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BC prepares to welcome Wisconsin for a battle of hockey powerhouses, A10
The annual Boston Book Festival will return to Copley Square this weekend, B10
The Scene crowns the next in line to the pop music throne, from Pusha T to Ylvis, B1
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The Independent Student Newspaper of Boston College
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Quintano wins fellowship from .406 Venture firm BY DANIEL PEREA-KANE For The Heights One can go to an art gallery and potentially purchase works by both respected and newly-emerging artists without leaving one’s room. That is the premise behind Quabblejack.com, an online art gallery startup project by Claudio Quintano, CSOM ’16. Quintano recently received a twoyear fellowship from .406 Venture, a venture capital firm. “My understanding is that they were looking for people from the local startup ecosystem,” Quintano said. “Their mentorship is one of the things I am most looking forward to.” During his fellowship, Quintano will be working on Quabblejack.com, a monthly art gallery competition for well-known and local artists, sculptors, and designers. Each month, there is a theme that the curators of the gallery will work with in order to select relevant art. The first exhibition, beginning Nov. 1, is called Dream and centers around the theme of dreaming. “The concept is to create one-of-akind collaborations with artists,” Quin-
tano said. “One of our missions is trying to make their work accessible to the public. Anyone can go on the website to appreciate the artwork, but the goal is to sell these works as well.” The website will have a simple, clean, and modern look, according to Quintano—a look that reflects the artistic quality of the work it showcases. The website will not have ads, and will gain revenue through vending the art
BY KAYLA FAMOLARE For The Heights Today, Oct. 17, at 10:17 a.m., the Boston College community, along with 19.5 million others, will participate in “The Great Northeast Shakeout.” The program calls all participants to take time out of their days to practice earthquake safety procedures. “Earthquakes in Massachusetts can happen—we are overdue for a large-scale earthquake,” said John Tommaney, director of the Office of Emergency Management (OEM) and coordinator of BC’s participation in the Shakeout. “We must prepare now for a possible quake so that we are ready to react when one may occur.” The BC-operated Weston Observa-
dashed hits the ground running
See Quintano, A3 Delivery service Dashed, founded by Phil Dumontet, BC ’09, is now one of the fastest-growing private companies in the U.S.—without any venture capital funding.
BY MUJTABA SYED
HISTORY OF DASHED
Heights Editor
MARGARET LAPRE / FOR THE HEIGHTS
Claudio Quintano earned a fellowship this year for his work on Quabblejack.com.
Tommaney emphasizes earthquake preparedness Today’s ‘Great Shakeout’ preps for possible quake
1919
Thursday, October 17, 2013
Vol. XCIV, No. 36
Sophomore founds art gallery website
established
tory also plans to participate in the Shakeout. With its own seismograph system, the Weston Obser vator y is constantly monitoring plate movements and readings. The “Great Shakeout” urges participants to “Drop, cover, and hold on” for one minute to practice what one would do once an earthquake strikes. One should drop to the ground, take cover under a sturdy desk or table, ensuring that the body and head are covered, and hold onto shelter until the quake stops. “All you need to do is take a few minutes out of your day to practice what you would do in an event of an earthquake,” Tommaney said. “It does not necessarily have to be right at 10:17, but can be anytime during your day. As long as you use this time given to you to prepare and practice what you would do in the event
“I started Dashed directly out of Boston College,” said Philip Dumontet, BC ’09 and CEO of Dashed Inc. “I went to the Target in Watertown and purchased a Rubbermaid container, strapped it on the back of my bike and started making deliveries from an Italian restaurant in the North End.” Dumontet’s business started in 2009 with only himself, a bike, and one client, and it has since become the 119th fastest growing private company in the United States and the seventh fastest growing private company in Massachusetts, recognized by Inc. Magazine earlier this year. Relying on no venture capital funding, Dashed now operates in five different cities and employs nearly 100 people. Dumontet points to a key observation he made around the time he was graduating from BC that eventually led to his concept of Dashed. “When I graduated, there was a large delivery service in Boston. It provided poor service, so I thought there was such an opportunity there to really take advantage of the gap in the market,” he said. “Looking at it, there were probably 50 or 60 drivers out of work, hundreds of restaurants looking for a delivery service, and thousands of consumers looking for faster delivery.” Although many startups that exhibit rapid growth often transform or depart from their original business model, Dumontet is quick to insist that his company’s success is due in large part to its founding values. From its inception, Dashed has prided itself on the speed of its deliveries. “What we’ve done to grow to that size and to continue to scale is to focus on speed,” he said. “That is what we do. The name of the company is Dashed for a reason. That’s where our competitors have failed in the past and where we still continue to innovate.” He went on to explain some critical differentiators that have helped Dashed
2009
After graduating from Boston College with degrees in marketing and philosophy, Dumontet picked up a side job delivering food for a North End restaurant on his bicycle.
One city, one man, one restaurant Phil Dumontet MA Boston
2013
In three years, Dashed has undergone 2,984% growth, with revenue of $4.6 million in 2012. It currently employs almost 100 people and operates in five major cities.
Five cities MD Baltimore MA Boston NJ Hoboken & Jersey City PA Philadelphia RI Providence A fleet of zipcars, bikes, & scooters
500+ restaurants, including:
See Dashed, A3
See Shakeout, A3
Shen Tong reflects on Tiananmen
Semester Online reaches first BC midterm season
BY NICOLE SUOZZO
Entering the seventh week of its pilot program, Semester Online—an online consortium of eight universities providing for-credit classes to undergraduates—is transforming course enrollment possibilities for Boston College students. Launched in 2013, Semester Online consists of eight partner schools—including Brandeis University, Emory University, Northwestern University, Wake Forest University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of Notre Dame, and Washington University in St. Louis—through which students can access highly-acclaimed courses unique to each partner school that have been restructured and enhanced for online interaction. “This is the first time an elite group of colleges have come together to offer online undergraduate courses for credit,” said Andrew Hermalyn, executive vice president and general manager
BY CONNOR FARLEY Heights Editor
For The Heights “Regardless of political or religious persuasions, our genders, our social standings, and our social views, deep down we want to believe that somehow when faced with such an awesome state power, an individual’s protest matters.” This message was the heart of Shen Tong’s lecture, which he gave Tuesday evening as part of the ongoing China Watching Series, which is organized by the history department’s assistant professor Rev. Jeremy Clarke, S.J. Shen began his lecture by showing a familiar image: a monk set aflame in protest of the Vietnam War. The essence of this image was at the heart of his message. As a student who was present in Tiananmen Square when the protests broke out, and one of Newsweek’s
TIFFANY LAW / FOR THE HEIGHTS
Shen Tong, who was a student leader during Tiananmen Square, spoke on Tuesday night. 1989 “People of the Year,” Shen is one of China’s most prominent exiled dissidents. After speaking at Harvard University earlier Tuesday morning, Shen arrived at Boston College for the first time as part of the China Watching Series. Shen attended Beijing University from 1986 to 1989, and was later educated in Boston. He became a software and media entrepreneur in the U.S. after founding VFinity, which is based in New York City, where he lives today with his wife and children. After 25 years of exile, Shen put
the Chinese student movement into global context. He discussed the frustrated street vendor in Tunisia who set himself aflame in front of City Hall as his last form of protest, which began the Arab Spring. Since that incident, the Middle East has experienced more than half a dozen regime changes and is continually being challenged in terms of legitimacy through “people’s power” type of protest. Shen considered the 200 Tibetans who recently set themselves on fire as
See Shen, A3
of Semester Online. “The model lends itself really nicely to two different types of students,” he said. “The first student is someone who wants to take a full semester off campus and travel, or work and get an internship to make some money and help with their student debt, or be at home and deal with a personal or family illness … to be off campus and not fall behind in pace for graduation by taking very high quality courses from great schools. “The second type of student would be one who might remain here on campus and take classes that Boston College might not offer from other great schools,” he said. In its debut semester, Semester Online currently offers two courses at BC—How to Rule the World with political science professor Robert Bartlett and The War That Never Ends with history professor Seth Jacobs—and eight other courses across the seven other consortium universities.
See Semester Online, A3
TopTHREE
THE HEIGHTS
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Thursday, October 17, 2013
A Guide to Your Newspaper
things to do on campus this week
1 2 3 Arthur Levine
Ford M. Fraker
Today Time: 1:30 p.m. Location: Heights Room
Sponsored by the Division of Student Affairs, Arthur Levine is coming to Boston College to talk about life as a college student today. Levine serves as the president of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation and has worked on nine books.
Wind Ensemble
Today Time: 6 p.m. Location: Cadigan Alumni Center
As a part of the Distinguished Lecture Series, Ford M. Fraker, the former U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, will speak about his experience working in the Middle East, first as a banker and then later as the U.S. ambassador.
Saturday Time: 8 p.m. Location: Gasson 100
The University Wind Ensemble of Boston College is presenting their fall concert Saturday evening at 8 p.m. in Gasson 100. They will be performing selected pieces by Darius Milhauer and Martin Ellerby, among others.
AC ‘Opens the Cabinet’ on mental health At the conclusion of Silver Week, or Mental Health Awareness Week, the Asian Caucus Cabinet hosted a closing event titled “Opening the Cabinet” last Thursday in Higgins 310. Consisting of eight Asian cultural organization presidents, the AC Cabinet organized an event every day during Silver Week in an attempt to raise awareness about mental health issues and to break the stigma regarding the general perception of mental illnesses. A proxe station with four questions surveying the familiarity and asking opinions of the BC community about mental illnesses signaled the start of Silver Week. The next day, there was a movie showing of the story of Taare Zameen Par, a young artist who overcomes dyslexia after meeting a professor at a boarding school who encourages him to continue on his learning in art. On Wednesday, meditation and tea ceremony workshops were held for those who wished to gain tips on how to relax and manage their stress level as college students. After a brief description of the week’s events, several officers of the BC To Write Love On Her Arms (TWLOHA) UChapter introduced their organization and its mission. Originally founded by Jamie Tworkowski, a concerned friend who decided to raise money for the treatment of his friend’s
ROBIN KIM / HEIGHTS STAFF
Psychologists Allen and Baillie from UCS presented their observations of mental health. depression, TWLOHA quickly became an online sensation. BC’s UChapter looks at the college campus as a place of transition, and aims to help students through conversations and informative events. Followed by the BC UChapter were two University Counseling Services (UCS) psychologists, Julie Anh Allen and Jeanine Baillie, who presented their observations about the mental health of students campus and advertised the wide accessibility and availability of confidential, free counseling. They promoted the service, which includes not only collaboration with students but also suggestions of an alternative form of healing by having a private conversation with the counselors. The breadth of issues that can be shared with the
focus group of psychologists ranges from adjusting to the new college culture and deciding on academic choices to dealing with cultural barriers, feeling tied to back home, and determining which groups of friends best fit a student. Allen and Baillie mentioned how most students are barely aware of the counseling service and how much they are intrigued by the diversity of its staff. They also asked the students to put aside the common assumption that they would overwhelm them with Freudian psychological analyses or overly profound talk about mental health. “It is important that you feel healthy,” Baillie said. “Emotional well-being is in the forefront.” They emphasized the personal aspect of the service, listing advantages of
POLICE BLOTTER
a medical facility .
12:07 p.m. - A report was filed regarding harassing telephone calls in Stuart Hall.
3:29 a.m. - A report was filed regarding medical assistance provided to a BC student who was transported by ambulance to a medical facility from Fitzpatrick Hall.
11:23 p.m. - A report was filed regarding simple possesion of a controlled substance in the Commonwealth Ave. garage.
9:15 a.m. - A report was filed regarding medical assistance provided to a BC employee who was transported by cruiser to a medical facility.
Monday, October 14
Saturday, October 12
11:29 p.m. - A report was filed regarding a fire alarm activation in the Merkert Chemistry Center.
1:05 a.m. - A report was filed regarding medical assistance provided to a non-BC affiliate who was transported by ambulance to a medical facility. 1:31 a.m. - A report was filed regarding medical assistance provided to a BC student who was transported by ambulance to a medical facility from McElroy Commons. 2:23 a.m. - A report was filed regarding the arrest of a non BC-affiliate on Lower Campus.
Sunday, October 13
BY ANDREW SKARAS Asst. News Editor On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court began hearings on a Michigan case dealing with affirmative action in university admissions policies. This comes only a session after the court made a narrow ruling that did not deal with the constitutionality of affirmative action in a case regarding admissions policies at the University of Texas. According to Reuters, this case deals not with a specific policy in place at a university, but rather, with an amendment made to the state constitution. In 2006, voters approved an amendment that forbid discrimination against or preferential treatment for any individual or group based on race, color, sex, or ethnicity. The origins of this amendment can be traced to a 2003 Supreme Court decision that upheld the University of Michigan’s use of affirmative action in admissions. After that case, voters
2:24 p.m. - A report was filed regarding a larceny from Ignacio Hall.
2:14 a.m. - A report was filed regarding a fire alarm activation in Greycliff Hall. 4:02 a.m. - A report was filed regarding medical assistance provided to a BC student who was transported to a medical facility from Duchesne Hall.
12:31 a.m. - A report was filed regarding medical assistance provided to a BC student who was transported by ambulance to a medical facility from the Shaw House.
10:00 a.m. - A report was filed regarding a larceny from the Mods.
1:28 a.m. - A report was filed regarding medical assistance provided to a BC student who was transported from Corcoran Commons by ambulance to
—Source: The Boston College Police Department
College Corner NEWS FROM UNIVERSITIES ACROSS THE COUNTRY adopted this amendment. The challengers to the ban have organized primarily along the stance that the ban unconstitutionally changed the political process in the state on a racial basis. They claim that, due to the amendment, advocates for racial preference would not be able to lobby universities in the same way that those who seek benefits from parental alumni status do. Within this scope, two groups have organized to fight the ban at the Supreme Court. One group hails from the University of Michigan and is fighting for a narrow ruling that will appeal to the more conservative justices on the court. The other group is composed of a Detroit-based coalition and plans to employ a more expansive argument that invokes passionate rhetoric. Expected to be decided by the end of the term in June 2014, the case will only be heard by eight of the justices, as Elena Kagan has recused herself due to some of her work as U.S. Solicitor General.
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EDITORIAL RESOURCES
talking with the third party who is not invested in the students personally yet still is willing to think along with them to clarify their coping strategies. “We help you process from A to your goal of being a healthy, well-rounded person,” Allen said. “It is more like a process because we see ourselves as guides,” Baillie said. Furthermore, they expressed their excitement about the power of word of mouth and improvement in turnout from last year, introducing specific ways to take advantage of the service. They offer individual counseling, group counseling, and consultation in Gasson 001. Intake appointments can be made, and within 48 hours of notice, one of the staff will contact the student through a 10 to 15 minute phone conversation simply for a thumbnail sketch of what brings him or her in. In addition to their office hours from nine to five in Gasson Hall, psychologists will be on call 24/7, rotating for the nights and weekends and taking care of any emergencies. After the presentation from UCS, two videos interviewing Asian students about different mental issues they faced and how they were able to defeat them were presented as the closure of the event. While some students have been worried about keeping up with their regular sleeping and eating habits, others have struggled with meeting their own expectations and pursuing where their heart is.
10/11/13-10/14/13
Friday, October 11
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News Tips Have a news tip or a good idea for a story? Call Eleanor Hildebrandt, News Editor, at (617) 552-0172, or email news@bcheights. com. For future events, email a detailed description of the event and contact information to the News Desk. Sports Scores Want to report the results of a game? Call Austin Tedesco, Sports Editor, at (617) 5520189, or email sports@bcheights.com. Arts Events The Heights covers a multitude of events both on and off campus – including concerts, movies, theatrical performances, and more. Call Sean Keeley, Arts and Review Editor, at (617) 552-0515, or email arts@bcheights.com. For future events, email a detailed description of the event and contact information to the Arts Desk. Clarifications / Corrections The Heights strives to provide its readers with complete, accurate, and balanced information. If you believe we have made a reporting error, have information that requires a clarification or correction, or questions about The Heights standards and practices, you may contact David Cote, Editor-in-Chief, at (617) 552-2223, or email eic@bcheights.com. CUSTOMER SERVICE Delivery To have The Heights delivered to your home each week or to report distribution problems on campus, contact Jamie Ciocon, General Manager at (617) 5520547. Advertising The Heights is one of the most effective ways to reach the BC community. To submit a classified, display, or online advertisement, call our advertising office at (617) 552-2220 Monday through Friday. The Heights is produced by BC undergraduates and is published on Mondays and Thursdays during the academic year by The Heights, Inc. (c) 2013. All rights reserved.
CORRECTIONS This correction is in reference to the issue dated Oct. 10, 2013, Vol. XCIV, No. 35. The article titled “Successful Start coordinates annual winter cloting drive” incorrectly cited the director of Successful Start as Marisa Kreaime. Her first name is Marsia.
VOICES FROM THE DUSTBOWL “If you could invite one person to dinner, who would it be?”
“The Dalai Lama.” —Matthew Phelps, A&S ’17
“Jesus.” —Kevin Kavalec, A&S ’17
“Ghengis Khan.” —John Sherman, A&S ’14
“Ronald Reagan.” —Kelly Sangster, CSOM ’17
The Heights
Thursday, October 17, 2013
A3
Activist considers efficacy of individuals’ protests Shen, from A1 a form of protest. He questioned if this event has really changed hearts, or if people feel compassion because it is such a horror. He claimed, however, that we do not have answers to these questions. Shen noted how the Beijing Olympics were the most nationalistic event for contemporary China. This moment of triumph, this coming out of the shadows of Imperialism, marked China’s coming to age in a global stage. Shen believes there are a lot of good things about nationalism—that it comes closest to the religious experience of being part of a whole. The 1980s marked the beginning of China’s lasting economic growth. With this development came students
taking on public issues. Over 400 cities in China, an estimated 100 million people, protested, in the words of Shen, in the most bizarre and least economically efficient way to change a government and public opinion: non-violent street protest. Shen claimed this was not a revolution, but a reform—that the students believed in the legitimacy of the government, but wanted to make it better. He claimed it was a revolution of rights and expectations. Shen described how the tanks rolled in and crushed the student’s “God of Democracy”—a statue made to mimic the U.S. Statue of Liberty. After showing the iconic Tank Man photo, which is still denounced by the Chinese government today, Shen said that a belief in the power of an individual’s protest
Dashed sees tremendous expansion Dashed, from A1
tiffany law / for the heights
Shen Tong came to Boston College Tuesday as part of the ongoing China Watching series. is why the image lives on, despite the fact that the Tiananmen events have been erased from Chinese history. After the massacre, Tong realized his time was borrowed. He finished the lecture by noting that 15 years of nightmares ended on the evening of the day his first daughter was born. “So now, I’m going to sound like a Hallmark card, right,” he said. “So to get a new relicense of life you give
birth to life—you give a life. I wasn’t that good—I wasn’t aware of that. But after a few days the dreams don’t come back.” As the last student wrapped up his question, which was spoken in Chinese and translated by Clarke, the audience learned that, as a Chinese student, this was the first opportunity he had had to meet someone who was involved with the events at that time. n
Semester Online courses integrate into BC curriculum Semester Online, from A1 The 15-week, three-credit courses are currently priced at $1,400 per credit and are designed to serve students seeking time management alternatives and access to classes perhaps not offered at BC, but that still qualify for University credit. Semester Online has also established a direct billing relationship with its partner schools, allowing online courses to appear on the regular tuition statement for students enrolled at any of the eight consortium universities. Unlike other online course providers, however, each class is kept and capped at a 20-student capacity and is oriented toward a self-paced curriculum during a given semester. These limited class sections allow students to engage the professor and each other as they would in an on-
campus class. Restricted class sizes also allow for a live class component students must “attend” via webcam once a week—a feature the University administration felt positively separated Semester Online from other online education platforms. “So for 80 minutes each week, students are in a live class with students from their section,” Hermalyn said. “Through our platform it looks like the Brady Bunch—everyone is on [a] webcam discussing the week’s material with the professor … [keeping classes small] makes for really rigorous section discussion.” For the first time in University history, BC students are now able to enroll in classes at any of the eight consortium colleges and receive credit potentially counting toward their major or core requirements. “So you might want to take Shake-
speare and Film from Notre Dame, or Electronics from Northwestern, or Bioethics from Wake Forest—courses that could extend a student’s curriculum by giving them more options, but remain here on campus,” Hermalyn said. Semester Online also recently announced its spring classes, expanding from 10 to 19 course offerings for the spring semester. Pro sp e c tive applic ant s for the spring program must meet with their academic advisor to confirm that a course’s credits will transfer, meet the required GPA level, and submit an official transcript before the application deadline on Dec. 23, or the early application date on Nov. 22. The program is currently only available to eligible sophomores, juniors, and seniors. Semester Online classes are also not just limited to consortium university
students. “It’s important for everyone to know that students from anywhere in the world can take these courses,” Hermalyn said. “So you don’t have to be a student at one of the course-providing schools—it’s open to anyone.” Through its development, though, Semester Online hopes its partnership with BC will continue to afford students the opportunity to more practically broaden their academic horizons. “[Semester Online’s] focus is quality—making sure that what we are offering is very rigorous, very high quality, and the kind of experience a Boston College student would expect to be getting online—nothing less,” Hermalyn said. “The students, the faculty, and our partners have to believe that what we are doing online with these courses is just as good or better than on campus.” n
Sophomore earns grant to develop online art gallery Quintano, from A1 instead. Quintano characterizes his startup as a social business. The site functions as an online store where those looking to purchase art can easily do so. He is also working on a philanthropic element to the business wherein the website will show how some of the proceeds for each piece will go toward specific causes. Quintano accrued the contacts in the art world necessary for his startup through previous work and a lifelong passion for art. “We want to encourage education in the arts,” he said. “Our hope is to bring art to people who may not usually be able to afford it.” The project involves collaboration between artists and curators while also allowing for independence in artists’ creative processes. “Sometimes, the artist creates a great piece, but doesn’t know to market
it,” Quintano said. “That’s where we come in and it’s very exciting.” Q uintano empha si ze d that the website would not hinder the creative process. “It’s interesting because I have been on the artist’s side of this,” he said. “I respect the creative process. When we are involved with the artist, it’s about how to market the artists’ work. Most of all, we want to leave their creative process alone.” He added that artists appreciate input from curators while still also wanting to maintain their creativity. Curators find artists in their local areas and help them come up with ideas. Once a week, Quintano, the curators, and others involved with the project hold a conference call to discuss the artwork as a group and decide which pieces will go in the collection. Quintano’s work is mostly on the business side of the company, overseeing the retail and financial angles. His
aim is to give a positive experience to artists, curators, and customers alike. The fellowship is an opportunity that Quintano appreciates not only for its financial benefits but because of the people he has met through it. “Being in an environment where I can connect with other passionate people is an amazing opportunity and quite valuable,” he said. Quintano also discussed this idea in terms of the BC community. “I think it’s really exciting to be a student at BC right now,” he said. “We really are becoming a hub for business and innovation.” Several factors have contributed to this rise, according to Quintano, including earlier start-ups that have gained traction and alumni connections, and leadership by a number of faculty members. He mentioned associate professor of information systems John Gallaugher in particular. “He has been the catalyst for the
growth that BC has had for startups,” Q uint ano said. “ The s cener y ha s changed and it’s exciting. Boston is not Silicon Valley, but we definitely have a unique ecosystem here.” Gallaugher reciprocated Quintano’s praise. “He’s exceptional, a real standout, and it’s quite an honor that .406 has selected him as part of their elite group,” Gallaugher said. Quintano is not sure about the future, but said that in five to 10 years he would like to be working as an entrepreneur in venture capital. He is passionate about bringing in a social element to business while still preserving the integrity of his business models. Quintano’s number one priority with this new startup is to buy and sell his work so that more people will invest in and fund the project. “If there’s anything I’ve learned, I’ve learned that you can’t predict the future, but I can focus on what I’m passionate about.” n
strategically use the locations to which it has expanded. “One of our core competencies is to stay true to the original concept of biking,” Dumontet said. “We invest more in bikes than anyone else in the industry, which is an advantage for places like Boston that have frequent sporting events such as Red Sox games that create congestion for vehicle deliveries.” Dumontet himself made many deliveries using a bike, even into the early growth stages of the company. He eventually stepped into a more operations-heavy dispatcher role, however, as the volume of orders, clients, and employees at Dashed grew. Although Dashed still relies heavily on bikes and even scooters, it is in the midst of utilizing more vehicle-based delivery methods that prove more resistant to weather patterns and long-distance orders. “One of our recent initiatives that’s been really exciting is that we’re rolling out a suite of electric and eco-friendly smart cars,” Dumontet said. “That’s a nice improvement we’ve made. We’ll continue to have bikes and scooters, but the smart cars allow us to adapt to weather and make sure we’re getting orders out quickly.” While the vehicles are a relatively new development for Dashed, Dumontet indicated that his goal is to have 50 percent of the company’s deliveries done through the cars by the end of 2013. While Dumontet’s journey with Dashed and the startup world might be described as atypical since he created the company by himself and never relied on venture capital, he ties aspects of his success to core lessons he learned while an undergraduate at BC. “The beauty of the academic environment at BC is that you get such a wellrounded education and you can delve into many different areas. Once I realized what I liked, I was able to explore those areas further,” he said. “My number one advice would be to learn what you’re best at and follow that. Number two is to learn how to do one to two things exceptionally well.” Having been an orientation leader and a resident assistant, Dumontet also emphasized that students must take advantage of the opportunities available to engage their interests. Specifically, he pointed to his experience on TechTrek West as especially formative during his time at BC. Having graduated from BC only four years ago, Dumontet has grown his company to a point where it is successfully competing to have its eco-friendly smart cars advertised in a Super Bowl commercial. “We were invited to apply to the Intuit Small Business Big Game contest,” he said. “At this point the current round of voting is closed and we’ll find out if we make it to the next round where they narrow down to the top 20 in the country.” While it remains to be seen whether Dashed will be publicized to the world during the Super Bowl, the sheer opportunity illustrates just how far Dumontet—once just a man delivering food on his bike—has come. n
BC preps for earthquakes Shakeout, from A1 of a real emergency.” Although BC is not usually affected by such catastrophic events, Tommaney urges students to participate so that they can be prepared in the rare case that an earthquake may occur. “Many people in New England don’t fear earthquakes because a large scale one has not happened in a long time,” Tommaney said. “[New Englanders] know exactly what to do in the event of a snowstorm because we experience them so frequently. Because we rarely experience earthquakes, we are far less prepared.” Most of New England, including BC, falls upon a particularly destructive plate boundary. Because these plates are not as active, when an earthquake does occur, the damage would be far greater than damage that would occur in frequently earthquake-ridden states such as California. “Our infrastructure in New England also would suffer great damage, because of the age of our buildings,” Tommaney said. “Buildings in California are designed to withstand earthquakes.” It is due to these impeding consequences of earthquakes that Tommaney calls students to begin preparing. “Earthquakes are a low-probability, high-consequence event,” he said. “However, it is crucial that we prepare for them sooner rather than later.” “Because earthquakes are less fre-
quent in New England, it is important that we prepare,” Tommaney said. “The more we practice, the more secondnature it becomes to us, so that in the event of a real emergency, we will know exactly what to do.” Alongside participating in “The Great Northeast Shakeout” at some point today, Tommaney encourages students to take precautions in their own dorm rooms. Students should secure objects in their rooms such as televisions or picture frames and prepare an “emergency bag” with essentials that one would need in case there is no access to supplies. “Emergency bags that we usually pass out on opening weekend are very useful to have when situations may arise,” Tommaney said. “You have everything you need in an emergency and you can grab it and go. It is just important that you remember to maintain the bag,” Tommaney said. He also encourages students to visit the OEM website to learn more about precautions one can take, and to take an online “quake quiz” on how to prepare when an earthquake strikes. Tommaney emphasizes the importance of practicing so that students are fully prepared in any sort of natural disaster. “In situations like this, having a game plan and communicating is crucial,” he said. “We need to practice what we would do in the event of an earthquake now to ensure safety for all before it is too late.” n
The Heights
A4
Thursday, October 17, 2013
Red Sox Nutritionist offers seasoned advice
Finding the shadow
By Jennifer Suh For The Heights
Daniel Lee Every Columbus Day weekend, I pick up my camera and take photos of the autumn campus. Boston College has two seasons that are more picturesque seasons than the daily dusk. One is when the leaves start changing—the other one is when it snows heavily in a late evening. Because I followed the BC football team to West Point last year as The Heights’ photo editor, I was looking forward to enjoying the scenes I missed during the last Columbus Day. Unfortunately, it was a little early for the colored leaves at Lower (take a note: Lower Campus is the most picturesque part of BC for colorful leaves), and the leaves around the Reservoir have already been taken down by the notorious Boston wind. Until my fourth year at BC, I hadn’t gone into the city and explored very often, perhaps because I was exhausted from exploration. As much as I enjoyed traveling around, I wanted to settle down at one point. The campus gave me so much comfort as a home and as another basecamp. Yet, the comfort became a bubble—I had been afraid of going out beyond the campus boundaries. Perhaps the reluctance of traveling also came from the inconvenient Boston public transportation system. Used to commuting with better public transportation in Seoul, Sydney, Berlin, and Munich, I’ve avoided overcoming the small inconvenience. This time, though, I tried the Museum of Fine Arts. Over the past few weeks, I’ve enjoyed walking around downtown—I’m ashamed to admit that I’m only doing this in my senior year. From the Kenmore station, I unexpectedly enjoyed walking to the MFA in drizzling rain because I finally had the feeling that I’m living in the city (well, technically in the greater Boston area). I felt lucky, thinking about my European friends who told me they would like to visit the city. When I first arrived, I was baffled and pleased by the free admission for BC students. I realized that many people don’t know about this unless they’ve visited the MFA for their classes. Everyone I knew was playing FIFA or just resting in the suite on weekend afternoons. Going off campus does consume energy, but it is worth it, just as exploring Munich everyday was when I was abroad. Once I passed the entrance, I looked for the European collections, remembering the greatness I saw in Berlin and Munich. I found some of Monet’s works, but my expectation turned into disappointment—the exhibition was nothing like Germany. Well, I realized soon after that I needed to see the American collections since the museum is obviously located in Boston, not in Berlin. I also realized that I hadn’t been exposed to American painting. So when I saw the gigantic paintings of “The Passage of The Delaware” and “Washington at Dorchester Heights,” I almost raised my arms and said out loud, “I know these!” I was genuinely amazed to recognize some paintings I’d seen from textbooks. Nevertheless, my surprise to see the renowned American paintings didn’t come from the fact that I saw something I had learned at school. The surprise came from the fact that I hadn’t been aware of the locality of the great works. All along, I had thought all the genuine masterpieces were located at the Louvre and at the Museum of Great Britain. Although the MFA is a world renowned museum, its status hadn’t rung in my ears, because, as a resident, I’d been used to its reputation. We don’t tend to appreciate things close to us. There is a Korean proverb saying, “the shadow is under the candle stick.” I suggest you bring your camera to Lower and see what you see. You might find something great that you haven’t paid close attention to.
Daniel Lee is a senior-staff columnist for The Heights. He can be reached at news@bcheights.com.
emily fahey/ Heights Staff
Members of the BC community and a group from Lawrence High School performed as part of the Hispanic Heritage Month.
HHM celebrates hispanic culture By Scott Bailey For The Heights Music rang through Gasson at this fall’s Hispanic Heritage Month’s closing ceremonies. It was a Noche De Estrellas indeed. Both Boston College and local dance groups twisted and twirled in celebration of their home countries. The ceremony opened with the desfile de banderas, a traditional Hispanic celebration of flags, dance, and dress. Each nation had a representative dance with its flag across the stage, as smiles lit up the room. Event organizer Marcela Norton—born in Bolivia—wants the event to be an inclusive opportunity for all BC students. “We want everyone to be able to come and see [our cultures], because not everyone sees it,” Norton said. “The music, the culture, even the food.” Norton doesn’t joke about the food. “We got traditional food,” she said. “We want everyone to come and try.” Norton’s inclusive attitude extends beyond her desire to feed—she is the director of human relations for Dining Services—and
some of the dance groups had members of non-Hispanic heritages. “It really felt like everyone came together,” said Liz Viruete, A&S ’14, who has roots in Guadalajara. “It’s great to feel like part of bigger whole.” Viruete’s sentiment speaks beyond her own experience and also about the way HHM works within the larger BC dynamic. “There are a few other heritage months at BC,” Norton said. “They all receive funding from the Office of Student Affairs.” These other heritage months include Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, Black History Month, and Native American Heritage Month. HHM, which started in 2009, is the newest of the celebrations at BC. “Involvement of the students has grown a lot,” Norton said. “Before we started HHM there was only one student who wanted to start HHM.” For Norton, the next challenge lies in keeping the performances fresh and exciting. “We try to bring some of those from outside,” Norton said, “but it can be difficult to fund them getting here. Transportation
costs can sometimes be an issue as well. We have to give them something.” “The group from [Lawrence High School] was great,” Norton said about the process in finding the dance team. “Someone from the [Lawrence] area asked a friend if they wanted to perform, and they did.” Most of the dance groups are from the BC Community. “The Steering Committee picks groups to perform,” Norton said. “We usually know who we want, but we like to rotate and see who’s available. Some come back, like VIPs, to perform again.” “We’ll have a meeting to wrapup this year’s event before we begin planning next year’s in April or March,” said Norton about the preparation process. “In between those two, we’ll have Latino Family Weekend in February.” The closing ceremony ended on a happy note. Even though the flags may be taken down 30 days after the celebration, the Hispanic pride will remain flying high. n
Boston Red Sox nutritionist Tara Mardigan spoke about healthy eating last Thursday in Fulton Hall. The talk was organized by the Office of Health Promotion and Dining Services, which provided assorted fruit and yogurt before the event. Mardigan graduated from the University of New Hampshire with a bachelor’s degree in nutrition and completed her dietetic internship at Yale-New Haven Hospital. She then graduated from Tufts University with master’s degrees in science and public health. In addition to being the team nutritionist for the Boston Red Sox, Mardigan started a nutrition-counseling program called The Plate Coach, and works at Lown Cardiovascular Center, InsideTracker, and FutureChefs. “Tara is an experienced and skilled dietitian, and we wanted to bring her to campus to support the kick-off of our NOURISH campaign. She shares a similar philosophy about food and eating to the campaign,” said Betsy Cook, administrative assistant of the Office of Health Promotion (OHP). In an effort to help students make healthy choices in the din-
“Nutrition ideally should be individualized because people have different cultural preferences.” - Tara Mardigan, Boston Red Sox nutritionist
john wiley / Heights editor
A brief concert was performed at the Verdi celebration, in which singers performed songs from Giuseppe Verdi’s operas.
Opera singer honored in bicentenary By Michelle Tomassi Heights Editor “We are here to celebrate a genius, and we are here to celebrate Italy,” began Laurie Shepard, associate professor in the department of romance languages and literatures, to a room of faculty and students in Gasson 100 last Thursday, Oct. 10. The “genius” being celebrated was Giuseppe Verdi, in an event titled “Verdi 200th: A Celebration for Giuseppe Verdi’s Bicentenary.” Verdi is often considered one of the preeminent opera composers of the 19th century, and some of his most famous pieces include Nabucco, Rigoletto, and a version of Macbeth. The event began with an introduction by Francesco Castellano, an independent scholar who previously served as a lecturer of Italian at Boston College. Castellano focused mainly on Verdi’s upbringing, providing a historical background for the composer and tracking his musical success. Despite Verdi’s immense success at the height of his career, Castellano explained, he was initially rejected from the music conservatory of Milan—at 19, he was considered too old, and he was a foreigner, born in the French-controlled Duchy of Parma. In addition, he married the daughter of his patron, Margherita Barezzi, and had two children with her, but both died in infancy, and his wife passed away shortly after. Despite these tragedies, Verdi continued with his work, and when asked what
he remembered of his first success, he said, “Non grandissimo, ma abbastanza buono,” which translates to, “It wasn’t great, but it was good enough.” Castellano’s introduction was followed by Mattia Acetoso, a visiting assistant professor of Italian, who described Verdi’s role in the unification of Italy. Verdi was considered a “prophet” of this period, known as the “Risorgimento,” for the manner in which his music affected the political atmosphere of a very divided Italy. “Verdi played a highly symbolic role in the development and fulfillment of an idea of national unity,” Acetoso said. “[He] was an inspiring figure, and also provided through his work a cultural common denominator to a country divided into many political, linguistic, and cultural entities.” Verdi’s operas were met with popular support, and his music served to unite people of different factions. Verdi himself was a strong political activist—he was a close friend of Giuseppe Mazzini, one of the two prominent figures in the unification movement. Although Verdi never actually fought in any of the Italian wars for independence, Acetoso explained, he had a strong emotional investment in the struggle for Italian independence. Jeremiah McGrann, assistant chair and director of undergraduate studies in the music department, concluded the presentations with an analysis of the technical aspects of Verdi’s operas. He began
by addressing the idea of opera as a distinct genre, which has its own rules about dramatic action and does not follow those of a spoken word play. “If you love Shakespeare, you will hate Verdi,” McGrann said. If one looks at Verdi’s interpretation of Shakespeare, such as his version of Macbeth, one may be able to understand what music can bring to such a play, and become open to new artistic possibilities. “It’s the human capability of voice to express emotion in a way that spoken words can’t,” McGrann said. McGrann encouraged listeners to avoid viewing opera as a play, and instead to consider how music creates the characters through melody and rhythmic quality. Those who attended the event were able to witness this firsthand—after the professors’ three presentations, a short concert was presented in which singers performed songs from Verdi’s various operas. Performers included David Lara, GA&S ’18, and his wife Andrea; Martha Ebel, a former professional singer; Cynthia Bravo, director of the Language Laboratory; and pianist Leah Kosch, part-time faculty member in the music department. Through facial expression, movement, and vocal inflection, the singers attempted to express the personalities of Verdi’s characters. “He’s great at bringing out the drama through these incredible contrasts between the characters,” McGrann said. “It’s the way he makes them come alive.” n
ing halls, OHP has partnered with B oston College Dining Services (BCDS) to promote the NOURISH campaign. The six key messages of the campaign can be seen throughout campus and in the dining halls. “Each year we develop and disseminate a Health S o cial Marketing Campaign. This year is NOURISH—the kickoff was at Healthapalooza,” Cook said. The talk was also the first in the Be Well Series, a program under OHP that offers talks on health topics by BC community members and outside experts. “The goal of this talk and the NOURISH campaign is to help student s broaden their knowledge of healthy eating,” Cook said. Lead health coaches Griffin Sharp and Anna Trilleras, both A&S ’14, introduced Mardigan with a brief overview of her background and work.
The PowerPoint for the talk was divided by different categories: healthy nutrition basics, what to eat and when, supplements, special considerations, trends and hot topics, and practical strategies. The presentation began with a list of the top five reasons why BC students report not eating a healthy diet: time and convenience, peer influence, alcohol, wait until older, and boredom with food choices. To create the PowerPoint for the talk, Mardigan collaborated with OHP in order to make her presentation as relevant as she could to the choices BC students have in the dining halls. Along with her own images, she also used graphics and messages from the NOURISH campaign. “We thought the talk was excellent,” Cook said. “She delivered a wonderful presentation with a wealth of practical information to support students in understanding what healthy eating it, making food choices, and understanding that all foods can fit.” One piece of advice Mardigan gave was to eat mindfully when it comes to sugar, fat, and salt. She explained the “bad popcorn in big buckets” 2006 study by Brian Wansink, which proved that people will eat food if it is front of them—even if it is not palatable. She reviewed the benefits and drawbacks of trendy diets like gluten-free and Paleo diets. When it comes to choosing a trendy diet herself, she said, “How long do I have to follow it for?” Mardigan also explained the importance of timing when eating food before or after a workout, the effects of coffee and tea in different people, and the vital role sleep plays in making food choices—according to Mardigan, even the Red Sox have a sleep room. Although Mardigan’s nutrition advice is geared for professional athletes, the same advice can apply to anyone with some individualization. “Nutrition ideally should be individualized because people have different cultural preferences, and some students like to sleep late, and some students like to wake up early,” Mardigan said. “But BC has a great opportunity and so many resources where students can individualize through Sheila Tucker [nutritionist for OHP and BCDS or the health coaches.” Mardigan ended the talk with a Q&A to give students a chance to ask questions. “I’m really impressed by the reception that I got from the students who were there,” Mardigan said. “Everybody was so warm, friendly, and genuine, and the student body was very interested. It was a very positive experience. I won’t forget that.” The second talk of the Be Well Series will feature professor Kelly Rossetto, who will speak about the impact of stress on college students. n
natalie goepel / for the Heights
Boston Red Sox nutritionist, Tara Mardigan, spoke during the Be Well Series.
CLASSIFIEDS Thursday, January 17, 2013
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Thursday, October 17, 2013
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Directions: The Sudoku is played over a 9x9 grid. In each row there are 9 slots, some of which are empty and need to be filled. Each row, column and 3x3 box should contain the numbers 1 to 9. You must follow these rules: · Number can appear only once in each row · Number can appear only once in each column · Number can appear only once in each 3x3 box · The number should appear only once on row, column or area.
Takeout can eat up your savings. Pack your own lunch instead of going out. $6 saved a day x 5 days a week x 10 years x 6% interest = $19,592. That could be money in your pocket. Small changes today. Big bucks tomorrow. Go to feedthepig.org for free savings tips.
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Bates’ first year at BC saw progress, innovation
Thursday, October 17, 2013
QUOTE OF THE DAY I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear. -Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-68), leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement
Athletics must continue to fuel the school spirit they have helped foster during the past year Hundre ds of student s trav eled to South Carolina this past weekend to support the Boston College fo otball te am a s the y took on Clemson University. The trip south was spearheaded by students , partially in response to the lack of a current or future game scheduled against Notre Dame. Although the removal of the “Holy War” from the BC football schedule until at least 2015 is disappointing, Clemson seems to be an adequate substitute. Warm weather and one of the best tailgating environments in the ACC made for a great atmosphere to watch the Eagles play what was almost a major upset. The game on Saturday was a heartbreaker for the football team, but the school spirit exhibited by students that traveled to the game is just one instance of an encour-
[BC Athletics] can send emails, shoot off fireworks, and sell students a golden ticket that will get them into any game, but it is all for nothing if the students themselves do not actually show up to support the teams. aging trend of increased student support for BC student-athletes this semester. A leadership change within the athletics department, better play from the football team, and perhaps most importantly, the introduction of the Gold Pass ticketing system are just a few of the factors contributing to this increased student involvement. It ha s b e en one year since Director of Athletics Brad Bates came to the Heights, and since the day he arrived he has overse en sub stantial change s . His replacement of Frank Spaziani with Steve Addazio was the first major change, and the implementation of the Gold Pass—which has dramatically boosted student attendance at sporting events—is the most recent. One new change students will likely begin to notice is a push by Athletics to broadcast more away games on campus. Occasionally away hockey or football games
outside of conference play are not scheduled to air on any of the BC cable channels, which makes student engagement more difficult when teams are traveling. For example, the men’s hockey game in Ann Arbor against Michigan last week was shown exclusively on local Comcast stations. To bypass this, Athletics made the game available to BC students by replacing regular programming on BC channel 11 with coverage of the game. Offering live screenings of away games to students is a strategy that can only serve to boost school spirit and student engagement in BC Athletics. While the changes made within the athletics department thus far have had a positive effect on the student body overall, they have not been without their problems. The Gold Pass continues to experience issues that primarily revolve around students not receiving reward points for games they have attended. Athletics should continue working to resolve these issues as quickly as possible, especially since high-demand games, like Friday’s men’s hockey game against Wisconsin, are beginning to arrive. As the Gold Pass program moves forward, Athletics should consider additional points for students who make road trips like the one to Clemson. During the first year of the rewards program, it is understandable that Athletics is attempting to keep the process as simple as possible, but it makes sense to reward these students for their dedication with a better chance of attending high-demand games at home. At the end of the academic year, Athletics should evaluate more creative ways for students to acquire reward points outside of attending home games. Giving out two points for the Homecoming Pep Rally was a good example of this. Ultimately, however, the school spirit of the student body is not within the direct control of BC Athletics. They can send emails, shoot off fireworks, and sell students a golden ticket that will get them into any game, but it is all for nothing if the students themselves do not actually show up to support the teams. So far, students have been answering the call with zeal, and they should continue to do so for the remainder of their four years here.
Alum spearheads creative, eco-friendly start-up
CLAIRE ABELY / HEIGHTS ILLUSTRATION
LETTER TO THE EDITOR Student body must chime in on funding negotiations
Registered student organizations (RSOs) have relied heavily on the Student Assembly for additional funding for events. In particular, the supplementary allocations given to culture clubs for many of their annual retreats often determine whether hundreds of students, mostly freshmen, will be able to participate in one of the most formative events of their year. Recent changes in our funding mandate put the long-term sustainability of these and other events at risk, if immediate action is not undertaken to hammer out a solution among UGBC, the Student Organization Funding Committee (SOFC), and various RSOs. Two weeks ago, a directive from the Student Programs Office instructed us to end the practice of “double-dipping” from the student activities fee. In other words, the Student Assembly will no longer be able to fund events that have already received funds from the SOFC, unless they are direct collaborations or related to our outreach activities. While this impacts every club that has come or will come to us for funding, this most seriously affects culture clubs and their retreats. To date, the Student Assembly has allocated $5,000 to various clubs. Each dollar, however, has gone to fund an annual retreat. Overwhelming majorities of senators have recognized and will continue to recognize the importance of these retreats. As the former president of the Asian Caucus and a co-sponsor of several allocation bills, I can attest to the profound effect that these retreats have upon student formation, club development, and in helping to craft communities that are as vibrant as they are supportive. The reverberations of these retreats are felt throughout
the entire Boston College community as dynamic clubs execute better events, foster stronger leadership, and form the crucial nuclei of support that students will need throughout their time at BC. These retreats are valuable, if not critical, components of several students’ BC experience. However, both the amount of available funds and funding guidelines of SOFC have prevented substantive reform in the past and must be reformed if these events and others are to continue in the absence of UGBC fiscal intervention. Rather than seeing this as an “us vs. them” scenario, I applaud the efforts of SOFC thus far to address these concerns. Joe Rocco, [CSOM ’14 and] SOFC Chairman, has shown an unprecedented willingness to work together to find a solution. As SOFC and UGBC work together, dialogue cannot be restricted to a few deep-seated negotiators. The student body as a whole should work together to come to a mutually agreeable solution on these matters. Several alternatives have been proposed from allocating more money to SOFC, specifically marked for retreats, to changing the SOFC funding guidelines themselves, to working with clubs to find equally meaningful alternatives, to even amending the Constitution to allow for special treatment of retreat funding requests. Many of these solutions are indeed valid, but reform will not take place unless a critical mass of students works with their senators, clubs, and SOFC representatives to find the best solution.
The Heights welcomes Letters to the Editor not exceeding 400 words and column submissions that do not exceed 700 words for its op/ed pages. The Heights reserves the right to edit for clarity, brevity, accuracy, and to prevent libel. The Heights also reserves the right to write headlines and choose illustrations to accompany pieces submitted
to the newspaper. Submissions must be signed and should include the author’s connection to Boston College, address, and phone number. Letters and columns can be submitted online at www.bcheights.com, by email to editor@bcheights.com, in person, or by mail to Editor, The Heights, 113 McElroy Commons, Chestnut Hill, Mass. 02467.
MATT ALONSOZANA Executive Vice President A&S ’14
Students should consider taking advantage of Dashed’s services and support BC entrepreneurship Philip Dumontet, BC ’09, only had a single bicycle when he first began Dashed, a food delivery service based in Boston. Dumontet graduated from Boston College as a marketing and philosophy double major, and began his business by making deliveries from a restaurant in the North End on his bike. His company has come a long way since that first delivery—Dashed is now a $4.6 million business and is the leading restaurant delivery service in the Northeast, located in five cities and serving over 500 restaurants. Dashe d delivers from p opular restaurants such as P.F. Chang’s, Pinkberry, and T.G.I Fridays, and the service is available for use on foodler.com. While the food delivery business may not be a new one, the manner in which Dumontet has
executed his service reflects how B C student s can use creative, modern approaches to break into the entrepreneurial world. For example, Dashed strives to be environmentally friendly— the company continues to use bicycles and scooters as a means of transporting food, and it hopes to reach its goal of having 50 percent of deliveries made in SmartCars by the end of 2013. To support the company’s green efforts and to help a business based out of BC, students should take advantage of Dashed, which strives to provide fast, eco-friendly deliveries to its customers. Dumontet’s success should also serve as an example for current students who wish to join the startup world—even the smallest idea can be launched into a career with time, investment, and ingenuity.
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Shame: the GOP and shutdown politics A lesson from ‘Glee’ Evan Goldstein Welcome Back, Government - So our government is going to be operational again soon, and we would be remiss not to comment on this. We’re putting it in the Thumbs Up category because we need another one of these things, and in the long run, it’s probably a good thing that we have a government again. But the main reason it goes here is because we are sick of seeing large pictures of angry democrats and a psychologically tortured John Boehner under dramatic headlines on all of our news sources of choice. Get Me To The Game - This Friday is the first time to use those hard-earned Gold Pass points to get you a ticket to a high-demand hockey game! That’s right, the Eagles take on the Wisconsin Badgers at 7 p.m. We are certainly very excited for the worthy match up, and we very much hope that we win, but first, we hope that enough of the people with the required amount of Gold Pass points immediately delete all emails from BC Athletics and therefore don’t know to pick up their tickets so those of us who may have fallen a tad short can get in.
The Long Weekend Syndrome - We don’t know exactly how this happened, but one long weekend, one missed Monday, returned us to school on Tuesday with absolutely no memory of what we had been learning in any of our classes. Even our Tuesday classes, which we had not missed a single day of, seemed entirely foreign. How is this possible? If this is any indication of how we’ll respond to getting more than one day off, we might as well just not return after Thanksgiving. And after Christmas? Forget it. We’ll be lucky if we remember how to read. Sports Side Effect - October is the month of sports, and we love it: baseball playoffs, football season is hitting its stride, basketball will start soon. The only downside? The endless erectile dysfunction commercials we have to sit through as a result. Putting aside the fact that this could potentially create an awkward situation if the people you’re watching the game with and you aren’t quite on that ableto-joke-about-erectile-dysfunction level, it’s still slightly uncomfortable no matter what to look at the smiling face of that graying man as he sweetly kisses his aged-but-attractive wife, and know that the drug company is really trying to tell you that the graying man is able to have passionate, exciting sex whenever he so pleases, with the help of their drug. But hey, it’s a price we are willing to pay. Say No To Oreos - Well, it turns out that Oreos can be just as addictive as cocaine. We don’t really know what to do with this information. So, Oreos are pretty terrible for us and if we eat enough of them, it could seriously damage our health or maybe even give us a heart attack and kill us. It’s dangerous to eat even one Oreo in case the addiction grabs us and we find ourselves needing them every day, then twice a day, then suddenly we’re going through a pack a day and control is slipping out of our hands until we’ve gained so much weight and become so consumed by the constant need for Oreos that our friends feel like they don’t even know us anymore. So the safe thing is to avoid ever eating Oreos, and establish education programs so children understand the dangers of Oreos from an early age. The government should take this into their own hands and establish a War Against Oreos, and everyone should just generally steer clear of Satan’s cookie for their own good … but they’re so damn delicious, so who really gives a shit?
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It seems Democrats and Republicans agree on nothing these days, but on this we can all surely agree: American politics have reached a depressingly low point in recent weeks. I’m writing this column on Monday night, so I don’t yet know whether the parties will have come together to reopen the government and avert a default of financially-devastating proportions. But I know the dysfunction Congress has displayed over the past weeks and months as it failed to pass a continuing resolution to fund the government, sending hundreds of thousands of workers home with no pay. In some ways, it’s shocking that we’ve been brought so low. In other ways, it’s shocking that it took this long. In any case, it is abundantly clear that reports of Congress’ demise have been greatly understated. The situation is chillingly simple: in order for the government to function, Congress must pass a law to decide how to spend our money. Since House Republicans have refused to move forward on the process of passing an actual budget, the government has been funded for some time through short-term measures called continuing resolutions, which allocate funds for a few months before requiring renewal. On Oct. 1, our last CR expired, and the money ran out. Simple as that. In one moment, as the clock changed from 11:59 to 12:00, 800,000 federal workers were suddenly unable to receive paychecks, and 19,000 Head Start students were jeopardized as funding for their education dried up. Also, NIH clinical trials, which serve as a lifeline for hundreds of patients every day, were unable to provide lifesaving treatments. All in all, the shutdown costs our economy $10 billion every week, economic activity we can’t afford to lose at a critical
moment in our recovery. So if the shutdown is so bad, why didn’t Congress pass another continuing resolution? Well, a group of about 80 lawmakers in the House, all Republicans, decided that Obamacare was so bad, they wouldn’t vote for any measure that provided any funds for implementation of the law. They despise the Affordable Care Act so much that they would rather see the government shut down than work with the administration to improve it. Of course, they knew this would never happen—even if the Senate passed a continuing resolution defunding Obamacare, the president would veto it—but they refused to drop the charade, right up until the point where they shut down the government. Here’s the thing: the Senate voted on (and rejected) the CRs passed by the House, a tough vote for red state Democrats to take. But the House never even brought the Senate-passed measure, which left Obamacare funding intact, up for a vote, even though it’s clear it could garner enough Republican support to reopen the government. Speaker of the House John Boehner knows that he could open the government tomorrow with a small coalition of moderate Republicans and Democrats, but he’s refused to call that vote for two weeks, because he’s terrified of the radical elements of his caucus. It’s obvious who’s really calling the shots now: the Tea Party has taken over the Republican Party. In many ways, it’s sad. It’s sad that we can be nostalgic for the good old days when Republicans weren’t actually crazy enough to shut down the government. It’s sad that the precedent has now been set that shutting down the government is a legitimate political tactic (because, guess what, we’re going to be dealing with another CR fight in a few months). But it’s especially sad to see the Republican Party putting politics ahead of people so starkly. I’m not saying they should be wild about Obamacare, because Obamacare isn’t perfect. Reforming our broken healthcare system is hard and it will take time. But it’s sad to see Republicans jump so far to the right that they would rather see food inspectors sent home, they would rather see infants be denied nutritional assistance, and they would rather see
cancer patients lose access to lifesaving care than sit down at the table with the president and work to improve the law. Because while they may not like Obamacare, we can all agree that our healthcare system needs change. We can all agree that more people should be able to have health insurance for a lower cost. And once we agree on that, we can have a discussion. But Republicans have no interest in discussion—their modus operandi is political theater, avoiding anything resembling cooperation with Democrats and the White House, no matter the cost to the American people. Ultimately, Obamacare is the law of the land. It was passed by both houses of Congress, signed into law by the president, upheld by the Supreme Court, and the president who signed it was re-elected by a wide margin. Maybe Republicans don’t like it, and I can empathize with that. Like many Democrats of my generation, I grew up despising the war in Iraq. I never understood why we sent so many Americans to die with such dubious justification. I may not be a Democrat were it not for that war. But it would have been irresponsible for Democrats to shut down the government in an attempt to defund the war in Iraq. There are simply too many things at stake that are important to Americans to justify holding the economy hostage over a single issue. Maybe it’ll be over by the time this piece runs. I hope so. I certainly hope that Boehner comes to his senses, finds his political courage, and calls a vote to reopen the government. But even when they do, Americans will remember the GOP brinksmanship that shut down our government. Americans will remember the reckless disregard for our nation’s interests that Republicans displayed throughout this ordeal. We’ll remember it in 2014 and we’ll remember it the next time a Republican tries to tell us to trust them with the economy. The GOP has violated the oath they took to represent their constituents, and for that, they should be ashamed.
Evan Goldstein is a staff columnist for The Heights. He can be reached at opinions@ bcheights.com.
49th Head of the Charles Regatta Matt Beckwith Golf has the Masters, tennis has Wimbledon, and rowing has the Head of the Charles. These events don’t just represent elite levels of competition in the sport, but carry with them an added symbolic significance, a romantic snapshot that captures something basic about the sport. And while it may be inconvenient to go to Augusta National in Georgia or the All England Tennis Club in London, the Head of the Charles takes place only a few T Stops away from Boston College. This coming Saturday and Sunday mark the 49th Head of the Charles Regatta, the world’s largest competitive rowing event. It features both sculling (each rower has two oars, one going out to each side) and sweep rowing (each rower has one oar, which goes out to one side of them) events. There will be over 9,000 athletes making their way down the Charles’ 4,800-meter (three-mile) race course. It goes from Boston University’s boathouse (just shy of the Charles River basin) and stops after the Eliot Bridge, which lies between Harvard’s and Northeastern University’s boathouses. The course snakes sharply, with 90-degree turns and razor-sharp corners, leading to inevitable crashes between crews and high drama on the river. I am a member of the BC men’s varsity rowing team, and am proud to be rowing in my first Charles on Sunday. This event is not just the major event of our fall racing calendar, but of the worldwide racing year. Rowing is not a sport where you race every weekend. Since returning on Aug. 28, the team has trained between 16-20 hours a
Bird Flew
week. On an average day, we wake up before 6 a.m. and go to the Harry Parker Boathouse for two hours of practice on the water. We have trained hard for this weekend and are all very excited about the Head of the Charles. This will be our first major race, and it is on our home river. Rowing is hard work, and the rowing stroke taxes every major muscle group in the body, starting with the legs, then transferring to the back and shoulders, and then finishing off with the arms. But rowing is so beautiful. It requires eight bodies to power the boat, and in the morning light it resembles synchronized smokestacks, breathing hard in the cold air, gliding across the glasslike water. Rowing challenges you to push past the limits of exhaustion and self-doubt. It teaches you to confront fear—the fear of losing and the fear of pain. It fosters camaraderie and trust, and like all great sports, allows you to discover reservoirs of courage and power in yourself that you dared not dream existed. And the Charles is the ultimate place to see this. The Head of the Charles features competitors of all ages and skills. This year the 61 events will include adaptive rowers, Olympians, high school freshmen, and 84-year-olds. They all have a common goal: to push themselves to be their best. The United States National Team, which is coming off of a successful World Championships in Chungju, South Korea, will be competing in a variety of events, including the Men’s Championship Eight—arguably the banner event of the entire regatta. Another notable entry in this year’s field is Mahe Drysdale, the 2012 London Olympic Gold Medalist, and five-time World Rowing Champion. The New Zealander is perhaps the most notable international entry from a field that includes Brits, Canadians, Eastern Europeans, and Mongolians. It is truly a global event with a global reputation. And it happens only a short walk from your door.
At the Charles, there are vendors, fitness expos, and world-class racing. You do not need to know the first thing about rowing to appreciate this sort of activity. Every year nearly 400,000 spectators converge on the Charles River just to watch the racing and enjoy the atmosphere of the fall air. College students from Harvard, BU, MIT, and Northeastern all flock to the banks of the river in order to cheer on their men’s and women’s teams and BC rowing needs similar support for our program. This year has produced one of our fittest and most motivated crews ever, and we are looking forward to achieving one of our best results ever at the Head of the Charles. The BC men’s team’s weekend begins on Saturday at 2:04 p.m., with the Freshmen/Novice Eight competing in the men’s club eight event. On Sunday, varsity takes to the water in the Collegiate Eights category. The two Varsity Eights will be going off between 3:40 and 4:00 on Sunday afternoon, competing against 40 other boats from schools including Washington College, Duke, and our rivals, Trinity. The women’s team will be representing BC as well. On Saturday the women will be racing in the Club Fours event, and they have two entries in the women’s Club Eight category. On Sunday at 3:06 p.m., the women’s Championship Eight will go off and BC will be racing downstream against some of the best boats in the country. Rowing has become such a huge part of my life at BC. But it is also a huge part of life in Boston. For the world’s premier regatta to be held in Boston is both fitting and incredibly fortunate for all of us. I encourage everyone to go down to the river this weekend and see what an amazing experience the Head of the Charles is.
Matt Beckwith is a staff columnist for The Heights. He can be reached at opinions@ bcheights.com.
BY DOLAN BORTNER
The opinions and commentaries of the staff columnists and cartoonists appearing on this page represent the views of the author or artist of that particular piece, and not necessarily the views of The Heights. Any of the columnists and artists for the Opinions section of The Heights can be reached at opinions@bcheights.com.
Kimberly Crowley To be honest, I don’t watch a lot of television at school. With the constant running back and forth like a chicken with my head cut off trying to manage the steady stream of homework flooding my desk and completely unnecessary boy drama while still getting some semblance of sleep each day, TV is pretty much the furthest thing from my mind. I recently made an exception, however, and set aside an hour to watch a show I never thought I would make an effort to schedule: Glee. This week’s show was special because it was the cast’s tribute to Cory Monteith. Now, I am not a huge Glee fan—my sister watched the show, however, and, as a result, I had seen certain episodes and enjoyed some of Cory’s character’s—Finn’s—covers. Nevertheless, I didn’t expect to be as compelled to watch his tribute episode as I was that night it aired. For some reason, I felt like I needed to see this—yet, it wasn’t until half an hour of tears later that I realized what I wanted from this episode. “There’s no lesson here, no happy ending, there’s just nothing. He’s just gone. It’s just so pointless, all that potential…” The moment after that quote was uttered, I realized that I had been naively hoping for the very thing that this character, Sue, was denying me: a lesson. I expected the tears to start falling harder upon realizing I would be as empty after the episode as I had been before it began. As I continued to watch these clearly crushed young people cry on camera while openly sending songs to the heavens in honor of their friend, however, I realized that the cast of Glee was attempting to do the very thing that Sue claimed was impossible. They were sharing their pain honestly and openly with their fans to help Finn be responsible for one last inspiring lesson about life, death, time, and love in the midst of seeming darkness and pointlessness. On the one hand, the episode proved Sue right. A young man with all the potential in the world who inspired so many young people died tragically, and there is no happy ending or neat, nicely-wrapped lesson to be learned from that type of devastating event. On the other hand, it is up to us to decide whether or not his death will be pointless. Throughout the episode, the cast discussed what a great man Finn was and lamented not having told him everything during his life. A good number of them even broke down under the weight of words unsaid. We can choose to let their bravery in sharing their regrets go to waste, or, we can take to heart the lesson that they left for us. We can choose to let those people who are special to us know how valuable they are before it is too late. At another point, one character, Kurt, turns to another, Santana, and asks her why she is still afraid to tell everyone how special Finn was to her. He asks her something along the lines of, “What are you afraid of? That people will know you were kind?” I pose the same question to everyone reading this. People have so many nice things to say about others after they are gone. Although exposing your emotions for everyone to see is possibly one of the scariest feelings in the world, I would ask you to stop and consider what is wrong with letting someone know that they have impacted your life in a positive way. What is truly the harm in telling someone that you think they’re pretty or smart or funny? What negative consequences do you really expect from having told someone close to you that they changed your life? Why would you wait to say in a eulogy what could be said in person? Many of us don’t fear rejection—we simply don’t feel compelled to tell others how we feel because there does not seem to be an incentive to do so. We have faith in our friends and, as a result, take time for granted, often forgetting to consider how we would feel if a friend was taken from us before we had a chance to tell them what they meant to our lives. Glee’s tribute episode to Cory Monteith was not at all what you typically would expect from a “musical dramedy.” Few jokes were made, no plot line was attempted, no strange or unexpected turns occurred. Instead, what made it special was the rare display of raw, open, honest emotion from each of the characters. Watching Finn’s friends say their final goodbyes, each of us viewers were, in a way, given more than a lesson. We were given a second chance—a second chance to remember that time is not a guarantee, to acknowledge that very few regrets are as crushing as those involving words left unsaid, and to share our love openly and honestly with our friends before it is too late.
Kimberly Crowley is a staff columnist for The Heights. She can be reached at opinions@bcheights.com.
THE HEIGHTS
A8
Thursday, October 17, 2013
WISCONSIN VS. BC
Eagles face second early test against Big 10 program Men’s Hockey, from A10
KEYS TO THE GAME BOSTON COLLEGE CREATE SCORING CHANCES Wisconsin is known for its defense, so BC will need to work not only to create scoring opportunities but also to capitalize on them. SPECIAL TEAMS BC has improved on the power play and penalty kill since the loss to Michigan, but those scenarios will be even more valuable against Wisconsin.
WISCONSIN POISE UNDER PRESSURE Wisconsin is one of the older teams that BC will play, and that experience will be vital as they feel the pressure of an energetic crowd. COMBAT BC’S SCORING DEPTH Seven different Eagles scored on Sunday in a display of enormous depth on offense. Wisconsin’s defense will need to cut that off in order to limit BC’s opportunities.
morrow night after handing a dominating victory to Rensselaer on Sunday. “The first game Sunday afternoon,” York said, “there were a lot of students gone on break and there were a lot of students just coming back from Clemson, the Red Sox were on TV, but I think this will be an electric atmosphere on Friday and we’ll feed off of that.” BC is on a positive trajectory. After a disappointing opener, it bounced back with scores from seven different players, three of them freshmen, and three-point performances from team veterans Kevin Hayes, Bill Arnold, and Johnny Gaudreau against RPI for a 7-2 win. This scoring depth could prove invaluable as the Eagles take on the Badgers’ strong defense and look to capitalize on every opportunity, as they will not come easily. “I think it’s terrific to have balance in scoring,” York said. “We can score with Johnny Gaudreau, we can score with any number of players. That makes us more dynamic and more difficult to play against.” There are still areas that BC stands to improve in, York citing specifically the
special teams. The penalty kill was strong against RPI as the Eagles held off any scoring attempts during all seven of their penalties, but it wasn’t as successful when tested against Michigan, which scored during two of its five power plays. “We had a step forward with Michigan. We didn’t win it, but we went from first practices to a game, and on the road competed pretty hard there. Now, we want to see improvement in our special teams, which we did against RPI,” York said. The Badgers’ roster features 16 upperclassmen out of 26 total in contrast to BC’s 12. So far this year, one of the biggest stories surrounding BC hockey has focused on the youth of the team and the contributions that are expected from underclassmen, and that will be put to the test tomorrow night when youthful talent stands head-to-head with seasoned experience. The start of the season has been a huge challenge for York and his team as they learn to integrate young talent with more veteran players, but every trial is welcome as an opportunity to further understand the character and potential of the team. “We’re excited about it,” York said. “It tests us. It tells us our temperature gauge, where we are. It’s kind of a barometer for us.”
GRAHAM BECK / HEIGHTS EDITOR
The Eagles have improved since their opener, but they will be tested once again on Friday.
PLAYERS TO WATCH BOSTON COLLEGE BILL ARNOLD WEIGHT: 203 HEIGHT: 6’0” POSITION: F YEAR: Senior
ISAAC MACLEOD WEIGHT: 212 HEIGHT: 6’5” POSITION: D YEAR: Senior
WISCONSIN MICHAEL MERSCH
WEIGHT: 225 HEIGHT: 6’1” POSITION: F YEAR: Senior
JAKE MCCABE WEIGHT: 210 HEIGHT: 6’1” POSITION: D YEAR: Junior
GRAHAM BECK / HEIGHTS EDITOR
Afer a loss to UNC over the weekend, BC women’s soccer rallied with a 7-0 win over CCSU. The Eagles were spurred by a Stephanie McCaffrey hat trick and two goals from McKenzie Meehan (22).
BC blows out CCSU in seven-goal road scoring rout BY ALEX FAIRCHILD Heights Staff
The women’s soccer team pelted a pair of Central Connecticut State University goalkeepers with 20 shots on Wednesday evening. Improving to 8-7-0 on the season, the Eagles did not have the look of a team that entered the match with a .500 record, as they embarrassed their non-conference opponent 7-0 away from home. A hat trick from Stephanie McCaffrey and two goals from the prolific McKenzie Meehan saw BC trample the
Blue Devils. It was level play until the Eagles started the scoring 14 minutes in. Casey Morrison was assisted by Patrice Vettori for the junior defender’s first goal of the season. Less than a moment later, the Eagles doubled their advantage when McCaffrey beat the CCSU keeper unassisted. Meehan grabbed her first of the night just over 20 minutes into the match when Madison Meehan slid her through. The scorer ripped the ball over the keeper’s head and into the upper 90. Madison had another assist to McCaf-
OUTCOMES
Women’s Hockey, from A10
Its wealth of offensive power overcomes Wisconsin’s notoriously effective defense, especially in situations when BC has the man advantage.
WISCONSIN
WILL WIN IF... Its defense stays steady and limits the number of scoring chances that the Eagles can generate, shutting down their many scorers.
NUMBERS TO KNOW
4.0
6.5
Goals/g
Penalties/g
.500 .915 PP conv. %
Save %
WISCONSIN
3.5
5.5
Goals/g
Penalties/g
.100 .927 PP conv. %
Save %
Eagles averaged 14 shots per game coming into the match. Goalkeeper Alex Johnson started the match, but was not called into action in the contest. Her replacement, Jessica Mickelson, was forced preserve the visitor’s clean sheet when a shot from CCSU’s Kelly Halligan tested the BC keeper in the second half. McKenzie Meehan has 15 goals on the season and sits atop the ACC’s scoring chart, while McCaffrey nudged her way into double digits scoring with her trifecta.
UNH stalls the BC offense
BOSTON COLLEGE WILL WIN IF...
BOSTON COLLEGE
frey six minutes after the intermission. It was 4-0 with under 30 minutes to play, after McCaffrey slotted home her third goal of the night, an unassisted strike in the 62nd minute. The junior striker tallied a total of seven shots on target during the match. Ten minutes later, Hayley Dowd got on the scorers’ sheet, before McKenzie topped off the night seconds from full time with help from Andrea O’Brien. BC’s performance was dominant to say the least, as the Eagles had 17 attempts in both halves of play, totaling for 34. To put that into perspective, the
EMILY FAHEY / HEIGHTS STAFF
The Eagles managed just one goal on their 37 shots against the Wildcats last night.
making save after save to keep the deficit at one. While the Wildcats had a deficit of eight shots at the end of the first period, come the end of the second, shots were even at 23. With half of the period behind them, the Eagles did start creating more chances in the offensive zone. Once again, special teams proved vital. Even with a man down, the Eagles had one of their biggest chances of the period. Though they didn’t score on that rush, they did draw a hooking penalty, which gave BC a man advantage for a minute. The same struggle on the power play persevered, though, and the Eagles ended the period down a man once again on a penalty from Emily Field, and down by two as a goal from Cassandra Vilgrain brought the score to 3-1 with a minute and a half remaining. “We also need to learn that power plays
are important,” Crowley said. “If you can score on quite a few of your power plays, then you’re going to be okay, and I think we’re still learning that.” It was the first time this season that the Eagles entered the third period with a deficit, and they failed to fight through the challenge. Just over three minutes in, BC was given its fourth man-advantage of the game, but once again failed to convert. With just over two minutes remaining, the Eagles were given yet another power play opportunity—this time going up six on four as Boyles headed to the bench— that they couldn’t score on, leaving them 0- for-6 on the night and finalizing the score at 3-1 for BC’s first loss of the season. “You’re just hoping that you can bury one,” Crowley said. “I think we missed three or four open nets on the back door there. We really need to take the puck in those areas more seriously. This is definitely a game we’re going to learn from.”
Addazio, Bates are promoting a winning culture at BC Column, from A10 squad held Clemson’s offensive machine to three points in the first half, I couldn’t help but sense an upset. And as Alex Amidon sprinted 69 yards to the end zone for a go-ahead touchdown, I was nearly convinced that BC could hold off the country’s No. 3 team for one more quarter. Then the Tigers stormed back in Death Valley, and the deflating feeling of could’ve, should’ve, would’ve returned. Yet there was no sense of “almost” at head coach Steve Addazio’s post-
game press conference. His players weren’t glum, but mad. He vowed to turn almost into did. “This program’s going to be about winning,” Addazio said. “It’s about coming down here and winning these games. “That’s what this program is going to be built to do.” Addazio and the football team are major facets of an overarching culture change spearheaded by athletic director Brad Bates, who celebrated one year in the AD’s chair at BC this week. The desire to improve—to leave underachievement behind but never forget the pain it inflicts—is being
reflected on the field. Good efforts are no longer good enough. Close games aren’t moral victories. They’re motivation. And with all the good that’s been put in motion over the past 365 days in BC athletics, Bates acknowledged that there are miles to go before anyone sleeps. Under an observation list of all things BC—on the playing field and beyond—he sets the tone in his ‘One-Year Anniversary Reflection” on BCEagles.com: “There is so much work to be done.” The Eagles have prided themselves on being tenacious underdogs with
the ability to outduel a mightier opponent. Walk along the concourse of Alumni Stadium, and you’ll see banners paying homage to football upsets over highly ranked powerhouses. Looking at the strides BC’s teams are taking makes me think that more of those triumphs are on the horizon, even if they do face some of the nation’s stiffest competition. And when those days come, almost will be a distant memory.
Chris Grimaldi is the Assoc. Sports Editor for The Heights. He can be reached at sports@bcheights.com.
THE HEIGHTS
EDITORS’ EDITORS’PICKS PICKS
Thursday, October 17, 2013 The Week Ahead
Standings
Men’s hockey hosts No. 6 Wisconsin tomorrow night in a rematch of the 2010 Frozen Four championship game. Women’s hockey faces Yale on Saturday. Men’s soccer plays Duke Friday night while women’s soccer goes up against Miami on Sunday. The 2013 World Series starts next week.
Chris Grimaldi
18-12
Marly Morgus
16-14
Heights Staff
16-14
Austin Tedesco
15-15
A9
Recap from Last Week
Game of the Week
Men’s hockey lost its season opener on the road at Michigan. Field hockey dropped a nail-biter to UVA. St. Lawrence was swept by women’s hockey. North Carolina edged men’s soccer 2-1 last Saturday. LSU stayed in the SEC Championship hunt with a win over Florida at Death Valley.
Men’s Soccer
Guest Editor: David Cote
Duke
Editor-in-Chief
On Friday night, Boston College will host Duke as it heads into the final stretch of the season. With four conference games remaining, the Eagles sit in fifth place in the ACC with a 3-3-1 record in the conference 5-4-2 overall. Duke has not fared as well in the ACC this season as it currently sits at 11th overall out of 12 teams. The Blue Devils have no outright wins in the conference. They have suffered three losses and have come to a draw with their opponents on three occasions. Duke has seen more success outside of the conference with an overall record of 4-4-5, but BC will be a big challenge as the team hopes to find its first ACC win.
“They killed Mufasa...”
This Week’s Games
Austin Tedesco Sports Editor
Chris Grimaldi Assoc. Sports Editor
Men’s Hockey: No. 6 BC vs. No. 2 Wisconsin
Marly Morgus Asst. Sports Editor
David Cote Editor-in-Chief
Wisconsin
BC
BC
BC
Women’s Hockey: No. 2 BC vs. Yale
BC
BC
BC
BC
Men’s Soccer: BC vs. Duke
BC
BC
BC
BC
Women’s Soccer: BC vs. Miami
BC
Miami
Miami
BC
Tigers vs. Cardinals
Red Sox vs. Cardinals
Red Sox vs. Dodgers
Red Sox vs. Cardinals
Who will play in the World Series?
Boston College
Friday at 7:00 p.m.
POINT COUNTERPOINT
WILL A BC TEAM MAKE THE FROZEN FOUR? At least one squad will have enough BY PAT COYNE Heights Staff
Despite the fact that fall has just begun and that both the men’s and women’s hockey teams’ respective seasons are just now underway, it’s difficult to think about these teams without already considering their postseason expectations. Heading into this season, there are several key reasons why BC should expect nothing less than one of its hockey teams to reach the Frozen Four in the spring. While in many cases it would be far from prudent to have such high expectations for any program, here at BC, fans are spoiled when it comes to hockey. For years now, the hockey teams have been serious contenders to win not only their conferences but also a national title. This year is no different. Heading into the season, the women’s team has the best chance of the two to make it to the Frozen Four, which is scheduled to be played at Qunnipiac University in March. During the preseason, USA Today ranked the team No. 1 in Hockey East and No. 2 in the nation. They were only ranked behind the University of Minnesota—the same team that beat the Eagles in the semifinals of the Frozen Four last year before eventually winning the national title. One must think that this year’s squad will come highly motivated to not only return to the tournament but also to win the national title. So far, the women’s team has been on the right track. The Eagles are undefeated through four games this year. Perhaps one of the most resounding factors heading into the season is the team’s overall experience. BC has made the last three Frozen Fours, making this year’s unit one that is more than familiar with what it takes to succeed. Although the Eagles lost one of their best players, Alex Carpenter, to the U.S. Olympic team, their roster this year consists of six seniors and five juniors with Frozen Four experience. If planning to follow the team this season, expect nothing short of a Frozen Four appearance. This is a hungry and experienced squad that has consistently shown what it can achieve on the national stage. Whether or not the women’s team returns to the championship, it is not unreasonable to believe that the men’s team will make it to its own Frozen Four. The recent success of the men’s hockey team is no secret—the team made it to the Frozen Four in 2008, 2010, and 2012, and won it in each of those years. The disappointment that last season ended with is also no secret. The Eagles were a heavy favorite to make it deep in the tournament and were upset—some may go as far as to say embarrassed—by Union 5-1 in the first round of the regionals. Much like the women’s team, expect this squad to return hungry. This year’s team was tied for first place in the Hockey East preseason polls and was ranked No. 8 nationally, so while this season’s expectations have been relatively tempered from a year ago when BC was atop the poll headed into the season, they still remain justifiably high.
Though the team lost key contributors from a season ago, a strong freshman class will take to the ice this year, and some of its most dangerous weapons are returning, including seniors Kevin Hayes and Bill Arnold, who will provide leadership to the youthful squad. Although Parker Milner, who is now in the New York Islanders’ system, will no longer be in net, Johnny Gaudreau, one of the most dangerous offensive talents in the league, will return despite speculation that he could have begun to pursue an NHL career. One of the main factors in his decision was the draw to play alongside his brother, Matthew, a freshman defenseman. With an expectation for excellence in BC’s hockey programs, both teams return hungry this year after disappointing ends to last season. While each team has lost some key weapons, they are each, especially the men’s team, supplemented by strong freshman classes. Expect nothing less than at least one Frozen Four appearance between these two teams.
m. swimming
scoreboard
BC 165 Bryant 92 w. swimming
123 BC bryant 139
Eagles have lost too much talent BY CHRIS GRIMALDI Assoc. Sports Editor
When a school boasts two of the country’s premiere hockey programs, it seems unreasonable to bet against their chances of reaching Frozen Four competition. Both the Boston College men’s and women’s hockey teams are well-oiled machines, blessed with legendary coaching and a constant cycle of top-tier talent. Yet each squad’s absence from NCAA championship competition in March will not be a consequence of what it currently has, but rather of what it has lost. Take a look at the men’s team, and you see another rookie class with impressive credentials. BC’s future was on display in full force in last Sunday’s home opener, as freshmen combined for three goals and seven points while rookie standout Thatcher Demko notched a win between the pipes. With a youth movement that includes
GRAHAM BECK / HEIGHTS EDITOR
EMILY FAHEY / HEIGHTS STAFF
Smithfield, RI 10/11
Field Hockey
BC: first place in BC 11 of 14 events UVA smithfield, ri 10/12
0 1
m. soccer
BC: First place in BC six of 14 events unc
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Demko, Steve Santini, and Ryan Fitzgerald—all of whom are under the tutelage of head coach Jerry York—there’s every reason to believe the 2013-14 Eagles will be exciting contenders. But if last year’s BC squad is any indication, even great teams are vulnerable to early exits from the NCAA Tournament. Each season has its share of Union Colleges or Yales, small-market teams that catch fire toward season’s end and play the role of postseason spoiler. Their quintessential casualties are young opponents unfamiliar with navigating through a six-month marathon to the Frozen Four. While BC is youthful, quick, and athletic, it lacks the core veteran leadership of years past. Not only did the Eagles lose a Class of 2013 that brought home hardware every season, but also players who were skilled at leading teammates through the adversity-ridden journey of a collegiate hockey campaign. Up until last year, they were the figureheads whom everyone else looked to—including this year’s veterans. That’s no knock to Patrick Brown, Bill Arnold, Isaac MacLeod, and other centerpieces on this year’s team. Each has rightfully earned the letter on his jersey. Yet the responsibility of guiding the nation’s youngest team is a daunting task for any group of seniors, let alone one coping with the void of losing one of the most successful classes in program history. Without a doubt, this year’s BC team has the makings of another dynasty if early departures to the NHL can be delayed—but the future is going to need a season to learn the ropes and come back next year primed for a championship run. On the other end of the ice, BC’s women’s squad is running into a similar predicament. Of course, the leadership that head coach Katie King-Crowley brings to the table and the dependability that vet Corinne Boyle exudes between the pipes are nothing to scoff at. But neither is losing the team’s best player to the Winter Olympics. Coming off a sophomore season in which she tallied 70 points, Alex Carpenter joined Team USA’s ranks to compete for a gold medal during this year’s Olympic Games in Russia. Unfortunately for the Eagles, Carpenter’s selection to the sporting world’s greatest stage means she’ll miss the 2013-14 season. Although one person rarely makes or breaks a team, Carpenter is no average college athlete. Accounting for over 20 percent of BC’s scoring output, she was a driving force behind last year’s Frozen Four run and near upset over powerhouse Minnesota. Regardless of how much talent Crowley’s squad has gained and retained, it will have trouble filling the void left behind by Carpenter’s 32 goals and 38 assists from a year ago. Expect the 85-goal margin that BC owned over last year’s opponents to dwindle as a result. Even with Boyles in goal, closer games bring the potential for more losses—a mark that the Eagles can’t afford on a NCAA tournament resume. In truth, both BC hockey squads will be good—even great—in 2013. Yet even for national powerhouses with impressive track records, the rigors of college hockey offer no guarantees.
clemson, sc 10/12
m. tennis
14 settipane 9 sv BC leblanc 1 g clem 24
amidon 121 yds watkins 101 yds
west point shootout
newton, ma 10/11 sailing
bowdoin, me 10/12
w. tennis
charlottesville, va 10/11 football
normesinu 1 g nicholas barnett engel 1 g Regatta
first place yale invitational
west point,Many11/11 10/9 Boston,
3-2 doubles 5-5 singles Newton, MA 11/09 new haven, ct 10/4-10/6
18-14 overall 5-1 vs. purdue
SPORTS THE HEIGHTS
A8
A10
Thursday, October 17, 2013
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2013
Taking the ‘almost’ out of underdog
RIVALRY REKINDLED
CHRIS GRIMALDI My second grade Halloween is one that will live on in infamy. While the rest of my elementary school peers walked the hallways sporting the latest ghoulish fashions for our Halloween Parade, I donned an old baseball jersey, my little league uniform pants, and a painted handlebar mustache over my lip. I was going rogue. And by rogue, I mean dressing up like legendary catcher Mike Piazza of the New York Mets—my childhood sports hero on my all-time favorite baseball team—one day after coming up short in a World Series matchup against an opponent I won’t name (fine, it was the Yankees). Throughout that day, I was jeered by my classmates and some pretty intimidating fifth-graders, who all kept reminding me that my lovable losers had just come up short of a major baseball upset. Worse than that, Piazza’s near-home run on the warning track was the game’s final out. So, like any 7-year-old diehard would do, I began defending my team and Piazza—while dressed-up like Piazza. I kept reminding them that if the wind at Shea Stadium was blowing out just a little bit more, or if Mariano Rivera hadn’t showed up to play that night, that ball would’ve been a gamewinning round-tripper. As much as I vouched for my team, the sound of “almost” echoed in my words, describing how close they came to glory only to be turned away at the end. It’s a phenomenon that’s followed me over my last 13 years of Mets martyrdom, as my team almost won titles if not for month-long losing spells. Fittingly, it has also followed me over to Chestnut Hill as a Boston College student. Over the past few years, the Eagles have been defined by hard-fought battles they weren’t meant to win—not simply losing, but losing heartbreakers. From the vantage point of my “almost”-plagued sports history, it’s like a perpetual Groundhog Day. Look back to last year, and you’ll remember how a young BC men’s basketball team had national powerhouse Duke on the ropes with only a couple of minutes left. Everyone packed in a resurgent Conte Forum was counting the minutes down to an upset that could’ve reenergized an entire fan base. Even a few go-ahead Duke foul shots later, it seemed that guard Olivier Hanlan was destined to drive through the lane and sink a buzzerbeater. But when his shot missed the mark, the moment became another “almost.” If your memory can’t reach back that far, then just go back to this past Saturday. When the Eagle football
ALEX TRAUTWIG / HEIGHTS SENIOR STAFF
Battle lines Boston College and Wisconsin, two of the most successful programs in college hockey history, will face off for the 22nd time in the series tomorrow night.
WISCONSIN VS. BOSTON COLLEGE Series Wins 9
12
National Titles ‘73 ‘77 ‘81 ‘83 ‘90 ‘06 ‘49 ‘01 ‘08 ‘10 ‘12 Frozen Four Appearances 12
23
Current NHL Players
17
14
Hobey Baker Winners Blake Geoffrion 2010
week that the Eagles will be tested by a Big 10 powerhouse, having already been gone up against Michigan during the season The last time that the Boston College opener last Thursday. Two Big 10 teams and Wisconsin hockey teams met, the in the first three games means a difficult circumstances were slightly different. Joe start to the season, but York embraces Whitney’s pass to little brother Steven, the challenge. “We made a conscious effort to play a freshman at the time, came just at the right moment for Steven to send the the Wisconsins, the Michigans, the puck to Ben Smith who was waiting right Michigan States, the North Dakotas over between the faceoff circles to rifle a low the years, so I think it makes you a better shot past Wisconsin’s goalie. Four more team,” he said. “I think it’s a great environment for our fans when unanswered goals and twowe bring a Big 10 school in. and-a-half periods later, the There’s a lot of notoriety to Eagles were the 2010 National the program, so there’s a lot Champions. of plusses for us.” Not a single Eagle who The negatives are there as wears the jersey today has OCT. 18, 2013 BC vs. Wisconsin well, as he said. ever faced Wisconsin, but on 7:00 ON WEEI 850 AM “Hey, you’d better be Friday night, that will change ready, because they’re going to bring a as the Badgers make their way to BC. Nearly four years separate that night really good club in here.” Though the teams hail from the same from the 2010 National Championship game, but head coach Jerry York has a conference and are both considered some good grasp of what it takes to defeat a of the top programs in college hockey, there are huge differences between last strong Wisconsin team. “We watch them on tape,” York said, Thursday’s loss to Michigan and tomor“and Mike Eaves has been there for that row night’s matchup with Wisconsin. One of the biggest is the venue. While duration, so we always know what type of club he has. Generally he’s very good the Eagles opened the season on the road defensively, they get into a shut down type in Michigan’s Yost Ice Arena, they will be of mode, so we have to be very conscious in the second game of a home stand toif we’re going to create offense.” It will be the second time in just over a See Men’s Hockey, A8
BY MARLY MORGUS
David Emma 1991
Mike Mottau 2000
Asst. Sports Editor
ALEX TRAUTWIG / HEIGHTS SENIOR STAFF
See Column, A8
Wildcats pull off upset of No. 2 Eagles BY MARLY MORGUS Asst. Sports Editor
EMILY FAHEY / HEIGHTS STAFF
The BC women’s hockey had its undefeated streak snapped by New Hampshire last night.
I NSIDE SPORTS THIS ISSUE
The Boston College women’s hockey team, which had been rolling over its early opponents so far this season, hit its first major roadblock Boston College 1 last night when New Hampshire 3 the University of New Hampshire visited Conte Forum for BC’s second Hockey East matchup of the year. This time, BC struggled against a persistent UNH offense to come away with a 3-1 loss, its first of the season. “After seeing them play on video I knew they were a pretty good team,” said head coach Katie King Crowley. “I think they’re improved from last year, and they certainly showed us that in the first period.” It was UNH that struck first when a failed clearing attempt from BC set up heavy traffic in front of the net. Arielle
Will BC make the Frozen Four? A debate on how far the BC hockey teams will go in the 2013-14 season..................A9
O’Neill’s shot slipped in over Corinne Boyles’ blocker amid a scramble around the goal that left multiple BC players on the ground. From there, the middle of the first period quickly turned into a special teams battle as the teams traded penalties. It was UNH that went in the box first with a tripping penalty, but the Eagles failed to create legitimate scoring chances and even dominate possession. Just three minutes after the end of the Eagles’ power play, UNH took its turn, this time capitalizing where BC failed within the first 20 seconds and making its lead 2-0. This time, Nicole Gifford saw her opportunity from the bottom of the right-hand circle and beat Boyles through the five hole. With that goal, the BC penalty was nullified, but again the Eagles were denied on the power play.
Game Of The Week: Duke visits BC
The Blue Devils visit BC on Friday in search of their first ACC win..............A9
“I thought we came out flat in the first period,” Crowley said. “That takes a lot out of you when you come out flat and the other team puts on in on you in the first period. Our team is still fairly young and I think we still need to learn how to rebound from that.” It wasn’t until five seconds remained in the period that BC made its first mark. Just as it appeared that BC would enter the break down by two, Haley Skarupa sent a shot top shelf past UNH’s Vilma Vaattovaara for the Eagles’ first score of the night. UNH stepped up defensively in ensuing period as the Eagles had significantly fewer chances in the UNH zone, especially during the first half of the period. BC’s defense, in contrast, shut down, Boyles
See Women’s Hockey, A8
Editors’ Picks........................A9 Scoreboard.........................A9
A2MUSIC VIDEO OF THE WEEK
‘CHINESE FOOD’
THE HEIGHTS
Thursday, January 17, 2013
A NEW KID ON THE BLOCK HAS A HIT, BUT ‘CHINESE FOOD’ MAKES US SICK, PAGE B4
ALBUM REVIEW ALBUM REVIEW
‘SATISFACTION’
BC’S TIMES NEW ROMAN RELEASES A SOULFUL NEW DEMO, PAGE B5
‘MAGPIE & THE DANDELION’ THE AVETT BROTHERS RETURN WITH A SUPERB NEW OFFERING OF ROOTSY AMERICANA , PAGE B5
See YOUNG MUSIC ROYALS, B3 MAGGIE BURDGE / HEIGHTS PHOTO ILLUSTRATION
THE HEIGHTS
B2
KEELEY’S CORNER
In defense of the remake
Thursday, October 17, 2013
SCENE AND HEARD
BY: CAROLINE KULIG
SEAN KEELEY The British writer Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch famously said that there are only seven stories in the world. The implication was that every single novel, play or short story—and in our modern era, every movie or TV show—was simply a variation on an age-old conflict that had already been dramatized endlessly. These days, it seems that QuillerCouch is right. At the very least, Hollywood seems to think so. With the everincreasing supply of remakes, sequels, re-boots, and adaptations coming to our movie screens—including a new version of the blood-soaked Steven King classic Carrie arriving this weekend—it often seems that our pop culture is severely lacking in original stories. But you know what? I think I’m okay with that. This is not to say that I am content to spend the rest of my life watching horror movie remakes, or that I have a particular wish to see Carrie. I value originality and creativity in film as much as anyone, and I would rather buy a ticket for something that looks unusual—say, Don Jon or Gravity—than an existing property where I already know what to expect. In spite of all this, though, I think the bias against remakes tends to exaggerate their damage and ignore their virtues. The funny thing about people who decry remakes on principle is that they conveniently ignore the ones that are good. I wonder what Brian DePalma, the director of the 1976 Carrie, would think about the fans that are complaining about the very existence of a new version. I suspect he would be rather bemused. DePalma, after all, built his directorial career upon re-fashioning old properties. His 1983 Scarface was a remake of a 1932 film, Blow-Out was a re-imagining of the Italian film Blow-Up, and Obsession blatantly stole from Hitchcock’s Vertigo. And believe it or not, all of these movies are now acknowledged as classics, despite their status as remakes. You can go back much further than DePalma’s career, too, for examples of remakes that are worth their salt. The Humphrey Bogart film noir The Maltese Falcon, the Clint Eastwood Western A Fistful of Dollars, even the 1939 The Wizard of Oz—all these classics came from earlier cinematic sources. So how do you explain this animosity toward remakes—the angry cries of “why” that are heard across message boards as soon as it’s announced that Hollywood is digging up an older property, as if the new version will somehow erase the old? Well, partly it’s because many remakes haven’t turned out so well. I grant that, and I grant that Carrie might very well be one of them. I think there’s a larger reason, though: audiences tend to privilege story over style, assuming that a new movie with an old plot can’t offer anything new. I think this gets it precisely wrong. One of my favorite quotes about movies comes from Roger Ebert, who argued that when judging a movie’s quality, “It’s not what a movie is about, it’s how it’s about it.” The “how” of movies is their style, their tone, their message, that indescribable something that is bigger than the realm of the story. Two movies can be “about” the same thing in terms of plot and not really be about it the same way at all. The original 1969 version of True Grit—the movie that finally got John Wayne his Oscar—was more about Wayne’s career, as reflected through the character of Rooster Cogburn, than anything else. It was a role clearly written for Wayne, calling back to earlier roles and functioning as a swan song for a long and prolific career. The 2010 True Grit, which featured Jeff Bridges in Wayne’s role, focused more on the character of Mattie Ross, the stubborn 14-year-old played by Hailee Steinfeld. Bridges may have got first billing, but the 2010 True Grit was decidedly her story, framing the movie’s plot points and its wider historical context through the eyes of a young girl. And the result was a much richer, more emotionally satisfying film than the stale and jokey original. Who knows whether the same will be true of the new Carrie? It very well could be. What will likely happen, though, is what always happens with remakes: some will love it, some will hate it, some will argue it’s better than the original, others will bemoan the fact that it was ever made in the first place. And at the end of the day, the 1976 version of Carrie will still be there for those that want it. No harm, no foul.
Sean Keeley is the Arts & Review Editor for The Heights. He can be reached at arts@bcheights.com.
1. ROYAL RUMORS Publications such as The New York Daily News and US Weekly broke a few hearts this week with the announcement of Prince Harry’s intentions to marry girlfriend Cressida Bonas, who he’s been dating for a year and a half now. After turning 30 and spending time with his new nephew, Harry thinks he is ready to settle down. Although Bonas has preoccupations of not being ready for marriage (she is 24), friends say her laid-back personality is so compatible with Prince Harry’s that they expect an engagement by the end of the year.
2. THE GOLDEN GIRLS
Fans spoke and the Golden Globes listened. After such successes (and lots of laughs) co-hosting previous Emmy and Golden Globes Awards Shows, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, BC ’93, have been asked to continue their reign by hosting the 2014 and 2015 Golden Globes. The Globes are overjoyed to have the duo onboard for another two years after seeing a 28 percent jump in the 19-24 age demographic. There’s no doubt fellow Eagles will be cheering Amy Poehler on.
4. RESUMING THE SEARCH
After finally casting the controversial role of Christian Grey in E. L. James’ romantic novel turned movie, Fifty Shades of Grey, it appears the search might have to begin all over again. Charlie Hunnam (of Sons of Anarchy and Pacific Rim, below) says due to scheduling conflicts he will have to step down from the role. Many fans are ecstatic with the news—passionately believing Hunnam was not the right fit, while others are nervous of who may earn the newly opened spot. Whatever the opinion, Universal will need to find a replacement quickly if they want to keep their November production start date.
3. THE ‘PHILLIPS’ MUTINY
5. IVANKA’S BABY TRUMP
While Captain Phillips may be a success at the box office, there’s far less glamour behind the scenes. Crewmembers who endured the true pirate attacks of the Maersk Alabama in 2009 say the movie’s portrayal is “one big lie.” These crewmembers claim that Captain Phillips actually steered them into pirate-infested waters, alleging that he comes across as a hero in the movie Captain Phillips because it is based off of his inaccurate account.
On Oct. 14, a new addition was added to the Trump family. Donald Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, and her husband, Jared Kushner, welcomed a second child to their growing family. The baby will be a younger brother to their two-year-old daughter, Arabella, and though they have not chosen a name yet, they say the baby is healthy and doing well.
THE CRITICAL CURMUDGEON
@JADENSMITH (JADEN SMITH, ACTOR, ‘AFTER EARTH’)
“WE NEED TO STOP TEACHING THE YOUTH ABOUT THE PAST AND ENCOURAGE THEM TO CHANGE THE FUTURE.” PHOTO COURTESY OF GOOGLE IMAGES
Hardly an artist to avoid controversy, Sinead O’Connor recently called out Miley Cyrus for “prostituting” herself to the music industry.
Censorship: coming in like a wrecking ball MATT MAZZARI You know it’s been a weird year for music news when Miley Cyrus officially offends Sinead O’Connor’s delicate sensibilities. I’ll reiterate that: former Disney tween-star Miley Cyrus has officially pushed the envelope too far for Sinead “Rippin’-up-pics-of-the-Pope” O’Connor. The Artist Formerly Known as Hannah Montana didn’t respond well to the countercultural Irish songstress’s unsolicited Twitter wisdom, which advised her not to be “prostituted” by the music industry. In response, Cyrus compared O’Connor to Amanda Bynes (who’s currently being treated for bipolar disorder) and then posted one of O’Connor’s tweets from two years ago wherein she expressed having suicidal thoughts. In other news, Miley Cyrus’s PR agent was confirmed to be “just an ostrich wearing a Bluetooth.” But I don’t really care what goes on between Miley Cyrus and O’Connor, because as far as I’m concerned, they are not real people. Real people do not personally approach strangers to accuse them of self-prostitution and then act surprised by the backlash. Alternately, real people do not respond to condescension on the Internet by mocking someone’s history of mental illness as if that were an okay thing to do. Seriously, this entire conversation was reprehensible. The degree of entitlement demonstrated by both participants would hypothetically have made me lose a great deal of respect for them if I’d had any to begin with.
What I’m concerned with, however, is Annie Lennox’s take on the entire issue. Lennox, another middle-aged musician whose peak point of fame happened in the ’90s, recently stated that there should be a rating system for music videos to protect “impressionable young girls” from “pornographic” viewing material. Though she never specifically stated which artists she was targeting, her message read loud and clear: said Lennox, “You don’t want to see your 7-year-old girls twerking all over the place ... I’m disturbed and dismayed by the recent spate of overtly sexualized performances and videos. You know the ones I’m talking about.” So, following in the vein of O’Connor’s somewhat-less-tactful criticisms, Lennox suggests subjecting music videos to a rating system that lets parents better understand and control what their children watch. In light of Miley’s scandalous “Wrecking Ball” video, it’s safe to say that not all pop music videos are appropriate for all ages. Fair enough. However, I have some qualms. First of all, there is already a music rating system. If you buy songs on iTunes or any legitimate online music library, you’ll see the “Explicit Content” warning on explicit songs. There’s not much more confusion surrounding the age-appropriateness of music than there is for TV: the system could be better, sure, but for most music stores it’s already there. The problem, of course, is that kids are seeing these explicit music videos out on the open waters of the Internet, where censorship is a tricky issue. Censoring a video on Youtube is a bit like putting an
age limit on Facebook: if all you have to do is click “ENTER if 18 or Older,” you aren’t going to keep those crafty pre-teens away. It seems to me, then, that the obvious solution if you don’t want your kids to see naughty things is to monitor their Internet use. Seven-year-old girls shouldn’t EVER be surfing the Internet with free rein, much less listening to the same pop music as high school and college students. No rating system can save our nation’s oh-so-impressionable daughters if their parents can’t be bothered to set up a freaking passcode. At the end of the day, though, a music video rating system wouldn’t really hurt. It’s a bit redundant, and it won’t be effective at all unless parents decide to get involved with what their kids are exposed to ... but it wouldn’t really limit anybody. The reason that my knee-jerk reaction to “Protect the children!” campaigns is dismissal is because so very many of them are just “I don’t like this, get rid of it!” campaigns thinly veiled in inflammatory rhetoric. The reality of our situation is that no one is splicing #TwerkNation videos into re-runs of The Wiggles, here. It’s easy enough to decipher what pop music is targeting what demographic from the lyrics. You wouldn’t let your kids watch HBO on their own, so why would you let them search websites where explicit content is readily available? Sometimes, the only solution is to just turn the gosh-darn radio/TV/computer off and listen to Abbey Road.
Matt Mazzari is a staff columnist for The Heights. He can be reached at arts@bcheights.com.
@BILLMAHER (BILL MAHER, HOST, ‘REAL TIME WITH BILL MAHER’)
“YIKES, STUDY SAYS GLOBAL WARMING SO BAD PLANET UNRECOGNIZABLE IN 2047! ON THE UPSIDE NO MORE WINTER OLYMPICS”
@CONAN O’BRIEN (CONAN O’BRIEN, HOST, ’LATE NIGHT WITH CONAN O’BRIEN’)
“ANYONE ELSE WATCH ‘JEOPARDY’ SHIRTLESS WITH FACE PAINT?” @JIMGAFFIGAN (JIM GAFFIGAN, STANDUP COMEDIAN)
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Thursday, October 17, 2013
THE HEIGHTS
B3
Pusha T
YLVIS
The King:
The jester:
LORDE
KINGDOM: HIP-HOP HEIR TO: KANYE WEST CROWN JEWEL: “40 ACRES”
The queen:
“If it’s my reign, then it’s my shower,” raps Virginia Beach hip-hop artist Pusha T on “King Push,” the opening track to his solo debut album. My Name Is My Name was released on Oct. 8. In a year characterized by veterans’ attempts, Pusha T emerges an unlikely heir to the genre, a king ordained not by gods, but by a slow crawl through the mud. Terrence “Pusha T” Thornton has technically been involved in the rap scene since 1992, performing with his brother Gene “No Malice” Thornton in hip-hop duo Clipse. For 13 years, Clipse struggled passing its work through labels, garnering critical acclaim, but little commercial success. In 2009, Clipse’s longterm manager Anthony Gonzalez was sentenced to 32 years in jail for operating a $10 million drug ring—a paradigm-shifting experience for the two brothers who, according to their music, were involved in these drug operations themselves. While Gene saw in this a call to remove himself from the hip-hop industry temporarily and write a book on his experience with Clipse, Pusha T recognized an opportunity to revitalize his musical career. After an impressive recording session in Hawaii for Kanye West’s 2010 project My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, Pusha T signed with West’s G.O.O.D. Music label, though which he released his 2011 mixtape Fear of God II: Let Us Pray. T was pushed nearer to the foreground of the hip-hop industry for his work on G.O.O.D. Music collaboration Cruel Summer in 2012, the album reaching nearly half a million in sales. “Supreme dope dealer, write it in bold letters,” declares Pusha T on Cruel Summer’s “New God Flow.” Flaunting his deep, raspy bravado on the record, the former-Clipse member established himself as one of the most unique voices on a record stacked with A-list contributors, including producer Kanye West himself, R. Kelly, Jay-Z, Kid Cudi, 2 Chainz, Common, and John Legend. My Name Is My Name is Thornton’s unapologetic telling of his story as a struggling drug dealer turned international superstar. “No reading, no writing, made us savage of men / They praying for jail but I mastered the pen / Descendant from kings, we at it again,” raps Pusha T in “Hold On,” and later on the album in “No Regrets” he asks, “Nowadays I sell hope / What, you rather I sell dope?” The 36-year-old rapper grapples with others’ expectations of him throughout the album, continually referring to his narrow escape from the phantom fate of close friend Gonzalez, now serving 32 years in prison. The title My Name Is My Name is seemingly an admission that Thornton is caught in the trappings of his drug dealer persona, reflected ostensibly in the pseudonym “Pusha T.” The soundscape of My Name Is My Name is one of the year’s most diverse, stylistically descending from the works of executive producer Kanye West, particularly alike in structure to 2005‘s Late Registration, but featuring more distressed, synthetic components reminiscent of those in My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy throughout the album. While West’s hand in the production is undeniable, one would be remiss to reduce the uniqueness of the album to his involvement in it. My Name Is My Name presents a complex, dark world, riddled by drug trade and broken relationships, explored in beautifully shocking narrative, exploring elaborate themes of moral ambiguity and daily anxiety. Pusha T navigates his troubled past without allowing his content to be consumed by it—rather, he takes ownership of it, and attacks some difficult themes he probably couldn’t intelligently address without that angle. There’s seemingly nothing premature in Pusha T’s arrival to the throne. He’s a confident, mature artist with an impressive tenure in his genre. In a year of self-declared rap gods, T manages to knock these deities down a peg, and well into the range of King Push’s scepter. – J.W.
KINGDOM: SOFT POP HEIR TO: ADELE, FLORENCE WELCH CROWN JEWEL: “ROYALS” Ever since she was a little girl, Ella Yelich-O’Connor was fascinated by aristocratic history—by the divorces of kings and queens, by the marriages of princes and princesses, and by the coronations of monarchs. It seems appropriate, then, that the New Zealand 16-yearold is now finding herself in a royal position of her own, being crowned as one of the best new artists of the year, and ascending to the throne of pop under her stage name Lorde. Her first single, “Royals,” climbed the Billboard charts not long after its U.S. release, majestically displacing Miley Cyrus’s “Wrecking Ball” in the process and making her the youngest solo artist to perch at the top of the chart since 1988. Lorde even set a record for the longest reign—seven weeks to be exact—by a lead female singer in the 25-year history of the Alternative Songs charts. On the track, Lorde critiques the lavish lifestyle that many pop stars lead—“Royals” finds her vowing that she’ll never become like these stars. The popularity of her hit song, however, has launched her into this world of celebrity—this world she describes as having jet planes, islands, and tigers on gold leashes—so how she ultimately handles her new title of “Queen Bee” in the pop world really has yet to be determined. If her music is any indication, though, Lorde will most likely rule with both strength and grace. After being discovered when she was just 13, Lorde made her break into the commercial music scene soon after, with the release of her EP The Love Club in Nov. 2012. It was her debut album Pure Heroine that truly enabled Lorde to demonstrate her sophistication, however, in terms of her sound, her lyrics, and even her public image, setting her apart from the majority of her female contemporaries. Lorde’s young age is probably the only thing she has in common with artists like Taylor Swift and Selena Gomez. She doesn’t sing about breakup after breakup, and her music doesn’t come off as characteristically bubblegum in quality. Lorde is more like Adele or Florence Welch actually, as far as her insightful lyrical maturity goes, and she’s more similar to Lana Del Rey, when it comes to her charismatic musical sound and her sharp vocal phrasing. Pure Heroine, like few other albums recently released, is cohesive from start to finish. From its first to its 10th track, Pure Heroine demonstrates Lorde decisively and steadily developing her artistic vision. Her sound consistently incorporates indietronica and electropop, subtly touching on other styles like minimalism, art pop, and dark wave as it progresses. Lorde’s vocals and lyrics are similarly solid. With her smoky, soulful, and rich voice, she explores the depths and virtues of her range, never really losing the listener along the way. Lorde frequently sings about the contrast between small-town life and fame and excess, conveying the larger theme that life for all teenagers, in one way or another, is grandiose and often superficial. Lorde is that rare and special kind of artist who seems to be confident in the kind of music she wants to make—in the kind of artist she wants to be. It takes many musicians years of practice and albums of experimentation before they eventually come to this discovery, but Lorde is only 16. She’s got an entire career ahead of her. And if she continues to make wise decisions concerning her art, she’ll inevitably reign supreme in the pop kingdom for a good while. So all hail Lorde—long live the queen. –A.I.
KINGDOM: PARODY MUSIC HEIR TO: WEIRD AL YANKOVIC, THE LONELY ISLAND CROWN JEWEL: “THE FOX (WHAT DOES THE FOX SAY?)”
In a world full of banal and interchangeable pop music, one artist dares to ask the big questions. Is love possible in the age of dubstep? What is the meaning of Stonehenge? And, above all, what does the fox say? Okay, I jest. It’s clear that Ylvis—the Norwegian comedy duo consisting of brothers Bard and Vegard Ylvisaker—does not fill the typical bill of the “serious” artist. The brothers, who recently gained international recognition with the success of their song “The Fox”—now charting at No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100, and No. 10 on iTunes—clearly don’t position themselves as anything more than musical parody artists. When “The Fox” went viral in the U.S., they were flattered, but taken aback. “This song is made for a TV show and is supposed to entertain a few Norwegians for three minutes—and that’s all,” Bard said. In all likelihood, Ylvis’s meteoric rise in popularity will be followed by an equally sharp downturn. Every year brings these strange little pop cultural anomalies, brought to us by the viral power of the Internet. Last year it was PSY’s “Gangam Style,” a Korean pop song with some of the most ridiculous dance moves committed to film. This year, it’s “The Fox,” with the brothers Ylvisaker decked out in furry costumes and passionately shrieking out animal noises over an EDM backdrop. But hold on a minute—maybe there’s more here than meets the eye. A quick run-through of Ylvis’s back catalog suggests a comedic sensibility that we could use more of in our current pop culture climate. Ylvis has been compared to other parody artists like Weird Al Yankovic and Saturday Night Live’s The Lonely Island, but there’s a distinction to be made. Weird Al’s music is based around direct copies of familiar pop melodies, while The Lonely Island relies on celebrity cameos for much of their humor. Ylvis does something a little different, and more difficult—it re-works modern musical tropes into songs that are at once parodies and pretty good examples of the genre themselves. No genre is left unexplored for this duo. “Someone Like Me,” one of their funniest songs, begins as a brooding, Les Mis-style musical and explodes into a dubstep rager, as its lovers find consolation in the mutual love of the genre. “Stonehenge” seems like a self-pitying Josh Groban ballad, until the song’s soaring chorus makes it a bombastic ode to the mysterious monument. “Work It” is an auto tuned hip-hop parody, which literalizes the meaning behind much rap music (“You gotta work it / He means you’re gonna have sex / You gotta work it / He’s not literally talking about working.”) Implicit in all of these songs—and their corresponding videos, which imitate the overblown style of modern music videos with hilarious accuracy—is a sense of parody that is at once mocking and affectionate. The songs’ sudden lyrical shifts poke fun at the inanity and interchangeability of most pop lyrics, while the videos mock the cinematic pretensions inherent in the genre of the music video. But Ylvis clearly undertake their work with a sense of fun and affection for the genres they parody. And if you tune out the lyrics, the songs they produce are actually pretty catchy in and of themselves. So I hope Ylvis sticks around for a little longer. The Ylvisaker brothers may not qualify as pop music royalty, but they are certainly 2013’s most talented jesters—poking fun at the pretensions of higher music culture, and keeping us in on the joke every step of the way. –S.K.
YOUNG MUSIC ROYALS
BY SEAN KEELEY, ARTS & REVIEW EDITOR | ARIANA IGNERI, ASSOC. ARTS & REVIEW EDITOR | JOHN WILEY, ASST. ARTS & REVIEW EDITOR “We’ll never be royals, it don’t run in our blood,” sings Lorde on one of the most surprising breakaway hits of the year. But despite the 16 -year-old’s skepticism toward celebrity culture, she seems to be ascending to pop star status regardless. This week, The Scene looks at three artists who have emerged in recent weeks as musical forces to be reckoned with—the heirs apparent to the pop music kingdom. One is a king, one is a queen, and one is a jester, but together, they are music’s newest royalty.
THE HEIGHTS
B4
Thursday, October 17, 2013
WILEY’S FOLLIES
MUSIC VIDEO OF THE WEEK BY JOHN WILEY
Gold is the new Black, with racist video ‘Chinese Food’ Graduating from ‘J. Crew U.’ TITLE: “Chinese Food” ARTIST: Alison Gold PRODUCED BY: Patrice Wilson WHY: “Chinese Food” is a nauseating song that proves difficult to digest as it perpetuates a series of racial stereotypes of Asian-Americans.
PHOTOS COURTESY OF ARK MUSIC FACTORY
An Asian man angrily tosses a pile of noodles with two large wooden sticks, muttering in Chinese. The noodles, with preparation, create sparkles and materialize a rainbow. Alison Gold’s “Chinese Food”—the latest music video from Ark Music Factory producer and writer Patrice Wilson, who two years ago stirred a nation with Rebecca Black’s “Friday”—reminds us why racism is terrible, and just how dangerous tweens with colors for last names can prove in front of a camera. Within the caging of its bubbly synth beat and incoherent lyric structure, “Chinese Food” has effectively aggregated centuries worth of microaggression toward Asian-Americans into a three minute and 28 second reel. Gold’s lengthy, repeated proclamation of her love for fried rice, noodles, Chow Mein, broccoli, chicken wings, egg rolls, wonton soup, and fortune cookies is outwardly one of the most exhaustively racist disclosures ever to pollute the American consciousness—it exceeds in scope the collective racist tirades of Mel Gibson and Christian Bale combined.
But Gold is merely the messenger for this gospel of hatred. A masked man in a panda suit, sitting in on what looks like Gold’s middle school sleepover, is creepily revealed as Wilson himself within the last minute of the video. The producer frequently features himself rapping in many of Ark Music Factory’s productions, his appearance now a signature of these cultural supernovas. Rapping in a stereotypical Chinese accent, Wilson remarks on his use of “chopsticks to eat pot sticks” and his journey to “eat Panda Express” in his contribution to the record. After a closing montage of pandasuited Wilson jumping about at the girls’ sleepover mixed with a clip of Gold and friends dressed as geishas dancing in a Chinese restaurant, the video ends with Wilson flying away on a rainbow, after throwing a fortune cookie to Gold reading, “the panda will fly away on a rainbow.” We are still waiting for PETA’s comment on the treatment of pandas in this video.
FASHION FORWARD
Today we’re feeling like gold There’s one hideous shirt that will never go out of style
THERESE TULLY For many people, freshman year orientation is a very similar experience. I begged my parents not to drop me off at Boston College all alone, but by the end of it, I couldn’t stand to leave. My new orientation friends were going to be my best friends forever, or so I thought. No one had filled me in that come fall, I would probably never see these people again. I loved my orientation leader and wanted to be just like her and do just what she did. There was always some rumored toga party, but I never found it. And on that last day of orientation, we all received the brightest yellow Superfan shirts, which I promptly packed away for my freshman September, excited to finally join the pack. Come my first football game at BC, we freshmen realized the painful truth that we stuck out like sore thumbs, for more reason than one. While everyone else’s Superfan shirts had been subdued by numerous washes to a faded, tawny yellow, the newest crop of freshmen was sporting its perpetually-gold, new Under Armour Superfan shirts, the glare of which was blinding half of Alumni Stadium. Were we a different kind of Superfan? I knew it would take some time for the newest shirts to gain the minority standing on campus, and until then our freshman status was out there, loud and proud, for all to see. As I survived freshman year, and continued on my journey at BC, the crowd of faded Superfan shirts—with much cooler slogans, may I add— thinned at BC sporting events. I knew it was only a matter of time before the class of 2014—Ignite the Heights with Spirit and Truth—would be the oldest in the student section, and would no longer be the odd men out. That time has finally come, and it’s hard to believe that freshmen orientation was so long ago. I still love to see a now very vintage looking Talons of Fury shirt in the crowd (for nostalgia’s sake, and because that’s a pretty great slogan). This past weekend, I crowded into a muchsmaller-than-it-looked RV along with seven friends to make the incredibly long journey to South Carolina to watch the BC vs. Clemson football game. Unlike our faded Superfans of the past, we did not have a Notre Dame game to look forward to. The tradition had changed, along with our shirts, but our spirit was the same.
My bag was packed with BC apparel and I was ready to show the south what sort of football spirit we had. When we all walked into Clemson’s stadium, appropriately called Death Valley, the sea of orange was like nothing I had ever seen before. Every seat in the stadium seemed to be full, and the fans remained for the entire game. The game day fashions at the tailgates were aggressively spirited. Not one person was out of orange and purple, and many had topped off their meticulous ensembles with a pair of cowboy boots. The women’s fashion managed to be somehow stylish, yet southern and spirited at the same time. No baggy Superfan shirts for these ladies—instead dresses, skirts, monograms, scarves, and accessories all in their favorite purple and orange hues. It was impressive and intimidating. Tucked in this huge stadium of rowdy Clemson fans was a small maroon and gold patch of people. And though I may be mistaken, I think we were louder than the whole Clemson crowd. All it took was a little maroon and gold to remind us that we were all together. Our section of the stands was continuously rowdy and excited, Clemson voices were lost even though our team did too. We all felt connected so far from home, and I thank our BC apparel for breaking up that orange stadium, if even just a little bit. New cheers were happening, and even old ones that harken back to our orientation days (I’m looking at you, “Eagles on the Warpath”), made appearances. We all felt that freshman year excitement all over again. This was our Notre Dame game. Though we didn’t win the game, Clemson fans were impressed with our show. Walking through the tailgating area, or hitting up the local bars, Clemson kids constantly stopped us to tell us that no away team had made such a stir. “We are … BC!” chants filled their local bar, Tiger Town Tavern, and the sea of maroon and gold clearly left its mark. Sometimes all it takes is a fairly hideous Superfan shirt to remind you why you love a place. It can evoke the feeling of that very first football game, even when you are a thousand miles from the Heights and three years from that moment. It’s the shirt that I will unashamedly wear after graduation, that I will wear years from now when I come back to visit BC. I am sure that when that moment comes I will stick out like a sore thumb once again, and my own shirt will look vintage and outdated. Although I am sure it will not have lost its glaring gold shine or all of the memories that it evokes of hot dogs, tailgating, the Mods, and Clemson, too. GRAHAM BECK/HEIGHTS EDITOR
Therese Tully is a senior staff columnist for The Heights. She can be reached at arts@ bcheights.com.
Superfan shirts don’t necessarily put fashion forward, but they do create a meaningful tradition for the BC student body that surely evokes memories for upperclassmen and alumni.
THIS WEEKEND in arts
BY: ARIANA IGNERI | ASSOCIATE ARTS & REVIEW EDITOR
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
1. COLD WAR KIDS CONCERT (FRIDAY, 10/18 8:00PM)
4. THE JUNGLE BOOK (SUNDAY, 10/20 2:00PM & 7:00 PM)
Known for its song “Hang Me Up To Dry,” the indie-rock band Cold War Kids is headlining a show at the House of Blues Friday night. Doors open at 7 p.m. General admission tickets are $22.50 online through Live Nation.
The jungle comes alive in the Huntington Theatre’s musical adaptation of the Rudyard Kipling classic—it even features songs from the beloved Disney animated movie. The show is closing this weekend. Tickets for its last performances start at $25.
2. THE BLING RING (FRIDAY, 10/18 7:30PM) The Bright Family Screening Room at Emerson College is showing Sofia Coppola’s film adaptation of The Bling Ring, succeeded by a Q&A session with author Nancy Jo Sales. Tickets are $10 through artsemerson.org.
3. THE 39 STEPS (FRIDAY, 10/18 & SATURDAY, 10/19 7:30PM; SUNDAY, 10/20 2:00PM) Based off Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 thriller, The 39 Steps is a comic melodrama about a spy. The play is being staged by the BC theatre department in Robsham all weekend. Tickets are available for $10 with a student ID.
5. BOSTON BOOK FESTIVAL (ONGOING) Bringing readers and writers together in Copley Square, the annual Boston Book Festival is taking place from Oct. 17-19. The weekend will include workshops, music, and lectures, including a keynote address by renowned novelist Salman Rushdie. Most events are free. For a complete schedule or for more information, visit bostonbookfest.org.
JOHN WILEY “Boston College has gotten some flak for its ‘preppy,’ ‘white,’ and ‘homogenous’ student body,” writes the Princeton Review, “and a communication student admits, ‘The school’s nickname as ‘J. Crew U.’ isn’t entirely unwarranted.’” As a sophomore at “J. Crew U.,” I regret to inform the Princeton Review that I have yet to hear any mention on campus of this alleged nickname. I am a white student, who does own clothes from J. Crew, and perhaps I can see how, with some surface research, an outside publication might come to the conclusion that the BC student body is “preppy,” “white,” and “homogenous.” Furthermore, with a source so compelling as an unnamed communication major, the Princeton Review has certainly padded this racist opinion respectably. And we must not ignore the clever phrasing of it all: “Boston College has gotten some flak for its ‘preppy,’ ‘white,’ and ‘homogenous student body.” Wait, forgive me, but who’s given us flak for our “preppy,” “white,” and “homogenous” student body? I didn’t catch that part. If my memory of senior year in high school doesn’t betray me, I might help clarify—the Princeton Review was the one saying precisely that. I believe the phrase used then to describe the BC student was a “J. Crew model with a hangover.” I get it, the Princeton Review must cater almost exclusively to low-information high school students. Were I to believe its language had no effect on the campus climate, I wouldn’t bother to refute it, but I have reasonable suspicion it does. Putting a series of dubiously collected, and unqualified claims in quotes seems to lead students to believe the content is more truthful—the assumption is if we say it of ourselves, it must be credible. But don’t be fooled—quotes don’t select themselves. If I needed some quotes to help me arbitrarily support a criticism of campus climate, BC students are the first group I’d turn to. If nothing else, we are a critical student body, one far too ready to assume flaws of itself. We must stop indulging the Princeton Review’s fictitious portrait of our student body that fails to recognize the body for its parts. I’ve heard far too much nonsense about the alleged predominance of the “BC look” and the J. Crew stereotype—these are hardly the true deficiencies of the University. Our campus has progress to make so far as diversity goes—as discussed in the Division of Student Affairs’ recently-published two-year survey on campus climate, certain groups have felt alienated on campus. But we’re striking the wrong conversation—BC students do not lack individualism, embrace stereotypes, or behave close-mindedly, as these findings might suggest. Rather, we live with an image of what constitutes a BC student alien to our experiences. It’s an image handed to us through simple-minded publications, propagated through buzz phrases, and perpetuated by our disdain for the alleged BC stereotype. I despise these crude characterizations of my school, especially as someone who, based on appearance, does fit some of these BC stereotypes. A stereotype is never a reflection on the people who happen to fall into it, but instead the burden of those who chose to group them as such. Similarly, shared fashion sensibility is not an indicator of homogeneity of a group’s character. Unfortunately, we often see attempts to move the burden of stereotype onto the objects it targets. It’s far more complicated, why we dress the way we do—a combination of geographic factors, economic conditions, artistic tastes, accessible outlets. In high school, I dressed unlike many of my friends. So it happened, northern New Jersey has a leaning toward grunge fashion, and I dressed differently. Why? Because the way I dressed was cheaper for me—heavily discounted clothes from outlets I spent substantial time at in Vermont made “preppy” fashion a lot more affordable for me to execute well. It was never a reflection on who I identified with. It’s erroneous, this notion that fashion is an expression of the individual. In Bloomfield, N.J., wearing J. Crew doesn’t make a person individualistic. In Chestnut Hill, wearing J. Crew doesn’t make a person bland. It’s the same interesting or boring individual in each environment. The fact that BC students generally care little about differentiating themselves with fashion, as noted in the Princeton Review, could mean BC students are beholden to stereotypes, but just as plausibly could indicate they’re disinterested in them. My experience points toward the latter. And yet we do have this issue—we need to graduate from J. Crew U., the fake university we fear we might attend. It’s frustrating and unnecessary, this notion that one member can define the BC student body, while another doesn’t fit in, when by definition, it’s something we are all a part of.
John Wiley is the Asst. Arts & Review Editor for The Heights. He can be reached at arts@bcheights.com.
THE HEIGHTS
Thursday, October 17, 2013
B5
Avett Brothers take flight with masterful ‘Magpie’
CHART TOPPERS TOP SINGLES
BY RYAN SCHMITZ Heights Staff There was a time, not too long ago, when music with a banjo as one of the lead instruments would be brushed off as something reserved for people in the Appalachian Mountains. People believed that specific form of Americana could never permeate into popular music. In the last four years a new movement of American rootsdriven folk music has surged into the limelight, proving the disbelievers to be extremely misinformed. The Avett Brothers are at the forefront of this new movement, pushing bluegrass and folk into the ears and hearts of mainstream America. With every album the Avetts have evolved, starting as a simple bluegrass trio and transforming into one of this generation’s most prolific bands. Their latest album Magpie and the Dandelion follows the band’s previous album by just one year but contains a completely different style and attitude proving them to be a band that can always be counted on for new and exciting content. The album opens up with one of the more up-tempo songs on the album, offering a country vibe that brings the brothers right back to their roots as the southern band from Concord, N.C. In a major turn, the album immediately slows down with the gutwrenching “Morning Song.” This tune evokes the troubled, introspective side of the band’s songwriting, bringing up
old demons that still haunt them. The song touches on everything from former drinking problems to loneliness and self-reliance—it is an emotional ballad that floors the listener with its powerful final chorus. Magpie and the Dandelion is filled with slowed down self-reflection, giving the audience an up-close and personal look at the band and who they are. “Good to You” is the perfect example of the band letting loose and putting their souls out for the world to see. Scott tells a story of how he has done the woman he loves wrong, and the song even contains a verse sung by bassist Bob Crawford—something that has grown increasingly rare on their recent albums. This particular verse may be the most heart wrenching part of Magpie. Overall, the album provides a kind of genuine vulnerability that truly connects the musicians and the listeners. The band absolutely succeeds in making a true connection to the listener through their music. Although the record is filled with tracks that relay regrets of past mistakes, there are some genuine love songs to be found as well as some sage-like wisdom and social commentary. Songs like “Bring Your Love To Me” give the audience an idea of the almost naive romantic sensibilities that the Avett Brothers hold, complemented perfectly by Seth Avett’s pure and innocentsounding voice. Later on in the album the brothers grow a little more
MAGPIE AND THE DANDELION THE AVETT BROTHERS PRODUCED BY AMERICAN RECORDINGS RELEASED OCT. 15, 2013 OUR RATING A
1 Royals Lorde 2 Wrecking Ball Miley Cyrus 3 Roar Katy Perry 4 Wake Me Up! Avicii 5 Hold On, We’re Going Home Drake 6 The Fox Ylvis 7 Holy Grail Jay Z feat. Justin Timberlake
PHOTO COURTESY OF AMERICAN RECORDINGS
Fresh off of last year’s ‘The Carpenter,’ The Avett Brothers are back with a superb new collection of folk tunes. cynical with “Vanity,” a powerful tune that addresses the state of the music industry and song writing. With lines like “I’ve got something to say, but it’s all vanity, it’s all vanity,” the Avetts show their feelings about the nature of the business that they have chosen and how it can have a less innocent side. This point is only made clearer by the song’s dark interlude filled with electric guitar and piano that sounds almost off-putting in its intensity.
Magpie’s single “Another is Waiting” is an up-tempo foot-stomper that gives the listener an example of the band’s poppy side. With an electric guitar and Seth leading the way on vocals, the song comments on popular culture and the expectations that people have about the stars in the spotlight. Focused around a female lead, “Another is Waiting” criticizes how the public is willing to disregard the feelings and even health of a pop star as long as they are presented with
the expected image. The album is absolutely perfect— each song is unique, making every one worth listening to over and over again. Between Scott’s course, heavy vocals, Seth’s pure, light vocals, and the harmonies formed between the two, the beautifully-written songs gain an edge stylistically, musically, and poetically over anything else out there today. Magpie and the Dandelion is easily one of the best albums of the year.
TOP ALBUMS
1 Bangerz Miley Cyrus 2 Too Weird to Live, Too Rare to Die Panic! at the Disco 3 Nothing Was The Same Drake 4 My Name Is My Name Pusha T Source: Billboard.com
Paul McCartney dispels doubters with a catchy set of ‘New’ songs BY PHOEBE FICO For The Heights I feel the need to start this review off with a confession: I have never been a huge fan of The Beatles. I mean, I get it—as my history of rock and roll professor put it, “their
influence on modern pop cannot be overstated.” The Beatles have one of the most interesting and diverse catalogs of any musicians and their melodies and songs seem to be ingrained in our conscience before we are even born. But after a hard day of classes, they are not what I turn
on. What can I say? It is an affliction I inherited from my father. I am taking pills for it. The Beatles songs I do like, however, such as “Here Comes the Sun” and “Let it Be” were primarily written by George Harrison. Therefore, I was wary of reviewing New,
NEW PAUL MCCARTNEY PRODUCED BY HEAR MUSIC RELEASED OCT. 15, 2013 OUR RATING B+
PHOTO COURTESY OF HEAR MUSIC
With the release of ‘New,’ pop legend Paul McCartney unveils his first album of original material in six years.
the latest record from The Beatles’ primary songwriter, Paul McCartney. I was fearful of the backlash that might come flying at me, like the pencil cases did in sixth grade science class when I revealed my less-than-ecstatic opinion of one of the world’s greatest bands. But here it goes. I liked it. The title suggests that McCartney would be trying a “new” style of music. And on some songs that is true, like on the middle track “Appreciate,” where the production seems to be ripped straight from the Frank Ocean or Miguel playbook, as his vocals are drenched in blanktape-sounding fuse that The Strokes popularized and every hipster band uses. It is not done poorly—in fact, it’s one of the better uses of the production technique that I’ve listened to. It is just strange coming from a man that I never thought I would hear it from. In the first half of the album, it seems that McCartney is switching back and forth with each song from the “new” McCartney on this record and the “old” one of The Beatles. On the first track, he uses the new
style of production described in the previous track. Then on the following song, “Alligator,” he brings back The Beatles’s signature guitar, and in the bridge he borrows from contemporary and fellow musical master, Brian Wilson, where he uses the psychedelic sounds that made him and John Lennon cry when they first heard Pet Sounds. Not only does McCartney borrow the psychedelic sounds of Pet Sounds, but he also adds the introspective lyrics that always seemed to be missing on Beatles’ albums. The most touching use of the introspective lyric style comes on the song, “Early Days,” which is about exactly what it sounds like, the early days of The Beatles. It’s a rare view of his experiences during that time, as he sings, “Dressed in black from head to toe / Two guitars across our backs / We would walk the city roads / Seeking someone who would listen to the music / That we were writing down at home.” It is a thrill to just imagine Lennon and McCartney before anyone knew their names. The music might seem disjointed, as he slips in and out of the new
and old musical styles, but the album hits its stride musically in the second half, where he seems to merge this new style of music that he is trying out with everything The Beatles ever did. On “Hosanna” he merges the darkness of “Eleanor Rigby” with the eastern influences that were present on songs like “Across the Universe,” while still adding tinges of electronica, which he plays with on the 11th track, “Looking at Her.” On the same track, McCartney shows off the talent that made The Beatles able to write a great love song. He sings about his new wife, saying that she is “good, she’s kind, she’s so refined” and that what she does is “like trying to catch the sun on the water.” It sounds incredibly cheesy, but McCartney sings it with such sincerity that one can’t help but swoon. McCartney’s new wife’s inspiration is all over the new record, as almost every song is a love song. The album culminates in “New,” which recalls the bouncy melody of “All You Need is Love” and could soften even the hardest Beatles critics. Yeah, I liked it, just don’t tell my father.
ON CAMPUS ARTIST
Times New Roman grants his listeners ‘Satisfaction’ with new demo BY ARIANA IGNERI Assoc. Arts & Review Editor Written, recorded, and almost entirely produced by Times New Roman (William Bolton, CSOM ’16), Satisfaction is an eclectic demo tape of Motown, soul, and hip-hop style songs. Bolton fuses these different genres, sampling, layering, and creating beats to either sing or rap over. His four-track demo takes its inspiration from current artists like Mayer Hawthorne and Pharell Williams, but it also pays tribute to more traditional influences. Seamlessly reconciling the sounds of the past with those of the present, Satisfaction presents the work of an artist who’s as comfortable with his roots as he is curious about new musical possibilities. The demo opens with “Diamonds,” an upbeat track about love and fame. It finds Bolton singing about his “Darlin’,” a girl he loves despite her superficial obsession with movie stars, parties, and Hollywood. And though he hasn’t reached that kind of celebrity status as of yet, the song demonstrates Bolton consider-
ing both the positive and negative consequences of fame—including false affection. “I could cook you breakfast / but all you really wanted was a diamond necklace,” he croons, wishing he could win his girl’s heart with sentiment rather than money. With its bright, looping guitar riff and bouncing beat, “Diamonds” is light, fresh, and carefree—the kind of song you sing in the car with the windows down in the summer. It’s even got a resonant, female gospel chorus ringing “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend” on the refrain. The combination of all of these musical elements gives the song a real retro vibe. “Passion,” the demo’s next song, is decidedly different from “Diamonds”—it’s not so much groovy as it is jazzy. Slow and smooth, the song is founded on a simple, recurring chord progression, reminiscent of classic jazz arrangements. But it’s by no means instrumentally conventional—it blends both vintage features, like suave trumpeting horns, with more modern ones, like a stuttering, electronic, vocal refrain. This quality makes parts of “Passion,”
sound, at least melodically, similar to songs off John Legend’s most recent R&B album, Love in the Future. Lyrically, this song is the most distinct. While the other three generally speak to Bolton’s musical career in one sense or another, the lyrics on “Passion” are strictly about a romantic relationship. He sings about a whole list of cliches—from kissing in the rain, to making latenight phone calls, to writing love letters—but he does so with sincerity, allowing the song to retain its authentic character. Powerful and bold, “Bizarre” sets itself apart from the rest of the demo with its rap from guest artist A$H. Its sound is sharp, and its lines are explicit—but it complements Bolton well, as he sings about his past, present, and future in music. “Homies you should know that I’m from Motown / Got that soul sound / And I’ll never slow down / Times New Roman,” he says, introducing himself as someone “Spitting bars with elegance … / Hollerin’ at hunnies / while pursuin’ a life of excellence.” “Bizarre” opens with a muted
Star Wars audio clip that blends into a swelling, violin-heavy orchestra, and eventually breaks down into a steady beat. With all of this, plus a rap cut, and a guitar solo, there’s a lot going on in this track, but somehow it works—and it’s interesting. The demo tape takes its title from its last track, “Satisfaction,”
a song which, instrumentally, has the same alluring feel as RJD2’s “A Beautiful Mine,” the theme song to the ’50s-period drama Mad Men. Again, Bolton spits lines about working toward musical success, singing, “Living on the edge like I’m born to die / Getting out my dreams / Wanna tour and write / Watch me
while I light up like a firefly / Trying to get that satisfaction.” Satisfaction proves that Bolton is confident in his “retro but cool” style—his direction is clear and consistent. And if his demo is any indication of what to expect from his upcoming full-length release, listeners will probably be satisfied.
SATISFACTION TIMES NEW ROMAN PRODUCED BY INDEPENDENT RELEASED OCT. 16, 2013 OUR RATING A-
PHOTO COURTESY OF SELMA RAKOVIC
William Bolton, CSOM ’16 synthesizes Motown and hip-hop influences as Times New Roman on ‘Satisfaction.’
SINGLE REVIEWS BY PHOEBE FICO Fall Out Boy “Love, Sex, Death”
Justin Bieber “All That Matters” The Biebs returns with “All That Matters,” a slow jam that is layered with guitar and a simple beat that recalls the glory days of R&B. Similarly, it seems that his voice has finally dropped and is now in a much lower register that assists his (mostly) well-done runs, that help him stay away from the Timberlake comparisons. All in all, a better song than anyone had reason to expect.
Betty Who “Somebody Loves You” In middle school, the boys stopped liking Fall Out Boy because the girls started to like them. On “Love, Sex, Death” the pop-punk rockers combine enough of Patrick Stump’s powerhouse vocals and introspective lyrics for the girls and fast punk guitar and screaming choruses for the boys. If it sounds like a musical train wreck, it’s not—and it’s all over in under two minutes.
Betty Who’s EP The Movement was released way back in April of 2013, but interest was renewed when this song was featured in a YouTube flash-mob marriage proposal. I can’t think of a better occasion for the song. It’s one of the most genuine declarations of love over an ’80sinspired beat in modern pop. When she named her EP, it wasn’t just a title, it was a guarantee.
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THE HEIGHTS
Thursday, October 17, 2013
THE HEIGHTS
Thursday, October 17, 2013
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THIS WEEK IN... BY RYAN TOWEY | ASST. METRO EDITOR
POLITICS Martha Coakley, the Massachusetts Attorney General and a gubernatorial candidate, is bringing several individuals to court for posing as non-profit foreclosure prevention organizations. According to a press release from Coakley’s office, the accused are Obeilson Roosevelt Matos, Gailon Arthur Joy, Pricila Trancoso Silva, John Charles Schumacher, and Paula Carvalho. These individuals allegedly posed as the “Alliance for Affordable Housing (AFAH) and the Global Advocates Foundation Inc., both located in Everett as well as the Alliance for Hope Network, Inc., in Framingham,” and preyed on people who feared they would lose their homes. “We will continue our efforts to combat deceptive foreclosure rescue schemes that take advantage of struggling borrowers,” Coakley said in a statement. Echoing Coakley, mayoral hopefuls John Connolly and Marty Walsh vowed in the debate last night to work to improve relationships between lenders and borrowers.
MBTA NEWS Changes are coming to South Station, as four new leases have b e en signe d. Constr uc tion w ill begin on the major transportation center at the end of the month. “These leases help fund the upkeep of New England’s busiest transit hub at no cost to the MBTA or taxpayers,” said MBTA General Manager Beverly Scott, according to BostInno. The additions will be a two-story CVS Pharmacy, a Tavern in the Square, a Starbucks, and Barbara’s Books. Barbara’s Books, however, is not exactly a new addition. The independent bookseller closed last spring after serving South Station for 20 years, but the bookseller will return to South Station with a new venue. The CVS Pharmacy is expected to open in March 2014. The Tavern in the Square will act as a smaller version of its other popular locations in Porter Square, Central Square, and Allston.
Ailina Tsarnaeva, sister to the Tsarnaev brothers, the alleged perpetrators of the Marathon bombing, was released from a hearing in South Boston District Court in a case involving counterfeiting yesterday. Tsarnaeva, 23, currently resides in New Jersey and allegedly impeded an investigation into the use of counterfeit money in 2010. The Boston Globe reported that George Gormley, her lawyer, said that his client did not object with a provision demanding she check in with the Massachusetts probation office once a week. She was originally arraigned in January 2011 and has been sought on a default warrant since February 2011. The hearing concerned a 2010 incident in which Tsarnaeva allegedly picked up a person who passed counterfeit money to another individual at the South Bay Mall. She claimed she was present, but not cooperative.
Debate lacked audience, defining moments from Connolly, Walsh Mayoral Race, from B10 extending the hours of service as a goal if he were elected. The candidates also met on the issue of sexual education in Boston schools. The topic had not been given much attention in the race up to this point, but recently became more prominent after the president of the Massachusetts chapter of Planned Parenthood pointed out that neither candidate’s platform included a comprehensive plan for sex education and dealing with teen pregnancy. Walsh connected sex education to further topics of drug and alcohol education, and highlighted that we cannot hesitate to teach our children about the dangers of substance abuse and its role in neighborhood violence. “We need to get this into the schools earlier, we need to have good programming and we need to make sure parents aren’t afraid of it,” Walsh said. “We need to be able to explain to our young kids what to expect.” Connolly discussed the increased risk for teen parents to drop out of school, and related sexual and health education with social and emotional support services for students. “Too many children are coming to our school who are broken, battling trauma, mental issues,” Connolly said. “When you’re dealing with any of those issues in your life and you’re coming to school you’re not ready to learn and that’s why we’ve got to be really smart on sex and health education.” Connolly also took the opportunity to point out his experience as a teacher that will make him an “education mayor.” Better emotional support services are just one facet of school reform that Connolly said he hopes to enact if elected. Other proposals include lengthening the school day, reducing the “top-heavy” school bureaucracy to better allocate funds, and establishing productive partnerships between public and charter schools.
Walsh agreed on the top-heaviness of the education department and advocated for public and charter schools to share ideas in order to create world-class public schools to go along with the city’s world-class universities. With regard to perpetuating the legacy of outgoing Mayor Thomas M. Menino, both candidates noted that they would continue his hands-on approach to governing, going into neighborhoods and being accessible for their constituents to learn directly about the challenges they face. A point of contention during the debate arose when Connolly criticized Walsh’s ties to unions and his acceptance of outside funds throughout the campaign. “I’m just concerned that when your campaign is taking over a million dollars in outside money and when you also work in two roles for these unions—that will influence what you do when you’re mayor,” Connolly told Walsh, a former laborer and union official. “And we’ve seen that it certainly influences the legislation that you file.” Walsh chose to respond to Connolly’s claims with a simple, “no comment,” yet later told reporters at Masslive.com that he considers his experience working with unions to be a strength. Despite a lack of harsh challenges from either side, the debate revealed an underlying struggle between city and state government. Both Walsh, a state representative, and Connolly, a city councilor, pointed to their own records and policy accomplishments in their respective positions, while also calling for more collaboration between City Hall and the state legislature on issues that affect Boston residents. Polls show that Connolly is still leading Walsh in the race to succeed Menino. However, Walsh has received a boost in recent days, earning highprofile endorsements from the state legislature’s progressive caucus as well as John Barros, Felix Arroyo, and Charlotte Golar Richie, three influential former challengers in the mayoral race.
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BUSINESS PAJAMAS Though Red Sox owner John Henry’s $70 million bid to purchase The Boston Globe and the New England Media Group (NEMG) was accepted by the New York Times Company on Aug. 2, it appears that the amount he will ultimately shell out for The Globe will be a less. The Boston Business Journal reported that the actual sale price will be closer to $65 million. According to The Journal, the change in price reflects the recent defection of a majority of The Globe’s auto-classified sales team to Cars.com, which this month terminated its partnership with the local newspaper company. While Henry’s purchase was supposed to close on Oct. 15, there were delays because of payroll considerations at NEMG. Further postponements, according to BostInno, are undesirable for Henry, as it is optimal for him to capitalize on NEMG’s more lucrative months in November and December.
A satirical blog at rottenscallop.com created some confusion for residents in New Bedford on Monday. The satirical blog claimed that residents in the area were planning a “Million Pajama Pants March” after the city council engaged in a deal “behind closed doors” to ban pajama bottoms during the day. The blog, however, was posted without a disclaimer, and thus many New Bedford residents began making angry comments on Facebook and trying to reach the city council, concerned that they would no longer be able to wear their comfortable pajamas during the day. The blog was actually making fun of a ban that a New Bedford District Court Judge placed on pajamas and revealing clothing during the summer’s cour t pro ce e dings . The ban, however, was lifted in August.
RESTAURANT REVIEW
PHOTO COURTESY OF ERIC LEVIN
Homegrown, local, and fresh B Y MAGGIE POWERS Heights Editor
The cool grey walls, large bay windows, patterned fabric in embroidery hoops framed on the walls, and bright neon green chairs make Farmstead Table look both homey and hip—the perfect choice for a lunch date. This chic atmosphere, coupled with farm-to-table philosophy, makes Farmstead Table one of the few places in Newton Centre that you need a reservation for on a Tuesday at 11:30 a.m. Opened last August, Farmstead Table promises to serve local, seasonal dishes that allow customers to feel connected to their food. The blackboard right at the door highlights the local farmers whose food is being sold, and the menu is constantly changing to reflect the season. The “rustic chic” experience continues when the spelt bread and butter are set on the worn wood tables. The servers will not always deliver the bread, so be sure to request it—this dense yet fluffy bread is a great precursor to any of the delicious entrees. The menu, while not extensive, offers options for almost any palate, and the rotating nature keeps it fresh (no pun intended) for Farmstead Table regulars. The cup of soup, green salad, and popover change daily, offering a bounty of flavors and a reasonable portion size to diners. Make sure to arrive early because the popovers often run out. The general skeletons of many of the meals remain static. For example, a hearty pasta with chicken is almost always one of the best choices on the menu. At the moment, it contains oyster mushrooms, kale, and butternut squash, highlighting fall flavors. The burger is another reliable classic. The onion bun and hand-cut fries or green salad feel more “adult” than your average kid’s meal. For many diners, there is the added appeal of high-quality meat and cheese. The burger is simple and delicious, clearly reflecting Farmstead Tables ideals—the food refuses to hide behind any fuss or flair, it is the simple, fresh ingredients that come together to create dishes people would really eat everyday. Of course, coupling any of these artisanal meals with a Diet Coke would be just short of
insulting. Rather, Farmstead Table serves Spindrift soda, a natural soda from California made only of sparkling water, fresh squeezed fruit, or berry puree and sugar. No syrups, additives, or preservatives here that would taint the pure, fruity taste. The classic sparkling lemon is a good choice for those who are unsure of this change in pace. Creative flavors like blackberry and grapefruit, however, delight the palate of the more adventurous customers. Dessert with lunch may seem indulgent, but it is a must at Farmstead Table. Many of the desserts come served in miniature cast iron skillets that beg to be Instagrammed. Tarts and crumbles made with seasonable fruits LOCATION: 71 UNION ST, NEWTON CENTRE CUISINE: New American SIGNATURE DISH: Orecchiete Pasta ATMOSPHERE: 8/10 AVERAGE MEAL: $14 OVERALL EXPERIENCE: A are the stars of this course. Last week’s warm apple-raspberry tart was basically a few flameorange leaves away from being autumn on a fork. Make sure to couple dessert with one of the house-made tea bags. The hand rolled chai tea is rich in spices and feels truly unique to the restaurant. The bill arrives in empty fruit baskets—a detail so sweet and linked to the atmosphere of the restaurant that the act of pulling out your credit card does not seem like an imposition in the least. The prices are somewhat high for the average college student’s lunch budget, around $14 for an entree. When the high quality of the food is taken into consideration, however, it is actually priced rather reasonably. It is no surprise the reservations at Farmstead Table go quickly. Farmstead Table deserves high praise for creating a mission-based dining experience that serves up a great atmosphere, dynamic menu, and a high standard of ingredients and service.
The Heights
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Bookish Bostonian
Time to talk about winter Ryan Towey
Forgive my effort at stereotypical fall humor when I say that this column is a warning to every BC girl still going on about her pumpkin spice latte and what she plans to dress up as for Halloween. It is never too early to start talking about winter in Boston. Because it’s coming. One only needs to walk outside of Bapst at around midnight to realize that the chill is already there. For those naysayers out there who insist that this unseasonably warm week indicates that the warmer months are here to stay, a weird but entertaining group of comedians called the New York Neo-Futurists thinks otherwise. Having spent most of the long weekend in New York City, I had the chance to see the group perform its “Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind,” in which the actors attempt to perform 30 short plays in exactly 60 minutes. The audience demands which play will be performed next by shouting out a number from a “menu” of plays—which have both comedic and dramatic elements—received at the beginning of the show. There is a timer, and if the audience and the actors do not move fast enough—sorry, show’s over. To go on further about the NeoFuturists alone would detract from the purpose of this column, but the list of plays is always changing and the group is definitely worth a visit should one ever venture down to New York. One of the plays that they performed last Saturday, however, is of particular relevance. It was called, “What Almost Happened in Boston, with Accents.” Upon seeing the name of that play, my Metro section senses were tingling. I also, however, was not interested in hearing anyone talk about parking an automobile anywhere near Harvard University. What I got instead was only nominally funnier—a skit in which two of the actors displayed disgruntled (and drunk) Bostonians in their underwear, berating passersby for their lack of “picture pants,” a joke that was lost on me. I understood it to mean that the Bostonians would have liked to see more interesting designs on the pants of innocent passersby, and I suppose I did laugh at their escalating, heavilyaccented shouts demanding that more people have their pants decorated with horses. The funniest part of this skit for me, however, came at the very end. One of the actors turned to the other: “You know winter’s comin’ soon.” “Don’t remind me,” the other replied, taking a large swig of his beer. There was something purely funny about that brief exchange—one that can be so commonly heard out on the street and even on our own campus. The writers of that skit, for an instant, captured how humorous an exchange it actually can be. The desire to deny the onset of winter is a common one, and is definitely understandable for those that prefer the comfortable weather of summer and autumn. I know that the first snowfall can be simultaneously wonderful and daunting for those who came to BC from warmer climates, and I know that I am probably forfeiting my northeastern credentials by not vocally despising the snow. But I do not dread the winter—I would not have gone to school in Boston if I were the type of person who does. Around the middle of September, there was an unusually chilly night. Perhaps because of the cold, I had a dream that I was in my bed at home. I reached up to my window in the dream and opened the curtains to find that my hometown was covered in snow—and more was falling. I woke up in my dorm in Walsh feeling relaxed, peaceful, and remarkably at home. To those who would prefer to stave off the beginning of winter and would rather not be reminded of it, I apologize. Perhaps this column is a selfish one, to provide myself with the happy reminder that winter is on the way.
Ryan Towey is the Asst. Metro Editor for The Heights. He can be reached at metro@bcheights.com.
Thursday, October 17, 2013
Nobel winners earned degrees from MIT, Tufts Nobel Prize, from B10 award-winning research when his work, conducted nearly 50 years ago, shed light on the fact that it is very difficult to predict shortterm individual stock prices. This discovery gave rise to his “Efficient Market Hypothesis,” which theorizes that in a competitive market, the relevant knowledge of the value of an asset is implicit, so it is impossible to assign or predict the price of an asset. Robert Shiller, however, argues that behavioral psychology comes into play and the unpredictable nature of human behavior can create large and prolonged mispricings that economists cannot predict. Shiller, who attended the University of Michigan and went on to receive both his S.M. and Ph.D from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is currently a professor of economics at Yale University. While he commends Fama for laying the groundwork for illustrating the inability to predict the prices of assets, he disagrees with the reason why, attributing it to a human source of irrationality that shuffles the market. In an interview with The Washington Post following the announcement that he was a recipient of the Nobel Prize, he said, “When I look around, I see a great deal of foolishness, and I can’t believe it’s not important economically.” Regardless of what causes it, Shiller and Karl Case, an economist from Wellesley College, saw this phenomenon as a demand for a safer type of investment rather than individual assets. They created the Case-Shiller index-pricing system, which allows investors
photos courtesy of nobel prize organization
From left: Eugene Fama, Lars Peter Hansen, and Robert Shiller, the three men who received the 2013 Nobel Prize for economics. in the housing market to gain a better sense of changes in prices by quantifying them in comprehensible terms. The third winner, Lars Peter Hansen, is also a professor at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, and posited the findings of Shiller and Fama and developed on his own a statistical method to test theories of asset pricing, including those of his co-recipients.
While each man contributed something slightly different to the world of economics, they had one thing in common: they were surprised and slightly flustered upon receiving the award: Hansen told The Boston Globe he was not sure how he was going to celebrate, but he was “still working on taking a deep breath.” In a comment to the Associated Press, Shiller admitted, “People told me I might win. I discounted it. Prob-
ably hundreds have been told that.” The winners will share the $1.23 million prize, which has been awarded to at least one American economist every year since 1999. In the words of the academy responsible for giving the award, “Their methods have shaped subsequent research in the field and their findings have been highly influential both academically and practically.” n
Gas leak halts MBTA Green Line, causes evacuation
Gas Leak, from B10 did,” Deck said. When the Washington St. stop was closed along the Green Line, MBTA shuttles were sent to navigate people around the closed stop. “As a precautionary measure before the National Grid arrived … the T was shut down in both directions for approximately an hour,” said a district chief of the Boston Fire Department. “ We didn’t know the extent of the
leak.” “We took readings inside all these buildings,” he said of 1867 Commonwealth Ave. and the surrounding buildings. “Outside in the street we weren’t getting any readings for explosive gas. It was confined primarily. The buildings were evacuated initially because all that gas somehow could have went in that way and people would have been exposed to carbon monoxide poisoning.” While the fire department and the National Grid tried to fix the gas leak,
the district chief said that surrounding residents were allowed to return to their homes. Deck, however, was told to wait some time until the responders cleared away from the front of her property. Deck, who has owned the property since 1975, said that the response to the gas leak was “prompt, wonderful, and professional.” n Editor’s Note: Heights Editor Graham Beck contributed to this report.
Graham Beck / heights editor
Firefighters appeased concerned residents.
Festival holds literary events, workshops for all ages BBF, from B10 nication department, who will be joined by his twin, Peter H. Reynolds, a fellow author and illustrator. In addition to these presenters, there will also be publishers’ exhibits and authors’ symposiums on various literary subjects, with exhibits such as “Synthetic Biology: Designing Life,” “Being and Becoming: Identity in Fiction” and “Herstory: Women in History.” Crime fiction fans can attend a panel of “Plot Conjurers,” during which five best-selling crime fiction authors—Peter Abrahams, Linda Barnes, Mike Cooper, Sara J. Henry, and Steve Ulfelder—will stitch a plot together using suggestions from the audience while sharing their strategies for weaving together setting, characters, and storyline. The festival’s daytime events are free to
all, but events taking place each evening of the festival require the purchase of tickets. Tickets can be purchased online at www. bostonbookfest.org, with events that include “Writing Terror: An Exploration of Fear” on Thursday, Oct. 17, at 7:30 p.m. at the Back Bay Events Center. This event brings together writers whose work is about terror and terrorism, featuring Wes Craven, Mary Louise Kelly, Jessica Stern, and Valerie Plame Wilson, and is moderated by Joe Klein. Tickets are available for $12 (lower orchestra) or $6 (upper orchestra). The following day at 7:30 p.m. at the Old South Sanctuary, features this year’s keynote speaker, Salman Rushdie. Rushdie is renowned as one of the world’s most acclaimed novelists, intellectuals, and symbols of free expression, with works that have received both great praise and intense condemnation. Advanced tickets
have already sold out, but a limited number of tickets may be available at the door for $10, cash only. The final ticketed event is a live show on Saturday, Oct. 19, at 7 p.m. at 40 Trinity Place, by Cambridge-based comedy group, You’re the Expert, which features comedians Myq Kaplan, Brendan Pelsue, and Robert Woo. The troupe will perform comical sketches and games as a part of its interpretation of what John Overholt, Harvard’s curator of early modern books and manuscripts, does on a daily basis for his job. Tickets are still available, for $10. The BFF will be have exhibitions for children who attend, such as several arts and crafts stations as well as readings of children’s books by their authors. Four Newbury Medal winners—authors who were awarded by the American Library Association for the most distinguished Ameri-
can children’s book published the previous year—will give presentations. This year, the distinguished medal-winners include Lois Lowry, author of The Giver, and Tomie dePaola, the children’s keynote speaker at this year’s BFF and writer and illustrator of the 1976 bestseller, Strega Nona. This year’s BFF will have an additional special event featuring the reporters and photographers who were at the scene of the Boston Marathon Bombings this past April. During the panel, called “The Boston Marathon: Telling Tragedy’s Story,” the journalists will talk about what they witnessed on that day. In solidarity with the attitude “Boston Strong,” literary agent and editor Andrew Blauner organized a group of local authors to contribute essays about the city for Our Boston: Writers Celebrate the City They Love. The book’s sales proceeds will go to One Fund Boston. n
Photo Courtesy of Boston Book Festival
The Boston Book Festival in Copley Square has encouraged reading and appreciation for literature for the last five years, including among children, and will return this weekend.
THE HEIGHTS
Thursday, October 17, 2013
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Rowers to race in Head of the Charles Regatta BC women’s varsity rowing and men’s club rowing will compete in races on Saturday BY BENNET JOHNSON For The Heights
This Saturday and Sunday, Boston will welcome the 49th annual Head of the Charles Regatta, the world’s largest rowing competition. Rowing teams from Boston College will be represented at the race, as well as teams from around the world. More than 300,000 spectators are expected to flood the banks of the Charles River to watch the Regatta. The race is a three-mile stretch, beginning from Boston University’s DeWolfe Boathouse in Cambridge, and ending at Artesani Park in Boston. There are 55 races total, accounting for more than 9,000 athletes, with 55 countries represented worldwide. Founded in 1965, the Head of the Charles has a history for being one of Boston’s most beloved traditions. Founders D’Arcy MacMahon, Howard McIntryre, and Jack Vincent created the regatta from the advice of a Harvard University sculling instructor. The instructor proposed a “head of the river” race, which is similar to races held in England. A “head” is typically a race of about three miles. In such a race, boats compete against each other and the clock, with each boat starting after 15second intervals. The winners of the race
receive the title “Head of the River” or in this case, the “Head of the Charles.” BC will be well represented at the Head of the Charles this weekend. The women’s rowing team is eager to improve from its performance last year, which included a sixth place finish in the Club four-plus event, 23rd in the Alumnae Eight event, and 27th in the Women’s Championship eight-plus race. In 2011, the team placed third in the Club four-plus, earning a bronze metal. “Energy and excitement on the team is running high with the Head of the Charles this weekend, and I think our team is prepared to come back this year and do incredibly well again,” said coxswain Kylie Hasegawa, A&S ’16. The men’s crew team, a club sport within the University, competed last year against varsity teams across the country and finished 10th in the Collegiate eightplus. These championship races attract top competitors from around the world, and present intense competition throughout these two days. At 12:57 p.m. on Oct. 19, the BC women’s rowing team will begin the weekend by participating in the Alumnae Eight on bow No. 21. The men’s crew team will kick off by racing in the Club Eight event starting from Boston University’s
out-and-back in both Franklin Park and the surrounding roads: what if I didn’t make it back before they reopened the roads farthest from the finish? What if I had to run on the sidewalk until I got there? The most I had run was 10.5 miles, in 1:56:08, a few months ago. If the second half was as hilly and hard as everyone kept telling me, I would never make it because I signed up by myself—I had no running buddy to keep me going. Well, on Sunday, Oct. 13, 2013, I crossed a finish line, completing the course in 2:25:01, and uncontrollably wept for a full three minutes. It was cathartic, releasing the doubt that built up while simulta-
neously reaching a goal I set months ago. I wore my special yellow bib, my half medal, and my Distance Medley finisher medal proudly, as I tried to not pass out. It was a hard run, but it didn’t kill me. I didn’t feel any pain whatsoever and I conserved my energy, running strong the whole time and picking up the pace at the finish. And the people that exaggerated the difficulty of the hills may not have spent as much time in Central Park as I have—run Great Hill repeats, tackle the West Side, then conquer Cat Hill in one go, and you’ll respect the end of the BAA Half, but you won’t fear it. Though many finished before me, I had a great experience here in Boston and I couldn’t have asked for better weather or views. I’m planning on heading back to the
PHOTO COURTESY OF HEAD OF THE CHARLES REGATTA
DeWolfe Boathouse at 2:04 p.m. on bow No. 16. Conquering the Head of the Charles is no easy feat. The course is 3.2 miles of deceptively difficult, hard-to-maneuver, curves and twists. There are seven bridges and countless rowing shells compacted on the narrow river, creating chaos for novice rowers. In order to be successful, a team must display precise speed and form, while staying clear of other boats during the fierce competition. There is a great deal of preparation required for this world-renowned event. There is a race committee that is assisted by 1,400 volunteers who meet year-round to discuss details of the event. There are also thousands of dollars of donations from countless colleges and universities, boat clubs, and vari-
ous sponsors that make the Head of the Charles a success year after year. In the event of an emergency, however, bad weather can lead to cancellation of the competition, despite the distance racers travel to compete. Over the past 48 years, the race has attracted not only American competitors, but also teams from around the world— 600 U.S. and international rowing clubs, colleges, universities, and institutions participate in this two-day event. The competitors are rowers of all ages, and competition ranges from youth clubs to Olympic athletes. The types of races include youth, club, collegiate, championship, and master races. The championship races are the most prestigious, with the world’s best battling for a medal.
Arborway and Jamaica Pond as soon as I can move my legs again. The pride I witnessed was astounding. The 10k was “Boston Strong”-themed, but I saw just as many, if not more, memorial shirts this time around. Personally, I didn’t wear any of it—not a Boston College shirt, not a Celtics jersey, not a picture of the skyline emblazoned across my chest. I wasn’t wearing blue and yellow, but instead neon green and black. I wasn’t wearing anything, except my bib, that had “Boston” on it, and you couldn’t find “4/15/13” anywhere on my clothes. Even though I own a shirt with the slogan, I didn’t wear it. I don’t think I had to. I don’t need the date of the day terrorists murdered three innocent people to
remind me of my purpose. I knew who and what I was running for. I ran the Distance Medley for the people who got stopped so close to their goals, the people who were thrown to the ground, the people who lost their limbs, and the people who lost their lives. I ran for BC, Northeastern, Simmons, MIT, Harvard, and BU. I ran for Boston. I ran for Massachusetts. I ran for everyone that could not. I ran 13.1 miles without stopping once—not to grab water, not to go to the bathroom, not to stretch on the side of the road. I set a goal for myself before the Marathon had even started and I completed it despite the challenges it presented. If that isn’t Boston Strong, then I don’t know what is.
COLLEGIATE ROUND-UP BY TRICIA TIEDT | METRO EDITOR
UMASS AMHERST
New Honors complex hopes to turn heads at Amherst In an effort to bring the state’s most talented minds to campus, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst has debuted a new residential complex for the Commonwealth Honors College. The Honors Residential Community, which opened at the start of the Fall 2013 semester, gathers faculty, students, and staff of the Honors College in the new $192 million, seven-building complex. The Honors Program at UMass Amherst encompasses approximately the top 13 percent of the student body, or around 3,000 students. The residential housing within the new complex offers dormitory style rooms (singles, doubles, or triples) in two different freshman halls, as well as 900 spots in suite or apartment-style housing for upperclassmen. Approximately half the students in the Honors College have the opportunity to live in the new residential community. In addition to the residences, the complex includes nine
HARVARD As the Harvard community enjoyed a Monday without classes this week, multiple student groups on campus used the national holiday to draw awareness to what they believe is an injustice in celebrating Christopher Columbus. Four student groups—Native Americans at Harvard College (NAHC), Fuerza Latina, Harvard Organization for Latin America, and Ballet Folklorico de Aztlan—hosted an event with the mission of changing the name “Columbus Day” to “Indigenous People’s Day.” The event featured both Native American and Latin-American style foods and drew a crowd of approximately 50 students in a lounge on campus. NAHC President Shannon Carlson, Harvard ’14, told The Crimson, “Columbus represents the point in history that began the downfall of many indigenous cultures.” Harvard is currently the only Ivy-League University that continues to recognize Columbus Day as a university holiday. Neither Harvard deans nor administrators have indicated any awareness of a movement to change the name of the holiday.
Public places made private by memories
More than 9,000 athletes will compete in 55 races on the Charles River this weekend.
Runner reflects on Half Marathon over long weekend Column, from B10
BOSTON UNCOMMON
classrooms, two faculty apartments, administrative offices, event spaces, and a round-the-clock cafe. The new complex has created buzz around the UMass campus and its surrounding cities. Although the program has been in place at Amherst since 1999, the establishment of a complex within the school’s campus has created a new identity for the Commonwealth Honors College. “Previously we were a set of academic requirements,” history professor Daniel Gordon, who is serving as acting dean of the honors college since the recent death of longtime dean Priscilla Clarkson, told The Boston Globe “Now we are a place, a community in space.” Those in the honors college compare their education with that of Boston University and Northeastern—Gordon says they hope to create an environment conducive to competing with even higher caliber universities in the surrounding area.
MIT MIT has developed yet another breakthrough in line with its highly esteemed work in the fields of science and technology. This time, however, MIT has entered superpower territory: researchers have developed motion sensors to detect subjects through walls. The system works much like Microsoft’s Kinect motion-tracking accessory, in that it doesn’t require its human subject to hold a transmitter in order to track it across a room. While the Kinect currently employs more sophisticated technology than MIT’s new system—it can read lips and track multiple targets at once—the Kinect cannot figuratively see through walls. MIT Ph.D candidate, Fadel Adib, explained to IT World, “What we’re doing here is localization through a wall without requiring you to hold any transmitter or receiver [and] simply by using reflections off a human body. What is impressive is that our accuracy is higher than even state of the art Wi-Fi localization.” The research team believes its system could one day be sold as a commercial product.
PHOTO COURTESY OF UMASS AMHERST
NORTHEASTERN On the six-month anniversary of the Boston Marathon Bombings, Northeastern University hosted an exhibit featuring photos, videos, and stories from its digital archive titled Our Marathon. According to Boston Innovation, Our Marathon is a “comprehensive, crowd-sourced digital archive” that chronicles more than 3,000 stories from April 15, 2013, including un-televised news footage from WCVB, get-well gifts sent to those recovering at Boston Children’s Hospital, and eyewitness accounts. The event, which took place Tuesday at Northeastern’s Snell Library, was free and open to the public. Attendees had the ability to tell their own story either on paper or through spoken word, as well as view the memorial previously set up in Copley Square, donated for viewing by the Boston City Archives. Spearheading the Our Marathon archive is assistant professor Ryan Cordell. “We’re six months out, and there’s a lot that still needs to be captured,” Cordell said. “There’s no story too small.”
SAMANTHA COSTANZO I can get rather attached to places. In Boston, those places are usually the ones that people walk past and through every single day. They’re the ones that everyone knows about, not the holesin-the-wall that I’ve discovered myself. In fact, I’m not quite sure how much discovering I’ve really done in my almost three years here. That doesn’t bother me. After all, since when do the places I love have to be secrets? Whether it’s the study room with all the little green lamps in the Boston Public Library or Caffe Vittoria in the North End, I know that my places aren’t mine alone. Yes, I have memories in each of them that very few people, if any, will share. That just means that I’ve made a footprint on those places, not that they’re all mine. I’m sure that even my favorite spots in those places—the last table in that library room, the courtyard at the Gardner Museum—have been claimed by hundreds of other people as their own. So why not seek out someplace completely new? Granted, I’m not sure that it’s possible to find a spot that no one else has really considered important. Even if I could, though, I’m not sure that I would want to. There’s something to be said for not keeping those places a secret. I know that sometimes it’s nice to be alone. Sometimes you really need time to think or just do some work without worrying about interruptions. Other times, however, you can get a lot more out of a place by bringing someone along. For one thing, there’s a definite sense of connectedness. When I go somewhere by myself, I tend to focus just on what I’m doing. Taking someone along for the adventure, however small, automatically means that we’ll have a story to tell after. Caffe Vittoria, a little dessert cafe in the North End right next to Mike’s, is almost always packed. There’s nothing particularly special about it. To me, though, it’s the setting for one funny story after another. On my first visit there, the waitress was convinced that my best friend and I were out on a date and kept complimenting us on how cute we looked. The next time, during sophomore year, I went with a larger group, and we ended up getting yelled at by a waitress before dashing out the back door before she could come back. I’m still going back—after all, this place needs a story for junior year. Another great thing about sharing all of my not-so-secret places is that after I tell people about them, I can never look at that place the same way again. They’re suddenly colored by new perspectives, ideas, and connections. I took a friend who was visiting from Los Angeles to the Boston Public Gardens once during my freshman year. The Gardens, to me, had always been a fun place to walk through during breaks in my study sessions at the Boston Public Library down the street. I’d always paid more attention to the tourists and other people walking through, but my friend was far more fascinated by the dozens of different colored tulips that we found on the walk. Now, I keep an eye out for the most interesting flowers I can find whenever I walk through. My friend, in paying attention to something that I hadn’t, created a whole new layer of details to one of my favorite places in the city. It’s the same with the Gardner Museum. I’ve been there a few times, but never by myself. Honestly, I couldn’t imagine going without someone to talk about all of the paintings with—there are too many discoveries in that old mansion to keep to myself. It’s not that I can’t keep a secret. It’s just that I can’t keep a story. Once I’ve learned something new, it’s not long before I’ve told someone else all about it. And in telling them everything I know, I end up learning quite a bit in the end as well.
Samantha Costanzo is an editor for The Heights. She can be reached at metro@ bcheights.com.
METRO THE HEIGHTS
B8
B10
Thursday, October 17, 2013
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2013
BOOKING IT
BREAKING BOUNDARIES
The ends & the means
The Boston Book Festival celebrates its fifth year of success in Copley Square this Thursday-Saturday
TRICIA TIEDT Sitting down to write the words that fill this little strip of white space on the back page of The Heights is often my favorite part of the week. More often than not, the words pour themselves onto the page. In the blinking cursor I find time to reflect and a renewed purpose: what thoughts do I have to put down worthy of being in print? In the amount of time it takes for 700 words to appear each week, I have once again discovered how much I love what I do. Growing up, writing was always the answer. At age six, I couldn’t wait to get to second grade to spell compound words like “sunflower” and “playground.” When I lost the spelling bee by one word in the third grade (“delicious,” in case you were wondering), I think I cried—okay, I definitely cried. On standardized tests in high school, I strove for average in the math and science sections, only to make up for my lack of numerical sense with a perfect literature and essay score. Writing was always the answer. My family knew it, my friends knew it, I knew it. Last Tuesday, I found out why. Although my first endeavors into the world of journalism began years ago, a certain doubt continues to plague me: Am I cut out for this? Don’t journalists make a living by butting into people’s private lives and personal affairs? Could I intrude on someone’s life, just to get a good story? Do the ends justify the means? David Jackson answered my deepest questions without even knowing it. Jackson is a colleague of Joe Bergantino, a nationally recognized investigative reporter who happens to be my professor for a journalism class held on Tuesday nights. As an investigative reporter at The Chicago Tribune, Jackson has most recently gained acclaim for his report on truancy and absenteeism in Chicago public schools. In a phone call with our class, Jackson explained the process of interviewing children who had missed an unusual amount of school days and their families for his investigation. He stated his method as “genuine transparency.” He and his partner at The Tribune told everyone exactly what they were doing, and left the choice of whether or not to contribute to their investigation in the hands of those with a story to tell. For Jackson, the wellbeing of his subjects was more important than whatever story they could tell him. Had Jackson instead taken the approach of “the ends justify the means,” he may have had a better report. He may have gotten more questions answered, profiled more children, or talked to more school officials. But, in the process, he could have significantly hurt the very families his story intended to help. Which, in my opinion, is the exact opposite of journalistic integrity. Jackson’s success in journalism must be attributed, in part, to his desire to see the good in people. Through his work, Jackson says he “now truly believe[s] that most people are decent, [that they] want what’s best for the world.” His job as a journalist is to enlighten these good people to matters that need changing, and then inspire those same people to change the world. In a word on a page: whoa. Am I cut out to corner people on their front lawns about their wrongdoing? Could I be so intent on a story as to infringe on people’s private affairs? Could I dehumanize someone enough to say “the ends justified the means”? No. But I can change the world for the better with a pen and paper. I have the ability to positively impact people’s lives by writing the words they cannot themselves express. Thanks to Jackson, I now have a real-life example of the kind of journalist I intend to be: one who uses transparency, with the subject’s best interest in mind. If nothing else, I’ll cherish these little sections of white space I’m allowed to fill as long as I’m allowed to fill them.
Tricia Tiedt is the Metro Editor for The Heights. She can be reached at metro@bcheights.com.
BY LAUREN TOTINO Heights Staff The 2013 Boston Book Festival (BFF), one of the largest literary events in the world, returns to the city for its fifth year this weekend beginning today, Thursday, Oct. 17 and running through Saturday, Oct. 19. The main events of the festival will take place in various locations around Copley Square, with venues at Trinity Church, Old South Church, and the Boston Public Library, among others. Since its first year in Boston in 2009, the BFF has drawn upward of 20,000 attendees. In addition to presentations and panels featuring internationally known writers, scholars, critics, and commentators, BFF attendees can enjoy live musical performances by students from the Berklee College of Music, writing workshops and competitions, and programming for children and teens. Resembling something of a street fair, the BFF will bring local artisans, food from local venders, and exhibits by independent publishers. Deborah Z. Porter, founder and executive director of the BFF, notes that Boston experienced a “significant deficiency” due to its lack of a free book festival, a staple in most major cities, before 2009, and stresses the importance of such events to the public, who “should have access to our thinkers, writers, and public intellectuals in a joyous atmosphere of celebration.” Porter said, “The realms of literature and ideas should not be left in the ivory towers of our universities … they need to find their way to the streets.” The festival, its goal being “to promote a culture of reading and ideas and enhances the vibrancy of our city,” will feature over 150 world-class presenters. Presenters include Wes Craven, Kate DiCamillo, Joe Klein, Lois Lowry, J. Courtney Sullivan, Salman Rushdie, and Boston College’s own Paul Reynolds—a part-time professor of digital media production in the commu-
See BBF, B8
JORDAN PENTALERI / HEIGHTS GRAPHIC
Nobel Prize winners tied to Boston
Candidates ebb in their first debate
BY MAGGIE MARETZ Heights Staff
BY JULIE ORENSTEIN
On Monday, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the annual Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences—colloquially known as the Nobel Prize in Economics—to three American economists who worked toward a cumulative understanding of the behavior of asset prices and how their shifts in both the short term and long term can be explained and predicted. The winners, Eugene F. Fama, Lars Peter Hansen, and Robert J. Shiller, have strangely conflicting views on how the market works, yet found through separate research that the same fundamental truths hold true about its fickle nature. Two of the recipients of the award, Fama and Shiller, have local ties to Boston. Fama is a native of the area and both men received their education in the city. Fama, 74, is currently a professor of finance at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, but grew up in blue-collar neighborhoods in Malden and Medford, Mass. before attending Tufts University. In his years as an undergraduate, he studied romance languages and was planning to become a teacher until his senior year, when one of his professors challenged him to try his hand at economics. He graduated magna cum laude from Tufts in 1960 with recognition as an outstanding student athlete, and went on to receive both his MBA and Ph.D from the Booth School of Business. Fama, known to many as “the father of modern finance,” provided the basis for the
Barbara Deck, who is the owner of 1867 Commonwealth Ave., a house that was built in 1908. While digging, the backhoe attempted to excavate the roots of a tree that had been formerly removed, but the roots were wrapped around the gas pipe. When the backhoe tried to lift them, it disrupted the gas pipe and resulted in a “geyser of fluid” shooting from the pipe, and the creation of the gas leak. No one was injured in the incident. “We received orders to evacuate, which we
As the Boston Red Sox went head-tohead with the Detroit Tigers in Game 3 of the American League Championship Series Tuesday night, a matchup of a much different kind was taking place in Boston. The final two candidates in the race to become mayor met in the first of four debates, and while Marty Walsh, BC ’09, and John Connolly, BC Law ’01, addressed the cornerstone issues of their campaigns, it appears that the majority of the city’s residents chose to watch the baseball game instead. Those who did tune into the debate saw relatively passive exchanges between the candidates, who agreed on many of the issues that moderator John Keller of WBZ-TV presented in their first one-on-one meeting, a stage that differed greatly from the candidate forums in which they participated during the preliminary election. Both Walsh and Connolly pointed to improving relationships between community members and the police force as a vital step toward stopping police misconduct, as well as bringing more diversity into the police department to better reflect the city’s demographics. Furthermore, they shared similar views on public transportation reform, proposing collaborative efforts between the city and the state legislature for improving MBTA service. Connolly emphasized the importance of maintenance for existing rail lines and
See Gas Leak, B8
See Mayoral Race, B7
See Nobel Prize, B8
Heights Editor
GRAHAM BECK / HEIGHTS EDITOR
Firefighters presided over the fixing of the gas line after evacuating 1867 Comm. Ave.
Gas line leak on Comm. Ave. leads to evacuations BY RYAN TOWEY Asst. Metro Editor A gas leak at 1867 Commonwealth Ave. shut down the Washington St. stop of the MBTA Green Line on Monday. Caused by a backhoe hitting the property’s gas line at around 12:30 p.m., the Boston Fire Department and National Grid responded, evacuating several apartments. “We had a contracted water and plumbing company attempting to dig in the front yard to do some work,” said
What does Boston Strong mean to you? BY MEAGHAN LEAHY For The Heights On Sunday, Oct. 13, 2013, I crossed a finish line, and proceeded to uncontrollably weep for a full three minutes. On Feb. 4, I registered for the Boston Athletic Association (BAA) 5k, and decided in that moment that I would finish the 2013 Distance Medley. On April 14, the day before Marathon Monday, I crossed that famous finish line on Boylston and reflected on running a small fraction of the 42.195 kilometers that
I NSIDE METRO THIS ISSUE
would be conquered by more than 26,000 people within the next 24 hours. On April 15, I watched in horror, along with the world, as terrorists attacked what I like to call my surrogate city. I sighed in relief as friends came back to BC, safe but shaken. With strengthened resolve, I convinced my dad to bring me back up to Boston for the second race of the Distance Medley, and on June 23, I finished the BAA 10k. Coming into this semester, I had one race left before I could call myself a Distance Medley finisher—the BAA half
Collegiate Round-up
marathon. My first half marathon. There has been a countdown on my desk for the last month, along with a neglected training plan. Classes started, I got busy, and I got stressed. When I did manage to squeeze in a run, it was too slow, too hard, and too physically painful. But my mind was taking the brunt of the hardship—I spent the night before the race racing through all the scenarios in my head. What if I got hurt and had to stop at the first medical tent? And the big one, because the course was an
Highlights from other prestigious universities and colleges in the greater Boston area.........................................................................................B9
See Column, B9
MEAGHAN LEAHY / FOR THE HEIGHTS
Leahy after completing the BAA half-marathon.
Restaurant Review: Farmstead Table................................................B7 Rowers to Race in Head of the Charles Regatta.........................B9
THE HEIGHTS’ GUIDE TO
OFF-CAMPUS HOUSING THURSDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2013
“Living off campus means more freedom, more responsibilities, and way more options when it comes to housing. Navigating your way around those options, however, doesn’t have to be stressful. Take it from the ones who have been there, done that, and loved it all. This guide has tips and tricks to help you keep the peace with your roommates, deal with landlords and realtors, and find and sign for your new home sweet home.”
THE REALITY OF RELATIONSHIPS WITH YOUR ROOMMATES PAGE C2
PAGE C4 WHERE TO FIND YOUR DREAM HOME QUICK FIXES FOR EVERYDAY ISSUES
THINGS TO CONSIDER BEFORE SIGNING ON THE DOTTED LINE PAGE C3
2 THE HEIGHTS oct. 17, 2013
housing guide
How to snag your home sweet home
By Chris Grimaldi | Heights Editor
When you’re not the only one eyeing that perfect apartment, acting fast is key We’ve entered the golden months of fall—a time for breathtaking foliage, exciting college football, and finding off-campus housing. Wait, what was that third one? Although your junior year is nearly a year away, it is already peak season for house and apartment hunting. Since you are probably inundated with midterms and extracurriculars, rushing around town looking for a place to call home next year sounds intimidating from the outset (kind of like the idea of cooking your own meals). But even if you haven’t thought about the process yet, don’t worry. Take a deep breath, fasten your seatbelt, and listen to me. First and foremost—when your peers start bragging about how they’ve already found the “perfect place” with 50 of their best friends
(they probably signed the lease before freshman year too, right?), here’s what you do. Ignore them. Now let’s talk about you. You’re probably going to use the same excuse I often regurgitated as an excuse for not getting the process started: “I don’t know where to look.” Even with hundreds of undergrads at the same school competing for leases, there are a lot of options. Once you’ve decided on whether you’re aiming for house or apartment-style living, make a stop at Boston College’s Residential Life website and search under “Off-Campus.” The site offers helpful information regarding the entire process, insight into the surrounding neighborhood, and actual listings to mull over. Yet one of the best ways for getting pointed in the right direction is
word of mouth. It’s extremely helpful to seek the advice of upperclassmen who have lived off campus and gone through the necessary motions of settling on a place. Oftentimes, they know the spots to check out or stay away from, and offer advice that can catalyze your own search. While you’re welcome to seek out a realtor’s assistance from the beginning, there’s no harm in checking out the locations of interest yourself and then getting in touch with a realtor or realty group when talks become serious. This allows you to work at your own pace to find a great place at a price you can at least somewhat stomach. But once you do hedge your bets on a location, act promptly. Dragging your feet in indecision can be the difference between signing a lease and losing out to another bidder.
Therefore, don’t put yourself in the position of having to rush at the last minute. Rather, give yourself a head start by doing your own research and asking for recommendations. This will not only give you better insight into the off-campus acquisition process, but also enable you to prudently balance your priorities along the way. For instance, what’s your price range? How important is proximity to campus for you? House or apartment? All of these questions are perfectly normal, but take some time to be thought over. Paying more attention to them now will mean having more options in the near future. So you’ve searched for a place, found one, and spoke with the realtor. Now it’s time to sign that lease. Get ready to provide the usual informational necessities (i.e. social
security number, pet’s name … never mind, not the second one). Dibs on the lease means putting down a deposit, the last month’s rent, and also identifying a guarantor (such as a parent or other family member). Make sure you have the money ready to put down the initial payments and give your guarantor the heads up because they’ll need to get some documentation notarized. It sounds boring compared to the great times you’ll soon have in your new place, but look at these steps as necessary evils. There you have it—a crash course in off-campus living. It’s like learning to ride a bike. You’ll feel uneasy at first, sure. But with a smart approach, knowledgeable resources, and good advice, there’s no stopping you once the training wheels come off. n
people to know
heights file photo
Photo Courtesy of office of news and public affairs
Marianne Carrabba Assistant Director of Off Campus Housing Carrabba works with any BC students seeking off campus housing, from undergraduates to international students. She often hosts info sessions and housing fairs, updates BC’s off campus housing database, and can provide advice on how to work with realtors and other legal issues.
Steve Montgomery Off Campus Community Liaison Also known as the off campus RA, Montgomery helps mediate concerns between students and their neighbors. He is also responsible for ensuring that students have safe weekends and usually checks up on residences that are hosting parties, often before the police have to show up. Montgomery can also provide info about the specifics of city citations and dealing with landlords.
Photo Courtesy of office of news and public affairs
Photo Courtesy of office of news and public affairs
Kristen O’Driscoll Assistant Dean for Off Campus Student Life and Civic Engagement O’Driscoll’s job is to promote community engagement and other supportive services for students living off campus. She helps run programs like the Breakfast Club, whose members get a free meal in exchange for volunteering in the community, and other activities designed to connect off campus students with each other and their neighbors.
Eagle Ambassadors The Eagle Ambassadors are BC students committed to helping their off campus classmates develop self-help skills, reflect on their role as a neighbor, and connect with the community. Ambassadors can also help direct students to other resources in the city and at BC for more guidance.
Working together can turn houses into homes By Cathryn Woodruff Heights Editor It’s 9 a.m. on a Thursday morning, and I roll out of bed, vaguely aware that it’s trash day and we had forgotten to put it on the street the night before. A couple of my roommates and I head downstairs in our PJs, but it’s too late—they had already come to collect the trash bags. Whoops. When we first moved into our quaint little house on Foster Street, we were pretty naive. We were excited about the prospect of being independent and paying bills, buying our own groceries, and hosting dinner parties.
But the reality was quite different from these fanciful imaginations. At this point in the semester, it is still exciting to head to the grocery store, and to receive a bill in the mail addressed to you. Even cleaning is sometimes still an exciting way to procrastinate from doing homework, while still feeling a sense of accomplishment. But the truth is that life gets busy, and a dirty floor is still dirty no matter how crazed your life is—those dishes will still pile up, even when you really need a fork and you don’t even have a minute to throw it in the dish washer. And maybe we haven’t had multiple fancy dinner parties, but we have had friends over for meals (even though we used
paper plates). Living off campus is a learning experience. It’s exhilarating and fun, and it’s also a reality check in communication skills and time management. Good communication between roommates is always vital, no matter where you live. But especially off campus, where no one is paid by BC to come clean your house, coordinating responsibilities is absolutely pertinent. I know that some people make chore schedules, but for us what seems to work is just being courteous. When the toilet paper runs out, change it. When you happen to be the one that puts the egg shell in the garbage when it can’t possibly fit anything more, you take the trash out. It
may not always be completely fair. All of us have had our fair share of unloading the dishwasher four days in a row. But in the end, it doesn’t matter. As long as everyone is willing to do the dirty work when it needs to be done, there is really no need to match apples to apples. Of course arguments will arise, but that is a part of living with anyone, really. And the benefits of living off campus far outweigh the negatives of a few passive-aggressive comments thrown at you when you just would rather sit on the couch than take out the smelly trash one more time. Some of my best memories from the year so far have been random days together in the house (as pathetic as
that sounds). One day we went to Home Goods and spent way too much money on ridiculous objects for our kitchen, such as a 6-foot-tall fake sunflower. One thing that has been great for us is planning to have at least one dinner a week together. As crazy as each of your schedules may be, it’s so important to spend quality time together. We have all come to the realization that we will never be very productive in the house. There are too many distractions off campus. For me, going home usually means I am ready to get chores done around the house, or to relax with my roommates. Living off campus may not be perfect, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything. n
oct. 17 2013
housing guide
THE HEIGHTS 3
ADVANTAGES DISADVANTAGES
The pros and cons of living off campus PROS Freedom
Let’s admit it, this is the most like a “real adult” one can feel in college up to this point. Making payments, going grocery shopping, keeping up with realtors and landlords, it’s all a taste of what life’s going to be like a few years down the road. While this freedom does come with responsibilities, one generally has more freedom of movement, entertainment, and living off campus.
Not being confined to university dorm policies
Do you ever feel that urge to pump up the music and dance around your room to Ke$ha at 2 a.m. on a Monday night? While it is important to be respectful of other housemates and neighbors, these occurrences are less likely to draw negative attention to yourself, as RAs can no longer bang on your door to remind you of quiet hours. In addition, think about all of the candles that you could have! Stock up on your extension cords and foam mattress pads as the rules that apply on campus are much more relaxed without the presence of Res Life staff.
Kitchens, living rooms, single bedrooms, oh my!
No matter how much you love your roommates, who would pass up the opportunity for a single within the context of a larger living space? Many off-campus houses and apartments have the space and resources for each tenant to have their own room, which is not something as readily available on campus. The space is crucial for relaxation, that coveted “me-time” that is absent when sharing a double. In addition, kitchens and living rooms can also enhance the quality of living. For those who enjoy cooking, having a kitchen allows for much more freedom and experimentation. Living rooms offer the same environment in a social context: more space equals more enjoyment!
Ability to host gatherings
Regardless of whether you’re the house party or small gathering type, the ability to have friends over a house or apartment as opposed to a cramped dorm room allows for community bonding in a new way. Bringing service trip groups together for a potluck, hosting classmates for a study group, or just entertaining friends visiting from home, all are new features of BC social life that do not exist in the same capacity in the dorms.
By Alex Gaynor | Heights Editor
CONS Accessibility
Living on streets near campus such as Gerald or Foster provide students with the option of either taking the 10-minute walk to class or taking the bus. While many streets where students live are convenient to campus, those living in Cleveland Circle would most likely beg to differ. What does this mean for students? Nap time during a tough day of class suddenly becomes less of a reality, waking up 20 minutes before class most likely won’t work out as smoothly as in the past, and for those without meal plans lunch and dinner become more problematic.
Cooking and cleaning may not be as glamorous during midterm season
While cooking regular meals and having an entire apartment or house for use, time seems to slip away during crazy weeks, midterms, and finals seasons. Making large meals to freeze for the week is ideal for dealing with this problem, but making time for activities that could normally be accomplished by running through Lower on the way to a nighttime meeting can become a burden.
Utilities and rent
While making payments may seem new and exciting, this enthusiasm soon wears off once you have to keep track of rent, utilities, and occasionally parking payments for many people. Whether students pay for their rent and utilities themselves or have to obtain the money through parents, the process has the potential to cause some stress.
Neighbors and community standards
RAs may be absent from off-campus life, but one could think of neighbors as an alternate type of RA. While they won’t take down your Christmas lights after Christmas season is over, community members that you live next to or below deserve the respect that you would show your hall mates if living on campus. This means that perhaps it’s not a wise idea to throw a crazy party on a Thursday night when you know you have neighbors with young children. While some may think that this hinders the ability to “have fun” it is good practice for the future.
Go ahead, try these tips and tricks at home By Adriana Mariella Heights Editor
Living off campus is a lesson in problem solving, among other things, like playing well with others and learning to appreciate how clean your mother kept your childhood home. It forces you to quickly tackle problems you’ve probably never encountered before, all the while cooking, studying, and leaving room for fun. The apartment or house that a Boston College student will rent during their time at BC will most likely be their first experience living in a “real” house without the comforting resources that a dorm or parent’s home affords. There are no work-orders off cam-
pus. If the smoke detector battery keeps beeping, you have to replace it, and if you don’t have batteries, you have to stop by CVS on the way home from class. If you lock yourself out of your room, you can’t call the RA to let you back in, and emergency 2 a.m. calls to the locksmith can get very expensive very quickly. There is no maintenance crew to take out your garbage, either. Know when garbage day is and the procedure for disposing of garbage or you could face a fine. If something breaks, especially something as necessary as your refrigerator, you’ll have to call your landlord or the maintenance company provided by your lease. Sometimes your landlord will fix the problem quickly, other times you’ll
have to call nine times in one day to remind them. Dealing with a landlord is sometimes a pleasant transaction (they do their part and you do yours), but sometimes it isn’t. Being that most students haven’t rented before, few are familiar with their rights as tenants (unless they happen to be up on tenancy laws in Massachusetts, which are all online), and landlords know this. They might be slow to fix something or not fix it at all. It’s up to you as the tenant to know what you’re entitled to and what you can do if you run into problems. The City of Boston website has a wealth of resources for tenants and includes tips for what to do in different situations.
Don’t be afraid to ask parents, upperclassmen, your house or apartment’s prior residents, or BC’s Office of Residential Life for help. When you move off campus, BC doesn’t abandon you. In fact, the ResLife website has a guide for new renters as well as a list of important phone numbers. Though Steve Montgomery is known more for his involvement with infractions involving parties and alcohol, he is a fantastic resource should you encounter a problem. If the police slap a noise citation on your door for a party but you didn’t have a party, to whom do you turn for help? If you’re having issues with your neighbors and need an unbiased party to mitigate the situation, who can you ask?
It is his job to deal with these kinds of problems and he has dealt with many in his tenure at BC. He is there to help you if you need him. Though problems will inevitably surface during your time off campus, the positives of the experience are bountiful. You will emerge a better chef, a more conscientious neighbor, and a far more independent person on the whole. You will have learned to make your own rules and determine how you’d like to live without the imposition of someone else’s rules. You will have lived an entire year without room checks or fire drills and with the glorious luxuries of extension cords, candles, and more-than-twinsized beds. n
Knowing rights as a renter makes for easy living By Andrew Millette Heights Editor So you’re a busy sophomore taking upper-level classes for the first time, searching for a summer internship, balancing a rigorous social calendar, and struggling to find your off-campus housing for junior year? Make sure you take the time to understand the rights you have as a renter in Boston—it could make a very big difference in your quality of life one year from now. A rising trend in the off-campus house and apartment search is the preference of landlords and real estate agents to only rent their properties to female students. This is illegal according to Massachusetts General Law Chapter 151B, which prohibits “discrimination in housing on the basis of race, religion, national origin, age, ancestry, military background or service, sex, sexual preference, marital status, blindness, deafness, or the need of a guide dog.” If a group of sophomore boys have toured a house and would like to put an offer down or would like to tour a property, and the landlord or representative of the real estate company refuses to let them do so based on their gender, legal action can rightfully be taken. Once a group of students is ready to put money down on a house or apartment, they must be vigilant of the charges that they incur. Always remember that though the students may legally be entitled to the return of any money they put down until the landlord officially accepts them as tenants, this money may be difficult to recover and involve a long timetable. Do not put money down on a house until your group is completely sure that it wants the location. Under Massachusetts laws, there is no minimum or maximum for a finder’s fee payment, but this fee must be disclosed to renters before the transaction. Students can also expect to pay the first and last month’s rent, and a security deposit equal to one month’s rent. Renters may also be asked to provide payment for the installation costs for a lock and key. It is illegal for a landlord to ask students to pay any other charges. Also note
that it is a legal requirement for the landlord to pay interest on the last month’s rent, and on the security deposit. An issue of particular interest to students living off campus is the security deposit. The landlord must present students with a Statement of Condition of their house or apartment. This document details any damages in the house that existed before the move-in date. Students should review this list and verify that it is correct. Any damages that are found in the house at the end of the renters’ lease will be paid for using the security deposit funds. Therefore it is very important to add any damages that existed prior to move-in to this list before returning it to the landlord. If the landlord believes damages beyond normal wear-and-tear exist in the property after the lease has expired, then the landlord is allowed to use the security deposit funds to pay for the costs involved in fixing these damages, and must provide the former tenants with a detailed list of the damages found and the costs to fix them within 30 days of the end of the lease. BC students living off campus will inevitably have to deal with their landlord coming into their apartment or house to show the property to prospective students for the next year. This is legal as long as the landlord gives the renters fair warning of the tour. The landlord is only allowed to enter the premises if he or she is showing the property, in order to make repairs, in order to inspect damages, or in accordance with a court order. The landlord can enter the premises for no other reason. A final point students will want to make sure they understand in order to avoid being taken advantage of is their right to the rental rate locked in by a lease. When a group of students signs a lease, the lease must include the monthly rental rate. This rate cannot be raised by the landlord during the remainder of the lease for any reason under Massachusetts State Law. Regardless of how busy life may get, make sure to know your rights as a renter so you can enjoy your off-campus experience. n
Quick facts
Quick Facts According to Massachusetts law, a landlord can’t decide to rent out a property to a group based solely on gender. Any initial charges other than first and last month’s rent, a security deposit, and a fee to change the locks on the house are illegal Renters are entitled to a list of the damages that the property had before they moved in—this means you won’t be liable for those when you move out. Your landlord is only allowed to enter your house or apartment if he or she gives you advanced notice. Make sure the lease you sign includes the monthly rental rate—it’s not legally allowed to be increased for the duration of your lease.
4 THE HEIGHTS oct. 17, 2013
housing guide
down on dream street common options for off-campus housing When I was a freshman, I envisioned “off campus” as a compilation of frat-like houses with 10 bedrooms, a basement with a speaker system, and a backyard to throw darties in—and this is probably because as a freshman, these were the only houses I could finagle my way into. Although there are certainly houses that can fit those criteria, off-campus actually provides a wide variety of housing situations beyond the “oh my gosh, people actually live in this?!” places. According to Boston College’s most recent student housing proposal to the city of Boston, 15 percent of students live off campus. With an undergrad population of about 9,000, that means around 1,300 kids live in off-campus housing each year. Some of those students are going to want a full house with a driveway fit for five cars, and some of those students want a quiet apartment off the beaten path. So, without further ado, here’s my very unofficial guide to the types of living situations you can find off campus.
by Elise Taylor | heights editor
The apartment off the beaten path:
The apartment still in the thick of things:
Junior year is about the time where the magic of the BC campus begins to … change. I don’t want to say fade, because obviously everyone is still in awe of Gasson on a beautiful day, but students begin to want to explore areas outside of school. Think of Ariel wanting to leave Sebastian and crew under the sea to check out the other world out there—“I wanna be where the (real, adult) people are.” For students looking to break out of the BC Bubble, there are plenty of affordable options down in the Brighton/Allston neighborhoods that have more of an independent feel than those on the BC bus route. Popular buildings I’ve heard for students in this mindset are in the 1700s and 1600s on Commonwealth Ave.—far enough away to feel like a Bostonian, but you can still take the T to class.
Want to be in the social heart of off campus (Gerald, Foster, Kirkwood, South St. area) but don’t want to be subject to throngs of underclassmen pounding at your door? There are plenty of apartments on and off Commonwealth Ave. that can sleep anywhere from two to four people. Many students opt for 2000 Commonwealth Ave., but 2000 can be a bit pricey. Check out some of the apartments on South St., Orkney, or even buildings such as 1999 Commonwealth Ave. for a cute apartment you can make your own.
The single family house that can sleep you and eight of your besties: These houses are certainly in the minority, and you often have to sign them within the first two weeks of your sophomore year, as they go fast. Trust me, I’ve seen way too many girl fights arise over “house stealing” (when you are looking at a house and then another group realizes that it wants that house too so signs for it immediately) in Lower than I ever want to see in my lifetime. Chances are, if you are reading this as a sophomore, these houses are already spoken for. Freshmen, start scouting out now. These houses can be found on Gerald (12, 17, 21, 11, and 28 all fit this profile), Foster (there are plenty, but the only one I can think of right now is the Banansion), Kirkwood, Lake St., South St., and even on streets near Cleveland Circle as far away as Braemore. Word of warning: these houses are going to be rather expensive per person—usually upward of $750 per month.
graham beck / heights ediotr
The split-level house: Many people don’t realize that some of the houses that may look like singlefamily homes are actually split levels—one group lives on the top floor and another group lives on the bottom. These houses are perfect for people who, once again, want to be in a social area, but don’t have the group to fill a single-family home. They usually sleep from four to six. These houses are great, but the only downside is that you have to share the basement and the driveway with another group. Oftentime people coordinate and have two groups of friends splitting the house, so it turns into a single-family house-like atmosphere. There is a fair amount on Gerald, Foster, and Radnor.
The place that’s actually in a pretty nice neighborhood:
graham beck / heights ediotr
The grimy basements of Gerald and Foster not for you? Check out the houses on streets like Algonquin, Undine, and Mayflower. These houses are usually very nice spots, but if you are looking to play music past midnight, you should probably look elsewhere.
Solving off-campus problems doesn’t have to be a headache By Brigid Wright For The Heights Living off campus is a great time to learn valuable life skills like money management, independence, and understanding your rights as a renter. However, the process of finding a living space can be, and is, made stressful by logistics. In my two years living off campus at Boston College, I’ve learned an aptitude for managing realtors, landlords, banks, and lease agreements. Some of the most common problems living off campus occur because of a general unawareness (to no one’s fault) of certain policies. Here are some words of wisdom from a seasoned veteran, in hopes of making your own process less aggravating. There is often a difference between your landlord and your property manager. Your landlord is the individual who owns the property you are renting. However, that does not mean you are going to 1. Interact with them, 2. Pay them directly for anything, or 3. Direct your questions to them. Your property manager is the person who is in charge of managing the space you are renting. They fix what is broken, they manage your payments (most of the time) and they work with the realty office you are using to solidify your lease. Be sure to clarify the difference while looking at apartments or houses, because this can be crucial when it comes to making down payments, inquiring about parking spaces, determining what your lease agreement covers in terms
of mold, utilities, and a number of other things. Most importantly, knowing the difference will help you figure out where and to whom your money is going. There is always the opportunity to make adjustments. Many people hurry to lock down an off-campus house or apartment in fear that all the “good ones” will be gone by the end of fall semester. No one is going to be able to undermine this generalization. To ease the confusion that can come second semester when you are no longer friends with the people you signed a lease with, when you get accepted to go abroad, or anything else that can and will change over the course of a year, it is important to know you can always back track. While your lease is set in stone after a down payment is made, the subletter agreement is a friend you should get to know. In the city of Boston, only four people are permitted to sign a lease. BC realtors and landlords tend to overlook the fact that there is a huge chance there will be more than four people living in a given space. That said, when you sign your lease, ensure that the four people who do so are four people who will most definitely be spending the entire period in the lease agreement (either 9 or 12 months) living there. The additional people you will be living with will sign a subletter agreement. These people still pay a portion of the down payment and are still equally responsible for the property. So, you don’t find out about whether or not you’re spending spring semester of junior
year abroad until April? You have four years of housing, and the rest of your friends do not? Get close with your subletter agreement. If you change your mind about living off campus, or cannot commit to a full lease for whatever reason, you can forego the agreement and your replacement simply fills out a new one. Financially, it is up to you and your replacement to transfer funds and equate the cost difference. But, you do have some options once the final paperwork is processed. There is a good chance you will struggle trying to find a parking spot. Start looking for one as soon as you know where you
is the cost of having a car at school. If you choose to rent a space, find out who you will be paying each month, exactly how much it is per month, and exactly where the spot is. This will prevent angry voicemails and tow trucks. If your property does not have parking, ask around. Post on your class’ Facebook group asking about parking, or talk to friends who might have a different landlord. Having a car means getting a little creative. This creativity will come in handy when you have to dig your car out of the snow or get blocked in by your neighbors when you are late for work as well. Out of options? You can register your car in the
“Some of the most common problems living off campus occur because of general unawareness (to no one’s fault) of policies.” are living. Parking on campus is incredibly expensive, and can actually be inconvenient depending on your location. Start by asking whoever helped you find your property if the space has parking included. It might, but it might not. Next, ask if the property has spots for rent, which is much more likely. If you ask early enough, you will be given priority because you signed a lease saying you are going to occupy the house or apartment. Keep in mind that the property manager or landlord will ask for a generous sum of money a month. This is normal, and
City of Brighton for less than $100 by showing your license, registration, and proof of residency at City Hall. There will always be problems with paying rent and utilities. These problems are only as difficult as you decide to make them. The solution I have found works the best? Make a joint checking account through a large-scale bank (for example, Bank of America). It is a simple process that takes about a half hour and saves what could be days of arguing with current or potential roommates. Your realtor can be flexible
about one or several checks, but your landlord will not be. For the first down payment (made when the lease is signed), most realtors will accept individual checks from the prospective occupants. The financial plan, however, which generally spans anywhere from three to six months after the lease is signed, might require you to make single payments thereafter. This is where the joint checking account comes in. There is no fee for transferring money between accounts of the same bank, and a small fee (around $30) is charged for transferring money between accounts of different banks. Make the joint account and share the account and routing numbers with your roommates. That way, when the 26th rolls around, you (or whoever is paying your rent) can deposit your portion into the account to ensure the money clears by the end of the month. This way, everyone has control over their money, and you and your roommates are capable of writing one check to the realty office or landlord. Writing one check can seem like a huge hassle, but it will actually help keep track of payments in case the property manager, realtor, or landlord loses a check (which does happen). Lastly, read your lease. Know the ins and outs of where you are living, what you can and cannot do, and why. Off-campus living is supposed to be fun. Do not waste your time in a realty office or over your checkbook when you do not have to. n