How, uh, hot.

Community actor Donald Glover was also recently spotted at the Mount Auburn Street locale.

Does this mean finals clubs get to continue to think they’re important?

Photocredit: daylife.com

To all you freshmen still cursing the Housing Gods for last week’s placement into – let’s be real here – anywhere that requires a UC Shuttleboy App to get to, a silver lining may come from an unexpected source.

Tyra Banks – former supermodel, current America’s Next Top Model host, and Harvard Business School Executive Education Program student – told Jimmy Fallon on his late-night show that despite having been initially “freaked out” when she learned that dormitory residence was mandatory for enrollment in her program, she now relishes living in her single-in-a-suite, describing the experience as “like summer camp.”

Her other thoughts on the HBS curriculum, a part-time, multi-year course series for executives seeking greater academic training, coming with a price tag of $31,000? As Banks pithily – and oh-so-deliciously – opined to MTV News, Harvard life is “fabulous and fierce.”

In other words, freshmen, suck it up.  If Tyra can live happily here, so can you.

Guyssss, she's one of ussss. (Photo credit: Yes, this picture is actually from cocoperez.com)

Shazam!

• Homi Bhabha (a rock star, if the Humanities Center at Harvard had one… the man has written so many books)
• Charles Maier (Harvard, Professor of History)
• Carol Oja (Harvard, Professor of Music)
• Martin Puchner (Harvard, Professor of English and Comparative Literature)
• Amanda [Fucking] Palmer (Emcee in the ART’s Cabaret, and actual rockstar: The Dresden Dolls, Evelyn Evelyn)

The topics were the usual fare (wooly and intellectual, name-droptastic). But while the guest speakers may have spent too much time deciding whether Cabaret was more “pastiche”, “montage”, or “projection”, AMANDA freakin PALMER was going head-to-head with Harvard professors. Which was equal parts weird, uncomfortable, and thrilling. For sure, she stole the …uh, panel. Even if not as articulate or verbose, she was the only true performer on the stage and it made all the difference, we swear. For those of you who didn’t go or left early, you missed an extra special and super-throaty rendition of Radiohead’s “Fake Plastic Trees” with Amanda on vocals and ukelele. Was it worth sitting through an hour and a half of discussion of neo-realist/German impressionist/genre/period yammering? Was it worth sitting between two creepy, grizzled old men with giant backpacks (one of whom had a beard so long he raked it with both hands)? Was it worth listening to Homi Bhabha remind us over and over how “edgy” everything was? YES.

They also talked about music in a broad sense, from songwriting to recording.  On the issue of recorded music and the fall of the record in today’s age of digital music and single song downloads, Cline remarked that “recording is a blip on the time line of centuries and centuries of music.”  Live music has been around far longer than the first recording devices and the importance of music lies in the spontaneity of live music.  As a tip to songwriters yearning to create something new and original, he advised students not to worry too much.  He said that you will give music its own unique twist, even if it shares a chord progression with hundreds of other songs.  The two were happy to answer all questions thrown their way.  Wilco plays tomorrow night at the Orpheum in Boston.

Photo from yelp.com

La Flamme, the budget-friendly Harvard Square barbershop has apparently been featured in the January/February issue of Playboy magazine. The barbershop has quite the history — it was established in 1898 and has serviced many a famous Harvard alumni, including Barack Obama. If anyone, er, sees the issue around, let us know what you find! (Besides the obvious.) [link]

Oh hayyyy

You may think that The Voice has a thing for Emma Watson, but damn. Her brother is way hotter! Emma’s 17-year-old brother Alex debuted as a model alongside her for the Burberry Spring/Summer ad campaign.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QNKt7JKGIU

We're not...in Kansas...anymore?

House Masters are resigning, the weather is going bat-shit, and the singer Peaches became an Honorary Member of the Harvard Lampoon tonight. Is the world ending? Probably. Peaches, decked out as a glammed up Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, rocked out with karaoke in front of the Harvard Lampoon at 7PM tonight, and was inducted later at a “private induction ceremony” inside the Lampoon Castle.

Peaches albums include gems like Impeach My Bush and I Feel Cream. She sang her hit single “Fuck The Pain Away” twice.

From Peaches’ blog:

In honor of her prodigious achievements as an entertainer and musician, the Harvard Lampoon has selected the electro shock-rocker PEACHES to be inducted as a special Honorary Member of The Harvard Lampoon. The members of the Lampoon staff are huge admirers of her career and will celebrate with her on December 7th at their Annual Canadian Synthpunk/Glam Rock Awards Dinner. The event will kick off with a public karaoke party on the steps of the Castle followed with a private induction ceremony inside the Castle to follow.

Photos by Emily Xie ’12

They are continuing filming on the movie The Town, which also stars Gossip Girl‘s Blake Lively.

Justin Timberlake was also here yesterday filming The Social Network (the “Facebook movie”). He’ll be back though. He brings everything back. Like sexy. So hopefully tomorrow, it will be himself.

*Clarification: Affleck is starring in film titled The Town. Timberlake is starring in The Social Network. Both films are being filmed in Harvard Square. The Square is so popularrrrr.

UPDATE: Now with moving pictures! Slash videos.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=d25YbLPyEUE

www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8NgTNnLKdw

The object of K-pop loving Turk’s love

Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise must be feeling a bit neglected lately. With HarvardFML.com launching Harvard students to fame almost daily, students just don’t get excited anymore by the so-called celebrities frequenting our campus. Rather, our attention has been captured by the likes of red scarf Polish girl, Wigg A girl, or — most recently – K-pop Loving Turk.

The last person — Mr. Turk, let’s call him — is perhaps the most obscure of all. Sure, we know where Wigg A is, and what red scarves are, and hopefully where Poland is, but what’s all this about a K-pop loving Turk? Is K-pop a type of soda? Should we stock up, so that we can sip it conspicuously during Gov20 in the hopes that we’ll capture the attention of some tanned Turkish hottie?

Noice knows such questions are running through the minds of Harvard students everywhere, so we’re here to unravel a bit of the mystery surrounding Mr. Turk. Thus, Noice presents A Guide to K-pop. Because how else are you going to impress this famed personage without versing yourself in his interests?

Definition:

K-pop: (noun) Korean pop. Specifically, South Korean pop, with R&B, dance, and hip-hop influences.

Characteristics of K-pop:

• The male popstars look like girls
  

  K-pop is awesome. Kk?

They’re effeminate and pretty. They know how to dance and sometimes how to sing. The have wispy hair.

• The girl popstars also look like girls

…by which we mean they look like 6-year old, scantily-clad ones. Cutesy, wide-eyed, and bushy-tailed.

• Stock characters

Like a bad novel, K-pop band members typically conform to certain preset images: the cutie, the gangster, the quiet one, the leader, etc.

• Band names are funny

2PM, Shinee, 2NE1, BoA, etc.

Components of a K-pop music video:

• Synchronized dancing

Think ‘N Sync circa 1998, except with moves so synchronized, cutesy, and ridiculous that they look more like your fourth grade talent show rendition of ‘N Sync than the real thing.

• Shall we say… interesting concepts

A quick scan of some popular videos shows scenes of eating dumplings, playing hand-clapping games, dancing with a paper airplane, and painting a motorcycle.

• Sweet lyrics, if you can understand them

If you thought Mims was poetic, just check out these (translated) lyrics by Super Junior:

“You you you mesmerize me mesmerize mesmerize mesmerize baby / Shorty short shorty shorty / Eyes sparkling sparkling sparkling / Breath suffocation suffocation suffocation”

• Singers are either grinning or giving come-hither looks

Major players:

• DBSK

• SNSD

• Super Junior

• Wonder Girls

We would include pictures of more bands, except they kind of all look the same.

Good luck stalking K-pop loving Turk!

ETA: For your viewing pleasure:

All of that in consideration, the November Glamour issue made a small Harvard shout-out that we felt we absolutely must share. Kate Dillon fans rejoice, they’ve done a whole spread on plus size women and she’s in it!

the very definition of "noice".

So, in light of the supposed “dust up” over another celebrity, we’d like to highlight a full-grown actual Harvard alum. Kate Dillon is a name known to some and a face known by many. But how many people know that this absolutely gorgeous top model went to Harvard? She graduated with a masters from the Kennedy School of Government after being accepted in 2007. Though (obviously) brilliant and beautiful, it’s safe to her path to come into her own wasn’t easy. She battled with anorexia for years until finally dropping out of the fashion industry, later becoming the full-blossomed woman that anyone can admire.

But here’s where Noice might get a little sentimental. It’s no secret that Harvard and the Ivy Leagues in general have a population outside the “norm” for the rest of America. And we’re not just talking about being incredibly fortunate and capable. Having grown up in the south, this author can relate that what she sees in magazines and what she sees on campus isn’t exactly what she remembers from back home. To put it more bluntly, there can be some real pressure for the Harvard lass to be skinny and impeccably beautiful at all times. Amidst an environment of neuroticism, eating disorders, and that blasted calorie counter that HUDS keeps on their website, a curvy girl (no, actually anyone) who is perfectly normal in every aspect, can sometimes get a little down on themselves. While we’re all for keeping healthy and eating sustainably, we also  have to remember to *think* healthy and that whatever shape we choose to be in, whatever shape we’re meant to be, is already as beautiful as can be. </sentimentality>

Big ups to Glamour for The Kate Dillon shoot, if we have to be inundated by impossibly gorgeous women, we prefer them to be well-fed. Plus, if we can’t love ourselves how will we ever muster the guts for Primal Scream? Srsly.

A resource- Please, use it!:

ECHO (Eating Concerns Hotline and Outreach)
Quincy House
F-entry basement
drop-ins: Sunday-Wednesday, 8-11 p.m.
hotline: daily, 8 p.m.-8 a.m.
495-8200

images courtesy, Glamour, Mode, and Blogger.