HOOTERS
Gadfly was surprised to find a bevy of undergraduate females milling outside The Owl last Monday night. Weekday shenanigans on the final club circuit?
Nope. Turned out it was just a meeting of the Delta Gamma sorority—and the sisters were locked out. A couple dozen DG sisters waited impatiently in the frigid autumn air as one stone-faced member knocked loudly on the door (perhaps the irony was not lost on her?). The rest of the group cupped their hands together and generally stood around looking annoyed.
So an organization ostensibly empowering women meets at an anachronistic bastion of male elitism? Hmm, makes sense to us. Especially the whole idea of a houseless sorority waiting for frat guys to open the door for them—how 21st century.
—Michael M. Grynbaum
HARVARD FLUB
The Harvard Club of New York City scored a key victory over its Yale and Princeton counterparts last week in a heated competition to determine the whitest building in Manhattan.
The three midtown monoliths put forth their best wine tastings and alumni happy hours this month (and the Princeton Club even unveiled a members-only opera series), but the Harvard Club still managed to prove it’s the whitest of all with an unfortunate shout-out to two black employees last week.
Club officials apparently hoped to praise staff members Mario Metullus and Herbert Campbell for rummaging through a dumpster to retrieve a member’s wayward piece of jewelry (which better have been the Hope Diamond). But in an ill-conceived posting on the club’s website, somebody who should have known better placed the heading, “Dumpster Diving,” over a picture of the two conspicuously African American employees.
After Gawker.com, the New York gossip rag with a peculiar Harvard fetish, noted the irony in a posting last week, the club removed Metullus and Campbell’s photo, leaving just the harebrained headline (alliteration is indeed hard to resist) and a brief note of thanks.
But the Harvard Club, where hordes of undergrads turn over $160 each summer in exchange for bartenders who prefer ids to IDs, isn’t quite the last bastion of white elitism. A discussion course on African literature in the 20th century began quietly last Saturday.
—Zachary M. Seward
JUST ASKING
Which sophomore isn’t a big fan of Mohammed?
The student—who readily shares his views after a drink or two—says the world would be a better place if we just got rid of those pesky Muslims, Buddhists, and other exotic peoples—leaving Christians and Jews alone to wander the earth.
Why do Jews pass the test? Turns out they need to be around for that whole Book of Revelation thing to happen—and hey, someone needs to run the media.
Gadfly urges the student in question to take the xenophobia down a notch.
—MMG
SUNDAY IS … ABC
For the few Harvardians with access to cable television, Sunday nights have been sadly silent these last few months. With HBO’s original programming mostly on hiatus, students haven’t found much to sink their entertainment teeth into. Luckily for those of us still wrapping aluminum foil around our antennae, broadcast television may yet sweep in and save the Lord’s day from reclaiming any religious significance.
ABC currently features a one-two punch of semi-original, kinda-funny dramedies for viewers still nursing that Saturday night hangover. First up is Desperate Housewives at 9 p.m., a sloppy stew of Six Feet Under’s morbidity (the first episode opens with a character happily shooting herself in the head) and Sex and the City’s sassy girl talk.
Housewives earns points for pushing the network TV envelope. Its dark comedic overtones are a welcome change from the usual saccharine sitcom slop, and the plotlines—mostly concerning the desperations and desires of a group of wealthy suburban mothers—are clever and engaging. Despite its flaws, the show’s mix of quirk and charm makes it (for now) the best primetime soap this side of premium cable.
Boston Legal, yet another David E. Kelley yarn about a pack of attractive Beantown lawyers, follows Housewives at 10, but it just can’t compete. While the show features the brilliant James Spader in its central role as a creepy-but-likeable prosecutor, Spader’s enjoyable presence is canceled out by William Shatner’s burnt-out senior partner (a living metaphor for ol’ Captain Kirk’s career, perhaps?) and the obnoxious camerawork.
This is also Kelley’s first show to feature strong men and wishy-washy women, a flip-flop from his usual pseudo-feminist productions. Unfortunately, Ally McBeal this ain’t; the reversed formula simply doesn’t work. Even an actor of Spader’s skill can’t support a show on his own, and the boring characters Kelley surrounds him with fail to gain the audience’s interest.
To its credit, ABC is attempting to inject new life into a genre now dominated by hordes of CSI knockoffs. But is it worth tuning in for? Our suggestion: Curl up with a few Homicide: Life on the Street DVDs and wait out the months until Sopranos season six, when television’s healing warmth will glow brightly once again.
—MMG
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