We asked some of Princeton’s most revered intellectuals for their summer jams. Though it took almost an entire summer to compile — you weren’t the only ones doing nothing — they are finally listed below. Think of this almost-mixtape as an ode to the last hurrah that is Princeton’s awkwardly pushed back start date.

Robert Hollander, HUM - Translated Dante’s Inferno and Divine Comedy; founding member of the Department of Comparative Literature

Summer was traditionally my time for hard work, now that the easy and pleasant part of the year, the teaching part, was done for nearly four months. Since being emeritus has made the WHOLE year ‘summer,’ I no longer have a summer song, but if I did it would probably be one performed by Louis Armstrong and His Hot Seven, maybe Potato Head Blues. Why? Because it rocks.

Jeff Nunokawa, ENG – Has written extensively on nineteenth century English literature; posted notoriously on Facebook, challenging medium, social media and the Champions League

Okay: press play: Gloria Estefan–”I Just Wanna Be Happy”. And here’s why: the best summer of my life took this song as its soundtrack. It was Amsterdam, and it was the summer of 1998, and I fell in love big time, for the last time, and this was the major song at every club and party and beach I went. And the song just spells all the outdoor hope and warmth of summer love to me.

Press Stop

Harvey Rosen, ECO - Did a stint on President Bush’s Council of Economic Advisors; former Master of Whitman College

My favorite summer song is “Michael, Row Your Boat Ashore.” When I was in high school and went to the beach, kids were always playing it on their transistor radios.

Peter Singer, CHV - Author of Animal Liberation; Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University and Laureate Professor at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne

As an Australian, summer means the beach, so I’ll go for a Beach Boys number, maybe “Surfin’ USA.”

Philip Johnson-Laird, PSY - Pushed the limits of our understanding of human understanding; fellow of the National Academy of Sciences

My favorite summer song is Michel Legrand’s “Once upon a summertime”. There are many great performances, but one that captures it best for me is Miles Davis in Gil Evans’s arrangement (on the album Quiet Nights).

The best musical depiction of the unrelenting heat of summer is, not a song, but Ravel’s Prélude à la nuit at the start of his Rapsodie Espagnole.

Christopher Eisgruber, WWS/CHV, Provost - Graduated magna cum laude in Physics from Princeton; clerked for the Supreme Court; wrote books about the Constitution; named Provost of the University in 2004

Here are two, that I fear nobody will ever have heard (but they should be better known; they’re great!):

‘Perfect,’ written by Ian Broudie and performed by his band, the Lightening Seeds:  I heard it more than 15 years ago on a summer trip to England, and its bittersweet lyrics evoke both the promise and the passing of summer (and it seems to be passing too quickly right now!)

‘Beachcombing,’ by Mark Knopfler and Emmy Lou Harris. My wife and son and I were returning from a Vermont summer vacation a few years back.  We stopped in Middlebury to pick up some tunes for the long drive back (this is the sort of thing that people did back in the days before iTunes!).  We bought the new Knopfler/Harris album, and the salesman declared, “That’s definitely the sound of the summer” (in Middlebury, I guess—but it’s a brilliant album).   “Beachcombing” is the first track on the album, and the refrain is “head on home,” which was, of course, exactly what we were doing.  I can’t hear it without remembering that trip and thinking “sound of the summer.

(no YouTube, so listen here)

Shamik Dasgupta, PHI – Recipient of NYU’s Dean’s Outstanding Dissertation Award in the Humanities, describing “Symmetry as a Guide to Reality”

Personal summer song? Not this summer, but many years ago (’95, to be precise) this defined the summer I graduated high school.

Gideon Rosen, PHI - Expert in moral philosophy; was asked to take NYU Law School’s first-year curriculum under a Mellon Foundation New Directions Fellowship in 2002 (he accepted)

“Rockaway Beach” by the Ramones, for the obvious reasons.  I’m not a beach person, but I like the idea of the beach.  Songs about beaches get me as close as I need to be.

Also “Dancing in the Street” by Martha and the Vandellas.  I don’t like dancing either, but songs about dancing are fine by me.

Paul Muldoon, CWR - Won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry; Poetry Editor at The New Yorker, critiqued Ke$ha’s “Tik-Tok” (this was not his “summer song”)

It’s got to be ”In the Summertime” by Mungo Jerry. Though the group took its name from T.S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, now a jug band had caught up with the “jug jug” of his great poem The Waste Land and our dirty 1970s ears were forever infected.

Juxtaposition of high and low culture! (Especially enjoyed the Lear reference.) It’s funny! Apparently, it’s this funny. And this funny. And this funny. They throw up an adorable shoutout to their poetry editor: “Oh Paul, you totally make it pop.”

So, Tiger Mag, a tip of the hat — for making this video, for making waves. And for enriching the vocabulary of a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet. (Notable additions: “crunk,” “junk.”)

UPDATE: These guys picked up on it too. Viral status is imminent.

UPDATE II: And also the Village Voice and the New York Times (!).

You don't mess with these guys: Muldoon (center) with his rock band, Rackett. [source: www.myspace.com/rackett

Along with being a Pulitzer-Prize-winning poet (for Moy Sand and Gravel in 2003), Muldoon somehow finds time to teach creative writing courses and act as chair of the Lewis Center for the Arts.  His rock band, Rackett, is a Princeton staple and has toured internationally, and he’s currently working on a new collaboration with folk singer/songwriter John Wesley Harding.  While it might seem natural that a poet known for his lyrical style would take a stab at songwriting, he’s found it to be a challenging new medium:

“Once the shape of a verse for a song is established, one has to pretty much stick to that. There’s a mathematical component to it whereas with writing poetry it’s not at all necessary to, particularly in an era when the conventional shape of poems is not something to which many people pay a huge amount of attention.”

And just in case you weren’t already intimidated by the fact that this man does more before breakfast than most of us do all week, Muldoon is also a budding visual artist: a number of his pieces are being auctioned off this weekend as part of Small World Coffee’s “Love Show,” with all proceeds going to the Arts Council of Princeton.  Muldoon’s giving a reading this afternoon at Holy Cross, but it looks like he’ll be racing back to Princeton in time for the Show’s opening party tomorrow night.  If you’re not too wrapped up in this week’s bickering zaniness (or aren’t already planning to see “OAF,” Intime’s Freshman One-Act Festival, which I may be slightly biased towards because one of the plays was directed by yours truly), it should be a really terrific event, with performances by local bands, appearances by Princeton’s artiest residents, and, of course, coffee galore.

source: unigo.com

460 feet.

That’s the distance the Dinky Station would move toward Princeton Junction if the University has its way.

But ever since the University announced in 2006 its intention to move the Dinky Station to make room for the Arts and Transit Neighborhood, Borough officials and residents have been up in arms about the proposed relocation. Aside from the perennial debate over the University’s tax-exempt status, the Dinky relocation is shaping up to be the major friction point in town-gown relations.

The controversy came up again recently when Borough residents elected Jenny Crumiller and reelected Kevin Wilkes to the Borough Council last week. The two Democrats stated their opposition to the Dinky relocation in the run-up to the election. Despite the opposition, University officials have not signaled any intention to back away from its proposed project.

Watch Pulitzer Prize-winning Professor Paul Muldoon (Chair of the Lewis Center for the Arts) and VP Bob Durkee duke it out with Borough Councilman Andrew Koontz, former Borough Mayor Marvin Reed, and Triangle Repro Center owner Bob Howard.

PART 1:

PART 2:

Who wouldn't appreciate their "Understandable Vanity Award"?

Stephen Colbert loves Princeton. Let us explain.

This past week, the Colbert Report host had two Princetonian guests back-to-back on Wednesday and Thursday nights.

First up was Joshua Micah Marshall ‘91, founder and editor of the political blog Talking Points Memo, discussing the mechanics of his “hybrid” news site.

Poetry professor (and all-around academic rockstar) Paul Muldoon considered the relevance of poetry in our modern life. He even read his poem “Tea” with Colbert, which, we must say, was pretty cute.

Taken with Colbert’s speech at Class Day 2008, can we conclude Stephen has a soft spot for all things orange and black? We’d like to think so. Either that or his producers are alumni.

Actually, current Colbert Report writer Jay Katsir ‘04 was hired after his student address at 2004’s Class Day, a Colbert fansite says. And when the host came to speak at 2008’s Class Day,

Colbert was accompanied to campus by Jay Katsir, a member of the class of 2004 and a writer for “The Colbert Report.” When Katsir spoke at the Class Day ceremony four years ago, one of those in the audience was Colbert’s agent, who later suggested that Katsir be hired as a writer for Colbert’s show.

So Colbert’s agent knows someone at Princeton, apparently, and was at Princeton’s 2004 Class Day when Katsir, a graduating Princetonian, spoke to his class, which later helped land him a job on Colbert’s show, which (now here’s a long shot) might explain Colbert’s affinity for us. Or at least seeming affinity.

Oh, the tangled web we weave.

Last week’s interviews (with the adorable Colbert/Muldoon poetry reading!) after the jump.

Here’s the Muldoon interview:

And Marshall:

Perhaps the most popular room was one that housed an edible Virgin Mary and Jesus. Perplexed viewers looked at the partially-eaten sculpture, wondering if they should dig into the student’s work, admire the finely-crafted icing Jesus face, or kneel down to say a prayer. Most elected to get a taste of their lord.

virgin mary by Katie Zaeh

The exhibit will be torn down tomorrow, so check it out today!

(image source: http://www.edbookfest.co.uk/)

Yeah, we’re probably going to have to drink more than we otherwise would have to “enjoy” Gym Class Heroes, and yeah, it seems like a lot of money to spend when the student body probably would have responded better to a Journey cover band. But if you need to restore your faith in Princeton’s ability to attract the best, look no further than the first Annual Princeton Poetry Festival.

Paul Muldoon called in the big guns for this one, including Nobel Prize winner and fellow Irishman Seamus Heaney and John Ashbery (brief digression: someone once explained the relationship between Heaney and Muldoon in terms of Public Enemy, with Heaney as Chuck D and Muldoon as Flava Flav. I now can’t stop picturing Muldoon with a huge clock necklace.)

Today’s the second day of the festival, with readings and panels from 2 to 10 PM. Tickets are sold out, but there are usually empty seats, and there’s a waiting line for any unclaimed tickets. Ashbery read last night, and Heaney takes over Richardson tonight at 8.

If you can, go. Seriously. It’s like we got Weezy for Lawnparties, only he showed a week early as a 70 year old Irish poet.

The reporter interviewed Korelitz to ask about her connections to Princeton and to discuss her book, and he even interviewed a student who used to babysit for her kids once upon a time. But over the course of nearly 600 words, the article doesn’t mention the very minor detail that Korelitz’s husband is Paul Muldoon. Nope, not important or noteworthy at all.

(image source: ew.com)