With Halloween being on a Saturday, it’s as if everyone got a do-over with their costumes tonight. So there’s no excuse: send us your best costumes to bwog@columbia.edu by midnight tomorrow, and hope for yet another piece of candy. 

Oh, and apparently Daylight Saving Time ends tonight? Not cool. Not cool at all. Never mind, we’re idiots; tonight’s the night when you get an extra hour (not when you lose an hour). Spend it wisely.

When running back Leon Ivery ran in the two-point conversion to give Columbia a 22-10 lead over Yale with only 8:32 to go, Norries Wilson’s team had to be confident about returning to .500 in the Ivy League. But Yale scored less than three minutes later, and then again with under a minute to play, to steal a 23-22 win over the Lions, and drop Columbia to 1-3 in the league, and 2-5 overall. 

Columbia played without senior running back Ray Rangel (injured against Dartmouth), and first-year quarterback Sean Brackett got the start over Millicent Olawale. Both Brackett and Ivery had stellar games filling in their first starts – Ivery ran for 131 yards, while Brackett added 83 more on the ground and threw for 180 yards and three touchdowns. But all three of Yale’s fourth quarter touchdown drives took less than three minutes, and in the end the Yale pass attack was too much for Columbia. The team is home again next week, playing league co-leaders Harvard (5-2 overall, 4-0 Ivy).

Photo: Columbia University Athletics

It’s Halloween (cue spooky organ music riff du-da-duuuuuuu dudadalududu), so we all know what that means. Bwog’s Cinematic Summaries Bureau Chief Mark Hay is obligated by law (specifically, the infamous Carpathian Dracula Convention of 1935) to conjure up a spo-o-o-oky Halloween Netflix list, with  three spine-shivering tales of the supernatural. Bwa-ha-ha-ha!

The Orphanage (2007)

The Orphanage is the final answer in the contest between dread and surprise. Director Juan Antonio Bayona has every opportunity to make his audience scream and bolt with a rush of adrenaline, and he knows it. He knows that his story, his imagery, and our horror film culture have all set us on the watch for the ghost or demon behind the stairs. We try to steel ourselves against it – but Bayona refuses to deliver it. Instead he favors slow, lightly eerie scenes, building a tie between audience and character, forcing the horror junkie to wait – holding his/her breath and chair with equal force. And then he delivers – and it will scare the daylights out of even the horror adept – and quickly sinks back into the walls, leaving you to wonder what just happened. Was it even real? Read more…

Your Election Day weekend will probably be stuck in Halloween mode until tonight, but how to fill the next three days? Bwog Weekend Warrior Sarah Camiscoli has five ways you can make a day (or three) of your travels. 

Also, a subway service advisory: through Monday, the downtown 1 is skipping 137th – 103rd Street stops (i.e. go to 96th and come back up), while the uptown 1/2/3 is skipping 50th-86th Streets. More details and other subway adjustments can be found on the MTA’s website.

Reconnect with the Uptown Over-Soul – After a hefty two months spent in Butler Reading Room, don’t you feel like it’s time to get yourself reacquainted with your roots? Well, getting a fresh breath of bonsai is quite simple with a day trip to see “Kiku” in the Japanese Autumn Garden at the New York Botanical Garden, located next to Fordham’s Rose Hill Campus in the Bronx.  But if a two-dollar suggested donation (in addition to Metro) is just too much to spare, Fort Tryon Park is quite splendid, free, and your picnic foods can be purchased on Flex, before taking the one train straight uptown to the 191st stop.  And if well-manicured Mother Nature just doesn’t end up being enough, The Cloisters are conveniently located right inside the park and only suggest a $5.00 donation for their artistic display of the dark ages.

Embrace your home borough - Calling all students who make daily choices between Morton Williams vegan turkey salad and Pinnacle calzones: there’s plenty more right nearby. Hike down to Graffiti Hall of Fame, located on 106th and Park Avenue, to stand in awe in front of a remarkable display of graffiti in Spanish Harlem. Luckily, once you’ve made it that far from Low Steps, only two blocks further south is the New York City Museo del Barrio at 104th and 5th Avenue. The $4 donation is a steal as this museum is a bombshell of cultural history. Read more…

After an absence of almost two months, The Fed has finally published its first issue of the new semester, complete with an entirely new print look.

Old people want fake IDs, and students are only too happy to provide.

The Core is now for porn!

Barnard stereotypes: the swine flu version.

We could’ve sworn we’ve seen this Public Safety announcement somewhere.

The Fed apologizes. Really. Sort of.

When writing a whole column about ROTC at Ivy League schools, do not mention Columbia’s survey last fall. (Times)

Despondent over lack of dates? Manhattan’s 50% single! (Post)

Did you know leaving confidential House ethics reports on easily accessible file-sharing networks might lead to someone finding it? (Washington Post)

NASA is exposing squirrel monkeys (pictured) to radiation as preparation for Mars mission. But they’re so cuuuuute! (Post)

“Why, my daughter’s class will love this alligator I’ve brought for show and tell. Now, where is it?” (Daily News)

Photo: mirm/Flickr

For the first time in thirty five years (and only the second third time ever), men’s cross country reigns supreme in the Ivy League. The team won today’s Heptagonal Championships by only one point over Princeton, in the closest finish since 1982. Brendan Martin (5th), Kyle Merber (8th), Terrence Prial (12th), Justin Heck (15th), and Anthony Merra (20th) provided the winning top five for the Lions. 

On the women’s side, Columbia finished third behind Harvard and Princeton, with Jackie Drouin and Julie Quinn finishing 8th and 10th respectively. The teams next compete on November 14th in the NCAA Northeast Regionals.

Photo: Columbia University Athletics

In our latest AskBwog, Peter Krawczyk searched high and low (and mostly on Google) to see what can be found about the Engineering School’s namesake.

In 1997, the Columbia School of Engineering and Applied Science received a gift of $26 million from a Chinese businessman known only as Z.Y. Fu. The School was allowed to use the money in any way it saw fit; Fu’s only stipulation was that the 133 year-old institution had to rename itself “The Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science,” which today is pronounced “SEEZ”. Of course, the school was only too happy to oblige. As Zvi Galil, then the SEAS dean, told the Times, ”It is a no-strings-attached gift that will come all at once … I can’t dream of something better.” And today, in the several screens of website devoted to its history, all the school has to say regarding Fu’s gift is: “Today, The Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science, as it was named in 1997, continues to provide leadership for scientific and educational advances.”

Fu said he made the gift because: “I am a regular visitor to New York, where Columbia is the most prestigious institution of higher learning. In addition to its long history of association with Chinese professors and scholars, the university has educated numerous Chinese students and successfully hosts the Fu Foundation Scholars program. Through this new gift, I wish to honor that association and to ensure that, in the years to come, Columbia will continue to grow in strength as an international leader in science and technology. This will serve as a model for education in China.” That quote is apparently his only ever public statement on the matter. Read more…

Tonight and tomorrow night, many of you will be affixing costumes or cardboard or facepaint to yourselves, sacrificing sartorial control to the great Gods of Halloween.

So, Bwog’s announcing our third annual Halloween Costume Contest, in which you are invited to send us photographs of your chilling and charming outfit this evening. Favorites from last year included “an NYU student” and xkcd characters (at right).

Photographs will be posted, a winner will be selected, and a free king-sized candy bar of the winner’s choice will given to this person by Bwog.

Send entries to bwog@columbia.edu by midnight tomorrow.

Just in time for the procrastinators amongst us, here’s the Halloween-focused half of our Guide to the Weekend.

Friday

Last minute shopping:

Costumes: Abracadabra Superstore

19 West 21st St, hours: 11am – 9 pm

Spirit Halloween Superstore

2320 Broadway at 84th st, hours 11am – 9pm



Candy in bulk: Economy Candy

108 Rivington St

Friday 9am – 6pm, Saturday 10am – 5pm

Dylan’s Candy Bar

1011 3rd Avenue, hours Fri-Sat, 10am – 11pm

A full roundup on city sweets can be found here.

Events:

Gruesome Double Bill at the Film Forum  – two grotesquely brilliant films for the price of one, ‘Theater of Blood’ (1973) at 2:35, 6:10, 9:45 and Scream of Fear (1961) at 1, 4:35, 8:10

209 West Houston St. Read more…

While Ira Glass refuses to admit that he has adoring fans or that he is a journalist’s icon, it’s hard to prove otherwise. Named best radio host in America by TIME Magazine, Glass hosts NPR’s This American Life, which is broadcast on over 500 stations nationwide to some 1.8 million listeners. In his weekly interviews, Glass has covered a lot of ground – from cattle ranches to a cruiser somewhere in the Arabian Sea, and everything in between. From the new issue of the Blue and White (on racks near you soon), contributor Mark Hay met up with Glass at the show’s Chelsea studios.

The Blue and White: What is your approach to storytelling and interviews?

Ira Glass: Stories on This American Life are narrative stories. That’s the way they’re different from a lot of things on TV or in journalism. That is, there’s a character, the character’s in a situation, there’s a plot, things happen to that character and they learn something from their experiences—or at least their experiences drive them toward some thought or some thought about the world that then they share with the audience. It’s very old school… it’s the most traditional way of telling a story.

B&W: In the past you’ve shied away from run-of-the-mill headline news stories. But I recall you in a recent episode saying that you felt bad for sitting out Kosovo.

IG: [Laughs] Yes. Well, I felt bad as a news consumer. At the beginning I didn’t get the characters straight and, “Wait, who’s who and which one is the one we like and which is the one that we’re not supposed to like?” And I kept waiting for the big New Yorker piece that was going to explain it all to me and, in fact, there even were a couple pieces like that, but then I didn’t get around to them. And I think people don’t generally talk about what our experience is as consumers of the news, but at least for me I know for sure there are entire news stories that seem too hard, and I just think, “I’m never going to figure that out.” And so I just sit it out. Read more…

More than half of Manhattan residents are single and live alone; evidently they think it’s really cool. (NY Post)

City Councilman Robert Jackson is unstoppable, unstoppable. (Spec)

Taxi fares will be increased by 50 cents this Sunday. (NY1)

The New York State Police launches its annual “Pumpkin Patrols,” bringing some much needed zaniness to the thruway. (1010 Wins)

School administrators throughout the nation decide that kids are creepy. (NY Times) 

Not feeling festive? Here are some neat things to do should you want to avoid drunk

students in animal print. For Halloween events stay tuned for tomorrow’s Guide Part

Two.

Friday

Morphoses/Christopher Wheeldon Dance Company – one of the most celebrated choreographers in contemporary ballet, Wheeldon’s company perform four works from their repertoire. Program varies over performances through Sunday

8 pm, New York City Center, W 55th St Between 6th and 7th Avenues

Tickets available from $15

Lorna Simpson at Cooper Union – New York City photographer whose retrospective was recently on display at the Whitney on her work and career

6:30, The Great Hall, 7 East 7th St

FREE

The Original Phantom of the Opera – experience the 1925 silent film accompanied by a live adaptation of the score from Trinity Church’s organist

8-10 pm, Trinity Church Wall St, 89 Broadway at Wall St

FREE Read more…

On academic freedom: “Their exclusive medium and stylized rhetoric render them inaccessible to a large portion of the public whom they might endeavor to engage and educate.”

We don’t get cable, so we don’t buy TV’s, so we don’t watch their soaps.

A prominent campus figure explains what exactly Conservatism is.

Kenneth is real.

Image via Chrisday71/Flickr

Bwog’s Conspicuous Presence of Testosterone Mark Hay crossed the street with his wand last night.

Barnard women: President Spar has a problem with you. Or rather, with your sense of identity. As she told her cowed subjects amassed in Sulzberger Parlor for last night’s Fireside Chat, over the last year she was disturbed to hear bright and outgoing students tell her that, “Barnard had less of a sense of community than [they] would have liked.”

Initially DSpar dismissed this as a problem of construction obstruction and, like so many, placed her faith in the infinite wellspring of hope that is The Diana. But niggling doubts led her into a deeper investigation, talking with anyone from students to board members, by which she concludes this: There is a strong Barnard identity, but it is tied mainly to the individual aspirations and post-graduation success of the strong, independent Barnard students. And any identities formed while on campus? Well, they’re formed in niche clubs, exclusive organizations, and typically those that are “across the street.”

It is identity, but it is not what DSpar refers to as “rah-rah” identity – the kind of total school bonding she associates with sports attendance at her alma Georgetown. But “Barnard doesn’t have a football team … and probably will not for some time,” and alumni giving is down to 30 percent, and it would be impossible to revive such things as the Barnard Greek Games (because, Spar says, “they’re too 1920s”), so Spar has set out to devise a new way of forming a sense of Barnard community – of uniting 570 incoming students under the Barnard banner without a football team, a forced camping trip (in the style of Dartmouth).

Well, DSpar has mulled it over and now has a proposal – still in the early stages, but she is rather excited about it and it shows. Her new system, based on experiences with creating devoted and enduring communities among the “pretty homogenous” population of Harvard’s Business School, would create societies (example: the Margaret Mead Society) with eighty or so incoming students being arbitrarily assigned to a society. Friendly competition and association with designated alumni (possibly to be involved in regular dinners and/or outings with their affiliated society) would serve to foster a close, inclusive sense of Barnard community both among lost, sheepish freshmen and across class lines. Or as Dean Denburg so elegantly puts it, “It’s what happens at Hogwarts.” Read more…