Nov. 10, 2011 issue

T H E I N D E P E N D E N T D A I LY AT D U K E U N I V E R S I T Y

The Chronicle

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2011

ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTH YEAR, ISSUE 54

WWW.DUKECHRONICLE.COM

State redistricting under fire Senate bans YT from policymakers, voters write-in candidates DUKE STUDENT GOVERNMENT

by Anna Koelsch THE CHRONICLE

Republican-controlled General Assembly of gerrymandering—redrawing districts for partisan gains. Democratic officials and some voters filed a lawsuit against the state Nov. 3 and a second lawsuit was filed Nov. 4.

“There are no ethics in redistricting, it is a straight power game,” said Ran Coble, executive director of the North Carolina Center for Public Policy Research. “Whoever is in power draws district lines to benefit their party.”

Redistricting is done every 10 years, and this year it follows the completion of the 2010 census.

Students will no longer be able to run for Young Trustee as a write-in candidate and student voters will no longer have the write-in option on the ballot.

Duke Student Government banned write-in candidates from the Young Trustee election at its meeting Wednesday.

This decision to amend the Young Trustee election bylaw to bar write-ins was approved by a vote of 33-13 in the Senate. The heavily-debated decision follows Brooke Kingsland’s, Trinity ’11, write-in campaign in last year’s YT election that some believed questioned the role of the DSG Young Trustee Nominating Committee in selecting candidates. Some argued that the decision infringes upon the democratic process.

Eliminating the possibility for write-in candidates is important because otherwise there is no point to a joint selection process of YTNC selection and a student election, said President Pete Schork, a senior. In 2009, Schork co-authored the legislation to add an election to the Young Trustee selection process.

“This is not like any other election,” Schork said. “The position is recognized as such an important position, [and] there are a lot of qualities that don’t correlate to an open election.

It’s important to think about this differently... there’s a reason we have a YTNC.” The Young Trustee is selected after the YTNC selects semifinalists and finalists from an applicant pool. The student body elects a Young Trustee from the finalist pool in an election.

Allowing write-ins in a joint selection process means the YTNC and the finalists it selects are delegitimized, said Executive Vice President Gurdane Bhutani, a junior.

“Everyone had to make it through this special, rigorous process,” Bhutani said. “If someone who didn’t make it through the YTNC can run, it isn’t fair to any of the [YTNC-selected] candidates.”

SEE REDISTRICTING ON PAGE 5

SEE DSG ON PAGE 5

CHRONICLE GRAPHIC BY MELISSA YEO

The N.C. General Assembly passed legislation in July that redraws the boundaries of the state’s 13 congressional districts. Some groups, however, have criticized the legislation, contending that the new boundaries are partisan.

by Tiffany Lieu and Jack Mercola THE CHRONICLE

The recent redistricting of North Carolina’s congressional and legislative districts has sparked conflict between those who believe the new boundaries are deliberately unfavorable to Democrats and black voters.

The North Carolina General Assembly passed legislation July 28 that redrew the boundaries of the state’s 13 congressional districts and districts for the state Senate and House of Representatives. This redistricting theoretically seeks to create equal populations in each district, but N.C. Democrats and civil rights groups are accusing the state and the

Doctors and students document patient experience through photography

by Julian Spector THE CHRONICLE

After completing his residency, the young pediatrician Dr. John Moses shed his white coat and spent eight years making house calls with a camera.

With a grant from the Lyndhurst Foundation, which also funds the Center for Documentary Studies, Moses split his time between Duke Medical Center and the homes of 25 teenage parents in Durham and surrounding rural counties. He would walk up to the door with a medium format Hasselblad camera to spend an hour or two hanging out, talking and shooting several roles of film. On return visits he would bring photos to show to his subjects.

These close personal interactions, accumulating to dozens of house visits between 1986 and 1994, resulted in a book titled “Youngest Parents” and a newfound clinical perspective on the motivations, fears and hopes of pregnant teens.

The experience also led Moses, Trinity ’78 and currently a full-time, primary care pediatrician and an assistant clinical

Duke hosts ACC rival Miami, Page 7

professor at the Duke Medical Center, to teach documentary photography for medicine at his alma mater.

“The arts can tap into important aspects of medicine that are hard to examine any other way,” Moses said. “The presence of arts in medicine reminds us—us being the doctors and patients—that we are complicated, vulnerable, sensitive human beings that need more than just the prescription or the operation or the expertly done procedure.”

Although he majored in zoology, Moses studied documentary photography as a Duke undergraduate. Projects like photographing a camp of migrant farm workers in eastern North Carolina prompted him to pick up his camera again after medical school. He now teaches “DOCST 104S: Medicine and Documentary Photography” at the CDS. Moses’ photos are focused on documenting the patient experience and using what he discovers to improve medical care. In his class, students pursue projects that COURTESY OF JOHN MOSES M.D.

SEE DOCTORS ON PAGE 4

Theresa Hildago, a nurse practitioner, attends to Belen, a patient.

ONTHERECORD

“What exactly is ‘Latin America’ and how do we define it, both culturally and politically?”

—Columnist Maggie LaFalce in “The others.” See story page 11

Ryan Kelly steps into the limelight, Page 7

2 | THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2011

THE CHRONICLE

worldandnation

Author of Immigration Law in Arizona loses election

PHOENIX — The president of Arizona’s Senate and author of hard-line laws against illegal immigration lost a recall election seen as a bellwether on “extreme” politics.

Republican Russell Pearce lost Tuesday by about 53 percent to 45 percent, according to the Maricopa County Elections Department. Pearce, 64, was defeated by Jerry Lewis, a Republican school administrator who has said he opposes Pearce’s enforcementonly approach to immigration policy.

Pearce championed rigorous laws on illegal immigration, including a 2010 measure that sparked national boycotts and was emulated by Georgia and other states. That law, mostly put on hold by a federal court, requires police to check the immigration status of anyone they suspect is in the country illegally.

He also helped push through a ban on benefits for undocumented immigrants and penalties for those that hire them.

“

web

5336

onschedule at Duke....

Catholic Daily Mass

International Conversation Cafe Bryan Center Meeting Room B, 12:30-1:30p.m.

Non-native and native English speakers will converse about current events and culture.

Massive cyber fraud case Taliban fighters killed unsealed by US attorney in attack of US Outpost NEW YORK — The United States Wednesday charged seven people with a “massive” computer intrusion scheme that used malicious software to manipulate online advertising, diverted users to rogue servers and infected more than 4 million computers in more than 100 countries.

KABUL, Afghanistan — Scores of Taliban fighters were killed Tuesday evening as they attempted to storm a small U.S. outpost along the Pakistani border and were driven back by American soldiers, according to U.S. military officials in the province.

Hart Fellows Program Information Session Sanford Rhodes Conference Room, 4:30-5:30p.m.

This fellowship program will place recent Duke graduates with organizations in developing countries that are facing complex social, political, and humanitarian problems.

Internship Week: DIY Summer Old Chemistry 123, 7-8p.m.

This info session will talk about how to purse an unpaid intership, research opportunity, or summer experience.

TODAY IN HISTORY 1969: Sesame Street debuts.

”

“The Blue Devils were snake-bit by turnovers yet again last week against the Hurricanes. For the fourth consecutive game, Sean Renfree threw an interception. In his last four games, Renfree has six interceptions, compared to the two he threw in the first five contests.”

— From The Blue Zone bluezone.dukechronicle.com

6547

Yoh Football Center, 11:30a.m.-12:30p.m.

The Daily Mass will be at the Team Meeting Room on the 2nd Floor. All are welcome to attend.

Absence diminishes mediocre passions and increases great ones, as the wind extinguishes candles and fans fires.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

on the

FRIDAY

TODAY:

on the

calendar

Potosi Local Festival Bolivia

Maputo City Day Mozambique

Marine Corps Birthday United States DAVID KORNBERG/THE CHRONICLE

Jewish students participate in a speed-dating event in the Freeman Center Wednesday.

Militsiya (Police) Day Russia

going home for Thanksgiving? you can still find us here. the chronicle on-line: anytime, any place, overeating not required.

www.dukechronicle.com

THE CHRONICLE

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2011 | 3

Duke Forest a model of sustainability

by Zoya Qureshy THE CHRONICLE

The Duke Forest was renewed as an asset in the University’s mission toward sustainability early last month.

The Forest Stewardship Council reviewed the Duke Forest in a sustainability assessment Oct. 6 and Oct. 7 as part of a recertification that occurs every five years. The Duke Forest was evaluated according to guidelines of the FSC—a non-governmental organization that promotes the responsible forest management worldwide—focused on the social, environmental and economic effects of forest management.

“The management of our forest is being done to an internationally recognized set of standards as being sustainable from an environmental, social and economic perspective,” Duke Forest Resource Manager Judson Edeburn said. “It really follows Duke’s commitment to sustainability in that Duke is also managing its forest to a high set of sustainability standards.”

This was the first time that the Duke Forest underwent the assessment since adopting a new set of FSC standards October 2010. These standards are meant to increase transparency, monitor timber generation practices and maintain the forest’s sustainable management.

“We had to have in place a written monitoring program for water quality, invasive species [and] forest health,” Edeburn added. “We needed to have a written procedure and a written way to document that we are monitoring some things that take place in the forest.”

FSC representatives could not be reached for comment.

With this policy, third party viewers will know that forest management complies with FSC standards based on written documents and records, Edeburn added, Duke also underwent an evaluation for the FSC chain of custody certification during the October audit. The chain of custody certification acts as a trademark that indicates to consumers that the timber product they are purchasing has come from a responsibly managed forest.

This certification ensures that only those who are FSC certified handle wood from the time it is cut to the end

product, Duke Forest Program Director Sara Childs said.

The chain of custody stamp is given at the same time as the FSC certification.

“The more there is a demand of FSC product at the point of consumer, the more likelihood we will have players in the market that will become FSC certified because they will see the economic return on it,” Childs said.

The reassessment of the certification reflects the University’s efforts towards sustainability, and the FSC standards relate to both the forest and its effect on other members of the community, Edeburn said.

“It encourages us to consider the impact on our stakeholders—we have many stakeholders because we are a teaching and research lab—but we also allow for the recreational user, and we are neighbors to neighborhoods of private land owners,” Childs added.

Those who manage the forest need to be able to consider the opinions and comments of the stakeholders, she said, noting that being able to respond and act for the benefit of the entire community is a major part of certification.

Although the FSC does not have a direct policy regarding climate change, the issue is taken into consideration when evaluating forests for certification.

“One of the criteria does involve monitoring forest conditions that could be contributed to climate change, like are we having more or less impacts on insects; are we seeing more or less invasive species; are we seeing shifts in plant species communities?” Edeburn said.

Because so many factors—including climate change— have impacts on forest life, it is necessary to examine those effects against FSC criteria of forest conditions, Childs said.

Climate change, for example, is a factor the FSC considers in regulating the use of forests for timber.

“In general the FSC standard by default encourages carbon sequestration,” she noted.

Carbon sequestration—the process of removing carbon from the atmosphere—is also promoted through the growth of forests. This entails growing a younger forest for a long time and then cutting the wood for timber. This process locks the carbon into an end product, so it never

enters the atmosphere, Childs said. In addition, FSC does not allow for mass clear cutting of land, further encouraging carbon sequestration.

Forestry Technician Michael Burke noted the benefits of FSC certification.

“It is good to get a confirmation that the [sustainability] practices that you are performing are good,” Burke said.

JEANNIE CHUNG/THE CHRONICLE

The Duke Forest was reviewed by the Forest Stewardship Council in early October and was recognized for sustainability measures.

4 | THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2011

DOCTORS from page 1 visually document areas of medicine, ranging from topics such as brain surgery to the treatment of gunshot victims. The documentary format, by humanely rendering the patient experience, is especially suited to effective medical service, Moses said.

“When we go to the doctor we need more than just shots, we need a compassionate, educated, human being across from us,” he said. “I’d like to think that [the arts] can help good doctors become maybe a bit better and remain good compassionate clinicians.”

Documentary medicine is expanding beyond the realm of his class. Moses helped, for example, to launch a monthly medical interest group focused on

THE CHRONICLE

documenting medicine, and similarly, fellow Duke documentarian Liisa Ogburn now directs the Duke Innovation Fellowship—a documentary medicine program that is funded through the graduate medical education department and the CDS. The innovation fellowship recently completed its first year with five residents from five departments, each documenting an area of medical interest to them with the help of a mentor photographer. The second class expanded to 12 students.

The interest from beyond the resident community has prompted her and Moses to launch an intensive four-day workshop on documenting the patient experience next May, Ogburn said. “[The documentary process] forces them to slow down in a way they are not typically allowed or forced to do in their traditional

training,” she said. “And they’re excited.

Most of them came with the impulse to have these rich patient interactions. The way we train physicians, there isn’t time for that.”

Dr. Andrew Parker, a third-year Duke Emergency Medicine resident and member of the inaugural class of Duke Innovation Fellows, spends his workdays treating patients who come to the Duke emergency room, but for the last year, he has been coming in to the ER on his own time to hang around with a camera— sometimes a sophisticated lens with extensive lighting equipment, but at other times just an iPhone.

For his fellowship project, Parker photographed ER “frequent flyers”—patients who visit the emergency room often. Parker said documentary photography communicates a medical issue more effectively than traditional medical approaches.

“It really puts a face on the issues at hand.

It turns a topic that’s really amorphous into a narrative,” Parker said. “People remember stories, they remember faces—they capture the humanity of a person’s illness.”

Parker’s year-long series of interviews and photographic portraits of repeat ER visitors have prompted action among the ER staff.

“We had data on frequent flyers, but we weren’t doing something about it,” he said.

“But you do a documentary project and all of the sudden there’s a new committee, like ‘Hey, let’s fix this.’”

The photography project now sits as the first item on Parker’s curriculum vitae.

In spite of skepticism he heard from some colleagues that the project would distract him from his career, Parker said recruiters at health care institutions like Kaiser Permanente have expressed particular interest in that qualification.

“My experience on the interview trail is with that on the top of your CV people are like, ‘Whoa, what is this? This is the kind of

innovation were looking for,’” he said.

Junior Namrata Kodali wants to be a physician. In addition to her pre-med studies, her interest in photography as a hobby drove her to take Moses’ class.

She developed a project focused on interviewing the family members of gun violence victims in Durham and discussing the circumstances of the homicides that claimed their loved ones and the impact of pervasive violence in their lives.

“It’s important that they are heard, and showcasing their images and their portraits is sort of crucial for their healing process and moving on with their lives,” Kodali said.

“It’s important for people to talk.”

For her own class project, junior Talia Glodjo arrives at 6:45 a.m., dons a surgical “bunny suit” and stays at least an arm’s length away from all sterilized instruments. She documents the work of renowned neurosurgeon Dr. Allan Friedman, neurosurgeon in chief who has treated the late Sen. Ted Kennedy and former Duke professor and author Reynolds Price. Glodjo said she aims to explore the mystique that surrounds the practice of brain surgery.

“There’s this idea that being a neurosurgeon takes something indescribable, something more than being a [general practitioner],” she said. “I want to shed light on what it’s really like.“ Glodjo said she initially felt awkward photographing in the operating room but ultimately found the environment to be surprisingly calm and candid.

“Everyone in there is so professional, and they have their routine and I was obviously the odd man out,” she said. “I had to get used to getting up in the action, so to speak, instead of just passively clicking my camera.

I had to photograph Dr. Friedman when he’s… completely in his element.”

THE CHRONICLE

REDISTRICTING from page 1 Before the legislation was passed, there were seven congressional districts that were historically Democratic and six districts were historically Republican, said state Sen. Floyd McKissick, D-Durham. If the legislation remains unopposed through May 2012 elections, there will be three districts likely to vote Democrat in federal elections and 10 likely Republican districts, he added.

“The Republican majority has gerrymandered the state in order to reduce the number of Democrats who can be elected to Congress,” McKissick said. “That’s not exactly what I consider to be fair, reasonable or balanced.”

Lawsuits claim ‘packing’ The first lawsuit was filed by elected Democratic officials in Wake County Superior Court Nov. 3. A second suit was filed by four civil rights groups and 27 registered voters in Wake County Superior Court Nov. 4. Both suits aims to overturn the redistricting legislation.

The lawsuits claim the legislation involves “packing”—the practice of creating districts where minority voters are the majority population. In some districts, black voters were concentrated into districts that were already heavily Democratic due to the historical tendency for black people to vote for Democratic candidates, thereby decreasing their voting strength throughout the state, McKissick said.

Such methods of division violate the federal Voting Rights Act and the equal protection clause protected under 14th Amendment, Coble said, adding that the lawsuit will likely not be decided before the elections in May. State Rep. David Lewis, R-Harnett, said Democrats are misusing the Voting Rights Act in order to garner Democratic votes.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2011 | 5

“This is absolutely not a racially charged redistricting process,” Lewis said. “It is one in which we grant roughly proportional representation.”

The lawsuit also claims the redistricting legislation violates provisions in the state constitution requiring that district lines are drawn in such a way that they avoid splitting existing counties, districts and precincts when possible. The July redistricting plan splits 500 voting precincts, whereas the last redistricting plan in 2001 split only 149. According to the lawsuit, this could affect about 2 million adults.

Voters’ interests at stake Anita Earls, attorney and executive director of the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, said this redistricting might cause confusion for voters, who may not know which districts they live in or which candidates to consider. “[Under the redistricting] there is a street in Durham that is divided into four districts,” she said. “This means that your neighbor may have a sign in his, her yard for a candidate, but you may not be voting for that candidate.”

Duke will also be affected by the redistricting legislation on the state level, said Chris Ketchie, policy analyst and community organizer for the Southern Coalition for Social Justice. Students living on East and West campuses will now be in the same district, whereas under the previous division the campuses were in different districts. The areas surrounding Duke, however, are less uniform, Ketchie added.

Duke’s interests might also be at stake because its current congressional representative, Rep. David Price, D-N.C., will, as a result of the redistricting, now run against another Democrat, Rep. Brad Miller, D-N.C., said Pope McCorkle, visiting lecturer in public policy studies.

DSG from page 1 Some students, however, said that eliminating write-in candidates infringes upon the democratic process and voter choice.

“The purpose of elections is to give student the opportunity to freely choose a candidate of their choice,” said senior Ubong Akpaninyie, director of multicultural outreach and affairs. “Write-in candidates are part of the democratic process.”

Senior Ebonie Simpson, vice president for student life, said eliminating the possibility for write-in candidates may force students to select a candidate they do not support in the election.

“You [might have to] vote for a Young Trustee with three candidates that you don’t necessarily support,” Simpson said. “Not having the freedom to write in a candidate is problematic.”

Brooke Kingsland, Trinity ’11, applied “David Price was in tune with the needs of Duke and knew Duke,” McCorkle said.

“Duke loses in this process, to the extent that they may lose Price.”

Demography to ‘defeat’ redistricting Bob Hall, director of Democracy North Carolina, criticized the redistricting for decreasing competitiveness in some districts, affecting voter turnout. If a district, for example, is heavily partisan, people might not be inclined to vote because they believe their vote will not affect the outcome.

But Lewis said he thinks the new redistricting will make the elections more competitive than years past.

“We sought to make this very competitive, and I think what we’ll have now is a much more balanced and competitive situation,” he said. “This will make the people much

for Young Trustee last year and was selected as a YT semi-finalist, but the YTNC did not select her as a finalist. She still wanted to run for Young Trustee, so she decided to begin a write-in campaign.

Although she is glad DSG is reviewing the Young Trustee selection process, Kingsland said she still has qualms about the joint selection and election process.

“The restricted election delivers a conflicted message about the role of the Young Trustee selection process and of the overall election format itself,” Kingsland said.

“It leads to the question of what is the best method of selecting Young Trustee.”

Junior Alexandra Swain, vice president for Durham and regional affairs, proposed an amendment to the original bylaw, stipulating that write-in candidates would be allowed but they would not be able to participate in any DSG election commission Young Trustee events, such as debates. The amendment failed on a vote of 31-13. better served by their government.”

Although it is difficult to predict voter turnout, it is likely that the redistricting will not have a direct effect, Coble said, adding that even bad weather can influence voting behavior.

“Most voters think that redistricting is a very political issue so they turn their heads,” Coble said. “Instead voter turnout will depend on other factors such as how much candidates campaign here.”

If the courts do not overturn this redistricting, time will eventually nullify whatever errors were made in the process, McCorkle said.

“Demography will ultimately defeat the gerrymandering,” he said. “The demography of North Carolina is changing enough and becoming more diverse and multicultural, that in 10 years or so, even these maps won’t work.”

6 | THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2011

THE CHRONICLE

Recess

volume 13 issue 11 november 10, 2011

rebuked

f f o r e t Bet

ALONE? Recess reviews new solo discs from David Lynch, Bradford Cox

PAGE 3

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY CHELSEA PIERONI/ THE CHRONICLE

zone one

Colson Whitehead’s zombie apocalypse novel

PAGE 3

florence + the machine

new disc aims a bit too high

CENTER

anonymous

historical accuracy the least of the film’s problems

PAGE 7

recess

theSANDBOX. As a Sandbox noob, I naturally asked Recess editor Ross Green, quite simply, what is the Sandbox? Not an altogether crazy question. I’d imagine some of you reading this are wondering, or have at one point wondered, the same thing. When the answer I received included the descriptions “funny,” “not all that serious” and “about current events/ pop culture,” my stomach dropped.

Let’s be real. Current events aren’t typically on my “must get done today” crumpled-up post-it note. I’m no Jerry Seinfeld [or Aziz Ansari].

And so I asked myself, what is the current event on the forefront of my and many a Duke student’s mind this week? And bookbagging took the cake.

Bookbagging, for all those non-Duke student or professor readers, is choosing prospective classes from which you later choose the classes to actually take.

It’s like registration without the commitment, cupcakes without the guilt, tailgate without the following Sunday. It is truly a glorious exercise in noncommittal

decision-making.

Some bookbaggers take the “less is more” approach, choosing classes only that are practical, that are “validatable” or fulfill a requirement. Some do it mid-Locopop, others naked in their dorm room.

I personally adopt a Kesha-esque mantra and start by creating my “hot and dangerous” schedule, of sorts: no Friday classes, no 8:30 a.m. nonsense, no weed-out premed courses, yes social dancing (Why have I never gotten off the social dancing waitlist?) Too often though, the glaring gaps in my areas of knowledge and modes of inquiry come out of the woodwork. So around this time every semester, it’s farewell dear Kesha and hello orgo: the only thing mildly amusing about it is it’s one letter difference from “orgy.” Rage. Silliness aside, take your bookbag and tear it apart—it’s about damn time to live it up.

Treat yourself to a little academic intrigue.

Feed your inner Kesha Rose Sebert. You know you want to.

—Gracie Willert

[recesseditors] if we were extinct Ross Green.............................................................................................verossiraptor Maggie Love.............................................................................................afrovenator Michaela Dwyer.................................................................................dwyberian tiger Brian Contratto........................................................................................briceratops Chris Bassil.....................................................................................woolly mammoth Josh Stillman...............................................................................................brosaurus Chelsea Pieroni....................................................................................pieranderthal Sanette Tanaka................................................................................tanakasaurus rex Phoebe Long..............................................................................................dodo bird

[STAFFER’S NOTE]

PAGE 2

If you’ve been to Dublin, you’ve likely li heard of an area downtown called Temple Bar. In the tour books, c it’s it mostly characterized as the onestop s shot to fulfill your romanticized notions of drinking in Ireland: getn ti wistful over a pint of Guinness ting w an old, newsboy-capped bloke with who could be named, vaguely, w O’Donoghue O or O’Flagerty. Maybe you’ll y meet him in the Literary Pub C Crawl while brushing shoulders w second- and third-generation with Ir Irish-American tourists attempting to commune with Joyce and Wilde.

The T shoulders you brush might be covered in garish windbreakers, but c you’re y there, and you’re engaging with w some notion of Irish culture, and a that’s what matters, right?

Or maybe you want something a little less tame, a little more Look at Me, I’m in Europe, and I’m Under 25 (or something I like to call I Brought My Crop-Top and I’m Damn Well Gonna Use It). Dance away your burgeoning alcoholic tendencies in clubs with names like Alchemy (aspirational?), Purdy Kitchen (food served during daylight hours) and Fitzsimons (cla$$ier; there’s a rooftop bar). A few times this summer, while in Dublin through DukeEngage, I found myself in these settings, wading amongst the nebulae of fake tans, high-waisted tube skirts and general skeezery in the form of passé gelled hair and Abercrombie shirts.

It is with slight disbelief that I consider how successfully a different scene exists literally alongside these night-prowler jaunts. In the past two decades, Temple Bar has undergone a radical shift in arts offerings, establishing mainstays such as the Irish Film Institute, Project Arts Centre and Temple Bar Gallery and Studios. Ireland’s signature mix of old and new

November 10, 2011

architecture accommodates these institutions, which roll out top-notch and often experimental arts programming every night. Here, the Irish Modern Dance Theatre premieres a new piece at the same time as ten gallery openings; numerous and highly diverse theatREs remind patrons that Irish wit is as powerful and quintessential and relevant as ever. The origin of this massive upswing in the arts is also intriguing: As the Temple Bar Cultural Trust claims, “The Irish Government gave us the job of regenerating Temple Bar.” This past weekend, I returned to Dublin for a DukeEngage follow-up conference.

Again I was amazed by the coexistence of Temple Bar bacchanalia and innovative arts offerings. As the masses stumbled out of bars, though, those heading to the French Film Festival next door seemed more like snappily dressed upper-crusters. Rather than allying myself with one subculture over the other, I felt their disparity, especially in the context of Ireland’s current financial crisis. It’s unsurprising that recessions keep bars in business; the arts in turn become more inaccessible for the common folk. In Ireland, where cultural traditions intertwine humor, language and the arts as much as alcohol and celebration, these circumstances are particularly complex. While the economy stays at rock-bottom, it’s difficult to predict whether the relationship between arts patronage and bar-hopping in Temple Bar will remain dichotomous or more conscientiously integrate, creating a new way for everyone to engage in culture in Dublin.

At present, though, know that you have two options– if you’re ever there, or in a similar place stateside, enjoy yourself, but challenge these sometimes prescriptive spaces in order to partake in and observe culture through a keen(er) economic and socio-cultural lens.

—Michaela Dwyer

recess

November 10, 2011

One Makes Many conference gives visibility to local poetry

by Hassaan Memon THE CHRONICLE

This weekend, two rival campuses will come together in the name of poetry.

Organized by graduate students at both Duke and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, One Makes Many: A Conference of Poetic Interactions, invites academics and poets from across the Triangle and the country to share perspectives and research on different topics in poetry.

The conference was conceived by Pete Moore and Adra Raine, graduate students in Duke’s Department of English and UNC’s Department of English and Comparative Literature, respectively, as a way to introduce poets and poetry to the local community, and vice versa. “[One Makes Many] is important because it brings visibility, both locally and nationally, to the incredibly rich community of people here in the Triangle working in contemporary poetry and poetics,” Raine said. “It helps put that work in a larger national and international dialogue.”

The interdisciplinary focus of the conference extends from anthropology to history, from traditional forms to digital ones.

Such breadth of experience and variety is exemplified by the keynote reader of the conference, Nathaniel Tarn. Tarn, a cultural anthropologist by training, has done fieldwork in Guatemala and Myanmar and translated Pablo Neruda’s

works into English. Translation of South American poetry is the topic of one of the panels at the conference.

Another panel centered around religious poetry challenges the division between the sacred and the secular, while a panel about sound in African poetry blurs the lines between high and low art and between song and speech. Also

JON BEDELL

Bill Seaman, a professor of Visual Studies at Duke, will speak at One Makes Many. represented in the conference is a panel entitled “The Digital Muse,” which invites reflection on new media, poetry and literature and features Duke Visual Studies professor Bill Seaman. Overall, the conference aims to introduce and ignite discussion about experimental poetic form.

“We are at the cusp of a transformation in the way we express ourselves” said Joseph Donahue, professor of the

practice of English and Poetry. “The conference is a timely intervention in an era of globalization and information technology.”

Donahue describes the conference as a culmination of a series of poetry events and reading groups, and of an increasing interest in experimental poetry among Duke faculty.

“One Makes Many is also a stepping stone,” he said. “We’re trying to capitalize on the strengths of the people who are already here but haven’t had a chance to speak. This is a rare and encouraging moment in the history of poetry in this country.”

Both Moore and Raine picked up on the Triangle’s tradition of cultural and intellectual engagement in developing the conference. One Makes Many also responds specifically to Duke’s focus on interdisciplinary academic work through projects such as the humanities labs.

“The conference reflects the interdisciplinary relevance of poetry–and in two days, we are really only representing a fraction of the ways in which poetry relates to and interacts with other cultural and academic fields,” Raine said.

One Makes Many: A Conference of Poetic Interactions will take place tomorrow at Duke’s John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute and Saturday at UNC’s campus YMCA on Cameron Ave. Both days begin at 9:45 a.m.

PAGE 3

colson whitehead ZONE ONE DOUBLEDAY

The American supernatural obsession du jour has snowballed, in recent years, from vampires (Twilight and The Vampire Diaries, among others) to zombies, with AMC’s horrifying The Walking Dead, a George Romero renaissance and amateur “zombie walks” cropping up all around the country. Hardware stores jokingly advertise checklists to ‘zombie-proof’ your home.

So it was only a matter of time before a book like Zone One, Colson Whitehead’s literary meditation on a zombie apocalypse, appeared on the scene.

The book’s basic premise is intuitive: virus attacks, the infected turn on their loved ones, humanity is reduced to a lawless shamble. In the opening scenes, Whitehead describes the firmly average Mark Spitz (a pseudonym that is explained in due course), and his predicament as a ‘sweeper’ in the ghost town of New York. “Zone One” is a patch of lower Manhattan in which survivors have barricaded themselves against the dead. Mark Spitz is assigned to a three-person civilian unit that clears the city of any remaining zombies, or ‘skels,’ building by building; the Marines having already done the heavy zombie-killing lifting. In an ironic, only-in-fiction move, the government of the reconstruction is in Buffalo, and Manhattan is their priority for resettlement. If the lights of New York can again ‘prick the blackness’ of the apocalypse, there is hope yet.

For the positives: Whitehead is a incredibly gifted sentence-level writer, and he imagines his native New York, at a complete halt, rather beautifully. In the emptied city, “elevators hung like broken puppets at the end of long cables” and “no amateur fascist up the street machinated to steal the next cab.” This noble decay might be an improvement, if not for the cells of undead.

The main issues that limit Zone One have to do with scope: how does one encapsulate a post-lapsarian society and also create meaningful and sympathetic characters, all in about 260 pages? It’s a task that Whitehead tackles by constantly shifting the plot between the present and SEE ZONE ONE ON PAGE 8

recess

theSANDBOX. As a Sandbox noob, I naturally asked Recess editor Ross Green, quite simply, what is the Sandbox? Not an altogether crazy question. I’d imagine some of you reading this are wondering, or have at one point wondered, the same thing. When the answer I received included the descriptions “funny,” “not all that serious” and “about current events/ pop culture,” my stomach dropped.

Let’s be real. Current events aren’t typically on my “must get done today” crumpled-up post-it note. I’m no Jerry Seinfeld [or Aziz Ansari].

And so I asked myself, what is the current event on the forefront of my and many a Duke student’s mind this week? And bookbagging took the cake.

Bookbagging, for all those non-Duke student or professor readers, is choosing prospective classes from which you later choose the classes to actually take.

It’s like registration without the commitment, cupcakes without the guilt, tailgate without the following Sunday. It is truly a glorious exercise in noncommittal

decision-making.

Some bookbaggers take the “less is more” approach, choosing classes only that are practical, that are “validatable” or fulfill a requirement. Some do it mid-Locopop, others naked in their dorm room.

I personally adopt a Kesha-esque mantra and start by creating my “hot and dangerous” schedule, of sorts: no Friday classes, no 8:30 a.m. nonsense, no weed-out premed courses, yes social dancing (Why have I never gotten off the social dancing waitlist?) Too often though, the glaring gaps in my areas of knowledge and modes of inquiry come out of the woodwork. So around this time every semester, it’s farewell dear Kesha and hello orgo: the only thing mildly amusing about it is it’s one letter difference from “orgy.” Rage. Silliness aside, take your bookbag and tear it apart—it’s about damn time to live it up.

Treat yourself to a little academic intrigue.

Feed your inner Kesha Rose Sebert. You know you want to.

—Gracie Willert

[recesseditors] if we were extinct Ross Green.............................................................................................verossiraptor Maggie Love.............................................................................................afrovenator Michaela Dwyer.................................................................................dwyberian tiger Brian Contratto........................................................................................briceratops Chris Bassil.....................................................................................woolly mammoth Josh Stillman...............................................................................................brosaurus Chelsea Pieroni....................................................................................pieranderthal Sanette Tanaka................................................................................tanakasaurus rex Phoebe Long..............................................................................................dodo bird

[STAFFER’S NOTE]

PAGE 2

If you’ve been to Dublin, you’ve likely li heard of an area downtown called Temple Bar. In the tour books, c it’s it mostly characterized as the onestop s shot to fulfill your romanticized notions of drinking in Ireland: getn ti wistful over a pint of Guinness ting w an old, newsboy-capped bloke with who could be named, vaguely, w O’Donoghue O or O’Flagerty. Maybe you’ll y meet him in the Literary Pub C Crawl while brushing shoulders w second- and third-generation with Ir Irish-American tourists attempting to commune with Joyce and Wilde.

The T shoulders you brush might be covered in garish windbreakers, but c you’re y there, and you’re engaging with w some notion of Irish culture, and a that’s what matters, right?

Or maybe you want something a little less tame, a little more Look at Me, I’m in Europe, and I’m Under 25 (or something I like to call I Brought My Crop-Top and I’m Damn Well Gonna Use It). Dance away your burgeoning alcoholic tendencies in clubs with names like Alchemy (aspirational?), Purdy Kitchen (food served during daylight hours) and Fitzsimons (cla$$ier; there’s a rooftop bar). A few times this summer, while in Dublin through DukeEngage, I found myself in these settings, wading amongst the nebulae of fake tans, high-waisted tube skirts and general skeezery in the form of passé gelled hair and Abercrombie shirts.

It is with slight disbelief that I consider how successfully a different scene exists literally alongside these night-prowler jaunts. In the past two decades, Temple Bar has undergone a radical shift in arts offerings, establishing mainstays such as the Irish Film Institute, Project Arts Centre and Temple Bar Gallery and Studios. Ireland’s signature mix of old and new

November 10, 2011

architecture accommodates these institutions, which roll out top-notch and often experimental arts programming every night. Here, the Irish Modern Dance Theatre premieres a new piece at the same time as ten gallery openings; numerous and highly diverse theatREs remind patrons that Irish wit is as powerful and quintessential and relevant as ever. The origin of this massive upswing in the arts is also intriguing: As the Temple Bar Cultural Trust claims, “The Irish Government gave us the job of regenerating Temple Bar.” This past weekend, I returned to Dublin for a DukeEngage follow-up conference.

Again I was amazed by the coexistence of Temple Bar bacchanalia and innovative arts offerings. As the masses stumbled out of bars, though, those heading to the French Film Festival next door seemed more like snappily dressed upper-crusters. Rather than allying myself with one subculture over the other, I felt their disparity, especially in the context of Ireland’s current financial crisis. It’s unsurprising that recessions keep bars in business; the arts in turn become more inaccessible for the common folk. In Ireland, where cultural traditions intertwine humor, language and the arts as much as alcohol and celebration, these circumstances are particularly complex. While the economy stays at rock-bottom, it’s difficult to predict whether the relationship between arts patronage and bar-hopping in Temple Bar will remain dichotomous or more conscientiously integrate, creating a new way for everyone to engage in culture in Dublin.

At present, though, know that you have two options– if you’re ever there, or in a similar place stateside, enjoy yourself, but challenge these sometimes prescriptive spaces in order to partake in and observe culture through a keen(er) economic and socio-cultural lens.

—Michaela Dwyer

recess

November 10, 2011

One Makes Many conference gives visibility to local poetry

by Hassaan Memon THE CHRONICLE

This weekend, two rival campuses will come together in the name of poetry.

Organized by graduate students at both Duke and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, One Makes Many: A Conference of Poetic Interactions, invites academics and poets from across the Triangle and the country to share perspectives and research on different topics in poetry.

The conference was conceived by Pete Moore and Adra Raine, graduate students in Duke’s Department of English and UNC’s Department of English and Comparative Literature, respectively, as a way to introduce poets and poetry to the local community, and vice versa. “[One Makes Many] is important because it brings visibility, both locally and nationally, to the incredibly rich community of people here in the Triangle working in contemporary poetry and poetics,” Raine said. “It helps put that work in a larger national and international dialogue.”

The interdisciplinary focus of the conference extends from anthropology to history, from traditional forms to digital ones.

Such breadth of experience and variety is exemplified by the keynote reader of the conference, Nathaniel Tarn. Tarn, a cultural anthropologist by training, has done fieldwork in Guatemala and Myanmar and translated Pablo Neruda’s

works into English. Translation of South American poetry is the topic of one of the panels at the conference.

Another panel centered around religious poetry challenges the division between the sacred and the secular, while a panel about sound in African poetry blurs the lines between high and low art and between song and speech. Also

JON BEDELL

Bill Seaman, a professor of Visual Studies at Duke, will speak at One Makes Many. represented in the conference is a panel entitled “The Digital Muse,” which invites reflection on new media, poetry and literature and features Duke Visual Studies professor Bill Seaman. Overall, the conference aims to introduce and ignite discussion about experimental poetic form.

“We are at the cusp of a transformation in the way we express ourselves” said Joseph Donahue, professor of the

practice of English and Poetry. “The conference is a timely intervention in an era of globalization and information technology.”

Donahue describes the conference as a culmination of a series of poetry events and reading groups, and of an increasing interest in experimental poetry among Duke faculty.

“One Makes Many is also a stepping stone,” he said. “We’re trying to capitalize on the strengths of the people who are already here but haven’t had a chance to speak. This is a rare and encouraging moment in the history of poetry in this country.”

Both Moore and Raine picked up on the Triangle’s tradition of cultural and intellectual engagement in developing the conference. One Makes Many also responds specifically to Duke’s focus on interdisciplinary academic work through projects such as the humanities labs.

“The conference reflects the interdisciplinary relevance of poetry–and in two days, we are really only representing a fraction of the ways in which poetry relates to and interacts with other cultural and academic fields,” Raine said.

One Makes Many: A Conference of Poetic Interactions will take place tomorrow at Duke’s John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute and Saturday at UNC’s campus YMCA on Cameron Ave. Both days begin at 9:45 a.m.

PAGE 3

colson whitehead ZONE ONE DOUBLEDAY

The American supernatural obsession du jour has snowballed, in recent years, from vampires (Twilight and The Vampire Diaries, among others) to zombies, with AMC’s horrifying The Walking Dead, a George Romero renaissance and amateur “zombie walks” cropping up all around the country. Hardware stores jokingly advertise checklists to ‘zombie-proof’ your home.

So it was only a matter of time before a book like Zone One, Colson Whitehead’s literary meditation on a zombie apocalypse, appeared on the scene.

The book’s basic premise is intuitive: virus attacks, the infected turn on their loved ones, humanity is reduced to a lawless shamble. In the opening scenes, Whitehead describes the firmly average Mark Spitz (a pseudonym that is explained in due course), and his predicament as a ‘sweeper’ in the ghost town of New York. “Zone One” is a patch of lower Manhattan in which survivors have barricaded themselves against the dead. Mark Spitz is assigned to a three-person civilian unit that clears the city of any remaining zombies, or ‘skels,’ building by building; the Marines having already done the heavy zombie-killing lifting. In an ironic, only-in-fiction move, the government of the reconstruction is in Buffalo, and Manhattan is their priority for resettlement. If the lights of New York can again ‘prick the blackness’ of the apocalypse, there is hope yet.

For the positives: Whitehead is a incredibly gifted sentence-level writer, and he imagines his native New York, at a complete halt, rather beautifully. In the emptied city, “elevators hung like broken puppets at the end of long cables” and “no amateur fascist up the street machinated to steal the next cab.” This noble decay might be an improvement, if not for the cells of undead.

The main issues that limit Zone One have to do with scope: how does one encapsulate a post-lapsarian society and also create meaningful and sympathetic characters, all in about 260 pages? It’s a task that Whitehead tackles by constantly shifting the plot between the present and SEE ZONE ONE ON PAGE 8

recess

PAGE 4

November 10, 2011

recess

November 10, 2011

The week in music atlas sound PARALLAX 4AD

Welcome to the two sides of Bradford Cox. In this corner stands a lonely man, nervous and overworked, shielded from the spotlight and disappointed by fame.

In the opposite corner, Cox takes to the stage, puts on the musician’s mask and turns sorrowful water into tea. From the first line, Parallax has its cake and eats it, too: “Found money and fame but I found them really late,” Cox sings, slurring the last word to also imply the rhyme, “lame.” The play on words allows Cox to be at once disappointed with his forestalled celebrity and the celebrity itself. Throughout the album, art is portrayed through a dialectic, as something both mesmerizing and disruptive. During “Mona Lisa,” onlookers at the Louvre forget outlandish fantasies at the cost of forgetting their children. The value of art can only be measured through parallax—the apparent distance between two different points of view.

With his third solo album, Cox proves that Atlas Sound is more than an attempt to publish the castaways of Deerhunter, his main band. Cox’s solo efforts allow

him freedoms unavailable in collaborative projects. The voiceless second half of “Flagstaff” evokes the warm undulations of the womb; the song’s first half experiments with nonsense lyrics and hallucinogenic tales of the “great white epileptic.” “Doldrums” plays with distortion to achieve an underwater blurriness equal to Cox’s rippling voice. Both songs are too quiet and remote to sound anything but out of place beside the arena rock guitars of a Deerhunter album.

Cox refuses to treat dark topics with seriousness. The album exhibits and pokes fun at painful experience. “Yeah, it is the story of the little boy who went to hell,” croons Cox without the slightest gloominess. “Terra Incognito” switches from talk of the Christian God to the effects of psychedelic drugs without hesitation, according each with equal importance. During “Praying Man,” Cox sounds flippant toward the plight of religious followers, warbling and swelling excessively given his somber lyrics.

Throughout, Cox maintains the believability of two parallel vantage points, the wounded songwriter and the detached singer, showing an anesthetized loneliness that actually invites the listener in.

—Dan Fishman

PHOTOS SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE

florence + the machine CEREMONIALS ISLAND

Florence + The Machine have something to prove, and they won’t be denied. As a document celebrating the sheer power of its subject, Ceremonials isn’t unlike a five-minute YouTube clip of Blake Griffin dunking over Korean automobiles—first impressive, and then still kind of impressive, and now, redundant to the point of exhaustion.

Florence Welch has a set of pipes like you—apparently—wouldn’t believe, and her band’s sophomore album is a nearly hour-long showcase of her vocal abilities. Which, in and of itself, isn’t absurd: on a technical level, she’s as proficient as anyone in the cohort of contemporary U.K. divas, and her ability to project and emote suggests a natural stage presence. On “Only If For a Night” and “Shake It Out,” the two standouts here—not coincidentally, also the first two tracks on Ceremonials—Florence successfully hits the rafters with some Arcade Fire organ and catchy, propulsive hooks.

Within the current alt-pop sphere, hers is the kind of voice that’s almost always placed front and center, sometimes to the point of distraction. With tracks like the affected, red-haired soul of “Lover to Lover,” Welch is aiming for our hearts via the charts (or is it the other way around?)

PAGE 5

cass mccombs HUMOR RISK DOMINO RECORDS

Cass McCombs is a master of dark humor. Over the course of five albums, he’s been so understatedly funny and subversive that you’d be forgiven for not noticing.

The title of his 2009 breakthrough, Catacombs, connotes selfdestruction, but contained a number of uplifting, country-tinged arrangements—“You Saved My Life” was one of the decade’s best ballads. But even universal love songs like that were underscored by a subliminal sense of dread or overt lyrical morbidity. (A sweet story of a man who is underpaid but experiences fulfillment from his job is called “Executioner’s Song.”)

Both of McCombs’ 2011 albums, Wit’s End and his latest, Humor Risk, reference his complex attitude toward postmodern irony and the risk of being earnest. The latter begins, “Love thine enemy/ but hate the lack of sincerity.”

Religious source material informs many of the lyrics, especially references to Christian scriptures in lines like “The word came first/ Let me speak the living word.”

On album highlight “The Same Thing,” McCombs muses that pain and love are opposed, yet identical, and on “Love Thine Enemy,” he remarks, “Hypocrites especially follow the golden rule.” The album’s worst track, “Mystery,” contains the cringeworthy line, “Not everybody can be a saint/ Daniel was a good guy, but a saint he ain’t,” and the punchline, “And I’ll see you in hell!” This jaunty, alt-country number continues for almost eight minutes, and represents the biggest tonal contrast with the sad-sop introspections of Wit’s End, which occasionally recalled Elliott Smith at his most belligerent. The uptempo numbers on Humor Risk, for better or worse, comes off strikingly like an unromantic Ryan Adams.

There’s a constant tension between McCombs the self-serious artiste and his more humble, craftsman-like persona. It’s realized in bleak, pretty music videos of heroin addicts, songs like “AIDS in Africa” and even his generally negative attitude toward the media. But in some ways, this profile is more difficult than his actual work, whose highlights invoke a haunting beauty—classic territory mined by the best folk songwriters.

McCombs gives the sense that his compass is oriented in that same direction.

—Brian Contratto

a la “Rolling in the Deep.” But where that track demanded repeat listens with its tension and build, the songs on Ceremonials are all catharsis. Every chorus is announced via huge, reverberant kick drums; each refrain is supported by a chorus of at least six additional Florences.

Heavy-handedness is a potential pitfall for any artist striving to make big, communal, resounding music. But where, for instance, M83’s Anthony Gonzalez effects emotion through a number of synth sounds and guest vocals (and even he can be called repetitive), Florence + the Machine have only one trick—Welch’s voice. As a series of climactic moments reaching ever higher, Ceremonials is consequently more a showcase of Welch’s considerable talents than a meaningful work of art—it’s self-consciously ostentatious, in the same way as a youth piano recital. The ascending harp lines and percussive piano of “All This and Heaven Too” is pure kitsch, not out of place in a Celine Dion setlist at Caesar’s Palace. Even when the Machine gives the arenaready instrumental bombast a rest, as on “Seven Devils,” you can hear the strain in Florence’s voice. Subtlety, that saving grace of all likable talent, is nowhere to be found.

Most of Ceremonials is so focused on “release” that the “build” is rote and perfunctory. By album closer “Leave My Body,” we’ve had more than enough of the choral climaxes, but it’s impossible not to see another one coming: Flo and her aptly titled Machine just keep on churning skyward, until Ceremonials unceremoniously stalls out.

—Ross Green

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PAGE 4

November 10, 2011

recess

November 10, 2011

The week in music atlas sound PARALLAX 4AD

Welcome to the two sides of Bradford Cox. In this corner stands a lonely man, nervous and overworked, shielded from the spotlight and disappointed by fame.

In the opposite corner, Cox takes to the stage, puts on the musician’s mask and turns sorrowful water into tea. From the first line, Parallax has its cake and eats it, too: “Found money and fame but I found them really late,” Cox sings, slurring the last word to also imply the rhyme, “lame.” The play on words allows Cox to be at once disappointed with his forestalled celebrity and the celebrity itself. Throughout the album, art is portrayed through a dialectic, as something both mesmerizing and disruptive. During “Mona Lisa,” onlookers at the Louvre forget outlandish fantasies at the cost of forgetting their children. The value of art can only be measured through parallax—the apparent distance between two different points of view.

With his third solo album, Cox proves that Atlas Sound is more than an attempt to publish the castaways of Deerhunter, his main band. Cox’s solo efforts allow

him freedoms unavailable in collaborative projects. The voiceless second half of “Flagstaff” evokes the warm undulations of the womb; the song’s first half experiments with nonsense lyrics and hallucinogenic tales of the “great white epileptic.” “Doldrums” plays with distortion to achieve an underwater blurriness equal to Cox’s rippling voice. Both songs are too quiet and remote to sound anything but out of place beside the arena rock guitars of a Deerhunter album.

Cox refuses to treat dark topics with seriousness. The album exhibits and pokes fun at painful experience. “Yeah, it is the story of the little boy who went to hell,” croons Cox without the slightest gloominess. “Terra Incognito” switches from talk of the Christian God to the effects of psychedelic drugs without hesitation, according each with equal importance. During “Praying Man,” Cox sounds flippant toward the plight of religious followers, warbling and swelling excessively given his somber lyrics.

Throughout, Cox maintains the believability of two parallel vantage points, the wounded songwriter and the detached singer, showing an anesthetized loneliness that actually invites the listener in.

—Dan Fishman

PHOTOS SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE

florence + the machine CEREMONIALS ISLAND

Florence + The Machine have something to prove, and they won’t be denied. As a document celebrating the sheer power of its subject, Ceremonials isn’t unlike a five-minute YouTube clip of Blake Griffin dunking over Korean automobiles—first impressive, and then still kind of impressive, and now, redundant to the point of exhaustion.

Florence Welch has a set of pipes like you—apparently—wouldn’t believe, and her band’s sophomore album is a nearly hour-long showcase of her vocal abilities. Which, in and of itself, isn’t absurd: on a technical level, she’s as proficient as anyone in the cohort of contemporary U.K. divas, and her ability to project and emote suggests a natural stage presence. On “Only If For a Night” and “Shake It Out,” the two standouts here—not coincidentally, also the first two tracks on Ceremonials—Florence successfully hits the rafters with some Arcade Fire organ and catchy, propulsive hooks.

Within the current alt-pop sphere, hers is the kind of voice that’s almost always placed front and center, sometimes to the point of distraction. With tracks like the affected, red-haired soul of “Lover to Lover,” Welch is aiming for our hearts via the charts (or is it the other way around?)

PAGE 5

cass mccombs HUMOR RISK DOMINO RECORDS

Cass McCombs is a master of dark humor. Over the course of five albums, he’s been so understatedly funny and subversive that you’d be forgiven for not noticing.

The title of his 2009 breakthrough, Catacombs, connotes selfdestruction, but contained a number of uplifting, country-tinged arrangements—“You Saved My Life” was one of the decade’s best ballads. But even universal love songs like that were underscored by a subliminal sense of dread or overt lyrical morbidity. (A sweet story of a man who is underpaid but experiences fulfillment from his job is called “Executioner’s Song.”)

Both of McCombs’ 2011 albums, Wit’s End and his latest, Humor Risk, reference his complex attitude toward postmodern irony and the risk of being earnest. The latter begins, “Love thine enemy/ but hate the lack of sincerity.”

Religious source material informs many of the lyrics, especially references to Christian scriptures in lines like “The word came first/ Let me speak the living word.”

On album highlight “The Same Thing,” McCombs muses that pain and love are opposed, yet identical, and on “Love Thine Enemy,” he remarks, “Hypocrites especially follow the golden rule.” The album’s worst track, “Mystery,” contains the cringeworthy line, “Not everybody can be a saint/ Daniel was a good guy, but a saint he ain’t,” and the punchline, “And I’ll see you in hell!” This jaunty, alt-country number continues for almost eight minutes, and represents the biggest tonal contrast with the sad-sop introspections of Wit’s End, which occasionally recalled Elliott Smith at his most belligerent. The uptempo numbers on Humor Risk, for better or worse, comes off strikingly like an unromantic Ryan Adams.

There’s a constant tension between McCombs the self-serious artiste and his more humble, craftsman-like persona. It’s realized in bleak, pretty music videos of heroin addicts, songs like “AIDS in Africa” and even his generally negative attitude toward the media. But in some ways, this profile is more difficult than his actual work, whose highlights invoke a haunting beauty—classic territory mined by the best folk songwriters.

McCombs gives the sense that his compass is oriented in that same direction.

—Brian Contratto

a la “Rolling in the Deep.” But where that track demanded repeat listens with its tension and build, the songs on Ceremonials are all catharsis. Every chorus is announced via huge, reverberant kick drums; each refrain is supported by a chorus of at least six additional Florences.

Heavy-handedness is a potential pitfall for any artist striving to make big, communal, resounding music. But where, for instance, M83’s Anthony Gonzalez effects emotion through a number of synth sounds and guest vocals (and even he can be called repetitive), Florence + the Machine have only one trick—Welch’s voice. As a series of climactic moments reaching ever higher, Ceremonials is consequently more a showcase of Welch’s considerable talents than a meaningful work of art—it’s self-consciously ostentatious, in the same way as a youth piano recital. The ascending harp lines and percussive piano of “All This and Heaven Too” is pure kitsch, not out of place in a Celine Dion setlist at Caesar’s Palace. Even when the Machine gives the arenaready instrumental bombast a rest, as on “Seven Devils,” you can hear the strain in Florence’s voice. Subtlety, that saving grace of all likable talent, is nowhere to be found.

Most of Ceremonials is so focused on “release” that the “build” is rote and perfunctory. By album closer “Leave My Body,” we’ve had more than enough of the choral climaxes, but it’s impossible not to see another one coming: Flo and her aptly titled Machine just keep on churning skyward, until Ceremonials unceremoniously stalls out.

—Ross Green

PAGE 6

recess noel gallagher’s high flying birds

david lynch

NOEL GALLAGHER’S HIGH FLYING BIRDS SOUR MASH

CRAZY CLOWN TIME PLAY IT AGAIN SAM

David Lynch’s filmmaking oeuvre is probably best classified regionally: after beginning his career with several early films set under carnivalesque, otherworldly atmospheres, Lynch dwelt for a time on small-town America, an obsession which, with works like Blue Velvet and television series Twin Peaks, launched him to widespread recognition and acclaim. From there, the highly unusual auteur moved on to Los Angeles, the setting of Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive and, most recently, Inland Empire.

Crazy Clown Time, Lynch’s first true solo foray into music making, may mark another departure for the long-time director, as the album features little of the distorted Hollywood aesthetic of his latest work. If anything, Crazy Clown Time seems closest to 2010’s Interview Project, in which Lynch and his son drove across the country and back in order to film a series of interviews with seemingly arbitrary roadside individuals. The two projects—together his most recent and most unconventional—do share similarities, but most immediately they are polar opposites: Interview Project resonates as real and genuinely moving, while Crazy Clown Time scans as demented and genuinely creepy.

Musically, Crazy Clown Time is nothing particularly special. Dedicated followers will be pleased to pick out the director’s nasal, buzzing voice from behind all of the filters he applies to it. Apart from that, the album is more valuable for the sounds that don’t stand out: almost all of its fourteen tracks are characterized by an interplay between straightforward, persistent drum patterns in the foreground and a wash of

November 10, 2011

stretching, groaning sustain in the distance.

The dynamic allows tracks to blend into each other, lending the entire album the feel of steady motion through something permanent and unchanging—not unlike a long car ride across the middle of the country. But the effect is schizophrenic as well. Lynch’s high-pitched, insane-asylum vocals, like his films, draw out the psychotic side of the mundane: far from relaxing, the endlessness of the effect becomes taunting, and the excessively repetitive lyrics suggest speakers who are slowly slipping into insanity.

Crazy Clown Time will probably only have value to the initiated, and even then only as a very specific relative of Interview Project.

As different as they seem, they are derived from the same central approach: to infer a fully-fledged story from only four to five minute glimpses at narratives beginning and ending in media res. Together, the two may be coveted by fans as clues to Lynch’s next thematic obsession.

—Chris Bassil

SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE

Liam and Noel Gallagher never exactly had a healthy working relationship. The brothers’ tenure as the leaders of Oasis was marked with infighting and drama; it’s tough to even believe that the band lasted as long as it did.

Alas, Oasis and Noel Gallagher as we once knew them are both no more. Oasis is now Beady Eye, and the departed Noel has released his debut solo album under the moniker, Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds.

Eager to please and best his younger brother, the album comes off as earnest, both to its benefit and detriment. True to Noel’s reputation as a songwriter, the tracks are catchy and identifiable, immediately reminiscent of some of Oasis’ defining hits. Noel’s voice may not be as powerful or unique as his brother’s, but it is still rich and full of emotional verve. “(I Wanna Live In A Dream In My) Record Machine” finds Noel’s singing at its most Liam-esque, and presents a convincing case about Noel’s true value during Oasis’ heyday. It’s evident that, regardless of his personal success, Noel feels as though he has something to prove.

In its rush to please listeners, the band frequently exploits the nostalgia of Oasis fans. Gallagher is quick to utilize similar and repetitive song structures. Tracks here often sound as if they could have been ripped straight from a collection of unreleased Oasis cuts. This is not an indictment of the quality of the music as much as a statement about the rote nature of the record: Noel treads no new ground, and

mostly, it works. But the songs tend to feel weightless and ineffectual, as lines such as, “Keep on chasing down that rainbow/ You’ll never know what you might find” on “Aka…What A Life!” fail to resonate, sounding trite and outdated.

While the band does not steer us in new directions, it provides a fun, if meaningless, diversion from our modern trends. Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds effectively transports the listener back to a time when bleached blond hair was stylish and stadium rock was cool.

—Andrew Lokker

November 10, 2011

recess

McAuliffe adeptly guides Birthday Party

by Katie Zaborsky THE CHRONICLE

Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party is anything but fun and games. Presented by Little Green Pig Theatrical Concern, the 1958 absurdist play centers around the events that occur at an English seaside boardinghouse when two unexpected guests arrive to psychologically torture one of the house’s tenants on his birthday.

Meg (Lenore Field) and Petey Boles (Dan Sipp) are a middle-aged couple who run a boardinghouse with only one permanent occupant, an unstable man named Stanley Webber (Jeffrey Detwiler) who vacillates between nostalgic reminiscences and savage outbursts. The dynamic between Meg and Stanley is equally erratic, and Field successfully toes the line between a bored, flirtatious housewife who makes passes at Stanley and a childless, deluded woman who constantly infantilizes him.

Despite being called The Birthday Party, the titular event in the play is contested— Meg repeatedly reminds Stanley that it is his birthday, but he denies the fact on every occasion, the first implication that things aren’t as they seem.

The arrival of the two strangers, Goldberg (Derrick Ivey) and McCann (Jay O’Berski), fuels the play’s tense atmosphere, and the only reason given for their arrival is to finish a mysterious “job.” What ensues

during their stay can only be described as psychological warfare as Stanley’s birthday party deteriorates from a harmless gathering to a sinister showdown. Ivey brilliantly shapeshifts between a smarmy sycophant and a ruthless tormenter, while O’Berski, the artistic director of Little Green Pig, inspires unease and fear in his portrayal of McCann.

Often labeled a ‘comedy of menace,’ The Birthday Party uncovers hidden realities and the troubled relationships between its characters through unsettling dialogue and bursts of intense gravity among more banal, comedic banter. Director and Duke Professor Jody McAuliffe carefully translates Pinter’s infamous “pauses” and “silences” to create the disquieting ambiguity that colors many of Pinter’s plays.

Since The Birthday Party relies little on concrete information and more on tautological dialogue and cryptic allusions, the play can be difficult to follow without the original text as a guiding tool. McAuliffe, however, successfully adapts an absurdist work—a feat in itself—to the stage, all the while retaining the core information necessary to subtly show the slow destruction of the human psyche.

Little Green Pig’s The Birthday Party will run Thursday-Saturday, Nov. 10-12, at 8pm at Common Ground Theatre.

anonymous

DIR. ROLAND EMMERICH COLUMBIA PICTURES

Much has already been made about the factual and historical underpinnings of Roland Emmerich’s new film Anonymous, based on the theory that Edward de Vere, a 16th century English nobleman, was the true author of Shakespeare’s plays. There is a multitude of inaccuracies at the foundation of the theory, as Shakespeareans both at Duke and elsewhere have been quick to point out, and, if anything, Anonymous does little to cover them up.

But one need not grapple with inaccuracies of fact in order to indict Anonymous as a poorly rendered piece of cinematic garbage. The film opens in the present day, with established Shakespearean actor Derek Jacobi starting a speech on the question of authorship in a crowded theater, before dissolving back to the 16th century, in which we see poet Ben Jonson pursued and then questioned by a group of royal guards. We are then taken back to the same setting five years earlier, and later make it back to a full 40 years before that. From there, Anonymous continues to spasm unpredictably (and unnecessarily) through time and space, while at the same time depicting plays within plays about plays, ad nauseum.

This, however, is not to be mistaken as “playing with” narrative, nor “blowing it up” nor “destructing it,” as all of those things could be misinterpreted as having positive connotations here. Anonymous

PAGE 7

only mishandles its narrative, trying to pull off the same tricks seen in better films, without any reason at all for doing so. The fickle temporal structure of the film adds nothing at all to it, either in terms narrative or stylistic. Instead, it arrives as a total non sequitur, and comes off as severely and aggressively out of place—perhaps Emmerich saw it employed to greater effect somewhere else, and decided to hawk it for his own?

This, however, is more or less consistent with the approach taken toward the rest of Anonymous. Any moment which calls for emotional or dramatic depth is occasion for a thorough pillaging of Shakespeare’s plays themselves: the film’s utterly contrived romantic couple pull, for instance, from A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Romeo & Juliet for their pillow talk.

And, in what amounts to a truly shameful plagiaristic thrust, the film’s central dramatic montage simply compiles the most climactic moments of Julius Caesar, Hamlet and Macbeth, among others, in an attempt to evoke and convey emotion beyond Emmerich’s own ability.

In the end, the greatest testimony of all to the absolute failure of Anonymous as a cinematic endeavor is that its woeful execution and sterile organic creations overshadow its offensive and ridiculous premise. In the face of an utterly abortive attempt at cinema on a magnitude such as this, it almost ceases to matter who wrote Shakespeare’s plays. Emmerich proves himself content to pick their pockets regardless.

—Chris Bassil

SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE

SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE

Jeffrey Detwiler gives an unhinged performance as Stanley Webber in Little Green Pig’s The Birthday Party.

SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE

PAGE 6

recess noel gallagher’s high flying birds

david lynch

NOEL GALLAGHER’S HIGH FLYING BIRDS SOUR MASH

CRAZY CLOWN TIME PLAY IT AGAIN SAM

David Lynch’s filmmaking oeuvre is probably best classified regionally: after beginning his career with several early films set under carnivalesque, otherworldly atmospheres, Lynch dwelt for a time on small-town America, an obsession which, with works like Blue Velvet and television series Twin Peaks, launched him to widespread recognition and acclaim. From there, the highly unusual auteur moved on to Los Angeles, the setting of Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive and, most recently, Inland Empire.

Crazy Clown Time, Lynch’s first true solo foray into music making, may mark another departure for the long-time director, as the album features little of the distorted Hollywood aesthetic of his latest work. If anything, Crazy Clown Time seems closest to 2010’s Interview Project, in which Lynch and his son drove across the country and back in order to film a series of interviews with seemingly arbitrary roadside individuals. The two projects—together his most recent and most unconventional—do share similarities, but most immediately they are polar opposites: Interview Project resonates as real and genuinely moving, while Crazy Clown Time scans as demented and genuinely creepy.

Musically, Crazy Clown Time is nothing particularly special. Dedicated followers will be pleased to pick out the director’s nasal, buzzing voice from behind all of the filters he applies to it. Apart from that, the album is more valuable for the sounds that don’t stand out: almost all of its fourteen tracks are characterized by an interplay between straightforward, persistent drum patterns in the foreground and a wash of

November 10, 2011

stretching, groaning sustain in the distance.

The dynamic allows tracks to blend into each other, lending the entire album the feel of steady motion through something permanent and unchanging—not unlike a long car ride across the middle of the country. But the effect is schizophrenic as well. Lynch’s high-pitched, insane-asylum vocals, like his films, draw out the psychotic side of the mundane: far from relaxing, the endlessness of the effect becomes taunting, and the excessively repetitive lyrics suggest speakers who are slowly slipping into insanity.

Crazy Clown Time will probably only have value to the initiated, and even then only as a very specific relative of Interview Project.

As different as they seem, they are derived from the same central approach: to infer a fully-fledged story from only four to five minute glimpses at narratives beginning and ending in media res. Together, the two may be coveted by fans as clues to Lynch’s next thematic obsession.

—Chris Bassil

SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE

Liam and Noel Gallagher never exactly had a healthy working relationship. The brothers’ tenure as the leaders of Oasis was marked with infighting and drama; it’s tough to even believe that the band lasted as long as it did.

Alas, Oasis and Noel Gallagher as we once knew them are both no more. Oasis is now Beady Eye, and the departed Noel has released his debut solo album under the moniker, Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds.

Eager to please and best his younger brother, the album comes off as earnest, both to its benefit and detriment. True to Noel’s reputation as a songwriter, the tracks are catchy and identifiable, immediately reminiscent of some of Oasis’ defining hits. Noel’s voice may not be as powerful or unique as his brother’s, but it is still rich and full of emotional verve. “(I Wanna Live In A Dream In My) Record Machine” finds Noel’s singing at its most Liam-esque, and presents a convincing case about Noel’s true value during Oasis’ heyday. It’s evident that, regardless of his personal success, Noel feels as though he has something to prove.

In its rush to please listeners, the band frequently exploits the nostalgia of Oasis fans. Gallagher is quick to utilize similar and repetitive song structures. Tracks here often sound as if they could have been ripped straight from a collection of unreleased Oasis cuts. This is not an indictment of the quality of the music as much as a statement about the rote nature of the record: Noel treads no new ground, and

mostly, it works. But the songs tend to feel weightless and ineffectual, as lines such as, “Keep on chasing down that rainbow/ You’ll never know what you might find” on “Aka…What A Life!” fail to resonate, sounding trite and outdated.

While the band does not steer us in new directions, it provides a fun, if meaningless, diversion from our modern trends. Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds effectively transports the listener back to a time when bleached blond hair was stylish and stadium rock was cool.

—Andrew Lokker

November 10, 2011

recess

McAuliffe adeptly guides Birthday Party

by Katie Zaborsky THE CHRONICLE

Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party is anything but fun and games. Presented by Little Green Pig Theatrical Concern, the 1958 absurdist play centers around the events that occur at an English seaside boardinghouse when two unexpected guests arrive to psychologically torture one of the house’s tenants on his birthday.

Meg (Lenore Field) and Petey Boles (Dan Sipp) are a middle-aged couple who run a boardinghouse with only one permanent occupant, an unstable man named Stanley Webber (Jeffrey Detwiler) who vacillates between nostalgic reminiscences and savage outbursts. The dynamic between Meg and Stanley is equally erratic, and Field successfully toes the line between a bored, flirtatious housewife who makes passes at Stanley and a childless, deluded woman who constantly infantilizes him.

Despite being called The Birthday Party, the titular event in the play is contested— Meg repeatedly reminds Stanley that it is his birthday, but he denies the fact on every occasion, the first implication that things aren’t as they seem.

The arrival of the two strangers, Goldberg (Derrick Ivey) and McCann (Jay O’Berski), fuels the play’s tense atmosphere, and the only reason given for their arrival is to finish a mysterious “job.” What ensues

during their stay can only be described as psychological warfare as Stanley’s birthday party deteriorates from a harmless gathering to a sinister showdown. Ivey brilliantly shapeshifts between a smarmy sycophant and a ruthless tormenter, while O’Berski, the artistic director of Little Green Pig, inspires unease and fear in his portrayal of McCann.

Often labeled a ‘comedy of menace,’ The Birthday Party uncovers hidden realities and the troubled relationships between its characters through unsettling dialogue and bursts of intense gravity among more banal, comedic banter. Director and Duke Professor Jody McAuliffe carefully translates Pinter’s infamous “pauses” and “silences” to create the disquieting ambiguity that colors many of Pinter’s plays.

Since The Birthday Party relies little on concrete information and more on tautological dialogue and cryptic allusions, the play can be difficult to follow without the original text as a guiding tool. McAuliffe, however, successfully adapts an absurdist work—a feat in itself—to the stage, all the while retaining the core information necessary to subtly show the slow destruction of the human psyche.

Little Green Pig’s The Birthday Party will run Thursday-Saturday, Nov. 10-12, at 8pm at Common Ground Theatre.

anonymous

DIR. ROLAND EMMERICH COLUMBIA PICTURES

Much has already been made about the factual and historical underpinnings of Roland Emmerich’s new film Anonymous, based on the theory that Edward de Vere, a 16th century English nobleman, was the true author of Shakespeare’s plays. There is a multitude of inaccuracies at the foundation of the theory, as Shakespeareans both at Duke and elsewhere have been quick to point out, and, if anything, Anonymous does little to cover them up.

But one need not grapple with inaccuracies of fact in order to indict Anonymous as a poorly rendered piece of cinematic garbage. The film opens in the present day, with established Shakespearean actor Derek Jacobi starting a speech on the question of authorship in a crowded theater, before dissolving back to the 16th century, in which we see poet Ben Jonson pursued and then questioned by a group of royal guards. We are then taken back to the same setting five years earlier, and later make it back to a full 40 years before that. From there, Anonymous continues to spasm unpredictably (and unnecessarily) through time and space, while at the same time depicting plays within plays about plays, ad nauseum.

This, however, is not to be mistaken as “playing with” narrative, nor “blowing it up” nor “destructing it,” as all of those things could be misinterpreted as having positive connotations here. Anonymous

PAGE 7

only mishandles its narrative, trying to pull off the same tricks seen in better films, without any reason at all for doing so. The fickle temporal structure of the film adds nothing at all to it, either in terms narrative or stylistic. Instead, it arrives as a total non sequitur, and comes off as severely and aggressively out of place—perhaps Emmerich saw it employed to greater effect somewhere else, and decided to hawk it for his own?

This, however, is more or less consistent with the approach taken toward the rest of Anonymous. Any moment which calls for emotional or dramatic depth is occasion for a thorough pillaging of Shakespeare’s plays themselves: the film’s utterly contrived romantic couple pull, for instance, from A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Romeo & Juliet for their pillow talk.

And, in what amounts to a truly shameful plagiaristic thrust, the film’s central dramatic montage simply compiles the most climactic moments of Julius Caesar, Hamlet and Macbeth, among others, in an attempt to evoke and convey emotion beyond Emmerich’s own ability.

In the end, the greatest testimony of all to the absolute failure of Anonymous as a cinematic endeavor is that its woeful execution and sterile organic creations overshadow its offensive and ridiculous premise. In the face of an utterly abortive attempt at cinema on a magnitude such as this, it almost ceases to matter who wrote Shakespeare’s plays. Emmerich proves himself content to pick their pockets regardless.

—Chris Bassil

SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE

SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE

Jeffrey Detwiler gives an unhinged performance as Stanley Webber in Little Green Pig’s The Birthday Party.

SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE

PAGE 8

recess

November 10, 2011

ZONE ONE from page 3

SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE

The zombie-apocalypse novel Zone One is the latest from New York author Colson Whitehead, who has published five previous novels and written nonfiction for The New York Times, Salon, and Grantland, among other publications.

flashbacks. An encounter with a pack of skels is joltingly interrupted by a reminiscence to Mark Spitz’s pre-Zone days, hoofing it between small camps of survivors. The schizophrenic sequence of events might be Whitehead’s way of suggesting the flimsiness of the new human order. Either way, it effectively destroys both narrative and suspense. A zombie novel needs one or the other.

Furthermore, one never feels comfortable with the protagonist. Mark Spitz it at once a vehicle for Whitehead’s criticism of consumerist America and apparently the most canny of the remaining humans. He is altogether blasé about the rhetoric of reconstruction–the unconvincing ‘American Phoenix’ transitional authority which partners with corporations to sponsor certain scavenged goods. His is a life of failed relationships, so this world of transient security actually suits him. Sympathy being largely absent in Mark Spitz, why should a reader care what becomes of him as he enters the pulsating sea of the dead, alone?

Whitehead valiantly attempts to straddle the precarious boundary of genre and literary fiction, but like his leading man, the end product of Zone One is mediocre.

—Jake Stanley

Interested in writing for Recess?

E-mail ross.green@duke.edu

Sports

BLUE ZONE

The Chronicle

THURSDAY November 10, 2011

The Kings of Tobacco Road game, which will pit Kyrie Irving and other Duke alums against ex-North Carolina players, has been postponed.

Read online for the latest.

www.dukechroniclesports.com

MEN’S BASKETBALL

Whitfield and Kelly improving year by year Jordan make dynamic duo

by Zac Elder THE CHRONICLE

Friend and coworker of former North Carolina superstar Michael Jordan, president and chief operating officer of the NBA’s Charlotte Bobcats, business school and law school graduate—Fred Whitfield is a man of many talents.

A Greensboro, N.C. native, Whitfield oversees the dayto-day activities in the Bobcats’ front office, from negotiating sponsorships with major corporations to making sure all Charlotte basketball fans enjoy their experience when they come see his team at Time Warner Cable Arena. Even the stadium’s name itself comes courtesy of Whitfield, who negotiated the television and naming-rights contract with cable giant Time Warner.

But Whitfield’s job with the Bobcats is just the latest position in a career that has taken him from assistant Fred Whitfield basketball coach to attorney to director of player development for Nike.

Whitfield discussed his winding career path Wednesday night when he visited campus for a presentation sponsored by the Fuqua Business School Media, Entertainment and Sports Club.

Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of Whitfield’s career is the manner in which he came to befriend Jordan, and how that friendship has shaped his life and career.

The two met at a basketball camp at Campbell University, where Whitfield had been an all-Big South basketball player, and they became close friends. Following Jordan’s entry into the NBA, high-level management firms took serious interest in Whitfield, believing that he was the key to adding Jordan to their portfolio of clients. After Jordan chose Falk Associates Management Enterprises to be his agents, Whitfield followed suit and accepted a job at that same firm.

Eight years later Whitfield was once again referred by Jordan to a new job, this time as the director of player personnel for the Washington Wizards, who had just signed Jordan to their roster. In Washington, Whitfield got his first taste of the administrative aspects of an NBA franchise. He contributed to trade talks, player evaluations, staff hirings and scouting. But when Jordan retired from the NBA in 2003, Whitfield likewise left the Wizards, returning to Nike to work under the Jordan Brand. There he negotiated contracts with athletes and helped to establish business operations. In 2006, when Jordan became a minority owner of the Bobcats, he again tapped Whitfield, bringing him aboard as president of the Bobcats franchise.

Wednesday he not only spoke about his role as the Bobcats president, but also about his relationship with Jordan.

“I’ve been fortunate to be able to work alongside [Jordan] and support a lot of the growth that he has been able to build with his brand personally,” Whitfield said. “Now it’s just a lot of fun to be able to work with him on a day-to-day basis.”

Whitfield also talked about how the Bobcats’ management is attempting to turn an expansion team in just its eighth season into a perennial playoff contender. He spoke specifically about problems that he saw within the organization upon his arrival.

“When I got there, we had several things we really needed to change and clean up,” Whitfield said. “We needed a new TV deal and we needed a naming-rights deal that would give us credibility in the corporate community.”

With Jordan as an owner and Whitfield as president, the Bobcats have turned a haggard expansion program into a competitive NBA franchise. One step in this direction took place in June 2009, when the Bobcats selected former Duke SEE WHITFIELD ON PAGE 8

TYLER SEUC/THE CHRONICLE

Ryan Kelly has showed increased aggressiveness with the ball this season, and his team will rely on him to take a leadership role in the offense.

by Alex Young THE CHRONICLE

Ryan Kelly was a solid role player for Duke last season, but there was a point where it looked like he was poised to expand his role significantly.

With 16:31 left in the second half of the Jan. 27 game at Cameron Indoor Stadium against Boston College, he pulled down an offensive rebound but missed the putback. With that, his streak of 18 consecutive field goals came to an end. Although the streak was bound to conclude at some point, it showed that he had the potential to become a legitimate scoring threat.

Kelly finished that game with 14 points, completing arguably the best stretch of his career, in which he averaged 15 points and six rebounds over three games while shooting 84 percent from the field. The Raleigh native

had once been the 12th-ranked prospect in the nation according to Scout.com, and it appeared as though he was finally living up to that potential.

The rest of that season, though, Kelly returned to his role-player status, averaging only six points a game during the regular season from there on out.

“It wasn’t that I wasn’t confident last year, but I went through ebbs and flows and I didn’t fight through it the best I could,” Kelly said.

The talent that earned Kelly high praise as a recruit has shone through during Kelly’s hot streaks. His excellent work ethic and basketball IQ have helped him highlight the strengths of his skill set, especially his jumpshot, but he has at times struggled to create his own shot or get to the SEE KELLY ON PAGE 8

VOLLEYBALL

Duke faces second-place Miami

by Jackie Klauberg THE CHRONICLE

After tallying two key wins against conference opponents Virginia and Virginia Tech last weekend, Duke returns to the floor Thursday at 7 p.m. as they take on another ACC foe, Miami at Cameron Indoor Stadium.

The Hurricanes (21-3, 12-3 in the ACC) are also coming off a successful weekend at home, recording wins against N.C. State and Miami North Carolina. When the Blue Devils (17-7, 11-4) made their trip to Coral vs.

Gables earlier this season, they were swept in three sets. But Miami head Duke coach Nicole Lantagne Welch knows that this contest will be more competiTHURSDAY, 7 p.m.

Cameron Indoor Stadium tive than the last time the teams met.

“First of all, I know [the Blue Devils are] playing a lot better than [they] were at that point and I see that not only from [their] results, but also on tape,” Welch said. “They have changed some things with the lineup and have had a lot of success since then.”

The Hurricanes are currently second in the ACC, a spot ahead of the Blue Devils, who are tied for third with North Carolina and immediately behind Florida State, who will SEE VOLLEYBALL ON PAGE 8

CHELSEA PIERONI/CHRONICLE FILE PHOTO

Duke head coach Jolene Nagel leads her team against second-place Miami Thursday at home after it was swept in Coral Gables last month.

8 | THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2011

KELLY from page 7 rim off the bounce.

If the Blue Devils are going to make a run come April, they are going to need the Ryan Kelly from those three games last January against N.C. State, Wake Forest and Boston College.

Fortunately for Duke, if the four games played in China and Dubai this summer are any indication, that improved Ryan Kelly may be the one that shows up.

TYLER SEUC/THE CHRONICLE

Ryan Kelly is an excellent finisher in space, and continues to show improvement in more physical situations.

THE CHRONICLE

Throughout the trip, Kelly led the Blue Devils with 15 points per game on a stellar 67.6-percent performance from the floor.

He shot a strong 44.4 percent from behind the arc and ranked second on the team with 8.3 rebounds per contest. The rebounding performance was particularly important for a player whose lack of strength has caused him problems on the boards in the past. Upon returning from China, his teammates praised him as the team’s most improved player.

“I’m glad that my teammates see that in me because I worked really hard this summer,” Kelly said. “Most of them were here this summer and witnessed me working very hard and they worked hard themselves. I knew I made a huge jump from my freshman year to my sophomore year, and I needed to continue to make that same type of jump from my sophomore to my junior [season].”

Kelly was referring to his jump from non-factor—limited to only 6.5 minutes a game as a freshman—to the 20-minuteper-game role player he was last year. He upped his points per game from 1.2 to 6.6 between his first and second campaigns.

The Blue Devils will certainly need Kelly to make another leap with the holes left by Kyrie Irving, Nolan Smith, and Kyle Singler. That trio accounted for more than half of Duke’s points last year.

To help fill those holes, Kelly will have to put in plenty of work beyond the hours he logged this summer. But that has never been a deterrent to him in the past.

“I work hard,” Kelly said. “That’s something I pride myself on. I have God-given height, but I don’t have a lot of other characteristics of a great basketball player athletically. I have to work hard every single day to improve those aspects of my physical nature and of my game. I’ve done that every chance I’ve gotten, so that’s what’s made me a better player.”

WHITFIELD from page 7 star Gerald Henderson with the 12th pick in the NBA Draft. He was a bench player for the 2009-10 team, which made the playoffs for the first time in franchise history. But both Whitfield and Jordan know that their franchise is capable of much more.

“We are building and putting the pieces in place to help sustain success rather than barely squeaking our way into [the playoffs] like we did two years ago,” Whitfield said. “Mi-

VOLLEYBALL from page 7 bring a sterling 15-0 conference record to Cameron Indoor Stadium Sunday.

In many areas, the Blue Devils appear to be very evenly matched with Miami. Duke’s average of 17.4 digs per game ranks second in the ACC only to the Hurricanes’ 18.9. On the individual side, Blue Devil star setter Kellie Catanach’s 11.0 assists per game follow closely at the heels of Miami’s Katie Gallagher, who leads the conference with an average of 11.4 per game. The Hurricanes also boast the ACC leader in hitting percentage—Ali Becker at 39.8 percent—but the runner-up is Duke junior middle blocker Christiana Gray.

Becker leads a Miami attack that paces the conference with a hitting percentage of 27.1, but Welch nonetheless respects the Blue Devils’ offensive game.

“We know that Duke has a potent offense and their system is very hard to stop,” Welch said. “In terms of attacking their defense, we look to run a variety of offenses to keep them off balance.”

The Blue Devils have another advantage this time around—they are 12-1 at home.

“We also know they play great in Cameron,” Welch said. “Even though we won

chael’s goal is to have our franchise where we can compete at least for a conference championship and play for a world championship.”

Although he has bounced around the realms of business and professional basketball for most of his career, Whitfield seems set on staying in Charlotte, at least for now. Whitfield claimed that in ten years he would probably still be right where he is now, directing the dayto-day operations of the Bobcats. But given his varied experience since meeting Jordan all those years ago, it is hard to know where he’ll be a decade from now. in three down in Coral Gables, they were all close games. I’m expecting a huge battle and back-and-forth and a lot of great plays on both sides of the net.”

DAVID KORNBERG/CHRONICLE FILE PHOTO

Christiana Gray is second in the ACC in hitting percentage only to Thursday opponent Ali Becker of Miami.

CLASSIFIEDS ANNOUNCEMENTS

HOMES FOR RENT

DUKE IN ISTANBUL/ TURKEY INFO MTG:

A LOT OF CARS INC. Most vehicles $595-$795 down $250$280/month.

4 BEDROOM HOME FOR RENT: 5 minutes from Duke. 2 baths, large living room, kitchen/dining combination, washer/ dryer incl. Family or ideal for 3 students. 919.620.7880 or 919.491.6055 (cell)

Ready for something a bit different? Why not study in Istanbul? The Duke in Turkey (summer) and Duke in Istanbul (fall/ spring) programs will hold an information meeting on Monday, November 14, at 4:30 pm, in 320 Languages.

MEETINGS

Both programs are open to undergraduates of all majors. No prior knowledge of Turkish language is required.

250+ Vehicles. Layaway option w/$500.

Financing Guaranteed!

Duke ID $150 discount. 20+ cars between $999-$2995 cash. www.alotofcarsnc.com. Owned

by Duke Alumni 919-220-7155

HELP WANTED COMPUTER SAVVY PERSON NEEDED to help diagnose/solve problems with home computer. Call 336-364-1241 and ask for Jack or Shirley for details.

BARTENDERS ARE IN DEMAND!

Earn $20-$35/hr. in a recessionproof job. 1 or 2 week classes & weekend classes. 100% job placement assistance. HAVE FUN! MAKE MONEY! MEET PEOPLE! Back to school tuition rates as low as $199(Limited Time Only! with student ID). CALL NOW!! 919-676-0774, www. cocktailmixer.com/duke.html

DUKE IN BERLIN INFORMATION MEETING

Sudents of all majors are invited to learn more about studying in Berlin, for either the semester/academic year or summer, at an information session on Thursday, November 10, at 6 pm, in Old Chem 116. See the Global Education Office for Undergraduates website at global. duke.edu/geo or call 684-2174 for more information.

This event is part of Duke’s German Campus Week (November 7-12). See german.duke.edu for a listing of events.

Additional information can be found on the Global Education Office for Undergraduate (GEOU) website at global.duke.edu/ geo.

TRAVEL/VACATION BAHAMAS SPRING BREAK

$189 for 7-Days. All prices include: Round-trip luxury cruise with food. Accommodations on the island at your choice of 13 resorts. Appalachia Travel. www.

BahamaSun.com 800-867-5018

Answer to puzzle Recess ~ today!

THE CHRONICLE

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2011 | 9

Diversions Shoe Chris Cassatt and Gary Brookins

Dilbert Scott Adams

Doonesbury Garry Trudeau

The Chronicle how we’d end the nba lockout:

Ink Pen Phil Dunlap

make chris broussard the commish: .......................................... nick who’s nate james?: .................................................. nickyle, sanette promote the top 30 college teams: ...........................michael, anna i’ll play: ..................................................................................... drew replacements league: ................................................. tom, ctcusack occupy nba arenas: .................................. yy, david, chelsea, kenzie going overseas: ......................................................... james, melissa obama will fix it: ................................................................... megan Barb Starbuck might mess around and get a triple-double: ... Barb Student Advertising Manager: .........................................Amber Su Student Account Executive: ...................................Michael Sullivan Account Representatives: .......Cort Ahl, James Sinclair, Will Geary, Jen Bahadur, Courtney Clower, Peter Chapin, Daniel Perlin, Emily Shiau, Andy Moore, Allison Rhyne Creative Services Student Manager: .......................... Megan Meza Creative Services: ................Lauren Bledsoe, Danjie Fang, Mao Hu Caitlin Johnson, Erica Kim, Brianna Nofil Business Assistant: ........................................................Joslyn Dunn

Sudoku

Fill in the grid so that every row, every column and every 3x3 box contains the digits 1 through 9. (No number is repeated in any column, row or box.)

www.sudoku.com

The Independent Daily at Duke University

The Chronicle

10 | THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2011

Power to the people On July 1, Duke Energy Duke Energy’s proposal petitioned the North Carolina pays only lip service to fairness.

Utilities Commission to raise But worse, it may also violate rates 17 percent on average for North Carolina rules limiting Durham residents. If approved, the amount utility companies this hike would place an unfair can charge customers for tranburden on consitions to cleansumers, espeer and more editorial cially those who efficient energy have lost either employment or sources. The power provider financial security in the wake of claims that rate increases will the recession. cover, among other things, the For many in Durham, hand- costs required to comply with ing over an additional $18 each state and federal standards for month to keep the heat on will energy efficiency. strain already tight budgets. AdThe North Carolina Reditionally, Duke Energy’s status newable Energy and Energy as a legal monopoly means that Efficiency Portfolio Standard consumers cannot switch power (REPS) indicates, however, providers. The proposal would that in order to recoup costs exploit both the lack of com- incurred by complying with petition and the inelasticity of REPS, energy companies can demand for energy, and violates charge consumers an amount citizens’ trust in companies not that reflects unavoidable costs subject to market forces. as long as that amount does

“

Hooray! Duke lands a recruit who actually WANTS an academic experience!

—“jcolatch” commenting on the story “Sulaimon officially commits.”

See more at www.dukechronicle.com.

LETTERS POLICY The Chronicle welcomes submissions in the form of letters to the editor or guest columns. Submissions must include the author’s name, signature, department or class, and for purposes of identification, phone number and local address.

Letters should not exceed 325 words; contact the editorial department for information regarding guest columns.

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not exceed $12 annually per customer.

If Duke Energy’s proposed rate hike exists to cover the cost of compliance with environmental standards, then it exceeds the legal limit by $204 per person. Exceeding the regulated price increase by 1700 percent demands more justification than others costs, like plant maintenance.

Moreover, the company must express any REPS-related increase in the form of an annual rider and not a general rate hike to ensure both that a customer’s bill reflects the actual annual cost of compliance and that the company does not permanently increase prices in order to cover a temporary cost. Duke Energy has not indicated that it will employ an annual rider.

We find it surprising that Duke Energy has offered a proposal that seems to violate energy efficiency regulations, given that its CEO sits on the board of the Nicholas School for Environmental Policy Solutions.

Regardless of its legality, the proposed price increase lacks sufficient economic justification. Research on the costeffectiveness of improved energy efficiency indicates that, in spite of high initial costs, transitioning to more efficient energy sources saves money over time. Duke Energy’s insulation from market fluctuations and its long-term guarantee of market share means that it will undoubtedly recoup its initial costs of complying with REPS. Because transitioning will involve very little financial risk

and almost guarantees longterm profits, the utility cannot justify the exorbitant hike.

Duke Energy must shift away from dirty coal and improve energy efficiency, but financing that shift with an indefensibly high rate increase will only hurt Durham residents. The North Carolina Utilities Commission has recommended a rate increase of 4.8 percent. Although any increase will have adverse effects on community members, we support a more reasonable rate hike as long as the increased revenue serves to improve the efficiency of existing energy plants, facilitates the transition to renewable energy and complies with REPS. For Duke Energy, going green should involve improving energy efficiency, not picking the pockets of consumers.

Sharrow the road

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SANETTE TANAKA, Editor NICHOLAS SCHWARTZ, Managing Editor NICOLE KYLE, News Editor CHRIS CUSACK, Sports Editor MELISSA YEO, Photography Editor MEREDITH JEWITT, Editorial Page Editor CORY ADKINS, Editorial Board Chair MELISSA DALIS, Co-Managing Editor for Online JAMES LEE, Co-Managing Editor for Online DEAN CHEN, Director of Online Operations JONATHAN ANGIER, General Manager TOM GIERYN, Sports Managing Editor KATIE NI, Design Editor LAUREN CARROLL, University Editor ANNA KOELSCH, University Editor CAROLINE FAIRCHILD, Local & National Editor YESHWANTH KANDIMALLA, Local & National Editor ASHLEY MOONEY, Health & Science Editor JULIAN SPECTOR, Health & Science Editor TYLER SEUC, News Photography Editor CHRIS DALL, Sports Photography Editor ROSS GREEN, Recess Editor MAGGIE LOVE, Recess Managing Editor CHELSEA PIERONI, Recess Photography Editor SOPHIA PALENBERG, Online Photo Editor DREW STERNESKY, Editorial Page Managing Editor CHRISTINE CHEN, Wire Editor SAMANTHA BROOKS, Multimedia Editor MOLLY HIMMELSTEIN, Special Projects Editor for Video CHRISTINA PEÑA, Towerview Editor RACHNA REDDY, Towerview Editor NATHAN GLENCER, Towerview Photography Editor MADDIE LIEBERBERG, Towerview Creative Director TAYLOR DOHERTY, Special Projects Editor CHRISTINA PEÑA, Special Projects Editor for Online LINDSEY RUPP, Senior Editor TONI WEI, Senior Editor COURTNEY DOUGLAS, Recruitment Chair CHINMAYI SHARMA, Blog Editor MARY WEAVER, Operations Manager CHRISSY BECK, Advertising/Marketing Director BARBARA STARBUCK, Creative Director REBECCA DICKENSON, Chapel Hill Ad Sales Manager The Chronicle is published by the Duke Student Publishing Company, Inc., a non-profit corporation independent of Duke University. The opinions expressed in this newspaper are not necessarily those of Duke University, its students, faculty, staff, administration or trustees. Unsigned editorials represent the majority view of the editorial board. Columns, letters and cartoons represent the views of the authors.

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ou may have noticed the recent appearance The sharrows complement recent efforts to esof painted white bicycles under a double ar- tablish bicycle infrastructure, including bike racks row on campus streets. They are sharrows, and shower facilities, and to improve commuter and they come with a message: It’s incentives. They should result in time to share the road. the continued growth in popularThese awesomely hip shared-lane ity of cycling as a viable commuting markings are a nationally recognized option, despite the limitations of symbol alerting road users that bicyexisting infrastructure. cles have a right to occupy the lane Recently released statistics from of traffic. In addition to alerting and Duke Parking and Transportation slowing drivers, the arrows serve to indicate that more than 520 people indicate to cyclists the appropriate registered as bike commuters, liz bloomhardt are direction of travel. roughly 60 percent of whom are green devil Recognizing that many streets on graduate students. These individucampus are not able to accommoals are likely to live between two date a separate bike lane, the sharrows help tell and five miles from campus. This makes the Dukeboth drivers and bikers that cyclists have a right to Durham connection to campus critical for heightmove into the center of the travel lane. ened safety door-to-door. Duke should continue There are several scenarios in which we might to partner with the city to make these connections acknowledge this to be safer than staying on the a viable priority. side of the road. For one, this helps to ensure safe The sharrow program also enables the continpassing of parked cars by cyclists and gives people ued encouragement of undergraduate students exiting parked vehicles enough room to open to bring bikes to campus and to utilize the highly doors. In addition, it also places cyclists in a more popular Duke Bikes program. visible position to cars approaching the roadway Another opportunity to expand the bike user from side streets and driveways. base will continue to grow as bus and other transit These sharrows play an important role in bik- options in Durham mature with the passage of the ing safety. The N.C. Department of Transporta- half-cent sales tax increase in Tuesday’s election. tion’s data on bicycle crashes reported in North Continued pressure to prioritize bike-friendly Carolina between 2005 and 2009 indicate that connections with new transit options will augment 7.8 percent of collisions involving a motor vehi- the success of the future transit system. cle and a cyclist occurred when the motorist was Future harmony of the various transit modes overtaking the cyclist. Sharrows should help. in using the shared-road resource will require acBecause bicycles move more slowly, vehicular knowledgement on the parts of all road users. traffic must adjust their speed accordingly. On Ultimately, the sharrows can only do so much campus, where the speed limits don’t exceed 25 to keep everyone aware and safe. It’s up to bikers mph, the sharrow effect may simply serve to re- to clearly communicate their intentions to drivers inforce this limit. That’s safer for everyone, in- and those around them. All parties must follow cluding pedestrians, who always have the right the law and obey traffic signals. Also, wear a helof way! met when you’re on your bike. A bad hair day is One place you won’t find sharrows is on the worth another bad hair day! paths and walkways around campus. Pedestrians For more discussion of bike related issues and have the right of way in these spaces and it is dan- to find more information, I encourage the bike gerous for cyclists to ride through these areas. A community at Duke to visit http://www.bikeduke. dismount policy, particularly for the heavily traf- com to keep track of news and information about ficked Main Quad and Bryan Center Plaza are ap- bike commuting at Duke. propriate and encouraged.

The introduction of the sharrow to campus Liz Bloomhardt is a fifth-year graduate student in streets is not intended to address the remaining earth and ocean sciences. Her column runs every other need for a cross-campus, bike-friendly connection. Thursday.

Write for the editorial pages! Email mlj14 for a spring column application.

Want to join the editorial board? Email cka6.

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ost people are surprised when I tell them some rather specific cultural stereotypes. Such assumpwhat Argentine food is like. I have to admit tions are largely propagated by the entertainment inI was, too. There is an idea of Argentine dustry. The trope of the “spicy Latina” (what one blogfood, one that it colorful and spicy. ger identified as the close cousin of the But the surprising reality is that Argen“sassy black woman” trope) is portrayed tines tend to shy away from almost evas a sultry, quick-tempered seductress ery spice, except for salt, and the only (think Michelle Rodriguez in just about colors that make a regular appearance anything). Through the trope of the on the Argentine plate are the brown spicy Latina, among others, an idea of slow-cooked meat and the white of about Latin culture emerges, one that Italian-style bread. has come to overshadow much of what “Really?” my incredulous listeners ask, maggie lafalce we think about Latin America. It is this “But isn’t Latin-American food spicy?” idea, this exaggerated simplification of On a larger level, this question confuses southern highlander at least 590 million people, that unforme. What exactly is “Latin America” and tunately sums up our knowledge about how do we define it, both culturally and politically? Latin America in a single word: spicy.

What is implied when we define something, or someIt is just as interesting to consider the way we, as one, as “Latin American” or “Latino?” residents of the United States, describe ourselves: The term “Latino” was originally a construct of the American.

U.S. Census Bureau, created as a more inclusive alterI have known more than one Argentine, not to mennative to “Hispanic.” In itself, the term conveys very tion a Venezuelan and a Chilean, who take issue with our little. It is devoid of any specific indication of race, use of the word “American” to refer specifically to citias the history of Latin America is one of a mixing of zens of the United States. As they see it, they live in the slaves from Africa, indigenous populations and Euro- Americas, and so the term American, or “Americano” pean colonizers. Likewise, the word does not refer to in Spanish, should refer to them as well. In fact, Spanany particular country of origin and doesn’t specify ish has a word to describe a citizen of the United States, language, culture or religion. In fact, as it is used in “estadounidense,” that implies a distinction between an the United States, the term really only tells us that American and someone from the United States. This the person lives or originally came from somewhere word does not have an exact equivalent in English, but it south of the U.S. border. would be something like “United Statesian.”

In this way, it seems to corral otherwise dissimilar The United States has taken ownership of the word groups of people into one vaguely defined category, “American,” and the term that would describe an enthus resulting in the cultural “othering” of Latin tire hemisphere of people now refers specifically to the America. citizens of a single country. In a way, calling our country If we consider the origins of the lexicon used to “America” seems a lexical extension of a pattern of U.S. describe Latin America, we can see a pattern. The attempts to establish economic, political and cultural phrase “Latin America” was first used by Napoleon III control over the region. The U.S. pursuit of hegemonic of France in a campaign to exert imperial control over control over Latin America has shaded every page of Latin America by implying cultural similarity within the region’s history, from the Congress for Cultural the entire region. Even at the beginning, the vocabu- Freedom’s campaign against the communist poet Pablary used to describe the region attempted to fabricate lo Neruda to U.S. support for some of the region’s most some kind of overall cohesion or homogeneity within notorious dictators, including Augusto Pinochet.

Latin America with the objective of political control.

The history of U.S. intervention in Latin AmerDefinitions of “Latin America” frequently try to ica is but one part of what connects these two repoint out some overarching factor that allows for gions. Besides sharing a geographic hemisphere, some degree of similarity in the region. Often, the the United States is tied to Latin America through common factor that is identified is the socioeco- various transnational markets, both licit and illicit, nomic legacy of a colonial past. But this continues and through immigration between the two regions. the pattern of defining Latin America and its popu- As the U.S. population of persons identifying themlations in terms of their relation to outside forces. selves as Latinos continues to grow, the distinction we Cohesion is either derived from a common history of now carefully make between “American” and “Latin western intervention and imperialism or is defined American” may begin to disappear. Maybe this will by a common geography: south of the United States. lend validity to our use of “American” to identify ourBoth of these perspectives omit references to a clear selves, or maybe, though I doubt it, we will become cultural similarity within the region and categorize United Statesians.

Latin America on the basis of its relationship with the United States or Western Europe.

Maggie LaFalce is a Trinity junior and is currently Although “latino” technically doesn’t tell us studying abroad in Buenos Aires. Her column runs every much about a person, the term has come to represent other Thursday.

lettertotheeditor Clarification regarding the move of the political science department I read the op-ed, “Winds of change” by Antonio Segalini, in The Chronicle Nov. 9 with interest. I appreciate his concern for the political science department, the implications of its proposed move to Gross Chem and the process that has gone into determining whether and how that move will occur. Any move of a department, which necessarily involves some disruption for faculty, students and staff, deserves careful thought, no matter how necessary or inevitable. I would suggest, however, that the writer would have been well advised to contact Dr. [Tallman] Trask [III] or myself to find out what we actually intend, rather than rely on secondhand information or his own speculation. Here are the facts: It is a firm commitment, communicated clearly to the faculty of political science, that Gross Chem will be a transitional site for a period of two years or less, after which political science will have a fully integrated, unified and renovated permanent home in Old Chem. The space there into which the department is moving is currently occupied by the

earth and ocean sciences department of the Nicholas School, which will be moving to the new wing of the LSRC designed for the school, when that is completed. That move will, for the first time, allow the Nicholas School to house all its Durham-campus faculty under one roof.

As this sequence suggests, the process of moving any department is a complex one, necessarily involving multiple steps, especially when no new space is being built. There has been a great deal of planning around these moves, the final stage of which was set off by David Rubenstein’s generous gift to complete the renovation of Perkins Library, but much of which had gone on earlier. Dr. Trask or I would have been happy to discuss all of this with Mr. Segalini had he inquired, and the result would have been a far better informed article that would have described an important change that will, after some unavoidable disruption, ultimately benefit faculty and students alike.

Peter Lange Provost and Thomas F. Langford University Professor of Political Science

Pilgrimage in a burial shroud

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his time last year, I was in Mecca. Almost three million other individuals, journeying from all corners of the globe, joined me at this holy site. Pilgrimage to Mecca, or Hajj, is one of the five pillars of Islam, required of all able-bodied Muslims at least once in their lifetimes before they die. For the nearly two billion Muslims worldwide, Hajj season brings with it the festivities and celebrations of Eid al-Adha, or “the ahmad jitan festival of the sacrifice,” which indecent family man took place this past Sunday.

Many around the world do not perform their Hajj until very late in life, when they have finally saved up enough money to undertake such a trip and when, aware of their own mortality, they are concerned about the state of their souls. So why was a 20-yearold Duke student on a leave of absence performing one of Islam’s holiest rites?

The simple, incomplete answer: My mother was finally planning on going herself and wanted me to accompany her. Parents have proposed worse in the name of religion— for instance, binding you up and offering you as a sacrifice to God. All things considered, getting a free trip for a oncein-a-lifetime experience didn’t sound so bad.

But Hajj is no light vacation. It’s a serious undertaking that requires patience and dedication and encourages deep spiritual reflection. Initially, I was extremely opposed to going at all. I didn’t feel ready. I wasn’t convinced of the idea that a religious experience was somehow supposed to help me out of the depression that led to my leave of absence in the first place. I wanted peace and rest, not a trip to an extremely patriarchal and oppressive kingdom.

Eventually I surrendered my apprehensions and, as a result, I am still reaping the rewards of the experience to this day.

Many of the rites of Hajj find their origins in the mythology surrounding Hagar, the Egyptian handmaiden of Sarah, wife of Abraham and mother to Ishmael. Whether it’s drinking water from a well, scurrying between two hills or even journeying to the Arabian desert, all of these acts are echoes from the life of an African slave-woman cast out from her home to fend for herself and her son in the harsh wilderness.

Reflecting on that mythology and observing the world around me, it was impossible not to gain a greater sense of social justice. I was reminded of the profound effect that Hajj had on Malcolm X and his thoughts on race in America. That is not to say that Mecca is a model for the ultimate egalitarian society—in fact, it’s far from it—but that the pilgrimage offers insights into what human compassion can look like in the face of gross injustice.

Now that I’m back at Duke, steeped in academic reading and a seemingly endless amount of assignments, what does this experience mean? To me, the question is what does my university experience mean in my larger life journey? How do I lead a good and just life and how do I help create the world in which I would like to lead it?

Celebrating Eid al-Adha this past week offered further insight into these questions. A community, whether it’s centered on faith or academics or sports or simply on common humanity, is a place where you feel safe enough to be vulnerable and to ask tough questions, but it’s also a place to celebrate. Celebration consists of jubilant expression and sharing, both of what’s common and more importantly of what’s different. On a Monday night in Blue Express, students from all different backgrounds danced, ate and laughed together as pilgrims half a world away were preparing to head back home. As the end of the semester approaches, I had the opportunity to remember what makes all the hard work worth it: precious moments of joy shared with others.

During Hajj, I dressed in two simple white cotton cloths, the same shrouds that Muslims are usually buried in—a somber reminder of death. To live my daily life like this would be overwhelming (and not to mention uncomfortable), but in a way I already do. If I am not walking around in a burial shroud all day, I am at the very least walking around in a body that will one day be buried. But as long as I am still able to walk, I may as well dance and sing too. This desert can be a harsh place to journey, but it can transform into an oasis of celebration when people you love surround you.

Ahmad Jitan is a Trinity junior. His column runs every other Thursday.

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