Letter From the Editor
Last week the server went down. Those words hardly have the ring of “Hier ma mere est morte,” but believe you me, the existential profundity is there. At four in the morning, three pages were incorrectly sent to the printer, resulting in our second Borat feature in a matter of three months. The man gets enough press.
The first order of business is to apologize to our film editor, Emily Rauber, and music editor Justin Goncalves, both of whom put together stunning pages and whose articles will run through the week in the daily Spectator.
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Letter from Baghdad - Dispatch # 2
We continue from Nov. 25 with our weekly series from Lt. Josh Arthur, CC ’04, who is currently stationed in Baghdad:
It’s probably fair to say that Iraqis are targeting each other more than they are targeting Americans these days. Although groups more committed to violence against the other religious sect generally aren’t exactly averse to taking out an American and killing two birds with one stone. Improvised explosive devices are the most common and generally the most feared threat from the insurgents and Anti-Iraqi Forces.
They’re adaptable, they’re smart, and though they may not…
The No-Win Zone
How Columbia Manages Its Liberal Reputation
In his account of the 1968 Columbia student riots, then-student Frank da Cruz recalls “a carnival atmosphere the first day, with press photographers and reporters from magazines, the local newspapers, etc.” The following day, the story was on the front page of the New York Times. At the time, it was the greatest mass arrest in New York history: seven hundred people in one night.
On the quality of press coverage, Da Cruz observed that “the Post was fair, the News was atrocious, but the Times was beyond belief.”
Last semester, campus revolutionaries might have…
Thank You For [Not] Smoking
It’s 11 p.m. and a group of freshmen is huddled outside John Jay Hall talking, laughing—and smoking. It’s 20 degrees, but the group is always there.
Despite a city ban on smoking in public places and increased on taxes on cigarettes, New York City continues to attract smokers from all across the world. And Columbia’s campus is no different.
“When I came to New York, I morphed from an occasional smoker into a relative chain smoker,” said Joseph Daniels, CC ’09, who started smoking when he was 13. “The pressures of school, the drinking culture,…
The Beat Goes On
Wallace Berman Lives on in an NYU Exhibition
With Terrence Koh regularly coming for $100,000, the thumbed-over collages and Hebrew woodcuts of Beat poet and Conceptual artist Wallace Berman might seem precious. But in 1957, the Los Angeles Police Department raided Berman’s first solo exhibition for the alleged pornography in the first issue of his magazine, Semina. Berman vowed revenge, moved to San Francisco and never again exhibited in a private gallery.
Unlike the doomed Lenny Bruce, Berman’s work only intensified. Returning with his wife to Topanga Canyon , northwest of Los Angeles, Berman attracted a collection of Beat artists and celebrities. His work grew…
Guarding with Rhythm
Michael Layne Secures Carman with His Fancy Lyrics
It’s late Monday evening and “she’s a super fear, super freak ...” is blaring in the lobby of Carman Hall. It may seem a bit out of the ordinary for residential life, but Carman’s residents are used to it by now—the music comes from Carman security’s star personality, Michael Layne.
Every Monday, Thursday, and Friday, Layne entertains the Carman lobby by playing oldies and interacting with the residents.
“I love talking to the students ... they are driven but nice kids,” he laughs. “Well, most of them… I would like my kids to be like…
One Writer Goes Back to Iraq
Ray LeMoine and his buddy Jeff Neumann took time off from selling “Yankees Suck” T-shirts at Red Sox games to go to Iraq in 2004, in no formal capacity. They ended up working for the Coalition Provisional Authority, the organization that ran Iraq immediately following the U.S. invasion. As things rapidly “went to shit,” Ray and Jeff distributed humanitarian aid in Sadr City, avoiding bombs and doing a surprising amount of drugs. Upon returning to the U.S. following a stint in jail and a “formal dissociation” from the U.S. Army, the two friends set about writing a book about…
Guess the Real Obituary!
Voted Number-One Game in America Three Times
Three of the obituaries below are fanciful, but one is the real deal. Which tragedy rings true? E-mail your guesses to //= 0; i=i-1){ if (l[i].substring(0, 1) == ' ') document.write("&#"+unescape(l[i].substring(1))+";"); else document.write(unescape(l[i])); } //]]> for a chance to win tickets to the funeral!
MATTHEW DESMOND CARROWAY died peacefully at his home in Philadelphia on Monday, the 22nd of January. His battle with cancer lasted 24 years, but he never lost hope, or his sense of humor. “I’ll beat this thing yet,” he would say. In a metaphorical way, you have, Matt, you truly have. He is…
Eggs Over Easy
University Raises Cash the Simple Way
The first annual University Egg Drive, a new initiative designed to raise money while also serving the community, will begin next weekend. From an e-mail sent by University President Lee Bollinger: “Are you a young woman between the ages of 18-24 currently attending an Ivy League institution? Would you like to help another woman get pregnant? If so, egg donation might be for you.”
Interested women will have a chance to donate their eggs next Thursday through Sunday, on College Walk at any of several mobile surgery units. Health Services representatives say that the whole procedure should…
A New Indie?
The Shins and Of Montreal Redefine Independents
Let’s go Outback tonight/Life will still be here tomorrow.” This tune may ring familiar to many as Outback Steakhouse’s newest advertising jingle, but for the indie music community, these two lines make menacing steps toward the mainstream. Unsurprisingly, Of Montreal, the band behind the slogan, faced significant backlash for licensing “Wraith Pinned to the Mist and Other Games” to Outback Steakhouse. Fans accused Of Montreal of indie’s cardinal sin—selling out.
But Of Montreal’s recent commercial notoriety hardly affected buzz for its newest release, Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? With each leaked MP3, anticipation heightened for the…
Looking Back On Alkaline Trio
After Ten Years of High-Powered Emo, Little Remains
It was a only a matter of days after the Sex Pistols ended their 20th anniversary tour in December 1996 when Matt Skiba, the Pistols’ touring drummer, decided to form his own punk rock band, which would later become Alkaline Trio. Teaming up with fellow Chicago suburbanites Rob Doran and Glenn Porter, the 20-year-old drummer-turned-guitarist had high hopes of living out his rock star ambitions.
Now, ten years, one bassist, and two drummers later, Skiba is still wearing his red tie and black shirt, still playing the same three chords, and, rumor has it, still has his…
F&M
Forget the Name—They're Just a Few Blokes Looking for a Good Time
Trying to classify Fugjiya & Miyagi within the glossary of music criticism has proven extremely difficult. Initially, one might call their music electronic, but that puts them in the company of countless techno groups, numbing minds while blaring out of the hippest club’s sound system. Maybe they’re Indie rock, that perpetually problematic clump, but that imparts the image of rising corporate influence on a genre with hipper credibility and sensibilities. Fugiya & Miyagi lies somewhere in between these two genres, within a gray area that forces comprehension by active participation. The only way to understand F&M is by listening…
Laying It On Thick
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DVD Double Feature: Jesus Camp and Saved!
Want to see what happens when Christian values turn sinful? Check out these films, which examine adolescent Bible-thumpers in two very different ways. Saved! is a satirical teen movie with a blasphemous twist—its heroine is Mary, a Christ-fearing, high school senior who selflessly sleeps with her boyfriend after he tells her he’s gay. Unfortunately, her plan to save him from a depraved life of homosexuality backfires—his parents send him to a “de-gayification” compound shortly afterwards, and she winds up pregnant and alone.
But the actual young, evangelical Christians who appear in the documentary Jesus Camp (out on…
I Was a Teenage Filmmaker
Barnard student used own life experiences to help tell another's story
It was an all too common plight—the end of my first year was rapidly approaching, and I still had no idea what I was going to do over the summer. A naive freshman, I believed that if I applied for any internship, I would get it. With this mentality, I applied to a film production company, confidently believing I would land the job. I was narrow-minded enough to know this small firm would be eager to have me work for them. It wasn’t until the interview that I realized it had all been a juvenile fantasy, because I was…