...and we're back from spring break, a little sad to have missed the big news on Eliot Spitzer (P'81, HLS'84), if only so I could use that "Princeton in the Nation's Cervix" headline I've been sitting on for months. Since Spitzer's scandal and resignation have been very small stories, completely overlooked by the media, and we'll thus never have cause to revisit it, here's Eliot and Silda's 02138 cover now. The subheadline reads "See What Happens When Harvard Meets Harvard."

Other cute items worth noting:

• Whining about JuicyCampus is officially so over now that old people are writing about it and the gay Yale porn therein. How long until the ironic "we heart JC" backlash begins?
• Columbia's most well-known transman got some press, too.
• Remember when some random guy on a laptop took down the Harvard Grad School website for three days? Turns out he also stole about 10,000 people's personal data, including about 6600 SSNs. Harvard's response: "sorry for the inconvenience."
• If Jesus went to Cornell and wore a pocket protector, he'd be the newest Beauty & the Geek Ivy Leaguer, Jim.
• If Gawker : NYT :: Bwog : the Spec, then Nick Denton used to write our Ragtimes. Just call us "starmaker."
• Tony Blair is going to teach at Yale, which prompts us to wonder: Has Skull & Bones ever inducted a faculty member?

Whew. Keep the tips coming, people. We'll be here all week.

The race to be Tyra Banks' Favorite Sex Toy -- occasionally known as "America's Next Top Model" -- includes its third Ivy Leaguer this season, Cornell grad Katarzyna. I'd tell you more, but after last semester's intense reality tv coverage, I'm incapable of witnessing a video confessional without breaking into hives.

Luckily, we have a new reality tv correspondent this semester: Victoria Marshman, Yale '09 and Top Model contestant of yore! That's right, after being the object of our obsessive scrutiny last fall, Tory is crossing over to the blog side so she can obsessively scrutinize ANTM's newest Token Smart Girl. Or, as Tory says, "have an excuse to throw things at the TV again on Wednesday nights." And that, children, is the circle of life.

So check back on Thursday morning for our first Model vs. Model recap. As far as we know, this is the first time a Top Model has aimed the mighty pen back at the show! Then again, not too many ANTM contestants have been literate before.

UPDATE: Frowns all around. The CW put the kibosh on our dastardly plans, perhaps because last time Tory talked to us, we uncovered Tyra Banks' controlling side and the purposeful physical deprivation of Top Model contestants. Our Girl Tory apologizes, and so do we.

I started watching Last One Standing (streamable here) expecting the worst: Advertised as an imperialist fantasy pitting testosterone-pumped Western athletes against tribal warriors in caged death matches the world around, it seemed a little outside my ANTM schtick. But the presence of Harvard senior and Natural History major Corey Rennell necessitated IvyGate supervision. LOS turns out to be a ridiculously addictive BBC/Discovery observational documentary, featuring heartstopping sequences of Zulu stick-fighting, Mongolian wrestling, and long-distance running with the Tarahumara Indians of Mexico. Oh, and the cast is total eye candy.

After the jump: Pictures of Corey playing sports in various states of undress, and our interview, including discourse on compassion, sustainability, and anal sex.

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Last week saw the sad demise of Victoria Marshman, Yale '09, from America's Next Top Model. Eliminated for her "prickly" disposition while posing as a cactus, Tory left the show and returned to life as a History major. In an exclusive phone interview, everyone's favorite failed model gave IvyGate juicy details from her life as television star.

After the jump, Yale's Hottest Skinny Chick dishes on castmates, crazed fans, the quality of Tyra Banks' boobs... and re-tells a scene Lady Banks didn't want viewers to see (hint: it involves Tyra siccing her bodyguards on a tiny, defenseless Tory)

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"Noooo!" my cry of horror echoed through the Brown Hall courtyard, Princeton NJ, across the state limits and to New Haven, CT where Victoria Marshman, Yale '09, is likely receiving condolences from her extensive fan base of body dysmorphic 13-year-old girls. Tory, the Ivy League's Great Hot Hope, has been eliminated from America's Next Top Model! Tyra Banks, I am going to smother you in your sleep with one of your hideous wigs.

Dressed as a cactus for a plant-themed shoot, Tory proved too "prickly" for the Top Model judges' taste (photos coming ASAP!). Despite high-quality pictures in episodes 2 and 3, Tory's bad attitude and sass at the judge's table was our leggy friend's downfall. She'll just have to settle for "the top history program at Yale." The above picture is from the anti-smoking campaign of episode 2. See the dead fetus doll in her arms? That's what smoke-induced stillbirth looks like.  Which is to say, HOT.

Twelve anorexic chicks strapped on and rigged up for a couture evening gown rock-climbing challenge on America's Next Top Model episode 3. And Our Girl Tory (Victoria Marshman, Yale '09) is still in the running!

"I got into the top history program at Yale, so..." begins everyone's favorite Yalie in her required weekly Y-Bomb. (Notice how I dropped three in the process of even saying that? I'm "modeling" myself after Tory!) Then she kind of babbled about her shitty runway walk, but by that point I was too entranced by the boniness of her elbows to pay attention.

With the contortionist powers of a Russian gymnast, Our Girl Tory twisted herself into "model pretzel" with startling aplomb, even from her death-defying perch atop an indoor climbing wall in the middle of some trashy mall in the Valley. Is the CW having budget issues, or what? Nevertheless, big sad eyes and gangly limbs secured Tory's continued role in the competition... prolonging her rocky climb to the top... still in the game to be Tyra Banks' Favorite Sex Toy! -- er, America's Next Top Model! *

* See premiere recap for more on Tyra Banks' spanking fetish, which gives a whole new meaning to show slogan "I wanna be on top."

Last week Penn '06 Will Frank proved his geek-chic chops when Three 6 Mafia named him winner of the Beauty & the Geek rap battle challenge. This week Will hangs on to the lead, sidestepping his jealous, light-saber-wielding geek housemates, all of them working feverishly to learn the Art of Cool and to unseat our rotund, squeaky-voiced hero. But before I get to the gory details, allow me to set the scene.

The show opens with a champagne party, celebrating Natalie and John's narrow escape from the jaws of defeat. Froth bubbles over, strawberries materialize, the beauties nibble their succulent red fruits seductively. It's like a bad ad for Dove chocolate. Amidst the schmoozing, Hollie reveals that, much like Will and every other geek on the planet, she loves anime. I knew it! Hollie is a plant! She's "downright geeky," testifies Will. LARPer Dave goes misty-eyed and marvels "We have... so much in common."

After the jump: B&G Truth-or-Dare!

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ANTM episode 2 opens with Yale '09 Victoria Marshman. Tyra Banks voices over: "This season we have a Yale student with brains and beauty." Hunchback computer-programmer Heather has been branded as "stunning beauty struggling with a disability," assuaging my premiere-episode fear that she would be a threat to Tory's status as Token Smart Girl. Since molestation victim Marvita was eliminated in prelims, six-year foster care veteran Lisa takes over the hard-knock role: "I've seen every kind of hurt." Plus, she's an exotic dancer with a heart of gold, which is so Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. Instant underdog status!

The girls arrive in LA and Mr. J announces the season's theme: environmentalism. Yawn. The girls board a biodiesel bus pimped out with grass and other weird outdoor shit. "Weird outdoor shit" must be the design-world companion to "environmentalism" because the mansion is decorated that way, too, with shrubbery and strange plants creeping from every corner. Of course, the real theme of every ANTM cycle is "Tyra Banks," and blown-up images of the Amazonian host's airbrushed, pore-free face plaster virtually every flat surface. We move to the bedroom and discover that the girls will be sleeping in ONE BIG ROOM this year.  Budget issues?  Or a dastardly plot to induce lights-out melodrama and scantily-clad pillow fights?

After the jump -- take a wild fucking guess. 

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Sighted: Beauty & the Geek star Joshua Green at Princeton University's D-Bar ("Debasement Bar," in de basement of de graduate college here, remember? B&G brought their camera crew there to recruit last year). The 5'5" Joshua wore yellow shirt unbuttoned at the neck, damp black chest hair mussed across his pallid chest. His dance-move of choice is a lateral jumping movement paired with upraised arms and pumping fists.

I cornered Joshua and demanded an impromptu photo shoot (more pictures after jump). Sadly, the CW keeps its reality slaves on a strict gag order; I failed to get any details juicier than those his stock-quote-chocked Daily Princetonian profile. Penn '06 Will Frank got some press, too, in the Daily Pennsylvanian. Where is he these days, anyway? Anybody have sightings?

But enough rumormill foreplay. Let's get down and dirty with this week's episode, after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

Settling in to view the much-anticipated premiere of America's Next Top Model cycle 9 (featuring Yale '09 Victoria Marshman), I went to pre-pop my popcorn to avoid the snack-induced tardiness of yesterday's Beauty & the Geek premiere recap. But the co-op down the hall was locked!  The communalist chefs of Brown Hall must be on to my appliance-abusing ways. Maybe because I write about it on the internet.

ANTM cycle 9 begins with a bang: The girls are going to the Caribbean! Requisite shots of screaming girls with tears of joy streaming down their faces, then cut to sunny San Juan and a busload of skinny chicks, faces wrapped in black satin eyemasks. Is ANTM going SM this year? They disembark and Miss J. Alexander, Tyra Banks' gender-bending black male runway coach, is wearing sailor whites. Surprise! The semi-final cut will occur on a cruise boat!  The girls freak out; apparently they don't realize that cruise boats are less Titanic more shuffle-board and all-you-can-eat-buffet these days. Boats are so 20th century.

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