V o l u m e I V, N u m b e r I
Celebrating The Precious Human Tapestry
August 28, 2009
Pigs didn’t fly, but swine flu (or How I spent my summer vacation) BY SAMANTHA SHOKIN Editor
Salvation! Or so I wanted to proclaim as I dashed out of my final-final last semester and into the crisp pre-summer air. I was experiencing that remarkable lightness only students feel at the end of a term, when all things fact-related are purged from our book bags, binders and brains, and we can enjoy blissful ignorance for an entire season (not counting you overachieving summer session people out there). I was ready to begin academic catharsis, which involves lots of intensive TV sessions and therapeutic napping, finished off with a food-coma induced by my grandmother’s homemade cooking. College life is good, I thought, but vacation life will be better. And yet, a mere two weeks after that thought, I was ready to scratch out my eyes at the sight of another television program and worried for the potentially damaging effects my family’s constant presence would have on my mental health. Naturally, I had to get out. So the next thing I knew I was on a plane to Europe. I had romanticized Western Europe in my head for many years and finally got the opportunity (and the parental permission) to experience it firsthand. Thus, after one fateful Google search, I giddily filled out an online application for a monthlong tour of seven countries. I thought this would serve as a sufficient enough introduction to European travel. I viewed Europe as my giant unexplored cultural candy store, and I wanted to have a taste of every scrumptious city it would have to offer me. Now the thing about Europe, or any kind of travel destination, for that matter— you can’t really appreciate it in one short burst
of touristic fervor. This attitude is self-defeating, and ultimately it will wear you out, leaving you with lots of photographs and sore muscles but without a true feel for your destination. A new city should be explored in gradual increments of curiosity and wonderment. O n e should think of tourism like sipping a SWINE FLU MANIA: Some of the girls from my tour group during our quarantine in Cannes. glass of fine French wine, rather than chugging continent, one souvenir shop at not through a viewfinder. About down a can of cheap American a time. (At one point our tour halfway through our trip, when I beer. I, unfortunately, figured this bus broke down a mere 1.3 kilo- had just adapted this new touring meters away from our Barcelona strategy and was ready to test it out the hard way. Thirty of us college-aged trav- hotel. Imagine thirty American out on our next destination, the elers from all over the states college students dragging luggage French Riviera, our Italian bus arrived in London, ready and down a major road. If the sight driver Tony called in sick and we eager for the adventure ahead. wasn’t mortifying enough, then were provided with a substitute. Though our tour guide, David the sound of all those luggage Soon after, Tony called again to (pronounced Dah-veed for you wheels being hauled over cobble- inform us that he caught his ailment from our tour group, and less cultured folks), insisted that stone certainly did the trick). After enough running around, that his doctor confirmed it to we pack lightly, much of our tour frantically chasing tourist attracbe the H1N1 virus, commonly group—particularly of the female tions and snap-happily flashing known as swine flu. persuasion—managed to schlep away at anything foreign-looking, Understandably our first reaction along some monstrous pieces of one starts to lose momentum was to flip out. Everyone immeluggage that were an especial joy and prefers to spend the better diately started pointing fingers: “I to carry when we arrived at a part of a day simply sitting at a heard you sneezing yesterday— quaint Swiss hotel that lacked elecafé table to people-watch. Not it was you!” “No, my roommate vators. Nonetheless we trudged surprisingly, you appreciate so brought it—he ran a fever last along with enough enthusiasm to much more of your surroundings week. ” Of course all this talk was make clear to all onlookers that when you actually stop to look futile because in reality, all of us we were, indeed, a herd of tourists at them with just your eyes and were experiencing mild flu symptrekking our way through their
PHOTO COURTESY OF Natalya Sariashvilit
toms. After a brief quarantine at our Cannes hotel, during which we were supplied with some very stylish surgical masks, the results of the hospital tests came in and it turned out that the H1N1 carrier was none other than my roommate. (Note: I had been sharing meals with this girl for nearly a week). But it all turned out to be fine, the symptoms were really not worse than any mild flu, and we all returned to the states able to say: “I went to Europe and all my tour group got was this lousy swine flu.” So now that I am back in the states (and more of a patriot than ever, mind you), I am ready to embark on another journey. Maybe one less exotic, but certainly exciting and hectic in its own way: my sophomore year of college. Happy travels!
This review for humans only: Classified report of “District 9” BY MAXWELL PRICE Editor
Can someone explain to me why a flick about extraterrestrials invading South Africa has more humanity in it than most recent homo sapien-centric Hollywood heartstring pullers? “District 9” is this summer’s unlikely science fiction hit by writer/director Neill Blomkamp and producer Peter Jackson (The Lord of The Rings trilogy). And what’s drawn most people’s attention is not the action-packed plot revolving around aliens descend-
ing upon earth or the sprawling, vertiginous cinematography but the film’s setting: Johannesburg, South Africa. Indeed, had the film been set in New York or London, it might have been mistaken for just another big budget sci-fi blockbuster. Yet as soon as the first aerial views of the aliens’ refugee camps on the outskirts of the city appear on screen, I understood why critics have been hurling the “a word”: allegory. “It’s, like, about apartheid or something,” proclaimed my movie buff friend. Yet I was inclined to
see the interpretive possibilities as, like, a bit more complex than that. The film’s brilliance lies in its refusal to succumb to genre clichés, preferring to challenge its viewers with dilemmas such as whether human rights could ever extend to nonhuman creatures. But I’ll leave the full analysis of that one up to the legions of college nerds who I imagine will pen theses on this piece of cerebral cinema. There’s no denying, however, the connection between this See “DISTRICT 9,” p. 9
PHOTO from Internet Source
ALIEN EPIC: Wickus Van De Merwe (Sharlton Copley) races to save alien species.
Diverse City 9
August 28, 2009
VISIONS
First Year Shenanigans Photos by Max Shay and Robert Hammer
10 Diverse City
August 28, 2009
CHORUS Junot Díaz inspires doe-eyed freshmen
BY MAXWELL PRICE Editor
It’s Wednesday night in the Spingold Theater and the air is charged with anticipation. The crowd of students who had only arrived on campus three days ago were pulsing with excitement and even administrators sat on the edge of their seats. Believe it or not, this extraordinary show of enthusiasm was for none other than the 17th Annual Philip and Helen Brecher New Student Book Forum, an orientation ceremony that in past years has led to much groaning and gnashing of teeth. The difference? Junot Díaz. Mr. Díaz is as close to a hipster literary celebrity as Brandeis has ever seen. The Pulitzer Prizewinning Dominican-American author of “The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” spoke with the kind of frank sincerity that seemed to resonate deeply with the new students. “I’m always amazed that [educators] choose this book,” he joked before launching into a raunchy and uproarious short story entitled “Alma,” about infidelity in an ill-fated romance. Despite his prodigious use of profanity and explicit sexuality, Díaz never felt
inappropriate or out of place. He delivered an impassioned appeal for the importance of arts education, conscious of his role as an example of a devoted artist who achieved success in spite of resistance from his family and friends. After reading “Alma” and a passage from his novel, Mr. Díaz took questions from the audience. “Who did you envision when you wrote the book?” one girl asked. “I mean, did you imagine a bunch of Jews at a university reading it?” Although the author explained that he wrote the book to an audience of his four close friends, he noted that literature maintains the power to reach across boundaries to touch people at a human level. He urged the students to touch our shared humanity through the arts. Questions about the novel itself yielded more questions than answers. Mr. Díaz emphasized that the silences and omissions in the book were intentional, providing gaps that each reader had to bridge in his or her own way. He admitted that certain questions remained unanswerable, for they sprang from a part of his creative unconscious to which he had no access. He described his writing pro-
PHOTO BY Mike Lovett/Brandeis University
LITERARY CELEBRITY: Pulitzer Prize-winning author Junot Diaz autographs copies of his novel for excited freshmen.
cess as equal parts intensive research and intuitive spontaneity, a formula that should surprise no one familiar with “Oscar Wao” and its labyrinthian mixture of Dominican folklore, science fiction, and postcolonial historical exposé. His advice to aspiring writers was simple. “Love for your art form is what keeps you going.” Acknowledging the hardships and obstacles of his immigrant family’s past, he insisted that it
was his intense passion for writing that saw him through. If the freshman in the audience seemed deeply moved by his words of wisdom drawn from years of experience, he appeared equally invigorated by his audience. He bantered with audience members about their move-in experience, new separation from parents, and the challenge of maintaining relationships from home. The clap-happy responses
District 9
Summer tunes from ‘Ye, Jay, and the gang
“DISTRICT 9” (from p. 8)
BY DANIELLE GEWURZ Editor
Summer music releases are oddly tied to the season; there’s a sense of lightness and fun in the best summer singles, a time of endless days and, for my summer, absurdly large amounts of sunshine. Summer is also the time of novelty songs, of disposable songs that breeze in with May and fade out with the last gasps of September. The party song displays a shocking longevity. This summer has seen the return of international influences, from Pitbull to Sean Paul. Fabolous coined the “Throw It in the Bag” and Lady Gaga maintained a clear presence on the airwaves with her supposed nouveau pop. On the thoroughly novelty tip, there’s the electro swagger of LMFAO’s “I’m in Miami Trick” which reads as a low budget hiphop pastiche of Peaches. This, combined with teen sensations Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift, spelled out the fluffiest of summer hits. Like cotton candy, they were sweet but completely insubstantial. On the whole, this summer was oddly disappointing in terms of new releases. The most anticipated summer singles had to be Jay-Z’s releases off the forthcoming “Blueprint 3.” But first single “D.O.A. (Death of Autotune)” was dead on arrival. The track had an ironic twist, since Kanye West was producing, but the half-
and standing ovation seemed to flatter the worldly author, who reacted with a mixture of sarcastic humor and graciousness. As I walked out of the auditorium, I heard an orientation leader speaking to one of his freshmen. “Well, after this point you’re on your own,” he said. I couldn’t help but think that this event was a perfect ceremonial entrance into a journey that is best described as brief and wondrous: college.
PHOTO from Internet Source
sung hook proved that Jay should stick to rapping. Even a surprise release from Radiohead, “These Are My Twisted Words,” a single available freely from the band’s website, disappointed. In part this was due to rampant speculation about a full EP, but in part to the slightness of the song, which, though enjoyable, hardly compares to the heights of the Radiohead canon. The true joys of summer music, as opposed to music simply released in the summer, is that the former perfectly echoes the carefree feel of the dog days of summer while still retaining the kind of substance that’s listenable in December snowstorms. Jay-Z’s “Run This Town” is a lot closer to that goal, though it ultimately falls a bit short. Rihanna’s hook leads nicely into two strong Hov verses, but it’s Kanye who steals the show with the last verse, from the joking
reference to Graduation’s “The Glory” (“I bought my whole family whips/No Volvos”) to audience appeals (“I’m just trying to change the color on your mood ring”). This might just be Ye’s revenge for Jay besting him on “Diamonds From Sierra Leone” but it’s the most rewarding part of the song. Ultimately Jay’s flow remains superior, but the verses themselves lack the same punch that “I’m not a businessman/I’m a business, man” had; retirement’s gotten to rap’s most prominent MC. Kanye has made strong showings for someone with no new album release: name-checking Michael Jackson and playing the distraught Romeo to Keri Hilson on “Knock Me Down,” making oral sex puns with Common on Kid Cudi’s “Make Her Say,” and in both cases, turning in rhymes both catchy and clever. Kanye’s willingness to drop the autotune
and return to rhyming is coupled with what feels like a renewed sense of fun and joy, perfect not just for the summer but replayable all year round. The strongest summer album release was undoubtedly Phoenix’s “Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix,” a set of songs that perfectly embodies summer pop, and one of the most solidly consistent albums released this year. The album distills emotion and music into their purest, crispest forms, and then works through them with catchy percussion and classic guitar pop. Singles “Lizstomania” and “1901” are drops of cheerful perfection, leading into more melodic long-form explorations of “Love Like a Sunset.” And even if none of that music resonated, in these last few weeks of summer you can always go for the classics, whether it’s the Beach Boys or Will Smith’s “Summertime.”
story and that of displaced and oppressed peoples all over the world. The aliens could serve as stand-ins for any group of people made to live in ghettoes as second-class citizens. The film begins in documentary style, opening with shots of protagonist Wickus Van De Merwe (Sharlto Copley) looking like Michael from “The Office.” Wickus is a bumbling, amiable employee of Multinational United (MNU), a government contractor in charge of extraterrestrial affairs. The action kicks into high gear after Wickus accidentally comes in contact with an alien substance with the power to fuel the dormant spaceship, which begins to transform him into one of the “prawns.” After this pathetic antihero discovers a horrible MNU secret and becomes a fugitive in District 9, the story comes to focus on his metamorphosis. Just as Wickus goes from bureaucratic fool to self-sacrificing gladiator, the cinematic style changes from “realistic” docudrama to epic scifi thriller. While the high-concept intellectualism fits uneasily with the big budget spectacle of the film’s latter half, any alien flick that exercises the cranium as much as the adrenaline gland is a revelation. While marginalized ethnic groups don’t have the option of flying away in a hovercraft, the analogy is made shockingly poignant in “District 9.” Move over “E.T.,” it looks like Neill Blombkamp has finally delivered a true interstellar classic.
Diverse City 11
August 28, 2009
ENDNOTE
A seder in Berkeley:
How a newly minted Marxist-humanist came to live with his Republican parents BY JON SUSSMAN Staff
When I told my parents that college had turned me into an atheist and a pothead, they were unconcerned. But when I told them I was left-wing, they got angry. They spent quite a few nights diligently repeating talking points, somehow relating the case to free markets to my ancestor’s flight from Poland. But I had imbibed too much Marx to pay attention. When my friend Lev invited me to Passover dinner in Berkeley, I eagerly jumped at the opportunity to leave Long Island. But on the plane I had a terrible nosebleed. Before I could pinch my nose the blood began sketching ugly maroon blotches on my new shirt. Blotting only made it worse. Lev handed me a t-shirt from his carry-on bag. I went to the restroom to change; on the way back to my seat, I realized that I’d be meeting my best friend’s mom in a Bugs Bunny t-shirt. “Don’t worry if you don’t remember the seder very well,” Lev said, leafing through Mother Jones. “My parents aren’t formal about it.” I looked askance. “I thought you’d said your dad was a rabbi and your mom was a cantor?” He glanced up. “Yeah, but they’re atheists too. They’re reasonable people.” He turned back to his magazine. “You’ll get along famously.” I’m not sure what struck me as odd – atheist rabbis or informal seders. From a very early age I identified religious services with a stifling solemnity; a seder meant sitting quietly at Grandma’s table, winestained Haggadahs in hand, as the eldest male raced through the liturgy. Then dinner. As the women cleaned up there was baseball on TV. “When you say informal you mean short?” I asked Lev. “No, not usually. The important parts are there. Did you bring your sacrifice?” “What? Uh, no.” I had forgotten: Lev’s family had a tradition of bringing ‘sacrifices’ for Passover dinner, verse or song that dealt with the themes of the holiday. I’d find something on the Internet before dinner. We arrived to a very busy house. Lev’s dad, David, handled the cooking, while his girlfriend Marilyn directed place settings and décor. A quiet radio played an insufferably long folk tune. When it ended the heavily-accented host mentioned that gay marriage had been legalized in, of all places, Iowa. “Good, that’ll fit in with my toast tonight,” David mumbled from the sink. Marilyn cleared space for a trivet on the table, rolled back to examine the arrangement. “Very fitting,” she muttered. Turning to me, “It must be exciting, all this happening now – but I don’t need to tell you that. I’m sure almost everyone at Brandeis voted for Obama, right?” she smiled. Almost everyone, except me - yet another part of my political dilemma. Until the spring, I had considered myself a libertarian, and only de-converted after a pro-
longed period of reflection. I just no longer had the confidence that my former ideology could address the oppressive apparatus of capitalism. I wish I had had my change of heart earlier, so I could have participated in the election night victory party. But, then again, I was now too far left for Obama. This was another thing I couldn’t get my parents to understand – they all too readily assumed I fell in line with the Democrats, before I could how explain that they were America’s second most capitalistic party. I resented the rush to define me when I couldn’t do it myself. An hour left till seder, and I was in trouble - nothing to offer. Lev was encouraging: “You’ve written poems for the lit mag, right? Just come up with something about freedom or remembrance or something.” Easy for him – Google immediately coughed up a poem entitled “Freedom.” I wanted – what did I want? I wanted to say something, that was for sure. Something touching. Something about Passover, but nothing too godly. Something about the struggle, dammit! The workers seizing the means of production! But dialectical materialism just wouldn’t work – I couldn’t draw any human feelings out of it. Socialist realism wasn’t my bag. To be a political humanist seemed impossible. What did my dad always bring up when discussing politics? Poland. The pogroms. Anti-semitism, boats across the Atlantic, selling canned vegetables in Brooklyn. I’d heard it too many times to remember the details, and I never understood how he connected it with free markets. But there was something there. But how to relate it to Passover? I flipped through a Haggadah. Washing hands nothing there. Four Questions – too preschool. Spilling a drop of wine for the ten plagues. I looked through the English bits for some subtext. It’s about sympathy? For the suffering of the Egyptian slave masters? Oh, those wacky Hebrews! Neocons, they were not. It was something to start with, anyway. My pencil hovered. “A Love Letter for the Policemen of Poland”. Ooh, a title. I filled in the lines beneath it, crossed out ones that didn’t work. I had something serviceable when we were called down. When it was my turn, I read my hastilyscribbled poem. I don’t know if it came out, but I wanted to talk about the same thing my dad did – that I was grateful my ancestors came to America, that they had found a small place in the world. And in much the same way I felt I was coming to find my own place in the world, even if it was a ways away from where my parents found themselves. And that my new politics was about giving folks a place in the world, one where they could be just as secure as I was. And, I dunno, something about plantin’ orange trees with the grandchildren of anti-semites – a hastilyinserted image, but it ended sweetly. After that we ate, and sang civil rights songs, and even squeezed in “The Internationale.” And I spilled brisket juice on my poem and threw it in the garbage. It was a fun night. I was glad I had found something to talk to my parents about.
PHOTO from Internet Source
CUDDLY COSTARS: Charlyne Yi searches for love with Michael Cera, Nicholas Jasonovec and Jake Johnson (from left to right) in Paper Heart.
Stick to the trailer: Indie flick “Paper Heart” disappoints BY ALISON CHANNON Editor
Michael Cera has indie credibility. We were first introduced to him on the small screen in the cult-tv show "Arrested Development" and two years ago, he charmed the big screen as the adorableif-hapless baby-daddy Paulie Bleaker in “Juno.” Riding the wave of “Juno,” we saw him roam the bars of the East Village and Williamsburg as the again, adorableif-hapless (though apparently sexually skilled) Nick in Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist. I love Michael Cera in all his hooded-sweatshirt and nervous smile glory. But not even his adorable-if-hapless hipster appeal could save his most recent endeavor, “Paper Heart.” To be fair, Paper Heart does not star Michael Cera. Musician/comedian Charlyne Yi is the focus of the meta-film. We first meet Charlyne with microphone in hand on the streets of Las Vegas as she unsuccessfully attempts to solicit thoughts on love from perfect strangers. I had a feeling then that I might have wasted my $4.75 for the commuter rail, $1.70 for the T, $9.75 for the ticket, and $1.25 to take the 70 back from Central Square. The film is meant to feel like a documentary of a documentary. We’re not supposed to be certain where real ends and fiction begins. The structure is intriguing and the premise of the movie is cute enough. Charlyne doesn’t believe in love, so she and director Nick Jasenovec (played on screen by actor Jake Johnson) decide to travel across the country to pick people’s brains about love and relationships. Along the way, Charlyne meets Michael Cera at a house party. He is apparently smitten and after an orchestrated ‘chance’ meeting at the Los Angeles Zoo, the two go on their first date.
Charlyne and Michael’s relationship is admittedly sweet. It managed to break through my beginning of the semester malaise and make me think that maybe young love is, after all, not just a fairy tale. More than just being lovely and sweet, Charlyne and Michael’s relationship spawns questions about falling in love under the microscope – an issue particularly pertinent for our plugged-in generation. We see the two of them, Michael in particular, struggling with developing a relationship in front of the camera. And the lesson is clear, two people’s budding love isn’t meant for public consumption. The message that nurturing love is private extends to the non-celebrity and nonreality television cast member contingent. In an age where we know when the girl who sat in the back of our high school biology class breaks up or gets engaged, Paper Heart might be telling us to chill with the Facebook relationship status feature. And while I can certainly jump on that bandwagon, the film still rubbed me the wrong way. My problem with the film is not its pretension, its puppetry reenactments, its trite premise, or its predictably unpredictable ending. I simply couldn’t stand Charlyne. I want to like her. I want to support a young woman making her mark in cinema. I want to support her for following the beat of her own drum. But I can’t. She annoyed me. She’s charming in the trailer but 89 minutes of Charlyne is overkill, and if you can’t get behind Charlyne, the film falls apart. For that reason, “Paper Heart” just isn’t worth your money. The trailer still stands up as one of the better trailers I’ve seen in a long time. While the movie angered me enough to find fault with even the most adorable of puppies, the trailer managed to set my heart aflutter.
Like sex, drugs, and...arts criticism? Come write for Diverse City! Email sshokin@brandeis.edu