So you’ve probably heard the totally lame-o news that BMOC– shorthand for AXO’s popular annual philanthropy event, Big Man on Campus–is on the verge of being cancelled, which would make its record 2 for 4 over the years that seniors have been at Penn. Maybe you’ve even joined the SAVE BMOC group on Facebook, which points out that each year the event raises thousands of dollars to support victims of domestic violence. But have you stopped to consider that a lack of BMOC would leave our campus, like a fish without a bicycle, sadly BMOC-less? The chair of the UA and the president of the senior class serve as our elected leaders, but he who is BMOC is our unofficial spiritual guide. How will Street editors know who to put in Cultural Elite? Will the role instead fall to the Big Asian on Campus? And then who will fulfill the duties of the big Asian–Mr. and/or Ms. Penn? We truly fear that BMOC’s cancellation could result in a social power vacuum. Hey, Ron Daniels, if you agree to stay, we’ll let you be BMOC!
We hear that a decision on BMOC’s fate will be made tomorrow morning. We’re crossing our fingers.
If you’ve been on Facebook anytime in the last few days–which, let’s be real, you have… many times–you’ve likely been bombarded with invitations to Halloween parties galore. Consider UTB your friendly social planner; we’ve compiled all of these Facebook invites for you! Deciding where to go, however, is entirely up to you. Same goes for costumes.
1. Sigma Chi’s Techno Halloween: Interesting… a Sigma Chi party with a Zete twist.
We blatantly stole this image from the Penn Homecoming site.
Wednesday, 10/29: Spookeasy at the Kelly Writers House, 8 p.m.
A Halloween twist on the Kelly Writers House’s zany coffeehouse/speakeasy/old-timey salon. We can guarantee that there will be lots of free candy and almost as many poets.
Wednesday, 10/29: Unity Week Keynote Speaker Bobby Seale, Houston Hall, Hall of Flags, 7 p.m.
Founder of the Black Panthers Bobby Seale (he has a Wikipedia page, so he must be important) will speak on grassroots activism.
Thursday, 10/30 (and Friday and Saturday, too): Barbie Shows Her Bloomers! at Houston Hall, Class of ‘49 Auditorium, 8 p.m.
All female comedy troupe’s fall show, featuring a couple of the witty minds that bring you Street’s lowbrow section each and every week.
Saturday, 11/1: Homecoming
Errr, something to do with sports…Halloween and Homecoming the same weekend? We’re so over it. Or are we under it?
Apologies for the lack of posts tonight. UTB was busy stalking Henry Kissinger, who was on campus for Impact ‘08. Our previous knowledge of Kissinger is limited to what we learned from watching that Kirsten Dunst movie Dick, but we found the actual Kissinger to be smart and well-informed. Governor Rendell, Amy Gutmann, Mayor Nutter, and former Secretary of the Treasury Robert Rubin also spoke, and the festivities included a highly entertaining “lighting round” between Kissinger and Rubin, in which the secretaries offered concise opinions on Russia, China, Palin and Obama. Henry K. was the highlight of the evening in our opinion–we even got to bask in his glow up close when we snuck into the Annenberg School’s library to check our e-mail before the event started–the building’s lobby was being used as a reception area for various V.I.P.’s, and as we walked out, Kissinger was being led in! As far as political spottings go, it was even cooler than when we saw Michael Nutter at a hot dog stand last Halloween.
If we had ever bothered to take Psych, we might have learned about cognitive dissonance, but instead, we’re going to just use the term as a way to introduce two wacky weekend events that seem sort of dissonant to us. Ok then.
A tipster emailed us to tell us about Biketoberfest tomorrow afternoon at Dock Street Brewery (which has really good vegan pizza, or so we hear). Says the tipster: “who wouldn’t want to read about people in lederhosen attempting to cycle under the influence?” We totally agree.
Also tomorrow, Blarney’s is hosting an 11 a.m. kegs and eggs tailgate before the football game. Kegs and eggs, you say? Reminds us of this strip club in Providence we heard about from a friend at Brown: one morning a week, they do legs and eggs, which kind of creeps us out.
It sucks that we only get two days off for fall break, but those two days tend to blur with the end of the previous week, resulting in two abbreviated weeks of classes, and, for one night only, a “This Week at Penn” post that starts on a Thursday rather than a day of the week closer to the week’s beginning. Coincidentally, or maybe because we just fail to realize how biased we are, each of the following events pertain to feminism. Hooray!
Today at 5 p.m., Katha Pollitt will speak about “Gender, the Election, and Learning to Drive” in Houston Hall’s Class of ‘49 auditorium. Aside from being the mother of one of The Notebook Girls, Pollitt is famous for having written about webstalking her ex back in 2004, when webstalking took a lot more finesse than it does in our MySpace/Facebook/Tumblr-ocracy. Our hope is that tonight she will say some amusing things about Sarah Palin.
Tomorrow (Friday the 17th) at 6:45, the Carriage House will screen A Powerful Noise, a documentary about trailblazing womenfolk in Mali, Vietnam and Bosnia. Also, there will be food!
A certain RSS junkie and friend-to-UTB wrote in to draw our attention to this contest, which she found via Geekadelphia. (Nerd!) We are now rethinking our previous Saturday plans of camping out on the fifth floor of Van Pelt, because, hello? An actual treasure hunt that might result in us winning a $20,000 diamond ring? Um, AWESOME.
You have to apply in advance to participate in the contest, and those who are chosen are expected to show up at Love Park Saturday morning ready to reenact a real-live version of Rat Race complete with text message riddles. Now go sign up and win that diamond–for God, for country, and for Penn.
Sadly, there don’t seem to be any events involving <3ing the female orgasm this week, but there’s still plenty going on around campus, especially if you’re Jewish or Greek.
Rosh Hashanah began Monday at sundown and services continue today and tomorrow. Hillel’s got the scoop on times and locations for reform, conservative and orthodox services. How inconvenient is it, by the way, when you realize that none of your Jewish friends are the same denomination as you? Best to befriend a wide array of Jews to avoid this issue in the future.
On top of the high holiday festivities, this week is also Greektober Fest. Last night was Greek Bowling at Strikes, today is a Greek Blood Drive (because Greek blood is the most virile!), Friday is a Greek Powderpuff football game, and Sunday is a Greek Academic Bowl emceed by Amy Gutmann’s right-hand-woman and Penn’s resident socialite Leah Popowich. The full calendar is here.
Not Greek or Jewish? The ICA welcomes one and all at Penn First Wednesdays, at 7 p.m. on October 1st, FREE with Penncard! There will be free coffee, desserts, a meet-and-greek with artist Odili Donald Odita and a performance by DJ Spooky. More details here.
As mentioned earlier, tonight in Meyerson B1 from 7 to 9 p.m., sex educators (now there’s a business card) Dorian Solot and Marshall Miller will be presenting something called the “Female Orgasm Program.” According to an e-mail from the Penn Women’s Center, this is a course featuring “’sexy’ material in a tasteful, appropriate manner,” so you know what that means–donkey show!
But seriously, folks, the couple go around the country teaching students about all things sex. They cover the good stuff (orgasms, both the “befriending your body” kind and the interactive kind) and the more serious stuff, like body image, saying no, and female anatomy, which, depending on your TV proclivity, is either called the va-jay-jay or the bajingo. They’re so good they’ll have you screaming for more. But don’t fake it, cause, unlike Harry Burns, they’ll know:
Scratch that. Good evening, Quakers! Gossip Girl is over and so is our favorite hour of the week, but here’s some of the stuff that we’ll be doing to fill our time until Chuck Bass next graces our television screens.
Tuesday, 9/23: I <3 the Female Orgasm in Meyerson B1, 7 p.m.
Presumably the girls who spend the spring shouting about The Vagina Monologues on Locust Walk needed something to occupy themselves until rehearsals start up again. We are way too uptight to go anywhere near this event, but for real, it sounds like it will be educational for both sexes.
Wednesday, 9/24: Adam Nagourney speaks in Huntsman 350, 7 p.m.
Calling all journalism wonks and fans of the liberal media: big-time reporter Adam Nagourney covers McCain and Obama for The New York Times. Join him for stimulating conversation, political insight, and hopefully refreshments.
Wednesday, 9/24: Penn Fund/Unite ONine Kick-Off in Annenberg Plaza, 5 p.m.
Penn bribes seniors with food, music and a cameo appearance by Dr. Gutmann. Bring your checkbook!
Thursday, 9/25: Pillowfight Flash Mob at the Compass, 11:55 a.m.
We got a Facebook invitation to this, and fully expect no more than three kids to show up with pillows. (For the uninitiated, more details about flash mobs here.) It sounds pretty stupid…so naturally we will be there with our digital camera to document it.
Got an event to publicize, gossip to spread, an axe to grind? Let us know.
Allow me an imperfect analogy. Barack Obama is to Meredith Grey as Hillary Clinton is to Addison Montgomery. Sure, people are talking about the upcoming election against McCain (Rose the wide-mouthed nurse, in this case), but everyone still remembers the epic battle during the Democratic primaries (the second and third seasons of Grey’s Anatomy). And, like the gracious loser she is, Hillary has offered her support to Obama in his bid for the presidency, though she clearly remains a bit peeved. Similarly, in this clip (cut to 2:18), Addison threatens to kick Meredith’s ass for letting Derek get away. Yes, McDreamy is the presidency in this analogy. Like I said, imperfect.
Anyway, today at 6 p.m., Kate Walsh (aka Addison Montgomery of Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice) will be in the Class of ‘49 Auditorium on the second floor of Houston Hall. Walsh, an avid Obama supporter, will be talking about why she supports Obama so avidly. Perhaps she will also be able to weigh in on another epic battle: David Sutcliffe versus Tim Daly on Private Practice.
The second season of Private Practice premieres Wed., Oct. 1, at 9 p.m. on ABC. The 2008 presidential election will be on Tues., Nov. 4.
If you go to Wynn Commons tonight between 6 and 9 p.m. you will have the opportunity to take part in the most glorious event to come to campus since Robert Redford screened Lions for Lambs here last year and somehow ended up calling Penn “a sexy school.”
That’s because this Friday, Penn will play host to the It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia game show! That’s right, the FX comedy about racism, sex offenders, jingoism, drinking, serial killers, and so many other wondrous topics has a trivia game. If you know a lot about the Gang, like the lyrics to “Day Man” or Sweet Dee’s nickname in high school, this is your chance to use that knowledge to win DVDs, Sunny T-shirts, and maybe even a golden trophy in the shape of a dumpster baby.
And even if you have no idea what a dumpster baby is, they’ll be giving out stuff for free, too. To all those who took free notebooks from Houston even though you totally already went to the bookstore, I’m looking at you.
The fourth season of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia premieres Thursday, Sept. 18, at 10 p.m. on FX. Here’s a collection of commercials to give you an idea of what will happen:
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The editors of 34th Street present UnderTheButton.com, a new blog about arts, entertainment and life at Penn! Send us tips at underthebutton@gmail.com
If we had ever bothered to take Psych, we might have learned about 
It sucks that we only get two days off for fall break, but those two days tend to blur with the end of the previous week, resulting in two abbreviated weeks of classes, and, for one night only, a “This Week at Penn” post that starts on a Thursday rather than a day of the week closer to the week’s beginning. Coincidentally, or maybe because we just fail to realize how biased we are, each of the following events pertain to feminism. Hooray!
