The College Hill Independent Vol. 40 Issue 4

the VOLUME 40 ISSUE 4 6 MARCH 2020

03 FORM FOLLOWS FUNCTION Mia Pattillo & Nick Roblee-Strauss

09 GOD, DEATH, AND THE FLORIDA KEYS Jango McCormick

Face masks as fashion trend

Joy Williams’literature of the guidebook

11 WINDOWS SG The stories we tell

Indy

the

Cover Some Thoughts on Paint and Strawberries and Sex and Some Other Things Alana Baer

News 02

Week in Animal Magnetism Hannah Gelman & Ricardo Gomez

Science+Tech 03

Form Follows Function Mia Pattillo and Nick RobleeStrauss

Ephemera 05

Dancing Remnants Victoria Xu

Features 07

From The Editors Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a concentration. Choose 9am classes, 7am workouts, Emergen-C, and guac for an extra $1.50. Choose Duo Shibboleth push, Bird scooters, and Snackpass. Choose federally-subsidized student loans. Choose a grade option. Choose your friends. Choose your textbooks and Times New Roman 12-point double-spaced font. Choose the same pair of Blundstone boots as everyone else. Choose the single-use bathroom, staring at yourself in the mirror framed by tiles, wondering who the f*ck you are in the library at 1:58 a.m. on a Thursday night. Choose sitting in your candleless room re-watching a sitcom of choice, listening to the “Fresh Finds” playlist algorithmically tailored just for you, eating an entire bag of spicy Cool Ranch Flavor-blasted Doritos™ in one sitting. Choose the illusion of choice brought on by late capitalism and American individualism. Choose the sink that works, the washing machine that works, the big Baja’s, and an apartment on Benefit Street with a view of the skyline. Choose your future. Choose the Indy… But why would I want to do a thing like that?

Cabbage: A Cultural History Alex Alverson

08

A Love Letter to Spontenaeity Nell Salzman

11

Windows SG

Arts 09

God, Death, and the Florida Keys Jango McCormick

Metro 13

Muddy Matiello Osayuwamen Uwa Ede-Osifo

15

Voicing the Past Clara Gutman Argemí

Literary Turning, Bowen Chen Ryn Kang, RISD ‘20

17

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Fungal Intelligence Miranda Van Boswell and Jaime Serrato Marks

18

Tropical Burn Corinne Ang

MISSION STATEMENT

STAFF

The College Hill Independent is a Providence-based publication written, illustrated, designed, and edited by students from Brown and RISD. We are committed to publishing politically engaged and accessible work. While the Indy is financed by Brown University, we hold ourselves accountable to our readers across the Providence community. The Indy rejects content that explicitly or implicitly perpetuates racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, ableism and/or classism.

WEEK IN REVIEW Emily Rust | NEWS Anchita Dasgupta Peder Schaefer Tristan Harris | METRO Ricardo Gomez Miles Guggenheim Deborah Marini | ARTS Zachary Barnes Eve O’Shea Isabelle Rea | FEATURES Audrey Buhain Mia Pattillo Nick Roblee-Strauss | SCIENCE + TECH Bilal Memon Izzi Olive Andy Rickert | LITERARY Catherine Habgood Star Su | EPHEMERA Liana Chaplain Sindura Sriram | X Jacob Alabab-Moser Ethan Murakami | LIST Ella Comberg XingXing Shou Cate Turner | STAFF WRITERS Alana Baer Leela Berman Mara Cavallaro Uwa Ede-Osifo Eduardo Gutiérrez Peña Evie Hidysmith Kaela Hines Muram Ibrahim Anabelle Johnston Jennifer Katz Emma Kofman Evan Lincoln Zach Ngin Jorge Palacios Nell Salzman Issra Said Kion You | COPY EDITORS Josephine Bleakley Muskaan Garg Sarah Goldman Though this list is not exhaustive, the Indy strives to address Marina Hunt Christine Huynh Seth Israel Thomas Patti Ella Spungen | DESIGN EDITORS these systems of oppression by centering the voices, opinions, Daniel Navratil Ella Rosenblatt | DESIGNERS Anna Brinkhuis Amos Jackson Kathryn Li K and efforts of marginalized people in Providence and beyond. atherine Sang | ILLUSTRATORS Sylvia Atwood Leslie Benavides Natasha Brennan Bella Carlos Ryn Kang Eliza Macneal Sophia Meng Sandra Moore Pia Mileaf-Patel Claire Schlaikjer The Indy is constantly evolving: we are always working to Floria Tsui Veronica Tucker Katrina Wardhanna | BUSINESS Caín Yepez Abby Yuan | WEB make our staff and content more inclusive. Though our editing Ashley Kim | SOCIAL MEDIA Muskaan Garg | SENIOR EDITORS Ben Bienstock Ella Comberg process provides an internal structure for accountability, we Olivia Kan-Sperling Chris Packs Tara Sharma Tiara Sharma Cate Turner Wen Zhuang | always welcome letters to the editor.

MANAGING EDITORS Matt Ishimaru Sara Van Horn Alex Westfall | MVP Miles Guggenheim

06 MARCH 2020

VOL 40 ISSUE 04

@THEINDY_TWEETS

WWW.THEINDY.ORG

week in animal magnetism

BY Hannah Gelman & Ricardo Gomez ILLUSTRATION Sylvia Atwood DESIGN Amos Jackson

MUST PAY TO PAW-TY On February 16, crowds of eager New Orleanians gathered in the French Quarter to watch the 28th procession of the city’s only all-canine Mardi Gras parade—the Mystic Krewe of Barkus. Hundreds of pimped-out poodles and bedazzled bulldogs cascaded down the streets, their glamorous ensembles corresponding to this year’s theme, “Bark to the Future: Barkus Returns to the 80s.” Leading the parade was the royal court, gracefully headed by this season’s monarchs: His Majesty XXVIII, King Edward VIII “Eddy” Bloomenstiel, who, according to his coronation biography, is a four-pound, strong-willed chihuahua and self-proclaimed graduate of the School of Life, and Her Majesty XXVIII, Queen Belle Hebert, a worldly, benevolent standard poodle with a particular preference for Lizzo.

“Barkus” is a riff on the title “Bacchus,” one of the oldest and most important Mardi Gras krewes in New Orleans. Krewes are social organizations responsible for putting on parades and balls during Carnival season. While these groups know how to throw fabulous parties, they have historically excluded individuals based on race, gender, and sexual orientation.

Today, they continue to promote ideas of Southern nobility by basing membership status on dues-payment and family legacy. As for Barkus, the krewe was founded by New Orleanian Thomas Wood in 1993 after a meeting of the fan club for local weather anchor Margaret Orr. Wood brought his dog JoJo to the bar where the meeting was held and received several complaints about her neurotic behavior. To avenge this un-fur-tunate humiliation, Wood established the Krewe of Barkus and elected JoJo as Queen I and captain-for-life.

Like non-canine krewes, participation in Barkus comes at a husky price. Membership packages range from $60 for the “Dogluxe Membership,” which allows one dog and one human escort to walk in the parade, to $760 for the “Top Dog Package,” which allows one dog and four human escorts to walk in the parade, crowns the lucky pup as a duke or duchess in the royal court, and includes tickets to the Royal Ball, VIP parade-watching privileges, and Barkus merchandise. Barkus donates all of its proceeds to animal organizations in New Orleans and the Gulf South and has raised more than $1 million for this paw-sitive cause since its establishment.

Nonetheless, in addition to donating to charity, the return on investment in Barkus still en-tails a hefty dose of good-ole high society clout. The King and Queen, whose owners are the highest dues-paying members of the Krewe, are treated to an elegant lunch at Galatoire’s, one of the city’s oldest, most renowned, and most expensive restaurants. A week before their debut, His and Her Majesty (and their owners) spend the afternoon feasting on lamb chops, sipping champagne, and posing for the pup-arazzi in their finest cloaks and crystal-studded crowns. King Edward sported 18-carat gold accessories and was the first canine to ever don the upscale Hart Shaffner Marx label (a brand that uncoincidentally belongs to his owners).

Needless to say, when it comes to Barkus, breed matters. While the parade is a creative, charismatic

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

event in the spirit of Mardi Gras and a fun way to get involved with animal rights activism, its financial requirements reproduce the antiquated, exclusionary social structure that dominates New Orleans Carnival culture. Paw-ticipation is as much about philanthropy as it is about social capital, and the biggest debutante daddies in town don’t need to claw to get their canine companions on the it-list for Barkus to reinforce the same hierarchy that Bacchus does. Put simply, come Mardi Gras, the puppies on the promenade aren’t the only New Orleanians sniffing up each other’s butts.

—HG

SLEEPING WITH THE BEES Overlooking a seemingly endless expanse of almond trees, a California sun fades out of a periwinkle sky and gives way to an unsettled night hour. Sitting within the geometry of the almond groves, several shabby undistinguished boxes emit an unmistakable buzz. Inside, thousands of bees get ready to sleep after a gruesome shift out in the almond blossom fields. Almond trees can’t fertilize themselves, so bees do all the heavy pollinating. “It's hard out there,” said a bee to the College Hill Independent.

To the untrained eye of a non-beekeeper, the monetary value of those boxes—often handcrafted out of select cedar—might go undetected. Yet more and more, hives are being targeted by disconcerting waves of organized crime.

California’s Central Valley is a fertile stretch of agricultural land where a quarter of all US produce is grown: lettuce, apricots, grapes, and nuts. The real cash crop—the golden nut—happens to be the almond.

Almond groves in California now take up more space than the state of Delaware, and as the almond business continues to grow, so too does the frenetic demand for bees. Already, almost two-thirds of all US beekeepers send their bees to almond farmers in the Central Valley. Beekeepers make more from almond pollination fees than honey. As more bees get marshalled to toil away in almond groves, they become increasingly vulnerable to thievery. Not only do bees work long hours without any benefits—lots of travel, bad dental— but now they’re in the crosshairs of the mob and have little to no protection.

Bee thieves are no ordinary gangsters. Unlike your common criminal, bumble burglars know how to handle bees well enough to capture them by the colony, and beekeepers are running out of bees trying to figure out how to protect their livelihoods. Over the past couple years, the busy bodies with ties to the bee mob have been stepping up their heist game. Just this month, Mike Potts, veteran beekeeper, told The Guardian about an unfortunate heist that cost him $44,000.

Potts had just left Pottsy’s Pollination & Honey Farm in Oregon with 400 hives of his Pottsy bees in his truck.

His mission was to get his little pollinators down to California almond territory. On his way down, Potts unloaded his hives to a holding area. “I pulled in the yard and noticed that there was some stuff missing” when he returned for pick up, said Potts. According to The Guardian, the police officers on the case managed

to pull over “three suspicious beekeepers traveling late at night.” Sadly, the three suspects were uninvolved and the trail for the “stuff” lost its buzz and went cold.

Hive heists require a certain criminal expertise.

“Normal people can’t just go steal 500 hives with a forklift and a truck,” said Charley Nye, a beekeeping researcher at University of California, Davis. While the ability to nimbly operate a truck or forklift is definitely a prerequisite, so too is an intimate understanding of proper bee care while in transit. Most people hauling away boxes full of bees look like they know what they are doing, so distinguishing bee thieves from beekeepers has proven difficult. In order to meet the challenge of increasingly organized hive thieves, certain police officers now specialize in honeybee hive theft. Around honeycomb territory, one such officer, Rowdy Freeman, is hailed as the “bee theft detective.”

As a beekeeper himself, Rowdy knows a thing or two about bees. “I understand bees and the beekeeping industry and how it all works,” he told Vice News, happy to mention his abundant ties with the beekeeping community of northern Central Valley. “It’s something that needs special attention from someone.” The bee theft detective seems very self-assured and has taken it upon himself to compile records that show a boom in theft in 2016, with 1,695 hives nabbed in California alone, compared to just 101 in 2015.

With the help of a forklift or two, beehive heists are often undertaken in the dead of night. In the midst of these sting operations, hives are increasingly split open and dismantled, killing off tens of thousands of the kidnapped bees in process. Already this year, hundreds of hives have gone missing. The bad news bears are written all over this era of mass bee death–some 40 percent of bees now die off each winter.

Unfortunately, not enough bee thieves are being caught with the pollen on their hands.

—RG

WEEK IN REVIEW

02

F O R M F O L L O W S F U NCTION

BY Mia Pattillo & Nick Roblee-Strauss ILLUSTRATION Leslie Benavides DESIGN Ella Rosenblatt

Overshadowed by her own sweep

of the Grammys, Billie Eilish walked the red carpet this past January with the lower third of her face hidden. Her slime-green, oversized Gucci pajama set was completed by a sheer patterned mask, giving her the ultimate 'bad guy' look. With a nod to the surgical face masks that have been increasingly used to combat contagious disease in Asia and Europe, air pollution in Australia, and facial recognition in Hong Kong, Eilish alternatively donned the mask as a marker of high fashion.

By no means is Eilish the first to uncouple the mask’s aesthetic from its practical usage. At Paris Fashion Week last September, Cardi B turned heads with her ski-styled face mask made of opal cut black glass set in silver, exposing only her eyes. The mask took the company CoutureMask 36 hours to make.

CoutureMask's customized masks cost anywhere from $3,000 to $7,000 and have been worn by Rihanna, Future, and French Montana. Virgil Abloh’s streetwear label Off-White also offered $135 face masks with graphic prints as part of a limited collection, which sold out in days. Designer Marine Serre often highlights doomsday themes in her pieces: several 'apocalypse chic' couture masks are featured in her 2020 collection, which specifically addresses notions of survival in a looming violent future. Much of the collection is constructed from vintage fabrics to evoke an imagined world where resources are limited— the body is protected in layers of militaristic wrapping, while jewelry, fur, and feather embellishment persist.

Here, the mask becomes euphemism for the myriad environmental conditions that are today’s crisis and tomorrow’s imagined realities.

Even within traditions that have long-practiced face-covering, the mask on the red carpet seems to signal that survival is as chic as (if not more than) exposure. MaisonArtC, a Moroccan fashion collective, has long used face coverings to obscure and androgenize their models’ faces. But the company’s face coverings have recently manifested in new frequencies with blatant nods to the surgical mask, as beaded gowns are paired with equally elaborate muzzles. In a recent Instagram post by the collective, a mask blooming with silk and beaded flowers reads: “WE WILL BE GOOD.”—a statement that may refer to both the air-purifying qualities of nature and the precaution of the mask which so much hope is placed upon.

Luxury face masks are increasing in popularity all across the fashion world, from brands like A Bathing APE to Louis Vuitton to Heron Preston. But designers not only exploit the face mask as aesthetically appealing—it is symbolism that is at the crux of their mission. In fashion and streetwear, scarcity often goes hand in hand with hype. Supreme is one company that has harnessed this tactic: its reputation is built on maintaining product scarcity, channeling collaborations with other brands or designers and limited releases of odd accessories. Now, mask-shopping takes on a dystopian role, as communities across the world scramble for a once-39-cent piece of paper while the elite don masks of finer materials ranging from linen to mesh to jewels, constitutive of streetwear and high fashion culture. Luxury branding and design juxtaposes against the mask’s utility and function as a political flash point: though current media is dominated by surgical mask shortages in the wake of coronavirus, such masks have long been worn in Hong Kong by

03

SCIENCE+TECH

HOW FACE MASKS AS A FASHION TREND POINTS TO INESCAPABLE PERIL

political protesters hiding their identities, as well as in Australia to help citizens breathe in poor air quality after fires.

While celebrities have been known to flaunt their clout with clothes signaling abundance and a life of leisure, these masks may now mark an embrace of the treacherous, a fetishization of imminent threats. In the face of fascism, air pollution, and an epidemic, the mask carries with it a sobering message: the world is in danger. Through the casual gesture of donning a mask, its typical wearer evokes something potentially sinister.

But for the elite wealthy, a bejeweled mask points to an ignorant fascination with peril, the privilege of display without exposure to the danger itself. +++ Though the fashion world has only recently adopted the mask as a trend, surgical masks have long been used in hospitals and by factory workers. The general public first began using them in East Asia during the 1918 rise of the Spanish influenza pandemic, which eventually killed 23 million people in Japan and 50 million people worldwide. These early commercial face masks were made of cloth stretched over metal frames tied to the face. Sales surged once again during another flu outbreak in 1938, creating a precedent for wearing face masks during any outbreak. The most recent spike in mask sales occurred during the 2002 SARS epidemic in Hong Kong, which caused 774 deaths worldwide. The softer frameless masks used today, whose precursors entered the market in 1948, are made of woven cloth. These masks are designed to protect the outside world from the mouth-borne germs of the wearer, whether that be surgeon or sick person, not the other way around. They serve as barrier protection against large droplets, but do not effectively filter small particles from the air or prevent leakage around the edge of the mask. The reality is that the typically white or blue surgical mask, used in a multitude of contexts today, provides its wearer with little protection from environmental viruses.

The typical mask wearers of the 20th century were

the mildly sick, who hoped to avoid passing on illness to others on the morning train. But the mask became a normalized part of everyday attire following the swine flu outbreak in 2009, when it was expected that everyone would wear a mask. A mask subculture has now become widely accepted throughout Japan, where people even wear masks purely for the aesthetic, known as “date masuku,” (“date” means “just for show”). In 2011, a Japanese news site that surveyed people in Shibuya, Tokyo reported that 30 percent of mask-wearers wore them for reasons unrelated to sickness. Many use it to accentuate certain features deemed attractive: emphasize the eyes, make the face look smaller, hide poor skin, or lend an air of “mystery,” as one surveyed high school girl said. The mask can also allow its wearer to move through public space without having to bother putting on makeup. Others point to its psychological effects, as it creates a social firewall between self and society that allows for better focus in school or work, hiding emotions, or avoiding gender-based harassment on trains. Regardless of whether the mask is used for beauty or psychology, all of these utilizations hinge upon its original purpose of serving as a physical barrier. And as with any trend, companies have found ways to create and market masks that extend beyond the functional and into the fashionable: boutique stores in Tokyo’s Harajuku neighborhood offer a wide range of options beyond the typical white or blue masks, from zebra-print, to anime designs, to K-pop inspired masks, to black leather ones with studs on them.

Most recently, Instagram influencers have used the mask to turn the outbreak into an opportunity to post photoshoots under the guise of raising awareness. While the intention behind most of these influencers is to supposedly encourage their followers to adopt good hygiene habits and support those affected by the coronavirus, the self-promoting nature of modeling a mask diminishes their altruism. Co-opting the aesthetics of crisis, models caption their seductive poses in masks with the hashtag #coronavirus.

Instagrammer Jada Hai Phong Nguyen accompanied her black mask with tight checkered black-and-white

06 MARCH 2020

creative substitutes with questionable effectiveness. A thin, three-ply pleated expandable layer of rectangle gauze that normally sells for 39 cents has become a precious commodity.

Indeed, the face mask embodies a precarious future: one of constant surveillance, an unprotected climate, and herd panic around disease. But in its multiplicity of representations, it also holds a certain degree of ambiguity that sets up a power dynamic between wearer and viewer. As they observe a mass mania toward the mask, the unmasked are compelled to ask: Why is a mask necessary? What should I be preparing for? Do I need a mask, too?

Though there have been no official suggestions made for those living in the United States to wear face masks, many have begun doing so anyways, depleting global stock that is more highly needed in other countries such as China or Italy. Left in a state of general anxiety due to a lack of clear and accurate information around the coronavirus, many buy masks out of mob mentality rather than founded reason. In fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention does not recommend that people who feel well wear a facemask—only those who are showing symptoms of coronavirus or taking care of someone infected. U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams even warned that wearing a mask if not a healthcare provider can increase risk of coronavirus, since those who do not know how to wear them properly end up touching their face more than usual. But in moments of fear, every chance of protection feels critical to people who think they have few other actions to take. Panicked people seek control: some are doing anything they can to combat a lack of self-efficacy rather than address systemic causes, even at the cost of others living in areas of higher risk. +++

pants and a crop top, as well as a caption with advice on how to avoid the virus, including mask recommendations. The Vietnam-based model has said that she decided to share the photo because of how many people, including her family, remained uninformed about the seriousness of the outbreak. But many criticize her for posing as humanitarian and exploiting a virus for a photoshoot, pointing specifically to her nonchalant body language, three-image carousel, and a pose alongside her pooch. Russian influencer Steven Divish didn’t even bother to put up a charitable facade—he posted a photo of himself decked headto-toe in designer gear and a black face mask, simply captioned: “Vibe check.” Though some influencer fans greeted the new look with great appetite, many have accused him of lacking sensitivity. Dismayed by the number of influencers taking the opportunity during an outbreak to model face masks in sensual or carefree poses, one Twitter user noted: “Everything is a fad to these people—they're not human.”

On Instagram, accessorizing a cute outfit with a mask and modeling it as sexy means incorporating this tool as part of a curated (and strategic) image, which then becomes trendy. The conflation of the chic and the practical raises questions about the allure of catastrophe, and whether such trends arise as a way to normalize, cope with, or even fetishize an apocalyptic aura. Indeed, the fashion world elite are harnessing the symbolic power of the mask without addressing its systemic realities or even contextualizing the semiotics of the mask they hide behind. +++ Face masks have been worn by political protesters in Hong Kong since June of last year. During anti-government protests over a now-withdrawn extradition bill, they concealed identities from police and CCTV, which was ubiquitously used throughout the country.

The masks, amongst umbrellas, balaclavas, and helmets, protected its wearers from punishments of up to 10 years in prison. The government attempted to ban protesters from wearing them and ordered retailers to

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

The popular California-based company Vogmask, which offers a plethora of styles from cheetah to organic, markets its products as “a tool for wellness, style, and a symbol of care for yourself, the planet, and the future.” In the face of an apocalyptic world, companies have begun playing with language familiar around self-care marketing to appeal to the fear of threats that, for many of its wearers, are not relevant. For this technology—intended to curb the spread of disease, filter out pollution, conceal identity—to have been adopted as “wellness” and by elites as a symbol of cuttingedge style marks a cultural shift. Disaster has become noticeably ubiquitous, and self-preservation may be one form of coping with it, whether that may stem out of necessity, fear, or beauty and style. In a future where things are uncertain, so may be our smiles—hidden behind a protective gauze shielding us from an increasingly hostile planet.

take measures to prevent their sale. E-commerce giant Taobao restricted the sales of many of these identity-hiding items— searches for them would be met only with “item not found.”

In Australia, masks continue to help people breathe in some of the worst air quality in the world. The bushfires across the country have already destroyed at least 24 million acres of land, killed at least 28 people and one billion animals, and demolished 2,000 homes.

Although recent cooler conditions have brought some respite, the regions of New South Wales and Victoria still continue to have around 50 fires burning. The smoke is so pervasive that the air quality is considered to be as bad as if one were to smoke 19 cigarettes a day, threatening to cause respiratory problems and exacerbate existing chronic conditions. In such situations where masks serve as critical respirator protection, MIA PATTILLO B’20 and NICK ROBLEEsurgical masks are insufficient: N95 masks, designed STRAUSS B’22 prefer to spend their money on beautito provide a very close facial fit, are worn to filter fully scented, luxury hand soaps. airborne particles and protect the wearer from pollen, pollution, and ash.

In 2015, after Beijing effectively shut down the city during its first-ever smog “red alert” (the most urgent form of alert), sales of face masks increased until most outlets were completely out of stock. The years that followed also saw intense and highly illegal forest fires sweeping across Indonesia, resulting in more masks worn on the streets of Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. As the Taal volcano erupted in the southern Philippines this past January, N95 masks were marketed as a preventative measure against sulfurladen ash and were cleaned out in stores in less than a day.

With the coronavirus outbreak, the scramble for face masks has revealed many truths about the lack of outbreak preparedness. Many basic medical products rely on international trade, which can be placed into jeopardy during emergencies as imports and exports are cut off by border shutdowns and rising local demand. Epidemics disrupt global supply chains, which make it even more difficult to distribute masks.

Maxi-pads, half an orange, parts from a water bottle: the demand and dearth has left many scrambling for

SCIENCE+TECH

04

DANCING REMNANTS 05

EPHEMERA

06 MARCH 2020

You told me fungi make the best hippies: they form communes, hug trees, are drugs. We were on hands and knees, an eight-legged, two-headed creature, appreciating the cluster on a terraced hillside.

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

X

06

CABBAGE: “Cabbage guy,” or the cabbage merchant, is one of the most iconic characters in Avatar the Last Airbender, an animated TV series that features an alternative Asia with superpowers instead of regular plebeian humans.

Imagine a story about four or five heroes, each with different backgrounds and elemental powers based on a different Asian or Indigenous culture, fighting together to end the 100 year war and defeat the Fire Nation’s ruler, the evil Firelord. Throughout their adventures, the iconic cabbage merchant often finds himself in the middle of these fights as he pushes his cart of cabbages through the streets of China-esque Earth Kingdom cities. Time and time again, his cart is destroyed, his cabbages are thrown to the ground, ruined, and he cries out “MY CABBAGEEEEEES!” Is this scene realistic? If the Earth Kingdom cities represent Chinese cities, then this cabbage merchant must represent a Chinese cabbage merchant. I asked my grandmother to tell me a story about cabbage before the Cultural Revolution. She loves to talk. And she does remember rows and rows of cabbages planted in early fall and harvested right before winter. She recalls the rowdy crowds and a jumble of loud Mandarin under the awnings covering the street: rows of leafy greens, heads piled in well-ventilated pyramids, stems pointing one way and tops the other. Her father picks out dozens of cabbages to last them through the winter.

Across the world, cabbage appears again, in a fictional book based in 20th-century London: Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (I can’t read, so I listened to the audiobook). Eric Idle, the narrator of the novel, describes the story of a starving, working-class family, the Buckets, in which Charlie, the only child, has to take care of two parents and four bedridden grandparents. The meal of choice—or the lack thereof—is an unflavored, pitiful cabbage soup. I have never eaten cabbage soup, but I can imagine that it’s as dreary and wet as it sounds. +++ Cabbage’s story continues into the New World, where every day, thousands of children ask their parents and teachers, “Where do babies come from?” Some say they come from storks, others say they come from the uterus, but in reality, babies come from cabbage patches! (Why else would they be called Cabbage Patch Kids?) Cabbage is clearly culturally significant.

In fact, the ubiquitous staple crop has a rich history that dates back 3000 years to Ancient Rome.

Back in the day, cabbage was considered a delicacy, thought to have medicinal properties as a laxative that could cure gout and the effects of ingesting poisonous mushrooms. For your enjoyment, I will paraphrase parts of the English version of the Latin text Di Agricultura written by Roman soldier and historian Cato the Elder.

Of Pythagoras's cabbage, what virtue and health-giving qualities it has [...] and the urine is wholesome for everything. [...] If you save the urine of a person who eats cabbage habitually, heat it, and bathe the patient in it, he will be healed quickly; this remedy has been tested.

Also, if babies are bathed in this urine they will never be weakly; those whose eyes are not very clear will see better if they are bathed in this urine; and pain in the head or neck will be relieved if the heated urine is applied. If a woman will warm the privates with this urine, they will never become diseased. The method is as follows: when you have heated it in a pan, place under a chair whose seat has been pierced. Let the woman sit on it, cover her, and throw garments around her.

Well, now we all know what to do if your roommate catches the flu: eat cabbage, pee on them, and wrap them in your dirty laundry.

Beyond its medicinal properties, cabbage was also eaten before a night of heavy drinking, so that aristocrats could imbibe more wine. Much like the healing-crystals popular today, it was believed that cabbage could alleviate the after effects of copious drinking. These days, modern-day aristocrats above

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FEATURES

a cultural history

the age of twenty-one usually eat bread, rather than cabbage, to ease the effects of their binge-drinking.

Today, aristocrats and the proletariat alike enjoy cabbage in many forms. It has become a vital source of nutrients and an instrumental ingredient in many dishes from around the world: German sauerkraut, Korean kimchi and Chinese pork and cabbage dumplings, Japanese okonomiyaki, Russian shchi stew, American coleslaw, Kenyan sukumawiki (which also uses kale and collard greens), Curtido pickled cabbage from Salvador and Colombia, Vitamin C-rich Kerguelen cabbage from Antarctica, Mediterranean stuffed cabbage rolls, and many more! +++

BY Alex Alverson ILLUSTRATION Natasha Brennan DESIGN Alex Westfall

improve the South Korean economy. Subsequently, in the summer of 1966, the first “kimchi-in-tin” products were mass-produced in American factories and shipped to South Korean soldiers overseas. On the global stage, kimchi became one of the first examples of Asian soft power: the use of culture as a tool for diplomacy.

Kimchi’s story here diverges. The food spread throughout the world, its popularity steadily growing alongside the South Korean economy. It was featured in its first scientific paper and appeared in the 1966 International Conference of Food, Science and Technology, for its probiotic properties. Today, there are more than 400 kimchi producers in South Korea alone, with estimates of a similar number in North Korea. In fact, kimchi has been a catalyst for the NorthSouth division as well as a vehicle for its unity. For instance, South Korean Kimchi became a UNESCO World Heritage cuisine in 2013, solidifying its global stance as a cultural monument, two years before North Korea, which infuriated Pyongyang. But at the same time, kimchi has remained a staple for people living in both countries, and has become a Korean cultural touchstone for those outside Asia.

How did cabbage become such a universal food? Wheat, corn and rice maintain a similar status, but what other non-grain food is as popular as cabbage? True, chicken and fish are also great and everyone loves them, but I already wrote five paragraphs about cabbage so I’m not just suddenly going to switch now. And also lettuce is limp and nutritionally useless.

Cabbage is one of few vegetables with a worldwide presence, the reasons for which are manifold.

Logistically, cabbage is easy to grow, retains a lot of +++ water, is rich in nutrients, and keeps throughout the winter. But even more so, cabbage has lasted because Cabbage has made its way around the world and it carries distinct political and cultural meaning. Here throughout time, in many different social, economic are three examples of how cabbage, and its image, has and political contexts. But what are the implications of shaped—and been shaped—by politics, society and cabbage becoming a universal vegetable? The recent culture. transformations to the cabbage industry are similar to World War I saw the manipulation of cabbage's those of other massive monocrops. What sets cabbage image in the US. As anti-German sentiment steadily apart culturally does not extend to its production and grew, so too did American nationalism. As a 1918 news- harvest. Although there are countless methods for paper edition of “The Welch Watchman” from Welch, making kimchi, the methods for growing the cabbage Oklahoma nicely put it: if you were a “lover of succu- have become somewhat standardized. What makes lent cabbage properly fermented” you could “now this essay a bit sad is that I could have written about indulge [your] appetite without suspicion of disloyalty.” almost any food and my conclusion would have been German sauerkraut was renamed “Liberty Cabbage.” the same. Just like the production of corn, soy, or wheat, Leave it to the Americans to plaster “Liberty” and cabbage production is largely mechanized and bene“Freedom” on anything that breathes or moves or, in fits from genetic selection, pesticide use and largethis case, exists. While french fries became “Freedom scale irrigation. Brown students aplenty have written Fries,” hamburgers became “Liberty Steak,” German “diatriabes about the myriad malignant effects” of Big measles became “Liberty Measles,” and German Ag, while many others have written about how Big Ag shepherds became “Liberty Dogs”. Anti-German food has relieved food insecurity. became a fixture of the nation’s identity.

While cabbage production has become standardNationalist sentiment extended beyond food ized, what makes cabbage special is the cultural signifconsumption and into production, into the farms icance that people have attached to it over thousands themselves. At the end of World War I, the govern- of years. The sleek red heads (of cabbage), crispy green ment encouraged people to start planting their own leaves, buttery stir frys—these are what make cabbage personal vegetable gardens, called “Victory Gardens,” special. Today, cabbage is special because there is so and cabbage was one of the vegetables that people much interesting science attached to it. Red cabbage were encouraged to grow. The National Garden War can be seen starring in those “food-hacks” YouTube Commission, the organization which started this videos! The purple pigment in red cabbage can act program, watched as millions of Americans become as an acid-base indicator and color foods or clothing “producers” and “soldiers of the soil.” Other govern- different colors depending on the acidity of a solument programs such as the United States School tion. The cabbage pigments turn pink in acid, purple Garden Army and the Women’s Land Army of America in neutral solutions, and blue in basic solutions. I started urban youth and housewife-based urban guess what I’m trying to say is that cabbage is pretty farming projects, promoting patriotism and local food frickin’ awesome. It has a rich cultural background, an production. important role in society, and is intriguing even today.

After World War II, Russia had to recover from Dear reader, next time you eat a cabbage, I hope the most devastating siege in recorded history: the you think back to this article, or at the very least smile 900-day Battle of Leningrad. The city’s inhabitants internally, recall the “cabbage guy” of yore and say to were confined within Leningrad’s walls by the German yourself “MY CABBAGESSSSS!” army, with no access to their farmland or resources beyond the walls. It should be noted here that one of the ALEX ALVERSON B’20 likes cabbage and hates primary foods planted during the siege, near St. Isaac’s lettuce.

Cathedral in Leningrad, was cabbage! If so inclined, you may Google “Cabbage Siege of Leningrad” to view photographic evidence. +++ Kimchi, cabbage's most iconic rendition, played an important role during one of the Vietnam War. As part of the war effort, South Korea sent thousands of soldiers to fight alongside the Americans. However, the soldiers were miserable. So, the South Korean Prime Minister Il Kwon Chung asked US President Lyndon Johnson to send kimchi to the South Korean troops.

The South Korean government wanted to strengthen its trade agreements with the US and asked that the nation spend three to four billion dollars per year to

06 MARCH 2020

A LOVE LETTER TO SPONTANEITY

BY Nell Salzman ILLUSTRATION Georgianna Stoukides DESIGN Anna Brinkhuis

My friend is a chronic soul-searcher. His favorite pastime is to sift through the empty shells of people around him, trying to rationalize their thoughts, movements, judgements. He’s easy to pick out in a crowd: all limbs, light brown hair, a teasing sideways smirk, high-top Converse. He walks with purpose and seems to always be listening to music. Sometimes he asks me where I see myself in ten years: a lawyer, a schoolteacher, a psychologist maybe. But his answers are always better than mine: a boxer, a film-maker in Hollywood, a successful novelist, Mark Renton from Trainspotting, a professional stoner.

I’ve known him for only four years, but it’s like I’ve known ten iterations of him. He blindly follows his wild fantasies and connects more deeply with the people around him than all the blubbering, surface-level try-hards I know. And when he finds something he’s passionate about, he’s relentless. Because he diverges from the norm, he teaches me more about life than anyone else. He once wore a pink bathrobe to school for a whole week because he felt spiritually connected to Edward Norton from Fight Club. When Oreos were his favorite food, he patented “Oreo dip,” separating and microwaving the fillings, then sinking everything in the kitchen into his concoction, from pumpkin pie to carrot sticks. During his running phase, he would sprint shirtless downtown at midnight. When he was obsessed with rock-climbing, he would punch tables and walls to make his hands stronger. He wrote 2,000 words a day for a month, certain he was going to finish a novel. He watches a new movie almost every day— swearing that each one is the very best one he’s ever seen—and he falls in love with every girl he meets.

Almost all mothers who have ever met him call him Huckleberry Finn: a “lost boy” who “needs to find himself.” But if you ask me, they’re wrong. See, the thing is, I’ve never come across a surer, more directed human being. Someone who is so immersed in the present and so enamored with everything around him.

People are drawn to him because he doesn’t sugarcoat his ambitions and he disregards caution. Mothers look at him and get scared. They’re scared of what he is and what they aren’t. In his very rawest form, obsessive, bold.

I feel a little sorry for these mothers. My grandmother, for instance, has a spotless kitchen and impeccable, tall children who all have practical degrees: accounting, nursing, engineering. The woman I babysit for doesn’t let her kids drink water in their rooms and her idea of dessert is a bowl of multi-grain cereal.

Crippled by routine, they shy away from cognitive

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

dissonance, internal inconsistency. I’m aware that it might not just be their pure fear of impulses. They may be stifled by things like gender standards, anxiety, or a need for things to stay the same. Whatever the reason, they strive for perfection, but in the process, they lose sight of the beauty that exists in ambiguity and the romance in spontaneity.

Maybe they have never experienced life outside of their comfortable, engrained consistencies. They don’t know what it’s like to skip school and go rock climbing or pour their souls out in long car rides down Colfax Street. They’ve never pulled an all-nighter for no reason other than to be able to say they’ve “woken up with the city.” Never obsessed over the French language to the point that they were rolling around on the floor, moaning with enthusiasm. Never eaten the leftover food off all the plates in a restaurant and then left. Never punched a boxing bag so hard their knuckles bled or walked buck-naked around their houses just for the fun of it.

I like to think it’s not too late for my grandmother and babysitting client to live like my Huckleberry Finn, to experiment with the love affair of life.

It’s sad, but even while I mock them, sometimes I find that I have more in common with these bland people than I want to admit. More often than not, my friend will call me to go for a midnight drive and I’ll decline because of my history test the next day. I won’t get my hair wet at the pool because I’m embarrassed of how messed up it will look after. My idea of success is a flawless report card or a clean room. People describe me as “nice” and “patient” and “consistent.” But I don’t want to be “consistent.” I would much rather be wildly inconsistent: fail a test, eat two large pepperoni pizzas for breakfast, or shout at the top of my lungs to the boy in my Political Foundations class about how amazing I think he is, how I wouldn’t mind marrying him.

In his poem “Happiness,” Carl Sandburg searches for the meaning of life. He asks professors and executives where to find happiness and they all shake their heads at him with pity. Ultimately, Sandburg finds what he is looking for not in an answer from a renowned expert, but when he happens upon “a crowd of Hungarians under the trees with their women and children and a keg of beer and an accordion.” Sandburg revels in their unpredictability, finds solace and happiness in their freedom of will. I have experts all around me—teachers, coaches, counselors—but it’s my capricious friend who can answer these questions for me.

When we think about it, inconsistency exists

all around us: in nature, relationships, arguments, musical compositions, scientific theories. A blizzard freezes cherry blossoms in the middle of spring, a jazz piece has contradictory melodies, or a longstanding scientific principle is disproven unexpectedly. The challenge lies in committing ourselves to these inconsistencies, in not letting our insecurities and prejudgements stop us from exploring. Rebelling against stratification, resisting the urge to map out every route to success. Striving to discover what drives us, embracing discord, and following our inclinations.

My friend does this better than anyone I know. Some nights, as I hunch over my homework, I’ll wonder what he’s doing at that moment—joyriding down Seventh Avenue, maybe, or sitting on the toilet for hours listening to Marvin Gaye.

The other weekend, we sat outside his house in my rattling 1999 Toyota Camry with the windows down and the heat blasting. We didn’t drive anywhere. We just sat—for four hours. We talked about our parents, our brothers, death, miracles. The last thing he said to me was that I just had to listen to the Cocteau Twins’ album, Heaven or Las Vegas. “It sounds a lot like The Cure, but it’s religious, spiritual—probably one of the best experiences of my life. Every time I listen to it, it changes my perception of the world.”

I’ve only known him for a few short years—but every time I hear him say something like that, I hear his life change. He believes in the beauty around him so much that he allows it to change him. He doesn’t settle for comfort. His openness to the ephemerality of life shows me that there is another way to live. And the thing is, I’m afraid of what my life will be like if I don’t live like him.

NELL SALZMAN B’22 wants to wear a pink bathrobe for a week straight and eat pizza for breakfast.

FEATURES

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GOD, DEATH, AND THE

FLORIDA KEYS JOY WILLIAMS’S LITERATURE OF THE GUIDEBOOK Random House was doing this series—Virginia, the Hamptons, the Keys. The Keys were still kind of strange and unspoiled in the eighties. I went around the state and wrote things down, but nobody talked to me. Nobody!

I’d limp into these bed-and-breakfasts and people would snarl at me and not want to talk. I mean, honestly, it was terrible and I had no idea what I was doing. And it wasn’t edited, nobody edited it. Have you seen the afterword, the final edition, when I didn’t want to update it anymore?

Here I am, worn out and saying how shitty everything in the Keys has become, and Random House just went ahead and put the afterword in there. Isn’t that amazing? That’s the only book I’ve ever made money from.

Joy Williams in an interview from The Paris Review Issue 209, Summer 2014 +++ In 2003, the tenth and final edition of The Florida Keys: A History & Guide was published almost without comment to a modest and largely casual readership of the kind that receives most guidebooks. That this moment went unremarked by the critical establishment can be attributed to the lack of recognition afforded to the guidebook genre, an unsurprising blindspot given the derisive attitude taken by many writers of fiction and poetry toward the suggestion that they write something “useful.” The fact that the author of The Florida Keys is acclaimed novelist Joy Williams seems to have had close to no bearing on the book’s reception, and so a valuable addition to the canon of contemporary American literature snuck by critics and readers essentially unnoticed.

It makes sense that of all contemporary novelists, it was Williams who saw fit to remedy the lack of literarily serious writing in the guidebook industry. Williams is occupied throughout her fiction with evoking precisely the kind of placeness that is central to the project of a travel guide. She is interested in place as it serves as a receptacle for time, and those places that are most charged with time’s passing crop up repeatedly in her fiction. Resorts and vacation towns share her attention as spaces where people live for a while and then stop living, leaving their things behind. Senior centers offer a more morbid example of the same. Desert communities in former frontiers like the American West, depleted of culture and people by violence or the strip mall variety of mass consumerism, serve as surfaces against which characters are cast in harsh, almost ahistorical light. The Florida Keys also make frequent and often freaky appearances, their diminished glamour darkly dealt with. Williams covets the kinds of places that were once enthusiastically invested with a body of meaning that either exceeded the place itself or emptied out of it over time. +++ The impossible project of the guidebook is to exhaustively describe a place. But to do so even somewhat successfully makes the guidebook central to the processes of saturation and depletion of meaning that Williams takes up in her fiction. Guidebooks can inflict the great levelling power of mass tourism on the places they attempt to pay tribute to. Williams is not unaware of this irony, which she obliquely touches on in the introduction to The Florida Keys: “Time Passes, of course. The snake lady is run over

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one night as she is crossing the road. Someone builds his dream house in front of the pretty view, cutting down the jaracanda trees in the process. But the Keys, though no longer the empty, silent stretches they once were, still markedly lack (you might as well be told) historical and cultural monuments.” Williams locates the Keys in a decisive historical moment, a pre-monument but post-emptiness stretch of time that cannot last. It is after their literary fame (most acutely felt as a nostalgia for depressed modernists) but before they will disappear under the sea. “Time passes… the bill is coming,” Williams writes, “the bill for all our environmental mistakes of the past. The big bill.” Her guidebook, like her fiction, fixes on the uncertain moment where a place crosses a threshold from one kind of existence into another.

It is difficult to express just how important these threshold points are for Williams. They are the germ of her creative work. She does not dwell on what happens on one side or another of a given boundary; it is instead the points of crossing that animate her writing. These points push up through every available surface of her books, expanding and opening into characters, plot, style.

In its conceptual framing, this focus on the liminal can sound tired, and it is true that the exploitation of thresholds, border-crossing, and the contradictions that flow from society’s delineations is not a new theme for modern fiction. But Williams’ love for boundary spaces is pure. She takes the raw material of these crossings and distills them to almost hallucinatory purity. Nowhere is this more apparent than in her second novel, The Changeling. Williams’s description of The Changeling as a book “about a drunk” does not quite do justice to the drunken tone of the book itself, the haze of language that distorts and makes uncertain every object of her description. The major elements of the book’s plot rarely exist as anything more than intimations. We gather, barely, that the drunk in question, Pearl, may be raising a son who is not her own, a baby switched in the chaos of a plane crash, a changeling.

Her paranoia on this subject is only one manifestation of a much broader suspicion that the whole world is a changeling world that has come into being not unlike her unloved son. Pearl suspects that God doesn’t love humans, suspects that He created the world only to take it away again, using it to feed “what He loved most… Nothingness.” She struggles to be free in the world, but drinking obviates the need for that struggle.

When she isn’t drunk, she has a talent for constructing provocative declaratives: “God wasn’t dead, He was just sick. Very very sick . . .”

The threat of an encroaching Nothingness is also present in her guide to the Keys. In both The Changeling and The Florida Keys, the consciousness-altering force of alcohol plays a decisive role in the preservation of the world against the increasing emptiness. For both Pearl and the Keys, the consumption of alcohol is a form of resistance against the work of time. Although developers and the “consumptive edge” of Floridian society threaten the Keys, Williams assures us that at the very least, “the disreputable bar remains.” Such bars are important to Williams (they feature prominently in her fiction) if only because they change more slowly than the rest of a place, burdened by the inertia arising from their commitments to an institutional existence that is at once social and commercial. This, along with the habit-forming power of alcohol, makes them a good place to find the grittier presence that remains within

mainstream society. Several sufficiently disreputable bars are featured in The Florida Keys, described in passages which contain violence worthy of her fiction.

Williams explains the origin of the “absolutely no dogs” rule at The Caribbean Club Bar by recounting a story that culminates with a drunken customer angrily kicking a puppy to death; she concludes that after the incident, “the management decided that the dogs hanging out in the bar were a potential problem.”

The guidebook is populated by anecdotes like this one, depicting gruesome acts that are idiosyncratic enough to seduce the reader, but which are ultimately swept out of the realm of future possibility. It is probably for the best that no one will ever have reason to kick to death a puppy at The Caribbean Club Bar thanks to its “no dogs” policy, but one can’t help but feel that Williams mourns as she regards these changes. The stories in The Florida Keys are a history of possibility being standardized and reduced, and the newest bars are summarized with only the address and price range that typify most of the guidebook’s entries. But Williams is never truly nostalgic, and the ethos present in the guidebook can be found more explicitly in The Changeling, where she uses Pearl’s alcoholic consciousness to show us the work of the sick, liminal God and His world, most full only as it leaves existence. The novel is dominated by a paradoxically constant motion toward death, a dying that never realizes itself. Dying appears fractalized in the novel, covering every level of the language with an irreconcilable strangeness that suggests the ever-present possibility of death, always left barely unsaid. Dialogue between characters is often so odd that we cannot really be sure it is not the invention of Pearl’s drugged consciousness. Another member of the cult-like island community that Pearl is coerced into living in asks her the rhetorical question: “Had not insects visited Plato in his infancy, settling on his lips, ensuring him powerful speech?” How can anyone respond to this question, which is made bizarre by a language offered in such disconcerting abundance that it takes away any possible response? “Pearl sweated. Pearl hadn’t known what to say.” The reader is often emptied of words at the same time Pearl is an effect of Williams’ disarming textual stylings. Not every line is comprehensible, and the vague plot is only mobile by virtue of its own uncomfortably ambiguous language. The reading experience at times verges closer to the physiological than the intellectual. We too can only sweat, left powerless and wordless when confronted by Williams’ language. +++ For Williams, these questions of language, death, and power are inextricable from the matter of sex, which is pervasive in her work, although rarely more than subtext in the systematic descriptions of The Florida Keys. In The Changeling, it is Williams’ erotic imagery that revels in and exploits the threshold spaces, the moment of the not-quite-there. But its place in Williams’ writing is difficult to understand. What can be done with a passage like this one, for instance: “‘I’m not responsible for anything as far as I can tell,’ Pearl said.

She watched him eat, the soft sea flesh entering his mouth.

‘Everything is sex,’ Pearl sighed. ‘To dream of someone or to want to go somewhere. Eating is sex and music is sex . . . What is childhood a preparation for . . . I

06 MARCH 2020

BY Jango McCormick ILLUSTRATION Cece Stewart DESIGN Ella Rosenblatt

mean, those poor children . . .’”

The erotic drive is sublimated everywhere as physical substance for Williams. If it isn’t eaten as seafood it is secreted like sweat from the bodies of the young men that populate the edges of her novels and stories. It is details like the fact that the yard boy in her story “The Yard Boy” is not only “a handsome fellow” but that “his jeans smelled of tangelos” that somehow drives home her glancing erotics, perhaps more so than the explicit and plentiful references to her characters’ sexual exploits or their overly sexualized bodies. Her privileging of the male gender is not unambivalent. The boyish men or mannish boys are portrayed as attractive but nearly thoughtless, close to animals, a 20th century fantasy of masculinity decocted to its dirtied, barest fact. These men are described materially, less self-reflective individuals than as beautiful objects.

Their existence is almost always refracted through a narrative eye that both gawks at and admires them.

This is essentially the eye of a tourist, and the relationship of the narrator to these men is not so different from the guidebook’s approach to the Keys. The Florida Keys is written for a reader who indulges in what Pearl understands as the explicitly sexual desire “to want to go somewhere.” The work is organized island by island for the tourist who is driving through the entire archipelago, to which, we are told in the introduction, “the road, as its nature, allows entrance.” The road “is the beginning” along which the tourist or reader desires to travel with the guidebook, not stopping “until Key West, heeding the billboard’s urging, ‘GO ALL THE WAY.’” Freedom—and what freedom is more full in its sheer possibility than that of driving over a great distance?—is itself an erotic construction for Williams.

Read any of her novels and you will begin to notice this pattern of thought. Breaking and Entering spatializes the conceit by using a resort town as the backdrop for two ethereal young people who move in and out of houses that are empty for the season, physically dealing with the illicit thresholds they cross as they break and enter. The characters move into spaces that do not belong to them. The Quick and The Dead places one typical Williams archetype—the precocious, nihilistic adolescent who can move fluidly across social and spatial boundaries—against another—the male adult whose relationship with children is problematic (in this book, a pedophile and a bad father) and who cannot find his way out of his own consciousness. The father spends most of his time in dialogue with his dead wife; the pedophile is only a pedophile when he transgresses his own homosexuality to sleep with a too-young woman, and though his torment is mostly dulled by drugs, it is almost too telling that he dies when a mirror breaks into him with disturbingly suggestive motion, “sliding its cool tongues into his hands and throat and heart.” In The Florida Keys, freedom is dealt with differently, though also as transgression, a movement into a space where one doesn’t belong. There however, the transgression is against the land itself, because as soon as the tourist gets off the road they are in a place where they are foreign by both cultural and ecosystemic metrics. The best they can hope for is to be absorbed into that new environment like the snorkeler who “is not what he appears to others, he is what he sees. He has a magic glass wrapped around his eyes and he is in a world of beauty and color. Graceful movement. Silence.” This is the erotic freedom of threshold crossing purified, the environmental degradation that moves the whole of the Keys in the direction of the Nothingness of the sick God temporarily forgotten as a snorkeler disappears into his own perception of the sea.

This fluid absorption into nature is Williams’ erotic ideal, the only way to circumvent the violence of every other kind of threshold crossing. Snorkeling is temporary, but it approximates the true solution as a kind of stasis or living death.

some kind of death, physical or psychic—but instead elects to idle in its own indeterminacy, to salt its own wounds. This is not to say that Williams relies on the cliché of cutting off plot with only a hint of the Terrible Fate to come (though this is a technique she makes successful use of), but rather that she lets her characters wonder about fate itself even as it plays out on their lives. “The demands of living have consequences,” Pearl speculates, “and that is called fate.” It is as if plot is some separation between the people in her stories and their world, a material manifestation of a metaphysical churning, a puncturing of everything including thought that goes so far that we cannot even take the assurance of death as certainty. Death figures as exactly the opposite of certainty; it is instead absolute possibility, a redemption that we may not be able to afford because the moment of the threshold threatens to last forever. Time may pass and the Keys may fade, but even if the water really does cover them they may not be saved by the clean cut of death. “Memory is the resurrection,” thinks Pearl, “The dead move among us the living in our memory and that is the resurrection.”

The Florida Keys fits easily into Williams’ greater corpus. Her voice can be more purely heard here than it can be in her fiction, where it is always at some kind of remove. Her narrative authority in The Florida Keys manifests itself everywhere, and nowhere more seductively than in her contemplation of the Keys’ active decline. She documents the “battle between man and free living chicken” on Key West in a way that cuts to the quick of the Keys’ transformation: “There are planes and mopeds and dumptrucks hauling away Paradise’s tailings. Then there are leafblowers, pool pumps, air conditioning units, and all noises connected with the town’s being a permanent renovation site. To be in a high dudgeon over the crowing of roosters seems sensitivity of the most specialized sort, a sensitivity that sometimes results in poultricide.” Williams relishes describing strangenesses with as much stylistic force as she does in her fiction, noting with suspicious subtext that “a hundred dollars or so buys you some unstructured time with the dolphins” at The Dolphin Research Center on Grassy Key. She spends almost as much time describing what used to be in the Keys—“a sign just beyond the one welcoming travelers to the Florida Keys… said, ‘HELL IS TRUTH SEEN TOO LATE’”—as what is still there, like “Key Largo’s youth” who “practice spray-painting the symbol for anarchy on the rose-colored walls” of hurricane-ruined developments. “Sometimes,” Williams offers, “it’s nice to contemplate things that aren’t there.” What increasingly isn’t there is a past, a gritty and seductive past of snake ladies, of ramshackle bars and famous writers, but above all an ecosystemically balanced prehistory, a period when the intersection between humans and the Keys was not so troubled, when a God that loved something besides Nothingness was still conceivable.

Williams’ ability to document memory in text and ground it in an existing present is what makes The Florida Keys an effective guidebook, and for the casual traveler, that is all the book will really be. But for the reader of Williams the novelist, The Florida Keys is another installment of her ongoing literary project.

It is a guide not only to the Keys but to the dying that inhabits all of her work, and this quasi-literary documentation of a past that is leaving but not yet gone is dense and difficult and elusive in just the way her fiction is at its best.

JANGO MCCORMICK B’20 is in a high dudgeon over the crowing of roosters.

+++

In The Changeling, Pearl is always surrounded by a pack of children she cannot separate from animals, children whose games move easily into a violence that ultimately ends the book. But even then the dying is left undescribed and uncertain, and it is by this omission that The Changeling reaches its full height, its power clinched by its unwillingness to take a hard moral stance or to be plainly tragic or comic. As with all of Williams’ best work, The Changeling opts not to follow the basic arc of many modern stories—culminating in

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

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10

THE STORIES WE TELL

WINDOWS

[CW: intergenerational violence, eating disorders, depression]

I was five when I was first shown the window behind which my grandfather sat, perched above the street.

We listened to his aunt say that she saw his mother taken by the men with spiders on their sleeves. They put her in a truck full of yellow stars. He sat there and looked down, as the trucks drove past, and the stars sat up above.

He was five when he lost his mother in Budapest.

I was five when I first woke up in the middle of the night with sweat down my forehead as I dreamt of stars and sawdust and rats.

What questions have I never been able to ask? My mom once told me that when she hears German, it sounds like stormtrooper boots. I’ve never been able to hear anything else.

My step-grandmother is German. One time I almost told this to my grandfather. I almost asked him if he too heard the stomping boots, saw the trucks full of stars, felt the void of his mother. How can I hear them, and does he as well? How long can it take to forgive when forgetting is never an option? +++ I was twelve when I picked up the phone at home and the school nurse asked for my parents. After hanging up, they rushed to the car and drove away. That evening, I did math homework, ate takeout food, and rambled to my neighbor about how I liked history class because you could just memorize the dates and figure out the connections and how that just made so much more sense than doing math problems over and over and where did my brother go?

I was asleep when they came home and woke me up to tell me that my brother was in the hospital for swallowing an entire bottle of pills in the bathroom downstairs. As I think back, I can’t imagine a time when I had picked up the phone that day and not known that

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BY SG ILLUSTRATION Eve O'Shea DESIGN Anna Brinkhuis

he was sick. I can’t imagine a time before we knew he and fifteen-foot fence. He was safer there. We had a was depressed. I can’t believe that I missed it all along, hard time eating. I thought about my grandpa eating that I didn’t think to look at Tylenol like it was a weapon. sawdust and rats in a safehouse during the war. When my brother came back, we hid the ice cream and I don’t remember what I dreamed about that night. cookies under lock and key.

It could have been pills or stars or who knows? He stayed in the hospital for two weeks. I asked him how I was fifteen when I picked up the phone and was he was, he said he was fine. I went to school and said he told that my brother was kicked out of college. This was fine—told everyone I was good. time I wasn’t put to bed. This time. I listened as my parents learned that he was in the hospital, again. This After school one day, I went to the hospital and saw time, though, it was a different hospital hundreds of the fifteen-foot fence and guarded doors, and I saw miles away. This time, he had just said something that my brother inside making a doormat from plastic bits. scared people. This time he had not swallowed pills or He was safer from himself there; I know this because tried to puke. This time I tried to tell my friends, tried when he came back home two weeks later, the knives to tell them that something happened. I don’t think I were kept in a corner under lock and key. could even open my mouth to speak. He was home by Thanksgiving, which was something to be thankful for.

My mom was fourteen when her dad, my grandfather, left; something about how he was too young. +++ She moved across the country and sometimes her dad wrote her letters. They visited each other a few times a I was eleven the first time I dreamed of my brother’s year. Last year, my grandfather came to visit with star- funeral. I don’t remember the time of year that it was in framed ideas of collected moments that envisioned a my dream. I do remember standing in front of a crowd relationship with my mother, my brother and me. He as tears lodged in my throat and I spoke of love. I don’t brought dreams of special breakfasts and treasured remember how he died. memories of being a present father and grandfather. I remember visits filled with lectures on family history These dreams only come when I’m awake. At night, and arguments and not knowing how to tell him that they are followed by dreams of truckloads of stars, I was a kid and I wanted to play and I didn’t want to sit my mom’s letters to her father, and the window from and listen. I guess that’s special, too. which my grandfather watched trucks go by. Another dream, the eulogy I have never had to give.

Last year, I asked to hear those stories.

It has been five years since my brother was last in +++ a hospital. When I call him I wonder if, like me, he still thinks of pill bottles, fifteen-foot fences, and cabinets When I was fourteen, my brother was in the hospital with a lock and key. Last year, I asked him how he was, again. He had lost weight and everyone told him he was he said he was good. This time, I was the one who was “looking good.” Every night after dinner, he would go just okay. Sometimes I can smell the plastic bits of his to the bathroom. One night I heard him puke. I asked if doormat that welcomes me into my parents' house. he was okay, he said he was fine. +++ This time he was in the hospital for longer. I never visited. He slept there, behind the guarded doors My paternal grandfather died three years ago. At his

06 MARCH 2020

funeral, I sat next to my brother and was glad that I didn’t have to speak. I was glad that he was there instead of at the front of the room. I remembered all the things that I would have said about him, and I whispered I love you.

This summer I saw my brother, large as life, look into the eyes of his partner and tell her how much he loves her. I saw him leaving work, passing through the guarded door of a building that was surrounded by fifteen-foot fences and was a safe place for the people inside. I wonder if there will be a time when a text or call from him or my parents doesn’t set me on edge until I check it and know that he’s okay. +++ When I was eighteen, my grandfather told me that I was the first chance our family had to be normal. He said it as a fact. The same way he told me that he is not a victim of the Shoah. He is a survivor. He told me how he is a victim of losing his mother, of his distant father, of the German’s medical experiments that permanently damaged his hip, of his post-traumatic stress that led to his absence as a father, grandfather, husband. He spoke rationally as he calculated the damage that had been brought on through this violence. My mother and her sister are survivors of the Shoah. My brother and I are as well. Last year, I dreamt again of the windowsill, the truck of people, the camp in which my greatgrandma was murdered.

I was five the first time I heard of this violence.

When I was twenty, I marched with my parents, with my community. We chanted, “Never again is now.”

We spoke of our sacred duty to bear witness. I saw my father cry. My mother and I put stickers with yellow stars on our shirts and felt exposed and afraid. +++ I’m sorry if you were looking for a resolution. None of this makes sense. This whole story makes no sense.

What stories can we tell when words, dates, and reason fail to make sense? How can I explain that these things are deeply connected to each other, to my family, to me? When you ask me how I’m doing, what do I say?

How many times do I need to ask the same question before I understand? How many years of bearing witness before we can finally see?

SG just called his brother.

Addendum: First of all, thank you for reading this and holding this version of my family’s story. I want to clarify a few choices that I’ve made in this piece.

“Shoah” is used to refer to the genocide that happened in World War II that led to the deaths of more than 11 million people, six million of whom were Jews. The choice to use this word comes from the understanding that “Holocaust,” the word more oftenly used to describe these events, literally means “a sacrifice completely consumed by fire; a burnt offering.” I, and many fellow Jews, are uncomfortable with referring to the murder of our parents, grandparents, family, and millions of others as an offering or sacrifice. Others may make a different choice; this is my choice.

I also refer to myself and my family as survivors of the Shoah. I am drawing on the Jewish tradition of each generation acting as if they personally experienced the trials of their ancestors. This choice also keeps with how my family talks and thinks about our relationship to the Shoah, and, more personally, how I understand myself as a “third-generation survivor.” I do not want to conflate these experiences and this practice with people that were murdered. In thinking about how this connects to Jewish tradition, I am reminded of how we are told in the Haggadah, the story of Passover, that “each generation must act as if they themselves were freed from Egypt.” The internalization of history, especially intergenerational trauma, is a crucial avenue through which we, as a people frequently under persecution, remember and pass on our history.

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

FEATURES

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BY Osayuwamen "Uwa" Ede-Osifo ILLUSTRATION Claire Schlaikjer DESIGN Daniel Navratil

Speaker of the House Nicolas Mattiello, arguably one of the most powerful figures in Rhode Island politics, has been shrouded in a thick veil of controversy and political turmoil that seems almost too sitcom-esque to be real.

Last fall, Jeffrey Britt, a political consultant to Mattiello’s re-election campaign, was indicted on a felony count of money laundering and a misdemeanor count of a prohibited campaign contribution.

The indictment alleges that three years ago, Britt approached defeated Republican primary candidate Shawna Lawton with a suspicious request: to donate to Mattiello and to mail an endorsement of Mattiello for representative instead of her own party’s nominee.

Britt provided $1,000 via a third party to Lawton and in the subsequent election, Mattiello defeated Republican opponent Steven Frias by just 65 votes.

The information surfaced when the Republican Party filed a complaint that claimed Lawton did not follow legal procedures to disclose the contribution and behaved in a manner that suggested she was trying to bypass transaction reporting requirements— in other words, that Britt laundered the money to her. If convicted on these counts, Britt may face up to 20 years in jail.

For decades, Britt has worked in Rhode Island politics on various campaigns including former RI treasurer Frank T. Caprio’s 2010 gubernatorial run and most recently Governor Gina Raimondo’s re-election campaign. Britt operated Strategic Consulting Solutions, a political consulting firm, which was contracted by the Fund for Democratic Leadership to advise Mattiello, according to the indictment.

Shortly after Britt was indicted, Mattiello described Britt to WPRO as able to “manipulate the media.” Matiello hired him for this very reason: “We kind of took him away from the competition...I didn’t want [Britt] on the other side shooting me.” Britt certainly came in shooting, blowing open the case of corruption in Mattiello’s cabinet. The investigation of Britt has encouraged the College Hill Independent to take a closer look at the previously isolated incidents of crime surrounding Mattiello’s associates.

Mattiello has attempted to distance himself from Britt, painting his former employee as a fanatical campaign worker who, according to Mattiello, wanted to “ingratiate” himself with the politician.

Britt’s lawyer, former US Attorney for Rhode Island Robert Corrente, disagreed in his official statement, saying that Britt has been positioned as the “fall guy” for Mattiello’s election tampering. Yet Jeffrey Britt’s ongoing investigation is neither the first controversy nor allegation of corruption to try and pin Mattiello. +++ In January, Matiello requested a performance audit into the finances of the Convention Center Authority shortly after his close friend, James Demers, was placed on administrative leave at the agency. A top female executive reported that Demers sexually harassed and abused her for years.

Mattiello, however, noted that Demers had contacted him over concerns about the Convention’s financial records previous to the sexual harassment allegations.

However, the coincidental timing coupled with the fact that Mattiello’s audit request was not voted

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on by the bipartisan five-member Joint Committee on Legislative Services (JCLS) first, as the law mandates, insinuates that the audit request may have been an intimidation or retribution tactic. The JCLS presides over the financial and administrative functions of the RI General Assembly.

Mattiello canceled the audit after the House GOP criticized his actions. A Rhode Island grand jury has subpoenaed Convention Center board members.

However, according to WPRI, there has not been any confirmation of an active investigation by the RI Attorney General. The grand jury will determine if criminal charges should be brought against Mattiello.

House Republican Leader Blake Filippi is also separately filing a lawsuit accusing Mattiello of unilaterally bypassing procedural norms with his audit request.

As the investigation unfurls, more and more evidence points at misconduct on Mattiello’s behalf.

The RI State Police, for example, received an anonymous tip that unnamed JCLS documents had been improperly removed from the JCLS office.

Although a spokesperson for the speaker said the documents were relocated due to black mold, outside testing revealed that no black mold has ever been present in the JCLS’s offices. Even more suspicious, the executive president of Single Source, the cleaning company hired to remove the mold, Mike Pomeranz has vacationed with Mattiello’s close ally and JCLS Executive Director Frank Montanaro and has donated to Mattiello’s campaigns before.

House cabinet members are frustrated with how Mattielo’s administration has transformed into a political spectacle. “Those of us who are standing up to the speaker are conservative, moderate, and progressive Democrats. We don’t agree on everything. We do, however, believe in a clean, honest, and open government,” John Lombardi (D-Providence) said in a press release.

When the ego of Mattiello’s administration rears its ugly head, Mattielo abandons the very purpose for which he was elected. Mattiello’s constituents voted for him with hopes that he would bring to fruition their policy preferences: economic development, business revitalization, and lower taxes. Corruption was not on the agenda.

Clean, honest, and open. Mattielo’s administration could not be farther from these standards. +++ The frequency with which Mattiello’s associates have been indicted—as well as their proximity to him— points to a larger trend of corruption.

With a predecessor such as former Speaker of House Gordon D. Fox, the bar for misconduct has been set low. Fox received $52,500 in bribes and diverted $108,000 in campaign funds to his personal account over the course of his tenure. In 2015, Fox was convicted of public corruption charges after pleading guilty to taking bribes, committing wire fraud, and falsifying tax return documents. When asked by the press, Mattiello maintained he had no knowledge of Fox’s activities.

Immediately following Gordon Fox’s money laundering scandal, the Rhode Island Board of Elections adjusted its campaign finance laws. Among the changes, the Board passed a bill requiring candidates to have separate bank accounts for campaign money and personal funds. However, the Board of Elections’

06 MARCH 2020

The RI Speaker of the House and his abuses of power

inability to enforce these regulations is perhaps due to the challenges of tracking down individual candidates.

Two years later, white-collar crime still persisted on even larger scales. In 2017, Raymond E. Gallison Jr., former Chairman of the House Finance Committee appointed by Mattiello pled guilty to nine federal charges, including mail fraud, identity theft, and wire fraud. Gallison stole more than $600,000 from a deceased person’s estate and committed tax fraud to divert money away from a non-profit organization assisting underrepresented and disadvantaged students. Again, Matiello alleged to have no knowledge of Gallison’s activities.

All of these crooks and cronies have largely been held accountable for their actions in court, except Mattiello. Why has Mattiello emerged relatively unscathed from the investigations and king-pin like takedown of his associates? Why is he not behind bars?

For one, many representatives who are “reformers” or dissident Democratic colleagues are reluctant to explicitly oppose the Speaker as Mattiello plays a large role in assigning committee positions and thus influencing what bills advance on the Senate floor. Any outright critiques could potentially hinder the efficacy of representatives’ agendas.

After Gallison Jr’s conviction, then-State Attorney General Peter Kilmartin issued a statement emphasizing that corruption had no place in the state: “Rhode Islanders have seen too much and are rightly tired of it.”

When Mattiello shortchanges the system, he is disrupting the workings of a functioning democracy and sending the message that political and economic capital can supersede the demands of ordinary citizens.

“Power corrupts. With so much power, individuals tend to grow in arrogance,” House Republican Leader Filippi said in reference to Mattiello’s investigations.

Despite more and more investigations into his associates and their affairs, Mattiello has been virtually invincible—immune to the very laws that he has sworn to uphold.

A survey of his administration reveals severely crippled electoral oversight mechanisms as well as puppet auditing systems that are heavily influenced by politics. Mattiello has provided numerous occasions for warranted suspicions and critiques. His claims of ignorance and naivety now ring false.

There has been bipartisan support for Mattiello to resign. If Mattiello were to be removed from office, however, who’s to determine whether his absence would meaningfully alter the structural determinants of corruption in Rhode Island? +++

Patrick T. Conley, a history professor at Providence College, argued in a 1986 article for the Los Angeles Times that Rhode Island's size cultivated a “politics of intimacy,” where political leaders are uniquely familiar and cozy with other political and business leaders. While Rhode Island’s nature as a “city-state” has provided certain degrees of increased political efficacy and engagement on behalf of its citizens, it has also blurred the lines of legality.

This political intimacy might help explain some of the shady incidents. And from this perspective, Mattiello may not view himself as engaging in shady business as much as helping friends. But these blurred lines do not excuse his abuse of government power.

Placing Mattiello’s corruption within the history of Rhode Island illuminates a collective action problem.

Corruption is normalized and embedded between the interactions of Mattiello, his associates, and individuals that can advance their interests. In most cases, corruption is mutually beneficial for most parties— Mattiello, his friends, and his constituents of Cranston, essentially the only agents able to fight back against his corruption—but not for the greater good.

Muckraker Lincoln Steffens observed the same in his 1905 investigations of corruption in numerous counties of Rhode Island: “[The state] will have reform when we all have reform; when we are all willing to make sacrifices for the sake of our country and our self-respect,” Steffens wrote for McClure's Magazine.

Steffens suggested that the onus for improving corruption rests on ordinary citizens. But he’s only partially right.

Many Rhode Islanders are already aware of the administration’s shady dealings and have spoken out against patronage, nepotism, and money laundering.

However, Mattiello is more responsive to certain citizens of Rhode Island, particularly those in his district of Cranston. It is these citizens who then have the greatest ability to hold Mattiello accountable.

For the remaining time Mattiello has in power, Cranston residents have a large role to play through the form of pressure-group politics. Town meetings, forums, letters to the editor, and other methods of civic engagement can go a long way. Residents must call for Mattiello to explicitly address and disavow himself from all the past controversies surrounding him and to develop bills in correspondence with the governance reforms critics have called for.

Cranston residents have already set in motion steps that could signal the end of Mattiello’s term.

Republican activist and wife of Cranston mayor Barbara Ann Fenton-Fung filed this past week to challenge Mattiello for the Cranston Representative district.

“Even people who had Mattiello yard signs and considered him a friend say ‘enough is enough,’” Fenton-Fung said in an interview with The Tara Granahan Show on WPRO.

“Money has been freely used for some purpose connected with the elevation of partisan candidates and...to exert their personal influence over the action of their fellow men,” read an archived article from the New York Times lamenting bribery and corruption in the 1860 Providence Republican gubernatorial OSAYUWAMEN “UWA” EDE-OSIFO B’22 does nominations. not want a hit put out on her.

Eerily the scene described in the article mirrors that of Britt’s alleged misconduct: using money to influence the proceedings of an election. The contemporary parallels can be attributed to certain Rhode Island characteristics that have remained constant over its history.

For decades, Rhode Island’s size has fostered a governance system with loopholes for corruption.

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

METRO

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HEALING THROUGH THEATER For Rebecca Gibel, the actor who played Sheila marriage and was replaced by a fear that remained Bentley in Trinity Repertory's fall 2019 production of until Cianci's death in 2016. Why did Bentley trust The Prince of Providence, the voice of Buddy Cianci's Gibel with her story now? ex-wife is very grounded. It resonates in her molars Perhaps one answer is that Gibel approached and chest.

Bentley the way she approaches all her characters: In a small room nestled above the glass dome with the desire to understand them on their own terms. presiding over the foyer of the Trinity Repertory Over “Sheila-tini” vodka cocktails, the two women Company theater, Gibel, who is 40 years old, explained built a space where Bentley felt comfortable sharing that becoming Bentley required changing her vocal her story. pitch.

The College Hill Independent sat down with actors “I use a lot more inflection and pitch and go up and vocalists who knew Gibel at multiple stages of high in my voice and down low,” Gibel said, adjusting her acting career, all of whom described her as kind, her voice accordingly. “My tempo is a little bit erratic, welcoming, and very talented, which allows her to and her tempo is a little slower than mine,” she added, empower character voices that are not always a part of waving her arms as she spoke quickly, and then slowing the mainstream narrative. down and keeping them to her sides.

The relationship between Bentley and Gibel is an The Prince of Providence dramatizes the life of example of how art and storytelling can help people Providence ex-Mayor Buddy Cianci, who served heal: While the play is not primarily about Bentley, between 1975 and 1984, and again between 1991 and her story would not have been publicized had the play 2007. Cianci's flirtations with corruption and the time never happened and the cocktails not been shared. he served in prison for racketeering secured his repu- Because Gibel showed Bentley that someone was tation as the mayor Rhode Islanders loved to hate. The listening, Bentley decided to speak up and add her play, which opened in September 2019 and ran for just voice to the story of Providence. over a month, received widespread acclaim and will be revived by Trinity Rep in the summer of 2021. +++ Gibel, a trained actor and singer, tends to locate characters vocally before embodying them physically. When they're not using their voice onstage, Gibel and Giving an onstage voice to Sheila Bentley, however, her husband Charlie make ends meet by recording was particularly challenging—and not just because it audiobooks. In the second-floor study of their home was the first time she was playing a real person who'd in the East Side of Providence, they have installed a be watching her perform from the audience. For mobile recording studio that looks like a soundproof decades, Bentley refused to go on the record about her telephone booth. They can each spend hours in the personal experiences while married to Cianci, and small booth, where the interior is decorated with a Gibel was concerned she knew too little about the inner stuffed elephant, a talisman of a female storyteller, and life of the woman she would be bringing to life onstage. a portrait of Gibel's grandmother from World War II. Bentley was not unknown. As Sheila Cianci, she For each audiobook, Gibel puts two to three hours was a celebrity in the Buddy Cianci story, an iconic of work into every final hour of narration. When faced smiling blonde standing by his side in the pictures of with a new project, she assigns a different color to his first term as mayor. She married Cianci in 1973 and each character and highlights their name in that color changed her name back to Bentley after divorcing him throughout the manuscript. Anything that the author in 1984. says about a character's personality, vocal quality, or But Bentley’s voice had never told the Cianci story, origins is very helpful at this stage. “That helps me and Gibel knew that that this was the voice she needed build a character voice so I know their identity.” to hear in order to do justice to her character. So she For her current project, Gibel is working on develasked Mike Stanton, the journalist who wrote the book oping the voice of an old woman named Nora, whom on which the play is based, to help her set up a meeting the author compares to Carol Channing and Ethel with Bentley. After an initial rejection, Bentley agreed Merman. Sitting inside the recording booth, Gibel to talk. She just started talking and telling stories. And plays a grainy YouTube video of a Carol Channing I didn't realize how little she had spoken about it,” interview, listening carefully. She will use that as a Gibel said. “I realized the gift that she'd just given me.” template to construct Nora's voice. “You hear her voice, In October 2019, Bentley went on the record for the right? I've got to kind of figure out a way to make that first time, telling the Boston Globe that Cianci subjected sustainable.” Holding her trunk in the posture of an her to domestic violence and psychological manipu- older woman, Gibel begins narrating. “Be a darling lation. In a radio interview with Bentley, WGBH host and drive my car down to my designated spot,” she Jim Braude asked her what made her come out with the says before adding, in a pleasant narrator's voice: story now. “The meeting that I had with Becky [Gibel],” “Gold booties clicking across the sidewalk, she reached Bentley answered. out to shove a tip into his hand.”

“If you'd never met her, you'd never have told the In 2013, Gibel recorded the memoir of a sex surropublic about what he did to you?" gate named Cheryl Cohen-Greene. Green was alive at “No.” the time the audiobook was published, and it was the Bentley told the Globe that love died early in their first time Gibel had performed the voice of a living

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BY Clara Gutman Argemí ILLUSTRATION Clara Gutman Argemí DESIGN Ella Rosenblatt

person before taking on the role of Sheila Bentley.

In constructing Cohen-Greene's voice, “I didn't want to cloud her personhood with my interpretation and my performance,” said Gibel. Her goal was to let the audience hear this woman's voice, while also letting them construct their own interpretation of what Cohen-Greene sounded like, mimicking the experience of reading a book.

This was slightly different from what Gibel wrestled with when constructing the fictional portrayal Sheila Bentley. While Cohen-Greene wrote a memoir on her own terms, Sheila Bentley was just one of many supporting characters in The Prince of Providence.

Gibel faced two pressures: knowing that Bentley was going to see it, and staying true to the plot and purpose of the play.

Bentley's voice would have been different had Gibel been narrating an autobiography: “The play dealt a lot with the confrontations between her and Buddy, so a lot of times we were seeing Sheila in these imagined and heightened confrontational moments.”

In daily life, Bentley “doesn't fly off the handle all that much. And so I think I would be able to capture that measuredness and that poise better.”

Audio storytelling not only made Gibel think differently about how to construct characters; it also built up stamina and resilience of her voice. At some point after graduating from Brown University's MFA Acting program, she was living in New York and performing in musicals. She’d belt through the night and try to record during the day, and “It was sheer terror whether or not my voice was going to last.” For the past three or four years, however, her voice has become “steel,” which she attributes to hours of narrating and trainings she received from Thom Jones, head of voice and speech at Trinity Rep, and Kurt Robinson, a voice instructor at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.

When a colleague first directed her to Robinson, it was an epiphanic moment. Over the course of the two lessons they had together, he taught her how to produce a healthy belt by using her voice in an efficient way that “is actually making your voice stronger.” Her meeting with him also carried a surprisingly nostalgic discovery—the two of them had gone to middle school together but had fallen out of touch over the years.

As middle schoolers in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Robinson remembers Gibel as being talented and also kind. “She’s always had this bubbly personality that she still has as an adult,” he said. “It's like she's constantly on caffeine. She channeled that bubbly energy into her art.”

Gibel continues to combine talent with kindness in her work today. Not only does her acting and singing voice have brilliance, power, projection, and resonance, “She's also able to sing with dynamics, and that's almost more important than anything else.” The ability to do this stems from her intelligence and empathy, through which she's “able to make different colors and different dynamics in her voice that help her be communicative and tell a story.”

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How a Trinity Rep actor helped Sheila Bentley tell her version of PVD history +++ Gibel first came to Providence in 2007 as an acting student at the Brown University/Trinity Rep program.

During her first year in Providence, Gibel shared an apartment on Federal Hill with actor Lizzie King-Hall, then a third-year student in the same program.

The three-bedroom apartment where they lived had been handed down by generations of MFA students.

In King-Hall's own description, “It was a dump.” In order to save money, they would turn the heat off at night, and there was one room that got so cold that no one wanted to sleep there, so it was permanently closed off. There was no microwave in the kitchen. The floors came in five different colors of linoleum. King-Hall's first interaction with Gibel took place in the apartment's kitchen. During entire conversation, Gibel never sat down, she just kept walking—at some point, she laid down on the floor and started rolling around to illustrate her point about how horrible something was.

“She is so vital and fully physical,” King-Hall said.

After graduating from the MFA program in 2010,

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

Gibel worked on other acting gigs around the country before returning to Providence as a full-time member of the Trinity Repertory company in 2014. "She is still an anchor at Trinity Rep," King-Hall said.

Gibel and her husband Charlie, also a graduate of the MFA program, have found “an artistic home” in Providence. “There's her marriage with Charlie, but also her marriage with this company, these people, season after season, year in and year out.”

You can see how Trinity Rep has become Gibel's home. As she walks around the building, everyone who hears her voice stops to say hi, many of them reaching for a hug—grad students and program directors alike.

Gibel sees the relationship between Trinity Rep and its audience as an embodiment of the power of local art: “We're members of each other's communities.” It was this kind of local theater enviorment that made it possible for her and Sheila Bentley to enter each other's orbits in a lasting way.

When The Prince of Providence opened, Gibel was “really afraid that she would feel betrayed, because she'd let me in.” However, when asked on WGBH

whether she thought Gibel did her justice, Bentley answered: “Amazingly so. Just... eerie.”

Since the show ended, the two women have stayed in touch and grown closer. They often talk on the phone. They went to see the opening of Trinity Rep’s A Christmas Carol together recently. For Gibel, “It's become this really surprising and meaningful friendship.”

CLARA GUTMAN ARGEMÍ B’22 hopes she will be in Providence in the summer of 2021.

METRO

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T u r n i ng,

[Me at ’s bit d r y ton ig ht, rema rk s A ld r i n]

BY Bowen Chen ILLUSTRATION Katrina Wardhanna DESIGN Ella Rosenblatt

Our neighbors are busy undressing and dressing, entombed in black velvet, over-the-elbow gloves if she wants to make a statement—does this dress make me look fat? My father hurries to the grocery store before it closes and tries to decipher the jumble of letters, or is it the pet store, and selects a few cans, they must not have cats pictured, to bring home. He thinks in one language, reads in another, is stranded by the third.

The sun is setting, and mother is cooking in our living room that is our kitchen that is our bedroom that is thankfully not our bathroom.

(Go to the grocery store and try to read the words on the cans backwards, then upside down, in French perhaps. Buy a few and cook them in your closet. Pay close attention to the smell, how it fills the space, stays.)

Ready!

+++

The world prepares to celebrate a new era of bygone Dionysia, the last turning of millennia falling between the early and high middle ages, a mid-mid-life crisis one could say, so perhaps now we are in our late mid-later life and settling down, preparing to spend our last years in Florida, the final frontier. The open source prophet tells me that of Fujiwara no Michinaga, the puppeteer, jerks his marionette emperors off their paper palanquins and that the ummat al-islam enters its golden age and waits, a quarter century, for its destined demise.

I map the fate of the failed writer Jackson Curtis who is also Nicolas Cage as he watches the world crumble before him, but I know he will be fine and I will be fine because it’s a TBS rerun and no, I do not have or know someone diagnosed with Mesothelioma and my mother is holding me in her arms and she is thinking about how small our apartment is and how the canola oil lingers in the air and makes it dense and hard to breathe, or is it mothballs spilling out of the closet or the tinge of rusting pipes that pricks your nostrils. Can you smell it? The overhead light casts an unpleasant glow into the room, exorcising nooks, the unfortunate reunion of chipped plaster planes, some things better left concealed in the shadows. Our small colored tele set blares MTV in a language my mother doesn’t understand—but look, it’s Gwen Stefani, I just don’t know it yet.

Our neighbor holds a glass of red in one hand— gloveless no doubt, a lady must have her manners —and grips the upholstered seat with the other. Her fingers feel sticky and hot against the confines of the satin palisade, and she laughs a few beats late in response to an offhanded comment about Egon Krenz’s defense against his ‘shoot-to-kill’ policy, as Pink Floyd said, “just another brick in the wall,” or was that a different wall? Her eyes glued to the tele waiting for the fate of Germany, waiting for the fate of the world, and she doesn’t know if she will really be fine even though he tells her it is all just superstition, but my mother knows, because while her eyes are in this foreign world of MTV and mismatched cartoon voices, her ears are a millennium away in China, where the world continues to spin on its axis.

My ancestors traverse over the Atlantic to meet with the K’iche’ Maya of the Guatemalan highlands,

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where they bestow upon them the teachings of the Popol Vuh, and they will send down a torrent of tribulation thunder that will grant me the swiftness of the hare, the strength of the boar, and the wrath of the dragon, only if I endure the weight of the planet on my shoulders. On the map taped to my bedroom wall I find China, then Guatemala, then Germany, then New York. When I walk my fingertips across the paper, the journey takes mere seconds. +++

water, then pinch some more. Turn to the person sitting next to you and scream. Louder!)

Then the fireworks fly out over the city, Go!—Our neighbor hears them before she sees them but there are so many sights and sounds and Smile!—camera flashes she doesn’t know which is what streak of light cascade down angels screaming as they are shot out of the sky dotted lines teardrop seraphim can you hear them I scream at the screen and now she takes off her gloves to embrace him who cares if her palms are clammy my mother looks out the window p-sized explosions go off in her head her ears recognizing the familiar popping sound of fire-crackers return to her in Berlin and as they watch the children of the Chatham islands sing on CNN and I watch Nicolas Cage who is really John Cusack settle on a mountain peak it is not Skeeter Davis or Julie London or even Sharon von Etten that plays in our heads but choir arrangements and Jumbotron kisses and as the earth collides into Nibiru plunging the fourth world into a cataclysmic oblivion, we usher in the New Year.

For eight years when I was called to the nurse’s office for my eye exam, I would wait at the end of the line, rehearsing the secret code scripted by the actors before me. A foreign jumble of letters tests me but this one I can’t solve with algebra, row 5 M-B-D-T-R-A, row 6 D-K-E-T-S-M. I run mnemonic laps in my head, Meat’sBitDryTonightRemarksAldrin, Du Kannst Es Tun als Sailor Moon. They say it’s the things we can’t see that we are most afraid of, but I am much more afraid of seeing clearly. I preferred the blurred shapes and colors that melted into each other over watching the BOWEN CHEN B'21 needs to go, his mother is calling. spittle fly from my father’s mouth, not looking higher than the divot between his lips and his nose. A baked prophecy told me a closed mouth gathers no foot, but closed eyes release all that’s been gathered, so I often took to the soft haze of liquid screaming. By now my father has returned home and he struggles to open a can with a fork. A tainted odor slips past the cracks of serrated metal, but it is beginning to give, and he works up a rhythm ignorant of the cat hiding behind the rounded grooves. I wasn’t raised to be wasteful. To honor the closing ceremony of its zodiac year, we feast on rabbit.

(Look outside and focus on trees, anything green.

Eat carrots. Pinch your eyelids open until your eyes

06 MARCH 2020

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

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TAKE A LEAK LIST MARCH 6:

MARCH 10:

First Fridays presents: Balinese Gamelan and Strings The Music Mansion, 88 Meeting Street, Providence, RI

Rhode Island Political Co-op Phone Bank 91 Williams St., Providence, RI 7-8:30PM

This concert, bringing together Gamelan and orchestral strings, features a world premiere by composer I Putu Arya Deva Suryanegara.

Performers will include Gamelan duo Kura - Kura Emas, string accompaniment from Ashley Frith, Kimberly Fang, Zan Berry, and Zachary Hazen, and others.

Led by former progressive candidate for Governor, Matt Brown, the Rhode Island Political Cooperative is running a slate of candidates to the left of the RI political establishment. Join the Coop organizers at Matt Brown’s home on historic Williams Street to phonebank for the slate. Remember: the political revolution happens down-ballot!

MARCH 8:

MARCH 11:

Seekonk Record Convention Ramada Seekonk-Providence, 213 Taunton Ave, Seekonk, MA 10AM-3PM

Joanne McNeil, author of "Lurking: How a Person Became a User" Riffraff bookstore and bar, 60 Valley Street, Unit 107A, Providence, RI

Buy-Sell-Trade Vinyl LPs & 45s, CDs, DVDs, Cassettes, Posters, Magazines and more.

Dealers from all over New England.

Joanne McNeil, the longtime editor of Rhizome—the net art archive—will discuss her new book, which analyzes the nature of social and political relations on the internet.

In particular, McNeil’s work focuses on the constant give and take between privacy invasions and community building that defines life online. McNeil will be in conversation with poet Stine Su Yon An.

Herring Count Kick-Off Hunt Mills Falls, 69 Hunt Mills Road, Rumford, RI 11AM - 2PM Join the Fish and Wildlife division of RI’s Department of Environmental Management for their annual fish-counting event. This is as good as it sounds: whenever you have time, spend 10 minutes counting herring and recording water levels, temperature, and weather conditions. The more volunteers, the more accurate the count will be. If you’re interested in herring and co-operative governance models, contact keith@tenmileriver. net for more details.

MARCH 9: Intro to Silkscreen AS220 Industries, 131 Washington Street, Providence, RI The first in a two-session series (the second on 3/16), this class will teach you how to silkscreen onto paper. Campbell’s Tomato Soup is so last century! Try a can of chickpeas.

MARCH 12: Jonathan Richman w/ Tommy Larkins / Bonnie “Prince” Billy w/ Emmett Kelly Columbus Theatre, 270 Broadway, Providence, RI Come hear quintessential Masshole Jonathan Richman bring such emblems of Boston culture as Stop & Shop, the MFA, and the lesbian bar to Providence. Bonnie “Prince” Billy and Emmet Kelly will be opening, and Richman will be accompanied by Tommy Larkins.