The Miscellany News
Since 1866 | miscellanynews.org
Volume CLI | Issue 8
November 1, 2018
Davi hosts Halloween festival
Rally broadens sexual assault conversation Jessica Moss COPY EDITOR
Ariana Gravinese GUEST REPORTER
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Chair of Academics May Venkat ’20 kicks off the academics forum held on Sunday, Oct. 28. At the meeting, Professors Bjork, Chenette and Garrett answered students’ questions regarding the forthcoming curricular rebalance.
[CW: This article makes mention of sexual violence.] [Editor’s Note: Due to the highly personal nature of this event, The Miscellany News chose not to report on the specifics of what speakers shared during the rally. All quotes in this article are from interviews.] n Thursday, Oct. 25, Vassar students gathered in the College Center Circle for the third annual Take Back the Night rally. Women’s Center organizers intentionally scheduled the event at the beginning of Halloweekend due to the correlation between intoxication and increased rates of sexual assault. Take Back the Night is an inter-
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national organization committed to reducing relationship abuse and sexual assault worldwide. The on-campus rally is a yearly component of the organization’s programming brought to Vassar in 2016 by Darci Siegel ’20, who was a Women’s Center Intern at the time. This year, current Women’s Center Intern Cecilia Bobbitt ’19 organized the Take Back the Night event. This year’s rally followed a similar trajectory to those of years past. It began with tabling by the Sexual Assault and Violence Prevention Office (SAVP), CHOICE, Vassar Voices for Planned Parenthood, Health Education, VSA Health and Wellness, Big Night In, Project.Period and the TradiSee RALLY on page 3
VSA, admins present XC teams fall short in Rebalanced Curriculum League Championship Noah Purdy and Charlotte Varcoe-Wolfson CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
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s students anticipate adding a new crop of classes for the spring semester during pre-registration next week, the College is looking further ahead at bigger changes to the curriculum. In October of 2016, the faculty passed the so-called “2-2-1,” or “dash-1,” policy, aiming to address overload on the part of both faculty and students and to streamline the curriculum on the whole. Because departments cannot add
faculty tracks on their own to alleviate overload, the professors who proposed the plan instead addressed the issue in the context of the curriculum. The initial solution was to change professors’ course loads, with faculty teaching two courses each semester plus one additional course, the titular “dash-1,” instead of three during one semester and two the next. Since passing the policy, the faculty and administrators involved in designing the new cur-
Courtesy of Joe Clifford
See HALLOWEEN on page 11
Courtesy of Yijia Hu
alloweekend is a magical time not only for Vassar students, but also for children in the community. One of the events that connected the College to the larger Poughkeepsie area this season was Davison House’s Halloween Fest, which took place on Saturday, Oct. 27, at the Walker Field House. The Town of Poughkeepsie Parks and Recreation Department initiated the Halloween Fest 12 years ago, and former Davison House Fellow and Associate Professor of Education Colette Cann became involved a few years later. Cann, along with her House Fellow Intern team and the Good Neighbors Partnership (a committee that provides grants to Vassar students, staff and faculty who collaborate with the local community), made Halloween Fest a Davison House tradition. This year, Davison House’s new House Fellows, Maritza Del Razo and Assistant Professor of Education Jaime Del Razo, continued the ritual with support from local businesses and the Town of Poughkeepsie Parks and Recreation. Davison House Fellow Interns (HFIs) Brenna Douthitt ’20 and Kevin Fernandez ’20 took the lead in organizing the event, alongside their colleagues on house team Thuy Le ’21 and Lorice Rodney
See CURRICULUM on page 4
Event to highlight female scholar Abby Tarwater REPORTER
Courtesy of Tamar Thibodeau/ Vassar College
On Nov. 9, honoring Vassar’s history and the library’s iconic stainedglass window, the Frederick Ferris Thompson Memorial Library will feature a celebration of the first woman to earn a doctorate.
Inside this issue
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ARTS
Vassar College Poughkeepsie, NY
WoCo program reflects mission, lifts up female musicians
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erhaps the most memorable moment of any Vassar tour is when the guide brings visitors into the Thompson Memorial Library to see the stunning central stainedglass window depicting Lady Elena Cornaro Piscopia, the first woman to earn a doctorate in European history, defending her thesis to an enraptured audience of formerly skeptical male scholars. However, even students who pass by the window on a daily basis may be unaware of the story of the central figure depicted in this iconic emblem of Vassar’s campus. On Friday, Nov. 9, the Frederick Ferris Thompson Memorial Library will present a celSee CORNARO on page 7
Identical or fraternal, twin bond proves FEATURES eternal
Sophomore Peter Ferreter led the way for the men’s cross country team in the Liberty League Championships on Oct. 27., finishing 21st overall en route to a fifth-place result for Vassar. Daniel Bonfiglio GUEST REPORTER
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layoff time is here. This Saturday, Oct. 27, the Vassar men’s and women’s cross country teams competed in the Liberty League Championships in Potsdam, NY, both programs bidding for their first league titles. While neither program ultimately brought home the championship, the men’s and women’s teams finished fifth and third respectively, each boasting strong individual performances and impressive teamwork indicative of
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the groups’ positive team culture and unity. The men’s team had hoped for better than a fifth-place finish. Head Coach James McCowan said: “The men’s race went a bit flat for us, and we didn’t finish as high up as we would have liked. From what we could see it looked like everyone was engaged and racing tough, we just didn’t quite get out well enough in the first two miles to be in range to close down on our rivals.” Yet even in disappointment, See CROSS COUNTRY on page 18
Need some advice? These Deece-ent tips HUMOR will suffice
The Miscellany News
Page 2
November 1, 2018
Editor-in-Chief Talya Phelps
Senior Editor Leah Cates
Contributing Editors
Courtesy of Jaewon Kang
Jaewon Kang ’20 is studying in Stockholm, Sweden. Pictured here is the pier in Stockholm’s Gamla Stan, “Old Town,” overlooking the Baltic Sea. Kang writes: “I look at the clock. It reads 3:20 in the afternoon. My research block was supposed to end at 6:30, but I happened to finish early today. Realizing this, I quickly clean up my lab bench, run a probably-not-recommended, cursory check of my oocyte samples, and sprint outside to head home. Since it’s mid-afternoon, I’m expecting to walk outside, get hit by a swift Stockholm breeze and bask in what little sunlight is left in the year. Nope. Dead wrong. It’s pitch black. The reckoning is nigh. The Scandinavian winter has begun.” To read more about Kang’s adventures and those of fellow JYA-ers, visit farandaway.miscellanynews.org!
The Miscellany News 1
November
Thursday
Music on the Bridge Series 12:00 p.m. | Bridge Cafe | Music Dept.
Weekender_ 2
November
3
Friday
November
Rally to Get Out the Vote
5:00 p.m. | Bridge | Democracy Matters
Saturday
Vass Shakers Fall Show
7:00 p.m. | KH Dance Theater| Vass Shakers 9:00 p.m. | RH 200 | Happily Ever Laughter
QCVC Mug Night
Sunday November
Field Hockey vs. Liberty Leagues
Soccer (M) vs. Liberty League Championships
M/W Squash vs. Fordham, Bryant, Bard
Soccer (W) vs. Liberty League Games
10:00 a.m. | KH Squash Courts | Athletics
10:00 p.m. | Mug | QCVC
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M/W Squash vs.Fordham, Bryant, Bard
10:00 a.m. | Prentiss Turf Field | Athletics
HEL Show
Soccer (M) vs. Liberty League Championships
11:00 a.m. | Prentiss Competition Field | Athletics
Swimming (M/W) vs. Skidmore College
1:00 p.m. | Walker Swimming Pool | Athletics
Features Opinions Humor and Satire Arts Sports Design Outreach Copy
Assistant Features Assistant Design Assistant Social Media Assistant Online
Students of Sobriety Group
9:30 a.m. | RH 211 | AA Poughkeepsie
Noah Purdy Charlotte Varcoe-Wolfson Laila Volpe
10:00 a.m. | KH Squash Courts | Athletics
11:00 a.m. | Prentiss Competition Field | Athletics
3:00 p.m. | Prentiss Competition Field | Athletics
Faculty & Guest Recital: Frank Cassara, percussion, Helen Lin, piano
3:00 p.m. | SH Recital Hall | Music Dept.
Andrea Yang Steven Park Hannah Gaven Izzy Braham Myles Olmsted Rose Parker Kimberly Nguyen Teddy Chmyz Jessica Moss
Frankie Knuckles Lilly Tipton Patrick Tanella Chris Allen
Reporters Duncan Aronson Abby Tarwater Columnists Catherine Bither Jimmy Christon Jesser Horowitz Izzy Migani Emmett O’Malley Sylvan Perlmutter Blair Webber Copy Anna Blake Natalie Bober Samantha Cavagnolo Madeline Seibel Dean Amanda Herring Phoebe Jacoby Anastasia Koutavas Lucy Leonard Francesca Lucchetti Caitlin Patterson Gillian Redstone
Paper Critique
9:00 p.m. | Rose Parlor | The Miscellany News
Soccer (W) vs. Liberty League Games
3:00 p.m. | Prentiss Competition Field | Athletics
ASA Night Market
9:00 p.m. | CC North Atrium | Asian Student Alliance Courtesy of Vassar College
Hannah Gaven/The Miscellany News
This Friday, Vass Shakers will present their Fall Show, so be sure to reserve a ticket at vassardance.tix.com and come out to Kenyon Hall to watch these dancers shake their vasses!
Vassar College Women’s Chorus
8:00 p.m. | SH Recital Hall | Music Dept.
Harry Potter Trivia Night 9:00 p.m. | CC MPR | Big Night In
Indecent Exposure Standup Show 9:30 p.m. | SC 212-Spitzer Auditorium | Indecent Exposure
The soccer, squash, swimming and field hockey teams all have competitions this weekend. Don’t forget to show your support by cheering on the Brewer athletes!
MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE
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 weekly staff editorial is the only article which reflects the opinion of the Editorial Board.
NEWS
November 1, 2018
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Take Back the Night rally promotes healing, solidarity
hold the space to feel supported.” Wong elaborated on this point in an interview: “Art heals. I think we saw it yesterday ... [T]here’s something to be said for this type of rally, which seemed to be more a moment to show support and solidarity to those who were impacted by sexual assault and relationship abuse as opposed to letting people know what it is.” Bobbitt also spoke to the goal of depoliticizing the rally in the midst of an increasingly politicized view of and approach to assault: “[With increased media attention] we’re talking about [sexual violence] more, but...I don’t think it’s anything new. We’ve tried to depoliticize [Take Back the Night] by inviting administrators in to be in solidarity with survivors, but not to speak.” Vassar Counseling Service Staff Therapist Dr. Constança F. Vescio, who runs the “Phoenix Rising” support group for students who have experienced sexual violence, explained the impact of increased media attention on survivors in an email interview: “It can cause
discomfort to those survivors who feel they can’t come forward for a variety of reasons, leaving them more guilt and shame and feeling not worthy of a sympathetic ear if they don’t choose to be very public with their pain.” Because of this potential discomfort, excluding political events from the rally helped create a safer space for its attendees. Take Back the Night opened the campus to broader conversation about sexual assault and relationship abuse. Vescio emphasized the importance of discussion in facilitating healing: “Many times survivors feel very isolated after such an experience, which may create feelings of ‘differentness’ from others and perpetuates the perception that something is ‘wrong’ with them. [Group work provides] an environment for survivors to realize that they are not alone and gain support from others who have also been victimized.” Since many of the on-campus resources available to survivors and supporters tabled at Take Back the Night, Wong spoke about
how these different resources offer the opportunity to achieve justice in whatever capacity survivors want. She stated, “I think that justice is so determined by the survivor. Sometimes justice might be going through the Title IX office ... Sometimes it might look more like community healing. Sometimes it might be supporting survivors, and turning that wheel of reciprocity. So Title IX is one of those options, but there are so many others, and they can have just as much weight and impact.” Wong also elaborated on the importance of conversation in breaking the cycle of violence by creating rifts in social norming that perpetuate rape culture: “[SAVP does] a lot of programming with athletic teams enforcing anti-compliance and providing the tools to help bystanders intervene. We talk a lot about intervening even with more implicit types of violence. A [large] component of the prevention model is creating a lot of culture change...because ultimately, if we can break down the foundation, we can start to break down that rape culture pyramid.” The event concluded with Bobbitt’s remarks on the importance of continuing the conversation, followed by attendees walking to the front of Main behind a banner that read “Take Back the Night, Break the Silence, End the Violence,” carrying lighted candles. Wong reflected on the rally in an interview: “It was a platform for just knowing that there are other individuals in the space— and we don’t know that everyone there was a survivor—but we do know that everyone there was in solidarity. Healing could look like that rally.”
been identified as Gregory A. Bush opened fire at a Kroger grocery store in Louisville, KY, after attempting to attack a predominantly Black church, killing two Black men. U.S. attorney for the Western District of Kentucky Russell Coleman, stated, “Federal investigators are supporting local law enforcement and examining this matter from the perspective of federal criminal law,” meaning prosecutors may include hate crimes as part of the charges against Bush. The suspect was seen on video unable to enter the church, and he exchanged multiple rounds of gunfire with an armed civilian with a permit after exiting the grocery store and before being arrested (CNN, “Man who killed 2 at Kroger tried to enter a predominantly black church minutes earlier, police say,” 10.18.2018).
or of São Paulo and left-wing candidate’s Fernando Haddad’s 44.8 percent. Bolsonaro, a former army captain and rightwing candidate who ran a deeply divisive election campaign, spoke of eradicating corruption and restoring Brazil’s economy. Haddad’s loss, a shift away from the power the Worker’s Party held for 13 years, indicates a change in ideological perspectives following a period of nearly constant political and economic corruption scandals. Bolsonaro stated that his government would be a “defender of democracy and the constitution” and reinforced his commitment to the future of his nation. However, critics worry that Bolsonaro represents the rise of fascism in Brazil and seeks to undermine the individual freedoms promised by Brazil’s constitution (BBC, “Jair Bolsonaro: Far-right candidate wins Brazil poll,” 10.28.2018). Hundreds of migrants have been moving through southern Mexico from Central America, with one migrant dying after having fallen off a truck in October. After reaching Mexico, the migrants struggle to find a place to settle in the area of Oaxaca. Outgoing Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto recently announced a plan to offer these migrants work permits with the stipulation that they not leave the states of Chiapas and Oaxaca. Furthermore, the migrants have grown increasingly hesitant to move toward the Texan border, as officials following directions from the Trump administration continue to separate families. Frustrated over the lack of certainty and opportunity in their futures, hundreds gathered last Friday, Oct. 26, in Arriaga, Mexico, to protest Mexico’s blockade of the migrant caravan (The New Yorker, “The Migrant Caravan Reaches a Crossroads in Southern Mexico,” 10.27.2018).
In our backyard… On Tuesday, Oct. 30, the Dutchess County Interfaith Council and the Jewish Federation of Dutchess Country held an Interfaith Solidarity Vigil in memory of those killed in an anti-Semitic attack at a Pittsburgh synagogue over the weekend. More than 500 people attended the vigil, which took place at Poughkeepsie’s Temple Beth-El. Rabbi Daniel Victor delivered an address to those gathered together, saying, “When we sit with emotions that envelop us and conflicts that overwhelm us we know we can stand together as we do tonight” (Poughkeepsie Journal, “Hudson Valley residents come together in wake of synagogue tragedy,” 10.30.2018). Poughkeepsie was featured in Hudson Valley Magazine on Oct. 23 for its revitalization efforts, which include improvements in the areas of housing, business and culture. The article highlights highend housing developments slated to open this year or the next—such as 40 Cannon Street and the Dutton Project—as well as pointing to rehabilitation and repurposing of properties formerly used for commerce. Business developments are afoot as well: Marist College and Health Quest are collaborating to establish a medical school in Poughkeepsie by 2022, and mainstay restaurant The Poughkeepsie Ice House obtained a full liquor license in July of this year. Poughkeepsie Community Development Coordinator Paul Hesse and Economic Development Director for the City of Poughkeepsie Paul Calogerakis suggested that future initiatives may include a food hall, in addition to a hybrid coworking and apartment space in the city center (Hudson Valley, “Poughkeepsie Revitalization Efforts Put Community and Housing on the Rise,” 10.23.2018).
RALLY continued from page 1
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l Roun a c i d lit Ae n a K h a n ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY
Talya Phelps, Editor-in-Chief [CW: This column discusses anti-Semitic and anti-Black gun violence and death.] In this week’s headlines... Beginning on Oct. 22, a series of pipe bombs were sent to various prominent critics of the Trump administration. Police have and continue to intercept the pipe bombs. Targets included the Former President and First Lady Barack and Michelle Obama, CNN’s New York City headquarters, Former Vice President Joe Biden, Former President and Former Secretary of State and presidential nominee Bill and Hillary Clinton, investor and liberal political activist George Soros and Senators Kamala Harris (D-CA) and Cory Booker (D-NJ). The suspect, Cesar Sayoc, is an outspoken Trump supporter in Florida. Trump attempted to play defense by shutting down suggestions from commenters that his provocative and bellicose rhetoric inspired the attacks: “There’s no blame. There’s no anything.” Additionally, he complained about how the bomb threats would detract from Republican attempts to maintain political dominance at the federal level in the upcoming midterm elections (The New York Times, “After Arrest, Republicans Struggle With Mail Bombs Fallout,” 10.26.2018). On Wednesday, a white man who has
Courtesy of Cecilia Bobbitt
tions Committee, accompanied by empowering feminist pop music hits from Ariana Grande, P!nk and Adele. Bobbitt then began the event with opening remarks, reminding attendees that Sexual Assault Response Team advocates were present and that, in attending an advocacy-centered event on campus, Title IX representatives or any responsible employees in attendance were not required to report. Bobbitt’s opening words were followed by a speech by Director of SAVP Nicole Wong. In an interview, Bobbitt emphasized the importance of ensuring that students were aware that experiences shared at the event did not mandate reporting, saying, “We like to include that so people can feel comfortable sharing their stories. We don’t want anyone to be penalized...[or] force interactions with Title IX just because someone wants to attend this event.” Following the introduction, a student sang and played guitar and another gave a spoken word performance. Bobbitt then opened the floor to any attendees who wished to speak. Next, two students performed on guitar and vocals. A salient feature of the rally was its emphasis on artistic expression, characterizing the rally both as a healing ritual and an informational event. As Bobbitt said in an interview, “This event is holding the space for [discussions about assault or abuse], providing the resources that people may need to feel supported. That’s why we’re focusing more on music and art, instead of calls to action, because we’re inundated by calls of action at Vassar, but it’s also important to just
Take Back the Night attendees pose for a photo at Main Building. The rally, which took place on Oct. 25, underscored the healing power of artistic expression.
In international news... Three Palestinian boys were killed in an Israeli airstrike in the southern Gaza strip on Oct. 27, medics have confirmed. The Israeli army attempted to justify criticisms of the attacks, which claimed excessive severity, by stating that the boys were attempting to plant a bomb near the border fence. The death toll in the 2018 Gaza border protests has risen past 160 as Palestinians protest the dismal living conditions in the Gaza strip and demand the right to return to their ancestral homes, which are currently a part of the state of Israel. One Israeli soldier has since been killed. Egyptian mediators are currently urging the Hamas-backed protestors and the Israeli Defense Forces to seek a calm solution amid wider conflict (The Guardian, “Gaza: three boys killed in Israeli airstrike,” say Palestinian medics, 10.28.2018). Jair Bolsonaro won Brazil’s presidential election on Oct. 28, leading with 55.2 percent of the votes against former may-
MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE
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NEWS
November 1, 2018
Initiatives to foster high-impact learning, collaboration CURRICULUM continued from page 1
Chenette, in an interview, quelled students’ fears that the introduction of intensives adds a whole new element to their already full schedules. He stated, “The rebalanced curriculum is not a radical new direction but rather an intensification of elements that already distinguish a Vassar education—lots of close work with faculty members and student peers, relatively few requirements and dynamic and exciting opportunities to connect ideas and learning with action and impact in the world.” Venkat concurred, expressing, “There are already built-in intensive opportunities that we’re now just recategorizing as this intensive distinction. These opportunities have been on campus. We are just trying to highlight them and make them a more prominent feature in our academic coursework.” Some examples of proposed intensive courses include a biology course on water accessibility in Puerto Rico that includes a trip to the island at the semester’s end, a history of the architecture on the Vassar campus, a course investigating restorative justice, Haitian Creole language instruction and a small-group multidisciplinary reading class on early Chinese language, literature and culture. One of the major goals of the intensives, the presenters described, is to allow students freedom in pursuing much of the focused work they are already doing, including fieldwork, certain extracurriculars and thesis preparation, all which may have counted for course credit or independent study but will now fall more uniformly into the intensives category. In an interview, Bjork expanded on the overarching vision of VIEW. “Taken together,” he explained, “these curricular initiatives are designed to recognize and catalyze deeper learning, to encourage more meaningful and close interactions between students and faculty, and to create space and opportunity for exciting, forward-looking explorations of what a Vassar education can and should be.” Venkat also detailed two specific goals of the curricular redesign: First, the maximum of 4.5 credits per semester is intended to help improve the mental and physical stresses of overworked students. As Venkat articulated, “You don’t need to stress yourself out beyond belief and take five courses and overload and then burn out. Rather...you can really enjoy and do other things on campus, things that make you happy.” Second, the per-semester reduction will also make studying abroad easier, since some international programs only offer four credits. The VIEW curriculum is also more inclusive of students without AP or IB credits to transfer, which in some cases rounded out the 34 required units. The introduction of VIEW conforms to a trend in the past decade of colleges focusing on so-called high-impact educational practices. As Lotto explained, “The goal of [capping majors at 10 classroom credits] is to give students room to really pursue a liberal arts education.” The forum continued with students raising questions and concerns. One query addressed the difference between community-based intensives courses and fieldwork through the already existing Office of Community-Engaged Learning, a differentiation which has yet to be fully defined, according to the panelists’ answers. Other students raised questions about funding for intensives with trips or other costs, to which Chenette replied that financial aid will apply to any associated costs. Addi-
tionally, class sizes are not expected to change drastically on average. A key concern remained regarding the Class of 2021, next year’s juniors, since students in that class will be most affected by the transition to the new rebalanced curricular structure. Beyond the standardized 32-unit graduation requirement, Bjork, Chenette and Garrett emphasized that each department and program has a plan for phasing in the new changes and are aware that the transition may present some difficulties. As Chenette expressed, however, “Change is never easy, and we’ll doubtless have some kinks to work out no matter how carefully we plan; but this change holds the promise of making high-impact learning experiences, closely mentored by faculty, more a part of every Vassar student’s education.” A final concern raised at the forum was the accessibility of the intensives, both in terms of physical accessibility and access to enrollment. Garrett echoed the legitimacy of these concerns, stating, “Close work with faculty is not anything new at Vassar, but who gets to have that experience has not been very inclusive. I want us as a faculty to think about how we’re broadening and making these experiences more accessible to the whole student body.” She assured students that conversations about accessibility have taken place and will continue to be a priority. Enrollment in intensives, she went on, will not be extremely competitive nor necessarily predicated on a personal relationship with professors.
Finally, Venkat emphasized that Academics Committee will serve as the primary resource for students’ intensive ideas and any concerns they may have. She went on to state that students should contact their departments or programs for specific information. Every department and program has a transition plan to facilitate current first-years, sophomores and juniors completing their majors. The forum panelists encouraged students to meet with their major advisor and/or department or program chair to discuss this transition. For questions beyond the scope of students’ major departments, Venkat recommended students meet with their class deans in the Office of the Dean of Studies. Additionally, at the forum, Garrett stated that she, Chenette and Bjork will serve as points of contact for any questions or concerns that arise. She added, “Whatever you raise will help all students have a better experience and have the rollout be better.” In reflecting on the changes presented at the forum, Lotto affirmed VIEW’s consistency with the spirit of a Vassar education. “Our curriculum has not been set in stone,” he opined. “It’s always been a very dynamic curriculum.” Bjork expressed his excitement that the College was undertaking broad questioning of the efficacy of our curriculum, conversations which only crop up from time to time. He stated, “I think after making adjustments over the first few years, the curriculum will be much more vibrant for students.”
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Photograph by Maria Baranova
ricular structure have determined many of its details. The VSA Academics Committee, led by Chair of Academics May Venkat ’20, held a forum on Sunday, Oct. 28, to introduce the details of the Rebalanced Curriculum, now formally titled the Vassar Intensive Experiential Work (VIEW) initiative. Venkat—along with Raymond House President Nick Gorman ’21 and Davison House President Milo Mitchell ’21, who both sit on the VSA Academics Committee—presented the basic changes to existing curricular expectations for students. Academics Committee members were joined by Dean of the Faculty and Professor of Music Jonathan Chenette, Professor of Chemistry and Associate Dean of the Faculty Teresa Garrett and Professor of Education and Director of Asian Studies Christopher Bjork, who elaborated on details of the plan and responded to student questions and concerns. The Rebalanced Curriculum, which will go into effect in the 2019–20 academic year, shifts the numbers and distribution of requirements for students, as its name implies. In order to graduate, students will be required to fulfill 32 units of coursework, instead of the current 34 units. In addition, the maximum per-semester course load will be reduced from five to 4.5 credits. Students will still be able to apply to the Committee on Leaves and Privileges to take more than 4.5 credits a semester, which Chenette and Garrett assured at the forum would be a fairly easy and open process. Finally, there will be a maximum of 11.5 units for major requirements in each department and program. A maximum of 10 of these units can be traditional courses, with the remaining 1.5 units set aside for intensives for majors that opt to include them. According to the VIEW Guidelines for Students that will soon be distributed, “Intensives are envisioned as innovative learning opportunities that will complement more traditional courses by extending beyond the classroom for a variety of faculty-mentored experiences requiring a high level of student agency and independence.” As Chenette, Garrett and Bjork, the last of whom heads the Intensives Committee, explained at the forum, the new policy leaves idea of intensives intentionally broad. Intensives—which count for a full or a half credit—may include project- and group-based courses, local community-engaged and field work, and focused research and multidisciplinary study, all with the potential for non-traditional structures, mentorship experiences and travel. In an interview, Dean of Studies and Professor of Mathematics Benjamin Lotto spoke to the value of the range of coursework that falls under the intensives initiative. “You want to be taking courses that have different learning modes: lab courses, field-based courses, traditional classroom courses, lecture courses, seminar courses,” he said. “All of those are just different ways to grapple with learning and knowledge.” Intensives can be either graded or ungraded classes, with some specifying certain expectations for enrolling students— as well as special permission—based on differing expectations in coursework. Students and faculty members, or a combination of the two, are able to propose ideas for intensives.
MA and PhD in Decorative Arts, Design History, Material Culture Students at Bard Graduate Center in New York City study the cultural history of the material world from the arts of
Address 38 West 86th Street 1 New York City
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Open Houses November 12, 12:30 pm December 2, 11 am December 10, 6 pm
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November 1, 2018
NEWS
Page 5
VSA Updates Consensus Agenda Pre-Approved Allocations: 153.59/153.59 from Capital for VCSS • A collection of cords to replace old and damaged cords
Appointments • First-Year Representative to the Committee on Admissions and Financial Aid: Daniel Perez ’22 • Junior Representative to the Committee on College Life: Antonella DeCicci ’20 • 2019 Senator For Activities: Takunda Maisva ’19 Executive Board Updates President President attended trustee meetings this past weekend.
Courtesy of Yijia Hu
Allocations: 380/380 from Collaboration for Hype • Annual collaboration event between Hype and FlyPeople 0/500 from Community for VUELA • Will pursue further financial collaboration with PL and MeCha for Vuela College Readiness Program 0/5525 from Discretionary for Equestrian Team • For Vassar IHSA Show. First time the team has hosted a show • Grant permission for Equestrian Team to go into debt to cover costs because they are considering the event as a fundraiser
At the Student and Academic Affairs meeting, the trustees talked about intensives and Residential Life. Members of VSA exec brought up mental health concerns on campus. At the full Board meeting, the trustees talked about the Priorities and Planning process, College finances, potential plans for the Inn and Institute and preparation for the Capital Campaign. Vice President Operations Committee has been reviewing the constitution and bylaws in regards to Forums, Dining Committee, VSA Internal Funds, First-Year Programs and House Teams, and will present amendments next week in Senate. Some work has been done to update the website, and as of now Operations Committee is still compiling information to
send to Communications. The committee is also taking notes from last Senate and constructing the language of the Guiding Principles to be reviewed by all of Senate at a later date. Chair of Equity of Inclusion Two representatives from the LGBTQ Center filed out the Social Consciousness Fund Application. The Chair will meet with the representatives this week. Chair of Finance Finance Committee is meeting with the Board of Elections and Appointments next week and sending out warnings to treasurers who haven’t completed their balance sheets. Committee Chair Updates Chair of Health and Wellness
Healthoween tabling was on Friday! SAVP, Health Promotion and Education office, Choice, Big Night In, EMS, DRC, Access and Baldwin participated in the event. Chair joined the Integrated Health Offices meeting during which attendees discussed collaborating on Mental Health Fair/Destress events at the end of the year. Chair is in conversation with Sam Hoher from Health Promotion and Education office about possible projects for next semester. The committee is in conversation with EMS, House Teams and Baldwin about placing basic first aid kits on every floor of dorms. Chair of Planning Planning Committee met last week and discussed the VSA Mission Statement, as it will frame their discussion about transparency and student involvement. The committee will start their review of the bylaws at the next meeting. Students who have ideas on VSA transparency or student involvement are encouraged to stop by Planning Committee every other Thursday at 6 p.m. The Oct. 28 Senate meeting was dedicated to an Intensives forum with Professor Bjork, Professor and Dean Chenette and Professor Garrett. —Julian Corbett ’19, VSA General Intern
News Briefs Ethiopia appoints female president For the first time, the Ethiopian parliament has appointed a female president. Sahle-Work Zewde was selected on Wednesday, Oct. 25, following the resignation of former president Mulatu Teshome the previous day. She is the first female head of state in East Africa (CNN, “Ethiopia appoints its first female president,” 10.25.2018). While the position of president is ceremonial in Ethiopia, as the Prime Minister enacts state policies, Zewde’s appointment is a symbolic and powerful win for gender equality internationally. An experienced diplomat, Zewde previously worked as the ambassador for Ethiopia in Senegal and Djibouti, and most recently she served as the UN representative at the African Union (BBC, “Sahle-Work Zewde becomes Ethiopia’s first female president,” 10.25.2018). Her duties as president will include appointing ambassadors, receiving foreign envoys and granting pardons (NPR, “Ethiopia Gets Its 1st Female President,” 10.25.2018). Zewde is not the sole woman in the Ethiopian government. One week before her election, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed changed the composition of his cabinet, decreasing the number of positions from 28 to 20 members and appointing women to half of the positions (BBC, “Sahle-Work Zewde becomes Ethiopia’s first female president,” 10.25.2018). Women now hold the two most prominent positions in the cabinet: Minister of Defense and the newly created Minister of Peace role, which controls the intelligence agency and security forces (NPR, “Ethiopia Gets Its 1st Female President,” 10.25.2018). Zewde began her presidency by making her stance on women’s rights clear, stating
in Parliament, “[We need to build a] society that rejects the oppression of women.” She prioritizes peace and unity in Ethiopia, primarily in response to the ethnic unrest in the countryside and in Addis Ababa (The Washington Post, “Ethiopia appoints first female president in its modern history in latest reform,” 10.25.2018) President of the Ethiopian women’s business group AWiB Metasebia Shewaye Yilma stated, “[Zewde’s appointment] will really change the narrative that you know women cannot hold political leadership positions or they cannot contribute much” (NPR, “Ethiopia Gets Its 1st Female President,” 10.25.2018). However, while women make up a significant portion of the government, they are still not seen as leaders, especially in the rural parts of the country. Lawyer and women’s rights activist Blen Sahilu declared, “In order for the shift to happen at a grassroots level, the work is going to take years,” adding that teenage marriage and lack of access to secondary education contributes to persistent inequality between men and women (The Washington Post, “Ethiopia appoints first female president in its modern history in latest reform,” 10.25.2018). Still, this appointment is sure to bring about significant change for gender equality. Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff Fitsum Arega tweeted, “In a patriarchal society such as ours, the appointment of a female head of state not only sets the standard for the future but also normalises women as decision-makers in public life” (BBC, “Sahle-Work Zewde becomes Ethiopia’s first female president,” 10.25.2018). Eleven dead in synagogue shooting [CW: This article discusses violence and
anti-Semitism.] On Saturday, Oct. 27, a shooter entered Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Congregation Synagogue and opened fire, killing 11 congregants and wounding two civilians and four officers. Accused gunman Robert Bowers had previously posted multiple anti-Semitic rants on various media outlets including Gab.com, a website frequented by white nationalists that has since gone offline (USA Today, “Pittsburgh synagogue shooting: What we know, questions that remain,” 10.29.2018). Shortly before the shooting, Bowers threatened the Jewish community on Gab, including a list of Shabbat services held for refugees. The Anti-Defamation League stated, “[It is] unconscionable for Jews to be targeted during worship on a Sabbath morning” (ABC, “Pittsburgh synagogue shooting: What we know about alleged mass shooter Robert Bowers,” 10.29.2018). After his capture, Bowers allegedly told a SWAT officer, “They’re committing genocide to my people. I just want to kill Jews” (CBS, “Feds seek death penalty against Pittsburgh shooting suspect,” 10.29.2018). He holds an active license to carry firearms, and he has purchased at least six since 1996. According to the FBI, a rifle and three handguns remained at the scene of the attack (CNN, “Here’s what we know so far about Robert Bowers, the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting suspect,” 10.28.2018). Bowers faces 29 federal charges, including 11 counts of using a firearm to murder and multiple counts of perpetrating hate crimes. According to an ABC report, “He is facing 11 counts of obstruction of exercise of religious beliefs resulting in death, 11 counts of use of a firearm to commit murder, four counts of obstruction of exercise
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of religious belief resulting in bodily injury to a public safety officer and three counts of use and discharge of a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence ... Bowers was also charged with 35 state offenses” (ABC, “Pittsburgh synagogue shooting” 10.29.2018). On Monday, Oct. 29, Bowers arrived for his first court appearance in a wheelchair. He waived a reading of criminal complaints and asked to have counsel appointed for him. After giving brief answers to the judge’s questions, he left. U.S. Attorney Scott Brady said that a preliminary hearing will be held on Thursday, Nov. 1 (NBC, “Pittsburgh synagogue shooting suspect Robert Bowers makes first court appearance in wheelchair,” 10.29.2018). Federal prosecutors intend to push for the death penalty, a punishment President Trump seems to support. In the face of spreading hate, citizens across the country are rallying to support those affected. A GoFundMe page raised more than $490,000, which will go directly to the Tree of Life Congregation to mitigate the costs of the physical damage to the synagogue, to help the victims and to support their families. Nonprofits Celebrate Mercy and MPower Change raised tens of thousands of dollars on Muslim crowdsourcing site LaunchGood (CBS, “Feds seek death penalty against Pittsburgh shooting suspect,” 10.29.2018). As Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto stated, “We will drive anti-Semitism and the hate of any people back to the basement, on their computer, and away from the open discussions and dialogues around this city, around this state and around this country” (CNN, “Pittsburgh rabbi says he won’t ‘let hate close down’ his synagogue after massacre,” 10.29.2018).
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Women’s Chorus prepares unique, fem-positive program Emma Bauchner GUEST REPORTER
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ighlighting a diverse selection of songs that is at once thought-provoking and emotional, the Vassar College Women’s Chorus will present their annual fall concert on Saturday, Nov. 3, at 8 p.m., in the Mary Anna Fox Martel Recital Hall. The group, nicknamed WoCo, focuses on pieces written for treble voices and places an emphasis on works by composers who identify as female. Since September, WoCo has been rehearsing a variety of pieces, ranging from settings of centuries-old texts to avant-garde contemporary compositions to songs in the American folk tradition. Associate Professor and Chair of Music and Director of Choral Activities Christine Howlett crafted this semester’s concert. Howlett explained, “The program is a colCourtesy of the Vassar College Music Department
On Nov. 3, Vassar’s Women’s Choir, nicknamed WoCo, will present an eclectic and profound collection of songs primarily by composers who identify as female.
lection of pieces that are pretty different, but they have similar themes that run through them. There are these ideas of youth, hope and strength.” Much of the thematic cohesion stems from the three initial pieces that sparked Howlett’s interest, around which she subsequently built the program. The first of these pieces was “Breathe in Hope,” a heavy and musically challenging piece that reflects on the way we respond to tragedies. It was the text, which originally took the form of an emotive Facebook post by Maya Jackson in response to recent shootings, that most intrigued Howlett: “I thought it was absolutely timely ... To be able to visit this piece regularly for seven or eight weeks and not forget, which is what the text is talking about…‘I hope the pain lasts’…that really stuck with me.” The piece, composed by Dale Trumbore, also fit Howlett’s goal of performing serious works by female composers; historically, women’s choral repertoire has been limited to lighter topics due to gender stereotypes. Howlett continued, “For a women’s chorus, I want meaty things. This is a small form, but it’s not a two-minute piece. It’s a heavy topic, and it’s by a female composer.” Howlett was so impressed by Trumbore’s work that she decided to add another one of her compositions to the program titled “Flare,” a colorful piece that invokes images of youth and child-like wonder. It’s hard to guess it, but the piece that is filled with motion and glimmering chords was created by the same composer as “Breathe in Hope.” This juxtaposition is exactly why Howlett picked it. “I love that ‘Breathe in Hope’ and ‘Flare’ sound totally different,” says Howlett. Continuing on the theme of youth, Howl-
ett chose “On Children,” a gospel-influenced tune by acclaimed composer Ysaye Barnwell, whose work draws influence from traditional African American music. Especially drawn to the piece, Howlett said, “Ysaye Barnwell is so accomplished…we need more choral music by women of color!” The text asserts the independent-mindedness of children and advises parents to remember that children are the future of the world. This message is fitting for college students to sing to an audience that will likely include some of their families. Howlett commented on the relevance of the piece: “I love ‘On Children’…it’s beautiful to sing, and I think the text of it is timely for the choir.” The character of “On Children” inspired Howlett to add more folk–influenced music to the program, including a round, an Appalachian shape-note tune and an arrangement of the blues tune “Bring Me Little Water, Silvy” that includes lively body percussion. Composer Moira Smiley arranged the latter of these pieces. “We might not know of this music if Moira hadn’t arranged it for our voices,” says Howlett, who is especially fond of “Silvy.” She continued, “[I]t’s beautiful to watch, and beautiful to listen to.” The third piece that shaped Howlett’s vision of the program was “Moon Goddess,” a rhythmically intricate piece by Jocelyn Hagan. The text is a translation of a praise to the Sumerian goddess Inanna, written by Enheduanna, who is the earliest known poet in history and whose name and work have been preserved (her works are dated to c. 2300 BCE). “I love how Josselyn chose this unreal text,” commented Howlett. “[I]t’s all about strength.” The piece, which will close Satur-
day’s program, impresses a clear message of feminine strength. The singers share Howlett’s enthusiasm about the program. Rachel Walker ’21 commented, “Over the course of my time in WoCo, we have sung a wide variety of music. I am particularly excited about this upcoming concert of modern music! We will be singing a lot of music which represents hope and unity…I hope that it speaks to our audience in a powerful way.” Walker is especially excited about “i live in pain,” a particularly challenging piece on the program written by Pulitzer Prize–winning composer David Lang: “It is a rhythmically complicated song whose lyrics are inspired by words written by Contessa de Dia in 1175. Lang brings these timeless 12th-century words into the 21st century and creates a striking work.” Allison Breeze ’19 echoed Walker’s sentiment: “The songs are about strength and community, and the emphasis on homophony in the repertoire reflects our group unity. The concert features music from mostly female composers and poets, which I think is really important.” Breeze has had a long relationship with WoCo and is especially excited for this concert: “[WoCo] is such a tight-knit, inclusive community of lovely people that I love singing with. This concert is going to really showcase our strengths as a group and our love for each other.” Exploring these profound works, the group anticipates a challenging yet fun concert. “Doing a program like this is difficult because you’re constantly flipping between different compositional approaches,” acknowledged Howlett. “I’m really thrilled that we dug in, and I think we have a great group!”
Rapper’s album offers insight into tortured, beautiful mind Holly Shulman GUEST REPORTER
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but it looked like rain.” By one interpretation, Mac is describing how, from inside his adventure room, even sunny days looked like rain, no matter how much he wished it was sunny out. By another, he is telling the story of watching the sun shine outside while he is stuck in a rainy room, not feeling right. If he is, in fact, in a room full of rain, that image gives dimension to a previous line in the song: “In my own way, this feels like living/Some alternate reality/I was drowning, but now I’m swimming/Through stressful waters to relief.” Two readings of this line come to mind—together lending ambiguity and depth to the album’s title. In one interpretation, hope plays a critical role: Having spent years drowning in substances, Mac is now swimming through remission to his destination of sobriety. In the same documentary, Mac gave reason for this interpretation, describing himself not as sober, but “in control of [his] life” in terms of his drug use. (Fader, “Stopped Making Excuses,” 02.05.2016). By another interpretation, Mac was drowning on Earth and is now swimming to relief in death. This reading is supported by the next line in the song: “Oh, the things I’d do/To spend a little time in Hell.” This sentiment rings out in “Lua,” as well, when Mac sings the verse that has always been my favorite: “I’ve got a flask inside my pocket, we can share it on the train/and if you promise to stay conscious I will try and do the same/ We might die from medication but we sure killed all the pain/What was normal in the evening by the morning seems insane.” As a New York teenager, I related to the imagery. As a person, I related to the feelings. As a Mac Miller fan, I am deeply saddened that the predictions and warnings interlaced in his original lyrics as well as the ones he cov-
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Courtesy of Chrisinbuffalo via Wikipedia
he first song off Mac Miller’s last album (“Swimming,” released on Aug. 3, 2018), titled “Come Back to Earth,” is a warning. Within the song’s first 15 seconds, Mac has crooned to his listeners about regrets, strangers and needing “a way out of [his] head.” The lonely lyrics are matched by a melancholy melody, driven by sustained chords. The rapper makes no attempt to hide from the listener what is to come should they venture further into the album: a raw, unapologetic journey through a man’s depression and substance abuse, and how he has found his way out. Almost exactly one month after its release, however, the same man was found dead of a suspected drug overdose at age 26. I won’t claim to be a die-hard Mac Miller fan. I knew a few of his songs, and I could pick out his voice when people played him at parties, but beyond that he was never an artist to whom I felt deeply connected to. I remember embracing some pull between us, however, the day I discovered his Conor Oberst covers. Oberst, the founder of the indie rock group Bright Eyes, was a bit of a hero of mine throughout high school. I credit his song “Lua” with getting me through those years, and if I ever have a daughter, that will be her name. That was the Mac Miller cover I stumbled upon while scrolling through YouTube one day. In it, he almost slurs as he makes his way through the grippingly visual lyrics, using his tired, hoarse voice to blend vowels until you can barely catch the words between them— unless the song happens to have saved you, and you know it like the back of your hand. This was also the cover to which I returned to when I heard that Mac had died.
Listening to him mumble the song, I found it striking how well the words matched both my story and his, as different as ours may be—a true testament to the unifying power of music. I began to compare Oberst’s lyrics with the ones Mac introduces in “Come Back to Earth” and the videos of him talking about his depression that I had begun to obsessively watch online. I was searching for an inescapable answer to a question that Oberst poses in “Lua,” and which Mac repeats in his cover: “I’m not sure what the trouble was/ that started all of this/the reasons all have run away/but the feelings never did/it’s not something I would recommend/but it is one way to live/’cause what was simple in the evening, by the morning never is.” According to Mac’s interview in Fader’s 2016 short documentary about him titled “Stopped Making Excuses,” what “started all of this” for the rapper was space. He described his move to Los Angeles from his native Pittsburgh: “To have all that space is a pro and a con, depending on how you look at it…That was the thing I liked [about LA] for a while. But [what’s] more dangerous than actual LA is that I was just sitting there by myself all the time. It becomes toxic…And then you get bored. And then you’re like well I could just be high and have a whole adventure in this room.” He goes on to explain how that’s exactly what he started doing: having whole adventures, all alone in the comfort of his room. It’s the same sentiment Oberst describes in “Lua”: “When everything is lonely I can be my own best friend.” It’s not hard to see how that feeling could be addicting. But when your room is your world, what is the world to you? Mac answers that question in “Come Back to Earth”: “And don’t you know that sunshine don’t feel right/When you’re inside all day?/I wish it was nice out,
Mac Miller’s album “Swimming” boasts harrowing yet relatable lyrics that reveal the darkness embedded in the artist’s life before he passed away. ered became his reality. This tragedy renders the first track’s title eerily fitting: “Come Back to Earth” is essentially what Mac does every time the piece filters through a pair of headphones or booms out from a speaker. He has left behind a discography that offers insight into both his personal story and the experiences and emotions of young people everywhere who feel lost, lonely and in search of adventure. May we find it in the world and not in our rooms.
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Alum highlights importance of in-depth storytelling Meghan Hayfield GUEST REPORTER
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n the media-obsessed, fast-paced world of today, it always seems that the faster one can consume information, the better. However, there still remains a respected place for the in-depth narratives that documentaries embody. On Tuesday, Oct. 23, Executive Vice President for Talent and Development at CNN Worldwide Amy Entelis ’71 discussed her work with CNN Films and CNN Original Series, where she has spearheaded a documentary platform for the news site and collaborated on documentaries such as “RGB,” “Blackfish” and “Three Identical Strangers.” At the lecture, Entelis described her path through journalism and changes in the media landscape throughout her career. Entelis began her career by teaching French and producing films on the side. After attending Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, she secured a position at ABC News, where she worked for 30 years. Entelis served as a producer for the investigative and interview-based news program 20/20 as well as World News Tonight. In addition, Entelis worked as Senior Vice President for Talent Strategy, Development and Research. She then joined CNN in 2012, where she helps create films that transcend typical modes of storytelling. At her lecture, Entelis discussed the transformation of the media industry following
the advent of the 24-hour news cycle, where, with an overflow of coverage, even important stories easily become lost to time. Commenting on this paradigm, Entelis said,“We’re all being bombarded with news all around us, we have so many sources of news and we consume so much news, but I believe we consume it in very small bits and pieces, and it’s not very satisfying in terms of the need to engage in a story, to understand characters, to see themes play out and understand a complex world.” Entelis shared that, in developing CNN documentaries, she had to adapt to a platform that was unusual in its scope and would attract a different audience than other CNN programs. The first documentary CNN Films commissioned, titled “Girl Rising”—which followed nine girls from developing countries—received low ratings. Since then, CNN Films has released 45 films, expanding its diversity of stories and earning higher ratings. Describing the stages of the filmmaking process, Entelis commented, “There’s a lot of work at the beginning ... the filmmakers go off and do it and we bring it back several times to work on shaping and strengthening the film, and at the end we have to have a strategy for how to put it out into the world. I’m constantly nurturing and pushing and guiding projects from start to finish.” Entelis is one of many alumnae/i who have gone on to work in the media indus-
try. Assistant Professor of Film Shane Slattery-Quintanilla said that while Vassar’s Film Department cannot offer a conservatory-style education, it can provide insight and access into the film world through its extensive alumnae/i network. Commenting on the importance of bringing alums to campus, Slattery-Quintanilla stated, “My goal and the department’s goal when we bring visitors is to bring a diverse set of case studies...Vassar alums demonstrate that there’s not one way of doing it—you kind of have to forge a path for yourself.” Entelis showed clips from multiple films released by CNN Films, including “RBG” and “Three Identical Strangers.” The former, which follows the political trajectory of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, was released in May and is now ranked 22nd in the record of highest grossing documentaries ever released. “Three Identical Strangers,” a documentary that traces the reunion of identical triplets who were separated at birth, reveals insight into the ongoing “nature versus nurture” debate and has garnered $12.3 million in the box office. The creation of these films and their success highlight the growing interest in documentary films in the United States, perhaps in reaction to the abundance and flurry of news that constantly surrounds news consumers today. Moreover, Slattery-Quintanilla emphasized how Entelis brings a certain Vassar
style to her work. He commented, “Amy Entelis is an amazing example...she’s someone that has a very Vassar story—she started out in the liberal arts but sort of took a meandering path through journalism and now brings that same artful way of thinking about the world to CNN in curating these films.” Both Slattery-Quintanilla and Entelis said that interest in documentary film among students and the general public has risen in recent years. Slattery-Quintanilla said, “Students who are first-years this year were born in 2000, so that’s coming of age in a very different time, coming of age in this time of the 24-hour news cycle when it’s really hard to find deeper modes of storytelling.” Attendee Julien Peck ’22 said that he was attracted to documentaries for their pertinent role in informing people. He commented, “[With] documentaries, if you do it right, you are working with a really interesting story that can captivate an audience but also has relevant themes, relevant implications for people’s lives and what they understand about the world. It’s a direct educational and influential form of film rather than entertainment.” When there seems to be an endless cycle of news with which to keep up, documentaries allow viewers to take a step back. As Entelis put it, “I think documentaries are filling a need right now of people needing to understand the bigger world and engage with it.”
College celebrates Cornaro through unique performance Courtesy of the Vassar Music Department
The celebration will include a lecture by Professor Patrizia Bettella and a play performed by Kairos Italy Theater titled “The Most Learned Woman.” SERENADING continued from page 1
ebration of the 340th anniversary of Cornaro’s commencement that seeks to explore her life beyond her landmark intellectual achievement. This event is sponsored by Creative Arts Across Disciplines (CAAD), The Italian Studies Department and Vassar College Libraries. The evening will begin with a lecture by Professor Patrizia Bettella of the University of Alberta in the Class on 1951 Reading Room at 5:30 p.m. Bettella recently published the article “Women and the Academies in Seventeenth-Century Italy: Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia’s Role in Literary Academies” (Italian Culture, 03.19.2018). After an intermission with refreshments offered by the Alumnae/i House, Kairos Italy Theater will perform “The Most Learned Woman,” an original theater piece developed by Kairos artistic director and actress Laura Caparrotti. The night will conclude with complementary gelato. Both the lecture and performance are free and open to the public. The event is in many ways a celebration of Vassar’s historic role in furthering higher education for women. Director of the Vassar College Libraries Andrew Ashton stated,
“The Cornaro Window is sort of the iconic center of the library…but it has a lot of historic and symbolic significance as well. At the time that the window was installed in 1906, Vassar was still an all-women’s college and was really trying to set itself apart from other colleges in that it wanted to be a great institution of learning, and so the window has always been a centerpiece of campus in a way, aside from being beautiful and historically significant.” The sensational achievement the window portrays has provided Vassar scholars with intellectual inspiration since its completion in 1907. However, Associate Professor of Italian Eugenio L. Giusti argued, “This woman is not very well publicized. I ask my students sometimes, ‘Who is the woman on the stained glass?’ and they say that they don’t know.” Giusti believes the event to be a valuable opportunity to change this apathy, explaining, “I feel like it’s important for the beauty of the library, the achievement of this woman and the fact that we are at Vassar to put as much emphasis as possible on the history of this character…[so] we can put her on the pedestal that she deserves.” The story of the event is a protracted one—it is the result of years of preparation. Some time ago, an Italian actress named Lucia Schierano contacted Vassar, as she knew about its stained-glass window depicting Cornaro. She had produced a theatrical piece on Cornaro’s life and wanted to perform the work on Vassar’s campus. However, Schierano did not speak English, which prevented her from being able to translate the play. Due to the language barrier, Vassar directed the project to the Italian Department. Rather than restricting the event to Poughkeepsie’s limited Italian-speaking community, the department decided to ask New York City-based theater group Kairos Italy Theater if its members would be interested in adapting Schierano’s piece. Capparotti was interested in Schierano’s work but wished to adapt the piece with her own artistic vision. Kairos Italy Theater’s rendition of Corn-
aro’s story features Capparotti as the only actor, playing the characters of Cornaro, her father and her tutors. Despite portraying Cornaro in the play, Capparotti chose to speak of the protagonist in the third person rather than the first person, adopting the voice of a narrator. Cornaro’s thoughts and feelings are then represented by a violin, which gives musical voice to her emotions. Capparotti wanted to focus her work not only on Cornaro’s academic accomplishments, but also on her vibrant inner world. She explained: “I spoke with Lucia two years ago, and then I wanted to really read everything and really connect with Elena. I’m trying to show this side of her—what she really felt inside. Of course, we’re talking about a woman in 1600—we have to suppose who she was from books. All her material was destroyed because she gave orders to destroy everything she had written.” This wish to present authentic insight into Cornaro’s spirit is evident in the play’s two main themes: “One is what her father gave her the possibility to do against everything that was taught and told at the time,” Capparotti explained. “[The other] is how much she was able to achieve thanks to that, and why she was able to achieve it. She was really a prodigy, but she also had this sacred fire for religion and spirituality that carried her on until she died.” The play explores this religious aspect of Cornaro’s life extensively. Discussing the motivation for this focus, Capparotti explained, “it’s interesting because in a way, everything you read about her shows this spirituality, because it is really a big part of her. When I started to read about Elena, I found it interesting that her studying was not so much a desire for knowledge, but more a desire to dedicate herself to God.” The play is unusual in that it takes place in the library, a location rarely utilized for performances. While the library has historically been limited to academic endeavors, Ashton is seeking to expand its role on campus. Ashton articulated his vision for the fu-
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ture of the library, explaining, “We have really been wanting to do more in the library beyond just providing books and a good place to study. We’ve been holding a lot of events and we like to think of the library as the intellectual hub on campus; people come here to do all kinds of things that hopefully enhance their experience of Vassar.” Ashton found this event to be demonstrative of this concept: “The idea of having this play about Lady Cornaro under the window on a Friday night just sounded like a great combination of everything we’re interested in doing … It would be a shame to do [the play] in any other place.” Interdisciplinary Arts Coordinator Tom Pacio believes the event to be representative of the evolving role of the library on campus. Pacio praised Ashton’s tenure: “I’m just impressed by how, through Andy’s vision, the library has been opened up in the way that there’s other programming in it. There’s just an openness of the library that is pretty inspiring. And I think that this is an appropriate celebration of this space and how it’s being used in more creative ways. I think it’s an exciting space to activate on campus.” The library will play a vital role in the “The Most Learned Woman”; Capparotti affirmed that the play’s last four words will reference the Cornaro Window itself. Giusti assured an enlightening show: “The play will show that the glorious moment of her graduation was not all that she did. She was a much more complex figure than just being an excellent intellectual person.” Giusti went on to describe Cornaro’s elusive side, explaining, “It was all mysticism and a more emotional component, religion, and connecting with the knowledge of philosophy and history and languages, and this is what makes Elena such an interesting character to me.” Bettella’s lecture and “The Most Learned Woman” are sure to delve into these fascinating yet relatively unknown components of Cornaro’s life and provide the community with a greater appreciation of the library’s dazzling centerpiece.
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Artist’s work self-destructs, leaves messages to unpack Taylor Stewart
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quoting Picasso. The street artist is known for defying both the art world and contemporary society. He has a whole book of politically charged pranks, titled “Wall and Piece.” Illustrator Ruohan Wang is one of my favorites. Her work seamlessly combines fine art—her minimal, jellied forms and sickeningly sweet colors recall Henri Matisse and the Tahiti of Paul Gauguin—with graphic approaches. We see grid patterns, text and gradient evocative of an ‘80s music video alongside “traditional” subject matter like the reclining nude and mountainscapes. Wang’s world is chaotic and heavenly, both textured and charmingly flat (her colored pencil compositions are particularly pretty). Some people might think her sweet style wouldn’t translate well into, say, a public mural or shredded canvas. Unfortunately, when we think “urban art” or “street art,” Banksy’s stunts and street installations probably come to mind. Not to say that his work is shallow or worthless—on the contrary, he talks about such topics such as Syria and Palestine and contemporary British conservatism, and this is important. But he should let their importance speak for itself, grace public spaces with the political and beautiful, rather than so boldly bellow for the attention of Sotheby’s regulars. Urban art is rooted in communities and the local, which is why I admire Ruohan’s latest public installations. She drew promotional items for a Chinese solar festival; her animation was displayed on the Bund in Shanghai, the biggest LED screen in the world, for three days. She further delved into public art for Jerusalem’s Walls festival, which seeks to enliven disenfranchised parts of the city through large-scale murals. She
painted a mural in the Talpiot neighborhood, previously regarded as a “ghost town which is remote and isolated socially” (It’s Nice That, “Ruohan Wang continues to wow with her public art installations,” 10.08.2018). The piece is colorful and uplifting, exploring the relationship between humans and the natural world. Ruohan commented, “Art in the public space is the landscape we all share. Consciously or unconsciously, it pours meaning into our everyday lives” (It’s Nice That, “Ruohan Wang continues to wow with her public art installations,” 10.08.2018). Banksy’s stunt made headlines, but I have to wonder whether the shock value of a half-shredded painting outweighs the message behind the art: Did the boldness of the gesture garner more attention than his comment about the urge to destroy? We should support efforts more like those of Ruohan— the goal to enliven the public art space rather than destroy a part of it. Courtesy of dominic robinson via Flickr
n early October, England-based street artist Banksy’s “Girl with Balloon” sold for over £1 million, or $1.4 million, at the last auction of Sotheby’s “Frieze Week” contemporary art sale. “Girl with Balloon” originally appeared in 2002 on a wall in South Bank, near the National Theatre in London, and has been reproduced in droves ever since—on canvas by Banksy himself, on t-shirts and mugs and tote bags, and famously stencilled on other walls around London (though none remain). “Girl with Balloon” shows the subject reaching for a heart-shaped balloon that is floating away in the wind. According to a 2017 poll, the piece is the United Kingdom’s favorite work of art, topping contenders like John Constable’s iconic painting “The Hay Wain” and the Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” cover, which was designed by pop artists Peter Blake and Jann Haworth (“Banksy’s Girl with Balloon is UK’s Most Beloved Work of Art!,” Widewalls, 07.26.2017). For this reason, the art world and, really, the general public, reeled when the painting self-destructed at Sotheby’s. After selling for three times the estimate—a record for any solo piece by Banksy—about half of “Girl with Balloon” was shredded. People in the auction room gawked, laughed and pulled out their phones. Promptly, almost casually, auctioneer Oliver Barker moved on and the painting was taken off the wall, ribbons dangling from the bottom of the frame. In fact, Barker, also Sotheby’s European chairman, said as the painting passed through the frame, “It’s a brilliant Banksy moment, this. You couldn’t make it up, could you?”
(“Banksy Painting Self-Destructs After Fetching $1.4 Million at Sotheby’s,” The New York Times, 10.06.2018) Response outside the auction room was immediate; the stunt elicited spoofs from the likes of Ikea and McDonald’s as well as lesser-known artists. Banksy posted a photo on his Instagram of the Sotheby’s crowd, captioned with a cheeky “Going, going, gone…” (Instagram, @banksy, 10.05.2018). He later published a video called “Shred the Love, the director’s cut” in which he explained that, a couple of years ago, he built a shredder into the frame so that if the painting was ever put up for auction, it would self-destruct. Apparently he had wanted to shred the whole thing, but due to a technical error only half was reduced to ribbons. Not only did the stunt itself attract much attention, but its authenticity was also questioned. “Girl” was the last piece sold that night; it was hung on a wall rather than placed on a podium, as is custom; handlers might have noticed if a frame had a shredder built into it and the buyer, a European Sotheby’s regular, went ahead with the purchase. She said, “When….the work was shredded, I was at first shocked, but gradually I began to realize that I would end up with my own piece of art history.” Given the media attention, the shredded version was predicted to increase in value, up to over £2 million. It is now called “Love is in the Bin.” (It’s Nice That, “It looks like Banksy intended to shred the whole of Girl with Balloon,” 10.18.18) Perhaps this was a “screw you” to the collectors eating canapés at Sotheby’s, or a demonstration of the transience of beauty and art. “‘The urge to destroy is also a creative urge,’” Banksy wrote on Instagram,
In October, street artist Banksy’s “Girl with Balloon” sold for $1.4 million and then proceeded to shred itself, leaving spectators astonished and intrigued.
‘Halloween’ disappoints with offensive political messages Jimmy Christon COLUMNIST
Halloween
David Gordon Green Miramax
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of wooden deliveries is truly astounding. The “Halloween” franchise has some pretty bad dialogue, but this movie easily takes the cake. It’s not just that the dialogue is bad, but the politics are also uncomfortable. Curtis always felt like she was right on the edge of calling her millennial grandaughter a snowflake and falling into some rant about the Second Amendment. I’m glad she didn’t interact with any of the Black characters on screen because I don’t want to see how these tone-deaf writers would have handled Curtis dancing around the finer details of Stand Your Ground laws. There were only suggestions of political discourse in this movie, but just having these hints feels very uncomfortable because we don’t know what the movie’s political stances are. Is Curtis an anti-hero who is a cautionary tale, or is she glorified for her abusive conservative choices? Are we supposed to cheer for Curtis when she waltzes through a suburban neighborhood on Halloween night with her gun in her hands? Are we supposed to laugh when a child mishandles a firearm and shoots an innocent man? It feels uncomfortable because these are achingly realistic situations with terrible consequences, and this movie just plays them off as if they are as fictional as the man in the mask. This is a shame because the original movie always seemed to play it straight. It touched on the fears of suburban folk and explored them effectively. More importantly, it explored this fear earnestly. “Halloween” (2018), the focus-group revamp of the deadest horse in horror, does not have the opportunity to be earnest. The teenager plotline of this “Halloween” just felt so contrived and unoriginal. The actors presented themselves exactly like how a group of adults pretending to be modern
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teenagers would act, resulting in unmemorable and unlikable characters who we aren’t really affected by when they leave the film. And the annoying, stuck-up characters who we should see die are just left by the wayside. But the most unforgivable misstep in terms of character is Curtis. I’ve seen a lot of informed discourse about how this movie is special because it’s really a film about being a survivor. This could not be further from the truth. The dialogue about being a survivor is stripped down to “if you were hurt in the past you will grow to become violent in the future, and you will be justified for your violence.” And that is just lame. I see all this talk about being a survivor as just hot air that’s trying to fill up a canvas that is lacking in meaningful material. All in all, the new “Halloween” fails in its cheesy scares and its insensitive political messages. It is better to just stick with the original.
Courtesy of Pixabay
s someone raised in a family that was dedicated to both “Halloween” the movie and Halloween the holiday, I felt giddy when I heard about the new “Halloween” movie. Michael Myers back on the big screen in a brand-new fashion—what more could I ask for? This movie sees itself as a sort of re-canonization sequel—it erases the chronology of all the other “Halloween” movies after the original, placing itself as a sequel to that movie. Laurie and Michael are reprised by their respective actors from the original film, Jamie Lee Curtis and Nick Castle, and the legendary John Carpenter produced the movie and provided some truly excellent music for the soundtrack. Everything seems to be in place for this movie to stand out as something special against the slew of remakes we have seen in the last couple of years. At the same time, this is just the next installment in a line of nostalgic cash-grabs to which this movie series has been prone. Twenty years ago we saw a similar movie with “Halloween H20.” But still, anything could be viewed as an improvement over the Rob Zombie “Halloween” flicks. In the end, what we get with this movie is a lukewarm film pulled apart by two extremes. On one side is the hot stuff. The music is great, there are some awesome slasher scenes and an excellent sense of comedy. On the other side are the disappointingly cold aspects of this film. Some of the dialogue is
truly awful, the performance of this dialogue is somehow even worse, the characters and script are all uninspired and the list, unfortunately, goes on. My biggest complaint with the film is that, for a slasher flick, the violence in this movie was just subpar. Even worse, the gore feels incoherent and lacking in any sort of unity. And look! There goes my English degree running away with this review. What I meant by that last point is that violence is a tool to be used in horror movies, and it is a tool that can be used badly. The original “Halloween” is so well-done because it knows when to show actual violence, and when to show the trail violence leaves in its wake. Or, to use another Halloween movie, Rob Zombie’s “Halloween” didn’t shock me as much because the violence was excessive without ever really developing or showing any sign of creative thought, whereas the violence in John Carpenter’s other masterpiece “The Thing” is so wild, creative and ultimately fun that it sticks in our heads as only inspiring art can. This most recent movie does not have this aspect. The kills are so run-of-the mill and barebones that I never found myself scared of Michael and what he can do—and that is a cardinal sin for a slasher movie. But there are exceptions. One exception was a really insane kill. The other was a faux long take that follows the serial killing from Michael’s perspective. This was a fun scene. I wanted more scenes like this in the movie, but I was sorely disappointed. The other thing this movie did wrong, and why I think you—dear reader—would be better off watching the original movie from the comfort of your room, is that the script and characters really failed to deliver. The first 30 minutes of this movie are rough. The amount
A take on the beloved original movie, the newest “Halloween” proves to be packed with empty scenes of violence and problematic political messages.
November 1, 2018
Campus Canvas
ARTS A weekly space highlighting the creative pursuits of student-artists
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Excuse me, What’s been your worst bathroom accident?
“The world doesn’t need to know.” — Bre Piercy ’21
“Sophomore year, this guy is coming out of the shower (hair wet) and was like, ‘You don’t want to go in there because someone shat in there.’” — Lydia Bailey ’19 “Freshman year, Founder’s Day, two east of Cushing (20 people and Stufel) gets caught shotgunning beers by security at 7:45 a.m.” — Rohan Mallick ’19 “I was in the club, and there was a full-on threesome in a bathroom stall. And I had to pee! IT WAS THE WEIRDEST EXPERIENCE, PERIOD’T.” — Joshua Otero ’20 “Someone puked in the sink, and they didn’t clean it for a week. So the whole bathroom smelled like vodkavomit.” — Nico Dinelli & Charlotte Heller ’21
Sophia Yoo Class of 2019 Studio art and chemistry major “I am mainly working with photographs this year. I am interested in photographing moments that are easily overlooked in our daily lives in hopes to evoke personal narratives that are both specific yet relatable. I am loosely working around the idea of ‘home’ to celebrate and reflect on my four years at Vassar.”
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“Walking into Raymond... renovate Raymond.” — Connor McShaffrey ’21
Hannah Gaven, Humor & Satire Hannah Benton, Photography
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November 1, 2018
Cosplayer confesses: Costumes go beyond Halloweekend Frankie Knuckles
ASSISTANT FEATURES EDITOR
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his week, I spent incalculable hours cutting paper, embroidering, gluing and checking reference pictures in pursuit of the perfect Halloween costume. I even have bruises around my right thumb from using my weighted fabric scissors so much. While sitting in the middle of my floor surrounded by cardboard and paper scraps at two in the morning, I had a startling realization: Some people do this just for fun, year-round. And, better yet, I know such a person. To better understand the subculture of cosplay, which I define here as any sort of costume-wearing outside a Halloween context, I caught up with Julianna Bencze ’21. Her cosplay Instagram has over 7,000 followers, so she seems qualified to answer any cosplay queries I could come up with. First, she told me about her humble
cosplay beginnings, stating, “Sophomore year of high school, I spent the entire year getting my Halloween costume ready. And then, as soon as Halloween was over, I was like, ‘All right, what I am I doing next year?’ It took me a year to realize you don’t have to wait until Halloween to dress up in costumes. And once I found out there was an actual community of people who dress up all the time, well, I was just kind of trapped.” When I asked why she enjoys cosplay, Bencze remarked, “It’s about being able to create something … A lot of people enjoy being able to hang out with their friends as a different character. And that’s the part they find the most rewarding, but for me, it’s really just the ‘making things’ process and being able to kind of add your artistic vision to someone else’s.” I absolutely related to this, having felt immensely satisfied after I added the final dabs of Mod
Courtesy of Olivia Feltus
Above, Bencze sports four cosplay creations. From left: Ardata Carmia from “Hiveswap,” Sailor Moon, Tide Pod–inspired makeup and Heather Chandler from “Heathers.”
Podge to my own costume. Next, we discussed how Bencze develops an idea. “What I basically do is pick a character that I connect with, and that also has an interesting design, and that I think I can complete within a reasonable amount of time,” she informed me. Once she acquires the raw materials, the real work begins. Bencze described her approach; she creates each garment from scratch using blank fabric. “I’ll get my dress form out and make the whole pattern, and then go through the whole ‘fit’ thing. It’s a lot of very technical things that feel less like cosplay and a lot more like actual costume work,” she revealed. By contrast, other cosplayers start with ready-made items. “A lot of people I know will buy pieces on Amazon, just clothing pieces that they can cut up, and adjust and modify to make the character,” she explained. “That’s a skill I really admire, because...I don’t think I could go online, pick out five items and be like, ‘this is what I’m going to change [about] each one, and then it will look like the right thing.’ I have to start from actual blank fabric, or I won’t know what happens.” Once she constructs the costume itself, it’s time for makeup. Bencze expounded on this aspect of her design process: “I feel like the place I can have the most fun is with makeup, because the clothing is pretty set, for what [the character] wears. Different styles of makeup are one of the most unique ways that different people can make characters their own.” In makeup design, a cosplayer can showcase their own artistic vision for the character.
Shifting gears, I asked Bencze if she has a favorite costume so far. She laughed and responded, “It changes so fast. It’s usually the thing I’ve most recently made.” After thinking for a moment, she answered: “I did some cosplay work this summer where I made costumes for other people, and that was one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done, because it’s working with other people’s proportions, and what they want, their artistic vision. But it was very rewarding to see it come together in the end.” Finally, I gave Bencze the opportunity to share anything she wants those outside the community to know. “I would like people to think that we’re normal people,” she said, “but I feel like that’s not an accurate representation of most of the cosplay community.” I laughed, and she elaborated, “I would say, actually, most of the cosplay community is a bunch of middle-schoolers and high-schoolers who just really connect with characters and want to dress up and have a good time with their friends.” She added that, contrary to popular belief, “The really popular types of cosplay that you see are not the most common types, it’s just what makes it to the top. So there’s all the sexy armor cosplay people, and those are pretty rare.” From my conversation with Bencze, I gained a more thorough understanding of what cosplay means to those who enjoy it, beyond just a mode of artistic self-expression. By creating costumes, a cosplayer brings life to a character, which is a rewarding exercise. And, of course, seeing the results is exciting.
Twins talk: Telepathy theory explained, demystified
Courtesy of Olivia Guarneri
Olivia and Max Guarnieri ’20 are Vassar twins who are noted for their fashion styles. One of the perks of being a twin is that you get to say “Happy birthday to you, too!” Duncan Aronson REPORTER
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thing, and something completely unrelated will happen. Like a pencil drops, and it will make me think of an episode of SpongeBob and I start laughing. I’ll turn to Max and ask him, ‘Do you know why I’m laughing right now?’ and he’ll say ‘Yes, it’s that episode of SpongeBob.” Sasha and I, on the other hand, tend to have less logical twin moments. Sasha recalled, “I remember that time in middle school P.E. when we were told to shout out a number between one and 15, and we both shouted ‘seven’ with the exact same timing. You want to believe in these moments because they seem so mystical or magical. You can’t really explain it with logic.” One major similarity between the sets of twins was, paradoxically, the lack of similarity within each set. Max explained how their interests are totally opposing: “I’m a math major. I’ve taken more science classes and history...Olivia is a media studies major into artsy extracurriculars.” In my twin set, Sasha could be described as the creative, absent-minded actress, whereas I am more the matter-of-fact, bashful bas-
ketball player. Sasha was not surprised. She offered an explanation for differences between twins, including her decision to go to a school other than Vassar after her gap year: “I think twins have a natural tendency to want to differentiate themselves from each other. It’s partly because everyone else sees them as being the same and they have an impulse to resist, maybe even make a conscious decision to resist. I think me choosing Sarah Lawrence was just one more iteration of this.” Our discussion may have raised more questions than it answered. Or, to wrap it up in a more adventurous package, we felt as though we barely scratched the surface of what it means to be a twin. Is there empirical evidence for twin moments or are they just random? Are twins separated in classes because they will get along too well or too poorly? How is the psychological development of infraternal twins different from that of fraternal twins? These are the kinds of questions we hope to answer through further dialogue and discovery.
Courtesy of Duncan Aronson
s Vassar students, we proudly celebrate and share our identities. They are explored through various outlets, such as Orientation events, student organizations and administrative offices. By this token, it’s safe to say that we ponder our identities through self-reflection and dialogue. This article highlights one such exchange within an unusual demographic: twins. I sat down with Olivia Guarnieri ’20 and Max Guarnieri ’20 in person to talk about twinhood. My twin sister, Sasha Aronson, could not make the journey to Vassar from Sarah Lawrence, and so shared her insights
in a separate Skype interview. In both conversations, it quickly became apparent that we had not explicitly discussed twinhood before. Olivia remarked in the beginning of our conversation, “This is so weird. I’m talking and explaining things to you like I’m talking to a non-twin. I’ve never talked about ‘twinness’ with another twin. I feel like it’s different—to other people I’m more explaining it to them rather than relating with them.” The three of us talked about our encounters with others’ perceptions and misconceptions of twinhood. We have all been bewildered by those who know we have different chromosomes and still inquire, “Are you identical?” We have all been asked if we know what the other twin is thinking at any given moment, as if we have some psychic telepathy, or at least if we constantly have twin moments. Max summed it up best: “People like the idea of twins, and people find it cool.” It was easy to establish how others perceived twinhood. It was much more difficult to separate generalizations about twinhood from personal anecdote. Part of this difficulty, as Olivia pointed out, stemmed from the fact that we only had twins: “We don’t have any other siblings, so having a sibling and having a twin is one and the same. It’s hard to know what is generally true about siblings and what is specific to twins.” Take so-called “twin moments,” for example. While they are not as frequent or magical as most people would believe, we did agree that they happen on occasion. For Max and Olivia, these moments occur because of their shared nurture rather than shared nature. Olivia described one recurring moment: “We will be doing some-
Above are twins Sasha and Duncan Aronson ’21. The endless debate on their physical resemblance remains unabated—both sides use photographic evidence to no avail.
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November 1, 2018
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Org of the Week: unFramed inspires visual art lovers
Courtesy of Rachel Sipress
Pictured here an installation that members of unFramed attended in Poughkeepsie, titled “Hudson River of Bricks.” It was created by local artist Julia Whitney Barnes. Gillian Redstone COPY STAFFER
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resident of unFramed Rachel Sipress ’21 has been passionate about art from a young age. “My next-door neighbor growing up was an artist, and she would let me play in her studio, so I really fell in love with it as a kid,” they shared. Coming to Vassar, Sipress joined unFramed, and their passion was reignited. The pre-org focuses on providing a space for students to work and collaborate, introducing artists to campus and supporting art lovers in general. For Sipress, it presented an available creative outlet. Artists of any level, and even those who are not entirely sure whether they are an artist, are wel-
come and fully encouraged to take part in any activities unFramed hosts. The organization has gone on a number of exciting outings. Last year, the group took a trip to Pioneer Works, a non-profit cultural center in Red Hook, NY. They visited an event there titled “WTF Do We Do Now, in an Age of Trump,” a convening of artists and activists who took action against the current administration. Former president of unFramed Grace Roebuck ’20 commented on the event, “This was a very powerful way to bridge Vassar with the greater NYC community.” This year, unFramed explored an exhibition in Poughkeepsie. The piece, created by local artist Julia Whitney Barnes, was titled “Hudson
River of Bricks.” Sipress noted that these outings would not have been possible without the presence of the artistic community that unFramed is cultivating. Through inviting artists to speak and by developing installations on campus, unFramed has fused art and activism. Roebuck remarked, “We brought photojournalist Elisabeth Ubbe to speak about her photojournalism on female genital mutilation, breastfeeding across cultures, periods and children being sold as Turkish co-wives.” The org also brought to campus performer, writer and theatre maker Travis Alabanza. unFramed created an installation on campus last year to encourage conversations about the key role of the nature on Vassar’s 1,000 acres. Roebuck elaborated, “We [did] an art installation wrapping reflective sheets around trees to start a conversation on deforestation and the history and importance of Vassar’s trees.” unFramed aims to create spaces in which artists and enthusiasts alike can discuss and cultivate their passions. Member Emma Iadanza ’22 recounted that the org has become that place for her, and that it was especially helpful to her as a first-year student. She added that unFramed has allowed her to understand how student orgs form and evolve, saying, “It helps me meet new people with other exciting ideas because so many of us want to try new things and create for our community here at Vassar. We can create and aren’t limited, and can come together with that.” The org has a variety of ideas for future events, outings and spaces that will help enrich Vassar. Sipress shared, “We’re calling
for a community art space. We want there to be an actual space on campus for the visual arts. In artist spaces you need the other people to bounce ideas off of. So that’s the dream. One of the things we’re trying to do with unFramed is open up lines of communication.” This artist space would ideally include a pottery wheel and kiln, a graphic arts tablet and shared art supplies. They also said that possible upcoming events include field trips to art museums and installations both locally and in New York City, an exhibition of student art and Bob Ross movie nights. At the heart of unFramed lies a true love for art and a belief in the importance of a space for creators on campus. Iadanza enthused, “Art is absolutely something for everyone. You just have to find your spot in it. I think people see it as something elitist, but it really doesn’t have to be.” Sipress shared a similar sentiment, relating, “Art matters. This is a liberal arts college, and I really think it is a tragedy that there isn’t already [a space for the visual arts]. I’m a visual learner, and it helps me to better learn when I can visually take what I’m learning in class and then put it into the universe and see it actually there. It deeply helps my understanding of the topics, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who thinks that way.” Sipress encouraged everyone to give art a try: “Art is really fun. It’s really just super fun. Why wouldn’t you?” Students who are interested in getting involved with unFramed can explore the organization’s Facebook page or email rsipress[at]vassar.edu for more information.
House team celebrates Halloween with local families Courtesy of Kevin Fernandez
Davison House Fellows, HFIs and Halloween Fest volunteers gathered for a group photo that brims with the joy of putting together an event for the community. HALLOWEEN continued from page 1
the school is constantly using the town’s resources. The Fest is a way to commemorate the neighborhood’s ongoing support. Douthitt stated, “This event is really important to me because Vassar is a part of Poughkeepsie; we use Poughkeepsie’s fire department and police force, and local businesses are just next door, yet we tend to be very separated from the rest of the community. Halloween Fest allows us to give back to Poughkeepsie by providing a completely free event for children and families.” Del Razo described Halloween Fest as an “act of love,” saying, “The generous sharing of resources is a loving practice. Halloween Fest is an example of Vassar students, faculty, staff, local businesses and community members coming together to share their resources, their time, their skills and themselves for the simple act of bringing joy to children around a fun theme.” Del Razo, Douthitt and Fernandez acknowledged the support of the Town of Poughkeepsie Parks and Recreation, the house team, the 40 student volunteers,
to. When they were finished the children got to bring home their book.” Douthitt, Fernandez and the rest of the Davison House Fellow Intern team have major plans for the future. Spring Fest, another event thrown by Davison House, will again offer free activities to the community, this time with a springtime theme. The HFI team considers Halloween and Spring Fest important in bridging the gap between the town and the college. Fernandez summarized the spirit of the Fest: “What motivates me to keep doing this event is that I enjoy putting smiles on the children, family and volunteers’ faces. Lately, my motivation has shifted a bit since I want to make Vassar College an open environment for the people in the Town of Poughkeepsie. I want there to stop being a division between the college and the rest of town. We have to pop the Vassar bubble once and for all.”
Courtesy of Kevin Fernandez
’20. Both veteran HFIs, Douthitt and Fernandez wanted to ensure that Halloween Fest continued this year with the same enthusiasm. House Fellow Maritza Del Razo praised the interns’ contributions, commenting, “They have worked countless hours on this event and led our team for many, many weeks now. Brenna and Kevin have formed an excellent team, leading with calm composure while taking decisive action and being the selfless voice of Vassar students.” Discussing how he originally became involved in Halloween Fest, Fernandez explained, “I started as a volunteer during my first year and I enjoyed doing it … My role at the time was to gather as many volunteers as I can. Now, as a returning/ veteran/Junior House Fellow Intern, I became one of the lead organizers for Halloween Fest.” Halloween Fest is not only entertaining, but also connects Vassar with the surrounding community. Since Vassar is nestled in the Town of Poughkeepsie,
the Good Neighbors Partnership, Twisted Soul, Poughkeepsie Farm Project and the Barefoot Monkeys. These collaborations allowed the event to be the grandest it has ever been, hosting over 15 different activities both traditional and new. Douthitt explained, “This year we had some of the classic activities from the festival such as bouncy houses, slime-making, face painting and the costume contest, but we also introduced some new activities. We added a craft making witch hats out of cookies and chocolate, lollipop ghosts and a station where kids can decorate their own monster out of popsicle sticks and googly eyes.” Del Razo also introduced a reading booth, which she has installed at many other community events, in order to promote a love of reading and learning. Douthitt remarked, “We had many Halloween books in both English and Spanish, and children could read and be read
Left to right: House Fellow Maritza Del Razo, with son Joaquin, Thuy Le ’21, Brenna Douthitt ’20, Kevin Fernandez ’20, House Fellow Jaime Del Razo and David Fernandez.
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November 1, 2018
Schamus discusses dilemma of truth-telling in fiction
Courtesy of Vassar College
Mateusz Kasprowicz GUEST REPORTER
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ames Schamus is an accomplished screenwriter, producer and director who, along with producing and writing a handful of my favorite movies (“Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” “Lost in Translation,” “Coraline,” “Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon”), teaches professional practice and film theory at Columbia and co-founded the production company Good Machine. Schamus visited Vassar on Oct. 25, providing a chance for students to directly exchange ideas with him. The talk combined his extensive academic bona fides with the practical knowledge of a long and fruitful career in the film industry. Sharply dressed and equally precise in his speech, Schamus wasted little time before diving headfirst into his subject matter. He did, however, preface his talk with a brief digression on its form, which he revised after presenting it at a screenwriter’s conference in Berlin a week before. He
“[Sic]”
reflected on the self-congratulatory tone in many professional gatherings of this kind. Skeptical of the blanket adulation many in the creative industry have for the power of “storytelling,” Schamus hoped to use this talk as a non-academic self-critique, one addressed directly to the various professional storytellers and soon-to-be professional storytellers in the room. He presented his talk in the form of 20 distinct fragments, the first of which highlighted two important themes: the impressive rise of documentary filmmaking in the last few years and the networks of personal information, advertising and media which form the omnipresent backdrop of all contemporary storytelling. Viewers are always choosing one narrative over a litany of others. When stories are presented as consumer choices, characters begin to resemble boxes filled with characteristics designed to be relatable for a target demographic. Schamus asked the audience to imagine the role of the “nobody,” the empty box, the archetype or representative in storytelling and in Western thought. In contemporary terms, the “nobody” is the opposite of the “somebody,” a person with a right to their story, or even a right to their publicity. Fiction works on the dichotomy between these two poles, asking us to relate to non-real persons, whose stories we would normally not be able to access. These narratives about nobody can be entered by anybody. Schamus highlighted the importance of fiction in the historical fight for equality by different groups. Can we demand that the oppressed
speak? Schamus suggested that we can and must, but this doesn’t come without complications. Linking fiction to the language of the “nobody,” Schamus emphasized that deceiving nature of objectivity, for often the truth of someone’s speech is contained precisely in the ways that they contradict established fact. The opposite is also important to consider: The lies that someone speaks are best revealed by the ways in which they conform to the particular facts. Schamus used the example of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s detailed calendar to accentuate the specific dynamics between speech, truth and power. Schamus then turned to a discussion of the material position of the storyteller in the production and sale of film content. Film revenue comes primarily from advertising and hence from the ability of content to collect personal information about its viewers. Major chains of data are endlessly processed to determine the viewer’s tastes and consumption preferences, maximizing the effectiveness of an advertisement. Executives favor stories with smaller and shorter packets of attention-grabbing content, more data points and more room for advertising. Within this context, the storyteller generates revenue for the media distribution company. In many ways this model resembles the past, but it also differs, notably because data relevant to the production of content has become so privatized that none of it is even available to the creators of said content. That is to say, whereas before box office numbers were a way for storytellers to get royalties from the con-
tent they created, contemporary TV show writers, for example, have no access to the royalties or the data that captures the engagement with their content. They are also unable to tell which characters are most “relatable” or which “nobody” sells the best. For storytellers, the scientific aspect of storytelling is rendered inaccessible by the material context of those tools. The complicated moving pieces of Schamus’ talk ended with a moral imperative: For the storyteller, truth must remain a matter of feeling and art but not science. Schamus ended the presentation with a rapid-fire question-and-answer session. David Gabriel ’19 asked about the challenge of balancing contemporary relevance and immediate connection with longevity. Schamus answered by extolling the virtues of sustained focus and technological disconnection, which, at the cost of decreased cultural engagement, empowers one to craft stories that connect with people deeply. Another student asked about the entrance of machine learning into not just algorithms but also the actual production and writing of movies. Schamus took the opportunity to reflect on the paradox of algorithms that pretend to predict human behavior. The outcomes of these algorithms are always contingent and provisional. Furthermore, they often change behavior themselves. Schamus noted the connection between algorithms that predict viewer taste and algorithms used in predictive policing, concluding the event in a cautionary tone while fusing his insider knowledge with pertinent academic analysis.
The Miscellany Crossword by Benjamin Costa
ACROSS 1. With an ‘l’, an orange; with a k, a coward 5. Telephone’s purpose 9. Tintinnabulation 14. The height of power 15. Burn balm 16. Push forwards 17. A grocery store lane [sic] 18. Rule enforcers 19. Silly Substance 20. Oops, some violin bows! 23. Rumplestiltskin’s raw material 24. Jellystone nuisance 25. Popups or banners 28. Run rampant 30. Ancient Assyrian city 32. Tree blood 35. Flower of the eye 36. Grain storage 37. Old Spice, in actuality 39. Peso percent 42. Ready to eat 43. Large, popular fish 44. 43 Across catcher 45. ‘Upcycling’ 49. Improve writing 51. Sure!
Tournament Puzzle snow lie drum figure stone turkey eyes door
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52. Matricidal emperor 54. Franec’s ciyt of lighst [sic] 57. Oops, a flower! 60. Modern Family’s Vergara 63. Sitting at the 14 across 64. ‘Remove’ mark 65. Taken in toto 66. Wave pattern 67. Level 68. Medieval short story 69. Wound’s remains 70. Locks into place
DOWN 1. An innocent 2. Orbit point closest or furthest from Earth 3. Grassland biome 4. Semicircular Greek alcove 5. Well-loved 6. Lagers 7. Up in the rafters 8. Damaged part of the body 9. Small clay pot 10. R-, Nicod-, Polyph11. Well-suited 12. Permit 13. Sneaky and clever 21. Child-devouring snake monster 22. Special effects 25. Bird-like 26. Dig into 27. Oops, a shotgun! 29. Baby fox 31. New York Minutes (abbr.) 32. Oops, my piece landed on the same space as yours! 33. Goodbye, in 54 across 34. Elaborate kind of book 38. The matter at hand, legally 39. White ball, in pool 40. Decorative inner cover
41. Water spirit 46. Breathe in 47. The One 48. Hulled oats 50. Sells stock 53. Eye-related 55. Sifting device 56. Tiny 17 across 1
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57. Die, as a flower 58. Sodium bicarbonate, in baking 59. Y yroup yf yemale yhickens [sic] 60. [We know this clue was inaccurate] 61. Lennon’s love 62. Paper wind machine
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OPINIONS
November 1, 2018
Page 13
Campus Climate What are your thoughts on the Rebalanced Curriculum? Sonali Shah ’20
Elizabeth Gibbs ’20
The Rebalanced Curriculum is an exciting new step for academics at Vassar. The new addition of intensives as an integral part of every student’s academic career is a great way to ensure all students are getting opportunities to connect with other students, with their professors and with the greater Vassar community. While I will only have a year to take intensives, I am looking forward to seeing how everything turns out! At the forum, students seemed excited about the changes and mostly concerned with the logistics. I think this will be a fairly smooth transition.
Temishi Onnekikami ’21 I got the impression that many of the students were concerned about how the curriculum change would affect them—especially the changes regarding major requirements because many of the questions revolving around that topic couldn’t be answered with absolute certainty. One of my main concerns… [was what criteria would allow students to] be accepted into this very mentorship-driven program. Although the panelists’ answers alleviated some of these concerns, I would have appreciated a more comprehensive plan that would help make sure the intensives are as inclusive as possible—meaning someone’s not getting in because they know a professor well.
I’m looking forward to the implementation of the intensives curriculum as I think it’ll provide students with alternative learning experiences as well as a close mentorship with a professor. However, I find the 4.5 units for overload to be a bit frustrating, especially as the new curriculum will start the fall of my senior year, and I was planning on taking five units both semesters my senior year. When asking about possibilities for overload/alterations for the students who are going to be in “the gray zone” for the turnover, the panelists didn’t seem to have a lot of solid answers for students, which also was frustrating; I hope they take our questions and concerns into consideration and send out clarifying information soon.
Josie Schermerhorn ’21 I think the changes are for the best, but it’s frustrating that the sophomores are going to be right in the middle of the transition period, and we had limited opportunity to give our input about the changes. I’m also worried about the availability of classes during the transition period since professors will have to be teaching classes required before the change in curriculum along with the intensives.
Street food offers rich history, culture for all customers Isabella Boyne
GUEST COLUMNIST
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here is something that crêpes, pork satay and jerk chicken have in common— they are all street foods and a delicious gateway into new cultures and histories. According to the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization, 2.5 billion people eat street food daily, cementing its place as a staple food source around the world (The Economist, “South-East Asian cities are waging war on street food,” 02.28.2017). Street food, however, is not a new phenomenon: Small, fried fish were commonplace in marketplaces of ancient Greece (Cathy K. Kaufman, “Cooking in Ancient Civilisations,” 2006). In ancient Rome, poor urban residents ate street food, usually consisting of chickpea soup, bread and grain paste. Similarly, in ancient China, street food was consumed by the poor, although wealthier members of society would buy street food to eat in their own homes (B. W. Higman, “How Food Made History,” 2011). There is a clear pattern within street food history where this type of food catered to the poor and was absent from the culture of the wealthy. However, the connotations of street food are slowly changing. In August of this year, Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced that Singapore will nominate its food hawker culture for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity
(Coconuts Singapore, “Singapore Plans to Get Hawker Culture Officially Recognised in UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage List,” 08.28.2018). Singapore natives are passionate about their street food; Alvin Pang, a renowned author and editor from Singapore, says that the taste of Singaporean food reflects the rich history of the country and adds that hawker food is a distinctively Singaporean art form (South China Morning Post, “Singaporeans explain why their food hawker culture merits Unesco listing, hits back at Malaysian critics,” 09.28.2018).
“There is a clear pattern within street food history where this type of food catered to the poor and was absent from the culture of the wealthy.” It is not just the Singaporean locals who praise their street food. In 2016, two street vendors in Singapore, “Hong Kong Soya Sauce Chicken Rice and Noodle” and “Hill Street Tai Hwa Pork Noodle,” were among 29 dining venues in the country to be featured in the Michelin Guide. These examples suggest that street food in Singapore is more than a cultural staple—it also places the island city-state on the map when it comes to food (The Telegraph, “Singa-
pore street food stalls get Michelin stars,” 07.25.2016). Unfortunately, street food vendors in other countries do not seem to enjoy the same support. In Bangkok, a city famous for its street food, authorities announced that as of April 2017, street vendors would no longer be allowed on the footpath, citing impeding pedestrians, having an unsightly appearance and attracting vermin (The Economist, “South-East Asian cities are waging war on street food,” 02.28.2017). The ban received a huge outcry from tourists and locals alike. Chawadee Nualkhair, author of “Thailand’s Best Street Food” argued, “[S]treet food makes all the inner workings of Bangkok possible.” Many office workers buy street food and eat on the streets because it is cheap and convenient, and such street food serves as a glue that brings together people from all walks of life (The Guardian, “Will Bangkok’s street food ban hold?” 08.27.2017). Furthermore, Bangkok’s 20,000 street food vendors provide food for about 40 percent of the population, meaning that such a ban would affect a large part of the city’s population (The Economist). Bangkok’s government is not the only one seeking to clear its streets of food vendors. Authorities in Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City are advising street vendors on more stable ways to make a living. The government plans to move those who continue to work as vendors into less congested areas of the city. Jakarta’s government is taking similar actions to reduce street food vendor activity. (The Economist).
Even in New York, street food vendors, of which there are over 10,000, must jump through many hoops in order to make their living. Food sellers face 54 pages of rules, including policies on health, selling location and even the practice of tucking their licenses inside their shirts.
“Even in New York, street food vendors... must jump through many hoops in order to make their living.” Mohammad Omar, a kebab cart vendor who immigrated to America from Egypt, recalls how on his second day as a street food vendor, a policeman gave him five tickets that he was unable to pay, and with little knowledge of English, he was unable to protest (The Guardian, “Inside the impossible life of a New York street vendor,” 10.22.2016). Not only do street food vendors around the world fulfill the role of providing cheap and flavourful food for locals and tourists alike, but they also provide culture and history to a country, a group of people brought together by a love for delicious food. If the vendors disappear, hungry customers may find somewhere else to eat, but they will struggle to find a community as valuable as the one provided by this historically disparaged form of cuisine.
The Miscellany News is not responsible for the views presented within its Opinions pages. The weekly staff editorial is the only article which reflects the opinion of the Editorial Board.
MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE
OPINIONS
Page 14
November 1, 2018
Electric vehicles alone will not solve climate change Steven Park
OPINIONS EDITOR
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or a species heading toward eventual planetary self-destruction at the hands of climate change, we sure love to drag our feet when it comes to stopping this cataclysmic collision course unless some attractive gimmick is involved. Past examples include the Tron-inspired solar-powered roadways (Clean Energy Authority, “What’s Happening with Solar Roads?” 01.16.2018) and futuristic artificial trees that suck up carbon dioxide (The Guardian, “Could artificial trees be part of the climate change solution?” 01.12.2016), although both of them have reached dead ends in the context of reality. This time, it seems that the production of electric cars has grabbed everyone’s attention as the sleek and stylish solution that will save the Earth. Yet, unlike previous efforts, the idea of an electric car has captivated people for more than 100 years. In fact, electric cars made up about one-third of all vehicles on U.S. roads by 1900, enjoying immense popularity for almost two decades until Henry Ford’s mass-produced Model T effectively incapacitated the electric car industry in 1908 (U.S. Department of Energy, “The History of the Electric Car,” 09.15.2014). Today, electric cars have returned as a symbol of a greener future, as if directly opposing the gas-guzzling automobiles that represent our society’s current fossil fuel crisis. Recently, Australia announced a $6 million investment towards building electric vehicle charging stations (Phys.org, “The new electric vehicle highway is a welcome gear shift, but other countries are still streets ahead,” 10.30.2018), and China has overtaken every other country in the world as the largest international market for electric cars (CNN, “China is crushing Europe’s
electric car dreams,” 10.30.2018). In addition, like well-oiled clockwork, the Trump administration has responded to this green energy initiative by doing everything in its power to obstruct it, such as killing California’s mandate requiring car companies to build electric cars and other zero-emission vehicles (McClatchy DC, “Trump’s challenge of California’s emissions rules could zap its electric car industry,” 08.02.2018). However, Trump’s anti-environment rhetoric only seems to fuel the public’s worship of electric cars. During his presidency, Tesla sales have spiked from 25,051 vehicles to 83,500 vehicles, amounting to a ridiculous 233 percent growth rate in just two years. This makes Tesla, an electric car, the fourth best selling car in the United States (Clean Technica, “25,913% Growth In Tesla Sales In 6 Years,” 10.04.2018). And when it comes to electric cars, no other automotive company has developed an Apple-esque cult of personality quite like Tesla Motors, the beloved brainchild of billionaire business magnate Elon Musk, who treats every showing of the latest sexy Tesla model like an extravagant rock concert. Of course, the extreme enthusiasm that Musk and his fanbase express for their electric car makes sense. Multiple studies have shown that electric cars demonstrate more energy efficiency than gasoline-powered cars, which helps reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions entering the atmosphere. In fact, it takes a petroleum car 142 megajoules of energy to travel 100km, whereas an electric car requires 38 megajoules to travel the same distance (The Guardian, “How green are electric cars?” 12.21.2017). “For the US overall, an electric vehicle is much cleaner than a gasoline vehicle, even when you take into account the emissions from natural gas, coal, or however else
Please, Tell Us More! Prof. Hiromi Dollase
CHINESE AND JAPANESE DEPT.
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“Six Problems With Electric Cars That Nobody Talks About,” 11.06.2017). Other extremely rare earth minerals include dysprosium, lanthanum, neodymium and praseodymium, most of which (around 99 percent) are wasted upon extraction due to contamination from the toxic mining process (Wired, “Tesla’s Electric Cars Aren’t As Green As You Might Think,” 03.31.2016; Autoevolution). This means battery recycling plays a critical role in making sure that the remaining useable rare metals are expended as efficiently as possible, which comes in direct conflict with the fact that there is still no environmentally safe way to recycle lithium-ion batteries (The Conversation, “Not so fast: why the electric vehicle revolution will bring problems of its own,” 04.16.2018). Most importantly, our electric cars are only as green as our energy grid. If electricity in the United States relies on high-emission petroleum or coal, then all of the positive environmental impacts brought upon by all those fancy Tesla cars will amount to minimal progress at best (Scientific American, “Electric Cars Are Not Necessarily Clean,” 05.11.2016). It is easy to be swept away by the hype surrounding the latest sexy, cutting-edge technology that markets itself as the next global solution to climate change. Tesla may promote itself as the vehicle that will save the future, but we cannot simply buy ourselves out of the hole we dug ourselves in. In fact, it’s the opposite: We need to reduce all forms of consumption from electricity to consumer goods for effective change to occur. If we want real progress, we must resist the temptation to find indulgent shortcuts and acknowledge the hard truth that we need to turn to all options, even unappealing ones, in order to approach a monumental dilemma like climate change.
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.
term shōjo (adolescent girl). Magazine stories always included illustrations of girls with big eyes, small mouths and long limbs, and the shōjo portrayed there became the prototype of girl characters in manga later on. From the girls’ magazine community, many aspiring young female writers emerged, and many of them looked up to Jo March, the main character of “Little Women” who eventually becomes a writer. The girl characters presented in their works are naive, dreamy, rebellious and aloof. These characters are socially marginal and viewed as immature. But because of these girls’ “immature” qualities, authors could exercise power to express their thoughts without worrying about the reaction of authority. Every year, I spend several weeks in the summer in Japan conducting research. FlipThis illustration is from “Shōfujin” (1906), the first Japanese translation of “Little ping through issues of old girls’ magazines Women.” It is drawn by a woman named Kitada Shūho, the translator of the story. gives me blissful pleasure. I sometimes find pictures of Vassar College and articles lations of Western girls’ stories that were 1980s. which mention Vassar in these magazines introduced in Japan at the turn of the 20th Girls’ magazines played an important from generations ago. I feel fortunate to century empowered girl readers and in- role in helping spread, evolve and enrich be able to work at a school that has a close spired women writers. My book deals with the Japanese girls’ fiction genre. They also connection to the origin of Japanese girls’ girls’ magazine stories from the 1920s to the served a salient part in the creation of the stories. Courtesy of Hiromi Dollase
n the summer of 2017, about 20 Japanese women in their 40s, 50s and 60s visited Vassar. The purpose of their visit was to tour the campus from which their favorite writer, Jean Webster, known for her novel “Daddy-Long-Legs,” graduated. They also visited the house of “Little Women” author Louisa May Alcott in Concord, MA, on this trip. Western girls’ stories have fascinated Japanese women for over a century and continue to be read by Japanese children today. I am one of the women who grew up reading these stories. In fact, the very first book I bought with my own pocket money was “Little Women.” I, the oldest of three sisters, even tried to write a “Little Women”–like story when I was a child, although after drawing the cover illustration of the book, I lost the energy to continue. My research is rooted in Western girls’ stories that I enthusiastically read when I was a child. My forthcoming book, “Age of Shōjo: The Emergence, Evolution, and Power of Japanese Girls’ Magazine Fiction” (SUNY Press, 2019), examines how trans-
you’re generating the electricity,” stated senior engineer Dave Reichmuth from the nonprofit science advocacy organization Union of Concerned Scientists (Wired, “Even More Evidence That Electric Cars Could Save the Planet,” 03.15.2018). But while electric cars definitely have their advantages over conventional gasoline-powered automobiles, we must not overlook the fact that they also come with their own set of problems. For instance, fuel efficiency on the road is only half the battle in the struggle for environmental sustainability. On average, the emissions released from the manufacturing process can be four times higher than the amount produced through tailpipe emissions (The Guardian, What’s the carbon footprint of...a new car?” 09.23.2010). In other words, reducing a car’s carbon footprint through increased fuel efficiency means nothing if building the car itself involves significantly more harm to the environment. Unfortunately, manufacturing an electric car may pose a greater environmental risk than building a gasoline vehicle. The 2015 report by the Union of Concerned Scientists states, “Manufacturing a mid-sized [electric vehicle (EV)] with an 84-mile range results in about 15 percent more emissions than manufacturing an equivalent gasoline vehicle. For larger, longer-range EVs that travel more than 250 miles per charge, the manufacturing emissions can be as much as 68 percent higher” (Union of Concerned Scientists, “Cleaner Cars from Cradle to Grave,” 11.2015). The biggest issue with the electric car pertains to its lithium-ion battery, the central power source of the automobile. In order to create these large, bulky lithium batteries, manufacturers need large supplies of lithium, an expensive and rare metal that exists in tiny quantities (Autoevolution,
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 Steven Park at eupark@@[at]@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 weekly staff editorial is the only article which reflects the opinion of the Editorial Board.
MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE
November 1, 2018
OPINIONS
Jews must organize after Pittsburgh attack Sylvan Perlmutter COLUMNIST
[TW: This piece contains discussion of violence and death.] was in Pittsburgh this past Saturday on Oct. 27 attending a conference, when, only two miles away, a neo-Nazi named Robert Bowers entered the Tree of Life Synagogue yelling, “All Jews must die,” and proceeded to gun down 11 congregants in the deadliest anti-Semitic assault in American history. There was nothing exceptional separating the Tree of Life Congregation from the synagogue my family attends in Dallas, TX, and Pittsburgh is not any more anti-Semitic or gun-obsessed than other parts of the country. That could well have been my family murdered during Shabbat morning services. Despite my anguish at the murder of my fellow Jews and the injury of the brave first responders who came to their defense, I was not surprised that the massacre took place. As the grandson of a Holocaust survivor, I was raised knowing that there were people out there who had never met me before—who knew nothing of my character or aspirations but longed to see me and everyone I loved wiped from the face of the earth. The Nazis who herded my great-grandmother into the gas chambers at Belzec and cracked whips against my grandfather and great-grandfather’s backs in the concentration camps lost the war, but their ideas remain. This terrible fact echoed within the Vassar community this month when a neo-Nazi affiliated with The Daily Stormer distributed flyers with the words, “Every time some Anti-White, Anti-American, Anti-Freedom event takes place, you look at it, and it’s Jews behind it,” and the faces of prominent Jewish
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figures like George Soros, Chuck Schumer and Dianne Feinstein hovering menacingly over a defiant Brett Kavanaugh. The Pittsburgh shooter’s beliefs are indistinguishable from those of that Poughkeepsie neo-Nazi white supremacist. The difference is that the shooter took his beliefs to their logical conclusion: Bowers believes that Soros, who has replaced the Rothschilds in the fascist imagination as the symbol for purported Jewish global domination, is orchestrating the migrant caravan of Hondurans traveling to the U.S. border to seek asylum. One reason he targeted the Tree of Life Synagogue was because of its involvement with the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), a Jewish nonprofit devoted to assisting refugees of all faiths in the U.S, one for which I hold a particular affinity, as they helped resettle my grandfather and great-grandfather in Cuba after World War II and then helped resettle them again, together with my grandmother and father, in the U.S. in 1960. Anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about Soros and refugees are not confined to obscure corners of the Internet. Popular outlets like Fox News and Breitbart News have spread this misinformation across the country, retaining the attention of President Trump and his supporters. President Trump condemned the shooting as a “wicked act” of anti-Semitism, but it has become extremely difficult to take his concern for Jews seriously after he defended neo-Nazis and white supremacists in Charlottesville as “fine people” (USA Today, “Trump condemns ‘all types of racism’ on Charlottesville anniversary; critics slam wording,” 10.11.2018). Whatever Trump’s personal feelings about Jews, it is undeniable that the upsurge in anti-Semitic and racist
acts of violence, such as the shooting of two African-American senior citizens in Louisville, KY, on Oct. 25, is inseparable from the wave of nativism and white supremacy on which he rode to power. Politicizing the deaths of so many innocent people may appear to some like dirty opportunism, but the only way to prevent further murders is through political action. Jews must organize with our allies in defense of marginalized groups and combat the emboldened strains of fascism, Nazism and white supremacy that hold sway in our society. To withdraw into a closed-off and fearful version of communal life would be to sacrifice our most beloved values in pursuit of temporary respite. The Tree of Life Synagogue was attacked for defiantly embodying the noblest aspects of the Jewish tradition: hospitality toward the stranger and the recognition that all peoples have a right to security, freedom and dignity. We can only push back the forces of nativist bigotry through openness and active solidarity. As I sat in a University of Pittsburgh auditorium, grief-stricken and half-listening to a panel of scholars, I snapped back into focus when a professor mentioned through tears that she grew up attending the Tree of Life Synagogue and stated, “We will not let this get in our way.” These words echo in my head as I sit writing back at Vassar. The Jewish people must grieve their fallen siblings in Pittsburgh—and the victims of white supremacist hatred in Louisville—but we cannot let these incidents stop us from pursuing our callings as individuals and as a community. May the memory of those cherished souls that were taken from us bless us and guide us in the struggles to come.
Tiring war against anti-Semitism rages on Jesser Horowitz COLUMNIST
[TW: This piece contains discussion of violence and death.] n Oct. 27, 2018, a white supremacist walked into the Tree of Life Synagogue and fired upon the congregants. Eleven were killed: Joyce Fienberg, Richard Gottfried, Rose Mallinger, Jerry Rabinowitz, Cecil Rosenthal, David Rosenthal, Bernice Simon, Sylvan Simon, Daniel Stein, Melvin Wax and Irving Younger (WTOL 11, “Investigators release names of victims shot and killed in a Pittsburg Synagogue,” 10.28.2018). May their memories be a blessing. The gunman had a verified account on Gab, which the Southern Poverty Law Center describes as being an alternative social media site for the far right, a haven for racism and anti-Semitism. Two days before the shooting, the gunman posted, “There is no #MAGA as long as there is a kike infestation” (Rolling Stone, “What We Know So Far About the Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting,” 10.27.2018). He bought into the conspiracy theories that Jews were committing “white genocide” by supporting refugees, directing his ire particularly at the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS). In his last post before the attack, he wrote, “HIAS likes to bring in invaders that kill our people. I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, I’m going in.” He called Jews the children of Satan and believed that an all-knowing, all-encompassing Zionist-occupied government controlled the world (Southern Poverty Law Center, “A gunman opened fire on a synagogue in Pittsburgh, killing at least elevent
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people and wounding others,” 10.27.2018). It is very easy to condemn anti-Semitism when it is perpetrated by the far right, when a major tragedy has just occurred or when it can be tied back to an issue that the left cares about, like immigration. It is very easy to condemn anti-Semitism when you can see the bodies, when you can score political points for doing so or when your progressive friends are all screaming at you to do so. However, I am tired of explaining anti-Semitism for the rest of the year. I am tired of seeing those who would deny the Jewish people our right to self-determination, who call us termites, who defend those who call us termites, who call us elitists, who call us kulaks, who defend our killers, who dismiss our deaths as trivial, who call us colonizers on our own land or those who fashion themselves as allies. I am tired of having to explain to them why they’re wrong. I’m not sad. I’m not disappointed. I’m not frightened. I’m angry. I’m angry at the right’s demonization of George Soros and refugees. I’m angry at the left’s demonization of the Jewish state. I’m angry because anti-Semitic hate crimes are on the rise. I’m angry because the President of the United States blamed the synagogue for the shooting, suggesting that it would not have occurred if they had hired armed guards (CNN, “Trump says Pittsburgh synagogue should have had armed guards,” 10.28.2018). I’m angry because I have seen no widespread outrage on campus outside of Jewish groups. I’m angry because it’s 2018, and yet, Jews are no longer safe in most of Europe. I’m angry because less than 48 hours after a white supremacist killed 11 Jews in an attempt to strike back
against the Zionist-occupied government, a Vassar student believed it was appropriate to post, “[I]f you’re a zionist you are advocating for genocide” on Vassar Missed (Facebook, “Missed Connection #6337,” 10.28.2018). I’m angry because if it had been posted on any other day, many of my peers would have supported and defended the sentiment. I’m angry because no matter how much I scream and pout and write, no matter how furiously I try to make people understand, nothing changes. I’m angry because, for the first time, it’s dawning on me that all my work at Vassar, everything I’ve written for The Miscellany News, everything I’ve done to encourage change and to send a message to other Jewish students that they can feel safe here at Vassar has done nothing. I don’t want to be fighting this battle for the rest of my life. I know that there are many, many good people just as outraged as I am and that many Vassar students are trying their best. I am appreciative of my friends who reached out to me and other Jewish peers to check in. I am thankful for everyone, Jew or gentile, who has taken active steps to fight anti-Semitism, for the supportive Jewish community on campus and for the friends who know and love and care about me. But this isn’t their story, and this isn’t mine. This is the story of 11 Jewish people who died for no reason, other than for being Jewish. This is the story of many more people who have died and will die because they are Jews. This is the story of a people who, despite the best efforts of millions of anti-Semites, will never perish from this earth. עם ישראל חי עוד אבינו חי
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Word on the street How do you like to scare people?
“I try to be scary, but it usually doesn’t work.” — Anthony Ghatas ’21
“I like to talk about really deep shit right off the bat.” — Austen Juul-Hansen ’22
“With my heelys.” — Louie Brown ’19
“I like to make eye contact with strangers on the bus and then make faces at them.” — Nerissa Tunnessen ’22
“Turn off the lights and scare them when they come in.” — Muhammad Furrukh ’22
“I scare them with how genuine I am.” — Gibran Mourani ’22
Hannah Gaven, Humor & Satire Hannah Benton, Photography
The Miscellany News is not responsible for the views presented within its Opinions pages. The weekly staff editorial is the only article which reflects the opinion of the Editorial Board.
MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE
HUMOR & SATIRE
Page 16
November 1, 2018
Breaking News
From the desk of Hannah Gaven, Humor & Satire Editor
Students release geese stolen from Sunset Lake in dining center, proclaiming ‘Geece’ as its new name Writer wanders campus at night, chuckles about article ideas Izzy Migani
TWO-FINGERED TYPIST
H
Courtesy of Frank
ey! Are you funny? Do you want to write for the humor section? You’re going to need ideas for articles weekly! As someone who has been through many trials and many, many, many more errors, I’m going to share some tips and tricks about what I do to constantly pursue these elusive ideas. It’s a long, arduous process, although inspiration may lurk around any corner or in any crevice. When I’m feeling hard-pressed for ideas, the Deece (I’m sorry, the Gordon Commons) proves a rich source of inspiration. This seemed to be strategic for awhile, but I guess sitting in a booth with your laptop, staring at people and furiously typing as they walk by may start to seem slightly creepy. I get it! It’s a weird place to be for myself, too! I still mainly type with my two pointer fingers! Let me live! When the Deece (Oh my God, I still mean Gordon Commons) runs dry (one can only write about humorous nervous breakdowns or not knowing how to cook so many times), I head to Cushing. On the way, I keep my eyes peeled for ANYTHING that could be funny. See a big moth? Article idea! Feeling emo that day? Article idea! Did I zone out so hard that my legs went on autopilot, and I ended up at the College Center? Not an article yet. I keep my eyes peeled because I’m writing ideas down in my idea book as I speak. Sadly, the second I return home to Cushing, every iota of humor I may or may not possess is sucked out of me like a person struggling to use those gigantic straws Wendy’s gives you with their Frosties (or do they give you a spoon now? I’m not sure). So, I leave immediately. The next stop on my noble quest is Sunset Lake. Someone used to always be doing something stupid there (myself included), but lately it’s been quite lacking in idea gen-
eration. Maybe people are catching on to me and finding another place to engage in stupid activities, or maybe Sunset isn’t the hopping location it once was. In any event, I’m thinking of removing it from my humor route. Next, I loop around and head back toward the Bridge. Science is funny, right? Wrong. Nothing is funny about organic chemistry. There’s just pain and suffering. Seeing people leaving lab with the imprints of their lab goggles deeply engraved into their foreheads is pretty funny, though, so I’m keeping the Bridge on my route just in case it ever becomes funny enough for an article idea. After the Bridge, I head over to the Library. Notice I’m purposely skipping the Loeb. The Loeb is a precious thing that MUST be protected. If it were a person it’d be that sweetold-lady-type that gives out the full-size bars on Halloween. If I ever catch ANYONE making fun of that one painting with the weirdly proportioned people, I WILL fight them, and they can meet me in front of the Deece (GORDON COMMONS). The only thing funny about the Library so far is myself and my obscenely loud typing that is more disturbing than if I were to actually talk out loud. Also, just found out Matthew’s Bean doesn’t exist anymore. Really? Possible article idea? It’s now that my computer battery begins to die, so it comes time to finish up my humor crusade. The final stop is the Quad. Weird and unsettling things usually happen there as opposed to humorous things. Once I saw someone make a pentagram with leaves. Autumnal Witchcraft? Why use leaves? Why the Quad? Does it have demonic energy that I should know about? I’m left with more questions than answers. It is here when my computer dies and my humorous quest ends. If anyone is interested in writing for the humor section, you should join me on my journey. Who knows, you might end up as an article.
Above is an amazing cartoon depicting the transition of an article from writer to reader. I often worry about this transition when I turn in essays at 3 a.m. after no sleep.
Deece-ent advice from some halfway Deece-ent, semi-qualified advice-givers Advice by Jailyn Lopez and Josie Schermerhorn, the funniest people
Dear Deece-ent, There is someone else at Vassar who has almost the exact same name as me, and I keep on getting their packages and emails. I’m getting tired of responding to every email to tell them that they’ve got the wrong person, and I keep on getting let down when I open a package and it isn’t for me. How do I inform people in one grand gesture that we are two different people? —A Rose is Not a Rose Dear A Rose is Not a Rose, It sounds horrible to go through the excitement of opening a package just to find out that it isn’t for you. It must feel like the Grinch is coming down the chimney and stealing your Christmas. To make it known that you are different people, start by hanging a banner in the College Center. Petition the VSA for money to print this giant poster. They’ll say yes because this problem has escalated so much that it’s hurting the
entire student body. If that falls through, stage a one-person show that details your entire life so no one can ever forget who you truly are. We recommend featuring a clip of your birth. We’ll be in the front row. Dear Deece-ent, I may have gotten a little too wild over Halloweekend. I did something horribly embarrassing, and I feel like I might never be able to live it down. I don’t want to go into too much detail, but let’s just say it involved too much cheese, a crowded TA, my crush and an inhuman amount of vomit. How can I possibly get people to forget this ever happened and no longer be remembered for this unfortunate event? —TA Troublemaker Dear TA Troublemaker, We’re a big fan of hiring a hypnotist (who doubles as a hit man), but if that’s not in your price range then you might
have to DIY this fix. Get a friend to make an even bigger spectacle to wipe your embarrassing moment from everyone’s mind. This is also a sneaky way to find out who your true friends are. Another option is to throw your own party where you mix mustard with wine, just enough to make people feel a little queasy. Then break out the blue cheese plate. Record your friends as they rush to the toilet, and the next time they try to bring up the Halloweekend horror, remind them of the video you have. Dear Deece-ent, We write an advice column that has a name inspired by my college’s dining center. The administration has decided to change the name of the building and will now be calling it the Gordon Commons, or the GoCo if you hate yourself enough to say that. Do we try and change the name of the advice column, or take the easy way out and launch a campus-wide campaign
MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE
to get the administration to admit that they made a giant mistake and from now on they will not enforce the name change? —The writers of a different advice column named after the Deece Dear The Funniest People in the World, What a relatable problem for anyone. It’s time for vigilante justice. Changing your advice column’s name would be too inconvenient for you, so you must dedicate your life to keeping the Deece alive. Campaign to designate it as a historical landmark. Lisa Kudrow has probably said “Deece” in her life, and that should be reason enough for the designation. Show up at President Bradley’s open houses and leave handwritten notes politely saying that you want the administration to come to its senses. She’ll either be moved by your commitment to the cause or think Matthew Vassar’s ghost is speaking to her. Either way, it’s a surefire way to get the job done!
November 1, 2018
HUMOR & SATIRE
Page 17
Attempt at news article devolves into humorous Bradley joke Blair Webber
“NEWS JOURNALIST”
Dear Readers, s a staff writer for the Misc Humor Section, I’ve spent the last year-anda-half entertaining the Vassar campus with whimsical tales of far-away lands entirely of my own creation that are not even close to being based in the reality of our lives at this scenic, coeducational liberal arts institution nestled delicately in the bosom of the scenic Hudson Valley. But after the events of the last week—no, month…no, wait, year (actually make it two years)—I feel I can no longer make jokes. Gone are my cleverly spun tales of laundry and deceit, roommate struggles and the food we all must eat. But now, it will be only the cold, hard facts: truth at 700 words per week. My first article as someone who writes about serious things in a serious manner is about the recent declaration on the part of Health and Human Services in which they pretend to care about “science.” By science, they mean stuff they make up so they can invalidate the identities of millions of trans, non-binary and intersex people. Damn it. I made a joke. I’m sorry I’m barely a paragraph into my first serious news story and I’ve let you all down. You know what, I don’t want to write about that anyway. It’s making me cry, and my laptop’s been acting weird since I got tears in it yesterday while I watched a video of a dog and a duck who are friends to avoid finishing my World Cinema essay.
A
Courtesy of Blair Webber
Here lies a masterful cartoon crafted by a real cartoonist. While it may have been created with preset shapes in Google Docs, it has a unique meaning to the well-informed viewer. But I made a promise to my Misc readers to be serious from now on, and I am a man of my word, so I’ll try again. Last week, President Bradley got lost in the Engaged Pluralism Initiative’s cloth labyrinth while participating in a walking meditation. CRAP. That’s not true. President Bradley isn’t lost. She isn’t stuck in a week-long contemplative exercise. I just thought maybe a serious story about a pretty cool activity on campus would be a nice balance to all the other upsetting things, but I guess I can’t take that seriously either. So
maybe News isn’t my section. I still want to try serious writing because we are living in an era too serious for humor. I guess I’ll try my hand at the Arts section. “Taylor Swift breaks political silence to throw support behind restoring Shōgun to the throne of Japan.” Nope. I can’t do this. I have to confess: I copied that from The Onion. I didn’t even come up with that joke. So maybe I’m not an Arts or a News writer. Maybe I’m not a writer at all. Maybe...just maybe…I’m a……
HOROSCOPES
I did it. I’m a successful cartoonist. See my drawing above? It’s hard-hitting political commentary, à la World War II—era Dr. Seuss, and I’ll tell you why it is—it’s because…we’re all Pac-Man on a rectangle because…we…all eat ghosts. Wait, no. We’re not all Pac-Man on a rectangle, that doesn’t even make sense. And I didn’t draw that, I just used preset shapes in Google Docs. I don’t know what to do anymore. I’m out of ideas. If I can’t be serious, how can I contribute to the conversation? Humor has no place in such a tenuous time. Oh well, it makes me happy to think up headlines like “Clogged cushing sink now largest body of water in New York State.” Maybe that’s all I can do: little things like make myself laugh and take a shower every day. Taking care of myself by getting out of bed every day and correcting people when they call me “she” instead of “he” and staying hydrated is enough, perhaps. Maybe concentrating on what I can control, or feeling the joy of seeing brightly colored fall leaves, is revolutionary enough. On the other hand, I could also scream and throw things. Maybe set something on fire—who knows where lawlessness in the face of injustice will take me? Until then, I’m going to keep trying to write serious articles for the Misc and be the best, most honest, most sincere reporter I can be because nothing is more impactful than exposés in liberal arts college newspapers. Until next week, my loyal readers, Blair Webber
Hannah Gaven
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
I sometimes feel awkward about initiating conversations with professors. If you feel the same, I suggest following in my footsteps. I purposefully fail the first test so the professor initiates conversation with me about the possibility of me dropping the class. I understand the desire to show everyone how big your dick is. While knocking on people’s doors to share would be effective, I suggest wearing life-sized penis shaped earrings. Not only will you look nice after accessorizing, you can also show off your big dick energy. You may be wondering, “Is it okay to ‘accidentally’ spill the strange concoction I just made in chemistry on my lab partner?” The answer to that query is yes. Worst case scenario, you end up walking them to Baldwin. Best case scenario, you start the apocalypse by creating human-zombie-bats! I hate fighting with my headphones. It takes me ten minutes to untangle one side. If I do this while trying to scarf down Express in the College Center, I look like a real kultz. Take pity on me and serenade me with “Fireflies” (the best song ever) anytime you see me. You might be feeling disconnected and looking to see people shake their vasses. If you find yourself longing for dance, come see Vass Shakers dance in their pants. There will not be ants. I think I hate toasters. They take my fluffy and squishy bread and murder it, and then the black, flakey ashes fall out. The stars suggest that you turn the toaster all the way up whenever you see people put their toast in, so that you can make them as miserable and toaster-hating as I am.
LIBRA
September 23 | October 22
SCORPIO
October 23 | November 21
SAGITTARIUS
November 22 | December 21
I know you’re itching for a little adventure this week. However, it can be excruciatingly hard to find cheap, yet pleasurable activities. I suggest sculpting an ice dildo. The only ingredients are a condom, paper towel roll (for structural purposes) and water! Maybe it’ll become your new kink. You may be struggling with money this week. Instead of rashly spending, you should have someone hold onto it for you and keep it safe. The stars say that you should give all of your money over to me for safe-keeping. I definitely won’t spend it or roll around in it. I squirted grapefruit juice in my eye. It stung. I don’t know how to eat a grapefruit. I wish I could eat a grapefruit. I wish my mommy was here to cut up my fruit and the crust off of my sandwiches. Being an adult is hard. Would not recommend. I don’t like to play chubby bunny. Instead
CAPRICORN I like to play fluffy blanket. Fluffy blanket is
December 22 | where I cuddle up in a blanket and sleep for January 19 hours. I sleep through class, dinner, lab, my birthday, graduation and mozzarella sticks at the Deece.
AQUARIUS
January 20 | February 18
PISCES
February 19 | March 20
MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE
If I will a wish of which I make, I will a wish I want to take. Take it as I will my dear, I will sleep here. Here on the floor in the center of the Deece while you just keep barking at me like geese.
It’s so hard to be five. Poles and monkey bars are basically there to break bones. Conspiracy theory alert: Doctors advocate for monkey bars in the hopes that children will fall, so they can make money off of fixing broken bones.
SPORTS
Page 18
November 1, 2018
NFL kicking woes prompt argument for abolition of kicker Dean Kopitsky
GUEST COLUMNIST
S
ports, when distilled to their most basic objectives, can sound pretty silly. The goal of soccer is to kick a rubber ball into a net. In hockey, the object is to slap a rubber cylinder past a goalie with a wooden stick. In baseball, the defense has the ball but throws it at the batter in the hopes that he will whack it back as gently as possible. Those are just the mainstream sports; dare I mention curling? Humans go crazy for this stuff. In America’s favorite sport, football, the object is to advance a sewn-together pigskin past several painted lines in the hopes of getting to the grand poobah of all painted lines: the goal line. However, one objective in football makes the others look downright practical. When the offense fails to advance the pigskin all the way to the goal-line, they may opt to bring on a skinny, often balding member of the team to kick the pigskin through two vertical “goalposts,” set beyond the final painted line. No one really knows why kickers are in football anyway. So why is poor kicking one of the most dominant headlines of the NFL season so far? Don’t get me wrong—kicking in football is genuinely difficult. I have looked utterly silly trying to do it from chip-shot range. But kicking the football is the kicker’s only job. They are professional kickers. This makes their role arguably the most specific and one-dimensional position in any American sport. Their only job is right there in their title, kicker. It’s nothing ill-defined, like “offensive tackle,” which does the exact opposite of their job title. All kickers ever do is
kick the football and practice kicking the football. If you’ve ever been to an NFL training camp, you’ve probably seen the kickers either kicking the football from various angles and distances or shootin’ the breeze with the punter while the rest of the team pukes out their body weight from heatstroke. I have never seen a kicker accomplish anything team oriented. Given these realities, one would imagine that kickers would be solid across the board, but kickers have cost their teams time and time again in the most critical situations. A specter is haunting the NFL—the specter of kickers. As a rookie, Blair Walsh set an NFL record for field goal percentage beyond 50 yards out, making 10 out of 10. In the 2016 Wild Card game between the Minnesota Vikings and Seattle Seahawks, the now-five-year veteran readied himself for a 27-yard field goal. The Vikings trailed by just one point with 26 seconds remaining. A conversion by their sure-footed kicker would send the Vikings to the divisional round for the first time in six years. The long snapper sent the ball to the holder, who placed it neatly by the left hash for Walsh’s right foot to connect with. The kick hooked, veering violently left in front of the neon goal post, ending the Vikings’ season. Three years later, Blair Walsh is unemployed. Of course, such anecdotes about poor kicking can be misleading. Kickers are actually getting reliably better. As a whole, they are consistent at hitting field goals. From under 29 yards, they hit virtually 100 percent. Between 40 and 49 yards, they con-
vert at about 75 percent. This is not bad at all considering 49 yards is a really, really far distance to kick an oblong balloon of leather through the air while wearing an awkward plastic orb on your head (and a cup). But, a few seasons ago, the NFL moved the extra point after the touchdown back to the 15-yard line. The NFL made the change to add excitement to its most predictable play. Teams are more likely to go for a two-point conversion (that is, run a normal play from the two-yard line) in poor conditions if kicking the extra point is less of a chip shot and worth half as much. But why is the extra point worth keeping around anyway? When I was playing pickup football in elementary school, we counted each touchdown as seven points, not six. No field goal needed. It is both unnecessary and boring to kick extra points. People only care about extra points when kickers miss them, so it’s silly to throw a veneer of drama on the practice just to keep its relevance afloat. But I don’t want to be amicable. I want to burn it all down. There is no team-specific scheme that kickers must fit. It seems like you pick one off of the streets and pray that it works out. There doesn’t seem to be a shortage of good kickers available. Just last week, the Atlanta Falcons signed an Italian kicker named Giorgio Tavecchio after their ultra-reliable kicker, Matt Bryant, injured his hamstring. In succession, Tavecchio converted on a 40-yarder, a 50-yarder and 56-yarder. Meanwhile, kickers who earned contracts prior to the season starting have cost their team dearly this season. In week six, Mason Crosby went one for five on kicks in a game that
the Packers lost by eight points to their division rival Lions. If he had converted on kicks that he has made routinely in his career, the Packers would have won. The woes of Zane Gonzalez, the Browns’ kicker, cost his team so much that Browns fans held mock tryouts in the streets of Cleveland. The club released Gonzalez after he made a shockingly low 40 percent of his field goals on the season. What place do kickers have in the NFL? Who wants to watch a league in which 40-year-olds are signing multi-year, multimillion dollar contracts? Three cheers for ageism! And who decided that one fleeting battle between a man’s leg, the wind and two neon vertical bars should count for 50 percent as much as the excitement and drama of team-on-team combat for yardage? Can you say “Napoleon Complex?” Kicker rant bonus round: Kickers have some of the most self-defeating names in sports; Ryan Succop, Bryan Scoobee, Mike Badgley, Randy Bullock? If people actually cared about kickers, we’d be witnessing one of the great pun eras in sports-writing history. Kicking is perfunctory and dated. If you removed the kickoff (which is the game’s most dangerous play), took out field goal and made touchdowns worth seven points, would the essential drama of the game be sacrificed? Not at all. Games would be shorter, and offensives would be more likely to go for it on fourth down instead of punting. Here’s the answer to this bureaucratic mess: Remove the kicker from football. Football fans of America, rejoice. Oh yeah, and punters, we’re coming for you, too. (Except for you, Marquette King. You’re cool.)
XC depth, potential on display in disappointing weekend CROSS COUNTRY continued from page 1
third overall thanks to strong team chemistry and effort. The team rolled into the weekend on the back of an impressive season to date, the Brewers having won four of their five meets this fall. Especially after an impressive victory at the final Seven Sisters Championships two weeks prior, the Brewers entered this Saturday’s event with aplomb. “I’d say we were pretty confident coming off the win at Seven Sisters that we could perform well,” said senior Kate Lawson. “The course was nice and quick, and we were all excited to run fast and compete.” Senior Cameron Daddis’ optimism stemmed from the team’s track record against other Liberty League programs. “So far we’ve proven that we can compete with teams like RIT, which has given us some confidence going into Leagues,” detailed Daddis. Some of that confidence came from Vassar’s performance at the Seven Sisters meet, an extra special win for the senior, who explained, “My favorite moment of the season so far has been winning the last Seven Sisters Championship. This race has meant much to our team and to all of the women from the competing schools...I am so glad we were able to bring home the trophy to Vassar for good.” The team’s depth and togetherness have driven their achievements leading up to the Liberty League Championships. “One of the big factors in our success this year has been having a really healthy team culture and supporting each other to do what we need to do,” said Lawson. McCowan echoed his senior runner, adding, “The women’s commitment to our values, to each other, and to giving their best effort for the benefit of the team is really what has made [the group] so great.”
Courtesy of Joe Clifford
the group managed some solid individual performances, with multiple runners on the cusp of earning Liberty League Honorable Mentions—given to runners who finish between 15th and 21st. Both sophomore Peter Ferreter and senior Luke Arsenault came close to the Honorable Mention mark, with Ferreter finishing 22nd and Arsenault 24th, just three seconds behind. Ferreter ran hard to start the race, trying to stay in contention with a powerhouse RPI squad that would ultimately win the title for the third consecutive year, but was eventually outpaced. Vassar also flashed its potential for the future as the team’s top five performers included onetime Liberty League Rookie of the Week winner Jack Casalino and sophomore Gerald Dolan alongside Ferretter. While a fifth-place finish is not what the Brewers had hoped for, McCowan believes that explaining the team’s Saturday performance reveals a reason for optimism as the team looks forward. Diagnosed McCowan of the disappointing result: “This happened to us last year as well, and might be the result of some tired legs at the starting line. In order to stay sharp to run our best at Regionals in two weeks we have to maintain some solid training in the lead up to Leagues.” Tired legs one week might mean success two week later. “Last year,” continued McCowan, “[training hard before Leagues] worked well with the men really rising to the occasion at Regionals and improving on our League finish to catch Ithaca at the Regional meet. I know these guys are now motivated to try to replicate that success this season.” On the women’s side of the Liberty League Championships, Vassar finished
For women’s cross country, sophomore Hannah Martin’s ninth-place finish earned her All-League Second Team honors and carried the Brewers to a third-place team result. The success of the Brewers in their races has relied on this same unity, explained Lawson, who elaborated, “We don’t really have a front-runner like a lot of other competitive teams, so we rely on having a pack that can stick together on every course.” The Brewers have displayed this balance throughout the year, with different runners comprising Vassar’s top five from race to race. The roots of the group’s pack mentality can be found in the customs of the program. “To prepare for races late in the season, we go out for dinner the night before and carbo load. No word on how effective that actually is, but it’s tradition,” said Lawson. The idea of the pack is also something the team focuses on in their day-to-day preparation. “Since that’s how we always run at practice,” added Lawson, “I think it translates well to racing, and we can all kind of have the same mentality in
MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE
races that we have in lower pressure workouts.” This pack identity shone through once again at the Liberty League Championships for Vassar, as five Brewers finished in the top 25, four finishing high enough for at least Honorable Mention. Seniors Daddis, Megan Horn and Christiana Prater-Lee all finished in the top 21, while sophomore Hannah Martin led the Brewers with a ninth place overall finish, earning her Second Team All-League honors. With a third place finish under their belts in the league championships, the team now sets its sights on the regional meet, where they hope to earn a nationals bid. With senior leadership complemented by young talent, there is ample potential for Vassar to continue to grow and improve. As each team looks to finish out their season strong, let’s hope they keep carbo-loading for success.
SPORTS
November 1, 2018
Page 19
As Red Sox win Series, remember race and the Yawkey Way Emmett O’Malley COLUMNIST
I
’m a massive baseball fan and, as someone with deep connections to the city of Boston, I was perfectly content with the Red Sox winning their fourth World Series of the 21st century. But Boston and Boston sports have earned their reputation as an exceptionally racist locale. So with baseball and race on the mind, let’s get into it. At Boston’s Fenway Park in 2017, an angry, emboldened Red Sox fan hurled a bag of peanuts at Baltimore Orioles’ center fielder Adam Jones. Moments later, a voice from the amorphous blob of misplaced rage berated Jones with racist taunts and epithets. The next day, CC Sabathia—a pitcher for the New York Yankees and another one of the 62 Black players on MLB rosters to start the 2017 season—claimed that Fenway Park was the only professional stadium in which he’d ever heard the n-word. “When you go to Boston, expect it,” said Sabathia (Los Angeles Times, “Yankees Sabathia on Playing in Boston,” 05.03.2017). Two years ago, my sister and my dad went to a Red Sox vs. Yankees game at Yankee Stadium. As anyone who has ever sat in the bleachers for a Sox-Yankees game can attest, Yankee fans are not especially kind to any Red Sox player within 300 feet. The most riotous of Yankee fans are affectionately referred to as Bleacher Creatures—an audacious, predominantly working-class group located in the cheapest, loudest part of the ballpark. It so happens that right field is the position at Yankee Stadium most likely to be rained down upon by the taunts of the Bleacher Creatures. It so happens that the two best right fielders in baseball are on the Red Sox and Yankees, respectively. It
so happens that both of those players are Black. So, a particularly historically astute (and nonetheless problematic) Yankee fan decided to heckle Mookie Betts—the Red Sox otherworldly right fielder—in what he thought would be the most cutting way possible. He yelled to Mookie (and I’m paraphrasing here, but you should still read it in a thick New York accent), “They don’t love you in Boston, Mookie! Ask Bill Russell, Mookie! Ask Jim Rice! Ask Adam Jones! They don’t love you in Boston, Mookie! They never will!” Russell and Rice are perhaps the two most famous Black athletes in Boston sports history (Russell, obviously, more so than Rice). They also have never attained the same kind of respect and adoration in Boston that the likes of Larry Bird, Ted Williams, Bobby Orr and Tom Brady have. No one ever broke into Larry Bird’s house, defecated on his bed and painted racist graffiti on the walls like a group of Boston burglars did to Russell. No Red Sox team event ever explicitly excluded Ted Williams, like one did to Jim Rice as late as 1979. (Yes, all-white parties at Elks Clubs were still common practice just a year after Mormonism formally integrated...shocking.) The ferocity of Boston sports’ racism should not be surprising to anyone remotely familiar with the city’s history of racial tension. It should, however, be surprising to anyone naive enough to believe that athletic talent can transcend institutional prejudices. Case in point: although famed sportswriter Bill Simmons has Russell ranked as the third-greatest NBA player ever, if you drive through Weymouth, MA (adjacent to my dad’s hometown of Quincy), you’ll
see a mural with 10-ish Boston athletes on it...all of them white. The egregiousness of the Red Sox’s exclusionary proclivities are perhaps most explicitly realized in just how much it cost them to maintain their exclusivity. Howard Bryant, the author of a 2002 tour de force titled “Shut Out: A Story of Race and Baseball in Boston,” has done much in the past 20 years to detail Boston’s—and specifically the Red Sox’s—vicious history of racism as it relates to sports. In “Shut Out,” he emphasizes just how sinister the Red Sox’s history of exclusion is by relating a set of harrowing tales. These stories often reify just how powerful and consequential the organization’s racism was. In 1945, the Red Sox held a pseudo-tryout for three Negro League players, one of whom was Jackie Robinson. Years later, Robinson acknowledged that all three players “knew that [they] were wasting their time trying out” (WBUR News, “Why The Red Sox Gave Jackie Robinson a ‘Tryout’ Before he Joined the Dodgers,” 04.12.2013). The middling Sox had no intention of including any Black players in their club. Four years later, in 1949, Red Sox scout George Digby agreed to a contract with a 17-year-old Willie Mays. Mays was set to be the first Black player to join the Red Sox minor-league affiliate, the Birmingham Barons. However, Owner Tom Yawkey and General Manager Joe Cronin vetoed the signing, citing the fact that they did not want to integrate the team. Mays ended up being the greatest baseball player of all time. Ten years later, in 1959, the Red Sox became the last team in the Major Leagues to integrate. Suffice it to say, the Yawkey family,
which presided dictatorially over the organization from 1933-2002, has a lot to answer for. Last October, the Red Sox signed Alex Cora to be their manager. Born in Puerto Rico, Cora is the first non-white manager in the history of the organization. While negotiating his contract, Cora demanded one extra stipulation: “that the Red Sox charter a plane of relief supplies to his hometown of Caguas, [Puerto Rico]” (ESPN, “How Alex Cora Built a Championship Culture,” 10.29.2018). Just 371 days after making Cora the head coach—with his stipulation realized—the Red Sox won the World Series. But anecdotal success does not tell the larger, more disheartening story. Today, about 60 percent of rostered MLB players are white, 28.5 percent are Latinx, 8.3 percent are Black (down from 18.7 percent in 1981) and 1.7 percent are Asian. Going up the hierarchy, 87 percent of coaches are white, 87 percent of General Managers are white and 97 percent of CEOs/Presidents are white. Indeed, the higher up you go, the whiter the involved parties become. That’s the Yawkey Way. That’s the MLB way. That’s the American way (Vox, “This is why baseball is so white,” 10.24.2017). A year prior to Adam Jones’ incident at Fenway Park, a reporter asked him why Black MLB players do not protest the National Anthem. He replied, “We [Black baseball players] already have two strikes against us...so you might as well not kick yourself out of the game ... In baseball, they don’t need us. Baseball is a white man’s sport” (USA Today, “Adam Jones on MLB’s lack of Kaepernick Protest,” 09.13.2016). No wonder it’s called America’s Pastime.
ADVERTISEMENT Women’s Soccer
Vassar College 2, RIT 3 October 30, 2018
Vassar College #
Player
RIT
Sh SOG G A
#
Player
Sh SOG G A
00
Walsh
0
0
0
0
0
Salls
0
0
0
0
3
Trasatti
0
0
0
0
2
Hoey
0
0
0
0
7
DeBenedictis
1
0
0
0
8
Chester
0
0
0
1
9
Chroscinski
0
0
0
0
9
Losquadro
0
0
0
0
14
Seper
1
1
0
0
14
Montieth
0
0
0
0
16
Cutler
0
0
0
0
16
Saia
3
3
1
1
17
Lavelle
0
0
0
0
17
Strader
0
0
0
0
19
Ferry
0
0
0
0
19
Thiel
1
1
0
0
21
Moss
1
1
1
0
21
White
1
1
0
0
23
Andrews
0
0
0
0
24
Zimmerman
2
1
0
0
29
Tanner
0
0
0
0
27
Hext
3
3
1
0
Totals.......
6
3
2
0
Goalie Walsh
Minutes
GA
Saves
91:28
3
8
14
Totals.......
Goalie Salls
11
3
2
Minutes
GA
Saves
91:28
2
1
MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE
Page 20
SPORTS
November 1, 2018
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