Post- Magazine (Thursday, January 31, 2013)

ng

go

lin

e. or .. ki

ne tw

su

is

nd

go ,a

is

th

ro ,d jan

ta

in

NU AR Y

JA 31

OL UM

-V

4

E1

SS UE 11

-I

2

upfront

Editors-in-Chief Zoë Hoffman Claire Luchette Managing Editor of Features Kathy Nguyen Managing Editor of Arts & Culture Ben Resnik Managing Editor of Lifestyle Lily Goodspeed Features Editors Mintaka Angell Piper French Arts & Culture Editors Adam Asher Caitlin Kennedy Lifestyle Editor Caroline Bologna Copy Chief Kyle Giddon Serif Sheriffs Clara Beyer Allison Hamburger Large Plaid Asian Art Boss Phil Lai Web Editor Sam Knowles Staff Writers Jane Brendlinger Adam Davis Rémy Robert Tanya Singh Ben Wofford

contents

3 upfront

britney, leave me alone // samer muallem disclosures of classified contemplation// the editors

4 features

rooted in sustainability // natalie villacorta

5 arts & culture sticking to django’s guns // ivy alphonse-leja no harmon, no foul? // adam davis

6 arts & culture alive and kickstartering // lily goodspeed

7 lifestyle

let’s get drinks // rémy robert cold-calling // MM

8 lifestyle

the misconceptions of the too-gooder // suzannah weiss post- it notes top ten

editors’ note Dearest readers, Whoa. We didn’t think we’d make it to see 2013.

But here we are, despite the Mayan logic. We survived our New Years hangovers. Thank the gods: We’ve lived to see yet another production night of Post-.

It’s a night of beginnings: new editors, new beers (Saporro, anyone?), new semester.

We’re delighted to introduce the newbies on staff: Lily, Adam, Caitlin, Mintaka, and Caroline have risen in the ranks to editorial positions, while fresh faces Kyle and Piper have hit the ground running.

As we say goodbye to January, Liz Lemon, and leftover holiday cups at Starbucks, we say hello to the shortest month of the year, Oscar season, and premature boxes of Sweethearts. There’s lots to look forward to, most prominently the beginning of our reign as Queens of Post-.

We come to you ready to rock. As your new Editrixes, we are revamping the rules this semester: lipstick required, nudity encouraged, sobriety optional.

Genuflect when you pass the Pink House. (That’s where we live.) Learn how to write a check properly; find a pair of shorteralls.

In reality, you can take or leave any of these suggestions. The only hard and fast rule: Read Post-. cozily and crazily,

claire and zoë

Staff Illustrators Madeleine Denman Marissa Ilardi Sheila Sitaram Grace Sun Adela Wu

illustrations by Cover Sheila Sitaram Rooted in Sustainability Marissa Ilardi Alive and Kickstarting Grace Sun Sticking to Django’s Guns Emily Reif No Harmon, No Foul?

Emily Reif Let’s Get Drinks Phil Lai The Misconceptions of TooGooders Clara Beyer

The cast of PW’S production of Equus, written by Peter Shaffer and directed by Ben Freeman ‘13, bares it all.

Equus premiers February 8 and runs until February 11.

naked photo^

upfront

3

britney, leave me alone

spears me the agony

SAMER MUALLEM contributing writer Every aspect of the following story is 100% true ... I’m serious.

Due to circumstances beyond my control and unworthy of further exposition, last year I attended a Britney Spears concert in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Yes. A Britney Spears concert. In Michigan. To call this a fish-out-of-water story is to do a disservice to both fish and water. This is a whale-out-of-orbit story.

The evening began just like any other: with two fundamentalist Christians screaming that God will smite me with AIDS. They stood outside the concert venue, holding signs that read “Your Judgment Is Near” and “God Hates Sinners” in bold black font against a backdrop the color of leprechaun vomit. My sister, my cousin, and I acknowledged this warning with a detached chuckle before immediately diving into the hedonistic sin fest that awaited us.

Two escalators and one kindly old usher later, we were in our seats. The arena was already overflowing with excited Britney Spears fans. Before us lay a swarm of energetic teenaged girls; behind us, a calm middle-aged couple with binoculars. Amid the sea of pale girls, I spotted a single black

man—the saddest black man in America.

His white girlfriend was talking to him energetically, but he looked very tired. We locked eyes, and in that instant, all distinctions between Self and Other melted away.

Racial boundaries were shattered in that one quiet moment as we both acknowledged the horror that was about to occur.

The first act of the night: DJ Pauly D. I would’ve rather taken the AIDS. My cousin, the exact opposite of me in every single way, is a huge Jersey Shore fan and thoroughly enjoyed the show. I, on the other hand, enjoyed the knowledge that I will inevitably die, and thus the memory of this ever happening will die along with me. Truly, it takes a horrible musical performance for one to look upon one’s mortality favorably, and Mr. Pauly D’s buttonmashing was such a performance. During the show, I turned to my sister, who merely shrugged and said, “Wait for Britney.”

So we waited for Britney. During the intermission, my sister needed to use the bathroom, so I accompanied her out into the concession area. The place was practically drowning in daddy issues. As I waited, a teenage girl, clearly intoxicated, approached me. “Who are you?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I responded.

She hit me. “Why are you here?”

Again, “I don’t know.” She gave me one last look before stumbling away.

I rubbed my shoulder. It would bruise later.

When my sister returned, we made our way back to the seats, where our cousin was having a friendly chat with the nice old usher who had shown us the way earlier. The usher, upon seeing me arrive, shook my hand and said the most ominous seven words an elderly man could say before a Britney Spears concert: “Life is too short.

Make people happy.”

Then it began. I have never taken LSD, but I can only imagine the experience is similar to the moment Britney drove onto the stage in a Corvette, kidnapped a random guy from the audience (one of five present), and chained him to the steering wheel. During “Hit Me Baby One More Time,” she thrust her pelvis in the hostage’s face, and suddenly, the Corvette went into reverse, disappearing backstage.

To this day, I have no idea what happened to that poor man.

After an hour and a half of lights and sounds that only confused me further,

Britney finished her set by donning a pair of black angel wings and ascending into the heavens while a reverberating baritone chord closed out the show. In that moment, I thought I was witnessing my Judgment. I thought the AIDS smiting was upon me and the arena would burst into flames—thankfully, neither happened.

The lights came back on, and we began our exit.

As we walked back to the parking lot, I noticed the fundamentalist protesters were still there, shouting at the crowds. As far as I know, no one got AIDS. These prophets were full of baloney. I wondered what had happened to the kindly old usher who had offered me his words of wisdom. He had simply vanished after shaking my hand, disappearing out the exit as the show started. Who was he? What kind of life did he live? And what of the drunk girl who assaulted me? “Who are you? Why are you here?” Maybe the usher had given me my answer. Maybe he was the Virgil of my journey through Hell. And maybe he’s in Illinois right now, guiding some other lost soul through the torment of a Christina Aguilera concert.

disclosures of classified contemplation spring semester turning points the editors Reflecting on our experiences at Brown, we often wish that we knew in the past what we know now. Yet we also tend to underestimate how much we’ll ch-ch-change in the future. Susceptible to the “end of history illusion,” at every age we think we’re having the last laugh, and at every age we remember we’re wrong.

So maybe it’s better to embrace the uncertainty instead of fighting it. It’s time to rally, Brunonians. Time to go hard or go home—and we’re not planning on leaving campus when we’ve just gotten back.

Here are our thoughts on the various anxieties our class cohorts face as January ends.

–the Editors SENIORS Ah, this is it: the beginning of the end.

Seniority is a strange condition of both confidence and stress, especially in our final semester. Some days we wax nostalgic; others, we scorn the silly youths in years below us. We’re tempted to reminisce and note how certain situations have come “so full circle!” before mourning/celebrating the impending novelties and difficulties of post-college “grown-up” life.

Still, we’re not here to offer words of wisdom or idioms of introspection—at least not until graduation the G-word draws nearer. For now, we just DGAF. After all, we still have a decent number of final challenges and tough questions to tackle: Why not take all our classes S/NC?

Who’s coming for Spring Weekend? Most importantly, who will we scramble? As we stare down our few remaining months on the Hill, perhaps we should take the time to take risks, to say hi, to complete bucket lists. And to enjoy our worries. We may never have them again.

So, ‘13 friends, see you on the other side. Soon enough we’ll all be leading Successful Lives and doing Interesting Things in Big Cities. We’re sure it’ll be awesome.

In the meantime … GCB, anyone?

–LG, ZH, SK, CL, KN JUNIORS Junior year is a roller coaster—one moment we think we’re on top of the world, what with our market shares and our meal planlessness and our swanky off-campus apartments, and the next we feel our stomachs explode as the realization hits us: I’m almost a real person.

Luckily for us, ignoring the inevitable is still an option. We drown the doldrums with legal drinking (was it really more fun when we were underage, or is that just the nostalgia kicking in already?). Or maybe we escape altogether, jumping on the study-abroad bandwagon along with about a third of our class. Continents away from the busyness of Brown, we fall in love and forget about homework, or pub crawl across Eastern Europe, or just take some really quality profile pictures (gotta make all those stateside friends jealous!).

But as familiar faces flood back to campus, we start to get all mushy inside—and remember why we’re here in the first place, which of course just makes us even more terrified of our impending seniority. But let’s not think about that yet. For now, there are summer internships and MCATs and other matters to occupy our time. Junior spring: a blissful, if too brief, period of denial.

–CB, CB, CK SOPHOMORES For us sophomores, the spring rite of declaring our concentrations is going to go one of two ways.

Some of us have it all figured out. We were born studying Orgo, and our classes have only confirmed that devotion. If so, we have two tasks this semester: figuring out how to use that head start and not gloating to our stressed-out, undeclared classmates. We’re ahead of the game, so we should start pondering what we want to do with our majors, not just what we have to do for them.

However, many of us have no godly idea, and a stress-induced breakdown is pending. We need to breathe deep and remember Douglas Adams’s cardinal rule: DON’T PANIC. Above all, ignore that smug Orgo kid—everything will even out by junior year.

Either way, we’re at the empowering, “Eye of the Tiger”-backed montage part of

our coming-of-age movie—time to brace ourselves for upperclassmanhood, but also to chill out. The future involves a thesis/ employment, so it’s better to stay in the now, while life is good and the job market is something for seniors to worry about.

–AA, MA, KG, BR FRESHIES After one full semester at Brown, we’re starting to get the hang of things. We’ve (barely) survived two shopping periods, and experienced our first SPG, NDR, and CFF (and realized that all of Brown’s abbreviated traditions involve nudity and/or unhealthy food). We no longer have any expectation that the Ratty will, as one naïve freshman hoped last semester, “mix it up from time to time.” We still cringe at condom murals on our RCs’ doors—but only when our parents are visiting.

Talking about Brown is like speaking a different language. We’ve discovered this while trying to explain alien concepts like shopping period and the New Curriculum to confused friends and relatives. No, it’s just a fancy word for major. Wait, you still have to take math?

Despite our continuing growing pains, we’re confident we will figure out what we’re doing with our lives; just give us a little time. Hey, there’s no rush. We’ll be here for at least three-and-a-half more years.

–PF, AH

4

feature

rooted in sustainability taro farming in hawaii NATALIE VILLACORTA contributing writer

The descent into Waipi’o Valley, Hawaii, is not easy. You need a big truck and some serious balls. If you don’t have either, you can walk, but your butt will ache for days afterwards.

I know this because we—Kayla Stormont ’13, her friend Gabby from high school, and I—walked. As my knees pinched with every shuffle, I tried not to think about how much going back up was going to suck, instead marveling at the river that meandered through the verdant valley and out to the ocean. I understood what people meant when they called Waipi’o “a living fossil”; we had stumbled into a pocket of the past.

When we reached the valley floor, I was startled from my daydream by Fleetwood Mac’s “Gypsy” blaring from a house obscured by greenery. We walked in the direction of the beach and came upon a group of wild horses grazing off the side of the road. Nearby, a crumpled truck had evidently tumbled down the steep slope we had just descended. My first thought: Instagram!

We found a spot to picnic and ate our Spam musubis (Spam on a block of rice wrapped in seaweed—it tastes like heaven). I had been vegan for several months leading up to the trip, but Hawaiians don’t really believe in vegetables—except for taro, of course. Taro was the whole reason we were in the valley, after all. It was what had brought me to Hawaii for 10 days over winter break. The Watson Institute at Brown had given me a grant to carry out a media project on climate change and Hawaii, and I had chosen to focus on taro because of its deep roots in Hawaiian culture.

Hawaiian legend has it that taro, a starchy plant cultivated throughout the South Pacific, is the brother of the Hawaiian people. The sky god Wakea and his daughter Ho‘oho-kui-kalani had a baby who was born prematurely. The stillborn infant, named Haloa-naka-lau-kapalili (“long-stalk-quaking-trembling-leaf ”), was buried, and from the corpse sprang the taro plant. The second child of the couple was Haloa, the ancestor of mankind.

Hawaiians have been nourished by their mythical older brother since the fifth or sixth century, when their ancestors brought taro from the Marquesas Islands.

There are hundreds of varieties of the plant unique to Hawaii, but taro makes up only a fraction of the typical Hawaiian diet today because of the difficulty of its cultivation and the introduction of rice and Western foods as substitutes. Taro is most commonly eaten in the form of poi, a purple, nearly tasteless paste that most haoles (foreigners) liken to baby food. But Hawaiians love it—it’s particularly delicious when combined with sugar and deep-fried into crunchy sweet poi balls.

Waipi’o Mano Wai, the source of wa-

ter and life, has been a primary taro farming site for centuries. Because the road into the valley is so dangerous, the area has remained relatively isolated—and its inhabitants want to keep it that way. I quickly learned that taro farmers treasure their traditions and that Waipi’o isn’t exactly warm and welcoming toward outsiders.

“Do you know anyone who farms kalo here?” I asked a guy working at a touristy horseback tour business. I had been careful enough to use the Hawaiian word for taro, but in my attempt to seem cool I had asked a really dumb question; almost everyone farms taro in Waipi’o. “I mean, do you know anyone who is pulling kalo today?”

He consulted his little boy, who somehow knew that “Uncle Rizol” was working, and then directed us to that farm. We walked along the muddy, rocky road for half an hour, looking at tiny houses without electricity, waterfalls trickling down the cliffs, and clouds tickling the mountaintops. The farms appeared to be thriving, but no one was around. Just when we were about to give up and turn back, we spotted a single farmer out in his field and called to him.

“Can we help you?” I asked, nervously.

“Yeah!” he said, to our surprise, waving us over. Giggling, we climbed through the wire fence, slipped off our shoes and socks, and plunged into the lo’i—the flooded terrace where wet taro is grown. Our feet sank into the slimy mud, which came up to our knees. By the time we climbed out of the lo’i, mud was streaked across our faces and arms and caked underneath our fingernails.

The farmer’s name was Mana, and he was only two years older than us. It was his friend Michael’s farm, but Michael had extra lo’i he wasn’t planting that year. Mana’s

full-time job was leading tourists on horse tours, but he came down into the valley once a week to harvest taro. He showed us how to grab hold of the corm—the part that is made into poi—that was buried in the mud and wrestle it free, tearing away the plant’s deep roots. Then he rinsed off the mud, snapped off the stem, called the huli, and tossed the corn into the taro boat, leaving the stem and leaves floating on the surface of the water to decompose and fertilize the soil for the next year. The other two girls worked much faster than I did, which I attributed to their Hawaiian blood and years of eating taro.

After we filled the taro boat, we climbed out of the lo’i and packed the taro into 50-pound bags, which Mana would sell to a processor for about $47 each. Some corms were the size of our fists; others, as big as footballs. We separated out the pieces that were soft on the bottom, and Mana hacked off the rotten parts with a knife.

As we worked, his two puppies played at our feet.

Mana’s friend Michael came over to meet us, wearing a fratty tank and a backwards cap, and offered us oranges from his tree and kulolo—a sticky, pink-purple dessert made from pounded taro, coconut milk, brown sugar, and honey. Our hands were still covered in mud, but we ate the treat anyway. Michael told us that he is of the fourth generation in his family to farm the 20-acre strip of land. It’s a simple, humble life. He makes enough money to farm full-time, unlike many of his neighbors who farm on the side, and it’s hard work. Day to day there’s the leaf blight— which eats away holes in the luau leaves of the plant—to fight, invasive apple snails to combat, and weeds to pull. This is to say nothing of long-term issues over land leases, competition with imports, and water rights.

Michael farms Saturdays through Mondays, peels the taro on Tuesdays, makes kulolo on Wednesdays, and makes poi on Thursdays. Fridays, he drives to Kona and sells his food to local customers

on the side of the road. “Every single Friday, they still say the same thing: ‘Thank you so much for coming here. Thank you for keeping doing this,’” Michael said.

As I listened to Michael talk about his aloha for the land and the energy he felt from growing and eating food he has seen from farm to table, I wondered if I could live his life. I wondered if I could give up my New Yorker subscription, HBO GO, and J.Crew, and live more simply. Just before my trip, I had been stressed about finding a job and supporting myself after graduation, but in Hawaii those anxieties were put on hold. As clichéd as it seems, I ate shaved ice, listened to feel-good island music, watched the waves, and forgot that it was winter on the East Coast.

I didn’t want those feelings to fade along with my tan after I returned to the mainland. As we rode out of the valley in the back of Mana’s pickup truck, clinging to each other for dear life, I considered getting a tattoo of the heart-shaped taro leaf. It would be a reminder to live more simply and sustainably (as the farmers of Waipi’o do by eating all parts of the taro plant); to cherish my family and research my heritage (the Hawaiian word for family, ‘ohana, comes from the word oha, the offspring of the mother taro plant); and to adapt to difficult situations (as taro has evolved to thrive in many different environments).

I wish I could say that I got the tattoo, but I didn’t. As much as I respected and admired the taro farming lifestyle and was flattered when people mistook me for a local, I knew that I wasn’t ready. I wanted to believe I was different from other tourists who come to the island, ogle at the natives, and then return to often busy, materialistic, environmentally unfriendly lives. But I have to prove that first.

Once I demonstrate that I have truly learned the lessons of the taro, I will one day return to Hawaii and Waipi’o. Then I’ll get the tattoo, and I’ll have earned it.

Illustration by Marissa Ilardi

arts & culture

5

sticking to django’s guns violence in the latest tarantino film IVY ALPHONSE-LEJA contributing writer I really, really did not want to watch Django Unchained. I’d been convinced during previews for Skyfall that I wanted nothing to do with Quentin Tarantino’s latest film, which I knee-jerked as a problematic mess filled with violence and racist, sexist tropes. The politically correct Brown student in me did not want to touch it with a 10-foot pole. But I could not escape this film; it seemed like nearly everyone I knew had something to say—or speculate—about it. I had to see for myself.

My Django-watching companion had to strategically cover my eyes as the movie began, but the more I watched, the more I was captivated. The opening song “Django,” a slow homage to the Spaghetti Western film of the same name, sets up the typical shoot’em-up plot that the rest of the film rips apart and reforms. The soundtrack, featuring everything from rap to Italian Westerns is one that I would pay money for, and the cinematography, which includes nods to iconic moments from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, is sophisticated and satisfying.

For those planning on watching (and you should if you plan on holding any conversations about movies this semester), Django follows the escaped slave (Jamie Foxx) and his liberator, German “dentist” and bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz), on their journey to free Django’s wife (Kerry Washington) from the cold-blooded, charming plantation owner Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio). Af-

ter their questions arouse the suspicions of Candie’s loyal house slave Stephen (Samuel L. Jackson), things get ... interesting. Foxx portrays Django with a subtle character progression from branded runaway slave to confident, clever, bounty hunter; DiCaprio excels as a chillingly flamboyant plantation owner; Jackson, the true villain, embodies what it means to be enslaved both mentally and physically.

Since its release on December 25, Django has inspired many articles and opinions about the prevalence of gun violence in the film. And there are plenty instances of it to choose from: there is a shooting within the movie’s first 10 minutes, and just about every 10 minutes after that another one follows. In an NPR interview with Tarantino, Terry Gross asked, “Is it ever less fun, like after the massacre,” referring to the Sandy Hook tragedy, “[or] do you ever go through a period when you lose your taste for movie violence?” Tarantino quickly responded, “Not for me …. Would I watch a kung fu movie three days after the Sandy Hook massacre? Maybe, because they have nothing to do with each other.” It’s a hot question: Does the prevalence of violence (specifically gun violence in films) cause violence in real life? Speaking to my experience watching Django, I’m hesitant to shout a resounding “Yes!” In the past, articles from the New York Post and the Huffington Post have argued that Tarantino’s use of violence makes him “morally vacant” or irresponsible as a

director. On the contrary, I think his use of violence (and the fantastical humor with which he imbues it) makes his films centerpieces of discussions about morality and the relationship between film and life. Movies are staples of pop culture. People go to the movies, they watch, and they discuss. It’s a natural progression. By making Django, Tarantino has opened up an old, tough discussion (the institution of slavery) and created a new symbol of hope (the self-affirmed black hero who brings about some much needed catharsis). Choosing to explore slavery through art is no easy feat. Even for the best-versed on the subject, it’s still a hard pill to swallow.

Moments of gun violence in cinema are so fantastic, so completely within the realm of spectacle, that they never manage to make a negative impression on me.

I’ll admit it: it was satisfying to see Django shoot the bad guys down, and I did not feel the need to look away. But some instances of violence did make me cringe: moments

that used not guns but whips, dogs, handto-hand combat, and knives. They felt real.

They tugged at me because I felt the history in them, and thus, the pain. In no way was any of the violence in this movie reckless; in all instances it either uplifted unlikely heroes in the eyes of the audience or showcased disturbing historical truths in an almost cathartic manner.

Django has a lot of people talking, and for good reason. As for me, if Michael Moore (of Bowling for Columbine, among other works) can proclaim his love for Pulp Fiction on Twitter, I feel no shame in giving Django a second, maybe even third, watch.

Illustration by Emily Reif

no harm(on), no foul?

season four of community

ADAM DAVIS

staff writer

First we were told October 19. Then it was pushed back to “sometime in early 2013.” Now, finally, the fourth season premiere of Community is set: February 7 at 8 p.m., the Greendale gang is going back to school. Senior year, here they come.

That can mean only one thing: graduation. With the “real world” looming, this season’s main narrative will focus on how the study group copes with the changes that commencement is bound to bring. Even more interesting is that, in a case of art-meets-life, some big changes have been going on behind the scenes at Community as well. Just after season four was announced, Harmon was fired from his own show (NBC really Britta’d that one), replaced by Just Shoot Me and Aliens in America writers and producers David Guarascio and Moses Port. Chevy Chase announced his departure from the show in November, although his character will appear in all but a few episodes, since most of the new season had already been shot.

And in early January, news broke that writer Megan Ganz (who wrote the show’s classic documentary filmmaking episodes) was leaving after season four to take a job

at Modern Family. It’s not just the study group that needs to figure out what’s next after four tumultuous years together—it’s everyone involved in the show’s production.

After becoming Community’s new showrunners, Guarascio and Port were quick to praise Harmon, looking to downplay rumors about his tumultuous relationship with NBC execs. At the same time, though, the duo noted that the new Community would, inevitably, have a slightly different feel. “We knew that you just couldn’t come in here and be Dan. Only Dan can be Dan,” they told Vulture.

And it’s pretty hard to imagine Community without Harmon. Cast members were effusive in their praise of him when his departure was announced (except, of course, Chase), describing Harmon as the creative spirit behind the program. It’s now time to see if a Harmon-less Community can really stand up to the original.

In recent weeks, the show has begun releasing promo photos and clips, giving fans a first glimpse at what the show will be like under its new leaders. The first clip released is a scene from the premiere epi-

sode, in which Dean Pelton devises a plan to deal with over-enrollment in Greendale’s “History of Ice Cream” class (hey, Brown … get on that). His idea? Have the students compete in Hunger Games–style competitions, with the winners gaining entry into the course. It’s not Guarascio and Port’s fault that the Hunger Games parody feels a little old—NBC really screwed them over by delaying the October premiere date. The bigger problem is that it seems like the new staff latched onto a tried-and-true idea—Dean Pelton being power-hungry while wearing a dress—and didn’t really do much with it. “The Hunger Deans” isn’t even a clever use of Pelton’s trademark way of working his title into almost everything he says.

At its best, Community’s mile-a-minute pop culture references are bolstered by a sense of heart (think of when Annie used the Dreamatorium to quell Abed’s fears of loneliness in season three), and it’s tough to see how the “Hunger Deans” competition could possibly set up that type of moment. Perhaps it would have been smarter to begin season four with something besides a parody episode so the emotional

depth needed for this season could be established right away. To be clear, it’s not that the “Hunger Deans” clip isn’t funny, but it falls flat because, as our first introduction to season four, it just doesn’t give a sense of the season’s emotional trajectory. Another promo clip, this one of Annie and Shirley setting up a senior prank, does include a short rant from Annie on her fears about graduation (good, developing a major character arc) but seems a bit off from the show’s normal pace. The best of the promo clips involves Britta “therapizing” Abed while Troy and Annie find their lucky charms (in Troy’s case, it’s literally cereal based) to prepare for the new year—a nice mix of seriousness and levity, something that all the show’s best episodes exhibit.

Still, with so few clips available, it’s tough to say exactly how season four of Community (and seasons five and six, and the movie) will shape up under its new direction. Perhaps the only thing left to be said is, in the wise words of Magnitude, “Pop Pop!” Illustration by Emily Reif

6

arts & culture

alive and kickstarting

putting money on creativity

LILY GOODSPEED lifestyle managing editor Before the Internet, penniless dreamers needed to find eccentric weirdos to fund their economic rebounds. You have Charlie from the book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory who needs to complete a series of horrifying tasks—which apparently kill and mutilate the other children—before Willy Wonka gives Charlie and his family a key to the magic candy factory. You have Annie from the musical Annie who has to use song to dissuade Daddy Warbucks from sending her back to the orphanage before she gets to tap dance with FDR. Thankfully, today we live in the age of Kickstarter.com. With a good idea and a bit of spunk, this little website can help dreamers fund their projects without those previous inconveniences. On Kickstarter, any aspiring entrepreneur can set up a fundraising page for a prospective project. The project receives all the donated funds (less a small 3–5% charge for Kickstarter’s services) as long as it reaches its intended fundraising goal within a specified period of time.

An amazing number of projects with a wide range of funding levels can be found on Kickstarter. The “Small Projects” category of the site profiles ventures attempting to raise less than one thousand dollars within 30 days. Featured currently on this page are an 8-bit video game about a Dim Sum mecha-cart, an app which attaches digital beards to pictures of infants, and a documentary about the search for the (apparently) rare Morel mushroom. Conversely, donations of about $155,000 have funded, I kid you not, a “Lowline” park that will reside below New York City’s Lower East Side and be illuminated by solar funnels.

The park will fill the Essex Street Trolley Terminal, which has been abandoned since 1948, and it has apparently already raised real estate prices in the area. Most important of all, more important than NYC real estate, the greatest card game of all time— “Cards Against Humanity”—started as a

Kickstarter project.

In our little corner of the world, Kickstarter has helped out many a Providencebased art and tech project. Brown TV has done some of its fundraising on the site, including a Black Swan-esque short film by Calvin Main ’12, called Two Hearts, which premiered at the Avon alongside four other short films last May. RISD, meanwhile, has an entire Kickstarter page with a seemingly infinite list of projects by alumni and current students. My favorite project on their page is called “Missy for Prez.” Sakura Bready, a textiles senior at RISD, had a fantastical dream one night about Missy Elliott as the President of the United States.

Fittingly, Bready was particularly inspired

by Missy’s presidential threads: “She wore a tracksuit in the Oval Office, a tracksuit in the conference room, and she also had a matching Air Force plane to match her flying tracksuit.” Thus, the project focuses around making those fly threads a reality.

And she got 90 backers and $2,495. God bless America.

Kickstarter seems like a logical development in this age of tech-based democratization. Tools that allow for collaboration and mass action have become contemporary signifiers of political progress and the power of the people—look at Twitter.

Kickstarter is especially appealing because neither the backers nor the site itself gain intellectual rights to the creators’ ideas.

According to the FAQ: “Project creators keep 100% ownership of their work. Kickstarter cannot be used to offer financial returns or equity, or to solicit loans.” There is something so affirming and amazing about artists, entrepreneurs, and inventors being able to directly connect with their patrons.

It cuts out the expensive middlemen of galleries and corporations. It creates an intellectual sounding board for developing nascent ideas and allows for new collaborations. Although traditional print media

(the New York Times especially) seem to be constantly labeling our millennial generation as “entitled” or “lost” or “out of touch,” impossible-sounding dreams that may have been ridiculous in past decades can become reality through these new venues that connect artists and audience.

Maybe they’re just jealous I can make a living making movies about cat shows or selling illuminated toothbrushes.

Still, there are issues with the website.

(You didn’t think I was really going to write an entirely complimentary article, did you?

I’m a journalist.) First of all, Kickstarter makes no distinction between projects. John Constant, a writer for the Seattle newspaper The Stranger, sees this lack of differentiation between “worthy” and “unworthy” as a problem. Sure, worthiness is subjective.

This issue is hard to avoid because it’s unclear who could or would or should decide which projects were useful and which were not. Yet building a $50,000 Robocop statue in Detroit while the Michigan unemployment rate hovers at 11% seems instinctively wrong. Should funding a bougie inside joke trump funding programs that help support the livelihood of Michigan citizens?

Perhaps, but that choice quickly turns out to be a false one, because the money being shelled out for the ironic iconography isn’t necessarily being funneled away from charitable donations.

Alexandra Lange from The Design Observer Group makes a distinction between what she calls “urbanism” and “industrial design.” Lange sees Kickstarter as rewarding the flashy over the practical, the informative over the truly useful. As she explains, “You wouldn’t Kickstart a replacement bus line for Brooklyn, but you might Kickstart an app to tell you when the bus on another, less convenient line might come. You can’t Kickstart affordable housing, but the really cool tent for the discussion thereof.” In contrast, a website called Brickstarter is be-

ing developed in response to these critiques.

The website isn’t truly set up yet, but its goal is to use the model that Kickstarter pioneered, a model that harnesses the power of the crowd, but focuses on projects that have societal benefits and consider the needs of the communities these projects affect.

A second problem: Does the type of democratization enabled by Kickstarter really allow the most talented artists or inventors to rise to the top? Ideas may speak for themselves, but funding a significant Kickstarter project takes a certain degree of self-promotion. Maybe not every artist is simultaneously a creative genius and a marketing expert. There are the Andy Warhols who feed off of popular culture and whose art screams commercialization. And then there are the weird reclusive artists, like J.D. Salinger, who would rather cut off their own arms than make a Twitter account. (Or, in the case of Van Gogh, cut off his own ear). Some artists’ crazy is what makes them great, and some crazy doesn’t seamlessly translate to social media.

That’s not to say I’m not a diehard adherent of my favorite Kickstarters. Growing up, I smoked a lot of (cough) cigarettes in every corner of Central Park and would have loved a strange, new underground New York park to explore. I’ve donated to keep La Newyorkina, a great Mexican sweet shop, alive after Hurricane Sandy. As someone who hopes to make enough money to feed myself doing what I love, I think it’s incredible that Kickstarter helps people do what they love. Maybe the future of urban spaces or technology won’t be through this little website, and maybe it shouldn’t be.

Regardless, Kickstarter has changed the way creators interact with audiences, and my friends and I at the GCB playing Cards Against Humanity long into the night couldn’t be more pleased.

Illustration by Grace Sun

lifestyle

7

let’s get drinks the road to the bar is paved with ambiguous intentions RÉMY ROBERT

staff writer

“How was your break?”

The first week of school is an exercise in fine-tuning our auto-responses to that question. We need to balance gushing with nonchalance. We must be both informative and brief. The response has to be appropriate enough to broadcast in the Blue Room sandwich line to dozens of innocent bystanders, but it can’t be too generic, either. Needless to say, crafting this kind of response is nearly as grueling and impossible as snagging a spot in TAPS 0220: Persuasive Communication.

How was my break? Oh, it was awesome—I was such a bum. I tutored here and there for ca$h money, watched all of Breaking Bad, and worked out all the time.

And, the cherry on top: I went on ambiguous non-dates. Many of them.

An ambiguous non-date is exactly what it sounds like, and I don’t have to explain it, because chances are, if you’ve met up with a love interest in a planned, public, and sober situation, you’ve been on one. It is but one of the many trappings of college life. The reason I’m writing about them for a food column is that, in my experience, the bulk of ambiguous non-dates are food oriented. Eating is a built-in activity that you’d be doing anyway, and that makes it a sexually/romantically neutral hangout sug-

gestion. If I don’t know you well and you ask me to go ice skating, I might balk and get shy, but if you suggest Red Stripe, well, what do I have to lose? I love any chance I can get to eat their grilled cheese.

As it happened, all my non-dates took place over drinks. Having drinks is the 21+ equivalent of getting coffee; it’s innocuous, noncommittal, supa-chill … and very, very vague. I went out with one guy because his sister, my friend, set us up (and drunkenly confessed to me that she wanted us to get married). But not so fast: A cursory glance at Facebook told me that he may or may not have something still going with his high-school sweetheart. Ethically murky?

It might’ve been had we gone to an art gallery and watched the sunset, but because we just went out for Pimm’s Cups, nobody was betrayed. We became pals.

On another occasion, I went for a glass of wine with an old family friend. We talked about unsexy things like fourth grade students and his crazy ex-girlfriend who works at Olive Garden. He picked me up around 6, and while I’d thought that only elderly people go on dates that early, it turned out to be a definite date. He even treated.

Still, the question of who pays is far less telling than you might expect. One night

a friend took me out for dinner— but only because his grandparents had inexplicably handed him a wad of cash and made him promise to take somebody, anybody, to dinner at this one restaurant.

The bribe was no clearer to him than it was to me, and the evening, while wonderful, ended as ambiguously as it started; I think I tousled his hair because I wasn’t sure what else to do. An equally confusing plot twist: You might go dutch on what turns out to be a real date. We’re all college students, after all—let’s not pretend we can afford to run around buying people meals just to show our interest.

Something I will read into is location.

A series of non-dates with one guy fizzled the day after we went to Snake and Jake’s Christmas Club (Google it), a famous dive bar in New Orleans where the hard luck crowd doesn’t clear out until 1 a.m. Two roaches were crawling on the walls when we were there.

What to order on an ambiguous nondate? If it smells even remotely toxic, save it for your next pregame. Nothing too aggressively pink and/or frothy, either. Beer

and wine are great, but my fallback is to get a Dark and Stormy. If my date and I can bond over the fact that it’s the greatest drink of all time, boom, we’re compatible and I can stop overthinking. And if not, well, I could never fall in love with anyone who doesn’t love black rum with ginger beer.

I’m not sure whether any amount of experience could make someone interpret the ambiguous non-date more astutely. After a vacation full of practice, I’m no better at reading the tea leaves—although an unforeseen perk of my routine is that I’m now a pro at barhopping. I know how to stand my ground at a crowded bar, with one arm staking my spot as I simultaneously stare down my neglectful bartender and keep up the ambiguously flirtatious banter with my non-suitor. It’s tricky business, but I’m perfectly content with a Dark and Stormy and my pirated episodes of Breaking Bad. Illustration by Phil Lai

cold-calling n. also a word in networking lingo, this term refers to the act of initiating a hookup in the freezing cold MM

sexpert

I’m so glad to be back in Providence, but I can’t shake the feeling that Providence isn’t so glad to see me. Why else would the previously mild temperature drop below freezing the week I get back?

How else can I account for the sheet of ice that’s formed directly outside my doorstep or my own condensed breath clouding my view of the campus? What other reason is there for my frozen doorknob and purple toes?

Then again, maybe Providence isn’t trying to wreak vengeance on its homecoming Brown students. Maybe the city’s actually trying to bring us closer together, to drive us to the warmest corners of our dorms, to instigate impromptu cuddle sessions and cocoa dates. For me and many of my friends, this semester is all about coziness, intimacy, romance, and resolution.

Because—while it sounds like a misnomer in this weather—this is our Senior Spring.

Despite the suckiness of walking to class with numb eye sockets, the weather

does provide some opportunities for intimacy. Remember that sexy guy you saw shivering on the green, or that hottie with the balaclava? If you present yourself to these quavering cuties as an attractive and charitable source of body heat, you might be hooking up sooner than you thought— and feeling surprisingly hot.

The first step is to invite your cold companion into your cozy home. Turn down your space heater before they arrive, but fluff up your comforter so it looks like the woolly pelt of a formidable wildcat (though obviously if you own the woolly pelt of a formidable wildcat, that works even better). Arrange a selection of spicy decaf teas haphazardly across your dresser, and unseal the drafty windows so that chilly air can infiltrate the room. Try to encounter your crush at a location near your home, so you can emphasize to them the proximity of your house versus the remoteness of their own—“Oh, you have such a long walk home. You should totally stop in at

my place and grab a hot beverage on your way. It’s just a block away.” Throw in one of those neurotic little shoulder rubs your mom always gives you when you’re cold.

Physical contact only underlines the veritable font of body heat you have to share.

Once you’re inside, your chilly room will provide only a meager respite from the cold. Apologize profusely for this: “God, leave it to ResLife to stick me in a shack like this, am I right?” Invite your crush to sit on your warm, pelted bed while you chivalrously take the spartan desk chair.

Offer a thick sweater redolent of citrus laundry soap and your own sweet musk.

Drizzle honey seductively into the tea you’ve just made.

If the date—which is what this has now become—progresses as desired, you will find yourself crawling beneath the pelty covers with your partner and pressing yourselves firmly together for reasons as thermal as they are sexual. When finally you’ve undressed and are advancing in a

consensual and communicative manner toward each other’s genitals, take some advice: Don’t lose the heat. Instead of conventional oral sex—in which one partner usually moves to the opposite end of the bed to pleasure the other—maintain your communal warmth by climbing on top and 69ing. If you end up doing it doggystyle, try to drape your body (or have your partner drape his or her body) across the other’s back like a living, breathing flesh blanket. And when you’re tongue-kissing, keep in mind each other’s lips are probably wind chapped as all hell.

See? There just might be an upside to this climate. Even for all you folks from more tropical locales, New England might be the place where you find your special someone—or at least your casual senior hookup. To your fellow Brunonians, you might even be cuter with pink cheeks and a parka. Plus, some people look really good with beard icicles. Just go outside and see for yourself.

8

lifestyle

music is

humming to Local Natives’s Hummingbird.

the misconception of too-gooders

film is

feeling guilty we still haven’t seen Lincoln.

tv is

working on my night cheeeese for the last time.

books is

battling about the posthumous reputation of David Foster Wallace.

food is

hoarding Ugly American burgers and chili dogs for the foreseeable future. RIP.

booze is

enjoying the warm front with a nice, long walk to WhisCo.

weekendfive

when “too good” does no good

SUZANNAH WEISS contributing writer “You’re too good for him.” I have heard this phrase from my friends during and after various relationships. It has at times boosted my confidence and made me feel like I have the upper hand in a relationship. But increasingly often, it gets on my nerves. In addition to insulting someone I care about, the phrase implies that (a) outsiders can have informed opinions about relationships that they have no part in, and (b) people in relationships can measure compatibility on an objective scale by which some matches are “better” than others.

I’ve been the one to insult my significant other by expressing such an outlook: I told him recently that I was afraid I’d have more career success than he would and that those different levels of success would make us incompatible.

He responded by challenging me to rethink my values and consider what entitled me to say that. Here’s what I came up with: As Brown students, the elite of the American college population, we have come to believe that we are too good for those with less education or fewer achievements.

There is an element of classism in this attitude. This became clear to me when someone told me she couldn’t see me with someone who didn’t have a college degree because I need someone who is intellectual and driven—as if those traits are contingent upon a higher education.

Fortunately for me, I found someone who is extremely intellectual and driven, and I didn’t find him at Brown. And he doesn’t have a college degree. His perspective reaches beyond the values drilled into me by a Long Island prep school and an Ivy League institution.

Once we’re out in the real world, where we went to college will figure surprisingly little into our social lives. We will meet people who have been out of college for years and established careers.

Nobody is going to bow down to us for having gone to Brown.

I also believe the “too good for you” approach comes from the too-good person’s desire to improve his or her self-esteem or get over a breakup. Perhaps this approach works for some people, but I find it irritating when friends comfort me during a breakup by saying that the guy wasn’t good enough for me. I’ve lost

the relationship; I at least want to preserve the memories of my ex being good for me while it lasted.

This seems most prevalent among straight women, who are taught that men are uncivilized and want to use us for sex, and that we must therefore protect ourselves from men who aren’t good enough.

While I agree that everyone (not just straight women) must be selective and only date those who treat us right, let’s not be so quick to judge. What matters is that the person makes us happy.

Only in abusive or manipulative relationships is one person too good for the other. The only way I can justify using the phrase “too good for him” is to mean that someone needs to get the hell out of a relationship because the other person is truly destructive. This has nothing to do with superficial judgments and everything to do with protecting someone’s well-being.

In other words, instead of asking ourselves, “Is he or she good enough for me?” maybe “Is he or she good for me?” is the question we all need to ask.

topten

Illustration by Clara Beyer

sibling battles to replace the super bowl

1. Boyfights reunion direct-to-DVD release.

2. Ron and Ginny Weasley compete for Harry’s affections.

3. Emily and Charlotte Brontë despair-off.

Writing Is Live Festival: January 31 March 2 (see website for performance locations).

4. Beating up the Kardashians.

Throwback Thursday: (20)13 Going on Thirsty. Thursday at 10, The Apartment.

6. William and Harry duke it out over royal paternity.

The Brown Band Presents: Disney on Ice. Friday 7-10, Meehan Auditorium.

The Whistleblower: Film Screening + Q&A with Kathryn Bolkovac. Friday at 7:30, MacMillan Hall 115.

Superbowl. See you at Spats.

5. Romney family croquet and polo biathlon.

7. John and Moses Brown philosophical colloquy.

8. Blue Ivy and Red Mango (Beyoncé’s future second child) lip-sync off.

9. Olsen twins row over regaining relevance.

10. Sasha and Malia … never ever fight.