The College Hill Independent V.30 N.4

THE

COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT V 30 N 04 | FEB 27 2015 A BROWN/RISD WEEKLY

VOLUME 30 | ISSUE 4

news 02 Week in Exegesis

sebastian clark & dominique pariso

03 Crusadin’ round town

elias bresnick & sebastian clark

METRO

05 ISRI

madeleine matsui

07 No Parents emma lloyd

ARTS 09 Golden Boy sam samore

11

Port Chis, TX lisa borst

FEATURES 04 Correspondence armani madison

15

Behind the Curtain diane exavier

managing editors Rick Salamé. Stephanie Hayes, Zeve Sanderson news Dash Elhauge, Elias Bresnick, Sebastian Clark metro Cherise Morris, Sophie Kasakove arts Eli Pitegoff, Erin Schwartz, Lisa Borst, Maya Sorabjee features Matthew Marsico, Patrick McMenamin, Sara Winnick SCIENCE Jamie Packs TECHNOLOGY Wilson Cusack SPORTS Sam Bresnick, William Underwood interviews Mika Kligler literary Kim Sarnoff EPHEMERA mark Benz X Layla Ehsan, Sara Khan, Pierie Korostoff list Polina Volfovich, Tristan Rodman design + illustration Alexa Terfloth, Ben Ross, Casey Friedman, Nikolas Bentel, Noah Beckwith Cover Editor Jade Donaldson Senior editors Alex Sammon, Greg Nissan, Lili Rosenkranz, Tristan Rodman Staff WriterS Alexandra Ruiz, Athena Washburn, Camera Ford, Dominique Pariso, Eli Neuman-Hammond, Erin West, Jane Argodale, Malcolm Drenttel STAFF ILLUSTRATORs Caroline Brewer, Lee Bernstein, Natalie Kassirer, Polina Volfovich BUSINESS Haley Adams, Kyle Giddon Cover Art Casey Friedman MvP Elias Bresnick

SPORTS 08 Under- Over- armor

sam bresnick, william underwood, kyle giddon, stephanie hayes & zeve sanderson

INTERVIEWS 12 The Time is N.O.W. sophie kasakove

TECHNOLOGY 14 Dancing With My Selves wilson cusack

EPHEMERA 13 Cotton Mouth plastic rapper

LIT 17 Romathic ethan blake

X 18 All Meow, No Bite layla ehsan, sara khan & pierie korostoff

fROM THE EDITOR S The PawSox’s new ownership group wants to relocate the team to Providence and—my regrets to Pawtucket—a baseball stadium would be good for the city. At press time the target site appears to be I-195 land on the west bank of the Providence River. Most of the lot currently lies vacant and the alternative proposal to create a park on the land is underwhelming given how sparsely populated existing parks on the on the east bank of the river tend to be. With empty buildings peppering the southern fringe of downtown it seems like more foot traffic, more activity, and more diversified use of the area is needed—at least until a magical Brown-driven techno-utopic Knowledge District comes into existence. Three cheers for the supply-side...

Brown currently owns two acres of the land in question, which it bought in 2011 for $6 million. The other six acres needed for the stadium are owned by the state. Sources close to the negotiations say that the ownership group—made up of wealthy Rhode Island and Massachusetts businessmen—wants the state to give them the land for free, WPRI reported. To do this, however, would require that the General Assembly repeal language in Title 37 Ch 5 of RI state law, which states that I-195 land is to be sold “at fair market value.” The ownership group has hired former Senate minority leader Robert Goldberg as lobbyist, but they might not need his help: Jim Skeffington, one of the leaders of the ownership group, helped create the public-private partnership for the Providence Place Mall, for which the public is paying the developer $3.56 million per year until 2021. But who needs Skeffy and Goldberg? State politicians are already tripping over themselves trying to outdo each other in enthusiasm for a stadium deal. The ownership group is trying to externalize its costs and dump them on the public balance sheet, but don’t expect them to share any profits once the thing is built. And all our politicians are acting like the owners are doing us a big favor by setting up shop.

Apparently we depend on baseball more than baseball depends on our money. Still, when we’re done sucking up to ten rich men I propose we ask why exactly they can’t buy the land like everyone else. –RS

P.O. Box 1930 Brown University Providence, RI 02912 Letters to the editor are welcome distractions. The Independent, a family-run publication, is published weekly during the fall & spring semesters and is printed by TCI Press in Seekonk, MA.

THEINDY.ORG // @THEINDY_TWEETS

WEEK IN EXEGESIS

by Kyle Giddon & Dominique Pariso

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish

A Love Letter

Picture it: you’re swimming through the Gulf of Mexico.

Surrounded by a school of your friends. The water is so warm today, you’d think, if you were human and understood the concept ‘warm.’ What a day to be a red grouper. Happy as a clam. Except not really, because you hate those smug bastards.

You swim on, carefree. Confident. Lulled into a sense of false security. You have always been the runt of the litter, the smallest of your siblings—that’s why mom always paid you special attention. As a grouper under 20 inches, it’s illegal to catch you. Any fisherman who dares it faces serious fines. You’re safe.

But you are sorely mistaken. You swim right into the net. Never even saw it coming. As the fisherman rips you into the air, you finally realize it. So that’s what water was. You are unceremoniously dumped into a bucket. There is no hope left for you. It’s over.

Or is it?

On this particular day in 2007, Mr. John L. Yates, Fisherman First Class of the Miss Katie, caught 72 red grouper that were under the legal size. Mr. John Jones, a Florida field officer boarded his sea worthy vessel and upon inspection discovered these undersized fish. Jones issued Yates a citation and ordered him to take the fish to port for seizure. Mr. Yates’ wise response was simple: throw the fish overboard. A brilliant move, really...

Except when the federal government decides to charge you with violating the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. This particular charge earns a penalty of up to 20 years for obstructing an investigation by destroying “any record, object, or tangible object” relating to it. A law that was passed after the collapse of Enron, mainly meant to prosecute white-collar crimes. One pictures the law applying to well-dressed business executives manically shredding documents as the IRS closes in.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court ruled in a narrow 5-4 decision to throw out Mr. Yates’ conviction. Five of the judges agreed that, as far as fish were concerned, they were not tangible objects in the context of the law. They cannot be used to store or communicate information. Fish, apparently, do not make the best documents. The other four judges, one of whom cited the incomparable Dr. Seuss, argued that the term “tangible objects” could apply in different contexts and settings, including this one.

Somewhere deep in the sea, the red grouper swims on.

Whatever, losers, he thinks. Can’t catch me. Can’t write on me either. –DP

On Tuesday, the eternal game of corporate musical chairs rotated once more as Sony Pictures Entertainment announced that Thomas E. Rothman, a 60-year-old studio executive, would take over as chairman of the company’s motion pictures group. Rothman replaces Amy Pascal, whose private emails were famously leaked in a hacking scandal that began last November, and who has since been exiled off with “a four-year production deal,” because rich people don’t really get fired.

Thus ends the Tragedy of Pascal, Queen of Sony, but her hacked emails have left us a kind of running diary of who she was and how she ran her company. They also may have cost her her job, but their content is, in a different sense, her vindication. As Jordan Sargent notes on Gawker, she ultimately comes across as “a strong, intelligent boss…a passionate and moral human being in an industry of insane egomaniacal assholes.” After reading the full trove of leaked emails, I’ve also come to two more conclusions: first, Amy Pascal is damn weird, and, second, that’s awesome.

Reading Pascal’s prose, one quickly comes to admire her endearing typos (“We can’t even schudule one ducking meeting”), her single-word rejoinders (“WTF”), her plaintive cries (“Why are u punishing me”), and her yawps once she’s reached the limits of indulgence (“YOUR ATTITUDE IS NOT HELPFUL”). These do, however, have to be read in the context of her more-regrettable emails, chiefly one in which she speculated about Obama’s favorite movies (surprise: the ones with black actors in them). As a result, it’s hard not to read the entirety of her leaked correspondence with at least a little schadenfreude—the steely studio exec finally receives her public comeuppance!—which has probably contributed to the sheer volume of attention it has received. But compare her writing with, say, the words of Harvey Weinstein, defending his cuts on movies: “All my life I served one master: the film.” It’s this kind of blustering we expect from Hollywood honchos—pseudo-worship at the impartial altar of art. From Pascal, instead, we get quirky poetry on the human condition: You and I have have the two biggest fights we have has in years And we haven’t even had a meeting yet Nobody changes Ever

This is delightful, not least because she channels William Carlos Williams (or the early Pound?). Another bite-sized lament, with masterfully chosen line breaks, might be ripped from the Book of Job: It never Not even once Ever works However, at press time, it was still unclear whether she was referring to the yet-unreleased Cameron Crowe movie or the news section of The College Hill Independent. –KG

FEBRUARY 27 2015

NEWS

□ 02

LOST IN INTERPRETATION

“

03

□

NEWS

In a recent address at the country’s annual National Prayer Breakfast, President Obama invoked the name of an ancient atrocity in order to contextualize a modern, ongoing one. Sermonizing on what he explains as ISIS’s misinterpretation of foundational Islamic texts, Obama aimed to point out that Christianity too has been guilty of past offenses. “And lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ… There is a tendency in us, a sinful tendency that can pervert and distort our faith.” Within hours, the latest media firestorm had engulfed the hapless president.

Obama’s assertion – palliative but reductive— appeared to be that if a group uses Islam or Christianity to justify violence, then that collection of people has undoubtedly misunderstood the core tenets of their religion. His remarks intended to distance ISIS’s ‘hijacked’ version of Islam from what he sees as the religion’s true, original form. “We see faith being twisted and distorted, used as a wedge—or, worse, sometimes used as a weapon. From a school in Pakistan to the streets of Paris, we have seen violence and terror perpetrated by those who profess to stand up for faith, their faith, professed to stand up for Islam, but, in fact, are betraying it,” he continued. Just as Christianity’s spotty past doesn’t condemn the religion in its entirety, Islam shouldn’t have to answer for its violent misinterpreters.

In context, it’s clear that Obama used the Crusades as an example of Christianity-gone-awry to set alongside ISIS as an example of Islam-goneawry—a simple one-to-one comparison the likes of which you might find midway through the critical reading section of the SAT. In a break from traditional Presidential rhetoric surrounding the alwaysdubious topic of foreign policy, Obama swapped out American exceptionalism for what struck the public as a seemingly bizarre call for compassion—a sort of admittance that ‘we’ve done this too.’

At a recent address to the United Nations General Assembly, Obama tacitly and proudly admitted the U.S’s fallibility: “We welcome the scrutiny of the world — because what you see in America is a country that has steadily worked to address our problems and make our union more perfect,” he said. “America is not the same as it was 100 years ago, 50 years ago or even a decade ago. Because we fight for our ideals and are willing to criticize ourselves when we fall short.”

But Obama’s call for progress and understanding was instantly taken as an attempt to downplay militant Islam. In an interview for Fox News, pundit Tucker Carlson “The President’s message—as I read it—is ‘Christians, you have no right to judge ISIS; you have blood on your hands, you’ve sinned, too.’ Is that the message, do you think?”

Said former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore, a Republican, “The president’s comments this morning at the prayer breakfast are the most offensive I’ve ever heard a president make in my lifetime. He has offended every believing Christian in the United States. This goes further to the point that Mr. Obama does not believe in America or the values we all share.”

by Indy News

Obama’s speech arrives at the same time as a recent inflammatory piece published by The Atlantic, “What ISIS Really Wants,” which makes the assertion that ISIS is no distortion, but instead gleans its rationale for violence from the very foundational texts of Islam. “The reality” write Graeme Wood, “is that the Islamic State is Islamic. Very Islamic.”

The president’s comments at the Prayer Breakfast plainly aimed to do the important work of dissociating Islam from ISIS. A Pew poll in September showed, for the first time, that 50 percent of Americans viewed Islam as more likely to encourage violence than other religions. Another 39 percent said it was not more likely to encourage violence. Obama has plainly stated he believes that attributing violence to Islam is unfair and damaging to relations between Christians and the broader Muslim population. +++ Obama was roundly criticized by various critics for his likening of ISIS to the Crusades, but no criticism (at least that I’ve read) alighted on the president’s true mistake. Obama framed ISIS’s problem as one of misinterpretation of Islamic texts, but we have to ask if that is really what’s at stake.

To provide textual evidence for the existence of the justification for violence in the Bible and the Quran is to gobble low-hanging fruit. We all know that there are ample instances in each that exhibit a near cartoonishly antiquated way of interacting with one another.

And this is exactly what Obama’s rosy picture of religion misses. The strain that popped up throughout Obama’s speech connecting ‘true’ religion with “profound good, strength, tenacity, compassion and love” paints a panglossian picture – aiming to glaze over the violence and hatred resident within these texts and reduce ISIS’s stance to an inexplicable act of misinterpretation.

If US law is any indication, then it’s clear that words can often be interpreted to mean both one thing and its opposite. The power lies with the interpreter.

And this is the essential point to understand; ISIS’s violence is not justified or unjustified insofar as it conforms or does not conform to a set of religious guidelines. To claim that someone misinterprets is to imply that there is, in fact, a valid interpretation for whatever the thing in question may be. And since the very fabric of the US is made up of a proliferation of interpretations, it feels almost painfully obvious to point out that this is not what the president believes.

If we’re to say that ISIS’s violence is unjustified, there’s absolutely no use in framing the question on religious grounds. Obama glossed over the fact that the question should not be posed as one of interpretation but of basic morality.

In an effort to unwind the desired threads of neoliberal American values in the Bible from the undesirable ones, the president wound up with a cloth ripped in two—an attractive picture, but at bottom an incoherent one.

”

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

LETTER TO MY UNBORN CHILD

by Armani Madison illustration by Teri Minogue We are in the midst of a disturbing trend: the intentional, no-consequence murders of Black bodies by law enforcement.

The path forward for the ongoing Black freedom struggle is unclear in a world where racism manifests itself both outwardly and subtly, in a world where racism is not just a behavior or ideology reflected by people, but in institutions.

The tragedies of the past year or so—due in many ways to the increased media coverage of a few of the plethora of cases of Black people brutalized and killed by law enforcement—have, at a huge cost, provided our people and this nation with the most clear-cut issue and battle that we have had in decades.

In many ways, I interpret the “To My Unborn Son” campaign as being one of hope, in that we write these letters hoping for a brighter future, but preparing these as-yet-to-be-born children, as our parents did, for the possibility that they exist in a world as oppressive as that of our upbringing.

Conceptualized and launched by the Yale Black Men’s Union in November of 2014, “To My Unborn Son” is a campaign aimed at showing solidarity with the families of Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, and the many other Black victims of police brutality who do not gain the media coverage needed to earn public attention or concern. Participants in the campaign stand against a black backdrop, holding whiteboards containing brief messages for their as-yet-tobe-conceived children. Some of the messages provide hope for the child’s, others caution about the difficulty of their interactions with the world, all take the lessons learned from their own lives and gift them to the next generation. Using these brief, personal messages, the campaign tries to combat the belief, held by some, that we live in a “post-racial” society.

At a time in which the murders of Black and Brown people by law enforcement, and in which the ramifications of racial discrimination in America are being highlighted, it is important that we stand in solidarity with those who we have lost, and that we stand strong against racism, discrimination, and police brutality. On behalf of the national “To My Unborn Son” campaign, I have organized students on Brown University’s campus to engage in the project.

When I viewed the messages of this campaign, I found that I reflected on the words and lessons not said, on the things that I could not fit on that board. I began to think about one of the pieces that has profoundly influenced me— a sorrowful, but incredibly thought-provoking letter by Dr. W.E.B. DuBois, called “On the Passing of the First-Born.”

Though written over 100 years ago, this letter is applicable to a child born today. As such, the timelessness, the directness, and yet, the audacity of hope that this letter contains has influenced me. I began to ponder what I would say to my unborn child if I could write a longer letter to him or her. In recognizing that the sex of my child is yet to be determined, and that the issues which I articulate affect both males and females, I have elected to drop “son” in my letter, in favor of “child.” +++ To my unborn child, As I gaze into your innocent, dark, beautiful face, a face that some may consider ‘unconventionally beautiful,’ I feel the joys of being a proud, new father. From the womb of your beautiful Black mother, and from the worries of your father, you, the next generation of a proud lineage of Black people, arise. I feel, as Dr. DuBois once wrote, the “fear of fatherhood mingled wildly with the birth of creation.”

There are so many opportunities ahead of you, so many triumphs to be had, so many places to go, people to see, things to do, and experiences through which to grow. In this world, anything is possible. But in this world, though anything is possible, the battle is harder fought for those of certain backgrounds than for others.

In your heritage, you will inherit, as DuBois once artfully conveyed to his son, “the unbowed pride of a hunted race”;

FEBRUARY 27 2015

with your hands, you will hold on to “a hope not hopeless but unhopeful”; and with your eyes, you will see “a land whose freedom is to us a mockery and whose liberty a lie.” Needless to say, growing up Black will be challenging; however, take solace in the fact that, through your veins flows the blood of a proud, strong, forgiving, and intelligent people—the blood of a people descended from the African motherland.

In life, you will realize that your white peers will be treated more favorably than yourself, which will cause you to often have to do above and beyond what is asked of you, and work significantly harder to gain access to the places they occupy effortlessly. Your white peers, if seeking a place amongst the elite, will encounter powerful individuals and powerful structures that are more likely to reflect them and their interests.

Your white peers, if seeking employment for the same role as you, are far more likely to receive the position, unless your qualifications are significantly higher. Your white peers will see themselves in magazines, will see themselves regularly portrayed positively in the media, will have no reason to believe that their race is a barrier to any opportunity. You will learn to

distrust the institutions designed, seemingly, to protect you.

You will learn that you can be beaten, arrested, even murdered by the very police that is supposed to protect you, for no more of a crime than being born Black.

You will face an unceasing assault on your confidence and on your self-worth by society-at-large. You will be assaulted by the media, by educational institutions, by the ‘free’ market, by your peers, by your history books, by history and by the negativity perpetuated by the institutions of slavery and segregation, by your teachers, by respectability politics, by authority figures, by the concepts of masculinity and feminism and authenticity, as they relate to the experiences of Black people, and, sadly, even at times by your own people.

Sometimes this assault occurs directly as your people are blamed or denigrated. At other times it is through your failure to even be mentioned. You will have to fight off accusations that the challenges you undergo are ‘figments of your imagination.’ You will face a constant assault on your status as a human, on your masculinity as a man, or on your femininity as a woman. You may be told that you are not conventionally handsome or beautiful. You will likely be teased for your skin-color, whether you are lighter- or darker-skinned. You will not be taught your history in the schools, and your attempts to buck the system will likely be met with resistance and disciplinary action. Your intelligence will be questioned, and your accomplishments may be chalked up to ‘affirmative action.’ Many who claim to be allied with you will be merely

wolves in sheep’s clothing. Be perceptive enough to detect the difference. When you complain about the oppression which you are routinely subject to, do not be surprised if your white peers are confused, or even if they attempt to invalidate your lived experiences. Identify and fight the high odds against you.

I want to tell you, however: do not be discouraged, never feel inadequate or unworthy, no matter what the biased history books in your school courses, or the white-dominated and white-biased entertainment industry, and even what your peers may imply. Your hopes for success are not only wrapped up in becoming a rapper or an athlete, to be commodified, packaged, branded, and sold to the masses. You are more than your body, more than your branding. Always have the courage and initiative to stand up to the wrongs that you see or experience, whether you stand with a crowd, or you stand alone. I want you to have the courage to pursue your dreams, to be prepared for failure, if it comes, and to prepare yourself to try again, and to fear no institution and no person in the pursuit of righteousness.

Be proud of your dark skin, be knowledgeable and proud of your history, of those who fought and died for the rights which you are able to enjoy today, and for those rights which you have yet to gain. Remember that your history does not begin in chains, for if you start from that point, everything for our people looks like progress. Never feel the need to explain yourself to, seek approval from, or justify yourself to white critics. Never question your authenticity. Always reach back to help your brothers and sisters. Live in solidarity with other Black and Brown people of the world, and ally yourself with the struggles of others who are seeking their liberation. If any group is oppressed, none of us are is liberated. As articulated

by Dr. King, “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Draw your inspiration from figures like Dr. King, Malcolm X, Toussaint L’Ouverture, Emperor Menelik II, W.E.B. DuBois, Patrice Lumumba, John Lewis, Angela Davis, Audre Lorde, Ella Baker, Harriet Tubman, Shirley Chisholm.

Inform yourself about the freedom struggles of other groups, and join hand-in-hand with them. Fight every attempt that comes to belittle you, to convince you that you are a lesser being, or to subjugate you, no matter who this comes from. Stay true to yourself, and never forget where you came from. Every day, when you wake up, go to the mirror and ask yourself, “How am I better today than I was yesterday? And what will I do today to ensure that I wake up tomorrow better than I am today?”

And finally, know. Know that greatness is in your heritage and in your reach. Know that your mother and I love you, that you deserve justice and equality, and that you should commit yourself to the struggle against the racist and classist institutions and norms that have blocked, limited, and brutalized us for so long, just as I promise to. Know that you are accepted whatever your decisions, loved wherever you go, and supported in all that you strive for. And I will be with you, a proud father, pushing you every step of the way towards your path to liberation, to success, and to the building of a legacy of your very own, which will be defined on your own terms. You will be the First of All, in that you will have the courage to lead and to take risks, even if your actions are unprecedented, You will be a Servant of All, in that you will be of your community, will give back to your people, and will work for the empowerment of the disempowered. You will beat all of the odds, you will survive, you will grow, and you will overcome the physical, mental, emotional, and historical oppressions placed upon you as a Black man or woman of society; in doing so, you will Transcend All. And you have my love and support, every step of the way.

ARMANI MADISON B’16 is done with ‘not yet.’

FEATURES □ 04

VANDALISM AT THE ISLAMIC SCHOOL OF RHODE ISLAND

At 1:11pm on a glacial Friday, February 20th, about sixty people gathered in the back half of a small gymnasium, a makeshift prayer hall for the jumu’ah prayer. Shoeless men in heavy winter garb sat in rows, their clunky forms interspersed with the small frames of young boys. Fidgety girls sat in neat rows before them. Behind them, women in hijabs sat in chairs. Many had young bundled toddlers clasped in their laps.

Abdelnasser Hussein, the principal of the Islamic School of Rhode Island (ISRI) located in West Warwick, stood solemnly to deliver the sermon. In the wake of the prayer, an air of anxiety and quiet anticipation penetrated the room. Murmurous and shifting, the congregation silenced itself as the principal approached the podium to address those seated before him, many of whom were students and the family members of students attending the school.

Almost one week prior, in the middle of the night on Saturday, February 14, the school was vandalized with anti-Islamic graffiti. According to Hilmy Bakri, the president of the school’s board of trustees, a parent discovered the graffiti upon arriving at the school for morning prayer at roughly 7am on Sunday. The parent then notified Bakri, who in turn called the local police. Photos released by the police show the jarring orange letters scrawled across the school’s front doors and outside wall: “pigs,” it read, “now this is a hate crime.” The graffiti also contained offensive references to the Prophet Mohammad. This brazen act of Islamophobic vandalism and violence is now the subject of an ongoing FBI civil rights investigation. The FBI is coordinating with the Rhode Island Attorney General’s office as well as the West Warwick Police, though no public statements on the progress of the investigation have been issued so far. On Tuesday, after properly documenting the graffiti, the police gave the school the green light to remove the graffiti. It has since been painted over.

The incident shook the school, whose population of 160 students (ranging from pre-kindergarten to eighth grade) and 20 staff were away for February break. Speaking with the Independent, Bakri said there had been no prior incidents of vandalism.

“Most of our [school] population is very young, and firstly we were worried about their safety considering the serious nature of this crime,” Bakri said. Following the incident, the school called every parent to listen to their concerns and to communicate the latest information. Through calls and e-mails, Bakri also made efforts to inform the wider Rhode Island Muslim community about the incident, and as events unfolded, he made regular and thorough updates to the school’s Facebook page. The day following the incident, Bakri posted: “We are going to do our due diligence in protecting the school— but in the end we put our trust in Allah swt [the most glorified]. He is the Almighty and most merciful, whatever he wills no one can prevent and whatever he denies no one can achieve.” +++ A private, non-profit school built on the old site of a church, the ISRI is housed within two modest salmon-colored buildings tucked away behind several remaining church structures and a giant CVS. The hallways are decorated with colorful student artwork: first-attempts at Arabic script in crayon, mosaics of make-believe mosques, pencil drawings of the Quran. Outside the bathroom, illustrated posters in Arabic instruct students on how to properly wash their mouths, faces, hands, feet and forearms.

Students at the ISRI are mostly the children of immigrants from a wide array of countries including Nigeria, Kenya, Saudi Arabia, India and Turkey. The demographics represented at the ISRI mirror the broader Muslim population in the State: adherents are mostly immigrants and are both ethnically and linguistically diverse. Muslims—

05

□

METRO

by Madeleine Matsui illustration by Casey Friedman

most of whom live in the greater Providence area—constitute roughly 0.006–0.007 percent of the roughly one million people in Rhode Island. According to a Pew Research Center study conducted in 2010, Muslims make up 0.6 percent of the national population.

Major Muslim centers of worship and socializing within Rhode Island are mostly located in the central and northern regions of the state. The first masjid (Arabic for mosque), Masjid Al-Karim, was built on Cranston Street in Providence in 1976. The construction and establishment of other masjids soon followed, first with Masjid AlRahman in Pawtucket and later Masjid Islam in North Smithfield. Masjids not only provide a place of worship, but also serve as a space for community building through religious and educational programs, classes and other activities. As the fastest growing religion in the world and the third largest faith in the United States, Islam has an estimated 20,000–40,000 new converts annually in the US. The Providence Muslim population is also growing quickly, though exact statistics on the pace of expansion are unclear. “It’s growing, it’s really growing,” said Aboubekr, a representative and member of the Islamic Center of Rhode Island in reference to Providence’s Muslim community.

Bakri, who is Malaysian-American and whose two children attend the ISRI, told me that the school has met a demand for an Islamic-centered education for children in the Muslim community in the greater Providence area. As we entered the main school building where the classrooms are located, we passed under the school’s mission statement. It reads: “The Islamic School of Rhode Island is committed to inspiring excellence in our students’ education, character and personal conduct. We strive to teach them how to gain KNOWLEDGE, increase their FAITH in their daily lives, and incorporate Islam and exercise DISCIPLINE in their pursuits to benefit themselves and society.” +++ Since the incident, the school has planned to install additional surveillance cameras and an alarm system for the doors and to institute a series of internal precautions in the case of another similar incident. To pay for these new upgrades to the school’s existing system, Bakri recently set up a GoFundMe page for the school. A privately funded school, ISRI derives 80 percent of its funding from tuition fees and the remaining 20 percent from fundraising efforts. While all students have to pay tuition, the school offers financial aid for those who cannot afford the full price, including discounts for the children of teachers. Tuition for pre-kindergarten is $4,870 while kindergarten through eighth grade is $4600 for the 2014-2015 school year, with a sibling discount of $250.

Speaking quickly in a voice that deviated from its usual measured cadence, Bakri told me: “I checked the page a few hours ago and there have already been twenty-four donations, with over half from people with non-Muslim names!”

Seated in a chair built for a first-grader, Bakri recounted the various acts of kindness that had occurred as news of the incident spread. Besides donations from students’ parents, there had been an expression of solidarity by 21 faith leaders in Rhode Island at a press conference held at the school. The conference featured the resident Imam of Rhode Island, a representative of the Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island as well as the executive minister for the Rhode Island State Council of Churches. Marty Cooper, representing the Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island said: “We condemn prejudice and injustice of any kind. It is simply unconscionable that a school in our state has become the victim of what appears to be a hate crime.”

In addition, Bakri said that so far there had been one or two anonymous donations through PayPal, a gift of flowers offered by a woman from East Providence, and

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

a delivery of an overflowing US Postal Service box of letters of solidarity from students at the Moses Brown School. Printed on each letter was a big heart with a large quote

by John Woolman, US Quaker in 1762: “Love was the first motion…” Bakri went on to tell me how touched he was upon receiving a condolence e-mail from someone who lives close to the school in West Warwick: “He signed the letter ‘Your neighbor.’ In Islam, neighbors are among the first and most significant people you have to maintain good relationships with. I didn’t know that there was a deeper support from people in general, even from our neighbors in West Warwick.”

Although difficult to measure, relations between Muslims and non-Muslims in Providence and Rhode Island more generally have been relatively stable. In relation to the recent graffiti incident, Bakri said the politicians in Rhode Island have been supportive, with a councilman from West Warwick offering his sympathies and stating that this act does not reflect the views of the community at large. In an e-mail to the Independent, Bakri said he thinks this incident reflects the views of “a select few people who are committing atrocities.” More generally, the ISRI has tried to convey to the press and to parents the notion that Muslims in Rhode Island have not been targeted any more than other faiths. Bakri went on to state: “I think again there hasn’t been any major persecution or emotions of hatred towards [Muslims]. At least not [according to] the Muslims that I’ve known in Providence.”

In his Friday sermon, principal Hussein spoke passionately about using this incident as a moment for critical self-reflection. “There is a wave of hatred in some places against our community. If you put your finger on a map anywhere, you can find that our Muslim brothers and organizations are targeted here, and [that] our community is defamed there,” he began. Just this past week, the Quba Islamic Institute in Houston, Texas was destroyed in an act of arson; three American Muslim university students were murdered in their Chapel Hill apartment near the University of North Carolina; and an Arab-American Muslim man was harassed in a Kroger grocery store in Dearborn, Michigan. In English interspersed with Arabic verses from the Quran, Hussein spoke about everyday incidences of discrimination against the Muslim community of Providence. He described the cold glares women wearing hijabs receive in the supermarket, and the isolation many feel from being shamed by others for their Islamic faith.

But Hussein also called on those congregated before him to look inwards before criticizing others. Pointing to the cinder block wall behind his podium, Hussein talked about how each block served to fortify the whole: “That’s how we as Muslims should be. We should strengthen each other. We think too much that people hate us. We forget to think that we’re not being true to our beliefs. Mohammed tells us to pray on time, to go on hajj, and to give to charity and to love each other. How often do we do this? This is a lesson for us. Before you look elsewhere, you should look within yourself to see how you can improve.”

After the sermon, the congregation rose to pray. People, young and old, had trickled into the gymnasium during the 40-minute long sermon, and now there were almost 100 people in the room. Hussein spoke one last time into the microphone: “Do not weaken, and do not grieve.” After the final prayer, the room erupted in noise and camaraderie. Women and men with wide smiles embraced each other, frenzied children played hopscotch and tag, and others made their way towards the pile of shoes and winter boots that bordered the prayer rug.

As I exited the gymnasium, I overheard principal Hussein in conversation with a representative from a security company about possible ways to upgrade the existing infrastructure. In conjunction with a less visible process of rebuilding and fortification, a physical process of renovation was taking place. The school plans to remove the current (repainted) doors and replace them with a set of heavier, stronger ones. Changes to

FEBRUARY 27 2015

the pick-up and drop-off process for students were being negotiated, and Hussein planned to hold a school-wide assembly for students and their parents. Though the hallways and classrooms were empty, on Monday, students would return from their February vacation and fall back into their school day routines.

MADELEINE MATSUI B’17 is someone’s neighbor.

metro

□ 06

AN EGALITARIAN TUMOR Talking with Umberto Crenca illustration by Polina Volfovich

by Emma Lloyd In downtown Providence, at the intersection of Washington and Empire Streets, stands AS220, a popular bar, restaurant, and performance space. AS220 was founded by Umberto (“Bert”) Crenca in 1985. Since then, it has expanded exponentially. In 1992, the venue moved to its current location, a 21,000 square foot building on Empire Street. In 2006, the Empire Street complex was completed with renovations valued around $3.2 million—a far cry from the $800 Crenca used to start AS220. The space has grown to include a blackbox theater, a print shop, a fabrication and electronics lab, a dance studio, rotating gallery spaces, a performance space, and studio space for 50 artists in residence. The complex takes up almost a block on Empire Street and has offshoots throughout downtown Providence. The “AS” stands for “Artist’s Space” or “Alternative Space.” With initiatives like its free art education program, AS220 tries to reach out to the community—it must work hard, however, to strike the tricky balance between holding ideals and practicing them within the context of an expanding company. AS220 was one of the first big players in the growth of the Providence art community. Unlike many prominent galleries and museums, however, the space has remained indiscriminate in the artists it showcases and the events it holds.

Artistic Director Crenca is a Providence native and an artist himself. He has an impressive snow-white goatee and an impassioned manner of speaking. We talked about the roots of AS220, the meaning of “uncensored and unjuried,” and the relationship that the space has with the community.

The College Hill Independent: How did coming from Providence influence you early on as you were starting out as an artist, and what was your initial relationship with the city?

Umberto Crenca: Well, the idea of me being local and how that plays into what we’ve created here at AS220 is actually a huge question. First of all, most of the artists around Providence at the time that AS220 was starting up in 1985 were looking for a way to get out of town. Because this place was in terrible, terrible condition. Downtown didn’t look like this, these buildings were mostly empty, it was in pretty rough shape. Where did artists want to go? They wanted to go to New York, Boston, they wanted to go to bigger cities and bigger venues where they thought maybe they could get some recognition or become the next rock star. There has been a remarkable change, a transformation, in this city over the last 30 years.

When you look at the origins of AS220, the concept behind it was to create an open, uncensored, and unjuried environment, and a community and hub for artistic expression and creativity and for experimentation. Especially in those early days, there were a whole bunch of clubs where they played cover bands and music like that, but there were very few places for original bands to play or for visual artists to show work. If you weren’t somebody or if there wasn’t some assurance that you were going to sell some work, the few galleries that there were had no interest in you. I felt like the art scene was focused around art and music as commodities. There was nothing in the community supporting the idea of the intrinsic value of artists and artistic expression, that any and every individual irrespective of their academic background or any experience with art or music or any of that bullshit, has creative potential. I had a sense that if we created a community where anybody was welcome, no matter where they were in the development of their creative work, that we would begin to build a different kind of artistic community and then, you know, maybe New York and Boston wouldn’t pluck people from us.

I think the concept of AS220 is directly related to my growing up in Providence, being here [as a young artist] and looking for opportunities and not seeing them, not having them, and wanting to change that for this community. And that’s where we started, very humbly, we opened the doors and let people in to do whatever the hell they wanted. Whatever the hell they wanted. And now it’s grown into an organization that is nationally and internationally recognized for the work we’ve done and is emulated all over the world for what we do.

make art. Like you say, there is a cultish elite of who can make it as an artist in the public eye and it seems like the space itself has an egalitarian foundation to counter that…

UC: Yes, egalitarian. We have an equal pay policy. The people who work for the non-profit, myself included, all make the same wage. It’s a non-profit organization with six for-profit corporations under its umbrella. One of the for-profit organizations is the restaurant and bar that we run. The others are for-profit for development reasons but they are all owned by the non-profit. It’s a complicated business model to explain, but essentially we are a non-profit organization.

The Indy: You’ve experienced enormous growth over the past 30 years. AS220 has almost become a kind of empire, but an egalitarian empire…

UC: Right! This is Empire Street by the way. Part of the way we talk about our work is that we are an alternative that operates off a different set of values than the dominant culture, but is in absolute collaboration and partnership with the dominant culture. So what do I mean by that? I would suggest that the two primary values of the dominant culture are power and profit. And that’s pretty global now that capitalism is the world religion. And what does culture, what does a society provide? It provides opportunities to live, to eat, to drink, to learn, to share, to commerce. But all of those activities have an underpinning that relate back to those values of profit and power. Our primary values are the creative potential of every individual, the potential of creative people and makers to help shape community in positive ways, you know these are the kind of values that our work is driven by—but at AS220 you can also eat, drink, sleep, learn, perform, buy things, sell things, make things, right? As you may have noticed we are not living in a tent off the grid in North Carolina. We are doing this in partnership with the dominant culture.

The Indy: To change it from within—if you can…

UC: And that’s the goal. If they continue to approve of it, continue to let it grow. You can almost think of it as something that is growing within that eventually takes over.

The Indy: (Laughs) Like a disease!

UC: I use some of these metaphors and some of my staff want to throw me out the window. Sometimes I think of AS220 as a kind of brain tumor, but one that is so insidiously integrated that you would risk the body politic by trying to cut it out.

So you let it host off of you, in a sense, and we keep growing bigger and bigger and bigger and maybe our values begin to change the landscape, the language, the conversation, the consciousness of the community. And I feel that AS220 has done that.

The Indy: You started in 1985 and now it’s 2015—that’s 30 years. In these 30 years you’ve seen the community grow up around you. What kind of changes have you seen and how has AS220 been related to those changes?

UC: The subtext of the brand of “Providence” is that it is “the creative capital.” Thirty years ago it was unimaginable that this city would claim that. Unimaginable. We’re not the only ones, but we’ve played a significant role in changing that. Part of one of the outcomes that we should desire while working in any city is that we change the conversation but also that we create a new vocabulary—a vocabulary very much based in this idea of making culture, innovation, design, and the creative potential of everybody.

The Indy: Not just the “rock star” artists.

UC: But also not even any particular genre of art. We’ve spent a lot of time in this country pouring a lot of money into supporting and sustaining Western ideas of art, and we did it in a very elitist fashion. But Providence is a majority Latino community, from Guatemala and Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Colombia. They come with different traditions. There’s nothing wrong with seeing Shakespeare, but in the context of the shifting demographics in this country and particularly in this city, we need to start thinking differently about culture. And we are. It’s slow, but the elitist ideas of “high art” and all that shit don’t really play out as well as they once did. Many foundations have already started over the last ten, fifteen years, who redirect their resources into more community-based arts and organizations and they are beginning to measure the impact of their investments around issues of social equity, access, community impact, things like that, as opposed to preserving these Western European, elitist ideas of art. AS220 starts to become prominent in the conversation when you start measuring your success upon those kinds of indicators.

The Indy: Where do you see AS220 going in the next five years or further down the line?

UC: Well, we’ve just acquired another building and we want to continue to expand our programs in a way that allows for more possibilities and more access and more diversity within the organization. We are trying to stay relevant in the changing communities and changing demographics in the city. We want to learn more about other peoples’ work and continue to enrich and grow. You can look at AS220 as a living place, not a dead institution, but something that is constantly evolving and changing, constantly trying to execute better, constantly trying to stay current with the changing times, the changing demographics, and the changing needs of the community.

The Indy: “Uncensored” and “unjuried” seem to be really important words for you in the creation of this space. It sounds like you were trying to make a space that questioned the definition of what it meant to be an artist and who could

07

□

metro

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

COURTING THE COUTURE In honor of New York Fashion Week and the NBA All-Star Game’s alignment in New York City, the Indy takes a look at the innovative, poetic, and occassionally revealing intersections of fashion and basketball.

Dressing the Part Conservative heartthrob Rush Limbaugh said that 2004’s Malice at the Palace, that routine on-court scuffle between the Pistons and Pacers that spilled into the stands, was akin to “gang behavior on parade minus the guns.” Syndicated columnist Clarence Page backed him up, claiming that the fight was straight out of a ‘“Negroes gone wild’ video.”

This was a disaster for the NBA. Faced with drooping ratings and wilting merchandise sales, the last thing the league needed was for the national media to categorically refer to its players as “those thugs.”

Commissioner David Stern, in his inimitable grouchiness, swooped in with the dress code. Starting during the 2005-2006 season, players would be required to wear their finest “business casual” to and from games while leaving their “chains, pendants, or medallions…and headgear of any kind” at home.

Many prominent players were less than thrilled. Jason Richardson and Stephen Jackson complained that the dress code was racist, and Tim Duncan described it as “basically retarded.”

But as younger generations have moved through the league, most players are singing a different tune. Star shooting guard and fashionista Dwyane Wade credited Stern with improving his sartorial splendor, claiming that the Commissioner has made dressing up “a competition amongst guys.”

And what a competition it is! From Wade’s fuscia pants to the ubiquitous lens-less glasses to Kevin Durant’s schoolboy backpacks, “geek-chic” is all the rage in the NBA. Many players retain full-time stylists to keep them on the fashion vanguard, while Russell Westbrook just signed on to be True Religion’s new campaign creative director.

Though born out of the league’s bigoted treatment of its own players, the dress code has been appropriated by the players to be another space of competition: where on-point steez trumps off-the-dribble buckets. –SB Elbow Patch “The supplies you’ll need,” GamingFalcon tells us, “is a marker, scissors and a sock.” He moves back and forth nervously, and really it can’t be said that the elementary school-aged boy in the DIY video looks particularly cool or fashionable. Since 2001, though, the shooting sleeve he describes and then wears has been the most concentrated distillation of basketball chic.

Allen Iverson first made compression sleeves a fashion statement in professional basketball. Though he initially wore the sleeve to alleviate bursitis in his shooting elbow, the sleeve became inseparable from his contested image that was celebrated by viewers, but was anathema to a league that found Iverson’s skullcaps, tattoos, and rap career hostile to its efforts to market a family product to potential consumers. In theory, the compression sleeve opens blood cells and reduces muscle soreness, yet, as ensured by Iverson’s enduring popularity and shown in thousands of YouTube videos like the one described above, shooting sleeves are most importantly cool.

Shortly after Iverson popularized the sleeve during the 2000–2001 NBA season, sleeves became a common feature not only in the professional game, but also among fans.

Indeed, the NBA sells more sleeves than any non-apparel product in its online store. For the scores of people who won’t pay seventeen dollars for a nylon/spandex product marked with the NBA logo, DIY products made from dry fit sleeves or, in my case, tube socks serve as an adequate replacement.

I first wore a sleeve in eighth grade to play in the driveway with my cousins. It had no medical effect, not even the dubious value that the NBA’s variety are advertised to carry.

That said, my game undoubtedly improved when I looked better, and so I began to wear a tube sock on my forearm to practices at school, where my coach would make me run or, in one instance, sit out a game for it. At risk of drawing invalid parallels between my career and that of Allen Iverson, my shooting sleeve-sock was a quiet symbol of my struggles at athletic self-expression in a conservative fashion culture that resented both my success and my individuality.

Fitting then, that the shooting sleeve is adopted with markers and scissors by young players the world over. “It’s an an act of freedom and a form of self-expression,” Iverson once said of his tattoos. When CLUTCHNESSMONSTER cuts the sleeve of his dry fit shirt, it’s hard to disagree. –WU

FEBRUARY 27 2015

Exposure “Starting at guard, number 32 Zeeeeeve Sanderson,” the MC boomed over the speakers before my high school basketball games. Upon introduction, I’d run through the pathway formed by two parallel rows of teammates where the team manager stood. We’d perform an intricately choreographed handshake, and then, facing the near empty stands, I’d rip my pants off. Look at these limbs.

The tearaway pants started as a practical solution to a critical wardrobe conundrum: gymnasiums are often kept cold, legs are best used warm, and it’s really fucking hard to get sweatpants over size 17 sneakers. A few alternatives emerged, most notably the pants with a vertical zipper at the ankle to ease the logistics of pulling them over shoes, and the pants with a horizontal zipper at the knee that allowed the user to wear both pants and shorts simultaneously. But neither offered the effortlessness and production value of a Magic Mike-style disrobing.

What started as sartorial pragmatism has become oh so much more, as explored in “Metamorphosis,” a spoken word poem penned and performed by Los Angeles Clippers’ power forward Blake Griffin. In a broken cadence popularized by the beatniks, his YouTube video narrates the act of tearing away his tearaways: “A quick costume change before taking the court / I’m wearing pants. No, look. I’m wearing shorts / Cause I don’t need a phone booth to unveil my alter ego / I just need you, my sixteen button amigo.”

In high school, whenever my coach benched me after making an error, I’d pick up my unbuttoned tearaways, two pieces of polyester connected only by the U-shaped stitching between naval and tailbone. Wanting to warm my legs, I’d fiddle with the fastens, my emotional self-flagellation making the already difficult task of matching button with its corresponding hole nearly impossible. Minutes later, when another player inevitably made a mistake, my coach would grumble, “Zeve, get back in there.” I’d run to the scorer’s table to check in, rip off my pants, and run onto the court made anew. –ZS Goldilocks and The Three Pairs These men liked their shorts to be short As they sprinted all over the court.

They liked their pants tight And their goods out of sight: So this was the norm in the sport.

Or it was until one fateful day When Pat Ewing came out just to play, He threw down a dunk But out slipped his junk And shamed those who saw the display.

But ‘twas Jordan who then caused a swap When he said “All these hems need to drop!

These shorts are too brief To fit pants underneath!”

And the NBA put them in shop.

His antics caused so much intrigue, That long shorts spread over the league, But they soon grew too tall And caused ballers to fall And the long shorts idea met fatigue.

So in came new shorts of new heights Soon adopted by D-Wade and Dwight, They hit right at mid-thigh, And looked super fly, And now the whole league looks just right.

–SH & KG

by Kyle Giddon, Sam Bresnick, Stephanie Hayes, William Underwood & Zeve Sanderson illustration by Lee Bernstein SPORTS

□ 08

Conspiracy and Crsis in Inherent Vice At the center of Inherent Vice, the latest feature film from Paul Thomas Anderson, lies the impenetrable Golden Fang. At turns a red-sailed ship, an Indo-Chinese heroin cartel, the office for a syndicate of dentists organized for tax purposes, and a rehab institution, it seems as if the entirety of 1970 LA—its hippies and dopers; its cops and gangsters; even, perhaps, its movie stars (one Burt Stodger, in particular)—rests in the shadow of this mysterious organization. Yet another golden figure loomed over us last weekend, one whose most discernable features are its sculpted pectorals and impossibly tight glutes. Oscar: what hides behind your near featureless face? What mysteries do the ballot boxes hold?

Based on the 2009 novel by Thomas Pynchon, Inherent Vice sets off when hippy P.I. Larry “Doc” Sportello’s ex-lady, Shasta Fay Hepworth, drops by his Gordita Beach bungalow with an eerie case. She fears her current boyfriend, real estate mogul Mickey Wolfmann, is going to be kidnapped by his wife in a scheme to take his money for herself. Simultaneously, Doc discovers via cryptic note the “Golden Fang” and, enveloped in the cloud of smoke from the joint perpetually dangling from his lips, realizes that the players in the case extend far beyond his original imagining. His foil throughout is the brutal Christian F. “Bigfoot” Bjornsen, played by Josh Brolin, a member of the LAPD who, more than once, is referred to as a “renaissance detective” by the LA Times.

On November 27, 2014, two weeks prior to Inherent Vice’s release, A.O. Scott, head film critic for The New York Times (and renaissance critic in his own right), published the transcript of a panel titled Is Our Art Equal to the Challenges of Our Times?, with an accompanying article. The article, and the impetus it describes for the organization of the panel, rests on a sentiment that has, as of late, floated on the public electro-mental air streams: that in every sector, and at all scales, we live in a moment of “political impasse, racial tension, and economic crisis,” lending the present an ominous atmosphere. He writes, “We are in the midst of hard times now…For the past few years, like a lot of people, I’ve been preoccupied—sometimes to the point of obsession, lost sleep, free-floating dread, and active despair…” He wonders if the art of our time adequately deals with these issues, a question which he readily admits is age-old. All the same, something particular about now drives Scott to ask it again: a sense of uniquely harrowing times along with a lack of artistic response.

The word crisis pops up with alarming frequency on our digital feeds—the crises in Ukraine, in Syria, in Libya, the Ebola crisis. There are specific happenings as well—the killing of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, the killing at the Charlie Hebdo offices, the killing of three Muslim students at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Not to mention plane crashes and disappearances, unidentifiable hackings, the never-ending emergence of the next “____gate”—all augmented

9

□

ARTS

by Sam Samore illustration by Natalie Kassirer

by the fear that every phone call, Google search, and sidelong look, is watched carefully by the NSA. It is a frightening world, and the modern media give us unprecedented access to it. The dearth of art engaging these issues may stem from a refusal to fully acknowledge them in everyday life. This reaction—or lack thereof—is a defense mechanism, and often a luxury, that writes off the reality we are presented with. In a panel whose membership ranges from J. Cole to Ken Burns, no cohesive answer to Scott’s question is revealed. But if any recent film has animated the climate of crisis, it is Inherent Vice—no more so than during Doc’s immediate response to the first clue that gives him a dose of Scott’s “free-floating dread.” It is a short note: PARANOIA ALERT +++ Paranoia: the irrational fear that seemingly unrelated events and entities may not be so. Unsurprisingly, given Pynchon’s fascination with paranoid conspiracy, Inherent Vice is a film that calls into question the notion that anything might be seemingly unrelated. In many ways, this is a product of the period in which it is set; 1970 LA may indeed have been a particular spatialtemporal point that resonated at just the right frequency for unusually high levels of interconnectivity. It originates, perhaps, from hippy drug culture. Sortilege (played by a dreamy Joanna Newsom)—the flower-child astrological prophet who narrates the film and provides advice and occasional companionship for Doc—describes the effects of LSD: “Doc and Denis hadn’t dropped acid for years in this town without picking up some kind of extrasensory chops, and the truth was, since crossing the doorsill of this place they couldn’t help noticing what you would call—an atmosphere.” After the Manson murders, whose specter lingers in Inherent Vice, the atmosphere turns ominous. Were the hippies—supposed proponents of peace, love and subversiveness—actually murderous cultists? Or worse, working for the government? At one point, Doc and his friends are pulled over by a nervous young policeman who states that “any gathering of three or more civilians is now considered a possible cult… criteria includes males with shoulder length hair or longer”; another of the increasingly difficult-to-track characters, Coy Harlingen (Owen Wilson), is a surf music saxophonist heroin addict turned FBI mole and informer.

Anderson masterfully reconstructs for modern viewers the presence of these forces. The mise-en-scène is frequently defined by a hazy smokiness that literalizes the lack of discernible boundaries, suggesting that ideas and identities might float between people with ease. Dialogues are frequently shot from a distance with a camera that moves, slowly and steadily, ever closer to the subjects, as if we are invited to lean in and eavesdrop on

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

whispered conversations. It is an investigative camera, sneaking into the scene in the hopes that it might catch the word that acts as a key to the entire incomprehensible film, not to mention the world in which it is set—or, by extension, the world in which it exists. That is to say, the paranoia of connectivity in Inherent Vice is not simply a product of the seventies, but also a response to a contemporary phenomenon, best encapsulated by a common joke: “thanks Obama.” The meme mocks the idea that even the smallest disappointment can be pinned on our President, but it is also indicative of a current state of mind: large, faceless, entities govern our daily existence, and the easiest coping mechanism is to arbitrarily assign a face to blame.

The gut response to Inherent Vice is one of confusion.

On first viewing, the plot is nearly impossible to follow, and it may seem like little more than a stoner conspiracy theory. But ultimately, it is only via paranoia that Doc is able to understand the injustices that plague his world (the destruction of minority communities for upscale development, police brutality, and the collaboration of government on both fronts) and address the ones he’s capable of impacting. Today, drawing connections between the US government, heroin cartels, and Hollywood stars seems less ridiculous in a world where, say, the US contracts out its prison system to private companies whose investors run the very universities from which many in the film industry come. Besides a literal translation of interconnectedness from the film to reality, however, Inherent Vice’s paranoia provides a model for confronting crises—recognizing them in all their manifestations—that addresses the lack with which Scott is concerned. +++ The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is notoriously susceptible to period pieces. Of the eight Best Picture nominees this year, only four films take place in the last 15 years, and only four are about fully fictional characters. Richard Brody, who runs the New Yorker film blog, sarcastically suggested that The Academy establish a separate category for British biopics in order to leave room for other varieties of films. Inherent Vice, though, despite its historical lens, is evidently not ‘Oscar bait.’

It was nominated for only two awards: best adapted screenplay and best costume design, and it won neither. No one considers this a snub, as opposed to a film like Selma, which seems to push all the Oscar buttons, yet earned the same number of nominations. Clearly, Inherent Vice, as a period piece, falls in a different category than films like The Imitation Game or The Theory of Everything, winners of Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Actor, respectively. The most obvious difference is that these films interpret real events; they unearth stories, forgotten by most, that we are all expected to suddenly realize are ‘important.’ On the surface, Inherent Vice lacks this claim to relevancy. Doc Sportello never existed, and if he had, it’s likely no one would have thought to write a film about him. Unlike Stephen Hawking or Alan Turing, a real Doc Sportello wouldn’t be, in the traditional

sense of the word, a hero.

The popularity of biopics in the Academy is in their appeal to an imagined indexicality: these films reflect back to us real-world events. These true stories remind us that brilliant people existed, and may even inspire us viewers to strive towards our own brilliance or some political goal. Inherent Vice, lacking a real person to latch onto, leaves the viewer less comfortable. It brings to the fore ambient, alarming aspects of our own world without offering a narratized, easily digestible version of how a historical figure solved the problem, leaving less a triumphant taste in the mouth and more a sour one.

In this way, it resists easy allegiances with faceless entities, the Oscars included. In biopics, the Oscars find a temporary mask; Inherent Vice provides none.

Regardless of potential explanations for Inherent Vice’s status as a square peg in the Academy’s round hole, the big prize of Sunday did not go to a historical film. Instead, Birdman received the Best Picture award, its subject one that the Academy loves more than history: Hollywood itself. Both Birdman and Inherent Vice feature characters struggling with their relationship to Hollywood. In the former, it is Riggan Thompson, the 80s megastar whose fame has faded. In the latter, the role is filled by “Bigfoot” Bjornsen, a detective who moonlights as an unsuccessful actor, unable to break into Hollywood, and excluded from the luxurious life of debauchery that the rest of the fictional LAPD enjoys in return for their cooperation with the likes of Mickey Wolfmann.

Inherent Vice makes clear that Hollywood is complicit in the machinery of the Golden Fang, and outside of the film the institutions of governance and commerce are inextricably involved in the machinery of the real-world’s Golden Statue. Take, for example, the most famous event of last year’s Oscars: Ellen DeGeneres’s record-breaking selfie, taken using a Samsung phone. On March 3, 2014, The Wall Street Journal wrote that Samsung specifically negotiated to have their phone placed strategically throughout the ceremony.

Samsung’s media buying firm, Starcom MediaVest, boasts Walt Disney Co. as a client—ABC, the network that airs the Oscars, is a unit of Walt Disney.

Bjornsen, ridiculed throughout much of the film, is ultimately a tragic hero: shut out of an institution he loves, yet unwilling to compromise his bizarre values. Birdman offers a more palatable mode of heroism for the members of the Academy, one where Riggan is allowed to remain both insider and outsider, both noble artist and critically acclaimed star. Inherent Vice may have been one of the most ‘relevant’ movies at Sunday’s ceremony, but it seems likely that Birdman most pleased the members of the Academy. Their median age is 62, and Inherent Vice’s trippy paranoia, or “free-floating dread,” must have lasted too long after the fact, not unlike a brownie you might purchase on Gordita Beach. It is a film where paranoia is the lens used to focus on the world, rather than a pathological condition. The after-affects may have even colored Sunday’s awards. This writer, for one, was left too scrambled by the realization that a rehab facility in Inherent Vice is identical in appearance to the eponymous hotel in quadruple-winner The Grand Budapest Hotel to think comfortably about odd connections any longer.

SAM SAMORE B’17 is only maybe a little bit paranoid.

february 27 2015

ARTS

□ 10

ON THE PORCH

by Lisa Borst

Speaking, drinking, kissing. These are things that mouths can do. Smoking, singing. I am interested in the mouth as a space that makes porous the boundary between inside and outside, the mouth as a weird pink portal between two worlds.

The word “porch” comes from the Latin, “porta,” meaning “passage.” It refers to a building’s external structure that is nevertheless frequently enclosed. Like a person’s mouth, a porch is not fully inside and not fully outside.

You might escape a bad party onto its porch but still feel like your evening has brought you somewhere.

Vestige: “a trace, mark, or visible sign left by something (as an ancient city or a condition or practice) vanished or lost; a bodily part or organ that is small and degenerate or imperfectly developed in comparison to one more fully developed in an earlier stage of the individual, in a past generation, or in closely related forms.”

Behavioral and anatomical vestiges in human beings include the hiccup, the coccyx (where once was a tail), and the wisdom teeth (erupting, occluding: on the rim of unnecessary and harmful, adult and not, gnawing an edge between the exposed surface of a mouth and the dark wet mysteries beneath the gums and down, inside).

There is something pleasant about a porch, a whimsy in an architectural remnant that, like a hiccup, doesn’t really do much. A space whose sole function, as even the carpenters know from the moment they lay down the first beams to the last-minute re-staining of the latticework’s warps and wefts, is mostly to hang out.

Visit, sit a spell, watch what’s outside and hear what’s inside: a cigarette, a windstorm, a sweaty party.

The photographer Walker Evans documented rural American families during the Great Depression for the Farm Security Administration. As a setting, the porch is central to his works: in his images barefoot farmers and miners, rendered in careful halftones, lean out of dark interiors and onto wooden porch floors; men in overalls and women holding babies sigh into dusty sunlight under slouching awnings in the American South. Glinting white Baptist churches, that unending motif of midcentury American small-camera photography, face us resolute and bright, the shadows of their porches’ rafters and railings casting tidy lines across images by Evans, Langue, Weston. In one image by Evans, half the frame shows a shotgun shack’s interior: an oil lamp on a table, a stovetop in the back of the room. The rest of the image is filled by the pattern of external wooden siding with which Evans seemed to have been enamored. A clean towel hangs on a nail on the doorframe that separates the photograph’s two halves. The lines of the porch’s wall march our gaze indoors as far as they will go.

Most of the tender mythology behind Animal Collective’s third record, Campfire Songs, rests on the fact that it was recorded on somebody’s screened-in porch in rural Maryland. The band recorded the whole huge thing in one take, the story goes, with microphones placed between their instruments and the porch’s various corners and beams; behind the record’s acoustic tracks, you can hear round, ambient sounds penetrating the porch’s screen from the surrounding November evening: birdcalls, wind.

-comment on a Youtube upload of Campfire Songs

The poet Ben Lerner, in his novel Leaving the Atocha Station, describes the transitional function of smoking a cigarette: “What the little cylinders provided me,” he writes, “was a prefabricated motivation and transition, a way to approach or depart from a group of people or a topic, enter or exit a room, conjoin or punctuate a sentence…. I couldn’t imagine moving through an array of social spaces without the cigarette as a bridge or exit strategy.” Cigarettes and porches have long been married to one another—ever since, I guess, people stopped smoking indoors—and the porch, too, fills this narrative function of transition and bridge: a vestibular space between internal and external, a link between scenes. A kind of mouth.

Formally, the porch has historically functioned to provide a cool space in places and times with tremendous heat and no air conditioning. The porch is central to many narratives of dust-hot summers in the American South: a conversation shared across a porch serves as the framing device of Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God; throughout To Kill a Mockingbird, neighbors, both benevolent and ill-intentioned, surveil the child protagonists from panoptic Alabama porches. In The Orchard Keeper, Cormac McCarthy’s first novel, the porch behind a Tennessee bar collapses one summer and sends dozens of drunken men flailing into the ravine below. Porches appear on seemingly every other page of Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, James Agee and Walker Evans’ collaborative book of photographs and nonfiction about disenfranchised farm families in the Depression-era South.

As late as 1965—sixteen years after the publication of Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, and eighteen years past Their Eyes Were Watching God—only ten percent of American households had air conditioning. The rest put their underpants in the icebox and slept on their porches in the summers.

The spread of air conditioning has been credited as a major factor in populations trickling south in the second half of the twentieth century. Today, many people live in the American South, few of them farmers. Most of the time, they sleep indoors. The older homes still have porches.

A porch presents a sort of frame—a cohesive, single-planar view onto the goings-on outside a home. Consider the language of the 'screened-in porch' in dialogue with the other two-dimensional planes we’re presented with as places to rest our gaze. The spread in popularity of television as a common household apparatus just barely preceded that of air conditioning. Before Americans built technologies allowing themselves to retreat indoors, they had to make sure they still had a good reason to keep sitting down. I imagine a house like a head, with porch as mouth, windows as eyes, television as brain. Air conditioning, I guess, the central nervous system.

11

□

ARTS

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

NEW WINDOWS

A Conversation with Rebecca Traister

by Sophie Kasakove illustration by Soyoon Kim

Every time Rebecca Traister sees someone wearing a “THIS IS WHAT A FEMINIST LOOKS LIKE” T-shirt, she feels a rush of excitement. Traister, a senior writer at Salon and regular contributor to the New Republic, The Nation, the New York Observer and others, has been writing about women in politics, media, and entertainment for almost two decades.

When she started writing about feminism, she says, she never could have imagined how widespread and mainstream feminist culture would be in America just twenty years later. Beyoncé dancing to the rhythm of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s voice in front of a giant FEMINIST banner at the VMAs, the widespread popularity of Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In, and the ever-growing network of feminist blogs and websites—all are facets of a pervasive feminism unimaginable to Traister and others writing about feminism in the 90s.

The growing number of spaces for feminist conversation, from Internet activist forums to college classrooms, are creating new realms of both possibility and contention. As the voices represented in mainstream feminism slowly diversify, the idea of a single feminism relevant to all women is increasingly recognized as harmful, or, at the very least, quaint.

As the movement struggles to represent an ever wider range of issues, it requires those who claim the label to adopt new forms of awareness, analysis, and sensitivity. Traister and I talk here about intersectionality, allyship, and Michelle Obama.

The College Hill Independent: In the wake of Ferguson, you published three consecutive articles in the New Republic dealing with the intersections between racism and sexism.

These intersections have been a key part of feminist and race theory and activism for a long time; what about this moment is bringing issues of intersectionality to the forefront of our conversations about prejudice?

Rebecca Traister: The period where I began to think about these issues a lot was the last election cycle. In 2008 there was no model for either a Black president or a female president.

The way Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton had to compete against each other was such a window into all of American history and how white male power has replicated itself over and over again. What this moment and moments like Ferguson allow us to see isn’t anything new but is in fact very, very old. There are some ways in which this moment is unique, though. This is a moment when technology can take us to places where the mainstream media—which is still largely run by white men—wouldn’t take us. This moment is unique in the slow, slow diversification of our power structures and of the media. So, while intersectionality has always existed (we shouldn’t forget that feminism and abolition were born together), the combination of new technology and the fact that we have more women and people of color in positions of power allows us to have more of these conversations. This story is hundreds of years old, we just happen to be getting new windows into it.

February 27 2015

The Indy: In your article about the UVA gang rape story, you make a comparison between the way that women and people of color are failed by the criminal justice system, leading people to turn to auxiliary systems of adjudication, such as internal university committees, Title IX, and investigative journalism. Could these systems ever really do the work that the official justice system is meant to do?

RT: This is something I’m thinking about all the time. I want the criminal justice system to be better, so in a sense I am ambivalent about creating alternate pathways to justice. I am thankful that there are alternate paths being carved out, but I don’t want these alternate paths to let the criminal justice system off the hook. When you privatize these issues it can be really problematic. There was a piece by Zoe Heller in the New York Review of Books last month where she argues against the Title IX workaround. Her argument is that if the accused person is in fact a rapist, expulsion from school is not really an appropriate response to rape—the appropriate response would be a criminal one. But if the accused is not actually a rapist, then expulsion from school is too grave. Another issue is that campus-based forms of adjudication exclude all the people off of college campuses who are getting raped and sexually assaulted. So if we decide that the system is irredeemably broken, what tools are we offering all of those people not on college campuses?

The Indy: Would it be possible to address these two issues— the criminal justice system’s mishandling of rape cases and police brutality—in tandem? Do you see a lot of conversation right now about these issues as they relate to each other?

RT: We don’t see those connections made as frequently as we might like because with these types of cases, people want to keep the specificity of the situation to communicate the injustice of it. You don’t want to diminish or blur the intensity of the story you’re trying to tell. But I think you’re very right to connect the two things. The way that these systems were built was not to protect or even include women or people of color. Systems historically created to support the continued subjugation of women and people of color are woven into our sexual practices, our ideas, our marriage laws, our tax codes, the way that school days work, the way that public transportation works... Many people are struggling against the same systems all the time without an awareness that they’re struggling together.

The Indy: As a writer, how do you balance between making those connections and comparisons without detracting from the specific importance of each particular instance? I also wonder how you think about that balance as a white feminist writer, particularly in light of all of the current debate over how to be an ally.

RT: I don’t think I always do that balance well. It’s useful for me to think about those connections, but I don’t know if doing it detracts from the punch. I am a white feminist and I come from—if not an economically elite—certainly a culturally elite background. For me it’s about finding a balance of acknowledging that without being self-flagellating. I think on social media there’s a bit of an ally-Olympics going on. People run through all of their privileges and, in doing so, disqualify themselves from the conversation. I don’t think anyone’s identity disqualifies them from participating in the conversation.

But I do think it’s worth acknowledging my background and perspective. It’s good to be open about how those identities shape your thinking, but to think about it too much has the opposite effect: it makes the story all about yourself. You’re never going to accommodate everyone’s point of view. If you’re going to feel bad about your identity, use that energy to learn about other people’s identities and perspectives. Also, in casting feminism as a historically white movement, we actually erase all of the women of color who were fundamental to the building of the feminist movement.

The Indy: So how do we stop these conflicts from derailing movements? Many feminist groups have split up because of issues around race in recent years, such as Slutwalk NYC. Have we learned any lessons from watching these movements fall?

RT: This has happened over and over again—it happens in gay and lesbian movements, too. It can be especially hard with the women’s movement because it’s so vast and tries to represent so many different people. The only way we’re going to get past it is on an individual level: if you care about the work, keep doing it, and don’t worry so much about what other people think. Group support is critical, but if you really care about the issues your fortunes cannot rise and fall based on what people around you are saying.

But you have to be open, too. I wrote a story about Michelle Obama after the 2008 election, about the mechanics around her that had stripped her of all the super dynamic parts of her personality that had been so electric and exciting during the campaign. By the time they made it to the White House the machine around her had forced her into the more traditional role as first lady, and I wrote a piece that bemoaned that in Salon. It got an enormous amount of blowback. I labeled these old-hat First Lady images of Michelle as the mom-in-chief as a reduction and diminishment of Michelle Obama because they were traditional women’s roles. And one of the criticisms was that I had ignored that that these were white ideals. Michelle Obama being admired for her arms and fashion was its own form of progress for African-American women. And my background meant that I completely didn’t see that angle.

interviews

□ 12

13

□

Ephemera

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

TO BE OURSELVES

by Wilson Cusack illustration by Pierie Korostoff “I founded 4chan eleven and a half years ago at the age of 15, and after more than a decade and a half of service, I’ve decided it’s time for me to move on,” began Christopher Poole’s letter of resignation, posted on 4chan last month.

4chan is a completely anonymous online image board, most famous for birthing memes that crowd the Internet and for its very NSFW content. At the time of Poole’s posting, the site had over 20 million monthly visitors.

In a 2010 TED talk titled “The Case for Anonymity Online,” Poole spoke on just that. He said that anonymity on the site has led to a discussion that is “completely raw and completely unfiltered.” At the end of his talk, Chris Anderson, curator at TED, referring to anonymity on the site, asked Poole “whether [he] sometimes lie[s] awake in the night worrying that [he’s] opened Pandora’s box.” Poole responded: “I mean yes, and no. For as much good as kind of comes out of this environment, there is plenty of bad. There are plenty of downsides, but I think that the greater good is being served here by just allowing people… there are very few places now where you can go and be completely anonymous and say whatever you’d like. And saying whatever you like, I think is powerful. Doing whatever you like is now crossing a line. But I think it’s important to have these places where, I mean I get emailed, people say, ‘Thank you for giving me this place, this outlet where I can come after work and be myself.’”

It seems paradoxical that people might feel most ‘themselves’ on a site where they are completely anonymous.

And while anonymity might be at a premium for 4chan users, there are a myriad of sites trying to give us that feeling of being ‘ourselves’ online, and the current norm is far from anonymous. +++ In 2011, Forbes magazine profiled Sean Parker, Facebook’s first president—perhaps more commonly known as ‘that guy played by Justin Timberlake in the Social Network—who said that, for him, “Facebook was a vehicle to create a reliable identity in an anonymous online world.”

“You have one identity. Having two identities for yourself is an example of lack of integrity,” Mark Zuckerberg told David Kirkpatrick in an interview for his book, The Facebook Effect. “The days of you having a different image for your work friends or co-workers and for the other people you know are probably coming to an end pretty quickly.”

They’ve mostly succeeded in creating this ubiquitous identity online. “Sign in with Facebook,” read the buttons on the home page, and I see my Facebook profile photo next to the comment box on the bottom of many websites, reminding me that my Facebook identity is moving with me across the web.

Google, too, though more subtly, has made its presence felt. I fear clicking on an ad or a going to a new website because I know I’ll be targeted with ads for the next two months with every site I visit. (For the record, Frank & Oak men’s clothing, was just looking around, still not planning on buying anything, and the ad with the bearded guy is getting old.)

Speaking at Austin music and tech festival South by Southwest, Poole commented on what Zuckerberg said: “Mark Zuckerberg has kind of equated anonymity with a lack of authenticity, almost a cowardice, and I would say that’s fully wrong. I think anonymity is authenticity, it allows you to share in a completely unvarnished, unfiltered, raw way and I think that’s something that’s extremely valuable.”

But is it? If you’ve never visited 4chan, I’m sure you can imagine the direction a totally anonymous site goes. Nicholas Douglas writing for Gawker in 2008 described 4chan’s random image board, “/b/”, which draws a third of the site’s traffic, as place where “people try to shock, entertain, and coax free porn from each other.”

Despite the fact that Poole describes these anonymous forums as dinosaurs, endangered species on the current web, the idea persists. A new app called Yik Yak allows users to post and see anonymous posts from people in your area. It’s been making headlines for causing conflict at high schools and college. At University of North Carolina, for example, wral.com reported that during the Black Lives Matter protests someone posted, “I really hate blacks, I’m going home where there aren’t any.” Swimswam.com reported on how messages are posted to the app at swim meets, and “More often than not, these messages include bullying posts targeting an individual athlete, racial and homophobic slurs…”

But Poole has reason to defend anonymity and resent Zuckerberg’s comment about having two identities being cowardly, as he himself had to separate his online self and his ‘real-world’ self when he first created 4chan. Due to the site’s adult content and the fact that he was 15 years old, he told no one about the site. On 4chan, he went by “Moot,” which is still his online nickname. His parents didn’t know about the site until he was 20. +++ Poole has also made the case that sites like Facebook, where everything you say is tied to your identity, the “cost of failure is high,” and that gets both at the heart of what 4chan is about and also the oddity of it. There are varying degrees in cost of failure online. The cost of saying or posting the wrong thing on Facebook is very high, maybe even higher than the cost of saying the wrong thing in real life, as on Facebook it can live on forever and is not limited to those in earshot when you

said it. Awareness of this has instilled a fear, in me at least, of positing anything even remotely controversial on Facebook. In fact, the cost is so high that, according to a Wall Street Journal article, Google’s former CEO, Eric Schmidt, predicts “that every young person one day will be entitled automatically to change his or her name on reaching adulthood in order to disown youthful hijinks stored on their friends’ social media sites.”

Then there are less costly sites: Reddit, for example. You have a username so all of the things you’ve said on Reddit can be associated with each other, but this username can be whatever you want and it’s nearly impossible to ascertain your ‘real’ identity from it, unless you go around posting about where you live and what you look like. Then there are sites like Yik Yak, which are anonymous, but where every post is given positive and negative points by people voting up and down. And finally, there are 4chan and sites like it, where the cost of failure is at worst someone commenting on your post and making fun of you, but, given its complete anonymity, you could also be the one making fun of yourself—no one online would know the difference.

4chan provides fluid identity. In one sense 4chan strips away all that makes you you: where you’re from, what music you like, who you hang out with. But it’s also allowing you to be more yourself, who you are at this very moment, than you’ve ever been. You are only represented by what you say in a single post. You can post again a second later and be someone completely new. This demand for anonymity and fluid identity is perhaps relatively new because so is the fear that created it. Online, we can speak to more people at once than ever before, and that’s exciting, and evidently something we very much want to do, but also terrifying.

But maybe concepts of fluid identity are too dignified for a site that specializes in offensive conversation and adult content. In the discussion surround Poole’s resignation, such as an eight-hour-long Q&A session he held with the 4chan community, it’s hard to not notice twinges of estrangement from the site. His given reason for leaving is that, “As 4chan’s sole administrator, decision maker, and keeper of most of its institutional knowledge, [he’s] come to represent an uncomfortably large single point of failure.” But in the Q&A, he sounds defensive about his decisions and complains of people clogging up the site with posts just complaining about him or the site. Funny, or expected, that the one person with an identity on a site of 20 million monthly visitors might be leaving because he was getting picked on too much.

But even if the conversation gives too much credit to 4chan, the desire still resonates with a lot of us, and identity online is something that we very much have not figured out.

4chan, though still obviously an extremely popular site, is, for the many of us being chased by ads and Facebook logins across the web, a fossil in Internet history reminding us it wasn’t always like this.

Wilson Cusack B’16 is scared to say something he’ll regret.

FEBRUARY 27 2015

TECHNOLOGY

□ 14

Fracture/Conjure

by Diane Exavier illustration by Casey Friedman

Passage He arrived in Miami on a ship. One of his brothers had arranged the voyage, fashioning a plan involving a make believe narrative about him being a sailor just in case questions were asked at the shore. From Miami he flew to New York and, sometime after that, rented apartment 50 at 755 Ocean Avenue.

She was waiting for him in Brooklyn. She spent her time learning about gerunds and why one should avoid using the passive voice. Young enough to follow a path set by her oldest sister, she’d flown directly from François Duvalier International Airport in Port-au-Prince to John F. Kennedy Airport in Queens to join her sister and her sister’s husband in a house in East Flatbush.

From Holy Innocents Church on East 17th Street, a procession of cars drove northeast to the Evergreens Cemetery on Jamaica Avenue. It was a sunny day in April. The trip took no more than 20 minutes. And when the procession arrived at the cemetery, he was carried to a grand mausoleum, one much larger than the one of his late wife. He was laid to rest surrounded by resting strangers, while the familiar and living looked up. His spot was high on the wall of tombs, so high that his younger daughter had to crane her neck to read the inscription on the front, which might have said something like:

YVAN EXAVIER

OCTOBER 14, 1950 – MARCH 25, 1997 It might have said something about him being some kind of brother, father, man.

About 10 years after she had first flown from François Duvalier International Airport to John F. Kennedy Airport (leaving behind a boyfriend and not yet having children), she flew from Queens to Port-au-Prince (leaving behind a husband and two daughters).

He walked to the door of apartment 5O and then to the elevator, exited 755 Ocean Avenue, and walked to the subway station at Beverly Road. He paid his fare, walked up to the tracks and jumped. +++ Time October 14, 1950 1959 April 5, 1997 August 14, 1982 17 years +++ Site There were two beds in the bedroom: a full bed where his daughters slept and a queen-sized bed where he slept. Between the two beds was a card table, which had on it things that seemed to have no other place. Among these things were a rotary phone and a radio. On a tall creamcolored dresser with silver handles sat a 32-inch television and a small General Electric alarm clock radio. 11:38 at night, its numbers shone bright red in the pitch-black room. Outside one of the bedroom windows the Sears Roebuck building stood like a beacon, like Oz over the tops of much shorter buildings. Outside of the other window stood a water tower. The headboard of his queen-sized bed was a dark wood shelf. On it were a photo of his older daughter, taken when she was nine, a photo of his younger daughter, taken when she was five, a photo of him cutting a birthday cake at work, a pen with his name carved into it, lottery tickets from days and weeks past, and some short notes he had written, mostly people’s phone numbers.

Her resting place in Fond Rouge sits on a green, grassy hill a short walk from her mother’s house. Her body rests inside a mausoleum where her mother and father also lie. Sky blue and white, it must have been painted to mimic the place from which they hope she watches down on them. Her coffin rests on top of her parents’. A grey stone plaque on the front of it says: JOSETTE EXAVIER D.C.D. 31-8-88 LE TEMPS N’EFFACE JAMAIS LA TRACE D’UN PREMIER AMOUR DANS LE COEUR QU’IL A TRAVERSÉ YVAN “Time can never erase the trace of a first love in the heart it has gone through.” Yvan was her husband.

15

□

features

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

In the entrance hallway of the apartment stood a white column for holding floral arrangements. Deeper in the foyer was a dark wood desk. On it sat a complete set of World Book Encyclopedias stacked in two neat columns. In the desk drawers were some of his daughters’ notebooks from various grades in school. The foyer opened up to the living room, where a movie-postersized black-and-white photo of Josette hung, taken when she still used her family name, Isidor.

Her father would host chicken fights for everyone in the village on a back porch that sat on a green, grassy hill a short walk from their house.

There were three beds in the bedroom: a full bed where his daughters used to sleep, a queensized bed where he used to sleep, and a hospital bed where he then slept and spent most of his time. The hospital bed was between the two other beds, where the card table used to be. On the tall cream-colored dresser with silver handles sat the 32-inch television, now with cable, and the small General Electric alarm clock radio. At 2:17 in the afternoon its numbers illuminated a dull red in the sunlit bedroom. Outside one of the bedroom’s windows, the Sears Roebuck building stood like a beacon, like Oz over the tops of much shorter buildings. The hospital bed blocked the view of the water tower that stood outside of the other window. People surrounded the hospital bed for 30 to 60 minutes at a time, depending on the day, depending on how long they had decided to visit.

His friend who he used to play cards with would stay for 30 minutes between picking up and dropping off passengers in his taxi. One of his nieces would stay for 35 minutes before returning home to get dinner started. His daughters would stay for an hour, in the company of one of their aunts, who was always ready to take them back to their lives of ballet classes on Saturday mornings and social studies homework on Sunday nights. +++ Likeness His country looks like this: [

].

She and her youngest daughter shared the same shy (yet, in some circles, praised) gap-toothed smile.

The borough where he eternally rests looks something like this: [

].

Her trip home was a return voyage back to the earth.

His country looks like a man tossing a potato chip into his mouth. +++ Myth He was a simple man who cut and arranged flowers for a living.

Had she lived, she would have been her family’s savior.

Starting after the night he died, he would visit his daughters in their sleep and talk to them wherever he could meet them in dreams.

An unfortunate case of the chicken pox around the time she delivered her second daughter was how she first got sick. But what really did her in was a plate of food poisoned by someone in her husband’s family.

He fell into the tracks by some awful mistake. +++ Sense [smell: freshly cut flowers] [see: a photo of Josette] [touch: Yvan’s pajamas] [hear: Josette’s mixtape] [taste: a sip of Sustacal]

FEBRUARY 27 2015

FEATURES

□ 16

WILLIAM

by Ethan Blake illustration by Pierie Korostoff

He loves Bruce, the electric guitar Rock N’ Roll and probably his family your one-dimensional Asperger obsessive just Music and Mom then he met Her encompassed length and width the intersection ablaze with joy and harmony encountered love, met depth for once in the same dimension he found empathy so would you but she left lost his space and mass regressed to his lonesome linearity

17

â–Ą

literary

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

sunday, 3/1 Craig Ferguson 6:30 PM // The Vets, 83 Park Street // $39 - 49 He’s not on late night TV anymore, but he’s probably still funny. The tour he’s on is called “Hot & Grumpy,” which is kind of a strange humblebrag.

listtheindy@gmail.com

friday, 2/27 Pisces Birthday Party with DJ Haram, Precolumbian, Malportado Kids 10PM // Spark City, email sparkcityprovidence@gmail.com for address // $3-6 (sliding scale) Astrology Zone says of Pisces this month: “Something you have worked hard to achieve will be ready to be unveiled and shown to the public or to influential people.” They’re probably talking about the work that went into the Pisces Birthday Party at Spark City, which will bring down the house.

monday, 3/2 Providence French Film Festival Screenings all day // Cable Car Cinema, 204 South Main Street // $9 (general), $7 (students) Le Jour Se Lève is playing at 4:30, Un Rêve Américain at 6:30, and Timbuktu at 9. I’m personally most excited for Timbuktu, which was nominated for the Palm d’Or last year at Cannes, and lost an Oscar to Ida last Sunday. The full listings for the festival are at cablecarcinema.com

saturday, 2/28 2015 US Synchronized Skating Championships TBA // Dunkin Donuts Center, 1 La Salle Square // $25 for adults, $15 for seniors/ military This shit will be on ESPN!!!! (I’m pretty sure). This event is actually a really big deal, and if Blades of Glory is any indication, it won’t be without big drama.)

Faculty Organ Recital: Phillip Glass, Bach, and Heiller 8PM // Sayles Hall, Brown University // Free Mark Steinbach, University Organist, plays the hits. I’m certainly curious to see how the percussive elements of Philip Glass’s pieces play out on the organ, with its long sustained tones. Or what it feels like to listen to “contemporary classical” in a room filled with portraits of dead University presidents.

tuesday, 3/3 Guided Architectural Library Tour 10:30 AM // Providence Public Library, 225 Washington Street // Free Listening to people talk about buildings is really comforting to me.

Market Shares Benefit Night 5 PM // Flatbread Company, 161 E Cushing Street // Depends..

A percentage of the proceeds will go to Market Shares’s subsidized program.

There will be a raffle Telescope Observing Night 9PM // Ladd Observatory, 210 Doyle Avenue // Free stars stars stars stars stars stars stars stars stars stars planets stars stars planets stars stars satellites stars stars stars stars birds? stars stars stars stars planets stars stars stars a plane, maybe? stars stars stars stars what about the international space station? stars stars stars stars stars there are lots of things in the sky, like stars.

wednesday, 3/4 Wintertime Farmers’ Market 4PM - 7PM // Hope Artiste Village, 1005 Main Street, Pawtucket // as much as you wanna spend on produce, baby There might be more than just root vegetables, but I can’t promise anything. It’s cold, and fucking bleak. And I’m sorry for taking my aggression out on root vegetables, I really am. There will probably be kale and chard and other things that are green and remind me, vaguely, of a time when I could see the sidewalk beneath my feet.

Diana Krall 7PM // Providence Performing Arts Center, 220 Weybosset Street // $45 - $65 You probably know her because your dad plays her Christmas album every year, but there’s more to Diana Krall than that. She’s got a terrific voice and her band (especially guitarist Anthony Wilson) are some of the best session players in the game today.

America’s Test Kitchen Live!

8PM // The Vets, 83 Park Street // $35 $55, $85 for VIP This includes “an on-stage chocolate taste test with audience members, two live science experiments, and a live ‘sniff’ test to see if participants can identify what they smell.” While the idea of a live sniff test mildly terrifies me, a chocolate taste test is pretty decent bait.

this week in independents: The current headline for Bangladesh’s English-language is “Tigers capable of causing an upset,” referring to their upcoming match against Sri Lanka in the Cricket World Cup.

thursday, 3/5 Rhode Island Home Show daily through March 8 // Rhode Island Convention Center, One Sabin Street // $10 Home shows are so strange! The RICC is a large, empty, and generally soulless place, and for three days it will be filled by people trying to sell you things that present the cozy comforts of home. It’ll be like walking through an Ikea, I think, but a little less Nordic.

GYMSHORTS Tour Kickoff 9 PM // The Salon 57 Eddy Street, Providence, RI // $5 Come send our hometown heroes off on tour with: BIG HUGE: Good homies from NYC - wild child garage pop! loud, untamed and juicy! … bring a straw!

Atlantic Thrills: Local psychedelic beach rock wrapped in a Hawaiin tee-shirt and a coconut bra. drenched in jack daniels barbecue sauce.

NEUTRINOS: Attleboro’s finest rascal rock.

Look Back At It: an Indy retrospective 7-9 PM // Brown/RISD Hillel, 80 Brown Street // Free You can call it an obnoxious display of homerism, but there are literally no reasons why you should not be at this event. There will be art from the Indy (2013-present) on display, including covers, X pages, lists, ephemera, illustrations, and likely some doodles made at 1AM that slipped in there somehow. Refreshments (kosher ones, too!) will be served.