The First Issue by Carly Spiering

SECESSION// VOLUME 1 ISSUE 1 WITH CONTRIBUTIONS BY: AELWY N TUMAS / ANDREW HALL / BRYAN SONDERMAN / CAITLIN TORTORICI / CARLY SPIERING / CAROL SCHAEF FER / DAVID KANAGA / ELIZA YOUN G / THE EMPEROR / FINN STRALEY / HANNAH JOHNSON / IRIS ALDEN / J ENNY PULVERS / JOANNA SWAN / J OE GUSTAV / KEVIN KLEIN / MARCU S KOONTZ / MARSHALL BAKER / MI CHAEL SPIERING / PARIS WHITE / PET ER RICHARDS / SAM ALDEN / TYLER CALKIN// 1

Want to contribute? Email secession09@gmail.com

This is the first issue of the first of the first volume of The Secession, Secession, printed on March 9, 2009 in Walla Walla, WA The Secession is funded by The Student Development Fund of the Associated Students of Whitman College. The Secession uses the Gill Sans typeface, designed by Eric Gill in 1926.

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CONTENT// Letter from A Moral Citizen// Paris White.............................................................................................................................p. 4 Letter to A Moral Citizen// Secession editorial staff............................................................................................................p. 4 Dear Kelly Clarkson// Carly Spiering........................................................................................................................................p. 5 The bright future of Ren-Fair// Peter Richards & Finn Straley..........................................................................................p. 5 Blappin’// Marshall Baker & Joe Gustav..................................................................................................................................p. 6 Introspection One (Illustration)// Tyler Calkin.........................................................................................................................p.7 Pleasure and Pain// The Emperor.............................................................................................................................................p.7 Don’t call it a comeback// Bryan Sonderman........................................................................................................................p.7 Peanust #1//Dick Jolkes...............................................................................................................................................................p.8 Animal Discoveries #2// Alan Farts............................................................................................................................................p.8 Terrence #1// Iris Alden................................................................................................................................................................p.8 Moonroe #1// Jenny Pulvers & Aelwyn Tumas.........................................................................................................................p.9 John’s Mug #1// Finn Straley..........................................................................................................................................................p.9 Houseboats// Sam Alden...............................................................................................................................................................p.9 Things I learned from Everybody Votes// Iris Alden.............................................................................................................p.10 Things not to do to your vagina// Caitlin Tortorici..............................................................................................................p.10 Lonely winter (Illustration)// Iris Alden.....................................................................................................................................p.10 Untitled (Photograph)// Carol Schaeffer...................................................................................................................................p.11 Calling all dipshits: participate in the cigarette holocough// Kevin Klein..........................................................................p.11 I’m that girl who wears the pleather pants// Eliza Young....................................................................................................p.12 This feature is a brief look at...contains an interview....Air France// Andrew Hall........................................................p.12 Le Mepris (Photograph)// Joanna Swan....................................................................................................................................p.12 Pelican Seascape (Illustration)// Iris Alden...............................................................................................................................p.13 Introspection Two (Illustration)// Tyler Calkin..........................................................................................................................p.14 The rules// Michael Spiering......................................................................................................................................................p.14 A few things to think about when I press a button// David Kanaga.................................................................................p.14 Untitled (Screenshot)// Marcus Koontz...................................................................................................................................p.14 Science supplement - cool animals// Hannah Johnson with illustrations by Sam Alden...............................................p.15 Leprecorn (Linoleum Block Print)// Iris Alden........................................................................................................................p.16

Dear Upstanding Citizens at the Discretion, When I heard about the development of Discretion Magazine, I was delighted. Whitman College is in dire need of a decent news source that it can support and trust. Right now we are a people without a voice, a population without a moral compass. I would first like to say that I hope you will not in any way mimic the style of the Frontier. The Frontier has always turned me off with its imperialist implications, supporting a view of expansion that I believe is not shared by the majority of Whitman students. The Quarter Lifer, too, is a news publication that sorely deserves to be usurped. It tends to only report the opinions of its reporters, and if it does feature actual stories, they are often entirely fictional or littered with strange line breaks and sentence fragments. Zoo Moon, another publication, uses this same style of faulty reporting. Yet somehow, through their unethical journalistic methods, they have managed to win prestigious national awards in college journalism. And that's not all. The Quarter Lifer, in its most recent issue, encouraged debauchery in young, impressionable Whitman students by asking them to explore those forbidden areas on the human body "where the sun don't shine", thus supporting sex before marriage, abortion and stem cell research. Appalling. In this wave of pure evil, I hope, Discretion Magazine, that you will provide a moral direction for sinful college students and sow peace and appropriate love into the hearts of your readers. Awaiting your light and guidance, A Moral Citizen

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Dear Kelly Clarkson, Hey, lady. Love the new album. Really, it is just beyond. But you said some things that I want to discuss. Some of the lyrics in your songs either send up red flags all over the place, or are just plain silly (by “silly” I mean “bananas” (not like the fruit, but like how Gwen uses it)). For example:

1. “Breaking down the walls to the impossible” Kelly, I don’t know if this is the best idea. Sure, your dreams are behind that wall, but so are dragons and Feardotcom. I’m not telling you not to do it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you knock a hole in that wall only to find the 8th Harry Potter book (Harry Potter and the Raging Addiction) rushing out of it.

2. “I’ll make my own mistakes…YEAH!” I don’t think you fully understand what the word “mistake” means.

3. “The wire touched my neck and then someone pulled it tighter…I started to black out. Then, someone said ‘good morning’” Girl, you should probably stop going to those S&M playgroups. If you want someone to choke you while you’re doin’ it, that’s not for me to judge. But it seems like a situation that’s going to end badly—that’s all I’m saying.

4. “Why’s everything gotta be so intense with me?” Probably due to your latent daddy issues… I mean, you asked.

5. “My heartbeat beats me senselessly” There is sense to that, actually. I’m not a doctor, but I believe that is called a “heart murmur”.

6. “I’m not your love-monkey” I’m not going to even speak to this, ‘cuz you should already know.

7. “You got me spending my time pleasing you. Why must you keep me on the ground?” Kelly, you don’t have to give him blowjobs. Just break up with the dude. Or at least y’all could move it to a bed.

8.“I’m slipping into you” See response to # 6

9. “No time to waste on an invitation” You’ll have plenty of time to waste when you are in prison for sexual assault, KC. You are never in too much of a hurry for consent.

10. “The last time you kissed me, you kept both eyes open. Baby, can you tell me what does that mean?” You need to fucking relax, Kelly. Shit is not that serious. This paranoid behavior is exactly why he’s going to leave you.

11. “I’d fall a thousand times before I let you drag me down.” This is like jumping into the pool before your brother can push you in. I’m just pointing this stuff out because I’m your friend. By the way, no matter what other people say, “whyyawannabringmedown” was a good song. And OMG, the title! No spaces are the new spaces, you avant-garde little minx! Kisses,

Carly Spiering //

The bright future of Ren-Fair by Peter Richards & Finn Straley

Sure, everybody loves the annual renaissance fair, but most people don’t know it is only step 4 in a 12-step program… called H.E.L.P (this

stands for Helping Everyone LARP Playfully). Lots of people enjoy the fun and educational activities relating to the renaissance, but many of us remain “in the dark” :P regarding the past and future of what we know as “ren-fair”. Here is the program layout as per description of Whitman Alum, Richard Garfield (Wiki that shit), one of the most influential mathematical thinkers of our time.

1. Pharaoh-Fair Participants reenact the most breathtaking architectural projects of ancient history – albeit under extreme duress! Turn out was low and it only lasted one year, which allowed our organization to move on to the next stage…

2. Gaul-Fair This was going to be called Rome-Fair, but for all you historical revisionists, we named it after the Gauls, history’s favorite underdog. Participants sacked and pillaged campus before being completely eliminated by the competing imperial soldiers, eventually falling into historical obscurity.

3. Dark-ages-Fair (or “Plague-Fair” as we call it) Generally regarded as the least fun of all the fairs, this consisted primarily of students pretending they couldn’t read and emptying chamber pots on the sidewalks. Boy, we sure have come a long way since then!

4. Ren-Fair This is where we are now. But as you can see, we still have a long way to go. Also, many first generation renaissance students are offended by the vicious stereotypes and near caricatures of their culture.

5. Victorian Fair (also known as the Wage-Slavery-Rodeo) From here on out it is “pooh pooh” to the Romantics! Women are forced into sterilizing corsets while foppishness and dandyism become the norm of a once robust masculine community. Fisticuffs become more popular than bear-baiting, imagine!

6. Colonial Fair Look out Orient! :P. Also, India, Congo, Nigeria, South Africa, Australia, the Caribbean, North America, South America, your religious ideals, your culture, and everything you hold dear. The sun never sets on this fair, y’all.

7. Depression Fair (Grapes of Fair, Of Mice and Fairs) Participants pile into the back of a pickup truck and drive across the country while starving to death.

8. Post-Colonial Fair This fair will not really get beyond the Politics dept. and portions of the English department. Everyone lines up in front of either Maxey or Olin and makes up words at each other. Inventive syncretism! Orientalism! Algeria!

9. 50’s Fair (Rebel without a Fair) In this fair, half the campus will replicate the crippling conformity of sub urbia, while the other half will challenge one another to knife fights and drive cars off cliffs.

10. 90’s Fair (Lilith Fair) This is the fair your older sister went to in high school when it was cool to wear big flannel shirts and talk about what a big deal Sarah McLaughlin is, and Paula Cole, and the Indigo Girls (<3 Melissa Etheridge).

11. Now Fair (Now That’s What I Call A Fair 70) Now Fair is a worldwide event… There will be no games or activities. People’s only costumes will be their everyday clothes. There will only be one booth, and it will sell iPhones. This is the most complicated fair to organize.

12. Future Fair This fair attempts to replicate a post-apocalyptic future in which robots have enslaved the human race. Over the course of the weekend, humans will come closer to winning their freedom, but robots will send one of their own back in time to 90’s fair in order to stop the leader of the resistance from being born. We will have several celebrity guest appearances: the governor of California, Christian Bale, his Rage, and Luke Skywalker. //

Blappin’

by Marshall Baker and Joe Gustav Though we may attend the less-than hood institution of Whitman College, we consider ourselves gutter to the bone aficionados of that understandable smooth shit that murderers move with: rap. So every issue we’re going to just blap about some of our favorite rappers based on certain criteria and discuss songs we find representative of our reasons for why they exemplify this criteria. This week: The MOST GANGSTA gangsta rappers. What makes some rappers more gangsta than others? According to urbandictionary.com, a gangsta is “A sociopathic member of the inner-city underclass, known primarily for being antisocial and uneducated. Also known for ready access to illegal drugs and weapons, and staggeringly poor marksmanship.” Also, simply, “a locc set-tripn baby killa not to be fucked wit.” Who would we least like to fuck with? Who kills the most babies? Drum roll please…

Song: Brotha Lynch - “Corpse Came to Dinner” off The Ripgut Collection Marshall: This cut is straight-up gangsta, he’s a straight-up gangsta rapper. He’s a known Garden Blocc crip from Sac-town. Joe: He likes rapping about eating babies and people. M: He raps about eating people because that’s how he feeds his family. It’s not like, I’m gonna sell crack to pay my bills. He takes the gangsta thing to a whole new level. J: He’s like a hunter-gatherer. I’m going to bring food home to my family tonight. Lynch: Ziploc, body bag, toe-tag, wet T-shirt, black mask… J: Why do you need a wet T-shirt? This isn’t spring break in Cancun, this is killing gang bangers. M: No, but straight up, that wet T-shirt may be soaked with blood or piss. Or ghetto workout. J: You know Lynch is doing fucking pull-ups on every street sign he sees. I don’t get why the Ziploc bag though. I guess he’s chopping bodies up and putting them in the freezer and shit. He’s just such a sociopath and that’s why he’s cool. Lynch: Fuck Jeffrey Dohmer, he a muthafuckin fag… J: He’s trying to start beef with a serial killer. 50 Cent calls out Rick Ross, Lynch is so hard he calls out Jeffrey Dohmer. M: Lynch would sign people to his label who were rappers/real gangbangers, no fucking job, their job was they were crips and they would shoot people. J: Which brings us to our next subject…

Song: X-Raided – “Lord Have Mercy” off X-Ology: The Best of XRaided J: X-Raided is in about year 12 of a 31-year prison sentence and was Lynch’s first big signing. M: He’s pulling a long sentence for a murder he claims he was at but didn’t do. It was a house robbery, and this old grandma got shot to death, and motherfucker was there, but because of the crips’ code of silence he never squeaked. The prosecutors also claimed that he described the murder in this song and that on the cover of the album he’s holding the .38 revolver that was the murder weapon. J: Yeah, they used the album cover as evidence in the courtroom. And he’s made so many CDs from prison, but on some of them you can’t understand a goddamn thing he’s saying. We should say something funny now, that’s like the point of this shit. M: Ain’t nothin’ funny about X-Raided. He’s straight gangster, a straight gangster locc.

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Song: Layzie Bone feat. Jeremy – “The Backyard” off Mo Thugs III: The Mothership J: Jeremy might be the most gangsta gangsta rapper in all of rapping. M: Yeah, this is Layzie Bone of Bone Thugs-N-Harmony with his 9-year old son. Jeremy: We got that AK-47 niggaaa… J: This was made in the year 2000, so just imagine how gully this man must be now. It’s this little 9-year old kid rapping about how he’d kill people for his father with an AK. He doesn’t even rhyme. It’s just a 4th-grader rambling over a beat. Jeremy: Wanna ride, wanna die, le-ets get high… J and M: Hahahaha M: I don’t think it’s smart to get your kid high at age 9, but I guess if he’s down to smoke bud… J: I think it’s really a matter of maturity. M: Oh yeah, definitely. Because the problem with weed is that the second you start smoking it, your maturity level stops. J: So this kid is 9 for life. [Ed.’s note: it has been decided that the authors are probably 15.] M: Which makes him the perfect gangster because he has no conscience. J: This is basically what a Somalian child soldier would sound like if he could rap. M: Or if he could just speak English. I wouldn’t really call this rapping. Jeremy: I’ll pull you out your car, nigga, and knock you out too M: Jesus Christ. J: Imagine how terrifying it would be to get pulled out of your car and curb-stomped by a 9-year old. We should go to Somalia and become warlords, just gets lots of gangsters like little Jeremy here and run shit. M: I’m working at a music day-care this summer. Maybe I’ll just recruit them all.

Song: DMX – “What’s My Name” off …And Then There Was X J: DMX is hard because he’s in jail again… for a while. I heard he had a prison sentence of like 9 months and then assaulted a prison guard and now he’s in for 7 years. This after impersonating an FBI officer while on crack at an airport. M: Where’d all his money go? He made Crade 2 The Grave. J: And Romeo Must Die, and Exit Wounds with Steven Seagal.

Song: ODB feat. Method Man and Raekwon – “Raw Ride” off Return to the 36 Chambers M: ODB died of natural causes, a.k.a there was naturally cocaine, alcohol, and anything he could get his hands on in his system. ODB: Came out my mother’s pussy, I’m on welfare, 26 years old, STILL ON WELFARE J: My favorite ODB moment was when he went on TRL, and they showed this video of him with his family, in a tuxedo, his wife in furs, and they take a limo to go pick up their welfare checks. He also brags on this song that he doesn’t have AIDS, but if he did, you would have it. ODB: You bound to catch AIDS or somethin, not sayin I got it, but nigga if I got it, YOU GOT IT! M and J: Hahahaha M: Yup, there it is. He was too bright a flame, too bright a flame dude. Think of his wife and kids. J: He had like 14 kids or something. He changed his name to Dirt McGirt and had a clothing line called Dirtwear. M: I want some Dirtwear. J: I think it’s called what you’re wearing right now. M: Wu-Tang is dope. I heard there was a group of white kids who started a Wu-Tang cover band and went on-stage and rapped all their songs. J: We should start a Three 6 Mafia cover band. You can be Crunchy Black. M: Hell yeah. I can’t wait to do “I’d Rather Get Some Head” live. //

nor liberal in our relation to these words. Did you even catch that you are caught offguard? Some say that urinating all over it lessens the pain; we know at least one among the squirt gang gunners call him pirate. Although I did try it once, the pain was magnified until there was no longer any point in trying to hide the fact. I lay down in the bathtub and as the pain got just the slightest bit more intense my vision started to fade out at the edges and the pain drifts away as we nestle back into our rememory. //

Don’t call it a comeback

Applying cut-up technique to Cam’ron’s career revival text by: “I Used to Get It in Ohio”, “I Hate my Job” re-assembly and introduction by: Bryan Sonderman Crime Pays, the sixth full length album from everyone’s favorite purpleclad, free-associating “No Homo” advocate drops May 5th. Following a three year hiatus, Killa met the hip-hop world’s ubiquitous “Where’s Cam?” inquiry with a series of singles and videos showcasing a selfdeprecating, down-to-earth Cam’ron who could just maybe pass as an “everyman” in an alternate universe drowning in narcotic cough syrup and blinded by technicolor Nikes. If you haven’t yet had the privilege, watch the official “I Hate My Job” video a.s.a.p. (consider its low-budge, recession-conscious narrative the On the Waterfront to “Trapped in the Closet’s” Gone with the Wind). God save the hip-hopera! Its Golden Age of opulence has already come and gone. The following textual re-assembly of the first two singles from Crime Pays, “I Hate My Job” and “I Used to Get It in Ohio”, is in reverent memory of stylistic excesses forever gone until R. Kelly tugs our OMFG-strings once more.

Pleasure and Pain— by The Emperor

On that which we love most I have felt no worse physical pains than burning and stinging. Who does not feel an affinity toward fire? Buy all the C and D class model rocket engines from your neighborhood hobby store. These beauties are clothed in drear uniformity; they beg you to undress them. Remove their coverings. All you have to pay attention to is color, separate the black section in the middle from the white on the side. Putting aside the white portions for other purposes pound the black into a fine powder. Add in playing with a flame thrower and you become engulfed in flames. First second and third degree burns. Third degree burns are disfiguring, the skin charcoaled will not grow back. Second degree burns are discoloring, the skin swells enormous until it pops and regenerates. When the burn cannot heal itself, it stops hurting. Pain retains a promise.

Popular Admission You who cannot admit the pleasure of popping exemplified by cherries, zits, floating box jellies, and new art will not gain entrance to this paragraph. When the virgins run out and all the zits do too, you wonder up towards me and I tell you what to do. Turn your Achilles heel upon the beached back of a jelly’s air sack but watch out they will attack back. At five minutes of species massacre a strange tingling numbing sensation a noun says itself philologically. Looking down there appears to be the expression of lashes impressed in my flesh. No longer a tingle— Incapacitating Pain appearing before you in word form. We must not be light

[ed. note: Please excuse inaccuracy/grammatical error, the text is borrowed directly from the notoriously fallible world of lyrics search engines. Approach phonetically, sans red pen] Lyrics courtesy of: eLyrics World (“I Used to Get It in Ohio”), Lyrics bay (“I Hate My Job”) //

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Things I learned from Everybody Votes by Iris Alden

The Nintendo Wii enables its users with the opportunity to download free channels –programs with delightful little functions ranging from checking the weather to browsing games for your virtual console. The best of these is Everbody Votes. In Everybody Votes, users respond (via their Mii, or surrogate virtual identity) to questions with one of two optional answers such as “I’d prefer to live in a house that has a...Swimming pool or Large backyard” These questions are actually national or worldwide polls, and your troupe of Miis (for the activity of voting is admittedly more enjoyable in a social context) go on to predict the poll results. This is very exciting in the way that most competitions are, especially because I have the highest accuracy rate. Aside from the great stir of emotions caused by the affirmation that you can indeed predict the habits and preferences of Wii users and are therefore superior to them, Everybody Votes offers crucial insight, albeit into a somewhat limited sector of society. Here is a list of some of the most important things I’ve learned through my participation in Everybody Votes thus far: 1. Cookies with no nuts inside are better than cookies with nuts inside. 2. Ghosts exist. Seriously, 52.5 % of international Wii users think so. And it’s not like these people are dumb or anything. Have you ever tried playing a Zelda game without a walkthrough? 3. Cheescake is cake, not pie. Or at least 57.8% of American voters think so, but they’re mistaken. 4. It is not normal to wear shoes in your own house. In a national poll, 18.2% of responders rs confessed that their circumstances are so destitute thatt they cannot even take tary, syringe-strewn public their shoes off in their own unsanitary, at some of these indoor housing. Of course, it is possible that tudents who also like shoe-wearers are sloppy college students smoking cigarettes in their house and have let a sticky residue of beer and dirt accumulate onn their floors. 5. 22.3% of American Wii voters don’t on’t have a cell phone. These are probably the same people ple who wear shoes around their shithole apartments—how —how they have access to a Wii I don’t know. Most likely the king pin drug dealer has one. 5. An amazing 9.9% of Americans can keep their eyes open when they sneeze. I wonder if theyy manage such a feat through practice, or if it is an innatee skill. onders said they 6. In a national poll, 71.7% of responders would turn back time, but 53.8 % would not fast hance. This forward in the future if given the chance. gible of proves that regret is the most tangible re human emotions, and that the future will suck. 7. Political debates are indeed boring. 68.2% of the national voters get bored while watching debates because there is no opportunity for interactivity.

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8. 70. 5 % of Americans think an elephants can’t purr like a cat, but I still have no idea whether or not they actually can. //

Things not to do to your vagina by Caitlin Tortorici

My friend Alannis told me that I have the most hypersensitive vagina ever. Perhaps this is the case. Indeed, while I have never had an STD, there always seems to be something wrong with it. But I can’t be sure if this is in fact due to hypersensitivity or bad luck. In any case, I would like to provide you with a list of behaviors to avoid in order to spare yourself of the ailments that have plagued my crotch. 1. Do not accept a Brazilian wax for less than twenty dollars. Infact, better make it less than fifty. My older, wiser friend Melissa informed me long ago that I would doubtlessly pick up an infection if I continued to frequent “Main Attraction,” the semi-seedy Vietnamese nail/waxing salon in Venice. But I refused to listen. Sure, I had my reservations when my friend Caroline introduced me to the eighteen-dollar Brazilian, but the ladies who waxed left me a landing strip so trim and pristine. I was convinced I’d found the diamond in the rough. Until I got staff of the vagina. It started off as an itch. Then it turned into a series of painful sores. I spent finals week waddling in agony in zero-degree weather. With the help of sulfa drugs, the infection healed in a month. Caroline, however, was not so lucky. The sulfa drugs made her break out in hives, so she discontinued use and let the staff run its course. The course ran six festering months, and for two weeks she could not leave her bed. When she peed she had to assume a kung-fu-like squat in order not to cry out in agony. Spas charge you for a reason. They charge you so you don’t sue them later. They change the wax between customers. They don’t double dip. They have been trained to rip your hair out properly. If your life calls for a hairless vagina, you’re far better off coughing up the extra moolah.

2. Be wary of what you wash your crotch with. Herbal Essences and Cetaphil will fill your oven with sourdough before you can say Monistat. 3. Do not get carried away with your aquatic sex life. In twelfth grade, I found that my vagina frequently burned for no apparent reason. I had the doctor check it out. Days later I received a call from a giggling secretary, who informed me that I had an infection. It was not sexually transmitted. “It comes from using Jacuzzi jets and detachable shower heads,” she said. 4. Do not think you can sleep for three hours after experiencing a new penis without peeing and get away with it. I spent Valentine’s Day searching for 100% cranberry juice (which is amazingly difficult to locate) so as to cure my urethral burning home remedy style. But I eventually caved and went to the health center to acquire antibiotics. 5. Do your best to avoid wearing bike shorts after rough sex. I know this is sometimes unavoidable; I played a bike-short requiring role (Aphrodite) in a one-act my sophomore year and came down with so treacherous of a yeast infection that the health center doctor felt the need to drop the terms “genital warts” and “herpes.” She said I had “a lot of raw hamburger meat down there” and that I should come back if I developed cauliflowershaped warts and/or pus-filled sores. (I did not, for the record.) 6. Do not receive oral sex within twenty-four hours of a gynecological exam. Or, if you must (and sometimes you must) keep this in mind. Last summer I tested positive for gonorrhea. My Beverly Hills doctor told me to come in for another test, because gonorrhea was “really not something you see among the upper-middle classes.” I told her I had been in Italy and that I was almost certain I’d fucked below my class, but she insisted she test me again. To my relief, the second test came back negative. Dr. Weinberg and I came to the conclusion that someone else’s spit tested positive for gonorrhea. Convincing yourself that you have an STD can be a beneficial exercise. You fully realize the dangers of unprotected decisions, and if you find out you’re clean, your gratitude just might motivate you to make better decisions in the future. But if you would rather spare yourself the stress, you might want to shower before your pap. Maybe you all have vaginas of steel. Or maybe Alannis just has better luck and a boyfriend so kind to vaginas he’s practically a lesbian. But I pray that those of you who need it will take this advice to heart and save yourself from the misfortunes that have afflicted my nether region. //

Calling all dipshits: participate in the cigarette holocough by Kevin Klein

You know what it’s like. You wake up to the pleasant chirps of upstanding Prentons (residents of Prentiss) outside your door and cross off another day on the Paris themed calendar on your wall. You take your retainer out, brush, floss, mouthwash, floss again, and then juice yourself via the inhaler you’ve had since Spiceworld: The Movie came out (you’ve used it since you lost your voice singing along in the movie theater with everyone else, best day ever). You slip your jeans on, zip up your North Face, and put your Uggs on snug, and you’re ready to head to rehearsal for your singing group, the Acafellas and the Pussycats. But first, you need a cup of flax seed to get your motor really runnin’, so you make a pit-stop in the dining hall. Ew, biscuits and gravy? Gag. Oh my god, isn’t the Mohawk guy SUPER cute in like a badass Shia kind of way? Anyways… You’re on your way, and what a day it is! The walk is pleasant and quick until… in your periphery is a dark, hooded figure. Oh my god, it looks like one of those Dementasaurs from that Gary Potter movie! As the silhouette draws nearer, you put together that it’s not a Dementasaur at all (and that Dementasaurs only prey on the impurest of hearts anyways)… he’s got a backpack… wait, is that a STUDENT? A responsible young adult who makes a lot of important decisions in life just like you?! And then you see it. In his hand is a Death Rocket (as you like to call them), and he’s A-C-T-U-A-L-L-Y smoking it. My God, the absolute last thing you want right now is a delicious cigarette and a steaming cup of aromatic coffee! This emo betch is walking around polluting by the second, and he’s even got a smile on his face! This Marcus Whipster is going to give you the cancer! Wake up and smell the Britney Spears: Curious perfume, you’re killing us all! He’s getting close now, and you just want to slap him right in the face you’re so mad. But you’ve got a plan! This buzzkill walking-contradiction is gonna get it! He passes, and just then, in a totally brilliant move, you let out a loud “Cough! Cough!” He doesn’t react, so you know he’s thinking about how awful a person he is. Hey jerk, it’s not your right to decide whether or not to smoke! And that’s it! Mission accomplished! Bye bye, Mr. Popularity Cylinder! We’ll see if you ever smoke a Stupidrette in between classes again! It’s just like clockwork: every time you deliberately cough in front of

again! It’s just like clockwork: every time you deliberately cough in front of a smoker, they will feel bad and never smoke around you ever again. But lets take a moment to clarify exactly what it is about smoking that totally sux. I think the best way to do this is to make a list of some loser failure idiots who smoke or have smoked, and then to make another list of upstanding people who never smoked. SMOKERS: • Albert Einstein (ugly) • Sigmund Freud (dumb name) • Barack Obama (probably cheated during 2008 elections) • Kurt Vonnegut (probably was never even IN Dresden) • GERI HALLIWELL?! (THIS HAS TO BE A MISTAKE) NONSMOKERS: • The ducks on campus (QTs!) • Styx • Barack Obama (perfect prez, plus total hottie) • Laptop Guy (he’s in ALL my classes this term!) • Rod Blagojevic (he’s a mouthful) I hope this helped you guys… It’s about time we came together as victims and stopped these smokers. Then, if only that day ever comes, we can be assholes and cough in each other’s faces forever! I just wanted to make sure that my fellow COUGHCOUGHers knew that they were not alone, and that if we all work hard enough together, Whitman campus will be completely free of smokers by Kappa formal! //

I’m that girl who wears the pleather pants by Eliza Young

Most people don’t care about it here. I realize that. Most people don’t even think about it. But to me, fashion isn’t about convenience. It isn’t about wearing the most comfortable shoes or the warmest jacket when it’s ten below. It’s a lifestyle. It’s a form of respect for our professors and most importantly, it’s a form of self-expression. I spent the last year in Seattle, working retail in the city I grew up in and touring with my band. Upon returning to Whitman, I continued to wear pair after pair of my black four-inch heels and I slowly started to feel more and more uncomfortable. I got funny looks when I wore my pleather pants, I was judged while wearing my white faux fur cropped jacket. Every night I would lay out an outfit and every morning I would reject it for fear that I would have another awkward conversation in the Lyman A-section bathroom. “Do you always dress up for class?” “Um…yes?” “Don’t you ever just want to wear sweats and a sweatshirt?” “Um…no?” I found myself slowly turning into another Whitman zombie. I started to feel like a slob, like an average North Face model in a sea of other North Face models. I was the one being judged for looking a certain way. Suddenly I awoke from my state of hypnoses and flew

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open my closet doors to find a beam of light hovering over my heels. My pleather pants were reflecting rainbows from the sun across my room filling it with color. My maroon and blue striped tie peered out from my accessory box, hoping and praying to once again hug closely to my neck. I was back. I firmly believe that there are others out there who were like me. Others that are still too scared to break out the sequins and the fur. Others that like me started to conform to the Whitman norm. So here is a message to you all: stop conforming. Do you feel more comfortable when you’re balancing on a four-inch tall skinny-ass stick? Because I do. Do you feel more comfortable when you’re wearing those cool pants that you like? When you stand out a little not because you want to but because you have to? Because you feel more like yourself that way? You’re not alone, my friend. Ditch the sweats and the Chacos and practice your model walk, Whitman. I’ll be waiting. //

This feature is a brief look at the emergence of beach-inspired music in the late-2000s and contains an interview with Air France by Andrew Hall

A cursory look at the history of pop music quickly reveals the fact that the beach has long been a source of inspiration to songwriters and musicians. The beach party films of the 1950s and 1960s are indebted to early rock and roll, and the Beach Boys, as well as countless others, explored their coastal surroundings through songs superficially about surfing and brighter futures. To name a few, Neil Young produced a stoned, despairing record called On the Beach, Jonathan Richman wrote a six-minute knockout called “That Summer Feeling,” and Beulah’s near-masterpiece The Coast is Never Clear married narratives about car wrecks and loneliness to relentlessly sunny, horn-driven arrangements. 2009 progresses, vit seems that musicians worldwide are driven increasingly beachward.

As expected, Californians are involved; Nathan William, a 22-yearold from San Diego, records massive, borderline nihilistic pop songs and abrasive noise interludes about suburban boredom as Wavves. His two albums - the initially cassette-only Wavves and the nationally-released Wavvves - invert the rules of sixties pop by retaining three-minute songs, harmonies, and enormous drumbeats, but bury them beneath layers of harsh fuzz and reverse-affirmations about ghosts and having nothing to do. The results are juvenile, kind of hilarious, and relentlessly catchy when they aren't infuriating. There's also New Jersey-based Matt Mondanile, who calls his solo project Ducktails and plays guitar in Real Estate. The Ducktails material, perhaps best summarized on his II and Acres of Shade cassettes, consists of hypnotic soundscapes built on tape loops that somehow manage to evoke High Places' stronger material if not Boards of Canada's mysterious nostalgia. Real Estate is more garage-bound, heavier on vocals and more reliant on tighter structures, and Mondanile's work across the few songs they've released recalls Ira Kaplan on Yo La Tengo's low-key jams. Both projects have proper full-lengths announced for release later this year, ideally by the time it gets hot out and our survival options give way to melting or not getting dressed. Most fascinating, however, is the supposedly beachless city of Gothenburg, Sweden. Jens Lekman, The Tough Alliance, The Embassy, Boat Club, and Studio, as well as the duo Air France, are all based out of the city, producing what critic Marc Hogan has called "some of the sunniest music in the world." Many are considered to be part of the nubalearic revival, sitting uncomfortably between forwardthinking dance-pop and a sort of neo-yacht rock. Despite this, Henrik Markstedt, one half of Air France, denied the existence of a Gothenburg music scene in our interview: "I don't really know why people in Gothenburg sound kind of alike. We don't have meetings. It's a poor city. People have to work in factories and stuff like that and no one has any money and there's a lot of drugs, so people tend to fixate on the same stuff. A lot of us do. Everyone hates when it's seen as a hierarchy . . . so most bands in Gothenburg tend to be a reaction against that sort of stuff." He continued: "It's kind of a revolutionary statement, I think. Everyone in Gothenburg wants to be apart from everyone else. And I think we try to differ from each other as far as it goes. We don't want to have a scene in Gothenburg, we want every band to stand on its own two feet, but in the media it's construed like it's one big scene, which is not true." Their most recent release, the No Way Down EP, is a thrilling collection of melancholic early summer music that uses tight pop structures to create an expansive world within in its 22 minutes. Markstedt describes the set as "like spring spreading across Europe. In the autumn it's gray everywhere, so we thought of this record [sweeping] over the continent, [bringing] green and warmth with it. In the first draft, we were thinking of having a full-length album that would be all about the four seasons in Sweden, but that was too ambitious, so we had to scrap that. But the idea is still in the

EP, lurking. It's like when you're in a really really nice house, and you're really really hung over, and you step out on the porch. I think that's the way it sounds for me, when you take your first cigarette the day after and everything starts to clear up." The band's music also relies heavily on samples, but rarely in obvious ways; they don't usually underpin the music, yet their presence is essential. Markstedt explained: "When we do a song, and there's something missing, we try to fill that gap with something. We can search for two months for the perfect fit. And if we're watching a movie on a weekend and there's a perfect line that someone says, we know that that line will fit perfectly. . . and then we'll just take it. The song is searching for something to fill it." We then returned to beaches and the early summer feel of both of Air France's EPs - the band's first, On Trade Winds, even features a track called "Beach Party." Markstedt remarked on the tropical feel of the records: "We live our daily lives, and we have to go to work every day, and I think we want to surround ourselves with stuff that is kind of out of reach in normal life. We don't have tropical birds outside our windows, so we want to surround ourselves with that if we can. To have stuff like waves crashing in, we don't have that everyday, so we want to surround ourselves with that as much as possible. Gothenburg is half an hour from the sea. And there's a big river going through the town, but you can't swim in it, since it's poisonous." I asked if he thought the beach could be an escapist inspiration for others: "It could be that. Like I said before, we want to explore things that are out of reach in our personal lives. And I guess that other people can have the same feeling to want to escape from their everyday dreary lives." This desire to escape carries into the band's tours, too. Markstedt explained their having yet to give performances of their own songs: "We'd love to perform live because we love to meet fans, and when we do our DJ sets we try to be as concert-y as we can. We try to dance and have a connection with the audience instead of hiding behind the record players and [playing] our music. We want that connection with the audience, but we haven't found a way to convey our music to the stage yet. We don't want to be like Tough Alliance and lipsync. We want it to be a party, and I think in the end we will remix our own songs to give something fresh to the audience. I hope we can do it soon, because I really want to. The main reason I want to do live shows is because I want to travel and see different places and meet new people." Bandmate Joel Karlsson confirmed that they are keeping productive: "We have some projects going right now. It's due for this fall. It's going to be another mini album. It takes a very long time to do anything, but maybe we'll release our full-length new album next year," with "maybe a single release or something this summer to keep the spirits up." Thus, as the thaw approaches, the beach yields a pool of music for or about it in some way or another, even when its promised good times prove inaccessible by way of punishing heat, one's lack of beaches, or the sudden realization brought about by coming to on the shore, possibly on psychedelics, as either a tidal wave or a ghost approaches. //

follows any rules of punctuation and seldom made use of capitalization. Easily however, cumming’s most outrageous attack on punctuation, spelling, capitalization, spacing, and anything that was ever a rule in writing is “the cat”. I can find no explanation for the poem. No defense or justification for his flagrant disrespect for the rules. sometimesitsokfortherulestobeflexible. //

A few things to think about when I press a button by David Kanaga

The Rules

by Michael Spiering

he history of the development of writing is essentially a story of the establishment of a set of patterns or rules to govern grammar, spelling, punctuation, and format. We consider following these rules to be essential in confirming our intellectual superiority. What can be more fun than catching a friend with their participle dangling? The visual clues in writing are also important in presenting a clear expression of our ideas. It has taken centuries of trial and evolution to arrive at our current set of rules. As is so often the case with rules, breaking them can also produce satisfying results. The Sumerians might not have been the first to write, but they seem to have been the first to write on materials that didn’t rot, dissolve, or otherwise disappear. Sumerian cuneiform began as pictographs and eventually became an alphabet pressed into clay using wedge-shaped sticks. The earliest examples of their pictograph writing are from about 5,000 years ago. The Greeks probably invented the idea of using spacing to give visual clues to the meaning of the texts. It is hard, however, to be precise on the exact dates for when specific changes occurred and who was responsible. The Qumran texts (Dead Sea Scrolls) were written in about 300 BC. By then, the Hebrews were using some form of spacing to add clarity to the writing. They kept it interesting by using only consonants and omitting the vowels. The reader was left to determine if they should punt or have a pint. The Egyptians had rules for writing which they broke with some regularity. The texts were written without punctuation, generally horizontally but the information flow could be written in either direction. To help the reader, the hieroglyphs normally faced the beginning of the row. This could be changed if necessary to avoid a hieroglyphic social faux pas when two human-shaped hieroglyphs were juxtaposed. There is no shortage of modern rules for punctuation, variously presented from superlatively boring grammar texts to cute titles suggesting nearly user-friendly fundamentals (e.g. Lynne Truss’s “Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation”). In the history of the rules for writing English, the one punctuation rule that has been the most flexible is capitalization. Today, capitalization is usually re stricted to proper nouns and to denote a new sentence. In the 1600’s and 1700’s the English were sure that Capitals Meant Something, but what? Milton used capitalization for emphasis and especially any time he got close to a sacred or biblical noun – “A Dungeon horrible,” to describe hell, for example. Sadly, some modern do-gooders have tried to correct Milton’s punctuation and thus assist the Lazy Reader. The most famous misuser and abuser of punctuation in general and capitalization in particular was probably e e cummings. He rarely if ever

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When I press a button, what happens? Does it happen immediately? Do the effects of the press last longer than the press itself? Can I press repeatedly or am I limited in my pressings? Does anything happen when I am done pressing (when the button comes up)? If there are more buttons than one, what happens if I press them together? One before the other? The other before one? Are there time restrictions in between pressings? If there are, are they musical? Do I feel like I am creating when I am pressing? When I close my eyes and I press, do I want to keep pressing? When I close my ears and I press, do I want to keep pressing? Does pressing always do the same thing? If it does different things, are these things related? If they aren’t related, are they now? If pressing simulates something from the real world, is that thing a button? Am I sure? Does pressing one button make me want to press another? Is that relationship musical? Is that relationship spatial? Is that relationship visual? What if I don’t press a button? What can I hear now? What can I see? If I don’t press the button, do things become static? If not, is something else pressing a button? Who else is pressing a button? Is the button presser a who? Is the button presser a process? Now, when I press a button again, what happens to this other button presser. Do my presses seem to affect theirs? If yes, is it musical? Do their presses affect mine? //

science supplement-cool animals text by Hannah Johnson; images by Sam Alden ************************************************ please cut along the dotted lines and save these animal facts!

//////////////////////////////////////////////// The Star Nosed Mole

The Pistol Shrimp

Just look at the star nosed mole. It’s slightly disturbing. It’s awe-inspiring. The star is not, in fact, an olfactory organ. Measuring less than half and inch across, it contains over 100,000 touch sensitive nerve fibers, and the functionally blind mole uses it to make it’s way through its damp underground habitat and locate prey. Not only does it possess the ability to smell under water, the star nosed mole is the world’s fastest eating mammal. It can identify and consume a food item in one quarter of a second.

By rapidly snapping shut one oversized claw, the pistol shrimp, roughly the size of a finger, sends out a jet of water which reaches speeds of up to 62 miles per hour. The collapse of the bubble formed behind this water jet creates a sound so loud that it stuns or kills the shrimp’s prey and can even disrupt the sonar transmissions of submarines. In 2001, researchers found that the brief flashes of light which occur as the bubble collapses indicate the temperature inside the bubble is over 5,000 degrees Kelvin, approximately the temperature of the surface of the sun.

The Tardigrade Commonly known as the water bear because of its slow, lumbering movement, this microscopic aquatic animal can survive extremes that would instantly kill other animals. By reversibly suspending their metabolism, tardigrades enter a death-like state in which they can survive temperatures of -200 to 151 degrees Celsius, intense radiation, and even the vacuum of space.

The Polar Bear A polar bear could be standing behind you right now, about to rip you open and devour your heart, and you wouldn’t even hear it. Enough said.

The Hagfish Evolution has produced some absolutely repulsive things. The hagfish is one of them. When threatened, the hagfish secretes a mucus which, when combined with water, expands into a viscous and sticky slime. The hagfish then ties itself into an overhand knot at the head which works down its body, scraping off the mucus and freeing the it from its own defense mechanism. And adult hagfish can turn a five-gallon bucket of water into slime almost instantaneously.

Thanks for reading!

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