Misc 9.26.19

The Miscellany News

Since 1866 | miscellanynews.org

Vassar College Poughkeepsie, NY

Volume CLII | Issue 4

September 26, 2019

Elite consulting firm Heated campus strikes on climate comes to Vassar Jessica Moss, Mack Liederman Senior Editor, Editor-in-Chief

Olivia Watson News Editor

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cattered across the grass on the Chapel Lawn, Vassar students gathered for exchanges in cross-legged semicircles, listening to live performances at the makeshift stage nearby and painting signs bearing slogans from “Tell the Truth—Earth is Dying” to “Unite for Justice” to “Eating CEOs is Vegan.” As a backdrop to the tranquil scene, two doors were raised as art exhibits, inviting participants to first think of a place meaningful to them, and to then walk through the doors— imagining the impact the climate crisis will have on that place.

See STRIKE on page 4

Courtesy of Grace Rousell

he room teemed with black blazers, sweaty palms and briefcases in hands of rushing, fervent Vassar students, anxiously waiting on the chance to meet with the alumnae/i of McKinsey & Company. As students piled in to New England Hall’s recruitment session, many later arrivals found themselves forced to sit on the floor. The atmosphere was eager, but tense: This hourlong meeting could offer a gateway into one of the world’s most prestigious companies.

McKinsey & Company is one of the most successful global consulting firms, currently employing individuals in 65 countries. Each year, McKinsey pools applicants from an elite group of college students—exclusively via on-campus recruiting—for internships and jobs. On Sept. 19, McKinsey made its inaugural recruiting visit to Vassar, largely through the efforts of alumnus and Senior Partner at McKinsey Steven Kauderer ‘85.

McKinsey is most selective about where they recruit students.

With a rumored starting salary of $83,000, many students and recent graduates alike covet the opportunity for the firm to come to their college (Case Interview, “Management Consulting Salary,” 2019). In the past, McKinsey has only visited Ivy Leagues, Stanford and the University of California at Berkeley. The company recently made a transition to include liberal arts schools, as they now recruit only at Amherst, Williams and Vassar.

According to its company website, the firm strives to be socially minded, demonstrated through their contributions to organizations like the Malala Fund. They also work pro-bono for several environmental non-profit companies.

However, despite its charitable work, the firm is not without wrongdoings. According to a recent Forbes article, McKinsey has advised and worked with authoritarian governments, some of which have committed human rights violations. In Saudi Arabia, reports produced by McKinsey consultants tracked criticism of See MCKINSEY on page 3

Students of all class years, along with community members, joined Vassasr’s iteration of the Global Climate Strike to protest complicity in climate change.

Arlington Bucks insulate campus Tiana Headley Reporter

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hen the weekend rolls around and Vassar students tire of Deece pasta and Global Kitchen experiments, Arlington eateries are the typical go-to. Afterall, it only takes five to 10 minutes to walk off campus to enjoy a BurgerFi milkshake or share a large pizza pie from Ba-

cios with friends.

With the inception of the Arlington Bucks program in Fall 2017, even students who otherwise could not afford to eat out can now do so on a semesterly $100 budget.

Arlington Bucks was created as an extension of the meal plan, part of the larger transformation that campus dining underwent in

2017. The semesterly $100 is part of the meal plan budget funded by students’ Cost of Attendance.

Prior to 2017, students had to choose from four meal plan options that ranged in meal swipes and cost (The Phoenix, “Comparing Meal Plans: Where Do College Students Eat Best?” 09.20.2012).

Vassar also switched from its preSee ARLINGTON on page 5

Alumnae continue advocacy for SAVP Dezaki film confronts comfort women issue Duncan Aronson Features Editor

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Inside this issue

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ARTS

Bullet-laden fashion is desensitizing, not politically productive

Taylor Stewart

Assistant Arts Editor

Duncan Aronson / The Miscellany News

assar administration. The enemy. In student discourse, the two terms are usually interchangeable. Vassar’s administrative bodies are the faceless entities that reduce a student’s financial aid, demolish faculty housing for conference venues and increase campus wages in a way that doesn’t quite add up as advertised. But there are real people—complex people—who have to navigate these complex situations. Getting to know these individuals can create new dimensions, of hopes and successes, challenges and mistakes, intentions and idiosyncrasies, that will ultimately help us relate to Vassar’s administrators.

My journey starts in Metcalf House, or Metcalf for short, which is the home of Vassar College Counseling Service (VCCS) and the Sexual Assault and Violence Prevention (SAVP). The building’s interior is filled with white walls and dark olive carpets, and brightened by comfortable chairs, colorful posters and equally colorful, tactile manipulatives, like the ones you might have played with in your local pediatrician’s office.

Metcalf’s full name and the inti-

Erin Boss ’16 (left) and Nicole Wong ’15 (right) pose in SAVP’s office, located in Metcalf House. Both alumna administrators bring to their positions a personal understanding of Vassar student life. mate spacing of its halls, rooms and stairs hint at its residential history.

Each room has since been repurposed into office spaces with comfortable blue sofas and dark brown desks. Office four, the domain of SAVP Office Director Nicole Wong ’15, did not seem to break from the pattern. SAVP Program Coordina-

tor Erin Boss ’16, whose office is across the hall, joined us.

Looking down from the vista of retrospection, their life trajectories align in a comprehensible, even straightforward fashion. Their paths have criss-crossed and paralleled one another as they have See SAVP on page 11

Don’t reinvent the wheel, but the bike shop can FEATURES make your ride smoother

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[TW: This article mentions war crimes and sexual violence.] obukatsu Fujioka is a bespectacled and neat-looking man. He is also a purveyor of Japan’s history wars. As a graduate student at Sophia University in Tokyo, Miki Dezaki interviewed Nobukatsu Fujioka for his student project-turned-documentary film, “Shusenjo: The Main Battleground of the Comfort Women Issue.” On Monday, Sept. 23, Dezaki came to Vassar for a screening of “Shusenjo” and a Q&A session.

Fujioka argues that Japanese people have been “brainwashed”

by Americans into believing the “Tokyo War Crimes Trials view of history,” one that exaggerates the severity of the Imperial Army’s sexual trafficking. The “comfort women issue” concerns the sexual enslavement of an estimated 200,000 Asian women by the Japanese empire. The question of coercive recruitment of these women—whether they were sex slaves or prostitutes—and the prevalence of “comfort stations,”

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or Imperial Army brothels, in Asia are hotly contested on rightwing YouTube, in street demonstrations, and in Japan’s National Diet Building. Fujioka, the Vice President of the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform, has gained both notoriety and popular support for denying Tokyo’s war crimes during World War II (Los Angeles Times, “Defender of Japan’s War Past,” 05.09.1997).

In 1962, Fujioka entered Hokkaido University, where he became, according to former teachers and classmates, a member of the Stalinist wing of the radical student movement. He taught at the University of Tokyo. Fujioka is no stray conspiracy theorist or hate-monger—he’s an educated man with a following. Many Japanese legislators are also fervent nationalists, including Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his Liberal Democratic Party, who are set on amending the war-renouncing clause of the constitution and denying charges of coercive recruitment.

“Shusenjo” also includes tesSee FILM on page 6

Vassar memes is the wrong place for direct callouts

The Miscellany News

Page 2

September 26, 2019

Editor-in-Chief Mack Liederman

Senior Editors

Frankie Knuckles Jessica Moss

Contributing Editors Isabel Braham Leah Cates Sasha Gopalakrishnan

News Aena Kahn Olivia Watson Features Duncan Aronson Opinions Jonas Trostle Arts Abby Tarwater Sports Teddy Chmyz Design Lilly Tipton Copy Lucy Leonard Social Media Natalie Bober Photo Yvette Hu Managing Robert Pinataro Emerita Laurel Hennen Vigil Assistant Arts Dean Kopitsky Taylor Stewart

Holly Shulman ’21 writes: “The palace on the edge of this photo belongs to the King of Spain, but he doesn’t live there. He lives in a different palace, and uses this one for entertaining state guests and hosting parties—a trap palace, if you will. The royal family is a bit of a contentious subject in Spain. Some Spaniards I’ve asked about it feel strongly that royalty is an outdated, powerless vacuum that takes tax money and does nothing for the public. Others feel that the family is a vital symbol, central to Spanish identity.”

The Miscellany News 26

September

Thursday

Steven Caras: A Dancer Captures Dance 10:00 a.m. | Palmer Gallery | Campus Activities

Weekender_ 27

September

Friday

Eunice Roberts- BADA Info Session 1:30 p.m. | Martel Theater | Drama Department

9:30 a.m. | RH 211 | AA Poughkeepsie

Sunday

Faculty Recital: Yenne Lee, guitar 3:00 p.m. | SH Martel Hall | Music Depertment

Rugby (W) vs. RPI Courtesy of Vassar College

Hope on the Hudson Film Screening

1:00 p.m. | Vassar Farm | Athletics

Courtesy of Vassar College

7:00 p.m. | TH 203 | Environmental Studies Program

Students of Sobriety Group

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September

1:00 p.m. | Prentiss Field | Athletics

11:00 a.m. |Villard Room | International Programs Office

The Guardians

Saturday

Field Hockey vs. RPI

Education Abroad Fair

6:00 p.m. | Environmental Cooperative Barn MPR | The Environmental Cooperative

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September

Reporters Delila Ames Ariana Gravinese Jonah Frere-Holmes Tiana Headley Columnist Alex Barnard Abram Gregory Copy Adelaide Backhus Anna Blake Samantha Cavagnolo Madeline Seibel Dean Amanda Herring Phoebe Jacoby Caitlin Patterson Mina Turunc Crossword Frank

Come join the Environmental Cooperative’s community tree planting event this Saturday!

Community Tree Planting Day 1:00 p.m. | Kenyon Bridge Field | The Environmental Cooperative

Baseball Non Traditional Game 1:00 p.m. | Prentiss Field | Athletics

Soccer (W) vs. Union College

Cheer on last year’s National Women’s Rugby champs at the Farm on Sunday. The team will play against RPI.

2:00 p.m. | Prentiss Field | Athletics

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

Correction (Sept. 19): Last week’s issue included an erroneous crossword grid. The correct grid is available for download on all social media platforms of The Miscellany News and on our website. The answers to that grid are printed within this issue.

CORRECTION POLICY The Miscellany News will only accept corrections for any misquotes, misrepresentations or factual errors for an article within the semester it is printed.

The Miscellany News is not responsible for the views presented within its Opinions pages. The staff editorial is the only article which reflects the opinion of the Editorial Board.

September 26, 2019

NEWS

Page 3

McKinsey firm now recruiting at Vassar

Senate Notes for Sept. 22, 2019 Start Time: 2:01PM End Time: 3:03 PM Consensus Agenda Conference Fund was not given full amount because they asked for $50 from each matter 600/1200 from Capital Fund for Chabad Jewish Community (Prayer Books) Look at Financial Minutes, application to Capital Courtesy of Diana Liu

Students scramabled for seats at the CDO-hosted, first-ever McKinsey recruiting session on campus, as the elite firm finally opens its doors to liberal arts colleges like Vassar.

Fund for $1200 Decision rested on...

Things have not happened on this scale in the past, not sure there is enough demonstrated need Other alternative versions available through digital or photocopy Didn’t seek out other funding first, VSA traditionally hasn’t allocated for prayer books (like from RSL) Timing of Rosh Hashanah, means timing is tight Speaker from Chabad...

Have previously only offered evening services, not the evening and daytime, meaning students have had to walk to another synagogue for daytime services. Hoping this year to offer both services Executive Board Updates Carlos will send email of timeline, no need to vote

By Sunday Oct. 15, should have complete Senate, afterwards will speak with PB and Dean Alamo.

5-7 year plan for the College, will present once there is complete Senate Committee Updates: meetings, lack of meetings, updated meeting times; pre-org application will

Courtesy of Diana Liu

McKinsey Senior Partner Steve Kauderer ’85 spoke about the multitude of opportunities McKinsey can offer Vassar students, who are uniquely prepared for consulting careers.

open by end of the week; Dining Committee is open to everyone; working on small operational things; making more goals Social Media Presence...

Each of us (possibly) on our Instagrams posting about the meeting Carlos the only one with access of social media, probably not his first priority We are not uniform in our conduits for communication, need some kind of standard person who we can go to for advertising, consolidate social media Intern will be running the social media pages, still working on how it will work; each Intern will have PR responsibilities; any Intern will be able to do whatever a VSA member needs Using personal pages to publicize VSA’s social media Need to update the VSA Board with flyers Potential of hosting town hall events Committee Chair Updates Planning—reflect on last week’s Senate. If students had known about Chance Theater, they would

Courtesy of Diana Liu

from page 1 the Saudi Crown, resulting in three arrests. McKinsey representatives later stated that they did not expect their work to be used in this fashion (Forbes, “How McKinsey & Co. Fails As A Global Leader,” 12.12.2018).

Could working arrangements like this pose an issue for socially minded Vassar students? When The Miscellany News asked this question to many students in attendance, all were uncomfortable answering. For his part, Kauderer emphasized that McKinsey as a company remains in a constant process of learning from its mistakes. “We try really hard to do well and do good, whether we’re working for private or nonprofit organizations, and do we always get it right?

No,” he said. “But all of us collectively and individually don’t get it right. We as a firm try really, really hard to do the right thing. We are a place that learns, and we are learning.”

According to McKinsey’s presentation on Thursday, they strive to recruit high achievers who are capable of the demanding work schedule required by a global consulting company. Kauderer described that Vassar’s liberal arts curriculum encourages students to think and interpret information in an intelligent and creative manner, creating soft skills that directly translate to working in consulting, a business practice of providing companies with solutions for an endless array of internal issues.

Kauderer believes that Vassar offers students this skillset. “Vassar really taught me how to synthesize lots of different pieces of information and put it together and make sense of it,” He explained. “That’s what we do [at McKinsey]: We take diverse sets of data and perspectives and we try to get a sense of truth.”

Associate Dean for the College of Career Development Stacy Bingham noted that forming recruiting relationships with prestigious companies creates opportunities for students that would otherwise be unavailable.

“The field of management consulting (especially at the top-ranked firms) can be hard to break into without alumnae/i and college connections,” said Bingham via email correspondence. “McKinsey is a top-ranked management consulting firm that offers both internships and fulltime entry-level positions. Based on student turnout (71 students, representing every class year) at the event, it is clear that students are interested in learning more.”

Medha Venkat-Ramani ’20, who is a double major in economics and political science, agreed. “It can be difficult to apply to many employers that have pipelines for particular schools,” she explained. “This is an opportunity to represent Vassar and the liberal arts education at a major employer.”

For Venkat-Ramani, speaking with Kauderer and other Vassar alums was particularly powerful, as they represent exemplars of the success one can achieve with a Vassar degree. “Meeting with alums helps me imagine myself at the company,” she said. “Even if we never met while at Vassar, we share experiences, memories and values.”

McKinsey & Company offers new graduates and students the chance to begin their careers on an elevated trajectory. One aspect of McKinsey’s presentation focused on mentorship, and how

VSA Updates

MCKINSEY continued

Several current McKinsey employees came to share accounts regarding their experiences and wisdoms gained by working for the consulting firm over the course of several years.

have attended meeting. Find more student voices Discussion time points set in order to keep the meetings efficient Disagree—should not be set times because everything should be talked about to its full extent Sustainability Committee...

Coordinate to be talking about the same thing Planning Committee offers their help General advertisements or more targeted for heated topics

they work with new employees to help them discover their passions within consulting.

“They stressed support, training and mentorship, which are all valuable characteristics that new joiners look for, especially so early in their career,” recounted Venkat-Ramani.

Bingham emphasized that students should be free to pursue any job opportunity, adding that all are encouraged to seek council regarding ethical dilemmas with the Career Development Office (CDO) when looking for jobs. “We in the CDO welcome the opportunity to engage with students in conversations

about these topics during career counseling appointments; one strategy we might suggest is having an honest conversation with Vassar alumnae/i who work at a particular company or organization around issues of mission, values, and culture and how they play out in the workplace,” she said.

At the end of the presentation in New England Hall, students quickly jolted from their seats (or lack thereof) to secure a place in line to talk to a McKinsley representative. As one student found his way to the front, a resume emerged from his blazer pocket, and was clandestinely thrusted toward the chest of Kauderer.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

Do both flyers and write specific lines in the email about what heated topics are being discussed People don’t always read the agenda: Label the topics General VSA conversation Set goals for this year Full Senate soon. President Bradley and Dean Alamo will present their ideas about the College Open Discussion Finance and BoRA is closed, everything else is open From now on, Senate moving to Rocky 112.

NEWS

Page 4

September 26, 2019

School-sanctioned Climate Strike rallies students, locals

l Roun a c i d lit

up

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STRIKE continued from page 1 With an announcement over the bullhorn, students and local community members alike raised their handmade signs and convened again in front of Main Building. Marching up Main Campus Drive and to the front of the school gates, the participants chanted and demanded sustainably minded policy, as gas-guzzling cars passing by honked in solidarity.

The full day of activities last Friday—organized by Vassar SEED and Vassar Greens—comprised the first-ever campus Climate Strike, a protest officially sanctioned by the College. The protest represents the goals of the greater Sunrise Movement, a 501(c)(4) wherein young people vanguard accountability for sustainable environmental policy.

Following the march was perhaps the most unique portion of the day: a die-in on Main Circle.

Utilized as a visual representation of the inevitability of mass death, unless politicians act toward a sustainable shift, the die-in portion commenced when SEED member Melissa Hoffman ’21 instructed protestors to lay down. After a few minutes, the die-in ended with a performance of “Which Side Are You On.” While the song was originally conceived in response to strife in America’s coal camps, it is also known for its use in the Civil Rights Movement (Encyclopedia, “Which Side Are You On?” 09.06.2019).

According to organizers, the future for Vassar student-run climate protests promises to be bolder and sunnier. Hoffman encouraged participants in Friday’s strike to join again in October, when climate groups are planning to host another strike in Poughkeepsie. Joe Wiswell ’2o put it simply: “This is the first of many. We’ll be back again.”

H a B ui In Our Headlines...

Amid the heating upcoming presidential election, President Trump suggested that he discussed former Vice President Joe Biden and his family during a phone call to Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelensky, last week. This complaint, stemming from Mr. Trump’s “concerns about corruption,” polarized politicians and the public alike. Democrats were exasperated by Trump’s self-admitted abuse of power. The House of Representatives formally launched an impeachment inquiry on Tuesday, Sept. 24. Republicans are vehemently defending Trump’s actions, with Sen. Lindsey Graham vying for an extensive investigation into Biden and his son’s actions. Despite being the center of the tumult, Biden has so far refrained from any radical stance, only calling for an investigation into Trump’s calls (Vox, Trump admits he discussed Biden with Ukraine, but says he was just worried about corruption, 09.22.2019).

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) gained an edge in a major new Iowa poll with her support at 21 percent, slightly ahead of consistent frontrunner Biden’s 20 percent, according to a survey of the state’s Democratic voters. Her chances of maintaining and surpassing this high, though, remain tentative. Warren also scored 71 percent for being “actively” considered, ahead of Biden’s 60 percent. In third place is Senator Bernie Sanders (D-VT) with

All photos courtesy of Grace Rousell 11 percent support, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) with nine and six percent support respectively. At the far end of the list, Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey (D-NJ) and Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) both at score 3 percent; former Representative Beto O’Rourke of Texas, Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, and entrepreneurs Tom Steyer and Andrew Yang each scoring two percent. Sanders, whose base of support has stagnated in recent months, has seen an existent decline in this poll. However, while Warren’s “universe of support” is larger than other candidates, the order may shuffle again if poorly faring candidates manage to kindle strong enough coalitions among potential supporters (Vox, “Iowa poll Elizabeth Warren Ann Selzer Des Moines register September 2019 Democratic primary,” 09.22.2019).

In their annual policy interest rates discussion on Sept. 17, the Federal Reserve injected $75 billion into the short-term money market for the first time in a decade. The consecutive cash’s worth of overnight funds acted as an urgent intervention when the Federal Fund rates—the rate at which banks can borrow money to replenish their own stockpile—topped the Fed’s target in conjunction with the precipitous spike in “repo” rate, or the price at which high-quality securities such as American government bonds can be temporarily swapped for cash, to 10 percent.

Though not indicative of a banking crisis such as the one in 2007, the repo rate’s increasing divergence from the Federal Fund rate poses an insecurity to the Fed and its core monetary public policy. The jumping demands for cash from companies for quarterly tax-payments and investors have dwindled the money supply in banks, requiring them to borrow from one

another, leading to jumping repo rate with increased cash scarcity. Though having soothed the rampage for cash, the Fed now faces a more perennial issue: What should it do when the same tumult emerges again?

According to Chairman Jerome Powell, the Fed would continue to expand its balance sheet sufficiently to cater for future demand rises.(The Economist, “Why the Fed was forced to intervene in short-term money markets,” 09.19.2019).

Around the world...

On Sept. 14, Saudi Arabia withstood a missile attack on the Abqaiq, a town in the eastern Saudi desert that facilitates the world’s largest oil-processing plant.

The firing penetrated the spheroids used for processing crude oil and demolished five of Abqaiq’s 18 stabilization towers.

Another hit struck the Khurais oilfield, 185 kilometers southwest. Consequently, oil prices briefly surged by 20 percent and oil production decreased by 5.7 million barrels per day. The largest escalation yet by Iran amid its feud with the United States and allies, the attack points to the Islamic Republic and its allies given its established habits to press tensions in the region. This is also possibly the start of a violent transition from the covert proxy conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia, alongside alignments to outright aggression between Iran and the U.S., with neither nation willing to tame or be tamed (The Economist, “A strike on Saudi Arabia moves a shadowy conflict closer to open war,” 09.19.2019).

International climate strikes rippled across the country on Friday, Sept. 20. The Economist released an array of analyses concerning climate change and its effects, alongside proposed strategies to combat it. Regarding the candidates for implementation, which include reducing carbon footprint in production and consumption

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

via carbon taxes, lucidity on firms’ climate vulnerabilities is only one of the most needed actions, but a monumental one, requiring a rigorous transformation of energy supply to renewables. In a wise avoidance of glamorizing the consequences of climate change, The Economist focused on the impacts global warming has on tens of millions of marginalized individuals by tampering with the functions of even the most daily amenities; thereby altogether calling for immediate and unanimous actions that will shift traditional ways of life.

Right now, chances for survival require not only compensation for affected nations and regions, but also true initiatives revitalizing the global entire economy (The Economist, “A Warming World: The Climate Issue,” 09.19.2019).

In India, the incremental and 20-year static research and development fund occupying 0.6 percent of the national GDP requested investments from private firms.

Ideologies seemed to have been the main drive for public funding. A particular focus since the ascent in 2014 of the Bharatiya Janata Party, a self-professed champion of Hindu nationalism, has been on the use of Indian ancient science and medicine, including Vedic chants to reduce brain trauma. Scientists claimed to have had to conduct research on cows’ urine and panchagavya (a mixture of yogurt, milk, clarified butter and dung) to win funding from a recently created government board tasked with “validating” the beneficial qualities of bovine materials. Desperate for equipment and lab facilities, a researcher lamented at ideas “based on absolutely unscientific mythology and scripture” whilst a newly born National Cow Commission has promised a 60 percent startup capital fund to businesses promoting panchagavya (The Economist, “India’s Government is Pouring Money into Dung,” 09.12.2019).

September 26, 2019

NEWS

Page 5

Arlington Bucks minimize campus effect on local economy ARLINGTON continued

cent of the coffee shop’s business consists of Vassar students, migrate off campus for liquid caffeine in droves. On any given day, the shop’s tables are occupied by a mix of Vassar and Marist students, who come to study and do homework with a bagel and coffee on the side.

There is an apparent unwillingness of students to travel too far on foot, even if those businesses accept Arlington Bucks.

But sometimes juggling academics and campus activities leaves little room for students to get off campus and explore.

Claire Coss ’22 walks to Crafted Kup roughly every other week and generally visits Raymond and College Ave three times a month. When she does venture off campus, she takes advantage of her Arlington Bucks every time. “I don’t really have a need for anything,” she admitted. “I eat most of my meals through on-campus dining.”

Jessica Mitchell ’21, who is not on the mandatory meal plan this semester, visits Crafted Kup at least once a week. In recent semesters, she has traveled off campus more frequently for groceries and other living necessities.

Looking back on the changes made to the meal plan, Mitchell believes the College has disincentivized students from exploring the greater Poughkeepsie area.

She knows students who spend all of their time on campus.

“First of all, [students] have unlimited food at the Deece and have to be on the meal plan, and second of all, they have a limited amount of Arlington Bucks restricted in this area,” Mitchell explained.

Likewise, though the Bon Appetit meal plan improved campus life for Vassar students, Mitchell believes Vassar must critically consider its commitment to its students and to the community.

“I feel like Vassar’s obligation is the same as any other institution in the community [in that] you serve the people around you,” she continued. “I think Vassar has been trying so hard to make life easier for its students without realizing they are taking away a lot of the students’ time and money that can go into Poughkeepsie and not into Vassar.”

In a move to make the greater Poughkeepsie area and the entirety of Dutchess County more accessible to students and staff, Vassar entered a partnership with Dutchess County’s public transit system.

Students and staff can ride the bus for free if they show their Vassar ID to the driver.

The College reimburses the county at a

The Crafted Kup is an attractive off-campus location for Vassar students to get work done, hang out with friends, or simply enjoy a cup of joe. This is one of many locales at which students can use their Vassar-provided cash. rate of $1.75 per ride.

In her comments to the Office of Communications, President Elizabeth Bradley noted that the agreement would benefit students and staff who travel into the community for jobs, internships and shopping (Vassar Info, “Vassar College and Dutchess County Announce Bus Partnership,” 01.25.2018).

Vassar students or staff who ride the L Bus, which has a stop at the corner of Collegeview Ave and Fairmont Ave, can gaze through their window at Jamaican (Golden Crust), Mexican (El Bracero), Chinese (King Chef), American-style breakfast (Big Tomato) and traditional soul food (Royal Blends and Soul Food) restaurants that line the blocks of Main Street.

It takes one yank of the bus chord to hop off at one of these stops and saunter into a nearby restaurant.

“I feel like Vassar’s obligation is the same as any other institution in the community [in that] you serve the people around you”­­­­-Jessica Mitchell ’21

“The ones that came here regularly that were loyal have graduated in the last two years,” she observed. “And we’re not getting the new faces like we used to.”

Dalbo noticed the decrease in Vassar students at the restaurant developed around 2017, coinciding with the many changes to the College’s meal plan. She did, however, point out that the meal program transformations are not entirely to blame.

The upscale restaurants and mainstream fast-food chains that now reside in the area were not here 10 to 15 years ago, according to Dalbo. Previous students only had so many choices.

“You guys now have the Tomato Cafe— that wasn’t there two years or three years ago,” she said. “And then you’ve got Chinese food next door, Popeyes on Main Street, Taco Bell and Wendy’s.”

Dalbo stated that College did not reach out to the restaurant about Arlington Bucks, though the owners have been meaning to look into how they can.

In the meantime, they miss seeing Vassar students fill the countertop seats and side booths of the diner.

“It’d be nice to see them come back,” she reminisced. “It’d be nice to have that little extra business.”

Despite the accessibility the College’s collaboration with transit system promises, many students do not take advantage of it. Both Coss and Mitchell have not taken the bus, citing a lack of time and the inconvenience of the transit system, respectively.

If Coss does take a day trip outside Arlington, she travels with friends who have cars and dreads having to spend out of pocket at places that do not accept Arlington Bucks.

Two years ago, Vassar students like Coss and Mitchell who tired of the previous quality of campus dining would have taken advantage of any means to travel down Main Street.

A waitress at The Big Tomato at 697 Main Street for 30 years, Amanda Dalbo, remembers seeing students ride to the restaurant in groups of two to 10, packed into cars, pedaling on bicycles and rolling on skateboards.

Now, she serves less than a quarter of Pictured is The Dollar Yard, which now the student customers that The Big Toma- participates in the Arlington Bucks program. to used to have.

The plan helps them expand their scope.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

Yvette Hu / The Miscellany News

Courtesy of iris Li The intersection of Raymond and Collegeview Avenues outside campus gates serve as the central hub for off-campus student activity, given the areas’s access to eateries, bookstoors, groceries, and a dollar-store to cover all essential and immediate needs.

Courtesy of iris Li

from page 1 vious dining service, Aramark, to a more highly regarded company, Bon Appetit—a change many students believe has drastically improved the quality of campus food in comparison to previous years (The Miscellany News, “New meal plan should accommodate individual needs,” 04.16.2016).

Still, Arlington Bucks vendors are not only restaurants. Now home to the Dollar Yard, My Market II and the Juliet, this growing connection between the college and Raymond and Collegeview Avenues has reaffirmed the the area’s evolution into Vassar’s college town. The convenience of Arlington Bucks, however, seems to contribute to students’ unwillingness to explore what the rest of Poughkeepsie has to offer.

Despite the program’s name, any business, in or outside of Arlington, can participate in Arlington Bucks. To do so, a vendor must rent a swipe machine that can process those funds.

As of right now, the majority of businesses that participate in the program operate on Raymond Avenue. In an emailed statement, Assistant Vice President of Finance Bryan Swarthout highlighted that this is due to their proximity to the college.

La Cabañita, a Mexican restaurant at 763 Main Street, is an exception. Just blocks away from the intersection of Raymond Ave and Main Street, the eatery started accepting VCash and Arlington Bucks about four months after its opening on Nov. 2, 2018. Despite its relatively short distance from Raymond Ave, General Manager Elvis Pinelo stated only 10 to 15 percent of his clientele are Vassar students.

“Most of you guys are [traveling] on foot,” Pinelo said. “I’m sure a lot of students don’t even know we’re here because we’re a bit farther than BurgerFi and Crafted Kup.” He revealed he plans to look into ways to spread the word about the restaurant and their involvement in Arlington Bucks.

Any establishment that accepts Arlington Bucks has to pay between $36 to $40 a month to rent its swipe machine, which Pinelo believes is a sizable fee in comparison to the little La Cabañita earns from Arlington Bucks. However, he values this partnership with Vassar. “Even though it’s not super profitable, it’s still nice to have that option if students need to use it,” he qualified.

In contrast, Crafted Kup barista Matt Patane estimated that around 50 to 60 per-

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September 26, 2019

Three Arts Bookstore serves as intimate time capsule Jeanne Malle

Guest Columnist

I

could barely see Walter Effron peeking through the back of the tiny Three Arts Bookstore. Towers of books, over-stuffed shelves and a slightly chaotic desk full of papers hid the shop owner, who looked as if he’d lived and breathed the place for quite

Yvette Hu/The Miscellany News Walter Effron has owned the Three Arts Bookstore for nearly 40 years. The cozy shop is located on Collegeview Avenue.

some time—and for good reason. Effron took over Three Arts in 1982 in anticipation of his parents’ retirement after nearly 40 years of ownership. When I first approached Effron, he seemed so deeply immersed in his work that I feared disturbing him. Once our conversation began, however, he gladly opened up about the long history which precedes the place we know today.

Effron’s parents first opened Three Arts Bookstore’s doors in 1946 in downtown Poughkeepsie. A smaller offshoot existed in Arlington, where Burger-Fi is now. He explained that business was primarily happening in the downtown area, as Arlington had little commerce before the 1950s. “An employee, a woman who worked for my parents, ran it. The store that was here was only open more or less when Vassar was in session,” said Effron.

As the area became increasingly business-friendly, Effron’s parents decided they should move their primary location out of downtown to Arlington. They enlarged their little store by knocking down a wall, taking over half the area of what is now Burger-Fi. The other half was a linen store from 1956 on. Effron’s parents added the store’s current space in 1964, which they used as an art gallery for monthly exhibits.

But a fire in 1975 suddenly changed the Three Arts Bookstore’s history, burning down the bookshop as well as the linen store

and a cinema (located where the Juliet is today). The owners of the building chose to expand the movie theatre rather than rebuild the two independent stores. The founders were only left with their gallery space. Effron explained, “My parents dropped the gallery, and this just became a small store.”

Little has changed since the post-fire renovation of the store’s current space, though he noted, “The computer certainly wasn’t here in 1982.”

Three Arts Bookstore has stayed true to itself since Effron’s takeover, making it a uniquely intimate shop. Effron is the only full-time employee, so his decisions affect not only the store’s supply, but also its atmosphere. In the age of Barnes & Noble, it has become increasingly rare for independent book-owners to single-handedly curate their content. However, Effron has persevered, trying to honor his parents’ legacy. He has also made the bold decision not to create an online presence. “It goes along with the books. It’s an escape from the electronic world. If people are looking for something that’s not in the electronic highway, so to speak, this is for them,” he says. He continues to close on Sundays and doesn’t stay open evenings.

Effron gained the necessary tools to run the store from his father. But understanding how to communicate with salesmen, what quantity of books to order and when to or-

der different types of books were merely the practical stages—more importantly, Effron had to learn what kinds of books his customers would like. He sometimes even has customers in mind for certain books he orders, as he knows they’ll be interested to see them: “[I consider] all the factors, plus a personal judgement of whether the book is a worthwhile book to carry, or whether it’s going to be a well-done book, or the opposite where it’s just kind of a commercial thing that’s trying to put something over on people,” he stated. “Sometimes those are successful, and I don’t have them, but I get them later on. I have to make a lot of adjustments.”

By remaining loyal to the years of work put in by his parents, Effron has created a small time-capsule in the Hudson Valley. The menacing technological world hasn’t frightened him, as he remains confident in the importance of bookstores to help people escape. He’s realized that though many omnivorous readers today choose the convenient clicks of Amazon as their book-purchasing platform, “A high percentage of people who are readers will react the reverse way, where it becomes a little bit of an advantage to be selling books [in person].” Despite working in one of the internet takeover’s most devastated businesses, Effron remains positive and confident. As I walked away from him, looking at his overwhelming collection, I couldn’t help but feel appeased and hopeful.

Dezaki seeks truth, studies censorship in ‘Shusenjo’ FILM continued

of the former soldier. He explained, “The nuance really comes from these historians who knew all the context behind all these documents and arguments the right-wingers bring up. That was the main goal of the film for me: bringing context. If I bring more context, both Japanese and Korean people can have better discussions.” He mentioned that Japanese viewers have told him they’ve never seen such potent arguments from comfort-woman supporters; in fact, many Japanese students don’t even know about the issue or remain apathetic towards it.

The film ended with swelling drums, a crescendo. As victims and activists demand legal compensation—and policymakers refuse to recognize coercive recruitment—the comfort women issue is ongoing, and Kim explained that formal apology is due. She continued, “The reason why I’m here is the denialism that’s still going on. If we don’t do anything, if we just stay silent, the history will be revised … Unresolved history gets repeated.”

Maryna Hrytsenko ’23 and Spencer Emerson ’23 attended the screening for their International Politics class. Hrytsenko roiled over the denialists’ claims: “Any woman shouldn’t go through this situation. How could denialists ever judge [the comfort women] in that way? It takes so much courage to speak out.” Emerson called the arguments of government denialists “disingenuous,” saying, “It seems incomprehensible that all these beliefs are genuine—denying the Nanking Massacre, denying that any of this exists, is dishonest.”

After the screening, Dezaki brought up the Aichi Triennale, an international art festival in Nagoya, Japan. This summer, the festival had an exhibit called “After ‘freedom of expression?’” in which South Korean sculptors Kim Seo-kyung and Kim Eun-sung presented “Statue of a Girl at Peace.” The subject, a comfort woman with a yellow bird perched on her shoul-

der, is seated, rosy-cheeked and stoic.

After hundreds of complaints, an arson threat and an open condemnation by the mayor of Nagoya, organizers cancelled the exhibition. The “Shusenjo” director discussed the Aichi censorship in relation to his film, which came out this April: “My film helped break the taboo and helped journalists and people talk about the comfort women issue, but when the Aichi thing happened, it showed that people are giving in again to pressure. Whenever they take something down like that, it has a ripple effect or a sort of fuinki [atmosphere, ambience] it creates, you know, of ‘Okay, we shouldn’t talk about this.’”

Much of the debate revolves around art, from public sculpture to, of course, film. A Japanese-American resident of Glendale, California filed a lawsuit to remove a comfort women memorial in the city’s Central Park. This July, the Glendale statue was vandalized, a brown substance smeared across the face of the girl (“Glendale’s comfort-women statue vandalized with

unknown brown substance,” Glendale News-Press, 07.25.2019). A former South Korean comfort woman’s testimony before the San Francisco Board of Supervisors led to the installation of the San Francisco memorial. The former mayor of Osaka opposed the decision (NBC News, “San Francisco to Unveil Statue Honoring World War II-Era ‘Comfort Women’,” 09.21.2017).

There are comfort women statues all over Seoul, confluences of demonstration.

“Shusenjo,” like the memorials, is a special and controversial medium. Dezaki is being sued by five of his interviewees. He said, “[Film] has a power in how it can engage people and grab people’s attention …

There’s a power in the screen.” The same goes for sculpture. Art is memorial and art is a material means of remembrance and apology, and its censorship goes hand in hand with denialism, ethnic tensions and the diminishment of wartime victims. We need physical reminders to remember, to educate. Artists like Dezaki serve as our educators.

Courtesy of Miki Dezaki

from page 1 timony from Korean activists, Japanese historians and academics, Japanese nationalists of American descent and myriad historical documents and testimonies.

As a global studies student, he honed his videography skills and concern over the war crimes, and the Japanese Right’s denial thereof, to pose several questions: Were comfort women coercively recruited?

How many comfort women were there?

How should we examine personal testimonies? Why do denialists believe what they do?

Executive Director of the Korean American Forum of California (KAFC) Phyllis Kim also attended the screening. The Comfort Women Justice Coalition and KAFC were responsible for the distribution of a teacher’s resource guide on comfort women in California, as well as the San Francisco comfort women memorial (NBC News, “New teacher’s guide on ‘comfort women’ to be distributed across California schools,” 01.15.2019). Joining Dezaki and Kim was Professor of Chinese and Japanese Pei Pei Qiu, who wrote “Chinese Comfort Women: Testimonies from Imperial Japan’s Sex Slaves.”

I say Dezaki poses questions; he does not answer them. “Shusenjo” is two hours and heavily wrought. The scope of the film is a feat. Dezaki not only conducts a historical examination of the comfort women system, but describes its consequences: discrimination against sexual violence victims, the role of American military interests in Korea-Japan relations, legislative efforts to revise the war-renouncing clause of the Japanese constitution. Dezaki says he knew the film would feature many “talking heads,” and the structure of “Shusenjo” mimics the controversy: an “argumentation” between comfort-woman activists, denialists, even a former Imperial Army soldier. I can’t help but compare the smiling, carefree countenance of an ultranationalist leader with the quiet horror

On Monday, Sept. 23, the Chinese and Japanese Department screened Miki Dezaki’s film “Shusenjo: The Main Battle Ground of the Comfort Women Issue.” It explores the question of whether the Japanese empire’s “comfort women” were prostitutes or slaves.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

September 26, 2019

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Marc Indigo delivers mellow grooves and Lo-fi moods Rayan El Amine Guest Columnist

H

e is posted quietly in his bedroom with an oversized gold chain wrapped around his neck. As we weave between intimate conversations about his music tastes and small talk surrounding our early first experiences at Vassar, I think about how my talks with Jason—or Marc Indigo, as he is known to the music world—are always unique.

Few people can strike a balance between vulnerable musical storytelling and pri-

vacy in their personal lives, but for Indigo, this seems to come naturally. During one of our first conversations at International Orientation, Jason (as I knew him back then), with his soft spoken and often reserved nature, casually asked me if I had Spotify. When he subsequently took my phone, I anticipated a few simple music recommendations that could get me through another homework slog. What came instead was shocking.

With nearly 100,000 monthly listeners and a discography that has amassed close

Courtesy of Marc Indigo Jason Phillip ’23 lives a double life as Marc Indigo, a Lo-fi musician who has amassed a substantial online following. His vulnerable storytelling, smooth vocals and spacey production have earned him nearly 100,000 monthly listeners on Spotify.

to a million plays, Indigo wasn’t some simple high-school musician: He was famous.

A star with none of the egotistical and garish attitudes that have come to define upcoming musicians. He was an anomaly.

I was fascinated.

Indigo describes his own music as “alternative,” but I don’t think that label does it justice. Both his production and his vocality seem to call on the growing Lo-fi genre, a kind of vulnerable, imperfect music style that has amassed a significant following on streaming platforms like YouTube and Spotify.

Indigo’s smooth, spacey delivery is often accompanied by production that gives his voice a pedestal. Perhaps it is as a byproduct of my own relationship with Indigo, but his music often feels very honest; it’s a deeply human, bass-heavy lullaby that touches on the peaks and valleys of intimacy and love.

Take his song “Accountable”: backed simply by a chorus of chords and finger snaps, the production gives room for Indigo’s voice to fill the room. Shifting both in timbre and pace, Indigo has the ability to use his music to open up about himself in ways that we typically associate with timeless art, with legends.

Becoming legendary, or even simply recognizable, however, was never his goal.

Indigo made clear, “I only make music because I enjoy it. Getting better has always been the goal. Fame and fortune were never on my mind.” This sentiment is reflected in how Indigo crafts and releases music.

Often releasing new tracks sporadically

and with little regard for building momentum, Indigo has produced a discography that feels more like a diary, a chance for him to share his emotions and bear his soul. It’s thus a privilege for us as listeners to enter his mind.

The juggle between intimacy and privacy extends far into Indigo’s musical process. Using what he describes as “not any kind of fancy equipment,” Indigo often has one-on-one conversations with his friends, who double as his producers, working tirelessly from the confines of his own bedroom in an effort to build each and every single. This very intimate, very personal process means that Indigo’s music is not littered with collaborators, offering him almost full control. This is a kind of power move that comes with a notable risk: Often, few people hear his songs until they are finally released. This process, while not surprising considering Indigo’s personality, stands out in the often heavily collaborative world of making music. But that’s Indigo, both musically enthralling and intensely private.

So what’s next for the quiet, reluctant star-to-be?

“Well I’ve joined Axies, and that’s been awesome so far, so hopefully I can really be a part of music on this campus,” Jason said, sounding still hesitant to disclose his entire plan. But whatever that plan may eventually be, I think one thing is clear: Indigo has a chance to define—both in personality and in style—what music on this campus may look like for the next four years.

But I’m sure that’s not on his mind.

On “Emily Alone,” Florist embraces life’s messiness Meghan Hayfield Guest Columnist

Emily Alone

T

here aren’t too many moving parts to Florist’s latest album—it’s as clear-cut as its name, “Emily Alone,” suggests. The record was created exclusively by Florist band member Emily Sprague in her Los Angeles home. After a move from California to New York, a breakup and the death of her mother, Sprague embarked on a project that neither avoids nor lingers too deeply into the darkness of the unconscious. She stared directly into it, and found on the other side a lightfilled reflection of acceptance.

Sprague wrote every word, played every instrument and produced the entire album.

This culminates in an introspective creation that sinks into the workings of a mind rediscovering what it means to be alone.

Listening to “Emily Alone” feels like reading through journal entries. The lyrics, like on previous albums, are a whimsical stream-of-consciousness that are inquisitive and unexpected. Florist’s lyrics have always been playful one moment and deeply philosophical the next, but “Emily Alone” is a new variation on this approach, harboring an inner monologue that explores loneliness after loss. Florist albums have a way of making you laugh in a unique, nothing-really-matters type of way. It’s driving with the windows down, walking barefoot in the grass, freely shopping for shells at the beach. But there’s always a turn when Florist reminds us that our lives are built from these tiny moments.

And on “Emily Alone,” it seems Sprague is trying to reconstruct herself in a way that lets

Courtesy of Mlesprg via Instagram

Florist Double Double Whammy

life’s loose ends blow freely in the wind.

The album is intensely intimate; it’s easy to imagine sitting in a room with Sprague, watching the music slowly unfold. The record passes softly, with Sprague’s voice sometimes at the forefront, and sometimes hidden, behind guitar strums and earthy sounds.

On opening track “As Alone,” Sprague begins musing about trying—and failing—to know herself: “I walk and I read, spend time in the sea/Nothing brings clarity to what makes me me.” Sprague’s hypnotic whisper builds through the song, paired only with light instrumentals. “And the beauty of unfolding/The life that is only/The living and the dying.” Lyrics such as these ring out as cries to think bigger and deeper about who we are and why we’re here.

“I Also Have Eyes,” the sullen and cloudy fourth track, follows the buoyant and weightless opening songs. The chords behind Sprague’s whisper are gloomier, and her voice loses exuberance. “How did I get into this place?/My life is only a combination of things/That I mostly have no control over/ And it took me a long time to figure that out,” Sprague sings. This unique transparency of Sprague’s mind is undoubtedly powerful and atmospheric. “Now it’s time to go inside your mind/Find the void and stare it down,” she sings in a melancholic ode. She’s attempting to reframe how we see ourselves and our lives. While loss and loneliness pervade the album, it is just as alluring as it as elusive.

“Emily Alone” blurs within itself, each song falling into the other like dominoes. It oscillates like tides, balancing sinking into sadness with embracing life’s messiness.

The tide turns again on the seventh track, “M,” which layers the sounds of walking with loosely played piano. This song, with the lyrics explicitly handling the death of Sprague’s mother, is a delicate balancing act between

Brooklyn-based indie pop band Florist released their third studio album, “Emily Alone,” on July 26. On the LP, Emily Sprague explores loneliness, loss and longing. sadness and composure. “Can I see heaven’s light/With a magic spell and candlelight?/I need someone to tell me yes/I believe in things we cannot see.” It’s refreshingly honest track that allows Sprague’s intensely private experiences to find universal truths. It’s the kind of song you can listen to over and over again and still find new meanings.

“Now” follows, an airy take on being alone.

It’s the moment of finding complete contentedness with solitude: “Where do you go/ When you just go alone?,” Sprague sings. Just like on “Still,” it feels as though you are peering into the artist’s mind, into her day-to-day travels through consciousness.

On “Still,” Sprague is talking—mostly to herself, it seems—about death. “And to think tide speaks to the shore/Similarly to the way I speak to death,” Sprague sings. It is a moment of composure in an album that bears the weight of so much loss. The moments of lightness throughout the album are equally impactful as deeper musings on existence.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

Sprague ties her own self-acceptance to the earth on “Rain Song,” which features sparse lyrics that evoke impending rain. “Weight of moon/Are you full?/Hours now/Tide will go,” Sprague sings, as layered sounds behind her wispy voice mirror the longing for catharsis when the sky turns gray. Sprague’s songs envelop you in a kind of unseen meditation, a way of listening that rests within.

The second-to-last track on the album, “Shadow Bloom,” honors the stillness when you accept darkness and allow it to live inside of you. “So the rain comes back now/After I asked it to/You could not come back now/ Even if I asked you to,” Sprague sings. The line “Do you really want to know the thing/ You spend your life trying to find?” seems to drive the whole album: a longing to understand, but an acceptance that understanding may never come. The song envelops you in its sadness but opens the door for an entirely different way of looking at the world. It’s soft and quiet, but energetically itself.

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September 26, 2019

Music concert grieves, honors late Professor Pisani On Sept. 22, the Music Department held a music concert to honor the legacy of late Professor of Music Michael Pisani, who passed away in July of this year. Pisani was a cherished member of the Vassar community since he joined campus in 1997. Over the course of his tenure, he studied program music, opera, musical theater and film music.

All photos courtesy of Sherry Liao

B.stroy fashion line, Sandy Hook ad normalize tragedy Delila Ames Reporter

I

Courtesy of Brickowens via Instagram

t’s back-to-school time. The debut of B.stroy’s New York Fashion Week line featuring collegiate-style sweatshirts fashioned with manufactured bullet holes hauntingly coincided with the release of a chilling advertisement by Sandy Hook parents that advises “knowing the signs” of gun violence.

Atlanta designers Brick Owens and Dieter Grams presented their unsettling spring/summer 2020 collection, “Samsara,” on Sept.15 during New York Fashion Week.

A streetwear brand with a growing social media presence, B.stroy and their new sweatshirt collection sparked vehement backlash online. The most notable items in the collection were four hoodies featuring the names Sandy Hook, Columbine, Virginia Tech and Stoneman Douglas that were laden with fake bullet holes. As most Americans all-too-painfully know, these four schools were the sites of four of the deadliest mass shootings to date. The death toll of these shootings combined is nearly 100 (ABC News, “The 11 mass deadly school shootings that happened since Columbine, 04.19.2019). Similarly styled sweatshirts are available on their website ranging from $110-410.

Brick Owens later posted a photo that read, “Sometimes life can be painfully ironic. Like the irony of dying violently in a place you considered to be a safe, controlled environment, like school. We are reminded all the time of life’s fragility, shortness, and unpredictability yet we are also reminded of its infinite potential. It is this push and pull that creates the circular motion that is the cycle of life.” The designer then connects his line to the spiritual concept of nirvana.

Although this was likely meant to justify an edgy experiment, it only makes the designer look even more tone-deaf.

Fellow designer Grams stated to NBC News, “At B.stroy we have always used our platform to shed light and begin conversations on overlooked issues from reality. We wanted to make a comment on gun violence and the type of gun violence that needs preventative attention and what its origins are, while also empowering the survivors of tragedy through storytelling in the clothes.” However, there are no clear signs as to how this line “empowers” survivors or brings preventative attention. They could have, for example, chosen to donate

proceeds from the line to victims of gun violence or towards preventative education.

The main point appeared not to be empowerment, but rather shock value—in that regard, they were successful.

Comments under the photos posted to Instagram of the hoodies ranged from “inconsiderate” to “repulsive.” One Instagram user commented, “My tragedy is not your fashion.” In essence, the designers are being accused of profiting from tragedy. I believe they hoped to shed light on an issue they find important in a bold way. However, it’s not public awareness of gun violence that’s being avoided. It’s action that’s being avoided. B.stroy isn’t bringing light to an invisible issue and they aren’t adding anything to an already overcrowded dialogue.

There are certainly ways to go about using fashion to make a political statement— this is not it.

In a more mindful but equally disturbing approach to back-to-school merchandise, Sandy Hook Promise released a commercial on Sept. 18, 2019, titled “Back-to-School Essentials.” The organization’s commercial begins with cheerful kids showing off their new back-to-school supplies, including backpacks and brightly colored binders.

It quickly turns dark when one student declares, “These headphones are just what I need for studying.” He places his headphones over his ears, blocking out the sounds of screams and chaos in the background—presumably noises of a shooting.

Suddenly, students are sprinting desperately through the halls with new sneakers and brandishing shiny scissors and colored pencils as they crouch in corners and behind doors. One girl announces, “This jacket is a real must-have” as she ties off the doors to the gymnasium. A boy uses his new skateboard to smash a glass window.

The commercial only gets more disturbing: Next comes a girl using her tube socks as tourniquets to tie up her friend’s leg that is gushing blood. It culminates with a young girl in a bathroom stall, choked up and tearfully whispering, “I finally got my own phone to stay in touch with my mom” as she texts “I love you mom.” We hear a door open and footsteps approach. Fading to darkness, it ends with a black screen that reads, “It’s back to school time and you know what that means. School shootings are preventable when you know the signs.”

The video now has over 13.3 million views on YouTube. While it is certainly shocking

Streetwear clothing brand B.stroy dropped its Samsara collection on Sept. 15, which included collegiate-style sweatshirts fashioned with manufactured bullet holes. and induces a visceral reaction, its impact may not necessarily be as positive as it first appears. Reading and hearing about mass shootings on an almost weekly basis has numbed us to the brutality of these events.

Does seeing an advertisement change the way we behave or does it further desensitize us by further normalizing the violence?

Dubbed a “clever, dark, and powerful PSA” by FastCompany, somehow the ad misses its mark by also taking shock value to the extreme. It’s definitely not an easy feat to successfully address gun violence in America in a significant and sensitive way.

The Sandy Hook Promise Foundation is an organization based in Newtown, Connecticut formed by the parents of the victims of the Sandy Hook shooting. They created the commercial. Its mission is to honor the victims of the deadly school shooting that took place at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December of 2012 through “advocating for sensible state and federal violence prevention policy” (“About Us,” Sandy Hook Promise).

Co-founder of Sandy Hook Promise Nicole Hockley said, “We wanted this PSA to be a little bit different in terms of shocking parents into engagement.” It’s certainly shocking. But engaging? I’m not entirely convinced.

I’m curious who the target audience of the commercial is. If it’s anti-gun liberals who already support legislation for pre-

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

ventative gun violence measures, is it just unnecessarily traumatizing? If it’s pro-gun conservatives, how effective is it, really?

If the accumulation of tragedies up to this point has not been sufficient to generate stricter gun legislation, I’m not convinced that one disturbing advertisement will.

I credit Sandy Hook Promise for attempting to add something to a stagnant conversation, but the horror has already been placed in front of us and change has not been implemented. The question is not about the exposure of horror—it’s about how can we make our arguments more persuasive.

The sweatshirts and the commercial are two very different ways of going about bringing attention to the ongoing crisis our country is in—will either work? They both attempt to use shock value to jolt audiences into action. Marketers try to latch onto cultural currency, as do propagandists and advocates in an attempt to find an access point into the consumer’s heart and mind.

As school rhythms pick up again, we are reminded in more ways than one of tragedies that continue to take place. Projects like the B.stroy sweatshirts continue to commercialize and sensationalize gun violence, whereas the commercial is symptomatic of a culture that is desensitized to a distressing degree. These tragedies cannot be condensed for public consumption, and they certainly shouldn’t be for sale either.

September 26, 2019

ARTS

Campus Canvas A weekly space highlighting the creative pursuits of student-artists

Page 9 submit to misc@vassar.edu

Eilif Rønning Class of 2020 Geography Major and Chinese Correlate Photography is my favorite medium because it is so versatile. Digital, analogue and phone photography all present such different ways of capturing the world. My focus recently has been on making my photographs into physical objects—mainly through prints or small zines.

Photography is for sharing!

Excuse me, What is your favorite thing about fall?

“The leaves change and fall.”

— Jordan Chin ’21

“The color of the leaves changing.”

—Kevin Mcauliffe ’23

“Sweatpants and hoodie weather.”

— Ethan Ellis ’23

“ Crunching leaves as I walk.”

— Sam Dorf ’22

“Raking leaves.”

— Tatum Phillips ’20

“When the weather gets cold, and you can hang out inside.”

—Lily Conroy ’23

Francisco Andrade, Humor & Satire Sheldon Zhou, Photography

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

FEATURES

Page 10

September 26, 2019

Four roommates sQUAD up in former Cushing parlor Rohan Dutta

Guest Columnist

C

ushing 151A is a parlor on the east side of the dormitory. Or rather, it used to be

one.

In its heyday, it was a communal space used and beloved by all of Cushing’s residents and visitors. However, when more admitted students enrolled in the Class of 2023 than expected, it ended up significantly larger than previous classes. As such, the College was forced to find more creative sources of accommodation, one of which was converting several universally loved parlors into freshman quads: two in Main, and one in Cushing. That’s where I come in.

As an incoming freshman, I had assumed I’d get a double. All of my friends already in college had made it clear: In your first year, you’ll get a double. If there’s no space, you might get a triple, and you’ll suffer for the whole year because of it. I spent a good few days wondering who my roommate might be, what might happen if I found two names in my housing assignment email, and how I’d cope if I did. After all, it had been drilled into me that the fewer roommates, the better.

Opening my assignment email and reading three names was a shock. After briefly notifying my family of my fate (and receiving their condolences), my roommates and I made a group chat and started puzzling over why we had all been put together. Maybe Vassar had quads this whole time—and we just never heard about it? Maybe two room assignments were accidentally combined— and we weren’t actually in a room together?

Maybe they were trying out quads for some reason this year—and that’s why we hadn’t heard of people in quads before? Conspiracies ran wild.

After a few hours, we finally received our answer. Fan-favorite Assistant Dean and Director of Student Conduct and Housing Rich Horowitz informed the four of us via email that our room was once a common space, but had been converted to a quad to accommodate the large incoming class. To my delight, he also noted that each one of us would “...probably have more square feet of room space than anyone else on campus...by far.”

Horowitz’s claim rings with truth; the room is by far the largest dorm room I’ve seen (so far in a short-lived existence at Vassar). In fact, my student fellow group now

Courtesy of Rohan Dutta The Cushing 151A parlor-turned-quad spreads over twice the length of a double. The lamps and couches of previous years have been replaced with beds and furniture for four.

uses it for our weekly meetings because it’s the largest private space we have.

Because our lodgings was once a parlor, it comes with certain eccentricities. Some features are universally acclaimed, namely the couch built into the wall and the common space in the middle room for all of us.

However, it also has a few...shall we say, lessthan-adored traits.

The east side of the room has several windows that span a huge distance, providing us a lovely view of the cemetery across the street, teamed with every ray the sun can muster at six in the morning on the one day you try to sleep in. As one of the windows is next to a back entrance, we also occasionally get taps on the window from locked-out residents who need us to open it from the inside. This isn’t a problem at all, but I will admit it’s a little disconcerting to hear a knock on your window at midnight and turn to see a face staring at you.

The Office of Residential Life did a wonderful job of removing the old furniture and placing ours in convenient locations. However, in the rush of prepping each room for the beginning of the year, they only supplied us with a single lamp. The desks all come with their own lights, as is standard for Vassar furniture, but besides those dimmerthan-my-future reading lights and the single floor lamp, we were left in the dark. Luckily, I came a few days before move-in day to see the room, and so I knew to buy another lamp ahead of time and notified my roommates to do the same. I’m sure that the school would’ve provided us with more lamps had we asked for them, but given the frenzy they were undoubtedly dealing with at the beginning of the school year, we all elected to just buy lamps and get it over with.

When people talk about the quad, they tend to cast living in it as some unique form of torture. How could you get any privacy in a quad? What kind of fresh hell would hav-

ing to decide on a lights-out time be?? What if they snore???

Privacy isn’t an issue; unless you have a single, you don’t have that privacy anyway.

Schedules aren’t an issue; everyone sleeps and wakes as they please, and the only real issue I’ve run into thus far is that my roommates are uncannily skilled at finding the worst possible alarm ringtones to use. I had expected that lights-out time would be a contentious issue living in the quad, but the four of us have come to an elegant solution: I deal with your snoring and you deal with my lamp on. In short, it’s not perfect, but everything generally works out alright.

The only real issue I have with living in 151A is dealing with its notoriety. The parlor was loved by many, and when the school year started, the groupies flocked back to see what it has become—or, for some, because they were unaware of the parlor’s demise.

For the first few days, new visitors would come several times a day. We never denied anyone a chance to see the room, but after a while, the endless repetition of “Wow, your room is so big!” and “Did you know your room used to be a parlor?” started to grate against my soul. Everyone is still invited, but if you do, please note that we are well aware of the room’s size and history. You don’t need to remind us. In fact, It’s escalated to the point where our student fellow group has made a meme out of it; our student fellow even put a sign on our door announcing that we know it used to be a parlor to try and save us from our eternal suffering.

I honestly don’t think much of my room’s history anymore, but occasionally I’ll pause and realize just how cool living in a quad is.

When I first got my room assignment, I was sure I would hate it. After nearly a month in it, though, I’m personally really glad that I ended up where I did. If you’d like to see it for yourself (as long as you don’t mention its past), you’re welcome to visit 151A anytime.

Kombucha enthusiasts cultivates cultures of bacteria, generousity Carissa Clough

Guest Columnist

I

is split into two parts, or rather, two fermentations.

The first fermentation requires black tea, sugar, a SCOBY and time to ferment. Then, the SCOBY is taken out and the tea is put into carbonating bottles ready to be flavored and shared. The artistry in kombucha comes in the flavoring. There are an unbelievable number of flavor combinations: blueberry mint, cucumber watermelon, orange creamsicle, and pomegranate and sangria are the flavors Benji crafted for my fellow group’s batch.

As a self-proclaimed kombucha connoisseur, I can definitively say that Benji’s kombucha is as tasty, if not tastier, than kombucha sold at gro-

cery stores. Considering the time and resources required to make a successful product, one would think that this new hobby could easily turn into a business plan. Not for Benji. Kombucha is not just a drink or a product to be exploited; it’s a manifestation of who he is. “Kombucha was the first thing that embodied my socialism because I never make anyone pay for most things that I give to them. But especially kombucha—I have never accepted a penny,” Benji said with pride. Sharing kombucha is not only an act of kindness, but a way to practice and express his beliefs. He may pass them on one day in the form of a yellow glob.

Duncan Aronson/ The Miscellany News

t all began with a round, yellow-colored gelatin glob. This clump, known as Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeast (SCOBY) would transform tea into the fizzy nectar we know as kombucha, and a sophomore’s interest into a passion.

GT’s, Healthade, Calmbucha, Lion Heart, Laughing Gut: A plethora of kombucha brands flood grocery stores and health circles. Meanwhile, the general public is left with the question: What even is kombucha?

Fermented tea (green or black), sugar, yeast, bacteria and “love” are constitutive ingredients in a typical kombucha recipe. To make the drink, a SCOBY must be added to sweetened tea and left to ferment for a couple of weeks until it reaches the perfect sweet-tart flavor to be separated from the SCOBY and then bottled (Time, “Is Kombucha Healthy? Here’s What Experts Say,” 02.11.2019). This practice originated in the Manchuria region of ancient China (hence kombucha’s nickname, “Manchurian mushroom”) and then spread through time and space to reach mass production and Target shelves, ultimately purchased to fill collegiate mini-fridges.

During my first few days on campus, I instantly became known among my fellow Lathropians as the kombucha girl. I stocked my mini-fridge solely with kombucha and somehow managed to incorporate kombucha into whatever conversation we were having. But not all kombucha-loving college students purchase their bottles. Some make their own. My student fellow, Henry Mitchell ’22, was quick to inform me of a former Lath-

rop resident that brewed kombucha in his dorm: Benji Mathot ‘22.

A current Ferry House resident, biology and earth science double major, Vassar SEED member, EcoLeader, piercing enthusiast and proud socialist, Benji immediately struck me as someone I wanted to know. Upon finally meeting the mythical Mathot at the Deece during my first week at Vassar, I instantly asked him if I could sample some of his craft. He responded “Sure! Your whole fellow group can have my next batch!” with what I soon learned was his characteristic generosity, At this point, I had only been at Vassar for a short time and I was taken aback by the eager generosity he exuded. As we talked more, and as I consumed three bottles of his kombucha, I soon learned that such kindness is common among kombucha kooks.

“In kombucha brewing, there’s [a] hippy tradition,” Benji explained, “It’s where basically you don’t buy a SCOBY, but you find someone who has a SCOBY and they give you one of theirs.

Then once you have a big enough SCOBY, you can peel it off and give it to someone else and you kind of pass it on. That’s the tradition—that you always give yours away. It’s a very hippy, socialist, forward progressive thing.” This tradition remains dear to Benji, as it launched his kombucha career. At the end of his first year, an upperclassman gifted him two SCOBYs, which he readily accepted, igniting his newfound passion. To date, he has made eight batches and shared the love with people across campus along the way.

Each of Benji’s 14-bottle batches brew for about a week and three days. The brewing process

Kombucha brands have become more commonplace on grocery store shelves. The same was true of Arlington’s 20th Annual Street Fair last Saturday, where the Laughing Gut served their homemade blends of lavender, chamomile, and green tea flavored kombucha.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

September 26, 2019

FEATURES

Page 11

Student-run repair shop kicks sustainability into gear Tori Lubin

Guest Columnist

S

Courtesy of Tori Lubin Lily Feingberg-Eddy ‘22 fiddles with a mounted bicycle in the Vassar Bike and Repair Shop in Strong basement. The mechanics go through 20-30 such bikes over the course of a week.

Courtesy of Tori Lubin

ounds of bike-tinkering accompanied the bop of the radio in Strong basement at 11:30 a.m. on a Monday morning. Lily Feingberg-Eddy ’21 knelt down to examine her current project. “Look at that,” she shouted out to fellow bike mechanic Miles Schulman ’23, whilst she gave the wheel a good spin. “The hub and axle are not interacting well,” Schulman contributed from the back corner of the intimate lounge space.

Student mechanics such as Feinberg-Eddy and Schulman work at the Vassar Bike and Repair Shop, which has been operating since the ’60s. Students, faculty and staff alike are encouraged to bring their malfunctioning bikes to the amateur gearheads, who either fix the bikes or teach riders how to make repairs themselves. Although the shop is not equipped to accommodate the entire Poughkeepsie community, mechanics will fix locals’ bikes if they bring them to the shop. Mechanics dedicate several hours of their week to repairing bikes, working on as many as 20-30 bikes within that time frame.

Feinberg-Eddy revealed that she only recently discovered that mechanical work is

her personal outlet. “I had come to Vassar not having done anything mechanic-y related,” Feinberg-Eddy said with a laugh. “At Vassar you get a real mental workout all the time, but you don’t have a manual tinkering outlet.” Schulman agreed. “That’s a really good way to put it,” he chimed in. “I thought that should change. I’m on a bike way too much to not know anything about them.”

The Bike and Repair Shop’s ethos stretches far beyond repairing bikes. The space is meaningful to its mechanics for its personal and historical ambience. Bike mechanic Parvaneh Jefferson ’21 described the bike shop as a place entrenched in student history—including fliers and trophies that date back generations. “The space feels homey, it has remained untouched by the renovationist efforts by institution to ‘modernize’ dorms and make spaces look more ‘spiffy,’” she said. Feinberg-Eddy echoed her sentiment, describing the shop as cozy.

Feinberg-Eddy, Schulman and Jefferson all became involved with the bike shop in their first years. Feinberg-Eddy decided to start volunteering after receiving an email urging students to contribute to the bike distribution program, which she called the “brainchild” of Jefferson, who began

Vassar’s Bike and Repair Shop is put together like a homemade patchwork quilt. The space gives off an intimate, comfortable ambience, according to its student mechanics. working there a semester before. “I saw the swaths of bikes we had laying around that could be made completely usable with some work and thought, ‘Why not?’” Jefferson explained. Students can receive a bike not by exchanging currency, but by investing two hours of their time volunteering at the shop.

Before Jefferson began her work with the bike shop, the idea of a bike distribution program had been in the works for years.

With the help of former bike mechanic Alexia Garcia ’18, Jefferson gathered volunteers to rehabilitate abandoned bikes.

The Bike Shop first piloted the program last year. Because of the program’s tender young age, students are still smoothing out the kinks, Jefferson noted.

The shop is also pursuing its overarching organizational goals that extend beyond the confines of the shop. For example, the bike distribution program promotes its goal of environmentalism. “Being under the Office of Sustainability, our job is to promote eco-friendly options, and getting as many people on campus a bike is just part of the job,” Jefferson stated. Climate change needs to be addressed from a multitude of differ-

ent angles, Feinberg-Eddy noted, and using an eco-friendly mode of transportation is a bottom-up method of reducing carbon emissions in one’s day-to-day life. “It helps rework the framework of how we want to live our lives in a way that’s healthful and helpful to the environment,” she said.

The shop also engages in community outreach and hosts workshops. Previously, they have hosted workshops on how to change bike tires, held art shows and participated in a food drive called “Cranksgiving.” In the future, mechanics are considering running a tutorial on how to ride a bike and a closed-circuit bike race known as a criterium, or crit for short. Through these events, the bike shop hopes to broaden its role as a community space. According to Jefferson, “[T]he Bike Shop is one of the few spaces on campus that actually has the ability of naturally creating community and we have begun that process.”

The Bike and Repair Shop and its team of mechanics plan to keep connecting with the community, while also ensuring that with every bike diagnosis and clanking of metal, bike wheels can keep turning. Hopefully, they can help the Earth keep turning, too.

Alumnae/i administrator spotlight: the coffee, tea of SAVP SAVP continued from page 1 orbited around the cause of preventing violence and providing support for survivors.

First Wong, then Boss worked in their senior years as Community Fellows for the Center for Victim Safety and Support (CVSS). By the time Boss was writing her senior thesis on legislation related to sexual violence, Wong had already made a post-graduation beeline to become the High Risk Case Manager at CVSS. Boss would also find her way back to CVSS as an advocate, overlapping with Wong for about six months. Later, Wong and Boss would work together as the CVSS Coordinator of Advocacy and Dutchess County Sexual Assault Response Team Coordinator, respectively. Everything would finally come full circle and converge at Vassar, when Wong was hired by the SAVP office as Vassar’s Violence Prevention Educator, and brought Boss on board.

The clear-cut metaphor of astrophysics is illusory at best. You might expect a common set of character traits or approaches to life as explanations for their intertwined lifethreads, but their personalities are divergent.

My oversimplified analogy of choice: Wong is to Boss as coffee is to tea. Wong speaks and processes at a fast clip, and processes even

more as she speaks, incrementally building her bridges of thought as she walks on them.

Boss, on the other hand, tended to defer to Wong, steeping over Wong’s response to my questions while formulating her own.

Not only do they have very different dispositions today, but they have been very different people stretching back to their student days, too. “When I was a student I just wanted Vassar to be Hogwarts,” Boss reminisced. “I took it upon myself to try to find all of the secret passages and places…without the Marauder’s Map.” Something tells me she checked “Yes” to the housing application question, “Do you believe in magic?”

Wong, on the other hand, described herself as a meticulous planner. She pragmatically saved her dining bucks for winter and enjoyed the high bang-for-your-buck breakfast wrap in the toasty indoors. “Working at the Center for Victim Safety and Support, and interning as the Community Fellow and starting my [post-graduation] internship when I did had always been part of the plan,” she confessed.

Wong hardly took a breath before she hit the ground running; she started work the Monday after her class year’s commencement. She later added more to her plate, tak-

ing evening classes through an online residency program to earn a Master’s degree in Social Work at Columbia University. Pretty straightforward, right?

Actually, Wong was constantly recalibrating and grappling with questions. “I think my plan was finite,” she said. “I knew that I wanted to be doing this work, but I didn’t know in what capacity, I didn’t know where.”

When she saw an open postion as a violence prevention educator at Vassar, her career snapped into orbit.

While planning gave her a general direction in which to travel, she still had to build her bridge as she walked on it.

In contrast, Boss was in a less optimistic state of mind after graduating. “I had a lot of feelings of burnout at the end of my senior year of being so involved in anti-violence...I didn’t have a job lined up and like it was scary. It’s not a comfortable thing to be plucked out of the Vassar bubble and thrown into the world.” She nannied in New Paltz for six months. Then, wanting a change of scenery, Boss moved to Philadelphia and searched unsuccessfully for nonprofit jobs.

Meanwhile, she paid the bills with a customer service job. After attending a friend’s wedding in the Hudson Valley, she realized

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

that she wanted to return more permanently.

That’s when she decided to knock on CVSS’ door, and was hired as an advocate. The rest is history.

In the hiatus between their studying and administering, what was once the SAVP program had expanded into its own administrative body with the new administrative positions Boss and Wong now occupy.

They are happy to see this development.

With Washington rolling up its sleeves to roll back Obama-era Title IX provisions and shift away from federal influence and survivor-centered philosophies, SAVP’s status as an independent office is more salient than ever.

Wong and Boss have undertaken winding journeys from their beginnings eating breakfast wraps and searching for Hogwarts.

Looking forward, the two are acutely aware of the power vested in their administrative positions and the antagonistic dispositions of some students towards the Vassar administration. They reflect constantly and discuss their positionalities, and the best ways to facilitate trust and erase spaces of distrust.

What the future holds for them is uncertain, but I am certain that they will walk forward to their own individual rhythms.

FEATURES

Page 12

Quite Frankly Frankie Knuckles

Senior Editor Quality Advice-Giver

Hey Frankie, I’m very sociable and also single. Flirting is hard tho. How do I show someone I’m interested?

Sincerely, Horny and Afraid Dear Afraid (no, I’m not using the other name option),

Q

uite frankly, every relationship I’ve been in has begun as a result of luck rather than skill, so I’m not sure why you’re asking me. It’s also worth noting that the art of flirting isn’t reducible to tricks and tips; you have to get to know someone and find out what makes them happy if you really want to form a bond. I also don’t really think there’s a difference between getting to know someone and flirting; maybe that’s just me. But setting that aside for a moment, I’ll do my level best to give you some helpful pointers (and totally not steps I found on WikiHow).

First, we need a starting point. What kind of flirtatious setting are we talking?

If you’re at a party and looking to find a less cringey version of making eye contact across a crowded room and exchanging come-hither glances, that’s one thing. At-

tempting to build a foundation for a serious relationship has to be a more personal, unique process.

For the former flirtation form, I have a few ideas for you; for the latter, you’re on your own.

Start by, y’know, just going up to someone and speaking with them like a normal human person would. Ask their name, make some small talk (easier said than done, I know). In short, treat the object of your flirtation not as the object of your flirtation, but as a person. From the first five minutes of conversation, you’ll gain a sense of a small kernel of this person’s overall being. If you have no idea about their personality after five minutes, they’re withholding it from you on purpose and you should leave—or they have none, and you should leave.

Assuming this first step goes well, you now have some idea of what kind of topics come to this person’s mind first. If they start talking to you about athletics, student theater or another extracurricular, show your interest in their activities by asking follow-up questions.

If neither of those work, fall back on my favorite go-to strategy: Find out whatever weirdly specific thing the person you’re flirting with is into, then espouse a lot of fun facts. You’re seeing now why I’m not the best person to ask.

l. to undo graphite mistakes 6. Big Brother network 9. one door does this to open the window 14. a forced labor camp in Soviet Union 15. fedora, beret, beanie 16. he speaks for the trees 17. wooden cap of Scottish origin 19. to anoint 20. plant fetus 21. a hill or rocky peak 22. type of jargon or slang, plural 23. a major environmental habitat 25. means ‘for each’ 26. the one where Devito plays a penguin 31. to be cognizant 33. knight’s title 34. Christmas 35. nitrous oxide energy drink 36. prefix meaning somewhere in-between 39. farewell 41. a sorrow 42. a maintenance hair cut 44. to steal 46. to fix or make better by change

Answer to last week’s puzzle

Word

on the street

If you could be any kind of dog which would you choose?

“Cartoon dog.”

— Sam Peterson ’22

“Golden retriever .”

— Rayan El Amine ’23

“Black lab.”

—Zev Katz ’23

“King (Francisco’s dog).”

— Olivia Watson ’22

“Husky.”

— Yvette Hu ’22 “Sharpey” — Alison Carranza 23

Best Wishes, Frankie P.S., Maybe take my suggestions with a grain of salt; I’m less Casanova and more Canada goose.

“Movies ft Danny Devito” ACROSS

September 26, 2019

Francisco Andrade, Humor & Satire Sheldon Zhou, Photography

The Miscellany Crossword

by Frank

48. to be deprived of strength or power 52. tattoo, abbreviated 53. cgs unit of magnetic flux density 54. a death, particularly untimely 57. a good outfit, slang 58. someone from Scotland 62. to worship or glorify 63. genus of tobacco plants 65. Oscar, author of The Picture of Dorian Gray 66. remnants of fire 67. several dormitories on campus have this kind of attachment 68. used in clue 44 across 69. symbol used for magnetic flux in physics 70. 109 ft waterfall in El Dorado, CA

30. a recreational winter vehicle 31. against prefix 32. old and hackneyed 37. intensely angry 38. Brown, Holliday, Savage 40. what one does when hungry 43. the one where Danny is a wretched father, Harry Wormwood 45. the one where Danny is a circus werewolf, Amos Calloway 47. third largest city in Sicily 49. the inverse of 29 down 50. an internal Chinese martial art

DOWN

1. these should not all go in the same basket 2. a regulation or guideline 3. on the side of the ship that’s sheltered from the wind 4. where beach grains go on a night out 5. singular of 1 down 6. the purity or intensity of color 7. empty or fruitless, plural 8. an eyelid irritant 9. a red wine from Bordeaux or of a similar character 10. things don’t matter in this 11. perfect milk cookie 12. throw over shoulder for good luck 13. ones past romantic entanglements 18. building blocks of the universe 22. an absurd imitation 24. an object or established romantic duo 26. qualifier of mainstream girl 27. what Adam supposedly gave Eve 28. what one did gently down the stream 29. brighter colors

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

51. -mobile, -graph, -biography 54. moistures that form on cool surfaces overnight 55. these should always be clearly marked in a building 56. those whom the patriarchy favours 59. non-perishable containers 60. the loneliest numbers 61. 80’s sitcom where Danny is antagonist 63. mini sleep 64. some people have too many of these open

September 26, 2019

OPINIONS

Page 13

Voluntourism incites fetishization of Third World poverty Sasha Gopalakrishnan Contributing Editor

T

his piece was initially intended for a social justice blog run by a global nonprofit I interned with over the summer. They mobilize young people to spark change in their respective communities, and purport themselves to be youth-led and grassroots-focused. For their blog, they encouraged me to write on any topic that concerned me. However, this piece was ultimately not published because it deals with a phenomenon that they—even as a “progressive” nonprofit institution—practice themselves. As the Global Communications Officer mentioned in an apology email, “While we think the article’s important, we wouldn’t want to shoot ourselves in the foot.”

It’s June 2012. We’re in Delhi, India. I’m an entitled 14-year-old doing absolutely nothing with my time.

Having just been severely admonished by my mom for whiling away my summer, I was now lounging on my bed, sullenly scrolling through a list of NGOs near me, hoping to find an organization that was willing to let a post-pubescent child volunteer with them.

I’d like to preface that this was a time in my life when my social consciousness didn’t really exist. I was being taught, as many of us have been, that social work is a box that needs to be checked if you have any hope of going to a good college. And so, unsurprisingly, I was growing increasingly bored by how dull the work of the NGOs near me seemed. They wanted me to do the same old stuff that the administration at school made us do for extracurricular credit—teaching English and math to “underprivileged children” at nearby schools, raising money so they would have school supplies, picking up litter from particularly polluted areas. It seemed so unglamorous and I had done it all before.

Don’t get me wrong; I wanted to care about poverty. I knew that poverty was unfair. I knew that I was exceptionally lucky.

But I was 14. And I saw slums everywhere I went—on my commute to school, on the

way to my best friend’s house, en route to the mall. I was incredibly desensitized; in retrospect, dangerously so. But then again, that’s just how it was growing up. Poverty existed all around my privileged bubble, dusting at its surface, but it never touched me.

Thus, as much as it makes me cringe to admit it, my eyes lit up with curiosity only when I came across a volunteering program that would take me to a multitude of countries across Africa to perform social work. It was several weeks long. It would cost me thousands of dollars. It would involve the very same teaching, fundraising and litter-collecting work that seemed so unappealing to me 12 minutes away from my house in Delhi. But alas, this would be in Africa...I was enamored.

As soon as I told my mom what I wanted to do, she politely told me to shut the fuck up and go back to looking at NGOs in Delhi as opposed to vacations all over Africa.

But that’s not the point.

The deeply problematic nature of my interest in a voluntourism program such as that one speaks to a societal upbringing where children are raised to accept the systemic injustices of their immediate surroundings as inevitable, unchangeable and even uninteresting. Yet, they are simultaneously raised to believe that the systemic injustices in Third World countries far removed from them are somehow more horrifying, more unjust—more in need of “saviors” like themselves.

This doesn’t just apply to people in First World countries. Developing countries stereotype and patronize other developing countries all the time. Globalized stereotypes regarding underdevelopment and poverty in Africa, South Asia and other parts of the non-Western world are so pervasive that these harmful (and frankly, racist) ideas, initially sprouting out of the Western consciousness, now infiltrate the minds of people all over the globe.

It’s the kind of societal conditioning

that enabled a young girl like me, sitting in equally stereotyped South Asia, to feel a superiority complex in relation to Africa; to be surrounded by poverty all my life but only be moved to do something about it when it comes under the exotic label of African poverty.

Not only does this conditioning serve to pit cultures and races from within the non-Western world against each other, but it teaches us all, no matter where we are, to fetishize the poverty of Black and brown bodies—a process that feeds into our own high-handedness in relation to said bodies.

And consequently, we begin to believe that there are poor people out there—exotically poorer than the people we may have been exposed to—whom we could possibly deign to grace with our services.

Thus, we have a situation on our hands where white saviorism has metastasized into an animal of its own, one that has progressed past whiteness and instead leaked into all power relations. And it’s that exact savior mentality that filters into the consciousness of so many children on a daily basis, formulates into beliefs and convictions as they grow into adults, and fuels the $173 billion voluntourism industry (ThriveGlobal, “Annual $173 Billion Worth Of Volunteer Tourism Industry Is Enough To Make A Change,” 10.16.2017).

The fetishization of Third World poverty driving this industry only serves to replicate colonial processes, where foreign personnel from wealthier backgrounds are placed in poorer settings and believed to have the expertise to magically bring development to those settings.

And so, we have to ask ourselves, who is really benefiting from the charity of rich 20-somethings who teach English to a cohort of African or South Asian children, even as they have close-to-no understanding of the local language, culture and context within which those children are growing up?

The focus on international volunteers

over local volunteers who may be more well-versed in the language, landscape and culture to appropriately teach in that environment only serves to delegitimize the skillsets of locals and their abilities to drive change in their own communities.

Instead, it says to the world that societies with increased poverty can’t elevate themselves out of it without the help of firstworld personnel and resources, once again allowing us to feel justified in our own abilities to “save” other people.

The act of helping is highly political.

Good intentions can only take you so far, but at some point, all of us good progressives have to think about whether the impact we’re making is desirable to the actual people we’re trying to support. We have to educate ourselves on how best to work with global grassroots movements and activists without replicating the conditions and power dynamics that require that grassroots work to exist in the first place.

The onus is on us.

After I submitted this to the social justice blog it was intended for, the Global Comms Officer ran the piece by her boss, and then told me that while most of their work supports young people to organize around issues central to their experiences, they do collaborate with (and get funding from) the International Citizen Service (ICS), a British government agency that provides overseas placements for British volunteers between the ages of 18 and 25. They asked me if I could add a note in the article stating that the ICS’s work is different from the phenomenon I’m presenting. She then sent me materials outlining the benefits of what the ICS does and how it is not voluntourism.

I refused to sacrifice the integrity of my opinion by reneging on its very premise. This led to a long apology email, in which she told me they could not publish the piece. In this context, I believe it’s more relevant than ever to talk about the harmful practices of voluntourism, the complicity of well-meaning institutions, and our own socialization.

Packing the Supreme Court is a bad idea for everybody Jonas Trostle

Opinions Editor

D

isruption is great, but there is a difference between creative destruction and just plain garden-variety destruction. Some things should change quickly, like communication and transportation technology.

Some things should not change quickly.

The law is one of them. With that in mind, let’s talk about the recently in vogue idea of court-packing. The idea that the number of Supreme Court justices should be increased or changed is suddenly picking up steam in Democratic circles. But why? Does anybody actually believe the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is doing a poor job right now, or that adding justices is going to do anything other than alter the ideological balance of the bench?

Packing SCOTUS is only going to do two things: one, force the court to ideologically represent whichever side is in power at that moment, and two, create giant swings in what the law is. Yes, yes, I see you waving the bloody shirt of Judge Merrick Garland. Yes, I can hear you saying that the court is already political. Let me just—can I just?—okay. To those of you are shouting “But Garland!” at your newspapers, take a breath and bear with me for just a minute. (If, on the other hand, you are asking who this Garland character is,

oh sweet country mouse.)

I think we can all agree that Garland didn’t deserve what happened to him, but with that said I don’t understand the idea that his nomination was either ideal or nonpartisan.

If you believe that Garland, an 60-plus-yearold white, male, moderate was President Obama’s top choice, please see the above parenthetical starting with the final clause. Garland was merely the candidate most likely to get confirmed by a Republican-controlled Senate. Moreover, the idea that the seat was “stolen”—that Congress derelicted its duty by not holding a vote for his confirmation— is kind of dishonest.

One, it assumes the legislative branch is a junior partner in selecting members of SCOTUS, which is disrespectful and, at this point, clearly not true. Two, that seat never belonged to Garland. In fact, the most recent occupant was one Antonin Scalia, and if you were to ask me which person was a “truer” fit for Scalia’s seat, Gorsuch is a much closer mold (FiveThirtyEight, “Just How Conservative Was Neil Gorsuch’s First Term?”

07.25.2017). Here, I admit my own bias: I hold Gorsuch in high esteem, but for good reason. His dissents in both Carpenter v. United States and Gamble v. United States are exemplars of judicial reasoning, and while I don’t always agree with his decisions, they are well

thought-out and respectable.

Which brings me to the point. Even if I agree that SCOTUS is a political body— something I will go to the grave denying with my last breath—do you really think court-packing will fix undo that? Do you sincerely believe that if we increase the size of SCOTUS, the other side will never gain power, and never do the exact same thing?

To borrow from James Gordon, “[The police] start carrying semi-automatics, [the criminals] buy automatics. [The police] start wearing Kevlar, [the criminals] buy armor piercing rounds” (“Batman Begins,” 2005). In other words, do you want escalation of the political war currently raging? We have one apolitical branch. I don’t care who started it, we’re not playing a game of chicken with our entire legal structure.

Assuming we do pack the court at every opportunity which arises, suddenly we have a precedential game of ping-pong. Do you like the ability to choose whether to get an abortion? Better hope you don’t get pregnant during the eight-year window when it’s banned. Do you like having healthcare?

Surely having that entire fourth of the economy starting and stopping just about once a decade won’t cause any issues. Want to start a business or nonprofit and figure out what regulations you have to have in place? Good

thing that the Consumer Protection Bureau is popping in and out of existence like Casper the Friendly Ghost.

Believe it or not, there can be honest disagreement about what policy is best for the long-term welfare of the country, and indeed the world. These are things that need to be hashed out in the democratic process, not imposed top-down by a set of unelected judges. The idea that because you’re right, you should just impose your view on everyone is dangerous. There is no quicker way to authoritarianism. If you give more and more power to the executive and turn one of its most significant checks into a gallery of sycophants, well, then things are going to turn out badly for you.

The law is supposed to move slowly. It’s supposed to be a sturdy, stable set of rules in which to live your life. “Move fast and break things” is not a good policy when you’re the referee. Calvinball, a game with no rules except those that are invented as you play, is a terrible way to govern. If you really want to make long-term changes, the judiciary is not the place to do it. That wasn’t the idea when it was designed, and it’s not a better idea now.

Reviving ideas like court-packing is not the way to win hearts and minds. If you want that, put out solid policy ideas, pass those, and win people over to your side.

The Miscellany News is not responsible for the views presented within its Opinions pages. The staff editorial is the only article which reflects the opinion of the Editorial Board.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

OPINIONS

Page 14

September 26, 2019

Campus Climate We wanted to know whether Vassar students thought that the college should admit more, or fewer, legacy students. To find out, we asked around!

“I’d say fewer, because legacy admission perpetuates the privileges of the people in the past, and in terms of ensuring equity of education, relying on the merit of people in the past should be discouraged, as access to higher education was even less available to non-privileged groups.”

–Dana McRae ’22

“No comment. I feel it’s so dependent on why legacy students are chosen. Like, athletic recruits need to be up to snuff academically anyway, so as long as it’s not a corruption thing. Legacy students might not be coming in just for their money, but we can’t know for sure. It’s impossible to answer the question because I don’t know the premise.”

–Rohan Dutta ’23

“This is a difficult question. I know the benefits, like it helps fund raising and paying for financial aid, but the drawback is potentially fewer qualified students will get in in the first place. On a moral level, I think fewer. It makes sense to forge strong alum connections, but on the other hand you’re being unfair.”

–Anik Parayil ’21 “The thing is, I’m going to say less, because seven percent seems to be too large a number. It seems to take away from someone who might deserve it more. Legacy shouldn’t be a big part of the admission process.

But I don’t know much about how much being a legacy affects admissions or the benefits of admitting legacy students. ” –Nathan Johnson ’23

Please note that several students refused to answer the question based upon how they assumed the campus would respond.

Vassar Memes takes it too far with direct personal attacks Abram Gregory Columnist

L

ook, I love a shitpost as much as the next guy. There’s something truly medicinal about gazing directly into the absurdity we face on a day-to-day basis and, well, having a good chuckle at it. With regard to campus life, this is the exact sort of cathartic release provided by @vassar_ memes. The Instagram page made its first post in March 2018 and has consistently produced sardonic and relatable content ever since. The anonymous entity behind the account has made posts commenting on relatable aspects of the Vassar experience, ranging from the niceties of Dollar Beer Night to the jovial enthusiasm of the Russian Department to the divide between athletic and non-athletic subcommunities.

Whereas the page began with a series of posts regarding systems, social conditions and geospatial jibes, it’s taken a turn towards increasingly personal jabs at specific archetypes of the stereotypical Vassar student.

That is, early posts discussed events or vague friend groups on campus. More recently, the shit’s been getting personal.

And because Vassar is too small of a campus for jabs at specific individuals to land without immediate social consequence, Vassar Memes’ attacks are a problem.

I’m all for a good roast if it’s targeting clout-chasers, hype-beasts or anyone generally riding the social wave without having anything substantive to contribute to it. This sort of dynamic is put on display in Vassar Memes’ controversial Sept. 14 post. The image displays students posing around Pi’erre--the star of this year’s Fall Concert—with particularly biting captions inserted near several students’ faces. Moreover, I was discomforted by some of the imagery surrounding the Pi’erre appearance, with a Black man being surrounded by a mostly white crowd. In that sense, the Fall Concert was emblematic of

what Vassar really is: privileged folk trying to surround themselves with symbols they identify as “woke” or of the minority, and congratulating themselves afterwards.

“[B]ecause Vassar is too small of a campus for jabs at specific individuals to land without immediate social consequence, Vassar Memes’ attacks are a problem.”

However, on a campus with fewer than 3,000 students, something feels wrong about the image, especially when critical captions are in close proximity to the students whom the jabs are probably applied to. We still see hints of the good ol’ disestablishmentarian Vassar Memes— epithets like “groupthink,” “performative activism” and “nepotism” tackle generational phenomena plaguing student bodies at schools like Vassar and others existing at the various nexuses of privilege. Plus, these are problems larger than the individuals sorority-squatting around their token Black performer. That all being said, personal digs like “C-List Celebrity Parents,” “Acting Fake” and “Secretly Hating All ur Friends” detract from productive criticism of the social elite on campus.

There’s an angle here which argues something like this: Vassar Memes shouldn’t have publicized content like its Sept. 14 post, because it was personally derisive and linked particular students to serious phenomena plaguing society.

Moreover, nobody benefits from weak insults about “Badly Bleached Hair”—on this campus, we support your right to have a

midlife crisis once a semester, poor fashion choices be damned. Moreover, there’s a case to make for refraining from criticizing personal decisions which cannot so easily be reversed. As much as I’m sure your everyday student’s mediocre stick-and-poke was posted on Instagram for clout, there’s nothing to accomplish by haphazardly throwing that into a meme alongside other more serious allegations.

Honestly, that’s not even the reason we should be taking issue with Vassar Memes’ blunder. If you’re upset you’ve been called out for benefitting from nepotism and performative activism, good! That’s an obnoxious series of actions which warrants a corresponding public critique.

However, the problem here is that this sort of content does not scale with the size of our student population. There’s a reason that meme pages and similar social media outlets are well-received at large universities. It’s easy to facilitate the production of relevant content—pertaining to a sufficient number of people on campus—without having to resort to personal targeting.

While Vassar differs from, say, Alabama, when it comes to social norms, there’s a reason an anonymous memester in Tuscaloosa can manage a page with over 72,100 followers (seriously). Then there are the numerous pages like Barstool, which have unique accounts for colleges and universities across the country. For better or for worse, these pages post content about many of the same topics Vassar Memes tries to address: commentary on daily living, criticisms of archetype groups and goofy criticism of institutions and systems on their respective campuses.

The problem is that Vassar does not have a populace sufficient to maintain this sort of social media presence. That is, on a campus around the size of Harvard, for example, it would be feasible to post a photo of students posing around a visitor decorated with personal criticisms. This is

because on a campus of almost 23,000 students, each meme would be representative of a much larger group, instead of merely constituting most of that group itself.

The moral impetus to run such a page anonymously is also different. I’ve said it before about the Disorientation Guides, and I’ll say it again about Vassar Memes: It is impossible to produce meaningful content while remaining anonymous (Miscellany News, “Vassar Disorientation Guide authors are cowards,” 09.15.2019). There are enough students with the courage and moral standing to make arguments without being too weak to actually reveal themselves. When you write anonymously, you divorce yourself from the consequences of your work. In this enclosed (albeit bourgeois) economy of ideas, there comes a point where we ought to be skeptical of any content produced from murky sources.

Admittedly, I still struggle with the morals of meme page anonymity. As a meme enthusiast myself, that question really keeps me up at night as I’m scrolling through memes, so I’ll table it for now. The issue at hand is that, at Vassar, we dwell in a small social circle in which calling people out by name and by photo carries serious ramifications. I still stand in resolute favor of exposing the beneficiaries of systemic injustices like nepotism and wealth inequality. I have no issue with a meme page taking on bigger topics that influence our daily lives.

However, the public and personal criticism of students based on their fashion choices or parents’ acting careers is nothing but ill-advised, rudimentary browbeating. The act approaches even nearer to the realm of cyberbullying when the subjects are in a photograph, directly next to the domineering labels likely applied to them.

Do your thing, clout-chasers. There are myriad ways we can criticize people, but one of Vassar Memes’ latest approaches isn’t one of them. Save those conversations for your Deece table gossiping.

The Miscellany News is not responsible for the views presented within its Opinions pages. The staff editorial is the only article which reflects the opinion of the Editorial Board.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

OPINIONS

September 26, 2019

Page 15

Considering nostalgia: Watches tell more than time D. Lockwood Smith Guest Columnist

I

Courtesy of Timex Mid Century Modern watches, like the 2017 Timex Martin redux, remind us of both the past and of an imagined future.

Please, Tell Us More!

Tim Koechlin

Tim Koechlin is the Director of Vassar’s International Studies Program, a participant in Vassar’s Urban Studies and Latin American and Latinx Studies (LALS) Programs, and a devout and enthusiastic multidisciplinarian. The opinions expressed here—foot by foot—are his own.

The Todd Snyder Welton Bi-Metal’s sleek, retro design embodies grandfatherliness and sex appeal rolled into one package. something to dive into head-first. As we complicate our understanding of “progress,” however, we find ourselves nostalgic for a time when our consideration of past and present was much more straightforward.

This is all to say: The Timex Marlin remake is as gorgeous as, and even perhaps more gorgeous than, the original watch was some 50 years ago. Mechanical timepieces like the Marlin remind us of a time when we were sure about our future, when we saw ourselves as moving only on an upward trajectory, and when progress promised that the next best thing was always around the corner.

Such artifacts of nostalgia are reassuring, even for people who weren’t alive when the originals came out. It’s partially because our cultural sense of what is “modern” hasn’t changed. But it’s also because the futuristic promise of the “modern” still hangs over us like a specter.

Vintage-inspired watches, too, remind us of what our predecessors had hoped for us. The Mid-Century Modern aesthetic was about progress. It was about positive change. It presumed that we were going somewhere. Perhaps our cultural dyssynchrony, our nostalgia for the Mid-Century Modern, stems from our collective unease at having not yet arrived.

In pondering these and other backward-looking cultural phenomena, thoughtful and curious readers are likely to come across the writings of Mark Fisher and Brian Dillon, both to whom this piece is very much indebted.

Professors: What is a topic, idea, theory or breakthrough related to your field of study that you find absolutely fascinating or feel very passionate about? Explain why.

We engage history, mathematics and art bell hooks, Kuhn, and Things Fall Apart.

Got a canon? Just name it.

In class, we’ll reframe it, With our head, with our hand, with our heart.

We study order, contradiction, precarity, Climate change, economic disparity.

We expect consternation, And rich conversation, That’s how we do multidisciplinarity.

Courtesy of Tim Koechlin

International Studies Dept.

tury aesthetic not only continues to trot along rather merrily, but finds itself curled up, warm and dozing comfortably in our zeitgeist as a driving principle of design.

Accessories and television aside, Mid-Century design principles dominate in the arena of architecture and interior design—so much so that in 2016, Fast Company called Mid-Century Modern the “Pumpkin Spice Latte of Design” (Fast Company, “How Midcentury Modern Became The Pumpkin Spice Latte Of Interior Design,” 10.04.2016). When considered in aggregate, it becomes clear that all of this nostalgia in design, media and fashion is an expression of some deeper phenomenon in our popular culture. Often one feels that we’re looking toward the past more than we are the future. Futurism was everywhere in the mid-20th century. In the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s, we were excited about the modern because it was futuristic. What happened?

In a nutshell, Mid-Century Modernity in the West is rooted in a sincere and hopeful futurism, a belief that new is better and a commitment to both technological innovation and the sleek, shiny and minimalist design it facilitates. It’s nostalgia for this very attitude that keeps the Mid-Century Modern around on our wrists, on our TVs and in our homes. This nostalgia manifests as a longing for such an uncomplicated enthusiasm for the future; we think that it is perhaps accessible through its most obvious and tactile artifacts. Our nostalgia for the Mid-Century Modern thus reveals the very void it seems to fill.

The reality is that these watches still tug at our ingrained cultural ideas about “the future,” despite being half a century old.

We still imagine them as sleek and futuristic, and moreover, they still satisfy our collective expectations of what it means to be “futuristic.”

We’re attracted to them because they signal a time when the future seemed just around the riverbend, a time when it beckoned, close and exciting. Well, we’re here, yet we’re there too: We seem to be stuck between the mid-century’s expectations of the future and our own experience of its reality.

What we lack now is a consistent ideation of the future. The future now seems uninterpretable. Or, at least, we haven’t invented a new cultural lens with which to interpret it. The “modern” future of the mid-20th century offered a fascicle interpretation of time’s progression—modernity was seen as something to aspire to,

Courtesy of Timex

n the age of accessories like the Apple Watch, CGI-fueled movie franchises à la Marvel, and technological realities such as ubiquitous streaming or 4K TVs, it’s rather bizarre that our cultural obsessions are so often backward-looking. More interesting is that our fondness for Mid-Century design has well surpassed the familiar 30year rule that we associate with nostalgia.

Moreover, these nostalgic phenomena seem to realize themselves as cultural fixations; that is to say that these aren’t cases of personal nostalgia, but rather constitute an ideal which permeates our cultural milieu. The persistence of the Mid-Century Modern indicates that, as a cultural ideal, the aesthetics and philosophy of Mid-Century Modern prove continually useful and potent. In other words, we haven’t found anything with which to satisfactorily replace the Mid-Century Modern as a conceptual and aesthetic archetype.

Old news, perhaps, to watch aficionados and likely no news at all to most: The Mid-Century Modern trend has firmly planted its flag among the diverse field of contemporary wristwatch designs. Among oversized and over-complicated chronographs, divers and pilot’s watches, the subtle appeal of understatement continues to possess the hearts and minds of watch collectors and fashion-conscious consumers alike. In February of this year, New Yorkbased men’s fashion boutique Todd Snyder announced their “Mid-Century” collaboration with iconic American watchmaker

Timex. Mounted on Red Wing leather from Minnesota, the Mid-Century is stunning, and for fans of the style, it’s fortunately only one of several recent vintage-minded offerings from Synder and Timex.

First and most notable of such nostalgic timepieces is the Timex Marlin reissue.

Modeled after classic Timex watches from the 1960s, the reissue Marlin is as faithful a reproduction as one could want. The 2017 redux maintains the same size as the original: just 34mm in diameter, absolutely tiny by today’s market standards. It also has the same face design as the original Marlin, which Gear Patrol estimates is “hip/funky enough to have a certain timelessness” and is “a svelte and highly wearable watch,” (Gear Patrol, “The New Marlin Mesh is the Most Versatile Timex Marlin Yet,” 10.01.2018).

This author agrees. So, seemingly, does the watch-buying public. The hand-wound mechanical Marlin reissue went out of stock not long after release, and was followed by several other throwbacks which were met with similar levels of enthusiasm.

The second such nostalgia piece from Timex and Snyder is the Welton Bi-Metal. The Welton is sexy in its grandfatherliness. It offers in its retro-shiny, smiling brushed metal face the silent promise of lost wisdom. Part of the allure is that it’s foreign, yet familiar.

The Welton takes its design from what was originally the Timex “Mercury,” keeping the ’50s exterior and swapping out the insides for something more modern and efficient—a battery-powered quartz movement in place of an outdated mechanical one. Yet Timex once again kept the 34mm diameter, prompting Maxim to call the vintage-inspired watches “the definition of cool, classy, and understated” (Maxim, “Todd Snyder & Timex Reissue Classic Mid-Century Watch Just in Time For Father’s Day,” 05.28.2019).

Of course, no media-conscious writer can address the Mid-Century Modern phenomenon without nodding vigorously in the direction of AMC’s “Mad Men.” For those unfamiliar, “Mad Men” is half corporate/domestic period drama and half meticulously manufactured Mid-Century design porn. Indeed, most critics and commentators point to a rising interest in Mid-Century design during the show’s airing. But let’s be clear: “Mad Men” has been off the air for over four years.

Though its most potent materialization finds itself dead and buried, the Mid-Cen-

This segment is designed to be a space in which professors are invited to talk about any topic related to their work that they find fascinating. If you are interested in contributing, please write a 300 or more word response to the question shown above and email your piece to Jonas Trostle jtrostle@vassar.edu along with a picture of yourself or something relevant to your topic (examples include research projects, independent work or labs).

The Miscellany News is not responsible for the views presented within its Opinions pages. The staff editorial is the only article which reflects the opinion of the Editorial Board.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

HUMOR & SATIRE

Page 16

September 26, 2019

Breaking News

From the desk of Francisco Andrade, Assistant Humor & Satire Editor

Misc doesn’t mess up the crossword this week: Students worry they may have to find real issue to complain about

Vassar Bitch Chronicles Emily Lesorogol ’22

Momus, Goddess of Satire, counsels strung-out students

By Ivanna Guerra (Speaker for the Goddess)

D

ear Mom, I am a senior this year.I expected to know a good chunk of campus by now, but I feel like I am surrounded by strangers. What should I do to feel less overwhelmed?

Sincerely, Stranger Danger

Dear Mom, I am a Jewett resident, living in a single, and I am having spacing issues. I went overboard with the sale at Bed Bath & Beyond, and nothing fits. What should I do?

Sincerely, Jewett Sardine Dear Sardine, Ugh, I have totally been there with

a good old-fashioned sale! I mean, you can technically sell your stuff on Free & For Sale, but believe it or not, you have a lot more room in Jewett than you think.

Just take over the common room.

Duh! In fact, take over the hallway and get yourself some nice room separators during October break. You can create a makeshift kitchen. This way, you can balance your Bed Bath & Beyond budget by charging the people on your floor rent for using your space. I mean, they might not be happy with the new “rent” charge, but if you buy a nice espresso machine, they might learn to love it.

And while you are reclaiming your living space, get yourself one of those vintage robes with the feather lining so you can casually lounge in the renovated Jewett! It will be great and I expect to be tagged on Pinterest.

Good Luck, Mom

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

Courtesy of Wikipedia

Hi, Stranger, I think you have found a glitch in the system. Maybe you don’t recognize anyone because you don’t actually know anyone. Maybe the alien in charge of turning on the filler people clicked the wrong button, and you are suddenly surrounded entirely by people you don’t know! If you ask me, that seems like a legit possibility.

I mean, just the other day, I thought I had discovered a similar glitch when I walked into my 9 a.m. class. You know, I always say that I will never forget a face, but these people looked very unfamiliar. It all made sense to me when

the professor walked in and began talking about something called a derivative. Turns out, I was in the wrong class. Whoops! I panicked and yelled “Oh this isn’t where I parked my car!” and rushed out.

I did make friends with some of the hologram students. Maybe you can make friends with your new hologram comrades before the alien figures out their error. I hope they don’t get fired!

Yours, Mom

Above is an artist’s rendition of what Momus looks like. However, we can’t be sure, as it’s impossible to gaze at her Godly form.

HUMOR & SATIRE

September 26, 2019

Page 17

Go home, summer: Fall is the best season, says biased editor Francisco Andrade Pumpkin Spiced Writer

F

Courtesy ofPixaby.com

all is upon us, dear reader, and thankfully it’s been easy to tell this year, since this wonderful gift of a season offers the only pockets of cool weather we’ve experienced over the blistering past four months. I’ll be blunt: I. LOVE. FALL. It’s my favorite season because I grew up in Brazil, where our seasons are summer, rain summer, more rain summer and summer lite. So I never really experienced the true joys of changing leaves and chilly weather until my adult life, and by then I was too old to get lost in corn mazes and go on hay rides…Granted I did it anyway, but that’s my business.

I bet some of y’all are non-believers (heathens!) and thinking to yourselves, “Well fall is fine, but summer is better!”

To that I kindly say, “I hope you’re not this wrong during your midterms.” Sure, summer claims to be the best, with beaches, sunshine and outdoor concerts, but if you’re anything like me and never want the temperature to exceed 65 degrees, then those three “fun” activities sound like a living nightmare.

Oh, and if you’re one of those people who tries to argue that winter is better because it has Christmas, allow me to counter-argue that fall doesn’t end until December 21. Winter just rides the coattails of the glorious holiday extravaganza that fall set up for it. You’re welcome winter, have a holy night.

I know I may seem a bit, um, manic when it comes to fall, but that’s only because it deserves all the praise, and in this TedTalk I’m gonna break down why.

This award goes to fall, for being the best season of all time. Not winter, nor summer, nor spring can compete with the autumnal splendor currently surrounding us all.

We start off the season with Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, two Jewish holidays that center on atonement and forgiveness.

What an amazing and wholesome start to what is about to be a thrill ride of a fall!

Next, we get Columbus Day…okay fine, even fall has its shortcomings.

But hey, after that we have HALLOWEEN. Who doesn’t love Halloween! You get to go out with friends in costumes, eat free candy and watch the best selection of animated movies life has to offer! Don’t even try to argue with me on this; Halloween = THE BEST MOVIES. Don’t agree?

Here are some examples: The “Halloweentown” series, “Coraline,” “Beetlejuice,” “Hocus Pocus” and even “The Nightmare Before Christmas” (which we kindly let Christmas borrow for a few weeks a year).

Honestly, if you are one of the 14 people in this world who doesn’t like Halloween, al-

low me to learn you something today: This is the perfect time to rock the goth outfit that’s been sitting in the back of your closet since tenth grade. Halloween? More like Hallo-Win! Amirite? Okay fine...I’ll show myself out.

Do you only celebrate Halloween because it gives you a reason to go hang out in a graveyard? Well, I have great news for you, my little vampires (side note: “Little Vampire” is another amazing Halloween movie). Día de Muertos is the very next day! On this Mexican holiday, celebrators bake delicious foods and share a meal with their dead loved ones as an offering to them. Granted, Día de Muertos is a spiritual holiday unlike Halloween, but it’s always nice to eat great food and reminisce.

At this point, you’re thinking, “Woah, Franny. You can’t follow Halloween. Fall plateaus after October.” Well, allow me

HOROSCOPES

to present my rebuttal. THANKSGIVING FAM. (Just forget about genocide and white supremacy for the next few paragraphs.)

Could there be a more fun (filling) time?

It’s a day dedicated to spending time with your entire family and eating so much food that the only thing you are truly thankful for is that the bathroom is empty. Apparently Grandma just walked in, so this may take awhile. In the meantime, you can watch football (if that’s your thing), scour the streets for your favorite float in the Macy’s Parade or turn off the TV and see the true spectacle that is your entire dysfunctional (and very inebriated) extended family argue over how your nose piercing gonna send you straight to hell.

I know that Thanksgiving gets a bad rep because it is basically political-discussion night with all of your conservative uncles, and that’s a fair take on it. However, you have a solution right in front of you. Simply invite that argumentative uncle to go Black Friday shopping with you. When he gets in the middle of the ravenous shopping crowd, shout that he is about to buy the last iPhone in the store, and watch the mob devour him like piranhas.

After all these amazing holidays, the season of fall then gracefully sets the pace for winter to bring this baby home. If somehow you still think, “Well gee, Franny, fall is great, but I don’t know, I still prefer other seasons,” whatever, that’s fine. I respect your opinion and will accept your (entirely misguided) choice. Oh, and I’ve called Crafted Kup to let them know you are not allowed to buy any PSLs because you’re a goblin who hates fun. No hard feelings though.

Ivanna Guerra

amateur astrologist

ARIES

March 21 | April 19

TAURUS

April 20 | May 20

GEMINI

May 21 | June 20

CANCER

June 21 | July 22

LEO

July 23 | August 22

VIRGO

August 23 | September 22

Ok, so you blew all your Arlington Bucks already. That’s fine; you promised to babysit during fall break, so you will have some money afterward. For now, you can just take some of your friends’ bubble tea when they’re not looking. Be careful not to choke on tapioca pearls!

You’ve been in school for three weeks. How have you not done laundry yet?! You need to stop pretending that your towels don’t smell weird. Your neighbors are starting to suspect that you run a cottage cheese factory.

LIBRA

September 23 | October 22

SCORPIO

October 23 | November 21

Gemini, you have to fake it until you make it. I’m sure people will never suspect that you are actually three ducks stacked on top of each other in a trench coat and fedora. Just make sure to comb the mustache.

SAGITTARIUS

I understand it sucks when people cancel dinner plans, but there’s no need for you to burst out singing “Memory” in the Deece.

Everyone thought you were promoting the new movie with the terrifying CGI. I still have nightmares.

CAPRICORN

You have to show that you are dedicated to your craft, Leo. So maybe people don’t think you can make it as a soap opera actor.

Maybe you just need to practice your hair flips and intense stares.

You really have been counting your lucky stars for a good grade on that assignment. I hate to break it to you, Virgo, but you have to start your paper before you get a grade on it, and it’s due tomorrow, so step on it! (Not literally. It’s a figure of speech!)

November 22 | December 21

December 22 | January 19

AQUARIUS

January 20 | February 18

PISCES

February 19 | March 20

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

Pay more attention to your surroundings, Libra! If you would just look up from your phone more often when you’re locomoting, you wouldn’t have crashed into the lamppost, and would’ve avoided that bruise on your forehead. Use some concealer, honey.

I know you are not a morning bird, but you’re not going to catch any creepy crawlers, much less any worms, if you keep snoozing your alarm. Maybe five minutes are acceptable, but 30?! At least give yourself some time to brush your teeth!

Excercise caution around the campus washing machines. They may take your socks. So, I’m starting my own series called “The Bachelor: Socks Edition.” I figured that with so many single socks in my drawer, one of them is bound to find a match.

Maybe it’s time to get your flu shot before you get paranoid and WebMD search your symptoms. It’s not likely that you have a cat scratch fever if the last time you touched a cat was at your grandma’s over five years ago.

Don’t believe what you hear this week, Aquarius, especially from your roommate who flew to Nevada to storm Area 51. He probably did not see an alien, and if he did, they probably do not look like E.T. If you are just not feeling your best this week, I recommend you listen to Queen’s “I Want to Break Free.” It’s such a great song, and you can annoy everyone around you by singing the guitar parts. It’s so good!

SPORTS

Page 18

September 26, 2019

Field hockey looks to defend their goal—and their title Alessandra Fable and Jackie Molloy Guest Reporters

I

Courtesy of Carlisle Stockton

t seems like Vassar College’s field hockey defensive unit has an answer for everything nowadays. Whether they are blocking shots on the goal line as second nature like they did Saturday in their shutout against Ramapo College or laying out their team goals for the season without hesitation, senior captain and midfielder Cristina Lopez and company are more than ready to respond to whatever comes their way.

The team, as a whole, is coming off a highly successful year, in which they won their first-ever Liberty League Championship and advanced to the NCAA tournament—but likely not without a sense of bittersweetness. They lost a heartbreaking shutout in the second round of the NCAAs, ending the four-year run of a wonder class led by All-American defender Monica Feeley ’19. When asked about the impact of losing such a great graduating class, sophomore defender Carina D’Souza swiftly answered: “Yeah, I think that we lost great players, but we lost big voices on our team too. So, it was a big opportunity for a lot of different people to step up.” Lopez promptly added that the team didn’t stress over the loss of the previous senior class.

Instead, she explained: “I think we’ve focused a lot more on the strengths that we have this year and playing as a team rather than looking at the individual players that we lost and the spots we needed to fill. It has been very fluid.”

As the famous phrase goes, defense wins games. Championship-level defensive squads thrive on their coordination, swagger and bonds—verbal and unspoken— that assure teammates will be there to step up when one individual falters. In other words, it’s a unit, and when you take away one piece of that unit, the system is bound to struggle. The Brewers have seemed to elude this fateful lapse in quality, instead proving themselves to be at the same standard with a new generation.

This is evident as, despite their losses,

the Brewers have still managed to set new precedents, with their best start in program history. Coming hot out of the gates with a 7-0 start, including four shutouts already this season, the Brewers are establishing once again that they are a defensive force to be reckoned with across the country. Even though they have displayed prowess early, junior defender Ally Aquilina-Piscitello insists that the unit prides itself on consistency and patience. “We never want to be amazing and horrible, we need to be consistent every single game, especially on defensive corners because that can be a goal every time against us,” said Aquilina-Piscitello. If the Brewers can live up to this mindset heading into every game, wins are destined to add up. Yet, countless teams do not achieve this demanding goal and find themselves having moments of greatness quickly undermined by costly mistakes. The Brewers can proudly say they do not have this problem. They stand true to Aquilina-Piscitello’s words and remain an unshakeable force that they hope will only gain strength with the remaining games to come.

Up next for the Brewers is their last out-of-conference game on Wednesday, Sept. 25 against Hartwick College before their Liberty League at-home opener versus Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute on Saturday. Ranked No. 6 in the country, the Brewers are likely to face other highly proven opponents outside of the Liberty League in the postseason, maybe even earning a chance to partake in revenge against No. 1 Middlebury, who knocked them out of the second round of the NCAA tournament last year. Still, when asked what game they are most looking forward to this season, all the players answered undoubtedly, “Rochester.” Revenge might be sweet, but beating your Liberty League rival is way sweeter. “Rochester is always a good game. We know we are always evenly matched with them, and it kinda honestly doesn’t even, at this point, depend on who’s playing,” Lopez explained. “I think our rivalry has been built up so much the

Sophomore defender Carina D’Souza is one piece of a Vassar defensive unit that hopes to build on last year’s historic successes. She, along with her teammates, believes that despite the graduation of some key players, the team has a chance to reach even greater heights. last few years that no matter who’s on the field it is always going to be a good game; it is going to be super competitive. We were fortunate enough to beat them twice last year, so we know that they are definitely going to be hungry this year [especially because] it’s away this year.”

Although their dominant defense is their backbone, the team wouldn’t be where they are just with the defense alone. Their Liberty League-leading offense adds a sense of finesse to their game that—combined with their defense—could propel them into Liberty League history. Junior midfielder Grace Amell leads the team with 10 points and is tied for the team lead in goals at four with senior forward Stephanie Palma, but there has been contribution across

the board, with one player from each class year scoring at least once so far.

While, their defensive unit is taking every practice and game day-by-day, the Brewers have big plans. Every team’s initial aspiration is to win the Liberty League, but this team already has plans to go farther. “We want to go really far in NCAAs this year after we win [the Liberty League].

I think last year we [were] really excited to win the league, and that was our first big goal, but this year we know we can do a lot better,” explained senior goalkeeper Liz Rotolo. While most Vassar teams would be elated with even an NCAA bid, when you ask this one what their ultimate goal for the season is, the answer is prompt and simple: “Final Four.”

Courtesy of Juliette Pope Last year, the Vassar field hockey team won their first ever Liberty League Championship, thanks in part to an incredible defense headlined by All-American Monica Feely ’19. Despite the graduation of Feely and other important contributors, the Brewers are off to a great start this season, posting numbers nearly identical to last year, across their first seven games. In these seven games, Vassar is undefeated, a streak they will try to maintain in their upcoming match at Hartwick College, on Sept. 25.

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SPORTS

September 26, 2019

Why

we

I

Ethan Pierce, Ultimate

play

High school seniors have driver’s licenses.

This meant that practices and games became weekly unsupervised gallivants filled with a semi-healthy mix of frisbee and debauchery until there wasn’t enough light to continue.

During my time as team captain senior year, practices often involved more ice cream than exercise. Freeport Ultimate (FU) became a space in high school that I still heavily associate with claiming independence and an endearing depravity that tint my memories so fondly.

After immediately getting involved with frisbee my first year at Vassar, the team, or the Khalj as we prefer, became a very important space for me during my adjustment to college. To keep myself honest: Frisbee that year was fairly disorganized and specifically my beloved B-team (RIP) was a total wreck.

After a semester of B-team being sidelined, and with frustrations running high, we lost many of the first-years. I was lucky that my limited prior experience allowed me to get to know some of the older members of the team, who became some of the people I call my best friends today (see pic). After that, frisbee became a regular and expected part

Courtesy Anna Kristofick Pierce poses with former Vassar ultimate players Michael Eacobacci ’19, Ellis Igneri ’19 and Ilan Berkman ’19 at “Frisbee Prom.” For Pierce, events like this one that focus on team bonding and relationships are just as important as any competition.

Courtesy Anna Kristofick

should begin by acknowledging that it is odd that I am writing for a column focused on athletes. As I hope to convey, while still a sport, frisbee, to me, has been decidedly less athletic than expected. I should also disclaim that I speak solely for my relationship with frisbee, and certainly don’t want to act as if I speak for Vassar’s frisbee teams—although much of my experience with and love for the sport comes from there. So let me try and explain what brought me to play on a team President Bradley once mistakenly labeled as “non-athletes.”

As soon as I escaped the dumpster fire colloquially known by the better-educated as “middle school,” I joined my high school’s team—inspired by my father and my own spectacular failure in the realms of baseball and basketball. There are a few points worth briefly covering regarding high school frisbee (which yes, I know you are dying to read about), most of which stem from the fact that we were not a school or town-affiliated team. As a wee little freshman, beardless and unaware of roughly most things, this was an enormous step towards freedom.

Consider for a moment this startling fact:

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Senior captain of the ultimate frisbee open team Ethan Pierce stands with his high school squad, Freeport Ultimate (FU). Stemming from his early days playing with FU, Pierce has grown a love for ultimate and its culture that extends well beyond the field. of the first three years of my college experience. Be it game days where we slept on dorm floors, or hosting our annual Huck for Red October Tournament (Oct. 5-6 this year, come support!) or just an average team Deece after practice, many of my fondest college memories are centered around the team and our ludicrous traditions, eclectic characters and the beautiful relationships that blossomed during my tenure there.

It is, however, far past time that I check both my honesty and my privilege. While frisbee has been an overall welcoming and loving place for me and many others, that is not everyone’s experience. Being a white man affects my experience there. Frisbee is one of the whitest organizations on campus.

Even nationally, frisbee has a vastly white reputation. I won’t attempt to speak for others or their experiences on the team, but even I have felt inklings of the drawbacks of homogeneity and feel conflicted about so heavily promoting a space that may not be able to support any/every Vassar student.

Even as someone born with many privileges, I have had my own struggles with the organization and some of its constituents.

For me and many others playing time has been an issue and social dynamics within the team are complex. All of this is to say: Frisbee here is an organization with our fair

share of chaos and flaws.

To step back and reflect more broadly about my relationship with frisbee, a couple things come up as notable. My relationship is (again) not something I would define as athletic. It is in many ways the differences between frisbee and many more conventional team sports that drew me in. No coaches or referees, cheap to play, not institutionally affiliated and far less competitive than most varsity sports; the appeals of frisbee are too numerous and subjective to truly cover here.

Ask another player and they might tell you that frisbee is important to them because it helps them stay in shape, that it pushes them as an athlete and they love the fierce competition. Within most frisbee settings (teams, leagues, pick up games, etc.) there is even a slight tension between players focused on gameplay/competition and those more oriented towards communal or interpersonal elements. If asked to recall some of the best athletes I know, many frisbee players come to mind—but when asked to recall some of the best frisbee players/people I know, they certainly aren’t all great athletes. For me, it is that culture of relaxed athleticism, nonchalant intensity and unrestrained enjoyment that make frisbee so addicting. So why do I play? Because for me, frisbee is exactly that—playing.

Rocket League (flying car soccer) is pinnacle of esports Teddy Chmyz Sports Editor

L

ast week, I first proved that ultimate frisbee was a sport, then moved on to argue that it was also the ultimate (heh heh) sport, superior to all others. This week, I plan to take a similar path with regards to the popular car-soccer video game Rocket League, with one key exception: I’m not going to bother arguing that Rocket League (and esports in general) counts as a real sport.

For one, last week I used the Google definition of “sport” to prove my point, and said definition includes the words “physical exertion.” As much as I want to argue that twitching your thumbs over joysticks is physical exertion, I worry it would be stretching your credulity just a bit too much. For another, my goal of arguing that Rocket League is the perfect esport does not actually depend on whether you think esports are sports (they are), as it is just a relative comparison to all other esports.

As it would perhaps be naive of me to assume you have even heard of Rocket League, let alone ever played or watched it, I will explain what it is: Rocket League is car soccer. That’s it. And that’s the first, and one of the most important reasons Rocket League makes for a perfect esport: acces-

sibility. Most other popular esports, like League of Legends and Overwatch, are incomprehensible to a first-time viewer, with countless colorful indicators and details to keep track of.

Rocket League, on on the other hand, has a unique simplicity and recognizability (again, it literally is just soccer with cars) that makes it instantly understandable.

There’s one ball, three players for team (at least in most professional play) and a goal on each end of the field. Anyone who has ever watched soccer (or hockey, or handball, or lacrosse for that matter), which is probably everyone with the internet access required to watch a Rocket League match, can understand what’s going on.

This is not to say that Rocket League lacks the depth of other esports. On the contrary, Rocket League’s skill ceiling seems infinite: Every week a professional player finds a new way to bend the game’s physics to their will, adding a new move to their ever-growing arsenal. And unlike other popular games where randomness can often make the skill of the player irrelevant to a game’s outcome (looking at you Hearthstone), in Rocket League, skill gaps are very evident and almost always determine the results.

While new players often struggle to even hit the ball, pros quite literally fly their

cars through the air, using the game’s one limited resource, boost, to turn the theoretically ground-based game into an aerial dance of flips and dunks. The game played at the Rocket League Championship Series (RLCS, the game’s equivalent of a Super Bowl), hardly resembles the game played by my dad, who is an avid player despite lacking much of the coordinated car control that the game usually involves. This is not to disparage his efforts—while I could easily dispatch a team of three of my father, three of my barely diamond-ranked self would likely lose handily to a grand-champion level player, who in turn would stand no chance against a Rocket League pro. The unlimited potential for innovation and growth at the highest level, while still remaining an entertaining and exciting game at the “50-yearold father of three” level, is another of Rocket League’s key strengths as an esport.

But the most important part of Rocket League, like any esport, is the gameplay.

Unlike other esports that often stretch indeterminate lengths of time, often failing to maintain intensity throughout the whole contest, Rocket League matches are five minutes of wall-to-wall action (occasionally followed by sudden-death overtime, which makes for a ridiculously tense atmosphere as every touch could be the last). At the

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highest level of play, a single slip-up usually results in a goal, so every input has to be calculated and technically perfect.

Even still, as the saying goes, great offense beats great defense, and the greatest moments come when a player or team pulls out a brilliant move that ends with one of Rocket League’s trademark colorful goal explosions. Whether it’s a solo run of slick fakes and jukes, a team passing play that ends in a wide-open finish or a double flip-reset ceiling shot with a demo on the goalie (I know you don’t know what that means but trust me, it’s awesome), Rocket League goals are the most impressive and thrilling moments I’ve ever seen in an esport. Add on to this already intense action the added drama of Game 7 of the RLCS finals, with team rivalries, player legacies and tons of prize money at stake, and you have the recipe for a perfect esport.

So while you may not normally consider yourself the kind of person who watches esports (or esports the kind of thing people should watch), I encourage you to tune in to the next season of RLCS. If all the words I’ve said so far haven’t quite convinced you, just hear this: It’s soccer with flying cars, where you can explode your opponents by running into them at full speed, being played for a million-dollar prize pool. What’s not to like?

SPORTS

Page 20

September 26, 2019

Brewers tame raptors, slaughter knights, catch roadrunners Jonah Frere-Holmes Reporter

F

amilies Weekend always features a spirited two days of competition, as every fall sport is in action, showing out for adoring parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings and unwanted cousins. 2019 was no exception, though the clans of Vassar were joined by creatures of every stripe, from across the Division III landscape. Facing human and divine opponents like knights and saints, as well as numerous foes from the animal kingdom, the Vassar Brewers had an excellent showing across the athletic fields and courts.

Vassar women’s volleyball split their two matches on the weekend, losing to the Golden Flyers of Nazareth College 1-3 before taking down the Medaille Mavericks in four sets. There is no such bird as the golden flyer, but there is an American golden eagle. Described by desertusa.com as “masters of soaring,” the golden eagle is found in the west of North America, primarily in Alaska and Canada. Nazareth demonstrated their mastery of soaring, serving 14 aces to Vassar’s 4. The Mavericks (or unbranded calves) of Medaille were ill-suited for flights to the net, as Vassar racked up nearly 20 more kills in their takedown of their foes from Buffalo. Most mavericks remain unbranded because their owners want to use them as show cattle.

Somehow, the maverick has been transposed from cows to horses, as the logos of both the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks and Medaille College feature snarling horses.

To review: In terms of aerial ability, eagles are superior to Brewers, which are in turn leagues ahead of both cows and horses.

At Gordon Field, Vassar women’s soccer opened the day by defeating the Mount Saint Mary Knights 4-0. Historically,

knights carried out their duties on horseback, which raises an interesting hypothetical: Would a soccer team with 11 players on horseback outperform a team of 11 grounded humans? Obviously a dead sprint to the ball would favor the horse, but the question then becomes a) whether the horse is deft enough with its hooves to make the right play on the ball, and b) if the answer to a) is no, whether the player/rider can dismount quickly enough to make the play before the horseless human chases them down.

Also worth considering is how quickly that dismounted player could get back on the horse to keep moving. Horses do seem well-suited to play goalie, though, and it would be extremely difficult to maintain composure on the ball with a full-grown stallion charging at you. Sophomore forward Emma Tanner and junior midfielder Emily Longo both posted a goal and an assist in the Brewers’ win, bringing their record to 3-3-1.

On Weinberg Field, across the road from the slaughter of Knights, the nationally sixth-ranked Brewers field hockey team brought the Roadrunners of Ramapo College to a halt, leaning once again on their suffocating defense in a 4-0 win. The iconic Road Runner of Looney Tunes, also known as Beep Beep, debuted in 1949 in the episode “The Fast and the Furry-ous” (Beck & Friedwald, “Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies: A Complete Illustrated Guide to the Warner Bros. Cartoons,” 1989). The character is based on the greater roadrunner, also known as the chaparral bird or chaparral cock, which is found primarily in the southwestern United States and in Mexico.

While the Road Runner is human-sized in Looney Tunes, the real-life roadrunner is a tiny bird. It does, however, reach top speeds of nearly 20 miles per hour, using its

tail as a rudder to change direction (all bird info from PubMed). Ramapo was unable to change the course of the game after Vassar scored in the opening period, and the Roadrunners managed only two shots on goal in the second half. For Vassar, senior Rylie Pope recorded a goal and an assist, as Vassar improved to 7-0.

In Loudonville, NY, Vassar women’s rugby brought Siena College one step closer to canonization, demolishing the Saints 62-12.

The process of canonization was standardized by Pope John XV in the 900s; prior to his edict, sainthood was decided by what Encyclopaedia Britannica describes as “public cult.” The Brewers scored 10 tries, including three in a row from sophomore Emily Howell. The Brewers, as defending national champions, have picked up where they left off last season, winning their first two games by a combined score of 123-12.

The most recent saint to be canonized by Pope Francis was Bartholomew of Braga, who lived from 1514 to 1590, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia. Bartholomew was the archbishop of Braga, and contributed no fewer than 268 suggestions at the Council of Trent. Siena College had very few suggestions as to how to defeat the Brewers, facing a 38-7 halftime deficit that they were unable to cut into. The Brewers return to action this Saturday on the Farm against Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Opening Liberty League play against the Raptors of nearby rival Bard College, Vassar men’s soccer struck twice in the first half before dominating possession and preserving the clean sheet. When most people think of raptors, they think of the abbreviation for velociraptor, the turkey-sized prehistoric dinosaur that Toronto’s NBA championship-winning team is named for.

Raptors are also a classification of bird: Ac-

cording to the Bureau of Land Management, raptors are diurnal (meaning they hunt in the day) birds of prey. Idaho Public Television tells us that the word raptor is derived from the Latin word “rapere,” which means to seize or capture. Raptors, unlike other carnivorous birds, have hooked beaks with sharp edges, talons and keen eyesight. The soccer-playing Raptors displayed an occasional lack of keen eyesight, allowing junior midfielder Hawkins Barratt Heitmann to score the game’s opening goal on an uncontested header. Heitmann also posted an assist as the Brewers’ record improved to 4-3-1 on the season.

Continuing the dominance of Brewers over Raptors, men’s rugby eviscerated Bard 55-5. Vassar raced out to a 36-0 halftime lead and never looked back against the shorthanded Raptors, who arrived with fewer than ten players. Freshman Cole Landolt recorded three tries.

Men’s tennis did not drop a single one of their 15 sets against Bard. In fact, in six singles matches combined, the Brewers only dropped four games. Velociraptors are extinct. Bard’s tennis program may soon join them.

Vassar’s sports teams are called the Brewers in honor of the eponymous family’s business. The Vassar brewery opened in 1801 when Matthew’s uncle Thomas joined his family in Dutchess County, arriving from their native England with some barley in hand. After running away from home to avoid following in his father’s footsteps as a tanner, Matthew earned a modest income as a storekeeper’s assistant. He earned enough to feel secure in returning home, though the brewery burned down in 1811. In recognition of the Vassar brewery, the Vassar Brewers caught fire and stayed hot for all of Families Weekend 2019.

Over Families Weekend, between heartfelt reunions with various relations, members of Vassar fall sports teams took to their assorted fields, courts and farms to face off against a variety of foes. The teams were mostly successful, as women’s and men’s rugby, men’s tennis, women’s volleyball, men’s and women’s soccer and field hockey all notched victories.

All photos courtesy of Carlisle Stockton

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