05. 22. 14
Th e C o m m e n c e m e n t I s s u e
05.22.14 VOL. XLV, NO. 24
The Indy will miss the graduating seniors incredibly!
05.22.14
The Commencement Issue
Cover Design by ANNA PAPP
CONTENTS 3-6 A Final Farewell 7-11 Year in Review
President Albert Murzakhanov '16 Editor-in-Chief Sean Frazzette '16 Director of Production Anna Papp '16 News Editor Forum Editor Arts Editor Sports Editor Associate Sports Editor Associate Forum Editor Associate Arts Editor Associate Design Editor
Milly Wang '16 Caroline Gentile '17 Sarah Rosenthal '15 Shaquilla Harrigan '16 Peyton Fine '17 Aditya Agrawal '17 Joanna Schacter Travis Hallett '14
Cartoonist John McCallum '16 Illustrator Eloise Lynton '17 Designer Alice Linder '17 Business Managers Manik Bhatia '16 Columnists Joan Li '17 Christina Bianco '17 Senior Staff Writers Christine Wolfe '14 Angela Song '14 Sayantan Deb '14 Michael Altman '14 Meghan Brooks '14 Whitney Lee '14
As Harvard College's weekly undergraduate newsmagazine, the Harvard Independent provides in-depth, critical coverage of issues and events of interest to the Harvard College community. The Independent has no political affiliation, instead offering diverse commentary on news, arts, sports, and student life. For publication information and general inquiries, contact President Albert Murzakhanov (president@harvardindependent. com). Letters to the Editor and comments regarding the content of the publication should be addressed to Editor-in-Chief Sean Frazzette (editorinchief@harvardindependent.com). For email subscriptions please email president@ harvardindependent.com. The Harvard Independent is published weekly during the academic year, except during vacations, by The Harvard Independent, Inc., Student Organization Center at Hilles, Box 201, 59 Shepard Street, Cambridge, MA 02138. Copyright Š 2014 by The Harvard Independent. All rights reserved.
Staff Writers Whitney Gao '16 Manik Bhatia '16 Xanni Brown '14 Terilyn Chen '16 Lauren Covalucci '14 Clare Duncan '14 Gary Gerbrandt '14 Travis Hallett '14 Yuqi Hou '15 Cindy Hsu '14 Chloe Li '16 Dominique Luongo '17 Orlea Miller '16 Albert Murzhakanov '16 Carlos Schmidt '15 Frank Tamberino '16 Michael Feehly '14 Jackie Leong '16 Andrew Lin '17 Madi Taylor '16 Shreya Vardhan '17 Peyton Fine '17 Michael Luo '16
From the Indy’s Graduating Seniors... Here at the End of All Things. All this time I was finding myself. By CHRISTINE WOLFE
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want to feel something definite about all that’s happened. But what I feel most strongly is confusion. I don’t know why I can’t feel sad or blissful. There’s been a tightness in my chest these last few weeks: it feels a lot like fear. I wish, as I’ve often wished at Harvard, that I were braver, stronger, and more driven. So many of us are born and bred to be leaders, with the fierceness and fire of soul needed to inspire a following. These people have amazed me from the moment I came here: young people with the kind of ardent passions we memorialize in history. Some — the future politicians of the world — knew what they had when they came here. Others might not have known, and still may not know, just what kind of sway they hold over others. These are the heroes (and the villains) of tomorrow. But I am not one of them. It’s not as though I don’t hope for greatness. There are many of us here who hope for a more quiet kind of success. But often we are the type to give in to the indomitable will of our peers, favoring concession over conflict. I’m sure there’s something sociological about this pattern, but after four years of being berated with why, I don’t care much for an explanation. All I know is that I am this way, and with it comes my greatest weaknesses and strengths. But its strongest effect at this point in my life is to challenge my knowledge of myself and my future. Even after The Harvard Independent • 05.22.14
four years of a liberal arts education, I don’t think I know who I am. I concentrated in biology to know why humans are the way we are. But biologists aren’t prepared to answer this question. We’re getting closer every day, though, and having the opportunity to ride the wavefront into that profound knowledge of ourselves means a great deal to me. To move from knowing nothing of academic research to first-handedly developing neurons out of stem cells was a journey I couldn’t have had without Harvard. But even the cellular mechanisms of a neuron, which make up the foundation for our most instinctual and our most complex behaviors, can’t explain the calm I feel when I sit at the edge of the Charles and watch the sunset shimmer over the wakes of the water. They can’t explain why I’m able to fall so deeply into the course of a book that the words never really leave my mind. It seems silly to even think that biology could have given me answers to these questions — but there was so much I didn’t know. College is meant to help us figure out what matters to us. Harvard is meant to give us the resources to get to what matters. I, as so many others, have often felt guilt at wasting what Harvard has to offer us. Almost always, I feel my hesitance to take those opportunities came from fear I wasn’t doing the right thing, that I wasn’t prepared, or that I “just couldn’t.” But when I
see my friends holding themselves back from opportunities, using the same language I use with myself, I’m so upset with them for not seeing their potential. Because that’s why we’re all here: we have potential. For almost all jobs, schools, and experiences, it matters less that we possess certain technical skills than that we possess the ability to learn them. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to say the “last words” I’ve thought of to my friends; doing so will take a lot of emotional energy I’m not sure I have. But most of it boils down to one thing: to live at the mercy of one’s own weaknesses is an injustice to one’s strengths. And we are Harvard students: we are strong. It comforts me to remember that we are all still so young. None of us has very much experience in anything. Those Harvard students who have their eyes on glory should remember how much they have to learn. But those who feel our experiences end on May 29th should remember that as well. It is strange that at the end of our teens we should be given so much wisdom. I don’t think any of us have the capability to process the enormity of what we have learned. But we have our whole lives to do that. I think that’s what Harvard means when they tell us they’re giving us an education for a lifetime. Maybe it seems implausible to some of us that what we learned in a Gen Ed, or maybe any class, will have anything to do with our lives. But all the people we admire have always looked to what has happened before. I seek out literature to feel companionship to those who have felt the same ways I have. Others may turn to history and others to psychology. We will never escape what we have learned here, and it will always affect us, even in the smallest ways. I am proud of and grateful to have this education, if only because it is one thing that can never be taken from me. I’m trying hard to remember that we can’t control how our lives will be. Something will always happen we don’t expect. Those turns are sometimes painful, but they are as often wonderful and joyous. Harvard itself has been this way for me. I have often been sad and troubled here. Things I wanted didn’t come to me, and those I feared did. But in a moment of complete coincidence, I found a place at Harvard to which I will always belong. The Indy gave me a voice when I was afraid to have one. I was never told what to say, and I was listened to with respect and compassion. I was trusted with the honor of leading a group of brilliant, funny, and insightful people who never faltered from our shared goal: expression without censure, politics, or exclusion. The people I’ve met on the Indy are talented without pretense, and they are genuinely kind and good. I love them for what they’ve done for me, but they are more than my friends. They are the kind of people with whom I wish to entrust the responsibility of the world. Perhaps they may not all know just how powerful they are, because their kind of power is a gentle, quiet, and profound one. But it is a power that gives meaning to others and to themselves, and I can think of no greater possession. I hope one day I can be as proud of what I have done as I am of this newspaper and the people who run it. It will take me many years to close that gap.
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From the Indy’s Graduating Seniors...
And What Have We Learned? Some things aren’t represented by pieces of paper. By TRAVIS HALLET
I
can’t even begin to list the countless hours of lecture (videos), sections, and late night group meetings in which my friends and I have participated over the past four years. Equally as countless are the problem sets, midterms, and papers that were studied for and completed at the very last and latest minutes. Final exam periods were followed by further countless hours of TV bingewatching in the comfort of our own homes while we refreshed online student records at midnight in the hope (fear) that a grade or two would be there. This has been the process of the schoolwork that took up the bulk of our time and energy during our college careers, but these traditional methods are not where the bulk of the learning took place. I did learn things in some classes at Harvard, but I learned so much more in the dining hall and in the courtyard. By occasionally spending two or three hours at dinner, I may have forsaken two or three or more points on impending exams, but the dining hall is where friends were made, bonds forged, and debates brewed. The dining hall has been the center of social life, hosting one-on-one meetings, group study sessions, an opera, and formals. Those yellow walls are full of secrets, but one piece of information has slowly become crystal (chandelier) clear: interpersonal relationships are the root of personal growth. Perhaps it never mattered what we spoke about, what the opera singers were singing about, or how poorly we danced to the hits from the early 2000s, but it’s obvious that my life is better for having been in there through thick and thin. While most of our classes didn’t make huge impacts on our lives, we had large impacts on each other, and for that, I am most grateful.
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In the courtyard, we could most easily see and hear the Russian bells. There, we danced to Bacchanalia’s live music, and participated in our own explosive rendition of the 1812 Overture. We ran from the courtyard on housing day to storm the Yard, and in just a few short weeks we’ll stand there under the foliage to receive our crimson envelopes. These traditions, which do not bestow upon us material benefit, do serve as the glue holding together our community and as the time turners that connect us with the past. Just a couple of weekends ago during Sunday brunch, we met an alumnus from the class of 1970, who remembered the performance of the 1812 Overture during his days at Lowell House forty-something years ago. The times have changed greatly since then, but our mutual connections to our college experiences at large have not. Like us, alumni reflect on the importance of the dining hall and the house traditions, and how the college experience would not have existed if it were not for the shared experiences. What would Harvard be if it were just a place to take classes? The Harvard College Senior Survey posed just such questions. Not only did it seem to be probing
whether the general education program taught us something, but it wondered about our college careers as a whole and if the long hours in the dining hall or the braving of all the weather elements was worth it in the name of preserving tradition. But looking back on what I’ve learned and at what experiences have been the most meaningful, it’s obvious. Harvard is a special place beyond what it teaches us academically, and those extracurricular life lessons are those that will stay with me for forty-something or more years. So when I’m back in the yellow-walled dining hall in the spring of 2054, I’ll make sure to tell the young’uns about how we would storm the yard and Get Low during Bacchanalia, so that I can be sure they’ve learned something, too. Travis Hallett ’14 (travishallett@post) is relishing every moment before the next chapter begins. Occasionem cognosce.
05.22.14 • The Harvard Independent
From the Indy’s Graduating Seniors...
Convergence Reflecting on graduation and loss.
By MEGHAN BROOKS
May 29 I graduate from college. May 29 is the tenth anniversary of my father’s death. I feel as though that coincidence should mean something, as though it has to mean something because out of all of the possible convergences of time the two experiences that have shaped me most — my father’s fight with brain cancer and my time at Harvard — have the same end date a decade apart. The poignancy of the intersection is not lost on me and yet I don’t know what I should think, or how I should feel. I don’t believe in fate, or in “signs from the universe,” or in anything other than the bemusement and shock of coincidence. Having aged from a bended-knee Catholic to an atheist with a Comparative Religion degree, I certainly don’t believe in acts of the divine. Yet my degree has taught me that we all seek meaning and I’m finding that I can’t stop myself from looking for it where I can. My dad was smart. A graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point he was a career officer in the Army with a passion for politics and anything related to American History. He did everything — he was a scout leader, a soccer and softball coach, and a CCD teacher who spent his weekends (when he wasn’t deployed) taking us to museums and on hikes. He sparked my love of history and my appreciation for nonfiction, traits I know he inherited from his own father. A giant of a man at 6’5” he was tough and so, so strong. He could carry all four of us at once up the stairs at bedtime. He tried to ride his bicycle fifteen miles to work in December when the chemotherapy meant he could no longer drive. The year that he was sick was the sixth grade. I navigated braces and boys alongside visits to the hospital and then to the hospice. I was initiated then into the adult world of disease and stress and death and watched as my role in the family took on new dimensions and responsibilities — watching my brothers, helping with the house, comforting adults as they grieved. I couldn’t tell if the changes were the cancer or simply growing up. When he died we moved from the military post
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in Virginia with its familiar PX and Commissary, identical brick duplexes and five o’clock retreat bugle, to civilian life in Massachusetts, which felt alienating but was above all just very different. I gave my American Girls Dolls away and entered middle school quiet and angry. My dad had plans. When he died he was 36 but already knew that if wasn’t going to be a general he would run for office. I’ve been told that he had mentioned applying to the Kennedy School before he was diagnosed, and when I told my grandpa I’d been accepted to Harvard he cried into the phone: “Your father would be proud.” I got good grades in high school for the sake of having them and because I could. Making it to Harvard or anywhere else wasn’t part of my thinking and neither was making the memory of my father “proud.” But being accepted here and being here developed significance nonetheless. As I grew into a healthier relationship with my grades and myself I took inspiration from my father’s stubbornness, resolve, and ethic to keep pushing for success. Moving a stack of my old books into our basement before college I knocked over a pile of his West Point textbooks and an index card with “You Will Pass Math” handwritten in all capitals fluttered out. I have it framed on my desk and have drawn from it through the tears of thesising and Stat 100 psets alike. When my dad died my memories of him and the year that he was sick grayed the edges of my mind constantly. Everything that happened and everything that I did was colored by the context of that experience to the extent that I missed catches as a right fielder remembering third grade softball games when I was in the eighth. Time passes, though, and by late high school I would be struck by deep throbs of guilt reminding me that I hadn’t thought about him in days. At first, coming to Harvard reawakened my semi-obsessive contextualization of my life and myself in my father’s sickness and death. I thought about his interests as I chose my classes, wondered if he would have adhered a Harvard bumper sticker to his car. More than anywhere else I thought about him in other people’s bathrooms as a Dorm Crew captain, scrubbing repetitively at shower walls and
sinks while trying to decide if being at Harvard as his daughter had any particular meaning. My mind has moved on to other questions but I still don’t have an answer to the first. Right now my grandfather is in the hospital and very ill, so my father’s parents won’t make it to graduation. However, my mom, my three little brothers, my other grandparents, my mom’s boyfriend will. A selfish part of me wants the anniversary to go unspoken. Graduation is supposed to celebrate my accomplishments and my future, but the date means much more to the people I want to celebrate with, and when I acknowledge the convergence it means much more to me, too. I do not know if I would be at Harvard if my father were still alive. Moving to Massachusetts, my adolescent independence, attending a private high school with two to twelve-student class sizes, accidentally making my Harvard admissions officer cry — these are all direct consequences of his death and direct contributors to being here. Knowing that and reflecting on how happy I have been at Harvard has been enormously difficult. I keep having this dream where I’m seated in cap and gown under the oak trees in the New Yard and I look down the rows and see my father dressed in the same. At 12 my grief was focused on me and my loss and what I was missing out on with my father dead and my whole life changed as a result. At 21 I understand how young 36 really is, and I grieve for my dad and his lost potential. I leave Harvard immensely grateful for the opportunity to have been here, thankful for the chance to have explored my own potential, and for the resources that have made my experience at Harvard positive and transformative. At graduation, amidst speeches and flowers and goodbyes to the community whose support has helped me succeed, I will walk remembering my father and hoping that I can carry a part of his legacy across the stage. I like to think that I will. Meghan Brooks ’14 (meghanbrooks@college) is grateful to the Indy for four years of friendship and support as well, and looks forward to graduating with Indy seniors beside her.
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From the Indy’s Graduating Seniors...
Saying Goodbye Feeling my feelings one last time. By SAYANTAN DEB
T
here is a lot you learn in the last week of college. You learn what is important — the friends who have stuck by you through the most formative and mercurial times of your life, the teachers who have changed in some fundamental way your approach to education, the advisors who have been there for you at your worst, and the moments that you shared with these individuals before the commencement of the next phase of your life. You also learn to cherish all of the things you overlooked in the last four years because you were busy running after one elusive goal after another. You stop to take an extra long look at John Harvard on your way to the umpteenth senior week event. You pace a little slower through the tunnels of your house, taking special interest in the scribbles left by former students. You run a little faster by the Charles, feeling the breath of the late New England spring on your face. You notice the sunsets, and appreciate the clear summer skies and that lonesome cloud swimming in front of the moon as the silhouette of Annenberg stands proud. You even take a moment to admire the “camera” shaped science center (let’s be real — it looks nothing like it) and all that goes on within. More importantly, in the last ten days, you actively, unwittingly, perhaps even subconsciously, choose the pieces of Harvard you will carry with you. You choose to spend time with the friends who you think will or have contributed to your life in a meaningful and fundamental way. You hold onto those relationships tighter, try to get the most out of them, hope that the time you will have spent together will be enough for the next five, ten, fifteen, twenty-five years — enough to tide over the geographical and temporal distances that will invariably separate you. On the flip side, you also perhaps start distancing yourself from these very people so that the transition into a new life, into new acquaintances and friendships, is easier. After all, there is no such thing as a clean closure. There is always the desperate need to go back - for one more hug, for one more glance of a smile, for one more glance at the old yard with the rainbow of chairs littering it, one more taste of a veritaffle. So perhaps it’s easier to stop striving for closure, and instead just create distance. A clean break, devoid of messy emotions and tears that will do nothing to aid the ultimate goal — move on, strive for something better, something that evolves who you are. After all, we are goal oriented, and anything that doesn’t figure into that scheme should be disposed of, pared away, including messy relationships and friendships, meaningless nostalgia, unreasonable denial. Well, as much as I would like to believe that I have stuck to the former of the two instincts that have crept into this last week, I would be lying.
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I have held onto friendships tighter, made time for substantive interactions with peers and elders alike. I have also unwittingly distanced myself away from the moments that I know would be much harder to say goodbye to, people who have meant too much to me, and even after four years of a Harvard education, I lack the appropriate words to conjure into being the pangs of emotion that have no doubt started to seep through the cracks in our overly scheduled, perfectly planned for optimal enjoyment — senior week. Instead of hiding from them, however, it is perhaps better to face them — s here is where I start — with a love letter to the people and the school that has brought me up, made me face success and failure, made me fall in love deeply, made me deal with heartbreak, made me make and lose friendships, made me become a better scientist, prepare me to become a more sensitive doctor, made me become a more complete human being, and above that, made me realize how much of that there is still left for me to do. There is a Bengali saying, bhalo theko. Translated, it means “stay well.” It’s what you say instead of goodbye to the people you care about. To give credit where it is due, one of my favorite sequences of a Bengali movie ends with a poem that starts with bhalo theko. That is where I will start my love letter as well, because I care deeply about this school, all of its people, and everything it has taught me. So really, there is no real English term of endearment and farewell that could sum up those feelings. So yes, bhalo theko… Stay Well - My first home at Harvard Weld-11, a common room, Of states, nations, and parties For new identities to bloom. Stay Well - MATH1B, LS1A, PSets and allnighters An excuse to make new acquaintances The birds that chirp with the early morning rays At Lamont, and in self-acceptances
Stay Well – The pool theater, The home of my shows, Where I discovered myself anew Through great highs and lows. Stay Well – The Indy, Productions, meetings, and puns Sweats and coffee and exhausted smiles Friends and loved ones. Stay Well – sunsets on the Charles Dandelions and rainbow chairs in the yard. Concrete floors of the science center And quiet night skies of stars. Stay Well – the friends who will leave me soon And all of the times I wish I hugged you tighter There is a lot we will leave unsaid But know that I love you beyond measure. Stay Well – this final week Of self-realizations, perspectives, and hope Of belief in oneself and in others For growth, learning, and the ability to cope. Stay Well – curvy streets of Cambridge Stay Well – new endeavors Stay Well – new found independences Stay Well – now and forever. Sayantan Deb ’14 (sayantandeb@post) is coming to terms with becoming an alumnus, and trying to figure out what that means.
Stay Well – Widener steps, Where we stood with our class smiling On that day of convocation Eager to find ourselves, aspiring. Stay Well – Housing Day, the night before of anticipations of finding a place to call our own of finding families, new migrations. Stay Well – Adams House, My home away from home, Tunnels, libraries, computer labs and 2am D-Hall shenanigans under gilded domes.
05.22.14 • The Harvard Independent
End of the Year Highlights: Forum Rite of Spring By CHRISTINE WOLFE And we can remember fondly those beautiful days that still lie ahead, when we can tan and/or watch people tan in sunny courtyards, read books in a cascade of dogwood petals, and picnic in the parts of Boston Common not covered in duck excrement. Soon enough, wispy girls can wear lace, dorks can trade their fleeces for 2013 summer internship t-shirts, and embarrassing bros can don Chubbies. We’ll sit in the colorful Yard chairs as the warm spring breeze blows us swiftly and gently to the end of the semester.
Shifting Gears By SEAN FRAZZETTE
I have learned through the process that switching concentrations should not be something people are afraid of. We only have four years at Harvard. I thought coming in that I knew what I wanted. For a while, when I realized that I was wrong, I was afraid to switch over to something else. I had known my path for a long time and suddenly I realized that it was not the path for me. But after talking with a number of people, I made the switch and am now once again excited for school, for academic engagement, and for the simple thrill of learning in a classroom.
The Most Magical Place on Earth? By WHITNEY GAO
But this is no longer Disney World. This is no longer a fantasyland created for your whims and your fancies and your imagination and your dreams. This is the real world. And in the real world, racial insensitivity is unacceptable.
chromosomes that it helped provide — Goldman’s choice of free swag ultimately annulled all the good work. The mirrors and nail files only reflected in their metallic sheen a patriarchal set-up’s expectations of a certain way a woman should conduct the orchestra of her body. They help strengthen the belief that good looks shall continue to remain as important, if not more, as a woman’s purely professional achievements.
For Those About to Rush (We Salute You) By LAUREN COVALUCCI
I love rush week. I have three roommates, and every night, all at once, we would scramble to the mirror to fix our makeup (at our double sink — thanks, Pfoho!) and chat about prospective sisters. Then they left and I had the room to myself for a couple hours, which was also pretty great.
Despite Common Belief By CAROLINE GENTILE
“Fatty, fatty, two by four, can’t fit through the kitchen door, when the door begins to break, fatty had a tummy ache!”— This is a rhyme my mother likes to chant whenever my siblings or me are being lazy. Since the dawn of the creation of iPods/ Pads/Phones, we’ve heard this rhyme more and more. When I was younger, I was serenaded with it because I spent too much time sitting in front of our television (which was not HD, or even a flat screen—how times have changed!). Now, instead of parking it in front of the TV like I did in the olden days, my younger siblings have become glued to their Apple devices, playing Angry Birds or watching Netflix. In other words, they aren’t moving. Technology has made them, as it made me, as it has probably made a lot of people, sedentary. It’s no wonder that rising obesity rates have been attributed to our increased dependence on technology.
Ode to Brunch
A Square Deal By WHITNEY GAO
Sunday is both a blessing and a curse. For many students, the day of Sabbath begins with a nasty hangover from a wild Saturday night and the crushing realization that the day will consist of grinding through a massive pile of previously neglected work —penitence for a night of debauchery, if you will. But there is one beacon of hope, one shining bright light at the end of the tunnel, on a day that will be otherwise hellish. Brunch. This combination of lunch and the most important meal of the day is the most important, delicious, and decadent meal of the week; the only time when it is completely acceptable to eat the equivalent of two meals in one. It can be done many ways, and each way is glorious in its own right.
Your college experience should hinge on how much free shit you can attain.
By CAROLINE GENTILE
What Do You Need a Kitchen For? By MEGHAN BROOKS
Sitting in a Dunster suite, reminded that little has changed since the House was built in 1930 and that we are staring at the same ceiling stains that thousands of Meese have stared at before us, we are connected to our past in a very real way. Spaces remember their history, rooms their previous inhabitants. I am sad to leave. I am sad to see it all erased. (I am sad to see myself erased.) In comparison, swing housing and the renewal plans are antiseptic. Who needs a kitchen, anyway?
Down With the Norms By ADITYA AGRAWAL However — for all the monetary gratuities that flowed out of its generous coffers and for all the encouragement to XX The Harvard Independent • 05.22.14
Unprofessional By CHRISTINE WOLFE The next time someone asks me what I’m doing after I graduate, I’m going to tell them I plan on developing a serious addiction to crack and getting a tattoo of a Spork on my thigh. That’s so ludicrous it’s almost believable: anyone who knows me knows I’m wiser than to get a thigh tattoo. But apply to graduate school in the humanities? I may as well cut off my left arm, which will be used against me by a mob of angry gay men clad in oatmeal-colored cashmere when I misquote Proust. Why would a girl like me — in need of stability and in want of a position in life, yet not pulled-together enough to be a trophy wife — spit on the opportunities I have been given as a Harvard student and walk down the path of likely unemployment? I don’t know. I really don’t. All I do know is that I was possessed by the desire to try to do something I really want to do, something that would bring me great happiness, and something that — if it came through — would give me all I’ve ever wanted. Knowing that I might have the opportunity to pursue the study of literary craft is the first thing to make me truly happy in years. I can’t help thinking about it whenever I’m walking around campus, and if I’m feeling depressed about my inability to do triangles, or something, I consider the future and the worry dissipates. I consider the possibility that I could one day be sitting at a nice desk in a tweed skirt. I imagine myself passively intimidating at least 32% of people I encounter. I daydream about job satisfaction, something most adults I know have never experienced. And isn’t that exactly what we should be getting out of our college
education: a lifelong commitment to intellectual pursuit? And if Harvard’s all it’s cracked up to be, shouldn’t we be able to pursue our personal interests while still finding some sort of professional success? Perhaps that’s just too much to ask, even from Harvard. That’s such a brutal revelation — it’s hard to take. And thinking back on the last time I looked forward to my future — my future as a Harvard student — I realize my expectations were misguided. What I looked forward to was not what I got. Almost everyone at my high school was a Trustafarian: stoners backed by their parents’ money. Few of my classmates cared about learning. The faculty tried hard to foster an environment of dedication to abstract concepts while not pressuring anyone to do anything with their lives. As someone who has treated herself as an anxiety-ridden forty-six year old since the age of eight — and, more importantly, one of the only people in my high school who needed to work to get access to a stable future — this attitude bothered me immensely. I was patronized for caring too much about my assignments and getting in to a college normatively defined as “good.” So when I learned I was going to Harvard, I was ecstatic. Their generous financial aid policy didn’t really leave me with a choice, but heck, how could Harvard be bad? I would finally be in a place where everyone cared about learning as much as I did and where ski bums would stop telling me to stop working hard and, like, find myself. What I have found at Harvard was not exactly what I thought I would, and I’m sure many of my peers who didn’t know about Harvard before attending would agree. I soon discovered that my classmates are not all here to learn. Some of them are here to binge drink in pastel shorts, some are here to play basketball, and many are here to get ahead in the professional world. These groups do not necessarily preclude a culture of academic devotion, but there does seem to be some effect, particularly when it comes to the social hierarchy. There is stigma attached to learning for its own sake: it is seen as either a replacement of social life or an unbearably pretentious sense of one’s own intellect. But as one gets along in one’s college career, it’s easier to ignore the inane rules set by anonymous peer groups. The social fears are replaced by the subtle but dominant institutional sense of pre-professionalism. Pursuing a career as a teacher? May as well find a dumpster to live in. Not pre-med? Maybe you’ll be happy until you’re double mortgaged and have lost all your teeth to a meth habit. Going from studying biology as an undergrad to English as a grad student? What kind of an idiot are you? When I see everyone I know suited-up, trotting up the street to OCI (which is, as I once discovered, not the Owl), I find myself contemplating the horrible possibility that I have become the person I once found so ridiculous. Pursuing something with a reasonable likelihood of instability just because I like it? I can’t be the only person who feels this deep unsettlement at following one’s interests. I’m sure everyone who isn’t participating in recruitment sees their friends in suits and thinks, as I do: What about them? What about those other people, who are doing something I wouldn’t like but that would guarantee the ability to have fabulous hair, nice clothes, and financial independence by twenty-five? Maybe more of us aspiring intellectuals will end up going that route. Knowing how hard financial instability can be, it’s not something anyone should take lightly. It’s very tempting to go the structured route, especially when the Harvard administration provides so much support to find the way there. It’s still a new sensation to try what feels right for me and me only, but after four years of hard work at the most prestigious place in the country, I think doing what I want might be okay. When I think about it, I really want only four things: my own home, a family, a sense of professional satisfaction, and a tweed skirt. Most people have the first two at some point in their lives, and if we all work hard enough at what we enjoy, we just might get the third. And by my seventh year as an assistant-composition-lecturer-in-training, I will probably have saved enough to afford a nice tweed. Or I guess we could all just go to law school.
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End of the Year Highlights: News To Keep from Spoiling By MILLY WANG So how can we avoid the oil curse? Prime Minister Stoltenberg listed three main strategies that Norway adopted. Strategy one: Keep expenses below revenue. Usually, it is good economic practice to have a balanced budget, as this would promote healthy economic growth. But in Norway, it was better to have an unbalanced budget. The revenue from natural resources was put in a fund, and the government only spent the financial income from that fund — the expected value of the natural real return. Currently, that return is around 4%, but the government actually spends around 3%, which is less than what they could potentially be spending. This leads to a buildup of a Pension Fund, which has a 40% investment in bonds, and a 60% investment in equity. They currently invest in more than 7000 companies worldwide and their average ownership in each company is 1.75%. This is the diversification strategy. It is, all else equal, better to spread one’s wealth across multiple venues as opposed to just one. This is because if one of these multiple venues perform badly, you will not be as affected by the poor performance as you would if all of your wealth was invested in it. But with diversification, one will never outperform the market. Of course, this is just fine for Norway. Prime Minister Stoltenberg said that their goal is not to outperform the market, but to just do what the market does. Incidentally enough, because Norway has set guidelines on 40% stock and 60% equity, they must spend money on these despite economic situations. But this played in their favor during the downturn of the economy in 2008. When prices fell, Norway ended up buying more since each dollar now had more buying power and they had a set guideline of how much they had to spend. And now that prices are rising once again, Norway has greatly benefited as the value of the fund increased rather drastically in the past few years. The key idea to take away from this, as Prime Minister Stoltenberg says, is to not out-spend the revenue from natural resources. Strategy two: Keep people at work. Prime Minister Stoltenberg said that the value of labor is far greater than the value of gas and oil. Their current high employment rates, and in particular, a very high female labor employment rate, contributes more to their economy than revenues from gas and oil. Norway has helped to encourage greater workforce participation, especially amongst females by implementing family programs. Kindergarten starts at the age of 1, allowing for parents to go back to work without having to hire someone to look after their child. Parents are also allowed to take a one-year leave. Fathers are, in fact, granted fourteen weeks of leave to look after their newborn. Prime Minister Stoltenberg believed that these combined factors have helped to keep both employment and fertility rates high. Norway has one of the highest fertility rates in Europe. The key idea to take away from this strategy is that the largest contributor to a
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country’s economy is labor. Strategy three: Increase productivity. Over the last few years, Norway has seen a stronger increase in productivity. It has a competitive business sector that is well-run and efficient, and the state promotes private businesses. Overall, Prime Minister Stoltenberg says that the government has worked hard to create a good business environment. A very interesting topic that he touched upon when discussing businesses was wealth distribution. It is commonly believed that countries with high incomes will have a high degree of inequality as the vast amount of wealth is actually distributed amongst only a few of the very wealthy. However, as Prime Minister Stoltenberg showed on another graph, there is both high income and a high degree of equality in Norway. Compared to the US, without oil and gas revenue, Norway falls a little below on income, but has higher equality. But with the addition of oil and gas revenue, Norway has higher income than the US, as well as higher equality.
Malala Yousafzai: Humanitarian of the Year By MEGHAN BROOKS Friday, the Harvard Foundation honored 16-year-old Pakistani girls’ education advocate Malala Yousafzai with the 2013 Peter J. Gomes Humanitarian of the Year Award. A full crowd welcomed Yousafzai to Sanders Theatre, along with her family and the neurosurgeon who performed her first operation. The awards ceremony was free to Harvard students, and the crowd’s size and enthusiasm indicated that students as well as community members and other Harvard affiliates were looking forward to hearing Yousafzai speak. Although Memorial Hall may have been less impressive than the United Nations, where Yousafzai spoke in July, she seemed excited nonetheless as she filed onto the stage, dressed in pink and waving to a standing ovation. Yousafzai had come a long way to stand on that stage. A student from Pakistan’s Swat valley, she became the center of international attention after the Taliban attempted to assassinate her last October. A target due to her pseudonymous column on girls’ education and life under the Taliban for BBC Urdu, which garnered her a New York Times documentary, a nomination for the International Children’s Peace Prize via South African bishop Desmond Tutu, and fame throughout Pakistan, Yousafzai was shot in the head along with two friends as she rode the bus home from school. After multiple surgeries in Pakistan and the United Kingdom, Yousafzai has made an incredible recovery, and is determined to use her prominence to advocate for women’s rights and girls’ education in particular globally. … When Yousafzai took the stage to speak, her voice rang clearly. She began by thanking the University for the honor, and then thanked those whose efforts helped saved her life, including Dr. Khan, who was seated on
the stage. She told the story of the events that led to the shooting. The Taliban had taken over Swat and issued an edict saying girls could no longer attend school. Yet Yousafzai and her friends pushed forward, hiding their books in their clothing so as not to appear as students. “The so-called Taliban were afraid of women’s power,” Yousafzai said, “and of the power of education.” She said of her schoolmates and father, a noted educator and girls’ education activist in his own right, “we did not keep silent. We raised our voice…we raised our voice for the right of education.” Her determination almost cost Yousafzai her life, but as she explained, education may be the only way to break the circle of violence in her native Pakistan, to free children from child labor, early marriages, sexual victimization, and poverty, and to liberate women around the world. “But dear brothers and sisters,” she said. “We are not here to make a long list of the issues we are facing. Rather, we are here to find a solution. And the solution is one, and it is simple. Education. Education. Education…if you want to see peace in Syria, in Pakistan, in Afghanistan,” she implored the ‘world powers,’ “then instead of sending guns, send pens. Instead of sending tanks, send textbooks. Instead of sending soldiers, send teachers.” This line in particular drew the crowd to its feet, and the applause continued long after she finished speaking and local sixthgrader Maya Counter presented her with a bouquet, only to be silenced when Dr. Jeffrey Flier, Dean of Harvard Medical School, stood to present an Award of Appreciation to Dr. Khan. Flier described the difficult surgery — the bullet had pierced Yousafzai’s head, neck, and shoulder, and grazed her brain. “[Khan] fought valiantly and well to save Malala’s life that day. Their [the medical team’s] effort and results have been described as matchless,” he said. Khan accepted the award and, making his way back to his seat, laid his hand on Yousafzai’s head, a short prayer of thanks, perhaps, for the life of a young woman and humanitarian who is unafraid to fight for the rights of all women, and who will undoubtedly continue in her work to change the world for the better.
Loud and Clear By SEAN FRAZZETTE We are in a new society for many reasons. In a post-9/11 America, what Kim did is terrifying. But with monumental gains in understanding mental health, we also know that there is more to this story. Harvard is a place many people call home. But to foster a community where people assume a bomb threat is to get out of a final — no matter if it actually were — and where that students feel dumb for not getting straight As is to foster an unstable home life. Like how every part of the body must be taken care of, from the ACLs to the brain, every student on Harvard’s campus must know that there is something — rather, someone — taking care of them
Seeing Green By XANNI BROWN On Thursday, Harvard President Drew Faust issued a statement through the university website which clarified the university’s commitment to remain invested in fossil fuel companies. “The endowment is a resource, not an instrument to impel social or political change,” wrote Faust. She went on to outline a number of practical and philosophical objections to divestment, while reaffirming the university’s commitment to environmental sustainability. This detailed analysis of the divestment issue has much to do with the work of groups like Divest Harvard, a student groups seeking to unite with faculty, alumni, and the broader campus population in order to bring pressure on Harvard to withdraw its endowment funds from fossil fuel companies. Last spring, 72% of College students voted to support divestment through a referendum on the Undergraduate Council balloting sponsored by Divest Harvard, and they have continued the pressure this fall, hosting a combined student-alumni rally last month. At the event, they called on President Faust to host an open forum to address climate change, Harvard’s role in addressing climate change, and divestment at a specific strategy to that end. Alyssa Chan ‘16, co-coordinator of Divest Harvard, expressed disappointment in President Faust’s refusal to engage in further conversation on the issue, saying that after the rally, “[Faust] did not give us a response by the deadline that we asked for, and then she published this letter instead.” The letter did make a nod to the work of “students who advocate divestment from fossil fuel companies,” though it did not mention any specific student, alumni, or faculty advocates. Faust focused instead on laying out the argument against divestment, emphasizing the university’s responsibility to past benefactors who had donated with strictly academic intentions and warning that the financial cost of divestment could induce a “substantial economic cost.” Chan disputed that last point, stating, “There’s no proof that divestment will actually hurt Harvard’s endowment at all, financially.” She cited recent studies that have found no significant increase in risk among fossil-fuel free portfolios. … The tone of President Faust’s letter was that of a decision made and announced, not a discussion ongoing. Divest Harvard, though, is unlikely to take this as the final word. “Now that we’ve seen this response we understand the necessity for us to continue with what we’re doing, and not only to continue but to intensify…” said Chan, “It will be a big semester for Divest Harvard.”
05.22.14 • The Harvard Independent
End of the Year Highlights: Arts Virtually Art By MICHAEL LUO Writing an article advocating for something as art in the arts section seems a little too meta. But meta might just be what this subject needs. Art is an amorphous term, and defining it may be one of the toughest jobs on the planet. Consequently, it seems people would much rather define something as not art, and that something happens to be video games. In the mid 2000s, the most popular villain of the gaming community was not an oversized robot or a horde of zombies; it was the late, great Roger Ebert. In a series of discussions and articles, Ebert did what he did best: tear apart what others thought was art. Ebert repeatedly claimed how games lacked the perception into humanity that other art forms so beautifully illustrated. It almost seems unfair to offer a legend like Ebert the home court advantage of answering questions pertaining to art criticism. I’m sure avid gamers don’t feel an irresistible urge to downplay the achievements of Spielberg or Scorsese. They’re probably too busy or too frustrated being stuck on the final level of your favorite FPS. Of course, the gaming community couldn’t take on the voice of a famed film critic by themselves, so instead they did what they did best: make more games. Since the start of the 21st century, video game developers have gone through three generations while humanity hasn’t even completed one. For instance, the Xbox was introduced in 2001, the Xbox 360 in 2005, and the ironically named Xbox One last November. During this time, technology has advanced, graphics have improved, and mechanics have diversified. With this continuous growth, the video game industry has garnered some critical attention. In 2008, the Writers Guild of America honored Dead Head Fred as its inaugural winner in videogame writing. Later in 2012, the Smithsonian even exhibited The Art of Video Games as a narrative display of video game evolution by era, highlighting the 8-bit days of the 80s to the rise of modern indie adventures that go against the grain of mainstream multiplayer franchises. Video games haven’t always received this level of respect, mainly propagated by the online forums of 14- to18-year-old boys. There are no video game halls of fame to walk into, no competitive collegiate tournaments of Tetris broadcast on ESPN, and definitely no Robin Williams to host the Golden Gaming Gourds live from the Hilton Hotel. When you search for video game museums on Google, the top result resembles something still stuck in the days of Yahoo! GeoCities. Yet video games have invaded today’s cultural space on levels often unnoticed. From recurring memes to popular lingo, games and their players create worlds that even those oblivious to the functions of a controller can reference. Sure, you may not have beaten all the secret levels of Mario, but you’d undeniably recognize a Luigi costume on Halloween when you see one. Or maybe you’ve never tried your hand in the classic arcade à la Wreck-It Ralph, but I bet that upon one beat of a chiptune, your first reaction would be to ask if that was from something, say a video game? This pervasive phenomenon of video games surely attests to its presence, but what of it as art? There are those who believe art is observed, not experienced. Well, I found myself perfectly happy watching 60,000 people play Pokémon simultaneously while writing this article, so there must’ve been something artistic to that effect. From a more serious standpoint, how can something not be art if all its components are art? If composers, authors, and painters make art, then their combined efforts must be a culmination of art. Films have scores and scripts and so do games. There are writers and show runners behind every scene just as there are programmers and creative directors behind every level. Even at its most basic motive, video games give us, the audience, or the player, the opportunity to create. If it’s an original game, I can construct my own narrative; if it’s an adaptation, I can experience the source from my own perspective. Just as I can interpret composer John Cage’s 4’33” of silence as a brilliant concerto or a confused vacuum, so can I judge a viral clip of a Halo headshot as a skillful maneuver or a lucky occurrence. To offer a concrete example of the crossroads between gaming and artistry, take a look at Ken Levine. The creative director and co-founder of Irrational Games studied drama and started off chasing Hollywood for a career in film and screenwriting. As the man behind the universally acclaimed BioShock series, Levine’s knack for dystopian storytelling set in alternate histories has interwoven memorable characters exploring themes of desperation and desire. Praised for its visually stunning cityscapes — whether floating above clouds or submerged deep undersea —BioShock would qualify as art based on its graphics alone. With its additional innovative design imbued with questions on society and morality in an almost anti-Ayn Rand simulation, BioShock serves as a testament to the literary approach taken by Levine and his team. Nevertheless, not all games make it the level of BioShock. A
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creation doesn’t necessarily have to be “good” to be art, and that aspect of opinion is what encourages change and improvement. As Harvard students, we are molded to analyze the works of others closely, to pick out what parts are to our liking and what parts strike us as unexceptional. But we are also taught to keep an open mind. Rarely are we asked to take something at face value, so why should we see video games as only for children and shut-ins? Personal engagement was never a requirement to recognize and respect something as art. You might take a look at Barnett Newman’s Onement VI and cough up $43, but someone in this world went with $43 million. In other words, appreciate the time and effort people put in to produce something that someone, somewhere will see as art, because they might just see more of the artistry in it than you do. If you know little about games, and have not thought about what they really say or do on an artistic level, then perhaps you aren’t quite qualified to disqualify them as art. Video games have historically gotten a bad rap, but maybe ones made today are far different from older ones that Roger Ebert perhaps had in mind. No one is ever going to convince you to start playing video games every weekend if you’ve never lived your life like that, but someone can certainly convince you to take a few minutes to check out this witty, mesmerizing clip of computer-generated characters animated with the purpose of captivating millions. The reason you believe that is worth your time showcases that those virtual characters within virtual environments can have heart and motivation. Their story just needs a little help from you to get started, and who doesn’t want to leave a print on the tales of alien-fighting space marines?
Typographia By JOANNA SCHACTER “If I touch the letters, I think and I hope that people will be touched by them,” said Oded Ezer, during his lecture as part of the Israeli Law, Culture, and Society series on Tuesday. But being moved is not something we usually associate with font. In fact, beyond Times New Roman, or the cringe-worthy ugliness of Comic Sans, font is not something we tend to spend much time thinking about. To Oded Ezer, though, font is a philosophy and an art form, and he breathes life in to it. For a living, Ezer designs new Hebrew fonts. Only fairly recently revived as a popular language, Hebrew is lacking in diversity of fonts. The creation of new ones for the print language has been neglected since it is an ancient one, and there is something about tradition that makes even the most non-conformist and creative minds shy away from change. Ezer is not one of those. He showed a number of ads, movie-posters, and the like, that were designed using fonts of his own design, purchased directly from him. Ezer spoke about the difficulties in playing with the architecture of written language. Each letter has a structure that must be respected even when creating new fonts. One of his projects has been adapting ones like Helvetica to Hebrew; a task that is much more difficult than it sounds, due to the architectural differences between letters of the Hebrew and Latin alphabets. Ezer also teaches, and has been a guest lecturer at the Rhode Island School of Design, and in a similar vein, he spoke about the difficult task he set forth to his students when he asked them to translate famous logos in to Hebrew while still keeping with the original design and aesthetics. Among the examples he showed were Hallmark, Disney, and IBM, but the most impressive of all was the al-Jazeera logo, which still retained the soul and shape of the original, while being written in Hebrew rather than Arabic. Ezer has undertaken many more artistic projects that cross the visual and graphic arts with typography. One of these, Plastica, made Hebrew letters into insect-like freestanding threedimensional sculptures of wire and plasticine. Plastica eventually served as inspiration for one of Ezer’s award-winning fonts, Frankhrulia, which incorporates the insect-like legs of Plastica’s letters with traditional 2-dimensional Hebrew font shapes. Frankhrulia is used in his most well-known design, which was at one point on display in Times Square in New York City: the word typography, in Hebrew, typographia, written in this font. Most recently, Ezer collaborated with Jonathan Safran Foer to remake the Passover Haggadah, the meal-time service book that tells the story of the Exodus from Egypt, that has existed for thousands of years and is used annually during Seders. They tackled the problem of how to remake a book this old and this important, but succeeded in turning it in to a design project. No illustrations in the traditional sense are included in the work, instead, Hebrew words, painted, drawn, inked, and photomanipulated by Ezer, bring the book to life, further emphasizing the power and importance of the written word in storytelling. The written word has an aesthetic element to it in addition to the element of meaning. These two components converge in
such a way as to allow fonts to influence how we perceive and react to the words we read. Font conveys meaning, just as much as the word written in it does. Ezer understands this and uses this idea as the basis of his work. After listening to Oded Ezer speak, it is difficult to think of typography as any less important, complex, and beautiful as he believes it to be.
The Other Way America Won at the Olympics By WILL HARRINGTON A friend of mine spent the fall in Siberia improving his Russian. His bags didn’t include a winter coat when he left in late August. He reasoned that nobody in the world would make warmer winter coats than the Russians in Siberia, so he might as well just buy the best one he’ll ever own while over there. He claimed he did. But when he got back and I saw that his coat —complete with fur hood — was clearly branded in English, I called him out on it. In response, he showed me some of the inside tags and they were all in Russian. Apparently brands are all in English, no matter how authentically Russian. Like my friend’s coat, the Sochi opening ceremonies were big with lots of frills around the edge. It was Russia’s opportunity to redeem itself from the catastrophe that was press coverage of the preceding few days, but it was a lot more than just a tremendous show of fireworks and a flying little girl. Politics abounded in the ceremony itself, but also in the surprising team uniforms of several countries. The main message of all of this is that if there was any question left about it, capitalism seems to have won the Cold War pretty handily. There was an appropriate amount of respect and reference to the communist period in the ceremony, the flying hammer and sickle alongside Lenin’s train most notable, but then the organizers decided that Bye Bye Birdie needed a Russian revival. Classic ‘50s cars drove by girls wearing what looked like poodle skirts. This is a shocking recast and Americanization of the actual events of shortage, repression, and censorship that took place in the Soviet Union even after de-Stalinization began 1953. It seems that in post-communist Russia, money can buy happy pictures, if not happy memories. The desire to celebrate history is admirable, but the desire to re-write it much less so. The organizers ought to have stuck with displays of Sputnik and Gagarin, past Olympic victory, and other triumphs of culture; they just don’t have the talent for pop culture that was on display in London two years ago. Beside Russian triumphs of new money marched the American athletes. Star-spangled, but apparently also from the Republic of Polo. Whatever it was, camera angles or just unlucky fortune, it seemed much easier to read the ‘Polo’ branding than the ‘USA’ on their sweaters. Of course a designer has the right to be proud of their work, but it seemed inappropriate in the circumstances. The Olympic Games should be a celebration of the nation, not a corporate brand. We celebrate the athletes in the games, not their equipment. The skiers, not the skis. In the uniforms we should be celebrating the national symbols such as the flag, unless we count corporatism as a national pastime too. It’s really an unfair characterization to pick on the Americans; US media just gave them a closer shot than anybody else. Further examination of other national outfits reveals that prominent branding is a common thing, sort of. The two camps appear to be function and national fashion. Large winter coats were commonly marked, such as Ireland and Jamaica, but branding was absent in anything that didn’t look like it came off the City Sports rack. Sweden’s streamlined and angular coats, Spain and Bermuda’s blazers, and Russia’s fur greatcoats. It seems the sweater isn’t special enough. But while Russia’s coats for the opening ceremony don’t have a brand name, the athlete warm-ups at the events have a far more interesting brand name. It took me a few events, but I realized I could clearly read the name. It said ‘RUSSIA’, plain and clear in the Latin script with the English spelling. Even the national brand sells itself in English. There may be something in the rules mandating that the Olympic languages of French and English be used for competitive purposes, but that doesn’t seem like it should stop the uniforms from having a single Cyrillic character anywhere. It didn’t stop the countries from entering in Cyrillic alphabetical order or announcements being in English, French, and Russian. It’s absurd to declare that America has already won the Olympics outright because of this. As of right now, the nation is still has to compete with Norway, Canada, and the Netherlands for medal count, and really nobody actually wins the Olympics. Athletes win their events, but no single nation is crowned with a medal at the end of the day, no matter what color or how much they’ve managed to stack up. But America has one in some ways. Countries seem to want to look like us, even if they don’t necessarily want to be us. From big to small, from the massive patriot gala of the opening ceremony to coat brand names, Russia is presenting itself as a normal, global, western nation.
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End of the Year Highlights: Arts Buildings Paradoxical By ANDREW LIN The Science Center, built in 1973 to accommodate the rapid sprawl of Harvard’s already-robust undergraduate science and engineering programs in a single building, is certainly an interesting construction relative to the rest of fair red-brick Harvard Yard. Its bare Brutalist concrete, painfully anachronistic red inserts, and exposed gaps in the paneling all seemingly distinguish it as one of those buildings, the little brother to such edifices of mid-to-late century bureaucratic distastefulness such as Boston City Hall and Canaday Hall. But just forty years ago, the Science Center was considered futuristic in the best and brightest sense, an architectural marvel standing at the vanguard of modern design truly fit for the best university in the world. And herein is the big question: what defines futuristic architecture? Certainly the question depends on the age in which it is proffered: from the fantastic 18th century etchings of Piranesi to the garish new skyscraper towers of brash oil sheikdoms, questions of fantasy and futurism have come up in both discussions and artistic representations of architecture in all eras. Indeed, humans have fantasized generally about titanic constructions of various sorts and kinds ever since the art of building and construction was first unlocked however many centuries ago. The Tower of Babel, the various mythological wonders of the world, and even the Pyramids were all hypothesized and real constructions meant to bring humanity closer to the gods, to divinity and often the geopolitical power concentrated within that association. Architecturally speaking, the modern world has certainly indulged in this same grandeur-worship as well, with the future instead of various gods serving as an object of idolization. The creatively-titled Futurist style, proffered and employed chiefly by the Italians in the early part of the 20th century, certainly stands as a valid example, espousing a mixture of Roman grandeur and sleek railroad-inspired straight planes seeking to merge the future seamlessly with the past. The modern conception of futuristic architecture, however, is still inextricably linked to the idea of modern science fiction, namely predictive science fiction of the sort that proffers ideas on what the future specifically – along with its buildings – will look like. In a sense, this sort of futuristic architecture emerged in the latter half of the 20th century, with the glitzy Googie architecture of World’s Fairs and comic-book serials set against the stolid academicism of International Modernism, of Le Corbusier and bureaucrats and authoritarian art schools at large. Googie architecture certainly flew in the face of straight-line modernism, with flowing, futuristic curves borrowing freely from the lush exoticism of Art Deco and spiraling electron paths of the Atomic Age. These roots explain much of its popularity in 50s’ and 60s’ science fiction: from The Jetsons to Marvin’s wacky Mars on Looney Tunes, Googie architecture was the scifi manifestation of a shining, technologically-guaranteed future paradise. Googie architecture also held tremendous sway over real-life construction in the Atomic Age as well, with edifices such as the Space Needle in Seattle and the various pavilions of the World’s Fairs in Montreal and New York all epitomizing the era’s reckless optimism. But with the tide of the 70s, of oil crises and hostage-taking and economic malaises, that same optimism seemed hopelessly outdated, and now most of the fantastical Googie-era constructions have long since disappeared into moldering rust and empty lots. Googie architecture in many ways was building branded for the consumer, a neatly-packaged product which, like the serialized sci-fi in which it was featured, was meant for instant consumption and rapid disposal. It is therefore logical that the impact of Googie architecture pales somewhat in its scope compared to the titanic towering power of academic and decidedly consumerunfriendly International Modernism as a futurist construct and design philosophy. Certainly International Modernism preceded the Googie in both age and aca-
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demic acceptance, with roots in the German Bauhaus School stemming back to the 1920s. Indeed, in the brief architectural flourish of the Roaring Twenties, Europe saw the development of modernist architects such as Le Corbusier (the designer of our own Carpenter Center) and Walter Gropius (the founder of the Bauhaus school) into architectural superstars. World War II posed a modest interruption, however, before construction proper of the new, International Modern world could commence. International Modernism espoused what was deemed the design aesthetic of the future, buildings that via straight-line functionalism and a lack of ornament would convey a style that transcended national boundaries and sectionalized interests. Post-World-War-II, that meant a glut of titanic office blocks such as the Seagram Building in New York City, bare-concrete government buildings, and multi-tower housing projects. Fueled by seemingly limitless economic potential and unfettered by costs or logistical concerns, the new International Style was foisted upon the general population in full force for much of the second part of the 20th century – and the people were not pleased with this new view of the future. The big problem with International Modernism, at least in the eyes of the public proper, was that people simply did not fit into the sterile buildings envisioned by the International Modernist architects sitting high in their offices and academic posts. The International Modern style – the equalizing style of the future -- often proved to be fantastically impractical in present practice, with office blocks ripping huge caverns of cold, impersonal glass and steel in the former hearts of cities, housing projects devolving into vertical slums, and government buildings reinforcing perceptions of government institutions as impersonal and monolithically authoritarian. An example that hits rather close to home is our own fair Boston, which certainly has borne some of the harsh after-effects of this futuristic architecture gone wrong as well; virtually the entirety of the historic West End – a full third of the Old City at the time – was razed in 1953 to make way for highways and housing, a startling example of futuristic planning run amok. Boston’s Government Plaza truly epitomizes big government gone wrong as well, with the inverted alien ziggurat-like City Hall baring its reinforced-concrete bones and blazing a plaza of concrete wasteland in the heart of the downtown. And what is the role of the Science Center in the midst of this Bostonian modernist imbroglio? Perhaps an answer may lie within its designer, Josep Luis Sert, professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Art and Design and initiator of the first urban design degree program in the country. Sert was considered a visionary at the time, constructing buildings in the modernist vein that were heavily influenced by Modernist predilections – and a Harvard-based visionary no less. Many of his students are now defining the new ideals of Post-Modernism and Post-Post-Modernism, delighting in their freedom from the rightly-repudiated shackles of the discredited Modernists by exulting in ornamentation of all sorts and kinds. This is all well and good, at least when compared to the tedium of baldly-applied Modernism, but it lacks overt direction, the concrete vision of the future that futuristic movements of the past conjured in brick and steel. So now the duty falls to us, to the students here and now gathered at fair Harvard, to help rightly determine our future architecture, to directionally characterize our future world at large – a world that will shape our conceptions of ourselves and our lives.
05.22.14 • The Harvard Independent
End of the Year Highlights: Sports
Instant Replay
own a victory in Harvard Athletics. The traditions of hard work, dedication, and a love of rugby carried the small club team that was started in 1982 into varsity territory.
By THE HARVARD INDPENDENT SPORTS
The Comeback Kids Harvard men’s basketball reappear in March Madness. By SHAQUILLA HARRIGAN & SEAN FRAZZETTE
Harvard Athletics in Review. Harvard Athletics have had an amazing year. From members of sports teams being nominated for Phi Beta Kappa, beating Yale in multiple sports, and making it to March Madness, to winning the squash national championships. The following clips from this year’s sports section highlights the best of Harvard sports.
Foul Play Quaking Tiger, Crimson Draggin’. By CHRISTINE WOLFE On Saturday, February 22nd, the Harvard Women’s Basketball team brought it all to the court. Led in points and spirit by the indomitable Senior Captain Christine Clark, the Crimson fought a tight battle against one of the two current leaders of the Ivy League, the Princeton Tigers. The stands at Lavietes didn’t do justice to the tension and passion on the court that night. Perhaps it was Friday’s hard loss to Penn, and the subsequent loss of the Crimson’s number one standing, that pushed the Crimson to Saturday’s aggression. Despite Clark’s, senior Melissa Mullins’, and junior Temi Fagbenle’s doubledigit score counts, Princeton managed to eek out a close victory 69-64. It was a hard and fast loss on a gritty floor. The Crimson made sure to play the floor, utilizing the diverse strengths of their starters to run up an early advantage of 15-7 in the first six minutes. Ali Curtis ’15, the starting forward, played a thoughtful counterbalance to the pure power of Mullins and Clark. Jasmine Evans ’14 scored five straight points in the middle of the half, and in concert with the Crimson’s tight defense, the Crimson managed to maintain a 31-28 lead as the half came to a close. The team was barely out of sight when Clark returned to the court, a determined grimace focused on the Crimson’s board. Harvard’s frequent fouls had given the Tigers 6 points, with no Harvard free throw attempts in the first half. And with high Princeton scorers like Kristen Helmstetter ’14 and Taylor Williams ’16, the Crimson would need to maintain their momentum to come out on the high side of what would inevitably be a close game.
One year ago, the Harvard men’s basketball team made history as the then No. 14 team claimed its first-ever NCAA win over the then No. 3 New Mexico Lobos in a close match 68-62. Despite being the best team in the Ivy League, few thought that a sports team from Harvard had the ability to be serious contenders in one of the most frenzied sporting events of the year. But, as anyone who seriously follows collegiate basketball knows, March Madness is comprised of many tales depicting heartbreak and the overwhelming satisfaction of being a victorious underdog. After an amazing NCAA introduction, the basketball team went out to prove this season that they are not one-trick ponies. Led by senior captains Brandyn Curry and Laurent Rivard (who also happened to be a key player in last year’s NCAA tournament game), the Harvard men’s basketball team went into NCAA tournament play 26-4. The team made it into the big dance after defeating Brown in regular season play 98-93 OT. On Thursday, March 20th, the team--seeded No. 12-- travelled to Spokane, Washington to play No. 5 Cincinnati. Even though the Crimson were a lower seed, they were many pundits and analysts pick as an upset worthy choice and a potential bracket buster. The game started fairly bland, with some bad shots and sloppy play, but three minutes in when senior Kyle Casey threw a slam down on the Bearcats, the audience knew the Crimson meant business. … Despite the loss, no one on Harvard’s campus thought negatively of the basketball team. There were several messages congratulating the team on their success and excitement about welcoming home the team after a tough battle on the court. There are only about 358 days until the Harvard men’s basketball team is welcomed back into the Madness. Hopefully next time, we can walk away with a title.
A Marathon Remembered Shut Up and Ruck Strong and together, a city that Women’s Rugby makes history with never faltered. first varsity game. By SEAN FRAZZETTE By SHAQUILLA HARRIGAN Upbeat girl-power anthems sounded in the background as the Harvard Women’s Rugby Team took to their AstroTurf-stage Tuesday night. The team made history as the first Division 1 NCAA women’s rugby team. Not only is the women’s rugby team the 42nd varsity sport at Harvard, but also it is Harvard’s newest sport in 20 years. The women’s rugby team played the Quinnipiac University Bobcats in a tough game. Despite amazing tries scored by Xanni Brown ’14 — who is, completely coincidentally, a beloved staff writer for the Harvard Independent — and Aniebiet Abasi ‘15, the women’s rugby team fell to Quinnipiac 39-10. While the Harvard Women’s Rugby team had difficulty receiving possession of the ball after performing a lineout, standouts Cayla Calderwell ‘14 and Helen Clark ‘15 did an excellent job on defense. Both women were also instrumental in holding the scrum strong. Even though the Harvard Women’s Rugby team lost their first game of the season, fans rooted enthusiastically for the team until the last few minutes of the game and into the team’s triumphant victory lap around the field. Beyond the scoreboard of this game, members of the Harvard Women’s Rugby team
The Harvard Independent • 05.22.14
A year ago from Tuesday, on Marathon Monday — a day more important to Bostonians than can be explained in words — two brothers, Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, allegedly tried and succeeded to a degree in degrading the special day. Using bombs placed near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, the brothers killed three people, Krystle Campbell, Martin Richard, and Lingzi Lu, as well as injuring many others. The tragedy sent the city of Boston and its surrounding areas into turmoil. Harvard students and affiliates running in and attending the Marathon were frantically called, emailed, and texted in an effort to assure some sort of words of safety. As someone born and raised in southern Massachusetts, the city of Boston and the state as a whole means something special to me. It is my home, my capital, my hangout spot. But I am not a Bostonian, nor would I ever pretend to be. So my words on the Marathon and my passion for the city should be viewed in this context; that is, I love this city and living in Cambridge has only made me love it more, yet I could never understand what the native people of the city went through during the Marathon last year. … The tragedy on April 15, 2013 was as sad as the city had seen in
years. An attack on an innocent people can never be forgotten, nor should it ever be. But on April 21, 2014, the city will regroup, remember, and, most importantly, run. We are a group of people that did not run from the pain. Rather, we ran together. Images of first responders running to the scene were a poignant scene painted in the memories of all people. And this year, hopefully, the image of the hundreds of runners will return as the true image of the day. The recognition of human will and the limits that are transcended by running a marathon will once again shine bright. Boston will continue to be strong, the marathon will return stronger, and the people of the city will be seen once again as the strongest family of it all.
Squashing the Competition Farag Leads Crimson to Squash National Championship By PEYTON FINE Let me make something very clear. Ali Farag, Harvard’s number one squash player, is really good. We are talking number one junior player in the world good, reigning collegiate national champion good. In this year’s national championship, Farag swept his opponent while never giving up more than four points in a game. Harvard swept all three of its opponents this weekend in route to the Potter Cup; Harvard’s first collegiate squash team championship since 1998. That’s domination no matter what sport you follow. Look, I love sports, but covering the national championship was my first exposure to squash. I had to use trusty Wikipedia just to figure out the rules for the tournament. Each team is comprised of nine players ranked one through nine, who face off in a match against the opposing team’s player with the same rank. The matches are best of five games, and the first team to win five matches wins. … My first experience with squash in many ways resembled a lot of other sports I’ve watched where the winning team is usually “clutch” as Harvard was in capturing the national title. However, the Egyptian game played by Ali Farag coupled with his actions off the court made this particular weekend one that reminded me of the reasons why I love sports.
An Icy Feeling Men’s Hockey Falls to Yale By DOMINIQUE LUONGO My involvement with the February 21, 2014 Crimson Men’s Hockey Game against Yale began on November 23, 2013. Why November 23rd? That was the date of The Game when the Harvard and Yale football teams squared-off against one another for the 130th time, amidst a tailgate that rivaled the size of several small villages. It was during these bacchian festivities that I stumbled upon a pair of Crimson Ray-Ban lookalikes that foretold the coming of the “Rivalry on Ice” and which now, incidentally, sit proudly on my bookcase among the other free treasures and miscellaneous bits of swag I’ve received from various campus events. Thus, the anticipation for this event had been brewing for a few months; knowing that the Harvard-Yale rivalry would continue on ice kept me going during the pressure of finals, the aimlessness of J-term, and the frantic pace of shopping week. Journeying to the Bright-Landry Center, I could feel my excitement rising as the Allston-Express Shuttle lurched forward towards the athletic facilities on the other side of the Charles. Arriving at the game, I was treated to the customary delights of the hockey arena. The smell of deliciously tempting concessions, the chatter of small children with their faces pressed up against the glass as they eagerly took in the sights of the Crimson gods of the arena bashing Bulldogs into the side of the rink, and the war cries of the band who played during the game decked out in hockey jerseys that matched their tangible excitement.
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