This week, in which:
Rabies found in 9 bats in the suburbs [Sun-Times]
You know what they say about the real education coming from the frat house? Bah, they don't?
Well, they should. Two 22-year-old Northwestern grads with biomedical engineering degrees are marketing anti-slip beer pong diamonds. The Washington Post says sales are brisk, and the Sun-Times says it's time for a full story, filled with innuendo and possibly with reporting by the Wall Street Journal!
Only I can't seem to find a place to buy the $9.95 mats anywhere. Perhaps the celebratory profiles were a bit premature? Go ahead, read them if you must:
NU grads go to the mat for beer pong [Sun-Times]
[WaPo offbeat blog]
You may have heard that some powerful men want to build a 49-story tower in downtown Evanston. It would be across from Sherman Plaza, which they also built. And nothing — not shitty journalists, not cracked out aldermen, not rival developers, not fledgling Daily reporters — can stand in their way.
Wait wait wait. Could it be there's another constituency here, as yet unheard from in the whispering fray? Yes! The people!
Or so it seems when you first read EvanstonNow spinster Bill Smith's article today. The plans have "brought out a chorus of critics," he writes.
Then he veers off into journalistic la-la land, preaching about how, usually, Evanston's tallest buildings are about a quarter as high as Chicago's tallest in the same time period. What? Yeah, I know.
And it goes on! What with the Chicago Spire, a huge, beautiful, Calatrava-designed tower going up in River North, we're historic-relationshiply due for a 49-story tower!
What do you think? That, maybe next week, someone will take up how people who live in Evanston feel about this? Um, agreed. Meanwhile, the search for intelligent life in Evanston media goes on.
How tall is too tall for Evanston? [EvanstonNow]
Periodically, or, really, whenever it strikes our fancy, we may report on the tendencies of Northwestern professors. This is one of those times. In fact, it is the first!
Someone from a health service the Washington Post is now whoring itself out to has written a piece about two Northwestern professors. These people are constantly in the news! Whatever did they figure out now?
Well, it seems breaking up with people isn't so hard, or so painful, as you might think. The professors, from our beleagured psychology department, followed — yes, really — 69 Northwestern freshmen for a year. 
Every successive survey asked those still coupled up to characterize the depth of their current love and to predict their emotional state of mind two, four, eight, and 12 weeks after a theoretical split. All were also asked how soon they might enter into a new relationship following any break-up.Put another way, the researchers bombarded the dwindling number of couples with questions about a possible future break-up every two weeks. I wonder if that impacted the results at all? Nah, probably not.
E-mails went out over the Daily Northwestern listservs this morning announcing EIC Abe Rakov is once again taking applications for city editor. I guess he stopped at some point?
Anyways. We are just 25 days away from the purple lady's first issue of the 2007-2008 academic year, and there remains a gaping hole in the masthead. Why is that, dear readers?
Besieged by resignations, dogged by transparent p.r. masquerading as legitimate coverage and inundated with student complaints, Medill Dean John Lavine now gets his very own deathwatch.
Once upon a time in a crabby old building called Fisk, Medill Dean John Lavine decided to complement his sea change — excuse me "blow up" — of the curriculum by blogging about his decision-making. There were even periodic posts!
Anyways. I was going to write that it had been 100, 200, 500 days since his last post, but Medill now has no records of any such Dean's blog. Come on! It had that happy-go-lucky logo, that formal prose, those obsequious descriptions of meaningless changes. Stop trying to hoodwink me, Michele Bitoun.
But rather than point out that Medill is moving closer to the White House while everyone else is putting like 9,127 miles between themselves and the president, I decided to actually figure out what was going on. Yeah, so what follows is an unadulterated transcript of e-mails between me and Ellen Shearer (right), the webmaster (really?) of the WHCA's Medill-hosted site.
Peter -- happy to answer questions. But first, is this for a Daily article?Why, would that change the nature of your answers? So, I said:
I'd never say never, but for now it's for my personal gratification and possibly for my blog. That said, it could contextualize Medill coverage. Even if you guys dreamed up MC Rove, I doubt anyone would deem it worthy of an article.Onwards. About ten minutes later, out came the claws:
Thanks again.
Peter -- Karl Rove was a speaker at the Radio-Television dinner, not the WHCA dinner.Like, who knew those were separate events? Anyways, that answered like one of the questions I originally posed. I guess prejudices aren't always off-base.
Medill coordinates judging of the WHCA awards. We also created and have hosted the Web site, but this fall it will be redesigned and moved off the Medill server so we only will be coordinating the awards judging.Medill coordinates judging of the WHCA awards. We also created and have hosted the Web site, but
this fall it will be redesigned and moved off the Medill server so we only will be coordinating the awards.
After watching the above video, you've pretty much gleaned all there is to know about this post. Serena Brahney, a recent NU grad/tri-delt/medill broadcast gal has combined all of her skills to prove this is she is "charismatic, capable, and [OMG!] clearly the right choice for the Smirnoff Top 10."
The folks over at Smirnoff will pick ten sluts and dudes to travel around the world as brand reps while getting drunk in such exotic locales as New York, Shanghai, Paris and Moscow (what, no Ho Chi Minh City?). If you're too lazy to watch the video (or don't want to deal with a Facebook photo montage), Brahney would make the perfect pick because she's the "resident social planner" for her social group, a trained dancer, has lived in four (!) different cities, and has been trained at the Medill School of Journalism. That last bit is especially important -- it taught her how to shoot her own video in a much too dark room (Ava would be so upset!), and put a little Smirnoff-red signer with her name at the beginning of her youtube contest entry.
Is this the kind of thing we're supposed to apply for when we're unemployed? Does this even count as a job? Can I put this on my resume?
In any case, our money is on Brahney. Not because all the other entries seem to be from Canada (in fact, Brahney is too). But because we remember her as the only girl crass enough to convince Darla Ward to send out an e-mail when she lost her designer sunglasses during a Crane Lecture.
So raise your glass to the past memories. Here's hoping Brahney will be embarrassing herself, not over the Medill listserv, but on youtube soon enough.
Well, it's obvs because of the annual LGBT bonfire the school holds the second day of New Student Week. This year, though, compassionate planners have scheduled it for 9:30 p.m. to 11 p.m., giving charred lesbians just enough time to catch a last glimpse of CBS' upcoming season at Starbucks.
New Student Week schedule [Weinberg version]
Remember May, when everyone was slinking off from events at Enclave to go to Crescendo, which was kind of sort of maybe doing a soft opening? Right, and it was.
And it was getting quite a bit of buzz. You know, it had that supper club thing going on, and it was playing heir to Reserve (those are underage Northwestern students on Reserve's website, which unsurprisingly has nothing to do with why it got shut down in July), and it had a 4 a.m. liquor license.
And you know what? Now Crescendo is dead! And about the least likely person in the world figured out why.
Back in July, a Chicago Tribune columnist named Jon Kass reported that the owner of RiNo, a club about a block from Crescendo, was kind of pissed of about the new club. The owner has that weird type of blue-blood Chicago political pull. He got people looking into the finances of the owner of Reserve and Crescendo, Antony Demasi.
Onwards. It turned out they had no money! At this point Kass' series of events becomes a little foggy—there were some emergency loans, some political strings, some muffled threats.
It all ended when armed guards "seized" Reserve and Crescendo on July 5. I don't know if it happened at night, but let's all entertain the possibility.
Regardless, the bank that made the emergency loans is now thinking of selling the properties to RiNo's owner, which would really add insult to injury, don't you think?
Whatever. The real question here is, with two of Chicago's best 19-year-old-friendly clubs shuttered indefinitely, where will the weekly, boozy migration of Northwestern students park next year? Crobar? Le Passage? Hit us.
Feds getting hip to Chicago club scene [Chicago Tribune]
Yes, I had my crack this morning, too.
Library reopens with new kid's space [EvanstonNow]
That promise of "unreported stories" you see on the left? Rarely fulfilled, I know. It's far too much work. But here's one anyway.
Red Mango, the truly Korean (aka not Korean-American) frozen yogurt upstart challenging Pinkberry, is opening an Evanston branch in either October or November. It's going to be located in Sherman Plaza. It will, barring some aldermanic intervention, stay open until 12 a.m. No word yet on whether or not it will inhabit the cursed Cereality space.
The company is evidently putting a lot of effort into this. My inquiries were answered by none other than Dan Kim, the company's president and C.E.O.! He thinks there is a "great university" called Kellogg in the area, but hey, you always knew those dudes were superior.
Pinkberry is opening Chicago branches late this year, but hasn't said where yet.
And that's all I've got on Evanston. But here's some context.
For the non-coastal among you, the frozen yogurt war began in earnest last year, when Red Mango first challenged Pinkberry's fortress of L.A. franchises with a UCLA location. Pinkberry's been beset by all sorts of problems since then. There were large rodents in one of the New York locations for a while, and then there was a whole to-do about whether or not it is actually yogurt.
A lot of people assumed if one of these brands is making faky fake yogurt, they all are. Well. Last Thursday, some yogurt association stamped Red Mango with its "live and active culture" seal of approval.
So. What do you think? Is this the pending revitalization of downtown Evanston? Will Midwestern palates reject the low-cal option? Is frozen yogurt super silly in a city where winter lasts October-April?
Last week, while i was on something of a bender-cum-birthday vaca, the anonymous geniuses (specifically one blogger with the handle, twothirty) decided to fight our criticism of their shitty investor-backed blog, CollegeOTR, by attacking all that is holy about gossip desk.
"The blog's creator and primary poster would be best advised to wait on calling out others' 'mediocre copy' until he starts mandating sparkling prose on his own pages," the man behind the mask writes. "The writing verges dangerously away from irreverent snark into bitchy, desperate queen territory. Saddest of all, it's not even so-bad-it's-good, Center Stage-style funny."
OK, I like criticism as much as the next person. Even thoughtful criticism proving that Kassner can't write for shit. But the funny part about all this is that... wait for it... the editor of Northwestern OTR has been recruiting the two of us to write for her precious little blog -- and get $500 dollars a quarter to do so. We said "No," but here's how it went down:
Approximately two weeks ago, I get an e-mail from Lena Chen (pictured), a Harvard student who's in charge of this whole Big Brother college blogosphere: "After coming across your blog, I'd like to offer you and your co-author positions on the campus editorial team for NorthwesternOTR.com, no formal application process required," she drooled.
So yeah, Lena loves us. Whatever. We said "No," and she finally got back to me this weekend with the following e-mail:
Sorry to hear that but good luck with Gossip Desk! If you're trying to promote, we're looking into syndicating student blogs on our website as well. Let me know if that's something you're interested in.I think we're going to pass on that offer, honeycakes, seeing as your writers have already taken it upon themselves to jab the knife in our hearts and increase our traffic at the same time (thanks twothirty!). But doesn't anyone else find it oddly curious that a blogger can be trashing our blog and telling us we can't write while his boss is trying to recruit us? What horror! What inconsistency! What shoddy office politics!
Way back in the spring of 2003, a Northwestern professor named J. Michael Bailey wrote a boring little book about transgendered people. It is called "The Man Who Would Be Queen," which is a little saucy for science, no? Specifically, he addressed why men decide to switch sexes. And what did he say? He said they were acting on an "erotic fascination with themselves as women."
Which was like, Whoa! for the transgender community. Transgenders generally believe that they are trapped in the wrong body, or gender misidentified at birth, or something along those lines. Check out the Wikipedia page on this, if you feel like a good laugh. It includes the word "genderqueer." Ha!
Anyways. This Whoa! reaction gradually turned into more of a Fuck You!, in a pretty big way. Some transgender advocate in L.A. took photos of Bailey's children from his website and put them on her own, with lots of nasty nasty captions. She said this was fair, because he had exploited vulnerable people. Nasty nasty nasty, indeed.
On top of all this online name-calling, people were complaining to Northwestern. They were all like, This guy fabricated his book! He deceived people! Much of the book was based on anecdotes, which is kinda shady because Baily extracted the information in psychological sessions, something he is not licensed to do in Illinois.
So Northwestern decided to investigate in late 2003. It will shock you to your core that it's not easy to tell what became of this investigation. No one really knows! Here's what the New York Times figured out:
The inquiry, which lasted almost a year, brought research to a near standstill in Dr. Bailey’s laboratory, and clouded his name among some other researchers, according to people who worked with the psychologist.
“That was the worst blow of all, that we didn’t get much support” from Northwestern, said Gerulf Rieger, a graduate student of Dr. Bailey’s at the time, and now a lecturer at Northwestern. “They were quite scared and not very professional, I thought.”
Scared? Not very professional? Well, you gotta love their uniformity on those traits.
In October 2004, Bailey stepped down as chair of the psychology department, though both he and the school say this had nothing to do with the book or the investigation. What do you think? I think they are both LYING.
Why, Northwestern University is giving its new freshmen free 21-ounce Nalgenes! And if they reuse them at dining halls, guess what? They get ten cents!
This is not a joke. Given our student body, it might even work. If you see small Asian children with indestructible purple bottles hanging off their oversize backpacks at Sargent next year, you now know why.
Oh, also, this is a trend story, so something else must be going on, right? Right. Apparently administrators are going to encourage people to corded phones in their dorm rooms instead of cordless ones. Remind me who uses dorm room land lines?
Whatever. Go environment!
Class of 2011 encouraged to adopt greener lifestyle [Chicago Tribune]
There's a reason such subjects are verboten around here. One is our readers are not so socially awkward. (You're assholes! We know.) Secondly, if I were to post about how to get laid if you're socially awkward, it would read like this:
Masturbation is normal!
Over in the hinterlands, they've got some other suggestions. Let's abbreviate, shall we?
Guys should take classes in sesp! Girls should take guys out on dates! Join a campus activist group! (Ed.'s note: What is this, Sarah Lawrence?) Meet people from other colleges! Try Craigslist!
Ok. PSA, people. Do not look for sex on Craigslist. That's how people like Willie the Wildcat, Northwestern's finest blogger, and author of this post, are born.
Even the socially awkward can get laid [CollegeOTR]
I interrupt this adoring profile — which, don't worry, we'll poke lots of holes in later — to return to the realm of real world, where it's the facts, not the rhetoric, that counts.
Which brings us to the as-yet-unrevealed departure of Medill's D.C. Newsroom director, Ron Cohen. He's leaving, effective immediately, and he's not going quietly into that good night. From his post on the United Press International listserv:
thanks for outpointing the chicago mag piece on medill. i can say without
hesitation that it fails completely to reflect the depth of the turmoil sweeping
both the journ school and many parts of northwestern as a whole. this guy is
going to ruin the franchise of a terrific journalism program, and i am certain
that yesterday was my last day affiliated with the washington semester -- my
strengths, teaching reporting and writing, are no longer of value in the dean's
overall scheme of things.
Right. Chime in, people. We know it's over for Delt via Dominic Greene's all-Greek system e-mail, but what finally did it? Roll the tape.
The record stretches way back into the wretched days of Kyle Pendleton, who tried to be like hemlock for fraternities. It was during his reign, in January 2004, that some cocky Delt pledges, part of the frat's biggest pledge class ever, decided to snap photos of their fellow pledge fucking some slag in the chapter room. Excuse the lexicon! I try to fit in sometimes.
Onwards. This poor freshman girl filed a complaint! Naturally shit got rather nasty. Pendleton stretched the investigation out, eventually getting DTD International to levy "private" sanctions on the house, but no one said what they were. It also led to a sexual assault course for Greek students, but the fratasticness was back in effect that fall with an aggressive rush.
And then not a peep for three years. So what was it? I'll tell all, if I see a few educated guesses down there in the comments first.
Hmm. Warming filter much, Ally Tawil? Well. This is a fun new little feature. Here's how it works. We post it, you caption it.
Here, I'll go first.
Yeah, these noses aren't going anywhere.
Every August, as eager freshmen await the chance to imbibe massive quantities of Skol and Natty Ice like their semester-school friends, The Daily Northwestern bombards them with an ad-soaked mountain of p.r. called, ominously, "The Freshman Guide." Here we will review this p.r., and try our hands at truth.
I do not know Alex Apatoff, who wrote the "Guide to Going Greek." Will someone who does please hit her?
If one were to write a Wikipedia entry on the Northwestern Greek system and give every sorority president a line-item veto on objectionable content, it would look like this article. But that's what happens when you assign someone in Greek life an article on it. Ethics, Emmet! Ethics!
Let me tell you something about Greek life at Northwestern. It is not la-tee-da, or whatever. But Alex went to New Trier, and she's in Alpha Phi, a middle-of-the-road sorority — that's her at the house on the right (do remember to take that one down for "recruitment," babydoll) — so she knows the rub. (Though she def gets points for listing "The First Church of Dina Lohan" as her religion on fb. Penguins, though? Ok.)
Whatever. What insights, if any, do we get?
Formal recruitment for Panhel chapters consists of standing in lines in cold weather and making small talk with sorority women for five days straight. On the positive side, you are guaranteed to see at least one streaker, which is as much of a Northwestern must-see as Dance Marathon.You'll know you're grasping at straws when you're using streakers for spin. And fraternities, what are those like?
It's also of note that NU fraternities, try as they might, are not like "Animal House." They will invite you to their dance parties, and often these dance parties will have themes, DJs and Solo cups galore. It's a great way to spend New Student Week, especially if you brought some fratty pink polos to indicate to the older brothers that you are a new freshman, ready to be rushed.Except during New Student Week aren't they not supposed to go in houses? Oops! I guess the truth does seep out from time to time.
Hmm, so many clichés! What do you think, everyone? Will he retain his ability to magnetically reel in unsuspecting freshmen nearing vomit status at the Deuce when he returns in winter? Wait, did he ever do that? Does he have such powers? Only time, and your comments, will tell.
So, who are this year's biggest whores? Well, I'll let freshmen guide editor Emmet Sullivan's listserv e-mails tell you:
Thank you to everyone who took a story for it, especially those at the last minute. I think Philip Rossman-Reich, Emily Glazer and Laura Olson deserve a lot of credit for taking multiple big stories.
What kind of people live on your part of campus?
AT: I bet my South Campus could beat up your North Campus. You see, only the most absolutely coolest kids belong to the exclusive club of South Campus living.
DB: North campus is filled with those who enjoy frats, 20-minute walks to class, Lisa's Café and sitting around Bobb lounges. There's always something going on at all of the above, and if there's not, then you just walk across the parking lot to SPAC-which makes you feel better about all of your questionable life choices.
Stop with the comparisons. Whatever passing resemblance we have to this upstart is moot. First it was making fun of freshmen facebook photos, which omg omg omg we would never do. But festooning your posts with retarded art to spice up your shitty copy? New lows, people, new lows.
So. The piece in question was penned, anonymously, by "willie el gato silvestre," which means Willie the Wildcat in Spanish. While some would write off any iota of his integrity and confidence from that alias alone, I will press on.
Which are Willie the Wildcats' favorite BYOBs? Let's guess, shall we? Could it be... yes! Cozy Noodles takes spot #1. What with such trailblazing penmanship Willie, I think I'll be reading CollegeOTR every day.
Moving on. #2 is Olive Mountain, which besides being, by all accounts, rather overpriced and mediocre, is allegedly a Northwestern professor's hangout. I wouldn't know, and I wouldn't want to drink around them.
Then things really fall off the precipice of retardation. In a struggle to fill out even this rather brief post, our Wildcat includes at #5 Green Tea. A gobbet:
"This is a sushi restaurant I haven't gotten to check out yet but I'm putting it on the list since I've been told they have the best sushi in Chicago."
Lavine: Jesus 2.0?
Once you're done reading (and I'm done celebrating my birthday), I'll post some commentary. Call it laziness.. but I'm just going to call it sometime to mull over the fact that I will not, in fact, be saved by the messiah.
There is a debate amongst the wisemen of Evanston, and it is about crack. They are selling it over in the 7th ward, which is sort of like far away. I am totally going this September.
And I'd better go soon, because the City Council was like, Enough! Not really because of the crack, but because they've sunk a lot of money into a housing project there. This housing project has had a bit of a problem. All of the residents have fled, because there was a shooting there earlier this year. Yeah, I didn't hear about it either. One more thing for Dickson to blame on the media's relentless pursuit of Lindsay Lohan stories, I gather. Fuck you, Bill Smith.
Onwards. The city spent $44k, which is all it gets from the Feds every year, to redo the property. Now — and this is kind of a literary device, so hold on — the dealers hide the drugs underneath the newly renovated siding. Oooh, urban parable! Sad, but just the way I like my inner city decay: bite-size, and analogous.
Then something predictable happened. Lordeth Jean-Baptiste, who apparently think the crack dealers vote, threatened not to appropriate more money to re-renovate the site.
"I'm going to support the request, Ald. Jean-Baptiste said, "but I want to make sure that Community Development yells at people some times. If we want to make some lasting changes, we don't want to keep throwing money at problems."
I'll be honest (integrity is so hot right now); I didn't read the Medill Honor Pledge either. Well I have now, but I read Kassner's post first.
I'll be honest again; Shouldn't media organizations, and companies, and marketing agencies or whatever, be responsible for their own employees? Or is that really the job of an Alma Mater? I'm not counting on plagiarizing or embarrassing Medill, but it seems like $40,000 should buy a great education, lifelong learning and fabulous facilities. It has -- but now it comes with a metaphorical jail-cell not even Lindsay could rehab her way out of. Is paranoia the new pedagogy?
Also, while we're talking about name changes:
OLD: Medill School of Journalism
NEW: Medill School of Journalism and Integrated Marketing Communications
OLD: Honor Pledge
NEW: Integrity Code
OLD: Teaching Media Program
NEW: Journalism Residency
What's next? comment away.
I'm off to go write the sequel to A Million Little Pieces.
It's a sad consequence of our little cottage industry's ongoing transition that not even I bothered to read "john"'s e-mail about the new Medill integrity code. When you get to an explanatory sentence about Jayson Blair, totally unnecessary dependent clause here, what do you do? You stop reading. And you should.
Moving on. The new Integrity Code replaces what I believe was an Honor Pledge, which proves what Michele Bitoun lacks in cerebral matter she makes up for with thesaurus skills.
Surprise, though! There are substantive changes here. I am actually not joking. Now, whatever you do on your time away from Medill, be it p.r. or journalism (the days of those as separate words and not as a market-tested blanket phrase appear to be some time off as yet) will be subject to the code.
Well. This is all because some dumb bitch whose name no one remembers plaigarized a story in the Daily last Fall. This was not her fault! She wrote Devo.
O.K., anyway, everyone was having a Paula Abdul-on-crack reaction to this in Fisk, especially the freshmen. It was all like, Oooh, is she gonna get kicked out?
Now we have our answer! No word yet on whether it's retroactive, but if anyone remembers this girl's name, I will sooooo call her for a quote.
The other interesting thing here is that it applies to marketing. That's going to create a lot of rough situations, don't you think? Like, all those people who work at Mattel, what are they supposed to do when it turns out they totally lied about the safety of the products they market?! The ethical quandaries!!!
A Sinderbrand, or Alexandra, or whatever, was Northwestern famous for a certain sorority overshare; a documentary where she spilled the secrets of Tri-Delta's rush process. It was delightful and deranged all at once (and can definitely be found on the internets). She was also a sex columnist over at nucomment.com, but nothing can really compare to telling hundreds of freshmen girls a week before rush that they're not attractive, wealthy, interesting or, um, attractive enough to join the ranks of NU's elite. The truth hurts, don't it?
Well, she's at it again. This time, divulging the dirty (and delightful and deranged) truth about losing her v-card. I could go on and on about this (what will her parents think? what will "Shane" think?), but really, let's just cut to the excerpts for all of you reeling from the weekend and too horny to be at your precious internships:
Here, we learn the extracurriculars that got A into NU:
We found ourselves up against the walls in empty classrooms, on floors, in the grass, rolling around with our hands down each other’s pants. But Shane seemed to like me for reasons outside of my ability to give a decent hand-job. Shane read my articles in the school paper. Shane nodded and smiled at me as he headed toward the locker room at halftime. Shane came to my a cappella shows and set off the standing ovationsHere, we learn about the prep-school importance of fitness and safe sex:
When he pulled off his shirt, I realized we’d never seen each other naked. He was length and leanness peppered with ripped limbs and an eight-pack. Only a thin hemp necklace, left over from the summer, broke the line of his buttery torso. I’m pretty sure I drooled. We were grinding against each other, me in a thong, him in boxer-briefs, when he pulled away and looked at me. The look was the question. “Do you have a condom?” was all I could muster. He said yes and smiled, but it wasn’t a boyish, psyched smirk of anticipation. His voice was shaky when he asked me if I was sure.Here, a gratuitously hot excerpt:
The sex that followed was simultaneously the most painful and the most romantic experience I’ve ever had. Shane was huge and hard, but his gentleness suggested that he was constantly aware of what I was feeling. He took my virginity in slow, soft thrusts, kissing me in between his low moans. My complete awe and adoration for him shut down my pain-receptors. He didn’t roll off of me after he came. He held me and smiled. I think I knew that night that I’d never fully get over him.That climax, above, is the climax of her article. After that (spoiler alert!), Shane cheats, A goes on about the double-edged sword of having the perfect first time and manages to turn her lit-porn into a tirade on cheating that makes us at GossipDesk feel guilty.
I'm pretty sure there are that many outside the CVS on Davis, but I don't work for CBS so what do I know?
Regardless, links. Try not to get hung up on the screamers between the headline and the article. I know it's hard when there are four of them, and they are all about celebrities. Ah, television.
Only 24 Homeless People Downtown [CBS2Chicago]
[Updated 1:15 CST, 8/9/07]
Ok, Bill Smith. Here's a little to-do list while The Daily's on hiatus and you're the only sober person covering Evanston development.
1. Enough with the crack.
2. Get out of bed with Mr. Vader and this other dude with the glasses.
3. When presented with an extremely obvious question, go ahead. Ask it.
I am, of course, referring to the ongoing gutting of downtown Evanston. What happened today? Developers of the proposed 49-story Death Star (pictured above) acquired the landmark Hahn building, which is south of the property they want to build on.
Wait, you think, because you have the neural activity of a conscious human being: Didn't they say they were only going to use that one plot? Why would they need to buy the other building?
Only you didn't think that, because you are retarded and your name is Bill Smith and, DAMN IT, you were drunk while reporting again!
And who better to bring sense to this fiasco than everyone's favorite whisky-sodden journalist, Bob Seidenberg of the Evanston Review. So why buy the second building? Big reveal, everyone, big reveal.
To prevent anyone else from proposing a development on the block!
Which brings up another really easy question: Wait, you think, didn't someone already propose another development for that part of the block? Yes! Wait, didn't they drop their bid after finding out the people are opposed to Death Stars? Yes!
What aren't you telling us, Mr. Vader and dude with the glasses?
The facts, just to prove my own neural activity:
Developers say they will not touch landmark Hahn building. [Evanston Site Plan and Appearance Review Committee, page 4]
Tower developer acquires Hahn building [EvanstonNow]
Developers neutralize second tower possibility [Evanston Review]
Rejoice, readers! The Chicago Transit Authority, last refuge of incompetent Daley hacks, has decided not to cancel the Purple Line Express. Instead, whether or not to run the Express will be a "daily decision" depending on the performance of the Red Line. That's right — when the Red Line is slow, that's when you'll have to take it.
Jesus.
All this nuance, of course, is lost on Bill Smith, wayward soul of wayward souls.
[EvanstonNow]
[Chicago Tribune]
Um, how to be funny about this? Evanston aldermen have been debating how to make sure residents have enough neural activity to distinguish between official city websites and those belonging to individual aldermen. Somewhere in there they also decided not to implement a plan to stop "gang loitering."
Well, the residents of the 8th ward, which is probably somewhere no Northwestern student has ever seen, are not happy.
Kristin Doll of 140 Custer St. said she is very sensitive to the issue of criminalizing innocent kids who don't have anywhere to go, but that residents "are very intimidated."Oh NO SHE DIDN'T! Whoa! Marijuana, you say? And (ok, presumably) Skol! What did our esteemed Aldermen have to say to that?The groups of young people, she said, "smoke pot; have alcohol in their hands."
"I've been harassed for walking by, been called names I won't repeat," she said, "There needs to be something the police can do. So often we call the police, the kids scatter, the police leave and the kids come back."
Ald. Jean-Baptiste said the police department "already has laws it can enforce, such as disorderly conduct. If the young people have done these things, they ought to be arrested."You know what, he's right. Only Nazis would rid the street corners of kids doing illegal drugs and drinking unfiltered devil water. And, dude? No one's talking about cameras. Maybe at the next meeting the wisemen can piss-test his Lordeth Jean-Baptiste for illegal substances.He said the ordinance would lead to "fascistic treatment" of the young people. "It would create a society were every corner has a camera and we're still not able to address the issues."
This half of gossip desk remembers this moment clearly: He was sitting at home, summer after freshman year, when he received a list of peer advisees that he would shepard into the upcoming years of Medill, initiating them to all the wonder and glory and, yes, fear that was impending. He fielded IM convesations, banal packing requests and even the rogue question about hooking up with your writing professor to get ahead; in the end, he was left satisfied.
Word has it that this season is once again upon us. And loyal readers of gossipdesk (all 32 of you and counting), we need your help. Send any hilarious questions, banter, or peer-advisor influenced queries that your youngins send your way to thegossipdesk@gmail.com. I'll post the best questions and respond to them in a less-than-Medill way. C'mon, it'll be fun (and anonymous). And like all those other "real" blogs out there, it might even turn into a regular feature.
Plus, Kassner could use some advice about snagging the ladies. Me? I want a trip down memory lane. At this point, the only thing I have to look forward to is my roommate cleaning his discarded pubic hair off the toilet bowl.
With a dispatch from the front lines of the Minneapolis bridge collapse, Josh Weinstock writes to inform us that other things are dealing "great blows to the North Star State." Heavens no!
What, pray tell, could so worsen an already terrible week for Minnesotans? Why, Kevin Garnett was traded to the Boston Celtics! And the Twins. "To add insult to injury," (nice cliche choice, Josh!) the beloved Twins are "mired in chaos and discontent." Were that baseball was always such a Euripedes play, and I might actually attend from time to time.
Remember headlines like, "Yeah, 9/11 sucked, but how about them Yankees!"? Yeah, that's what I thought.
[NorthbyNorthwestern]
Good question! And we had the opportunity for great answers, as the Dean of the Medill School for Journalism was stopping in Los Angeles to meet with parents, alumni and what have you. Journalism people. Onwards.
A few hours after I sent her a blistering prep sheet, I received the following report back.
"I was not impressed by him.Hmm, is the dean gay? He once complemented me on a shirt. Perhaps this is a question for Dickson. Dude has the gaydar of Anne Hathaway.
He was wearing a necklace. Does he always? And a long-sleeved white linen shirt buttoned to the neck with long billowing sleeves buttoned at the cuff, but the tail out---a Midwesterner's notice of tropical attire who believes that Los Angeles is the tropics.
Is he gay?
He had that vibe.
He seemed very arrogant."
Welcome to our new Saturday feature! It's about Facebook. You know it. You were there for like three hours today! Sometimes you get a pesky invite to join a "group." You should really think twice about these invitations! This column is all about people who don't.
Moving on. Some people have deigned to join "I can't wait until Arielle is on the radio!!" This is a mistake. Arielle Ramos, formerly of the Northwestern class of 2009, left last winter to pursue a boob job music career. So far, she has not been on commercial radio. And she will not be on commercial radio! She will not be on indie radio. In fact, she will not grace any media at all, which is really saying something these days.
And the whole thing is kind of funny, because for all her pop-star aspirations, her #1 Google hit remains the Communications Dean's List doc from her freshman year. That's right, everyone. Arielle Ramos was once a straight A student.
The point here is this: Stay in school, children! And think before you join! And see us next Saturday, for another installment of wtf were you thinking?
Arielle Ramos [MySpace]
Innovation 2020 is, in fact, so innovative that Dean Lavine is posting the questions people write in. Just like a mid-90s message board, but without pedophilia. Here are two questions (of the mere six) that I was especially glad Dean Lavine posted... I've always wondered these things myself:
“(Your curricula are) very, very exciting.. .. (We are) evolving our 25-year advertising agency into a “real” integrated marketing organization. The single greatest challenge is finding people who get it. We are constantly on the lookout for people who do. Perhaps there are Medill IMC folks out there that can head up Client Services rather than those who “service accounts.” There is a huge difference, but it is very difficult to find people who understand that, much less do it. The same situation exists in converting heretofore separate entities such as Media, Public Relations, Database Management, Direct Marketing, Interactive into a cohesive “solution neutral” department. Today most of these departments are silos, and the world just doesn’t work like that. We have done a pretty good job of evolving this, but it’s a huge struggle finding people to manage the vision in each of these two crucial areas. … Thanks for doing what you’re doing."
“Wonderful news, Dean Lavine. Thanks for the commitment to take Medill to the next level!"
The new Medill is so innovative that Q&As don't even need to ask questions any more? And apparently, attribution is out too. Every other entry starts with "an alum says," but these dogged interrogations are anonymous.
Could someone at the school be writing in their own compliments? And if so, why isn't Lavine even responding to them? If Medill is going to masturbate while at work, they at least need to clean up after themselves.
Unless, of course, it's happening in the basement bathroom of Fisk.
"I want to do something special for this day," Muhammad said sultrily. "I know how we usually do it, and...this time, I want you to take me."You can imagine where it goes from there. This is a family website?
Jesus looked at him with wide eyes, uncertain. While there was no clear 'dominant' man in their union, the Messiah had always been the taken, rather than the taker." (From "Peace on Earth," by Slash Firestorm)
The Summer Northwestern breaks front-page news : "It's time to get those keys ready, find that oversized purple sweatshirt and learn the words to the fight song. It's only five weeks until the Northwestern football season's opening game at Ryan field, and the team is already preparing for a winning season."
No way? five weeks? You mean to say that football season is approaching in the fall this year? And the team is going to practice this summer? And they want to win?
Other reasons why Bob Woodward would have loved The Daily:
The only unanswered questions: Considering that the seasons starts September 1 and training doesn't start until August 11, why now? Why on the cover? Why Russian novel length? And most importantly, when it comes to NU football, which player goes by Deep Throat?
Only time (and closeted freshmen boys) will tell.
Nothing gives Evanston media a hard-on like big buildings. And when you're proposing a 49-story monument to the phallus, why not? That's twice as high as anything else in the city! Yet the people of Evanston remain non-committal, sort of like a sorority girl before she's washed down a few martinis.
So think of yesterday's meeting as a, like, gulping of that first drink. What happened, you ask? (Bear in mind we're getting this from possibly depressed, possibly drunk suburban reporters. Seriously. I've met these dudes.)
"My generation says, I can walk to Whole Foods and Starbucks, what else to I need?" Larry Booth, the tower's architect, said.He said the new tower would be "an elegant residential building, visually light and delicate, that would combine an intimate pedestrian experience with high residential density." (EvanstonNow)
Of course, you can't walk to Starbucks or Whole Foods without a 218-foot death star to.. assist you, is it? And what the fuck is an "intimate pedestrian experience"? Continuing:
The residential tower would be set back from the street. The tower is slim in appearance -- critics have dubbed it different -- so as not to appear out of scale with the street. (Evanston Review)Right, because a fifty floor building looks right at home next to a three story building from the 1930s. And who are these "critics"?
Pretty tight-lipped for girls who want to share their ladyparts' travels with us all fall quarter, no? Perhaps they are loose with their friending habits?
Instead, let's consider for a moment the altogether fascinating history of the PLAY sex column. (PLAY, for those of you who will be rushing when "Beer" is provided, is the Daily Northwestern's "culture" section, which appears from time to time... fine, Thursdays.)
In spring there was Allie Markowitz (pictured below, posing for her Maxim cover shoot)! Actually, she regaled us with stories about her not having sex in winter and fall, too. In fact, Allie's not-sex was a weekly staple of PLAY. Really made things a must-read.
Occasionally, we heard about a boyfriend:
"I used to mumble "oh, suck my dick" under my breath. My boyfriend gently told me that I shouldn't say that, as it's creepy and crude and I don't actually have a weenie." (5/17/07)Yeah, but did they fuck? Read 4,000 words of sex columns, and the answer? Unknown! So what did she write about? Mmm. Onwards.
"All I talked about in the month before the big 1-8 was how super cool it would be that now I could get [cigarettes]. Why did I make such a fuss over this? To secretly hide how mother-effing excited I was to go to sex stores!" (5/10/07)Yes, yes. What follows is what you might expect: Words where there should be pictures.
1. "I look at the clouds. And I see penises."No, that last one isn't really a justification but it sooooooo sums up her tenure as PLAY's resident sexpert. And you know what? It may not be entirely wrong for Northwestern's sex columnist to never have sex! Mmm, what do you think?
2. She thinks human vocal cords look like "outrageous vaginas."
3. "Now, what does this column have to do with sex? Absolutely nothing."
