Current Blue and White editor-in-chief Anna Phillips attended the annual Blue Pencil Dinner in Low Rotunda last night to see how the other half lives. Her impression follows.

At 8:30 on Saturday night, the staff, alums, and distinguished guests of the Columbia Daily Spectator traipsed into Low Library in their finery for an evening of hobnobbing and a speech by Leonard Downie, executive editor of the Washington Post. A dinner (if networking can be called dining) preceded the event.

Editor-in-chief emeritus John Davisson C'08 began the evening with a speech about Spec in the last year, during which he referred to the newspaper's critics and fans who have both lauded the paper and called its reporters "pedestrian hacks" and "accomplices to the destruction of mankind."

But things seem to be looking up for the campus rag. In Spring of 2007, the Spec had 1.7 million page views and in the Fall of '07 it had 7.96 million, which could be attributed to the website redesign or the presence of an Iranian dictator on campus soil-- it's a toss up. The paper's circulation holds steady at 10,000 a day, and Spec has recently agreed to host Wiki CU after Bwog declined the offer.

A gadfly, according to Billy Goldstein (CC' 09), is "some big-ass fly," and also the only non-defunct undergraduate philosophy magazine at Columbia University.

The Gadfly has so far printed one issue with a medley of contributions: a letter of explanation, a few art pieces, a fictional work, a quasi-Socratic dialogue, a lecture review, and--as a centerpiece--interviews with Columbia professors David Albert and Brian Greene. As a magazine rather than a journal, its founders say, it focuses less on academic theses and more on anything that can provoke thought. "It's not a formal magazine, it's mostly just thought-provoking," Goldstein said.

Basically, the magazine stays true to form. It usually provokes thought rather than positing specific opinions, and a couple of the pieces present multiple views without really advocating any in particular. In general, even if you don't find yourself agreeing with it, it raises interesting discussion points, and the articles are long enough to develop the authors' ideas but not so long as to get dragging.

Goldstein's description of the Gadfly's function as "a forum for ideas that people otherwise only talk about with their friends, or when they're stoned" fits perfectly with the fiction piece, by Maddie Boucher (CC '09), which includes the journal of a wandering philosopher/outlaw from which the veracity and meaning of any entry, whether ultimately true or not, is ample fodder for discussion. The interviews with Albert and Greene, while much more formal and scientific, become accessible to the humanities-minded among us through a somewhat meta-philosophical letter. Roberto and Gadfly VP Adam Waksman, who interviewed Greene and Albert, respectively, are as much physics nerds as they are philosophy geeks, and hope to draw in some of both.

Interview with the editors after the jump!

You may have noticed the piles of glossy paper gracing newsstands in recent days. We in the publications world think alike, which means that Columbians have to stomach us all at once. Unfortunately, none of them have posted their current issues online, but Bwog thought it would give them some airtime anyway.

From Ad Hoc, we learn that David Plotz went to a better high school than you did, that administrators don't listen to students, and that Hurricanes are generally bad for education. After recovering from momentary blindness induced by The Columbia Science Review's shiny color explosion, and staring quizzically at some graphs and numbers, we find out that there are birds in New York City, and that humans are generally bad for generating hurricanes. The Birch tells us that small bits of land in Eastern Europe can be troublesome, that Russia is not a real democracy, and that Cyrillic characters are hard to read. And 116 reminds us that Spectator has a shitload of money. I mean, we kind of already knew that.

In today's (admittedly bad-ass) Spec "University Space" supplement, an article on the lack of student group space pointed out:

[T]he Science Fiction Society, for example, keeps its library of 20,000 novels in the Student Government Office on the fifth floor of Lerner.

To recap: Ad Hoc, The Columbia Current, The Columbia Political Review, The Columbia Review, Tablet, The Columbia Citadel (that's the conservative magazine), The Birch, Helvidius, and The Blue and White do not have a computer to their name, much less a cubicle or an office. There's no space, apparently. Maybe that's because we need to maintain our library of 20,000 science fiction novels.

The article also notes that, other than the Spectator, "the only two groups with a physical office are the Fed and the yearbook."

First, insert a cheap joke about the Fed. Then, raise your hand if you knew about -- or know anyone who bought -- the yearbook.

Plus, their offices in Lerner are pretty swanky.

(Writer gnashes teeth, ends rant, braces for vulgar taunting in next issue of the Fed.)

We now return to our regularly scheduled programming.

Bwog Correspondent Jim Williams reports:

An unfortunate typo (or, rather, what I hope was a typo) in today's Spec article about the Center for Broken Thought's inaugural event claims that the movement is "inspired by thinkers like Nietzsche, Bataille, Artaud, and Shamu." Yes, Shamu. The whale from Free Willy.

Had the mistake been caught and fixed prior to publication, the article would have referenced Iranian poet Ahmad Shamlu, whose work bears resemblance to the ideas presented in The Breaking.

Those interested in more information would be well advised to do a comparative study of the two illustrious figures' respective websites, shamlu.com and shamu.com. Each, in its own way, is tremendously enlightening.

Last semester, B&W staffer Bari Weiss founded The Current, "A Journal of Contemporary Politics, Culture, and Jewish Affairs." This past weekend, they released their spring edition with an open tab at Toast. Of course, Bwog only learned of the free drinks and food exactly one minute after said tab was closed. Nevertheless, The Current is worthy of a look-see. Admire the shiny cover. And forgive the page design that reeks of academic self-importance.

In true QuickCurrent-style:

Do not fuck with GS students.

"I've only had sex once, which is far worse than being a virgin." And other tragi-comic tales.

What's worse than a bad housing lottery number?....The Holocaust!

Palestinians "look cooler" than Zionists.

If the Columbia Political Review is good for nothing else, the March issue has a rather valuable coupon on the back cover good for a cup of coffee and a bagel from Morton Williams, midterms week (March 6-10) only.

First person to tell us if that includes cream cheese gets... well, a coupon good for coffee and a bagel.

Interesting question: did last month's Spec coverage of Columbia's Anachronistic Gentleman Dating service turn a non-story into a story for the NYT to cover or is this still something no one actually cares about? The Bwog votes for the latter, romanticism be damned.

The following picture and caption ran on the front page of today's Spec next to the article "Professors Scoff at CULPA":

Well, we know Prof. Moyn. Prof. Moyn is a friend of ours. And that, sir, is no Prof. Moyn. This is Prof. Moyn's picture on the History Department website:

So who is the man in the picture? Why, it's Professor Michael Golston:

We'd only add that all of this confusion could have been avoided by a look at our old friend The Facebook, where Prof. Golston has a fan club and Prof. Moyn has his very own profile as well as a group he started, Merleau-Ponty Rules!, to which we can only respond: yes, yes he does.

Seen on a Student Government Office computer during the weekly Fed meeting: The Wikipedia entry for "Slash Fiction."



What is Slash Fiction?

Slash fiction is a type of fan fiction in which one or more media characters are involved in a homosexual relationship as a primary plot element. These gay pairings are often described in explicit detail, and largely occur outside the canon of the source. ...

In which the Bwog apologizes for getting a couple facts wrong:

- In the February issue, Brendan Ballou wrote that "Rebel With Uranium" Ken Hechtman and his merry band of anarchists "were the first to reach the Low Library roof, and as far as we know, the last."

Correction: They were not the last.

- On February 4, the Bwog moaned about Jake Gyllenhaal's fake alumni status:

He was supposed to graduate in 2004. He didn't--he dropped out to play a gay cowboy. Which is fine, but it means he DID NOT GRADUATE, unlike, say, his sister or his uncle [Professor Eric Foner].

But, as Quick Spec pointed out this morning, Professor Foner is not
our fakest alum's Uncle. He just used to be married to the gay cowboy's mom.

The Bwog just couldn't imagine that their superhero professor has an ex-wife. Discover the sobering truth after the jump.

Gothamist discovers the Splogs

And, yes, we've decided to re-christen the Spec Blogs the Splogs. Any objections?

Meet the new kid on the block.

My first Spectator column of the year came out Monday, and I proved myself to be a royal idiot. Soon after, I sent a mea culpa to the Spec sports staff, the athletic department, and a few angry student athletes -- see after the jump.

But before the jump ... please don't call me a racist and resentful of economic diversity. Just say I'm insensitive to athletes or an asshole or something resembling the truth.