THE BLUE AND WHITE Vol. IX, No. IV Apil 2003 Columbia University in the City of New York SEVEN DAYS OF SCRABBLE by Anand Venkatesan CROSSWORD PUZZLE PERSONAL ADS by Vijay Iyer by the B&W Staff THE BLUE AND WHITE Vol. IX New York, April 2003 No. IV pril is the finest month for THE BLUE AND WHITE playing games at Columbia. The freezing rain of March is CONTENTS (hopefully) gone, and it has Editor-in-Chief yet to occur to us that we have Columns CRAIG B. HOLLANDER, C’04 to take finals in May. Now, 95 Introduction the spring sun compels us to dust off our 96 Campus Characters Publisher Frisbees, baseball gloves, and Wiffle balls, 101 Blue J ISAAC V. KOHN, C’04 and bask outside in the fresh air. To cel- 102 Told Between Puffs ebrate Columbia at play, The Blue and White is Managing Editors 103 Culinary Humanities pleased to bring you its Games Issue. VIJAY IYER, C’03 106 Measure For Measure AINSLEY K. ROSS, B’04 Having partners almost always enhances the 112 Curio Columbiana PAUL HEYER, C’04 quality of a game. Certainly, the same could 113 Booze Humanities be said of publishing The B&W. From the 116 Digitalia Editor Emeritus initial brainstorming to the final editing, the 118 Lecture Notes ANAND VENKATESAN, C’03 magazine constitutes a team effort. Recently, 120 Book Review The B&W came under the leadership of new Editors 123 Campus Gossip team captains from the Junior class: Craig ALEX ANGERT, C’03 Features ERICA GRIEDER, C’03 Hollander, Isaac Kohn, Ainsley Ross, and Paul 99 Letter to the Editor D. JEFF SOULES, C’03 (Webmaster) Heyer. Nevertheless, our Seniors, through 104 Games People Play MICHAEL S. PAULSON, C’04 (Literary) their wisdom and work, are contributing now 108 Scrabble Diary CALEB VOGNSEN, C’04 more than ever. In this issue, Erica Grieder 114 Personals publishes her latest work entitled, “The Contributors 119 Crossword Puzzle Games They Play.” Contrast that with Editor ELISA BARQUIN, C’03 122 Letter from the Editor Emeritus Anand Venkatesan’s “Seven Days of STEVEN PULIMOOD, C’03 Scrabble”—an account of the games we play. NEMANJA SLAVKOVOCH, C’03 Our regular contributors were also game THOMAS GORMAN, C’04 for some phenomenal submissions. The Blue On the Cover: ALLEN O’ROURKE, C’04 “Scrabble Exploded,” by Cara Rachele I. DAVEY VOLNER, C’04 J is squawking about the imminent threat to ERICA DeBRUIN, C’04 Lerner’s Game room and Mephiscotcheles has Typographical Note PAUL C. MAZZILLI, C’06 an entertaining Booze Humanities—a must The text of The Blue and White is set in Bodoni DANIELLE F. D’ONFRO, C’06 read for those who were warned as children Old Face, which was revived by Günter Gerhard not to play games in the street. In Culinary Lange based on original designs by Giambattista Artists Humanities, Pontius Palate describes the LOGAN KASS, C’04 Bodoni of Parma (active 1765–1813). The display bizarre history of a particular species of CARA RACHELE, C’05 faces are Weiss and Cantoria. underwater game, which is quite literally a Red Menace. Be sure to join the entire B&W staff in the game of love by perusing, and hopefully answering, our personal ads. In Max DiLallo’s book review of The Puzzle The B&W invites contributions of original work Instinct, you’ll learn that humans have been from the Columbia community and enjoying mind games, such as riddles, for welcomes letters from readers. centuries. Here’s one of our all-time favorites: Articles represent the opinions of their authors. what is blue, white, and read all over? Need a e-mail: [email protected] hint? Turn the page, start reading, and you’ll website: http://www.theblueandwhite.org have your answer. 94 The Blue and White April 2003 95 Chris Wiedemann teammates are pretty sure they know how to The mental image of a 6’9” athlete in mesh have a good time. Kappa Delta Rho, his home shorts and Air Jordans may not seem to ever since his Carman days, has an unshake- Campus Characters able reputation of debauchery, in spite of an cohere with the image of a green pasture full ou might not know the following figures—but you should. In Campus Characters, The Blue and of cow shit. Even more incongruous is the YWhite introduces you to a handful of Columbians who are up to interesting and extraordinary story of uprooting our Nike-clad hero and things, and whose stories beg to be shared. If you’d like to suggest a Campus Character, send us an e-mail transplanting him to the urban megalopolis of at: [email protected]. New York. But while raising cattle on a ranch in northern California doesn’t really fit into circus folk. When she left Pratt for Columbia, Leah Yananton the narrative of the typical Columbia basket- her circus skills made CUMB the country’s The next time you bump into Leah ball player’s life, Chris Wiedemann, C’03, is first juggler-equipped marching band. Yananton, C’03, ask her about the Peace anything but typical. Having gone to eight schools before college, Pilgrim. Sipping berry tea in her cozy new Chris has managed to find the time to com- au paired in Liechtenstein for a year, picked kitchen on Tiemann, I listened to Leah gush plete an architecture major during his tenure up juggling in Tunisia, learned Italian and about her hero, the woman who walked 28 at Columbia, playing ball all the while. To Chinese, worked on Spike Lee’s Bamboozled, years and 25,000 miles, not for fame or for hear him tell it, his major involves a great and made it halfway through The Power of religion, but simply for peace. “And,” Leah deal of good, old-fashioned paper-and-pencil Your Subconscious Mind , Leah has a secret to adds, “she was from New Jersey.” Herself a drafting, which must be rather time consum- share. Don’t sweat it, she says, look around, native of the sunny Keys, Leah has a theory ing. How has he managed to balance work open up and accept. Artificial constructions about people from New Jersey: there’s more to and play? “I pulled a lot of all-nighters in the such as GPA matter little when all is said and them than meets the eye. basketball season,” he confesses. done. She gladly shares some of her other theories. Lest we come away with the impression that People, on the other hand…About a month Illustrated by Danille D’Onfro Like how sexuality has no gender, and people the student athlete’s nose is always pressed ago, Leah hosted this year’s most talked- simply love people. Leah attributes her philo- to the proverbial grindstone, though, Chris about birthday party in only her birthday award for most improved fraternity won dur- sophical freedom to her family—her father, a assured The Blue and White that he and his ing one of Chris’s years as president. Walk microbiologist turned inventor, her mother, suit. As she wound her way through the crowd, stuffy and inhibited academics shed down 114th Street on a sunny spring day who nurtured Leah’s creative side, and the and peer skyward, and you’ll probably see his sister with whom she made the funny movies their own unmentionables and got down to ��������������������� a mix of African drums and Cindy Lauper. friends holding megaphones and bullhorns, that first piqued her interest in film. hanging out of the windows, heckling pass- Recruited by Pratt, Leah started studying They—we—felt unencumbered, welcome and �������������������� free in her presence. We felt as though she ersby. film but found herself spending more time ����������������� Meanwhile, back on the farm...Chris really at a Russian circus school in Brooklyn, unicy- would remember us forever. Currently working on a child development has spent summers raising livestock, and cling, juggling, tumbling and walking on balls ������������������� while John Deere doesn’t manufacture a trac- under the exacting gaze of chiseled Russian documentary with a director she met on the set of Brooklyn Babylon, Leah told me about a tor with the requisite legroom for someone typical day of filming. On a mat in the middle of Chris’s height, that hasn’t endangered his of the studio, dozens of pink and chubby agrarian lifestyle. Thanks to the good people babies from Long Island were hamming it up at the Ford Motor Company, Chris is a happy for the cameras as their muthas—here Leah Bronco owner, a reflection of his cattle-ranch slipped flawlessly into her Fran Drescher personality as well as his built-Ford-tough drawl—clucked and kvelled, looking on. stature. In her living room, furnished entirely The subject of stature, of course, provides with antiques saved from the trash heap �������������������������������� a natural segue to basketball. Widely recog- (her entertainment center is a 1940s stove ��������������������� nized as the best blocker in the Ivy League, painted in the colors of a French pastry—she Chris has been an invaluable asset to a bas- ketball team that needs all the wealth it can keeps her movies in the oven), I perched ������������������������������� accumulate. The four-year term limit is about on Leah’s couch and listened to her stories ������������������� to kick in, though, and Chris has played his unfurl, but my mind kept slipping back ����������������������������� to those rosy New Jersey babies. Sharing last game of Lions hoops. After so many years a film set with such a free spirit, maybe of basketball-related interviews, he admits they’d grow up to be Peace Pilgrims too…If it strikes him as unusual—perhaps even ever only their mothers would let them.