When I was trying to decide which “New Yorker Festival” events to cover, the “American Dream” discussion between Jeffrey Eugenides, Jhumpa Lahiri and T.C. Boyle caught my eye. Why, you ask? Primarily because its panelists have Ivy ties, making this post marginally relevant to the topic of the blog. Also, the Ivy League and the American Dream seem to be somehow linked. At least, after spending so much money and emerging with no practical skills, I hope they are.

This discussion took place in what I think was a church on the Lower East Side. Young and old New Yorker fans packed the room to capacity. In fact, there were people standing in line outside the building (this made me feel bad about nodding off a few times during the discussion. But whatever–I was tired.) The moderator, a British guy who probably works for the New Yorker, opened with a joke about how incongruous it was for a British guy to moderate a discussion about the American Dream.

And then the panelists started talking.

Boyle on social mobility:

If the ‘American Dream’ is about about social mobility, I am its exemplar.

Boyle, working-class son and author of World’s End and other award-winning books, modestly admits it wasn’t until he was a junior in college that he “blundered into a creative writing class.”

London-born Lahiri, Barnard ’89, on America:

It’s taken me my entire life to understand and accept that I’m an American.

Lahiri explains that Indians are more exotic in America than in Britain, where they are part of “the fabric of the culture.”

After the jump, Jeff Eugenides, Brown ’83, tells us greed is good and Boyle tells us his pet name for his wife. Read the rest of this entry »

When my intrepid co-editor and I set out to cover the New Yorker Dance Party at the Hiro Ballroom, we weren’t sure what to expect. Young literati getting drunk? Old literati getting drunk? Some dancing? As it turned out, it was all of these things. And by all of these things, I mean it was mostly professionals in their late 20s to early 30s talking and grinding. There was also a German and a few people from Utah. See if you can spot the German.

Read the rest of this entry »

As we’ve mentioned a couple of times, this past weekend’s New Yorker Festival played host to a debate between staff writers Malcolm Gladwell and Adam Gopnik, entitled “Resolved: The Ivy League Should Be Abolished.” Gladwell, arguing the pro to Gopnik’s con, apparently had more input in the naming process.

The two — Gladwell, the frisky Skeletor, and Gopnik, the gentle francophile — dedicated an hour or so Saturday evening to this delightful repartee. They neared blows a few times, most notably when Gladwell suggested that the Ivy League wouldn’t accept Gopnik for being “short with big ears.” Hot-shit Columbia professor/raving British lunatic Simon Schama chaired the debate, however, and a few unhinged slams of his gavel usually kept the debaters at bay.

A brief recap of each participant’s main points:

• Malcolm Gladwell: The author of Blink and The Tipping Point employed a strategy Gopnik best described as “grabbing numbers out of his ass.” Gladwell started by criticizing the criteria Harvard, Yale and Princeton (HYP) — importantly, he only discussed these three as they are “indicative” of the Ivy League he wants abolished — use in admissions, focusing particularly on the “personal qualities” category that admissions officers developed in the ’20s to keep out an excess of Jews. And, he asked, since the Ivy League “helps define what merit is,” are we comfortable with their assumptions, or “are we better if we start over?” He then challenged the notion of the Ivy League as an engine of social mobility by throwing out statistics on HYP that suggest they do relatively little in the way of recruiting lower-class students. In his closing argument, he argued that class mobility in the United States is shamefully rigid these days, and the Ivy League’s elitism embolizes how the country is “in the midst of building itself an aristocracy.” Thus, the kicker: “We would be a better nation without Harvard, Princeton or Yale.” Well, when you put it that way…
• Adam Gopnik: Stately, plump svelte Adam Gopnik leapt into the battlefield by noting how European countries do everything better than us except higher education. He then questioned the effectiveness of killing HYP as a panacea for America’s woes with this well rehearsed lulu: “Wanting to abolish the Ivy League to solve the problem of American inequality is like wanting to abolish the NBA to solve the problem of American obesity.” He repeatedly tried to score New York City approval points by comparing Gladwell’s bent on university-destruction to George W. Bush’s foreign policy, with HYP being the new “Axis of Evil” and a post-HYP world being, presumably, the academe’s Sadr City. He praises Ivy League schools for pooling intellectually curious minds together and noted that Gladwell is “committed to destroying excellence wherever it’s concentrated.” The Gop also gave props to the excellent tradition of private American research facilities. Basically, the guy said that reforming class-restrictive aspects of the Ivy League is a better plan than doing away with it altogether.

At the end of the debate, Schama took a break from shouting inaudible British babble and held a quick audience poll to determine the winner. Gopnik won, according to Schama’s rough hand count. It looked pretty even to me; then again, I was sitting in an upper right balcony corner after showing up 15 minutes late, like any responsible “reporter.”

BUT NOW THE FUN PART! IvyGate was granted an exclusive post-game interview with Gladwell and Gopnik in the venue’s green room, the transcript of which comes after the jump. Read up — there’s a good chance we came to fisticuffs!

Read the rest of this entry »

And that editor is me. To the relief of most of you, I’m stepping down from my short-lived stint as an IvyGate 2.0 editor next week after accepting a new bloggy job that, you know, pays an income. I will maintain a loosely defined contributing editor’s role, meaning I won’t do shit but reserve the right to troll the tipbox for hilarious Spectator articles to make fun of every so often. Hal and Jacob will fill you in on however they plan to fill this tragic, heartbreaking loss, once they’ve stopped sobbing.

On another note, I’ll be embarking on my first and presumably last IvyGate road trip this weekend to cover the “Kill the Ivy League” thing at the New Yorker Festival. So if you’re going to either that or the Sasha Frere-Jones-hosted, Diplo-laced dance party this weekend, come and say hi! I have red hair, but no touchy.

XOXO,

Jim

When we came across (via Gawker) Rose Jacob’s article about lit festivals in yesterday’s Village Voice, we were surprised for two reasons. First, that we were reading the Village Voice, and second by the harsh words Jacobs had for the New Yorker Festival:

“…the New Yorker Festival is the ultimate insiders’ game. New Yorker editors interview New Yorker writers; the subjects of New Yorker profiles debate the subjects of New Yorker editorials; and New Yorker readers are granted the honor of listening in on it all-an audiovisual review of what they’ve read in The New Yorker over the past year.”

An insider’s game? Endless networking? A narcissistic bubble of privilege and entitlement? An echo-chamber for the self-satisfied few? Maybe the Ivy League and New Yorker have more in common than they realize (besides 3/4 of their masthead).

So what’s with the Ivy hate, Eustace?

A dance party hosted by Sasha Frere-Jones? A tour of Chinatown led by Calvin Trillin? An “Evening with” Sigur Ros? These things could only be happening at the New Yorker Festival — a magical weekend in October where quasi-celebrities like Jonathan Safran-Foer exchange witticisms and host whimsical yet edifying events.

But then there’s this:

THE NEW YORKER DEBATE
Resolved: The Ivy League Should Be Abolished
With Malcolm Gladwell and Adam Gopnik. Chaired by Simon Schama.
8 P.M. New York Society for Ethical Culture ($20)

Of course, who better to rend the vicious coils of elitism than the ink-stained class-warriors of the New Yorker? Who else has labored in unceasing antagonism to every form of snobbery, turning its monocle of social justice upon the outrages of the patrician class? Who else knows the streets because they’ve lived the streets? Fearless men of steel with names like McGrath, Paumgarten, and Denby.

(New Yorker Festival Schedule)

…more to come…