March 2016

BARD FREE PRESS

ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, NY

MARCH 2016

VOLUME XVII ISSUE 4

T H E F R E E PRESS OUR TERMS the free press reserves the right to edit all submissions for spelling, grammar, and coherence. we protect our student journalists’ first amendment rights and accept the responsibilities that accompany that freedom. content decisions are made by the editorial board, and the free press will not print anything libelous or discriminatory in nature. anonymous submissions can only be printed if the writers consult with the editorial board first. all articles in the features and opinion sections reflect the opinions of the authors, not those of the free press editorial board or staff. responses to opinions are totally welcome and can be sent to bardfreepress@gmail.com, as can letters to the editors. all letters submitted to the free press will be considered for publication unless the writer requests otherwise. they will be edited for space, content and grammar.

STAFF GRADY NIXON MADI GARVIN ACACIA NUNES MYA GELBER PANSY SCHULMAN ERIN O’LEARY OLIVIA CRUMM NIALL MURPHY AVERY MENCHER THATCHER SNYDER CHARLES MCFARLANE

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THE REBIRTH ISSUE

contents: letters to the editor .......... 4 briefs .......... 10 smoke-free campus?. .......... 12 russian dissident speaks. .......... 15 tivoli tastemaker(s). .......... 16 hans dehass comic club. .......... 18 value of publications. .......... 19 arendt center program. .......... 20 no boys allowed. .......... 23 featured artist. .......... 25 sports. .......... 28 creative. .......... 30

photo by graylen gatewood front cover by hans dehaas back cover by sam williams

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letters to the editor: In February of 2009, the Bard Observer and The Bard Free Press merged into a single publication. The papers were reborn simply as The Bard Free Press. The following letter ran in the first pages of the new paper:

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black and blue and read all over: the bard free press The letter on the opposite page ran seven years ago.

Here in the distant future, nearly two batches of student bodies away from that letter, we find ourselves at a similar crossroads. Our basic issue is that over the years we have devolved from a well-staffed and representative student newspaper into a large-format newsletter with few articles and some decent tweets. As we did our job less thoroughly, other papers were created to fill the publication void we found ourselves creating. We, the Free Press, find ourselves in the same position that the now-defunct Observer was in seven years ago.

There’s a joke I tell people when I think anything I say will make people laugh: A man goes to his doctor and touches his knee. “It hurts when I touch here,” he says.

“And here,” pointing to his shoulders. He presses against his lower back. “It really hurts when I touch here.” He brings his finger to his cheek. “It hurts when I touch here, too.” His doctor looks at him, thinks for a second, and gives him the bitter diagnosis. “I think you have a broken finger,” she says.

It’s not that funny of a joke, but I like it anyway. In a way, it’s a sort of Aesop. Pointing at a problem doesn’t necessarily mean that you understand what the problem is.

Right now, the Free Press hurts everywhere. My hope is that we just have a broken finger.

We have a plan that we’re going to try and if we’re lucky something will click and we’ll buy ourselves another seven years. We’re changing pretty much everything about the paper. The format, the content, the focus, the etc.

You’ll notice we have creative pieces and we don’t have the same sections. You’ll notice we have a theme for the issue now. We’re still a paper, but we’re giving ourselves a renewed purpose. The Bard Free Press was good for a long time, but things didn’t change and then they stopped working and then they didn’t get fixed. Check out the issue, let us know what you like and what you don’t. Come to a meeting if you’re interested in working with us. Keep reading, we’ll keep working. We’re still your paper if you’ll have us. I promise, we can change.

-grady nixon

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photo by emma ressel

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marcuse, repressive tolerance, and bard wailly comprés and antonio gansley-ortiz

In last month’s issue of the Bard Free Press, Ethan Quinones published an opinion piece “Nietzsche, Oppression, and Bard”. The piece is short, and much of the core of the argument is left unstated, and instead is implied via his language and tone. In the spirit of Bard’s slogan – “A place to think” – we have endeavored to engage this article critically, to address both its explicit and implicit meanings, and to provide a meaningful academic response which challenges the ideas set forth while simultaneously avoiding any personal attacks against the author. We will be quoting extensively from the original piece and the works of Herbert Marcuse, and we encourage the reader to go and read the originals so they may form their own opinions. To briefly summarize “Nietzsche, Oppression, and Bard”, Mr. Quinones argues that a “slave morality” has taken power in the college. This morality is not generated positively – in the sense that it is constructed through shared ideals – but rather negatively, or as being opposed to ideals. This “slave morality” has led to an improper understanding of the social situation on this campus, and unjustly scapegoats institutions for feelings of social, physical, and mental alienation.

In the framing of his work, Mr. Quinones seeks to establish a dichotomy between freedom and constraint. The work sets out to show how Bardians, in their attempt to create a safe environment, are actually “resorting to fascism”. We find this initial assumption to be problematic. It is our view that this is not a “free speech issue” – which is the way Mr. Quinones has chosen to frame it – but rather an issue of civility. Last month the Hannah Arendt Center brought Professor Nicholas Xenos to lecture on the late political theorist Sheldon S. Wolin. During the question and answer portion of the talk, Prof. Xenos was asked a question about the protest movements at Yale and in Missouri, and if these movement were actually stifling free speech. Prof. Xenos responded “I’m not sure that the free speech issue is the critical issue at Yale. I think that by turning it into a free speech issue we lose sight of what other issues are being raised there which have more to do with race and certain other kinds of notions of civility. We have a lot of experience of people doing some pretty uncivil things. I can tell that at Amherst College, I am told, that a faculty member had two African American women in his class, one very light skinned and the other very dark skinned, and he kept confusing them. He then said he wished one of them would get their hair cut or something so he could tell the difference between them. That’s uncivil, racist, and if you react to that, that’s not a free speech issue.” We find that this response sums up our personal feelings in response to the underlying assumptions of the argument.

But let us take Mr. Quinones assumption, that this is in fact an issue of free speech and not an issue of civility. What Mr. Quinones is arguing for is “total tolerance”, that the Bard Community as a whole should tolerate all opinions, even if they are racist, sexist, transphobic, etc. This is inherently problematic, and has in fact been addressed by another great political mind – Herbert Marcuse. In 1965, Marcuse was involved in the publication of a book on tolerance, and his section of the discourse was aptly titled “Repressive Tolerance”. In the essay Marcuse seeks to pin down the problematic elements of “total tolerance”, its role in classical liberal thought, and the reason why it actually is oppressive to allow such a blanket acceptance of all comments in the public sphere. Total tolerance is a form of tolerance where “Tolerance is extended to policies, conditions, and modes of behavior which should not be tolerated because they are impeding, if not destroying, the chances of creating an existence without fear and misery.” This is the type of tolerance which the Bard students who Mr. Quinones critiques are rallying against.

Marcuse writes about the 60s protest movements: “This same situation is so terrible, so suffocating and demeaning, that rebellion against it forces a biological, physiological reaction: one can bear it no longer, one is suffo-

cating and one has to let some air in.” This is entirely relevant to our experience at Bard. When Bard students talk about “freedom from oppression” what they mean is freedom from repressive tolerance. To equate this to left “fascism”, as Mr. Quinones does, is missing the point. To be a student in academia and face structural racism and sexism is alienating, and it does cause depression. It is a product of structural racism that Bard hires overwhelmingly white faculty and staff. “Society cannot be indiscriminate where the pacification of existence, where freedom and happiness themselves are at stake: here, certain things cannot be said, certain ideas cannot be expressed, certain policies cannot be proposed, certain behavior cannot be permitted without making tolerance an instrument for the continuation of servitude.” To tolerate the structural discrimination in academia is to be an instrument of oppression. Desmond Tutu tells us “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.”

So how then can we agree with Mr. Quinones’ sentiment? We must always and everywhere call out instances of injustice, even when it is uncomfortable for us to do so. If we do not we are as guilty as the “newscaster [who] reports the torture and murder of civil rights workers in the same unemotional tone he uses to describe the stockmarket or the weather, or with the same great emotion with which he says his commercials” which “offends against humanity and truth by being calm where one should be enraged, by refraining from accusation where accusation is in the facts themselves.”

A few questions arose during our close reading of “Nietzsche, Oppression, and Bard”. Mr. Quinones says, “In addition, whenever possible we should refrain from causing intentional harm or discomfort, however many of the complaints that come to light seem to [be] unintentional and causing a small degree of discomfort”. Small to who? Mr. Quinones says “Bard is undoubtedly a place of great privilege – however, the exact privileges conferred by attending Bard do not seem to be very well understood”. Not understood by who? Mr. Quinones says “Bard campus is safer than most places in the world”. Safe for who? “[Institutions] are blamed for anything that makes us feel slightly uncomfortable”. Who gets to define the comfortability of individuals as they experience real feelings of alienation, sexism, racism, and all forms of discrimination? Finally, Mr. Quinones said: “It grates the ears to hear one claim to be oppressed solely because more professors are not of the desired race or ethnicity, or because someone slighted you by not holding open a door.” Is that really what individuals are saying? Or have you trivialized the lived experiences of students on this campus who when they try to speak up you deny them the right because it “grates the ears”.

We believe that Mr. Quinones, in the framing of his argument, has failed to empathetically engage with the student body. Instead of “putting himself in other shoes”, he uses his personal frame of reference and misses the lived experience of students on campus who do not fall within the dominant structure – white cisgender heterosexual males. The daily micro-aggressions of misgendering, racial stereotyping (positive and negative), and various forms of sexual harassment, may seem “unintentional and causing a small degree of discomfort” to Mr. Quinones, but to the student who experiences them on a daily basis it is a real and ever-present part of their existence. Mr. Quinones said that students at Bard “stifle and squash [calls for self-reflection] as ‘apologetic’”, but where is the self-reflection on our own roles in the power structures which make up not only Bard but the nation as a whole? Instead of reflecting on criticism set forth, it would appear that the prevailing “powers that be” resent students who voice their discomfort, and silence them with reminders that they are “privileged” enough to go to a “great institution like Bard.”

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sexual assault at bard

clark hamel

the following letter contains descriptions of rape and sexual assault

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I am a Junior here at Bard College. I have a female body, though I am non-binary trans-masculine. I have been assaulted three times in the past three years here, and once more before I came to Bard, when I was 16.

The first time, I went through the entire criminal justice system (he was punished), but I have yet to report any of my experiences at Bard.

At this point, it feels like it’s my fault, it feels like I am doing something wrong. But I have thought a lot about this, and I know this is not true. I am strong and powerful.

So why do I feel so unsafe on this campus? Why do I feel unsafe going to shows at Vassar, SUNY Purchase, NYU; why do I feel so unsafe at any college campus?

Maybe it is because, according to the Cleveland Rape Crisis organization, every 21 hours there is a rape on an American college campus. Maybe it is because of the fact that within the range of men who think women who drink alcohol are willing sexual partners, 40% of them believe that it is okay to force sex on a person who is intoxicated.

So is it that ridiculous for me to feel unsafe here? I learned that rape was something I could experience at an extremely young age. And so, I walk to SMOG in the dark, come to the Root Cellar alone, go to a party in Tivoli, hang out at the Swan, go to a dorm party, and I almost expect to be groped, taken advantage of, or even assaulted. Especially if I choose to drink, something I no longer do but absolutely used to.

At the Fall Back event—a series of shows at SMOG over the Halloween weekend—, something that I helped book, plan, and organize, I was groped many times in the crowd, to the point of not even wanting to be in the audience. After making an announcement on stage about how important it is for touching and dancing to be consensual, I had a bottle thrown at my head and received a concussion. My female-bodied friends and I crack jokes about this, saying things like “oh yeah I’m going to SMOG, I know I’ll get some action there!” or “getting felt up is easy, just go to the bar.” We joke this way because it is painful to think about how real it is. We joke this way because it has become the norm. Rape is normalized at colleges. One in four female bodied people are raped by the end of their time at college. This isn’t just a Bard College mindset; it’s any college. And when I really think about it, I don’t just feel unsafe at Bard. I feel unsafe on this campus, this city, the state of New York, this country, and this world; none of these places were made for us.

It is ingrained in the brains of young people who are assigned female at birth (AFAB), and people who present as women, that we will be at risk of being assaulted unless we are more careful. We start relationships, we wear baggy clothes, we sober up and decide no more drugs. This seems to change nothing. I do not dress provocatively; in fact, I bind my breasts most days. I do

not do drugs or drink alcohol anymore. I am substance free. I’m not in a relationship but I attend most events I do go to with my close friends. So whose fault is it?

A study done in 2015 showed that 23% of female college students said they had experienced unwanted sexual contact, from kissing to groping to assault. And 11% of those people said this unwanted sexual contact was penetrative or oral sex. 23% of female students-that is almost one fourth of female college students.

One fourth of female college students experience some form of assault. There is an additional statistic that states that one in four female college students are assaulted.

Reading this did not surprise me nearly as much as I wish it had. Part of this is because many of my friends have been assaulted at Bard, or at other schools. And at a school like Bard, where there is no Greek life, no huge athletic presence (this is not a jab at the athletic department, I am simply naming institutions that are widely known for assault on college campuses), you have to wonder who the people are who are committing these actions. Is it intentional and malicious? Or is it due to substance abuse? As it is, when alcohol and drugs get involved, the definition of what assault is becomes blurry to many people.

And this is not to belittle or detract from the men who are raped in this world. I am sure many of you feel exactly the same way. I speak for all of us; anyone who has experienced this, who feels unsafe, who doesn’t want to be here. We live in a broken system, a system where people can get away with doing this. Where people are more scared to go to the police or Title IX than they are scared to see their assaulter on a potentially daily basis.

According to the same study I cited earlier, done in 2015, over 50% of women who experienced serious incidents of assault and rape did not report because they thought it was not serious enough. Others claimed to be embarrassed, or felt guilty, or thought it would be too emotionally taxing to go through a process where they probably would not receive justice. All of those reasons have gone through my mind, and are all reasons I have not reported a single one of my assaults at Bard. I would rather see the men who have assaulted me in DTR, have a class with them, go to shows and see them, know they’ll be at this or that party. I would rather experience all those things than report. Part of this is that I did report to the police when I was 16, and went through a whole criminal investigation. And it was incredibly emotionally taxing. I wonder why the pressure needs to be put on me, on us, to report, when it is such a burden much of the time. Me being assaulted is not just my problem, it’s our problem.

What I am trying to say is this: do not assault people. To all people: do not assault people. Men, women, trans, non-binary people: do not assault other people.

photo by lily frances

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briefs: tivoli village board holds elections miriam roday

It’s an unfortunate reality that many Bard students living in Tivoli know very little about its local politics.

They walk up and down Broadway, but are far moved from the community itself. While members of the Bard Communication Committee like Zev Fogelman and Hasani Gunn met several times with the Village Board, most Bardians tend to keep to themselves.

Emily Majer, who ran for Village Trustee in the recent elections said that in the next two years she hopes to cultivate a stronger relationship between Bard students and residents of Tivoli. She added, “I would like students who live in Tivoli to have experience that I had...it was really formative in terms of feeling like, Tivoli is home; while you’re here you are community.”

Majer has been a resident of Tivoli since 1990, at the time she studied Victorian literature at Bard. She fell in love with the “village experience” and added, “It’s such a small town, between going to the Post Office and Murrays and Santa Fe, you see everybody.”

In the past Majer worked on the Library Board and the Zoning Board of Appeals, but she never officially ran for office. Last year, she was appointed to fill a vacant Trustee seat when Mayor Griffith was elected.

When asked about her credentials Griffith said, “I’ve known Emily Majer for 24 years, at least, and she’s

always been a very committed Tivolian...She has great integrity and great talent and I was thrilled she would accept the appointment to the board.” In discussing her plans for the future, Majer said—“For the past three years, the village has been working on getting a waterfront park [adjacent to] the river.” As town Trustee she will keep pushing this initiative and work to repair the water system that was put in place back in the 1930s.

On Tuesday March 15, when Tivoli held its reelections at the local firehouse, all three candidates ran unopposed on the First Ballot Line. Incumbent Howard Clark was elected as the village judge; he is a retired chef instructor with the Culinary Institute of America who has lived in Tivoli with his wife and child since 1973. He will serve his fifth term as village judge. Emily Majer - along with Jeanann Schneider - was elected to the Village Board as Trustees for a two-year term.

At the end of the day, Majer and Clark received 60 votes in this reelection while Schneider finished at 53. The Village Clerk, Robin Bruno estimated that 115-125 residents voted out of roughly 1,200 people.

Perhaps in the next few years those numbers will go up as a result of a deeper engagement in the community on the part of the students who call Tivoli home.

thelma golden named 2016 ccs audrey irmas award recipient katherine bonnie

For the past 19 years, CCS has been giving out the Audrey Irmas Award for Curatorial Excellence to curators who have been changing the way we see and understand art and the creation of the exhibition. The award is named after the patron of the award’s endowment. The 2016 recipient, Thelma Golden, certainly fits the bill.

Tom Eccles, Executive Curator at CCS, spearheaded the search for nominations, calling on over 100 colleagues and CCS graduates, and then whittled the process down to a group of 12 to make the final choice. CCS looks for individuals who encompass and define new ways of thinking, and aim to orient the contemporary art world to challenge political and cultural conventions. Eccles was quoted by The New York Times as saying, “Many of my students in the graduate program are thinking about the work of Thelma Golden, and looking at the 1993 Whitney Biennial and ‘Black Male’ and the kinds of issues she’s brought up at The Studio Museum.”

The Studio Museum, located at 142 West 125th Street, Harlem, has hosted conversation and dialogue centered around African American representation in the arts and in curatorial work since its start in 1968. It was founded by a passionate group of philanthropists, community activists, and artists who expound diversity through their visual work. Now, as the institution’s deputy director, Thelma Golden has found an outlet in which she can further her work as an independent voice in the art world.

For Eccles, the practice of curation has never been about glamour or wealth related to the art world, but rather about, “maintaining a vision and commitment to an institution”.

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During Golden’s time at The Studio Museum, the institution has expanded the museum’s collection to include over 2,000 art works, invited more than 45 artists in residence, and has increased overall participation in education and public programs that look to strengthen the presence of diverse audiences for art appreciation and analysis.

Golden’s educational background and experience has set her up for her success and status of work and commitment at the Whitney and The Studio Museum in their curatorial departments. She holds a BA in Art History and African American Studies from Smith College, and honorary doctorates from establishments including San Francisco Art Institute and Moore College of Art and Design. While at the Studio Museum she has designed and curated exhibitions including Chris Ofili: Afro Muses 1995–2005, Black Romantic: The Figurative Impulse in Contemporary Art, and Freestyle. For E-flux, Eccles was quoted saying, “Through her timely exhibitions, critical thinking, and eloquent, intelligent advocacy, Thelma Golden has demonstrated that curating is of crucial importance, raising issues and developing ideas that are central to our time.” With this award, and the choice in recipient, the CCS program proves itself to be a forward thinking, if not culturally radical, establishment - right in the heart of our campus.

voter registration information

acacia nunes Donald trumped Super Tuesday. Hil’ stole the southern states.

Primary season has commenced in order to determine who will serve as the candidates representing the Dems and the Grand Old Party come summer. This year, many of us are excited by the prospect of voting in our first elections. Those of us registered in Dutchess County will vote on Tuesday April 19th from 12-9 p.m. Not sure if that’s you? Check at https://voterlookup. elections.state.ny.us to see if and where you’re registered at by entering your name, date of birth, and county and zip code (12504, in case you’ve never had anything sent to your Bard mailbox). According to Eva-Marie Quinones, head of the Elections@Bard initiative, “Students who are registered elsewhere or have never registered can go to www.election.bard.edu to download the appropriate voter registration form, for New York or for the state they are from, fill out the form, and mail it in to the county Board of Elections” located at 47 Cannon Street, Poughkeepsie 12601”.

“Unfortunately,” said Quinones, “the deadline for students to register to vote and be able to vote in the New York State primary has already passed (March 25), so if a student registered to vote at this point, they wouldn’t be able to vote in the primary elections.” Students should still feel encouraged to sign up in order to vote in the general election in November. Those who are registered will vote at St. John the Evangelist Church in Barrytown. According to Quinones, Elections@Bard will be providing free transportation to the church every 30 minutes beginning at noon on the 19th. “Students cannot vote in the primaries on campus, although Election@Bard is campaigning to move the District 5 polling site to the Campus Center MPR for the general election,” said Quinones. We all saw the 2008 celebrity compilation video reminding us that our vote counts.

So don’t let them down, and go use it.

Fast Facts According to Quinones: Free Press: When is the NY primary?

Eva-Marie Quinones: The New York State presidential primary is April 19th, from 12PM-9PM. FP: What’s the process?

Quinones: The New York State primary is a closed primary, which means you must be registered with a political party, and vote for a candidate in that party. You simply go to the polling site and vote - New York State does not have voter ID laws, which means that you cannot legally be required to produce ID at any point.

FP: How does a student check if they’re registered to vote?

Quinones: A student can check if they are registered in the NYS Voter Lookup at https://voterlookup.elections.state.ny.us by entering their name, birth date, county (Dutchess) and zip code (12504).

FP: If they’re not registered, how do they become registered?

Quinones: Students who are registered elsewhere or have never registered can go to www.election.bard.edu to download the appropriate voter registration form, for New York or for the state they are from, fill out the form, and mail it in to the county Board of Elections (the Dutchess County Board of Elections is located at 47 Cannon Street, Poughkeepsie 12601).

bard’s first stem cell donor drive set for this month anna russian

April 13, 2016, marks Bard’s very first Stem Cell Donor Drive. The aim of the event - held in the MPR - is to further the goal of eliminating blood cancer in the U.S. as well as across the globe. Bard Delete Blood Cancer was founded by German tutor, Dennis King, 25, who, with the help of seven highly dedicated students, was able to put this event together.

Delete Blood Cancer is an organization that strives to prevent blood cancer through volunteer donations. While 30% of people in need receive blood from family members, a whole 70% rely on us - the volunteers. “This is done because people actually care,” says King.

“It’s not about getting something back, it’s about giving something away. Giving someone a second chance at life.”

First-year Charles Moxley also chimed in on the subject, saying that the most important thing is “the impact,” and “to participate in something you haven’t done before.”

In the United States, every three minutes someone is diagnosed with blood cancer. It is the leading cause of childhood death in the U.S., as well as the third leading cause of cancer related deaths, so it is vital that people come out to this event. There are currently 6 million people in the database, and it would only help to add more.

All it takes to get swabbed is to 1) be between the ages of 18-55; 2) be a minimum of 4’10 and 110 pounds; 3) have generally good health; 4) Not be previously registered; 5) Have permanent U.S. residency; and 6) donate to any patient. King also adds that there is a “Don’t ask, Don’t tell” policy. Through these simple guidelines, you can be on your way to delete blood cancer.

In most cases, once added to the national registry, the donor will most likely not be called upon. And if the donor is having second

thoughts, King says that “You can always change your mind, it’s always your choice if you want to donate.”

However, if you are in fact called upon, you will be asked to donate one of two ways. The first is called the peripheral method and the second is through a bone marrow donation.

In the peripheral method, the donor will have their blood drawn through one arm, and then the blood will be sifted through a machine that takes out the stem cells. After, the sifted blood is returned to their other arm. All together this process takes up to 4-6 hours.

Through the bone marrow donation, the donor will have their stem cells removed from the back of the hip bone by a syringe. This is done under general anesthetics, and takes up to 1-2 hours. Typically, the donor can get back to work within a week, and “If you can’t go to work they’ll [DBC] compensate for you,” explains King.

Donating can be a rewarding experience, especially if the donor is able to save somebody’s life. Since 1991 there have been nearly 55,000 stem cell transplants, and the number is only growing. “We’re trying to get as many people as possible” says King. And on his hope for club, Moxley adds that “Hopefully we’ll have people who want to join in the long run.”

With a smile on his face, King says: “I did this event three years ago and it takes a lot of work. I said ‘I’m not going to do this again for a long time.’ Then I came to this campus, and I realized no one’s really aware of Delete Blood Cancer. I’ve had the experience, I’ve done it before, I think I can motivate the people to do it again.”

If you would like to be a part of this club, contact dbc-club@bard. edu for more information.

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columns:

bard considers turning new leaf as a smoke-free campus brigid fister A hub of artsy, angsty kids are configured in clumps outside of Kline. To no one’s surprise, they’re chain-smoking. Smoker, or non-smoker, it’s somewhat impossible when leaving Olin or the Library to not be assaulted by a cloud of smoke wafting toward your face. Maybe you find the constant onslaught of cigarette smoke annoying. Either way this part of Bard’s culture may be changing. The rumors are in, and although not entirely confirmed, Bard will most likely become a non-smoking campus within the next three to four years.

I sat down with Bethany Nohlgren to gain some insight into this possible decision. Bard’s resolve to change its smoking policy comes down to a few different options: partially smoke free, designated smoking areas, or entirely smoke free. One thing motivating the college is Bard’s acquisition of Montgomery Place. Nohlgren said that, “Part of this consideration is that Montgomery Place is smoke free as of now, so we have to be mindful of that. That would mean that already one third of campus is smoke-free.” It seems like this differentiation between smoking-approved areas could be potentially confusing to students. So, it seems somewhat natural that the rest of the school would follow suit.

Montgomery Place is something to consider, but it seems like the main motive is coming from the state government. “There have been grumblings from the health world which would motivate the state into mandating every campus be smoke free. We want to be ahead of the curve, to become smoke free before being forced or fined,” said Nohlgren. All state schools in New York are smoke free, and a handful of private institutions are following suit, Vassar for one. Although this decision doesn’t seem necessarily imminent, the change could affect Bard’s culture.

I spoke to a few students about this proposition, smokers and non-smokers alike. It seems as though the general consensus was that this decision is not necessary, but in a sense, helpful. Helpful specifically on a health basis, stopping smoking means better health. Bard student smokers are aware of this but it doesn’t seem to be their top priority. Lucy Atkinson, class of 2018, articulated that a non-smoking campus wouldn’t necessarily alter their experience at Bard;

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others said smoking is not necessarily a daily consideration. However, she did suggest that, “I wouldn’t see as many people outside, and socializing outside of buildings.” So smoking is clearly associated with, and possibly even integral to, the creation of social life at Bard.

Would smokers be motivated to live off campus by this decision, or just spend more time there if they can’t smoke on campus?

As far as the repercussions of this decision, smokers and non-smokers are in agreement that it would not necessarily eliminate smoking completely. In reference to the recent addition of a picnic table outside of Robbins, Atkinson added, “There are already benches laid out specifically so people will smoke a certain distance from buildings. But that doesn’t stop people from smoking now in other areas.”

Since some Bard students seem to already be adverse to complying within the respectful smoking areas; why would they alter their behavior for these new rules?

A smoker agreed, “It would create a strange dynamic between those who do smoke and those who don’t smoke. It would increase the stigma or taboo of smoking but not necessarily stop it.” Time will tell.

Once the plans become formulated and new regulations are implemented, the dynamic may change, or just change location. Instead of a cloud of smoke greeting you on your way to snag some breakfast, there may be one in the corner of a parking lot, or in the woods. But hopefully not the woods, that could end badly. Either way, the general consensus is that smokers will keep smoking. The smoker says, “I don’t even think I would smoke less, I would just do it differently.” Even if this change doesn’t necessarily thwart the nasty health issues associated with smoking, it can improve the external image of the campus, and the copious amounts of cigarette butts that seem to be everywhere.

Bethany Nohlgen invites any students who want to join the dialogue from either side to contact her or Amii LeGendre. Both are interested in hearing student reactions, including those involved with breather’s rights.

photo by lily frances

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photo by olivia crumm

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putin: “mr. litvinenko, unfortunately, is not lazarus.”

alexander goldfarb, russian dissident speaks at bard olivia kennison

On November 23rd, 2006, former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko died of radioactive poisoning in a London hospital. The next day, Russian political dissident Alexander Goldfarb released Litvinenko’s posthumous statement, which accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of sanctioning his assassination. Putin responded to the accusations on the same day: “Mr. Litvinenko, unfortunately, is not Lazarus.”

Alexander Goldfarb spoke at Bard in the Bito Auditorium on March 3rd in an event co-sponsored by the Russian and Eurasian Studies Department and the Hannah Arendt Center. Goldfarb, who emigrated from the USSR in 1975, has recently published a book detailing the Litvinenko case, entitled Death of a Dissident: The Poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko and the Return of the KGB, written with the help of

the deceased’s widow, Marina Litvinenko. Marina and her husband fled Russia in 2000, following Alexander’s arrest for accusing his superiors of systematic corruption.

The couple and their son were granted asylum in the United Kingdom, thanks to the assistance of Goldfarb, who had become acquainted with Litvinenko while working on a project in Russian prisons in the 1990s. While in exile, Alexander published several books exposing the crime and corruption he had witnessed while working for the Kremlin.

The Litvinenko family had recently been granted British citizenship when two FSB (the current iteration of the KGB) agents paid Alexander a visit in London and slipped a sample of polonium-210 into his tea. Three weeks later, Litvinenko was dead.

Goldfarb has a clear argument regarding why he finds Putin responsible: such a high profile transfer of polonium from an atomic lab and the authorization of the assassination of a known dissident would require approval on the highest level. In July 2014, a public inquiry into Litvinenko’s death was opened in London and finally in 2016 two Russian agents under the FSB’s command were found responsible. The inquiry report also stated that the operation was likely approved by President Putin.

British Prime Minister David Cameron condemned Putin for the “state-sponsored” crime, but decided against punishing Russia with economic sanctions (as Marina Litvinenko demanded) in the interested of preserving their political relationship.

Goldfarb contacted Olga Voronina, the chair of the REAS Department, about speaking at Bard, with the intention of informing as many audiences as possible about the Litvinenko case and the work he and Marina Litvinenko have done to find justice. This lecture followed in Bard’s effort to amplify the voices of human rights advocates from varying points of view. The Hannah Arendt Center Conference held in October of last year featured a speech via satellite by Edward Snowden, another hero of free speech, who was granted political asylum in Russia and currently resides outside of Moscow. Snowden’s refuge in Russia contrasts with the emigration of activists such as Litvinenko and Goldfarb, who fled their homeland in order to avoid government persecution. It takes considerable bravery to speak out against one’s own government when retribution is a very real possibility, and Goldfarb has found a platform in America that would have been impossible in Russia.

The Litvinenko case is viewed in a very different light there: Goldfarb mentioned that a TV series regarding the case aired in Russia in which the murder is attributed to oligarch Boris Berezovsky and Goldfarb himself, while claiming that Putin and his administration was framed.

In one of Litvinenko’s final statements from his deathbed, he addressed Vladimir Putin personally: “You may succeed in silencing one man but the howl of protest from around the world will reverberate, Mr. Putin, in your ears for the rest of your life. May God forgive you for what you have done, not only to me but to beloved Russia and its people.” Grisly political murders may be more common in Russia than they are further west, but due to the efforts of many activists, especially Marina Litvinenko and Alexander Goldfarb, the death of Alexander Litvinenko will not soon be forgotten.

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the tivoli tastemaker(s)

new in old: shopping on etsy

marisa bach

If you are like me, sometimes the local Goodwill does not satisfy your craving to thrift.

When this yearning arises there is only one place to turn, Etsy! If you’re not familiar with this site, by their own definition, “Etsy is a marketplace where people around the world connect, both online and offline, to make, sell and buy unique goods.” Etsy is an amazing resource to find millions of things, and if you are like me, those things are usually pieces of clothing.

As easy as Etsy sounds to navigate, I constantly get questions from friends about how I am successful with my purchases. Unlike the dress at Salvation Army that looks like your size, but once on turns out to fit like a sausage casing, Etsy clothing cannot be tried on. With that being said, vintage shopping online is a sort of art, a mix of guessing and measuring! Here I will outline how to successfully shop on Etsy!

Step 1. What are you Looking for ?

When I turn to Etsy it usually comes from and inspiration of something that is out of reach. For the purposes of this example, I am looking for a pair of striped high-waisted pants.

Step 3. Check the Size !

One of the most wary things about buying clothing online is sizing, especially vintage.

For the two pants I narrowed down the descriptions are, $10, size 12 but fits like a ten and $16, Size medium, stretchy, 14 inch waist measured laying down, 35 inches long. That second description is gold! In the case that you really want something and the size isn’t descriptive enough, just start a conversation by clicking the ‘Ask a Question’ button.

Step 2. Find the Pants!

The best way to find what you are looking for is to filter the results. Normally I narrow

Step 4. Buy! Those! Pants!

Once added to my basket the nondescript $10 pants + shipping totaled to be $15, the very precisely sized $16 pants totaled to be $22.

Perfect, not only do I know that these pants are my size (know your measurements), but now I also know that they are in my price range!

Yay new pants!

c.w. mcfarlane Everyone seems to be cropping their jeans and other trousers with the quick snip of the shears. The rough hem has been pushing the classic double cuff out in recent months. The rough hem, accomplished by simply cutting the legs at the desired height, is the logical next step as pant lengths have climbed to the high water mark.

Like much of American style, the roots of the rough hem are found in its utility. In the October 1913 issue of Outing (a periodical centered around sport, travel and adventure), Robert E. Pinkerton wrote in his piece “A Sensible Lesson in Woods Clothing”: “The old time riverman and lumberjack did not believe in long trousers. Caulks caught in the bottoms, they were wet and flapping and dragging and wore at the knees… So the lumberjack cut off the legs with his jack-knife, usually about six inches below the knees.

He called it ‘stagging’ them.”

While over a hundred years old, such are the origins of the stagged pant leg. Away from the thick pines, stagging has come into the 21st Century. On a pair of heavily laundered Levis, or black pencil thin jeans, the stagged legs are a fresh take. On both sexes, but more successfully females, the rough hem helps lengthen the leg line. The height and the frayed

edges draw attention to wearers shoes and socks (or lack of), while also giving off a devil-may-care appearance. The stagged legs can ground down a slightly higher-brow clothing arrangement or play up its casual nature.

For the perfect cut, make sure to measure up from the original hem and mark them with a pencil. Or for the more ragged look, just chop em’ vaguely where you want them. With all the fibers no longer being hemmed in, your pants may start to unravel over wear and washings. if you are looking to preserve your stagged legs, have someone with a sewing machine (and some skill) to do a small stitch around the leg near the bottom of the pants. This will prevent the threads from unraveling north of that stitching parallel.

Before we all run home and chop off our cuffs, let’s take one more tidbit from the Pinkerton’s piece.

Stagging the legs of pants was done for a very particular purpose of avoiding trouble with caulked (cleat like spikes) boots. In the same vein, think of how you are going to wear the rough hem and when. The cuff – or hell even a tailored hem – will always be classic, stagging is here for now but, much like the trousers themselves, may be a little short.

a hemming way

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down the categories to clothing and then go further by choosing gender, type (vintage), and lowest price. If that doesn’t help try using synonyms for what you’re looking for, for example, striped trousers, etc. Now that I have narrowed down my price range to around $20 I have found two aesthetically comparable options (both beautiful pink!) , one pair is $10 and the other $16.

While I may be a little of a clothes horse, I purchased the majority of my wardrobe before I came to Bard when I used to work retail.

Well that isn’t exactly the case. I bought a lot of crap while I was in college: hoodies, sneakers, boots and a lot of hats. But most of these things seem to have fallen by the wayside; sold on Ebay or Hypebeast forums, or having migrated to the bottom of one of my duffle bags.

When I first came to Bard, I had no idea what I was going to major in, dabbling with Political Studies, Literature, and even a little EUS. In that same vein, my clothes changed as I tried on different looks: a little streetwear, bucket hats, dad hats, and some camouflage. Looking for what fits, both physically and aesthetically, I moved around a bit, but I always found my closet filled with my old reliable Levis and oxford shirts.

While I’m getting ready to move on to God knows where, I’m doing so dressed in the same clothes I started in- their collars now worn down and jeans faded and blown out. It took me four years and many closets over, but I came back to what feels most comfortable, and maybe that is bound up in the unknowingness in what is to come and the searching for an anchor, for a something I know about myself. Wherever the nexts steps go, I’ll have the clothes that suit me the best on my back and a fondness for trying everything new garment I could. c.w. mcfarlane

purging the wardrobe

As someone who hates fast fashion, I sure go through a lot of clothes.

Closet purging is important. It allows the opportunity to inject new life into an otherwise old dull wardrobe. I know it’s time to go through my own closet when I feel like I can’t find anything to wear and lean towards wearing jeans - uncharted territory. As I break free of my bleak period of uninteresting clothing, I go through my closet and drawers one by one and pull anything and everything that is no longer appealing to me. The most important pieces, that I know everyone is guilty of, is having hella shit from middle school! How did those stick around this long? Once all is said and done one can really appreciate the little amount of time and effort that was spent on getting rid of gross clothes and the free time to shop for funky fresh pieces! marisa bach

illustration by pansy schulman

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by hans dehaas

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keep reading pansy schulman

You might know me, but you probably don’t. Maybe you’ve seen me, or even met me once but it was dark and you were drunk and you forgot my name. That’s okay. I know that you might know me, because I’m here, at Bard, with you.

Being here is something we have in common. It’s how you know that when I say ‘we’ you know I mean you and me. And so ‘we’ will always have something to talk about. But while Bard is our shared experience, each of us experiences it differently. And this means that there are things that we need to share with each other. We need to communicate.

Your interests and your opinions and ideas are valuable and you want to share them and you want people to listen - I know this because I’m like you. I considered these words important enough to share with you. And while I can’t make you care about what I have to say, I can obligate you to listen. And that’s kind of my point.

I didn’t write this to start a dialogue, but to argue for participation in one that already exists, one that I am a part of, and one that you are interacting with right now in reading my words: our publications.

I could have simply typed this into that box on Facebook that implores you to write what you’re thinking about. You might have seen it, maybe you would have read it, and if you liked it or liked me you would have hit the thumbs-up and kept scrolling. Or I could have spoken these words or yelled them or just written them all down on a piece of paper and thrown it out the window. But I published this in the Free Press and now these words are part of something else. In some way they represent the people who published it and in another they assume the purpose behind this paper’s existence. And it is not me, but the publication that will determine where and to whom these words will reach. They have reached you, and the medium through which they did is important to what they mean. I’m not saying that only the act of publishing will make your ideas legitimate, just that there’s value in integrating your work within and among the work of others.

In some ways this is a love letter, and abstractly it’s an argument, a request, and it did come from a place of personal frustration, which might make you wonder why I’m inflicting it on you. But know that I’m speaking, not as an editor, or for the Free Press, or from any position of superiority or otherness, but as someone who is here with you and has written something for you to read.

A dialogue already exists between you and me, and two-and-a-half thousand more; all of us, all different, but who all care about the experience that we are sharing because we are sharing it. Break that down to the myriad of different dialogues that exist within our smaller communities of like-minded or like-motivated people.

The role of our media, our publications and the people who participate in them, is to define any number, but ideally, of these dialogues, and in doing so, designate a space for their development. This is where the value of publications is found. And our publications, our voices, should be representative of the full spectrum of individual thought that exists here.

I’m not sure what what would move Bard’s media towards this representative state, or how to achieve it. I hope that an initial step is my communicating this perceived need. I’ve said this is personal, and it is, because no matter how meaningful I may find my work, I can’t ignore the fact it will not be just my participation in this medium that makes it meaningful.

And my ego ensures that I could never feel as if I’ve achieved any sort of

voice here if it exists in a vacuum.

You should know this because the greatest threat to Bard’s publication culture reaching a representative state is posed by your resistance. And I’ve found that this resistance exists in part because of the perceived exclusivity that surrounds publications. I know that many people are resistant to the Free Press because of its status as an established organization, and don’t seem to recognize that we’re just a handful of people like you, and I’ve even had to contest accusations that we’re puppets of the administration or something, which is weird. And even the smaller niche publications are seen as cliquey. Maybe this stems from the process of submission itself-- you are submitting yourself, your work, to be judged by people who have put themselves in a position of authority to judge you. And who are they to do that? And why should you indulge them?

When confronted with this critique, I can only speak from my own experience at Bard and on the Free Press and to say what I’m trying to express here: if you are willing to engage, you can, and I think you should, because you are needed.

I know that the desire to make a difference, what drove me to write this piece, is shared by many others here, and certainly to a greater degree than me. I’ve heard you. And maybe if I can make a difference in how we communicate, it might be easier for you to make the changes that you want to see at Bard.

Know that when I say Bard, I’m not talking about what we’ll leave behind or even what’s been here long before we came, but as it exists right now; what is defined by we who are here and how we interact. Recently things have been happening here and these things are affecting us, maybe not you or me as individuals but we care because we can’t help but hear each other and we can’t afford not to care. (I don’t need to specify these things here just because this was written out of my love for Bard, rather than in condemnation of hateful individuals who threaten us.) I believe in Bard because I think that we can make it whatever we want it to be just by existing and caring and talking.

What I’m really presenting here are my thoughts, opinions, and feelings.

But an argument exists is in the fact that I put them here, in this publication, for you to experience. Even I might read this again in a day or a year from now and wonder why I felt the need to present this ‘argument’ at all.

But it is not as much about whether or not this will convince you as it is that you are reading something I wanted you to read.

Maybe you won’t like it. Or think it’s dumb, or that the burden of making communication meaningful is inadequately supported by this medium that I love, or that the ‘what’ and not the ‘how’ of our communication is the only thing that matters, and my biggest fear is that you’ll be indifferent. But if you have an opinion at all this means that you read it, so something was achieved.

If you do respond in some way with what I’m trying to communicate, the medium in which I have expressed it defines your next step. You might contribute to the Free Press, like I have. You might join Ingenue, YST, or Yolk, or any of the other numerous student publications that exist right now. You might come together with other people who care and make something of your own, and what you make together will grow and change and effect change. You might not. I just think we’ll all have more fun if you do.

Keep reading.

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arendt center: the courage to be brigid fister

This semester at the Hannah Arendt Center, Bard students were able to participate in a project aimed towards the exploration theories of individuality within a society.

“The Courage to Be” project focuses on the ability, or lack thereof, to maintain individuality in the face of evil. The project is also concerned with the ability to resist injustice, or comply with it, and what exactly motivates an individual towards one polarity or the other. “The Courage to Be” established that those who are able to resist immorality and exhibit political courage are self-thinkers, and are unwilling to alter themselves based off of a social or political ideal.

Student Fellowships are an important aspect of the Project; undergraduates from various disciplines are given the opportunity to work behind the scenes at the Arendt Center. This year’s fellows include: Anne Burnett, Morgan Evans, Clara Gallagher, Ava Lindenmaier, Milan Miller, and Jason Toney.

“The Courage to Be” project offers a series of courses to the Fellows, titled “The Practice of Courage.” This year’s courses were open to Sophomores and Juniors and were limited to sixteen students per class. Through this class, students were also expected to attend each of the dinner lecture series. Lectures were given by Bard students to individuals outside of the college as well. These lectures included, “Self Thinking and Political Course: From Antigone to Edward Snowden” to “From Martyrs to Suicide Bombers.” The aim of these courses and lecture series was to consolidate students, scholars, and experts in specified fields together, and in turn, question ideas of moral courage and what surrounds it within theological, and contemporary settings.

Complementing the courses is a speaking series by Eyal Press, Uday Mehta, and Jeanne Van Heeswijke among others.

These speakers’ topics are varied, intended to cover the entirety of the course, and the concept with which it was concentrated.

Outside of the mandatory lecture series was also the ‘Conversations on Courage’ dinner series. This series was geared towards providing students the opportunity to think or and discuss the various ideas

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of courage and the ways in which is was used, attained, and created outside of the classroom. These lectures were similarly run, with guest speakers originating from within the Bard faculty. Such names as Tatjana Myoko, James Bagwell, Kritika Yegnashankaran, and Daniel Berthold were present.

“We are all passionate about deep thought,” said Anne Burnett, a philosophy major and fellow, “there are a lot of philosophy majors so there are a lot of people that are interested in these deep questions.” She stressed the freedom of the project’s framework, and enjoys the ability to work both individually and with other fellows: “There’s a lot of flexibility.

The Arendt center wants to support us as individual thinkers.”

Burnett was drawn to the program because she wanted to explore her discipline outside of the traditional course-load.

“That is what attracted me to it,” she explained, “but it has turned into this great thing that I have in my life. The center is like a family.”

The “Courage to Be” project focused on the outliers of society and their role often as the last line of defense against systematic oppression, genocide, and corporate fraud. This project explored the causes, motivations, and meaning behind these acts of courage, as a means towards justice. It used current empirical social scientific research while also incorporating philosophical and theological ideas throughout its curriculum.

“The center has a lot of great events in political studies and philosophy. People should go to them, they’re not only for poly-sci majors or philosophy majors,” Burnett said.

The examination of these topics, and their undeniable toll within our society were examined at length through The Courage to Be Project. A space was provided to listen to and share with those who have an awareness towards what allowed them or others to diverge from authority and immoral actions. The project engaged with the idea of a revitalization of moral courage within modern society and aimed to solidify an awareness of it to those within and outside of the Bard community.

photo by olivia crumm

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photo by olivia crumm

no boys allowed pansy schulman

“Let’s all talk,” wrote Catalina Bulgrach, and posted it to her Facebook group: “Bard: Girls.” Bulgrach (under her social media “alter-ego” Paige Turner) created the group simply for this reason: to start a conversation. She quickly followed her initial post with: “this is not a joke BY THE WAY.” Catalina Bulgrach does not want her name attached to the page and maintains that she has, and wants, little to do with the way in which it is currently interacted with, and how it will develop over time. I reached out to her thinking that No Boys Allowed was the manifestation of some distinct feminist ideal. But No Boys Allowed is merely Bulgrach’s attempt to communicate and form a network with those like her, and like me: individuals attempting to navigate the complexities of gender, identity, and relationships in our day-to-day life.

Since its inception, “Bard: Girls” has been renamed, “Bard: No Boys Allowed,” and has accrued nearly 500 members.

The page has made a place for itself within Bard’s unofficial web presence, and is similar to Overheard at Bard in that it has transcended its original intention. A discussion between women about the female experience, or rather a “girl-talk,” is what Bulgrach had in mind when she created the page. “It did, obviously, move out of just the feminine conversation,” she said, “[but] it turned into something way bigger...more expanded, and more inclusive.”

The name-change, which occurred shortly after its creation, was in response to a request for greater inclusivity for those who don’t identify within the gender-binary. It signified the expansion of the group, both in the composition, and number, of its members as well as in the extent of its concerns. The feminine conversation that Bulgrach had in mind is present, but the conversations that dominate the page address more than the female experience, encompassing gender-identity in its entirety, and simply the day-to-day experience of individuals at Bard.

“I was a little resistant at first,” said Bulgrach, “Just because I felt like girls deserve to have a somehow secluded space... but I was honestly just very happy that so many people wanted to be included in the discussion at all.”

I asked Bulgrach about her choice to put the group online, and in the context of Facebook. “I did Facebook because its

the easiest way for people to connect,” she replied, “I wanted it to be online because...[it] breaks down some sort of barrier...[and] makes it a lot more comfortable for people.”

Posts range from the practical and every-day, to the deeply personal, to the broadly political. Though the page is nebulous in purpose, it is purposeful; I observe it being used, and use it, as a space for support, for information, and for conversation.

No Boys Allowed is certainly different from other Bardlinked Facebook groups like Overheard at Bard and Overheard Uncensored, which have drawn criticism for cultivating unproductive conversation, most notably from Botstein himself. The activity on No Boys Allowed has maintained a marked civility, people care, and they listen as well as talk. “I think it’s honestly transcended a little bit of what the normal Facebook group is like...It’s a lot more personal and people take it more seriously,” noted Bulgrach, “I have found that people can seek it out a little as a way of support.”

The fact that this group exists is not necessarily newsworthy. However, its presence has provoked significant reactions from the Bard community, making the group a minor controversy.

There are the to-be-expected grumblings seen on Yik Yak and vocalized by the ‘boys’ who resent the group’s exclusion of them. Bulgrach has no sympathy: “I hear men talking about the page and basically talking shit,” said Bulgrach, “[and] I don’t really know what they’re pissed off about. If they don’t understand why this page is needed, I’m pretty disappointed.” One of the most vocal criticisms that exists ran in the most recent issue of Ingenue, now known as Eugene, in an opinion piece entitled: “An Open Letter on Female Participation.”

Bulgrach admits that she was thrown off by much of the critical attention that No Boys Allowed has garnered: “I just created it honestly because it was something I thought I would benefit from and...the more I talked to people about it, the more I found that people agreed.”

“Conversation can be pretty much the best way...to get someone to really understand what you’re talking about,” she stated.

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photo by sam williams

featured artist: collin leitch

Collin Leitch is a senior Film & Electronic Arts major. While he came into college with a lengthy history rooted in poetry, Leitch found his way into the world of video, net and installation art. He avoids buzz words such as “technology” and “internet”, but his work undoubtedly explores our evolving relationships with these platforms, albeit through a less-than-explicit lens. In his equipment engulfed studio on the second floor of Avery, he showed me a selection of work made with material from as many disparate sources as, found web video, stock photos, Hollywood films, video games, film history, and his own iPhone, 16mm, and HD photography. Ultimately, he employs this amalgamation as a means to move through the spaces that exist between these cinematic mediums. His senior project, Interludes, will be in Avery Film Center from May 2nd-8th with an opening reception on May 5th. The Free Press highly recommends you spend your Cinco de Mayo there.

Free Press: Right now, we’re looking at one of those DVD screensavers with the logo bouncing around a black background. Only, the logo doesn’t say DVD, it says Film. What’s going on here?

Collin Leitch: One thing that gets addressed in my senior project is Hollis Frampton’s idea of what he calls “the camera arts”--this notion that beginning with photography, there exists this continuum between tools of image-making; photography giving way to film, film giving way to video, video giving way to the expressive and representational possibilities of the computer- of digital arts. For this piece, I’m playing with this idea of having 16mm film I shot pop up at intervals behind this custom dvd screensaver. So then there’s this tension of film being presented far beyond its native form and material. Yes it is an image actually captured on film... but it’s not film, it’s a digital transfer of film! And the bouncing around of this logo is a reference to this really subtle vernacular experience of cinema, of zoning-out in

niall murphy the film lecture and staring at the image that has come to occupying the screen in place of the film you just saw. This piece looks at these transitional spaces- what lies between film and video, between video and the personal computer, between the personal computer and the larger network. Film never really dies, it gets absorbed by whatever comes after it. The show’s called Interludes and I’ve been thinking about ways to inhabit these interludes of technology- the soft perimeter between otherwise distinct tools where they give to each other and embody properties of their earlier iterations. It’s like how the actual physical tool of editing film, the razor blade, then becomes a slick little icon in Adobe Premiere.

FP: So, let’s talk about Tom Cruise.

Leitch: Basically, one piece in my Senior Project show is a video called Future Enterpriser.

It’s an intervention into several Tom Cruise movies from the 80s and 90s to make this alternative narrative where he’s a video artist trying to show and sell his mostly immaterial work in a larger art market that doesn’t always reward that kind of thing.

FP: What came first? Were you thinking about these two themes and then happened to watch these three Tom Cruise films? Or did the idea emerge from seeing them?

Leitch: It actually began with a chopped and screwed edit of a Beach Boy’s song [Kokomo].

I thought it was so funny that someone would ever make that. I learned it was written for this Tom Cruise movie Cocktail which hasn’t really trickled down to our generation in the way that other films of that milieu have. The idea someone would create an remix of a Beach Boys song--sans Brian Wilson--from the 80s, about a fake tropical destination, for a film where Tom Cruise is a famous bartender. Its hilarious, you can’t make that up! The amount of translations of material and suspense of disbelief involved in that sat well with my sensibilities as an artist and I resolved to tease something out of it.

Then I watched the film and there was some weird stuff going on where all he could talk about was innovation under a fixed system-like an art world, like entrepreneurial capitalism. Then, watching some of his movies from the same period, I saw there’s some of those same concerns mirrored in films like Risky Business and Jerry Macguire. Because the work began with its materials, this message, these themes came afterward and ultimately provided a cohesive way to structure those same materials. So you have these dueling impulses. On the one hand it’s very cacophonous- this sort of Youtube poop. At the same time, there are these sly messages that I think people watching with the semiotic rigor expected of video art will pick up on.

FP: Can you explain the conflation between video art and entrepreneurship going on here?

Leitch: A lot of filmmakers, right now are in this kind of quandary. If you imagine the art world as a circle that gently expands and contracts over the years, then film is just on the edge of this circle. So then, at times, it feels as though artististic production and what gets shown in galleries will balloon out to contain experimental and essayistic filmmaking and hold that in it. There have been many models for selling artist’s cinema over the years- everything from editioning, where you treat a VHS or Blu Ray like a painting, like a unique object- willfully ignoring the fact that it could be endlessly copied, or then there are distributors like Video Databank and Electronic Arts Intermix which become this kind of luxury Netflix or Blockbuster of moving image art.

FP: Do you think this concern with art and entrepreneurship- sort of marketing yourself as an artist- has anything to do with you being about to graduate?

Leitch: A hundred percent. [The video] is very self aware and cheeky. It comes from me thinking, “What can I do with this [a film degree]?” I came into film school four years ago

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under the impression I was gonna hold a C-stand and write scripts--something more vocational. I’m very glad it happened this way where I was thrust into this world of experimental and essayistic film, video art, and net art- all corralled beneath this umbrella of cinema as such. But I do kind of see the concerns of older artists, who despite mostly being occupied with making cinema, now have to think of how to leverage that into the conscious production of objects to prop up their filmmaking practice. And that isn’t always the way to go.

FP: I think about movies like Risky Business as a coming of age story. Do you think the same could be send of this film, in that it serves as a coming of age story for you coming into this world of experimental video?

Leitch: I like that. Even as an underclassman, I would stress about my senior project when thinking about how to produce a work or body of work that truthfully speaks to what I went through, in terms of an academic trajectory, over the course of four years. In this show I kind of address that with several distinct video works that come from different threads of thinking about cinema including essay film, video installation, web work, the internet-aware art of the early 2000s, and even landscape film.

widescreen that, when turned on its side, is actually able to fill a 16:9 monitor rotated into a portrait orientation four times. The aspect ratio we use and the frames we have to view the images we produce is the result of this kind of compromise where the 16:9 monitor we’re sitting in front of now is the geometric average of 4:3--a classical filmic aspect ratio determined by sprocket placement on the filmstrip--and the anamorphic widescreen of large-format cinema presentation. I think in one way a lot of my films are about probing and inhabiting the kind of compromises we make in getting different generations of cinema to live together.

FP: Another one of the pieces from your senior project takes footage from established works of cinema like Antonioni’s Zabriskie Point, Hitchcock’s Vertigo, Hollis Frampton’s Surface Tension and recreates it with your own digital cameras, an iPhone, and the video games Grand Theft Auto IV and V. Do you think quality disintegrates as we move through the history of technological mediums? Or is the opposite happening?

Leitch: I don’t mean for that work to be a critique of material or any specific apparatus at all. I don’t want to enforce a hierarchy of images. I’m not trying to say that footage you FP: Your piece Love’s Passage (105 Nights) really shoot on a camera from your pocket is better or somehow more democratic than what’s sticks out to me. Can you talk more about that being shot in a Hollywood film. Also, I don’t work? mean to say that simulation is bad or depicting Leitch: The progression of this image is the something through algorithms or 3D modresult of exporting a video 105 times and preelling is somehow less authentic than doing senting it at these intervals along the way. It’s it through the camera’s indexical function. the act of subjecting this original film clip from Hitchcock employed immaculate set-dressAlain Resnais’ Love Unto Death (1984) to really harsh compression over and over again- putting ing to create illusion and lure the audience into the space of his films. Is that so much it through this kind of endurance test and predifferent from building the whole thing from senting variations of it simultanesly in the same frame. On one hand, you see these two lovers at scratch via myriad polygons? What I hope to do through this tripartite juxtaposition is point the end of their relationship, but also the image to something that lurks between the three of that relationship is experiencing the same types of “photography” and think about what kind of breakdown. It’s the collapse of a bond between two people but also the collapse of the these modes of representation, mediation, and simulation actually share and how that video’s interlacing and artifacts. But there’s also shared quality can inform how we approach something to be said about aspect ratio here. what is likely to be an ever evolving continuEach interval is completely uncropped from the um of image production. original film’s aspect. You have an anamorphic

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stills courtesy of collin leitch

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athlete of the month avery mencher

Sam Funnell, the March Athlete of the Month, is the only Senior on the men’s lacrosse team. He is a defenseman who received an Honorable Mention in the Liberty League Team Awards last spring, and he currently leads the league in caused turnovers.

Free Press: How long have you been playing lacrosse?

Sam Funnell: Since I was seven, so nearly seventeen years now. My dad played when he was younger, so he got me started pretty early.

FP: How did you end up at Bard?

Funnell: I was looking to transfer from Trinity College because I didn’t like the coach there, and a family friend’s mother knew Tucker [Kear, former head men’s lacrosse coach at Bard], so she told him about me and he asked me to come visit Bard. I had never heard of Bard before, but I really liked Tucker and the school, so I came here.

FP: What do you enjoy the most about playing at Bard? What’s one thing you would change?

Funnell: I think the cool thing about playing at Bard is the ability to be a part of something new and build it from the ground up, as opposed to joining an established program. You just have much more opportunity to make a tangible impact at a place like Bard. As far as what I would change, it would be good to have more respect from the campus community. People on this campus respect when people are into the arts, and they go out and support that, going to art shows and concerts. They consider those things valuable, as they should, but no one has that same sort of mindset towards sports.

FP: What’s your typical pregame ritual? Is there anything that you have to do before games?

Funnell: I usually just sit quietly in the locker room and get my own head right, instead of getting really hyped with loud music or going out on the field to throw around like some people do.

FP: If you could give a piece of advice to the younger student-athletes at Bard, what would it be?

Funnell: Make a conscious effort to avoid separating yourself from the larger campus community. I think a lot of athletes tend to only hang out with other athletes, and it creates a very noticeable divide that can negate potential respect between those two facets of the student body.

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harry johnson honored with community service award at final four game c.w. mcfarlane

While Bard may not have made it to the Final Four, one of our own was on the court during the Oklahoma v. Villanova game. Harry Johnson, class of 2017, took to the court along with 19 other students to recieve commissions in the 2016 Allstate NABC and WBCA Good Works Teams.

Johnson joined the Allstate NABC and WBCA Good Works Team, which was set up in 2013 to “recognize a unique group of men’s and women’s college basketball student athletes who stand out for their charitable achievements and community involvement,” according to their website. The student athletes are nominated by their coaches and peers for their outstanding community service, which this year ranges from funding a mobile health clinic to helping organize an orphanage in Haiti. This year 257 students were nominated. Through a panel of judges they came to recognize 20 students.These students, in two teams, are invited to participate in a community service project together in Indianapolis, Indiana and Houston, Texas.

“I was shocked,” Johnson said on Bard’s Athletic website, adding “just being nominated for a national award was a humbling experience. To actually be one of five people chosen is unreal.”

Johnson was nominated for the Good Works Teams for his work as co-director of the non-profit “Dream to Achieve,” a program that mentors students in the Hudson Valley using basketball as a tool to teach life skills ranging from time management to discipline.

He also helped co-found “Brothers at Bard” with fellow Bardian Dariel Vasquez.

The aim of “Brothers at Bard” is to create a safe space for male students of color to discuss life at Bard. “These young men don’t really have an environment or somewhere to go and talk about these things in a structured way,” Johnson spoke to Bard Athletic’s website about the need for this group, “and speaking in ways to empower them to want to think about how to change these issues and make change in their own communities.”

“Harry came to Bard searching for a way he could impact the world,” said Adam Turner, the coach of Bard’s male basketball team, “he is an incredible leader and someone who raised the level of everything we do on the court, but at the end of his four years, the thing he will leave behind is hundreds of minority students from the local area who will feel empowered and motivated to seek greatness in their lives because they crossed paths with Harry.”

photo courtesy of taylor strategy partners

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creative: KID STUFF GRADY NIXON I thought I was gonna write a poem for this space here. I wanted to write some deep personal thing about parents and exes and emotions that would strike deep and true and affect people and make them look at me like I think people should look at me like. I’m not a good enough poet to put anything down that I don’t want to delete after I read over it once. I’m on the computer right now and there’s a sideways prayer card with a painting of Saint. Jude, the patron saint of lost causes, taped to it. He’s kind of holding his staff in a way that looks like he’s giving me the finger but his smile makes me feel like it’s a friendly bird. Like he’s saying, “Eh, go fuck yourself you dirty dog.” Lost causes.

Every year removed from childhood I’m less mad at everything that went wrong or every time something fucked up happened. I think about times I was sad as a little kid and the reason for the sadness is still there - I still get what’s going on in my 5 year old head - but it just keeps getting more amazing to me that I was ever so small and so secure. I had the most beautiful blonde hair and such big gaps in my teeth like a young and innocent Joseph Lieberman. I could stand in a bucket naked and covered in paint and laughing.

And now high-school is covered in the same golden-glow and the kids that made me feel like shit are faded from the picture and all I can remember is splitting Heinekens with my friends for the first time and telling them I didn’t think Paranormal Activity was scary but that we should leave the lights on and just talk for a while. And classes were so easy and the teachers cared way more than I did and I never appreciated that. I remember getting caught having smoked weed by my friend’s mom and it was the biggest deal and it was so stressful and now it’s so funny to think of what Mrs. Kerr must have thought in her head as she yelled at a gaggle of chubby 15 year old boys for smoking.

I don’t want to retread territory Richard Linklater has already charted. But I’m sitting here thinking about how I’ve changed so much over the years that I feel detached from my childhood selves and I’m starting to just enjoy the objective beauty of how much of a kid I was. I know in a few years I’ll think the same thing of here and everything I’ve done and felt here. I can feel it happening already with how I remember my friends and mine’s awesome Beastie Boys costumes Freshman year and not my puking. I can feel it when I can’t remember the specifics of any of our fights but I remember every trip we went on. I remember making friends during L&T and thinking they would be my friends for my whole life and I think it’s so neat that I still think that. And it’s easy for a hardened 20 year old such as myself to romanticize the beauty of what’s behind me and it’s hard for me to realize I’m still a kid and in a few years this time will be just as rose-tinted. I just don’t get why it’s so hard to feel that as we go.

It doesn’t make sense to me that life is so often bittersweet in retrospect and just bitter in the moment.

As time goes on and your memory changes and your brain sorts out all of what’s important and all of what’s not your past changes into something different. You feel it less and miss it more. I don’t get how I was ever that small and happy. I really don’t get why that wasn’t enough for me at the time. Or why it’s not now. The best I can do is look at all of the Gradys I’ve been and hold back my swelling pride for how beautiful each of my boys were in their own way. How pre-school Grady wasn’t worried if people called him a girl because he liked his long-hair and he liked playing dress-up with his sister. How middle school Grady was so sad when he asked a girl out for the first time and she said no and how I wish I could’ve been there to explain things to him. How excited 15 year old Grady was when mom let him drive for the first time. Freshman year Grady was such a little shit, but he was so in love it was sweet. And it’s a little off-balance to refer to one’s self in the third person so many times in such a short length of time but I’m getting to the point that I can’t place myself in those memories anymore. I’m too different from all these other Gradys. I can’t imagine not appreciating all of these situations for how sweet they all were and even still I can’t appreciate the present that way. I’m too much 20 year old Grady to see how great everything is right now. I look at all the Gradys I’ve been and all of their hobbies and friends and crushes and fears and talents and it’s all so incredible and interesting and sweet. I’m so proud of all of them I could cry. They’re all happy now, in my head. None of them are me anymore or I’m not them or one way or the other. They got me here, though, and it’s so nice to think that a rag-tag group of young boys like them could have helped me so much to get here.

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PARTICULAR THINGS ELIJAH JACKSON

2:43 PANSY SCHULMAN Falsity offended, but what was real made no impression.

Purity was obviously an illusion, but too appealing.

We grappled, With wide eyes, we still fell.

Sincerity is a fickle dependence: Forget how deep the water is Drowned things still breach the surface, And sweat untethers palm from palm.

It was the opposite of all at once, It happened every day.

Why bother to to time the sun’s setting?

Just let it happen to you.

Tide turned against tide, Our farce was defaced I was stripped white, I stopped hating for you Everything is abrasive, To raw rarity, my new: I’m looking for cheap, dumb stuff to ruin.

But at least it’s not you It’s too soon for density, concrete and reality, So whatever’s unlit I’ll make light of I’ll maintain my stupid nudity, Until whatever’s halved returns to its full

There are still plenty of names. Leave the bills unpaid. Leave the walls to bleed. The walls have lost their skin. It fell like day old streamers, garlands. Crunching underfoot.

Sitting out too long, matted into tablecloths– in a way, congealed, in heat. Like air and water, hardened– lukewarm, trembling. You were trembling, leaking in the heat.

One cucumber and two yellow onions. Particular things. Bills paid– burst pipes, collapsed veins. Paint flakes, rust skin. Dad called a broken foot a flat tire. You called me by my name.

Did I tell you or did you know? We bought it all in terms of pounds. We bought the paintings by the pound. Paintings are a way of naming things. Paintings are cloth that look like skin.

Coverings for blank spots, for holes. Make more holes for paintings. Scrape more paint for holes.

I don’t give out my name, and there are plenty. Left out in heat, to harden. You have blank spots on your face and leaks.

The walls have leaks. Pipes tremble like your bones in the cold. Pipes rattle when they’re busy. Men rattle when they’re cold. Metal cracks just like the rest. Metal isn’t named. Naming is the beginning. There are still plenty of names.

You’re losing skin, put on a hat. You’re chipping off. Mix the chips, the skin– put the paint back on the wall. Put the paint over the holes, and make more holes for chipping.

Ground into a paste and shaped into a wall. Sunbaked, brick shaped wall. The wind is picking up, licking at the walls.

Bricks are falling into dust. Walls are wearing thin like bodies in the cold. Underneath the bodies, bones are named.

Underneath the walls, pipes are rattled.

Leave the holes for rats. Leave the groceries on the counter.

Leave the paintings by the pound. You can ask if those are rats, if they’re hanging on on the wall– we can’t hear them now. You’re flaking off again. Your veins are pumping cold. Pay the bill– you will leak. Any water– they will leak.

You look like a painting. You look like a wall. You were trembling, unnamed. Left to sit in dust and bake. To re-congeal.

There is a way that things congeal, in heat. Like prints laid by hands in cement. You are like the print, a name on a page. A name on a page lasts a day. A print in cement lasts a week. elijah’s poem was initially run in the yolk magazine. the yolk mag is a not-for-profit collective dedicated to giving young artists from all over the world a place to exhibit their work and build an individualized public archive online. find more on the yolk’s website: www.theyolkmag.com

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