The College Hill Independent: December 8, 2011

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

08 DECEMBER 2011 VOLUME XXIII ISSUE XI BROWN/RISD WEEKLY

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THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

WEEK IN HAIKUS Staff Collaboration

KNOCKING ON 11’S DOOR Grace Dunham

DONUTS Mimi Dwyer

ZINE

Arts Collaboration

A LITTLE INSIGHT Stephen Carmody, Chris Cohen

11 STOP

Michael Mount, Scout Willis

TOE TAGS Anonymous

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FROM THE EDITORS

Malcolm Burnley, Jordan Carter, Emma Whitford

OUR NEWS

David Adler, Erica Schwiegershausen

DTI

Becca Levinson, Rober Sandler

PIGGIN’ OUT Alex Ronan

11 BALLIN’ Chris Cohen

ZEN MASTER Alexandra Corrigan

11 SHOTS

Timothy Nassau, Matthew Weiss

FANTASIES Audrey Fox

THE ELEVENTH ISSUE.2011 MANAGING EDITORS Malcolm Burnley, Jordan Carter, Emma Whitford ∙ NEWS David Adler, Erica Schwiegershausen, Kate Welsh ∙ METRO Sam Adler-Bell,Grace Dunham, Caroline Soussloff ∙ OPINIONS Stephen Carmody ∙ FEATURES Belle Cushing, Mimi Dwyer, Max Wiggins ∙ INTERVIEWS Timothy Nassau ∙ ARTS Ana Alvarez, Eve Blazo, Emma Janaskie ∙ SCIENCE Ashton Strait, Joanna Zhang ∙ METABOLICS Chris Cohen ∙ LITERARY Michael Mount, Scout Willis ∙ OCCULT Alexandra Corrigan ∙ X PAGE Rachel Benoit, Audrey Fox ∙ LIST Allie Trionfetti ∙ WEB Max Lubin, Jonah Wolf ∙ DESIGN EDITOR Mary-Evelyn Farrior ∙ DESIGN TEAM Andrew Beers, Abigail Cain, Jared Stern, Olivia Fialkow, Joanna Zhang ∙ COVER EDITOR Annika Finne ∙ ILLUSTRATIONS EDITORS Robert Sandler, Becca Levinson ∙ MEGA PORN Kaitie Barnwell ∙ SENIOR EDITORS Gillian Brassil, Adrian Randall, Erin Schikowski, Dayna Tortorici ∙ STAFF WRITERS Madilynn Castillo, Barry Elkinton, Christina McCausland, Alex Ronan MVP: Becca Levinson ‘v’ Cover Art: Robert Sandler

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT PO BOX 1930 BROWN UNIVERSITY PROVIDENCE RI 02912 theindy@gmail.com twitter: maudelajoie

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

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THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

FROM THE EDITORS: Step aside Ten Commandments, and allow 11 to introduce herself. Ten is perfectly pious, but she is exceedingly sinful, abnormal, and eccentric—that’s right, double hockey sticks, two sore thumbs or a pair of erect skyscrapers—the number 11.

America told Great Britain to read between the lines hundreds of years ago, but we Yankees are forever tethered to the Tories across the pond by a love of the ultimate prime number’s spectacle. American football and its British counterpart—along with cricket and field hockey—all field eleven players at a time.

Plus, Apollo 11 made the first moon landing. In honor of Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins (the other guy) the Indy offers a one-up: our first-ever eleventh issue.

Out of the eleven “master numbers” in the study of Numerology, 11 is the most impressive. Its positive characteristics include: charisma, sensitivity, illumination, and insightfulness. According to The Complete Idiots Guide to Numerology, if you have an 11 birthday, you’re likely to uplift humanity, and are naturally marked by a “high frequency” of vibrations.

But be careful with your rough-and-tumble gyrations: you’re also prone to overreacting with “devastating power.”

James Polk was our 11th President, George Clooney starred in Ocean’s 11, and we aspire to fit somewhere on the sliding sexy-scale between them. We are in favor of excess in all of its forms, meaning there’s room for guinea pigs, female orgasms, and donuts. Not 11-themed enough, you say? Please. We’re throwing order and even digits to the wind.

11/11/11, MB, JC, EW

ILLUSTRATION BY ROBERT SANDLER

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NEWS

08 DECEMBER 2011

YEAR IN HAIKUS (11)

by David Adler, Jess Bendit, Christina McCausland,Tim Nassau, Alex Ronan, Erica Schwiegershausen, Kate Welsh

Herman Cain pulls out Like a wave leaving the shore Leaving salt behind

Sandusky molests Paterno says nothing but Neither does the sun

Putin wins again “It was rigged!” the Russians say No, it couldn’t be

India nixes Wal-Mart. We hate that rollback commercial too, guys

Egypt votes Muslim Liberals and Westerners shocked Go democracy!

Black Friday gun sales The highest in history People are like, “whoa”

Too many lives lost Advances made this decade World AIDS Day nuance

O.T.C. Plan B? Washington says find plan C If you’re not 18

Brazen corruption Fourteen years in Federal See you later, Rod

World won’t end next year Mayans were misunderstood, Says ballsy scholar

Gay rights aid abroad Statement to (Arab) allies “Or else.” (hypocrisy?)

Piracy crackdown Asian Megavideo Yep, that should fix it

S & P downgrades?

FreeCreditReport(dot)com Check it, Germany

Governor in jail “this thing is fucking golden” Illinois weeps again

A Gossip Girl star Threw an “Occupy” party At the Bowery

Post Office donezo Priority mail slows down Newman laughs madly

NEWS

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

REAL NEWS

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by David Adler, Erica Schwiegershausen

BEING BIEBUH

NOVEMBER: THE 11th MONTH, IN REVIEW Thirty days of numerical preoccupations and superstitious indulgences

At 9:45 AM last Monday, a portly womaboarded the 17 bus leaving Cranston.

She wore a thick green flannel jacket, blue jeans, a pair of worn-out Sketchers, and a few grey hairs around her chin. Greeting the bus driver, she walked over to the seat in front of me and sat down—“Justin Biebuh,” she whispered toward the window in her thick Ocean State accent. “You know, you look just like Justin Biebuh,” her voice grew louder this time, her neck craning backward towards me. “Doesn’t he look just like Justin Biebuh?” she asked, resting her arm on the stranger to her left.

The stranger smiled as he looked at me. “Ahhhh shit,” he said, extending his index finger in my direction. “Ahhhh shit,” I thought, not because (I think and hope) I look very little like the pubescent heartthrob— my black, wiry, Jew hair to his swift-n-smooth blonde mop—but because, still trapped in a morning haze, I was entirely unprepared for such a bout of shame.

Soon, the bus erupted in a chorus of laughter and exclamations of “Bie-buh!” A teal-scrubbed nurse doubled over in laughter; two Polish construction workers muttered under their breath, looking in my direction; I even caught the bus driver’s eyes squinting into the rearview mirror to get a look. The bearded woman was now standing, rallying the patrons at the back of the bus to join the fun.

When I was in the 4th grade, the ringleader of the popular crowd accused me of stealing $400 from his room (like, what was I going to do with $400 at age 9? What was he doing with $400 at age 9?). He convinced all of the cool kids to hate, bully, and belittle me constantly. “If you ignore a bully he will go away,” my parents told me. So I sat on the 17—hands crossed in my lap, eyes straight ahead, breathing inthrough-nose-out-through-mouth—until we arrived at Kennedy Plaza. Stepping out of the bus, I caught my teary reflection in the window. “Maybe just a little Bieberesque.”

-DA

I’ve been feeling a little crazy lately (of late). Crazy like using hashtags in emails, repeatedly Googling my birthday astrology (I love reading about myself on the Internet!), and handpicking a year’s supply of Ibuprofen out of the bottom of my backpack after two separate spillage incidents in one week. They’re a little dusty, but I still plan to swallow them, with water, at a later date.

In other news, I arrived home for the holidays to find that a full blown quidditch pitch had been erected in my backyard (see Exhibit A) (1). My brother says he’s been playing–solo–almost every weekend (there’s currently a tournament taking place). “I take the ball and I throw it through the hoop, and then I fall over to simulate being hit by another player. And then I throw the ball through the other hoop.”

Additional household developments: my dad solved the Gorgian knot! (insert MENSA joke here). I asked him to send me some before and after photos, as, you know, proof. He took the request very seriously (see Exhibit B). My mom got a new scale that calculates her age weight.

According to the scale, she is a 30; my 16 year old sister is a 29. “It’s really useful,” she informed me via telephone (2). So is my horoscope, which, coincidentally, keeps telling me to eat less.

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-ES

FOOTNOTES: 1. Incidentally, the hula hoops pictured are relics of my mother’s performance for which she claimed the title of Massachusetts State Hula Hoop champion at age 11.

2. The Age Weight Scale: A Dialogue Me: Tell me about the Age Weight Scale.

My sister: It can calculate your age weight.

It can calculate the number of calories you should eat in a day. It can calculate your visceral fat, which is the fat around your organs. And your fat to bodyweight ratio. And your percent muscle and your BMI. Me: So how many calories can you consume a day?

My sister: About 1,300.

Me: What? Is that a joke?

My sister: Nope. Well, I think that might be assuming that you sleep all day.

Me: How do you feel about your age weight?

My sister: A little bit weird. Considering it’s like twice my actual age, not great.

Me: Are you concerned?

My sister: I don’t know. I feel like it might be making it up.

Me: Does that mean that you rescind your previous statement about the scale’s utility?

My sister: I don’t know. Maybe if I had a better feel for how it works. But the whole idea of sending waves through my body is kind of sketchy. Like, how do you know it’s actually sending anything? What if it’s just plastic?

Me: But Mom is convinced?

My sister: Oh yes.

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METRO

08 DECEMBER 2011

LIVING ELEVEN Stories from inside the 11th house on 11th street

by Grace Dunham Illustration by Becca Levinson

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ne block north of 10th St and one block south of 12th St, just before Providence ends and Pawtucket begins, is 11th St. Only two blocks long, it bends slightly at the corner of Top St, where—late in the afternoon on Saturday December 3rd, the sun low in the sky—Megan Archer pushes her young son Julian in a stroller. One year ago, Megan moved from San Francisco to 11th Street. Though she finds it to be both picturesque and friendly, ultimately, she says, “11th Street isn’t really that different from 10th Street or 12th Street.”

What Megan Archer doesn’t know is that at the western end of 11th Street, on the South side, next door to a bright orange house, is a light blue one. On the porch of the light blue house, there are two white doors. The door on the left is marked 13 and the door on the right is marked 11. The door on the right is the door to 11 11th Street.

John Kanakry, the landlord of 11 11th St, bought the house in 1989. It was built in 1905, but John has reason to believe that a different 11 11th St once stood there. For John, the significance of 11 extends beyond his property: two of John’s three children have 11’s in their birthdays. His middle child and his niece were born on the same 11th, one year apart, at almost exactly the same time.

Kristen Schroeder, 28, who rents 11 11th St, says 11th St. is the friendliest place she’s ever lived. “People wave hello,” she says, “which is different than other places I’ve lived. People are reserved in Rhode Island… But this is a really nice street. The people are nice, everyone is friendly, always having little chit-chats, making sure everything is okay.”

Kristen, who works at Brown University Psychological Services, is roommates of almost three years with Lauren Farley, who is 29 and works in Real Estate. They share the apartment with Lauren’s dog, Jack, Kristen’s dog, Captain Saltypants (a Chocolate Lab and Chowchow mix), and recently, Lauren’s boyfriend, Ben. A master number, 11 is known to carry a vibrational frequency of balance.

Lauren’s life has grown noticeably more balanced since she moved to 11th St. three years ago. “My emotional balance dramatically improved when I moved...” she says, “My former residence was in a neighborhood popular with Salve Regina Students during the school year…I'm fairly certain the neighbor was a coke dealer.

He had a lot of friends.”

Recurring appearances of the number 11 not only signal emotional balance, but also balance between work and play, sun and moon energy, and the masculine and feminine. Interestingly, Kristen notes that before moving to 11 11th St. she was more focused on play than on work. “Lately,” she says, “the work/play

pendulum has swung to the extreme side of work and being a homebody. I’m more inclined to believe that this is due to being in a new stage of my life rather than the apartment, but who knows?” When it comes to sun and moon energy, Kristen is more willing to see the connection. “It’s a little funny you mention the sun and the moon,” she says, “I am not sure if you noticed, but the living room has many decorative accents that are suns, moons and stars.” The living room—its walls painted a lively sea-foam green—is home to two decorative star boxes, two small sun ornaments, a star candleholder, and a moon mirror The dualism of 11 resonates more strongly with Lauren—especially in terms of gender. “I’m kind of a tomboy during the day,” she says, adding, “I’m all woman at night.”

Recurring patterns of the number 11 most often make themselves visible to souls who display high levels of thoughtfulness, intuitiveness, and integrity. Both Kristen and Lauren seem to fit the part.

Kristen majored in Religious Studies as an undergraduate, with a focus in Ethics, and likes to think of herself as reflective and thoughtful—though she humbly adds that most people tend to think of themselves that way. Lauren, on the other hand, identifies with the intuitive aspects of 11. “I'm not an introvert,” she says, “But I'm more of an observer than a participator. I guess I draw conclusions using a combination of intuition and logic.”

It is important to note that the numerological significance of 11 is not entirely positive. It is also—especially when making recurring appearances—a sign of chaos and sin. Despite the odds, Kristen feels that, if anything, there’s less sin in her life now than there used to be.” I've shed a lot of my Catholic guilt since late adolescence,” she says, “So a lot of things I previously regarded as sinful I don't anymore.”

All in all, living at 11 11th St. has been deeply positive for both Kristen and Lauren. “It’s the most adult apartment I’ve ever had,” says Kristen. According to John Kanakry, their time in the apartment is not the exception. John has had good experiences with every tenant who has lived there, and remained in touch with many of them after they moved out.

“They’ve all gone on to be happy and successful people,” he says, “I believe this is a very positive home.”

Interestingly, John can’t say the same for 13 11th St. Once, a tenant of 13 experienced break failure and drove his u-haul truck through the side of the house.

GRACE DUNHAM B’14 has 1111 friends on Facebook. Seriously. I’m not kidding. Go check.

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DONUT

08 DECEMBER 2011

JUSTIFYING THE DONUT

by Mimi Dwyer

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kay, okay. We know what you’re thinking. Why would the Independent compromise its gallons of journalistic and creative integrity in favor of a petty donut ad and its meager revenue? We’ve got news for you, haters.

We’re drinking those gallons in iced coffee. Eleven gallons, to be exact. Eleven gallons of coffee that is brewed, according to Dunkin representatives, every eleven minutes.

Now let us school you on some history: in Providence years of yore, a Dunkin Donuts Mecca sat atop College Hill, on Thayer Street. Called the “Temple of Lost Donuts” by Yelper Eric G., the Mecca held deep spiritual significance for Providence locals. “They have some of the RAREST donuts of Dunkin Donuts legend. These used to be quite common in the golden years but have now almost completely vanished from existence. I speak of the Chocolate Kreme, Vanilla Kreme, and Butternut,” writes Eric. By the Indy’s count, there are ten temples of worship in Providence. This lost Dunkin, likely replaced financially by the megastadium that is the Dunkin Donuts Center,

was at one point the eleventh.

If that temple had a high priestess, it would probably be Donna Donovan. She has managed four different Dunkin Donuts over the past thirty years. She’s witnessed the growth of Dunkin since its lowly roots. Yet she doesn’t understand the corporation’s ties to the golden number.

“I don’t know why anyone would ever buy 11 donuts,” she says. “It’s cheaper to buy twelve.” Not if you know about infinity, Donovan.

Perhaps, then, Dunkin Donuts does not approach infinity in the way the most holy places do. But perhaps it does. Ed Valle, former Chief Marketer of Dunkin Donuts Corporation, reports that the average customer spends 11 seconds with a Dunkin Donuts product. So next time you’re inhaling Munchkins, think of the Dunkin down on Gano. Dunkin Donuts is fast. It is cheap. It is caffeinated. America is all of those things. And America, like eleven, or a round and perfect donut, is infinite.

the original dunkin’ donut

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FEATURES

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

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EVERYTHING YOU NEVER WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT

GUINEA PIGS

AND SOME THINGS YOU DID by Alex Ronan Illustration by Robert Sandler

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hey’re back. By “they” I mean guinea pigs and by “back” I mean “did they ever even leave?” “What are guinea pigs?’ you might ask. Good question. Consider them low-fat protein-rich dinners. Or maybe they’re just a fuzzy cultural thermometer bent on exposing man’s simultaneous capacity for cruelty and perverse fixation on cuteness. All these things and more are considered by Swedish poet Aase Berg in her neo-surrealist Avant-garde chapbook With Deer, exploring the depths of a gorge “swarming with guinea pigs.” Now consider this; would a rodent by a different name smell sweeter? In “In the guinea pig cave” Berg writes, “There lay the guinea pigs and they smelled bad in the cave” later adding, “They waited. And I was tired in my whole stomach from meat dough and guinea pig loaf and I knew that they would take revenge on me.” Until then, a brief cultural history.

1998

1999

5,000 BC

1,500 AD

1,700 AD

Guinea pigs: it’s what’s for dinner. Domesticated in the Andean region of South America, guinea pigs were first bred for the purpose of human consumption. Masters of multitasking, they also served as wedding presents and played the role of the evil spirit collector. In traditional Andean medicine, a guinea pig was rubbed over the body of a sick patient until it squealed, which was believed to denote the location of illness.

Queen Elizabeth I kept a guinea pig as a pet. In the 16th century, English, Spanish, and Dutch traders brought guinea pigs to Europe where they quickly became popular amongst the royal court. Pet fancy, for sure.

A version of “The Last Supper,” painted in 1753 by Peruvian Quechuan painter Marcos Zapata, features Jesus and the Apostles about to dine on guinea pig. The inclusion of guinea pigs marked a subtle act of rebellion by Zapata against Spanish colonizers, who sought to instill Catholicism. Judas has the face of Francisco Pizarro, the Spanish conquistador credited with the murder of the Incan emperor Atahualpa.

1902

October 20: President Theodore Roosevelt, in a letter headlined “Presidential Nurse for Guinea Pigs” wrote of his daughter’s guinea pigs, “At this moment … I am acting as nurse to two wee guinea pigs, which she feels would not be safe save in the room with me—and if I can prevent it I do not intend to have wanton suffering inflicted on any creature.” The Roosevelt children had many guinea pigs, including one Fighting Bon Evans and a pair of Deweys.

1913

The first time that the term guinea pigs were used to refer to subjects of scientific experimentation, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. Guinea pigs sue for slander.

1955

A guinea pig is the first creature to travel to the Wood between the Worlds in C.S. Lewis’ The Magician’s Nephew, part of The Chronicles of Narnia. Because a guinea pig can’t figure out how to return and can’t tell what he’s seen, the experiment isn’t completely successful.

1960’s

1961

Diana Spencer (later known as Princess Diana, of Beanie Baby fame) won an award in elementary school for taking good care of her guinea pig, Peanuts. People Magazine later called this her “major moment of academic distinction.” Ouch.

March 9, 1961: A guinea pig was launched into orbital space by the USSR on the Sputnik 9 biosatellite.

A guinea pig named Rodney, voiced by Chris Rock, appeared in the film Dr. Dolittle. Margo Purdy, Secretary/ Treasurer of the North Carolina Cavy Breeders Association, condemned the film’s misinformation. “In Dr. Dolittle there was an implication that Rodney used an exercise wheel. Accessories like these are not used by guinea pigs and can be harmful to them if attempted,” Purdy explained.

British Animal Rights activists launched the six-year Save the Newchurch Guinea Pigs (SNGP) campaign. Activists sought to close the Darley Oaks Farm in Newchurch, Staffordshire, for what they called animal abuse. Run by the three Hall brothers, the farm had been used for nearly 30 years to breed guinea pigs for scientific research at the time it came under fire. While the facility operated legally and for profit, activists raided the farm and accused the Halls of keeping guinea pigs in deplorable conditions, launching the SNGP. According to the Guardian, over 400 incidents of intimidation were recorded in the local community, including graffiti, attacks on pubs, bricks thrown through windows and hoax bomb threats intended to compel the Halls to shut down their guinea pig breeding facility.

2008

Switzerland banned the practice of housing a sole guinea pig, insisting that the social animal must live with at least one roommate. To comply with the law, the deceased companion must be continually replaced, assuring a neverending cycle of rodent acquisition. “When they’re kept on their own, guinea pigs become apathetic and get obese,” Priska Kueng explained. In exchange for roughly $30, interested parties can rent a guinea pig for as long as need be, receiving some of the money back when they return it.

Once a guinea pig is returned to Kueng, it is retired from rental service and housed with Kueng. As Kueng herself explains, “After all, a guinea pig is not a trophy.”

2009

September 5: Rachikinns asks “How do I make my guinea pig fat without making him unhealthy” on Yahoo!Answers.

G-Force, the movie about “A specially trained squad of guinea pigs is dispatched to stop a diabolical billionaire from taking over the world” was released. According to Rebecca Dube, a pet columnist at The Globe and The Mail, the cost of fame has been especially great for guinea pigs.

Dube cites the “101 Dalmatian Effect,” so-called because of the uptick in purchase of Dalmatians after the hit movie came out in 1996. But unlike their animated counterparts in G-Force, Dube points out that real guinea pigs “can’t walk on two legs, swim, talk, drive cars or, for the most part, thwart diabolical plots for world domination. What they can do is eat, poop and sit there and look cute.”

2011

November 8 : The London National Portrait Gallery’s prestigious Taylor Wessing Prize (£12,000 and bragging rights) was awarded to photographer Jooney Woodward for her portrait of a young girl and her guinea pig. In the photograph, taken in the guinea pig judging area of a livestock competition, 13-year-old Harriet Power holds Gentleman Jack, (he was given to her in a Jack Daniels bottle). The photograph beat more than 6,000 other entries. Gallery director Sandy Nairne described the photograph as a “brilliant, empathetic study of young women.” Others were not quite so taken. Guardian commentator Sean O’Hagan called the winning portrait “safe, undemanding work, technically brilliant but lacking any glimmer of emotional power.”

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SPORTS

08 DECEMBER 2011

ELEVEN THINGS YOU MAY OR MAY NOT KNOW ABOUT NBA LEGEND (#11) ISIAH THOMAS

by Chris Cohen Illustration by Becca Levinson

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In 1996, Isiah Thomas was voted by a committee of players, journalists and executives as one of the 50 Best Players in NBA History. In 2000, Isiah was inducted into the Professional Basketball Hall of Fame, his first year of eligibility. During the late 1980s and early 90s, he led the “Bad Boy” Detriot Pistons, upsetting the balance of power between Boston and Los Angeles teams that had dominated the league for most of the 1980s. The team understood its nickname; Dennis Rodman said of another member, Bill Laimbeer, that “he was more than a thug, but that’s all he’ll ever be remembered for.” The team won the 1980 and 1990 titles.

Isiah is considered to have played his best basketball during the playoffs, and he is responsible for two particularly memorable individual performances. In the 1984 playoffs, Thomas scored an incredible 16 points against the Knicks in the final 94 seconds of a game to force overtime.

During the 1988 finals against the Lakers, Isiah scored 25 points in the last quarter while visibly limping from a sprained ankle. This remains the record for points in a quarter of a Finals game.

in an interview with Sports Illustrated, saying he was the “first to shake his hand and hug him and give him a kiss, to let people know that's not how the virus is spread” in the 1992 All-Star game.

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Isiah may have led a conspiracy to give the rookie Michael Jordan the cold shoulder during the 1985 All-Star game. Rumor has it that the other All-Stars resented the attention the younger player was reciving.

Jordan attempted only nine shots despite starting the game. Thomas has denied any plot to not involve the rookie, but the relationship between the two remained chilly—Isiah’s Pistons walked off the court with seven seconds remaining in a 1991 playoff defeat at the hands of Jordan’s Bulls, forgoing postgame handshakes.

Isiah has a strained relationship with another great, Los Angeles Lakers point guard Magic Johnson. Before their relationship soured, the two famously kissed before a contest in the 1988 playoffs. It has been alleged that Isiah spread rumors that Magic was gay after he was revealed to be HIV-positive. Thomas, whose brother died of AIDS, has denied these allegations

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A feud with two of the greatest players in league history had its consequences.

Thou he’s clearly one of the best players of his generation, Isiah was left off of the 1992 “Dream Team” that cruised to a gold medal at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, apparently due to his acrimonious relationship with Jordan and Magic. However, in a Sports Illustrated interview about his book When the Game Was Ours, Magic said nobody wanted Isiah on the team: "Isiah killed his own chances when it came to the Olympics. Nobody on that team wanted to play with him. ... Michael didn't want to play with him. Scottie [Pippen] wanted no part of him. Bird wasn't pushing for him.

Karl Malone didn't want him. Who was saying, 'We need this guy?' Nobody.''

Isiah retired from the League in 1994.

In 1999, he purchased the official minor League of the NBA, the Continental Basketball Association, for $10,000,000. The CBA was founded in 1946, a few months before the NBA. After two years of managing the CBA, Isaiah was recruited to become the head coach of the NBA’s Indiana Pacers. As NBA rules prohibit a coach from running another league, Thomas was forced to sell his league. The NBA revoked the CBA’s status as an official developmental league, undermining Isiah’s attempts to sell. Rather than decline the Pacers job, Thomas placed the league in a trust, freezing the assets of the league and forcing its temporary closure.

Isiah pursued a career as a basketball executive and coach, starting with the Pacers job, then with the New York Knicks.

His tenure as president of the Knicks from 2003 to 2008 is widely considered to have been a disaster; the Knicks had the highest payroll but the second-worst record in the league in the 2005-06 season, paying large contracts to players that never saw consistent playing time.

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He was also a failure as a coach. The Knicks responded to the poor play of their 2005 team by firing all time great coach Larry Brown (incidentally also #11 in his playing days) and replacing him with Isiah, the team president. Towards the end of his tenure as coach the New York Daily News reacted to news of the firing of a different NBA Coach, Chicago’s Scott Skiles, by running the headline “Coach Fired, but it’s not Isiah Thomas!”

Besides poor play, the Isiah era was marred by a sexual harassment scandal in which a Knicks marketing executive named Anchua Browne Sanders, alleged that Thomas had come on to her, and created an environment hostile to women, firing her when she complained. Highlights from the trial included Isiah implying that it was less offensive for a black man than a white man to call a woman a “bitch,” but later backtracking, saying “It’s very offensive for any man—black, white, purple” (emphasis mine). The jury awarded Browne-Sanders $11,000,000 in damages, but Thomas remained president and coach of the team.

Isiah was eventually fired from the Knicks and is now the basketball coach of Florida International University. The school is not a traditional basketball power, and they have finished both of Thomas’ seasons with losing records.

The NBA still may not have seen the last of Isiah. The Knicks announced they had taken Isiah on as a “consultant” in 2010, before someone pointed out that holding both positions violated NBA rules. Thomas remained the coach of FIU, but this June he told sports talk radio host Stephen A. Smith that if James Dolan, the owner of the Knicks, offered a position with the Knicks he “probably would, because I think I could help him.”

CHRIS COHEN B ‘12 will always be remembered as a thug.

OPINIONS

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

LOUISE

12

IODICE

a pint-sized point of view

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s someone who is reaching adulthood, it is easy to lose sight of those younger than yourself. To restore some perspective, the Indy sat down with confirmed 11-year-old Louise Iodice via Skype earlier this week.

by Chris Cohen and Stephen Carmody Illustration by Annika Finne

Indy: Which class gives the most homework?

LI: Probably math.

The Indy: Tell us about yourself

Indy: What are you doing in math right now?

Louise Iodice: I go to school. I’m in fifth grade.

LI: Working with dividing and multiplying decimals. And variables.

Indy: Tell us about your family.

Indy: What do you like to do on weekends?

LI: I have a sister and a cat and my parents.

That’s it.

Indy: If you could have one thing, what would it be?

LI: I want new art supplies. Just pencils and markers.

Shows some of her art!

Indy: What do you want to be when you grow up?

LI: I would like to be either an interior designer or a photographer. I have a camera.

Usually I take pictures of nature.

Indy: Do you like Justin Beiber?

LI: No. Indy: What are your favorite books?

LI: I like the Pretty series and the Hunger Games. But I like SciFi. Indy: Do you think there are a lot of things we need to fix in the real world?

LI: We pollute a lot, and that could be probably dangerous.

LI: I like to hang out with my friends and go on the monkey bars at a park nearby my house.

Indy: Are you on Facebook?

LI: No.

Indy: If you could vote next election, who would you vote for? Would you vote for Obama?

Indy: Where do you live?

Indy: Do you want to be?

LI: I guess?

LI: Kind of.

Indy: Do you ever think about going to college?

Indy: What’s your bike like?

LI: I live in Center City, which is in Philadelphia. There’s a lot to do. You can go into town. You can take different music classes and you can go see a lot of movies.

LI: It’s like, a bike.

Indy: What’s your favorite food?

Indy: How do you like school?

LI: Meat. I guess bacon.

LI: It’s fun. I like science. We’re working on solar energy. We’ve built models of solar houses to test the temperature. But it gets tiring. I have to wake up at 6:30.

Indy: If you fight with your sister, what do you fight about?

Indy: What do you like to do?

LI: I like to bike. I ride horses once a week. I’m riding horses tomorrow. I’m still learning how to ride and I ride a pony; it’s kind of small.

Indy: Are there mean people in middle school?

LI: Not really. Not in my class.

Indy: What do you like to do after school?

LI: I usually just start my homework.

LI: Usually just silly things. Like when we poke each other.

Indy: What do you like to do with your friends?

LI: We usually just to hang out. We also like to bake stuff, using mixes, like cupcakes.

Indy: Do you watch television?

LI: Yeah. But just on the computer. I like Bones.

LI: No. Indy: Do you think college is a good idea?

Indy: How is middle school different from elementary school?

LI: Yeah, cause you have a better chance of getting a job.

LI: Well it’s a new school, and this school is a public school. It’s a lot different. I used to go to a charter school. So there are a lot more kids. The charter school was an immersion program. So we spoke Spanish all the time.

Indy: Do you have advice for college seniors who are like us, and are about to graduate?

Indy: What is your favorite music?

LI: I like a lot of different kinds. I like Green Day. I like Coldplay too.

LI: No.

13

OCCULT

08 DECEMBER 2011

IS ZEN

E IS E M I T

NG

K , Y ISS T P I M

Interview with Hokaku Jeffrey Maitland

by Alexandra Corrigan Illustration by Olivia Fialkow

H

okaku Jeffrey Maitland Ph.D has been involved in transitioning and translating Zen Buddhism into English since the 1970s. After receiving a Ph.D in Kant's aesthetics, he traveled to Japan to further his practice of Zen Buddhism. There he met his teacher, Japanese Zen master Kyozan Joshu Sasaki Roshi who ordained him as a Zen monk (Roshi is known for being Leonard Cohen’s teacher.) Afterwards, he returned to teach philosophy at Purdue University and become a certified Rolf practitioner in healing.

In 2010, Maitland published his book Mind, Body, Zen: Waking Up to Your Life, a series of essays describing the philosophy, practice, and healing nature of Buddhism.

Covering critiques of Derrida, meditation sitting posture, and the loss of self in romantic love, Maitland's book is accessible and authentic. Recently, Maitland sat down with a group of students studying Zen Buddhism under Brown Professor Hal Roth.

with everything in a different way. Its like having the best night of sleep of your life, getting the best cup of coffee in the morning, and your brain clicks on. You feel happy, open, spacious. And that shopkeeper who is always cranky seems a little kinder, because you're a little more open. And its perceivable.

What is the fundamental difference between Western philosophy and Zen Buddhism?

Mind Body Zen: Waking Up to Your Life.

North Atlantic Books, 2010. $16.95

JM: It is the way of looking at how things got here. We always tend to see things as cause and effect, and as if we’re standing outside of them. Ultimately, these causes and effects necessitate a first reason for existence, which is usually God. That separates God from his creation. On the other side, Buddhism doesn't eschew anything: everything is included in the causation.

It’s co-causal, happening simultaneously.

Instead of God on the outside, the very nature of what is unfolding is the mysterious being. You can't taste it or smell it but you know it.

Why do you choose to use the word love when you describe Zen?

What happens to morality in Zen? Is there a Zen for psychopaths?

Jeffrey Maitland: My teacher says that when you go to zero, when subject and object become one, thats the expression of true love. Love is an experience. When you hold an infant, you just disappear into the sweet feeling. You feel the love of the universe in a very direct and clear way.

And that's love: when its unencumbered, when theres no agenda and when theres no ego. Another expression of this is in kissing -- its a form of loss of self. And you know when to end it with a certain other kind of perception. It's the same process when your meditation takes you to a place of zero.

JM: No. The evil-doer is inaccessible to his own feeling nature. He wouldn't recognize in himself that the misery he is for others is part of the misery for himself.

What is the effect of this love?

JM:When you go to zero, and you come back to the world, you see yourself as everything. It’s hard to describe. You are

How important are differences between cultures in grasping Zen? JM: Carl Jung once said it was dangerous for Westerners to practice meditation because it would drive them crazy. I think that’s wrong. The correct understanding of Zen and one's own tradition has to be followed, and then one has to go through the process of making sense of one’s own experience authentically. The transmission of Zen to other cultures is part of an ongoing attempt to bring understanding into a coherent form on a universal level.

How does one creatively translate a

Japanese tradition to America?

JM: Whats the opposite of the word aesthetic? Anesthetic. The aesthetic is about waking up. The experience of great art is Zen. From my work in the philosophy of aesthetic theory and Zen, I believe that freedom is the creative expression of limitation. And all things that exist are limited.

An artist is perched in a tradition, and he has to know how to work within that tradition without getting caught up in the matter that he produces bad art. On the other side, he can't be so far into possibility that he steps out of the tradition and produces incomprehensible work. Like a great artist, Zen masters must know how to creatively appropriate the tradition to teach Americans.

What is the self?

JM: The self exists between the subject and the object, between incomplete minus and incomplete plus. The subjectobject distinction is specific to Western philosophy. Often, Buddhists speak about the "self" in the same way that we do. But if you want to grasp this activity by which the universe appears and disappears, it’s critical to see how these two activities function together. The self is not just one of these activities [the “subject” or perceiver]. Instead, the self is what is created when each one of these activities gives us an aspect of the self. In Roshi's teaching, there’s a way to focus experience on the present moment that moves between two poles where subject and object are unified and separated. From the first unification, there is an expansion out and contraction. It's like breathing. You inhale (expand) and exhale (contraction). At those extremes, we don't feel a self. In between those states, during that process that is too fast to perceive, the self is created. The process gives us a sense that time is occurring, that we're moving around in time, and there’s a relatively fixed self. We need to recognize that we experience this expanding and contracting as a “self” that is alone a subject, but we also need to deny

the ultimate, true reality of these fixed identities, fixed causes.

In the moment we hit our head at a door, or lose ourselves in love, why does it make sense to talk about expansion and contraction?

JM: The moment you bang your head, you're completely at one with that experience. Very quickly, you separate from that, and subject and object arise. What’s fascinating is that it’s rooted in a practice and experience that includes the conceptual ground.

Try an experiment. Close your eyes.

Have your friend make a loud, sudden noise. Did you feel yourself disappear at that exact moment? Do you feel a distance between you and the object of perception? Where in your body felt open and spacious?

When you follow out the experience of full presence, and continue the practice, peace arises. Again, Zen is a practice, not a doctrine.

So if there are no doctrines, how do koans, or Zen philosophical phrases, work?

JM: Lately, I've taken to using a phrase: "Zen doesn't offer an explanation, but offers an alternative to explanation." People get hung on this first time they try to understand a Zen phrase, koan. They try to understand koans such as, "How do you catch a flying bird without touching it?" or, my personal favorite, "Why don't rocks go to church?" People respond, "well, rocks don't go to church because they're already one with everything". The koan sucks you in to giving it an explanation. It takes you a while to understand the obvious answer is not the answer to the koan, nor is it the solution to the problem of life. The practice is a realization.

Alexandra Corrigan B ‘12 is a flying bird.

LITERARY

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

BY MICHAEL MOUNT AND SCOUT WILLIS Scout STOP The claims are yielding well STOP Yesterday I unearthed eleven ounces of silver STOP And poker hands have paid quite an ample bounty STOP I await your visit eagerly STOP How is life in the city END

Dearest STOP We have built a veritable empire from this lonely mine STOP My partner Nick has developed a gambling habit STOP His visits to the tavern are frequent and suspect STOP But we cannot lose STOP My wife is scheduled to ride out on the next carriage STOP The Indians know the location END

Expect a transfer soon STOP Eleven hundred dollars in silver certificates STOP Imperative that you receive it safely STOP Forgive my lapse in communication STOP I have been preoccupied with my wife’s passing STOP Business goes well END

Perhaps we should discuss in person STOP I could find time to leave business STOP Or will you grace me with your presence STOP There is a weekly carriage that visits this territory STOP I would happily pay your way STOP Whatever has come between us STOP Surely can be repaired END

Scout STOP Meet me by the Milk Creek landing STOP Sunday night STOP Come alone please STOP What I have to tell you is very sensitive STOP I have nowhere to go STOP The telegraph operator is my only friend left in town STOP Forgive me END

Perhaps you will never read this STOP But I write these words now beside my creek STOP Cradling the only nugget of silver that I ever had STOP Thinking of you END

My love STOP The days without you are drawing longer and longer STOP The locket you sent me last has helped to stave off my impending loneliness STOP But my dearest I fear that the weight on my heart is heavy for daily I see your wife STOP I do not know how to proceed STOP Send word with haste END

I have little time and even less money STOP I must be brief STOP You are talking riddles STOP Give me truths for once STOP Lest we be damned END

Now with all the money for all the letters and all the telegrams I could ever dream of I am left without words STOP Your silver is without lining STOP Think on what you have lost from your gains STOP Forgive yourself STOP Maybe then I will follow suit END

Darling STOP You have failed me for the final time STOP You betrayed my heart before but even that I could sustain STOP But to try and betray my intellect is a step too far STOP For the past weeks I have been renting a room in Enders STOP The town adjacent to the silver mines STOP And your supposed location STOP Wouldn’t you know it STOP Not a person here has ever heard your low down name even once before STOP You sir STOP Are a dog of a man and no friend of mine END

Mister Mount STOP For hours I paced around my quarters STOP I did not know the right path STOP Should I meet you or stay away STOP As you surely know I could not meet you STOP And by the time you get this you will know STOP The telegraph operator and I have fled STOP Fled Enders STOP Fled the west altogether STOP Do not try to find us STOP A small part of me will always hold you in my heart END

14

15 I N T E R V I E W S

08 DECEMBER 2011

BULLSHIT TITLE

Bullshit Subhead

T

his will be the eleventh and final interview in The Indy that I oversaw as Interviews Editor. In honor of this, I myself was interviewed last Sunday, in my kitchen, by my housemate Matthew Weiss, with a few questions from (other housemate) Jonathan Leibovic and (friend) Julieta Cárdenas. Over the course of our five-hour conversation, I took eleven shots of Jim Beam, eleven toasts to each issue of this paper, to the people I have talked to and the people I have worked with. Stay thirsty, my friends.

Drink 1 Matthew Weiss: Assuming you become some kind of artist, at some point you die.

I want you to describe your second to last work.

Timothy Nassau: Man, that’s so hard to think about. I feel like last work would be easier. Can I answer that one?

MW: Maybe you should start with that one and extrapolate backwards.

TN: Well I’ve thought about that before. I would put a canvas on one end of a woodchipper and just jump in the other. And I would hire someone to make sure the result is preserved. It would be like a combination of Francis Bacon and Arman.

There would be some kind of glaze on it.

MW: So your second to last work should anticipate that in some way.

TN: Probably the most truthful thing is that at some point I want a project that consumes me for a long time, in an obsessive way, like an outsider artist. Something I could spend 20 years on.

Drink 2 MW: What do you think about Herman Cain dropping out of the election?

TN: I haven’t really been following the election, but I get all these emails from The New York Times saying he sexually abused people, so I guess he made the right decision. He’s the one who kind of looked like a steampunk Samuel L. Jackson, right? Did he wear a cape ever?

MW: I don’t think he wore a cape.

by Timothy Nassau and Matthew Weiss Illustrations by Robert Sandler

TN: For some reason I always imagine him with mutton-chops and a cane and a monocle.

Drink 3 MW: Okay, you’re in France, in 1775, the era of Voltaire, of the Marquis de Sade: an era of a certain kind of celebrity, unique to the times. If you were a celebrity back then, what role would you play in that world?

TN: I think what most people don’t think about when they think about the past is what the role of massage was. Did Frenchmen in the 18th century get massages? If they didn’t, then that’s my niche.

Drink 4 MW: While you were talking, I was sticking my finger in my ear and it felt really good. It’s an odd sensitivity. What area of your body is the underrated part that gives you the secret pleasure?

TN: As for the ear, every two or three months I’ll get some ear wax. I don’t use q-tips. But when it comes, it’s like a tangible block, and it just appears. When I find those, I love it, I love that so much.

There’s something about that, and peeling skin, and finding eye boogers, and normal boogers, peeling scabs, something about extricating stuff from your body, that I find so, so satisfying.

Drink 5 MW: Invent a new food.

TN: I have an idea. Cow egg omelet.

MW: Go on.

TN: No, you’re supposed to say, cows don’t lay eggs.

MW: I didn’t say that, though.

TN: Say it.

MW: Okay. Cows don’t lay eggs.

TN: Exactly.

MW: Okay, if there were a finite number of fortune cookies that expressed your first thought when you wake up each day,

what would some of them be?

TN: One is, “When will I sleep again?”

“How am I going to eat today?” is one of my driving concerns. “If I poop now, because of my hemorrhoids, how miserable is walking going to be for me?” No one wakes up thinking, “Today’s going to be a good day.”

Drink 6 MW: I want you to imagine something.

Tim’s doing whatever Tim’s doing, that’s the beginning of the story. End of the story is you in a woman’s bed, having just made love. That’s the story. Give me a handful of scenarios in which you can imagine that happening.

TN: One, see my girlfriend. Within twelve hours, definitely in bed. I’d probably call her and say, “3 pm, my bed.” Other situation: I solicit a prostitute. I say, “In twelve hours, I’ll be back. I have a meeting, I have class, but in twelve hours, make sure your schedule is clear.” Those were the easy ones, those were the base cases. Other situation, I’m on an airplane, in the rare situation that I am sitting next to someone my age, who is attractive: a woman, if you will. And I start doing the crossword puzzle because that’s what I do on the plane, and you know, maybe she’s doing the crossword, too, or maybe I’ll look at SkyMall and say, “Hey, who would buy this crap?” And she likes that. And then we have sex in the bathroom.

Drink 7 MW: How can you set yourself up in such a way that you cannot fail to be beautiful?

TN: I think that the way you do that, is when your thoughts become beautiful, because that’s the hardest thing. And thoughts only become beautiful when you set up a system for them to be beautiful in. And the way to do that is very simple, [burps] you have only to declare your type, like in a computer program, as artist. The only things that make sense are the things that are intrinsically true to you. You shouldn’t have to think about it, someone just says something, and you understand it. Next question.

TN: This is what I think about. I think about meaning. You know, Heidegger

was like, what’s being? I want to be the guy who’s like, what’s meaning? You know, how does something mean something to you? It’s like [visionary artist] Paul Laffoley. When you look at his stuff, you get the feeling that it means something. If you went through the effort to go through the system, it would mean something to you. But you don’t go through the system, and yet you feel like it means something.

MW: It’s like scholastic philosophers.

TN: I don’t fucking care about outsider art, anymore, I care about outsider science, like people thinking particles are conscious. People react to it in the same way as they react to stuff that does have meaning.

Jonathan Leibovic: If you were a plant, what plant would you be?

TN: I’d be a tree. Because a tree is how I live. Which is like, you know, you just grow, and then you die. And sometimes, you produce shit that people want, and sometimes you don’t, and it could go either way for me. So that’s how I think of myself. But I want to be big. Like, regardless of whether I’m valuable or not, you can’t fucking get rid of me till you tear me down. I’m there.

JL: Are you going to publish this in the Indy?

TN: This will be in The Indy, I will be there, I’m a big tree! Redwood baby. I’m okay, I’m not dead yet.

Drink 8 MW: Dance means something to you.

What is it?

TN: People doing weird shit. But I like it.

It’s beautiful.

MW: Do you dance?

TN: Do I dance? Yes. MW: Do you dance well?

TN: Yes. MW: Do you dance frequently?

TN: No.

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

MW: In what circumstances do you dance?

Did you just spit on the floor?!

TN: [laughs] I love the floor man.

TN: When the music moves me.

MW: He’s spitting on the floor again.

MW: When does the music move you?

TN: Dude, I spit wherever I want. I’m Tim Nassau.

TN: When I like it.

MW: Do you like it when you dance?

TN: I’m going to think about it. Yes. MW: What do you express when you dance?

TN: When I dance, I feel like I express a single thing, which is, Hey, I like this music, I want to dance to it.

MW: What are some of your favorite foods?

TN: I think that nuts, there’s a culture around nuts that’s related to various forms of nutshells, and I’m down with that.

MW: What are some great nut archetypes?

INTERVIEWS the crumpet, or English muffin, but what else?

TN: Well, wheat bread: do what you gotta do. Ham. Cheese. Fucking bullshit. You gotta just go all out because wheat bread is wheat bread. How can you deal with wheat bread unless you make some more wheat bread? But the roll is an emptiness.

The roll is where you go down. I mean roll is where shit goes down. Sci-fi shit. Roll is for sci-fi shit, for fantasy shit, the roll is the realm of the unreal.

Drink 10 TN: I think all of this is taking place while I’m in Egypt. I’m in Egypt. You’ve not been to Egypt, and I’m there, and it’s crazy. It’s a crazy place.

16

MW: Were you sad when the Concord was retired?

TN: Yeah, I was really sad! I’m gonna invent a travel that goes at the speed of light. Because listen, why don’t we stop speaking to each other and show ourselves images at the speed of light? I think that nebulas understand what I’m talking about. And they’ll respond to that, they’ll say, I’m ready to join this system. Because you’ve made a compelling argument for me as a nebula.

JC: [gives Tim an almond covered in honey wrapped in ham] What did you just eat?

MW: Why?

TN: Sugar. Okay, lemme tell you, I am the world. And at some point I’m going to write a program that will take all of you and will bring me into me, that will incorporate everyone into me. And all the other programs will just be bullshit. Like okay, I forgot to write a program to be able to see anything. But someone else will do it for me. It’s not hard to see. Because the world’s already there. Every part of them slowly becomes part of me. And then, I start walking around at the Rock and I’m like, “Fuck off,” because I’m awesome.

Everyone is part of me. And at some point I reach the head—I don’t want a bullshit head, I want my head—and then I incorporate my head. And then I’m like, “Some parts of this are a little weak,” and I make them better.

TN: Because I mix things up.

Drink 11

MW: I want you to talk to me about stores. You’re going to open a store, can you describe its layout, its atmosphere, what it would sell?

MW: Okay, design for me the perfect garden.

MW: What do people think of your dances?

TN: They love my dances!

MW: Do they ever dance along with you?

TN: Sometimes. And then we have sex. I want to talk about something else.

TN: I think that if there’s a guy who laughs a lot and has no substance, he likes peanuts. But I think that hazelnuts are for those that feel deeply about many things.

And cashews could go either way. Macadamia is for people who think that nuts are bullshit. They think that macadamia is the best because it’s not the best, but it’s pretty good. I think that the best nut is the pecan. I love pecans. But what are you going to do with a pecan? A pecan is

MW: Describe the terrain, what’s it like?

TN: Pyramids.

MW: Paint the picture. Quickly!

TN: Pyramids, okay, and then there’s hieroglyphics, but not the kind that you expect, because they’re slightly comical.

MW: If you were a kitchen appliance, what appliance would you be?

TN: Cuisinart. Blender.

TN: If I opened a store? It would fail very quickly because I sell stuff that people don’t want. I want to sell dead bodies. I want to sell dragons to people and no one’s going to buy a dragon, because they’re going to be like, this isn’t real. People don’t believe what I have. I’m trying to make money off the dragons, because there are no dragons.

MW: So describe the layout of the store.

TN: It’s a maze, first of all. And the further you get in through the maze, the better the deals are. And in the center is the best deal. At the center of the maze: Jesus Christ. No, at the center of the maze, you can buy a wonderful female, it’s a, what’s a female shirt called? A blouse? You can buy a blouse made out of chainmail. And it’s only a dollar. What I want to do is, I want people to come to my store. And I want them to know what it’s like to just traverse themselves and find out that what they really want is just a chainmail blouse. And if they discover that about themselves, that’s great, because I make a profit. And if they don’t discover it, then I have other things for them. It wouldn’t have to be a chainmail lady, they could be like a normal lady, a non-chainmail lady. As long as they pay me five dollars for it, I’m okay with it. I’m doing okay, they’re doing okay, and everyone’s doing okay.

Drink 9 TN: Drink nine. What’s up? So what I’m thinking about is the aliens, the people, I love that shit. Aliens, you know, it’s like, just get here already, you know. I’m tired of waiting. If the aliens came, I would ask them, do you have art? And if they said yes, I would read the art through the alien translator. And if not, then I would say: interesting.

MW: So the aliens. Whatever you’re doing at that moment, would you pick up –

TN: Yeah, what’s up? Perfect garden?

Prostitutes.

JC: This all shows me that you’ve never had an equal relationship with a woman.

TN: Bed. I’m going to bed.

MW: Where you going? like Apollo 13. It’s going to self-destruct, unless it has something that fixes it. And I fix pecans. I go in, I say, “Hey pecan, what’s up?” And if they say, “Not much,” I say, “You’re screwed, I’m down.” I will tell you, pecan, that you need to get some shit straightened out. The pecan knows what’s up, but if it doesn’t know what’s up, what’s going to happen but me saying, “Here’s what’s up.”

MW: It seems like you identify with the pecan?

TN: Yeah, because the pecan’s in a shell and then it gets loose. And I’m in a shell. I have to get loose.

MW: Do you have to wait for someone to crack you open?

TN: No, I’ve been loose for like seven years.

MW: Do you think so, or have you been just rattling around in the shell?

TN: The only shell that matters is the shell that truly represents a finitude of your own thought.

MW: What’s the boundary of your thought?

TN: Boringness. My thought stops when it gets boring.

MW: Talk to me a little about rolls. Some people like the Kaiser roll, take them seriously, like my mother, and rightly so, it’s the Caesar of rolls. Now, I know you like

Julieta Cárdenas: Who do you love most in the world?

TN: Myself probably.

MW: Is the person you love the most dead?

TN: I really love Robert Walser. I love chicken soup.

MW: Could you write a letter to Robert Walser?

TN: Yeah, I would say, “Robert Walser, you’re a crazy man, man. I like that. -Tim.” MW: Tim, tell me about artificial materials. Like I’m thinking like tin foil. What’s the deal with tin foil?

TN: Tin foil: fucked up!

MW: Fucked up! What is it? I don’t get it.

TN: It’s foil, but it’s made of tin. What’s up with that? No, here’s what I feel. It’s like at this point nobody should be inventing anything, because we’re done.

TN: Going to bed.

Tim leaves the kitchen and falls onto his bed.

MW: So Tim, how do you feel after this experience?

TN: Drunk MW: Any more than that?

TN: Nope.

MW: What do you plan to dream about?

TN: I want to dream of just a big inky void.

And I hope my octopus brings it about.

Matt bids him goodnight, and leaves to get Tim a glass of water. From his room, Tim shouts that he has had insights.

MW: What insight did you have?

TN: I say that if you have a kind of sugarbased view of the world, like you know, your models of your roommates are based on sugar cubes, I say that’s cool. But it’s somewhat limiting.

MW: Anything else you want to add?

MW: When did it end, definitively?

TN: Nope. I’m just going to pass out.

TN: 1850.

MW: Enjoy yourself.

MW: And since?

TN: I don’t think I will.

TN: Planes. But fuck planes! I say bring the planes, but maybe give them 10 propellers. So they can go twice as fast.

MATTHEW WEISS B’12 drinks sake.

TIMOTHY NASSAU B’12 usually takes a Campari on the rocks.

17

TAGS

08 DECEMBER 2011

TOE-TAGS Illustration by Becca Levinson

DOUG POOL Big ol’ Dog Pole. First man on the East Side to mix chickpea water with hot-dog grease. From the first time I saw him slap the bass at the Guitar Show, I knew he was something special, but I didn’t know he’d become the king of my cool world.

A real renaissance man, that DP Dummer, learned in all three Rs, but he contributed neither ‘riting nor ‘rithmetic to our Independent, instead plying his Micron as staff illustrator. Doug E.’s Muchachos belongs on the Indy cover wall of fame. Master of Sporcle, Pug Dule.

ERIN SCHIKOWSKI

DAYNA TORTORICI

Fifteen years from now, a glossy-mag journalist will be stymied when he sits down to write his profile of Erin “Mad Dog of the Midwest” Schikowski. His outlines will quickly break down into fragmentary notes: •Doctor and investigative journalist exposing healthcare system woes – ethics?

Renegade/superstar: Pulitzer Prize, AMA boycott of books, fanclubs in Asia •Blonde hair, blue eyes, babyface. Dimples. Dimples. *DOES SHE HAVE DIMPLES?? (cutthroat v. cuddly – when is she flirting? “hoochie mama” anecdote) •Personal life (Mo), children (Mo Jr., Lil’ Mo, Mini-Mo) As the night wears on and his eyes grow bloodshot, he will become convinced of two things: one, that this woman is impossible to describe, and two, that he is in love with her. He will leave her a voicemail, desperate and slurring: “Hi, Erin, sorry for calling so late. It’s me. Jacob. The writer. Oh god, I can’t believe I called myself a writer on your voicemail. I know I don’t even come close to your talent, but” —his voice cracks here— “I just want you to take care of me. To be my ‘grey lady.’

You know what I mean. Okay. Sorry. I’ll talk to you soon.”

He hangs up, closes his eyes, dreams of her: gleeful bursts of laughter in a coffee shop, a slow brush spreading across her cheeks, her sweaters, her voice, the sway of her drunken hips to the strains of late‘90s rap.

Let’s break it down: Dayna (Miss Tortorici if you’re nasty) inspired a solid majority of turn-of-the-millennium backseat bangers. She’s a survivor, she’s real, she’s all glitter, glisten, gloss, floss; she’ll catch a beat running like Randy Moss. When she waltzes into a party, eyes lined and feet booted, boy, she’s gotta watch her body; she’s not just anybody. Thirty seconds of Spat’s karaoke and she’s got every man in there wishing. This biddy has left legions of wordcraft masters bowing down—Nelly weeping, K-Ci and JoJo moaning, Left Eye lamenting—because they know they can’t elegize her like she deserves: there isn’t anything you can say about Dayna Tortorici that she couldn’t say better herself.