21 Questions with... Alex Barnard '09

SACHS SCHOLAR DUMPSTER DIVES, FIGHTS SCARY CITADEL CADETS, & SCREAMS LIKE A GIRL (refer to video after the jump)

Name: Alexander Vosick Barnard
Age: 21
Major: Sociology
Hometown: Flagstaff, Arizona
Eating club/residential college/affiliation: One man Spelman vegan cooperative.

Who's your favorite Princetonian, living or dead, real or fictional?
Sean Gleason.

What's the best meal you've eaten in Princeton?
Full Eggplant Parmesean (minus the Parmesean) from Hoagie Haven. By merit of being from Hoagie Haven, it's probably 80% meat by osmosis, but we all have indulgences.

In one sentence, what do you actually do all day?
Sit around and read about people who are trying to change the world, and try to figure out why everything still sucks.

What is your greatest guilty pleasure?
Tormenting librarians. There's nothing that I get more of a kick out of than wandering into a university at library at 10:00 a.m. on a Saturday and joining the band in a serenade of "Tequila." We were definitely not planning to do that at the Citadel before our plans were derailed by the cadets attacking us.

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What's the last student performance you saw?
"Boy Gets Girl." Jordan Bubin ’09 was playing a porn producer so there was no way I was missing it.

Do you know all the words to Old Nassau?
Being from the band, I've sung and played Old Nassau after more Princeton sports losses than you can possibly imagine, so yes, I know the words.

What do you hate most about Princeton?
Entitlement and apathy.

What's your drink?
Beast. I'm a philistine.

How often do you cook?
A few times a week, depending on how strict the meal checkers at the eating clubs are feeling.

What's your favorite medication?
Running in the Institute woods.

What's hanging above your desk and/or bed?
An "Anti-Flag" (it's a band...) poster on which the lead singer has written "Fuck Printston" [sic]. I also have a picture of Steve Prefontaine and the seal for my cult that reads "Elk Kicks Ass" in Latin (long story).

Where do you do your best thinking?
Eating thrown away fruit salad at the Whole Foods on Houston St. in NYC with my freegan friends.

When's bedtime?
Midnight.

New Butler or Old Butler?
Old Butler. Making you walk through the bathroom to get anywhere was a masterstroke.

What do you think of Dean Malkiel?
Seems like a nice lady.

Where is the worst place on campus?
While I'm tempted to name an eating club, I'm going to go with Wu Library. I've been traumatized ever since I wrote my final for Robbie George's Civil Liberties there.

Who is your mortal enemy?
Whomever is in charge.

When's the last time you used cash?
Too recently.

In 25 years, I will be…
Hiding from the CIA in a Bolivian Rainforest (hopefully), or maybe writing books about obscure anarchist movements at whatever university will take me, contemplating whether I'm so old I ought to shave my mohawk.

Where do you go to study alone?
The train to New York.

What makes someone a Princetonian?
Bad taste in clothing. Madras pants? I find better things in the trash.

[Also, here's a video of Barnard screaming...?]:



(image source: princeton.edu)

Moral philosophy: IT'S ALL LIES!

Spotted in a PHI 202 moral philosophy lecture on Hobbes and game theory, two minutes ago:

A young man with a jock-like appearance, wearing a heavy green backpack, stands up and runs down the aisle of McCosh 10, shredding his notes in the air above his head as he shrieks:

"It's all lies! It's all lies! It's all lies!"

AW

Kathy Kiely on the Real Story Behind Obama's New Hampshire Primary Speech

On a recent Wednesday evening Kathy Kiely, USA Today writer and current Mathey College Faculty Member in Residence (she lives in Blair Arch!) had dinner with a group of about a dozen students to talk about the rapidly deteriorating state of print journalism and her own coverage of the November election.

While Kiely spent most of her time discussing the demise of newspapers, perhaps the most interesting moment of the evening came when she told a story from the Obama campaign trail that hasn’t yet been anecdotally beaten to death by the rest of the media. With apologies to Ms. Kiely (she’s a very good storyteller, and this is a mediocre paraphrase at best), here's the real story of Obama's speech the night of the New Hampshire Primary:

After Obama’s victory in the Iowa caucus, Kiely’s editors at USA Today assumed that Obama would win the New Hampshire primary easily and go on to win the nomination (pretty much all the polling data and public opinion was predicting a big Obama victory in New Hampshire). So her editors assigned Kiely to a big profile on Obama that would run after his victory.

Kiely drove from Concord to Nashua on the day of the primary on interview Obama. She went to his hotel room and sat down for the interview. Kiely said she remembered thinking, “Hillary Clinton is out there shaking hands. Why aren’t you?”
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She went back to Concord, wrote the story, and sent it in to her editors. Around that time, results were starting to come in, and it was clear that Hillary had won. So, her profile suddenly rendered obsolete, she drove back out to Nashua to hear Obama give his concession speech.

Kiely said that, in her 28 years of covering presidential elections, Obama’s speech that night in New Hampshire was one of the best she’d ever heard. A few months later, having a drink with some of Obama’s speechwriters, she asked about that speech. They told her it was his victory speech; all he’d done is add a line at the beginning congratulating Clinton on her victory.

If you look back at the speech (full text) it certainly looks like a victory speech, especially bold statements like, “when I am president of the United States.” And while past examples to be assertive in loss have not gone very well in the Democratic primaries (see also: Dean, Howard), Obama's "concession" speech seemed to work just fine.

Squash is no joke.

Trinity College's men's squash team defeated Princeton men's squash yesterday in a close 5-4 squash game that gave the No. 1 ranked squash team its 11th perfect season of squash in a row, with a 16-0 record of squash wins. Trinity men's squash team's last loss was in a game of squash against Harvard in the College Squash Association National Team Championship in February 1998.

Squash squash squash.

Trinity's men's squash team has now had 199 victories in a row. No. 2-ranked Princeton ended the season with a 11-1 record. As No. 1 and No. 2, the two teams are favored to face off again next Saturday at Jadwin Squash Courts for this year's National Team Championship game.

But does anyone remember that gem from the New York Times published about a year ago? We do. It's another article about how "anxious parents are looking for some edge, any edge, to help their child gain entry through the back door of the nation’s most selective universities," but it's an article about squash. Because that's how you get into Princeton. Squash.
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In the article, the best description of squash yet:

"Unlike basketball or Greco-Roman wrestling, however, squash does enjoy a prestige that some think makes it attractive to college admissions boards. With roots in the English public schools of the 19th century, squash conveys an aristocratic quirkiness, a bit like a taste for Sanskrit poetry. More than its preppy cousins lacrosse and rowing, it is also considered a cerebral sport — chess in short pants.”

Sources:
www.goprincetontigers.com
www.athletics.trincoll.edu
www.nytimes.com
www.sports.espn.go.com
Photo from:
www.goprincetontigers.com

AW

Princeton Then and Now: Dancing

Here are some pictures of a Princeton dance in 1960, before coeducation.


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Now:



(via ivy-style.com)

Feinberg Hall Architect to Design New Campus Building

The couple who brought you Wilson College's Feinberg Hall (1986) has been hired by the university to design the building for the new Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment.

The firm, Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects, is most famous for designing the American Folk Art Museum in New York.

(image source: princeton.edu)

Provost Eisgruber: We're F*cked

At the monthly CPUC (Council of the Princeton University Community) meeting last week, Provost Eisgruber presented on the university's financial health.

It was, not surprisingly, very depressing.

We've all heard about plummeting university endowments across the country in recent months. PRINCO (which manages Princeton's endowment) predicts our $16 billion endowment will fall 25% this fiscal year. That amounts to roughly $4 billion of Princeton's endowment.

But even more shocking was the Powerpoint slide that showed that, under realistic conditions, Princeton's endowment will not return to $16 billion until 2020, at the earliest (see chart above). By then, we will have children and a mortgage.

Eisgruber said it was time for us to get used to a new "normal" (in other words, being somewhat poorer). The university is facing an $82 million shortfall, and is in the midst of budget cuts. Eisgruber also said he is almost certain that Princeton will make a second round of budget cuts next year.

One piece of good news, however: Princeton will increase the financial aid budget by 13% next year.

Also at the meeting, President Tilghman promoted a new web page where anyone can suggest ideas for administrative budget cuts. So email away! Save your university!

(image source: dailyprincetonian.com)

"Let me tell y'all what it's like being male, middle-class and white..."

Singer-songwriter Ben Folds kicked off his winter tour here at Princeton tonight to a packed McCarter Theatre. The audience appeared to be a mix of Princeton students and area residents, including a fair number of middle-aged people (this is Princeton, after all).

Folds played a raucous two-hour set list that had the audience often singing along with him. Though he is officially promoting his last album "Way to Normal" that was released in September, Folds played nearly all of his best known songs from over the years like "Army" and "Rockin' the Suburbs" (the latter of which is the source of the lyrics in this post's title).

One of the two opening acts was the Nassoons, who will be featured in an upcoming compilation album of Ben Folds covers by a capella groups. The Nassoons performed three songs tonight, including Folds' "Time," which is the song slated to be on the CD.

The Nassoons were chosen by Folds after he announced a national contest, and were one of 18 a capella groups chosen from about 250 submissions, according to the Daily Princetonian. You can see the Nassoons' winning Youtube submission to Folds after the jump:

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Ben Folds w/ Princeton Nassoons from jmharper on Vimeo.

(image source: nymag.com)

Has the Population of Green Haired Students Plateaued?

Has the population of "green haired" high school students plateaued? Shirley Tilghman's now-infamous desire to attract students with a penchant for hairdye may be backfiring!

Princeton has suffered a second major blow to its ego in less than six months! In August, the university dropped down an entire spot to number two in the annual US News & World Report rankings, and two weeks ago, Janet Rapelye’s admissions office announced that this year's applicant pool for the class of 2013 grew just two percent.

This figure, so far, represents the smallest growth in applications among its peer schools (Columbia and Penn have yet to release their data). As the table above shows, Brown saw a whopping 21 percent increase in applicants this year, and even Cornell reported a higher increase with three percent.

After the jump, the second table shows that Princeton's application numbers haven't grown as quickly over the past three years, compared to Harvard's and Yale's:

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Princeton’s two percent increase this year does, however, constitute the largest applicant pool in the school’s history, but it’s basically the same story at all of Princeton's peer schools.

No word yet why Princeton's application numbers seemed to have plateaued this year, so let the speculation begin. Aside from a national shortage of green hairdye, other reasons may include grade deflation, and, umm, grade deflation. And Dean Malkiel.

21 QUESTIONS WITH... CONNOR DIEMAND-YAUMAN

INCOMING USG PRESIDENT & BATMAN SHARE COMMON ENEMY

Name: Connor Lawrence Diemand-Yauman '10
Age: 20
Major: Psychology
Hometown: Chesterland, Ohio
Eating club/residential college/affiliation: Tower/Rocky

Who's your favorite Princetonian, living or dead, real or fictional?
Cornel West

What's the best meal you've eaten in Princeton?
Thanksgiving Dinner in Whitman.

In one sentence, what do you actually do all day?
Think about everything that I have to do.

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What is your greatest guilty pleasure?
Turkey Bowls from the Wa.

What's the last student performance you saw?
eXpressions "Kaleidoscope"

Do you know all the words to Old Nassau?
Yes—the Nassoons would kill me if I forgot.

What do you hate most about Princeton?
The lack of eating options...I just need more choices.

What's your drink?
Gin and tonic.

How often do you cook?
If buying a turkey bowl counts as cooking then I cook a few times a week.

What's your favorite medication?
Dimetapp.

What's hanging above your desk and/or bed?
Woman's underwear.

Where do you do your best thinking?
In the shower.

When's bedtime?
2 am

New Butler or Old Butler?
Old—it always had a way of putting things into perspective.

What do you think of Dean Malkiel?
Misunderstood.

Where is the worst place on campus?
Wilcox pre-renovation.

Who is your mortal enemy?
Ra's al Ghul


When's the last time you used cash?
The last election...running unopposed is apparently very expensive.

In 25 years, I will be…
Still trying to think of funny answers to these questions.

Where do you go to study alone?
My room.

What makes someone a Princetonian?
Whatever makes a Yalie + 1.