2007 was a great year for music, but it was an even better year for stand-up comedy albums. I can’t blame anyone for not wanting to follow modern stand-up, since Dane Cook’s ability to sell millions of albums by telling zero jokes is frustrating not only comedically, but also mathematically. (How much money per joke does he make? Calculator error!) But if you can manage to look past such injustice, the year redeems itself in fine fashion. The year’s top five follow, courtesy of Rob Trump.




5. Michael Ian Black – I Am a Wonderful Man

 

Michael Ian Black is one of two Stella/The State members to release a debut stand-up album this year, and despite Michael Showalter’s superior musical ode to sandwiches, Black’s album is more consistent and an overall better effort. Both albums come somewhat closer to traditional stand-up than one might expect from members of two exceedingly strange sketch troupes, but Black does a great job of adapting his deadpan unpredictability to the format. He’s also surprisingly intelligent when he brings sarcasm to race issues. If you’re familiar with his vocal inflections from either show or from his many VH1 talking head appearances, imagine him saying this line: “The ‘white power’ crowd tend to be the disenfranchised whites, the people who don’t necessarily have all the power. So who do they blame? The rich and the powerful. In other words, the blacks and Hispanics.” It’s smart sarcastic race humor, and he does it in a much more intelligent, aware way than, say, Sarah Silverman.

4. Jen Kirkman – Self Help

 

Hey, speaking of Sarah Silverman, let’s hear it for the female comics today who are able to step out of her “Isn’t it funny that I’m a girl and saying this?” shadow and do comedy that isn’t as one-note and unfunny as a rape whistle. That is, let’s hear it for both Maria Bamford, whose album just missed my cut, and Jen Kirkman, who has a voice and style not predicated on her gender and not quite like any other comic I’ve listened to. She’s neurotic, but she parlays this into derisive jokes that are half making fun of other people and half making fun of herself for having such a mean defense mechanism. In possibly her best bit, Kirkman can’t stop thinking about easy it would be to kill some of her friends and then gets very upset at how similar she may be to an actual serial killer. I can’t capture the same effect of her rapid speech in print, but her performance deconstructing that particular neurosis is comedic gold. Read more…

Bwog guest  Coogan Brennan, a Campus Character in these pages many months ago, was CC 02008.  

 

Let me say, first, it’s an absolute honor and pleasure to be here on Bwog. I never thought I would reach the echelon of being an actual poster on Bwog. It just goes to show the saying is true: reach for the stars—even if you miss, you’ll be floating off into space like those bad dudes at the end of Superman II.  

The staff here has been kind of enough to let me jot down a few thoughts here about life after being a Columbia undergrad. Most people will tell you about the benefits of going to Columbia or they’ll commiserate with you about the troubles inflicted by Columbia, and may even help you find a life after Columbia. Few, however, will tell you about the glory awaiting you as a Columbia dropout. 

Better Loan Rates: Anyone watching the American economy closely knows a successful business start-up today needs to be able to play the market for a low-interest-rate loan.

For example, I’m trying to start up a non-profit organization called The Manhattan Project. When I sit down with people to discuss the idea, everyone says, “What a hair-brained idea! Who on earth would possibly go for that sort of thing?” I then casually mention that I had heard a similar thing before, during my college years (Them: “Where did you go to school?” Me: “In New York City…Columbia? Have you heard of it?”). I had dropped out, ostentatiously finding the curriculum “personally unsatisfactory.” To the naïve bystander, I instantly achieve a reputation smorgasbord of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs,  Ted Turner, Michael Dell and Nina Totenberg. In short, an unstoppable speaking machine. Read more…

Bwog freelancer Kate Linthicum followed the Potluck House kids north last night. 

What do you get when 40 rambunctious college students descend on a notorious Bronx park for a moonlit drum circle? The NYPD, apparently. 

The costumed revelers at last night’s “Hotluck” Halloween party learned that the hard way when police swooped down on their party in Van Cortlandt park, ending the night early with a spirited sprint through the city’s northernmost borough.

It all started, harmlessly enough, with a cryptic e-mail a few days before. Circulated by members of the “Potluck House,” a Columbia special interest housing group, the e-mail told of a secret Halloween soiree. The organizers didn’t say where it would be held, but they instructed interested partiers to congregate at 116^th and Broadway with flashlights and noise-making devices.  

Dozens of students showed up, some in elaborate costumes. They milled around excitedly while one member of the Potluck House tried to prep them for the party. “Please use the buddy system,” she pled. “Things might get crazy.” Then she led everybody to the subway station. Read more…

And now for another smattering of weekly events compiled by Stephanie Quan. Hurry, some of these start in the next couple of hours!

Monday, June 25

Wiz Kidz – Test your knowledge of things from really slow songs to bipolar movies with three of your friends against teams from all over the city. Crash Mansion, 7:30pm, $7 http://www.bigquizthing.com

Wilco – “Hearty and prim” according to The Onion. Hammerstein Ballroom, 6:30pm, $37 http://www.mcstudios.com

*HBO Film Festival: Thing from Another World- Get there EARLY, sit CLOSE. Bryant Park, 8pm http://www.bryantpark.org/calendar/film-festival.php

Let’s Get Lost – Bruce Weber’s documentary on the life of jazz trumpeter and drug addict, Chet Baker. Film Forum, $10,
http://www.filmforum.org

NY Asian Film Festival – Through July 5^th. IFC Center, $11 http://www.ifc.com

Human Rights Watch International Film Festival- through June 28^th. Walter Reade Theater, $7 (student tickets) http://hrw.org/iff/2007/ny/

Punch Puppetry – Puppets! Galapagos, 7pm, $5 http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/204690/

*Soon I Will Be Invincible – Because you love comic books/graphic novels. Meet Austin Grossman, The Strand, 7pm http://strandbooks.com    

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Welcome to the first installment in our five-part series on Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, that mystifying, Columbia-owned haven of higher learning in Palisades, New York, that no one really knows anything about – until now!  Bwog correspondent Addison Anderson takes us through the history, the mystery, and the all-around good time that is waiting for you just a short bus ride upstate. Featuring: forests, the Rockefellers, bad architecture, beer, CU250, Nestle Chocolate, Robert Moses, College Walk, “I Like Ike”, and the origin story of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory!

Across the street from Radio Perfecto on Amsterdam Avenue, a sign on Columbia’s northeastern wall marks the starting point of a trip few undergraduates ever take to a place they know little about.  Before seeing it, I had imagined that the Lamont- Doherty Earth Observatory, with its presumed tall observation tower and/or laser cannon, would make a good headquarters for a super-villain in a Varsity Show.  Friends had similar impressions: “I always thought it was like, a giant dome.” “It’s probably really high tech, lots of steel and glass.”

As it turns out, this is not the case.  Hoping to find out for real what this mythical place was all about, I join dozens of researchers, grad students and professors one rainy Friday morning on the 8 AM chartered tourbus to Lamont. While the Lamonters, as they call themselves, sip their coffee and devour their Times, the bus rumbles over the George Washington Bridge and up to the Palisades along a two-lane highway, finally arriving at Lamont’s 150-acre campus on a bluff above the Hudson River. 

Continue reading after the jump… 

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Bwog contributor Ashley Nin took some time to compile the favorite jokes of a few professors. Hey, they’re not paid for their senses of humor…

James Crapotta, Department of Spanish and Latin American Cultures, Barnard

A Mexican crosses the border to Texas, hoping to purchase a pair of socks.  He goes into the first store that he sees, walks straight up to the storekeeper and says, “Señor, quiero calcetines.” The storekeeper replies, “I’m sorry. I don’t understand Spanish.” The Mexican only repeats, “Señor, quiero calcetines.” “Ok, I’ll point to different things ans you tell me if it’s what you want.” He first picks up a jacket. “Is this what you want?” he asks the Mexican. “No, quiero calcetines!” The storekeeper then picks up a hat. “Is this what you want?” “No, no! Calcetines!” Finally, the storekeeper shows him a pair of socks. “Is this what you want?” “Eso sí que es!” The storekeeper looks at the Mexican, somewhat annoyed, and exclaims, “Why didn’t you just spell it in the first place!” 

More laughs after the jump!

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Tomorrow is a big day for all you Sorority hopefuls out there: starting at noon, dreams will be made and hearts broken as new member bids become available for pickup in Lerner. This moment represents the culmination of nearly a week of Formal Recruitment events—the details of which, to many Columbia students, are nearly as big of a mystery as why anyone would want to join a sorority in the first place. To shed a bit of light on the situation, Bwog regales you with a run-down of the process, followed by the Cliff-Notes version of key pages of the Fall Recruitment Handbook (available here online; click on “handbook” at the bottom of the list of links).

On Sunday, all interested “potential members” started the pledge process by attending four different introductory parties, each thrown by one of Columbia’s four sororities, to give future members a taste of what each group was all about. Parties lasted one-half hour each and did not overlap. On Monday, all those who were still interested went to four more parties. Again, each was thrown by a different sorority, but this time, the parties had a philanthropic theme, meant to introduce potential members to the respective Sisterhoods’ highest standards of community service. On Tuesday, “Skit Night,” potential members were allowed to go to a maximum of three parties, chosen through “mutual selection.” As the handbook tells us, “During each party, members of the host sorority will put on a skit what will allow you to become more familiar with its sisterhood.” Fun!

Tonight, everyone who has stuck with the process throughout the week will get all fussied up in formal dress and attend a maximum of two parties.  At each party, potential members will “share in a special ceremony coordinated by the host sorority to mark your entry into the Greek community.” This is new member’s final chance to decide whether or not greek life is rigt for them.  At the end of the night, each recruit will a “preference card” stating which sorority is her first choice. Bids are made tomorrow at noon: those who receive one are totally in.

After the jump, we turn to the handbook.

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