THE
BROWN DAILY HERALD vol. cxlix, no. 95
since 1891
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2014
Number of Brown grads entering TFA drops sharply U. falls eight places in ranking of contributing colleges, with all Ivies slipping lower By KATE TALERICO STAFF WRITER
ARJUN NARAYEN / HERALD
Tom Doherty and George R.R. Martin received the Harris Collection Literary Award, a prize given by the Brown University Library that “celebrates the influence of literature in pop culture.”
Pop culture, science fiction intersect at talk
By ANDREW FLAX SENIOR STAFF WRITER
The world is in a “golden age of fantasy,” proclaimed best-selling author George R.R. Martin, invoking an image
FOOTBALL
Bears to battle Big Red for Ivy win Lackluster Cornell struggles on both sides of ball, potentially providing opportunity for Bruno By ANDREW FLAX SENIOR STAFF WRITER
inside
The football team may still be winless in the Ivy League, but there’s no cause to panic just yet. The Bears (2-3, 0-2 Ivy) will look to rebound from their loss to Princeton when they come home this weekend to host Cornell (0-5, 0-2). An 0-2 mark in conference is always alarming, but the Bears have already played the two 2013 cochampions of the conference, and outplayed both over large stretches of the game. In their game against Harvard, a weak fourth quarter in which the Bears were outscored 9-0 » See FOOTBALL, page S4
as whimsical as his stories to a packed Salomon 101, where he and publisher Tom Doherty were interviewed about their experiences in science fiction and fantasy writing Thursday. The powerful sci-fi pair was accepting the inaugural Harris Collection Literary Award, a prize presented by the Brown University Library that “celebrates the influence of literature in pop culture” and is “inspired by the love of the arts demonstrated” by
namesake Caleb Fiske Harris 1838, according to the library’s website. Martin, a fantasy writer for over 40 years, became famous for his series “A Song of Ice and Fire,” which serves as the basis for the wildly popular television show “Game of Thrones.” Doherty has been a towering figure in the world of publishing for decades and is most notable for founding the fantasy publishing group Tor Books, » See SCI-FI, page 2
R.I.’s first artisanal pickling company finds home in Warren Fox Point Pickling Company makes use of food incubator founded by former U. professor By ELIZABETH CONWAY CONTRIBUTING WRITER
“I want to be Rhode Island’s Pickle,” said Zared Goldfarb, his confident ambition providing a stark contrast to his unassuming appearance. The owner and “head pickleteer” of Fox Point Pickling Company, Ziggy — as his parents dubbed him at infancy — dressed his tall frame simply, in tattered jeans, a hoodie, glasses and a baseball cap decorated with dinosaurs. He spoke quickly yet fervently, understated and full of zealous excitement and passion for his pickles. Fox Point Pickling Company is a business with unique origins. Goldfarb, who lives on the south side of Providence with his wife, grew up in Poughkeepsie, New York, and moved to Phoenix to study humanities and film at Arizona State University. A few years ago, after moving to Providence, he purchased a pickling kit as a gag gift for his wife, a neurologist and ardent pickle lover. But she was consumed by her medical
ARTS & CULTURE
COURTESY OF ZARED GOLDFARB
Zared Goldfarb, founder of the Fox Point Pickling Company, pickles a variety of vegetables and experiments with different combinations of spices like mustard seed, habanero and coriander. residency, and Goldfarb did not yet whatever seasonal produce arrived in The idea dawned on him after he know many people in the area, so he his weekly box of vegetables. “It was was laid off from his marketing job. started “messing around” with the kit a lot of hits and misses,” Goldfarb “I thought, ‘Ah! This might be a viable himself, he said, and pickling rapidly said. After some research and looking business,’” he said. became his offbeat hobby. around, he realized that though some Patience, trial and error led to Initially, he stuck to recipes, but he local pickling businesses existed in Goldfarb’s discovery of the perfect soon found himself experimenting. neighboring states, there was no such recipe and, invigorated by his wife’s He joined a Community Supported business in Rhode Island working on support and encouragement to “make Agriculture group and began pickling an “artisanal scale.” » See PICKLING, page 3
Arts & Culture
Sports
Diverse voices from Providence community converse through AS220’s newest interactive play
Fanny Howe reflects on the nature of growing older in latest poetry collection
Rugby’s perfect season will either come to fruition or come crashing down this weekend
Men’s soccer takes on a Big Red defense that has allowed less than half a goal per game
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weather
George R.R. Martin, Tom Doherty bring science fiction down to earth through literature
Brown dropped this year from 10th to 18th place in Teach for America’s top contributing medium-sized college and university rankings. Only 17 alums joined the 2014 corps, compared to 31 in 2013 and 36 in 2012. All other Ivy League universities in the medium-sized category also dropped in rankings between 2013 and 2014. The largest discrepancy came from Penn, which dropped off the top-20 rankings altogether after holding third place in 2013. After Penn, Brown experienced the largest decrease in its number of corps members from 2013 to 2014. In 2012 and 2013, TFA hired more Brown graduates than any other employer, said Jim Amspacher, acting director of the CareerLAB and coordinator for Careers in the Common Good, though he declined to reveal 2014 data.
TFA’s Manager of Recruitment Maura Douglas pointed to a recent shift in the organization’s recruitment efforts as a possible explanation for the drop in numbers. “Traditionally, we’ve always worked to engage the senior class, but in the past couple of years we have expanded our focus to engage underclassmen on campus through different events and programming,” Douglas said. Underclassman-driven recruitment began in New England two years ago, and is now “trickling into more of the country,” Douglas said. “We want to focus on building relationships at a longer stage, to learn and grow with students and respond to their needs.” She cited TFA’s 2014 New England Latino Leadership Summit, which three Brown sophomores and three Brown seniors were chosen to attend, as an example of one of the organization’s relationship-focused initiatives. TFA alum Christopher Saunders ’10 said there is no single reason that may explain the steep drop in TFA volunteers from Brown alone. This number could just be an “outlier” in Brown’s history with TFA, he said. » See TFA, page 4
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2 university news
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD FRIDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2014
IN CONVERSATION
Martin: ‘A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies’ ‘Game of Thrones’ author aims to create realistic, complex characters in fantasy universe By ANDREW FLAX SENIOR STAFF WRITER
George R.R. Martin was always interested in fantasy, dreaming of the world beyond the five blocks he walked to and from school each day in his childhood hometown of Bayonne, New Jersey. His first published work was released in 1971, just after he graduated college, marking an auspicious start to a successful career. In 1991, he published “A Game of Thrones,” the first book in the “A Song of Ice and Fire” series that has become an international sensation. This series, which has now seen five of its planned seven books published, catapulted Martin into literary stardom and inspired the hit HBO series “Game of Thrones.” Martin is renowned for his evocative writing and profound characters, assets that have helped him achieve his remarkable success. Martin and famed fantasy publisher Tom Doherty came to Brown Thursday as the recipents of the first Harris Collection Literary Award, which recognizes authors and publishing professionals for the impact their work has had on contemporary culture. In advance of the ceremony, Martin spoke with The Herald about his growth as a writer, his inspirations, the influence “Game of Thrones” has had on his life and his beloved New York Jets.
Herald: You’re coming to Brown to be recognized for the Harris Award, alongside publisher Tom Doherty. You two have been working together for at least 15 years, correct? Martin: Oh boy, I don’t know. Of course, I knew Tom even before I worked with him. Both of us go to a lot of science fiction conventions. I can’t swear
» SCI-FI, from page 1 which is now owned by Macmillan Publishers. Author Jon Land ’79, who helped to organize the evening, and Professor of Modern Culture and Media Lynne Joyrich moderated the talk, in which Martin and Doherty spoke at length on many topics, primarily discussing their backgrounds and the fantasy
to 15 years, but there’s certainly a lot of years there.
How big of a help and an influence has (Doherty) been to you, as long as you’ve been working with him and as long as you’ve known him? Tom’s old-school publishing. He’s always been, I think, one of the most successful and most colorful publishers in the field. He has some great stories about the old days, and it’s always been great to work with him. The publisher, for a lot of publishing companies, is an inaccessible figure sometimes. You don’t often deal directly with the publisher, but Tom is such an amazing guy and an outgoing personality that he’s always been a part of everything Tor (Books) does. The Harris Award, as it says on its website, “celebrates the influence of literature in pop culture.” As a writer, seeing something you’ve written become as popular as the “A Song of Ice and Fire” series must be a dream, but what about that success is special? What does it mean to you that so many people have embraced what you’ve written? I’ve been a writer for a long time. You always want a readership, you always hope that you’ll find more readers, and I’ve had enough to have a pretty successful career. But it’s funny, with “Ice and Fire,” and particularly after the “Game of Thrones” show, the readership has expanded to such huge degrees. It’s really more than I ever could have dreamed of. It’s been gratifying, and sometimes it’s a little overwhelming. You show up to do a signing and the crowds are much bigger than you’ve ever experienced before, and the amount of fan mail and email and interviews and things like that is more than I ever anticipated, but it’s fun.
to be known as the author of “Game of Thrones,” as opposed to simply a fantasy writer? Yeah, you do feel that way sometimes, because I’ve written other stories that I’m proud of. You meet some people when you go out to signings or you do events who are clearly completely unfamiliar with that, and they think that my career just began when I started writing “Game of Thrones,” even though in fact I was already a 20-year veteran of the field by that time. You have to put that in proportion, as that’s pretty much true for the vast majority of writers that are out there, even some of the greats from literature. You say Herman Melville, and there’s “Moby Dick,” but he wrote some other novels, too. Some of (F. Scott Fitzgerald’s) other novels are also terrific, but it’s “The Great Gatsby” that has become the defining novel for Fitzgerald. I’m hardly the first writer to go through this, and so I try to keep that in proportion.
On the flip side of that, do you think one thing you’ve written getting so much attention might overshadow the rest of your work? Is it frustrating
After some of your early novels struggled, you stepped away from writing novels and wrote for some TV shows, perhaps most notably the revival of “The Twilight Zone.” How do you think your work in television helped you grow as a writer? I think working in television improved my sense of structure, which is very important in television. I think it improved my dialogue, because so much of a teleplay or a screenplay is carried by the dialogue. Some of the things that people seem to enjoy in the “Game of Thrones” books is the way each chapter ends, and you want the next chapter for that character immediately, but you switch to another character. In some ways, that’s a television structure that’s ending on what’s called in television an “act break.” So I did learn techniques and the craft of a storyteller in television. As a writer learns and grows, I think it’s good to work in many different forms, experience many different types of storytelling and pick up whatever techniques
publishing industry as a whole. Doherty recounted his rise through the publishing industry — from his start working at companies like Simon and Schuster and Ballantine Books to finally founding Tor — and the journey he has taken since then. In its entirety, his career has played an instrumental role in creating modern science fiction literature culture by helping to popularize fantasy for adults
and in mass-market paperbacks. On his quest to bring the genre to the forefront, one of his driving tenets was the idea that a fantasy story succeeds based on its themes and characters, regardless of setting. “When interesting characters are created, people want more of them,” he said. Martin opened on a light note, joking to the audience that it was “nice going to an awards ceremony where I
are useful to you for your authorial tool chest, whether it’s a technique used in television or film or one used in books. The essay on fantasy on your website talks about fantasy as a means of keeping our dreams alive, as something that evokes magic in real life. Does writing fantasy give you that same feeling? Yes, I think so. Writing and reading. I love to read. I was a voracious reader before I was a writer. I think that’s why I became a writer, to be able to create the stories I wanted to read. I’ve said in one of the books (that) a reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, and a man who does not read lives only one. I certainly feel that’s true of me. I’ve lived hundreds of lives through the books I’ve read. When a book is really good, you lose track of the fact that you’re sitting in a chair looking at words on a page. You kind of fall through that page in your imagination. When you look back on it five years later or 10 years later, if it was a strong enough book, it’s almost more vivid than the memories of what you were actually doing at the time, and that’s what I strive to create for my readers, and certainly that’s a thing that I get as a writer. You’ve been lauded for your ability to write women well, but there are some who say that the women in “Game of Thrones” are too reliant on sexuality. Are there any things you’re particularly mindful of when writing a female character, and how would you respond to those who criticize the portrayal of women in your books? You’re always going to get criticized, but I have a wide range of women. Some of them do use their sexuality as a weapon, but by no means all of them. That’s one of the advantages of having a large cast — you don’t have to have a single female character and say, “Well, this is a portrait of women.” Women, like men, come in many different shapes, sizes and
know I’m going to win.” The moderators peppered him with questions of a large variety, asking about his growth as a writer, his experience with the creation of “Game of Thrones” and the popularity of the book series. “History was huge for me,” he said of his writing process and his desire to separate his work from the rest of the genre. Specifically, he sought to incorporate historical events into his writing to differentiate his work from that of authors he thought were simply imitating “The Lord of the Rings” author J. R. R. Tolkien. While others adapted the tropes of pure good and evil used in Tolkien’s books, Martin spoke about subverting them as he aimed to “weld” fantasy with “the grittiness of history.” For example, Martin based the Red Wedding, one of the series’ most iconic moments, on the Black Dinner, a similar event that took place in 15th-century Scotland. Another essential aspect of Martin’s writing is the depth of his characters. He invoked Nobel Prize laureate William Faulkner in explaining it, repeating Faulkner’s famous line: “The only thing worth writing about is the human heart in conflict with itself.” “I believe that,” Martin added. In an audience question-and-answer session following the talk, Martin handled questions about the specifics
personalities. There are strong women, there are weak women, there are courageous women and vain women, there are women who rise to do heroic things, there are women who do very unscrupulous things, and the same is true of men. I try to present all sides of that in a book. My preference has always been for great characters, rather than characters who are purely heroic or purely villainous, because I don’t think real people, regardless of their sex or gender or color, are purely heroic or purely villainous. So I want to write about real, fully rounded human beings. As for sexuality, real, fully rounded human beings have sexuality. Sex is an important part of our lives — always has been since we first came out of the jungle and started walking on two feet — and it needs to be an important part of the story, too. Another distinguishing aspect of the series is its incorporation of history, as you’ve drawn the inspiration for many events and plotlines from actual events. What’s your process of choosing events around which to base your story? I wouldn’t call it a process. I read a lot of history, I read a lot of historical fiction, and as you do, you come across some cool things sometimes. You say, “Look at this interesting history. That’s really cool. How can I use that?” You don’t use it directly, but you play with it, you change things, you make things a little more complicated, add a twist to it. Everything a writer reads, everything a writer sees, everything a writer experiences in his own life can be grist for the mill. One last question — who should be the Jets’ starting quarterback: Geno Smith or Michael Vick? Matt Simms.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length. of his books and his continuous process of writing them. Holly Gildea ’16 asked about how the series’ popularity affected his ability to write the surprises in the books, given how many more people now pore over and assemble the small clues he has dropped in the text. “People can write their predictions and propagate them through the reader base much more quickly,” she said, referring to the online forums dedicated to solving the books’ many mysteries. Martin said he avoids the online theorists as much as possible, but acknowledged that some detectives may have connected the dots enough to see the big picture. Gildea told The Herald afterward that she enjoyed the event as a whole, but particularly appreciated Doherty’s presence, even if he was the less recognizable figure. His attendance “gave an interesting perspective into the field of publishing as a whole,” she said. Though Doherty’s story fascinated the crowd, Martin clearly drew the most attention. He gave insight into his views of fantasy and his writing process, in which he said he prefers to create nuanced characters and let the story flow through them. “I’m a gardener, not an architect,” he said.
university news 3
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD FRIDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2014
U. restricts travel due to threat of Ebola Other schools, including Cornell, Harvard and Columbia, have enacted similar travel bans By EMMA HARRIS SENIOR STAFF WRITER
Due to the recent Ebola outbreak, the University is placing restrictions on travel to Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia except for purposes of eradicating or containing the disease, Russell Carey, executive vice president for planning and policy, Unab Khan, medical director of University health services and Margaret Klawunn, vice president for campus life and student services, wrote in a community-wide email Tuesday. Undergraduates are prohibited from traveling to these countries for any “University-sponsored undergraduate activity,” including study abroad, the administrators wrote. The University will provide housing and meals to students who would otherwise travel to Guinea, Sierra Leone or Liberia over Thanksgiving or winter break. Faculty, staff, graduate students and medical students must obtain permission from the Office of the Provost in order to travel to these countries. Cornell, Harvard and Columbia have enacted similar restrictions, the New York Times reported earlier this week. According to the email, the list of restricted countries is subject to change based on the status of the Ebola outbreak. Individuals approved to travel to the three countries are required to enlist with the Brown International SOS Global Assistance Program, a service that provides aid to Brown community members traveling abroad, though community members traveling to other countries are also encouraged to enroll, administrators wrote in the email. “In accordance with recent guidance from the (Centers for Disease Control), we are asking all Brown students, faculty and staff to postpone non-essential travel to Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia,” the email stated. The University asked travelers to communicate with University Health Services before and after traveling to Ebola-infected countries. If community members have possibly been exposed to Ebola, they are encouraged to contact Health Services, their doctors or any emergency medical services, according to the email.
» PICKLING, from page 1 it happen,” he decided to pursue his pickling passion in earnest. He named the company Fox Point Pickling after the neighborhood where he lived when he first moved to Providence. “After so many years of sitting at a desk and doing someone else’s work, it’s really exciting to do something on my own,” he said. Goldfarb’s work now tenuously balances meticulous science with creative spirit. Before the pickles can head to the market, they must sit in jars of brine for a month at a precise acidity level, and in order to preserve vegetables and make things shelfstable, Goldfarb uses a mixture of water, salt and vinegar. The water and salt are key, he said, as they extract moisture from the vegetables, preserving them for long periods of time. The “fun part,” according to Goldfarb, comes in adding all of the spices to create flavor. “It’s all about the right measures and the certain mix,” Goldfarb said. His staple spices include dill, coriander seed and mustard seed for his regular dill pickles, with an addition of habanero to add a “kick on the back end” for his spicy dill pickles. He said he tends to go “heavy on the spices,” and he uses cider vinegar instead of white wine vinegar for an added hint of sweetness. And he never shies away from experimentation: Goldfarb recently tested a jar of Moroccan-inspired pickled green beans using cumin seed, coriander and lemon flavors. He has pickled just about everything: cucumbers, green beans, zucchini, corn, green tomatoes, garlic scapes and even pumpkins. “It actually came out really great,” he said of the preserved pumpkin, an idea he got after seeing a recipe for pickled butternut squash. “Like a delicious vinegary, sweet syrup.” With so many flavors surrounding him, Goldfarb frequently finds himself nibbling on his own creations: “I constantly want them,” he said. “As soon as one jar’s done, we pop open another.” As he does with spices, Goldfarb carefully considers his vegetables. He tries to obtain as many of his cucumbers from local sources as possible, he said, and when cucumbers are out of season in Rhode Island, he sticks to domestic growers, with his most recent batch hailing from Georgia. “The ideal scenario would be to do well enough this winter to buy more cucumbers locally during summertime and build up a local stash,” he said, adding that he intends to “work (his) ass off ” next summer in order to preserve enough cucumbers to last through most of the winter. But before Goldfarb could turn his gag gift-inspired hobby into viable income, he undertook months of behind-the-scenes work. Obtaining the necessary funds proved his biggest obstacle, but using his background in public relations and
COURTESY OF ZARED GOLDFARB
Hope and Main, a Warren-based nonprofit that provides kitchen space to local food start-ups, houses Fox Point Pickling Company’s operation, which aims to use locally sourced cucumbers. marketing, Goldfarb was able to fundraise smoothly, he said. Within days, he met his $9,956 Kickstarter goal — and then exceeded it by over $5,000. Goldfarb put the money toward gaining the necessary Department of Health licenses and approval for his recipes. In order to have his processes and recipes approved, Goldfarb had to send them to a food science program at Cornell, where scientists evaluated his creations and made any changes necessary to ensure his recipes were safe for consumption. Aside from raw materials — jars, cucumbers, spices and vinegar — Goldfarb had to find a commercial kitchen space that would suffice for his pickling needs. After months of searching, he discovered Hope and Main in Warren, the first food incubator in the state. Founded by former Professor of Community Health Lisa Raiola ’84, Hope and Main is a nonprofit that allows local food entrepreneurs to utilize its shared-use commercial kitchen spaces to develop their growing businesses. By providing technical resources, kitchen space and mentoring, she said Hope and Main looks to foster the growth of these start-up businesses over the span of a couple of years so they can eventually purchase their own spaces. Raiola’s vision for the program was partly inspired by her experiences teaching community health at Brown, where she lectured on issues such as medical ethics, food security and food and distributive justice. She was also inspired by her battle with late-stage cancer, which eventually forced her to leave Brown. She attributes her survival to “radically, radically changing (her) diet” to one that relies largely on local foods. “I said, if I ever got better, I’m going to do something with local food and nutrition,” she recalled. While she said she originally hoped to create a company that would deliver local foods to medical patients unable to
shop for themselves, when she happened upon the space that would become Hope and Main, she switched her focus to founding a “food incubator” space. With a $3 million loan from the United States Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development Community Facilities Loan Program, which assists community projects in small towns across the country, all Railoa had to do was convince the town of Warren to allow her to purchase the building. The town requires an affirmative referendum of at least 125 votes to allow individuals to purchase public land, so she embarked on a door-to-door campaign to garner support and obtain the requisite votes. “Food politics is so powerful, and it’s so uniting, a common denominator for people, because they understand that it means economic development and supporting small businesses,” she said. “Hope and Main isn’t about the kitchens — it’s about the people in them, people like Ziggy (Goldfarb), who came to us early on.” Now, nearly five years later, Hope and Main has finally become a reality and an integral support for entrepreneurs like Goldfarb. “This guy has this fantastic, sensational product and this great big idea of the Rhode Island food economy,” Railoa said. “He’s like the posterchild for that.” Betsy Santarlasci, interim executive director at Hope and Main, said she sees the space as a “center of gravity” that equips budding food startups — from smoothie makers to bakers — with the logistical information needed for the business world. “You can rent kitchens anywhere, but the difference is that Hope and Main provides mentoring — a whole board of people who know how to do different things,” Goldfarb said. “There are engineers and food scientists who can teach you how to do things faster.”
He credits one of these engineers with drastically increasing the efficiency of his pickling process. Previously, Goldfarb would cut each cucumber spear by hand, a process that would take hours. But the engineer introduced him to a hand-powered French fry-cutting machine that allows him to reduce his cutting time to minutes. Goldfarb went from making a single bushel of cucumbers one week to 10 bushels — or over 400 pounds — the next week. Goldfarb said he hopes to sell his pickles in larger grocery stores like Whole Foods and Eastside Marketplace as well as in gourmet food shops, gift shops and farmer’s markets within the next year. Up until now, his primary exposure has been sampling his wares while also delivering vegetables for Farm Fresh R.I. and working at a bakery, jobs that have allowed him to make connections in the food industry across Rhode Island. Goldfarb’s Fox Point Pickling Company will be available at the Pawtucket Wintertime Farmers Market at the Hope Artiste Village beginning Nov. 1. “Within five years I would like to have my own space, so that I can make pickles full time and be all around New England, if not further,” he said. In the next two weeks, Fox Point Pickles will begin to be served at the Cutting Board, a new sandwich shop in the Providence Place Mall, and Goldfarb is currently working with other restaurants and sandwich shops in the city. He is also in the process of establishing connections with local bartenders, who he hopes will not only use the pickles, but also the brine for mixes in drinks such as bloody marys, martinis and pickleback shots. “I want to create not just a company, but also a brand — a brand that Rhode Islanders can be proud of,” he said.
4 arts & culture
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD FRIDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2014
Interactive play reflects city’s diversity Premonitions: Halloween events ‘A Kind of Providence’ connects communities of Providence through local dialogues By HISYAM TAKIUDIN CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Brown students can sometimes be out of touch with the realities of the city they live in. But they can at least partially remedy this by seeing “A Kind of Providence,” a play in which the essence of the city shines through in all its diversity, grit and creativity. Director Ashley Teague GS, a student in the Brown-Trinity MFA program, said she spearheaded the project in an attempt to “bridge the gap between Trinity, AS220 and the people of Providence.” She found her playwrights and actors through an open invitation to the community, which yielded a mix of amateurs and professionals. Consistent with the diversity of its cast, the play attempts the difficult task of defining a city composed of such a gamut of individuals. Rather than the traditional
REVIEW
theatricality of stage lighting, props and costumes, “A Kind of Providence” takes the form of stage reading — actors sit in a circle, reading aloud from scripts. In an innovative twist, “A Kind of Providence” relays actual conversations by city residents, as the script came together by integrating verbatim quotes from locals who contributed to the making of the play into the script. This particular feature explains the mixed-bag nature of the production — its substories lie in the subjects of mediocrity and grandiosity. There’s the story about locals oozing both appreciation and discontent, feelings portrayed in a brilliant homage to the city. There’s the story of how a man considers his experience escaping a beating worthy of a feature film. And yet another story is about the semantics of literally getting nowhere. Casual theatergoers might find these pecularities, as well as the absence of the standard rising plot format, dealbreakers. But enthusiasts might commend Teague’s bold and comprehensive curation, which takes the focus off production and onto the stories themselves. Teague further incorporates the Providence community into her work by including lines submitted by
audience members into the script, allowing for a degree of audience immersion that is unusual in such a strippeddown show. The compelling stories and local participation allows “A Kind of Providence” to be effective without splurging on expensive sets. But that is not to say that piecing the show together is a mundane task. It’s not easy to put on a community-based production that depends on the willingness and availability of actors who aren’t necessarily professionals, Teague said. Teague has assigned temporary roles to actors during script reading sessions, though these will not be set in stone until opening night. Even these impromptu sessions feel like a legitimate conversation one would hear downtown. Perhaps this authenticity arises from the shared passion of the people working on the project or maybe from the brilliance of the script speaks for itself. Regardless, “A Kind of Providence” is a praiseworthy effort deserving a trip downtown, if not a standing ovation. “A Kind of Providence” will be performed for one night only Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at AS220’s 95 Empire Black Box Theatre.
Brown alums and Teach for America
» TFA, from page 1 In the 2014 rankings, Howard University topped the list, replacing Harvard, which fell to fourth place. Columbia dropped from 6th to 8th place, Dartmouth fell from 8th to 12th, Princeton fell from 12th to tying Brown at 18th and Yale fell from 12th to 15th. In the rankings of large schools, Cornell dropped from 8th to 13th place. TFA has been developing an initiative that involves “recruiting individuals who share the racial or socioeconomic backgrounds of the students (they) teach, 90 percent of whom are African American or Latino,” according to its website. “Corps members who share their students’ backgrounds serve as powerful role models and have potential for a profound additional impact based on their personal experiences,” the website continues. Victoria Chen ’11, who taught in Houston with TFA for two years after graduating, said this recruitment strategy can be “off-putting,” particularly as an Asian American. “They’re alienating members that are doing work just as good as their peers,” Chen said, adding that she wished TFA put more of an emphasis on training corps members on how to leverage their own backgrounds to provide students with a diversity of experiences and role models that “more accurately mirrors the world we are preparing them for.” Douglas said the diversity initiative is about bringing together students from a “variety of different perspectives. … We want to empower students with their own identities.” According to TFA’s website, 50 percent of the 2014 Corps Members identify as people of color — 22
In 2014, Brown ranked 18th for the number of alums who joined TFA among medium-sized colleges (3,000 to 9,999 undergrads). In 2011, Brown was ranked 5th. 50 alums
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Source: Teach for America MONICA MENDOZA / HERALD
percent identify as black, 13 percent as Latino, 6 percent as Asian American or Pacific Islander and 6 percent as multiethnic. Nearly half of corps members are Pell Grant recipients, and more than one third are the first in their family to attend college. Chen said she decided to join TFA after education classes at Brown inspired her interest in urban education reform. “I wasn’t comfortable in the classroom until the end of the first year,” she said. During training, volunteers were taught hypothetically about situations that may arise during their lessons, but “nothing prepares you like actual classroom experience,” she said. While Chen said that TFA tries to
give all members a voice, she said she would “love to see more of a dialogue … and partnerships with non-TFA teachers.” In his first week of work, a coworker yelled at Saunders in the hall about his affiliation with TFA, which was something that he “didn’t expect” going in to the program. “There’s a huge amount of misinformation about TFA in the world,” he said. Saunders said he enjoyed his experience with the program working in the Providence Public School District, in part because TFA gave him flexibility to plan his lessons. “They are willing to listen to ideas and let you try them with a constant focus on results,” he said.
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to haunt your week
BY EMMAJEAN HOLLEY, ARTS & CULTURE EDITOR
Greg Abate and the ‘Monsters in the Night’ Band | AS220 Black Box Theatre | Oct. 24 The Providence-based jazz mogul has played saxophone in international performances with sultans of swing like Phil Woods and Ray Charles and has been hailed by the Washington Post as “one of the most exciting saxophone players out there today.” Among his 13 albums is “Monsters in the Night,” whose nine original tracks celebrate pop culture’s most feared and revered characters. The album was recorded with the combined talents of Artie Montanaro on trombone, Paul Nagel on piano, Vinny Pagano on drums and Bill Miele on bass. This Friday’s performance will feature a one-timeonly reunion of the quintet as they bust out numbers like the tight, Latin-infused “Igor’s Revenge,” the dreamy harmonics of “Bride of Frankenstein” and the no-holds-barred “Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde.”
Mad Science: Ninth Annual Halloween Iron Pour | Steel Yard | Oct. 25 After 100 years in business, the Providence Iron and Steel Company went defunct in 2001. Fortunately, a Brown alum teamed up with a Rhode Island School of Design alum to renovate the historic facility into the Steel Yard, a site that manufactures, teaches and celebrates industrial art. Local steel artists forge an explosive showcase each year at the annual Halloween Iron Pour, but this year’s event will allegedly make sparks fly like never before thanks to some secret new ingredients, including Tesla coils, which appear to radiate small lightning storms. The event will feature a live performance from local indie-folk band Alec K. Redfearn and the Eyesores.
Chifferobe Presents Cirque de Ville III | Aurora Providence | Oct. 25 “American Horror Story: Freak Show” meets “Moulin Rouge” in this vaudeville-inspired variety show, which the Providence Phoenix called “the Vintage Super Bowl.” Tap-dancing RISD graduate Kristen Minsky, who has bandy-twisted her way into the New Yorker and New York Times, conceived “Cirque de Ville,” which allows viewers to explore a world guided by the velvety voice of their ringleader, Miss Wensday. Snake charmers and acrobats, contortionists and cancan dancers, whip artist Jaques ze Whippeur and comic ventriloquist Mr. Dead Guy are among the characters that viewers will encounter. Tickets include a complimentary tarot reading, naturally.
The Addams Family: A Musical Comedy | Academy Players Blackbox Theatre | Thursday-Saturday through Nov. 2 They’re creepy and they’re kooky, mysterious and spooky, and now their spirits have been resurrected onstage in the premiere show for the Academy Players’ new black box theater. Picking up some years after where the television show left off in the characters’ lives, the production opens with Wednesday and her very normal husbandto-be seeking approval from each other’s families before tying the knot. Meanwhile, Uncle Fester is in a complicated relationship with an inflatable doll, and Pugsley waxes nostalgic over the good old days playing on the torture rack with his sister. Motif Magazine praised the show’s witty songwriting and talented cast, noting in particular Lurch’s pantomiming and Grandmama’s character as one who “would hardly be out of place running a meth lab in a trailer if she could remember where she put it.”
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
SPORTS BULLETIN
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2014
FIELD HOCKEY
Bruno secures winning record O’Donnell ’15 breaks goals record, ensures best team finish in four years with win over Holy Cross By MATTHEW BROWNSWORD SPORTS STAFF WRITER
In Worcester, Massachusetts — 42 miles west of Winchester, where Meghan O’Donnell ’15 grew up, first handled a field hockey stick and first experienced the thrill of the ball hitting the net — she scored a goal Wednesday that accomplished what she had been inching toward her entire collegiate career: guaranteeing the women’s field hockey team a winning record. Becoming Brown’s all-time career leader in goals wasn’t bad, either. “After the goal went in, I realized that it was the record goal and was really happy,” O’Donnell said. “I was hoping I would be able to do it this season, and it’s nice to have done it with four games left.” But for the senior who has experienced three straight losing seasons, O’Donnell put a lot more emphasis on the team around her, as she has done her entire time at Brown. The goal “means a lot to me,” O’Donnell said. “What’s even better is that the team has officially clinched a winning record for the season, and we do not plan to stop winning. It’s huge for our team to meet this milestone, and it’s all just very exciting.” O’Donnell’s record-breaking goal was enough to power the visiting Bears (9-4, 1-3 Ivy) over College of the Holy Cross (3-14, 0-5 Patriot) on a Wednesday night dominated by rain and wind. After a half in which both teams adjusted to the slick surface, O’Donnell latched onto a ball from
Hannah Rogers ’16 and, like she has done many times this year, managed to put it past the outstretched stick of the goalie. The goal also tied her with Leslie Springmeyer ’12 and Tara Mounsey ’00 for most career points at 87, a record she could break in her next four games. “Meghan is an extremely capable athlete,” said goalkeeper Shannon McSweeney ’15. “Her speed, strength and risks are what make her successful as a field hockey player; defenders don’t know how to play her because they can’t keep up with her. When the other team’s defense has the ball, she takes risks, and it often pays off.” Holy Cross was not put down by the goal. In fact, they had three penalty corners to Brown’s one in the second half, but could not get anything by McSweeney, who had four saves on the night. Back Katarina Angus ’17 was able to contain a fast Holy Cross team that seemed to take to the slick surface. Combined with Ashley Waldron ’18, former Herald contributing writer Haley Alvarez ’15 and Anna Masini ’16, Angus — despite the movement of Clayton Christus ’15 up to midfield — led Brown to its third shutout of the year. Up next for Brown is Cornell (84, 3-1 Ivy), a team that has enjoyed similar success to the Bears this year, with one major difference: Ivy League performance. Three of Bruno’s four losses this year have been to Ivy League opponents, but Cornell has won three of its four tilts with conference foes. But a closer analysis reveals that a comparison between the two teams’ Ivy performances may not be applicable. Two of Cornell’s Ivy wins came against Penn and Yale, who are second-to-last and last in the conference, respectively, while Brown has played
four out of the top five teams — Cornell being the only exception. The common Ivy opponents tell even less of a conclusive story: Cornell beat Columbia 2-1, who thrashed the Bears 4-0 but lost to Harvard 2-1, whom the Bears topped 4-3 earlier in the year. Cornell’s offense is powered by leading scorer Marisa Sierglej, who has tallied 11 goals this season, and is helped by Ann DiPastina and Taylor Standiford, who are among the Ivy leaders in assists. The problem for Cornell has been its goalkeeper, as Elizabeth Schaeffler and Kelly Johnson have split the duties in different games this year. Cornell comes into the game against Brown on a threegame losing streak in which Johnson replaced Schaeffler as the starter in its last game, against Harvard. Despite Brown’s lackluster Ivy League play, it comes into the game having won three of its last four — the lone loss was to Princeton — and having just clinched its first winning record since 2006. In all the seasons that this year’s seniors have been at Brown, no team has succeeded as much as this year’s, and they don’t plan on stopping any time soon. “This season has been such an incredible season,” O’Donnell said. “We came out hard and have kept it up all season. Having a winning record with four games left is amazing, and we continue to keep putting the ball in the back of the cage and continue winning. Our program has come a long way, and it’s so great to see all of the hard work we and the classes before us have put in finally pay off.” So, just 48 miles south of her hometown of Winchester, at Goldberger Family Field, O’Donnell and the Bears will look to continue their winning ways Saturday, when Cornell comes to town.
DAVID DECKEY / HERALD
Meghan O’Donnell ’15 marches upfield in pursuit of the ball. The offensive dynamo knocked in her eighth goal of the season Wednesday to go along with nine assists. O’Donnell leads the Bears in both categories.
RUGBY
ORLANDO LUIS PARDO LAZO / HERALD FILE PHOTO
May Siu ’15 surges up the field. The team has dismantled the entire Ivy League and now faces Navy in its final challenge of the season.
Navy stands between Bears, perfect season Navy plays more physical style than most Ivy foes, which could provide major test for Bears By LAINIE ROWLAND SPORTS STAFF WRITER
The U.S. Naval Academy is the rugby team’s last stumbling block on the path to what might be Brown’s only chance at a perfect regular-season sport this fall. If Bruno beats Navy (1-3), its only non-conference opponent, on Saturday, it will cap off an undefeated conference record secured last weekend with a win over Princeton (3-2). But the Bears have ostensibly saved their toughest challenge for last. “Navy will be a very strong competitor,” said Head Coach Kathleen Flores. “Their program will be much more like a varsity program with a high time commitment, meaning players are learning more in shorter amounts of time. I expect they will be much stronger than the Ivy League.” While Bruno dominated Ivy rivals this year and sits quite convincingly atop the conference as the only team with more than three wins, the Bears have not been forced to play a tight game since their first match of the season against Harvard (3-2). Other than that matchup, the squad posted winning margins of at least 36 points every game. “We still haven’t reached our own potential yet,” Flores said. “We haven’t committed fully to a game plan from beginning to end. That’s not to say we haven’t done well. As we move forward to stronger teams, we need to establish the bar sooner and accept nothing less.”
For Brown, the pair of co-captain Oksana Goretaya ’17 and Saskia Morgan ’16 has been deadly on offense, while Bruno’s defense has only allowed a total of 46 points on the season, an average of 9.2 per match. The squad has seen great improvements in athleticism this year, which has catapulted it to the top of the Ivy League. But in facing Navy, the Bears will encounter a new level of fitness and athleticism. Navy plays a more physical game than Bruno has seen so far this year. “We are much fitter and (more) aggressive this year, but must be ready for something we’ve not seen before in terms of outright aggression,” Flores said in regards to Navy’s strength. Brown has prepared for this challenge by upping its training intensity and including “a lot of hard contact” in practice, Flores said. Bruno’s most recent matchup against Navy — in the spring 2013 National Tournament’s Round of 16 — ended in defeat, after which Navy went on to advance to the Final Four. The last time the Bears beat Navy was a friendly match in fall 2010. Both teams have a history of being competitive on the national stage. Navy most recently suffered a loss at Army’s hands in its big rivalry matchup. The Midshipmen also lost to powerhouses University of Virginia and the U.S. Air Force Academy this year, though they pulled out a commanding win over St. Mary’s College. On Saturday, Brown will “have to come out hard to establish the pace for the first whistle and not let it be set for us,” Flores said. The Bears will look to keep their winning streak alive, but overwhelming Navy is the team’s tallest order yet.
S2 m. soccer
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD FRIDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2014
Bruno hosts top-flight defense in conference showdown Nationally acclaimed Cornell back line to put Brown’s offensive players to the test By ALEX WAINGER SENIOR STAFF WRITER
The men’s soccer team enters its fourth round of Ivy League play clinging to the top half of the standings. Following their 1-1 draw with Harvard, the Bears will face a surprisingly underperforming Cornell that has just three points after as many games of conference play. Last weekend, Bruno (3-4-5, 1-1-1 Ivy) played perhaps its best 65 minutes of soccer of the season in the second half and extra time periods against the Crimson (8-3-1, 2-0-1). Had a few calls gone different ways, the Bears would be sitting atop the conference standings with Harvard, Dartmouth (7-4-1, 2-1-0) and Penn (6-6-6, 2-1-0). Harvard is “one of the best teams in the league,” said Louis Zingas ’18. “To be able to tie them is something that definitely gives us a confidence boost moving forward. After tying a team on an eight-game unbeaten streak, we know we can hang with the best.” On the other hand, in its most recent game, the Big Red (8-4-1, 1-2-0) narrowly edged Ivy bottom-dweller Yale (1-9-2, 0-3-0) in a 1-0 game that was scoreless until the 82nd minute. Cornell has struggled to produce in the attacking half of the field all season, a major weakness the Bears will have to exploit. Zingas — who scored a vital goal in Bruno’s draw with Boston College (5-5-3, 1-4-1 ACC) and nearly won the game for the Bears against Harvard — was recently named Ivy League Rookie of the Week for his offensive and defensive contributions. “We have a really talented freshmen class,” Zingas said. “So to be recognized like that, not only amongst
my teammates, but amongst all the freshmen in the Ivy League really means a lot to me. Not only did I put the work in, but my team helped me a lot.” The speedy midfielder and the entirety of the Bears offense will be tested by an immensely successful Big Red defense. Cornell has posted nine shutouts this season — the third highest total in all of Division I soccer. The backline also owns the sixth-best goals against average in the country at .46 goals per game. Orchestrating the Cornell defense is senior goalkeeper Zach Zagorski. Despite his conference leading goals against and save percentages, the keeper ranks fourth among Ivy goalies in total saves. This dichotomy indicates that the Big Red defenders excel in preventing and blocking shots, keeping Zagorski from having to make many saves. Cornell’s defensive prowess likely stems from the familiarity its players have with each other. Zagorski and his four defenders have started all 13 games this season, and three of the five players are seniors. The unit has had plenty of time to learn each other’s strengths and weaknesses. But there is a chink in Cornell’s armor — the team has a 2-3-1 record on the road, compared to 6-1-0 mark at home. In six games on the road, the Big Red has given up five goals, while it has only surrendered a single goal in seven games at home. Luckily for Bruno, the game will be played at Stevenson Field, where the Bears have scored seven of their 11 goals this season. Bruno has found the back of the net in three straight games, a streak the team would like to keep alive against Cornell. “We can score against Cornell because we have to,” Zingas said. “The bottom line is, we have to win, so we have no other option than to score and stay alive. Everyone on the team knows that; everyone has the right
DAVID DECKEY / HERALD
Jameson Lochhead ’16 steps into a free kick. After spending the start of the season on the bench due to injury, the defender has solidified his spot on the back line and will anchor the defense against Cornell. mentality. We’ll be well prepared to break down Cornell’s defense.” In recent weeks, Quinn English ’18 has emerged as a partner to co-captain Ben Maurey ’15.5 at striker. The first-year forward has yet to pick up a goal, but he has proven to be one of Bruno’s most dynamic players. English regularly beats defenders on the wing in one-on-one situations, and he has turned throw-ins into a weapon for the Bears with his monstrous heave. While Zingas and English will battle with elite talent in Cornell’s half of the field, Mitch Kupstas ’14.5 and the Bears’ back four will face a different team when the Big Red looks to attack. As far as scoring goals goes, Cornell is a middle-of-the-pack offense. The team ranks between fifth and seventh in shots, points, goals and assists in the Ivy League this season.
Senior Conor Goepel, an attacking midfielder, stands out as the Big Red’s only offensive threat. Goepel has six goals and three assists, but surprisingly comes off the bench for Cornell. He started three of the first four games this season, but has since been used as a sparkplug to get the Cornell offense going. The Big Red’s second and third leading goal scorers tallied all of their stats in a 1-0 win over Hartwick College (2-8-4, 1-1-1 Sun Belt) and a 5-0 blowout of SUNY Buffalo (4-8-2, 0-02 MAC) before the Ivy season even started. Because Goepel comes off the bench, Cornell will not have an offensive presence on the field for at least the first 20 minutes of the game. The stellar Bruno defense should be able to handle a mediocre Big Red attack. Kupstas ranks just behind
Zagorski in save percentage, goals against average and shutouts in the Ivy League. After the Bears kept Harvard’s top-flight offense off the scoreboard for nearly 100 minutes last weekend, they should have no issue doing the same to Cornell’s lackluster unit. Zingas called the game against the Big Red and the rest of the games this season “must wins.” If the team still has any hopes of taking the Ivy League crown, it must pick up the full three points this weekend. “We’re not comfortable with where we are in the standings,” Zingas said. “Right now, there’s a huge sense of urgency. Every game is a playoff game from here on out.” The Family Weekend crowd will cheer on the Bears at 3:30 p.m. Saturday as the team searches for its second conference victory of the season.
volleyball S3
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD FRIDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2014
Improved Bears seek revenge against powerhouse Elis After early-season sweep at hands of Bulldogs, Bears hope to finish Ivy schedule with flourish By CHRISTINE RUSH SPORTS STAFF WRITER
This weekend, the volleyball team has an opportunity to exact revenge against Yale — this time in Bulldog territory. Nearly a month ago, Yale swept Bruno in three games, and Friday, the Bears will seek to even the score. “We are a very different team from the last time we played them,” said Assistant Coach Scott Blanchard. “We have a very balanced attack, and our defense is vastly improved.” Yale comes into the match-up with a 10-6 record. “Yale is a very good team, and they don’t make many mistakes,” said Emma Thygesen ’17. This season, the Bulldogs have beaten every Ivy team except Harvard, and even against the Crimson, Yale fought back, slipping in a tight 3-2 loss. As a team, they have more than doubled their opponents’ kills, total blocks and digs. But to rival Yale’s impressive statistics, the Bears come into the match as the League’s top defensive team. Coach Blanchard said they have pinpointed the Bulldogs’ weaknesses and will combat them “with a balanced attack and aggressive serving.” Bruno will look to extend its winning streak to three this weekend after
DAVID DECKEY / HERALD
Payton Smith ’17 and McKenna Webster ’16 rise up to block a spike. The team has excelled on the defensive side of the net, leading the Ivy League in digs and digs per set and averaging nearly a block and a half per set. edging out Ivy rivals Columbia and Cornell in five sets last weekend. The women enjoyed an extra day off of physical practice this week, using the gained time to brush up on film. Thygesen said she believes last weekend’s wins will give the Bears the confidence
they need to dominate the second half of their season. With a total of 21 kills and 28 digs in last weekend’s matchups, Shirin Tooloee ’18 was named Ivy League Rookie of the Week. Tooloee became the first volleyball player to earn
Rookie of the Week honors since Maddie Lord ’15 earned them in 2011. It was a big weekend for Lord as well, as she tallied her 1,000th career kill in Saturday’s game against Cornell. The matchup against Yale marks a clean slate for the Bears, as the team
gets one more shot at each conference team. “The word quit is not in their vocabulary,” Blanchard said. Thygesen echoed this. The goal, she said, is “to win, play our best and keep intensity and energy through the entire match.”
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
SPORTS BULLETIN
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD FRIDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2014
ATHLETE OF THE WEEK
Captain Fuller ’15 fuels offense with prolific aerial attack Quarterback breaks Ivy League record for pass attempts, sets career high for throwing yards By CALEB MILLER SPORTS EDITOR
During Saturday’s contest at Princeton, football captain and quarterback Marcus Fuller ’15 made history, doing something nobody in Ivy League history had ever done before. The star player chucked a conference-record 71 pass attempts, part of an impressive aerial attack that came close to leading the Bears (2-3, 0-2 Ivy) to a comeback over the Tigers (3-2, 1-1). But Fuller wasn’t just attempting passes, he was completing them to the tune of 454 yards — the sixth highest total in program history — and as Princeton effectively shut down the Bruno rushing
game, Fuller adapted with career-high totals through the air. In his first season as a starter, the senior has improved each game, and he will be the focal point of any run the Bears make in the second half of the season. For setting an Ancient Eight record and obliterating his career high, Fuller has been named The Herald’s Athlete of the Week. Herald: How did you get into football? My dad actually played ball back in the day. He had a brief stint in the NFL, and he coaches as well. He coaches at my high school, so from a very young age I knew that I was going to be involved with football. Have you always wanted to be a quarterback? I did. I have seen home videos of
myself running around the house with the touchdown hands up. Offense has always been a focus of mine. My dad was a defensive guy, so that was strange for him at first — me being the enemy, the guy he seeks to kill on every play. But he was very supportive of whatever I wanted to do.
After throwing an Ivy League record in pass attempts last week, was your arm tired? A little bit. I’ve definitely never done anything like that. I ran a 5-wide, empty offense in high school, so I threw the heck out of the ball, but 71 is a new personal record for me. It was fun.
Are there any professional quarterbacks who you model your game off? (New Orleans Saints quarterback) Drew Brees is the first guy that jumps off the page. I’m a shorter guy by quarterback standards, so anytime you see a shorter cat like myself — Drew Brees or Russell Wilson — excel at the NFL level, it’s something special. I look at their game and try to model some of the things that they do. Brees was actually very close to coming here — Purdue offered him last minute, he was about to take an official visit to Brown.
What are you studying academically? Business, Entrepreneurship and Organizations, with an Organizational Studies focus.
Finding the beauty in sports JAMES COHAN sports columnist
“Rebounds, with their reliable uncertainty, are part of what makes basketball beautiful. There are general rules that dictate the nature of missed shots. But thanks to the perfect design of the basketball hoop, there will always be randomness.” This quote — at the end of a Kirk Goldsberry article on the rebounding data now accessible given new tracking technology — quietly makes a bold statement that has little to do with the rest of the article. The article is about statistics. What percentage of missed shots end up where. Cold hard facts. This quote is about beauty. People who cover sports love to talk about athletes and plays as if they are artistic achievements. A particularly difficult catch by a wide receiver is “beautiful.” A crossover is “a work of art.” And then there’s the way soccer announcers talk about football, where an effective offense becomes “a cultured attack.” Sports writers certainly aren’t alone in making the link between results-driven fields and art. I’m reading a book right now called “Geek Sublime: The Beauty of Code, the Code of Beauty” in which Vikram Chandra, your typical novelist-computer programmer, explores whether code can be beautiful in the way a poem is beautiful. It might sound ridiculous, but programmers often use words like elegance and, even beauty, to describe the series of workman-like instructions they write for their computers. I’ve always thought these types of comparisons were a stretch. A bit of hyperbole on the part of the offender to make the game feel more meaningful, to elevate an ordinary physical competition to the infinite
mysteries of art. I mean, really, what could a Chargers-Raiders game have in common with “The Graduate”? But I was struck by that quote. It framed beauty in a completely different way. It said sports are beautiful, because sports are random. Think about that for a second. It’s completely opposite the way I normally think about beauty in art. When I think of movies, I think of a director who through care-
It framed beauty in a completely different way. It said sports are beautiful, because sports are random. ful shots makes some sort of statement, creates some sort of effect. When I think of television, I think of a showrunner crafting a story to impact his viewers. In books, the connection between author and audience is even more direct — every word on the page is a choice made by one person to communicate something. Of course, this is part myth. Movies aren’t just one director’s vision. They’re the result of a sea of exchanges between directors, editors, writers, actors and executives. The same is true of television, and even of books, where editors and publishers put their stamp on the final product. And even if the final product were one person’s vision, it’s not always a series of deliberate choices. There are mistakes. Unintended implications. These become part of the art. But the point remains. Art is
crafted. Sports are not. Art is deliberate. Sports are random. Art says something. Sports are something. Maybe this is all a little farfetched but bear with me. Nothing in sports is predetermined. The media grooms its own storylines, but that’s all they are. Stories. An attempt to create order where there is none. What happens on the field is its own world. In a way, that other tired sportswriter cliche is true — anything can happen. And maybe that’s where the beauty comes from. When something special happens, it’s real. Not real in the way that great art feels real — real in the way that it is actually real. A stunning catch is beautiful because it shouldn’t have been caught. It defied probability. A nasty crossover is a work of art not because of the mechanics of the crossover, but because it’s too smooth, too devastating to be real. But there it is. I don’t mean to imply that this is the reason we watch sports. Actually, I think it’s a very small part of it. More of a nice side effect than anything else. People root for teams because they want to feel a part of something. They read box scores and look at highlights because they want to know what happened. They watch games because they want excitement and diversion. It’s there, though. Somewhere in the violent ocean of testosterone and repetition, it’s there. Sportswriters might reference it lazily. Fans might cringe at it. After all, who wants to hear about beauty in a culture that often seems to stand for a time when the whole world was just for men? Still, it’s there.
James Cohan ’17 still needs convincing that coding is like writing poetry. Help him understand at james_cohan@brown.edu.
Follow Sports! twitter.com/bdh_sports
Do you know what you want to do next year after graduation? I want to stay in sports and work in the business side. Be it with a team, agency, marketing, I don’t really know, but this past summer I interned doing market research and business strategy with the New England Patriots. That
» FOOTBALL, from page 1 cost them the lead and the win at home. Against Princeton, the Tigers grabbed a 24-0 lead shortly after the first quarter, and the Bruno offense could not score enough to get itself back in the game. Head Coach Phil Estes P’18 seems to have learned the lessons from his team’s defeats. “We need to start fast. We need to be able to finish,” he said. The Bears are concerned with finishing drives as well as games. They brought the ball to Princeton’s red zone five times last weekend, but only found the end zone once. “I’m thinking touchdowns, not field goals,” Estes said. “If we’re going to win football games, we have to put more points on the board, and we have to do it earlier in the game.” Bruno’s two Ivy losses consisted of six excellent quarters and two poor ones. While the bad has outweighed the good, there is plenty of reason to believe the Bears are still a strong team despite their winless conference record. A lesser team would never lead Harvard in the fourth quarter or outgain Princeton by nearly 200 yards for three quarters on the road. Estes opined that the team’s two losses “don’t change a thing.” “We’ll see how it shakes out at the end,” he added. “I think the big thing for us isn’t to focus on where we’ll be at the end of the season, it’s to focus on where we’ll be on Saturday, and get that win and go from there.” “We knew (Harvard and Princeton) were going to be two of the toughest teams we play all year,” said co-captain and linebacker Dan Giovacchini ’15. “There’s still a lot of football to be played,” he noted. Starting quarterback Marcus Fuller ’15 agreed with his fellow captain’s assessment. “All we can do is take it one game at a time,” he said. With their focus in the short term, the Bears have their sights set on Saturday, when winless Cornell comes to College Hill. The Big Red looked particularly listless recently in a pair of conference losses. Playing host to Yale, Cornell was blown out of the water by a score of 51-13. A trip to Cambridge the next week did not go much better, as
COURTESY OF BROWN BEARS
Fuller ’15 set career marks in passing yards, attempts and completions. was a good entry point into the business for me. the Crimson steamrolled them, 24-7. Offense has been the Big Red’s main weakness, averaging a paltry 10.6 points per game. The team scored a season-high 14 points against Lehigh University last weekend, who had been winless before beating Cornell by 17 in the latter’s homecoming game. The Mountain Hawks’ defense had allowed 45 or more points in three of its previous five games before shutting down the Big Red. Cornell’s defense is not much better, allowing 30.6 points per game on average and failing to hold any opponent to under 20. The team’s results in its first five games have not been pretty, but the Bears know better than to take any team lightly. “Cornell is no slouch,” Fuller said. “It’s going to be a challenge.” Estes was similarly complimentary, saying the Big Red is “a good defensive team” that is “still trying to find (itself) offensively.” The Bears have done their homework in considering strategy. Estes contrasted the Big Red’s offense to the fast-paced attacks from the Tigers and Crimson, but noted “their defense is similar to Princeton’s.” Speaking about why Bruno passed so much last week — an Ivy Leaguerecord 71 times — Estes said, “We liked what we saw in the pass game. There were some matchups we really liked, and we tried to take advantage of them to get the big play.” If the Bears see the same things in Cornell’s defense that they saw in Princeton’s, Fuller may make a run at the record for the second straight week. As would be expected from any team struggling to move the ball, the Big Red has been “unpredictable” in its offensive strategy, according to Giovacchini. He added that the Bruno defense is “going into the game not entirely sure what to expect.” A home game against a struggling team is about as favorable a matchup as one can hope for, so Saturday will be a make-or-break contest for the Bears. A win will keep Bruno on the edges of the hunt, and a relatively soft upcoming schedule will set up a favorable stretch run. But a home loss to the Big Red would spell doom for this year, fully extinguishing any Ivy title hopes and perhaps portending a final record of 4-6 or worse.
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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD FRIDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2014
menu
poled over
SATELLITE DINING JOSIAH’S Gourmet Tacos BLUE ROOM Naked Burritos Soups: Clam Chowder, Minestrone, Beef with Bean Chili ANDREWS COMMONS Pizzas: Pepper Jack Chicken Club, Harvest, Buffalo Chicken
DINING HALLS SHARPE REFECTORY LUNCH
DINNER
Macaroni and Cheese with Avocado and Tomato, Cajun Potatoes, Blondie Bars LUNCH
Cheesy Zucchini Casserole, Italian Chicken Parmesan, Panettone Bread Pudding
VERNEY-WOOLLEY
Breaded Chicken Fingers, Asian Vegetables, Vegan Beet and Kale Patties, Blondie Bars
DINNER
Kareen’s Catfish with Tartar Sauce, Asparagus Quiche, Panettone Bread Pudding
sudoku
TIMOTHY MUELLER-HARDER / HERALD
Workers raise a flagpole that fell over on the Main Green during Wednesday night’s thunderstorm, which brought heavy rain and wind to College Hill.
comics Comic Sans | Neille-Ann Tan ’18
Bacterial Culture | Dana Schwartz ’15 RELEASE DATE– Friday, October 24, 2014
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle c rNorris o s sandwJoyce o rNichols d Lewis Edited by Rich ACROSS 1 Critters who worshiped C-3PO as a god 6 Penicillin precursor 11 Like Beethoven’s Second Symphony 14 Museum piece 15 Central Florida city 16 Wild West 17 Latin for “big idiot”? 19 “Certainement!” 20 Blotter letters 21 Good, in Genoa 22 Hides in the closet? 23 Latin for “holding a grudge for a long, long time”? 26 Classic pops 29 Charles of old mysteries 30 Bustles 31 Steam table fuel 35 “Good” cholesterol initials 38 Latin for “fighting over parking spots is not allowed”? 41 Adams of “The Muppets” 42 Owl, at times 43 Turkmenistan neighbor 44 Where change is welcome 46 “Choose taste” sauce brand 47 Latin for “cheating on one’s timecard”? 53 Son of Aphrodite 54 Cell terminal 55 Cry made with a raised index finger 58 Torah holder 59 Latin for “fish trading”? 62 Journalist William Shirer’s alma mater 63 Verve 64 Hefty portion 65 Shop door nos. 66 Idée sources 67 Salon and others
DOWN 1 First name in wit 2 Watery, as a drink 3 One of Chekhov’s “Three Sisters” 4 Blood 5 Takes a dive? 6 Agreeable words 7 Sch. originally endowed by the Storrs brothers 8 __ luxury 9 Viral ailment 10 Remote power sources 11 “See ya!” 12 Pacific republic near the equator 13 Voltaire’s worldview 18 Joe with some oomph 22 Holiday buy 23 Sapporo soup 24 __ circle 25 “High __” 26 Family nickname 27 Biblical kingdom near the Dead Sea 28 “Yikes!” 31 Glaswegians, e.g. 32 Furthermore 33 Tolkien creature
34 Series of turns: Abbr. 36 Snoozefest 37 2014 Television Academy Hall of Fame inductee 39 Biblical pronoun 40 Gossip 45 Vinyl spinners 46 Go through 47 Emulate Anne Sullivan 48 Flub
49 Gounod opera 50 Form an alliance 51 Extinct Mauritian birds 52 Econ. stat 55 Blue hue 56 Like curtains 57 NASA go-aheads 59 Friday is one: Abbr. 60 Prov. on the St. Lawrence 61 Electrical unit
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
calendar FRIDAY
OCTOBER 24
4 P.M. CONFRONTING HISTORIC WRONGS: A UNIVERSITY’S DILEMMA
President Emerita Ruth Simmons will give a lecture to inaugurate the opening of the Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice, followed by a reception at 94 Waterman St. Salomon 101 4 P.M. A PIVOTAL MOMENT FOR WOMEN WORLDWIDE
Nancy Northup ’81 P’16, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, will deliver a lecture on the future of women’s rights and health care. Pembroke Hall 305
xwordeditor@aol.com
10/24/14
SATURDAY
OCTOBER 25
11:30 A.M. BRUOG 2014 FOOD TRUCK FESTIVAL
Local food trucks, including Mijos Tacos, Citizen Wing, O’Crepe and The Salad Man and Juice Bar, will convene in an event sponsored by the Brown University Oncology Research Group, with performances by student and local groups. Granoff Center for the Creative Arts 2:30 P.M. BOP PRESENTS SAMUEL BARBER’S ‘A HAND OF BRIDGE’ WITH AFTERNOON TEA
Brown Opera Productions will perform one-act opera “A Hand of Bridge,” in which two couples reveal their inner thoughts and feelings. Free tea, coffee and snacks will be served. Starr Plaza
SUNDAY
OCTOBER 26
10 A.M. BIKES@BROWN GROUP RIDE
Bike riders at Brown will take a two-and-a-half-hour ride through rural Massachusetts. Faunce Arch 2 P.M. ERASE EBOLA COMMEMORATIVE WALK By Bruce Haight ©2014 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
10/24/14
Brown community members, led by the African Students Association, will walk around campus in remembrance of the victims of Ebola. Faunce Arch
6 commentary
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD FRIDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2014
DIAMONDS & COAL A diamond to Moderate Party candidate for governor Robert Healey, who said of women, “I think they’re far more superior.” We’re sure Gina Raimondo would agree. Cubic zirconia to Christine Hunsinger MPA’08, CEO of BGP Strategies, who said of Rhode Island, “Every time we make the top of a list, it’s a bad list. And every time there’s a good list, we’re at the bottom.” As students at one of the nation’s sexiest schools, we can’t relate. Coal to the creators of Pokemon, whose idolization of the electric rodent Pikachu undoubtedly influenced the actions of the poor squirrel who crawled into a metal pipe in the Manchester Street Power Station, causing 4,500 power outages throughout the city Tuesday. RIP — we wish we could heal you at the Pokecenter. A diamond to the senior on the field hockey team who said, “It was a long, hard push to get where we are today.” For you and for your mom. Coal to Susan Smulyan, professor of American studies and director of the John Nicholas Brown Center for the Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage, who said, “I want to play the role of a salesman rather than a doorkeeper.” That didn’t turn out too well for Willy Loman.
I VA N A L C A N TA R A
A diamond to the sophomore who said he wrote a musical that explains philosophy terms that “go right over kids’ heads.” Can you write one for us about organic chemistry? Coal to the first-year who said of social networking sites, “I’m more bored in a world of such shallow and constant communication compared to just being outside.” We’ll go outside when trees start holding up red flags to let us know they “like” us. Coal to Assistant Volleyball Coach Scott Blanchard, who said of his team, “The word quit is not in their vocabulary.” Uh oh … might be time for the University to reevaluate its admission standards for athletes. A diamond to the first-year representative for the Vietnamese Student Association, who said of the Class Coordinating Board’s culture fair, “About an hour or an hour and a half in, all the cultural organizations pretty much ran out of food, and we all just pretty much packed up and left.” If only this strategy would work at dinner with our significant other’s parents this weekend. Cubic zirconia to “head pickleteer” Zared Goldfarb, founder and owner of Fox Point Pickling Company, who said of eating pickles, “I constantly want them. As soon as one jar’s done, we pop open another.” What’s your dill, man? Didn’t D.A.R.E. teach you not to feed an addiction?
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Brown at its best To the Editor: At 9 p.m. on Wednesday night amid lightning, ferocious wind and chilly rain falling sideways, drenching all within its reach, three gatherings were well underway. In J. Walter Wilson, a group of more than a dozen students and community members were studying the basics of Islam; in another auditorium, a panel of Providence leaders, former gang members and student advocates addressed ameliorating gun violence; and under Faunce Arch, nearly three dozen students huddled to keep a candlelight vigil to
mourn the loss of lives to Ebola and to pledge continued engagement to end the virus’ devastating impact. Surely, it was a dreary night, with midterms and the campus cold in full bloom. But Wednesday night, Brown was shining in the storm. While there will never be a notation on a transcript to reflect this capacity, engaged compassion is a critical strength at Brown to which so many contribute. Thank you, Brown! Rev. Janet Cooper Nelson University Chaplain
C L A R I F I C AT I O N An Oct. 14 Herald article (“Airbnb makes presence felt on city rental scene”) failed to mention that though Rhode Island has the third-highest occupancy tax rate in the nation, overall rates in Providence are lower than in many other cities that impose additional levies.
Q U O T E O F T H E D AY
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commentary 7
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD FRIDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2014
Too liberal to notice GRAHAM ROTENBERG opinions columnist
On Oct. 15, The Herald published an opinions column by Peter Makhlouf ’16 (“Liberalism and its discontents”) about university campuses that argued that “right-wing ideology (shies) away from critical examination.” Makhlouf posits that right-wing groups, including ones to which I belong, think colleges are “force-feeding liberal values down the throats of their students” via the ideological homogeneity that exists among professors and students. Some of Makhlouf ’s arguments are correct. Brown is replete with professors who are of exceptional intelligence and repute. Furthermore, many Republican arguments do not stand up to the test of intellectual scrutiny because they are inherently ideologically hypocritical — on social issues and immigration, for example. But the hypocrisy of Brown students has also been a source of incredible tension for me. Makhlouf is entirely correct when he describes how “our students (maintain) such lofty ideals, while pining to become the next investment bankers, corporate lawyers and hedge fund managers.” Though I have no problem with investment banking or corporate law, and in fact think they are essential ca-
reers, I am baffled by the students who aggressively criticize these fields and then try to gain employment in them after graduation. Makhlouf ’s other arguments, however, do not address the problem of ideological homogeneity strongly enough. Makhlouf, who was responding to my Sept. 26 column, “Ordinary conversations in disguise,” believes my point was that there is some type of liberal conspiracy at the upper levels of academia. I do not think there is collusion. Professors at our aca-
demic institutions are just more liberal, naturally. Therefore, though one might be exposed to multiple views, the views of right-wing scholars are critiqued more aggressively. There are plenty of professors who are liberal and present conservative and liberal views with equal amounts of rigor. However, students are spoonfed liberal ideology via the students and professors who share uniform views. As one of those on the outside: I definitely am a whiny conservative. Makhlouf questions my citation of the statistic that 96 percent of Ivy League professors’ donations in the 2012 presidential election went to
A commentary on the Corporation I grow increasingly wary of the Corporation’s dodges to avoid student representation. The facts are clear: This institution depends on students for its existence. The Corporation is the highest governing body of the institution. As a result, the best governance of the institution depends on the students having a voice in its development. A voice is a vote. Not a committee recommendation, not a forum, not a petition. I learned that in middle school history class. Among various Herald articles (“Corporation members discuss obstacles in adding student representative,” Oct. 16; “UCS members voice concerns over forum with Corporation,” Oct. 23), I’ve noticed three excuses voiced by the current Corporation: confidentiality, comparison and stress. Chair of the Corporation’s Committee on Campus Life Dorsey James ’83 said student representation would be “extremely difficult, because there are many things that we talk about that are pretty confidential.” Confidentiality is not a legitimate concern. Brown students already follow HIPAA policies, and they sign confidentiality agreements with research groups and businesses. A 20-year-old
that facilitate what University of British Columbia Professor Kirk Kristofferson has described as “token support,” or the minimal level of effort required to support something. As an October 2012 Forbes article stated, “millennials don’t feel the need to show up to a one-day rally to protect the spotted owl.” This means the phenomenon that Makhlouf describes — of being a “lip-service liberal” — is more generational in nature than something unique to Brown. Finally, Makhlouf demonizes the
Unless Makhlouf thinks liberals should all be inherently opposed to the nature of capitalism, the purpose of hedge funds should not be a source of such moral outrage.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
To the Editor:
President Obama. He asks: If 96 percent of non-Ivy League professors made the same donation, would this statistic still be significant? The answer, unequivocally, is yes! Professors who share a fundamentally statist, interventionist government viewpoint educating students may not be brainwashing, but it means they are more likely to lack objectivity when addressing the views of right-wing thinkers. In class, the professor invariably injects his or her own views and describes right-wing
can keep a secret. Chancellor Thomas Tisch ’76 compared the current model to similar governing bodies of peer institutions. Matching ourselves against Harvard will always be an invalid reason for any University initiative. Otherwise we better strike out all permutations of “Brown is different” from our admission brochures. Finally, even one student representing more than 6,000 voices is infinitely better than no voice. Multiple Corporation members show an insulting amount of paternalism when they claim to “worry” about the responsibility placed on a single student. Have they been outside University Hall recently? Brown students are big kids. We commit to innumerable leadership positions in all disciplines and activities. I speak with the highest confidence that we are capable of electing a strong candidate to contribute to the Corporation meetings. Perhaps there are other valid concerns about the logistics of student representation. I ask the Corporation to be translucent and bring them out to be debated in the Undergraduate Council of Students and larger community. What they have presented thus far, however, is an insubstantial excuse for maintaining power. Joey DiZoglio ’15
thinkers in a negative way or via a more critical lens. For instance, I have never been in a political science class where President George W. Bush was mentioned without a cynical or humorous comment related to his oratory comments. Makhlouf ’s criticism of liberalism on campus is less poignant. His description of the trend of “lip-service” liberalism is not just a trend among liberals — it’s a generational phenomenon. Specifically, observe the effect of the KONY 2012 video that went viral. “Lip-service” politics has become more of a trend since the proliferation of social media and Internet sources
ideological hypocrisy of liberals who want to go into finance. He describes an occurrence all too familiar in the Brown community, where one can see students flocking in droves to recruitment sessions for the paragons of corrupt capitalism. Makhlouf implies an inherent tension, however, between investment banking and liberalism. He doesn’t probe further. Could these students not reform the institutions into ones that subscribe more closely to ideal capitalistic values? Or maybe this trend is part of a larger systemic problem. In the context of a capitalistic society, where we strive for choice and competition, one
hopes that those who conform to liberal policy ideas would be entrepreneurial enough to create high-paying employment opportunities in less objectionable environments. Why hasn’t a “true liberal” created an institution that conforms to liberal policy goals whilst offering competitive salaries? Additionally, what is the moral impurity of becoming a hedge-fund manager? Hedge fund managers are responsible for the management of pensions, provide necessary investment into publicly traded companies and serve to create more wealth via investment. Though this view is inherently naive about hedge funds, their purpose is to increase the absolute gains of their clients and themselves. Is a liberal opposed to unionized workers getting higher pensions? Unless Makhlouf thinks liberals should all be inherently opposed to the nature of capitalism, the purpose of hedge funds should not be a source of such moral outrage. Though Makhlouf makes some excellent points, he fundamentally misrepresents intellectuals on campus. Finally, he portrays liberal principles as unaligned with popular forms of employment on Brown’s campus when in fact they are not.
Feel free to email Graham Rotenberg ’17 at graham_rotenberg@brown.edu.
Why the Brown University Shuttle route should be less strict SAMANTHA ISMAN opinions columnist
While many of us only really use Brown University Shuttle when it’s too cold or rainy or snowy outside, the real purpose of the circulating buses does not go unnoticed. Their purpose is to provide safety, especially when it’s dark out and students need to travel far distances. But BUS functions on a very specific route, and at times this route functions as a hindrance rather than a safety measure. Last year I was walking to catch a BUS near Lloyd Street, and I stopped to ask one of the guards where the nearest BUS stop was. He told me the nearest one was a couple blocks away but that he would try to stop one for me on that corner. As I got in the BUS, the driver told me I was lucky her supervisor wasn’t around, because otherwise she would have gotten in trouble for stopping. This defeats the purpose of BUS. Isn’t the whole point of having these buses on rotation that if someone is walking alone at night and doesn’t feel safe, he or she should be able to get on it regardless of location? The driver also informed me that she knows it’s against the rules, but if she ever sees a student walking down the street late at night alone, she will always stop and ask whether the student wants to get in. I don’t know if the rules have
changed from that moment to now, but that particular BUS driver’s attitude should be BUS’s attitude as a whole. BUS shouldn’t only be safe when you’re somewhere close to a stop. I understand that BUS is not supposed to be a personal taxi service. On the other hand, if the main concern with the regular BUS is that it is supposed to continue on its loop, then why should it not stop for students walking along this loop? BUS does have Brown onCall, which should solve most of the problems of not being able to catch it at one of its stops. It’s especially convenient and safe for students living off campus and does not take long to arrive. However, Brown onCall cannot be called if you are on campus and super close to a BUS stop. And while I hope that catching BUS a block from where you are would not matter, we all know that if we feel scared or unsafe at night, that block can make a difference. Granted, there are many other methods students can use if they are feeling unsafe. It’s true that it is very common to be walking alone at night and be approached by SafeWalkers to ask if we would like to be accompanied home. Similarly, campus is filled with blue light phones that can — and should — be used in an emergency. However, it seems that if the shuttles are making rounds, and their purpose is to pick up students and drop them off safely, then they should be doing exactly that. Students should know that for the
most part BUS will stop at its designated stops. Additionally, it doesn’t make sense — and defeats the purpose of the BUS that goes on a loop as opposed to Brown onCall — for students to be able to ask drivers to drop them off anywhere. But there needs to be an agreement between students and BUS that we will respect the limits of the shuttle if they reach out to accommodate our needs as well. Maybe the solution to this issue is simply to make the shuttle stop more often. It is possible that this issue could be solved with a greater number of stops along the route. Yet I still believe this doesn’t get to the bottom of the problem. The idea is that students who feel unsafe should be confident that if they try to stop the shuttle to get on, it will stop for them. BUS should give us the confidence to walk at night and also the confidence to know the University will provide that added safety. Ideally, we wouldn’t need to stop the shuttle between stops. I think most students agree that we have a safe campus, and — speaking for myself — I feel comfortable walking to the nearest shuttle stop to get on BUS on regular nights. However, I want to know that if I ever find myself between stops and feel unsafe walking down the street, the next shuttle to pass in my direction will stop and pick me up no matter where I am.
Sami Isman ’15 can be reached at samantha_isman@brown.edu.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2014
THE
BROWN DAILY HERALD arts & culture Adulthood and youth collide in prof.’s poetry collection Fanny Howe’s honest tone, broad subject matter reflect experiences in tumultous times By JOSEPH FRANKEL CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Fanny Howe advocated for racial equality in the 1960s. She draws inspiration from philosophers of the early 20th century. But “Second Childhood,” the newest poetry collection by the visiting lecturer in literary arts, is anything but dated. Howe, who read from her works with novelist Bradford Morrow Thursday in the McCormack Family Theater, has written more than 20 books of poetry, fiction and essays and has received a host of accolades from organizations like the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. Earlier this month, “Second Childhood” was named a National Book Award finalist. “It’s just great, great news that this work would be recognized,” Department Chair and Professor of Literary Arts Cole Swensen told The Herald. “Often, the major literary awards in this country are kept to fairly conservative works — works that are easy to understand, works that don’t challenge language itself in the way that Fanny’s does.” In “Second Childhood,” Howe said she seeks to explore the question of what the future holds, both personally and
globally. In the book, Howe approaches aging as a second childhood, exploring the value of a youthful perspective. She portrays the world as inhabited by a “kind of necessity, a usefulness,” which, for her, is inseparable from the divine, Howe said. She also meditates on “how we construct a world” in the changing global landscape through her poetry, she said. “I’m just sort of following the herd in that sense and trying to be a little optimistic about the Internet.” “She’s very straightforward,” Swensen said. “She has no fear about looking silly, not being able to address the issue she raises: What is it to be an adult? What’s so great about that?” But within this frankness, she added, Howe begins to venture “beyond where language can take us.” Howe’s technical prowess with language has struck members of Brown’s faculty throughout her career. Assistant Director of Literary Arts Gale Nelson said he remembers attending “a stunningly good reading” of Howe’s work in the late ’70s, and when he read Howe’s poetry collection “The Vineyard,” he was compelled by her ability to “render a location with elegance.” He added, “Her control of language was particularly powerful.” “I love the fact that she’s at times explicit and at times really oblique so that we get this glance at faith and daily life,” Swensen said. “Her ability to take her work beyond where language usually goes is a very difficult thing for a poet to
do, and she manages it with a real grace.” Howe said teaching her course LITR 1151B: “Figures of Thought” gave her an opportunity to reflect on the books, ideas and influential figures that were formative to her development as a writer. Among these influences is Simone Weil, an early 20th-century French philosopher. Like Weil, Howe’s work is concerned with ethical quandaries and the divine as it inhabits the world. Howe also worked for the Congress of Racial Equality throughout the 1960s — her writing and life are inextricably linked with both political and spiritual issues, she said. “I was terribly caught up in the atmosphere of the 20th century, all of the wars and all of the racism and violence, and when 2000 came around, I thought, ‘This has got to stop. I can’t go on brooding like this.’ But then I did for another 10 years,” she said. Her writing reflects these preoccupations, she added. For Swensen, Howe’s work across genres grapples meaningfully with these questions of faith and social justice. “Her poetry focuses more overall in relationship with (the) individual, his or her grappling with faith, grappling with mysteries of life,” she said. The invitation to teach at Brown was an unforeseen but well-timed turn of events, said Howe, who is at Brown for the semester. “I told (University of Massachusetts Boston) that I was never going to teach again and said goodbye to them, and
JOSE ROCHA / HERALD
Fanny Howe, writer and visiting lecturer in literary arts, said she aims for her classes to cultivate a“safe space to be insane.” then Cole (Swensen) called,” Howe said. “It was like a gift from heaven.” “The most important thing is that it provides a safe place to be insane,” she said of her poetry. This is the atmosphere she tries to cultivate in the classroom, where she teaches an “eccentric” curriculum that instigates conversations about “enormous existential ideas,” she said. She has her students write by hand during class due to a fear that the physical act of writing will eventually be replaced by an overreliance on technology. Howe said she carries pens and notebooks with
her at all times, but still anticipates an inevitable loss of the physical medium. Her ability to unflinchingly confront greater issues is a strength that comes through in her poetry, Swensen said, adding that while much poetry attempts to reach a neat conclusion about an issue, “Fanny’s work refuses to do that. It leaves us at the edge of language, at the edge of these questions without the false security.” “It makes us able to look at the unanswerable without a disconcerted feeling,” she added.