101811 Chicago Maroon

TUESDAY • OCTOBER 18, 2011

CHICAGOMAROON.COM

ISSUE 6 • VOLUME 123

THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO SINCE 1892

At least 13 students, one professor, arrested in Occupy Chicago protests

Uncommon Fund nets $35K boost

Residents oppose new University development plan

Joy Crane News Contributor

Giovanni Wrobel Associate News Editor

Surging application rates and increased financing from the College are pushing the Uncommon Fund’s decision makers away from small and unusual pet projects and toward big ticket initiatives with a long-term focus.

A $25,000 contribution from the Office of the Dean of the College and an additional $10,000 from the Student Activity Fund (SAF) have boosted the Uncommon Fund to $75,000—the highest ever in its six-year existence and a 47 percent increase from 2010.

The Uncommon Fund board received 146 grant applicants last year, up from 54 the previous year. Now the historic high has the fund’s selection committee rethinking this year’s funding criteria.

“A pool of money like this comes with great responsibility.

I don’t think it should be allocated on a whim to things that just sound sort of quirky,” the committee’s chair, SG Vice President for Administration Forrest Scofield, said. “This really is the time

cago on Saturday, while approximately 500 people set up tents in Grant Park.

Sociology Ph.D. student Peter Fugiel (A.B. ’07) was one of the arrested protesters.

“What impressed me was that this was very much a premeditated act

Community members in Hyde Park are criticizing a new zoning amendment proposed by the University that could leave several historical buildings on Woodlawn Avenue open to demolition, arguing that it lacks transparency and local input.

The University’s draft amendment would add 16 buildings it owns to a zoning agreement it has with the city.

The agreement, Institutional Planned Development 43 (PD), would include four buildings on Woodlawn Avenue between 57th and 58th Streets, in order to provide space for the William Eckhardt Research Center, the Becker Friedman Institute, Child Care West, and for the relocation of the Seminary Co-Op Bookstore to McGiffert House.

The University announced the proposed amendment at a meeting with the community in the International House auditorium on October 6. More than 100 members of the community attended and expressed concern with the ambiguity surrounding the stipulations of the new zoning changes.

The University has delayed submitting the PD amendment to the City of Chicago Plan Commission (CCPC) for review, making public only a short

OCCUPY continued on page 5

WOODLAWN continued on page 4

FUND continued on page 3

The Occupy Chicago march on Saturday evening halted momentarily as police stopped traffic along Michigan Avenue to allow protesters to pass.

DARREN LEOW | THE CHICAGO MAROON

Linda Qiu Associate News Editor More than a dozen students and a University professor were among the scores of people arrested and charged with a misdemeanor early Sunday morning while protesting in Grant Park as part of the Occupy

Chicago demonstrations.

A total of 175 protesters were arrested when they refused to leave Grant Park after its 11 p.m. closing time—enough that the Chicago Police Department (CPD) had to appropriate CTA buses to transport them all to jail. An estimated 2,000 people marched in downtown Chi-

CTA thefts spark concern Glass reflects on journalism career Rebecca Guterman Associate News Editor Divinity School student Lauren Bayne was riding the #55 bus at around 6:45 p.m. Saturday evening, listening to music on her iPhone as she traveled home from the Garfield Red Line station. As the bus slowed to a stop at the intersection of Russell and Morgan Drive near Washington Park, someone reached from behind her, grabbed her phone, and ran out the middle doors of the bus.

“It happened so quickly,” Bayne said in an e-mail. “I stood up right away and cried out.”

The driver stopped the bus and distributed incident report cards to everyone who witnessed the theft. A handful of U of C students waited with Bayne on the curb while she filed a report with the police and CTA employees transferred the passengers to another bus.

Saturday night was not the first time Bayne had heard of

such phone thefts on the #55 bus, nor is it the first time in the past year a U of C student has been robbed while using public transportation.

Last Saturday, a thief stole second-year Ritu Prasad’s iPhone at the 47th Street Red Line stop. Last spring, secondyear Rohan Puri’s iPhone was snatched from his hand on the #55 bus near Washington Park as he attempted to call home for Mother’s Day. Puri pursued the thief to Washington Park before the Chicago Police Department (CPD) escorted him home.

Several students said that they had been warned by friends not to display their cell phones if asked for the time. In multiple instances, the thief first asked the victim for the time and then seized on the opportunity once the victim had fished his phone out of his pocket.

The day following Bayne’s theft, for example, first-year THEFTS continued on page 4

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Temperatures in Fahrenheit - Courtesy of The Weather Channel

Adam Janofsky & Jamie Mermelstein Maroon Staff Ira Glass hates boring journalism.

Speaking Saturday to about 80 students in the Reynolds Club’s Francis X. Kinahan (FXK) Theater, the host of “This American Life” discussed what makes a story grab a listener’s attention and the difficulties new writers face.

“You guys have no idea what a story is,” started Glass, who had read story pitches from audience members before arriving. “It’s not about logic, it’s not about reason, it’s not even about emotion, primarily. A story is fundamentally about the motion of actions.”

Sitting in jeans and sneakers, Glass held an iPad in one hand, waving his other hand in the air like a conductor as clips from his old radio

shows played through the theater’s speakers. Some clips were from his days as an NPR reporter, and he pointed out the mistakes he made in order to emphasize that most young writers start off in “a dark period of sucking.”

“I was seven years on the job already but...all the things I could do wrong I was doing wrong,” said Glass, whose show is now broadcast on 500 radio stations to over 1.8 million listeners.

“This American Life” started when Glass was 36, and he tried to avoid the conventions of radio, like beginning every show with a quick and often funny story instead of a marquee. By continuously increasing action and exploring the parts of a story that other shows don’t delve into, “This American Life” manages to hold listeners’ attention for an average of 48 minutes, according to Glass. “You’re stuck with us,” he said.

GLASS continued on page 9

Radio producer Ira Glass speaks to a full house at the FXK Theater on Saturday.

TERENCE LEE | THE CHICAGO MAROON

IN ARTS

IN SPORTS

A little goes a long way at the MCA » Page 9

Chi Chicago defeats NYU, MIT at Oshkosh » Page 16

For Steppenwolf, home isn’t where the heart is » Page 9

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THE CHICAGO MAROON | NEWS | October 18, 2011

Modernist poet discusses contemporaries

Allen Fisher, a poet, painter, publisher, teacher, and performer associated with the British Poetry Revival, spoke at the Social Science Research Building on Friday afternoon.

JAMIE MANLEY | THE CHICAGO MAROON

Alexandra Garfinkle News Contributor Poet Allen Fisher discussed the work of his English contemporaries and examined the role of the self in poetry in a Friday night lecture in the Social Sciences Tea Room.

Fisher, who is often associated with the modernist-influenced British Poetry Revival of the 1960s and 1970s, commented on the rhetorical devices and aesthetics of 14 pieces of poetry, each written in the last five years.

Drawing from those examples of

contemporary English poetry, Fisher discussed the concept of negentropy—an idea that Fisher described as “contrary to the theory that the universe is running down.�

The lecture complemented a reading that Fisher, also an art historian, painter, and publisher, had given from his own work earlier in the week. Included in the lecture was an excerpt from “Like Feeling,� a poem written by Professor John Wilkinson of the English department.

Fisher also examined the themes of transformation and improvisation in each of the selections he read, which included the work of poets Ulli Freer, Caroline Bergvall, Emily Critchley, and Rob Holloway. “We experience the world through not only what we see and smell, but through our own being,�

Fisher said.

Students who attended the lecture praised Fisher’s ability to clearly explain the works from which he read. “I work a lot with modernism‌. I found it very impressive that [Fisher] was able to read such difficult poems and parse out the intricacies of their meanings,â€? second-year Ph.D. student Rachel Kyne said.

The lecture, entitled “Testing and Experimenting: After the Complexity Manifold,� was presented as part of the Poem Present Reading and Lecture Series. The series, which began in 2001, brings distinguished poets to campus to read from their work and speak on topics of the authors’ choosing.

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Scofield: Class of 2014 increased Uncommon Fund popularity FUND continued from front

to reflect and determine where we can put [the funds] where it will have the highest impact.�

In past years, the fund’s selection committee has touted its open-ended application process, which asks applicants only for a project summary and an answer to the question, “Why is your project ‘Uncommon?’� Projects chosen for funding included one which brought kittens and puppies to campus during finals week last year and one which sought to establish an intramural Quidditch league.

Dean of the College John Boyer pledged,at a September 29 meeting with Scofield, Director of the Office of the Reynolds Club and Student Activities (ORCSA) Sharlene Holly, and Assistant Vice President for Student Life Eleanor Daugherty. that the Dean’s Fund would match half of the SAF’s contribution, which amounted to $50,000 this year.

Holly, Scofield, and Daugherty approached Boyer earlier this year about the possibility of securing financing from the Office of the Dean of the College.

Daugherty said there was no specific reason for seeking to expand the fund this year, insisting that the fund’s board is always looking for new sources of financing.

Holly agreed with Daugherty, noting the consistent growth

of extracurricular activities and RSOs in the past decade. “In my nine years on campus and leading ORCSA, I’ve seen a steady and sometimes dramatic increase in the number of student organizations, the number and complexity of events [and] projects that students are planning, an increase in the number of students engaging in SG,� she said. “For example, between 2002 and 2007, we saw a net gain of over 100 RSOs on campus.�

Scofield, a second-year, argued also that the class of 2014’s participation in the fund played a major role in its newfound popularity. “Changing the tone in the student body—the class of 2014 played a big role in that,� he said. “They’re a little bit more handson, more gregarious in starting new things.�

SG President and fourth-year Youssef Kalad is confident that the fund is staying true to its roots as an outlet for alternative student projects of any kind, regardless of its altered scope. “The increased size of the fund is absolutely indicative of an amazing shift in student interests and a welcome increase in student activity,� he said. “We have students who love to learn and who crave intellectual growth, but who are also restless when the ideas they cultivate in the classroom fail to translate into action.�

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THE CHICAGO MAROON | NEWS | October 18, 2011

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Residents say University plan lacks specifics WOODLAWN continued from front

statement of intentions to the community. The paragraph-long statement, taken from the amendment, declares the University’s general intentions for the 12 of 19 existing buildings it owns along the 5700 block of Woodlawn Avenue. Neighbors of Woodlawn and University Avenues have been urging the University to put in writing the specific ways they intend to preserve the historical area.

“The private residences that you own today, you haven’t done the simplest thing to keep them consistent with the nature of the neighborhood,” Bruce Halbeck, a Woodlawn Avenue resident said in a YouTube recording of the October 6 public meeting.

Community activist and preservationist Jack Spicer, who is on the board of the Hyde Park Historical Society, has organized concerned members of the community to hire an attorney to propose making the section of Woodlawn and University Avenues between 55th and 58th Streets a new historic district.

“A landmark district would be the best way to protect historic houses from demolition or substantial disfigurement. There are other ways that this might be done, but a landmark district would be the most secure protection,” Spicer said.

Fifth Ward Alderman Leslie Hairston said

that since the inception of the CCPC, no planned development has passed without the local alderman’s approval.

“From my understanding, and from inferences that were made Thursday night at the community meeting, is that the intention of the University is to construct [PD 43] so that they could tear down the historic buildings that they own on the block, and they could build buildings up to seven stories tall,” Spicer said. “The City could say no, but that’s not likely unless Hairston says no.”

Hairston, who represents the residents of Woodlawn Avenue, said that she has not received any specific requests from homeowners to stop the PD .

“A lot of things that you hear—’Oh there’s going to be skyscrapers’—that’s not true, nor could they do it under the PD without City approval,” Hairston said.

The University has agreed to hold another community meeting before they submit their proposal to the CCPC, though a date has not yet been set.

The University’s Director of Civic Engagement, Ellen Sahli, noted that the PD amendment is silent on demolition. “There is some really important language that we have put on the table and are working with the City on that really does speak to our intentions around this important part of our campus,” she said.

Detail of 5700 Block of Woodlawn Avenue

University-owned buildings

Recently acquired buildings

GRAPHIC COURTESY OF DAVID SCHALLIOL

CPD: Students should be aware of how they use their devices THEFTS continued from front

Dake Kang had a similar confrontation at the Garfield Red Line Stop at 4 p.m., when a man approached him inquiring about the time. When Kang said that he did not know, the man continued to press him about whether he had a phone, even asking what he had in his pockets and whether he had a laptop in his backpack.

Even though most of the thefts have occurred outside of UCPD’s jurisdiction, UCPD’s Public Information Officer Bob Mason said that the de-

partment has dealt with phone thefts recently.

UCPD officers cannot pursue suspects when the crime occurs outside their jurisdiction, which stretches north to south between 39th Street and 64th Street and east to west between Lake Shore Drive and Cottage Grove Avenue.

Darryl Baety, a CPD spokesperson, warned that students should “be aware [and] conscientious of how they use their devices” and of “the environment around them.”

Many of the victims said that they had changed

22ND ANNUAL

their behavior when riding the CTA. Bayne said she was skeptical when she overheard people warning each other about phone thefts. Now, however, she said she would be more careful.

“I definitely will never ride the bus with my phone out and just casually resting in my hand again,” she said.

Prasad recommends that owners take initiative by recording their serial number from the box so that Apple can track the phones remotely, if nec-

essary. First-year Hannah Wang, a witness to the Bayne theft, vouched for GPS trackers that can help track down stolen phones.

The CPD does not keep data on phone thefts specifically. However, both Baety and Mason said that phone thefts on public transportation are common.

“For as long as these electronic devices have been used, [cell phone theft on public transportation] has been a reccurring [issue] throughout the city,” Baety said.

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THE CHICAGO MAROON | NEWS | October 18, 2011

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Police warned protesters of impending arrest

| THE CHICAGO MAROON JAMIE MANLEY

| THE CHICAGO MAROON DARREN LEOW

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| THE CHICAGO MAROON

OCCUPY continued from front

of civil disobedience,” he said. “Unlike in New York, where they weren’t anticipating such a massive arrest and the police reacted very harshly, the people who stayed in the encampment knew they were going to be arrested and were determined to follow through. That made the action particularly powerful.”

Encounters between protesters and the police began last week, when CPD banned the collection bins that demonstrators had set up for donations on LaSalle Street, effectively preventing the protesters from staying in one place indefinitely, Fugiel said. The protesters chose Grant Park as a more permanent settlement during a Friday meeting of their general assembly.

Police first gave protesters the opportunity to leave Grant Park before arresting those who chose to remain, Fugiel said, calling the officers “respectful and very bythe-book.”

The fact that many of the protesters deliberately planned on being arrested was central to the movement’s goals, according to fourth-year Jonathan Rodrigues, who was among those arrested.

“CPD didn’t want the media attention. But that’s what getting arrested does, that’s what we needed to do—to show the injustice of not being able to protest,” he said.

Fugiel described the mood of Saturday night and Sunday morning as “palpably enthusiastic” and said he heard protesters singing the Queen song “Bohemian Rhapsody” and Ben E. King’s “Stand by Me” before the arrests occurred.

“It was a pleasant surprise: to have people cheering and standing in the rain to welcome people. It fit in with the general mood of the evening, which had been real camaraderie, almost celebratory. We would cheer and congratulate those who passed by the cells or even move into a different cell,” Fugiel said.

Fourth-year Kelvin Ho, who was arrested at a demonstration on Tuesday, was impressed with the U of C turnout.

“I was surprised by the amount of people that came out from UChicago,” he said. “It was a very big step, and I believe for most of them it was their first time, and it just goes to show you that people see that these issues are pertinent.” Ho left the park when asked

by CPD, in order to avoid his second arrest in a week.

Sunday’s arrests were the first in Occupy Chicago’s 24 days of demonstrations and marked the largest U of C involvement in the protests thus far. Fugiel and other protesters, who declined to be named, estimated at least 30 University students and affiliates participated.

First-year Colette Robicheaux, who was also arrested, said that students should at least observe the Occupy movement firsthand, regardless of political affiliation.

“Everyone should go down and have an open mind and see what they’re talking about.

It really is an exciting thing and it’s the first thing I’ve done all year that I’ve felt proud of.

The biggest issue is to increase awareness,” Robicheaux said.

Fugiel said that people around the world were watching the protesters in Grant Park.

“What’s remarkable about the Occupy movement is that it’s drawn attention and captured imaginations in a way that larger demonstrations have not in the recent past.

For our generation, this could be a turning point,” Fugiel said.

Assistant Professor in Philosophy Anton Ford, who was also arrested and who teaches “Introduction to Marx,” noted the historical significance of the protests.

“Lenin once said, ‘There are decades in which nothing happens and then there are weeks when decades happen.’ These last few weeks of Occupy, decades have happened,” Ford said.

—Additional reporting by Will Fernandez

VIEWPOINTS

Editorial & Op-Ed OCTOBER 18, 2011

Life of the party Large, campus-wide events like Blues ’N’ Ribs are high in demand and low in supply The student newspaper of the University of Chicago since 1892 ADAM JANOFSKY Editor-in-Chief CAMILLE VAN HORNE Managing Editor JACK DIMASSIMO Senior Editor AMY MYERS Senior Editor JONATHAN LAI News Editor HARUNOBU CORYNE News Editor SAM LEVINE News Editor PETER IANAKIEV Viewpoints Editor SHARAN SHETTY Viewpoints Editor JORDAN LARSON Arts Editor HANNAH GOLD Arts Editor MAHMOUD BAHRANI Sports Editor JESSICA SHEFT-ASON Sports Editor DOUGLAS EVERSON, JR Head Designer KEVIN WANG Web Editor ALICE BLACKWOOD Head Copy Editor

Last Friday, hundreds of students poured into Ida Noyes in search of meat and music. Blues ‘N’ Ribs, one of the Council on University Programming (COUP)’s annual student social events, was a success, boasting local bands belting out Motown classics and long lines of students waiting for sauceslathered ribs, corn muffins, and a variety of draft beers. The building was buzzing with energy, student chatter was everywhere, and it was an excellent way to kick off the weekend.

But, unfortunately, we’ll have to wait a while for a similar social experience. Events like Blues N’ Ribs simply don’t happen enough. This isn’t a criticism of COUP: They have a full slate of scheduling, as they also organize Fall Formal, Kuvia, Mardi Gras, Dance Marathon, and the Summer Breeze car-

nival. However, other student groups and the administration should take an active interest in organizing events on a larger scale. Not only would such events boost the recognition of the student groups that throw them, perhaps ensuring more funding and more participation later on, but they would also help change the old adage that the University of Chicago, and campus in particular, is the place “where fun comes to die.”

Big events like Blues ‘N’ Ribs have the effect of uniting the student community. They become entrenched traditions that transform campus into a hotspot of student social activity. They’re a great way to meet new people with the company of old friends, and an even better way to just kick back and realize that the

U of C is about more than midterms and malaise. Campus events are too often organized by RSOs for specific subsections of the student body.

While these smaller gatherings play a role, large events organized around fun—that one universal attraction— are just as important. It’s disappointing to realize that the only consistent, large-scale social gatherings on campus are the frat parties held every other weekend.

Plus, much of the Student Life Fee—which all students must pay— goes toward these small, insular activities. Some of it would be put to better use if it were used to create some larger events. There are plenty of music and entertainment groups on campus.

Combining their resources and performances, along with some free food

and booze, is all it takes to organize an event that becomes far greater than the sum of its parts.

This being said, such events are predicated on participation. Students almost unanimously enjoyed Blues ‘N’ Ribs, and it is their job to support similar events by creating, publicizing, and attending them. Opportunities like these are too enjoyable to let fall victim to general laziness or apathy. If the administration is willing to support more University-wide gatherings, students must meet them halfway and keep these events strong and lively.

The Editorial Board consists of the Editor-in-Chief, Viewpoints Editors, and an additional Editorial Board member.

GABE VALLEY Head Copy Editor LILY YE Head Copy Editor DARREN LEOW Photo Editor REBECCA GUTERMAN Assoc. News Editor LINDA QIU Assoc. News Editor CRYSTAL TSOI Assoc. News Editor

Too big to curtail Political observers shouldn’t expect much from recent efforts to regulate the financial industry

GIOVANNI WROBEL Assoc. News Editor COLIN BRADLEY Assoc. Viewpoints Editor EMILY WANG Assoc. Viewpoints Editor TERENCE LEE Assoc. Photo Editor JAMIE MANLEY Assoc. Photo Editor TYRONALD JORDAN Business Manager VINCENT MCGILL Delivery Coordinator HAYLEY LAMBERSON Ed. Board Member HYEONG-SUN CHO Designer ALYSSA LAWTHER Designer SARAH LI Designer

By Ajay Ravichandran Viewpoints Columnist

BRADFORD ROGERS Designer BELLA WU Designer CATIE ARBONA Copy Editor AMISHI BAJAJ Copy Editor JANE BARTMAN Copy Editor MARTIA BRADLEY Copy Editor ELIZABETH BYNUM Copy Editor DON HO Copy Editor

The past several weeks have seen the Occupy Wall Street movement grow from a ragtag gathering in New York City to a nationwide phenomenon that has even inspired many U of C students to put aside their books and march. While the protesters and

their supporters have a wide range of grievances, one major source of their appeal is clearly a widespread sense that the financial industry, whose incompetence sent the country into a severe and prolonged economic slump, has not borne its share of the losses.

In a period in which unemployment has remained around nine percent for months while financial firms’ share of overall corporate profits has soared to 31.7 percent, it’s hard not to sympathize with this anger. However, any desire to make Wall Street pay for its mistakes or even just prevent another crash must eventually reconcile itself to a bitter truth: There is actually relatively

little that the government can do to protect the American economy from the next financial crisis, and the risk posed by large banks is one we must learn to live with.

The financial crisis of 2008 was caused primarily by large banks that borrowed excessively in order to purchase complex securities that seemed perfectly safe but were actually produced through a process that gave no one economic actor an interest in guaranteeing their value. Thus, the means of preventing a similar collapse might seem obvious: Regulate securitization to produce better incentives, and place tighter constraints on both the safety of large banks’ assets and the amount that they can

borrow. The Dodd-Frank regulatory reform bill, passed in 2010, includes most of these elements. However, this approach is likely to fail because of a set of problems that inevitably afflict most regulatory agencies.

First, it is nearly impossible to write regulations as complex as the ones in question without giving the officials who must enforce them some discretion. Once regulators have discretion, however, they become vulnerable to manipulation by the industries they are supposed to be monitoring, and industry influence over regulators is nearly impossible to eliminate. The societal benefits generated by any given regulation REGULATION continued on page 7

JANE HUANG Copy Editor MICHELLE LEE Copy Editor KATIE MOCK Copy Editor LANE SMITH Copy Editor JEN XIA Copy Editor ESTHER YU Copy Editor

Losing your place Identity is now more influenced by global dialogue than by local culture

By Emily Wang Associate Viewpoints Editor The Chicago Maroon is published twice weekly during autumn, winter, and spring quarters Circulation: 5,500.

The opinions expressed in the Viewpoints section are not necessarily those of the Maroon. © 2011 The Chicago Maroon, Ida Noyes Hall, 1212 East 59th Street Chicago, IL 60637 Editor-in-Chief Phone: 773.834.1611 Newsroom Phone: 773.702.1403 Business Phone: 773.702.9555 Fax: 773.702.3032 CONTACT News: News@ChicagoMaroon.com Viewpoints: Viewpoints@ChicagoMaroon.com Arts: Arts@ChicagoMaroon.com Sports: Sports@ChicagoMaroon.com Photography: Photo@ChicagoMaroon.com Design: Douglas@ChicagoMaroon.com Copy: CopyEditors@ChicagoMaroon.com Advertising: Ads@ChicagoMaroon.com

Something caught my eye a couple of days ago. It was a bold pronouncement by The New York Times: “College Diversity Nears Its Last Stand.”

Though it was clearly a reference to the issue of affirmative action, I was thinking about something else; I was thinking about place.

The article from the Times points out that there’s a real possibility that the use of “diversity” as a legal justification—the only remaining one at that—for racial preferences in public universities’ admission processes could end by June, when a decision is reached in the latest case on affirmative action.

But I find myself more concerned

about whether or not we’re becoming less diverse in other ways, ways that don’t depend so heavily on a Supreme Court decision.

To a certain degree, college is as much about convergence as it is about diversity. Take the Core, for one. It’s a way of developing a common discourse, a baseline, a jumpingoff point. Did you like Marx? No, he was brutal. Durkheim’s arguments were much stronger. You’re kidding.

The Core, though, is a type of convergence that is essential to a sense of community here, to the unique sense of “us” that encompasses the undergraduate population at the U of C. Yet there’s still another convergence occurring as well—a sort of cultural “coming together” facilitated by an increasingly far-reaching and influential social connectivity.

The more we’re connected socially, the more we will be reading the same things and watching the same things (What’s trending on Twitter?

What’s everyone talking about on my newsfeed?), and the more vital it will seem to us to be part of the

new cultural canon. We always want a piece of the conversation, but what if it’s the same conversation everyone else in the world is having?

So, what I’ve been wondering lately, is this: At what point does place cease to matter? At what point does the cultural baseline become so widespread that where we physically come from loses its meaning because, in a sense, we will all be coming from the same place, a nebulous web of connections facilitated by social media? And is there a limit to this cul-

We always want a piece of the conversation, but what if it’s the same conversation everyone else in the world is having? tural convergence?

I have a friend, for instance, who spent her childhood in suburban Florida. I grew up in a suburb of Chicago, hundreds of miles away.

We both share a feeling of alienation from the physical place where we

grew up; it just doesn’t feel as though I belong to that place or that the place belongs to me. In fact, I don’t really feel as though I’m from that suburb at all, though I spent the vast majority of my life in exactly that place.

There are remarkable similarities in our upbringings, despite the obvious fact that Florida is not Illinois. We often talk about the same TV shows we loved as kids (‘Dexter’s Lab’, ‘Hey Arnold’) or the books we obsessed over (Artemis Fowl, The Golden Compass) or even the ways we found to waste our time (aimlessly drive around neighborhoods, sit outside coffee shops, and talk late into the night). It’s not the local bands we listened to, but the same bands from Canada or Iceland or even Senegal.

Ostensibly, these are very positive developments. We’re becoming more cosmopolitan, leaving behind the idiosyncrasies of the specific. A global dialogue rooted in culture is emerging; certainly, this should go a long way toward greater communication and thus greater understanding. Right?

This phenomenon of convergence DIVERSITY continued on page 7

THE CHICAGO MAROON | VIEWPOINTS | October 18, 2011

Occupy Wall Street will likely fail to rein in financial services REGULATION continued from page 6 are spread over a vast number of people, while its costs are concentrated in a much smaller group of people in the regulated industry. As a result, industry actors have a much stronger interest in trying to weaken regulations, which are generally written and enforced by obscure agencies that receive little media attention, than ordinary citizens have in ensuring that

SUBMISSIONS The Chicago Maroon welcomes opinions and responses from its readers. Send op-ed submissions and letters to: The Chicago Maroon attn: Viewpoints 1212 East 59th Street Chicago, IL 60637 E-mail: Viewpoints@ChicagoMaroon.com The editors reserve the right to edit materials for clarity and space. Letters to the editor should be limited to 400 words.

Op-ed submissions, 800 words.

they are strong.

However, one might accept this argument and still believe that there are important measures the government could take to prevent another financial crisis. After all, many businesses in other economic sectors make bad bets and borrow too much, but these misjudgments typically do not cause massive declines in output and throw millions of Americans out of work. Problems in the financial sector had these effects because the major banks were so large and had so many links to firms in other sectors. This fact has led many to advocate a cap on the size of financial institutions; doing so would make sure, even when regulators are unable to prevent banks from making bad decisions, that those decisions would not affect the wider economy. But this argument relies on the mistaken assumption that large banks provide no economic advantages. It seems unlikely, though, that firms in a competitive marketplace would invest time and effort in expansion if doing so would not improve their ability to provide services that customers wanted. Since there is a market for the distinctive products that large banks provide, and since those products can be easily sold across borders, any effort to limit the size of banks in the United States

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Ajay Ravichandran is a fourth-year in the College majoring in philosophy.

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would probably just make them relocate. And, in view of the strong ties that bind us to other economies, overseas moves by big banks would not reduce our vulnerability to financial crises.

These arguments do not mean that there can be no improvements to the pre-crisis status quo. The potential for industry capture can be constrained to some extent by limits on regulatory discretion, and regulation can also play an important role in providing information to consumers that is less vulnerable to the problems discussed above. The Dodd-Frank law represents an improvement on both counts. However, the points made above do suggest that the hunger for fundamental reform in the financial industry that Occupy Wall Street represents is likely to go unsatisfied. The movement presents itself as an army of epic heroes who will eventually overpower the thieves in the financial industry on behalf of the forgotten American majority. While this image has undeniable appeal, it seems more likely that they are heroes of a different kind—tragic ones, blinded by hubris, waging a doomed struggle against forces they can channel but never truly master.

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Treasuring unique roots is key to college diversity DIVERSITY continued from page 6 intensifies when we leave those roots and all gather in a common place—what happens when we go to college, for example—and become a student body with a basically uniform lifestyle. There is, as far as I can perceive, a greater capacity to relate to each other because of the cultural baseline. But there’s also a certain richness that’s lost because we can talk about all the same things, which seems strange to say. People who really love their hometown (my roommate, for example, is more from Lancaster, Pennsylvania than anyone I’ve ever met is from somewhere) are fading. We don’t talk about place much anymore.

We talk about the baseline.

If you’re lucky enough to come from a Lancaster rather than an Anywhere, Illinois, hold tight to those roots—the diversity of college campuses depends on it. But if you don’t have a Lancaster, there’s always this place to make your own and to carry with you into the future. Take the eccentricities of this campus, this neighborhood, and this city, and remember all the details. The details, after all, are what matter.

Emily Wang is a second-year in the College majoring in English.

Letter: “Free pass” insults U of C mission After reading the excellent, and quietly eviscerating, op-ed by Ajay Batra concerning the marked decline in U of C culture due to changing admissions standards, I was affronted by the ridiculous article that the Maroon’s editorial board foisted on our community under the title of “Free Pass.”

Their misguided idea was to unilaterally grant incoming freshmen a free quarter by making their first academic unit at this school pass/fail, as opposed to what is called “for a quality grade.”

What nonsense. The fatuity of the idea is even more apparent after a read of Ajay’s piece, as the two are quite connected. The University of Chicago has always been a place for those of the mind to live that experience fully, while the rest of the world could get hung. It wasn’t the most popular idea, and so this university remained not as famous as its peers. Fair enough, but it was our idea. Now, as our status has amplified, and the résumé polishers are beginning to deposit themselves on our Quad to burnish their careerist signposts, we have a slight issue.

In the face of that, to further dilute the most sacred part of our academic experience, the Core, is, frankly, to surrender again on what makes the U of C what it is.

The idea comes with good intentions, as most bad concepts do. In this case, under the aegis of “transition,” students would be granted this free ticket to a quarter of leisure and not fretting about essay scores. I think that if you cannot handle the first quarter of this university, then you should not have been admitted. The process of admission should have weeded you out.

That we are having this discussion points to a real, and honest, degeneration in the quality of incoming students. And this as we increase our enrollment. Something is going fetid in the state of Denmark.

Mr. Batra rightly points out that the last class to have applied with the Uncommon Application is about to exit the stage. One wonders what act comes next.

Alex Wilhelm Class of 2012

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ARTS

Trivial Pursuits OCTOBER 18, 2011

For Steppenwolf, home isn’t where the heart is Ben Sigrist Arts Staff I’m starting to realize just how vulnerable actors are when performing in ensemble shows. Dialogue gives you a glimpse of individual characters, but the hardest work happens between the lines. Beyond embodying their characters, actors also need to characterize a community: a living space that stands in the place of a protagonist. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is, for better and worse, a perfect example of the unique demands required of such an ensemble show. Steppenwolf ’s production, adapted from the 1940 Carson McCullers novel, focuses on a small town in the Jim Crow South, fraught with politics, personal tragedies, and overwhelming, insatiable desires. The telltale signs of individual suffering and triumph are out in the open before long. However, except in very brief moments, the true, collective character of this community never quite develops.

THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER Steppenwolf Theatre Through November 4

This is not to say that the actors botched their performances—quite the contrary. Questionable southern accents aside (the story is set in Georgia but the voice work always seemed to splash around in the shallower end of the Deep South), the actors craft their individual characters well. John Singer (Robert Schleifer), a welldressed deaf man who pretends to be a deaf-mute, has the demeanor of a patient, sensitive missionary, selflessly serving the world. He becomes an advisor and witness to several of the other townspeople, beginning with the whimsical Mick Kelly (Jessica Honor Carleton), a naïve teenage girl

who invents symphonies in her head.

Mick chats volubly with Mr. Singer while hunting for murmurs of “Motsart” on radio sets and navigating the treacheries of puberty. Mr. Singer’s practiced lip-reading hangs tenuously between blessing and curse in these extended heart-to-heart conversations. The same ambiguity goes for Mr. Singer’s relationship with Jake Blount (Loren Lazerine), a would-be labor organizer who is often too drunk to do much more than get himself into trouble. Often Mick and Blount find genuine solace in airing their woes with Mr. Singer, but sometimes Mr. Singer can seem like little more than a sounding board whose primary attraction is his virtual silence.

The ensemble briefly shines when tackling the problem of communication that falls short of connection.

McCuller’s story calls to mind the monumental tragedies that occur in the novels of William Faulkner—that other Southern author whose characters talk and talk without getting anywhere. And again, like in Faulkner (at both his best and worst), another failure to communicate is due to racial difference. The Kellys’ housekeeper, Portia (Ann Joseph), has some motherly fondness for Mick, but also hints at the intolerability of living under the regime of white supremacy. In contrast, Portia’s father, the strict and severe Dr. Copeland (Walter Coppage), harbors a consuming passion for political resistance that is, tragically, a generation too early for mass protests or marches on Washington.

As this narrative thread, among many others, thins out along the way to its conclusion, the big problem with the play becomes apparent. Again, it’s the nature of the ensemble: There’s not one, but five or six very disparate stories that need to be wrapped up. If it seems like the complexity of racial difference in the South is identified too narrowly through Dr. Copeland’s monomania,

Deaf man John Singer (Robert Schleifer) and Mick Kelly (Jessica Honor Carleton), an eccentric teenage girl, find solace in each other’s companionship in Steppenwolf’s production of The Heart is a Lonely Hunter.

COURTESY OF MICHAEL BROSILOW

it’s not because the play marginalizes the lives of its black characters. Rather, it’s that the plot cannot make up for the work the ensemble should be doing.

What’s missing? How can actors be performing well and still not be doing something right? While each character is skillfully performed, the wide, sweeping plot means that individual narrative lines have already

taken a backseat to a broader picture of the community. However, it’s almost as if each actor is far too focused on characterizing their individuality to characterize the space they live in. Dr. Copeland is pretty much always stiff and irritable and Blount is often unpredictable and abrasive. There are exceptions, of course. Distinct relationships HEART continued on page 10

Nonfiction: It’s just one damned thing after another GLASS continued from front Glass, who began his career as a tape-cutter for Public Radio International and eventually become a reporter for “All Things Considered,” was originally asked to come to campus as part of the Art Speaks series. He declined, and instead came for free as a volunteer, under the condition that the event would be a workshop for a small group of students, not a public lecture. Students had to be registered in a nonfiction writing class, journalism workshop, TAPS radio class, or be working on a documentary film in order to be invited.

Glass reviewed several story pitches and bluntly criticized students about sitting on good ideas without knowing it. He called out one student who wrote about his day-to-day life working as an intern in a consulting company.

“There was a lot of prelude to it... but then talking to [your teacher], he was saying that your company was consulting with Gaddafi about improving his image in the USA? Dude, that’s your story,” Glass said. “His son was having problems at the London School of Economics so you ghostwrote his dissertation? It’s crazy!”

Glass also focused on the importance of conversational style in all forms of journalism. He emphasized that with the increasing popularity of blogs and podcasts, journalism has become more casual. Michael Lewis and John Sullivan were cited as examples of nonfiction writers who have successfully mastered a conversational style in mainstream media, calling Lewis’ The Big Short a “masterpiece.”

Glass said of this most recent phenomenon, “We live in an age of conversational writing,” and he would know best.

A little goes a long way at the MCA Scotty Campbell Arts Contributor We live in a media-saturated world, soaked through with sensationalism. We are bombarded every day with images of tragedy, violence, and excess. It seems fitting, then, that a local museum house an exhibit featuring art

THE LANGUAGE OF LESS (THEN AND NOW)

Museum of Contemporary Art Through April 8 (Then), March 18 (Now)

reduced to its most basic forms, showing us the meaning of “simplicity.”

The Museum of Contemporary Art’s new exhibit, The Language of Less, is divided into two parts, titled “Then” and “Now.” “Then” displays the works of classic minimalist artists, a movement that started in the 1960s as a reaction to abstract expressionism, a mark-

edly more emotional and personal movement. The MCA’s collection displays works from almost every big name in the tradition, separated into thematic rooms. The first room, “Building Blocks,” prominently features “Portal” (1964), a Robert Morris sculpture of an aluminum gateway painted pure white. Evoking prehistoric sculptures like Stonehenge with its dolmen-like shape, “Portal” is a good example of the early minimalists’ attempt to return to basic forms.

The second room, “Dimensions of Space,” shows how minimalist artists played with the space of the gallery itself. Radiating in the corner is Dan Flavin’s multicolored fluorescent light sculpture “Untitled 3” (1978); propped against the nearby wall is John McCracken’s “Untitled” (1967), a plank of wood covered with fiberglass green resin to look like pure industrial material. Reflecting the adjacent light, McCracken’s piece is still able to hold its own, as if it were a painting that escaped from

the wall.

A piece in the third room by Jackie Winsor (“Cheesecloth Piece,” 1981) consists of cheesecloth stretched over a wooden cube. Evoking Japanese shoji doors, Winsor’s sculpture is a gentle centerpiece. In the final room, themed “Open Systems”, is a fishing net spread over a white platform, the entirety of Franz Erhard Walther’s “Net” (1963). Showing how even everyday objects have their own patterns and forms, “Net” is a clever, but almost too subtle play with traditional form.

Dominating the room, however, is Tony Conrad’s “Yellow Movie 2/28/73” (1973). A sheet of paper at least six feet in length is pinned only on the top two corners, becoming misshapen as it rolls down the wall. A thick, black, painted outline suggests a “movie screen” in the center. The screen shows only yellowing paper, meant to evoke our own experiences with media.

LANGUAGE continued on page 10

Frank Stella, “C Type,” 1968. Collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, bequest of Sigmund E. Edelstone.

COURTESY OF NATHAN KEAY

THE CHICAGO MAROON | ARTS | October 18, 2011

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Bombs and betrayals in Under the Blue Sky Daniel Rivera Arts Contributor Under the Blue Sky is a tremendous play tucked into a tiny theater. Nestled just under the Berwyn stop of the Red Line, Steep Theatre is an intimate and surprisingly meditative space. Emerging organically out of its audience, the stage at Steep is designed to maximize both reality and intensity—a setup that benefits its current production of David Eldridge’s Under the Blue Sky. Eldridge’s script is, essentially, a character study of six English teachers; it focuses on the lives these academics lead outside of their classrooms and is set in a world that is being blown apart by both bombs and love alike. The play is divided into three acts, all helmed by six Steep company members who maneuver about the stage with an ease that defies its size constraints.

Act One commences with Nick (Michael Salinas), a twentysomething who is left unfulfilled

UNDER THE BLUE SKY Steep Theatre Through November 6

by his current teaching position, and his old friend and colleague, Helen (Caroline Neff ).

With a startling impassivity, the pair begins discussing a bombing that has just taken place a few streets down. Helen frets over its closeness, while Nick chastises her for initially believing it to be lightning—lightning, he says, wouldn’t rock the whole flat. The conversation shifts as Nick tells Helen he has something serious to discuss with her.

Helen, assuming Nick is ready to move their friendship to the next level, jumps with premature excitement. She is immediately crushed, though, as Nick tells her he’s found a new job in a town far away and that he is seriously considering taking it. Helen is

surprised and hurt, and only after banter and wielded knives is the truth of her unrequited love laid bare. So begins the play’s raw and often ugly examination of love and the psyche in times of war.

In contrast to the literal warfront of Act One, Act Two specifically details the effects of war on the psyche. It begins with Michelle ( Julia Siple) and Graham (Alex Gillmor) drunkenly stumbling into a dark bedroom. After a little undressing and a lot of role-playing, Graham gets overeager and the pair is forced to stop.

With unadulterated honesty, the duo dissolves into a verbal sparring match, detailing a subtle perversity that has defined their relationship as coworkers for years.

Most shocking to the audience and Michelle alike is the revelation that Graham has been stalking Michelle for years, and that he has a collection of photos of her in compromising positions with a student. The photos, Graham tells Michelle, will go public unless she agrees to try and sleep with him again. The scene that follows, with Michelle forced to role-play as a nurse to Graham’s injured army man, is equal parts absurd and tragic. It is a testament to the play’s strength that what started off as the most comedic act should conclude as the play’s most emotionally demanding.

In contrast to Graham’s dark bedroom, the set of Act Three is a sunny garden. In it are Anne (Melissa Riemer) and Robert ( Jim Poole), old teaching companions and holiday travel partners. Anne and Robert’s present is entirely different from the world we left behind in Act Two, but Eldridge begins to tie everything together as Robert and Anne discuss the recent death of a local teacher. It becomes apparent that the schoolroom drama Robert and Anne discuss is centered entirely around the lives of the teachers whom the audience has just peeked in on, and the aloofness characteristic of gossip with which Robert and Anne speak serves to make their news all

The Spirit Play cashes in on the supernatural Alex Allen Arts Contributor

Anne (Melissa Reimer) and Robert (Jim Poole) think about past and present loves in Under the Blue Sky. COURTESY OF LEE MILLER

the more weighty. Robert begins to discuss with Anne his plans for their upcoming holiday, but she interrupts to say that she won’t be travelling with him. She’s already made plans with her aunt to go to a war cemetery to visit the grave of her aunt’s long lost love, and she proceeds to tell Robert the story of how her aunt lost her beloved. It’s with this that Eldridge completes his war-centered tripartite and Under the Blue Sky delves into the ramifications of war in history. It is an effective note to end on, and as Anne and Robert move back into the present and battle over a love that is all their own, it is clear

that Eldridge’s script, despite having premiered in London in 2000, has never been more relevant than it is today.

At once both alienating and moving, David Eldridge’s Under the Blue Sky is a fascinating exploration of the human experience under duress, both from within and without. The context of Steep’s cloistering reality intensifies the experience, so make sure to arrive early and grab a good seat. However, whether you’re in the back row or in the row set just a few feet from Graham’s bed, don’t worry—Eldridge’s script will hit hard, regardless.

Language of Less examines Minimalism from past and present The center cannot The adjacent room is devoted day construction materials, are hold in Lonely LANGUAGE continued from front Moving from the ‘60s to the to a series of loosely connected a welcome contrast to Antunes’s present, the second part of the works by Jason Dodge. Supposed- installation. “The Teller” (2011) Hunter exhibit, “Now,” features the art of contemporary artists inspired by the early minimalists. The sculptures and paintings of Carol Bove, a Swiss artist, contain her signature diamond pattern and feminine references. “Drapery” (2011) is a net-like pattern painted onto canvas, evoking a fishnet dress or Walther’s earlier piece. Another sculpture incorporates layered peacock feathers, which seem silly and unconnected to her surrounding work.

Oscar Tuazon’s art gets its own dark room, a perfect place to display a work like “I gave my name to it” (2010), which combines Dan Flavin’s fluorescent pieces and Carl Andre’s flat steel-plane sculptures. Other works use destructive processes, such as shattering glass and burning paper, to achieve beautiful and often haunting effects.

ly encouraging the viewer to ponder the physical properties of the surrounding space, works such as “Weight” (2011), a tipped-over bathroom scale, try to remind us of gravity. However, this and the surrounding installations (for example “North,” simply a lightning rod pointing north) are too subtle and overwhelmed by the gallery space to have any evocative appeal.

Leonor Antunes is represented by her room-sized installation “walk around there. look through here.” (2011), a two-part work in which leather straps hang over a triangular-patterned cork floor.

The eeriness and sadomasochistic undertones of the piece are instantly recognizable; however, the two materials are too disparate to have enough of an effect.

Fortunately, Gedi Sibony’s pieces, which make use of every-

consists of drop cloth that Sibony has unevenly pinned to a wall, allowing it to fall down to the gallery floor. Humble and subtle, “The Teller” interacts with both the gallery space and the other works in the room. Unlike Antunes’s or Dodge’s work, Sibony’s sculptures use unassuming materials and understated forms to draw in the viewer rather than taking over or becoming overwhelmed by the room.

While there are hits and misses, especially in the contemporary portion, the MCA’s new exhibit is an excellent and thoughtfully arranged collection of minimalist works from the past and present. The Language of Less demonstrates that, even in the age of iPhones and the 24-hour news cycle, there is still a need for simple reflection and minimalist style in art.

HEART continued from front between characters certainly exist, but such distinctions are only noticeable in explosive moments, dictated by plot, that require highly visible outbursts rather than subtle changes in behavior.

This fundamental problem is encapsulated nicely by the poor decision to have actors absent from a given scene pose throughout the stage like contemplative statues, often with their backs turned to the audience.

As a result of this staging, the viewer is effectively forbidden from imagining what the characters are doing when they are not directly participating in the narrative because, well, there they are, right in front of us, trapped in their private and brooding silence. In other words, don’t bother thinking about the larger community outside of the unfolding scene. Your eyes are already telling you that it’s as stiff as a corpse.

The Strange Tree Group’s offthe-wall production, The Spirit Play, is the newest fantastical creation of acclaimed playwright Emily Schwartz. The show was born out of the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs’ Incubator Program, which allows writers to have their plays workshopped on the stage with a cast and crew.

The Spirit Play, with its spooky supernaturalism, is nothing out of the ordinary for a theater group as whimsical as The Strange Tree Group. The play is set in 1870s Chicago, in the decorated home of an upper-class Victorian family. Mr. Gerard and the two Foust sisters are holding a séance for the Redspell family and their close friends.

In the first act, the Redspell family has an encounter with the dead during a séance put together

by Mr. Gerard. The show is a great example of storytelling through objects and the environment. The lights go out and the con artists play silly tricks like knocking on the table and brushing the victims’ hands with a feather in the dark.

It is a farcical show that leaves the audience unprepared for the serious matters that follow in the second act. Conflict arises when Mr. Tennant, a sad, drunk widower, demands to speak to his deceased wife and Mr. Gerard spots the massive diamond ring that used to belong to her. The sisters’ inner turmoil, suspicious family members, and the actual appearance of people from the beyond complicate matters even more and end with some intriguing questions.

As it turns out, deceiving people about speaking to their dead loved ones was a popular and profitable profession in large cities during the second half of the 19th century. The wealthy, as a rule, were plenty superstitious—the perfect victims for amateur magicians and showmen. Schwartz has said that she went through countless magazines and newspapers, finding reports of thieves putting on false séances and even some true believers giving their accounts of speaking to their long lost loved ones.

This combination of skepticism and naïveté provided an excellent starting point for The Spirit Play.

A professional stage magician was hired to create visual illusions for the show. Brett Schneider is a member of the Magic Castle in Hollywood and has performed throughout the nation. His work on this show includes the apparent weightlessness of a table, a diamond ring with a mind of its own, and the several unexplainable disappearances of characters. His tricks alone add to the mystery and intrigue of the show.

The Spirit Play thrives because it considers not just the story of these distraught con artists, but also the possibility that ghosts may actually be entering our realm. Schwartz gives no clear answer, only visual clues, and it’s up to the audience to decide for themselves.

THE CHICAGO MAROON | ARTS | October 18, 2011

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Chicago Manual of

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Project Runway can’t make it work

by Jessen O’Brien

Last Thursday’s episode of Project Runway revealed the ninth season finalists—four contestants chosen to show their work at New York Fashion Week. If you haven’t seen the episode, don’t worry.

I don’t plan on giving away any specific spoilers.

Instead, I want to take this opportunity to talk about this season as a whole and critique the direction of the show.

There are three main issues with the show at this point. First of all, there has been a distinct shift in how the contestants are chosen. When the show first aired, it emphasized selecting genuinely creative and talented designers. Of course, if a candidate was particularly dramatic this most likely factored into their being chosen for the show. But overall the show seemed to trust that if you put a group of creative people together in a stressful, competitive environment, drama is sure to follow. And it is—as anyone who has worked with a group of creative people will tell you. The first few seasons of Project Runway contained multiple scandals—accusations

of cheating (i.e. Keith and Jeffrey), conspiracy (Wendy), and straight-up craziness (Morganza).

Now, though, it seems that the contestants and even the challenges are produced solely because of their potential for drama. This current season in particular is filled with designers that are more catty than talented. Even Anya, the judges’ favorite, can’t sew a pair of pants. A show that used to condemn designers for daring to send a garment down the runway with so much as a single pin in it is now praising the tailoring abilities of a contestant who sent a pair of pants down the runway that weren’t even fully sewn in the back.

The next two issues are with the challenges themselves. In the beginning, challenges were intended not only to produce drama and test the designers but also to train them and see what their specific limits were. There were once clear reasons for each challenge: a group challenge because designers need to learn how to collaborate in a team, a client-based challenge so that designers could learn

how to work with real people while still maintaining their own point of view, or a presentation challenge so the designers could learn how to show their work to the press and the public. Yes, there were a few vague challenges about inspiration, and a few crazy ones with flowers and candy, but even these were pointedly directed towards gaining an insight into the designers’ thought processes and innovation.

In season nine, the challenges are oriented to yield wacky designs, maximize the drama, or both. A few that sound similar to older ones sneak in, but lack the same specificity of focus. Consequently, at the end of the season it’s difficult to tell which designers truly deserve to continue on to Bryant Park—which ones have learned the most, and which ones are the most prepared to become America’s next top designer.

Lastly, the challenges are less and less about design and more and more about fashion. Designers are praised less for coming up with an interesting concept and more for picking up on the latest trends. So contestants are rewarded for their ability

to follow, not lead, the fashion world. The judges have always leaned this way, but the situation has worsened as the skills and talents of the designers themselves go downhill. Few seem to have a defined and unique point of view in comparison to, say, Santana or Austin. Even those who do innovative work, such as Mondo, receive less praise than someone like Gretchen, who can predict the Urban Outfitters catalogue.

Project Runway has been on the air since 2004, and in the past nine years it’s opened up the world of fashion. Documentaries such as Valentino: The Last Emperor, movies such as The Devil Wears Prada, and shows such as The Rachel Zoe Project have all followed the path it forged in giving viewers new insight into why they wear what they wear. Yes, it’s a reality TV show, and its primary purpose is to entertain. However, because it both entertains and gathers a considerable audience, Project Runway also plays a role in determining what it means to be fashionable.

The Great Fire just blows smoke Eric Shoemaker Arts Contributor Lookingglass Theatre’s tradition of using high-spectacle performance to wow the audience has historically been enough to earn them a respected place both in Chicago and around the country.

The troupe, rolling off their 2011 Tony Award for Best Regional Theater, celebrates this victory by showcasing their previous work in large format all over their Water Tower space, from the enormous troupe composite shot in the lobby to panoramic publicity photos hung on the walls of the restrooms—yes, Lookingglass barrages the eye, even with their facilities. Despite the theater and ensemble’s overwhelming presence and ability to impress the senses, their new performance of The Great Fire gets in its own way, the design elements depleting the acting talent’s ability to entertain.

THE GREAT FIRE DCA Theater Through November 6

The play retells the story of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. Written as direct address narratives, John Musial’s script attempts to dig heroes out of the aftermath of the fire, using the original memoirs of several fire survivors. In an interview printed in the program, Musial points out that theater started as stories

told around a campfire, as attempts to explain questions, including: “How did our tribe get here? Who are our heroes?

What were their great struggles and sacrifices?” Musial hones in on these aspects of the fire, successfully pulling the audience in by using the survival stories of the people who rebuilt Chicago.

However, Lookingglass’s interpretation of the text does not so much raise up these stories as drown them in eye candy.

The spectacle gets right in the way of many of the better aspects of The Great Fire, but some are undiminished. The surprising opening sequence, which comes before the fireman’s fire speech (replete with puns), is a welcome sight.

Everything following this in the plot takes the format of disjointed narrative, and seemingly draws from all aspects of 1871 Chicago, from the obscenely rich and powerful to the penny-scraping immigrants. These characters are powerful elements of the plot, both because they are based on actual citizens of the city during the fire and because of the sometimes impressive performances of the ensemble.

Particularly memorable is The Fire, played by Lindsey Noel Whiting, who manages to play a typically inanimate object as both emotionally conflicted and creepy, often at once. Thom Cox, veteran actor of Lookingglass and the Chicago area, manages to play many roles convincingly, from a very young child to the positively hilarious imitation of Roswell Mason, Chicago’s mayor during the fire. Cox gets several of the

The Fire (Lindsey Noel Whiting) reduces Chicago to rubble with her fiery red confetti.

COURTESY OF LEE MILLER

most memorable lines from the show, including the finale’s anthem, “A new city will rise, phoenix-like, from the ashes, a city second only to itself.” These performances, along with the presence of the rest of the cast, save the performance from burning itself up in the smoke and fire effects it utilizes.

The set is impressive, if overdone; Dozens of birdhouses hang from the ceiling, interpolated with vertical pipes running from the ceiling down. The rest of the space echoes the interior of an older house, from slat flooring to a monstrous closet full of junk that

covers almost the entirety of the back wall (at least 30 feet high). This design looks inherently functional if one thinks about the tradition of spectacle in this theater. And, sure enough, the set is climbed upon, cut apart, and blown up within the hour and a half that The Great Fire runs. These techniques become something of an annoyance, particularly past the halfway mark, when the company has poured at least five pounds of red confetti (symbolizing fire) onto the stage and continues to sprinkle it. The only spectacle-type actions that redeem the show are the hokey songs

spaced throughout the performance. It is surprisingly enjoyable to behold a pair of police officers bopping to a call-andresponse song immediately following a tear-jerking scene of loss in the fire.

Equal parts funny and touching, The Great Fire plays much like a documentary geared toward small children. This interpretation doesn’t completely ruin the show, but it casts it in a very particular light. Future directors should view Lookingglass’s performance as a trial run and follow the advice of the persistent citizens of Chicago: “Tear the performance down; put it up again.”

to make money, Zinoman finds it inspirational that it could flourish as it has. He compared this with the moneymaking horror films of today whose directors are typically quite proud, “as if they are doing God’s work,” said Zinoman. Moreover, ’70s horror has had a major effect on many critically acclaimed films today, such as Black Swan and the character Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men. One question from the audience focused on why the fairly sizable crowd laughed at certain points during Foster’s Release and Halloween, raising a point about the crossover of horror and comedy. Zinoman responded by

pointing out that a lot of these movies are exploitative and technically amateurish.

A later question returned to this point, allowing Zinoman to discuss horror and comedy’s tendency to “find out where the line is drawn and then cross it,” as George Carlin put it, pointing to contemporary examples in the Saw franchise and The Human Centipede.

While discussing independent films and distribution today, Zinoman said that there are more good horror films today and more opportunities to view them, but fewer great ones. He’ll always have a great respect for The Exorcist, Rosemary’s Baby, and the rest of the classics born in the ’70s.

A history lesson for horror buffs at Doc Philip Ehrenberg Arts Contributor Last Friday, Doc Films hosted New York Times film critic Jason Zinoman during a screening of a short horror film, Foster’s Release, and of John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978).

Zinoman, who recently published Shock Value: How a Few Eccentric Outsiders Gave Us Nightmares, Conquered Hollywood, and Invented Modern Horror, participated in a panel discussion following the screenings, and answered audience questions on the nature of horror films, why we watch them, and their development from the

1970s until now.

Using Halloween as a case study, Zinoman laid out his idea of a horror renaissance that began in the late 1960s and continued through the ’70s.

Citing the film’s every-town, middleof-suburbia setting, Zinoman pointed out a shift from distant locales to more mundane and familiar places; this was echoed in a similar transition from more supernatural creatures to more human villains.

He also pointed out how the quality of special effects at the time required more creative ways to scare audiences, and, specifically, how the irrationality of antagonist Michael Myers hearkens to

the ever-present fear of the unknown.

The discussion then progressed to comparisons between the renaissance of the horror genre and its current condition. Zinoman spoke to a feeling of embarrassment within the community of horror directors of the ’70s, which he uncovered through research and interviews. Positing that their shame fueled a lot of the evocative images on screen, he said that most of these directors made these films for a quick buck or to get out of horror as quickly as possible.

While many might find cynical the idea of an entire film genre rising in prominence because people wanted

THE CHICAGO MAROON | ARTS | October 18, 2011

12

Vonnegut vignettes get a fair reading Jennifer Standish Arts Contributor It’s one thing to read a work of dryly dark humor; it’s a completely different experience to see it in action. Drupelets: Three Vonnegut Vignettes is a unique play combining three Kurt Vonnegut short stories from his collection Welcome to the Monkey House and adapting them for the stage. This original take on Vonnegut’s short stories, directed and adapted

by Chicago’s own Greg Callozzo, touches upon essential Vonnegut themes while also moving beyond them.

DRUPELETS: THREE VONNEGUT VIGNETTES Stage 773 Through October 27

Chosen by the director for their “fun and interesting approaches” to illustrate Vonnegut’s theme of fighting to preserve your “simple humanity” in the face of life’s “soulless institutions,” these three independent tales are woven together smoothly through Callozzo’s original script. Drupelets begins with “The Foster Portfolio,” a story about Herbert Foster, a poor family man who inherits $8.5 million when all he wants is to play music in a nightclub on weekends. The dilemma is that this secret passion for playing music in piano bars is disturbingly reminiscent to that of his father, who chose the life of an artist over Herbert and his mother. This tale, the most cryptic in the series, starts off the show in a big way, with its dramatic and thought-provoking plot.

The cast treats the audience to some comic relief in “Tom Edison’s Shaggy Dog,” a short story addressing the social contract to which we adhere to when sitting on a park bench with a stranger.

By combining audience interaction and hilarious dialogue with a lightbulb-inventing dog, this story puts the audience at ease and gets them ready for the more intense final story.

The final act uses sharp, entertaining dialogue to approach the impossibly complicated and alienating corporate world of “Deer in the Works.” An impressive performance by Johnny Kalita, playing the entrepreneur-turned-corporate cog David Potter, holds the audience’s attention until the very end.

Though the play’s premise and message is far from simple, the ten-person cast and nearly propless stage gives the play a refreshingly minimalist feel. This approach, says Drupelets actress and U of C graduate student Corina Morris, “enables [the actors] to do more acting,” and, fortunately for the audience, puts the focus solely on their performance. The cast ,as a whole, did an excellent job of transferring Vonnegut’s dry, ironic prose to the stage by delivering countless satirical one-liners with ease. In addition to the collectively impressive performance, a few acts stood out in their own ways. From Brigid Marshall’s and Corina Morris’s hilariously convincing dog impersonations to Todd Herman’s more serious depiction of Herbert Foster’s internal conflict, each actor brought a unique tone to a playful and giving cast.

Possibly the most impressive aspect of the play is something that many members of the audience will never realize. This cast, made up partly of improv actors and partly of traditional actors, pooled their talents to make this semi-improv, semi-scripted performance work. By “treat[ing Vonnegut’s] words as sacred” and keeping them intact, Callazo wrote the script and laid the foundation for the play; the rest was up to the actors. According to Corina Morris, the cast knows where the scene is going and what to say when, and then improvises from there. The fact that this is unnoticeable to the audience except in the sense that the acting is extremely natural and unscripted, as Morris puts it perfectly, “speaks to [Collazo’s] talent as a director.”

Drupelets is a unique, enlightening experience that allows its audience to consider the human struggle to preserve one’s soul presented with dry, dark humor and quirky, compelling characters. Whether or not you read the books (or liked them), Drupelets is sure to show you Vonnegut like you’ve never seen him before.

CROSSWORD

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Thursday 10/14/11

Constitutions in Authoritarian Regimes A conference presented by the University of Chicago Law School Co-sponsored by the Chicago Initiative on Regime Practices and the Center for Latin American Studies

October 21-22, 2011 Friday, 9:00 a.m. – 5:20 p.m.

Saturday, 9:00 a.m. – 12:20 p.m.

University of Chicago Law School 1111 E. 60th Street Chicago, IL 60637

Borodin Quartet FRIDAY / OCTOBER 21 / 7:30 PM Russia’s premiere string quartet debuts at Mandel Hall.

String Quartets by Borodin, Stravinsky and Shostakovich.

All sessions will take place in Law School Classroom V. This conference is free and open to the public. No registration is required, but space may be limited.

For special assistance or needs, please contact Rebecca Klaff at rklaff@law.uchicago.edu or by calling 773.834.4326.

For complete conference schedule, please visit http://www.law.uchicago.edu/Constitution-Conference

6:30 PM Pre-concert lecture with Philip Gossett, Robert W. Reneker Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in the Library at the Quadrangle Club – 1155 E. 57th Street.

Buy your tickets today!

773.702.8068

Mandel Hall, 1131 East 57th Street chicagopresents.uchicago.edu

$35 / $5 students with valid ID A limited number of FREE student tickets are available through the Arts Pass program; visit chicagopresents.uchicago.edu for details.

THE CHICAGO MAROON | SPORTS | October 18, 2011

13

Maroons frustrated by last minute mistake at NYU M. SOCCER continued from back

which is the next game or the next practice,� first-year midfielder Nick Codispoti said.

The loss to Brandeis came despite aggressive play and an advantage in goal-scoring opportunities. Chicago outshot Brandeis 14–8, which included an 8–2 advantage in the second half. Brandeis scored early in the match, but the Maroons were able to respond with a goal in the 21st minute when Codispoti sent a cross to fourth-year midfielder Alan Pikna, who put the ball in the back of the net.

Codispoti decribed the build-up: “The ball started in the middle around midfield.

We moved the ball forward, connecting several passes. Eventually [first-year forward] Kyle Kurfist passed it to [first-year forward] Nic Lopez on the right wing. I saw the space open up ahead of Nic so I have overlapped him. Nic played me the ball past the left side of the defender, I took on touch, then crossed it into the box, where Alan Pikna was able to punch it in the net.�

Despite the strong first half play, a goal early in the second half from a Brandeis midfielder, second-year Kyle Feather, put the game away, although the Maroons put on a surge with 15 minutes remaining , sending four shots at goal over the course of just four minutes.

The NYU game, in contrast to the grinding Brandeis game, was retrospective of Chicago’s gut-wrenching season so far. A goal late in the second half from fourthyear forward Stanton Coville tied the game at one apiece.

Just minutes later the Maroons nearly ended the game on the spot off a long throw-in from second-year midfielder Sawyer Kisken. There as a mad rush towards the net by both teams to gain control of the

ball. Coville was able to get a head on the ball, sending a shot towards the goal that ricocheted off the post and over the net. “We definitely had a ton of momentum in the second half. The shot count in the second half was over whelmingly in our favor,� Coville said.

The first overtime went by without a score, although the Maroons gave NYU a scare when Coville sent a rocket from 30 yards away towards the net. A diving save from NYU goalkeeper, first-year Forrest Sexton kept the game tied at one apiece.

Sexton had seven saves for the Violets, a career high.

With just a single minute remaining in the final overtime period, NYU midfielder Colm Dillane swung the ball in on a corner kick that NYU forward third-year Kyle Green headed into the net. The Maroons have gone to extra time five times this season, and are 0–3–2 in those contents.

Chicago has also struggled in close games.

The Maroons are 3–6–2 in games decided by a goal or less. “Sometimes teams need a little luck on their side,� Codispoti said. “There have been frustrations with this streak,� said Head Coach Scott Wiercinski. “It’s individuals making individual mistakes which are completely uncharacteristic of their own abilities.�

Accord ing to Wiercinski, the team played well over the course of the previous five games, but has continually had crucial momentary lapses that have ended up costing Chicago the game. “If we cut out the goals we’ve given up and you watched 88 minutes of a game, I think you’d say that’s a decent team,�

Wiercinski said. “We have made mistakes in limited time frames that have cost us games.� “All of our games have been very emotional losses,� Coville said. “ We don’t

Women disappointed after loss to conference foes XC continued from back

-ing forward, and they’re doing that.�

Julia Sizek, a third-year who finished the 6,000 meters with a time of 24:04, hopes the team will use Saturday as motivation. “I think the important thing is that it reminded us that we do have to put in a lot of work in order to be successful as a team,� Sizek said, “and that we do need to work harder to prove our ranking.�

Ali Klooster, a fourth-year, said, “I think we realized that we really need to get hungry now. We can’t just wait for results to come to us; we have to make stuff happen.�

Although Hall says that he was excited about the men’s performance, he realizes that they still have room for improvement. “Looking at the results afterwards, we still don’t think we’ve had our best, which is great,� Hall said. “We still believe that we can run better, and hold out, and hopefully contend with the other teams that were a little bit in front of us, as the season goes on.�

According to Wille, the team’s experience running at Oshkosh was helpful this weekend, and could be help out if the team returns to Lake Breeze for the D-III National Championship on November 19. “It ran a little bit slowly because of the wind, but we have run that course a lot,�

Wille said, “so I feel like we know exactly where we have to run fast, exactly how that course has to be run in order to perform well.�

Both teams will compete this Saturday at the North Central Cardinal Open in Naperville, Illinois. The following weekend is the UAA Championship, the first meet of the postseason for the men and women. “We felt all along that we could have a team that could perform really well at conference. This is an elite conference, and we highly respect schools like Wash U, NYU, Carnegie Mellon, Brandeis,� Hall said, in regards to the men’s team. “We’d like to think our team could finish number two in its conference if everybody’s running their best.�

CLASSIFIEDS Classified advertising in The Chicago Maroon is $3 for each line. Lines are 45 characters long including spaces and punctuation. Special headings are 20-character lines at $4 per line. Submit all ads in person, by e-mail, or by mail to The Chicago Maroon, Ida Noyes Hall, Lower Level Rm 026, 1212 E. 59th St., Chicago, IL 60637. The Chicago Maroon accepts Mastercard & Visa. Call (773) 702-9555.

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Chicago has had 11 of 13 games decided by one goal or less. In those games, Chicago is 3– 6– 2. All of the Maroons losses have been decided by a single goal.

feel like we deserve to lose a single one of them.�

The Maroons will have a chance to regroup against some out-of-conference fo es on Sunday, play ing first a g a inst Concordia Chicago on Thursday and then

against UW–Whitewater. The remainder of the season will be played at home, a reprieve from back-to-back weekend road trips. “We’re still motivated to make what we can of the season,� Coville said.

Kung, Higgins invigorated after ITA finish Women’s Tennis Alexander Sotiropoulos Senior Sports Staff The ITA Small College Championships, which was held in Mobile, AL from Thursday through Saturday, is an event that fourth-years Kendra Higgins and Jennifer Kung are very familiar with.

After Kung won the singles title in 2008 and received seventh place in 2009, she ended up placing fourth in doubles with Higgins in her final run at the tournament.

Higgins, earning second place in 2009 at singles, first place in 2010 in doubles with recent graduate Chrissy Hu, and fifth place in singles in 2010, ended her ITA Small College Championships career with a fourth-place finish in singles.

For singles, the final results came after Higgins, the third-seed in singles, defeated first-year Mackenzie Knoop of Trinity (Texas) University in Thursday’s quarterfinal.

She was unable to hold her ground against Emory University’s second-year Gabrielle Clark, losing 6–3, 6–1, nor Claremont-Mudd-Scripps third-year Kristin Lim, losing 6–2, 6–2 in the semifinal and third-place matches, respectively.

Doubles for Chicago started off in the same manner as singles. The fourth-year fourth-seeded duo cruised their way to a quarterfinal victory against Whitman first-year Courtney Lawless and third-year Alyssa Roberg, 6–0, 6–4, before falling to the top-seeded pair of Carnegie Mellon fourth-years Laura Chen and Courtney Chin, 6–3, 6–4 in semifinal action on

Thursday.

Friday’s third-place match ended pleasantly for Higgins and Kung, as they beat Skidmore second-year Lee Ford and thirdyear Nataly Mendoza 6–3, 6–3.

Despite finishing in the top half for both singles and doubles, Higgins said she had higher expectations for herself, but understands the caliber of the tournament. “I think both [Kung ] and I felt as though we could have done a little better,� she said. “It is a hard tournament and you have everyone else who won their region competing for the ITA title.�

The championships consist of the winners of each respective ITA regional and at-large bids, totaling eight singles players and eight doubles teams.

Higgins said she believes the strength of the tournament has grown throughout her collegiate career. “Each year gets harder with all the new tremendous talent that comes to the tournament,� she said.

Yet Kung said that the results of the championships are a wake-up call for her and Higgins’ final season. “We have a lot of room to improve, and I think we’ll only get better as we train during the off-season, and once our season starts again in the winter,� she said.

With her last ITA Small Championships in the books, Higgins showed appreciation for the tournament. “Although we did not do as well as we have done in the past, we both are just very happy to have had the opportunity to be a part of this tournament once again, because there is no other tournament where you get to see almost all divisions play at once,� she said.

14

THE CHICAGO MAROON | SPORTS | October 18, 2011

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In the very least, I hope this column will serve as inspiration to get out of Hyde Park and explore Chicago by bike.

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back south. Cruising south in the MLK Drive bike lane, I pass through the heart of Bronzeville. At the corner of 35th and King I pass Mississippi Rickâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s to my left, a jerk chickenâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;loverâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s paradise.

From there I continue on King, another beautiful tree-sprinkled boulevard, all the way south to 51st Street, before veering southeast onto Elsworth Drive.

Elsworth winds through Washington Park, where cricket and baseball teams are still out playing in the vast fields to my left. I take Elsworth to Morgan

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Further west on 35th are two Bridgeport staples. The first is Grandstand Sports, home to any type of sports paraphernalia a Chicago sports fan could ever possibly need or want. The second is Morrie Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Malleyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s, a shack of a hot dog joint on the corner of 35th and Union, that serves a mean Chicago dog and some great soft serve in the summer. I continue west to Halsted Street, saving my stomach for another foodie stop down the road. I head north on Halsted, one of Chicagoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most famous northsouth streets. Halsted is equipped with a bike path, but can be heavy with traffic.

I head north on Halsted to 29th Street, where I turn left and venture onto a paved trail at Stearns Quarry Park. The

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path takes me up a grassy hill for some great Chicago views. Past the Stevenson and Dan Ryan Expressways with Pilsen coal plants in the foreground, one has a clear look at the towering downtown skyline and the pristine lake.

As I take the path down on the north side of the hill I am led back to Halsted, but not before I pass by what is now a wetland habit that still resembles the limestone quarry it functioned as in the 1930s.

I cross Halsted at the northeast end of the park and head onto residential 26th Sstreet. Even in the off-season, Bridgeport residents take pride in their local baseball, as Sox flags fly from the porches of many houses. The area is also home to large Irish population, as many Irish immigrants moved to this area of Chicago in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, so Irish flags are often flying, as well. I take 26th to Canal Street where I turn south, rolling through rows of houses until I hit 31st Street. On the southeast corner of the intersection is my foodie destination, the Maxwell Street Depot.

Open 24/7, â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Depotâ&#x20AC;?, a oneâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;room grill with a walk-up window, serves grease accompanied with sandwiches, fries, and fried onions. I pull over and wolf down a Polish sausage before hopping back on my two-wheeler.

Having circled through Bridgeport, I head back east to Bronzeville on 31st Street. Thirty-first does not have a bike lane but does not have much traffic.

Before crossing the Dan Ryan back into Bronzeville, I stop at Ferroâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Restaurant on 31st and Wentworth. Though I do not have room left for their specialty Italian sausage, I grab some of their delicious Italian ice for dessert. I have a scoop of both lemon and strawberry, which hits the spot.

A halfâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;mile further east on 31st and I run into King Drive again and take it

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Bridgeport and Bronzeville are two of the oldest and proudest South Side neighborhoods. This route, which weaves through the historic neighborhoods, is a great one for both casual and experienced cyclists alike.

I start off at the Reg, taking 57th Street north to Ellis Avenue and then Ellis north to 53rd Street, before heading west two blocks to Drexel and again turning north. Once past 51st Street heading north on Drexel, the road opens up into a beautiful boulevard, where a 15â&#x20AC;&#x201C;yard wide patch of grass sprinkled with trees divides the southbound and northbound lanes.

Drexel Avenue is part of a large boulevard network in Chicago, featured on other nearby streets like the Midway, King Drive, and Garfield Boulevard, as well as other boulevards that can be seen throughout the city. The boulevard system in Chicago was built in 1849 in an effort to beautify the city. Today they continue to serve that function well.

Along with the beauty of the boulevard, Drexel is great to bike on, as it is equipped with a bike lane. I head north on Drexel until it ends at Oakwood Boulevard, passing by some impressive architecture. including Victorian mansions and row houses, Martin Luther King College Prep, a magnet high school, and Grant Memorial Methodist Church. I take a left onto Oakwood, also equipped with a bike lane, and as I head west I am moving from the west edge of Kenwood further into Bronzeville After three short blocks on Oakwood, I turn north again on King Drive, a busy South Side thoroughfare that also conveniently has a bike lane. I pedal north to 35th Street where I take a left and head west. Thirty-fifth Street

does not have a bike lane, but is a wide street with only one lane of traffic each way and is bike friendly. The headquarters of the Chicago Police Department are located just five blocks west in a new white building with blue windows. As I continue west, I pass under the Green Line and through the campus of the Illinois Institute of Technology. I carefully cross over the Dan Ryan expressway, crossing from Bronzeville into Bridgeport. As I continue west, the tan stone and black roof of US Cellular Field towers to my left. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Cell,â&#x20AC;? as it is more affectionately known, houses the Chicago White Sox. Some Sout Side purists still refer to the stadium as â&#x20AC;&#x153;Comiskey Parkâ&#x20AC;?, after the late owner of the Sox from 1900â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1931, Charles Comiskey, for whom the stadium was originally named.

6OZabSR Ab

J.T. Sullivan Sports Staff

Drive where I take a left, passing by the DuSable Museum of Africam American History to the east, before taking a left onto 57th Street and heading east back to campus.

In that short hour and a half ride I hit a ton of great locations, but there were many that I missed as well. That really is the beauty of the city: there is a unique story around every corner.

Care to join me or have ideas for future routes? Email jtsullivan@uchicago.edu.

Chicago fails to keeps momentum after winning first set against Wash U VOLLEYBALL continued from back

Second-year Maggie Vaughn (left) and fourth-year Isis Smalls block and oncoming ball during a game against Wisconsin Lutheran.

DARREN LEOW | THE CHICAGO MAROON

point in the decisive fourth set when they rallied to almost tie the match and force a tiebreak fifth. But the Bears of St. Louis bore down to pull out the 22â&#x20AC;&#x201C;25, 25â&#x20AC;&#x201C;16, 25â&#x20AC;&#x201C;14, 25â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 22 win, with three players caressing double-digit kills and another three providing double-digit defensive digs. The Maroons were led by the powerful Isis Smalls with 10 kills and their own three with over 10 defensive digs each.

Sunday was a hopeful day for the Maroons and for their coach, as she approached her 100th career win with Chicago. The team fulfilled all its expectations for the day, cruising to a 25â&#x20AC;&#x201C;13, 25â&#x20AC;&#x201C;17, 25â&#x20AC;&#x201C;12 drubbing of NYU, showing off their Midwestern brawn in collecting 34 kills and only six errors, compiling a remarkably high efficiency of .444 on attack. They followed that up with a 25â&#x20AC;&#x201C;13, 27â&#x20AC;&#x201C;29, 25â&#x20AC;&#x201C;20, 25â&#x20AC;&#x201C;13 win over Carnegie Mellon with only a few mistakes to be had. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We played at a pretty high level throughout Sunday,â&#x20AC;? DelZenero said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We frequently went on big runs against both NYU and Carn-

egie and terminated very consistently. It was a great feeling to see us play like that as a team after our ending on Saturday.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;NYU and Carnegie were much easier matches,â&#x20AC;? Trela said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We lost focus in the second game against Carnegie and played it safe too much. Our serves definitely became less aggressive, and we let them get too many kills off of tips. We pulled it together and started playing back up to our level for the third and fourth games.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;The next two games were great!

We played at a high level and everyone that saw the floor made a great impact. It is a good feeling to a coach when you can play anyone on your team and not have a change in play. I love that about this team. I am confident with whoever I throw on the floor,â&#x20AC;? Walby said.

As for Walby, she brought her record at Chicago to a magnificent 100â&#x20AC;&#x201C;46 and her team especially dedicated the last day of regular season conference play to their magnanimous leader. â&#x20AC;&#x153;She started her head coaching career at Chicago,â&#x20AC;? Trela said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It

was especially important to win both matches today because we had already decorated some gifts for Coach with the date on them!â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;Coach Walbyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 100th win is a huge accomplishment for her,â&#x20AC;?

DelZenero said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It just goes to show how much of a difference sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s made for the program and the hard work she has put into it.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;To be honest I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know it was my 100th win,â&#x20AC;? Walby admitted. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It was a very nice and unexpected surprise. It came by fast, but I owe a lot of credit to the girls. I think it is most special that I am able to share it with the seniors who have been with me for every single one of these wins. It is a sweet accomplishment.â&#x20AC;?

The two UAA Round Robins established Emory as the number one seed in the UAA Championship after they upset Wash U on Sunday, with Wash U and Chicago following in the ranks. These rankings reflect a similar setup to last yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s when they were number one, three, and four respectively.

The Maroons finish up their last game at home on Wednesday against a relatively strong Dominican side.

THE CHICAGO MAROON | SPORTS | October 18, 2011

Gormley: “We treated the NYU game like an NCAA game that we had to win” W. SOCCER continued from back

to put another one in and get a win,” said fourth-year goalkeeper Emma Gormley.

The game went to overtime, but the earlier score held up.

“We treated the NYU game like an NCAA game that we had to win,” Gormley said. This mentality was evident in the offensive show the Maroons put on in New York.

Chicago struck first, in the 36th minute, when second-year forward Kat Konstantinoff scored her third goal of the season.

The Maroons added on in the 64th minute, with a goal from first-year forward Sara Kwan, her third of the year. First-year defender Katie Shivanandan scored on a free kick in the 83rd minute for the Maroons’ third and final goal of the game.

NYU made some late noise with Serra Tumay’s goal off of a free kick in the 85th minute, but the 3-1 score went final.

Motivation and a lot of team effort characterized the spread out nature of the offensive onslaught, especially in comparison to the singular goal scored only two days prior. “I was very happy after the NYU game not only because we won, but because we came together as a team to win,” Tobin said.

The team is now looking ahead to its

final four games in hopes of winning the UAA crown. “[The] women’s soccer team has always had one of the hardest schedules in the entire division.... Getting a bid into the tournament is up to a committee that judges our record with our schedule, and all we can do is continue to play and win against good teams to guarantee a spot,” Tobin said.

A crucial element to beating those teams will be maintaining the offense the team showed on Sunday. The team’s early season successes were marked by multiple goals per game. “Being so productive on offense is a big confidence builder for us as we move into our next games, and hopefully we’ll continue to be as effective at scoring goals,” Gormley said.

Three of the team’s last four games will take place at Chicago. “We play on a different edge when we’re at home. There’s just a special feeling that comes with playing on our own field in front of our fans,” Gormley said.

Before returning home for good, Chicago will go up against Millikin University in the team’s last non-conference game this Saturday, October 22, at noon on the road.

After that, the team will play three straight home games against UAA opponents.

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15

SPORTS

IN QUOTES “People are making us out to be a bunch of drunk, fried-chicken eating SOBs.” —Red Sox pitcher Jon Lester, in response to a Boston Globe report that he and other Red Sox players were drinking in the dugout.

Maroons earn three seed in Walby’s 100th win

Second-year Maggie Vaughn spikes the ball past the Wisconsin Lutheran defense.

DARREN LEOW | THE CHICAGO MAROON

Volleyball Charles Fang Senior Sports Staff The second UAA Round Robin for Maroons volleyball was a memorable one, with Head Coach Vanessa Walby collecting her 100th win, and the Chicago side capturing three of four matches.

This round robin wrapped up conference play to decide the seeding for the UAA Conference Cham-

pionship in early November, an event for which the Maroons have high hopes.

On Saturday, the Maroons faced off first against Brandeis, cruising to a dominant 25–14, 25–14, 25–20 straight-set victory behind a team effort in which seven players recorded at least four kills each, secondyear Nikki DelZenero collected 27 set assists, and third-year Samantha Brown led the stout defense with 11 defensive digs.

“Brandeis was a great first match

Losing streak extends to five in another gut-wrenching defeat Conference hopes shot down with dual loss Men’s Soccer Mahmoud Bahrani Sports Editor After getting off to a quick start this season, Chicago now finds itself in a bind. Close losses to two more UAA foes over the weekend eliminated Chicago from not only UAA contention, but also effectively eliminated the team from

qualifying for the NCAA tournament, as well. The Maroons lost 2-1 at Brandeis (8-4-1, 1-2-1) on Friday and lost a g a in t wo days later to NYU (6-6-1, 2-2), extending their losing streak to five. Chicago has not won since September 21.

“As a team we can’t think about what’s happened in the past. We only focus on what’s ahead of us, M. SOCCER continued on page 13

Second-year Alexis Onfroy looks for a pass during a home game against Emory.

COURTESY OF DAVE HILBERT

for us,” Walby said. “We came out with a lot of intensity and our Chicago swag. We were able to play everybody and develop our bench and nothing skipped a beat with our level of play.”

“We played in the Brandeis match pretty confidently and were able to carry that into the first set of Wash U,” DelZenero said.

Second-ranked Wash U brought a different can of goods to the affair.

Chicago would be carried by the winds of momentum to win the first

game, stopping Wash U’s NCAA D-III record of consecutive sets won at 63.

“Wash U started out as a great match,” Walby said. “We came out competitive and played aggressively.

I honestly think that Wash U was caught off guard.”

“The first game of Wash U felt calm, cool, and collected,” third-year Katie Trela said. “[Then] we just got frazzled the next couple games, like we weren’t used to winning against top-ranked teams, and we crumbled a bit.”

Wash U struck hard in the next two games, winning by margins of nine and eleven points, living up to their national ranking and their acclaimed defensive character.

“We stopped them from continuing to set a record, and they were angry about it,” DelZenero said. “A good team that’s angry isn’t going to roll over, and in the second set we needed to come back strong more than ever. When we didn’t, they capitalized and ran with it for two sets, and we just couldn’t put it together.”

Even with the performances in games two and three, the Chicago side felt satisfied with their effort. “I know that the scores in games two and three don’t reflect that, but we played pretty well,” Walby said. “We just got stuck in a couple of rotations that were hard for us to get out of.”

Chicago was down nine at one VOLLEYBALL continued on page 14

Win at NYU keeps UAA hopes alive Women’s Soccer Sarah Langs Sports Contributor On a busy weekend, Chicago’s women’s soccer team (7–4–2, 1–1–2) tied 1–1 at Brandeis (5–8–1, 0–3–1) on Friday and won 3–1 at NYU (9–5–0, 1–3–0) on Sunday. “[The Brandeis] game was the opposite of a normal soccer game,” said fourth-year left back Maggie Tobin. It included an 89minute lightning delay early in the second half and pouring rain throughout the entire game.

Brandeis scored early, in the second minute, when midfielder Mary Shimko scored her third goal of the year, with an assist from midfielder Mimi Theodore.

“Unfortunately, we let up a goal in the first five minutes, but we did not give up the entire rest of the game,” Tobin said.

Chicago got on the board in the 54th minute with fourth-year forward Allison Hegel’s seventh goal of the season, which came about two minutes before the beginning of the delay. “Scoring a goal right before the rain delay was definitely a huge boost, but, unfortunately, we weren’t able W. SOCCER continued on page 14

Chicago defeats NYU, MIT at Oshkosh Cross Country Matthew Schaefer Sports Contributor If Saturday’s UW–Oshkosh Invitational at Lake Breeze Golf Club in Winneconne, WI tells us anything, it’s that the men’s cross country team is hitting its stride as it approaches the UAA Championship on October 29, while the women’s team still has some work ahead.

Top-50 finishes by third-year Isaac Dalke and fourth-years Billy Whitmore and Mahmoud Bahrani, along with strong performances by Daniel Povitsky, Brian Schlick, and the rest of the South Siders, led to a sixth-place finish for the men. Chicago had to overcome windy conditions, with gusts of up to 25–30 mph creating a difficult racing environment.

“It was a positive step forward for our team,” Head Coach Chris Hallw said. “We went into a great field and did better than what other people would have predicted we would have done.”

Brian Wille, a fourth-year on the team who finished with a time of 26:39, described the implications of Saturday’s race.

“It really is a preview for the national meets, and shows us what we have to do and how we have to perform in order to make it to

Third-year Isaac Dalke runs during the Elmhurst Invitational.

COURTESY OF DAVE HILBERT

the NCAA meet at the end of the year,” Wille said. “It will act as a confidence booster, because we know we can compete with these teams.”

While Oshkosh reinforced the dominance of top teams like North Central (Ill.) and UAA rival Wash U, it also cast a positive light on Chicago’s postseason aspirations.

“It’s really exciting because I don’t remember the last time that we’ve beaten NYU in a race before,” Wille said. “It helps that we know we can perform well, and hopefully beat teams like NYU

and Emory, and at least put up a good fight against Wash U.” Despite an impressive ninthplace finish by fourth-year Rachel Ohman and a top-50 finish by fellow fourth-year Jane Simpson, Oshkosh left the Maroon women disappointed, frustrated, and upset. They finished 12th behind the likes of UAA rivals Wash U, Emory, and NYU. “We were disappointed. Our girls are better than what they showed this past weekend,” Hall said. “I think our women need to evaluate what they need to do goXC continued on page 13