Blacker Hovse,
According to Zack Berger
(A Former Hovse Secretary)

[Lifted from here]

Blacker House is a group with widely differing interests. (How not to do particularly well in one’s classes; how to snake. How to bounce with excitement and radiate visible energy; how to sleep. How to play disk; how to make fun of people playing disk. Such are the interests.) It comprises, also, people of contrasting culinary philosophies (I’ll clean up the sink; no, I won’t); political affiliations (Nixon is the greatest; time to gag); and scientific vision (I like building toasters; I like killing flies). To paraphrase Walt Whitman:

Do we contradict ourselves? Very well then, we contradict ourselves. We are large, we contain multitudes.

This is not strictly true, of course. You should ask the secretary for complete details (see the House List), but a mere one hundred and fifteen Caltechers belong to Blacker. If it’s a multitude, it’s a mini-multitude. If large, we are large only in comparison with cute, high-strung, neurotic Dabney.

That we are self-contradictory and inconsistent is both an occasional criticism from others (too accommodating, we deceive incoming freshmen with our willing ways) and our constant worry. Here’s the worry: if the Houses represent distinct personalities, and if the other six are comfortable in their respective stereotypes (I’d say more, but we’d get our Rotation picks taken away), where do we fit in? How do we represent ourselves?

We do, in short, as was done in the first paragraph: we contain so much that we can try and be many things to some people. Indecisiveness is our hallmark and multi-facetedness our strength. Our legendary house meetings (which can last for several hours) display our love of gab and our inability to decide. Some might call this a curse–but, then again, we’re a student house, not the Pentagon. The fate of our boys overseas emphatically does not rest on any vote in Blacker lounge.

And so we let ourselves talk. Occasionally a Mole (who we must tolerate as a compatriot, but may despise as a bore) will go on for what seems like hours; but this is the exception. Though long-winded, we are not selfishly so. Everyone gets a chance to say his or her piece, however uninformative it may be. Does this help in running the House? Is house government receptive to Moles’ concerns? To the first: maybe. To the second: it makes a great effort.

“A great effort” means, most of all, picks, and the administrative monster that is Rotation. It is during Rotation that the most unrealistic and bustling view of Blacker Hovse can be implanted in the minds of incoming freshmen. If you are a freshman, that’s the way (beyond the net) to figure out what the house is all about.

If you are not a freshman, but are curious and reading this page, we at Blacker House (that’s building 60 on your Caltech campus map) invite you to the House of Fucking Geniuses, the house of the God Damn Blacker Gang: Gamma Delta Beta Gamma.