BA]D

Is
June/July 2011 | 137
The Newspapermen
BROWN?
NEW
For a certain sort of high-schooler (too cool for Yale, too socially
savvy for Harvard), Brown was once the university of choice. But now that sort of student
is turning to a little patch of emerald green on the Hudson River, a place that has
been quietly attracting students as idiosyncratic as they are well connected
for years. Bard alumnus Matt Taibbi (z) explains why his alma mater
is like no other college on earth.
THE SHOCK OF THE NEW Bards performing arts center, a masterpiece of undulating steel
by Frank Gehry. Opposite: The ivy-lined Stone Row houses several residence halls.
the
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PHOTOGRAPHED BY ANDY ANDERSON
t6 | TOWN&COUNTRY S EPTEMBER zot t | t
BAD
Is
June/July 2011 | 137
The Newspapermen
BROWN?
NEW
For a certain sort of high-schooler (too cool for Yale, too socially
savvy for Harvard), Brown was once the university of choice. But now that sort of student
is turning to a little patch of emerald green on the Hudson River, a place that has
been quietly attracting students as idiosyncratic as they are well connected
for years. Bard alumnus Matt Taibbi () explains why his alma mater
is like no other college on earth.
THE SHOCK OF THE NEW Bards performing arts center, a masterpiece of undulating steel
by Frank Gehry. Opposite: The ivy-lined Stone Row houses several residence halls.
the
T
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I
S

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PHOTOGRAPHED BY ANDY ANDERSON
| TOWN&COUNTRY S EPTEMBER |
T
The It Girls
LI]E A LOT OF BARD
STUDENTS, I HAD GOTTEN OFF
THE PATH A LITTLE ON MY
WAY TO COLLEGE, HAVING BEEN
BOTH TROUBLED AND IN
TROUBLE IN HIGH SCHOOL.
Though seniors Reilly Miller, Louise Parker, and Lana Barkin hail from different places
(Telluride, St. Paul, and New York City, respectively), the three bonded over their love of photography.
he rst thing you notice about
Bard is its breathtaking natural beauty. When I was a student there zo years ago,
this was, apart lom the dark clothes and the parody of existential angst emanating
lom the student body, the most distinctive thing about the place. 1e school is a
kind of riverbank aerie high above the Hudson, in a semi-remote spot two hours
north of New York Cityjust about where the river valley stops being a densely
settled echo of the city and starts becoming desolate woods.
Back then, when I wasnt plunging into deep bouts of terror/depression about
what I was going to do with my life, I was taking long walks through the campus
and this outlying wilderness. I knew by heart all the trails that cross the incredible
rambling waterfall behind the alabaster-white Blithewood Mansion, all the winding
and muddy paths down to the river (at certain times of year there are spots down
there where you will always nd deer), all the best trees to sit under while I read the
books by Tolstoy and Gogol and Chekhov that were my escape at that time.
Like a lot of Bard students, I had gotten o the path a little on my way to col-
lege, having been both troubled and in trouble in high school, and (also like many
Bard students back then) Bard was my second college. I had transferred lom NYU
aler my leshman year, unable to deal with being just one of thousands of faces
in a city of millions.
In deciding where to transfer, I instantly chose Bard aler I visited and saw its
wilderness. To a young, confused loner lom the Boston suburbs, Bard looked like
paradise. Id considered a slew of similar schools, including Bates and Vassar, but
there was something about Bards chaotic, half- overgrown campus that I preferred
to those more manicured places (that and the fact that a lot of them rejected me).
Very soon aler I arrived, I disappeared into a fantasy world built mainly around
Russian novels. I would walk in the elds behind the manse-like Robbins dormitory
and imagine Levins estate in Anna Karenina or, going toward the woods lining the
The Professors
Confetti showers Bard faculty at the colleges
151st commencement ceremony in May.
t8 | TOWN&COUNTRY S EPTEMBER zot t | tp
T
The It Girls
LIE A LOT OF BARD
STUDENTS, I HAD GOTTEN OFF
THE PATH A LITTLE ON MY
WAY TO COLLEGE, HAVING BEEN
BOTH TROUBLED AND IN
TROUBLE IN HIGH SCHOOL.
Though seniors Reilly Miller, Louise Parker, and Lana Barkin hail from different places
(Telluride, St. Paul, and New York City, respectively), the three bonded over their love of photography.
he rst thing you notice about
Bard is its breathtaking natural beauty. When I was a student there years ago,
this was, apart om the dark clothes and the parody of existential angst emanating
om the student body, the most distinctive thing about the place. e school is a
kind of riverbank aerie high above the Hudson, in a semi-remote spot two hours
north of New York Cityjust about where the river valley stops being a densely
settled echo of the city and starts becoming desolate woods.
Back then, when I wasnt plunging into deep bouts of terror/depression about
what I was going to do with my life, I was taking long walks through the campus
and this outlying wilderness. I knew by heart all the trails that cross the incredible
rambling waterfall behind the alabaster-white Blithewood Mansion, all the winding
and muddy paths down to the river (at certain times of year there are spots down
there where you will always nd deer), all the best trees to sit under while I read the
books by Tolstoy and Gogol and Chekhov that were my escape at that time.
Like a lot of Bard students, I had gotten o the path a little on my way to col-
lege, having been both troubled and in trouble in high school, and (also like many
Bard students back then) Bard was my second college. I had transferred om NYU
aer my eshman year, unable to deal with being just one of thousands of faces
in a city of millions.
In deciding where to transfer, I instantly chose Bard aer I visited and saw its
wilderness. To a young, confused loner om the Boston suburbs, Bard looked like
paradise. Id considered a slew of similar schools, including Bates and Vassar, but
there was something about Bards chaotic, half- overgrown campus that I preferred
to those more manicured places (that and the fact that a lot of them rejected me).
Very soon aer I arrived, I disappeared into a fantasy world built mainly around
Russian novels. I would walk in the elds behind the manse-like Robbins dormitory
and imagine Levins estate in Anna Karenina or, going toward the woods lining the
The Professors
Confetti showers Bard faculty at the colleges
151st commencement ceremony in May.
| TOWN&COUNTRY S EPTEMBER |
140 | Town & Country
WITH WRITERS
LI]E MONA
SIMPSON AND
CHINUA ACHEBE
AMONG ITS
FACULTY, BARD
HAS A
REPUTATION
AS A WRITERS
MECCA.
edge of the embankment, the duel scene in Lermontovs novella Princess Mary.
I started taking creative writing classes, which felt almost like a core require-
ment at the school; with writers like Mary McCarthy, Mona Simpson, Chinua
Achebe, and Ralph Ellison among its current and past faculty, Bard has a reputation
as a writers mecca. I eventually found a professor there who took an interest in
me, encouraging me despite the cheesy faux-Russianness of every story I tried to
write. (All my ction lom back then is ridiculously pretentious and reads as if its
been translated into English.)
A poet who studied at Harvard a generation before I was born, Ben La Farge
thought I could be a writer someday, but he clearly worried about me as a person
and sent me carefully typewritten letters (the good professor was very old-school
in a cool sort of way) even when classes were out, just to stay in touch. I eventually
reached a critical moment in my life when I was presented with an opportunity
to do an exchange program of sorts in Russia, only it came at a time when I was
having what in retrospect was a kind of agoraphobic nervous breakdown. I found
myself too alaid to go.
When I told my teacher over the summer that Id decided against going abroad,
he forcefully objected and essentially told me I had to go. So I went, and that trip
changed my life. I would end up living in the Soviet Union and postcommunist
Russia for :o years and becoming not a novelist but a journalist, describing a society
in total, violent upheaval, a place that couldnt possibly have been more dierent
lom the relative serenity and peace of Bard College. But what carried me through
that experience was a fascination with the country and its people that began in my
Bard days and was nurtured by my teachers there.
The Ruggers
The rugby team in a scrum. Below, from left: Poet Robert Kelly,
better known as Bards Bard; reworks at graduation.
The Luminary
President Leon Botstein, who at 23 became the youngest college president in history
(when he was named to the post at now-defunct Franconia College), relaxes in his book-lined home ofce on campus. A historian
and a conductor, and music director of the American Symphony Orchestra, Botstein has been helming Bard since 1975.
The Musicians
Audrey Turner and Lola Kirke, who have known each
other since they were young teenagers in Santa Monica
and New York, respectively, are a folksinging duo
called Dos Clementinas. The two often spend their
downtime playing music at stately Blithewood Mansion.
C
O
M
M
E
N
C
E
M
E
N
T
:

R
A
N
D
Y

H
A
R
R
I
S
tqo | TOWN&COUNTRY S EPTEMBER zot t | tqt
140 | Town & Country
WITH WRITERS
LIE MONA
SIMPSON AND
CHINUA ACHEBE
AMONG ITS
FACULTY, BARD
HAS A
REPUTATION
AS A WRITERS
MECCA.
edge of the embankment, the duel scene in Lermontovs novella Princess Mary.
I started taking creative writing classes, which felt almost like a core require-
ment at the school; with writers like Mary McCarthy, Mona Simpson, Chinua
Achebe, and Ralph Ellison among its current and past faculty, Bard has a reputation
as a writers mecca. I eventually found a professor there who took an interest in
me, encouraging me despite the cheesy faux-Russianness of every story I tried to
write. (All my ction om back then is ridiculously pretentious and reads as if its
been translated into English.)
A poet who studied at Harvard a generation before I was born, Ben La Farge
thought I could be a writer someday, but he clearly worried about me as a person
and sent me carefully typewritten letters (the good professor was very old-school
in a cool sort of way) even when classes were out, just to stay in touch. I eventually
reached a critical moment in my life when I was presented with an opportunity
to do an exchange program of sorts in Russia, only it came at a time when I was
having what in retrospect was a kind of agoraphobic nervous breakdown. I found
myself too aaid to go.
When I told my teacher over the summer that Id decided against going abroad,
he forcefully objected and essentially told me I had to go. So I went, and that trip
changed my life. I would end up living in the Soviet Union and postcommunist
Russia for years and becoming not a novelist but a journalist, describing a society
in total, violent upheaval, a place that couldnt possibly have been more dierent
om the relative serenity and peace of Bard College. But what carried me through
that experience was a fascination with the country and its people that began in my
Bard days and was nurtured by my teachers there.
The Ruggers
The rugby team in a scrum. Below, from left: Poet Robert Kelly,
better known as Bards Bard; reworks at graduation.
The Luminary
President Leon Botstein, who at 23 became the youngest college president in history
(when he was named to the post at now-defunct Franconia College), relaxes in his book-lined home ofce on campus. A historian
and a conductor, and music director of the American Symphony Orchestra, Botstein has been helming Bard since 1975.
The Musicians
Audrey Turner and Lola Kirke, who have known each
other since they were young teenagers in Santa Monica
and New York, respectively, are a folksinging duo
called Dos Clementinas. The two often spend their
downtime playing music at stately Blithewood Mansion.
C
O
M
M
E
N
C
E
M
E
N
T
:

R
A
N
D
Y

H
A
R
R
I
S
| TOWN&COUNTRY S EPTEMBER |
THE SCHOOL TODAY IS
CUTTINGEDGE IN EVERY DIRECTION, WITH BRAND
NEW FACILITIES EVERYWHERE=APART
FROM THE CHARMING OLD BUILDINGS, WHICH HAVE
ALL BEEN RESTORED AND NOW SEEM OLD
ONLY FROM A DISTANCE.
The Brotherhood
Theres no Greek life at Bard, nor an ofcial football team, but there is the
33-member rugby team, and its players are kings of the school.
Captain Andrew Levy (center, in striped socks) has interned at The Colbert Report, and
Hamza Hayauddin (fourth from right) is a certied EMT.
tqz | TOWN&COUNTRY S EPTEMBER zot t | tq
The Graduates
L.A. is a mecca for Bard alumni, such as
lmmakers and writers Ben Greenblatt, Sam
Freilich, Gia Coppola (whos following in
her familys footsteps), and Nick Shore.
THE SCHOOL
HAS BECOME A LIBER AL
ARTS DESTINATION
FOR THE RICH, GIFTED,
AND CREATIVE.
The Life
The Obsession
The Frisbee team takes a break from nals.
Ultimate Frisbee is so visible on campus that the president
agreed to throw the rst pull at a recent game.
Junior Augustus Cooper MacKenzie cycles through campus.
Below: Art professor Judy Pfaff, who specializes in installations and sculptures,
in her off-campus studio. Left: Photography director Stephen Shore.
SEWANEE:
THE UNIVERSITY OF
THE SOUTH
Sewanee, Tennessee
REED COLLEGE
Portland, Oregon
POMONA
COLLEGE
Claremont, California
THE NEW SCHOOL
New York, New York
MACALESTER
COLLEGE
St. Paul, Minnesota
KENYON COLLEGE
Gambier, Ohio
ELON UNIVERSITY
Elon, North Carolina
CARLETON
COLLEGE
Northeld, Minnesota
BABSON COLLEGE
Wellesley,
Massachusetts
SCHOOL
Student population: 1,450
Tuition: $33,900
Acceptance rate: 68%
Student population: 1,452
Tuition: $39,440
Acceptance rate: 41%
Student population: 1,531
Tuition: $38,087
Acceptance rate: 16%
Student population: 6,802
Tuition: $36,970
Acceptance rate: 64%
STATS
HOGWARTS
UNIVERSITY OF
CHICAGO
AMHERST
NEW YORK
UNIVERSITY
SWARTHMORE
OBERLIN
WAKE FOREST
WESLEYAN
BUCKNELL
ITS THE NEW FAMOUS ALUMS
Business casual,
often accessorized with
an Audi
DRESS CODE
Intramural broomball
(like hockey, but with brooms)
Greek life; cricket if youre
among the sizable Indian and
Pakistani population
EXTRA
CURRICULAR
Associate at
white shoe
law rm
Anthropology
Ph.D. candidate
Green business
consultant
Waiter
Assistant trader
FIRST JOB
THE OTHER BARDS
Town & Country canvassed college counselors at dozens of top private schools across the country about up-and-coming
colleges with enough idiosyncratic cachet to lure smart kids away om bigger, name-brand institutions. Here are their picks.
Home Depot co-founder Arthur Blank, 63;
Edsel Ford II, 73;
Quiznos founder Terrell Braly, 77
Student population: 1,971
Tuition: $39,846
Acceptance rate: 46%
Student population: 1,616
Tuition: $39,420
Acceptance rate: 39%
Student population: 4,995
Tuition: $25,159
Acceptance rate: 48%
Student population: 1,986
Tuition: $41,076
Acceptance rate: 30%
Student population: 1,898
Tuition: $39.040
Acceptance rate: 40%
National Philharmonic Orchestra founder Piotr
Gajewski, 81; Politico editor John Harris, 85;
Mother Jones editor Clara Jeffery, 89
The Daily Show writer Rich Blomquist, 00;
One Tree Hill actress Lisa Goldstein, 03
Robert Lowell, 40; Paul Newman, 49;
Caleb Carr, 77; Allison Janney, 82;
Laura Hillenbrand, 89
Walter Mondale, 50; Ko Annan, 61;
writer Tim OBrien, 68; Ari Emanuel, 83 (who
roomed with director Peter Berg, 84)
James Baldwin, Woody Allen,
Donna Karan, and singer-songwriter
Ani DiFrancothough none graduated
Roy E. Disney, 51; Kris Kristofferson, 54;
New York Times editor Bill Keller, 70
Emilio Pucci, 37;
Beat poet Gary Snyder, 51;
Steve Jobs (didnt graduate)
Former Newsweek editor and
biographer Jon Meacham, 91;
former Harpers editor Roger Hodge, 89
Lots of eece
Twin sets, monograms,
Lacoste shirts, your Greek
letters
L.L. Bean or ironic T-shirts,
depending on your crowd
Plaid shirt,
black-rimmed glasses
American Apparel,
American Spirit cigarettes,
fair trade coffee
Jeans, T-shirts, ip-ops,
pajama-esque ensembles
Goth garb,
piercings, plaid annel,
hipster hair
Seersucker suits for class
seriously. Professors don
academic gowns to teach.
Attending readings by
visiting writers
Musical theatertheres a
top-notch drama program
Anticlimate change activism
Ultimate Frisbee
Jazz clubs, poetry slams, asking
passersby if they have a
moment for the environment
Funneling beers at
frat parties
Working on the Reed Research
Reactor, the only
nuclear reactor run by a college
Microbiology lab
researcher
Role in the national
tour of Guys and
Dolls
Literary magazine
editorial assistant
Community
organizer
Bard is apparently a different place now. When I
went back recently for a reunion (characteristically, not
my own; many Bard students lom my time were on
ve- or six-year plans, so they seldom graduated with
the classes they started with), I ran into a couple of pro-
fessors I had known. One joked about the new type of
Bard student that had begun appearing in the interven-
ing decadesduring which the annual tuition has gone
from $zz,ooo to $z,;6. The school has apparently
become a chic liberal arts destination for the rich, giled,
and creative, in some circles even serving as a plausible
alternative to the Ivy League experience. You meet kids
now, he laughed, who, you know, like their parents.
1at wasnt the school I knew. 1e Bard of the late
8os and early os was full of kids like me: bright,
screwed up, and aectedly miserable. Your typical Bard
student back then slept until noon (if he got out of bed at
all), wore blacks and browns and dark blues culled lom
thril stores and army surplus shops, made student lms
about death or cannibalism that somehow managed to
be comedies, and was prone to looking at the world with
a kind of half-assed nihilism mixed with a reexive icon-
oclasm, which olen expressed itself in the devious and
elaborate pranks that for years were a signature of the
student body. 1en Bard was just a pretty little spot in
the woods with an old seminary building, a few decaying
mansions, and a small group of very smart educational
lifersa raw strip of overgrown natural beauty oppor-
tunistically turned into a school where you could send
a problem teenager for a while
Bardies also love New York. Jane Moseley
(left) is a sculptor in Brooklyn, and mini-mogul
Hannah Bronfman runs a clothing line and
record label with her brother Ben. (Their father
is Warner Music CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr.)
[CONTI NUED ON PAGE 166]
T
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O
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;

A
D
A
M

F
R
I
E
D
B
E
R
G
.


F
O
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N
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P
A
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E
:

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I
C
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A
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M
A
J
C
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A
K
/
S
T
U
D
I
O

D
tqq | TOWN&COUNTRY S EPTEMBER zot t | tq
The Graduates
L.A. is a mecca for Bard alumni, such as
lmmakers and writers Ben Greenblatt, Sam
Freilich, Gia Coppola (whos following in
her familys footsteps), and Nick Shore.
THE SCHOOL
HAS BECOME A LIBER AL
ARTS DESTINATION
FOR THE RICH, GIFTED,
AND CREATIVE.
The Life
The Obsession
The Frisbee team takes a break from nals.
Ultimate Frisbee is so visible on campus that the president
agreed to throw the rst pull at a recent game.
Junior Augustus Cooper MacKenzie cycles through campus.
Below: Art professor Judy Pfaff, who specializes in installations and sculptures,
in her off-campus studio. Left: Photography director Stephen Shore.
SEWANEE:
THE UNIVERSITY OF
THE SOUTH
Sewanee, Tennessee
REED COLLEGE
Portland, Oregon
POMONA
COLLEGE
Claremont, California
THE NEW SCHOOL
New York, New York
MACALESTER
COLLEGE
St. Paul, Minnesota
KENYON COLLEGE
Gambier, Ohio
ELON UNIVERSITY
Elon, North Carolina
CARLETON
COLLEGE
Northeld, Minnesota
BABSON COLLEGE
Wellesley,
Massachusetts
SCHOOL
Student population: 1,450
Tuition: $33,900
Acceptance rate: 68%
Student population: 1,452
Tuition: $39,440
Acceptance rate: 41%
Student population: 1,531
Tuition: $38,087
Acceptance rate: 16%
Student population: 6,802
Tuition: $36,970
Acceptance rate: 64%
STATS
HOGWARTS
UNIVERSITY OF
CHICAGO
AMHERST
NEW YORK
UNIVERSITY
SWARTHMORE
OBERLIN
WAKE FOREST
WESLEYAN
BUCKNELL
ITS THE NEW FAMOUS ALUMS
Business casual,
often accessorized with
an Audi
DRESS CODE
Intramural broomball
(like hockey, but with brooms)
Greek life; cricket if youre
among the sizable Indian and
Pakistani population
EXTRA
CURRICULAR
Associate at
white shoe
law rm
Anthropology
Ph.D. candidate
Green business
consultant
Waiter
Assistant trader
FIRST JOB
THE OTHER BARDS
Town & Country canvassed college counselors at dozens of top private schools across the country about up-and-coming
colleges with enough idiosyncratic cachet to lure smart kids away om bigger, name-brand institutions. Here are their picks.
Home Depot co-founder Arthur Blank, 63;
Edsel Ford II, 73;
Quiznos founder Terrell Braly, 77
Student population: 1,971
Tuition: $39,846
Acceptance rate: 46%
Student population: 1,616
Tuition: $39,420
Acceptance rate: 39%
Student population: 4,995
Tuition: $25,159
Acceptance rate: 48%
Student population: 1,986
Tuition: $41,076
Acceptance rate: 30%
Student population: 1,898
Tuition: $39.040
Acceptance rate: 40%
National Philharmonic Orchestra founder Piotr
Gajewski, 81; Politico editor John Harris, 85;
Mother Jones editor Clara Jeffery, 89
The Daily Show writer Rich Blomquist, 00;
One Tree Hill actress Lisa Goldstein, 03
Robert Lowell, 40; Paul Newman, 49;
Caleb Carr, 77; Allison Janney, 82;
Laura Hillenbrand, 89
Walter Mondale, 50; Ko Annan, 61;
writer Tim OBrien, 68; Ari Emanuel, 83 (who
roomed with director Peter Berg, 84)
James Baldwin, Woody Allen,
Donna Karan, and singer-songwriter
Ani DiFrancothough none graduated
Roy E. Disney, 51; Kris Kristofferson, 54;
New York Times editor Bill Keller, 70
Emilio Pucci, 37;
Beat poet Gary Snyder, 51;
Steve Jobs (didnt graduate)
Former Newsweek editor and
biographer Jon Meacham, 91;
former Harpers editor Roger Hodge, 89
Lots of eece
Twin sets, monograms,
Lacoste shirts, your Greek
letters
L.L. Bean or ironic T-shirts,
depending on your crowd
Plaid shirt,
black-rimmed glasses
American Apparel,
American Spirit cigarettes,
fair trade coffee
Jeans, T-shirts, ip-ops,
pajama-esque ensembles
Goth garb,
piercings, plaid annel,
hipster hair
Seersucker suits for class
seriously. Professors don
academic gowns to teach.
Attending readings by
visiting writers
Musical theatertheres a
top-notch drama program
Anticlimate change activism
Ultimate Frisbee
Jazz clubs, poetry slams, asking
passersby if they have a
moment for the environment
Funneling beers at
frat parties
Working on the Reed Research
Reactor, the only
nuclear reactor run by a college
Microbiology lab
researcher
Role in the national
tour of Guys and
Dolls
Literary magazine
editorial assistant
Community
organizer
Bard is apparently a different place now. When I
went back recently for a reunion (characteristically, not
my own; many Bard students lom my time were on
ve- or six-year plans, so they seldom graduated with
the classes they started with), I ran into a couple of pro-
fessors I had known. One joked about the new type of
Bard student that had begun appearing in the interven-
ing decadesduring which the annual tuition has gone
from $zz,ooo to $z,;6. The school has apparently
become a chic liberal arts destination for the rich, giled,
and creative, in some circles even serving as a plausible
alternative to the Ivy League experience. You meet kids
now, he laughed, who, you know, like their parents.
1at wasnt the school I knew. 1e Bard of the late
8os and early os was full of kids like me: bright,
screwed up, and aectedly miserable. Your typical Bard
student back then slept until noon (if he got out of bed at
all), wore blacks and browns and dark blues culled lom
thril stores and army surplus shops, made student lms
about death or cannibalism that somehow managed to
be comedies, and was prone to looking at the world with
a kind of half-assed nihilism mixed with a reexive icon-
oclasm, which olen expressed itself in the devious and
elaborate pranks that for years were a signature of the
student body. 1en Bard was just a pretty little spot in
the woods with an old seminary building, a few decaying
mansions, and a small group of very smart educational
lifersa raw strip of overgrown natural beauty oppor-
tunistically turned into a school where you could send
a problem teenager for a while
Bardies also love New York. Jane Moseley
(left) is a sculptor in Brooklyn, and mini-mogul
Hannah Bronfman runs a clothing line and
record label with her brother Ben. (Their father
is Warner Music CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr.)
[CONTI NUED ON PAGE 166]
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to get his head straight. 1ere were no science
facilities to speak of, and the school was just a few years removed lom
having its sports teams practice in a gloried barn. (Its now the campus
security oce, aectionately known as the old gym.)
1e schools famous alumni were never around (one of its favorite
sons, Steely Dans Donald Fagen, famously wrote a song about how Im
never going back to My Old School), and many of the legends about
our famous absentee graduates revolved around various angry, weirdly
complex, and pointless campus capers. One popular story involved
Chevy Chase having once led a cow up to the roof of one of the school
buildings as a jokeI have no idea if this story is true (and, in fact,
some people say it happened at Haverford)before realizing too late
that cows can go up stairs but not down them. I leave the reader to
imagine what ultimately happened to the cow of this legend.
Bard claims many well-known alumni, with conspicuous
over representation in the world of literature and the
artstheres actress Blythe Danner, director
Christopher Guest, X-Men writer Chris Clare-
mont (the college gures prominently in the
X-Men stories), and actor Larry Hagman
(two of my classmates like to tell a leg-
endary story involving a hot tub and
a road trip to Hagmans home). Char-
acteristically, some of the schools most
famous attendees never graduated: Chase,
Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys, and actor
Peter Sarsgaard (the kind of person who I could
have guessed, based purely upon his ability to play
deviant or slacker characters, had gone to Bard). Its
probably also worth noting that for a long time the
schools most famous alumni werent astronauts or
senators or captains of industry (though corporate
raider Asher Edelmanclass of 6:was allegedly
the inspiration for Gordon Gekko) but quirky, ang-
sty performers with a countercultural bent.
1at had to be the result of the proudly underdog
vibe that was once a staple of Bard life but really isnt
any longer. When my liends and I returned to the
school for that reunion a little while ago and found ourselves standing
in lont of Frank Gehrys incredible performing arts centera giant,
hallucinatory, spaceship-like structure that is almost like a scale version
of his famed Guggenheim in Bilbaoa few of us shared a moment of
collective embarrassment.
1is Wonderland-like assortment of monumental landscape art,
Austenesque mansions, ultramodern laboratories, waterfalls, care-
fully manicured gardens (the gravel walk and statue garden behind
the Blithewood building is one of the most beautiful places Ive
known), and visual and acoustic masterpieces by the likes of Gehry
is all for just :,oo or so people. On a per-student basis, Bard has an
embarrassment of riches and resources, and a few of us alums found
ourselves scratching our heads at the fact that back in the day we still
found a way to complain about our lives.
1e school today is cutting-edge in every direction, with brand new
facilities everywhere except for the charmingly old buildings, which
have all been restored and now seem old only lom a distance. Once
a home for academic black sheep, Bard is now rated most selective
by U.S. News & World Report and apparently even has an international
reputation. (Even the French know of the school, La Farge quips.) Its
almost like a piece of performance art, a high-end impressionistic take
on the whole concept of a liberal arts school. 1e yawning teenager
you send here can become anything he wantsa symphony conduc-
tor, a physicist, a lmmakerand on the way he will be fussed over by
world-renowned experts in all these elds. And yet, populationwise, the
whole deal is smaller than your average public high school.
With these changes has come the change in the student
body. 1e angsty vibe is mostly gone, and the new
Bard student is still bright and dierent in the
way of previous generations of Bardians,
but he or she also tends to be a positive,
engaged, energetic creature. When I
went back to the school a few years
ago to give a speech, I was shocked by
how put-together and grown up all the
kids were. I suppose this could be simply
attributed to how dierent American teenag-
ers are these days; theyre both more career-ori-
ented and (to use a word thats probably not quite
right, although its close) patriotic than they were
two or three decades ago, a development I nd both
shaming and disturbing.
But in Bards case, the student body has under-
gone other, more specic changes. Now that the
college is so expensive, the students generally come
lom far wealthier (and, presumably, at least mar-
ginally happier) backgrounds. 1ere is evenand
it is physically hard for me, as a Bard grad steeped in
memories of the ironic self-loathing of my student
days, to write these wordsa kind of school pride there now. Donald
Fagen notwithstanding, the schools famous alumni are suddenly around
more olen (Yauch had just been on campus when I last visited), as going
to Bard has apparently become cool in the broader cultural universe.
I dont know how I feel about this. Bard was a huge part of my
life. Its unique and hauntingly odd atmosphere is still with me all the
time, and I know many of my classmates feel the same waythey
have an emotional connection to this place, which seemed cut o lom
the normal world and made just for us not-yet-normal kids. It was a
strange little hidden paradise that is now no longer hidden and per-
haps also not all that strange anymore. But that might not be such a
BADRHIMGAEPAKKa
[CONTI NUED FROM PAGE 144]
THERE IS EVEN=AND IT IS PHYSICALLY HARD FOR ME,
AS A BARD GRAD STEEPED IN MEMORIES OF THE IRONIC
SELFLOATHING OF MY STUDENT DAYS, TO WRITE THESE
WORDS=A KIND OF SCHOOL PRIDE THERE NOW.
t66 | TOWN&COUNTRY