Ithaca is Grateful: Furthur at Barton Hall, 2/14/2010

February 21st, 2010 by Michelle Spektor

dscn1096.jpg

Most of us at Cornell know Barton Hall as the campus gymnasium, or the building where our most awful final exams take place.  But unbeknownst to many current Cornellians, there exists a group of individuals out there for whom Barton Hall is more than a giant room with excessive echo.  It is the site of the most legendary performance of one of the most influential bands of the century: The Grateful Dead.  It is no wonder then, that Dead enthusiasts that follow the band around the country would flock to the Dead Head mecca of Barton Hall for the Furthur concert on February 14th, 2010.Although I really like the Grateful Dead, I had never attended any of their shows or met any true Dead Heads until this concert (save my mother, who achieves honorary Dead Head status for having attended the Grateful Dead’s 1977 concert in Barton Hall, and some of her ex-Dead Head friends.)  In the week before the show, I received the much-talked-about emails from the Cornell administration and police, warning me to watch out for Dead Heads sleeping in my dorm or picking through the garbage of dining halls. Many of us wondered why school officials were so nervous about a bunch of hippies storming Cornell’s campus for the weekend, so at the concert I sought to find out for myself who these Dead enthusiasts actually are.

dscn1165.jpg

I arrived at Barton Hall over an hour before the show was set to start, with the specific purpose of talking to as many people as possible. Everyone I approached was extremely friendly and glad to answer my questions and share their experiences.  Many of them couldn’t even tell me how many Dead concerts (which includes the Grateful Dead or any post-Grateful Dead bands) they have been to, most estimated that they had attended well over two hundred since the 1970’s.  Others, who were a bit younger, only started following the band recently and had only gone to between ten and fifty Dead concerts over the last ten or fifteen years.

Surprisingly, out of the twenty-five people I talked to, only one had been to a Dead performance at Barton Hall (no, not the 1977 one, the Phil Lesh and Bob Dylan concert in 1999.)  Even those who had followed the Dead from coast to coast to see 200+ concerts over the last forty years never made it to the epic Barton Hall, where the Grateful Dead and post-Grateful Dead bands have performed numerous times since the 1960’s.  This seemed statistically impossible to me, but it only added to the excitement for the show.  Many felt that Barton Hall is a truly legendary place, and that they were really becoming a part of history by attending the Furthur concert there.  Some were dismayed by the lack of booze and food, but that didn’t seem to detract from the anticipation that saturated the air in the minutes before the concert began.

As soon as Phil Lesh and Bob Weir hit the stage, I was transported into another universe.  Not only was the music phenomenal, the energy in Barton Hall that night was unparalleled and truly out of this world.  The area up near the stage was filled with throngs of people swaying, singing along, and smoking their joints, while in the slightly less crowded back area of Barton Hall, I spotted several people having intense spiritual experiences, repeatedly twirling in circles with their arms outstretched and long skirts billowing around them.  The camaraderie and vigor of the audience permeated the foundations of the building, and transformed it into a unique spiritual and musical utopia.

I won’t comment further on the kinds of substances individuals managed to bring into Barton Hall despite the security checks and police presence, but during the intermission I did take note of the Wharf Rats (www.wharfrat.org) table set up near the merchandise.  The Wharf Rats is an organization whose membership consists of concertgoers that have pledged to live alcohol and drug-free lives.  They attend as many concerts as possible in order to provide support to other concertgoers who may need them.  During intermission, I stood silently by their table for an Alcoholics-Anonymous-esque group discussion, where many admitted to struggling with drugs and alcohol.  One man proudly announced that this was his third time attending a Dead concert in a completely sober state, and another, a Cornell alum, discussed how his involvement in The Wharf Rats changed his life.

While Furthur concluded the night with a fantastic performance of I Know You Rider, the uplifting energy of the audience reached a mind-blowing peak and shook me to the core.  I was completely absorbed in the music, but I couldn’t help but notice a man a few feet away from me with the full Dead-Head getup- the dreads, the beard, the eyebrow ring, and the hippie clothes – clutching a rose, swaying with his eyes closed, and sporting the most blissful and true smile I have ever seen. I realized that contrary to popular belief at Cornell, a Dead Head isn’t a homeless hippie that warrants warnings by university administrations into sending alarming emails to their students. The Dead Heads seemed to think of themselves as people who live for the music and the cascade of epic experiences that they could never have otherwise.

After the jump: Meet the Dead Heads!

Move Over, Andy Bernard: Cornell Has A New Workplace Stereotype

February 3rd, 2010 by D. Evan Mulvihill

And the actress who played her just got nominated for a supporting actress Oscar! That would be Anna Kendrick in Up in the Air — itself nominated for Best Picture — for her superb portrayal of Cornell grad Natalie Keener. In the office, Natalie is everything that Andy Bernard isn’t: professional, upwardly ambitious, and terribly stiff.

Where Andy Bernard reminisces aloud of his Here Comes Treble a cappella superstardom at Cornell, Natalie is the type who’s more likely to remember nights spent tirelessly studying for her upper-level Johnson School classes, which she took on top of her AEM courses just to show her classmates that the Ag School Biz program is not a joke. Read the rest of this entry »

Cornell Business School Techie and His Fellow Staffer Reveal Love Affair to Entire Johnson School

November 6th, 2009 by D. Evan Mulvihill

So this was first reported by Guest of a Guest (where I used to work, oddly enough), and now has hit Gawker. The exchange between the two sexting fiends is hilariously porny, and contains gems such as: “And I will be SO FUCKING HORNY after I get done SPANKING that FINE ASS of yours for hours, you’ll be FULL for a week after you swallow me! And I hear that CUM is an excellent source of protein, as well as other nutrients!!! :)”

Also: “Because more than half the time, I’m actually just fixing for just Jake as Trevor has already eaten half the house by the time I get home. And the minute we come in the door, Jake is heading straight for his highchair and wanting fed before I even have my coat off. So I fix him something quick (grilled cheese, omelet, etc.). Or over the weekend I’m make a big pot of something so we can have leftovers, which Jake and Trevor don’t mind, but I get sick of them within a day or two and resort back to popcorn.I’m bad, I know.I think I need a good spanking.and to be put on my knees and force fed.”

The thing is, I’ve talked to a number of undergrads in various colleges who have NOT received these incriminating e-mails, so Gawker and Guest are wrong to say that the entire campus was cc’ed. I’ve just confirmed, actually, via an old Sunny friend of mine who has a friend in the business school, that only the Johnson School of Management was cc’d on these emails. For reference, 267 students were admitted to the MBA program in 2009 and 272 were admitted in 2010. That’s much less of a colossal fuck-up than sending it out to the over 15,000 students and grad students under the full umbrella of Cornell’s numerous colleges and schools.

Snap of the Day: Statue of A.D. White is Ithaca’s First Confirmed Case of Swine Flu

May 6th, 2009 by D. Evan Mulvihill

Subheading: Inanimate community reacts

Snap of the Day: Remembering the Holocaust

April 27th, 2009 by D. Evan Mulvihill

Can’t read the sign? Wondering whose people’s deaths the pink flag remembers? A close-up after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

Snap of the Day: Cherry Blossoms in Bloom!

April 23rd, 2009 by D. Evan Mulvihill

So the cherry blossoms are in bloom, along with the magnolias and some other flowering trees of whose name I have no knowledge. Another picture after the jump!

Read the rest of this entry »

An Important Cause to Support for Gays and Their Allies

April 22nd, 2009 by D. Evan Mulvihill

So, this might just get national attention and I can still pre-empt the Daily Sun, so here’s something my friend Chris Donohoe send to me. Chris is a really nice guy, and — sorry dude — we’ve pretty much known he was gay since freshman year. In any case, he is a gay man of faith  and that’s something that the religious group he was involved with couldn’t learn to tolerate:

Tomorrow (Thursday, April 23) an article will run in the Cornell Daily Sun.  It will showcase the following information.

At the beginning of this academic year I (Chris Donohoe) was asked to step down from my leadership position with a religious organization (Chi Alpha Christian Fellowship) on campus after coming out of the closet.  Although the university is taking aggressive action to address this injustice, it is time for the LGBT community and its allies to unite.

Read the rest of this entry »

VideOkay: Student Trustee Mash-Up

April 15th, 2009 by D. Evan Mulvihill

Greetings, fellow Cornellian! I come to you with the news that you too have the power to vote for the undergraduate student-elected trustee, one among 64 powerful persons who control Cornell’s destiny. Mostly by consulting with Miss Cleo. The Cornell Daily Sun went down and did the normal journalistic thing of taking video at a debate sponsored by none other than themselves, but I decided to make a mash-up video of the budding politicians’ uncannily uniform rhetoric. It would’ve been longer and better, but my video editing program was being a total [expletive for female genitalia] and lost my work not once, not twice, but thrice. Voting for the Student-elected Trustee ends tomorrow at 8am, but you can enjoy this little guy anytime:

D-Skortz Offers Economy-Fucked Seniors Champagne, Platitudes

April 15th, 2009 by D. Evan Mulvihill

Prez D-Skortz on LSD.
Prez D-Skortz on LSD.
Everybody knows “The Economy” sucks. Even David Skorton, our university president (case ya didn’t know), whose Stanford-schooled super-senior son can’t even find employment despite the fact that he took an extra half-year to do an extra major! Sadface. Guess he’ll have to live off the meager $700,000/year salary that daddy earns — but let’s hope he doesn’t have too many coke parties, considering the fact that his noble father hath forgone a salary increase this year. At tonight’s “Senior Presidential Reception,” dapper gentlemen and ladies crowded around our president, trying to get a good word in, or perhaps just to snap a poorly aimed cameraphone picture (see left). Read the rest of this entry »

Daily Sun a Shining, Gleaming Beacon of Objectivity

April 11th, 2009 by D. Evan Mulvihill

An artist's rendering of the general flavor of this article.
An artist's rendering of the general flavor of this article.
If you have ever had your moments of doubt about the so-called liberal media, look no further than yesterday’s above-the-fold cover story in the esteemed Cornell Daily Sun. The article describes the pain, dismay, and utter, utter misfortune that 25 prospective students endured at the hands of the evil (Evil?) Office of Financial Aid. What happened was this: FinAid accidentally sent out a high-five e-mail to those 25 students, who had already been mercilessly rejected. According to the article, “Students who received the article said they were confused, disappointed, and outraged.”

Read the rest of this entry »


Buy discount designer purses replica handbags authentic designer handbags.