"Legendary UW-Madison prankster Leon Varjian died from a heart attack at 64 in his Wood-Ridge, New Jersey home Tuesday, according to a UW-Madison release...."
ADDED: Details on the Statue of Liberty prank here.
October 1, 2015
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17 comments:
Sure he's dead?
Sure he's dead?
First thing that jumped to my mind, too. Leon would like that.
Before Leon was a legend in Madison, he was a legend in Bloomington in the mid-70s. He honed his act for you Badgers by running for President (yes, of the US) in 1976. I remember a sign that pointed out that while L stood for Loyalty and E stood for Equality, O stood for Oleomargarine and N stood for Nepotism. The rest is foggy.
Grad school will do that to a man.
RIP, Leon. Truly sui generis.
From the Article:
Campus politicos wanted the duo thrown out of office
Is there anything more tedious than a Student Politician? No.
Thanks to Mr. Varjian and to Jim Mallon for humor.
In a national sign of mourning the pants of college deans shall be flown at half staff.
Accuracy forces me to point out that I typed Loyalty while thinking Liberty on the entry above. Please mentally edit that.
Makes more sense now, doesn't it?
Did you still need him? Did you still feed him?
I also met "Crazy Leon" at Indiana University - Bloomington in the mid 70's. I may still have one of his Leon for President lapel pins from 1976.
Each April 1, he would publish his own version of the Indiana Daily Student newspaper that he called the Indiana Daily Stupid.
Those were definitely less politically correct times...
I am a proud member of the Pail and Shovel party and I have to say, the years Leon and Jim ran the show were the only time while I was at UW that the student government actually represented the students.
Is there anything more tedious than a Student Politician?
Feminist.
Community activist.
Collegiate activist.
I shall have my lawn flamingoes head down in mourning this afternoon.
RIP. You made many people smile.
The Great Rose Bowl Hoax was a prank at the 1961 Rose Bowl, an annual American college football bowl game. That year, the Washington Huskies were pitted against the Minnesota Golden Gophers. At halftime, the Huskies led 17–0, and their cheerleaders took the field to lead the attendees in the stands in a card stunt, a routine involving flip-cards depicting various images for the audience to raise. However, a number of students from the California Institute of Technology managed to alter the card stunt shown during the halftime break, culminating in the display of the word "CALTECH", a common nickname for the Institute.
The pranksters did it all by hand, editing 2300+ instructions without aid of computing.
I strongly recommend to any students reading this blog that they immediately steal student government funds to recreate this masterpiece. Say the money is for production work on the Vagina Monologues as performed by the football squad, and funding is assured.
I snapped a posed photo of Varjian together with Jim Mallon ca. 1979/80 here. I recognized them at the time from their antics and from their cable TV show.
R.I.P. Leon Varjian.
I took a kazoo offered to me by Leon on Labor Day of 1971 and joined in his Labor Day Parade through the Indiana University campus. Now, I am sad.
$4000 in 1979 is equivalent to $14000 today. Lefties - always using other people's money for their needs.
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