Well, it’s another embarrassing day for Cornell.  Christopher Langone, a PhD student at our illustrious institution, recently filed a class-action law suit against rock band Rush for inconsiderately letting their Chicago concert get rained out—and he wants $$$ for those beers he bought, too, reports the Chicago Sun-Times.

The band, which Wikipedia terms “Canadian progressive rock,” were supposed to perform in Chicago last Wednesday, July 7, but cancelled due to rain—apparently in spite of ticket stubs which read “rain or shine.”  Langone, who told the Sun-Times that he had flown to Chicago to see the show with old friends, did not take the disappointment gracefully.

Despite calling himself “a lifelong fan of Rush,” Langone has filed a class-action lawsuit demanding reimbursement for the six tickets he purchased (he says he can’t make the rescheduled concert) as well as airfare and other expenses.  And those other expenses include not only his travel expenses but, apparently, the round of beers he ordered at Charter One Pavilion before the concert was cancelled.

Really, Chris?  You want to be paid back for the beers?  I can understand some reasonable frustration at having traveled all the way to Chicago to see a cancelled show, but if you were really meeting up with old-time friends, they must have been pretty disappointing.

And as a “lifelong fan,” I’m shocked you couldn’t give the aging rockers a break.  They make have been some righteous dudes back in the seventies, but they’ve spent the last thirty years in Canada.  And I hate to break it to you, but I doubt a lawsuit’s going to get you the kind of autograph you want.

Langone, 42, is studying for his PhD in the Department of Communication.  I could imagine better PR than suing one’s supposed musical idol over a rained-out concert.

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.

For those that didn’t see the movie, here’s a little recap of the relevant points: George Clooney plays the main role of Ryan Bingam, a “career transition counselor” who goes to companies and fires people for the bosses who would rather not do it themeselves. Natalie is an upstart new hire at Clooney’s company, and she suggests a new way of firing people: via videoconference.

This would save the company a ton of cheddar on travel expenses, but presents the movie’s plot-propelling conflict: Clooney only feels at home when he’s up in the air on a plane and doesn’t want to part with the comforts and of his aviation routine. So it’s only natural that Natalie should have to accompany him around the nation and learn the virtues of firing people in the flesh before her new video-firing protocols can be established.

Natalie is, until the middle of the movie, a terribly unlikable character. She carries all of the know-it-all-ness and need-to-be-right-ness of Question Girl in CHEM 207, but she never needs to ask questions (especially not in front of the whole class) because she already knows she’s right. She has the drive (and audacity) to institute change at her workplace right when she starts. She knows that she belongs in upper management and everything else is a mere beeline to that end. Until her martini-fueled breakdown, she’s a complete robot. But then we learn that Natalie followed a boy to Omaha, where the company’s physical offices are. And then the boy leaves her — via text message! just like poor Kelly — and she’s suddenly a human, emotional creature.

Is it good to have a character like Natalie projected, in some form, into the psychic understanding of Cornell? She’s actually a perfect complement to Andy Bernard: female, capable, and business-savvy, she proves that Cornell grads do go real places in the workplace and not all go onto become regional sales managers. Sadly, Natalie’s going to be much, much less known that Andy Bernard because nobody sees Oscar films.

Still, she’s not the best we could ask for; the America’s pop culture mind needs a better Cornell figure to absorb than the real life ones we have right now. (I’m talking to you, Ann Coulter and Keith Olbermann.) Harvard has that symbolologist Richard Langdon who solves big murder mysteries in the nick of time. And Yale has plenty of real life people who are famous and do good stuff. Like Secret Society-affiliated presidents and stuff. When’s Cornell’s big break?

Andy mentions his Cornell (ever heard of it?) days:

Andy on his drinking habits at Cornell:

Anna Kendrick talks about Up in the Air:

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.

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.

This is more than a slap in the face to one individual, this is a slap in the face to the entire LGBT community–especially those of faith.  Chi Alpha is basically saying that my sexuality–along with the sexualities of every other LGBT community member–is not legitimate in the eyes of God.

Consequently, we have planned a candlelight demonstration the evening of Friday, April 24.  All members of the Cornell and Ithaca community are encouraged to attend this peaceful demonstration.  We will gather in front of McGraw Hall on the Arts Quad from 7:15 until 7:45pm as members of Chi Alpha Christian Fellowship gather inside the building for their Friday night meeting. The event will last only 30 minutes.

Who: The LGBT community and its allies
What: A candlelight demonstration
When: Friday, April 24, 7:15pm-7:45pm
Where: On the Arts Quad in front of McGraw Hall
Why: To show that the Cornell and Ithaca Community is unified in its efforts to promote equal rights for all people.

BRING YOURSELF AND 5 FRIENDS!

ART QUAD.

WTF? Oh, it’s art! Land art, to be precise. I asked a guy who was unloading the bagfuls of hay stuff into big heaps, and he said that it was:

An architecture project commemorating the 40th anniversary of the exhibit that like STARTED it all, it being “land art.” And where was that exhibit hosted? Right here at Cornell. So some visiting professors in the Architecture program put this shit together. It’s actually mad precise, they use rulers and shit:

Exactitude.

CONTEST: Guess the number of bags of hay they used — no counting the rows and columns, though, y’all. Send your guesstermation to watch@kitschmag.com and you’ll get a blog post featuring YOU or a PERSON OF YOUR CHOICE. Fo’ real real, not fo’ play play.

There was other cool stuff on the Arts Quad, too. Something less avant-garde and more, um, avant-guard?

En garde! (Worst caption ever, I know.)

Who are they? Ring of Steel! (Risley.) Here’s what the president sent me in an email:

Hi Evan!

Ring of Steel meets Mondays and Thursdays at 8pm in Risley’s Great Hall. For the next few weeks we’ll be using Saturday practices as “fights only” because we have a few performances coming up.

There’s no previous experience necessary; we’d love to have you join us! The doors to Risley are card access, but we’ll have a Ringer standing by the door at the beginning of practices to let people in. You can add yourself to the list-serv if you like.. Send an email to rosi-l-request@cornell.edu. The body of the email should just said the word ‘join’ (without the quotes). Hope to see you around!

You’re welcome to contact me for more information. Here’s a link to the original chapter of Ring of Steel in Ann Arbor, Michigan. http://ringofsteel.org/

Jen Wholey
President
Ring of Steel: Ithaca

A Google search of

Before the change, around 10:45am

Indecipherable spam jargon! On a clearly library-affiliated page! The horror! I forwarded my findings onto the tipster, telling myself that the Xanax peddlers were crazy Canadian webtards and not, as I had hoped, Johnson and Johnson or Pfizer or even Bayer. He responded back five minutes later that he didn’t see anything wrong with the page I’d sent him. I renavigated back, and thank God I took that screenshot, because the page is altogether pedestrian now:

Boring.

Look at the URLs. They’re both the same. I called the library to see what’s up and talked to a guy at the Circulation Desk, who wasn’t aware of the whole Xanax thing. He said he’s send the tip on to the people upstairs. Bored by the whole matter by now, I didn’t feel like doing the journalist thing and talking to them.

Miss Cleo, Cornell's newest consultant.

Disgusted by the psychic’s incompetence, Esteemed alumna Ann Coulter called Edward a faggot, in a move reminiscent of her to-do with a certain politician named John Edwards.  Exasperated and unfulfilled, the University contacted psychic/shaman/scam artist Miss Cleo, née Youree Dell Harris.  The oddly named Youree “saw the University’s request for help coming” and gracefully obliged. An independent marketing firm saw the move as “potentially fruitful” but was wary of “lurking telephone bill charges.”

Belated April Fools! Yeah, we missed the mark, but forgive us. Please?

PS: Most of that was written by my dear friend Lauren Johnson. Give her a pat on the back, will ya?

If you are a gay man who doesn’t know who Larry Paciotti is, that’s forgivable. But if you gay men don’t know Chi Chi LaRue, you might be fooling yourself — she (the drag/gay porn director persona of Larry) has directed hundreds (thousands? is too lazy to do research) of titles you may have used your dominant hand to “enjoy.” Watch on, trannies.