THE BLUE AND WH Volume XII No. II October 2005 Columbia University in the City of New York THE DECLINE AND FALL OF ROLM by Christopher Beam THE RETURN OF BATHROBE BOY WAR OF THE WANKERS by David Plotz by Marc Tracy Editor-in-Chief ZACHARY H. BENDINER, C’06 Publisher HECTOR R. CHAVEZ, E’06 Managing Editor AVI Z. ZENILMAN, C’07 Editors CHRISTOPHER BEAM, C’06 MAX H. DILALLO, C’06 JERONE L. HSU, C’07 (Graphics) JESSICA SHIZU ISOKAWA, C’07 (Layout) BRENDAN O. PIERSON, C’07 CODY OWEN STINE, G’07 (Literary) Contributors KATHY GILSINAN, C’06 BENJAMIN LEVITAN, C’06 BETHANY MILTON, C’06 DAVID PLOTZ, C’06 C. MASON WELLS, C’06 LENORA BABB, C’07 ANNIE BERKE, C’07 IGGY CORTEZ, C’07 IZUMI DEVALIER, C’07 ELIZABETH FERGUSON, C’07 NICHOLAS B.B. FRISCH, C’07 JOYCE H. HAU, C’07 JOSIE D. SWINDLER, C’07 MARC A. TRACY, C’07 LAUREN ZIMMERMAN, C’07 PAUL B. BARNDT, C’08 AMANDA ERICKSON, C’08 OWAIN EVANS, C’08 MERRELL HAMBLETON, C’08 MARK KROTOV, C’08 BRENDAN BALLOU, C’09 GUISSEPPE CASTELLANO II, C’09 JOHN KLOPFER, C’09 GLOVER WRIGHT, C’09 ORIANA MAGNERA, C’09 KATHERINE E. REEDY, C’09 ZACHARY VAN SCHOUWEN, C’09 2 THE BLUE AND WHITE THE BLUE AND WHITE Vol. XII FAMAM EXTENDIMUS FACTIS No. II 4 CAMPUS CHARACTERS. Michael Dela Cruz and Carla Bloomberg, these are your lives. 6 TOLD BETWEEN PUFFS. .In which our hero endures a literature class. 7 THE RETURN OF BATHROBE BOY. .As a first-year, he wore a bathrobe. Everywhere. Then it got cold. 8 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF ROLM. .The crumbling of a landline empire. 10 LETTER TO THE EDITOR. The B&W plays midwife to fiction’s rebirth. 11 A WICKETT SMART NOVEL. .Review of Wickett’s Remedy. 12 DIGITALIA COLUMBIANA. For the first time since I was 12, I can’t even masturbate. 14 WAR OF THE WANKERS. .British “intellectuals” debate the war in Iraq, mothers’ chastity. 16 ZERO DEGREES COLUMBIA. .Columbia’s legendary dropouts and their downfalls. 18 THE BEST AND THE WHITEST. The scandalous career of St. A’s, Columbia’s highest society. 20 INTERVIEW WITH CHARBEL EL-KHOURY. .On Lebanon, Syria, and the secret police. 22 MEASURE FOR MEASURE. .“New Land,” by K. Reedy, and “Sonnet,” by C. Stine. 24 SIX HOURS IN WOODSIDE. An exploration of Queens’s Irish pub neighborhood. 26 HOW TO BE A COSMOPOLITAN. .From poseur to dilettante in just ten steps. 28 REFUGEE CAMPUS. Why do Tulane students keep winning at beer pong? 30 THE LAMENT OF COBAG. .Bagels and malt liquor! Sob. 31 CAMPUS GOSSIP. .Carman Sutra. Yalies. Meow Mix. eaders, have you ever lost a Scrabble match? To your peg-legged grandmother? Have you ever stolen her leg? Do you remember the howl that put a damper on your sweet revenge? That pang in your gut, dear friends, is not a eulogy, nor an elegy, but a lamentation. It is in that varicose vein that THE BLUE AND WHITE offers you its Lamentations issue. Cry on our shoulder and maybe you’ll get our number. For only in moments of lamentation can we know the depths of love. There are some things Columbia has lost. Civic responsibility. Youthful innocence. Three-way conference calls. The tale of the ROLM phone system has been one of imperial hubris and cord over-extension. The five students still socially naive enough to connect their phones are unlikely to receive a call from anyone besides THE BLUE AND WHITE’s own Christopher Beam, who chronicles the collapse of a pre-millennial empire in his majestic “The Decline and Fall of ROLM.” Ah, the 1990s. Whoomp, there it is. The lonely echo of a fading dial tone, one can suppose, is not so bad as having one’s school under water. Such is the plight of the curiously attractive Tulane interlopers, spending a semester at C. Who knew beer pong was so integral to southern charm? Who didn’t expect Columbia students to be so snarky about unimaginable tragedy? See “Refugee Campus” on p. 28 for an anthropological exploration. Yet let us not dwell on others’ misfortune, but rather cheaply lament our own figurative thundering typhoon, the death of Columbia Hot Bagels. Yes, when the building on 110th reopens, it shall no longer house that esteemed 24- hour purveyor of dreams, bagels, and fine forty-ounce beverages. Columbia without CoBag is like a beautiful woman with one eye. See p. 30. O Columbia, lament! Lament all that hath come and gone, and left you with nothing but a soulless job and an STD! Want THE BLUE AND WHITE delivered to your room or office? For subscriptions, e-mail [email protected] E-MAIL: [email protected] COVER: “ROLM ! ” by Jerone Hsu OCTOBER 2005 3 Campus Characters ou might not know the following figures—but you should. In Campus Characters, THE BLUE AND YWHITE introduces you to a handful of Columbians who are up to interesting and extraordinary things, and whose stories beg to be shared. If you’d like to suggest a Campus Character, send us an e-mail at [email protected]. CARLA BLOOMBERG Yet for all the personal liberation that comes with nudity, Carla’s motivations may be a bit more Exactly forty-nine minutes after I e-mailed Carla political. Aside from her participation in Students for Bloomberg, C’07, informing her that she had been Environmental and Economic Justice and Students chosen to be a Campus Character, she e-mailed back for Choice, last year Carla became involved with a list of friends I could contact for more information. television. “I used to do a show for CTV called She included not just names and e-mail addresses, ‘Jilling Off’ about sexual empowerment,” she says. but brief, annotated descriptions: one friend “has “The idea for the show came about when I was proclaimed on numerous occasions that i [sic] freak talking to my RA, and she said she didn’t know him out,” while another was a “summer roommate... where her clitoris was, so we had one episode which hmm....tension of sorts...” Blunt and self-aware, Carla dealt with masturbation because a lot of women is a provocateur, whether or not she wants to be one. have trouble orgasming.” Although she only shot If there is one image that many Columbians (and one episode, she hopes to do more. For now, her college students from around the country) may have media dominance is limited to chairing the world of Carla, it is her photograph on the Facebook. The music section of WKCR and hosting the channel’s current image shows her topless, in mid-air, her dark “In All Languages” and “Morning Ragas” programs. brown curly hair tossed upwards, with the words “HA But perhaps Carla’s greatest notoriety lies in HA HA” shielding her breasts from the censoring her so-called naked parties. So-called, since eyes of Mark Zuckerberg. “This whole being naked “ideally I’d call them nude parties, because naked stuff is not directed at anyone specific,” Carla means that you’re without, in contrast to being claims. “I still know that I’m gonna garner some clothed, whereas being nude, that is how you are. reactions that I can’t control. But it’s not for them.” Nude is a positive, whereas naked is a negative.” The only requirement for entrance is the removal of clothing. These parties perfectly represent Carla’s ability to approach an idea both intellectually and offhandedly. “The idea came out,” she says, “because in this consumer culture, we’re creating this image through our clothing, instead of clothing being an accessory.” But right after she utters this quasi-manifesto, she admits, “besides all this political stuff, [it’s about] just chilling out and doing what you want to do. If I want to walk around naked, I should be able to do it.” Might this elegant nonchalance, though, belie a more serious, self-righteous side to Carla? “Whenever I see injustice and prejudice, I’m the first one to speak up,” she declares. “A lot of people hold against me that I’m argumentative and confrontational.” But that’s not exactly how her annotated friends describe it. “I only hope she realizes how ridiculous she is,” says the one Carla claims to have freaked out. And, in an eerily similar statement, her summer roommate calls her “an unapologetic self-parody.” 4 THE BLUE AND WHITE Maybe so. But with Carla, it is impossible to fully came time for him to decide where to go to col- separate the political, the personal, the exhibitionist, lege, he continued the migration that his sisters and the simply absurd. I asked Carla if it would be began by going way out west to Palo Alto. And accurate to describe her as a culture warrior. “Is it Stanford—with its palm trees and bubbling foun- really being a culture warrior to call a guy out when he’s tains and terra cotta buildings—was very much calling a woman a bitch? That’s not a culture warrior,” the academic Camelot that Michael had envisioned. she explains, “that’s just my duty as a citizen.” -MK Indeed, whenever he talks about Stanford, his eyes brighten: “Coming here made me reflect on things I have at Stanford that I don’t have MICHAEL STEVEN DELA CRUZ anywhere else.” Specifically, those are his a cappella group, “Talisman,” and the Filipino- If the term “medievalist” conjures up in your mind American Student Union, in which he serves as an image of a monkish scholar blabbering in eccle- historian, a role that fits nicely with his desire siastical Latin, you’re in for quite a shock.