daily News

Two days ago the New York Times reported the arrest of a virulently anti-semitic Brooklynite with a weapons cache "including pipe bombs, crossbows, guns and silencers." Horrified but removed enough from the event to avoid excessive distress, we remained unaware of the Ivy League connection until we saw New York Daily News' coverage. Headline: Bomb-making factory found in apartment of Columbia Professor.

Michael Clatts is an associate professor at Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health and specializes in epidemiology -- i.e. the spread of infectious disease, a pretty damning field of study for a guy living in a terrorist den. Clatts was out of the building when his roommate, Ivaylo Ivanov -- a Bulgarian national who spends his free time walking the dog and packing pipe bombs into Nerf footballs -- accidentally shot his fingertip off and sought medical help from the police. Imagine their surprise when they entered his home and found a stockpile of super-terrifying weapons! Clatts' relationship with Ivanov is not yet clear. Though "Clatts once described himself and Ivanov as roommates, nothing more," residents also report that "It's not a huge apartment" and "One has to assume Michael must have seen something at one point."

Or smelled the burning gunpowder. Or been kinda weirded out by the bulletproof vest and crossbow.

Continue reading "Columbia Professor Shacking Up With Terrorist" »

January 23, 2008 5:49 PM by Maureen O'Connor | Link | Comments (19) | Read more: Columbia , crime

Many of us, starved as we are for even more unscripted television, have become fans of this writer-strike season’s breakout show, American Gladiators. Hulk Hogan, weird bodybuilders, nostalgia for the early 90’s - what else could a young man ask for? 

Still, we’ve all wondered: why can't I do that? how did the gladiators develop their superhuman strength?  Well, Ivy Leaguers, there's hope yet! The gladiatrix Fury – née Jamie Reed – is actually Cornell ‘01. Before she settled into a career of jousting contestants off ledges, Reed was a record-setting pole-vaulter for the Big Red. She even used to be a structural engineer!

There’s now at least one Ivy League alumuna/alumnus somewhere in the space-time continuum who is not an effete wimp.

Reed is 5’8”, 150 – more than enough to take me down any day of the week. She was voted “Most Likely to Be On American Gladiators” in high school, so this is like a dream come true for her. My bet is that if there’s ever an Office/American Gladiators crossover episode, she’ll beat the crap out of Andy Bernard.

January 23, 2008 5:12 PM by Jacob Savage | Link | Comments (9) | Read more: Cornell , reality , tv

Remember when the Daily Princetonian ruined kittens for an entire generation of Ivy Leaguers? Yale Daily News (and the people they write about) just did that for papayas:

Students who walked into WLH 119 on Tuesday night were greeted with models of the female pelvis complete with fallopian tubes, cervixes, vaginas — and papayas on which to perform mock abortions.

Adds unexpected context for this headline, though.

UPDATE: This post links to a Daily News article that has since been removed. Read here to find out why.

January 23, 2008 1:56 PM by Maureen O'Connor | Link | Comments (1) | Read more: Yale , Yale Daily News

• 
• Dartmouth: Zillionth round of Beta turmoil: Rerecognition unlikely from national org.
• Penn: Interactive graphics make crime fun!
  
• Harvard: Endorses Obama... and McCain
• Columbia: Wins prize for most skillful deployment of pun in headline
• Yale: Wait, is this a joke letter, or is his name actually John Loser?
  

January 23, 2008 1:14 PM by Maureen O'Connor | Link | Comments (5) | Read more: RagTime

From a single sheet of 8-and-half-by-11 to a zillion column-inches of news. Yale Daily News joins the Yale Women's Center vs. Zeta Psi cagematch a day late and with no fewer than three articles: the news story, Zeta Psi's apology, and YWC's cold, hard rejection of it. And their sports headlines might have some subliminal messaging, too.

The news story offered some interesting details on the preamble to the WE LOVE YALE SLUTS photo op:

Former Women’s Center Public Relations Coordinator Jessica Svendsen '09 said she found a group of men chanting "Dick! Dick! Dick!" in front of the Elm Street entrance to the Center... shortly before midnight last Tuesday.

This reminds me of Tom Cruise's character in Magnolia, who preaches phallocracy but it just ends up gay, because standing around with a bunch of dudes talking about penises tends to have that effect. In retrospect, I don't recall if the character was actually gay, or if that's just the way it reads because, you know, it's Tom Cruise. But if the Zetas were Tom Cruise in Magnolia, they probably wouldn't have published these groveling words:

Continue reading "Unforgiving Women's Center Gives Zeta Psi Apology-Blueballs" »

January 22, 2008 4:51 PM by Maureen O'Connor | Link | Comments (26) | Read more: Yale , frats

In yet another case of a university declaring an emergency when there truly is none (and not, say, for something a little more substantive, like having a certifiably insane person still wandering around campus), we bring you this email from Rebecca Graves-Bayazitoglu, the Dean of Whitman College.

Subject: MUG EMERGENCY!!!

Whitmanites, PLEASE RETURN ALL WHITMAN MUGS TO THE DINING HALL. The stock is dangerously low, and they will not be replaced.

No questions asked."

January 22, 2008 3:22 PM by Jacob Savage | Link | Comments (15) | Read more:

• Columbia: Barnard still pretending someone out there actually wants to be president of Barnard.
• Dartmouth: The most boring article you will ever read about sorority rush.
• Cornell: "Next month, when you find yourself interviewing at a Canadian I-banking firm because the American dollar has tanked, you can thank me."
• Harvard: Those Lampoon pranksters and their darned pranks!
  
• Princeton: "It's the end for us, but the beginning for you. Cherish this year. It will be gone in what will seem like no time. As for us, we look forward to becoming reacquainted with our friends and family, getting some sleep and joining the ranks of all the former 'Prince' editors who are now assiduous readers of this paper." And I look forwarding to vomiting ever-so-slightly in my mouth.
  
• Yale: Zeta Psi apologizes under durress.
  

January 22, 2008 12:30 PM by Jacob Savage | Link | Comments (4) | Read more:

Following a frat stunt picturing twelve alleged Zeta Psis with a sign reading WE LOVE YALE SLUTS by the Yale Women's Center, the Women's Center is threatening to sue. YWC publicist Valerie Steinberg ('09) was unable to provide details regarding who they are suing, and for what crime, but she confirmed that the YWC board sent the following email to its list:

From: Yale Women's Center
Date: Jan 21, 2008 10:50 AM
Subject: This Time We Sue
To: [redacted]

Dear Yale,

The photograph below was taken during a recent Yale fraternity initiation.  This is sexual harassment.  Lawyers have been consulted, and we are taking legal action.

If you are unwilling to be enrolled in a school where woman-hating is a subject of pride, email yalewomenscenter@gmail.com now.  We will keep you informed.

"WE LOVE YALE SLUTS" Uploaded to facebook.com January 16, 2008.

Sincerely,
The Yale Women's Center Board

The email included the original photo, which we provide in high resolution after the jump. No word yet from the brothers, but since Yale's Zeta Psi happens to be presidential granddaddy Prescott Bush's alma mater (frater?), we'll just assume they have secret society influence and shadowy henchmen will be descending on the YWC to hush its noisy broads up shortly.

Interestingly, Zeta Psi is among the soon-to-be-reinstated Dartmouth frats that has Hanover's proverbial panties all in a bundle.

Continue reading "Zeta Psi Pledges "Love Yale Sluts," Women's Center Pledges to Sue" »

January 21, 2008 6:12 PM by Maureen O'Connor | Link | Comments (213) | Read more: Yale , frats

• Brown: Dude finds weird box of shit in library. What is it?
• Dartmouth: "altercation between two canines....Hanover Police....East Wheelock Street....Hanover Police....Safety and Security....Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center....a male vomiting into a barrel." You know exactly where that link goes.
  
• Penn: "'I often search different intellectuals and watch their videos,' he said. "Having a site with just this would be helpful.'" Maybe one day he can read their books too.
• Princeton: Say it ain't so, Ernie -- Nava walks!
  
• Yale: Now this is just an interesting article.
  

January 19, 2008 2:58 AM by Hal Parker | Link | Comments (9) | Read more: RagTime

Enraged estrogen came to a boil yesterday when 200 angry Dartmouth ladies took to the streets of Hanover to protest sorority Alpha Xi Delta's eviction at the hands of rowdy frat Beta Theta Pi. Following decampment in 1996 for racist, homophobic, and criminally violent behavior, the Betas' history gets complicated and all, you know, Greek to me, so here's Dartmouth correspondent Ben O'Donnell with all the tawdry deets.

As any red-blooded administration-hater at Dartmouth will tell you, nine years ago the authority figures tried to take away that which is most precious to us students: our Greek houses.  The plan was jettisoned after students and alumni brought to the administration’s attention how lame ice cream socials and movie nights are, but many still harbored suspicions of an anti-Greek conspiracy.

The administration’s news a few days ago took those suspicions, poisoned them, shot them repeatedly, beat them with clubs as they attempted to stagger away in escape, and threw them into the ice-covered Neva River.  The headline in The D might have read "Awesome Frat to Return to Campus," and, indeed, some may have received the news of Beta Theta Pi’s impending reinstatement that way. 

Many students, however, have been tripping over their retro-'80s sneakers with the neon laces in their rush to condemn the administration’s decision, and I'm not just talking about the half with the two X chromosomes and sometimes questionable interpretations of the concept of "fun."  Because, of course, there's much more to this story, which has a "permanently" derecognized jock frat moving back into the house its alumni still own and kicking out the sorority that leases the house in the process.

After the jump, the Dick and Jane version of the story, in which Dick is a network of twelve hundred well-connected and deep-pocketed ex-frat boys who passed their time at Dartmouth beating up other dudes and shouting at gays, and Jane is a beleaguered sorority widely viewed on campus as pretty OK.  

Continue reading "Rowdy Dartmouth Frat Returns, Forcing Sorority's Eviction; Animal House Not Even Cited Once in This Post" »

January 18, 2008 10:07 AM by Maureen O'Connor | Link | Comments (45) | Read more: Dartmouth , frats , sorority

Last July, on the eve of the release of the seventh and final book, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," dozens of restaurants and stores in Harvard Square stayed open late and posted Harry Potter-themed specials, Tercentenary Theater hosted a three-hour concert that featured the musical stylings of Harry and the Potters, and hundreds of Harry Potter fans, many in wizard costumes, lined up outside the Coop to purchase a copy at the stroke of midnight.”

January 17, 2008 3:27 PM by Jacob Savage | Link | Comments (21) | Read more:

H-Bomb, Harvard's much-talked-about (though not as often written or read) sex mag, is back! Er, sort of.

An onslaught of Bomb-related tips have been assaulting our inbox ever since the rag's new website went live, if you count a filler backdrop and six YouTube videos as a "new website." Must be the "righteous babes" staffing the mag, double-clicking extra furiously in the name of self-promotion. The videos feature H-Bomber Jenna Mellor giggling her way through the New Hampshire primaries, interviewing "voters! candidates! and campaigners!" about sex. Highlights include Romney staffers describing the "perfect woman" as a Stepford wife-- then back-tracking and saying Anne Romney or Laura Bush-- and a brief interview with Dennis Kucinich (Q: "How has politics affected your sex life?" A: "I'm happily married.") culminating in Ms. Miller leaping into the Elf Candidate's open and sexually-liberated arms.

The result is cute and kinda entertaining, but seriously, H, where is the porn? We want confused overachievers cavorting awkwardly in their panties, stat. Because if you can't top Primal Scream, you've got nothing.

January 17, 2008 1:46 PM by Maureen O'Connor | Link | Comments (2) | Read more: Harvard , Sex , h-bomb

That's right, friends, we're up for another award: "Best Alternative News Outlet" in Paper Trail's "Best of College Newspapers 2007" contest, along with fellow Ivy League alt news providers Gadfly and Bwog. Other notable entries include some Harvard kid for "Columnist of the Year" and Columbia's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hoopla in basically every category.

Polls end when Feb begins. Click here to vote.

January 17, 2008 1:22 PM by Maureen O'Connor | Link | Comments (3) | Read more:

Every exam period we at IvyGate thank our lucky stars we do not go to Harvard, where repressed smart kids like to let loose and run nude and have sex in the streets, or something, as part of the strange ritual known as Primal Scream. But just because we don't want to see it doesn't mean we don't hear about it. IvyGate operative Alterrell Mills watched his peers frolic in their skivvies and wrote in.

Primal Scream. Smart people running wildly. Idiots frolicking in the cold. Call it what you will, but one thing that was different about this year’s merriment to mark the end of reading period and the start of exams was that it came too soon. Starting about seven minutes or so early, breaking with the traditional kick-off occurring at midnight, the first of the naked future Bill Gateses ran their glorious lap around Harvard Yard. Notable appearances for the cold-shrinking time included athletes, hairy guys, fat guys …and a surprising amount of girls! I’d put the count of females at about 30% depending on President Faust’s inclusion, a rarity for the usual pre-exam sausage fest.

Per usual, some Harvard students decide to do things "differently." Three girls, probably freshman, ran hand in hand, their intimates purple. Does purple come out with laundry detergent in those kinds of places? The highlight was when one of the girls fell and looked as if she was going to vomit, before her two naked friends lifted her back up from the ground. None of the guys running past her thought to help her, but happily ran past as the audience (yeah it was a show, the admission to get in was the shame in seeing your resident tutors observing alongside you) just laughed. The only thing to top this girl’s performance was that of a wheelchair-bound student who rolled his way around the Yard.

Continue reading "Harvard Comes Early at Primal Scream" »

January 16, 2008 2:28 PM by Maureen O'Connor | Link | Comments (10) | Read more: Harvard , primal scream

Is the Yale Daily News as pro-Hillary as it is pro-Chinese politburo? A January 14 staff editorial pokes a little too much fun at a recent Obama gaffe, implying that his message of "change" is meaningless:

While campaigning in New Hampshire, Obama’s sleepless mind was drifting when he accidentally told a crowd that “the time for come has change.” Let’s make sure we’re a little bit more careful — and, above all, alert to the direction we take in 2008.”

A concerned Obama supporter writes in:

YDN editor in chief Andrew Mangino, who writes most of the editorials, has worked for Hillary Clinton. He fails to mention this during his shameless and unjustified Obama-bashing. The spin machine keeps turning."

Way to go on full disclosure, YDN. What do you think, readers? Is YDN editor-in-chief Andrew Mangino in fact a Clinton stooge? Does anyone actually care?

January 16, 2008 12:27 PM by Jacob Savage | Link | Comments (42) | Read more:

After celebrating the 22 days of Christmas like any God-fearing Christian should do, IvyGate will return to a "normal posting schedule" today, presumably until eternity. This will include regular installments of that popular roundup feature, RagTime, parts VII-MMCCLLXVI of the Anscombe Affair, some fun about self-important Dartmouth fraternities and Mark Zuckerberg showing that devilish face of his on the teevees. Oh and YES, EVERYONE AT DARTMOUTH, we know that Larry goddamn David was at your college. You can stop e-mailing about it now. But keep e-mailing other tips because those are fun too!

Happy 2008 from the riveters at IvyGate. 

January 16, 2008 11:14 AM by Jim Newell | Link | Comments (4) | Read more: 2008 , Dartmouth , grand returns

A tipster of unimpeachable authority ("I had class with him for 3 hours a week for a term last year") passes this on:

Francisco "The Orangina Bandit" Nava is still on campus, oddly enough. He was leaving Firestone today at around 2:30. So I guess even people who beat themselves up and threaten professors get to finish their Dean's Date work.

...it raises an important question: to what lengths does one have to go to be declared 'persona non grata' (an official term used by P-safe)? I mean, he threatened peers and a professor and demonstrated himself to be mentally unstable. Is that the type of person we need on campus?

UPDATE: Spotted in Frist as well. Keep these sketchy reports coming, people. This is going to be just like Gossip Girl...but for right-wing nutjobs.

(Note: IvyGate will return to a normal posting schedule on Jan. 16) 

January 11, 2008 9:34 PM by Hal Parker | Link | Comments (21) | Read more: anscombe affair , francisco nava

A tipster writes in:

I had an Aleksey Vayner sighting in New York City.  We crossed each other in the crosswalk on the corner of 67th and Broadway. He was wearing a full 3 piece suit and the woman he was with looked as if she had just come from the costume department from a Lord of the Rings movie."

It's good to see Vayner still has "the class," as we like to say. 

January 9, 2008 12:35 PM by Jacob Savage | Link | Comments (15) | Read more:

January 8, 2008 7:50 PM by Maureen O'Connor | Link | Comments (13) | Read more: chris beam

Aleksey Vayner -- batshit megalomaniac, irrepressible fabulist, and mighty douchebag of legend -- is baaaack. And he's learned nothing. If you visit his website directly (www.alekseyvayner.com), there's nothing to see, but click the directory "test," and you're granted access to the innermost scheming of Vayner's non-existent soul. It appears to be a terrible rough draft of something possibly even more terrible.

What do you do after you become an internet phenom, subject to interweb-wide flogging and public humiliation? If you’re Vayner, you proceed as though basically nothing has happened. You insist on the genius of the “Impossible is Nothing” video by disregarding the “mockery” from the “the kids in the bloggosphere [sic]” and claiming the just fruits of “international publicity” for having “created a marketing peace [yes, that’s another sic] of himself.” 

The website's main point is ostensibly to promote Vayner's (theoretically) forthcoming book Millionaires' Blueprint to Success (remember his previously forthcoming book? His Holocaust memoir?). Suspiciously, the cover is almost an exact copy of the similarly titled Secrets of the Millionaire's Mind by T. Harv Eker. I'm sure the contents are totally different though. Is this kid retarded?

Also, a tipster notes certain design similarities between Vayner's website and Tim Ferriss's website, mutual douchebaggery aside (check out the buttons). Of course much of the website is unfinished -- "Comming soon [sic]" is plastered all over the place. Is this website fake? It could be, but we don't think so. The site's frequent and amusing deficiencies of language are consistent with Vayner's poor grasp of English. It's just over-the-top enough to be Vayner and just restrained enough to hint at lessons still unlearned. It's also registered in his name.

After the jump -- choice excerpts from Vayner's totally modest and not-obviously-made-up life-story ("Aleksey Vayner’s story is one of discipline and perseverance thought the hardships of immigration"), a damning cover comparison between Millionaires' Blueprint to Success and Secrets of the Millionaire's Mind, and a few screen-shots for good measure.

Continue reading "BREAKING NEWS: VAYNER'S BACK!" »

January 4, 2008 8:59 PM by Hal Parker | Link | Comments (51) | Read more: aleksey vayner , bete noire