Oy there skippers! The antwacky Philo posse cordially invites any gadges and manashees to a good ol’ afternoon of jackanories and canking with Karen the Librarian over tea and biscuits. Pip pop cheerio.

Puppies coming to Columbia circa 2200

Seriously though, the Philolexian society is holding teatime this afternoon in Sulzberger Tower from 4 – 6 pm with Karen the Librarian. Those who would like to attend can RSVP here. For those of you who don’t know, Karen Green, Ancient and Medieval History Librarian and Graphic Novels Librarian at Columbia, is one of Butler’s most sacred resources. She holds a plethora of knowledge in her respective field, and knows far more about the library habits of you and your peers than you would expect.

Dogs Gone Wild via Wikimedia Commons

Bwog’s resident Portraiture Enthusiast Mahima Chablani returns with a second edition of Dead White Guys. This time, she’s here to provide the captions for the paintings  surrounding the main stairs in Butler—no one is physically tall enough to come close to reading them. Next time you walk in, stop moaning about bed bugs and Redbull and give your eyes some visual stimuli.

Nicholas Murray Butler (surprise!) (1862-1947) by Augustus Vincent Tack in 1944: Butler served as twelfth president of Columbia from 1902-1945 (yes, that’s 43 years!). On the scale of Columbia overachiever-ness, Butler has outdone us all: from the years 1882 to 1887, Butler earned his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D.; joined the Philosophy department; and co-founded the New York College for the Training of Teachers (now Teachers College). And his snazzy abilities didn’t just stop there. In the years 1920 and 1928, Butler ran for office with the campaign slogan “Pick Nick for a Picnic in November.” Many students regarded Butler as arrogant and controversial, like the ballsy Alan Ginsberg, who wrote “Butler has No Balls” on the window of his dorm in Hartley.

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Come April, Columbia is witness to a familiar but slightly strange sight: thousands of students and patrons eagerly line up to fork over their money for a musical theater show. And this all happens in an age when musical theater is about as relevant as a rotary phone. It’s a testament not only to the power of tradition, but to the Varsity Show’s tradition of breaking with tradition. In an old program by the Blue & White, Vijay Iyer charted the impressive history of the Varsity Show. Below, Bwog presents an abridged version, sprinkled with some old- school images we dug up from the library archives. We really enjoyed the preview, and have high expectations for tomorrow’s opening night.

Defying easy categorization, the Varsity Show now hovers somewhere in the gray area between comedic and parodic interpretation of musical theater. But its roots are firmly planted in the song and dance of an era long since past. Paging through one playbill from the show’s early history, you’ll find a cheerful advertisement with a helpful suggestion: “For digestion’s sake, smoke Camels.”  Things have certainly changed.

Originally, the Varsity Show was conceived as a fundraiser for Columbia’s athletic program. The first show, “Joan of Arc,” premiered in 1894 with an all-male cast. In its heyday, Varsity Show was a bona fide New York event: it boasted lavishly decorated sets, was staged at venues like the Waldorf-Astoria, and was even covered in the New York Times. And there was plenty to write about—including the work of such luminaries as Richard Rodgers C’23, Oscar Hammerstein C’16, Lorenz Hart, C’18, and Herman Wouk, C’34.

A snapshot of the more than hundred-year span of shows reveals a succession of themes broadly reflective of their respective eras. Varsity shows at the turn of the century recreated lavish exoticized—one might even say Orientalized—visions of the East. “The Buccaneers,” the swashbuckling tale of 1896, was followed in short order by “Cleopatra,” “The Khan of Kathan,” “Made in India” and “The Mysterious Miss Apache.” Starting in 1920 the show moved toward a brand of somewhat more serious humor. Featuring a score by the formidable trio of Rodgers, Hammerstein and Hart, “Fly With Me” was a send-up of the Bolshevik Revolution. The widely praised production began a trend of political satire Vshows. In  1923, Corey Ford penned one of the most famous shows, “Half-Moon Inn,” based on characters from Washington Irving’s Sketch-Book, more broadly attacking the anti-intellectualism prevalent in America following World War I. The now eminent (103 year old!) historian, Jacques Barzun, C ’27, continued the tradition with a lofty script for 1928’s “Zuleika, or the Sultan Insulted.”

For 1929’s “Oh Hector!” an all-male cast re-enacted scenes from the Iliad and the Aeneid, with beefy athletes playing the roles of Andromache, Cassandra and (gasp) Helen. One glance and the audience realized this wasn’t “the face that set sail a thousand ships.” Far from it— in fact by this time, the Varsity Show had become famous for the “Pony Ballet,” a group of Lion gridiron’s finest ferociously rouged and tucked into ill-fitting dresses, who provided a raucous finale for the night’s festivities. (more…)

We found this on the Library’s website, and it was too good not to share. Dwight Eisenhower wasn’t around all that much during his five-year presidency of the university, but he seems pretty chuffed to be at Columbia here, circa 1953.

What joie de vivre!

The Reading Room, inside the library

In our new feature, Bwog goes behind the scenes, discovering the hidden joys of working at or around Columbia University. In our first exploration of pretend real life, Senior Labor Correspondent Katheryn Thayer followed Jordan Lord in his sweet setup at the Rare Book and Manuscript Library (Take Bwog to Work Day was actually on Thursday.) Like show-and-tell? Got a cool job? Tell us about it at tips@bwog.com

So much of enjoying Columbia is finding your niche, and Jordan Lord has done just that. His background experience working with an editor and film archivist at online magazine Triple Canopy sparked interest in archiving, so when a friend mentioned an opening at the Rare Books and Manuscripts Library, he jumped at the opportunity. At his post, he gets to sift through donated material that is often relevant to his area of interest—Film Studies and English—retrieve rare documents for researchers, and become acquainted with an impressive and little-known resource here at Columbia.

On Thursdays (from 9-5, the real deal!) Jordan hangs out on the little-traveled sixth floor of Butler, where the Rare Books and Manuscripts Library is tucked away at the end of a long corridor of sparsely-populated reading rooms. Though he sees on average one or two History majors a day, this section of the library is mostly utilized by professors and researchers. The library’s collection contains a host of exotic, unique, and mighty interesting documents, folios, books, and other important things. It encompasses a vast range of smaller special collections, such as documents pertaining to individuals from Joan of Arc to Winston Churchill. Currently, 4 of Tennessee Williams’ typewriters are on display. (You can read a fascinating history of the origins and growth of the collection here.)

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Bwog has hopped and camped in libraries, but we’ve never actually explored their contents. The Columbia libraries are a treasure trove of exciting history, so with the help of our lovely librarian friends, we’re going to highlight some hidden jewels. In this installment of BiblioBwog, Karen Green, Ancient & Medieval History and Graphic Novels Librarian (what a combo!), tells us about a few of her favorite things. Green was recently selected as a judge for the 2011 Eisner Comic Awards, “the Oscars of of the comics industry.” She’ll also be featured in the upcoming issue of the Blue & White!

Favorite room to camp in:

KG: I would never camp in a room (she said piously) because that is SO INCONSIDERATE. But I think my favorite room is actually 202, because the ceiling is so so so beautiful. When I was a grad student, that room was used for book processing, and no one could see into it except for brief glimpses of the ceiling. It was like Alice, down the rabbit hole, looking longingly into the door of the garden of bright flowers and cool fountains. And now I can see the whole ceiling whenever I like. NICE.

Favorite physical part of the library, apart from the books:

KG: I love the lobby mural. I like a picture one can unpack. I love the Empire State Building and the Hayden Planetarium in the landscape, and that fact that the “masses” are carrying a hammer and a sickle.  And that “Columbia” looks like Cher. But the lobby mural is probably tied with the ceiling relief under the chandelier that’s in the Butler Circulation lobby: the Columbia seal flanked by the NYC skyline. Nobody even knew that was there before the renovation, it was hidden beneath so much soot and smoke and dirt. I love looking up at it. I also wrote this little piece for the Butler Blog about the inscription inside the Reference Room, so I’m fond of that, too. I do love decorative flourishes!

Favorite Resources:

KG: The best friend that no one knows enough about yet is LibX, a Firefox plug-in that allows you to search CLIO from anywhere with just the click of a mouse. This can make life so much more effortless, and it makes using resources like Google Scholar more effective, as it can take you more quickly to full text.

Then there’s that Serial Set. So much historical government information to be mined from that, and you have no idea how hard it used to be to use, when you had to learn the right indexes to use in the Reference Room and then figure out how to find the right volume in the stacks. Now, it’s as easy to search as Google.

But I mostly love databases that offer a lot of searchable texts combined with images of the original artifact. So, something like EEBO, where you can look up “Curiosities and wonders” as a subject term and find things like this. I have that image (right) hanging on the wall of my office. EEBO stands for Early English Books Online, and includes searchable full text of every book published in English before the year 1700. It’s just got RICHES.

Another, similar resource is Medieval Family Life, which has scanned, full color images of letters from 5 medieval English families, along with full transcriptions, annotations, and historical notes. So, for example, this 1440 letter from Agnes Paston to her husband, William:

To my Worshipful Husband William Paston, be this Letter taken.

DEAR Husband, I recommend me to you, &c. Blessed be
 God I send you good tidings of the coming, and the 
bringing home, of the Gentlewoman, that ye weeten (know) of
from Reedham, this same night according to appointment, that 
ye made there for yourself. And as for the first acquaintance between John Paston and the
said Gentlewoman, she made him Gentle cheer in Gentle wise,
and said, he was verily your son; and so I hope there shall need
 no great Treaty between them. The Parson of Stockton told me, if ye would buy her a Gown,
her mother would give thereto a goodly Fur; the Gown needeth
 for to be had; and of colour it would be a goodly blew, or else
 a bright sanguine. I pray you to buy for me two pipes of gold. Your stews do
well. The Holy Trinity have you in governance. Written at Paston in haste the Wednesday next after “Deus
qui errantibus;” for default of a good secretary, &c. Paston, Wednesday

Yours AGNES PASTON.
           about 1440. 18 H. VI.

We are in this letter acquainted with the first introduction of a young Lady to the Gen-
tleman, intended for her husband, and are informed that she “made hym gentil cher in
gyntyl wise:” but it appears somewhat extraordinary, that being the Heiress of a family 
of rank and fortune, any intimation should be given to the father of the Lover of pre-
senting her with a Gown, and especially as “the Goune nedyth for to be had.”

How awesome is that??

A Joseph Urban maquette of the Rooftop scene in Flying High

Bwog has hopped and camped in libraries, but we’ve never actually explored their contents. The Columbia libraries are a treasure trove of exciting history, so with the help of our lovely librarian friends, we’re going to highlight some hidden jewels. For our first installment of BiblioBwog, Carolyn Ruvkun talked to Jennifer Lee, Performing Arts Curator at the Rare Book & Manuscript Library, about the Joseph Urban exhibit.

A titan of the twenties, Joseph Urban was an innovative Art Deco set designer, architect and illustrator. Urban was so famous that while staying in the hospital before his death, he was listed as John Smith to ward off gossipers. After a brief stint for the Boston opera, Urban arrived in New York to design for Ziegfeld’s Follies, Broadway shows (the first production of Showboat) and the Metropolitan Opera (the premiere of Turandot). Jennifer Lee explained she organized the exhibit chronologically to show all the various artistic projects Urban was involved in at once. Fully engaged in every single production, Urban meticulously crafted his sets with detailed 3-D models or maquettes, and watercolor illustrations. Urban even worked with the actors in William Randolph Hearst’s famous film company. The newspaper magnate was one of Urban’s wealthiest supporters, and the letters they exchanged are displayed in the exhibit. With his trademark bright “Urban blue,” the restless designer infused all of his work with excitement and fantasy.

Columbia received the archives of Joseph Urban as a donation from the artist’s widow, the former director of “pageantry, spectacle and dance” and Barnard College. (Yep, you could study pageantry). For decades, hundreds of Urban’s works were buried in the stacks of the Rare Book library. Recent grants and private donations contributed to a finding aid for identifying what lay hidden in the collection. Columbia then hired conservators to repair Urban’s disassembled models, and librarian Jennifer Lee curated the fascinating exhibit. Jennifer’s favorite piece was put together from a box of miscellaneous scraps she purchased sight unseen from a dealer in upstate New York. Turns out, the package contained a full set model of one of Urban’s early productions for the Boston opera. Guided by a complementary drawing and photograph from the collection, the conservationists reconstructed the entire maquette.

Despite his artistic achievements, few remember Urban. John Loring, former design director for Tiffany’s, ventured to spotlight the larger than life (and physically massive) Urban in his recently published biography. With hundreds of Urban’s stage models, watercolors and sketches, Columbia provided Loring with material evidence of the artist’s imaginative work. In one of Urban’s illustrations, the Empire State building appears as an imposing palace against the backdrop of the signature blue sky. “The Empire state building had just been completed in 1931, and Urban showed the pride of this great civic accomplishment,” Jennifer marvels. “Sometimes you come up out of the Subway and try to look at the state building as if you’ve never seen it before to try to capture the excitement of the day.” Urban wrote that theater should be “felt rather than seen” —an experience of “total immersion for the person attending.” The models and watercolors displayed in the exhibit celebrate an artist who revolutionized theater.

“Joseph Urban: the World as Theater” is open to all Columbia students in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library on 6th floor of Butler through December 23^rd.  If there’s anything else in the library you want Bwog to check out, tell us in the comments!