on Low Plaza.

Columbia Spirit Day will comprise activities including tug of rope, music, and snacks.

Contact Email: jr2994@columbia.edu

Barnard College will host an event featuring the German filmmaker Margarethe von Trotta, who will participate in a panel discussion with Barnard Professors Mary Gordon, Erk Grimm and Ross Hamilton. The event takes place Wednesday, December 2 at 6pm in The James Room on the 4^th floor of Barnard Hall (117^th and Broadway).

Margarethe von Trotta has been described by her peers and by film critics throughout the world as “one of the world’s great directors” (James Monaco, The Encyclopedia of Film) and as “the world’s leading feminist filmmaker” (Cathy Acker, Bulletin of Vancouver Film Festival 2006). In the early years of her career, she was also an award-winning screen actress who starred in major films by German directors Rainer Fassbinder and Volker Schlondorff, most notably in “Coup de Grace.” Her film “Marianne and Juliane” won the Venice Film Festival Award for Best Film and Best Director and her other films–”Rosenstrasse,” “Sheer Madness,” “Sisters,” “Rosa Luxemburg,” and others– have received numerous international awards. SALMAGUNDI magazine is about to bring out a special issue devoted to this great German film-maker. One of von Trotta’s latest feature films, “The Other Woman,” starring Barbara Sukowa, which has never been released in the United States, will be available as a dvd, sealed inside a special issue of SALMAGUNDI. Barnard’s English Department is co-sponsoring this event with SALMAGUNDI to help launch this issue of the magazine.

http://www.barnard.edu/english/events.php

at Patrick Ryan’s Pub
(3155 Broadway between La Salle St & Tiemann Pl – right after 123rd Street)
There is an 6$ cover charge.

King Cub Productions (a film production group at Columbia) in collaboration with BullDog Productions (Yale’s film club) are producing a music video for Laura Zax, a musician from Yale ( http://laurazax.com/ ). We’re having a fundraiser for the video because we are poor film students and making a professional level music video for the song “Doctor, Doctor” will cost a lot of money.

Laura Zax and The Kitchen Cabinet will be performing their own songs and covers, visual art will be projected onto the walls, and the most exciting feature will be Miracle Fruit Tablets- tablets that change the shape of your tastebuds and make Guiness taste like chocolate milkshakes, Vodka taste like vanilla milkshakes, and lemons taste like candy. There will be drink sampling specials and weird foods to try, as well as a dj dance party after the bands play. mberry is sponsoring the event www.mberry.us

Location: Wien Lounge

Final show of the semester. 2 show dates; a lifetime of enjoyment! $2

Contact email: chowdah@columbia.edu
Website: http://www.facebook.com/#/event.php?eid=195087647816&index=1

The Columbia University Orchestra will be performing Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’une faune, Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin, and Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite on two nights:

Monday, December 7th at 8:00 in Roone Arledge Auditorium in Lerner Hall

and

Tuesday, December 8th at 8:00 in Miller Theatre.

The program will be:

Debussy: Prélude à l’après-midi d’une faune
Ravel: Le Tombeau de Couperin

INTERMISSION

Stravinsky: Firebird Suite (1919 version)

The Columbia University orchestra is conducted by Maestro Jeffrey Milarsky, the leading conductor of contemporary music in New York City. As a course within the Department of Music, the principal mission of the Orchestra is to give students the opportunity to perform in an ensemble of the most challenging nature possible. Performing several concerts per year, the CUO draws members from the entire Columbia community. For more information, go to the CUO website at http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cuo/.

Photo by HEH

It’s almost December, the thermostat is quickly dropping to that 32º mark, and you know what that means. It’s time for Bwog’s Second Annual “First Flake of the Season” contest!

Although no weather services have predicted snow for a while, there is going to be very cold rain this week and next. Bwog has been starved of snow all semester and isn’t going to lose hope for seeing some flakes before the end of the term. History says that we should be nearing freezing temperatures, and besides, we all know how accurate weather predictions can be.

So once again, we’re giving away a prize to the first person who can spot a snowflake on campus. If you see one, let us know where and when with either a post in the comments or an email.

Good luck and happy snowgazing!

If you’re willing to talk science and Barnard’s need (or not) for it, be sure to join the SGA in James Room in Barnard Hall from 6pm-8pm tonight for their “Does Barnard need science?” town hall meeting that includes free catered (!) dinner. Get your voice heard and your appetite fed!

In this latest edition of Bwog’s recurring feature highlighting students’ hidden talents, Alliance of Magicians Bureau Chief Mark Hay sat down with a performer that would rather not be labeled a magician.

Throughout our little chat I keep trying to label BK (a stage name), CC ’13, a magician, but every time I offer up the title, he squirms a bit and wriggles away. BK calls himself a “performer” or an “entertainer,” and most of his shows are a display of mainly his proficiency in several forms of dance, theater and piano. They just happen to feature the occasional and unexpected floating cane or suspended fireball. He may be a general “performer,” but, as he admits, “I… buy a lot of butane.”

Indeed, magic is the key feature in most of BK’s acts. That little, inexplicable and entrancing factor, as he explains, is what gets people to sit through and enjoy a two-hour show. But to call it a “magic show,” he says with just a hint of derision, would kill all of the magic. Over the years BK has developed a rather nuanced philosophy of what magic truly is – one that, as per his strained and searching answers to my questions, appears to be ever evolving. However, at least he seems to be certain on some aspects:

Magic is personal. It is an extraordinarily intimate and stylized form of communication that may convey feelings and thoughts that cannot come through in words. BK was born with this skill (…or at least that’s the stage story. He later tells me he picked up an interest while working with special effects artists backstage on other performances). But for magic to maintain this ethereal and strange communicative power, it must be unique to its handler and should be tailored to each individual; magic isn’t just some cheap and expected parlor trick. Removing the surprise and the mystery robs BK’s art of its voice and makes it cheap.

Read more…

Lerner Hall Party Space

**PISSED JEANS

****YELLOW TEARS

********OLD MEN

Doors at 8:00/Music at 9:00
$5 / $3 with CUID
All Ages, Open to the public

La Maison Francaise

The French-American Alliance will receive French soccer player Youri Djorkaeff on Wed Dec 2nd from 7pm to 8.30pm at la Maison Francaise. The talk will be very informal, with Q&A from the audience. Food and drinks will be served.

RSVP is advised but not required: jrs2171@columbia.edu

About Youri Djorkaeff:
Renowned French soccer player Youri Djorkaeff won among other tournaments the 1998 FIFA World Cup and Euro 2000. He started playing for Grenoble in 1994, soon moved to the AS Monaco and the Paris Saint Germain in 1995. A year later, he signed with the Italian Internazionale and then transferred to the German Kaiserlautern. He became the first French player to play in the Major League Soccer in the US. Throughout his career, he accumulated 82 caps and scored 28 goals for France. He was made Chevalier de la Légion d?Honneur in 1998 by French President Jacques Chirac.

Our website is: wwww.frenchamericanalliance.com

James-Room, Barnard Hall, 4th floor

Discuss the Science Requirement! Like it? Love it? Gotta have it? Or, just hate it?

*Last chance to win preview tour of the Diana*

The Student Government Association (SGA) is planning for a town hall on the science requirement in the Nine Ways of Knowing. We’re excited to finally move forward with such an important issue and hope that this event will provide a wonderful opportunity for faculty members and students to come together and discuss policies at Barnard that affect the community at large. We invite all students to discuss the future of the science requirement, what their experience has been with the requirement, and how we can improve policy on it for the future. This is your chance to voice your opinions!

Barnard Environmental Science Professor, Stephanie Pfirman, will open the conversation with a presentation on “how much science you need to know to be a good citizen of our world.” She will also discuss her findings on what employers are looking for science knowledge-wise in applicants with non-health or research backgrounds as well.

There will be FREE CATERED DINNER.

*We are raffling one more space for the Diana preview tour (taking place 12/4) for all attendees*

Potluck House (606 W 114th St.)

Postcrypt Art Gallery and Potluck House present representations of your challenges: artwork that physically encroaches on the space of the viewer, or deals with barriers in a more emotional sense.

This one-night, interactive exhibition will be hosted by Potluck House (606 W 114th St.). Refreshments will be provided by FeelGood!

Work submitted to this show will have a chance to be picked to be published in DEPESHA, a fashion and art magazine (www.depesha.com). Contact Emily, ers2153@barnard.edu, to submit artwork.

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=183871744635&index=1

While many Columbians spent last week reuniting with their families back home, the basketball, wrestling, and swimming teams also met with others from around the country, with mixed results.

Coming off a win over Longwood, the Men’s Basketball team won again last Tuesday over Bucknell in a 73-59 victory that wasn’t secure until the last five minutes. With only 10 minutes left in the game, the Lions were trailing 51-43, but thanks to sophomore Noruwa Agho, making five seven three-pointers in total in the game, the Lions were able to get the win.

However, the team didn’t fare so well after a two-day Thanksgiving hiatus when they faced Syracuse, ranked 10th nationally. The Orange started the game with a 7-0 lead, but the Lions eventually diminished their lead to 24-20. Even so, at halftime, the Lions were trailing 36-27–a gap they were never fully able to close, even with star Agho scoring 22 points. The Lions eventually lost 85-60. Considering they were playing a nationally-ranked team, coach Jones said the Lions “gave great effort, but we didn’t execute as well as we wanted to in the second half.” They play Sacred Heart today.

Read more…

Pre-finals blues got you down? Thanks to World AIDS Week, there’s free cookies and ribbons on the ramps as well as information on HIV/AIDS testing.

Plus, Bwog’s Berlin Correspondent Julia Diao reports there’s a ton of free German Department related stuff on Hamilton 3. Release the floodgates!

As the campus returns back to life, so does Bwog. Here are some things that you may have missed during your weekend in far away lands:

New York State’s economy is in $3.2 billion worth of trouble, and Governor Paterson is taking $1.6 billion in emergency measures. (1010WINS)

Twitter got more street cred as gangs are now using the service to smack talk each other and organize fights. (NYDaily)

Once again, there’s talk of turning Ferris Booth and JJ’s Place into meal plan cafeterias. (Spec)

Black Friday happened, and although it seemed like shoppers didn’t realize the country was in the midst of a recession, well, they did. (NYT)

But no worries! If you still have money left to spend from the weekend, Cyber Monday is here! (NBCNY)