3 Mar 1971/ Looking for New People

ERGO is on the lookout for new people, as you can tell by the ad elsewhere in this issue (or at least, there is supposed to be, as of Sunday, an ad to attract new ERGO staff members elsewhere in this issue). In particular, I am looking for a literate, semi-regular reviewer of books, to appear on the Finer Things page. Just get in touch with the ERGO office (soon to be in the student center), and give us a sample of your material. As it used to say on our masthead, there is room at the top on ERGO's staff. Just Think! You could be head of ERGO's entire book review department! Turning to sports, (elsewhere in this issue, see an advertisement placed by Lena's Sandwich Shop on Mass. Ave.) there is a sub-eating contest coming up soon, with trophies being offered to the winners, and free tee-shirts to the contestants. Although the contest is only a week old, response from other schools is already coming in, whereas the response of MIT living groups located nearby has been minimal. One group from Emerson claims to have the contestant who "Has the whole thing wrapped up. No one else really needs to bother entering". I for one feel that the M.I. of T. which has more varsity sports than any other university, should certainly be able to field a contestant from any of several living groups. The trophies, by the way, are on display at Lena's. Go over and take a look (the winner's name gets inscribed free on his trophy). As a final note to top off this week's general sweep kind of column, I pluck off a favorite pet peeve of mine which has, through some oversight, not yet been aired in my column MIT's fixation with numbering everything. "212- 56-4708 is going to 26-100 or 6.251 at about 2100," and so on. Everything with a number, and a number for everything. All courses, rooms, subjects. After a bit you get used to it, they tell me; to the point where one even expects or accepts the practice. Just the other day, as I was slaving away on some frivolous project. I said: "Gosh, if I don’t get a move on it, I'll be late for calculus."

 "What?" said one upperclassman. "Why don't you call it by its number?"

"Its just as easy to say the name."

 "So what?"

And I say unto you: "So what?" is the attitude of far too much of the MIT community (as little as there is that could be called an MIT community). People all over this campus express concern, maybe two times during their four years, over the fact that we are all numbered.

"Its more efficient that way," and less human. People don't say "I'm a physics major," (at least not very often) they say "I'm in course 8.”

 Well, as hard as it may seem to believe, there are actually freshmen at the Institute w will give you a puzzled look if you rattle off some not so well-known number, like 17 or 13. Even the classrooms are all efficiently numbered here, so that every student knows about 26-100 or 10-250, or the lobby of building 7. Very damn few people around here call any building by its name, with the possible exception of the Green Building or Walker Memorial. It might change a lot of people's attitudes if they talked about going over to the lobby of the Rogers building, or planned on a class in the Huntington Room, or rushed over to their math class in the Compton Lab lecture hall. Hey You People Out There, don't you feel that the real you is being stifled?

WTBS Highlights

Wednesday: The first live broadcast of the Human Sexuality Lectures: Dr. Margaret Mead on "Trans-cultural views of Sexuality." 7:45 PM

Saturday: Premiere of "WTBS Presents... This week: The Strange story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. 9:30 PM

Friday: First live broadcast from the PotLuck Coffeehouse. This week: Tim Phegley.