09. 02. 10
THESTUDENTWEEKLYSI NCE1 969
I ns i de: T hea r t sa r oundBos t on, s ummerphot os , a ndPa r k51.
09.02.10 vol. xlii, no. 1 The Indy welcomes you back to campus. Co-Presidents Patricia Florescu ‘11 Susan Zhu ‘11
Cover art by PATRICIA FLORESCU
Editor-in-Chief Faith Zhang ‘11 News and Forum Editor Riva Riley ‘12
FORUM 3 The Park 51 Controversy 4 The Freshman International Program Fishy Situation in Mexico 5 Things (Not) to Do Freshman Year SPORTS 6-7 World Views of the World Cup ARTS 8 The Summer in Photos 9 Top Ten Picks for Food Near Harvard 10 Classical Music in Boston 11 Museums Worth the Trip
Arts Editor Pelin Kivrak ‘11 Sports Editor Daniel Alfino ‘11 Graphics Editor Sonia Coman ‘11 Associate News and Forum Editor Weike Wang ‘11 Staff Writers Peter Bacon ‘11 John Beatty '11 Rachael Becker '11 Ezgi Bereketli ‘12 Andrew Coffman ‘12 Levi Dudte '11 Ray Duer ‘11 Sam Jack ‘11 Marion Liu ‘11 Hao Meng ‘11 Alfredo Montelongo ‘11 Nick Nehamas ‘11 Steven Rizoli ‘11 Jim Shirey ‘11 Diana Suen ‘11 Alex Thompson ‘11 Columnist Sam Barr ‘11 Graphics, Photography, and Design Staff Chaima Bouhlel ‘11 Eva Liou ‘11 Lidiya Petrova ‘11
For exclusive online content, visit www.harvardindependent.com
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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 Presidents Patricia Florescu and Susan Zhu (president@harvardindependent.com). Letters to the Editor and comments regarding the content of the publication should be addressed to Editor-in-Chief Faith Zhang (editor@harvardindependent. com). Yearly mail subscriptions are available for $30, and semester-long subscriptions are available for $15. To purchase a subscription, email subscriptions@harvardindependent.com. The Harvard Independent is published weekly during the academic year, except during vacations, by The Harvard Independent, Inc., P.O. Box 382204, Cambridge, MA 02238-2204. Copyright © 2009 by The Harvard Independent. All rights reserved. 09.02.10 • The Harvard Independent
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Zeroing in on Park 51 The controversy that should never have been. By SUSAN ZHU
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7th grade on September 11, 2001. I was walking from Social Studies, taught by Mrs. Cooper, down the hall to Health with Mr. Green. Principal Hughes’ voice suddenly broke the noise of a middle school hallway to announce that any student with parents or family members who worked in New York City were to come to the main office. I thought this was a rather odd announcement, but as it didn’t apply to me, I kept walking to class. In health class, Mr. Green turned on the TV that was usually reserved for 90’s era educational videos. One of the World Trade Center towers had smoke streaming out of it; the announcer said a plane had crashed into it. I was confused. The towers were huge — was the pilot blind? Did the plane have really terrible mechanical failure? Wasn’t there a river right there that would have been less … inhabited? I excused myself to go to the restroom. When I came back, the second tower also had smoke streaming out of its middle section. My first reaction was a nervous chuckle — the kind that comes out when you have no other reaction but complete shock. I looked around to Mr. Green, hoping he would say that it was just a pretend movie and that we would be discussing traumatic events in was in the
today’s lesson, but he sat shaking his head. I decided then that I would wake up soon, but it never happened. The planes crashing into the towers no longer seemed like an accident, but something done on purpose. We knew the information soon enough — where, when, what happened. In the days that followed, the dominant question was: why? Why did they do this? Why do they hate us? What had we done to them? We thought we had “who?” figured out, too, but looking back, we hadn’t addressed this question in any adequate way. “Who” was not “the Muslim world,” but the distinction between the extremist individuals on the plane and the entirety of the believers of Islam was ignored. There were images of people in Muslim countries holding vigils for the families of 9/11 victims, but in the frenzy to go into Afghanistan afterwards, we seem to have forgotten that they were ever sympathetic. We were angry and confused, and people who are angry and confused rarely take the time to make sure all the details are in place. It was much easier, and quicker, to just lump people into one category based on one characteristic that Americans were unfamiliar with. Stereotypes speed things up. Besides, we wanted to be tough, not hippies. It helped that we could point to
Protesters take to the streets of New York to oppose the building of the mosque. Courtesy of newsrealblog,. The Harvard Independent • 09.02.10
practices in this unfamiliar religion and use even liberal arguments against it — women’s rights, for instance, seemed to have trumped freedom of expression whenever the case was made, as it is in France, that burqas and headscarves meant that women were subordinate. It’s a hard line to draw, between those who do it out of faith and those who do it because they are forced to by society. But then, why did we never ask the Catholic Church about its subordination of women in the church hierarchy in the same way we scrutinized this foreign, supposedly violent religion? I’m a senior in college now, and the news on TV has been about whether or not a mosque should be built a few blocks from the site where the planes crashed into the towers — Ground Zero. Most arguments against the proposed mosque (if it qualifies as a “mosque,” given the other facilities that would be built as well) have centered on an emotional harkening back to 9/11. I can understand why people would be angry. A mosque, to them, represents why the hijackers hated America. But the terrorists were not representative of their faith. Just as there are extremists in every religion, including in Christianity, the 9/11 hijackers were individuals with radical thoughts apart from the mainstream. The reason we hear about madrassas, or the schools where they teach extremist thought, is exactly because it’s extremist. If violence were truly a pillar of Islam, wouldn’t its billions of practitioners throughout history have destroyed the world by now? Instead, the majority of Muslims live in peace today, following their faith the way other peaceful believers do. What we need to do at this time is embrace the Muslim community, not further isolate them. Extremism thrives on isolation — it allows the most devious and radical thoughts to continue to fester, to blind, to dominate without a rational voice to argue any other way. By alienating the Muslim community, we let the hijackers win. They stereotyped us, and decided that we were the best target. We would be the enemy, their scapegoat for what in their lives didn’t feel right
Mayor Michael Bloomberg spoke in defense of the mosque. Courtesy of the Associated Press.
or secure. To turn around and do the same to the Muslim community, to show the rest of the world that America really is the enemy of Islam, would be to give encouragement to the madrassas whose teaching we are fighting against. How much more ammunition can we afford to give them at such a critical time? The only way to combat hate is with understanding. 9/11, some scholars say, is the event that will define my generation the way that Vietnam defined the generation before. Nine years later, with our troops halfway around the world, it’s time to heal. I can’t think of a better way than to embrace the Muslim community and show that, in a post-9/11 world, we have finally learned that hate leads to destruction, and that with mutual understanding comes peace. We should reach out with helping hands rather than with fists and curses, because we are better than that. The first step is tolerance, the second is acceptance. I’m optimistic that eventually we could get to love. Susan Zhu ‘11 (szhu@fas) is clinging to her faith in humanity by her fingernails. editor@harvardindependent.com
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Mapping the World International students say their first hellos to Harvard.
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By EZGI BEREKETLI hink of one of those world maps
glimpsed while idly leafing through an airline magazine in flight: it’s criss-crossed with lines connecting different cities, mapping the different routes the airline flies. Now imagine all those lines connecting to Cambridge, MA, centering it in the world of the students who traveled to Harvard from all around the world on the 20th and 21st of August. That would be an accurate representation of the international coverage of the class of 2014. This year’s international students hail from 77 countries and add around 130 rich, riveting, and unique stories to the student body. This year’s Freshman International Program (FIP) took place between the 21th and 24th of August, and, as always, undertook the mission of giving the international students a fun introduction to life in America and at Harvard. FIP is open to all internationals and even Americans who live abroad. It is a fourday orientation program organized and executed by the Woodbridge Society of International Students, the Harvard International Office and the Freshmen
D e a n ’ s Of f i ce i n o rd e r t o p ro v i d e international students with a way to adjust to their new college environment in the United States. Participants are introduced to all the issues that are necessary to have a happy, successful start at Harvard — from discussions on American classroom and faculty expectations, to choosing classes, to dealing with homesickness and roommate relations. They receive help with logistics — important things like visas, taxes, cell phones, and bank accounts — before school starts and they become too busy. Informative sessions with upperclassmen and administrators about how to succeed at Harvard leave them ahead of the pack when it comes to choosing classes and extracurriculars. The program is a lot of fun and includes well-planned scavenger hunts in Boston, other cool activities in the afternoons and awesome parties in the evenings. Perhaps most importantly of all, however, FIP provides a social forum that facilitates lasting friendships with fellow international freshmen as well as invaluable bonds with knowledgeable
upperclassmen, both of which will last well after the program ends. The upperclassmen FIP leaders who direct the program in those four days are a valuable resource as new international students navigate the troubled waters of college life. Despite the rain that did not stop for the duration of FIP and the exceptionally cool weather for the season, this year’s FIP was very successful and the participating students were generous with their words of praise when asked what they thought of the program. “It was the best first four days at Harvard I could have asked for, the leaders made us feel at home and the feeling of being welcome and surrounded by fellow international upperclassmen is very comforting.” said one of the students. Not only is FIP a great experience for the new coming international students, but it is also a great opportunity for the leaders to catch up after the summer and spend an enjoyable four days before school starts. Having participated in FIP as a freshman and served it as a leader for the past two years, I am very fond of
Gods Among Fish
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By RIVA RILEY
Mexico, there is a great deal of barbed wire in the jungle. Barbed wire surrounds each parcel of private land, edging the cleared cattle pastures and neatly planted farms that knock up against the startlingly intense tropical rainforest, which now exists only in fragments. “It would be so beautiful here if it weren’t for all these fucking bananas,” my expedition lamented as we completed the 27th hour of our Tex-Mex road trip. Our government permits described us as researchers, university students, and staff heading out to study fish in the field in Mexico, but that’s not what we really were. In truth, we were expedition sent to survey our domain, and to do this we had to pass through the Mexican countryside, crawl under the barbed wire, and get our feet wet. Catching the fish was not difficult — my research mentor was more than an expert. Although he let me assist him, I probably got in the way more often than I helped him. Nevertheless, within a few minutes of landing at our first stream we had two buckets teeming with captive fish. “Look at this Heterandria,” my mentor said, fishing a large, iridescent female from one of
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the buckets and laying her in his hand. She was beautiful, her scales shining in the sun as she flopped angrily in my mentor’s hand. Her mouth was opening and closing, her operculum flapping, and she looked just like the Heterandria female my mentor kept in his lab in Texas. In the lab I happily took care of the live fishes, which I was using to study behavior. It seemed to me that the lab-dwelling Heterandria was my mentor’s prize, the fish he always looked for when he came to help me. Now, in the field, he smiled at the fish and I did too — it was a truly remarkable animal. “Isn’t she beautiful?” he said. Then he dumped her in formalin. I have to admit: the lab Heterandria wa s n ever m y favor i t e. She was aggressive and nasty, and she terrorized her molly tankmates. My secret pleasure in the fish room was the easy-going sulfur mollies. They were almost like dopey puppies — whenever I walked into the fish room, they rushed to wherever I was standing and wriggled furiously, piling against one another. Granted, my natural affection for the fishes is hardly a common response, but it didn’t take much to be fond of those fish. They just got so active and
all the memories and very grateful for the friendships to which it gave birth. I met some of my blockmates and linkmates as well as many of my closest friends at Harvard through FIP, and I have always been aware of and thankful for the feeling of being a big international family that started with my FIP experience. The Woodbridge Society does not only aim to be a second home for the international students; it also has a mission to introduce American students to the international diversity present on campus through the different cultural events it sponsors and organizes. Our parties have always been some of the biggest hits on campus and attracted the attention of everyone, and thus we expect to see all the freshmen at our parties and cultural events this year. Once again, international students: welcome to America and Harvard, and Americans: welcome to the incredible wealth of international experience on campus! Ezgi Bereketli ‘12 (ebereket@fas) is somewhat enthused about FIP.
Deciding the fates of ichthyological specimens.
excited when I fed them. Secretly, I believed that they would have been very cooperative in the behavioral trials I was running in the lab. The population I was actually using, the common Atlantic molly, was quite a bit less amiable. They knew me as the one who caught them in nets, and even though my trials were not dangerous, they occasionally refused to cooperate. One day, those fish went on strike. They sat on the floor of the experimental tank and stared at me unmoving, two, three, four, five, six fish in a row with no response, no action, no data. We had to work out a compromise — I gave them an extensive water change and Friday off. They grudgingly accepted. I found that the fish in the field were less demanding than my lab fish, and the best part of the field expedition was the fish we captured and took care of to bring back to the lab. Perhaps because my main tasks in the lab involved caring for and observing live, healthy fish, I did not take as well to the other field experiments. I could not reconcile the living fish that I cared for in the lab with the hapless fishes that we caught in our net, destined for formalin or ethanol. It was arbitrary, especially when we were
collecting fish to bring back live and fish to preserve at the same field site. I was incapable of deciding the fishes’ fates. I do not want to be a god among fish. My mentor showed me some kindness in not pressing me about this weakness, and let me think instead about the live fish we were transporting back from Mexico. These were highly unusual fish, fish that did not exist in laboratory settings before my mentor brought them back, and we brought them from the very south of Mexico, the Tabasco province, back to Texas. I can only imagine that the military checkpoint personnel throughout Mexico thought we were a little bit ridiculous for driving so long and taking such care to transport such tiny fish — they were often less than an inch long. One of them even held his fingers together to make sure we understood how small our fish were, and my mentor just nodded happily because our fish seemed healthy and were surviving well in our makeshift setup. My mentor kept smiling, and the soldier just let us go. Riva Riley ‘12 (rjriley@fas.harvard.edu) is well on her way to becoming the Fish Whisperer.
09.02.10 • The Harvard Independent
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Things to Do Freshman Year Advice from a friendly senior who's been there before. By SUSAN ZHU - Participate in the Yard-wide snowball fight and slide down Widener steps on trays from Annenberg. - Join in on tourists’ pictures with strange poses and gleeful expressions. - Explore Boston: have dimsum in Chinatown, walk the Freedom Trail, and eat dinner in the North End. In the winter, skate at Frog Pond in Boston Commons for as long as your feet can stand the rental skates. - Play Intramurals. Meet cool people. Win Yard Bucket. - Join 8 activities. Drop all of them except the Indy, with which you have fallen head over heels in love. - Take a class you never thought you would take and find a new passion by doing so
- Primal Scream. No amount of preparation will make it warm. Word of advice: the Yard is longer than it seems — pace yourself! - Buy all the best Harvard-Yale shirts. Heckle Yalies when they arrive. Yell the one line of the Harvard Fight Song that you know when the band plays. Attempt to remain warm. - Go to office hours. Realize that professors and TFs are real people, too! - Go to a finals club. Never go back. - Recover from finals clubbing with Felipe’s, followed by a healthy dose of IHOP. - Get the flu and visit UHS, to be told that you’re probably pregnant (this applies to boys, too).
- See the Harvard Art Museum’s amazing collections.
- Go see someone famous speak at the JFK Forum at the Institute of Politics (IOP).
- Join a service group at Phillips Brooks House and give back to those who have less.
- Confuse OIP with IOP (the former is the Office of International Programs), and decide you really should study abroad at some point.
- Go to a lecture at Sanders. - Fall asleep in a lecture at Sanders – first floor if you’re into being embarrassed; second if you’re more inconspicuous. - River Run before Housing Day – go to all the Houses! Realize that the Quad and Dunster/Mather really aren’t so far away. - Watch the stars from the Science Center observatory. Bring a crush, some chocolate, and a nice bottle of… expensive sparkling cider.
- Grab Mr. Bartley’s to go with shakes and fries, and discuss the intricacies of life between bites and sips of milkshake on the steps of Widener. - Use BoardPlus to buy snacks and drinks throughout the year, or save it all for the day before the semester ends, and buy out Green House Café’s entire stock of pastries. - Play Mario Kart. Become addicted to Mario Kart. Realize that your life consists of eating, sleeping, and playig Mario Kart. Join a river jogging group.
Things NOT to Do Freshman Year - Get caught by your proctor as you stake your claim on John Harvard’s foot. - Miss a final exam because you were standing in the tray return line - Awkwardly hook up with an entrywaymate while neither of you are in the right state of sobriety - Introduce yourself to someone and say, “oh, yeah, I’ve stalked you on Facebook before!” - Fall asleep in Lamont. Wake up smelling like old books and drool. - Buy all of your Harvard gear at The Coop. Try Hidden Sweets, and get loads of cheap sweatshirts at Oktoberfest. - Decide to wear high heels when the ground is covered in half a foot of snow. - Renege on your rooming rotation agreement with your roommates. Do not be that jerk. - Decide to wear high heels along cobblestone sidewalks, period. - Pile up dirty clothes until Christmas, then take everything home for mommy dearest.
The Harvard Independent • 09.02.10
- Pull all-nighters. Yes, we are hypocritical, but you really shouldn’t. - Sign up for five classes second semester. Technically you’re allowed to, but you’ve got plenty of time to kill yourself later. - Sign up for six classes second semester. Or any semester. Ever. - Walk down an empty street in the middle of the night by yourself while chatting on your phone or listening to your iPod. - Date two crew team members in succession. They sit next to each other for hours every day. - Eat double what you normally do just because Annenberg is technically “all you can eat.” It’s the freshman 15, not freshman 50. - Decide that you’d like to “challenge” yourself by taking a graduate level class on medieval French technical manuals… in Medieval French. - Make eye contact with cute boy/ girl across salad bar… proceed to put salad dressing on self instead of salad
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Sports
THE 2010 W ‘Yo soy Espanol, Espanol, Espanol!’ The World Cup from Spain.
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ALEX THOMPSON/Independent
By ALEX THOMPSON
OOOOAAAAAAL!” The cheer reverberated through every corner of the country when Andres Iniesta instantaneously became a Spanish legend as he gave Spain the lead in the World Cup Final Match. I had never seen anything like it. It was not simply that every person in Spain supported this team but rather the extent that every Spaniard cared if Iniesta’s shot went in the goal. It was as if a Spanish loss would amount to a personal betrayal for every Spanish citizen. When I asked an 11 year-old girl (my host’s grand-daughter) if she was going to watch the match that night, she recoiled as if the question had personally wounded her. She quickly replied that this match was “sacred” and of course she would be watching it. As if to prove her devotion to the Spanish team, she listed off every player and their number. In the United States, there is not a unifying sporting event like the World Cup. During the World Cup, few Americans watched all of the games that the United States played and few, if any, would have called
the game ‘sacred.’ And it’s not only because Americans don’t like soccer. Even this past year as America made it to the Winter Olympics hockey final against our beastly northern neighbors (just kidding Canadians!), only 27.6 million people watched the game in a country of over 300 million people. Even my roommates weren’t that interested and preferred to do their homework while I screamed and hollered at the television (whether that was out of patriotism or sheer nerdiness is up for debate). Is it simply that America is too diverse to find a uniting sporting event? In Spain, two parts of the country have been trying, violently at times, to secede from Spain, and yet I saw as many fans in those provinces as in every other part of the country. Is it simply a lack of humility? As Americans, we have begun not just to hope, but to expect most of our athletes to dominate on the world stage. We have been spoiled to the point where a sporting event cannot create that type of unified fervor. The irony is that American teams must become worse in order for Americans to become unified behind them.
Strangers in a Strange Land
The World Cup from the West Bank.
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By FAITH ZHANG
World Cup finals in the community center of a tiny village in the West Bank, in a room where the air was bluegray with hookah and cigarette smoke. I didn’t know much about soccer beyond the side that scores more goals wins, and I couldn’t understand a single word of the Arabic commentary, but I didn’t need to; all I had to do was watch the 6
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reactions of the people around me. We had one Spaniard in our group, and nearly all the Palestinians were rooting for Spain, while the three Germans with us were cheering for the Netherlands because Spain had knocked Germany out in the previous round. A shriek followed by a sigh meant that the Dutch had nearly scored; a roar meant that Spain nearly had; and while it all
went on, we sat, drank tiny cups of enormously strong coffee, and puffed away on sweet-smelling hookahs. You know, of course, the final result; the only thing that remains to be said is that, the next day, “Viva Espana” was playing on the radio, and for the remainder of our time together, everyone we met congratulated our resident Spaniard with gleeful warmth. 09.02.10 • The Harvard Independent
Sports
WORLD CUP
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A Pause in the Business of Governing The World Cup from D.C. By SUSAN ZHU
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my World Cup watching experience from suburban Philadelphia, few people cared enough to don soccer jerseys and wave American flags. The World Cup was just another TV show – fun to have on in the background, a good excuse to have a summer party. People might talk about the USA games, but those were few, since we never advanced very far. People only chattered the last World Cup after Zidane headbutted someone – that was cool. Watching the World Cup in Washington, D.C. was different. Perhaps in any major city you could find the bars packed, the people singing the national anthem together. In Dupont Circle in D.C., giant screens were set up outside. People stood outside in, yes, soccer jerseys and n
various country flags in the 100 degree heat (with humidity) to watch the USA vs England game. Someone even braved the heat in a revolutionary war costume, complete with soccer jersey. In my internship office, people would turn the cubicle TVs, usually on C-SPAN or CNN, MSNBC or Fox, to the World Cup – and they continued doing so even after we lost to Ghana. In short, people in D.C. cared. I don’t know if it was because there were so many young people over the summer, if it was because D.C. is a major city, or just that, being the nation’s capital and a political town, it cared about what happened on the world stage – or world pitch. Regardless, it was refreshing to see Americans actually care about an international sporting event.
SUSAN ZHU/Independent
‘Eu sou brasileiro, com muito orgulho, com muito amor!’ The World Cup from Brazil.
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By PATRICIA FLORESCU
his summer I did thesis research in Sao Paulo, (strategically) during the World Cup. I don’t usually watch soccer, but in Brazil it was hard to remain detached from the overwhelming general euphoria. During the five games played by the Brazilian team, city life came to a standstill: final exams for college students were automatically rescheduled, some employees got the day off from work, and everyone, young and old, was wearing the national colors with great pride. The Harvard Independent • 09.02.10
All the shops and restaurants were lavishly decorated with yellowgreen banners, flags and, of course, color-coordinated vuvuzelas. The loud noise of fire-crackers was accompanied by profuse swearing targeted at the opposing team. I watched most of the games in my hostel, enjoying the traditional churrasco (Brazilian BBQ), beer and caipirinhas (cocktail made with sugarcane alcohol, sugar and lime) with other gringos from all over the world.
PATRICIA FLORESCU/Independent
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Arts
A Moveable Feast Our summer in pictures. By INDY STAFF
FAITH ZHANG/Independent
WEIKE WANG/Independent
Upper left: the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem. Upper right: the monasteries of Meteora, Greece. Lower left: the annual Congressional baseball game, Washington, D.C. Lower right: Brasilia, Brazil. SUSAN ZHU/Independent
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09.02.10 • The Harvard Independent
Arts
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The Top 10 Places to Eat in the Square When the dining halls just aren't enough. By SUSAN ZHU 1. Bartley’s Burgers
Awesome: Burgers of every variety and topping, excellent shakes, sweet potato fries, andonion rings Bad: Cash only, no restrooms, cramped seating — you can take it to go and munch elsewhere
2. Fire and Ice
Awesome: Pick whatever you want of the raw ingredients and they’ll cook it right in front of you, with a sweet selection of sauces Bad: Crowded on college night Mondays and weekends — call ahead of time
3. Felipe’s
Awesome: Cheap burritos, good horchatas and other Mexican beverages Bad: Every order feels rushed, and it can be extremely crowded during meal times
4. Finale
Awesome: The desserts are so good. Bad: Pricy, especially since you will wish for bigger portions
5. Berryline
Awesome: Fresh fruit toppings, candy toppings, cool flavors, real frozen yogurt (not soft-serve) Bad: You could buy a pack of normal yogurt for the same price, minimal seating
6. Arrow Street Crepes
Awesome: They make crepes just like the French, with savory (meat and veggies) or sweet (chocolate, cream, fruit) selections in a cute, quiet cafe Bad: They cost twice as much as they do in France
7. Cafe Algiers
Awesome: The selection of great Middle Eastern and North African food in good portions
Bad: You seat yourself, which means they sometimes forget about you for a while
8. Spice
Awesome: Cheap food like pad thai, Thai iced tea, and more, in good portions Bad: Crowded on weekends, impatient wait staff
9. Le’s
Awesome: Seriously cheap and good noodles and rice dishes Bad: tummy might feel cheapness later
10. Noch’s Pizza
Awesome: Cheap and large pieces of pizza Bad: You can only buy by the slice of pizzas that they’ve already made — if they’re out of sausage and that was all you wanted, you’re out of luck Susan Zhu'11 (zhu@fas) is a foodie.
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Arts
Close Harmony
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he Boston area is home to one of
the highest densities of classical musicians in the world. Since the founding of the Handel and Haydn Society way back in 1818, classical performance has been an important part of the Boston area’s civic pride and identity. Hundreds of classical music performances occur within range of the T during each academic year, and the classical music community’s interest in building a next generation of audience members has resulted in great deals for students on tickets. The best deal of all, and an essential for any collegiate classical music fan, is the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s College Card. For all but a handful of programs for which exceptional popularity is predicted, the College Card allows holders to go to the box office the Monday of a concert and pick up a ticket for free. Programs with free tickets available include Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 “Resurrection,” and a program with both Bartok’s Bluebeard’s Castle and Stravinsky’s oratorio Oedipus Rex. The card costs $25. Rush tickets are a great option for those interested in only one or two concerts. BSO rush tickets cost $9 and go on sale just prior to concerts. The Harvard Office for the Arts also offers weekly free tickets to BSO concerts for Harvard students, and
Unplugged
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Seacrest sleeps with his Blackberry. Everything Seacrest’s Blackberry was to him, my iPhone was to me. Before Saturday, June 26, 2010, my phone was the first thing I checked in the morning and the last thing I looked over at night before I put it to bed in its charging dock after a day glued to my palm. I sent emails while waiting for the bus, texted furiously while walking down the street, and couldn’t keep my fingers from straying towards the Facebook mobile application while I sat restlessly in class. When I flew into Heathrow Airport on June 27 and inhaled my first breath of fresh English air, my phone became a useless chunk of plastic and metal. Unable to text friends back home or even surf the Internet unless I wanted to incur massive charges on my phone bill, I realized that I had to distance myself from the technology that I had yan
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A guide to classical music in Boston. By SAM JACK
they periodically offer other deals exclusive to Harvard. Subscribing to the OFA’s “Beat for the Week” e-mail newsletter is a good way to keep up with these deals as well as with arts events around campus. The Handel and Haydn Society, mentioned above, is now a periodinstrument orchestra that specializes in the Baroque and Classical eras. It has rush tickets for $10. Exciting concerts on the Society’s docket for this year include Handel’s epic oratorios Israel in Egypt and Messiah with the excellent Handel and Haydn Society Chorus, as well Beethoven’s 4th Piano Concerto, performed by Harvard’s own Professor Robert Levin. The Boston Philharmonic Orchestra is a semi-professional orchestra that specializes in outreach to audiences who perhaps have not been as engaged with the classical tradition. Conductor Benjamin Zander is renowned for his enthusiastic renditions of crowdpleasing staples of the repertoire, and equally known for the impassioned and funny talks that precede and, in the case of the Discovery Series, are part of, the concerts. For a sample of Zander’s particular mode of classical music proselytism, Google the TED talk he gave a couple years ago. Rush tickets to the Boston Philharmonic are only $8, and most concerts are given in Sanders Theatre.
For chamber music aficionados, concerts in the New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall take place just about daily. Jordan Hall often attracts young professionals at the beginning of their international careers; its concerts are exciting, often free, and seem to be chronically under-attended. Last year Antheil’s extremely loud Ballet Mécanique just about blew the roof off the place — half a dozen player pianos and a couple airplane propellers will tend to do that. Rush tickets to Celebrity Series of Boston concerts are $20, and can be unavailable or hard to get, but if you can manage to get tickets, the Celebrity Series brings in celebrated artists from around the world in pop, jazz, dance, and theatre as well as classical music. Yefim Bronfman, Pinchas Zukerman, Joshua Bell, the Emerson String Quartet, Dawn Upshaw, and Liza Minelli are just a few of the celebrated performers on the calendar this year. The Boston area is home to a horde of college students and scads of classical music performance groups. Right here on the Harvard campus, we have groups that include the Harvard Glee Club, the Radcliffe Choral Society, the Harvard-Radcliffe Collegium Musicum, the University Choir, the Bach Society and Mozart Society orchestras, the Harvard-
Radcliffe Orchestra, the Dudley House Orchestra, the Dunster House Opera, the Lowell House Opera, the Early Music Society, the Harvard-Radcliffe Chorus, the Brattle Chamber Players, and many others. The Harvard Box Office website’s calendar is the best place to find listings of concerts by all these groups. Tickets are usually quite inexpensive, sometimes free. Harvard’s musical groups offer the best opportunity for students interested in performance; there are groups suited for all levels of ability and areas of interest. Most groups are holding auditions now. This article doesn’t come close to encompassing the depth and breadth of the classical music community in Boston. I’ll conclude by recommending The Boston Classical Music Intelligencer, a Web-based journal whose near-comprehensive concert listings have vastly simplified my quest to absorb as much classical music as possible during my time in Boston. Find it at Classical-Scene.com. And if you’re chained to your desk, consider tuning in to Harvard’s student-run radio station, WHRB, which programs classical music for most of the day and, during finals period, is host to the notorious “Orgies.” Sam Jack ‘11 (sjack@fas) does enjoy a bit of orgiastic music.
Summer abroad without an iPhone.
By SANYEE YUAN
tethered myself to. That’s when the fun started. I realized how much I’d been missing out on while constantly communing with my phone. I was in England for the first time, studying arts journalism and creative writing at Cambridge University for eight weeks alongside students from different corners of the world. From France to Louisiana to Australia, every part of the world seemed represented. On the second day of the program, I ended up reviving an old phone that I had happened to throw in my luggage and decided to take a payas-you-go option. But I was nowhere as attached to this phone as I had been to the iPhone. This scratched-up old phone was good for only two things: storing contacts and making calls. Within a week without the iPhone, I began feeling like a changed person. I was punctual for appointments. No more “hey—I’m running fifteen minutes late but I’m on my way” text
messages. I paid more attention during meals. No more disrupting and distracting incoming email beeps in the middle of dinner. I talked to strangers. No more attempting to busy myself with checking weather forecasts whenever I happened to be on a bus. I even learned how to read maps. No more inputting a destination and finding immaculate and immediate directions with the virtual GPS. Sans iPhone attached to my hip, I was living in the present. The thought of email still hovered in the back of my mind, but I knew that I could wait to get to my laptop to check it. All of cyberspace could wait while I was exploring the shops and restaurants and sights of England, France, Italy, and Scotland. I climbed a mountain peak and went clubbing for the first time in Edinburgh. I took in the view of Paris at night from the second level
of the lit-up Eiffel Tower. I waded through the still waters and strolled around cobblestoned streets with gelato in my hands at Lake Como. And I did all this without my phone. I relaxed, simply enjoying being around my new friends and absorbing the novel environment. Before studying abroad, I worried about everything from buying energy voltage converters to obtaining a visa. I never thought that I would get cut off from the Internet, though. When it was no longer available at my fingertips and I was forced away from my easy access, I felt disconnected. But I’m glad I was disconnected this summer. I still love my (now working) iPhone and all of its endearing apps, but if I learned anything from my summer experience, it’s that I would rather live my life rooted in reality. Sanyee Yuan ‘12 (syuan@fas) remains under Apple’s thrall. 09.02.10 • The Harvard Independent
Arts
indy
Give Me Five Exploring Boston’s cultural riches. By PELIN KIVRAK
I
f you’re looking for some artistic
entertainment before classes are in full swing, Boston and Cambridge have all you need. Take some time to experience some of the richest art collections in the world this weekend before you dive into those readings.
Institute of Contemporary Art
The ICA is probably more famous for its breathtaking exterior and architectural qualities — The New York Times called the ICA “a stunning landmark of the New Boston” — than for what it contains inside, but both the building and the collections and exhibitions are well worth visiting at least once. Now featuring an intriguing exhibition of handmade sculptures in stitched fabric, carved bone, and wheelthrown clay by Charles Ledray titled workworkworkworkwork, the ICA’s collection represents a diverse overview of national and international contemporary art in a range of styles and media, and provides an important resource for contemporary culture in Boston. Hours: Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday, Sunday, 10am – 5pm; Thursday, Friday, 10am – 9pm; closed Mondays $10 for students; free for all 5 – 9pm every Thursday for Target Free Thursday Nights The ICA is located at 100 Northern Avenue on Boston’s waterfront, adjacent to Anthony’s Pier 4 restaurant.
Harvard Museum of National History
One of the most visited attractions on campus, the Harvard Museum of Natural History presents both the collections of Harvard’s three research museums (the Museum of Zoology, the Harvard University Herbaria, and the Mineralogical and Geological Museums) and research projects of scientists across the University. In the Museum’s permanent galleries, you will encounter fossilized invertebrates The Harvard Independent • 09.02.10
and reptiles, dinosaurs, large mammals, birds, and fish, as well as historic glass models of plants known as Glass Flowers, and displays of meteorites, minerals, and gemstones. Hours: Open daily 9am – 5pm Free admission for Harvard ID holders 26 Oxford Street Cambridge MA 02138
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
If you like to hang out in museums in addition to visiting the galleries, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is the right place for you. The Museum’s three floors of galleries filled with paintings, sculpture, furniture, tapestries, and decorative arts surround an amazing garden courtyard where most of its events are held, depending on weather conditions. The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum hosts After Hour events on the third Thursday of each month, during which you can enjoy live music, art, cocktails, impromptu gallery talks, or cutting-edge contemporary performances. The museum also presents jazz and new music concerts in the Jazz at the Gardner and Avant Gardner series on select Thursday evenings as part of Gardner After Hours. On the 16th of September, there will be a special themed night called “Palazzo Paradiso” — only $5 for students. Hours: Tuesday – Sunday, 11am – 5pm $5 for college students with ID 280 The Fenway Boston, MA 02115
Arthur M. Sackler Museum
We are fortunate to have one of the world’s leading art institutions with its three distinct art collections right down the street. Harvard Art Museum’s Fogg, Busch-Reisinger and Arthur M. Sackler collections together constitute the sixth largest collection in the country. For the first time in its history, the Harvard Art Museum is displaying items
from all its collections under one roof in the Sackler Museum on a rotating basis. The first floor shows works from the twentieth century, including works ranging from postimpressionist and abstract paintings to postmodern installations. The second floor explores seven thousand years of Asian and Islamic art, while the fourth floor takes you through the Western experience from Greek pottery to Van Gogh. Trained student guides as well as docents from the education department give special tours on the weekends. Hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 10am – 5pm Free admission for Harvard ID holders 485 Broadway Cambridge, MA 02138
Boston Museum of Fine Arts (MFA)
One of the most comprehensive art museums in the world, the MFA’s collection contains nearly 450,000 pieces. In addition to the permanent collection, the MFA hosts a variety of modern and contemporary exhibits throughout the year. For those of you who are interested in modern fashion trends, Richard Avedon’s new exhibition “Avedon Fashion: 1944-2000” opened this summer and will run through January 17th. Another breathtaking exhibit, “New Works: Prints, Drawings, Collages,” which brings together American and European art acquired in the last half-decade, will also be on display till the end of April. The artists include the British Frank Auerbach, Austrian Arnulf Rainer, Swiss-German Dieter Roth, and the Americans Bruce Conner, Jasper Johns, Julie Mehretu, James Siena, and Terry Winters. Hours: Monday, Tuesday, Saturday, Sunday, 10am – 4:45pm; Wednesday – Friday, 10am – 9:45pm $18 for students 465 Huntington Avenue Boston, MA 02115 Pelin Kivrak ‘11 (pkivrak@fas) is planning a few excursions herself.
Isabella Gardner Museum
Institute of Contemporary Art
Museum of Fine Arts
Natural History Ground Sloth Fossil
editor@harvardindependent.com
11
captured and shot By WEIKE WANG