The Dartmouth Mirror 9/27/17

MIR ROR 9.27.2017

THE UNSCRIPTED ART OF IMPROV | 2

THE STORY OF A STORY | 4

DISCOVERING CALLIGRAPHY | 7 ALANA BERNYS/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

2 //MIRR OR

Editors’ Note

Going off Script: The Art of Improv STORY

ELIZA MCDONOUGH/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF

Your Mirror team is coming at you this week in a full-out relay race, during which the three take turns tag-teaming each other as they run back and forth between Robo and their respective rush-engrossed Greek houses. Annette and May even high-fived while they passed one another along East Wheelock street, adjacent to the Green, May shouting over her shoulder, “All changes are in ... Start on layout!” (Annette returned to The D offices to find devoted editor-in-chief and shining star Ray Lu ’18 hunched over his phone next to his social media idol Lauren Budd ’18, asking for her advice on acquiring more Instagram followers. In keeping with our weekly fun facts, one of @laurbudd’s tweets got 8000+ retweets in 2016 — that’s sometimes more than what @realDonaldTrump himself gets!)

The fact that May, Lauren and Annette sit in an exceptionally steamy, aircondition-less second floor Robinson Hall office does not help them cool down from their relay race. (As is the rest of campus, we are wondering why these Hanover fall days have been 90 degrees! We’re really confused, because according to @realDonaldTrump, global warming is not real!)

After listening to much complaining from his favorite editorial team, and watching them fan themselves with old newspapers, Ray — being the kind and caring editor he is — wheeled in a never-before-used air conditioner. Alas, the relay race continued as the editors took turns pressing themselves against it.

During this hectic night, your editors produce stories about the art of editing, Rauner manuscripts, improvization groups, ex-presidential speech writers and calligraphy classes — all focused around this week’s theme: scripts. Have an awesome rest of week three!

follow @thedmirror 9.27.17 VOL. CLXXIV NO. 116 MIRROR EDITORS LAUREN BUDD ANNETTE DENEKAS MAY MANSOUR EDITOR-IN-CHIEF RAY LU PUBLISHER PHILIP RASANSKY EXECUTIVE EDITOR ERIN LEE PHOTO EDITORS ELIZA MCDONOUGH HOLLYE SWINEHART TIFFANY ZHAI

By Nikhita Hingorani

We’ve all been there. Telling a joke, or being told a joke, that is absolutely hilarious to the speaker but met with confusion or even worse, forced laughter by the audience. Whether it’s the bad pun your friend makes during your study session, the classic “dad joke” your father makes over dinner, or — my personal favorite — that cringeworthy joke your professor cracks in the middle of a lecture, comedy is truly an art form, and sometimes jokes told on the spot just don’t go as smoothly as we anticipate.

Do you ever wonder if your favorite late-night comedian would still be as funny if they were just thrown on stage, without a noteworthy one-liner or amusing anecdote, and forced to make the audience laugh solely through whatever comes to their mind?

Scripted comedy is entertaining in its own way; however, improv comedy takes the accomplishment of making people laugh to the next level, with sharp wit and spontaneity being the primary factors toward successful humor.

At Dartmouth, we are lucky enough to have two student groups whose main focus is bringing some joy into our lives. Dog Day Players and Casual Thursday have both mastered the improvisation comedy form. The primary difference between the two is that Dog Day specializes in “long-form” improv, in which a lengthier show is created based on a short inspiration, such as a monologue or an event, whereas Casual Thursday focuses on the “short-term” version, comprised of quick scenes and games.

Comedy is highly subjective, and it is never certain how well a joke will end up playing out. Without a script, the improv comedian himself doesn’t even know what the joke will turn out to be. However, fourth-year Dog Day performer Emily Everhard ’18 doesn’t think this is too big of an obstacle to overcome. Rather, she said being an improv comedian has taught her some valuable skills that she can utilize both on-stage and off.

“I’ve learned a lot about thinking on my feet, being flexible, working with other people and having to keep an open mind, because you never know what people are going to say,” she said.

Sure, scripts are beneficial for many artistic forms, but the basic premise of improv lies in the beauty of the unknown. Is your partner going to follow the route you’re trying to take with the characters? Will the audience think the punchline you’re about to make is relevant? Your group totally changed the mood of the scene — so what are you supposed to say now?

Throughout her performances,

Everhard has realized the benefits of being confident with the act of going on stage absolutely unscripted.

“One of the biggest things I had to learn when I first started improv was that you couldn’t walk on stage with too much of a plan, because a lot of scenes go wrong when you go out with that preconceived idea that eventually gets completely negated,” she said.

For many Dartmouth students, sophomore summer is the ideal time to take part in a new activity, and Dog Day and Casual Thursday are both popular performance groups for students to get involved with.

Sarah Salzman ’18 recounted her time in the expanded sophomore summer version of Dog Day, dubbed “Dog Days of Summer,” with great fondness.

“I’ve never really been involved with any arts groups on campus,” she said. “I knew that I just wanted to try something new and different, and they seemed like they had a lot of fun.”

Pa r t i c i p a n t s r e h e a r s e d a few hours per week, and the ter m culminated in various performances around the College.

By the end of her time in Dog Days of Summer, Salzman, who claims to “not be a natural at words,” realized that it wasn’t really a big deal if she messed up on stage while improvising, since the show would just keep on going, regardless of what she ended up saying.

Fiona Bowen ’18 also ventured into comedy during her sophomore summer, participating in Casual Thursday’s seasonal group. Her perception of improv didn’t seem to change much after her term involved, and she was actually quite surprised about how easily she adapted to the unscripted environment.

“It was pretty much what I thought it was going to be, but I actually didn’t expect it to happen as naturally,” she said. “The thing about doing improv is that you just have to get up there and say something, so you do.”

Another vital component of successful improv is the ability to work as a team, which is accompanied by aspects such as adaptability and cooperation.

There is no one-man show in either Dog Day nor Casual Thursday, and performances are based upon how interactions between characters are created and further developed by the unique mannerisms and actions of the performers.

The show’s progression relies on everyone on stage, and each member’s contribution, whether through voice or action, is used towards fulfilling the ultimate goal of keeping the audience entertained. Everhard calls this “the unplanned act of making a script happen” and embraces not knowing how her fellow performers are going to respond.

“Improv is all about just trusting your gut, not thinking too much, being willing to blurt whatever comes out and knowing that the other people on stage are going to support you no matter what,” she said.

Fo r b o t h p e r fo r m e r s a n d audiences, the best type of improvisational comedy is, as Everhard remarks, what is “real and relatable.” Perhaps this is due to the fact that we find comfort in seeing a staged performance being as unpredictable as life itself. After all, we all have the tendency to want to perfectly plan our lives out, but time and time again we find ourselves realizing that some of the greatest moments lie in the unscripted.

COURTESY OF EMILY EVERHARD

Dog Day members create long-form improv.

MIRROR //3

Down the Rabbit Hole: A Look Inside Special Collections STORY

By Chris Cartwright

At first glance, the books all appear to be vastly different from one another. One is about a foot in length, while another could fit in my back pocket. The illustrations vary wildly — in one, horrific black and white drawings paint the page, while another seems to contain abstract art. Upon closer inspection, however, I discover that they are all versions of the same novel: “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.”

Stepping into the Rauner Special Collections Library is similar to falling down the rabbit hole into Wonderland. The library is a veritable treasure house, its holdings ranging from ancient cuneifor m tablets to original Robert Frost manuscripts.

Special collections librarian Jay Satterfield discussed the importance of the library to the Dartmouth community.

“There’s about 130,000 rare books in the collection and 38,000 linear feet of archival and manuscript material,” Satterfield remarked.

To put that in perspective, the collection could fill nearly eight miles of bankers boxes.

Despite being an important source for researchers from around the world, the library’s main priority is to support classroom instruction.

“Our big gest [advantage] is the depth of our curricular involvement,” Satterfield said.

“Last year 115 or 120 different classes met in special collections to use materials.”

In fact, the Alice in Wonderland books I encountered were on display for an upcoming class.

The course, titled “Victorian Children’s Literature: Fairytale and Fantasy,” has its students split into groups and analyze how the story of Alice in Wonderland has changed over time. Students are able to interact with versions of the novel ranging from a first edition to a contemporary publication. The illustrations, in particular, have changed with each printing: in the first edition, the story is presented with children’s book illustrations, but later versions carry much darker connotations.

“What is it about Alice that makes her work in all of these different environments? Why can she be a flapper in the ’20s, a dark nightmare in the 1880s and this kind of fantastical journey in the 1860s?” Satterfield asked. “A lot of times, coming in here to look at a first edition of a book or series of editions like this can lead you to ask questions about a book that never would’ve occurred to you.”

I was curious about how the know whether the exemplar you library verifies the authenticity of copied was a good exemplar or a their manuscripts. It turns out that corrupted exemplar,” Halasz said. the process is usually self-evident: Her course explores how a book most of the time the library buys is manufactured, how publishing from dealers whose reputations companies were established and are at stake, so that the dealers in how books work as a technology question cannot afford to sell fake and form of expression. The manuscripts. However, sometimes class is held in Rauner and takes a counterfeit is exactly what the for consideration the library’s collection wants to obtain. extensive resources. “ We ’ve “[Rauner has] purchased a considerable a few things “Coming in here to number of k n o w i n g look at a first edition [holdings] which they’re fakes of a book [...] can lead hd eaav le oaf gvar el uaet b e c a u s e they’re such you to ask questions for scholarly good fakes,” about a book that purposes,” Satterfield Halasz said. never would’ve explained. “ W h at ’s g re at O n t h e occurred to you.” about it now is topic of that it’s so open manuscript to members of f o r g e r y , -JAY SATTERFIELD, SPECIAL the community r e l i g i o n COLLECTIONS LIBRARIAN and the campus, professor so you can learn G re g o r y how to negotiate S e t o n , an archive.” who works Satterfield primarily with considers easy ancient and modern Buddhist accessibility a priority for the texts, described the process by library, which he hopes will become which accidental errors occurred a go-to destination for students, before the invention of the printing irrespective of their scheduled press. In order to get any book in course meetings.

India, Seton said, one would have had to go to a copyist and pay them to hand copy an original book.

“The copy that they make for you might have a bunch of mistakes in it because they are doing it by hand,” Seton said.

A chain then forms, in which errors multiply as each copy adds new mistakes to previous editions.

“You get all these divergences between various manuscripts,” Seton added. “So what people like myself, who work with manuscripts often, do is … try to get as many copies of a particular book in m a nu s c r i p t fo r m a s possible. That way, you can compare different streams of copies and you can figure out which one might be correct.”

E n g l i s h p ro f e s s o r Alexandra Halasz, who is currently teaching a class titled “History of the Book,” shared this sentiment.

“It was hard [before the printing press] to

“Special Collections is just full eater of Dartmouth’s junior class. of amazing things, and we try The tradition began sometime to be one of the easiest special before 1871 and continued until collections to use,” Satterfield said. 1906.

“We’re a very hands-on special “When you come in here you’ll collections. You can walk up [to hear laughter, and you’ll hear people the front] desk and ask for anything ‘oohing’ and ‘ahhing’ because … in the collection, and five minutes part of this is that just intense sense later you’re sitting at a table with of wonder,” Satterfield said. “You see it.” this and you can’t believe this exists.”

Whether it’s writings from Without missing a beat, he pointed famous Arctic to the first edition copy expeditions to of “Alice’s Adventures “When you come Renaissance i n Wo n d e rl a n d ” manuscripts, in here you’ll hear with Lewis Carroll’s items a t laughter, and you’ll monogram on the R a u n e r inside of the book a r e r e a d i l y hear people ‘oohing’ cover. I saw the cover available for and ‘ahhing’ because and emitted an audible viewing. The gasp — exactly the [...] part of this is library even kind of reaction the runs a blog that just intense Rauner staff hopes to dedicated to sense of wonder.” receive when people disseminating discover new items in i n fo r m at i o n the collection. a b o u t -JAY SATTERFIELD, When I asked interesting Satterfield what his SPECIAL COLLECTIONS objects an d favorite items in the manuscripts in LIBRARIAN collection were, he the collection. responded that it is Satterfield always changing. noted one “It’s the thing I item featured need that day,” he on the blog: a giant wooden spoon, said. “There’s so much in here, and called the “Glutton’s spoon,” almost everything has some story awarded annually to the heaviest behind it that makes it special.”

4// MIRROR

The Story of a Story: Editing as Creative Pursuit STORY

By Maria Harrast

It’s happened to the best of us. Sitting in Berry at 11 p.m., earbuds jammed in and coffee an arm’s length away, we slide out our laptops and open up an unfinished essay, prepared for a long night of re-wording paragraphs and restructuring sentences. As the night drags on, the comments in the margin begin to blur together and the words on the screen start to lose their meaning; we skip over a few passages and forget to refine our focus, add a word that’s out of place and confuse our voice.

We miss out on fully developing our work because the final draft is due tomorrow, and we don’t have the time nor the energy to fully devote ourselves to the process. As the hours pass by, and we reach the end of our attention span, we ask ourselves the evergreen question: why didn’t I start editing sooner?

The process of editing is one that students often overlook, but in many regards, it is a process that should be given the same respect as the act of writing itself. Whether it be a creative piece or long-form magazine article or fiction novel, the editing process plays a central role in all kinds of written work.

For professional writers, the revision process takes an extended period of time. English professor Jeff Sharlet, editor and frequent magazine contributor, said that a long-form magazine story is tirelessly revised before publication. For example, Sharlet said that an article in The New Yorker easily goes through 10 to 30 drafts before appearing in the magazine.

Regarding his own writing, Sharlet dedicates extensive time to the editing stage to ensure every aspect of the piece fits and flows. “[My editor and I] spent months on a story that was maybe 8,000 words … we would talk on the phone for 45 minutes about one comma — going back and forth, thinking about it and digressing, arguing,” Sharlet said. “We [would read] the words out loud, trying to hear the breath and trying to imagine how the reader [would] encounter them.”

But in a process that may take professional

writers months or years to complete, how do they know where to begin? English professor Thomas O’Malley, director of creative writing, believes that the writer must be fully involved in the work before even considering starting revisions.

“Usually the editing begins in a place where you’re already very immersed in the work,” he said. “It’s almost telling you what is absent and needs to be fully realized. Editing isn’t a process of simple revision, it’s rather a different type of immersion, a fuller immersion.”

Similarly, English professor William Craig believes it is a mistake for writers to begin editing before completing a first draft.

“There’s a certain amount of editing that is almost physical,” he said. “We’re playing with the words as we put them on the page. There’s a certain amount of fussing that goes on. The trick is not letting that go on further. I try not to get involved in the editing process until the draft is complete.

It’s a terrible self-sabotage to edit before you’re done.”

As the revision process progresses, the writer may choose to edit for different aspects with each subsequent draft. Craig believes that editing for sense and form often happens in the second or third draft, while more elusive aspects, such as voice, are often developed over time and become more apparent as the writer delves into the revision process.

O’Malley believes multiple drafts are necessary for the writer to become more objective in his edits.

By the sixth or seventh draft, he says that the writer develops a greater sense of what should remain and what should be cut.

“Each draft is more of a focus of clarity,” he said. “You become less attached to your own work; there’s less ego involved. It’s when you’re speaking only solely for and from the work, and as a writer yourself, where you can be the most cruel to your own work.”

At some point, every writer must decide to finish the article or end the story, and depending on the

kind of writing, this sense of completion comes about in different ways. For O’Malley, a book is complete when his mind is no longer generating material or ideas for his work.

“I feel the story is done when I’m not hearing in the middle of the night another part of the narrative being spoken to me,” O’Malley said. “I’m not going to bed thinking about it, or dreaming about it, or waking up thinking about it, but actually other stories are coming in, almost as if my psyche is opening up to new possibilities.”

For other kinds of writing, oftentimes the writer must end the process as a matter of necessity.

“It’s generally a process of surrender,” Craig said. “The editor or publisher are waiting on the deadline, or you’ve come to the end of the time and energy you have for this project, and you say ‘enough.’”

The relationship between a writer and his or her editor is essential to producing the ideal final product. Sharlet believes that the most effective author-editor relationships are ones in which neither person is afraid to argue with the other. “[My editors have had] that intensity about what’s at stake and caring about the story and being able to survive the arguments,” Sharlet said.

“With a good editor, it’s a collaborative art. Usually there’s some level of compromise, [but] I would say seven times out of 10, with the distance of time, I realize that the compromise was correct.”

While it may be easy to assume that those with the most writing experience make for the best editors, there are certain characteristics that distinguish great editors from great writers.

“Great editors have analytic minds,” Craig said.

“Whether they’re writers or not writers, they tend to look at works with an eye towards understanding how the greatest components of structure and design harmonize with the most particular, minute components of language and expression.”

Sharlet echoed the thoughts of Craig and even more firmly believes that the best editors do not need to be writers themselves.

“Unquestionably, the best editors are not people with the same [writing] experience,” Sharlet said.

“The editor has a perspective — a simultaneous sense of intimacy with that level of the sentence and the subject and the moment and a distance — that a writer might find in revision but doesn’t usually find in the act of creation.”

In contrast, with editing for creative writing, O’Malley believes that creative writers make the best creative editors. When O’Malley reaches his final draft, he often asks for feedback from a few trusted writers before bringing the copy to his editor. “[Creative writers] understand that [creative writers are] reading beyond basic content and reading beyond basic language and meaning,” he said. “[They ask] if these sentences actually reverberate with what is happening psychologically, emotionally in this moment.”

Students may not have access to professional writers or editors, but there are still many ways they can improve their writing and editing. Sharlet’s advice to students in the editing process is to read their work out loud to an unbiased party.

“You need to read out loud to someone else … because that is more difficult than reading it out loud in the privacy of your room,” Sharlet said. “A mistake that students often make, and that writers often make, is that they find someone who likes them too much. My mentor would say, ‘Find somebody who loves you but not too much.’”

Additionally, Craig believes that students with good time management skills will have the greatest success in their writing.

“Editing simply doesn’t happen unless we make as much time for it as for the ritual of writing,” Craig said. “If editing becomes its own little ritual, it’s very satisfying, but if you always leave it to the last minute, it’s just harrowing and negative. In all writing, it’s important to accept the fact that revision is a crucial part of the writing process, and we have to respect that.”

ANNETTE DENEKAS/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF

English professor Jeff Sharlet, who wrote “Donald Trump, American Preacher,” said a long-form magazine story often goes through anywhere from 10 to 30 drafts.

MIRROR //5

Scripting a Nation: Behind Political Speechwriting STORY

By Eliza Jane Schaeffer

Politicians must be bidialectal. They must switch between the realm of policy — of painstaking minutia and predicted impact — and the realm of the public — of pithy statements and pretty words. To make this switch, they rely on the assistance of speechwriters, people paid to distill inherently abstract and unattractive concepts into effortlessly digestible statements.

If politicians are bidialectal, speechwriters are tridialectal. They must have a deep understanding, not only of policy and the public, but also of the politician who pays them.

“You are tethered to this person you are working for,” explained economics professor Charles Wheelan, who has worked as a speechwriter for the governor of Maine and the former mayor of Chicago. “There aren’t many other relationships where you are so closely tied to one person.”

Wheelan spent much of his time in the company of his bosses and understood them on both a personal and intellectual level. Peter Robinson ’79 — who worked as a speechwriter in the Ronald Reagan administration, first for Vice President George H.W. Bush and then for Reagan — agreed that there exists a profound connection between politician and speechwriter.

But working for the President of the United States is quite different from working for the Governor, or even the Vice President. Writing a speech involves background research on the issues, the audience and, most importantly, the orator. Reagan was a busy man, and because the White House speechwriters did not have the luxury of spending extensive amounts of time with him, they had to turn elsewhere to establish a foundational understanding of his psyche.

“I knew Ronald Reagan well in the sense that it was my job, as a speechwriter, to understand what he was thinking,” Robinson said. “We speechwriters would pour over the speeches he’d given, most of which he’d written himself before he took office, and then whenever he delivered a speech you had written, you got yourself in the room or in the motorcade so you could hear the speech delivered, so you could see what he did with your material.”

A good speechwriter is a master of dissociation. It is their fingers on the pen, but it is not their words on the page. Thus, they must be able to trade their own principles and personality for those of their boss.

“You’re putting words in someone else’s mouth, which is a very strange experience,” Wheelan said. “You have to get in their head and remind yourself that it’s not your speech.”

This task is quite daunting. A speechwriter who fails to write a speech that can be effortlessly absorbed by their employer risks making the politician appear inauthentic. Robinson has observed that most administrations initially struggle in this regard, and the President Donald Trump administration is no exception.

Trump’s rousing promise that “we have it in our power, should we so choose, to lift millions from poverty, to help our citizens realize their dreams and to ensure that new generations of children are raised free from violence, hatred and fear” acquires a tinny quality

when followed by a tweet reading, “Just heard Foreign Minister of North Korea speak at the U.N. If he echoes thoughts of Little Rocket Man, they won’t be around much longer!”

To avoid this potential problem altogether, Wheelan urges speakers to work from bullet points. In that case, the speechwriter is “adding value because [the speaker is] too busy to know who these people are, what they want to hear.

Really, what you want to do is be able to give them a road map,” he explained.

Of course, this is not always possible.

“At its most distressing, [the governor] was shockingly uninvolved. There would be times when I would say, ‘Hey, want me to write something down,’ give it to him in the limo, and he would read the speech,” Wheelan said.

Reagan, however, carefully combed through each speech beforehand, making adjustments as he saw fit. Nothing escaped his attention; Robinson remembers one six-page speech that Reagan left untouched, with the exception of a single word on the second to last line.

“By the time [Reagan] spoke,” Robinson said, “He had already internalized the speech, he had made it his. When Ronald Reagan spoke, you get no sense that there’s a gap between the text and the man himself.”

This merging of man and text was made possible by Reagan’s skill as an orator and

by Robinson’s skill as a speechwriter; just as Reagan internalized his speeches, Robinson internalized Reagan’s voice.

“You knew what sounded like Ronald Reagan and what didn’t because you understood where he stood on the issues and you understood his style of speaking,” Robinson said. “Reagan had so pronounced a speaking style that when you wrote for him, you could in your mind’s ear hear him deliver it as you wrote.”

According to Robinson, Reagan’s speaking style was characterized by humor and storytelling, strategies for which he received a lot of criticism. Though this approach was portrayed by the popular media as undignified, Robinson believes it was an effective strategy for relaying important, yet largely uninteresting, information without boring his audience.

“You make your factual case, but people’s minds are built to enjoy and remember stories,” he explained.

Wheelan also emphasized the importance of storytelling, a task at which the former mayor of Chicago excelled.

“He would, in the course of doing something else, tell me a story, and I would think, ‘Oh my god, we’ve got to use that,’” Wheelan said. “So in the text, it would just say, ‘Tell limousine story.’”

Though the former mayor was not particularly articulate, he excelled at building persuasive arguments through stories.

Wheelan kept a “stable” of stories from which he could pull, as needed.

Speaking from the perspective of an audience member, Daniella Kubiak ’20 affirmed that anecdotes make a speech memorable, relatable and engaging by forging a connection between the speaker and those listening. For Kubiak, an excellent speech is one that she “can relate to, particularly if the

speaker uses examples that I have experienced or someone I know has experienced.”

Robinson considers Reagan’s ability to leverage anecdotes as a means of connecting with ordinary Americans to be one of his greatest strengths; he succeeded in talking over pundits and policy experts and directly to the American people.

“It was [the president’s] job to carry the American people with you, to explain what you intended to do, why you intended to do it and persuade them to support you,” he said.

“The purpose of a speech is to establish a sense of community, a sense of shared values.

It’s not a lecture.”

Kubiak appreciates speeches characterized by strength and simplicity. She quickly loses confidence in speakers who appear unenthused by the values expressed in their speech or who are unable to craft a cohesive argument.

“If they don’t seem convinced by their own ideas, or if they’re arguing for one thing, but they can’t even back it up, or back it up with things that don’t make sense or are clashing — that’s what I don’t really buy into,” she said.

Unfortunately, clarity is difficult to achieve when dealing with complex policy

problems that can’t — and ideally shouldn’t — be distilled into a punchline. Maintaining a balance between entertainment and education, between rhetoric and substance, is difficult indeed.

In the Reagan White House, the speechwriting office was staffed with generalists, as opposed to policy specialists.

According to Robinson, their lack of expertise forced them to learn, to constantly engage with “the stream of intelligence and personalities and policy development” housed in the executive branch. His role as a speechwriter was to absorb and synthesize this information and then reproduce it in a manner that could be understood by the broader public, a feat made possible by his non-expert status.

“To have a speechwriter on the other end of the telephone line who didn’t actually know the subject all that well was extremely useful,” he said. “You would just keep asking questions and keep making them repeat themselves until you understood the essentials, the basic points of what they were saying.”

Thus, all of these elements — the basic points, the conviction, the stories — merge into one polished product, seamlessly bound by the speechwriter’s deep understanding of the policy, the politician and the public.

TANYA SHAH/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF

6// MIRROR

Scripted Life STORY

By Laura Jeliazkov

Scene 1 SETTING: Second floor of small farmhouse, in a small town, where BOY, aged 8 years, lives with mother, father, two sisters and one brother. 23 of April. Slovenia.

AT RISE: The crickets chirp outside.

The night has been peaceful — BOY was sleeping and dreaming soundly — until: BOY wakes up to the sound of a voice.

VOICE (soft and gentle, seeming to come from faraway but at the same time having a forceful presence): Come outside.

[Gentle, deep laughter. Footsteps sound beyond the closed bedroom door. BOY sits up in bed, stares into the darkness intently. The sound recedes.

Only the crickets chirp again. He waits. Still nothing. Slowly, he slides his feet over the side of the bed. Stands.

Pauses to listen once more. Then goes to the door; opens it a crack.

There is no one in the hall. He closes the door, then opens it to check once more. As he pokes his head through the doorframe, a purple light suddenly flashes from past where the hall turns. BOY is scared — his eyes widen — and he pulls his head back in quickly and clicks the door shut.

Silence, again. BOY looks down at the floor, breathing hard through his

nostrils. Slowly he turns around.

There is a large, bearded man sitting on the chair beside his bed.

He sits with his legs crossed and his hands clasped on the knee. His feet are particularly large. The man is old, wrinkled, shrouded in a purple robe and in darkness. But his eyes glitter like sparks from a flint. He fixes BOY with his gaze. The VOICE, it is now clear, is the OLD MAN.] OLD MAN: Come closer, boy.

[BOY is paralyzed with wonder and does not move. Remains by door.

OLD MAN laughs softly. A softer glint shows through the darkness from his teeth as he smiles.]

OLD MAN (soft, but powerful): Four angels will come for you, boy. Do you hear me?

[BOY finds his senses again, slowly allows his head to nod.]

OLD MAN: And you must not go with them.

[The darkness of the bedroom fades to blackout; this is the last thing that BOY remembers. He wakes up the next morning in bed. The room is flooded with light. There is no OLD MAN sitting in the chair beside the bed — not even a trace.]

Scene 2 SETTING: 23 April — 18 years

later. BOY is now MAN and is happily married to WOMAN. They live together in a small apartment in the city of Ljubljana, Slovenia.

AT RISE: It is the middle of the night. The crickets chirp outside.

All has been peaceful — MAN and WOMAN were in bed, sleeping and dreaming soundly — until: they wake up to the sound of a voice.

VOICE (soft and gentle, seeming to come from faraway but at the same time having a forceful presence): Come outside.

[Both MAN and WOMAN tense.

Their eyes are wide in the dark room.

Tears come to MAN’s eyes — he remembers right away.]

MAN (in a whisper): It is him again.

[WOMAN nods worriedly. They both sit up, the covers held to their necks. They wait in the silence, for what will come next.]

VOICE (closer — stronger, this time — but still from an undefined point): Four angels will come for you, sir. You hear me? You must not go with them.

[MAN and WOMAN’s eyes search the darkness, but there is nothing.

Suddenly, a hazy purple flash diffuses through the blackness. It lasts two seconds, then the darkness floods back.]

WOMAN (whispers, trembling):

What do we do?

MAN: Just listen.

[MAN is now calm and collected.

He sits up straight and fixes his eyes on a point in the corner. A smudge of purple — a fold of cloth, perhaps — is visible in the reestablished black there. The next thing that MAN and WOMAN remember is waking up, to the soft morning light flooding in through the window.]

Scene 3 SETTING: 23 April — one year later.

MAN and WOMAN have settled into their new life in Berlin, Germany.

AT RISE: It is a sunny weekend spring morning. MAN and WOMAN are out for a walk in the center of town. Everything is alive, bustling.

People rush to and fro, street market vendors shout their wares and noises spill out from every storefront, every barbershop, every café.

WOMAN (as they walk past a radio shop): Let’s look.

[They approach the window. A record is playing right inside the door.

A sonorous voice scratches the air from the plate. When MAN hears what it is, his features soften; tears come into his eyes.

It is the voice of the OLD MAN in purple.]

MAN (in a voice that trembles, to WOMAN): It is him.

[MAN, his hands trembling as well, picks up the record’s empty envelope from the shelf. WOMAN clings close at his side, and they inspect it together.

The OLD MAN — that terror of the darkness of MAN’s childhood bedroom, and now of his marital bedroom — is pictured front and center.

The record player is one of a collection of the inspirational speaking of a strong religious leader — one who passed away 19 years back, on 23 April.]

Scene 4 SETTING: Six years later. MAN and WOMAN have since moved back to Slovenia. They have purchased a piece of land in the countryside. They live there with their two CHILDREN. They lead a very peaceful life there.

AT RISE: It is past midnight. 23 April. The crickets chirp outside. All has been peaceful — CHILDREN are in their rooms, sleeping and dreaming soundly. MAN and WOMAN are the same — until: they wake up, to the sound of a voice.

[MAN and WOMAN sit upright in bed, thinking it is one of the children crying, until: they see a white flash from under the door. WOMAN looks at MAN, whose eyes slowly fill with fear. He knows right away.]

MAN (in a voice that trembles, but that grows steadier and steadier): It is the

four angels. They have come for me.

[He sits still for a time; then, slowly, slides his feet over the side of the bed.

Stands. Pauses to listen once more.

WOMAN reaches out to him, tries to pull him back. He walks out of reach, to the door. He opens it a crack.

Immediately, there is a force drawing MAN forward. He is blinded by a sensation of white light. All seems frozen for a moment.]

MAN (distant, calm, mostly to himself): Do I want to leave?

[The angels pull him forward, their grip is strong, he can feel the allure, the temptation, the white light wraps around him gently, his gaze is fixed forward, his eyes are wide, with more and more strength do they pull, he begins to believe that he will go with them, until: a strong force hits him in the opposite direction. And he remembers OLD MAN’s words…]

MAN (with a building resolve, a straightening of the back): No. No. No, I am not to go.

[With intense effort, he pulls himself back from the crack in the doorway. Pushes the door shut.

Presses hard against the frame, with all his strength. He has none left, he staggers backwards; WOMAN’s arms catch him, encircle him and pull him back to the bed. Drained, he stumbles face-first onto the pillow and falls immediately into a deep, deep sleep.]

Scene 5 SETTING: On a far corner of the land where WOMAN, MAN and CHILDREN live. Late morning.

This is a site where they intend to build a small pavilion for letting the onions dry, and enjoying a glass of wine in the cool evenings. MAN laid the foundation of wide stones the day before.

[MAN and WOMAN have taken a seat beneath the olive tree.

CHILDREN are hopping from stone to stone of the foundation, going round and round and round again.

They sing to themselves. Suddenly, they call out.]

CHILDREN: Papa, Papa! Look!

Look what we found!

[MAN rises reluctantly. He is exhausted from the night before. But with this exhaustion, a new relief, a new calm, has settled over him. He walks over with a faint smile on his face. Upon approaching, what does MAN find imprinted on one of the wide stones that he laid yesterday but a bare footprint — one particularly large.]

The pavilion still stands there today – with one column less than number of base stones.

FADE OUT. THE END. *Based on a true story.

MIRR OR //7

Behind the Brushstrokes: Discovering Calligraphy STORY

By Zach Gorman

Chinese is, by far, the most common native language in the world: about 15 percent of the world’s population learned a form of Chinese as their first language. Calligraphy, the stylistic presentation of handwriting or lettering, is ingrained in China’s appreciation of its language and spirituality. In the United States, however, Chinese scripts are often relegated to regrettable, poorlytranslated back tattoos.

Wen Xing, professor of Asian and Middle Eastern languages and literatures, is changing that one brushstroke at a time. Xing’s course Chinese 62.01, “Chinese Calligraphy,” teaches students the fundamentals of the ancient Chinese art of calligraphy.

The course emphasizes the importance of brush technique in creating meaningful calligraphy with Chinese characters. In Xing’s eyes, brush technique is what separates true calligraphy from other graceful presentations of Chinese characters.

“The brush technique is the key,” he said. “It is the decisive element for doing calligraphy. Calligraphy is different from character writing.

People who use a soft brush to write Chinese characters do not necessarily understand how to do calligraphy.”

This distinction may seem trivial,

but it makes a world of difference in Chinese art. While most written characters are simple communication, calligraphy interprets a higher power.

“All the basic ideas and all the fundamental techniques are based on the idea of the Yin and the Yang,” Xing said. “Writing characters beautifully, like you would on a newspaper or in a book, can be very neat, very beautiful and regular, but they do not have such Yin and Yang cosmology.”

Despite Xing’s spiritual connection to Chinese culture and calligraphy, he is understanding of students who are new to the course’s content. Hailey Nicholson ’19, who took Xing’s calligraphy class during her sophomore summer, had never received formal calligraphic training and knew no Chinese prior to the course. “[Xing] was really good about working with people to their level and giving a wide variety of the amount of commitment needed,” Nicholson said. “I was really worried going into the course speaking no Chinese, but one of the first things he said was that some of the most successful people in the course have spoken no Chinese.”

A perfect example of that is Mary Clemens-Sewall ’20. Clemens-Sewall, who has never studied Chinese, was swiftly able to achieve the calligraphic

effects that are widely appreciated in Chinese culture.

“I thought that ideally the ink would be very dark on the parchment, and it would almost be as if it were printed,” Clemens-Sewall said.

However, she found that on some occasions the ink and water mixed to create a lighter, watercolor-like appearance on the parchment. She initially regarded those attempts as mistakes, but Xing thought otherwise.

“He was explaining that this was valued in Chinese calligraphy because it incorporates the dark and the light together, which is the same principle as Yin and Yang, that there’s this balance,” she said. “It comes closer to truth than having one or the other. He was very generous with his expertise and advice.

I felt very encouraged.”

Roanna Wang ’13, who took two courses at Dartmouth with Xing and attended a Chinese foreign study program led by Xing, echoes the positive sentiments about the professor.

“He really cares about his students, so when he teaches he listens to you and really tries to work with you to help with whatever you need,” Wang said. “But he’s also very interesting and he likes to share his passions with the students.”

After her graduation, Wang’s design of three ancient Chinese scripts were chosen by Xing to display in an

exhibition of Chinese calligraphy and manuscript art.

Though Xing harbors a great deal of reverence for Chinese calligraphic traditions, he pursues novel ideas in the field as well. Of particular note is fractal calligraphy, a new form of art pioneered by Xing. Fractals, geometrical models in which intricate patterns repeat themselves at progressively smaller scales, are used as the basis for this nascent calligraphic style.

Due to fractals’ endless repetition of patterns, Xing believes that fractal calligraphy is properly made only with specialized computer software.

“Real fractal calligraphy has to be produced by a computer with certain algorithms and software based upon traditional Chinese calligraphy,” Xing explained. “When I envisioned this kind of digital age art form, I was very excited.

But it was very difficult to really produce an actual piece of real fractal calligraphy.

But after many tries and studying many things online on YouTube, I was able to successfully produce fractal Chinese calligraphy.”

Addison Lee ’17 outlined the different types of fractal Chinese calligraphy that students have made.

“Some of us used Chinese characters as the seed element, the repeating element, of the fractal,” he said. “With some people their creativity was in

another way, where they had a fractal pattern in the background and on top of that they put some Chinese characters in a balanced arrangement.”

During the spring term of 2017, Lee designed a fractal-based Chinese character representing Dao, the Chinese philosophical concept which Xing described as “the way of the universe.”

According to Xing, Lee’s work is the “perfect demonstration of both the art of fractal calligraphy and the understanding of the universe.”

Underlying his artistic talent and support for his students, Xing has a substantial goal in mind. A primary purpose of his work, he said, is to foster an understanding of Chinese culture in students who are accustomed to Western life.

“I’m offering a new perspective to the Western students,” Xing said. “To tell them how ancient Chinese people, and also most Chinese people today, view this universe.”

Xing believes his art goes beyond the visual realm.

“The one very important thing I teach is the intellectual context of Chinese calligraphy, which is Chinese cosmology,” he said. “I always say Chinese calligraphy is not just a form of art. It is a cosmology. It is a philosophy.”

8// MIRROR

Bridging the Vista: ‘Telling Stories for Social Change’ STORY

By Jacob Maguire

At a time when American society seems to be splintering along ever-widening cultural fissures over issues that range from immigration to football, a course at Dartmouth is striving to bridge the socioeconomic divide between Dartmouth students and members of the Upper Valley community.

In English 53.04, “Telling Stories For Social Change,” which is offered each fall and cross-listed with the women’s, gender, and sexuality studies department, Dartmouth students meet weekly with female clients at Valley Vista, a substance abuse rehabilitation center in Bradford, Vermont, to share their stories with one another. The students also read and discuss relevant articles and literary works about poverty, incarceration, drug addiction and the challenges associated with recovering from substance abuse.

English professor Ivy Schweitzer and women’s, gender and sexuality studies professor Pati Hernández co-teach the course at Dartmouth. They first met in the late 1990s, and began volunteering together at women’s prisons in 2005. Two years later, in 2007, Schweitzer and Hernández began

offering a course for Dartmouth students that evolved into the course in its current form.

Hernández, who prefers to be called “Pati” rather than “Professor Hernández” in order to establish a sense of neutrality with her students and the patients at Valley Vista, teaches the course because she wants Dartmouth students to understand and accept people who may initially appear to be different from them.

“I like to give students an idea of openness, and I want them to embrace an experience that makes them feel vulnerable,” Hernández said. “I like to expose students to the [concepts] of halting judgment, not making assumptions, and not having expectations.”

Similarly, Schweitzer encourages her students and the patients at Valley Vista to learn from one another.

“We’re all students, and we’re all teachers,” Schweitzer said.

She emphasized that humility, along with “love, faith, trust, hope, critical thinking and radical curiosity,” can help to facilitate meaningful relationships despite differences in class or social status.

In Case of Fire Photo

By Ishaan Jajodia

However, due to “preconceived notions However, Pelton eventually found the and initial judgments on both sides,” sessions with the Dartmouth students students and patients have initially struggled to be meaningful and constructive. She to bond with one stayed in touch with another in the past.

Hernández after the “My experience with the Adrianne Pelton, program ended and a s e l f - d e s c r i b e d student coming in [involved] now helps to facilitate recovering alcoholic a lot of judgment. I was the class discussions and former Valley and meetings with the Vista patient, had judging everyone else in clients at Valley Vista. a similar experience my facility, and I wanted to “I felt like there was during her first something I could do,” differentiate myself from meeting with the Pelton said. “I wanted Dartmouth students them, in order to feel like I to get involved.” last year.

Hernández is wasn’t an addict.”

“My experience optimistic that the with the students Dartmouth students coming in [involved] -ADRIANNE PELTON and the patients at a lot of judgment,” Va l l e y Vi s t a w i l l Pelton said. “I was grow closer over the judging everyone re m a i n d e r o f t h e else in my facility, term. and I wanted to “The experience differentiate myself from them, in order to itself is really challenging, motivating feel like I wasn’t an addict. Also, I remember and a source of inspiration to both hearing what the other patients were saying parties,” Hernández said. “It often leads before the Dartmouth students got there … to collaboration between groups, and I am There was a lot of anger initially.” grateful for that.”