VOICE The Georgetown
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SEPTEMBER 11, 2015
THE GEORGETOWN VOICE Volume 48 • Issue 2
staff editor-in-chief Chris Almeida Managing editor daniel varghese Executive editors Noah buyon, christopher castano, lara fishbane news editor ryan miller assitant editors Courtnie baek, lilah burke, Liz teitz Leisure editor Elizabeth baker assistant editors Jon block, dinah farrell, brian Mcmahon Sports Editor Joe pollicino assistant editor max roberts halftime Leisure editors Mike bergin, erika bullock Sports editors alex boyd, rob ponce assistant sports editor matt jasko Voices editor graham piro assistant editor charles evain
Editorials
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The Voice Speaks:A Crowded, Lonely Life Kenneth Lee
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Not NSOver the Top Julia Usiak
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A Tale of Two Countries Elizabeth Cahan
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Bulldog Front Meets Bulldog Alley Ryan Miller
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What’s the Plan? Elizabeth Teitz and Thomas Stubna
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Leisure Lesiure Staff
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design Cover editor megan howell editors eleanor sugrue, ellie yaeger spread editors pam shu, sophie super copy Chief suzanne trivette editors Lauren chung, bianca clark, jupiter El-asmar, Alex garvery, rachel greene, madison kaigh, julian sena Editorial Board chair Laura Kurek associate editors marisa hawley, kevin huggard, sabrina kayser, christina libre Staff writers sourabh bhat, Emilia brahm, Emmy buck, Caitlyn cobb, brendan crowley, Patrick drown, emmanuel elone, joe laposata, maneesha panja, Brendan saunders, thomas stubna, manuela Tobias, colleen zorc staff photographers Ambika ahuja, saman asdjodi, jen costa, megan howell, gavin myers, freddy rosas, Taryn Shaw, andrew Sullivan staff designers Lizzy blumburg, river davis, katie hyland, Johnny jung webmaster kenneth lee photo editor joshua raftis
editor@georgetownvoice.com Leavey 424 Box 571066 Georgetown University Washington, DC 20057
The opinions expressed in The Georgetown Voice do not necessarily represent the views of the administration, faculty or students of Georgetown University, unless specifically stated. Columns, advertisements, cartoons and opinion pieces do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editorial Board or the General Board of The Georgetown Voice. The university subscribes to the principle of responsible freedom of expression of its student editors.
general manager tim annick
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THE GEORGETOWN VOICE
read more on georgetownvoice.com sports
Leisure
news
Mmm Mmm Good
The Halftime Brunch Bracket
Gaston Hall Reopens
Campbell’s two goals help Hoyas down No. 1 UCLA: The Georgetown Men’s Soccer Team defeated UCLA at Shaw Field over Labor Day weekend. Check out our post-game account.
Over the next few weeks, ten D.C. brunch spots will battle it out for the hearts and minds of the staffers at Halftime, the Voice’s sports and leisure blog.
“Gaston Hall reopens with new and improved features” The university has completed renovations in Gaston Hall with a structurally improved stage and improved audio-visual capabilities. Rangila will return to Gaston this fall.
Emmy’s Crossword Puzzle
By Kathleen Coughlin
ACROSS 1. Word of regret 5. Highlander 9. Gather wool 14. Show team spirit 15. Aviation prefix 16. Truancy 17. Wise man 18. Metric measure 19. Cup part 20. Drama nom about a women’s prison 22. Nudges 24. Coffee alternative 25. Transparent actor nom 27. Elizabethan and Victorian 31. Continental currency 32. Verily 34. Network with 42 noms 35. German river 38. Opposite of WSW 40. Brown shade
42. “Take _____ down memory lane” 44. Hankering 46. _____ Cornelius, the prospector 47. Best variety/reality show nom, with The 48. Coagulate 50. Classify 51. Singular 52. Move after a zig 55. Towards the sunset 57. Take it easy 59. Joins the bandwagon 61. Rascal 64. Quidditch player 66. Andean animal 68. Chocolate source 71. Cat sound 73. Persia, now 74. Golf clubs 75. Burn soother 76. “If all ___ fails…” 77. Set of British period nom
78. Greek commune 79. Back talk
28. Old card game 29. Detest 30. Meager DOWN 31. Ariel’s prince 1. Jargon 33. Sketch comedy 2. Lead actor nom in nom woman eponymous comedy 35. Relish series 36. Make amends 3. Cardiologist’s 37. Astrological ram concern 39. Brain scan, briefly 4. Shock 41. Banish 5. Droop 43. Candy with a col6. Will be held on lectible dispenser September 20 45. Show for which 7. Toothpaste Jeff Daniels has a nom 8. Tree-climbing girl, 49. Titanic star stereotypically 53. Triumphant cry 9. ___ n’ tell 54. Lost it 10. ___ of Cards & of 56. Outstanding Lies have noms variety nom for 40th 11. Ages and ages anniversary special 12. Dog show org. 58. Steak order 13. Bread choice 60. Half of a sketch 21. A/C measurement series nom pair 23. Vein contents? 61. French first lady 26. Common verb Bruni
62. Accumulate 63. Homeland acress nom 65. Simple 67. Don Cheatle’s nom for House of ____ 68. Spy org. 69. Sphere 70. Corn on the ___ 72. Tiny
Last week’s solution:
EDITORIALS
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SEPTEMBER 11, 2015
Lack of Course
Students Seeking Internships Face Unncessary Institutional Barriers For many prospective Georgetown students, the Hilltop’s proximity to D.C.’s corridors of power—and the resultant internship opportunities—is a major selling point. Indeed, part of the enduring appeal of a Georgetown education is that it facilitates entrée into the warren that is the federal government. There’s is a semi-explicit expectation that Hoyas must intern before they graduate if they are to stand a chance in that far-off land called the “real world.” The university does little to discourage this, though students are, of course, told that they don’t need to pursue internships during the academic year. The sad truth is that internships are an increasingly unavoidable hurdle in the race we undergraduates run. Georgetown does offer students a and securing internships. We’ve all received emails, for instance, alerting us to openings tatives. However, the university does a laughably poor job of supporting those Hoyas
who make the decision to intern during the academic year. In the College, MSB, and SFS, students are typically able to earn just one credit for their internships—many of which consume 20-30 hours per week—if and only if they enroll in an extra class that entails regular assignments and meetings. For part-time students, or those taking more than 20 credits during the semester, this class runs an extra $2000, which comes on top of expenses related to interning, like food and transportation. An obvious discrepancy exists between the effort students expend and the curricular This should change. There are, of course, exceptions to this general pattern. Certain departments in the College—namely anthropology, government, and journalism—offer three-credit seminars that are meant to accompany internships related to those majors or minors. Additionally, across Georgetown’s undergraduate schools, students are also allowed
to propose faculty-sponsored “intellectual so, however, means going up against bureaucratic inertia, which can thwart all but the most perseverant Hoyas. As a result of these internship policies, many students either forgo interning altogether, which can harm their career prospects, or intern for no credit at all, which is patently unfair given all that they learn “on the job”—not to mention the time they spend working. What’s worse is that some internships require students to receive school credit in order to comply with labor laws, so Hoyas who can’t accommodate a sixth class may find themselves ineligible for certain opportunities through no fault of their own. There is a better, fairer way—and it can be found right here on campus, already in practice and working. The NHS, which requires all of its undergraduate majors to intern at least once over the course of their studies, gives internships the same weight
Erin Annick
as most classes, meaning student interns can take one less course instead of one more. This model provides Hoyas with the experiences that today’s economy expects of graduates. The rest of Georgetown must take note.
Updates Available
GUPD Struggles to Communicate with the Population it Serves Generally, Georgetown students agree that they feel at ease as they wander campus and surrounding neighborhoods during the day. But when night falls, many—especially those living off campus—approach their walk home with trepidation. Most arm themselves with their phones in case they need to make an emergency call. Over the past few months, D.C. has seen a spike in violent crime. A man was stabbed on a subway car in mid-July for refusing to relinquish his phone on the Metro by NoMa. An intern was shot during a drive-by shooting in Howard just a few weeks before. More recently, there have been armed robberies in Burleith and break-ins on 34th Street; even Copley Hall has not been spared mention on the campus-wide Safety Alerts emails. Thankfully, safety in today’s digital world is increasingly secured at the touch of a button. In 2013, GUPD introduced a safety phone application called EmergenSee, which was soon replaced by superior version, called LiveSafe. This application, which can be downloaded for Android and iOS, allows students to send crime tips, along with audio
or video recordings, to law enforcement authorities. Should a student feel unsafe, they can call an emergency contact, Safe Rides, or GUPD itself. This is all well and good, but the Editorihave heard of either of these programs. While the launch of EmergenSee was accompanied with a sign describing its features cord of it discussed elsewhere. Information about LiveSafe was disseminated similarly modestly, through a single email in September 2014 after its launch. Fortunately, GUPD seems to be trying to step up its communication game. Chief of Police Jay Gruber says that they discuss LiveSafe at every event that GUPD attends. “We try to market all year long,” he wrote in an email to the Voice. “We really do try, but we need students, faculty, and staff to take the three minutes to stop and download the app.” Ultimately though, apps like LiveSafe and other initiatives aimed at making the college experience safer for students will contin-
ue to sputter if they are not better publicized. For starters, GUPD should encourage freshmen to download LiveSafe during NSO, perhaps by offering prizes for early adopters. GUPD’s outreach efforts will inevitably go up against the student skepticism, but that is all the more reason for them to market services like LiveSafe relentlessly. For their part, Hoyas need to remember that GUPD’s core mission is not to break up rooftop parties in Village A; they are here to keep the student body safe. Mending the adversarial
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Ellie Yeager
relationship between Hoyas and campus District’s crime wave from encroaching on the Georgetown experience.
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THE GEORGETOWN VOICE
A Crowded, Lonely Life Learning to Find the Joy in Solitude
GRAPHIC BY dylan cutler
GRAPHIC BY PAM SHU
As I stepped out of the taxi from Reagan National Airport and into my third year of college, I was greeted by waves of freshmen dressed in their Sunday night best, eager for a climax to their NSO experience. As I weaved through the noisy, sweaty debauchery on my walk to the front door of my house (after enduring a 30-hour plane ride, mind you), I never felt more alone. Georgetown is undoubtedly a social place, and I’ve met my fair share of wonderful people who have shared and challenged my interests. But my silly heart is set—sometimes for a little too much, and perhaps at the expense of my friends—on the moments when I’m not around anyone. These moments have permeated my college experience day and night, such as when you spend the entire Saturday afternoon in your five-person apartment, where the only companion until sunset is your laptop. When the roommate who was always napping in your room is no longer in your room, but now studying abroad. When you’re around strangers you don’t really want to talk to at a party, and you pretend to check new
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messages on your phone when none are coming your way. When you meet that friend who was previously the confidant you thought you had in your freshman year dorm and is now rushing down the narrow ICC stairwell, exchange awkward glances, and leave your own greeting hanging as he runs into the distance. In fact, these moments have come to define my time at Georgetown, to an extent. For the majority of my childhood, I rarely had to exercise any discretion over my life’s direction. I was merely a member of a larger mass of youth experiencing the same things, and while I didn’t have the most exciting social life, I never truly felt alone. We—my classmates and I—all had to commute to school and back. We all had to take high school examinations, and undergo the college application grind. After hours, we would all turn on our computers at home and gossip online. In college—or anywhere away from home, really— everyone gets pushed in a million different directions. I might be sharing a similar experience as you: running to
Carrying On: Voice Staffers Speak classes, applying for internships, answering calls from parents, sending emails to strangers, and consistently worrying about life in the future tense. But in reality, when I spend the entire day walking around on a campus thousands of miles away from home and talking to nobody but myself from dawn to dusk, I feel adrift in an echo chamber, and my insecurities and worries amplify themselves. In my solitude, I tend to forget the fact that no one I meet has an obligation to become my friend or to have any obligations towards me, really. As much as I try to smile, learn new things about others, and generally to be an amicable human being to be around, I will never have any control over what other people think of me. I begin to waver and ask myself: why did that person never respond to my text? Why did that person in my Japanese class refuse to acknowledge my presence and then proceed to make snide remarks about the Voice loudly in class? Why do I feel left behind at a school that is buzzing constantly with action at all hours of the day? To lapse into tunnel vision, fixated on a lost cause, is to deny the greater potential ahead: to meet and greet more new people who might bring better opportunities than the experiences than those I’ve already had. It’s unfair for the acquaintances and friends who’ve decided, either consciously or not, to distance themselves from me if I continue to force myself onto them; it’s also unfair for me to somehow change myself into something I’m not, in an attempt to fit in with those who no longer want to have anything to do with me. In retrospect, I think that the increasing isolation I felt from moving thousands of miles away from home onto a campus and moving away from the sweaty commune of Darnall Hall into a townhouse away from campus thrust me into adulthood. By no longer having the convenience of always being around the people I know and love, I can only place trust in my fragile connections and hope that my friends, wherever they are, will still want to spend some more valuable moments together in our lives. And so, I sit in my room, alone, and confident that after studying abroad in college, I will return home eager to seek companionship at a movie or a restaurant and catch up with some old friends. I plan on reviving a long-dormant message thread with someone I met over the summer, offering a time for both of us to Skype and see one another again. I hope that I’ll begin the next day hoping that I will be there for somebody wherever I am, and somebody will be there for me.
BY
Kenneth Lee
He is a junior in the SFS.
VOICES
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SEPTEMBER 11, 2015
Not NSOver the top Adjusting to a New Life on the Hilltop The irony was not lost on me. Everyone– my mom, sisters, cousins, aunts, the Internet–had imparted on me one crucial piece of advice: “keep your door open,” they said, with tance. “It’s how you make friends with your
GRAPHIC BY erin annick
the door. Because I’m an idiot. I lost my key. This experience set the precedent of the
“When it comes down to it, I don’t think any of us got into Georgetown by skipping school events or rolling our eyes at people pouring their hearts out.”
Orientation. After arriving at Georgetown, directed by hordes of energetic sign-wielders and seated next to my uncle who wondered aloud what they were on and where he could get some, I began NSO, a remarkable rite of passage designed to incorporate freshmen into the Georgetown tradition of having no free time. After saying goodbye to my mother while simultaneously trying to keep it together in front of my roommate, I was paraded into McDonough Arena, a place that I’ll probably never see again unless I grow a foot in height, lose all my body fat, and magically become a varsity athlete. Encircled by about one hundred student orientation leaders who, on account of their unwavering energy, would make for some of the world’s best door-todoor missionaries, I met fellow members of everybody in this entire school had hit the genetic lottery. town was being a skeptic. Instead of being excited to be a part of such an accomplished depth. Just how many people in this school were trilingual? How had they set foot on every continent when the farthest I had been from suburban Maryland was Disney World? And just how many times would I hear the godforsaken “Whip?” Like every good cynic, I was determined to tear it all down. I rolled my eyes, chanted “Hoya Saxa!” halfheartedly, toed the line lamely during inter-hall Capture the Flag, and scoffed as people were thrown off the bull in Wild, Wild West. (On a side note, I totally don’t regret that last part.) I relied on my cynicism to mask that I missed my mom, my friends, and familiarity. but here, they dried up and evaporated after one question. Much like my dorm room back in Harbin 7, my door was very much closed. To friends, to conversations, and to me, actu-
ally enjoying myself. As I woke up on my second day of New Student Orientation, I expected to feel differently—to suddenly remember how excited I was when I proudly wore Georgetown tees to school, or how I pinned a picture of the campus above my bed in sophomore year of high school. But instead, when other people assured me how prestigious my chosen school was during Convocation, I felt intimidated. Rather than telling me I was a special that I was going to crash and burn, collect myself, and crash and burn again about thirty seven more times. I was left discouraged, scared, and, most importantly, really wishing that they put a cap on the number of metaphors one can use in a speech. But somewhere between standing in a long line of wok enthusiasts at Leo’s and sitting under the shade of a giant Jack the Bulldog balloon with my floormates, my jaded façade started to melt away. If I had to pinpoint it, I would guess that it started with Pluralism in Action. Instead of cowering at the strength revealed by such gripping application essays, I marveled at the power of people brave enough to submit them, let alone live them. I allowed myself to be present in conversations, rather than allowing my face to glow with the bluewhite screen of my iPhone. And when somebody posed a question—“What is something about you that I never would have guessed?”—I gave them a real, honest answer about who I am, and where I come from.
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Soon, the neverending breakout sessions held relevance to me. I listened to people’s stories, and posed questions of my own. I made friends by wondering what hair product Marino workshop author Romesh Gunesekera used, and played ninja as an icebreaker with unabashed enthusiasm, and won shamelessly, thank you very much. Crucially, I had missed what drew me to were intimidating and accomplished, but they were also genuine, interesting, and devoted. Simple acts by my orientation advisor, like buying Chipotle for ten people, making sure everybody was engaged in conversation, at midnight, defeated a negative, pessimistic persona that wasn’t really me to begin with. When it comes down to it, I don’t think any of us got into Georgetown by skipping school events or rolling our eyes at people pouring their hearts out. Thankfully, New Student Orientation gave me the chance to remember this, and ensured it by pulling me out of my shell. Laughing and chatting with an orientation group of people I’m proud to know, let alone call my classmates and even friends, I walked back to campus from an Explore DC trip, and felt a twinge of sorrow that I quickly shook off. Why should I be sad? Nothing was ending. This is only the beginning. BY
Julia Usiak
She is a freshman in the College.
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THE GEORGETOWN VOICE
VOICES
A Tale of Two Countries Unexpected Parallels Drawn Abroad Most summer study abroad experiences involve a cushy stay in a beautiful European country. Unfortunately, I did not get the memo. Instead of the scenic Loire valley or Georgetown’s historic villa in Italy, I spent ten days in Israel on a Birthright trip (a free vacation for non-Israeli Jews or people of Jewish heritage) and a month in Cape Town teaching in a township. As I went from Israel’s hot Middle Eastern sun and barren deserts to Cape Town’s cold and rainy mountains, I could not see any parallels between the two countries. I viewed the two nations’ problems as being entirely disconnected from each other. Only after returning from the trips and how similar the regions and their issues are. Israel and South Africa are connected because they are both highly-segregated areas that struggle with different popula-
GRAPHIC BY min lee
hand knowledge of what the lives of various minority groups are like. After returning from Israel, I worked for a month and prepared to head out to South Africa. Before my trip, I was conscious of the nation’s history as an apartheid state. I had read books about the country and watched the blockbuster hit Invictus, a movie about Nelson Mandela’s with the South African national rugby team, multiple times. During apartheid, different racial groups were forced to live in called townships. Although all citizens of South Africa can now legally live wherever they want, the townships are still heavily populated by the descendants of the peoI taught in a township called Imizamo
Before traveling to Israel, my knowledge of the nation came from watching CNN and reading the news. I understood but never spent much time learning about it on my own. I went to Israel with the mindset that I was embarking on a fantastic adventure. I spent my time in the nation happily exploring historical places like the bustling, ancient Jewish Quarter in the old city of Jerusalem and going on fun advenhad the unique experience of literally being unable to submerge myself in the water. I travelled alongside both other Americans as well as Israeli citizens currently serving in the Israeli Defense Forces. As I learned about these soldiers’ lives and culture, I began to view them as the face of Israel. Whenever I saw people that were clearly in the minority in Israel, from Bedouins in the south to Arabs manning their shops in the Arab Quarter of Jerusalem, I thought of them as people that lived in Israel but didn’t really belong as much as the Israelis I was traveling with. I was so enamored with exploring the county that of people living in Israel and what life for them is like. Since the only Israelis I conversed with were Jewish citizens serving in
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have access to running water and lived in shacks made of scrap metal. They lived in a community with high rates of unemployment and tremendous gang violence. The tween two of the most prevalent gangs— the Americans and the Hard Livings—and throughout the township. Because of this, many of my normally cheerful and happy students were anxious and afraid to walk home after school. Meanwhile, only half a mile from where I worked were multi-million dollar houses with pools and access to organic grocery stores and quality private education. I oftentimes felt like I was in two separate countries: the white and wealthy South Africa, and the South Africa where citizens—most of them black—were struggling to get the resources necessary to survive. Even the pictures I took looked like they came from two separate nations. The nation’s ongoing struggles with inequality and segregation were extremely apparent to me the whole trip. After getting back from both trips, I went out to dinner with family friends and was asked about how the two so-called “apartheid” nations that I had visited were
similar to each other. The answer I eventually gave them was that, unlike Israel, South Africa seemed more committed to solving its problems by unifying and going forward as one nation. Nelson Mandela promoted the ideas of forgiveness and unity, and although the current social and economic landscape is still highly unequal, I saw that his ideas were very much alive. Although there is plenty of separation and tension among different racial groups, everyone I met seemed proud to be a South African. Meanwhile, in Israel, I felt there was an emphasis on enacting a two-state solution and moving forward separately in peace. Not all the ethnic and religious groups living in Israel seemed to have the same pride for their country as South Africans did. Many non-Jewish citizens feel that the state does not care about them and they are not true Israelis. The more I thought about the similarities and differences between the two nations, the more I questioned if that answer I gave has any truth to it. What I have decided is that it is not my place to make broad, sweeping generalizations about two complex nations, but instead I should accept them as beautiful places with innate problems with segregation. Time will tell if Israel and South Africa’s approaches to peace and equality will prevail. BY
Elizabeth Cahan
She is a sophomore in the College.
“As I went from Israel’s hot Middle Eastern sun and barren deserts to Cape Town’s cold and rainy mountains, I could not see any parallels between the two countries.”
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Negotiating the future of Georgetown’s campus
SEPTEMBER 11, 2015
What’s the plan? By elizabeth teitz and thomas stubna
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or students returning to campus or learning to navigate the Hilltop for the first time, one thing is immediately obvious: construction is everywhere. Detours continues to redirect foot traffic and cause bottlenecks, affecting the Reiss Pathway, Library Walk, Henle Village, Tondorf Road, and McDonough Arena. The paths crossing Georgetown’s 104-acre campus wind around several of these ongoing construction projects, the most visible reminders of the 2010 Campus Plan. The agreement between the neighbors and the university that called for housing 90 percent of students on campus by 2025, and that outlined all construction projects going forward through 2017, left a bitter taste among students and in the neighborhoods surrounding campus. Since then, the development of the Georgetown Community Partnership (GCP) has opened up conversations between stakeholders as the foundations begin to take shape for the next Campus Plan, which will last until 2038. “The campus plan will determine every facet of the university’s growth for the next 20 years,” said Ari Goldstein (COL ‘18), GUSA Secretary of Campus Planning. As effects of students living off-campus on their neighbors continue to raise concerns, and as construction continues to crowd campus and reroute foot traffic, students have a valuable role to play in shaping the Hilltop for future Hoyas.
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university in an area that is zoned as residential, Georgetown is obligated to submit a campus plan to the D.C. Zoning Commission each decade. The plan covers physical and enrollment growth, and is required to address ways in which the university will mitigate “objectionable impacts” on the surrounding community. When the plan is submitted to the Zoning Commission, the surrounding area’s Advisory Neighborhood Commissions
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(ANC) vote on whether to approve the plan, and, along with neighborhood organizations, can submit their positions to the Commission for consideration. District government agencies legally must give “great weight” to these submissions and respond directly to any arguments raised. In 2010, the Zoning Commission rejected Georgetown’s proposal, after it faced opposition from ANC 2E, the Advisory Neighborhood Commission for Burleith, Georgetown, and Hillandale. Other neighborhood groups, including the Citizens Association of Georgetown and the Burleith Citizens Association, also challenged the plan, and urged the ANC and Zoning Commision to reject it. The tone was adversarial at times, with signs throughout the neighborhoods protesting the plan and negotiations between stakeholders lasting for more than two years before the final plan was approved. In the wake of that dispute, the GCP was formed in 2012 as part of the final Campus Plan agreement, with the goal of bringing all stakeholders into the conversation during the next plan’s development to minimize the likelihood of similar conflicts. ANC Commissioners, neighborhood leaders, members of the university administration and several on-campus departments, representatives of the Medstar Georgetown University Hospital (MGUH), and students sit on the steering committee and working groups of the partnership. The plan that the university will submit in 2018 will guide future decisions similar to those currently visible on campus as the result of the previous campus plan. “When you look at the campus, and you see construction, you see the residence halls, you see the addition of the third year living requirement, you see tightened student conduct policies, all of that was the result of the last campus plan,” Goldstein said. With that in mind, administrators and neighbors alike are approaching the process this time with a more positive outlook.
The GCP meetings occur behind closed doors, according to Goldstein, and many of the representatives contacted declined to share specific initiatives and priorities going forward. However, they expressed optimism in the progress made so far in shaping priorities and their goals in the future.
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s they were in 2010, quality of life issues remain a top priority for all interested parties. For students, an obvious concern is the state of campus, including the quality of facilities and the on-campus living requirement. “Our goal at the end of the day is to make the university a living-learning community which provides students with an incredible undergraduate experience in and out of the classroom (in other words, a youtopia),” GUSA President Joe Luther wrote in an email to the Voice, referencing the campaign that he and Vice President Connor Rohan ran. “An example of such an issue would be deferred maintenance of dorms and apartments. Many students have experienced incredibly sub-optimal living situations on campus and many on-campus housing options remain years behind schedule for repairs.” The university’s master planning website also highlights this issue, specifically noting Henle as needing renovations. According to the Master Planning blog, however, a timeline for those improvements has not yet been finalized. Administrators included these renovations among their priorities for the 2018 Campus Plan, as part of improving the “living learning community” of campus as a whole. “We’ve had a number of conversations over the summer ... including what are the qualities we’re looking for in future housing, what are some of the concerns around the quality of our current housing, and how do we move in a direction that helps improve that,” said Dr. Todd Olson, Vice President for Student Affairs.
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THE GEORGETOWN VOICE
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Our goal at the end of the day is to make the university a livinglearning community which provides students with an incredible undergraduate experience in and out of the classroom (in other words, a youtopia)
alike in the 2010 Campus Plan. The percentage of students living in surrounding areas is still part of the ongoing conversation about neighborhood life. “I’ve never been a proponent of 100 percent on campus,” said ANC 2E Commissioner Jeffrey Jones, who supports the 90 percent mandate. “I think we’re at the right number right now.” Jennifer Altemus (COL ‘88), Vice President of the Citizens Association of Georgetown, who led the charge in the “Our Homes, Not GU’s Dorms” campaign in 2011, is also supportive of the limitations on off-campus housing. “We’ve already seen that there are more vacancies in the neighborhood where there used to be student group houses, and hopefully those will turn into single family homes, and it’ll be great for the neighborhood,” she said. “I don’t know [about 100 percent of students on campus], we haven’t really talked about that. I’d like to see how the 90 percent goes and maybe take it from there.” The GCP steering committee and working groups will continue to address these concerns, according to Olson and Jones, who identified these quality of life issues as priorities going forward.
Office of Neighborhood Life Complaints
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Long-standing issues in the neighborhood, such as trash and noise at off-campus student houses, as well as congestion and traffic, are also ongoing concerns for residents in Burleith, Georgetown, and Foxhall. These fall under the category of “objectionable impacts” that the university is obligated to minimize, and will continue to be a focus in the planning process, particularly within GCP working groups. During the 2014-2015 academic year, the Office of Neighborhood Life (ONL) addressed 488 total contacts, which include SNAP, GUPD and MPD interacting with students and non-student residents, both proactively and through the ONL helpline, according to the Division of Student Affairs. Seventy-nine percent of the contacts were related to excessive noise at an off-campus property. ANC 2E Commissioner Ed Solomon, who co-chairs the partnership’s Safety and Student Life working group with GUPD Chief Jay Gruber, said that this issue has been improved in recent years. “I see a remarkable decline in noise. Complaints [from neighbors] have dropped remarkably, so I’ve got nothing but positive things to say about how that committee has been working together,” he said. Another key feature of the planning principles is the development of a proposed “Student Life Corridor,” which would include building an additional dormitory between Village C West and Harbin Hall, and increasing student living and social spaces along the road between the Leavey Center and the Healey Family Student Center, according to the Master Planning website. These potential additions and the possibility of increasing on-campus housing have also been central to recent GUSA deliberations. “The largest flash point in our conversations with GUSA have been about housing, and swing space, and what the future of all that looks like,” Goldstein said. He named “no additional on-campus living requirements, prioritizing renovations to Henle and Kehoe Field, fighting for green space, study space [and] fair off-campus conduct policies, ” as among his goals going forward. The highly controversial requirement for the university to house 90 percent of students on campus by 2025, which has directly contributed to the need for construction of the new residence halls, was also a major issue for students and neighbors
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he GCP’s steering group and working groups, which range from Safety and Student Life to Transportation and Parking, meet regularly to discuss concerns and solutions, and the groups aim to bridge the gap between the university and community to highlight common priorities. The increased communication is also intended to address issues during the planning process, rather than after it is submitted to the Zoning Commission. “I think it’s collaborative planning at its best, when all of the stakeholders are represented, and I would say that that’s pretty new and different than prior campus plans,” said Robin Morey, the university’s Vice President for Planning and Facilities Management. He cited the ongoing conversations between students, university and MGUH administrators, and neighbors that are facilitated within the GCP as a key component of the changed tone. This is a stark contrast from the previous campus plan, when neighbors felt that the plan failed to adequately address the objectionable impacts that they experienced in the neighborhoods surrounding campus. In a 2011 supplemental submission to the Zoning Commission opposing the 2010 Campus Plan, Solomon wrote that “based on extensive past experience over the years as well as recent experience, neither my neighbors nor I believe that the University can or will keep things quiet over the long run. The Burleith community and I have heard rosy predictions about this before from the University, and it never has worked.” When asked about the status of these objectionable impacts in 2015, Solomon reported a much higher level of satisfaction overall. “I’ve gotten to know a lot of the students as well,” he said, citing the ongoing communication as an improvement. “I think there’s a lot of potential, and I’m sure the partnership is going to continue. It’s very healthy, and it’s going to continue well into the future,” he said, a far cry from his lack of faith in the university’s future actions four years ago. Students likewise have been optimistic about their increased role in the process, including the addition of two seats on the
Noise 79% Transient Noise 10% Trash 3% Other 8%
steering committee for student ANC Commissioners Kendyl Clausen (SFS ‘16) and Reed Howard (SFS ’17). Luther, who was involved in meetings throughout the summer, highlighted this increased student representation as a key factor in the partnership’s success thus far. “The additional representatives on the GCP steering committee are an important step in legitimizing student input at every step of this campus plan process,” Luther wrote. “This move creates a GCP in which students are now able to be players on both the working group and steering committee level. In creating the next campus plan, this will be critical in crafting a document which is responsive to student needs.” That’s not to say that the issues that caused such contention in the previous Campus Plan and contributed in part to the ongoing construction and disruption on campus, have disappeared. However, many have claimed that the process of addressing these disputes has improved. “It’s a misperception, though, that things are perfect,” Jones said. “Things aren’t perfect, we’re not in a perfect world. You know, I think we’re just going to have to continue the dialogue.”
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s the stakeholders hope to achieve a consensus on a basic framework this winter, the coming months will be critical in shaping the framework of the 2018 Campus Plan, according to Goldstein. GUSA will create a student master planning consortium to solicit input from students regardless of whether they are in GUSA. “The administration will continue to have Hoya roundtables and master planning sessions. Those are really important to show up to talk with administrators, to voice concerns, to ask questions. Right now we’re really trying to streamline, focus and expand those so it’s very clear to students this fall how they can jump into the process,” Goldstein said. The university’s master planning site also includes resources that students can access. ANC Commissioners and GUSA members alike also encouraged students to contact them directly with concerns or to express interest in getting involved. “We’re on track towards not getting screwed again,” said Goldstein, in reference to GUSA’s spring campaign to mobilize student voices on the issue. “The administration is receptive, there is a general atmosphere of collaboration that didn’t exist in 2010. If everyone continues the way they have been operating over the past few years, the plan will hopefully be equitable and effective. But we can’t rest. The only reason we have a seat at the table now and the only reason things are better than they have been is because students have spoken up loudly to demand that.”
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Out of Step Georgetown’s relationship with the D.C. hardcore punk scene By: Ryan Miller
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THE GEORGETOWN VOICE
“I
t really felt like you were part of the scene and that it was important to be there. And it was exciting to be there. You felt really alive when you were there.” Jenny Toomey (COL ‘90) rode her bike from the front gates to D.C. Space in downtown Washington every night during the first week of her freshman year at Georgetown. A native of the D.C. metro area, Toomey biked to see the band 9353, which was headlining a week of concerts with other bands at the venue. The sentiments she expressed about that week of shows were not unusual to the sentiments almost all Hoyas felt who were also members of D.C.’s hardcore scene in the mid to late 1980s. During the ‘80s, Washington D.C. became a hotbed for hardcore punk music. At the time, the scene stayed mostly underground. Made up mainly of D.C. natives in junior high and high school, the D.C. punk scene eventually grew, but it always kept its identity as a scene for Washington natives. Just a few blocks away from the scene’s main venues, however, students on Georgetown’s campus remained, for the most part, blissfully ignorant to the creation of this grassroots community. Although a few musicians in the scene attended Georgetown itself, the legacy of D.C. punk remains largely forgotten for Hoyas, despite its profound cultural impact on residents of Washington.
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n the basement of Copley Hall, operating on the lower part of the FM band, Georgetown’s radio station WGTB featured free-form music programming and an open space for radical thoughts and ideas to be heard publicly. For many teenagers in D.C. at the time, WGTB provided an outlet for new music, notably punk rock. In 1979, when then-university president Fr. Timothy Healy shut down the station and sold its broadcast license, even more fuel was added to the growing fire of punk rock in the District. “Ironically, the thing that really brought WGTB to my attention was the fact that it was being closed down,” said Ian MacKaye, a punk rock artist. “[My friends from Wilson High School] were really upset about it. So when the radio station was shut down, there was a march, like a protest, right in front of Healy Hall. And I think we skipped school and went down to the protest.” A few days after WGTB’s closing, members of the station held a benefit show at the Hall of Nations, housed in Walsh on 36th Street. The Cramps, a band that was part of New York’s early punk scene, headlined the show, and hundreds of teenagers from Washington attended in support of WGTB. MacKaye remembers that the night seemed almost out of control. The concert was visceral and scary, yet for MacKaye, it was also a “game changer.” “The people there were very extreme in many different ways. They seemed to me to be sort of deviants of society,” MacKaye said. “And that was something that I felt. I wasn’t just attracted to it. I felt like I was a deviant.” Even though MacKaye said what he and the others at the show were deviating from may
have differed, the fact that they were all deviating together connected them. Raised just north of Georgetown in Glover Park, MacKaye became more interested in punk rock after the Hall of Nations Concert. He would soon become a founding member of The Teen Idles, and along with friend and bandmate Jeff Nelson, create Dischord Records in 1980 in order to release a Teen Idles’ EP. Even though The Teen Idles broke up soon after, the D.C. punk scene was well underway.
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espite the formative Hall of Nations show, most the music venues hosting the punk scene were farther from Georgetown. The 9:30 Club, originally on 9:30 F Street, and D.C. Space, originally on 7th and E Street, were two of the most prominent venues to showcase punk music. While this area today has seen increased prosperity due to urban planning and the construction of the Verizon Center–the original location of D.C. Space is now a Starbucks– these clubs were once in a lesser developed section of Washington. According to Professor Benjamin Harbert, who teaches a course in rock history, the move of Americans to the suburbs in the 1950s and 1960s left downtowns as empty and blank spaces, ones that punks often could explore. Given that the D.C. scene consisted primarily of kids from Washington, the curiosity to venture to these nearby, open, yet sometimes dangerous, spaces could have been reasons for the popularity of these venues with the punks. “If you went to a show at some places, your car was guaranteed to be broken into, or you got beat up on the street or something like that,” Harbert said. “And there’s a certain thrill to that. There’s a certain
excitement, especially when people of a certain privilege have the opportunity to go and do that. And you can romanticize that.” Additionally, in a time when consumerism fueled the economy in a more commercialized world, the blight of downtown could have seemed more real to those in the scene, according to Harbert. Yet the punks kept ties to the Georgetown area as a place both to work and to hang out with friends. “Georgetown was the neighborhood where there were places where teens could work,” said James Schneider, a D.C. native and filmmaker currently working on a documentary about the punk scene. “That’s where the record stores were. That’s where the movie theaters were … It basically was this concentrated neighborhood where they could all find jobs and be near their other friends.” MacKaye worked at both Häagen-Dazs and the Key Theatre. He remembers the liveliness of the neighborhood on Friday and Saturday nights, with kids from the area lining the streets with their cars. In the afternoons, the neighborhood was a calmer hangout with restaurants, punk outfitters, and record stores. “Mostly, it was just a place to congregate because that’s what people did. There was no other way. It would be one thing if you wanted to call a friend, but you’re not going to run into five friends [with a telephone call],” MacKaye said. “So that’s the hang. If you want to see people, you get out of school and go to Georgetown.” All at the same time, though, MacKaye and friends were playing in shows and running their own record label to release their music. Yet the scene remained small and mostly underground in its formations.
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s punk grew in the States, more and more scenes sprouted. David Grubbs (COL ‘89) had formed bands with his friends in Louisville, KY since his early teenage years before coming to Georgetown. Already signed to Homestead Records with his band Squirrel Bait, Grubbs came to Washington in part because of the music scene. “[The presence of the punk scene] played into my decision to wanting to go to college in Washington, D.C.,” Grubbs said. “I had been a big fan of most of the Dischord punk bands.” Similar to Tommey’s leaving campus within the first week for punk concerts, Grubbs made the trip to the 9:30 Club to see the Bad Brains. He brought a group of friends from his freshman floor to the show, but noted the apprehension some had in traveling to that part of the city at the time. Kim Coletta (COL ‘88) also chose to come to Georgetown because of the presence of the music scene. When coming to school, she realized the presence of punk on campus was much smaller than other places in the city.
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“In a place like Georgetown, which struck me as pretty conservative generally speaking, you just end up finding like minded people. They kind of stick out like sore thumbs at Georgetown,” Coletta said. Coletta would later go on to form the band Jawbox after graduating. In her time at Georgetown,
a poster promoting the 1985 hall of nations concert in walsh.
Rites of Spring all played. Although Treado tried to convince his friends from school to come, only punk kids from the District made up the audience mostly. “The scene kids who went to shows showed up, and the Georgetown students did not. It’s kind of funny,” Treado said. “There was kind of a demarcation line, and the typical Georgetown kid didn’t cross it. It was unfortunate.” According to Treado, Grubbs, Coletta, and Toomey, the kids that were both students and in the scene in general formed a small, tight-knit group that held a small presence within the larger D.C. music community. “There were handful of us, and we found each other,” Toomey said. For MacKaye, Georgetown University and the punk scene remained entirely unrelated. While he and many of the D.C. natives welcomed the few Georgetown students who were punk musicians into the scene, the institution and general student body did not engage at all with punk. “At the time, [the scene] was not real to them,” similar to the other Hoyas in the scene, she formed MacKaye said. “But the thing was, we didn’t need many friendships with non-Georgetown students in their validation. We could give a f*ck about them. So the punk scene. As a result, life at Georgetown and it didn’t matter whether or not any of these universilife in the music scene became very separate for Co- ties paid any attention to us.” letta. The bassist explained how she would compress her school schedule to take up only a few days, then hile not explicitly promoting political spend the rest of the week in the city at shows or with messages, the punk scene often tended punk friends. to attract a more liberal-minded crowd, “I didn’t give a shit about what was happening as seen in the various benefit shows for economic jusat Georgetown. I cared a lot about my professors, tice and against South African apartheid. and had some great professors. And it was a great For the punks at Georgetown, many expressed a degree, and I’m proud of my work there, and I did feeling of separation from the general student body
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“Their families were professionals, but were people who were committed to certain issues of social justice. They’d have activists come and stay with them, ” said Harbert. For Toomey, activism took the form of engagement with the group Positive Force. Associated heavily with the punk scene, Positive Force is an activist group that continues to seek social change and youth empowerment. Grubbs engaged in punk’s activist culture through a program at Georgetown in which he volunteered as a tutor in prisons for two years. Despite the noticeable conservatism on campus, Grubbs still praised the unique culture of engaging with volunteer work while at Georgetown.
“Y
ou cringe when you hear this, when kids say, ‘punk rock changed my life,’ but it was a really formative thing,” Treado said. “I wouldn’t have had it any other way.” Though no longer actively performing in the punk scene, Treado still lives in D.C. and works as a visual artist. For many of the other punks, the District remains home as well despite bands either breaking up or taking an hiatus. Their work in the music scene also remains in the D.C. area. MacKaye still runs Dischord Records and manages the label’s massive back catalog. Coletta, who previously worked at Dischord, also manages the catalog of bands from her own label, DeSoto Records, which she formed to release a Jawbox record in conjunction with Dischord. “There’s such a vibrant community of musicians who are still doing things that matter at an age that no-
“In a place like Georgetown, which struck me as pretty conservative generally speaking, you just end up finding like-minded people. They kind of stick out like sore thumbs at Georgetown” really well. But clubs, student groups – you know I didn’t do any of that because I was enamored with the D.C. music scene. Anything I was doing, I was doing outside,” Coletta said. Grubbs described his freshman year as a sort of “dual life” between going to class and going to punk shows. After his hometown band Squirrel Bait broke up due to the members being separated in college, he met Dan Treado (COL ‘88) and formed the group Bastro. Treado, whose father was a professor at Georgetown and who was raised in Silver Spring, joined the scene in his teenage years like other D.C. natives such as MacKaye and Toomey. Once coming to Georgetown, Treado noted a clear divide between kids in the punk scene and students on the Hilltop. In 1985, Treado hosted another benefit concert for WGTB at the Hall of Nations, and prominent D.C. bands Embrace, Dag Nasty, Beefeater, and
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that they claimed to be much more conservative at the time. “I had never been around so many extremely conservative people my own age,” Grubbs said. Additionally, he noted that punk was not even on the radar of the average Georgetown student at the time. Toomey echoed similar sentiments, saying, “[Being in the punk scene] wasn’t seen as cool…I mean what was seen as cool in some of the classes I was in was money.” As a result, many of the political activities that the punks engaged in throughout Washington added to the dual life that Georgetown punks lived. Both Coletta and Treado took part in hanging posters around the city with the words “Meese Is a Pig” to show opposition to former attorney general Edwin Meese. According to Harbert, a lot of the activist tendencies in the scene came as a result of many D.C. punks’ upbringings.
body thought you’d be involved in something related to punk rock,” Harbert said. “When the people who started this, when they were teenagers, and they didn’t start it to do this, but the people who started making music that was local and having control over it, what they did is, and they didn’t even realize, they sowed the seeds for having something that was sustainable.” Despite largely missing out on contributing to the scene and being very separated physically, Georgetown and D.C. punk may not have been as disconnected as it appeared at the time, according to Coletta. “I think the D.C. music scene is a thinking person’s music scene. It always has been…D.C. was just more thoughtful [than other music scenes.] And I feel like Georgetown was thoughtful,” Coletta said. “I found Georgetown students, even though very different from myself, pretty smart and thoughtful. And I found D.C. music scene people smart and thoughtful.”
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THE GEORGETOWN VOICE
The BEACH
9/12
9/13
Madonna
Melanie Martinez
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Emma Marshall You’ve seen the Instagrams–there was a giant, white ball pit for grown-ups in D.C. this summer. If you didn’t make it, or somehow didn’t hear about it, this particular ball pit is called “The BEACH,” and is the central exhibit of this year’s “Summer Block Party,” which is hosted annually by the National Building Museum. Past years have featured an indoor minigolf course and a giant maze; yet this year’s exhibit sought to “bring the quintessential summer experience of going to the beach to downtown Washington, D.C.” The BEACH is both unexpected and memorable, just as Snarkitecture intended. Made of construction materials like plywood, scaffolding and mesh, and filled with thousands of recyclable plastic balls - all painted in minimalist white - the BEACH is not your typical romp in the sand and surf. The “shoreline,” where the balls meet a raised platform, is typically crowded with smaller children, while the deeper “waters” are full of teens and twenty-somethings, throwing balls and drinking white wine. Up on the shore, two snack bars operate, serving local and eclectic food items like kombucha, interesting chocolate bars, and popsicles. Some nights, live music adds to the cacophony of voices and balls sloshing around. The Building Museum commissioned Snarkitecture, an artistic firm founded by Alex Mustonen and Daniel Arsham, to build this summer’s featured exhibit. Snarkitecture describes itself as “a collaborative and experimental practice operating in territories between art and architecture,” and the BEACH is their biggest installation to date. Mustonen says that the
BEACH was “an exciting opportunity to create an architectural installation that reimagines the qualities and possibilities of material, encourages exploration and interaction with one’s surroundings, and offers an unexpected and memorable landscape for visitors to relax and socialize within.” As an experience, the ball pit is undoubtedly fun, but it is also a little frightening when crowded, as feet get trod on and people find themselves struggling to move through the unfamiliar sea. Closed toed shoes are an absolute must. As art, the pit makes a subtle statement-the use of construction materials seems to point to an intersection between urban normalcy and exotic adventure that is often overlooked in the rush to escape the city during the summer. But the BEACH doesn’t take itself too seriously. Part art, part playground, the beauty of the BEACH is its visitors. Reflected by mirrors along the walls, visitors see themselves playing, swimming, and socializing, bringing life and color to the completely white backdrop. After last year’s maze, which many Washingtonians saw as something of a let-down, Snarkitecture and the Building Museum created an absolute success, proving that culture can be both fun and thought-provoking - and that art in of itself can be a party.
Verizon Center 8p.m. $43
U Street Music Hall 7p.m. $20
LEISURE
(No Bathing Suits Required!)
Death Cab for Cutie Merriweather Post Paviliion 7:30p.m. $40
9/15 9/14 Josh Groban
Rita Ora U Street Music Hall 7p.m. $25
Constitution Hall 7:30p.m. $50
The Building Museum 401 F Street N.W. Mon - Sat 10a.m. - 5p.m. Sun 11a.m. - 5p.m.
9/20 9/19 Julio Bashmore U Street Music Hall 10p.m. $12
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9/18
Ana Carolina U Street Music Hall 7p.m. $25
9/21 Three Days Grace 9:30 Club 7p.m. $40
The Fratelli’s 9:30 Club 7p.m. $25
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LEISURE
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SEPTEMBER 11, 2015
CV: Everybody’s a Good Dog Diane Coffee, Western Vinyl
Yet at his best, Diane Coffee manages to create a fully realized sound with accents of Motown and glam rock. “I Dig You” captures the lyrical By Jeremiah Benjamin simplicity of a soulful love ballad as Fleming repeats, “I dig you, baby.” The college town of Bloomington, Indiana may be the last place one expects to find music rooted in His voice wavers between crooning the Motown tradition. Yet that’s just where Diane Coffee, the solo project of session drummer Shaun lover and full-fledged glitter rocker, Fleming, recorded his interpretation of blue-eyed soul. all while overlaying Bowie-esque guiKnown most prominently as drummer for the psychedelic indie rock band, Foxygen, Everybody’s tar effects spliced with synthy riffs. A Good Dog is Fleming’s second recording as Diane Coffee. The drummer pairs soul with elements of Throughout Everybody’s A Good 70’s glam rock, creating a sound he describes as “Sam Cooke meets Meat Loaf,” all while maintaining Dog, Diane Coffee’s ordered cacophhis familiar prism of lush, psychedelic jams. ony celebrates a variety of rich muThe album’s discordant sonic backdrop lends well to its equally uncertain lyrics, where Fleming sical traditions, while still creating a ponders matters of love, instead of expressing complete joy or lamenting heartbreak. The record voice all his own. The record both becomes not so much a confident, cohesive statement, but rather a journey filled with questions that looks toward the future and links keep the listener curious throughout. Unexpectedly, the album’s sound, which draws so heavily upon with the past, producing something artists of the past, can be highly derivative at times. At its worst, tracks such as “Tams Up,” sound as if completely unique from the most unsomeone asked David Bowie to cover The Temptations. The song is too reliant on soul music tropes, likely of places. such as Gospel chord progressions and shoehorned scatting from a chorus of female background singers, giving the piece an air of inauthenticity.
CV: All Yours Widowspeak, Captured Tracks By Shalina Chatlani
All Yours, the newest album released by Brooklyn folk trio Widowspeak takes an unfortunate departure from the band’s previous aesthetic. With songs that could lull a toddler to sleep, the band has added their name to a list of mediocre indie bands that utilize wispy, tired vocals and numbingly boring rhythms. The integration of elements like the banjo, hand drums, and mandolin in today’s age is definitely difficult to master, but Widowspeak has put in the work. The band members spent years traveling around and studying the sounds of the Deep South, especially when they were based out of New York. Disappointingly, All Yours is stripped of not only this aesthetic, but also of the band’s earlier melodic intricacy. Overly simplified beats, boring and whiny vocals, and familiar pop rock power chords dominate the release. Devoid of the band’s earlier attention to detail, the album seems to be a step backward in stylistic progression. The Swamps, Widowspeak’s previous album, fully utilized the skills of multi-instrumentalist Robert Earl Thomas and founding drummer Michael Stasiak. Rooted in themes of Southern blues and hazy folk music, Molly Hamilton’s sweet-sounding vocals were intriguing in songs such as “Themes from the Swamps,” her gospel-style harmonics overlaying Hamilton’s twangy reverb.
CV: Miley Cyrus and her Dead Petz Miley Cyrus, Sound Cloud By Sarika Ramaswamy
If there’s one thing Miley Cyrus wants to make clear, it’s that she’s not the little girl from Hannah Montana anymore. “Yeah, I smoke pot,” she’ll remind you in “Dooo it,” the first song on her surprise album Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz—which she continues to do for the next 22 songs, all while focusing on sex, drugs, and outer space. Consumed individually, some songs seem musically and lyrically repetitive. But as a whole, the album is a mindfully orchestrated projection of Miley’s own spiritual journey. Dead Petz arises from Miley’s most recent hiatus after her pet dog, Floyd, died in 2014; the loss reportedly took a huge toll on the singer. Many songs throughout the album reference Floyd’s death, “The Floyd Song (Sunrise)” being the most explicit tribute. What sounds like off-key, nasally singing at first soon evolves into discordant vocals that emphasize raw grief. Reeling from her experiences with loss, Miley uses this album to grapple with her understanding of fate and humankind’s status in the cosmos. She covers the whole spectrum of philosophical questions – one second, bemoaning the loneliness that comes with loss on an individual scale in “I Get So Scared,” while next contemplating the Big Bang Theory and human creation in “Milky Milky Milk.” Taken one by one, the countless space references in songs may appear to be associated with drugs, but the huge role that outer space plays in the album is connected to Miley’s understanding that “no one controls what happens in our lives, the universe gets to decide, our future is written up here in the sky.”
Voice’s Choices: “I Dig You,” “Gov’t””
Nonetheless, All Yours does have a few songs that merit a listen. “Borrowed World,” for instance, is an indie pop song laden with rich harmonies and soft male vocals. The album’s title song, “All Yours,” has some interesting guitar riffs that sound similar to a Japanese harp. In general, however, listeners would probably most value this album as something to play in the background while working or reading a book. Widowspeak is worth checking out for its earlier records. Both The Swamps and Almanac are more melodically intriguing and creative. While All Yours fails to impress, the band has a group of talented members, and it may decide to retreat towards an earlier style for a future album.
Voice’s Choices: “All Yours,” “Borrowed World.” The rest of the album jumps between psychedelic space-rock and party jams. In semblance of human nature’s craving for drugs and sex as a distraction from grief, Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz jumps from grieving the loss of an animal friend to tracks such as, “I’m so Drunk” and “Fuckin Fucked Up.” 46 and 50 seconds long respectively, these pieces are perfect interludes that distract from the singer’s grief. While longer songs like “Dooo It” go on about drinking and smoking for three minutes, and appear juvenile, these shorter bursts purely capture the nature of such moments. Altogether, Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz is a magnificent combination of the Miley we know and love and a handful of new musical and vocal techniques that attest to her legitimacy as an artist.
Voice’s Choices: “Pablow the Blowfish,” “BB Talk”
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THE GEORGETOWN VOICE
BY BRIAN MCMAHON How does one make housing crises and City Council meetings compelling? Hiring David Simon, the mastermind behind The Wire, helps. The ratings of his shows may not break any records, but the work is nonetheless remarkable. From the mean streets of Baltimore to the disaster-ravaged wards of New Orleans and now to the courtrooms and apartments of Yonkers with Show Me a Hero, his latest project, Simon proves capable of producing powerful work by examining largely powerless people. Once again, he takes a community troubled to the point of incoherency and finds clear and concise meaning in its struggles, clear lessons to be learned before another entity suffers a similar fate. The show, a six-part HBO miniseries based on real events, follows various individuals fighting for and against federally-mandated public housing in Yonkers, New York. Spanning from the late ‘80s into the ‘90s, it tells a story of attrition, iwn which progress arrives painfully slow—if it arrives at all. The basis of the narrative lies in a federal judge’s desegregation ruling, one that called for housing units to be built in close proximity to white middle-class neighborhoods. As a result, the political and civic landscapes became increasingly years consisted of political stalemate and racial anxiety pervading the community. At the head of Simon’s show is Nick Wasicsko, embattled councilman and eventual mayor of Yonkers, played with a sort of doomed passion by Oscar Isaac. Isaac is well on his way to stardom, with well-received performances in Inside Llewyn Davis and Ex Machina behind him and a role in The Force Awakens lying ahead. His work in Show Me a Hero should solidify him as one of the most versatile young actors in Hollywood and could very well earn him an Emmy nomination. He moves from twitching rage to two-faced politicking seamlessly, leaving the audience rooting for his success but scared of his self-harming potential. Wasicsko ages from his 20s to 30s over the course of the show, but Isaac makes the change feel monumental, devolving from a bright-eyed social climber into a wearied veteran of a political war, one requiring him to plunge two hands deep into the filth and greed of a broken hierarchy. Wasicsko is a tragic figure, his story serving as one possible inspiration for the show’s title (taken from an write you a tragedy.”). He lives and dies for the chance to make a difference in his community, but even more so for the chance to be known for making a difference. Torn between bolstering his political reputation and preserving the few stable relationships remaining in his life, Wasicsko stumbles and spirals downward, drifting further and further away from the issues and titles for which he once sincerely cared.
As Wasicsko loses his pristine reputation bit by bit, so too does the character give up the spotlight, ceding center stage to individuals more directly affected by the political stalemate and social bias of the community. Despite Isaac’s stellar performance—along with those given by Jim Belushi, Catherine Keener, and several others—the show’s greatest merit lies in its thoughtful treatment of a racially charged environment. No one moment in the series defines the social turmoil of the time. Instead, racism and prejudice linger and persist, leaving their moderate but definitive mark on each and every scene and storyline. As he did with The Wire and Treme, Simon portrays a fractured community fraught with social and personal strife, with endless problems and haunted by their elusive solutions. Time remains for people to see Show Me a Hero online or in other forms of after-the-fact viewing, but its low ratings and lack of popularity remain disheartening. As our nation stands at a crossroads, staring into the eyes of its own comprehensive social failures, Simon’s show fits in perfectly. The outrage of his characters permeates their every interaction, individuals fighting for themselves and watching macro-level progress escape them and their communities as a result. Simon’s shows have never shied away from exposing bureaucracies and their inefficiencies, their prideful players allowing personal ambitions to completely envelop collective efforts at enacting meaningful change. They show government not as it should be but as it is, simply revealing the clumsiness people would rather ignore. Show Me a Hero came and went quickly, its six parts playing out rapidly over the course of three Sundays in August, so perhaps it never had the chance to make an impact on the scale of The Wire or like-minded projects. Even the current social media-driven, instant-access culture could not keep up with the efficiency of the show as it came and went. Perhaps if the show lasted for another few Sundays, or received more immediate press, viewers would have caught on to its urgent and important message. Nevertheless, it succeeds in exposing one governmental failure among the many that have plagued American towns, cities, and states in the decades following the Civil Rights Movement. The premise and settings and brevity of the show led to its low ratings, but those numbers do not capture the brilliance of Simon and the talent of the cast he assembled. The condemnations he presents are as loud as a Yonkers City Council meeting, and far more coherent, enduring even after the city’s chaos reluctantly fades away. Show Me a Hero’s title at first sounds like a playful invitation, a harbinger of Wasicsko or another politician triumphing over the ineptitude of a flailing, depersonalmore like a desperate plea, tinged with fading optimism but weary, echoing out from the mouths of those who need a hero most of all.
LEISURE
Show Me a Hero
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