The Heights 09/19/2013

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Matt Humphrey takes his shot at the NBA after playing at three schools, A10

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The Independent Student Newspaper of Boston College

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Thursday, September 19, 2013

Vol. XCIV, No. 29

MORE DEMOLITION PLANNED

UGBC lowers Fall Concert ticket prices

BY DEVON SANFORD Assoc. News Editor

IMAGE COURTESY OF EINHORN YAFFEE PRESCOTT

Pictured above is an architectural rendering of the new building that the University plans to construct on the site where More Hall currently stands.

After standing vacant for more than a year, More Hall is slated to be torn down in the spring, pending approval from the City of Boston

BY ANDREW SKARAS Asst. News Editor Since the spring semester of 2012, when the University Advancement Office moved to the Cadigan Alumni Center on Brighton Campus, More Hall has remained empty. This month, Boston College expects to receive permits from the city of Boston to begin building the first new residence hall on campus since the completion of Stayer Hall in 2004.

Over the past few years, BC has worked with architects and designers to come up with a schematic design for the new building. According to Executive Vice President Pat Keating, BC is currently in the process of doing cost estimates.

The building will have four- and six-person apartments with kitchens. It will be five or six stories tall and house approximately 480 stu-

dent beds. In addition to dorm rooms, the new building will also house lounges, seminar rooms, music practice rooms, and an apartment for a faculty member or Resident Director. Additionally, the building will house University Health Services.

“We are going to move the health services to the south wing on the ground floor,” Keating said. “It will have examining rooms, overnight stay rooms, and all the facilities that support the health service. It will be a modest improvement in the size of their space and an improvement in the quality of the space. We think this is a particularly good location.”

Although the building has been in the Institutional Master Plan (IMP) since the plan’s approval in 2008, work on the University-neigh-

See More Hall, A3

QUICK FACTS LOCATION Site of More Hall NUMBER OF BEDS 480 TYPE OF APARTMENTS Four- and six-person OTHER FEATURES University Health Services Music practice rooms Study lounges Seminar rooms

Yesterday afternoon, UGBC announced via Facebook that Fall Concert tickets will be on sale for 25 dollars—5 dollars less than the original ticket price of 30 dollars.

Tickets for the concert, which will feature alternative rock band O.A.R., Boston-based indie hip hop artist Moe Pope, and student DJ Alex Perez, A&S ’14, will be sold at the discounted price for a “limited time only,” according to UGBC’s Facebook Page.

Matt Nacier, UGBC President and A&S ’14, declined to comment on the change to ticket prices or on current ticket sales when contacted by The Heights.

Tickets went on sale last Wednesday, Sept. 11 at 9 a.m. When asked about ticket sales at the UGBC Student Assembly meeting on Tuesday night, Nacier responded that sales were “pretty dismal.”

On Sept. 15, UGBC hosted a contest on Twitter for free tickets. The winners were announced last night. Michael Santisi, A&S ’17, Stephanie Ng, CSOM ’15, and Cassidy Gallegos, LSOE ’16, each won a free ticket to the concert.

The Fall Concert is this Friday, Sept. 20, at 7 p.m. in Conte Forum.

The concert will be preceded by a carnival sponsored by Nights on the Heights, featuring photo booths, minigolf, barbeque, customizable hats, and glitter paint. Doors for the concert will open at 6 p.m. and close at 8 p.m.

Tickets remain on sale online through Robsham Theater. 

Lynch School faculty awarded NSF grant for training local math teachers

BY NATHAN MCGUIRE For The Heights The National Science Foundation recently awarded faculty from the Lynch School of Education (LSOE) and the mathematics department a $1.6 million grant to fulfill a project that will train and support teachers in high-need schools in the Boston area.

The project, called “Exemplary Mathematics Education for High-Need Schools,” will be a collaborative effort between LSOE

associate professor Lillie Albert, associate professor of mathematics CK Cheung, and the James P. McIntyre Professor of Mathematics Solomon Friedberg.

While students in Massachusetts have recently scored competitively on international math exams, Friedberg points to a persistent socioeconomic achievement gap as concerning. “[We can] do more to give everyone the chance to succeed,” he said.

One of the main goals of the project will be to produce excellent teachers to serve high-need schools where achievement

gaps are most persistent. Two programs, the Teaching Fellowship and the Master Teaching Fellowship, will work together to achieve this goal.

The Teaching Fellowship program will allow eight aspiring teachers to earn their M.S. in teaching degree during an intensive one-year program that will enable them to develop a deep understanding of mathematics.

The project will work with the existing Donovan Scholars Program to recruit the candidates, according to Albert. Math for

OIP hosts annual study abroad fair

chose to require four to five years experience because that’s when we believe teachers make decisions to leave the field,” Albert said. She says she hopes the program will encourage these teachers to continue teaching.

The grant provides all 16 fellows with a $10,000 stipend for each year of the fellowship, providing they agree to serve in high-need schools for all five years.

The Teaching Fellows will teach in the

See NSF Grant, A3

UGBC renames boat cruise, aims to keep event’s integrity

BY DEVON SANFORD Assoc. News Editor

BY SARA DOYLE For The Heights Conte Forum took on an international character the e vening of Wednesday, Sept. 18, as students visited Conte Forum for the annual Study Abroad Fair. The session provided a chance for students to learn more about the opportunities for studying abroad available to them.

Representatives from the various academic programs, BC’s Office of International Programs (OIP), the Scholarship and Fellowships department, and programs for obtaining passports, were on hand to answer questions.

Justyna Jochym, a representative of Jagiellonian University in Poland, had been at the Study Abroad Fair last year as well as this year to discuss the programs available to students at the University. Jochym remarked that the student body at Boston College is generally very enthusiastic about

America Boston, a local nonprofit network of teachers and leaders, has partnered with Boston College to assist in the recruitment process as well.

The Teaching Fellows will be supported and mentored by eight experienced teachers in the Master Teaching Fellowship.

The goal of the mentorship will be for the experienced teachers to “bring [their] specialty and experience to the new teachers,” Cheung said.

The Master Fellows will have four to five years experience in teaching. “We

JENNIFER BISHOP / FOR THE HEIGHTS

Students gathered in Conte Forum on Wednesday evening for the annual study abroad fair. studying abroad.

“Since we’ve been coming here, we’ve been getting a lot of interest from Boston College students,” Jochym said.

“It’s quite the event.”

Jochym described the available pro g rams at Jag ielloni an University, mainly of interest for students interested in political science and the humanities. Next year, she said, there will be a program on the Holocaust and Totalitarian Systems. Jochym said that the fair is a good way to tell students about available programs.

“We have a lot of personal contact with students,” Jochym said. “It lets us close in on that distance that students experience looking on the web.”

Michelle Teague, A&S ’14, visited the University of Queensland in Bisbon, Australia for a semester in the International House.

“Definitely go to the University of Queensland,” Teague said. “That’s the best advice I’ve ever given.” As to the highlights of her trip, she cited the

See Study Abroad Fair, A3

Last year, UGBC voted to transform the AHANA Leadership Council (ALC) and the GLBTQ Leadership Council (GLC) from independent bodies within UGBC into representative boards under Diversity and Inclusion. As a result of these structural changes, the staple events of ALC and GLC—including the formerly-named ALC Boat Cruise, ALC Ball, GLC Gala, and ALC Showdown—are now combined in the Heritage Programming department, and the “ALC” and “GLC” titles have been changed to “Annual.”

Alisha Wright, manager of Heritage Programming for UGBC and A&S ’15, said that the title changes are intended to present Heritage Programming as a unified division.

“We wanted to change the names to reflect the unity of our new group,” Wright said. “With a lot of the structural changes we made, especially within programming, we wanted to work more as a team and we wanted the names of the event to reflect that.”

Vice President of Programming Denise

Pyfrom said the events will continue to celebrate the diverse AHANA and GLBTQ communities.

“We really want to stress the fact that the integrity of our events is still there,” Pyfrom said. “We are working with the counsels directly to make sure that they feel represented in our events. We want to make sure that the groups who originally created the events know that we have their best interests at heart.”

Heritage programmers will continue to work closely with their respective counsels, despite the change in UGBC structure.

“We put these four large-scale events under one division because they garner the most student population out of any events in GLC and ALC history,” Wright said. “In the past we have had trouble with attendance at these events so we wanted to put them in a division where we could solely focus on them and figure out how we could better market [them] to the student body.

These decisions were made to show that the events are for all students to celebrate the AHANA and GLBTQ communities.”

Members of the student body and BC

See Boat Cruise, A3

TopTHREE

THE HEIGHTS

A2

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Thursday, September 19, 2013

things to do on campus this week

1 2 3 Plaza del Mayo

Career Fair

Today Time: 7 p.m.

Location: Devlin 008

The Center for Human Rights and International Justice are hosting a panel of two members from the human rights group formed in Argentina in the 1970s, Grandmothers of the Plaza del Mayo. They formed to respond to governmental repression.

Annual Boat Cruise

Today Time: 3 p.m.

Location: Conte Forum

From 3 to 6 p.m., the fall career fair will take place in Conte Forum. Representatives from over 100 employers will have tables to advertise positions available to BC students. In addition, representatives from BC grad schools will also be present.

Saturday Time: 9:45 p.m.

Location: Boston Harbor

Buses will leave from Eagle’s Nest on Saturday at 9:45 p.m. As a part of a Spirit Boat Cruise, students will have the opportunity to see Boston from the perspective of the harbor. As a part of the program for the evening, there will be ALC events.

FEATURED EVENT

Jurists debate legitimacy of ammendments

BY REBECCA MORETTI For The Heights In an era when American voters have sought to address controversial issues such as same-sex marriage and mandatory balanced budgets through constitutional amendments, an Israeli and Polish jurist speaking at the law school on Tuesday discussed the validity of such amendments. The two agreed on the importance of constitutional amendments to the survival of a constitutional democracy, but their opinions differed on how to determine amendments’ legitimacy.

During a panel discussion titled “Unconstitutional Constitutional Amendments” at the Barat House on Newton Campus, Aharon Barak, former president of the Supreme Court of Israel, and Lech Garlicki, a Polish judge on the European Court of Human Rights, examined the validity of such amendments and of the amendment process itself. Barak addressed the phenomenon of amendments in the U.S. The constitutionality of amendments, however, “isn’t that often discussed in the United States,” where the constitution is difficult to amend, said Vicki Jackson, a professor at Harvard Law School and the discussion’s moderator.

In contrast, Garlicki addressed the issue as it is experienced in Europe. “If there is a problem with constitutional amendments, this causes great controversy,” he said. European courts are

NICK BARTER / FOR THE HEIGHTS

An Israeli jurist and a Polish jurist examined the constitutional ammendment process. generally reluctant to involve themselves in such controversy, especially in nations where the courts are weak relative to the government’s legislative branch.

In the U.S., the Supreme Court has not yet held an amendment unconstitutional, although it has reviewed the amendment process. “If an amendment is not adopted under correct procedure, it is not an expression of the will of the people,” Garlicki said. Thus the procedure used to amend the constitution is as important as the amendment itself, he said.

Barak and Garlicki also addressed the tension between generations of citizens,

as when an earlier generation tries to bind subsequent generations to a particular strict interpretation of the constitution through an eternity clause. “The United States has a constitution with no express eternity clause,” Barak said.

This is in contrast to several European countries such as France and Germany, which can prevent basic law from being changed by subsequent amendment.

“Constitutions usually codif y a nation’s basic laws intentions of the originators of the constitution and the fundamental values of a nation throughout its history,” Barak said. “Although history is important, we must ask our-

POLICE BLOTTER

selves, ‘What is fundamental to this country?’

“An amendment is unconstitutional only in those rare cases when you can classify it as changing the basic structure of the constitution,” Barak said, citing as an example a law that would nullify the Bill of Rights.

If an amendment were to alter a country’s fundamental structure, he said, it’s tantamount to creating a new constitution.

“The concept of basic structure is a dangerous one,” Garlicki said. Disagreement about it abounds. Moreover, “every country has a different basic structure,” Barak said.

“I think a judge should be very careful in dealing with unconstitutional constitutional amendments,” Barak said. Once an amendment “is declared unconstitutional,” Barak said, “it is dead.” Garlicki agreed on this point stating that if it is declared unconstitutional “an amendment does not exist any longer” and it is not a judge’s place to attempt to save it.

“Issues of unconstitutional amendments raise problems about law and about democracy,” Jackson said at the conclusion of the discussion.

Jurists have an obligation to protect both law and democrac y, which sometime seem to contradict each other. Especially in the U.S., “where amendment is very difficult,” Jackson said. “Constitutional courts have a greater obligation to reconsider their own decisions.” 

9/13/13-9/17/13

Friday, September 13

to a medical facility from Vanderslice Hall.

Devlin Hall.

10:30 p.m. - A report was filed regarding an underage intoxicated BC student in Walsh Hall.

Sunday, September 15

5:04 p.m. - A report was filed regarding medical assistance provided to a BC student who was transported to a medical facility from off campus.

11:39 p.m. - A report was filed regarding vandalism in Voute Hall.

12:45 a.m. - A report was filed regarding an underage intoxicated BC student in Corcoran Commons.

1:50 a.m. - A report was filed regarding an underage intoxicated BC student in Keyes North.

8:04 p.m. - A report was filed regarding medical assistance provided to a BC student who was transported to a medical facility by cruiser from Shea Field.

Saturday, September 14

1:01 p.m. - A report was filed regarding vandalism at the Main Gate.

10:21 p.m. - A report was filed regarding found property off campus.

12:55 a.m. - A report was filed regarding an underage intoxicated BC student in Kostka Hall.

3:19 p.m. - A report was filed regarding a larceny from Corcoran Commons.

Tuesday, September 17

4:40 a.m. - A report was filed regarding medical assistance provided to a BC student who was transported to a medical facility from the Walsh Hall lots.

11:58 p.m. - A report was filed regarding an underage intoxicated BC student in Claver Hall.

11:58 p.m. - A report was filed regarding a suspicious circumstance in the Lower Lots.

2:16 p.m. - A report was filed regarding medical assistance provided to a BC student who was transported

Monday, September 16 1:00 p.m. - A report was filed regarding larceny from

College Corner NEWS FROM UNIVERSITIES ACROSS THE COUNTRY

BY ANDREW SKARAS Asst. News Editor Across the country, universities have nondiscrimination policies in place that prohibit discrimination in hiring practices based on a myriad of factors. These include factors such as sex, race, age, religion, and sexual orientation, among others. Not typically included in the list is political affiliation. At the University of Colorado, the Board of Regents is considering adding political affiliation and political philosophy to the university’s nondiscrimination policy.

According to The Chronicle for Higher Education, this has come at the behest of conservative faculty members who feel like their beliefs have been suppressed. Sue Sharkey and James E. Geddes, both regents and Republicans, have pushed for this addition to the school’s nondiscrimination policy.

There is some concern that the addition of this policy will not have much effect on the campus culture.

Mark Bauerlein, who taught English on the Boulder campus for a year and blogs for The Chronicle, said that not much would change with the additional policy. He recommended that each department go through a curricular review looking for balanced and unbalanced syllabi.

Another faculty member at the Boulder campus, Robert Nagel, who taught law, said that some people deny that there is a problem. He suggested that environment was one that reinforced one set of ideas.

This comes at a time when the university is already in the midst of plans to assess diversity on campus. In June, a survey was approved to assess how respectful the school is of diversity.

Included in this assessment is political diversity. Another step towards an increased public presence of different ideologies recently undertaken was the hiring of Stephen Hayward as the first “Visiting Scholar in Conservative Thought and Policy.” This position was funded by private donations. 

1:37 a.m. - A report was filed regarding a fire alarm activation in Stayer Hall.

—Source: The Boston College Police Department

A Guide to Your Newspaper The Heights Boston College – McElroy 113 140 Commonwealth Ave. Chestnut Hill, Mass. 02467 Editor-in-Chief (617) 552-2223 Editorial General (617) 552-2221 Managing Editor (617) 552-4286 News Desk (617) 552-0172 Sports Desk (617) 552-0189 Metro Desk (617) 552-3548 Features Desk (617) 552-3548 Arts Desk (617) 552-0515 Photo (617) 552-1022 Fax (617) 552-4823 Business and Operations General Manager (617) 552-0169 Advertising (617) 552-2220 Business and Circulation (617) 552-0547 Classifieds and Collections (617) 552-0364 Fax (617) 552-1753 EDITORIAL RESOURCES 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 Sept. 16, 2013, Vol. XCIV, No. 28.

The article titled “BC diversity scrutinized by OASP study” incorrectly stated that the study was conducted by the Office of AHANA Student Programs.

It was actually conducted by a Working Group under the auspices of the Office of the Vice President of Student Affairs.

VOICES FROM THE DUSTBOWL “What is the best piece of advice you’ve received at BC?”

“Go visit the Women’s Resource Center. ” —Shannon Specht, A&S ’16

“Stop cleaning up after my roommates.”

—Victor Castaneda, A&S ’16

“Pick classes you’re interested in.”

—Maura O’Neill, A&S ’17

“Hillside has the best sandwiches.”

—James Lucey, A&S ’17

The Heights

Thursday, September 19, 2013

A3

Undergraduates gather in Conte to learn about BC’s study abroad opportunities Study Abroad Fair, from A1 people she met. “Being in the International House, we made so many friends both from Australia and all over the world.”

According to Teag ue, study ing abroad was possible for her even as a biology major.

“It’s totally feasible,” Teague said. “I didn’t even have to take summer classes.

All you have to do is plan ahead.”

As a student visiting the fair for information, Eric Coen, A&S ’16, already had some ideas in mind about where he might want to travel. He visited the tables for programs abroad in France and Ireland, countries he said he is deciding about visiting. For Coen, the Study Abroad Fair was a good way for

him to get more information quickly.

“I’m just grabbing my preferences, seeing what programs they have,” Coen said. “It makes it so much easier, instead of going to the office. You can just see everything all laid out.”

JoAnn Lopez, a Graduate Assistant for Scholarships and Fellowships at OIP and liason to the Montserrat Coalition, was available to discuss some of the options for financial assistance that students can apply for in order to help studying abroad. According to Lopez, students can visit the OIP in Hovey House and meet with staff for more information about available scholarships.

“Study abroad is definitely affordable,” Lopez said. “We try to work with students as best as we can to make sure

they can finance their trip abroad. We really try to make sure students have access to study abroad and expand their horizons.” Lopez also suggested that students visit the OIP web page for more information about the opportunities for financial assistance.

The OIP reports that almost half of BC students study abroad before graduating, and over 1,000 students go abroad every academic year. More that 30 countries are available for study, with both BC and external programs offered to students. More information about BC semester and academic year programs abroad, external programs, summer programs, and international exchange programs is available in the Hovey House or at the OIP website. Students can also email the OIP at oip@bc.edu. n

jennifer bishop / for the heights

Students visited the tables of various programs at Wednesday’s Study Abroad Fair.

Cruise organizers hope to draw wider crowd Boat Cruise, from A1 alumni have expressed worry that the name changes will tarnish the integrity and purpose of the events. Pyfrom said that while these concerns are legitimate, members of the BC community can expect a continued—even heightened— celebration of the AHANA and GLBTQ communities at the events.

“Alumni’s concerns are completely understandable because the alumni were founders of these organizations, and they have a very deep, emotional connection to these organizations,” Pyfrom said. “We are trying to be progres-

sive and integrative, and we are trying to show them that changing the name isn’t changing the event and the spirit of the event.”

When asked what changes will be made to maintain the events’ integrity, Pyfrom said students can expect to see an increased element of cultural celebration. The Boat Cruise will act as a welcoming event, where students will have the opportunity to interact with ALC leaders, while the ball, Showdown, and Gala, will celebrate the history of the events and the culture of the AHANA and GLBTQ communities.

Tickets for this Saturday’s Annual

Boat Cruise are still on sale for $25.

Students can purchase the tickets via Robsham Theater’s website until Friday at 5 p.m.

The event will feature two DJs—one on the bottom floor provided by Spirit Boat Cruises, and another, DJ IDES— BC student Alexandre Bou-Rhodes, A&S ’15—on the top floor. A light dinner, desserts, and non-alcoholic drinks will be served on the cruise.

“We’re inviting students to come to the Boston Harbor with us, get away from school before classes start to get really intense, and think a little bit about diversity on campus,” Pyfrom said. n

BC plans to knock down More Hall in spring More Hall, from A1

cara annunziata / for the heights

Stefano Tani spoke on Wednesday about different tropes as methods of self-reflection.

Italian professor analyzes tech, disease, and zombies

By Michelle Tomassi Heights Editor Technology, Alzheimer’s, and zombies—three subjects that seem to have no correlation at first glance. A closer analysis reveals that each can actually serve as a metaphor for the self, as explained by Stefano Tani, a professor of comparative literature at the University of Verona, Italy, in a lecture on Wednesday evening in McGuinn.

The lecture, titled, “On the Metaphors of the 21st Century: Screens, Alzheimer’s, Zombies,” was a condensed version of Tani’s own studies on the subject of metaphors used throughout the 21st century to describe the ever-changing self. Tani, a native of Florence, received his Italian degree from the University of Florence, and then obtained his doctorate at the State University of New York at Binghamton.

He has published two books, The Doomed Detective and Il Romanzo di Ritorno, and also edited the works of Raymond Chandler, an American detective novelist and screenwriter. He also shares a connection with Boston College professor Franco Mormando, who had Tani as a professor during his time abroad as an undergraduate student.

After Mormando’s introduction, Tani launched into the first segment of his lecture—a discussion of screens and their effects on self-perception. Tani explained that men and women often have a narcissistic self-image, which is heightened by the presence of screens that constantly surround our existence. He listed several types of “selves” that arise from these screens: the mirror that generates the reflected self, the photographed self, the self at the movies, and the self reflected through the Internet.

From the screened self, Tani transitioned to the emptying of the self, reflected through the metaphor of illness.

He referenced the work of Susan Sontag, an American writer and filmmaker, and her novel, Illness as Metaphor. Specifically, Tani explained the progression of certain disease throughout history and their social implications—tuberculosis, cancer, and Alzheimer’s.

“If tuberculosis was the beautiful illness of romanticists, cancer was the ugly sickness of advanced capitalists,” Tani said.

Tuberculosis often left its victims thin and pale, and was regarded as a refinement of the body, while cancer was viewed as the illness of someone who was repressed and lived an unhappy life. Alzheimer’s, Tani explained, was regarded as a metaphor

for the post-modern age: a departure of the self from the body.

“The Alzheimer patient is like a computer who has lost its memory,” Tani said, drawing back to the concept of screens as a reflection of the self. “Alzheimer’s is the metaphor of the post-modern age—no longer a matter of refinement [Tuberculosis] or invasion [cancer], but rather an evasion and evacuation of the self from a body battered by quantities of information and requests extraordinary in intensity, when compared with those of previous generations.”

Tani’s metaphor of the Alzheimer patient served to represent a degradation of the self, enduring what he calls the “worst of betrayals”—the betrayal of the mind.

“The Alzheimer patient is like a computer memory that empties while looking at the film of his life,” Tani said, once again uniting the image of the computer screen to self-perception.

After his discussion of disease, Tani turned to his final subject, zombies as a metaphor for transformation. He began with the story of Lazarus from the Bible, who does not experience a traditional, joyous resurrection.

“There is something reluctant, something passive, in this man who has not said a word,” Tani said, reflecting on Lazarus’ silence after rising from the dead. “In Lazarus’ resurrection there is really nothing joyous. Maybe Lazarus is no longer a man—someone who is alive—but rather, a non-dead. A zombie.” Tani proposed that Lazarus serves as the model for the first zombie, someone who moves from a state of death to one of life, and then finally remains in an intermediary period of nothingness. Tani noted that Lazarus is seen as a problematic character in 20thcentury literature, and how the myth was developed in films such as Dawn of the Dead and Night of the Living Dead.

Tani ended his presentation by returning to the metaphor of the screen, and how it has transformed our way of thinking. Specifically, Tani referenced the rising popularity of e-books, and how this newest “screen” has become a reflection of modernization.

“If we think about it, before the advent of screens, virtual reality as an identification with someone else, as a confrontation with an intangible experience, was offered by the novel,” Tani said. “Now, screens can contain anything, even literature. However, literature will not die—it is merely changing. Literature is always susceptible to resurrection—not like a zombie, but as an inalienable necessity.” n

borhood relations for the project has not wrapped up until recently.

“Over this past four or five months, we have had all the community meetings required with the Allston-Brighton task force,” Keating said. “We have had three or four neighborhood meetings, where we presented the design to the neighbors. All those have gone quite well, very positive.

There has been lots of back and forth.

There has been significant support for this project. The next step is formal approval by the Boston Redevelopment Authority.

We are expecting they will approve it.”

Should they receive the expected approval, the next steps will be to finish getting cost estimates and go to contractors for a bid. According to Keating, the plan is for More Hall to be torn down in April or May so that construction on the new building can begin in June.

“Part of the reason is that it has a boiler in it that supports Walsh Hall,” Keating said. “We have to make some accommodations for a temporary boiler for Walsh Hall during the construction.

We didn’t want to tear down More Hall today and have to have a temporary boiler around for a year. We are using the boiler in More Hall today to support Walsh Hall. When the construction begins, we will put in a temporary boiler. The new building will have the infrastructure for both [buildings].”

Both Keating and Director of Residential Life George Arey mentioned a desk that was in the plans for the new building’s first floor. Arey has said, however, that at the current time they are not sure whether or not it will be used as a checkin desk like the one in Walsh Hall.

“Originally when the designs were put together, a desk was included,” Arey said.

“Right now we are not 100 percent sure

that will be the case. It may have a desk there. The desk could possibly serve as a security desk. The desk could also serve as a community outreach program with the RAs.” One aspect of the planned dormitory on which Arey focused was the idea of fostering community and how the layout of the building contributed to that.

“The new building at 2150 [Commonwealth Ave] is going to have an opportunity through its design to have clusters of 35 to 40 students clustered within the building on every floor, so we’re going to be able to design natural communities, smaller communities on every floor, and then that will play a role in the larger context of community development,” Arey said. “We also will probably look to add some special interest housing into the building, so we are not sure what that will look like yet. That could help foster even more community in the building.” n

tatiana petrovick / for the heights

More Hall, located across the street from St. Ignatius Church, was constructed in 1954 and has been vacant since the spring of 2012.

LSOE to train math teachers with NSF grant NSF Grant, from A1 classroom for four years following the completion of the masters program. During this period, the Master Fellows will continue to support and guide them.

The Mathematics Department will work to help the fellows develop a deep understanding of the content. “To teach something well, you have to understand the subject well,” Friedberg said.

In order to fully develop a command of mathematics, fellows will also take the department’s upper level math courses.

While all three investigators agreed that understanding the content is important, they also stressed the need to train the teachers in pedagogical skills.

LSOE will provide the fellows with the instructional support and classroom implementation skills they will need to be effective classroom teachers.

“We want to build a community that strongly trains our teachers and pushes our math education standards,” Cheung said. Thus, in addition to providing instructional support and professional development, the project will also forge a partnership between BC, Math for America Boston, the Education Development Center, and Boston University.

Cheung hopes this will allow the fellows to engage in a supportive relationship with others in their field.

Looking toward the future, Albert,

Cheung, and Friedberg hope the project will illustrate BC’s commitment to math education and attract national attention. “I hope this will raise visibility of math education at BC in the future and attract more strong applicants,” Friedberg said.

More visibility and attention would hopefully increase donations in the future to support math projects at the University, Cheung said.

For now, though, these math educators are focused on successfully training and supporting eight new teachers and making leaders out of eight more.

“We want to make a difference in the lives of kids by helping teachers reach their full potential,” Friedberg said. n

The Heights

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Thursday, September 19, 2013

Year-long China seminar series commenced yesterday

Defining global stances

B y A riana I gneri Heights Editor

Daniel Lee Last Sunday, Germany’s conservative CSU party had a great victory in its home state of Bavaria, forecasting another most-likely victory of its sister party, CDU—Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party—for the German federal election next Sunday. Except for the expected changes in the formation of the parliamentary federal government— most likely by the grand coalition with her rival center-left SPD—Merkel’s victory has been expected and has not been newsworthy outside of Germany.

The interesting, expected policy result is the continuous German reluctance to be the ostensible hegemon within and beyond the EU premises.

Idealistically, Germans want to preserve the EU and the euro. Realistically, Germans support only minimal financial participation in the euro-crisis just to make sure Germany won’t sink altogether, despite the responsibility of the largest economy in Europe. This explains the rise of the new anti-euro party, AfD. Merkel has been the master of dancing on the political fences, and her voters have liked her dancing.

Her political strategy fits in the German political culture, as Germans are more interested in the discussion of the political logistics of issues within Germany than being the frontier actor outside Germany. Germans can talk about an issue for weeks until a majority is convinced by an argument. For instance, the discussion about whether to introduce the use of armed drones for the German military has gone on for weeks, while the American use of drones hadn’t bothered the Germans.

Nonetheless, Germans aren’t convinced enough to support the American military intervention in Syria.

Now, what I really want to talk about is the different stances of Germans and Americans on intervention and sovereignty. Since the Gulf War, Americans have enjoyed absolute global leadership by almost-unilateral military actions against political injustice—but now the American public is distinctly divided into half for further American military interventions abroad. The way I see it is that the U.S. can no longer afford such international tasks to maintain American credibility abroad, not just financially but also socially. Americans are worn out to see another drop of American blood spilled on foreign soil, but when they admit their exhaustion, the de facto American power in international politics declines.

Some might say Americans should’ve listened to what Washington and Monroe said about foreign intervention, but those words were said when the country wasn’t the unipolar superpower. Back to Germany—it’s unusual for the country with the status of the fourth largest world economy to refuse the position of hegemon, especially when the economy has been relatively wealthier than its neighboring states’. The German taboo around political and military dominance comes from the inhumanity of the Nazis and dates back to the 1949 German Constitution, which emphasizes human rights before the national structure.

Perhaps, Germany is lucky to pass the Syrian “buck” (responsibility) to other states due to its history and constitution, as the U.S. would want to pass the Israeli buck to others, if there were others to take it. America’s best interest in the Middle East is to withdraw its absolute support for Israel—boldly speaking, if there were no AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) lobbyists, the U.S. would withdraw that support, because there is more to gain from multilateral peaceful relationships with the Muslim states. Similarly, although Germany seems exempt from the discussion of military intervention in Syria and have more or less put the matter under the carpet, other countries still view German responsibility in the euro-crisis as inevitable.

The American intervention in Syria seems a little late to preserve either American credibility or the international humanitarian norm. In my opinion, Americans should either accept America’s declined international status or take effective actions—regardless of use of soft or hard power—for political, humanitarian justice very soon.

Daniel Lee is a senior staff columnist for The Heights. He can be reached at news@ bcheights.com.

andrew skaras / Heights editor

Mary McAleese, former President of Ireland, spoke on the conflicts in Northern Ireland.

McAleese urges for peace

By Daniel Perea-Kane For The Heights Mary McAleese, former President of Ireland from 1997 to 2011, is this year’s visiting Burns Scholar of Irish Studies. This past Monday, McAleese gave a lecture on The Troubles of Northern Ireland in Gasson Hall entitled “Peace Comes Dropping Slow” to an audience from the University and the surrounding community.

Thomas Hachey, Executive Director of the Center for Irish Programs introduced McAleese to the audience. She is the first of nine children from a family that the sectarian Northern Irish government forced to leave the Ardoyne district of Belfast due to The Troubles.

After the introduction, McAleese thanked the audience for their welcome of a standing ovation. She opened by discussing Boston College’s modest beginnings and its central charter to educating the poor Irish so that their intelligence would not go to waste.

“There is an Irish thread that runs through here,” she said. “Care for Ireland is very present here and there is very probative research happening here. The range of resources is wonderful. I am privileged to work, study, and live here.”

The title of McAleese’s lecture comes from Irish poet W.B. Yeats’ poem “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” and McAleese also made reference to another Irish poet, the recently deceased Seamus Heaney. She emphasized that the title of her lecture is indicative of not only the need for peace, but how achieving that peace takes time.

“I think that desire for peace exists in every generation and is central to the questions facing Ireland,” she said. “That deep yearning exists in most people. We want something that is about the business of raising human dignity.”

The Good Friday Agreement, enacted in 1999 by McAleese’s government and those of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, was one of the milestones of her time in office. The Agreement maintains that Northern Ireland is a part of the UK, but that this can change with a referendum.

“We have to be sure to neutralize the sources of sectarianism,” she said. “The possibility of a united Ireland must take place within a constitutional framework.

These are our neighbors so we must be good neighbors.”

According to McAleese, the peace process was going well until dissidents from the Irish Republican Army killed two British soldiers.

McAleese’s husband Martin spent the next 24 hours after the shootings on the phone with Loyalists trying to convince them not to retaliate.

“We were afraid of retaliation because that is what had happened in the past,” she said. “We had to do something to prevent Loyalists from retaliating.”

McAleese also discussed the roots of the hatred that leads to the political violence in Ireland. She explored the role of the home and the street in shaping hatred by one group for other groups. McAleese offered integration of Catholic and Protestant housing and

schools as a possible remedy. To be sure, she also described the difficulty of integration given current home ownership patterns and abiding political tension.

McAleese believes the situation to be better today given the Irish people’s tools of law and checks and balances to ensure dignity of citizens. The Belfast City Council’s vote to no longer fly the UK’s flag in the Belfast City Hall led to heightened tension in Northern Ireland. The City Hall had previously flown the flag 365 days a year instead of the typical 17, a flying which McAleese perceived as rubbing area- Catholics’ nose in their situation.

“Belfast City Council did not ensure [dignity] in their rhetoric over the flags, but we have learned to be considerably more sensitive now,” she said. “One of Heaney’s last comments was why not just fly it the typical 17 days a year? The Alliance Party brokered this deal.”

During questions from the audience, one woman praised McAleese’s speech. “[It was] an absolutely terrific summary of the process of unification,” she said. She then posed the question of how important Bill Clinton’s visits to Northern Ireland in 1995 and 1998 were to improving the peace process.

“The interest and practical application of these visits was great,” McAleese said.

“Sometimes the last people who can help family members are other members of their family. Sometimes you have to look for help elsewhere. We got really good, sensible help.”

A female undergraduate also offered praise to McAleese.

“I really appreciate what you said. I think personalization of politics is a great asset,” she said, before asking what an American can do to help in Northern Ireland.

McAleese offered the suggestion of open dialogue.

“What we need to do is probe the mind of the other through conversation,” McAleese said. “To Protestants, words have set meanings. They want X and mean X, but Catholics worry that could mean Y. So they offer A, or if not B, or maybe C.” Irish folksinger Tommy Sans, former neighbor of McAleese, gave a surprise performance of “Down by the Lagan Side” after the lecture. The song is about walking together with others down by the Lagan River which runs through Belfast. “And do you not remember? / We once walked side by side,” Sans sang. “The past it has been taken / But the future’s yours and mine.”

In her work as a visiting scholar, McAleese will address undergraduates in classes and perform lectures for the wider community. She will also continue her work on a doctorate in canon law from the Gregorian University in Rome, the world’s oldest Jesuit University.

At the event, Hachey also honored Robert O’Neill, the head of the Burns Library, who will retire at the end of the fall semester after 28 years overseeing the library, which has become an important center for Irish Studies research during his tenure. Hachey also presented a gift to O’Neill.

“No gift could adequately express his contribution to this University,” he said. n

Debuting with its first installment yesterday, the yearlong, interdisciplinary “China Watching Series”—organized by the history department’s assistant professor Rev. Jeremy Clarke, S.J.—will study the complex relationship between the East Asian country and the rest of the world.

“The seminar series, commemorating over 40 years of ongoing relationships between the U.S. and the People’s Republic of China, will both explore the manner in which people have observed China over time—foreigners and Chinese alike—as well as the manner in which the Chinese critically observe their own world,” Clarke said in an email.

Through a number of cross-disciplinary lectures and events, the series’ purpose is to “confuse students’ categories about China, such that they can then actually begin learning about China,” Clarke said.

“It consists of a number of crossdisciplinary activities ranging from lectures given by Chinese studies experts on topics like Chinese art and Chinese law to a documentary dramatic performance based on oral histories collected and written by students,” he said.

Speakers for these activities have all been contacted, and some of them have already been booked to speak on specific dates. “In many cases,” Clarke said, concerning the scheduling and selection of the speakers, “the guests are not only professionals involved in this important and fascinating field, but are also friends, as well as friends of friends.”

In the spring semester, Sue Trevaskes, an associate professor at Griffith University, will lecture on the role of law and the death penalty in contemporary China, and Lois O’Connor, an acclaimed photographer, will present on modern Chinese photography.

The series also intends to feature an ongoing Chinese language corner, focusing on Mandarin acquisition skills, as well as a student gallery at ArtsFest, “displaying the east-west cultural exchange in the modern period.”

Future events for the fall semester include a lunchtime special seminar and an evening lecture by former ambassador Nicholas Platt—he will speak about life in Beijing from 1972 to 1973, covering the immediate aftermath of Nixon’s visit with Mao Zedong.

The first e vent of the series , a lecture by Nancy Berliner, Wu Tang Curator of Chinese Art at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, took place on Wednesday at noon in Robsham Theater. Berliner discussed how China interacted with the rest of the world, detailing “the global influences it made through art.”

Using art as a starting point to understanding the extensive, worldwide impact of Chinese culture, Berliner encouraged students to look at “the objects in the MFA’s Asian collection very carefully, analyzing their general shapes, but also their specific details— their texture, their color—and thinking about where those things might have come from.”

In order to actualize this event, as well as the others, Clarke reached out to various departments across campus, such as the Fine Arts Department, the Theatre Department, and the History Department. The Institute for Liberal Arts awarded a grant to fund the program, and he planned the “China Watching Series” by working with a range of BC experts, including professors Sheila Gallagher, Patricia Riggin, Mary Crane, and Robin Fleming.

Clarke said that the content of the series was something that had always been of interest to him. “This series has come about through the fact that I have been studying Chinese culture, history, and language since I was a high-school student in Australia ,” he said.

Emphasizing the universal importance and relevance of the series’ subject matter, Clarke said, “China—its history, politics, and economy—continue to loom ever larger on both the world and the domestic stage … This is one of the U.S.’s most important relationships, and thus, anything that can better inform BC students and the broader public about China can only be a good thing.” n

Kylie gopoel / for the heights

Nancy Berliner, Wu Tang Curator of Chinese Art at the MFA, discussed China’s global relations.

Student named No. 1 cadet at Leadership Training camp

By Allie Olivieri For The Heights While Boston College may not have a highly-ranked football team, the community does have a No. 1 ranking to cherish. This summer, James Park, A&S ’14, was ranked the No. 1 cadet at a summer camp Leader Development and Assessment Training at Joint Base Lewis-McCord in Washington.

When he first came to BC, Park never imagined a military future. Fatherly advice and a freshman friend led him down this path.

“My father told me to go outside my comfort zone,” Park said. “He told me to try new things.”

When Park arrived freshman year, he made many friends in his dorm, including John Sullivan, A&S ’14. Sullivan told him about Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC), and how Park could get involved. Heeding his father’s guidance, Park joined the program shortly afterward. His dad’s words of wisdom inspired him to take a leap of faith, and Park has never looked back.

ROTC is a unique military training program that BC has offered since 1918. According to the BC ROTC website, ROTC students attend college full-time and participate in ROTC activities part-time, with the goal of being commissioned as Second Lieutenants in the U.S. Army, Reserve, or National Guard.

ROTC is time consuming and challenging, but according to Park, “the work you put in will be paid off eventually in the future in some way, shape, or form.”

The students involved in the program attend physical training sessions three times a week, go to a leadership lab on Wednesday afternoons, and partake in field training exercises at least once a semester.

“We train monthly with the Army National Guard,” Park said.

He meets with an actual army unit one weekend per month to learn military techniques.

“ROTC students certainly lead a busy life, but it’s rewarding, and it’s a valuable learning experience,” Park said.

Park enjoys balancing his military de-

mands with a student lifestyle—he benefits from a structured schedule while doing what he loves. These past four years have taught him how to manage his time, and the importance of helping others.

“I understand the value of teamwork, unity, and being humble,” he said. “Cadets in ROTC always work together to get the job done.”

When pressed about the award, Park explained, “I’m not sure how I got this award. But it may have had something to do with my optimistic attitude and the fact that I always had a smile on my face,” Park said. “You needed to look like you [were] having fun.”

In addition to his positive attitude, Park scored well on key competitions, receiving the maximum score on the physical fitness test and rifle marksmanship, as well as an 85 out of 100 on the navigation portion of the camp.

Park’s parents have been the most influential people in his life.

“My parents always support me, what-

ever I do,” Park said.

In addition to his parents, ROTC Company Advisor John O’Brien has been a trusted mentor. Park has many strong connections with his classmates despite their varying lifestyles, and he believes these differences make them stronger and allows them to be more accepting of each other.

When BC football plays Army on Oct. 5, the campus will be flooded with West Point Cadets. Park and the other BC ROTC cadets will have a lot to discuss with their West Point counterparts.

“It will be good to meet some of these cadets and learn about their experience,” Park said.

After Park graduates he will attend a six-month training program, while also planning for graduate school. Park wants to continue his balanced lifestyle after college.

“I’d like to be a guidance counselor in an impoverished community where I could help those less fortunate reach their goals,” Park said. n

CLASSIFIEDS Thursday, January 17, 2013

The Heights The Heights

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Thursday, September 19, 2013

Community Help wanted $$ SPERM DONORS WANTED $$ Earn up to $1,200/month and give the gift of family through California Cryobank’s donor program. Convenient Cambridge location. Apply online: SPERMBANK.com.

Looking for babysitter to watch my two daughters Tuesdays from 3:00 to 7:00 pm. Must have a car. Please call Deb at 617-899-1050

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.

THE HEIGHTS

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Demolition of More is first housing domino

Thursday, September 19, 2013

QUOTE OF THE DAY Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude.

-Zig Ziglar (1926-2012), American author, salesman, and motivational speaker

The clearing of More Hall will set off a series of long-awaited and much-needed building projects Boston College has announced that, after final permits are approved by the City of Boston, construction on the current site of More Hall will begin with the building’s demolition at the end of this academic year. Once the existing structure has been torn down, the University will erect a large residence hall on the site, with 40 percent more square footage than Stokes Hall. The proposed building will house around 500 students in fourand six-person full-kitchen apartments, and will also house the University Health Services (UHS) clinic and infirmary.

It is encouraging to hear that construction will begin soon, as this is the first in a series of steps for the University’s long-term plan. Once the new building is completed, Edmond’s Hall can be demolished and replaced with a new recreation center, which will subsequently allow the Plex to be demolished and replaced with a student center.

More Hall, which has been vacant since May of 2012, has long been slated for demolition. Setbacks in obtaining building permits from the City of Boston, however, have delayed the project and those that will follow. While the projects to follow More Hall construction will also require their own permits and undoubtedly will take many years to begin, much less complete, construction on the site of More Hall is a welcome step toward improving campus housing options in the long-term.

The University has long stated that

its goal is to have four years of on-campus housing for 100 percent of students who want it. This goal, which will serve both to provide students with a greater connection to BC during their four years and to improve the University’s relationship with its off-campus neighbors, is far from complete—the new residence hall will only add around 500 beds, while demolishing Edmond’s Hall will remove more than 700 beds.

The new construction project, however, is part of an encouraging plan that will hopefully result in more high-quality housing options for students in the years to come. This new residence hall will certainly be a welcome replacement for Edmond’s Hall, which was first occupied nearly 40 years ago and is long past due for demolition.

Although moving UHS to Lower Campus will make the clinic less accessible to students during their day to day hours, state-of-the-art facilities and more beds are both necessary upgrades for UHS that this new building will be able to provide. With technological upgrades and additional space, the new clinic on the site of More Hall will be able to serve students more effectively and be easier to access for ambulances.

If all goes according to plan, the building will be placed into the normal housing selection process for fall 2016 housing selection, a welcome shift in housing dynamics and a sign of improving options for on-campus BC students.

Renaming heritage events promises greater inclusion

Changing the name of the ALC Boat Cruise to the Annual Boat Cruise will attract a more diverse crowd At the end of last year, UGBC voted into effect a new constitution that drastically restructured the makeup of the organization. Among the most significant revisions was the transformation of the GLBTQ Leadership Council (GLC) and the AHANA Leadership Council (ALC) from free-standing bodies within UGBC into representative boards under the larger heading of Diversity and Inclusion. Last year’s GLC and ALC presidents welcomed this shift, believing that by becoming incorporated parts of the larger UGBC, they would be able to garner greater interest and participation for their programming and policy efforts.

Largely as a result of these structural changes, the ALC Boat Cruise has been renamed the Annual Boat Cruise. The event, which is scheduled for this Saturday, has traditionally attracted mostly AHANA students, despite increased efforts on the part of publicity teams in recent years to reach a broader population.

The limited success of such publicity efforts was most likely a result of the exclusivity that was unintentionally

EMILY DEVLIN / HEIGHTS ILLUSTRATION

LETTER TO THE EDITOR A victory for students This academic year has proven to be a transformative one: we have a new quad, a new Vice President for Student Affairs, a new UGBC, and—most relevant to this letter—a new set of conduct guidelines. With the matrix gone, administrators can finally respond fairly and appropriately to conduct violations.

As The Heights reported last week, the new conduct guidelines provide flexibility and rely mostly on context. Although we must remain wary of individual RD’s discretion, this is a huge improvement. Indeed, it is a victory for a student body that has lived under the Draconian sanctions of the matrix for years.

As the former chair of the Alcohol Policy Reform Committee, I—along with the committee members listed below—support the new guidelines. These guidelines accomplish what we fought for: a system based on education, a system that allows for warnings, and a system that is fair. We commend the Dean of Students Office for listening to student concerns and acting in a swift manner to fix what has been wrong for so long.

We are also pleased to hear that the Dean of Students will use this year as a “transition year.” In other words, the new policies are neither definite nor final.

Where the matrix was rigid and set, these conduct guidelines are amendable. We therefore encourage all students to voice their opinions to both the Executive Branch of UGBC and the Student Assembly to help us further advocate for the student body.

The administration has done its part. Now we must do ours: Let’s respect our RAs and RDs; be courteous to BCPD; and be a part of making these new guidelines durable.

Welcome Back to The Heights,

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.

CHRIS MARCHESE Senator A&S ’15 BRYAN WHITE Senator A&S ’15 CHRIS PARK Senator A&S ’16 MATT HUGO Senator A&S ’16

communicated by the name “ALC Boat Cruise.” Although changing the first word may not seem like a huge alteration, it will eliminate a label that may suggest an event intended only for a specific population.

Alisha Wright, manager of Heritage Programming for UGBC and A&S ’15, has stressed that the integrity of the event will not be diminished by the change in name. The cruise’s multicultural celebration will continue to be a defining feature of the boat cruise—only now, its message will hopefully reach a wider audience.

Similar nominal changes will occur to the three other main heritage programming events: the GLC Gala, the ALC Ball, and the ALC Showdown. Those who fear that such changes will dilute the events’ significance should realize that by renaming them, the planners are transforming the programs from ones that interest and therefore impact only a segment of the BC community, to events that appeal to all students—in other words, precisely what the previous presidents of GLC and ALC had hoped would happen under the new constitution.

Students should vote to name BC Eagle ‘Welles’ Of the potential names for the new live mascot, ‘Welles’ best embodies the spirit of Boston College Since it was first suggested as the mascot for Boston College athletic teams in a 1920 letter to the editor of The Heights, the eagle has embodied the spirit of BC. At the end of Linden Lane, the symbol watches over students as they strive to new heights academically and in their service as “men and women for others.”

This fall, a live eagle has returned to the Heights for the first time since the 1960s.

To name the new live mascot, BC is asking students to vote for one of several options—among them, Ignatius, Aquila, and BosCo—that symbolize various aspects of the University and its history.

Only one name, however, matches the

eagle itself in representing the true essence of BC. Students should choose the name “Welles,” after Welles Remy Crowther, BC ’99, who served as the ultimate example of bravery, selflessness, and service for others on Sept. 11, 2001. According to BC Athletics, the name has received the blessing of the Crowther family if students so vote. The BC community should take this opportunity to honor the “man in the red bandana,” whose spirit we should all seek to emulate in our daily lives. Crowther’s legacy has become an integral part of our University’s identity, and is worthy of remembrance each time the eagle takes flight over Alumni Stadium.

HEIGHTS

THE

The Independent Student Newspaper of Boston College Established 1919 DAVID COTE, Editor-in-Chief JAMIE CIOCON, General Manager JOSEPH CASTLEN, Managing Editor

EDITORIAL

KENDRA KUMOR, Copy Editor ELEANOR HILDEBRANDT, News Editor AUSTIN TEDESCO, Sports Editor MICHELLE TOMASSI, Features Editor SEAN KEELEY, Arts & Review Editor TRICIA TIEDT, Metro Editor Mary Rose Fissinger , Opinions Editor SAMANTHA COSTANZO, Special Projects Editor GRAHAM BECK, Photo Editor LINDSAY GROSSMAN, Layout Editor

MAGGIE BURDGE, Graphics Editor ELISE TAYLOR, Blog Manager MARY JOSEPH, Online Manager CONNOR FARLEY, Assoc. Copy Editor CONNOR MELLAS, Asst. Copy Editor DEVON SANFORD, Assoc. News Editor ANDREW SKARAS, Asst. News Editor CHRIS GRIMALDI, Assoc. Sports Editor MARLY MORGUS, Asst. Sports Editor CATHRYN WOODRUFF, Asst. Features Editor

ARIANA IGNERI, Assoc. Arts & Review Editor JOHN WILEY, Asst. Arts & Review Editor RYAN TOWEY, Asst. Metro Editor ALEX GAYNOR, Asst. Photo Editor MAGGIE POWERS, Asst. Layout Editor JORDAN PENTALERI, Asst. Graphics Editor JULIE ORENSTEIN, Editorial Assistant TBD, Executive Assistant

BUSINESS AND OPERATIONS

MARC FRANCIS, Business Manager AMY HACHIGIAN, Advertising Manager ADRIANA MARIELLA, Outreach Coordinator DONNY WANG, Systems Manager MUJTABA SYED, National Advertising Manager WILL LAMBERT, Account Manager CHRIS STADTLER, Account Manager ANDREW MILLETTE, Collections Manager ROSIE GONZALEZ, Project Coordinator

The Heights

Thursday, September 19, 2013

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And on Sunday, there was football

Benjamin Olcott The Doctor Is In - Dr. Pepper, that is.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Pepper has been added as a choice in several of the soda fountains around campus.

We don’t know what exactly it is about Dr. Pepper, but it makes us feel classy.

Perhaps because this soda’s namesake has a Ph.D., or maybe because the combination of 23 flavors makes us feel complex, interesting, and a tad enigmatic—whatever the reason, we can now grab the extra large eatdrink-talk-think cup, fill ’er up with some Dr. P, and sip cheerily whenever we please.

We Heart Pesto - While we’re on the topic of dining, we’ll also applaud the expansion of the list of dining locales offering the pesto chicken pasta graband-go meals. A person can only eat so many turkey-and-swiss-on-multigrains. We can already see our next meal at Lower: pesto chicken pasta and Dr. Pepper. A match made in heaven.

Sniffle City - BC has got a bad case of the Back to School/Dawn of Fall sniffles. I’m sure you’ve noticed.

Maybe you yourself number among the afflicted, in which case you’ve no doubt noticed that the people who remember to bring cough medicine to school at the beginning of the year are few and far between. Or, maybe you recognized that an epidemic was upon us when you realized you can’t hear your economics teacher all the way at the front of Devlin 008 over all the sniffling that seems to come from everywhere at once. For those of you who aren’t yet ailing, you make your way carefully through the quad, trying to dodge your germ-infested peers. As you hear more and more sniffles, you become increasingly paranoid, and suddenly it seems like there’s a guerilla army of snifflers out there—everywhere you turn, someone is coughing, wiping their nose on their sleeve, blowing their nose. Suddenly, you can’t tell the sick from the well anymore. Your parents tell you to make sure you get eight hours of sleep each night, but, knowing this is impossible, you instead chug four Strawberry C Monsters in a row, hoping to create some sort of impenetrable vortex around you that repels all bacteria. And this weekend, chasing with orange juice instead of Coke is just as good as staying in and getting a good night’s sleep, right?

Classrooms Without Windows Everyone’s had a class in one of these.

They’re everywhere—McGuinn, Higgins, even the perfect Stokes. While there is almost certainly a school of thought that subscribes to the idea that such an environment provides fewer distractions and therefore fosters more focused students, we are here to present the counterargument.

How are you supposed to read and digest Rousseau when you can’t even see a single sliver of the sky from where you sit? He would be displeased, mark our words. And when it’s this time of year and the germs are everywhere (see above Thumbs Down), sitting for any extended period of time in such a room with at least seven sniffly individuals is a recipe for disaster. Plus, it’s always a bizarre temperature in there, meaning you are surely dressed inappropriately, and you spend the whole class either shivering from the extreme air conditioning that is trapped within the room, or sweating because you’re too self-conscious to take off your sweater and reveal your probably-too-slinky tank top that you thought would just be there to protect your skin from the scratchy but oh-socute sweater you chose to wear since it was 60 degrees outside, not taking into account that it would be 90 in your Poli Sci class.

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There is the National Football League, and then there is everything else. There is no one David to its Goliath (has the allusion ever been more apt?), but several outmuscled, puny, atrophied associations and leagues and TV programs. And they’re all getting smashed in the mouth, put on their asses, and sent back to the locker room for a blow and some IV. Let’s take a look at some all-important Nielsen ratings for the three major sports in America (sorry, hockey). The NBA Finals, site of the most intense, competitive, skillful basketball in the world—the best of the best—for the last 10 years has had an average rating of about nine. The World Series has perhaps done slightly better on average, although it has seriously tailed off in the last year or so. In any case, it hovers around a nine as well. The Super Bowl has averaged a rating of 45. About 166.8 million people watched part or all of last year’s Super Bowl, a little over half of the entire country. About 113 million people were watching it at any given time, making it the third most-watched television event of all time behind only two other Super Bowls. Rounding out the top 10 most-watched television events of all time is the finale of M*A*S*H followed by six Super Bowls.

Here are the top five most-watched televised shows (by viewership) in the last week. NFL Football, NFL football, NFL Pre-kick, Football Night in America, and Under the Dome with 25.4, 25.13, 18.03, 14.09, and 11.15 million viewers, respectively.

Americans love NFL football.

Here are some other stats. According to footballoutsiders.com, there have been over 7,500 injuries, minor or major in the last two years alone, and 1,496 major injuries (lasting eight weeks or longer) in 2012. There were 170 concussions last year and a grand total of 531 in the two years prior. From CNN: the NFL

recently pledged 765 million dollars “to fund medical exams, concussion-related compensation, medical research for retired NFL players and their families, and litigation expenses” as a settlement in a class action law suit against the NFL involving more than 4,500 retirees. The brain damage caused by repeated concussions often leads to a condition called chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, and was a focal point of the settlement. Symptoms of CTE are difficult to trace (they’re thought to include mood swings, general depressive symptoms), but the disease invariably moves in one direction. Autopsies often show a brain unpredictably swelled and shrunken and generally worn and pulped like an old punching bag.

NFL football is intensely violent.

An NFL defense has a defensive “line” (short for “frontline”), a set of linebackers, and secondary whose roles, respectively, are to win territory, stop threats to territory that have broken past the frontline, and stop aerial territorial threats/act as a final defense of ground threats. An offense has an offensive line, rugged territory gainers and maintainers, receivers, aerial threats, tailbacks, ground threats, and a quarterback, often called a “field general.” There are “formations” designed to maximize a side’s ability to pierce through a line, and tiers of attacks in case the first or second line fails. A coach’s locker room whiteboard consists of tactical, swooping arrows directing x’s and o’s to charge, feint-then-charge, switch emphasis of attack, run decoy attacks, scramble defenses with misdirection, overwhelm weak opponents. It’s a game in which players “dig into the trenches” along a line of “scrimmage.”

Playing through injury is cultural, there is “training camp,” deep “bombs” are thrown, “blitzes” rush from blindsides and flanks, and people get “blown up” by hard tackles. It is a bitter, furious struggle for yards (“fight for every yard,” it’s said) and territory.

NFL football is a lot like war.

There is a precedent for violent, warlike games wildly adored by the public.

Even in structure: Gladiatorial schools had spending limits, roster restrictions.

Venues were often littered with gaudy advertisements from wealthy corpora-

tions, and huge sums of money were exchanged to host the best games. They were spectacles in every sense of the word. The Romans, with regard to the “game” itself, were a bit more literal in their interpretation of “warlike.”

Amphitheaters held Punic War mockups. The Coliseum legendarily could be filled with water for famous naval battle re-enactments. Once barbarians began invading Rome, stadiums featured captured barbarians in their simulations of the current battles. Hundreds of thousands died gory deaths in front of millions of thirsting spectators.

In my estimation, we arrive at NFL football from here. First of all, Christianity became a seriously big deal, and as it turns out, Christianity is incompatible with more than a few aspects of the games, namely with the gross amounts of money spent on what was conceived as hedonistic. Interestingly, it wasn’t until about 300 that Tertullian, an important early Christian writer and thinker, identified games-deaths as murder and an affront to Christian morality.

Plus, Rome was broke and really needed money. Then, for 1,000 years or so, any sort of violence is performed in the name of a religion that allegedly abhors violence, therefore stigmatizing violence in a strange, teenage-angsty way. The general confusion outpouring from this position was cleared up eventually, but 1,000 years later and only when warfare was no longer all that exciting to watch.

Lining up a few rows of people and watching them shoot muskets at each other and mostly miss just doesn’t have the same verve as watching a centurion getting stabbed in the kidney with a gladius, I suppose. But anyway, warfare, though still essentially a matter of territory and death, becomes abstracted with technologies like airplanes and bombs, strategies like trench-fighting and blanket-bombing.

NFL football is, like Gladiator fights were, a short step of abstraction away from the current ways of warfare. Shock and awe and the rise of the quarterback.

Drone strikes and Peyton Manning.

Overseas battles and a TV screen.

Benjamin Olcott is a staff columnist for The Heights. He can be reached at opinions@bcheights.com.

Self service Kwesi Aaron There I was, sitting in the Gospel of Hip Hop—me and my mother’s most and least favorite class, respectively. I was quite poised here, seeing that I was raised in Brooklyn, N.Y., a main staple of many of hip hop’s historical figures.

Surely, I found a class in which I could exert my superiority. Some people are stars of managing balance sheets or gram-to-mole calculations. Others can make a problem set bend over, rather than the other way around. I thought certainly I can find my niche in this class. After all, this is a genre and culture that I have been immersed in my entire life.

As I sat there readying myself for semester-long praise and admiration, I found myself in the familiar position of being outdone by better-read classmates. Yes, my suburban counterparts were outdoing me in my home court with talk of Public Enemy’s critique of the prison industrial system. Meanwhile I was forced to twiddle my thumbs and interject occasionally with, “Man that boy Kanye is dope!”

As always, I took this to be a mark of inferiority on my part—a sense of inadequacy that has cleaved desperately to me since my bargain Sperry’s first touched down on the grassy plains of Upper Campus. Since then, I have recovered from those ludicrous, selfdeprecating views. It wasn’t easy. I had

Lecture Hall

to abandon all thoughts of contest with respect to schooling (or any areas of my life), and focus on bettering myself, rather than besting other people.

Competition is an enjoyable form of exerting yourself and testing your mettle against another’s, but fails as a model for everyday life and academia.

A world in which everyone is held to the same standard and expected to “beat” each other isn’t feasible. Variety in interests, goals, and expectations are what produced the awesome and diverse Class of 2016, and ultimately leads to the wide array of available professions that serve society’s purposes across the board.

Imagine for a moment a world of only CSOM graduates and shudder rightfully. Believing that we are all truly individuals who must seek our own paths, I examined my own life and contemplated what brought me here.

What I saw was a series of glorious blunders. I’ve bombed tests. I’ve missed open-net goals. I’ve even thrown away moldy bread given to me at lunchtime and with it, a chance to indict my high school for feeding us at a standard that bordered indecency. Despite my life being a comedy of errors and bold decisions, I triumph in my uncanny ability to dissect wrongdoings and truly grow from mistakes.

To avoid channeling my common app supplements, I’ll refrain from going on about my remarkable aptitude for recovery and rebounding as it manifested itself in AP exams. Just understand that I hope to continue this marvelous run of howlers and gaffes, because that which breaks me, makes me. Learning from failure is a main staple of my lifestyle, but even more so is boldly pursuing

each task with which I am faced my own way. Even still, it’s difficult to negotiate your own worldview with the demands of the real world. In disregarding practicality in favor of autonomy, I often find myself second-guessing. When looking at the loans piling up or my ever-wilting bank account, I sometimes reach a level of frustration that has me abandoning principles of happiness-over-wealth, when looking at the long term. For all my unconventional ways, I feel a deep sense of urgency with respect to money, bred by my immigrant parents who started from the bottom, and ultimately brought the team up here to America for a better life.

Even still, I’ve accepted that actions solely serving institutional standards are not of me and any success that I’ll attain will have to be bred from the unconventional (I’m counting on you, Kim Kardashian).

So as this school year begins in earnest, consider what standards you want to hold yourself to. What does greatness mean to you, and is greatness something that you even want? The answer is different for everyone and only an unbiased heart can find the answer. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Don’t be afraid to abandon the status quo from time to time. As much as I hate to admit it, all the boring speeches we heard between orientation and freshman convocation were right—we’re at BC to refine ourselves as individuals, to seek glory wherever possible, and ultimately to set the world aflame with our choice kindling.

Kwesi Aaron is a staff columnist for The Heights. He can be reached at opinions@ bcheights.com.

BY PAT HUGHES

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.

The present is a present Tiffany Ashtoncourt In the early hours of Sept. 3, when the sun was just beginning to peak, I arrived for my first class of the semester. The air was muggy, the grass was soaked, and the trees were still holding fast to their summer green, but the sun seemed to glaze everything with that signature sense of anticipation and excitement of fall that we all felt walking down Linden. Three giggly girls stood in front of the eagle statue taking selfies, two guys walked into Gasson discussing Kantian philosophy, and I could hear masses of more students coming off the shuttle. I stopped rushing to O’Neill and tried to breathe it all in.

No, everyone, I’m not a freshman— I’m a senior, and although all seniors will never admit it, the reality is that seniors are more similar to freshmen than any other class year, as both have this innate fervor to live this particular year of their collegiate life to the fullest in the face of some sort of end. As freshmen begin their first year, they face the end of a beginning. No more thinking about how college life is like, it has already started, and it’s time to make the most of it. And seniors beginning their last year suddenly wake up and realize that after May 19, 2014, they will never be a college student again, and are left wondering whether they’ve lived this time to its fullest.

After we take off our philosophical lenses, however, we might not be left feeling so calm and reflective. Let’s be honest, these realizations can be pretty overwhelming. I mean, let’s face it— there’s a lot of stuff to consider. First off, how many seniors have seriously studied the way that they should’ve these past three years? Every college student has struggled with that ADD feeling where everything, even a TV commercial, is more interesting than writing that research paper. And what about those students who were too busy and overworked to get involved? Or those who were not busy but simply too lazy, and liked to mock things like PULSE and the ever-present, almost annoying call to “Get Involved” and “Set the World Aflame?” The encroaching reality that they haven’t really been involved in anything except for classes and, probably in the case of the latter group of people, some unmentionable recreational activities, must leave these students (and their resumes) feeling a bit empty.

But please, seniors, before you go on banging your heads on a wall over your GPA and perceived lack of involvement, remember what it’s like to be a freshman, and maybe then you’ll see how they may experience something similar by reflecting on their first few weeks at BC. Freshmen come to college anticipating that their first year will be filled with memories of sage professors teaching life-changing courses countered by memorable escapades with soonto-be lifelong friends. Unfortunately, after orientation, “Move-In Day,” and the tearful good-byes are over, college becomes this unfamiliar place populated with strangers who wear either a blank expression, a nervous twinge, or an overly-enthused brow. Two weeks later, not only is the place cold (literally and figuratively), but courses become overwhelming and professors a mixed bag, so now they are left wondering whether this is what the next four years are going to be like.

So, with both class years feeling a sense of disconnection, they might feel that the solution is to make the most of their remaining time here by joining every group and club, attending every social event, and trying to start conversations with random people in the Quad.

“Making the most” of college doesn’t mean signing up for every club, group, and social event, nor does it mean having a jam-packed schedule, saturated with the hardest possible courses. “Making the most” of college means being the best expression of yourself, and sharing that with the world by doing the things that you love, like sitting on a bench and looking at the campus or taking a course that you are actually interested in, even if it may seem challenging. If you truly enjoy whatever you are doing in the present, there can be no room for achy regrets later, which is why the present is a gift to us now, and will still be in the future. So, if you see a senior or a freshman waltzing around campus, smiling as if they’ve just unwrapped a present, it may be because they have.

Tiffany Ashtoncourt is a staff columnist for The Heights. She can be reached at opinions@bcheights.com.

The Heights

A8

Thursday, September 19, 2013

Humphrey reflects on long college career, including his stop at BC Humphrey, from A10 Traveling 6,359 miles across the country and back, Humphrey’s collegiate journey escaped him more than it came to an end.

His story is one of bad luck, tough breaks, and friction.

One and a half years after he got on the bus in Atlanta, Humphrey is trying to make his way onto an NBA roster.

“A guy that played at three big-time Division I schools should have a chance,” Humphrey said in a phone interview this week. He’s thoughtful and reflective, wishing he could’ve had better luck in college basketball, but there is no spite in his voice.

He has a workout scheduled with the New York Knicks’ Development League affiliate next month, but to understand how a player with a smooth jumper, a pro build at 6-foot-5, strong ball-handling, solid defensive skills, and quick hands is working his way onto the Eerie BayHawks roster in late September, you have to start in Eugene.

A Chicago connection with head coach Ernie Kent led Humphrey to join the Ducks in 2008, but right when he arrived Kent was already on the hot seat. Oregon finished second to last in the Pac-10 during the 2010 regular season and then lost to Washington State in the quarterfinals of the conference tournament, all of which led to Kent’s firing.

“I didn’t know what to do, honestly,” Humphrey told The Boston Globe in 2011. “It was just a lot of intangible things that I couldn’t necessarily control. At the same time, I still had to protect myself and make sure I was still in a good situation.”

Humphrey had an impressive start to his career, playing in all 31 games his freshman year showing off his range from beyond the arc and his smart instincts on defense. He missed 12 games from late November to mid-January during his sophomore season recovering from injury, but he played well in the 19 games in which he appeared. When he decided to transfer after Kent was let go, plenty of schools came calling.

Humphrey’s name came up when first-year BC head coach Steve Donahue was looking through a list of transfers. Donahue had briefly coached Humphrey during a few practice sessions for the USA Basketball U-18 team on which Humphrey played. Donahue thought Humphrey would be a good fit and Humphrey agreed, so he packed his bags for Boston.

“It’s been really tough bouncing all around the United States, but I just thought it was the best decision at the time,” Humphrey said in the middle of the 2011-12 season at BC. “If I was going to start fresh in a new place, BC was that place.”

He sat out the required transfer season in 2010-11, struggling at times since he didn’t feel like a full member of the team. Not only could he not play in games, but he also couldn’t travel or work his way into the starting squad in practice. As a bit of a saving grace, Humphrey got to act as the opposing team’s best player against the first unit. An elaborate and talented scorer, Humphrey relished the role, especially going against future first-round draft pick Reggie Jackson. One day Humphrey might be Duke’s Nolan Smith, the next day he could be UNC’s Harrison Barnes.

“I got Reggie ready for every single game,” Humphrey said. “We would beat the crap out of Reggie every day, because we’d really work on preparing for the next game. That’s all I really had to focus on.”

The unique role gave Humphrey an avenue in which he could thrive. An all-around scorer, Humphrey doesn’t have just one specialty for creating points. He can beat his man off the bounce and use angles to finish around the rim, and he also has a near perfect shootingform, his body going up and coming down in the same fluid motion on his release. When his teammates cut to the rim, Humphrey usually finds a way to hit them in stride. “[The scout team] was my role, and I did a pretty good job at it and definitely developed some chemistry with those guys,” he said,

“but nine of those guys left and nine new guys came in.”

After that first season, Jackson left early for the draft, and more players departed as transfers. Only Humphrey, Peter Rehnquist, Gabe Moton, Danny Rubin, and eventually John Cahill remained on the roster for 201112. None of the five averaged much more than four points per game, and Humphrey was coming out of a full year off.

Donahue filled the roster with nine new freshmen, and there was plenty of hype around their arrival. Humphrey said that before the season Donahue asked him to play point guard, which excited a player who had gotten used to waiting for the ball at the small forward position. He’d be able to run the show and help the younger players along.

That’s not how it worked out, though.

“I wasn’t expecting that to be like that,” Humphrey said of his one season playing in a BC uniform, “but...

...it is what it is.”

Humphrey slowly saw his role on the team change as the 2011-12 season progressed. The ball-handling got passed on to freshman point guard Jordan Daniels, and more of the scoring was facilitated to guard Lonnie Jackson, forward Ryan Anderson, and center Dennis Clifford. By the time conference play started, Humphrey’s main role was defense and rebounding. In order to get his shots, he’d have to start gunning when he had the chance for a decently clean look.

“Game plans change, coaching and things change,” Humphrey said during the season.

“I’ve got to go and find other ways to win.

“I want to get wins. Of course, I want to excel individually, but I want to win. If that means I’m scoring 30 a night and we’re winning, that’s cool. If I’m scoring 15 a night and we’re winning, that’s cool. If I’m scoring 10, that’s cool.”

On some nights, though, he would have to push to even hit that double-digit mark. He averaged around 11 points per game for the Eagles, but that was a result of some impressive scoring outputs followed by either inefficient nights or outings when he would only get five or six shot attempts.

Humphrey was saying the right things, but he was still visibly frustrated. Adding to that frustration, the Eagles weren’t winning. They entered ACC play with a record of 5-9, and then had a stretch of 10 losses in 11 conferences games.

At times, it appeared that on the court Humphrey wasn’t getting along with his younger teammates, but he says that wasn’t the case.

“They’re my boys,” he said. “Those are my boys, man. We had a great relationship, I feel like.

“Most guys that are seniors would be like, ‘Oh I’m not going to be friends with these guys.’

I felt like I couldn’t afford to be like that on my team. All we had was freshmen. Why wouldn’t I be their friend and look out for them?”

The freshmen didn’t have cars, so Humphrey would give them rides if they needed to get somewhere. Over the phone, he went down the roster, asking how all of his former teammates are doing.

“Ryan Anderson is really good,” he said.

Graham beck / Heights Editor

Humphrey led the Eagles in field goal attempts in 2011-12, but had to move away from his scoring-centric game to focus more on defense and rebounding to help the young players.

“He’s really good. He’s a pro to me. I think Patrick Heckmann is really good. I thought Lonnie was really good.”

He exclaimed disbelief and sadness upon hearing about Clifford’s knee injury that sidelined him for much of the 2012-13 season.

“Cliff hurt his knee?” he said. “What ...

Cliff’s knee is messed up? Oh my god. That kid can play basketball. Dennis Clifford can play basketball.”

His frustration didn’t come from the freshmen. He thought they could play. It was the slowing down of everything for the sake of the young players that got to Humphrey.

“I didn’t expect as a whole for everybody to say, ‘Hey, let’s kind of slow down because we’re young,’” he said. “Where I’m from it doesn’t matter if you’re young or old you still have to kind of put your foot to the gas.”

Looking around college basketball, Humphrey saw a lot of teams, including other ACC opponents, starting plenty of young players.

“What are we going to do?” he said. “We’re going to do what the coach says, right? We’re not going to blame him. It’s not his fault. It’s not blame, but at the same time you kind of expect the coach to want you to be considered the same as everybody else in the conference that you’re in. We’re all in the ACC. The only thing different is the name on your jersey.

“We just kind of sold ourselves short a little bit, I felt like, as a whole unit, just because we were so shocked about being young and this and that. It just never really mattered, you know?”

It mattered to Donahue, though, who had a plan beyond just that one year Humphrey played and his two years of eligibility left. He was building something with the freshmen, and he always had to keep that in mind.

“There is no reason for this year to get too low about any aspect,” Donahue said after a late-November loss to Penn State. “This is all about building. We have one class in and we’re trying to get these guys as ACC-ready as we can, and we’re going to build on that class every year.”

It wasn’t that Donahue didn’t care about winning, but he consistently reminded his team and the media that he cared a lot more about the play on the court and overall development than the end result on the scoreboard.

“They’re in a state where they are kind of overwhelmed,” Donahue said after BU beat BC for the first time in 37 years. “We all had those classes in college—three classes in, and

the professor is just over your head and you don’t know how you’re ever going to survive the next test. That’s what we’re going through.

There are stretches where they feel good about themselves and stretches where they’re just overwhelmed.”

Still, to Humphrey, it didn’t make sense.

“It’s like, ‘Let’s win, Coach,’” he said. “I’m not trying to wait around and see if these guys are gonna be—yeah, I don’t have time for that.”

And that’s where the glaring struggle always came for Humphrey. He’s been motivated

by NBA dreams, but balancing those dreams with team goals was nearly impossible at all three of his collegiate stops. As a young player at Oregon he didn’t get to be the guy. At BC, the team didn’t want him to be the guy.

“I just did my job, you know?” he said. “I just did what I was supposed to do and I just expected from doing that and from sitting out and from transferring—people don’t understand how hard it is—I just expected to get a little bit more freedom and leeway to do what I needed to do to get myself to the next level in the year that I actually get to play.”

So, is Humphrey to blame for thinking about himself and not solely about the team?

Was he supposed to ignore his dream and put on a smile while doing all of the dirty work? How are you supposed to balance a future and a present fighting directly against each other?

Humphrey couldn’t, so he left.

“I learned a lot of stuff from coach Donahue and being in Boston,” he said, “but I just wish it would’ve helped me a lot more.

“I really felt like everything was great, but then it turned out like it did...

...it is what it is.”

I made my decision to go a different place for a reason.”

Humphrey graduated from BC after the season ended, which meant he was eligible to transfer and then play for another school right away. He still worked out with the BC players in the spring during the transfer process, reinforcing that there was no bad blood. Donahue also gave Humphrey his blessing when the transfer was announced.

“Matt has been great these two years,” Donahue said. “I think the most important thing he did was he wanted to come here and get a degree and he’s done a terrific job and he got his degree. I think he and his family

To the relief of head coach Alison Foley, Meehan was cleared to play on Tuesday, and will be back for the Eagles’ Thursday night game against the University of Virginia. “[Meehan] is probably one of the most opportunistic players we’ve ever had in my 17 years at BC,” Foley said.

“There’s a lot of busy forwards who are doing a lot of work, but maybe they don’t have the production that comes out of it. McKenzie’s sort of just the opposite.

She’s hard working, but she’s efficient with everything she does.”

In addition to her work ethic and positional awareness, Foley pointed out two technical attributes that help make Meehan so lethal in front of the net.

“She’s left and right footed, and when you have a forward that can score with both feet, it automatically puts the de-

fender in two minds, you don’t know if she’s going to take you on the left or take you on the right.”

The other trait is her impressive shooting release.

“For a forward, if your movements are loping or big, they’re easily defended, and hers aren’t. Hers are efficient and her leg swing is just out of nothing, all of a sudden she’s striking a ball. “ With 12 games left in the regular season, Meehan is focused on winning and helping the team advance.

“We definitely want to make the ACC playoffs and the NCAAs, and we lost in the second round last year so we want to do even better than that this year,” Meehan said.

“Personally I just want to keep improving, score as many goals as I can, and just keep getting better.”

If the past is anything to go by, she won’t have a problem. n

...it is what it is.”

Despite the bumpy road, things might finally be coming together for Humphrey.

He’s three credits away from earning a sports management graduate degree from West Virginia. After he completes one final project

by December, he’ll be done. And he has this workout with the BayHawks. Humphrey said Eerie’s head coach, Gene Cross, specifically asked him to show up.

“If the head coach asks you to come, I’m going to show up,” he said. “He ain’t telling me to come for no reason. “[It’s] probably just the best bet for me to reach my dreams a lot quicker to go this route.

If they like you, they like you, there’s not going to be a dispute about it.”

Humphrey signed with the wrong agent when the 2013 West Virginia season ended. He was pressured to sign an overseas deal, and the agent pushed another player in the NBA Draft.

Now, he thinks he’s found a group he can trust now with Worldwide Career Management after firing the old agent.

The draft came and went without Humphrey. He never even put his name in. He decided to focus on letting his shoulder recover for the whole month of June, something he never got the opportunity to do, and now it’s back at 100 percent.

Humphrey says he’s a sure thing for the D-League, and that he hopes this opportunity with the BayHawks gives him a chance to impress Knicks assistant GM Allan Houston.

“Just hoping to get signed, man,” he said.

“That would be great.”

Humphrey is still chasing his dream, and this fall Donahue and his squad will chase the dream of the big dance with a crew of now experienced players.

Rather than watching as a proud alumnus, Humphrey is an afterthought for a team with postseason aspirations, resigned to asking a reporter for updates on the Eagles.

“I graduated from Boston College,” he said, starting to chuckle slightly. “I’m going to be an Eagle forever, I guess, right?”

Humphrey may not have a college to call home, but if a pro city can replace Eugene, Boston, or Morgantown, then that will all be forgotten. n

Crowther leaves legacy

Meehan focused on her improvement, earning wins Meehan, from A10

looked at this situation and thought—he wants to be a professional basketball player and he wants that to really be his focus now after he had his degree.

“He thinks that there may be a better spot to go produce and find out a place that can help him reach that goal. When anybody comes in here my first issue with all these guys is the team first, but this time of year I’ve got to find out what everyone’s thinking, what they want, what’s best, and I support it. That’s what he wants to do and we are 100 percent behind him.”

Bad luck struck again when Humphrey arrived at West Virginia. Although he began the year as a starter, he aggravated a shoulder injury and spent the rest of the year trying to recover. Rather than redshirt, he decided to hurry himself back and produce as much as he could.

“Sit out another year, take a redshirt, sixthyear senior...,” he said, going through his options, “…yeah, I’m okay. I can make it work.”

Humphrey worked his way back into the starting lineup before the year ended, but the Mountaineers finished the season at 13-19.

After five years of college basketball, Humphrey never got a chance to play in the NCAA Tournament, and he also never got the chance lead a team his way.

“I just feel like I never got my real chance in college basketball to be that guy on the team,” he said. “To be that guy between the coach and the player that, hey, let’s be real, you’re the best player on the team, and there are some things on the team I’m going to need you to do for the team, and for me. For us to win, you’ve got to play at this level all the time, regardless of what goes on in the game. And I never got that chance in college basketball, I felt like, even when I was supposed to—i.e.

Boston College. But...

Column, from A10 To try and guess how Crowther would’ve wanted us to embrace his actions would be mere conjecture. Yet we can express our gratitude for him through the way we live our own lives, putting a greater cause above ourselves and bringing light to the darkness by leading the way.

Every time we stand up when no one else is willing to, lend a hand when one is in need, and do something because it is the right thing to do, we effectively fight the good fight. In doing so, BC can bring a verse from its fight song to life—“For here all are one.”

And every step of the way, Welles Crowther will live on through us all.

Graham beck / Heights Editor

Head coach Alison Foley praised Meehan’s ability to be efficient with her attacks on goal.

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, September 19, 2013 The Week Ahead

Standings

Field hockey hosts highly ranked Syracuse on friday. Notre Dame comes to town on Saturday to face men’s soccer. Women’s soccer takes on Virginia Tech on Sunday. Meanwhile, volleyball faces Harvard in the New England Challenge. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers head north on Sunday to face the New England Patriots.

Chris Grimaldi

7-3

Marly Morgus

6-4

Austin Tedesco

5-5

Heights Staff

4-6

A9

Recap from Last Week

Game of the Week

Field Hockey pulled off a 1-0 win over BU. Volleyball went undefeated in the Columbia Invitational. The BC defense imploded in a 35-7 loss to USC. At Pittsburgh, men’s soccer came through with a win. Floyd mayweather, Jr. defeated Canelo Alvarez in a majority decision on Saturday night.

Volleyball

Guest Editor: Andrew Skaras

Harvard

Assistant News Editor “Ray, when someone asks you if you’re a god, you say ‘yes!’”

Marly Morgus Asst. Sports Editor

Andrew Skaras Asst. News Editor

Austin Tedesco Sports Editor

Chris Grimaldi Assoc. Sports Editor

Field Hockey: No. 17 BC vs. No. 5 Syracuse

BC

BC

Men’s Soccer: BC vs. Notre Dame

BC

BC

Notre Dame

BC

Women’s Soccer: BC vs. No. 23 Virginia Tech

BC

Virginia Tech

Virginia Tech

Virginia Tech

Volleyball: BC vs. Harvard

BC

BC

BC

BC

Tampa Bay

New England

New England

New England

This Week’s Games

NFL: Tampa Bay at. New England

Syracuse

Syracuse

vs.

BC

On Sunday afternoon, the volleyball team will take on Harvard in the final match of the New England Challenge at home in Power Gym. Last weekend, the Eagles completed a tournament sweep at the Columbia Invitational in New York, winning all three of their matches, two of them in straight sets. The Crimson has signigicantly fewer games under its belt—just six games to BC’s 10—but they have put forth a solid 4-2 record thus far. The last time the two teams met was in last year’s New England Challenge, BC taking the straight set victory. Both teams will come out fighting, however, as they look to build on early season momentum.

Sunday at 2:00 p.m.

POINT COUNTERPOINT

WILL BC FOOTBALL MAKE A BOWL GAME? Strong coaching and offense prevail

BY MATTY PIERCE Heights Staff

A noticeable sense of excitement lingers in the air across the Boston College campus. The football team has begun to regain the attention of its peers after starting off the season with consecutive home victories, defeating Villanova and Wake Forest.

Despite an away loss to USC this past weekend, many believe the Eagles will cap off the season successfully. In order to do so, the Eagles team must make a bowl game, something that has not been done since the 2010 season. With an experienced coaching staff and an offense lead by veterans, the Eagles will win more than six games, surpassing the bowl eligibility mark.

A changed culture under this totally revamped crew of coaches will help BC earn its way into a bowl game. Head coach Steve Addazio knows a thing or two about what it takes to play in a bowl. Prior to coaching at BC and Temple, Addazio was an assistant coach for the Florida Gators from 2005-10.

During this time, the Gators made a bowl game all six seasons and won the national championship twice. Adazzio played a large role in the success of the team, as he was said to have individually worked with Heisman trophy winner and two-time national champion Tim Tebow.

With an accomplished head coach who has coached in the midst of big games, the Eagles’ vision of making a bowl will become a reality.

In his 32nd year of coaching, newly acquired defensive coordinator Don Brown looks to turn around a unit that struggled mightily a year ago. As defensive coordinator at UConn during the 2012 season, Brown helped lead a defense that allowed an average of 19.8 points per game. Just a year ago, the Eagles defense allowed an average of 29.7 points per game. If BC is able to reduce this number by nearly 10 points this year to 19.8, the offense will take care of the rest and work with the defense to make a bowl game.

Offensively, the Eagles are lead by three skillful seniors ready to take the team to a bowl game. Quarterback Chase Rettig enters this season as a four-year starter. Rettig looks to build off of last season, when he became the fourth quarterback in school history to pass for over 3,000 career yards. With 33 career starts under his belt, Rettig’s experience should allow him to close out the close games the Eagles were unable to win a year ago. Much of Rettig’s passing success could not be achieved without wide receiver Alex Amidon.

Amidon is coming off a year in which he set a single-season school record for receptions with 78, and receiving yards with 1,210.

If Amidon can continue to pose as a threat offensively, the ground game will need to come in handy to counteract tight defensive coverage on receivers. Senior running back Andre Williams is a workhorse, looking to carry the ball as much as possible.

A year ago, Williams carried the ball 130 times over for a total of 584 yards, averaging 4.5 yards per carry. This year after just three

games, Williams has already carried the ball 75 times for 356 yards. Offensively, these veterans have steadily lead the team. A year ago BC averaged 19.8 points per game. In order to make a bowl game, the Eagles should look to average between 23-25 points offensively.

From there it will be up to the defense.

The bottom line is that the Eagles need four more wins to qualify for a bowl, while more wins would further help their cause. If the Eagles are able to score 23-25 points per game and hold opposing offenses with efficient defense, this feat is doable. If BC plays to its potential, then the team should be able to win its two remaining non-conference games against Army and New Mexico State.

From there, the Eagles need to win two or three in-conference games against NC State, Maryland, Syracuse, North Carolina, or Virginia Tech, assuming they did not pull off upsets against either Clemson or Florida State. With a coaching staff hungry to turn the program around, and a cast of veterans aware of what it takes to be successful, BC will accomplish its goal of making a bowl game. 

BC’s schedule is too big an obstacle

BY PAT COYNE Heights Staff

Although the Boston College football team has already matched its win total from last season by posting a 2-1 record, it is still not prudent to consider the Eagles a lock for a postseason bowl just yet.

In fact, based on the team’s play so far, and especially against USC last week, it is most prudent to predict that Eagles will miss out on one of the 70 FBS bowls once again.

Had the Eagles at least put up a decent fight against USC last Saturday, the outlook for the rest of the season may be a little brighter. USC demonstrated, however, that loading up the box on defense could effectively shut down the BC run game, which had been great in the first two games.

Given that Chase Retting has proven he simply isn’t the type of quarterback that has the tools or receivers necessary to take over a game, loading up the box will consequently result in the entire offense being shut down. This much was clear by BC’s ability to score just seven points

on Saturday.

To be considered for a bowl, a team must finish the season with at least a .500 record. While there are circumstances when a 6-7 team could be given a bowl bid, that usually only happens in the event that a 6-6 team loses in their conference championship. Given that BC is in the Atlantic Division with No. 8 Florida State and No. 3 Clemson, that won’t happen.

Additionally, in May, the ACC announced that for the 2013 season there would be eight bowls available for ACC teams to take part in, along with the potential for a ninth conditional slot.

Thus, if BC is to be given bowl consideration the team has to have a record of 6-6 and be one of the top eight teams in the conference. Looking ahead at the team’s final eight games, neither of these criteria are locks.

Jameis Winston and Florida State are the Eagles’ next opponent, coming to Alumni Stadium two weekends from now, and should bring the Eagles’ overall record to 2-2.

With the next two games after that being against Army, who the Eagles should beat, and Clemson, odds are that the Eagles will be 3-3 at best with a 1-2 conference record halfway through the season. After this point, assuming that BC has not lost to Army and been winless for its last four games, things get more interesting.

On Oct. 26, the Eagles will play North Carolina in Chapel Hill. Though the Tar Heels are currently only 1-1, they are led by one of the most underrated quarterbacks in the ACC, Bryn Renner, who will give the Eagles a lot of trouble.

That game is no where close to being considered a given for the Eagles, whose linebacker core got banged up against USC last weekend, and neither will its next game against Virginia Tech, currently 2-1 with their only loss being to No. 1 Alabama.

Eight games into the year, the Eagles could easily be two games under .500 with an overall record of 3-5, with four of those losses coming against ACC opponents.

Luckily for the Eagles, they face off next against New Mexico State in what should be an easy win. With three games left to go in the season, look for the Eagles to need two more wins in order to hit the target record of 6-6 for bowl eligibility.

Considering that the Eagles will be facing NC State, Maryland, and Syracuse, the first two being teams that are 2-0 and 3-0, respectively, and taking into account how much the team struggled when put against its first serious competition of the season, the team simply cannot be expected to win two out of their last three and should finish 5-6 at best.

Although the Eagles will improve on their disappointing two-win season a year ago, they will ultimately end up falling just short of making a bowl game.

The team is scheduled to face much more skilled offenses and defenses than those of Villanova and Wake Forest showed, schemes that more closely resemble the ones used by USC, to fluster the Eagles into struggles on both sides of the ball. Right now there is no need to make plans for a return to a bowl game at the end of the season. 

GRAHAM BECK / HEIGHTS EDITOR

W. Soccer

scoreboard

BC PITT

Pittsburgh, pa 9/12

3 0

BC ford

McCaffrey 1 G BC D’Agostino 2 sv Cu new york, ny 9/13

volleyball

3 0

volleyball

3 2

volleyball

workman 10 k 5 d BC hipp 10 k 7 d bu

3 0

New york, ny 9/13 field hockey

workman 32 k 17 d BC lanti 17 k 16 d bu

1 0

new york, ny 9/14 football

mctighe 8 k BC vickers 9 k usc

7 35

boston, ma 9/14

m. soccer

plasteras 1 g cerda 9 sv

BC pitt

los angeles, ca

w. soccer

williams 38 yds bc madden 102 yds clem

pittsburgh, 9/14 Boston, Mapa11/11

frano 1g meehan 1g

2 1

Newton, MAsc 11/09 clemson, 9/15

1 2

mccarthy 2 sog polonsky 1g

SPORTS THE HEIGHTS

A8

A10

Thursday, September 19, 2013

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2013

Honoring the memory of a true leader

SWEET RELEASE

Former BC forward eyes NBA after trying journey

BY AUSTIN TEDESCO Sports Editor

He walked out of the locker room at Philips Arena in Atlanta, headphones around his neck, heading to board the bus by himself. It was March of 2012, and Matt Humphrey had already changed out of his Boston College basketball uniform for the last time.

In the room he had just left, nine freshmen spoke of their disappointment in a 9-22 finish and the first-round victory they had just suffered at the hands of North Carolina State in the ACC Tournament. But their words were all delivered in an upbeat tone, positivity clearing its way through the heartache.

Humphrey was stopped by a reporter in the hallway on the way to the bus. The reporter asked him if he had time to talk, and Humphrey leaned his back against the wall for support, the kind of support he could never secure during the first four years of his college basketball career. He was in his own world. Slowly, he answered questions about next year, what would be his last as a college athlete. His voice came across calmly, but his body language screamed frustration.

“It’s real trying,” Humphrey said of his first year on the court at BC, having sat out as a transfer the season before. “Especially when I’m used to a certain way of doing stuff. I understand everybody’s young, but we played 30 games this year, you know? We should have, toward the end of the season, tried to come together—which we did, for the most part. We got a few wins.

“It is what it is.”

Humphrey’s five-year college journey, which ended last spring in Morgantown, West Va., was a constant tug-of-war—between frustration and reluctant acceptance, team goals and individuals goals, health, and injury. As Humphrey finished talking to the reporter, he took his bag and continued on his way to the bus.

No one knew it yet, but he was about to pack those bags and move again. The Chicago native had already left Oregon after his first two years in Eugene, and two more years at BC led to one last try at West Virginia.

CHRIS GRIMALDI When the word “leadership” is used too loosely in sports, its meaning becomes fleeting.

Those three syllables form the foundations upon which legends are built, legacies are forged, and press conference sound bites resonate.

Coaches will claim that a squad only goes as far as its senior leadership takes them. A lost season is blamed for a lack of leadership at the helm. Ask any veteran team captain about his most important role on the field, and he’ll give one word—leader.

Yet leadership’s worth is not as a trite buzzword used to praise, boast, or blame. True heroes don’t emerge on the coattails of an overused expression.

They personify the inner core of its truest definition.

On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001 Boston College lacrosse alum Welles Crowther went to work on the 104th floor of the World Trade Center’s south tower unknowing of the events that would shape his destiny.

The challenge he met was no overtime duel or championship game, but the darkest day in American history.

Just as he had done on the lacrosse field at BC and throughout his young life, Crowther confronted adversity head-on and leapt into action. Rather than take the easy way out to preserve his own life, he courageously remained in harm’s way, guiding his injured and desperate colleagues to safety. Crowther provided a clear and calming voice when order was ablaze in a fiery anarchy.

Crowther acted as a leader.

A former Eagle—the “Man in the Red Bandana”—acted as a guardian angel for countless lives, and paid the ultimate price by losing his own at age 24.

Crowther’s heroism lives on like a legend, as the story of his actions on 9/11 have been celebrated by ESPN’s Outside the Lines and tributes on BC’s campus—a football stadium full of Superfans wearing red bandanas in his honor and an annual charity run set to take place a month from today.

These acts of appreciation are entirely appropriate and incredibly admirable ways to celebrate a leader of Crowther’s stature. For that, I salute them and all they stand for.

But we cannot end the tribute there.

Judging by the man’s actions on that dark day and the way in which he lived, Crowther would not have sought a statue outside of Alumni or a banner hanging from the rafters of Conte. It wouldn’t do justice to the example of leadership and selflessness he set.

See Humphrey, A8

“I just feel like I never got my real chance in college to be that guy on the team.”

- Matt Humphrey

Cross Country Traveler

Humphrey made stops in Eugene, Ore., Chestnut Hill, and Morgantown, West Va., during his career.

Graph indicates games played at each school.

Oregon 2008 - 09 Oregon 2009 - 10 *4 GAMES STARTED

19

Boston College 2011 - 12

31

*29 GAMES STARTED

West Virginia 2012 - 13 *7 GAMES STARTED

See Column, A8

31

*3 GAMES STARTED

19 GRAHAM BECK / HEIGHTS EDITOR

Scoring is an old habit for Eagles’ sophomore forward McKenzie Meehan is having a breakout year for the BC women’s soccer team

BY CONNOR MELLAS Heights Editor

For someone who scored 80 goals in 22 games and led the nation in scoring her senior year of high school, McKenzie Meehan’s athletic career began in a somewhat surprisingly ordinary manner. There were no blessings from Pele, magical cleats, or wishes made on shooting stars.

Instead, like millions of people across the country, Meehan started out by just playing local sports.

“I played mostly all sports when I was little, like basketball, soccer, softball, and then soccer was the one I decided to stick with,” Meehan said.

Growing up in Smithfield, R.I., regardless of the sport Meehan was playing, her twin sister Madison was right there with her.

“We were always on the same team and everything, and we both liked soccer the most, but we never really decided un-

til, like, middle school that it was soccer over basketball,” Meehan said.

About 14 years have passed since Meehan started kicking around a soccer ball. These days, at Boston College, she’s still playing alongside her sister, and her journey has been anything but ordinary.

“There is no other like McKenzie Meehan,” said La Salle Academy soccer coach Lindsay Longval. “There really isn’t.

I mean, she scores goals but she creates things on the field, and she makes the players around her better players.”

Meehan had an astonishing four-year high school career at La Salle, scoring 180 goals, and winning four state championships. In her 80-goal senior campaign, the 5-foot-5 forward had 16 hat tricks in 22 games. Among her enormous collection of high school accolades were two Rhode Island Gatorade Player of the Year Awards, and three inclusions on the Rhode Island All-State first team.

“It’s only fair for me to talk about the

I NSIDE SPORTS THIS ISSUE

state of Rhode Island,” Longval said, “but I would have to say that she is in an elite group of players that were playing in high school.

“I think that she’s a role model even now for my current players who even played with her, but now they watch where she’s at and what she’s doing and it’s something for them all to continue to aspire to.”

In addition to high school soccer, the Meehan sisters played together on the Scorpions Soccer Club and won the Massachusetts State Cup in 2009, 2010, and 2011.

N o w, l e s s th a n h a l f w ay through her sophomore season at BC, Meehan is building on her nine-goal freshman season and her experience playing with the U.S. Under-20 National Team in Spain last March. In six games this year, Meehan has found the net six times, four of which were game-

Point-Counterpoint: Football

Two viewpoints are presented on BC’s chances of making a bowl game in 2013...A8 A8

winning goals.

“The opportunities are just coming at the right time and I’ve been able to take advantage of them so far, and before the Hofstra game we talked a lot about combining and ever since then it’s been much better passing the ball and getting everyone good opportunities on goal,” Meehan said.

Against Pittsburgh last week, Meehan sustained a concussion after colliding with the goalkeeper, and was forced to sit out the Eagles’ most recent game, a 2-1 loss to Clemson.

“The concussion on Thursday was the first time I’ve ever really been hurt,” Meehan said.

“That was the first game I’ve missed. So that was just kind of scary because I couldn’t remember anything right away.”

See Meehan, A8

Game Of The Week: Volleyball

BC looks to finishing strong against Harvard in the New England Challenge....A9

ACC POINTS LEADERS Name

School Avg/G

M. Brian

UVA

2.43

H. Brock

MD

2.43

K. Stengel

WF

2.29

J. Reeves

VT

2.00

M. Meehan BC

2.00

B. Ratcliffe

UVA

1.86

C. Dunn

UNC

1.86

S. McCaffrey BC

1.71

A. Flinn

1.71

UM

Meehan has cracked the list of the top ACC scorers with her 12 points so far this year, despite only being a sophomore.

Editors’ Picks........................A9 BC Notes...............................A9

A2column

Fashion Forward

picking up some style tips from the swedes, page B4 album review

‘mgmt’

the psychedelic rockers return with a self-titled album, page B5

The Heights

Thursday, January 17, 2013

album review

‘true’

the famous house dj avicii brings on a host of collaborators for his latest album, B5

Wrecking Ball A Cautionary Tale of Celebrity

It’s the music video that has been unavoidable the past week: Miley Cyrus’s “Wrecking Ball,” where the former Disney Channel tween star straddles a massive wrecking ball, entirely naked. The new video and Cyrus’s provocative recent behavior have raised concerns about Cyrus’s personal life: is she heading down the path of Lindsay Lohan and Amanda Bynes, two likable young talents led astray by drugs and depression? Or is she cleverly exploiting our obsession with celebrity for her own benefit?

Regardless of the answer, the video raises larger questions about America’s celebrity culture. Why do we care so much about the sordid personal details of our entertainers, and how did we get here? This week, The Scene looks at the development of America’s celebrity culture from the Golden Age of Hollywood to today. And we show that though our screens may have shrunk from vast cinema canvases to iPhone screens, our obsession with celebrity continues to expand.

See celebrity land, b3 MAGGIE BURDGE / Heights PHoto illustration

THE HEIGHTS

B2

WILEY’S FOLLIES

May you stay forever young

Thursday, September 19, 2013

SCENE AND HEARD

BY: RYAN DOWD

JOHN WILEY “May you build a ladder to the stars / And climb on every rung / May you stay forever young.”

The lyrics of Bob Dylan’s “Forever Young” have been lionized, continually invoked by a new generation of artists, infatuated with the notion, but far removed from the context.

The original was recorded in the November of 1973—less than a year after U.S. troops withdrew from Vietnam.

Thirty years can turn blood to wine. At many a graduation party and sentimental gathering—even in a 2009 Super Bowl commercial, which used Dylan’s lyrics as underlay for a verse by rapper will.i.am—the phrase “forever young” has become the superficial call to youthful apathy.

And yet, the spirit of the lyric is somber, a recanting of the call America made to her troops in the late ’60s and early ’70s. For nearly 60,000 soldiers, “forever young” was not the platitude we recognize it as today—it was a cold, lifeless reality. Climbing the rungs to heaven was not an appeal to grandiosity, but rather a description of a painful, trying fate. Our culture is enamored by this prospect of staying “young forever,” but is hardly alive to the implications of it.

Pop music is something docile, benign, a blanket to comfort the masses, strung together by the fibers of baseless ideas—or at least such is typically thought.

“Forever Young,” devised as a heartbreaking statement on untimely death, has been adapted to a lively club mantra, in Ke$ha’s 2012 single “Die Young.” If there’s any particularly telling generational commentary to be taken from this song, it’s that there’s no telling generational commentary to be taken from this song—it’s so cheerfully trite and removed from the day-to-day.

Or how about Jay Z’s “Young Forever”?

It’s seemingly innocent enough: a competently executed, and attractively produced play with Dylan’s ideas (“So let’s just stay in the moment / Smoke some weed, drink some wine / Reminisce, talk some shit/ Forever young is in your mind”). If anything, recasting this concept of youthfulness to be a proxy for immortality—melting away thoughts of how fickle and vulnerable the state of youthfulness has been historically—gives us a newfound sense of protection in our decision making. In itself, it hardly seems harmful.

And yet, it’s oftentimes unsettling, how frequently we’re eased into this rather nonsensical mode of the thinking when we interact with pop music. There’s something dreadfully appealing about making little of something big, like our understanding of mortality.

“Wake Me Up,” EDM producer Avicii’s recent collaboration with American soul singer Aloe Blacc, really plays with the whole absurd mode of thought invoked by pop music. “Wish that I could stay forever this young / Not afraid to close my eyes / Life’s a game made for everyone / And love is the prize,” sings Blacc—who in his own musical work, provides commentary quite contrary to popular thought. And now he’s singing on this banger club anthem, suggesting he wants to close his eyes, and sleep the responsibility of his life away.

Then, comes the chorus, seemingly a counterpoint to his desire to stay forever this young: “So wake me up when it’s all over / When I’m wiser and I’m older.”

It’s all presented so matter-of-factly, these ridiculous lyrics implying we’ll get wiser when we sleep, as surely as we’ll get older. It’s all just so wrong—and the thing is, I believe an important minority of artists are extraordinarily alive to this. I’d argue Blacc is one, and many others, perpetually bleeding into the mainstream, are not so sold on their music being rendered docile or benign. I cannot personally verify just how subversive any one song might be, but I think we all can hear quite recent music in the vein of Dylan’s “Forever Young.”

Popular music has historically been in a fickle and vulnerable state, recognizable in its entire genre subsets doomed for extinction. I hardly hope, decades from now, my children will be listening to anything with a sound even slightly consistent with the works of Ke$ha.

As far as artistic mediums go, a pop song is chiefly an expendable device, but the ideas delivered by these devices are hardly insignificant. I like to believe collectively, popular culture is a front—disguised in it some of the most telling thoughts on the aspirations and inhibitions of a generation.

It’s no accident that music flourishes in wartime, and eras of economic uncertainty— at its noblest, popular music is the projection of our uncertainties, and our inexpressible, even nonsensical desires. The musical craft subscribes itself to the dismal science of documenting the human heart. And perhaps as a device, it is wholly unsustainable, but beyond its front, music can bring us somewhere unchanging, eternal.

“May your song always be sung.”

John Wiley is the Asst. Arts & Review Editor for The Heights. He can be reached at arts@bcheights.com.

1. ‘ROWLING’ OUT ANOTHER ONE Since the release of Harry Potter and Deathly Hallows: Part II two years ago, fans have wondered endlessly if they’ll ever return to the wizarding world. The answer, as J.K. Rowling emphatically released in a statement last Thursday, is yes. Rowling will pen her first ever screenplay based on her own Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. The film will take place in New York, 70 years before Harry’s story and will feature the fictitious author of Beasts, Newt Scamander.

2. A WRECKED COUPLE

Ever since Australian actor Liam Hemsworth (The Hunger Games) proposed to Miley Cyrus (twerking) in May of 2012, the two were hailed as one of Hollywood’s premiere young couples. The two met on the set of The Last Song, which happened to solidify both of their careers. Maybe Miley’s recent antics made Hemsworth reconsider such a considerable commitment, or maybe not. First it was Stewart and Pattison.

Now it’s Cyrus and Hemsworth. It’s a sad day.

4. DRAKE LEAKS

Like Kanye West’s Yeezus before it, Drake’s upcoming album Nothing Was The Same has been leaked over the Internet. Those darn kids! The album was set for a Sept. 24 release date and features the already infamous “Started from the Bottom.” Will Drake put a cork on the onslaught Kendrick Lamar has released upon the rap world? Some already know the answer.

3. BREAKING ‘MAD’ IN TWO AMC came under a bit of fire when they decided to split the fifth season of Breaking Bad. So far the move has worked, as Breaking Bad earns the best ratings of its run en route to its compelling finish.

And so the bosses at AMC have decided to split the final season of its other nuanced and popular drama, Mad Men. Part one, “The Beginning,” will air this spring. Part two, “The End of An Era,” will air next spring.

5. LINDELOF’S ‘LEFTOVERS’

Damon Lindelof, the architect of Lost, is returning to television, because trolling fans is just that fun. Lindelof’s The Leftovers, a post-apocalyptic drama, was recently picked up by HBO for 10 episodes. Lindelof has become Hollywood’s preeminent blockbuster scribe since Lost ended three and half years ago (Cowboys & Aliens, Prometheus, Star Trek Into Darkness, World War Z). The Leftovers will star Justin Theroux, Liv Tyler, Annie Q, and Brad Leland (aka Buddy freaking Garrity).

THE CRITICAL CURMUDGEON

@DEANJNORRIS (DEAN NORRIS, ACTOR, ‘BREAKING BAD’)

“ON THE PLUS SIDE, GOD HAS A MINERAL COLLECTION THAT IS OFF THE HOOK!”

PHOTO COURTESY OF GOOGLE IMAGES

Though girl bands may be making a comeback of sorts, gender equality still has progress to make in the world of pop music.

Move over, 1D: The Rise of Girl Bands MATT MAZZARI Any day now, One Direction will discover that their original producer, X Factor’s Simon Cowell, has all but actively chucked them under the bus. Cowell was quoted by MTV saying that the next-bigthing in pop music is “girl bands,” since the boy band craze is wearing off. “Everything comes around in a circle,” he said, in reference to a recent resurgence of the decades-old Spice Girls model. Neo “girl bands” are younger, and producers have made sure to tone down the sass-o-meter, keeping everything squeaky clean. Groups like Little Mix and Fifth Harmony (both of whom have been firing off No. 1 hits across the pond for the last year) got their starts from X Factor, which is basically like vacuum-sealing your pop music to hold in all of that made-for-TV goodness. Mm, mm, mm ... unoffensive!

But I talked about the effects of ageregression for pop music last year when One Direction took the boy band mantle from the Backstreet Boys before them.

I’d like to go in a different direction (pun vengefully intended). What I’d rather talk about today is, for lack of a better phrase, “girl power.”

Alright, I probably could have found a better phrase. I just wanted to say that.

Robin Thicke raised an interesting issue (that he knows nothing about) over the summer with his controversial “Blurred Lines” music video: how exactly does feminism in music work? The hypersexualization of hip-hop, rap, and adult

pop have unfortunately resulted in a great deal of material that objectifies women or is, in some way, demeaning to the female sex. I understand that sex sells, but it’s pretty obvious the type of sex that’s being sold, and it’s not always fair. Some artists (rappers in particular) are coming out against the sexist trends they see running rampant in their genres, but reform is a slow process. The supposedly “feminist” Thicke video I mentioned seemed like a confused attempt at best: if your idea of combatting objectification in pop music is to have a harem of size-two models dance around you topless, well ... don’t hold your breath for that Pulitzer, dude.

As we all know so well, treating women like people instead of sex-objects can be a real stumper. Heck, even when Akon was trying his best to describe his feelings “without being disrespectful,” the title of the song was still “Sexy Bitch.” This respect stuff is so hard! Won’t somebody please consider Akon’s minimal capacity for decency? Have a heart, femi-nazis!

But seriously, going back to Cowell’s “return of girl bands” prediction, what sort of tidings does this spell out for an already uneven playing field? Are we better off as a culture if our female performers are young, tame, and un-provocative?

Sure, it’s probably a better example for pre-teen girls than the art coming from musicians or producers taking the opposite approach: take Miley’s “Wrecking Ball” video, an uncomfortable three and a half minutes of the former-Disney star experimenting with how unsubtle you

can make a phallic symbol before the world implodes. While it’s well within Cyrus’s rights as an artist to make that video, I can’t help but think there’s a better path to female empowerment in pop.

Let’s take a look back at the ’90s, the authoritative “girl band” decade. Just think about Destiny’s Child or TLC. Weren’t there sexual elements to their songs and stage presences? Didn’t they appeal to a wider, more adult audience with hits like “Survivor,” “Say My Name,” “No Scrubs,” and all that? Beyonce Knowles deserves some credit for the way she has handled not one but two separate instances in the past year wherein creepy dudes in her audiences have tried to grab her inappropriately in the middle of her act. When some weird shirtless man in Brazil tried to pull her off-stage last week, she pulled a sick evasive maneuver, told him to chill out, and even forgave him after the show. I’m not always her biggest fan, but if anybody in the industry represents “girl power,” it’s her.

Obviously, this issue is more complicated than can be adequately summarized in a 750-word column. If you take anything away from this column, though, let it be that gender equality in pop music is a work in progress. Where the industry will go from here, well, let’s just hope Robin Thicke has nothing to do with it.

Oh, and never, ever, trust Simon Cowell.

Matt Mazzari is a staff columnist for The Heights. He can be reached at arts@bcheights.com.

@LADYGAGA (LADY GAGA, POP MUSICIAN)

“I AM DANCING IN MY ROOM I SOMETIMES STILL CANT BELIEVE IM A POPSTAR, EVERYDAY I PINCH MYSELF! *DANCING*” @KATYPERRY (KATY PERRY, POP MUSICIAN)

“YOU KNOW YOU’RE LIVING RIGHT WHEN YOU WAKE UP, BRUSH YOUR HAIR & CONFETTI FALLS OUT. NBD.” @CONAN O’BRIEN (CONAN O’BRIEN, COMEDIAN)

“I’M TORN BECAUSE I LOVE THE NEW IPHONE5S’S FINGERPRINT SCANNER, BUT I ALSO WANT TO GET AWAY WITH SOME MURDERS.” SUBMIT YOUR FAVORITE TWEETS OF THE WEEK FOR CONSIDERATION AT ARTS@ BCHEIGHTS.COM.

SEAN KEELEY

The history of modern celebrity begins with the movies.

The sudden ascent of the motion picture industry launched in Hollywood in the 1910s made entertainment available on a mass scale like never before. As movie theaters sprung up across the country, in big cities and small towns alike, the American public became enraptured with the first real movie stars. Movies were churned out at an unimaginable rate, and their actors became instantly recognizable national figures. Early silent film stars like Lillian Gish (The Birth CHARLIE CHAPLIN of a Nation), Charlie Chaplin (The Gold Rush), and Buster Keaton (The General) certainly kept busy: Gish, for example, appeared in 67 films before 1920.

And then, in the late 1920s, when Hollywood had firmly established itself as the pre-eminent global movie powerhouse, the industry had the rug pulled out from under itself. The culprit? The advent of a new cinematic technology: sound.

Talkies may have opened new artistic possibilities for filmmakers, but they often left ruined careers in their wake. A few major stars made the transition to talkies successfully. Chaplin, for example, would do some of his greatest work with films like Modern Times and The Great Dictator. But for each star that pulled it off, there were countless ones who failed, experiencing sudden plunges into obscurity. Throughout her long career, Gish would occasionally make LILLIAN GISH a return to the movies—with roles in Duel in the Sun (1946) and The Night of the Hunter (1955)—but her days as a bona fide star were over, and she preferred to take her talents to the New York stage. Gloria Swanson, a contemporary of Gish’s and the muse of Cecil B. DeMille, saw her popularity drop precipitously with the failure of her first few talkies. She, too, then focused on theater work. For American audiences, it was a case of out of sight, out of mind.

As these careers declined, countless others were made. Cary Grant, John Wayne, Grace Kelly, Marilyn Monroe, and Humphrey Bogart are just a few of the movie icons that have remained part of America’s popular consciousness long after their death. When we think of the Golden Age of Hollywood, we think of such stars—celebrities who embody a glamour, elegance, and style that seems to place them in a class above the less refined celebrities of today.

But all that glitters is not gold. Underneath all the sheen and allure of classic Hollywood lay a celebrity culture nearly as unforgiving and vicious as today’s. It surely drove Marilyn Monroe, America’s favorite sexpot and (allegedly) the mistress of President Kennedy, to an early end. The story of Monroe’s death is one that looks familiar to any MARILYN MONROE tabloid reader of today: a sad tale of booze, pills, stress, and depression, which the American public gobbled up in perverse fascination.

The ultimate statement on the dark underbelly of the celebrity culture, though, comes from Billy Wilder’s 1950 classic Sunset Boulevard. It’s a movie about a former silent star, Norma Desmond—played by Gloria Swanson in a role that hit very close to home—who spends her days in her opulent, decaying gothic mansion replaying her old movies and dreaming of breaking back into show biz. Her butler writes her fake fan letters to prop up her illusions of fame, while to the outside world she is completely forgotten.

By the movie’s end, Norma goes off the deep end and murders the young screenwriter she has been holding hostage. As a crowd of paparazzi and police arrive to take her away, a demented Norma is only too happy for the attention. “All right, Mr. DeMille,” she says to the cameraman as SUNSET BOULEVARD she saunters down the staircase, “I’m ready for my close-up.” For Norma, a woman driven to madness by her obsession with fame and celebrity, a criminal trial isn’t the end of her life but the next phase of her career—her next big break.

Hollywood is sometimes called the Dream Factory for its ability to churn out idealized cinematic fantasies for an eager public. Hollywood’s actors, too, were dreamers, aiming high with aspirations to fame and stardom. But as Sunset Boulevard shows, all too often those dreams could become nightmares.

BY

I ARIANA IGNER

The invention and growing commerciality of a little box with a couple of knobs, some buttons, an antennae, and a screen—to a great extent—shaped and molded our country’s popular culture throughout the last half of the past century. As early as the 1950s, the television became a powerful medium by which American families nationwide connected to music, movies, and celebrities, among other things, fine tuning their perceptions and leaving a lasting impact on their values.

Most people had TV’s their living rooms by the NIXON-KENNEDY in 1960s, a decade which includDEBATES ed a number of significant, transformative moments. For example, when the Nixon-Kennedy presidential debate was filmed and aired for the general population to see, a distinct change took place in the way that American’s viewed and thought about their political candidates.

No longer did one have to just sound good on the radio—now, one had to look good on the TV, too. To an estimated 74 million viewers watching, Nixon, who appeared sick and sweaty, paled in comparison to Kennedy, with his calm, confident demeanor and perfectly tousled hair. The debate swung in his favor, revealing a society that was becoming increasingly bent on image—much like it is now.

Politics aside, one of the most defining nights in TV history took place on Feb. 9, 1964—it was The Beatles’ appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show.

Marking their first live performance on U.S. soil, the broadcast reached THE BEATLES about 73 million people, and almost more impressively, garnered a record-setting television rating of 45.3, meaning that nearly half of the households with TV’s in the country were watching the episode.

The fandom surrounding The Beatles at the time was unprecedented, making it nearly impossible for even Sullivan himself to acquire extra audience tickets. Fans unable to attain one of the limited 700 seats camped out at the band’s hotel as well as outside of the studio, eager to catch at least a faint glimpse of their favorite British musicians. After their successful debut, the band from across the pond actually appeared three more times on The Ed Sullivan Show, playing, cumulatively, 20 songs that attracted an audience of over a quarter of a million people in total. The airing of the show on TV certainly enabled more fans to connect to The Beatles on a visual and, in some ways, more personal level, but it also fueled a habit of obsessive adulation, which has become an undeniable feature of celebrity pop culture even today.

After The Beatles’ presence on TV, it became more and more common for artists to be seen not only in a musical sense, but also in an iconic one—some of the greatest legends came out of the ’60s. Consider Woodstock in ’69: Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, The Who—and the list goes on. Unlike the other aforementioned events, the three-day music festival didn’t change pop culture through TV directly—its societal effect, however, is definitely one that has been preserved and explored throughout the years succeeding the concert.

A range of shows, movies, and documentaries has used Woodstock as subject material, drawing on the notions of peace, freedom, and rebellion that had so famously characterized it.

In the early 1980s, music became inseparably tied to television when the U.S. video channel MTV launched, airing JIMI HENDRIX a constant stream of the then newly popularized media form, the music video. They became vital tools in a musician’s career, determining how artists marketed themselves to their fans. Pop stars like Madonna and Michael Jackson, for example, owe a decent bit of their wild success to the skillful construction and seductive appeal of their videos.

Though the focus of MTV has certainly changed from music, to, instead, some glorified version of fame, there’s no denying that MICHAEL JACKSON the strength of its influence on pop culture is very much the same now as it was then. Over the decades, programming like MTV has in some ways shaped our society into one of manic idolization: one that seems, at times, to forget about the artist—and the talent—hidden behind the celebrity pictured on screen.

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Thursday, September 19, 2013

1990s - today BY

JOHN WILEY

Before the Internet, the lives of men were solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short—just as Thomas Hobbes suggested such a state of nature would be. Celebrity culture was left the bastard child of undeveloped technologies, incapable of sustaining the egos it sought to cultivate.

While the first spam email was sent in 1978, and first emoticon in 1982, the Internet was largely an unclaimed domain until its technologies saw some substantial commercialization in the later half of the ’80s. The first webpage was launched in 1991, the first webcam installed the same year. The Internet systematically invaded the American household wholesale over the course of the ’90s.

It was an extraordinary undertaking for our generation, nursing the cradle of cyber civilization from its infantile stages. And nurture it we did. By 1998, file-sharing sites like Napster started leaching into album sales. In 2001, Wikipedia was launched, forever changing the way individuals everywhere secretly do their research.

The millennium saw to the exponential growth of the World Wide Web. Social media giants took to building castles in the cyber clouds—only to find the proverbial Jack, extending his beanstalk past each successive cloud, and thrusting these giants back to the ground. First AOL. Then Myspace in 2003, The Facebook in 2004, and Twitter in 2006. We willingly drained the contents of our lives into this digital sphere, until now, seemingly for every one part human, we are one part metadata, waiting to be discovered on a discrete server somewhere.

In 2006, “you” were chosen as the Time person of the year, based on “your” contributions to the Internet. Congratulations.

Enter the celebrity. In the digital era, we can trace the respective flourishing and desolation of the individual down to a single tweet. Collectively, social media networks operate not unlike the Eye of Sauron, tracking each misstep—major or minor—a celebrity TIME MAGAZINE might make.

The viral paradox is that this new, very public nature of the private life can seemingly incentivize bad, outrageous, and otherwise irregular behavior. Media outlets like Buzzfeed, TMZ, Perez Hilton, and MTV.com have a huge profit motive to perpetuate the misbehavior of celebrities. That’s not to say celebrities haven’t always shown some proclivity toward misdeed, but now there’s thriving market for it.

Ten years ago, perhaps we never would have seen the likes of the Kardashian family, or Honey Boo Boo. Names like Lindsay Lohan and Amanda Bynes would still invoke fond childhood memories, and Nicholas Cage jokes—well actually, those still would probably be quite funny. Regardless, the Internet has dramatically morphed our LINDSAY LOHAN relationship to celebrities.

We are no longer necessarily in a relationship with the artist, so much as the artist’s personal escapades, and external content only vaguely relating to their careers. The result is this disordered intimacy with the celebrity, the perversion behind viral sensations like Chris Crocker’s video “Leave Britney Alone” and the massive boy-band “fandoms” running amok on Twitter.

Tabloid culture is nothing new, but the Internet has taken apart its components and rebuilt it as an engine. It’s an invisible hand, smashing singles like Miley Cyrus’ “Wrecking Ball” onto the top position of Billboard’s Hot 100.

Insights into popular CHRIS CROCKER thought have never been more accessible—websites like YouTube and Twitter can easily tabulate the public reaction to an award show or presidential debate. While in many ways, this is a very efficient model for delivering content to the masses, it’s also made popular art into a holistic consumer science.

So here’s the “wrecking ball.” We are no longer anonymous patrons of art and admirers of celebrities—we are a number. When Miley Cyrus licking a hammer and swinging naked on a wrecking ball can turn the public eye away from rising tensions in Syria, our viewership is no longer exclusive to the digital sphere. In the privacy of our homes and dorm rooms, we can click a link, and change the future contents of the art and news delivered to us.

Proportionate to how instrumental popular opinMILEY CYRUS ion is to the degradation of the celebrity, the celebrity obsession is instrumental to the degradation of popular opinion.

How separate are we from the content on the screen? The Internet era, it came in like a wrecking ball.

THE HEIGHTS

B4

Thursday, September 19, 2013

KEELEY’S CORNER

MUSIC VIDEO OF THE WEEK BY DMITRY LARIONOV

Take a trip to Guyana in Blood Orange’s ‘Chamakay’ video Sympathy for the Devil TITLE: “Chamakay”

ARTIST: Blood Orange DIRECTED BY: Adam Bainbridge WHY: In the music video for “Chamakay,” the British singer Blood Orange shows off his smooth dance moves around exotic Guyana settings

PHOTOS COURTESY OF GOOGLE IMAGES

Blood Orange, the alias of British singer Dev Hynes, said of his new video for “Chamakay” (Dir. Adam Bainbridge): “I tracked down family members, including my 92-year-old grandfather, who I had never met before. In this video you will see our first-ever meeting,” but really what we see here is the moment that the odd, quiet kid in class drops the freak bomb.

We’re not talking anime convention weird. Or dad’s adult VHS collection weird. This dude is the real deal. Somewhere within his gender-neutral voice, deep within his ambi-sexual dance moves, there’s a point, I’m sure.

But the video comes off as a man in ’80s chic moonwalking across a country that is powered by (and I quote the Internet here) “inefficient thermoelectric diesel-engine driven generators.” While advertised as a spiritual journey back to the homeland, the people of Guyana are kept in the background as Blood Orange does a jig on the beach, a little shimmy outside a favela, and a dainty spin inside a convenient store that looks like it hasn’t been restocked in years. Even the beautiful colors featured here, colors that only South America could ever have, can’t make the video any less self-indulgent. 

FASHION FORWARD

Stockholm, let me go home Discovering native fashion trends in a foreign land

THERESE TULLY I’m going to talk briefly about being abroad now. If that offends you, this is your warning, and you are free to stop reading. I know you probably have friends on friends on friends who won’t shut up about why their city was the greatest and the food was the best and the booze was the cheapest and you’ll just never understand but I’ll keep talking about it even when your eyes glaze over, okay?

But really, I swear I have a point.

Under the layers and heavy-duty coats meant to combat the brutal Swedish winters, Swedes have a very special style that is all their own.

Some may call it drool-worthy, in fact, the way they layer, the ease with which they make bold choices, and their belief that you should dress presentably every single day. I was in fashion heaven with nary a yoga pant or t-shirt to be seen.

Though the majority of the tall, blonde, lipsticked, intimidating, impeccably-dressed Swedish women made me feel like a short redheaded ugly stepsister, I was mostly impressed with the sartorial choices of the Swedish men.

Imagine you are in a Swedish student nightclub. Some foreign DJ is spinning Avicii and everyone is really tall. People stand at the coat check for long stretches of time, changing out of boots, and removing multiple layers of clothing, emerging from their cocoons in flawless fashion.

You look across the club, scanning the crowd, neck arched painfully upward. You notice something different here. Something you really didn’t expect to see ... Pocket squares?

At this one particular student club, Stockholm Nation, the men prefer three piece suits, ties, pocket squares, dress shoes, and styled hair to flannels, jeans, and bedhead. And I can’t say that I was complaining. It was hard to believe that these were men just like the ones I had left at home.

That they were the same age as the basketball jersey wearing ones I had left at Boston College.

A little effort and some wonderful fashion choices had made all the difference.

The men were completely secure in their high fashion and loved to flaunt their personal styles.

It was the norm here, not the rarity sometimes spotted on our own campus. Men talked about fashion, had personal style, and made discerning choices. It was like heaven. And all in a sweaty

nightclub, in a college town.

This college town also had many amazing vintage stores. My favorite, Ruth & Raoul’s, was a short walk from where I was living, and a frequent destination of mine. A friend visiting from home pressured me into trying on a striped jumpsuit at this particular vintage shop one day.

And though I balked at first, knowing that it was probably built for someone twice my height, it was just too cool, and too different to pass up.

I tried on the jumpsuit, with its blue and grey stripes, with a perfectly matched navy blue patent leather belt pulled from a basket. I was instantly in love. And though it was vintage, and not as sleek as some of the current Swedish fashions, it made me feel just a little bit like a real Swede.

It was bold, and I loved it. They subscribe to a uniformed boldness that is hard to describe, but that is definitely their thing. So I forked over my Swedish kronor and brought the jumpsuit home, unsure as to when it would actually see the light of day.

A few weeks later, in the light of spring, the Swedes emerged, many still decked out in black leather jackets and boots, not trusting the weak spring sun to warm them still. I had an event at my personal student nation to attend and was of course trying to get dressed at the very last minute. I had picked out a black and cream blouse, skinny black pants, and great heels. It felt okay.

And when I asked a friend’s opinion, I remembered the jumpsuit tucked away untouched, still in its green paper bag.

Out it came, and on it went, and it was decided that it was time for it to see some action. It was vintage Swedish after all, what better place to show it off than with a group of native Swedes?

I was oddly nervous in my choice, which is not like me at all, as I walked the 20 minutes to the party. When I arrived and took off my coat, I was instantly greeted with compliments. All night everyone, men and women alike, stopped to ask me about it. They loved that it was Swedish, but still so different. That I was an American bringing my own touch, and not trying too hard. One Swedish man, whom I didn’t know, even commented that he wished all girls would wear jumpsuits.

I left the party not loving just the compliments, but that the Swedish men were so into fashion, that they had all noticed what each other was wearing and were willing to discuss the nuances of a great vintage jumpsuit. All while wearing their bow ties, jackets, and pocket squares.

PHOTO COURTESY OF TIGER OF SWEDEN

THERESE TULLY / HEIGHTS SENIIOR STAFF

Therese Tully is a senior staff columnist for The Heights. She can be reached at arts@ bcheights.com.

Whether it’s the frequent sight of young Swedish men dressed to the nines, the unique local styles, or the proliferation of quality vintage clothing stores stocked with cheap finds, Sweden is a true fashion inspiration.

THIS WEEKEND in arts

BY: ARIANA IGNERI | ASSOCIATE ARTS & REVIEW EDITOR

Friday 1. PRISONERS (ONGOING)

A thrilling drama exploring the ambiguities of justice, Prisoners is about a desperate father (Hugh Jackman) and his dangerous search to recover his abducted daughter from a mysterious kidnapper in an RV. The movie, opening in theaters this Friday, also stars Jake Gyllenhaal.

2. REMEMBERING THEIR STORIES (ONGOING) Remembering Their Stories: Exploring the Influential Relationships Made Through International Service Work is the latest exhibit featured in the Level One Gallery of O’Neill Library. It displays student photos taken of the different people one meets while abroad—the people who make the experience so memorable.

Saturday

Sunday

3. LIFE IS GOOD FESTIVAL (FRIDAY 9/20-SATURDAY 9/21)

4. LIZARD LOUNGE POETRY JAM (SUNDAY, 9/22 7:30 P.M.)

Celebrating optimism and good vibes, The Life is Good Festival, to be held in Canton, Mass., will feature a host of different musical talents across its two-day span, including Jack Johnson and Hall & Oates (below). Weekend passes are $120, and single day tickets are $65—any net profits generated from the festival go directly to The Life is Good Kids Foundation.

Poetry Jam is a reoccurring Sunday event that spotlights the talents of local slam poets and spoken word artists.

Hosted by Joyce Cunha and Jeff Robinson in the intimate Lizard Lounge of Cambridge, Mass., it includes an open mic session as well as a featured poet segment. The cover charge is $5, and entry to the venue is 21+.

PHOTO COURTESY OF GOOGLE IMAGES

5. THE RAVEN’S TRAIL: A WALKING TOUR OF POE’S BOSTON (SUNDAY, 9/22 12:00 P.M.) A 90-minute tour focused on poet Edgar Allen Poe and his relationship to the city of Boston, The Raven’s Trail will explore sites such as Edgar Allan Poe Square and the King’s Chapel Burying Ground. It will be led by BC English professor Paul Lewis. Tickets must be purchased at the starting point of the tour, 2 Park Plaza.

SEAN KEELEY Whether staring out from the newsstand or appearing beside outraged commentary on Twitter and Facebook feeds, it was the image that would simply not go away: that of a disheveled Dzhokhar Tsarnaev staring out dreamily at the American public. The story called “The Bomber” published in the August 2013 issue of Rolling Stone was beside the point—what enraged was the gall of the magazine’s editors in placing Tsarnaev’s image on the cover of an entertainment magazine. Countless celebrities, families of victims of the Boston bombing, and Boston mayor Thomas M. Menino joined in a condemnation of Rolling Stone for glamorizing evil—for turning a terrorist into a rock star.

Almost everyone was offended by the cover, yet the issue flew off the shelves in record numbers. It’s a strange phenomenon, the way our culture is both repulsed and attracted by evil—and it’s one I’ve been mulling over since this past Thursday, when I took a trip to the Brattle Theater to see The Act of Killing with my roommates. I’ve seen a lot of movies in my time, but I’ve never seen one quite like The Act of Killing. Its director, Joshua Oppenheimer, calls it “a documentary of the imagination.” That’s a clever way of putting it, but it hardly does justice to everything that the movie attempts to accomplish.

It’s a historical corrective, delving into a human rights atrocity that has gone all but ignored in the West. It’s a masterful piece of filmmaking, gripping and disturbing and defiantly its own thing. And it’s also a movie about the ways that a culture can glorify evil, turning a monster into a celebrity.

If you think that America’s culture is disturbingly focused on violence, The Act of Killing will remind you that it could be much, much worse. Oppenheimer’s film is set in Indonesia, a country where militarybacked death squads killed hundreds of thousands of civilians in 1965. These killings targeted Communists, but they quickly became an excuse to eliminate any enemies of the regime. Nearly 50 years later, the executioners have never been punished—in fact, they are lionized as national heroes, and the political and military forces responsible are still in charge of the country.

Instead of dwelling on the historical details, as a lesser film would do, Oppenheimer gets to the story by looking at the present.

The main subject of The Act of Killing is a man named Anwar Congo. He is a grandfather, a beloved member of his local community, and a jovial man who recounts youthful stories of hanging out at movie theaters and smoking weed with his buddies.

He is also a gangster who personally killed over 1,000 people in the purges.

We see this horrid reality through reenactments. Oppenheimer asks Anwar and his comrade Adi Zulkadry to re-create the killings cinematically, in whatever way they desire. The mini-films these murderers devise, inspired by the Hollywood movies they profess to love, offer fascinating insights into their psyches. Anwar’s film looks like some deranged musical, with him as a high priest welcoming his victims into the afterlife. In another re-enactment, shot like a gangster movie, Anwar plays a Communist being interrogated and then strangled to death.

As the movie follows Anwar and Adi’s attempts to re-create their actions, Oppenheimer catches one disturbing moment after another. In one scene, Anwar halts the shooting of the murder re-enactment to do his daily prayer. In another, he shows off the spot where he killed his victims and then changes the subject suddenly, doing a cheerful dance on the execution site. Anwar is constantly ignoring, deflecting, or repressing his memories. It eventually becomes clear that he is tormented by nightmares of his actions, but he has been conditioned by his society not to feel remorse.

It may sound like The Act of Killing, just like the Rolling Stone cover, does glamorize evil: why should we hand killers cameras and encourage them to tell their stories? But Oppenheimer’s technique isn’t about validating the murderers or making us feel better about them. Whereas Rolling Stone lets everyone off easy by depicting Tsarnaev as a poor lost soul gone wrong, The Act of Killing forces its subject—and its audience—to face up to harder truths.

In the movie’s crucial moment, Anwar watches a scene where he plays a Communist being strangled to death. He recounts the terror he felt when shooting the scene, the total loss of dignity he experienced in those moments. He asks Oppenheimer, behind the camera, if his victims felt the same way. The director’s response is blunt: no, they felt incomparably worse—for them it was not a movie but real life, and they died.

In that moment, the totality of Anwar’s evil registers on his face, he tears up, and his facade breaks down. “But I feel it, Joshua,” he insists, and we believe him. In a movie that creates sympathy for the devil, we finally see the devil feel sympathy for the dead.

Sean Keeley is the Arts & Review Editor for The Heights. He can be reached at arts@bcheights.com.

Thursday, September 19, 2013

THE HEIGHTS

B5

Jack Johnson gives off laid-back vibes on latest album

CHART TOPPERS TOP SINGLES

BY RYAN SCHMITZ Heights Staff Anyone even remotely familiar with the music of singersongwriter Jack Johnson knows that there is a very particular sound associated with the former surfer turned musician.

Though he may have deviated slightly with his stormier previous album, Jack is back to the mellow grooves and serene lyrics that put any listener right on a Hawaiian beach. From Here To Now To You, Johnson’s newest album, is yet another example of just how much people cherish music with a solid laid back vibe. The album is definitely about good vibes, and with steely acoustic guitars, bongos, and easy toned vocals, the music definitely inspires a heavy sigh and an attitude that life could be much, much worse. It just goes to show, however stressed you may be, a good track with a relaxing melody can always offer some relief.

From Here To Now To You opens with the single, “I’ve Got You,” a beautifully-written love letter to his wife that includes a nice preview of what to expect on the album musically. The instruments used in “I’ve Got You” all make an appearance again at some point on the album,

especially the slide guitar—not something you would necessarily expect from a Jack Johnson song, but it fits in beautifully.

The slide guitar comes up quite a bit throughout the album, providing a slight bluegrass feel to an otherwise tropical sound, a move that may not be revolutionary, but works wonderfully for his music. Johnson adds a little honky-tonk feel to his new album with the fiddle-laden “Tape Deck,” a playful retrospective on his early musical days and how he struggled to find his niche in the musical world.

The other major standout of the album is the song “Never Fade,” which more than any other track on the album, truly encapsulates the classic Johnson sound that so many people love. Its sentimentality mixed with soothing vocals and guitar put this song right on the list of quintessential Johnson tunes that will be associated with his classic catalogue.

There is more than enough beauty to be found on the album. The songs “Don’t Believe A Thing I Say” and “Ones And Zeroes” stand out particularly as having some of the warmest sounds Johnson has ever released. That said, there is plenty of sappiness to be found as well, with overly simplistic songs like “You Remind Me Of You.” Some-

1 Wrecking Ball Miley Cyrus 2 Roar Katy Perry 3 Royals Lorde 4 Blurred Lines Robin Thicke feat. T.I. and Pharrell 5 Wake Me Up Avicii 6 Holy Grail Jay-Z feat. Justin Timberlake 7 Applause Lady Gaga

FROM HERE TO NOW TO YOU JACK JOHNSON PRODUCED BY BRUSHFIRE RECORDS RELEASED SEP. 17, 2013 OUR RATING B+

PHOTO COURTESY OF BRUSHFIRE RECORDS

Jack Johnson delivers another satisfying helping of mellow acoustic folk on his latest, ‘From Here To Now To You.’

TOP ALBUMS

times the sappiness comes off a little too thick, which can polarize an audience that occasionally gets sick of hearing the same thing over and over. Though many see Johnson’s resolute return to his established sound as a good thing, the album does seem like the same old music.

Where the last album seemed a bit more experimental, with sound and words born out of

1 Fuse Keith Urban 2 Kiss Land The Weeknd 3 B.O.A.T.S. II #METIME 2 Chainz 4 Crash My Party Luke Bryan 5 The Electric Lady Janelle Monae

angst, this song feels like the calm that returns after a storm blows through. Sure, it’s nice initially to have a return to normalcy, but there is a palpable lack of excitement.

In spite of having a sound that can come off a bit monotonous to a casual fan, From Here To Now To You is a definite success. Johnson draws on all kinds of influences, from Jimmy

Buffett to The Beatles in this chilled-out folk excursion. The album has mass appeal with a single that is beautifully written and performed, as well as some more folk fueled tracks that anyone can enjoy. Though a lot of Johnson’s songs sound similar, the sound itself is always pleasant, and that’s what keeps fans coming back. This album is certainly no different. 

Source: Billboard.com

Avicii’s ‘True’ breaks all boundaries with EDM genre mash-ups

BY ALEXANDRA COYLE For The Heights The song that played over and over on the radio this summer, “Wake Me Up,” might be the first of many hit songs on Avicii’s new album titled True. In

this album, the famous house DJ mixes together a handful of singers and different styles of music with his signature twist, making the music more digestible to the popular ear. The majority of the album is an incredible synthesis of electronic dance music

(EDM) with other genres, pushing and expanding EDM into the mainstream.

The most obvious departure from typical EDM is when there are no electronic beats or sounds but merely a piano, guitar, and drums. The begin-

TRUE AVICII PRODUCED BY PRMD MUSIC RELEASED SEP. 13, 2013 OUR RATING APHOTO COURTESY OF PRMD MUSIC

‘True’ is an honest, intelligent take on the EDM genre, demonstating Avicii’s willingness to challenge industry norms.

ning of “Addicted to You” opens up with the picking of a guitar and Audra Mae’s soulful voice, and is followed by a pop style with back-up vocals and more instruments layering until Avicii finally adds his own touch. The careful production of the album displays Avicii’s unique discretion and versatility.

Avicii’s choice in singers is also vital to the album’s success.

Most of the singers are below the radar in popularity as well as diverse in their respective genres. Audra Mae is an American singer-song writer from Oklahoma that sings folk rock, a far cr y from her sound on “Addicted to You” and “Shame on Me.” There are also some international Idol alumni including Lennea Henriksson and Adam Lambert. Henriksson’s raw singing in “Hope There’s Someone” allows for a certain amount of emotion to be conveyed through the music, unlike a lot of EDM in which the songs are merely for dance. Henriksson’s soft singing contrasts with the intense

EDM elements, amplifying the sweet simplicity of her voice. At the other end of the emotional spectrum is Lambert’s “Lay Me Down,” a funky, bass-driven tune with guitar licks that are then taken over by the EDM feel. The song falls in line with the electronic and ’70s inspired music that was popular over the summer, such as Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky” and Bruno Mars’ “Treasure.” Lambert’s voice works well in this song and it’s probably for the best that his quintessential shrieking didn’t make the cut.

Avicii’s conglomeration of different genres is mostly successful, with a few exceptions.

“Hey Brother” as a country song by itself could be a great hit, but together with the EDM, it is a little too much of a stretch. The beginning sounds like it could be a Darius Rucker song because of the singer’s southern twang, and then it joins with a dance beat that seems forced. This union just seems too awkward, and the song does not work. Although not the perfect song, it’s not the

worst on the album.

The song that most clearly misses the mark is “Heart Upon My Sleeve.” It starts out with pop guitar and piano, but then transitions into an intense section with cellos, making one feel as though the Trans-Siberian Orchestra has hijacked the album.

The cellos mixed with the EDM sound like a super-cheesy film soundtrack gone wrong. To have so many interesting combinations on the album, this one in particular falls completely flat and leaves the listener puzzled rather than amazed.

True has the makings of what could be a new world and audience for EDM. Avicii’s production on this album ties together unrelated genres and creates a sound for the mainstream audience as well as his faithful EDM loving fans. Ultimately, Avicii’s risk in melding all of these genres together pays off, with the exception of two songs. His creativity and ingenuity are sure to catapult his career to success, as well as change the music scene. 

MGMT develops introspective themes on self-titled album

BY PHOEBE FICO For The Heights Once I heard a friend say that he thought the indie psychedelic rock band MGMT was saving the art of music. He made it sound as if it had been drowning out at sea, trying to swim back to shore until Andrew VanWyngarden and Benjamin Goldwasser threw out a magical lifesaver in the shape of a platinum record, “Kids,” off their debut, Oracular Spectacular.

As it turns out, they were not saving music, but a specific type of music. They were saving the psychedelic rock that was first created by the four English art students who called themselves Pink Floyd and had the name Syd Barrett at the helm. On their third and self-titled album, the boys of MGMT decided that they weren’t only going to save Barrett, but a generation from suburban banalities, as the cover art suggests. (It features the duo looking very bored while doing mundane things: mowing the

lawn and selling things on the front lawn.)

The album starts with its first single “Alien Days,” which begins shockingly and brilliantly with a monologue recited by a small girl, ready to take the listener away to a far off planet. Which is exactly what it does. Accompanied by a Theremin (the instrument they used in The Twilight Zone to make all those creepy alien noises), whose sound permeates the opening track and the album.

Their Brian Eno-esque echoing soundscapes are similar (they did a good tribute song to Eno on their second album, Congratulations) but they can sometimes be tiring and, at times, physically uncomfortable to listen to. This happens on the last track, “An Orphan of Fortune,” which incorporates the sounds of a computer malfunctioning, which for any millennial would be heart-attack inducing.

Their love of unorthodox sounds works better when the song itself has more structure, as in “Mystery Disease,” where

they merge childlike and idyllic piano melodies with metallic, technologic sounds and the second single, “Your Life is A Lie,” which mixes vintage ’90s dial-up sounds and so much cowbell that the only image it conjures is the sight of Will Ferrell in a childsize t-shirt.

The songs that don’t work are the ones where the duo allows themselves to run with their musical fantasies, as on “A Good Sadness” and “Astro-Mancy,” but then again, their music was never supposed to be on top 40 radio, despite having two hit singles off their debut. As Goldwasser told Rolling Stone, they were not trying to “make music that everyone understands the first time they hear it.” That is, of course, unless the song is “Plenty of Girls in the Sea,” which is the album’s most pop, most structured, and most melodic effort.

Although it would seem that melody and lyrics were never the band’s primary concerns—as Goldwasser says, they improvised the music for “five hours”

sometimes—VanWyngarden’s lyrics have improved vastly. He crafts a lyrically cohesive album that deals with the contradictions of normal human life. As he states in “Alien Days,” “Today find infinite ways it could be / Plenty worse / It’s a blessing but it’s also a curse.”

MGMT’s third effort is in its own way a concept album about how we deal with everyday life, whether that be going off to another planet in our minds or eroding into the twilight. This central idea is anchored by the obscure cover of the 1960s folk band, Faine Jade’s “Introspec-

tion,” where they ponder, “What am I really like inside?” Maybe the reason why it is so hard to listen to this album is because it makes us look at ourselves and sometimes all we find is a mixture of strange and unnatural things with which we are not exactly comfortable. 

MGMT MGMT PRODUCED BY COLUMBIA RECORDS RELEASED SEP. 17, 2013 OUR RATING B+

PHOTO COURTESY OF COLUMBIA RECORDS

The pyschedelic rock genre sees a notable contribution in MGMT’s imaginative, if unsettling, self-titled album.

SINGLE REVIEWS BY JAMES HENNELLY Keith Urban feat. Miranda Lambert “We Were Us”

Drake “Wu-Tang Forever” Drake pays homage to the iconic rap group on this latest leak from his upcoming album, Nothing Was the Same. Heavy on the lethargic synths and smug lyrics that have become a staple for the artist, “WTF” hypnotizes with its haunting simplicity. Though disjointed at times, this track will certainly leave Drake fans satisfied and nostalgic for So Far Gone days.

One-third country twang (forged in the backwoods of…New Zealand), one-third infectious chorus, and one-third Miranda Lambert, this new single from Keith Urban’s latest album is about as uplifting a country jam as you will find out there today. The vocal chemistry between Lambert and Urban is undeniable. Expect to hear this song at most tailgates from here on out.

Britney Spears “Work Bitch” Britney’s back again, but based on her new single “Work Bitch,” it’s not clear that’s a good thing. Spears continues to mask her lack of vocal ability with a faux British accent in this EDM-esque ode to hard work.

If nothing else, as one iTunes commenter noted, “Work Bitch” is “a great song for working out!”

B6

The Heights

Thursday, September 19, 2013

THE HEIGHTS

Thursday, September 19, 2013

B7

THIS WEEK IN...

BY TRICIA TIEDT | METRO EDITOR

BREAKING GROUND R o ch e B ro s . , the gourmet grocery store popular throughout the Greater Boston area, has reached an agreement with the city of Boston to inhabit a new space in Downtown Crossing. The mayor’s office released a statement regarding the construction of the new Millennium Tower/Burnham Building in Boston, which broke ground on Tuesday.

The tower, a $630 million dollar project that will rise 625 feet into the Boston sky, will stand at the site of the former Filene’s Department Store in Downtown Crossing. The Burnham Building will sit adjacent to the tower, acting as a residential and retail building.

As the first retail partner on the project, Roche Bros. will become the first large-scale grocery store to reside in the urban area. The project is expected to encompass 1.4 million square feet.

POLITICS FOOD For the first time in 11 years, the Boston Teacher’s Union has chosen to endorse a mayoral candidate.

Less than a week before the preliminary election, the union has formally backed candidates Felix Arroyo and Rob Consalvo. On Wednesday evening , hundreds gathered for a general membership meeting, where a formal vote was taken—although rumors of support for both candidates was leaked earlier this week. “We feel there are a number of candidates who believe strongly in public education, but we think these two far and away separated themselves by being more thoughtful and for having a better grasp of what the schools need to move forward,” said Union President Richard Stutman in an interview with The Boston Globe. The union boasts over 5,000 members, a number that could significantly boost a candidate’s campaign.

The Bacon Truck made its debut on Boston streets this past weekend at SoWa, the seasonal open market that pops up every Sunday in South Boston. The Bacon Truck joins a fleet of other food trucks that have rolled through town in recent years, garnering the attention of foodies throughout the city. While a full menu has not yet been released, The Bacon Truck features sandwiches such as the “b.l.a.t.” (bacon, lettuce, avo cado, and tomato) and the b.e.l.t. (bacon, egg salad, lettuce, and tomato). Side dishes include habanero garlic pickles and tater salad. Most noteworthy on their selective menu thus far is the nutella dipped bacon, just one of several dessert options to hit their board of regulars come the fall. According to their web page, owners Sam and J.J. are fighting for “the inalienable rights of Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Bacon.”

Before preliminary, still an open race Mayoral Election, from B10 College, worked in New York as an insurance underwriter until he returned to Boston in 2000, leading a nonprofit organization to reinvigorate Roxbury. The Globe described him as dedicated to spreading economic development as well as one capable of easing tensions “between native-born Bostonians and nonEnglish-speaking immigrants,” an apt description given his own characterization of the mayoral race in Boston Magazine, where he said that the highest fundraisers in the mayoral race, one of whom is Connolly, are representative of an “old Boston” that is “still alive and kicking” but does not “necessarily reflect the voters of Boston.”

Connolly, however, may disagree that his candidacy is representative of an older Boston. The same age as Barros at 39, Connolly told Boston Magazine, “The fabric of the neighborhoods has changed so dramatically in the last 20 years.” He noted the increased presence of both the GLBTQ community and youthful artists and professionals.

The Globe described him as a man well-equipped to deal with the Boston Teacher’s Union in the push for better schools.

Other viable candidates based on The Boston Globe’s poll include Felix Arroyo, Bill Walczak, Charlotte Golar Richie, Daniel Conley, Robert Consalvo, Michael Ross, and Martin Walsh.

Arroyo, a city councilor, has proven himself a candidate who The Globe describes as capable of understanding “struggles of poor families.”

Walczak, a neighborhood health care specialist, would strive to create stronger relationships between health centers and schools.

Conley, the Suffolk District Attorney, would be an active overseer of Boston’s police and fire deparments.

Consalvo, district city councilor of Hyde Park and Roslindale, would be dedicated to improving schools like Connolly.

Ross, a city councilor, looks to make Boston competitive in the modern world, especially by ap-

proving its, as The Globe puts it, “early closing hours and creaky transportation system.”

Walsh, a state representative, ties himself strongly to organized labor.

Richie, the only female candidate, is a senior vice president for public policy at YouthBuild USA, a youth and community development program in Somerville, Mass. A black woman, Richie’s candidacy is unique in the field and told Boston Magazine, “I think that we probably have still some work to do to encourage more women to run for elective office.”

After Tuesday’s preliminary election, the two remaining candidates will have until the general election on Nov. 5 to gain traction in the electorate to secure the mayorship.

Richie added, however, that she hopes her candidacy will be about more than just her race or her gender, preferring to focus on the issues facing Boston.

After Tuesday’s preliminary election, the two remaining candidates will have until the general election on Nov. 5 to gain traction in the electorate to secure the mayorship.

“This race is really up in the air,” said Andrew E. Smith, director of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center, according to The Globe. “Nobody is out of the hunt. Almost everybody has a chance of winning this thing.” 

HOUSE AD

GOING GREEN HUMANITY Mayor Thomas M. Menino ann o u n c e d Tu e s d ay afternoon that the city of Boston was ranked the top energy efficient city in the country, according to the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE). In their 2013 City Energy Efficiency Scorecard, the ACEEE ranked the nation’s 34 most populated cities on their green efforts.

This is the first ever report to rank cities exclusively on their energy conservation efforts. According to a press release from the mayor’s office, cities were evaluated on what actions they are taking to reduce energy use in five key areas: buildings, transportation, energy and water utility efforts, local government operations, and community-wide initiatives. Boston was honored with the top spot due to Menino’s energy-savings goals, set in 2009 and 2011, as well as the Greenovate Boston initiative.

On Saturday, a homeless man found a backpack at the South Bay Center in Dorchester.

Upon opening the bag, he found that it contained $2,400 in U.S. currency, close to $40,000 in traveler’s checks, and Chinese passports, among other international papers.

He promptly turned the backpack into the officers on duty at the mall, where the owner of the backpack later confirmed his identity at police headquarters. This kind act has astonished both locals and those across the country, making national headlines early in the week. Police Chief Commissioner Ed Davis recognized the man, later identified as Glen James, on Monday afternoon for his “extraordinary show of character and honesty.” According to Boston Magazine, a Virginia man impressed by James’ actions is now organizing a fundraiser in his honor.

RESTAURANT REVIEW

Specialty burgers, affordable price

PHOTO COURTESY OF YELP

B Y M ICHAEL C ROWLEY For The Heights

Not even Plankton could disagree: Flat Patties (Cambridge, Mass.) serves up a perfect trifecta, offering patrons superb value, taste, and a pristine autumn ambiance from its Harvard Square location. Offering a wide selection of traditional American made-to-order options, Flat Patties also offers an enticing spread of both delicatessen and vegetarian options.

Where Flat Patties truly excels over other Boston lunch options is value. The restaurant offers incredibly large portions for what feels like pennies on the dollar. Seven dollars delivers a freshly ground burger, hand-cut French fries, and a large drink. It’s easy to understand why Flat Patties received recognition as Most Affordable in Boston Magazine’s 2010 Best of Boston feature. The amount of food offered at such low prices alone makes Flat Patties worth a visit. It becomes a challenge to join the clean plate club given the portion size. Even opting for one of Flat Patties’ specialty options (think avocado, sauteed onions, fried egg, etc.), one can still easily enjoy a great meal for under 10 dollars. It is truly a pleasant reprieve from the typical breaking-the-bank feeling one experiences when eating out.

While most affordable options sacrifice taste for value, Flat Patties finds an impressive balance. It’s obvious that the chefs take great care in preparing the food, hand pressing each patty and hand cutting each fry. Every item is 100 percent made to order, preventing the more manufactured or mass-produced taste prevalent at other lunch hotspots. This careful attention to detail and quality is clearly evidenced in the taste of the meal. Burgers and sandwiches possess a generous amount of spice and flavor—they’re a real treat. Particularly, a regular cheeseburger topped with bacon and onion offers a zesty option. And, for the more daring, ask for the Sunday Morning: a burger topped with a fried egg, ham, and spiced tomato jam. Last but not least, the pulled pork sandwich may be the best take on the sandwich in Boston. Capitalizing on an optimal pork-to-bread ratio, Flat Patties has created an impressive sandwich. The BBQ mix is second to none.

For those with a sweeter tooth, the dessert menu is sure to satisfy. Offering a traditional selection of flavors, Flat Patties’ homemade frozen custard is a nice complement to any of their entree choices. Be sure to take advantage of the generous topping selection—the dulce de leche is fantastic. And, for those looking to go all out, the malted milkshakes are perhaps the best in Cambridge.

Flat Patties’ location is perfect for a midday lunch. Located just south of Harvard Square, the diner’s windowed front wall allows natural light to reach the dining areas, bringing a cheery ambiance to the establishment.

Perhaps most striking about Flat Patties is the cheeriness of the employees and chefs. Patrons are greeted with a smile and friendly “Hello” upon entry, and the men and women behind LOCATION: 33 BRATTLE STREET CAMBRIDGE, MA Just South of Harvard Square CUISINE: American, Burgers SIGNATURE DISH: Sunday Morning ATMOSPHERE: 9/10 AVERAGE MEAL: $7 OVERALL EXPERIENCE: A

the counter are forthcoming with excellent recommendations regarding the menu and specials. The staff is by no means weary of group traffic, making it a great spot for friends looking for a weekend lunch. In fact, even with a small group, the staff successfully completed each order (from scratch) within five minutes.

Patrons will by no means feel inconvenienced by wait time. And, as an added bonus, Flat Patties’ music soundtrack is nothing short of phenomenal. With a great selection of easy listening and mellow music, diners are bound to leave with a few new songs for their iTunes playlists. The tunes certainly beat Squidward’s clarinet—patrons will not be disappointed.

Come hungry and keep that Shazam app open!

Flat Patties is sure to impress. 

The Heights

B8

Bookish Bostonian

Familiar sights and sounds Ryan Towey When my bus pulled into New York City, I realized that I had become more Boston-ized than I ever intended.

Dropped off in midtown Manhattan, I was instantly overwhelmed by the lights, the cabs, the emergency vehicles, the massive advertisements, and, more than anything else, the people—the businessmen, the protestors, the homeless, the musicians, the consumers of overlypriced, corporation-crafted coffee.

I was reminded of the feeling I had whenever I went to New York as a child—the anxiety that came along with visiting a place that just seemed so big, how my father would always advise me to take my mother’s hand while he held my sister’s—this was ostensibly to make me feel like one of the “men of the house,” to play the role of my mother’s protector, but reflection now makes it obvious that my mother was indeed meant to keep track of me.

Alone, I entered New York, which, despite the claims of other cities, will always be the city.

Still, I found myself missing the Boston streets, which always pleased me by being relatively uncongested. Boston’s low-lying buildings created less claustrophobia than New York’s colossal structures. I even found myself missing Boston College’s own comfortable Chestnut Hill.

Underneath the anxiety and my desire for the familiar, however, was a pervasive loneliness.

There is something about New York— perhaps any city, but especially New York—that leaves one feeling isolated, despite the presence of over one and a half million souls in Manhattan alone.

I began looking for the face of the girl, an NYU student whom I was visiting.

During the weekend, she and I had lunch at a New York Restaurant called the Grey Dog on University Place—a pretty cool joint with the shtick of moving people in and out in a quick but polite manner so as to handle the high volume of its brunch crowd.

We were seated, ironically, at a table decorated with a map of Boston, reminding me of the ways that Boston is in New York, and vice versa.

Linked by history, culture, and passionate sport rivalries, it is a relationship like few others. While working on an article for The Heights about the mayoral preliminary election, I was reminded that New York is also about to engage in a landmark election. Both of these major northeastern cities—arguably two of the most important in the country—will have to choose who will lead them into the future after the departure of two long-standing mayoral figures.

The choice has an impact not only on the superficial political landscape of the cities, but also on the cities’ businesses and cultures.

While on the bus back to Boston at the end of the weekend, I found myself looking at the standard advertisements that are unavoidable in the Boston area.

One promised “wicked good savings” and another told customers to give their wallets a “breathah.” I sometimes find these signs irritating—the idea that a great and diverse city is reduced to a stereotype, that a company feels it can gain profit with less-than-creative advertisements.

But on this occasion I felt a fierce affection for the city that I have crafted as my home. I knew that when I climbed off the bus at South Station, I would be entering a city filled with familiar sights, but I mostly looked forward to the familiar people that I would find at BC. And that is the strange thing about any place—a sea of individuals making its ways down the street can make one feel a massive kind of loneliness, but one familiar person can provide the simplest kind of togetherness.

Like when I climbed off the bus in New York to start my weekend. I had to work my way to Union Square alone.

I was a little lost.

But then there was something else— the face of a familiar girl materializing out of the anonymous New York crowd.

A reminder, of course, that no city need be lonely for long.

Ryan Towey is the Asst. Metro Editor for The Heights. He can be reached at metro@bcheights.com.

Thursday, September 19, 2013

Tavern in the Square bar to open four new locations With increased number of locations, owners determined to keep local feel B y S hannon I nglesby Heights Staff

Tavern in the Square, a favorite neighborhood sports bar for many, will soon expand to four new locations by the end of 2014, making it the fastest growing restaurant in the Greater Boston Area.

The existing si x Tavern in the Square bars, known as “TITS” to rowdy college students, each have their own unique atmosphere. While some worry that expanding Tavern in the Square to further locations will detract from the individuality each bar holds, the owners of Tavern in the Square reassure bar-hoppers that their restaurants will not lose their special neighborhood vibe.

Nearing the 10-year anniversary of the bars’ creation, the company’s owners are now adding close to as many locations this year as they did during their first decade. The first tavern was opened in 2004 in Cambridge’s Cen-

tral Square, a popular draw for MIT and Harvard crowds. It was followed by locations in Porter Square, Salem, Burlington, Allston, and most recently, Newton.

Now, Stephen DeSousa , one of the owners of the company, plans to expand in the Greater Boston area.

For weary train travellers, a Tavern in the Square will open right next to South Station. Due to an inability to secure a full liquor license last July, however, this particular location will only be a small, limited-service bar, closing nightly at 11 p.m. The other three locations DeSousa plans for will be larger full service bars next to North Station on Causeway St., on Main St. in Northborough, and at a new shopping center in Littleton.

The company’s great success at its current locations makes this expansion feasible. While normally limited to investing and financing one bar at a time, DeSousa says the company is finding it much easier to secure financing for

multiple new locations at once. This opportunity, compounded with the demand for more of these bars, makes expansion hard to resist. DeSousa also says that landlords and commercial developers are looking more and more to build new locations because of the great success of the company. Tavern in the Square restaurants are popular with many types of people, making them attractive for both families and regular bar-goers. DeSousa describes the restaurants to be “upscale casual”—a bar atmosphere that is apparently in high demand in the Boston area.

To accommo date for the rapid growth in the company, Tavern in the Square plans to open its first corporate headquarters in Twin-City Plaza in Cambridge. Additionally, partners Joey Arcari and Renato Valentin will soon join DeSousa. Arcari also runs several other popular restaurants separately from Tavern in the Square, including the Boston Beer Garden, the Playwright, and the Joshua Tree.

Some worr y, howe ver, that the expansion of Tavern in the Square will leave a “chain-restaurant” taste on the company. The idea of a grow-

ing corporate aspect of the company disturbs some locals and they worry that the existing restaurants will lose their charm. Most people enjoy their neighborhood Tavern in the Square for its town-specified uniqueness. With more locations opening so quickly, some Boston area residents think that Tavern in the Square will just become another generic restaurant-bar. Many feel that they would opt for a smaller and quainter neighborhood bar if Tavern in the Square became too universal and commercialized.

The owners of Tavern in the Square disagree with this view, however, stating in the Boston Business Journal that they are “determined to maintain the company’s locally oriented approach, even as it expands significantly.” De Sousa remarks that “each location has a slightly different feel,” and that this local uniqueness is something they will strive to preserve in each neighborhood they move to. DeSousa also points out that Tavern in the Square is not a corporate owned franchise.

“We’re still just a group of three guys,” he said. “We’re in those restaurants every single day.” n

erin fitzpatrick / for the heights

Coakley wants victory after 2010 Senate loss Coakley, from B10 Boston University Law School, Coakley became District Attorney for Middlesex County in 1999, leaving in 2007 after being elected to her current position of Attorney General. Coakley is the first woman in Massachusetts history to serve in the role.

During her two terms as Attorney General, Coakley has garnered praise for her high-profile work on issues such as health care, GLBTQ rights, and sex trafficking. Democratic strategist Mary Anne Marsh told The Washington Post that Coakley’s handling of these topics and style as Attorney General are appealing to voters.

“She is considered to be very fair, ver y thoughtful, ver y evenhanded,” Marsh said.

A 2012 Boston Globe poll revealed that Coakley was the most popular statewide political figure in Massachusetts, with 62 percent of likely voters viewing her favorably—a figure that bested those of Patrick, former U.S. Senator Scott

Brown, and other notable politicians.

Early polls for the gubernatorial race show Coakley leading the Democratic primary field that features several candidates, including state Treasurer Steven Grossman—widely considered Coakley’s biggest primary rival—former Globe columnist Juliette Kayyem, former Obama administration health care official Donald Berwick, and biotechnology executive Joseph Avellone.

Coakley is also polling well against likely Republican nominee Charlie Baker, a Needham native who failed in a bid to unseat Patrick in 2010. The GOP is relying heavily on Baker as a viable candidate in light of Brown’s announcement that he will not run for governor.

Boasting a platform of fiscally conservative and socially liberal views, Baker, 56, is a Harvard graduate who served in the administrations of former Massachusetts governors William Weld and Paul Cellucci in the 1990s. He looks to return to the gubernatorial campaign trail having learned the lessons of three years ago.

“Charlie realizes [that] during the first

time, voters didn’t get a good feel for who he is and what he is all about,” Richard Tisei, the GOP candidate for lieutenant governor in 2010, told Boston.com.

“It’s just a question of letting Charlie be Charlie. He doesn’t need to be packaged, he just needs to be himself.”

Baker is not the only one who is hoping to rebound from a lackluster campaign in recent years.

Coakley is perhaps best known nationally for her tough loss to Brown in the U.S. Senate special election in 2010.

Brown surged late in the race to overtake Coakley, who was hindered by a series of gaffes and criticized for running a timid campaign.

Although there is skepticism within the Democratic party about her ability to run a successful general election campaign following her missteps against Brown, Coakley is using her experience in 2010 to bolster her ticket.

“You know, a lot of folks say politics is tough and it can be,” Coakley said in the video promoting her campaign. “I know what it’s like to lose a race. I know how hard that is. But you know what, it’s noth-

ing compared to what so many people go through every day in their lives.”

Local political experts and strategists point to Coakley’s resilience in the aftermath of her loss as a notable strength to bear in mind as she moves forward in the gubernatorial race.

“She turned around immediately from that defeat and was reelected [as Attorney General] by a substantial margin and has since continued to remain one of the most popular politicians in the state,” Peter Ubertaccio, director of the Martin Institute for Law and Society at Stonehill College, told The Globe.

Marsh added that Coakley’s willingness to do a three-day long, 18-city tour following her campaign launch shows that she is “intent to put those doubts aside and the past behind her.”

Coakley is further reinforcing her campaign team by hiring democratic strategist Doug Rubin, often considered the party’s top political advisor in the state. Rubin has previously helped Patrick and Elizabeth Warren in their successful bids for governor and the U.S. Senate, respectively. n

Reshaping the Boston skyline begins in Back Bay Back Bay Tower, from B10 these new designs will be “transformative” in the Back Bay area. The design of the 58-story building is modeled with respect to the architecture of the Christian Science mother church located next door, and will feature an equilateral triangle-shape with rounded corners.

The developers are known for their work on the luxury Liberty Hotel and on the Charles Hotel in Cambridge.

The development’s lead architect, Henry N. Cobb, a Boston native, is renowned for his design of Boston’s famous John Hancock Tower, which was completed in 1976 and stretches about 100 feet above the new project’s building. Closer to the new development site, Cobb and his firm, Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, had also designed the

Christian Science Plaza and reflecting pool.

Since the new project is set to house both visitors and residents, the Back Bay will undoubtedly be receiving more attention as a landmark section of Boston. Cobb explains that the building will serve as a city skyline re-shaper and connecter, to fill the gap between the Christian Science Plaza and the Prudential Center, which “sit next to each other, but don’t talk to each other,” according to Cobb.

While Carpenter & Co.’s building has been granted official approval by the BRA, several more development projects are in the works that have the potential to dramatically redraw the Boston skyline.

AvalonBay Communities Inc., for example, recently issued a $200 million proposal for 38-story apartment tower to be located next to the TD Garden,

which would include a two-story retail arcade connecting to the Garden and North Station.

The redevelopment of the aging Government Center garage into office, retail, and residential space is expected, while in Downtown Crossing, construction has already begun on a 625-foot residential tower.

At Thursday’s meeting, the BRA additionally approved a handful of significant housing projects, which include the multi-phase transformation of the Bartlett Street MBTA bus yard in Roxbury into a 323-unit housing, retail, and office development.

Development proposals cropping up in this number indicate that Boston is ready to take on more permanent city-dwellers, and is all part of Mayor Thomas M. Menino’s recently-revealed plan to build 30,000 housing units in the city by 2020.

The plan involves measures such as building taller structures with smaller residential units, selling discounted public land to developers, and using subsidies to create more affordable housing.

Menino’s ultimate goal is for more affordable city housing to be available particularly to the middle class, young professionals, elderly residents, and families. With the mayor’s plans to leave office, developers have been hurrying to obtain permits before the start of a new administration.

Regarding the newly-approved Back Bay/Christian Science Plaza project, Menino told WBZ-TV that he is proud of what will be accomplished by its construction, commenting on how “It also creates jobs in our society today, jobs for the future,” and adding, “I like the way it was designed, it fits into that neighborhood perfectly.” n

THE HEIGHTS

Thursday, September 19, 2013

B9

Affleck to produce new Boston-based crime drama B Y M AGGIE M ARETZ For The Heights

Aside from his upcoming role as Batman in 2015, Ben Affleck—writer, director, producer, actor, and recent recipient of an Academy Award for Best Picture for his movie Argo—announced on Friday that he has decided to add something else to his plate. He, along with Glenn Gordon Caron, has signed on with FOX to make a pilot for a new ’60s-era crime drama called The Middle Man, for which production will start in early 2014. Caron, who wrote and will co-executively produce the pilot with Affleck, is an Emmy award nominee for his work as the creator of Moonlighting and Medium.

For Affleck, this will mark a special moment in his career: his debut as a television director. He has had opportunities, however, to break onto the small screen in the past. Most notably, he was previously committed to direct the Showtime show Homeland, but had to drop out due to family commitments. At the Casting Society of America’s annual Artios Awards in November of last year, he joked about the popular program, “I was sure nothing would happen with the show. Now

I hate the f—king show. I’m attaching myself to 14 pilots this year.”

Affleck’s new crime drama will take place in Boston, his native city, which has served as the setting for two of his previous movies: Gone Baby Gone and The Town. In fact, The Middle Man project actually originated in 2009 during the filming of The Town, on which Ben Affleck worked with Glenn Gordon Caron.

During production of the movie, he and Caron met writers Michael Yebba, (Ordinary Man) and Emilio Mauro (God Only Knows).

Yebba and Mauro had already begun to write the idea in 2008 as a feature film, and joined forces with Affleck and Caron to develop the idea as a television show. Yebba and Mauro will work on the pilot as both writers and producers. Mauro, also a Boston native, describes his feelings on the pilot: “I hate to call it a lottery ticket, but I don’t know—I was a little bit lucky that this all fell in the right place at the right time. It’s really crazy, sometimes it hasn’t even hit me yet.”

The pilot itself will follow the life of FBI agent Rudy MacAteer, who is responsible for taking down the Italian-American mafia, and his relations

with his Irish-American gangsterturned-informant, Mickey Flood. As the two get more deeply involved in the world of the mob, MacAteer is forced to enter the gray area between legal and illegal in his dealings with Flood, and the interactions between the two eventually and inadvertently give rise to the Irish-American mob.

As far as the logistics for putting the show into motion, the team behind the show insists they have no leads yet on who will play which roles, but they have stated that they plan to begin casting immediately. Moreover they are maintaining that Affleck will stay out of the spotlight for this particular project.

They are also not sure yet whether it will be possible to film in Boston, but they hope to make it happen.

The drama is set to be produced through Affleck’s Pearl Street Films production company with Chay Carter, who has worked with Affleck in the past on Argo, The Town, and Gone Baby Gone, and will also co-executively produce with Affleck and Caron. Also coming up from Pearl Street Films is a project called “Whitey,” a biopic about the Boston mobster Whitey Bulger that will star Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, and Casey Affleck. The production

company also has announced a project called Race to the South Pole, which will cover the competition between two explorers, Roald Amundsen and Robert Falcon Scott, to be the first to the South Pole, and will star Casey Affleck as Scott. 

rary dance. It was the first dance company to utilize pieces of modern-day choreographers, such as Mark Morris, Susan Marshall, Ralph Lemon, Elisa Monte, and Helen Pickett.

On a more local scale, the Boston Ballet is known for its stellar performances of The Nutcracker. Voted “The Best Nutcracker Performance in the U.S.” in 2009, the Nissinen-choreographed production has been running for 42 years.

Anne Tippett, BC ’79, first decided to become involved in ballet off the stage when she saw her first perfor-

mance of The Nutcracker 38 years ago as a BC undergraduate.

“I was hooked,” Tippett said in an interview with The Heights.

Since then, she has attended hundreds of Boston Ballet performances, “becoming a subscriber and supporter along the way.” A season ticket holder, she also became an avid member of the Boston Ballet Volunteer Association.

Through this, Tippett spent many days selling ballet merchandise before, after, and during intermission of countless shows. She also took on the responsibility of assisting in the coordination and execution of an annual lecture series held at Boston Ballet’s South

End studio.

“Volunteering was a wonderful way to get to know company members and other ballet fans in the greater Boston community who enjoyed the performances as much as I did,” Tippett said. It also provided her the opportunity for a “behind-the-scenes” glimpse of each production, as help was often needed in the costume shop.

Through its riveting performances, the Boston Ballet engages millions of people worldwide.

Not only do people enjoy viewing the masterpieces, but over 3,000 young women and men in Boston,

PHOTO COURTESY OF NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Newton, and Marblehead partake in dance training offered by the Boston Ballet School.

Additionally, the Boston Ballet has several educational community outreach programs including Adaptive Dance, a Boston Ballet program in collaboration with the Department of Physical Therapy at the Children’s Hospital of Boston. It strives to teach and encourage dance and expressive movement to children with special needs.

Since its birth in 2002, the program has helped many special needs children cultivate a love of music and dance as tools for self-expression. 

COLLEGIATE ROUND-UP

BY BRENNA CASS | HEIGHTS STAFF

HARVARD UNIVERSITY

University introduces Nasir Jones Hiphop fellowship This week, Harvard is officially introducing the Nasir Jones Hiphop Fellowship, named for rapper Nas, as part of the Hip Hop Archive and in connection with the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute. The fellowship, which was underwritten by a major investor at Harvard who asked to remain anonymous, will help to fund artists and students who show promise and originality in the creation of hip-hop music.

The Hip Hop Archive has supported research and scholarship in the field of hip hop for Harvard students since its establishment in 2002.

Nas first became famous in the world of hip hop with his debut album Illmatic in 1994, and has released 10 albums since, eight of which have gone platinum. “Nas is a true visionary, and he consistently shows how boundaries can be pushed and expanded to further the cause of education and knowledge,” said Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the head of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute in a July 16 interview

BOSTON UNIV. Boston University has had its highest fundraising year yet, raising $116.9 million dollars in funds for the fiscal year of 2013.

This record-breaking amount puts the Campaign for Boston University more than halfway toward its $1 billion goal. The Campaign for Boston University is the school’s first official fundraising campaign, and publically launched last fall. Campaign funds will be used in various ways, but the bulk of them will be used to support scholarships for undergraduate students. Later on, funds will be used to increase the number of endowed professorships, increase research opportunities on campus, and to help expand BU’s career services, libraries, and athletics. Finally, the funds will help to improve facilities and buildings on campus, including a new medical school building and the school’s most recent project, the New Balance Field.

“This last year was a historic one for Boston University fundraising,” said President Robert A. Brown according to the university’s website. “The launch of our comprehensive campaign certainly is creating tremendous momentum for the University.”

with Rolling Stone Magazine.

The Hip Hop Archive and Research Institute was established in 2002 by Marcyliena Morgan, a professor of African and African American Studies at Harvard. According to the Archive’s website, the mission of the institute is to “facilitate and encourage the pursuit of knowledge, art, culture, and responsible leadership through hip hop.” Though Harvard may seem like an unlikely place for a hip hop archive to be located, the school was one of the first universities to play rap music on college radio before it became popularized and played on commercial radio. The Hip Hop Archive exists within the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute, which was formed in 1975 to give fellowships to students in African and African-American studies, and is currently run by Gates. The Nasir Jones Hip Hop Fellowship will officially be introduced later this week at Harvard.

EMERSON On Aug. 26, Emerson College proposed a project to the city of Boston to remake the current commercial properties at 1-3 Boylston Place in Boston into an 18-story residence hall. Currently, the property is owned by Emerson College and is home to the Sweetwater Tavern and the Estate nightclub, both popular spots among students. The proposal first must be approved by the Boston Redevelopment Authority, with input from the public and the city. After initial meetings in early September, the project has already been scaled down from a 280-foot tall structure to a 171-foot tall structure. Even at the lower height, the building still would be one of the tallest on Emerson’s campus. The building would be composed of suite-style rooms, and would house students, while the “Little Building,” one of Emerson’s biggest dorms, is being repaired. “The Little Building has done the majority of housing for our students, but now it needs to be fixed,” said Margaret A. Ings, Emerson’s Associate Vice-President in a community meeting about the project on Sept. 3. If approved, the construction of the new dormitory would begin in spring of 2014.

Endlessly changing weather SAMANTHA COSTANZO

BC alum reflects on experience with the Boston Ballet Boston Ballet, from B10

BOSTON UNCOMMON

PHOTOS COURTESY OF GOOGLE IMAGES

MIT O n We d n e s d ay, S e p t . 1 1 at around 11:30 p.m., an 18-year-old student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology fell through a skylight during a fraternity party.

The student, who wishes to remain anonymous, was at a party at the fraternity Phi Sigma Kappa, located at 485 Commonwealth Ave. in Boston. According to eyewitnesses, the student was on the roof of the fraternity and was jumping up and down on the skylight before it eventually broke, dropping the student down four stories.

He was taken to Brigham and Women’s Hospital, but did not have any severe or life-threatening injuries.

When the police reported to the Phi Sigma Kappa house the following day, numerous safety citations were issued, including the removal of walls between the buildings at 485 and 487 Commonwealth Ave., both of which are owned by the fraternity. The deck on the rooftop where the student was standing when he fell was also cited as illegal due to its lack of railings.

Last December, a few days after Christmas, my mom and I decided we wanted to go for a bike ride on the beach.

“Check the weather,” she said. “If it’s nice out tomorrow, we’ll go in the morning.”

And I laughed.

“Mom,” I said, “we live in Los Angeles. I can give you the weather report: it’s going to be 70-something and sunny, with a nice breeze.” Sure enough, we got exactly that.

Call me clairvoyant. Or crazy, I suppose, for giving up 70-degree weather in December to come to school in Boston. Just let me explain myself first.

There’s a tree outside my dorm room that’s almost all a crisp shade of green—still dressed for summer, or so it seems. Tearing through the greenery like a fire truck rushing down the street is a bold streak of pure red, a defiant banner proclaiming that fall is just around the corner.

And I can’t wait for it.

Some streets in L.A., like the one my grandparents live on, are lucky enough to have magic color-changing trees along their sidewalks. The one I live on has magnolia trees, which are rather pretty, but those don’t put on hats made of fire like their classy East Coast cousins do every October. The seasons, to Los Angeles and its trees, are old-fashioned things you read about in books like Walden.

Winter hardly exists in L.A., but in Boston, of course, it’s all anyone can talk about when they mention weather.

I can’t sit still if it’s snowing outside. I’m like a puppy frantically barking at the mailman to scare him off, despite the fact that he’s on the other side of the window. I like going outside and catching snowflakes on my gloves, finding the biggest ones, and scrutinizing them up close to check that they do in fact look like those lacy paper ones you make in elementary school art classes. I hate walking to class when it’s snowing sideways, but there’s nothing like looking out the window in the morning and seeing the sunlight bounce off of a fresh, almost pristine coat of snow that floated down overnight.

Sometimes I do miss the steady SoCal sunshine I grew up with. When it’s still snowing in the middle of March and you can’t remember the last time you felt warm outdoors, a not-so-white Christmas doesn’t sound half bad. When it’s pushing 90 one day and in the mid-50s the next, I roll my eyes at the fickleness of New England weather. “Come on,” I want to say to the sky, “make up your mind already.

What season is it?”

I’ve noticed that this question never, ever has a straight answer.

In my years at BC, I’ve seen a hurricane and a blizzard hit campus. I’ve experienced that awful mix of snow, rain, and who knows what else that people out here call a “wintry mix.”

I’ve yet to go through my first ice storm, which my family in Worcester tells me is a miserable experience made worth it only by the fact that trees turn into ice sculptures. There will never be two years of identical falls, winters, springs, or even summers out here, and that’s what I love about it.

I’ll still cringe the first day that I see the temperature dip below 40 degrees this year—just seeing that it’s in the 30s is enough to make me feel cold. But I knew, to some extent, that this is what I signed up for when I decided to go to BC. Okay, so I tend to put on more layers than most other people here and start wearing gloves in October. I stick out like the palm tree that I am in this land of actual weather.

As the days get chillier and the tree outside my window continues to slowly shed its summer skin, however, I’m reminded of how amazing it is to really see the seasons. That’s one thing that will always be the same.

Samantha Costanzo is an editor for The Heights. She can be reached at metro@ bcheights.com.

METRO THE HEIGHTS

B8

B10

Thursday, September 19, 2013

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2013

Coakley makes bid for Massachusetts governor

BREAKING BOUNDARIES

Whatcha doing?

BY JULIE ORENSTEIN Heights Editor

TRICIA TIEDT

Tricia Tiedt is the Metro Editor for The Heights. She can be reached at metro@bcheights.com.

JOSH REYNOLDS / AP PHOTO

Coakley has thrown her bid into the race against several other candidates in her party.

See Coakley, B8

Boston Ballet Turns B Y K ELLY C OLEMAN For The Heights In honor of its 50th anniversary, the Boston Ballet is performing in the Boston Common this Saturday, Sept.

21. The company is putting on a free, one-night-only show, titled Night of Stars.

According to the Boston Ballet’s official website, the event’s dance performances will var y drastically in style—ranging from classical ballet to contemporary movement. The program covers several well-known performances, including George Balanchine’s Serenade and Symphony in Three Movements, Jorma Elo’s Plan to

B, and more. An online advertisement for the event boasts the performances will be held on “the largest stage ever on Boston Common.”

The full ballet company will perform with the accompaniment of the Boston Ballet orchestra, whose skilled hands will produce the bone-chilling music of Tchaikovsky and other famous composers.

The stage, located at Boston Common at the corner of Beacon St. and Charles St., will come to life at 7 p.m. on Saturday evening.

E. Virginia Williams founded the Boston Ballet 50 years ago, in 1963. It holds the honor of being the first ballet company in New England. The Ballet

JORDAN PENTALERI / HEIGHTS GRAPHIC

Yesterday, I woke up to a message that made my entire day.

“I AM ALIVE.” That was it. And if you also have friends that are currently abroad in other countries, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

Of course, subsequent blue bubbles popped up on my screen: “It’s been so crazy,” “what a whirlwind,” “love and miss you already,” etc.

Exactly the messages you expect to get from someone who just flew across the Atlantic for the first time in their life. After seeing the hundreds of photos on Facebook, the status updates about whatever cliff they just hiked or new profile picture featuring whatever exotic animal they just held, you could probably write the personal messages yourself.

But that doesn’t make those few, spare little words (or hey, virtual novels, if you’re lucky) any less treasurable.

So, a question to those of us in Chestnut Hill: What are you doing here?

Seniors, you’re lucky. Your entire grade is collectively back on campus for the first time since May of 2011. Cheers to taking over MA’s every Tuesday.

As the study abroad fair wrapped up last night, sophomores are currently mulling (read: flipping out) over their travel plans for the upcoming year. Don’t fret—the world is your oyster. You’ll figure it out.

Freshmen: congratulations on getting your footing here at BC. You’ve now learned your way around campus, gotten the hang of your classes, and weaseled your way into a Mod. The best is yet to come.

So, juniors, that leaves you. Your best friends are in places you’ve only ever heard of. Your Instagram featured three different filtered pics of the London Bridge today (example provided by my roommate—this actually happened). The temperature has already dropped below 50 degrees and it’s mid-September.

What are you doing here?

Well, let me tell you about what I’m doing here. I write this at 12:43 a.m. on a Tuesday night, curled up in flannel pajamas in my campus dorm, munching on stale Cheerios. My day began with a discussion of the final act of Hamlet in my 9:00 a.m. Shakespeare class. That same day did not end until my fourth and final class adjourned at 9:35 p.m.

I will most likely (read: really should, but probably won’t) spend the majority of this upcoming weekend writing papers.

My hot plans for Saturday night? Watching Tristan and Isolde with my suitemates.

And you know what? I’m pretty happy about all of the above. What am I doing here? Trying to make the most of it.

South Africa, Australia, the UK—all those places will be around after your undergrad years are long gone.

For those of you going abroad in the spring, I honestly feel bad for you. You either have to spend your semester on the Heights counting the days until you get to leave, or counting the days until you have to leave. Or both. While a worthwhile option for many, it seems like a cruel and unusual way to spend time as an upperclassman.

For those of you here all year, I hope you can love this place for what it is. Because the BC Bubble looks a lot different when half of the people who make up your world suddenly aren’t there anymore. But that doesn’t mean it’s any less of a place to love.

Get more involved. Meet new people.

Stay just busy enough—so that missing whoever, wherever they may be, may become a fleeting thought instead of a gnawing in your stomach. Or, step back.

Take some time for yourself. Breathe.

Whoever you are, whatever it is you do, however it is you do it: find out why you’re here.

And to those of you abroad, keep sending those “I’m still alive” messages. They tend to make our day.

Between a United States Senate special election held just three months ago and a Boston mayoral election rapidly approaching, Massachusetts politics have not idled as of late, and are not due to slow down any time soon.

Monday morning, state Attorney General Martha Coakley launched her campaign for governor in next year’s election. She looks to replace Governor Deval Patrick, with the Democratic incumbent already stating that he will not seek a third term of office.

Speaking in her hometown of Medford, the 60-year-old Coakley outlined her broadest goals should she become governor.

“I think that I am ready to both lead and listen to people in Massachusetts

about what they want. I know they want to continue moving the economy forward, giving people economic opportunity, improving our educational system,” she said. “I’m going to do that as governor.”

In a statement released Sunday prior to the official campaign announcement, Coakley conveyed her faith in the state’s future.

“Massachusetts is poised to take off,” Coakley said. “We can either grab this moment and move forward together, or risk falling behind.”

Coakley maintains that she will fight for “ordinary people with extraordinary courage,” reflecting a populist theme in a video about her campaign bid posted before her in-person statement.

A graduate of Williams College and

has since undergone the leadership of several artistic directors, including Violette Verdy (1980-1984), Bruce Marks (1985-1997), and Anna-Marie Holmes (1997-2000). Currently, Director Mikko Nissinen leads the troupe in all its endeavors, and has done so since his election to the position in 2001.

Nissinen also proudly directs the largest ballet school in North America, the Boston Ballet School. Since 2009, its home base has been the Boston Opera House, which holds 2,500 people.

The company has also made strides to represent America. In 1979, the comp any p er for me d the op ening number for the Nervi Festival, an annual international dance event held

in Italy. Only a year later, the Boston Ballet became the first American dance company to perform in the People’s Republic of China. The company has retained consistent popularity in Spain.

They first toured Spain in 1991, where they gained roaring praise and were begged to return again in the summer of 2007. The crowd could not get enough, and the company returned to Spain in 2010 for a five-city tour for a third time.

While the ballet has perfected the art of classical ballet, the company is becoming increasingly known for pushing the boundaries of contempo-

See Boston Ballet, B9

Preliminary election for new mayor set for Tuesday

BY RYAN TOWEY Asst. Metro Editor The mayoral preliminary election for the city of Boston will take place this upcoming Tuesday, Sept. 24, and will leave two candidates standing out of the 12 currently in the race for mayor.

In Boston mayoral politics, candidates do not run as members of a political party. The two candidates with the most votes will run against each other in the general election regardless of their political affiliations.

Because Mayor Thomas M. Menino was elected in 1993 after having been acting mayor in that same year, there has not been a mayoral election in Boston without an incumbent since 1983.

Given Menino’s essentially unquestioned leadership since he assumed the position of mayor, the results on Tuesday could be an interesting indicator of how much Boston has changed since the 1980s and 1990s.

It appears, however, that the current response to this open election is a general sense of uncertainty, with no one candidate gathering significant steam.

A recent Boston Globe poll, pub-

I NSIDE METRO THIS ISSUE

lished by the University of New Hampshire, places candidate and City Councilor John Connolly, BC Law ’01, in the lead, with 13 percent of the vote.

While this does place him a few points ahead of a cluster of competitors, it does not denote a secured race. With Connolly having entered the race for mayor before Menino even announced that he would not seek a sixth term, one might expect that Connolly would have a more significant lead.

With a significant number of voters still undecided—34 percent, according to the poll—indicates how difficult it has been for candidates to gain traction.

In an editorial printed on Tuesday, The Boston Globe said that of the 12 in the race, “as many as nine are plausible candidates to be mayor.”

The editorial endorsed Connolly and former school committee member John Barros, as the candidates they wish to see triumphant in Tuesday’s preliminary election.

Barros, who received 5 percent of the vote in the poll, is a Boston College High School alum. He went on to higher education at Dartmouth

See Mayoral Election, B7

Collegiate Round-up

PHOTO COURTESY OF BOSTON LUXURY

The Boston skyline is about to be revamped with a new tower downtown in the Back Bay.

Tower to rise in Back Bay B Y L AUREN T OTINO Heights Staff Last Thursday night during a Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) meeting, regulators approved one of the next biggest construction projects in downtown Boston, which includes the construction of a 691-foot condominium and hotel tower in what will become the city’s tallest residential building. All stakeholders present at the meeting were unanimously in favor of the project.

The 58-story building and its 25story tower will be constructed at the edge of the Christian Science Plaza in the Back Bay, at the corner of Belvi-

Highlights from other prestigious universities and colleges in the greater Boston area.........................................................................................B9

dere and Dalton streets. The project will have a total of 425 residences, with 170 condominiums, and about 250 hotel rooms. Both buildings will additionally hold retail and restaurant space within the 950,000-square-foot development area.

Master developer Carpenter & Co., of Cambridge, plans to begin construction early next year. It is predicted that the high-rise portion of the building will take about 30 to 36 months to build, and the mid-rise hotel tower will take from 20 to 24 months. Carpenter & Co. president Richard L. Friedman told The Boston Globe last week that

See Back Bay Tower, B8

Restaurant Review: Flat Patties..........................................................B7 Ben Affleck to Direct New Boston Crime Drama..................................B9