Don't end up like him. Clean, sober fun!

Campus Scavenger Hunt

Here are the rules: gather up a group of friends and bring a piece of paper for keeping score. The losers have to buy the winner a slice of Koronet’s or a Joe latte. (If you don’t have any friends, just buy yourself something for getting a lot of points. Or spend time finding friends instead of going on a scavenger hunt.)

Things to find:

• someone reading for Lit Hum (5 points)
• someone reading for CC (5 points)
• overhear casual reference to a Latin class/phrase (5 points)
• spend five minutes counting foreign languages (1 point per language)
• identify swear words spoken in foreign languages (10 points)
• count three people wearing bookstore sweatpants (5 points, bonus points for making scathing comments about their attire)
• find people wearing athletic wear (1 point for one item of athletic wear, 5 points if they’re only wearing athletic wear)
• count four tee shirts from different colleges (5 points)
• find more than ten people with non-smartphones (10 points)
• find three pairs of TOMS in five minutes (5 points, bonus points if TOMS matched rest of outfit)
• PrezBo (100 points)
• group of high school students on a tour (5 points, 20 for effective heckling)
• hear the phrase “when I studied/was/lived abroad” (2 points)
• overhear discussion of SAT/AP/ACT scores (first year dorms/classes only, 5 points)
• someone on a walk of shame (10 points)
• someone legitimately referring to this school as “Columbia University in the City of New York” (5 points)
• witness un-ironic displays school spirit (20 points)
• someone getting CAVA’d for drinking, before midnight (5 points if in front of Carman, 10 if anywhere else)
• someone using an incorrect acronym for a CU building/class (5 points/acronym)

Photo Safari

You could do this on campus or in New York, and there are a couple of ways to play. The first way is to pick a theme (by picking a random adjective out of a book, for example—could be a good way to re-use those Lit Hum and CC books!) and try to take 10 to 25 decent pictures of that theme. For example, if the theme is “orange,” you could head to the Diana at Barnard, or find the Korilla truck. Another way is to walk around campus and take pictures of the various people you see, such as Artsy NYU-looking Student, or Boy Who Thinks He’s Don Draper, or Obviously Frazzled Professor With Beard.

Actually Get Off Campus

Sometimes it’s easy to forget that we actually live in New York (unless you’re in the class of 2016 or have recently lost your ID, because Columbia needed to clarify its location), which is full of expensive cool things to do but also full of free cool things to do. Always wanted to walk from campus to Battery Park? Find a friend and do it. It’s about 8 miles, full of entertaining sights depending on when you decide to go (this writer went between the hours of midnight and 8 a.m., wearing TOMS, which is decidedly not a good idea), and a good way to slim down before those CrackDel sandwiches catch up with you. Like art? Your ID gets you in to 34 museums for free, including MoMA and the Met.

It’s that time of year when friendships become political liabilities and a 300 sq ft box seems like an extravagant luxury. The actual process of picking a hovel takes place much later (and we’ve got you covered on that front), but before we get to that point, groups must be forged in the fiery crucible of deceit and realpolitik. Wholly unprepared for the challenges ahead, Bwog decided to appeal to familiar friends: CC Philosophers.

Bwog's Special Housing Correspondent

• Plato: Housing is all really a lie. Like, seriously, guys. I poked around in John Jay’s Housing “livestock yard” last year, and found Scott Wright manipulating the whole extravaganza like it was a puppet show. You “chose” to break down into doubles, but didn’t you really want that last Ruggles 8-person? Of course you don’t believe me, but I’ve seen the light, damnit.
• God: There’s this big ‘ol list of rules over on the Housing website, but they’re kind of a bore and most people didn’t really read them.
• Marcus Aurelius:  Suites are for people with emotions. Do general selection. Get a Wien single. Lock the door. Never come out.
• Machiavelli: Be a complete social whore starting second semester. Casually pick up the check after your regular weekend brunches, and be liberal with your cigarettes. Most importantly, always have a backup roommate ready in case you need to bail into a double.
• Rousseau: Never leave the state of nature. EC or bust.
• Kant: One does not simply ask how to house—careful inspection of the internal processes and minutia of the housing sequence of events will reveal a nuanced dialectic joining the metaphysical diversity of options with the inevitable conclusion that happiness is elusive, if not impossible, when choosing between a variety of friends, each of whom are assigned a rank along a dualist gradient of friendship and general utility with relation to your personage.
• Marx: Dorms are bougie. Should’ve gone for Potluck.
• Darwin: Study abroad.
• Nietzsche: Don’t let yourself be roped into the same housing as all the other sheep. Tell the whole system to “Blow me” and go get an apartment off campus.

In this latest RoomHop, dorm design professional Alexandra Svokos traveled to the Woodbridge abode of a pair of seniors involved—among other things—in XMAS!6, which is tonight(!) in Roone at 8:15pm.

“His name is Nero,” Lila Neiswanger,CC ’12, and Will Brown, SEAS ’12, say in unison about their betta fish. “Oh, the apartment’s name is Antium, ” Will goes on, “which is the birthplace of Emperor Nero.” “But the fish came first,” Lila quickly clarifies.  The fish is just one object in this Woodbridge room of wonders.  As a fighter fish, they felt it deserved an ancient dictator’s name; given the choice between Nero and Artaxerxes, Lila chose Nero.

Artaxerxes was not forgotten, however.  “Will’s one of those people who names his computers,” Lila explains.  Boasting six computers, Will is a CS senior.  The name Artaxerxes was bestowed upon the desktop computer that he built and uses.  “It’s just kinda sliding stuff into stuff,” he shrugs when asked about building it before explaining the pieces inside the computer.  “Just go with it,” Lila says.

The 3D printer the duo assembled by hand

Controlled through the computer is a projector that continually shines on the wall.  It cycles through webpages or plays a youtube video of a fireplace.  “It just keeps interesting things on the screen,” Will explains.  It has also been used for movies and TV and can be hooked up to an Xbox.  Next to the projector is a lamp made by Will’s parents from an old French camera with a soda can painted black for a lampshade.

Together, Lila and Will built a 3D printer that looks like it came from Dexter’s laboratory.  Melting down plastic filaments, it creates little objects like colorful Pacman ghosts that shine under blacklight.  They have been updating the machine over time, with additions like LED lights that change colors. (more…)

A pedantic Columbian couldn’t resist pointing out Il Cibreo’s EGREGIOUS spelling blunder. Yes, someone actually took the time to scrawl this correction on a post-it. We have a sneaking suspicion it’s a Bwog commenter… jk love you guys! We’re just as guilty.

Freshpeople, Bwog can’t believe you kids are already studying for your Lit Hum final! It seems like just yesterday when you were loading taxidermy rodents into your blue bins. In honor of the big test, we’re recycling this gem of a post, and adding a few updates. Below, Bwog presents a playlist of songs with references to glorious works of our literary past from the second semester of the Lit Hum syllabus. ‘Njoy!

The Beatles, “I Am the Walrus“
This Beatles classic sparked the “Paul is dead” rumor about whether John was grieving over Paul’s death. Some claim John purposely packed nonsensical images into “I am the Walrus” to confuse those who dissected every Beatles’ lyric so seriously. Still, this hasn’t deterred die-hard fans from looking for “Paul is dead” clues. (People have actually written books about this. For serious.) As the song fades out, you can faintly hear the following recorded lines of Shakespeare’s King Lear:

Oswald:
Slave, thou hast slain me: villain, take my purse:
If ever you wilt thrive, bury my body;
And give the letters thou find’st about me
To Edmund Earl of Gloucester, seek him out
Among the British part: O, untimely death.
(Oswald dies)

Is this “matter and impertinency mixed” or “reason in madness?” Well, for the record, Paul is still alive and kickin’

The Mountain Goats, “Love Love Love”
The Mountain Goats’ “superman” lyricist, John Darnielle, weaves dozens of random references into this gentle and nostalgic track, conveying the difficulty of coping with conflicting emotions.  One lyric even features Crime and Punishments’ Raskolnikov: “Raskolnikov felt sick, but he couldn’t say why, when he saw his face reflected in his victim’s twinkling eye.”

Radiohead, “Pyramid Song”
Lead singer Thom Yorke often cites Dante as a tremendous influence. The lyric, “and we all went to heaven in a little row boat,” refers to Charon ferrying our favorite voyager across the river Styx.” The song also appropriately mentions the “black-eyed angels” and “a moon full of stars.”

Bob Dylan, “I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine”
Factually correct? Not so much. Augustine wasn’t “put out to death;” he died of illness. But Dylan has said that he heard voices. Maybe a neighboring child chanted to him too. Or perhaps, as one Dylan defender pointed out last year, he’s referring to Jesus’ death. “Dylan, confronted by Augustine, feels that he is guilty of the ultimate basis of all sin, the death of christ. He dreamed he was among the ones who put Him out to death.”

And here are a few less intentional references:

After the jump, special contributor Gareth Williams, Chair of Literature Humanities, suggests some tunes (marked with asterisks). Who knew the composed gentleman who resisted the urge to eviscerate Miss “the Iliad is like gangster rap” also had such good music taste? (more…)

Ranked one of the greatest guitarists of all time by Rolling Stone, Thurston Moore is the front man for Sonic Youth. He's a big deal. Oh yeah, and he'll be here.

Huzzah! Miller Theatre has just announced a concert on Sunday, March 27 to raise money for relief efforts in Japan. The benefit, curated by New Music scenester John Zorn, features Sonic Youth, Yoko Ono, Sean Lennon, Cibo Matto, and many others the bill describes as “innovative artists at the intersection of indie rock, contemporary jazz, and avant-garde performance.”

Tickets are available here. $25 discount balcony seats for students.

Press release after the jump!

(more…)

With midterms approaching, seats in Butler come at a premium.  The number of alternative options is growing, but whether it’s the pleasing symmetry, or its world class ranking we can’t help coming back for more. So for dedicated Butler-ites, and also for those who are just trying to cram a half semester’s worth of reading in one week, Bwog presents a Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Butler Morals.

Only counting waking hours, I wonder if I have spent more time in Butler or in my dorm room.

1. Leaving Your Shit
   • Need to go pee? Universal sentiment drives you to it, so Hume says it’s A-Okay.
   • Need to make a food run? Hobbes recognizes that it mutually benefits everyone if we allow each other to get some food every now and then. But apparently life isn’t the only thing that is nasty and brutish (looking at you Butler Cafe coffee…) It’s okay to make a Starbucks, Oren’s, or Joe’s run. Food is allowable as well, but please don’t bring back overly fragrant Indian food, and save those loud crackly Sun Chip bags for the hallway.
   • Need to leave for 3 hours so that you can watch Lord of the Rings? Machiavelli sez we should ruthlessly jack your shit.  If you notice that someone has been gone for over an hour, then feel free to wave over that distraught freshperson who just wandered into the room, and reassure him or her that the MIA person’s spot is now free.  Now he or she owes you…
2. Moving Peoples’ Shit
   • Apparently there is an official policy about kicking out campers.  We can treat that like Eastern philosophy and ignore it.
   • Only a few books? Kant rambled incoherently for 30 pages about this problem.  Not really sure what he meant, but let’s say that I have a duty to not waste my life trying to figure it out, and I’ll just satisfy my inclination to move aside those books.
   • A few open books and notebooks?Ask the people who were around when the person left.  Use your judgement. But what is judgment? Can we trust reason?  What if the books don’t really exist? What if I don’t exist?
     

     "Be inhuman out of pity and love of humanity!"

   • Laptop chained to a chair/lamp messy papers all around? This is one is tricky because people most often chain their laptop if they plan on being gone for an extended period of time.  Again, ask neighbors.  If it has definitely been over an hour, arrogantly push aside everything and assert your natural right to ass-chair association.  Then murder everyone who you suspect disagrees with you.  At least that’s what the French would do…

The bottom line is that we have limited space to work with, and so we need to use it efficiently and morally.  What would we do without the Core?

Lit Hum class gathering on the lawn

Girl 1: So we’re gonna get really drunk and then read The Bacchae because that’s, like, totally how it should be read anyway.

Girl 2: Obvs.

The end is nigh…

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Sometimes Bwog procrastinates by reading Bwog. While digging through our archives, we found this gem of a playlist by 2006 CC prof Dermot Albert Ryan.

dancing maenad

Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy

The Police: “Spirits in the Material World”

Locke, Second Treatise of Government

The Beatles: “Mother Nature’s Son”

Hebrew Bible, Ecclesiastes

The Byrds: “Turn! Turn! Turn!”

New Testament, Gospels

The Velvet Underground: “Jesus”

Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics

The White Stripes: “We’re Going to be Friends”

De Las Casas, On the Just Causes for War Against the Indians

Neil Young: “Cortez the Killer”

Machiavelli, The Prince

The Clash: “I Fought the Law”

Listen to the full playlist here, courtesy of David Fine.

Any other suggestions? Leave them in the comments!

Photo by Michael Radtke

Radtke makes a keen observation: “Nowhere else in my life have I seen people take the newspaper and leave the sports section. Only at Columbia.”