Category Archives: Blog

Mary Landeau is fucking awkward at every party and she’s already been cunt punted two times and is close to a third.

She’s a sometimes member of the PanHellenic council on campus and sister of some sorority. At parties, she is LITERALLY so fucking AWKWARD, so fucking BORING, unable to give a flying fuck, WEIRD at sports. Mary should also punch herself in the face right now. Those setbacks are only slightly alleviated by her very minor positive traits. She does attend some sporting events, but cheers for the FUCKING OPPOSING TEAM. She even texted someone “durr what’s kickball?” when she was watching soccer. She is also captain of the Cunt Punt squad and organizes their super fun events. On Saturday nights, you can find Mary awkwardly standing outside of Sigma Nu, complaining about how she wishes she was at Zeta.

Roger Smith almost died.

Roger Smith almost died. He almost FUCKING died. Can you believe that??? I forget the story exactly, but it took place about five years ago. He was scuba diving in the Caribbean off the coast of Bermuda. He discovered this hidden cave underneath the coral reef that Roger said looking like fucking Atlantis. He needed to get out of there and tell the world of his discovery. On his way out, a shark bit off all of his limbs. He was so fucking close to death. Luckily, a doctor repaired everything and he’s doing well. Roger is now captain of the cricket team.

Michael Stromp came from nothing and still likes to talk about it.

Michael grew up with no parents, was born without a right pinky finger, and hates everything that’s the color orange. You’re probably asking yourself, how did he win life? Well, it’s called hard work, bitches. At the age of thirteen, Michael took it upon himself to study economics and now kills it in the stock market. With his newly acquired wealth, Michael started a small online company providing financial resources, which was quickly bought by Google. Instead of holding on to the money, Michael used his funds to start an NGO helping to build wells in Africa. At Yale, he plans on double majoring in EPE and Bio Medical Engineering so he can tackle everything having to do with the word “crisis.” And he talks about himself all the time.

Bush McCormick is a total bro and has a great flow.

Bush McCormick is best known for going on a 7-cup fire streak at the Fall 2012 SAE pong tournament, being able to simultaneously grill 4 burgers on a tiny, portable grill and owning one of the most expansive collections of polo shirts known to man. In the warmer months, he can usually be found on Old Campus honing his day drinking and shirtless tanning skills. In short, he is Yale’s most illustrious frat star. But McCormick’s place on this list was solidified by his academic innovations: by taking only classes with notes in the frat database and making pledges write his papers, he does less work than anyone else at Yale. Bush McCormick, we tip our hats to you.

It’s society season! Some juniors woke up today to society letters sealed with wax. If you got one without wax, that society sucks. The letters often contain cryptic acronyms so Rumpus is here to help decipher all of their secrets:

W.S.T.S.B.N.O.E.W.U.: We Started This Society Because No One Else Wanted Us

G.H.W.B.W.A.M.: George HW Bush Was A Member

G.N.A.H.U.: Get Naked And Hook Up

W.D.B.Y.S.S.J.: We’re Dry But You Should Still Join

J.C.I.O.T.: Just Chilling In Our Tomb

W.O.S.O.: Worshipping Our Satanic Overlords

W.D.C.: We Do Cocaine

Also, here’s the actual list of the societies according to our Secret Society issue last year:

Senior Societies: Skull and Bones, Scroll and Key, Wolf’s Head, Berzelius, Book and Snake, Looking Glass, Ceres Athena, Spade and Grave, Manuscript, Aurelian, Elihu, Nathan Hale, St. Elmo’s, Boar, Red Mask, Desmos, Myth and Sword, ISO, LC, Bar, Ox, Sphinx, Torch, Whiskey and Coke, Cage and Feather, Wips, Fork and Knife, B&C, DSG, Leviathan, Double Cuff, Gryphon, Pundits, Nine Ball, YPSRT/Sage and Chalice, Truth and Courage,  Mace and Chain, Ink and Needle

Junior Societies: Asylum, Boliche, HWT, Syphos, BNT, Spaghetti and Meatballs

#tomblife

On Saturday night, my suitemate surprised me by asking if I wanted to go to the fall show of the Yale Anti-Gravity Society. If you want a translation of the group’s name to real life language, you could say they are Yale’s main community of jugglers and juggling enthusiasts. Not my normal cup of tea. If you asked me at a normal time, Hey, Jackson, want to go to a juggling show? I skeptically respond, No… Not for me. If I were in a state where the most sensible for me to do at a single moment is to go to a juggling show, I would be in trouble. But I had had some herbal edibles earlier this particular night, so I then thought it was a great idea and would be really interesting while I was under the influence! Substances boost my Sherlock Holmes curiosity, so we venture off to the show.

At first glance, YAGS could be taken by a conclusion-jumping newcomer to be like an embrace of society’s conception of what virginity looks like. They are the guys who could do nothing more engaging in college than be in a juggling group. Such a stereotype blinds the spectators from the pure talent on exhibition. The members of YAGS fucking rock it. The quality of the show and its performances, its production value, are indicative of show put on in a high school… so very impromptu and grassroots, but I like them like that. You can just hear about them fifteen minutes before and walk in. How much cooler would high school have been if you could just walk a block and see someone’s passion on display? To people who went to boarding school: fuck you and I am jealous of what I perceive to be an increased prevalence for happiness that you have.

Juggling is not a performance art for the weak. Hell no, there be intense pressure. In the eyes of the average observer, judgment of a juggler’s quality is based on how many times the juggler fucks up so the performer must be physically and mentally tough. Spectators have no idea what practice is like for jugglers and how common fuck-ups are, but they fucking judge away. A weak heart in the audience would flutter at the raw emotion that jugglers are stripped down to when throwing shit in front of a large group searching for signs of humiliation. I imagine that many students cannot handle the YAGS recruitment process and drop out early, a sign of weakness; the retention rate for YAGS rush is similar to that of Navy SEAL training. Only the strong survive because in YAGS: balls go to the wall, not to the floor.

Juggling is like full-body improv for the performers. Some motion shit cannot be predicted and you have to account for that. At one point I realize the strategy is simple, in a Douglas Adams way: throw some objects, find the one that will likely hit the ground the soonest, and stop it. Anything else is just fluff. The task evolves to a pure avoidance of that fuck-up and can get out of control real quick.

I was on the edge of my seat during the entire performance. I left Earth and entered a world of childlike fantasy. I knew shit had gotten real when I saw a girl stand on another girl’s shoulders and pass cones back and forth to a dude on the ground. She had a spotter so we knew there could be a concussion in the room real soon. When a juggling crew is truly mind-blowing, the performance is mechanical and there is no emotion, resulting in a milquetoast show overall. In the case of YAGS, the possibility that they will fuck up is a real possibility and you start to see the performers as people.

I would not expect a juggling show to have a cohesive plot, but YAGS tried to work one in. In India’s Bollywood cinema, the act of characters dancing functions as a stand-in for sexual behavior. So when “Jai Ho” is playing in Slumdog Millionaire, just imagine all the characters on screen fucking each other’s brains out. On the other hand, in juggling shows, the performance is a stand-in for action and character development. The show ends with all the jugglers on stage at once, a clusterfuck of juggling like the ending of a violent film like 1987′s Extreme Prejudice with Nick Nolte, where literally everyone dies in an epic shootout.

So yeah, I recommend attending a YAGS show, if for nothing but the suspense, and a taste of life. The juices of survival, like the exhalations of a slaughtered orange, were dripping down my face as I exited the Berkeley Multipurpose Room, back into the night.

By Vince

When Rumpus found out that Nobel Peace Prize recipient and goddess among humans, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, would be visiting Yale’s campus next week, we shit our pants in excitement. Aung (what’s up first name basis) will speak to the lucky few Yalies who made it to Woolsey Hall between 10:00am and 10:01am on Wednesday.

Many students who couldn’t get their shit together and blew their one chance to see their “idol” – nay, their savior – paced their common rooms devising schemes to acquire golden tickets. Their last hope, they thought, was publicly announced bribery: the smart alternative to theft (Although the Ronnell email following such a theft would undoubtedly have been hilarious). The following are just a few of the bribes Rumpus considered taking in exchange for our majestic Aung tickets.

Briber #1: A veritable smorgasbord of goodies

One person offered  not only home-baked cookies or any food Rumpus likes, but money, Rumpus’ own personal Yale girl wearing a t-shirt that reads, “Rumpus is awesome,” a quilt, and any sewing Rumpus may need – which could come in handy for the no safety dance. As far as things you could bake for Rumpus, ’tis the season for Rumpkin pies.

Briber #2.   The gift of freshmen bodies, OR “whatever tickles Rumpus’ fancy.”

Hordes of freshman bodies are regularly available at Wednesday night Toad’s, so we’ll respectfully decline that offer. However, Rumpus enjoys having its fancy tickled, so we may be in touch.

Briber #3:  Afternoon delight.

Usually, Rumpus finds its baby and holds it tight before grabbing any of that, but you, briber #3, may suffice for one afternoon.

Briber #4:  The performance of sexual favors while levitating:

How long can you levitate?

Briber #5:  47 virgins.

An oddly specific bribe, but we can’t say we hate  it. Are you referring to the YD”N”?

Kudos to all that have publicly flaunted their devotion to Aung via bribery. Side note: Rumpus may or may not have stockpiled Aung tickets to cause the immediate ticket shortage, so keep the bribes coming and we may reward you. Get at us bitchez.

“I always feel safe on campus!”, “As long as you can see a Yale building, you should be fine!” We’ve all fed these lines to pre-frosh choosing between Yale and that other place in Boston. Maybe we even whisper them quietly to ourselves, hustling back from late night parties

Now the teenage bicycle gang on Broadway has made us liars. We’re used to messages from Chief Ronnell Higgins detailing events on the fringes or slightly outside of the Yale bubble. They remind us that we live, albeit somewhat secluded in our fortress of knowledge, in a dangerous city. So we get a healthy dose of fear before losing the emails in the abyss we call an inbox, never to be seen again. But the latest crime report, possibly the first of many that the class of 2016 will receive over the next four years, hits a little too close to home. This robbery was in plain view of the classic late-night establishment, Gourmet Heaven (the business located at 15 Broadway, in case you were wondering), formerly thought to be inside of our imaginary safe zone.

Our apparent dishonesty to incoming freshmen aside, Rumpus would like to help.  We have some safety tips of our own to share with the class of 2016:

1. Wear sneakers. It doesn’t matter whether you can outrun a biker gang. It matters whether you can outrun the rest of the group you’re with.
2. Even better: ride a bike. Getting a BUI (Biking Under the Influence) is way better than getting shot when you’re coming home from a party.
3. Always wear neon. It’s a perfect excuse to test drive your safety dance outfit and it makes you stand out to cops. No one wants to mug the most visible person on the street. And you’ll look super-fly while you’re at it.
4. Never leave your suite. You can be a social being without ever leaving your residential college! So when nighttime rolls around, hole up with a handle of Svedka and a deck of cards and you’ll be all set.
5. When you’re outside your college, simply run from blue phone to blue phone (Since you’ve memorized all of their locations by now). No harm can befall you when you’re near one of those suckers!

Follow these simple rules, and you will almost definitely not fall prey to New Haven crime.* Stay safe, freshmen. And welcome to Yale.

*No guarantees though.

Living Social Escapes (aka another Groupon Getaways) just offered this great “escape” to a questionable motel, hotel, holiday inn type place in Brandford, CT citing Yale as the main attraction. 65 of these excellent deals were purchased. We expect that 63 were purchased by Asians.

http://www.livingsocial.com/escapes/206350-new-haven-hotel

Our favorite quote from the article speaks for itself:

“Don’t think of this Escape as a cheat sheet––think of it as a study buddy guaranteed to make sure your next getaway graduates summa cum laude.”