The College Hill Independent: 16 March 2012

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT V O L U M E

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W E E K LY

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M A R C H

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T HE COL L EGE HIL L INDEPEN DEN T NEWS

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WEEK IN REVIEW

BETTY HEESO KIM, DORI RAHBAR, EMMA WHITFORD

EUROTRASH MUHAMMAD SAIGOL

FEATURES

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NEIGH

ANNIKA FINNE

FANCY FEAST DAVID ADLER

SCIENCE

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Someday, all of our friends and loved ones will be dead. Egad! Who will introduce us to new salad bars and laugh at our impersonations of our more peculiar friends who are also dead? I am ready to rush to Atlanta and clean out my brother’s car. I smell my lonely Christmas thank-you stationary withering in my desk drawer. The worst part will be tripping in public while tearfully reviewing text messages from freshman year of college. No, the worst part will be the overwhelming silence in the din of a more crowded planet.

Now that you’ve spat out your beverage, give me a chance to encourage that nutrition back into your gut. The silence will have some familiar melodies: crickets and frogs will still sound close to how we hear them now. The cool kids of the future will respect the heroes of our day as vintage. And we can scout out salads for ourselves, retell our wartime experiences, and continue to accept love, perhaps from younger men and women.

But it will be tough to hold onto vigor if we lack good memories. I advise taking your time with this issue and soaking up the thoughts of your classmates.

These pieces want to stay with you for a long time.

-DCS

PURE NANO WALLS RAILLAN BROOKS, LUCAS MORDUCHOWICZ

ARTS

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FROM THE EDITORS

EPHEMERA

FILM REEL

GREG NISSAN, ADRIAN RANDALL

METRO

1 0 EXODUS

GRACE DUNHAM

OPINIONS

1 2 OH GOD

STEPHEN OLSON

SPORTS

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LOL INDY SPORTS DAVID CHANCELLOR SCOFIELD

INTERVIEWS

1 4 META

ERICA SCHWIEGERSHAUSEN

FOOD

1 6 NICE CANS TARA KANE

LITERARY

1 7 TRANSITIVE 1 8 UMAMI GILLIAN BRASSIL

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SCOUT WILLIS

1 9 INTO APRIL BECCA LEVINSON

ABOUT MANAGING EDITORS Chris Cohen, Belle Cushing, Mimi Dwyer ∙ NEWS Alex Ronan, Erica Schwiegershausen, Caroline Soussloff ∙ METRO Sam Adler-Bell, Grace Dunham, Jonathan Storch ∙ FEATURES David Adler, Emily Gogolak, Ellora Vilkin, Kate Welsh ∙ ARTS Kate Van Brocklin, Jonah Wolf ∙ OPINIONS Tyler Bourgoise, Stephen Carmody ∙ INTERVIEWS Rachel Benoit ∙ SCIENCE Raillan Brooks ∙ FOOD Anna Rotman ∙ SPORTS David Scofield ∙ LITERARY Michael Mount, Scout Willis ∙ X PAGE Becca Levinson ∙ LIST Alex Corrigan, Dylan Treleven, Allie Trionfetti ∙ BLOG Christina McCausland, Dan Stump ∙ DESIGN EDITOR Mary-Evelyn Farrior ∙ DESIGN TEAM Andrew Beers, Jess Bendit, Abigail Cain, Olivia Fialkow, Jared Stern ∙ CHIEFS Annika Finne, Robert Sandler ∙ ILLUSTRATIONS EDITOR Diane Zhou ∙ SENIOR EDITORS Gillian Brassil, Malcolm Burnley, Jordan Carter, Adrian Randall, Emma Whitford MVP: Gillian Brassil Cover Art: Gillian Brassil

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT PO BOX 1930 BROWN UNIVERSITY PROVIDENCE RI 02912 theindy@gmail.com twitter: maudelajoie theindy.org Letters to the editor are welcome distractions. The College Hill Independent is published weekly during the fall and spring semesters and is printed by TCI press in Seekonk, MA. The Independent receives support from Campus Progress/Center for American Progress.

Campus Progress works to help young people–advocates, activists, journalists, artists– make their voices heard on issues that matter. Learn more at CampusProgress.org

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the college hill independent

WEEK IN REVIEW Illustration by Annika Finne

Whoop Whoop!

by Emma Whitford

Parlez-vous Politics?

by Dori Rahbar

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Complete Lunacy

by Betty Heeso Kim

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o you ever find yourself wondering why the Titanic sank? As the 100th anniversary draws ever nearer, the wreck of the Costa Concordia and the upcoming rerelease of Titanic in 3D have restored the buzz around everyone’s favorite shipwreck. Getting in on the hype are two astronomers at Texas State University, Olson David and Russell Descher, who have recently announced a new theory behind the shipwreck.

Before we go any further, let’s clarify: the Titanic hit an iceberg. However, a “supermoon”—a full or new moon during its closest approach to the Earth—coinciding with the Earth’s perihelion (when it is closest to the Sun), may have caused unusually strong tides that launched “a flotilla of icebergs southward—just in time for Titanic’s maiden voyage,” reports National Geographic.

The supermoon of January 4, 1912 was the closest lunar approach that the Earth has had since 796 A.D. Researchers believe that the combination of the supermoon and its alignment with the Sun and Earth dislodged icebergs from a glacier in Greenland. Olson claims that in three months these icebergs floated southward towards Newfoundland, precisely in the path of the Titanic.

Not everyone is convinced by this new explanation. Geza Gruk, director of the Department of Astronomy at Chicago’s Adler Planetarium & Astronomy Museum, points out that a full moon and a close lunar approach occur every few years without a disastrous iceberg migration. He claims that the supermoon that occurred on January 4, 1912 was only about 4,000 miles closer to the Earth than a regular full moon would be, and caused about a five percent difference in tidal force.

The probability of a once-in-amillennium supermoon aligning with the sun and Earth and magnifying the pull on ocean tides enough to create a flotilla of icebergs to travel for three months, just in time to collide with the R.M.S. Titanic may seem dubious to some.

According to Olson, “In astronomical terms, the odds of all these variables lining up in just the way they did was, well, astronomical.” The rest, as they say, is (cinematic) history.

n late February, the Constitutional Council of France rejected a bill that would have made it illegal for French citizens to deny the Armenian genocide that took place at the hands of Turkey in the early twentieth century. Introduced by President Nicholas Sarkozy and initially passed by the French Senate on January 23, the legislation strained the relationship between France and Turkey, which temporarily stopped political, economic, and military connections with France, and even removed its ambassador. Maintaining its longstanding position, Turkey contends that the 1.5 million killings should not be labeled genocide on the grounds that many Turks also died during the conflict between the two nations. However, after the Council’s latest decision to override the bill, Turkey has declared its intentions to resume normal relations with France.

Many view the proposed law as an attack on and limitation of free speech, one of the basic principles guaranteed by the French constitution. The law was met with opposition by various lawmakers around the country after the Senate passed it; lawmakers called on the Constitutional Council to prevent its ratification, claiming that it was not the responsibility of the French government to concern itself with the naming of a historical event that happened outside its own boundaries nearly a century ago.

The law called for a fine of €45,000 (about $61,000) and/or a one-year prison sentence, for individuals who denied the genocide. France already has a similar law that makes it illegal to deny the Holocaust.

Despite the ruling of the Constitutional Council, France’s highest court, Sarkozy has said that he will alter the language of the law and intends to pursue another draft that will compel the Council to approve it.

The Coordination Council of Armenian Organizations in France said in a published statement in Nouvelles d’Arménie that they are “grateful to the President for his willingness to implement it and welcome his commitment to the case.”

However, some analysts have questioned his motives, accusing the President of pandering to the 500,000 Armenians living in France. Sarkozy’s performance in opinions polls has reached a historic low, and France will have its presidential elections April 22 and May 6.

Others have accused Sarkozy of needlessly spending time and resources on a law that does not address any of France’s most pressing and immediate issues, like its role in Europe’s economic downturn and its own recent credit rating downgrade.

Sarkozy will most likely have time to return to this issue only if he is reelected this spring. The president will have to reconcile his popularity among the French-Armenian community with his nation’s relationship with Turkey in addition to the French constitutional right to free speech.

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s of Sunday, March 11 at 8:30 pm, JuggaloBook had 17,028 members.

According to a banner of stats running down the left hand side of the page, 275 of those members had joined within the past 24 hours. The site itself seems surprised by all the attention—every few clicks prompt a 504 Gateway Time-Out. The login page for the social networking spinoff looks just like the original Facebook, only in grayscale. But the welcome screen feels more like a Myspace hybrid. A bar for status updates inquires, “What up Ninja?” and a chat window labeled Chatbox fills the right side of the screen. Juggalos and juggalettes contribute rapid fire to a constantly-scrolling conversation: “hey homies arent there hipie juggalos…yea I am pretty much a hippie juggalo bro…Im getting off to play video game with my dad bbl…can i call?” Lists of Homies replace friends, but notifications are still flagged in red.

Usernames on JuggaloBook do not stick to Facebook’s first name-last name John Smith format. John “Danger” Smith wouldn’t fly either. Instead, “ax murderer is now homies with SixxDigit…

SuPaHKuShNiNjA updated his profile information… SchwingKong is now homies with BoogieWoogieWhoop.” It feels outdated to encounter incognito social networking on the post-Myspace Internet, especially when the new standards are all about polished, career-ready profiles. The anonymity makes more sense once it’s clear that conversation topics are trending towards the illegal, the violent, and the un-PC. Juggalos are fans of Psychopathic Records, best known as the label of Insane Clown Posse. ICP is a hip-hop duo from Detroit. Formed in 1989 and still active today, the group exemplifies horrorcore—a hip-hop subgenre that specializes in themes like cannibalism, murder, and suicide.

During a 1994 performance, ICP member Joseph Brice addressed his audience as Juggalos during “The Juggla”—“Well, you know the juggla jumped in the mixer/Been down the road and I broke a few necks/ And I’ll break a few more, so what’s up/ Road by me on the corner, I’m a hold my nuts up.” The name stuck. Today, Juggalo/ lettes are recognized in pop culture for their affinity for clown face paint, the soda Faygo, and cage fighting. Juggalos who pass into the radar of mainstream culture often incite both fear and disdain. The former seems to inspire pride, the latter, apathy.

The JuggaloBook domain was registered on February 11, but Huffington Post: Weird News didn’t pick up on it until March 1.

And HuffPo was hardly open-minded in its assessment of the self-proclaimed “Social Network for the Underground Family.” The article defines without nuance, “a Facebook rip-off dedicated to the debaucherous fans of a rap group whose lyrics center around violence and drug use.” While one reader comment summarizes HuffPo’s sentiment in a single sentence—“10,000 [members] that’s a ton of white trash”—another response from a self-proclaimed juggalette is more insightful: “im not trash i just forgot to change my socks… we were fine without your 2 cents….. why did you even come on here so bored an lonely you have to find someone or something to hate?”

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news

16 march 2012

E U ROPE AN D I S UNI O N The Strained Relations of Continental Europe

by Muhammad Saigol Illustration by Alexandra Corrigan

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ften snapped by cameras in various stages of awkward embraces, determined handshakes, or intense discussions, Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy are often collectively referred to by the moniker “Merkozy,” suggesting both their political and personal closeness.

It is not surprising: after all, the German Chancellor and French President are the stewards of the Eurozone’s two largest economies. Together, Merkel and Sarkozy represent the face of Europe—and more specifically, of the great experiment in regional integration that is the European Union. But the sovereign-debt crisis plaguing several European nations has introduced questions about structural inequity between members, putting the unity of Merkozy—and that of the Eurozone, the 17-nation bloc within the EU that uses the Euro—at risk.

CRACKS IN THE SINGLE CURRENCY The recession of the late 2000s has spurred a sovereign-debt crisis that infecting several countries and exposing weaknesses in parts of the Eurozone, a region once lauded as an example of effective currency integration.

Greece, Ireland, and Portugal have all found themselves unable to pay their debts and have sought external assistance. Disquieting political, regulatory, and economic differences between the Eurozone’s member states explain how some nations can remain fiscally sound while others teeter on the edge of default. Greece’s appalling tweaking of financial data has cast doubt over the standardization of finance-related laws in the Eurozone; weakness in Italy, the pact’s third largest economy, mirrors productivity issues in the rest of southern Europe; and Ireland’s inability to pay back its debt raises concerns about the stability of EU members hitherto considered secure.

The sovereign-debt crisis has resulted in bailouts amounting €750 billion to date that have saved all of the affected nations from default. While thus far only the three aforementioned nations have received funds, many are concerned that the same fate may soon befall the larger economies of Spain and Italy. Germany has emerged as a bastion of sound economic policy during the crisis and as a result, the Eurozone’s largest economy is now also its largest donor. Jan Fleischhauer, a popular German journalist, claimed in Der Spiegel that Germans have become the “Americans of Europe,”

referencing the United States’ role in postWorld War II reconstruction.

A TALE OF TWO CITIES Germany’s stability and leadership throughout the crisis has not been met by its foremost ally, France, pointing towards the growing economic divide between the two nations—due primarily to a lack of competitiveness and productivity in France.

While the French economy is nowhere near as unstable as those of the weakest Eurozone members, its sluggish rebound after the global recession stands in stark contrast to Germany’s quick recovery.

The divergence is evident in the unemployment rates of the two countries.

In France, unemployment is at 10 percent—a 12-year-high, according to Eurostat, the official statistics body of the EU. In Germany, it is at 5.8 percent— Germany’s lowest since reunification in 1991. Confidence in the French economy was shaken in January when France lost its AAA+ rating from Standard & Poor’s, one of the three big credit-rating agencies.

Germany maintained its AAA+ rating.

The differences between France and Germany are nowhere as apparent as in an analysis of two towns along the countries’ border: Sélestat, a French town in Alsace, and Emmendingen, a German town barely 20 miles away. According to a recent investigation by the New York Times, despite similar demographic and geographic conditions and an interwoven history, unemployment in Emmendingen is at three percent, while in Sélestat it is at eight percent. The difference in youth unemployment—often a primary cause of social distress—is even greater.

There are nearly 10 times as many job offers per month in Emmendingen as there are in Sélestat. German workers often take the initiative to cross the border and work in France; their counterparts rarely do the same. Salaries in the German town are higher, goods are cheaper, and the costs associated with hiring an employee lower.

Such disparities are typical of the economies of the two nations, but are more striking simply because the towns are so close to one another. Some locals on the French side attribute the differences to culture: “We appreciate their rigor and discipline, but that’s not all there is in life,” Alexandre Boer, 52, told the New York Times.

A LITTLE TOO MER-COZY While the French and German economies may be diverging, their leaders have continued to project an image of unity.

During their terms in office, Merkel and Sarkozy have collaborated on virtually every issue, from the financial crisis and the Greek bailout to political action against states like Syria and Iran. In nearly every case, they have showed solidarity and support for one another. In February, the BBC reported that Merkel had taken the unusual step of involving herself in the elections of another country by throwing her weight behind Sarkozy for France’s upcoming elections in April. Her party, the Christian Democratic Union, also released a statement saying that she would “actively support Nicolas Sarkozy with joint appearances in the election campaign in the spring.”

Merkel’s endorsement has not come without reciprocity from Sarkozy. The French President has been promoting German-style labor reforms for France to counter the growing economic gap between the two nations: “Inspired by a model that works, we will bring together, Mrs. Merkel and I, the German and French economies to create at the heart of Europe a solid economy that then may conquer markets across the world,” Sarkozy declared in a joint interview with the Chancellor, as reported Le Monde. For Germany, a stronger France would mean a stronger Eurozone, which would in turn ensure more political and economic clout.

THE GERMAN CANDIDATE But labor reform has never been an easy sell in France, a country that is dependent on social welfare and more accustomed to shorter working hours than many of its peers. After the French legislature voted to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62 in 2010, near-retirees and youths alike erupted in riot. “I started working at 17 and now I’m 50 and I’m starting to get really fed up with it,” one demonstrator in the town of Angouleme told Agence France Presse, reflecting an attitude that resonates with much of the French public. The nation’s employment system remains fundamentally socialist in nature, with an emphasis on job security and a heavy reliance on powerful unions to advocate interests. Germany, meanwhile, boasts a flexible hiring-andfiring system that delivers higher gains in productivity, though at the loss of employees’ security.

In France, Sarkozy’s calls for reform have not been met with widespread enthusiasm. His primary opponent, the Socialist Party’s François Hollande, has rejected labor market reform. “Not everything in Germany’s economic model deserves to be copied,” Hollande’s campaign chief Pierre Moscovici told Reuters.

Hollande’s stance echoes another concern that many in France are beginning to develop—that of a French President in the pocket of a Germany seeking to dominate Europe. The news channel France 24 declared Sarkozy the “German candidate” and voices from across the political spectrum have decried him as nothing more than Merkel’s lapdog. Former Minister of Defense Jean-Pierre Chevènement, for example, called their relationship “disastrous.” A survey administered by Le Figaro found that 41 percent of respondents believed that Germany was seeking to dominate France through its stewardship of the debt crisis. Negative publicity has prompted the Sarkozy campaign to pull away from Merkel, telling the Wall Street Journal that plans to include her in a rally were “not on the agenda.”

The unity of the entity that is Merkozy only thinly veils the cracks in the two nations’ relationship. While they continue to actively collaborate on international and European affairs, their economies diverge, with France’s faltering and Germany’s powering ahead at full steam. In April, French voters will decide whether or not to oust the incumbent Sarkozy. The latest opinion polls indicate that Sarkozy may well lose to the Socialist Hollande by 10 percent or even more. If Sarkozy manages to keep the Élysée Palace, he will almost certainly continue to push labor reform, and resentment toward Germany may rise. Such close collaboration with Merkel may then become harder to digest in France. It may be inconceivable that Germany and France will ever retreat from one another entirely given their extensive economic and political ties. But if Sarkozy loses and the presidency goes to Hollande, Merkel should not expect “Merlande” to enter political parlance.

MUHAMMAD SAIGOL B’12 wants a moniker of his own.

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features

16 march 2012

CATS AND THEIR PEOPLE It’s Complicated

by David Adler Illustration by Manvir Singh

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at shows are not the same as dog shows. This is lesson number one at the Salty Cats show at the Rhode Island Convention Center, where a partition divides the hall between species. On one side is the Petco Pet Expo, where dogs bark loudly in the aisles, leaping onto pet food stands where vendors offer samples.

A recording of a brass band blares out from the back corner, where a man in a wizard costume and his eight-year-old accomplice are staging a fashion show. Halfclad young women strut down the runway holding poodles dressed in human outfits.

Photographers snap away.

On the other side, a handsome young man in a button-up greets visitors with a brochure. “Thank you for helping us to further the cat fancy,” he says to them.

This phrase—cat fancy—is commonly used to describe the global cat community of breeders, household owners, and admirers. Rows of groomed felines lounge in preparation for their showing. Owners deposit their cats into metal cages at judging stations, or “rings,” which line the perimeter of the hall. Each ring has its own cat platform for careful inspection, and each judge has her own style. Some are austere, holding the cat by its neck or dropping it from a distance to see how it falls on its feet; others are more loving and do not hesitate to show their excitement—“She is just glowing today!” At the back of the hall, there is a photography booth, where owners can pay to have headshots taken. “She’s a regional champion now, so it’s important we prepare ourselves for the publicity,” an owner

explains. On a little stage is his Maine Coon, a very popular cat at the show—fluffy and pudgy in autumnal brown and orange.

Most of these owners are veterans of the New England circuit, and all of them seem to know each other—even across breed lines. This is where the cat fancy draws its main distinction from its next-door neighbor. Salty Cats may be a competition, but most owners reject the Best In Show pomp and pretense. They’re here for the community: the Bengals, the Birmans, the Bombays; the Shorthairs, the Longhairs, the Bobtails. Lil’ Papi, Cody James, Winter’s Dream Snow Flake; Jack Kerouac, Empress Starfire, Orange Candy Skittles.

Under the fluorescent lights, it’s hard to tell where the cat fancy stops and the human fancy begins. “It’s the social aspect that keeps you coming back,” one owner tells me, rocking his Savannah back and forth in his arms. But when relationships between owners and cats begin to resemble those with other humans—and vice versa—the “social aspect” is not so clearly defined.

BUREAU-CAT-IC In June 1979, in the Ozark Mountains of Missouri, the board members of the American Cat Fanciers Association (ACFA) gathered for an important meeting. The Board had been stalemated for days— younger members sought leave behind the politics of previous generations to create a unified cat registry; the hard-nosed old guard of the fancy was reluctant to change.

Without any resolution, a group of defectors broke away to establish The International

Cat Assocation (TICA), which Georgia Morgan, its central founder, dreamed would become “the most progressive, flexible and innovative cat registry in the world.”

By 1980, TICA had spread into Japan, one of the major global hubs of the cat fancy.

Today, TICA has clubs in six continents, and, as Judge Susan Lee in Ring 2 tells me, “we’re growing faster than ever.” She’s between rounds and sits down to have a sandwich. Susan is from Michigan, but her position at TICA has brought her all over the world. “I’ve judged in Moscow, Argentina, Switzerland, Germany—I’m going to Austria in the fall.”

TICA’s explosion onto the global scene is no fluke. Over the years, it has developed a massive infrastructure of clerks, judges, breeders, and members who help to maintain order and integrity in the cat fancy.

A potential judge will spend years climbing through the ranks. At the bottom of the ladder is the show clerk, who sits alongside the judge and records his scores. From there, a show clerk is promoted to Master Clerk, who “collects all the paperwork, compiles all the statistics, and reports back to the main office in Texas for central scoring,” Susan explains.

Then, once the Board gives its approval, a Master Clerk can apply for the judging program. Here, one undergoes extensive written tests (“If you have a red male mated with a black and white female, what are the possible colors for kittens?”) and intensive training with licensed judges. These judgesin-training must be familiar with all of the features of the breed standard as set forth by

the TICA genetic registry.

The Ocicat Breed Standard 05/01/2004 Head — 25 points Shape (5 points): Modified wedge, with slight curve from muzzle to cheek.

Ears (5 points): Moderately large. Set so as to corner the head. Lynx tips are a bonus when present.

Eyes (5 points): Large almond shaped. Angled slightly upward toward the ears with more than the length of an eye apart. All eye colors except blue allowed. No relationship between coat and eye color.

Muzzle (10 points): Welldefined, suggestion of squareness.

Jaws firm with proper bite.

Temperament must be unchallenging; any sign of definite challenge shall disqualify. The cat may exhibit fear, seek to flee, or generally complain aloud but may not threaten to harm.

After the written tests, the Board of Directors will approve a promotion to become a provisional specialty judge— only the shorthairs or only the longhairs.

Then the application to become a certified specialty judge. Finally, a select few move

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on to become Allbreed judges, who will see all the cats during a show. There are only about 180 of these judges in the world, and Susan is one of them. This is TICA’s method of separating the wheat from the chaff, the cat fanciers from the cat fanciest. It’s also the reason why Susan, as one of only a small group of accredited judges, gets to jet-set across the globe to TICA events, made possible by the association’s $35 annual membership fee.

CAT LOOSE The Rhode Island Convention Center is not ideal for a cat show. The heavy foot traffic and wide open spaces make many of the owners nervous. “Chicopee is gonna stay inside today,” Audrey Hobbs announces, zipping up her Black Tortie and White (brown spots with large mane of white fur) in a pink plastic cage.

At most cat shows, she tells me, the space is much better contained. “There are no doors to the outside, and they’ve got guards waiting by the doors.” Today, the only protection is a 17-year-old high school junior named Christian Cherau, the Master Clerk for the Salty Cats show. He’s very popular with the owners—“He’s like superman!” I overhear—but nonetheless insufficient for cat protection. “At more organized events, if a cat gets loose people holler ‘CAT LOOSE!’ and the guards will shut the doors until a search team can locate the cat.”

This is a sensitive subject for Audrey: a few years ago, one of her five cats got lost in a New York showroom and disappeared out the back door, which “some loon” had left open. She phoned into work that day to tell them she would not be returning to Maine until she found the cat. Two weeks later, she was walking along the perimeter of the convention center when she saw a cat run under a dumpster. He ran away at first, but when she called his name, he began to walk toward her. “He was emaciated, had bites on him from the rats. He had been living under a storage building, eating trash.”

Since then, Audrey’s TICA star has been rising. “Chico’s done real good today,” she says with a chuckle, pointing toward the big blue ribbon pinned to her plastic cage. There are 11 awards in total: Best Allbreed Household Pet from Judge Alberto Leal, 2nd Best Shorthaired Household Pet from Judge Brenda Russo, Best Allbreed Household Pet from Judge Solveig Pflueger, and on. The last one is particularly noteworthy because of Dr. Pflueger’s position as Chairman of the Genetics Committee, one of the most prestigious positions at TICA. Unlike more orthodox cat registries, TICA is constantly looking to add new breeds to its ranks, and as a Medical Geneticist, Dr. Pflueger oversees the admission of cutting-edge cats to the New Breed development program.

As a household pet, Chicopee is judged on different criteria than the pedigreed cats, which aim to appeal to the breed standard.

The household pets are not separated along breed lines, but instead all lumped together in one big group. This is a chance for the non-professional cats to shine—the rescues, the strays, or the “Oops” cats like Chicopee (“the breeder just turned around and there she was!”). This is another major distinction between cat shows and dog shows. Success in dog shows requires a fortune. Show dogs have to be perfectly bred, trained, handled, and groomed before competition. At a cat show, anyone can register, and the costs are significantly lower. “I get her in the bath, I shampoo her, squirt a little conditioner, and Boom, she’s ready to go,” Audrey explains.

Judges assign points to household pets based on three criteria. Condition: “Is she too skinny or too fat? Is her coat healthy? Is she well groomed?” Temperament: “Is she playful or is she shy? Does she like to be on stage?” And last: the cat’s beauty in the eye of the judge. This is Judge Susan Lee’s favorite category. “It’s whatever strikes your fancy!”

According to Susan, though, this fancy varies across nations. “The Germans have really gone nuts for those Maine

Coons. And the Japanese bring in a lot of our American short hairs.” Conversely, Americans have fallen in love with the Japanese bobtails, which are not a wellregarded breed in Japan. “We’ve taken their street cats and made them into showroom specials,” Susan says. It’s a globalized economy of cats.

KEEPING IT CLEAN Underneath the surface of Salty Cats is a great deal of politicking. TICA regulations dictate that judges not to know the identity of the owner; results are supposed to be posted rather than announced to reduce the influence of browbeating contestants on the judges’ decisions. Nonetheless, many contestants find ways to work around these guidelines. Over in Ring 7, an owner chats with a judge between rounds, leaving with a handshake before returning to his cats.

In Ring 4, where a round is set to begin, one owner waits until the very last minute to carry his entry to the cages, making her identity clear to the judge. Most of all, many judges have cats of their own that enter into TICA shows, producing a fear among some contestants of mutual back-scratching between judges.

“Down in Jersey and New York I’ve seen some pretty dirty stuff,” Christian tells me as we walk to collect score sheets.

“Big names in TICA can make a show of it.” The wealthiest cat owners, Christian explains, have the best shot at success. They can fly across the country to attend events and rack up awards in the process, earning them celebrity status that produces a selfreinforcing feedback loop: the more a cat wins, the better known it becomes; the better known it becomes, the more inclined judges are to pick it to win.

In Japan, especially, the politics have become a problem. “Many Japanese believe that people should win based on how many years they have been in the cat fancy. It’s a seniority thing,” Susan explains. There, it’s commonly believed that the more money an owner has invested in his cat, the more he

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deserves to win.

But Susan is eager to emphasize that “TICA judges are independent and impartial.” In dog shows, she claims, names can hold a lot of sway. Judges only pick one Best In Show, and with the major publicity and ESPN coverage that dog shows receive, there can be a great deal of pressure on judges to pick the favorite. In TICA, by contrast, there are so many judges that each can feel comfortable expressing his or her preference. “I just love the Maine Coons,” she admits in a whisper.

A SYMBIOSIS A recent study at the University of Texas concluded that there are real differences between “cat people” and “dog people.” Dog people, researchers found, tend to be more extroverted and more agreeable. Cat people tend to be more introverted and neurotic.

But these findings fail to capture what is on display at the Salty Cats show. Late into the second day of the convention, most owners are still showing off their cats to passersby and joking amongst themselves.

For the owners, the cats are a way into the social world, acting as the glue in the relationships between otherwise introverted people. “You meet people that you never would have met without cats,” Audrey says. “She’s from New Jersey, I got friends from California, Jean over is there is from Montreal.”

Unlike dogs, who were captured and trained into domestication, cats naturally developed a symbiotic relationship with humans. Rodent infestations threatened wheat supplies; cats found a steady source of food in clearing up the infestation. For the owners at Salty Cats, this symbiosis remains.

“You come for the cats; you come back for the people.”

DAVID ADLER B’14 is well-defined, with a suggestion of squareness.

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science

16 march 2012

COMPUTERS BUILDING BUILDINGS The Promise and Problems of Computational Architecture

by Raillan Brooks and Lucas Morduchowicz Illustration by Robert Sandler

I

n November 2011, Michael Hansmeyer’s exhibit “Subdivided Columns – A New Order” at the Gwangju Design Biennale made quite the splash. Hansmeyer, an architect and computer scientist, built 16 structurally sound support columns. Or rather, his computer did. Hansmeyer specified certain parameters, like the proportion of the capital to the shaft, and allowed the rest of the column to be created using a computational generative process. Basically, the computer took the “rules” fed to it by Hansmeyer—what shapes are allowed in the final structure, equations that determine the most efficient load-bearing frame, and so on—and subdivided the surface based on that algorithm. He made no further aesthetic or design decisions. Hansmeyer cut the facets out of plastic using a computer numerical control machine and layered them on top of one another, translating the column from virtual to physical reality. This process created a series of complexly detailed columns that, according to Hansmeyer’s website, “exhibit both highly specific local conditions as well as an overall coherency and continuity.” He let the computer run its course, placing no constraints on the size of the columns. No resulting column was shorter than eight feet. The average diameter of a column was 50 centimeters, but the largest column’s circumference reached eight meters because of its many intricate undulations and edges. Some columns had as many as sixteen million facets in dazzling arrangements of the shapes he initially specified. On the use of computation in architecture, his website says that “a computational approach to architecture enables the generation of the previously unseen. Forms that can no longer be conceived of through traditional methods become possible. New realms open up.”

As a relatively young field of study, not many concrete names have been set forth to define what Hansmeyer did. Different terms abound—computational design, data-driven fabrication, generative architecture—and

all challenge the same notion. Designing a structure, be it a building or part of one, is about making decisions about the way one wants the piece to look, feel, and interact with the world around it. With new innovations in the fields of computers and architecture, the traditional process of architectural design is changing. Joy Ko, a professor of architecture at the Rhode Island School of Design, echoes Hansmeyer’s conceptual conceit. She says computational architecture “encompasses many approaches that make use of computation in that architectural design process.” In other words, computational architecture is architecture in which the decision-making process is not simply assisted by calculation and computation. It is architecture radically transformed, in which all of the architect’s decisions are made prior to designing, and those decisions are limited to simple parameters instituted all at once.

Hansmeyer’s columns in 2011 are part of a professional oeuvre exploring the applications of powerful computation to design.

And he’s been at it for a while. His project “L-Systems,” released in 2003, took a model developed in the 1960s to describe plant growth and fed it into the same program he later used to create his columns. Other projects include creating forms based on the mechanisms of cellular structure, sculptural designs that use cubes as the only basic unit, and a forthcoming project involving mathematical models of insect nests and their applicability to creating human dwellings.

The use of computation in architecture is not new in itself. Architects have been using 3D modeling programs to assist them in the design process since the early days of software. However, very few architectural firms have historically used computation as an integral part of their design process. In fact, even ten years ago, the number of firms relying on computational architecture could be counted on one hand. It wasn’t until so-called “StarChitects” like Frank Gehry popularized it in the early 1990s that using

modeling software was considered a part of architectural practice at all. Gehry’s Dancing House in Prague, built in 1992, with its nonlinear support system and abstract arrangement of shapes and lines, was among the first buildings in the world to have its structural integrity modeled by computer software. Today there are many firms using computation to heavily assist their design process. They often have internal computational design consultants that assist other designers who are less acquainted with computers in using novel computational architecture approaches and methods while maintaining their signature style.

Hansmeyer isn’t the first designer to leave architecture entirely in the hands of machines. Daniel Libeskind, the famed Polish-American architect behind the Jewish Museum in Berlin and a number of other high-profile projects, constructed what he called a “writing machine” in the early 1980’s as a conceptual project. His question was, What if we deconstruct a building into its constituent parts and assemble them according to a static, rule-governed system?

By turning a series of cranks, this machine, built from what look like typesetting blocks etched with conventional structural elements, would produce the floorplan for a building, oftentimes creating uninhabitable spaces and absurd renderings of structures with no distinct separation of interior from exterior. But it was the first recorded effort to create an autonomous architecture, letting gears and cranks do the work.

Hansmeyer and Libeskind participated in computational architecture as artists, but there are plenty of examples of the practical applications for the field. One particularly useful movement that has come out of computational architecture is the gradual acceptance of programs that fuse 3D modeling with structural engineering. The development of ArchiCAD is evidence of this shift.

ArchiCAD is a BIM (Building Information Modeling) computer-aided design program

used by architects. When it was originally released by the Hungarian company Graphisoft in 1987, it was the first program that ran on personal computers to have support for both 2D drawings and parameter creation of 3D shapes. Today, in its fifteenth iteration, ArchiCAD fuses 3D modeling and structural engineering. In a few short years, Graphisoft has added virtual tracing, view rotation functionality, and, most recently, a 3D editing plane and a 3D feedback plane. These additions have improved architects’ ability to model their work in three dimensions while keeping their design structurally sound.

While presently this program and others like it don’t replace actual structural engineers, they do allow for a much more streamlined process in the design of architecture.

Computational architecture is no magic bullet, though. Joy Ko views it as a collection of transformative new methods rather than the final frontier of architecture. Traditionally, the introduction of new tools and procedures to the world of architecture has brought about major changes to the field.

Computational architecture already permits architecture to rethink the building as a static concept. For example, Marco Verde, one of Hansmeyer’s collaborators, has used ArchiCAD to create floor tiles equipped with sensor technology. The sensors pick up foot traffic in a room and also allow the tiles to communicate with one another, making any room with these tiles automatically customizable (with, say, heat or light) based on use patterns. What design like this means for the field as a whole remains unclear. But one thing is certain: people like Hansmeyer and Verde are thinking hard about what else computers can build.

RAILLAN BROOKS B’13 and LUCAS MORDUCHOWICZ B’12 are rule-based brainchildren.

the college hill independent

arts

9

HOLLYWOOD GADFLIES Why I Saw Ghost Rider 2: Spirit of Vengeance

by Adrian Randall

R

ight now in theatres, and probably not for much longer, is Ghost Rider 2: Spirit of Vengeance, a film that needs to be thought about more than seen.

The Ghost Rider films, based off a comic strip of the same name, roughly follow the misadventures of Johnny Blaze, a former motorcycle daredevil who made a bad bet with Satan and now on occasion turns into a flame-headed, vigilante demon. The first film is a generic action/fantasy flick with a goofy Nicolas Cage, but Ghost Rider 2 is a strange collaboration between enfants terribles, an echo of Dali and Buñuel in Un chien andalou, or, better, Herzog and Kinski.

That such a pairing takes place on the Hollywood mesa makes Ghost Rider 2 all the more interesting a case study. Returning to the star slot is Cage, who always seems born to play his eccentric roles despite their astronomical diversity. The secret ingredient of the film is the arrival of writing/ directing duo Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor (AKA Neveldine/Taylor), who have developed a niche of auteur action movies: Crank, Crank 2: High Voltage, and Gamer— think Jackass meets French New Wave.

Because Ghost Rider 2 wears the PG13 straitjacket, it is a mediocre movie. Cage and Neveldine/Taylor are artists dressed best in excess. They shine in the obscene and outrageous. It has its moments—the Johnny Blaze-demon urinating fire into a black abyss, a highway chase scene where the camera takes a 180-degree vertical flip.

Thanks to Neveldine/Taylor’s manic and acrobatic filmmaking, the film is a visual rollercoaster, but still much tamer than its predecessors. Nevertheless, sometimes it is more important to look at the parts rather than the whole. This films features the mad scientists of the film industry: the guys you love to talk to, but don’t want to show up at your party.

Neveldine/Taylor have jammed an avant-garde Epipen into the action genre.

Their influence is wide, but unrecognized.

Gaspar Noe’s 2009 drug/art epic Enter the Void virtually copied Crank’s opening sequence (a man stumbling into

consciousness, the perspective from his point of view, his blinks seen as shutters on screen). Meanwhile, Lars von Trier’s recent penchant for image-contortion looks lifted right out of the Neveldine/Taylor book. But pretension is not their game. Their films are shellacked with a self-aware social satire rarely seen on the bigger screens. Crank (2006) follows a hitman ( Jason Statham) injected with a serum that will kill him unless he keeps his adrenaline at maximum.

What follows is a GTA-infused rampage of drugs, sex, violence, and name-brand energy drinks. It sounds like a cheap gimmick, but Crank is a clever refinement of the Hollywood MO: the plot dies as soon as it stops stimulating.

The pair has received an impressive number of bad reviews for the films. Their movies, true, are difficult—hyper-violent and brilliantly over-stylized. Unfortunately for the naysayer critics, this has often been true of film’s best innovators, from Buñuel to Pasolini, from Kubrick to Haneke.

Gamer, probably one of the most outré and clever films of the ‘aughts, features a

dystopian world where teenage gamers control prisoners in televised gladiator battles and pseudo-prostitutes sell their bodies to cyber-voyeurs in a live action Second Life. It received its only four-star review from Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, lead critic for art-house headquarters MUBI, who said: “This is a film by two men who played Super Metroid the way Jacques Rivette read Balzac.” Later, cultural theorist Steven Shaviro wrote a 10,000 word essay defending the film’s aesthetic merits, noting how it was singularly “in touch with the urgencies of the moment, and with the social Real, in a way that contemplative cinema and modest, humanist cinema are not.”

It makes sense that Neveldine/ Taylor might want to team up with fellow feather-ruffler Nick Cage, whose I-don’tknow-karate-but-I-know-crazy acting style has turned him into a prodigal son of the industry. Incidentally, Cage is also one of the highest paid actors in Hollywood. No doubt goaded by his own YouTube memes— “Nicolas Cage Losing Shit,” “Best Scenes from Wicker Man,” “Nicolas Cage Wants

Cake,’”—Cage has continued to heighten his trademark tropes of googly-eyeing, chance conniptions, and maniacal guffawing.

He is less a character actor than a character.

To get down his role as a demi-demon, Cage said in an interview with a YouTube entertainment channel that he employed “nouveau-shamanic” acting: I’ve been told that all actors really hail from the early medicine and shamans in villages pre-Christianity.... So I would put on black and white AfroCaribbean paint, to look like an Afro-Caribbean voodoo icon, and then I would sew in bits of Egyptian artifacts that were thousands of years old into my costume, or have some onyx or tourmaline.... For me it was an attempt to trick my mind into thinking I was a character from another dimension.

Cage’s approach is too ridiculous to find offensive, but too serious to throw out as mere shtick. He rests in the strange nether realm between taking himself too seriously (Tom Cruise), and running a ruse to the finish ( Joaquin Phoenix).

Love him or hate him, without Cage there would be no Wild at Heart, no Adaptation, no Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, rare movies that portray an essential American weirdness. That Cage has continued to play the charlatan, troubled or not, clues us in to his curious success.

Ghost Rider 2 contains what might be my new all-time favorite line. Negotiating a rendezvous with the child of Satan, his single mom, and an alcoholic French Monk named Moreau (Idris Elba), Cage drawls, “Moreau just called, he says he’s gonna meet us on the road.” But Cage draws out the last syllable as rooad, rhyming it with “Moreau.”

The moreau-d. A hilarious and totally meaningless moment, impossible with any other actor, in any other movie. or too long the mainstream has shunned these pregnant moments of possibility.

ADRIAN RANDALL B’12 reads Balzac like he plays Super Metroid.

GREG’S BILLION DOLLAR MOVIE REVIEW

by Greg Nissan

A

sincere review of Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie would be pointless. The duo’s absurd sense of humor—resistant to any traditional notion of plot yet pre-potty-trained, a parody of second-rate consumerism and the perennial dick joke—is singular in its unrelenting satire of humor itself combined with the most revolting sounds and sights imaginable.

The soundtrack to the show sounds like someone eating an egg salad sandwich over elevator music. For every diehard fan, there are at least two people who despise Tim and/or Eric. The only major difference between the sketch comedy TV show and this movie is the actual idea of plot, albeit a loose one. The story shows Tim and Eric as suntanned, diamond-studded Hollywood big shots whose first movie is a huge failure.

Due to a bad contract, they flee town so as not to have to repay the film’s producers the one billion dollars they were allotted to make the film. When they see Will Ferrell advertise a job in his mall as a surefire way to earn a quick billion, they leave at once to clear their name and rebuild the Swallow Valley mall. Antics ensue.

Fans will like this movie, and h8rz gonna h8, so rather than review the film, I will recommend who should see it based on each potential viewer’s favorite movie.

If your favorite movie is...

GLADIATOR This one’s for you—gruesome violence ( John C. Reilly, not in his usual T&E role as Dr. Steve Brule but as a diseased, shantydwelling mall enthusiast “Taquito,” gets shot more than three times), your mom won’t like it (“Russell was wonderful but I just hate to imagine my child fighting in a silly game like that!”), and it features not one but two of our generation’s leading men who have been snubbed by the Academy Awards after winning Best Actor the previous year (please fact check).

THE BLIND SIDE You’re going to LOVE it! A heavy dose of shit (plot, writing, and acting in The Blind Side; actual feces in Tim and Eric) and a ridiculous premise. While Tim and Eric squander a billion dollars on a spiritual coach, the pony-tailed Zach Galifianakis whom they pay a half million dollars per week, and a three minute movie starring a Johnny Depp lookalike, Sandra Bullock pretends to be a respectable actress.

THE NOTEBOOK I know what you’re going to ask. Is it a good date movie? Why yes, it is! Throw an arm around your significant other as Tim Heidecker gets pegged by a middleaged woman who sells celebrity balloon lookalikes. Sneak a peck on the cheek as Eric Wareheim kisses Taquito as he coughs up blood and raw meat. And, Ryan Gosling!

SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK Any fan of Charlie Kaufman will find endless interest in Tim and Eric’s metaphysical meditation on reality, its commercial embodiment, and the multiplicity of self-perspective. A few times during the film, the action stops, and a segment—“Understanding Your Movie”— begins, in which anonymous actors explain how Tim and Eric demonstrate proper business etiquette in the film. Through this interruption of a linear yet absurd plot, the duo seems to ask: how is the already-divided self pitted against its embodiments in different spheres and media? How does the viewer interpret the dissolving of the fifthwall through the mutual gaze of author and viewer? Are the absurd and the real dialectic elements to be synthesized into art, or does the combination of the two result in the annihilation of both? What?

HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY That’s your favorite movie? Really? You’re definitely weird enough to enjoy Tim and Eric.

MARCH OF THE PENGUINS You know what you’ll be doing Saturday night, penguin lover. What’s cuter than a penguin with its young? How about Tim Heidecker using the son he stole from the mall’s janitor as a human shield in a Tarantino-esque showdown at the end of the movie? Or Steven Spielberg’s adorable cameo? Spoiler alert: he’s wearing a baseball cap. Bring your kids, but fair warning—they might just love you too much by the end of it.

Now that you’ve got the facts, it’s time to make an educated decision. Should I see Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie right now, or should I wait until Parents’ Weekend?

GREG NISSAN B’15 is a diseased, shantydwelling mall enthusiast.

PA R T I R E P E R M O R I R E

PA R T I R E P E R M O R I R E

PA R T I R E P E R M O R I R E

The Scalabrinan Order L eaves Rhode Island

by Grace D unham

O

n April 7th, Father Charles Zanoni will have been a priest for fifty years.

The son of Italian immigrants, he was born in Melrose Park, just outside Chicago.

When his parents emigrated from Italy in 1920, the Priest at his local parish, also an Italian, gave his dad a job digging graves at the church cemetery. When the Depression hit, his dad didn’t lose his job. The Italian priest had promised that no matter what, he would never turn away an Italian man who had a wife and children to care for. This priest was a Scalabrinian. Because of him, Father Zanoni became a Scalabrinian too.

The Scalabrinians, officially known as the Congregation of the Missionaries of St. Charles, are a Catholic order—meaning that, like the more widely known Franciscans or Dominicans, they are a religious organization within the Catholic Church defined by its own traditions and objectives. The Scalabrinians were founded in Italy in 1887 at a time of massive Italian emigration, with the aim of assisting Italian migrants both spiritually and materially in their transition to the New World. Soon after their founding, the first Scalabrinian Missionaries were sent to Boston and New York, where the largest Italian immigrant communities in America were rapidly expanding. They arrived in Providence in 1889. By 1920, when Rhode Island had the highest percentage of Italian-born residents of any state in America, the Scalabrinian Fathers staffed six of Rhode Island’s nine ethnically Italian Catholic Churches. This spring, the Scalabrinians will say goodbye to two of their three remaining parishes here.

One of these two churches is St. Rocco’s, where Father Zanoni has been for the last nine years. Established in 1903 as one of Rhode Island’s original Scalabrinian Parishes,

St. Rocco’s is in Johnston, which—with over 45% of its residents claiming Italian heritage—is the most Italian-American municipality in the country. Before St. Rocco’s, Father Zanoni worked in Toronto, and then in New York City and Washington D.C. In Toronto, the majority of the parishioners were first-generation Italians who had fled WWII after their towns were destroyed by bombs. St. Rocco’s—despite its overwhelmingly Italian community—has very different demographics: Italian-Americans who, for the most part, overcame the hurdles of “integration” two, three, even four generations ago.

With no more Italian migrants in need of spiritual guidance, the Scalabrinians have expanded their scope. Today, there are Scalabrinian ministries in 35 countries and five continents. In Mexico, Venezuela, Columbia, Haiti, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam the Scalabrinians have established vocations to educate priests who will do for their countrymen what the first Scalabrinians once did for the Italians. Father Zanoni doesn’t know where he’ll be going when he leaves Rhode Island in July, but wherever it is, it won’t be like Johnston.

By the year 1900, 8 million Italians had emigrated from Italy and 4 million of those had gone to America. Though one-sixth of Americans already identified as Catholic, Irish clergy largely controlled the church. Despite sharing their Roman Catholic Faith, Irish and Italian religious traditions often differed to the point of animosity. In the eyes of the Irish, Italian Catholicism—with its elaborate and often decadent feasts and festivals—verged on the folkloric. As more Italians arrived in America, gathering in centralized and

homogenous communities, they encountered not only widespread racial discrimination but also a religious environment devoid of cultural security.

After an epiphany in a Milan train station, John Baptist Scalabrini—then Bishop of Piacenza—became deeply invested in the spiritual welfare of these Italians immigrant communities. As the story goes, the masses of migrants huddled in the station’s vast waiting room triggered a profound missionary urge in Scalabrini: “Thousands upon thousands of our brothers live defenseless in another country,” he wrote in his 1887 book, Italian Migration in America, “Objects of exploitation that is often unpunished, without the comfort of a friendly word, then I confess that I blush with shame, I feel humiliated as a priest and as an Italian, and I ask myself again: what can be done to help them?” In November of 1887, with the approval and encouragement of Pope Leo XIII, Bishop Scalabrini founded the Congregation of the Missionaries of St. Charles and in 1888, Bishop Scalabrini recruited his first ten missionaries to send to America.

In Rhode Island, the Italian population had been growing exponentially: records in 1850 showed 25 Italian-born residents; by 1900, there were almost 10,000. And so in 1889, with the approval of Rev. Matthew Harkins, the Irish-American Bishop of Providence, a group of Italian immigrants established Rhode Island’s first ethnically Italian parish—the Church of the Holy Ghost.

Recognizing the need for spiritual leaders in the Italian community, Bishop Harkins wrote to the Scalabrinians. As the Italian community continued to expand, Rev. Harkins established nine more Italians parishes­­—six of them staffed by Scalabrinians.

On October 19th of 1901, Bishop Scalabrini came to Providence for the consecration of the site of what was to be the new church of the Holy Ghost on the Western-most edge of Federal Hill, built to accommodate the growing parish. Scalabrini’s time in Providence was just one stop on his American tour: in 100 days, he gave 340 speeches and confirmed more than 22,000 people in similarly Italian enclaves across the Northeast and Midwest. On his third and final day in Providence, Bishop Scalabrini confirmed 536 children. Mass was so crowded that worshippers poured out onto Atwells Avenue.

Come July, St. Bartholomew’s, in Silver Lake, will be Rhode Island’s only remaining Scalabrinian Parish. When Arthur Urbano—a professor of Theology at Providence College— was growing up in Silver Lake in the 1980s, St. Bartholomew’s was the center of his and his family’s world. His grandmother, who is 96, lives two blocks away from the house where she was born and has worshipped at St. Bartholomew’s for her entire life.

For most of the 20th century, Silver Lake was a predominantly Italian-American neighborhood. Urbano’s family has been there since the 1890s—his grandfather, who was a third generation Italian-American, claims his grandfather (Arthur’s great-great-grandfather) was the second Italian to arrive there. “As an elementary school student I thought the whole world was Italian,” said Urbano. “Everyone I knew was, so I thought everyone else had to be too.”

But Urbano’s Silver Lake was decidedly different than the Silver Lake of his grandparents’, let alone that of his great-

grandparents. By the 1980s, the Italian community in Silver Lake—and the rest of Rhode Island—was no longer a fundamentally immigrant one. “I would never think of the Scalabrinians helping me to integrate into American society,” said Urbano, “I looked at them more as bringing me into contact with my Italian heritage.”

The Church planned weekly Italian dinners and held the festival of St. Bartholomew every August—Urbano recalls fireworks, huge crowds, and a procession that marched through the streets carrying a giant statue of the saint. If the Scalabrinians had once been facilitators of integration, they had now become the guardians of tradition.

As the challenges of integration became a fact of the past, Italian-Americans also began to leave Silver Lake for places like Johnston and Cranston—safe suburban towns with bigger and more expensive homes. In the early 90s, immigrants from Latin America started moving in. In 1990, 43 percent of Silver Lake claimed Italian Ancestry and 7 percent of Silver Lake identified as Hispanic. By 2000, 42 percent of Silver Lake identified as Hispanic. As the demographics of the neighborhood changed, so did the demographics at St. Bartholomew’s. In 1999, after census data revealed that 80 percent of residents in the area surrounding St. Bartholomew’s were Hispanic, Father Joseph Pranzo spearheaded efforts to create a Hispanic ministry within the church. He started offering Mass in Spanish and helped create a center to aid Hispanic immigrants in finding jobs, learning English, and getting citizenship training. At St. Bartholomew’s, the Scalabrinians were doing for Hispanic immigrants what they had done for Italian

immigrants nearly a century earlier.

The most difficult part of this initiative was mediating the tension between Hispanic members of the church and the ItalianAmerican families who had been there from the start. When Hispanic parishioners wanted to participate in the procession for the festival of St. Bartholomew, Italian parishioners resisted. “I told them they had to welcome them into our Parish the way our Italian ancestors had not been welcomed into the Catholic Church,” Father Pranzo said, “I told them, if you don’t accept them, say goodbye to the Scalabrinians.”

This year at St. Rocco’s—the church where Father Zanoni will celebrate his fifty-year anniversary—a dispute broke out between the Clergy and the city government when Johnston refused to let a Hispanic soccer league continue playing a weekend tournament in the field behind the church.

Residents had expressed concern about possibility of illegal immigrants; some cited a fear of drugs and others claimed to have seen players pull their pants down and urinate on the field. Father Mario Antonio Titto, the Italian-born priest who runs the Scalabrinian Center connected to St. Bartholomew’s, was kicked out of the Mayor’s office when he showed up to protest. The city refused to let the soccer tournament continue unless the Church paid $600 per weekend and agreed to let a police detail watch the field at all times. Neither Father Zanoni nor Father Mario can reconcile that fact that this battle is occurring in a predominantly Italian-American area. “For me it is quite disturbing, the fact that many people who were discriminated against in the past are part of the American mainstream and forget their own history,” Said Father Mario.

“Once I was bringing a Guatemalan boy to the hospital who injured himself playing soccer…he called his mother and he was speaking to her in Quetchua…we are saying that these people do not belong here… and he is speaking a language that was here before Christopher Columbus! If you speak English, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, you brought this language here from Europe.

And yet we say this boy doesn’t belong here.”

Provincial Father Matteo Didone, who presides over the Scalabrinians’ Eastern Province (the region extending from Canada, through the East Cost of United States, and down to Haiti, Columbia, and Venezuela), was ultimately responsible—with the approval of the Scalabrinian general administration in Rome—for the decision to let go of the two churches in Rhode Island. “Migrants do not stay in one place,” Said Father Didone, “If we want to settle down we should not be Scalabrinians. We Scalabrinians should be without a suitcase in our hands, always ready to go where the migrants are calling.”

Migrants, it seems, are calling in churches like St. Vincent’s, the “multi-ethnic Parish” in Florida where Father Pranzo went after establishing the Hispanic ministry at St. Bartholomew’s. At St. Vincent’s, there are English-speaking, Spanish-speaking, and Portuguese-speaking parishioners.

Father Pranzo conducts masses in all three languages and works with Scalabrinians from Central America and Brazil. Multi-ethnic churches like St. Vincent’s are the future of the Scalabrinian Mission.

When Father Zanoni leaves Rhode Island, he’ll leave behind a fellow priest—in

his 80’s—who he’s cared for since he joined St. Rocco’s nine years ago. This priest has lived in Johnston his entire life and only speaks Italian and English. Within the scope of the new Scalabrinian Mission, there won’t be a place for him much longer. Among the Scalabrinians, there is undoubtedly a divide between priests who came of age serving homogenous Italian-American communities, and those now entering into priesthood.

The math is simple: church attendance is declining in Italy and rising in Southeast Asia. A younger and more diversified population is the future of the not just the Scalabrinian ministry, but the Catholic Church as a whole.

“There is a shortage of priests,” Father Didone said, “Just as there is in the Universal church. And so you look around and you see what you must do.” This is why the Scalabrinians will remain at a Hispanic church like St. Bartholomew’s, in Silver Lake, and not at St. Rocco’s, in Johnston. It is a matter of priorities. The Scalabrinians are leaving Rhode Island so that they can survive. “In Italian,” Father Mario said, “When we leave a Church, we say partire per morire—when you leave you die. You have to learn everything new. New streets. To start all over is hard. But that is part of life.”

GRACE DUNHAM B’14 always has a suitcase, maybe even a U-Haul.

opinions

16 march 2012

O U I S R E W T S

S AY

MY

12

The Evolutionary Matrix, Its God Program, and Why a Neo-Atheist Movement to Eliminate Faith in God is Unethical and Probably Futile

by Stephen Olson Illustration by Timothy Nassau

P

eople treat faith in God and acceptance of evolutionary theory as though the two beliefs were fundamentally incompatible. But what if evolution served to justify that very faith that evolution is used to dismiss? Evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazowa said, “Humans are evolutionarily designed to be paranoid, and they believe in God because they are paranoid.”

Consider an Olympic figure skater who touches each judge’s chair three times before he performs, and will have a panic attack if he doesn’t. However, if he touches the chairs three times and goes on to win a gold medal, he attributes his success to his faith in touching chairs. A prayer said by another athlete before a competition or game may have the same effect. Attribution theory suggests that individuals develop causal theories to explain the world around them, including explanations on which they have no actual knowledge. This act of story telling, of linking success to faith, is perhaps one of the reasons humans have succeeded thus far.

Humans are products of millions of years of fierce natural selection pressures. Just as the human heart evolved to be a heart and is very good at being a heart, though little

else, the human mind evolved via selection pressures over millions of years to a level of consciousness. The human mind likely achieved consciousness because it facilitated what humans were already good at doing without it. For the vast majority of human history, we were hunters and gatherers, often one to ten days away from starvation. The presence of a human’s 100 trillion cells is impetus for consciousness to favor whatever benefits these cells the most. Humans who survive a critical, novel situation tend to make up a causal theory to explain that success, even though this phenomenon isn’t necessarily rational or conscious. The unconscious brain might attribute the fact that they prayed that morning as the cause of their survival.

As humans continued to evolve at nature’s slow pace relative to technology’s development, humans became increasingly mismatched from the environment in which they had evolved to survive. Imagine a scenario as hunter-gatherers thousands of years ago. In this state, having a taste for McDonald’s balance of salt, fat, and sweet would have been beneficial. High calorie foods were rare and hard to find at the time. The satisfaction we get from eating

pleasurable foods is both nature’s trick and actually satisfying. So is praying. This neither makes McDonald’s good for us, nor provides empirical evidence of God’s existence. It is fine to eat McDonald’s in moderation, and the act of prayer may give similar emotional support. Just because something feels good doesn’t mean it’s good for us.

Just because we say to ourselves that faith in God contributes to our success doesn’t make God real. But if faith is real enough to a human’s consciousness to succeed through the toughest odds, then it’s probably evolutionarily adaptive to have this ability to attribute success to a person’s faith.

Science and religion are both flawed, as both are forms of inductive reasoning, which is in itself flawed. Philosopher David Hume’s “Principle of the Uniformity of Nature” posits that the only reason to believe that science will continue to work today is because it has worked in the past. As in: we have faith that the sun will rise tomorrow because it rose yesterday, and the day before that. In this way, Hume might say that accepting scientific findings is a faith that the scientific laws in operation today will be in operation tomorrow, but only because they were in operation yesterday. This

requires faith.

But here’s where scientific and religious inductive reasoning part ways: religious inductive reasoning relies on faith in its arguments’ premises. Science uses empirical evidence as its arguments’ premises and seeks out postulated causes for phenomena.

Evolution is both a fact and a scientific theory. The fact is that we can observe evolution’s mechanics in laboratories and daily life. The theory is simply an explanation for why the fact of evolution occurs in the first place.

It is futile to attack religion while upholding science in the same breath. They are different conversations. Religion and science approach questions and answers so differently, that it’s absurd to think that one should be used to debate the other.

STEPHEN OLSON B’13.5 is evolved.

sports 13

the college hill independent

What’s —the deal with—

SPORTS

by David Scofield Illustration by Allison Clark This week the Indy sports editor sent out a request for sports questions from Brown students.

The questions came flooding in. Here are some of the best.

Dear Indy Sports, why does March Madness always seem to have a “Cinderella Story” while other tournaments don’t?

-Katie Cohen, ‘13 Some say that the squeaky shoes of nervous little teams give them an intense psychological advantage over the big schools. Others say that the abundance of canine mascots has inflated the public appreciation for scrappiness. The underdog definitely provides the most Pillsbury-soft faces necessary for a Final Four appearance. For a richer response to this question, I turn to Abraham Lincoln’s meditation on Niagara Falls.

Lincoln said there was no mystery to how a big plunge onto sharp rocks produced a lot of rainbows.

Dear Indy Sports, why does the Indy only care about sissy thoughts on sissy sports? When will you take your characteristic snark and pizzazz to America’s #1 darling: football?

-Josh Sunderman, ‘14 Football is in the off-season.

Dear Indy Sports, why do men think about baseball when trying to lose an erection?

-Adrian Nadeau, ‘15 I believe the practice of focusing on baseball to avoid arousal is analogous with the practice of saving receipts from credit and debit card transactions. If you focus on storing the receipts in a small leather fanny pack and you highlight the important numbers, life becomes simpler. You can withdraw from the relentless bombardment of bugs and radiation and honking cars. However, I’m not so sure if this is typical method for arousal eradication. When I consulted Yahoo!

Answers with your question, a user named “dreamy” told me, “It does not work.” So give it up, men.

Dear Indy Sports, if all the American cities had to switch their teams (i.e. basketball players play hockey and hockey players play baseball, etc.), who would win each major sporting competition?

-Theodore Baker, ‘15 My uncle named this situation the “hummingbird piano.” The name refers to the common musical dilemma in which a hummingbird gets trapped in a piano, and then the quality of the instrument relies on the bird’s activity.

Ever since the Detroit Tigers picked up Prince Fielder, I’ve been saying that they are a shoo-in for the Stanley Cup. Honey, put a hot towel around your neck and watch Prince Fielder at bat. Fielder is one of the biggest swingers in the League and a cinderblock at first base. Nothing could get

by Fielder in a hockey net. And if he got a stick on the puck he would send that puck to the other goal faster than a puma on a stack of pancakes. Fielder has also flirted with vegetarianism, the dietary equivalent of a hockey game.

The Major League Soccer Cup clearly belongs to the New York Knicks. For the past few years, MLS fans have grown very fond of the terms “rebranding” and “expansion.” When the Dallas Burn changed its name to FC Dallas, soccer enthusiasts clapped at the clarity. The New York Knicks also excel at adjusting their identity. For a decade they win, then they’re abysmal, then they get a new star, then he’s out, then they pick a licentious team president, then he’s out, and then they luck into a new poster boy. Just this past Wednesday, the Knicks fired another head coach, Mike D’Antoni.

Much like adjustments to Major League Soccer, the net gain of all this team motion is low. By the time the Knicks finish the MLS Cup playoffs, the sight of their Mr. Potato Head franchise will be far more interesting than the outcome of the championship.

The victors of the World Series are difficult to predict. MLB teams got a special thing going: they know how to hang out.

They can hem and haw for weeks on end.

They still refer to their organizations as “clubhouses.” Taking these tired characterizations of the game as the truth, the football players of Tampa Bay Buccaneers would be picture-perfect World Series winners. The Bucs kept the same helmet logo for twenty years of abysmal performance, and they have a life-size statue of their old fullback Mike Alstott in the lobby of their training camp. The Bucs have the requisite sense of tradition and proper stagnation that baseball loves about itself.

As for the Iditarod, the thousand-mile Alaskan dog sled race, I think it’s clear that any team under the direction of WNBA star Cappie Pondexter has got it in the bag.

Dear Indy Sports, what qualifies David Scofield to be a sports columnist?

-Jennifer Popp, ‘12 I hear you Jen, waving your torch and pitchfork at the gate of my sports fortress.

I’m sliding down the editor’s marble banister with my credentials in hand. I began training to edit the sports section in the sixth grade.

During winter gym that year, I broke my arm in a dog pile and could not play on the baseball team in the spring. But I dressed for the team anyway and learned the fundamentals of observing sports.

The team was a mixture of budding allstars, ruffians, and athletic misfits. The allstars went home and threw with Dad every night. Then Dad sat behind the catcher and wore impenetrable sunglasses. Then Dad’s car was always the farthest one away in the parking lot after the game, and the players, during their march across the weedy lot, could think about every throw and that one ground ball that skipped between the legs.

The ruffians showed me that even in the midst of a precision-dependent game there was a need for reckless conduct. The ruffians complained when they didn’t get the position they wanted, they got called out stealing third after hitting a double, and they mocked everyone from the dugout. These guys were destined to be the high school athletes who took shots of hard liquor before a game.

Their behavior prevented a unified team mentality, and it was awesome. No one gave better Dave Chapelle impersonations on the bus ride back. Without ruffians, baseball would be indistinguishable from yoga.

From the misfits I learned the art of living from one practice to the next. One day these players might stun the team with a whack in the batting cages. The next day they were sprinting endlessly around left field as they dropped fly balls and the assistant coach shouted, “Jesus! Tanner, does your Mom know you can see as well as a baby possum?”

These poor souls knew they would always be a liability for the team, but they couldn’t just drink Capri Sun at home. This type of player is still an influential element at the professional level. Some, such as figure skater/ former boxer Tonya Harding, struggle to sustain success over a long period of time, but their tumble from one performance to the next keeps the masses interested.

In short, I believe that you can learn almost as much about sports while watching and blowing dust off your bifocal lenses as you can while brushing clay from your trousers after a slide.

DAVID SCOFIELD B’13 is leaving silent voicemails for his old coaches.

14 interviews

16 march 2012

ADVICE ON ADVICE

by Erica Schwiegershausen Illustrations by Robert Sandler

by Rachel Benoit

In a world where people can turn to Yahoo!Answers, wikiHow, and Cleverbot for third party advice, traditional newspaper advice columns may seem somewhat archaic.

Indeed, today there are only a handful of prominent advice columnists left in the country, and they are in high demand, receiving close to 300 emails and day and, in some cases, up to 200 letters a week. The Independent spoke with Amy Dickinson, the author of the Chicago Tribune syndicated advice column “Ask Amy,” which runs weekly in over 200 newspapers nationwide; Emily Yoffe, who writes Slate’s “Dear Prudence” online advice column; and Robin Abrahams, who writes the “Miss Conduct” column for The Boston Globe.

Dickinson took up her column in 2003 after a career in more traditional journalism—writing for Time Magazine, producing for NBC News, freelancing for the New York Times and the Washington Post.

As a journalist for Slate, and previously The New Republic, Yoffe claims that she hardly envisioned herself as an advice columnist. Yet, she said, “The job opened up and I just thought, hey, I’m kind of a Yenta, I’ll apply for this job.”

Abrahams echoed Yoffe’s right-placeright-time sentiment. She was giving a presentation of her dissertation on the psychology of storytelling when an editor from the Globe approached her with a job offer. Though an unexpected turn, Abrahams said she barely had to think about it; she had always envied Lucy’s five-cent psychiatric advice booth from Peanuts.

The Independent: How do you see the role and responsibilities of an advice columnist?

Prudence: I was very lucky to have a crappy childhood; that was good preparation.

I’ve had a lot of failed romances and then ended up, much to my shock, having a happy marriage and becoming a mother and finding how fulfilling that was, so I think I bring all those kind of experiences to bear on the column.

Amy: I’m not a clinician.

I’m not trained, I’m not a social worker, and I think there’s a reason that advice columnists traditionally are not. My viewpoint is 100% authentic. Does it mean I am 100% correct?

Not necessarily, but it’s totally honest, it’s very authentic, and it comes from me.

I’ve been very influenced by other advice columnists who came before me. It’s like their voice gets in your head, just like my mom’s voice in my head, or Ann Landers or Dear Abby. I think that over time I have developed this reasonable, respectful voice that’s kind of funny, kind of quirky, and my hope is that my voice would sort of get into someone’s head when they’re in a jam…well, what would Amy do?

I remember meeting Heloise who writes “Hints from Heloise,” which is a column that’s been going for more than 60 years [in Good Houskeeping]. This woman inherited it from her mother, and these women have been suggesting uses for white vinegar for 60 years. She said something to me and I just started to sob. She said, “you know what? There are like six people in the country who do what we do.”

Miss Conduct: I’m a bossy person. I’ve

always found telling other people what to do a really natural way of expressing my love for them. I have a doctorate in research psychology, with a background in theater, writing, and bureaucracy, and stand-up comedy. Obviously no advice columnist is going to be omniscient, but the more experience you can have, the better. Ideally what an advice column can do is to give people some tools to analyze their own problems in a dispassionate way and from a diversity of perspectives. If I thought that my role was to give you the perfectly correct answer, I would lose my mind.

I’m not sending a fact-checking team out there to see if your mother in law is really as annoying or if your coworker crunches broccoli as loud as you say he does. However, if I give you an answer and you think, “That’s partly right” or “I could do that,” or even “Oh my God, she’s completely wrong but this is why”, then I feel like I’ve succeeded.

Indy: Do you ever feel conflicted about what advice to give?

Prudence: Sometimes I’m very clear. Sometimes I’m not, and I’ll get lots of pushback and think the other way to go is very legitimate, maybe even more so. A woman wrote in who was married, and who had, during the course of her marriage, a brief affair with a coworker; she ended up pregnant. The coworker said, “Whatever you want to do—you want me to disappear in the sunset, that’s fine; you want me to step up, that’s fine, your choice”—and so far she hasn’t told. She said the guilt, the possibility of discovery was tearing her up.

I almost always am in favor of the truth, but on this one I said, “You need to find a way to let go of this.” If she absolutely knew the husband wasn’t the father, telling still seemed to me like a big disruption for no gain. I got a lot of negative response to that and I really understood because I think the people who said, “No, you gotta tell the truth” had a very legitimate point.

Indy: Have you ever hesitated as to whether or not a letter is made up?

Amy: I remember my first day, when my editors and I were sort of sitting there and saying, “What if nobody writes in; what will we do for material?” And I looked around the newsroom and said, “Well, this looks like a pretty screwed up bunch. We can always ask the staff to send some in.” And of course it never came to that. It turns out that if you throw this party, people will definitely come.

I have been flooded with questions ever since that first day.

So, no columnist should ever have to invent a question. In terms of readers making up questions, I think it is inevitable that some readers do this. It is actually a sort of tried-and-true way to get published.

(I remember a friend from college bragging that his fake letter was published in the Ann Landers column. He later went on to have a very successful career as a screenwriter.) I think that fake letters are inevitable and I don’t worry about them the way that I used to. If the issue is valid I think it’s okay.

Prudence: I had a recent question that I thought, this is a first and only. It was from a guy in his late 30s who was a twin and he and his twin brother were in an incestuous homosexual relationship. He said that they’d been together for years and they were very happy but they were having a conflict over whether or not to tell their family. Part of me thought, “Oh, come on, this is made up.”

interviews 15

the college hill independent

People actually wrote in and said, “This letter is fake.” But this country has more than 300 million people in it, and I truly believe there is a happy incestuous homosexual twin couple out there.

Rather amazingly, after that letter ran, I got an email from a young woman who thanked me because she is in an incestuous lesbian relationship with her twin sister.

They had thought that they were the only people in the world, and now they felt much better about themselves. And, because I couldn’t help myself, I did a little Googling, and I was able to confirm that she is a twin, so I think it’s legit. So, there are at least two such couples. Maybe it’s sweeping the nation.

My favorite type of question is the one where you think, “Oh my god, who could make this up, it’s amazing!” People are always accusing me of making up letters. I never make up a letter—why would I have to make up a letter? I’m not a novelist; I’m not that creative. How would I come up with some of these situations? One like that was a divorced middle aged man with grown kids; he had moved into a new house a few years ago. He was in his fifties and there was a couple in their thirties with a young son who lived next door and they all really hit it off— and I mean really hit it off—and now they’re a threesome. This guy’s grown son had lost his job and was married and had kids and needed to move in with the father, and the father wanted to know whether to tell his son about the situation. There’s no way I’m going to come up with that scenario.

Indy: Can you think of the most difficult question you’ve ever received?

Prudence: I got a letter from a woman who had a ten-year-old daughter who was the result of rape. Her daughter had been asking, “Who’s my dad, why don’t I know my dad?” Her family had said to say he’s dead. She said, “I don’t feel right saying that.” I knew this was an absolutely great letter, but I had no idea what to answer.

I turned to a psychologist at Yale, Alan Kazdin, who really helped me. Basically he said in situations like this parents get very worried that they have to tell the entire story to a child who may not be ready to absorb the information, and oftentimes what a kid is saying is, “Can we talk about this? Is this something I can ask about?” And so with his help I gave an answer saying, “You can give an age appropriate response to your child, something like, “Ideally a child comes when a mom and dad fall in love and get married, but it doesn’t always happen that way—you know, you have friends who don’t have two parents—and it didn’t happen that way for me. It’s kind of complicated and I think you’re going to understand more when you’re older.”

Indy: Are there questions that you refuse to answer?

Amy: There are questions that are just not appropriate for newspapers. I don’t take fetish questions, for instance. I’m also aware that my column runs opposite the comics page, and I consider it to be a column that should be read by everyone from eight years old up through, and so I deal with sexual issues but I don’t deal with what I would consider to be serious deviancy. It’s just not the right space for it.

Prudence: I’m not Dan Savage; I don’t get as into sexual specifics.

I’ve answered questions about the overly masturbating husband and that kind of stuff—but that’s not my regular fare.

Miss Conduct: There are topics that I just won’t do anymore: annoying people in the next cubicle. There is always going to be someone in the next cubicle who

is doing something annoying. There’s really not much you can do once you’ve given that advice once: politely ask, make sure that you’re not doing anything annoying to them, get headphones, blah, blah. There’s just no way of keeping that one fresh. Also, it’s hard to get wedding questions past me anymore.

The questions are often so much about an aggrieved sense of entitlement on either side, and I really don’t want the column to turn into the petulant groan fest of people complaining how nobody today has any manners. I want it to be more constructive and problem solving.

Indy: How do you view the entertainment value of your column, and how do you reconcile that with the fact that you are providing personal advice?

Amy: I realize that these columns do have entertainment value, in that there is a tendency to enjoy it when someone else is a doofus. I understand this and occasionally run letters that I know readers will find entertaining. An example of this is when a woman wrote to me recently that she was having an affair with a married co-worker, but then she was also engaged in a relationship with another guy, but he was long-distance and she was trying to figure out which of these two men held the most promise for the best relationship for her. So obviously this is an awesome letter because the woman is completely unconcerned about the effect of her behavior on other people. In her life, she gets to make choices in a vacuum. And sometimes a letter is straightforward but gives me an opportunity to try to write an entertaining answer.

I guess the rise of shows like “Intervention” and “Dr. Drew” illustrate that there is a genuine entertainment value in viewing someone else’s problem or personal issue and observing the way this issue is dealt with by an objective outsider. I don’t think of this as disrespectful; I think of this as a very natural human curiosity. And I assume people are reading my column for all sorts of reasons, including those times when they find the letters “entertaining.”

Prudence: An advice column must be entertaining and intriguing or fun to read or else it doesn’t get enough readers and the readers don’t send in enough questions. Part of its entertainment value is the window it offers into sometimes very private, intimate problems that others are going through.

Humans are fascinated by the human condition, and advice columns give us a special peek into it.

Indy: If you were going to write to an advice columnist, what would you ask?

Amy: This is a question from an E.M. Forster book, I think it’s from Howards End. It’s the question I’ve always had, [that has] never been answered: How do you make love stay? That’s a question I would love to hear an answer to.

Miss Conduct: How do you get comfortable being photographed and learn how to make a photogenic face?

Prudence: How do I get my husband, who has promised he would scoop the litter box without my reminding him, to do it, without my reminding him?

ERICA SCHWIEGERSHAUSEN B’13 doesn’t know better.

16 food

16 march 2012

UNCANNY

A Guide to Preserving

by Tara Kane Illustration by Diane Zhou Here are a few recipes to get you started.

Marinara Makes 7-8 quarts The secret to an incredible marinara is the tomatoes. And it takes a lot of them (I mean way a lot) so it is important you pick the right ones. Find a farmer with a good variety of heirloom tomatoes—they are worth the extra cost. These will start popping up in Rhode Island in just a month or two. The red of the tomatoes should be saturated and deep. Most importantly, a really good tomato smells slightly sweet, juicy, and something like the perfect Italian red sauce it will soon become. If you do not have access to succulent heirlooms, don’t worry— fresh vine-ripe tomatoes are still worth canning, and can be compensated for with a little spicing.

35 pounds of tomatoes, diced. If you get the seconds—not as pretty, but just as tasty— from a local farmer, this should cost about $30.

2 onions, diced 4 cloves of garlic, peeled Salt For a spiced sauce: ½ tbs thyme ½ tbs oregano ½ tbs basil or 1 tsp. cumin 1. Cook onions and garlic over low heat until onions are translucent. Add herbs if making a spiced sauce.

E

ven with a winter as mild as this last one, by late February I want nothing more than fresh food. I start dreaming about juicy tomatoes that taste like a lazy summer afternoon, basil, sweet baby lettuce, lemon cucumbers, peas, and apples that are neither mealy nor from halfway across the world. I enjoy spices and sauces and am liberal with salt but I miss fruit and veggies that explode in my mouth with the slight taste of dew and unadulterated sun. Recently, I discovered that there is a way to stretch out seasonal delights: canning.

While for many people home canning seems like a throwback to 1950s housewifery, it has made a comeback with the growth of urban agriculture and the popularization of ‘fresh and local.” It’s a simple process that requires little and provides a great excuse for spending the day elbow-deep in nature’s bounty. Canned goods also make for economical—but nonetheless killer— gifts.

Canning Basics Canning involves filling jars with fresh foods and heating them to a temperature that destroys micro-organisms that cause food to spoil. During the heating process air is driven out of the jar, as it cools a vacuum seal is formed. Sometimes the seal doesn’t work, which just means you have to refrigerate the jar and eat its contents sooner rather than later.

Pressure canning— which requires a

special “pressure canner”—is necessary for canning meats, seafood, and dairy products. For fruits and most vegetables, a water bath method is used. In this method, preservation is achieved by immersing canning jars (with goodies inside) in boiling water. Timing varies depending on both the size of the jar and its contents.

You will need: glass canning jars, lids, and rings—available at hardware stores and online, a great big boiling pot, a large stew pot for cooking in, a large dish towel and small clean dish rag, tongs (to pull the jars out of boiling water), hot pads, cutting boards, knives, and time and some good tunes.

Canning jars (mason jars or bell jars) are made of a heavy glass and marked on the bottom. While they come in many sizes, wide-mouthed pint and quart jars are the most versatile. If kept in good condition, the jars and ring can be reused indefinitely. The second part of the lid— a metal disk with a rubber sealingband—can only be used once for canning purposes.

Preparation: The jars and lids have to be sterilized before use. To do this, pour boiling water into jars and rinse out thoroughly, making sure to get water on the threads and rim of each jar. Boil water in a small pot and put lids in for 2-3 minutes. Set out to dry while making the yummy things to put inside.

TARA KANE B’12.5 is sealed.

2. Add cubed tomatoes to the pot. With the pot uncovered, cook over medium to low heat, stirring occasionally, and let the tomatoes cook down until they have the consistency of marinara sauce (this may take upwards of 4 hours). Add salt to taste.

3. Preservation: Pour tomato sauce into sterilized canning jars leaving ½ inch of space below the brim. Wipe rim of jar so it is clean (this is really important), and then put lids on jars and screw rings on tightly.

4. Fill your big pot with enough water to just cover the lids of the jars. Bring water to a boil, and, using tongs, add as many jars as will fit without touching each other. Allow to boil for 20 minutes.

5. Sealing: Using tongs, take jars out of boiling water. This is the hardest part. Lay out a dishtowel on a solid surface and transfer jars from pot to surface, keeping jar straight and shaking as little as possible.

Loosen the ring of lid halfway and dry off excess water. Within a few minutes you should hear the lid pop, which means it has sealed—the “dimple” on the canning lid should be inverted. Re-tighten ring. If the seal doesn’t happen, oh well! Put the jar in the fridge and eat within a few days.

6. Repeat boiling and sealing with remaining jars.

7. Put jars on a shelf and open on a rainy day.

Salsa To make a glorious salsa, follow the same steps and proportions as for the marinara, except: add 2-3 more onions and several more cloves of garlic, several diced jalapeno or habanero peppers (depending on how spicy the peppers are and how much fire

your palate can take), and an additional 2 tsp. salt and 2 tsp. lemon juice or vinegar for each quart.

Applesauce Makes 17 pints Canning tomatoes is a way of preserving summer, but you can capture the taste of autumn, too.

First, pick your apples. While they are crispest after the first frost, old and slightly grainy apples are fine too. In fact, making applesauce is a perfect thing to do with middle of winter root-cellar remainders, or those seconds at the farmers market.

20 pounds of apples, cored and quartered 2 tsp salt 2 tsp sugar 2 tsp cinnamon 2 tsp nutmeg A few cloves, to taste 1. Put a little water in a big pot and throw in apples.

2. Stirring occasionally, cook uncovered on medium heat until you have the consistency of applesauce (up to 2 hours). If the sauce is getting too thick, just add a little water.

3. Add sugar and spices.

4. Follow basic canning steps for preservation. If you are making quart jars, leave jars in boiling water for 20 minutes. If you are using pints then you only need to leave them in for 15.

Apple Butter This is a finer version of applesauce that is heavenly on toast, waffles, and pancakes.

Follow the same process as applesauce except: peel apples, cook for about 30-40 minutes longer (until you really have mush), and then press apple mixture through a strainer to get a much smoother and more consistent spread. I suggest using small jam jars for this.

Pickled Onions If you can’t wait for summer or fall produce to start canning, picked onions are tasty year round on sandwiches, salads, and tacos.

2 large onions (I prefer red onions because they turn pink) A few cups of white vinegar 4 tbs sugar 2 tsp salt 1 tsp cayenne pepper (optional) (feel free to add other spices: cloves, bay leaves, chipotle powder, or juniper berries could all be good.)

1. Peal and slice two large onions into thin rings.

2. In a small saucepan, add the onion rings, spices, and enough vinegar to just cover the onions.

3. At high heat, bring the vinegar to a boil, and simmer for 30 seconds.

4. Turn off heat, and allow to cool on the stovetop.

5. Fill jars with the onions and pour in the vinegar mixture.

6. Preserve by boiling, as in the marinara recipe.

literary 17

the college hill independent

FOUR EXERCISES IN TRANSLATION

by Gillian Brassil [one]

[three]

A father and a daughter sit outside eating cheese off a wooden board. They both see a girl with long dark hair and large brown eyes who looks like a tiny Italian movie star. The father and the daughter look at each other and remark on how beautiful she is.

また、 「飾りボタン」 として 装飾目的のみ、あるいは

A fatherland and a dauphin sit outside eating cheesesteak off a wooden boardingschool. They both see a girlie-man with long dark hairdressing and large brown eyebrows who looks like a tiny Italian moving target. The fatherland and the dauphin look at each other and remark on how beautiful she is.

A fault and a davenport sit outside eating chemicals off a wooden boat. They both see a give-away with long dark hairstreaks and large brown eyesight who looks like a tiny Italian mozzarella. The fault and the davenport look at each other and remark on how beautiful she is.

I know an old man without a beard. He doesn’t shave it because it doesn’t grow.

The old man lives in Texas, where it gets so hot that bare feet against the ground make you dance, make you sweat. This old man mixed drinks in Vietnam. He fought communism perched on a barstool, pouring vodka and blue jokes into officers’ mouths.

In his cluttered office in his house in Texas sits a filing cabinet damning other people; he moonlights for the IRS. This old man has an old Scottish wife who eats marzipan and smokes, her voice a raspy knot.

Her brown arms and fingers are heavy with gold he has given her, her neck nearbearded with jewelry.

[two]

[four]

I The past tense, the last sign was the eye of the blackbird.

II Remembering how to move, a sack in which there are three blackbirds.

III The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds, flapping in place for thirty seconds.

IV We will have a family someday.

A man and a woman and a blackbird.

V Your tea the crabs The blackbird whistling Bones, teeth, toes.

VI Balloons filled with fire or notes inside.

The shadow of the blackbird fallen in a field.

VII My lips are moving Do you not see how the blackbird Your headphones are on.

VIII A rhyme you forgot or a story or a song but you know that the blackbird is involved, that it had a heartbeat.

IX When the blackbird flew out of sight, you could still hear it.

X At the sight of blackbirds, certain cities, a cup of tea— XI I thought I had given everything up for blackbirds.

XII 11:11, no wish, no red.

The blackbird must be flying.

XIII Your temple is warm where the blackbird sat.

1. The ladybugs flew into the lampshades and looped, shadow-bodies circling; they rounded lips of jars and upturned cups.

They tried but failed to brail-read the pages of my book with feet. Some died belly-up and browned against the hardwood floors. One drowned in our bathroom sink.

It wasn’t an infestation yet.

2. Ladybugs fly in the loop and lampshades, shadow agencies track, lipglass and glassware round. They tried, but my feet will not mark the pages of the book is read. A few blocks to the abdomen and a brown floor. Ended in the washbasin.

It was not the plague again.

[one] was transformed by using an n+7 activity: replacing each noun with the word (or closest noun) at the end of the column in the OED. [two] is a rendering of the Wallace Stevens poem “13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.”

I cut out all the lines without the word “blackbird” and replaced them with lines of my own; I used the originals as a guide for their meaning. [three] is a (true) story based on the ‘pictures’ of the Chinese characters. [four] consists of a paragraph that I wrote, and then that same paragraph run through Google Translate several times. First I translated it into Welsh (then back to English), then Hungarian (and back), Afrikaans (and back), and Hindi (and back). These languages have no particular significance except that I was trying to get as far away from English syntax as possible.

18 literary

16 march 2012

T R U F F L E S A LT S T I L L ST I N G S

by Scout Willis Illustration by Annika Finne

There was a boy named Tim whose dick smelled and tasted of the finest truffles Back home in Indiana those kids didn’t get it But he moved to New York City for college and soon foodie bitches were coming from miles around to get a piece of that action.

The intoxicating fungal funk in his pants helped him lay hipster hoes taking once a week classes at the Brooklyn branch of the Cordon Bleu Fuck buddies from the Food Network ‘til he was shouting, “PAIR ME WITH SOME POMME FRITES I AM A MOTHERFUCKING DELICACY!” But when he met Laura, the first girl he ever really loved Laura never outgrew the kids’ menu She was a plain pasta, margherita pizza, easy on the red sauce hold the basil, Chicken tenders every time she got the chance kind of girl He said, “It’s an acquired taste.”

She slapped him across the face and fled his apartment Devastated, Tim drank himself silly and stayed in bed for what seemed like weeks While a parade of sluts from Bon Appétit came to suck his cock.