112911 Chicago Maroon

TUESDAY • NOVEMBER 29, 2011

THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO SINCE 1892

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ISSUE 17 • VOLUME 123

Law School professor pours $25 mil into economics program Joy Crane News Contributor A senior lecturer at the Law School and his wife have donated $25 million to the Becker Friedman Institute toward the establishment of a interdisciplinary program in the social sciences.

Under the direction of economists Steven Levitt and Kevin Murphy, the new Andrew and Betsy Rosenfield Program in Economics, Public Policy, and Law will aim to increase collaboration among scholars in the economics department, the Law School, the Booth School of Business, the Harris School of Public Policy Studies, and the Law School’s recently formed Institute for Law and Economics.

The program will strengthen the connection between the Law School and the Becker Friedman Institute, according to a press release, particularly to support empirical economic studies using Chicago Price Theory, a research tradition that combines rigorous economic thinking with datadriven analysis. “The Becker Friedman Institute was founded as a dynamic meeting place for researchers with diverse perspectives and research backgrounds,� President Robert Zimmer said in a Monday University press release. “With this generous donation from the Rosenfields, the tradition of evidence-based research on fundamental problems in the areas of

economics, law, and policy will find new form and new opportunities.�

Andrew Rosenfield ( J.D. ’78), who has taught at the law school for over 25 years, lauded the University’s interdisciplinary approach to economics. “One of Chicago’s enduring strengths is the facilitation of collaboration across disciplinary boundaries, which is essential to make this sort of work successful and practicable,� he said in the press release.

Levitt, the William B. Ogden Distinguished Service Professor of Economics and one of the directors of the Becker Center on Chicago Price Theory, praised the Rosenfields’ donation for its potential to further deepen Chicago Price Theory. “The Rosenfield gift will be critical to not only preserving but strengthening Chicago’s leadership role in price theory.

Our mission is not just to produce cutting edge research that is relevant to policy, but to make sure the next generation of economists is exposed to the power of these tools,� Levitt said in the release.

The gift also coincides with the Law School’s recent initiative to further integrate law and economics. Resources from the donation will support programs such as the recently announced Law and Economics 2.0 Initiative, which aims to introduce the two social sciences as a combined field to foreign governments.

’Tis the season (for all-nighters) Trees on the Main Quad, bedecked with lights in anticipation of the holiday season, illuminate the way to Harper while students gear up for reading period, finals week, and winter break.

The MAROON will resume publication on Friday, January 6.

DARREN LEOW | THE CHICAGO MAROON

Uptick in violence belies drop in Hyde Park crime Rebecca Guterman Associate News Editor Overall, crime in the Hyde Park-South Kenwood area is down, but violent crime has risen slightly from last year, according to the most recent UCPD figures.

On average, year-to-date reports of crime in the Hyde Park-South Kenwood neighborhood have dropped two percent since 2010, while violent crime has risen four percent from its record low last year.

As of November 16, 181 violent crimes had occurred so far this year in the Hyde Park-South Kenwood area, which extends from West 47th to East 61st Streets and South Cottage Grove Avenue to Lake Michigan. The number

of violent crimes is 21 percent lower than the area’s year-to-date average over the past five years.

Incidents of violent crime, which include murder, sexual assault, robbery, and aggravated battery and assault, had been decreasing steadily since 1996, hitting a record low last year of 194, according to UCPD reports.

A spate of muggings near or on campus prompted University administrators to hire additional security personnel earlier this year, and just last night a student was mugged at 7:35 p.m. walking down East 57th Street near South Woodlawn Avenue.

In fall quarter of this year, the number of reported electronics and money thefts dropped from 68 to 41, and the number

of burglaries fell from 32 to 14.

During fall quarter 2010, UCPD reported that the most common crimes were burglary and thefts of money, wallets, purses, and electronics like cell phones and laptops, according to daily public incident reports.

Bicycle thefts and criminal damage were also two main contributors to crime rates last fall quarter. Criminal damage reports have been cut in half, though bicycle thefts have remained steady this year.

UCPD spokesperson Bob Mason said that the four percent increase is small enough that UCPD remains optimistic about the prospects of local violent crime dropping.

CRIME continued on page 2

Grad students take aim as admin takes the stage Now a Marshall Scholar, medical ethicist looks to Oxford Harunobu Coryne News Editor

Deputy provost for graduate education Deborah Nelson performed a precarious balancing act between student advocate and senior administrator last night in her first forum with graduate student representatives, fielding pointed criticisms of the University’s support systems while assuring attendees of her dedication to their quality of life.

Students from several graduate departments, alongside Graduate Council (GC) members and representatives of Graduate Students United (GSU), expressed their concern over a range of issues, including childcare, student stipends, and the troubled academic job market.

On most counts, Nelson both acknowledged the gravity of the stuNELSON continued on page 2

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Linda Qiu Associate News Editor

Anthropology Ph.D. student Eleanor Bush (center), an interim vice president of the Student Parents Organization, questions deputy provost for graduate education Deborah Nelson about childcare services during a Graduate Council meeting Monday evening.

JAMIE MANLEY | THE CHICAGO MAROON

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Fourth-year Leah Rand was named a Marshall Scholar last week, making her the 20th U of C student to launch her graduate education overseas under the scholarshipâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s aegis since 1987.

A HIPS (History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Science and Medicine) major, Rand is specifically interested in medical ethics and plans to study philosophy at Oxford University. â&#x20AC;&#x153;During the interview process, they told me that the philosophy program at Oxford is one of the hardest and most intensive ones, and I did not know that before. So Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m kind of apprehensive about that,â&#x20AC;? Rand said.

Marshall Scholarships finance graduate education at one of five United

MARSHALL continued on page 2

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Kingdom universities for students in their final year of college. Last year, two students received Marshall Scholarships, and three were named the Universityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 46th, 47th, and 48th Rhodes Scholars.

Thirty-six Marshall Scholarships were awarded this year, and 32 Rhodes Scholars were named. None of this yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Rhodes Scholars were University of Chicago students, for the third time in the past 10 years.

Rand began her application in June with help from an adviser in the college and submitted it in October. She was contacted by the head of the interview committee two weeks ago.

Also a Rhodes applicant, Rand felt particularly drawn to the study abroad experience in England. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve always been an anglophile.

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THE CHICAGO MAROON | NEWS | November 29, 2011

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Nelson to students: University must juggle diverse demands and competing interests NELSON continued from front

dents’ problems and explained the difficulties inherent in solving them.

“My stipend is not quite $20,000, and childcare can exceed $20,000 a year,” Eleanor Bush, interim vice president of the Student Parents Organization and a third-year Ph.D student, said. “It’s not just the number of [childcare] spaces, it’s not the quality— it’s the costs.”

Bush said that the U of C is lagging behind peer institutions with better childcare resources, such as Harvard University. Nelson agreed that “something needs to happen” on the childcare issue, though she qualified that the administration must consider the

needs of the majority of students, who have no children. She also said that Harvard’s larger endowment enables it to offer larger stipends.

“There’s not an unlimited amount of money,” Nelson said. “The 80 percent of students who don’t have children might resent us using the money that could have gone to a $6,000 increase in stipends toward that priority [of childcare].”

On other issues, however, Nelson disagreed with her complainants more decisively. When Dave Pacifico, a sixth-year anthropology graduate student claimed that the University’s financial support dries up before students can complete the bulk of their scholarly work, Nelson

WOODLAWN AND SOUTH KENWOOD, CRIME BY THE NUMBERS 2011 2010

CRIME continued from front

“It has been decreasing at a steady pace, which is encouraging,” Mason said. “We like to remind people also that it’s not just the police departments—it’s cooperation from everybody in the neighborhood and on campus to keep themselves as safe as possible.”

There have also been six murders in the area this year as of November 16, but according to UCPD Chief Marlon Lynch, none were on campus or involving students.

“There has been an increase in gang activity in the northern part of our patrol area, and

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the southwest,” Lynch said. The UCPD patrol area includes the Hyde Park-South Kenwood area, but also extends north to West 39th Street and south to East 64th Street.

“It’ll calm down,” Mason added. “[The murder rate] flares up for various reasons, inter- or intragang problems.”

Despite the increase in violent crime, Mason said that the incidences of property crimes, which include burglary, theft, and motor vehicle theft, decreased three percent this year. UCPD reported similar trends last year.

Previous Marshall Scholar mentored Rand throughout application process MARSHALL continued from front

That being said, I know it will be a whole new experience living in the UK for two years, and I’m eager to be totally immersed in life there,” Rand said in an email.

Throughout the application process, Rand kept in contact with Ben Umans (A.B ’10), one of last year’s Marshall Scholars and a friend, and looks forward to meeting with him in Oxford. The Marshall Scholarship’s Chicago consulate contacted Rand shortly after announcing her award and connected her with other recipients in the Midwest.

“We’re going to meet up in Chicago or New York. I’m very excited for that,” Rand said.

The scholarship has a minimum GPA requirement of 3.70, though the average of U of C Marshall Scholars’ GPA over the past 10 years has been 3.92, according to the University’s Web site. An interest in the United Kingdom, along with academic excellence, community involvement, and leadership potential are all strong deciding factors.

Rand is head judge of the Scavenger Hunt this year, serves on Prospective Students Advisory Committee, and recently acted in University Theater’s production of “The Physicists.”

Rhodes Scholarships from 2001 to 2012 Harvard

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3 Stanford

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4 Princeton

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Complications with the roof renovations of Ida Noyes Hall have pushed back the completion date for construction until the end of January, while interior construction remains on track to be complete by the end of May. The University decided over the summer to replace the roof and fix the stone masonry on the southern half of the building’s exterior, beginning work on July 6. The renovations had originally been scheduled to end November 18, but workers discovered new problems when they tore off the first layer of the roof.

University spokesperson Steve Kloehn said that the delay was relatively minor.

“I don’t think it’s unusual to pull off a roof and find that there are some issues with the [area] underneath,” he said. In an e-mail message, Kloehn added that complications with completing a roofing project during winter also contributed to the delays.

Meanwhile, renovations to the interior of Ida

Noyes remain on schedule for a May 30, 2012 completion date. The renovations, which began October 31, affect the second and third floors of the building, including the CAPS offices.

A third, separate renovation project, to the floor of the Ida Noyes Hall Dance Room, is expected to be done over winter break. However, administrators are prepared for the possibility of the floor presenting similar problems as did the roof.

“You never know what’s going to happen in a construction project when they pull up the floor,” director of ORCSA Sharlene Holly said, adding that she hopes to start the project as soon as possible to account for potential delays.

The building’s last major renovation occurred in 2007 when the northern half of the roof was replaced and stone masonry on the northern exterior was renovated.

To carry out the exterior work, the University has contracted Bulley and Andrews Masonry Restoration, a Chicago-based company that has worked on University projects in the past, including renovations to the U of C Lab Schools.

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CORRECTIONS » The November 22 article, “Graduate Student Found Hanged In Geophysical Sciences Building,” misquoted Samuel Miller, who described Adams’s study of species affected by climate change.

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She said after the talk that the students’ demands were reasonable and of concern because happier students do better work.

“Of course, their misery does not contribute to their academic success,” she said. Still, she added, “We have to have priorities, and we have to have some kind of guiding system of our priorities.”

However, Bush said afterward that Nelson’s responses were too broad.

“She grossly oversimplified things,” Bush said.

“Of course [childcare] is a complex issue, of course there are different needs. The fact is that other institutions have found a way to balance them, and the University of Chicago hasn’t.”

Ida renovation hits snag, will continue into winter

Gang activity adding to crime increase, UCPD says Theft from motor vehicle Theft of wallet/laptop/phone Burglary Theft of bikes Armed robbery

rebutted that graduate students are “allotted too much time” to complete their degrees.

“If you were really finishing in six years, or seven years, the financial burdens would be different,” Nelson said, adding that she is working with department heads and faculty mentors to help students complete their degrees faster. “Nobody can make their time-to-degree if they’re not getting timely feedback.”

Nelson’s position was created less than three months ago and requires her to meet with department heads across the University’s three divisions (including the Humanities Division’s 16 departments) and five professional schools.

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VIEWPOINTS

Editorial & Op-Ed NOVEMBER 29, 2011

Electoral dysfunction The current system for replacing College Council representatives should be reformed The student newspaper of the University of Chicago since 1892 ADAM JANOFSKY Editor-in-Chief CAMILLE VAN HORNE Managing Editor AMY MYERS Senior Editor JONATHAN LAI News Editor HARUNOBU CORYNE News Editor SAM LEVINE News Editor COLIN BRADLEY Viewpoints Editor PETER IANAKIEV Viewpoints Editor SHARAN SHETTY Viewpoints Editor EMILY WANG 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 GABE VALLEY Head Copy Editor

Show up at Stuart Hall tomorrow night, walk into the weekly College Council (CC) meeting, and make your case that you should fill one of the two vacant representative seats.

Although representatives are usually elected by hundreds of students on campus, given the recent set of extraordinary circumstances, odds are you’ll probably get the spot.

This isn’t a hypothetical situation.

Tomorrow, CC will attempt to fill the seats vacated by newly elected chair and third-year Travis Benaiges and vice-chair and fourth-year Glynis Fagan. Benaiges’ vacated seat would normally have been automatically filled by the fifth-place finisher of last year’s SG elections, but he and the three other representatives of his class ran unopposed in the race for their year’s four seats, leaving no runner-up.

There are many problems with this situation. One is that, even though Be-

naiges was elected as chair during the third-week meeting, his replacement is being chosen now, during the last week of the quarter. This is in spite of CC by-laws that require replacements to be confirmed within a week. The bigger problem, however, is more familiar: CC’s official policy is to fill vacancies through internal elections.

This isn’t ideal for a multitude of reasons. First, internal elections are privy to significant bias; if a candidate is acquainted with even two or three current representatives, that person has already gone a long way toward convincing the council she belongs in a position of power. Second, with an established polling system already in place, it would be simple to open up the process to a quick campus vote. This also ensures that the people who will ultimately be represented have a say in filling the positions.

Admittedly, these votes will not at-

tract a large percentage of the student body. That’s to be expected during tenth week, a time when finals are looming and Student Government is the last thing on anyone’s mind. But it’s likely that more than 16 students would vote, which is the number of people on College Council. We don’t have to be the most electorally engaged student body to present a better option than a compromised selection by CC members.

There is an obvious way this situation could be prevented in the future. Students who know they will be studying abroad during their term should not be eligible for elected positions. Promises made in the past that involved videochatting into CC meetings are simply laughable. It is even more absurd that CC would choose to go further and name Benaiges chair of CC, knowing full well that he would have to abandon his post.

But not all of this is SG’s fault; until more

students run for CC positions in the first place, it seems difficult to imagine placing further restrictions on eligibility.

There is no perfect solution to these problems. SG has done much to engage the student body in the past year—specifically with the advent of SG committees, which directly involve students in forums of administrative action and undergraduate feedback. Nevertheless, let’s attempt some semblance of democracy and transparency when replacing our elected representatives. To simply allow any third- or fourth-year to saunter into the CC meeting and claim to be qualified is insulting. If such practices are continued, it might be time for the council to get some counsel.

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

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

Collecting ourselves Keeping too many relics from the past gets in the way of an organized present

GIOVANNI WROBEL Assoc. News Editor AJAY BATRA Assoc. Viewpoints Editor DANIEL LEWIS Assoc. Sports Editor TYRONALD JORDAN Business Manager VIVIAN HUA Undergraduate Business Executive VINCENT MCGILL Delivery Coordinator HAYLEY LAMBERSON Ed. Board Member HYEONG-SUN CHO Designer SONIA DHAWAN Designer ALYSSA LAWTHER Designer SARAH LI Designer

By Emily Wang Viewpoints Editor

AUTUMN NI Designer AMITA PRABHU 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 JANE HUANG Copy Editor MICHELLE LEE Copy Editor

Over break, my roommate took the train to my hometown—an inoffensive, mildly pleasant suburb southwest of Chicago. Naturally, when we got to my house I showed her all the embarrassing relics of my childhood that I could find: old yearbooks, baby photos, illegible letters, souvenirs from various friends from all over the world, endless piles of stuffed animals. My roommate, faced with this

hoard of nonessential things, looked me straight in the eye and said, “Emily, throw this away.” Appalled by that notion, I vigorously shook my head “no” and snatched the trinkets back from her.

I must confess that I have a minor problem: I collect everything and anything, and store it away under the pretense that it will come to use at some eternally ambiguous future date. In elementary school, I joined recycling club because “I cared about the environment,” but really, I cared about finding hidden jewels (unused colored pencils, a sheet of “Great Job!” stickers, notes with “I like you” written on them in crooked script) in those blue plastic treasure chests. For the majority of my life, my room looked like the suburban, teenage reimagining of the final shot of Citizen Kane. It’s only recently regained the appearance of the living space of a sane human being because,

well, I no longer live in it. Yet, until my roommate so vehemently denounced the practice, I hadn’t given much thought to collecting aside from recognizing that it was something I simply did.

I’ve been thinking since then about what collecting means to me. Going back home, in particular, is like an irresistible invitation to re-immerse myself in all the minutiae of suburban life: stamps, rocks, shells, stickers, ticket stubs, newspaper clippings, diaries of various shapes and sizes. Every once in a while I find myself, especially over long breaks, just sitting and rearranging my collections, fondly tossing and turning over the memories in my mind.

But even when I surround myself again with these remnants of the past, it’s not as though I can ever really access those parts of my life from where I am now. Since coming to college, I’ve real-

ized that there’s really no such thing as retrospective clarity, but, rather, the imposition of a convenient narrative onto a past that remains comfortingly static.

That’s something I struggle to accept, and it’s the reason I keep going back to these vague memories, always mildly pleasant, just like the town I grew up in.

I like to tell myself that I’m more comfortable stewing in a mess of papers and clothes and random found items, that I’m—ahem—in my “element” this way. Really, though, those are just excuses expressed in less self-incriminating phrasing. So my roommate, I’m pained to admit, is right: Collecting, when unsystematic and spontaneous, is a compulsion that often gets in the way of achieving a more organized, lowerstress lifestyle.

Collecting doesn’t make me quirkier, or more “real” in some way (in the movies, HOARDING continued on page 5

KATIE MOCK Copy Editor LANE SMITH Copy Editor JEN XIA Copy Editor ESTHER YU Copy Editor BEN ZIGTERMAN Copy Editor

Don’t quit on Mitt Republican hopes of nominating an anti-Romney are unrealistic and against the party’s interest

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

By Ajay Ravichandran Viewpoints Columnist This fall’s longest running political drama, the Republican Party’s unending search for a credible presidential candidate who is not former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, entered a bizarre new phase in the past two weeks.

Newt Gingrich, the former Speaker of the House whose campaign was last newsworthy when most of his major staffers quit in June, has become a serious contender for the nomination, reaching frontrunner status in a recent average of influential polls. While the GOP’s

search for an anti-Romney has taken it in some unusual directions already, the fact that it has now led primary voters to take seriously a man whose campaign once released an official statement that described him as “[emerging] out of the billowing smoke…of tweets and trivia” makes both their desperation and the futility of their task especially clear. Gingrich’s rise therefore provides a good occasion to ask exactly why Republicans so deeply want something they can’t have.

The answer to this question illuminates some important features of the party’s current condition.

To understand why the GOP wants an anti-Romney, we need first to figure out just what primary voters think is wrong with him. The main difference between Romney and Gingrich (as well as his other challengers) seems to lie in the combativeness of their rhetoric.

While all the candidates have been quite critical of President Obama, Romney has generally tempered his attacks by

acknowledging that Obama is a decent man who is simply overwhelmed by the demands of the presidency and focused on concrete and specific administration failures, such as the weak economy.

Gingrich, in contrast, subtitled a recent book “Stopping Obama’s Secular-Socialist Machine,” and other candidates have also opted to portray the president not merely as someone whose policies they disagree with but as a figure with a comprehensive plan to fundamentally change the country for the worse.

Why is stridency, rather than competence or electability, so important to Republican primary voters and activists? The answer likely lies, in large part, with the recent rise to prominence within the party of a form of small government purism that has always been influential but has rarely commanded the widespread support among important constituencies that it now does.

Those who subscribe to this brand of conservatism posit that state power is

only morally legitimate when it is used to protect individuals’ rights against coercion and fraud—it thus implies that the only appropriate roles for government are national defense, policing, and the enforcement of contracts. People who think this way will obviously place great value on extreme rhetoric, since they see not just the Obama administration’s signature policies but much of what the federal government has done for the past several decades as violations of fundamental moral constraints on state power—a candidate who is not combative signals to them that he or she does not fully grasp what is at stake.

However, this explanation of Republicans’ desire for an anti-Romney also makes clear that they will never be able to satisfy it. This is because a candidate who sees the modern state as fundamentally illegitimate will be utterly unable to speak to the concerns that voters outside the party’s base acROMNEY continued on page 5

THE CHICAGO MAROON | VIEWPOINTS | November 29, 2011

4

Focusing on the real issues Students should abandon thoughtful discourse about actual issues and instead yell at each other about latkes and hamantashen

By Colin Bradley Viewpoints Editor I can never guess correctly which events at the University of Chicago will raise controversy; College Council elections blow through like the wind off the lake, but gossip surrounding President Robert Zimmer’s marriage ignites like wildfire. I have an easier time predicting which of my friends have suddenly always been Matt & Kim’s biggest fans than which campus events are buzzworthy.

But I can reconcile most of these seeming inconsistencies by deferring to... well, apathy, to be honest. Nobody should care about College Council or Zimmer’s marital status. But what I absolutely cannot stand for is the conspicu-

ous lack of fiery rhetoric and sign waving at the Latke-Hamantash Debate held last Tuesday.

There are some things for which refusing to form an opinion and defend it with unabashed vitriol is simply inexcusable. It shows a lack of character, a failure to uphold your civic duty.

To turn a blind eye to a divisive issue like this, is, in a word, spineless.

This is particularly peevish considering the spectacle of those feckless few flagrantly waving their free speech in everyone’s face and driving Condoleezza Rice away from campus two weeks ago. The only way such a crowd could justifiably have been drawn to an event like that was if they had mistakenly thought Rice was going to be joined by Squat the Condos onstage for a one-night-only showing of Squat the Condoleezzas. Instead that motley mash-up of anarchist and communist (and I wouldn’t rule out racist) rabble-rousers ruined what was bound to be the most exciting night on campus since O-Week.

If something so uncontroversial as the venerable former Secretary of State for the best twoterm president of the 21st century gracing our campus could generate so much noise, why did the Latke-Hamantash debate slip by almost un-

noticed? Certainly we at least could have had a Mearsheimer vs. AEPi shouting match to get everyone warmed up before the debate began.

But, no, students are stubbornly focusing on less important issues all over campus. Why was an anti-Adidas banner strung in Bartlett instead of latke propaganda? What business do students have offering Zimmer compromises on socially responsible investing instead of demanding we shift to an all-hamantash portfolio? It is a melancholy object, indeed.

The administrators here work tirelessly to promote the students’ rights to express themselves in a myriad of ways on any issue we want. All the rules in place—that students must have the content of protests pre-screened, that any University staff member can exercise the “authority to direct” under remarkably vague circumstances, requiring permits for sidewalk protests—are in place for our safety and well-being. But then, given all this protection from the University, why do we rarely see rallies on the main quads over which coffee shop is better—Harper or Hallowed Grounds?

Sometimes I think the only ones with opinions on this campus are those agitators who go

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[ APPLICATION DEADLINE: JANUARY 30, 2012 \

out and shout about socialized hospitals, promote these investment strategies that irreparably undermine capitalism, and complain about the fact that they still have to pay for their new Adidas sneakers. I know this isn’t true, but, still, nobody took to the streets to protest the fact that the new stones paving Harper Quad clash quite horrendously with the old stone steps of Haskell Hall, or that the C-Shop stopped serving their Winter Blend coffee before winter quarter had even started. Our priorities as a student body are clearly confused.

I’m not asking anyone to go out and have calm debates with their friends, classmates, and professors—let’s be reasonable. Obviously, we must strive very hard to keep the level of polemic as high as possible and simultaneously temper any tendencies towards compromise. The Henry Paulson Institute recently brought some groundbreaking insights to light. The Paulson Institute succeeds in proving that the goals of debate are not, as was previously assumed, to bring each opponent closer to the truth located somewhere between their starting positions. Instead, they have shown quite convincingly that under ideal conditions, debate further solidifies each participant’s opinions and breeds a deeply sown resentment between them. They also show that free speech is a zero-sum game. Therefore, it is best when we, as Rosenbaum and Goff-Crews recommended in their letter to the student body, “attempt to shut down the speech of others.”

Everyone knows why we got into the University of Chicago. It is because we are smarter than everyone else and already know everything. Normally, this is fine. We can dominate conversation at the Thanksgiving dinner table (“Wait, so you’ve only read some of Foucault? Ha!”), and make those foolish enough to draw us into conversation at a party immediately regret it (“So I see your sweater is red, does that mean you agree with Lenin’s tactic of suppressing the soviets for the sake of a one-party vanguard?”). The trouble arises when there is more than one smartest person alive in the same room.

It’s quite a paradox, actually. Yet it’s one we face almost every day.

But there is a solution. Even if your opponent is as perfect as you, she may be somewhat humble and that presents you with an opportunity to strike. Your opinions have been well formed by natural gifts and accumulated wisdom, and you’ve made them quite clear by now, so you damn well better not give them up easily. Most of all, be wary of those who reserve judgment under the pretense of prudence—they are trapping you; if you haven’t solidified your opinions by now, you never will.

Even more important is to be sure your hardwon dogmatism is not misplaced. Our complacent political culture is in dire need of spirited, uncompromising proponents of objective truth.

But it is crucial that this fervor be directed through a proper channel. We cannot afford to spend intellectual capital on the worthless issues that so often distract the student body. Instead, let’s focus on deciding once and for all if latkes taste better than hamantashen.

Colin Bradley is a second-year in the College majoring in Law, Letters, and Society.

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.

THE CHICAGO MAROON | VIEWPOINTS | November 29, 2011

Handelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

MESSIAH

8 PM Rockefeller Memorial Chapel 5850 S. Woodlawn Avenue, University of Chicago campus James Kallembach, Conductor University Chorus, Motet Choir, and Rockefeller Chapel Orchestra Featuring soloists: Angela Mannino, Ann Vikstrom, TrevĂłr Mitchell, and Paul Corona

Tickets on sale now! $35 chancel/$25 nave/$20 general/$10 students

music.uchicago.edu Persons with a disability who need assistance should call 773.702.7095.

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Moving past hoarding means better judgment on what to keep

GOP policy goals can be realized without nominating an extremist

HOARDING continued from page 3 someone might be charmed when they see your collection of porcelain giraffes; in real life, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s just vaguely creepy)â&#x20AC;&#x201D;worshipping each little knickknack as a vessel for a disembodied memory isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t conducive to a better me. Rather, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s just indicative of an undisciplined mind, which translates to undisciplined habits; more often than I would like to acknowledge, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 10 minutes until class, and I canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t find that one book I need simply because itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s lost in the pile of everything Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve saved precisely out of the fear of losing something. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hitting me especially hard now that finals are coming around and the practice of letting everything just idly accumulate is coming back to bite me. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve wasted too much time trying to piece together notes I took for class on random scraps of paper and cleaning my room after realizing there was not the tiniest bit of open space on my desk to do any work.

This doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t mean that during the next break, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m going to go home and throw all my childhood collections away in the rush of newfound liberation. Collecting is still a fundamental part of my life and really, of the human experience in general. It just means I need to throw most of it away (after all, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll probably be moving out soon, and thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s nothing worse than saddling my parents with all that junk I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want to deal with), and that I need to cultivate a more discriminating mindset when it comes to material attachments, which would hopefully help de-clutter my college habits as well.

Every so often, when I do sit down and tell myself, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m going to do this. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m going to sort everything out and throw some of it away,â&#x20AC;? I end up reminiscing again and lose track of time. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s okay, I think, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll do it next time. But I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t. And itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s about time I moved on.

ROMNEY continued from page 3 tually have. Most Americans, regardless of political affiliation, think that government does have some role in providing basic services like health care and cushioning citizens against economic shocks, even if they differ about the best way for it to perform that role. This is especially true in a period of persistently high unemployment caused by a financial crisis that many blame on poor regulation. The major GOP donors and party elites who stand to benefit in concrete ways from electoral victory understand this, so the only candidate who has received the consistent support from them needed to run an effective campaign is one who combines gestures of support for small government with an acknowledgment that the modern state is here to stay.

Many on the right might be inclined to balk at this columnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s conclusion, since it seems to imply that they should abandon the truth in order to pursue electoral success. They will likely point (justifiably) to Romneyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s infamous vacillation and lack of any clear policy goals as evidence that such an approach is futile. However, there are many ways to further the basic conservative goals of promoting individual initiative and constraining state power without lapsing into utopian purism. Indiana governor Mitch Daniels, who has introduced important elements of market competition and choice to his stateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s schools and Medicaid program while still affirming that the government has a legitimate role to play in providing these services, offers a powerful example of how to do so. Unfortunately, Daniels and other innovators within the GOP declined to seek its presidential nomination, so primary voters instead face an unenviable choice between opportunism and extremism which has made them desperate enough to consider even Newt Gingrich.

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

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

ARTS

Trivial Pursuits NOVEMBER 29, 2011

TOP 5 OF 2011 Movies Daniel Rivera Arts Contributor 1: The Tree of Life - Terrence Malick While the film received much backlash for a script many thought to be pretentious, its meticulously rendered visual effects and strong performances captivated critics and audiences alike.

Malick convinced Douglas Trumbull, the guy behind the visuals of Blade Runner and 2001: A Space Odyssey, to end his 30-year break from Hollywood and bring to life the long, meditative space scenes that permeate Life’s narrative. Not much can be said about the film besides “go see it”—if only so you can debate with your friends what exactly Malick is saying about life and the afterlife.

2: The Descendants - Alexander Payne George Clooney is good. Alexander Payne is good. But it seems to be the critical consensus that it’s been a while since both men have been this good. A dramedy about a man caught trying to balance family and business in the wake of tragedy, The Descendants illustrates Payne’s special talent for humanizing even the characters with the smallest roles in his films, creating movies that are often unmatched in their depth and reality. Perhaps this explains the film’s biggest surprise—that somewhere in the interim between this and The Secret Life of the American Teenager, Shailene Woodley learned to act (and she’s pretty good). Expect tears and laughter in what, in my opinion, is Payne’s best effort since 1999’s classic Election.

3: Midnight in Paris - Woody Allen After a few lackluster years following the Oscarwinning hit Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Woody Allen got his mojo back with this year’s Midnight in Paris. It’s officially his highest-grossing movie to date (although only seventh in terms of estimated attendance) and one of his most wellreceived. Owen Wilson stars as a vacationing writer who, on a midnight walk, finds himself stumbling through Paris circa the 1920s, surrounded by literary icons like Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald. The movie as a whole is

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a warm reflection on humanity and our modern tendency to romanticize the past; it has all the spunk of a Woody Allen classic, but, refreshingly, none of the spite.

4: Martha Marcy May Marlene - Sean Durkin Elizabeth Olsen, younger sister to the twins who monopolized your childhood, spent years perfecting her craft at Tisch before taking on the lead role in Sean Durkin’s theatrical debut. And judging by her performance in Martha Marcy May Marlene, perfected it she has. Olsen plays a young woman who has just escaped from an abusive cult, only to find that even within the arms of her family, memory and trauma haunt her as though she’d never left. While Durkin’s direction and screenplay are both startling with the clarity and the frankness with which they handle the hot subject matter, Martha is, from start to end, all about Olsen and her captivating performance.

5: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 - David Yates We’ve read all the books and seen all the movies. Nothing a reviewer could say would matter, because Harry Potter fans are so tried and true,

and Yates so enmeshed in the series’ fandom, that Deathly Hallows Part: 2 was bound to be a success long before it hit theaters. And yet, the critics spoke anyway—and they loved it. From start to finish, Hallows is gripping and thrill-packed.

Screenwriter Steve Kloves makes no attempt at catching people up to speed before diving straight into the heart of things, logically assuming that anyone seeing Part 2 has, at the very least, seen its predecessor. It’s a good choice, because, at a little over two hours, not a minute of the film is wasted. Part 2’s visual effects are stunning, the supporting cast of British A-listers is flawless (Alan Rickman for the Best Supporting Actor, yes?), and the movie as a whole stands as a prime example of staying true to source material without losing sight of what makes a good adaption.

In the words of Rowling herself, “All was well.”

Honorable Mentions: A lot of crazy things happened in the world this past year, the emotional turmoil of which was reflected by silver screens everywhere. Suffice to say, the crop of notable movies from 2011 is equal parts diverse and groundbreaking.

Honorable mentions go to the movies not yet

Worst Fashion Faux Pas

released but which are certain to be amazing– David Fincher’s Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Steve McQueen’s Shame, and Tomas Alfredson’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Nods must be given to the standout performances, as well—Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady and Michelle Williams as the titular icon in My Week with Marilyn, to name a few. Moreover, 2011 could arguably be deemed the Year of the Gosling. With three critical and box office successes this year alone (Crazy, Stupid, Love., The Ides of March, Drive), Ryan is thoroughly cementing his status as one of our generation’s best. Indie dramas also reigned supreme—Another Earth, Melancholia, and Take Shelter, in particular.

Recognition must also be given to commercial hits like Paranormal Activity 3 and The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn: Part 1, which kept the box office afloat when many feared the entertainment industry would sink.

1. COURTESY OF FOX SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES 2. COURTESY OF AD HOMINEM ENTERPRISES 3. COURTESY OF SONY PICTURES CLASSICS 4. COURTESY OF TAZORA FILMS 5. COURTESY OF WARNER BROS. PICTURES

Eliana Polimeni Arts Contributor

Sheer Clothing

Clogs

Loungewear

Full-on Denim

Long-Pants Rompers

If you could have any superpower, which one would you choose? For those who answered X-ray vision, your wish has come true. I normally associate sheer with an accessory: something you wear in addition to what you have on, to add a certain flair. But sheer as a material for clothing? Maybe it looks avant-garde on a runway, but if you’re walking down the street in a full-on sheer dress, you are still naked. Think of a wedding veil: You can still see the bride’s face, right? Well, everyone can still see your entire body.

I myself have worn clogs once in my life: when I played a milkmaid in my sixth grade play. But, apparently, this trend has leapt off wooden Dutch dolls and right into people’s closets. I honestly can’t help but wonder if having your foot strapped onto a curved hunk of wood is comfortable. And, what’s more, they have started coming with fur, or studded leather. Next time you hear a steady clunking coming up behind you, you can be pretty sure that someone is channeling their inner milkmaid.

The beauty of pajamas is that you can peel off your clothes after a long day and snuggle up in pajamas that are unsullied by the outside world. But when pajamas start leaving the house, and become an alternative to clothes, it opens up a whole new can of worms. What do you wear when you want to cozy up in front of the TV? Do those bright pink pajama bottoms with the bearded giraffes become socially acceptable? Just make life easy: keep your pajamas at home and your outside clothes outside.

Don’t get me wrong, I love jeans.

But there’s also such a thing as moderation. The solution to the dilemma of having both cute jeans and a cute jean shirt is not to wear both at the same time. Space it out. Show off your denim skinny jeans one day, and your denim oversized shirt another day. Otherwise, you run the risk of looking like a farmer.

Denim is definitely a less-is-more kind of thing.

The romper was definitely a staple of my summer. Short rompers, that is. They are just enough of a one-piece without venturing into jumpsuit territory. Longpants rompers, however, make this tragic leap. It is just very difficult for a trendy version of a jumpsuit to look flattering. If you’re one of the few who can rock this look, good for you. But the rest of us should just stick to short rompers and call it a day.

THE CHICAGO MAROON | ARTS | November 29, 2011

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Albums

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2 Jordan Larson Arts Editor & Alice Bucknell Arts Contributor 1: Watch the Throne – Jay-Z & Kanye West At once catchy and upbeat enough to play at a party and complex and nuanced enough to warrant 50 listens, Watch the Throne is the ultimate collaboration between rap’s titans. The album seamlessly weaves high and low, with samples from the likes of Otis Redding and Will Ferrell’s Blades of Glory. While “Gotta Have It” is the clear standout, “Otis,” “Who Gon Stop Me,” “Murder to Excellence,” and, really, every single track, is artfully crafted and goes so far beyond satisfactory. These men could have put twelve tracks of shit together and it would have sold, and, instead, they gave us this piece of solid gold.

2: Dye it Blonde – Smith Westerns They’re not T. Rex and Cullen Omori certainly isn’t David Bowie, but it really doesn’t matter. Smith Westerns are simple, and they’re simply good. Dye it Blonde is much glossier than their debut, and the band’s glam elements fully overtake their garage roots, for better or worse. “Imagine Part 3” and “Weekend” were the perfect, mindless bursts of sound in the spring.

The songs are pure guitar and drums, thrilling and brief looks into something, sort of like if The Strokes cared a little more about any form of music that came

1 before them and a little less about sincere attempts to seem jaded and disaffected.

3: Drive – Cliff Martinez Maybe there are only a few real heartbreakers on the album, but when was the last time anyone got this excited about a movie soundtrack? The sappiest croonings of “I do nothing but think of you,” are somehow legitimized by obnoxious synthesizers, and fit perfectly alongside images of car chases and murders. While the blatant ’80s nostalgia isn’t entirely sincere, these songs completely made the movie and can still stand alone.

4: Sleep Talk – Shannon and the Clams Shannon Shaw is the anti-Adele. You can get all mad and bossy with Adele, but, really, “Someone Like You” is still going to make you feel terrible in the end. Shannon

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takes you somewhere else; her huge voice captures ’60s girl pop, and her crisp and brassy vocals get brought back down to earth by fuzzy and frantic garage rock.

Plus, her songs aren’t only about boys; you can still feel sad about that dude while listening to songs about ghosts, cults, and birthday parties, too.

5: Bon Iver – Bon Iver Perfect for those chilly winter nights, Bon Iver’s second album does not disappoint in providing its usual meditative music, replete with soft, echoing lyrics and gentle instrumentals. Full of sincere and blissful self-realization, Justin Vernon accepts his shortcomings and relative insignificance— in “Holocene,” he calmly sings, “At once I knew I was not magnificent”—ushering in a sort of modesty that was absent in the earlier album For Emma, Forever Ago.

5 1. COURTESY OF ROC-A-FELLA RECORDS 2. COURTESY OF FAT POSSUM RECORDS 3. COURTESY OF LAKESHORE RECORDS 4. COURTESY OF FOUG 5. COURTESY OF JAGJAGUWAR RECORDS

Music Videos captures Lady Gaga at her best—powerful, unnerving, sexy, and enthralling.

3: “Criminal” — Britney Spears This music video reminds viewers why Britney Spears was once the queen of pop. From beginning to end, the music video feels a little like watching a short film, complete with Hollywoodstyle embellishments. For instance, at the end of the music video, Britney and her significant other passionately kiss in a storm of bullets, yet both escape unscathed. In the end, the music video and song live up to the reputations of Britney’s former hits.

1 Donna Guo Arts Contributor

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1. COURTESY OF CAPITOL RECORDS 2. COURTESY OF INTRASCOPE RECORDS 3. COURTESY OF JIVE RECORDS 4. COURTESY OF CAPITOL RECORDS 5. COURTESY OF XL RECORDINGS

1: “Last Friday Night” — Katy Perry This fun and exciting music video captures the essence of, well, Friday nights. Starring the famous, or infamous, Rebecca Black, who helps transform Katy Perry from an awkward dork to gorgeous life-of-the-party girl, this video is delightfully hilarious and very entertaining.

The song itself is also remarkably catchy, and viewers find themselves humming “Last Friday Night” along with Perry by the end of the video.

No matter what day of the week it is, anyone who watches this video leaves wanting Friday to

come as soon as possible.

2: “Born This Way” — Lady Gaga Reminiscent of an old science fiction film, this quintessential Lady Gaga music video is bizarre, unsettling, entertaining, and thought provoking, all at the same time. The music video begins with short video segment, a surreal, science fiction narration before the song begins. Lady Gaga’s narration is a mix of enigmatic declarations that are unquestionably intriguing, but their profundity and meanings are debatable.

The rest of the video features scenes of Lady Gaga dancing in lingerie and costumed in a Day of the Dead skeleton outfit. The music video

4: “The One That Got Away” — Katy Perry Starring an elderly Katy Perry, this nostalgic music video takes place many years in the future. The video switches between the present, with a rich but sorrowful old Katy filled with regrets, and the past, where a young, free-spirited Katy shares her life with the man she loves. For most of the video, viewers are kept in suspense, wondering what tragedy could have possibly torn apart this young couple that was once so clearly head over heels in love with each other. This sweet yet sad video touches the hearts of all viewers.

5: “Someone like You” — Adele The somber colors of this music video reflect the melancholy themes of Adele’s song, and the beautifully dark and artistic video perfectly complements the deep husky tones of Adele’s voice.

The poignant and nostalgic mood leaves readers almost in tears at the end of the video.

THE CHICAGO MAROON | ARTS | November 29, 2011

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Soft core,

Hard covers

Spend your winter break reading something you’d actually like to read. Here are some of the season’s freshest books.

Blue Nights

IQ84

Journalistic titan Joan Didion casts a cold eye on grief

Murakami’s fantasy spins out of control

Jordan Larson Arts Editor A lot can be said about the emptiness and despair at the heart of Joan Didion’s memoir Blue Nights, and a lot has already been said. John Gregory Dunne, Didion’s husband and the subject of her previous book, The Year of Magical Thinking, died of a heart attack in 2003, only a few weeks after Didion’s daughter Quintana Roo Dunne Michael was first hospitalized for freak complications caused by pneumonia. Quintana died 20 months later.

Though it’s hard to conceive of Joan Didion—never without her aviators, cigarettes, bourbon, and aspirin, the quiet, tiny badass of ‘60s and ‘70s California, the author of the haunting novel Play It as It Lays, and the best essayist alive—as having crippling fears and failings, she does have them.

And they are all in this book.

Amid her usual cutting and precise observations and decla-

rations, more unfamiliar confessions, anxieties, and despair seep in. Her control over the narrative wanes, and she’s back again to that poem Quintana wrote as a child, the same words she once spoke repeated over and over.

Although her tone is distant and hard, almost as if she were reporting on someone else’s grief rather than examining her own, the pain is undeniably present.

However, it’s really in her meditations on the uncrossable distance between parent and child that Didion gets to the meat.

Her self-proclaimed piece of wisdom—which she lists with similar quotes from Napoleon and Euripides, beside whom she surely believes her name belongs—“When we talk about mortality we are talking about our children,” comes to mean more than the sum of its parts. A parent and a child can never be fully clear to each other, Didion tells us. If you can never truly see your child, you must keep her around forever, until you finally can see her. “A question: if we and our children could in fact see the other clear would the fear go away? Would the fear go away for both of us, or would the fear only go away for me?”

We learn that Quintana was adopted. Because this was Southern California in the 1970s, Quintana’s parents opt for the “choice narrative,” which entails telling their child of her adoption from the very beginning, and emphasizing that they chose her.

In describing her power over the narrative of Quintana’s life, the power Didion has over the narrative she’s giving us also be-

comes readily apparent. We’re told the story of Quintana’s adoption in the same words Quintana herself was told about it. Just as she confesses to editing a diary entry of Quintana’s she finds after her death, Didion also, in a sense, wrote the story that became Quintana’s life. She can’t help but think of her choice narrative when Quintana is diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, one sign of which is a fear of abandonment. When Quintana’s biological parents and (full) siblings come into her life as an adult, spinning her life out of control, Didion can only watch from the sidelines, completely paralyzed. Just as she loses hold of her ability both to write and tell Quintana’s story, she fears her impending inability to “locate the words that work.” After a particularly mundane anecdote, Didion writes, “I tell you this true story just to prove that I can. That my frailty has not yet reached a point at which I can no longer tell a true story.”

Blue Nights isn’t the workingthrough of her grief; it’s a formalized, precise, and public acknowledgement of the end. Reading through Didion’s numerous descriptions of her own health problems, including her “neuritis, a neuropathy, a neurological inflammation,” you can’t help but think about when Didion herself will die. Kurt Vonnegut, Susan Sontag, and David Foster Wallace have recently left us, denying us further words of wisdom. What will it be like to have one less person who can sharply and dutifully tell us what we’re doing wrong ?

Angela Qian Arts Contributor The much-anticipated work of Haruki Murakami, IQ84, is a story of love and loss, a meditation on reality as we perceive it and the nature of human relationships, a book filled with secrets and surprising connections, and, a flunk.

The opening pages are extremely promising. Aomame, sitting in a taxi in Tokyo, gets stuck in traffic and decides to climb down an emergency stairwell on the side of the freeway in her designer suit and high heels to get to her appointment on time: an appointment to assassinate a man who has been abusing his wife. Little does she know that in doing so she has transplanted herself from the normal, everyday world of 1984 Tokyo to a separate reality with two moons and a band of beings called the Little People whose motives, at first, are unclear.

Meanwhile, Tengo Kawana is a humble math teacher and fiction writer who is commissioned to ghostwrite a fantastic new novella, written by a beautiful 17-year-old girl who has no sense of grammar or style (she’s dyslexic). As he gets more and more involved with the mysterious Fuka-Eri, he discovers that the supposedly fantastic story in this novella is actually real—that the mysterious Little People, the mountain commune (turned into a fanatic religious cult), and the air chrysalises that hatch to reveal people’s shadows within— actually all exist, and that by publishing the book there has been set into motion a shift in the balance in, well, something.

Murakami never makes it quite clear what the stakes are. Fuka-Eri’s father, leader of the religious cult, is a rapist who turns out not to be a rapist, but who has been forced to have intercourse with the shadows (called dohta) of the

10-year-old shrine maidens in his commune. He wishes to die, so willingly allows Aomame to assassinate him.

Strange and mysterious events occur throughout the plot. Tengo suspects his father is not his biological father, and wonders about his true family history.

His affair with an older, married woman comes to an end as she disappears from his life without warning. Aomame befriends a police officer, and the two of them go around to bars picking up men.

Soon after, Aomame uncovers the horrifying news that her friend was murdered in a hotel room. The religious cult hints at some involvement or knowledge of the situation. The Little People make an appearance, in the sky there are two moons, only visible to some people, and as the tension builds and the plot begins to converge, the book ends.

IQ84 is a story that could have been.

I don’t know how Murakami would have tied everything up or explained everything. The story was exciting and compelling throughout most of the 900 pages, but, despite the length, the ending is not fleshed out, the innumerable mysteries are never explained, and IQ84 ended up just not being worth it.

Then Again earnestly and modestly chronicles Keaton’s life

Hannah Gold Arts Editor Before Diane Keaton was Annie Hall, she was Di-annie Oh Hall-ie. No bells, no whistles, just a few extra syllables.

Her father Jack Hall gave his daughter this neat nickname when she was still an insecure teenager with hair piled three inches high atop her head and a skirt cut three inches above the knee—a fashion statement that predated Annie Hall’s infamous neckties, tailored vests, and trousers by more than a decade. Off

the set, and since adolescence, Keaton has almost always opted for an all-black ensemble, very practical shoes, and a hat.

Woody Allen once said of Keaton, “She looks to me like the woman who comes to take Blanche DuBois to the institution.” It was a superlative compliment.

However, save for a few illuminating details, Then Again is anything but a book about appearances. Keaton glosses over her gilded career as an actor and a director in order to get straight to the point—this book is about family. More specifically the book focuses on Keaton’s mother, Dorothy Keaton (whose maiden name Diane appropriated when on the verge of stardom), and is meant to serve as a memoir of both mother and daughter. Throughout her life Dorothy filled 85 journals with quotidian thoughts, observations and feelings, sections of which are interspersed throughout the book, along with letters she wrote to Jack Hall in the late 1940s, letters written from Woody to Diane, and, of course, Diane’s autobiographical musings.

Keaton is not a beautiful writer by any means, but she certainly is an honest one. Her voice is simplistic, even a tad darling—she usually opts for “shoot” or

“dang it” over a proper expletive and most everyone she meets is “neat”—but always endearingly unpretentious and true to herself. Her style jumps around quite a bit from mildly poetic, to journalistic, to raw stream-of-consciousness prose that mirrors those deeply personal records which Dorothy so diligently kept.

“In a way I became famous for being an inarticulate woman,” says Keaton, but she doesn’t give herself enough credit.

Keaton’s storytelling is at its most vivid and poignant when she writes about her mother. In the late ‘50s, Dorothy won the coveted title of Mrs. Los Angeles—a pageant devoted to finding the ideal homemaker. Instead of being tested on skills such as “looking hot in a swimsuit” and “having only the most basic knowledge of politics,” Dorothy was judged in categories like table-setting, flower arranging, bed-making, managing the family budget, and excelling in personal grooming. Keaton deftly handles the “then and again” of gender roles, both within her own family and without. Equally evocative, but much more immediately harrowing, are Keaton’s descriptions of her mother’s heartbreaking battle with Alzheimer’s that come at the end of the book.

Keaton also writes at length about becoming a mother in her fifties, and of her three younger siblings Dorrie, Robin, and Randy. She chronicles her move to New York City at the age of nineteen to study acting at the Playhouse School of the Theatre. Her career took off quickly with a few major theater roles, then leveled off for a few years. During this minor career slump she lived with Woody and developed bulimia, which she would continue to battle throughout much of her early twenties.

Keaton’s offbeat romances with some of Hollywood’s greats are definitely a highlight of the book. Her longtime boyfriend Warren Beatty once gave her a sauna for one bathroom and a steam room for the other as a Valentine’s Day gift. Woody gave Diane names like “Lamphead,” “Worm,” and “Cosmo Piece.” She called him “White Thing.”

It was also thrilling to discover that, just as I and countless others had suspected, Annie Hall is based on a true story. Well, sort of. Keaton doesn’t mention anything about a tragicomic lobsters massacre. She does recount days when she and Woody would sit on “Oldies’ Row” in Central Park making snarky comments about the parade of people passing by,

and how she couldn’t meet him for a screening of The Sorrow and the Pity because she was working late. Grammy Hall, immortalized by Allen as a “classic Jew-hater,” is not a fictional character either. When Diane found out she had been nominated for an Academy Award for her role in Annie Hall, her paternal Grammy exclaimed “‘That Woody Allen is too funny-looking to pull some of that crap he pulls off, but you can’t hurt a Jew, can you?’”

For a big-name movie star with claims to incredible staying power, an enviable list of ex-boyfriends, an Oscar, and a healthy heap of je ne sais quoi (or, in her case, la-di-da, la-di-da, la-la), Keaton is still remarkably insecure. Perhaps these feelings come with the Hollywood territory, but she sees herself, instead, as sharing (inheriting is not the right word) her mother’s anxiety and depression.

Throughout the memoir, Keaton lets us in on a mother-daughter bond that is painful, wonderful, and essential. The effect is sloppy at worst, mesmerizing at best. She nostalgically remarks at the end of her book, “Sometimes I feel like it’s Again without the Then.” This is Keaton’s enduring charm—that she has always made it feel like old times.

THE CHICAGO MAROON | ADVERTISEMENT | November 29, 2011

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THE CHICAGO MAROON | ARTS | November 29, 2011

10

The Art of Fielding

Esmerelda chronicles growth

Harbach’s debut blends baseball and beautiful prose

Emma Broder Arts Contributor The title of The Art of Fielding, Chad Harbach’s debut novel, refers to a book by the shortstop Aparicio Rodriguez. This fictional volume of baseball aphorisms is indispensable to Henry Skrimshander, the novel’s protagonist and a gifted shortstop. Henry turns to The Art of Fielding constantly for its concision, its elegance, and its depth of knowledge about the game. He’s read it so often that the aphorisms often float to the surface of his thoughts; he turns to the book more for comfort than for content.

You will find yourself in a position similar to Henry’s, only the book will be the novel itself, The Art of Fielding, and the matter at hand will be the twists and turns of life, not nine innings of a baseball game. You will be knocked out of the park, so to speak, by Harbach’s easy command of language. Like Henry,

once you close the back cover of The Art of Fielding, you’ll turn back to dog-eared pages for scores of wise one-liners. An example: “But people didn’t forgive you for doing what felt right—that was the last thing they forgave you for.”

With The Art of Fielding, Harbach has created a literary oasis, complete with an absorbing but well-paced plot, characters of scope, replete with the glow of human error, and lessons about the search for a life within the self, a satisfying experience on a college campus, and a home in the Midwest. To boot, there is the book’s pleasing weight and design—you want to fall asleep with it tented on your belly, an empty mug next to your elbow.

The novel begins when Mike Schwartz, a Chicago native and rising sophomore on the baseball team at Westish College in Wisconsin, discovers Henry Skrimshander’s talent for baseball. When he learns that Henry isn’t planning on playing for a college team, Schwartz sets about bringing him to Westish, whose baseball team, the Harpooners, hasn’t won a conference championship in years. Schwartz’s determination in shaping Henry’s future (he trains him every day for several years) and driving the team to eventual glory is almost mythic in scale. When Schwartz is rejected from law school, though, his self-doubt surfaces. “The only thing he knew how to do was motivate other people… Manipulation, playing with dolls. What wouldn’t he give to have a talent of his own, talent like Henry’s?

Nothing. He’d give it all.”

Henry, meanwhile, can’t believe his good fortune at being transported to

Sarah Langs Arts Contributor

the fantasy land of Westish, since all he’s ever wanted to do is play baseball.

Rather quickly, though, he becomes disenchanted with certain aspects of the life of a college student, a sentiment many first-years are bound to sympathize with. As it turns out, Schwartz’s devotion to Henry winds up being as toxic for Henry as it is for Schwartz himself: “Every day was just that: a day, a blank, a nothing, in which you had to invent yourself and your friendship from scratch. The weight of everything you’d ever done was nothing.” Henry’s search for a sense of self that goes beyond the baseball diamond is as moving an account of a modernist hero as any in recent memory, especially since he is a peer, age-wise.

The stories of Guert Affenlight, the president of Westish, his daughter, Pella, and Henry’s biracial, pot-smoking roommate, Owen, with whom Affenlight becomes romantically involved, are woven through the trials of Henry and Mike with apparent ease. Also seamlessly told is the arc of the Harpooners’ rise to greatness as a team. It’s a delightful sports narrative in that it’s compelling without stifling the reader with deadly chunks of play-by-play—it never makes itself a burden to the plot or to the prose, which is a relief for a stressed someone trying to enjoy a novel.

Think of the simple, engaging prose as a balm for your Sosc-weary eyes. You’ll be sorry to leave a realm where college students seem to be dealing with real problems, instead of problem sets, like the rest of us. But you’ll return to those problem sets feeling a little wiser to the pocket of the world you live in.

We learn at a young age that fiction describes books that have no bearing on truth, that their events never happened, and that the story is a figment of the author’s imagination. At the same time, we learn that nonfiction is the opposite; it describes a realm of literature that states facts and explains them, be they historical events or scientific discoveries.

This distinction is the beauty of Don DeLillo’s work: By writing generally about America and providing snapshots of our society, he blurs the lines between fiction and nonfiction in a way similar to that of Philip Roth.

DeLillo’s signature style is evident in The Angel Esmerelda, a collection of nine short stories. Written over the course of thirty-two years, perhaps one of the most compelling elements of these stories is that the year each was written is included with the title of each story throughout the book, adding to our contextual understanding of the story.

The passage of time is explored as a theme in a number of the stories. For instance, the New York, specifically the South Bronx, presented in the titular story, 1994’s “The Angel Esmeralda,” can be seen both in contrast and similarity to the Bronx explored by Leo in 2011’s “The Starveling.”

One can also use the timestamps to evaluate changes and stagnations in DeLillo’s style throughout the years. It appears that most of his style and focus has remained constant throughout the years, as was most evident in 2010’s “Hammer and Sickle.” The story chronicles an inmate whose daughters begin to present news broadcasts, written by their

mother, on television.

The concept of one’s real life, as in the inmate’s family, happening on the television screen echoes the theme of media saturation in DeLillo’s 1985 novel White Noise. That book was written before cell phones and the Internet had invaded our culture. Nonetheless, the inmate’s description of what one loses from his old life in prison, which consists of a number of objects of new media such as smart phones and laptops, chronicles an addiction similar to the one DeLillo spoke of in regard to radio and television twenty-five years earlier in White Noise.

DeLillo’s consistency is refreshing.

His craft lies in his ability to take any snapshot of American life, anywhere from the years 1979 to 2011, and take the reader to that moment by using both fictional and nonfictional details. The America he describes is real, but the specific people and individual scenarios are fictional. In this new book, DeLillo again successfully blends the two genres, giving the reader yet another, and at the same time, a drastically different, look into American life.

Study Night

at the

Oriental Institute Sunday, December 4 6:30 PM – midnight Come study with us and enjoy free snacks, coffee, and the novelty of not being stuck in the Reg on a Sunday night.

Pencils only in the galleries. This event is open only to University of Chicago students.

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FREE UChicago Arts Pass OI Membership! To sign up, scan the code or go to oi-uchicago.edu/getinvolved.

THE CHICAGO MAROON | ARTS | November 29, 2011

Ebert faces death in Life Itself

Tomi Obaro Arts Staff The age of the celebrity movie critic is over. It’s gone the way of the travel agent and the rotary telephone. What’s left now are the memories.

For Roger Ebert, the last one standing, those memories are still fresh. He’s had time to contemplate. Thyroid cancer has left him mute and unable to eat or drink. He’s experienced an autumnal renaissance as a result—the once notorious technophobe blogs and tweets with prodigious energy about everything, from video games to the origins of the universe. That he would write a memoir was inevitable. That it would be good is to be expected. That it might be the last book he writes is fittingly tragic.

Though it’s called Life Itself, death seems to linger upon the pages. This is not a bad thing; it explains the healthy glaze of nostalgia under which the book is written. “I was born inside the movie of my life,” Ebert begins. He ends the book with a chapter titled, “Go Gently.” “I know it is coming,” Ebert

writes, “and I do not fear it.”

But, while death is on Ebert’s mind, he’s not one to dwell on it. He loves life too much and Life is a celebration of that fact. The book starts with his early days in Urbana, Illinois and ends in the present. Ebert isn’t overly concerned with the awkward machinations often employed in memoirs—those futile attempts to weave a proper narrative into real life which don’t understand that real life often forgoes neat narratives.

Ebert’s chapters are short, sometimes random.

They have simple titles like “Chaz” and “Alcoholism.”

Some chapters are silly (in the best sense) like Ebert’s ode to Steak ‘n Shake in “Car, Table, Counter, Or Takhomasak”: “My Steak ‘n Shake fetish is not unique. On an early visit to the Letterman show, I said to David during a commercial break, ‘I hear you’re from Indianapolis, home of the head office of Steak ‘n Shake.’ ‘In Sight It Must be Right,’ he said.

Our eyes locked in communion.”

Other chapters are more somber. Yet throughout the book, Ebert employs that lucid prose and gift for understatement that’s made him the quintessential American critic in the old, corn-fed boy from the Midwest kind of way.

That’s not to say Ebert doesn’t occasionally fall for easy sentimentality. His portrait of early childhood and adolescence is particularly rose-colored— you can hear the Leave it to Beaver theme music playing in the background. He also lapses into annoying literary platitudes, occasionally: “Then we kissed not so much in a sexual way as with the tender solemnity we thought of at the time as love,” reads like something Ebert read in a novel, and lacks the subtlety of reality.

But throughout the book, Ebert’s unflinching honesty resonates. In one passage he addresses his fluctuating weight: “Before I acquired my present problems, I was not merely fat but was universally known as the ‘fat one,’” and in his reaction to a candid Esquire photo of his current, jawless face: “I’m happy I don’t look worse.”

His honesty is why, for so many years, he was America’s movie critic—and still is.

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Eugenides returns with Marriage

Sarah Miller Arts Contributor Jeffrey Eugenides’s latest novel The Marriage Plot details the lives of three young graduates of Brown University during their first year after graduation. Though it is not as deep or moving as Middlesex, his 2004 Pulitzer Prize winner, The Marriage Plot proves to be an enjoyable read.

Eugenides flaunts his scholarship through multiple references to literature, both well-known and more obscure, historical events, and pop culture of the 1970s and 1980s.

Set in the early 1980s, The Marriage Plot is centered on the life of young, beautiful, but tragically average 22-year-old named Madeline Hanna. On the morning of her graduation, she wakes up hungover and heartbroken, recently dumped by dark and mysterious boyfriend Leonard Bankhead.

The plot is further complicated when she runs into old flame Mitchell Grammaticus. A curt exchange between the two reveals that they once had a romantic connection within their platonic

friendship that has since been lost.

From there, the novel ceases to progress chronologically, switching from the past, when Madeline was a young girl, to the present, as she struggles to find herself post-graduation. The novel also has an objective third-person point of view, narrating from the perspective of Bankhead, Grammaticus, and even Madeline’s father Alton. At times, this method makes the book very repetitive, and it appears this novel is more about the development of the individual characters than the plot itself.

The title is taken from Hanna’s senior thesis, in which she explores the complexities of the “marriage plot,” from that first glance and innocent flirtation to more serious courtship and permanent commitment, in the works of various authors such as Jane Austen and Henry James. The novel is meant to mirror those same aspects famous Victorian authors explored, but with a more modern twist. Eugenides discusses traditional ideals of romantic love and adventure, while also playing with the more contemporary topics of feminism, mental illness, sexual freedom, and divorce.

Hanna pursues her relationship with Bankhead, once again, Bankhead struggles to cope with his manic depression, and Grammaticus embarks on a yearlong journey through Europe and India in a futile attempt to find his professional vocation.

The novel ends with the three reunited in New York, not far from where they started physically, emotionally, and mentally, one year earlier.

The novel ends on a note of uncertainty, as each of these characters has allowed their main flaw be their tragic downfall. Nevertheless, this novel proved to be a welcome break from the dense readings of the Core, and, at times, witty and scintillating. In addition, readers will be able to relate to each of these characters as they struggle to find themselves along the journey of life. Fans of traditional Victorian stories may not be happy with the novel’s abrupt ending, but for any fan of modernism and romance, this novel will be a worthwhile read.

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THE CHICAGO MAROON | ADVERTISEMENT | November 29, 2011

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THE CHICAGO MAROON | SPORTS | November 29, 2011

MEN’S CROSS COUNTRY Matt Schaeffer Sports Contributor It would be remiss to call the Maroon men’s season a disappointment, even though they finished ninth in the NCAA Midwest Regional on November 12 and failed to advance to the Division-III Cross Country National Championship. Unranked at the start of the season, Chicago rose to as high as 10th in the October 19 USTFCCCA National Coaches’ Poll and finished the year ranked 32nd in the nation.

It would be a mistake to call it anything less than progress.

“Our men’s team was disappointed in that they did not qualify to the NCAAs, and I believe many of the athletes on our team remain down about that and feel that they fell short this season,” head coach Chris Hall said.

“However, if you take a look at the entire season, our team made tremendous strides forward, and the overall evaluation should be very positive.”

The team started the season with a

second-place finish at the Elmhurst Invitational and a first-place finish at the Aurora Invitational the following week. At their next four meets they finished fifth, sixth, sixth, and second, respectively. The men then finished third at the UAA Championship on October 29 at Montrose Harbor, their highest finish there since 2005.

At the Midwest Regional Championship, where the men concluded their season, third-years Bill Whitmore and Isaac Dalke received All-Region honors. Whitmore advanced individually to the National Championship on November 19, where he finished seventh overall and was named an AllAmerican.

In light of this season, going forward, Hall is optimistic. The running continues.

“What I hope our athletes get from this season is a strong belief in our future. A level of confidence should come with a lot of the success we had during the 2011 season,” Hall said, “and likely that will begin to show in early January when the 2012 track season begins.”

MVP: Bill Whitmore Third-year Bill Whitmore serves as this year’s cross country MVP, which comes as no surprise, as he was the only member of the team to run at Nationals. Whitmore placed seventh at Nationals and also became an All-American with his performance of 24:19 on the 8K course. Whitmore’s stellar performances spanned the entire season as he was name UAA Athlete of the Week three times and also placed fourth at Regionals. Whitmore has also proven himself to be one for the record books, with his finish at Nationals being the third-best in school history and the fastest time yet.

The men’s cross country team prepares to start at the Elmhurst Invitational earlier this season.

COURTESY OF DAVE HILBERT

Rookie of the Year: Renat Zalov Making his debut at the Elmhurst Invitational, this rookie came out of the gate strong with a time of 26:02 on the 8K course at the Aurora Invitational, placing second for the Maroons. Zalov consistently ranked in the top of the squad and was the only first-year to run at UAAs and Regionals. With top members graduating, Zalov will be one to watch for the 2012 season and certainly will be an instrumental part of next years efforts.

Most Improved Player: Isaac Dalke Going from being a solid team member to earning AllMidwest Region honors isn’t easy, but third-year Isaac Dalke did just that. Dalke placed second of the Maroons and Regionals with a time of 25:41, bested only by Whitmore. Dalke’s most impressive finish, however, was at UAAs, where he placed fifth, securing Chicago a topthree finish. Dalke went from being a relatively unknown name in the Maroon office to a regular headliner.

WOMEN’S CROSS COUNTRY Patrick Fitz Sports Contributor After the Maroons lost Liz Lawton, one of the greatest runners in school history, many on the national scene doubted whether they could compete on the national stage. Chicago overcame injury and illness to prove those doubters wrong. “I was pleased with the season,” said head coach Chris Hall. “It was a successful year.” The team capped the year with a 27th place team finish at the D-III National Championships in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

Despite the finish, Coach Hall believed the team had greater potential.

“Earlier in the season we thought we could place a little higher,” he said, “but [reaching] the national meet is always the ultimate goal. A couple of athletes were sidelined by illness and injury. If we had finished as healthy as we were at the beginning, we would have placed higher.”

Fourth-year Rachel Ohman, who earned All-American honors by placing 25th at the national meet,

led the effort. Hall praised Ohman and her performance at the meet.

“As a fourth-year senior, to be an All-American, and not just qualify for the national meet, is something special,” said Hall. Among the senior leadership, he also cited Ali Klooster and Sonia Khan for their contributions to the team. Looking forward to next year, the team has some shoes to fill. “We had three seniors in the top seven on the national meet team,” said Hall. “They showed outstanding leadership and talent, and they’ll obviously be missed.”

“We do need to overcome some losses,” he said. However, there are still the indoor and outdoor track and field seasons, so .for now. Coach Hall is focused on winter and spring.

“The goal is now track, and it’s time to turn the page to another season.”

After several early victories, a midseason fraught with injury, and a national meet performance led by another South Sider All-American, another women’s cross-country season is in the books.

MVP: Rachel Ohman Last year, fourth-year Rachel Ohman finished in the top 60 at the national meet and knew that the prestigious title of AllAmerican was close. At this year’s national meet, she never let there be any doubt, as Ohman ran inside of the top 35 for the entirety of the 6k race, ultimately finishing 25th. After four long, hard years of training, Ohman was finally an All-American. The All-American title capped off Ohman’s best season, in which she ran as the Maroon’s number one all year. She started off the season with a bang, winning her first two meets, and the rest of the season continued in similar fashion as Ohman continued to deliver time after time again.

The women’s cross country team prepares to start at the UAA Championships earlier this season.

COURTESY OF DAVE HILBERT

Rookie of the Year: Sarah Peluse A Lake Forest College transfer, third-year Sarah Peluse had regularly bested her old teammates by over a minute.

At Chicago, Peluse found the teammates she needed to get her to that next level. A consistent performer, Peluse was the only rookie to compete for Chicago at regionals and nationals. The Maroons will graduate three of their top five runners in fourth-year’s Rachel Ohman, Sonia Khan, and Jane Simpson, so having an infusion of young talent will certainly help the Maroons transition into next year’s season.

Most Improved Player: Kayla McDonald Kayla McDonald, or K-Mac, as she is affectionately known by her teammates, has always been a monster on the track. Traditionally a half-mile specialist, McDonald joined cross country last year in order to supplement her faster track workouts with more strength-oriented workouts. It paid off—last year’s track season was McDonald’s most successful yet, and she continued to build on that momentum during cross country. An All-Region performer at Rock Island, K-Mac has built up a solid foundation that will certainly help her continue to improve on the track, where she is only a second away from the all-time record in the 800-meter run.

THE CHICAGO MAROON | SPORTS | November 29, 2011

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MEN’S SOCCER Vicente Fernandez Senior Sports Staff Every successful college program has those building block years.

Though most teams never want to be seen as one of those blocks, without them, championships are nearly impossible to come by. The University of Chicago men’s soccer team (9–7–2, 2–5 UAA) may not have had the season they had hoped for in 2011, but they did lay the groundwork for even higher aspirations for the Maroon program.

Fourth-year midfielder, Stanton Coville said, “The season will, of course, be viewed as a disappointment because we didn’t accomplish our goals. It is especially disappointing as a senior, because I feel as though this is the best team we have had in my four years. However, I think the team has a lot of great things to build on to move forward.”

Coville is one of six fourth-years who laced up their cleats for the final time this season. Though Stagg

Field and Maroon jerseys may be in their rear view mirror, wins against the likes of Case Western and the University of Rochester, as well as multiple winning streaks, showcased the talent and effort their team put into the season.

Coville was one of two players to receive All-UAA First Team honors. He led the Maroons with nine goals and four assists. It is the second time Coville earns All-UAA honors. Joining him on the All-UAA First Team was first-year midfielder Michael Choquette, who was also named the 2011 UAA co-Rookie of the Year. Choquette scored one goal on the year and made two assists in conference play. Other Maroons to receive accolades were fourth-year defender Rashad Masri and first-year goalkeeper Elek Lane. Both received honorable mention recognition.

The Maroons finished seventh place in the UAA, but return countless starters as they look forward to building towards a UAA Championship–caliber 2012 season.

The men’s soccer team celebrates after scoring a goal against Case earlier this season.

SYDNEY COMBS | THE CHICAGO MAROON

MVP: Stanton Coville

Rookie of the Year: Michael Choquette

In Chicago soccer language, the name Stanton Coville translates directly to “powerhouse in the box.” Coville has been the Maroons’ leading scorer for not one, not two, not three, but four years. This year alone, he scored nine goals, nearly a third of the team’s cumulative 29. His proudest achievement this season? “It would have to be the double victory against Case Western and then Rochester in overtime in the same weekend.” He’s left a legacy at Chicago; if there was a ball in the back of the other team’s net this year, chances were good that the last thing it had touched were Stanton Coville’s laces.

Don’t let the long hair fool you—first-year midfielder Michael Choquette is all business when he steps on the field. The UAA co-Rookie of the Year, Choquette scored four goals and had three assists this year, playing an important part in a dynamic Chicago offense. Choquette is only the third Maroon in school history to be named UAA Rookie of the Year. Choquette was also named to the All UAA First Team, an honor he shared with fourth-year Stanton Coville. With Coville graduating next year, Choquette could be called upon to fill the goal-scoring void.

Most Improved Player: Alan Pikna Fourth-year Alan Pikna is the definition of earning your playing time. In his first two years, Pikna saw action in a combined total of seven games and didn’t start. His third year there was improvement, as he started seven games, scoring a single goal and chipping in an assist.

This year he exploded, scoring five goals, second behind only Coville, while also adding three assists. He was deadly from the field, scoring on nearly 40 percent of all shots he took. Not bad for someone who barely saw the field his first two years.

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THE CHICAGO MAROON | SPORTS | November 29, 2011

WOMENâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S SOCCER Alex Sotiropoulos Senior Sports Staff Chicago finished its season with an overall record of 9â&#x20AC;&#x201C;6â&#x20AC;&#x201C;2 and was 2â&#x20AC;&#x201C;3â&#x20AC;&#x201C;2 against conference opponents, taking sixth place in the UAA standings.

It was a roller coaster ride that ended on a low note, since a loss to Wash U (1â&#x20AC;&#x201C;0) at home on November 5 came two days before it was announced that, in spite of being ranked 25th by the National Soccer Coaches Association of America (NSCAA) poll, the Maroons did not receive an at-large bid to the NCAA D-III Championships.

Collectively, Chicago did have some strong points this season. They started the season 4â&#x20AC;&#x201C;0, and tied Emory (1â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1) in the only conference game in which the eventual UAA champions, the Eagles did not emerge victorious. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I think that coming from last season, where we were very successful, and we won UAAs, it was a little bit of a wake up call,â&#x20AC;? second-year defender Katie Dana said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;There were definitely some games that we shouldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve won,

but then...we tied Emory. We tied one of the best teams in the country.â&#x20AC;?

The Maroons enjoyed individual successes, as well. Fourth-year defender Maggie Tobin was selected to the AllUAA First Team while fourth-year goalkeeper Emma Gormley, secondyear midfielder Micaela Harms and first-year forward Sara Kwan were selected to the All-UAA Second Team.

The Maroons are looking ahead to next season, where they hope to regroup as a team, considering the losses of strong fourth-years Gormley, forward Allison Hegel, midfielder Liz Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Brien, and Tobin. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s going to be really, really different, especially defensively, because weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re missing three key components [Gormley, Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Brien, and Tobin] of our defense,â&#x20AC;? Dana said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re really going to have to adjust.â&#x20AC;?

In all, Chicago hopes for better execution of plays on the pitch next season, given the individual talent it witnessed this year. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s there; the talent is definitely there,â&#x20AC;? Dana said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;So, hopefully, it shows next season.â&#x20AC;?

Fourth-year Maggie Tobin dashes past her marker for the ball at a home game against Rochester earlier this season.

TERENCE LEE | THE CHICAGO MAROON

MVP: Maggie Tobin

Rookie of the Year: Sarah Kwan

Fourth-year left back Maggie Tobin ended her career on a high note by being named to the All-UAA First Team. It was her third time as a member of the All-UAA team, but her first time being selected for First Team. She led the defensive back line all year, starting every single game except for one because of a heel injury. The heel injury bothered her all year but did not stop her from leading the defense to seven shutouts and allowing only 13 goals in 17 matches, helping the Maroons finish 9â&#x20AC;&#x201C;6â&#x20AC;&#x201C;2 (2â&#x20AC;&#x201C;3â&#x20AC;&#x201C;2) on the season.

The first-year jitters? Sarah Kwan is seemingly immune to them.

She started 16 of a possible 17 games, adding a whole new dimension to the offense that already featured several potent weapons. Despite being a first-year, Kwan wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t afraid to pull the trigger, taking 29 shots, the second highest on the team. She ultimately converted on three of them, the second-highest total on the team. She wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t just a scorer, thoughâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Kwan also found her teammates for scores on five different occasions. With fourth-year forward Allison Hegel graduating, Kwan will be looked to next year to carry the offensive load.

An Evening in E Minor...

Most Improved Player: Liz Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Brien With the graduation of Claire Denz and a spring injury to Liz Doman, the Maroons were looking for someone to take up the burden of being the starting central defender, a position that requires both intuition and skill. Fourth-year Liz Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Brien answered the call, despite being out of position, and played an important part in a stingy defense that had eight shut-outs on the year. Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Brien started 15 times this season, after not having started at all the previous three years. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s no surprise that when asked, the announcers for the womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s team all went to Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Brien as their unanimous selection for most improved.

First Prize $1500 Second prize $500

2009 Concert Artists Guild International Winner

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IN QUOTES

SPORTS

“I’m not Joe Paterno.”

—Syracuse basketball coach Jim Boeheim amid allegations that his former assistant Bernie Fine abused children.

FALL SEASON RECAP FOOTBALL Daniel Lewis Associate Sports Editor Amidst high expectations in 2011, football failed to live up to the billing that comes with the title of “UAA Champions.” Chicago struggled with consistency in their first few games before hitting their stride in October and ultimately falling victim to the intense physicality of the UAAs. The Maroons began the year with a 44–25 victory over Beloit on the back of a strong running game, racking up over 250 yards and four touchdowns on the ground. Chicago dropped their next game to Concordia, before coming from behind to beat Elmhurst in the fourth quarter on a punt return by third-year receiver and return man Dee Brizzolara.

“I think the highlight of my season was beating Elmhurst, since we hadn’t in so long,” Brizzolara said.

“That was a fun win.”

Next up was Wabash, who pounded the Maroons at Stagg to the tune of a 49–7 beat-down, their first home loss

since 2009. At 2–2, Chicago was left without much hope for a playoff bid. The Maroons responded in impressive fashion, however, reeling off three straight victories over Ohio Wesleyan, Denison, and Kenyon by a combined 50 points.

But just as the Maroons looked to be turning their season around, they hit conference play. Chicago traveled to Case Western, where they lost a tense defensive struggle to the eventual conference champions and returned to Stagg clinging to slim title hopes. Even the annual homecoming game wasn’t enough to right the ship, since as Carnegie torched Chicago for 340 rushing yards and four touchdowns. To top it off, the Maroons lost the Founder’s Cup to Wash U for the 18th time in 25 years, allowing four passing touchdowns to the Bears.

In all, football’s 2011 season was a disappointment, but only because of the lofty expectations set in preseason. The Maroons will return a myriad of starters next year, including several key playmakers on offense, in an attempt to return to the successful ways of last season.

MVP: Dee Brizzolara

Third-year Kevin Shelton celebrates a touchdown at a home game earlier this season.

DARREN LEOW | THE CHICAGO MAROON

Rookie of the Year: Zak Ross-Nash

These days, it is difficult to talk about Chicago football without mentioning third-year receiver Dee Brizzolara. Since coming to the U of C, Brizzolara has been one of the best receivers in D-III and has set a plethora of records for the Maroons, including modern school records for receiving yards, receiving touchdowns, total touchdowns, total points, and all-purpose yards this season. Brizzolara made contributions on special teams, as well, having scored twice on punt returns during the season. The standout receiver led the UAA in all-purpose yards, receiving yards per game, and total touchdowns and was rewarded with the UAA offensive MVP award for the second year in a row.

First-year running back Zak Ross-Nash entered the season behind second-year Ian Gaines and fourth-year Francis Adarkwa on the depth chart, but vaulted his way to the team’s primary running back spot by the end of the season. Ross-Nash emerged in Chicago’s victory over Ohio Wesleyan with 89 yards on 18 carries and never looked back.

Over the course of the season, Ross-Nash accumulated 473 rushing yards on 95 carries and averaged 5.0 yards per carry for a Chicago team that otherwise struggled to successfully run the ball. In games in which he had at least 13 carries, Ross-Nash averaged 88.4 yards, a figure that would have ranked second in the UAA over a full season.

Most Improved Player: Tom Bemenderfer Second-year tight end Tom Bemenderfer established himself as a reliable target for Chicago quarterbacks this season after failing to record a reception. Bemenderfer hauled in 14 passes for 166 yards over the course of the season and tied for third on the team in receiving yards with third-year and fellow tight end Brandon Meckelberg. Bemenderfer averaged 11.9 yards per catch on the year and caught three balls for 41 yards in the Founder’s Cup against Wash U in what could be a preview for things to come.

He also received an honorable mention for All-UAA honors.

VOLLEYBALL Charles Fang Senior Sports Staff

The women’s volleyball team gathers at a home game this season.

DARREN LEOW | THE CHICAGO MAROON

MVP: Isis Smalls October 19. The stands at the Ratner Athletic Center are shaking with excitement, fans lost in the fervor of a tight match between the Maroons and Dominican, tied at two games apiece. The Maroons have match point, up 14–13. Fourth-year Isis Smalls, as she has done so many times in her record-breaking career, rises up, and sends home the game-winning kill. On 1,251 occasions, Smalls has sent a volleyball hurling towards the ground for a kill, more than any Maroon in school history. There were many outstanding individuals on the volleyball team this year, but for her leadership and offensive domination, Isis Smalls is this year’s Maroon Volleyball MVP.

Chicago finished 7–26 in 2007. It took head coach Vanessa Walby less than four years to nearly reverse that record. The team finished the season 30–6 this season and advanced to the round of 32 in the national tournament, losing to Wash U, one of the top teams in the country. Walby reached her 100th victory in a Maroon suit, becoming, arguably, the greatest coach in Chicago volleyball history. There was also success on the individual level, as fourth-year

Isis Smalls claimed Chicago’s all-time record for kills. Third-year Caroline Brander also had some individual success, and was named an AVCA honorable mention All-American. She was second on the team in kills per set, only behind Smalls.

But, perhaps the biggest triumph for the Maroons was their ability to stick together off the court in a time of tragedy. Rising second-year Morgan Buerkett, a member of the team, passed away on July 24 in a plane crash. Coping with her loss while turning in the greatest season in school history was an extraordinary

Rookie of the Year: Nikki DelZerno A second-year transfer from Washington and Lee, Nikki DelZenero ran the offense for Chicago, leading the team in assists with over 10 per set. No other Maroon had more than one. Originally from Hinsdale, an Illinois suburb, DelZenero was able to fit right in with her new team from the start. “The team has been like family,” said DelZenero during preseason, after the team had rattled off nine straight wins. With so many seniors graduating this year, having a young player like DelZenero around will certainly help in the rebuilding process

accomplishment.

Smalls reflected on her record-breaking season as well as the true meaning of being a collegiate athlete: “Obviously it’s a great feeling to know that I left a mark on the program by breaking records, but I can honestly tell you that if any athlete in any program leaves with only their personal success as their lasting memory, they have, by and large, missed the point of a collegiate athletic experience. People say all the time that ‘it is just a sport,’ and that could not be farther from the truth—I have learned worlds about what it means to love and respect [my] teammates.”

Most Improved Player: Caroline Brander Caroline Brander has always been good. Last year, she led the team in kill percentage, with a .385 mark. This year, Brander made the jump from good to great, earning AVCA recognition as an honorable mention All-American, the only member of the squad to earn such a distinction. If anything, Brander had several breakout performances, collecting five or more blocks in six matches and registering double-digit kills on seven occasions. An always dangerous threat, Brander is the second U of C volleyball player ever to be named as an All-American.