Volume 40 - Issue 1

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ENGLER

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Publisher

Lauren Harrison Editor-in-Chief •

Jontry Dach Managing Editors

Nicole Allan, Nick Handler Designer

Rachel Engler Senior Editors

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Emify Koh, Sophia Lear

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Production Manager

55 whitney avenue

910 wballey haven 06515

20l389.3369

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103.77'*YARN

Associate Editors

Tess Dearing, Aditi Ramakrishnan, Mitchell Reich Photo Editor

Bentry Sachs On-line Editors

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Recieve 1Oo/o off with the mention of this advertisement

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Ben Lasman, Ali Seitz •

Copy Editor Laura Bennett Research Director Laura Zax •

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Members and Directors Joshua Civin, Peter B. Cooper, Tom Griggs, Brooks Kelley, Daniel Kurtz-Phelan, Kathrin Lassila, Jennifer Pitts, Henry Schwab, Elizabeth Sledge, Jim Sleeper, David Slifka, Fred Strebeigh, Thomas Strong, John Swans burg •

Advisors Richard Bradley, Jay Carney, Richard Conniff, Ruth Conniff, Elisha Cooper, Julia Preston, Lauren Rabin, Steven Weisman, Daniel Yergin

Friends Michael Addison, Austin Family Fund, Steve Ballou, J. Neela Banerjee, Margaret Bauer, Emily Bazelon, Anson M. Beard, Jr. Blaire Bennett, Richard Bradley, Martha Brant, Susan Braudy, Daniel Brook, Hilary Callahan, Jay Carney, Daphne Chu,Josh Civin,Jonathan M Clark, Constance Clement, Andy Court, Masi Denison, Albert J. Fox, Mrs. Howard Fox, David Freeman, Geoffrey Fried, Sherwin Goldman, David Greenberg, Stephen Hellman, Laura Heymann, Gerald Hwang, Walter Jacob, Jane Kamensky, Tina Kelley, Roger Kirwood, Lewis E. Lehrman, Jim Lowe, E. Nobles Lowe, Daniel Murphy, Martha E. Neil, Peter Neil, Howard H. ewman, Sean O'Brien, Laura Pappa no, Julie Peters, Lewis and Joan Platt, Josh Plaut, Julia Preston, Lauren Rabin, Fairfax C. Randal, Robert Randolph, Stuart Rohrer Arleen and Arthur Sager, Richard Shields, W Hampton Sides, Lisa Silverman, Scott Simpson, Adina P.roposco and David Sulsman, Thomas Strong, Margarita Whiteleather, Blake Wtlson, Daniel Yergin and Angela Stent Yergin

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Volume 40, Number 1 September 2007

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The magazine about Yale and New Haven.

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A.]AR An ancient fraternity builds a new campus following.

by Ben Lasman

MASONS

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A FRESH APPROACH

A local non-profit unites independent farmers with the Fair Haven community.

by Jon'!)' Dach

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Points of Departure

8 The Profile Dicking Around l?J Laura Bennett •

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The Critical Angle Behind Glass Doors l?J Emify Koh • •

32 The Personal Essay The Missing Ink l?J Tess Dearing

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Endnote Indian Summer by Nicole Allan

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The. -ev• Journal is published fi, rimes during the academic year by The. ew Journal at Yale, Inc., P.O. Box 203432 Yale etrion,. ·ew lh•en. cr 06520. Office address: 305 Crown rreet. All contents Copyright 2007 by The , -ew Journal at Yale, Inc. All Ric;hts Reserved. Reproduction either in whole or in part without written permission of the publisher and editor in chief is prohibited. '\\'"bile this magazine is published by Yale College students, Yale University is not responsible tor Jts contents. Sevenry-fi>-., hundred copies of each issue are disrobuted free to memLezs of the Yale and ew fuven community. ubscnptions are 3\-ailable to those outside the area. Rate :One .ear, 18. Two years. 32. The. 'ew Journal is primed b · Turley Publications, P.almer, • fA; bookkeeping and billing services are provided by Colman Bookkeeping of. "ew fu,·en. The. 'ew Journal enco~ Jem:rs to the editor and comments on Yal and , · ew fu,·en issur:s. \\ri to Editorials, 203432 Yale etoon, ew H2Yen, cr 06520. All letters for publication must include address and We reserve the nghr ro edit all letters for publicaOOIL

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explaining how he used to make it at Campus Library opens in late October, the new Library Cafe will open with home, "and evetybody says how good it is." Reca11ing how highly his coworkers it. A joint project of the Library, the Yale Sustainable Food Project, and Yale used to praise the popcorn Carroll University Dining Services, the Cafe will brought them, and seeing her recently serve su&tainable food that is, whenever retired husband "at loose ends," Patricia possible, sourced locally; When it comes suggested he sell the confection. A few ,1/* . ·to snack food, nothing could be more local internet searches later, the two of them than Newton's kettle corn. Except that he had discovered the kettle corn business, will be using organic popcorn instead of found a man in Alabama who was selling conventional popcorn, the kettle corn his equipment, driven south to pick it up, Newton makes for the Cafe will be made and set to work. Now, Carroll pops kettle corn· every weekday from noon to five. with the very same equipment and in the very same cart that he uses.on York Street.

Though Carroll's enthusiasm for Six by nine feet in footprirtt, the his new job is contagious, there are few cart Patricia built is fashioned of other retirees who would choose to • wooden boards and 2x4s.

Mounted spend their free time risking constant onto its base is a large box that houses burns over a huge pot of hot oil and a propane~fired . flame. The stainless bursting corn kernels. Newton must FROM THE SOUND OF HIS NAME, NEWTON don protective gear for ·his hands and steel bowl that is Newton's kettle sits Carroll III could be a federal judge or a sunken into the box's hinged lid, which, arms gl~ves and what look like arm member of the British Royal family, but when opened, causes the kettle to dump socks that reach from his Wrists past he presides over neither a palace .nor 1ts contents mto an enormous copper his elbows before making each batch. container called "the bin." From here, any court of law. .Carroll's domain is a Suited up, and wearing a bright yellow · street corner in downtown New Haven Newton bags and serves his kettle corn.

"Elm City Kettle Corn Co." shirt, a blue from which, for the past three years, he Kettle corn shares its essential apron, and a Yankees cap, Newton looks has been selling his own variety of kettle like something of .an ailachronism as he ingredient with popcorn, . though it corn. Here, he reigns supreme the bears very little relationship to the toostirs the corn with both hands; gripping . only vendor on his side of the street. yellow, cheap-smelling, "I Can't Believe a three-foot-long wooden rod that might Across the way, in the delta where It's Not Butter" -saturated variety one well be the end of a sawn-off broom medical school students, doctors, and finds in movie theaters. Perhaps best handle. His feet planted wide, his arms hospital staff empty out of Yale-New characterized as a confection, kettle corn working in clockwise circles, he recalls one's Haven Hospital for lunch, food vendors is popcorn popped with sugar and hot childhood visions of witches bent over abound. Steam and smoke rise up from oil until a thin, caramelized crust forms boiling potions in dark, enchanted woods. shining metal carts; sweat pours down over the burst kernel, then sprinkled But there is nothing magical about from the arms and faces of vendors; generously with salt. Sweet and salty, Newton's brew, and his recipe is no secret: swells of scrubs-clad customers clog bite-size and slightly crunchy, kettle corn three cups vegetable oil to two cups corn the sidewalks; shouted orders mingle and one cup sugar, with salt to taste. might just be the perfect snack food. with the clink of tendered change Carroll's customers certainly think so.

The cooking instructions are equally and the occasional wail of a siren. straightforward: heat oil in the kettle, On a good day, Carroll can sell as many .

Spotl ing easy pickings in over-zealous add corn and sugar, stir until the rapidas one hundred three- and five-dollar kernels that pop their way straight onto fire staccato of bursting kernels beating bags of kettle corn. On the sidewalk the sidewalk, birds are the most clamorous against the sides of a steel pot subsides, and in the road beside his cart, people customers around Carroll's eclectic and cars line up to wait for service. And add salt, allow to cool, serve. Nonetheless, cart. Painted in primary colors, printed Carroll will allow no apprentices he according to one woman who bought a with the words, 'cprotected by God's does all the preparation himself. "I'm large bag as she was leaving work, "the Hands," and sporl ing a pink-orange-and very particular about the way it comes hospital people swear by this stuf£" out," he explains. 'CVery particular." white-striped deck umbrella, the cart Carroll has only recently become a kettle corn aficionado, but his skill and Even as Elm City Kettle Corn begins to was built by Patricia Carroll when she and her husband founded the Elm City finesse on the job come from years of . expand its operations, Carroll will continue Kettle Corn Company in June of 2004. popping at home. To hear him tell the to man the kettle. But what will happen Their treat will soon be available away story of Elm City Kettle Corn, selling if he is suddenly faced with a de111and for from the cart and free from the birds. popcorn was a simple, almost obvious thousands of bags a day? Selling to Yale When the renovated Cross choice. ''I just like popcorn," he says, could be the first step toward puu ing his 4 THE NEW JOURNAL '

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kettle corn on the shelves of local shops.

Even if such expansion is years away, Library Cafe may soon be knocking on the Carrolls' door, asking .for more. Will Carroll still spend time at his homemade . . cart, trading popcorn for stories?

On this point, his regulars needdt worry. For Newton and his wife, selling to Yale is a boon, a sign of God's providence. But only misfortune; never felicity, could cause Carroll to leave his York Street customers. Of the corner on which he has spent most of his afternoons for three years, Carroll says: "This is home; these are all my friends.''

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IN THE BATHROOM OF AN AIRPLANE; AT the back of ABP; even in the middle of jury duty, across the country bored and frustrated women are doing it everyw-here, letting loose and rediscovering the joy of an age-old past-time. In a world of ready-made blankets and store-bought scarves, women have begun to rem~mber the pleasure of making things with their hands. In recenLyears, kniu ing has come back in a big way, and with its rise have come legions of women looking to join social networks: New Haven's chapter of Stitch 'n Bitch, a nationwide group that organizes local kniu ing circles, now claims September 2007

283 members. Local founder Karen explains, "I bought Deb Stoller's first book, Stitch 'n Bitch: The Knitter~ Handbook in December 2003, and taught myself how to knit. I made a New Year's resolution to join a knitting group, but I couldn't find one. So I convinced my friend Aileen to knit with me every Wednesday evening at Koffee? on Audubon St." As others filtered in, the small, local coffee shop couldn't afford to lose its chairs to a sitin of a dozen women not buying drinks, so now they meet four times a week in retail chains throughout Connecticut.

Sundays are held in the Yale Bookstore, Mondays in Woodbridge, Thursdays at the Panera Bread in North Haven, and tonight it's Wednesday at the Au Bon Pain on the corner of York and E lm Streets. · S'nB is refashioning the classic image of the knitter. Although the women continue the long tradition of gathering in a room with sewing projects on their laps, thete are no white granny caps to be seen, and no one's hair is in a bun. Despite its name, none of the members..,. are particularly prone to complaining; once in a while, someone will mention a dropped stitch. It's a bevy of bespectacled women in their 20s and 30s, and the gossip is strictly fiber-centric.

Early on, only Heather and Katy have arrived, two quiet women with skeins of yarn. Heather is busy knitting miniature pink and brown socks for her four-year-old daughter. "My daughter's tiny," she explains. "She doesn't grow."

Right now she's teaching her how to knit. "I have hign hopes for her," she says, crossing her fingers on one hand and her needles in the other.

Katy is making a sweater for herself, her most ambitious project yet. One sleeve dangles complete, and she contentedly tries it on as she g o es. But when she's knitting for others, Katy's projects sometimes involve a kind of vague sorcery. ''Every time I start making a baby blanket, someone tells me they're pregnant!" she says with a shrug, as if her knitting were somehow entwined with the reproductive future of her friends.

Mostly she knits as meditation, and she loves to sneak her needles into forbidden places. ''I did it on jury duty," she admits, "and it takes away the frustration of siu ing on the airplane." She stitches away

while we talk, her needles clicking steadily. and Nancy, first-time Jackie · Stitch'nBitchers, turn up next. They're coworkers· at the New Haven Courthouse who've decided to extend their lunch break addiction into the evening hours.

Nancy started knitting three years ago, and Jackie is her blonde protegee. Besides the standard sweaters, socks, and scarves, they've also made fingerless gloves, handbags, ponchos ("we never wear them, but they're beautiful") and stuffed animals: "I knit turtles with detachable shells for my kids last year," Jackie shares proudly, but reveals that they repaid her by playing limbo with her yarn, stretching a thread across the room and running under it. So tonight Jackie is a self-confessed "selfish knitter": she's making a checkerboard wrap, a patchwork of purple, gray and black squares, · which she plans to ·use as a winter staple in her own wardrobe. ''Actually," she says, "I recycle a lot I'll wear a sweater a couple of times, rip it out and reuse the yarn." She's constantly inventing new clothes from . old fibers.

The women arrive in pairs, but no one shares the same pattern or color of yarn. The methods.vary, Heather tells me.

Stitches can be traced to their owners' strings of DNA: differentpeopleknitwith tighter or looser stitches, so their swatches will come out smaller or bigger, and each woman has her own trademark stitch.

Soon there are 15 gathered at the wooden table, and it's clear from the varying speeds of the needles that the world of kniu ing comes wrapped in its own hierarchy. The best knitters can produce a basic scarf in a few hours. A tote bag is a.day, a sweater four weeks, and lace shawls can bleed into two seasons.

A cedar chest is a must to keep moths away from fluffy skeins of wool, although a bag of lavender will also do the trick.

As with any ancient art-form, knitting too has its own set of old wives' tales and superstitions: ''Heather, you never get second sock syndrome?" Jackie asks in wonder. This happens when a knitter has finished one perfect sock but suddenly gets bored with the prospects of making its identical twin. Later, Karen tells me of the Boyfriend Sweater Curse: ''Never knit a sweater for your boyfriend. He won't appreciate the effort you put into it, and it'll cause your break." Others in 5

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the_circle propose a remedy to ward off such mishaps. They bring out a book of "Naughty Needles: Sexy, Saucy Knits for the Bedroom and Beyond," and are greeted by a round of general giggling.

"That's probably the only kind of knitting my husband would like," jokes Jackie. I learn that it is possible to knit a corset, a whip, and even a straitjacket. A more benign sequel arrives with "Charmed Knits: Projects for Fans. of Harry · Potter." The book includes elaborate . diagrams for making wizard robes, wand cozies, elf hats for babies, golden snitch balls, and even an invisibility cloak.

Karen points to the glass windowpanes behind us. Pedestrian onlookers stare as they cross the street. Suddenly it feels as if the group is inside an aquarium being watched by an audience. "I like knitting in this spot," she confesses.

"It feels like performance art." For the women of Stitch'n Bitch, knitting is a chance to. air out their domestic selves.

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How Bequests Are · on THIS SEMESTER, THE YALE UNIVERSITY ART

Gallery will debut its most recent and eyepopping acqwsitions. From September to January, an exhibit titled "Art for Yale" will display works the Gallery ·has received or purchased since Director Jock Reynolds' arrival in 1998. The exhibit will include over three hundred major works, only a few of which are currently on display. Jill Westgard, the 6

Gallery's Director of Development, described all the works as "ones a student would study in Art History 101." Chief Cuq.tor Susan Matheson hopes the exhibit will embody the Gallery's recently revitalized aim "to inspire artists as much as art historians" and to incorporate the personal interests of Yale students, faculty, museum staff, and donors in their efforts to create an active dialogue and a dynamic, .far-reaching institution.

As students and faculty rediscovered the Gallery's ·masterpieces at the Kahn Building's reopening last year, many may have wondered how such world-renowned art found its way to ·New Haven. The YUAG receives some bequests and endowments as unexpeeted windfalls.

Several years ago, an elderly amateur art collector joined her local retirement home's field trip to the Yale University Art Gallery. She fell in love with the Gallery, and decided to anonymously donate her fifty Greek and Roman pieces to Yale.

However~ most gifts result from an extensive series of conversations among museum curators, private collectors, and University faculty. With knowledge of the major private collections in his or her field, .each curator approaches poten~al donors and works with the Development Office to capitalize on any Yale connections. Each of the Gallery's departtnents compiles a wish list of the art it is seeking. While these goals guide curators' recruitment efforts, flexibility also proves · essential in order to seize singular opportunities, like an unexpected trove of antiquities recently acquired when the Albright-Knox Museum in Buffalo, NY auctioned off its collection.

When recruiting potential donors and negotiating conditions for gifts, the YUAG emphasizes its unique role as an active teaching museum. Still, the Gallery competes with other museums in its acquisition efforts. To persuade families to leave their art to Yale, curators remind donors that art from the YUAG often replaces slides in Yale classrooms while works at large civic museums may remain in storage for long and dusty stretches. Some donors to the YUAG take this further than the museum would like, and impose conditions on their gifts that stipulate how often the works can travel or how many of their pieces

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must be on display at a given time. The Gallery, however, prefers "thf flexibility to rotate exhibitions and loan· items, and typically enters such negotiations only for extremely significant works. It also foregoes offers that overlap the existing collection, and instead works with donors to procure gifts that complement Yale's existing collection. If a person wants to donate twelve chairs by the same artist, the Gallery may negotiate to display two in its permanent collection, while selling the other ten to create an acquisition fund in the donor's name. The museum allocates such funds for purchasing art, usually in the style that the donor collected.

The YUAG hopes to parlay its new bequests into an :·increased presence in the acadeinic life of the University. The Gallery has traditionally focused on acquiring pieces in areas, like American and Asian (especially Chinese) art, especially representative of the strengths of the History of Art Department. Since Reynolds became Director of the Gallery in 1998, however, he has sought to build the collection in all areas, encouraging curators to strengthen their research and address gaps in their collections.

The Curator of Academic Initiatives, a position established in 2004, seeks out professors and develops programs that take advantage of the new exhibits.

The YUAG has begun to work with faculty from departments ranging from Medieval Studies to Gender Studies to Anthropology. Language classes now include field trips to the Gallery, where students practice conversational skills as they discuss foreign art. Students from the Law School study art law, while School of Management students have capitalized on Gallery resources to learn about the art market. In an exclamation that perhaps applies to the Yale University Art Gallery's new future as much as it does to the new exhibit, Mates on said: ''You won't believe what you're going to see."

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Dicking Around A Connecticut P.l. enjoys the spy life.

Laura Bennett

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il Whidock wears a leather jacket and aviator shades. On · his website; he poses toughly in front of a black sedan, arms crossed and chin tipped slighdy upward. His face, complete with husky moustache, has the jaded, callous glaze of a man who's seen it all and perhaps he has. Whitlock is a private investigator, based about 25 miles outside of New Haven in Newtown, Connecticut. Fifteen years ago, armed with several decades of crime-fighting experience, raw determination, and a big dream., he founded Associated Research and Investigations, Ltd. In person, Whitlock has none of the swagger that one might expect from his digital identity. Paternal, earnest, and instantly likeable, he says things like «siJ1iness" and «gee, that's cool."

He talks slowly, chewing on his words as though mulling over ways to make his work sound exciting. Whidock is amicably self-effacing, jovially prefacing his interview with ccPardon me, I'm not a Yale graduate." His slick website persona and burly credentials criminal justice major at Western Connecticut State University, military policeman for the .S. Army seem little more than a window

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display. He runs his private investigation business out of his suburban home and speaks . wistfully of a childhood spent idoli.4ing the stars of Magnum} P.l, a TV show featuring the glamorous escapades of a private investigator in Hawaii. "I just thought: 'what a cool way to make a living,"' he remembers.

Whitlock's dream was once to join

FBI agents caught in a shoot-out after an armored car robbery in Florida. One agent lost his glasses, and, rendered blind and defenseless, was killed while feeling around for his guo. Incidents like these have resulted in the agency's stringent vision requirement. Whitlock has failed it twice. "So that's why I didn't pursue my dream." He concludes the story with a

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the FBI. When he talks about it now, he grows prim and matter-of-fact; he knows everything there is to know about the Bureau, and is proud of it.

He knows the feds have a series of exacting physical prerequisites, including restrictions on height. «Short agents don't project the .r ight image," explains Whidock. He launches into a tale of

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forlorn sigh.

Instead, he went to work for the sheriff's department in Fairfield County.

Eventually, he attended the State Police Academy in Connecticut and was sworn in as a police officer with the fraud unit in the labor department. ''I did not like working for the state," Whitlock says.

"I always had a problem with all the

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red tape. I spent as much time writing reports about what I was doing during the day as I spent doing it." He felt all the glamour and romance of his childhood fantasy high-speed chases, stealth investigations fading into a relentless bureaucratic labyrinth. Looking . to avoid a wearily plodding professional future, Whitlock did some research, talked to some investigators, and decided to venture out on his own. It was a risk, he knew, to abandon the stability of a life nestled securely in the arms of the state.

Gil had to turn in his government-issued car upon his resignation. He recalls that the manager of the garage was unable to believe that anyone would relinquish a free car. "He looked at me like 'are you an effin' moron?"' says Whitlock.

The licensing process to become a private investigator in the state of Connecticut usually takes · about six months. It involves a thorough examination by state police, extensive paperwork, fingerprint submission, and five years of full-time experience as an investigator with a law enforcement agency. Then, explains Whitlock, it's all a matter of getting your name out there.

His meager staff consists of his fiancee, ~

September 2007

his son, and a couple of other agents, but it's clear that the venture is prirnarily Gil's own p roject. His company tackles an (

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accounts of specific investigations no names included, of course. Once, he got a call from a woman in Israel who had

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zn nee array of legal and personal issues. "This is no normal nine-to-five job," he says with a tinge of bravado.

And unless your business conducts insurance fraud investigations, uncovers relationship infidelity (his . website proclaims: ''Is your significant other no longer interested in sex? Find out why!''), upbraids deadbeat parents, or uses a polygraph, he's right. It's a vast and varied field . ''We're always doing something different," Whitlock explains. ''People want to fi1e lawsuits over the silliest things.

These days, everyone is so litigious."

Whitlock readily launches into colorful

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found his site on the internet. She told him that she'd come to him for help because his name meant "joy" in Hebrew, and she was convinced that he would be able to find her mother. She'd been adopted in Canada and believed that her birth mother was living in Connecticut.

Adoption cases, Whitlock explains, are difficult, as many of the records are sealed. But in the end, he was able to find the absent parent, who lived just four miles from his home. "Wow, talk about fate," he ay , still awestruck. "That is . f:ate."

Just Recently, another woman contacted 9

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Whidock with a very different issue. She'd been dating someone new, and though things were.n 't serious yet, she had - thought they were starting to take off.

When her boyfriend asked her to loan him sixty thousand dollars, she agreed. Shordy thereafter, as Whitlock pithily puts it, "he screwed her and took off." Whidock has

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trained to use firearms and I have a gun.

I'm a brown belt in karate. And there's always pepper spray if you need it." · Compared to Whitlock's childhood heroes, his investigative tactics are fairly standard: internet research, special databases, surveillance, which generally includes videotaping and following •

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been charged with the daunting task of tracking down the runaway beau.

Often, insurance companies ask him to monitor employees who have allegedly been injured so badly on the job that they are seeking compensation. In such cases, he has videotaped "gravely injured" employees waterskiing, playing 18 holes of golf, or up on ladders painting houses.

Whidock often has to testify in court.

Sometimes, people get angry. ''You think about the danger," he says. "But I'm

people. According to Whitlock, ''It's all pretty old-fashioned. Being in the right place at the right time. Sometimes nothing will happen all day." Other days, he says, he'll be out tailing people, making sure they don't know they're being followed.

"Tailing someone is really an art," he adds. Traclcing devices are a legal grey area, so he stays away from them. But he does use night-vision goggles and certain specialized cameras, which he describes with boyish gusto as "all the little toys

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which make it fun."

Whidock's exploits have attracted some -local attention. Several years ago, The Newtown Bee ran an article oudining Whidock's successful mission to track down the girlfriend of a dead soldier.

In the photograph, he poses at a cluttered desk, hands clasped solemnly over mounds of - paperwork. With his lopsided smile, button-down shirt, and wire-rimmed glasses, he looks every inch the suburban dad which, in fact, he is.

Whitlock has two sons and one daughter, all of whom are already out of the house.

His voice swells with pride as he describes his daughter she works in a nursing home, "just brightening people's lives"his younger son studying to be a surveyor, and his eldest on, who now runs his own private investigation business in Rhode Island.

At 55 years old, Whitlock is salt-andpepper-haired, somewhat paunchy, not quite the smooth-tallcing, sharp-shooting FBI agent that he once imagined. But he has worked ·long and hard at this business of intrigue and inquiry, and has managed to forge a career for himself that is somewhat in line with the aspirations of his youth. His biggest challenge has been competing with national investigative

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agencies that have a much broader reach and impact. Whitlock's small enterprise is holding its own, though he worries that competition will grow stiffer. "It's kind of like how the big supermarkets corrie in and force the mom and pop markets out of business." He pauses and exhales, pondering. "But," he says with a smile, "I guess they call that progress." .

140 Orange Street, New Haven, CT 06510.

203-624-0589

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l aura Bennett, a junior in Timotf(y Dwight College, is the Copy Editor of TNJ. September 2007

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few hours before Dan Gale Rosen, Harvard sophomore, went to the Gloucester Freemasonic Lodge to receive his second degree of membership in the centuries-old society, several of his high school friends asked him to teach them the order's secret handshake. ''I told everyone, 'There is no handshake, you're being stupid,"' he remembers. "Then, of course, I went there and learned the handshake."

For Rosen, one of a growing number September 2007

of student Freemasons attending elite colleges in the U.S. and abroad, the incident seemed indicative of the ancient organization's modern dilemma. The Freemasons face an ongoing struggle to maintain their traditions in the face of dwindling membership and mounting public interest in their more esoteric activities. ''People ha e preconceived notions that turn out to be true," Rosen explains, ''but at the same time, there's nothing to do with goats, nothing creepy

or weird."

Fueled by such conspiracy-saturated blockbusters as The Da Vinci Code and National Treasure, cultural infatuation with the Freemasons' rituals and rites is indeed on the rise. Last year, the House of the Temple of the Scottish Rite in Washington, D.C. hosted over 12,000 visitors, a threefold increase from 2003.

The chapter offers tours of the temple's opulent interior, which is adorned with a massive wooden throne, several copper '

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snakes, and, allegedly, three-yard-thick walls stuffed with human body parts.

At the same time, the fraternity, which has boasted such eminent members as Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, and Oscar Wilde, is dying. In the last half-century, the Freemasons' ranks in the United States have dwindled from a peak of 4 million in 1959 to 1.3 million in 2006. At 19, Rosen is the youngest member of the Gloucester Lodge by more than twenty years. Now, in order to counteract their aging demographic and exaggerated public persona, the Masons are attempting to broaden their accessibility to outsiders and appeal to potential initiates. Colleges are on the front lines of their attack.

Oxford and Cambridge have long housed sizeable contingencies of Masons on campus. Harvard's Masonic Lodge, which currently includes about seventy students, was forced to relocate from its traditional home in the Faculty Club's Library Room to more spacious quarters at the Masonic Lodge of Boston to accommodate its rapidly expanding membership. Additionally, a nationwide change in the order's stipulations recently chopped the minimum age for applications from 21 to 18, allowing freshmen to enter the society upon matriculation.

"Every once in a while I · get invited · to go paintba11ing with the Harvard Freemasons," notes Rosen, who chose to - · join a lodge close to his home rather than one affiliated with the University. "The number of young people involved really depends on your location."

Surprisingly, Yale is not one of those locations. In the haven of secret societies, • the most furtive of these is nowhere to be found. "To my knowledge there has never been a Freemasons' organization in Yale College, at least not in the ten years I've been here," said Dean Edgar Letriz, the current overseer of student activities.

This is not to say that New Haven lacks Masonic credentials. A dedicated building containing four local lodges startds · on Whitney Avenue. The Grand Lodge of Connecticut js only twenty minute~ away in Wa11ingford. So why, with so many of its peer institutions leading the charge of student Freemasonry, has Yale backed down from the fraternal fray?

Part of the problem might stem from •

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lack of openness. Although the New ·Javen Freemasons maintain an active ' urofile in local charities, they have yet to • out to the Yale_student community the same vigor as their peers in university towns. A call to the inquiring into the group's ongoing and - application procedures • not an explanation but a firm ''This is a secret organization," the receptionist, whose name was ~c~n. "You have to be a member to k:) another member." It is precisely Sept.cilier 2007 1'-.Ll

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this kind of clandestine catch-22 that other collegiate lodges are trying to avoid .

The Harvard Freemasons, for instance; distribute a promotional video to interested students in which the Grand Master of Massachusetts sits at a table and invokes the civic virtues of his order.

Entitled "Th'e Grand Master's Invitation," the segment directs the motivated viewer to an informational website and, contrary to the professed attitude of the ew Haven lodge, urges undergraduates to •

find out more about the Masons. At Oxford, commonly available information about the organization abounds. 'We certainly encourage our members to be very open with their peers about membership," explains Geoffrey BourneTaylor, Secretary of the school's Apollo University Lodge. "I encourage new members to leave their joining booklets in their 'college common rooms for others to read. The Lodge website is promulgated as much as possible and we have many enquiries through the Oxford

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in secret-society type things having something I couldn't tell people about, but at the same time helping people through philanthropy," explains Rosen. For him, the ongoing change-of-face within the Masonic community seemed out of step with the group's intrinsically mysterious appeal. An oft-repeated mantra of the fraternity, one quoted abundantly in the press and alluded to by Rosen, sums up the Freemasons' public image for the new century: ''We're not a secret society, we're a society with secrets."

William Greene, the Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Connecticut, echoes this sentiment. Responsible for overseeing the conduct and organization of Masonic communities throughout the state, Greene describes the current order as a charity rather than an underground association of arcane rituals and covert gatherings. Today, the Freemasons donate $2 mVJ.ion a day to philanthropic causes across the country, raising money and awareness for diabetes and cancer patients in addition to supporting a host of renowned medical facilities. ''We have a few secrets, but they're more like personal things," notes Greene, who has been a member of the fraternity for over thirty years. "Even from the beginning, the Masons were community-minded.

The biggest difference is that now we talk about it, and before we didn't." According to the Grand Master, the group's newfound transparency is beginning to pay of£ "In the last two years, there's been a huge turnaround," he explains.

"This is the definite start of a surge in membership." While Greene says that he hasn't explicitly reached out to colleges a.s a source of new blood, the organizatior. '

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An Egyptian-themed relief graces the masonic lodge in Washington, D.C., the House of the Temple of the Scottish Rite.

Province website, too." Even outside the academic bubble, the Masons are making an unprecedented push for recruitment.

"There's a big fancy website, radio ads," points out Rosen. "There's a TV ad with Benjamin Franklin saying 'You can help your country.I"' · Additionally, the Masons have streamlined ascendancy within their ranks-which move up by numbered degrees-by accelerating the process of awarding degrees. "There was one time when I had to memorize a dialogue to move up," recalls Rosen. ''But once I got to the rneeting they didn't make me recite it, and I advanced anyway." Rosen was somewhat disappointed by the experience and he recognized its underlying contradiction: To make the order more

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palatable · to prospective members, the Gloucester Freemasons had opted to downplay the very rituals that had attracted the Harvard sophomore to the

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Grand Master. 'We don't actively recruit new members, but the website gives students a· chance to reach out to us and ask us, 'What's this about?' A majority of our new members aren't coming from Masonic families, as was traditionally the case, but from a personal interest in what we do."

But do the benevolent and perhaps surprisingly public behaviors of the real-life Masons gel with the expectations of youthful inductees, raised on the fabulist tales of Nicholas Cage and Dan Brown? Greene, for one, pinpoints the present generation of Freemasons as unusually well-informed. "The younger members coming to us today are used to finding things out about our organization before they ask," he relates. "They know so much more about it from the internet and research they've conducted on their own." Indeed, the process by which Rosen became a Freemason reflects Greene's account almost exacdy. As no one in his immediate family was affiliated with the order, the student looked into his local lodge independent of adult influence, eventually asking his car mechanic about joining. "He probably told me a bit more than he should have," Rosen recalls.

"But he ended up sponsoring me when 1 applied for membership."

Still, Rosen's self-motivated approach to Freemasonry is hardly typical. Within collegiate lodges the process of inquction is inevitably more peer-oriented, with the order drawing membership from a preexisting academic and social community.

"Membership of the University Lodge is open only to matriculated members of Oxford University," explains BourneTaylor. "In truth, such discrimination is contrary to the spirit of Freemasonry, but informal rules usually work out for the best.• It is common knowledge that like groups attract. Within the lodge, we see this happening, too, as one new member will encourage the other members of the boat crew to join.'~ But despite this group mentality, Freemasons insist_that they foster the individualism of younger, tech-savvy gen~rations they simply want to provide them with a venue for old-fashioned male-bonding. Above all, the group has made a name for itself as a cotlltJ}unity of exceptional individuals. ''I just got back from a conference in •

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Washington, D.C.," remarks Greene, "and I was sitting a table away from Buzz Aldrin and John Glenn. All these great people ·were Masons, but they didn't talk about it. Now, people are becoming more aware of the history of our organization."

Rosen, on the other hand, feels that the .

Freemasons' lack of elitism correlates direcdy with their appeal: "They'll pretty much accept anyone unless they're a convicted rapist."

Bourne-Taylor emphasizes a slighdy different angle: "I think that, in the changing world in which we live, Masonry is still very much a cardinal point whence students can take their bearings. It is that well-loved book that orte can take from the shelf, read with pleasure from a well-thumbed page, and replace, to be waiting for one's next opportUnity, that disinterested friendship that has nothing to prove and does not place barriers of religion or politics between its members. Its ritual seems to fascinate these clever young men; they are a joy to see and hear."

It is important not to overstate the presence of undergraduates within the larger Masonic community BourneTaylor concedes that students probably account for only a "miniscule proportion" of the Grand Lodge of . England but

their burgeoning influence on the venerable society is beginning to take effect. "I'm hoping that some of these y~ung people like what we do and say 'I'd like to be associated with these men,"' says Greene. "I hope that this is the start of a tsunami of new members joining the Masons."

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Ben T asman, a sophomore in Berke~ College, is a Web Editor of TNJ. •

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ummer days afford Fred Monahan little ti rne to consider the lilies of the field.

As a dedicated vendor at four New Haven farmers' markets, he is too busy with the land's othe~, edible bounty: the sweetness of corn, the firmness of squash, the odor of garlic, the length of cucumbers, and the lush, juicy ripeness of ·peaches. Today, he is particularly concerned with peppers. And, on account of it being Thursday, he is out of his element.

A broad-faced, affable man, Monahan is dressed in the satne n~vy hoodie and tan overalls that he wore to market the day before.

He and his wife, .Stacia, own Stone Gardens Farm, 33 acres of sweet corn and vegetables in nearby Shelton, CT. Today, however, he finds himself in a more urban environment. Each Thursday in Fair Haven, as Grand Avenue prepares to plunge across the Quinnipiac River and scale the hills of Fair Haven Heights, a cluster of white tents and a rainbow of picnic blankets assemble across· the wide, grassy expanse of riverbank. Here, a three-year-old not-for-profit named CitySeed hosts the most unusual of its four weekly farmers' markets. And here, set against the bucolic wooded knolls and white steeples of the opposite bank and surrounded by a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood, Monahan is nonplussed.

Unable to ·speak Spanish, h~ says that the language barrier at the Fair Haven market "can make you want to throw your hands up and walk away." He has mastered the nurnbers through twenty, at least and the narnes of certain vegetables, but is at a loss in the face of rarer, more complex questions. Confronted with an elderly woman who wants to know cuantas semanas tienen sus habaneras, he can only shake his head and observe, dryly, that "these markets are very good for •

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stress management." The age of a habanera pepper determines how hot it tastes; unable to get an answer, the woman is reluctant to purchase the small, vibrantly orange vegetable. Monahan, though here to sell peppers, is not concerned.

Business at the CitySeed markets is regularly brisk; another customer will likely buy him out of peppers: habanera, bell, and jalapeno. If not, he describes how he would go about eating them slicing off the tops, stuffing them with prosciutto and provolone from a neighboring stall, and marinating them in olive oil. ''That's the only vegetables we get to eat, the ones people don't buy," he says.

"I haven't eaten a good vegetable . customer, all sununer."A passmg car 1ing off a particularly nice set of bell peppers, describes hiln as "a prince among men."

CitySeed, like any civictninded not-for-profit, is full of such princes. Its three full-ritne employees Jennifer McTiernan, Benjarnin Gardner, and Nicole Berube wander each market, their faces exuding cheer from behind woven baskets, jars of honey, stacks of recipes, and

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loaves of bread. It is their work, and particularly the dedication of Berube, the program director responsible for the Thursday market, that brings Monahan and his pregnant wife to Fair Haven week after week. They know that underneath this idyll, under the mounds of red tomatoes and clusters of lettuce, is a struggle for the soul of America's food system and the health of its inner cities.

Here in Fair Haven, CitySeed is on the front lines of the battle for farmers' markets a battle that pits small farmers, charitable foundations, and the inner-city poor against the diverse specters of agribusiness and urban decay.

Viewed for thirty years as an icon of the liberal bourgeoisie and a I for the rich, farmers' markets are being transformed from a symbol of yuppie excess to a concrete medium of renewal and public welfare. CitySeed's three other markets are self-. supporting the farmers make enough money each week to cover their costs and rirne. But here, against the edge of a major thoroughfare in a depressed New England manufacturing town, THE NEW JOURNAL

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a novel idea is in the midst of its third and strongest season.

Government spending, charitable donations, and a tiny not-forprofit are giving sm:all farmers and low-income city dwellers, the widespread underdogs of our rural and urban landscapes, the chance to help each other out and to plant, in the midst of the city, the seed of a connnunity. years before this idea took root, Jennifer McTiernan stood at CitySeed's inaugural market in Wooster Square, the city's Italian district. Then, as now, she was an upbeat twentysomething with chestnut hair falling straight past her shoulders.

A graduate of the Yale Class of 1999 with a B.A. in American Studies, she had returned to New Haven with a baby daughter, a year of experience in an organic restaurant, and the determination to bring New Haven residents and farmers together. On the 17th of July, 2004, she was CitySeed's founder and sole employee; today she is its executive director. As the New Haven Register's ''Person of the Year 2006," her title, increasing visibility, and expanding staff are testament to the · organization's success. • At the market on that

purple eggplants, and ears of corn cross-pollinating the Elm City danced in front of vendors from with food from farms across the seven organic and pesticide-free Nutmeg State. In Wooster Square, farms. By the end of its first day, Two Guys From Woodbridge sells the market featured many vendors hydroponic microgreens from the who had sold out of produce so. oldest farm in Hamden. It has been early that they . phoned spouses joined by Beltane Farm, which or farm hands for emergency owns forty goats in Lebanon and deliveries. By the end of its first drives more than sixty miles to sell season, the market boasted regular its wool, n1ilk, and fresh chevre in attendance from a dedicated New Haven. customer base and more than But neither of these farmers 15 farmers. New Haven County, comes to Fair Haven, where home to more members of the customers expect more everyday Connecticut Farm Bureau than offerings. ''We sell things people any other in the state, finally had .regularly cook with all the tirne," the market it deserved. · Berube explains. "They expect Over the course of 2005, the corn. They expect fruit. Swiss Wooster Square market would be chard probably isn't your biggest joined by not only the Fair Haven seller here." market, but also by start-ups in a These customer demands make corner of Edgewood Park and in the Fair Haven market a bit less front of City Hall. Each has its attractive to farmers. But regardless own flavor, its distinct composition of consumer preference, capable of vendors and customers. The vendors at every market can recoup Wooster Square market is a ninety cents per dollar spent on destination; neighborhood Italians their goods a sight better share and graduate students are joined by than what they make selling to far-flung shoppers from Hamden supermarkets, where a chain of and Meriden, car keys dangling at middlemen and marketers leave their hips. Edgewood Park is a more farmers to gross only twenty cents local affair, while the downtown off every dollar. market lures a more suit-and-tie The population of Fair Haven clientele. The vendors know their has been majority-immigrant for customer base and target the most of the previous century, and appropriate market; there is more many of the Puerto Ricans and food to grab and go on Church Africans who dominate its cultural

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een a or first Saturday, New Haven Mayor John DeStefap.o, Jr., a camera tearn from News ChannelS, and a bevy of excited passersby watched as CitySeed board members costumed as plush tomatoes, September 2007

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cro oun Street, more high-end products at Wooster Square. While vendors at the first CitySeed markets hailed from within 25 miles of the city, many now spend over an hour with their foot on the gas pedal,

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always allow vendors the money covering the start-up costs of a to justify transportation costs and booth to sell jewelry or crafts. She time spent away from the fields. is proud of her new infrastructure To draw farmers to Fair Haven, and her snazzy delivery method, CitySeed has worked to define and and, thanks to a higher handling operate a "community-supported fee and increased interest in the market." To bring together two new 15-dollar shares, expects the groups very much in need of community-supported market to each other, the organization gross even more this year. But, . coordinates large produce orders Berube says, "I haven't done any from local businesses 't o cover data gathering yet." She laughs farmers' operating costs. Each · ruefully, a little tired. "That's for week, CitySeed fills boxes with a the end of the season." melange of produce from three y the time she retires to the participating farms "a good office and begins crunching number for us," Berube says, "a good number for logistics"- numbers, Berube will have hosted which it then distributes to a whole series of events at the customers who have . arranged in Fair Haven market. While the market advance for a long-term share. It's commuhity-supported system 1s an 111novat1ve structure a sort of season ticket.

In 2006, employees at three responsible · for much of the location's success, it is not at organiza~ons were targeted for the progn;un: Yale's Rudd Center for the heart of her effort. Rather, Food Policy and Obesity, the law those purchases by the relatively firm Wiggin & Dana, and the Fair well-off are designed to·· ensure Haven Community Health Center. that farmers .continue coming· to Together, purchases of ten- . and Fair Haven and continue selling twenty-dollar shares . grossed to those who can't afford to $7,111 forCitySeedand the farmers have a weekly share delivered to at its Fair Haven market. This their office. Their money, along summer, Berube drives the newly- with a well-tailored . government purchased "CitySeed-mobile" a program and the support of other gray-green Honda Element with foundations and not-for-profits, peas stenciled on the side to ensures that the Fair Haven market two more participating offices: a is a worthwhile venture for more •

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back is advertised prominently at the booth on a flapping, plastic banner, whose blue lettering picks out the following message: "We gladly accept food stamps/ EBT. Get your tokens here. · ((Con mucho gusto aceptamos cupones para alimentos/ EBT. Obtenga sus fiches (tokens) aqui. . "(Connecticut Department of Social Services. Caring for Connecticut.)"

This message has been posted at each of the week's markets, but nowhere is it more important to business than in Fair Haven. The steady stream of professionals that characterized the other markets has been· replaced by a crowd of complete families, or women with young ·children in tow.

The Fair Haven Community Health Center, one of the three organizations participating in the community-supported . market, contributes to this market in other ways: its patrons are often marketgoers. The Haven Free Clinic, a collaborative project of Yale undergraduates, medical students, and the Center, has run a booth at the Thursday markets and taken children on tours. Providing information rather than selling goods, Neil Desai, Med. '09, has tempted kids with crayons or an r

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group at the Yale Forestry School and Junta for Progressive Action, a community Latino organization and CitySeed's partner at the Fair Haven market that offers microloans to neighborhood residents,

than the English-speaking vendors who frequent it the community's consumers, too, are busy exploring its potential.

One of the initiatives that keeps these customers coming

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organic recipe of the week:--"crayons actually work better than food" · and then educated them about balanced diets and the importance of ' exercise. Eager to help out, he watched the CitySeed THE NEW JOURNAL

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booth while Berube delivered boxes to members of the CSM. Fresh vegetables, sustainable or not, are important to a healthy diet, and the market provides a rare opportunity for lower-income households to access them. "It's not just buying food here, it's being out here," he says, describing the virtues of CitySeed's endeavor.

"Usually, you think of farmers' markets as, frankly, a yuppie thing."

That the Fair Haven market breaks this mold is credit not only to CitySeed and its donors but also to a pair of federal programs: Food Stamps and WI C Checks.

The former, distributed under an entitlement program established by the federal government in 197.1, are no longer issued on paper but embedded in a swipe card as an Electronic Benefit Transfer.

25.7 rni11ion Americans receive a maxirnum of $155 dollars per person in food stamps each month.

The same wireless technology that permits wealthy marketgoers to use their credit cards allows those closer to the poverty line to pay for fresh, nutritious food.

September 2007

The CitySeed booth, equipped with the correct device, allows customers to spend their food stamps in exchange for wooden disks, each the approxirnate size and exact worth of a silver dollar.

Those tokens are accepted at all other stalls. CitySeed markets were the first in the state to accept such wireless payment and to open its stalls to those on welfare.

More prevalent than food stamps are WIC checks oversized pieces of paper issued by the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children. A · grant a · ·stered by local officials, WIC spends nearly five billion dollars each year providing for over eight mi11ion low-income, nutritionally at-risk pregnant women, breastfeeding women, and children through the age of five. Forty-five percent of all American children benefit from the program.

Since 1992, a subset of the grant has been earmarked for the WIC Farmers' Market Nutrition Program, which provides over 2.5 n1illion people with packets of between five and ten three-dollar

checks that can be redeemed only for locally-grown produce.

Operative under the USDA in 38 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, and four Indian tribal organizations, WIC FMNP allocated $409,879 to more than fifty thousand Connecticut residents in 2005.

The program has been criticized for linuting the choices of those below the poverty line and forcing them to purchase uncooked food · that busy schedules may not allow· them to prepare. In President Bush's budget proposal for 2005, spending for the Farmers' Market Nutrition Program was cut by 26°/o, to twenty mi11ion dollarsan action less severe than the administration's earlier statements that the program should be eliminated entirely.

But WIC checks have survived their critics and federal budget cuts . thanks to overwhelming support from the public health and agricultural communities. Its advocates condemn the President and his fellow antagonists for trumpeting the cause of agribusiness money authorized as WI C checks flows predotninantly into the pockets of small farmersand respond to concerns about underprivileged consurners' Jirnited freedom of choice by pointing to the comparatively small amount of money changing hands just slightly more than one-half of one percent of total WIC spending, to a maxirnum of thirty dollars per person each season. In all, the produce and meat farmers benefiting from the WIC FMNP programs receive less than one-tenth of one percent of the billions of subsidy dollars the federal government gives to cereal, fiber, and other conunodity producers.

Berube says it wouldn't be· a market without Monahan; he says it wouldn't be a market without WIC. He esrirnates that "a good percentage, ntaybe seventy" of his 25

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income at the Thursday markets is in WI C checks. His wife agrees, adding that this is nearly three times the percentage of other area markets. The Monahans make sure that all of their goQds are neatly priced in multiples of three to ease the transaction no ; matter the language. What's more,? by selling produce directly to consumers rather than to wholesalers, • Monahan and his fellow vendors are able to offer prices competitive with local grocery stores and still make a livable profit. Consul)lers also benefit, able to eat food gro_wn locally and picked recently. ' If there is an element of paternalism. in a system that requires those on\ federal assistance to eat nutritious food, most recipients are · · g to accept it along with the checks.

In a world increasingly conscious of the benefits of ecologically-minded food production, CitySeed's broad · perspective ·accounts for both the environment and nutrition.

Though all the produce sold at Thursday's .markets is Connecticut grown, it is not entirely organic; thi's is fine with Neil and the Haven Free Clinic. "It's vegetables," he says. "So it doesn't really matter to me if it's sustainable or not." More paramount is "food security," an increasingly widespread term that describes a community's access · to an affordable, balanced diet. A report by the Connecticut Food Policy Council in 2005 ranked New Haven 163rd out of 169 cities in the state and criticized its poor bus routes for making grocers hard to reach for the working poor.

CitySeedis fixing the transportation gap another way, bringing food from the farmers who need to sell it to consumers who need to buy it. Berube says that this season, they're succeeding. "It's a better market this year. If we manage to keep it like this, I'll be happy. And the community will be happy."

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transtnutation of isolated vendors . the musical acts GirSeed hires and sboppers into friends, df •41 •aitd picnicking from".be burrito forgotten parkin to aneighborho@d 'cart a neighborhoo~ restaurant destination has been one of \ provides. "One tirne," Bl·ube says, CitySeed's ambitions from the :'s'om~one broughttheir'~4Cophone outset. Th~ organization believes ·. apd .started laying Peat}~l tunes." farmers' m~rkets can replicate this' \ Stacia Mona .an loved it. : . tt's one \ ' . \ . success . thr~ugh a commitment '. of . my favorite ~~ come to ~'placemaking," a neologism to,, " she_s~ys. "It's fes . ~:There 1 that Serves a shorthand for the each week, you might sa Stone intric~~e proces?es contributing to Gardens what ~ the sts the creation of successful public of its · "Intimid~tor" her . ' spaces.

1 . variety: "They have been Many vendprs appreciate this They just march right ·f'l,,n--.~h~·" goal. One i~. Stan,. a fairly regular A CitySeed employee, vendor ~t ~·the Wednesday and the Fair Haven market Sunday ma:tkets who'· may one tan mastiff, wants to kn ·~· day sell in F~ir HayeJ;l as well. He Stacia's husband will do sports gray hair, a r~d flannel shirt, winter, while his fields ·.~nd a friendly .d\sposids>n. To each fallow. "Drink!" he replies. person who pass~, his vc?jce twangs or outside?" the employee ou~,. calling, '~H\_>wdyr , Wouldja to know. "Both!" And then, ...... like · a sample? . Homem\l,de." It the spring, Fred Monahan and ~" drawls ._the first syll~'b!e oflthe)ast family will be back at Fair w?~d out nice aJ:?.,d .s!?~ \almost for there, · from July eliding the first m.: Ho.emade." October, Thursdays on Stan is chipper and 'suppqr#ve of waterfront bustle with shoppers, CitySeed's work, mind(ul not only onlookers, and small children, . \ of its benefits for farmers tput for all of whom leave laden with a • city residents. "It's the bes\ thing new sense of community spirit for a neighborhood," he proqairns. and a sack of fresh, sustainable "There's a great civilizing infh\ence produce. the markets have." Each ~ek, on his table next to a cooler. ~pd a bowl of white corn, chips, a sign advertises Stan's Salsa in ~.tty of several varieties mild, h t~ ~. pineapple, and fiery. Another· sigpt * has been taped on white prihte'rt, paper to the rear windshield of \ his aqua Dodge Shadow, offering \ . a favorite quote of his mother's, \ attributed to George Washington. f \ \ The sign reads, in the large, black '' Times New Roman of a standard word processor, '~griculture is the most useful, the most healthful, the most noble profession." His .\ tires read, in the raised rubber of '' the brand name, ''Revelation."

• '\ CitySeed's Fair Haven market t •• is a powerful testament to the role "' '• ' of public spaces in communitybuilding. '~ of our farmers," '\ Berube says, "are willing to talk to Jonf!Y Dach a serli(Jr in Jonathan Edwards Col1 people." The market encourages lege1 is the Editor-ilr..Chief of TN]. shoppers to linger, listening to • \

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n a ridge in New Canaan stands a house where the light shoots straight through. This pastJune, the New York Times dedicated a quarter of its «House & Home" section to this Glass House, a <2onnecticut landmark in which architect Philip Johnson and his partner David Whitney lived for over half a century. The article, entitled «Behind the Glass Wall: Memories of life and • death in an architectural masterwork," •

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ByEmifyKoh consisted largely of personal accounts from guests Johnson had entertained in the house during the years he lived there.

They included that of Barbara Jakobson, a trustee of the Museum of Modern Art, who remembered that "there was a certain ritualistic aspect to visiting the Glass House. The greeting; to the lunch; the walk; the finish, so Philip could take his nap and work. You always felt welcome, and you always knew when it

was over."

They included that of architect Frank Gehry. c'It made sense: their activity, their dress, the room and the site, it all had a symbiotic relationship that was uncanny.

It was grand and generous and eloquent, and all of a piece."

Another visitor, another memory.

Robert A.M. tern, dean of the Yale School of Architecture: «Clutter? Don't be illy. othing "\vas ever out of place in 27

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street.) .

In the late 1940s, Johnson, desiring a break from city life, searched for property ·· in New Canaan, a Connecticut suburb.

The five acres to which a local realtor directed him were part of Ponus Ridge" a nearly impenetrable tangle of woods, ·mostly of second and third growth relieved by an occasional stretch of field grass and some older trees," which sloped gently downward from the road. The land stood on the edge of a tumble of boulders, beyond which lay a vast view of the Rippowam Valley. Within an hour of his first visit to the site, Johnson had walked down from the road, reached the field grass, surveyed the valley, and bought the five acres.

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ohnson's five acres have since grown to 47~ The stretch of field grass now a brick guest house, a pool, a lake pavilion, painting and sculpture galleries, a concrete and aluminum entrance gate, ' and a library which houses Johnson's collection of architecture books. It includes a number of small pavilions-a "Ghost House" composed completely of chain-link, a tower 35 feet tall inspired by Balanchine choreography and named for Ijncoln Kirstein (to dirnb it, one observer noted, "you have to choreograph your own dance''), a gatehouse composed of red and black "warped" blocks called "Da Monsta" and the site's namesake the Glass House. The property, recently labeled a National Trust Historic Site, opened to the public in June. Over five hundred guests attended the Inaugural Gala Picnic, which included an open house, gourmet lunch, and performance

by The Merce Cunningham Dance Company.

All 47 acres are now collectively called the Philip ohnson Glass House, but the transparent structure remains a single room built by Johnson in 1949. It is 56 feet long and 32 feet wide, the space defined by a floor, a flat roof, and four walls made entirely of glass. Steel coluniils at each corner and at the center of the house's long sides allow for a pristine · interior. Excluding these piers, the only element that obstructs one's latitudinal view is a cylindrical brick structure, which occupies a protninent spot in the northeast corner and protrudes slightly •

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the Glass House. Every flower knew its proper position in 'the vase."

The Glass Hou se was the last in which Johnson lived, but certainly not the first. He spent his childhood summers in an Ohio country house of the Greek Revival style where his m other projected "lantern" slides of Italian paintings upon the walls to educate h er children about art: When Johnson enrolled at Harvard in 1920, he continued to impose art upon walls, hanging reproductions of Simone Martini and Piero della Francesca around his dorm room. He remained· an undergraduate longer than most seven years due to a nervous breakdown, after which a Boston neurologist advised him to "take six months" and return home to Ohio, where he read two detective stories a day between tears.

Johnson took the six months, returned to school, and completed his degrees in philosophy and G reek only to re-enroll at Harvard in 1940, this time at its Graduate School of Design, w here he conceived and constructed a house o n Cambridge's Ash Street for his graduate thesis. It was composed of a wooden rectangle covering half the lot and one glass wall 28 .

that enclosed the front garden in such a way as to make it appear part of the living room.

As this house was not merely a project but a home in which to live, Johnson erected a nine-foot wall between it and the street for privacy, a move that upset his neighbors and provoked unsuccessful lawsuits requesting its removal. Many people disliked the Ash Street house.

Even Johnson admits, "People felt that it didn't jibe with the street, and they were right it didn't." But the parties he threw there, replete with fine drinks, hors d' oeuvres, and high conversation, were grand enough to triumph over the criticism and the house itself attractive enough to sell for 24,000 dollars, the approximate cost of its construction.

Following design school graduation and the sale of the Ash Street home, Johnson moved to 751 Third Avenue, a small house in Manhattan that he had rented in 1939 and in which his younger sister, Theodate, had lived after his return to Cambridge. (I'heodate affectionately dubbed 7 51 "Hidden House," because of its location behind a row of apartment buildings fronting the •

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above the roof. One half of it contains a bathroom, the other a fireplace. The cylinder divides th~ "liv,ing room" and "kitchen" a head-high cabinet and tablehigit &gljlnt-e; ~rqm, the "bedroom," also located ,~~ the house's northern end. The Glass I;fouse contains only two works of art: a sculpture of two women by Elie N adelman displayed near the kitchen and "The Death of Phocion," a painting

by Nicolas Poussin on an easel by the fireplace. It was, from 1949 until his death • in 2905, Johnson's weekend and then primarY.l residence and has been hailed by many ~ince its construction as one of the greatest architectural achievements of the twentieth century. '

writer Fran Lebowitz, he was "a big lover a focus on functionalism, a movement of ·g ossip and wit and other people's characterized by a break from ornamental problems." To artist Frank Stella, he was historicism,_the use of new technologies and building materials like glass and "ferociously entertaining," and to Port Draper, the engineer responsible for reinforced concrete, the insistence of "structural integrity," - and the notion maintaining his property, "the most fun • that a building's form must follow its person I ever worked for." They knew function. Johnson delineated these rules the Johnson who thiew a good party. The himself, first in a 193~ exhibit at the Johnson who hosted weekend lunches Museum of Modern Ait titled "Modern for up to 14 and whose frequent visitors Architecture," and then in The International included Andy Warhol and Jasper Johns.

Style: Architecture Since 1922, a book he The Johnson who invited the Velvet Underground over to jam, and who authored that same year with architectural pissed off the neighbors when the music · historian Henry Russell Hitchcock, which grew too loud. The Johnson who, on the gave the subsequent movement its name. stormy New Canaan night that a branch " Later, when he stopped preaching crashed through his wall, shattering glass the art and started to practice it, he and allowing rain to pour in over his head, sang a decidedly different tune. Johnson sat stunned and blinking in his chair, then determined that architecture should be laughed. . created not to serve a functional purpose but to evoke a feeling. In 1977, he told onsider one of Johnson's own stories: Tomkins that he was "beginning to think '--" At the age of 13, he accompanied that maybe the terms 'form' and 'function' his mother to France and saw Chartres were always meaningless." "What is Cathedral one of his "great architectural function in Chartres?" he asked. ''When experiences" along with the Parthenon the people come in and see the .high altar, and Kyoto's Ryoanji Temple. "There with the ceiling over a hundred feet up, was a funeral going on," he told Calvin and experience all that religious emotion, Tomkins of The New Yorker. "I was so is that aesthetics or is it function?" moved I don't know why I wasn't dead."

He told Charlie Rose, in a special This was, however, only the first of many interview to mark his ninetieth birthday, occasions on which Johnson was moved that architecture at its best should by architecture. Throughout his career, exhilarate people as a symphony does. he sought to recapture that pathos with When you listen to a great symphony, every design and structure he devised. he explained, you feel "you could float, "To be in the presence of a great work but you can't analyze why." The test of '

hroughout the complex, one senses the strict routine by which Johnson and Whitney lived. Nothing was ever out of place in the Glass House. It was all of a piece.

According to biographer Franz Schulze, Johnson only permitted slight changes to tl}f;_ ,Pl~cement of items and furniture inside the house once he had set them down. The dining room table remains where it stood when he first entertained at it; the writing desk where it stood-when he first wrote at it; and the bed where it stood when he first slept in it. Even when reading, Johnson would not move "as much as a pillow to prop up his head."

Anecdotes such as this surround the Glass House, reiterating the constancy of the place. There is the story of the guest who, without thought, dropped her handbag on the table-high counter and was prompdy scolded: ''You can't put that there!" There is the tale, told by biographer Hilary Lewis, of the photographer who moved some objects an ashtray, a malachite box around Johnson's Barcelona Table during a photo shoot to achieve a better shot. The story goes that Whitney walked quietly over to the table and moved the ashtray and the box back to their original positions. "Johnson nodded to the photographer and said, 'I think it's better."'

These stories paint Johnson as stiff, an obsessive who would not tolerate any way but his own. Yet his house was anything but lift;less and severe.

Other narratives, thos,~. of friends closest to him, portray Johnson as full of humor and possessed of distinct taste. To his neighbor and •

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zn t e tumm of architecture is such a satisfaction that you can go hungry for days," Johnson said. "To create a feeling such as wine in Chartres Cathedral when I was thirteen is the aim of architecture."

There was a degree to which Johnson always infused architecture with ontology, a reasonable approach for a scholar of philosophy and classics who committed himself to the arts late in the game. And yet for all his philosophical influences, Johnson broke into the profession with

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architecture was equally intuitive: "build a building, go inside and let it wrap itself around you." A visceral connection should transpire between an individual and the place he inhabits. "What more could you ask of architecture," Johnson concluded, but to "feel very good in the tummy.''

In an essay, "living in Glass Houses:

Domesticity, Interior Decoration, and Environmental Aesthetics," Kevin Melchionne of the ational Museum of

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American Art wrote the following about Johnson's famous home: "The successful occupant of the Glass House or any other pristine, severe, and hyperorganized environment lives in the house in perfect 4armony with its formal configuration and artistic meaning." I think it's better, Johnson said, when the ashtray and box were moved back to their original positions on the table: words spoken by an occupant in perfect harmony with the formal configuration and artistic meaning of his home. here's no evidence of tchotchkes [in the Glass House] . Visitors are alWt!JS astounded at the discipline it must have taken to be so spare. " -Christy MacLear, executive director of the Philip Johnson Glass House When I read that quotation in the Times this past June, I recalled a slow summer afternoon I spent talking with my grandmother in which she asked how, if I followed through with my intention

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to clean my closet of all my old dresses, would I remember where I had come from. This seemed an odd question at. the time, but I see now it was not. She had sewn my past into fabric, considered these clothes material artifacts, physical reminders of who I once was. She wanted to ensure .that the person I had become did not lose touch with the person I had been.

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unique point, one in which the necessity to retain ties to the past becomes undesirable or irrelevant and the decision to let it all go seems a wiser, cathartic alternative. The Glass House was and remains devoid of clutter. The way in which Johnson chose to live therespare, no tchotchkes---divorced him from his own narrative. He relinquished the "lantern" slides and reproductions •

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Life insists upon accumulation, a gradual assemblage of things that collectively declare: this is who I am. An individual who has purposefully removed clutter from his or her life has arrived at a •

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of Simone Martini and opted instead for "wallpaper'' by which he meant a view of the outdoors forever subject to change.

Photographs accompanying articles

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devoted to the Glass House often depict Johnson standing before one of his • walls, gazing out at his 4 7 acres. From this familiar place, he could see Ponus Ridge with its stretches of field grass and trees. He could see the stout stone fence he constructed to line the edge of the tumble of boulders and he could see the Rippowam Valley. And, imposed on it all, he could see his reflection, a portrait etched in the glass of the walls of his house, a representation of himself as he was in the precise moment he stood facing the landscape.

As I looked at these photographs, I was reminded of a song I heard once on the radio composed of only three lines, two of which were Bring a mirror to my face/Let all my memories be gone as fiuing September 2007 •

an anthem for a glass house as I have ever heard. n a review of the Glass House published two weeks after its public opening, Nicolai Ouroussoff of the Times said that, "What mattered most about Johnson might have less to do with his gifts as an architect than with his intellectual openness ... a willingness to test new ideas, to push limits ·to their extremes, to stay firmly rooted in the present." In the end, the Glass House exists mostly as a testament to someone who, for all his weaknesses, could always make architecture feel wonderfully alive.

This conclusion is apt. The Glass House rooted Johnson in the present, allowed him to experience life as it

evolved within his 4 7 acres, filled him with.a satisfaction that could last for days .

The test of architecture was to build a building, go inside, and let it wrap itself around you. "When people come into my house," Johnson said, "I say, just shut up and look around."'

Emify Koh, a senior in Jonathan Edwards College, is a Senior Editor of 7NJ. •

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An ingenue considers ta · g the tattoo plunge.

By Tess Dearing .

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phone was ringing, ringing~ on the rules of lacrosse and the Hail through two years at Yale without waking please don't pick up ringing, Mary. I spent my days cloistered in an up dazed in an unknown bed, arriving hung ringing ... rigid with . suspense, I all-girls' Catholic school perched on 27 · over to a m orning seminar, or beginning waited. I bit my lip. I was getting cold roW.Og green acres of Maryland suburb. a term p aper the night before. And yet, I feet.

Afternoons slipped by as I stretched at ' never stayed in on T hursday nights, rarely "Studio Zee." Low and jaded, a the ballet barre. I did all m y homework on even on Wednesdays. What was wrong woman's voice cut across my lingering time, and I never once skipped school. with m e? Was I going to utterly lack tales apprehension.

I was not popular, I played by the rules, of my mischievous college days? What "Oh! Hello ... " I fumbled, tossed out and, for two weeks when I was twelve, I was I going to tell my grandchildren? my sweetest phone voice. wanted to be a nun when I grew up.

That I was occasionally tipsy off cheap "Tattoo or piercing." The response Even during high school in the District champagne? I resigned myself to the fact was clipped and icy. This was a statement, of Columbia, I didn't feel the attraction that I was still an incorrigibly good girl not a question. She was a bore9. traffic of the unexpected until my senior year. from pony tail to high heels. cop, herding me to the left or the right, I was still a nerd through and through, So when I considered permanently and she had answered the phone this but I broke out a bit on the brink of Yale. injecting ink into my mostly pristine life way thousands of times. I somehow I ate lunch with boys. I flirted with the this past summer, the idea hit my plaidmanaged to regain my voice, and, setl ing skater guys and hot shots. I did flamenco clad, book-hugging self hard. And that, a consultation for 7:30 that evening, I in the hallways. I used four-letter words in o f course, is why I couldn't shake it. snapped my cell phone shut. my creative writing assignments. During The August sun splashed across the spirit week, I came to class dressed in n the evening of my August phone office, slicing through the towering stacks black denim and leather. And yet, by call, I revisited the results of my of volumes and .documents lining the most standards, I was a shockingly vanilla Mapquest search : 920 State Street, well walls. Over a hundred footnotes, red second-semester senior immune to the beyond m y stomping grounds and light pens, Post-It flags, and a_heap of books allure of serious rebellion. I successfully years past my comfort zone. I stood on on Dutch courthouses lay scattered in confused everyone by barely toeing the the front p orch of my summer apartment familiar chaos over my huge desk. I was line, and I loved it. building on Lynwood, fidgeting as I alone in my summer office, deep within After I marched dqwn the graduation waited for the Yale Transportation the Yale Law School. aisle in crisp white, Yale handed me a Service. I was minibussing-it to a tattoo As a research assistant for a law blank slate and no bridle, so I naturally parlor. I reflected on my clothing choices. professor, I was striving to excel as an ran a little wild in the costume closet, A navy p olo dress, pearl earrings, bronze intellectual. I knew the rhythms and picking and choosing and layering and flip flop s, a messenger bag with the movements of this high-stakes academic casting off. I slacked off occasional1y, Berkeley Crest. I looked every inch the game, its strategies and pitfalls, its risks stayed out till the wee hours of. the fresh, young, well-kept female off to a and payoffs. I was comfortable in my morning, cursed to elicit reactions, began beach town coffee shop to get in some element, armed with a highlighter, m y weekends midweek. I relished the fact good reading b efore supper. reference texts, and rny own drive. that people knew nothing about me and Who did I think I was? I tried to And yet I was wave~g at the brink of fully exploited the opportunity to avoid visualize myself with my sun-bleached an imminent foray into the un.lqlown. simple definition. Nonetheless,· I never locks, scrubbed, moisturized skin, and Convinced of my own insanity, I · said went off the deep end. I remained unable Moleskine notepad strolling into an to myself, "Tess, tonight you have an to relinquish m y desire to be in control. establishmentthatspecializesin permanent appoinunent at a 'tattoo parlor."

Truthfully, I barely dipped m y toes in body art and piercing, whatever, wherever. the rapids. I was in Directed Studies, I really, really needed a motorcycle and first through eighth grade, I was frequently "that sober girl" at Beta, and a some mean; studded boots. In my mind, most comfortable in black watch witness to many long nights erased from the place was definitely dark, on a lessplaid, lace-up shoes, and Polos. My worst than-inviting street, manned by nocturnal everyone else's blacked-out memories. offense was chattiness. I took quizzes individuals who set off metal detectors Impossibly, I have managed to blaze

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at airports. Recalling the voice of the woman on the phone, my skin prickled. I feared the worst. I called my mother. She suggested a companion, but this was out of the question I needed to undertake this mission alone. I wasn't even getting tattooed. I was going to gather information, compare prices, finalize the details of my design. This, like buying a car or choosing a boyfriend, required serious thought, diligent research, and extreme circumspection. I was preparing to make a permanent commitment, and, true to form, I refused to be rash. I had to be fully informed.

Nonetheless, I was gradually letting go of my vice-like grip on the direction of my life. I felt like Emma Bovary on her way to a clandestine rendezvous with one of her lovers: restless, deterinined, manic. Seduced, I was definitely not in total control. Though I told my nextdoor neighbor that I was going to interview a "local artist" (a stretch, but tattoos are art, I thought to myself), I was subconsciously tapping a dark, deeprunning current, refusing to acknowledge •

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that I was following its course. And yet I was listening, acting, allowing myself to be / pulle forward. Coursing in my blood was som thing the Spanish call duende, a word th~i is untranslatable because the concept is· too fundamental to permit dissection.

It is a basic attraction to the mysterious and the passionate, an understanding of the connection between suffering and love, and a deep respect for the aesthetic and the sensual. Like the opening strains of the flamenco guitarist, this inner voice painfully stirred something in my bones. It was irresistible, a call to action, a 1/amada. This bizarre pull explained the presence of leopard print in my wardrobe alongside oxford and argyle, the continual dancing, the awe of physical grace, and the persistent desire to emblazon an image permanently on my skin.

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at kind of clientele do you have?"

I asked, looking hard into the young tattoo artist's pale, bright eyes.

"That's like asking what the weather's going to be like today. We get everybody.

We get doctors, lawyers, kids off the

street who think they're gangsters. We get Guilford moms ... Tattooing went mainstream in, say, 1995."

As I looked at the striking maroon walls and gold curtains, the spotless office, and this kind man who approached his vocation with gravitas and skill, I realized the depth of my own pretensions. Tattoo art was not a game.

People inside Studio Zee were fulfilling their vocational callings; their work was serious; their business, clean and highly professional. These artists could discern all kinds of motives in their clientele. I could only wonder what this man thought -. of me, with his clinical directness, his strong handshake, his gentle humor. He patiently listened to my specifications for the tattoo's design and location. He gave me prices, medical information, time restrictions. He ignored the slight waver in my voice, my breathlessness, and my ·air of inexperience.

"Why do you do this?" ''What, tattooing? Because I love it."

Oddly, during our brief exchange we found common ground. I was soothed;

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he, perhaps, warmed by my uncommon interest in his handiwork, my naive openness~ my youth, my desire to learn.

During the bus ride home, scribbling, I felt nauseous and gleeful. I was drunk on the thrill of this strange hunt. I had stood calmly and somewhat coherendy in the lobby of a New Haven tattoo parlor jotting cold, hard facts about turning. my smoky imaginings into an inky black reality. I didn't run away when one of

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enco zn the artists shouted across the counter, ''Yeah, he should be done soon. They're doing the red of the stripes in the flag."

Visualizing a large male torso with an American flag rippling across it, the skin September 2007

trumpet or b:ugle, giving notice to soldiers red and agitated at the edges the to go to their quarters at night" the same invasion of the ink, I was exhilarated. I rhythmic call I was increasingly unable to thought back to my next-door neigh' r.

1 ignore.

I found a black card amongst the Why had I evaded his question? The remains of my trip to Rome.

I had picked could be no more shame, nor any furthet up at a club party held in a huge wh4-_te balking.

• buH.ding, a vestige of Mussolini's attempl \ to build a new Rome.

Beneath a drawing s August persisted in its russet , I . pf':a bleeding hand, it read: ''Mela Tattoo languor, I found I cou:ld not abandon • I tu&io."

The studio of apples.

Tempted, my quest. I perversely craved permanent : I }>ondered.

The strains of that hidden evidence of a decision entirely my own. I ' ' guitar called to me, the steps of the • • {famadrz unfolding in my brain. I could feel the pounding of my heels, the rushing of I adrenaline, the burning of the muscles in my legs. The composition birthed already in my mind, I felt the weight of my own role in its execution, subsumed in its larger unity.

I visited other tattoo parlors. In each, I listened and watched, heart thumping.

I was a voyeur, blending with my surroundings, feigning total confidence. kept finding hints scattered through the In one, I overheard a woman dressed summer da s. Dictionar y.com's word of sharpl in a pencil skirt and leather slingthe day on August 18th was "tattoo": "1.) backs discuss in low tones the script she A rapid, rhythmic dr · g or rapping. wanted written on her inner wrist. The 2.) The beat of a drum, or .sound of a I

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tattoo artist was reluctant. Her was too small and he feared it over the next decade. Perhaps of .a lover, I thought. I she needed it done now, that like me, was afraid of turning She looked . sleek, straight-edged, yet so urgent to ossify this momen desire. A man in full military blu walked in with a piece of paper. 'J'ifu trained grace and power he walked up to the counter and asked if the studio had time for a walkin. Yes? Lefs do it, then. He disappeared · into the back. Eventually, I slipped the business card into my bag and returned ·"" to th hair salon, wondering what WO)lid h~~ happened if I, too, had seized the .

-inoment like that put-together woman, that navy man. How different was I from them? Did it matter? Should I care? How much more time did I need?

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impulsive. He was con .. .,., by my behavior, unable to pin the element of my character that n) me in this renegade direction. had wondered, weeks previously, the note I had left · hiin in a book he "Things I to Do With You." · Among the · of prospective joint ::r:· I had listed thunderstorms and tatlt~ He had looked up at me, • .u., eyes up and down, taking in ,u., fresh composure and apparent my of worldly blemish. He looked at the note, paused, and asked, ';>" •

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That day on the phone he carefully told me about a new technology that injects ink in the f<:>rm of tiny sealed pellets, forming a picture in the way a color printer forms a comic strip illustration. The benefit, he said, is that these tattoos disappear when struck with a laser, since the pigment does not bleed into the skin. Voild. Easily removable. "Thought you might want to know," he said.

Yes, I thought, good to know. And for a while after our conversation, it seemed like an easy solution to the objections, the insistence that I would be dissatisfied, that I would change my mind. But no.

These long summer afternoons had given me time to digest the magnetic pull of my quest. Freshly twenty years old, I had a. great sense of both the fertility latent in the future and the rare, transient power of this moment in time. A quarter of the way through my projected lifespan,

ate in the month, I was on the phone the library of my house. I had been muHing over my idea for days, replaying and reconsidering my experiences, wavering between total conviction and terror. As I sat tracing the designs of the · rug, I listened to the low, male voice on the other end tell me he had something to say about tattoos. Really, I . thought?

More dissuasion, no doubt. · Like many close to me, he was perturbed by my quest. Though he had never articulated his qualms, I could pick them out of his mind. My fascination with tattooing myself seemed odd, out of line, unduly 36

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something primal- stirred within me, drawing me towards a private act of selfclaiming. I felt a need to stand alone, stripped free of the identities that had clung ·to me through life. Ultimately, I found tattoos beautiful and my skin a blank canvas all my own.

This was not an act of rejection, but of renewal. It was no longer about toeing the line. A sudden shedding had left me raw, shell-shocked by a newfound sense of power. I owned this vessel, and I felt compelled to run its young, smooth hull through risky straits. I was not .sailing in a I was in full control fleet of other boats, . of the rudder, and my course was not to be influenced by the destinations of the boats native to my calm harbor.

When I'm ready, there will be no tiny, sealed pellets and no painkillers. I will be alone, in New Haven, with no minibus, no companion, and no doubts. No one will know the day or the hour. I will take a cab, wear jeans, and bring cash. There will be no going back. As I feel the first sting of the needle, my brain will play back the opening strains of the llamada. It will be full-throttle or not at all.

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Tess Dearin~ ajunior in Berke fry College, is an Associate Editor of IN].

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ENDNOTE

INDIAN SUMMER

By Nicole Allan Age at which I read my first novel about India: I 0 Subsequent number of novels about India I have read: 22 Number of months spent planning my trip to India: 9 Percentage of parents' friends claiming to know someone in India who would either employ or shelter me: 32 Pre-departure visits to Yale Travel Clinic: 5 Number of malaria pills purchased: 82 Number of guide books purchased: 3 Number of times the word "microfinance" appeared in my fellowship application essay: 9 Extent of my knowledge about "rnicrofinance" upon writing fellowship application essay: 1 Time Magazine article Number of fellowships that turned me down: 9 AIDS rate in India, as relayed to me by my mother: 1.5% Months spent in India: 2.5

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Minutes spent admiring my dusty, overloaded backpack in the bathroom mirror before passing through LAX upon return: 3.2 Number of diseases diagnosed during post-India physical: 0 Number of group emails printed, reread, and collected in a folder: 7 Money spent on Indian ingredients to cook family an authentic Indian meal: $42.61 Days left-over authentic Indian meal sat in refrigerator, untouched, before discreetly thrown out by my mother: 5 Number of cheaply-made puppets, bangles, elephant mobiles, bootlegged Bollywood films, bags oftea, and fraying tapestries distributed to family and friends: 32 Number of"lndia!" photo albums posted on Facebook: 5 Hours spent walking around Los Angeles in an Indian kurta before discreetly changing behind a dumpster: 0.6 Remaining desire to work in microfinance, international development, or any other not-for-profit that involves helping people: 0 Nicole Allan, a junior in Calhoun College, is a Managing Editor ofTNJ.

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