The Stanford Daily MAGAZINE
VOLUME I
U
ISSUE 2
U
NOVEMBER 4, 2016
Long before the Spanish set foot in California, there was the Muwekma Ohlone tribe p. 8
TOURISTS p. 4
STANFORD THEATRE p. 15
AFTER ROLLOUTS p. 22
Contents
The Stanford Daily
Volume I, Issue 2 November 4, 2016
MAGAZINE
04 TOURISTS Q&A What does Stanford mean to those who visit her campus? OPINIONS 06 BEFORE WE THROW OUT THE ESTABLISHMENT Nick Pether argues for the oft-maligned Establishment. 07 TRUMPISM AFTER TRUMP Trump’s ideals will live past the end of his campaign.
NEWS 08 BEFORE STANFORD On the MuwekmaOhlone tribe who once occupied most of the San Francisco Bay Area.
PHOTO GALLERY A preview of Ryan Jae’s Milky Way Season collection.
ARTS & LIFE 15 THE STANFORD THEATRE Exploring the history of one of Palo Alto’s chief attractions.
25 DISRUPT! A Silicon Valley musical replete with VCs and dashed dreams.
18 Q&A WITH KELLY REICHARDT The Daily sits down with the masterful “Certain Women” director to discuss her work.
HUMOR
20 WEST COAST LIGHTS Photographer Ryan Jae merges the celestial and the terrestrial. THE GRIND
SPORTS 12 GOAL-ORIENTED Maddie Bauer, a senior, discusess playing her final season on the soccer team and seizing the moment.
CREATIVE
22 LIFE AFTER ROLLOUTS Reflections on rejection, failure and that dreaded platitude, “It’ll all work out.” 24 SEVEN BEST PLACES TO GRAB A HEALTHY BITE OFF CAMPUS From True Food to Blue Bottle, here’s where to eat and what to order.
29 BIRCH, PLEASE The Stanford Tree responds to Twitter’s many criticisms. 30 DEAR MOM A boy writes home to his mother.
31 CROSSWORD Crossword designer, David Steinberg’s latest creation.
On the cover: Photo illustration of the Ohlone Wilderness Trail by SAM GIRVIN. EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Kylie Jue EXECUTIVE EDITOR Will Ferrer MANAGING EDITORS Reed Canaan, Stephanie Chen, Erica Evans, Michael Gioia, Udit Goyal, Olivia Hummer, McKenzie Lynch, Ada Statler-Throckmorton, Carlos Valladares, Tristan Vanech, Samantha Wong, Victor Xu PHOTOS Sam Girvin, Udit Goyal, Ryan Jae, McKenzie Lynch, Tiffany Ong GRAPHICS/LAYOUT Matthew Bernstein, Heidi Chen, Emma Fiander, Na He Jeon, Mehr Kumar, Sunny Li, 3 Janet Liu, Celine Lopez, Olivia Popp, Joshua Wagner, Victor Xu, Phoebe Yao COO Andrew Mather CHIEF REVENUE OFFICER Veronica Cruz
Meet the Tourists
BY HANNA PHOTOS B
The Stanford Daily (TSD): Maggie, how old are you? Maggie Watson (MW): Fifteen. I’m a sophomore in high school. TSD: Why did you want to visit Stanford? Joy Watson (JW): We’re visiting family, and she’s also gearing up for looking for colleges. We said, hey, let’s go try it out. TSD: What impressions did you have of Stanford before you got here? MW: I thought it was going to be a rich school and beautiful. And it is. It’s amazing. I didn’t know it was going to be this amazing, but I knew it was going to be amazing. TSD: Where have you been on campus? MW: We went inside the tower [Hoover Tower]. It was pretty awesome seeing everything… It’s really big. I didn’t know it was going to be this big. JW: She was, of course, checking all the Pokemon stops.
Joy and Maggie Watson Denver area, Colorado
Jaylaen Higgins Union City, California
Christophe and Valerie Lecyee Normandy, France TSD: What brings you here? Christophe Lecyee (CL): We’re visiting — our son lives in Palo Alto, and we wanted to visit Stanford too. TSD: What impressions did you have of Stanford before coming here? CL: We did not know about it before coming. We discovered [it while] in the library. TSD: Do people in France know very much about Stanford? If you mentioned “Stanford” in France, would they know what you’re talking about? CL: No. TSD: Has anything surprised you about campus? CL: It’s quiet. Many, many people are working here, but it’s quiet. Many people are on bikes. TSD: What’s your favorite place you’ve been to here? Valerie Lecyee (VL): [We’re going to] the museum of art. 4
TSD: How old are you? Jaylaen Higgins (JH): I’m 13 years old. TSD: Why are you here today? JH: We’re on a field trip. My school just did a college fair of different universities and stuff. Other classes went to San Jose State and UC Berkeley. TD: Thirteen seems pretty young to be thinking about college. Why do you think you’re getting started so early? JH: Just so we have more of a broad experience of [colleges like Stanford], and so we’ll be ready when high school starts. TSD: What impressions of Stanford did you have before coming here? JH: Very athletic, and [the] academics are really good. TSD: Is there anything that surprised you when you got here? JH: How big the campus is. Our tour guide said that you could fit a lot of Disneylands. TSD: Do you have a favorite place you’ve visited so far on campus? JH: Memorial Church. It was very big.
AH KNOWLES BY TIFFANY ONG
We bike past tourists all the time, but how often do we really interact with them? The Daily spoke with some visitors to find out why they were on campus.
Kaleb Erlarms-Orr Union City, California TSD: What did you think about Stanford before coming here? Kaleb Erlarms-Orr (KE): I knew that it was really hard school to get [into]. You have to have really good grades to get in here, and they have really good sports, and I heard the acceptance rate was 4 percent or something. But yeah, it’s really hard to get in. My cousin actually goes here. You have to be really smart. TSD: Now that you’re on campus, does anything surprise you? KE: I’ve noticed there’s a lot of bikes. It must be a big campus, because almost every student has a bike here. TSD: Favorite place you’ve been so far? KE: The food court. TSD: You mean the one in Tresidder, with Panda Express? KE: Yeah.
Allison Koo Phoenix, Arizona TSD: How old are you? Allison Koo (AK): Twelve. TSD: Why are you visiting Stanford? AK: Because I might want to go to college here, and I wanted to look around. TSD: College is a long while away for you — is it something that’s on your mind much right now? AK: Most people who go [to my middle school], they usually go to good colleges, and I want to go to one too. TSD: Do you know what you might want to study yet? AK: No, I’m still thinking about it. TSD: Has coming here changed your impression of Stanford at all? AK: It looks a lot bigger than I thought it would be. TSD: What’s your favorite place on campus that you’ve visited so far? AK: Hoover Tower.
Olga Korzhenevich Moscow, Russia Olga Korzhenevich (OK): I’m from Russia, but my husband just moved for work. We’re staying in Palo Alto now, but tomorrow we leave and go to Los Angeles. TSD: Why did you want to visit Stanford? OK: It’s very interesting for me. I want my daughter in the future to study at Stanford. TSD: How old is your daughter? OK: Thirteen years old. TSD: What were your impressions of the University before coming here? OK: I was here three years ago, and I walked around Stanford. But I don’t know a lot about it. TSD: What do you want to see on campus? OK: I don’t know, you advise me!
Greg Gao Beijing, China TSD: Have you been to Stanford before? Greg Gao (GG): Twentyfour years ago. My partner, my Intel colleague, gave a tour for us. TSD: Why are you here visiting campus? GG: We just wanted to look around and know, what does the most famous university look like? TSD: Has anything about Stanford surprised you? GG: [It’s] just beautiful. 5
Reflections on the Election By Nick Pether COLUMNIST
ON THE ESTABLISHMENT
2016 HAS BEEN...
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a really bad year for the Establishment. Revolution is in the air and the People, it seems, will not stand for corrupt, out-of-touch leaders and their cronyism anymore. In the U.K., #brexit-ers have broken their country free of the overbearing and unaccountable EU. Across Europe, a whole bunch of nationalist parties intend to do likewise. In Australia, the One Nation Party is rallying voters to give the United Nations the finger, whereas here in the U.S., the Left has #FeltTheBern and fought for a President who isn’t in the pocket of Wall Street and the billionaire class, while the right intends to #MakeAmericaGreatAgain by electing a leader who won’t bow to the whims of crooked elites. Trump is probably going to lose the 2016 election. However, there’s a good chance that the anti-Establishment populism he represents will only gain more momentum further down the track. This will be especially likely if the People can find themselves a leader to rally behind who isn’t as obviously despicable. Let’s assume, just bear with me for a moment, that none of this is actually about racism, misogyny or white identity politics. Let’s further assume that what we’re seeing is actually about people feeling taken advantage of by an Establishment they no longer think is credible or interested in helping them. This shouldn’t be too hard. According to Gallup, confidence in Congress is at a measly 7 percent. Let’s even assume that many members of the Establishment are in fact somewhat “crooked.” What I mean by this is that the high-level bureaucrats, officials, ambassadors and experts that control much of the day-to-day functioning of the federal government and international organizations like the U.N., EU and World Bank do really enjoy the taxpayer-funded travel and diplomatic schmooze-fests that comprise much of their work. They are way too friendly with lobbyists and defense contractors. They are privileged people from privileged backgrounds, far removed from the problems and experiences of the average voter and insulated from the consequences of their mistakes. Throwing them out might still be a truly terrible mistake. In a recent interview, Donald Trump argued that the U.S.’ obligation to defend its allies should be conditional on their financial contribution to NATO, prompting a party establishment response to the effect of “YOU DO NOT SAY THAT.” You may be one of many voters who actually took this as a good sign, because the only real reason the Establishment ever panics is because someone threatens its power and influence. Except, what if you’re wrong? That possibility shouldn’t just make you pause for thought. It should terrify you. What if the reason for this panic is actually because these people know more about geopolitics than you and think that making U.S. treaty obligations seem less secure would have catastrophic consequences? What if people in Estonia actually do live in constant fear of a Russian incursion? What if a credible ironclad commitment to defend NATO allies is actually vitally important
to maintaining a world in which Russia and the U.S. don’t blow each other up? These concerns can be generalized to wider questions about the role of the Establishment. What if presidential duties, like managing geopolitics or negotiating global trade agreements, are games with very high stakes and complex rules? What if breaking these rules had very real consequences, regardless of whether you agreed with them in the first place? The point is that if these rules exist, the Establishment has the people that know them. However, if voters and their future representatives think the people warning them against breaking the rules are all b.s.-artists, then things could go rather badly for everyone. An accusation often leveled at critics of the recent anti-Establishment populist wave is that those critics tend to be privileged people insulated from the consequences of the Establishment’s flaws and mistakes. This means they take certain things like job security for granted and can’t properly appreciate how bad something like a globalization-induced factory closure can be. While that criticism is entirely fair and valid, it’s also possible that that there are some things we all need, and have, but take for granted. We might only have these things because some sketchy Establishment figure knew enough not to make a terrible mistake on a diplomatic mission. As futurist and machine intelligence researcher Eliezer Yudkowsky puts it, “The system isn’t as stable as it might look when you’re just strolling along your non-melted streets year after year, without any missiles ever falling on your own hometown.” This is pretty unsatisfying, because it leaves us all in a position where we have to trust sketchy Establishment figures telling us they know what’s best for us. Trouble is, no one seems to be buying that anymore. After Trump loses this round, a more palatable future populist with the same contempt for the Establishment might win the next one. And they won’t know the rules and will ignore the people who try to explain the rules. I really hope these rules don’t exist and the Establishment has made them up to justify its own existence. Because the alternative really frightens me. Contact Nick Pether at npether@stanford.edu.
COLUMNIST
EARLIER THIS MONTH... conservative blogger Matt Drudge of the Drudge Report tweeted that warnings over Hurricane Matthew were a government lie intended to make an ‘exaggerated point about climate change.’ Ridiculous as it sounds, this was not the first time a prominent self-identified conservative had made claims about a vast conspiracy among government agencies intended to exaggerate the threat posed by climate change. Earlier this year, the chair of the House Science Committee, Lamar Smith, repeatedly attempted to intimidate and harass scientists at NOAA, whose findings indicated that climate change was speeding up, not slowing down, on the grounds that they were doctoring their findings to get the ‘politically correct answer.’ While elements of this paranoid fringe continued to point fingers over numerous fictional conspiracies, the rise of Donald Trump brought that same fringe into the mainstream. If you didn’t know who or what Alex Jones, Milo Yiannopolous, 4Chan, or the alt-right were before the election, you sure as hell do now. This is the scummy underbelly of American society that was the centerstage of the Republican National Convention and has been the core of Trump’s campaign since it became clear he was going to win the primaries. While the actual rise to center stage of these crazies may have been an accident, the factors leading to that rise were anything but accidental. If 2016 is going to be remembered for anything, it will be re-
PANDORA’S BOX
Illustration by JANET LIU/ The Stanford Daily
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membered as the time This not only when the news and digital media finally means calling faced the music for Trump out when he their inability to grow a backbone and stand tells a lie; it means up against Trumpism and idiocy. refusing to give It is painfully obconspiracy theories vious that Donald Trump is anything but airtime. a conventional candidate. From the outset, his statements fell outside the norms of decency and into outright racism, misogyny, and xenophobia; his rallies were marked by Nazi-inspired chants and violence; he was endorsed by David Duke, the American Nazi Party, and the National Enquirer; and he himself had a history of engaging in fraudulent behaviour and sexual assault. And yet, the news media repeatedly failed to do its duty and ask him the tough questions about policy, his lack of experience, and his outright racism. He was treated with kid gloves during the primary, given more airtime than any of his opponents, and at least one major news organization failed to disclose their conflicts of interest while reporting on him. And he was given $2 billion worth of free airtime before the primaries ended. Meanwhile, The Associated Press ran a non-story about the Clinton Foundation this August that fanned flames about ‘corruption’ with zero evidence for the assertion. This is only one example about how Clinton ‘scandals’ turned out to be little more than hot air, or how she is taken to task for indiscretions that pale in comparison to those committed by Trump. WikiLeaks exemplifies this tactic of smearing the most qualified Presidential nominee in history by releasing her campaign manager’s social security number, but doing little to emphasize how clearly and dangerously unqualified her opponent is. Critical coverage of Clinton or any other politician is usually a good thing. But when that coverage of minor indiscretions, badly-worded statements, or a general lack of forthrightness with the media is treated the same way as a blowhard talking about committing war crimes, it indicates that the news media is not, in fact, effectively fulfilling its job within a democracy. Successful democracies rely on a well-informed populace; as the conduit through which the public accumulates information about the nation, the media has a responsibility to treat con artists and conspiracy theorists as con artists and conspiracy theorists, not as conventional, serious candidates or public figures. Their failure to do so has legitimized the alt-right, the Alex Jones’s, and Stormfront contributors of the world. While Donald Trump is almost certain to lose this election, Trumpism as a phenomenon will not go away soon. It is time the news media grew a backbone and took a definitive stand against it. This not only means calling Trump out when he tells a lie; it means refusing to give conspiracy theories airtime, treating Clinton’s ‘scandals’ for the non-stories that they are, and taking politicians like Blake Farenthold and Lamar Smith to task for spewing nonsense.
“
TRUMPISM AFTER TRUMP
By Arnav Mariwala
Contact Arnav Mariwala at arnavm@stanford.edu.
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MUWEK OHLONE ON SACRED G R O U N D S By Fangzhou Liu It was spring of 1922. Just west of where Oak Creek is today, Stanford student Bruce Seymour ’24 uncovered a human skull. The human being who had inhabited the bones was male, Native American and over 4,000 years old.
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KMA A
t least 5,000 years before Spanish soldiers first set foot on California soil, the ancestors of the presentday Muwekma Ohlone tribe lived, fished and buried their dead on the land that was to become Stanford University. A semi-sedentary people with an affinity for water, many Ohlone built their homes on the banks of the San Francisquito creek that now bounds Oak Creek on the west. The 1922 find was christened Stanford Man I in honor of its location and the archaeological dig that led to its discovery. The Native American man proved to be the oldest human being known to have lived in the San Francisco peninsula. For the academic archaeological community, this was a significant discovery. For the Muwekma Ohlone tribes-people, however, the bones were all they had left of an ancestor. Geraldine Green of the Seneca tribe articulated her people’s attitude towards the dead at the 1996 meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. “We leave them alone, they are through. They are given what information they want. They have done their jobs; we need not bother them anymore,” Green said. Green touched on a fundamental reverence for the dead that is perhaps as much human as it is cultural. The Faculty Senate voted unanimously in favor of a proposal to return all Native American remains held in the Stanford museum in 1989. Thengraduate student Laura Jones M.A. ’84 Ph.D. ’90 saw the nationally controversial proposal as an “ethical
decision about human rights”. “The human remains have human rights, and those rights were represented by their descendants,” Jones said. Jones drove the truck bearing the Ohlone ancestral remains back to the tribal council, who buried the bones in parkland. With it, she sowed the seeds of a decades-long partnership between Stanford archaeology researchers and the Muwekma Ohlone tribe that, in her view, vastly enriched the archaeological process. One year later, the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) added legal force to the moral precedent, mandating the return of Native American remains all over the country. But the act of repatriation also created schisms in the academic world. Archaeologists in the 1980s and 1990s argued: what about a millennia-old ancestor, as ancient as the Harappans or the early Egyptians? At what point does our beholdenness to memory and culture stop? The outdated academic debacle touches on a resounding theme: the rightful relationship between the peoples who call this swathe of the Bay Area home, past and present. These historical questions challenge the university’s conscience and compel its members to act even today. The recent controversy over place names that honor the father of the Spanish missions in California revisits the impact of Spanish colonialism on the Ohlone peoples. Today, Stanford’s values and identity are expressed and tested by its treatment of the past.
Courtesy of Didier Descouens, Wikimedia Commons Photo by SAM GIRVIN/The Stanford Daily 9
THE HISTORY OF THE LAND Ten-thousand years before before the Spanish set their sights on the lush bay of San Francisco, the first Native American peoples were living off the marshland. For at least 5,000 years, they existed in organized tribal societies, landscaping the wide brush with oaks, setting traps for shellfish and burying their dead together with the remains of mussel shells in towering pyramid-like mounds called shellmounds. Each shellmound was a monument to their craft, their food and the reverent burial of their dead that would grow throughout their lives. “Ohlone” or “Costanoan” (Spanish for “coastal”) is a catch-all term for the various indigenous tribes that lived between San Francisco and Monterey, while the Muwekma Ohlone is the self-coined tribal name of the Native American descendants living in the San Francisco Bay Area. While the remnants of the indigenous people’s creations hint at their vibrant cultures, they exist in the written record entirely through the flat, assessing gaze of the other. The Spanish soldiers who first encountered the tribe living in present-day Palo Alto noted the “Indians” mainly for their foreign dress and the food they offered in aid of the soldiers’ first exploratory advance through the Bay. Ironically, the Portola mission that first brought the Spanish into contact with the indigenous peoples eased the way for the Spanish takeover of their prized bayshore homes. At the behest of Father Junipero Serra, the Spanish clergy oversaw the consolidation of villages and prime bayshore into missions. The land that became Stanford University was part of Mission Santa Clara, while others were co-opted into Mission San Jose, Mission Dolores, Mission Santa Cruz, drawing the outlines of counties and cities that remain intact today.
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Contact with the Spanish started the Ohlone people on a century-long grind of trauma, dispersal and unstinting resilience. As Spanish, Mexican and white European settlers laid claim to the land in waves, the Ohlone people adapted and dispersed, but never disappeared. Under the Spanish, many Ohlone people joined the missions as laborers, while others lingered outside the missions in smaller communities. Life in the missions entailed religious conversion -- sometimes against the Ohlone people’s will -- and assimilation into radically different ways of life. Worse violations lay in store. Rape, forced labor and foreign diseases ravaged the indigenous peoples, so that only half of the total population in 1769 remained by 1832. After the Spanish came the Mexican “rancheros.” Mexican independence from Spain in 1821 saw wealthy Mexican landowners take over the Bay in large parcels of ranch land grants. Again the Ohlone bent, but did not break. Some Ohlone became rancheria laborers, while others sought work in the cities. Some, like the Inigo family, even came to own ranches rather than work on them. Baptism and assimilation aided Lupe Inigo’s ascent in mission society, yet he marked the land with his Ohlone heritage much as the early Spanish explorers had with a name. He gave his ranch the name Posolmi, an Ohlone word in honor of a lost ancestral village. During the rancheria era, Ohlone laborers also worked the land that was to become Stanford University. Antonio Buelna, who later sold the land to Leland Stanford Sr., was granted the land that sweeps across the Oak Creek apartments and the rest of Stanford West in 1839. Under Buelna, some Ohlone people continued to tend the land they had once owned as ranch hands. They spoke their native Ohlone language among themselves till the 1930s and kept beads of a bright cerulean blue, an auspicious color.
They got by. The American annexation of California brought a new flavor of conquest. Ownership was staked by ink-and-paper deeds, and the settlers who came with the Gold Rush were often eager to clear the land of squatters, including the native peoples who had lived on the land before the invention of the written word. When Leland Stanford Sr. followed the gold fever west and cobbled his stock farm out of nearly a dozen separate land purchases, he did the same. “[Stanford] wanted to make sure that he was very clear about the land title. He would pay off people who squatted to make sure they had no claim and leave,” said Jones. It is uncertain if any Ohlone people remained on the Stanford farm as workers. Many Ohlone peoples regrouped on other rancherias. The present-day Muwekma Ohlone tribe themselves evolved from a group of families living on the same rancheria in Sunol, who kept in touch over the years and later formed the nucleus of their present-day tribal organization. Rosemary Cambra, chairwoman of the Muwekma Ohlone, found cohesion in the choices individual families made even as they scattered. “They have made it a way of life to migrate within aboriginal lands,” Cambra said.
THE PAST AS PRESENT But what Cambra calls a thriving “way of life” has been negated by many officials and scholars. Just three years after the discovery of the Stanford Man I in burial repose, pioneering anthropologist Alfred Kroeber deemed the Ohlone people “extinct for all practical purposes.” The Ohlone tribal council has spent millions of dollars on genealogists and archaeologists in hopes of securing federal tribal status, which would offer,
among other rights, land grants and protection for Ohlone graves. However, in 2011, after a 20-year battle for federal recognition, a U.S. District Court decision formally denied the Muwekma Ohlone tribal status. One key problem is that the Muwekma Ohlone people and the courts conceive of a tribe in fundamentally different ways. Various Bay Area Ohlone leaders, such as the Muwekma Ohlone council and Mission Dolores museum director Andrew Galvan, promote the active practice of tribal culture through language revitalization, education and grave repatriation efforts. Yet the 2011 ruling stated that the Muwekma Ohlone failed to show that it “has maintained ‘political influence or authority’ over its members since 1927,” rendering void the federal recognition granted the Verona Band of Indians of which the Muwekma Ohlone had been a part. Dissent within the Ohlone community has also been cited as reasons to doubt the Muwekma Ohlone’s authority and, by extension, their legal claim. To archaeologists, however, the fluid, complex groupings of the modern-day tribes are true to their ancestors’ mobile and intimately interconnected communities. “Californian tribes were extremely gregarious,” said Jones. “You have lots of trading and intermarriage, there would be people in every village speaking [two or three] languages. Their communities are multicultural - they were more than 200 years ago, and they are today.” The archaeological record makes it clear that tribes were as organic and adaptable as the human beings who comprised them. To Jones, the cultural, social and genealogical inheritance is clear -- the specific change in political units and territories with time “doesn’t cause [her] very much stress”. Despite the Muwekma Ohlone’s political disappointments, the Bay Area Ohlone tribes have achieved much in the last decades. Today, there are several dozen speakers of
their native Chochenyo language where there were almost none after the 1930s. It is now common, though not compulsory, practice to consult the Ohlone people when their ancestral graves are uncovered by construction workers or researchers. Karen Biestman, who directs Stanford’s Native American Cultural Center, sees the Ohlone people’s story as one of survival rather than victimhood. “The fact that they survived and rebuilt, reclaimed governance and perpetuated their language and culture, is really an incredible success story,” said Biestman.
IN WHOSE NAME Each year, the Muwekma Ohlone tribe blesses the ground of the Stanford Powwow. The gesture has become a tradition in its own right, a recognition that the story of the Ohlone and the story of Stanford are rooted in the same land. Biestman said, “One thing [that every student should know] is that we are all guests on ancestral, aboriginal Ohlone land.” Far from extinct, Native American culture has been vitally present at Stanford since its early years. The Muwekma-Tah-Ruk was named and dedicated for Native Americanthemed residential life in 1990, and the annual PowWow is warmly attended by some 35,000 people, from regional Native American community members to non-tribespeople. Even before the founding of Stanford, Leland Stanford Jr. collected the remnants of native arrowheads on the Stanford farm, and the university has hired a campus archaeologist since the 1890s to engage with the peoples who lived and worked on the rich land. The land where Stanford now stands has always been contested. The diverse colonial and immigrant presence has always been a
source of competing claims. In recent years, Father Junipero Serra’s name has become an emblem of California’s troubled relationship with colonization, religion and its indigenous peoples. As the Spanish priest who proposed and oversaw the mission system that undeniably had an adverse effect on the Ohlone people, the landmarks that honor Serra’s name throughout Stanford and the rest of California raise old questions: Of all the peoples who have inhabited the land, who has the right to the land? Whose voice should be honored? With his resolution in the undergraduate Senate, then-Senator Leo Bird ’17 pinpointed Stanford’s place as an occupier of the land who, like Serra, is inevitably beholden to past occupants. If nothing else, the story of Stanford so far shows that names and narratives are anything but trivial when it comes to the question of rights. As the Spanish soldiers traversed the bayshore, they had a compulsion to name. Whimsical travelers’ coinages such as “La Isla de los Alcatraces” (“island of the pelicans”, now Alcatraz), “Punta de los Lobos Marinos” (“point of the sea wolves”, now Point Lobos) correspond remarkably well to place names today, an indelible sign of their presence and power. On their part, the Muwekma Ohlone recognize that their hope for political recognition today depends on their ability to trace, prove and stake a claim to their past. They do so through research, branding and, ultimately, narrative. And as Stanford grapples with the legacy of the place it inhabits, the history of the land is being written and revised to this day. Contact Fangzhou Liu at fzliu96@stanford.edu.
Photos by McKENZIE LYNCH/The Stanford Daily 11
Goal-oriented By Alexa Corse STAFF WRITER
Center-back Maddie Bauer ’17 discusses making her first goal at Stanford, from a position that usually only sets up others
Photo by SAM GIRVIN/The Stanford Daily
MADDIE BAUER WAS READY TO SCORE. She was standing just feet away from the UCLA goalkeeper as Stanford teammate Andi Sullivan prepared a corner kick. A senior, Bauer has specialized in playing center-back over her four years on the Farm. Naturally, as a defender, she does not get many chances to take a shot on goal. So when the opportunity finally came, in the 103rd minute of the UCLA match last month, Bauer was determined to take it. “It came to my left foot [after the corner kick], and I just kicked as hard as I can,” she recalled. “I was just happy to end it for us. That memory of having a game-winner as my first goal was awesome.” Bauer finally got her first collegiate goal, in the 3-2 double-overtime victory over UCLA in early October. As the regular season has wound down and the postseason approaches, Bauer has some final opportunities to extend her already lengthy record of contributions to Stanford women’s soccer, and she is ready to make the most of it. “Every season is different to me, and this one is particularly special because I’m a senior,” Bauer said. “This is kind of my last shot.” Over the last four years, Bauer has made some key plays for Stanford women’s soccer. However, it’s less often that her contributions show up on a scoreboard, as the fact that she has only one collegiate goal suggests.is characteristic is closely related to the position Bauer plays on the field: center-back. As one of two center-backs who act as the last line of defense before the goalkeeper, Bauer’s role is twofold. First, stop goals. Second, get the ball to the offense.
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Photo by SAM GIRVIN/The Stanford Daily
Stanford’s defense is a remarkable force: Since Sept. 2005, Stanford has held opponents to two or fewer goals in all but one of over 270 matches. The Cardinal’s strength in the backfield is crucial to their success overall, and Bauer is a leader in that effort. Bauer has started in over 80 games for Stanford, playing at least 90 minutes in all but one game so far this season. Stanford women’s soccer team is currently ranked in the top five nationally, and Bauer has been a consistent factor in the team’s impressive season. “Maddie has been a major contributor to our team’s success during the past four years,” head coach Paul Ratcliffe said. “This year, Maddie has emerged as a vocal leader and is playing the best soccer of her career.” Bauer is not exactly an unsung hero: She has won honors such as being selected to the All-Pac-12 team and the NSCAA regional first team multiple times. But while the center-back might lay the groundwork for the goals that get featured in the highlight reel, she herself is not the one scoring. Although primarily defensive, the centerback position is analogous in some ways to a quarterback. Typically tall (Bauer is 5-foot-8, 14
which helps for winning balls in the air), determined and with a good eye for strategy, a center-back often makes decisions about how the team will try to move the ball down the field. It’s almost as if Bauer is calling plays. “I was always very vocal,” she explained. “I have no problem telling people where they should be on the field … Our coach, Paul, has given me the liberty to kind of decide what we do with the ball and how we set up our plays.” As a senior, Bauer has embraced taking a larger leadership role on the team. She said that she has enjoyed supporting the underclassmen just beginning their own Stanford journeys and that doing so gives her some nostalgia in her final year on the Farm. Bauer emphasizes leading by example, and she has certainly done so in her academics. An international relations major with a 3.56 GPA, Bauer was named one of 30 women’s soccer candidates for the nationwide Senior CLASS Award in October. She is also a twotime Pac-12 All-Academic honoree and was the only Pac-12 athlete to be a 2015 NSCAA Scholar All-American. “Coming out of high school, I knew I didn’t want to go somewhere where I was only focused on soccer,” Bauer said. “I wanted to give
myself a challenge, and Stanford provided that.” Bauer’s determination has served her well, both on and off the field, in her Stanford career. She and teammate Megan Turner took advantage of the opportunity to study abroad through Stanford’s program in Florence during their junior year. The soccer team does not have matches during winter quarter, so the two teammates were able to go abroad without missing any competition. Even in Italy, however, soccer was never far from Bauer’s mind. The teammates made time in their day to train, finding public fields behind Renaissance cathedrals and starting pickup matches. “It was awesome to get to play a sport that we love in a country that, at the time, was very unfamiliar to us,” Turner recalled. Back on campus, Bauer remembers Italy fondly. But now it’s soccer season once again, and she and her teammates are focused on their goals for the year. With just a few games left to play, Bauer is glad to have crossed “scoring a goal” off her Stanford bucket list. Contact Alexa Corse at corsea@stanford.edu.
THE THEATRE
By CARLOS VALLADARES MANAGING EDITOR
E
ven from the outside, the Stanford Theatre is a sight to behold.
It is the main draw of Palo Alto’s University Avenue. Its marquee sign — a film trailer in architectural form — informs the walkingdriving public of coming attractions. In a college town as atypical as chromatic Palo Alto, the marquee lends a touch of old-school class to a modernized street, one of flash-in-the-pan hipster boutiques and boba on the go.
Inside, the story continues. A grand staircase leads to a steep balcony, where a more advantageous, bird’s-eye view of the screen can be sought. In the lobby, there is a swirling mix of Assyrian colors and Greek forms. A glass candy-counter offers a variety of shockingly cheap snacks, candies, mints, popcorn, sodas — all tagged with prices ($2.50 for a large?) that seemingly haven’t changed since the 1980s. Hawk-eyed (and Hawks-eyed) viewers will notice the ceiling’s saucy adornment of a smiling, almost winking lady. It is conscience-altering to realize
that architectural masterpieces like the Stanford were made to watch movies. The display of art is just as visually arresting. They’re not conventional canvases or Greek statues, though — rather, they’re movie posters. The theater is filled with original artwork from poster artists of the ‘30s to the ‘50s. Some were commissioned by Hollywood studios, such as a towering landscape of the Andes Mountains from Howard Hawks’ 1939 classic “Only Angels Have Wings” (“Drama as mighty as the towering Andes!!”). Others were made abroad, in Japan, Italy or Spain. One prominent Japanese poster of Hitchcock’s “North by Northwest” shows Cary Grant being chased by a cropduster and Japanese characters with exclamation points. Most have a look so baroque that one could spend days scrutinizing them (Bette Davis aiming a still-smoking gun at a bloodied man’s body for William Wyler’s “The Letter”). Perhaps the nuttiest ad (and a personal favorite) is a graphic of a completely nude Busby Berkeley dancer, covering her front with a white blanket, boasting a single line of text: “I’m one of the Gold Diggers of 1933!” Going deeper into the Stanford Theatre, one comes face-to-face with the venue’s most popular draw: the house organ. The circus-like “Mighty Wurlitzer” works like any of the great, supporting players of the ‘30s (Thomas Mitchell), ‘40s (Agnes Moorehead) or ‘50s (Thelma Ritter). It’s a part of the machine that keeps the Stanford chugging, but it’s no mere cog. Rather, the organ is the Stanford’s main-stage attraction, its personal signature. The ‘Mighty Wurlitzer’ In the bowels of the movie palace, organist Jerry Nagano sits atop his Wurlitzer for the umpteenth time. To an outsider, this massive theater organ — with its countless keys, whistles, bells and pedals — is untamable, incomprehensible. But neatly describing each part, Nagano makes reportage sound as if it were as common as breathing air. “I always think of this as my dance partner,” he says with a slight twinkle in his eye. Nagano has fun reminiscing about his youth — going to the movies, being immersed in the world of the (movie) theater. “I was very picky about where I would see the movies,” he says. “When ‘Star Wars’ came out, all my friends were like, ‘We want to go see “Star Wars”!’ And I said, ‘No, there’s only one theater that I want to see it in.’ I insisted that if we were going to see ‘Star Wars,’ we had to see it at Grauman’s Chinese.” After ruminating for a while, he adds, “In many cases, where I saw the film was just as important as what film I saw.” Nagano is one of three rotating organists who play the “Mighty Wurlitzer” every night at the Stanford Theatre. Originally from Los Angeles, Nagano has worked at the Stanford since 15
sdss
Photos by McKENZIE LYNCH/The Stanford Daily
1999. When not playing the organ, he works as a computer systems engineer at the University. “I have some of the most interesting conversations at work,” Nagano jokes. “Since I work at Stanford, I usually have people come up to me and say, ‘Gee, I knew that someone in the IT department played the organ in the theater, I just didn’t know who it was!’” The organ, of course, predates Nagano by some years. In the early 1910s, when the theatre’s name was “The Marquee,” the organ’s prototype — a “fotoplayer machine” — was installed. A gushing Palo Alto Times article described it as “a musical instrument … equipped with orchestra bells, bass and snare drums, and traps of every description.” In June 1925, when the Marquee was rebranded, the Times used a whole eight pages to detail every aspect of the shiny new playhouse. An entire page was dedicated to just the organ (sample headline: “Instrument is capable of untold variety of pleasing tonal effects!”). When David W. Packard restored the Stanford in the late 1980s, he was determined to recapture the aural razzle-dazzle of that breathless report. So he enlisted the help of six organ experts, including Dave Banks and Cliff Luscher, to return the Wurlitzer to its 1925 glory. The organ restoration alone took two years. Packard personally computerized the console, linking it to a basement computer and to the grand, ceiling-high pipes on either side of the movie screen. The Stanford Theatre’s past Like the organ, the Stanford Theatre has a storied past. Under the name “The New Stanford,” it opened on June 9, 1925, with the Palo Alto Times raving, “there may be bigger theaters, 16
but there are none better.” In the extended edition of the Times that June, pages were littered with local businesses congratulating the new Palo Alto landmark. Its history also boasts some less conventional moments. On April 13, 1917, a Stanford student named David Smith was arrested at the theater for loudly popping a paper bag. The next night, hundreds of Stanford students rode past the theater encouraging people not to go in, all attending a screening at the nearby Varsity Theater as a sign of protest. Perhaps the strangest moment occurred on Nov. 7, 1929. That night, 150 pajama-wearing first-years rushed the theater. Without paying, they stormed onto the balcony, occupying it to watch that night’s screening of an “Our Gang” short until they were forcibly removed by Palo Alto police. Such pre-Depression hijinx are foreign to modern audiences. One (thankfully discontinued) tradition involved carnival-barker-style promotional deals. In 1932, the original owner of the Stanford, Allen Arkush, sold it to Fox West Coast Theatres. Later, in the postwar years, when the rise of television seemed to spell the death of cinemagoing as a national pastime, Fox executives were willing to do anything to draw a crowd. They gave away $500 in gold. They held “Price is Right”-style car giveaways. They even organized a talent hunt for local Palo Alto women and children to appear as character extras in an MGM picture (“Look, Ma, Olivia’s right next to Olivia...De Havilland!”). Soon, however, the Stanford started its slip into disuse and disinterest. The orchestra pit and organ were removed in the mid-1950s. Theater acts before and after the show were reduced to “championship baton twirling” (per
the Times). By the late ’60s, the interior had accumulated so much garbage and grime that “many moviegoers flatly refused to enter the place, no matter what was showing.” In the ‘70s and ’80s, the theater was caught in the midst of a game of hot potato, transferring from owner to owner, including a brief spell when it was owned by John Arrillaga. None knew what to do with it. That is, until David W. Packard came along. The restoration The son of the Hewlett-Packard founder wanted to bring back life and pizzazz to the Stanford. Growing up in the area, Packard often saw motion pictures there. As an adult, though, he swore off modern movies, dismissing contemporary fare as “degraded popular culture.” He refused to set foot inside a movie theater for years. That is, until 1977, when he accepted an invitation to see “The Wizard of Oz,” a film he enjoyed as a kid. Packard’s conversion to cinephilia reads like a classic origin story. When he watched “Wizard of Oz,” he re-exposed himself to the pleasure of movie-watching. The next night, he saw Vincente Minnelli’s “Meet Me in St. Louis” and, a night later, George Cukor’s “A Star Is Born.” All starred the ravishing Judy Garland. From there began a certifiable “Love Affair” with the movies. Then, in 1987, he rented out the Stanford for a two-week run of Fred Astaire films. The results were phenomenal. It would be a success, Packard thought, f 50 people showed up. The theater was nearly sold out on Friday night. On Tuesday night (“the night of the All-Star Game,” recalled Packard in a chat with the San Francisco Chronicle), nearly 1,250 tickets were sold. Packard’s father was at the Tuesday night
screening. As David W. Packard told the Chronicle, “[My father] couldn’t believe how many people were coming and what a good time people were having... He said, ‘David, I never would have believed this, but you’ve proved your point. If you want to do this, the foundation will pay for it.’ So we bought the theater.” In the end, Packard’s restoration project ended up costing $6 million, or $12 million today. It was funded through the Stanford Theatre Foundation, an offshoot branch of the Packard Humanities Institute (PHI) dedicated specifically to raising public awareness of classical American cinema. The goal was to make the Stanford “a permanent center for the study and enjoyment of classic American films.” Since about 1990, the Stanford Theatre has been managed by two principal players: Packard and Cyndi Mortensen, the manager of the Stanford Theatre Foundation. Together, they plan the programming for the theatre, acquire film prints from distributors and studios and check that the prints are up to screening standards. On film preservation When I meet her, Mortensen is in the midst of hanging up Leslie Caron’s costumes from the 1958 MGM musical “Gigi” in the Stanford’s lobby. The green dress is the real deal, the actual costume from the film. Mortensen is in charge of running the Stanford on a daily basis and maintaining public awareness of the Stanford in general. “We must realize,” Mortensen is quick to note, “that film is not a permanent thing. It’s
ephemeral. It does have a lifespan, and we must preserve it.” She and Packard always work with this goal in mind. Indeed, part of Mortensen’s, Packard’s and the Stanford’s hard work isn’t just showing movies from the Golden Age of Hollywood. It’s also making sure these movies exist in the first place. Film conservation is a huge legacy of the Packard Humanities Institute. Speaking on the subject of Packard and the PHI, director of the UCLA Film and Television Archive Jan-Christopher Horak says that he “can think of no one and no institution which has done more for the cause of film preservation.” Packard’s institute works closely with UCLA, the George Eastman Museum and the Library of Congress to strike new prints of both famous and obscure works of film art. In the beginning of Hollywood’s history, film was quite literally designed to be impermanent. Before 1952, studios’ film negatives were based in nitrate film, which is highly flammable and liable to disintegrate into dust. Kept in improper conditions, nitrate can kick up in flames, as it has in the past. Major studio vault fires (a 1937 one at Fox Studios and a 1967 one at MGM) led to the loss of countless silent, early sound and animated films — works of art which could have completely changed our perception of film history. Nitrate film must be handled with great care and stored under exacting conditions. Over a period of several years, nitrate films break down, especially if left in environments above 70 degrees Fahrenheit or humidities greater than 50 percent. It is usually stored, as in a Culpepper, Virginia location funded by Packard, in underground bunkers with temperatures far below freezing. (The Culpepper “film bunker” was originally built during the Cold War and was used to house U.S. currency.) Nitrate film must then be transferred onto safety film, which, aside from being less flammable, ensures the delicate and damaged film negative can be used as the foundation for a restoration. Here, scratches, sound hiccups and missing frames — basically, all the superfluous errors that distract from the viewing experience — can be removed. The film can thus be restored to its original glory, viewed as it was
when studios shipped prints to theaters in the ‘20s through ‘60s. Home video companies like the Criterion Collection & Janus Films, Masters of Cinema and Kino Lorber specialize in these kinds of restorations. Packard’s foundation helps too — and goes a step further, by electing to screen them in a movie palace like the Stanford. Packard’s approach to his restoration work is monk-like. In a rare interview with the Los Angeles Times, Packard said, “I don’t want to be a person who goes around boasting about doing things.” At the end of the day, Packard considers himself “not a funder, [but] a colleague who has resources to contribute.” He wants the focus aimed not at himself and his efforts, but on his theater and the films themselves. Such invisible maneuvering recalls all the quiet Hollywood directors (Hawks, Minnelli, Cukor) who helmed masterful works of art while remaining hidden under a cloak of collaboration, dedication and perseverance. What the Stanford stands for Above all, what makes the Stanford such a pleasure is the viewing experience. It is both personal and communal. There is the private pleasure of watching characters in the dark, feeling their feelings, embodying their spirit for a few hours. There is also the sense of community, of strangers being in this together, scurrying along the same wavelength and coming out changed. “What I love the most,” Mortensen says, “is the feeling I get when I’m in the auditorium, the lights go down and the curtains open. It’s a magical sensation that never goes away.” What does the spirit of a place like the Stanford represent? It is much more than just a nifty retro exterior at a time when antique is chic. “It’s a time machine,” Mortensen says. “It gives you the experience of what it might have been like to see a movie in 1936, or ’46, or ’56.” Mortensen says the Stanford harkens back to the days of choosing your neighborhood theater. With options such as modern independent fare (the Aquarius, the Cinearts in Palo Alto Square) or blockbuster headsplitters (Century Theatres 16 in Mountain View), the movie palace offers a substantial flavor to the world of Stanford and Palo Alto moviegoing: that of classical Hollywood. “It’s a viewing glass,” Nagano said. “It gives you the experience of watching a movie in 1936, or 1946, or 1956. “It gives you a glimpse at how times have changed, for better or for worse.” Mortensen agrees. “It’s a rare opportunity for people to go back in time,” she said. “Everything here is the way it was in 1925. The original posters, the 35-mm prints, the organ. There’s no other theaters that do what we do.” Contact Carlos Valladares at cvall96@stanford.edu. 17
Courtesy of Jojo Whilden, IFC Films
Q&A: KELLY REICHARDT
Kelly Reichardt is one of the many great talents of American indie moviemaking. The Stanford Daily recently sat down with the director of “Old Joy,” “Meek’s Cutoff,” “Wendy and Lucy” and “Night Moves” to discuss her latest masterpiece, “Certain Women,” starring Kristen Stewart, Laura Dern, Michelle Williams and Lily Gladstone. Reichardt chats on film festival culture, Chantal Akerman, actors, Montana and some of her favorite recent movies. She goes into minute and meticulous detail about her process of walking around on set — a tendency which her great films inherit.
By CARLOS VALLADARES MANAGING EDITOR
The Stanford Daily (TSD): There’s something very off-putting about film festivals, because you’re consuming so much and you’re given very little time to digest, stew, mull over things. Kelly Reichardt (KR): What about the bloggers who write about them the second they’re happening? TSD: Right. I wonder if you’ve run into the same problem, from the perspective of being a filmmaker. KR: From the perspective of being a filmmaker, you’re just really grateful for festivals. A lot of movies won’t even be seen if they’re not seen in festivals. It’s changed over the years, because now festivals are becoming obsessed with invit18
ing movie stars and things like that. Some festivals don’t want to show films unless you have all your stars there. It’s really expensive to put on a festival. And I do think most festivals are in it for showing films that won’t get a mainstream release. It’s just a complicated question. Personally, festivals have only helped me. As harsh as people like to be on Sundance, for instance, Sundance has only helped hugely. I have little money to travel, and the only way I’ve seen any of the world is festivals inviting me places. I would be fibbing if I could be down on festivals. TSD: The film’s acting is astonishing, particularly Lily Gladstone as the rancher. I cried at the climactic long take of her driving away. How did you first encounter her? KR: Lily was in a movie called “Winter in the Blood,” based on a James Walsh novel. And she
loves James Walsh, and I love James Walsh. She heard about us, I heard about her. She sent us a tape and we loved it. She had really good instinct, doing the scene without any direction. TSD: What are her strengths as an actor on set? KR: She’s the least self-conscious person I’ve met. And that holds true, even when the camera is a foot away from her face. She has zero pretension, to the point that I actually worry about her at some points. “You’re too laid out! Too raw! Be careful.” She’s so unguarded, but it’s an amazing thing for an actor to have. TSD: What’s your approach to acting and directing actors? KR: I don’t know that I have some system. Everyone’s different, and you come and have a relationship with them, deal with them. I don’t
try to fit my actors into some deep imprint. Though you have imagined it in your head, on set you’re getting something new that you haven’t seen before, and you’re trying to see if it’s working, even though it’s not what you imagined. And so you’re mourning and letting go at the same time. It might be the most amazing gift. Actors, it’s all kind of happening — you don’t know how people will respond until the scene is played out. Together, you try to move to a completely new place that’s not what the actor imagined, nor what you yourself as the director imagined; it’s just what the life of the film — on that day, that weather, that situation, that dynamic between the three people. TSD: Your films always feature active landscapes, active settings. You never use the backgrounds of Florida or Oregon as pretty window dressing; they actively comment on the characters and shape/sculpt/inform them. I was wondering what your process was for shooting Montana, any major challenges. KR: Cold! Cold, cold, cold. Very cold. Write that down. [laughs] The weather is hard, for so many exteriors. And I know my crew is dying for the day I reveal a script that says, “She walked along the beach in the summertime.” Though of course, the heat was the issue in Florida. You go to a place, and you live there for a while, and you try to catch the rhythms of a place. That’s the most fun part of it: entering some world before the whole crew moves in. When I made “Night Moves,” this film about these environmental activists on a ranch, everything on that farm was about reusing everything, having as minimal a footprint as possible. And then a year later, I’m in Montana, driving this SUV, staying in a cookie-cutter house, where you press the button, and the garage door pops up, and you drive your car in, and you enter through the side door, and this
is my grocery story, and this is my cashier that I’m going to see every couple days, and this is where I do my laundry — feeling the way people live. It’s interesting, it’s fun, it reveals another layer to things, which you otherwise wouldn’t know if you never plopped yourself down somewhere and got into a routine, to know it intimately. TSD: Aha. So, one of my best friends is from Montana — KR: Ooh! Where from? TSD: Somewhere ... oh, what’s it called ... Oh! Kalispell! KR: That’s where Michelle’s from! TSD: Oh really! Michelle Williams! KR: Yes! Have you been there? TSD: I wanted to. Was planning to go this summer break, didn’t pan out, but I’m excited to visit Montana in general, particularly because of this film. It’s interesting, the way you shoot it — the way your [director of photography] Christopher Blauvelt shoots it — it’s like this calm sea of brown. KR: Well, you know, it was going to be a white movie, but it became a brown one instead. Our color scheme was built on the paintings of Milton Avery, who uses lots of browns, beiges, pinks and greens. So I had envisioned the clothes and places to be mixed with a lot of white, making an ultimately white film. And I was looking for a beige ranch. But then the snow didn’t come. Then the ground was brown. But Maile Meloy, who wrote the stories, said that brown is the color she thinks of when she thinks of Montana.
Kristen Stewart stars in Reichardt’s, “Certain Women.”
Courtesy of Jojo Whilden, IFC Films
TSD: You teach undergraduates on how to make films at Bard College. Could you talk on some of the assumptions students make while going in to your classes? KR: Well, the reason that I teach at Bard is because it’s a largely avant-garde program. I generally don’t let people take a narrative class with me until they’ve taken something with Peggy Ahwesh — an experimental feminist filmmaker — or a landscape class with Peter Hutton, who just passed away this summer. But Peter’s philosophy and approach to filmmaking, and to time and the littlest details of life — to have a student spend a semester with Peter, by the time they come to study narrative with me, they have a completely different outlook on film than they would have had. They don’t just wander into a narrative class with nothing. I’ve taught those kind of classes, it’s insanely hard. At Bard, they’ve gone through an initiation process of a different way of experiencing the moving image. I’ve taught at NYU, for which I was just a bad fit. You get indoctrinated with Scorsese, and — nothing wrong with that, but it’s different. Some of my students come in studying other things. Photography, or feminist studies. And I rarely come across someone trying to make a calling-card narrative. It’s just not the same scene there. And so, which is why I’m lucky to teach there. Anything we can squeeze in about Peter Hutton. He’s such an important filmmaker, and so beloved and missed. TSD: On that note of Hutton, are there any filmmakers of recent whom you admire that you wish more people knew of? KR: Well, by now, I hope people would know the films of Peggy Ahwesh. I actually stole the title of “Certain Women” from one of her films. She’s a super intuitive filmmaker with a good sense of humor. But it’s hard. I haven’t watched films as much as I used to, because I’ve recently been in this constant state of production. I enjoy Lukas Moodysson, he did “We are the Best!” But I’m so late to everything; I don’t have my finger on the pulse of the world of new cinema. As everyone did, I really enjoyed “Tangerine”; that was exciting to see. But I’m hoping that people remember Peter Hutton; his wonderful personality almost overshades what an important filmmaker he is. [laughs] I need more time! I should have a little list like it. I use different films in my classes, obviously, but I sometimes wreck them for myself because I watch them so many times. Contact Carlos Valladares at cvall96@stanford. edu. 19
Farewell to Milky Way Season Photos by Ryan Jae All of these images except for one were shot in Northern California – from Big Sur to just outside my hometown, Sacramento, during the 2016 Milky Way Season. I got into photography via astrophotography, and this gallery includes the first Milky Way pictures I ever took. You can see the passing of time in both the exposures and in the post-processing. The one outlier image is the picture of the harvest moon – this one is taken over the Andes Mountains in Patagonia. Most people are unaware that just 30 minutes to one hour away from Stanford campus are skies free enough from light pollution to see the entire galactic arm with the naked eye.
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Clockwise from top left: Flower field and Pigeon Point Lighthouse under the early Milky Way (first astrophotography image I ever took) Last Milky Way image of me next to a beach bonfire in Davenport with the lateseason vertical “unicorn� Milky Way orientation Dawn in Patagonia Bonfires at the Davenport Beach earlier in the season Rancho Seco Nuclear Power Plant Milky Way over completely dark skies in Big Sur Long exposure of late night traffic amid foggy conditions at Bixby Bridge The picture-perfect McWay Falls in Big Sur under the Milky Way Perseid meteor shower 21
The Daily editorial staff pauses to take a photo before last year’s rollouts. Rollouts are a Stanford tradition during which newly-admitted group members are hauled from their beds in the early morning.
Life After Rollouts
Photo by SAM GIRVIN/The Stanford Daily
I
heard you didn’t get into that thing you wanted to get into.
There, there — have a scented, multicolored luxury tissue. Take a seat, make yourself comfortable. No need to hold back the tears, or bottle up those feelings of inadequacy that will more than likely haunt you for the rest of your life until you either see a proper therapist or fail to obtain a six- to 12-figure salary and/or a stub on Wikipedia. Welcome to the Rejection Recovery Support Focus Group. We’re all steaming hot messes.
By Vivian Lam
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I won’t say rejection is a blessing, but rejection is a blessing. You probably thought you were done with the whole applications and interviews thing (unless, of course, you’re thinking of going to grad school — in which case, you might want to consider a Pro Membership to our group). You slaved away in high school and worked so hard to become enough of a quasi-saint genius to pass through the pearly gates of Elite Education. You’ve already realized upon arriving at this nirvana that you’re a small fish in an accomplished pond full of Olympic athletes, 18-year-old CEOs and at least 500 researchers on the cusp of discovering some cure to cancer. Surely you’ve earned a break from competing in more show pony hoop-jumping. But alas, nothing is guaranteed. Especially not admission to a number of performing arts groups, campus publications, preprofessional organizations, sports teams and other highly coveted clubs. Not even courses you supposedly paid to get access to in your tuition are necessarily available to you. Emails with rainbow-font text and curated GIFs flood your inbox with deceptive glee —“Everyone is encouraged to apply!” So you do. You send in application after application, bringing practiced confidence, flair and enthusiasm to interviews before stone-faced upperclassmen asking you about your passions and zodiac sign while completing at least one CS assignment that was due yesterday. Soon, thunder rolls down the dorm hallways at arse o’clock in the morning for five consecutive days. Levels of killer intent rise with each appearance of rally gear, banshee shrieks and over-caffeinated door-pounding. An hour later, your fellow hallmates emerge from their rooms transformed, new crests emblazoned on their door. “Wow, he’s a Mendicant,” your roommate — the one kid who got a 98 percent on the Math 51X midterm — whispers in hushed reverence. Meanwhile you can’t help but gaze at the heraldry with a sinking heart — there’s someone in BASES, another in Cardinal Free Clinics, another in Dv8, another in the elusive Stanford Underwater Basket Weav-
ing Club. Was all the hullaballoo about Open Membership Policy just a sham? By the end of the “OMG WHAT AM I DOING THIS SUMMER” application rush (spanning from Week 1 fall quarter to Week 11 spring), you’ll probably find yourself despairing over the sizable pile of rejections on your desktop, ready to topple over and bury you in your incompetency. And you might start wondering whether or not you were a mistake — a bastard child of good scores with no substance, of admission by manumission from extenuating circumstances, of a mixup of names or vaguely conspiratorial alien abduction. You might start feeling unbelievably small, inadequate and lost. You came all this way to do something meaningful, and here you are, unwanted. We’ve all been there. And I promise you — things will work out. I know that sounds like a massive cop-out — “Things will work out.” And it is. Go to any “Life after Graduation” event, and there will inevitably be the same reassurances from established alumni with decent amounts of discretionary income, approximately 2.1 children and a dog: In spite of the failures you will face, you will inevitably find the happiness and success you’ve always dreamed of. But what if you just … kept failing? Statistically speaking, this is definitely possible. No one can say with absolute confidence that things will be alright. Not I, nor can any wellmeaning mentors. You may very well fail your way out of college, or find that no one wants to hire you in spite of your prestigious-AF Stanford degree, or end up dying alone in a bathtub sipping cheap rosé wine. Just because you went to Stanford doesn’t mean you’re destined for greatness or that you’ll necessarily make the impact that you wanted to make — inside and outside of the University. “Things will work out” doesn’t mean that things will miraculously fall into place on their own or that you’ll necessarily end up achieving what you had dreamed of doing since you were in the womb. When someone tells you “things will work out,” it’s a statement of confidence in your capacity to change, learn and grow in order to reach a place where you feel happy with where you are and whom you have become. And utter rejection is a great place to start. You can take the “just you wait” approach — accept the fact that you’re young, scrappy,
hungry and underqualified, and you need to start small. Take on more supportive roles in organizations that are willing to trust and nurture beginners. Take classes and read up more on your field of interest. Talk to people who are where you’d like to be and ask them about how they got there. Find mentors who can point you to opportunities and helpful contacts. Say “yes” to everything, and gradually infiltrate the field. And once a big job that you’re somewhat unqualified for comes up, take it and get ready to learn. You’ll soon gain enough experience to be so qualified that you’ll simultaneously wow and scare your employers. You can also take this nebulous state of rejection as an opportunity to explore activities you haven’t considered before. Even the most impromptu experiences can teach you invaluable skills and ways to look at the world. Find low-stake spaces where it is safe to fail, and get ready to learn. As Tracee Ellis Ross said, you’ll slowly learn every day to allow the space between where you are and where you want to be to inspire you and not terrify you. And don’t let rejection deter you from pursuing what matters to you. There’s a long list of people who have gone through this before you. There is nothing to be afraid of. I won’t say rejection is a blessing, but rejection is a blessing. In the long term, you’ve potentially avoided an existential crisis from blindly following a default path that has led you to depression and self-loathing. But the most invaluable part of rejection comes from the painful dissonance that forces you to do things differently. You’ve been given time to learn about how to seek help and guidance. You’ve thought about what matters most to you and what legacy you want to leave. And now you have the opportunity to grow in ways you might not have thought possible. We’re all here for a “reason.” But no admissions officer or professed authority can say this reason promises success or acceptance. Only we can create the meaning of that reason and justify what makes our lives worthwhile. Every now and then, “look at where you are, look at where you started,” and discover what would be enough for you. Use the “intellectual vitality” and passion that got you here, and find a place where you feel at home. And definitely try again next year. Contact Vivian Lam at vivlam25@stanford.edu.
23
The Seven Best Places for Grabbing a Healthy Bite off Campus W
ith the disappearance of Fraiche on campus, (let’s all take a moment of silence, please) campus is feeling a little short on nutritious and delicious dining options that extend beyond Coupa and CoHo. Thankfully, even though campus may
by Maggie Harriman seem a bit lacking in healthy options you can find out of your dining hall or row house, options off-campus are expanding. With the start of the school year comes a new crop of new dining options, offering nutritious and seasonal fare. in the Bay Area. sweetgreen places a heavy focus on seasonal menu items and ingredients. Everything from the falafel to their drinks is made in house from scratch daily. All of their veggies are locally sourced from farms nearby, and if you’re curious just where they’re from, you can check it out on their chalkboard inside. In a hurry? You can order online and it will be ready for you to pick up right when you get in the store.
what to try
1
The new “Chicken + Brussels” salad, full of roasted sweet potato, roasted Brussels sprouts, chicken, and a cranberry vinaigrette, or the “Shroomami,” which has organic wild rice, shredded kale, raw beets, bean sprouts, basil, spicy sunflower seeds, roasted sesame tofu, warm portobello mix, and a miso sesame ginger dressing.
sweetgreen
This East Coast favorite has finally made it out West, and is thankfully putting down some roots 3
Tender Greens
This nice-casual newcomer at Stanford Shopping Center offers a mix + match menu of healthy veggies, salads, and delicious different protein options. Choose from any of their big salads, or build a plate complete with a protein, mashed potatoes or a veggie side, and a choice of one of their simple salads. 4
Bare Bowls
Chances are you’ve already tried Bare’s acai bowls (or at least have heard a lot about them,) and they make the perfect breakfast or light lunch. Choose from 9 different bowl options, filled with homemade nut butters, homemade nut milk, and topped with all different kinds of toppings, like gluten free granola, coconut, Photos courtesy of @recoveryanddiscovery (top left, top right, bottom right) and @spoon_stanford (bottom left) on Instagram 24
goji berries, berries… you name it. You can also choose from a variety of different smoothies, or pick any of their awesome health products and snacks on display.
what to try
“The Unplugged,” which is a cacao acai bowl topped with crushed almonds, granola, cacao nibs, banana and honey. It’s basically chocolate ice cream in a bowl. You won’t believe it’s actually good for you. 5
PokéLOVE
PokéLOVE puts a spin on the traditional pokè bowl by adding a diverse variety of mix-ins to their menu. The average bowl is less than 500 calories, and they don’t skimp on the portion sizes. You can pick a base of healthy grains or greens, top it with a variety of fresh lean, protein filled pokè, add in as many veggies as you want, and mix it with a bunch of different homemade, gluten free sauces. You can even choose avocado and soft poached eggs as toppings, if you’re feeling a bit fancy.
Hungry, but want something fast, relatively inexpensive, AND healthy? You aren’t asking for too much. Here’s a list of both old classic favorites and some awesome newcomers to the Palo Altor restaurant scene that highlight the best places to grab a healthy bite off campus. 2
Lemonade
Lemonade rocks their assembly line format… the only problem is not getting to the end of the line and realizing you ordered pretty much everything they had to choose from. Choose from seasonal salads, hot soups and stews, different proteins, and of course, over 7 types of lemonade. No fear for people with dietary sensitivities; all food allergies are labeled on the selections as you go through the line.
what to try
Load up on their avocado, cherry tomato, lime, and pine nut salad. Feeling indulgent? Their mac and cheese is awesome. And obviously, you have to try their lemonade (blood orange is sure to be a big hit!)
6
Blue Bottle Coffee
Blue Bottle is known for more than their awesome and very SF hipster approved coffee; they know how to do great food too. You can choose from an awesome variety of both savory and sweet breakfast items, salads, or sandwiches. 7
True Food Kitchen
True Food, which opened just last week, offers an extensive menu for brunch, lunch, and dinner, and a huge, beautiful restaurant space at Stanford Shopping Center. True Food Kitchen has become the perfect place for any group meal or reasonably priced nice meal out. Their menu is produce based, featuring many vegetarian options and also grass fed meat, poultry, and sustainably sourced fish. As an added plus, everything on their menu can be made gluten free.
R
DIS UPT By SAMANTHA BLOOM GUEST SUBMISSION
ACT I SCENE 1
INT. Coffee Shop – Day.
We see a bustling coffee shop with the sign “Billz Coffee” hanging above the counter. Another sign is posted reading “Daily Special: Yuzu Pitaya Cooler.” Customers sit at tables or wait in line, including TESS, CHARLES, PATENT TROLL, CODER, YOGA MOM, DAD-TYPE, MIDWEST MAN, BASIC WHITE WOMAN, and LUCY. Behind the counter are two baristas – JOE and ALEC, both in aprons with large name tags affixed to them.
JOE: Welcome to Billz, what can I get ya? TESS: SMALL CAFE CORTADO JOE: Next. CHARLES: LATTE MACCHIATO JOE: Next. PATENT TROLL: COFFEE WITH COINTREAU? JOE: Next. CODER: LONG BLACK AND A FLAT WHITE, GOT A HACK SESH LATER TONIGHT JOE : (with distaste) Next. YOGA MOM: MAKE MINE HALF-CAF, ALRIGHT? DAD-TYPE: (pointing to Joe’s name tag) Hey, a cup of Joe, Joe. JOE: Never heard that one before. Next? TO THEM I’M JUST JOE JOE SCHMO
AVERAGE JOE, DISDAINED WRITTEN OFF AS SLOPPY JOE JUST MISSING HIS PLAIN JANE. THEN THERE’S JOE THE PLUMBER, THANKS TO PALIN AND MCCAIN. THE NAMES JUST GET DUMBER. THIS COFFEE GUY IS DRAINED JUST JOE SIX-PACK THE MACCHIATO AFICIONADO. THE FRAPPUCCINO HACK. MIDWEST MAN: Hey there, Cappuccino cowboy. One Expresso to go! JOE: We only serve espresso. Next. WISH THEY KNEW WHO I USED TO BE BEFORE MY STARTUP DROWNED PEOPLE ACTUALLY WORKED FOR ME NOW LOOK WHAT I’M AROUND: YOGA PANTS AND BAD IMPLANTS VCS AND BOURGEOISIE DESIGN THINKER JAVA DRINKER STARTUP SHMUCKS IN HYBRID TRUCKS (Addressing audience) Take a look. 25
CHARLES: DROPPED OUT OF SCHOOL BROKE ALL THE RULES FOLLOWED WHERE THE MONEY ROLLS – I MEAN MY PHILANTHROPIC GOALS JOE: Venture capitalism its ugly head.
rears
YOGA MOM: LULULEMONS BRING ME ZEN THEN MY MANICURE AT TEN MEDITATION CLEARS MY SOUL AREN’T I SO ROCK N’ ROLL? JOE: One more round of Botox and she’ll be faker than a college kid’s ID. CODER: CODE. CODE. CODE. DRINK. SO TIRED I CAN’T THINK. HACKATHON AND TONS OF STRESS HOODIES BE MY FANCY DRESS. JOE: Phsh...nothing but a BS in CS. BASIC WHITE WOMAN: Um, excuse me. One venti mocha frappuccino with soy and an extra shot, whipped cream and caramel drizzle on top to go. JOE: No. CHARLES: DROPPED OUT OF SCHOOL BROKE ALL THE RULES FOLLOWED WHERE THE MONEY ROLLS – I MEAN MY PHILANTHROPIC GOALS
Next?
LUCY: (teasing) Well what about me?
LUCY: Hi there! Joe stares blankly at Lucy. There is an awkward silence. JOE: Are you gonna order something? LUCY: I’m Lucy...I start today. JOE: Right. LUCY: And you are? There is another awkward silence as Lucy looks at Joe expectantly. JOE: (tapping his name tag) Kinda the whole point of this big guy. No small talk needed. LUCY: Normal people usually introduce themselves.
JOE: (mimes looking around the cafe) Nope, no normals here.
a large crash from becounter. Joe looks sees Alec taking a coffee maJOE: Jesus, Alec, would it kill you to actually make a cup of coffee? It’s only what they pay you for.
register so looks like you’ll be making drinks with the Nutty Professor over there.
LUCY: Oh, I actually thought I could do the regis – Another loud crash emanates from Alec’s workstation. JOE: (ironically) Welcome to Billz. Joe reaches underneath the counter and hands Lucy an apron. Lucy comes behind the counter, looking unsure of herself. Alec continues to tinker. Charles walks up to the register holding his drink, looking displeased.
CODER: CODE. CODE. CODE. DRINK. SO TIRED I CAN’T THINK. HACKATHON AND TONS OF STRESS HOODIES BE MY FANCY DRESS
26
There is hind the over and apart chine.
JOE SCHMO THAT’S ALL I’LL EVER BE – Alec simply mutters BARISTA, COFFEE and continues Doing GUY his modifications. Joe THAT’S ALL resignedly shrugs. THEY’LL EVER JOE: I’m working the SEE.
YOGA MOM: LULULEMONS BRING ME ZEN THEN MY MANICURE AT TEN MEDITATION CLEARS MY SOUL AREN’T I SO ROCK N’ ROLL?
JOE: AVERAGE JOE, DISDAINED. TO THEM I’M JUST JOE. JOE SCHMO THAT’S ALL I’LL EVER BE BARISTA, COFFEE GUY THAT’S ALL THEY’LL EVER SEE.
JOE: (flirtatious) Eh, stick around here long enough and I’m sure I can find something wrong with ya. (beat) For what it’s worth, I’m Joe –
CHARLES: (Clearing his throat) Excuse me? Excuse me. JOE: (reluctantly acknowledging him) Something wrong, Sir? CHARLES: This latte is supposed to have soymilk in it. JOE: May I see the drink, Sir? Illustration by SUNNY LI/The Stanford Daily
Joe takes the cup and makes a show of examining the drink,
smelling it, tasting it, etc. Charles taps his foot. JOE: (mock deferential) My apologies, Sir. It seems we mistook you for a one-percent man. (looks Charles up and down) I can’t imagine why. (beat) I will get our newest barista on the job. Lucy, kindly fix this man’s coffee. LUCY: (nervously) Sure thing. JOE (to Charles, playing dumb) What was it you wanted again? CHARLES: Latte. Macchiato. With. Soymilk. Make it quick. JOE: Of course. And that’s for who again? LUCY: (said before Charles can answer) Charles Jones of Red Letter Capital. Just made the Forbes’ Midas List. Nice to meet you! Why don’t you take a seat while I take care of this? Joe and Charles look at Lucy, both surprised. Charles shakes his head then walks back to his table. Joe suspiciously eyes Lucy. JOE: Forbes’ Midas List? That’s a strange one to have at your fingertips. LUCY: It’s a--a...hobby. JOE: Normal people make artisan honey or something. LUCY: Then I’m not so normal after all. JOE: Go on then. Make his coffee. Lucy nervously approaches the coffee machine. Joe scrutinizes her for a moment before turning to the register. LUCY: (whispering) Pssst! Alec.
Alec!
Alec looks up from the pile of parts he is working with. LUCY: You’ve got to help me! I--I don’t know how to do this –
Joe turns back to Lucy. JOE: So, how are things going over there? Lucy scrambles and pulls a random lever on the coffee machine. LUCY: Umm...great! Just--getting used to this new machine! I had a...743 Super Deluxe at my last job. Joe looks skeptical again but is diverted by another customer at the register. LUCY: Alec! Please! Alec leaves his tinkering, and quickly makes a coffee for her. He hands it back to Lucy just as Joe turns around. LUCY: (relieved) Order up! I’ll go bring this to Mr. Jones. She places the coffee at Charles’ table, then returns to behind the counter. JOE: Looks like you’re getting the hang of things. LUCY: Yeah! JOE: Just above me.
don’t
get
promoted
The following dialogue and stage directions are underscored and show the passage of several days. Lucy, Joe, and Alec mime working at the counter and talking with one another. When she thinks n o
THEN I’M NOT SO NORMAL AFTER ALL.
o n e is looking, Lucy also takes out a notebook and begins jotting things down. Alec looks at her, intrigued. Customers approach, ordering more coffees. They gradually trickle out. The lighting reflects the changing time of day.
JOE: Ah, closing at last. Lucy, Joe and Alec sweep up, take off their aprons, and erase the daily special from the board. LUCY: Goodnight! ALEC: Night. Lucy, Joe and Alec exit. The lighting changes again to daylight. Joe re-enters, a new day. He puts on his apron and begins moving chairs around. Lucy enters shortly after and begins helping Joe. Alec enters last and immediately goes back to tinkering with the machines. JOE: (to Lucy) Got you a little something. He pulls out a name tag with “Lucy” written in the same size and font as his and Alec’s. LUCY: (joking) For me? You shouldn’t have. Joe writes the daily special on the board – it now reads: “Honey-Lime Spritzer.” Customers begin lining up and mime ordering their drinks. Joe takes orders at the register while Lucy attempts to make drinks, often calling on Alec for assistance. She also continues to covertly jot things down in her notebook. The lighting shifts again to indicate the end of the day and the customers trickle out. Joe sweeps up while Lucy erases the daily special from the board. Alec cleans up his tinkering. Joe forgets to remove his apron as he moves to the door. JOE: (to Lucy) So, you’re not quitting on me yet? LUCY: What – no, of course not. I’ll be back tomorrow. JOE: (smiles) Good--(beat) Iit’s nice having you here. Good night. LUCY: Good night. Joe exits hurriedly with an 27
embarrassed smile on his face. Lucy takes off her apron. She turns around to find Alec right behind her. She yelps in surprise. The underscored music stops. ALEC: I know why you’re here. Lucy looks alarmed. LUCY: What do you mean? I’m just here to w--
ing people’s coffee orders under the guise of an internship? LUCY: (clearly lying) There... there weren’t any jobs left! I mean I had a few interviews but – JOE: None? C’mon. You’re part of Women in Business. Surely you could have networked yourself into something better? LUCY: Well...
Alec reaches into his pocket and takes out Lucy’s wallet.
JOE: What are you doing here? Spit it out.
LUCY: Hey! That’s mine! When did you even get that...
LUCY: (hesitates) I’m here for research. For a startup. Plus, I’m strapped for cash. Two birds, one stone.
Lucy trails off and pats her pockets to see if Alec has stolen anything else. Meanwhile, Alec opens the wallet and takes out a Women in Business card. LUCY: So? ALEC: Women in Business. LUCY: So what? Joe reenters, looking slightly embarrassed and holding his apron. Alec and Lucy look up in alarm and freeze. JOE: Almost walked out wearing this – He notices how stiff Alec and Lucy are. JOE: You two having all the fun without me? LUCY: No! He stole my wallet! JOE: Alec. How many times have we talked about this? Alec hands the Women in Business card to Joe. Joe looks confused.
JOE: (sighs) Ugh. LUCY: What’s the problem? I really want to make a difference. JOE: That’s what they all say. LUCY: No really. WHEN I WAS YOUNG I HELD MY TONGUE AND WHAT HAPPENED? MY IDEAS WENT UNSUNG SILENCE HUNG I NEVER MADE A PEEP OR A RIPPLE. WHEN I WAS EIGHT, TOOK A TRIP TO THE LAKE SKIPPING ROCKS UNTIL LATE. THEN SOMETHING HAPPENED. WITH EACH ROCK, THE SURFACE QUAKED THE WATER DANCED, IT SET ME STRAIGHT. I DROPPED A BIG ROCK IN SAW WATER DROPLETS SPLASH SAW
JOE: You finished college? LUCY: Uh, yeah. JOE: Then shouldn’t you be tak28
TAXIS ARE TACKY PAPER MONEY, POINTLESS. MOVIES MUST STREAM AND ANDROIDS DO DREAM – OF STARTUPS. YOU’VE GOT TO – YOU’VE GOTTA – DISRUPT. THEY SAY SHOOT FOR THE MOON AND YOU’LL END UP WITH THE STARS BUT I SAY GO BIGGER: BE A LUNAR TYCOON AND MAKE THE TIDE. YOU’VE GOT TO – DISRUPT BE ABRUPT. DON’T BE ONE-UPPED. ALEC: RIPPLES JUST AREN’T ENOUGH. LUCY: BE LIKE THE SALMON AND SWIM UPSTREAM. THROW CONVENTION OUT THE WINDOW AND THEN BREAK THE CURRENT REGIME. GO ’GAINST LET ENBUILD
THE GRAIN. TROPY REIGN. A HILL ON THE PLAIN. BREAK THE ENDLESS REFRAIN AND –
-U-P-T.
D-I-S-R
-U-P-T.
D-I-S-R
T.
-PU R S D-I
JOE: (to Lucy) Women in Business? LUCY: (sheepishly) From college. What’s the big deal?
TO MAKE IT IN THE VALLEY, THERE’S A SAYING, DON’T YOU KNOW? THERE’S ONE THING YOU’VE GOT TO DO YOU’VE GOT TO--DISRUPT. BE ABRUPT. DON’T BE ONE-UPPED. RIPPLES JUST AREN’T ENOUGH.
THE SURFACE CHURN AND SPIN AND LEARNED THE VALUE OF BEING BRASH. NOW I’M GROWN BROKEN OUT ON MY OWN. THE ONCE QUIET GIRL IS READY TO UNFURL.
LUCY/ALEC: ONE THING YOU’VE GOTTA DO! LUCY: YOU’VE GOT TO DISRUPT! BE ABRUPT! DON’T BE ONE-UPPED RIPPLES JUST AREN’T ENOUGH. YOU’VE GOTTA DISRUPT!
HUMOR
A retrospective for home. By Joshua Fagel COLUMNIST
Mom, You remember me when I lived in your house? Remember when I needed your help on my calculus homework and college essays every night? Remember when I had to wait for you to get home so that somebody would cook dinner? Remember telling me that I’m a dependent, uncultured piece of shit who can’t do anything on my own and will never find friends or love? Well, after living here at Stanford (I hope you still brag to your friends about that one!) for a month, I realize that I am a different man. Through my abundance of experiences dealing with classes, clubs and drugs, I’ve become extremely sophisticated. You always liked when I took the hardest classes in high school, so that’s why I made the tough personal decision to take this computer science class called 106A (it’s in the 100s to signify how difficult and advanced it is), and let me tell you, in just one month, I can already make a robot move around on the screen. Bet you didn’t think your little boy would work at Google someday, huh? Additionally, because you always wanted me to be more thoughtful, I took a class called Thinking Matters. It’s been such an introspective experience so far! Finally, in terms of classes, I’m taking a writing class called PWR (pronounced “power,” like the Kanye West song, who’s a rapper I listen to now because I’m cultured), in which I’ve been writing essays all by myself. Intellectual and independent at the same time, two things you said I would never be! See? College has changed me. I’ve also transformed into the mature man that I am today by joining some cool clubs! In high school, all of the years you forced me to practice drumming paid off. Now I’m in the respected Stanford Marching Band! The drummers thought I was so good that they let me play a kitchen sink! Isn’t that quirky and alternative? Another club I joined was the Stanford Republicans. At the activities fair, they handed me a flier that said, “Are you a self-sufficient student who doesn’t want or need regulations or assistance from a higher power?” And I said “YES!” The club has allowed me to meet others who have changed so much since high school and just want their mothers to love them. That is, I now have friends with common qualities! Another lens through which to observe how much I’ve changed since high school is my newfound love for experimenting with substances. Now, I’m just like Grant Walters, the super cool alcohol-drinker in high school that you said you wished was your son! I’ve become so “in” that I get invited to all-campus parties on Facebook, and I’m always the first to arrive and last to leave. And since you always told me that it doesn’t matter how good I am unless I’m better than others, I wanted to let you know that my RA came into my room yesterday to tell me I was the most dangerous drinker in the dorm. You always wanted me to be the best! Look at me now, Mom! Please love me, Your little boy
Contact Josh Fagel at jfagel@stanford.edu. 29
B rch, p ease
I
grew up in a sunny, little town called Suwanee just outside of Atlanta, Georgia. Living in the South with parents from the Midwest, you’re right to assume that I learned a thing or two about being polite! I’m sure you remember some rules like, “always say hello to every adult in the room before you go play your friends,” or “remember to say please and thank you.” You may assume those rules are on par with the sort of rules I learned growing up, right? Birch, please. We took your simple pleasantries and shifted them into 12TH GEAR: I’ll say “yes ma’am” and “yes sir” to dogs that are older than me. If you have the audacity to do me a favor, you’ll have a handwritten thank-you note stamped and delivered to your doorstep, tied to a fruitcake, before you’ve even finished saying, “Sure, Sam, you beautifully chiseled man, I can do that.” At the table, my manners can only be described as Jack McBrayer mixed with Opie from “The Andy Griffith Show.” Oh, you think manners are your ally? You merely adopted decorum; I was born in it, molded by it. I didn’t see impropriety until I was already a man; by then it was nothing to me but blinding! That being said, when the internet tweets at me at ungodly hours in the morning, I don’t hold back (see Tweet below): Roasted. Except during a brief period in middle school when I went as Justin Bieber for Halloween… (Oh god… why!?)…I have never really had to deal with aggressive haters. My ascension to Tree has changed all of that, and I’ve had to employ some new, politely vulgar, strategies for defense. This week’s column is dedicated to fighting fire with nuclear BOMBS of truth on the Twittersphere. Let’s get ‘em fam.
1 want to be pro-punching-you-in-the-face.
2
1. Dear Muertespin, Before I even begin, I will gladly acknowledge that I retweeted this post to my followers. As a gentleman, I give credit where credit is due. Yours was a well-earned jab, and I commend you for taking your shot. Still, sometimes I look at Twitter and
2. Dear Sophie (Apple Emoji), A few things… You. Think. I’m… “Dog scary -||”!?!? I’m not quite sure what that means because dogs are pretty cute, in my experience, but I am certain that that little symbol you stuck in there is drenched — soused — with umbrage, you sad, pathetic internet user. Now, allow me to address your handle: @DefinitelyMaybe. DEFINTELY, MAYBE (2003) ISN’T EVEN THAT GOOD OF A MOVIE. I mean, it was heartwarming film acting as a nice romantic escape from the stress of everyday life… but it was also one of Ryan Reynolds’ least memorable performances! Take that! There 30
By Sam Weyen COLUMNIST
are literally dozens of better options. You could’ve gone with @TheProposal or @Deadpool… This is a fine example of wasted potential. Never make me use Bing to translate your trash again. 3. DEAR KAM, I THINK YOUR CAPSLOCK KEY MAY BE BROKEN. HAVE NO FEAR, BRETHREN, AS THE SAME PROBLEM HAPPENED TO MY COMPUTER. I’VE COMPILED A LIST OF WEBSITES THAT MAY HELP YOU SOLVE THE PROBLEM. CHEERS, COMPANION!
3
>http://uncapslock.com/ >http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-simple-steps-to-not-being-total-asshole/ >http://mackcollier.com/five-reasons-why-no-one-likes-you-on-twitter/ >http://www.dictionary.com/browse/jerk?s=t >http://fun-fact.net/these-are-actual-websites/exceptfor-this-one?/ >http://thank-you.org/for.reading-my!articles/luvSam 4. Dear Janna, Actually, this one is pretty spot-on. Touché, Janna. Touché. --------
4
As you can see, I am wellversed in the ways of polite discourse, as my parents hoped to teach me growing up in Suwanee. I am willing to admit, however, that the Tree family has tried to instill in me some… newer values, and I see myself falling in line with them more and more. Values such as, “take pride when the Cal crowd boos at you.” Or “never miss the chance to twerk on an angry fan.” The wisdom of the Trees is boundless. I’ve even started to edit some of my old aphorisms: “Always say hello to every adult in the room… unless they are USC fans, in which case steal their wallet and throw up on their clothing,” or more fittingly, “remember to say Trees and thank you.” To the users of Twitter near and far: Thank you for the love, and Trees keep it coming. To Kam: I really hope you get your computer fixed, bro. — Sam Weyen Contact Sam Weyen at sweyen@stanford.edu.
OH SO MANY ACRONYMS By DAVID STEINBERG CONTRIBUTOR
Across 1. ___ California (Mexican peninsula) 5. Was too fond of, with “on” 10. Deliberately ignore 14. Bay ___ 15. Health scare before Zika virus 16. Toothpaste container 17. Salt Lake City’s state 18. Demo car, for one 20. Geologic timespan 21. “Hold on a second” 22. Chemically unreactive 23. Toy that moves while staying in place 27. Rock shelf 28. Curly-haired dogs 32. Make a book into a movie 34. Wriggly sea creature 35. French for yes 36. Whiskey-flavored liqueur brand 41. Ref. whose 2015 word of the year was an emoji
42. Place for a mouse 43. Dannon Greek yogurt line 44. Where Putin lives 47. It makes lips shiny 49. Martini-drinking time 53. Palindromic boat 56. Sephora competitor 57. CS major’s favorite animal? 58. Make money off of 61. Cap and ___ 62. Stare at creepily 63. Vowel quintet 64. Verbal slam competitor 65. Jab playfully 66. Leases, as a textbook 67. Does some sums
Down 1. Eddie ___ (clothing brand) 2. Detoo of “Star Wars” 3. Actor/martial artist Van Damme 4. “That feels great!” 5. Remove a pointy 7-Down from
6. Do a favor for 7. Molar, for instance 8. ‘70s band that sang “Evil Woman” 9. ___ es Salaam, Tanzania 10. High on Mary Jane 11. Like brave FMOTQ attendees 12. Ride-sharing app 13. Dress pants supporter 19. Japanese tofu soup 21. Opposite of height 24. Didn’t discard 25. Oil cartel initials 26. Caramel-filled Hershey’s candy 29. Be your beautiful self 30. ___trash (annual frat party) 31. Enjoys a recliner 32. Indian intern in “Dilbert” 33. Suffix with evil or wrong 34. Conclude 37. Like a major fail 38. Class ___ (common high school transcript stat)
39. Money, in old slang 40. Salmon or sea bass 45. Antivirus software brand 46. Thor’s mischievous brother 47. Awkward guy 48. ___ test (pH indicator) 50. Italian city that hosted the 2006 Winter Olympics 51. Not yet married 52. Smallest puppies 53. PSY’s music genre 54. 2012 Ben Affleck film set in Iran 55. Yellow egg part 59. Paving goo 60. Lawyer’s charge 61. Transcript stat, for short
Solution on back page. Contact David Steinberg at davids19@stanford.edu. 31
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