Chubb Fellowship: Wynton Marsalis

I had been waiting for this moment ever since I got my welcome letters to Timothy Dwight College over the summer before my freshman year. "We're having Wynton Marsalis over for lunch during second semester," it casually read. At first I put it in the back of my mind; the thought of heading out to Yale for the first time since Bulldog Days was exciting enough without the promise of lunch with a world-famous trumpeter.

However, the various adventures of first semester passed in a blink of an eye, and before I knew it I began to see posters advertising Wynton's arrival began to pop up around TD. My deferred excitement was instantly renewed: there were limited seats, and the lunch was in the best restaurant in New Haven, the Union League cafe. Plus, Wynton was going to be there. All I had to do to sign up for this private lunch was to go into the Master's Office on Friday morning and sign my name on a list.

On the day of the event, I left Philosophy of Mind a little early and hopped across the New Haven Green to Union League Cafe. I walked down Sherman's Alley and found the side door for the cafe. It was locked, warning me that "Sorry, but the restaurant is closed for a private event." Hey, I thought, I'm part of this event! Let me in! Fortunately, I spotted a few fellow TD'ers who were crossing the street in my direction, heading into a larger, ornate entrance. I followed them inside.


I get in line, chat with TD'ers, and unexpectedly have my coat checked by the restaurant staff. Wow, I thought, this is the real deal. People are dressed in suits and ties, and my green jacket and button up shirt makes me feel a little underderessed. And there he is, the man himself, casually chatting with some students and faculty.

When the meal began and he spoke, I was in awe. He spoke of the Jazz Attitude--how you have to keep your individualism--"If you got a flat head, you got a flat head"--while balancing the swing, keeping everyone in line, balancing the voices of the band members. He talked about growing up in New Orleans, and how he loved the town, how it shaped his life, and how Hurricane Katrina made him realize how much one can love a place without realizing it. He talked of his views on rap music--ignorant, almost unmentionably so, and certainly unimaginable 30 years ago.

He talked about his father, a musician, and how when he started playing his own gigs and realized he had more fans than his father, that something was cooking. (He didn't mention that he went to Julliard at 17.) He talked about how the blending of cultures in New Orleans, Creole, Africans, descendants of slaves, white, with tensions of band music, funk music, all sort of strings pulling music into syncopated rhythms, improvisation, the art of jazz. He talked about how raising the scale by one half note was so hard--what was so close together was so far away, like a man and a woman. He talked about raising 20 and 18 year old sons, and the conversations they had, the cultural clashes. He talked about music education, calling for a revolution, raising standards and making a more educated listenership, and more educated public, so they could appreciate real music.



And then he played. You could hear the way he talked in the way he played the trumpet. You could hear his personality--confident, yet modest, sure, steady, not afraid for a flourish or two. The trumpet was vintage, it seemed, not shiny like trumpets played by middle school students, but dull, with character.

My jaw was dropped the whole time. I was stunned. The delicious steak and pear, bacon, and Roquefort spinach salad faded from mind as I watched a master just be himself.

Thanks for Timothy Dwight College and the Chubb Fellowship for making this happen. This is a memory I think I'll cherish for a long while.

(A funny ending to a great day: I took about 6 minutes of footage with Wynton playing the trumpet with my digital camera, and uploaded it onto Youtube. The next day, I found it on his official website!

If you would like to read more about Wynton, here's a link to a Yale publication's bulletin on the Chubb Fellowship. It has a resume of sorts--it will blow your mind.

And a few of my friends managed to get a picture with Wynton. Lucky.)

Dining at Yale

Imagine gathering some of the finest students in the nation in a picturesque hall, with long wooden tables, paintings of august personages framed on the walls, and simple chandeliers hanging from the vaulted wooden ceiling. Then add to this picture, delicious food: organic milk, loaves of bread and hot soup, fresh lettuce and arugula with a splash of balsamic vinegar, quiche, quarters of roast chicken, tricolor pasta, Brazilian marinated steak. Multiply by 12 for the number of residential colleges, add one for Commons—the “great hall” near the center of campus—and multiply by 3 meals a day. The final product is Yale’s dining system.

The dining hall is probably my favorite part in my day. After a lecture or an intense seminar, nothing beats going to lunch with the people in your class, or just hopping back “home” to have lunch with your residential college friends. And since your swipes work at any residential dining hall as well as Commons, its easy to set up a lunch date with a friend and chat, or get a quick meal at the dining hall closest to your next class. Last year, on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, I got to combine all these elements—the students in Directed Studies liked to stop by Timothy Dwight College after lecture, because the Whitney Humanities Center is only a block away.

Let me show you some of the offerings available for dinner in Timothy Dwight dining hall:

A delicious green bean dish and chilaquiles verdes


tostones (fried green plantains)


Roast chicken with red beans and rice


Our fresh food cabinet: kiwis, pears, apples, oranges, soy milk, soy yogurt


My delicious balanced meal
(and a free notebook from Yale College Council on the left)

There are also soups (Italian Wedding Soup is the best), fresh breads, Cheerios, a whole table of dressings like balsamic vinegar, sesame oil, and soy sauce, hot coffee, juice, soda, and of course, ice cream. And if you honestly can't find anything you like, the staff will grill you something, like a hamburger or chicken breast, on the spot. And there are tons of random events that make food even better--Sunday Sundaes, birthday cupcakes, apple bushels, candy apples for Halloween. And finally, thanks to the Yale Sustainable Food Project, as much of the food as possible is organic--an experiment that started in Berkeley, giving the college the reputation of having the best dining hall on campus (they still hold the title in my opinion).

Candy apples... mmmmm

But beyond the delicious food and the beautiful settings, what’s best is the company. The conversations I’ve had over meals have been amazing—every Yalie brings something unique to the table, so to speak, so the conversations are lively and fun. The geography spread alone is enough for many conversations, since most everyone is from a different state. Politics, last night’s philosophy reading, and current events can pop up along frivolous college student banter—I distinctly remember talking about pancakes on election night, when our dining halls opened for a special Election Night Breakfast at 10 pm.

What was the inspiration for this post? I got back to school a little early from winter break last year, and so I invited the rest of the TD early arrivals to Sitar, a nearby Indian restaurant for lunch. We were all excited to see each other, chatting about our vacations over to naam bread and marsala, laughing at each other’s jokes. And someone made a comment: “You know what, this is like the TD dining hall.” I thought about it for a bit—good food, fun stories, great company. She was right.

(P.S. Zach Marks, who worked at the admissions office, sporadically wrote a column on how to make your own recipes from the ingredients available at the dining hall: this one’s particularly good:

http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/17571)

XKCD

When I was in high school, I was browsing the internet while writing a paper, and I stumbled across something amazing. It was a hand-drawn comic uploaded only to the web. It featured stick figures instead of fully drawn characters. It combined math humor with romance, thoughts on life with ironic puns. It was called XKCD.

It's a strange name, I know. But if you're someone who's never heard of XKCD before, and you mention it to someone who has, you'll almost always get a positive, if not fanatical reaction. You'll get referenced to several "favorite" strips, and before you know it, you'll be a fan too.

Thanks Randall Munroe. You're a boss.

When I saw the comic above, I knew I was hooked. I spent the next hour or so browsing through all the comics in the archives, and little by little, I felt like I was getting to know the author on a strange, personal level. The strips are funny, yes, but the best ones are also thoughtful. They betray Mr. Munroe's personal sensibilities: how he hates jerks, how he treats adulthood as a continuation of childhood, and how he's waiting around for the "the one" to come around in his life. "A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language," indeed.

But this post is not about XKCD alone. At the end of this browsing session, I had a fleeting thought: "Wow, I'd really like to meet this guy. He sounds like he's got some interesting views on life, and would be fun to talk to. And he's got guts for putting it all out in the open, in the form of a comic." But I dismissed it as an impossibility. Whatever. How am I ever going to find this guy anyway?

Randall himself.

Well, it turns out, when you're at Yale, these people end up finding you. It was a sunny day last spring, and I was just heading out of section when one of my friends asked me, "Hey, are you going to go see that XKCD guy?"

I did a 180º. "What, he's here?"

"Oh yeah, for a Master's Tea in Pierson College. It starts in 15 minutes."

This was my chance. Someone I never thought I'd have the luck to meet, all of a sudden here! And in 15 minutes! I went along with my friend and raced down the streets of New Haven, trying not to drop our bookbags in the process.

When we arrived, the place was packed. Not only were all the seats taken in the living room, but at least 30 people were standing outside the front door of the Pierson Master's House, anxiously buzzing and waiting for news on whether more space would open up. One of those in line was jumping up and down, clutching his hair in frustration. "I skipped club wrestling for this! And I'm the captain!"

Finally the door cracked open a bit, and one of the Masters' Aides peeked out to tell us that the talk had already started, and that there was no more space. We all groaned in disappointment. The wrestler moved up to the front of the line and had a desperate conversation with the aide. She disappeared, and then came back with news. "Alright. We'll let you in. But you have to be quiet."

We quietly snuck in the back of the living room, and there he was, Randall Munroe, seated on a green armchair in front of dozens of students, casually answering questions from the crowd. He responded to our questions with comic grace befitting of the quality of his work, and told us stories we would have never had a chance to hear. He told us of his most recent kite photography expedition. He told us of his most recent girlfriend. When prompted on how he keeps track of all his ideas, he pulled out a worn red Moleskine notebook. "All my ideas go in here, good or bad. I then run them over with my friends to see if a third party finds them funny. More often or not, they're not." (The host of the talk, the Master of Pierson College, then reached into his pocket and pulled out the exact same notebook. "I've got one too!")

By the time the talk was over, we all felt like we had met a friend. He took a few photos with the fans, and then left with the crowd of students to go have dinner with the Pierson Master and a few lucky Pierson students. We all stayed huddled outside the Master's House long after he had exited, though. We traded reactions and commentary, and some students involved in the Yale Political Union described how the attacked Richard Stallman in ninja suits when he visited Yale, a reference to one of the most loved XKCD comics (you can find the picture of the attack on Wikipedia).

At the end of the day, I realized that something I never thought would happen had just happened. An open loop had been closed, thanks to my good fortune in being a student at Yale. I don't know if it will happen again, but I'm definitely waiting for that next spring day, when I get out of section, find out about a neat talk, and rush off to meet the next cool person I'd never thought I'd never meet.

(Oh, and since you asked, I do indeed have some favorite strips of mine. Try this one on for size: http://xkcd.com/548/)