MIRROR 1.22.2016
FORGET ME NOTS | 2
TTLG: REFLECTIONS ON PARIS | 4-5
MEMORY CAFÉ PROFILE | 7
FIRST ‘DAUGHTERS OF DARTMOUTH’ | 8 SHUOQI CHEN/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF
2// MIRROR
Editor’s Note
Forget Me Nots COLUMN
Greetings, Mirror readers. Thanks for taking the time to read the tangential musings that comprise these editor’s notes. Caroline and Hayley are impressed that their vehement views on social media and lack of New Year’s Resolutions haven’t scared you off yet. This week, the two editors decided it was time to get a meal together, despite the long hours they’ve already spent bonding in the hallowed halls of Robo. They sat down with their plates of mediocre food at Foco, and before they knew it, they were divulging their deepest, darkest secrets to one another. Although the editors had promised to keep their conversation Mirror-free, they didn’t quite succeed. They didn’t discuss any of the upcoming articles, or Caroline’s total incompetence with InDesign layout, or Hayley’s distaste for the word “mindset.” But in detailing their life stories to each other, they inevitably touched upon the theme of this week’s issue — memory. Caroline recalled how on the morning of her third day of eighth grade, a boy threw up on her during the busride to school, prompting her to run through the halls of her high school to the nurse’s office while wearing a vomit-stained white dress, utterly traumatized. Hayley admitted that she had thrown up at her first rager — in first grade she went to a costume party after eating the last Hot Pocket of her life. (Her social life has never really been the same since). Some memories, like these, are not-so-good. Others, like Caroline and Hayley’s meal together, are great. But such a complex and multi-faceted topic like memory cannot be described in simple, binary terms. This issue explores just that — memory through multiple lenses, whether that be a philanthropic program for Alzheimer’s patients or anecdotes from the first classes of women at the College. Enjoy the issue!
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MIRROR EDITORS HAYLEY HOVERTER & CAROLINE BERENS EDITOR-IN-CHIEF REBECCA ASOULIN PUBLISHER RACHEL DECHIARA EXECUTIVE EDITORS MAYA PODDAR ANNIE MA
OVERHEARDS
By Mary Liza Hartong & Andrew Kingsley
“Geez, my head’s killing me!” Josie Cuervo laments, rising from her top bunk perch. It’s 3:00 P.M. on a Saturday afternoon. Josie remembers nothing. Glancing about the room, she sees a large stain on the ground, her bra resting amongst her windowsill Chia pets, and an empty space where her phone used to be. She hears a knock on her door. “Josie, it’s me! Are you okay?” Josie’s roommate, Temperance, enters, fresh from her Aqua-Pilates spin class at Starbucks. She gives Josie a once over and laughs. “You don’t even remember what happened last night, do you? You blacked out.” “Not a thing. Why, did something happen? Did I flitz my captain, Morgan? He’s such a good tennis player and leader. I admire him so much. I’d like to put some spin on his balls, if you know what I mean?” Temperance, always out of the loop, stares blankly and drools. “No, bigger. But you’ll have to ask Jack and Daniel. They’re carving ice sculptures out by Collis,” Temp giggles and drools. “Ok, thanks!” Josie says, toppling from her top bunk. “Oof ! I’m such a goon!” In the process of breaking her fall, Josie realizes she already has a cast on her left leg. “What the hell?” she ponders, and limps her way to Collis. Jack and Daniel, always the Dum Dums in the lollipop drawer, fight each other with chainsaws as the sculpting instructor thinks about separating them. Maurice, recently separated from his ex-wife Annette, knew too well how separation can destroy children’s sense of security. He saw his own children in Jack and Daniel as they frolicked with chainsaws ablaze, massacring townspeople. “Josie!” Jack squawks. “Hey, guys. Do you know what I did last night?” “Awww, yeah! Why don’t you look behind you!” Daniel chuckles. Expecting nothing short of Canada geese mourning a pile of jackets, Josie turns around. “What? I don’t see anything,” she remarks. “The fence! You broke down that stupid fence last night. Now we can
’17: I don’t understand how at Dartmouth everyone is an intimidating genius except during group projects.
’16 in the library: “Hey, what’s up?” Other ’16: “Good, you?”
jaywalk as we please. The children are free!” Jack exclaims. Out of nowhere, a group of children covered in rags run free. “Huh. Way to go drunk me. What else did I do?” “You’re gonna have to ask Tito. He’s working at Baker right now.” Josie hobbles over to Baker, dodging carolers, happy prancing puppies and Bernie supporters on the Green. “Get off of me you monsters,” she yells at them all. “I don’t want your idealism!” Ripping a happy puppy and a Bernie sticker off her chest, she sees Tito smiling from the circulation desk, sporting sunglasses to mask his hangover. “Hey Tito! Nice shades!” Josie chortles, tripping on her cast. “Hey Miss Popular, you sure made a lot of friends last night.” “Oh no. Just give it to me straight. How many did I dance with? Three? Four? Please not five.” “I think it was more like 25.” “Geez, that beats my record by
“Twenty-five printers. You fixed every GreenPrint station Josie. A goddamn hero. There’s a parade in your honor this afternoon.” -TITO, WEARING SUNGLASSES INDOORS
25. Was Morgan one of them?” “Twenty-five printers. You fixed every GreenPrint station on campus. You’re a hero, Josie. A goddamn hero. There’s a parade in your honor this afternoon.” “Oh! Sweet wampum!” an enraptured ’16 cries from a GreenPrint sta-
Student in Collis: “Bernie polls better among liberals than conservatives.” *everyone in the group nods pensively
’18: “I think my computer knows me.”
tion. “It works! It finally works. I don’t have go back to Ohio.” She breaks into convulsions and tears. “See,” Tito grins. “Okay, I guess that’s good news… but I still don’t know where my phone is,” Josie laments. “I think Ann has it.” “Which one? Ann Smith or Ann Gree’Orchard?” “Ann Smith died in the ice sculpture fight. Ann Gree’Orchard has your phone. She’s skating on Occom right now.” “Thanks, Tito!” “No, thank you!” “Yes, thank you, oh holy ghost!” the enraptured ’16 cries, prying the skin from her face and feeding it to the hungry printers. The printers were at last sated and the curse was lifted. Josie rides her parade float to Occom pond. There she spots Ann, twirling on her skates across the icy expanse. “Josie! I can’t believe it’s really you! You’re a miracle worker,” Ann cheers. “Is that really her?” the townsfolk whisper. “Mama, is that, is that the girl who rescued Whiskers from the tree?” a child asks. “Yeah and she’s the one who shined my tooth,” a wily grandfather remarks. “And pulled my car out of Occom,” meows Whiskers. “Wait, so is that how I broke my leg?” Josie asks the large crowd. “Heavens no!” Ann remarks, “You broke your leg when you performed the greatest miracle of all.” Morgan comes forward, splitting the crowd like the Red Sea. “You broke your leg, angel, when you brought Cookie Crisp cereal to Foco,” he smiles, kissing her. “What? Just Cookie Crisp?” Josie admits. “JUST COOKIE CRISP?” the crowd hisses, holding their bowls up to the sun, drooling. “They have Cookie Crisp here?” a prospective ’20 wonders aloud. “YES!” the crowd cheers. “GIVE OUR QUEEN HER COOKIE CROWN!” “Mom, I’m home,” the prospie smiles, fighting back tears. “Ugh, I’m going back to sleep,” Josie groans. Someone smashes the cookie crown onto her head. Black out.
’17: “I know a sex cove when I see one.”
’19: “Is that Japanese or Asian?”
//3
Joe Kind: A Guy COLUMN
TRENDING @ Dartmouth
By Joe Kind
X-Hours
FRESHMAN PLAGUE
COLUMN One of the biggest problems I have with my day-to-day life here at Dartmouth is how hard it is to find time for fun reading. You know, fiction and non-fiction books and articles that I can read purely for my enjoyment without the pressure of an essay and a grade. Not to say I do not enjoy my readings for class; I do not consider this problem of mine to be one that is exacerbated by Dartmouth, per se. The issue is more about the insane amounts of time I spend in front of electronic screens. I doubt I am completely alone in this sentiment — even in these beautiful woods. But I do wonder if I could do a better job. One of the things I do read consistently, beyond the headlines on my Facebook newsfeed or my New York Times daily news emails, is a weekly Times column called “Modern Love.” The column publishes a submission once a week on Thursdays if read online, or on Sundays if in print. This past week’s column by Tim Boomer, titled “The End of Small Talk,” proposes what I, as a young and burgeoning college student consider a revolutionary idea — eliminating all kinds of disingenuous conversations from traditional social banters. In the column, Boomer considers “small talk” to encompass “all those things that we think we have to talk about with someone new but that tell us little about who the person really is.” He cites weather and commuting times as prime examples, but takes the notion of small talk to a greater level of all-encompassing social interactions. Questions about our favorite travel destinations or our work can be reworked to pry at more meaningful personal insights, he argues. Dartmouth students reading this know with near absolute certainty that small talk holds a tight grip over the social underpinnings of this campus. When I meet new people on campus, I find myself asking them about their
hometowns, their majors and their class years. Even with familiar faces, I could earn a good off-campus meal’s worth of money if I earned a dollar for every time someone asked me how my term was going. Maybe it is unfair to ask for a dollar with each iteration of the question. Fine, I guess the point that I am trying to make is that even at Dartmouth we could probably be a bit more creative.
“‘The End of Small Talk’ proposes what I, as a young and burgeoning college student consider a revolutionary idea — eliminating all kinds of disingenuous conversations from traditional social banters.”
There is a valid claim in the counter-argument that small talk is a comfortable and perfectly viable means of social interaction, not just on this campus but anywhere in real life. School and work take up much of the day and much of the night, too. Why is it a bad thing to relish in small talk when we give ourselves a break from the daily grind? Boomer is not a freelance writer based in New York City, with a forthcoming novel like most other featured columnists in the Modern Love series. On the contrary, Boomer is an actuary based in Boston. He is writing purely from what his own experiences, paycheck notwithstanding. As an actuary, for those of us not inclined to know, Boomer analyzes the financial consequences of risks in connection to
the uncertainties of future events. Yes, I used Wikipedia to help me with the language for that sophisticated definition there. That same pragmatic, analytical line of thinking can be read in his column — a delightful break from the nonlinear storytelling often seen on the Modern Love pages. In treating small talk like its own form of currency, Boomer is maximizing his potential for meaningful relationships. Not to accuse Boomer of pegging the value of his small talk to the value of the dollar, per se. Although maybe there’s a correlation there, too — I’ll have to do some research into the question and write a follow-up column later. Asking deeper questions in a basic social setting (and getting away with it) takes a variety of personal skills – initiative, charisma, and certainly a willingness to take risks. Such questions have to be asked in a special way that feels unintimidating and genuine, without any kind of probing force. Only then do the questions pay off in the form of deeper conversations, and maybe substantial long-term relationships. How much worth exactly to place on this kind of social expenditure is complicated for someone like me, I think. Maybe not for others. For me at least, I do not think I possess the kind of confidence that would allow me to master these kinds of interactions any time soon. But maybe that is the point of the entire exercise — not so much to meet new people as to challenge myself to reflect on the things from which I derive the most value in myself and in others. Before heading into the real world, I hope that I will develop a deeper dedication to recreational reading. Maybe one day I will have the time to talk about actual books in my social interactions – “social” primarily referring to this column, these days. But I will nonetheless continue to read Modern Love and other New York Times articles in earnest.
RUSH
Thank God it’s over
LARGE KAF MILD
WARM CUTS
4// MIRROR
Nothing Important: Reflections from Paris SPOTLIGHT
By Sarah Khatry
It was my last night in Paris. I wanted to stay out all night, walking the streets I’d learned, trusting the kindness I’d found, refusing the morning’s impending arrival. That day, I’d gone to see the catacombs. Stood in line, in a drizzle, for an hour and a half for the privilege of walking through an underground burrow of disinterred bodies. Lining the walls, several feet thick: stacked, bare bones, the skulls turned to face out and arranged into rows, columns, the shape of a crucifix, of a heart. Chins resting on the ends of the wrong femurs, the knobs of the wrong wrists. Hadn’t bothered me. For the most part, these people had lived normal lives, had normal deaths, long enough ago. It was a tomb, but not a mass grave — not the product of a war, a plague, a massacre. Placards on the wall neglected the human history, described instead the strata of rock we’d descended into, the bed of an ancient sea. At 8 p.m. that night, I was at the bottom edge of the 10th Arrondissement. I’d gone there for Thai, changed my mind. French in France. At the bar, I
spent some minutes speaking to a family, watching the France versus Germany soccer match. The son was nine, and looped his small dog’s leash around his wrist while drinking soda. We crouched on the floor together with the dog, and he practiced his English. Around 9 p.m. I started a meandering walk south. I called my mother, whom I hadn’t spoken to since I’d arrived in Paris a week before. In a paved square, I sat against a post and watched the street, Rue de Rivoli early on a Friday night: the road all movement by foot and car and motorcycle, with yellow oases of warmth and stillness on the open porches. After a while, I recognized a restaurant I’d eaten in before. Went in. Not long after ordering, I heard phones begin to go off. Not just texts, but calls. One man had taken a table for four to himself, laid out papers and his laptop. I watched him speak, with his phone held up in front of him, raising his eyes from it to the waitress and back. Her arms were crossed and neither smiled. Somewhere in the room I heard the word shooting, around the same time a friend first texted me, “Hey / Are you OK?” I asked the waitress when she went by me, “Has there been a shooting?” She told me, “More than one.” Then, that no one should leave. They hadn’t caught the gunmen yet. Not far from here. In the next hour, in no order I can reconstruct: Streams of police vehicles, sometimes as many as seven in a row, headed west. I texted my Dublin FSP advisor, Jeff Sharlet, who I knew was supposed to be in the city at some point too. “Hey. You OK? I’m OK.” Easier to be brave for someone else. He insisted on walking out to me, making sure I made it home all right. He was a mile away. Four white vans, which I first took to be ambulances, but by their blue lights recognized as police, gathered across the street in the square I’d sat in. Armed officers in black piled out. A couple stood at the edge of the sidewalk and kissed. At first I thought they had to be ignorant of the situation, but how could they be? The man clutched the woman to his chest after and fanned his back out to the street, as if to shield her. “100 hostages?!,” someone texted me. Restaurants shot up. Gunfire on the streets. A theater. A concert. Bombs at the soccer stadium. Somewhere, somewhere all around me. I remembered the game on the screen, the boy who’d knocked a pitcher of wine off the bar, the manager who’d laughed. Not there, I prayed. Another couple came off the street and asked if they could hide out here a little while. Permitted, they still lingered by the open doorway, staring out. I joined them, introduced myself. The woman was from Dallas, Texas, the man Wales. We stood together silently, unable to say anything more. I received a text: “Are you near the back?” I thought, “Not here.” But I returned to my seat, not in the back, to my cold, half-eaten crepe, beside a long stretch of window and glass. Practical advice. Maybe even urgent, not that I knew. So much I didn’t know. Are you near the back? I caught myself shaking for the first time.
When other patrons started to leave, I appealed to the staff. Let me stay. Someone’s coming for me. I don’t want to go out into this alone. They drew down iron shutters, shut off all lights but a STORY few incandescent bulbs behind the bar. The manager pulled down a projector, turned on the French news. The shutters didn’t go lower than my knee. Through them, the lights of the passing sirens leaked and colored the room amber orange and blue. Hollande declared a state of emergency. The manager offered me a drink. Jeff came, with his friend, the photographer Tanja Hollander, walking down streets of darkened fronts with the sirens still blowing by to the west. Now the square was empty at least. His Airbnb flat was closer than my hostel, only a mile away, so he started to route us there on his phone. We’d gone to the corner, maybe a hundred feet away, when a young man with a dark beard and nose ring came towards us, got so close that I backed away. “Are you French?” he wanted to know. Jeff answered. The man gestured west, the
“‘One hundred hostages?!,’ someone texted me. Restaurants shot up. Gunfire on the streets. A theater. A concert. Bombs at the soccer stadium. Somewhere, somewhere all around me. I remembered the game on the screen, the boy who’d knocked a pitcher of wine off the bar, the manager who’d laughed. Not there, I prayed.”
way we were walking, “Not that way. Seven men with—” His hands, clenched round, one wrist turned up and the other down, hefted in unison. Gripping an invisible assault rifle. Not that way. How many times this week had I walked that way? I knew the glittering McDonald’s with silvery tinsel bursting from it. I knew the shop that sold cigarettes, TABAC lit up in a red diamond above. The huge, five story department store, whose patrons left with bright orange bags. The red-tented café on the corner opposite a metro entrance a few blocks away, where I should’ve been able to board the line and go home. Seven men with— That’s how it happened. Paris disappeared from my mind. I’d spent the week walking it, learning it, and now it was gone, dark, sheltering only the sporadic light at the end of a firing barrel, the casual violence of a drive-by, windows shattering from a blast. Sirens poured past again. We’ll walk side streets, Tanja suggested. Started by going north. We didn’t make it far. We saw a bar a still open, the lights dim but cold, and ducked in. We’d make some calls. Jeff would, anyway. Find somewhere to stay. Someone to get us? The city was under curfew, and we’d been told two hundred soldiers on a manhunt stood between us and the inside of a locked door. The attacks, first four, now we were hearing six, circumscribed our location. We picked a table in the corner, square with another screen broadcasting the French news. We were up against a window into the sidewalk, the parked tops of bikes, the road. Within a few minutes of sitting there, I saw a man freeze right up against the glass, his face a pantomime of
MIRROR //5
COURTESY OF SARAH KHATRY
Citizens of Paris pay their respects at a memorial to those who passed away or were injured during the November terrorist attacks.
shock: eyes wide and glossy, mouth open, arms hanging limp from tense shoulders. He stared. I had time to stare at him. I looked back to the screen, the Bataclan, hostages, and back to him, as he had been still, his gaze not having moved. I turned and never saw him break away. Tanja and Jeff had an exchange. He told her we were fine. Everything was OK. She said, “No. No, everything’s not OK.” He said, “We will be OK.” She said, “We don’t know that.” I agreed with him. I felt it then, too. We were doing everything we should and that was all we could. While he was on the phone, she turned to me, she asked me, “If someone comes in here with a gun, what do you do? If there’s a fire, you stop, drop and roll. If there’s an earthquake, you get in a doorway. But what do you do?” And I told her, and she thought I was joking, I told her what I thought, what I’d heard, maybe only in the movies, maybe some bull that had been made up: “Hide beneath another body.” Made her laugh, at least, even in horror. And that’s good. Because we were OK. We didn’t have to find out. It took hours more, following developments through messages from home, taking calls, making calls, watching the French headlines and obsessing over the meaning of individual words. Hearing about #PorteOuverte, heading to Twitter immediately in hopes of finding some apartment nearby with its door open, instead seeing only a long line of delocalized jerks using the hashtag to praise its humanitarian sentiment. By around three in the morning, on this narrow side street, I’d seen a cab roll by, unoccupied but with its sign turned red. Went outside and saw another pick up a pair of young women at the other end of a block, where it met a busy road. We tried to get a cab, failed, started walking, stole a cab by accident from a group of young women who ignored our requests for them to pile in with us, and drove away. They tried to write. She did write, but deleted it. We ate frozen pizza and we drank. He tried to make me write and I said I couldn’t. I told him, and now the words are hazy, I thought I hadn’t felt enough. Sadness, fear. Terror-ism. Who deserves to be afraid? Did I deserve to be afraid? Do I still? Who gets to mourn? That’s what Jeff said we were doing, sitting up that night until five in the morning. Is this mourning? No one cried. I woke up only three hours later and didn’t know what
to do with myself. I sat on the floor in the kitchen for a while and read the few Reuters stories. Reread them. All night, I had refused to let myself think ISIS. I crept out of the kitchen and sat on the floor of the bathroom by the tub, not moving, not thinking. I put on street clothes and shoes and grabbed a pillow and curled up by the door. I typed on my phone, some of this actually. Sirens went by, maybe as often as every 10 minutes. Later in the day, we went to the Bataclan. Two ends of the street were barricaded and guarded. At the first we visited, the theater couldn’t be seen. Two officers stood guarding an opening in the metal barriers. News vans were backed up all around, and people funneled up to
“While he was on the phone, she turned to me, she asked me, If someone comes in here with a gun, what do you do? If there’s a fire, you stop, drop and roll. If there’s an earthquake, you get in a doorway. But what do you do?”
the officers, formed a hemisphere around them. At one point, the two parted to let an escorted man and woman out. He was in a jean jacket, his eyes screwed up and his mouth slotted open. Crying. Tanja took a picture of him but couldn’t bring herself to publish it. Jeff wondered if he had identified a body within. CNN, reporting from somewhere near us, said they were still bringing out the bodies. Those were the sirens. We walked along a fence towards the other end. Leaning against the iron spikes, holding their hands over the top of the bushes, many photographed the Bataclan, neon sign still lit, a black bus — Jeff thinks the tour bus — still parked obscuring most of its front. Two men I watched later climb a closed stand to get a better angle, until the police ordered them down. At the other end was a still small memorial: a gathering of posters, flowers, candles against the fence, protected by a cordon of red and white tape. “Vive La France,” written in black sharpie on white paper. A woman in a
blue jacket taped “Les Voleurs de Vie Les Français Les Combattent Sâchez-le Terroristes” to the fence. A book, nestled in among the candles, “Le Spleen de Paris” by Charles Baudelaire. A little girl wove through the crowd on a scooter, following her mother. She had a white, puffy jacket. She walked under the tape, barely ducking, with a bouquet wrapped in tissue and planted it at the memorial. She knelt there, facing her mother, and performed the sign of the cross. It was cold and drizzling and gray. I watched the faces that walked up. Some were there just to see, others to photograph, others to add to the memorial. Of them, I saw none actively crying. Many eyes were red though, glassy. I couldn’t help staring at them. I berated myself. For the fear I still carried, for the tears I hadn’t cried. I berated myself because I hadn’t been there, all those many theres. I was near but not there. I can’t pretend. I got away without it ever feeling real, right? I walked away. And how can it not be real to me but be so close and the fear so my own? Will I live through this night? Can I think of anyone beside myself ? Can I stop thinking about all those bodies, still in the Bataclan while I stood before it, shipped away with every whine of the siren? There goes another. At last, crying without knowing why. In my taxi that night to the bus. On the bus. On my flight, during takeoff, when the cabin lights were dimmed. I am nauseous and I am angry. I don’t deserve to speak for the people who lost. I don’t deserve to speak for the survivors, or the victims. I can’t speak for Beirut, I can’t speak for Syria, living under the Islamic State, blasted by our bombs. I can only speak for the terror in Paris I felt that night. I can speak as one of the many in the in-between, traversing a landscape of uncertainty and nightmare: the impact-zone that can swallow a city, infect whole countries, be misdirected into new violence and new anger. Reaction: despair. Reaction: paranoia. Reaction: revenge. The mindset desired and designed by acts of terrorism. Sit near the back. Hide beneath another body. Grandstand politics because this proves you’re so right. Fear the stranger. Burn the refugee camp. Drop bombs. Turn away, because the only one you can save, even then just maybe, is yourself. SHUOQI CHEN/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF
6// MIRROR
SAM’S LITTLE LARKS
COLUMN
By Sam Van Wetter
SNOW SAM and ON A MISSAM are watching snow fall. SNOW SAM: What happens if I don’t pay a ticket? ON A MISSAM: What kind of ticket? SNOW: A windshield ticket. ON A: For what? SNOW: Parking. ON A: Parking? How? SNOW: Poorly? ON A is skeptical. SNOW: Untimely. ON A: …What? SNOW: Illegally. ON A: Illegally? SNOW: Yeah. ON A: So you got a parking ticket. SNOW: Yeah. ON A: Why? SNOW: There is a winter parking ban. ON A: Really? SNOW: Yeah, like what do they expect us to do during the winter? Just keep driving constantly? Like in shifts? Do they realize what that would do to the ozone? ON A: No, you just can’t park within town limits— SNOW: Oh, okay, we’ll all just use that parking garage in Norwich that totally exists and we’ll just schlep back over the river in time for our 10As? ON A: —at night. You can’t park in Hanover at night. SNOW: Oh, because someone’s gonna break into our car? Or, like, the gas will freeze and then explode? ON A: I don’t think that’s a concern. SNOW: Then why can’t I park in front of Phi Delt at night like I do every other night of the dumb year? ON A: Plows. SNOW: Please don’t spit at me. ON A: Did I spit? SNOW: No. ON A: Did you think I said “please”?
SNOW: Please? ON A: Plows? SNOW: Plows don’t make me pay my ticket. ON A: No, the cops do. SNOW: On behalf of the plows? ON A: On behalf of Those For Snow Removal everywhere. TFSR. SNOW: That’s so annoying. ON A: You have to pay it. SNOW: Is that true though? ON A: Of course it’s true. They’ll impound your car. SNOW: But what if I refuse to do it for, you know, for ideological reasons? ON A: Ideological reasons? SNOW: Civil disobedience. ON A: I don’t think that’s a valid excuse. SNOW: I mean the act of parking as civil disobedience. ON A: And not paying the fine? SNOW: An extension thereof. ON A: How is parking on the street when it snows civil disobedience? SNOW: I’m protecting the pristine snow. ON A: You’re on frat row, not in a forest. SNOW: Exactly, which is why it’s more important there than anywhere else to not allow man’s disruption of nature’s snowy serenity. ON A: Okay, you’re taking this up with the wrong person. SNOW: I refuse to make it easier for those ground-scraping dirt-lovers to take away the snow that I park near. ON A: You really gotta talk to the town about this. SNOW: If they’re gonna try to ban winter, I’ll ban them from giving me tickets. ON A: It really doesn’t work that way. SNOW: You are seriously being so passive. ON A: No I’m not. You’re being too aggressive. SNOW: How are you not upset about this? Everyone should be protesting! ON A: I don’t know if you’ll find much support for your...cause.
SNOW: You think people don’t like winter? ON A: I think people like winter the most when they’re able to move about and function in it. SNOW: Do you realize how much blood they spill every winter? ON A: Who is they? The plows? SNOW: Plows what? ON A: Whose blood? SNOW: What blood? ON A: You said they spill blood. SNOW: No I didn’t. ON A: Yes you did. SNOW: That doesn’t make any sense. ON A: Look, like nine lines up. It says you said “blood”. SNOW: Maybe he wrote it down wrong? ON A: Who? SNOW: Sam? ON A: Me? SNOW: No, the other one. Sam the writer of this column Sam. ON A: Who? We hear the crackle and pop of metatheater. SAM THE WRITER OF THIS COLUMN SAM: Me. SNOW: Did you write it down wrong? SAM THE WRITER OF THIS COLUMN SAM: What down? SNOW: Blood. SAM THE WRITER OF THIS COLUMN SAM: No, you said blood. SNOW: I did? SAM THE WRITER OF THIS COLUMN SAM: Yeah. SNOW: Oh. I meant salt. ON A: Oh. SAM THE WRITER OF THIS COLUMN SAM: Oh. Anything else? SNOW: Nope. Go back to omniscience. A quieter crackle and a pop. SNOW: Do you realize how much salt they spill every winter? ON A: I guess I don’t. SNOW: They use more salt on roads than they consume. ON A: Who’s they?
SNOW: They, you know, like humanity. ON A: Humanity? SNOW: Yeah. Society in general uses eight percent of manufactured salt for roads. Society in general eats only six percent. ON A: Wow. SNOW: Crazy, right? ON A: I wonder what they do with the other 86% of salt. SNOW: I don’t know, salt water or something. ON A: I don’t think salt water counts as manufactured. SNOW: I mean when they make it. ON A is confused. SNOW: You wouldn’t get it. ON A: So you’re protesting salt use? SNOW: And plows. ON A: And plows. Anything else? SNOW: Heated driveways. Windshield fluid. Shovels. ON A: Shovels. SNOW: And snowmen. ON A: And snowmen. SNOW: And anything that alters, prevents, mitigates or otherwise threatens winter. ON A: You really like winter, don’t you? SNOW: I really like winter. ON A: What do you feel about, like, piles of snow? SNOW: Is it natural? ON A: The plow put it there. SNOW: It should be redistributed. ON A: I was thinking the same. SNOW: Why? ON A: I wanna get under them. SNOW: What for? ON A: I’m looking for my bike. SNOW: Where is it? ON A: I’m not sure exactly. SNOW: How are we gonna find it? ON A: I was thinking hair dryers? SNOW: Hair dryers are very anti-snow. ON A: Then… shovels? SNOW: Is is that important? ON A: Very. SNOW: Okay then. Fine. ON A: Okay? SNOW: Let’s find some shovels.
Students work with memory loss patients STORY
MIRROR //7
By Abbey Cahill
When I asked a family friend to recall the program’s inception, Betts started recruiting day of her mother’s diagnosis of Alzheimer’s student volunteers from her sorority, Alpha Xi disease, she said she remembered feeling Delta. This tradition continues today. afraid. Santulli even bought the sorority a gift to “Even later, I don’t think that we ever men- confirm their official partnership. tioned ‘Alzheimer’s,’” she told me. “We always “Fun fact,” Betts said, laughing, “Dr. said ‘memory issues’ — because it seemed too Santulli bought the doorbell on AXiD. No one scary.” ever heard him knocking, so he got the doorAlzheimer’s creeps in slowly and steadily. It bell so he could drop by for meetings.” begins quietly, with misplaced keys or trouble Santulli emphasized the value of Memory finding words. And then it erases time backCafé’s intergenerational component. The role wards: grandchildren’s names, telephone num- of the students is to engage the attendees in bers, addresses, anniversaries and weddings. conversation and activities, he explained, but “It works in retrograde direction,” Kimit’s also way to break through the sometimes berly Betts ’12 G ’17 said . stubborn or even impermeable Dartmouth Betts, a third year medical student at the bubble. Geisel School of Medicine, became interested “It’s curious about Dartmouth, there are in studying the disease during her undergradu- 5,000 people sitting here from all over the ate years at the College. world who are really interesting and enjoyable After taking a medical school elective and lively, and people in the community would course on the disease taught by Robert love to get to know these students,” Santulli Santulli, a physician at Dartmouth-Hitchcock said. Medical Center, Betts was inspired to reach Memory Café is also a valuable experiout to people with memory loss issues in ential learning environment for the students. the Upper Valley The work pushes them community. Meanto challenge stereo“I truly enjoy talking to while, Santulli had typical perceptions of been reading about elderly individuals with these people who are — “memory cafés.” memory loss, and exwhat — 50 or 60 years Founded in 1997 poses them to something older than me. I think the unfamiliar, students said. in the Netherlands, memory cafés strive Lauren Schulte ’16, most surprising thing that to provide supportive, a volunteer, recalled I’ve noticed, just recently, admiring the strength stigma-free gathering places for people with and resilience of older is how invested I am.” memory loss and their couples at Memory caregivers, families and Café. -KRISTINA MANI ’16 friends. Alzheimer’s “This one couple and dementia can be would hold hands the overwhelming and isoentire time during lating to tackle alone, Memory Café,” Schulte and these cafés created said. “All these couples a sense of community. stand with each other In 2008, the first memory café in the Unitthrough this horrible disease and love each ed States opened up in New Mexico. Santulli other and support each other, and that, to me, and Betts were close behind, opening up their is really, really inspiring.” own program together near Dartmouth just a Family members, too, spoke to the unfew years later. breakable bonds patients maintain with loved As far as they know, their café was the ones despite their deteriorating condition. second one in the U.S. — and there are now “There is still that bond of love that hasn’t hundreds nationwide. changed,” the daughter of an Alzheimer’s On the first Saturday of each month, the patient agreed. Upper Valley memory café provides breakfast, The organization also focuses on creating activities, relevant talks, performances and ingood vibes. The café switches the dialogue formal conversation for people suffering from away from memory loss and towards prememory loss and their caregivers. After the served capabilities, interviewees said.
PHOTO COURTESY OF ROBERT SANTULLI
Lauren Schulte ‘16 entertains and participates in activities with patients.
COURTESY OF ROBERT SANTULLI
Students socialize with Alzheimer’s patients during a weekly session.
Kristina Mani ’16 , the undergraduate student coordinator for the program, said she has been to almost every café since her sophomore fall. Recalling one of her favorite memories, her eyes lit up when she told me about a Geisel hip-hop group’s performance for patients and their families. “There are such funny videos of it — some of the guests who were pretty old were standing there and dancing and moving their hips,” Mani said. Mani noted how the program uniquely brings people from all facets of the community together. “It was a really cool moment to have students and Alzheimer’s patients and their caregivers and these Geisel students dancing hip-hop together,” Mani said. Santulli said the program hopes to create this kind of humorous atmosphere. He called it “making lemonade” — the best way to do it is to stop focusing on the sour parts. “We always try to have laughter,” Santulli said. He recalled one month in particular, when the attendees brought in jokes to share. One of them, he said, had a particularly dirty joke. He refrained from telling me about it, but he said instances like that bring him a lot of joy and serve as reminders of why he runs the program. “Watching these people and their spouses laughing, and having a good time, and doing that together, is very heartwarming,” Santulli said. “I’m happy to get up Saturday morning to see that.” We think about Alzheimer’s and dementia as a diseases of loss, but it’s also important to celebrate what these individuals still have. Memory Café helps people capitalize on their existing abilities, Santulli said. Memory Café is part of a series of programs run through Dartmouth-Hitchcock’s Aging Resource Center. Other programs include Perspectives, in which people with memory loss view student artwork together, and Recollections, a singing group composed of memory loss patients, their caregivers and Dartmouth students. Both visual art and music are therapeutic because they stimulate emotional responses that are not too reliant on memory, and thus are not as affected by Alzheimer’s, Betts explained. “There are people who are incredibly far along, but they can play the piano like they’re in a symphony,” Betts said.
Penelope Williams ’16, AXiD’s Memory Café chair, emphasized the importance of stress relief for caregivers as well. “They work so hard day in and day out at an often taxing and thankless job, and Memory Café is something of a break for them,” Willliams says. Almost every person I interviewed referred to the Memory Café community as a family. The program’s structure, which is more informal than a support group, allows time for patients, caregivers and students to develop genuine long-lasting relationships. “We have people who drive over an hour to get to Memory Café,” Betts told me. The program is equally formative for many of the student volunteers. Santulli said that although the volunteers get philanthropy hours for coming, most continue to attend the program long after they’ve exceeded their requirement. “I truly enjoy talking to these people who are — what — like, 50 or 60 years older than me,” Mani reflected. “I think the most surprising thing that I’ve noticed, just recently, is how invested I am. This program really put a face to the disease for me.” Last week, there was a memorial service for a man who had been coming to Memory Café since the program began. Santulli was asked to run the service, and several Memory Café regulars attended. One of the speeches was given by a Dartmouth ’13 who had known the man and his wife through the ’13’s volunteer work. Up until the very end of his life, the man loved to sing, and each time his wife left the facility where he lived, they would say goodbye by singing a Bing Crosby song together. “And so at the memorial ceremony, we all sang that song together, which was a nice way to send him off,” Betts says. In the end, Memory Café spreads love and laughter and creating a sense of community, even if the symptoms of Alzheimer’s and dementia cannot be alleviated. “Does it cure the disease? By no means.” Santulli said. “Does it slow it down drastically? No.” But, the program does achieve something of equal importance: it cultivates happiness and improves quality of life. “But, if you go to Memory Café today, it makes today a better day than it would’ve been without it,” Santulli said. “And that may be all you can do, but it’s plenty good enough.”
8// MIRROR
The First ‘Daughters of Dartmouth’
Women from the first coed graduating classes at the College reflect on their experiences. SPOTLIGHT
By Carolyn Zhou
It’s hard to believe that about 40 years ago, everyone ate at Thayer, not Foco, and that the Orozco Mural Room was the most social part of the library. But the biggest difference between Dartmouth now and then was not solely the dining hall location or the noise level of a particular room. The most startling change to me at the College has been the number of female students. Today, men and women make up equal parts of the population. The College has come a long way from the 1970s, when it started to admit women in fall of ’72. Before 1972, the College participated in a few exchange programs, which allowed women to take classes for a year or two. But before the class of ’72 no woman had graduated from the College. Karen White ’73 spoke positively about her experiences in the classroom and how professors treated her. “I had no negative experiences in class, and I didn’t witness any inappropriate behavior,” she said. Mary Herzog ’75, an exchange student from Trinity College, expressed a similar sentiment. “In the classroom I felt very respected,” she said. “My point of view was welcomed, appreciated. I never felt demeaned in any kind of way.” In that respect, the classroom was often a positive place for women. However, there are some differences in the interactions between students and professors then and now. “I knew male professors who hit on some of the women — people would titter about it, but it wasn’t seen as highly illegal,” Herzog said. Mary Schellhorn ’71, an exchange student from Wheaton College, said she witnessed some uncomfortable exchanges between students and professors. “One professor looked at one of my roommates, and said, ‘Aren’t you such a pretty young thing to have in class,’” Schellhorn said. Regarding sexual assault on campus, Herzog was less positive than she had been about her experience in the classroom. She thought that the College should have addressed teaching men how to treat women appropriately and respectfully. “What was seen as acceptable or what was unseen and not talked about is now seen as unethical,” Herzog said. “For example, what some saw as ‘sexual activity’ back then would probably be seen as sexual exploitation or rape today.” Overall, however, she was positive
about the strides Dartmouth has made for women. Her daughter, Abigail Rohman ’16, had a similar opinion. She mentioned her involvement in V-February, Voices and the Vagina Monologues, all of which are events at Dartmouth that seek to promote awareness of and generate discussion about feminism. All of these seem a far cry from her mother’s days at the College. However, Rohman critiqued the vestiges of male dominance on campus today, specifically in the social sphere. “I have plenty of experience feeling like I am in a male dominated space in a fraternity,” Rohman said. “It’s a guy handing you a beer; if you want to get let into the house, you have to ask a guy.” Rohman said that as a senior, she has become more apathetic towards this issue compared to when she was a freshman, and now she tends to stay away from these spaces which make her feel uncomfortable. The most shocking thing Rohman recalled about her freshman year was being in Alpha Delta and seeing brothers relieve themselves right in the middle of the basement. She believes that this kind of behavior demonstrates these traces of male superiority and the brazen attitude that some male students still seem to have. Libby Goldman ‘18 echoed Rohman’s feelings about Greek life. “A lot of old gender stereotypes come through in the frats — the man asks if you want a beer, the man asks you if you want to play pong, the man is the aggressive one, and the lady is the passive one in the situation,” Goldman noted. “While Greek life is not inherently a bad thing, it does promote gender segregation.” She noted that not all Greek life promotes gender separation, as there are coed fraternities. Goldman said that there is a pressure to fit the standards of an ideal Dartmouth woman. “The ‘ideal Dartmouth woman’ is largely defined by race or socioeconomic class,” Goldman said. “She is white, of the upper socioeconomic class, involved in Greek life, has good grades, is open to hooking up.” Not only are women often subjected to these subtle pressures and expectations, but sometimes the traces of patriarchy are staring us right in the face. Goldman pointed out how one simply needs to walk into Rauner and see all of the portraits of all the past presidents (all men). However, despite these undeniable traces of Dartmouth’s formerly all-male
COURTESY OF LINDA CALDERON
Former Dean Carroll Brewster holds a female cheerleader upside down.
COURTESY OF LINDA CALDERON
The Dartmouth Aires and The Dartmouth Distractions featured in The Aegis.
status, campus has seen vast improvements in treatment of women from the early ’70s to today. The pressures of the past were much more extreme, Linda Calderon ’75 explained. “Men outnumbered women everywhere, in math and sciences,” Calderon said. “Women hadn’t come into their own yet — most of us grew up in homes where we were never encouraged to get careers in any field.” Calderon attended Smith College until her junior year, when she participated in an exchange program at Dartmouth, eventually deciding to stay for the increased opportunities offered at the College. However, she said that in her experience at the College, the male students were not very accommodating or willing to adjust their lifestyles. “Before [the women] got to Dartmouth, it was like a big camp, a boy’s camp,” Calderon said. “It was in the middle of nowhere, and sports and fraternity life pretty much summed it up. Once the women got onto campus, the men didn’t really change their behavior.” Calderon said women understood the prejudice against them, which stemmed not only from their male peers, but also upper-level administrators. “We women were conscious that we were in the minority and that there certainly were people on campus from the very top down who didn’t really think we were equal citizens,” Calderon said. Despite the unwelcoming behavior of some in the Dartmouth community, she brushed it off, deciding to stay and graduate. Calderon showed me two pictures from The Aegis yearbook. One showed former Dean Carroll W. Brewster, laughing while holding a female cheerleader nearly upside down. This was quite shocking to me, as something like this would never happen today without a massive uproar. The photo reminded me of the comments that Herzog had brought up regarding the changing views of propriety.
The second photo was of the Dartmouth Aires, an all-male a cappella group. The third photo was of the Dartmouth Distractions, a female a cappella group that later became the Dartmouth Decibelles. “That’s how the girls were viewed,” Calderon said, half-jokingly. “As distractions.” But overall, Calderon was quite positive, just like Herzog and White. At Smith, she felt like she didn’t have the diverse course offerings available at Dartmouth. Even though she was on a pre-medicine track, she still wanted to have a robust and complete liberal arts education. Dartmouth, despite the issues outside of the classroom, provided that. White similarly enjoyed Dartmouth because it helped her to decide on a career path. After taking a constitutional law class at Dartmouth, she discovered that law would be a good fit for her. Since a lot of her male peers were planning on attending law school, she was inspired to take the class. White also felt that the professors at Dartmouth were patient and understanding; when she had trouble on an assignment, professors were flexible and helped her get around the problem. Schellhorn commented on the diverse activities in Hanover. She particularly loved how she could enjoy the outdoors. This appeal to those who love nature at Dartmouth has certainly not diminished. All of the female alumna I interviewed seemed to have enjoyed attending Dartmouth, whether it was for the increased opportunities in the classroom or simply the experience of meeting new people, despite their comments about the less-than-welcoming atmosphere for the inaugural classes of women. Although traces of male dominance exist at the College today, the strides in the past 40 years toward gender equality are irrefutable. The first female students may not have viewed themselves as pioneers, but they certainly carved the path for women today at Dartmouth to enjoy a much greater degree of freedom and equality.