The Sun's Surreal Moments

As an antidote to the celebratory and self-congratulatory rhetoric that inevitably saturates newspaper anniversary editions, consider this top-ten list of the most surreal moments in The Sun’s behind-the-scenes history:

Number Ten: Clashing Épées. Perhaps inspired by the creative zeal of J. Kirkpatrick Sale, the outgoing editor in chief who had led a successful student uprising the previous spring, The Sun’s editors carry out of the most elaborate charades ever conceived for the 1959 Fall Weekend issue. Amid towering monuments and war memorials at the City Cemetery, a duel by swordplay is meticulously staged by costumed players.

Number Nine: Falling Editor Zone. In the late 1970s, one Associate Editor is so obsessively and neurotically perfectionistic that he is locked out of the paste-up area by Composing Room Manager Daniel Margulis, with the tacit approval of the other editors. Repeatedly throughout this editor’s term in office, the following psychodrama occurs. A massive thud vibrates a composing room wall, and said Associate Editor comes hurtling over an eight-foot-tall partition and crashing down on the composing room paste-up tables. Flats containing half-finished Sun pages go flying, while aftershocks within the walls send an entire hallway suspended ceiling crashing to the floor. A half facetious, half serious wrestling match then ensues, as the editor is dragged, kicking and screaming from the production area.

Number Eight: The McNaboe Rallies. Having received an A.P. report that N.Y. State Senator John McNaboe — who had earlier received Sun ridicule for declaring Cornell “a hotbed of Communism” — had now further declared that reefers were freely for sale at Cornell and West Point, The Sun’s editors rush into direct political action. A huge streamer runs across the top of the March 22, 1937 front page: “Marijuana Merry-Go-Round At Straight Tonight.” That evening, in an event orchestrated, scripted and performed by Sun personnel, some 850 massed Cornellians witness “Reefer Man” (a.k.a. Managing Editor and future Editor in Chief Fred Hillegas) arrive to the beat of a drum, while smoking a “sinister-looking” Turkish water pipe, bourne by his personal pipe carrier.

Number Seven: Soul Sacrifice. April 7, 1994 is the appointed date to sacrifice the “evil” side of Managing Editor Brendan Sobie, to allow his recessive “good” side to flourish. A foot-tall image of Sobie is crafted from blocks of paste-up wax is displayed in the Composing Room. At midnight, grim attendants, attired in black robes with cowls and bedecked with long stands of beads, place Sobie’s waxen effigy on a pica-rule, and begin a solemn, slow candle-lit march through the newsroom. The lid is removed, and the awful cauldron of hot liquid paste-up wax exposed to view. Then Sobie’s dark side disappears into the molten mass.

Number Six: One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish. Until recent years, Sun editors and reporters — after completing Daybook and other early pages — would head out as a large group for a sit-down dinner in a downtown restaurant, often Hal’s Delicatessen, which still exists on Aurora Street. At Hal’s, the path from its front door to its seating area leads past a large glass counter featuring, among many other deli standards, a substantial selection of whole whitefish. During one early 1980s evening, purchases begin to be made. Later, the Battle of the Fish begins, as multiple editors and staffer thwack each other with slimy whitefish, whose transfixed eyes stare wonderingly at the chaos of shrieking students.

Number Five: From the Precipice to the Pit. The Sun’s 1967 expansion from the Colonial Building’s second floor up into its top floor gives the news, editorial and photo departments the most spacious work areas they had ever known. But one odd architectural top-floor anomaly goes unaddressed. The editor in chief’s office has three doors: one leading to the associate editor, one leading to the newsroom — and a third door, The Door of Death. During many of the years in which The Sun occupied the space, the unblocked, unlocked Door of Death freely opened onto ... absolutely nothing, or more literally, onto a sheer drop down to the roof of a one-story annex far below. After many editorial boards avoid plunging out this aperture, The Sun moves to the Dungeon at 103 E. State St.

Number Four: It’s Snowing, the A.P is Going. 119 S. Cayuga St., The Sun’s five-year year home after leaving the Dungeon in September, 1992, is a much better accommodation, but with one major hitch: Associated Press signals are captured by a six-foot diameter satellite dish affixed to the roof. With any substantial snowfall, the reception of A.P. copy simply stops, requiring a brigade of Sun staffers to parade out the fire escape doors, up a series of fire escape stairs and over several slippery surfaces to finally arrive at the A.P. dish. Ten minutes of flashing brooms, pounding fists on the metal dish and The Sun’s link to the outside world is restored.

Number Three: “A Remarkable Astronomical and Journalistic Phenomenon.” Following an inconclusive staff election, with a 50/50 split in votes for Business Manager, The Sun splits into two warring factions, each claiming legitimacy. On the morning of September 27, 1893 two rival editions of The Cornell Daily Sun appear on campus, known informally as the “Ahern Sun” and the “Slater Sun,” after their respective leaders. After a seven-hour meeting with both factions, Cornell President Jacob Gould Schurman forces a resolution based on the eternal principle that but one Sun should rise per morning.

Number Two: “He That Troubleth His Own House Shall Inherit the Wind; and the Fool Shall be Servant to the Wise in Heart.” In 1976-1977 The Sun endures an unending internal battle, waged day after day ad infinitum, between a faction aligned with Managing Editor Gail Kaminsky and a faction aligned with Editor in Chief Charles Rothfeld. After one evening’s paper is put to bed, the Sun office erupts in a massive pie fight. The editorial page in that year’s Graduation Issue is the only one ever to list outgoing seniors by faction: “The Rothfeld Faction” versus “The Kaminsky Faction.”

Number One: Life Imitates Art. The Sun’s rotating nightly “News Editor” on Pearl Harbor day, Sunday, December 7, 1941 just happens to be Kurt Vonnegut ’44, who that evening finds himself chronicling world events that would soon catapult his life toward Slaughterhouse-Five and beyond.