THE UNDERGRADUATE MAGAZINE OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, EST. 1890 THE BLUE AND WHITE Vol. XIX No. VI December 2013 The Perfect Season Why football fumbles (and who cares) They're Watching (Out for You) Increasing security and surveillance at Columbia ALSO INSI EPS DE: JUSTICE IN THE CITY THAT NEVER SLE THE BLUE AND WHITE Vol. XIX FAMAM EXTENDIMUS FACTIS No. VI COLUMNS FEATURES 4 BLUEBOOK Conor Skelding & 10 AT TWO SWORDS’ LENGTH: DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU’RE CONOR SKELDING, CC ’14, Editor in Chief 6 BLUE NOTES Anna Bahr TALKING ABOUT? ANNA BAHR, BC ’14, Managing Editor 8 CAMPUS CHARACTERS Our monthly prose and cons 12 VERILY VERITAS WILL HOLT, CC ’15, Senior Editor TORSTEN ODLAND, CC ’15, Senior Editor 13 CURIO COLUMBIANA Naomi Cohen 14 THEY’RE WATCHING (OUT FOR YOU) SOMER OMAR, CC ’16, Senior Editor 36 MEASURE FOR MEASURE Increasing security and surveillance at Columbia NAOMI SHARP, CC ’15, Senior Editor 42 DIGITALIA COLUMBIANA JESSIE CHASAN-TABER, CC ’16, Layout Editor 43 CAMPUS GOSSIP Channing Prend 18 POSTBAC TO THE FUTURE LEILA MGALOBLISHVILI, CC ’16, Senior Illustrator The students who are changing the chemistry in pre-med classes MATTHEW SEIFE, CC ’16, Publisher Staff Writers NAOMI COHEN, CC ’15 Naomi Sharp 20 SPEAKER SERIES ALEXANDER PINES, CC ’16 DANIEL STONE, CC ’16 Coming undone at the Cloisters ALEXANDRA SVOKOS, CC ’14 Contributors Daniel Stone & 21 ARCHITECTURAL IndIGESTION MIKEY ABRAMS, CC ’16 Sean Augustine-Obi SEAN AUGUSTINE-OBI, CC ’16 Students stop expecting space in their student center JULI BRANDANO, BC ’16 MICHELLE CHERIPKA, CC ’16 HE IG OUSE TO THE IG PPLE TYLER DINGMAN, CC ’16 Tamsin Pargiter & 24 T B H B A VIRGINIA FU, CC ’17 Katharine Lin The administration Bollinger couldn’t do without COOPER LYNN, CC ’17 LUCA MARZORATI, CC ’15 ANGELICA MODABBER, BC ’16 Luca Marzorati 26 NIGHT COURT KATHERINE NEVITT, CC ’16 TAMSIN PARGITER, BC ’16 Justice in the city that never sleeps CHANNING PREND, CC ’17 JENNIFER SLUKA, CC ’17 MATTHEW SEIFE, CC ’16 Torsten Odland 29 WILSON HALLIE NELL SWANSON, CC ’16 ETHAN WU, CC ’17 In which Andrew and Wilson settle in Artists HE ERFECT EASON RACHEL AGINS, BC ’17 Hallie Nell Swanson 32 T P S ZANE BHANSALI, CC ’17 Why football fumbles (and who cares) ANGEL JIANG, CC ’15 KATHARINE LIN, CC ’16 PAULINA MANGUBAT, BC ’17 Juli Brandano 38 IN STUDIO ALEXANDER PINES, CC ’16 ANNE SCOTTI, CC ’16 How architecture students find solidarity in suffering ALEXANDRA WARRICK, BC ’17 GRAYSON WARRICK, CC ’16 Anna Bahr 40 WORTH BELABORING A conversation with Ross Perlin theblueandwhite.org f COVER: “Day and Night in Butler” by Alexandra and Grayson Warrick BLUE BOOK BLUE BOOK Across 3. At CU we’re tweakin’ on ___ ___. 5. Philanthropic Community Leaders 7. Why would I go to a party in the __ __ _? 9. The bald head of the CU campus. 10. Literary “Society” 11. They lose 13. Our favorite PoMo structure. 14. Don’t you care about pediatric AIDS? 15. The Man Who Knew Too Much (eventually) 18. They allocate a mean budget. 20. I hope it doesn’t rain on my ___ boots. 22. This john jay roll tastes like ____. Down LETTER FROM THE EDITOR TRANSACTIONS 1. That marching band poster was so _____. ARRIVALS 2. Formerly sold at Crack Del At Columbia, it’s easy to tell who we want to be. 4. Literary society See: the tweedy academics-in-training, groutfitted athletes, 6. Credible News Source Bollinger in Spec chain smoking internationals, boat-shoed fraternity brothers, outré 8. I go for the culture, and the baklava. hipsters, Barbour-wearing preps, etc. Mozzarella sticks in JJs 12. I love that jacket. ____? I ran into an acquaintance from freshman year the other day. 16. I think it rhymes with pukin’. We hadn’t spoken since 2010. “What are you studying?” I asked, by Barnard signage 17. Urban beach way of small-talk (figuring by strong chin that he studied economics). 19. Do any of you guys believe in ___? “Econ,” he said. He’s got an offer from a bank. “You?” 21. Eat where you read, talk while you eat. “English,” I replied, before we both paused: “Oh, cool, yeah.” Doughnut Plant at Joe’s Solutions are on page 44. We live in our in-groups. We share a suite, or a fraternity DEPARTURES house, or a Spec office, where we can let ignore whatever group POSTCARD FROM MORNINGSIDE stands against ours. We run around in circles, and those circles rub elbows at 1020 or Beta or Mel’s. Pizza at John Jay (That’s one very different thing about first semester. We haven’t yet fully created our college selves, and so we aren’t Leaves and grass automatically prejudiced against others. I enjoy spending time with my freshman year friends—and if I met them today, we probably Heating (in dorms) wouldn’t be friends.) But that’s not what I care about now. Of course we dress Another crop of student leaders and think like our friends, and gather in the same places. What I’m concerned about is after graduation. Because now, when I come upon the pre-professional whose COME AGAIN!? contract is already signed, sealed, and delivered at JP Morgan—and “If you would never judge that some- he comes across me, thinking I don’t know what—we do hate one one was admitted to Columbia on another a little bit. the basis of their skin color or ethnic But we have to be civil: we’re both students here. We were background, how can you judge both in Butler last night—we have some stuff in common, even if that someone else was admitted to ideologically we’re anathemic. Even if we talk shit about one another Columbia on the basis of their bat- in our groups, we still are part of a community here. So we nod, “Oh, ting average instead of their term as cool, yeah.” Here, the econ major and the gender studies major president of their student council?” usually have the decency to appear to take one another seriously. – Daniela Quintanilla, After graduation, once we’ve really self-sorted, this won’t be so. CC ’14, — Conor Skelding in Spectrum 4 THE BLUE AND WHITE DECEMBER 2013 Postcard by Leila Mgaloblishvili 5 BLUE NOTES BLUE NOTES Who says Columbia security is stiff and unfriendly? Far from lecturing me on the merits of nap etiquette, Larry rolled a chair over and listened to me play through a Bach prelude. He then introduced himself (“Larry Humphries, at your service”) and offered to show me “some pieces I wrote myself.” Not unwillingly, I switched seats. Larry doesn’t play jazz. He doesn’t play blues either. In fact, it’s pretty hard to nail down exactly what he does; it’s sort of a Thelonious-esque rumina- tion with startling chord changes, atonal bass lines, and a melody he says he “wrote down at home but I’ll just sing it for now.” That evening he ran through one, two–and abruptly stopped in the middle of the ou may have had the fortune of encountering, you may not really understand why you ended up third piece to turn around and ask me what I thought. Yon your daytime Broadway sojourns, the com- grocery shopping with itinerant bookseller Larry When I gave my wholehearted approval, Larry munity of itinerant booksellers who sell their stuff at Westside Market, after he kindly took the time to returned to the keys and finished the piece, then grabbed his jacket and went for the door, explaining in Columbia’s shadow. Among them is Larry, who introduce you to a few other booksellers. (“This is like he’ll try to talk you out of it. When you purchase boasts of having sold his wares (via Amazon) to Virginia,” Larry explained to Steve and Dan, “She’s that he had to “go relieve Mr. Cole at the desk before a copy of Sylvia Plath’s Ariel, he’ll deliver his opin- I miss my shift.” places as diverse and book-loving as Sarah Palin’s writing an article for The Blue and White magazine ion on the quality of her poems versus her novel. He — Ethan Wu hometown and the Singaporean zoo, and who bears on the itinerant booksellers of the neighborhood.”) recalls how a Columbia student, absorbed by her a vague resemblance to a beret-wearing Godfather; In the fluorescent aisles he tries to help you brain- device, once walked into his table. He believes that lood? Fire? Civil Discontent? Call 212-854- who, when asked for his name instead spelled storm what you might write 350 words about. There a great writer must be simultaneously a great intro- out his Gmail and responded to subsequent queries was an article about the Morningside Heights book- “F5555,” read the four-by-four purple and vert and a great extrovert. He has a book of poetry white signs that adorn classrooms across campus. with exuberant proclamations of “I give up!”; and sellers a few years ago, he says, in The Onion. out from Fractious Press entitled Blond, Blue-eyed Are these signs trying to be funny? Can I call Steve, a former musician and magazine writer who “The Onion?” and Handsome. When he found his old magazine in the name of “civil discontent” when I want that in acquiescence to your request that he share some He points towards the Spectator offices across articles illicitly posted online he had his friends at of his writing sent a wry and rambling 3500-word Broadway.