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On John Berryman 04 Laughing with Mr. Ludwig 05 KWP’s Titus Andronicus 06-07 A Reply to Alan Schwarz 08
St. John’s College • 60 College Ave, Annapolis, MD 21401 • Oct. 25, 2011 • Vol. XXXIII • Issue 08
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!"#$%&'()* << Cover: Daniel Popov, junior, lines up a croquet shot on front campus. >> Open Mic Night: Sam Weinberg (’14) performs in the !"#$%&%'()*')+,%$-#.)'/0"(1 The student newspaper of St. John’s College 60 College Avenue Annapolis, Maryland 21401 gadfly@sjca.edu Editors-in-Chief Danny Kraft Grace Tyson Assistant Editors Nathan Goldman Ian Tuttle Layout Editor Hayden Pendergrass Assistant Layout Editors Hau Hoang Amy Stewart Staff Jonathan Barone Tommy Berry Robert Malka Sarah Meggison Joshua Snyder Jonathan Whitcomb-Dixon Charles Zug Business Manager Honore Hodgson Photographer Henley Moore Contributors Painter Bob Andrew Mize Stephanie Connolly Dustin Sebell Jennifer Dalton Barbara McClay Gordon Greer Founded in 1980, The Gadfly is the student newspaper distributed to over 600 students, faculty, and staff of the Annapolis campus. Opinions expressed within are the sole responsibility of the author(s). The Gadfly reserves the right to accept, reject, and edit submissions in any way necessary to publish the most professional, informative, and thought-provoking newspaper which circumstances at St. John’s College permit. Articles submitted will be edited for grammar, punctuation, spelling, and length in most cases. The Gadfly is not obligated to publish all submissions except under special circumstances. The Gadfly meets every Sunday at 7 PM in the lower level of the Barr-Buchanan Center. Articles should be submitted by Friday at 11:59 PM to Gadfly@sjca.edu.
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!"#$%%&'()* > Sarah Meggison A’15
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o, I’ve been hearing a lot about Will. You? Will. You? Will.” with, “We’re parts and wholes, lately, and how all sad bastards here.”), the atmosphere they interact. In every class. In every was warm and welcoming. Anyone was reading. I pretend to complain about invited to share whatever they wanted to how it seems to be EVERYWHERE, share, and the audience was supportive but, in truth, I find the whole thing and encouraging. In case you missed it, completely fascinating. Perhaps most most students played acoustic guitar interesting to me is and sang, together or how applicable the Music and art have with others. Mandolin, parts-whole concept poetry, and storytelling this strange place in were also involved. is to any conceivable human culture. facet of life. Toward the end, a Take last Tuesday’s couple of students led Open Mic Night in the Chasement. It’s the audience in a round of chants. nothing new to say that music brings Music and art have this strange people together, but it’s a really lovely place in human culture. We all love it thing to see in action. Students brought in our own ways individually, and yet their individual talents via song, story, it is a significant and vital common and poetry, or they brought their ground between us. Things like Open appreciation and support. All of us came Mic, Freshman Chorus, and the lovely together to form this community where impromptu jam sessions that tend to some shared and some observed. Like happen illustrate this nicely. Music other interactions of parts that join to seems to be the one thing that affects my form a whole, each part was necessary to soul like none other, and it is beautiful give context and purpose to the others. to see others love it as well, for it Though many of the songs were sad lets us become parts of something so (Dresden Craig, junior, introduced her much larger and more universal than cover of Bright Eyes’ “You Will. You? ourselves. !
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Your seminar character is keg-sitting at Oktoberfest when an underage student tries to get a beer. How does your seminar character respond?
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Plato
Tiberius
Leibniz
Kierkegaard
You think you have a golden soul, you don’t even have a golden wristband! > Anonymous
Oh, how these freshmen want to be slaves! (reportedly stated in Greek.) > Hayden Pendergrass
Sometimes one substance, such as this beer, will act upon another substance, such as yourself. This is “communication”... this is not going to be one of those times. > Tommy Berry
Give me a “Danish” and then we’ll talk. > Anonymous
NEXT WEEK
Tommy Bonn challenges your seminar (or precept) character to a one-on-one basketball match. How does your seminar character respond?
!"#$%&''()* M > Andrew Mize A’12
oments of idealism are beautiful to examine the way I move much like but fleeting. Although fleeting, I have begun, after years of the Great they inspire bursts of motivation, and, Books, to examine the way I live. for that, I love them. I have had one But this has been CrossFit’s greatest recently that I want to share with you. application to the Program for me: You It concerns CrossFit. I want to briefly can accomplish great feats if you don’t point out how I think the aims of this expect to do them all at once. Some of the fitness program coincide with the aims CrossFit workouts at first seem utterly of a liberal arts education, and thus impossible—for example, doing 100 why it is perhaps especially meaningful pull-ups, 100 sit-ups, 100 push-ups, and for its participants at this school, the 100 squats. But in a CrossFit workout, CrossJohnnies. although you are pushed to move quickly, In its premise, CrossFit aims to train you can stop and catch your breath its participants in all categories of fitness: when necessary, and that allows you to stamina, strength, flexibility, power, make possible the seemingly impossible. speed, agility, balance, coordination, The same is true of, say, reading Hegel and accuracy. And within all these types (or Kant or Plotinus or Aristotle). They of workouts, it utilizes varied, high- will likely be gibberish upon the first intensity, multi-joint read, and it’s easy movements. Similar to to get down on your You can accomplish intelligence because of a liberal arts education, great feats if you CrossFit does not seek this (especially when to specialize. It believes so many others seem to don’t expect to do that a broad base of get it), but remember: them all at once. athleticism provides St. John’s just does not optimal physical give us that much time conditioning for performance on the to read these books. It sometimes feels playing field or in everyday lifting. Its like being asked to do 1000 push-ups goal is to provide the base athletes in 10 minutes without stopping. I now ought to have before seeking specialized expect to be very confused for the most training. It seems silly or paradoxical to part, but I try not to despair. Thanks to say that St. John’s teaches students how CrossFit, I don’t forget that, with time, to learn (mustn’t one know how to learn anyone is completely capable of gaining before they can learn how to learn?), but a solid understanding of these great it is certainly true. Similarly, it would books. seem paradoxical to say that CrossFit There you have some romantic trains athletes how to move, but in thoughts about my workout program. my experience, that is what happens. Here’s hoping they last until tomorrow After a year of CrossFit, I have begun at lunch! !
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!"#$%&'(%)*+& > Gordon Greer A’13 !
Stephanie Connolly, Energeia editor, discusses the confessional poetry of John Berryman > Stephanie Connolly A’13
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EFG H Grass The grass spreads out on the plain, Each year dying, then flourishing anew. Flash fires burn, but do not destroy it, When spring winds blow, life returns. Its fragrance occupies an old path, Its emerald vividness overruns ruins. Remembering my dear friend leaving My heart wells up with loss. Bai Juyi
!&"!,),-&".,'/ > Painter Bob In wonder does one muse, as autumn leaves Turn, and change their hues before they fall Do all these colors rightly come to show How I , a child of nature, too may see That while I stay awhile, in time.. I'll go Though now, I have an instant to burn bright And blind the brain to listen to my heart Which hears but one sweet moments loud refrain As once again the lightning strikes a cord And sparks the soul to sing its song of love That's spinning round the bend in such a way.. I know that look, as if, its here to stay.
had my first encounter with the away. “The glories of the world struck poetry of John Berryman a little more me, made me aria, once”(26) he writes, than three years ago, before I came to and he writes angrily, resentfully: “I the college. At St. John’s, Berryman, a sing with infinite slowness infinite prominent American confessional poet, pain/ I have reached into the corner has the high distinction of being the of my brain/ to have it out” (305). The only 20th century poet included in the product of this singing is beautiful and sophomore poetry manual (although the intelligent*, but it is regarded by its manual includes only one of his poems, creator as a twisted and misunderstood a sonnet, which serves as a variation thing, whose readers will “seek the on Shakespeare’s strange soul, in rain “Sonnet 97”). The mist/ whereas At St. John’s, Berryman... & sonnet in question they should recall has the high distinction the pretty cousins is a fine example of Berryman’s strength they kissed” (308). of being the only 20th and character as a century poet included in No, “These songs poet. Yet it pales in are not meant to the sophomore poetry comparison to the be understood, you potency of the work understand./ They manual... I first encountered, are only meant to The Dream Songs, which are arguably terrify & comfort” (366). Berryman’s masterpiece. Only the final song, written shortly The Dream Songs, 385 poems long, before Berryman’s suicide, expresses feature a misanthropic protagonist, calmly, almost peacefully, the great whom Berryman introduces as “Huffy sorrow and confusion which run Henry”, “wicked & away” (1). Henry, rampant through The Dream Songs . The Berryman writes, is “Industrious, poem takes place in autumn. Berryman affable, having brain on fire” (58) and writes: “My daughter’s heavier. Light “possessed of many pills/ & gin & leaves are flying.” These first lines whiskey” (256). His life, as documented appear passive enough, a mere witness in the poems, mirrors Berryman’s to the changing seasons. But the final own closely enough to suggest that lines express a wish tragic and painful, a Henry is no independent character, but longing to escape an inescapable sorrow Berryman’s alter ego. Henry certainly which seems ingrained in the very can’t be confused with Berryman. But nature of human existence: his presence allows a valuable insight into Berryman’s character, both as a If there were a middle ground between human being and a poet. Henry does not things and the soul live in the same world as Berryman, he or if the sky resembled more the sea, does not go through the same everyday I wouldn’t have to scold motions. But he writes the same way, my heavy daughter. and experiences the same pain which eventually led his author to jump from a *In more ways than one, but sheer nameMinnesota bridge in 1972. dropping alone may suffice. Among When I read these poems I’m struck those referenced are: Dante, Eliot, most by what seems to connect them: Faulkner, Frost, Hegel, Hobbes, Kafka, their pure and honest pathos. Berryman, Keats, Kierkegaard, Kruschev, Lowell, or Henry, confesses to being contentious, Milton, Nietzsche, Oppenheimer, Plath, restless, sorrowful. He loves the world Rilke, Rimbaud, Roethke, Stein, Tolstoy, and despises it, clings to it and pushes it Wordsworth, and Yeats. !
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!"#$%&'$()&*%(+,-(!#.)&$ How did you come to be a tutor at St. John’s? Well, the propaganda arrived a year late, after I had completed my freshman year of college. I was blown away by “The following teachers will return to St. John’s next year.” I suppose I could have transferred, but what I did was try to model my undergraduate studies after the St. John’s curriculum. I started majoring in Math, in addition to English, which had been my major. I took Greek and a lot of science. I started doing independent studies with professors. Much later on, my Ph.D program was Social Thought at Chicago, which at that time had a steady stream of Johnnies entering it, and of graduates coming here to be tutors. Several have been my colleagues here. So it was a natural. What classes are you teaching this year? Freshman and Junior Language, Senior Seminar, and a preceptorial on Lucretius. What was the biggest adventure you’ve ever had? Wow. I’m going to try to avoid “adventures with books” although that would be the truth. I would have to say a sojourn in Italy in 1988-89, which was full of romance, including a poisoning. I was supposed to be studying English and Italian at Oxford, but my Italian was not progressing, and my tutor suggested I take a year in Italy. I ended up in Bologna, which is a fantastically beautiful university town, full of red porticoes and left politics. The only place I could find to live was a dormitory privately owned by a Dominican friar thirteen miles out in gorgeous countryside. I suddenly had a dozen Italian friends who insisted we do everything together. I fell in love with a girl whom I would see occasionally going to class, and I was just scraping up courage to talk to her when I fell sick. Numbness and pain in extremities, too tender to walk. The second week my hair started falling out. The third week I got on plane home. One of the boys had poisoned the food in the common refrigerator with thallium, an antique rodentkiller. Every boy in the dorm tested positive. There was an investigation, but the culprit wasn’t caught until the late 90’s when he did something else crazy, got his picture in the paper, and the worst victim saw the article, called up the police and insisted they reopen the case. This poor guy had had a heart transplant as a result of the poison and has been on disability all his life. So I was lucky. That was February. I didn’t get back till spring, to look for the girl. I never found her. What is the single most important piece of advice you would like to give to freshmen? Don’t fall behind. What is your favorite seminar book and why? That’s a hard one. In general, I like the Greek books best, which are wasted on freshmen. I’m like the cranky man in It’s a Wonderful Life who says “Youth is wasted on all the wrong
people.” As far as books I learned here, I still remember fondly the summer I first read War and Peace. Go Down, Moses would be another one like that. Both authors are able to be discursive about mystical things. What is your least favorite seminar book and why? I like them all. This year I noticed again how Marx is a huge come-down from the sublimity of Hegel. There is something vulgar about Marx’s display of learning—quoting Aristotle in Greek, I mean really. And there’s something dishonest, a certainty where one cannot know. He misled an entire century. I read Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle at an impressionable age; I might have turned out more Left than I am if Marxism had not been there to provide a reductio ad absurdum for every populist impulse. How’s that for blaming one’s own faults on someone else? What is your favorite non-program book and why? Aristophanes’ Acharnians and Knights are right up there. And any Shakespeare we don’t read. Both authors delight and instruct in such a way that, eventually, the instruction becomes the delight. My shallowness is that I still love the honey around the lip of the cup. What is your biggest pet peeve (that students do) in class? Talk too low to be heard distinctly. What is your favorite St. John’s tradition and why? Seducers and Corrupters. Seriously, I’m consistently amazed and gladdened by the zeal and ingenuity with which our students throw themselves into extracurriculars, both traditional and spontaneous. I was joking with my juniors about a flyer for a group that sings Sea Chanties. Sure enough, one of the main perpetrators of this was in the room. That’s really wonderful. I’m worried that one of our principal academic traditions, the senior oral, may have declined since we stopped giving out distinctions. What is your favorite class to be a tutor for and why? The freshman and sophomore math sequences are better than words can describe. Especially the transition from ancient to modern math. Please, sophomores, work hard during that sequence. But my wife says I’m challenged at math, so neither of these classes is a pure pleasure for me. Sophomore Language I always expect will be a pure pleasure, and the English poetry part usually is. But you can’t do Sophocles properly unless half the class has learned Greek well as freshmen. This is the pay-off for all that work, but I fear that news of the incentive is not trickling down. For one thing, they’re freshmen. I would almost say don’t read Antigone and the Oedipus Rex in seminar, if it leads our students to believe they know something about these plays before reading the Greek. I get frustrated because I can’t convey to them what I’m seeing in the language. Teaching? Who, me? !
The King William’s Players Perform:
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> Photos by Henley Moore
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> Charles Zug A’15 any who are familiar with Shakespeare’s dramatic works agree that, out of his entire oeuvre, Titus Andronicus is particularly odd. If the play was indeed written by Shakespeare, a claim which figures such as Alexander Pope and Samuel Johnson have disputed, it may well have been his first in the tragic genre. During the Elizabethan era, Titus was sensationally popular because it fit well with dramatic tastes of the time, which favored action of a particularly bloody and violent nature. Indeed, Titus fits this criterion and fits it well. Harold Bloom lauded the play for its absurdly violent content and claimed that the action seemed more parodic than tragic. Schlegel said that, because of its continuous use of horror and gore, Titus was a corruption of the idea of tragedy. Upon observing rehearsals, as well as interviewing the director and speaking with cast members, I was left with a slightly different conclusion. I formed my initial impressions of Titus after having watched both a fight scene and a stabbing. Never had I realized the amount of detailed choreography that is necessary for a seemingly simple action sequence to take place. It all seemed a bit absurd to me c debating over the placement of the “dead” man’s arms, how to properly time hair-grabbing and dagger-thrusting – until I considered the task at hand. The actors before me were reciting metered lines of poetry while simultaneously attempting to portray a physically convincing dramatic spectacle. Every line of poetry had to connect with an outward action – whether that action be a sprint across the stage or a change in facial expression. During the individual scene sequences, I continuously asked myself whether or not the play before me was actually a tragedy. The actors conveyed their lines with great poise and seriousness, yet two things seemed to be amiss. First, because the action is to a great extent determined by an almost absurd quantity of physical violence, I couldn’t help but find some
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What is this message?
Possibly that, given certain circumstances, a cycle of nihilistic human destruction is inevitable.
of the serious dialogue ironic – if not purposefully humorous. Second, because I felt drawn to sympathize with none of the characters, I noticed an obvious lack of tragic tension throughout the progression of events. Christian Meudt, who plays Titus, described his character as, “…a beleaguered man whose role is neither villainous nor sympathetic.” For these reasons, Meudt described the overall character of the play as obscure, neither tragic nor comedic in nature. A brief conversation with some of the actors only confirmed for me what Meudt had previously described. They said that the initial rehearsals of action-less script readings were hilarious, and that it wasn’t until the physical acting began that the play acquired darker, more serious overtones. When the time came for a full run-through, I was in a state of skepticism in regards to the artistic integrity of the piece before me. But when the run-through began, my skepticism metamorphosed into something very different. Indeed, the action was still savage, but the savagery suddenly seemed more warranted given the message which the poet seemed intent on communicating. What is this message? Possibly that, given certain circumstances, a cycle of nihilistic human destruction is inevitable. It seems that sheer calamity defines Titus; we are unable to consistently sympathize with a tragic figure, and yet we see no reason why any of the characters should be saved. As director Alicia Stanley (A’13) says in her interview, the characters do indeed seem static – it’s as if some outside force,
rather than some series of internal flaws, secures their inevitable doom. For these reasons, Titus Andronicus fascinates me. No doubt, there are moments of stupendous poetry, and truly gripping drama – which our Johnnies interpret marvelously. But it is because these moments are juxtaposed with such horrific gore that I feel compelled to find some underlying philosophical consistency in the entire drama. !
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Q: What makes Titus Andronicus unique among the Shakespeare plays that you are familiar with? A: The first time you see Titus, the most striking thing about it is how static the characters are. They work more as forces creating the action of the play than as changeable beings. Titus’ descent into madness is very different from, say, Macbeth’s; the changes in his character are more situational than changes in his actual being. Q: Do you think Titus Andronicus is a tragic play? A: Titus is more of a revenge drama, or even a horror show, than a tragedy. In a tragedy, you have characters that are good people with some great flaw that eventually leads to their downfall. We want to be on Titus’ side - many horrible things happen to him and his family - but one of our first impressions of him is when he kills his own son. When Titus finally does get revenge on the people that caused him
> Charles Zug A’15 so much harm, his revenge is so horrible that we wish he hadn’t gotten it. It’s hard to feel sorry for anyone in Titus, with the exception of Lavinia. She is the sole truly tragic element of the play; in order to present Titus as a tragedy, the action would have to revolve around her. Obviously, this is very difficult: she has no lines after [Act] II, [Scene] 3. Q: Titus Andronicus is believed to be Shakespeare’s first effort in the tragic oeuvre. Do you think this is apparent in any way? A: Critics love to throw Titus away as a bad play because of all the horror and blame its being bad on Shakespeare’s inexperience. Obviously, I strongly disagree with this, because I don’t think Titus is a bad play. Even if they do respect the play, critics will talk about it as having early elements of Lear, Othello, and others. I think viewing Titus only through this lens keeps us from appreciating it as a play that stands on its own and does nothing else but give us insight into Shakespeare as a developing playwright. !
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“discussion,” too, occurred only in Schwarz’s imagination, not in fact. In sum, in what appears to be a misguided attempt to explain that students at St. John’s study all of the “liberal arts” (a term Schwarz never uses, speaking instead of “candy cane swirls” and the “braiding of disciplines”), Schwarz gives the false impression that the St. John’s classroom is only as dedicated to finding preposterous links between mathematics Next week: A different perspective on the and politics as he is. New York Times article What’s more, Schwarz has claimed that the students at St. John’s “may not know that their professor…might have no !"#$%&'(")*+*,,"-./0 background in the subject” he or she teaches. If Mr. Schwarz t. John’s College is something of an endangered species in is correct—if the students at the college (and their parents, today’s academic world. In an age that looks to the new too) are being hoodwinked, and if even a fraction of them as a constant source of wonder and to inquiry almost entirely believe that their classes are being taught by specialists when, in terms of its utility or profitability, St. John’s tries to arouse in truth, they are instead being taught by individuals from in its students an appreciation for questions that are as old diverse educational backgrounds—he has surely produced an as humanity, and that tend to add more to the hearts and impressive piece of investigative journalism, a real exposé. minds of those who remember how to ask them than to their However, if Mr. Schwarz is incorrect, if every single student wallets. Because its minority status makes its very existence who ever attended St. John’s has been fully aware that their precarious, St. John’s ought to be treated squarely and (comprehensively educated and deeply thoughtful) teachers responsibly by the media, with all due consideration for the have diverse educational backgrounds, and if this information immense harm that a misleading characterization in a major is plastered all over the school’s website, he has, in the course newspaper may do to it. Because it is so dear to those who of slandering the college to the public, proved beyond a doubt owe so much to the education they received from it, when a that he did not even try to do his job, and that the New York well-respected newspaper like the New York Times fails to do Times had no business publishing what he wrote. Mr. Schwarz this, St. John’s ought to be defended. The author of the article is incorrect. in question, Alan Schwarz, does not seem unfriendly to St. Schwarz obviously lacked the willingness needed to write an John’s, but he casts such a cursory glance at it and is so lacking informed and accurate piece. Did he even have the knowledge in judgment that he has (unintentionally) needed to write an article about a college written a satire. If The Onion were going like St. John’s? I venture to infer from Schwarz’s portraits of the to lampoon St. John’s it could not choose the fact that he seems not to know that a better title than Schwarz’s incredibly St. John’s classroom are ri- Plato wrote in Greek (since his example inept, “Seeing Value in Ignorance, College diculous: they reveal much of a professor teaching outside of her Expects its Physicists to Teach Poetry.” area of expertise is Hannah Hintze who, about him...but virtually Schwarz’s portraits of the St. John’s he says with amazing naïveté, wrote her nothing about the college. classroom are ridiculous: they reveal dissertation on Plato but now, as if despite much about him (above all, a weakness this, teaches biology and Greek) that he did for florid writing that makes no sense not. Oddly enough, Schwarz, who usually and an amazing levity in regard to the writes about football, seems to believe it serious responsibility that a journalist has to his subject- is appropriate for a reporter to write publicly about an issue matter) but virtually nothing about the college. To begin with, (classical liberal arts education) he knows nothing whatsoever when a student in a math class used the term “self-evident” about. The professors at St. John’s are not chosen because (to describe the equality of two triangles) Schwarz thought they are specialists; they are chosen for their truly impressive that this was a “subliminal reference to the Declaration of willingness and ability to be comprehensively educated, Independence.” When another student in math class said that serious human beings, who maintain probity and moderation “halves of equals are equals themselves,” Schwarz believed in the face of what they do not yet know. Reporters at the New that this evoked “the United States Supreme Court’s logic in York Times seem to be chosen for no reason at all—unless, that endorsing segregation 2,200 years after Euclid died.” When is, the newspaper really does find “Value in Ignorance.” a student in yet another math class differentiated Newton’s To undo the damage that Schwarz has done to a precious, view of “equality” from Euclid’s, Schwarz imagines he hears and already vulnerable institution is probably impossible. “a harmony of Tocqueville being laid over Newton’s melody.” It is hardly more possible to try to make up for his farcical Now, contrary to what the article falsely suggests, these bizarre presentation of it by providing a less incompetent account of connections between mathematics and politics were not, in it here. It will have to suffice to say, in short, that in the course fact, made by the students in the classroom, they were made of their four years at St. John’s College all students study the up by Schwarz’s remarkably active imagination. Schwarz canonical texts of the Western tradition in chronological order would also lead one to believe that science and philosophy in discussion-based classes. The program comes to focus became “as intertwined as candy cane swirls” during a math especially on philosophy, the history of math and science, class, in which, he says, the students discussed Newton’s foreign languages (Greek and French), literature, and music “shrinking parabolic areas as if they were voting districts, and theory. Whatever else might be said in favor of a classical the limits of curves as social ideals.” Whatever on earth it may liberal arts education, I, for one, owe much that is the best in mean to discuss parabolas “as if they were voting districts” me to St. John’s, and I wish the media would treat with caution or the limits of curves as if they were “social ideals,” this an institution whose fragility and importance truly merit it. !" "
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The 10 Rules for Skillful Living > Boethius Fontaine !"
Smell a book before you begin reading. This engages more of your brain.
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When you hear another talk in a grandiose manner, refrain from speaking, choosing instead to smile and nod. It is a generosity and what Eva Brann would do.
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Don’t whistle at funerals.
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Golf is for people who can’t do push-ups. As you practice push-ups, say a little prayer for the wretched golfer.
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At a party, initiate conversation with a person you observe standing alone on the fringe. Ice breaker: “I think the quality of reality shows is just getting better and better, don’t you?”
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Rock n’ Bowl is a crime against geometry. Eschew it.
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Write a limerick about someone who doesn’t know you admire them and send it to them anonymously, unless you’re feeling saucy. Then hand it to them in person.
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Go barefoot for 24 hours in honor of Tenzing Norgey, known as “the Stringfellow Barr of the Sherpas.”
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When you see someone complete a task well, say to them, “I like the way you handled that.” If you’re feeling pert, say to them, “I like the pert way you handled that.”
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Never pick up a hitchhiker. A friend of mine met his wife that way. !
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Have you always wanted to be recognized for the awesomeness of your facial hair? Now is your chance. The Gadfly will be holding a No Shave November competition, open to all members of the Polity. Participants should email gadfly@ sjca.edu to enter, and must be cleanshaven on November first in order to qualify for the competition. Look out for posters for the upcoming Gadfly shaving party! A Gadfly photographer will take a picture of every participant at the beginning and end of the month, and in December we will publish the before and after photos and let the polity vote on the best beard. In addition to eternal glory, the winner will receive a free straight edge shave, courtesy of The Capistrano Barbershop. Email us now to enter the contest and set up your clean-shaven photo shoot.
Jocks of the Week
Mr. Cai
Ms. Kim
The Gadfly
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Sunrise on the Water A Novice’s Account of Learning to Row > Jennifer Dalton A’13
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ne piece of log creates a small fire, adequate to warm stroking together. We are all, at that point, pieces of the same you up. Add just a few more pieces to blast an immense energetic fire that builds to collectively explode and send the bonfire, large enough to warm up your entire circle of friends; boat speeding. I especially love it when this explosion drives needless to say that individuality counts but team work us to give shouts and calls of encouragement to each other as dynamites.” — Jin Kwon, Lost we drive another powerful ten strokes. In these moments, I Yes, I realize that I just quoted this from a cheesy television forget the pain in my legs from rowing for so long. Instead, show, but it shows the point I wish to consider. I firmly there is nothing but pure joy. As I smile to myself in that last believe that being on the Crew team gives you more energy. 500 meters I begin to think, “Ok, we got this. We can do it. Too many people I know of are convinced of the opposing (aloud) Guys! We are almost there!! Come on!!!!” We push, and statement, and I think that in doing so they focus so much on we push. We finish, and the team has now earned three prizes: the element of physical tiredness that they do not allow for a medal, a tie, and success. other perspectives. I hope, in sharing some thoughts, to make We now have physical and mental reminders of what it feels a conversation allowing the possibility that rowing builds you like to move all eight of us as one body. In that teamwork, I feel up in more ways than just one. more invincible than I ever have otherwise, on or off the water. When I arrived on the Annapolis campus this fall, the first These reminders are a kind of drive for us, an inspiration for thing I promised myself that I would us to do better and to do more, just as do is sign up for the crew team. I knew we drive our legs farther to further the We now have physical and it would be a great workout, and that boat. In the races, we invest ourselves mental reminders of what it toward our own success in overtaking maybe I’d even lose those last forty feels like to move all eight pounds to fit into my skinny jeans again. the potential to fail. Our investment has of us as one body. In that Once I was grafted to the team through consequently given great return and the Learn to Row program, I quickly teamwork, I feel more invin- certainly promises more in the future realized that I was out of line thinking in cible than I ever have other- for our efforts. this manner, because there are far more The inspiration of success certainly wise, on or off the water. important things to take care of when drives me to do more for that promise of trying to set a boat that barely holds your an even better return; I also scull some butt between the gunnels. I realized that my personal energy, afternoons to practice the rowing craft. This new discipline once in the boat, needed to be for the team’s collective energy incorporates all sorts of challenges, and I have had some falls. and not just my own. I don’t mind falling, though I sometimes wish I could better There are several problems that could happen when we are prevent it. On the other hand, it is easier to know myself and not all on the same page on the water. If we try too hard, we take joy in what I can do when I fall and then learn to recover. could catch crabs, or not be in sync with the stroke seat. There This joy, once found and implemented with my team, certainly is no room to be conceited, for if you are, you keep your energy increases the investment towards success. Consequently, I from helping the boat to go forward, much less winning a have more energy to drive the investment, and it infects my race. The movement of a boat, to me, is the manifestation of other efforts in life and not just efforts towards rowing. contributed energy: you get none out if you collectively put Now, whenever we go out on the river and see a sunrise none into it in the first place. blazing up the sky, I see our collective energies doing the same In the intramural races that I have been privileged to be thing for our boat on the water. We enlighten our movements part of, I have seen some wondrous things. To me, there is no in being a team, and in turn, enlighten ourselves. This is the better thrill than to hear the simultaneous whoosh of everyone explosion, the dynamite. May we continue to blaze on. !
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> Ian Tuttle A’14
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uammar Qaddafi is dead. Good riddance. The leisure peace treaty with the Jewish state. There is no guarantee that suit-loving “King of Africa” ruled Libya for four de- the next regime will do the same. And that is the problem: In cades, tyrannizing his own people and sponsoring terrorist ac- a region of ever-present instability, several key countries are in tivity worldwide. Qaddafi crushed political dissidents within the midst of radical regime change, no one knows what those his borders and assassinated them abroad; he plotted the 1986 new regimes will look like, and the nations most likely to inbombing of La Belle discothèque in Berlin, Germany, and the fluence their direction are those whose rulers oppress their 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, killing 270 people over people and sponsor terrorism against the West. There is a sigLockerbie, Scotland; he is now accused of raping the members nificant danger that Egypt or Libya could see the rise of false of his all-female cadre of bodyguards. democracies held by violent Islamist elements (eg. the Muslim Qaddafi was an evil man. He deserved—and he received—a Brotherhood, who warned the Egyptian people in February nasty death. “to be prepared for war against Israel”), increasing the danBut his death does not mark a clean end; it marks the begin- ger that the Middle East poses to the safety of Europe and the ning of Libya’s long, hazardous path to legitimate government. United States. With Qaddafi’s demise, the rebels now face the difficult task This is not to say that Qaddafi should still be in power. He of consolidating control over a scattered nation, then laying was a cruel man to his end, and he never had the right to rule, down their weapons and taking up the mantle of organizing a nor does any tyrant. But it is to say that the Obama admingovernment that upholds basic human rights and political lib- istration pledged its wholehearted support to regime change erties—all this amid Libya’s fierce tribal and political divisions. across the Middle East without any assurance that the new Yet, for all the difficulties ahead, the end of Qaddafi gives regimes would be better than the old. And now the region is a sense of finality to the Libyan coup, and ablaze, and America must act to ensure that it is being (rightly) hailed as a triumph of these countries become true democratic In a region of everthe Arab Spring that will bolster the spirits states and not puppet regimes for tyrants present instability, sev- much worse than those just deposed. of political dissidents still straining against unjust regimes. eral key countries are However, there is an irony in the downbrief note on a tangentially related in the midst of radical fall of Qaddafi: From the perspective of subject. In my September 20 column regime change... American interests, he was no longer a on Israel and Palestine, I opened with the problem. Six days after the 2006 capture following story: A Palestinian woman from of Saddam Hussein, Qaddafi permanently surrendered Libya’s Gaza arrived at Soroka Hospital in Beersheba, Israel, for lifeweapons of mass destruction program and invited interna- saving skin treatment for burns over half her body. After the tional inspectors inside his borders; they destroyed two dozen conclusion of her extensive treatment, the woman was invited tons of mustard gas. To many, this was the culmination of a back for follow-up visits to the outpatient clinic. One day she decades-long effort by Qaddafi to gain wider international ac- was caught at the border crossing wearing a suicide belt. Her ceptance—a pursuit that began in the 1980s out of fear of Ron- intention? To blow herself up at the same clinic that saved her ald Reagan (who described Qaddafi as the “mad dog” of the life. Middle East). More recently, intelligence shows that, along The woman, Wafa al-Biss, was part of last week’s prisoner with his WMDs, Qaddafi had given up sponsoring terrorist ac- exchange between Israel and Palestine that swapped 1,027 tivity. Qaddafi was still a wicked man, but by the time of his Palestinian prisoners (477 now, 550 later this year) for one death, he was only a threat within his own country. Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, held by Hamas since 2006. DozInterestingly, the same can be said of Egypt’s deposed ens of schoolchildren greeted Biss near her home in the Gaza ruler, Hosni Mubarak, and Tunisia’s defunct president, Zine Strip. “I hope you will walk the same path we took,” she told el-Abidine Ben Ali, who was an ally in American counterter- them, “and God willing, we will see some of you as martyrs.” rorism initiatives. The greatest threats to the international Waving Palestinian flags and cheering, the children replied, community came not from these men, but from Syria’s Bashar “We will give souls and blood to redeem the prisoners. We al-Assad and Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But when rebels will give souls and blood for you, Palestine.” rose against these tyrants, America did nothing; instead, we The returned Palestinian prisoners include convicted mass supported action against friendly rulers who were upholding murderers and terrorists responsible for hundreds of deaths. our interests in a strategically vital region. Shalit, when captured, was a 19-year-old, low-level infantryAs a consequence, the Middle East is now radically unsta- man working inside Israel’s borders. ble. The majority of rulers with any consolidated, actionable How anyone can continue to argue for the moral equivapower are vehemently opposed to American—and Israeli—in- lency of a culture that brainwashes children into mass murder terests. In fact, Israel backed the Mubarak regime earlier this and one that willingly risks its national security for the return year because Mubarak had faithfully maintained Egypt’s 1979 of a single son is beyond me. !
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Upcoming Events Tuesday 10/25 SJC Orchestra Rehearsal Great Hall, 4-5:30 PM Kunai Soccer Back Campus, 4-6 PM Shakespeare in the Fall Henry IV, Part I General Hartle, 7:30-9:30 PM Dance Lessons Great Hall, 8-9 PM Wednesday 10/26 Athenian ReasonBall H v G, 4 PM St. John’s Chorus Great Hall, 7 PM Friday 10/28 Kunai Soccer Back Campus, 4-6 PM All-College Seminar Hans Jonas, “To Move and To Feel: On the Animal Soul” Locations TBD, 8:15-9:15 PM Saturday 10/29 Mental Health Support Group BBC Room 109, 10:30 AM Shape Note Singing Group Mellon Room 133, 1-3 PM Athenian ReasonBall D v G, 2 PM W v S, 3:30 PM National Novel Writing Month Chasement, 6:30-9:30 PM Sunday 10/30 Soccer W v G, 1:30 PM D v H, 3:30 PM Gadfly Meeting BBC Room 109, 7 PM If you would like to see your event on the weekly schedule, please email Gadfly@sjca.edu
Freshman Chorus of 2009-2010. Photo courtesy of sjca.edu
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Looking at Freshman Chorus > Barbara McClay A’12
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his past Thursday, October 20th, much choral experience prior to Chorus the SCI continued its discussion but still had learned a lot from it. Others of the music program at St. John’s with felt that Chorus was an encapsulation of a closer look at Freshman Chorus. We what was required from students freshconsidered the question of how fresh- man year—learning not only to trust the man music could be improved, particu- Program, but also learning, as one stularly with an eye toward preparing stu- dent put it, “to teach and be taught.” dents for sophomore music. From the students who agreed that a Everyone at the meeting agreed that significant number of people were left Chorus provided a good repertoire of behind in Chorus, a few solutions were musical knowledge, and that it was an offered. One freshman present said that important community-building part of she had noticed the music notation the freshman year. Many students con- classes helped many struggling memsidered the experience of actively sing- bers of Chorus get a better handle on ing to be important for moving on to what they were doing in Chorus. Some sophomore music. Chorus, they felt, lent suggestions other members of the disa “thumotic” aspect to the music pro- cussion gave for improving the music gram, and helped students to appreci- notation classes included making them ate music. Some wonmore comprehensive, dered how it would be Chorus, they felt, lent and perhaps including possible to talk about some kind of singing a “thumotic” aspect to or music appreciation music without some the music program, kind of communal aspect to the classes. and helped students singing experience. Another student Two major consuggested that the to appreciate music. cerns raised against Chorus manual could Chorus were that it include excerpts from left unmusical students behind, and that Program books about music, in order it gave students with previous musical to draw the students’ attention to what training little to do. Were some students they were doing in Chorus and better innot getting anything out of Chorus? Per- tegrate Chorus with classes like seminar. haps unmusical or musically ignorant Ultimately, the consensus of most of students were given little reason to care those present in the discussion was that about Chorus and little ability to learn, the responsibility for learning from Choand musically knowledgeable students rus rested with the individual, and that were simply bored. the number of students left behind was Some students looked at Chorus as probably not significant enough to wara litmus test of a student’s dedication, rant a change to how Chorus was done at commenting that they had not had St. John’s. !
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