Boner donors since 1989
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editor in chief LUCY OHLSEN publisher BENJAMIN MCPHERSON FICKLIN art director TAYLOR JOHNSTON managing editor JOSEPH DE SOSA multimedia director DEREK CHESNUT public relations SAIGE KOLPACK web director MICHAEL MCGOVERN contributing editors ZEV HAGGITT SAUMON GHAEMI THOMAS EDMONDS ISABEL ZACHARIAS KEA KAUFMAN cover art SAUMON GHAEMI contibutors JOHN PRATHER, MARISSA MCLAIN, EMMA IVIE, TRACE CABOT, ARIEL WILLS, JOSH LARSEN, JORDAN CHESNUT, GRANDPA, MICHAELA GIUNCHIGLIANI, RITA CLARE, INDIA CHILTON, SHERLOCK DOMES, ALYSSA PERSONS, ANDREW HARDT, SAM TAYLOR, TASHIA DAVIS, RUBEN GARCIA, DANIEL BROMFIELD, EMILY ZWIER, HALEY RIVET, IZZI RASSOULI, SARA SEBASTIAN, ININA KACHELMEIER board of directors MARGARET APPEL, NOAH DEWITT, CARA MERENDINO, STEPHEN PERSON, SCOT BRASWELL, SARA BRICKNER, KOREY SCHULTZ, SCOTT E. CARVER, HALEY A. LOVETT, JENNIFER HILL, RYAN BORNHEIMER, RAECHEL M. SIMS, BRIAN A. BOONE, SARAH AICHINGER-MANGERSON, ROBERT K. ELDER, AUTUMN MADRANO, SAM PARKS, MIKE RUSSELL, CLIFF PFENNING
ED-LISHER’S NOTE Dear readers,
As this year has passed over my head, I’ve realized many, many things. I’ve become so cynical that sometimes the words coming out of my mouth make my tongue feel like I just ate an entire bucket of pineapple centers. But now that I’m about to erase the title “editor-in-chief, Oregon Voice Magazine” from my email sign-offs, I feel it’s time to depart some of the effervescent knowledge that it’s brought me. 1. You don’t have to know anything about anything to be good at it. 2. Emailing is done best in the pre-hangover stages of the early a.m. 3. Pump-up jams are more important than comma placement. 4. Missing dance practice is an unforgivable sin. 5. The best story ideas are ones with no angles and no obvious directions; the ones people will only tell you about if you ask them with a genuine curiosity. 6. Never bend over when someone’s doing a photoshoot of your butt. This magazine has been sporadically issued for 24 years. Flipping through the archives is like flipping through old photos of family I sort of know and sort of remember. There’s an “Emerald drinking game” for the old daily paper (drink every time you see a full-page ad! drink for every Bell Real Estate ad!). There’s an interview with David Foster Wallace. Pages and pages and pages of words thrown down by people I don’t know, but feel like I really really want to. Mr. Ruby Sparkles will be taking my post next year, and for a glimpse of what kind of coverage you can expect, turn to his investigative reporting on professor fashion, pg. 26. His cohort Isabel Zacharias, who’ll be publisher next year, has a report on Prom royalty post royalty, pg. 29. And the cover that made you pick this stupid bunch of paper up? It’s daddy is Saumon Ghaemi, the coming Art Director. This magazine has teeth that clench deeply if you so much as graze against its mouth. It’s horrifying to know that I’ve been in partial control of the beast for a year, as its forefathers are some of my first real-world idols. Though I’m passing my reins, I can’t help but keep thinking of new shit to write about. That’s the beauty of making your own magazine — you get to make whatever the fuck you want. Of course, that can also lead to some really dumb pages and failures, but it’s overshadowed by good intentions and OV parties. The OV will continue, as we’ve latched on to a tiny piece of funding pie for the coming future. Thanks, student body, your I-fee went to these pages. You can use it for toilet paper if you have to.
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Art Department, for having our back! Agate Hall, for housing our late night edits! Thank you! Allen Hall, for letting us slide around on your wheelie chairs! Thank you! WOW Hall, for hosting the biggest OV show ever! Thank you! ASUO Controllers, for laughing at my “dicks from sausages” joke! Thank you! Grandpa DJ Small Chunks, for helping when you said you never would! Thank you! AU, for rocking! Thank you! Campus Police, for never catching us drinking! Thank you! Firehouse, for pushing Eugene’s scene! Thank you! Beer, for drunk! Thank you! Piñatas, for containing the last alcohol at the party! Thank you! Casper Macer, for DJing! Thank you! Patrick Newson, for always helping! Thank you! Ruben Garcia, for dancing like you’re at your 2x speed! Thank you! Oregon Commenter, for being yourself so I never had to tell people you suck! Thank you! Weed, for stoned! Thank you! Derek Chesnut, for saving/creating our multimedia team! Thank you! Every new Voicedawg, for having all my confidence! Thank you! De Sosa, for being the first person I ask advice! Thank you! TayTay for being the Voice’s soul! Thank you! Lucy Ohlsen, for being the Pooh to my Tigger! Thank you! Universe, for being beautiful/ devastating! Isabel, always listen and keep the pen down. Love,
OFFICIAL STUFF
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OREGON VOICE is published as many times as we want per academic year. Any and all official or unofficial or superficial nonsense can be directed to 1228 Erb Memorial Union, Suite 4, Eugene OR 97403 or to publisher@oregonvoice.com. Copyright 2012, all rights reserved by OREGON VOICE. Reproduction without permission is prohibited, but the thought is really flattering! OREGON VOICE is an arts and culture publication that eccentrically expresses the University of Oregon and its relation to the Universe. The program, founded in 1989 and re-established in 2001, provides an opportunity for students to publish works of journalism, art, prose, poetry, and BUTT CHUGGING. Administration of the program is handled entirely by students.
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FASHION 101
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BIG DADDY PORK
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ROYALTY
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RECIPE!
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DIY
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Punk Shrek
OUTSIDE IN
Prom queens: Where are they now? 13
College in prison
DOCUMENTING NOBODIES Daddy issues
Professor eye-candy
Polly want a cracker? 21
Better than Earl Sweatshirt in 5 steps Boner donors since 1989
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Grandpa’s Advice
Dr. De Sosa recently conducted a philisophical interview with Audacaity at their May 15th concert at Cosmic Pizza. Read the entire interview at oregonvoice.com. Q: What’s the weirdest place you guys have partied? Thomas: What’s the name of that place...? I think it was, like, “Skidmarks.” It was like crusties going nuts. We go there and there’s a bar with these two topless fat chicks and there’s someone skinning an owl, and people peeing in their hands and throwing it up in the air. And people throwing up into each other’s mouths. Kyle: And they had home made 4-loko. Cameron: It had NoDoz in it Kyle: NoDoz and 5-hour energy. Matt: And Robitussin and shit too. Q: What do you guys think of Barack Obama’s book The Audacity of Hope? Cameron: It’s in the way of our google search. Q: Do you have any advice for kids who are in college now? Cameron: Join the army Kyle: Your degrees are useless. Matt: Grow your own weed, make your own beer. Thomas: Listen here man, I’m sitting here in Eugene at Cozmic Pizza, I’ve got 25 dollars to my name. But hey, we got free pizza and beer all night.
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with all myself intact. (a speck of dust left on the chair, a memory in the blankets; infinity left in the air, and you, left also, speechless) - Isabel Zacharias
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- India Chilton
I can never seem to leave a room
Amber Cole recently returned from thriteen years studying hippopotami genetics
Everyone’s urine smells after eating asparagus. It is a recessive genetic trait whether someone can smell the asparagus scented urine.
There is a genetic trait that codes for turning urine pink after eating beets.
Boner donors since 1989
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Briefs art ANDREW HARDT
WTF PITCHFORK, I’M YOUR BITCH Pitchfork has made me its bitch. The Internet’s most notorious music website, synonymous with arch hipsterism and incomprehensible reviews, is every bit as addicting as Tumblr, Reddit, or any of those online black holes. Five reviews a day, nifty decimal ratings, a Best New Music tag that makes finding great music that much easier without even having to read--it’s expertly designed to suck you in. Yet while this system makes Pitchfork very useful as a tool for discovering new music, it also makes its influence very difficult to escape. Those little decimal numbers stick in your head, and that’s when you start thinking maybe Daft Punk’s Discovery might never amount to anything more than a 6.4 in the cosmos’s numerology, as objective as one plus one. Most of the albums on my own year-end lists get at least 8 from Pitchfork, a statistic that has often worried me. Has the site left me with no independent music taste, or has it cracked the secret of music’s objective value? However, I believe I may have identified the reason why Pitchfork is so capable of holding music listeners in its sway. This is Pitchfork’s official explanation for what albums receive Best New Music (BNM): “Editors choose Best New Music albums based on the records that we think are the cream of the crop. These are excellent records that we feel transcend their scene and genre. When an album gets Best New Music, we think there’s a very good chance that someone who doesn’t generally follow this specific sphere of music will find a lot to enjoy in it.” It may seem a bit oversimplified to anyone who’s followed BNMs for a while, but when you consider what does and doesn’t receive BNM, it makes perfect sense. Best New Music is based as much on merit as accessibility--it’s given to whatever you and Pitchfork are most likely to agree on.
words DANIEL BROMFIELD It’s not uncommon for albums to receive high ratings without BNM. Avant-garde noise musician Pete Swanson’s Man With Potential is a recent example, receiving an 8.5 without the coveted tag. However, noise music is a genre with a very small niche, and it’s hard to imagine your average Modest Mouse fan grooving to Man With Potential. I’ve listened to a few tracks, and though I consider myself a very open-minded listener, Swanson is simply too much for me, as I’m sure he is for most listeners whose ears are not trained for noise music. Metal fans love to gripe about Pitchfork’s refusal to give albums of their genre BNM, and indeed, metal albums are frequently rated well into the 8s by Pitchfork without a sign of the red tag. Two of the most notable exceptions, Boris’s Pink (8.7 BNM) and Sunn O)))’s Monoliths & Dimensions (8.5 BNM), were among my favorite albums during my pre-Pitchfork “metal phase.” This was the metal I had the easiest time approaching from a chiefly classic-rock background, and thus it’s likely no coincidence that they’re among the lucky few capable of breaching Pitchfork’s BNM metal barrier. It’s the same way with rap. Cam’ron’s Purple Haze received an 8.7 without BNM the same day indie rock band M83’s Before The Dawn Heals Us received an 8.6 with BNM; the negative reactions Cam’ron seems to provoke in most casual hip-hop fans I know indicate that he primarily appeals to people who know their hip-hop. Meanwhile, Killer Mike and ElP’s R.A.P. Music, a 45-minute album that arguably plays like a rock album, received an 8.6 BNM with ease. So Pitchfork isn’t evil--it’s just populist. BNM isn’t an award but a recommendation, and high-rated non-BNM albums are roughly equivalent to things like, say, The Seven Samurai-pieces of art you might enjoy on your own terms but not recommend to others with more middle-of-the-road tastes. This is what gives Pitchfork its illusion of reliability. It knows what you might like, and it makes every effort to ensure you find out about it.
GHOU-GHOUL The art of using art to skull fuck K-12th graders
words JOHN PRATHER
So I open whatever the internet is so I can consult the all knowing oracle we call Google about any decent feature-length escapist fantasies it might recommend. After the agonizing half a second it takes to load I get distracted by an innocuous looking statement: “Young artists coast to coast entered Doodle 4 Google: Which masterpiece should win?” I don’t know what stopped me from typing “great movies” or “great directors” into the search bar like I usually do on Friday nights. Though, I have a hunch that it was either the “young artists”, “masterpiece”, or just the allure of the illusion that my opinion mattered... anyway. I investigate to find that Google found a way to take the last holy thing on earth and appropriate it for its own self-perpetuation. Art. Google has started holding a national contest in which they ask teachers to hold “doodle sessions” in their classrooms so that students can create a variation on the Google logo, submit it, and possibly have it featured on the website. Brilliant. Google has found a way to advertise itself annually to more than 100,000 K-12 graders while looking good because it hands one of them a scholarship. Say Cheese! Okay, so that scholarship is pretty generous, but not really considering they make $50 billion annually. Google is so powerful and loaded that it can easily afford to lose $7 million in a law suit for tricking out its Google map surveying vans with spy equipment and play it off like they just derped. The bigger issue here is that Google, using underpaid and well-intentioned school teachers as doorstops, is slithering into poorly funded public school classrooms and wrapping its venomous tentacles around the soft developing brains of school children to suck out their creative juices with its long hairy proboscis. This Google art-vertising itself in school rooms across the nation should be recognized for the scam that it is. Google isn’t satisfied with making its way into the OED. It won’t stop until it has effectively infected the brightest minds in the country with its corporate logo using the guise of supporting artistic expression and education. 6
THE MARIONBERRY words SARA SEBASTIAN Dear residents of Oregon, Are you aware that the marionberry may become the official state berry? Do you know marionberries exist? Apparently spell check does not recognize the fruit. If you happened to tune in to a non-recent episode of Portlandia, they claimed the marionberry is simply a blackberry that grows in Oregon. Why must you embarrass us with your infidelity, Portlandia? The marionberry is not just a blackberry grown in Oregon, it is rather a hybrid berry, manipulated extensively by human hands. Its pedigree is complicated - both parents were also hybrids - the chehalem and the olallie. Simply, the marionberry’s ancestors are the Pacific blackberry, common blackberry, raspberry, dewberry and the Himalayan blackberry, an invasive species but one that also produced the blackberries of my youth. I reminisce snagging the best tupperware, the one I’d regularly lick brownie batter out of, walking with my siblings to the outskirts of our property to pick the Himalayan berry. Part of me wants to hate on this invasive plant, but my childhood memories and family roots don’t allow it. I discovered, thanks to my 11-year-old sister, that my great-grandpa Lawrence Schmitz was on the berry breeding team that created the marionberry in Marion (duh) County in 1956. According to the lead horticulturist, not my great g-pa but a man named George Waldo, the berry is “...from the cooperative breeding project of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Oregon Agricultural Experiment Station” aka Oregon State University. I should be all like, “Booooo Beavers” but I harbor no ill feelings. I also feel compelled to dig up all Himalayan blackberries (and ivy for that matter) so that native plants have a chance in this world, or in this state, but I am not. Why? As much as I enjoy eczema under my eye from profusely inhaling the Rhododendrons at Hendricks Park, I can’t eat the flowers, but I can eat blackberries. I don’t discriminate. Pacific or Himalayan, Evergreen or Santiam, berries from distant and nearby lands have chosen the Willamette Valley as their home.
WTF, DPRK?
words SAM TAYLOR So you’re an escaped dissident from a North Korean gulag, aye? You must have done something really fucked up to get there. It couldn’t have been just speaking out against your government. I mean it’s the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and it’s led by the Worker’s Party of Korea. That sounds like workers working for workers and workers’ rights. Although… It does seem strange that the leader of the Workers’ Party, Kim Jong-un, is also the supreme leader of North Korea. It’s also sort of bizarre that Kim Jong-un succeeded his father, Kim Jong-il as supreme leader of North Korea, who succeeded his father, Kim Il-sung, as supreme leader of North Korea. That sounds more like a dynasty than a government run by the people… Wait one second, you’re telling me that you actually didn’t speak out against your government, you just asked the government for food because you and your entire extended family were starving? And you say that it wasn’t just you that was imprisoned, but your whole family as well? So one day a bunch of armed men with masks just barged into your home and violently forced you and your family to leave for no reason? That doesn’t seem right… You didn’t do anything wrong, you just tried to keep yourself and your family alive. Wait, so that means lots of people imprisoned in the gulags weren’t actually convicted of anything, they were just imprisoned because of association. That must mean that, because entire families are imprisoned, some people were born there and gulag-life is all they know. They’ve never experienced the outside world… Well, the camps can’t be that bad, right? Three meals a day and a warm bed, right? Oh… So you only got to eat if the guards said you worked hard enough on any given day? Sometimes you had to fight other prisoners for rotten rat meat to stay alive? That’s kind of fucked up. And you say all you did all day was break big rocks into little rocks and drag tree stumps over hills? That sounds extremely challenging, tedious, and pointless…These places sound terrible! Why didn’t you arm yourselves and stage an uprising? Why didn’t you bring your family with you to South Korea where your people are free? Oh, so your conversations were closely monitored by guards at all times and you weren’t aloud to speak about anything but your work? And people who tried to escape and failed were tortured to death along with their families? That means that because you did escape, you have to live knowing that you left your entire family to be tortured and killed… That’s all really fucked up! What the fuck, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea?!?!?!? Boner donors since 1989
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Briefs
BOOK THUMPING AND DISCREET HUMPING The horny student’s guide to sex at the Knight Library words KEA KAUFMAN Maybe I’ve eavesdropped on one too many frat boy conversations, or browsed the UO Confessions page for too long, but I feel like I have been surrounded by stories about people “hooking up”-or attempting to do so- in the Knight Library. My first thought: desperate (this is coming from someone who has been tempted on more than one lonely all-nighter occasion to change her relationship status to “Library”). My second: hot. I can’t think of how many times my mind drifts off to naughtyland while I’m supposed to be reading about macroeconomics, and if some swoopy-haired stranger were to approach me at my usual spot on the second floor of the library with a game plan and location, I can’t say I would decline. Fueled by this excitement, I have conducted some very high tech, firstperson research on the matter and am proud to report that doing the dirty amongst the Dewey Decimals is completely doable. Here’s how: First Floor: Slim pickings here mainly due to all of the foot traffic and security towards the front. -The stairway to the back left behind the Wired Humanities section is very secluded and is not patrolled by security, but echoes loudly. As sufficient noise could attract unwanted visitors, stick to a quick and dirty make out in this location. -Following the hallway to the right of the Document Center, you will go through a door into a small room that serves as an intersection to two other hallways. All of the door stops are also located in this room. Push them up against each of the doors from the inside room (where you are standing), and you get instant privacy and can prevent foot traffic. There are small windows on each of these doors though, so even if you can’t be walked in on, you can still be spotted. For the first-timers to intermediate, I’d limit yourself to some grabbing and making out, but oral is definitely a plausible option here. For the antsy, expert-level thrill seekers; a quickie. Second Floor: Ample opportunities for sexcapades. -Room 248 is only slightly sheltered, but would be ideal for a quick and cozy make out. - Room 246 is a gold mine. Use the rolling whiteboard to cover the 8
window so no one can see in, use one of the chairs to prop the handle so no one can enter from the outside, and you are good to go. The only downside is that you need to keep the noise level down since it’s close to the stairs. -To the left, in rooms 253-256 are the unlocked individual study rooms. During the day, I would advise you to keep your clothes on here, but at night it’s fair game to whatever kind of play. - The Cinema Studies Lab, when empty, is basically set up for sex with all of those couches and extra space. Unfortunately, the majority of this room is surrounded in glass. Prevent your hook-up from becoming a spectator sport by using the back left room for maximum security and privacy. - Room 219 is great and secluded, but for whatever reason is sometimes open sometimes not. Take advantage of it when it is usable. Third Floor: For the daring. -Room 345 is an open study room near the stairs and would be ideal if the white board inside covered the window to the outside completely. Savage make out and oral could be accomplished provided you stay put behind the concealed area. - Room 365A is undoubtedly your best bet on this floor. You and your partner just need to act like you’re going in there to study together (i.e. bring books and don’t act all giddy- pre-nookie), give the person at the desk your student ID, and they’ll give you a key to the room. Just make sure you keep it quiet. Oh, and you can lock the door behind you. Fourth Floor: Least monitored by security. -Rooms 428 and 430 are relatively secluded, but people still frequent it, so keep it PG-13. -Room 403 has a fully covering white board and is not patrolled. You know what to do. - Room 401 has all the floor and table space you need, the only trouble is ensuring no one comes in. One option might be to reserve it for you and your “study group” at the front desk. The other, to pull a Nike and “just do it”.
Remembering Everyone’s Favorite People Person FEBRUARY 27, 1985 – May 28, 2013
Stephen Alan Person: Former Publisher and one of the OREGON VOICE’s most prolific writers was an inspiration to countless individuals. words and photo CARA MERENDINO
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n May 28th, Stephen Person, one of this magazine’s most distinctive and memorable voices, passed away after sustaining injuries in an automobile collision over Memorial Day Weekend. Stephen, who served as Publisher of the OREGON VOICE from 2007-2010, was so much more than words can say. He was a man with undeniable charisma and a seemingly magical ability to be everywhere at once; a practical joker, local music zealot, animal lover, punslinger, shameless pontificator, and infectious creative force that manifested in mischief, art, and storytelling alike. Stephen’s insatiable curiosity kept him engaged in a life lived at full speed, a life rich in meaningful relationships, bellyaching laughs, live music and creative output. During his extensive tenure at the University of Oregon, Stephen became what a friend recently described as “the Mayor of College Town”: his lanky frame and the long strides of his slinky gait distinguishable against the golden hush of the Eugene street lights, strolling through town, stopping to talk to everyone because he knew everyone, and everyone knew him. While completing his Bachelors of Science in Electronic Media (he thought it was funnier to have a B.S. rather than a B.A.), Stephen also worked multiple campus jobs. He was the resident friendly face of equipment rentals in Allen Hall and a Multimedia Production Assistant for the UO Today Channel. He played an integral role in the creation of the Fringe Festival, a film competition that has continued for the last four years in association with the Cinema Pacific Film Festival. During his era at the Voice, Stephen was an embodiment of ebbing creation. He treated each poetic detail of his everyday life as a catalyst for expression, constantly figuring how to properly portray the intrinsic value of the “little things,” excavating inspiration from most everything he encountered. He oversaw the return of several “Vintage Voice” columns, styles, and motifs, including the OREGON VOICE Art Issue. He was a mentor to many up-and-coming Voice writers whom he helped recruit with the teeming expectation of their absolute best. He could throw a benefit show and pull a hundred people there on a day’s notice with remarkable ease. Of his many accomplishments, he was particularly proud to be the brains behind Rent-A-Pooch, an annual campus event and collaborative fundraiser that allows students to rent fifteen-minute play dates on the quad with rescue dogs of Greenhill Humane Society. When he wasn’t churning out a highly impressive final product at the last minute, Stephen was soaking up life by the drop. He was constantly tired, late nights spent immersed in a hefty workload and an enviable social life. He
found his way onto the guest list of every show, was aware of all social gatherings in a fifteen-mile radius, and always the last person to go to sleep. He was a fine craftsman of leisure, a collector of quirky odds, ends, and miniatures, an avid wall ball and pick-up basketball organizer with the tendency to break out in a spontaneous freestyle or mouth-trumpet. He had the uncanny knack for talking his way into and out of most everything, was a great connector, collaborator, and above all, an incredible friend. In recent years, Stephen lived in Portland, where he was an intern for the Portland Monthly, sharing local stories of intrigue through video web features and working his way towards a career in journalism amidst his countless side-projects, hypothetical musical concepts and ever-blooming creative possibility. In September of 2010, Stephen wrote me a letter – a six-page meditation on mortality and grieving after the death of a friend. Amidst what he described as the “burning, swirling questions,” he wrote hastily (with edits in the margins and added frustration of abandoning his generally beautiful penmanship): “…when you lose someone, never to see them again, you just want to bring all your friends close and tell them how much you love them… Death is a funny thing: There’s nothing but death that can tear people apart so violently and bring them together so intimately. It’s simply strange.” These words could not hold more true to own passing, with over two hundred people in attendance of his memorial service in Southeast Portland, and a whopping 508 “likes” on his Facebook tribute page, which is filled with fond memories and photos from family and friends all over the country. Though his life was cut tragically short, Stephen’s impact on those who knew him has been tremendous. His bright blue eyes, electric smile, and relentless wit will be forever burned in the memories of all those who met him, because that’s just who he was. He lives on in the pages of this magazine, in the countless stories he’s told and those that can be told about him and because of him. He lives on in that endless imaginative chase of what “could be” once an idea is fed and watered with hard work and dedication to the never-ending creative disease. He was a light, a true force of nature, an embodiment of organic expression, and though I can only imagine what critiques he would have of this piece I stayed up all night meticulously writing at the last minute, I like to think it does him some justice. Wherever he is now, I’m sure he was on the guest list, and if for some reason he wasn’t, I have no doubt that he’s working on a plot as we speak to sneak into Marcel Duchamp’s avant-garde party in the sky. In these days of unimaginable grief that follow an event as heartbreaking as this, it is important for us all not to dwell on the fact that Stephen died, but rather celebrate the beautiful fact that Stephen Person lived. Boner donors since 1989 9
BIG DADDY
PORK
Oregon Voice’s Joseph de Sosa sat down with PORK magazine’s Sean Aaberg to talk about PORK's enormous success, Coney Island, and being called a racist.
words & art JOSEPH DE SOSA Couple Sean and Katie Aaberg released the first issue of Eugene-based “Rock&Roll+Weirdo Art+Bad Ideas” magazine PORK in spring 2011, and printed 5,000 magazines. Two years later, they have released their spring 2013 issue printing 30,000 magazines, and PORK continues to grow. At first glance, PORK reads like a pretty standard underground culture zine. It’s filled with DIY band and artist interviews, and grotesque, beautiful comics. What makes PORK captivating is that opening an issue is what I imagine it would be like to enter the fantasy world of Sean’s mind. It’s dark, the air is thick, it smells a little funny and something completely freaky is lurking around every corner. “I think that [PORK] is just right. I’m really empathic, and I have a real finger on the pulse of the world really, and I have an intuitive sense of what people like and what they want,” says Sean. Like the Rock & Roll and Punk scenes before it, PORK is an aggressive revolt against the polished, cookiecutter fantasy world portrayed and disseminated in popular culture. “It’s easy to write a great pop song, and its easy to produce something that sounds good,” Sean tells me, citing Lenny Kravitz as an example. “What’s not easy to do is have character in the face of a totally bullshit world. And that’s what to me PORK has always been about, first and foremost, is having more flavor and more character than anything else out there.” One of the most striking things I realized in speaking with Sean was how much thought he has poured into every little detail of the magazine, from the ‘Street & Sweet’ page showing off a collection of weird trinkets and weapons, to ‘PORK Time,’ a weird peek into the alternate PORK reality featuring the Aaberg children. And this thought extends to their store and website, to what kind of merchandise to sell, to the bikery, freaky, old-timey amusement park aesthetic all contributing to the PORK’s unique personality. Before starting PORK, Sean was working at the now defunct BANG! Magazine in Eugene. It was while BANG! was struggling that Sean laid out the first incarnation of PORK, which he tells me “Was basically 20 years of my brain constructing the perfect magazine.” You can tell that this magazine is 20 years in the making by the incredible level of cohesiveness. Although Sean and BANG! went through a bit of a nasty breakup, PORK wouldn’t exist without Sean’s time spent working there. His time there let him realize that he could make his own free magazine. “Earlier,” Sean tells me, “it seemed like it would just be too expensive or it would be too hard to get advertisements, or it’s so much content to fill...It was a bunch of reasons that I thought were correct, but doing BANG! I was like oh this is ridiculous, this is so easy.” PORK is 10
banned from Voodoo Donuts, but can be found in most other places you would expect, like House of Records, the Barn Light and the PORK shows at Behavior Castle in the Jefferson Westside neighborhood. PORK is much more than a merely awesome DIY punk zine. It is a concept zine aimed at embodying grimey, Coney Island-type amusement parks as opposed to sterile Disneyland-type ones. Sean’s admiration for Coney Island, which he described as“the scummiest amusement park in America,” is the foundation PORK is built on. “One of [Walt Disney’s] main influences for creating an alternative to whatever people were used to was that carnivals and Amusement parks were so gross. There was garbage everywhere, and rats, and popcorn, and melting cotton candy, and freak shows and just the whole 9 yards. So he wanted to clean that up and make the 50’s model, where everything has been kind of sanded down, and everything is nice, and everything is clean and pleasant.” Sean is wary of the popular desire for a Disney-fied world. “I think that’s unhealthy in general and I think it leads to intolerance and bizarre expectations from people.” Another barrier that Sean had to overcome, and at the same time is what’s driving PORK’s success, is presenting his vision authentically without getting caught up in worries about the negative response from the ever-watchful and, in Sean’s view, an actively upset public mob looking to bash anything or anyone making a statement that rubs them the wrong way. “That was a line I hadn’t crossed, It was something I always thought about, and felt like a giant pussy for not doing...I wasn’t totally prepared to have whoever view me as an enemy. I wasn’t ready to have that much public bullshit.” Around the release of their third issue the summer of 2011, there was a huge internet huff about a cowboys and indians photo shoot that PORK published on Tumblr. According to Sean, it happened to coincide with the “Navajo” clothing at Urban Outfitters, and what he called the “Hipster in a Headdress,” outrage. “Tumblr is full of really uptight activists and depressed people who never leave the house and spend all day looking at the tags and following things to be upset about.” Sean compared the reaction on Tumblr to attacking a chicken in Legend of Zelda. “That’s really what it was like. I was sitting there, and I kicked a chicken and now all of a sudden there’s a thousand chickens attacking me. And they wanted apologies and all this stuff.” But it isn’t Sean’s style to apologize, and while the photo shoot is undoubtedly offensive to many people, it isn’t surprising. PORK’s personality is grounded firmly in not giving a shit about hurting people’s feelings. Sean seemed genuinely surprised by the extent to which people freaked out about the shoot.“Do people go after the
Village People and say they are horrible for wearing this stuff?” What sparked the most vitriol towards PORK is that the models, including the ones in Indian costumes, were drinking in the photos. “It’s such a bullshit attitude. ‘The Indian is Drinking.’ The fake indian is drinking, like fuck you, really that’s all I have to say about it. These kids are so naïve, and so desirous to have an enemy. They’re all college students too, they want a university culture that doesn’t affect them, doesn’t upset them.” And no matter how many people the photo shoot rubbed the wrong way, PORK ended up with free publicity and a mass of new readers. “What it did was it set up a sort of us vs them thing,” which Sean thinks motivated people fed up with political correctness to embrace the magazine. And apparently so, considering PORK’s growing readership. Their fearlessness and honesty are what the thousands of readers worldwide have responded so positively to, including the 100-plus members of the PORK Army, which Sean described as “half fan club half gang.” Membership in the PORK Army costs $40, and with it you get a PORK Army backpatch, a PORK Iron Cross Necklace, buttons, a membership card, and posters screenprinted by Sean. In their latest issue, PORK proudly declared that there are now 30 chapters of the PORK Army in 6 different countries. Many of the people I talked to in Eugene about PORK either begin by telling me about how horrible it is, or hadn’t heard of it. This begs the question of why the magazine hasn’t received more coverage in Eugene, especially when the people I speak to in LA and San Francisco read it, and when there are people in other countries setting up fanclubs. “I think that because [The Eugene Weekly] view themselves within this sort of spectrum where they are the alternative to the Register-Guard...by representing the Oregon Country Fair crowd and everything, they don’t really know what cool is. What they know is what’s a reaction to kind of like, Blasé , Oregon, Idaho boring culture.
So stuff like PORK doesn’t fit into that at all.” Another reason that PORK is being ignored by the mainstream alternative press in Eugene is, in Sean’s opinion, a misinterpretation of their use of German and fascist imagery in the magazine and in the merchandise they sell in their online store. The inspiration stems from post-WWII biker aesthetics, and the now mainstream bands like the Sex Pistols, Iggy & the Stooges, the Ramones and the Rolling Stones, who all played around with the same biker and fascist aesthetic. Sean claims that PORK uses these images in the same way, and that it’s akin to using satanic imagery, like Pentagrams. “It’s not ‘Oh my god we are so fucking freaked out that there’s the devil right here, really terrified this is so serious.’ It’s more like it’s funny, and not a big deal.” The use of these images are heavily tied to this PORK attitude that people have so strongly embraced, and to Sean are essential to projecting the real Rock & Roll image.“Without using dubious imagery, it loses its balls.” This isn’t to say that PORK is littered with swastikas and other fascist shit, but it is an integral piece of the scummy-carnival magazine experience.
“These kids are so naïve and so desirous to have an enemy. They’re all college students too, they want a university culture that doesn’t affect them, doesn’t upset them.”
Sean grew up and lived in Oakland, at the time a majority black city, until he moved to Eugene, where a vast majority of the population is white. Oakland is also the city in which he established himself in the 90’s as an illustrator in the undergound zine scene. He thinks Eugene’s cultural homogeneity and minimal interracial interaction is why he has gotten such a lukewarm response from people in Eugene uncomfortable about discussing race issues. To him it’s largely part of the desire for a Disney, sterile world, where pretending that these things do not exist is an effective substitute for addressing problems. “Another reason to throw in stuff that’s going to upset people is because people shouldn’t be so spoiled and so assumptive that they have control over other people, that they can be upset, or that it’s okay to be upset about something small.” One of the things that Sean seems most frustrated with is peoples’ impulse to label and define everything as if they lived in a world without nuance or gray area. In the PORK store, they sell buttons showing Mickey Mouse with a swastika face shooting up heroin, and a Rolling Stones button with a swastika on its tongue. “They are like that’s racist. How is it racist? How the fuck, what does this mean to you? You look at this and go well, there is a swastika. Is that it? Does that mean racism? No, it doesn’t, it’s a bizarre context and it’s weird,” Sean emphatically explained And while it may come across as shocking to people unfamiliar with the Underground Comix scene, blatantly crossing the political correctness line has been at the foundation of the scene since its beginning in the 1960’s, with Robert Crumb’s illustrations in Zap Comix #1. PORK is moving up to Portland sometime in the next year, where they are sure to feel more at home. To Sean, Eugene is a place to relax and remove himself from the world, and has become too small for PORK. Sean and Katie have plans to open up a PORK store to sell their merchandise, and wants to start putting on PORK music festivals. And though PORK’s time in Eugene is nearing its end, the PORK Army is here to stay, and the local readership is only going to continue growing, as it is worldwide. Boner donors since 1989 11
DRIXGENE Izzi Rassouli introduces us to DRIX, an eccentric and integral member of the Eugene community. words IZZI RASSOULI Moving out of mommy and daddy’s house to live on your own for the first time is a right of passage. We learn countless useful life lessons like how to pay bills, how to scrub a toilet, and how to use empty bottles as decoration. Before moving into my first house of my own I didn’t think about all the shit I didn’t know how to do. All I knew was I was moving to the heart of the UO crackin party scene, and the whole neighborhood would be full of homies who were down to throw down. The perks of living in UO party mecca are endless, but my roommates and I had much to learn of the harsh realities of living on our own and about all that our new neighborhood had to offer. One of our first times kickin it on our porch a jovial free spirit biked by our house yelling, “WELCOME TO THE NEIGHBORHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD”. That was Drix. Drix has long, undulating white hair and always sports the classic Drix uniform: T-shirt, shorts, high white socks and sneakers, with a rare Lazar’s Bazar apron that he found in the trash ten years ago full of miscellaneous tools. If you look at him once, you’ll notice a single silver lightening bolt in his ear, and if you spend just a little bit of time with him you’ll notice that it symbolizes his presence: he’s a spirited thunderbolt.
This magic is Drix. He’s become our fairy god-father and the ultimate homie. After about a month of living in the house, as some type of sick joke, all of our cutesy cat shaped ashtrays were stolen, so people kept throwing their cigarette butts all around our house. One day a tin can with “PUT YOUR BUTTS HERE (take out the green trash on Wednesdays) “ written on it conveniently appeared. Drix leaves us clues. “I leave an ashtray, you see it, you’ll know what to do,” he said. “You guys are smart kids.“ His words of encouragement left a lasting effect on us, and he always makes sure to emphasize that he knows we’re good kids. We soon realized he did the same hospitable courtesies for all of the other kids in the neighborhood. I didn’t fully understand the true marvel of Drix until the day my roommate and I ran into an insect debacle. A wasp had taken refuge in between the inside of our door’s window and the curtain on it. After failed attempts to whack it away from afar with a broom, I knew we needed Drix. I frantically ran to his house to shamelessly ask him if he would come help us with a bug. Once the words left my mouth I felt pretty stupid, but the feeling faded away when Drix grabbed a cup to conceal the perpetrator and followed me to the scene with no question.
Drix helped us with things before we knew we needed help.
Throughout the year I’ve learned a lot about the Drix life. After heading from his hometown in Missouri to California during the hippy movement, he ended up in Eugene. “I wound up in Eugene because I had some friends here and I just went, ‘hey this is cool,’” he said. “So I wound up living here. There’s just something magic about Eugene, you guys are seeing it. It’s not real shiny on the outside, but there’s just something about the people—there’s something about the lifestyle.”
One week, we forgot to bring our trashcans to the curb for trash day. When we woke up the next morning our trash had magically been taken. Our trash day forgetfulness became a trend that we still haven’t shaken, but our trash always gets taken care of.
Drix paid his way through the UO by bartending. He studied journalism and media just because he’s always really liked TV. He got his start working for local radio station KZEL FM, then went on to produce local access Kozy TV, helping them earn a Cleo Advertising Award.
He introduced himself to our house, let us know that he lives just down the street above UO students, and told us if we ever needed anything to holla at his window. Suddenly we felt safer, and more connected to the neighborhood. We also realized that the first friend we made since moving in was an adult.
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art TAYLOR JOHNSTON
Drix’s love for television led him to leave Eugene for a while to check out the scene in Hollywood. He worked for FOX, NBC, Disney, and Paramount as a temp. “People weren’t really sure: Was I Producer? Or am I just a temp? You don’t know in Hollywood, it’s like a big high school,” he said. “The thing is, I am a producer inside my heart. On the outside I was there as a temp.” Drix worked on production and screenwriting for classic favorites like The Simpsons, Star Trek and Cheers (yeah, he’s sat on those bar stools and been where everybody knows your name). “I finally had my fantasy come true when I had some guy pushing a rack of costumes, and he went, ‘Mornin Drix!” That was my moment,” he reminisced. The real reason Drix liked working in television wasn’t the fabulous Hollywood lifestyle — Drix was in it for the connection, “TV isn’t a fantasy World, it’s a connecting thing. It connects everybody,” he said. “We’re all watching together.” Drix religiously tunes into the Daily Show and these days Drix has taken to watching World War I documentaries. After leaving Hollywood, Drix did a stint in Seattle where he sold cable door-to-door because “it’s still TV!” Soon Drix was feenin the Eug so he came back. Instead of moving to an area where adults run the streets, he moved to a campus neighborhood to live amongst us because we’re more fun. “I realized this is where I’m supposed to be. This neighborhood. This neighborhood. Most people avoid this. They don’t want to be around kids and all that noise—I love it. It’s perfect for me, there’s always someone walking by.” Drix strives to make our neighborhood as cool as it can be. Drix stands by students because he’s super down with us, so he fought hard core against the infamous Social Host Ordinance. He’s always trying to keep us kids connected to the place we live. Drix fucks with the Eugene city council, adding his eccentric humor and vitality to the otherwise tense and boring meetings, as well as being chill with Mayor Kitty Piercy. “Drix is a delight,” she said, “an iconic guy who delights us with his good will, fun ideas, way with words, and love for community. He is also a very tender spirit in a too often harsh world. Time spent with Drix is time well spent.” Drix re-started one of the Eugene neighborhood associations that had been abandoned — the West University Neighborhood, or the WUN. He discusses with love and pride how the community helps him and he helps back. “Eugene loves me!” he said. “All the way from the mayor to the bums and I couldn’t be happier.” Drix’s bio on his LinkedIn profile explains him perfectly; “Simply put, my background experience and education plus personal knowledge base have turned me into a Verb. ‘Drixing’ is the ability to connect the dots within human minds. If you want to connect people, just put DRiX in the middle”. Drix’s crucial role in Eugene continues to leave a lasting mark. He said used to hear people say, “it’s all about Eugene.” So he started thinking “It’s all about YOUgene” but then he started thinking, “What’s in it for me? Maybe it’s MEgene.” Finally, he came to the conclusion that it’s about all of us, as a community. That’s when he coined the term, “WEgene” which is now the name of the award for best volunteer in the Eugene community. I’d rather say ‘Drixgene’.
OUTSIDE
IN
Tasha Davis enrolls in Inside Out, a class that brings UO students into the Oregon State Penitentiary to interact and learn with incarcerated students, and shares her term-long experiences on the inside.
words TASHIA DAVIS
W
art RITA CLARE
alking up the stairs to the fourth floor of the Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem is oddly reminiscent of walking to the top floor of Chapman Hall on campus. Like any institution, the stairs are a neutral tone, the walls are stark white, and I can hear my steps resounding one by one through the space. But a few elements make this staircase feel foreign and uncomfortable: the windows are barred, the doors are thick and weighted with protruding locks, and there are glaring video cameras in every corner. To get to this point, we had already gone through a metal detector, master control (where the main guards and security cameras are situated), three security corridors, and traded our drivers licenses in for little pink tags with numbers on each of them. The correctional officer leads my classmates and I into a classroom in a single-file line, so that master control has a clear view of the halls in the security cameras. The room is the most inviting one I have seen in the prison. Books line the walls in between posters flashing motivational phrases, like “You will never regret doing the right thing.” A large colorful map of the world reinforces the reality that the incarcerated students are stuck on a tiny pixel of the page. There is one window in the corner of the classroom where students can peek through the bars onto the grounds of the institution. A bright yellow bulletin board boasts photos of students who have successfully completed their GED requirements while inside the prison walls. The chairs are set up in a circle. We sit down in every other chair, as instructed, so that when our new classmates come in each “outside” student will be seated in between two students from the “inside.” This was Inside Out: Thirteen University of Oregon students mixed with an equal number of incarcerated students in a classroom setting learning about “Top Culture Wars in US.” Our first encounter with the inside students was awkward. You cannot ask an incarcerated person, “What year are you?” and “What is your major?” as is typical for small talk on the first day of classes at The UO. You also could not say, “Nice to meet you! So what are you in prison for?” We decided “Where are you from?” would be a good universal conversation starter to ease away the discomfort. My professor helped us get through these first tense moments of class by conducting a “wagon wheel” icebreaker, in which we talked to each inside student for two minutes about a given topic. I ended up sitting across from Darrell*, a bald, teddy bear of a black man who used to participate in the ‘90s hip-hop scene in Portland. I smiled nervously and shook his hand. Our topic in question was: What TV show is your guilty pleasure? I said, “The Boner donors since 1989
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Bachelor.” He laughed and replied; “You know that show ‘Once Upon a Time’? I love that shit.” If I had seen this guy on the streets, I would have avoided him. It is part of the culture that I as a 20-yearold white college girl accept as common sense, especially after growing up in the small, predominantly white community of Bend, Oregon. But in talking to Darrell, I realized that I had absolutely nothing to be worried about in this classroom. After no time at all I was speaking to these men with a level of comfort and openness that exceeded the shallow and banal interactions typically achieved in the average college classroom. Throughout the course, we brought our diverse backgrounds into unique conversations about top cultural issues in the US, including race, gender, class, religion, consumerism, and even the prison system itself. It is not every day that a college student can discuss controversial topics like gun control with a 70-year-old Vietnam war-vet turned Buddhist monk who has climbed Mt. Rainier twice in one year. He informed me that the rule of thumb about prisons is if you’ve been there for over ten years you’ve gone insane; this guy had been there for over 20. I discussed the role of class differences in The Grapes of Wrath with a huge man covered in tattoos who organizes the sports leagues at the yard. In one class, we even had the honor of hearing Darrell and his friend freestyle rap for us. Word. The mission of the Oregon Department of Corrections is “to promote public safety by holding offenders accountable for their actions and reducing the risk of future criminal behavior.” While 93 percent of incarcerated people will be released back into the community, 26.5 percent will recidivate. Daily cost behind bars is an average of $84.81 per prisoner, so the goal is to reduce incarceration rates while safely integrating them back into society.
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In a recent presentation, the new head of the Oregon Department of Corrections, Colette Peters, stated that research shows that the most effective way to reduce future criminal
behavior is to provide incarcerated people with the right combination of treatment, job preparation, and education. Inside Out is one of the main programs that allows this to happen. The further an incarcerated student goes in his education, the less likely he is to recidivate—even down to zero percent for students who earn a masters degree or higher.
Research shows that the most effective way to reduce future criminal behavior is to provide incarcerated people with the right combination of treatment, job preparation, and education. Inside Out is one of the main programs that allows this to happen.
This was fascinating to me, but I didn’t fully comprehend the workings of the Oregon prison system until we took a tour of the institution on week six. The tour gave me new perspective into the lives of my classmates and marked a period of transition in the depths of our class discussions. One of the prison counselors began the tour by taking us from “A block,” where the best-behaved prisoners reside, through “E block,” where the cells start to look like a chicken coop. The next highlight was the cafeteria. It took our tour guide a significant amount of time to explain to us the dynamics of this otherwise simple room. Over here, he said, we have the white supremacists. Then, you have the blacks, followed by the Asians, the Latinos, and the Natives. The “Lifers”—those who have life sentences in prison—sit over there. And lastly, you have the sex offenders, who sit in the front of the room closest to the guards so that the other prisoners cannot harass them. In the cafeteria, if a white man has something to say to a black man, they get up from their tables and discuss in a “neutral” area. I realized that our Inside Out classroom acted as an environment separate from the unwritten rules of race relations within the institution. In our class, the inside students were encouraged to and did interact with each other, no matter their race. Before the tour, this maximumsecurity prison did not seem as intimidating as I had expected it to be; it did not feel like an episode of “Prison Break” in the slightest. However, the yard was the closest it came to that stereotype, and it reminded me of the haven that our classroom really was. Guard towers loomed over the open grassy area, where sports leagues are often held in the summer. And these guys take sports to a whole new level. When I
was told in class that they even had leagues to begin with, one inside student said, “Yeah, but they’re not the types of games that I would want you to play in. You know how your soccer games on the Outside have referees? Well, that doesn’t really fly here, if you know what I mean.” One look at the men lifting weights at the edge of the field made this loud and clear. The tour also gave me insight into the economy behind the prison system. For example, I did not know that incarcerated people could hold jobs while inside. Our guide showed us the furniture factory building, where most of the furniture for the dorm rooms here in Eugene is made. (Fun fact: one clever prisoner at the furniture building once tried to escape by sewing himself into a couch.) We toured their laundry facility, which is the largest one West of the Mississippi. One student from my class held a job folding laundry from the prison and other institutions in the area, including from the hospital in Salem (which apparently can get pretty nasty). Incarcerated people can put the money they earn toward bail, but also things like phone calls, their GED, college courses, and food and items from the “canteen.” My Inside classmates said the first thing they spend their money on is always hygiene. After that, they can buy a plethora of merchandise, including “Lil Deb Swiss Cake Rolls” for $1.79 and various greeting cards for $2.11. Some of the guys who are lucky enough to have extra money can purchase mp3 players and little television sets (for all their “Once Upon a Time” watching needs). The television can be an invaluable possession because it is the primary news source for prisoners. But they get hit hard on the pricing. A watch costs $16.65, but they have to pay an additional $5.99 for the watchband and another $2.19 for the batteries, that are sold separately. When prisoners typically make less than a dollar an hour at work, a simple wristwatch becomes a commodity. One of the most striking moments from the tour was occasionally seeing our Inside classmates going about their day outside of class. In addition to the one working in laundry, we saw one in his cell in A-block, and another excitedly smiled and waved to us from behind the gate as we walked by the yard. The tour put their lives in context; seeing them interacting with the other prisoners—the non-scholars, sex offenders, those who could not afford to take the class, etc.—reminded us that even though these were our classmates who we had come to be friends with, they were still convicted criminals.
Near the end of the tour, after feeling a sense of curiosity by learning more about my fellow classmates, my heart sank when we visited “Special Housing.” The special housing units are for maximum custody prisoners, disciplinary segregation, offenders with psychiatric problems, and those who have been sentenced to death. Executions by lethal injection are conducted on site. We were not allowed to walk into death row or the execution room on our tour. Previous tour groups were able to, but our guide said that Governor Kitzhaber did not want to “glorify” the act of capital punishment by allowing us to see the room where they execute people. Whether this was true or not, part of me was glad that we did not go in; just knowing that I was standing in the same building as Gary Haugen gave me goose bumps. But thinking back I wish that we had. Before I signed up for Inside Out, I knew virtually nothing about our state prison system, even though it is something that we as a society vote on. One of my Inside classmates said he believed it was absolutely critical for people from the outside to see everything that is on the inside. You can easily Google it, but it will not nearly have the same impact as physically standing in Death Row and in the lethal injection room itself. It would have been emotionally straining, but I think it could have potentially had a tremendous effect on my views of prison reform and capital punishment in this country. I would rather know the impact of the decisions I am making as a US citizen in their entirety than remain ignorant about the implications of the laws we have in place. Why should I be denied this opportunity?
No matter what personal sentiments this experience may have stirred up, the important thing to keep in mind was that we were not trying to “save” our inside classmates through the Inside Out program. Our mission was education, and that is what we did. In fact, I learned more about myself, my classmates, interactions with other people, and our country than I have in any other class. Some of them, like Darrell, were taking it for their first time, while others had taken it close to ten different times. The class can help them earn credit toward a degree, so that their time in prison is not entirely spent lying in a cell. Other inside students say they take the class because the opportunity to interact with university students provides them with a sense of hope and a connection to the outside world. One student even said he no longer had to take anti-depressant medication after taking an Inside Out class. My new 70-yearold friend signed up because he says it gives him the intellectual stimulation that he might not otherwise find surrounded by other incarcerated people. I’ve never taken a class in which students cried when it was over, but that is because we are not allowed to talk to the Inside students— our new friends—once we walk out of the building on week ten. It is all a part of the “no contact” condition that the prison gives us in order to ensure our safety. As I walked away from the education floor for the last time, the prison walls seemed familiar, but the clanking of the iron gates closing behind us at each corridor still gave me chills. O V *Names changed for confidentiality
Boner donors since 1989
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Bringin’
Kesey Back T
he echo of a woman’s steps punctuating her walk into the circle of chairs hung still in the air as she began to speak. She pulled with her into the hollow room a night so far in the past it seemed as though she had to squint to see it. The students, as if under her spell, fell back a half century into their chairs, shedding the summer morning like a skin empty of the life they had woken up to. The woman’s name was Faye Kesey, and the story she told was as familiar as any, a story of a gathering among friends, unremarkable were it not for the nature of the souls that danced that night in such close company. “Bob asked me to go into the room and listen to a song that he had just written.” They went into the other room, sat down facing each other, and he sang the song directly to her. The song was Just Like a Woman. The singer, Bob Dylan. The images Faye conjured that summer morning during a meeting of a UO course on her late husband, Ken, are evocative of the inextricability of the Kesey’s story from that of America in the 60s. More subtly than that, however, and perhaps more vitally, the Kesey’s story is a foundational element of our culture and collective consciousness here in Oregon. For that reason, not to mention for its pure literary merit, the Special Collections department at the Knight Library is hot to jump on a bid to purchase a collection of manuscripts, both published and unpublished, from the late writer that the Kesey family is in the process of putting up for sale.
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Ken Kesey is a mythical figure, inextricably linked to the Northwest. India Chilton discusses the UO library trying to acquire Kesey’s original manuscripts. Shout out to the Knight Library for photos!! words INDIA CHILTON
It isn’t unusual for collections such as Kesey’s to go up for public auction, and while the University cannot disclose exactly how much the collection will cost, James Fox, head of special collections and university archives at the Knight Library, suggests that the price will be comparable to other literary collections of similar merit. To meet a price tag that threatens to inch into the millions, the Knight Library is working with private donors to subsidize limited amounts of University funding. While the sale is and will remain public, the family has begun negotiations with the University to follow through with an early sale due to the relationship already established between Kesey and the University of Oregon. According to Fox, “Ken started moving documents in the early seventies to the special collections unit for safekeeping. His intention, shared by both the University and the Kesey family, was and is for it to remain here.” The Keseys were a family who moved west out of the dustbowl during the Great Depression, a family of farmers and ranchers but also a family of storytellers and singers. Ken, of course, grew in notoriety, on the back of his merry band of pranksters, to become the most well known of the clan. It is easy to move into an appreciation of his work through these popular, widely circulated images; the Bus, Further, the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Tests, the wild psychedelic displays- all were part of the cultural hurricane that hit the West Coast in the sixties. These images, though hugely important to their time, are dated, and to look at Kesey in this light alone glosses over the depth of his talent as an author.
James Fox spins a vision of Ken’s writing in sharp juxtaposition to the aspects of his life tethered so closely to their time. According to Fox, Ken’s writing today is “just as vital, this idea of the combine, of being sucked into the system, this idea that the individual does not matter and that society is run on guilt and shame.” These things transcend the time period they were written in. Ken was a good writer, a great writer. Fox is currently at the forefront of the library’s campaign to acquire the collection, an acquisition he thinks is only the beginning of a bunch of related acquisitions the library could make. He anticipates that “[the collection] will act as a sort of psychedelic, psychic magnet, pulling in pieces from all over to reconstruct a historical record that remains inextricable from what it means to live in and be a part of the Pacific Northwest.” The Great Notion of the Northwest is permanently tethered to Kesey’s work. As Mark Chilton, founder and former teacher of the Kesey class at the U of O, suggests, “Place is a condition of American authors. Kesey belongs to Eugene and to Oregon like Faulkner and Oxford, Steinbeck and Salinas, or Mark Twain toand Hannibal. The loggers at the Snag in Wakonda belong in the Knight Library.” His personal experience with the collection is representative of the significance of preserving the manuscripts here, emphasizing their value as original, unrefined documents that offer more to the reader than Kesey’s bound publications. “During the time I taught the Kesey class I visited the Farm in Dexter
many times. Several times I arrived with all the students atop the bus, but many other times I came to climb the stairs to the little corner room of the renovated barn. Overlooking the stair was a small desk with a red-vinyl upholstered chair. At the center were two rough sets of shelves stacked with notebooks and journals; tables around the perimeter were filled with boxes of papers, some loose, some in folders. Pick up a folder and sit in his chair. Open it and join the author in his creative world. That is the experience offered our students.” This position in support of the library’s acquisition is shared by Ken Babbs, one of Kesey’s closest friends and captain of the fabled Bus. He is a living testament to the weight of the collection and of Kesey himself. In his words, “The Kesey legacy is alive and well in Eugene and will be so for untold years to come as the myth about the man and his deeds continues to grow, becoming as high as a huge mountain until finally, after a few thousand years, the detritus from the mountain will have sloughed off and washed away leaving the pure enduring myth which will remain for millenniums, like say, Ulysses.” The idea that Ken Kesey will grow to rest among heroes of American folklore, mingling in the Spiritus Mundi with the likes of Davy Crockett, Paul Bunyan, and Johnny Appleseed, is a satisfying one. The man behind the myth, however, will remain alive in the words he penned, in the experience of a “moment of conception of a work of art”. If the purchase is made, this experience will be available to scholars and students and teachers alike. To pull the author’s own words, “Reality is greater than the sum of its parts, also a damn sight holier… Truth doesn’t run on time like a commuter train, though time may run on truth. And the Scenes Gone By and the Scenes to Come flow blending together in the sea-green deep while Now spreads in circles on the surface”. This collection is a reality greater than the sum of its parts, growing in the minds of each individual experience, hauling to the surface both personal and universal truths and allowing past and future to mingle within the walls of our own Knight Library. In the pursuit of one of the most important investments the University has made in recent history, the mentality of the library, of the students, and of any person ever brought home from afar to the smell of sunlight burning off fog draped like gauze around folds of the damp Northwest by Ken’s words, is clear: “Never give an inch”.
Read more about the Ken Kesey Collection at http://library.uoregon. Boner donors since 1989 17 edu/giving/kesey.html
Sadface Graduation is in sight for advice columnist Sadface, and with the dismal state of the job market, the upcoming death of print journalism and higher education, and in a time of economic crisis, he has decided to start opening some doors in the last recession-proof industries: religious prophecy. Anyone interested in joining Sadface’s Solar Church of Scientological Heaven’s Davidian Patriot Neo-Israelites (Endorsements: “A Cult with Class”- Our Leader, Guru Sadface, “Put your weapons down and surrender” – ATF Enemy of the Prophet Besieging Compound), please contact us at wepromiseitwontbelikejonestown@morelikethathaleboppthingatworst. com. And now Guru Sadface will answer your questions. Behold! A vision of the future to come! A vision of your inescapable fate!
struggle for more. Their hands are coated in oil, gristle, and stale crumbs as they grope blindly around them looking for another drive-through morsel, weeping tears with a consistency molecularly indistinct from beef tallow mixed with the juices of a chicken’s muscle heated in boiling oil if they were unable to find their prize. Cars could no longer pass, though gory trails were occasionally forged by the cultists of the new flesh eager to get ahead in line. Their blood-flecked automobiles stand still, dispersed among the human sea like pockmarks on the face of some horrific giant, doors flung open as disgorged bellies dislodge them from their hinges just as the pustules overcome the thin walls of the meat-revelers’ corporeal cages. This is a new world ... a world of Raising Cane’s and In-N-Out.
(The old Sadface had a “friend” in his “home-town” of “Las Vegas”, all lies created by Satan’s allies the Greys to prevent The Great Prophecy, existing only on a secret soundstage on the moon run by the KGB. Thankfully, their plot failed after Guru Sadface confronted them with THE TRUTH)
Try eating healthier. -Guru Sadface Dear Sadface,
Dear Sadface, Hey, they’re building a Raising Cane’s Fried Chicken across the street from In-N-Out. -Sinister Foe of THE TRUTH Dear Sinister Foe, Behold, the FUTURE: The street has become a thin membrane of human fat, human skin rent taut over the bloated stomachs of the obese crowd that laid like carpet on the hot asphalt. They began coming in twos and threes, drawn to the fast-food Mecca, that Shangri-la of fried chicken and greased beef. Nobody could have known that it would have led to this. Thousands now lay there, clutching stomachs ballooned out in an obese mockery of the human form, moaning in a hunger they endlessly attempt to fulfill, but can never sate. Their eyes are glazed over with a white film eerily reminiscent of the milkshakes they drink by the gallon, uselessly baking under the unforgiving desert sun. The now-sightless orbs aren’t the only organs sacrificed on the altar of the fast-food gods; cysts grow at their sides and within their constantly-expanding bellies only to burst in foul-smelling eruptions, tumors of excess pouring onto the pavement. They scab over the storm drains alongside other rejected fluids as the mass of corpulent bodies lose all sense of dignity or propriety in relieving themselves in their endless 18
I’m graduating at the end of this term with a degree in education, but with all of the cuts on our school system, I’m worried about being able to find a job. What should I do? -Fool for Schoolin’ Dear Fool, I see the webs of prophecy take form! Your knowledge of how to educate children will be “rewarded” by your assignment as a teacher to Camp Reagan-Epsilon, a refugee shanty-town outside the Oakland Gentrification Zone. Your life will be a difficult one and your duties will require dedication, but you will be satisfied with your labor and truly happy, or at least as happy as one can be without joining my Patriot Church of Heaven’s Scientological Solar Neo-Israelite Gate. One day, a drone from “McDonald’s Presents: The Oakland Police Department Sponsored by Pepsi & North American Panopticon Corrections Corporation” will shoot a hellfire missile into your house while you’re sleeping after they detect you downloading an illegal torrent of a new Battlestar Galactica reboot starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Captain Adama. It will receive great reviews from both fans and the mainstream press. Good job! -Guru Sadface
comic JOSH LARSEN
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G N I t N E M U DOC NoBOdIES A 21-year-old tries to get to know herself and what’s around her by thinking about her dad’s past in Eugene, the town she now calls home. it back on the table and wondered if this is really where my dad used to sell popcorn and soda during basketball games. I imagined him, the sticky coke running down his legs, kernels spread across his sneakers. Sports fans were rambunctious in his generation too, and my dad was, of course, not one of them, but was knocked over by them instead. He sold them snacks. Future impending, I pushed my dad’s past out of my mind, shrugged my backpack on my shoulders, and walked back out past the ticket booths.
words LUCY OHLSEN art RITA CLARE photos courtesy of ELLEN STELLING (aka MOM)
I think I ended up at the U of O as a result of a weird kind of small world serendipity. I was rejected from every other school I applied to because I’m pretty normal — ie, not Ivy League material, not particularly marginalized, and not an auspicious leader of the future. I also insisted on rejecting my home state school,
the University of New Mexico, because it’s too stucco building-lined and too closely associated with a flinch-worthy stereotypical status-quo option. I landed at a school far away both geographically and culturally, and my sense of place was upended. I had to buy a raincoat. I had to learn not to use an umbrella if it rains. I had to relish in the quirks of a totally different America, where Kombucha is on tap, while also struggling to embrace the activities of the typical college kid. I always wanted to make sense of why I was where I was. Over time I’ve settled on a way to make sense of Eugene and my life in it. My dad grew up here — a farm baby that was quickly shuttled into the city at five years old — and his memories give things I run into, in the present, a mystical undertone.
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hen I first set foot in Eugene three years ago, my hair freaked out at the damp, chilly air, and I immediately wished I wore more than one layer of tights. I got off the Amtrak bus in front of the UO Rec center, and I pretended to know what direction I should be going in. I hoisted my hiking backpack over my shoulders, cinched the belt to its tightest capacity, and lugged my old-school TV-shaped French horn case up the slight incline towards the cemetery. I was early for my scheduled visit with the horn studio teacher, so I stepped in the lobby at Mac court to explore my extra minutes away. Ironic in hindsight, the first thing I picked up was an issue of The Commentator. I remember that it featured a lot of bad jokes about potatoes, raunch, and beer. (Sidenote, I was impressed — the crassness was so out there I thought I was missing something. Isn’t this a university with rules and professors and stuff?) Sweating from anticipatory time-wasting angst, I tossed Boner donors since 1989
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His dad was a logger, his mom was Doris. So, I’ve been subconsciously relearning this place over its construction throughout my childhood as a small-ish town stuck in the 1970’s, and I think there’s a reason that thinking about my really normal heritage makes me smile. The stories my dad tells — of having beers with his 20th century English professor at Max’s, of scoping out the ladies in the student union, of his neighbor coming over to tell him that his dad had died in a logging accident — are little bits of meaning in what is still a pretty foreign and incoherent place to me. My dad may have been a squirrel-catching tyke and a long-haired hippy in his time here, but his recollections have embedded my existence with a sort of mystical quest. Eugene is a magical place to be in no matter what, but it’s especially spellbinding as I’ve discovered how his memories and stories correspond and live through my life today.
“My dad may have been a squirrel-catching tyke and a long-haired hippy in his time here, but his recollections have embedded my existence with a sort of mystical quest.”
My dad never started smoking because Doris used to put out her cigarette in the water that sat on his bedside table. She used to make him dinners like hamburger sauce over spaghetti. She let him watch the TV (Now in Color!), and she was lax enough in supervision that my dad spent a day living in his treehouse instead of going to the first day of kindergarten. On trips, when told to look out the window and appreciate the beautiful world, she’d turn and say, “I’ve seen scenery.” Maybe it’s blood, but I sympathize deeply with this Doris that I’ve never met. Oregon is so insanely giving with its greenness and florid fumigation, it seems like it’s almost a sin to try to use stale words to appreciate it. My dad’s farm memories were cut short, as his family moved to the outskirts of Eugene when he was five. Driving through his old neighborhood off of Roosevelt Blvd., his voice twinges with nostalgic sighs and his finger waves in the air, trying to point out concrete places from an era that’s faded to the 21st century. “That’s where those twins lived,” he says, in a far off voice. “I think they were, uh, well, they were a little nerdy. We might have made fun of them.” We continue down the street to a run-down green house with a woman standing in loose white pants and a hooded sweatshirt in front. My dad excitedly tells her this was his boyhood home, but she interrupts with “I’m trying to move out of here.” She tells us the neighborhood is now infested with drug dealers and criminals. She goes back inside, and we drive on. At a house on a corner, my dad remembers the neighbor that used to live there — the one that told my dad that his dad had died.
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I have essentially nothing to do with my dad’s childhood neighborhood, but it’s instructive to me when I roam around the still more hick-ish part of Eugene. It reminds me that college wasn’t a given option for my dad — it was more of a thing to do in order to avoid Vietnam. And so, he ended up being a duck (before paraphernalia was part of the average student’s attire), a failure at college calculus (in Deady hall!), and an English major. I’m now in a 20th century literature class — the only class my dad ever talks about really liking (it’s one of the few classes I’m glad I have to go to three times a week). He still seems impressed that he got up the courage to get a beer with his professor at Max’s. I have yet to do that — though I take any chance I get to philosophize in the sticky wooden booths.. Max’s has existed since the 1920s — before my dad’s time. Until I turned 21, I wrote the Christmas light framed doors off as just another campus bar — full of angsty boys in boat shoes and girls with those shirts that flop off their shoulders. However, early weeknights at Max’s, when the booths aren’t mobbed with sparkling youth and the floors are littered only with a few stray popcorn kernels, it’s possible to realize that it might be more than just another place to get shwasty. A recent Tuesday PBR led me to discover, by way of the Punk rock, deep voiced bartender Heather, that underneath the counter lies a binder full of newspaper clippings and grainy photographs, along with a bunch of boring papers about how Max’s is a registered historic landmark. Flipping through, I found a picture from when Little’s — the then
grocery, now convenience store next door — was selling hamburger meat, and Max’s was being remodeled. It dated to right after my dad left college, and the sign in the window said “hamburger: 79 cents”. My dad always reminisces over the 39-cent hamburger, so I guess I have proof that his
memories are tweaked and tainted. That, combined with my selective hearing, made me begin to realize his stories are a dubitable, warped, yet significant version of truth. I decided to pursue some secondary sources. “It was not the Golden Circle donut hole,” my dad said, after I told him what his friend Dave
Ford said was something he remembered about Eugene that directly related to my father. Dave conferred with Mark, another friend, who agreed with Dave. Regardless of its name, there was a donut shop somewhere near McDonald theater and it was not Voodoo Donuts. And McDonald theater was not a concert venue but a movie theater, where some of my favorite dad-stories take place.
own salsa music over the juke box that was already playing. “Herman gave us an excuse to sit and waste some fun time. We then started to meet others wasting their time and friendships evolved.” Today, Herman walks slowly and his globular, yellowed eyes look a little tired. He wears headphones and carries plastic bags full of newspapers (the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and a Dutch magazine). He remembered my dad and Dave as good old buddies. Herman and the Starbucks retired Eugenian club have swinging conversations,
Once, my dad smuggled malted milk balls in the theater with his friend Jim. Except, they didn’t get farther than the top of the aisle before their stuffed shirts were jostled enough to send the milk balls cascading down to the bottom row, with the two chubby-cheeked boys reeling with glowing cheeks. I don’t know what kind of malt balls they were, but I do know that Darigold was the milk provider in my dad’s day (making even my dairy purchases a nostalgic experience). But, back then the cartons were not recycled. They were put to a good use nonetheless — kids cut out little coupons on the cartons, and could use them to go to the movies. My dad’s face contorts to little-boy glee when he recalls having collected enough to go see “Night of the Living Dead.” And my face turns to glee when he recounts standing in line and noticing that the boy next to him had amassed a much bigger stack of milk-carton cutouts. “They were Mormon!” my dad says, still reeling from the unfairness of the larger milk-consuming family. Woven into this story is also a recount of him being sick in front of the theater, but not from the malt balls. I think it was from cake donuts from the unnamable donut shop. Maybe the Mormon story happened at a different movie, I should probably ask my dad, but he probably wouldn’t remember. Greg Ohlsen, my dad before he was a dad. Instead, I went looking for further verification of my dad’s previous existence here. Eugene’s not really a town that I thought I would find myself rejoicing in the Starbucks coffee culture. But last week, I found myself at a table in the shade with four Eugene old-timers. “You’ve got your dad’s face,” said Herman. Herman Hope is a character my dad never told me anything about, but Dave insisted that he played some enormous power in their collegiate life. Dave said Herman used to “hold court” in the EMU — blasting his
from what Rush Limbaugh said this morning (“Indian-killing buffaloes!” Herman guffaws) to the political scene in Egypt. I tried to get them to reminisce about what Eugene was like in the 70’s — but their talking points always swung wherever the dominant voice wanted them to go. Between remembering my dad “always going on some trip” and telling me that old people have to get out of the way for the young people, Herman did remember a lot about
Mac Court. When he went to college here, it was a central venue not only for sports, but for some of the most noisy bands and controversial speakers of the hippie-dippie era. “We could go hear about politics one night, and then hear any of the best bands in the country the next,” Herman said. Though none of Herman’s friends were pro-war, only one didn’t shrug off being called an “activist”. “We used to sit outside of the EMU with a bottle of wine,” said Bob, after Dave (another Dave, not Ford) had proclaimed that he only engaged in political activism “for the women.” Bob said he used to sit with a more charismatic fellow, and that between him and the wine, the ladies flocked. This comes from the same guy that, after complimenting me on my denim jacket, complained about his tattered Levi steel-buttoned shirt, because “they don’t make them that way anymore”. Nevertheless, his recollection of the EMU as a place to scope out women corresponds with my dad’s. When I was semigrown up, I remember my dad admitting to me that he and Dave Ford used to spend hours scoping out the honeys. During my first term in Eugene, I took a class about the philosophy of cultural diversity. Herman says “diversity is the worsity” — but I think he’d agree with what we talked about in one section of the class. We read a text on indigenous beliefs about power and place, and I recently looked back on it. “We can and must educate a generation of children who find home in the landscapes and ecologies they inhabit,” say authors Wildcat and Deloria. “The more attentive one is to their community, the more selfdetermining they can be.” Coincidentally, I just finished reading “Mrs. Dalloway” for the 20th literature class. One of the main characters, talking about the protagonist, says “To know her, or anyone, one must seek out the people who completed them; even the places.” I’m living in my dad’s wake – evoking blurry images of memories that swarm in on my own history. Through understanding him, I understand me more, and I understand Eugene more. Plus, I have an excuse to call Max’s — one of the closest bars with the cheapest PBR — a meaningful place to spend time. O V
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art TAYLOR JOHNSTON
Fashion 101: An Introduction to Professor Styles words RUBY SPARKLES photos LADY DAWGLORD art SAUMZ & LOOSE
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hat should have been a formal interview in the confines of an office began in the passenger seat of UO linguistics professor Spike Gildea’s car. He explained that it was crucial that his vehicle was moved from its original parking space because he didn’t have the particular tags or stickers and so was at the risk of getting a parking ticket. So, the interview quickly evolved from one of the cramped offices in Gerlinger hall to the middle of the campus graveyard, which we agreed would be the best place to ask the most basic questions about professor clothing stylisms. At the end of the 20-minute interview about the evolution of professor fashion choices and Spike’s own growth of style, he concluded quite proudly, “Now I’m a Wrangler man.”
Delving into the cluster-fuck that is the world of academic dress
If you tried to look up a study to find out how many tenured professors wore Wrangler brand jeans in 1928, you would find no such study. Though there’s a number of reasons why no such study was ever conducted, it’s best to assume that it was most likely because professors never wore Wranglers in 1928. Whether we like it or not, the guarantee that a professor will not teach a class wearing jeans is not extended to today. Still, there’s the ever present “why?” Why did professors never rock Wranglers? Why is it perfectly acceptable for a teacher today to teach a class in Vans and ironic “I’m with stupid” T-shirts? Is it because of the decaying patriarchal hierarchy known as high-class fashion? Or is it because professors
what professors like to wear and why, turned into a sprawling cluster fuck of conceptual idealisms and really nice button-up shirts. If you haven’t noticed, uniforms of the archetypical physician, fireman, and postal worker come pre-packaged. “The professor” also has its tried and true uniform, and though it’s an implicit and unofficial uniform it’s a uniform all the same. The portrayal of the generic professor in any number of Hollywood films is routinely displayed as a consistently un-hip, white male in his late 40s, with facial hair (to emphasize maturity), and glasses (to emphasize intelligence). Yes, the professor for Hollywood is so absent-minded that he forgets to tuck in one half of his shirt. It’s not that “the professor” is unfashionable, but rather he is the very essence of unfashionable. A quick Google search for professor costumes leads to the reinforced idea of professors as wearing, “Tweed jacket with patches on the elbows, striped shirt, ugly tie that doesn’t match striped shirt.”
are professors and it makes no difference whatsoever if they wear an ill-fitting tweed jacket or a ridiculously overpriced Supreme T-shirt. The answer is not a simple one, and also there is no answer. All I can say for certain is that what began as an innocent exposé on
Where did this trend develop? We can assume that since the profession itself sits firmly within the historical social context of academia, there is a demand that professors dress with more awareness than is expected of other occupations. But the costume itself is never portrayed as a typical nice outfit — the costume is inexplicably tied to a certain level of ridiculousness. Obviously, a lampoon is a lampoon and humor lies in the over-exaggerations of features. Even so, this mockery, the unfashionable professor, did not just fall from the sky. The historical foundation of the position of the professor
“I take the activity of teaching as a serious activity and I want to demonstrate the seriousness I take it in a number of ways. One of the ways I do that is to dress up.” 26
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“Quinn Miller describes his fashion as that of a ‘gutter-punk faux ivy woodsperson’ on occasion and ‘mod trad’ most of the time.”
and the subsequent reinforcement or decay throughout history, is ultimately tied to a myriad of different causes including but not limited to the radicalism of 1960s, geographical placement, freedom from and freedom to hierarchical control, the mediated self, the lecture as performance, and authority and its place in the classroom. Yes, there is some really heavy shit at stake when a professor chooses his or her socks. If we take the idea of the university we can place the costume of the professor firmly with all the stereotypical associations that come grouped with the college experience: binge drinking, sitting on the grass reading, habitual marijuana use without fear of associated deviance, brick buildings with ivy on the sides, eating ramen noodles, and sexual experimentation. Whether there is or ever was any objective truth to any of these associative aspects of the college experience is ultimately a question best left up to the statisticians. Even so, to get some insight into the ever-
changing world of professor fashion, I turned to the academics themselves to try to understand their personal opinions on the subject. Though I personally find it in poor taste to categorize a person based on their outfit, I still think it’s really fun. First, there’s Spike Gildea. He sits on the radical end of the fashion spectrum — wearing a tie dye T-shirt and jeans combo to emphasize his belief that, “the way someone talks and the way someone dresses does not mean you can judge either the worth of their ideas or their general intelligence.” I was immediately aware of my own stereotypes because it’s not often that I meet someone who “loves tie dye” and whose primary interests are “descriptive and documentary fieldwork, historical/functional/ typological syntax, and historical/functional phonology.” On the opposite end of the fashion spectrum, there’s English Professor Paul Peppis. He wears a well-fitting button-up shirt, dress coat, slacks, leather shoes, and a tie often with a clip. His use of dark colors is reminiscent of the more conservatively dressed professors we see in Hollywood films. When asked why he chooses to dress in the more typical professor garb, he explained, “Generally I want to demonstrate to students that I take the activity of teaching as a serious activity and I want to demonstrate the seriousness I take it in a number of ways. One of the ways I do that is to dress up.”
around cultural theory and media studies. Though Quinn is extremely critical of reducing anyone’s personal aesthetic choices to prefab adjectives, he describes his fashion as that of a “gutter-punk faux ivy woodsperson,” on some occasions and “mod trad” most of the time. Quinn’s research emphasis informs his opinion that changing fashion trends are the result of “systems of social hierarchies, class hierarchies, that play out through markers of style, through clothing choices, through brands, through the cut of a shirt, through hierarchies that circulate and are reinforced through fashion.” So Quinn does much to take the traditional image of what a professor should wear and problematize it — in the hopes of “making people think.” When the idea that all fashion, and by extension professor fashion, is rooted in systems of patriarchal hierarchy was presented to Professor Peppis, he was slightly doubtful of the effectiveness at such attempts of problematization. “I would be a little skeptical of saying that any particular mode of dress has a particular radical content,” he explained. “I’m generally skeptical that anyone who is wearing clothing that was purchased through capitalism is engaged in a radical interrogation of capitalism or patriarchy.” Though Quinn’s theory that professor fashion exists within a system hyper-constrained by gender segregation resounds with my reason, I also couldn’t help but find Quinn’s stance starting to sound like a bit of a conspiracy theory. But, he elaborated further. “The popular image of a conservatively dressed professor presents an image of authority that legitimates the person that gets to say what education is, what kinds of education can take place in institutions,” he said. Quinn’s explanation, though a little hard to swallow, is still as compelling as it is dubious. Peppis poses a theory that the decaying conventionality in professor fashion choices reflects the growing trend that all of society is no longer willing to care. “It used to be that if
Somewhere in between the two previous subjects, there is Quinn Miller, whose teaching interests revolve Boner donors since 1989
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choosing an identity,” he said. Spike expresses an alternate, naturalistic view on a professor’s identity in the classroom. “At a university, I’m like, come on, if you can’t be yourself here then where can you be?” he asked.
you got on an airplane everybody would be dressed up, everybody,” he said. “And now you know, its like they roll out of bed.” He went on to reflect that even the most professional of all professions don’t dress as sharply as they have before. “I think lawyers don’t even dress up anymore,” he said with a raised eyebrow. Sure enough, it’s kind of a stretch to imagine myself or anyone else putting on their best outfit to sit on a glorified Greyhound to Dallas. Still, it’s easy to comprehend that people back in the day thought getting into a airplane was the greatest scientific achievement of mankind so you better dress nice. Has glory and awe of higher education been reduced to a business class flight to the Midwest? Possibly, but who
It would seem the firm boundary between the way a professor chooses to dress and the way a student does comes from a disciplinary power dynamic. Imagine how organized authority would lose its power if cops and robbers dressed the same, or if cowboys and Indians both wore those stupid hats, if you went to the hospital wearing a white coat and scrubs, if jocks started wearing thick rimmed glasses and cardigans, if Nazis started dreading their hair and wearing tie die, if cats started dressing like dogs, and the sun is now the moon, black is down and up is white. In other words we would have complete and utter chaos. Then again, why couldn’t we call this utter chaos something a little nicer like freedom or equality? It strikes me as a little inhumane to deny anyone of a different class or culture to wear Gucci or Louis. Isn’t it wrong to trade in our creative volition to dress how we please for a more efficient model of authority? Certainly no one explicitly tells academics that they must wear shiny black shoes or that they can’t wear a Nine Inch Nails band tee, but is there
“The way someone talks and the way someone dresses does not mean you can judge either the worth of their ideas or their general intelligence.” really has the authority to make such a claim. Obviously, if there were a grand wizard who gave birth to all things fashion we would go ask it. Sadly, the grand wizard of fashion is a silly rumor that has never been backed up by empirical study and so should be dismissed. The subject of authority and its necessity arose with all three interview subjects. Quinn stated quite frankly that authority’s role in the classroom is born out of “social practices, the way people relate to the way authority is supposed to look, reinforcing the norm.” Where Quinn is extremely critical of this type of mindless duplication of historic power structures, Peppis finds it pragmatic to use the power paradigm to his advantage. “When you’re a teacher in the classroom you’re constructing a persona,” he said. This persona of the professor, for Peppis, plays into the theatrics of the professor; teaching in a classroom is never a presentation of the unmediated self and so should be used as an opportunity to represent yourself in a manner that’s most effective. “I think there are benefits in performing an activity, and there is agency in 28
a risk of stigmatization or a societal shaming that deters deviation? I want to say yes, but again it’s always in bad taste to use absolutes. At the end of the interviews I reflected on Professor Peppis’ belief that because the job of professor demands that you are watched by a hundred young adults in classrooms that resemble ancient Greek theatres, “the clothing a professors wears does signify.” The signals are cultural and rooted in history. So wearing tie-dye shirt and jeans for Peppis signals, “I’m a cool laid back hippie type of guy.” And it’s true that Spike is an incredibly laid back guy, but it would be presumptuous on my part to believe that just because of a shirt. I’ve met
uptight hippies and professors who adhere to standards. That said, even Spike, who is a laid back type of guy, probably won’t teach in a tank top. “I don’t like showing skin,” he assured. V “I have my principles!” O
words ISABEL ZACHARIAS art KEA KAUFMAN&ISABEL ZACHARIAS
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his is entirely irrelevant.
Last fall, a well-kept Midwestern high school collectively decided to put a crown on my head. Linking arms with my dad on a football field, shivering in a dress that suffocated me, the photojournalism class clicking away on the sidelines. The most incredible part, though, is that I gave a shit. The stadium applauded. I was a queen. A lot has changed since then - for everyone. At South Eugene High School’s prom this year, I sat on the bleachers at Gerlinger Gym and watched. Everything else was the same as always: poorlysegued remixes of “Cyclone,” “Apple Bottom Jeans,” and “Party in the USA,” all the supervisors shaking their heads, mumbling “grinding” in air quotes to each other. And then, of course, came the crowning. Zach Meyer, who won prom king that night, said that “winning was definitely unexpected…I jokingly asked a few friends to nominate my girlfriend Rachel and I, and it wound up happening.” Rachel, hair curled and eyes sparkling, agreed with this sentiment. “I wasn’t expecting it at all, nor was I too excited to dance in front of everyone at prom, but it turned out to be a really fun and rewarding experience,” she said. Clearly, the two are handling their positions in high school hierarchy with grace. But even for Zach and Rachel, the question remains: why did they come out on top? How does anyone end up being dance royalty, and what happens next? Matt Asher, a UO sophomore, is both a former prom king and a member of the Greek system - in other words, popularity gold. “I played football and baseball,” he said. “But I really don’t know. I was kind of shocked when I was nominated…it was honestly really bizarre. I was just always a nice person, though, and I made a lot of good friendships.” Matt doesn’t consider himself defined by his prom king-hood, though, and he takes the same stance on his involvement in fraternity life. “(The Greek system) is a fun aspect, but it’s not what it’s about. I think people
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see Greek letters on campus, but don’t know what they mean.” Blaire Bender, another sophomore, won prom “princess” her sophomore year of high school. “Just now talking to you, I’m like, ‘oh, yeah, I was prom queen or whatever.’ It’s not something I remember,” said Blaire. She laughed, shook her head a little, and pushed a shock of red hair behind her ear. Blaire, a sorority member, has similar opinions to Matt on the role Greek life plays at UO; “I think it’s easy to stereotype Greek life as the party scene…but the connections I’ve made through Greek life are indescribable…the best times I have are just sitting on the couch and watching TV,” said Blaire, shrugging. “And there are just so many outlets at Oregon. There’s such a diversity in the types of people you get to meet…that’s a really cool aspect of being here, I think.” Matt nodded. “I don’t really think there’s an incrowd at our school at all. If anything, it’d be the athletes,” he said. For many UO students, the word “athlete” elicits eye rolls. It’s an unavoidable truth that athletes lead different lives than average college students, especially at a school with such a widely recognized sports legacy. It’s easy to forget, though, that our athletes aren’t only Ducked-out spokespeople who work out 30
while someone else does their homework. That being said, Taylor Richmond, who I’m amazed I gathered the guts to talk to, is the centerfold of the 2K13 UO Cheerleading Calendar. “Upon deciding on coming here (from Utah), I decided to try out for cheer. I didn’t know anyone here, and having a community to come to was a huge deal,” she said. “I wouldn’t say that I came with the intention to cheer, but it definitely helped me get here.” Yes, Taylor has gorgeous blonde hair, a smile too gleaming to believe, and an affable enthusiasm. But what amazed me most was that she’s also an actual person. Her charm is very real and very modest. “People unfairly think that athletes think they’re too cool, but that’s not at all how it is. We’re all just living our lives the way everyone else does,” she said. “And a lot of people see cheerleaders as not smart, not athletic - all these stereotypes I’ve been trying to prove wrong since high school, because it really bothers me. It still bothers me a lot in college.” Having had plans to attend art school for painting before deciding on UO, Taylor has always felt a dual life with art and cheerleading. She says, however, that cheer is “more of a hobby than a lifestyle.” Not only that, but she says that her best friends, the
ones she “needs to vent to and get away from everything with,” aren’t involved in athletics. She was never a prom queen. Sophomore Leela Hickman wasn’t prom queen either, but she came close. At a 240-person, low-income arts high school, she was nominated for prom court, but “the prom queen was actually this girl who had a baby with her boyfriend, the prom king,” she said. “We were all just very tight together - I couldn’t tell you who was the in-crowd…I was also the valedictorian of my high school. So I was kind of a nerd, but also really weird… just this kid into art. I was appreciated for my character; everyone was.” Though she says she thinks of herself as a “generally socially nervous” person, Leela has gracefully made the transition from her closeknit community to a state university. “I found the best friend(s) of my life in college. We just happen to love each other unconditionally…with that core, I feel better…even if I made a fool of myself to some other people…I feel like everyone feels intimidated, and some people are just better at compensating for that.” From her perspective, people are “cool” on the college level when they have a portfolio of experiences to show for themselves; “people
“What I’ve come to respect in my friends and colleagues,” Sage said, “is acceptance of their own idiosyncrasies and willingness to be open and honest, without having to impress upon anyone the parts of themselves that they think are important.” sometimes feel like if they’re not busy every second of every day, they’re doing something wrong…but once you get down to talking, that doesn’t matter as much…you sort of see how real they are, and I like doing that. We already live in such an over-competitive society. I like to stop comparing and just talk. Otherwise, I feel sort of shallow.” Sage Sommer is 29 years old, living and working in Santa Fe, New Mexico. “I won prom queen more than 10 years ago, now,” she said. She shakes her head, as if remembering. “There’s not much to say...I was just 17, plastered out of my head, and I had to walk up to this pathetic little stage and they managed to get this tiara on my head. I had to do the dance and everything. It was ridiculous. It never really mattered to me to begin with, because it always felt unattainable.” Sage would sit at the “popular table” sometimes. But she said it was always as a frenemy. “In general, ‘cool’ people tended to be attractive and oversexed…maybe not terribly friendly. They might have expected others to give them attention instead of coming to others.” But now, to Sage, the whole thing seems silly.
“It was one of those anomalies in my life. Everyone has these ideas of a prom queen and what that person looks like. I never felt like I fit that description. I still don’t feel like I do.” After all, maybe the real popular girls were the ones who won homecoming queen. Maybe Sage’s high school was too small for it to matter. Or maybe we all just grow up. “What I’ve come to respect in my friends and colleagues,” Sage said, “is acceptance of their own idiosyncrasies and willingness to be open and honest, without having to impress upon anyone the parts of themselves that they think are important.” I watched Rachel Kalnbach, South Eugene High School’s 2013 Prom Queen, slow dance in the middle of the Gerlinger gym with her boyfriend, the Prom King. I wondered about them, in the next few years - the homesick phone calls to family, the impulsive piercings, the coffee spilled in the middle of the lecture hall, the horrible need to prove oneself, the settling, the constant unsettledness. But I’m not worried for Rachel Kalnbach.
genuine in every word. “People I consider cool are people I respect and look up to because they are inspiring, genuine and kind. In my mind, people aren’t cool just by wearing the right clothes, or going to all the parties or by acting superior to anyone.” For a second, I can feel her plastic tiara, how it felt on my head all that time ago, 1600 miles from here. I hear my dad with his arm around me, saying “I’m so proud of you, little girl,” just loud enough for me to hear. But now their dance is ending, and everyone’s filling in the empty space, starting to dance themselves. I hop off the bleachers as Rihanna sings Cheeeeeeers to the freakin’ weekend And now it’s just me and a good friend - out on the fringes of the dance floor, flailing our arms like mad, screaming for joy, and flipping off anyone who points. I think I like it better that way. O V
“To me, a ‘cool’ person is someone that is nice to everyone,” she told me, deliberate and
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THE VALLEY OF SICKNESS The OV Honey Michaela Giunchilgliani gets deep and philosophical with downtown Eugene's street kids words&photos MICHAELA GIUNCHIGLIANI
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he artwork spread out around the iron sculpture of Ken Kesey, framing a circle of friends, acts as a kind of barrier from the outside world. They sit in their ring, quietly scribbling on various notepads and chatting energetically.
Kesey Square, alive with an undercurrent of friendly conversation and a twanging banjo tune, is a gathering spot for Eugene’s least advertised community members. At first glance, it’s a motley crew of questionably dressed outsiders. But after a short conversation, Eugene’s street kids reveal their true natures—warm and welcoming. It’s easy to ignore this small pocket of characters. They’re labeled as homeless vagrants, troublemakers. Few of them have jobs and traditional family lives are virtually nonexistent. Most cities disregard them altogether. In a society where financial status defines social status, they have a miniscule place. However, Eugene is an anomaly of acceptance. “It’s peaceful, a lot less drama. I haven’t been harassed since I’ve been up here” says John, 21, a local artist. “Eugene has a cool ‘I don’t care’ atmosphere to get any creative flow going,” says Jerrold, a 22 year old homeless artist. His studio is Kesey Square and he can frequently be seen immersed in a notebook with his brother, John. “Coming up here and experiencing hippie culture lets me calm down and see what I want to do,” says Jerrold. His notebook is full of drippy characters drawn with ink. They resemble graffiti, which he frequently does wherever he travels. Art is central to this group. It is actually a form of communication. Some use their art to make money; others do it simply for the enjoyment of having their work seen. The erratic paycheck that comes from selling their art in the square most likely doesn’t cover the dayto-day items necessary for John and Jerrold. “Basic necessities is all you need—just being able to survive and see people enjoy my artwork is what I need,” says John. His brother, however, desires a little something more— “I would love to have a studio,“ Jerrold says. “I had that and I got too fucking distracted,” John interrupts. “Well I’m more of an introverted person so I like to draw alone. I have a job and I’m homeless, but I’m looking for a place to have my artwork and feel organized.” 32
The brothers differ in their methods, but ultimately have one goal in mind: get their work out there and enjoy it. They live simply to achieve this. They sell their art to passers-by
or trade it among other street kids for basic necessities like food and clothing. The barter and trade system is used among these individuals to get necessities for survival. Whether it’s artwork, money, or simply protection, the street kids successfully survive off of their ‘good word.’ “You can trade for food if you’re hungry, cigarettes—I mean, little necessities,” says John. “We had a plan to sell our things and get a job when we moved here, but it’s so easy-going.” This small public sphere has set up a whole system of support based on trading with one another and has far reaching capabilities. But more than anything, it creates trust in a community otherwise lacking in traditional exchanges. “Community bonds are better than personal bonds. It’s better to give than to take,” says Ben, 15, a budding Marxist philosopher that frequently analyzes Eugene’s community. Transactions involving money are our society’s way of dealing with exchanges. You buy your coffee with the money you get from working. You pay your rent, you pay someone to feed you, you pay someone to take care of elders. Money is the defining feature of the mainstream public sphere. But this counter-public shares a bond based off of more than just what you can and can’t afford. It’s about artistry; it’s about trust. The value of something isn’t determined by the monetary value assigned to it on a price tag. It is simply determined by its worth to the individual responsible for it.
within the rest of Eugene. “It’s not separated. You know the Christians, the punk rockers, the homeless. Everybody helps each other out. You’ve got minute separation but that’s it,” says John. The group stays tightly knit by embracing the diversity of their members. “It’s about good family bonds,” Ben says. “We take the features of a blood family and apply it to Eugene.” Something sets Eugene apart from other places like Medford, the town that John and Jerrold left in search of more community ties. “To live in Eugene is to be a part of a community,” says Ben. “It’s a very accepting one to us because people here have gone through their shit.” Eugene can’t be easily boiled down to a few groups of people. There is a huge level of diverse representation, and this requires acceptance. “It doesn’t matter what constraints are put on you. You are your own free self. You can be the individual and the community member. Without community, there’s no room for expansion, no room for innovation,” says Ben. With these strong community ties of acceptance and protection comes the advantage of meeting many people.
The counter-public of street kids values things that the ‘normal’ public sphere often writes off. Art, precious stones, trust and protection are all abstract commodities to our society, but are worth everything to these individuals. “The barter system is wide, from shoes to gems,” says Ben. “It doesn’t matter if it’s an exchange of money or actually useful material.” This doesn’t make sense to people on the outside, but it works because they’re all committed to it. Relying on the good faith of others can seem like a frightening venture. But it defines this group. They claim that protection is the most important feature of their tight-knit community. Tony, a vibrant Eugene traveler with a tie-dyed shirt tucked away under an alpaca jacket, connected the street kids’ idea of protection to a book he read about the Holocaust. “I read this book. It was written in Auschwitz,” says Tony. “It’s about what this guy did to protect the book. The pages that made it were published. The pages that didn’t were left blank.” He pauses for dramatic effect. “The prisoners worked for a week to get a cigarette voucher. Anything extra was kept in constant circulation. The Nazis would shoot anyone with extra vouchers. When new prisoners would arrive, the people already there would take them in and give them vouchers to make it look like they’d been there long. The Nazis targeted new prisoners.” Another pause for drama. “They protected each other. That’s what we do!” he shouted. “It’s the same here. A good majority of drunk college kids and the police are the Gestapo. We’re the prisoners.” He paused a final time. “We protect each other.” James, another individual of this group, claims the modern world is full of people bumping into one another on the street. “We have to be perceptive of others,” he says. “There’s a lot of social bigotry in this town against homeless kids and homeless teens.” He says they protect each other from the outside world’s bigotry and distaste for ‘vagrants.’ “People get that some people are fuckin’ stupid. People brush it off and say ‘Yeah, that’s cool’ but there’s always a group of us that will stay and make sure everything is okay,” says Ben. “Thieves and racists are not allowed because they disrupt the community. People will not see someone who can’t defend themselves get harmed.” Although the street kids are targeted, their community stays strong
“I travel a lot, all the way from Mexico to Canada. Now I can jump on a greyhound and see people I know all along the way—“ says Tony. “—I know half the people in this square,” Ben quips. The growing wealth gap pushes people farther and farther apart. Our society has created a hostile environment for anyone without a house, a job or nuclear family. However, the street kids’ values are similar to most of society’s. They value protection, loyalty and personal bonds with their community members. “We’re greedy. We’re sentient animals. If we always take and never go by the benefit of others, then how do you have a community?” asks Ben. “If you have $100 million dollars and you walk past a homeless man, how will you ever connect with him?” These individuals have found a way to thrive in a group mostly shutoff from society. Their art lines the bricks of Kesey Square, vibrant and personal. Eugene has welcomed these people with open arms in some places, and a lingering sense of bigotry in others. For example, Eugene PD and LTD tend to target them without being provoked. However, Eugene’s average community member’s opinion of these street kids is good. Ben looks up and smiles. “People are compassionate and loving. This is the Willamette Valley. But we call it the Valley of Sickness—not sickness as in illness, but sickness as in happiness. It’s contagious.” O V Boner donors since 1989
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We Found Love in a Bulk Bin Place Haley Rivet drops some knowledge about organic food, and gives us some insight into our favorite neighborhood grocery stores. words HALEY RIVET Some people have fantasies of getting married in a large church or on the beach, but only a select few ever express the desire to get married in a grocery store. In 1984, there was a wedding in the aisles of Sundance Natural Foods. Neighborhood grocery stores selling local, organic food are popular in Eugene, not only because they provide regionally grown and therefore sustainable foods, but also for the community aspect of shopping at a small locally driven store. In Eugene there is an abundance of natural food stores; Sundance, New Frontier, the Kiva, Redbarn, Capella Market, and Friendly Street Market to name a few. It’s no mystery why Eugene is such a hub of organic foods. Not only are we surrounded by local agriculture, but the people in Eugene are environmentally sensitive. “We are in a nexus of educational institutions,” says Gavin, the current owner of Sundance Foods. The more educated people are the more they will invest in sustainable living and take responsibility for the effect their actions have on the planet. Sundance was started by a guy who worked for NASA in the sixties, that decided to drop out, and left to come up here and start this natural food store with his pregnant wife. “He got tired of the rat race, it was kind of the time of the counter culture and the natural foods was part of that and going back to the roots, and by alternative food systems and alternative ways of doing business, he had the impedance,” Gavin explained. These neighborhood markets seem to generally stream out of a desire to defy the norm, and Eugenians love to feel like they are doing things differently than the rest of the world. Gavin prefers his small store because it creates a more intimate work environment. “We are able to relate to each other within the staff here. We all know each other’s names and have a social relationship with each other. Being in a smaller store with a smaller staff allows you to have a much more effective social relationships.” Having a small store makes it easier to develop relationships with patrons as well. “We have a lot of customers that have been shopping here for decades. I have people come up to me and say ‘you don’t remember me but I used to come here when I was a little girl or boy.’”
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art ANNA CHELSKY It seems to be the theme for these organic food stores to have unconventional beginnings. The Kiva didn’t even sell food originally. “I started the Kiva as a bookstore in 1970 and we were located in an old garage two blocks from our present location,” says George, the owner. “I kind of got into the food business by accident.” When the Kiva was in it’s first location, a natural foods store was in the same complex, the owners offered to sign it to him and he took it. “I decided yeah sure, it might be interesting.” This go-with-the flow attitude seems to resonate throughout Eugene and it appears to be working for George. “We’ve always had a loyal customer base. Really, it’s one of the busiest places downtown, second to the public library.” The counter-culture way of life that started Sundance seems to also have an effect on the Kiva. “It was kind of ironic, most of the people that were running the shops were Anglo Saxon Americans and many of the different groups were following one Indian Guru or another, the devotees. The one Indian family that moved in this bazaar was Catholic,” George says when talking about the old building complex he used to work in. All irony aside, both businesses owners take pride in their food and that is what is important. Unfortunately, not all food outlets are as quirky and passionate as the Kiva and Sundance. As larger corporate stores begin adopting organic products, less care is taken to make sure the food is local. “Natural foods and organic foods have gone fairly mainstream and in some regards the values have been co-opted. There has been a tremendous amount of consolidation and corporatization in the natural foods world,” says Gavin. The rest of the world seems to have caught up with the Eugene way of eating, which used to be considered the alternative. Of course the more money there is in a product, the more the original values are compromised. Large franchises use factories that often treat animals inhumanely and buy from fewer local sellers. It is difficult to research where your food is coming from when you don’t have a personal relationship with your grocer, and that’s why people have been shopping at these neighborhood markets for decades - they trust them.
Ghosties Reuben Garcia recounts a ghost story read in the Eugene Masonic Cemetery, and leads us through his first-hand account of a possible ghost sighting. words RUBEN GARCIA art SHERLOCK DOMES A romantic tragedy invites visitors to the Eugene Masonic cemetery. I first heard about the tragedy after scoping out the cemetery. I was searching for something that could lead to a compelling and frightful story. I discovered the graves of Minnie Luckey and Albert Wilson and knew I had finally found what I was looking for. Their graves lay right next to each other, and a sign above them told their unfortunate story. The title read “Romantic Tragedy” and I was instantly hooked. I did further research and discovered that this was no ordinary tragedy. The story of Minnie and Albert is a tragic love story that lives on in the early hours at the cemetery. Minnie Luckey was an angel and drop dead gorgeous. She was a teacher at a local school along the Siuslaw River. Minnie took a liking to a young gent named Albert Wilson. Wilson was just as good looking as Minnie, and the young couple immediately fell in love. Minnie and Wilson, along with their friends, set out one day for a nice sailing trip on the Siuslaw River. Minnie and Albert decided to go out by themselves on the river for some alone time. The rest of the group remained ashore. It was a beautiful day, the sun was shining, and all seemed well for a lovely day at the river. All was well, until a gust of wind came from the North throwing their boat back. Sailboats capsizing under intense wind pressure was common. Their parents had warned them not to go out boating if the wind picked up, but this wind came out of nowhere. The two were still optimistic that they could enjoy their alone time even with the increasing winds. They were wrong. Tragedy struck. An electrifying gust of wind came straight for the sailboat and it capsized, sending them into the ice-cold water. Ashore, the rest of the group watched the terrifying incident occur before their eyes. They immediately went to fetch help. Rescue boats were dispatched and a search for the two lovers was underway. But the boats were too late. Minnie and Albert drowned to death in the Siuslaw River. The rescue team was unsuccessful in the search for the dead bodies, and the search was eventually called off. Minnie and Wilson’s families were horrified. The kids were so young, with bright futures ahead, but the Siuslaw River had other plans for them. The families forced the boats to search again. No luck. They were getting desperate, and hope was beginning to dwindle. They had no other choice but to go to Mrs. Wheeler, a frail old woman who lived alone in Eugene, for help. She was psychic, and was known around town for being quirky and mysterious. Mrs. Wheeler quickly got to work figuring out where Wilson’s body lay. Wheeler claimed she “saw” Wilson’s body lying on the bottom of the river no more than 20 feet from where he drowned, and that Minnie’s body was nearby. The search team claimed Wheeler was deranged and demented. They said they had searched that area of the river a hundred times. The families persuaded the search team to look again. They searched the bottom of the river where Wheeler had suggested, and Albert’s body was found. A few days later Minnie’s body was found. The legend goes that every night the two spirits roam the grounds of the Eugene Masonic Cemetery. They say you can hear them calling each other. If you’re brave enough, walk around the cemetery at night, and see if you can hear the lonely cries of Minnie and Albert. I did. I ventured to the cemetery on a Friday night. I went alone, thinking I was going to be okay by myself. I took the mile walk to Masonic cemetery and set up camp. I brought a flashlight, a book to pass the time, and a snack. I spent several minutes wandering around aimlessly in the pitch dark before discovering the graves of the dead lovers. I kept reading the sign that told their story. I sat to the left of their graves and waited. My mind started to race, Chills went up my spine, and I was instilled with fear. Was the story true or just a myth that the locals came up with? Witching hour was approaching, and I was confident that nothing was going to happen. I started to read the book I brought with me, and began to calm down. I looked at my phone to see what time it was and realized that witching hour was underway. I stopped reading, and fear crept through me once again. A dog barked in the distance. The bark scared me. My awareness heightened. Silence gripped the surrounding area. Faint cries of a man and a woman rang through my ears. I could see nothing in the darkness and was too terrified to turn on my flashlight. The cries grew louder, and I grew more frightened. I was scared to death and decided this was enough ghost hunting for one night. I proceeded to leave the cemetery as soon as possible. I’m still not sure whether I heard the cries of Minnie and Albert, but I did hear something. And it was enough to drive me out of the cemetery. I wish Minnie and Albert the best and hope that they find each other and not me. Boner donors since 1989 35
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The Voice of B i g f e et H
ere at the Oregon Voice laboratories, we are in constant search of enlightenment, especially as it pertains to nonsense and unfiltered reality. This year we headed toward the Redwood National Forest in search of existence, notoriously home of Bigfoot (a.k.a. Dingdom, Yeti, Sasquatch, Maricoxi, Yeren). The Oregon Voice briefly possessed the Scrolls of Enlightenment from 1989 – 2003. The scrolls were lost in the, often embellished, Sasquatch raid. Since the theft, Oregon Voice has been studying the Bigfeet, and their behavior left no doubt; they were living their lives in true enlightenment. This year we would reclaim the knowledge and spread it to our readers. The hunt began in the summer. Dr. TayTay spent two months synthesizing the data we inherited from our predecessors. Bigfeet lived in small roving clans, farted proudly, rejected clothes, stood seven feet tall, were notorious for adapting to bioregions across the world (the reason for their varied names), and fled from typical human expeditions. The closest enclave, and likely home of the thieves, was among the Sequoiadendron giganteum of Northern California. Vamos. We traveled by horse.
Re s e a rche d a n d d o cu mente d by B en j a mi n M . Fick l i n
It was night. Dr. TayTay and I scaled crumbling ledges. We heard growling breaths. A flickering light came from around the upcoming bend. We turned the corner into the massive arms of a Bigfoot. His small clan lay behind him, around a fire. There was no time to grab my Dreyse M1907. We were tied, and placed beside the fire. Doom. Yet, before we were pancaked and eaten, they asked us why we sought them. “We came to reclaim our scrolls of Enlightenment! Your ways of true happiness should be shared with the all the readers of Oregon Voice!” Dr. TayTay said, maybe as her last words. The Bigfeet were shocked. Our captives untied our bonds and led us to their cave. There sat a Bigfoot child leafing through our recent Art Issue! The walls were decorated with The Poop Issue’s cover. The Bigfeet legend tells of us stealing the Scrolls of Enlightenment from them! In their study of us, they found our actions proved we understood reality. Dr. TayTay and I got stoned with our new brethren and stargazed.
Once at the forest, we took to our feets. The adventure was a joy shadowed by fear of the confrontation. Nights were spent drinking and singing; mornings were stoic. The forest was hot, and we often swam for pleasure. Two weeks deep into the expedition, we explored Kings Canyon. For the unfamiliar, Kings Canyon is a labyrinth of steep orange cliffs and deep crevices in the southern Sierra Nevada Mountains. This is the home to the Bigfeet.
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FICTION I Can Live Like This
She turns the light off on her way out. I hear her walk down the hall, into our bedroom. I hear her shut the door. 38
Never the Same Again
The girl shifted her backpack strap and looked over as she heard the purr of a familiar motor. “What are you doing out here again?” she yelled over the engine. Waves of heat rose from the hood of the mint green car. “You know,” the driver said curtly. She had red curls neatly arranged around her head, and was staring at the teen from over the top of her glasses. “Tosh, I just want you to have the best life possible. You don’t belong on the road. And how long do you think your dream is going to last hmm?” The woman gave a mournful look at the now agitated teenage girl. “I’ve already sent my stories to some publishers,” Tosh said as she used her hand to shield her eyes from the sun. “Do you honestly think that you’ll get published?” The woman laughed mockingly. “Oh honey, you need some life experience first. No one’s going to want to pay you unless you get a college degree.” Tosh tensed at the mention of higher education. “I can live however I want to. Dan didn’t have to go to college and he still-“ “Well Dan isn’t exactly living out of a mansion is he?” The woman spat out the name with a distinct note of contempt, but promptly replaced her sneer with a smile. Tosh hackles rose at the attack on her mentor. “Well, he’s helped me more than college ever could. And besides, he doesn’t need a pile of money to be happy.” “Is that what he told you?” The lady raised her eyebrows in disbelief. “Well I suppose there’s nothing else I can do here. It seems you’re set on failing just like that crazy old hermit.” The woman wiped off some imaginary lint from her shirt and shifted the car into gear. Jill and I are in the living room “You’re gonna hear about me one day,” Tosh said suddenly. “My name’s gonna be watching TV. She’s laying on the everywhere!” couch, I’m on the recliner. I’m not The woman chuckled. paying attention to what’s on. I “I seriously doubt that.” look at her. She has this blank stare, Suddenly a louder engine could be heard and a large black truck pulled up. Tosh like she’s far away; but I don’t know barely had time to react before the car was shut off and a large form came rushing where. We haven’t talked in awhile; towards her from the car. not real talk, at least. “You did it!” the man yelled. The jubilant cry and the hug nearly knocked Tosh off her feet. She stands up and turns off the TV. I stand “I did what?” Tosh asked breathlessly. up and, before she can turn around, put my “Dan,” the woman greeted through gritted teeth. hands on her hips and start to kiss her neck. Dan gave her a cursory glance. She sighs. I can smell her hair and it smells like “Dolores,” he said with a mocking tip of his hat. He turned back to Tosh, lavender, like it always has. I move my hands up grinning. under her shirt and feel the warm smooth skin “You’re going to be published!” he said. of her belly. I try to pull her closer, but she pushes Tosh noticed the envelope in his hands and snatched it up to read it. She my hands away and moves out of my reach. I just gave a quick glance and shrieked in joy. stand there. “I’m going to be published!” “What’s the point?” she says, her back toward me. “How nice,” Dolores said sarcastically. “I suppose congratulations are “What do you mean?” I say. in order.” “And they want more of your stories,” Dan added. “What’s the point if we can’t have a kid?” she says. “I’ll be on my way so you two can celebrate,” Dolores said I want to say because we’re married. I want to say because grumpily as she pulled away from the side of the road. we used to make love plenty, even before we planned the kid. “My name’s gonna be everywhere!” Tosh yelled after her. She I want to say because we love each other. But I don’t say any grinned at Dan. “I can live like this.” of that.
SAMUEL N. TAYLOR
EMMA IVIE
A deep blue haze perforated the room. It flitted over the cracked fireplace, and the broken doorknob stuffed with dollar bills. A large suitcase stood in the corner of the room, in front of the open bedroom door. It bulged almost to the break, her new and flashy clothes strained against the zipper. A plane ticket hung onto the edge of the table, it was set to New York, leaving in 4 hours. Cassy sat at the table fingering a picture of two people. One of them was her, in a ratty t-shirt that was now in the trash. The other figure stared guiltily back at her. She stuffed the picture into her coat and hailed an early morning taxi. The way to the airport took her straight through the city, the banks that no-one trusted, the rundown tobacco shops, and the shady hustle of seedy hotels. The taxi driver had a picture of him with a pretty woman in a foreign city taped to his windshield, and the corner of playboy poking out of the front seat. “You alright?” He leered into the backseat, his hands tightly clutching the steering wheel. As soon as she stepped into the airport she felt like she was already in another country. People in business suits clipped around smartly. There was no stink around, only the clean, plastic smell of airports. The smooth airport intercom ININA KACHELMEIER called last boarding for her flight. She hesitated before getting on, and looked back. Even here, the thick perfume of the city had seeped in. There was a boy running around with a soccer ball in the terminal, and an old lady was praying in the corner. She didn’t know what she expected. She felt like real life had cheated her out of her big cinematic moment. There was no one running to the gate to stop her, she didn’t suddenly jump over the terminal and leap away. She quietly got onto the plane and 6 hours later she landed in New York. When she got off the plane she was assaulted by a crowd, there were more people in this one terminal than in her home-town. She stepped outside, and the city exploded around her. She felt surrounded by the beeping of cars, the giant neon signs, and the crush of people. Even though she was on a new continent, she felt like she hadn’t moved at all. The same small grungy city she grew up in had simply been crowned in shiny lights and tall buildings. Her little room might as well have been back home. Her phone buzzed, and she stared at the caller ID for awhile before slowly picking it up and answering. She walked over to the refrigerator and tacked the picture in her pocket onto it.
Home
The Absence of Pepper ZEV HAGGITT When you were here, I never gave you a second glance. You were always here. A secondary spice, in my mind, you faded into the backdrop. You added an imperceptible spice that I thought was inconsequential, but now you’re gone. I’m left unsatisfied, insatiate. Where have you gone? I never gave you credit. You always played second fiddle to the one I thought I loved. I loved your compadre, your companion, but I didn’t think that I loved you. I realize that I did, and I do. The flavor you gave to my life is irreplaceable. I’ve tried alternatives, but they never live up to what you supplied me. Some are too spicy, and some, too bland. You were just right. I was Goldilocks, and you were baby bear’s porridge. You spiced up my life, and I’m sorry I never spiced up yours. I wish I could express my love for you. There’s an emptiness that cannot be filled. I miss sneezing when you were around for too long. You may cause an irritation in most people’s mucous membranes, but I don’t care. I’m sorry I yelled at you, and told you that you were too much to handle. That isn’t true. Even if you made my tongue burn, I don’t care. You were always by my side when I needed you, but now you’re gone. I know that you are down the street at my local grocery store, but I want you to come back of your own accord. I know that you feel the same way. I know that you love me too. I know that I take pieces of you away every time that we meet, but that’s what you’re there for, Isn’t it? I don’t care about your friend that was always by your side. I don’t think I ever did. I thought my love for salt was real, but it was nowhere near my love for you, Pepper. You will always be the one and only spice for me. My food may be bit more bland without salt, but I don’t care anymore. I only want you. Please come home.
Boner donors since 1989
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“Let’s go!” Her brother said. She looked to his face. He was sixteen, four years younger than her and her friends. It was tense with his eyebrows sharp. He wanted to begin his consumption to cope with all the new people. He didn’t like to drink, but for him one beer could release his nerves. He looked to his phone to check the time. “We’ll be going soon.” She told him. About ten minutes later, after packing the cars with the food and beer, they left for the campsite, on the last day of December. “What the fuck are we waiting for?” He abruptly asked, snapping and glaring at his sister. She returned his stare with a slight shake of her head. It was cold, but sunny. The air was crisp and the clouds were thin because whenever it grew cold in their town the moisture would dissipate quickly. It never snowed. The sun glared in the eyes of the siblings as they headed west for the coast, to a little cow pasture. Her brother’s face stayed anxious. She looked too. So they drove in their disgruntled and uncompromising silence, heading west to the coast. The year was nearly over and all they wished for was to watch the sunset, drink beer, and make a fire underneath the giant overhang of the golden leaves of the Bay. An hour past in quiet until the siblings and the caravan of friends arrived at the lagoon near the cow pasture. Everyone exited the cars and began to slowly unpack the tarps, the beer, the food and the instruments. They were in a daze from each other’s presence as the golden light of the sun was now minutes away from setting over the hills that they stared towards. They took their time, playing music and talking, some smoking cigarettes, and some unloading food. The siblings were the first to make the walk for the Bay tree where they were to sleep that night. Everyone else eventually followed them to the Bay tree.
e r e eW W ere DOMES h W LOCK SHE
R
The grass was dry on the field, and patchy. Cow patties lay strewn around the field with mushrooms growing out of them. The brother looked at them and grimaced. He saw the cows at the tree line. He watched as they occasionally looked to the people. Their immensity was frightening. As the brother looked to his sister unfolding a tarp, he saw the button on her breast pocket and watched the yellow light on it that distracted him from his lingering thoughts of the cows. As it grew colder, the friends felt their cheeks warm. The sun faded just as they finished setting up camp. The sky became a deep violet like blue, like the edge of the sky on top of a mountain, fading lighter on the edges of the horizon and darkening the higher you looked. Then sherbet, fading from yellow to blue moved from cloud to cloud keeping the pattern through them. The brother let out a deep sigh. His jaw muscles tensed to his warming cheeks as he fidgeted on this uncomfortable ground. The sister looked to him, grabbed his shoulder and focused her piercing stare on him. “Just take a breath, it’ll do you good.” She said, still staring intently into his eyes. He did. Slowly taking in the cool air into his warming face and then releasing it slowly back out to the air with conviction. He shifted the weight of his body back and forth and then settled onto his place on the ground. He looked to the water, seeing gulls and egrets flying away below the sky, that same sky that made him stop and look in silence. He sat staring and drinking, no longer in need of inebriation. He felt at peace for the first time in far too long. His sister felt the quiet tranquility that went through the quiet pasture and to her brother while the day faded from illumination to the cold blue of the night. The siblings sat on the outskirts of the festivities. They saw the people joining in song and rambunctious, hedonistic drinking, and eating without tasting. They were eating for sustenance and drinking for lubrication. They had no thought for poetry or beauty for this moment. They sat and drank and loved each other, never letting go of that feeling that flowed for each other the way the water moved to the west of them. It came within minutes of midnight as the campfire slowly faded. The siblings and the rest ran up to the open space above the Bay tree. All around them they could hear the howls of their friends and the bottle rockets across the lagoon and the golden fireworks to the east. Smiling, the brother looked down to his feet and saw more cow patties below him. He looked out to the east, past the golden Bay and saw the silhouetted living masses and was no longer afraid. He wondered if they were bothered by the noises surrounding them that revelled for the new moments. The shouts persisted for a longtime as the siblings howled to the moon in the clear star lit sky. They screamed with hope and hugged, like only family can, as the water flowed in the west. They slowly made there way back to the fire and the camp underneath the Bay tree. Sitting around the fire, drinking, tending the fire, and laughing with yellow smiles that were warmed by the fire. The night lingered as new and old romances provided more warmth in the late night. But the brother fell silently to sleep grinning as the rest stayed awake. He looked up to the stars through the branches of the old home of the Bay, and then to his sister sitting, grinning and laughing by the fire and the warmth.
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e
Just OkCupid
Alyssa Persons was brave enough to create an account and utilize OkCupid for our benefit. Her experiences were not what she was expecting.
I plunged into the strange, strange world of online dating with relatively few expectations or preconceived notions. It’s 2013, so I think it’s safe to say that the stigma surrounding meeting people online is at an all-time low and, come on, isn’t it cool to say you’re now besties in real life with that stranger who keeps retweeting you? From my own limited experience, dating people in real life takes entirely too much time and effort as it is. I figured with mere weeks left of my time in Eugene I might as well use (what I thought was) the easiest and least time-consuming option. So, I acted on a whim and created my very own OkCupid profile when I should have been, like, studying or figuring out how I’m supposed to put this English degree to practical use, but I digress. I assumed that online dating was going to be fun and straightforward but I was incredibly ill-informed. First of all, making one’s personal profile requires arguably more forethought and careful, conscious decision-making than buying a house. Once I got past the deceptively simple task of choosing a username, I was asked to not only answer questions like “What are the six things you can’t live without,” and “What’s the most personal thing you’ll tell people” to be displayed for all to see on my profile, but was also urged to take what basically amounts to a never-ending personality test. According to the virtual matchmakers at OkCupid, quantifying how much you agree or disagree to various statements like “Burning the American flag should be illegal” will help determine your compatibility with every other OkCupid user. The more you answer, the more accurate your eventual matches will be. I answered upwards of 75 questions and waited eagerly to reap the rewards. I assumed the hard work was done; now I would sit back and let my possible soul mates find me. While yes, my message inbox did almost immediately begin to ‘blow up’; I soon realized that my efforts were far from finished. What they don’t tell you when you agree to this prolonged online blind date is that reaching the coveted point of meeting someone in person might as well be a 2-credit class:it takes a finicky combination of diligence, time, effort, and patience to stay active on OkCupid or risk your matches losing interest. I weeded through the mix-bag of Eugene-area males who deemed me something enough to message.
words ALYSSA PERSONS art ARIEL WILLS So far so good! Except for the guy who threw caution to the wind and simply wrote “I think I love you,” most messages were friendly and decidedly not creepy. More shocking than any profession of love was my discovery that OV’s very own Sad Face and I were over 90% compatible. Convinced that this must be the real deal, I made the first move. Unfortunately, our affair tapered off before it ever really began; he proved to be just as elusive as his advice column would suggest. I still wasn’t sure on the specific protocol for getting a date but I assumed the process would be much quicker. I found myself on OkCupid nightly, engaged in multiple exchanges of nothing more than polite conversation. If someone didn’t act soon I could be stuck in this phase indefinitely! Finally, someone took the bait. 23, going to school, interested in film— normal enough. Having very rapidly lost most of my previous standards for a romantic match, I was ready to meet anyone I was at least 50% compatible with, so this guy almost immediately exceeded my (low) expectations. Unfortunately, while this date was not necessarily a horror story, it did nothing to prove that OkCupid is a viable option for meeting people you’re actually attracted to. On paper we seemed to have enough in common but I learned very quickly that yes, paper lies. Hansel* was half an hour late to the coffee shop we were supposed to meet at, didn’t even like coffee (a deal-breaker in its own right), noticeably judged me for saying that Breathless was my favorite Godard film (too mainstream, I suspect) and admitted that he once never called a girl back after she said she liked the band Tool. Hansel was pretentious, presumptuous, and distinctly less attractive than his profile picture had led me to believe. Far from the worst date ever, and no one got kidnapped or murdered, but it was underwhelming and awkward enough to lessen my interest in the entire process. What’s the point of building up an entire virtual rapport only to let it fall flat the moment you step out from your respective screens? My biggest question that came out of this experience was whether or not online dating expedites or complicates the already complicated process of dating. Does it help us cut to the chase and weed out the people we don’t want to waste our time on? Does it even give us a sense of who we might be compatible with in the first place? I would go so far as to say that being able to see everyone’s best selves put forth for you to judge as you please takes most of the fun out of naturally getting to know someone you’re interested in. I’m sure it’s a great option for some people but I can definitely say I felt nary a spark as I scrolled and clicked and read. I’m of the belief that the best way to find your soulmate is to not be actively searching for one, but maybe that’s just my naiveté. I don’t think online dating should be construed as a crutch for or a leg up on dating the old-fashioned way. It’s not going to automatically make you smarter or funnier or more attractive or a better conversationalist. It might give you a temporary surface-level boost in those areas and it might even get you a real-life date, but it sure as hell isn’t going to make you a more dateable person. When it comes down to it, we all have quirks and pet peeves and things we’re good at and weird party tricks and nicknames we’re too embarrassed to tell people we barely know—but we all already have multiple social media profiles that explain most of this in varying degrees anyway. Let’s retain the little mystery we still have intact and go out and meet some people! *Names have been changed
Boner donors since 1989
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: D R A HE
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RESPECT NO RESPECT
I tox ’m b Lily ifica uying pe tion a ed k he it, a rse nd lf.
Nobody listening to Earth’s complaints
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I prefer to sle hedgeho ep in g nests.
Library hotties you never end up speaking to
The cheesy excess of celebrity cameos in the new Arrested Development
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Jus t tell tell yo h bou er m ur mo ght om t m to ha he so i lla con t you t’s fi d ne! oms
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F D D
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P W B
Safeway JustForYou Deals
E C RREE SS PP E C Tuition
BABIES
Hot girl who posts an Instagram of herself drinking Starbucks (20 likes)
JayZ bought another woman a car
Wiener grew balls enough to come back!
re atu ” WT n g u i o l s m ads are y TF “ condo ice F Tu TF Spotify y t W o h W n w s r shit , k re he sp , do kis h tor e h t c a g u a t t t c , a u i n m o l e i d t t ray n’ h p b xhit ge lbu Col tp WTF e to pay for s dica Bush TF J g your a e OMG ob e W d e a g W F be pp pin any havin WTF Be WT eorge s! erdrop day as K n e to G sam
Rapidfire: WTF! 42
No th eD was sayin alai Lama g inter estin this reall when y g I wok shit. Like seco e up in t nd h alf... he
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THAT CAMPUS HOTTIE NAME: Plastiqquebagge Induhwind AGE: Timeless MAJOR: Business with a minor in Communications FAVORITE FILM: The Hangover Part 2 FAVORITE BOOK: “Windows 98 For Dummies, but really the whole For Dummies series” RELIGION: “New agey pseudo sciences like crystals and herbs” FAVORITE BAND: Dixie Chicks PERSONAL HERO: Tie between Wonder Woman and Jean-Michel Basquiat
Kermit the Frog
with THOMAS EDMONDS
When I fist saw Platiqquebagge Induhwind, I was ten yards away. Even so, amongst a campus of hotties it was plain to see that Plastiqquebagge was something special. It took me about four blocks to catch up with Mrs. Induhwind, yeah sorry guys she’s taken. I found her to be a kindhearted free spirit. She talked very freely about her travels, “After I graduated high school I packed up my life and moved to Scotland”. She went on to describe her profound connection with nature, “there’s just something about the air out there. Its like you can actually breathe. I lived in Los Angeles for about six months and the air seemed like diet air or something”. Plastiqque even talked frankly about the deeply personal issues of her childhood, “I was such a tomboy because of my mother. She was just like this typical valley girl. Always wanted me to join cheerleading or organize the prom or some other bullshit. I just really wanted to piss her off.” Mrs. Induhwind’s beauty reflects her tomboy origins. She’s not afraid to have curves, she’s comfortable without her makeup, but her most attractive attribute is her desire to go higher and farther than all the rest.
America’s first hemp crop in 60 years planted in Colorado
Whose Line is coming back (with an even-more-bald Colin Mochrie)
The PeaceCorps is allowing same-sex couples to volunteer together
MAD MADRESPECT RESPECT
E C E C TT RR UUMM
hit h
First legal drinks Barn Animals
China is like not so down with Kim Jong Un
Envision’s attempt to beat us in a dance-off
Gretchen Weiners
Ex-Microsoft executive announces plan to launch a national marijuana brand (“Big Marijuana”)
BABIES
Boner donors since 1989
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REVIEWS ADVENTURE TIME words DANIEL BROMFIELD For those of you who don’t watch Cartoon Network, smoke weed, and/ or appreciate fine animation, Adventure Time is an animated series revolving around Finn the human and his magical dog Jake, who seek adventure and fight evil in the post-apocalyptic land of Ooo. Fans insist it’s one of the best shows on TV and are attracted to its psychedelic animation, philosophical themes, and subtle references to classic film and television. I don’t watch much TV, but I’ve probably seen at least half of the show’s extant episodes and would have to conclude it’s one of my favorite things ever. One of the best things about Adventure Time is its ability to fuck with the viewers’ heads, either through the moral and philosophical questions it raises or simply through its sheer insanity. Here are a few of the many of the Adventure Time episodes that have left me needing to spend a few moments processing what exactly I just saw before teeing up another one. 1. Sons Of Mars (Season 4, Episode 15). Adventure Time’s morality is complex and confusing, but sacrifice seems to be a central tenet; “Thank You,” “All Your Fault,” and “Sons Of Mars” all conclude with a character sacrificing life and/or limb for the good of others. The sequence depicting Martian ruler Abraham Lincoln’s self-sacrifice is one of the best in all of Adventure Time, concluding with an image of Lincoln transformed into a statue that evokes Ash’s famous petrification in Pokemon: The First Movie. But this is not the only reason “Sons Of Mars” is the heaviest Adventure Time episode for the head; it’s also the episode that reminds us most frequently that Ooo is, in fact, on Earth. The show isn’t even cryptic about it; Earth is clearly seen in the episode, albeit missing a significant chunk, and that’s definitely the same Mars and the same Olympus Mons. (The nature of the enormous, Batman-voiced Lincoln is anyone’s guess.) But if this is all taking place in our universe, how do you explain that mysterious Dead World? Questioning the Adventure Time world is generally beside the point, but “Sons Of Mars” is one where you can’t help wondering just what the fuck is up. 2. A Glitch Is A Glitch (Season 5, Episode 15). Unlike the others on this list, this recent episode is chiefly a visual mindfuck. Helmed by Irish animator David O’Reilly, “A Glitch Is A Glitch” is aware of the nearinfinite possibilities of the animation format and exploits it in ways that range from Looney Tunes-funny (Finn involuntarily punching himself in the face after insulting the show’s animators) to free-flowingly psychedelic. O’Reilly’s 3D animation is fractured and unstable, complementing the plot, which involves a glitch engineered by the Ice King that will eventually delete Ooo; you’re never quite sure what’s falling apart and what’s still together, adding a significant amount of tension to the viewing experience. 3. What Is Life? (Season 1, Episode 15). Never Ending Pie Throwing Robot (N.E.P.T.R.) is one of Adventure Time’s most fascinating and disturbing characters. Created by Finn solely to prank Jake, N.E.P.T.R. is a sentient being capable of speech, reason, and emotion; however, he is often forgotten due to having been created for a single, trivial purpose. Much like the Replicants in Blade Runner, N.E.P.T.R. raises questions about the validity of artificial life; here is a sentient lifeform with reason and emotion, created for a sole purpose and almost entirely forgotten after having performed its assigned task. After “What Is Life?,” he does not appear again until Season 4 due to having been abandoned by Finn and Jake for fifteen months during a hideand-seek game; the idea that the show’s two most “moral” characters could completely abandon a sentient being raises the even more disturbing question of how the ability to harness life could change the way life itself is perceived.
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4. King Worm (Season 4, Episode 18). The YouTube Poop-inspired “King Worm” is certainly one of the most insane of all Adventure Time episodes (as well as one of the best to watch baked), firing a barrage of images and references to past and future episodes at the viewer. It also contains what many fans have interpreted as evidence that everything since the Season 1 episode “Evicted” had been a dream up to that episode. Though there are some flaws in this theory related to the show’s chronology, it’s interesting to put the episode’s countless references, allusions, and foreshadowings in that context. 5. The Other Tarts (Season 2, Episode 9). Most of this episode is fairly normal (by Adventure Time standards), with Finn and Jake acting as “Royal Tart Toters” to deliver rare and delicious tarts to the Candy Kingdom’s sacred back- rubbing ceremony. However, the end of the episode leaves us with one of the most unexpected and oddly poignant moments in the show, when the former “old and mad” Tart Toter shows up at the ceremony and delivers an eloquent and beautiful, if barely comprehensible, speech. Though it’s likely that the Tart Toter’s speech is nothing more than an attempt by the Adventure Time writers to recreate the simulacra of a deep, philosophical speech, it’s resonated with many Adventure Time fans who have attempted to decode its message. Interpretations vary greatly, and all of them seem to make some degree of sense, giving me reason to believe there may be much more to the Tart Toter’s monologue than a bunch of pseudophilosophical nothings.
Rating: Lemon drops out of things your grandma gives you
SHAGGY BROWN CARPET words MICHAEL MCGOVERN
Maybe it’s the deliriousness that comes with grinding in Allen Hall until 3 a.m., but my subconscious has been drumming up theories about interior design. I love the brand new buildings around campus, especially Allen. I feel lucky and privileged to study in a state-of-the-art environment every day. The hybridized architecture, the flat screen TVs, the bizarre and seemingly pointless LED lights on the stair railings, it’s all so nice. It’s not modern, but progressive and adaptive. It’s a building that contributes to ideas. It’s a place that fluidly partners with its inhabitants to perpetuate productivity and inspiration. It’s the way of the future. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to work elsewhere, but it’s not my favorite building on campus. By vote, the renovation of the EMU was recently given the green light. Any logical, aestheticlly-driven individual would agree the EMU should be spruced up, but there’s history and tradition at risk. I’m not an architectural aficionado, and interior design is equally foreign to me. There’s just something mysteriously charming about ugly buildings. The 1970s was a time period equivalent to the dark ages in terms of residential homes. It was an accumulation of yellow stained glass windows, wood paneled walls, God-awful chandeliers, and the infamous shaggy brown carpets. Now, with the luxury of a 21st Century perspective, we can say with confidence that those awkward decorations weren’t the prettiest in the world, but they had character. Some of my earliest memories were going over to my Amma’s house. My grandma’s house had some of those classic, ugly features, but as soon as I walked in, there was a smell. The magical combination of old wood, dusty carpet, and nostalgia gave off a distinct musk. It was a place that had seen a family go from kindergarten lunches, to rough-housing boys, to Prom nights, and it was a place for a father to come to terms with cancer. Then, scattered with pictures and photo albums, the house had been left for my Amma to take care
of. I thought the house was beautiful because I wasn’t looking at the house, I was seeing a corner of the universe that had selflessly given my family a home. That kind of smell still exists in certain buildings, buildings like the EMU. So, I guess when I see the EMU, I think of all the people throughout time that have occupied this corner of space. The Animal House cast and crew; Ken Kesey, the author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest; Chuck Palahniuk, the author of Fight Club; and all of the other inspiring people that walked through those doors. And it’s not just their history, but the history of every student that has rested, studied, cried, laughed, or eaten in those halls. People who’ve persevered through some of the same things I am today. Now I’m the fresh meat. Now, I am the one spilling on the carpets and scratching out bathroom graffiti. I’d like to think that one day, some hot shot 20 year old will stop to think about me walking through these halls, but then again, brick, metal, and concrete hardly ever smell like anything other than cleaning products.
Rating: Lacrosse out of sports that nobody watches
GIRLS words THOMAS EDMONDS In case you’ve been completely out of the loop regarding HBO’s hit television series Girls you, either A. Do not watch television and prefer to read books and go hiking instead, or B. Do not have enough money to afford the premium television channel package that is offered by your cable provider. Either way Girls is a global television phenomenon that comes from the mind of artist, philanthropist, and self-ascribed “girl” Lena Dunham. Much like Dunham’s previous efforts (see: Tiny Furniture) Girls focuses on the lives of a close-knit group of white woman in New York City who deal with personal issues white woman in New York city would likely have to deal with. If you think the show sounds similar to a certain HBO series that came out a decade ago (see: Sex and the City) well it is, and it would seem Miss Dunham knows it as well since it’s explicitly referenced in Girls numerous time. The characters in Girls are easily understood since they are archetypical to the point of stereotypical. There’s the hippy free spirited girl, the uptight seemingly grown up girl, the bubbly college girl, who doubles as a virgin, and Lena Dunham plays the frumpy intellectual girl. As for the men on the show, there’s the aloof asshole with perverted tendencies, there’s the asshole that’s in a band, and a shy guy who also doubles as an asshole. The plot of Girls gets it strength from there being no immediately discernible plot. It might be that Dunham is struggling with the relationships she has, that she has trouble paying her high rent (See: New York City), or it could be the detours she encounters when attempting to be a successful and famous writer. Whatever the plot of a given episode the Girls are always “authentic”, the girls are conceited, self-centered, and “raw”, and they use unflattering camera angles during sex scenes. The show itself might not be as original, refreshing, or groundbreaking as HBO would have you believe, but it still manages to grab a few laughs. Maybe the laughs are gotten at the expense of having compelling characters or an intriguing plot, but HBO already has more than enough of those shows that fit that criteria. More likely than not, you’ll be laughing at the clever use of a bad song from the 90’s or the characters poking fun at the fact that they are morally blank. When push comes to shove you can depend on Girls to always feature women acting the role of women who act like girls and to never give much screen time to a person of color.
OWL PHAROAH words RUBEN GARCIA Kanye West and his camp have coined this time of the year “YEEZUS SEASON.” With the platinum record selling and multiple Grammy winning artist set to perform June 9th at the Governor’s Ball in NYC, an album releasing on June 18th, and a baby expected to come in early July, YEEZUS SEASON is not an exaggeration of what is about to unfold. Included in Kanye’s camp for YEEZUS SEASON is LA FLAME a.k.a Travi$ Scott. Critics say Scott is the second coming of Ye, and Scott does not refute those claims. Scott’s first release under Grand Hustle and G.O.O.D. Music crashed his site within minutes. LA FLAME’s album is heavy with features, with the likes of Paul Wall, T.I., A$AP Ferg, and Toro Y Moi. Owl Pharoah invites you into the dark and young mind of LA FLAME with a wild intro. Scott begins the album by stating that his sole mission in life was to get out of his shitty hometown of Missouri City, Texas and, now that he has done that, the world is his for the taking. A man and woman, assumed to be Scott’s parents, are yelling expletives at him and Scott screams back with, “I gotta get the fuck out of here, fuck this.” The album then takes the listener on a crazed journey with invigorating beats and Kanye-like raps. LA FLAME doesn’t shy away from cockiness and lets everyone know his ego is just as big as his mentor’s. The next track titled “Bad Mood/Shit on You” includes repeats of the lyric “I can’t wait to shit on you,” and LA FLAME laughs as he says it. The rest of the album includes hyped bangers that have to be played at full volume to experience the full effect. Upper Echelon, Uptown, Blocka La Flame, MIA, and Quintana are sure-fire hits best listened to in exotic cars going 150mph. With so many bangers on the album, Scott’s fan base expected some tracks that were less hyped and they got them with “Dance on the Moon” and “Hell of a Night”. “Dance on the Moon” features vocals from Theophilus London and a hook of “Let’s get high and go dance on the moon / We could fly and go straight to the moon”. “Hell of a Night” begins with Scott singing, “Our first kiss in the livin’ room, that’s a hella way to end the night, a hella way to end the night / We did drugs in the bedroom, that’s a hella way to end the night, a hella way to end the night”. Scott then goes on to explain his first love, “She say she love me but don’t know what love is/ I lost love cause my daddy said it but ain’t ever done shit/ Pain is love and love is hell”. Before you have any time to reflect on love, Scott quickly changes the subject and closes out the album in the most LA FLAME way ever. The last track on the album features MMG signee and “House Party” anthem rapper Meek Mill. The track is titled BANDZ and LA FLAME goes off. He takes shots at former Roc-A-Fella founder Dame Dash, “Bout to cop the crib that Dame lost today / funny look at these niggas slipping / we tripping no fear my niggas is winning.” The track concludes with Scott repeating, “Ooooh, I got my bitch haters hangin’ up. I got bandz, I got bandz, I got bandz, I got bandz, I got bandz you know me, I be goin’ crazy”. So it’s real, YEEZUS SEASON is here.
Rating: Lemon drops out of things your grandma gives you
Rating: The Silmarillion out of Tolkien books Boner donors since 1989
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Boner donors since 1989
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