CANNED BEER: check out this history of the official container of real college’s official drink. (The Daily)

This stuff is pretty great too

VINTAGE CHAMPAGNE AND SKYLINE VIEWS: Bwog knows it’s never too early to start thinking about Valentine’s Day plans (or to start repressing these same thoughts), so why not a private dinner and rooftop pool swim at the Peninsula for $1500? Gothamist recommends White Castle for “real players,” but Columbians can always do one better. (Gothamist)

POLITICAL OPPORTUNISM: a new Mitt ad makes Tom Brokaw uncomfortable, and he’s not ok with that. (Gawker)

FACEBOOK: neurotic New Yorkers share real life “defriending” strategies. Digital rejection is always easier to palate than the real thing, as these high school seniors will tell you after Vassar accidentally accepted them before rejecting them an hour later. (NYT)

SWITZERLAND: live from Davos at the World Economic Forum, the blog of econ department luminary Joseph Stiglitz’s wife, Anya Schriffin. Protip: wait till Zurich for a “decent cup of hot chocolate.” (Reuters)

Sliced bread via Wikimedia Commons.

Be on the lookout for the November and December issues of The Blue & White, on campus this week everywhere you look in Butler. As we always have done, Bwog will honor our heritage/amorous affair with our mother magazine by posting features from the upcoming issue. Below, Tom Humphreys asks a very important question: who chooses the movies at 1020?

Illustration by Louise McCune

A man walks into a bar in which a bad movie plays on several TV screens. Thirty minutes later, he freezes. “Wait…why are they playing Donnie Darko? Wait, wait, wait, that’s not Donnie Darko…why are they playing…the sequel to Donnie Darko?” This man is at 1020, where taste is relative and, perhaps, ultimately irrelevant.

The second favorite Morningside dive bar of the staff of The Blue & White (Tap-a-Keg takes the cake), 1020 has a tradition of favoring, shall we say, unorthodox cinema. Except for special occasions, the bar shuns traditional options such as Top Gun or baseball. Whether screening the atypically cerebral (Mulholland Drive), the disturbingly grim (Monster), the grotesquely violent (District 9), or the shockingly insignificant (Cuba Gooding Jr.’s direct-to-DVD works), patrons have come to expect, and even revere, the not-quite-irony of the screenings and their environs.

The reason turns out not to be as sinister as might be feared. Friday night bartender Thalia Dergham, CC ’12, explains, “Nobody ‘picks’ the movies at 1020. We simply pick a channel at the beginning of the night and usually leave it on unless something particularly disturbing comes on, even though usually when that happens we leave it on anyways.” She recalls Silence of the Lambs and The Lovely Bones as two—ahem—favorites. “The bartenders usually don’t know what is play- ing, because their backs are turned to the screens, so it’s a bit useless to ask them,” Dergham explains with a laugh. It appears that the randomness of 1020’s lineup is, indeed, random.

Just because the selection is governed by serendipity doesn’t mean that there is no accountability. 1020 lore has it that one Wednesday this semester, an uncensored porn movie ran for almost ten minutes. Eventually a middle-aged woman inquired at the bar. “I just wanted to see how long it would last,” the bartender replied.

Editors note: Last night Bwog was intrigued and disturbed by the insane samurai movie playing at 1020. If you have any information about this film, please email tips@bwog.com

We admit that, though still goofy, those T Magic signs has been around for a while. However, this perplexing sign outside Mel’s is brand new. Bwog can get down with Früli, but we remain unconvinced by watermelon beer. Gourmands and beer snobs of Columbia, give us your verdict!

Just looking at this makes you think of Double Bubble

Cause a 209 party is—educational. And from the looks of that label, it looks like this guy was nursin’ it for some time. Cheers, buddy.

Note the dual coping mechanisms: behind the beer hangs a Nightline flyer that reads, “I’ve got 99 problems and then some.”

Sometimes we leave our empties on trash cans. Sometimes we can’t be bothered. Other times we throw them at the wall in euphoric rage.

As Bwog’s Econ TA recently said in an email, “Good morning/hangover.”

Photo courtesy Mel's Burger Bar

Morningside has food niches vacated and sort-of filled every few years. AmCaf, beloved steak sandwich locale in the early aughts, became a fancy tapas bar that no one you know eats at. The fabled West End became mediocre Havana Central, a shadow of its former Kerouac-hosting, drunk-makeout-and-beer-pong-haven self. You could get full and drunk for less than $20, and sometimes much less, and that’s all we really ask for (until Mom and Dad visit– then it’s beet bowls for everyone!)

Bwog ate dinner at Mel’s Burger Bar last night, and we’re delighted to report that you can indeed get full from good food and drunk on good beer for not very much money.

Mel’s looks great. The floors are black-and-white marbled, there’s lots of wood paneling, hanging lamps, red booths, exposed brick, huge chalkboards with beer, food and dessert menus, and six flat-screen TVs showing the Yankee game. The hostess and server were friendly, and the bathrooms spacious and unisex– ooh la! There are 140 seats, with 18 chairs on an outdoor patio.

Bwog and our dining companion sampled two of Mel’s punches ($8-9): the Hook, which was a not-too-sweet alcoholic orange juice, and the Haymaker, which was Grey Goose, Bacardi, and some other stuff that got us properly tipsy. There’s also a promising-looking “unusual lemonade” with homemade lemonade, Jim Beam, and mint for $8, and a slew of other mixed drinks that aren’t as embarassing to order as a vodka cranberry.

There are 18 beers on tap ($4-8), 5 cans from PBR ($4) to 21st Amendment Back in Black ($8), and 10 bottles ($5-10). The Southampton White Beer is delicious. The fancy drinks are expensive-ish but strong, the regular beers are roughly 1020-priced. A good way to get a lot of beer: order a 32 oz. or 64 oz. (!) growler to go, from $7-30. There are also stacks of burgers and wings to go.

After the jump, we eat!

Gearing up for tonight’s big game? Drop by the following joints for special Superbowl deals and steals:

Havana Central

$29.95 for assorted empanadas, all-you-can-eat shrimp salad, Cuban sandwiches, vegetarian stuffed peppers, rice and beans, and ropa vieja and all-you-can-drink mojitos, sangrias, draft beer, and soda

Village Pourhouse

$40 for all-you-can-drink Bud Lite and all-you-can-eat wings

O’Connell’s

Unlimited free food

Campo, The Heights, and 1020, arent offering any Superbowl deals, but 1020 does admit to being “a pretty cheap bar” anyway. Sure! Instead, find free wings (but likely poor TV service) in most campus residence halls and free pizza and snacks at the 5th floor of the Hillel Building.

The Morningside minutiae in our little Bubble Above 110th Street is what keeps us together. The tiny parts of our neighborhood that make it both boring and wonderful would seem trivial to anyone on the outside. Occasionally, we’ll be taking the time to share the minor details with you.

• The Entitled Sophomores indignantly note that the price of a Brooklyn Lager at 1020 has increased from $3 to $4, and blame it on imagined gentrification.
• Those Perpetually in Fear of Slipping need fear no more. The mats outside Butler have been upgraded to rubber ones with exquisite traction.
• The upgrades continue inside with Blue Java now filling your cup of coffee for you, while Butler Café hosts its own new vending machine.

You can kiss those exorbitant ATM rates goodbye — Spicy Special connoisseur Austin Brauser reports that Crack Del is now taking credit cards with a $7 minimum.  Get your 40s and your deli meats without stopping by Lerner first.       

Friday, Saturday, Sunday

NY Craft Beer Week

9/11 through 9/20, various locations 

If you’re getting tired of Pabst, take your pick from over 80 bars and sample some of the finest micro and homebrews the city has to offer.

Price: passport costs $35, but with it you can try each beer for just a few dollars

Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week 

9/10 through 9/17, Bryant Park (Sixth Ave between 40th and W. 42nd Sts)

We know: those of you lucky enough to get on a guest list are already going.  For the rest of you, head to Bryant Park to oogle the beautiful people and get a glimpse of a world you didn’t think actually exists.

 Price: Free 

Friday

Naughty By Nature Live

Friday 11 pm – 4 am, Le Poisson Rouge (158 Bleecker St)

New Jersey’s supergroup does The Freedom Party, New York’s longest running, weekly Friday night dance party.  Party like it’s Jersey City without actually having to leave Manhattan.

Price: $20 Read more…

Are you kept up at night by financial fears?  Yes…but PrezBo is always there for me with his consoling words. 

Are you proud to be an American now with an Obama Presidency?  Yes…but Obama’s Presidency could be as disastrous as the Trojan War was for the Greeks!  Wait, who won that war?   Better check Sparknotes…

Are you scared to go to 1020 with the crime spree in the area?  Yes…but now you just drink some delicious yuletide lager in your room for less than half the price.

Are you happy that your alma mater’s military veterans marched in a parade?  Yes…but making more vets is a terrible idea!

Room Hopping returns this week with a special look inside the seedy underbelly of a Carman Beer Pong Mecca. Eliza Shapiro reports, with photojournalist Liz Naiden in tow.

Bwog sucks at beer pong. We came to Columbia hoping against hope that we would not have to be subjected to fruitless hours of waiting for our respective rounds, only to eventually disappoint our teammates and be mocked by our friends. Oh, what fools we were.

“Beer pong is very central to college life,” explains Anonymous Carman Miscreant Number One, leaning against the makeshift table he and his roommate have made the centerpiece of their double. The beer pong table making process was “easy,” and the ingredients simple: a penchant for the game, disdain for closet doors, screwdriver, two desk chairs, and a spare five minutes. Miscreant Number One simply unscrewed his door from his closet, balanced it over the two rocking desk chairs provided to him and his roommate, and the job was done. Serendipitously, Carman closet doors measure roughly 7.5 X 1.5, almost the same as the 8 X 2 table that the World Series of Beer Pong has decreed official regulation size.

Read more…

Has your weekend been lacking a certain cultural, athletic or alcoholic satisfaction? If so, check out Bwog’s mid-weekend guide to the weekend update.

Cultural

Danscores by Ofelia Loret De Mola

Shakespeare’s Ophelia was not much of a badass. Rather than sticking it to the man, she let the man stick it to her. Not so with this Mexican-born Ofelia. In the final performance of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s “Sitelines” series, this choreographer expresses her rebellious anti-establishment opinions in performances that challenge the conventions of modern dance. Expect dancing in the street and lots of Mexican punk music.

City Park Hall; September 13-14 at 8; Free

Oresteia

Major Cultures, Global Core, there may be very little distinction between the two, but one thing we do know is that Columbia loves the Western Canon. The university’s love fest with Greek tragedy continues with the Miller Theater’s performance of Iannis Xenakis opera, Oresteia, based on Aeschylus’ tragedy.

Miller Theater; September 13, 16 and 17 at 8
Read more…