Volume 17 - Issue 1

Volume 17 Number 1

It's three in the morning, and you've just got to have twenty dollars. But, no matter how much you shake him, your roommate just won't wake up. Twenty dollars at three in the morning, with an opportunity of a lifetime staring you in the face. Who do you turn to? Quick Draw 24, of course.

New Haven Savings Bank's automated teller is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. And it's right across the green from the campus. In minutes you can have your cash and the time of your life. You don't have a Quick Draw 24 card? Pity.

They're so easy to get. just stop in and complete an application at 195 Church Street. Do it today, because opportunity rarely knocks twice.

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Cover sketch by Beth Callaghan, courtesy of Claes Oldenburg Cover photo by Chris Ryan

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Between the Vines

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To Think or Not To Think To justify the world's belief in our intelligence, we overindulge in thought. It becomes an act of self-preservation. Everyone is doing it, so hadn i we better keep up? By Tony Rees.e.

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Features

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Sharing the Wealth of Words Asian Community Services provides Yale students with a chance to teach English to Chinese and Southeast Asian immigrants and refugees. By Lisa Chang. .

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Yale's Colossal Cosmetic Fifteen-and ten-years after its arrivals at Yale, Claes Oldenburg's Lipstick is more than just a campus cun'ousiry. It remains a serious sculpture though its original meanings have be.en replaced. By Anne Applebaum and Tony Reese.

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Adrift in the Mainstream

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New Haven teenagers who congregate on campus desaibe their music (and philosophies) as «anger in a fun way. " But a distance remains between the kids · and those who live and work at Yale. By Joyce ·Bane7J"'ee.

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In·. Love with Louis' Birthplace of the hamburger, Louis' Lunch offers the burger c,onnoisseur the world on a platter, with everything. Everything, tho.t is, except catsup.

By Jonathan Young.

Books

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What's in a Pseudonyrn?

When a white Yale graduate ~riling under a Hispanic pen name wins an award for his book about lift in the Los Angeles barrios, controversy and questions arise.

By Tina Keilty .

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Afterthought

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Soul of the Shining City While accepting America's reli'gious roots and tradition of shared values, a noted political science professor warns that legislating -voluntary pray~ may lead to proselytizin_g and conformiry in both schools and legislature. By Rogers Smith. .

About This Issue NewsJournal

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New Journal/September /, 1984

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Publisher Peter P hleger Editor-in-Chitj Tina K elley Bu.sinm Manager Marilynn Sager Managintf Editor Tony Reese Dts((nn- Andrea Fribush Photo.(raphy Editor C hristi ne R yan

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working on itin April and continued all summer. Parts were Federal Ex'pressed from Cincinnati, Ohio. One story was edited near the downtown lion of the New York Public Lib.rary, another was polished on a train from Washington, ·D.C. Most of the staff arrived August 20 to put this issue together, and we are starting work on the October magazine now. We welcome new ideas and new faces.

The New Journal has all the enthusiasm of a brand new magazine, and for a three-year-old publication we've already established a reputation for quality writing. Recently, for example, former ~ditor-in-chief W. Hampton Sides '84 won the Rolling Stone Colfege Journalism Award for investigative journalism for his story on a New Haven prostitute who was a suspected AIDS carrier. 60 lvfinutes aired an investigation of his story, which appeared on the cover of our December issue. In addition, former New Journal editors Paul Hofheinz and Morris Panner '84 won the English department's Wright Prize for a journalistic or descriptive article for "Letters from Quang Tri," their documentation of Dick Pershing '66, who died in the Vietnam War. The article appeared in our March special issue on the war. In the past two years, four New Journal writers have won this award.

Read and enjoy this issue. We'd like to hear your opinions and your ideas.

We'd likeyour proposals for future articles. We'd like your help in the business department to keep The New Journal completely advertisersupported. And we'd like to see you at our organizational meeting on September 10.

Look for us in your mailbox in October. · •

ssue The New journal, · a magazine of news and features about Yale and New Haven, p~blishes six times a year and is distributed free to all members of the University community. Founded in 1967, it discontinued publication in 1979 and was revived with a new format in 1981.

We now print letters to the editor,. which we welcome at all times; Newsjournals, short new stories or followups of past articles; Between the · Vines, a thoughtful commentary or humorous essay about life behind the scenes at Yale; feature stories and section pieces: architecture, arts, books, profile, sports and theater. Afterthought, our final essay, is usually written by an expert in a field of interest to the Yale community. Throughout, we aim to bring you thought-provoking and entertaining journalism.

The September issue comes to you from all over the country. We started •

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The New Journal thanks: · . Audio Visual Department Donna Kaiser Erin Marcus Carol Martin Seth Moglen • Mike Otsuka William Reagh Rosalie Reed Jean R~ynolds jim Salzmann Judith Sch~ff Elena Sigman Mike Sonnenblick David Sullz~,an •

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Then a movie. And.:. oh no! lforgot to get my copies.

Life gets pretty compli·cated.

There's never enough hours in a day.

And sometimes you have to mix business with pleasure.

But that's O.K. because we're open until 10 P.M. Monday througll Friday.

Our hours are long and convenient on the weekend too.

You can even take advantage of our low overnight rates. Just drop off your originals, dance until dawn and swing by for your copies in the morning.

Be romantic, but be practical.

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-T.K. ·' .

and Public Risks

The New Journal encourages letters to the editor and comment on Yale and New Haven i sues.

Write to Tina Kelley, Editorials, 3432 Yale Station, New Haven, CT 06520. All leuers for publication must include address and ignature .

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The Ne:-w .Journal/, eptl'mbt·r 7. 1984 ~

NewsJournal

Cash Withdraws

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The circumstances were mysterious ~ to say the least when Robin Cash, Yale's • head coach of field hockey and women's j lacrosse, announced her resignation on £ August 17, just two weeks before the ~ field hockey team held its first practice. ~ Cash, well-known for promoting both sports nationally, had coached field hockey to a 19-20-13 mark and lacrosse to a record of 28-23-1, including · an NCAA tournament berth this spring.

Cash announced only that she decided to leave coaching for personal reasons and hoped to return to Yale in the fall as a special student.

Six days later more of the story broke in a New York Times article headlined "Another Woman Resigns at Yale." Times reporter Lawrie Miffiin, a Yale graduate and the first captain of the field hockey team, wrote that Cash's departure raised "questions about the way female coaches are treated at Yale."

Cash's resignation, wrote Miffiin, was the seventh coaching change affecting Athletic Director Frank Ryan women's varsity sports since May. The former coach herself made the cryptic remark that in addition to personal reasons she left her job "because the at- that varsity softball was not priority. mosphere for coaches at Yale is such Women's basketball was a priority. that I felt no reason to give it another Right away, that's unfair to the softball team. But having to coach two teams year."

Director of Athletics Frank Ryan with overlapping seasons made it next strongly challenged Miffiin's reporting, to impossible to coach either one to their heatedly calling the article "full of full potential." Muldoon added that spurious information." "It's a gross recruiting was made especially difficult misinterpretation of what goes on here," because of her back-to-back coaching Ryan said. "She's writing in a very responsibilities.

Robin Cash not only agreed that two biased and one-sided way about a story that just isn't there. All I can think is varsity coaching positions are too much that maybe Lawrie Miffiin is a friend of for any coach, she also asserted that such duties were unequally assigned to Robin Cash."

Are women coaches at Yale badly female coaches of female teams. treated? Maggie Muldoon, former "There's no way you can handle two coach of women's varsity basketball and varsity teams fairly," Cash stated. "The softball, thinks so; Yale declined to administration can choose which teams renew her contract over the summer. to make successful. . Right now, Muldoon feels she was let go because women's athletics are . . . liveable. she was a vocal critic of Frank Ryan. They certainly aren't what they could "Women's athletics at Yale are a second be."

Frank Ryan flatly denied that he has class citizen," claimed Muldoon. "I was told by Frank Ryan when I was hired de-emphasized the women's athletics

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6 The New Journal/September 7, 1984

program. Ryan accurately noted, "Almost all our coaches are involved in multi-assigments. Steve Griggs, for example, is the coach of men's varsity soccer and tennis, while Michael Waldvogel is the men's varsity lacrosse coach and coach of freshman football."

Griggs, however, is the only male coach with two varsity coaching assignments. ~nd his two seasons do not run consecutively- unlike those of Dale Walker, the new lacrosse coach. She is also the women's varsity squash coach.

The issue goes beyond that of proportionate coaching responsibilities for men and women, however; Robin Cash alleged that women coaches are paid less than men coaches as well. But Frank Ryan maintained, "We decide our salaries by the marketplace and by the structure of salaries at Yale. We don't shortchange anybody."

Though it is athletic department policy that salaries are strictly confidential, a New journal source indicated that while the h ighest-paid woman coach will earn less than $30,000 in 1984, no fewer than ten male coaches have salaries above that figure. In addition, the top-earning male coach will take home nearly J40,000 more than the highest-paid woman. The statistics by themselves are hardly conclusive, but they do lend credence to Cash's statement: "In the athletic department there's a feeling of 'Oh, it's only a women's sport.'"

Frank Ryan declined to comment on these figures.

Meanwhile the field hockey team continues practicing, hoping to insulate its season from this administrative turbulence. Nonetheless, they are well awar~ of the d isputes over their athletic program. According to Lucy Bernholz, a four-time varsity player and women's lacrosse captain for 1985, "You see all these women coaches leave and it makes you think, 'What's going on?' I can't say for sure if the administration prompted Robin's resignation, but if they did, then there's something wrong with the administration."

-Rich Blow

GALA Mall

One letter read, "A pox on you! Oh for the days when Yale was for men."

"Does Yale want to be the leader of the Decline and Fall o f the USA?" asked another "I wasnever too enth usiastic about Yale going coeducational but this is the last straw." These diatribes are a few of the 11 6 letters the Yale Alumni M agazine and Journal (Y AMJ) has received over the past six months in response to an ad in its February issue for Yale Gay a nd Lesbian Alumni {GALA).

Yale GALA, formed in spring 1982, bought the half-page ad to publicize its existence and programs, such as reunion activities and aid to campus organizations "in their e fforts to make Yale a better place for lesbian and gay students, faculty and staff." YAMJ accepted the ad, according to Editor AI Mitchell, because "the content was not inappropriate; there was nothing objectionable ." YAMJ Advert ising Manager Susan Fox noted that gay student organization s have run small ads in the past without causing any reader respo n se.

The initial response was entirely hostile, but the response to the indignant letters was even larger, and Mitchell calculates that overall the letters are nearly three to one in support of the ad or the organization . GALA has been encouraged by the response it has received; membership has doubled to over 450 since the ad was printed, and there are GALA chapters in New Haven, New York. San Francisco.

Boston, Chicago, Seattle, Philadelphia and Maine. GA LA has members from classes from 1929 to 1987, representing all of Yale's graduate schools and faculty and staff members as well as the College. . For the first time GALA participated tn the University reunions in June.

Events included a brunch and a picnic as well as a speech by History Professor John Boswell on "Gay People and the University." GALA events were attend-

ed by 70 people. many of whom were not there for their own reunions. In the reunion process GALA again ran a foul of older alumni. Each class secretarv can choose which information on non~ class activities to include in alumni registration packets. and only the classes of 1969. 1974 and 1979 induded the GALA material.

According to Corey Friedlander. SM '74, a GALA member who organized reunion events. the Association of Yale Alumni (A YAr has been very supportive. at lt'aSt logistically. "They've treateu us just as they would any other alumni organization. That's the best we

can hope for." he said. Official Univer'ity poli<:y is guided by the Yale Corporation Equal Opportunity Policy ~tclling that Yak· is commi11ed to .. resptTting an individual's attitudes on a variety of mauers that are essentially personal in nature ."

In October YAA-U will publish two further reader k11crs bringing the total number of lellt'rs publisht·d to 48. the first time YAA-U has not published all readt•r kllt•rs . ..This is a larger response than ~e·n· had 10 .1nything before." said Mitchdl. "t'\'t'n when Yale gave Ja<.·k Kt•nnedy an honorary deRrt>t' ."

- To'!y Reese

Gold Medalist Carol Bower rowing on the Housatonic

Blues Go for Gold During the opening ceremonies of the Summer Olympics, as the American athletes gathered in the infield of Los Angeles Coliseum, a stray ABC camera focused on the face of Carol Bower, the women's novice crew coach at Yale.

Eight days later Bower and her teammates won the eights in rowing. the first American gold medal in international women's crew competition . Along with Bower, several other Yale coaches, alumni and '>tudents participated in the twenty-third Olympiad. both a" athletes and coaches. all with varying degrees of success.

Clearly the Yale Olympians made their strongest showing in rowi n g.

Carol Bower missed the boy<.·oned M oscow Game!>, and her 1984 gold medal culminatt·d nearly eight years of t~aming and competing for the Olymptcs. After movtnl{ to New Haven lour years ago, Bower, a 28-year old UCLA graduate, rowed each morning with exYalies Chris Ernst and Ann Bouche in preparation for the national squad.

Ernst '76 ai<Kl made the Olympic team as a spare scullt•r, although sh<.· did not h~vt• a n ,opportunity ~o compctt·. Ginny Gtlder 79 took a Silver medal in the women's quad.

Among the men. John Biglow '80, who rowed stroke for the 1979 Yale Th .. Nt•" .J nurn.ol 'S..·ptt·mht·o 7. I 'IH4 7

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heavyweight team, was a medal favorite in single sculling. Plagued with a back injury throughout the competition, however, Biglow narrowly missed a bronze medal in his final sprint. Dave Johnson '83 was a member of the Canadian four without coxswain, which failed to qualify for the finals held in Lake Casitas, California.

Back in Los Angeles Diane Moyer, Yale's new fi eld hockey coach, played goalie for the bronze medal-winning American team. 't'cJle's swimm ing coach, Frank Keefe, served as the breaststroke specialist for the powerful American squad. Working in conjunc· tion with each swimmer's individual coach, Keefe guided Steve Lundquist and Susan Rapp to gold medals. Henry Harutunian, Yale's fencing coach, worked as one of the three coaches for the Olympic team. In the saber com· petition the United States won a bronze medal, the first American medal in fen cing since 1960.

Finally, Larry Miller '86. the Ivy League champion in the 400 meters, competed in the Games for the Antigua·Antilles team. Besides running in the 200 meters. the 400 meters and the 4x400 rday, Miller raced the anchor leg in the semi-finals for the 4x I00 relay team.

- joyu BantT)tt

Reid Beyond the Facts

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8 The New Joumal/Sep!cmber 7. 1984

H ow safe is it to be a visiting speaker at Yale? At least one recent guest lecturer will probablv sti< k to writing insa·ad of speaking from now on. ~ven the alter· math of his last appearance on campus and the damm~e dont> to his reputation.

In M arch t<l8:l Alastair Reici. a veteran writer at the Sm >'nrk". "poke in a college '-t'lllinar spon-.orTcl by Ezra Stiles and Jonathan l-:Ciwards entitled "The Ri~t to Write and the Perils of Print." Reid- ' isited at the invitation of the imtnJCtor. Joseph Cooper. editori;t) <ounsel to the \'m• York". Reid di~t·m<>ed the thin lim• between fact and fiuion and the jour·

nalistic problems it presents, ntmg examples from several of his own articles.

On .June 18 , 1984 .Joanne Lipman '83, a student in Cooper's seminar who is now a Wall Strut Journal reporter, de· noum-..·cl Reid in a front -page artide.

"H e has sp<·nt his career creaung composite tales and scenes, fabri <·ating per· sonae, rearranging events and creating conversations in a plethora of pieces presented as non-fiction," she wrote. In Cboper's seminar Reid had discussed much of the material in Lipman's story, including the four examples she cited from his work in the Nrw York".

R eid has not denied that he use<l composites in the stor ies Lipman cited, but he felt that Lipman took his remark-; out of their proper context. The Wall Sturt.fournal article presented such statements as "The implication that fact is precious isn't important . . . . Readers who are factual-minded are the readers who arc least important," without mentioning the setting in which Reid made them. The examples from his work, he said in a .July letter to the Nrw York Timrs, "were volunteered by me in a seminar . . . as exceptional cases ... in ,..,.hich [ had chosen to depart from strict factual at-curacy. for rea<;ons that. while dear to mr. were arguable. argumen t being what ·seminars are meant to stimulate.~ C:oopen-oncurrcd that Reid had prt''~<'ntecl his rearran({l'ment of facts as "ddinitdv d t>batable." "He did not advonut• tlw use of t-ompo-.itt'" as a<·n·ptablt'. rt•<·ommended journalistic procedure." Cooper said, contr;ory to the impression conveyed in L ipman's a rticle .

Lipman denied that her artide was bast·d on material from Reid's seminar presentation. which other students in the class said thev had assumed to be ofT the record. Although she first met Reid in Cooper's seminar. she said. "Absolutely nothing in my .June 18 Wai/Strul.fournal article was taken from the class. The article was based on a series of on-therecord interviews with Mr. Reid con· ducted in my capacity as a Wall Stmt Journal reporter. Every example and every Reid quotation in my article came from those interviews."

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Yet Cooper believes that Lipman would never have b.een able to write her article if she had not heard Reid speak at Yale. He indicated that when she interviewed Reid subsequently, she introduced herself as a form.e r student of · Cooper's and that Reid considered their conversations an extension of the seminar's philosophical and theoretical discussion. "It's not clear to me that Alastair was aware that he was being profiled and that Joanne was writing about him. If he had known he was going to be set up for ridicule he would not have been so congenial or generous with his time." Reid declined to com-· menton his interviews with Lipman.

Lipman's article led to a full-blown scandal in the New York journalistic community. The New York Times ran a front-page news story about Reid, as well as. a feature on journalistic use of composites and an editorial attacking the New Yorker. "The end of the world seems near," the Times proclaimed, "now that our colleagues at the New Yorker, that fountainhead of unhurried fact, turn out to tolerate, even to justify, fictions masquerading as fact."

In a memo issued to the staff of the New Yorker, editor William Shawn flatly denied that the magazine condones the use of composites, invented characters or altered facts in its non-fiction pieces.

In using these techniques, Shawn said, Reid "violated New Yorker principles" and "made a journalistic mistake."

Joyce Richter, media manager of the New Yorker, commented that Lipman made an "unfortunate statement" when she accused Reid of spending his "career" departing from the facts, when only four examples were actually involved. Two of the pieces appeared in the magazine's "Talk of the Town" section, where what Shawn's statement termed "characters ~nvented in the spirit of fun" are permissible and assumed to be understood as fictional by the magazine's readers. A third article cited

by Lipman was a 1961 "Letter from Barcelona" in which Reid moved a scene from a friend's living room to a "small, flyblown bar by the harbor " in order to protect his sources from repri•

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sals during the Franco regime. Richter said that it is acceptable New Yorker · · practice to protect a source in this manner and that Reid stated that he camouflaged scenes to respect people's privacy in several of his stories about Spain. She said Reid's only real error had been in the fourth of Lipman's examples, where a conversation with a Spanish cab driver was transplanted from one cab ride to another.

Adam Liptak '84, a student in Cooper's seminar and former editor of the Yale Daily News Magazine, said "Reid was crucified for what was a relatively min or transgression." He believes that had Reid not been at ·the New Yorker, there would have been no scandal and that the desire to deflate the magazine's self-importance led to what he called in a letter to the Times the "malicious New Yorker-bashing that went on in the wake of this affair on the part of an entire profession."

"I don't think Joanne knew how juicy the story was until later, when the Times picked it up," Liptak commented. Still,. by omitting the context of the seminar from her article, he said, "She did Reid a serious disservice and made him look worse than he deserved to look."

Cooper pointed out the irony that although Lipman attacked Reid's ambiguity about his sources, she had failed to disclose the sources of her own article. Because the intention of the seminar was to provide "uninhibited, robust, provocative discussion," Cooper said Lipman should have indicated it as a source of her story. He also noted that when he gave the seminar previously, in 1980 and 1981, Reid gave essentially the same talk, using some of the same examples from his work.

Along with Cooper, several students in the seminar expressed their concern that the Reid incident might inhibit future guest speakers from coming to Yale or at least from speaking freely here. Abby Burman, JE '86, said, "Cooper's seminar was great because it got down to the nitty-gritty. If there had been restraints, it wouldn't have been as good."

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The New Journal/September 7, 1984 9

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BetWeen the Vines/Tony Rees_e_ _ _ _ ___.

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To Think or Not To Think

Maybe I think too much for my own good, &me people say so, other people say no, no The fact is you don't think as much as you could.

-Paul Simon

I thjnk too much. Most Yalies do. Is there any doubt that our university is overzealously cerebral when the geographic, intellectual and social center of campus is a cathedral of knowledge whose altar is labeled "Circulation"?

People expect us to be brilliant.

When strangers learn that I go to Yale, they inevitably ask my SATs or beg, "Say something smart." Some people, however, see through our facade. I had a Southern friend whose unc.le took him around Alabama saying, "This here's my nephew. He's going to Yay-ell. Up there, they teach you to say 'inn-crettible.' Instead of just 'bool-shee-it."' He was impressed nonetheless.

To justify the world's belief in our intelligence, we overindulge in thought.

It becomes an act of self-preservation.

Everyone else is doing it, so hadn't we better keep up? We rabidly think but forget how to conclude. As good liberal arts students, so well-fitted for careers a..s defense lawyers, we can conscientiously and competently argue both sides of every question, but think too much to be able to choose an opinion of our own.

Thinking too much is a process of continual and deepening rationalization, analysis and questioning. "Should I really have blown off the whole afternoon talking to my roommates? I needed a break from studying. I'll be more efficient tonight now, I promise.

Besides, I can learn from them. But are those the real reasons?¡ Are they valid?

Maybe I really did it because I'm young and felt like it. Maybe I should 10 The New Journal/September 7, 198-l

tive expectations," or "Sign a petition?

Come on, all that political rhetoric doe.m't really mean anything."

Yale teaches us the safety of Negation. We learn how to refute, forgetting that it takes more courage to substantiate and sustain a belief over time. The study of the history of thought, so popular with the seriously cerebral, instills this habit in us. We understand and agree with Plato, then Aristotle refutes him. Hume makes sense, then Kant, our new favorite, obliterates his arguments. We follow these models and never agree with anyone. When yo,u think about it, how many times have you heard a Yalie say "That's a good point" without adding, "hut"?

In our schoolwork we edit ourselves ~ as closely as possible to give ourselves ... the best chance of earning approval. ~ We censor our own thoughts and speech to avoid being considered ~ callow. We also af:Jologize for ourselves and our work apead of time in order to outshine others in criticizing ourselves incisively. We preface papers with notes to TAs-"This isn't exactly what I wanted to say, but I trietf'- and selfdeprecate to our friends- "You may think I'm self-centered and silly to ask, but do you like my hair?" We conscientiously deflate possible critics by beating them to the punches aimed at us. day, saying "You're a computer error.

The overthinker works overtime the Please vacate your room in 24- hours" ?(I had a friend who used to call random night before a paper's due. After overfreshmen up and give that exact thinking a topic, a conclusion and an message, reducing some of them to outline (the process can take up to four tears. He didn't think enough.) weeks for the pathologically cerebral) he Our insecurity causes a repression of begins to overthink each sentence. spontaneity and enthusiasm. Yalies all "That sounds terrible!" he says, resting know what an intellectual, sophisticated his forehead on the typewriter in group we're supposed to be. No over- despair. "I'm not doing my best. I'm an thinker wants to say or do anything that underachiever, I don't deserve oxygen. makes him look naive: "Have a relaI should be expressing what I have to tionship with you? Let's first discuss the say better; I'm not living up to my feasibility of that in light of our respec- potential. Everyone else_can obviously resolve to avoid the room whenever people are there . Should I reo.lry avoid the room?" The circle goes unproductively on and on.

Guilt prevails. I feel terrible about those ten other poor devils who could be enrolled here instead of me. One of them probably could have arbitrated a successful union settlement by now, another could have engineered a way to keep the sense in Centrex. My overthinking breeds insecurity- will the sky sp~ak to me outside Yale Station one

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excel here, but I'm not doing my best.

I'm an underachiever;" Total paralysis sets in . after two complete cycles of thought. · Things don't improve for the overthinker even after the paper is returned and graded. A spiral ·of pessimism trapshim as if he were a tissue in the flushing toilet of academic neurosis. "I got a B on my last paper after working extra hard.

I'll have to spend more time next time.

But if that's the best I can do, why bother?" Self-conscious A students can carry this further : "I did well only because I _b.s.'d well," one Phi Beta Kappa thinks. "I wasn't stunning, and I didn't really learn anything or say anything, did I?" No one's ever satisfied. That's one of the main tenets of human existence. If we were, the whole universe could grind to a standstill. Especially here, where our dissatisfaction with our own ignorance employs a large percentage of the city. But since we're used to being satisfied with our places on the top of the pile in high school, we refuse to be satisfied with less than the best. In this pool of big fish, we no longer compete against our classmates but against ourselves, our perfect ideals of ourselves. One overthinker in a class of mine freshman year, for example, dropped a class at tnidterm, unhappy wltf1 his A- average. By senior year, the blatant cerebralite either has a job lined up at Morgan Stanley, a full scholarship to law school, or the conviction that he is a total failure. Only best and most is good enough.

There is a limi~ to this, though. Exain time arrives and people answer my cheerful "How are you"s _with ''Three 20-page papers, four finals and a lab due." Dinner time conversation ~omes one long bout ·of one-upmanship, each of us trying our hardest tp

Despite our fear and subsequent rejection of thought, we still have to fu,n ction in class, so we rely on bluffi-ng pur way through, · the most valuable skill this place teaches us. Unfortunately appear The Most Overworked. It can't those who fear and avoid thinking too be done . . Who really wants the title much tend to be loud and obnoxious. anyway, when the only . way to secure Most of their insecurities have been the crown is to end up on your back in consolidated into their fear of thinking DUH with a bad case of the nerves? and thus, rather than censor their com- · That's usually good for a dean's excuse ments for public approval, they blurt anyway, which erases the pressure, and out whatever comes into their heads.

"We'll come back to this," says the with it all that glory and attention.

When the going gets tough here, underthinker in the grating and inprioritize. You need fewer hours of gratiating voice of a television sleep and definitely fewer hours of newscaster, "but what I want to discuss thinking. Subsistence is key: "I think_ now is how I think Nietzsche is very therefore I am" becomes "I think as little edifying on this topic . . . " _ Those who avoid thought face trouas possible just to keep myself going."

The It's too scary to get in the bind of ble when it comes to real life issues. . overthinking and overrationalizing incoming senior, sick of six semesters of every move. Paralysis results: "What overthinking, asks himself, "What am I should I have for dinner?" I ask myself. going to be when I grow up in nine "The meat with brown sauce probably months?" and decides it is easier to has fewer calories and more vitamins follow the crowd to the rat race's starand iron. The sauce, however, may be ting line than to ans~er that question in last week's butterscotch pudding in the privacy of his own head.

We're spinning our wheels here in an disguise. There's always Swiss Cheese Souffle, but I was warned against three- academic grist of papers and unanword dishes, especially if one of the chored ideas. Our thoughts are trained words is Cheese- Cheese-Rice to circle and go deeper. We leave this Casserole, Cheddar Cheese Fondue, pJace with lots of ptactice in thinking, etc." Meanwhile the college starves but that's all it is practice. What's l;>ehind me in line, and I settle for salad. next? Answering this question requires Soon we begin to avoid thought forward motion powered by another altogether. Look what it does to us-we species of thinking.

Should we worry that the pattern of lose sleep, we lose friends, we lose · · g leading to fear of thinking perspective when we spend too much goes energy on our work, which after all is leading to avoidance of seen by no one save a professor or two. even further? Does fear of g too We don't want to know that we're blow- little out of fear of thinking too much ing off an intimate after-dinner conver- cause even deeper overthinking? I think sation in favor of a study session which too much. could conceivably make the difference • Reese, a junior in IS between an A and an A-. We have i~ ofTN] every reason !O put our minds in ThC o( the jrvfividuaJ opinaons cxp• c:•w:d in this K--..tion are wtiter. neutral. Or so we think.

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e w J ournaVSeptember 7, 1984 11

Sharing the Wealth of Words Lisa Chang "l r it clear what it mean? To 'plo.y tht dit at the Thai-Cambodia border?"' tht studmt a1ks, smiling.

"N ot really Do .YOU mean that cross in.~ the border involved chance like the chance in a game '!f dice?n .

Wo, not like. I Tfal(-; pla-;td "!Y l!ft.

Everybody, at iht bordtr, pla,y the lift. (fyou cm1 1, you win. (f. you carmot to cross, thm you murl to die. In tht Chineu has the pro- · -utrh, 'Do you want to live your life like the die'' /r it make rmu now?"

The door i-; open at 295 Crown Street.

The: old hrown three-story house, occupied hy th e Asian-American Stud<·nts' As'!ociation (AASA) and the Movimicntc> Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan (MEChA), fares a parking t·ompkx and the Madison Towers Apartments. .

Voices with Chinese, Laotian , Vtetnamcse and Korean accents mingle in the front haiL On the bulletin hoard to the right of the front door are photographs of Asian children and of groups of hoth Asian and Occidental adult~. A leaOet set among the photos announces the AASA-sponsored program: Asian Community Services, Inc .

The Ass<Kiation for Chinese and Southt•ast Asian Refugees The front rooms are filled with Yale students and Asians of all ages. Eventually do'lc to 50 people disperse throughout the building. Its small rooms hous<· the English-as-a-SecondLan'{uag<· (ESL) tutoring program whic·h meets for two hours each wt•t•kcnd morning.

The parlor to the right of the entram·e is sparsely furnished with several wooden chairs, a worn brown c·mKh and faded curtains. Here several t•lclt-rly Chinese· and Vietnamese womcn "quat on the recently varnished lloor. Dorothy Ron y, DC '85, Indonesian hy descent, leads the women in a ..;urvival En'{lish drilL 1:.! Th•· Nt·w .Juurnai/St•pu•mlx-r 7. 1984

Studies, Epidemiology and Public Health, Linguistics, Education, and Social Work.

Across the front hall in a large, halfretiled room, several people sit at a long confen:nce table. Howard Cheng, ES '87, talks with Lam Tin, a 32-yearold Chinese-Cambodian immigrant.

"What kinds of things do you like to do in your free time?" Cheng asks.

Lam grimaces briefly, raises his brows and breaks into a smile. "I like the photography, you know, and to travel and take the picture. I love to read the book-all book, Chinese and English. Sometime I like to write, to translate- especially the Chinese proverb."

Lam has been coming to ACS for two years. R ecently he has enrolle~ part-time at South Central Commumty College. "Now I take the night classes. Sometime, in the class I get the questions, I need someone explain the word or the idea. The class is big, and I don't want to stop. It is difficult to speak so quickly when I get confusion.

Here, I think it is informal , and more comfortable, not t«?? much pressure. I can talk with my" tutor about the homeworks."

Cheng began tutoring as a ] freshman. He came to this country -" from Hong Kong when he was in • seventh grade, settling with his family ! in Los Angeles. UCLA ran a program ! similar to ACS. Cheng breaks into a wide smile when he says, "My tutor was a g reat guy. H e was more like a j big brother. I felt more comfortable around him than around most other I Americans my age." Cheng feels ACS can be a r.ewarding emotional t'Ommitment. "We can do so much just to help people feel at home, comfortable to be a friend. just to talk and listen ."

Down the front hall the kitchen shared by both MEChA and AASA students is used for tutoring as well.

Sun streams into the cool room from the window over the sink. Phengta

"I see," she says. raising her brows, "with my eyes." The women bashfully say the sounds after her. Dorothy repeats with a "come again" gesture of her hands, "I" (pointing to herself) "!lee" (widening her eyes) "wi~h my eyes" (pointing to them). Occastonally the exercise dissolves into laughter.

Nevertheless the women continue until they have con n ected meanings with sounds.

In the adjoining room , pictures on sheets of newsprint have been taped along the walls like clothes hung out to dry. Partho Ghosh and Carol Yoon, hoth MC '85, are watching a group of children ranging in age from 20 months to 12 years. With a four-yearold Laotian boy Carol recites the alphabet in a pleasing, reedy voice almost as high as his . Ghosh is of Indian descent, Yoon of Chinese and Korean . They help supervise the Asian Community Services (ACS) daycare program. Both were interested _in becoming involved with a commumty education program while at Yale, preferably with children . For them and 25 other student tutors. the program <:an enhanc-e the work they do in their m~jor field~. a'l diverst• a'! East A'lian

i. .

-Mr. Quian, an ACS client

Borivo n g, a 33-year-old veteran o f the loyalist Laotian army, studies a home electricity manual. Speaking in a percussive tenor with a heavy accent, he explains to his tutor, "I am training for new job in m achine shop. H ave to study the basic math. I got the question-can you please explain me, how you write in number, 'three hundred thousandths?"' They continue discussing vocabulary from the manual.

The steep, creaking stairs lead to the second noor containin g several rooms, some no larger than big broomclosets.

Phengta's wife Bo unpha, whom he married in Laos before the Southeast Asian wars, has been coming to ACS with the ir three young children for over a year to meet her K o reanAmerican tutor Heiwon, a Yale senior . At a wood desk by a dusty window, the two look at Bounpha's vocabulary homework from the adult education class she attends in D erby.

The two also use the classified section of the New Havm R egister to improve vocabulary and keep up with job opportunities.

From a list o f words Bounpha asks the meaning of"ditch." The tu tor says, "When you wanted to bring water from the river to the crops, but the ri ver was too far away, you might have dug" (she mimes the action of digging) "a ditch from the rive r to the fields." Bounpha laughs. "I see." S he had come from an agricultural province in Laos.

"I'm happy that I can give her practical h elp ," H e iwon explains. "She has told me about going to the bank and not understanding when the teller asked for her initials. The teller became impatient and Bounpha got confused.

So every new word she learns to use becomes such a concrete a nd applicable bit of knowledge. S he wants to Improve her ability to communicate with co-workers at her factory and people at her children's school."

Down the hall toward the back of the house , two women leaf through an a r t history book. The student, Linda Tin,

Language instructor Vicki Lee converses with Mr. Meng have left Cambodia to find the good a petite 24 - vear-old Chineseeducation. Because of the war, we did Cambodian, has recently immigrated to New H aven from the Kaoidanl{ ·not get to finish school." Alluding to forced labor in Pol Pot's camps and refugee camp in Thailand. She is forty-kilometer compulsory marches, working toward a degree fro m South Central Community College. H er she says. "My people have seen the hell of life .

English, which she learned in "A person who live in the heaven o f dialogues with a pastor in the camp. is life may say ' Life is so sweet' and the clear and comprehensible afte r less person who livt· in the hdl of life may than a year in the United S tates. She ha' turned to Kandinsk, ·, 1nf' U.'aln{aJI "ay 'Lilt• i" so bittt•r.' Tht· life has fortunes and unfortunes, sour . sweet. bitThe tutor <t'k' her ''h' sh(· likes. tht• ter a nd hot mix up liule by little. painting.

"I lovt' the ar t, becaust• it shows the "It's like life- so many different colors put together in different ways. This different attitudt•s of life. This paint in~ is like the life, so bright, and not so man know the life. Some people praise perfect.~ the life and some abuse the life. Why? Across the hall the ACS advanced Just because they live in different conver!i,ttion class m eets. t-:SL instrut·''avs . .:In Asia, a big problem is the intor \ 'icki Lee. a 3 1-year-old American . nuence of \\Testern culture on society. sits. at a round table among st•vt·n Now many children are learning to Chmcst• men and womc.-n. Debating a ' become independent, and this huns world population article from TimL, the members of the< las..<1 speak in slow hut their parents. In Cambodia and many smooth English. other countnes of Asian culture Says Lee of tht• dass, "Tht· studt·nts children do not leave h o me. Parents who attt>nd this dass bring a fairl y help educate their children, and old good reading kno wledge of Engli~h·. people taik so much to the young peoThe>· exchange impres,ions of this ple.

"My parents always wanted us to get cou.mry and vigncucs of t•vcryday t•xpenence. In class I help them with the good education, and ~e wouid Th .. :'\l'"' .Juurn.lli&prrmlwr 7. 19Ri 1'1

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"Some people praise the life and some abuse the life, why? Just because they live in different ways." their pronunciation, usage and vocabSolstad, a senior in the School of ulary. Sometimes I show them a more Social Work at Southern Connecticut common grammatical or idiomatic State University, began as a part-time way of expressing someth ing. We'd social worker at ACS in 1983. Now as like to start a beginning level class for Community D irector she also manages recent refugees and immigrants but community outreach, fundraising and that depends entirely on fundin g." finapce, and the schedule of the proAt the front end of the hall in a room g rams of the small operation.

"We meet during non-working with several large windows and a warm orange rug, the Community Director hours, which is convenient for people and social worker, Katrina Solstad, sits who have a regular work week," she exbehind her cluttered desk and chats plains. "All the members of a family with Tom Fujita, BK '85. Fujita, a can be accommodated at the same Hawaiian-born Japanese, relaxes by time. No other agencies in the area prothe desk in his characteristic shorts and vide these services or focus on the language, cultural and social needs flip-flops .

"It's true that there are cases of of the East Asian and Southeast Asian families sitting in houses with no fur- immigrants and refugees. We serve as nishings and no heat in the winter, an advocacy resource as well. If a client conditions that we would consider in- has a problem with the welfare office or tolerable," says Fujita, the former stu- with a landlord, we can try to mediate. dent director of ACS. "On e family We also refer clients to health and octhought it was paradise after having cupational resources in the communibeen on a sinking boat." ty.

"For example , a refugee had come to "Once, I really surprised this man by telling him he could return purchases ACS and still had family in Cambodia in this country. I told him that if the trying to flee. When he received news product were flawed or if he changed that they had ar~;i ved in a refugee his mind he could bring it back with camp, he asked me for advice and the receipt and receive credit. assistance. He used to call two, maybe "I've noticed a gap between parents, three times a week. He didn't know who have grown up in an entirely dif- how to go about applying for their ferent culture, and their children, who v isas, if they would be approved, how naturally assimilate more quickly into long they would have to wait in the this culture. I had to explain to puzzled camp, how much money was required, parents why their kids might want to or how they could find a n ew apartgo out with a school group that had ment. Finally, three years after he planned to see the New Haven Sym- came to this country, they arrived. He phony. The parents couldn't under- and his sister still come regularly to stand why someone would want to go ACS." Solstad hopes to increase the agency's to a concert, especially at night."

Fujita recalls an unsubstantiated activities, but funding for expansion is rumor that circulated several years ago not available. The small private foun about a factory in the state which had dation grants and donations which now hired Vietnamese refugees to work pay for program materials and for eight-hour shifts for $5 . "ACS can at Solstad's, Lee's and an administrative least make our clients aware of assistant's salaries are diminishing.

American legal and social customs, In addition there are no and notify the appropriate people if demographic statistics on the Asian something's wrong," he explains. population of New Haven. Without

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According to David Shieh, a Taiwanese mechanical engineer who has attended ACS for two years, the program helps relieve some of the difficulties and isolation an immigrant or refugee may face. "I enjoy most what we discuss about American culture and language in class. I can not get this from other classes or from reading the newspaper. Communication is the biggest limitation of our daily lives. Most of the time we have to work twice as hard as our friends so that we can get the same things done. It is very frustrating to be bound by this language difficulty. I think ACS has helped my English very much.

"For a new immigrant-a lot of the students- the social aspect of ACS is helpful. For people with no car, sometimes on only a one or two year visa, social activity is very limited.

ACS helps us interchange our language."

One young student who recently immigrated to this country and who has been attending ACS during his vacation says, "I am quiet even in my country, but here I could not speak or understand in school. I asked my teacher in my high school, 'Can you tell me who can help me?' She told me about ACS. "Vacation time, I tried to speak more. Maybe , I can understand more next semester. I don't know for other people , but ACS is good for me."

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The New Journal/September 7, 1984 15

Yale's Colossal Cosmetic Anne Applebaum and Tony Reese Think about lipstick.

It comes in many colors. You can buy it, use it, throw it away. Now imagine a threeand-a-half ton, 22-foot tall fiberglass and aluminum lipstick perched on steel tank treads. Put it in the middle of Yale University. What can you do with it? Suddenly you can't use it and you certainly can't throw it away.

What does it mean?

The giant lipstick resting peacefuily in Morse College indicates little of the tumult that accompanied its creation 15 years ago. No longer standing in defiance, it has become Morse's totem, and much of the history and meaning behind it has been forgotten by the students who gather for intramural games or sunbathe near it.

It was the year before coeducation

began, the year before the May Day riots. T he Vietnam War had brought political activism to college campuses.

At Yale th e School of Architecture was a center of unrest. There was pressure for a broader curriculum and a demand for architects to become more involved in the lives of cities and the

hardships o f people pushed out o f their made of canvas and stuffed with foam, homes by urban expansion. such as a 10-foot long ice-cream cone, a Another issue within the school was g iant typewriter and a full-scale car. financial aid.

"There were many O ldenburg's latest interest was in students actually living below the "colossal monuments." His drawings poverty level at the time," said Sam for such works included a giant teddy Callaway, '64, M. A rch. '69, "and no bear for Central Park, a toilet-tank financial aid was being made available float for London's Thames River and a to them. Many of us felt the professors huke Good Humor Bar for P ark should be behin d the movement to Avenu e. None of these sculptures had help the students, and when they been built, and Oldenburg considered weren't they lost a lot ot respect." most o f them unfeasible.

Arch itecture students had already Stuart Wrede '65, M. Arch. '70, displayed their discontent b y buryin g developed more than a passing interest an effigy in th e¡ Noguchi sculpture well in Oldenburg's colossal mon uments o f Be inecke Library. Some people when he interviewed Herbert Marsuspect them of settin g the J une 1969 cuse, a prom inent spokesman for the fire in the Art a nd Architecture New Left, in j une 1968. "Ifyou could Building which caused $700,000 in really envisage a situation where ... damages. there would be . . . in the middle of The mood of the times was radical Times Square a huge banana I would and the a rt was P op. A leading con- say- and I think safely say- this societemporary artist was sculptor Claes ry has come to an end," Marcuse said.

Oldenburg '50 already well-known in "I think it would be one o f the most 1968. H e had broken groun d with the bloodless means to achieve a radical Ray G u n Machinery Co., a "store" change . . . just imagine that overthat operated for two mo n ths and sold night it would suddenly be there." replicas of food and ord in ary objects Wrede shared the idea of realizing made out of cloth, p laster and chicken an Oldenburg m!imument with some of wire. He had a lso gained prominence his fellow students~ Not all appreciated for his soft scul pture, large objects the potential for instant revolution in

Directo rs o f the Colossal Keepsake Corporation, from le ft to right: Gordon Thorne, Charles Brewe r, Bob Coo mbs, J o hn Allen , C laes Oldenburg, Danny Goodrich , Stuart Wrede, Vincent Scully and Sa m Callaway

15, 1969.

Oldenburg's monuments, but live did see them as a way to express their discontent with the art and architecture schoo ls. They h~·gan to work with \\'rNie to ac·quirc an Oldenburg for Yale·. w\\'c• all had our o'" n reasons," explairwd Gordon Thorne. M FA. '69.

"Yale• was c·hooo;in!{ to anc•pt gifto; and take o,·c·r propt•rtv in l\:e'" Haven bast'd on nrH·ri,t th,u pc:oplc didn't neccs..,a ril\ <Kn·pt Yale• '' a'i distlin~ the Paul Mc·llon blcKk to ""a' for that mon'itrosity Jthe ish Art Cc·ntt·r]. The block was : it housed a lot of low-rent arture studios. \'\'c thought, ' H ow we probe Yal<·'s polidcs?' Give something rt ob"iou•dy doesn't :Want but which has ob" io u s a rri•>tic 1falue ." "\\'e ''ere a group of people looking

for a way to say in a nonvroknt way the ~arne thing that was bein!-{ <>aid by violence," explained Callaway. " It was a protest. not o nl y against th <· war· but a bout a lot of things at Yak ."

"Yale was verv conscnati n· .11 the ti m e," remarked Oldcnburf.{. wEn·n the radicals who ''ere doing this wert· considered conservati\ c.

The nlO"t radical people thou~ht they should be· concentrating their energies on dirc·n political action . not di<><orpating thc·m throul.{h art."

The students approached Oldenburg a nd expressed their inlnc·st . w\\'c· had manv discussion<> with him and found he ~ould help us exprc·o;s what we· wanted to express." said Callaway. wHl' went right to work. It was an opportunity for him in the art world ."

Together ''ith Oldenburl( .md History of Art P role-.so rs \. rnc·c•nt

.Snrllv and Charll's Rr-ewtT. tht· studt•nts fornwcl tht• Colossal Kn•p.,akt• Corporation of Connt•ctinrt (CKCC) to clonah· a monument to Yak. Fir·.,t. thou~h. tlwy rwe<kd a colossal monu~twnt , and tht·v would han· to pa,· li1r rt Oldenbur~ al{rn·d to donatt· hi<> tinw and dt·,i~n. but tht· nmstruc·tion c·cht n·mairwd. The studt•nts approm hc·d architen Phillip .John-.on . "ho had plannt•d Klinc· Rio lo.._rv T n\HT .tnd \'\as known. amon~.t othc·; thint.t'· for his 19'll and J<l6 4 addition' to thc· ' !\1uwum of :\1cxkrn Art in ;\;e,, Yorl.. . wHc·" wa~ thc• backn who mack it JXls-.i bl_t> o;arcl Thorm·. thnu~h funclrai,in~ dlort'\, c oncluned undc·n·o,Tr to prcst' rH' thc· projec t'<o o;c•c·rt·c,. j(,uncl 4-6 donor-. and <oc·n•n spon-.ors. J.rppinc-ott, Inc·.• a fabrinuin~.t firm in ;\iorth Han•n "ith "hom the sculptor ha(l "orkc·d pre\ iouslr. at.trn·d to build tlw Tht· !'.t·" Jnumotl iSq>H· on bt-r 7. t <1114 17

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18 The New Journal/September 7, 1984

structure at cost. One of the legendary colossal monuments was now feasible.

Oldenburg came to New Haven a number of times to select a site and subject; various ideas were considered, including dropping small monuments from the air onto Cross Campus and creating a giant {Toothpastej Tube Being Stepped On. He explained one inspiration for the lipstick sculpture at the time: "I found a long orange balloon fluttering from the antenna of a parked car as I stood contemplating [Beinecke Plaza). The balloon seemed huge, bouncing against the paternal cla<>sical and Egyptian edifices. Just what the place needs, I thought." Lipstick -...as already a somewhat prominent motif in his work; a 1966 drawing replaced the Fountain of Eros in London's Ptccadilly Circus with a collection of lipstick tubes.

CKCC chose the lipstick over the {Toothpastej Tube in early spring 1969 and Oldenburg began construction.

He worked out of a studio on State Street and his deadline was May 15, Ascension Day. The lipstick tip would

be inflatable by an air pump in the base, and the common man could participate in the sculpture by pumping it up. Oldenburg suggested an inflated lipstick could be a.~ignal that a speech or gathering was to be held underneath it.

By May 13 the Corporation had run out of money and the lipstick was unfinished. Cheaper materials were substituted, and the students themselves completed the remaining parts on time. But even before the lipstick was ready, installing it posed a problt"m. University officials, along with nearly the entire campus, knew nothing of the monument. Should it be brought in by helicopter? In the middle of the night? Eventually CKCC decided to make the installation a Happening, an event which could become a work of art in itself. .. As Lippincott gavt" the monument three-dimensional form," Callaway explained, "we realized it was a symbol that would have meaning outside the art and architecture schools. We wanted to find a way for people to rally around it."

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Sketches from Oldenburg's 1969 n otebooks.

H owever, the group realized the students' publication . Oldenburg da ngers o f organizin g a crowd . "It directed the mon ument's assembly. wasn't a time to mess a round lightly occasion ally speaking to reporters. "I :ith a mass gathering," said Thorne. h aven't interpreted it yet. I j ust built Yale was very gun shy; we respected it ," he said. "I'm sure it meant that. We wanted to creal<' a situation something."

The steel base, its plywood treads that would be disarming for the ad· ministration and the spectators, so p a inted red, was taken off its casters they wouldn't know what to do but and put in place. The telescopin~~; tube was fitted to the base and erected with they'd h ave a good time."

Scu lly told h is classes, "Noon Thurs· diffi culty; to some observers the day. Reinecke P laza. Something wi ll students straining to raist' it seemed to happen ." Suspicious posters appeared parody the l wo Jima war monument. and word spread th rough the colleges. "Wait till you see the top." Scully said.

Scully knew the administration was "It's full of fo rce. It's really like a rocket worried when U n iversity Secretary to M ars. It's ki nda great."

The red inflatable tip was attached Reu ben H olden called to ask what was planned. "They were nervous." Scully to the tube and O ldenburg connected recalled . " I reassured them. I told them th e air tank. " It may lean sligh tly," he they were in for a wonderfu l surprise." h ad warned, "but that's true a lso of the By noon nearly I 000 people had Tower of Pisa ." The tip was inflated gathered. Two A ll-Rite Sanitation Ser· and the Colossal Keepsake Corpora· vice trucks arri ved at 12:45 with an tion of Connecticut had comp leted the assortment o f odd metal objects. Some insta llation of O lde n burg's first w larch itecture students carried them to ossal monu ment, Lipstick (A scmdinf!) on the cen ter of the plaza wh ile others Catrrplila,- Tra.rks.

While the momen t was histo ril·al fo r distributed a poste r ,. a special issu e of the art world, it was somewha t u nc·omNovum 0,-ttanum, an architect ure

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fortable for University officials. President Kingman Brewster reportedly managed to avoid the installation by slipping out the back of Woodbridge Hall, but H olden emerged onto the plaza and was presented with a Deed of Gift for the sculpture. Flustered, his first comment was simply, "It's not Beinecke Plaza, it's Hewitt Quadrangle," but he recovered and said, "Vincent Scully told me to be here at a quarter to one for something grand and beautiful and monumental, and it

Even though the tip began to droop almost immediately, those involved with the installation were extremely pleased. "I don't think we could have better said what we wanted to say," commented Callaway. "I felt very proud at the end." The installation was reported nationally and made the cover of the New York Times Ma.t:azine.

Scully has made much of the ceremony. " It was an especially pleasant and happy event," he said in 1974. "h produced almost the only wholly

the sculpture to manifold interpretation. Those who saw the m ix of male and female elements felt the monument was a call to coeducation. Others claimed it was a representation of the military-industrial complex and the war machine, combined with images of dubious virility that questioned America's endurance as an aggressor.

"It is obviously a militaristic symbol, but the saggy lipstick says something about militaristic approaches," Callaway said. "But it was also a sym0

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Models for Lipstick is. I congratulate our distinguished alumnus Mr. Oldenburg."

The Deed of Gift exemplified the parodic nature of the contribution. "It is a gift," Oldenburg said. "They must be gracious." If Yale refused the gift it would be offered to other un iversities until accepted. The Deed stipulated that Lipstick remain on Beinecke Plaza.

"It was an impossible condition," said Oldenburg in retrospect. "But that's part of the drama of Lipstick- that it was given on impossible terms. I t was very idealistic in that sense."

20 The New .Journal/September 7, 191l4

joyful mass meeting to take place during that tormented period, and I continue to believe that it played a measurable part in encouraging that atmosphere of mutual trust, affection, humor and general civilization which enabled Yale to withstand the very special shocks that came her way during the following year. A potentially explosive political situation on campus was defused. Without Lipstick there would have been a bloodbath."

Oldenburg's lack of explanation and the architects' varied purposes exposed

bol in its environment- outside Woodbridge Hall- that said something to Yale. We had a great deal of respect for Yale but there was much we didn't agree with and we didn't feel the administration was willing to talk."

Oldenburg himself denied the overt political and erotic interpretations. "A motor car. which [Lipstick] resembles, is equally erotic . . . rand the 1 track need not be read as a reference to war machinery- the piece was originally conceived to crawl its way down stairs to its site," w rote Oldenburg in his

j

commentary on the sculpture in Novum Or,t:anum.

Thorne stresses th e probing , humorous aspects of the sculpture. "It was tongue-in-cheek , yet a lso a serious C'juestioning of Yale. There was a feel ing that there was not much humor around then. Yale was being given someth ing; nothing was being asked of them ."

Oldenburg expressed his views o n the gift .at the installation . " It offers them a choice. If Yale doe'in't accept it they'd be silly; som eone else will." Yale chose a third alternative: it neither accepted no r refused the gift, but ignored it.

The University a llowed Liprtick to remain in H ewitt Quadrangle. except during 1969 reunion s, when the Deed's provision allowing its removal for two 72-hour periods each year was exercised. The drooping vinyl tip was soon replaced by fiberglass ; Oldenburg never installed the pump to innate it.

Eventually the e ntire sculpture was painted white, a n inexpensive way to ma intain it.

Lipstick became a platform for radicals from Students for a Democratic Society and a kiosk for posters; its base sheltered couples who interpreted the work's meaning as "Make Love. Not War." Zt•ro Population Growth covered it with a plastic trash bag . One professor reportedly poured lye on the plywood treads to quicken the deterioration . In March 1970 Oldenburg had L ippincott take Lipstick back to its North H awn yards. no doubt to the relief of an a dministrat ion who had treated the monuml:'nt with ,at best, benign neglect.

Contrary to the o rigin a l intentions of C K CC, Lipstick remained in North H aven and the Corporation did not continue its search for a ne\'. home for the sculpture. "Everyone VI.US ofT into the ir own lives." explained Thorne o f the group's inactivity. " It was hard to get that energy back to takt• a stand ; it just wasn't there."

M eanwhile some at Yalt.> fought to bring Lip rtick bat·k. S('hool of Organization and Managemt·nt Professor Harvey Wagner t·alkd himself"a

kind of self-appointed lobby at Yale" for the sculptu re a nd wrote Brewster. among otht•rs. to urgt• tht• return of O ldenburg's l'l't'ation . Wht• n a histor y of art at Yale was written. he argued, much \'\'ould ht• mad!:' o f tht' poor treatment and evt•ntual loss of Oldenburg's first monunwnt. "I h om·stlv do not think tht·n· is much I n tn or ~hould do on the qm·stion," Rrewstt•r replied to ont• such lt•ttt•r .

Other L1prtu-k supportt'rs i nduded H i'itorv of Art Proft·ssors St·ullv Tht•orlort• Stt·hbins and Sheld~~ Nodt'lman. In 1971 thev •·enuited Alan Shestack. new diH·t·to~ of the Ya lt· Universitv Art Galle•·v. to have th l' gallery .brinl{ L ip.rtirk ba<·k. In Det·ember 1972 ht· wrott' tht· <·ollege mastt:rs: "Tht• purpose of this mt•mo i!l to solicit sul{gt·stions J'l'garcling a n appropriatt• site !for the sculptun·J." O m• master promptly n•fused. anotht·•· infornwd Sht•stack at a co<'ktail p arty that <;omt·on\' had st•nt a prank k ttt·r around "'ith his fin·gt•d signatun·.

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he was on leave. Upon his return he immediately offered Morse as a home for the itinerant Lipstick. A petition circulated in the college indicated student approval of the offer. At the same time, Smith College showed an interest in Lipstick, but could not compete with Yale's bid.

Oldenburg was understandably hesitant to return the monument to Yale after the treatment it had received before. Brewster was also unenthusiastic, saying he would not object if a site ,(or the sculpture could be found ("though he said it wasn't his favorite piece of sculpture and he'd been told by people it was a practical joke at Yale's expense," Shestack said. ) Twenty-five donors gave nearly $15 ,000 to pay for rebuilding the monument. The original fiberglass tip was retained, but the aluminum tube and the steel base were refurbished and the crumbling plywood treads remade in steel.

LipsticJCs second reception differed markedly from its first. The University had never formally accepted "'- the original monument; now it had per· suaded 'the artist to restore it, paid for the work, accepted the gift through the Art Gallery, and staged an exhibit there in commemoration of the new gift. "I was very happy with the change in reaction," Oldenburg said. "It said something about whllf' the first installation had accomplished."

October 17, 197 4 was Ascension Day for Lipstick. A group of students put a large plastic pair of lips next to the sculpture, many of the men wore lipstick in honor of the occasion and the Yale band played. "I thought it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen," said Scully, who had wanted to put the sculpture on the hill, threatening the dining hall. Oldenburg spoke to the gathering from the base of his sculpture, removing his shoes out of respect. "I hope you'll take your shoes ofT when you ruse it as a speaker's platform]." He joked, "I'm very happy you're going to take care of this because I can't fit it into my loft. Here, it turns on the sky."

Most of those involved with the originaJ Lipstick are pleased with its

relocation in Morse. For Scully the scale of the monument is better there; "it was not quite colossal enough for Beinecke," he said. Its artistic value is also secure. "Great art makes you think. It jolts you out of your surroundings. People who don't want to be jolted don't like Lipstick."

"When I first heard [it was to be reinstalled] I felt relief," Callaway said.

"I was glad to see it put back in commission. It was done by an eminent artist who deserves serious treatment, and it is an important little piece of Yale lore."

But for Lipstick the relocation to Morse reflects more than a geographic change. "The move totally changes and loses the original meaning," Thorne said in 1974. "It can be revived , but in the process is transformed into something else . . . It's definitely not the same monument anymore."

Lipstic~s revival and survival as a new sculpture is part of its artistic value. "Its meanings never end," said History o f Art Professor Susan Casteras. "It's not limited by those it had in previous generations." Cas teras notes, though, that Lipstick and the attitudes about it point out the marked depoliticization of the campus. "(In 1969] the Yale student ... revealed his vulnerability by o penly proclaiming his protests of and challenges to prevailing conditions, but now," she wrote in 1974 , "he generallychooses to retreat into the security of academic pursuits." The kinds of events that have surrounded Lipstick since it was placed in Morse are just as revealing, she now believes. "It's the site of fashion layouts, p rom antics and p ranks," she said. "I n its own way, it now betokens a different attitude toward Yale."

Lipstick has lost its ties to concerns of fin ancial aid and hou sing the poor. "It seems to be more like a mascot now," Wrede said , "or a Pop joke. T imes have changed."

• Anne Applebaum, a junior in Pi"son,

is Associate Editor of TN]. Tony Reese, a junior in Branford, is Managing Editor of TNJ.

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The New JoumaVSeptember 7, 1984 23

Joyce Banerjee W e're the boys out tom:f?ht Not afraid to show our m~~ht Put us down but we don't care 'Cuz we know we are rz?,ht F~f?ht bn, Frf.ht ~m F~f?hl 'em all

- Iron Cross, 1982 Armed with aerosol paint cans, Damon Ortega and two of his friends visited the Beinecke wall early one .July morning.

As Damon played the l<x>kout, the others began spray painting on a large section of granite facing Berkdl'y Col-

lq{c. In a few minutes they tinished their· note, a six word jab in gn·en and black Krylon: H ave You Hugged Your C o p T o day?

Da mon and his cohorts had little time to t•njoy their atlack o n alleged police haras-;ment, as Yak offict'rs arrested them only thirty feet from their worksite, spray cans still in hand. Charged with criminal mischief. liftcen-year-old Damon plans to plead inncx:t'nt to the actual p ainting. H e · awaits his hearing with some apprehension and ha-; put off gt·tt ing a long-desired mohawk to avoid offending the judge. M eanwhile the

Becky , Glynis, Damon and Mike hang out on Cross Campus

24 The

ew .Journai/Septeml>er 7. 1984

foot -tall le tters h ave been scrubbt·d off. leaving a trail of bla<:k blotcht·s on the stone.

Although a few manhours from Maintenance erased tht' writing, tht• sentiments and the ha rdcore tn·nagers n:main . Because of its· centralized location and re lative safety. the Yale area has•!ong served as the corner· malt shop for the d e nim-jacketed and blackbooted hig h -schoolers. The "punk rocke rs" su nbathe on Cross Campus. the "cores" skatt·board on .Broadway and sit on the warm grates along \I\' all Stn·ct in the winte r.

Dressed in all their hardware they seem to be participating in a social movement born long ago and far a~ay from New Haven. While the local kids with their strange haircuts and torn clothing physically resemble their radical British pre decessors, the ideological similarities are few. Nevertheless, the cores' visual suggestion of anarchy as well as occasional clashes with the Yale community have caused great friction. The teenagers have trouble with nearly everyone from the Yale and New Haven police to students, from the proprietors of N a pies to the masters of residential colleges. The cores have been hanging out at Yale for about a year, but a distance remains between the people who live and work here and the children who visit the campus for several hours a day. Apparently this distance will not vanish soon.

The University's acres o f spires and courtyards make these high schoolers look all the more incongruous, the latest in metal and leather juxtaposed with 1930s Gothic. The contrast is stark: ten boys and girls in combinations of black and grey Salvation Army wear gather in Beinecke Plaza in front of the University war memorial. Talking and rummaging for cigarettes, the kids seem obliviou s to passing cameratoting families who, like most people, involuntarily take a quick glance at the group.

Despite their regalia most of the cores still look young, too young according to some to take such drastic steps with their bodies and their wardrobes.

"We represent a defiance of the norm, of acceptance," explains fifteen-yearold Claire Bauermeister. Most of her hair, save a reddish-brown tuft at the forehead, is wrapped in dark cloth .

Her rectangul~r eyebrows and the rhinestone in her left nostril make her round face look almost exotic. "Our clothing is an extension of our personalities. We just don't want to be like everybody else." n eyond a general sense of nonconformity, few cores dress to make any deeper social or political statemenl.

Not on MTV Unlike the English punks of the midseventies, the New Haven kids seldom see a connection between mohawks and anger. "I dress this way because I like the way it looks," says Becky Tupper, gazing towards Woodbridge Hall. "It's comfortable. There's not anything behind it for me or for a lot of people."

"I'm really not into politics," says Mike Lawrence, the boy in the Clash T-shirt sitting next to Claire. "I guess I'm just into having a good time." He smiles, showing a mouthful of braces.

"But it's impossible not to have politics behind this," objects Damon, his quiet, clenched voice !VOwing more animated. "There is politics behind everything. There are some people, though, who are just not very political and who don't like to think of what they do as mass chan~."

Prtsidmt and popt!Your pridt and hopt Familits build/Christian tlhrc instilud Witld a sword/WalJc with IM lord & a man/ProiÂŤl your land Your lift's lost/ . Dead on Fortign soil For .your Godi(And their oil) -"Church and State" M.D.C. (Millions of Dead Cop'!)

Although the New Haven punks often remain apart from issues and ideology, hardcore music deals substantially with war and Reaganism, teenage rebellion and rage. According to John Lynch, a

20-year-old core, the driving, unintelligible music draws kids to hardcore by providing an a lternative to routine FM radio fare. "The music is definitely the rallying call," Lynch explains. He wears a black sntrf, hiding all but a purple lock of hi'! hair. "Hardcore starts with hearing something that differs from the norm. It then gets you listening to the lyrics, which are the most important part of the music. The music is anger, but anger in a fun way." .John Lynch has opinions on all aspects of hardwre, and in May 1983 he began writing a series of broadsides about developments in the New Haven punk community. Aptly titled "Not on MTV ,"installments of Lynch's commentary- which can be found plastered to tdephone poles and store walls- cover everything from tbe emergence of new bands to incidents of harassmen1. In a September 1983 issue entitled "What is Hardcore?"

Lynch states, "The most important aspect of hardcore is that it questions-even itself. Most cores agree that it's not <;O much what you're thinking, but that you art thinking-and taking a stance " Accordingly there are many stante'! and attitudes under the umb~e~la of hardt¡ore: Anti-Social ("Basic dtshk<' of human bein~s") to StraightEdge ("Keeping your wits about you and d01ng something positive"), anarchism to pacifism. \.Yhile manv of the teenagers read

"The 30-cents lady thinks rm the anti-Christ."

The :>;ew Joumal!Scptember 7, 1984 25

From the 40th floor Don't even know us Were desperate and sore You jack the rent Can't save a cent The monry we've earned A !ready spent.

- "Greedy and Pathetic" M.D.C.

Fifteen-year-old Damon Ortega Lynch's posters with interest and nod in agreement, others feel that few of the philosophies he has listed actually exist among the New Haven hardcore.

Rather, some feel that their friends are only concerned with hanging out and getting stoned. Sonja Dove, daughter of Pierson Dean Christa Dove, states mat¡ ters sharply. "Some people 'exist' and think that's cool. When they have money they spend it all on beer," she says with mild annoyance. "There seems to be an angry attitude amongst the New H aven hardcore, but I really don't know what they're angry at : New Haven is a real 'talk town'. People here talk a lot about getting bands together but they never do anything."

Sonja's close friend Damon Ortega agrees. "I don't just want to have a mohawk and tattoos. It's kind of a waste. I see people who could have done more than have fun on weekends . " 26 The New JournaVSeptember 7, 1984

Damon says as he lets his voice trail off.

Perhaps more than other cores, Damon is always creating plans. Right now his most radical scheme is to join the Irish Republican Army (IRA) within the next few years. Despite his Hispanic surname Damon comes from a predominantly Irish-Catholic family which has long supported- both financially and morally- the IRA's cause. "I may go after high school. There's a lot left to experience here, and I may not be ready to get killed just yet," he explained. "I agree that a lot of what they do is terrorist, but I wouldn't do terrorist things if I joined. I would never plant a bomb in a square and watch hundreds of people blow up." H e stops and looks at his left forearm, Qn which he has written "I'm no puppet" and "Personality connict." "But in a sense I guess I have been supporting terrorism by sending them money."

While many of the original British punks came from urban slums, most of the New H aven teens live in middleclass communities like Woodbridge and Hamden . Many of their parents are affiliated with the University, either as .aJumni or employees. Damon grew up in New Haven, acting at the Yale R ep and taking violin lessons, and he attended the Loomis-Chaffee School until .January 1984. His father, Jorge Ortega, graduated from Yale in 1971 and now works in the e ngi""ering department o f the language lab. During his undergraduate years both Jorge and his wife, Leslie Arthur, belonged to the hippie movement. Therefore, they try to understand and accept Damon's involvement in hardcore. "Damon has his own kind of lifestyle, as we did. But he's more sophistic.a.ted at his age than we were," says Leslie. She takes a puff of her cigarette and passes it on to her husband. "fm not crazy about his haircut, though. H e's a great looking kid, but he tries to the best of his ability to look like crud."

Leslie believes that she and Jorge instilled the beliefs of the hippie movement in Damon and his younger sister Megan. "We taught them to question authority, because we always did. The kids always find wrongs in the world," she continues. "Damon is very moral in his attitudes about everything, especially justice. In a lot of ways, I'd like for him to stay as he is. I think he has a lot of courage to do what he does."

Unlike Damon's parents, many others wish their hardcore children would grow back their hair, put on Izods and burn their Dead Kennedys albums. "When I shaved my head, my

"There's a lot left to experience here, and I may not be ready to get killed just yet." parents refused to take me to restaurants, to anywhere," recalls Mike, 15, whose hair is now a quarter-inch tall.

"Though m y dad loves it now, he initially thought we were neo-Nazis," says Laura. "But my mom hates it. She even cried over my h aircut." Laura brushes aside a shock of platinum hair which covers her right eye and part of her white-powdered cheek.

As the others speak Greg walks over from Wall Street a nd sits on the outskirts of the group. Despite hismohawk, his smooth face and slight build give away his fourteen years. H e wears a sleeveless jean jacket with a hot pink "Impeach Reagan" button stuck o n the pocket. Around his n eck hangs a stiff silver choker with a large plain medallion.

•My mom went hippie years ago and she has tons of jewelery that I can wear," he says, fingering the disk. He pauses and his grin disappears. "I don't get along with my mom so well. She says that she doesn't find me attractive anymore. 'You're not the apple of my eye anymore."'

Ignorant and loud/. .. A bully and proud Redneck ltan and TTW11/Fuckin' with our scme .. . /Q kick so~ ass Brainltss goon got no class . . .

Your lift's a rapt/Miswn of hok

So you'u out

-"Violent Redneck" M .D.C. AJthough Greg remains upset about the situation with his mother, he nonetheless admits that he willingly tries to look disturbing and unappealing. "The clothing is to provoke- there's no question about it," he says; alluding to the upside.down crosses drawn on his jeans.

•rm mirroring the world through how I dress. The way I look isn't pretty, but the most important thing I do is show people how ugly the world is."

While Greg's appearance is not as

radical as some of the older cores', he still seems to antagonize people with what he wears. "Being treated like shit is a relatively new thing for me," he says, smiling. "I constantly get dirty looks from people. Their first instinct is to laugh in my face. They think I'm ruining my life. They look at us as if we're social abortions. They'd probably like to send us to their pope. They'd beg, 'No more abortions, no more punks.' " "The thirty-cents lady thinks fm the anti-Christ," says Brad Davidson, who h as been sitting quietly next to Greg.

"The harassment gets tO a point where we expect it," Damon says as he crushes out his latest in a series of cigarettes. "A night never goes by when we're not hassled."

"I love to turn heads, though," Becky says. "It's fun to have people look at you.''

"Yeah, but not when people drive by at sixty miles an hour and yell 'asshole' out their window," says Damon.

Occasionally both the cores and their critics take that decisive step beyond name calling and staring and quickly get drawn into a volatile situation. Prior to his spray-painting adventure Damon got involved in a fight at Yorkside because, he claims, a drunken man shoved his friend. "Earlier this summer, a bunch of us were at Yorkside,and Laura was waving a small American nag. Then this big bow-tied man walked over and began lecturing us about respect for the nag. The man wouldn't have done anything if we were dressed like everyone else. He was obviously drunk," Damon explained.

"Brad mumbled to leave us alone and so this guy grabbed Brad, dragging him and the table forward. So of course we lost all our food. Then the management got mad at us and wondered how we could fight with this reverend. The man walked out of the place as if he'd done nothing, so I ran outside and pushed him down. He pushed a friend of mine and threatened me. Luckily, some peo-

pie coming out of Toad's stopped me and calmed me down."

Despite the incident the teenagers can again hang out at Yorkside, which, like many other restaurants, evicted the kids with regularity several months ago.

"Last year, everything was great until December or January when we got thrown o ut of Naples," remembers Becky. "Maybe the people at Naples spread the word to other places, because we couldn't buy food anywhere anymore."

"We've been thrown out of every place imaginable," complains Glynis Rochelle in her rushed, excited way.

"Other teenagers who hang around downtown are never treated like this. If we walked into Naples with shetlands and loafers on, they'd never throw us out. All they said to us was, 'We don't serve your kind here. W e don't like your kind.' Well, what is our kind?"

As Naples Pizza's manager j ohn Cirillo explains, Glynis' kind loiters in his restaurant for hours at a time, buying little food and dirtying the tables. He denies that his establishment discnminates against the children because of their appearance. "We serve them like anyone else. But they're making a hangout of this place, and we're a restaurant, not a hang-out: says Cirillo.

FID.shin'fot and billy clubs Wavin' in the air They'll kiCk your ass, they"ll bash your brains They don't fuckin' cart Youtt undn- arrest You don't know why.

Shu/ds of pkxiglass Rwt squad, nazi squod

-•Riot Squad" Toxic Reasons The hardcore teenagers recite a litany of criticisms about police treatment.

They allege that both Yale and New The New journal/September 7, 1984 27

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H aven. police harass them frequently and wtth glee. The kids believe that the Yale force especially resents their presence on University grounds.

"In the winter, they kicked us off the grates because of complaints from Yalies," Becky says. "But now it's fun li>r them. It's their sport."

"We've been thrown off the streets by the Yale cops, we've been sworn at by them," says D amon. "One day this summer when we were sitting on Cross Campus, a cop car rolled onto the lawn from the Elm Street side. They drove past thl' trees, stopped and told us to leave. It was purely a scare tactic." . Perhaps the most harrowing story the ktds have to tell concerns ·yet another incident at Yorkside P izza. As L ynch recounts it in an issue of"Not on MTV "' Nylon , one of the local cores, was a'ttacked b y a "pack of middle-aged machos." T he police, rather than helping the boy, supposedly laughed and asked the assaulters,"Are you through yet?"

Patrol Commander .J im O'Neil of the New H aven Police, however, has never heard of the incident on York Street and he does not believe it could have oc~ cur red withou t stirr ing public reaction against the officers. "I can't imagine J ohn Q. P ublic standi ng by without doing anything," says O'Neil. "Something like that would've come to my attention, and I would have done everything I wuld h~ve to get the officers' jobs."

Despite their eagernes<; to gripe about the police, the cores have only once taken formal action over the harassment. Last spring one of the kids filed a complaint against a certain Officer G rayling W illiam s ("instead of blowing up h is car, which some people wanted to do," says Damon). The kids depict Wi.lliams as their own Officer K rupke, datming he took pains to make life on the Yale campus u ncomfortable for them.

Commander George Denison of the u.nivcrsity police strongly disagrees with the teen agers' description of Will iams, stating that the officer never abandons professionalism in the course of duty. "Officer Williams does not harass the kids. H e's very consciemious, per haps to the point of being a little

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O\'erzt'alous on occasion." explains Denison . "I confronted him with their complaint. and as somt' of tht' kids ha\'e said. he has mellmved out."

AtTording to Chief Louis Cappielo. the Uni\'c rsity police maintain a nt'utral position toward the cores . despite numerous complaints made against them. Po lice report that the kids disrupt classes with their noise. and students and masters complain about disturbances in college life. Because the high schoolers frequently block the sidewalks on. Broadway. the polit-e must usher them away. Simply put. what the police call doing a job. the teenagers call harassment.

"We have more work to do than hassle these kids. but we ha"e every right to tell them to move alon g if they're being boisterous." says Cappielo. "Of course they dislike us. We're the authority figures. Who else would they dislike?"

I'm born to die I'm born to fry M_y lffe in a cage Show ~Y outra.f?e I'm misunderstood I did what l could I made my try I was bo~ dit'

to

-"Born to Die" M.D.C. In several years the New H<4ven teenagers may no longer be hardcorc.

Anger and non-conformity will be difficult to maintain, especially when a pplying to colleges and looking for jobs.

As with any subculture, most of the cores w ill return to the mainstream, perhaps turning to investment banking as their hi ppie predecessors have. Even so, some of the kids feel that the hardcore movement, unlike the beatniks or the hippies, will not easily disintegrate.

"People don't realize that they'll never be able to gf't rid of us," says Laura.

'There will be a generation of cores after us."

â&#x20AC;˘

Joyce Bannjee, a _junior in Timot~y Dw~f?hl, u AnocU1te Editor t?f T N.J.

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Ken La..c n a w aits the aft ernoon rush

In Love with Louis' Jonathan Young The door swin gs open as a middleaged runner enters the lunchroom. He sizes up the customers before addressing himself to Lee Lassen, the woman behind the counter. Grinning impetuously, he asks her the location of the nearest McDonald's. With a tightlippe4 smile she calmly points him toward the worst part of town. "Go on," she says, "keep running." "Wait a minute," the runner asks, "you wouldn't make hamburgers here, would you?'" Lee can no longer sup路 press her smile and proceeds to ask the .vitty regular customer how he's been.

Lee Lassen and her husband K en do not simply run a luncheonette. They a re the proprietors of a certified New Haven institution called Louis' Lunch, the birthplace of the hamburger. At first glance the simple brick building resembles an ordinary home. Few signs of activity can be seen within. ~ut at 11:30 a.m. the beginnmg of the 30 The New JournaV~ptember 7, 1984

lunchtime rush changes the situation dramatically. Louis' regulars start pouring into the tiny building for a hurried lunch and a few minutes o f conversation .

They crowd into a room containing one large picnic table, five smaller tables and a counter. Behind the counter two large black ovens produce a steady barrage of sizzling hamburgers and c heeseburgers. Immediately next to the ovens, racks of onions and tomatOes await the finished product. A checkered tablecloth and a neatly arranged pile of napkins give the picnic table the feeling of a family kit路 chen. Strangers sit together at this large table as if they were friends. The line comes out of the door of the tiny building as businessmen, laborers and students wait for their burgers. Just above the counter at the front of the line , a sign proudly proclaims, "These are the good old days."

The Lassen's establishment has never lost sight of its good old days.

Ken's grandfather. Louis Lassen, started the business in 1895. Back then the specialty of the house was a steak sandwich- also invented at Lou is', Ken claims. The elder Lassen would bring home the raw trimmings from his steak creation and use them to make his children's dinner. Only in路 stead of preparing steak sandwiches, he put the trimmings through a hand g rinder and cooked up the ground meat. The little Lassens enjoyed these meals so much that Louis began to consider adding the dish to his menu.

Then one day in 1900, as legend has it, one 路of the regulars asked for a quick lunch to go. Lassen cooked up some of the ground meat, put it between twO pieces of toast, and the hamburger was bam...

Louis' son Ervin and grandson Ken soon joined in the family business.

Ken, now 67, with warm blue eyes and grey hair, recalls helping his father grind meat, but did not assume full raponsibility as owner until 195 J. Though at one time he had hoped to go to college, he recognized his responsibility to both family and business and stuck with the Lassen tradition. A smile creases his face as he recalls falling in love with the lunchroom. "I'm actually a frustrated architect," he admits cheerfully, "but I needed to suppon my family, and I realized the inteUigent thing was to work at what you knew." Fortunately, Ken knew how to cook.

World War II interrupted Ken's work . H e spent four and a half years in the Air Force and finished his tour of duty in India by teaching supply service, the military counterpart to running a luncheonette. In Ken's absence his father, stepmother and uncle ran Louis' Lunch. They faced the hardship of a wartime black market- a group of unscrupulous merchants who tried to profit from the bad times by charging exorbitant prices. Rather than do business with these men, Louis' closed down for two years. At the end of the war, Ken returned and reopened Louis' with a clear conscience.

But Louis' Lunch had not yet had its fill of public controversy. It:t 1975 the lunchroom, then located at 202 George Street, found itself in the middle of a ~evelopment dispute. The entire block was to receive a facelift and in the process the redevelopment agency IOught to expel the Lassens. Mostly made up of doctors, this g roup found the presence of a hamburger restaurant inappropriate and distasteful, and threatened to pull out of the project if the luncheonette remained. An enormous public outcry ensued in Which patrons flew to the defense of the popular establishment. Lassen recalls l'eceiving mail from all over the country. "We even had a group of sup~ners down in Washington," he notes IQ amazement. Yet in spite of his great popularity, Ken was forced to take his lhow on the road. The building was moved to 261-263 Crown Street on july 29, 1975.

"Could I have some ketchup?" she inquires.

Pandemonium.

Ken threw himself into designing this new building, a project which soon became an obsession. "I can't tell you how many sleepless nights we spent trying to keep the place small," he says.

Lassen himself drafted and measured the additions for the original Crown Street structure. In making his design he wanted a larger building with the same small-room feeling of the George Street building. Ken assembled a talented team to achieve this goal.

"Everybody worked tOgether to achieve this building," he fondly remembers:"The mason was so good, we used to

call him Picasso. Feel that!" he says, running his hand over the masonry.

"He didn't have to make it that smooth .

He just wanted to!"

To complete his recollections of the construction, Ken takes visitors on the famous tour of the wall. As the story goes, additional bricks were needed to complete the final wall of the building's newest room. To solve that dilemma Louis' enthusiasts began sending in bricks from all over the world. "That one's from the Taj Mahal," K en points out. "This one's from William and Mary," he says, tapping a somewhat

Th~ N~w

j ournaVSeptember 7, 1984 31

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ch a rred brick. "The building it was taken from burned down. This o ne's from the Coliseum . . . " The list goes on, illustrati n g both the diversity of Louis' customers a nd the affection they share for the innocuous little luncheonette.

Louis' regulars have always tempered this a ffection with a wry sense of humor. T he Lassens have a rapport with their customers that often disarms the uninitiated observer . . . A ~ll-dressed middle-aged woman sitting at the counte r is about to begin her meal. "Could I have som e ketchup?" she inquires. Pandemonium. To a man, the regula rs clutch their hearts and groan loudly. "What would your father say if he were here, Ken?" one remarks. Struggling to keep calm, K en tells her she can't have a ny. The woman indignantly insists on ketchup.

K e n refuses again. The woman persists. K en g rows irate. Finally, after a drawn out confrontation, h~i ves in.

Produ cin g a plastic ketchup bOttle, he lowers it toward he r hamburger. Suddenly, he levels it at her face and squ eezes. A red stream springs out straight for the woman's face. She · gasps and cringes, only to see the threatening stream miraculously retract into the bottle from which it sprang. "That's ~s close to ketchup as you get at Louis' Lunch," K en says triumphantly.

Underlying Ken's humor, though, there is a serious concern for the customer's enjoyment. "There's just no need for the ketchup," he explains.

"But it's a kind of ego trip. They don't like me telling them what to put on their food and I d o n't like them ruining the flavor. If they'd only taste it, they'd see."

Lassen's commitment to quality borders o n obsessio n . Every weekday he climbs into his huge Chevy:-"a tank"-drives to New H aven from his h ome in Orange and puts in a 13-hour workday. If a n ything, the long hours increase his boundless e ne rgy. "It's taken three generations of hard work to produce th is lunchroom ," he declares with conviction. "and where's the

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Lassen shows a disregard for money that is hard to lind these days. H e gets most of his satisfaction from the service he renders the community. "Any fool can stand there and make hamburgers.

I like my philosophy of life to come into it." T hat philosophy involves public service with a healthy dose of selfsacrifice. H e cares more about giving the community a plac·c that is uniquely its own than about turning a profit.

"People don't have that much money," he explains. "We could price our food out of your range. My meat bill would scare most people. But I don't want to do that. I'll never be rich but I'll never be poor either." K en is proud of the fact that people come to his restaurant and return the next time with their friends.

When a!jkcd to compare his food to that of other establishments, Ken modestly maintains, "All I know is my own stuff." But Lassen does not shrink from judging his food on its own merits. He knows that he makes a quality produc·t. but refuses to compete openly with neil{hboring establishments. K en prefers to compare his food to more intangible standards. As he puts it, "\-Ve take it so seriously because we compete with the world."

K en Lassen's hands are flying. With swift, well-practiced strokes he slices a tomato into eight even sections. Grabbing an onion, he repeats the process and pauses to examine his work.

Satisfied, Lassen turns with a grin to face the counter.

"What'll it be?"

"Two cheeseworks and a Pepsi, K en."

Lassen wheels around to face his kitchen. He opens the saloon-style oven doors to withdraw a batch of hamburgers. Before they have a chance to cool. he places them on toast. applies tomato and onion. adds cheese c.nd proceeds to present his customer with two of the best hamburl{ers in New Haven. And possibly the world .

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~-

..•

-

Booksfrina Kelley

What's in a Pseudonym?

When Daniel James '33 testified before the House Un-Amcrican Activities Committee in the summer of 1951, he brought a copy of Voltaire's (;andidt. The book had been published under a pen name and .James believt·d that if the Committee continued

blacklisting artists allt•gedly affiliated with the Communist Party. Amt•ri<·an writers would resort to po;~udonyms in order to publi<;h. The Committee was not interested in James' anecdote and stopped him l)('fon· ht• could lini,h.

Thirty-two years later Simon and ~

: ~ ~

~

i

~

8

34 Th~ l':~w .Journal/~pl~mber 7, 1984

Schuster published Famous All Otm 7iJwn, a novel about a 14-vear-old Chit·ano growing up in the b~rrios of East Los Angeles. Heralded as "a book about Mexican-American culture from the inside but for outsiders." it won the 198:~ American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters Rosenthal Foundation Award as a work of literary merit whi< h had not suct·eedcd commercially. 'The author was Dan n y Santiago, who according 10 the book jacket "grew up in Los Angeles and is tht• author of stories published in Playbo)!, Rtdhnok, and Nutrlrn." His editors also considered nominating the novel, Santiago's first, for the Pulitzer Prize, but ht· refused to supply the requisite bio~raphical sket<·h. For 16 years he had remained an enigma to his readers, his agent and even Rob Render, his editor at Simon and Schuster. Santiago communidrl(d only through letters from a post office box in Pacific Grove. California. "We fi~-,rured he was probably in prison and didn't want anybody 10 know," Render said in a Nau York TimtS interview.

Danny Santiago is not in prison.

1 hough he had been before. Danny San· tiago did not grow.J.lp in Los Angeks; he is a product of it. Danny Santiago is Dan .James. whose 1951 prediction has come true, at least for him. James hid behind a pseudonym partly becaust• ht· had been blacklisted, partly becaust• he felt he could not writt' without it.

The pen name. a Spanish tran'>lation of .James' own, has ntUscd somt• controversy in literary l'irdcs after an August Ntw Ynrk Rtvi~w qf Bonks art ide explained the mystery. Rut controvc.•rsy is nothin'{ new to the 73-year-nld Californian. Rorn in Kanllas Citv, the son of a wealthy porcelain merehant, .J amc.·s attendt·d Andovc.•r. then Yale. whc.·re he joined the John Reed Scx.·it·· ty. a group or Communist intdlct·· tuals. Upon l(raduating. he sold china in the Dust Rowl during the Deprt·ssion and worked as a truck driver's assistant in the Oklahoma oil fields. whc.·re he became intere~ted in or~aniz-

ing labor. "I got 75 cents an hour. The management cheated us," James recalled. While writing in Kansas City he was sent to prison several times on "ridiculous charges- for endorsing unemployment insurance and passing out leaflets," he said. His father encouraged him to write. "That was mostly to keep me out of jail," .James said. He moved to California in 1937 and joined the Communist Party a year later, while working as an assistant director with Charlie Chaplin on The Great DictalQr. Four years later James' own play, Winter Soldiers , a paean to the Soviet Union, earned him the Howard Memorial Award for "the young American playwright showing the most promise."

That promise was not fulfilled.

James' writing career declined following his blacklisting three years after he left the Party in 1948. That same year, at the request of a friend, he and his wife Lilith started volunteering in the Los Angeles barrios. After 20 years of social work there, James had collected enough material for his book, which took 15 years to write.

Famous All Over Town tells the story of Chato Medina, "partially me in a Mexican suit," James said. It brings together many threads from the author's early career. His social concern had surfaced during his Yale years in activities such as a hunger march on Hartford. He learned further lessons of empathy from Chaplin.

"He taught me the closeness of tragedy and absurd farce." As for James' interest in Communism he said, "A certain social guilt affected it. Communism was standing for some very progressive things back then- unemployment insurance, black rights, women's rights." Famous All Over Town speaks eloquently and ¡ subtly for the Hispanic community where he had spent half a lifetime, "Just write your name and keep them guessing," Chato says to himself at the end of his story when he signs all of

the buildings near his recently-leveled neighborhood . .James too has incurred some resentment with his signature.

"We were taken," said Philip Herrera, founder of Nuestro, (Spanish for "our"), which printed some of Danny Santiago's stories . "We were trying to present the best image of Hispanics we could. We were not trying to publish Anglo writers with Spanish surnames."

Some critics suggested that James' ethnic surname was a determining factor in his receiving the Rosenthal Award, but R.W.B. Lewis, professor of English and American Studies, denies this. Lewis, the member of the selection committee who introduced the book to the group, and another member agreed that "the ethnicity of the author had nothing to do with giv-

Famous All Doer Town is the story of Chato Medina's turf in a Los Angeles barrio and its importance to him as he grows up. The Medinas join a fruitless fight against the Southern Pacific Railroad, the employer of most of the area's residents, which had decided to tear down the area to build a freight yard. Chato, the novefs cynical and savvy narrator, gives an outsider's view of the inside of City Hall: ..City Planning Commission," a block of wood said in gold.

There were nine planners present. each one with his private sign, such as La Kretz, Torvaldsen, Kleinburger and other allAmerican names. You don't see much GOmez up there at City Hall, or Garcia. at least not without a broom in hand. The Planners sat listening in fat green chairs and passed the time by putting their glasses on and taking them off. Of all those 18 hands there was not a sangle missing finger which would be a world record for any 9 of our people. A

ing him the prize. It was for the book's literary worth. He received no special consideration as a Chicano." Yet in a New York Times interview Lewis said, "I would have to say that if we had known [about the pseudonym, the book] it wo"uld have given us pause. We would not necessarily have rejected it, but we would have had to talk a little more about it. It does raise all kinds of interesting questions.

"After we found out about the pen name," he concluded in a recent interview, "we agreed the book was a greater achievement than we had realized. It wasn't an autobiography like rd assumed, but it's a work of imagining. Tha~ makes it better."

James, who plans to continue writing as Danny Santia.go, had few tall. gray-haired, S-shape man was preaching from the pulpit in front.

Mr. Cockburn they called him, which seemed a very crazy name to me, even for an Amerrcan.

"What's he talking?" "JY father asked.

"All about a bunch of slums someplace," I answered. "They didn't get to Shamrock yet."

But I was wrong. Mr. Cockbum snapped his fingers and they splashed a very familiar picture on a big movie screen. My father gasped like shot. It was our home, and how mean and ugly 'fe looked up there between those marble columns . . .

Was I deprived and disadvantaged like this man t¡d, or destituted? My father worked steady. I had never been rry for myself before, except maybe two Christmases back. And here I was living in The Slums and never knew it. because by the time Mr. Cockburn added it all up, even a q.caracba would be ashamed to admit Shamndt Street was his home address.

C1 1981 by Danny SanltaKO

The New Journal/September 7, 1984 35

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qualms about the pseudonym. "I said.

'Nobody's going to be hurt if the book's any good.'" Though some critics have suggested that the H ispanic pseudonym allowed him to profit from the recent popularity of minority writers • .James denies this. "Sixteen publishers turned the book down. and I tried to pla<:·e it for five years. H aving a Hispanic name didn't help."

Rohnto Gonza]ez-Echevarria.chairman ol Yale's Spanish department. justHies the use of a pen name. "We are always deceived by literature." hl· said.

"It's alway!l playing games with us. so why should we be deceived by this?

The book adds to the value of Chicano issues as a valid literary thcmt• not restricted to writers of Chicano origin."

Bender also denied the importance of the pen name. "Until an author is very well-known it doesn't make any difference who he is or where he is from. When you're buying a book from an unknown author, you ~ave to rely on the book for publicity, not the author. All that matters is the novel, the work of the imagination. It wasn't offered as a biography. He spent more than 20 years in the neighborhood and was as well-qualified to write about it as anyone."

Why then did j ames feel he needed a pen name? "I n som~·ways, Danny Santiago is what I wanted to be but am not," he explained about what he refers to as his "mild deception." "He's brash, impetuous, macho. I was writing during years when the threat of the blacklist was still very strong. I lost confidence in myself, in my ability to write. Danny Santiago had that confidence."

An·ording to graduaH· student Tom Ferraro, who will indudt• lht· final chapter of Famou.r All Ov" Town in his American S tudies senior seminar. ~James' emulation of a gheuo voice renects his inability to find his own voice, partly because of the hurl and disillusionment he had with Communism. He had experiem·es to look back upon, so he had a psy<:holol{ical need to look at himself a<; Danny Santiago."

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"I enjoy w riting under 'Danny Santiago,"' .James said. "It's something fresh and new in life. I wanted a 'we' feeling.

How could a .Jorgensen or a Smith write ahout Chato's life?" H e explained further in a letter to his friend John .Gre~ory Dunne, who wrote the New York Rtview '!f Books article with .James' consent: "[Santiago is] so much freer than [ am myself. H e seems to know how he feels ahout everything and has none of the ifs, ancls and buts that I'm plagut·d with . . . I can't let him go. ~1 aybe he'll prove a strait-jacket later .on. We'll se<·-" J ames eventually g rew frustrated at not being able to meet his fans or talk to his editor and critics. "I was getting interesting mail as Danny Santiago and it bothered me not to be able to see the people who were writing. I felt claustrophobic, I felt trapped. Now the result is most gratifyin g for a man who was forgotten, a pseudo-writer," he says of his transformation fro m a post office box number. "An yway, it wouldn't have taken a detective to find out who Danny Santiago was." l 'nrln the strri'l lamp "!Y namr 1parklrd out mto thr ru:ttht likt a jewr/~y .rtor·r. I flood to onr sidr and watched The Public as they parud kv inspecting it.

Thrre was onl' oldt'r man, lii'TY wt'lldrrrsrd. thr all-A mrrican ~vpe. Whr~ hr raw mr nomr it war likr a .~un aimt'd r~ttht at him. Hr nrorly put up his handr.

"Who is this Chato?" that man no doubt a•l..rd hinnrlj "And what'r his namr doine rm my Bank l!( Amrrica?"

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Chaw·., name. and now D an .James' "ith it.

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The :-.e., Journdi'S..ptc:-mbcr 7. 1984 37

~fterthought/ Rogers

Smith ----------~--~·--~--------------------------~------~

Soul of the SHining City Once in the sixth grade in my m idwestern town, we studied the nature/nurture debate, whether genetics or the environment most determine human conduct. One particularly ingenious pupil suggested there might be other factors at work: "Perhaps we have souls." This proposal won derisive snorts from some classmates and my teacher.

She explained gently that the "soul" was a religious concept, to be discussed in church school, not science class.

This story came to mind when President Reagan indicated in Dallas that" he means to make the old issue of religion and politics central to his fall campaign. I oppose the President's views on that issue. But I have come to think that the position implied by the answer my liberal a nd enlightened teacher gave me w~s not adequate, either.

President R eagan argues that the Constitution rightly forbids official establishment of a particular religion. But he believes most Americans share a faith iri God,. despite their different ways of expressing it. He thinks this common faith is needed to sustain traditional values that unite Americans and give their lives moral meaning. The President therefore thinks it proper, indeed necessary, for· Americans to voice this faith publicly- by permitting voluntary prayer in public schools, and by explicitly relying on religious values in defining and defending public policies on controversial issues such as abortion.

In response, liberals too often argue that religion should be a purely private affair, entirely confined to homes and places of worship and entirely excluded from public education and political debate. Those answers are too blind to the meaning of religious faith and to the cultural needs the President addresses.

Some politicians genuinely believe that God's laws make certain policies right. To ask them to ignore those beliefs is to demand apostasy; to ask them to conceal them is to require hypocrisy. Furthermore, students of American society from George Washington to Alexis de Tocqueville to contemporary sociologist Robert Bellah have agreed that this nation n eeds to be bound together by shared values, and that, given our cultural traditions and human psychology, most people must understand those values as grounded in the eternal will of a Creator. Some scholars wonder whether America's vast.._mobile, diverse society can 'maintain feelings of loyalty, ovility and community without more non-sectarian public reinforcement of the nation's spiritual heritage, its "civil religion."

They h~ve a point. Today we permit in principle, but neglect in practice, teaching America's religious and moral traditions- and their problems- in our public schools.

Those studies do not belong in science classes, but they have a place. Without them our education implicitly conveys the message that the chief alternative moral perspectives are vocational advancement or personal selfexpression. That teaching is both an injustice to our past and a loss to our civic culture. I also see nothing wrong with polit~ians I!Cting !~cordance with their religious consciences; would that more posSt:ssed some such beast.

But another childhood incident dramatizes for me the 38 The New Journal/September 7, 1984

dangers of President Reagan's views. In the second grade we began every class with the Pledge of Allegiance, the Lord's Prayer and eccentric religious readings by our teacher (all supposedly voluntary, though no one told us that). This good lady taught that a wise man had predicted that Christ would come again, to America, and would found a new, perfect city of shining light, probably in Chicago. ( I recently realized that th,is story was a distorted ,version of the dream of the late 19th century reformer, H enry Demarest Lloyd, who hoped to transform Chicago into a model of Christian Socialism.)

My teacher was addled, but the parents in my Protestant school district adored her. There are many simila r teachers and school districts in America's public school system. That is why the President's d!i~ve for so-called "voluntary prayer" is disturbing. Today, devout school children can pray before school and silently in school during rest periods if they so desire. "Voluntary prayer" legislation will mean, in practice, vocal prayers during school hours and led by a teacher, that will usually reflect the religious opinions of the teacher and the area's religious majority- creating psyc~Q!ogi~al pressure on children to conform. (As it is these sessions occur in many fundamentalist school districts despite the Supreme Court's "no school .prayer" decisions.)

Some of the dangers attend even the teaching of moral and religious traditions as an academic subject. But a balanced curriculum would afford less room for sectarian proselytizing than public acts of common worship~d I think the need to further understanding of our historic moral values justifies the risks involved. No such justification exists for voluntary prayer.

Similarly, while politicians certainly can and often should explain their religious motivations to voters, they are obliged also to give us secular reasons for their policies.

Public measures that do no more than further the religious aims of the ml'!jority have no claim to Jjind citizens of other beliefs. They are forms of religious establishment, and they should be declared unconstitutional by the courts. It may seem undemocratic to insist that the majority offer secular as well as religious reasons for its programs. But if our public institutions are genuinely to express shared values, our laws must be defensible in terms that all citizens can , in principle, accept. America's political ideals have been thought by many to rest on religion, and if this is not understood, these ideals are not understood. But in a society containing as many religious and non-religious moral perspectives as the United States, only secular arguments can serve as common coin. Thus our public schools and our legislatures should be forums equally open to discussio n s of religious and secular beliefs at appropriate times.

But public institutions must never give primacy to one religion over another, or to belief over unbelief, if they are to convey political ideals and objectives to which all Americans can pledge allegiance.

•Rogas Smtih i's an arsirtant professor (![ poliJiral rdma who

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