Curiousity

This evening at the gym, a character on one of the TV shows (I have no idea what the show was -- it seemed to center on young doctors in a remote jungle area) mentioned he was a graduate of my alma mater, Northwestern University (guardian institution of all that is right with the world and home base in the battle against Illini communism).

It got me to thinking. My school has a number of well-known alums in the entertainment industry (such as this fine character and comic actor who passed away recently). Although I am obviously not one of them, I maintain the hope that one of those more famous alums will call me during some kind of fund raiser, as outlined here.

We get mentioned every now and again onscreen. Buffy Summers almost took her vamp slaying act to the shores of Lake Michigan -- I have to say that, were I a sun-wary vampire, I might reside in rainy Chicago instead of sunny California myself, but not if the Slayer's around. It seems like I remember either Harry or Sally of this movie being a student there, but I'm not sure. In one scene from this adaptation of a David Mamet play set in Chicago, Demi Moore's character is folding a Northwestern sweatshirt, but there's no other connection. Except that this NU alum has a bit part in the movie. This young lady encounters a strangely non-Illini demonic force in the movie version of this novel.

Some movies were also filmed, at least in part, on the campus. Two of them I remember, because I was there then. I can recommend this one, with Tom Hanks and Jackie Gleason. I can't really recommend this one, even though it has Jacqueline Bisset, because it's pretty stupid. I have attended a party in the same common room at the frat house where a party scene in the movie is filmed, though. Although it's set in Cleveland, a library scene from this baseball movie is filmed in the old library building on campus. Tom Hanks returned to Wildcat land for this 2002 noirish thriller, but I haven't seen it so I can't say which scene is on campus. Our football field was used in this movie about the first African-American Heisman Trophy winner, who played in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The Valiant Purple were already a decade past their most recent bowl win, sadly enough. We are also capable of lending our space to really stupid movies, too.