It was 1 a.m. when the e-mail arrived in our inboxes. “FOR YOUR EYES ONLY,” the subject line glared. Only a week before The Game, there was little time to respond and little room for compromise: We were being sent on assignment.
Two days later, clad in nondescript clothing, we met under the gaudy, gilded ceiling of New Haven’s Union Station.

In this cold wash of a world, you can be a criminal or you can be anything else. Sometimes the line between the two is as plain as a separation of light and dark clothes. And sometimes the line is as thin as a strip of lint pulled out from the dryer. The latter is what I’m referring to right now.

Has a medium become the ultimate cliché of art? What was once a craft of daunting physicality and psychology can now neatly fit into your pocket.

NOT: Frumpy Vegetarianism (AKA Claire’s Corner Copia)
Vegetarianism has come a long way since when it was mostly a lifestyle reserved for those who listened to Ani DiFranco. Claire’s Corner Copia, however, clings to hemp as if it were gold in a recession. The overall ambiance is one of a judgmental, iron-deprived vegetarian that parades around as a doting earth mother. Even more unappetizing is the prepared food that sits behind an oddly foggy case, whose “cleaning” probably consists of an occasional wipe with a fair trade cotton cloth, and the surly staff who serves the food with as much enthusiasm as a sweaty lunch lady.

This week, scene was having dinner with a friend at Thai Taste, enjoying a spring roll before a heavy night’s editing.
“You know that Claude Levi-Strauss died a couple of days ago,” the friend said.

Last Friday the student body received the usual don’t-rape-someone-this-weekend e-mail from Dr. Carole Goldberg, which accompanies such rape-likely occasions as Halloween and the Freshman Screw.

What do you think a play called “A School for Greybeards or The Mourning Bride” could be about?

Music Review of Songs from the Past

My high school girlfriend introduced me to many things: how to make a good quesadilla, Regina Spektor, everlasting love and being cheated on.

The veritable marble fortress of the Beinecke belies a revolution. Graphic prints hang from the glass tower as periodicals in display cases protest: VIVE LA RÉVOLUTION PASSIONÉE, REFORME LA SOCIÉTÉ — OUVRIERS, ÉTUDIANTS …

Halloween emerged from the deep and haunted minds of the Celtic celebrators of Samhain. The original festivities heralded the coming “Dark Months” of the year. The event was Christianized in the 8th century and, later, people started wearing costumes to scare away evil demons.

SPEAK, READER
When and wherefore was the unpainted face of sexual activity on an American college campus, specifically solicited through the Internet, made taboo? At what point was “the first person” made criminal? In what universe can only big-dog hyper-scholars comment on seminal advancements in science and the lands of tomorrow? Since when, dear friends, did Finland start reading scene?

Dating at Yale is a lot like grabbing an apple in a dining hall.

Econ lecture 115. Biggest class at Yale this semester. Oh yea, about 1,000 kids — well, more like 300 and some, but same difference.

Libraries are more than lux, for they are sometimes underground and open very late, and veritas, for they are also places of make-believe.

China cares about your well-being. The country’s universities aren’t ignoring the crippling anxiety of their student bodies, but rather building whole rooms with foam walls so that kids can work out their issues. There are sandbags for punching, rubber mannequins for wrestling and soundproofed chambers if you need a good scream. Or if you saw someone do something really fucked up to a mannequin.

China cares about your well-being. The country’s universities aren’t ignoring the crippling anxiety of their student bodies, but rather building whole rooms with foam walls so that kids can work out their issues. There are sandbags for punching, rubber mannequins for wrestling and soundproofed chambers if you need a good scream. Or if you saw someone do something really fucked up to a mannequin.

When I made the decision to transfer from Nebraska to Yale this spring, I knew it wouldn’t be easy. My school workload would swell, the time commitment to football would not assuage and I wouldn’t know a single person in any of my classes. Since that time I’ve had the opportunity to meet many of my fellow students and not surprisingly, I’ve had to answer the obvious question “What made you transfer to Yale?” about a hundred times. The answer that I most often give (as transfers tend to do) is: “Because it’s Yale.” However brief and unexciting that may be, I believe the response is significant in two regards.

I was in front of the Pantheon, sweat was seeping through my shirt, and I was on the hunt for some tourists.
I scanned the crowd and decided to approach two tall, unshaven backpackers.
“Hi, my name is Ray,” I said, beginning my usual banter. “I’m a reporter for the Associated Press, and I was hoping to ask you a few questions for an article about tourism and the economy.”

“The sheriff and watch are at the door. / They are come to search the …”
BEEP BEEP BEEP
What the blazes? I am interrupted at a crucial moment of Henry VI. What has roused me from my reverie; what has cut short the bard’s fruitful bounty?
I spring across the carpeted halls to the source of the sound. A student walks away smugly, a clutch of dollars in his paw.
An ATM machine? An ATM machine?
It doesn’t take a “genius” to figure out that the ATM machine in Bass Library is just plain annoying. Seriously guys, what does it say when a university compromises the reading pleasure of its students to make some more $$$?
Major fail, Yale.