Cruising home from the beach far out on Long Island, we discovered… the Cornell University International Duck Research Cooperative???

Matt, for reasons known only to himself, decided to stake his claim as a Cornellian by parking on the grass.  Literally within thirty seconds, a huge SUV pulled up and ordered us OUT.  The only explanation?  Cornell must be breeding mutant killer ducks.

Or, according to the website: “The Duck Laboratory came into existence in 1949 as a result of a working relationship between duck producers on Long Island and Cornell University.  At that time, very little scientific research was being carried out on ducks. In contrast, a considerable amount of research was being conducted at a number of universities on chicken and turkey production. The relatively small size of the duck industry in the United States, compared to the chicken and turkey industries, placed the duck industry at a decided disadvantage in obtaining financial support for research.  To help overcome this obstacle, the duck growers made a commitment to pay a large portion of the cost of research themselves through the payment of dues and fees. An agreement between Cornell University, and what was soon to become the Long Island Duck Research Cooperative was reached to establish and operate a duck laboratory at Eastport, New York.”

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.

This post marks the first in a new series, which will include reviews of books, music, and anything else that moves our hardened Kitschy hearts to something akin to joy.

Ah, summertime.  For some of us, it means putting on our corporate clacky-heels and making intimidating faces all over Manhattan.  For others, it means obsessively attending Latin dance aerobics at California Family Fitness and lying around in our backyards stuffing our faces with lime popsicles that our concerned mothers bought for us.  As a member of the latter camp, I have also been afforded oodles of time to lounge about reading books about my very favourite things: vampires, parasols, and the gay.

As some of you (read: probably none) may recall from the days of yore, I have very specific feelings on literature about vampires.  In sum: if you include someone with fangs (especially a tall, dark, mysterious someone) in your romance novel, there better goddamn well be some sucking, and not just of the necessary anemia-aversion kind.  And if the vampire in question actually has some personality beyond lurking in doorways and pawing ineffectually at the windows of his or her loved one, all the better.

So you can imagine how delighted I was when I finally tracked down Gail Carriger’s Soulless, having been recommended it by all the trusted authorities in book critics (i.e. other English majors).  Soulless takes place in an alternate universe nineteenth-century London where steam seems to be the ultimate source of power and dirigibles flounce around in the aether, ferrying be-bustled young ladies to and from engagements.  Okay, so it’s a bit handwavey, but who cares?  It’s steampunk!  To make my literary-kink toes curl even more intensely, this London has also enforced a heavy integration policy for those of the supernatural set, meaning that the actions of the resident vampires, werewolves, and ghosts aren’t just accepted–they’re legislated.

Into this world strides Alexia Terrabotti, a half-Italian spinster with a heft to her parasol and a jut to her jaw.  She’s also soulless, which gives her the ability to reduce any supernatural creature to a normal, human state by touching him or her.  While hiding from a dreadfully boring ball in search of treacle tart, she is attacked by a rogue vampire (to whom she has not even been introduced, the scandal).  Shenanigans ensue, culminating in one dead vampire, a lot of smelling salts, and tragically squashed pasty.  Considering London’s strict supernatural regulations, rogue vampires mean trouble, and as the strange occurrences multiply, Alexia finds herself embroiled in adventures which totally satisfy her Standard Plucky Heroine’s need for adventure.  Naturally, her necessary ally / emotional adversary / one-woman sexytimes fantasy object is one Connall Maccon, irascible werewolf, head of the Bureau of Unnatural Registry and all-around stereotypical Austenian anti-hero.  Add in a fabulous gay vampire (with a harem of well-muscled minions, one of whom is called Biffy), satisfying but not particularly explicit love scenes, and a cameo by Queen Victoria herself, and you have one deliriously happy Anglophile.

Soulless has its issues, of course.  For some reason, Carriger insists on transferring limited perspective at random, a trait which annoys me to no end.  It’s not as bad as, say, Dune, but it does take a little bit of the delicious tension out of Alexia’s “unladylike damp” at Connall’s manhandling when we immediately switch to Connall’s own furry feelings of conflict.  Also, if you’re not an Austen fan, tread carefully.  Despite my total lack of interest at anything Elizabeth Bennett has ever done, I thought the whole thing was wonderfully tongue-in-cheek, but I could see how all the fainting and talk of necessary escorts could get old for those more accustomed to the steampunk heroines of Neal Stephenson’s ilk.

All in all, though, it’s a hilarious little book for when you’re lounging poolside waiting for your own Biffy to bring you another Jameson on the rocks.  Plus, the sequel has scads of lesbian sexual tension, which just further proves that Gail Carriger is somehow tapping my calls.

Bob Saget is currently filming a show on A&E called Bob Saget’s Strange Days, and has come to Cornell to feature the rather under-the-radar-fraternity, Seal and Serpent.

What brought Saget to Uris Library is unclear. He only spent about five or ten minutes in the Reading Room sitting at various desks and conversing with two unknown college-aged young men as cameramen filmed nearby. Only a handful of students (including myself) were studying in the room at the time, yet Saget’s presence certainly caused a stir. Many students awkwardly stood around watching the scene, and Saget was rushed with a small crowd as he exited the building.

Rumor has it that Saget will be on campus throughout the weekend.

Few things should feel as idyllically collegiate as a walk down Ho Plaza in the springtime. The skies are blue and the trees are in bloom. The only problem is that recently, the Plaza has been smelling like that time in summer camp when I brought a dead crab for show and tell and left it in my cubby for a month.

What is that malodorous aroma? An equally disturbed friend and I had a hunch that it came from those beautiful white, blooming trees. After all, that was the only thing that had changed recently on the Plaza.

According to “Recommended Urban Trees: A Cornell Campus Walk”, a guide to the trees on Cornell’s campus put together by the Urban Horticulture Institute, these suspect trees are Callery Pears. Callery Pears came to the US from China less than a century ago and are considered to be an invasive species. Its bark is used to make woodwind instruments and it is one of the first trees to flower in the spring.

Professor William Crepet, the Chair of the Department of Plant Biology, confirmed that the Callery Pears are to blame. Though he hasn’t been to Ho Plaza recently, he guessed that they were “a cultivar of Pyrus calleryana,” or, in the language of us common folk, Callery Pears. He thinks that they’re probably of the aristocrat variety. “Yes the flowers smell bad,” he wrote in an e-mail, “the smell is an attractant to pollinators. It is a tradeoff of course: they look very nice flanking Ho Plaza, they are beautiful in flower, they flower profusely, they grow well and relatively rapidly.”

Many have tried to identify exactly what the putrid odor of the Callery Pear flower smells like. The writer of the Callery Pear Wikipedia article reservedly calls it “a sickly sweet smell.” Another online encyclopedia attempts to get more specific, saying, “they have a sickly-sweet smell that some have likened to semen, decaying crab meat, or jasmine and dog vomit.” Another, less official commentator, wrote on a message board about the trees “I always thought they smelled like uncooked corn tortillas…”

Fortunately, the rancid smell will not be around for much longer. The flowers usually only last for a few weeks, until the tree’s leaves emerge.

Alpha Sigma Phi brother participating in the Black Lantern Processional

This strange sight was the Black Lantern Processional, a hundred-year-old tradition of the Alpha Sigma Phi fraternity.

Cornell University’s chapter of Alpha Sigma Phi has been performing the Black Lantern Processional every year as a commemoration of deceased brothers and as an initiation ritual for new pledges. This year and almost every year in the past, the event has fallen on Cornell Days, a weekend when Cornell hosts and recruits prospective students. Supposedly, one year a pre-frosh was so disturbed by the ritual that he decided not to come to Cornell the following year.

The Processional is certainly a strange and very public sight, and the brothers of Alpha Sigma Phi seem to take that very seriously. Older fraternity members were handing out quarter-cards explaining the event, which included a statement denying their association with supremacist or racist groups (many might agree that some of the cloaks are vaguely reminiscent of Ku Klux Klan garb).

The brothers handing out quarter-cards could not divulge too much information about the symbolism of the event, and the cloaked brothers would not even speak at all. Yet, the president of the fraternity was able to explain that at exactly 7:09 pm, the circle of black-cloaked brothers would converge in the center, and the blue-cloaked brother would lead them in a procession back to their fraternity house. Why 7:09? In military time, that is 19:09, the year that the fraternity was founded at Cornell.

And that is exactly what occurred.

Blue-cloaked brother in the Black Lantern Processional

Black Lantern Processional

The procession

Now, those in charge of hosting these prospective students (known at Cornell as “pre-frosh”) and their families are being given advice on how to talk about the very sensitive subject of year’s suicides and the prominent fencing that has been put on campus bridges as a response.

When asked about the fences, tour guides are told to emphasize that the fences are temporary and bring up the wonderful mental health resources provided by Gannett and the student-run counseling program, EARS. We also hear that tour guides got detailed information about each suicide before anything was communicated with the general Cornell community.

Deborah Feld, co-chair of the Red Carpet Society, sent an e-mail to all of the students who have volunteered to host pre-frosh that read “as we get ready for Cornell Days we want to make sure that you are prepared to handle any tough questions…you will find a number of talking points that have been put together to help you.”

Under the headings of “what happened”, “Cornell is a caring community”, and “Cornell’s response to the recent student deaths,” twenty bullet points frame the issue of the recent suicides on campus in language that would make Simeon Moss, the oft-quoted deputy university spokesperson, very proud. Here are some excerpts:

“What happened?”

• We have recently suffered the tragic deaths of three students in the Fall Creek gorge that were determined to be suicides.
• The last confirmed suicide of an enrolled Cornell student involving a fall into a gorge before this year was in 2001.
• We cannot speculate as to the cause of these most recent suicides, but their proximity to each other is especially concerning. We hope that as we learn more about the personal, social, and academic situations surrounding the students who died we will gain insights that will make it easier to identity at-risk students.

“Cornell is a caring community”

• No one is alone. Friends, family, teachers, and an array of counselors and advisors are ready to listen and help us through whatever we are facing.
• If we learn anything at Cornell, we should learn to ask for help. It is a sign of wisdom and strength.

“Cornell’s response to the recent student deaths”

• We are consulting with mental health experts at Weill Cornell Medical College, other universities that have had similar experiences, and national experts on suicide.
• We are asking all members of the community to “Notice and Respond” to others in distress.
• We are installing fences on the sides of campus bridges as a temporary measure while longer-term solutions are identified. This decision was reached only after much discussion and an evaluation of existing research. Studies have shown that erecting barriers on bridges is an effective method of reducing suicides.

Are they greenhouses?  Part of a solar energy experiment?  The latest product in sustainable design?  Nope, rumor has it that the three plastic structures that appeared on the Arts Quad this morning are part of an installation art project by a professor of architecture in the School of Art, Architecture, and Planning.  Apparently she required her second-year architecture class to come help set it up– a “fun” Sunday afternoon break from studio.

In response to the three suicides in Cornell’s gorges this semester, Cornell has erected giant, wire-topped metal fences on all of the bridges.  While the fences cannot protect against determined, pre-meditated suicides, they are supposed to discourage “impulse suicides”—that is, a spontaneous decision to throw oneself off of our readily available bridges.

The problem is, we’ll never really know whether they actually prevent someone from taking the fatal plunge.  In the meantime—the fences are a “temporary” solution designed to last about 18 months—they’re just ugly.  As one of my classmates put it the other day, “I feel like I’m in a concentration camp.”  If anything, they serve as a constant reminder of the recent tragedies.  And the flowers that people have been stringing through the chainlink (above) do little to lighten the mood.

On Tuesday, Cornell made the front page of the New York Times.  With three very public student suicides in the gorges in the last month, two on consecutive days last week, we’ve hit six suspected suicides since August.  With a national average that should put us at fewer than two annually, we’ve officially entered what’s called a “suicide cluster”—that is, a so-called “contagious” string of suicides.

And Cornell’s response?  In the short run, they have posted guards on every bridge, effective through the end of this week.  You can find them out all night, looking bored and a little chilly in reflective vests.  On Saturday, Susan Murphy, Vice President for Student and Academic Affairs, called an emergency meeting of student leaders that included the heads of the Student Assembly, Interfraternity Council, and Inter-Cooperative Council, among others.  She also issued a video address, emailed to every student amongst a flurry of press releases and mental health infographics.  You can’t walk across the bridges anymore without passing inspirational chalk and strewn flowers.  The other day, a random boy offered me a Hershey’s Kiss at the end of the Thurston Avenue Bridge.

But the culmination of Cornell’s response to the suicides occurred this afternoon with a much-publicized event on the Arts Quad entitled “Lift Your Spirits: A Cornell Community Gathering.”

The Facebook event, with 2, 353 confirmed guests, read “In light of recent events on our campus, the Cornell community is coming together this Wednesday to reflect on recent tragedies, remind ourselves of the importance of life, and to celebrate ourselves, our school, and most important, members of our community. This will be a time for organic self-expression, release, and relaxation.”  With an unusually sunny day and temperatures in the high fifties, I shouldn’t have been surprised by the number of people who turned out—but the crowds on the Arts Quad far exceeded my (albeit somewhat cynical) expectations.

Some just came for the free cookies, cotton candy, and popcorn, but others stuck around.  Scattered tables featured booths from the Suicide Prevention Crisis Service, Cornell EARS, and Cornell Minds Matter.  President Skorton took the stage and urged students to “Reach out and touch someone.”  Student performances included various a cappella groups and the breakdancing troop Absolute Zero.   Skorton returned to the stage to conclude the ceremonies by joined the Chorus and leading the crowd in singing Cornell’s Alma Mater.

Also present at the event were representatives from NBC and Fox News—because apparently, now that we’ve made the New York Times, we’re a big deal.  I was eerily reminded of the 1980’s dark comedy Heathers—when the high school responds to several “suicides” with a shallow-feeling press gala in the school cafeteria.  The event was ostensibly about raising morale on campus—but it was also a convenient large-scale message to the outside world from the administration, and felt like a desperate cry of “look, we’re doing something!”  Opinion among student attendees was mostly positive, but some questioned whether the event would effectively discourage suicides.  A proposed event to chalk the bridges in uplifting slogans was abandoned due to critiques that it would come off as cheapened propaganda, exacerbating the existing problems and serving as a constant reminder of the bridges’ potential as suicide weapons.

A lot of students don’t see the big deal.  Cornell has earned a name as a suicide school, but we were at roughly the national average of suicides until 2005, and then had none between 2006 and early fall this year.  Since then, there have been ten student deaths, with six being investigated as suicides.  The first three occurred last semester, and little to nothing was known about them.  Because of the public nature of gorge suicides, however, Cornell has had to take a more public stance on the three since February.  Part of the issue is parental wishes—many families ask that Cornell respect their privacy and not broadcast the details of a child’s suicide to Cornell’s population of 20,000.  Now that we’ve reached cluster status, though, the University can no longer afford to respect their wishes.  When you have to send the entire freshman class on a detour around the Thurston Avenue Bridge so that you can bring up a body bag, ignoring the issue is not really an option.

Hence the public love-in.  We’ve been bombarded by sympathetic messages from teachers and advisors all week, if we’ve had time to read them between prelims and last-minute packing for spring break.  The general atmosphere was certainly festive, though, so maybe they achieved exactly what they set out to do.  Or maybe it was just the weather, some of the first blue skies we’ve had since October.  We’ll see how the good spirits hold when it snows next week.