The Comedy Issue - Atlas Magazine

ATLAS

The Comedy Issue

EDITOR’S NOTE

It’s 7am. The book on the table is soaked with coffee and your hair is sticking up in all sorts of unnatural directions. The librarian in front of you looks down with sympathetic eyes and you know you’ve done it again.

You’ve fallen asleep in the library.

Between film projects, theses, campus orgs, and jobs, Emerson students are some of the busiest in the city. So much so that we often forget one of the most important parts of the day – humor.

In this issue of Atlas we explored the idea of comedy in all its forms. Satire, slapstick, deadpan, it’s all here. Want to know how a stand up show is good for you? Check out “Benefits of Laughing” on page (33). Interested in seeing some of Emerson’s wackiest fashions? Our main style spread is calling your name.

This issue is about more than a few knock-knock jokes and a banana peel. It’s about finding humor in the everyday Emerson community. We reached out to comedy writers throughout the school to contribute their personal humor stories to our Campus section. We had our models pose together in a bathtub – fully clothed. We brought out a clown nose and worked it.

We made the process of creating this issue as full of laughter as the articles we wrote.

So take a moment, put down the coffee, hang up the phone, and laugh with us.

Sincerely,

Celina Colby

CELINA COLBY Editor-in-Chief Managing Editor / RAYMOND BELLINGER Creative Director / JAMIE KAPLAN ARTS Editor / JACQUELYN MARR Writers / ANDREA PALAGI, SABRINA THULANDER & MARY KENNEDY

CAREER Editor / CAROLINE CASSARD Writers / ASHLEY CZARNOTA, LEAH HODGE & MICHELLE HARVEN

STYLE Editor / ERIN KAYATA Writers / BRITNI BURT, BRIANNA ARRIGHI, JENNIFER LEAHY & LAUREN FEENEY

PHOTOGRAPHY Photo Editor / COURTNEY THARP Assistant Photo Editor / JENNI HELLER Photographers / CAT GESSNER, KATHLEEN COLLINS, CARLY KAPLAN, EMMA FISHMAN & NIKKI FRANGELLA

HEALTH Editor / ALEXANDRA FILECCIA Writers / ARIANA MARINI, ALEXANDRA STILLS & AMANDRA BRIDGE CAMPUS Editor / ALEXANDRA DOKUS Contributing Writers / CHRIS GILLESPIE, CAROLINE WITTS & RIPLEY BARNES CITY Editor / NICHOLAS DUMONT Writers / MARLO JAPPEN & CASEY CAMPBELL GLOBE Editor / ADAM VIRNELSON Writers / MIRIAM RIAD, CASSIE SCHAUBLE & MEGAN CATHEY

DESIGN Designers / LOUIS ROE & JESSICA COLAROSSI COPY EDITORS HeadCopy Editor / CAITLYN BUDNICK Copy Editors / MEREDITH MANN & JULIA LOEWENTHAL BLOG Blog Editor / ALEXANDRA STILLS Writers / BETHANY KOMINE, ZIMO ZHOU & BRIDGET MORAWSKI MARKETING Marketing Team / ESTHER GLASIONOV, KATIE CARO & BRITNI BURT

FALL 2013 47.

45.

ARTS

HEALTH

STYLE

CAMPUS

7. Arts Calendar 9. Play Me, I’m Yours 11. The Kings and Queens of Boston Comedy 15. A Night at Improv Boston 17. Borrowed from the Boys: DIY Style 19. Funny Fashions on the Boylston Runway 25. Eye for the Avant Garde 27. This Season, Try a Pop of Plum

11.

29. Trekking Beyond the Boston Common 31. Food Fads: the Truth Behind the Craze 33. Benefits of Laughing 34. What the Labels Don’t Tell You 35. The Super Virgins 37. Four People I Met While Working at Bed Bath and Beyond 41. Bringing it on Down to Penis Town

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CITY

43. Stunts in the Streets 45. Getting into the Swing of Things 47. Stories from the Staff: Apartment Hunting and Potential Homelessness 49. Stand Up at Boston’s Pubs and Comedy Clubs

GLOBE

51. From Surgeon to Satirist: Bassem Youssef ’s Rise to Fame 54. Chinese Family planning 56. Fairest of Them All 58. Re-envisioning the Refugee Experience

31.

CAREER

60. 10 Horse Races Until Success: A Profile on Quinn Marcus 63. Office Humor 65. Nonprofits: Passion Put to Practice 67. What Can Social Media Do for Your Career? photos / NIKKI FRANGELLA, KATHLEEN COLLINS & CARLY KAPLAN

ON THE COVER:

photo / JAMIE KAPLAN model / LAUREN GODDING

The Comedy Issue photo / JENNI HELLER models / RIPLEY BARNES & JULIAN COHEN

ARTS Sunday

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Tuesday

14 Jim Gaffigan Jan. 14-18, Wilbur Theater $60 and up

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John Singer Sargent Watercolors October 13, 2013- January 20, 2014 Museum of Fine Arts $25, Students- free

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Wednesday

January 2014 Thursday

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Neutral Milk Hotel Jan. 16-17, 8pm Orpheum Theater $34.50

Pixies, with Fidlar Orpheum Theater

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Karmin February 4, 2014 8pm The Paradise Rock Club $19.50

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William Kentridge:: The Refusal of Time Feb. 6 - May 4, 2014 Institue of Contemporary Art, Boston $15 General Admission, $10 Students

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Newport Jazz Festival: NOW 60 February 13, 2014, 8pm Berklee Performance Center $60

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LaToya Ruby Frazier: WITNESS November 13, 2013- March 2, 2014 Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston $15 General Admission, $10 Students

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Jazz and the Struggle for Freedom and Equality – A concert of landmark compositions in the civil rights movement Feb. 27, 2014, 8pm Jordan Hall at the New England Conservatory Free

THE COMEDY ISSUE

Play Me, I’m Yours

IT ALL STARTED WITH A LOAD OF LAUNDRY. British artist, Luke Jerram, visited the same local Laundromat every week. Each time he sat waiting for his laundry, Jerram saw the same group of people, yet noticed that none of them ever spoke a single word to each other. There was only silence.

It was this kind of city silence that inspired Jerram to create “Play, Me I’m Yours,” an urban musical installation that shatters the silence on city streets and brings the community together.

This living art installation exists in 37 major cities around the globe, everywhere from Santiago, Chile to Melbourne, Australia. The pianos, of which there are over a thousand worldwide, are scattered on city streets for any member of the public to enjoy. Everything from “Chopsticks” to Mozart can be heard on these pianos, as they provide prodigies and beginners an opportunity to embrace music despite their level of talent. According to Jerram,

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the idea behind this movement is to encourage community members to engage in their urban environments, creating a strong bond between the public and their surroundings.

In an effort to cultivate the urban environment, the pianos are locally decorated by city artists or community groups—each one is unique to the culture of its location but bears the unifying “Play Me, I’m Yours” catchphrase.

At the Boston Common Visitor’s Center, students from East Boston High School decorated a piano adorned with yin yang signs and black mustaches on a multicolored background. One side of this piano is painted with a vibrant red zebra print and the other with a softer blue background with suns scattered upon it. Small rat-like creatures are lined up on the back. In front of the piano there is a bench painted neon green. The eclectic, assorted nature of this piano is a direct reflection of the young, diverse students who created it on their own.

Another local design at Hostelling International in Chinatown features an antique white piano covered in a collage of loves letters belonging to John and Abigail Adams. This piano was decorated by local artist Erica Leblang as a symbol of Boston as a historic city of romance.

However, the true beauty of this exhibit extends far beyond the artistic displays painted onto the pianos. The wide reaching social effect of this movement can be seen through its social media presence. Via Twitter, Bostonians can follow this movement at @ streepianosBOS. The account posts photos and videos of people playing the pianos and highlights community events that have sprung up around this movement. For example, on a Saturday in October, the Harvard College Piano Society offered free piano lessons at five of the “Play Me, I’m Yours” pianos surrounding their campus.

Though there is one Bostonian who took it upon himself to expand this project even further.

In late September of this year, James Kennedy read an article that announced the arrival of “Play Me, I’m Yours” to Boston. With 16 years of piano lessons behind him, Kennedy immediately saw this project as an opportunity to create a community movement of his own—75 pianos in 24 hours.

As it says on his Facebook page, Kennedy hit the streets of Boston armed with ten fingers

and a map to see if he could tackle this musical challenge. And though the New England weather extended the project beyond the 24 hour limit, Kennedy still considers it a remarkable success.

He explains that it wasn’t all about playing the pianos as quickly as he could. “It didn’t really matter that I didn’t play them all in one day” he says. “This wasn’t all about me. It was about drawing attention to the power of music and community.”

In order to ensure that many people had a part in this challenge, Kennedy accepted song requests via Facebook and encouraged others to join him at each location and sing along, sending out what he likes to call, “an invitation for people to spend time together through music.”

So, when the solitary silence of the city becomes too much to bear, take a stroll down Newbury Street, a walk around Harvard Square, or a quick dash Downtown and you will be welcomed by the sound of a young boy playing “Chopsticks” aside his father or a young Berklee student playing Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 9” from memory. And when you do, you’ll realize that you’re not alone and that all you were missing was a little bit of music.

“This wasn’t all about me.

It was about drawing attention to the power of music and community.”

text / ANDREA PALAGI photos / COURTESY OF JAMES KENNEDY

THE COMEDY ISSUE

The Kings and Queens of Boston Comedy

The men and women featured here are the best of the best, the elite, the high priests and priestesses of their rib-tickling religion. They have worked hard for years to become the Hollywood idols they are now, but they all hail from another city: Boston.

These, ladies and gentlemen, are the masters of the comedy craft.

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Amy Poehler

POEHLER’S TELEVISION CAREER BEGAN back in 2001 as a featured player on Saturday Night Live and she has since become one of this generations most recognizable comedians. Poehler is a ninetime Emmy nominee whose career has extended well beyond the likes of SNL with success in the comedy series Parks and Recreation and films such as Means Girls, Blades of Glory, and Baby Mama.

But before all of her onscreen success, Poehler grew up in Burlington, a suburb of Boston. She was a comedian even before her professional career began, constantly playing jokes on her family as a child. Upon graduating from Boston College with a degree in Communication, the actress joined the Upright Citizens Brigade, a Chicago based improvisational group.

Poehler’s career is showing no signs of slowing down. Parks and Recreation is currently in its sixth season, and Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues, in which Poehler is featured, is currently in post production. And it all started right here in Boston.

Conan O’Brien

This red-headed act is no rookie. In fact, he’s been in the television business for 30 years.

Before he became a comedy star, though, his leading role was in the classroom. Originally from Brookline, O’Brien spent his high school years as the managing editor for his school newspaper, won the National Council of Teachers of English writing contest with his short story, “To Bury the Living,” and in 1981 he was the valedictorian of his graduating class.

O’Brien continued his studies at Harvard University where he studied American History and Literature, eventually graduating Magna Cum Laude. The funnyman was active in comedy throughout his his younger years, starting off as a writer and eventually serving as the president for Harvard’s humor magazine, the Harvard Lampoon.

Upon his graduation, O’Brien moved to Los Angeles to begin his comedy career.

His comedic roots in Boston paid off when NBC’s cable network competitor TBS offered O’Brien a late night television show of his own, to be titled “Conan.” It’s a post he’s held since 2010.

THE COMEDY ISSUE

Jay Leno

It would be criminal not to mention the late night legend and Boston boy, Jay Leno. Raised in Andover, Mass., Leno spent the first quarter of his life in and around Boston, and in 1972 he graduated from our very own Emerson College with a degree in speech therapy. After graduating from Emerson, Leno began his comedy career by performing stand-up routines around the country, often exceeding 300 shows a year.

He has been NBC’s poster boy for late night television since ‘92. By the time of his retirement Leno will have been hosting The Tonight Show for 21 years. In that time he has gathered 11 Emmy nominations and one win. If that doesn’t give Emerson grads some hope, nothing will.

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Louis C.K.

The hard hitting comedian Louis C.K. has only recently gained the spotlight, but Mr. C.K. has been in comedy for nearly 30 years. A Newton native, who began his comedy career in Boston area clubs, C.K. claims not to have gotten a single laugh in the first two years of his career. It’s hard to believe that was ever the case given his skyrocketing popularity.

Until the 2010 premiere of his comedy series Louie, C.K.’s work has been primarily written or performed as stand up. He has earned Emmy nominations and wins for Outstanding Writing for a Variety, Music, or Comedy Program on Late Night With Conan O’Brien and The Chris Rock Show and an Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Variety, Music, or Comedy Special for his stand up tour Hilarious. Louie has been his most successful venture, though, as he has earned Emmy nominations for writing, directing, and acting in the show. With all this success he certainly doesn’t have to worry about getting laughs anymore.

Mindy Kaling

Like C.K, Kaling has made her name in multiple aspects of the comedy world, including acting, writing, and directing. A Cambridge native, Kaling discovered her comedic talent during her college years at Dartmouth College.

Her first venture into the comedy world after graduation was writing and starring in an offbroadway hit play based off the real life friendship of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, titled Matt and Ben. The play was critically acclaimed and listed in Time Magazine’s “Top Ten Theatrical Events” in 2003.

Kaling’s television breakout was as a writer actress for NBC’s The Office, where she played the boy crazy, girly-girl Kelly Kapoor. Kaling grabbed six Emmy nominations while with the show, which ended in May of this year. Kaling is also known for her new comedy series, The Mindy Project, which she writes and stars in. Her character, Dr. Mindy Lahiri was inspired by her mother, Swati, a former ob-gyn in Boston, another reference to her Massachusetts roots.

text / SABRINA THULANDER photos / KATHLEEN COLLINS, THE CABLE SHOW, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE & NOHO DAMON

THE COMEDY ISSUE

A Night at Improv Boston

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SHOULD YOU CHEAT ON YOUR TAXES by listing giraffes as dependents? It was a Friday night and about 30 people sitting in a dark room in Cambridge pondered this question. Two men stood on a small stage in front of the crowd, wondering out loud if this sort of crime should land you in jail. On the one hand, it’s not like anyone is getting hurt... on the other, the giraffes might not be too happy about the situation. The men then began to pace back and forth in front of a velvet curtain, now debating the importance of giraffe rights. There is only one place this predicament would be seriously discussed: ImprovBoston.

Together, the two men onstage formed an improv troupe named “The Worst.” Throughout the course of the night, “The Worst” engaged in a battle of comedic wit against two other troupes: “Russian for Elephants” and “Disco Basement.”

It’s a competition referred to as ImprovBoston’s “Cage Match,” in which three teams take turns performing for 22 minutes each, trying to prove to the audience that they are the most hilariously entertaining of them all. Unlike the name implies, the teams cannot be heard trash-talking or booing each other. Instead, the entire battle is filled with laughter from everyone watching. Troupes are

made up of all sorts of comedians, young and old, some new to the stage and others more experienced. It is ImprovBoston that provides the opportunity for comedic communities like these to form.

ImprovBoston itself has brought laughter to the city since 1982, making it the oldest comedy theater in Boston as well as one of the oldest in the United States. In 2008 the theater moved to its current location in Central Square in Cambridge, where they provide the community with improv classes and and over 20 shows a week. Artistic Director Mike Descoteux, who has been involved with ImprovBoston for three years, explains the organization’s mission as a nonprofit.

“We are dedicated to serving the community through laughter,” he says. “We have a passion for supporting artists who, in turn, support our growing audiences with the premiere comedy New England has to offer.” There are over 150 regular performers on the ImprovBoston stage, so this means cultivating a lot of talent.

Emerson College sophomore Amos Stillwell (‘16), who participates in Emerson’s comedy troupe “Police Geese” and Inside Joke open mic nights, sat in the audience during Cage Match.

“I had never seen a competition-style comedy show before. It was clear the performers were passionate about making us laugh, and everyone in the room was really into it,” he says. “I think improv is all about bouncing energy back and forth between people and there was a lot of energy on stage tonight.”

Improvisational theater, or improv, has been a form of entertainment for centuries. The basic principle is that participants invent their character, the lines they speak, and a storyline all for the first time in front of an audience. Often improv is structured through on-stage games that provide rough guidelines for the participants to follow, such as Backwards Scene, Dating Game, and Human Props. But performers in Cage Match are required to perform, as the description of the show puts it, “with no games but the game of the scene.” As one might expect, this can lead to some rather ridiculous situations on stage, and tonight at ImprovBoston is no exception. Jokes were made about replacing the American flag with a cereal flag, the dangers of poking a bull in the eye, and many more unrepeatable in a family-friendly magazine.

Descoteaux is primarily charged with

determining the producibility of a show. He explains that the performers propose a new show every three months, and out of the 50plus submissions received, roughly 20 are programmed into the next season. Descoteaux considers how relatable a show will be to future audiences, as well as providing them with a variety of shows from which to choose. It is his responsibility to consider the artistic risks involved for the performers and how far the material will push them to grow as masters of the craft. Improv can also be more than entertainment, but a medium to gain perspective on social trends and encourage dialogue. ImprovBoston is aware of their commitment to the community, constantly asking the question “is there a larger social conscience to this performance?” They offer youth classes designed to nurture creativity and communication skills as well as corporate training programs intended to build teamwork among coworkers. Clearly the benefits of improv reach far beyond the stage.

After an hour and a half of improv at Cage Match, each audience member casted a ballot voting for the troupe they thought was the most impressive overall. Ultimately, and rather ironically, The Worst was voted the best improv troupe of the night. Next week they’ll have to defend their title against two brand-new troupes, and once again, anything could happen while the troupe is on stage. As for ImprovBoston, Descoteaux is certain the future looks bright.

“We’ll continue to foster an artistic home where comedians feel comfortable taking risks, exploring the creative process and connecting with audiences. Our commitment to the community off-stage will deepen as the many incredible applications of improvisation become increasingly recognized.” As the audience at Cage Match filed out of the theater, conversations could be overheard about future shows everyone was excited to attend. The comedy and the camaraderie at ImprovBoston are magnetic and sure to have audiences coming back for more.

Unless, of course, you’re one of those people who end up in jail for conning the government and giraffes.

“We are dedicated to serving the community through laughter.”

text / MARY KENNEDY photos / COURTESY OF IMPROV BOSTON

THE COMEDY ISSUE

STYLE Borrowed from the Boys: DIY Style

LADIES, IT’S TIME TO THINK LIKE A MAN. Fashion tends to repeat itself. Flipping through old Sears catalogues from the 1930s, one will find pictures of women testing out the trendy fashions of the time: silk dresses, button-down jackets, oxford shoes, trench coats. The list goes on. Whether you realize it or not, menswear effortlessly makes its way into women’s fashion. It’s time to “borrow from the boys” and create modern day looks with classic men’s pieces in this DIY tutorial.

Move over, men, it’s time to spread the love of the tuxedo to modern day ladies with tuxedoinspired pants. This fun look can be created in just two steps: Step One: Purchase black leggings or black pants and an assortment of satin ribbon.

Step Two: Accent the leggings or pants by sewing a wide-ribbon detail down the leg with a needle and thread. Choose a thread color that complements the ribbon.

Aside from being stylish, this look will help elongate the legs and ultimately pay homage to the original tuxedo look.

A sign of current fashion features women wearing a male fan favorite: the button-down

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shirt. Instead of leaving the shirt half buttoned in typical male style, a popular trend for women is buttoning the shirt all the way to the top and showing off the collar. Why not take it one step further by accenting the shirt’s collar with buttons, pearls, or beads?

Featured on David Leon Morgan’s blog, this fashion statement is perfect for the recycleconscious girl. Instead of throwing away buttons that pop off clothing, save them for this project.

Step One: Gather a needle, thread, scissors, and a variety of buttons, pearls, or beads.

Step Two: Select a button-down shirt.

Patterned and printed button-down shirts can add even more pizazz to your future blinged-out look.

Step Three: Sew the buttons onto the collar in a pattern of your choice. Pattern styles may include sewing the beads along the perimeter of the collar or sewing buttons in patches on the collar. French blogger “Make My Lemonade” recommends flower-shaped beads, pearl beads, and different color sequins. Have some fun with your creation! Your boyfriend will be jealous.

Does your male friend have an endless supply of neckties? Put one to good use by converting

the necktie into a fashionable bangle. This look from Youtube fashion blogger April Golightly will add a masculine touch to your ensemble and will end up looking just as good on your wrist than in its original form.

Step One: Gather an assortment of ties, a thick plastic bracelet, tacky glue, a nail filer, and scissors.

Step Two: Select a tie and the plastic bracelet.

The plastic bracelet serves as a base for the necktie bangle. Cut the tie to fit the plastic bracelet, but make sure to have excess fabric to prevent fabric cutting mistakes.

Step Three: Trim the excess fabric that will gather on the inside perimeter of the bracelet with scissors.

Step Four: Fit the necktie over the plastic bracelet. To avoid bunched fabric, smooth the necktie over the bracelet with a nail filer.

Step Five: Use tacky glue to glue the necktie fabric together. The fabric should be located on the inside perimeter of the bangle. To make the inside of the bangle look cleaner, cut another piece of the necktie into a strip that will fit in the inside of the bangle and glue it in that location.

If you want to add a variety of colors or patterns

to your bangle, choose another necktie when creating the necktie strip. Voilå! Your necktie bangle is born.

Did you know that belts originally debuted as an item worn by men to accentuate their chests? To add a “feminine pop of punch,” wear a bow-emblazoned belt around the waist. PS. I made this… quotes this look as a “stylish outsider.” Creating the bow belt can be accomplished in two easy steps: Step One: Purchase a belt and a bow.

Step Two: Attach the bow onto the belt with a glue-gun.

So ladies, with these quick and easy DIY projects, create away and define your own masculine-feminine style. Next time, the men will be asking to borrow your outfit. text / LAUREN FEENEY photos / CAT GESSNER models / SHANNON BUTLER, AMBAVI LONGE & HOLLY KIRKMAN stylist / CELINA COLBY

THE COMEDY ISSUE

Funny Fashions

on the

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IN CHOOSING WHAT TO WEAR, people are deciding how they want others to see them. Style is a way to let others know something about that person. The bigger the personality, the louder the clothes, and here at Emerson there are some huge personalities with the clothes to match.

For theater major Emmy Ross, it is hard to tell where the theater ends and real life begins. Ross loves to bring the flair and drama of the theater into her everyday style. A huge fan of costuming, her closet is filled with classic period pieces, such as fifties circle skirts, and petticoats, as well as corsets and a vintage sundress. Ross’ wardrobe suits her personality and complements her lifestyle.

Ross loves to swing dance, and her full skirts make it a lot easier for her to pull out all her best moves on the dance floor and really make a statement.

Jenna Castro is a film production major who likes to run, read, knit, and occasionally don a frog suit. As proud owners of these full body frog suits, she and her roommates wore them ice-skating on the Boston Common’s very own Frog Pond. While there, they drew a lot of attention and were asked to be in several pictures with the other skaters.

Castro hopes the costume shows she can have a good time and isn’t afraid to put herself out there and look a little silly. She is comfortable being a little crazier, especially at Emerson. “The school tends to be more accepting of wilder styles, which is a lot of fun. You’ll see a lot of people with crazy hair and really bold choices, but you still get some weird looks dressed like a frog,” says Castro.

With film production as a major, it should come as no surprise that Kyle Boyce is the proud owner of the official replica jacket from the movie Drive. The audacious shiny, white, satin jacket adorned with a large scorpion on the back lets any Drive enthusiast know they are with a fellow fan. Boyce first saw the movie his freshman year at Emerson and according to Boyce, “it blew my mind.” A few people have been able to recognize the jacket’s movie origins and have given compliments. Boyce didn’t buy the jacket to stand out or make a statement, other than that he loved the movie; he bought it for himself because he thought it was cool. The jacket clearly shows Boyce’s enthusiasm for the movie Drive, and it seems a fitting choice for the film major.

Think old school gangster; the pin-striped suit, flower in the lapel and some shades. Now think pink. Freshman Jonny Houbrick is the proud owner of a shiny pink gangster suit, bought with his best friend back home in a small thrift store.

As soon as Houbrick saw it, he knew it was too

good to leave behind. “All I know is that people get a laugh out of it. Whether they’re laughing with me or at me is none of my concern,” says Houbrick. Nothing will stop Houbrick from doing what makes him happy, and that’s exactly what wearing the suit says.

Fall calls to sophomore Matthew Judge—and his wardrobe. Judge loves to wear clothes that are guaranteed to get a reaction from people, which is exactly what his fall-themed sweater-vest does. The vest itself is a seasonal masterpiece— complete with pumpkins, a yam, and a bushel of apples. When Judge pairs his vest with a bright orange bandana tied around his head, the resulting look is an attention getter. The vest caught Judge’s attention at a yard sale, and he took it home for a mere $4. Pieces like the sweater reflect Judge’s personality, a little quirky and unafraid to stand out.

Sophomore Emma McGuire, a marketing communications major, doesn’t look for clothes that will enhance her character; instead, she chooses the characters that best suit her. As the owner of a swashbuckling Captain Jack Sparrow ensemble from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, McGuire stands out in any crowd. McGuire started cosplaying with her friends in high school. “Halloween was always my favorite holiday, so being able to find a subculture where dressing up year-round is the norm was pretty exciting for me,” she says.

Having a ready to go Captain Jack Sparrow costume lets McGuire interact with people in a way she couldn’t do dressed in plain jeans and a t-shirt.

Emerson is a community of individuals, and it shows through the clothing they wear. Whether frog suit, sweater vest, or crinoline, these students are willing to work any style down the Boylston runway. text / JENNIFER LEAHY photos / EMMA FISHMAN

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Eye for the

Avant Garde

“AVANT GARDE” IS TO FASHION as pearls are to Chanel. Its definition reads as innovative, but in the fashion industry, it applies to anything or anyone who pushes the limit of what is acceptable, especially in terms of style. It conjures an image of a woman with a bob as sleek as the oversize black sunglasses perched on her nose, which overwhelm her delicate, bird-like face.

Her outfit is an array of sharply cut fabric, all feathers and sequins that have nothing to do with the loud, chunky heels she wears on her feet.

To the untrained eye she is a disaster, a walking caricature, but to the style-savvy, she is a piece of art.

It’s no surprise when celebrities, who are on a first-name basis with designers and have millions of dollars to indulge in the latest trends, sweep across the red carpet looking like models themselves. Still, in a world where everyone is dressed to the nines, it takes a truly innovative person to achieve the coveted term associated with creative geniuses.

It only seems appropriate, if not somewhat obvious, to identify Lady Gaga as someone who sets the standard for avant garde style. The pop singer is nearly as famous for her over-the-top clothing choices as she is for her smash hits.

Gaga’s outlandish bravura speaks as loudly as her music, each outfit carefully coordinated to create a different persona every time she steps out.

Her look has ranged from a dress made entirely out of meat to a seashell bikini and a wig to rival Rapunzel. Gaga’s visions of what her clothes should stand for, such as the red lace number she wore to the 2009 VMAs that covered her face, has inspired designers to incorporate her ingenuity into their own collections. Keeping along with the theme of her song, “Bad Romance,” that outfit represented the oppression of women and similar

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versions soon cropped up a Oscar de la Renta.

She embodies haute couture, wearing outfits put on the runway and meant to stand in glass cases at the Met, not on the red carpet, and does so regardless of what the critics write.

Also within Gaga’s realm of eccentricity is designer Marc Jacobs, but not only for the pieces he creates for Louis Vuitton. After ten years as the artistic director for the famous French design house, Jacobs’ final show in which he presented models with larger-than-life plumes of feathers in a nightmare-carnival dreamscape was a true testament to the innovation he brought to Louis Vuitton. However, his personal style speaks volumes towards his artistry as well. He is known for the mash-up of patterns and loud colors in the clothes he sends down the runway. Individually, he’s credited with being among the rare few who can wear a kilt and own it. Combining supremely tailored suit jackets with the famous plaid attire and pristine button downs with spikes, diamond earrings, and Converse, Jacobs breaks outside the box that is menswear, which can be horribly limiting to the fashion forward, and balances between the completely out-there pieces with the definitively stylish basics.

On the opposite side of the spectrum are stars who may not take to stepping out in public sans-pants or flaunting shoes that somehow defy gravity, but still make choices that separate them from the rest. Daniel Radcliffe, best known for his title role in the Harry Potter series, has recently displayed a far bolder style while promoting his latest films this fall. Like every A-list Englishman these days, he knows how to work a well-cut suit, but it’s the unusual pieces he adds to them, such as the electric blue blazer he donned for the premiere of his newest film, Horns, that mark him as someone to watch in the style sphere.

His recent fearlessness with color and pattern, as shown by his quirky camouflage and plaid ensembles at the Venice Film Festival, hints that he just might be the Boy Who Lived to Break the Endless Sea of Black and White.

Conversely, Rooney Mara is changing the face of fashion with a palate entirely comprised of the latter. She was the girl who beat out Hollywood’s elite for the coveted role of Lisbeth Salander in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and continues to stun as Ricardo Tisci’s muse in Givenchy. Together, Mara and Tisci created a look that is both delicate and daring, and it was as if overnight the Oscarnominee became some mystery who everyone wanted to know better, like the Mona Lisa. Despite the shy smile, Mara displays no qualms when it comes to choosing designs that show off just the right amount of her notably pale complexion.

Most of her frocks, including the snow-white stunner she wore for her first premiere, work with a term now coined as the “triangle,” which flaunts the actress’s dainty back. She may only stick to two colors, but Mara does anything but bore audiences with the edgy cuts in the gowns she wears.

Whether by seeking out the most outrageous studded brocade jacket or just wearing an interesting shade of chartreuse, standing out is what fashion is all about. text / BRIANNA ARRIGHI photo / TWO FOR FASHION

THE COMEDY ISSUE

This Season, Try a Pop of Plum

THE FAINT HUM OF KEURIGS BREWING CAN be heard from the safety of many beds. Some are already up and running around, trying to find enough makeup to make themselves look presentable before the dreaded 8:00 a.m. The usual routine does not call for plum lipstick, but for today we are taking a journey down the winding spectrum of plum to see what makeup trends have in store for us this season. For designers like Proenza Schouler and Yves Saint Laurent this is nothing new. Varying shades of the violet face paint have been a staple to runway shows and editorial spreads alike for several

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seasons now.

You can kick your face into high gear with a quick dash of some serious color just as the fashion industry has kicked it into high gear this year with the purple loving. It’s spreading from high-end makeup depots like MAC and Sephora down to simpler shades that can be accessed at CVS and Walgreens for as little as $8. When it comes to making a statement this fall, plum is the way to go. With some of the more fashionforward shades reminiscent of kids’ movie The Little Vampire, though, plum can seem more indicative of Halloween than high fashion.

In order to steer clear of costume central and achieve a look more indicative of fashion week, MAC’s color “Cyber” is accessible at $15 and takes lipstick beyond vampy berry to somber plum. It is definitely on the darker side but no one said deep plum lipstick was for the weak. Take the challenge to be brave, be bold, and be “Cyber”. The attention you will garner around this may be slightly more “ did she forget Halloween was next week?” but the point is to turn heads and Mac is an incredible partner-in-crime for doing this.

Those looking to be courageous this season can take hold of the trend with full force and find heaven in MAC’s “Cyber”, a satin stick that lasts all day and sets with a polished zeal. This shade allows for runway ready-wear without the heavy price tag of Chanel. Wear it with confidence, or for a softer approach that does not scream “look at me” with a megaphone, try CVS for a lighter shade. These are a little more friendly to those of us on a budget hoping to carry out some style along with our daily grocery list. It is extremely comforting to know you can keep up with the trends this season while buying that weekly dose of mac and cheese. Because even Kraft can do with a little glamorizing this season.

For those of us who aren’t quite ready to duke it out for most fashion-forward, there are shades that have been brightened up quite a bit to keep this hue trending without having to go plum

or go home. Thank the makeup gods. Some of these more approachable shades can be found in Sephora, and even CVS, and take purple down a level to an easier blend of the shades we know and love. You can be thankful for a store that allows everyone to be in on the trends without being out of money.

When we don’t have the privilege to be part of a daily Vogue spread there is still a way to participate in the growing plum trend. Sephora’s Rouge Shine and Maybelline’s Brazen Berry (CVS), each a friendlier alternative to MAC’s almost brownish-purple hue, are readily purchased at $12 and $8, respectively, and are striking enough to be noticed without over doing it. Don’t be fooled though, this purple chroma can hold its own next to industry veterans and designer go-tos such as MAC, Nars, and Bobbi Brown.

These playful shades are for students who are feeling daring without wanting to jump out of the fashion plane sans a designer parachute. They are both edgy and trendy, but still acceptable for that early morning run to Dunkin. And remember, people can’t help but to be impressed with a girl that leaves her mark, a purple one of course. text / BRITNI BURT photos / CAT GESSNER model / ALEXANDRA JAMES

THE COMEDY ISSUE

HEALTH

Trekking Beyond the Boston Common NEW ENGLAND IS HOME TO SOME of the most stunning forests- abundant with lakes, hikes and the like. Living as a student in downtown Boston has hindered many from these hidden wonders.

The only trees ever seen are the ones that line the Boston Common. While Emerson students find solace in escaping to the park across the street after a long day in our miniature concrete jungle, New England nature waits only an hour outside of the city.

City dwellers need to get out and find a good hike once in a while. To slip away from honking cars and the screeching greenline, and envelope

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in the sounds of wind weaving through trees and of feet kicking through brush. To breathe fresh, crisp air and to let it resonate in your bones.

Allison Grosz is an avid hiker in Boston and thrives off this escape. She has a few favorite New England Trails helping her do so. Franconia Ridge in the White Mountains in New Hampshire is her top choice.

“It’s not for the faint of heart and there’s lots of physical climbing and jumping involved, but if someone wanted a more difficult and scenic trail, that would be my recommendation,” says Grosz.

It’s the second highest range of peaks in the

White Mountains, so she means business. The most popular hike on the trail is dubbed the Franconia Ridge Loop, and it’s 8.9 miles. This loop is very strenuous, with a cumulative gain of over 3,900 feet, making it extremely rewarding for hikers like Grosz.

“The views are stunning on a clear day,” says Grosz. Hiking along the ridge ascends hikers above the surrounding hills and abundant forests- putting them on top of the world.

Mount Monadnock is also a popular hiking spot in New Hampshire, and is a little less strenuous. It’s described as a great half-day hike, renowned for providing beautiful 360 degree views of the surrounding mountains, rivers and lakes of the summit.

The exquisite views have impacted many, like famous Transcendental writers, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Emerson visited frequently, and captured it’s beauty through his poem “Monadnoc” written in 1845. “ Our Music’s in the hills,” Emerson wrote, as he trekked the sights he embraced the importance of walking in nature, “Youth, for a moment as free as they, Teach thy feet to feel the ground.”

Grosz recommends the White Cross trail on Monadnock. Although it’s more difficult, it is also incredibly scenic and provides a steady descend on the way down.

The trouble for students and hiking comes with transportation. Though a car is necessary to get to some of these locations, there are some that can be accessed by public transportation.

The Blue Mountains, which are on the south shore of Boston can be accessed by the red line.

This is probably the most convenient for Emerson students. Junior Tania Rios went to go check it out for herself with the on campus

organization, Earth Emerson.

“These are the classic New England woods you hear about before you ever move to New England. A botanist’s playground, they’re delightfully diverse, with a huge range of tree and plant species. Even the bird calls you hear walking through the woods are sharp, alive, and rich with variety,” says Rios.

Surroundings are definitely the most important part of a hike.

There is nothing like the beautiful sights of mountains or lakes that you come to discover only by your feet. These surrounding are what make hiking the best form of exercise for the body and the mind.

Instead of pressuring yourself to go to the gym, straining through a workout solely to make your body look and feel good, hiking makes your soul feel good. You want to be there, soaking in sun and gasping at the views you discover that keep surprising you-- and you want to enjoy it with others.

Social hiking is not only important for safety, but also makes the trip memorable and easy. These conversations eliminate the pressures that stem from the term “exercise”. You forget about it; too focused on enjoying time with friends in a beautiful place. The healthiest form of exercise happens without even realizing it, especially if you get to be outdoors- losing yourself in time and in nature.

So get out of the city and go take a walk. You will never feel so free. test / ALEX STILLS photos / CAT GESSNER

THE COMEDY ISSUE

Food Fads: the Truth Behind the Craze

SOME FOODS BECOME FADS faster than fashion trends, but many people don’t research the harms of eating certain foods before incorporating them into their diets. Before complaining that there’s no gluten-free options at your favorite cafe, no kale soup at a local diner, or quinoa pasta at the grocery store, consider some crucial nutritional information about these food trends.

Kale

From kale chips, to kale soup, to sun dried tomato kale hummus, this dark leafy green has been making its way into menus and markets everywhere. Kale is loaded with beneficial nutrients. It’s a good source of fiber, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Vitamin K, calcium, and potassium.

Kale is a great source of many nutrients, but too much of anything, especially when it comes to your diet, isn’t beneficial. “It would be harmful if someone were to eat so much kale that it displaced other foods in their diet that provide important nutrients.” says Rachel Reynolds, registered dietitian at Sargent Choice Nutrition Center at Boston University.

There’s some worrisome controversy surrounding kale. Kale’s nutrients are encapsulated in the carbohydrate cellulose, which can be tough for the human body to digest. Eating too much raw kale can cause bloating, gas, and other digestive issues. Kale, along with other cruciferous veggies, contains a compound called isothiocyanate which inhibits thyroid hormone production.

“For people on certain blood thinners, eating a lot of kale may be dangerous because it contains Vitamin K, which promotes blood clotting,” says Reynolds.

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Gluten-free Foods

Avoiding gluten, a protein found in wheat, rye, and barley, has become one of the biggest trends of 2013. Should people be paying a premium for gluten-free foods if they don’t have to? Reynolds says no.

“The only reason people should eat glutenfree diet is if they have a medically diagnosed gluten intolerance, gluten allergy, or Celiac disease,” she says. Cutting out gluten puts unnecessary restrictions on the diet for those with gluten tolerance. Eating a gluten-free diet can make it difficult to get enough fiber and other types of nutrients.

Aside from cutting out expensive glutenfree foods from your diet, a great way to eat healthily on a student budget is to “shop the perimeter of the supermarket, and then go home,” says Dr. Judith Mabel, a nutritionist at Nutrition Boston. “Don’t buy any processed food.”

Quinoa

Quinoa, a type of whole grain, is a popular choice at hipster dinner parties everywhere.

“It’s very versatile,” says Mabel. “You can make a couscous or pan sauté it with your veggies or there’s quinoa pasta.”

This food fad many nutritionists are happy to see catch on, particularly because of its fiber content, which is beneficial for both digestive and heart health. “It’s important to eat many different sources of fiber because different foods contain different amounts and types of fiber,” says Reynolds.

Quinoa is often thought to be high in protein because it’s considered a “complete protein”, containing all of the essential amino acids the body needs. However, it actually has a fairly low amount of protein compared to other foods. A single serving of quinoa only contains about 3g of protein while a serving of lentils contains about 13g. This may not be worth it for some people considering the amount of starch and calories quinoa has.

The Master Cleanse

The Master Cleanse diet has become increasingly popular particularly with the endorsement of celebrities like Beyonce and Gwyneth Paltrow. Master Cleansers make a drink consisting of lemon juice, cayenne pepper, maple syrup, and water. They drink this every day for up to two weeks while fasting on all other foods and supplements, hoping to detoxify their systems and lose weight.

“The Master Cleanse provides few, if any carbohydrates, protein, fats, or calories in general,” says Reynolds. It’s essentially starving the body. People lose weight on the Master Cleanse, but at an unhealthy cost.

Mabel advises caution when fasting in general. “Your body will start to break down its own protein to survive,” she says.

A food that becomes trendy because of nutritional qualities and health benefits can and should be added to an individual’s diet. However, it’s important to understand what these nutritional qualities and health benefits are, and then eat the food as part of a balanced diet. Make sure to consume a variety of whole grains, lean proteins, fruits, and vegetables. text / ARIANA MARINI photo / CARLY KAPLAN

THE COMEDY ISSUE THE COMEDY ISSUE

benefits of laughing BEFORE JORDAN PERRY, president of the comedy troupe Jimmy’s Traveling All-Stars, walks on stage, he takes a deep breath and clears his mind. He gets into the character of his first skit.

The audience roars with laughter. Typically when you are laughing, you are reacting to humor or comedy. For Perry, laughter is a way to feel good.

Though the purpose of laughter is not to improve your health, there are some side effects that are conducive to it.

Laughter is a major combatant to stress. When you are stressed, you release hormones such as epinephrine (adrenaline) and cortisol. Cortisol diverts energy from other functions in the body, such as the immune system, in order to use and conserve it for the stress stimulus. Laughter, which releases endorphins, suppresses stress hormones.

When stress hormones are reduced, it allows for an improvement in immune functions because cortisol is no longer deterring the energy that the system needs. Studies have shown that women who are characterized as optimistic see less cancer growth because they are able to laugh and make light of their situation, which in turn optimizes their immune system and creates more antibodies.

When you have a really good, deep laugh, your whole body is involved. Your head may tilt back, arms swing, and stomach muscles contract. Some people laugh until they are rolling around on the ground, some even cry. These are all responses to the hearty, belly laugh. During intense bouts of laughter, your heart rate significantly increases, mirroring what happens during exercise. William F. Fry, humor research pioneer who experimented with heart rate and laughter, noted that one minute of a strong, jovial laughter produced the same heart rate as ten minutes of rowing on an

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exercise machine. Intense laughter can result in muscle soreness, similar to the sore feeling after a heavy workout. However after laughing, your heart rate returns to a relaxed state faster than it does after exercising. Robert R. Provine, psychology professor at University of Maryland, Baltimore County, says laughter can be a gentle form of exercise though the calorie cost has not been determined yet.

Laughing also improves your mental health, mostly due to the positive emotions associated with laughter. It serves as a distraction from anything negative in your life. Humor researcher Rod A. Martin says laughter is a coping mechanism. The positive emotions tied to laughter temporarily replace those of anxiety, depression, or anger. This is why people sometimes laugh at inappropriate times or break out in bouts of nervous laughter. It is a way to emotionally deal things that make us uncomfortable—a defense mechanism.

Laughing is contagious; it’s part of human nature. When a person sees laughter, their instinct response is to laugh as well. “The neural mechanism responsible for laugh epidemics replicates behavior that it detects, producing a behavioral chain reaction,” says Provine in his novel Laughter: A Scientific Investigation. The contagiousness is one way laughing strengthens relationships. People who laugh together form a certain connection and comfort. Laughter can diminish stress in social situations, which enhances social interactions. “I like to try and make people laugh,” Perry says, “because I believe laughter brings us together.” text / ALEXANDRA FILECCIA photo / DANIEL LIU

what the labels

don’t tell you

ON PACKAGED FOODS, most people look to the nutrition facts first for information about what they’re eating. Although this label is a good numerical indication as to what you are eating, it is not always the most reliable. This is where the ingredients list plays a very significant role in processed foods, as it shows you what you are actually consuming.

For example, the FDA is legally allowed to label a food as “0g trans fat” if it contains .5g or below. This means that even if your food says it has no trans fat, it just might have up to half a gram per serving. Instead, take a look at the ingredients list. If you see “hydrogenated oil” anywhere on it, that means trans fat.

Foods also labeled with “fat-free” or “less sugar” can be intriguing, but are they actually healthier? When fat and sugar, amongst other things, are taken out of the food, other ingredients, such as sodium, sugar substitutes, and manufactured chemicals, are added to compensate for it. Although it provides less of that initial ingredient it does not qualify as a healthier option. Unnatural ingredients are making their way into your diet and into your body.

To see this first hand, compare the original kind of food with its “modified” kind, as Kimberly Dong, Emerson College nutrition professor and eating disorder counselor at Tufts Medical Center calls them. “Don’t focus on reduced or light, its savvy marketing tools. Look in the back and see what chemicals they use to make it that way, like artificial sweeteners.” She explains the original version may not be as bad as the modified. “It’s about what constitutes nutrition and what is healthier.”

It is also useful to pay attention to the first five ingredients listed. The ingredients are ordered by how much is in the food item. Therefore, the first five are used in the greatest abundance.

If salt, sugar, or any type of oil are in those first

ingredients, look at the nutrition facts and see how much sodium, sugar or fat is in one serving of that food. Once you make that connection, you may change your mind about eating it to not exceed your dietary limits. The daily recommended amount of sodium is 1,500 mg and fat intake should be limited to 25-30 percent of your total calories. There is no recommended amount of sugar, but it should be limited as much as possible.

Also, the more ingredients there are in the list, the more processed and unhealthy that food is for your body, especially if you don’t recognize the ones named. Try sticking with foods that have the least amount of ingredients.

Paying careful attention to what you are eating may feel like just another daunting task, but with practice, it can become easy and sometimes fun. As a professional, Dong understands it is a struggle for people to make it a priority. She recommends taking the time to plan and becoming educated about the food industry.

She questions, “Who else is going to do it if you don’t?” text / AMANDA BRIDGE

THE COMEDY ISSUE

CAMPUS brought to you by Emerson comedy writers

The

Super

Virgins 36 ATLAS MAGAZINE 35 ATLAS MAGAZINE

VIRGINITY IS A VERY interesting thing. It’s not even a medical or biological term; we, as mankind, just felt like virginity mattered. Nowadays, people view it as another hetero-normative and inherently sexist thing to keep women looking like valuable goods instead of people. Stay classy, humanity.

As time and the slum of mankind progresses, however, people have become hastier and hastier about getting rid of their virginity, not realizing that they have magical powers. Yeah, that’s right, if you’re a virgin (male or female), you got a shit ton of superpowers. Granted, those magical powers no longer apply in the modern world, but still. Throughout history, virgins have always been considered better people. Virgins were keepers of the sacred flame, supernatural warriors, and the mothers of exceptional children (like the one who had that guy Jesus; maybe you’ve heard of him). Virgins trod along the line between our realm and the realm of the spirits; in other words, virgins were badass mofos.

So, if you are still, in fact, a virgin, I’m here to make you aware of your heightened abilities; think of it like the X-Men. This way, when you cry into your pillow every night while your roommate gets some, you can at least do so in a salt circle to prevent dragon abductions. What better way to start than with the true meaning of the word virgin. Just like Christmas, the mystery of the virgin has been altered and corrupted into a horrible lie so that major corporations can suck people dry of all their money and self-worth. In truth, it goes back long before the Middle Ages, when the word “virgin” referred to those “living apart.”

While the rest of mankind was making babies, virgins would channel their energy in other ways to help the community. They were the inventors, teachers, and explorers, and instead of rearing vast broods of children, they reared vast broods of swag. Some of the cool swag that only virgins possessed included interacting with unicorns, slaying dragons, warding off witches, repelling demons, traveling through time and space, and

dancing. No joke, the Vestal virgins in Ancient Rome had moves. Over time, anything that society didn’t understand or straight up feared, they left to the virgins, thus leading to virginal sacrifices. Now keep in mind that in most cases, virgins volunteered themselves as sacrifices, likely out of boredom; I don’t know. Virgins were typically the ones, though, that got to choose between adventures into the unknown or getting laid either by the gods or a fellow human.

So, when you give up your virginity, you are relinquishing your powers for another power.

You see, joining the Bang Club has its perks too.

To illustrate a recent account, my friend and her college boyfriend had their first time. While she was upset to have lost her ability to see unicorns, she did, however, receive an interesting note that was slipped under her door. The note said: The shag community would like to honor you into the new member club. With this membership and your god given right, you can now have sex with whomever and as many people as you want. We concede that you should only have intercourse with those whom you trust and also give you their consent. Please do not attempt to have sex with children or animals. With such an honor comes great responsibility, and we hope you remain responsible with your sexual drive. Best of luck, and here’s a condom.

My friend was very excited to say the least, not because she was being welcomed into a new interesting chapter of her life, but because she liked the idea that elves were hired to send out the notes to first-time bangers. So, be proud of your sex life or lack of it because, either way, it’s going to be magical due to the fact that in either case, mythical creatures will be getting all up in your business.

“If you are still, in fact, a virgin, I’m here to make you aware of your heightened abilities; think of it like X-Men.”

text / RIPLEY BARNES illustration / RIPLEY BARNES

THE COMEDY ISSUE

Four People I Met While Working at

Bed Bath & Beyond 1) Shopaholic Barb

I actually don’t remember if her name was Barb, but she kind of looked like one. She came tearing into the store one Saturday morning with a shopping cart and a look of a total euphoria on her face. Have you ever seen one of those YouTube videos where the parents surprise their kids by telling them they’re going to Disney World and they just have this two-second look of pure joy before they dissolve into hysterics? That look is what was on this woman’s face as she grabbed a shopping cart and dove into our endless aisles of over priced towels.

Two hours went by without me seeing any sign of Barb until, suddenly, one of the floor employees showed up at my register with a shopping cart dangerously full. “There’s this lady coming to check out in a few seconds,” he told me. “She has three carts, so we’re helping her bring them all up.” Something in me just knew that all these carts were going to belong to Barb, and sure enough, a few seconds later, she came around the corner with another shopping cart full of giant door mats. Two other employees followed her, each with carts, as her parade of commercial consumerism made its way to my register.

“Are you ready for a big order?” she asked me cheerily.

The next twenty minutes flew by chaotically.

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Barb would start throwing shit up on my counter, and I would ring it all up. While she unloaded, she told me why she was buying each and every thing as if she were just trying to justify it to herself.

“This trashcan is for my son’s kitchen; his wife just has the worst taste in trashcans…”

“My husband is always complaining about our towels, and these match my eyes, so I think they will work…”

“My sister told me about this; you just clip it on your rear view mirror and you can hang your phone off of it, which is great for when I watch Netflix while I drive…”

When everything was finally rung up and bagged, her total came to $1,060. It was the first purchase of over one thousand dollars that I had ever seen in my few months of working there.

She responded happily, “Oh my husband is just going to kill me; I already spent a thousand dollars in Target today, and I promised him I wouldn’t buy too much!” Oh, Shopaholic Barb.

2) Crazy Hat Lady

That’s what everyone called her. She wandered into the store one day, and the minute my co-worker saw her, she picked up the phone and called the manager.

“Hey,” she whispered into the phone loudly.

“Crazy Hat Lady is back!”

“Who’s Crazy Hat Lady?” I asked her after she

hung up. “This lady comes into the store at least once a month and stays here for hours, and she’s always wearing that hat,” she told me. “We always catch her trying to steal stuff, but she always just puts it back when she sees us looking!”

I watched CHL disappear into the Small Appliances section of the store, the giant pompom on top of her hat bouncing behind the can openers. Then she disappeared from view entirely.

A couple hours later, I was heading to the break room for lunch, and I saw her again. I had forgotten about her completely and was shocked to see that she was actually still in the store. She was lovingly stroking a Yankee Candle while another employee stood a safe distance away and stared at her while pretending to re-stock pillows.

Another few hours later, the store was getting ready to close, and I was cleaning up around the registers when I saw the pom-pom once again moving around in the makeup section. A different employee was right on her tail, watching as she picked up different lipsticks and then put them down. I stared at CHL in shock because that meant she had been in the store for a good six hours. She wandered out from the makeup, no shopping cart or basket, and walked up to me.

“Are you closing?”

“Yeah,” “Okay.” She grabbed a chapstick from the display next to the register and put it down. “I’m going to buy this.”

I rang it up for her, and she paid me with quarters from her pocket. She then took the chapstick and walked out into the dark parking lot, the neon pom-pom from her hat lighting the way.

3) Cynthia

Cynthia kind of looked like a ginger Betty White. She was really small and really old, and she always came to the store really late on weeknights. I first met her when she came into the store one Thursday. A lot of employees knew her, and I heard them calling her Cynthia when she passed them, so I guessed that was her name.

She always talked to herself as she moved around the store; so, I would be at my register, and I would just hear a random exclamation of “Oh, wow, look at these patio lights!” or “Jeez, these table cloths are soft!”

The first time she came through my register,

she had a lot of stuff to ring up, which meant we spent a lot of time together. In the time it took me to get everything in a bag, she told me her life story. Now, when I say life story, I mean her ENTIRE life story. I learned that her best friend’s dog liked a very specific type of dog biscuit that only we carried, and that dog’s name was Biscuit because he loved our biscuits so much, and that dog was yellow. I also learned that her daughter had recently gotten married, and she had worn a dress that was like the one Marilyn Monroe wore, and she thought that was bizarre, but it had looked good on her, so why worry, right?

She also explained how her friend had this dentist who knew this guy who had this daughter who always used electric candles instead of real ones, so that’s why she was buying them.

After everything had been rung up, I said goodbye to Cynthia, and one of our employees helped her push the cart to her car, and she was gone. A couple weeks later, however, she came back really late on a Wednesday. As luck would have it, she came through my register again with another load of stuff to buy. The first thing I rang up was a tin of very specific dog biscuits we sold.

“Now, I have this friend,” she said. “Who has this dog named Biscuit…” I got the whole life story again. Every single detail was retold right down to the Marilyn Monroe dress and the dentist’s friend’s daughter’s love for electric candles. I nodded along like I had never heard it before, put her bags in the cart, and called an employee up to help her bring it to her car. She walked out the door loudly expressing her love for chandeliers. I don’t know why either.

4) These Two Russian Women

So, these two Russian women come into the store one day looking for wash cloths. They had two of the thickest Russian accents I have ever heard. You know when someone speaks with such a thick accent that even if they’re talking to you in English, they still sound like they’re speaking another language? That’s how these two ladies sounded. They were both well into their sixties, and they had huge hair and lots of makeup. They came into the store speaking rapid Russian to each other and gesturing around the store wildly. One of them approached me and said, “Vhere are ze vashcloths?” (This is me doing a Russian accent, so go with it).

I pointed them in the right direction, and they were off. Now, the washcloths were not that far

THE COMEDY ISSUE

away from where I was working, so I could hear them the entire time. Sometimes they would add broken English into their rants so I could get the gist of what they were saying. I would hear a long sentence of Russian and then the word “cheap” or “disgusting.” I was getting the vibe that they were not impressed with our washcloth selection.

About an hour later, the two of them appeared at my register again, each holding a single white washcloth.

“Vhere is your boss?” one of them asked me.

I assumed they meant my supervisor, so I went and got her for them. She approached them with the usual customer service ready smile, but they seemed to not be having it.

“Ve vant your cleanest vashcloth,” one of them said, handing my manager the one she had in her hand. “Zees are not clean enough.”

My manager looked down at the spotless, white towel in her hand in confusion. I could tell this was the first time a customer had asked for anything to be “cleaner.”

“You want us to wash this for you?” she asked in confusion. The second Russian lady spoke up.

“Zees have been touched by others,” she said angrily. “Ve vant new ones.”

My supervisor shot me a look, and I just shrugged. We weren’t allowed to ever tell a customer no, so she was going to have to be creative with these two.

“Okay, why don’t you just give me a second, and I’ll look in the back for you,” she

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said cheerfully and disappeared into the store.

Meanwhile, the two stood next to the registers and verbally abused a candy display in Russian.

I stood uncomfortably nearby and tried not to make eye contact as they shot me disgruntled looks like I had been personally responsible for dirtying their chosen washcloths and making them wait.

Suddenly, my supervisor appeared again holding two white washcloths. I knew right away that those were the same washcloths as before, just folded differently.

“These are the cleanest ones we have ma’am,” she said, handing them back to her. They began to inspect them diligently, muttering to one another and holding them up to the light like crime scene investigators. Apparently, neither of them was considering the option of simply taking them home and washing them personally like everyone else did.

After two agonizing minutes of watching them sniff and rub their faces against these washcloths, they both nodded and said, “Zees will have to do.” They made a few more observations about the store in Russian and then left. Now, whenever I look at towels, I wonder how many people have rubbed their faces against them trying to see if they were dirty. text / CAROLINE WITTS photos / JAMIE KAPLAN

Apply to Atlas for Spring 2014

We are accepting applications for all writers, photographers, designers, and copy editors.

Email a cover letter, resume, and work samples to emersonatlasmag@gmail.com THE COMEDY ISSUE

Bringing it on Down to

Penis Town

IF THERE’S A QUESTION THAT I GET ASKED more than any other, it’s “Chris, how can you be so goddamn handsome?”

If there’s a question that I get asked the second to most, it’s “Chris, how do you come up with this shit?”

The answer to that second question is complicated, but, like most things in my life, it revolves around my penis.

All kidding aside though, if you want to improve your creativity in a fun and exciting manner, you should get freaky frequently. Trust me. It’s a good idea.

Now, I would just tell you to go out and have sex with a lot of people, but I decided to keep my advice PG-13. The last thing you need is to get an STD in the pursuit of creativity, and the last thing I need is to be blamed for a spike in the birth rate amongst would-be writers nine months from now.

“Mother, Father, you might want to sit down.”

“What is it, daughter whose name is Susie for the purposes of this example?”

“I’m having a baby.”

“Jesus Christ, Susie! How could this happen?!”

“Well, Chris Gillespie told me if I wanted to be a writer I needed to have a lot of sex, so I did.

Apparently without a condom, the pill, or any form of birth control, for that matter.”

So, with everyone’s best interest in mind, I’m choosing to keep this point in its proverbial pants.

I’m more concerned with what your brain is doing while you’re having sex, anyway. Yeah, I know, real kinky.

When you and another person get freaky, your brain rewards you by releasing a neurotransmitter called dopamine into your system. When an increase of dopamine is introduced into the system, your latent inhibition becomes more relaxed and transparent, and your conscious mind can easily take a glimpse into it. For this reason, connections that your brain had been secretly

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making the whole time without ever telling you seem to spring out of nowhere into the forefront of your imagination as new moments of insight.

Therefore, as a writer and artist, you should constantly be trying to get dopamine into your system so you can take a peek at what your subconscious has been working on but has been too embarrassed to show you. To get transcendental for a moment: your brain is infinitely vast and contains more secrets than you can possibly be aware of. Take advantage of that mystery. Explore what your subconscious has to offer.

Throughout history, there have been artists who have turned to drugs and other substances to spark their creativity. I’m not saying that those methods aren’t necessarily effective; just look at the English Romanticist Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

He tripped serious balls on opium on a regular basis and wrote some of the most influential poems of the 19th century.

So before you take some opium, pass out at your desk, suddenly wake up three hours later, and casually jot down a 350 word poem about an ancient Chinese war lord from memory, consider all of the safer, healthier ways of achieving a dopamine boost. Like laughing while getting intimate.

It’s not to say that this activity doesn’t come without its hazards. Chances are, if your partner is even slightly insecure, he or she will stop as soon as you laugh or chuckle and ask if you’re laughing at him or her personally. If this happens to you just take a moment to explain to him or her that you’re not laughing at them per se.

Rather, you simply had an increase in dopamine reducing your latent inhibition, thus giving you insight into some of your unconscious cognitive connections, one of which made you giggle. This approach will certainly help your writing because, after your explanation, they will likely roll out of

your arms, leave your room, and never text you again because you’re “such a fucking weirdo,” thus giving you ample amounts of time to write!

Yippee!

Or, if you’re lucky, he or she might be generally interested in what your ideas are. I recall one time when I was getting a little frisky in the sheets with a girl who, for the purposes of this example, I’ll refer to as Kate Middleton. In the middle of fervently making out in Kate Middleton’s bed one afternoon, I had a burst of creative insight, the result of which made me laugh out loud.

“What?” Kate Middleton asked, her long brown hair swaying in the low light.

“Nothing.”

Kate Middleton and I continued making out in the quiet, until I had another burst of insight. This one made me laugh even harder.

“What!?” Kate Middleton asked, pushing herself away from my chest.

“I-alright-fine…I just had this idea that came out of nowhere about a sketch about a guy who has been blind his entire life but didn’t tell any of his friends about it,” I said. “Like he’s just so disturbingly nonchalant about being blind that he doesn’t think it’s a big deal, and it just completely freaks his friends out.”

Kate Middleton laughed, asked how I came up with this stuff, and continued polishing my royal heirlooms.

Once I was done storming the Duchess’s castle for the evening, I went back to my room and wrote my new idea. Shortly after that, I brought a draft of it to my Comedy Sketch Writing class, where it received a hugely positive response from my classmates. When it came time to decide what sketches we wanted to put in our show at the end of the semester, this particular sketch, which I named “Fun Fact,” was the second sketch voted in. After weeks of rehearsing, I had the pleasure of performing at the famous Comedy Studio in Cambridge. It was a fantastic night, and it was all thanks to dopamine.

And Kate Middleton’s lady parts.

But mostly dopamine.

Don’t get me wrong—not all of my make-out sessions end with me performing at The Comedy Studio. I’ve had plenty of horrible ideas as well, as a result of the dopamine boost. For example, there

was another night when I was getting intimate with Kate Middleton when I began laughing hysterically at the emergence of one simple phrase in my imagination.

We were in my bed this time, and it was late at night. It was getting pretty steamy. Almost out of nowhere, Kate Middleton slid her hand down toward my fun area. Excited by this prospect, I pulled my lips away from hers and sensually whispered in her ear: “Oh yeah…you’re bringing it on down to Penis Town.” Kate Middleton chuckled politely and continued with her mission.

If I were a normal human being, the following situation would not have happened. As if the phrase “Penis Town” itself was not bad enough, my heightened sense of imagination immediately rendered such a community would actually look like. In my mind, a bustling, Dr. Seuss-esqe town full of whimsical penis-shaped buildings was erected, filled with busy, hard-working penis citizens.

The image was so absurd and stupid that I couldn’t help but laugh my ass off at it. Not surprisingly, Kate Middleton was not too pleased.

“What is your problem?” she asked me with a hint of frustration. “Are you seriously still laughing at your own stupid joke?”

“No, no, no, of course not,” I said, trying to maintain a straight face.

We continued making out.

And then Penis Town would sneak back into my brain.

And I would laugh.

Hard.

“Do you want me to leave?” Kate Middleton asked me, legitimately angry.

“No!” I pulled her closer. “I promise I’ll stop.”

“Alright, fine,” she said. “I’ll pretend like I’m not concerned that while you’re making out with me, you’re thinking about a place called Penis Ville.”

“Penis Town,” I corrected her.

She slapped me.

Anyway, the point is that sometimes to get some creative inspiration, you need to get that dopamine pumping and just let your brain take you wherever it wants, even if that means making the occasional stop in Penis Town.

“As a writer and artist, you should constantly be trying to get dopamine into your system so you can take a peek at what your subconscious has been working on but has been too embarrassed to show you.”

text / CHRIS GILLESPIE

THE COMEDY ISSUE

CITY

Stunts in the Streets

PLAYING BAGPIPES ON TOP OF A TEN-FOOT unicycle while juggling knives is not something that everyone can do. Colin Campbell can. This stunt is part of his finale, where he mounts his unicycle, and then has his bagpipes passed to him by a volunteer, and then two knives. Campbell plays a bagpipe rendition of the Star Wars theme song, while tossing knives one over another in only his left hand.

After attending bagpipe camp as a kid, and learning to ride the unicycle in high school, Campbell decided to combine his talents into a

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street show that onlookers will never forget. He puts on his show “Kilted Colin” quite frequently at Boston’s Faneuil Hall.

“It all tends to come together by trial-anderror,” says Campbell about his unusual act. “You learn what the audience likes and doesn’t, and you show them what you know.”

Walk around the block of historic Faneuil Hall and you can go from seeing Kilted Colin to the unique Red Trouser Show, which combines juggling, acrobatics, and a 15-foot ladder. Partners David Graham and Tobin Renwick wear bright red

pants throughout the show, hence the name of their act.

They bring tricks to Faneuil Hall that stun crowds, including standing - yes standing - on top of one another’s shoulders and running amongst the crowd. They also begin their show by doing backflips and leaping around their designated area.

One of their most impressive stunts is a headstand in which Renwick balances upside-down, headto-head on top of Graham.

Their finale takes place in the air, on top of their portable ladder. This requires impressive strength. They hang on to the ladder using only upper body muscles, eventually holding on, bodies parallel to the ground.

Street performers are usually found in front of Quincy Market or on the South Market side in front of Wagamama. These spaces tucked among the shops and restaurants create an accessible place for an audience to gather. A popular location, Faneuil Hall gets 18 million visits annually. For a street performer, all of these people are potential audience members.

The cobblestone and concrete ground doesn’t seem to be the most ideal space to perform on, but it doesn’t phase any of Faneuil Hall’s acts, especially the dangerous ones. People are easily enticed to the danger of each performance and many take time between lunch and shopping to watch a show. Not only are these people visitors of Faneuil Hall, but also tourists traveling between downtown Boston and the Waterfront.

The shows at Faneuil Hall range from musicians to variety acts, and they must prove to the hiring team why they deserve a spot at Faneuil Hall in the application process. “We look for folks who are talented and family friendly oriented, with Faneuil Hall being such a family friendly area,” says Eb Hurly, from the marketing department of Faneuil Hall, in charge of hiring street performers. “We like new performers that bring fresh entertainment, something we’ve never seen before.”

According to Hurly, they are constantly hiring new acts, and this begins in the spring, extending all the way to the end of the year when holiday light shows take dominance.

The application is available on Faneuil Hall’s website and requires that performers submit video

examples of their act. If hired, Faneuil Hall simply provides a space, no compensation, for them.

They rely on the tips the audience gives at the end of each show.

While not getting officially paid may not be the most ideal situation for these performers, this means no doubt they have passion for what they do. For many, this is their full time job. It is up to each performer to generate their own audience, and the larger the audience the more tips they receive.

According to Hurly, not only are these performers able to profit from audience payment, but also they gain exposure. Most also perform at private events and have grown their careers to be known internationally.

“The best thing for me is that I’m right here with the audience, talking to them directly,” says Cate Flaherty, whose show “Cate Great” features her talents in balancing and juggling.

Flaherty brings a unique contraption to Faneuil Hall, almost shaped like a table but with two small platforms sticking up about six feet in the air. She is able to balance on top of this, with only one hand holding her up, with the threat of not only concrete, but sharp knives surrounding her.

Flaherty herself spent years learning this finale. She trained at École de Cirque de Québec, a school unique to its promotion of circus arts. After working in a circus environment, she has learned that she prefers street theater.

“They can watch or not, they can pay five bucks or not, and only the people who like the show stay and watch. I think the greatest thing about it is the one-on-one contact with the audience,” says Flaherty.

Audiences certainly enjoy this aspect of choice, and some crowds have grown close to 300 gathered around Faneuil Hall. The public is able to enjoy a quality show, without having to go out of their way to find it. In return, performers are given an opportunity to make a few bucks, and also a name for themselves while preserving street theater in the heart of Boston.

“It all tends to come together by trial-and-error, you learn what the audience likes and doesn’t, and you show them what you know”

text / CASEY CAMPBELL photos / KATHLEEN COLLINS

THE COMEDY ISSUE

Getting into the Swing of Things 45 ATLAS MAGAZINE

INSTEAD OF TWERKING AT NEARBY HOTSPOTS such as Rise or Machine, some Emerson students spend their weekends doing the Lindy Hop at one of Boston’s swing dance venues. This style of dance originated during the “Roaring Twenties” and has been making a comeback since the 1990s. Now, in Boston, the swing scene is as lively as ever.

In a dimly lit room with blue icicle lights both the young and the old dance to songs ranging from popular oldies such as “Rockin’ Robin” to more obscure jazz numbers. Women wear dresses that flow in the air like parachutes when their partner spins them around, while many men wear button-down shirts and fedoras. Both men and women approach each other asking for a dance.

No one ever says no, it is an unspoken rule. A couple dances to a slow song, and just before it finishes, the lead dips the woman into a position where she is barely touching the floor.

“You can go out social dancing almost every night of the week,” says Jason Blankenship, an Emerson student who goes swing dancing three to four times a week. Two years ago he decided to take swing dance lessons at New School Swing in Charlestown, Massachusetts. He wanted a

hobby that was more social than just playing video games. Blankenship not only found a fun way to spend his free time, but he became part of a tight knit community that offers him support.

“I wasn’t happy at my old job,” says the 24-yearold communication disorders major. “These guys helped me so much in my life and they gave me the strength to go back to school.”

For beginners, he recommends going to the free dances that are held at Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Wednesday nights where he teaches lessons. Also, Boston Swing Central in Charlestown is a short walk from Sullivan Square station on the Orange Line and it usually costs $8-$13 to get in depending on who is performing. On Friday nights it plays live music, and like MIT, it offers lessons before the dance, which are included in the admission.

“I like how no one judges you based on your experience,” Allison Laurendeau, (’15), says over the upbeat brass music playing at MIT. “There are professional dancers and there are people like me who have no experience.”

Swing dancing reminds Laurendeau of drive-in theatres. “It’s kind of like a hidden subculture,” she says. “It’s old-fashioned, but it is still thriving.”

In the Boston swing scene, there are four types of Swing: the East Coast Swing, the Lindy Hop, the Charleston, and the Balboa. The East Coast Swing is six count footwork, while the Lindy Hop is a combination of eight count and six count footwork. The Charleston is typically done to fast music, while the Balboa, which involves chest-tochest contact between partners, can be done to either fast or slow music.

Although swing dance is a lead-follow dance, there is a lot of room for followers to put their own aesthetics into the dance. “Sometimes a follower might do a cool thing on her own and I’ll think to myself ‘hey, that was cool’ and then I’ll do it myself. So in essence even though I’m leading, she kind of led a move,” Blankenship says.

“I Love Lindy Hop, I Love Lindy Hop,” a swing dancer repeats in his thick Swedish accent. Most dancers count out the beats when they are teaching others a new dance move. But this is his way of showing Sarah Werner, (’16), how to do the

Lindy Hop. Werner often meets interesting people at the dances. She recalls an old man who would come to the dances carrying a large bouquet of flowers. He would ask girls to dance by offering them a rose, and by the end of the night he would have none left. Werner took swing lessons before she came to Emerson, after hearing about it from her church in Texas. Once she came to Boston, she was eager to find places in the area.

“Compared to other styles of dance it’s quite silly. There is a lot less pressure to be perfect and there is always a basic step you can fall back into if all else fails,” Werner says. For Werner, a 1920s enthusiast, swing dancing is a fun way for her to relax.

A large crowd of swing dancers from across the world gather at Boston Swing Dance Central for the “Dirty Water Exchange,” a four-day event that includes live music from musicians who are famous to the swing dance community and two “late nights” that go on until 4:00 a.m. Victoria Socolosky, (’16), took part in a “late night”. “It is like anything you really like to do.

You never want to stop doing it,” she says. Socolosky prefers swing over the dances of today. “To me it seems a lot more personal because you get to know people when you dance with them and you can hear them talk,” she says. “Club dancing is blatantly sexual. Swing dancing isn’t as overt.”

For most people, “going out dancing” means heading to a dark nightclub with flashy lights and loud music. They might think of swing dancing as just something that they see in black and white movies. But for some, it is a culture that is making a revival.

“I like how no one judges you based on your experience.

There are professional dancers and there are people like me who have no experience.”

text / MARLO JAPPEN photos / NIKKI FRANGELLA

THE COMEDY ISSUE

Stories from the Staff: Apartment Hunting and Potential Homelessness

Jenni Heller, Assistant Photo Editor

Jacquelyn Marr, Arts Editor

Nick Dumont, City Editor

Caitlyn Budnick, Head Copy Editor

“The bathroom is so small that the door can’t swing inward without hitting the toilet, so someone’s brilliant solution to this problem was to saw a chunk out of the door.”

“The man who posted the Hotpads.com link said he was a Boston priest on a mission in Africa. His apartment would be vacant for the next year while he indoctrinated third world tribes to Christianity. I reached a verbal agreement with him, and asked when I could see it in person. He informed me that he didn’t trust anyone enough to leave keys behind in Boston, but he would send them to me with the lease once I wired him money for a security deposit and first month’s rent. Sounds legitimate, right?”

“The coin slot was jammed on our dryer and we had to use a hammer as a pseudo-crow bar to pull it back out. Not the kind of household maintenance I had in mind.”

“Our apartment was apparently cleaned before we got into it, but they must’ve missed all the hair on the bathroom floor, the food in the sink, and the heavy layers of dirt and dust on everything.”

Celina Colby, Editor-in-Chief

“My roommates went to see an apartment where one of the bedrooms was completely bolted shut.

The guys living there left them with the comforting words, ‘Trust us, you do not want to go in there.’”

photos / KATHLEEN COLLINS models / LAUREN GODDING, RIPLEY BARNES, JULIAN COHEN & JOSHUA LEON

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THE COMEDY ISSUE

STAND

UP

at Boston’s Pubs

&

Comedy Clubs

RYAN DONAHUE STOOD IN FRONT OF A CROWD of 40 at the Middle East’s ZuZu restaurant in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “I like women as much as the next confused man,” he said. “But there’s something about a woman in heels that’s just so ready to hurt my feelings.” He paused, then flipped his shoulder-length brown hair and pranced around the room on his tiptoes like he was wearing heels. The crowd erupted.

Donahue is a student at Emerson College who performs stand-up comedy in his free time. Most Emerson comedy students take to on-campus venues to hone their comedic chops, but the most ambitious branch out to public venues in Boston.

“I’m simply enthusiastic about the act of doing stand-up,” says Donahue. “I don’t care where. I’ve done sets at hip-hop shows and metal shows, I’ve done sets naked, I’ve done sets in Spanish. And that’s pretty good, because I don’t speak Spanish.”

The more traditional route for Emerson students to take when attempting to branch out into the city’s comedy scene is through the local open mic circuit. Every night of the week there’s a restaurant or bar in Boston that opens up its stage to young talent. The following venues offer terrific opportunities from Emersonians to polish their stage presence and setlist, build a reputation in the scene, or just have fun.

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Red Line The Zuzu

Donahue’s set here was for a show called Strange Behavior, a comedy show on the first and third Sunday of every month. He started it with another student, and so far they have hosted some of the best Boston comedians with credentials like Comedy Central and the Late Show with Craig Ferguson.

But they’re not opposed to letting students have a set, either. “I mean, if you’re funny, you’re funny,” says Donahue. Emerson student Jamie Loftus recently performed at Strange Behavior.

The capacity is around 100, and the room is always at least half-full for their shows. It’s the type of place that tries hard to be as trendy as spots in Cambridge, and the hipster ambiance should make Emerson comedians feel right at home.

Blue Line

Dick’s Doherty’s Beantown Comedy Club

This venue used to be inside Remington’s bar on Emerson’s campus, but when its lease expired this summer, it found a new home below the Howl at the Moon bar off the Aquarium stop on the Blue Line. It’s still receptive to Emersonians, however, and encourages them to perform five minutes of material there any Sunday at 6:30 p.m. for open mic. Louis CK, Dane Cook, and Emerson’s own Bill Burr all performed at Dick’s before they found success.

Nearby is Dick’s Last Resort, where waiters and waitresses get paid to ridicule and spar with customers. If Emerson comedy students are looking for a job to keep their comedic chops sharp, or cross swords with another comedian, this restaurant is worth checking out, too.

Within Walking Distance Kings Bowling Alley

The thought of performing stand-up in a bowling alley can be depressing, but with its neon colors, modern furniture, and young crowd, Kings is more like a hip lounge. During open mic on Wednesdays, the kitchen and bar serve discounted appetizers, meals, and drinks, ensuring a loosened crowd that will go easy on student comedians.

Kings is located near Hynes Convention center-just a 15 minute walk from Emerson.

Green Line

Grandma’s Basement

A grandmother’s basement is a warm, safe place that’s always comfortable. This venue is not that. This venue is very well-managed and attracts Boston’s best local comedians, which means that the audience expects greatness, and can be harsh to beginning jokesters.

“Boston audiences are mean, and it’s beautiful,” says Donahue, who has performed at the Grandma’s Basement. If Emerson students are looking for a challenge, they can try stand up

here on Thursday night. It starts at 9:00 p.m. and oftentimes runs as late as 1:00 a.m. It’s located in the Howard Johnson Hotel near Fenway.

Orange Line

Tavern at the End of the World

This bar’s title can feel all too real when students commute there from Emerson. Located in Charlestown, it’s a 20-minute T ride on the Orange Line. Their open mic, Laughter at the End of the World, is worth the trip. Every Wednesday comedians take the stage; the vast majority of them are local with true accents. And the locals in this residential, historic neighborhood come out to support the talent, too, so the turnout is always strong. The bar doesn’t restrict the comedians to a time limit, so feel free to stretch your chops, but beware that you may have to fight the urge to tackle a comic off the stage when they ramble on for eternity. text / NICK DUMONT photo / JENNI HELLER

THE COMEDY ISSUE

GLOBE

From surgeon to satirist: Bassem Youssef ’s

Rise to Fame

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BASSEM YOUSSEF’S WORK IS DEADLY SERIOUS: every week, he makes people laugh. Humor cuts deep in Egypt, a country where dissidence is rarely tolerated, especially when it’s at the expense of powerful men. So naturally, Youssef takes it upon himself to poke fun at Egypt’s biggest personalities every Friday night on his show, El Bernameg (Arabic for “the program” or “the show”). One of the first Arab shows to be filmed in front of a live audience, El Bernameg uses a format familiar to fans of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart—mostly because Youssef is a longtime fan of Stewart’s work.

“I wanted to be your guest!” Youssef told Stewart in his first appearance on The Daily Show in June 2012. His goal, he revealed, was to save a passenger plane from a terrorist to win media attention. “They will ask me, do you want to be interviewed by CNN? And it’s like, ‘No I want to be on Jon Stewart!’”

There was a time, though, when Youssef’s career plans would have taken him far from the spotlight. Originally a practicing cardiac surgeon, Youssef found himself caught up in the Tahrir Square protests in January 2011. During the day, the future TV personality tended to the wounded in the square and then came home at night to find gross misrepresentations of the protestors strewn throughout Egyptian media. Youssef’s answer to this injustice? His blood type: B+ (“be positive”).

Youssef’s first taste of fame came via YouTube, thanks to a series he put together in his living room soon after the revolution: the B+ Bassem Youssef Show. The point of the program was to show the absurdity of the news media in Egypt. During the 18 days of protest that brought down Hosni Mubarak, Egyptian news programs connected protesters to Iran, Hamas, and, most infamously, Kentucky Fried Chicken. As the hysteria mounted, calls sounded among certain factions for the arrest of foreigners throughout Egypt, a country dependent upon tourism. Youssef decided to channel his frustration and sardonic wit into something constructive.

“I was actually filling my time,” Youssef told attendees at the MediaGuardian Edinburgh International Television Festival in 2012, “because I was actually having my visas ready and my papers

ready because I was going to start a pediatric cardiac surgery fellowship in Cleveland.

Things changed quickly for the surgeon when his show shot past the number of views he expected—10,000 was his goal—and climbed to an unprecedented 5,000,000 views within two months; the viral nature of the Internet had catapulted Youssef to stardom. Soon, Youssef found himself in talks with television producers who wanted to bring his show to the airwaves.

“I had a fellowship in Cleveland for pediatric heart surgery in one hand and a TV contract in the other,” he said on The Morning Joe last April. “I went to the TV,” he concluded with his signature grin.

Time proved Youssef wise; his show, which was produced at little expense during its first season, still pulled in the number one ratings in Egypt. For the second season, he moved to the high-end CBC network, which provided Youssef with one of the most expensive TV shows in the history of the Arab world.

From this platform of levelheaded criticism—a platform that draws 30,000,000 pairs of eyes each week—Youssef was able to share his honest ideas and opinions with laymen across Egypt, to the chagrin of many. In fact, Time recently named Youssef one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

Of course, like all popular figures, Youssef has received his share of criticism, though as a comedian he takes it in stride. One cleric, while speaking on an Egyptian news broadcast, accused Youssef of not knowing how to properly clean himself; he even went so far as to claim he had proof. Youssef’s response had his usual irreverence.

“As for the fact that you are sure I don’t know how to clean myself, and with proof, that means one of two things,” Youssef declared on El Bernameg, one eyebrow raised. “Either you can see beyond the veil, or you can see through my pants.”

The ire of Egypt’s reactionary groups does nothing to stifle the spread of Youssef’s influence; on the contrary, it helps. Conservative programs will sometimes play entire episodes of El Bernameg—with critical commentary dubbed in-

“Youssef decided to channel his frustration and sardonic wit into somehting constructive.”

THE COMEDY ISSUE

-and in doing so expose their viewers to the very man they are supposed to hate.

“So, basically, people who don’t watch my show, they get to watch it on the channel, on the right-wing channels,” said Youssef in an interview for France 24. “A lot of them actually watch it and they giggle and they laugh in between each other, and then they come up the next day to attack me.”

Ironically, it wasn’t until the democratic election of Mohamed Morsi that Youssef had to start worrying about his freedom of speech. When Youssef began his campaign for reason, the country was united against Mubarak. As the presidential election loomed, the political factions that had long been insulated from each other under Mubarak began butting heads, and with rivalry came animosity.

“We have a saying that, like, ‘Oh, I love you when you make fun of other people, but not me,’” said Youssef in an interview on CNN, “so now I’m actually doing it to everybody, including myself, and I’m just speaking as everybody speaks.”

This blanket criticism has raised the ire of government officials. On March 30, police held Youssef for several hours on charges of insulting President Morsi and Islam. H.A. Hellyer, a fellow with the non-profit Brookings Institution and personal friend of Youssef, wrote that the arrest was no hindrance to the satirist—it only gave him more to work with.

“All it is really likely to do, in the final analysis, is give Bassem yet more material,” wrote Hellyer in an editorial for the website Tahrir Squared.

“Because one way or the other, he will walk out a free man—and his commitment to the 25th of January revolution will just be more intense.”

Youssef did walk out that day, released on bail, and as March turned to April, the list of charges grew; prosecutors accused Youssef of spreading rumors, atheism, homosexuality, and obscenity, and of insulting the state of Pakistan.

Youssef blames the friction on the newly formed community of disparate ideologies that was born after the fall of Mubarak.

“It’s our problem that we haven’t actually been speaking to each other all these years,” he told Stewart in 2012. “For 60 years, because of the military regime, there was some sort of a buffer,

someone who’s actually dealing with everybody else. And now, for the first time, we have to communicate.”

The political scene shifted drastically for Youssef and his countrymen when Morsi was ousted in a bloodless coup orchestrated by General Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, so much so that the satirist took a four month hiatus from his hosting duties. In that time, nationalistic fervor has built a cult of personality around el-Sissi, making him a difficult target for Youssef.

“This kind of honeymoon will not last,” Youssef told Brooke Gladstone, host of WNYC’s On the Media, back in April 2011. “Sarcasm here in Egypt, in the Arab world, is very new. Once you make sarcasm about [a] certain person, this guy takes it very personally. You see Jon Stewart making fun of McCain and he’s hosting him the next day, right. Here, that doesn’t work this way.”

Already, his prediction is proving savvy. Only one show into the new post-Morsi season, Hesham Barakat, Egypt’s top prosecutor, received a slew of complaints against the comedian. Then his network, CBC, distanced itself from comments on El Bernameg. As of the beginning of November, Youssef’s show has been pulled from the air by the network, leaving the future of Egyptian satire and free speech in limbo.

For Youssef, who began with nothing but a YouTube channel and a patriotic heart, the loss of a TV show he never expected in the first place might be just a hiccup. Then again, circumstances have changed: there is no common cause to champion, no one enemy to fight. The divide in Egypt may be too wide to neatly stitch up. And so Youssef, long comfortable with scalpel in hand, must once again attempt surgery on a grand scale—the removal of his country’s delirium, with intellect and humor as his instruments. text / ADAM VIRNELSON photos / HOSSAM EL-HAMALAWY

“I had a fellowship for pediatric heart surgery in one hand and a TV contract in the other.”

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Chinese Family Planning PREGNANCY IS AN EXCITING yet nervewracking time in a couple’s life. They pick out baby names, set up the nursery, find out the sex, get ultrasounds, and meet with doctors. But for Chinese couples who are expecting their second or third child, there’s an added anxiety—whether or not they’ll be fined for violating the country’s family planning laws.

In 2012, China collected $2.7 billion from 19 province-level governments as a result of fines, referred to as “social support fees,” from parents violating family planning laws. These laws include limiting Chinese couples to having only one child.

At the start of China’s economic reform in the late 1970s, fear due to a rapidly growing population rate caused the Chinese government to implement limitations to the number of children couples could have. Family planning laws also limit families with multiple children

from receiving the same benefits as families with only one child. The severity of these laws changes by location, with stronger enforcement in urban areas.

As is evident in its revenue, family planning laws contribute to China’s booming economy.

In particular, the revenue from these fines is important for governments in poorer, rural parts of the country that do not have a large source of revenue from industry like urban areas do.

Family planning laws have been under global scrutiny because of the alleged violations of human rights and personal freedom. China’s Health Ministry reported an estimated 330 million abortions and 200 million sterilizations have been performed since the enactment of these laws in 1979. There have also been alleged cases where orphanages for as much as $3,000. Local officials are prone to abusing their power because they

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are judged by their superiors on how effectively they are able to keep the population down in their respective areas. As a result, there have been cases of forced abortions or sterilizations.

Last year, an awful incident involved a woman named Pan Chunyan. Chunyan was eight months pregnant with her third child when local officials abducted her from a grocery store and forced her to get an abortion. The silver lining of a Chunyan’s tragic story is that it received press coverage on a national and global level, exposing the abuse of power associated with family planning laws.

These laws have also led to strict birth control enforcement, including the mandatory insertion of 403 million intrauterine devices. However, a large amount of abortions are performed every year, partly due to a lack of proper sex education. China has no national policy regarding sex education, with any attempts to implement programs being opposed by parents. China’s National Population and Family Planning Commission show that out of the 13 million abortions performed every year, over half involve women under the age of 25.

With the strong enforcement of family planning laws, it seems that more of an effort for widespread sex education would be made.

However, since talk of sex is considered taboo in China, it is unlikely that strides will be made by implementing sex education in schools.

Therefore, the high abortion rate has little chance of decreasing because of the lack of knowledge about contraception. China’s hushhush attitude about sex limits any talk about birth control, making abortion a last resort option for many women. Unfortunately, the only likely way the abortion rate would decrease was if family planning laws did not pose any threats for women who accidentally get pregnant.

Family planning laws have also been responsible for creating a large gender disparity in China. Population trends show an increasing gender gap between young boys and girls.

China’s bias for boy babies is tied to a tradition of familial legacy—many Chinese families want their family names to be passed on from generation to generation. Before prenatal sex

screenings were banned in 1994, ultrasounds often resulted in gender-specific abortions. Still, the boy-girl ratio has remained at about 1.17-to-1 from 2000 to 2013.

A study by the British Medical Journal shows that China has roughly 32 million more boys than girls under the age of 20. China’s predisposition for boys over girls has led to hundreds of thousands of baby girls being abandoned, resulting in many of these girls living in orphanages. An estimated 30 million Chinese girls are unaccounted for, yet the Chinese government sweeps this under the rug.

As the gender gap widens, it is speculated there could be slew of domestic problems in the future. Many Chinese males may have difficulty finding female spouses due to the large gender disparity. Therese Hesketh, lecturer at the Centre for International Health and Development at University College London told the Associated Press that “If you’ve got highly sexed young men, there is a concern that they will all get together and, with high levels of testosterone, there may be a real risk, that they will go out and commit crimes.”

Despite the human rights violations of these laws, those in favor of reform are primarily driven by economics. There is fear that China’s economic growth will slow once the population ages due to the decreasing number of young workers available for cheap labor. Former vice minister at the Health Ministry, Huang Jiefu, believes that family planning laws should be reformed to “fit with the times,” as reported by the International Business Times.

Although many are in favor of reforming family planning laws, it is difficult to tell what would happen if these laws were not in place. It is estimated that the Chinese population would be about 30 percent larger if there were no restrictions on the amount of children a couple could have. With concerns of overpopulation in China already, there’s no telling how detrimental a 30 percent population increase would be to China’s limited resources.

“Family planning laws have been under global scrutiny because of the alleged violations of human rights and personal freedom.”

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text / MEGAN CATHEY photo / MARK BELOKOPYTOV

Fairest of Them All

THE IMAGES AND DEFINITIONS OF BEAUTY we receive from the mainstream media are powerful dictators that leave many feeling they don’t measure up. For minorities, there is an extra sting because society’s projected standard of beauty is largely expressed through a white, upper middleclass lens. America, whether intentionally or not, is exporting an impossible and unrealistic standard of beauty to the world.

Blond and blue-eyed models, both male and female, can easily be found on the cover of Japanese fashion magazines, Korean advertisements, and Chinese billboards. Even Beyonce has been accused of having her own skin professionally lightened to be less “black.” On the cover of her most recent album, 4, she is seen with blonde hair and very light skin. Advertisers such as L’Oreal have digitally altered photographs of African-American models to make their skin

appear lighter—more golden, less black.

Even on Youtube, people have uploaded hundreds of demos for black women, teaching them how to bleach their skin, which has dangerous health implications. In her book SkinLightening Practices and Mercury Exposure in the Somali Community, public health researcher Amira Adawe explores the side effects and health risks for women. Many skin-lightening products contain mercury, steroids, and other illegal elements, which can damage the nervous system and be passed from a mother to her infant through breast milk. Additionally, studies show that using skin-bleaching products can result in blotchy skin, severe irritation, eczema, and thinning of the skin.

But it’s not just black women who are feeling pressure to have lighter skin. In India, it has become the consensus that fairer skin is more

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beautiful, and many women go to doctors for skin-lightening treatments—particularly when they reach a marriageable age or are looking for a job.

The Indian market for skin-whitening treatment amounts to about $400 million. Many celebrities in India, such as Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan, endorse these products, making fairness even more desirable. With famous men like Khan popularizing skin-lightening creams, the obsession with lighter skin has spread to Indian men as well.

Fair & Lovely, a skin-lightening cream company, released a men’s version of their product called Fair & Handsome, which is very popular among Indian men.

Nigeria is another place where this trend is occurring. The World Health Organization estimates that approximately 77 percent of Nigerian women use skin-lightening products. In an interview with Aljazeera News, well-known Nigerian musician Femi Kuti says that people do it because it’s a foreign product that they view as cool; they want to fit into the West’s image of beauty. Of Togo’s women, 59 percent use such products; in Senegal, nearly 30 percent invest in these treatments.

Skin color is not the sole issue. There are dozens of hair products for minorities to make their hair look more Caucasian in texture and style.

There are countless gels and hairsprays sold for African-American and Latina women to flatten, straighten, and smooth their hair. Minorities often

post questions on forums such as Yahoo, Ask. com, and Wiki how, asking how to achieve the Caucasian look. One person’s question read, “How can I get Caucasian-like hair if I am African American?”

While many celebrities endorse these hair and skin products, some are seeking to do the opposite. Nandita Das, an Indian actress, is the current face of the Dark is Beautiful Campaign.

When asked to have her skin lightened for various film roles, Das refused. Dark is Beautiful hosts workshops and seminars on media literacy, life skills, building self-worth, and career guidance. They also organize petitions against advertising that sends the message that fairness is the standard of beauty to achieve.

There is nothing wrong with light skin, blond hair, and blue eyes. But not everyone has these features. Across the world, from America to Africa to Asia, the belief that fairness equals beauty permeates our cultures. One TV commercial from the Philippines sums up the driving force of this trend. A young woman advertises a soap that promises to whiten skin and keep it nice and fair. “[It’s] proven to help lighten skin and keep it that way,” she says in the advertisement, “so I can always be confident that my skin looks white and stays white.”

“America, whether intentionally or not, is exporting an impossible and unrealistic standard of beauty to the world.”

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text / MIRIAM RIAD photos / ERIC PARES

Re-envisioning the Refugee Experience

ABOUT TEN KILOMETERS OUTSIDE the Jordanian border city of Mafraq, row upon row of hastily constructed tent housing stretches across barren land. Families gather inside their temporary canvas homes while newly arrived refugees line a dirt path that leads to a security checkpoint at the main entrance. Zaatari refugee camp is the second largest in the world and is the site of nearly 120,000 displaced Syrians as a result of the ongoing civil war.

Each day, anxiety for international aid builds as locals struggle to make do with limited supplies, from food and hygiene products to cleaning items and durable housing materials. The land itself is drying up; families live on a modest allocation of water each day. Resources are more strained than ever before, and as a result, both corruption and violence have skyrocketed.

The conflict in Syria has killed more than 100,000 people, including 10,000 youth. Children

of the Syrian conflict have endured psychological trauma as a result of two key factors: having witnessed intense violence, oftentimes of family members in their home country, and then being relocated to a foreign land where a regular daily routine has fallen by the wayside. But lead tae kwon do instructor Charles Lee has made it his mission to turn things around for Zaatari, beginning with the children.

Twice a week, a team of South Korean black belt masters under Lee’s supervision travels to the camp to build a rapport of respect and selfdefense rather than aggressive retaliation. In an interview with the Associated Press, Lee said, “I have seen a lot of anger inside the hearts of the kids here. I see kids with stones in their hands ready to throw them at anyone.” Lee, after living in Jordan for ten years, initiated the training program through funding from the United Nations Refugee Agency as well as the South Korean government.

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Although the U.N. strives to provide children around the world with means to an education, only one-sixth of Syrian refugees in Jordan are able to attend classes regularly. Without a daily school schedule, kids begin to lose focus. Lee’s tae kwon do workshops offer these children an educational opportunity through a method of team building and self-discipline. “[The children] no longer have any system in their life anymore,” Mohamed Rashid, a Syrian soccer coach, also said in the interview with Associated Press. “But we’ve found an exercise routine which can change children.”

Classes take place in one of the larger tents.

Inside the tent, 20 or so boys in t-shirts and mismatched shorts stand at attention across from their straight-faced instructors in crisp white uniforms. The first groups of students will be all boys; as the program continues to grow, girls will also be invited to join class. Large mats have been laid on top of the uneven sand. Sunlight floods in from cut-out windows in the canvas walls. As a new step is introduced, the boys are wide-eyed, careful to pick up small details. The first group of kids spaces out evenly around the room while the second group sits cross-legged on the sidelines.

They’re taught one step at a time, moving more or less together across the floor. It’s as physically demanding as it is mentally for kids whose lives have become a game of waiting. “[Tae kwon do] is teaching us good manners,

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while making us stronger,” said 13-year-old Ibrahim al-Hamidi.

Lee and his team are not only combating the children’s personal trauma but also the collective prejudices of Alawite shabiha militias and other Shia groups against Sunni-dominated rebel groups and vice versa. Animosity has peaked in recent years.

The U.N. estimates that the death toll in Syria has reached nearly 120,000 as of September of this year. Two million refugees have been accounted for, although tens of thousands are still waiting to register for the status. Neighboring countries of Turkey and Jordan have each taken in more than half a million displaced people; Lebanon’s current refugee census is higher than any other country, reaching over 800,000.

Lee has begun to look at the tae kwon do program in the long term. Along with training boys and girls, the head instructors are also passing down their skills to a group of adults from the community who will carry on teaching the classes once the timeframe of the original team has come to an end. Lee believes the success of the program relies on its self-sustainability and Zaatari’s hope for a brighter future. text / CASSIE SCHAUBLE photos / EMRE KARAPINAR & BIDNA CAPOEIRA

CAREER

10 Horse Races Until Success: A Profile on Quinn Marcus

QUINN MARCUS IS ON THE HUNT for a roommate. With an MTV crew following and microphone in hand, Marcus roams through the New England Food Festival interviewing potential candidates. Marcus approaches three girls and asks one of them what makes a good roommate.

“Someone that you share interests with,” answers one of the girls. “Someone you can get along with and has a good sense of humor.” Marcus nods while chewing her funnel cake, thinks for a moment, and deadpans, “I don’t think we can be roommates, we don’t share interests.” An awkward silence falls over the group as Marcus helps herself to funnel cake from the other girl’s plate. “Well, we

both like food!” Marcus offers optimistically.

Drew Van Steenbergen (‘11) has known Marcus (‘13) since her humble beginnings as a freshman at Emerson College . Van Steenbergen recalls his first interaction with Marcus as her orientation leader. “Quinn stood out on the first day when she asked me how she could change her major. She had been on campus for less than 24 hours.” This curious inquiry would turn into Marcus designing her own major and actively pursuing a career in comedy performance.

Her spirited drive for generating laughs had earned Marcus a reputation among the Emerson community with her involvement in one of

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Emerson’s renowned comedy troupes. In her junior year, Marcus also pitched and landed her own show on mtvU and shortly after joined the cast of MTV’s Girl Code. Although Marcus has since graduated Emerson College and left Boston to continue her career in comedy, she attributes a good majority of her success to Emerson. “It’s a huge part of where I am today and I definitely would not be in the same place as I am now without Emerson.”

Originally from Atlanta, Georgia, Marcus kindled her interest in comedy at 14 when she stayed up late during school nights to tune into David Letterman and The Late Show. “I loved watching [Letterman], Ellen, and Kimmel,” says Marcus, “They’re my biggest inspirations in comedy.” By the time Marcus was a sophomore in high school her heart was set on Emerson.

The variety of artistic majors the college offered immediately caught Marcus’s attention. Rated by the Princeton Review as the number one LGBTQ friendly school in the country, the college also appealed to Marcus on a personal level.

“I was ready for a change from the South,” she says, “you know, being gay and all. I also wanted to buy a winter coat.” When Marcus arrived to Emerson, she further immersed herself in comedy and joined Emerson’s only long form improv troupe, This Is Pathetic, in which she found the brunt of her support system. Marcus inherently formed bonds when she was on stage with people that she depended on to make a successful show. “If either of you give up, you both fail,” says Marcus. She found similar support through working on the writing staffs of both Emerson

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Channel and Emerson’s annual student run award show, the EVVYs. “It’s a little competitive, but mostly comforting,” she says of the comedy troupe experience. “We used to go see each other’s shows and have comedy troupe parties. We were the only people who wanted to talk about improv on a Friday night so we had to stick together.” After joining This Is Pathetic, Marcus created her own major, comedy writing and performance, and delved into activities that would satisfy her passion. While juggling hosting Emerson Channel’s late night talk show Closing Time, writing for various shows including the EVVYs, and performing with her comedy troupe, Marcus wrote and performed a one woman show, Chasing Ballerinas, during her senior year.

Marcus looks back on the performance as one of her most rewarding, yet challenging moments during her time at Emerson. “It was just me on stage alone,” Marcus reflects, being used to working on projects with other people, “I love having people I trust working with me.” After the show was over, however, she was able to relax and celebrate. “My parents took a bunch of people of Vapiano’s and I was so happy it was over that I had a lot of wine and introduced everyone that was there to my parents as, ‘Oh my God, this is my best friend!’”

Van Steenbergen worked closely with Marcus after her performance to turn her one woman show into a short film. An admirer of Marcus’s work on stage, he saw her one woman show as an opportunity to dig deeper into the life of Marcus.

Prior to production, Van Steenbergen remembers

working with Marcus on Emerson Channel projects and writing staff for the EVVY Awards. It wasn’t until he graduated that Van Steenbergen started working closer with Marcus. “Over the course of five to six months we talked back and forth...to help hone in the script from a longer, live performance format into this short, concise film version. It was incredible. It was fun. It was oddly smooth.”

In regards to Marcus’s personality and passion, Van Steenbergen says, “What Quinn really gives off is her enthusiasm for the project at hand, while simultaneously thinking of what project to work on next. It’s infectious when you’re on set with someone like that and it makes everyone work as hard and with as much energy.” In May of Marcus’s junior year, she pitched Quinnterviews to mtvU. When MTV gave the green light for her show and asked Marcus to write an intro for the first set of Quinnterviews, Marcus put it plain and simple, “Hey, I’m Quinn. I’m from Atlanta, Georgia. I go to Emerson College in Boston where I study comedy writing and performance. I look like a mix of both of my parents.” Needless to say, Marcus’s videos did the rest of the talking.

After a few months of doing Quinnterviews, the vice president of mtvU set Marcus up with an audition for the upcoming show Girl Code. A month later, Marcus was walking down Boylston Street when she received the call she was cast.

Marcus says her experience with the MTV network has been nothing short of stupendous. “The producers, PA’s, and editors are the nicest people I’ve ever met and are always so excited about what we’re working on,” Marcus says, “It’s crazy that this

is my ‘job’ because it’s so fun to do.”

As far as success is concerned, it did not come on a silver platter at any given moment for her. “I think success is different for everyone. It depends on what your goals are for yourself,” Marcus says.

“I know I won’t feel successful until I’ve won at least ten horse races. But that’s just me.”

On a more serious note, Marcus adds, “You have to come into the business with some knowledge that sets you apart, a talent or skill.

Work on something in the present and make it a big deal. Don’t only do it for the success it will bring you when it’s done [or because] it will look good on your resume. If you do enough good work because you love it, it will get you noticed.”

Marcus’s evident talent has been noticed by family, friends, the entire Emerson community, and the MTV network.

Her personality is a combination of dry humor, witty intellect, and a smile so genuine it can only exude Marcus’s joy for what she does best. Van Steenbergen couldn’t agree more, comparing Marcus’s magnetism to the reviews of the latest Hollywood blockbuster Gravity. “She’s overwhelming, sentimental, thrilling, and nerveracking,” Van Steenbergen gushes, “I look forward to seeing where she goes and what else she does. Whether that’s working along with her, or watching from the audience, I know I’m going to laugh and cry. She’ll be Sandra Bullock and I’ll be sitting with 3D glasses in an IMAX theater cheering her home.” text / ASHLEY CZARNOV photos / COURTESY OF QUINN MARCUS

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Office

Humor

Workplace Appropriate or Abhorred?

BECAUSE OF OUR CULTURAL HYPER FOCUS on offensive language, there is an emphasis on what humor is respectful and politically correct, specifically in the workplace. When living in a city with a large, diverse population issues involving prejudice and racism often occur. Sometimes just getting on the T can involve a politically incorrect encounter. However, we tend to be more aware of these issues in the workplace, where we try to be appropriate and inoffensive at all times in order to foster a positive work environment.

Emily McClure, a Junior at Emerson College, explains her enjoyment in working in the Emerson College Journalism Department: “It is such a comfortable environment but always so fun. We have these great holiday parties that are a fun and silly way to unwind. We definitely have fun with each other, but always in a safe environment. It’s a nice mix.”

McClure shows us that a fun work environment is completely necessary, and can make a job feel less like a chore. For many young adults looking for employment, a workplace in which they can share their sense of humor is key.

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Jacqueline Pauley, a Junior at Emerson, recalls the energy and sense of humor that her former employer had, “My boss this summer was an older woman that was so funny. She would run around with a water gun and shoot employees without them seeing, to make them think it was raining on them. She would hide behind tables and try to be all sneaky. It was hysterical.”

Like McClure, Pauley has fond memories of a fun workplace. Pauley says her boss’s sense of humor allowed employees to enjoy the long hours they worked. However, many people are not as lucky as McClure and Pauley in finding a job with an entertaining environment.

Max Martin is a 22-year-old student at Bunker Hill Community College. Martin works in the South End, where he deals with an inappropriate fellow employee. Martin says this employee, a 45-yearold man, takes workplace humor too far.

“He made it known that he was attracted to me.

He inquired if I was gay and if I would date him, and I said no. I never said anything of it, and just put up with the comments.”

While Martin insists that this coworker is just trying

to be funny and get a rise out of him, this behavior is completely unsuitable for a work environment.

Martin takes each encounter with this coworker in stride, and points out that sometimes humor can be taken too far, and make others feel uncomfortable.

Renee Deschene is another Junior at Emerson College where she double majors in Journalism and Marketing. After interning at a T-shirt startup in downtown Boston, her boss remained in contact with her.

Although Deschene’s work environment was very casual and all employees worked closely with each other, she is unsure about this continued connection with her former boss. Her past employer now sends her pictures of himself or scenes of Boston, as well as text messages, almost every day. Deschene doesn’t feel comfortable with her former boss keeping in touch in this way. The connection is silly and fun, but it is one sided and Deschene feels that any interaction at all crosses the line.

The fact that employers look for a sense of humor in their employees, further blurs the line between

workplace appropriate and inappropriate humor.

While complicated, there is an importance in being aware of ones’ own behavior and sense of humor in preparation for the workplace. Humor can make the workday go quickly and keeps the environment fun, but should always be healthy and appropriate. Being refined in humor is always appreciated, even in environments where jokes are suitable. text / LEAH HODGE photos / CARLY KAPLAN models / DASHA FAYVINOVA & CHRIS GILLESPIE

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Nonprofits:

Passion Put to Practice

KELLY BUDISH’S INTERNSHIP wasn’t originally what she had in mind. When Next Mile Project’s internship coordinator contacted the film production student through eHire, she jumped at the opportunity to join the startup’s first media lab team. But mid-semester, she says,“I’m not learning how to make better videos.” Instead, she has learned to market her passion for filmmaking while developing a new appreciation for the nonprofit industry.

Today, nonprofits comprise a tenth of the U.S. workforce and fill communications and arts oriented positions more than ever. Their presence is humble yet wide-reaching. Dozens of nonprofits operate within a one-mile radius of Emerson’s campus, among them City Year,

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Oxfam America, and Future Boston Alliance.

Nonprofits look for new talent to market their missions and motivated, passionate Emerson students can be the perfect fit; it’s a matter of applying skills to the task at hand.

Next Mile Project provides nonprofits with pro bono and media services to promote their organizations, and Budish (‘16) pitches video ideas to their clients in a professional setting. She benefits from business experience that applies to filmmaking and compliments her minor in marketing communications. “I learn a lot from a marketing standpoint,” she says. Before she produces portfolio-boosting clips, she is laying the groundwork for future interns by establishing standards and deciding what videos will look like.

Budish appreciates how Next Mile Project gives its interns a voice. “It’s a really nice environment,” she says, “and you never feel like you’re being talked down to.”

Like corporate industries, nonprofits look for resumes that show exactly what one can contribute to the organization. As a soon-tobe graduate who has worked for local and international nonprofits including Green Corps, Community Works, Year Up , and Pine Street Inn, Dylan Manderlink, investigative theater for social change (’14), says nonprofits are looking for “a spirit and enthusiasm that is unwavering.

They want you to have a deep conviction to their mission and what they do.” It’s also important to be as flexible as possible, willing to work in multiple segments of a company.

Manderlink, who created her own social justice-focused major during her freshman year, first interned with Liberty in North Korea (LiNK), a nonprofit human rights organization. LiNK visited Emerson in 2010, and Manderlink says, “I watched their documentary and was very inspired. The North Korea movement was very intriguing to me and I felt it wasn’t addressed enough.” In 2012, she took off for LA to work for the nonprofit.

At LiNK, Manderlink organized a major documentary screening tour by calling community service centers, schools, and churches in the Southeast, Northeast, and Heartland regions. While she is eager to work directly with people in need, Manderlink understands the importance of behind-thescenes office work. “I think nonprofit work is extremely beneficial because nonprofits can’t afford to pay [interns],” she says, “so you’re given a lot of freedom and responsibility.” Nonprofits often allow interns and employees to participate in company segments outside of their degrees, creating a well-rounded learning experience.

But a nonprofit career path isn’t as simple as making a living while witnessing positive community impact. Results aren’t always tangible, and many of the organizations that Manderlink has worked with interact with people that the rest of the world tends to ignore; people dealing with homelessness, poverty, teen pregnancy, and drug addictions. These fields pose problemsolving issues and require levelheadedness. “It’s

not always going to be a positive experience,” she says, “so it’s important to stay afloat.”

As another activist in the nonprofit industry, Matthew Durham , writing, literature, and publishing (’12) utilizes his communications skills beyond the office. Following graduation, he moved to New Orleans and joined City Year , an AmeriCorps program that works to improve public school students’ attendance, behavior, and course performance. His ten months at City Year then led him to his next nonprofit job at the Edible Schoolyard Project .

At the Edible Schoolyard , Durham works with kids to overcome their fears of getting dirty, trying new foods, and learning outdoor skills.

Durham finds joy in seeing students take pride in the garden. “Other teachers will come outside and they’ll show them what they’re working on, on their knees getting dirty,” he says. “Seeing those relationships form is the most rewarding.”

Like Durham , Manderlink will leave Boston after graduation to apply her Emerson studies to Arkansas’s education system through Teach for America. For Manderlink, the nonprofit path isn’t a question, and her social justice efforts have made her an advocate. “Once you’re exposed to injustice, its hard to go back to your comfortable life,” she says. She encourages other Emerson students to use their talents to improve the lives of others. “The difficult thing at Emerson is every major can be used for social change, but not enough people do it,” she says. “Emerson students are a great avenue to change because they’re so motivated and driven.”

Durham seconds Manderlink’s notion to hone in on field-specific talents. “In the nonprofit world, skills translate more than connections,” he says.

“It’s important to utilize them wherever you go.”

Whether interested in a nonprofit career in the long term, or looking to contribute to a cause while gaining professional experience like Budish , the nonprofit industry asks us to put the skills we practice at Emerson to use. After all, opportunities to utilize our talents while working toward a greater goal are only a few blocks away.

“The difficult thing at Emerson is every major can be used for social change, but not enough people do it.”

text / CAROLINE CASSARD photo / COURTESY OF DYLAN MANDERLINK

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What Can Social Media Do for Your Career?

FAMED FASHION BLOGGER BRYANBOY joined America’s Next Top Model in 2012 to calculate contestants’ social media popularity week by week. This new component changed the show’s scoring system, revealing the powerful influence of social media. The idea that social media is used to help brand and promote permeates almost all industries at the moment, and its importance doesn’t seem to be fading.

According to socialmediatoday.com, 93 percent of marketers use social media for their business and 75 percent of marketers plan to increase strategic efforts on social media and social networking sites this year. Journalism has also changed with the height of social media, as almost half of digital news consumers get their news from Facebook and Twitter, according to a 2012 survey by the Pew Research Center. Social Media is especially integrated with communications, and when used correctly, it can help students get ahead of the pack.

Kailani K-M, multimedia editor at MSNBC, attests to how she uses social media and what students can do now to prepare. “All of the jobs I’ve had incorporated social media in some way,” says Kailani.

A former Emerson College student, KoenigMuenster was offered two internships through Twitter and said employers were the ones

contacting her because of her strong Internet presence and skillful social media use. She shared some tips that anyone can use to help bolster their social media sites and impress that potential employer browsing the web.

First, put links to every social media site you have in the “About Me” section of every one of your social media sites. This helps to expand your brand and visibility. It also means more people will click on your sites and bump up your stats.

Constantly update your sites and be as active as you can. If you are consistent with posts more people will view your site.

Remember to be a responsible poster. This means being aware of your audience and the information that you are divulging. Don’t post things that could damage your credibility or that could easily offend others. This means keeping the social escapades out of public sites and thinking about making two sites with the intention of creating one that employers can see.

Try to be relevant in the topics you post. Post things that would be interesting for others and is helpful at that moment. Social media is a 24/7 channel and people are always looking for new content.

Finally, push for more followers. Whether it’s posting in more places, finding people who you think would be interested in your content, or asking people to subscribe. More people viewing

“According to socialmediatoday.com, 93 percent of marketers use social media for their business.”

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and following your sites makes it easier for others to find you.

“Another reason to keep your social media sites in good order is that it lets you personalize yourself and your interests so much better than a resume,” Koenig-Muenster says. Many employers are asking for Twitter and Instagram sites to be included on a resume, and this is a good thing. It can let you express your personality and your own individual interests, which humanize applicants.

It also may lead to positions that are a good fit according to your interests and specialties.

Alice Stein, the president of American Marketing Agency’s Boston division, has been in the business for 15 years and uses social media extensively at the company.

Stein has an aggressive team overseeing the social media sites. Each site has its own social media channel manager. “We find that that’s the best way to not only enable these people to hone in on their skills in a specific social channel, but it keeps us running really well across the board,” Stein says.

Social media coexists with work like journalism and marketing and employers are on the web scoping out applicants to see how Internet savvy they are.

“One of the things we judge people on is their proficiency in social media,” says Bennie Dinardo, the multimedia editor for The Boston Globe and Boston.com, “If they are working at the paid school news organizations we look at their tweets.

Have they built a following? Are their posts merely social, or are they informative about their areas of interests? Who do they follow? Who follows them?”

This is the time to grow your social media empire. Students can now transform their social media sites into professional sites as more employers are seeing internet activity as part of the job. Don’t take social media lightly, because as Dinardo makes note, it is not a fly by night fad. text / MICHELLE HARVEN

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