Volume 108, Issue 11

The Spectator The Stuyvesant High School Newspaper

Volume 108 No. 11

March 19, 2018

“The Pulse of the Student Body” stuyspec.com

sing! 2018 CONTENT PAGES 11 - 22

By sophie watwood

Photos by Zoe Oppenheimer, Elena Sapelyuk, and Sophie Watwood

At about 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, March 14, approximately 1,000 students walked out of their third period classes and headed for the scanners, intending to participate in a schoolsanctioned protest advocating for stronger legislation of the NRA and similar organizations and measures against gun violence in schools. Students were asked to swipe out before leaving the building.

“I’m walking out because I believe in common sense gun control, and I think that there’s more for the U.S. government to do to help students like us, and all Americans, live in a safer place,” said junior Julia Arancio.

Once outside, participants crossed Chambers Street with the assistance of faculty in orange visibility vests, some holding “Stop: Fire Drill” signs. A group of about 20 alumni stood on the corner of Chambers and North End Avenue holding signs and yelling, “The Alumni are with you!”

When Herbert Navarro (‘55) was asked why he supported the protest, he responded, “Do we have a choice? I don’t.”

Protesters then walked down the ramp into the Citi Green Fields, where people gathered as organizers from Stuy Says ENOUGH! (SSE!) made speeches into megaphones, which were inaudible from the back third

of the crowd. This included saying the names of the 17 killed in the Parkland shooting and leading the group in chants, including “We want change,” and “Stuy Says Enough!”

“It was really disorganized.

We first went to the Citi Green Fields, and that kinda felt like a dead end. I felt like […] the group was just cattle being herded. And nothing much was being done,” said junior Chelsea Cheung.

“At first it was kind of boring, as state-sanctioned protests tend to be,” said senior Connie Walden.

Freshman Isabelle Sanderson commented, “So far the walkout has been very empowering. It’s a very communal student movement. I will say it’s a tad bit unorganized, but I think that just means everyone has so many opinions and they want to be heard, which is very good.”

The protest proved its point for many students, however, and with approximately a thousand students in attendance, it was clear to how large a portion of the student body this issue felt significant.

“I didn’t expect a lot of people to walk out, but I was really surprised by the number of people who did walk out and support this. I’m really proud of us as a school,” said junior Tiffany Chen. continued on page 2

Features

Lights, Cameras, Action: Hanna and World War I Heroes in the Spotlight

Freshman Talia Kahan covers history teacher David Hanna’s upcoming appearance in a documentary about the Lafayette Escadrille. see page 6

OPINIONS

The Olympics: Leveling the Playing Field

Freshman Angela Wong determines what exactly goes into bringing home the gold, and how the Olympics can foster fairer competition. see page 23

The Spectator ● March 19, 2018

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News Walkout!

NEWSBEAT Sarah Chen won the Ezra Jack Keats Bookmaking Competition and her Senior

work will be presented at the 32nd Annual Awards Ceremony on Friday, May 18 at the Brooklyn Public Library.

Junior Nikki Daniels has been selected to display her project on women’s history at the Office of Counseling

Support Programs’ Women’s History Mini Museum.

Additionally, she’s been invited to the Women’s History event on March 22 at the DOE’s Tweed Courthouse building.

American Mathematics Competition (AMC), 68 Stuyvesant stuAfter taking the

dents have qualified to take the AIME this year.

Senior Aryan Bhatt qualified for the second round of the

F=MA: Physics Olympiad Exam which will be given on Wednesday, April 11.

48

students received awards at the city level of the National History Day competition, sweeping first, second, and third place in all group categories, including exhibit board, film, performance, and website.

continued from page 1

“I’m really surprised that people even made signs, because I thought a lot of people were just doing this to cut, and it shows that people actually care, and it’s not just an excuse for people to not go to school,” said junior Florence Luo. Many of those signs were made at a joint meeting with Stuyvesant Young Democrats and SSE! the day prior.

“I’m walking out because it’s been too many people,” said freshman Tiffany Chan. “We’ve seen a lot of people dying or getting hurt by gun violence, and I feel like we need to stand up for all of this, and there are thousands of people everywhere who are standing up for this crime.”

While not all teachers were vocally supportive of the walkout, the sentiment among faculty was generally allied with the protestors.

“Sandler, I know that he wanted to walk out […] I’m really happy that the teachers think this is important too, and I know a lot of other teachers would walk out too if they didn’t have to lose their jobs for it,” said Chen.

“My teacher, [Ms. Dunkel], was in support and actually didn’t have a lesson today, so that everyone should walk out,” said Sanderson.

“I had Mr. Rubenstein, and he said that he doesn’t encourage it nor discourage it.

He just said that if you must go, then go,” said Cheung.

Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and NASA

WORLDBEAT President Donald Trump accepted an invitation to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. This meeting will mark the

first time a serving U.S. president has sat down with the leadership of the militarized and diplomatically-isolated country. The meeting offers a potential turning point for years long of North Korean aggression, and its location and date have yet to be determined.

Last month, a mass shooting occurred at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, leaving 17 students and faculty dead. In response, countless students in schools throughout the country walked out on Wednesday to pay respects to the victims and advocate for tighter gun control.

Former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were

poisoned with a military-grade nerve agent on British soil last week, placing both in critical condition. British Prime Minister Theresa May has blamed Russia, and said the U.K. is expelling 23 Russian diplomats in response. Moscow has denied involvement and is considering ejecting British diplomats as well.

Trump kicked his “America First” trade policy into high gear Thursday, launching global tariffs on steel and aluminum.

The president had originally stated that no countries would be exempt from the tariffs but later suggested that a large number of U.S. allies would be spared.

For the first time, the Trump administration issued sanctions against Russia on Thursday in response to their meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections and cyber-attacks. U.S. Treasury and senior national-security officials have also accused Moscow of ongoing attacks against the energy, water, aviation, and manufacturing facilities.

“Ms. Fang, the health teacher, was telling us about the event and explaining the importance of this walkout,” said Luo. “Which is admirable because she’s not just telling us to go to class, that we don’t have to participate [in the protest], she’s actually encouraging us to take a stance.”

“I didn’t even go to class, actually,” said sophomore El Loprest.

Instead of returning to Stuyvesant, many students instead turned towards City Hall and were told to “go back to Stuy or be counted as cutting.” Despite this, a number of administrators went with students to City Hall, including Assistant Principal Casey Pedrick and Assistant Principal of Security/Health & Physical Education Brian Moran.

“Well, we didn’t actually really go, because there was also the part where no one really knew where to go,” said Cheung. “So City Hall was in one direction, and part of the group went another direction, but we congregated in the end.”

This unsanctioned part of the protest was led by seniors, and not endorsed by Stuy Says Enough!, although many of its organizers were present. Protesters marched around City Hall and the surrounding government buildings chanting, “No more silence, end gun violence” as a call-andresponse. As the group stopped to congregate, senior Alex Whittington gave an impromptu speech without a microphone, in which he demanded that the NRA “Stop F---ing Killing Us!” Protesters crowded together

at the park just south of City Hall, where there were more speeches, some from those without microphones amplified via vox populi, others using using microphones, bullhorns, or just shouting.

“We’re protesting something very sad and very upsetting, and obviously we’re all extremely upset, but to rally together and share our emotions with the people who need to listen to us has been a very uplifting experience,” said Loprest.

The crowd then marched back to Stuyvesant via Chambers Street, chanting loudly the whole way; “Students united will never be divided!” “Hey hey! ho ho! Gun violence has got to

go!” “Today I feel my power!” and “Stuy Says Enough!” were all popular. Students who went to City Hall arrived back at Stuyvesant at about 11:10 a.m.

“We showed energy, we showed activism, and maybe we changed mindsets in students. A lot of students tend to be nonpolitical here at Stuy, and I think we’re changing that today by showing students how much value and energy there is in protesting,” said Walden.

Junior Pascale Leone said, “I think this is really important to draw attention to, and if you don’t keep drawing attention to it, nothing’s going to change.”

The Spectator ● March 19, 2018

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News Walkout!

Soph-Frosh SING! Stage Collapses During First Show

By Talia Kahan and Angela Wong On Thursday night’s annual Soph-Frosh SING! performance, those who were in the audience or on the stage heard a loud crash followed by students being hurried off the stage. One side of the risers had fallen, and a number of students were injured.

Participating in an annual tradition, all of the participants of Soph-Frosh SING! had rushed onto the stage to sing their spirit song. The risers were designed to hold approximately four people, but eight people were standing on them. One side of the risers fell, taking a few students with it.

The students on the stage were rushed off and ushered back into the cafeteria, where they were told to go directly home. The next nights’ SING! shows were

allowed to continue, but the use of risers for future performances was prohibited.

Sophomore Anna Grace Goldstein, one of the Soph-Frosh chorus directors, was on the stage when the incident occured.

“We [the chorus] kept singing for a few more seconds, because we were in shock, and I didn’t know people were on top of the part of the set that collapsed. The lights and sound crew were in a different situation because they remained in the lights and sound booth above the stage. They, too, were in shock after the collapse but were not immediately told to leave. Instead, the crew had to stay inside the theater to put away the equipment,” she wrote in an e-mail interview.

Most students remembered a similar experience: singing, hearing a crash, continuing sing-

ing, and eventually rushing off the stage. From there, students were told to change quickly and return home as soon as possible.

The majority of the students interviewed were satisfied with the way the administration and the Department of Education handled the situation. “I think the administration handled the situation very well. They waited through the night for the commotion to settle and decided to release official statements the following day, which I think made the whole ordeal less amplified. They also refrained from pointing fingers, and [avoided] attributing the set collapse to any one group or person, which also quieted hysteria,” sophomore Caroline Magoc, a member of the stage crew, explained in an e-mail interview.

However, students also ex-

pressed that some false rumors were spreading concerning the number of people injured and whether or not future shows would be canceled. Students said that the spread of rumors could largely be attributed to the lack of information given by the administration, perhaps its only misjudgment.

The students involved in the collapse had varying reactions.

Some described being in a state of shock during and after the event. For other students, the stage collapse simply reminded them of the importance of safety. An anonymous student said in an e-mail interview that, “As somebody who participates in STC and SING!, I now take safety to an even higher regard than before. Although I know very little about tech crew and their safety procedures, I strive to make sure

that all of the equipment that I use on lights and sound is safely configured and stored.”

However, something positive did come out of this tragic event, at least for chorus. “We [chorus] were all shaken…I do think, though, that the incident gave us drive, and that it was a big part of why we were so good on Friday night—we had this energy,” said freshman Jonathan Schneiderman, a member of chorus, in an e-mail interview.

While the Soph-Frosh SING! producers have yet to respond to our request for comment, the participants of SING! and the rest of the Stuyvesant community hope that the students injured on Thursday night’s performance are on their way to a speedy recovery.

The Spectator ● March 19, 2018

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News Health Class Now Offered to Incoming Freshmen

By Maddy Andersen

By George Shey with additional reporting by Peter Tam

Mayumi Gurung / The Spectator

On the first day of the spring semester, about 60 freshmen found out that they had been placed into one of three sections of a new class: freshman health.

These new sections were opened in the first attempt by the administration to move health class to freshman year instead of requiring students to take the course junior year.

Principal Eric Contreras and Assistant Principal of Security/ Health and P.E. Brian Moran spearheaded the decision to create the new course, with their inspiration coming from conversations with various students, parents, and teachers. Originally, only two sections were offered.

However, the demand for the course was so great among freshmen that the week before midwinter recess, the administration announced a third section.

Contreras noticed that many students supported the idea of a freshman health class. “When I first became principal last year, I made it a point to go talk to students about what were some things that are really great about Stuyvesant and what were some things they would like, maybe not immediately, but in the future, to see perhaps tweaked or changed.

One of the things that came up was moving health to freshman year,” he said.

It wasn’t only students who voiced opinions on moving health class. Parents made sure their opinions were heard as well. “I also have these events called ‘Breakfast with the Principal,’ and I think in my second one last year, a group of parents asked if we would consider moving health to freshman year,” Contreras continued. Because of the already hectic scheduling of junior year, parents saw the value of taking the course earlier to reduce the amount of stress later on and offer more scheduling flexibility.

Moving the course is not a new idea, but financial issues have delayed the change. In order to give freshmen access to health while maintaining junior health, a whole new set of health teachers would need to be hired. Every incoming class from then on

would take the course freshman year, but there would be sophomores and juniors during the initial stage of the change who would have not taken health in freshman year. This means that there would be a couple of years where two sets of teachers would be needed—one set to teach the freshmen and one set to teach the remaining sophomores and juniors.

However, once you hire a teacher, the Department of Education adds him or her to the table of operations, meaning it is hard to bring on a teacher for only a few years. “I think that had been the reason it hadn’t been done,” Contreras said.

Working with Moran and a group of parents at another Breakfast with the Principal event, Contreras brainstormed a way to make the change a gradual one, instead of all at once. “We thought about an incremental approach to shifting health to freshman year. And depending on available resources, we may be able to do it over four years or over six years,” Contreras said.

“If you do x number a term, you start slowly moving the class to freshman year over time.”

Another option for students looking to avoid taking the class junior year would be a summer health class. Exact details are not yet known, since it depends on the amount of available funding and the number of hours that need to be met in order to fulfill a credit. “We’ve asked for funding from the Parents’ Association to see if they would be willing to fund a number of sections a summer,” Contreras said. “If not, we can continue doing it the way it is now where every term we do two and three classes, and over time, transition.”

Many freshmen who were placed into the course didn’t know the class was available until it appeared on their schedules. Freshmen were picked randomly depending on availability to fill up the classes. “I was kind of surprised because I was expecting to have two free periods, but also because I didn’t know that they were giving freshmen a health course. I thought that was only for juniors. Honestly, at first I thought it was a mistake, even

Ohio Governor John Kasich Speaks at Stuyvesant

though [my schedule] said ‘freshman health,’” freshman Stacy Kim said. “I didn’t know they were changing the curriculum.”

Regardless, Contreras has high hopes for the freshmen taking the course now. “I’m very biased, but we have the smartest students in the world, and I think the students at Stuyvesant have the intellect and the maturity to talk about the topics that are covered in health. I also think that there is a lost opportunity to not talk about this for half your high school career in a formal classroom setting,” he said. “I don’t have concerns around freshmen not being able to take the course or understand its topics or content.”

Freshmen seem to mirror his enthusiasm. “The benefits are pretty clear because you get all this knowledge about health in general before the junior year [...] when you are graduating the next year anyway,” Kim said. “At first, I was kind of disappointed because, like I said, I was hoping for the two frees. At the same time, that frees up a period in my junior year for electives.”

The administration is optimistic about the success of the course and hopes that it has found the solution to the ongoing issue of how to move health. “We are in the middle of finally doing something that we have attempted to do for many years. We’ve found a creative way of actually getting to it,” Contreras said. “I am glad that as a community we are willing to try this out and see if this works.”

Governor of Ohio John Kasich came to Stuyvesant to participate in a town-hall style forum on Tuesday, March 13. The event was hosted in the theater during fourth period and moderated by social studies teacher Matthew Polazzo.

Kasich has a long and established career in politics. He served in the House of Representatives for nine terms, and sought the Republican nomination in the 2000 and 2016 presidential elections. Kasich was invited to Stuyvesant by freshman Hugo Smith, who volunteered for his campaign in 2016. “I [wanted] NYC students to hear from a variety of viewpoints [such as his],” Smith said.

“I initially thought that [Kasich] wanted to stand at the podium but [his] staff told me that he doesn’t like [the] formality at all, and wanted a more moderated discussion,” Polazzo said. He began the event with a few opening questions, and then students were then allowed to directly ask the governor questions.

One prominent issue repeatedly brought up was that of gun violence and restrictions. Kasich expressed that while he is a supporter of the second amendment, he also believes that semi-automatic rifles are indeed dangerous and need to be regulated.

Additionally, Kasich voiced his support for the #Enough National Walkout movement, encouraging students to attend the following day and voice their opinions on gun laws. “I was pleasantly surprised when he endorsed the walkout. That’s a pretty bold stance for any GOP politician to take, but he still did it,” Freshman Caucus Vice President Jonathan Schneiderman said.

Kasich also talked about the importance of and need for positive virtues, particularly love.

“You are just a new generation

but values are so important, and when you have them you can’t miss,” he said. “It’s about love.

Love is about being connected, compassion, mercy, forgiveness.

These values will set us up in life to lead a really good life.”

Principal Eric Contreras was particularly fond of the open question and answer forum. “I credit any elected official that would engage in an unvetted and unscripted conversation with teanagers,” he said. “[Whether you] agree or disagree with political viewpoints, I think it’s about how we can learn about [the] government and politics [...] that go beyond what’s on a textbook.”

Polazzo similarly expressed satisfaction with the event. “To me, it was pretty neat. I teach government and I’m always interested in what’s going on with currents events and here’s the guys who weren’t toe to toe with Donald Trump,” he said.

Student opinions of Kasich are varied—on one hand, many found his advice and thoughts inspiring. “By hearing from him, the government seems less like a distant body, but like a group of people that are willing to listen and discuss,” Freshman Caucus President Katarina Corr said.

Others, however, have criticized Kasich for his lack of both clear answers and knowledge of Stuyvesant’s culture. “The governor didn’t seem to know too much about the school and our community, and certain comments didn’t resonate to the crowd he was addressing. More direct answers and less tangents would have been definitely been nice,” Sophomore Caucus President Vishwaa Sofat said.

Despite the student body’s split on Kasich’s views, many are glad that he took the time to come and speak at Stuyvesant. “[Our] students tend to be leftist and not exposed to people of the opposite side. I think that the best thing about it was to meet somebody who was Republican who shared many of their concerns,” Polazzo said.

Stuyvesant Hosts New York City’s First Gender and Sexuality Alliance Summit

By Erin Lee, Chloe Doumar, and Sasha Spajic The New York City Department of Education (DOE) held its first Gender and Sexuality Alliance (GSA) Summit at Stuyvesant High School on Monday, January 29. The summit was part of the DOE’s first multi-agency strategy aimed at delivering services focused specifically on the challenges faced

by LGBTQ youth. Close to 800 students attended the event from across the city, which was organized by SPARK Coordinator Angel Colon, Assistant Principal of Pupil Personnel Services Casey Pedrick, Social Worker Jessica Chock-Goldman, and a number of other staff members including school counselors. Several students, including Dora Lanigan, Star Garcia, Connie Walden, Kiran Vuksanaj, and Michela Marchini, helped run the event.

The summit gave student

attendees the opportunity to safely converse about sexuality and gender. “The morning started with why we are here [...] to promote LGBTQ empowerment, setting up GSA’s within the schools, safe spaces, and LGBTQ education and teaching tolerance,” said Colon. All rooms and spaces used during the summit were temporarily renamed after LGBTQ icons.

For example, the theater was named after Bayard Rustin.

Other rooms were named after author James Baldwin and tennis star Billie Jean King.

All bathrooms were also made gender neutral for the day. “Having gender-neutral multi-occupancy bathrooms [...] helps to deconstruct [...] the attitude a lot of people have, which is where ‘boys are boys, girls are girls, and boys and girls are separate, and different, and opposite in a lot of ways,’” said senior Connie Walden, who identifies as nonbinary and was an organizer of the event. With

gender-neutral bathrooms, there is no stigma associated with choosing the ‘wrong’ bathroom for the trans community.

“The number of trans people who are harassed because they’re in the wrong bathroom is just stupid, it’s just an unbelievably common occurrence in our society,” Walden continued. “[The gender-neutral bathrooms are] something that [...] we can discuss as a community going forward, if that’s something that we would keep, but all decisions that would talk about the use of all our bathrooms that way would be something that we would discuss with the larger community,” Principal Eric Contreras said. The comfort of the student body would be critical if this change were to happen, along with a balance between gender-neutral bathrooms and gender specific bathrooms. “The biggest issue would probably be pushback [...] and also it does take a big

transition to do that,” Walden said.

Attendees participated in over 30 workshops available at the event. The Trevor Project, a nonprofit organization focused on crisis intervention for LGBTQ youth, held an interactive workshop that taught professional techniques for supporting LGBTQ youth. PFLAG NYC, an organization that addresses LGBTQ family issues, hosted a workshop for students and staff on coming out to their friends and family. Attendees were also able to hear coming out stories and ask speakers questions.

Many LGBTQ activists, including New York City First Lady Chirlane McCray, former NFL player Wade Davis, and drag queen Miss Peppermint from RuPaul’s Drag Race, came and spoke to attendees. “They shared their very personal stories about how it’s okay to advocate for yourself and [...] be who you are, and that the journey can be hard, but there are

people here to support you,” Contreras said. Through listening to the experiences of other well-known members of the LGBTQ community, students learned that they are not alone in the struggles that they face.

The event was proposed by the DOE’s first liaison for LGBTQ students, Jared Fox, who reached out to Contreras and asked if the event could be held at Stuyvesant. Fox and Contreras had previously worked together when Contreras worked as Head of Social Studies for New York City.

“I was honored to hold the first ever summit in all of New York. We have to be leaders in supporting great initiatives and [...] the very foundational pieces of who we are as a country as far as democracy and equality,” Contreras said. If given the opportunity, Stuyvesant is open to the possibility of holding another GSA Summit next year.

The Spectator ● March 19, 2018

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The Spectator ● March 19. 2018

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Features Lights, Cameras, Action: World War I Heroes in the Spotlight

By Talia Kahan

In the modern day, America hesitates to enter and play a part in worldwide conflicts. America also hesitated to enter World War I. But a select few young “alpha males” did not want to wait for America to join the Great War. Part of their goal in joining was to make Americans more supportive and abandoning the idea of neutrality. They formed an all-American volunteer aviation unit in the French air-force, because its members felt that the United States was doing the wrong thing by not entering the war. Dr. Edmund Gross and Norman Prince led the efforts to persuade the French government to allow this unit to exist; the French air department approved the unit in March of 1916, and it was deployed in April. The unit was called the “Lafayette Escadrille,” in honor of Marquis de Lafayette, a French hero of the American Revolutionary War. The upcoming documentary “The Lafayette Escadrille,” which tells the story of this small group, features history teacher David Hanna.

The film will use a mix of archival footage and photographs from World War I and videos of various locations, such as bases and memorials. Hanna predicts that the Escadrille Memorial Cemetery right outside of Paris will be prominently featured in “The Lafayette Escadrille” and

described the memorial as “really moving.” The memorial not only remembers the lives of all the Americans who fought with France in World War I, but also serves as a symbol of FrancoAmerican comradeship during that time.

Hanna’s love for history came from his maternal grandfather, John Elco, who had fought in France in 1918 during World War I. Elco served with the Keystone Division, a unit within the Army National Guard, and later with the 19th Engineers. This sparked Hanna’s interest in World War I, specifically the Lafayette Escadrille. Hanna finds this topic so intriguing because of the nature of the volunteers who participated in the Escadrille. He explained, “They did not ask for any special favors. They felt that Germany was bullying France, and France was a country that they admired. They wanted to help.”

Before taking part in the documentary, Hanna wrote a book called “Rendezvous with Death,” which came out in the summer of 2016. Two of the chapters near the middle of his book focus on the actions of the Lafayette Escadrille. Hanna’s inspiration for the title of his book came from a poem titled “I have a Rendezvous With Death,” by Alan Seeger.

Seeger’s poem was published after his death in World War I. Hanna became involved in

the documentary when filmmaker Darroch Greer encountered his book while doing research on the topic. Hanna recalled, “[When] he decided to make a documentary on the Lafayette Escadrille, he was doing research, and my book had come out. He picked it up in the bookstore, read it, and reached out to me. At the end of that summer, we talked, and he said, ‘Look I am going to be making this documentary, and I’ll be in NY, and we should set aside time. I would love to interview you because your book was a really good source for me.” So, Hanna and Greer had numerous hour-long conversations in the fall and late summer of 2016, and filmed that November.

To Hanna, the interview was much shorter than it could have been: “I could have talked for three or four times as long as I did. It is something that I could just go on, and on, and on about. I wasn’t struggling to find answers,” he said.

Hanna said that his relationship with Greer and with Paul Glenshaw, another producer of “The Lafayette Escadrille,” was much better than the interactions that he had with the publisher of his book because “the filmmakers are doing it because they love it, and I love it. We all share this passion for this particular topic. Anyone who has written about it, made films about it, or researched it—

William Lohier, The 2018 NYC Youth Poet Laureate

By Laura Ilioaei

Caitlin Chao / The Spectator

Passion is an intrinsic force that serves as fuel for the flames that perpetuate our beliefs. And on a stage, when performing a slam poem, passion enables one’s performance to stand out from the rest. In a short time interval, all that exists is the speaker and the stage. The New York City Youth Poet Laureate (NYCYPL) hosts a competition with competitors persuading all New Yorkers that their votes hold significance. The victor is declared to be the NYCYPL of the year. With his winning poem that encourages civic engagement through the perspective of the African-American community, “Voting In A Black Hole,” junior William Lohier holds the accolade for 2018.

And while the message of his work is straightforward, his source of inspiration is not.

“Whatever’s going on in my life,

or in the world. I don’t actively look for stuff to write about, I just stumble upon it. Usually my process of writing a poem is not formulaic at all,” Lohier said. His inspirational moments are sporadic, but they create concrete works that are anything but fleeting. He added, “I think of something; I think of a metaphor or an image, and then I

make connections. I think of writing poetry as making connections.

It’s not like an analytical piece where you’re taking the reader from Point A to Point B. It’s about the economy of language: how can you convey the most possible meaning in a 3 minute poem?”

That leads him into his own response: “Through metaphor [and] through cultural references. Some of the best slam poetry isn’t necessarily accessible but accessible to your audience. It’s things you know you understand that you bring out of your arsenal, because you know that other people will understand that too; [they’ll understand] the illusion or vibe that you’re trying to set.” While poetry is meant to be interpreted in different ways, it still holds a mutual understanding among readers.

Lohier did not apply to the NYCYPL competition on a whim; his interest in working with writing was apparent even before he had entered high school. However, it was editing that initially caught his interest. “My first editing experience was with this magazine called ‘KidSpirit,’ because a lot of my friends did it and it was near Brooklyn, where I live. It’s an international magazine that has editorial boards. And so I was in that, and I was with all these high school juniors and seniors when I was in the eighth grade; that’s how my interest started,” he said.

His appetite for writing was able to flourish in Stuyvesant’s environment, where he found his niche in the Arts & Entertainment department of The Spectator, first as a writer, then as an editor. When inquired as to whether his involvement in The Spectator has influenced his creative work, he responded that “The Spectator has improved my writing more than school has. I think it applies to both creative writing and analytical writing, because a lot of the things that make good creative pieces make good analytical pieces too. The argumentation has to be there (the rhetorical devices

and whatnot). I think it’s been really helpful.”

Initially, he was hesitant to accept his accolade for the Youth Poet Laureate. “Have you ever heard of Imposter Syndrome?” he asked in response to being asked of his own emotions over earning the title. “For the next couple of days [after getting the award] I was like, ‘I do not deserve this’.” Part of this belief was due to Lohier’s faith in the abilities of his competitors, and the other part was due to the fact that he had not spent the full interval of time given to him in the completion of his winning poem.

Even when presented with the possibility that his competitors may have dedicated even fewer hours on their final works than he did, Lohier was still convinced of his belief in the talents of his contenders. He eventually came to terms with his inner hesitance.

“I think all of us are trying to accomplish the same thing. In the end, it happened, and you just [have] to own it, and you just have to do justice to the platform. How you use it is up to you. You have to do justice to what the position is, and it’s your responsibility to use it, to give back to the community, to spread the truth, to show that you have a voice.” When questioned as to whether he is interested in continuing a pursuit in writing, Lohier believes that regardless of what profession one pursues, writing is inevitable. “I think that whatever profession you go into, writing is probably going to be an aspect of it. We think, ‘Oh, if you’re a doctor or if you’re an engineer, you don’t need to be a good writer.’ I think that’s false. I think that [regardless of ] whatever you want to pursue in life, writing is an important skill to have. To be able to formulate an argument [and] to be able to convey meaning in an accessible way is an important skill to have.” Regardless of where life takes him next, Lohier will always be on the heels of a writing pursuit, be it on or off the stage.

there is sort of like this kinship, because they feel strongly about these particular figures,” he said.

The publishers, on the other hand, “do not have any passion.

They just want to get it out and sell it,” Hanna explained.

Hanna discusses the Lafayette Escadrille in both his AP U.S.

Courtesy of Mr.Hanna

History and AP European History classes. Oftentimes when people teach World War I history with poetry, they use poems by Wilfred Owen or other British veterans, but Hanna uses poems

by Seeger. He specifically uses the poem “MakToob.” This is very rare, because “I have a Ren-

dezvous With Death” is Seeger’s most used poem. Hanna prefers “Maktoob” over other more commonly used poems, because he thinks it is the most accurate and powerful description of what life was really like in the trenches.

Hanna would not place as large an emphasis on the Lafayette Escadrille if he were not as passionate and knowledgeable about the topic. “I think I might mention it more in passing as Americans who went over there and were fighting before,” he said.

Hanna believes that all Stuyvesant students can learn numerous important lessons from the Lafayette Escadrille. First, we learn that if we see a problem in the world, we should try to go out and fix it. This doesn’t necessarily mean fighting in a war, but instead could involve national problems.

“Think about what is happening in our country.

There is Black Lives Matter, the Women’s March, the Pipeline [in North Dakota],” Hanna said. You do not have to go abroad nowadays.”

Also, we should not rely on other people to do things for us.

We have to get up and do things ourselves. Hanna reminds us, “You have to be your own hero.

You gotta do it. If you do not do it, who will?”

Ms. Bernstein: Actually Ringo Starr

By Anta Noor You can find Ms. Bernstein on the 10th floor and immediately recognize her by her cool hair swoop. Her laugh is contagious, and whenever she talks, it’s hard not to pay attention. She always likes to have something to keep her busy.

She’s very caring and passionate in the tasks she undertakes; whether it’s teaching Art Appreciation to her freshmen or 3D Art to her seniors, she really tries to be there for every student. Ms. Bernstein is a woman with a clear mind who only chooses to do things she knows she’ll love.

What was your early life like growing up?

I was born in Manhattan, moved to Westchester County as a baby and then moved back to the city when I was 16.

I grew up in a very nice suburban small town with an excellent school district. This was my saving grace because I have very bad ADD. I had a hard time in school. I’m very lucky to have gone to such a good school and to have had parents who were highly educated with books stacked to the ceiling. Not everyone has that. I am very grateful for it.

What’s it like living with ADD and how do you control it?

I loved learning; I just had trouble proving that I learned.

I had trouble with note-taking in class; it’s very hard for me to listen to what someone’s saying and write it down at the same time. I was also a perfectionist; I think my ADD caused some OCD, because I couldn’t control certain aspects of my brain, so I started to overcompensate with other parts of my

brain and became obsessed with making sure things were arranged correctly and other stupid things, because I felt like I could control these things, so I’m gonna really control it. Over the years, I’ve had to let a lot of that go. I’m still a little OCD (ask my students), but I think that’s okay. You have to live life. You can’t let all these little things stop you from moving forward.

If I don’t have time to clean my desk, I’m not gonna clean my desk. I’ve had to find all sorts of ways to compensate over the years, just find help where I need it, and work hard.

Did you have any special role model(s) that you looked up to growing up?

Well, I’m a drummer. I taught myself to drum around age six and on. I would say that I looked up to and learned a lot about drumming by watching MTV videos back when they played music. That’s not to say that I looked up to them as humans (good or bad), just as drummers.

What are your hobbies?

What do you like to do outside of teaching at Stuy?

Well, these days, I don’t have as much time or energy to do any of my hobbies. But, I like to play the drums. I’ve been playing since I was very little. I also like to play guitar a little bit, but I’m not very good at that. I actually put it down some time ago, and I’d like to pick it back up; that’s on my list of things to do. Playing the drums is also not easy when you live in New York City, but I try to do it whenever I can. continued on page 5

The Spectator ● March 19. 2018

Page 7

Features Ms. Bernstein: Actually Ringo Starr continued from page 4 I also like making things, of course, but it’s pretty hard during the school year. Over the summer is when I do most of my making. So, I bought like a little fixer-upper in the woods, and over the past five or so summers, I’ve been fixing it up. I’m at the point where there’s not that much more I can do, so I’m getting a little bored. I’ll figure something out though. I sanded and redid the floors, moved some walls, and did a whole bunch of stuff, which pretty much sums up what I do outside of Stuy.

Are you currently in a band, or were you earlier?

Uhh, I’m not currently in a band.

Last time I was in a band was maybe five or six years ago. It was difficult with my hours, and I found that my bandmates weren’t that understanding about my work hours. I like to have a side project of some sort, but that one was just a bit much. I’ve kinda come to the realization that it’s pretty hard to be in a dedicated band and be a teacher at the same time! You know, maybe I’ll play with some friends here and there, but for now, no band for me.

What is Stuy Makes?

So, Stuy Makes is an Instagram I started this summer. For a long time, I’ve been wanting to try to get the word out about all the great things that students make here at the art or tech departments, or anywhere else really. So I thought, every kid here has an iPhone with Instagram on it, and you guys are looking at it constantly, so that would be a good platform for showcasing the art. So, I started Stuy Makes. I’ve been telling people a little bit about it, but not a whole lot, because I want to wait until I get a whole bunch of art up there

for people to see. So far, I mostly put up art and technology projects. I also put up an English project; somebody did a graphic novel. I put up some of those Social Studies NHD Boards that I’ve seen students make.

I’m really trying to get anything that students make here. I’m just trying to get the word out that you aren’t all test takers, are creative, do great things. I want the world to see that.

to school for art, I realized I loved it, I loved school, and I wanted to be there. I think it’s really important that you study what you love and not just some job that makes you money. I believe that if you make a lot of money but you don’t love it, then you’re probably miserable deep down inside. Just do what you love, learn what you love, and the rest will follow.

So you manage STC Tech.

What’s so intriguing about it?

Did you always want to be an art teacher and if so, why?

So I used to do tech crew. We didn’t call it that, but I used to do that in high school. When I first got here, Rich Relmodo was the engineering teacher, and he ran STC, and I guess when he saw me he thought I’d be a good person to take over […] He showed me the ropes a little bit, and I’ve been doing it ever since. Also, there’s something special about theater kids; they’re different than any other. I enjoy watching them and the process. You know they’re also very creative, and I love the end result.

At the end, when the show happens and everybody’s excited, it’s really priceless.

What makes art special to you?

I like that anyone can use art to express anything they wish to. It’s so full of possibilities.

Did anything make you gravitate towards art?

I mentioned earlier that I had ADD and had a lot of problems with learning, but I still loved it. I didn’t learn in, you know, the traditional way that the school is set up for. I wasn’t sure about going into academics, and I was always a creative person and liked making things.

Actually, I was interested in theater technology at first, but then I decided that I was gonna go to art school instead. Once I started going

I never could have imagined that I would be a teacher. As I mentioned, I had a tough time in school.

School was a stressful place for me. It wasn’t until I went to art school that I started to enjoy school. It was there that I became a woodshop monitor where I would make sure the students were being safe and help them with problem-solving regarding their projects. This was when I started to think about teaching.

Why woodworking?

I was in fine arts, but my focus was woodworking and furniture. But I studied a lot of other things too. I studied printmaking, metalworking, drawing, etc. I enjoyed woodworking, because I like making things; I like designing things. There’s also just something so enticing about a woodshop. When you walk into it, it just has that great woodshop smell.

What advantages over other people in other professions does your career give you?

Well, the most obvious one is having summer off, but it’s so much more than that. I think I deal with way more people than most others.

And there are so many teenagers! So many of my students have such interesting backgrounds and perspectives on the world that are very different from my friends’ and mine. I

love hearing these perspectives and learning about many different cultures.

How would you improve Stuy’s Arts Department?

Well, while we all enjoy teaching Art Appreciation, no one likes teaching it five times a day. If we had one more art teacher, we could have more art electives, which would be good for the teachers and the students. As for the Technology department, we need more modern tech. We have started improvements with the Innovation Center and the new 3D printers in 1001 which Mr. Contreras has been instrumental in getting. I would also like to modernize the robotics lab (which may be in the works) and the woodworking lab. I’m considering moving a 3D printer into that classroom so we can incorporate 3D printing into the woodworking class.

I’m all about mixing old school and new school tech. I think only teaching the latest tech does our students a disservice. Not knowing the fundamentals is like having a handicap, and I would hate to see that happen to Stuy students.

What is your favorite topic to teach in Art Appreciation?

I love teaching drawing and Modern Art. The former, because anyone can improve at drawing if they’re taught well and try hard. People tend to think that if you’re not naturally gifted in art, you’re done for, and that’s just not true. I, personally, learned to draw. I can very clearly see the improvement from before I was taught to after. It can be pretty inspiring. As for Modern Art, I love the conversations that it evokes. Students get so passionate about their love or hate of it, and it really opens their eyes to a whole different world.

What is your teaching philosophy?

My teaching philosophy is all about hands-on learning. I find that students learn much better if they’re actively doing something. I think it’s important to know how to use your hands and have that hand-eye coordination. I’ve seen so many students here who are unable to do the simplest tasks, because they’ve only been on some type of electronic device their whole life.

Why choose to teach Art App. over a different art class (e.g. Painting)?

Well, we all have to teach Art App; we really have no choice, which is fine. We like teaching it. I don’t teach painting, because I’m not a painter, and I think Ms. Karp and Dr. Barrow do an excellent job with the painting classes. I used to have a Mixed Media elective, but I gave it up in order to teach woodworking.

Another class I choose to teach is 3D Art & Technology, which I developed last year.

How has your career as an art teacher shaped you?

It constantly opens my eyes to the world around me. I learn through my students all the time.

What is the best piece of advice anyone’s ever given you?

It’s hard to think of this when someone asks you, even if you’ve thought about it! It’s just a hard thing to conjure up. I know someone has said this to me sometime: I tend to care a lot, which I think is a good thing. But in this big system, in this Department of Education system, you can’t care too much, because you’ll drive yourself crazy. I know I’ve had conversations with teachers who have said not to take it too personally or too seriously. “Don’t drive yourself crazy”; I think that’s the quote there. Do what you can do, do your best, and there’s only so much you can do.

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Page 8

Editorials Recommendations for Rebellion Lax gun laws and loopholes have led to a string of deadly mass shootings within schools throughout the country at the cost of the lives of our teachers and fellow students. Our generation is frequently criticized for being politically apathetic in the face of these issues. However, the cold-blooded slaughter of 17 students and teachers from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida has galvanized student movements and protests all over the country, including at Stuyvesant.

Leading the student activism movement at Stuyvesant is the group Stuy Says ENOUGH! (SSE!), created by two sophomores to organize a protest in conjunction with other schools around the city and nationwide. They worked with Principal Eric Contreras and Assistant Principal Brian Moran to plan a walkout, agreeing to have students swipe out from school 10 minutes into third period.

Their last online poll prior to the walk out accounted for 163 out of 3,356 students planning on walking out. On the day of the protest, nearly five hundred walked out.

SSE! was established as a club with an extensive leadership board. With eight formal positions, including technology coordinators (who haven’t fleshed out a website to be linked anywhere accessible, including the Facebook page) and graphic design coordinators (who have only created a Fa-

cebook cover photo), it’s questionable how a school walkout has become so exclusive.

The SSE! press release defines its movement as “students standing together to defend our most fundamental right—the right to live and to gain an education in safety.” But wouldn’t it have been more “together” of them to make the planning of the walkout an open event for all Stuyvesant students interested? Progress for the people is not about surrendering to one bureaucracy over another, it is about civil rights as defended by a true democracy—one in which the voice of every citizen is valued as equal to all others.

The planning of this event does not reflect this vision.

The organization, though it pledged to “partner not only with other clubs and organizations within Stuyvesant’s community, but to connect with […] other high schools” in its press release, has refused to consider alterations to its initial walkout plan. Stuyvesant is at a unique advantage compared to other NYC schools participating in the walkout due to its close proximity to both the NYC DOE headquarters and City Hall.

A march to one of these locations would lend credibility to the movement and potentially draw more press attention.

However, the original plans to march to NYC DOE headquarters fell through when SSE! learned that doing so would likely require a city permit.

Instead, influenced by the administration, SSE! chose not to apply for the permit and opted to relocate the walkout to Battery Park, a location with no significance to the event and one unlikely to attract as much media attention.

SSE!’s planning for the protest pales in comparison to other high school walkouts groups as well. The Brooklyn Tech Walkout Organization, for example, developed a website (complete with a blog, FAQ, and contact page) and started an Instagram page. A select number of students are planning on walking to Brooklyn Borough Hall, and both the police and mayor’s office are aware of their protest. They are also expressly open to their peers’ suggestions and encourage students to email them and join their planning committee.

We applaud SSE! for the message it stands for and the bravery of the students in charge. Challenging apathy in such a large student body is a mighty endeavor that SSE! took head on. We urge all students to take a meaningful stand against gun violence by participating in the walkout. However, we must also remind everyone that the value or effectiveness of student activism does not come in the form of a leadership position, but in the reason for protest. Walk out in protest for the memory of our 17 fallen peers.

Not to cushion your college resume.

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The Spectator ● March 19, 2018

Page 9

Opinions A Shot at Change

By Artem Ilyanok The Parkland shooting claimed the lives of seventeen people. It was followed by an understandable period of mourning, outrage, and national self-reflection. But what really set it apart from other national tragedies was the political reaction it provoked.

Previous mass shootings have failed to make gun control a topic of national attention for more than a brief period of time. Perhaps it was the fact that it occurred at a school, that most of the victims were teenagers, or that this was one shooting too many. Regardless, the Parkland shooting has ignited a wave of gun control activism unlike any in recent memory.

As victims of the Parkland shooting speak out, students walk out of their schools in protest, and legislators seek to provide answers, we should laud those courageous and passionate enough to take a stand.

However, in a justifiably emotional time, we would do well to take a step back and assess which of the proposed policy proposals we should and should not seek to enact.

It has become commonplace to react to every shooting by demanding harsher gun control. However, this quasi-instinctive response is more reactive than pragmatic. It should be noted that more guns does not equate to more crime. As the number of privately owned firearms has increased in the U.S., the gun homicide rate has decreased, with the Crime Prevention Center finding that this trend also holds true internationally.

While it is difficult to account for differences in what is classified as a homicide across various countries and weigh inaccuracies in countries self-reporting their data, there is no evidence to suggest that an increase in gun ownership leads to an increase in gun violence.

Though this may seem counterintuitive at first, it is made less so when taking into account defensive gun usage. An example would be the Sutherland Springs Texas Church shooting, during which the gunman was shot at and forced to flee. The exact number of defensive gun uses is hard to pinpoint on a larger scale due to variability in reporting, interpretation, and the definition of what classifies as a “defensive gun usage.” And despite the fact that the phrase “good guy with a gun” is often a source of mockery, most surveys estimate

annual defensive gun usage to be between 500,000 to three million cases.

This enormous variability is a result of the differing survey methods used. Regardless of what figure in that range is the most precise, defensive gun use outweighs any sort of gun crime. For context, there were 8,342 criminal gun homicides in 2012 and guns were used in only a fraction of crimes. These statistics suggest that being armed is a strong deterrent to crime and is of aid in a self-defense situation.

While many gun control advocates concede that guns are of use in self-defense situations, they maintain their criticism of “assault weapons,” devices which are commonly associated with mass shootings. The most common argument in favor of banning these devices claims that they aren’t a must-have for any law-abiding citizen and

themselves while it’s hot, and a semi-automatic gun is simply one that reloads automatically while still requiring one trigger pull per shot. Moreover, the infamous AR-15 is no more dangerous than a semiautomatic shotgun, the rounds of which can do far more damage than an AR-15’s, or a Glock 17, the most popular firearm in the world, which can hold seventeen rounds in its magazine. Neither of these other weapons would be covered under a ban on “assault weapons.”

Nonetheless, gun control advocates continue to cling to the AR15’s status as “the weapon of choice for mass shootings” as justification for a ban. Yet according to Dean Hazen, a firearms instructor, the reason mass shooters choose the AR-15 is more a result of a “copycat” mentality than the actual power of the rifle. He points out that “there are rifles that are more powerful

law-abiding Americans while failing to prevent or lessen the severity of mass shootings.

It’s up to us to respond to the mass shootings occurring around the U.S. with pragmatic policies which do not infringe on the uniquely American right to bear arms, both for self-defense and recreational purposes. If we are to respect the founding fathers’ wishes and the ideals espoused in the Second Amendment, we will avoid supporting anything resembling the restrictive gun control in countries such as Australia, whose 1996 de facto ban on semi-automatic firearms “did not reduce either suicide or homicide rates below what, based on pre-1996 trends, they would have been...and may even have increased the number of fatal gun accidents,” according to a study by criminologist Gary Kleck.

The most reliable path towards

In a free nation, there is no requirement to show “need” in order to exercise a constitutional right.

are, in the words of Hillary Clinton, “weapons of war” with no place on American streets. However, in a free nation, there is no requirement to show “need” in order to exercise a constitutional right. Civilians allegedly not “needing” assault weapons is not a valid reason for banning them.

Furthermore, there is no clear consensus as to what an “assault weapon” is. The assault weapons ban proposed in the Senate defines an “assault weapon” as a semi-automatic firearm which includes a detachable ammunition magazine, pistol grip, and occasionally other features such as a forward or barrel shroud. This bill overlooks the fact that few, if any, of these features make a firearm any more dangerous than it already is.

For example, a pistol grip simply makes the user’s grip of the gun more comfortable, a barrel shroud is a cover on the gun’s barrel that prevents operators from burning

and more dangerous than [the AR15], but they’re not being used.” For example, the 2007 mass shooting at Virginia Tech, the third deadliest in U.S. history, was carried out using two semi-automatic handguns, hardly the “weapons of war” that are so often the target of criticism.

On a larger scale, assault rifles are rarely used in shootings. According to F.B.I. statistics, 374 people were murdered with any kind of rifle in 2016 compared to the 7,105 who were victims of handguns. This suggests that any effective gun control legislation would have to target illicit handgun possession and sales rather than those of “assault weapons.” And even if an assault weapons ban were passed, it would still have to find a viable way to prevent the estimated five million to 10 million AR-15 rifles owned in the United States from finding their way into criminal hands. Ultimately, banning assault weapons would come at the expense of millions of

reducing gun violence is to prevent guns from falling into the hands of people who shouldn’t have them.

We should launch a war on illegal guns, rather than guns. This may seem over simplistic and obvious, but according to Philip Cook, a professor of economics and sociology at Duke University, only 3 to 10 percent of guns used by criminals are acquired legally.

FBI statistics show that between 2012 and 2015, 1.2 million guns were stolen from other people and 22,000 were stolen from gun stores. To lower these numbers, we should advocate for a considerable increase in the penalties given for illegal possession of a gun. If these penalties were enforced, we could create a situation where criminals see that the benefits of carrying or trading illegal firearms are far outweighed by the harsh sentences they risk if and when they are caught. Fewer illegal firearms in circulation would undoubtedly

provide lower gun crime rates that Americans want to see.

To further reduce gun crime, we should begin to more effectively enforce the gun control laws already on the books. For instance, we need to crack down on the straw purchasing of guns, one of the most common ways for firearms to fall into criminal hands.

Straw purchasing is a method of acquiring a firearm in which a third party legally purchases a gun with the intention of giving it to an individual legally barred from owning a firearm.

While straw purchasing of this kind is already illegal, punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, these laws are rarely enforced. More vigorous enforcement of straw purchasing laws would go a long way in preventing illegal gun trafficking and reducing gun violence.

Finally, we should find practical methods for preventing people with mental illnesses from acquiring firearms. Currently, federal law says that a person can be prohibited from purchasing or possessing a firearm due to a mental illness if they are either involuntarily committed to a mental hospital or if a court or government body declares them to be mentally incompetent. Yet Nicolas Cruz, the Florida shooter, someone who wasn’t allowed to wear a backpack to school for security reasons and had been known to torture animals, was able to legally acquire a gun. This is largely a result of security failures on various levels, as tips about Cruz’s “desire to kill people, erratic behavior, and disturbing social media posts” went unheeded by the FBI, who later conceded that “protocols were not followed.”

As we question the role of the Second Amendment and guns in modern America, we need to remain resolute against the temptation to restrict gun ownership without proof of any substantial effect on gun violence. We need to make sure movements like “Stuy Says ENOUGH” remain grounded in their policy goals, while simultaneously supporting their commendable activism. And most importantly of all, we should remain united around shared American values and prevent hysteria or fear from taking over our lives. If we follow this course of action, we will emerge from the tragedy that was the Parkland shooting a stronger, safer, and more unified country.

Hold Public Officials Accountable

By Ben Platt

ton said this could essentially legalize personal profit from public acts. Public servants should serve all of the people they represent, not just the ones who can pay to play.

The aftereffects of the McDonnell decision are already showing in other bribery cases of government officials. In New York State, former leader of the Assembly Sheldon Silver had his fraud and money laundering convictions overturned because of McDonnell, even though he directed state funds to a Columbia research center in exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions. Silver’s counterpart in the State Senate, Dean Skelos, also had his conviction overturned because of the McDonnell decision.

Using government positions to enrich one’s self is not only unethical, but illegal and the Supreme Court should recognize that cases such as these clearly constitute bribery. Without oversight, corruption and fraud will run amok in city, state, and federal governments.

The Washington Post reported that prosecutors are already pursuing fewer bribery cases because they’re scared of meeting

JKlaire Geller/ The Spectator

At Stuyvesant, it is common for students to kiss up to teachers. They’ll compliment teachers on their looks, offer to run errands for them, or buy them little gifts. Some teachers are more receptive to this than others, and when it comes time to put in grades, a teacher might raise a student’s grade if the student has treated them well.

This is bribery. A student is offering an inducement to gain favor from a teacher in the form of a higher grade. This is unethical behavior by the student, but the burden still rests with the teacher to resist gifts that are expensive or that are obviously trying to say more than “thanks.”

Teachers have the responsibility to recognize that a student is trying to influence and manipulate them to help them raise their grade.

When teachers raise grades in response to bribery attempts by students, it is frustrating and unfair to other students.

When public officials bring the same compromised attitude to the government offices, it’s illegal and undermines their role as public servants. However, a recent Supreme Court ruling

threatens the ability of prosecutors to hold public servants accountable.

In McDonnell v. United States, former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell was ruled to not have violated federal bribery laws when he accepted $175,000 in personal gifts, luxury items, and loans from Johnnie Williams, a Virginia businessman. In return, Williams received favors from McDonnell such as meetings with other public officials and quick access to clinical tests on a supplement he was developing. However, the Supreme Court decided in a unanimous decision to overturn McDonnell’s conviction, finding that these were not “official acts” of an elected official’s power—only actions such as selling votes for money or making regulations would qualify as such.

This decision flies in the face of the ethical responsibilities that public officials have to uphold. The actions of Bob McDonnell were clearly bribery, as a normal Virginia constituent should not have been able to give Rolexes to the governor and then expect to receive special favors in return. The executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washing-

the unfairly high standard set in McDonnell. Just this past January, federal prosecutors dropped all charges against Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey, who had received private jet flights and luxury hotel stays from a wealthy opthamologist who wanted Menendez to obtain vi-

sas for his foreign girlfriends.

Accountability is one of the central tenets of public service.

Government officials are responsible to the public, so when they misuse their power to help enrich themselves and provide friends with special favors, they need to face consequences.

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The Spectator ● March 19, 2018

Opinions Well-Regulating the Militia

By Raniyan Zaman With 18 school shootings having already taken place in 2018, including the most recent one at a high school in Parkland, Florida that left 17 dead, it’s no wonder that gun violence has become almost synonymous with horrific incidents like these—homicides and mass shootings in public areas, particularly schools.

And it’s true that these shootings are devastating, have a national impact, and are particularly susceptible to sensationalized media coverage. Yet a majority of gun violence in America isn’t in the form of mass shootings, but rather suicides. Numerous studies have identified and explored the link between gun access and suicide rates: the U.S. Department of Justice reports that almost two-thirds of U.S. gun deaths are suicides, and firearms account for over half of all suicides.

But these statistics don’t explain the dangers of conflating all gun violence with mass shootings; this only creates widespread panic about guns and causes gun owners to worry about having their guns taken away, even leading to a spike in gun sales following mass shootings.

It should be noted that certain gun control measures aimed at preventing mass shootings would typically be substantially more ineffective when aimed at reducing firearm deaths by suicide or domestic violence. After all, general strategies to reduce crime and homicide rates do not solve the case of the depressed middle-aged white men (the demographic most likely to die by firearm suicide) who act as both shooter and victim.

Too many Americans blame minorities for homicides and refuse to see the bigger issue. Even efforts to tackle the already relatively few homicides committed by minorities (usually undergone with the demeaning and, as we’ve seen, untrue assumption that people of color are responsible for a majority of gun-related incidents) will do little to drive down gun-suicide rates. Banning assault rifles and bump stocks, a long overdue move, will decrease mass murders since AR-15s have become the “weapon of choice” of mass shooters and were used by the perpetrators of the Sandy Hook, Las Vegas, Pulse, and Parkland shootings.

And it’s not just the AR-15; Mother Jones reports that of the 48 mass shootings in America since

2004, 13 were carried out with assault rifles. While eliminating access to assault rifles is urgent, it’s still unlikely to affect suicide rates since most people who use a firearm to commit suicide do so with a handgun.

Background checks are yet another example of a commonlytouted solution that almost everyone who thinks gun-control is a reasonable idea can support. Yet only 22 percent of guns in America are being obtained without a background check, and even passing a background check is no guarantee that the gun will be kept out of the wrong hands. Nikolas Cruz, the Parkland shooter, passed a background check (a two-minute process, according to Fortune, that briefly checked for any mental health issues or criminal record, which was clean for Cruz despite his troubled history).

This isn’t to say that background checks should be done away with; on the contrary, they’re an essential component of any serious strategy meant to drive down gun deaths. But it’s time to both implement a much more rigorous screening process and to look beyond mere bans on assault rifles and shift the focus from obvious steps that should’ve already been taken to a bolder approach towards gun violence.

Such an approach would comprise primarily of reframing the gun control issue not as a political one, but as one of public health, like several experts suggest. In fact, if the right decries so-called “instantaneous politicization of mass murder,” as Jonah Goldberg of the National Review writes, then a public-health approach is the perfect answer. This tactic would focus on gun safety and include key elements, like preventing men subject to domestic violence protection orders from circumventing the law (usually with the help of incomplete databases and records) and purchasing guns, banning concealed-carry, ending immunity for firearm companies, and closing various loopholes that make it easier to obtain an AR-15 than a handgun, including a less extensive

background check, shorter waiting period, and lower age limit for buying AR-15s in Florida and other states.

There are even existing guides; Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times points out that automobile regulation is a useful and effective model for gun regulation. Cars kill about as many people as guns per year, but careful regulation and limited access fueled by legislation has successfully reduced the death rate per 100 million miles driven by 95 percent since 1921.

Katherine Kibatullin / The Spectator

Another important, but often overlooked, aspect of a public-health strategy for gun control is increasing research on gun violence, of which there has been catastrophically little over the past 20 years and even now. Thanks to the 1996 Dickey Amendment, passed after the NRA bullied Congress into effectively banning the CDC from studying gun violence, government research into gun violence is now minimal, if not entirely nonexistent; the government only spends $22 million annually on research into gun violence, which is laugh-

able compared to the money devoted to other health threats that result in comparable losses of life.

For reference, sepsis takes about as many lives as guns per year, but gun violence research receives less than one percent of the funding that sepsis does. Gun control opponents usually point to mental health as the main cause of violence rather than guns.

Mental health is, perhaps unsurprisingly, complex and not easily understood, and there are no concrete methods we know of that can tackle mental health without tightening gun regulation. Increased funding enables gun violence research to dig deeper into the ties between mental health and gun ownership and produce useful information that will aid anyone who wants to reduce gun-related incidents. And of course, mental health research is particularly pertinent for those who commit suicide by firearm.

But there’s no reason to believe the Trump administration cares about protecting the lives of American people, whether it’s from guns, mental illness, or some disastrous combination of both.

Donald Trump is one of those politicians (and beneficiaries of NRA funding; there’s a curious overlap) eager to label mental illness rather than guns as the culprit, yet is guilty of repealing an Obamaera regulation implemented after Sandy Hook that would have made it more difficult for the mentally impaired (as determined by disability payments to Social Security and assistance received on account of mental illness) to get their hands on a gun. According to NBC, the rule would’ve added about 75,000 names to the FBI’s database.

Incidentally, the repeal of the rule was backed by mental-health advocacy groups who believed that the rule stigmatized the mentally ill and unfairly implied that they have a propensity towards gun violence;

but given that this is the exact narrative Trump himself has popularized, it’s almost impossible that destigmatizing mental health was his motivation when repealing that rule. And in any case, no alternative to that rule was ever proposed, calling into question how serious our government is about holding anyone at all accountable for gun violence.

Ideally, repealing the Second Amendment would be the first step taken in any effort to counter America’s gun epidemic. But this won’t happen with our current Congress, which serves the NRA better than it serves the people. It might be a weaker gesture alone than most suspect by preventing people from whipping out the “It’s my constitutional right to own a gun!” card, but it’s unlikely to immediately curb gun ownership by itself.

So if we can’t get rid of the Second Amendment, at least for now, then we should take a closer look at its exact words, which declare that a well-regulated militia’s right to keep and bear arms should not be infringed upon. Surely, a well-regulated militia wouldn’t gun down a high school or open fire at music festival. A well-regulated militia wouldn’t be suspect to take their own lives. Unfortunately, America doesn’t have a well-regulated militia. The answer to America’s gun epidemic is to make sure that our militia, if we must have one, is wellregulated—and that means everyone who has access to a gun.

The rays of hope shining out of this traumatic event are the voices of the surviving students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, who have taken to social media and the streets to express their fury and stir change. This wave of student activism is brilliant and refreshing. Students all across the country are organizing protests, staging demonstrations, and participating in school walkouts; Stuyvesant is among the schools with students planning to march on March 14, March 24, and April 20, the anniversary of the Columbine massacre.

Regardless of political alignment, every student who values an education free from the fear of bullets should march, and every member of the administration should at least stand with us. That first step we take outside of Stuyvesant’s doors on March 14 just may be the first step toward reclaiming our rights, lives, and a gun-free education.

Vanessa Man / The Spectator

Poland’s Curb on Holocaust Speech

By Julian Giordano Poland’s president, Andrzej DuPoland’s president, Andrzej Duda, recently signed a bill that would outlaw statements blaming Poland for the crimes of the Holocaust. Since then, multiple nations, including Israel and the U.S., have criticized this bill, which they see as yet another authoritarian move to restrict free speech by Poland’s right-wing government.

The bill treads the line between outlawing falsehoods and libel and outlawing free speech, making it very difficult to either oppose or support the bill.

The bill is composed of two main parts. The first provision of the bill is to abolish the use of the phrase “Polish death camps.”

This is internationally supported, as concentration camps located in Poland were controlled entirely by the Nazis, and none of the guards or personnel were Polish—the majority were Ukrainian. It is thus correct to say that the camps in question are “Nazi death camps” and not “Polish death camps.”

The second part of the law is far more controversial. It criminalizes claiming that Poland was in any way “responsible or coresponsible for Nazi crimes com-

mitted by the Third Reich.” This is controversial for a number of reasons, the first being that many citizens of Poland were directly or indirectly responsible for helping to perpetuate Nazi crimes. Some Poles worked with the Nazis to help capture and reveal their fellow Polish Jews who were attempting to escape. One Polish historian, Jan Grabowski, estimates that Poles working with the Nazis were responsible for the deaths of 200,000 Polish Jews.

The second reason this provision is controversial is that it attempts to change and shape Poland’s Holocaust history. In Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statement about the bill, he argued, “One cannot change history, and the Holocaust cannot be denied.” He follows a similar logic to that of Dr. Timothy Snyder, a professor of history at Yale, who commented that “the worst thing about a law like this is that it convinces you that you understand yourself. Your confidence in yourself grows as your knowledge of yourself goes down.”

This law would cover up and rewrite an uncomfortable yet important part of Poland’s history.

It is understandable that Poland doesn’t want to be associated with the inhumane crimes of Nazi Germany, but attempting to censor provocative speech does more

harm than good. In fact, the censorship of free speech about the Holocaust may lead Poland down a slippery slope into an Orwellian world where the government can change and mold history for its own purposes. When people cannot express opinions and different views of history, these views of history fade away and succumb to the government’s enforced view of the world.

We saw this at the very beginning of Nazi Germany, and while it is unlikely Poland’s situation will escalate to that point, it could become similar to Cuba, where the totalitarian government’s censorship laws allow them to control the media. Poland is at the point where its censorships on speech have begun to revise and mold past and current history in a subtle manner, one that can nonetheless escalate over time.

For Poland, this law was originally meant to act as a way of fending off a common assumption of Polish complicity in the Holocaust. Many world leaders, including Obama, have made the mistake of referring to “Polish concentration camps,” and Poland has long sought to remove this negative connotation. Yet this law does more than just clarify Poland’s role in World War II: its limits on free speech can be seen as fitting into a larger context of

a crackdown on democratic freedoms and the media.

Since the reigning Law and Justice Party was formed in 2001, it has been challenging the status quo of Europe that has existed since World War II in a way that threatens Europe’s peaceful, democratic ambitions. The European Union has always upheld human rights and personal liberties, including the right to freedom of expression. Yet the Law and Justice Party has proposed discriminatory policies against members of the LGBTQ+ community and xenophobic anti-refugee policies and has stated that the European Union should “benefit Poland and not the other way around.”

Poland is attempting to veer away from pluralism, in which laws allow free speech but prohibit libel and slander (which is the current state of most European countries) and is in turn replacing it with oppressive laws that define acceptable speech. While platforms that blame the Polish government for the Holocaust are false, outlawing them takes away both freedom and power from the people. This allows the government to set a precedent for similar restrictions on other types of speech and undermines the democratic system that the people can hold each other and their government accountable for their actions.

SING! 2018 The Stuyvesant High School Newspaper

Volume 108 No. 11

March 19, 2018

“The Pulse of the Student Body” stuyspectator.com

Table of Contents SophFrosh SING! p. 12 Junior SING! p. 13 Senior SING! p. 14-15 SING! Humor p. 16 SING! Features p. 17-19 Playlists p. 20 Top Fives p. 21 Editorials p. 22 Photos by Stefan Engquist and Zoe Oppenheimer

Page 12

The Spectator ● March 19, 2018

SophFrosh SING!

A Show That Transcends Time

By William Lohier and Emily Xu If you were to travel back in time, before visiting Greece and Rome, before meeting dead presidents and world leaders, before passing yourself the answers to the math test you failed last week, before returning to the time MarkyMark and CharChar reigned supreme, you might want to stop by this year’s time-travel-themed Soph-Frosh SING!. While it had its rough patches (time travel can be bumpy) and struggled at times to maintain momentum in the plot and incorporate dance crews, Soph-Frosh’s talented cast, band, and dance crews pulled together a convincing and timely story of acceptance and coming of age.

Centered around a mishmash of characters from different eras, Soph-Frosh SING!, coordinated

by Debi Saha and producers Michael Chen, Lena Farley, Liam Kronman, and Lara Somoroff, addressed the struggle for acceptance that transcends the constraints of time.

In a futuristic small town, a scientist (Zeynep Bromberg) is a disgrace to her community.

In the opening number, “Belle” from “Beauty and the Beast,” she expresses in a clear, ringing voice her frustration at the provinciality and small-mindedness of the townspeople as chorus, directed

by Noa Greenstein and Grace Goldstein, scorns her failed attempts to create a time machine.

Though chorus was initially low energy, their dulcet and melodious singing, as well as the band’s superb accompaniment, made up for their lack of stage presence.

Despite her town’s lack of faith, the scientist is undeterred yet surprised when characters from various time periods step out of the time machine, a cute painted box mildly reminiscent

of a porta-potty. From the moment they are introduced to the audience, Ooga (Maya Angles), a cavewoman; Edith (Emily Gillies), a posh British woman from the Victorian era; and Pelvis Parsley (Adam Cohen), an Elvis impersonator, dazzle in their flashy attire. Costumes, directed

by Tara Mavinakere and Stephanie Chen, did an impressive job in dressing the characters, showing incredible attention to detail, from Pelvis’s green bell-bottoms to Edith’s lavish white-and-gold floor-length dress, complete with a cage crinoline.

When the time machine breaks down, the motley crew

band. The driving forces behind the show were the relationship between the scientist, her daughter Phoebe (Victoria Wong), and Theo (Matthew Carlson), a teen from 1980s Brooklyn. Phoebe, overwhelmingly relatable in her Kanken Fjallraven backpack, is afraid to tell her mother that she wants to be a historian instead of a scientist, a predicament countless Stuy students are sure to recognize. Her story is mirrored with much more gravity by Theo, who doesn’t want to return to his time period. At first the reasons for his apprehension are unclear but in perhaps the most touching moment of the entire show,

all black for the guys, were also a bit unclear. Regardless, their energy was exuberant and their stunts drew many well-deserved cheers.

The roles of step and co-ed hip-hop were also confusing, with step, directed by Helen Zhang, Wendy Yan, George Zhou, and Matthew Chan, bizarrely assuming the role of the assassins that supposedly inhabit futuristic New York, and hip-hop, directed

by Sarah Hwang and Crystal Liu, playing good samaritans. The wind-up doll costumes for tap, directed by Camilla Green and Elizabeth Doss, were creative, but it was unclear exactly what

The real theme—acceptance—could not have been more timely. Soph-Frosh rode a wave of talent in both its cast and crews to tackle a tricky theme.

finds themselves unable to return to their respective time periods. A highlight of Soph-Frosh SING! was when a psychic (Alex Nobert) led on belly, directed by Dikkila Sherpa, Hiruni Kumari, and Sara Bautista, for a stunning and spellbinding performance to the melody of Beyoncé’s “Naughty Girl,” accompanied by a solo flute that sent chills up the audience’s spines. With the psychic’s guidance, the crew sets off to a post-global-warming New York City to find the battery that will restore the broken machine and save the day.

It is safe to say that Soph-Frosh SING! shined for its execution and superbly talented cast and

he comes out to Phoebe as gay in a burst of well-acted emotion, transitioning into the beautifully sung and impassioned duet between the two, “I Won’t Give Up.” Despite the cast’s musicality and the skills of band, directed

by Sarah Stebbins and Nicholas Jun, Soph-Frosh SING! hit a stumbling block in incorporating the various dance crews into the plot.

When the gang stops at a bar to fuel up, latin, directed by Kristie Chu and Paul Ramnauth, is introduced by the bartender as being “the show,” not an entirely fluid or original transition into the dance. Their costumes, limp pale pink skirts for the ladies and

role they played in the story.

While the actors were clearly committed to their roles, Ooga, Edith, and Pelvis lacked character development. They were not integral to the plot, written more as one-dimensional caricatures used to add another time period to the medley. However, Ooga and Pelvis did inject much needed comedic relief into the otherwise heavy plot; Pelvis’ grinding and swaying while singing Elvis’s “Can’t Help Falling in Love,” in his skintight pants elicited nervous giggles, a few groans, and more than one passionate outcry. Ooga darting around the auditorium and screaming “ROCK” during the cast’s performance of

“Jailhouse Rock” earned uproarious laughter from the audience.

After searching high and low, exploring the ruins of futuristic New York, and battling assassins, Theo and Phoebe finally stumble upon the battery. However, Theo, who wants to stay in the more accepting year 3018, convinces Phoebe to hide the battery despite her concern that this might mess up the space-time continuum (a concept she got off of a Buzzfeed article).

Tension builds as they reunite with the rest of the group and return to the town and the time machine. Finally, when all hope seems lost for returning to their respective times, Phoebe pulls the battery out of her knapsack and in a head-scratching moment, her mother simply throws the battery into the time machine and poof! It’s ready once more to bend the space and time.

As the characters disappear one by one into the time machine, Theo is left alone with Phoebe and her mother, and Phoebe’s mother debunks the fake news, graciously assuring him that the space-time continuum will survive. The three remaining characters then launch into a rendition of “Rewrite the Stars,” singing in impressive three-part harmony and flow, directed by Khandaker Ridwan, Corinne Pita, and Sara Mui, lit up the stage like a galaxy as the time machine works its magic.

Soph-Frosh rode a wave of talent in both its cast and crews to tackle a tricky theme and beat out the far more cerebral Junior SING! by a significant margin.

While it did not push boundaries and could have been executed more smoothly, Soph-Frosh overcame a set collapse to put on a very enjoyable and authentic show. Indeed, the real theme— acceptance—could not have been more timely.

The Spectator ● March 19, 2018

Page 13

Junior SING!

A Spunky, Show-Stopping Spectacle

By Thomas Chen Every March, hundreds of Stuyvesant students are left devastated by an epidemic of PSD, with symptoms including spontaneous bursts into nostalgic song and fits of utter despair and emptiness over not having to go to rehearsal. To the many who have never participated in SING!, it’s hard to comprehend the annual phenomenon of PostSING! Depression, but this year’s Junior SING! set out on a mission to highlight what SING! is really about—the experience of making a show.

Coordinated by Ruby Gary and produced by Julia Arancio, Eli Economou, and Elena Sapelyuk, Junior SING!’s risky and unusual theme this year promised a unique story. Rather than focusing on a romance or relying on the common SING! trope of a treacherous journey with many trials, Junior SING! instead decided to give viewers insight into the production process and celebrate the work of each and every crew.

The show opens with Kim (Xinyue Nam), the coordinator for SING!, rising from her bed in a flashy gold blazer and performing an uplifting adaptation of “Good Morning Baltimore.”

As she belts out a peppy “Good morning Junior SING!,” a semitransparent gray screen lifts up to reveal the set of Junior SING!— an incomplete stage with chorus dressed in SING! shirts joining in the melody and step dressed in construction worker outfits immediately setting out to work on building the stage in a clever homage to Tech.

As the opening number comes to a close, we are introduced to best friends Will (Adam Elsayed) and Phoebe (Jessica Gruboy).

While Phoebe is interested in becoming Props Director, Will finds SING! to be corrupt and a waste of time—mostly because he did not receive a position as produc-

er the year before.

So, when Kim does make Will a producer due to a lack of applications, he vows to make the show crash and burn from the inside out in his passionate rendition of “Dream On” by Aerosmith.

Elsayed’s vigor was exhilarating to watch, as he flung papers all over the stage and hit powerful notes, matching the band’s energy and resulting in an intense and thrilling performance.

But while Junior SING! had plenty of talented vocalists like Elsayed, many of them were not given an opportunity to display their talents. Out of over 20 songs, only five of them were actually sung by the cast, resulting in several members being overlooked and rendered unmemorable.

Adding to this detriment was the lack of significance of many of the characters, mostly in part due to the script mainly revolving around Will’s misdeeds. For instance, along with the other SING!s this year, Junior SING! chose to embrace homosexuality with a very passionate lesbian couple, Alyssa (Alexa Kong) and Celeste (Meredith Silfen). While Kong and Silfen undeniably stayed true to their characters, and the chemistry and romance between the two did not seemed forced at all, the two side characters were given little screen time and ultimately just seemed to lack purpose.

Though some of the characters felt a bit stereotypical and undeveloped, the cast’s commendable strong portrayals still made them enjoyable to watch.

The audience was truly able to sympathize with the naïve and adorkable understudy Toby (Daniel Schraeter) with his dreams of acting in SING!, and despite his lack of lines, we could always laugh at Cast Director Cosmo’s (Box Wu’s) hilariously exaggerated facial expressions and excessively high standards.

Two standout performances of the diverse cast of characters

were those of Dylan Mak (Floyd) and Nam. Mak’s portrayal of hippie-scriptwriter Floyd was spoton, infusing his nonchalance and carefree manner into each of his lines. His apathy and carefreeness make it even more surprising when it’s him who decides to encourage his fellow SING! members to continue working on the show in his rendition of Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros’s “Home.”

Mak’s whistling accompanied by his soft strumming of his guitar made his casual cover much more heartwarming, as he manages to make his friends smile.

Similar to Mak, Nam seemed to be perfectly casted into the role of Kim. While Kim initially seems to be just an optimistic girl who loves SING!, her overzealousness for the show is quickly shown, as a scene suddenly shifts to her parodying Gordon Ramsay, putting her hands over a kneeling girl’s ears, and yelling, “What are you?!” (“An idiot producer!”).

As the show progresses, her cheery façade quickly falls apart due to Will’s sabotage of the show, ordering and screaming at many of the crews (while simultaneously giving them well-deserved shout-outs) such as the lights and sounds crew when the lights flicker out into a total blackout and the costumes crew due to a shoddy job. Her character arc eventually culminates in a total breakdown as she amusingly cuts off the band in an angry rant, rushing off the stage without singing her planned solo of “Before He Cheats.”

Despite a very strong cast, Junior SING! was let down by a drastic lack of participants this year, in part because of the decision of scheduling the Saturday SING! show on the same date as the March SAT. This issue was especially notable in traditionally large crews such as art and costumes, which were significantly smaller than usual. Chorus was hurt by this in particular, as their few voices were often drowned

out by the loud band and orchestra, making it difficult to hear the lyrics to which several of the crews danced.

Despite this, many dance crews were still able to express their technical abilities, and unlike in many previous SING!s, were cleverly integrated into the script. Tap, dressed in simple blue skirts and white shirts spelling out “JR SING” from the back, represented the writing process of a SING! script and pulled off a cheery and well-synchronized performance, using giant pencils as canes. Their choreography was further enhanced by Floyd, who comically followed the dancers’ moves. In spite of being one of the largest groups, step, amusingly chanting “Junior SING!, can we win it? Junior SING!, yes we can!” to the tune of the theme song of “Bob the Builder,” was also one of the most coordinated with their enthusiastic and complex steps making for a fresh, original sight.

And during the blackout, when a slightly unstable Kim comedically screamed, “Somebody, get me a flashlight,” Flow rushed into the darkness and illuminated the stage, their brightly colored lights providing a mesmerizing sight while actually serving an innovative role.

Belly stood out as one of the most pleasing dance crews to watch in particular with their alluring and fluid movements.

And while the majority of Junior SING!’s costumes were rather lackluster (especially those of the main cast, who simply wore typical student outfits), belly’s shimmering blue outfits resembling mermaids were dazzling, especially when surrounded by the fog tinted by the sea-green and aqua lights shining down.

Junior SING!’s script was also filled with plenty of clever disses, such as when Will snarkily declares, “White? Check. Popular?

Check. Passed the coordinator homework last week? Congratulations! You’re a director!” A no-

table one toward Soph-Frosh involved Will forcing a hesitant Cosmo to use his poorly-written script. The scene later shifts to Celeste and Alyssa reading their lines as a mother-daughter duo.

Alyssa, wearing a banana costume, melodramatically confides to Celeste, “I want to be a historian!”

Despite these moments of humor, Junior SING! was able to reach a dramatic climax when Phoebe, who was indeed given the role of Props Director, figures out that Will was the one who was ruining their show. While Will doesn’t understand why she cares so deeply for the show, thinking she only wanted to do SING! to spend time with the props boys, Phoebe blames him for not doing something to help change SING!’s problems. Their heated duet of Adele’s “Chasing Pavements” showcased Elsayed’s and Gruboy’s vocal abilities exceptionally well, with the duo’s voices connecting in a powerful melody.

Unfortunately, Junior SING!’s happy ending seemed rather cliché, with the cast making up quickly (while never finding out Will was the reason why their show was doing so poorly) and deciding to continue the show.

The ending also felt rushed, with the final scene revealing that the SING! the characters put on was of them taking the SAT with tap’s giant pencils, feeling anticlimactic and just seeming like another one of Junior SING!’s many SAT jokes.

Still, despite their loss to Soph-Frosh SING!, Junior SING! should be commended for trying to show us what Phoebe and, eventually, Will learned: SING! shouldn’t be about winning or losing, but instead, about having fun making a show with friends.

In the “groovy” words of Floyd, “C’mon guys. Soon, we’ll be seniors… we gotta make this show count.”

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The Spectator ● March 19, 2018

Senior SING!

You Odyssey

By Jane Rhee and Sophie Watwood The seniors chose to open their show this year with a closed set of golden doors. A Greek foot soldier, played by Sammie Paul, interrupted coordinator Ray Jones and producers Stephanie Zheng, Adam Abbas, Donia Tung, and Lydia Zhang and pushed them off the stage after their opening remarks with Tung protesting, “Wait, did the show start already?”

The curtains opened and revealed a timelessly beautiful set with tableaus of previous SING! themes. Despite the seniors not being allowed to block their show using any platforms, the set had a sense of depth and balance with rotating ivy columns and white cotton clouds. The pediment, ivy detailing, and hanging grapes were well contrasted with the backdrop, which boasted vibrant blues and greens and an Apollo figure.

The seniors followed a traditional plot arc. In ancient Athens, Prince Philip is first in line for the throne as his mother, the Empress, celebrates her 80th birthday. To complete a prophecy, Philip set off with a few ancient Greek accomplices, including a plebian posing as a doctor to lobby for his socialist agenda (“The people of Athens are starving!”), and the group of misfits confronts a series of conflicts.

Toward the beginning of the show, Alexander (Travis Tyson) and the palace bard (Augie Murphy) performed a vervacious, energetically-choreographed duet. One of the noticeable aspects of the show was the quality of choreography of the cast and chorus. The boys of Chorus boogieing in the background during a party scene was delightful. The soldier (Sammie Paul) and Not Fake Doctor’s (Justin Chan) background dancing during Philip’s performance of “Mi Gente” was almost as enticing as Whittington’s terrifyingly impressive fast-paced SPANISH solo. We only wish we could have actually heard most of the lyrics, since the

band often overpowered the soloists and chorus.

The same problem arose in Eugene Thomas and Travis Tyson’s duet, in which both performed well—Eugene was angrily expressive with his face and body and Travis was violently passionate as he moved across the stage—but from the front row, we couldn’t hear what either were saying.

But talent was limited to vocal performance: in a standout performance, senior belly proved that they know how to pop. In a piece full of creative formations and well-coordinated, smooth moves, belly showed themselves off as the Oracle (Faith Sanchez) read out a haunting prophecy.

The lighting in this scene added to the drama: red and purple lighting cast the entire stage in colored, mystical shadow and glow. Fog slipped through the set around the dancers, creating a silky continuity between the columns and the dancers and making the prophecy all the more foreboding.

Smoothly introduced as “the Fire Dancers,” flow’s performance was smooth and enticing. In wellcoordinated and often symmetrical arrangements of red, orange, and yellow light, Flow stole the show with an exciting and creative performance.

Also notable was an integrated performance by chorus and step, who were dressed as automatons in Hephaestus’ workshop. Step’s performance was noticeably more advanced than that of the other SING!s, including rolls and duet moves. The idea to integrate the two crews was creative, but proved problematic—due to mic issues, step ended up drowning out chorus, taking away from their collaborative performance.

Girls’ hip-hop’s harpy costumes were absolutely gorgeous. Dressed in wings with purple and black feathers on the back and glittery detail on the front, they brought to life the terror and tragedy of Philip’s final battle as they circled him, killing him right

in front of his lover.

The standout performance of the show, however, was “Athens in Despair.” Written to the tune of The Hunger Games’s “The Hanging Tree,” the seniors brought to this melody a new level of tragedy. Contemporary danced as graceful tree nymphs while Greece mourned its only heir. Contemp’s performance was full—but not overly full—of impressive stunts, and their use of resistance bands as props was unique and new.

Chorus sang as they performed in a creepy and effective whisper, coming down the aisles and up the stage stairs from the side entrances in a candlelit procession. The scene was beautifully choreographed and blocked, and it was incredible to see contemp and chorus shown off so well.

Also gorgeous was Alex and Philip’s post-mortem duet, “How Can I Ever Stop Loving You.” Both of their voices were incredibly strong, and their harmonies had audience members crying.

Singing without touching, the scene was hugely emotional and evocative of Alex’s loss. It was an immersive moment.

Undeniably, however, the most show-stopping vocal performance was Faith Sanchez’s version of “House of the Rising Sun.” It should be said for the record that I hate that song. I hate it so much. But I would have run across Manhattan to hear Sanchez’s voice sliding across the lowest pitches once again.

Senior SING! shone with stand-out acting performances by long-time veteran actors.

The Empress (Eliana Kavouriadis), a sexy 80-year-old who doesn’t look a day over 18, is a boss ass bitch with hair for days.

Kavouriadis, a long time STC and SING! participant, glittered in her role as the queen she is.

Strutting on stage was Sammie Paul, who played to her strengths as a tough guy soldier with a sentimentality for her charge Philip, and as always, was the coolest per-

The Spectator ● March 19, 2018

Page 15

Senior SING!

Senior SING! son in the room. (She also threw fire rapping).

Susan He’s performance as Stoner Medusa bordered on cringy from a more critical eye, but The Spectator was partial to it.

He did an excellent job convincingly playing an inherently corny part, selling the humor of the role: declaring “Amnesty’s the wave!” in a high-pitched drone, a sloppy, smacked smile, and a clumsy peace sign.

Her costume was gorgeous and appropriate; dressed in a sleeveless, serpentine green velvet dress with gold overlay and waxy, dreadlock-esque snakes, she pulled off “Queen of the Snakes” from relaxed sandals to wavy round sunglasses. And brave enough to rap for a full song in full character in a non-traditional high-pitched voice, He really did become “The Baddest Snake in Ancient History.”

The most remarkable element of the show, though, was the visual grace. From backdrop to props, the vivid, bright colors of the set brought feeling to the time period, creating a fantasy world for the seniors to draw us into.

Elements like the prop fountain and Hera’s staff showed an incredible attention to detail and theme, keeping the world of Senior SING! in chromatic symphony, down to the costumes.

The Empress was dressed in a sweeping bloodred gown and had a delicate gold shawl draped around her shoulders that fell to the ground. Her costume was rich with detail, from silver hair and eye-catching headpiece. The simplicity of the white robes of the plebeians and the dark lace veil of Sanchez offered a dynamic contrast and variety in texture and color.

Even the costumes of the chorus, whose members wore simple white tops and pink, yellow, and purple wrap skirts, offered enough simplicity to keep the focus on the foreground, but enough variety to add to the overall complex aes-

thetic. Using the co-ed hip-hop dancers as the statues and as a part of the set was a unique decision that allowed the dancers to take the tableau to the next level.

This thematically appropriate and consistent use of color, texture, and movement was exclusive to the senior show.

While the show was visually cohesive, the plot and the pacing suffered from being centered around just a few standout characters and moments. The main driving factor, poverty, was used merely to set up the relationship between Alexander and Prince Philip; the two are accompanied by the palace bard and Medusa as the group of unlikely friends go in search of Hera.

The relationship between the two leads itself, however, then received no more than three minutes of onstage time to develop.

Travis confessed he was not Dr. Mark Ova, the two gazed in each other’s eyes, and fell in love (insert mandatory French kiss, which, we will add, was more graphic than many of the hookups at SAP later that night). A moment later, Alex is surrounded by harpies and killed, and his mother spends but one minute screaming in despair before she inexplicably accepts his death and declares it party time.

To Tyson and Whittington’s credit, they did play “Desperately In Love” in a convincing way.

Their romance felt real, even if it wasn’t chronologically logical.

But at least Romeo and Juliet had three days between first kiss and final breath. Philip and Alex only had three minutes.

Then, instead of accepting his completely non-traditional new role as emperor of Athens, Alexander relinquishes the laurel and brings democracy to Athens. Didn’t STC do 1776 back in the fall?

These rushed elements were a result of an extremely long exposition. More time should have been left for the more emotional moments. Having three major plot holes so close together denied the

audience their right to a suspension of disbelief. The seniors had an opportunity to explore a darker theme and focus on the theatrics of tragedy; in an attempt at tying up the show neatly with a happygo-lucky dance number, they unfortunately missed that opportunity and chose an extremely traditional route.

This isn’t to say that the seniors did not take a number of risks. A number of characters, including Dionysus (Mark Shafran) and Hades (Daniel Knopf), served little purpose in terms of moving the plot forward, but added a touch of intimacy since they were written into the script as themselves. Dionysus literally held a red Solo cup for the entirety of the show.

Also to their credit, Senior SING! was absolutely hilarious.

The script was filled with risqué jokes. See, for example, “Their ultra ribbed Trojan protection has them…impregnable” and “You always seem to have a way of making men…Rock Hard,” which, out of the mouth of Holden Higgins, was some mix of gut-busting, sexy, and uncomfortable.

A full three minutes of the script was dedicated to a gag involving razor scooters (#worthit), in which Hephaestus grants the gang a set of steel steads (decorated with plumes of ribbon on the handlebars) with which to travel to Olympus. Philip then swings one around and bangs his ankle, falling to the floor in all-too-relatable anguish, as he experiences the only pain in the world comparable to childbirth. They then scoot around the auditorium.

Senior SING! was the only SING! to close with a spirit song on Saturday. As swing finished their smooth (and smiling!) performance, the seniors rushed the stage to prove that they really were the ones bringing not only the experience, but enthusiasm. The nostalgia of a last performance and a love for the tradition of SING! glowed as the curtains closed on the seniors’ last show.

Page 16

The Spectator ● March 19, 2018

SING! Humor These articles are works of fiction. All quotes are libel and slander.

SING! Reviews

SOPHFROSH:

By Crystal WanG Soph-Frosh SING! started off well enough, with a dazzling solo from Zeynep Bromberg surrounded by the chorus, whose roles in the play could only be described as “shiny blue people.”

Despite the fact that all of the time travel happened before the show started, we were introduced to a group of time travelers: a posh lady from the 1800s, a misunderstood teen from the ‘80s, a sexualized underclassman, and a member of Soph-Frosh SING!. While much of the humor revolved around the pelvic thrusts of a sophomore who looked like his adult teeth hadn’t dropped in, the audience was truly touched by the heartwarming struggle of a girl who finally came out to her mom as a historian.

JUNIOR: SENIOR:

By Gabrielle Umanova 2018 was the year Senior SING! blew us all away with the theme of Obsessively Awaiting SAP. This year’s script (written by Floyd, the emo junior,) featured a literal god of alcohol, a shwacked queen of snakes, increasingly uncomfortable penis jokes, a love story that escalated at the speed of light over the course of three minutes, and a make-out scene that made the entire audience feel like they were engaging in an act of voyeurism; in brief, we know exactly what was on Senior SING!’s mind.

Not enough can be said about the bravery of the cast, who really challenged themselves by taking on such foreign characters. The amount of creativity that must have gone into casting Eliana Kavouriadis as an authoritative Greek woman and Eugene Thomas as a math nerd is truly unfathomable. Furthermore, while we didn’t even remotely understand it, we could appreciate Daniel Knopf’s excellent performance as Completely Irrelevant Character.

Also incredible was Sammie Paul’s performance as Still Cooler Than You and Mark Shafran, who despite being president of Stuyvesant’s Students Against Destructive Decisions (We’re all SADD), was able to look very convincingly sauced. Alex Whittington also blew everyone away in his role as Enrique Iglesias. Everyone was completely shocked to find out that he could actually sing.

Another highlight was the borderline psychotic rollercoaster of emotions that was the second half of the performance! After killing off the main character and singing a heartbreakingly passionate duet about being separated from the true love he met two minutes ago, creating an intensively dark and depressing tone, the show remembered to take its Prozac and relieved the tension of Philip’s death with some swing dancing.

By Daniel Knopf and Michela Marchini

Adam Elsayed The Musical was truly one of the most beautiful performances ever seen at Stuy. The juniors’ choice to simply release Adam Elsayed onto the stage for an hour and see what happened was an inspiring deviation away from the tradition of having actual “scripts” and “plots” and “talent.” Another inspiring choice on the part of the juniors was bringing to light a topic that Stuy students never ever talk about: nepotism in SING!. “When they made that joke about a coordinator picking their cousin I was shocked,” senior Jacqueline Cao said. “I mean, it really never occured to me that that’s why Ray Jones was chosen!”

The juniors continued to push boundaries with their daring decision to pull a Soph-Frosh and have their set “purposely” break in the middle of their show on Friday. “The reason we chose meta-SING! as our theme was so that when we inevitably mess up, we could just say it was part of the plan,” junior SING! coordinator Ruby Gary said.

Another aspect of SING! the juniors pulled off stupendously was their costumes. The costumes crew clearly stayed up all hours of the night working tirelessly to buy every item of clothing the cast wore.

Ironically enough, it seems that art imitates life, because even in their meta-SING!, the juniors didn’t win.

The Spectator ● March 19, 2018

Page 17

Features

Behind the Curtains: The Season-Long Passion that makes SING! SING!

By Jennifer Liu

Six weeks of hours-long rehearsals all boil down to three shows. Parents bask in the homogenous chorus of voices and instruments, the graceful movements of actors and dancers, and the appealing aesthetics of paintings and handmade costumes that denote the theme. The theater is filled with bursts of energy and school spirit. But what creates this energy? Dive deeply into directors’ personal stories and catch a glimpse of the camaraderie and dedication that produce this mesmerizing experience.

Mohammad Jawwad, Junior SING! Costumes Director

What sparked your interest in joining Costumes as a member last year and directing the crew this year?

Costumes wasn’t initially a thing that I wanted to do. I got pity-accepted into it because my friend was Costumes Director last year. I ended up being the person who did a lot of work. This year, Ruby [the coordinator] came to me and said, “We really need a costumes director, so could you please sign up?” and I really needed a leadership position.

What do you love most about Costumes?

The best thing in costumes, and also the worst thing, is when you work with other crews because you actually get new, different personalities. Every single year, different people come, so you never get accustomed to it. It’s really good for when you have social anxiety like me. Costumes builds this confidence in people. So that’s definitely one of the reasons

why I keep coming back to it.

People come in not knowing how to sew, and when they leave, they could buy a sewing machine and sew their own clothes. You just get thrown into using sewing machines and become accustomed to it.

And that’s what I like the most; it’s a hands-on learning environment. There’s a deadline, of course. It’s really pressuring, but the payoff and social aspects are really good.

What do you find the most stressful about directing Costumes?

This year, it’s been very difficult to buy material because the Slate and administration said that we have to get everything pre-approved. So we have to go somewhere, not buy anything, get it signed, and then buy it. It’s been annoying for people who need to buy stuff, especially when you have a very small crew of eight people. And it’s sad that people who came in wanting to do fun things besides sewing, like splattering paint, won’t get that option because we don’t have time for it.

Last year, we had a good 40 people, then it cut down to 20, and then people just became

lazy. They saw our directors not going crazy about attendance and took advantage of it, which is what I’m trying to prevent this year. But there’s only so much you can do with SAT’s coming up, and you have to understand that there are priorities for these [crew members], so you can’t do much.

As a non-performing design crew, to what extent do you feel under-recognized for your work? How much is the pressure to maintain a good reputation for costumes?

We’re not as underappreciated as some crews that are physically backstage during the show, such as tech and lights & sound, are. But there is a lot of pressure because the Spectator article about SING! defines the reputation of a crew. There was a whole section about what the costumes look like and the writer’s opinion. Last year, there was misinformation. We were accused of making costumes that weren’t delegated to us, and the student body believed it until we had to individually state otherwise, and that’s a lot of pressure to build up from.

How do you work your way

around a small number of busy people to make things more efficient?

I have had 12 spreadsheets open every single night that range from budgeting to attendance. I’m really hard on attendance. If a crew member cuts twice, they’re going to be cut from the show. Even though we need people, I need to instill fear among them. I hate being this military dictator, but it’s going to have to be like this.

For those few people that were interested in joining costumes, what do you think got them interested in joining?

Marketing. Also, people wanted to learn how to sew.

In the [Costumes crew] application form, a lot of members said that they didn’t know how to sew. And we made it a no-cut crew, which appealed to a lot of people. Some had friends that were in the crew. I tried to get most of my friends in, and most of them stayed in.

And other people want to see something they created and be proud of what they did.

What motivated them to want to stay committed?

For the last eight members that I have, they’re here

Courtesy of Mohammad Jawwad

What does costumes do specifically, as in the work behind the scenes?

We take body measurements, buy materials, cut and pattern them, and hem them.

to see SING! happen, and if it doesn’t happen, they want to blow the show away with at least the costumes they slaved over. Their will is what keeps them going for it. They put in the work, and I’m really proud of them for coming in every single day. It brings tears to my eyes. There are people who don’t care about how costumes work; there are people who spend so much time on costumes, knowing that it might not be the year that we win, but willing to go on. And it’s inspiring because they want to see the costumes they made on stage and point out, “That is what I did. That is my signature in SING!. That is my essence in Stuy. It’s a legacy of what I have done.

Courtesy of Lumi Westerlund

Lumi Westerlund, Junior SING! Tap Director and get the jist of it. But in tap, if you look at it, it doesn’t tell you how to do it. So it’s hard to teach people from the beginning.

First, I teach them the general steps. Then, as I choreograph the dance, I try to include as many of the general steps as possible so that beginners could learn it easily, and I teach them part by part to make it easier.

What do you love the most about directing tap?

I like the fact that everyone in the crew currently has never tapped before, but a lot of them now really love tap. A lot of them keep coming back because they enjoy it so much. It makes me really happy because I’ve been tap dancing for years and I love it, but these people have never tapped danced before, and they love it too. That I’m able to share with them something that I love so much makes me really happy.

Is it difficult to teach those with no prior tap experience?

How do you accommodate this?

It is difficult because tap isn’t like other crews. In belly, people see that you body roll

Tell me about your dance experience before and in Stuyvesant.

I did a lot of random dances before I came to Stuy. I tap danced when I was six, then took ballet and modern for a few years. By the time I was 11, I started tap dancing again.

And I just took tap classes until I got to Stuy, and I was like “ I don’t have time for the classes anymore.” Luckily, there was this dance culture at Stuy that I could be a part of.

During freshman year, I was in Stuy Squad with Leila and Maiko as directors. During SING!, I co-directed with Leila, and I continued to do tap [for SING! and Stuy Squad]. I directed SING! pretty much for three years. I only didn’t do tap for the first time during Stuy Squad this year because I was directing step for the first time.

Why do you prefer tap over other dances, such as ballet and modern?

I did ballet and modern in fifth and six grade, so that wasn’t a big part of my life. I definitely enjoyed tap a lot more because I feel like for ballet, you’re really conformed to do one thing. With modern, you could be open but you can’t be as loud. I just love the fact that I can be really loud.

Also, you can tap dance while you are walking or sitting.

How do you think tap has shaped your Stuyvesant experience and person?

It made me a lot more confident. In freshman year, when I first joined Stuy Squad tap, I was very shy and nervous. Now, being director just makes me a lot more confident. I’ve made a lot of friends through tap. I like talking to people in classes like, “Oh, hey! You should join tap!” even though I don’t know them. And they actually come, and I’ll be like, “Oh, great!” and we become good friends because they do tap. I didn’t really know most of the people in tap before they joined.

Since not many people tried out this year, did you accept everyone into your crew?

Yeah. I was planning to accept everyone. I knew no one was going to try out since it’s junior year and last year, we were able to make cuts. We made a few and then people proceeded to quit. And that was annoying because we cut some people to accept these people, and they quit. So this year, I decided to just accept everyone, which I’m glad I did because a lot of people realized that they didn’t have time. So the crew got really small.

How do you work your way around the busy schedules, such as SAT prep, of crew members?

It’s hard. In order for us to have group practices or to make any noise, every single person needs to be there because there are six people. But that rarely happens because of SAT prep. I make them learn the steps and post videos online to make sure that everyone is together even though we aren’t practicing together, so that it works out when we all come together.

What’s the most stressful about directing tap?

Tap is usually not stressful for me because I usually have Jessica Park or someone else directing with me. If I have

something to do, that’s fine because they’ll be there. But this year, if I had something to do such as prep, we couldn’t have practice. So what we tried to do was have practice anytime. My crew would come in and practice without me, which worked for the most part, but they had some trouble learning new steps. So they just rehearsed old steps, which would make us fall behind if I wasn’t there.

What changes would you want to see in tap?

Next year, I hope to have a co-directors. I hope that tap gets bigger since it’ll be senior year, and a lot of people want to try it. I feel like a lot of people see tap as for girls or boring, but I want people to realize that it’s not, and that anyone can join. I really hope that next year, many people join and we have tons of directors. Our crew could be loud, and we could teach the choreo earlier and have more time to drill. This year, I had to teach it all by myself, and I never got a break. [Teaching my own choreo] was fun, but it also got very repetitive because we had a lot of shuffles. I did have a lot of freedom, but at the same time, there were times when I couldn’t think of anything, and my mind went blank.

The Spectator ● March 19, 2018

Page 18

Features Astrid Malter, Junior SING! Stage Director and Scriptwriter to reject people. It’s just that we don’t need that many people.

Courtesy of Astrid Maltar

What does Stage do specifically?

Stage is responsible for making sure that everything goes smoothly during the show. We’re primarily responsible for lights & sound cues. We tell the people in the lights & sound crew when to change the lights, when to put on spotlights, and what mics to turn on and off. We use special effects, like fog. We also tell Tech crew when to put out certain equipment or pianos. During [the performance], we bring the dance crews to the stage before it’s their time to perform.

Tell me about your past experience in stage. What inspired you to direct?

I did Stage starting freshman year for SING!, and I’ve been doing Stage ever since. I was just [responsible for] dance crews, but I liked it a lot because I’m not really an actor. I wish I could be a performer, so I still want to be as involved as I can, and stage is a really good place for me to do that. It’s a really special experience watching the show every night, knowing it really well, and making sure that all the technical aspects of the show work well.

I wanted to direct because I love stage, and I wanted a bigger role in management. I also have a lot of experience, so I figured I could help teach people.

How is your experience different this year as a director?

There isn’t a huge difference, but there is a lot more responsibility being a director. You need to be active on Facebook often to get the order from higher ups and make sure that everyone in your crew knows what they’re doing. I also do administrative work like collecting OSIS numbers.

What do you love the most about stage crew? And what’s the most stressful?

They’re kind of the same thing. When I’m sitting backstage and need to give a cue like “turn on the spotlight now,” it either works perfectly or doesn’t.

So if it looks great, I’m really happy, and I feel so good that I helped to make that, and it also helps the actors look good. It’s stressful if something doesn’t work out. It’s up to me and my crew to fix it. And when you’re running around backstage, you have to make a lot of split second decision.

How much is the commitment with being on Stage crew?

To quote John Green, “it’s kind of like falling asleep: slowly, then all at once.” You don’t really do that much in the first few weeks of SING!, but toward the end, you have to come in every day because we need to be there all the time working things out.

And during shows, you need to be there every night, so you need to get familiar with the show. At the end, it’s a big commitment.

Are there fewer people who applied for stage this year since it is junior year? Since stage is a small crew, how hard is it to choose applicants?

Definitely fewer people applied. Stage is unique in that we don’t need that many people, with fewer than 10 people every year. I want to accept as many people as possible, so when it’s hard for me to choose, it’s not because there are not enough [qualified] applicants, it’s more because I don’t want to say no to anyone because anyone can learn how to do it, and most people can do a good job. So I feel bad because I don’t want

What other creative writing experiences do you have?

I love English class, so this year, I’m taking AP Contemporaries & Classics with Mr. Garfinkel, and in that class, we have a lot of opportunities for creative writing. And this year, I’m also in this creative writing workshop that’s after school for six weeks at the Brooklyn Public Library on the theme of obsessions.

That’s a workshop on how to create characters, how to make a plot, and funny dialogue.

How has your experience being a scriptwriter and stage director shaped your overall Stuyvesant experience and person?

Doing stage has been the best part of my Stuyvesant experience because when I came to Stuy, and I sometimes still feel like this, that I don’t really have a niche. There’s not one area where I feel like it’s just me. I’m not saying that you have to be unique, but I definitely struggled with that at Stuyvesant. And the theater is a place where I can relax and focus on something that’s not related to schoolwork. So when I’m backstage, I’m really worrying about what’s in front of me, and it’s also creative, and I just really like that. And being a writer has been a really great opportunity for me to work with other people and to create something new.

It’s exciting to be involved in writing because it’s pre-production, and it’s fun to be in stage because it’s production, so I get to see I contributed to something. And I’m glad I did both because last year, I was only a writer and the year before that, I was only in Stage. It just makes SING! feel a lot more complete.

Now that I’m doing Stage and it’s the night before the show, I can see how far the show has come.

Tell me about your experience in theater, including SING! and STC. I had zero acting, directing, or theater experience coming into Stuy. Then, in freshman year, I assist-directed Soph-Frosh SING!’s cast, and that was a really great experience. And I keep coming back every year because it was so inspiring to watch this show come together. As a freshman, I was learning the ropes and didn’t really assert myself, but I really learned so much that year. There are still moments in that show that I think about and use to help me work on my current show.

My first STC show was Putnam County Spelling Bee in sophomore year. I was in the ensemble.

Then, I did Laramie and Drowsy Chaperone. This year, I got to be on Slate, which is really exciting. I got to direct All My Sons, which I feel very lucky to been able to do.

What inspired you to apply for Assistant Director in freshman year, even though you had no prior experience in theater?

I had a friend who was applying, so we applied together. She talked about it to me, and I knew I wanted to be involved in SING! just based on what I heard about it, and that sounded like a really great way to get involved.

What do you do specifically as a Cast Director?

It’s not a very well-defined job, and it depends. There are a few things that every cast director has to do, but there are also things I do that other directors don’t.

I do staging; I tell the characters where to go and movements they can do while acting. I do a lot of character work, which includes reading through lines, talking about the motivation behind them, and how they should be said. I also block; “blocking” is another word for staging. For example, “Walk over to this side during the chorus,” and “do this move during this line.”

What do you love most being a Cast Director?

I really love this spirit of cast in general. It’s always very playful. Because the script is organic and constantly changing, and so much of it comes from the cast members themselves, it just makes for a really dynamic vibe where people are always contributing to the show and coming up with ideas. It’s a really creative group of people. And seeing my handprint on the show is exciting for me.

Courtesy of Mika Simoncelli

You shifting to being a scriptwriter; what inspired you to apply for the position?

I was a scriptwriter last year, but I liked it because you have so much creative control, and that’s what I’m most interested in regarding SING!: building something from scratch. I just think that’s amazing, and it’s really fun to be with a group of people who are so creative. And I want to work on being a better writer because one day, I hope to be some sort of creative writer.

Mika Simoncelli, Senior SING! Cast Director

Another thing that I really love about cast directing is that I get to work with people of different crews. I work with the lights & sound directors and help them program the different light settings for the show. I have been involved in chorus by blocking their songs. I consult with props, costumes, and art to come up with ideas.

I just feel really grateful to have gotten to know so many people and to work with so many people. I have so much respect for the work that everyone is doing.

How has your experience in theater shaped you as a person and your Stuyvesant experience?

It’s taught me a lot about who I want to be in the world, and that I always want to be in a creative environment and especially a collaborative one. SING! has been an antidote to the pressure of Stuy.

Even though it’s a competition, it never really feels like one to me.

It’s a thing that I look forward to the most every year. I can’t imagine my Stuy experience without it; I feel like my whole Stuy experience has been structured around SING!. It’s been this metric where I’ve been able to see myself and the people around me grow just based on how much better SING! gets every year and how we improve on our mistakes.

Since the selection process for cast members is difficult, based on what aspects do you make your selections?

It is a really, really difficult process. The one thing that’s made it easier over the years is that I learned to trust myself and my judgment. If I have a gut feeling that this person needs to be in callbacks, I go for it. It’s partly because I think SING! acting is much more about charisma and presence; while I’ve seen so many actors who try out bring really interesting, nuanced, and subtle things to the table and do a really good job interpreting the monologue, sometimes the louder presence wins out.

Emily Li, Senior SING! Latin Director

How has directing Latin for all these years shaped your Stuyvesant experience and you as a person?

Through directing, I met most of my friends and gained a lot of confidence. During freshman year, I was very shy and didn’t talk to many people. But

when directing, I was forced to have to speak up and direct.

Directing and dancing on stage has definitely changed my Stuyvesant career. If I didn’t do that, I would be a completely different person.

What do you love the most about Latin?

The community of it, not so much the dance itself. Though it’s very awkward at first for people to hold hands with each other since they are basically strangers, by the end of it, all of us know each other, and we’re all goofing around. When people ask me about it, I always rave about it because I love what I’ve done. It’s not just for me, but also for everyone who joined the crew even though they may have not stayed. For anyone who’s in it, it becomes a family through dancing. Though I’m very harsh on people sometimes, they do understand that it’s for the performance.

What’s the most stressful thing to handle while directing Latin?

For SING! specifically, it’s having to interact with other crews, like costumes and

makeup. With SING!, you can’t just wear whatever you want; it always has to pertain to the plot.

There are so many components to it that aren’t just controlled by you but by other directors who have their own things to do. Though it’s the most stressful, it’s also the most fun because you get to meet other people through that.

What do you do specifically as a Latin director?

I pair crew members first based on height and experience. Some people are more experienced than others, so I tend to mix it up. I try to have one experienced person with one who has never done Latin before.

I have tryouts, even though for the most part, [Latin is] usually no cut like it is for Stuy Squad. But for SING!, I have to cut people just because it’s very restrained.

In terms of teaching, I make all the choreo. I try to make most of it before SING! actually starts.

Usually, we have a week or two between being accepted as director and actually holding tryouts, so I make most of [the choreography] then and afterwards,

make a few alterations here and there. I try to make [the chore ography] simple but also very presentable, like a stage performance.

I teach for the first third of [the season]. Then, I clean and drill for the next two-thirds. Most people have never done Latin before, so I work on techniques, such as arms and placement.

I always open up my free periods to make sure everyone learns it, and I always set up deadlines. If they aren’t showing up at all, I will have to cut them because it’s unfair to the other crew members.

About how much of the people in your crew have done Latin for the previous consecutive years?

As for my entire crew this year for Senior SING!, I’ve worked with each and every one of them beforehand, either through Stuy Squad or SING!. Most of the people who join tend to come back. My junior year’s Stuy Squad was my biggest crew (around thirty people), and half of them came back to it. A lot of [other] people are just busy. Some people just try it, and totally get that.

A lot of people in my Senior SING! Crew joined Latin sophomore or junior year, and they’ve just been

Courtesy of Emily Li

Tell me about your dance history.

I danced Latin for eight years, and before that, I did general dancing on the side. I started Latin with my cousins—we danced at the same studio, and that encouraged me to dance more often. It was a fun experience for me. I learned a lot from it and became a lot more confident.

Coming into Stuyvesant, my cousin, who was a senior when I was a freshman, told me about how amazing the dance community here was. So, I definitely wanted to join it. I joined Latin for SophFrosh SING!. It was a fun experience, though it was hectic and confusing since I didn’t know anyone.

But I started directing myself for my sophomore year’s Stuy Squad; since then, I have been directing Stuy Squad, SING!, and SOS.

sticking around with it. It’s always nice to see the same people. It’s like working with friends but knowing that you have to be serious at times.

Would you say your crew is a family?

Yes, definitely. I would have never met a lot of them if I didn’t direct. I would just know them as a classmate. With latin, I hang out with them outside of school and during my free periods. I’ve always relied on them for things. We always talk to each other about everything.

We’re definitely a tight group of people.

The Spectator ● March 19, 2018

Page 19

Features Corinne Pita and Khandaker Rhiman, SophFrosh SING! Flow Directors

Courtesy of Corinne Pita

Corinne: First, you gotta warn people: this is going to hurt. Flow takes time and practice to get right, and people coming in need to be ready to have bruises on their arm for a week from smacking themselves so hard with plastic duds. It’s just part of the process, and being a director means making sure people are aware of that going in. The next part is the fun part: teaching people the MOVES! It’s hard to imagine just how much a person can do with two sticks

of plastic tied to shoelaces, but as a director, guiding people to the realization of those possibilities is not only part of the job, but one of the incredible rewards you get as a result of being in my position. Finally, directing Flow means convincing people to stick with it (haha, get it?). Flow can get frustrating, painful, confusing, and can both look and feel impossible. As a director of such a unique crew, you need to always be there for those who are ready to throw down their glow sticks and say “You know what? I’m done.” A director is the bridge to success when someone’s trying to learn something they’ve never done before. However, no matter how frustrated or angry or bruised someone might get and how bad that can make you feel as someone who keeps telling them to try and try again, pushing them to achieve those beautiful designs in the dark is almost as satisfying as the look on their faces when they finally shout and say “I GOT IT!” What sparked your interest in Flow? Where did you gain your first Flow, or any other performance, experience?

Corinne: Sophfrosh S!NG last year was the first time I’d ever even heard of Flow. I saw it as one of the options for a dance crew, and doing some research on my own after seeing the name, I knew instantly I had to try out.

Learning all those new moves during tryouts was incredible; the feeling of getting such dullseeming items to look so amazing (without having to move my legs) made me instantly fall in love. Sadly, I didn’t do SOS last year or Stuy Squad this year because of sports, but S!NG season is now my dedicated Flow time, where I don’t want to think or do anything else but spin those lights like I did Freshman year for 15 seconds on a dim stage,

and Sophomore year for more than a minute total, some of the best seconds of my life to date.

Khandaker: Last SING! I tried out for flow because of how cool it was for Stuysquad. I had gained a lot of love for how beautiful the glowsticks looked in the dark. I remember when I got cut on my birthday from SophFrosh SING! Flow last year and ever since, I grew more passionate about learning everything I could. Then, I performed in SOS and Stuysquad 2018, expanding my flow knowledge and finally directing SophFrosh SING! Flow 2018.

What do you love the most about Flow?

Khandaker: Flow is a beautiful art that not many people in the world realize. We are not just nerds spinning glowsticks in the dark. We are people that proudly learn these awesome techniques (even though it may come with a lot of pain sometimes). Flow is a great way to express your inner feelings. I’ve used flow to get rid of all my stress. Sometimes, over the summer, I’d go out at night and just flow because it’s a great way to think and have alone time.

Corinne: The way it makes you feel. Knowing that you’re the reason the crowd is so awestruck when watching you on stage, knowing those lights in the dark look so incredible because of your hands, and of course, knowing that such a large group of people could work together to achieve one singular, spectacular goal, while still having time to become a huge family; the combination of these things creates a feeling inside you words really can’t describe.

What’s the most stressful when it comes to directing?

Corinne: Automatically putting all the mistakes the crew makes on yourself, even if you don’t want to. Whether it be a dead light in a staff, a non-cracking glow stick, or an incorrect formation on stage, it’s hard not to blame all the mistakes made in front of a crowd on yourself, when you were given the responsibility to prevent all of that from happening.

Would you say Flow is a family?

If so, describe one memorable bonding experience and/or what your crew does together aside from rehearsing.

Khandaker: Flow is definitely a family. Everyone in the crew loves talking and bonding with each other. We teach each other awesome moves and we do homework together when we aren’t learning. One time, during the winter break practices, we started blasting K-POP music in the first floor atrium. Everyone in the crew started dancing to BTS and TWICE songs. After that, we made hilarious ‘flow self-defense’ videos and shared it to our group. That day was full of joy and laughter. That was the day when I knew, we aren’t just a crew, we are a family.

Corinne: YES, YES, SO MUCH EMPHASIS ON THIS YES. From funny self defense videos and stressful homework sessions, to hilarious mistakes during rehearsal and moments where someone needs a shoulder to lean on, my fellow directors and I made sure that our crew would be nothing less than inseparable during the S!NG season. When we were at rehearsal, it was like no other crew existed (except they did, because sometimes we almost hit them with our glowsticks). We laughed, yelled, screamed, blasted music, made fun of each other, told people to shut up and that they were cut,

SING! Scoreboard

Courtesy of Khandaker Rhiman

What do you do specifically to direct Flow?

Khandaker: To direct a crew you need to gain the love of your members, first of all. We wanted to create a family so that our members can depend on us and each other. Although we are directors, we also aimed to be their friends. Secondly, we wanted to share our passion and enthusiasm with them. If you make teaching fun, people will want to learn. To make practices fun, we like to freestyle and show them awesome flow combos so they are excited to learn new moves and tricks. Sometimes, we even have then make their own freestyle routine or choreo so they have an opportunity to showcase their own awesome skills.

but also that we loved them more than free Krispy Kreme donuts.

We still have a group chat going strong, with jokes about various fruits and nicknames honoring repeated inside jokes (this one’s for my crew: OK STEEEEEVE).

I wouldn’t give up this group of people for the world, and despite all the things my directors and I taught them this year, I’m more proud of the relationships we helped them build with each other than the moves each of them learned this S!NG season.

Anything else you would like to tell The Spectator about Flow?

Khandaker: Flow is an amazing, lovable club. It might seem hard at first but flow is all about trying and putting in a lot of effort. Sure, we are not like hiphop or belly, but we shine just as bright if not brighter. Give it a try! Flow’s a great way to introduce yourself to the dance floor.

Corinne: We are, in fact, the LIT-TES CREW :D. We got selfmade memes, inside jokes, cool lights and epic music. On stage, no one confuses the crowd more than we do; when we spin lights we mean serious business. Behind the scenes, our laughs echo through the hallways, and sure, we protec, we attac . . .

But most importantly, on stage we crac.

The Spectator ● March 19, 2018

Page 20

Arts and Entertainment SONG!s From the Past, Present, and Future With an enthusiastic cavewoman, a flashy Elvis Presley impersonator, a SING!-hating saboteur, a stoned Medusa, and corrupt Greek royalty, SING! 2018 was an undeniably spectacular experience that will remain in the minds of everyone who watched or participated for years to come. But if you ever want to take a trip back in the past to these ancient SING!s, just listen to the music of a variety of eras, as you wait for a long future of SING!s to come…

SOPHFROSH: “Belle” Emma Watson Musical Theater “Hips Don’t Lie” Shakira Latin Pop “Naughty Girl” Beyoncé Disco/R&B “Get Busy” Too Many Zooz Jazz “Joga O Bum Bum Tam Tam” MC Fioti Hip-hop/Rap “Billie Jean” Michael Jackson Pop “Hit Me Baby One More Time” Britney Spears Pop

“24K Magic” Bruno Mars Disco/Funk “I Won’t Give Up” Jason Mraz Folk Pop/Soul “Skyfall” Adele Soundtrack “King of New York” Cast of “Newsies” Musical Theater “Rewrite the Stars” Zac Efron, Zendaya Pop “Jailhouse Rock” Elvis Presley Rock and Roll “Nintendo Mii Channel Trap Remix” Trap Music Now.

Trap “Can’t Help Falling in Love” Elvis Presley Pop “Alexander Hamilton” Original Broadway Cast of Hamilton Musical Theater “New York, New York” Frank Sinatra Pop “Wannabe” Spice Girls Pop “Anaconda” Nicki Minaj Hip-hop/Pop Rap “Phineas and Ferb” Theme Song Bowling For Soup Rock

SENIORS: “Cheap Thrills” Sia Pop “Mi Gente” J Balvin, Willy William Reggaeton “Outside” Calvin Harris, Ellie Goulding Electropop “Believer” Imagine Dragons Pop Rock “I Want You Back” Jackson 5 Pop/Soul

“Kolony Anthem” Steve Aoki

“Alone” Jordan Comolli Electronic “Stay” Zedd, Alessia Cara Pop “Havana” Camila Cabello Latin/Pop “House of the Rising Sun” The Animals R&B/Soul “Seasons of Love” Cast of “Rent” Musical Theater “Say Something” A Great Big World Pop “16 Shots”

Stefflon Don Hip-hop/Rap “Womanizer” Britney Spears Electropop “Feel It Still” Portugal. The Man Psychedelic Pop/Funk “The Hanging Tree” James Newton Howard, Jennifer Lawrence Soundtrack “The Office” Theme Song The Scrantones Soundtrack “Go The Distance” Roger Bart Soundtrack Peter Jin/ The Spectator

“Malang” Siddharth Mahadevan and Shilpa Rao Soundtrack

Electronic

“Bodak Yellow” Cardi B. Hip-hop

JUNIORS: “Good Morning Baltimore” Cast of Hairspray the Musical Musical Theater

“Baby Boy” Beyoncé Contemporary R&B

“Modern Times” IU K-Pop

“Talk Dirty” Jason Derulo (ft. 2 Chainz) R&B/Soul

“Rocket Man” Elton John Soft Rock

“Tennis Court” Lorde Alternative

“Dream On” Aerosmith Rock

“Hot2Touch” Felix Jaehn, Hight, Alex Aiono Pop

“Chasing Pavements” Adele Pop

“Kumbaya, My Lord” The Riverside Gospel Group

“Home” Edward Sharpe and the

“I’m A Slave 4 U” Britney Spears Pop

Gospel “Centuries” Fall Out Boy Alternative/Indie “Before He Cheats” Carrie Underwood Country “It Will Rain” Bruno Mars Pop

Magnetic Zeros Alternative/Indie

Herbie Hancock Jazz

“Mercy Mercy Mercy” Cannonball Adderley Jazz

“Eine Kleine Nachtmusik” Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Classical

“Mo Better Blues” Branford Marsalis Quartet Jazz

“Bob the Builder” Theme Song Paul K. Joyce Children’s Music

“Fly Me to the Moon” Frank Sinatra Jazz “Take Five” Dave Brubeck Quartet Jazz “Chameleon”

“Love on Top” Beyoncé Contemporary R&B “Eye of the Tiger” Survivor Rock

Page 20

The Spectator ● March 19, 2018

Top Fives Main Acting

Vocal performances

1. Victoria Wong, Matthew Carlson, and Zeynep Bromberg’s “Rewrite the Stars” 2. Alex Whittington and Travis Tyson’s “How Can I Ever Stop

Loving You” 3. Dylan Mak’s “Home” 4. Adam Elsayed’s “Dream On” 5. Faith Sanchez’s “House of the Rising Sun”

Dance performances 1. Eliana Kavouriadis as Empress Poponopolis 2. Adam Elsayed as Will

3. Zeynep Bromberg as a Scientist 4. XinYue Nam as Kim

5. Alex Whittington as Philip Honorable Mention: Travis Tyson as Alexander

Supporting Acting

1. Senior Contemporary 2. Senior Girls’ Hip-hop 3. Senior Belly

4. Soph-Frosh Belly 5. Senior Step

Props We Would Want to Have at Home

1. Dylan Mak as Floyd 2. Box Wu as Cosmo

3. Susan He as Medusa 4. Sammie Paul as a Soldier

5. Maya Angles as a Cavewoman

Jokes and Disses

1. “This is such a bad idea.”

“Oh, I’ve heard worse ideas.”

“Like what?”

“Doing a SING!-themed SING!.”

—Soph-Frosh

teenagers?” —Seniors

—Seniors

3. “We all know SING! is a moneymaking scheme to fund senatorial campaigns anyway.” —Juniors

2. “People are dying and they’re getting serenaded by German

4. “But every time I try to invent the phone, Choubs takes it away.”

5. “Ooga booga. Ooga booga.”

“What is she saying?”

“She sounds like the juniors when they try to sing.” —SophFrosh

1. The Razor Scooters —Seniors 2. The Fountain —Seniors 3. Hera’s and Hades’ Scepters —Seniors

4. The Heart —Juniors (for sentimental reasons) 5. The Battery —Soph-Frosh

Cringe Moments

Costumes

1. “You always seem to have a way of making men rock hard. ”—Seniors 2. Alex and Philip’s kiss —Seniors 3. Pelvis Parsley’s grinding —Soph-Frosh 4. “Nepotism—” “Don’t say the N-word!” —Juniors 5. “Mom, I wanna be a historian!”

—Soph-Frosh

1. Eliana Kavouriadis as Empress Poponopolis 2. Adam Elsayed as Will 3. Zeynep Bromberg as a Scientist 4. XinYue Nam as Kim 5. Alex Whittington as Philip Honorable Mention: Travis Tyson as Alexander

Photos by Peter Ou

Page 22

The Spectator ● March 19, 2018

Features next year) will return to being formulaic (there is something to be said for a tried and true model that we know works). But this year, we made this show for ourselves and organized it around experimentation and talking about important things, not around easy ways of guaranteeing points, or surrendering to the expected model. And I admire each and every one of you for taking those risks.

I mean it when I say that you are my inspiration. And it breaks my heart that each of you weren’t able to get the acknowledgement in the scores that I know you deserve.

It makes me sick that you might also measure your worth based on a few numbers.

So don’t do that. You judge your SING! experience by your own metric. You know how much work you put into the last few weeks. Our ranking was based on 20 arbitrary opinions, the majority of whom expected something entirely different than what we decided to give them.

And I see you. Slaté sees you.

Your directors see you. The beautiful thing about having such a small group was that we could connect on a level we won’t be able to next year. In a week, the profundity of some of our interactions will be hard to genuinely internalize as they get replaced with new experiences, priorities, and distractions.

But there was an undeniable sense of family and intimacy we didn’t have last year, and I wouldn’t have traded that for having a larger group.

I’m sorry I can’t hand you guys the title I desperately want to—the one I think you deserve. But our ranking in no way changes the respect and love I have for each of you and that you should have for the people around you. I’m incredibly grateful for everything that happened in the past six weeks. Thank you for being a pocket of creativity, passion, and real human contact that I don’t feel like I often get the other eight months of the school year. Thank you for being a break in the often pointless monotony.

Hold your heads up high. You should not be embarrassed by what we put together or feel like you need to explain yourselves. You do not need to look back on the experience and minimize it in retrospect.

We can acknowledge our mistakes and plan to learn from them, but you should not undermine your work and the positivity of this experience by dwelling on them. We have nothing to apologize for.

Courtesy o f Ruby Gary Julia Arancio / The Spectator

ing one. We were critical and honest, and we didn’t try and resolve its flaws in the end. We refused to tie it off with a pretty bow and let the audience and the institution off the hook, undermining our entire message for the sake of a plot arc and satisfying resolution. What I hoped would be effective about our show is that the issues surrounding SING! were being discussed—but not by The Spectator, teachers, or students boycotting the institution. They were being talked about by you, people who understand its weaknesses but decide to participate anyway. This shows an admirable capacity for maturity and only deepens your credibility. For this reason, I hope that each of you can continue to facilitate this important conversation. I hope that we can continue this trend of being vocal about problems and things we don’t agree with and work to actively fix them (instead of succumbing to the understanding that they are just a part of SING! tradition). I hope that you reach out to me and your Producers with any criticisms and suggestions you have—we’ve got one year left, and I speak for all of us when I say that we want to implement changes you feel passionate about.

I hope none of you misunderstand my passion for this tradition.

While I coordinated a SING! that criticized SING!, it is still the most important part of my Stuyvesant identity. Talking about its problems only deepens my respect for it. I’m aware of its complexity. The very reasons this tradition is so impressive are often the core of its main faults and sometimes prevalent toxicity.

Our show last year? It was an amazing feat. I look back on it and I am proud of all of you guys. But it was traditional and expected. That doesn’t detract from my love and respect for it, but it took no risks. Not like we did this year. We had guts to put on that show Saturday night.

And we can be hopeful that it will act as a pioneer. Hopeful, at least to a small degree, the audience (and the underclassmen) walked away seeing the risk that we took and will be inspired to break traditional SING! form as well. Maybe this will pave the way for a new wave of Junior SING!s that, upon seeing they have little to lose, decide to experiment and take risks in ways that are too difficult when you have a larger group of people. I hope we broke ground one for a generation of SING!s after us that decides to push boundaries and refuses to confine their creativity by prioritizing criteria geared to pleasing the judges.

Or I could be a romantic idealist, and all shows (including ours

Courtesy o f Ruby Gary

I hope you’re all a little less sleep deprived. I hope your blood pressures are a little lower, your phones aren’t constantly buzzing with messages from me, and you’ve started to get your lives back. I hope you all have Stacy’s Mom playing through your heads on repeat. I know I do!

I’ve spent the last few days going over our weeks of rehearsals and working through what happened, and I have some thoughts I’d like to share with you.

To begin, congratulations. Sitting in the audience and watching all of your hard work come to a close was an honor. The show you put together went above and beyond my expectations for this year.

It was funny, energized, and full of incredible talent. The creativity and diversity in ideas brought to the table elevated it miles above what I thought we were capable of, given the circumstances. The time you sacrificed to get it there has truly paid off.

But I’ll be the first to admit that our show had flaws. I have list after list of them scribbled on my homeworks, the backs of my palms, and any other place I could find. We could blame those issues on the circumstances thrown at us (the SAT, losing a handful of people each week, having our New Haven moved, Thursday’s incident, losing the opportunity that we deserved to close Friday night, reblocking our entire show in an hour…any more?). But we also need to take responsibility for the ways in which we could have improved. There is no denying that aspects of it were weak and weren’t given sufficient attention. We had trouble recognizing our strong suits and highlighting them. I made mistakes that hurt our production. We all did––that’s why we need to do this whole thing four times to get it right! And our production was accompanied by two other very strong ones.

But those mistakes do not override the risks we took. We rejected the SING! paradigm. We didn’t have a group of friends who were archetype caricatures; they were real and nuanced and interesting. We were bored of the “quest” and and didn’t force ourselves to put one together. We didn’t have a happygo-lucky protagonist. We didn’t try and develop an entire love story in 50 minutes. Our show was raw (“juicy, and tender,” as Box the Cast Director might say). Maybe we had some execution issues, but I can’t say that many of the other SING!s I have seen had the kind of originality we did.

And we talked about something uncomfortable. We forced an audience to consider SING! in a different light—and not a very flatter-

Dear Junior SING!ers,

Love, Ruby

Gays? In My Good Christian SING!?

By Sophie Watwood At dinner, I ask my mother what she thought of SING!.

“It was like…really gay!”

I snort. My dad rolls his eyes. My sister says “Yeah!” with her mouth full of plain pasta.

She’s right—this year, each SING! included one queer character or couple. Most of those characters were played by queer actors, and the heterosexual actors who did play queer characters did so without a stutter.

Soph-Frosh’s queer main character is a young gay Brooklynite from the 80s who does not want to return to his time period because, while the 80s are a bitchin’ time, they, quote, “aren’t fun if you’re gay!” (An excellent point.)

But in Soph-Frosh SING!, queerness was included for a main character’s one moment of emotional explosion—“I’M GAY!—followed by immediate acceptance and moving on to the next conflict: that the daughter of a scientist was interested in history. It was a plot device, not an overarching theme.

Queerness did not carry through the rest of the plot; there were no queer characters kissing at the bar that showed Soph-Frosh’s queer token that this was the place where he

belonged.

Queerness was thrown in as a convenient plot device disguised as a political statement. And as appealing as that may have been to a straight audience of social liberals seeking to think of themselves as the good guy, homophobia could have easily been replaced with a million hardships that make a place unlivable. Especially in the context of two other performances that covered the same ground, accepting white cisgender male gayness felt unnecessary.

Using queerness in a piece requires faith to the idea, which Soph-Frosh SING! lacked. If artists decide to explore the homosexual experience in a piece of art, they need to give that theme the space it deserves to be explored in all its depth. Queerness is not a throwaway.

There’s background to SING! 2018’s queerness: In Senior SING!’s development, the seniors discovered that both of their competitors also used queer characters in their shows, and tried to get the other SING!s to write the characters out of their show so that they could “make a statement about acceptance.” Newsflash, Senior SING!: as queer as all of you are, you didn’t invent The Gay.

Queerness isn’t a statement, it’s something one lives with. Trying to reserve queerness as a statement reduces it to its shock value.

My mother’s commentary: “But to have two high school boys KiSsiNG? On sTAGe? In a FuLl aUdiTOriUm? That’s brave.”

Admittedly, it is fairly radical (though not in New York City) to have two boys making out on stage at a public school performance. But I’m not looking for “a statement about acceptance.” I’m looking for confidence that acceptance is already expected.

In contrast, the juniors’ script was written and cast without gendered characters. They cast, according to producer Elena Sapelyuk, “based on whoever we thought would play the part best.” In the end, that created Alyssa and Celeste, the deeply-in-love, lust-filled queer couple whose queerness goes unmentioned but whose coupleness is made glaringly obvious.

This, in my opinion, is representation at its best. While bringing artistic light to the queer experience is important and admirable when the topic is given the space and focus it deserves, what I am looking for in representation is characters who are defined by their personalities and dilemmas, not limited to

those considered inherent to their sexuality.

Junior SING! also addressed the bi-invisibility at Stuyvesant—a character we know to be queer is presumed to be flirting with a dude, which suggests bisexuality (or at least some flexibility). The general pathos at Stuy, at least in my experience, is straight-until-proven-guilty, at which point most straight people will put you in the full-homo box, from which you can only escape by announcing bisexuality loudly and aggressively, or by hooking up with a person-of-the-opposite-sex and having the news spread through the student body like an STI. But it’s notable, if Junior SING!s production was the most progressive, that they were also the grade to feature the theme least prominently. Maybe what disappointed me about SING! was how much it promised to take on and how little it actually succeeded in addressing.

SING! made statements about queer acceptance that didn’t really speak to the more nuanced issues around sexuality at Stuy. We don’t, as a school, deal with homophobia.

What we do deal with, and what SING! didn’t address as well as I’d hoped, is how heteronormative we can be as a community.

If a production chooses to take

on queer issues, they have to take them on with the nuance that’s appropriate for their audience. In a school where homophobia is common-place, making the message of your performance that Queer Love is Real Love is appropriate. In an environment like ours, where issues around queer inclusion are more complex, that message is overly simplistic and misses an opportunity to build a really substantial conversation.

While SING! 2018 made it clear that our community at Stuyvesant is accepting of queer people (and that we do not suffer from a shortage of them), it reflected a normalized queerness that Stuy lacks. According to The Spectator’s most recent survey, 14 percent of the senior class is queer. But the percentage of queer relationships, hookups, and crushes that make it to the surface of Stuy’s social scene is disproportionately more heterosexual. I do not think this is because straight people are hornier.

It reflects a quiet heteronormativity that we are still scratching through.

I am not looking for queer tokens, or for statements. I am looking for normalization.

Stay Queer, Stuy.

—Watwood

Page 23

The Spectator ● March 19, 2018

Opinions The Olympics: Leveling the Playing Field

By Angela Wong

of government officials embezzling money geared toward preparing athletes for the upcoming Games is a common problem in many developing countries.

For countries like America and China, the Olympics serve as a measuring stick for national prestige. Such countries believe

There is a popular Hindi saying that translates to, “If you study hard, you will live like a king, but if you play sports, you will ruin your life.” Indian society views education as the highest priority in life, with sports considered a “timepassing” activity just for recreational purpose.

Klaire Geller / The Spectator

their victories signify success.

With so much importance placed on Olympic success, countries like America set aside immense amounts of money to prepare their athletes for the Games. China has an “Olympic system” set in place, which rigorously trains children for the Olympic Games. In China, there are thousands of government-funded boarding schools that center around sports in hope of preparing athletes for Olympic glory. According to gymnastics coach Zhao Genbo, “China’s economic development prompts our sports development. Our coaches and athletes go through great pains and hardship for glory…[countless boarding schools] feature state-ofthe-art training facilities for kids to hone their talents…That’s what we’re designed to do: produce medals.”

On the other hand, countries like India or South Korea tend to focus more heavily on academics than sports, and therefore do not have as much of a “sports culture” as their American counterparts.

India, one of the world’s most populous nations and fastest growing economies, has a relatively empty medal cabinet; more medals have been won by Michael Phelps than by the entire country since 1900.

This can be credited to India’s lack of participation in Olympic sports.

managed by the United States Olympic Committee (USOC). The USOC has invested tens of millions of dollars in establishing 17 Olympic training centers in 15 states that help prepare athletes, both mentally and physically, for upcoming competitions. These training centers boast high-end

Countries with higher gross domestic products tend to win more medals in the Summer Olympic Games. Note the distinct drop in medal count between first and third world countries in the graph above:

Similarly, South Korean athletes have also faced the hardships of coming from a country prioritizing education and lacking in sports culture. Chloe Kim, a KoreanAmerican snowboarder, noted the hesitation of her relatives back in Korea in response to her pursuit of an athletic career. She said that, “I think at first it was a little hard for them to support it because, you know, I feel like a Korean’s ideal thing is their kid being, like, a lawyer, a doctor.”

In addition to a lack of sports culture, various countries have cultures that discourage women from participating in sports. For women living in conservative Muslim countries, exercising and playing sports is heavily restricted. This leaves many of these nations with much lower female participation rates and inadequate success in women-only events. Saudi Arabia and Qatar, for instance, only began including women in their teams in 2012, in contrast to China’s team, with more than half of the athletes being women. By discouraging half of their population from participating in sports, many Muslim countries fall short in the Olympic medal count in comparison to many of their more progressive international counterparts.

In response to the additional disadvantages many athletes face on the road to Olympic success, the idea of a two-tier Olympics has gained traction. Under this system, separate Olympics would be held for the developed world and for developing countries in order to level the playing field. However, this proposal is antithetical to the spirit of the competition.

The Olympics, though competitive, allows for athletic interaction and unity among the international community. Creating two seperate competitions further weakens

the worldwide unity the games are supposed to bring.

Instead, the International Olympic Committee should dedicate a portion of its funding toward helping athletes from economically disadvantaged countries, or countries with inadequate training facilities, effectively prepare for the games. These funds would go toward hiring coaches, subsidizing traveling costs, purchasing expensive equipment, and maintaining training infrastructure, such as swimming pools, modern gyms, and ice rinks. With such additions, disadvantaged athletes can focus on their Olympic careers in adequate and productive environments.

Retired coaches may also help athletes prepare by working for free in countries that may not be able to afford to pay them. Additionally, the IOC can use a portion of its funding to allow disadvantaged athletes to train in countries that have a steady supply of equipment, training facilities, and psychology programs, such as the United States. If such procedures were carried out earlier, Olympic athletes like Yuna Kim might have had the proper equipment and infrastructure available during their earlier skating years to better prepare for their careers.

The Olympics seems to always end in similar results, with the United States and China dominating the medal count. Nevertheless, it is inaccurate to label American and Chinese athletes as objectively superior to their counterparts.

Rather, they don’t have to face the additional challenges that many athletes in developing countries unfortunately face. By providing athletes with sufficient resources to train for and succeed in the Olympics, the IOC can level the international playing field once and for all.

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Darren Liang / The Spectator

The FBI man is always watching.

Courtesy of Brookings

The Olympic Games, a global sporting event held every four years, bursts with diversity. Two thousand nine hundred and twenty athletes from 92 countries participated in the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, and competed for more than 300 medals. But as an international competition and a celebration of skill, the Olympics prominently highlights wealth inequality more than anything else.

Countries that dominate the games, like the United States, Russia, China, and Great Britain, also have some of the largest economies in the world, facilitating the existence of a stronger sports culture. There are fewer opportunities for athletes from poorer countries, whose governments are often corrupt and even oppressive, to succeed in the Olympics. Olympic athletes face many obstacles regardless of their country of origin, including intense training and mental exertion. For athletes coming from less economically fortunate countries, the struggles they face, beginning from childhood, become even more arduous.

The United States, which has the highest medal count in Summer Olympics history, has a highly developed sporting infrastructure

facilities and equipment for every sport, including six full-size basketball and volleyball courts and an aquatic center with analytical underwater footage cameras.

Unfortunately, many other countries cannot afford to provide their athletes with the mental and physical training and support they need in order to have a high medal count in the Olympics. For example, swimmers and ice skaters require training infrastructure, such as pools and ice rinks, to practice and improve their athletic ability.

South Korean ice skater Yuna Kim, for example, had to train either very early in the morning or late at night in public rinks that were often too cold, therefore increasing the possibility of injury. Additionally, South Korea’s lack of skate shops forced her to wear uncomfortable and ill-fitting shoes, which made it hard to balance on the rink.

And athletes from impoverished African countries suffer from inadequate access to quality water, food, housing, education, medical services, and thus, sports facilities. Kenya, for instance, has poor management of its governmentsponsored Olympic programs. The Kenyan Olympic team reported not having received any government funding for adequate accommodations and travel for the Rio Olympics. Corruption in the form

The Spectator â—? March 19, 2018

Page 24

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The Spectator ● March 19, 2018

Page 25

Arts and Entertainment Millennial Pink is the New Black

Culture

By Victoria Huang The obsession with having something look “aesthetically pleasing” is familiar for most millennials today. Trends like having a minimalistic bedroom with white walls or adding green plants and red roses to make something look livelier and more eco-friendly isn’t new.

A particularly interesting trend surrounding a mainstream color with a long history popped up a few years ago—millennial pink.

But what is millennial pink?

You may not have heard of the shade “Millennial Pink,” but you have definitely seen it. It’s a combination of peach, beige, and salmon. Think plain pink, but paler and not as bright.

It’s everywhere—from store logos like Acne Studios, to shades of makeup (Colourpop has released an entire line dedicated to the color), to restaurant wallpapers just so people who take photos of their food have a nicer background. Pop culture examples include the upper half of Wes Anderson’s legendary Grand Budapest Hotel, Kendall Jenner’s wall (it apparently helps suppress her appetite, according to her blog), and just about any home goods found in Urban Outfitters; toasters, blenders, and even trash cans

come in this pervasive pastel.

This soft shade of pink is unstoppably popular, partly because it’s pleasing to the eye.

Pantone, the world-renowned authority on color, describes it as having “a persuasive yet

popping back up. This was the era that experienced the rise of Barbie Pink, which was eccentric and vibrant. It was common

Minseo Kim / The Spectator

gentle tone that conveys compassion and a sense of composure.”

But to understand why exactly millennial pink is becoming popular, we have to trace it back to its roots. 2012 was the year when pink really started

for a young girl to have a pink Barbie doll back then. This set the stage for girls believing that pink was the only color for them.

Fast forward to 2016, when Pantone named Rose Quartz as the color of the year, which

further pushed for the return of pink. Apple used this color as one of their defaults for the iPhone, calling it “rose gold.”

But it was still a bit too “girly” for the androgyny-seeking, trendy millennial. So in 2017, for their Spring fashion report, Pantone picked Pale Dogwood, a softer, more subtle pink hue.

This shade matches well with skin tones, green salads, and Instagram filters because it includes cooler tints that complement brighter subjects.

Pale Dogwood has been transformed, even more since Pantone picked it out, to the color we refer to as millennial pink. Multiple top fashion designers, such as Marc Jacobs and Gucci, have integrated the color into their clothing lines, garnering even more attention.

There are two arguments that people believe as to how millennial pink became so popular. One viewpoint believes that the color is sought after now because of how trends work.

Colors have their moments— mainly because of the culture surrounding the decade. In the 1970s, it was shimmery gold due to rebellious teens doing outrageous things with glitter; in the 1990s, it was neon colors and hot pinks since many hip hop

artists followed this fad. Now, it’s millennial pink’s turn.

The other viewpoint is that millennials seem to look to millennial pink as a way to fight against rigid gender roles and stereotypes. Millennial pink isn’t just a color for aesthetics.

It’s androgynous, meaning that it has no specific gender association. Look around and you can see people, regardless of gender, adorning themselves with the popular color. Gone are the days where pink is for girls and blue is for boys.

This more self-determined approach to colors is having a bigger impact on millennial culture. The color-fluid mindset coincides with the increasing number of social movements toward gender equality and fluidity.

There was once a time when men didn’t want to wear pink because pink was considered a feminine color. The times have changed; some even call millennial pink “the neutral color of the generation.” The girliness typically associated with pink is dead.

Millennial pink is very different from its early ancestor Barbie Pink and it’s viewed as a small step towards dismantling the social construct of what is deemed masculine and feminine. Regardless, this shade of pink isn’t going anywhere.

Del Toro Defining “The Shape of Water”

Film

By Emma Linderman and Jacqueline Thom

If someone had said a couple of months ago that a film about a woman being seduced by a half-human, half-fish creature would win Best Picture (and three other Oscars), one would have thought it impossible. But having seen “The Shape of Water,” it’s become clear that

mutual absence of voice. Elisa even dances for her companion in a rare moment of celebration. The continuing storyline becomes increasingly

Alex Lin / The Spectator

eccentric as Elisa and the Asset fall deeply in love.

However, the characters are only half of the story. Del Toro provides his usual passion for the fantastical genre while also emphasizing heavy themes like compassion and bigotry. Elisa’s loneliness is overcome by her love for her new marine companion, and she goes to great lengths to help him despite the dangers that the lab’s government agent, Strickland (Michael Shannon), poses. The antithesis of Elisa and the villain of the story, Strickland’s dark presence fills the room, and it’s clear that he expects his standards to be met. Unlike Elisa, Strickland carries out his dirty work crudely and acts violently toward his inferiors and those he dislikes.

No matter how random the elements of the plot seem to be, however, somehow del Toro manages to layer them all into a believable story. In the case of “The Shape of Water,” audiences can easily understand

ble. Their friendship radiates strong-willed optimism, which is surprisingly not diminished

by Strickland’s vice-like authority, a role that is gruesomely stretched by Michael Shannon.

If the film had been the product of any other director, crew, or cast, it likely would have gone in a completely opposite direction in terms of reception.

Though undeniably odd in plot and cast, the movie is at once endearing and powerful, an effect which is due in part to its accompanying score by composer Alexandre Desplat, who won his second Oscar with his work in this film. His charming melodies contrast the movie’s harsher elements and also provide recurring themes that are tied to various characters. If written for a purely romantic movie, the film’s soundtrack would seem overly sappy and cliché, yet in tandem with a plot like that of “The Shape of Water,” it only adds to the film’s appeal.

Cinematographically, the movie succeeds yet again.

Though outlandish, Elisa and the amphibian man’s

underwater love scenes are visually stunning and eerily calm.

Elisa’s television set also makes frequent appearances, usually broadcasting black-and-white Carmen Miranda-esque dance numbers, reminding audiences of simpler times. Contrastingly, cinematographer Dan Laustsen uses extreme closeups to further accentuate Strickland’s sadistic attitude and behavior, and he alternates with wide shots to depict isolation, fear, and finality.

When described in words, “The Shape of Water” seems unusual at the least, but however doubtful viewers may be when going into the film, any ambiguity is sure to be cleared up within the movie’s two-hour runtime. To put it bluntly, “The Shape of Water” is something you have to see to believe.

Rachel Zhang/ The Spectator

the movie’s success is perfectly justified, despite its bizarre premise.

Directed by Guillermo del Toro, the film is set in 1960s Baltimore, centered around the affairs of a government research agency that has managed to acquire a strange amphibian humanoid (Doug Jones), which is referred to by employees as “The Asset.” Aesthetically pleasing green-hued backdrops, a romantic French-influenced soundtrack, and sweeping cinematography bring to life the story of protagonist Elisa Esposito (Sally Hawkins), a mute sanitation worker employed by the lab, and her developing relationship with its new experiment.

From the start, the movie yields its oddities. Elisa is a single woman who lives in her routines and is a quiet companion for her shy neighbor, Giles (Richard Jenkins). As such, almost immediately after meeting the Asset, Elisa is drawn to him, and the two bond over music and sign language in their

why Elisa is so enticed by the Asset, and the pair falling in love doesn’t come as much of a surprise.

While all this may evoke a skeptical response, one thing viewers are sure to agree on is the movie’s enticing color palette and unique visuals. Elisa’s apartment and workplace are a sea green, while the Asset himself is shades of green and blue.

Adding to this is the constant presence of water, as well as the hints of turquoise and aquamarine colors that appear anywhere from Strickland’s Cadillac to the curious green pies that Giles enjoys eating. To properly balance it out, Strickland, a bully at heart, proves to be as monstrous as he claims the amphibian man to be, and is often surrounded by dark, brooding hues that invade all the spaces he occupies.

Landmarks, from the boisterous theater next to Elisa’s home to even Elisa’s bathroom, which becomes a recurring location in the film, are made to stand out and signal places of importance.

Given its strange circumstances, much of the film’s success is dependent on its actors.

Fortunately, each cast member manages to step up to the plate.

In an intense but wordless monologue, Elisa tries to persuade Giles into helping her care for the Asset. The scene shows Elisa frantically signing while Giles repeats her words.

Through it, viewers get a sense of urgency and emotional pain from Elisa that needn’t be explained in a dialogue. Hawkins’s performance is also coy and demure, a demeanor that pairs nicely with Octavia Spencer’s take on Zelda, Elisa’s work companion who relates anecdotes and tries to keep Elisa out of trou-

The Spectator ● March 19, 2018

Page 26

Humor These articles are works of fiction. All quotes are libel and slander.

THINK PIECE: 2018 Olympic Ice Skating Is Basically Yuri On Ice Season 2

By Laura Ilioaei Man, I am such a klutz.

On the first day back from break, I tripped on my sneaker laces as I descended from the two-to-four escalator, slipped on the wilted remnants of Indicator flowers that were meant for my lover, and flipped over the wall of the Senior Bar! Luckily, I landed on the backs of several seniors. What was even more fortunate is that they remained dormant, resting like the vegetables at the bottom of the barrel at the Farmers Market that everyone sees but doesn’t purchase.

I looked up and saw that an underclassman was struggling to attach a T.V. antenna to the archaic television that the Student Union hides in their room. I was even more baffled to find a dimly lit village of beanbag chairs surrounding the T.V., housing at least a dozen students cradling

By Kenny Lin

katsudon bowls in their hands.

Having heard me crash behind them, they shot me death glares that could have sent Mr. Chouberalian back to Hell.

Ignoring them, I walked over to my peer handling the antennae. Somehow, we were able to adjust the rabbit-like ears so that the static screen was able to depict— “The OLYMPICS?” I was flabbergasted at the sight of Miu Suzaki and Ryuichi Kihara skating on the screen until I heard the gentle piano notes of a familiar tune: “Yuri On Ice,” a song from an anime of the same name. The ground shook beneath all of us as we tilted our heads to the fandom heavens and engaged in the ultimate act of fangirling: the Squee.

At this point, one of the seniors escaped from her vegetative senioritis and regained consciousness. “Yeah, I’m not impressed. ‘Yuri On Ice’ had no

actual Yuri in it.” A tear rolled down her cheek, and she sniffled. “What a letdown. There wasn’t even a HINT of sapphic interaction between any of the female skaters.” Hey, she was right: the show had only featured a single yaoi couple, with (according to the fans) implications of several other male/ male pairings hidden between all the fanservice.

An underclassman slapped her on the back. “Hey, you slept through the entire rivalry between solo figure skaters Alina Zagitova and Evgenia Medvedeva.” She grinned. “How much do you want to bet that their ‘rivalry’ is really hidden ‘sexual tension?’’’ In her excitement, she pulled out a projector and showed Medvedeva’s tweets about YOI, her cosplay of the show’s main character, and several suggestive fanarts of her and Zagitova.

Suddenly, there was an

eruption of confetti and the emergence of a spotlight behind us. A man on rollerblades made a sassy entrance. I sharply inhaled when I recognized him behind the unique costume and cosmetics that he donned. This was no weirdo. It was former ice skater Johnny Weir.

“Can you hear,” he slowly sang before he sighed, “my heartbeat?” He smiled as the tune from the YOI opening fluttered from his lips. “Medvedeva and Zagitova totally have something going on, and we can’t just skate past it.”

Before I could argue with him, SING! directors and producers angrily stormed in on the scene.

“Out of our way!” They commanded. Weir, terrified, did a Lutz jump in order to evade them. “You WEEBS need to get back to REHEARSAL—” They paused and looked over at the beanbags. In Weir’s

spotlight, I realized that the seats weren’t actually beanbags.

They were YOI-themed body pillows.

“Uhm, wow. This is…impressive.” The directors were in a mix of both shock and awe.

“Fandoms have a way of unifying people,” I said.

The junior director took this as an opportunity to release previously pent-up anger.

“Honestly, why can’t we have a theme like THIS?” The directors huddled in a circle. I tried eavesdropping on their conversation, but their aura of secrecy was so intense that when I came near, it pushed me back.

“Alright,” they finally said in unison. “It’s settled. SING! 2019 is going to go where no SING! performance has gone before.

All the grades will team up to perform…” They paused for dramatic effect.

“Yuri On Ice.”

New Ice Skating Class Replaces Rollerblading as Hudson Freezes Over

The country has been inundated with record breaking low temperatures, throwing the entirety of the U.S. into a state of panic and urging Southern politicians into an anti-global warming offensive. At Stuyvesant, the cold conditions and SING!-defying nor’easter winter storms have caused the Hudson River to once again freeze over, now making jumping into the river a perfectly safe venture.

The administration has taken advantage of this opportunity by implementing a new class for the spring semester—Hudson River ice skating.

“This semester, I’ve had three students scrape their knees, despite the fact that I explicitly told them not to fall,” said P.E. teacher Vasken Choubaralian, as he ate his vegan spaghetti lunch. “I’m so sick and tired of filling out the paperwork.”

He asserted that ice skating would be much safer because if

By Sander Cohen-Janes During this past holiday weekend, President Trump expanded the time-honored Presidents’ Day festivities by holding a military parade (in addition to games of “pin the tail on Jeff Sessions” and shredding—I mean “confetti making” contests). The president held a press conference over Twitter that originally revealed that there would be no nuclear weapons in the procession, but after some ‘fine people’ with Pepe avatars complained that it was too weak, the president complied and promised to build more ‘hüge nukes’ for the occasion. A Spectator source identified as Justin Leakin’ led this reporter to a plot hidden in r/AlexJonesIsMyDaddy: to hold the military parades in Sanc-

students fell, they would simply slip and fall into the 100-feet deep water of the Hudson. “It’s so much easier to fill everything out when the injury is just ‘death’ instead of ‘three-inch

er. “I’m fairly certain that if Greg drowns, he will no longer be eligible for a Stuy diploma!” one father lamented. “Even though he already took swim gym!”

Human Diseases teacher

of drowning. But other than that, let’s see: there’s E. coli, malaria, ebola, autism, and most worrisome secondary-onset senioritis.”

Assistant Principal of Safety,

He asserted that ice skating would be much safer because if students fell, they would simply slip and fall into the 100-feet deep water of the Hudson.

long laceration on the left kneecap,’” Choubaralian explained.

Parents, however, are not convinced, and have raised concerns over the potential implication of drowning in the riv-

Jerry Citron endorses this parent concern, citing the numerous possible diseases that might occur due to the dirty river conditions. “Firstly, there’s dying, which is quite common in cases

Security, Student Affairs, Health, Fun Regulation, and Physical Education Brian Moran has also expressed that it might take too long for students to enter and leave the Hudson River in time

President’s Day Parade

tuary Cities across the nation.

Reddit user LibTears made sure to clarify that they “are not to be construed with a military occupation.”

The New York Times published an editorial condemning this plan for its prohibitive costs and Sean Hannity, the foundation upon which all media rests, applauded the idea for “spreading the holiday cheer.” He attacked any opposition of the spectacle: “What has America turned into? These snowflakes are waging a war on Christm—I mean Presidents’ Day. I encourage my viewers to be the pawns—I mean prongs of attack: disciplining those that refuse to, or can’t, stand for The Anthem. You will only be helping them, because the law clearly states you must stand for The Anthem. I know

when I am watching football— America’s sport—I always find myself standing in front of my T.V. whenever they play The Anthem. Call me what you will but I am ideologically pure. I never contradict myself…We are going to make America America again. And what’s more American than a military parade? Especially with nukes. While we go to commercial, send in your thoughts on Presidents’ Day with #YesMyPresidentsDay.” After Hannity’s audience trashed their Keurig machines, they replied to their leader’s call with ideas such as naming each Presidents’ Day after the president currently in office (sent by user Johny_America, who hoped to see a Kanye Day in 2020).

With all of this hullabaloo about how to celebrate Presi-

dents’ Day, I think (partially because my last article was ridiculed for being too short) that you should be educated on what Presidents’ Day really is.

Presidents’ Day was originally called Washington’s Birthday, but Congress really pulled through when it was moved to a Monday along with several other holidays to create more three-day weekends for the working class…Probably followed up by cutting their boss’s taxes and gutting their welfare. I wouldn’t know because no one expects a well-researched Humor article on 1960s politics.

Historically though, Presidents’ Day has been known as the most revered holiday in America. What kid doesn’t grow up desperately waiting for the date to be February…something so that the Presidents’ Day

to make it for a single period.

“These guys take an eternity to change into shorts and Tshirts,” stated the Moran, “I’m starting to suspect they’re more preoccupied with Student Affairs than the importance of their Physical Education!”

Students are ecstatic about the change. “I originally signed up for Advanced Rollerblading,” senior Rachel Wong said.

“But now, I can show off my figure skating jumps!” Others are using it as an opportunity to have fun with each other. “Now I can finally push my friend into the river and just say I thought he had ice skating!” freshman Jimmy Chen said. “Less competition for colleges!”

Many, however, are worried about whether they would freeze if they continued with the traditional gym uniform. In resentful concession to these concerns, students will be allowed to wear hoodies, sweatpants, and scuba gear, as long as they are from the school store.

festivities finally begin? “I spend the rest of the year constructing my shrine to Washington and tagging all of my friends in edgy Presidents’ Day memes. There’s really nothing as magical as the celebrations on Presidents’ Day: eating bald eagles, tattooing the entire Constitution as a tramp stamp, and engaging in reckless consumerism,” reported one student at Stuyvesant High School, who was dressed entirely in an American flag and spontaneously broke out into the “Star Spangled Banner.”

Oh right, back to the nukes rumbling (impressively) through The Village (like, how can they fit?). Ummm. Protest and attendance would look pretty similar…Maybe I should call the Opinions Department and see what they think we should do.

The Spectator â—? March 19, 2018

Page 27

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The Spectator ● March 19, 2018

Page 28

Sports Girls’ Gymnastics

Felines Finish Last, Look Forward To Next Year

By Max Mah

traits. These include commitment, respect, sportsmanship, and the ability to face and overcome failure. Pacheco has visibly never been afraid to try new skills. Her willingness to attempt skills such as the switch leap and the front tuck and dismount paid off when she used those skills during individuals. Pacheco ended up scoring highest on the balance beam and thus qualified for the state team. This has set a solid example for the younger gymnasts, who often struggle to overcome their fears and step up to try new skills.

A fun, entertaining area has been the floor gymnasts’ unique choice of dance music.

Gymnasts build their routine based off a song of choice, choreographing their performance with the mood and tempo of the song to fulfill set requirements in competition. When Lee chose “You’re Welcome” by Dwayne Johnson from the Disney cartoon “Moana” (2016), her teammates and coach were duly surprised and impressed. Similarly, Pacheco unconventionally built her routine off a hip hop piece: Eminem’s “Without Me.” Despite coming in last during the finals, the Felines have a lot to be proud of this year. The Felines bonded closely together and shared in every aspect of competition, adversity, and the

Emily Siew / The Spectator

Stuyvesant’s girls’ varsity gymnastics team, the Felines, finished last in the city finals on Thursday, February 8. However, they had a steady regular season. Despite a number of losses to their rival, the Bronx High School of Science, they recorded 13 total wins and maintained their fourth place standing in the Manhattan/Bronx A division.

More notable than their success at meets were the mentality, selfimprovement, and tight-knitted camaraderie the Felines finished their season with.

This year, the team was led by three captains: seniors Anna Pacheco and Anne Lee and junior Lee-Ann Rushlow. In his 10th season with the Felines, Coach Vasken Choubaralian thinks his unique captains this year stood out. “While Anne is usually quiet, Anna adds character and a laugh,” he said, smiling.

Rushlow was added as a third captain for this year’s larger team via vote. “She is one of our most experienced gymnasts, scores the highest, and really helps the other girls with their skills,” Choubaralian said.

During practices, travel, and outside of school, Choubaralian has seen his team develop good chemistry. The Felines have reportedly done this in rather

unique ways such as a teambonding based practice early in the season, certain gymnasts’ common vegan diets, and team Secret Santa before the holidays.

“There’s definitely a lot of high bonding and mixing, which is nice to see. They’ve really grown dependent on one another,” Choubaralian said. “The girls are always laughing and joking. It’s a light environment that makes time coaching enjoyable, and hopefully keeps them coming back.”

With their space on the school’s third floor, the Felines have drilled tirelessly, practicing to develop new skills in preparation for meets. Fine-tuning their techniques and routines was key in reducing point deductions, especially leading up to the finals.

In competition, Choubaralian has put his best, experienced gymnasts forward, but he has equally enjoyed witnessing the development of the newer gymnasts. “It’s always memorable seeing a new member go out to compete then do well and enjoy the experience,” he said. “Firsts are always [the] most exciting.”

As a coach, Choubaralian’s ultimate goal is not to create the best athletes, but to improve and build character. In addition to spotting skills and developing drills, he has emphasized the most useful and long-lasting

constant strive to elevate themselves. Every gymnast, both new and experienced, developed in new areas and elevated her skills in some form or another. In the finals, the team compiled their highest overall score yet, 106.25.

This is certainly an accomplish-

ment to be proud of, as it is a tribute to the team’s growth and development. Setting aside wins and losses, it is a team’s dynamic and identity that truly define it, and the Felines have certainly formed a joyful, tough personality.

Girls’ Track

Greyducks Win Boroughs for Fourth Year in a Row

By Yukai Liu The Stuyvesant Greyducks, the girls’ indoor track team, waited as the results of the Borough Championships were released.

When they heard the official announce that Hunter College High School had come in second, they screamed with joy, knowing they secured first place for the fourth year in a row.

The team travelled to Armory Track to participate in the Manhattan Borough Championships on February 4, and they had one goal in mind: to keep the streak alive. Stuyvesant had won the three previous championships and wanted to continue their dominance. They did just that, taking home first place for the fourth year in a row.

The team performed well in both the field and track events, something they have not been able to do so far this season. In the field events, senior and cocaptain Daria Shifrina came in first in the triple jump (32 ft, 7in) and placed second in the long jump (14 ft, 7.25in) and high jump (4ft, 4in). Senior and cocaptain Venus Nnadi finished in first in the pole vault (7 ft).

The Greyducks also set the pace in a number of track events.

Junior Clara Mohri came in first twice, once in the 1500-meter run (5:11:34) and again in the 3000meter run (10:38:39). Freshman Julianne Yotov came in second in the 3000-meter run (11:23:13) after Mohri. In the 1500-meter race walk, amazingly, all 10 competitors were Greyducks. Stuyvesant took all the free points from the event. Juniors Bernice Chen (8:27:68), Jeanette Cheung (8:35:85), and Kayla Lew (8:38:92) came in first, second, and third, respectively.

“We have a lot of girls on the team who have worked really

hard this season. They’ve shown the dedication and determination required to be successful,” coach Carl DiSarno said when asked what he attributes the recent success to. He also noted that many of the Greyducks had to compete in multiple events or compete in an event outside of their comfort zone.

but helped the Greyducks finish fourth in the 4x200-meter relay and third in the 4x400 relay.

“It was hell having my events back to back to back, but I think the reason I kept going was the fear of ending the season on a bad note, not only for me but for everyone on the team,” Wang said.

In particular, he pointed out senior Anya Wang, who had to compete in three events (the 4x200-meter relay, 55-meter high hurdles, and 4x400-meter relay) in a span of 10 minutes. “It was unfair and unfortunate, but she didn’t complain and just did what was asked of her. Lots of girls had that attitude today, and that’s what I am most proud of,” DiSarno said. Wang finished 12th in the 55-meter high hurdles,

This season was not one without challenges for the team.

Nnadi was injured for the majority of the season. In fact, her first events of the season came at Borough’s. Remarkably, she finished first in the pole vault and third in the triple jump. Without one of their captains leading the way, everyone had to step up and hold themselves accountable. “We had a quick transition from cross country to indoor track and girls

had maintained their effort to give 100% at practices,” Lew said.

“At every meet, there was endless support between the girls, as we cheered on every member during their race. We are continuing our long streak of winning Borough Championships, and it wouldn’t be possible without the girls’ enthusiasm and dedication

Vivian Cribb / The Spectator

to the sport and team.”

For most of the members on the team, the season ended with Borough’s, but eight Greyducks competed in the City Championships on February 17. Nnadi qualified for the pole vault, Shifrina for the triple jump, Yotov and Mohri for the 1500-meter and 3000-meter runs, and the quartet of Chen, Lew, Cheung, and sophomore Cecilia Bachana for the 1500-meter race walk.

“We’re going to give them a few days rest before we really start ramping up the workouts to get them ready for the PSAL Championships,” DiSarno said.

In the PSAL championships, the best athletes from all over the city competed. “City’s was really exciting. It was very fast-paced, and I got pretty swept up in it.

The sprinters were especially fun to watch, and I think everyone got invested in athletes they had never seen before,” said Bachana.

Shifrina finished 11th in the triple jump while Chen, Lew, Cheung, and Bachana finished third, fourth, fifth, and sixth respectively in the 1500-meter race walk. Nnadi finished fifth in the pole vault, Mohri came in seventh in the 1500-meter run and in fourth, with Yotov in fifth, in the 3000-meter run. The Greyducks came in ninth overall in the competition. “I wanted to finish in the top ten, so I was very pleased. Seven of the eight girls that competed won medals, so I’m very proud of that,” DiSarno said.

Though the indoor season has just finished, he is already looking ahead to the outdoor season. “I’m looking forward to Outdoor because we should have several girls [who were injured during Indoor] back healthy. We did well in the individual events indoors, but our relays struggled without some of our injured runners,” said DiSarno.

This indoor season has been a roller coaster ride for the Greyducks as they started off slow in the first few weeks but turned it on in time for Borough’s. Despite numerous injuries throughout the season, the Greyducks were able to persevere and retain their title as the best team in Manhattan.

The Spectator ● March 19, 2018

Page 29

Sports Boys’ Gymnastics

Season Wrap-up Leaves Lemurs Confident for Next Year

By Lumi Westerlund and Lee-Ann Rushlow

by beating both Tottenville High School and Bronx Science.

Despite the team elimination, a select group of the elite members of the Lemurs advanced to individual event finals on March 3: senior John Lin competed on Pommel Horse, Rings, and Parallel Bars, junior Muhib Khan competed on Pommel Horse, Rings, Parallel Bars, Vault, and Floor Exercise, sophomore Jordan Kaisman competed on Pommel Horse, Rings, and High Bar, and junior Nehal Hasnain competed in Floor Exercise. Looking back on the season, it was clear that experienced athletes like Khan, Lin, and Kaisman were going to fair well at individual finals given their consistently high scores on

their individual events, but the extent of their successes surpassed their own expectations.

The members representing the Lemurs competed well, placing in nearly all events. Lin placed second on Pommel Horse, eighth on Rings, and sixth on Parallel Bars. Khan placed fourth on Pommel Horse, sixth on Rings, eighth on Parallel Bars, eighth on Vault, seventh on Floor Exercise, and seventh All-Around. Khan also received a plaque for being an event leader on Pommel Horse as well as a PSAL Athlete of the Week certificate. Kaisman placed seventh on Pommel Horse, sixth on Rings, and sixth on Vault. Hasnain placed sixth on Floor Exercise. The individual

skills of these members give hope for future successful seasons.

The end of their season, while not as successful as they’ve seen in the past, has left them with many top-scoring juniors and now experienced underclassmen, while many of their opponents’ top gymnasts are graduating. “Most of our score comes from underclassmen, aside from John, but John only competes on 3 events which can [easily] be made up by others on the team. So we aren’t really losing very much,” Khan said optimistic about next year. “Next year, I would think, will be our year, providing everything is great […] we’re one of the favorites,” Autry said.

Courtsey of Muhib Khan

Four Lemurs sat eagerly awaiting for the awards ceremony to begin, marking the end of Stuyvesant’s boys’ gymnastics’ season. As top scorers in their events, the Lemurs were optimistic about placing high in the city.

One by one, events were called out as each member of the team received his plaque and took his place on the podium, proud to have come so far.

The Lemurs ended this season with a final count of three wins to three losses, holding one of the lower standings in the city.

Despite taking fourth place in the league at their division finals, they remain optimistic and confident for the coming years.

A main source of optimism is that during their season, two out of three of their losses were by fewer than .5 points. The first of these losses was to Long Island City High School by .2 points on January 18. With this in mind, the Lemurs were determined to compete cleanly and with solid routines to reduce errors, since anything from a missing toepoint to an extra step could make the difference between victory or failure.

But nearly a month later, the Lemurs matched up against LaGuardia High School with a similar result, losing by .3 points on February 9. Junior and cocaptain Muhib Khan described the meet as “very close […] both [teams] had very close difficulty [levels] in routines… [We had] a few falls [specifically] on the

Pommel Horse […] which was a large factor (.5 off for each [fall]) considering the very small difference we lost by.” One small difference could have completely changed the course of the Lemurs’ season.

The team’s final meet of the season, however, resulted in a team score high of 112.8 as they beat Bronx Science High School by over 5 points. Coming out of their match against LaGuardia, they had prepared a list of small errors that they hoped to avoid against Science; “Toe point[s]; dismount[s]; extra step[s],” coach Marvin Autry explained.

So, they entered the meet confident that they could win, leading sophomore Ethan Chen to earn his highest score all season, a 7.0 in Floor Exercise. “Everyone hit their routines amazingly, and there were little to no mistakes,” junior and co-captain Andy Zhang said.

When the finals arrived, the Lemurs were not as prepared as they had hoped to be. Despite a similar skill level between Stuyvesant and LaGuardia after only losing by .3 points during the season, as the meet began, they quickly saw that they would be unable to overtake third-place LaGuardia. “One of their team members who is a club kid [and is] much stronger than the rest of the team competed against us [today] who didn’t in the past, and we weren’t expecting it. So our goal of defeating them became much more difficult,” Khan said. Though it wasn’t the outcome the team was hoping for, the Lemurs still finished strong

Baseball

New-Look Peglegs Look to Build on Last Year’s Success

By Dimitriy Leksanov The rain and fog loomed over the chilly Friday afternoon like a beef Stroganoff that someone had left out in the kitchen for much too long; it was thick, heavy, and distressingly cold. It had been a sluggish day, without much semblance of urgency or routine. With train lines all throughout the city in utter disarray, the Peglegs, Stuyvesant’s varsity baseball team, faced a heightened task of migrating to Newtown High School’s obscure, out-of-the-way field. Even after the game finally began, they huddled for warmth in the dugout as the powerful winds, presumably the final few breaths of winter that had somehow trickled into early April, relentlessly hassled them like an arrogant, overly masculinized wrestler. It was an odd irony, especially for the players on the bench who stood like statues, too cold to start warming up.

On the field, though, through the cold, wind, and rain, co-captain and pitcher Tobias Lange (‘17) brought the fire against the Newtown High School Pioneers.

In a tremendous effort, Lange struck out nine different batters and went a second consecutive game without conceding a walk.

Meanwhile, on offense, everyone in the senior class seemed to pull through. Whether it was catcher Joseph Halim (‘17) at the plate or second baseman Kenneth Chu (‘17) on the base paths, that narrow 3-1 win amounted to a team-wide show of force that established the Peg-

legs as one of the city’s top teams that would end up finishing with its best record (12-4) and playoff seed (10) in half a decade.

This year, though, the team has an entirely new look. Solomon Medintz (‘17) and Chu have both graduated and headed north, leaving gaping holes all over the field. Halim, though still in town, has also graduated, leaving a wild scramble to establish a new stronghold behind the plate. Dean Steinman (‘17), the reliable designated hitter and relief pitcher that managed to maintain a batting average over .300 throughout last season, has actively fled the country. However, for all of last year’s seniors that thrived in various pivotal roles, the two losses that will take the greatest toll will be those of pitchers/infielders Lange and Jack Archer (‘17), who developed into all-city caliber players over their four years on the varsity squad. So, with the Peglegs’ depth chart looking like Swiss cheese, it is now up to last year’s developmental players to step up.

The Peglegs’ most glaring hole heading into this season is unfortunately also the sport’s most important position: starting pitcher. Last year, just three pitchers registered starts for the Peglegs: Lange, Archer, and current junior Jared Asch. Though Asch mostly served a spot-starting role last season, playing only when the other two were unable to go on short rest, he showed tremendous promise. With a 2-0 record and 2.15 earned-run average over 13 innings, Asch

showed that he could tussle with the best of them.

As for the rest of the rotation, it will likely come down to junior and co-captain Jeremy Rubin and senior and co-captain Khyber Sen. With his background as a natural outfielder, Sen boasts tremendous arm strength, making for a fearsome fastball and a sharp, vertical curveball. While he missed all of last season with a nagging hip injury, he showed potential as a sophomore, walking just three batters over 11 innings pitched.

Rubin, meanwhile, is more of a finesse pitcher. He does not throw nearly as hard as Sen, but has excellent command over his entire pitching arsenal, which allowed him to become the team’s closer, or primary relief pitcher, last season. A fourth option for the rotation is senior, co-captain, and primary center fielder Max Onderdonk, who posted an insane 1.56 earned run average for the junior varsity team in 2016.

With arguably the strongest arm on the team, Onderdonk brings a unique no-holds-barred, “Wild Bill” persona to the mound that would make any batter wary of crowding the plate. So, why isn’t he pitching this season? As he himself admitted, “[He’s] quite bad at it,” while adding that he does not feel as passionate about working on his pitching as opposed to his natural position.

The Peglegs’ other major holes to fill are in the infield, particularly the positions of second baseman, third baseman, and shortstop. While junior and co-captain Malcolm Hubbell,

last year’s starting first baseman, is in no danger of having his spot taken following a successful season at the plate (.250 batting average with six runs batted in), the other three spots are up in the air. Right now, the favorites seem to be seniors Ronin Berzins and Simon Carmody at second base and shortstop, respectively, and a platoon of Asch and Rubin at third base. However, according to Onderdonk, there could be other possibilities, such as experimenting with the versatility of senior utility infielder Sam Merrick: “We may move Malcolm to short and put Sam at first,” Onderdonk said.

This idea makes sense, as Hubbell may have the strongest arm of the infielders, while Merrick, whose scoops compensate for his height, adds intriguing length and flexibility at the first base position.

Another option is to play sophomore Franklin Liou at second base instead of Berzins.

While his underclassman status and reserved persona make him somewhat of a dark horse candidate, according to Onderdonk, he is ready to play on the big stage. “He has really good baseball smarts, so it allows him to make up for a lot of physical gaps he may have with upperclassmen,” Onderdonk said.

Ultimately, the Peglegs’ success will depend on how well this new group of inexperienced starters will coalesce and work together. One of head coach John Carlesi’s mantras over the past few seasons has been fielding, which is another reason why

Liou, who Onderdonk described to be “clean as a fielder,” could be a good option. If the team is sloppy in the field, Carlesi would often say it is akin to starting the game behind by multiple runs.

This should prove to be especially valuable against tougher pitching teams in games where runs are at a premium.

For instance, Benjamin Cardozo High School’s pitchers, who the Peglegs are set to play on April 20, did not allow more than seven runs in a game last season. The Peglegs, meanwhile, did so twice. So, much of the Peglegs’ success this year could be contingent on their chemistry and consistency on defense.

While it is difficult to gauge opposing teams before the season begins, the two games to watch are the rivalry series against the Beacon High School Blue Demons in early May. While Beacon routinely fields a stronger team, the rumble with Stuyvesant always tends to be scrappy and close.

The Peglegs, who ended the year seven games behind Beacon, were walloped in the first game, 14-4, but managed to fight back for a surprising 9-4 victory the following day in 2016. After again taking a game from Beacon last year, senior outfielder Michael Gillow has an inkling that the Blue Demons could be out for revenge. “They’ve always been our rivals, and we beat them last year so I know they want to get us back,” Gillow said.

The Spectator ● March 19, 2018

Page 30

Sports PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympic Games

By THE SPORTS DEPARTMENT

Biathlon

Snowboarding

By Jooahn Sur 17 year-old Chloe Kim of the United States dominated headlines at Pyeongchang. Her vibrant personality mixed with her dominance captivated many. Her Twitter follower count ballooned from 10,000 to over 300,000 in a matter of weeks.

In the women’s halfpipe finals, Kim scored 93.75 on her first run, and she capped off her brilliant performance with a 98.25 on her third and final run. Kim went on to win gold in

the competition, while Jiayu Liu won silver for China and Arielle Gold, also from the US, took home bronze. In what may be his final Olympic Games, Shaun White of the United States put on a show in the men’s halfpipe competition.

White had stiff competition from Japan’s Ayumu Hirano, who scored a 95.25 on his second run to put the pressure on him.

In his final run, however, the 31 year-old Olympic legend scored a 97.75 to win the gold medal.

Hirano won silver, while Scotty James of Australia won bronze.

Figure Skating

By Yu Kai Liu For days, the only thing people were talking about from the Winter Olympics was the triple axel performed by U.S. figure skater Mirai Nagasu. She became the first American woman in Olympic history to perform a triple axel, helping her country capture bronze in the team event.

Perhaps even more remarkable were two teens, Alina Zagitova, 15, and Evgenia Medvedeva, 18, both competing as members of the Olympic Athletes from Russia, who won gold and silver in the free skate, respectively. In the men’s event, the Japanese dominated the free skate with Yuzuru Hanyu and Shoma Uno winning

gold and silver respectively.

In the pair skating, the German duo of Aljona Savchenko and Bruno Massot won gold, while the Canadian duo of Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir won gold in the ice dance.

Nathan Chen, 18 years old, was a highly anticipated Olympian for the U.S. going into his first Olympic Games but did not meet expectations in his short programs. “I began this competition with the two worst short programs of my competitive career. I couldn’t believe what happened, and my confidence completely dissipated,” he wrote.

However, he bounced back and performed a historic six quads in the free skate competition, earning him fifth place overall.

By Aryan Sharma Biathlon is a sport not familiar to most Americans. It is a unique sport which combines cross-country skiing and rifle shooting. The scores are decided based on skiing time, which can be increased depending on the accuracy of the shooting.

There are four main events: individual, sprint, pursuit, and mass start. Individual and mass start are more traditional events.

For individual, the skiers leave in 30-second intervals with four rounds of shooting, and for the mass start, all athletes begin at the same time. For each missed target, a penalty of one minute is added to the time. Sprint has

Nordic Combined is a dual legged competition that combines ski jumping and long distance ski races. The participants begin with the jump and depending on their performance, can gain a time advantage or disadvantage going into the race.

However, a disadvantage going into the race does not necessarily suggest an insurmountable

challenge. For instance, three medalists this year came into the race with time deficits and were able to easily overcome the obstacle. Even more surprisingly, all three events were won by Germans as they replicated the success they had four years ago in Sochi.

The Germans were followed by the Norwegians and the Austrians who earned silver and bronze medals, respectively.

German Ski Federation 2017

By Noah Grenert In the men’s curling event, the United States secured its first gold medal in curling history.

John Shuster, who had competed in the last three Winter Olympics without success, along with teammates Tyler George, Matt Hamilton, John Landsteiner, and Joe Polo beat Canada 5-3 in the semifinal and faced Sweden in the final. With the game tied 5-5 in the eighth end, Shuster took out two Swedish stones and

This year, an event called mass start was reintroduced to speed skating after its 86 year hiatus. In mass start, 12 to 16 competitors race around the 400 meter track 16 times. This event is unlike other speed skating events where the competitors are paired up. The skaters have to fight for their spot, similar to short track, and the points earned on the 4th, 6th and 12th laps are also important. In this event, it is necessary for play-

ers to make adequate decisions depending on their stamina and competitors.

In the men’s mass start event, Lee Seung Hoon, known as Korea’s speed skating legend, was able to take home the gold with a record of 7:43.97 and increase his impressive Olympic medal count to five. In the women’s mass start event, Nana Takagi of Japan took home the gold medal.

This year’s Games have also seen a record breaking year for numerous speed skating events.

In the men’s 500-meter event,

Junior Athlete of the Year Vinzenz Geiger scooped up his first gold medal at his first Olympic games, which was quite the feat for someone who was introduced to the sport by his cousin. Fellow German Eric Frenzel added to his already impressive collection of six Olympic medals. The Germans hope to add to their success in the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.

Havard Lorentzen from Norway beat the Olympic record of 34.42 seconds by 0.01 seconds and won gold. In the men’s 5000-meter event, Sven Kramer from Netherlands beat his own Olympic record from Sochi, also winning gold. In the women’s 500-meter, Nao Kodaira from Japan beat the Olympic record and captured the gold medal. In the women’s 1000-meter event, Jorien Ter Mors from Netherlands beat the Olympic record set by Chris Witty, a U.S. speed skater, and also took home gold.

Short Track

By Elias Ferguson The 500-meter men’s short track speed-skating event saw Wu Dajing of China break the world record time, now 39.584 seconds, to take the gold, with two athletes from South Korea taking silver and bronze.

On the women’s side, Ariana Fontana added another gold medal to her Olympic tally, coming in ahead of Yara van Kerkhof of the Netherlands and Kim Boutin of Canada. Fontana now has eight medals over four Olympics

in short-track.

In the men’s 1000-meter race, the Canadian 19-year-old Samuel Girard beat John-Henry Krueger of the United States and Seo Yi-ra of South Korea to win gold. Similarly, in the women’s 1000-meter, Suzanne Schulting of the Netherlands achieved a shocking gold medal win at age 20, pushing the veteran Fontana into bronze. Another world record was broken in the men’s 1500-meter final, with South Korean Lim-Hyo-jun setting the record at 2:10.485, coming in .07 seconds ahead of second-place

scored five points for the Americans. They went on to win 10-7.

Switzerland took the bronze medal, beating Canada 7-5.

The story behind the team is remarkable. After a disappointing loss in the 2014 Sochi Olympics, USA Curling launched a high-performance program to train top curlers for PyeongChang. Shuster was rejected from this program and formed “Team Reject,” which ultimately beat out all the other American teams to compete in the Olympics.

On the women’s side, Sweden beat host nation South Korea 8-3 to win Olympic gold.

Sweden winning it all was expected; they had competed in the past three Olympic finals and won two. South Korea’s run was a surprise, however. Curling was relatively unknown in South Korea, but the team nicknamed the “Garlic Girls” (its members all hail from a garlic-growing region in South Korea) only lost once en route to the final. In the bronze medal match, Japan beat Great Britain 5-3.

Freestyle Skiing

Speed Skating

By Jin Won (Eric) Kim

hitting all five of her targets on her first try at the last round of shooting.

Similarly, veteran biathlon legend Martin Fourcade made France proud. After a poor start to the Games in the sprint, Fourcade found his range and won the pursuit before edging out German Simon Schempp in a thriller to take the mass start gold. Fourcade’s career as a soldier may help his aim, but it is his never-say-die attitude that makes him so special. He continued his dominance by delivering a storming performance on the final leg in the mixed relay to become only the second French athlete to win three gold medals at a single winter Olympics.

Curling

Nordic Combined

By Ahmed Hussein

the same concept, but consists of more skiing than shooting.

Missing a shot means skiing an extra 150-meter loop rather than one minute added to the time. In pursuit, the order of start is decided by the results from sprint (the winner of sprint leaves first in pursuit). After this, there are also relay events.

This year, Germany and France were the main winners with seven and five medals, respectively, each with 3 golds.

Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier made history by being the first woman to win gold in the sprint and pursuit double at the same Olympics. She won sprint by an astonishing 26 seconds, and when things got close in the pursuit, Dahlmeier kept her cool by

Dutchman Sjinkie Knegt.

South Korea won the gold in the 3000-meter women’s relay, with Italy and the Netherlands right behind. The Netherlands wasn’t even in the race but received third after China and Canada were disqualified for impeding. Finally, Hungary won its first gold medal of all time in the Winter Olympics in the men’s 5000-meter relay. The victory also ended a 38-year medal drought, the last medal being a silver in figure skating.

By Sunan Tajwar This year’s freestyle skiing events at the winter Olympics included both men’s and ladies’ Moguls, Serials, Ski Cross, Ski Halfpipe, and Ski Slopestyle. The Canadians had an especially good showing at this event, claiming four of the 10 gold medals in freestyle skiing (Kelsey Serwa won the ladies’ Ski Cross, Brady Leman won the men’s Ski Cross, Cassie Sharp won the ladies’ Halfpipe, and Mikael Kingsbury won the men’s Moguls). In the men’s Aerials event, Oleksander Abramenko of Ukraine separated himself from Jia Zongyang of China by half a point with his

back full-full-double full to claim the gold.

The ladies’ event was just as close, with Belarus’s Hanna Huskova pulling off a back layfull-full to edge out Xin Zhang’s (China) back-full double full by half a point to win gold. In the ladies’ Slopestyle, Sarah Hoefflen of Switzerland bounced back from her 27.80 second run score, scoring 91.2 in her final run to win the gold. Finally, in the men’s Halfpipe event, after two disappointing performances in his first two runs with scores of 17 and 6.40, American David Wise saved his best tricks for last, pulling off a 97.2 in his third and final run to bring home the gold for the red, white, and blue.

Alpine Skiing

By Allison Eng Alpine skiing includes the wide fields of both men’s and women’s events, including downhill skiing, slalom (going between two flagged poles), giant slalom, Super-G, alpine combined, and alpine team skiing. These divisions are all variations of one another. In the combined alpine event, Michelle Gisin of Switzerland won gold for the first time in her career.

The United States’ Mikaela Shiffrin won silver, and Wendy Holdener, also from Switzer-

land, finished with the bronze.

Lindsey Vonn, an American favorite who was performing in her last Olympics and looking for a fairytale ending, performed well in the downhill event, capturing third, but struggled in the slalom event by missing flags, which put her out of the competition.

In the men’s events, Norway had a strong showing in the downhill races with Aksel Lund Svindal and Kjetil Jansrud capturing gold and silver, respectively. Switzerland’s Beat Feuz came in third, just 0.18 seconds behind Svindal.

continued on page 31

The Spectator ● March 19, 2018

Page 31

Sports PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympic Games

By THE SPORTS DEPARTMENT continued from page 30

Cross-country Skiing

Ice Hockey

By Lumi Westerlund This year’s Olympic Ice Hockey results marked meaningful wins for both the men and women gold medalists. The men’s tournament culminated in a win for the team made up of Olympic Athletes from Russia, their first gold medal in 26 years, while the United States’ women’s team took gold, narrowly beating Canada for the first time in 20 years. Eight national teams qualified for the women’s Olympic tournament, along with 12 men’s national teams. This was in spite of the National Hockey League prohibiting its players

from participating in the Olympics as they had done for the past 5 years.

The Canadian and American women’s teams have gone head-to-head for a medal every Winter Olympics since 1998 and have built an intense rivalry.

Canada has taken gold a total of four times, while the US has been left with one bronze medal since their gold medal victory in 1998, giving particular gravity to their victory at PyeongChang.

The third period ended in a 2-2 tie, and the teams were forced into overtime.

After the overtime period, they remained deadlocked at two. With tensions high, they

turned to a shootout. Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson scored the first U.S. goal, followed minutes later by a powerful save by goalie Maddie Rooney, finally giving the Women’s U.S. National Team a win 20 years in the making.

The Men’s Russian National Team felt similar pride when Kirill Kaprizov scored the gamewinning goal in the final minute of overtime. They too had been waiting for this win for years and entered into overtime against Germany with a score of 2-2.

Canada took bronze in the men’s tournament, and Finland took bronze for women.

Luge

By Franklin Liou Luge, similar to bobsledding, is a sport in which athletes are timed as they speed around an icy track on a sled. They use their running start and the track’s curvature to build up momentum and speed while they lay as flat as they can on their backs for aerodynamic purposes. The athletes get three runs, and if they finish in the top 10 of their group, they advance to the finals. However, their times are cumulative over all of the rounds, meaning their time in the first round counts toward their time in the final round if they make it that far.

In men’s singles, Austrian

David Gleirscher edged out American Chris Mazdzer by 0.026 seconds to win gold while Germany’s Johannes Ludwig took home bronze. The final times for the athletes only differed by a maximum of two seconds, showing how important every little aspect of the sport is, from the approach to a turn to the ability to stay flat.

In women’s singles, the Germans claimed the top spot like they have in many previous Olympics as Natalie Geisenberger and Dajana Eitberger won gold and silver respectively.

Canadian Alex Gough was able to earn bronze by about 0.050 seconds, beating out yet another German.

The Germans continued to dominate in doubles with Tobias Wendl and Tobias Arlt winning gold while Toni Eggert and Sascha Benecken won bronze.

Austria’s Peter Penz and Georg Fischler duo earned one of just three total silver medals for their country. Finally, there was team relay, which consisted of the combined times of one woman and three men from each country. Not surprisingly, Germany took home yet another gold, Canada won silver, and Austria won bronze, leaving the United States with a disappointing total of one medal from the luge events.

By Brandon Rim Cross-country skiing, a sport usually dominated by Scandinavian countries, saw something never seen before in over 40 years. United States cross-country skiers Kikkan Randall and Jessica Diggins took home the first United States medal in the event

since Bill Koch’s in 1976. Their time of 15 minutes, 56.47 seconds placed them just 0.19 seconds ahead of Sweden’s tandem.

Surprising many countries and athletes from around the world, Randall and Diggins hope to inspire those at home to pursue their dreams in cross-country skiing in the coming years.

Bobsledding

By Jared Asch This year’s Winter Olympic Games saw Germany dominate the medal count, and it was no different with bobsledding.

They received the gold medal in multiple bobsled events, including Two-man bobsled, Women’s bobsled, and Four-man bobsled.

Despite the German domination, this year’s bobsledding was in no way uneventful. It saw the

first appearance of a team from Africa, which made a more enjoyable and inspiring Olympics for audiences worldwide despite the team’s disappointing performance.

The United States’ Elana Meyers Taylor continued her streak of medaling in the Olympics, this time with first-time medalist Lauren Gibbs, earning the silver medal in the two-woman bobsled event and coming in second by only 0.07 seconds.

Ski Jumping

By Ricky Choi and Eugene Yoo Ski jumping is a winter sport that involves an in-run, take off, and then a landing hill. The contestants are evaluated based on their distance score, which translates to style points that can go up to a maximum of 20 points. The ski jumping events at the 2018 Winter Olympics lasted from February 8th to February 19th.

A total of 65 male and 35 female contestants competed.

Norway was able to win first with

a total of five medals: two gold, one silver, and two bronze. Germany, Poland, and Japan took second, third and fourth places, respectively. In the Normal Hill event, Andreas Wellinger, representing Germany, took gold with a total score of 133.5. In the Large Hill event, Kamil Stoch of Poland led to first place with a total of 125.6. In the Large Hill Team event, Norway won first with its leading players Daniel-André Tande, Andreas Stjernen, Johann André Forfang, and Robert Johansson. Finally, in the women’s event, Maren Lundby of Norway won with a total of 264.6.

Skeleton Sledding

By ArielGLAZMAN Skeleton was a sport featured in the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics where the athlete slides head-first on a flat sled down a frozen track. The sport has been dominated by the United States and Great Britain, with each country having 8 and 9 total medals, respectively.

This year saw continued dominance from the British skeleton team, which won 3 medals out of the 6 total medals, with Lizzy Yarnold capturing gold in

Yu Xin Zheng / The Spectator

the women’s singles, in a time of 3:27.28. Men’s skeleton involved a historic moment with Yun Sungbin winning gold, South Korea’s first ever medal in skeleton. The highly animated commentary of the run by South Korean announcers was broadcast on news stations across the world. Men’s skeleton also saw another historic moment with Akwasi Frimpong being Ghana’s first ever skeleton athlete. Though he did not win a medal, his celebratory dance after a run quickly went viral.

Girls’ Basketball

Despite Playoff Loss, Phoenix’ Season a Cause for Optimism continued from page 32

Firstly, Port Richmond was far more successful at getting to the basket, as evidenced by their free throw totals (13 made on 17 attempts). These totals are more than triple the Phoenix’s totals (four made on four attempts), and indicate a higher level of prowess for getting to the rim and drawing contact.

The other area of victory for the Raiders was outside shooting.

According to senior and co-captain Delaney Demark, this may have actually been the deciding factor in the game. “The main turning point really seemed to be in the third quarter when Port Richmond started hitting a lot of their outside shots, because before that, we had shut them down

pretty well. If we had responded by hitting our shots, we definitely could have had a better shot at winning,” Demark said.

However, even in what seems to be an area of deficit, there is still a major bright spot to be noted: perimeter defense. As Demark pointed out, the Phoenix had shut down the Raiders, who had been an excellent shooting team all season throughout the entire first half. The second quarter is especially notable, as the Phoenix held Port Richmond to just nine points, which tied the Raiders’ lowest single-quarter total since almost a month prior against a fearsome 13-1 Tottenville opposition.

With the season drawing to a close, what should be celebrated more than anything are the tremendous careers of the team’s

three seniors: Lau, Demark, and Joan Ngai. With the first two, their performances year in and year out speak for themselves.

They each made legitimate contributions from the get-go, with Lau in particular averaging 5.9 points per game as a freshman, putting her third-highest on the team. When asked about Lau, head coach Vincent Miller utterly raved about her, saying, “Shannon Lau was our franchise player.

The offense ran through her, and she was a leader and coach on the court.”

For Ngai, however, her play may be especially notable considering her tremendous progress over her final season. Nearly tripling her points per game average from 1.3 as a junior to 3.4 this season. Ngai also established herself as one of the Phoenix’

best free throw shooters, finishing the season with a team-high 80.0% clip. According to Miller, his favorite memory of Ngai was her final home game. “She made most of her shots and played excellent defense in that game. The crowd was chanting her name and it was great to see and hear,” Miller said.

Demark pointed this out specifically, saying that she was glad to see everyone grow, but “especially Joan Ngai for her last season.” Now, with vacancies opening up at both guard (Lau and Ngai) and forward (Demark), look for some of the younger players to emerge next season.

One player to watch is rising junior Eve Wening, who averaged 5.4 rebounds a game—the team’s highest figure among guards by a sizeable margin.

More than any on-court accomplishment, though, is the team’s attitude and culture over the past several years that should be revered. “When I think about my basketball career at Stuy, I am filled with an immense gratitude for the people who have supported me,” Lau said. An atmosphere like this breeds winning and resilience, and could have been another major contributing factor to the Phoenix’ mid-season surge.

Coach Miller has high hopes for next season, saying, “I expect a playoff berth again next year.”

However, if the team can find another “franchise player,” they could go a great deal further than that. If players like Wening and Kirshenbaum are able to step up, next season could be smooth sailing for the Phoenix.

March 19, 2018

Page 32

The Spectator SpoRts Girls’ Basketball

Despite Playoff Loss, Phoenix’ Season a Cause for Optimism

CALENDAR

March

21

Wednesday

Stefan Engquist / The Spectator

Baseball vs West 50th Street Pier 40

21

Wednesday

By Dimitriy Leksanov It is difficult enough for a student-athlete to travel to an away game on the precipice of New Jersey with papers and exams looming over her on a cold, mid-winter Monday afternoon and fail to come away victorious. So, when that away game is not just another road match, but in fact the first round of the playoffs, it is all the more disappointing, as it spells the end of both a tremendously successful season and the illustrious careers of several seniors who have poured their hearts into the game and team they love for almost half a decade.

Unfortunately, this scenario was the reality for the Stuyvesant Phoenix, Stuyvesant’s girls’ basketball team, who were narrowly eliminated by the Port Richmond Raiders, 55-50, on February 12, despite a late-game push. However, considering all that the Phoenix have accomplished over the past few months, and, in the case of the graduating seniors, over the past four years, the end to the season should not be viewed with mourning, but with pride and celebration.

Firstly, it must be noted that the Phoenix battled through a historically slow start to even have the opportunity to square off against the Raiders. With just three wins over the first seven games, the Phoenix were suddenly face-to-face with their first

losing record of the past four years, which was considered to be uncharted waters for a team that is normally dominant from start to finish.

Then, after another two games, the Phoenix had racked up a fifth loss, matching the previous season’s total just nine games into the season. This was disconcerting, but the team responded with vengeance, taking six of their next seven contests and vaulting themselves into the top half of the Manhattan A South Division.

Part of this had to do with the emergence of junior Talia Kirshenbaum, who burst onto the scene in early January like someone shot her out of a cannon. In just her second start since her return from the Mountain School, the imposing, lanky forward tallied her first double-double, snagging a team-high ten defensive rebounds while leading the Phoenix to a 67-55 victory over Bayard Rustin Educational Complex.

This late-season resurgence must also be attributed to the team’s clear improvements in multiple facets of the game. For instance, one factor that severely plagued the Phoenix in 2016 was their poor free throw shooting, which contributed to numerous close, heartbreaking losses against teams like Bayard Rustin. This year, the Phoenix again started off slow at the stripe but

improved vastly toward the end of the season, making more than half of their free throws in each of their final four games and going a perfect 4-4 against Port Richmond.

This strong progression and acutely evident will to improve did not go unnoticed by the team’s leadership. Senior and co-captain Shannon Lau said, “In the middle of the season, it was hard, especially when we kept playing better teams, but that’s the part I love most, because this team showed so much grit and fight to climb back.” Lau specifically lauded the Phoenix’s effort in their second encounter with Seward Park Campus, a scrappy 44-40 victory during which Stuyvesant saw five different players score five points or more. This was a notable accomplishment, especially considering their previous reliance on Lau for scoring.

Even in the playoff loss to Port Richmond, the Phoenix still did a great deal of good. Most notably, they out-rebounded the Raiders significantly (37-28) behind a dominant effort from junior center Ally Archer, who finished with 12 boards. Unfortunately, despite such a performance, the Phoenix were clearly outplayed in two vital facets of the game.

22

Boys’ Volleyball vs Laguardia High School Stuyvesant Gymnasium

Thursday Softball vs Beacon High School Pier 40

22

Thursday

26

Boys’ Lacrosse vs Kingsbridge Academy Randall’s Island

Monday

Girls’ Lacrosse vs Long Island City Randall’s Island

continued on page 31

Softball

Renegades’ High Hopes for the Season

By Samuel Stamler and Ethan Weisberg Every year, March 1st marks the first day of girls softball for the Stuyvesant Renegades. However, different compared to most other Public School Athletic League teams, the Renegades did not lose any seniors and can pick up where they left off from last season with an intact roster.

“I’m super excited for this season, because the team is already looking really strong,” senior and co-captain Charlotte Ruhl said.

It’s going to be most of the same girls this year, so we already have a really strong team dynamic.”

While most teams use the first few weeks of the season to evaluate talent and plug holes in the field left by the previous

year’s seniors, the Renegades know that they can focus their time on fixing some of last year’s weaknesses. “We definitely have a lot of room for improvement,” Ruhl said. “Two of [our] losses [were] due to too many errors, and the other two [were] because we weren’t used to facing much faster pitching.”

Ruhl and senior and co-captain Frankie Michielli will work on fielding and throwing mechanics during practices to cut down on errors in the field. “We often let small mistakes get in our heads, and it spirals from there,” Michielli said. One mistake by one player can lead to multiple mistakes in the same inning.

One way to correct this is by going through repetitions of common game situations to prepare

them for the inevitable mistakes and teach how to rebound from them.

Last year, the team was hindered by inclement weather during the early parts of the season.

Pier 40, the team’s primary location for outdoor practices, was frequently flooded or covered with snow, which prevented the team from getting much-needed experience on turf. This limited field-time hurt their defensive performance throughout the year. The team hopes to consistently have practices at Pier 40 twice a week in order to cut down on costly errors, which proved to be a major factor in their secondround playoff loss to the High School for Construction in 2017.

Despite the relative success the team had at the plate last sea-

son (they had nine games with more than 10 runs scored), players also see room for improvement on the offensive side. “We’ll need to focus on being aggressive and confident at the plate,” Ruhl said. The team has spent many of their practices using the batting cage at Stuyvesant to correct mechanical issues and get the timing of pitches down. The players also adjust the speed setting of the pitching machine, allowing them to work on catching up to faster pitching.

Despite having only a few underclassmen additions, the team still has members who can break out and play major roles this coming season. Junior outfielder Julianna Fabrizio suffered an injury early in the year and was limited to only 27 at-bats,

and sophomore tri-sport athlete Eve Wening looks to replicate her strong .389 batting average to an even greater number of at-bats.

Coach Miller is optimistic about his team’s chances and has high hopes for them this season.

“We had a very good season last year, and I’m hoping to win the division this year and be ranked top five in the city,” Miller said.

With an intact roster and another year to develop and improve, Ruhl is optimistic about the upcoming season. “If we put in the work and stay focused, I think we are going to be really successful,” Ruhl said. After being eliminated in the second round of the playoffs each of the last two seasons, this could be the year the team breaks into the semifinals.