Volume 19 - Issue 2

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Publisher Margarita S m ith Editor-in-Chief Melissa T urner Business Manager Barrie Seidenberg Managing Editors J ay Carney Tam ar Lehrich Designer Beth Callagh an Production Manager Stu Weinzimer Photography Editor Carte r Brooks Associate Business Manager Beth Cohen National Sales M anager Peter Lefko witz Associate Editors Peter Zusi • Dan Waterm an Circulation Manager Debbie R osier (

Staff T om Augst Bronwyn Barkan Margaret Bauer , James Bennet Martha Brant J en Fleissner Alison Gardy

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Bennett, Jr. • Blaire Bennett • Gerald Bruck • Jonathan M . Clark • Louise F. Cooperf • James W. Coopert • Peter B . C ooperf • J erry and Rae Court • David F reeman • GeofTry Fried • Sherwin Goldman • J ohn H ersey • Brooks Kelley • R oger Kirwood • A nd rew J .

Kuznesk i, J r. • Lewis E. Lehrman • E . Nobles Lowe • Peter Neill • Julie Peters • Fairfax C. Randallf • Nicholas X. Rizopoulos • Arleen and Arthur Sager • Dick and Debb ie Searsf • Richard Shields • Thom as Strong • Elizabeth Tate • Alex and Betsy Torello • Allen and Sarah Wardwell • P eter Yeager • Daniel Ye rgi n thas given a second tim e (Volume 19, Nwnbtr 2) '1lt N- J•III'MI i• pubiUhed oix times dun "JIM ocboo1 year by 1'M N<"W journal at Yale, Inc., Pool Oflkc Box 34n Vole Suouon. New Ha..,n, CT 06!20 Copynsf>t 1966 by 1'M N... Journal at Vole, Inc All nshu rutrYed Reproduction ~•thtr 1n whol~ or in part without writte-n l>"tmltsoon of the pubhsoo and ~•tor-in-chid io p«>hibio~ Th1J masui"" is publisMd by Yale College stu<Xnto, and Vole Unive.n•tY it noc. rupon11ble for itt contents.

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The New j ournal/October 17, 1986

P earl Hu Susan O renstein Jen Sachs K aren S he n Lori Sherman M ike Sonnenblick Y in Wong

Cover photo by Carter Brooks Cover design by Beth Callaghan

_______________lll ___e_~ ___e_~-~~()_tl~fll· __a_l___6_~_o:_·rN~1~-~~Features 4

Crossroad s: August 1986 A Yale senior, Mark Gevisser, wlw visited the Crossroads refugee camps in his home country, South Africa, offers his perspective on the present crisis there.

10

Challenge From th e Left Ready to fill the vacuum of opposition to New Haven's Democrats, the Green Party fared surprisingly well in last year's elections. But even with a concrete platform and grass-roots spontaneity, the Greens may only be political outsiders looking in. By James Bennet.

16

Ready to Listen For the past decade, Walden Student-to-Student Counseling has been struggling against obscun·ty. This year's members, however, have reorganized and are determined to make Walden a viable alternative to UHS. By ]en Sachs.

Profile

22

Leaving Solidarity Beh ind

to

When Andzrej Slominski came the United States from Poland in 1984, he said goodbye to his family, friends and the Solidarity movement, which he had helped to create. Now he rejkcts on his involvement with the underground organization and his new life in New Haven. By Bronwyn &rlcan.

Books

28

Mirror Images David Leavitt ('83), the literary wonder wlwse first hook of slwrl stories was widely acclaimed, has come out with his first novel; semi-autobiographical, it concerns the relationship between a gay man and his father.

By Claire Messud.

All the Right Stuff Tah some wit, a bit of tragedy, and a drop of old-fashioned sincerity. Yale's Boykin Curry (BR '88) and Brian KasbGr (BR '88) slww America's high school seniors how to write the col/qe application essay. By Alison Gardy.

The New J ournai/October 17, 1986 3

M ay/June 1986: Crossr oad s bur n s to the grou n d and th e p eople, fo r so lo ng su ch p o wertui symbols o f r esistance, finally m ove ou t.

Crossroads: August 1986 Mark Gevisser S he is. a h ard woman, I think from inside the van as she approaches: she has a yellow t-shirt pulled over an angular body, taut fine skin pulled over an angular face, a cigarette, and through the mud-stained glass of the window she shakes her head firmly, she spreads her hands out away from her chest, I watch her lips, the cigarette, her lips, "no," she says, "no, I will never go back to Crossroads."

I am with S H AWCO, the Students' H ealth and Welfare Community Organization of the University of Cape Town , and we are parked outside the Elukhanyisweni Community Centre in Guguletu, a black township outside the South African city of Cape Town. Terrified

+

The New Journal/October 17 . 1986

by th e mere idea of being in a township, I have been hiding all day within the van's safety as it does its rounds. But at the sight of this woman (there is something in the way she shoots the smoke vertically out of her mouth), I unroll the window. I want to see, I want to hear- this is my country, my people.

"And now they want to go back," the woman says. "They want to go back to Crossroads and rebuild, but no, I will never go back. My six-year-old son awakes every night with nightmares of the fighting, he screams and cries, and my daughter, my ten-year-old dau ghter says that if we go back she will run away."

I am introduced to the woman, her name is Jen. "Are you a witdoek or a

comrade?" I ask her.

She looks at me, her small eyes burning my face, burning it red, "Look," she says, angry, "I am not an anything or an anything. I just want my freedom."

Jen is a refugee from Crossroads, the black squatter-camp complex that was burned to the ground in May andjune of this year. She now lives at the Elukhanyisweni Community Centre along with 151 other adults, 48 children and 28 babies (I have a fact sheet in front of me). T here are ten such refugee centres in Guguletu and Nyanga, the townships that surround the sand-dunes where Crossroads once stood. The destruction occured when fight ing broke out between the

The image of the "necklace," the township guillotine, is one of the few that the white authorities have allowed to filter through the news blackout. 'comrades' and the 'witdoeki, two factio n s within the squatter complex.

I am a white South African, and these terms, 'comrade', 'witdoeK are heavily loaded for me: the media has successfully created a Beirut out of every black township- they are savagely killing each other, I am told, there is nothing we can do about it, so why even try? The comrades, I am told, are tsotsis, gangsters who are using the liberation movement as a blanket for crime and arbitrary terrorism. The witdoeke (so named for the white kerchiefs they wear around their heads) are, I am told, v igilantes who have formed into groups to protect themselves from the atrocities committed by the comrades, atrocities like the dreaded 'necklace.'

The image of the 'necklace,' the township guillotine, is one of the few that the white authorities have allowed to filter through the news b lackout they have imposed: the victim, someone who has 'collaborated' with the authorities, first has his hands and feet cut off and is then made to drink KUoline, and a burning rubber tyre, a necklace, is pla~ed around his neck.

This is what I know before I join SHAWCO on one of its twice-weekly rounds of the refugee centres. The

organization, made up of white students from the University of Cape Town, provides relief to the Crossroads refugees in the form of provisions and medical attention. The workers of this organization now try to give me a more complete picture. They explain, with the help of Jen , how the conflict arose over the issue of whether or not the squatters would remain in Crossroads.

All the inhabitants of Crossroads were illegally in the Western Cape, seeking employment in nearby Cape Town. Because of their illegal status, they were not entitled to 'official' housing in the townships, a nd the authorities had repeatedly tried, unsuccessfully, to remove them from the area.

Wary of the squatter camp's increasingly powerful value as a symbol of resistance, the authorities devised an appeasement plan : the squatters were offered resettlement in Khayelitsha, a new township over 40 kilometres away from Cape Town.

The entire squatter complex would be "voluntarily dismantled," and would move, without any questions asked about the inhabitants' illegal status, to the land and facilities at Khayelitsha.

The witdoekL, under the leadership of

Ngxobongwana, a despot w ho controlled the camps, decided to accept this offer of resettlement. Most of the inhabitants of Crossroads saw, however, lurking behind the rhetoric of the government, just another forced removal. No guarantees were given that they would be allowed to stay in Khayelitsha; they could not afford the costs of commutin"g over 80 kilometres a day to their places of work; and , besides, says Jen, "we had made our homes in Crossroads."

These people were, likejen, ne ither comrades nor witdoekL. They were nevertheless prepared to accept the comrades' directive to resist the authorities, and, as they had done many times in the past, they refused to move. The government's Khayelitsha option, however, depended o n the voluntary demolition of the entire squatter complex, and the witdoekL, determined to accept this o p tion , began to wage major attacks on the comrades. Under Ngxobongwana's command, they eventually, amid st bloody fighting, burned the whole complex down.

"And yes," says Jen, "yes, they were involved, those botre." She almost spits this last word out, which is the South African slang for 'police.' According to The New journaVOc1ober 17 1986 5

the present State of Emergency in South Africa, police and army activities in the townships are not allowed to be reported, but many of the relief workers tell me that they too observed the military offering direct assistance to N gxobongwana and his troops. This makes sense: both the authorities and the witdoeke desired the demolition of Crossroads and the defeat of the comrades. And besides, the military has apparently been keeping such a tight watch over the township areas that the witdoeke would never have been able to achieve such widespread destruction without the approval, either tacit or open, of the authorities.

Aod so, under a cloud of smoke that could apparently be seen from all over Cape Town, the witdoeke moved out to Khayelitsha, while the main body of the destroyed camps disappeared into the surrounding townships. Under the leadership of the comrades, these homeless people formed themselves into ad hoc refugee communities in backyards, in church halls , in co mmunity centres like Elukhariyisweni. There are now estimated to be, the relief workers tell me,nearly 2000 of them in Nyanga and Guguletu.

"Now you know more;' says jen, "now you know the facts, ni? ," but her eyes still burning red into my face tell me that these facts do not matter here in the townships, here in the refugee centres. Jen is not an anything or an anything- she is a woman who wants her freedom, her basic rights. "Come," she says to me, "get out of the van now.

Come and see."

The Centre is a room the size of a small school hall, littered with blankets and gas burners. There is noise and 6 The New Journal/October 17, 1986

activity, a mother suckling her child, a radio blaring reggae . Rasta, the comrade in charge of the community, is supervising the unpacking of food in the small ante-room. In a corner, a list of detainees, published that morning, has been tacked onto a noticeboard, and a half-dozen or so people mill around it. "They are looking for the names of their brothers," says Jen, "and their sons and their daughters." (I bad studied the same list earlier, and to my horror had found the names of three of my former classmates: the list of detainees is one of the only documents in South Africa that is colour-blind.)

The 200 or so refugees have to sleep in shifts, Jen tells me. Now, in the mid-morning, seemingly oblivious to

the activity around them, the old ones and the children are asleep. They will have to relinquish their spaces when the workers come back from Cape Town. And then, according to Jen, those who do not or cannot work during the day will spend the rainy winter night huddled around a gasburner in the tiny ante-room. If the night is fine, some might go into the yard, or walk a bit, but they prefer not to- even though there is no official curfew, the Casspirs (army riot control vehicles) are everywhere, giant buglike creatures spoiling for a fight.

The food has been unpacked at Elukhanyisweni, and it is time to move on. Jen gets into the van with us- in exchange for some additional provisions, she helps load and unload. A

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Under Ngxobongwana's command, they eventually, amidst bloody fighting, burned the whole complex down. boy from the centre joins us as well.

He enjoys the prestige and the diversion of driving around in the SHAWCO van, and is very friendly.

"Howzit, my Comrade?" he says to me as he climbs in, giving me the liberation handshake. He is not at school: · "Liberation Now, Education Later," he says, although he can hardly apeak English. He smiles, pointing to his forehead. There he has pasted a sticker, like those we collected as kids, of the Soviet flag. He is 14 years old, I think. When I was his age I was not aJlowed to the corner store without my mother's permission, and this boy is fighting a revolution!

It is this more than anything else that strikes me as we do the rounds of the refugee centres: the foot-soldiers of this revolution are children. It becomes very clear that the conflict between 'wildoelcl and 'comrades,' between vigilantes and revolutionaries , is generational. Despite the occasional Presence of an old man or woman, almost all the people in the refugee centres are under 35.

We zigzag across the townships from one centre to another, from the Old Apostolic Church where the pews have been rearranged into makeshift beds, to the Presbyterian Church where five h';'ndred people are living in a hall rich With the stench of urine and body ~r, to the Nyanga Arts Centre, Whtch is completely surrounded by Caaspirs supervising the restoration of electrical wires torn down in the fighting.

A~ we approach , a military se~ceman, a young white South African doing his compulsory two Yean, jumps out of one of these CU'Inoured vehicles and walks over to us, his gun slapping against his thigh.

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"Oh, shit," someone inside the van says, and I realize, for the first time that day, that I have more to fear from these Casspirs and their operators (who are my classmates, my contemporaries- I could be one of them) than from any black comrade.

The serviceman, visibly trembling beneath the bravado of his twentyyear-old saunter, peers into the van and waves us on. I try to imagine what it must be like to spend two whole years observing the townships from a porthole of one of the Casspirs, being ordered to fire at fleeing people at any given moment. This is a real fear for me: if I ever want to return to live in my country, I too will have to do these two years.

And then I put myself on the other side. I try to imagine what it must be like to spend a whole life observed by these metal creatures, these death machines. Jen teaches a drawing class at Elukhanyisweni, and she tells me that the art of· her students, four-yearolds, five-year-olds, is dominated by the Casspirs.

I try to imagine as well what it must be like to live in one of these refugee centres, with no privacy, with the constant threat of confrontation and violence. I attempt to find out how the communities have organized themselves, but both Jen and the relief workers are disconcertingly vague: all I learn is that corruption is rife, that hoarding of provisions and in-fi~rhting are day-to-day occurrences. Only last night, J en says, a fight broke out between two comrades in one of the centres, resulting in a fatal stabbing. I look at the Casspirs, at the refugees, and once again I say to myself- this is my country, my people.

The last centre we visit is a private

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home in Nyanga belonging to a corner of the kitchen. One of them woman named Ma Benga. She does , salutes me as a comrade, but apart not actually house refugees, I am told, from that there is only the sound of but collects food from SHAWCO and sacks being passed, of shoes across the distributes it to people squatting in the linoleum. I get the feeling that any backyards of the neighbourhood. She verbal communication would destroy has also all but given up her home to this fragile fraternity, this queer the comrades, who use it as one of their coalition of young black revoluheadquarters. tionaries and young white relief It is now dusk, and walking into the workers from .Cape Town. dark livingroom, I sense, even before I Look at us, I think- we are the same can see anything, an atmosphere that age, we have the same nationality, the is very male, very aggressive. At frrst I same aspirations even, and we cannot am terrified, conditioned by the image even find a common language. A hand of the comrades presented by the white brushes mine as I am passed a sack of media. These are the ones, I think as I mielinneal, and1 quiver at this contact. enter, who conduct the horrifying I think of a performance which I saw 'necklacings,' who force people to eat a few days ago called Abamanyani, washing-powder and drink paraffin which is the Xhosa word for "coming bought at white-owned stores. It takes together to create." Performed by a a bizarre combination of sheer terror group of black and white dancers, it and almost voyeuristic curiosity to was an ear-splitting, drum-beating prevent me from rushing back out to fusion of modern jazz, township jive the safety of the van. and traditional rhythm. I was left, As my eyes accustom themselves to however, feeling unexpectedl y the light, however, as the eyes of the empty- the tune that ran through the men attach themselves to faces, to piece, "Abamanyani, Come Together, bodies, I experience a strange sense of People of Afrika ," seemed so elation. I look around me. Along the meaningless, so hopeless and naively sides of the room, sitting on benches, optimtstlc to me, a white South are a dozen or so young men, my age, African chained by my race and my in their early twenties. Almost all of background to the plushly upholstered them have rasta dreadlocks and some seating of the Baxter Concert Hall. are wounded: bandaged eyes, And now I quiver when a comrade's bandaged arms. , hand, a black hand, accidentally One of them claps his hands, and touches mine. Abamanyani, Come they are all standing up, moving in a Together, People dj Afrika, I start to hum, line out to the van, carrying bags of softly, feeling my heart beating food into the house. I become part of a throughout my body, Abamanyani, Come Together, People of Afrika, and I silent chain that brings the provisions into the house and stacks them in a notice that someone else, behind me,

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All that has been salvaged from a burning shanty will end up, eventually, in a heap in the corner of one of the refugee centers. behind a bag of potatoes or a can of The van is about to leave Ma paraffin, is humming too, Abamanyani, Benga's . The relief workers, Corru Together, People of Afrika. I look accompanied by the kid with the up, startled. There is a man, smiling, hammer and sickle on his forehead, hts face dark and muscular. climb back in, and as the van drives ofT "You have seen it, this Abamanyani? ," along the gravel road, I see, through he asks. the mud-stained window, the "Yes," I reply, failing to avoid eyecomrade. He is looking directly at me, contact. and he has his fist raised in a Black "It is very good, n;?," he continues, Power salute. Is he mocking me? Jen laughing now. "My brother was in it." lights a cigarette and laughs, a deep I want to laugh too, I want to talk, throaty sound, and the fine , taut skin ~k questions, what did you think of around her mouth wrinkles for the first tt., what's your name?, which one was time. your brother?, where did you see it?, • but suddenly there is a searing urge at the ~ack of my throat, my hands are shaking, and I break the chain to rush Mark Gevisser is a senior in Saybrook. outside and light a cigarette. © 1986 Mark Gevisser

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•

Rick Wolff, the Green's mayoral candidate, turned his education against his alma mater.

Challenge From the Left James Bennet "The city's disintegrating and what arc we doing? We're remodeling buildings on Chapel Street, San Francisco-style!" The booming voice drops, becomes savagely mocking. "How charming. Really, aesthetically they're quite pleasing," the eyes widen, the voice climbs, "but they're absurd! In this city, with its needs and its problems and its collapse! It's absolute craziness!" The voice moderates. "The Green Party, in a nutshell, is devoted to saying all this. The Green Party is a little like that fairy tale of the emperor's new clothes. We're that little kid who says"- the hands, clasped, fo rm a megaphone, the voice climbs to falsetto-•It's not new clothes! He's 10 The New Joumal/October I 7, I 986

na-a-a-ked!" The voice regains its angry edge. "And we have the same problem the child does. Everyone wants to shush us up, you know? 'Shhh,"'- a mocking whisper emerges from behind one waggling finger-"Don't do that!

Don't do that!" Abruptly, the burly man leans back in his chair, crosses his legs, drops his hands in his lap, and grins. "It's hysterical."

Since the days when Yale professors warned him to stop protesting the Vietnam War, no one has been able to muzzle Rick Wolff. Last year, as a mayoral candidate in New Haven, he emerged as the most prominent and controversia l member of the Green Party . Though only five months old

and with a budget of only $15,000, the Greens fielded eight aldermanic candidates as well as contenders for both Mayor and City/Town Clerk in the November elections . Two of the aldermanic candidates won more than 25% of the vote in their wards, and Wolff garnered 10°/o city-wide, beating the Republican candidate in 11 of the 30 wards. Though Democratic officials credit the Greens with raising the issues that shaped last year's campaign, they regard the Green Party as a fringe group with little hope of achieving their idealistic vision for New Haven. Greens claim that within five years they will be a major contender in New Haven politics,

drawing support from residents dissatisfi ed with entrenched, complacent Democrats.

Wolff received both his academic and his political education in New Haven. As a Yale graduate student in the late sixties, he earned masters degrees in economics and history, and a doctorate in economics. His deep involvement in the Yale-New Haven Committee against the War radicalized his politics and introduced him to the New Haven community.

Though he has commuted to teach since his graduation in 1969- first at City College in New York, and since 1973 , at the University of Massachussetts at Amherst- he has made his home here. Living in New Haven sensitized Wolff to municipal issues. As a homeowner, he was angered by the city's property tax rates, now the highest in Connecticut.

As a father, he was appalled by the deterioration of New Haven's public schools.

Contemplating the city's economic woes led Wolff to his obsession: "The absurd phenomenon that the seventh poorest city in the United States subsidizes the second or third richest university in the world became the galling summary of what was wrong with New Haven." Though he worked on Democratic campaigns in the 1970s, Wolff became convinced that the Democrats would never confront what he perceives to be the city's basic problems, because of their two "articles of faith": never oppose Yale's wishes, and never question the Mayor's plan for downtown revitalization.

Wolff was not alone in his frustration . For years disaffected ~mocrats had discussed forming a '"â&#x20AC;˘rd party in New Haven, but nothing had jelled. In the spring of 1985, Wolff and several other progressives proposed the idea of c r eating an alternative party to residents they thought might be interested. By June, feeling they had enough support to try their idea on the general public, they called a convention to lay the foundations for the Green Party.

Among the more than 100 people who attended that first convention was

Morrison did not support the strike, and McKivigan concluded that the "outsider" had joined the Democratic mainstream.

that the platform a ttempts to adapt the environmental, a nti - nuclear philosophy of the West German Greens to t he realities of New Haven.

It outlines each problem the Greens have identified and proposes remedies.

Proposals include making city officials more accessible and accountable to the public, 'municipalizing' the United Illuminating Company, and eliminating all nuclear and military Jack McKivigan, Associate Editor of research a nd production in New the Douglass Papers and a lecturer in H aven. Though a t times the platform the History and Afro-American seems to stray from reality- for Studies departments at Yale. He had example, calling for the community to read an announcement adopt a 'holistic lifestyle' that will turn for the meeting in the New Haven New H aven into an 'ecotopia'- the Advocate a nd decided to investigate. platform nevertheless testifies to the Not expecting to find much support, Greens' organization and followhe was impressed by the large showing through. Indeed, the ¡Greens have and by the open, flexible nature of the produced a comprehensive statement convention. "I could see that this party of principles and proposals before any was going to be what the people other New Haven party.

The Greens also split with the wanted to make it," he remembered.

After arriving at Yale in 1979, Democrats over political tactics. To McKivigan, too, worked to elect maintain grass-roots spontaneity, they Democrats. He volunteered for Bruce try to avoid establishing titles and a Morrison's first congressio nal concomitant party hierarchy and to campaign in 1982 against an prevent any one personality from incumbent Democrat. H e considered dominating the organization. To Morrison an outsider, a challenger to simplify abstruse issues and increase the 'Democratic machine.' But when popular interest, the Greens Local 34 struck Yale he began to see established a theatre group to perform New Haven politics from a new skits at town meetings and other perspective. Morrison did not support events. According to Jeri Baker, the the strike, and McKivigan concluded party's Acting Chairperson, "We try to that the 'outsider' had joined the make this as fun as possible for people, Democratic mainstream. Seeing "four because we feel that a major reason horsemen arriving from the New we're in such a state is that politics is Haven police force every morning to calculatedly boring."

Armed with this strategy, a lucid intimidate strikers," convinced him that the municipal government backed platform, and enormous enthusiasm, the Yale administration against the the Greens embarked on their strikers. Like Wolff, McKivigan campaign publicly hoping for one turned to the Greens as an alternative percent of the vote and privately expecting between two and four to the Democratic Party.

Though McKivigan, in contrast to percent. They were astonished by the the volcanic Wolff, spoke slowly, election results, and attribute them to drawing each word out as he groped their success in raising three issues that for the next, he evinced the same they say k~pt the incumbent striking intensity of commitment as he Democrat, Mayor Biagio DiLieto, on discussed the Green Party's vision for the defensive throughout the New Haven . The Green Party's campaign: the means by which New 14-page platform, which outlines that Haven should dispose of its solid vision, bears on its title page the motto: waste ; the Democrats' development "THINK GLOBALLY ACT plan; and Yale's financial contribution LOCALLY." McKivigan explained to New Haven.

The New JournaVOctobcr 17, 1986 J I

Jack McKivigan in his office at 1 Hillhouse.

For many years, Yale has resisted pressure from the community to make some sort of a contribution- a tax payment or a payment in lieu of taxes, such as Harvard makes to Cambridge.

Yale maintains that it is both unlawful and unprincipled to expect money from a tax-exempt, not-for-profit institution. According to Joni Barnett o f the Yale Office of Community R elations, "Yale University thinks that its endowment, which it got over a period of 280 years from alumni should be used for its educational purpose- to admit students regardless of their need." The Democratic administration, like the Greens, feel s that Yale should pay, but insists there is no legal way to force a payment.

J oe Carbone, Executive Assistant to the Mayor since 1980, accuses the Green Party of "sheer demagoguery."

He thinks Green Party members deliberatel y deceive voters by distributing flyers proclaiming, "Vote Green, Tax Yale!" He explained that a city governm ent does not have the power to remove a tax exemption.

Furthermore, the state legislature woul<Lnever consider empowering the city to tax one exempt institution while 12 The New JournaVOctober 17 , 1986

leaving other tax-exempts- churches, schools, social service organ izations- untouched. A payment in lieu of taxes also cannot be legislated, and the university has for years refused to negotiate one. Carbone pointed to contributions Yale makes to New Haven. Despite its vast amount of taxexempt property, Yale is New H aven's fifth largest taxpayer. It is also New H aven's largest employer and attracts affluent students who spend money in local shops and restaurants . In addition to generating revenue for the c ity, Yale contributes to New Haven's cultural life through _its museums. But, Carbone is quick to add, "None of that is adequate ." The Mayor plans to encourage Yale to invest more in local development projects.

Wolff, who has studied the University's annual financial report every year for ten years, argues that New H aven, in effect, financially supports Yale, while Yale serves a national constituency. Though Yale pays to support the city sewage treatment plant, it contributes nothing to the fire department that responds to between 200 and 300 alarms at Yale buildings each year or to the public

school system that educates its labor force. The state government partially compensates New Haven for the revenue it cannot raise from taxexempt institutions. Greens say that Yale, not the city or state, should pay for the services it uses. McKivigai}, the party's Press Secretary, sent a letter this fall to Yale President Benno Schmidt proposing that Yale negotiate a financial settlement with New Haven. He was not optimistic about the letter's impact. Last year he sent the same proposal to Bart Giamatti, who never responded .

If Yale administrators won't negotiate a payment, then the Greens plan to force it out of them. Wolff calls the Democrats 'gutless wonders' for claiming that the city government can do nothing to tax Yale, and he proposes two possible methods. One option would be for the city to pressure the state legislature to restrict Yale's tax exemption. And why hasn't this tactic been tried? "It has to do with Yale's influence, and its determination not to pay," Wolff said: In addition, the city could take action without appealing to the state. By enforcing existing tax laws, it could make Yale pay taxes on

its operations that compete with local businesses. He cites the Yale Golf Course and Computer Center as properties that can be taxed because they serve people outside the University.

An independent group that examined New Haven's tax system reached similar conclusions. In 1982 the Board of Aldermen appointed a New Haven Revenue Commission to explore means by which the city could generate more revenue. Wolff served on the commission. Among other evidence , the group examined a lengthy statement from Yale detailing ill financial relationship to New Haven. In February, 1985, the Commission delivered its final report, which advised the Board of Aldermen to lobby the state legislature to reform laws governing tax exemptions as well as to enact new laws allowing cities to charge tax-exempt institutions for municipal services.

It also recommended that existing tax laws be better enforced, making specific note ofthe Yale Golf Course and Computer Center. The Board of Aldermen, however, re~cted the report.

Eventually, says Wolff, Yale will pay. "We will one day see a meeting of Mr. DiLieto, if he's still the Mayor, and Mr . Schmidt, or whoever succeeds him, and they'll have a big celebration on the Green. And with gr"eat fanfare the head of Yale will hand a check over for one million bucks . . . We'll force that out of them.

That of course will not be adequate and we'll scream about it. But that's what's coming. Yale knows it, too.

They're just gonna wait as long as they

can."

The Greens' crusade does not focus 10lely on taxing Yale. They also attack the Mayor's city development plans.

By encouraging developers to remake New Haven, DiLieto hopes to attract ~ businesses that will provide the City with new jobs and revenue. In order to draw developers to New Haven, the city invested in the ~eUing of the Shubert Theatre as ~display of confidence in its future. &qe Shubert also attracts affiuent

patrons who frequent restaurants and shops downtown, bringing money into the city. But the city continues to pay over one million dollars a year to keep the Shubert running.

The Greens think that the Mayor's priorities are backwards. "We don't have a decent library system for residents," McKivigan said, "bu! we'll subsidize someone from Woodbridge seeing 'Biloxi Blues.'" Wolff argues that remodelling the Shubert marks the latest misconceived attempt by Democrats to replace the city's eroding industrial base with a service economy.

He said that this economic policy, now over 20 years old, has succeeded only in pushing 20,000 people out of the city and in saddling New Haven with a host of economic and social problems.

"This is absurd," Wolff said. "Any policy ought to be tried except the one that has failed so completely." The Greens' plan for city development focuses on improving the neighborhoods. They want to spend money immediately to develop low¡ income housing, to improve the parks, a nd to upgrade the public education system.

While the Greens have not coaxed the New Haven government to alter its policies on city development or Yale's tax status, they have succeeded on one front: garbage disposal. Every year New Haven dumps about 115,000 tons of solid waste in a landfill, now almost full. In August, 1985, the city developed a plan to build a trash incinerator in Fair H aven in order to reduce the city's solid waste to ash.

Investigating this method of waste disposal, the Green Party and a Fair Haven-based group, Don't Dump on Us, discovered that many scientists question its safety. These scientists claim that the burning process releases dioxin and other noxious compounds into the air. Furthermore, certain materials, such as batteries, contain heary metals which do not burn; when added to a landfill, these metals seep into the groundwater, contaminating it. During the campaign, the Greens demanded that the incinerator not be built and that a task force be elected by

~

At a town meeting, Greens protest the city's plans for burning trash

the public to investigate the issue. One week after the election, the Mayor scrapped the plan, announcing he would appoint a task force to investigate.

On September 29, the task force presented its final report at a town meeting. The report recommends that New Haven initiate recycling and composting programs to account for 20 percent of the waste stream within four years, and 'significantly more' after ten years. The remainder of the solid waste must be burned, a process which the report maintains will not be dangerous if carefully managed.

Carbone said that city officials have been negotiating to build the incinerator away from New Haven in one of two towns, Stratford or Shelton.

The Greens, however, reject any plan involving incineration. They support an alternative strategy, formulated by Don't Dump on Us, which calls for more aggressive recycling to reduce the waste stream by 70 percent- the same reduction accomplished by burning.

Greens went to the town meeting prepared to counter the task force's report. Town meetings can last longer than five hours, and after 30 minutes The New Journal/October 17, 1986 13

this one was already dragging as two Greens approached the stand to present a skit. One of the men identified his partner, wearing a white coat, as a distinguished scientist "known for his experiments with rats, mice and small children." Then the 'scientist,' almost shouting into the microphone, outlined his experiment to determine the toxicity of dioxin. As he spoke, his assistant passed out sealed test tubes containing a blue liquid to members of the task force . The scientist directed them to drink the contents. "Please keep careful track of the symptoms over the next 48 hours. rm especially curious to know if the dose proves fatal." The assistant added that if the incinerator is built, many New Haven residents will also have the opportunity to participate in the experiment. As the crowd laughed and applauded, members of the task force exchanged angry glances and nervous grins.

The skit awakened the audience and raised an important issue. But watching it, one had to wonder: for whom were they performing? The audience, composed mostly of Green Party or Don't Dump on Us members, already understood the issue and had taken a position. Where were the uninformed, uninvolved, disaffected residents that the Green Party is counting on for support? Indeed, some doubt that a group of white, educated men and women, mostly over 35 years old, can appeal to New Haven's voters with a radical and idealistic vision that often strays from bread-and-butter issues.

The Greens point to other obstacles.

At the moment, they say, the deck is stacked against them. Decades of patronage by Democratic administrations have tied whole blocb of voters to the Democratic Party.

Furthermore, New Haven residents tend to base their votes on a family tradition of party affuiation rather than on a careful consideration of the issues.

As a consequence, the Democrats have a lock on New Haven politics. There¡ has not been a Republican mayor in 33 years, and the Board of Aldermen has had a Democratic majority for even 14 The New Journal/October 17, 1986

longer. At present, only two of 30 aldermen are Republicans.

To overcome these obstacles the Green Party seeks to teach New Haven voters that they have options and that it pays to weigh different political strategies. They believe that a.s they reach more and more voters with their information, the party will receive greater support. Last year, for example, the Greens did not fare well in predominantly black wards. Their explanation for this is that they did not run candidates in those wards and hence did not get their message across ' to those voters.

Joe Carbone, however, remains calm. He feels that the Democrats have nothing to fear from the Green Party, which he regards as a "flim-flam Joel Schechter , an Associate operation." Their success in last Professor at the Drama School, is November's elections he attributes to running as a Green for the state the oppos1t1on vote which any legislature this fall. incumbent faces. The Greens, he says, enjoy a comfortable position in New Haven. Because they are not likely to gain control of the city government, would have five more progressives they can remain outside, as critics, voting with him on the Board today. without being accountable for their But as outsiders, they have no impact. policies. But even as critics the Greens "While they're stomping around and will never carry much influence. "I putting up a lot of posters and making think the Democratic Party will noise, I'm passing laws. While tltey're continue to dominate New Haven screaming, rm voting to change the politics for at least the remainder of city , and I'd love to have them ~oting our generation," Carbone said. with me." Dunleavy's traditional Progressive Democrats, though approach to politics, based on closer philosophically to the Greens, coalitions and compromises, has its share Carbone's confidence. Martin price: despite his doubts, he has voted Dunleavy, majority leader of the New for every component of the Mayor's Haven Board of Aldermen, agrees development package. That is a price with the Greens on major issues. He is no Green is willing to pay.

This fall, the Green Party had suspicious of the Mayor's development plan, and, unlike other Democratic planned to run five candidates for the aldermen, can back his lip-service to state legislature, because they feel that the issue of Yale's fmancial obligation some of their municipal policies- such to New Haven with specific proposals. as taxing Yale- would benefit from But he is a man who sees no salvation pressure at the state level. But because outside the party, and hence no hope they failed to examine the rules for for New Haven's Greens. According to registering new candidates, four of Dunleavy, by working as a third party their would-be politicans submitted the Greens hamper efforts to move the their petitions too late to be placed on Democrats to a progres5ive stance. "To the ballot. Joel Schecter, an Associate say that they're radicalizing New Professor at the Yale Drama School, Haven politics is hogwash," Dunleavy did register in time. H e is running in said. He estimates that had certain the 95th district. If elected, he plans to Greens chosen to run as Democrats, he work to phase out nuclear power in the

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state, reform New Raven's public education system, and create more affordable housing through rent control.

Schecter has little chance of winning. Indeed, · the conventional political wisdom in New Haven suggests that the Greens are unlikely to gain a significant number of municipal posts in the near future. But Democrats, at least publicly, write the Greens off too easily. Last fall, though they had a tiny budget and little time to organize, the Greens forced the Democrats to respond on a number of politically sensitive issues. If the 1985 campaign is a fair indicator, then the Democrats in the future may have to move to the left politically to protect their constituency from Green Party encroachments. The Greens, then, find themselves in an ironic position.

Because they felt stifled within the Democratic Party·~ they fonned a new party with a more progressive stance.

That new party, however, is likely to affect New Haven principally through its influence on the Democrats. The Greens may stimulate the Democratic party, make it more open to change and possibly shift its stances on significant issues, such as increasing development in the neighborhoods.

Though the Greens are unlikely to be in a position soon to run the show themselves, they will certainly continue to make New Haven politics livelier, and more democratic. And they will certainly continue to have fun doing it.

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Ready to Listen I '

Jen Sachs When the Yale Student-to-Student Counseling Service moved out of the University Health Services (UHS) bupding on Hillhouse Avenue in 1980, its· twenty or so members felt relieved.

Their new headquarters, tucked in the basement of Bingham on Old Campus, may have looked small and the carpet frayed, but it was what they had always wanted-a place to call their own, far from Mental Hygiene with its waiting lists and white-coated professionals.

Their new office seemed to be an accessible place where other students, graduate or undergraduate, could go to discuss their problems informally with people of their own age. They ·moved into their new room , set up the couch and chairs, and put up posters to hide the dingy walls. But day after day, year after year, hardly anyone has come.

The counselors remain there: different faces, of course, but still waiting. Since the move, they renamed their program Walden Student-toStudent Counseling but kept its focus very much the same. Although Walden operates five nights a week, Sunday through Thursday, from nine p.m. until midnight, and last year provided a late-night telephone hotline, most undergraduates .still do not realize that it exists; only 55 people visited Walden last year. Under 16 The New Journai/O c lober I 7 , 1986

enthusiastic leadership, the counselors have made a commitment to reach a wider segment of the Yale population.

To do so, they must combat years of obscurity and bureaucratic disorder; they also must face charges that they have inadequate training and worse, that their service is superfluous on campus.

More than anything else, Walden suffers from a lack of continuity. No original charter or statement of intent exists; none of the current counselors knows of any records or documents, and even the names of the original counselors seem to have been consigned to oblivion. The exact year in which those first counselors founded Walden is murky too- maybe eight or ten or even eleven years ago, depending on which counselor you ask. Dr. Robert Arnstein, Chief Psychiatrist at University Health Services and a long-time Walden supporter, remembers that the group's tenancy at UHS was "the best solution that could be worked out at the time.

They were glad to move out- they wanted to be separate from the Health Services, because they felt that there were people who wouldn't want to go to the Health Services who might want to go to them." Aside from Arnstein's recollections, no one seems to know anything about the early counselors

except that their conviction of the importance of peer counseling sustaineq them year after year.

According to Laura Trogolo, TC '87, the counselors still start from scratch.

"We have no records from before. I think that in itself says something important," saidjames Gross, CC '87, the Walden Coordinator. "The problem is the same as with any student group- people come in:for two years and then go."

Gross and Trogolo, along with the other counselors, realized that without a structure Walden would be doomed to repeat its mistakes. Last summer they created a set of bylaws, which explicate Walden's goals and its methods. The purpose of the group, as stated in these bylaws, is "to promote the psychological well-being of the Yale community . . . to increase awareness and understanding of mental health issues." The bylaws standardize the rules and procedures which Walden follows, specifying the number of counselors, the specific allocation of some of these to different aspects of the organization, · and the creation of leadership coordinating positions; the bylaws also require that each coordinator submit a written evaluation of the program at year's end.

Because of sporadic and inadequate publicity, low visibility perennially plagues Walden. The lack of a public image prompted earlier counselors to affix the name Walden, with its connotations of Thoreau-esque peace anrl stability, and to circulate posters and table tents bearing a Garry Trudeau cartoon, with the hope of evoking a recognition of the program a nd its services. Nonetheless, publicity has remained ineffective. According to Publicity Coordinator Bill Connors, MC '88, the distribution of table tents and posters has never been scheduled or monitored. Students who might benefit from Walden's services are often unaware of the organization, rnuch less its location and hours.

"What's important in this is the student's perception of Walden counseling, and I don't think there is one," said Gross. One of the counselors admitted that as a freshman, "I didn't know Walden existed, and I lived in Bingham."

Taking a different tack, counselors last spring created Walden Outreach, a program sponsoring talks and forums an the colleges. Last year, counselors ran Outreach m addition to their other duties, but this fall three to five people rnake the new service their sole Priority. Their planned talks include

During the three years that Laura T r ogolo, TC '87, h as been a W alde n counselor, she has seen t h e program evolve from ch aos to cohesion. rap sessions on "Being a Southerner at Even if Outreach succeeds in Yale" and "Getting Along with Your bringing new recognition to Walden, Roommate"; last year these discussions students must finally decide for attracted more people than the total themselves whether or not they want number who carne to the Bingham peer counseling. Trogolo believes that office. Outreach also plans biweekly they do. "Most of the 'counseling' that table tents that its coordinator Liz goes on at Yale is informal, in rooms, Herzkovits, DC '87, hopes will between friends," she said. "A lot of provoke conversation at the dinner problems are better addressed by a table, including "Safe Sex- Why it peer." Despite her contention, over Matters, Even if You're Straight." 1100 Yale students each year, graduate Herzkovits readily conceded that while and undergraduate, seek out profesthe Outreach program is designed to sio~al r~ther than peer counselins at encourage the informal sharing of Umverstty Health Services. Of this thoughts and feelings within the number, only about half actually community, she hopes it will also foster an awareness of Walden in general and receive help following the one familiarize students with their services. screening session. The other 500 go "It will increase one-on-one home or go elsewhere- to freshman counseling. When you've been to one counselors, Dean's offices, or the of our forums, all of a sudden Walden clergy- but historically, they have not has a face," Herzkovits said. gone to Walden.

The New Journal/October 17, 1986 17

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To account for their low turnout, many Walden counselors blame a Yale atmosphere which , they claim, is not conducive to an open discussion of problems. "There are many people who are afraid to admit that they hurt," •Trogolo said. "They'll go through four years with this amazing facade that everything's fine." Several counselors speculated that some of the overflow of Mental Hygiene patients could be channeled effectively, at least temporarily, into programs like theirs, but that UHS would not comply. "I get the feeling that UHS does not regard peer counseling as an effective method," Trogolo said.

In fact , whether or not they grant them continuing care , UHS doesn't refer any patients to Walden. Dr. Arnstein empQ_a~ized that m3:0_y of his patients at UHS believed they had already exhausted all options except for professional help. It would be more likely for Walden counselors to_-refer people to UHS than for Mental Hygiene personnel to send clients to Walden; nonetheless, the secretary at Mental Hygiene does keep a stack of Walden brochures on her desk .

Trogolo admitted that some justifi· cation did exist for the reluctance of the professionals at UHS to make such referrals. "There's a danger in them referring people to us. We are not professionals," she said.

Walden counselors receive extensive, though non-medical , trainin g. Counselors undergo one weekend-long session at an ofT-campus retreat and then attend a series of talks and lectures, approximately every two weeks throughout the year. In the past, Dr. Lorna Sarrel, the coordinator of "Top ics in Human Sexuality," Barbara Moynihan of the New Haven Rape Crisis Center, and other experts have lectured on issues such as sexual

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assault, eating disorders, and tension.

Role-playing is an additional, integral part of counselor training. "They bring out a lot of questions- the ability to be in a situation rather than think abstractly about it. To work out what works and what doesn't," Trogolo said.

Most importantly, the training is designed to encourage active, nonjudgmental listening. The "training bible" of the Walden counselors, Peer Counseling, written by psychologists Peter Salovey and Vincent D'Andrea, defines the function of this type of listening as "not to solve people's problems for them but rather to assist them in finding their own solutions.

Peer counselors don't tell people what they 'should' do . . . " (p.3). While the book advocates both the role playing and the expert talks, it recommends training sessions of longer duration than Walden counselors receive: two 10-week sessions of about four hours per week.

Though the training program has been greatly expanded and structured over the past year, previous inadequacies haunt the group: they lacked a faculty adviser until their departure from UHS and, as recently as two yea.rS ago, they did not enforce attendance at training sessions.

•People didn't come," Gross admitted.

But he added that "it didn't immed-

iately follow that they were unqualified- some had been counselors the year before ." This year, the counselors coordinated the mandatory training sessio.ns more carefully with Julie Jenks, Walden's faculty adviser. A professional psychologist who received her training at Yale , Jenks directs the Counseling Center at Albertus Magnus College and runs a private practice in addition to her work at Walden. Jenks has been Walden's faculty adviser for the past five years; she serves as a liasion with UHS and draws in experts from various fields to educate the counselors.

Counselors insist that their training prepares them for any situationwhether a student fights with a roommate or contemplates suicide.

Their role-playing encompasses both ends of this spectrum, and as members of a self-termed "crisis intervention center," they do not shy away from extremely serious cases. Beth McQuaid, TD '87, said that while her training prepared her to handle anything, she would immediately refer a student to UHS if he or she appeared to be dangerously ill or unstable.

Even with this outlet, some experts doubt the ability of nonprofessionals to handle real emergencies. "Whether they would or should handle someone who was suicidal over a long time is

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something else e ntirely," Arnstein said.

He stressed that the real question becomes whether or not they want to handle that kind of responsibility.

Arnstein also mentioned the importance of confidentiality, legally ,enforced within Mental Hygiene but only encouraged within Walden.

Practically, a student cannot take any action to preserve his or her confidential status if a counselor abrogates it, althoug h any sustainable accusations of this nature would result in the automatic dismissal of the counselor involved.

The issues of both adequate training and confiden tiality have recently been raised by critics of Walden. One Yale junior, who asked not to be identified, cited several cases of unprofessional conduct. Two years ago, two of his close friends visited Walden with problems. Both of them later told this student, who had experience in counseling, that their counselor~ had advocated concrete advice. The student said that his friends felt that Walden counselors dictated solutions to them, though Salovey's philosophy clearly discourages this technique.

Consequently, both discontinued their counseling. He also said th~t a Walden counselor, in a friendly conversation, told him not only the specific details of a case but also the name of the student undergoing counseling.

Current counselors deny any knowledge of past improprieties, but they continue to stress confidentiality.

In fact, they will not reveal general types of cases or discuss statistics or any information related to specific clients. "If anything, we're too tight lipped," said Connors.

Walden counselors keep their own concerns under equally tight wrap.

Frustration does not seem to be a part of the Walden vocabulary, despite long

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Telephoner 436-7578 definitely keeps you going. There's nothing like the feeling that you've helped," McQuaid said. Gross a g r e e d . , - - - - - - - - : : : : : : ; : - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - = - - - - - - , "We feel that the service is justified even if no rme comes, just because it's being offered," he said. "I think there's a lot of room for hope, though, and certainly for assuming there's a niche for us here ."

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In Poland, Andzrej Slominski ran underground printing presses t h at kept workers informed of strike action.

Leaving Solidarity Behind As Andrzej Slominski opens the door to his apartment, two cats jump otT the sofa. Passing through his living room with its television, framed posters, and crucifix, he walks into his kitchen to pour a Coke and some tonic water.

A baby carriage sits in a corner of his study, and a dartboard hangs against the wall. "A good way to let out your frustrations," he says, as he tosses a dart right next to the hull's eye.

As a leading student activist a nd a founder of the Solidarity movement in Poland, Slominski has faced many frustrations. In December of 1984 he left Poland to come to the United States. Now a scientist at the Yale-New Haven Medical School, he works in Dr. John Pawelek's lab m the Dermatology Department. For the 22 The New J ou rnal/October 17, 1986

past year and a half, Slominski has made New Haven his home, and for the moment he intends to stay.

In his living room Andrzej Slominski leans against his sofa and begins to recount his experiences. R elaxed , wearing a 'Solidarity' T-shirt and blue jeans, he occasionally pauses to find an appropriate word in his English-Polish dictionary, or to e mphasize an important fact. As his forehead wrinkles and his red mustache moves up and down , he relates through words and gestures his experiences while he was a medical student at the University of Gdansk.

His story begins in 1976, when the Polish government once again raised the price of food . Workers, already

feeling the effects of an a iling economy, were not about to let such an increase occur without some visible show of frustration. Their an~er led to the development of a two-day strike in which many laborers lost their jobs or were sent to jail. In response to the needs of the workers for legal aid, money and an alternative information source, a group of intellectuals in Warsaw developed a committee to defend the laborers. In Gdansk a similar group was organized and Andrzej S lominski was one o f the founders. "Small groups of students were formed to help these people get information about the workers," he says. "I was involved in Gdansk."

Slominski's hands begin to shape the crux of the workers' problem before his

words express his idea. "The key of the system is the control of the information," he says. "You cannot check if a fact is true or not true. The strike action was big but nobody knew about this."

Alongside 15 other people, he helPed develop and deliver pamphlets on the plight of the workers. This experience in underground printing proved invaluable, because by 1977 he and 39 other students had created the Students' Committee for Solidarity.

Consciously jeopardizing his position at the University, Slominski accepted the risk of organizing underground activities. "I was afraid," he says, "but if something around you is going wrong and y,ou see the injustice, and you don't react to the injustice, you help create the injustice. If just nobody will do this then the situation will remain the same." To the situation Slominski underground printing began to inform existence of a movement.

During the next number of people · student organizations gan increase. At the same time a parallel movement of workers emerged and underground trade unions began to gain larger memberships. Recognizing the necessity of unity, Slominski worked very closely with Lech Walesa, leader of the dockwork~rs' union in Gdansk, in order to collaborate on protest efforts. "I was the most involved in the cooperation with the underground trade union," he says.

•since 1979 I knew Walesa well. We made some spectacular action, peaceful non-violent manifestation.

The movement was from the beginning non-violent." Slominski folds his arms across his chest. "The government controls everything and they will crush everything and nonviolence is the only way to do it in Poland . Violence gives birth to illlother violel)ce; you will form a spiral which you cannot escape."

Instead Slominski helped organize demonstrations which condemned the

use of violence by the government.

Along with W alesa he worked on the memorial march which commemorated the deaths of a number of workers killed during a strike in 1970.

The event became a rallying point for the labor movement, and the first march occurred in 1977. That year only two to three hundred workers participated, but by 1978 the turnout was already about five hundrej:l people. "We came with flowers," Slominski remembers. "Someone gave a short talk and then five minutes of silence, and then everybody went home." J uc before they reached their houses, many people were interrogated. Nevertheless, in 1979 2,000 demonstrators commemorate the colleagues. That veiii!''Sl•n1 Walesa prom · · "Next year we to

you you thing, the people start to believe you," he says. "The most important is to pass the barrier of fear. They had the example. We were ready to pay a high price for our beliefs."

For whatever personal reason , the organizers willingly sacrificed a lot for their principles. Some involved themselves for political reasons, others for economic reasons, but Slominski and his friends were motivated by ideological and moral grounds. "I don't like to speak about politics," he says. "I don't like politics. When you are reacting against injustice everything is fme, but when you introduce politics into the situation . . . ." Unable to find the words to complete his thought, Slominski quotes a phrase a friend once said: "In politics, only the person who has his hand in his pocket is clean."

While his point sinks in, there is a momentary break in our conversation.

Slominski's red head shakes back and forth, and he frowns as he slowly explains, "When we are simplifying something, we are sacrificing something." With that warning he resumes his story.

With the creation of Solidarity, the efforts of the last seven or eight years started to bring about results. A growing opposition movement developed to lay the groundwork for massive strike action, and Gdansk proved a focus point for much of the Solidarity activity that was beginning to break during this period. Working with Walesa, Slominski helped prepare for the dockworkers' strike. When the laborers finally stopped work, Slominski was on hand to get the information of the strike activity to the rest of Poland. "During the strike I and other distributed information factory ," he says. "I : prmting places in secret tjouses. We printed pamtM strike action and then them." Because of these workers in three llatelllt<aJ,to·varclS were kept informed progression of the strike, and .,...._._,,..,o of their demands. order to distribute their pamphlets, Slominski took his material to crowded areas. He boarded buses with the journals hidden in his shirt.

Once safely on the bus he then handed information to passengers willing to read it . "Some people then pass to others on the bus," he says. "You always go to overcrowded places because you could be trapped by the police. Sometimes you could throw pamphlets in the air and people would run and get them." The man who laughed a moment ago at the recollection of how he managed to trick the police becomes grave for a second. He remembers two occasions when his precautions did not protect him. ' The first arrest occurred after the police stopped Slominski and found information in his car that was intended to go to another shipyard. He spent 48 hours in jail and was released after refusing to answer any of the questions the police posed during the The New J o urnaVOctober l 7, 1986 23

interrogation. The second time he faced much more of a risk of being locked up for a couple of years. "I was going back to the shipyard and I was arrested on the street by the secret service," he says. "They were watching people and they also arrested. my brother. It looked very serious." The timing, however, proved lucky for Slominski. It was the end of August, and Walesa was just about to sign agreements with · the government to end the strikes. But he refused to continue the talks until Slominski and other Solidarity leaders were released.

After 18 hours he and some of his colleagues went home.

Despite the success of the strikes and the promises extracted from · the government to improve wages and working hours and to allow increased human rights, Slominski did not secure permission to work in any university or as a physician in any large city. Instead, the government · forced him to find positions in small municipal hospitals. "When Solidarity got power I wanted to return to Gdansk," he says, "but the local Communist Party didn't agree to let me work there. I could only come back when the medical faction of Solidarity started to strike and the government representative agreed that we could return to the University."

Slominski has, in the space of a couple of hours, attempted to condense six years of his life. His awareness of the problems oft simplifying history causes him to pause for a few seconds.

The last part of the story is as dense as the first, and he must carefully allude to many events with far fewer words than they deserve. With a slight sigh, he begins to talk about the night before the declaration of martial law.

On the twelfth of December, 1981, Slominski went to the last meeting of the trade union in Gdansk. He arrived with information that the government planned to arrest many people and presented it to the trade leaders. "We went with this information to the meeting," he recalls. "Most of the leaders didn't believe it. I didn't go home. I told my mother to tell my 24 · The New journal/October 17, 1986

minski worked closely with Lech Wales a during the Gdansk dockworkers' strike. brother, who was in the shower, to scientific research diminished, leave the house because he would be Slominski decided to look into the arrested. We spent this night. in other possibilieies ofleaving the country for a places. The next day I woke· up and short period of time. One potential trip soldiers were on the street." For the presented itself to him in 1983. He next eight months Slominski switched received an invitation to participate in hiding places every couple of days, A conference on skin pigment in West living under a form of self-imposed Germany. He now faced the difficulty house arrest. of convincing the Polish government to Many of Slominski's friends and allow him to attend the convention. colleagues did not have his luck. The "The university wanted me to go but next day the government arrested and the Secret Service refused to give me a incarcerated thousands of Solidarity passport," he says. "The vice-president members. "The people didn't expect (of the University) wrote again in my that a state of war would be introsupport." Desp~te all these efforts, the duced," he says. "State of war with Polish· government remained steadfast whom? Yeah, it was a state of war." in its opposition to Slominski leaving Slominski looks down at his hands and the country. smiles bitterly. The result of years of Slominski vivhlly recalls his meeting effort had apparently crumbled overwith the vice-director of the passport night. "There is no situation that is office. "The director said to me, 'You completely pessimistic. And in the best didn't get, you won't get and you will of situations you should be prepared never get, because we can't defend the for the worst. If nobody stands behind enemies of socialism.' I asked him if I some idea, this idea would stop to was a member of the second clasS: He exist. We were sure that our idea was said, 'No, you're not person of second right," he says. "We were not so class, you're person of third class. A optimistic that something like person of second class could maybe get Solidarity would happen in this couple a passport to go to Bulgaria for a of years. We looked for a small change couple of weeks, but you, you cannot to give society an example. We expect anything. You will never get a expected after 20 years and maybe passport either to the West or to the even longer and maybe after another East~·· Slominski's hands come to rest generation, some democratic change on his lap. There was one way in which . . . and it happened in three years!" he could get a passport. The director However, it was not until August of informed him that they would gladly 1982 that Slominski came out of hiding let him leave Poland, but they would as the result of a general amnesty. never permit him to come back. He Aware that he would be barred from did not leave the country that year. working at any university in Poland Instead he waited, and the restrictions and from practicing medicine in the on his movements and actions big cities following the eventual continued. completion of his term at the While Slominski worked to get a University, Slominski knew he would passport to attend the conference, Dr. be forced to work in small villages. John Pawelek, the scientist who directs With the prospects of conducting the lab Slominski works in, planned to

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attend the same convention. At the meeting in West Germany, Pawelek met many Poles with whom he sounded out the possibility of visiting Poland, the country his family originally came from. He returned to the United States, very interested in this potential trip. Back in New H aven, Pawelek received a request from a man named Andrzej Slominski who wanted a position in Pawelek's lab. Assuming he had talked to Slominski in West Germany, Pawelek offered him a fellowship provided by the Lawrence Gelb Foundation and sponsored by the Clairol Company.

When Slominski found out that he had a position in Pawelek's lab, he again tried to get permission for a temporary passport to the United States. And again the Polish government would allow him to leave but not to return. "In Poland I was an example of something for some people," he says. "The government wanted me to leave because I was a bad example. I knew that my period at the University would end. For me it was a choice of spending the rest of my life as a physician in a small village."

Slominski was too committed to his scientific research to be content with such a future. "Every now and again you run across people who simply must do something. Andzrej is a natural. He won't do anything but be a scientist," Pawelek said. So Slominski made the choice to leave everything he was familiar with, to come and continue his research in the United States. After spending a short period of time in political asylum at the United States Embassy in Warsaw, he went to West Germany for three weeks. In Germany he took "a small introductory course about the USA." From there he went to New Haven.

Slominski's choice of career over family and the now underground Solidarity movement proved to be a difficult decision. But he does not regret his choice. His work in Solidarity has not been wasted, for the movement continues even though the activity is conducted in secret. "It is impossible to form big organizations.

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You should build an underground second society behind the system which exists," he says.

Slominski feels that since the period of martial law, that second society has continued to grow and develop. He points to the many underground printing presses of professional caliber that produce books, journals and pamph lets. He mentions the independent companies that make cassettes and videos with protest themes in the songs and drama. "The movemen t has the support of half the society. You cannot put millions of people in jail," he says. Lectures by as:,tivists are frequently held in churches and alternative education programs are offered on increasingly large scales.

But Slominski must view all of this activity from afar. Although he writes to h is parents and talks to his family on the phone, he knows that his letters are censored and that his conversations are bugged . On one occasion he tried to talk to his brother about the C hernobyl nuclear disaster, but he stopped because his brother's voice became too faint to hear. As soon as his brother mentioned other issues, the sound became clear.

Despite the absence of his family , Slominski has managed to make: a home for himself in New Haven.- As soon as he landed at Kennedy Airport in New York, he was met by Dr. Pawelek, his sponsor. "When we finally heard he was coming it was very exciting," said Pawelek. This excitement manifested itself in people's enthusiasm to learn about Slominski's past. He recalls colleagues in the lab frequently asking him to talk about his experiences in Poland. "People were excited but it depended when and where you are speaking," Slominski says. "In the lab I could tell them story and story and story. They could see the living example of something they were seeing on T .V." Slominski laughs as he remembers his initial difficulty relating the events h e had helped create.

To learn En glish more rapidly, Slominski watched a lot of television.

"I don't like commercials generally, but

I have watched commercials because it is the best way to learn English because it is very simple," he says. Despite his initial language problems, he soon adopted and enjoyed many aspects of Western culture. Supermarkets proved to be a particular pleasure. "You can't buy almost anything in the shops (in Poland)," he says, "and here you can have everything you want." Nevertheless, Pawelek does not feel Slominski ever became overwhelmed by the wealth of the United States. "He is not the type of person to be swayed by luxury and wealth," Pawelek said. "What he wants to have is freedom and the ability t.o think."

At least for the next couple of years, Slominski plans to continue his research at Yale. He finds New Haven a welcoming place, and he has been able to make many friends, among his colleagues and through the Polish commumty. A big: grin crosses his face as he announces'· that this year he married a woman named Elisabeth.

She is also a Polish immigrant, and the two of them live in the downstairs portion of her grandmother's house.

To complete the family, his wife is expecting a child in january. At age 32 Slominski will be not only a husband, but a father.

Relaxing on the edge of the sofa, Slominski sums up the contributions he helped give to Poland: "In 1970 in Gdansk it was 20 people and all the people were afraid. I used to feel very alienated. My friends would look at me and wonder what I was doing. Now you can find thousands of people who want to do this, and they are not afraid!" Slominski stops himself as his enthusiasm gives way to resignation.

"Now, there 1s no way I can go back."

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Books

Mirror Images Claire Messud The Lost Language of Cranes

by David Leavitt 1986 Knopf$17.95, 319 pages Sitting around at a dinner party, picking at the leftover spaghetti and salad and downing the last of the cheap red wine, somebody brings up David Leavitt (TC '83). "David Leavitt's got a new book out," · they say. Everybody starts to talk at once about the phenomenon that is David Leavitt, erstwhile Yale student, recipient of all of Yale's esteemed literary awards and, better yet, first published by · Knopf a year after graduation. "He only graduated in '83 and I hear his novel contract was for a million dollars!" If this is true, he deserves congratulations. Nobody knows the name of the novel. But someone knows someone who knows him: "I hear he lives out in the Hamptons with his boyfriend and that he hates to go into the city."

Nobody knows what the novel is about. Nobody really cares; they'll know soon enough. Sometime before the year is out everyone's got to read it; or at least, someone's got to read it.

After all, he went to Yale.

The Lost Language of Cranes, Leavitt's aew book and first novel, reads easily and quickly: at no time did I find it stilted or badly paced. Upon reflection, however, the book raises a number of questions: I find myself asking what motivates people to write works of fiction. With political, philosophical or history texts, the answer to the question "Why?" seems evident: because they have something to say, some theory to propound, some system or lack thereof to struggle with. The case of fiction, however, is not so clear: writers of fiction must feel, necessarily, that they have something to say, and that in some profound way their message is relevant to others: without this basic conviction, there is no point in writing at all. But if-as in the instance of David Leavitt-the moti~ vation is highly political, then the issue remains of "Why fiction?" Why not write a strictly polemical text? Does the author choose to write fiction because he/she is most comfortable with that 28 The New journal/October 17, 1986

genre? Or because he/she believes that secrets of twenty-five years of the novel, for example, is the most marriage.

Set in New York City, the novel has effective vehicle for the message involved? Or perhaps because the all the trappings of a trendy post· appeal of fiction will carry the message collegiate existence. The world of to the widest audience? And once the small, grubby studio apartments on decison to write fiction has been taken, the Upper West Side, of cheap Indian does it impose constraints upon the restaurants in the East Village, of author's political statement, or vice Palladium and Boy Bar and Shescape, versa? It seems clear that the power of is strikingly familiar. And as Philip the author's statement in no way bemoans his love life over coffe'e with guarantees the quality of a work of Brad, a friend made in college through fiction, but at the same time one can the "Gay Lesbian Campus Coalition," argue that the politics of the book I feel I am reading a conversation ensure that it is worth reading even if it transcribed in the Anchor Bar. It is not successful as a work of fiction per ' ~eems dishearteningly predictable.

Despite such moments of recog· se. In other words, in a work of political fiction, i( one is to have nition, much of the book is foreign primacy over the other-and this is a and, for me as a woman reader, big if- which is it to be, the politics or extremely alienating. Leavitt writes of the fiction? · a lifestyle in which women have no David Leav.itt, author of the highly place; his treatment of the three female successful collection of stories entitled characters in the book shows only Family Dancing, faces some, if not all of minimal understanding of and relative these issues in his novel. To anyone indifference to the way in which they familiar with his work, the subject of think. The development of Rose, The Lost Language of Cranes comes as no Philip's mother, is perhaps the best surprise; indeed, the basic elements that example of this problem. In her fifties, pervade his short stories are present in rooted in a job as a copy editor which is his novel: the protagonist, Philip apparently of little interest to her, and Benjamin, is a young, white, upper- with no close friends to speak of, Rose middle class, college-educated discovers that both her son and her homosexual faced with the problem of husband are gay. Given , that coming out to his parents, Rose and heretofore Rose has kept the family Owen. As in Leavitt's stories, the together- Philip and Owen, we are mother figure is central to the family told, have never been close-such dynamic. Aside from his relationship news is a momentous blow. The with her, Philip lives in an almost potential for exploring Rose's reaction exclusively gay and predominantly seems to me to be complex and male world, as his lover, Eliot, powerful, if difficult. Leavitt, introduces him to the chic gay scene of however, writes Rose as having one flat and monolithic reaction beyond downtown New York.

The situation of Philip's father is, at which he does not need to look: the outset, the most intriguing in the time and again she responds to their book: ostensibly the happily married confessions with statements like: "I and res'Pectable director of admissions don't believe that just because a secret it at a private boys school, Owen something's Benjamin has been leading a double therefore by definition has to be life for years. Unbeknownst to his wife revealed . . . Keeping certain secrets and son, Owen frequents gay porno- secret is important to- the general graphic cinemas on the Lower East balance of life, the common utility."

Side where he has hasty anonymous While resistance to the news is encounters with other men. Philip's undoubtedly a large factor in Rose's revelation to his parentS' that he is gay reaction, and apparently the only throws Rose and Owen's marriage into aspect expressed verbally, it cannot be a state of crisis, forcing to light the the only feeling she has. Just because

I

she doesn't want to think about her husband and son being gay doesn't mean she can avoid it, or that David Leavitt can avoid writing about it. And yet, with the exception of one interior monologue in which Rose sees herself as numb, and then as angry, he does.

Philip and Owen's discussion at the close of the book is representative of Leavitt's own irresponsibility in his treatment of Rose: "I met a man the other night," he (Owen) said, "who I think I may see again. Also married, younger than me, but not much. I like him very much." "That's good," Philip said. And again, for emphasis, "That's good. But what about Mom?" Owen sighed. "I don't know," he said. "I just don't know." "I'm sure everything will be fine," Philip said.

The implication, it seems, is that nobody cares what happens to Mom: Nor is Rose the only woman flattened by Leavitt's na.r rative: the presentation of J erene, a lesbian friend of Philip's, is equally trite. Leavitt's book addresses homosexuality, but Jerene and her lover Laura are the sole representatives of the lesbian community to appear in it. The author delves into Jerene's past with this superficial exchange iUustrating her relationship with her mother: "Why do you always wear those ugly pants when rve bought you so many pretty dresses?" "'Pretty dresses look stupid on me," she (Jerene) said. As Leavitt writes the lesbian characters, they are merely tokens, abstract types, and it is unclear why he bothers to include them

at all. Furthermore, while Leavitt is ostensibly attempting to demystify homosexuality, to bring it into mainstream fiction as a concrete reality, his portrayal of lesbians is very much the perpetuation of a myth.

Leavitt takes far greater pains with the development of his male characters, and the portions of the novel dealing with Philip, Owen and Brad in particular are vividly written.

Leavitt captures extremely well Owen's mounting tension and his increasing difficulty in controlling the deception he has created. The progression of Philip and Owen's relationship to the confessional scene that closes the book is very moving, and there is one discussion of homosexuality that the two engage in over dinner that is particularly compelling. It is too bad, perhaps, that Leavitt does not focus even more on Owen's life and on the interaction of father and son; the book's emphasis on Philip's love affair with Eliot is, in comparison, of minimal interest, following as it does the brief and predictable course of many such affairs, both homosexual and heterosexual, without shedding any new light on the issue.

There remains, the vividness of the gay male characters notwithstanding, a problem within that aspect of the novel's construction: more than on gay men themselves, Leavitt concentrates on their homosexuality, such that it appears the sole driving force in their lives. Both Owen and. Philip, like Rose, have little interest in their

careers and few friends, and both of them spend an inordinate amount of time either thinking about or having sex, to the exclusion of everything else.

Of Philip, we are told: "In Eliot's absence, Philip found himself possessed of an unprecedented raging libido. Unable to concentrate, acutely sensing his aloneness, he would sometimes have to jerk off five or six times before he could fall asleep."

Were the book ever to deal with Philip's- or Owen's, for that matter-existence as a being aside from his sexuality, both the novel and the characters would be strengthened.

The number of masturbatory scenes in the seats of gay porno movies are no doubt justified to Leavitt as a manifestation of homosexuality which must be included in the novel in order to stress, concretely, what it means to be gay. Perhaps, however, one or two such scenes would suffice. In the quantity in which they appear in the book they are monotonous, reductive of the characters they are discussing, and detrimental to the quality of the novel as a whole.

I believe that in trying in this way to give primacy to the politics of his fiction, to the presentation of homosexuality as it is, Leavitt has undermined his own enterprise: he has failed to portray gay men as individuals of a certain complexity; they appear only as people constantly led around by their sexual drive. The homosexual relationship hetween Brad and Philip that develops over the second half of the book is the only one based on friendship rather than lust; breaking the chain oflonely encounters or auto-erotic indulgences seems to me to be a far more positive message to gay and straight readers alike, and I wish- perhaps because I like happy endings- that there were less of a sense of rarity about their relationship than Leavitt seems to suggest.

At the same time as I am advocating a novel about gay men instead of about homosexuality, I recognize the need for the latter in fictiOJ?. today. Novels about relationships like Philip and Brad's, based on the mutual respect The New Journal/October 17, 1986 29

All the Right Stuff Alison Gardy and love of two people, might not have the political impact on the mainstream audience that the gay movement needs. Perhaps books about gay male lust are what is necessary now, to awaken the public, and to shock. the public, even if the results are books of diminished interest in and of themselves. If this is the case, I wait with impatience . for gay writers to undertake this task, as Leavitt does in The Lost Language of Cranes, so that they can go to more interesting things.

Leavltt has too much talent and potential as a writer to be confined to writing books that are a dull political necessity.

After reading the book in its entirety, I feel confused and alienated

by Leavitt's misogyny; I feel frustrated with the sacrifices he makes of the complexity of his characters in order to stress their sexuality; but the fact remains that I read the book with · interest, that at no point did I throw it down in disgust or boredom. This, I think, is a tribute to Leavitt's style, and to his vivid, if not always complex, portrayals of the male characters in his book.

The Lost Language of Cranes speaks to the experience of an exclusive group of gay men- I believe not even to the majority of the gay community-and to all but those few it presents a closed system from which readers are destined to feel distance. A quotation from the brief central chapter that gives the book its name best describes the novel's effect: "There was a crudely cut peephole in the fence, and through it she stared at the vast pit from which the building would arise, watched the cranes lunge and strain. She stood in the deafening roar of the cranes. In the grinding, the churning, the screeching, in the universe of cranes, the womb of cranes, she stood there, eyes open, and listened."

Essays That Worked: 50 Essays from successful Applications to the Nation's Top Colleges edited by Boykin Curry and Brian Kasbar 1986 Mustang Publishing $7.95, 144 pages

The how-to book is America's secular bible. Americans have an undying, .democratic belief that anyone can succeed with a how-to book at hand.

All the secrets one needs in order to evolve from a humble ordinary into a shining success story can be found in slim, step- by- step, easy-to- read volumes. During the past decade, one of the hottest how-to markets has been the academic prep course. It started as a library of books whose binders read like a Dr. Seuss ·rhyme-MCAT, LSAT, GMAT, PCAT, VAT, DAT, SAT- helping students to master the standardized test. But, until recently, panicking applicants hav.e been left on their own to write the personal essay, perhaps the most challenging part of the application because it forces them to step out from behind masses of grades and test scores.

Two Yale juniors, Boykin Curry (BR '88) and Brian Kasba,r (BR '88) edited a book that finally how-t<rizes the last bastion of individuality in the application process. Essays that Worked: 50 Essays from Successful Applications to the Nation's Top Colleges is the answer agonizing high school students have been seeking. Curry and Kasbar received 500 essays from admissions offices around the nation as well as from their friends; they then selected a sampling and put them into a very carefully designed book. Even the cover reveals what Essays that Worked is all about: the art of packaging. The book looks like a reliable companion to Barron's SAT manual. Slim but not too slim, titled in bold black and red letters, it projects a crisply professional image. And inside, sprinkled among the essays, you'll find how-to tips in · little black-outlined boxes which remind: "Double-check for spelling, grammar and punctuation mistakes," "Make sure the essay looks .neat," and Cklire Messud is a semor rn Jonathan "Photocopy the essay and the rest of the application, sign it and mail it."

Edwards.

•

30 The New journal/October 17, 1986

Kasbar, Curry and their publisher, Rollin Riggs '79, understand well the art of people-packaging, the art of telling people to be themselves while telling them how to do it at the same time. Essays that Worked tries to condense the essence of the successful essay into . cheerful, encouraging advice. "The admissions officer wants to know the real you, and what makes you tick,". said the editors. "What do you see differently from your friends?

Why do you want to go to college? Do you talk to yourself? Hate sunny days?

Take baths instead of showers?' And , In order to reinforce their own speculations, Curry and Kasbar go straight to the admissions offices.

"What works best?" asked one admissions officer. "Honesty, brevity, ·risk-taking, self-revelation, imaginativeness, and fine writing."

While many of the essays in Essays that Work make ·for worthwhile leisure reading- one about mismatched socks and another about pigging out on Oreo cookies come to mind- the dominant how-to-sell-yourself-w bile-soundingsincere tone of the book imposes an awkward hardness on the other more personal, emotionally vulnerable essays. This clashing of the hard · sell and sincere self makes me feel that maybe a book like this, which teaChes students to write about themseLves honestly yet competitively, takes the process of people-packaging a bit too far.

"Sometimes I think about all the things that have happened to me in my life," begins one essay submitted anonymously, "and I wonder . . . what would the kids at school think if they knew that (Narne)- straight A + (Name) the Brain . . . spent most of her childhood crying and feeling inferior because no one ever wanted to play with her . . ." The essay details her father's death and her feelings of being cheated by family members.

"Sometimes I get so sick of things happening to me that I want to scream (and many times I do)," she writes at the end. "That's one reason I'm so anxious to get to college. I can't change my childhood into the one I wanted

Essays THAT

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Slim, but not too slim, titled in b old black and red letters, it proj ects a crisply· professional image. but next year I will be out on my own and I will finally have. the chance to make my life turn out the way I plan it."

After reading this emotionally raw essay- which, incidentally, might make a straight A + student seem more human but might be taken as an excuse for failure had it come from a student with low grades and test scores- it is almost embarrassing to flip to the book's introduction and read Kasbar's and Curry's advice on how to appeal to an ·admissions officer: •Admissions officers are very human .

They will laugh at a funny joke, and they will get excited over a well-written account of a close game. They may even shed a tear if you pull them through a tragedy." The advice continues: "Admissions officers will become bored and irritated as quickly as anyone by essays that are dull and blatantly self-serving."

Some of the essays don't need Kasbar's and Curry's advice because they're already skillful illustrations of students selling themselves . One ingratiating student writes a poem entitled The Admissions Officer "in honor of the most dedicated college official."

He begins: "It is now 3 a.m./and his eyes are getting glassy ./He sifts through wads of paper/watching reruns of Star Trek and Lassie." After lamenting the trials and tribulations of •a hard-working, brilliant mind," the final verse reads: "This was a tribute to the little man/the man whose brain IDust feel like lead,II hope the man "ho admits me/will someday sleep in br.d." The admissions officer who accepted that essay must have been really exhausted.

Other essays are so well-written, they manage to shine through the

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IOYUt CUitRY & IRIANWUR bobk's how-to atmosphere as literary works in their own r ight. One applicant writes a parody of several famous authors writing about themselves for an application essay. "What would Hemingway write? . . . 'My name is Ernest. I am a man. I am a writer. I would like to attend the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.' U .D. Salinger] 'Damn it!

Why the hell are you asking my name?

Phonies are always asking crap like that.' [Shakespeare] 'The wheel of fortune hath spun- that arrant whore bestowed upon me the most wretched of inquiries. Thy wit shall not go slipshod. Hear me committee- set less than thou trowest. I owest thou naught my name. Go to, have thy wisdom; it is William Shakespeare.' [And Freud] 'Because of my pleasure derived from relieving myself during the Anal stage of development, I am basically an outgoing person.'"

But such essays are rare. Too many students, the admissions officers co mplain, fall into the my-necktie's-too-tight style of writing.

Curry and Kasbar offer a parody: "' am constantly striving to expose myself to every opportunity to become a person with a deep understanding of my own values and of the environment in which I fmd myself. 1 have participated in a broad range of activities, and I have endeavored to become ever more versatile and tolerant while at the same time solidifying my own ideals . . . "

Often students fall into the trap of writing about the same hackneyed subjects. "Sometimes it seems there are only four types of essays," said one admissions officer: "the 'classpresident' essay, the 'I-lost-but-learned' sports essay, the 'I-went-to-Europeand-learned-how-complex- the-world-

is' essay, and the good old 'beingyearbook-editor- sure- is-hard-work' essay. When I read one of those, it takes amazing willpower to get to the third parag raph."

Essays that Worked helps encourage students to be creative when writing their essays. There is an awkwardness, however, in the process of sincerely selling oneself, an awkwardness inherent in the college application itself and exacerbated by the how-to approach of Essays that Worked. "I didn't want this book to be a how-to," said Kasbar, who fought against including the little black-outlined boxes with the helpful tips, "but Rollin (the publisher] insisted."

How-to books, after all, consistently make the national bestseller list . Every successful businessman who sells on the American market knows how to exploit the practical nature of the American psyche and that very American thirst for quick-'n-easy selfhelp and self-development books. Even though the essays in Essays that WorW could have stood .respectably on their own without how-to camouflage, they probably would not have appealed to the panicking (and thus more likely to be spending) element of the student market. A price must be paid, however, for taking the moneymaking, how-to route. I n Essays that Worked even the most thoughtful, wellwritten essays are cheapened.

•Alison Cardy, a junior in Ezra Stiks, rs on the staff of TN].

Correction: In the September 5 issue ofTNJ, in my article 'Guarded Speech' I failed to make a distinction between the Thomas a Becket House, which I insensitively termed "the Episcopalian bastion at Yale" and the Episcopal Church at Yale; the two are discreet entitles. The Reverend Charies DinkJer is the chaplain of the former, while the Reverend Dorsey W . M. McConnell is the chaplain of the latter, Yale's Episcopal Church . I regret the error and apologize for any misunderstanding that might have ensued.

Tamar uhrich The NewJoumaUOctober 17, 1986 31

•. . . more than one professional European orchestra could envy them and should have every interest in imitating their ensemble, the seriousness of their work, their understanding of the music and their ardor in rendering these works in the best way possible. • - Le ProutnCai (France)

The Yale

Symphony Orchestra Premiere Season Alasdair Neale Music Director 1986-87 Concert Season

..

CWhen the orchestra players stamped their feet for Neale at the conclusion of Stravinsky's Symphony in Three Movements, the appreciation seemed understandable.• -Los Angtks Times, July 22, 1986

• October 18 Capriccio Espagnol Rimsky-Korso.lcoo Mother Goose (Complete) Raotl Pictures at an Exhibition Mussorgsky/Raotl

• December 7 (Sunday) Festive Overture Shostakovuh Concerto for Violin T chailwvsky Lydia Forbes , violin Symphony No. 2 Sibtlius

• January 31 Hary Janos Suite KodiJ/y Clarinet Concerto Copwnd Gary Ginstling, clarinet Symphony No. 8 Dvoralc

• February 28 Cockaigne Overture Elgar Concerto for Jazz Quartet and Orchestra Gudlel WORLD PREMIERE! Michael Weisberger , sax Jonathan Katz, ptano Adam Guettel, bass Craig Levine, drums Symphony No. 6 &ahovm

All Yale Symphony concerts, with the exception of the Benefit Concert, are free and open to the public and are perfonned in Woolsey Hall beginning at 8:00 p.m. For more information, and Benefit Concert tickets, call 432-4140.

• April 24 Benefit Concert (Friday) Italian Girl in Algiers Rossim Symphonic Dances from "West Side Storr- Bnnmin Symphony No. 5 Tchailwvslcy