A parking lot full of Czars

Hoover, like a lot of houses in the housing system, has a bunch of Czars doing lots of different things. We have Birthday Czarinas. A Kitchen Czar. A Condom Czar. Lounge Czars. We are so surrounded by Czars it has reshaped how Ellie and Jonah view the world. The other day I heard Jonah correct one of his classmates. Here is the actual verbatim dialogue:

Jonah's classmate, Gus: "Twinkle, twinkle little star, how I..."

Jonah (interrupting): "No, no. It goes like this - Twinkle, twinkle little czar, how I wonder what you are."

Anyway, until I moved into Hoover, I always thought of czar as an especially tricky crossword puzzle answer. Those fiends who create crossword puzzles love the word because they can give the same clue, "A Romanov, for example," and one time the answer can be "tsar" and another time the answer can be "czar." Make the wrong guess - especially when you are doing the puzzle in pen - and it haunts you. So you wait until you fill in some other answers so you can see which spelling makes sense in the specific context of the puzzle you are working on. But that is aggravating because, gosh darn it!, you want the satisfaction of filling in the answer and moving on. Will Shortz! Why do you taunt me!

Greetings from the Overlook

We have to admit it, Max Palevsky begins to feel a little bit like the Overlook Hotel when everyone is away. Now that below-zero temperatures have kept us locked in over the last several days, Jonah has been forced to roam the hallways on his tricycle. Ellie has taken over Jonah's older sit-n-scoot®, and follows behind. So far they haven't reported any paranormal encounters.

We want to send out holiday wishes to all of our Hoover friends. Have a great break and we look forward to seeing you with the start of the New Year.

The Great Latke-Hamantash Debate

Take four zany professors, each from a different discipline, one moderator, a controversial food topic and add a generous dose of UChicago humor. What do you get? The Great Latke-Hamantash Debate, of course.

The debates, which originated in 1946 by Rabbi Maurice Pekarsky, was originally meant to foster a sense of community between Jewish students and faculty members. However, 62 years later, the debates have emerged as a way for intellectuals and tenured professors to put their spin on the age-old story: which Jewish holiday food is better - latkes (fried potato pancakes) or hamantashen (triangle-shaped filled cookies) ?

I got wildly excited about the debates (seeing as it was my first one, ever) and so decided to write up a post-debate blog entry. The entry contains a brief history of the latke and hamantash, and has a very rough summary of each argument. I also took notes, which I may post at a later date.

This was meant for my original blog, but I converted it to a webpage so people could go look at it. Commenting, however, should be done on this blog entry.

To see what I mean, read here.

Thanksgiving

We love Thanksgiving around our house. Who doesn't? I mean it's the universal American holiday. The religious holidays always get messy, especially with families that bring together different ethnic traditions. I know a family that celebrates Kwanzukkah every year. They spend the entire month of December lighting candles. Some nights they accidentally activate the emergency sprinkler system in their apartment.

And the Thanksgiving story is a feel good story. The Pilgrims and the Wampanoag Indians sitting down for a meal. It's a lot like Hooverlove, if you think about it. C'mon! We'll meet in the lounge! I'll bring the fowle, you'll bring the deere! I'll wear my hat with the buckle! You can wear your breechclouts!

One of our family traditions each year is to sing the Indian Dog and Pilgrim Cat song. It goes like this:

Indian Dog and Pilgrim Cat.
Indian Dog and Pilgrim Cat.
Indian Dooooooog! And Pilgrim Cat!

Hooverlove: Birthday edition

Two massive cakes, a lounge full of college students, streamers and stars and decorations from election day, and a big brother who wants to hurry things along so we can get to the cake-eating part of the evening. How lucky is Ellie?

Well, here's how lucky: she got to celebrate her first birthday with Hoover. She also got to eat cake for the first time in her life. Think about that. When was the last time you did something you never did before? It's a great feeling isn't it? Okay, I guess it matters what we're talking about. Your first "C" doesn't feel so good. But, come on, that class is dumb. Who cares about astrophysics. What, were you planning on being a rocket scientist? Oh. Sorry. You were? Look, we already walked on the moon. What else is there? Forget space. Nanotechnology is where it's at. You can take that next quarter. Get a fresh start.

Apple picking horror stories

Hoover went apple picking Saturday. Actually a whole fleet of school buses took a crowd of pale, bleary-eyed Palevskyites to Indiana to pick apples. It was a day in the country. Well, a day at a huge pick-your-own-apples commercial orchard. There were animals to pet. Trailers pulled by tractors to ride. Corn mazes in which one could lose your way. Donuts to buy. Simple pleasures.

But it is so hard to shake that Chicago view of the world. I couldn't help but feel like the whole experience required critical analysis. It needed to be taken apart. Deconstructed. Unpacked. Observed with an objective scientific eye.

Thank God for economists. Pop economist Daniel Gross helped put it all in perspective for me:

Apple picking is a cherished rite of fall, a wholesome and fun family outing, a throwback to a simpler time when people weren't so disconnected from the production of their sustenance. It's also a wasteful scam.

Great. Good to have my cynicism confirmed. It just isn't efficient to turn a bunch of people loose in an orchard, when they are all untrained in the work of harvesting carefully cultivated fruits. Apples get dropped on the ground. Stepped on. Eaten. And instead of being paid to do this, as real agricultural workers would be, this mob pays for the privilege of harvesting the orchard's apples. This turns wage theory on its head. Next time we hire someone to babysit our kids we are going to demand that they pay us for the pleasure.

That's not all Gross has to say about apple orchards:

These trees are hardly natural. They aren't the sort of majestic, voluptuous apple trees you would have found in the Garden of Eden. They're dwarf apple trees, stumpy bushes engineered so that their fruit grows just a few feet off the ground. They're the veal calves of the fruit world.

So we aren't even communing with nature. The fujis and golden deliciouses and galas and mcintoshes we were picking were genetically engineered mutants. As much a product of man as that computer in front of you, or Paris Hilton's nose.

That's the thing about a University of Chicago experience. It can ruin everything. Even a pleasant day in the country.

Election time!

Like so much else, our political life is part of a cycle. And when the opportunity comes around again to exercise our right to vote, we have the chance to reflect on this important responsibility.

A famous French visitor to our shores, Alexis de Tocqueville, wrote in his masterly sociological study, Democracy in America, that "circumstances facilitate the maintenance of a democratic republic in the United States." Tocqueville described some of these circumstances, for example, he pointed out:

The chief circumstance which has favored the establishment and the maintenance of a democratic republic in the United States is the nature of the territory that the Americans inhabit. The continent still presents, as it did in the primeval time, rivers that rise from never failing sources, green and moist solitudes, and limitless fields...

Well, okay, so things change. But there must be some reason democracy thrives here. Could it be:

The Americans have no neighbors and consequently they have no great wars, or financial crises...

Um. Alright, so let's forget Tocqueville. Who cares. Here's our point. It's time to exercise your right to vote. At this moment in our history, it is crucial to be reflective and responsible as you vote for your First Year Student Government Representative. That means voting for Madhuri Nishtala. Let's face it, these other candidates are charicatures. Their smiles are just painted on. Look at Madhuri. That's a genuine photograph. Vote now. And in the tradition of Chicago politics, vote often.

Sexiled defined

At the house meeting the other day, Steve made an effort to delicately introduce some sane rules about sexiling. It didn't go very well. Here is a transcript of that portion of the meeting:

Steve: Remember, our goal is make sure everyone feels like their room is their refuge, a place they can always feel they can retreat to and find a comfortable escape. So, be sure you have a conversation with your roommate (and suitemates) and set up some shared expectations about things like cleaning the shared space, playing loud music, and hosting overnight guests. Don't suddenly sexile your roommate, everyone should have access to their room.

First year student: Wait....What is "sexiling?"

Steve: Um. Well. Let's see. Say you come back to your room and your roomate is "engaged..."

Returning student: You don't have to be engaged.

Steve: Oh. Um... Schtuping?

Returning student: We don't all have Jewish grandmas.

Steve: Er. Right. Um. You come back and your roommate is "getting busy." Well, no one wants to see their roommate in that position.

Returning student: Wait. Stop. Bad turn of the phrase. Bad image.

Steve: Oh crap. Right. Okay. No one should put their roommate in that situation. That's what I meant.

It was painful. Steve inadvertently embarrassed himself, derailed the meeting, and made everyone in the room feel a little awkward. The point: Have the conversation about expectations in advance and figure out ways to not inconvenience your roommate. Another point: when Steve is ready to have "the conversation" with Jonah and Ellie years and years from now, maybe he should step aside and let Rebecca handle it.

O-weekers meet Vampire Weekend

Here's a thought: Let's make Vampire Weekend Hoover's official house band. Admit it: you think they're cute, right? They all went to Columbia University. They're freakin' Ivy Leaguers. Look, they're surrounded by a wall of books ! I mean, it's like they were manufactured to be loved by U of C students. They're like a boy band for brainiacs. Their music is a poppy, percolating mish-mash of lots of influences, a little bit Talking Heads, a little bit Jens Lekman, and, just like all the lazy music journalists and bloggers said, a little bit Graceland-era Paul Simon. The song M79 has a little bit o' string quartet thrown in, just to make it even more suitable to the type of college student who prefers chablis over plastic cups of beer.

But the thing that really makes Vampire Weekend Hoovery is their lyrics, where they refer to ion displacement and grammatical disputes and falling in love with English professors who teach the romantics. I mean, have they been listening to our conversations at the Hoover table?

Here's one of their songs, Ottoman. This widget only seems to work with Mozilla (not Explorer; I guess that Bill Gates isn't so smart after all).

Hooverlove: an advancement over Herbert Hooverlove

These well-dressed U of Cers, attacking a defenseless guy in a donkey costume, are NOT Hooverites. At least not in the sense we mean when we throw around the term. These are supporters of Herbert Hoover, the stiff-necked mid-20th century president who was behind the wheel when the country jumped the curb, crashed through the guardrail, and plunged into the Great Depression. Shame on them! Not for supporting Herbert Hoover (although, in retrospect, as a U.S. News and World Report survey found, he was an awful president), but for kicking and mistreating Donkey Man. That's not Hooverlove! Today's Hooverites would offer a hand to this costume-wearing victim. We would assume he was just on the way to a furry convention to spend time with other furries. No worries. Nothing wrong with that.

Making a little boy happy: Hooverlove in action

Hooverlove takes many forms. Sometimes, it means standing up for a little boy when his daddy is trying to make an implausible argument.

Jonah is a HUGE Thomas the Tank Engine fan. After all, who isn't? Thomas' morality is so straightforward: Don't get too big for your buffers and don't blow off steam. And always, always, always be a good friend. Hmmmm. Sounds a lot like Hooverlove, doesn't it?

Anyway, like most 2 and 3 year olds, Jonah loves buying little toy versions of Thomas and his friends. It's those 40 year olds who buy them, and leave them in the original packaging for resale on E-bay, that you have to worry about. For guys Jonah's age, it's all very normal.

Jonah wanted to buy Spencer. He's a strikingly handsome silver engine, with a coal tender. He's long and fast. In fact, that was the problem. Jonah's daddy thought Spencer was too long, because, in his assessment, employing his keen spatial and relational sense, Spencer could never navigate the turns on Jonah's wooden railway. Jonah thought Spencer wasn't too long. It was a deadlock. How can you resolve this type of conflict?

Well, we decided to ask a college student. Because, after all, college students are smart. So Jonah and his daddy went upstairs to see Hoover resident Christina Black. They showed Christina a picture of Spencer, and asked her to weigh in. Christina's answer was the purest example of wisdom and judiciousness. She said: "Spencer looks long, but not too long." So Jonah got his engine. And you know what? Christina was right.

Magical wish fulfillment

This the second Wizard of Oz themed posting here. Which is odd, because it's not like we are surrounded by reminders of the Wizard of Oz. At least not yet. Oh, OK, Barack Obama's mom was from Kansas. And he's been in the news. He lives in Hyde Park, too. Did you know that? The other day someone on MSNBC said Obama lived in the "exclusive Hyde Park neighborhood." And this is a fancy neighborhood. Even if the streets aren't paved with yellow stones. But a lot of campus buildings look like castles. Or Hogwarts. And that seems at least a little fancy.

Do you remember at the end of the Wizard of Oz, Dorothy clicks the heels of her ruby slippers and wishes to go back home to Kansas? And it works! That's called magical wish fulfillment. There's a whole book about it called The Secret. I'm not recommending it. But it was on Oprah. She's from Chicago too, by the way.

What's our point? Oh yeah. The O-Book is now available. You can download it and get started becoming familiar with how busy you'll be here during your first week in town. The "O" in O-Book doesn't stand for Oz or even Oprah. It is an abbreviation for Orientation. You'll see that we use the abbreviation a lot. As in "O-Week" and "O-Aide." And you'll be so happy and so busy, you won't want to go home.

We do Freeze Over

Maybe you heard it gets cold here. It certainly won't be when you get here. In fact, after carrying your belongings up 3 flights of stairs, you're going to be ready to swoon. But When October rolls in, or maybe November, weather here isn't a precise science, a cold will lock in that you won't shake until March. Or April. But that's why living in Hoover will be so great. The library and Bartlett Dining Commons are just a few frigid moments away. You could almost go in your bare feet. If you have huge furry feet like a Hobbit.

Maybe you heard, or a sibling who goes here told you, or you noticed when you came to campus as a prospie, but everyone here sells t-shirts and hoodies. They all carry some self deprecating or boastful message. Like "Where Fun Goes to Die" or "If I Wanted an 'A' I Would Have Gone to Harvard," and others that we can't mention on a family blog.

Two years ago, we reached into the discard bin to grab a t-shirt message that was popular some years ago, but hadn't been in circulation for a half-a-decade at least. The phrase - "Hell Does Freeze Over" - aims to do what a lot of these t-shirt slogans set out to do: it calls attention to the fact that University of Chicago students face perilous academic rigor, classroom challenges that would wilt a normal human being. And, by the way, the t-shirt goes on to point out, they do this while freezing their niblets off.

Sister kisser

Meet Jonah and Ellie. They live in Hoover too. Jonah often plays in the hall, and comes around to visit Hoover students, with a light, almost impossible to hear knock on the door. He also took part in Max Arts last year, submitting a shadow box he built with his mommy. Then he sang at the annual Hoover concert at the end of the year. He sang a song he learned in school. It goes like this:

I was walking down the street
Far away from home
I ran into a tiger
And I said Shabbat Shalom.

We're working on Ellie's act for this year.

Squirrels

So what's the deal with the squirrels? Well, they're everywhere on campus. And they'll just about climb up your leg to eat that bagel you're holding. Really. These are some confident squirrels. So years ago, before any of us now living in Hoover House lived here, someone decided to make some t-shirts celebrating the aggressiveness of these squirrels. We still sell them, alongside the "Hell Does Freeze Over" t-shirts, which celebrate the demanding rigor of U. of C. and the bone-chilling winters. Some people will tell you the squirrels here act the way they do from generations of exposure to radiation, leaking from the isotopes buried deep beneath Regenstein Library, where Enrico Fermi and his mad-scientist colleagues first split the atom. Not true. The squirrels here HAVE to get in your face to get a morsel of your bagel, because we're always walking around reading books and looking off into space, contemplating big questions. It's the only way they can get our attention. It's adaptive evolution. You'll learn about it in bio.

What is "Scav"?

Fancy shoes. And a witch in the trunk. Not anything your guidance counselor promised you when you talked about coming to the University of Chicago. But there you have it. One of the experiences that helps fashion and intensify Hooverlove each year is Scav Hunt. Scav Hunt began way back before you were born. Over 4 days in May, teams from across the University of Chicago campus collect items, perform tricks, assemble objects, build nuclear reactors (no, really!), and drink lots and lots of coffee (or Red Bull or Pepsi) just to keep going. Hoover, although forced by architecture and higher-level organizational decisions to be part of Max Palevsky, asserts its independence each year by fielding its own Scav Hunt team. Hoover Lounge is transformed, with tarps and duct tape and discarded pizza boxes, into the nerve center of our determined effort to out-point far larger, better funded teams.

By the way, the image above is a Scav participant's effort to fulfill one of the requirements of item number 23 from the 2008 Scav list:

"Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas any more." No, but you will be before the end of the day. At 9:00 AM Thursday in Hutchinson Courtyard, present your team of Wayward Sons: Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Cowardly Lion, and the Bat. They must be ready to travel over the rainbow in a flying house featuring a storm cellar door, chimneyed roof, picket fence, and the legs of that wicked witch you just ran over. Although if you happen to own a yellow Buick Roadmaster you can just use that, and follow it. Follow follow follow follow follow the yellow Buick Roadmaster. Boat leaves at 9:30. . . or maybe you don't want to see the second largest ball of twine on the face of the Earth, which is only fourteen short hours away? [& points. All Road Trip items requiring photo- or videographic documentation must include a member of the Wayward Sons in full costume or no points will be awarded.]

We didn't win last year. Or even do that well. Largely because we couldn't assemble a team for the road trip portion of the Scav Hunt. But this year will be different! You'll be here! Bring your ruby slippers.

Hooverlove defined

Wait. What does this family have to do with Hoover House? Oh, yeah: They're the Hoovers! The loveable dysfunctional family from Little Miss Sunshine. Have you seen that movie? Oh man! You should! There's an awesome old yellow VW van in it. And commentary on the hollowness of contemporary self-help motivational literature. And observations on the cringe-inducing weirdness of kiddie beauty pagents. And stuff about Nietzsche and Proust. And meditations on the importance of family. That's why I bring it up. Hoover House will be home to 100 students next year. The feeling you'll have for your fellow Hooverites will be a little bit like the feeling one has for family. Lots and lots of affection. And you'll have that sense that you belong here, without having to prove yourself, or adopt phony personas, or wear Abercrombie & Fitch (but it's okay if you do) . That's what Hooverlove is about. We take you as you are. A past resident (and current associate) once said: "They say there is a House for everyone. What I love about Hoover is that it's a House for anyone."