A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square

The UC Octet: making me want to have a eight-way sex marathon since 2008

Once a year, during my High School days, I would be overcome by the most soul-destroying jealousy.  I thought that as the years passed, the intensity of my nasty feeling would decrease.  And yet, each year, the green monster reared it’s ugly, neighbor’s-wife-coveting head from the cesspool of my most unappealing emotions.

And the reason was this: each year one of my school friends would play host to the Harvard Krokadiloes.

To the uninitiated, the Krokadiloes are but one (albeit among the most Ivy League, elite examples) of the many gimpy singing groups that confound and delight Universities and lucky outsiders around the world.  And it is within this particular context that any standard-bearing feminist drops her ideological problem with anything exclusively male, and just embraces the vision of a group of men dressed in tuxedoes or baggy beige pants – walking Tommy Hilfiger ads, all of them – while hearing the most delightful a cappella singing that the ear can stand. Whatever variation we’re talking about, whether we’re in the spires of Oxford, or the halls of Harvard, or the quadrangles of Yale – or even in light-hearted and sunny California – let’s be honest: a cappella performances are aural sex. And it was always a cause of great disappointment to me that I – a member of the choir to boot – would not be able to spend quality time with hot college boys with perfect pitch.

But why this power over women that transcends age?

Let’s break it down.  It’s one thing for a man dressed in a tux, singing choral music in a glamorous setting.  That’s just SEXY1001.  Especially if one factors in that they are strapping young men from some of the most competitive and prestigious Universities in the world.  But let’s take a few steps back – let’s take these strapping young sex kittens back into the years before the glitz and glamour of all-male, unaccompanied singing groups, who by definition are at the top of the social ladder.

A few short years ago, they were probably the kids at the front of the class, who couldn’t go to the end-of-year dances because it clashed with their singing lessons – or trombone, or chess club, or marching band practice – and who sacrificed prime position in the lunch room for the promise of future glory: setting their sights on a higher attainment – trading joyless, acne-scarred youth for wisdom and a pimped out CV.  So really, good for them for making it to their dream schools.  And if a cappella singing helps them know the touch of a woman before they die, then more power to them. Plus, you have to respect the fact that after years of having their heads flushed down toilets, they have now scrounged together enough self-respect to walk on stage, dressed like it is their first day of Sunday School, join arms with the other guys, and high-kick their way through show tunes in front of their peers.  And the audiences really seem to love it.

Now they are making the Great Pyramid of Gimp - and I'd still do all of them!

I myself have fallen victim to passionate youtube searches – trying desperately to recreate the magic and wonder of an a cappella performance in the privacy of my own bedroom…or more realistically, under my covers with a tub of Haagen-Daaz ice cream.  The fact of the matter is: a cappella boys are hot.  I remember a fantastic scene in The West Wing, when the Yale Whiffenpoofs are performing at the White House.  CJ and Carol lean against the wall of the room in which the group perform.  Both of them eye the boys and CJ comments that she’d like them to take her back to her apartment so they can…sing…for her.

Obviously the confluence of natural talent, performance, and preppy outfits – accompanied by presumed wealth, charm, and clean teeth- is more than any woman can accommodate without throwing caution or her bra to the winds.  But I think that it isn’t just those things that make us desire those shining images doing jazz-fingers on stage before us.   It is the image we have of cultural ambassadors, sent forward in time to remind us of those songs and styles of singing that we associate with a more romantic era.  When we rushed to the college doors after an innocent date – desperate to beat curfew.  When our men knew to walk next to the road – in the off chance a carriage may splash us as it drives passed.  Because at heart, we love the image of being romanced in a time when men wore hats outside and the sounds of a cappella singers drifted to us from hidden places on an old campus.

The only way to finish this completely pointless fan-girl blog entry is with a song: