Although the hey-day of Wesleyan’s unofficial fashion blog, "Well-Dressed Wes," may long have since passed, there’s still something to be said about Wesleyan student style, as proved when a troupe of photographers and stylists from The New York Times added some excitement to this year’s freshmen orientation. The guest celebs spent the week hunting down first year students to be photographed in a "style documentary" for the Sunday Magazine style pages.
Whether you're a member of STAND or the Boogie Club, be sure to push in the chairs and throw away the pizza boxes if you rent a room in Usdan where your student group can meet. Student groups and academic departments are given the option to rent out rooms at the new Usdan University Center, with rental prices ranging from free (for some rooms) to $150.
In the world of dorm living, the triple is the lowest of the low. Regardless of how small your room is, how obnoxiously loud your neighbors are, how close your window is to the nearest fire station, highway, or dumpster, at least you aren't in a triple. At Wesleyan, the honor of being in a triple is reserved for freshmen, and unlucky freshmen at that.
For many Wesleyan students, it is easy to go through four years only knowing Middletown as home to Brooks Pharmacy and Typhoon—but for the students who work in town, it is much more than the place you must trek to when you run out of toothpaste.
If you have been watching the CW's "Gossip Girl" or any other joke of a television program in recent weeks, you have probably seen a commercial for Saturn (GM's peasant label) featuring the brand's tagline of "Spending money like it's out of style is out of style."
You'll probably catch Oscar-addict and former HBO intern Dylan Marron '10 onstage this semester, or else at the next Lunchbox performance, with his infamous take on Miss New York doing her best Juliet performance. Maybe someday he'll be at the Academy Awards himself, or at the very least telling an advertising agency why an Israeli McDonald's commercial involving hostages is a bad idea.
About 35 Wesleyan students from the class of '11 will grace the pages of the New York Times Magazine this Sunday and, we're hoping, will begin to bridge the gap between the image of the University that the national media perceives and that which the administration itself asserts.
The Middletown Youth Radio Project is a youth media training program and the region's only radio show written, hosted, and produced by kids. The MYRP broadcasts live every Friday from 6:30-6:45 p.m. on WESU 88.1 FM. We are actively seeking creative students and community members with skills in DJing, audio production, creative writing, beat boxing, free styling, spoken word, and singing, who would like to be part of the Project.
After having some time to get comfortable with the new "Usdan University Center," I have to say I don't like it. I've heard a lot of people talk about a lot of reasons to hate that place (and I agree with many of them), but I have not heard too much talk about the building architecturally.
It is with great sadness that I inform the Wesleyan campus of the disappearance of one of our shiniest stars: last night, between the hours of 2:00 a.m. and 4:00 a.m., Gabriel Fries, of the Class of 2009, was abducted from his room. I must have slept through the entire ordeal, because upon waking, all I found of him were his bloody sheets, and the first clue to set you on your way for the 1st Annual Great Wesleyan Caper.
I realize this is a little late, but stop blaming Bon Appétit for the problems with the food this year. (I'm only talking about the food, not the labor issues). The reason there are long lines and minimal choices is because Usdan was designed as a giant, beautiful, $47 million public relations machine.
Award-winning poet, essayist, and columnist for the news journal The Nation, Katha Pollitt presented an excerpt from her most recent book, "Learning to Drive and Other Life Stories" this Wednesday, Sept. 26, at Russell House.
Around this time last year, I was admittedly jealous of the frosh. Facing up to reality — especially realizing how the experience of orientation and those first sweet weeks at Wesleyan can never be repeated — dealt a harsh blow. Every campus amenity necessitated by Wesleyan's brand of liberality — the subsidized birth control, the frank sexuality, the Ride — seemed, well, normal.
The volleyball team defeated Western Connecticut State in three straight home games Wednesday night, giving head coach Gale Lackey her 400th career win. Lackey, who went 13-13 in one season at the University of Bridgeport before coming to Wesleyan in 1978, is only the second Wesleyan coach ever to reach this milestone.
On Sept. 6, when Ian Pearson '11 woke up in his Butterfield B single to go to another day of football practice, he suddenly started getting cold feet. Literally. "I woke up at 8:30, put down my feet and 'splash,' " Pearson said. "They were submerged in water." Sometime in the wee hours of the morning, the sinks and showers of two adjacent Butt B bathrooms were clogged up with toilet paper.
"We are people of this generation, bred in at least modest comfort, housed now in universities, looking uncomfortably to the world we inherit." Written 45 years ago, the anxious urgency expressed in the opening line of the Port Huron Statement of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) retained an elemental allure for a small group of students who met last Wednesday on the front steps of Olin.
The men's soccer team notched its second straight win of the season on Wednesday, beating the United States Coast Guard Academy 2-1 in a game played on Jackson Field. Alan Ashenfelter '09 capitalized on a failed Coast Guard clear, stealing the ball just outside the box, dribbling it towards the middle and striking it nicely inside the near post for the game winner in the 76th minute.
The Cardinals dropped their fourth game of the season on Wednesday, suffering a heartbreaking overtime loss to non-conference opponent Wheaton College by the score of 3-2. This was the third time this season that Wesleyan has blown its lead and gone on to lose by one goal.
When scanning the "Team Home Pages" pull-down menu on the Wesleyan athletics website, one sees home pages for both the men's and women's squads in sports such as soccer and basketball. Sports in which Wesleyan fields only one team — including [men's] football and [women's] volleyball — are listed just once. Golf is included among the sports with only one listing, but Lauren Russman '09 is trying to change that.
Betsy thinks that the shadow on the house's left wall looks like a set of legs hanging down from the ceiling, but when the lights dim, I'm still working on a verdict, unable to decide whether the shape represents human ambulatory devices or a vertical set of duck bills. For the next ninety minutes I contemplate whether I am excited or scared, empathetic or scornful, eager or frightened.
It's a Friday night, no, a Saturday morning, and a hard bass line from electro heroes Justice makes the room pulse. You feel it in the floor, you feel it in your teeth. There's little room to dance, but that's not stopping anyone. You're covered in sweat that mostly isn't yours, or maybe it is, depending.
There are few personas in hip-hop as utterly different as Kanye West and 50 Cent. Thus it was to great hype that West announced he would move the release date of his third album, "Graduation," up a week, placing it in direct competition with 50's third disc, "Curtis." Could the quirky, cocky provocateur outsell the lumbering, mumbling, pusher-turned-P.I.M.P?
For those of you who don't make a habit of going to plays on the weekend, make an exception. If you want to get a sense of the excellent theater Wesleyan can produce, you are not likely to see a better example. "Tape" packs into one hour the kind of emotional intensity and talent that most student actors embarrass themselves trying to replicate.
This week in the film series, we bring you three artfully thrilling movies whose professionalism and formal mastery exist uneasily with a deep-rooted cynicism. And then we introduce you to the department of Film Studies!
Can people be good to each other? This question has tickled the brain cells of many an intellectual and artist over the last few centuries. Perhaps the question is more applicable than ever in these days of senseless warfare, racial hatred, political turmoil, and all the other usual things liberal arts students are supposed to be livid about.
Josef Stalin said that a single death was a tragedy, but a million deaths were a statistic. He was overly optimistic. Unfortunately—and unbelievably—a million deaths sometimes fail to achieve even statistical recognition.
My dad used to tell the most magnificent bedtime stories any kid has ever heard. Because he was studying Russian when I was young, many of his plots were borrowed from Pushkin or Chekhov. I didn't know this at the time. I just thought my dad was particularly good at describing duels between arrogant counts and relating the existential malaise of the Russian civil servant.