AS Review - April 25, 2016

Inside this Issue AS Elections are this week, don’t forget to vote! PAGE 2 Sex and Romance, ‘It’s Not For Everyone’ PAGE 5 Lakewood Boathouse opens for the season. PAGE 7

Vol. 31 #26 04.25.2016

Vol. 30 # #.#.#

2 • as.wwu.edu/asreview

Trees on campus covered in show, Cover photo by Trevor Grimm // AS Review

Viking Union 411 516 High St. Bellingham, WA 98225 Phone: 360.650.6126 Fax: 360.650.6507 Email: as.review@wwu.edu as.wwu.edu/asreview @TheASReview facebook.com/theasreview © 2016. Published most Mondays during the school year by the Associated Students of Western Washington University.

The AS Review is an alternative weekly that provides coverage of student interests such as the AS government, activities and student life. The Review seeks to enhance the student experience by shedding light on underrepresented issues, inclusive coverage, informing readers and promoting dialogue.

We welcome reader submissions, including news articles, literary pieces, photography, artwork or anything else physically printable. Email submissions to as.review@wwu.edu.

We welcome letters to the editor. Please limit your letter to 300 words, include your name, phone number and year in school, if you’re a student.

Send them to as.review@wwu.edu. Published letters may have minor edits made to their length or grammar.

Marina Price Alexandra Bartick Trevor Grimm Ian Sanquist Will McCoy Morgan Annable Chris Beswetherick Becky Campbell Adviser Jeff Bates

Editor in Chief Assistant Editor Lead Photographer Writers

The AS Elections Have An Increase In Candidates

So Don’t Forget to Vote!

BY MORGAN ANNABLE Voting in the 2016 AS election begins on April 25 at 12:01 a.m. and ends April 29 at 2 p.m. Students may vote online at wwu.edu/vote or log in via mywestern and access the AS elections portal.

Western upperclassmen may remember last year’s Associated Students board election. Five of the candidates ran for positions unopposed, including the single candidate for AS President. In total, nine students ran for seven positions; only the candidates for VP of Governmental Affairs and VP for Academic Affairs ran contested.

This year, there is a total of 20 candidates in the running for those same seven board positions. AS Elections Coordinator Stacey Ejim and Assistant Director for Student Activities Lisa Rosenberg said that the increase in candidates correlates to the fact that we are in the middle of a United States presidential election.

Because most of the positions were uncontested last year, some of the candidates did not do much promotion or campaigning because there was a low level of motivation and incentive to campaign for uncontested positions. Rosenberg said that the energy is much different this year. Students are more aware of the elections and the candidates are excited about running for office.

“I think [the 2015 election] was a little awkward for some of the candidates because running unopposed was both a little bit of a relief and wanting to not just be in office by default but to win and be viewed as the strongest candidate,” Rosenberg said.

Rosenberg said that running opposed and winning the election can give board members a heightened sense of responsibility to serve the student body.

“Getting more people to come to events doesn’t happen overnight, and I’m happy with the fact that students are becoming more aware of elections and the whole process,” Ejim said.

Last year, 8.2 percent of eligible voters (Western students) cast their votes for the AS elections, perhaps due in part to

the fact that only two positions had more than one candidate.

This year, Ejim and Rosenberg hope for a higher voter turn out.

“The AS elections matter so much because this is the one thing in particular that is 100 percent student voices,” Ejim said. “It is important to vote because the board is who represents the students and acts as a liaison between all the different organizations, faculty, and administration on campus, so it’s important to vote because you want the best representation possible for students.”

While the AS elections tend to focus on the candidates for office, there are also referendums and initiatives to vote for.

Initiatives are written by students and referendums are essentially initiatives that are written by board members. Students write initiatives or referendums because they are passionate about making a particular change to life at Western.

For example, in the 2012 AS election, Western students voted to ban the sale of plastic water bottles on campus, reducing the plastic waste produced on campus.

This year there are no initiatives on the ballot, but there are two referendums on which to vote, one of which is in the form of a survey rather than a yes/no question. This particular referendum is trying to get student feedback regarding improvement of General University Requirements.

The other referendum proposes a quarterly fee that would go toward building a new Multicultural Center. The Multicultural Center would provide an expansion of the current Ethnic Student Center that would greatly increase not only the physical size of the center but also the visibility and impact on campus.

“At the end of the day, these elections really set the tone and make an impact on every single student here at Western for the rest of the time they are here,” Ejim said.

For more information and updates on the elections and other events, visit the Representation and Engagement Programs Facebook page.

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EVENTS Disability Awareness Week Kickoff Monday, 4/25 // 12-1:30 p.m. // Red Square // Free Stop by the booth for free food, activities and information on Disability Awareness Week.

Out of the Ashes Tuesday, 4/26 // 12-2 p.m. // PAC plaza // Free Stop by for free performance by local group Out of the Ashes. This event is part of Disability Awareness Week.

Open Mic Night Tuesday, 4/26 // 7-9 p.m. // Underground Coffeehouse //

Free Signups start at 6:30 p.m., show starts at 7 p.m.

Comedy Open Mic Night Thursday, 4/28 // 7-9 p.m. // Underground Coffeehouse // Free Signups start at 6:30 p.m., show starts at 7 p.m.

WWU KhSA’s Heritage Dinner Saturday, 4/30 // 5:30 - 8 p.m. // VU MPR // Students $10, $13 general, Children (4-12 years old) $8 Hosted by WWU Khmer Student Association.

Top Ten: April 18-23 1

Thank Your Lucky Stars Beach House

2

99cents Santigold

3

Product 3 Beat Connection

4

Leave Me Alone Hinds

5

You Know Why You Are Nada Surf

6

Red Right Return Lemolo

7

The Heartland Rabbit Wilde

8

RJD2 Dame Fortune

9

Lost Time Tacocat

10

Alex G Beach Music

KUGS is the Associated Students’ student-run radio station. Listen online at kugs.org. If you’re interested in getting on the waves, pick up a volunteer application in the station’s Students learn about which plants can be used for herbal medicines at a workshop that wasoffice on the seventh floor of the VU. held during Earth Week Photo by: Trevor Grimm // AS Review

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BY MORGAN ANNABLE

TEDxWWU 2016: Inspiring,

The day of TEDxWWU was broken into four sections composed of three speakers in each set and breaks in between sets.

Ray Deck spoke first, giving a talk entitled Solving the 72 Hour Problem: How We Fixed the Foster Care System in Our Community. He detailed the disparity between the number of foster families in Whatcom county and the number of foster children. The overworked social workers in the area were having trouble placing children into foster homes, so Deck asked the social workers what they needed in order to successfully place the children. He found out that, across the board, social workers needed more time. Three days, specifically. This need for extra time is referred to as the 72 Hour Problem. In response, Deck founded Skookum Kids, an organization that works to come up with solutions to the problem, such as Skookum House, where colunteers care for children for those first three days, helping the children transition into the foster care system while giving the social workers the time they need to find a good match for each child.

“Curious people change the world,” Deck said in his talk. “When you ask ‘why’ and the answer is ‘I don’t know,’ that’s where you start. When the answer changes, you’ve changed the world.”

The themes of curiosity and changing the world pervaded the event.

Western alumna Rachel Herd spoke next, presenting an example-filled talk about habeus corpus, which, literally translated from Latin, means “bring me the body.” Habeus corpus is a legal process by which inmates can challenge their sentences. It does not really matter whether the person filing for release is innocent or not, Herd said. The process is used to contest unjust arrests, which often means that the person was not given a fair trial, so the evidence gained illegally has to be thrown out.

Bryant D’Hondt shared his experience in the medical system and in the world after having 15 concussions before the age of 25. He started his time on the stage by telling everyone in the audience to turn to someone next to them and have one person smile and the other try not to smile. Within seconds, laughter filled the auditorium. D’Hondt explained that people respond to smiles with smiles due in part to mirror neurons forcing us to mimic the expression of the other person.

He went on to talk about what it was like to only have vague memories, not many vibrant memories, and that the best way to help people with memory problems is to communicate and ask them to tell their stories rather than asking them if they are okay.

Western sociology professor Baozhen Luo spoke about the journey she went on to learn to accept her own birth name. She said that some systems and institutions can be oppressive at a personal level. For example, when she was a young girl in a small village in Southern China, a comedy skit making fun of a family with three daughters aired on television. Luo’s family had four daughters before a son was finally born. After the skit aired, everyone in her class mocked her for her family situation and for her name. Years later, when Luo attended a Chinese university, professors chuckled when calling her name for attendance. When she moved to Georgia she started introducing herself as Maggie, got married to an American, and started to live a Westernized life, but after her divorce she felt like the name Maggie was a symbol of her failed relationship. She returned to introducing herself as Baozhen, and now teaches all of her classes how to pronounce and spell her birth name properly.

Susan Fee delivered a talk called “Take the ‘Enemy’ out of Frenemy: Teaching Girls How to Develop Healthy Friendships.” Her talk, like D’Hondt’s, focused

AS Presidential Forum provides space for candidate comparison

BY CHRIS BESWETHERICK The most anticipated election in the school year is always next year’s president. On April 20, 2016, the three presidential candidates Stephanie Cheng, Marco Morales and James Molyneux-Elliot arrived in the Viking Union’s Multipurpose room to impress the voters and present their platform: for Cheng, transparency; Morales, equity; and Molyneux-Elliot, representation.

The three presidential candidates running for the president position presented their candidacy in a forum with their opposing candidates in a professional event put together by Western’s election committee. The forum is one of the most public ways for the presidential candidate to vocalize their platform and what their mission is.

“We have a good race this year,” Elections Coordinator Stacey Ejim said.

The three candidate election is a welcome increase from last year, when just one candidate ran uncontested.

“I am happy I am running with other candidates,” Molyneux-Elliot said. “[The competition] will make us better.”

Each candidate spoke competitively, too. The format of the forum allowed for a discussion between the candidates. Different from the Vice Presidential forum, every

candidate was allowed a to give a rebuttal at the end of every question, allotting the candidates more time to ponder and develop what they have to say. In many of the rebuttals, candidates would state their accomplishments in comparison to the others, as well as incorporate their plan of action.

The forum is a lengthy process, a result of the importance of the position. During the forum, presidential candidates sat facing the audience and media, and were asked questions from the VP for Activities Israel Ríos who asked the questions and moderated the event.

The forum also opened up to audience questions, for completely random questions for which the candidates had no expectations. The election coordinators organized the forum in a way to make it dynamic and as varying as possible.

It began with short, 30 second introductions from the candidates which precede the question component of the forum. Then, the candidates answered several questions from the audience. Finally, the candidates gave two minute conclusions to wrap up the forum.

Throughout all of these parts of the forum, the candidates had the ability to rebuttal which greatly added to how much the candidates could include and really offered

more content to judge.

Questions consisted of hypothetical scenarios and inquiries of the candidates’ outlook on certain referendums so each candidate can present their competency and approach to the position. The elections board asked questions such as “The first few years of a University’s new president are usually the most formative, what would you like to see the new president work on initially?” and “How will you carry out your role as president, keeping in mind you will be responsible for six other Vice Presidents?”

For Cheng, she “trusts the elected vice president,” she said. While Molyneux-Elliot believes “[he] may not disagree with them at first, but that’s how you learn,” he said. And Morales wants to be “inclusive” with his Vice Presidents.

Each candidate has the university in their best interest, even though each platform varies between the candidates.

“The university exists because of students,” Morales said. “Students feel subordinated,” Chen said. “I wanted to hold the administration accountable,” Molyneux-Elliot said.

All online voting begins on April 25, and will end on April 29. Be sure to vote!

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Informative and uniquely Western on matching, also known as ingrained responses. For example, rules of teenage girlhood dictate that when one girl tells a secret, the other must tell one in return.

However, the language of teenage girls focuses on BFFs and enemies without much middle ground. Fee advocated for introducing the word “acquaintance” into girls’ vocabulary to promote mental health. She also said that what girls need is to be listened to in order to validate their self-worth.

The next talk explored using the stock market and capitalism for social change.

Jordan Crahan outlined the socially responsible stock exchange, a proposed model in which residents are the de facto shareholders of state and local governments.

Together, the governments and the residents come up with goals for the community and work to achieve those results. This is almost identical to the current model of the stock exchange, in which a business is listed on the exchange so they can be purchased by shareholders. Crahan used the example of homelessness in Seattle to provide the audience with real numbers and go through the math to show how the model benefits everyone.

Kevin Wilhelm spoke next with a Manifesto for the 21st Century CEO. He is the CEO of Sustainable Business Consulting, a Seattle-based firm. He told the story of bringing all the employees into the conference room and showing them all of the numbers. This is a policy that he calls radical transparency, in which every employee has access to all of the company’s spending. The first time he did this, the employees started asking questions and suggesting solutions to the company’s debt. Out of an environment of fear where everyone was more focused on potential layoffs than on their work, the company raised morale by creative, collaborative problem-solving.

“Generation X and Generation Y want to make a difference,” Wilhelm said.

“The employees were empowered to make important decisions and learn a new way of doing things.”

Roger Libby thinks that it is time for the next sexual revolution. He spoke about the first two sexual revolutions in our country and said that, after forty years since the last one, it is about time for another. Despite two previous revolutions, there is still a double standard and a sense of shame that accompanies sexual activity, particularly for women, he said. His ideal third sexual revolution would focus on sex positive enthusiasm.

“It’s going to happen in spite of government, religion, et cetera,” Libby said.

He said that there is no reason to get our values to match up with our behaviors to eliminate that sense of shame.

“We need to celebrate nudity, body, and pleasure,” he said. “It’s time to end the war on sex and the war on women.”

The last speaker of the day was Western student Sara Alkhedairy, who wrapped up the event with a talk about redefining empathy. Instead of telling others that we know how they feel, Alkhedairy suggested being more honest and telling them that we don’t know exactly how they feel but that we are here to listen and learn. The former, she argued, assumes knowledge that might not be correct. That obliterates the opportunity to understand how the person truly feels. She said that intersectionality, the convergence of all facets of a person’s identity, makes it practically impossible to fully understand another person’s emotions, because the two people involved in the exchange are not going to share every facet of identity.

All of the talks at TEDxWWU embodied Western’s motto, Active Minds Changing Lives.

Sex and Romance: It’s Not for Everyone

BY MORGAN ANNABLE

There are a lot of myths and misconceptions that go hand in hand with asexuality and aromanticism.

Western Aces is hosting an event called Sex and Romance: It’s Not for Everyone on April 26 in Viking Union 462 at 5 p.m. that will spread awareness and bust the myths that surround these sexual and romantic orientations.

“The event is based around the idea that sex and romance are not required for a relationship,” Western Aces President Tori Bianchi said.

Vice President Jordan Kubichek said that the first half of the event will be a question and answer session featuring a panel of club members and other asexual or aromantic people.

“We basically want to say to people, ‘hey, this exists and it’s not weird or uncommon,’” she said.

Treasurer Taylor Raybould said that it is important to spread knowledge about these sexual and romantic orientations because they are often overlooked or misunderstood.

“I think one of the most important parts about this is the representation and visibility that this will provide for the asexual community,” Raybould said.

The second half of the event will focus more on building community. While the main goal of this particular event is to spread awareness, the officers of Western Aces think it is also important for aromantic and asexual people to share their experiences and support one another.

“Support and education are necessary because asexual people live in a very sexual world and they might not even be aware that they are asexual,” Kubichek said.

The club leaders said that everyone is welcome and encouraged to attend Sex and Romance: It’s Not for Everyone, regardless of sexual and romantic orientation. Sexual orientation is a hot

button issue across the nation, but asexuality remains mostly invisible, and romantic orientation is discussed so infrequently that many people are unaware of the concept’s existence.

Of those who have heard of asexuality and aromanticism, many still have misconceptions about the orientations. For example, some people believe that aromantic people are incapable of love or that asexuality is the same as abstinence or that it is just a phase. Western Aces aim to help eradicate those harmful myths.

Bianchi and Kubichek started the club in November 2015 because they wanted to find and nurture a community of people with similar life experiences. They decided to call it Western Aces because “ace” is a shorthand term for a person who identifies on the asexuality spectrum, not because they play a lot of card games, which is a misconception they hear a lot.

All three said that their club is growing; it started out with just Bianchi and Kubichek, then Raybould joined, and now, four months later, they consistently have six to ten members at each meeting and Western Aces is currently tied for third in the Associated Students Club Cup. “Having this many people I think is great,” Kubichek said. “The goal for the club isn’t necessarily to make it the biggest club, but having more people there increases the amount of experiences that people are able to speak about. The more people we have the more we can do, and it’s also great to get that level of diversity.”

Because asexuality and aromanticism are invisible identities, many people do not realize that they are part of the community. Many assume that they are heterosexual and heteroromantic because we live in a sexualized society, and a heteronormative one at that. Western Aces’ weekly meetings as well as events such as Sex and Romance: It’s Not for Everyone exist to provide a community that can help people come to terms with their own identity and educate people in order to erase the many myths about asexuality and aromanticism.

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KVIK’s 48 Hour Film Festival Set For May 12 - 14

BY WILL MCCOY Every spring quarter students put their cinematic skills to the test during the 48 Hour Film Festival put on by KVIK and AS Productions. Up to ten teams can sign up and compete against other film geeks in a stress-induced contest.

Each team will have 48 hours to write, film and edit their short movies. Each movie will be shown at the Pickford Theater on May 15. Teams will meet up on Thursday May 12, at 6p.m. to receive their randomly assigned genre and several day-of elements. These elements include a random character, prop and one line of dialogue. Each random element must be used in every film. Each film must be turned into KVIK by Saturday May 14, by 6 p.m.

The 48 Hour Film Festival is KVIK’s biggest event of the year and it keeps growing, Conor O’Keefe, director of KVIK and coordinator of the 48 Hour Film Festival, said. Last year, eight teams signed up which was the biggest turn out they have ever had.

“This event is crazy,” O’Keefe said. “You don’t realize what you can do in 48 hours until you actually sit down and get to work with a deadline in front of you.

It is a mixture of anxiety and pride when you see your film on the big screen, but it is great to have the opportunity to show your work to the community” Each team can have up to six members, but they can enlist other people who can only be actors. If you want to participate but do not have a team, you can sign up as an individual and get placed on a team who needs more members. The team that won the 2015 film festival was comprised mostly of participants who didn’t have a team at first, O’Keefe said.

The deadline to sign up is May 10, and you can find forms on the KVIK website or in their office in the VU. There are going to be a few changes this year, O’Keefe said. First off the film festival will be held in May instead of April, which gives students more time to find a team and sign up. KVIK will also be changing the genres used in this film

festival because there have been genres like silent films, post-apocalyptic and super hero that have been used for several years.

“I really want this 48 Hour Film Festival to be as creative as possible,” O’Keefe said. “This year we are trying to blow people out of the water with our day-of elements. We can’t be too specific with each one, but we want it to be strange so each team can be more creative.”

Last year, the random elements were a book for the prop, a juggler and “they are trying to communicate with us” as the random line of dialogue.

KVIK has created a stronger bond with the Pickford over the past couple of years. Last year was the first time all of the movies were play in one of the theaters at the Pickford. The year before that, only the top three were shown.

“Last year the theater was packed with all the teams and their friends supporting them,” O’Keefe said. “I think the same thing will happen this year, and I hope there will be enough room for everyone.

The 48 hour films are judge by a panel of four people from Western and the surrounding community. Past judges have come from the film studies and English department, various members of the film community in Bellingham and even Western Alumni.

“We are always searching for a well-rounded group of judges for this contest,” O’keefe said. “We try and find different panelists every year so the judging is done differently.

Along with first and second place, films can win a number of prizes from categories like best prop, best costume or best one liner. There is also a prize for the people choice, where attendees can vote for their favorite film.

Prizes will be given to every winner, and include unique gifts from local businesses. Last year, the first place winners were awarded a variety of goods from around Bellingham like coffee and movie tickets from the Pickford, O’Keefe said.

Practice Encouragement and Self-Love at Western’s Kindness Campaign

BY BECKY CAMPBELL After the resounding success of lasts years Kindness Campaign, The Center for Service- Learning and the WWU Service Leaders were inspired to make this an annual event starting on Monday, April 25 and ending on Friday, April 29.This week long event not only involves the Associated Students, but the entire Western campus, including students, staff, alumni and professors.

The Western’s Kindness Campaign was built on the idea that one of the best ways to serve and support Western is to show appreciation and care towards the individual members of Western. The 2014-2015 group of service leaders designed this project in hope that it would inspire students to recognize and appreciate the people around them and express their gratitude.

Each day of the week a different theme has been chosen to encapsulate what the Center for Service Learning and the WWU Service Leaders have chosen in order to help bring a deeper understanding of community service to Western’s campus.

The week starts out on April 25 with the theme of self-love which was chosen by this years group of incoming freshmen, says Jennifer Peterson, a service leader

mentor at the WWU Service Learning Center An example of self-love would encourage students who choose to participate gain a better self-image and are empowered to be who they are. Each year, the Service Leaders program inducts new members, typically freshman and Peterson says they are the ones who come up with the different day themes based on projects they wanted to focus on.

On Tuesday, April 26 the theme will be encouragement, followed by forgiveness on Wednesday, April 27, and appreciation on Thursday, April 28. The week will cap-off with a day of kindness on Friday, April 29.

Peterson says that the Center for Service Learning hopes to raise kindness and service throughout campus. Overall, the center wants Western Students to be aware of the support and kindness that they can gain form each other, and to also become aware of how much they can affect others’ lives as well.

Since last year, there have been a few changes by The Center for Service- Learning and the WWU Service Leaders in which they hope will continue to transform Western’s campus.

To find out more about this week-long event, information can be found at http://wwulead.wix.com/kindnesscampaign.

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Lakewood Opens for the Season

BY MORGAN ANNABLE After having been closed for the winter months, Lakewood is now open again for spring quarter, weather permitting. Lakewood is seven miles from campus, but a Whatcom Transit Authority bus runs hourly to the boathouse. Lakewood is located right on the shore of Lake Whatcom and includes a log building, boathouse, meeting lounge and locker rooms.

The boathouse has watercraft for rent to students ranging from sailboats to kayaks to stand-up paddle boards.

Prices of watercraft use have increased this year, but they are still low for students. It costs $6 to rent a canoe, kayak, windsurfer, rowboat or sailboat (either a one-person laser or a two-person alpha) for a day, and it costs $8 to rent a fixed keel sailboat or catamaran.

To get to Lakewood by bus, take the 512 bus from the Downtown Bellingham Station toward Sudden

Valley. The bus runs once every hour and takes about 28 minutes to get to Lakewood.

Any member of the campus community at Western, Whatcom Community College or Northwest Indian College is welcome to use the services at the Lakewood boathouse, as long as they remember to bring a piece of campus identification with them. Before being permitted to use a windsurfer or a sailboat, guests much go through an orientation to learn the basic skills necessary for use of those vehicles.

Lakewood is open for operation Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 2 p.m. until either dusk or 7:30 p.m., whichever comes first, and on weekends from 12 p.m. until dusk or 7:30 p.m. The boathouse sometimes closes due to poor weather conditions, so call the boathouse at (360) 650-2900 if the weather Lakewood Boathouse Photo by: Isaac Martin // conditions are questionable.

AS Review

The Underground Coffeehouse Sounds of the Underground Series

BANDS OF THE WEEK

The Masses with Rex Queen A MUSIC REVIEW BY IAN SANQUIST

T

his Wednesday in the Underground Coffeehouse, The Masses will play with Rex Queen, as part of the Sounds of the Underground concert series. Each of these bands features students from Western, and each band is also participating in the MakeShift’s battle of the bands.

The Masses is a five-member straight-ahead rock band, with soulful melodies and a psychedelic twang that alludes to hard seventies rock. Fans of Lynyrd Skynyrd and Neil Young will find a lot to like in their sound.

Two songs are available to stream on The Masses’ Soundcloud page. One of these, “Dreamweaver,” is wide-

screen folk rock, energetic and driving with a rootsy infusion of fiddle playing.

According to their Facebook page, The Masses will be parting ways as a band following a final show at the MakeShift. One hopes they’ll leave us with more songs to enjoy before they go for good. As either a statement about what they like to do, or a suggestion to their fans, The Masses have written, under personal information, “Break plates and silverware in order to reduce carbon emissions.”

Rex Queen is a cool jazz band. Their music is subdued, but never slow, and certainly not boring. Another group with only two songs posted on their Soundcloud, Rex Queen is a four-piece, recording chilled out jazz songs with pop structures centered around the lovely vocals of Madaleine DiMarco.

Over these two songs, a common theme or storyline emerges: a woman turns down a man, in no uncertain

terms, but still manages to sound like she’s being pretty nice about it.

“Conversation,” slides forward from its opening seconds, with a subtly funky wandering bass line and an irresistibly rhythmic piano chord progression.

“He wanted more than a conversation,” DiMarco sings in a tranquil voice, with little inflection, sounding both aloof and cautious, and a bit jaded. “I’d have liked to call you friend/But you can keep your hands where they are to stay.”

Her voice transmits effortless cool, and makes you want to lean in close so you don’t miss a word.

In “Big Ol’ Bed” DiMarco is similarly unambiguous: “Some nights I like layin down with someone I don’t know so well, somebody I don’t even know/But honey, tonight ain’t one of those nights.”

This is jazz ideal for late quiet hours in coffee houses, and it will be exciting to hear new work from Rex Queen.

Earth Day 2016

Photos by Trevor Grimm// AS Review