BruceWillisFan#1@aol.com [Sam Schube] alerts us that six sanitation trucks are lined up on Broadway and 113th–EXACTLY of like that scene in Die Hard with a Vengeance when $140 billion of gold is carted away in dump trucks. A word to the wise: keep an eye on your bricks, friends.

Bwog took a break this week from photographing eclectic students-about-campus to discuss fashion with the CU fashion experts: the editorial staff of Columbia’s new fashion magazine, Hoot Mag, and its associated blog.

Noel Duan, CC ’13, Low Steps

Where are you from? San Jose, California.

What are some style points? I’m the co-editor-in-chief of Hoot Magazine, the new fashion magazine I started with Jina Lim, CC ‘ 13. We got a grant from the Gatsby Foundation and the editor-in-chief of Teen Vogue endorsed us. I hope people check it out.

What are some blogging points? I have a blog called Miss Couturable. I started it the summer before junior year of high school and I guess it got kind of big. It was on teenvogue.com and received about 10,000 hits a day. There’s definitely personal stuff on my blog–anything I felt like I wanted to share with my readers. It’s alarming to know that editors are reading it, though. I’ve encountered a lot of mean comments, but you learn to fight that off. I’ve also had a lot of fun experiences as a blogger. I even got to go to Betsey Johnson’s fashion show. Sometimes around the city, people stop me to tell me that they know my blog. It’s really awkward.

Describe your style. Prim and proper, maybe a little quirky. I like structured shoulders, tights, and bows.

What was a recent excitement? [Two weeks ago] I went to fashion week and sat front row, a few seats away from Chloë Sevigny.

What’s your response to people who say being so passionate about fashion is just materialistic? People confuse fashion with shopping too much. I’m interested in the design, art, and writing side of fashion.

Tell me about your outfit. [The six-inch platform booties] are actually really comfortable because my heels are only raised two inches and the platform is four inches high. I’m 5′ 1″, so with these on I’m 5’7″. I’m wearing sheer leggings layered over other tights, and my friend made the bow. It’s kind of dorky, but I like it.

Read more…

It is now the Year of the Tiger, which means that it’s time for social upheaval and erratic changes. Last night was also time for the Chinese Students Club’s annual Lunar Gala. Cecilia Chen, CC ’12, shares her experience of the festive evening.

This year’s Lunar Gala featured an art show and a fashion show, though perhaps the highlight of the night was a cultural showcase involving music, dance, and some delightful shadow puppetry. Read more…

Every year, STA hosts the World Traveler Internship, a program in which one male and one female student, handpicked from a pool of thousands, embark on an epic trip around the world and blog about it. The itinerary allows for a visit to every continent except Antarctica and places special emphasis on adventure, sightseeing, and volunteer work. This year, Columbia has not one, not two, not three, but four students applying for the prestigious internship – conveniently enough, one male and one female! You can watch the videos and check out the STA profiles of Zak Dychtwald, CC ’12; Amy Stringer, BC ’13; Spencer Oberman, CC ’12; and Reni Calister, BC ’11 here, here, here, and here (respectively). Don’t forget to cast your votes!

Incidentally, this is not the first time Columbia has been represented in the STA program; Pat Blute, CC ’12, was a summer 2008 World Traveler Intern.

Columbia and Barnard have different administrative strategies when it comes to students with eating disorders. In this article from the upcoming issue, The Blue & White explores those differences by talking with the students who have navigated them.

“When you arrive on campus as freshman, you’re keenly aware of your freedom, but when you arrive on campus with a history of an eating disorder, you’re keenly aware that no one’s watching you,” says Alisha, a Columbia College junior with a history of anorexia. “You’re away from parents and that close intimate, network of people who can monitor your mental and physical health on a passive, day-to-day basis.” Columbia has never been known as a particularly nurturing environment for fragile students, but the sudden freedom of any college environment can exacerbate preexisting eating disorders. Every school must devise a strategy to handle students who suffer from them—treating those who can be treated on campus, advising and sometimes forcing leave for those who cannot be.

Read more…

Mayor Bloomberg v. Hot Sausages (Gothamist)

Eliot Spitzer v. David Paterson (NY Post)

New York v. DC (NY1)

Cantor Fitzgerald v. American Airlines (1010 WINS)

God v. Planet Earth (NYT)

As the snow begins to melt, Bwog says its loving goodbyes. Thanks for the day off, old friend.

Photos by MJM & Vivek Bhagwat

Disco Inferno Correspondent Megan McGregor advises you to boogie on over to Lerner’s Black Box this evening at 8 p.m.

The MaMa Project, which began in 2002, provides opportunities for student choreographers to produce their own shows with a more cohesive theme than the Orchesis showcases every semester. This year’s showcase features enthralling and innovative choreography by Shilpa Vashishta, BC ’10.

“Along Those Lines” comprises five thought-provoking pieces, each highlighting unique qualities of human movement. The showcase commences with a radiant beam of light shining upon downstage left that seems to generate movement among the dancers as they move in and out of its luminance. Each piece captures how motion is emotive and subtle; it is generated and manipulated by the slightest bend of a finger or turn of a neck.

“Walls” was the most captivating piece of the show and utilized these minuscule and seemingly insignificant motions to convey an intense message about the boundaries we create within ourselves and in respect to others. From using one’s big toe to trace a circle on the stage to painfully peeling down the literal wall of the theater, Vasishta’s choreography reveals her great understanding of space. Even in moments of complete stillness or infinitesimal movement, the dancers’ bodies cut through the air and filled the entire space.

Along with brilliant and novel contemporary choreography, “Along Those Lines” treats its audience to a tasteful score, including Passion Pit, Billie Holiday, and Radiohead. The Mama Project 2010’s third and final show is at 8:00 p.m. in Lerner Black Box.

The approach of midterms week means Dante’s Inferno is to be found in the sweaty hands of freshmen this week. Urban Spelunker Gavin McGown was not content to simply flip pages: he was jonesing to explore! Mudd’s basement is a dark and terrifying world Dante surely would have assigned to heathens and traitors.

Huddled as it is against the northeast corner of campus, the unapologetic Seeley W. Mudd Hall extends itself many stories aboveground, a bulwark against ignorance, home to generations of Columbian engineers. Its characteristic miner of shrewd and pinched face embodies the literal and figurative steel of the structure, casting a disapproving sneer at those filing in and out of the building at whose entrance he stands attendant, as if he sensed in them intellectual pursuits directing them towards weak disciplines (gender studies, pure mathematics, political “science”).

Finding myself, however, at that unaesthetic edge of the campus, I ignored the statue’s contemptuous glare that seemed to counsel me to abandon all hope, and marched brazenly on through the doors that opened, supermarket-like, at my advance. No Limbo eased the passage between light and darkness: I crossed, so to speak, the river Acheron (descending a staircase infected with the sound of an unceasing and ominous mechanical whirring), and found myself immediately confronted by a dusty and dreary vision as the first of many basements, bathed in a sallow light, extended on before my eyes.

Read more…

Photo via Southernspicecuisine.com

Change comes to Morningside Heights in the form of South Asian fast food. A new dosa cart is located between 115th and 116th on Broadway, operating seven days a week from 10:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. For the unenlightened among us, a dosa is essentially a rice and lentil South Indian crepe stuffed with a lightly mashed potato, onion and spice mix. Bwog’s Indian food expert Mark Hay informs us that “these are Mysore masala dosas because of the two types of chutney they serve on the side with [the dosa].” Apparently no menu exists, but soda and other beverages are available for purchase with your delicious five-dollar-dosa.

Saturday morning is upon us once again. Bwog brings Butler-goers a bad omen as midterms begin.

Dante(lla) Attacked by a She-Wolf (in Butler)

Cartoon by Abigail Santner

Photo via Wikimedia Commons

NYC Department of Parks and Recreation provides sleds and free hot chocolate in Riverside Park today! (Gothamist)

The Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia argues that keeping inmates sober will help America economically in the long term. (Kansas City Star)

The Columbia Political Union wants to see where you stand.

Men’s basketball brings the heat to Penn, claiming their first sweep since 1968! (Spec)

Here at Bwog, we love the snow, and just because it was the second day of snow in a row doesn’t make us any less excited. Here’s a collection of images from one of the most beautiful days we’ve seen in a long time, featuring skiers on Low, a snow panda, and… the Consent Snowman?

Earl Hall Auditorium

Rabbi Dr. Ellenson, president of Hebrew Union College and influential leader of Reform Judaism, will be speaking about the distinct role of reform Judaism in the state of Israel. Rated in the top ten “Most Influential Rabbis” by Newsweek five times, Ellenson promises to be engaging and informative!

TO PURCHASE TICKETS: https://www.ovationtix.com/trs/pe/7972085 or in person at the TIC in Lerner Hall. $5 CUID, $10 Non-CUID A portion of the proceeds will be donated to the Avi Foundation in honor of Avi Shaefer. The Current is a leading undergraduate journal at Columbia. For our latest issue: http://www.columbiacurrent.org Event co-sponsord by the Columbia/Barnard Hillel.

Contact Email: columbiacurrent@gmail.com

Though the process for selecting next year’s housing begins in earnest next week, students who are part of special interest communities already know where they will be living this fall. Those locations—whether they be brownstones or a singles in Wien—play a large role in determining the lifecycles of these student groups, for in special interest communities, you are where you live.

Months before the housing lottery rewarded some with East Campus and consigned others to the McBain shaft, the fates of two student communities were sealed.

For Greenborough, a special interest community (SIC) created to focus on environmental issues, a bright future lay ahead—January brought news that the university’s Housing administrators had granted the group use of a spacious brownstone on 114th Street for the following academic year. But, for the writers of 114 Rue de Fleurus, January was not so lucky—the collaborative writing community learned that month of their assignment to a cramped corner of Wein’s second floor. Not all SICs are created equal, it seems.

Read more…