Alien by Libertas Magazine

LIBERTAS

the

alien

V o l . 18 , no. 2

i ssu e

SATREBIL LIBERTAS editorial M arc h 22, 201 3

EDITORS IN CHIEF Jordan Luebkemann | Will Reese Emily Romeyn | Vincent Weir POETRY Lucia Stacey & Tim Rauen FICTION Madeleine Brown

POETRY Leggings

Riley Ambrose

FILM On or About February 24: Name Dropping The Oscars

Vincent Weir Jackson Mauze

6-7 8

Meg Mendenhall

FILM Riley Ambrose

MUSIC Will Stratford CRITICISM Colin Thomson

Colin Thomson

YOWL Charles Pennell

Anne Sellers Vincent Weir, Mike D’Andrea, Riley Ambrose, Jordan Lubekemann, Sophia Smith, Brigid Behrens, Sarah Paddon Vincent Weir Charles Pennell

contributors

Michael DeSimone Will Stratford

Emily Romeyn, Vincent Weir, Michael DeSimone, Will Stratford, Riley Ambrose, Jordan Luebkemann, Meg Mendenhall, Colin Thomson, Jackson Mauze, Anne Sellers Libertas belongs to the students of Davidson College. Contact the editors at libertas@davidson.edu

special thanks to... Faculty Advisors: Scott Denham, Zoran Kuzmanovich (emeritus), Ann Fox (emeritus) Previous Editors: Emily Romeyn, Vincent Weir, Mike Scarbo, Vic Brand, Ann Culp, Erin Smith, Scott Geiger, James Everett, Catherine Walker, Elizabeth Burkhead, Chris Cantanese, Kate Wiseman, Lila Allen, Jessica Malordy, Nina Hawley, Kate Kelly, Zoe Balaconis, Rebecca Hawk, and Hannah Wright Founder: Zac Lacy visit us online: sites.davidson.edu/libertas

LIBERTAS, V o l . 1 8 , N o . 2

V o l . 1 8 , N o . 2 , LIBERTAS

4 9 12

FICTION Split: Where an Alien Speaks to the Author and Silences Him Alien Status CRITICISM Old School, Four Years Later Dispelling the Name of the “Invisible 500” Guys and Their Dolls Relevancy Bracket YOWL Pistorius Laments Aborted Girlfriend Trade with Te’o Cult Prepares Way for Coffee Machine, Alien Master Race Paul Ryan’s Shopping List Proposal MUSIC Michael’s #Relevant Music Picks 22 Years Later: A Hiatus and Two Decades of Refinement Make My Bloody Valentine’s Best Album

Leggings

ON OR ABOUT FEBRUARY 24, 2013

NAME DROPPING THE OSCARS

M eg M end enh a l l To the stranger in the airport: Thank you For wearing those God-awful Black and white Floral print Funkadellic leggings.

Riley Ambrose The Academy @TheAcademy “Everyone is a winner at the #Oscars tonight. Except, of course, for the people who lose.”

To most They’re an eyesore But to me They’re proof

OLD SCHOOL, Four Years Later Old School was the novel assigned as summer reading for the incoming class of 2013. It was a finalist for the Pen/Faulkner book award in 2004.

olff ’s Old School is a novel set at a prestigious New England boarding school with a thriving literary community. The narrative follows the senior year of one aspiring writer, as well as his time after leaving the school. The fictional culture of the school, as well as the character’s engagement with literature, has made Old School one of my favorite novels. Here are a few of my favorite scenes, and how I see them reflected at Davidson. The unnamed protagonist, in an uncharacteristically perceptive moment, notices a fireman evaluating each of the prep school boys. The protagonist-who is also the narrator until the very end of the novel-- considers that the distinguishing features so apparent to those on the inside are completely invisible to a visitor. “Our clothes, the way we wore our hair, the very set of our mouths, all marked us like tribal tattoos,” he says. I saw surprised, and a little disappointed, that such tribes don’t exist at Davidson. Having a single group to define oneself by is frowned upon, and understandably so, as such groups can cause rivalry, resentment, and division. But at the same time, a group of people with common interests naturally band together, and investment in this interest is a source of pride and distinguishing “tattoos” may emerge. The division arises mainly when individuals cannot self-select into groups-- when individual

That I’ve seen you Not once But three times In this airport Today And I’ll never see you again But today I saw you three times.

Colin Thomson

biases, not common interest, determine the make-up of the group. The narrator states early on that influence is a big part of the young community of writers at his school: “All of us owed someone, Hemingway or cummings or Kerouac-- or all of them, and more.” At the end of the novel, the protagonist struggles with his identity as a rising author, particularly how his life and his work have mirrored that of Hemingway, his biggest influence. A criticism of Hemingway’s writing as “a great phallic enterprise” is a personal affront with which the protagonist wrestles, and eventually, resolves. Our generation faces the temptation to confuse identity with “brand”. You are not a brand. Consider yourself more highly than how you “market yourself ”. It is difficult when an impressive LinkedIn profile carries more gravity than amorphous traits like originality and creativity. I think we would all agree, though, that the latter are ultimately more important-- and neither come about when being self-conscious. We should always acknowledge influencing factors, but we are never less capable of creating something original as when our we define ourselves as a product to be sold or a sum of uncontrollable factors. By immersing ourselves in the task itself, instead of the image of the outcome, will free us to create-- even if it doesn’t eliminate all of our influences. The protagonist is a compulsive reader and writer,

“book-drunk” and “not only read writers, but read about writers”. Throughout the novel his attitudes reflect those of the authors he reads; his life and the literature he consumes are inextricably bound. Although covert with his friends, the protagonist admits to the reader that he is intensely competitive about the school’s writing contests. He dreams of being “anointed” by established writers. Davidson is a cautious place. There’s lots of trust between members of the community, and it is safe in many ways. Yet when it comes to personal involvement, I find Davidson students to be very cautious. Few of us find something we love and throw ourselves whole-heartedly into it. We value “keeping our options open” and “developing marketable skills”. We take things slow, especially academically. And we’re self-conscious through the whole process. Now, self-analysis is essential in every aspect of life, but I wonder if Davidson wouldn’t be better off if we were all recklessly engaged in the subject we love. I wonder what would happen if we took our favorite class and made it “our thing”. If every spare moment was building towards one interest that might pan out, might not, but totally captures us at the time. Let’s just trust in the fact that our interest is valuable, and worth investing in, and that focus on the thing itself is at least as valuable as wondering whether it is valuable, if for no other reason than that we love it.

LIBERTAS, V o l . 1 8 , N o . 2

he 2013 Oscars, like a cultural pinball, has bounced around the machine of social media enough times to become a measure of someone’s taste: namely, “do you have good or bad tastes, and also, what did you think of the Oscars?” It’s either “good” or “bad,” or “funny” or “dull,” or “refreshing” or “offensive;” and if you are of a more refined and cautious nature, you know better than to succumb to the temptation of binaries: “it was neither good nor bad; Seth Macfarlane was exactly how he should be—what did you expect? He created Family Guy for Christ’s sake! And did you see Kristin Stewart’s bruises? I haven’t seen [a clever joke about wrecks or bruises or Lindsay Lohan].” Which is to say that deflection is the best way to avoid the beguiling binaries of the less refined, just like self-deprecation (@SethMacFarlane) is the best way to shield yourself from critical fire. What goes unstated in the excitement and build-up to February 24 is that “The Oscars” is more than an awards ceremony; it’s an entertainment event in itself. Televising these awards, purveying the glitz and glamour of the movie industry to the general public, at once establishes and maintains its unquestionable prestige; that is, the Academy, the nebulous organization of movie industry professionals, displays its overwhelming influence and authority, establishing an annual standard for critical evaluation. “The Oscars,” which begun in 1929 under the presidency of Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., now functions, with the complementary aid of popular media, as the point of connection between the sustaining consumers—the audience—and the Academy. The choice of host, the veritable lifeblood of the event, characterizes the entire affair; and in the past immaculate cultural icons such as Fred Astaire, Whoopi Goldberg, and Steve Martin have filled the position. And that’s why this year’s choice for the Academy’s vicar, the crude and smug MacFarlane, turned and few heads and generated lots of attention. *** I watched all five hours of the Oscars, taking two pee breaks and eating two burritos. Which is to say, I was glued to the TV in a disheveled state of disrepair. I played along with Kristin Chenowith’s “guess-what’s-in-the-box!” gimmick, a game

V o l . 1 8 , N o . 2 , LIBERTAS

that seemed puerile even when played by Beasts of the Southern Wild star Quvenzhané Wallis. I was hoping for the DeLorean’s engine. Shout out to @AnneHathaway for wearing a Prada apron and going as a little boy. (And shout out to @HathawayNipple; apparently that’s a thing now.) Jim Hamilton @Jim_Hamilton “If Anne Hathaway wins tonight, she’d better thank the Japanese animator who created her.” I thought the Oscars were good, and I am not going to qualify that statement. But it really doesn’t matter if the Oscars were good or bad; 40.3 million people tuned in to watch what turned out to be one of the most unconventional and innovative Oscars to date. Never have I witnessed such a colossal appeal to the masses since God gave his only son human form. The Academy gave us all the lowbrow and middlebrow bourgeois humor we could handle in one small and smarmy body. It’s a shame Jesus didn’t live in a post-ironic culture. He could have had William Shatner as Kirk personally argue his case; and he could have put on a hell of a show for the Roman court. A couple well-placed, self-deprecating Jewish jokes, and a robust performance of “We Saw Your Nuts!”—with the rest of the disciples as back-up dancers—could have proven entertaining enough to work. There is no subtlety in matters of empire. What then does this choice mean for the future of the Oscars? The general media pulled a Cloud Atlas (definitely Hugo Weaving) and crucified MacFarlane—which goes to show what I have always said: togas come and go, but talking teddy bears are always scary. The critics washed their hands of the whole matter and said something like “I am pure from the blood of MacFarlane.” The people, however—the audience the Academy played to with gimmicks like “We Saw Your Boobs” and the box game—responded with something more meaningful than evaluations: attention. The 2013 Oscars had ten million more viewers than last year’s disappointing and lackluster performance by Anne Hathaway and James Franco. Any cynical, pop-culture savvy troll knows that attention—good or bad—can be molded in the hands of a well-paid public relations agent. Attention—good or bad—can remain good or bad, just as long as it sustains

viewers. The Academy is currently fighting to maintain its relevancy as the core of filmic authority in a democratizing cultural climate; and, similar to the exigencies of Vatican II, it is willing to negotiate on some of its stricter principles to entertain popular tastes and lifestyles. The only question that remains, then, is who will host next year’s Oscars? An immediate decision from their perspective would be ill advised. Popular opinion (at the moment) would have Beyoncé as the obvious choice. Viewership could hit record highs, especially if they advertise a Beyoncé/Adele duet and hint at a possible Kanye breakdown. Following the recent successes of NBC’s Justin Timberlake hosted SNL, I would advise that the Academy set in motion a complex plan and cast JT in a darkly comic romance across from Ryan Gosling and Jennifer Lawrence, directed by Benh Zeitlin (Beasts of the Southern Wild). If the plan fails they can always call on Martin Short, Chevy Chase, and Steve Martin and do an ode to the old days of white-haired comedies.

SPLIT:

Vinc ent Weir

Where an Alien Speaks to the Author and Silences Him

he weeks surrounding that quixotic night in Croatia stretched like sandy heelmarks; monotonously along life’s calmer shoreline. Those were long days of discipline and levelness, partitioned by sunlight and unaccustomed to extraordinary visions. Among friends I acknowledged my contentment, but privately I longed. Perhaps I was dismissing serenity from cynicism, or perhaps from too much hope. In either case I began to prefer rain to breeze and sunshine. I loved weather that could draw attention to itself and create the diversions I need to ignore self-scrutiny and other recursions. The dark clouds in her eyes drew me in. We split the cigarette smoke of the room as she sat alone writing. Hair thronged her shoulders and hood and seemed to change lengths and even colors to the music. In the low lights of the bar her skin also fluxed the spectrum. Cuts appeared and healed above her eyes to give the piercings on her lip and

nose the italics of danger. She had a laconic, serious energy that absorbed her surroundings and quieted imperfections and focused beauty in her eyes like gathering shadows; like storms that demanded reckoning. We saw each other half-way through the night and the rain inside me joined us. “There’s no seat but you can share mine,” she said as I approached. The suggestion thrilled me but felt unnatural. “What are you writing?” I asked. “My travels, to make them real.” “Through writing?” I asked perplexed as much by her answer as by her eyes, which reflected the pulsing glow of her screen so intensely they too seemed to change color. “Yes, I go where my will strays—even to the supernatural: I am a gypsy, drawn to cross borders and flee stasis, even in writing.” “A gypsy?” I asked. “Forgive me but you seem more like a shape-shifter or a chimera--something

from another world. Are you even human?” She smiled a single row of teeth that formed a seamless line across her lips. Suddenly an enormous wind swept through the bar whisking guests and tables to smoke and leaving us in darkness. Still smiling she said: “All identities are gypsy: inherent with change, assumed through action, adopted and hereditary, timely and unpopular: visible only when the universal sheds its clothes to reveal the composite of all.” “Is that the most convincing apology you can offer yourself ?” I asked. “It has the succinct and even trite veneer of post-war ethics but aside from your physical person seems contrived.” “Adaptation and the universal nature are hardly contrived or local to me: they are not original, certainly, yet they consort into new forms.” “Can I say that I did not expect this conversation from your eyes?” I said. “I came to you under the influence of passion and you’ve given me philosophy.”

LIBERTAS, V o l . 1 8 , N o . 2

She smiled again, and this time even her teeth changed as the fangs grew longer. “Passion enables philosophy, but you were not mistaken: I want to show you something—what I’ve been writing since before you arrived: it’s about you.” On the screen in front of her I saw an x-space of text weaving through videos and raining sound. The words, like a printed headline, pulled me into a cityscape of media that impressed and overwhelmed my attentions. I tried to follow the progressing words but lost focus, drawn again to the dizzy, faster moving images beside them. Most curiously, I was drawn to representations of myself. The face and air were distinctly mine, though I was pictured in places I had never been with people I had never met. The network seemed to react to my eyes, but not well. “How did you know about me?” I asked. “This must be a dream.” “I am glad you recognize my influences, for I 7

V o l . 1 8 , N o . 2 , LIBERTAS

wrote this in the style of a dream: with only lose bridles on imagination governed, but not entirely, by nature: elixir droughts of consciousness and unconsciousness: in a genre that classically connects present and future and forms the only natural text we produce.” “How do I read it if it’s so natural?” I asked. “It was reacting to me but I don’t know how to control or connect the narrative.” “You cannot render it sensible until you have the skills to write it too: like love this reading demands your feracity and surrender as you make it through partnership, collaboratively.” “Can you teach me?” “Yes, in my room.” Suddenly behind her a door opened through the bar and we flew through it to a narrow hallway studded with openings. “My flat,” she said as she connected key and lock. Before us, the swinging door barely missed a sink

and single-burner stove clinging to half a toilet. Men and women’s clothes filled the floor and indeed all six square meters of the apartment. The legless bed in front of us lay waiting. “This is where the story needs to end,” she told me. “Here?” I asked. “Before the sex scene? That won’t interest anyone. It unravels all the conventions of college literature, or vampire pop, or any other genre we fit into.” “Stop letting formulas control you, narrator,” she told me. And addressing the author she said: “And you too, author, stop. Stop forcing me to speak in single sentences. I understand you need an antithesis to “discrete” in this narrative, but let me be that on my own. Your ideas can’t be written in a story. They need multimedia like mine and a network of participants like me to build them. You won’t get what you want with me here, so leave me and start searching for others.”

“A

Alien Status

lright,” crooned Señor Gonzalez, squinting through his thick-rimmed glasses at the clock on the wall. “It’s five-thirty now. Time to start wrapping-up! Everybody, thank our kind friends from St. Marks on your way out.” Gustavo didn’t look up. As he scribbled with his pencil, he discovered that his lip was raw from chewing on it. William, a white boy from the area’s one private middle school, hovered over his shoulder. “Almost,” William said, pointing to the line of arithmetic. “What did you forget?” Despite William’s best attempts to speak clearly, Gustavo struggled to follow his rapid speech patterns. He frowned at the gray, lead numbers littering the page. “Huh?” he whispered. “Right there,” William said, “the parenthesis? Don’t forget, first you have to -” “Oh...” he squeaked, correcting his mistake. “Es twenty? “Twenty, correct,” congratulated Will. “Sweet, that all looks good. That’s it for your math homework, right?” Gustavo nodded. “Excellent,” William continued. “We got through a lot today: your entire math problem set and your U.S. reading. Is your dad coming to pick you up at 5:30? “No,” Gustavo replied, packing his binders away into a tattered black backpack. “Maybe, five forty-five today.” A las cinco menos quince. “Five-forty-five, ok,” repeated Will, slumping into a seat next to him. “Do you feel good about your homework? Is the math, and everything, ok? Todo está bueno?” “Ya,” he said, correcting the bueno to bien in his subconscious. “I don’t like how...eh, dificil math is. Es dificil, sabes?” he said, his every word, Spanish and English, filtered through his heavy hispanic accent. The interaction remained a mutual struggle. William clung to every word, and even though some slipped by he managed to discern most of Gustavo’s intent. “Sí, it’s hard, or it’s difficult,” corrected William. “Ya, I’m not the biggest math guy either,” William admitted, “but at least you got it done, right? My mom is always on me for math because I always leave it for so late at night. Does your mom get on you for it?” “No.” “What? You’re so lucky!” crowed William. “You don’t know how lucky you are. My mom checks my answers every night. It’s super annoying, you know?” Gustavo laughed nervously while twirling a pen expertly in his hand. They sat in silence for a second. Eventually, William broke the silence. “Sorry, I’ve just been wondering since I know most people here are, but are you...” Gustavo raised an eyebrow. “Well, you said you’re from Ecuador. You told me that. But are you legal here?” “Mmm no.” William merely nodded as he chose his next

and stuff ?” Gustavo frowned, twirling the pencil rapidly until it slipped from his fingers and hit the carpet below. He dove under the table to grab it, and came up afterward sheepishly. “My father and I watch the Real Madrid fútbol matches, he makes us plátanos. We listen to the radio...yo no sé.” His list seemed short, and absurdly close to what William might have expected. “That’s sweet though! You’re a Madrid fan? Me too! Does your brother watch with you guys?” Again, Gustavo frowned. Señor Gonzalez suddenly appeared behind Gustavo and rested a hand on his shoulder. “Gustavo, your father is here.” Gustavo stood and slung his backpack over his shoulder. William walked with him toward the door. “Does your brother watch with you guys, or is he not a big Madrid guy? My little brother loves Bayern Munich.” “No.” “Why not?” Gustavo hesitated, gazing out the window. He knew what to say, but didn’t want to say it all. Golden light from the setting sun sprayed across William’s concerned features. The concrete apartments lining the road outside sagged precariously against one another. Cracks shot through the faded plaster on the facades, dirt caked into the signs. In the distance Highway-101 passed over the concrete jungle canopy, escorting cars high over ghettoes from the picturesque Golden Gate Bridge in the south to the rich, evergreen suburbs in the north. The cars glinted vibrantly as they coasted over his neighborhood. It had only been his for two weeks, but the ability for those cars to glide, untouched, over his new home only just struck him. He struggled with how to express to William both the truth of his situation and how it wasn’t so bad. But what could he say? He didn’t know the english to explain himself, and William didn’t have the spanish. In William he recognized an identity based on stability - right then, it wasn’t a factor that they shared. He was just a car gliding over Gustavo’s neighborhood, glancing briefly out the window at a life and world that weren’t his. At least he wanted to understand. Maybe that was enough of a reason to invite him in. Eventually, after taking a deep breath and clenching his sweaty palms, Gustavo allowed William one glimpse. “I don’t know where my mother is,” he said, eyes downcast. “The police found her and my brother at the border, but not me and my father. She sent us a letter saying that. Maybe they cross again soon. I don’t know where they are, but I hope they find us.” “I’m so sorry.” “No, es ok. Things are good, todo está bien.” Gustavo muttered, shouldering through the door into the open air, leaving William to stare out at the concrete jungle in muted shock.

words. “Would you mind telling me how you got here?” he asked deliberately. “You don’t have to. I was just wondering, is all, since I’ve never really asked someone before. Seems like kind of an awkward thing to just ask somebody that. Sorry.” “Es fine,” Gustavo replied quietly, as if frightened of prying listeners nearby. “I came across the border with my family. About two months ago. “Only two months? You didn’t say that last time we worked together! That’s, like, no time at all. Think, I’ve lived in California for ten years! But Ecuador’s chill. Is that near the border? I thought it was just the ‘Mexico-U.S.’ border.” “It’s in South America,” replied Gustavo, clearly perplexed by the question. “Oh. My bad. And so your whole family lives here now? That’s cool. What do you guys do here as a family? Like, family dinners

Dispelling the Name of the

“Invisible 500” Colin Thomson

he “Invisible 500” is a proposed group of Davidson students so named for their total disengagement with campus activities except for classes. Members of the “Invisible 500” are said to have no extracurricular organizations and no formal social groups. I am not sure who originally defined this group of students, nor do I know how they decided that five hundred match the above description, but the idea has been circulating for at least several years. I will not deny the existence of such people at Davidson; I’m sure there are many who are involved with no organizations or involved only in organizations off campus. The very idea of such a group of students being “invisible”, however, damages Davidson’s identity as a liberal arts institution. That a Davidson student could attend class and still be considered “invisible” devalues academic life. By its very name, this identity insinuates that presence in class means no presence at all. If we are interested, as liberal arts students would seem to be, in developing our minds through rigorous academics, why is the classroom invisible compared to clubs and organizations? At what point did our time at Davidson become so far removed from what happens in Chambers Monday through Friday? True, the liberal arts seeks to develop “the whole individual”, which involves clubs, social groups, and athletics. But to call students whose sole activity is academics “invisible” on a campus supposedly devoted to academics demonstrates a grossly skewed

and Their Anne Sellers

t seems that some people abandon themselves when it comes to Taylor Swift. Her oeuvre centers on generic relationships with men and not much else—yet the devotion runs high, even among Davidson’s intelligent and ambitious women. This might seem like an inexplicable departure, but I think we can understand her appeal by considering another campus presence, the spring production of Guys and Dolls. The show was first produced in1950 and has remained a classic of the American musical theatre, spawning a film (starring Frank Sinatra and Marlon Brando) and several high-profile revivals. It features a score on a different plane than Swift’s work, thankfully, and songs like “Luck Be A Lady” and the title number have become standards. Guys and Dolls nearly earned the 1951 Pulitzer Prize for drama, but book writer Abe Burrows’s troubles with the House UnAmerican Activities Council earned a veto for its selection. Davidson’s production will run March 20 – 24 in the Duke. As might be expected of a popular piece about men and women written in the fifties, the play offers an easy target for feminist critiques. One of the play’s two central relationships is the fourteen-year engagement

Jackson Mauzé

LIBERTAS, V o l . 1 8 , N o . 2

vision of Davidson’s design. Make no mistake; one cannot avoid the idea of something just because that idea has unpleasant consequences. But in the case of the “Invisible 500,” the idea reveals a deeper problem of having our priorities reversed. Thinking of students uninvolved with campus groups as “invisible” only propagates the idea that schoolwork should take a backseat to other activities. I will not go so far as to say what one should or should not prioritize most highly. I will say, however, that amongst Davidson’s varied backgrounds, beliefs, and ambitions, we should unite around the common goal of education. If the primary vehicle for that goal is devalued to the point of invisibility, I fear that Davidson will lose its greatest strength and its greatest source of unity.

V o l . 1 8 , N o . 2 , LIBERTAS

between Nathan Detroit (who runs “the oldest established permanent floating crap game in New York”) and Adelaide, who performs at a club called The Hot Box. Adelaide is both the show’s most problematic character and its most beloved. She laments Nathan’s unwillingness to commit, but her love for him prevents her from ending their relationship. It’s a conventional premise, archetypal in the same vein as the familiar romantic dilemmas of “Love Story” or “Teardrops on my Guitar”, and in a modern work we would likely call their situation gender stereotyping. But Guys and Dolls was written sixty years ago, and audiences to this day adore Adelaide. While her intelligence and wit far surpass those of Swift’s typical heroine, a similar incongruence exists between Adelaide’s antiquated scenario and our fondness for her character. The show, however, seems designed to that effect: as the story progresses we become more frustrated with Nathan and increasingly sympathetic toward Adelaide. Three times throughout their duet in the second act (“Sue Me”), Adelaide declares, “I could honestly die.” Maggie Birgel, our production’s Adelaide, plays the first

two of these as comedic hyperbole to hilarious effect, and the last as a quiet, heartfelt confession. The sincere of this moment turns her pain into the truest emotion the show has to offer. When she storms off at the song’s end, Nathan finally understands what he’s doing to her and what he has to lose if he continues. Adelaide’s status as our emotional access point for Guys and Dolls empowers her in a uniquely subversive way for a fifties musical, and her specialness—her freedom from convention, from the dangers of being “stock”—blossoms out of that. When we first meet the other male romantic lead, Sky, he claims that dolls are interchangeable, dispensable, and “easy to find.” Nathan replies, “Not dolls like Adelaide!” By the show’s conclusion, the audience couldn’t agree more. Rather than redeeming the show, Adelaide’s likability gives the audience a counterpoint to its flaws—and perhaps there’s an inkling of forgiveness for Ms. Swift buried somewhere in the lesson of Guys and Dolls. And while I don’t expect to hear “Adelaide’s Lament” playing down on Patterson Court any time soon, I hope that our show finds a similarly enthusiastic audience at Davidson.

N ’ S

N E

L L O W

Paul Ryan’s Shopping List Proposal • • • • • • •

A watermelon, slashed in half Negative seven sticks of deodorant One Obamacare repeal A six pack of Corona, sent back to Mexico A fun-size bag of hollow Peanut M&Ms Straw-less Capri Suns Zero-ply toilet paper

W i l l S t ra t f o rd

A hiatus and two decades of refinement make My Bloody Valentine’s best album ever.

he seminal shoegaze band My Bloody Valentine has returned from outer space with their first full-length release since Loveless (1990). A 22-year hiatus gives a band time to write and material to cut when the album comes together. Indeed, much of mbv didn’t make it because—according to vocalist and guitarist Kevin Shields—“It was worth dumping. It was dead. It hadn’t got that spirit, that life in it.” It’s good to see that kind of restraint from a bestselling artist. And it’s even better to hear the end result, an album that has been simmering since 1996 and achieved refined flavors in the meantime. Although mbv features the thick, layered, and reverberant sound that My Bloody Valentine invented and perfected, it simultaneously branches into newer, more eccentric territory. mbv, according to Shields, “is not going to sound like Loveless where it’s like looking into another world” but rather “seems to be of this world, but with one foot in another world.” The album realizes its otherworldly sound through nuanced repetition and accentuated

Coffee Machine Cult Prepares Way for Alien Master Race ultimate respect from the colony. Only the revered founder of the order, the ex-Bed, Bath, & Beyonder Miles Grisham, is allowed to depress the sacred square, sources report. He uses the color of the light emitted from the button and the machine’s strange gurgling noises to determine the teachings of the Keurig-forgers, which he claims possess a collective intelligence beyond any of our comprehension, sources report. The Keurig often sees fit to demand sexual favors for Mr. Grisham, and demands that its followers stay away from Starbucks franchises, college dorms, and lofts in the trendy section of town, reports the ethnography. According to sources, the central Keurigite belief holds that if one obeys the cryptic machine then whosoever shall drink this liquid will have eternal life.

#relevant michael’s

growing cult recently sprung from the sands of rural Nevada worships a Keurig coffee machine as the lonesurviving relic of an alien master race, sources report. A recently published ethnography details the ritual whereby cult members spend all of their time searching the coffee machine’s metallic visage for hints of the galaxy-hopping civilization capable of producing it. Only the Keurigite high priests are allowed to handle the machine, which they do with an awe that is equal parts ecstasy and terror, the ethnography reports. During one part of the ritual, the high priest opens the water container to peer into its alien depths while mumbling, the ethnography also reports. Anthropological science and eyewitnesses maintain that the “BREW” button commands

Bimmer feat. Frank Ocean (Snippet)

Pistorius Laments Aborted Girlfriend Trade with Te’o

impopo—Between golf games at a South African bail-resort, the double-amputee Olympian and accused murderer Oscar Pistorius lamented his decision not to trade girlfriends with Manti Te’o in December 2012. “I deeply regret my rash and fear-based decision not to trade girlfriends with Mr. Te’o in a timely manner,” Pistorius’ lawyers said in his affidavit. “If the Committee on Negotiations and Trades (CNT) will consider extending the December 31st deadline, I will gladly renege my refusal.” Te’o, another famous athlete, initially proposed the trade on December 6, upon discovering his online girlfriend of two years was fake. According to ESPN’s Mel Keipur, the trade would have benefited both sides, including Te’o—who “just

wanted a real, but preferably hot, bbygrl”—and Pistorius, who was “looking to get rid of my girlfriend through whatever conceivable means.” “I knew Pistorius wasn’t getting along well with [Reeva Steenkamp,] that smoking hot bitch he was dating[,] and I thought, if he has fake legs, maybe he would go for a fake girlfriend,” Te’o said. “Initially I offered a straight up trade, but of course he played the ‘No-things-are-fine-actually-I’m-just-exercising-the-masculine-powerto-shit-talk-romance-and-chase-other-women’ card, so I threw in a couple first round draft picks and $16 Gs. He was all like, ‘What kind of idiot would settle for that? Pay me in South African Rands or at least add 5% for the kiosk exchange fee.’ Who’s the idiot now, am I right?”

bass and mid frequencies rather than through outer spacey electronic gimmicks. In fact, the album was recorded and mixed on exclusively analogue equipment, recorded on 2–inch 24–track tape and mixed on half-inch tape, with no digital mastering. The result is a lo-fi, but detailed, fuzziness. The songs follow more open-ended, linear and elongated song structures than previous MBV albums. At certain points the band takes its industrial, atonal quality to an unprecedented extreme, especially in the last two songs, making mbv their most eclectic album yet. But at the end of the day, the same definitive MBV sound reaches our ears, only twenty-two years older and better. Droning riffs. Fuzzy distortion. Effects-laden buzz. Subdued androgynous vocals. Wall of sound. Noisy glide-guitar. Psychedelia. Wavy textures. Distant muddy drums. Pitch bending. Woozy tremolo. Non-specific sensuality. Dense, layered, sweeping, reverberant sound. mbv. MBV.

Tyler, the Creator The aborted trade does look especially shortsighted now in light of Pistorius’ girlfriendshooting (February 14) and Te’o’s girlfriendhoax (January 16), but seems impossible to reverse in light of the December 31st trade deadline. “As much as we support the misanthropic and in this case misogynistic practice of treating humans like chattel, we do have principles,” said CNT chairman, Roger Goddell. “And on the issues of deadlines I will not budge.” Journalists lament the fall-through as well, noting that they could have written just as many stories had Pistorius shot his fake girlfriend and Te’o online-dated a supermodel.

LIBERTAS, V o l . 1 8 , N o . 2

picks

music

D A V

YOW L

22 Years Later

M ic h a el D eS im o n e

f you try really hard, you can actually enjoy Odd Future’s music outside of any hype. If you forget about all of their antics (and more importantly, how obsessed blogs are with pretending not to be obsessed about said antics), you find a group of guys whose passion for The Neptunes and desire to work only with themselves created a sound unlike anything in modern rap. Odd Future is at its best when they are not trying to create drill music a la Flocka or Keef but when they are creating sunset-laden synth tones that recreate Pharell’s production at its finest. Even though only a minute of Bimmer has been made public, it affirms why we all became fans of Tyler in the first place. The opening keyboard-chords feel as if they were pulled from an old Clipse record, and Tyler keeps the tone light through the rest of the track, comparing himself and his girl to parts of a car. Midway through the snippet, heavenly synth tones and Frank Ocean’s vocals bring the song to a climax and you wish you were driving your own bimmer across State Route 1 in mid-August with the windows rolled down. You would also enjoy: Bonita Applebum by A Tribe Called Quest, CocainKeys by Mellowhype, Dat Ass by Earl Sweatshirt

Differences Ginuwine (BEAR//FACE LAZY HOTEL ROOM SLOWED ‘N’ THROWED EDIT)

You Want Me (Demo) Justin Bieber

ast year, OG Ron C’s slowed down version of Whitney Houston’s Heartbreak Hotel turned an energetic, pop-leaning R&B track into a 2AM slow jam (and my 3rd favorite track of 2012), and this year BEAR//FACE has performed an equal feat with Differences. Differences’ moderately fast beat is brought to a disgustingly slow speed (think walking through a meter of molasses) and Ginuwine’s naturally high vocals sound otherworldly. Lines such as “Glad you came into my life” and “my whole life has changed” develop a dark, reflective dimension. A song that once felt like a man trying to talk a woman into bed now speaks of the time when that woman is gone. You would also enjoy: Heartbreak Hotel (Chopped and Screwed by OG Ron C), Fertilizer (Chopped and Screwed by Slim K), Raider Prayer (Instrumental) by SpaceGhostPurrp

et’s be honest, Scooter Braun will be remembered as one of the best managers of all time. He has formulated Justin Bieber’s career so well that it isn’t hard to believe he took courses on how to make a star. Right when Bieber’s stock was looking low, as Believe didn’t achieve the superstar status that the pop world expected (assumedly from too much trend riding [dubstep] and features), Justin did an artistic flip (I’m assuming influenced by Braun) and dropped You Want Me, a mature, sexy Justified era R&B track. Featureless and raw, Justin rules the show and asserts how loved he is by the world, being both full of himself and brashly aware of his status. Bieber is being more like Timberlake than Timberlake is these days, and with hope, this song represents a demo for the next step in Bieber’s superstar career. You would also like: Take it From Here by Justin Timberlake, Oldirty by Left Brain, Undress U by Giraffage

V o l . 1 8 , N o . 2 , LIBERTAS

Other relevant songs: Airbending by Le1f, Pink Flame by Lil B (song not mixtape), Close 2 Me by Giraffage, White Noise feat Aluna George by Disclosure, Nobody Else (Club Edit) by Full Crate x Mar, 3rd World Grrl by Antwon

LI TAS last word

March Radness

2013

ALL CULTURE REDUCED TO

A SINGLE DANCE

LIBERTAS, V o l . 1 8 , N o . 2