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We here at BlogDH love BearDailyHerald, our lovable yet oddly menacing mascot, and love putting him over people’s faces. But BearDailyHerald is so much more versatile than just ensuring anonymity. Once I learned how to put him into any picture, there was no stopping me. Here it goes.
1. “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bear.” —Muhammad Ali
2. Has someone done this before? I feel like someone must have done this before.
3. #meta
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away. And we must capture these moments with the front-facing cameras on our iPhones. They come when we least expect them—when Gail is looking exceedingly charming in a holiday sweater, when a snowstorm emerges out of nowhere, or when your favorite foreign ambassador is in line beside you to grab a Blue Room muffin before his talk. The unpredictability of these events is what makes them so perfect, and this also makes it all the more incredible when you’re agile and suave enough to snap a selfie with them.
Here are some of the Brown moments that are sure to take your breath away (but not so much that it decreases your suave selfie-taking agility).
1. Selfie with Gail
We love Gail. She’s so cute, so nice, and is the only human I know who refrains from taking out her inner upsets (though it’s possible that she doesn’t have any) on arbitrary common folk. The Ratty is not the staple of the Brown University dining experience. Gail is. If you ever ran into President Obama or Miley Cyrus, would you take a selfie? Yeah. So then taking a selfie with Gail is thereby self-explanatory.
2. Selfie with everyone’s favorite local DJ, Whiskey Republic’s own DJ Meatball
Whoever follows Gail on this list is sure to be automatically demeaned, but I figured DJ Meatball could hold his own well enough to retain significance. Though it seems as if Whiskey Wednesdays are quickly becoming a thing of the past, DJ Meatball once provided the Jason Derulo anthems to my freshman year. He gave people free “DJ Meatball” tank tops if they were from the state he chose to beckon over the microphone in between 2007-era Chris Brown and Avicii’s “Levels.” DJ Meatball, beat constructor. What a guy.
3. Selfie while walking through the Van Wickle gates
You have to take that matriculation selfie. However, matriculation is the third or fourth day of orientation and you’re probably walking through the gates with a bunch of random people you just met. You might not like each other that much (remember, these are your “starter friends”) and you definitely don’t know each other that well, which makes the act of asking them to be in your selfie all the more awkward. But do it anyway. Don’t worry, it’s just your first week of freshman year… you only have everything to lose in terms of your social reputation!
4. Selfie in the Rock stacks
Ugh. Another night. Me, my carrel, and I. Why does studying make me look so beautiful? The lighting is perfect. Mom will love to know that I’m working hard. My friends back home will cringe with insecurity when they realize I can be smart and pretty at the same time. Woah! This pile of textbooks is huge! Better take a selfie to show how large it is in comparison to my head. Continue Reading
In the ongoing, nationwide debate about what kind of bear is best, the sensible answer is always the brown bear. There’s nothing more intimidating than a 1,500 pound male grizzly, and even polar bears have been hopping on the grizzly train of late.
More importantly, the brown bear is perfectly representative of the Brown University student: social, fierce, and possessing large, curved claws that may reach up to six centimeters in length. As the fall events of Brown’s 250th anniversary grow near, it’s important to look back at the history of this noble mascot, particularly with last year’s installation of ‘Indomitable’ – the massive statue of a Kodiak bear – outside the Nelson Fitness Center.
According to Encyclopedia Brunonia, the first mascot of Brown University was actually a burro, given to the student body by “real estate man” Isaac L. Goff and “valued at $100.” Introduced at a game against Harvard in 1902, the burro was found to be not only frightened of crowds but a totally laughable mascot, and was replaced by a brown bear at the suggestion of Theodore Francis Green in 1904-1905.
A series of brown bears were presented at sporting events in the following years, a number of whom did such typically bearish things as snarling at the opposing teams and (in the case of Bruno III) climbing trees in an attempt to escape the crowds. Plainly, this was back before people realized that keeping live bears on leashes at crowded public events was an incredibly idiotic idea. By the 1960s, students had to be content with humans dressed in bear suits at sporting events.
After a brief hiatus (and it has actually been brief this go-round!), Ra Ra Brunonia is BACK with a titillating installment on bears aplenty, bears galore. As Nick Bibby’s bronze, indomitable bear sculpture travels to Providence by boat in a massive reinforced steel container, it only seemed appropriate to dive into Brown’s century-long, storied relationship with its beloved mascot, the bear. For contemporary students, the robust Kodiak bear in Meehan Auditorium reigns as the most Ursus arctos presence on campus. According to Encyclopedia Brunoniana, alumni Ronald M. Kimball ’18 and John J. Monk ’24 solicited funds to donate that Kodiak bear to the University in October 1948, and they were even thoughtful enough to cover the cost of the bear’s mothproofing.
In 1955, the legendary documentarian Elliot Erwitt photographed the Kodiak bear, entitled the image “Brown University, Providence, RI,” and included it in his book Museum Watching. The Kodiak bear’s portrait is in good company within this oeuvre: Erwitt shot some of the most iconic images of the 20th century, ranging from grieving first ladies, to scenic trysts, to celebrities, to whimsical compositions of dogs. But, as photogenic and statuesque as Meehan’s Kodiak bear is, there were days long ago when Brown’s mascot could be found beyond the confines of a glass case…
Loading ...*Learn the words to the traditional and modern versions of the Brown fight song, “Ever True to Brown”, here.
Image via.
As we come to the end of another glorious season of Brown Athletics, it’s important to take a second to sit back and think about all the wonderful moments we’ve spent watching Brown teams succeed on and off the field this year. Let’s dash through season recaps for every one of our 37 varsity sports:
Baseball: A 7-33 finish, including 3-17 in Ivy League play, marks a successful and unprecedented effort by the baseball team to win even fewer games than last year’s nine. They did push #2 LSU to the wire in a narrow 4-3 walk-off loss, though, so that’s something.
Basketball (Men’s): A 7-7 Ivy League record was a big improvement on last year and good for a tie for third. Memorable wins included a comeback over rival Providence and eliminating Princeton from league title contention with a beatdown in the season finale. Sean McGonagill ’14 was named first-team All-Ivy; Cedric Kuakumensah ’16 was name Ivy League Defensive Player of the Year. Show the fuck up to their games next year, please.
Basketball (Women’s): 3-11 Ivy and 9-19 overall records were nothing to write home about, but women’s basketball alum Lindsey Gottlieb ’99 coached Cal to the Women’s Final Four, which is pretty damn cool.
Crew (Men’s): Hard to figure out, since apparently men’s rowing isn’t an NCAA sport but is still varsity (?). I don’t know. Anyway, Brown has had another great season, losing only to No. 1 Washington and Ivy rival Harvard. (I think. Crew results are really hard to understand.) The year will conclude with Ivy and National championships in late May/early June.
Crew (Women’s): The NCAA sponsors women’s rowing, so this one is easier to figure out. Brown is ranked 12th and fresh off an Eastern Sprints victory heading into Ivy and National championships in late May/early June. Sounds promising.
Cross Country (Men’s): A bunch of Brown students ran distances that would kill you or me, but didn’t qualify for nationals after finishing 11th at Northeast Regionals.
Cross Country (Women’s): A bunch of Brown students ran distances that would kill you or me, and finished 8th at Northeast Regionals. Standout Margaret Connelly ’14 placed 7th to qualify for Nationals, where she finished 130th out of 253 runners.
Equestrian: The team placed third at Ivies and sent three riders to Nationals. Honestly, the results of this shit are totally indecipherable, but I can report with some certainty that no one from Brown won the national championship. Still, it sounds like they did pretty well.
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