The Game
begins the week preceding the invasion. Tee-shirts with hawkers appear on Cross Campus and crowd Commons like Canal Street. Vaguely verging on clever slogans appear each year. Piles of navy shirts with pictures of crabs and "It's not Harvard without V-D" in small, medium, and large lie on tables beneath gothic gargoyles. Classics like "Harvard Sucks, Princeton Doesn't Matter" compete with innovative insults like “Thanks Crimson States” over a red vs. blue map or the new baby blue "Yale Ladies... turning away Harvard men since 1969." All around well trafficked campus bulldogs beat up on Pilgrims and sweatpants saying "kiss my harvard" on the seat sell out. Tradition is commercialized, of course.
Monday 9 a.m. the line trails down the stairs from the Council of Masters' Office for Friday bus tickets to what visiting professors and lecturers refer to with a shrug and a half-smile as "that city to the North on the Charles." I wait impatiently. A quarter of my organic chemistry class shuffles through the line before running up the hill single-file to lecture. Conversation between classes, at meals seems inevitably to turn to the game. Inquiries surf email lists to find a wave to ride up to Boston on. Going to The Game? Any space in the car? The trunk?
Friday rolls round after my first week since September without a paper or midterm. With time without any form of crew, I taste Yale's imported whines and chimes of enlightening visiting notables. I go to hear (emphasis on hear not see) Howard Dean in a hot, packed auditorium. He speaks charismatically with only slight bitterness on the roll of the media in election times in a hall named for a founder of Time, Henry R. Luce. In a beautiful Law School lounge there is a fireside chat not with FDR but with this Times' White House correspondent. Funny to read Elisabeth Bumiller's article on Rice over oatmeal breakfast and then see her discuss the President over afternoon tea. The next 4 o'clock went to Davenport Master’s tea. A Colombian labour organizer for mine workers spoke in Spanish with simultaneous translation. Half the crowd cringed or laughed and was echoed by the English only side. Sitting on the steps, sipping soothing chamomile, was shook up by a story backed by numbers from a world where Coke is not a smile from a soda dispenser but the dispenser of assassinations and torture. Struck by the courage to take it to courts, to keep working in the face of force of multinational corporations and corruption, threats on family and life. Seems so silly this small rivalry, battle between half witticisms waged on chests and backs bearing insults or on the front lines between tail gates.
But for frivolity and festivity, Friday the whole campus prepared to pack up and head to home or Harvard. Turned in problem set and turned towards vacation and business before busing to Boston. Packed in errands and a bag, got game tickets, grabbed a sandwich, and as the wheels were rolling Katie, Veronica and I ran from bus to bus searching for seats. We finally found a front row open and settled into a widescreen view of the trip to an alternate universe. After getting a little lost in Massachusetts Avenue and playing navigator to the driver we got dropped off at the Museum of Comparative Zoology blocks from main campus. The message was Yale students deserve to be lost or belong stuffed as zoological specimens. Hiking into Harvard’s base camp created camaraderie with Yale strangers. All weekend, anyone wearing the right colors, clothes, or certain expression of awareness of being displaced was a friend, a fellow traveler, teammate, tribesman. Reaching Cambridge Square we met Katie’s Phillip’s Andover friend Louie, her Harvard host. She was the emissary that brought us to meet a delegation of the other side. On the way we passed the Crimson and my St. A’s sister Carolynn’s Phillip’s Exeter friend Walker conveniently stumbled out covered in champagne. He turned out to be close with Louie and heading to the same pre-party. Cool webs connected previously arch rival prep schoolers. After the nothingness and near nonexistence of people post-high school, there seemed to be truth to the infinite connections embodied by the blanket of I Heart Huckabees. Crossed paths with Clarel, David Katz, Bharat Das, Leigh Nathanson, Jenny Aaron, DDR squared.
Perhaps it was The Game, but the pace of Harvard seems brisker. We whirled around Quincy suites and then jumped into cabs with a happily coexisting crew composed of both colleges after pulling Walker, 5’4” and skinny, from a fight with three big guys who belonged to Boston U. “Let’s throw down, we’re gonna to throw down,” he repeated as he pushed up his Polo sleeves. Everyone was over-excited. Looking for a fight, some guys shouted “Go Yankees” amidst socks on caps and signs. We ran away to Boston, Lands Down and a strip of clubs Harvard rented. We entered Avalon. My first club. Strobe lights blinded near darkness. Caught in freeze frames, bodies shaken by speakers, everyone had rhythm. Strange dancers wearing fur worked around a stage. Strangers attempted SN 2 reactions with back side attacks. Tried to decide what I thought the purpose of a body was but left off, went with what Donne would do, and danced. Crisis of the evening was losing my phone jostled from pocket. Wandering through the jungle of bodies, the search party scanned the ground but found nothing in the dizzy alternation of dark and light. Danced on vaguely missing my cell phone and songs with words but ended up enjoying until two. The lights came on, the stunning signal of closing. The animals blinked and looked around at the forms they had swayed with in the shadows of the cave. My phone turned up in a bartender’s pocket. Ecstatic I emerged from a surprisingly entertaining Sodom and Gomorrah and looked up. I saw a green monster and froze in front of Fenway. Felt tricked into buying into Boston, but not salt, the night didn’t crumble with the wall’s reminder of the world ending. Legs shivering or shaking to a beat, boarded a school bus back to Harvard and proudly responded to a “Yale Sucks” chant with a magnanimous group trying to unite the divided bus by rallying around a “Princeton Sucks” cheer. Crashed to sleep soon as head hit rolled up shirt serving as a pillow around 4 a.m.
Crashing symbols and drums walked beneath the window devastatingly early. The band woke an angry dorm at 8 o'clock. Went back to sleep. Tossed and turned over on the futon later. Surprised to be in a strange room looking out a square window onto an unfamiliar view of sharp geometric shapes in sunlight. A square of blue sky was boxed out by bright buildings, tall rectangles with one triangle shadow said this was a city of sorts. Woke later and the view wasn't as unexpected. Hungry, headed for breakfast of burgers and beer at the tailgate. Crossing the glittering Charles I imagined what it might have been like going there. One skuller slid across the surface. Could have rowed intermural or lightweight crew, ran next to a river, chatted in lively, cute Cambridge and converted an all poetry bookstore into a favorite corner. Wondered if I'd turn out differently if I went there. If clubbing in Boston would make me dance easier, if running with these crowds would make me socialize faster, if walking up coffee-shop lined streets and cobble-stoned alleys to class would change the gait of my conversation. Trying Harvard on for size, it fit about the same as it did two years ago on my last deciding visit. Back then realized could potentially be happy anywhere. Happiness always a choice, made easier by either of these places. Harvard, a rich place, doesn’t get to me the way the gothic gargoyles breathing dead boys' thoughts do. In front of the stadium, looking at a banner bearing a white H on a maroon background I missed the delight of Y, my walkways, Old Campus, Harkness going pink at sunset. From the first time I stepped through Phelps gate or walked around the pews of the cathedral of knowledge, I knew. I can’t explain exactly why it made and makes me intrinsically happy except by pointing a finger at the roofs along Elm street in the fading glow of afternoon or by running a hand along the edge of the women’s table flinging water out at you. There must be something chemical and unexplainable about love. Pheromones contribute to attraction. Yale smells right. It feels good in the gut.
But despite it being Harvard and the ban on kegs and U-Hauls (oh no), The Game this year in Boston was better. Last year the absolute absurdity of tailgating and football was overwhelming. Mobs of students trashed at 10 a.m. on a Saturday. Institutions of brains battling it out by boys smashing into each other for a few hours. Loreli Gilmore was right. The Game makes much more sense with a fun flask or a Magic Hat. Or if it's still nonsense, it's highly amusing and enjoyable. Finding friends delightfully transposed and traipsing foreign territory, getting into the spirit with spirited hot chocolate, crossing the no-mans land to go on a raid of the opposing camp for warm apple cider, laughing at a line of ten peeing against a wall, made The Game. Cops wandered through the sea of underage drinking doing little besides confiscating a funnel and trying to look menacing. Deterrence was futile. Saybrook took swigs from personalized bottles of champagne. JE grilled eggplant and dropped them drunk onto the coals. TD served shrimp kebabs and alcohol to anyone. The trunk of a St. A member's Jetta was a mini bar covered with bottles of hard stuff, soft brie and fresh fruit. The football was an afterthought, a side show. Went for the band at half time and stayed for the third quarter. The stadium was split and color coded like the country. There was little to cheer for from the blue state side. A rare completed pass, a paper airplane on the field, and the Saybrook Strip were the few occasions for screaming. The crowd moaned when Yale failed to score from the ten yard line or Harvard had another breakaway. The score was abysmal when I left. 35-3. The football was just an excuse for the extravaganza.
Took the T out to the suburbs to pick up Jimmy's car parked on a Spring Street. Drove back through the rain flipping radio stations, acting out lyrics and drumming on the dashboard. The skyline of New Haven swung into view as we sang sha-la-la-la-la along with Van Morrison. This blue-eyed girl was happy to go home a day when the rain came.
But The Game never ends. At Thanksgiving sporty relatives all knew the score. Thanks to tradition, there's always next year. Next year in Jerusalem.
Monday 9 a.m. the line trails down the stairs from the Council of Masters' Office for Friday bus tickets to what visiting professors and lecturers refer to with a shrug and a half-smile as "that city to the North on the Charles." I wait impatiently. A quarter of my organic chemistry class shuffles through the line before running up the hill single-file to lecture. Conversation between classes, at meals seems inevitably to turn to the game. Inquiries surf email lists to find a wave to ride up to Boston on. Going to The Game? Any space in the car? The trunk?
Friday rolls round after my first week since September without a paper or midterm. With time without any form of crew, I taste Yale's imported whines and chimes of enlightening visiting notables. I go to hear (emphasis on hear not see) Howard Dean in a hot, packed auditorium. He speaks charismatically with only slight bitterness on the roll of the media in election times in a hall named for a founder of Time, Henry R. Luce. In a beautiful Law School lounge there is a fireside chat not with FDR but with this Times' White House correspondent. Funny to read Elisabeth Bumiller's article on Rice over oatmeal breakfast and then see her discuss the President over afternoon tea. The next 4 o'clock went to Davenport Master’s tea. A Colombian labour organizer for mine workers spoke in Spanish with simultaneous translation. Half the crowd cringed or laughed and was echoed by the English only side. Sitting on the steps, sipping soothing chamomile, was shook up by a story backed by numbers from a world where Coke is not a smile from a soda dispenser but the dispenser of assassinations and torture. Struck by the courage to take it to courts, to keep working in the face of force of multinational corporations and corruption, threats on family and life. Seems so silly this small rivalry, battle between half witticisms waged on chests and backs bearing insults or on the front lines between tail gates.
But for frivolity and festivity, Friday the whole campus prepared to pack up and head to home or Harvard. Turned in problem set and turned towards vacation and business before busing to Boston. Packed in errands and a bag, got game tickets, grabbed a sandwich, and as the wheels were rolling Katie, Veronica and I ran from bus to bus searching for seats. We finally found a front row open and settled into a widescreen view of the trip to an alternate universe. After getting a little lost in Massachusetts Avenue and playing navigator to the driver we got dropped off at the Museum of Comparative Zoology blocks from main campus. The message was Yale students deserve to be lost or belong stuffed as zoological specimens. Hiking into Harvard’s base camp created camaraderie with Yale strangers. All weekend, anyone wearing the right colors, clothes, or certain expression of awareness of being displaced was a friend, a fellow traveler, teammate, tribesman. Reaching Cambridge Square we met Katie’s Phillip’s Andover friend Louie, her Harvard host. She was the emissary that brought us to meet a delegation of the other side. On the way we passed the Crimson and my St. A’s sister Carolynn’s Phillip’s Exeter friend Walker conveniently stumbled out covered in champagne. He turned out to be close with Louie and heading to the same pre-party. Cool webs connected previously arch rival prep schoolers. After the nothingness and near nonexistence of people post-high school, there seemed to be truth to the infinite connections embodied by the blanket of I Heart Huckabees. Crossed paths with Clarel, David Katz, Bharat Das, Leigh Nathanson, Jenny Aaron, DDR squared.
Perhaps it was The Game, but the pace of Harvard seems brisker. We whirled around Quincy suites and then jumped into cabs with a happily coexisting crew composed of both colleges after pulling Walker, 5’4” and skinny, from a fight with three big guys who belonged to Boston U. “Let’s throw down, we’re gonna to throw down,” he repeated as he pushed up his Polo sleeves. Everyone was over-excited. Looking for a fight, some guys shouted “Go Yankees” amidst socks on caps and signs. We ran away to Boston, Lands Down and a strip of clubs Harvard rented. We entered Avalon. My first club. Strobe lights blinded near darkness. Caught in freeze frames, bodies shaken by speakers, everyone had rhythm. Strange dancers wearing fur worked around a stage. Strangers attempted SN 2 reactions with back side attacks. Tried to decide what I thought the purpose of a body was but left off, went with what Donne would do, and danced. Crisis of the evening was losing my phone jostled from pocket. Wandering through the jungle of bodies, the search party scanned the ground but found nothing in the dizzy alternation of dark and light. Danced on vaguely missing my cell phone and songs with words but ended up enjoying until two. The lights came on, the stunning signal of closing. The animals blinked and looked around at the forms they had swayed with in the shadows of the cave. My phone turned up in a bartender’s pocket. Ecstatic I emerged from a surprisingly entertaining Sodom and Gomorrah and looked up. I saw a green monster and froze in front of Fenway. Felt tricked into buying into Boston, but not salt, the night didn’t crumble with the wall’s reminder of the world ending. Legs shivering or shaking to a beat, boarded a school bus back to Harvard and proudly responded to a “Yale Sucks” chant with a magnanimous group trying to unite the divided bus by rallying around a “Princeton Sucks” cheer. Crashed to sleep soon as head hit rolled up shirt serving as a pillow around 4 a.m.
Crashing symbols and drums walked beneath the window devastatingly early. The band woke an angry dorm at 8 o'clock. Went back to sleep. Tossed and turned over on the futon later. Surprised to be in a strange room looking out a square window onto an unfamiliar view of sharp geometric shapes in sunlight. A square of blue sky was boxed out by bright buildings, tall rectangles with one triangle shadow said this was a city of sorts. Woke later and the view wasn't as unexpected. Hungry, headed for breakfast of burgers and beer at the tailgate. Crossing the glittering Charles I imagined what it might have been like going there. One skuller slid across the surface. Could have rowed intermural or lightweight crew, ran next to a river, chatted in lively, cute Cambridge and converted an all poetry bookstore into a favorite corner. Wondered if I'd turn out differently if I went there. If clubbing in Boston would make me dance easier, if running with these crowds would make me socialize faster, if walking up coffee-shop lined streets and cobble-stoned alleys to class would change the gait of my conversation. Trying Harvard on for size, it fit about the same as it did two years ago on my last deciding visit. Back then realized could potentially be happy anywhere. Happiness always a choice, made easier by either of these places. Harvard, a rich place, doesn’t get to me the way the gothic gargoyles breathing dead boys' thoughts do. In front of the stadium, looking at a banner bearing a white H on a maroon background I missed the delight of Y, my walkways, Old Campus, Harkness going pink at sunset. From the first time I stepped through Phelps gate or walked around the pews of the cathedral of knowledge, I knew. I can’t explain exactly why it made and makes me intrinsically happy except by pointing a finger at the roofs along Elm street in the fading glow of afternoon or by running a hand along the edge of the women’s table flinging water out at you. There must be something chemical and unexplainable about love. Pheromones contribute to attraction. Yale smells right. It feels good in the gut.
But despite it being Harvard and the ban on kegs and U-Hauls (oh no), The Game this year in Boston was better. Last year the absolute absurdity of tailgating and football was overwhelming. Mobs of students trashed at 10 a.m. on a Saturday. Institutions of brains battling it out by boys smashing into each other for a few hours. Loreli Gilmore was right. The Game makes much more sense with a fun flask or a Magic Hat. Or if it's still nonsense, it's highly amusing and enjoyable. Finding friends delightfully transposed and traipsing foreign territory, getting into the spirit with spirited hot chocolate, crossing the no-mans land to go on a raid of the opposing camp for warm apple cider, laughing at a line of ten peeing against a wall, made The Game. Cops wandered through the sea of underage drinking doing little besides confiscating a funnel and trying to look menacing. Deterrence was futile. Saybrook took swigs from personalized bottles of champagne. JE grilled eggplant and dropped them drunk onto the coals. TD served shrimp kebabs and alcohol to anyone. The trunk of a St. A member's Jetta was a mini bar covered with bottles of hard stuff, soft brie and fresh fruit. The football was an afterthought, a side show. Went for the band at half time and stayed for the third quarter. The stadium was split and color coded like the country. There was little to cheer for from the blue state side. A rare completed pass, a paper airplane on the field, and the Saybrook Strip were the few occasions for screaming. The crowd moaned when Yale failed to score from the ten yard line or Harvard had another breakaway. The score was abysmal when I left. 35-3. The football was just an excuse for the extravaganza.
Took the T out to the suburbs to pick up Jimmy's car parked on a Spring Street. Drove back through the rain flipping radio stations, acting out lyrics and drumming on the dashboard. The skyline of New Haven swung into view as we sang sha-la-la-la-la along with Van Morrison. This blue-eyed girl was happy to go home a day when the rain came.
But The Game never ends. At Thanksgiving sporty relatives all knew the score. Thanks to tradition, there's always next year. Next year in Jerusalem.
