http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sz7ACJKFxG8

Last November, The Voice was invited to a launch party for Bully Boy Distillers’ first aged spirit: American Straight Whiskey at The Blue Room in Kendall Square. (One of many perks of being over twenty-one!)

The spirit’s main ingredients are corn, rye and malted barleys. Bully Boy founders Will and Dave Willis attended the event, while the Blue Room’s Matt Schrage and sister wine bar Belly’s Fanny Katz served up two custom-made cocktails for the occasion: the Cedric Street Sour and Rustic Old-Fashioned.

Bully Boy is Boston’s first craft distillery and all of its products are handmade in small batches to preserve the quality. The venue, The Blue Room, was open in 1991 and draws positive reviews for its local and sustainable fare.

Cedric Street Sour

Rustic Old Fashioned

Photography by Nick Wei

Make up by Claudine Cho

Model Hideko Tachibana

Photos by Nick Tan
Make up and Hair by Claudine Cho
Styling by Thomas Dai

Model: Lexi Smith, 18
Hanover, MA
Sagittarius

Follow the jump for more photos!

What About The Men?

This isn’t usually what I use my posts for, but I thought it was a really fascinating article, in particular an interesting exploration of some of the problems with the gender generalizations that form the basis of attraction. I agree with much of the article, although I’m less sure what to do about it – as the authors point out,

The thing about the kyriarchy is that there aren’t a bunch of people in a shadowy headquarters, twirling their mustaches as they plot how to best use their Oppression Beams and Discrimination Rays to cause misery and suffering on earth. It would be easier if there were, because we could blow up their headquarters, make a wry quip and roll the closing credits on social injustice. Instead, the kyriarchy is made up of real people…. The kind of people who love their families and give to charity and foster kittens and sometimes get angry at drivers who don’t know how to use turn signals. Ordinary people. And it’s those people who are perpetuating the kyriarchy, the sick system that oppresses all of us.

Which gets to the heart of why this is hard stuff to overcome – of why it seems men have to be confident and aren’t allowed to be shy, women have to be curvy and aren’t allowed to be sticks or overweight, and a host of other problems that truly shouldn’t be problems because they’re all in our heads. Gender norms – including traits in others that cause us to be attracted to them – came about over time, and probably made more sense once than they do now. As a society we’re ready to evolve beyond some of those norms, but they’re still here anyway; and there are both subtle and overt social penalties to pay for those who buck them. It’s as if getting an appendectomy made you a social pariah – appendicitis is extremely unpleasant if you don’t get the appendix out in time, and it’s become increasingly obvious that our culture has appendicitis.

In general I tell people with relationship problems to fall back on gender roles to help them, and I still think that that’s the best thing to do for the self-selected group of people who ask for help on relationship issues. The problem with discarding gender roles is that if you’re moving faster in that direction than society as a whole, you’re making things needlessly harder for you as an individual, which is the opposite of what people already in difficult situations need. There’s no social reward for becoming a social martyr. And yet, society needs the social martyrs to move the needle on injustice.

I’d love to hear what you thought of the article “What About The Men,” and what you think we can or should do about it. If you feel so inclined, please discuss in the comments below!

Special thanks to A.C., K.K., D.K., T.V., and K.H. Email Some Dude at somedude.harvardfml@gmail.com.

Photo Credit: Scott M. Lacey, Boston Magazine.

Last Wednesday, Boston Magazine published an article (scandalously) titled: “How MIT Became the Most Important University in the World.” The subtitle reads: “And why Harvard—Harvard!—is scrambling to catch up.”

The author, Chris Vogel, put the spotlight on Harvard’s recently inaugurated iLab, a $20 million “innovation lab” whose mission is to “foster team-based and entrepreneurial activities and deepens interactions among Harvard students, faculty, entrepreneurs, and members of the Allston and Greater Boston community.” Vogel sees this as a belated attempt to  ”transform [the university] into a leader in the increasingly important world of tech entrepreneurship,” which he deems “the new sexy.” However, this is a mere belated copy of the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship, which has been instituted since 1990.

Quoting a range of people and publications from Bill Clinton to Forbes magazine, Vogel attributes MIT’s “entrepreneurial impact” as key to its status as “the most important university.” On the other hand, “Harvard spits out CEOs, bankers, lawyers, and moneymen. That’s so 1990s.” Sure, we had Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, but failed to keep them in school. There is something “off” about Harvard’s and the iLab’s culture, and it seems impossible that this institution would be able to compare with MIT’s accomplishments in technology entrepreneurship, and would soon have to give up its title as the world’s no. 1.

Harvard might be having a hard time trying to catch up with MIT, but I caught up with Vogel and asked him a few questions about his popular and controversial article.

- I believe Harvard I Lab faculty chair Joe Lassiter answered this question best in the article. When discussing the decision to build the I Lab, he told me, “The commitment to [entrepreneurship] at this level, and across the university, is quite a new thought.” He was saying that historically, the educational emphasis has not been on technology and entrepreneurship and is one of the reasons that Harvard lags behind others schools, including MIT. Lassiter also told me, “We don’t push. We help.” This cultural difference between Harvard and MIT also enters the equation.

2. What about Stanford? When it comes to technology, isn’t it closer to Silicon Valley – the hotbed of technological entrepreneurship – than both Harvard and MIT?

- Stanford’s a great school, and indeed is physically closer to Silicon Valley. But, for all of the reasons mentioned in the piece, I ended up settling on MIT.

3. MIT might be great, but its culture is notoriously intense. After all, its unofficial acronymous slogan is “IHTFP” – “I Hate This Fucking Place” and its suicide rate is the highest in the US. The most important university is also the most depressing one?

- Student depression is a difficult problem that all universities have to deal with at times. I can’t comment on comparative rates among universities since some, like MIT, make numbers available, but many others don’t.

The Voice’s contributing photographer Nick Wei was inadvertently caught in the tragedy as he spent a week in the Lower East Side, New York City. In this photo essay, he captures the trials and triumphs of New Yorkers as the storm hit.

This is not a story about the storm, but the individuals who survived it.

Photo credit: Nick Wei.