NYU: No Ivy League Or Similar Institution Can Outsmut Us

Those of you who think NYU students are still upset about being waitlisted at Harvard are just dead wrong:

In the 5,000-plud-word March 4 [New York Times Magazine “Campus Exposure”] feature, Harvard’s H Bomb magazine was one of a selection of sexualized, student-generated “literary” publications spotlighted as “a fact of campus life.” If you haven’t heard, H Bomb is a self-proclaimed “literary arts magazine about sex and sexual issues” founded by Katharina Cieplak-von Baldegg and Camilla Hrdy (who, by their powers on the Scrabble board combined, are Captain Planet!), and is for all intents and purposes pornography meets The New Yorker in a way Tom Wolfe could only dream of. The pair are out to rebel against those Puritanical attitudes in Cambridge in exchange for the dawning of the age of Aquarius, or something like that, and they are doing it with the $2,000 rubber-stamped approval of Harvard’s undergraduate student government.

Yet the point concerning the relatively unsexy nature of the reputation of Harvard students still stands. Sexy Harvard? It’s not just politically untenable. It’s not apropos at all.

. . .

Well, the pictures (sorry, “artwork”) aren’t anything a Tischie photographer couldn’t do in the midst of a serious drug trip. Or sober. Depending on the guy. You know what I mean.

OK, so neither groundbreaking nor tasteful. Amusing, at least? How about the writing?

The fine fountain pens of the H Bomb contributors have produced pieces that ponder the big issues in life (“How could anyone continue to use such [free] shitty condoms [from the on-campus counseling service] on a regular basis?”), teaching valuable life lessons that The Learning Channel can’t shake a stick at (“They say sex is a kind of power, and that if you know how to use it, it can make you stronger.”) and waxing poetic (“I carved a snail. I ate like a sinner”).

Let me ask you this — what’s “eating like a sinner”? Devouring a half-gallon of Edy’s Slow Churned ice cream in 20 minutes, or haphazardly munching unborn children while watching The O’Reilly Factor? Either way, it’s not very sexy.

So let’s get it straight: H Bomb ain’t nothin’ but a big bag o’ tame lame expectorated by a bunch of Carrie Bradshaw wannabes who come to Manhattan on the weekends to get their Manolo Blahniks.