The MIT Blogarhythms! by Cam T. '13

Congratulations to the MIT Class of 2014! I’m a little late hopping on the congratulations bandwagon here (a vehicle that goes from 0 to 60 in 0.2 seconds, and then proceeds to receive many congratulations for being so fast), but I’ve been up to a lot. More on that later, don’t you worry (not that you were).

Since I’ve gone and missed most of the period where bloggers post advice on rejection, acceptance, financial aid, your sex life, the measles…. wait, back it up. Since I’ve gone and missed the immediately-post-decisions blogging spree, I’ll dedicate this blog entry to looking ahead! Here, from your temporarily-a-sellout blogger, is a word about CPW!

Allow me to begin with an anecdote:

Four months ago, before winter break — and a few days before all of you Early Action admits heard the good news — two of my friends from Wayland High School, Kevin and Michelle (currently HS seniors), came into the city for dinner. However, the MIT Winter Logs concert was that night, and we decided to first check it out. MIT seems to be littered with free a cappella performances (people litter a lot in cities; MIT also seems to be littered with grad students nobody’s bothered to clean up) (I jest — the grad students here aren’t unclean, or at least that holds for the subset I’ve met), and after a hard week of work and exams a concert is a good way to unwind.

As this was four months ago, I only remember two highlights from the concert, both of which are something far too common here at MIT. One problem with MIT is that you far too often have the “Hey! I know !” syndrome. I read Gizmodo for regular tech news (as does Steve Jobs, apparently); about once a day, when I tab to an article that I think sounds especially cool, I scroll down only to uncover pictures of the Media Lab, or a car which frequently blocks the lathe (or did this summer, anywho), or a Charles. If you’re a geek, you won’t be able to escape hearing about MIT; even for MIT readers of less-geeky news, it’s hard to avoid the “Hey! I know that guy!” syndrome.

For example, at the Winter Logs concert (which, by the way, is a concert put on my MIT’s Logarhythms, the all-male a cappella group — more to come), the freshmen Logs put on a skit for the audience that they’d been working on. The end result of the skit caught me completely off guard — as a tall fellow with blonde hair started

HEY GUS I’M REALLY HAPPY FOR YOU, IMMA LET YOU FINISH, BUT THE MIT LOGS HAVE ONE OF THE BEST VIDEOS OF ALL TIME

Err, right. As one freshman broke out into a Taylor Swift – You Belong with Me solo, I thought “Whoa! I know that guy!” (Also, please forgive me — I hate to call upon internet memes, but it fit too well.)

After the concert, I talked to Gus — the Taylor-Swift-singing-fellow — and asked him if I could do a blog post about his performance at the concert. I had been blown away by his performance, being caught completely off guard; it was hilarious, but it was also very *good*. It was an awesome “Hey, I know that guy!” moment, and I wanted to share with you all the video of a tall guy with a deep voice singing Taylor Swift. Unfortunately, the Logs had some technical difficulties with that part of the concert (although this was more of a sound-quality issue, even at MIT it’s especially frustrating when your TA can’t seem to get powerpoint open; nobody ever really escapes “technical difficulties”, at any level (in my most recent case, ubiquitous segfaults)), so this other video from that night will have to do instead.

(Apologies to those who don’t like the song; they’ve got lots of other great stuff, if you don’t like this one, though).

Where am I going with all this? Well, let’s finish up with my other moment from the Winter Logs concert, first:

At the end of the concert, the Logs sang a Logs classic: Super Logs. When they started to sing, a large group from the crowd ran up to and hopped on the stage and started singing with them; Logs alumni!

Back in high school, Kevin, myself, and some other fellows from Wayland worked on several projects here at MIT, more or less under the direction of the Edgerton Center (Enough links for you?). Which meant that, when we saw the last man from the audience run up to the stage, we both started cheering as loud as possible:

ED! (This happens to be the only picture of the man I have on hand)

For the second time that night, I was caught completely off guard; I’ve worked with Ed for several years now, on a number of ridiculous, awesome, and occasionally ridiculously awesome projects. (The photo above is a decent example of one of them; for full effect, check out the slideshow on flickr.

Although I knew Ed was a former Log, it was still pretty darn cool to see him up on stage singing.

In summary, I never did get to blog about the Winter Logs concert. But moving on! Here’s a blogpost about MIT’s a cappella groups, and this time it’s pre-emptive! (wait, what? I don’t know.)

PRE-EMPTIVE A CAPPELLA CONCERT BLOG POST begins here.

For all you CPW-attending prefrosh who haven’t had been exposed to MIT’s a cappella scene (or, who haven’t seen parts of MIT’s a cappella scene slightly exposed), this event is for you! (there’s an event for that? nah). Introducing: SGBIS! Which probably stands for Singing Groups Beat Infertility and Socialism, or something similar.

Update: I have been informed by the Council of People Who Know Things About This Obscure Acronym (CPWKTATOA), a.k.a. one of the Logs, that it stands for Spring Greater Boston Invitational Songfest.

This CPW, coming to an MIT near you, all of MIT’s a cappella groups will be performing for free! And they’ve asked me, more or less, to let you all know about it. Except they didn’t tell me what SGBIS stood for, so feel free to post your interpretations in the comments. I would highly recommend going to this event; although it’s two hours, I don’t think they’d mind if you just stopped in for a while, and MIT’s a cappella groups are very well known. Plus, if you want to take your shower-based rendition of a Lady Gaga song to the next level, these are the people to talk to. After the show, you’ll be able to talk to the members of the group about what it’s like to sing a cappella at MIT, what it takes to join, and snag their phone numbers if you really want. (Editor’s note, meaning blogger’s note: I may be using my poetic/bloggetic license there, as they may not have told me they would give their phone numbers to adoring audience members. However, I suppose you could try it and see how they respond. Tip: It’s best to stare creepily at them until they ask you what you’re doing, and then respond with “How you doin’?”, a-la-Joey)

Who will be there, you ask?

Well, we’ve got (in order of appearance at the event)

The Chorallaries of MIT

Syncopasian

The Muses

Techiya

Resonance

Asymptones

Cross Products

The Toons

The Logarhythms

If you think you might be interested in joining any of these groups, or just want to sit in on a free concert and take a break from the whirlwind that is CPW, you should check it out!

The details:
What: SGIBS, or something?
When: Friday, April 9th, 4-6pm
Where: 34-101
Who: All of the above.

Also, stay tuned, because I might be telling you about another awesome CPW event as the event draws near. I’ll try not to spam you too much with such things, though — I’d been meaning to blog about the Winter Logs concert for a long time, and since a cappella groups here are so popular, I thought that when asked I would pass along the word about this concert. Don’t worry, I’m not completely sold out. (Prices begin at $1million per blog entry, contact today for a quote, companies! (Just kidding. Although if for some reason you wanted to give me a million dollars, or were even thinking about it, hit me up with an e-mail, because that’d be pretty cool.))

Coming up next: a bit of a look at what I’ve been doing this semester, and some other miscellany.

P.S., if you’re looking for summer jobs or internships, you should really apply now (or, a month ago) — just a reminder :)

P.P.S. (Post Partum Separation, not Post Script): admissions site staff, do we really not have a post category for “CPW”? (rhetorical question since I’m going to e-mail it to y’all anyways)

Till next time,
-Cam