As seen in the Washington Square News.
Sneetches. The Lorax. The Cat in the Hat.
No, that’s not what you saw during last night’s drug trip and I don’t need a tissue, either. I’m referencing the animated bliss of Dartmouth’s new addition to their Baker Library: a study room named after 1925 alum Theodor Geisel – known on the street by his rapper alias “Dr. Seuss.”
Yes, I’m serious. No, green eggs and ham aren’t allowed (but I’m sure they’ll make exceptions if you recite your work in anapestic tetrameter).
The campus rag, The Dartmouth, reports that the room “features colorful, framed book covers, a display case offering information about Geisel’s life and excerpts from some of his most famous works.” A large portrait hangs on the wall, and the display case contains a Dartmouth graduation hood, reproductions of Geisel’s books (because the big D is all about authenticity) and a stuffed character from one of his stories – all designed to “allow students to read in comfort and in the company of characters that may take them back to their first days of reading.”
A warm, cuddly step for the coldest Ivy in the family, who in recent years has bolstered its image and made headlines with its anthropomorphic yet unofficial mascot “Keggy the Keg” (Dartmouth is really a more Disneyfied “Big Green”). Now all 4,000-odd students can count their red fish and blue fish together in harmony, forgetting about the 18 inches of snow they trudged through to get there. I wonder if there’s space for snowshoes next to Sam-I-Am?
Dartmouth’s Seussilounge 2.0 got me thinking – hey, NYU’s got an enormous prison block of a library, why can’t we have a study room dedicated to one of our most beloved alumni?
That’s why I urge John Sexton to introduce the “M. Night Shyamalan’s Sixth Unbreakable Village in the Water,” a fortified study enclave dedicated to the ’92 Tisch alum situated directly in the center of the Bobst atrium. Surrounded by a moat filled with mystical water, the new addition will allow students to study together in a watery blue world, shielded from oncoming onslaught by alien assailants in 360 egocentric degrees.
Just think about it: Students can spend their time making inroads in their thesis work until – suddenly! – the plot twists and current NYU student Haley Joel Osment appears, steals their first draft, rolls it up a big joint and settles into a couch as his eyes glaze over while listening to Muse’s “Supermassive Black Hole” (Muse frontman Matt Bellamy is warbling and quivering his hips just thinking about it).
After all, which other member of our esteemed alumni could possibly bring such comfort during a late-night study session in Bobst?
Martin Scorsese? Spike Lee? Adam Sandler? Hakan Yalincak?
Nay, I say. If there’s any single alum I wanna study with, it’s Shyamalan. I don’t want to just study with the man – I want to hear voices with him. I want to lean back, savor a hoagie and recall everything that the man has done for my beloved Philadelphia while I watch crop circles appear and wait for the scrapple to finish frying.
What’s more, Shyamalan undoubtedly embodies the overachieving, look-at-me pomposity that is the core and key to the Ivy gold. So what better inspiration as an NYU student rising up to the Ivy challenge?
So let’s start building that new room, NYU. Order up those life-sized Paul Giamattis right away.
Wait – Giamatti’s a Yalie?
Fuck.
Andrew Nusca is a former news editor, spitting Ivy bile every week. Tell him where to shove it at opinion@nyunews.com.