Once upon a time, a super-cool New York-y little bookshop had to close and everyone was wistful and sad about it. No, we’re not talking about our favorite movie, You’ve Got Mail–NYC literary landmark Gotham Book Mart shut its doors in 2007. The Inquirer and the New York Times are now reporting that the store’s enviable book collection has been donated to Penn. Highlights of the collection include Truman Capote’s and Anais Nin’s personal libraries; Allen Ginsburg worked there and Jackie O. shopped there. Which is to say, it sounds like it was a very cool little shop.
The donation was anonymous, but the collection is reportedly valued at several million dollars. The NYT seems to think the gift came from Leonard A. Lauder, Penn alum and Gotham fairy godmother. Whoever it came from, the collection will fit in nicely with our library’s existing rareties, which include two of Shakespeare’s First Folios and several volumes bound in human skin.
Happy new year! We’re either about 20 hours late on this, or we opted to hold off calling the new year until the majority of precincts were reporting, CNN-style. Either way, a happy and a healthy to you and yours. Instead of looking backwards, we’re looking ahead to Spring ‘09, which begins in just two short weeks! Or less than that, actually. But still way later than the Obama girls, who report to Sidwell Friends on Monday. (Suckers.)
We’ve made the following resolutions on behalf of Penn:
We will only waste our time on the good a capella groups.
An article from yesterday’s Times explores the controversy surrounding the College Board’s reinstated score choice policy. After a seven-year hiatus, score choice is back for the SATs and SAT IIs (and let us not forget that score choice has always been the policy of the Midwestern-friendly ACTs). While we’re glad we don’t have to go through the college admissions process again, we do wish we had had score choice back in the day.
However, according to the Times, Penn (along with Stanford, USC and Claremont-McKenna) disagrees with the CB’s decision and is planning to ask students to send all of their scores. Ummmm… good luck with that, Eric Furda. Sure, some schools think this is the College Board’s way of capitalizing on the neurosis of overachieving students in pursuit of that elusive 1600 2400. And maybe it is. But this is also a policy that is shared by that other Annoying College Test the ACT, and one that really does ultimately benefit students.
Before Beyonce and Obama took over this blog, there was another important celebrity in our hearts. I’m speaking, of course, of Tina Fey. Indeed, we championed her virtues as an important mentor to today’s students, prattled on about her stint as Palin (which might have saved SNL from the same fate as Mad TV) and showed you the glory of 30 Rock.
Not since Melissa Lamb of “Box in a Box” fame have we at Under the Button been so taken with a Penn musician. We actually have no clue who this guy is (help us out?) but we’re assuming only a Penn student could have created this fantastically wretched “school spirit remix.” What is he remixing? Who knows, but you really owe it to yourself to have a listen:
*Trumpet sounds* UTB continues our celebration of winter break with the return of our intermittent book club! Today’s selection is College Girl by Patricia Weitz.
As bona fide college students, we simply can’t ignore a novel that heralds itself as “a sharply observed portrait of campus life and all the many pressures–economic, academic, social–that are funneled into its culture.” A college-centric novel promises to be either really juicy or really lame, Tom Wolfe’s I am Charlotte Simmons being the gold standard for lameness. Wolfe’s book (which, ooooh, was partially based on research completed at Penn’s very own St. A’s) fell flat because each page couldn’t help but reveal how scandalized Wolfe was by “kids these days,” with their sex and drugs and loose morals (all of which provided the author with an excuse to seriously overuse the word “insouciant”). While the main character of Weitz’s book is, regrettably, a tad reminiscent of Charlotte Simmons, College Girl proves itself to be unsentimental, thought-provoking, and really compelling.
Snow blanketed the eastern seaboard yesterday, and despite the picturesque quality it lent to our homecoming, today we find ourselves still snowed in and thus unable to partake in our favorite winter break activities: visiting the mall. Luckily, our internet connection is working and amazon.com is almost as good as the real thing. What follows is a last-minute holiday gift guide, conveniently featuring items that can be purchased online and shipped to you by December 24th. (We’re leaving out the gift suggestions that have already beenposted about. And if you’re wondering whether “holiday gift guide” is a label that’s being used to mask the fact that this is really just a list of stuff your editor wants, well…so be it.)
1. For the sister, female cousin or Michael Gold in your life: Everyone forgets that before Chuck was awesome, he was an attempted date rapist. Relive the simpler times with Gossip Girl - The Complete First Season on DVD.
Burger King is all about having it your way spray: the hamburger chain just debuted a line of cologne. I KID YOU NOT, PEOPLE. It’s available online and at Ricky’s NYC, for a mere $4. (Coming soon to Douglas Cosmetics? We can only hope.) I implore you to check out its sensual website, firemeetsdesire.com. The fragrance is being marketed as “the scent of seduction, with a hint of flame-broiled meat.” First Penn State perfume, now this… honestly, what’s next?!
Give us your most outrageous scent suggestions in the comments!
There’s always one movie that, despite an all-star cast, an A-list director, and tons of critical acclaim, gets overlooked during awards season. At the Golden Globes this year, that movie was Milk, the Sean Penn biopic that only garnered one nomination. Street film critic Tucker Johns gives us the lowdown on this year’s HFPA snub.
Biopics are taking over the world, which makes it hard to get excited about what seems like yet another mildly interesting story about a mildly interesting real person. But Milk, director Gus Van Sant’s film about the last years of Harvey Milk, America’s first openly gay elected official, is more than just a biopic. The film is elevated to a whole new level by Van Sant’s direction, a strong supporting cast, and an outstanding performance by Sean Penn as the eponymous lead.
Congrats, Penn students, on surviving finals. In the hope that your next month of relaxation goes smoothly, consider this early Hanukkah present to be your send-off.
What, like you expected anything else from me?
Editor’s Note: We have not yet watched the above, but will post in sight unseen with the expectation that it is a video featuring Beyonce, puppies, Beyonce’s puppies, a new breed of puppies called Beyont-zhus, etc. Happy holidays from your friends at UTB.
Everyone knows that exam time is Facebook time. You’ve just found the perfect spot in Van Pelt (where no one can see your laptop’s screen) so what’s the first thing you do? Open up Facebook and try to postpone your studying for as long as possible. I have to admit that I’m victim to these same urges.
I’m here to tell you that there may be something even more entertaining than perusing pictures tagged of you and checking the statuses of kids from your high school to see where they’ve gotten into college (shoutout, prefrosh!). I’m talking about the new ads on Facebook. Now, I know that Mark Zuckerberg has to rake in the cash somehow, but some of these are just ridiculous. In case you missed them, here’s a roundup of a few of the most bizarre.
…or so the New York Times breathlessly reports. What follows is a brief history-come-eulogy of the dearly departed date.
The Date evolved from The Courtship, the elaborate and annoying process by which seventeen-year-old boys would find, stalk, and soon thereafter wed prepubescent girls. (When your life expectancy is thirty-five, you get your shit together pretty early on.) It is likely that people once mourned the death of the courtship, bemoaning, “Now that young man is taking out that girl without months of supervised, awkward sit-down dinners with her family, parlor talks by a Masterpiece Theatre-style fireplace, and the permission of her domineering father. WTF?” The 1950s brought on the classic date, notable for unfortunate terminology like “going steady” and “getting pinned” which mean all kinds of not-as-fun-as-they-sound things.
In its later years, The Date started to fade and, after a tumultuous battle with Free Love, never fully recovered. Free Love has since passed the torch of emotionless sexual encounter to its successor, Random Hook Up. Since 2000, The Date has been struggling along, growing weaker with every frat party and late night text message. It finally succumbed to the modern convenience of non-dating and passed away last night. The Date is survived by flowers (that no one buys anymore), movies (that we download online), and the doorstep kiss (now known as foreplay for the doorstep fuck. Well, maybe you go inside first.)
The New York Post’s Page 6 is reporting that this week Secretary of State-to-be Hillary Clinton threw a luncheon for our dear mayor (and Penn alum) Michael Nutter at Buddakan. In New York.
Maybe Clinton was angling for a hint of Philly cuisine in the Big Apple? We’re sort of confused by this geographical choice, but we do have to admit the Meatpacking District space is way cooler than the Old City outpost (though we were a little mortified to see it whored out in the SATC movie). Edamame dumplings for everyone!
An 
As bona fide college students, we simply can’t ignore a novel that heralds itself as “a sharply observed portrait of campus life and all the many pressures–economic, academic, social–that are funneled into its culture.” A college-centric novel promises to be either really juicy or really lame, Tom Wolfe’s I am Charlotte Simmons being the gold standard for lameness. Wolfe’s book (which, ooooh, was partially based on research completed at Penn’s very own St. A’s) fell flat because each page couldn’t help but reveal how scandalized Wolfe was by “kids these days,” with their sex and drugs and loose morals (all of which provided the author with an excuse to seriously overuse the word “insouciant”). While the main character of Weitz’s book is, regrettably, a tad reminiscent of Charlotte Simmons, College Girl proves itself to be unsentimental, thought-provoking, and really compelling. 
Snow blanketed the eastern seaboard yesterday, and despite the 
The New York Post’s 
