2-15-18 by The Pitt News

The Pitt News

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The independent student newspaper of the University of Pittsburgh | PIttnews.com | February 15, 2018 | Volume 108 | Issue 112

LIKE A BOX OF CHOCOLATES

Di Tella discusses

‘327 Cuadernos’ Zane Crowell Staff Writer

Pitt students indulge in a chocolate-dipping bar while waiting for Valentine’s Day-themed bingo to start at “Chocolate After Dark,” hosted by Pitt’s Office of Residence Life in the WPU Wednesday night. Issi Glatts | ASSISTANT VISUAL EDITOR

STUDENTS PETITION TO RENAME PARRAN HALL

Janine Faust

Assistant News Editor Pitt’s Graduate Student Organizing Committee announced in a Twitter thread posted Feb. 13 that they are starting a campaign to rename Parran Hall. “We view Parran Hall as a constant reminder of the legacy of racism in the academic scientific and medical communities and the University of Pittsburgh’s symbolic commitment to white supremacy,” the thread read. The nine-story building, located on DeSoto Street, is the primary home of the Graduate School of Public Health which contains both classrooms and administrative and faculty offices. It is named after Thomas Parran Jr., the na-

tion’s sixth surgeon general from 1936 to 1948 and the first dean of Pitt’s School of Public Health from 1948 until 1958. Parran was considered instrumental in pushing Congress to finance centers to control and prevent venereal diseases, such as gonorrhea, and was largely responsible for requiring syphilis tests for marriage license applications — a practice that most states have discarded. He also brought many leading doctors to the public health program at Pitt, including his deputy Surgeon General and successor as dean, James Crabtree. But he also presided over two infamous experiments during his time as surgeon general. The first, what is commonly known as the “Tuskegee Syphilis Study,” began in 1932 and was not halted

by the U.S. Public Health Service until 1972, when its existence became public. In the study, American researchers observed the course of untreated syphilis among hundreds of African-American men who were infected naturally in Alabama during that time period. Infected patients in the study were not given penicillin, the standard therapy after World War II for the disease, and some died as a result of the disease or passed it on to sexual partners and children. The second experiment was conducted between 1946 and 1948. American researchers intentionally exposed more than 1,300 Guatemalan prisoners and mental institution patients to syphilis, gonorrhea and chancroid during those See Petition on page 2

Ricardo Piglia was 15 years old when his father was thrown in prison for a year for supporting Argentina’s former leader — so the young teen began keeping a diary. It started about the same time Juan Peron, President of Argentina, was overthrown in a coup d’etat in 1955. While it began with one journal, Piglia estimates he filled 327 notebooks over the course of his life. His story caught the attention of Andres Di Tella, a fellow Argentinian and award-winning filmmaker. Di Tella was then inspired to create “327 Cuadernos,” a documentary depicting Piglia rereading and cataloguing his diaries over the course of several years, something he had never done before. As part of an event hosted by the Film Studies Program, 33 people gathered to watch Di Tella’s film in the Public Health building Wednesday night. Di Tella also answered audience questions after the screening of the film. “There were some people who were not sure whether the diaries actually existed,” Di Tella said. “He had mentioned them in interviews and snippets in text, but nobody was sure they existed.” The film, which features selected passages from Piglia’s diaries narrated by Piglia, is interspersed with old footage depicting the era in which he grew up. Some of the vintage footage comes from an archive of family films owned by a friend of Di Tella. Other portions contain news footage depicting famous events, such as the brother of famous communist revolutionary Che Guevara reacting to news of the Central Intelligence Agency-orchestrated death of his See Di Tella on page 2

News Petition, pg. 1

two years. This experiment — and Parran’s involvement in it — were not made public until 2010. GSOC began circulating a petition Wednesday, titled “Pitt, Rename Parran Hall & Stop Honoring an Unethical Scientist,” which is currently halfway to its goal of 200 signatures. People who fill out the petition are asked their name, email, postal code and affiliation with Pitt. The petition recounts Parran’s involvement in the Tuskegee study and states that having a building named after him on campus is an affront to black and Latinx students. “We must learn from the mistakes, prejudices, and grotesque acts of institutionalized racism and violence that characterize our history,” the petition says. “However, it is imperative that we do not normalize and neutralize them by maintaining monuments to their architects.” Both the Tuskegee and Guatemala experiments led to public apologies by two U.S. Presidents, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. The American Sexually Transmitted Disease Association changed the name of the lifetime achievement Thomas Parran Award to The ASTDA Distinguished Career Award in 2013 as a result of the discovery of the Guatemalan experiments. A 2013 piece penned by the New York Times while the ASTDA was considering renaming the award included a statement from Donald S. Burke, dean of Pitt’s Graduate School of Public Health. The article reported that Burke said the school has no plans to change Parran Hall’s name at the time. The GSOC petition goes on to suggest possible other figures the University could name the hall after, including Dr. Herbert Needleman, a former Pitt professor and researcher who did foundational research on lead poisoning in children and Maud Menten, a Pitt

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professor who was a pioneer in enzyme kinetics and histochemistry. “Pitt Public Health, the Schools of the Health Sciences, and the University of Pittsburgh have an opportunity to stand up for what is right by removing Dr. Parran’s name from our building,” the petition says. “Having a just and inclusive public health practice demands it.” Besides demanding the University rename Parran Hall and publicly acknowledge Parran’s “legacy of unethical experimentation,” the petition also calls upon Pitt to either hold a vote for faculty and graduate students in the School of Public Health to decide upon a new name or include them in a joint committee to oversee how donation money is allocated if a donor is solicited to rename the building. According to University spokesperson Joe Miksch, Pitt’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion is in the process of forming a committee to study the issue and recently asked University senate leadership to nominate faculty, staff and student representatives for it. The senate’s Equity, Inclusion and Anti-Discriminatory Advocacy Committee is planning to file a position on the name of the building. An open symposium to gather community input on the issue is being planned for March. Pitt released a letter Jan. 8 from Burke to Pamela Connelly, the University’s vice chancellor for diversity and inclusion, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. It stated that a schoolwide meeting within the School of Public Health was already planned for April 20, given what Dr. Burke described as “renewed concerns” about Parran’s role in the Tuskegee study. The letter did not specify what the new concerns were or discuss the outcome of an earlier town hall meeting within the school held in 2011 after the Guatemala experiment came to light, the Post-Gazette reported. Burke initiated both the institutional review of the name and plans for the symposium in early January, according to Miksch.

Di Tella, pg. 1

Pitt students gathered Wednesday night at the Public Health building to watch “327 Cuadernos,” a documentary directed by award-winning filmmaker Andres Di Tella. Chiara Rigaud | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER brother in Bolivia. Di Tella said the film’s intention is “to keep a diary of the reading of a diary.” During the process of filming, Piglia becomes ill with Lou Gehrig’s disease — a disease that breaks down nerve cells and reduces the function of muscles — and slowly loses his mobility. In one scene, Piglia is reduced from flipping through his book and writing to dictating it to someone typing his words into a document. Much of the film is Piglia ruminating on the nature of writing and events throughout his life and the lives of his friends. Piglia criticizes 20th-century novelist Franz Kafka at the beginning of the film because Kafka did not want his diaries to be published even though he did not destroy them. Piglia then entertains the idea of publishing them under the names of one of his characters, Emilio Renzi, or even burning them. After working through the first phases of his diaries, Piglia eventually became one of the most prominent contemporary Argentine writers, publishing five novels, a number of essays and four short story collections. He taught Latin American literature at Princeton University from 2001 until 2011. In one scene from the film, Piglia considers the idea of writing about his life. “There’s nothing more ridiculous than the aspiration of recording one’s own life,” Piglia tells the camera. As the film ends, Piglia is shown burning one of his diaries. Di Tella said someone convinced him not to burn all of them. Piglia died

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in January 2017, and his diaries have been published in a set of three volumes. After the screening, Di Tella answered questions about the film posed by the audience, which was largely composed of graduate students and faculty from the department of Hispanic languages and literature. Daniel Balderston, Mellon professor of modern languages at Pitt, was familiar with the background of Piglia. He described how Piglia was constantly creating. “He was also working up until the day he died,” Balderston said during the question and answer segment. He also asked Di Tella about his choice to use what seemed like unrelated footage. Di Tella said scraps of paper from the diaries inspired the added footage in the film. He said there were pieces newspapers, tickets and other papers in the notebooks. “When I saw these little pieces of paper, I thought that the readings of his diary would go hand in hand with just the details of [collected papers],” Di Tella said. Pedros Salas, a recent Pitt graduate and current employee at Slippery Rock University, said he came because many of his former classmates were in attendance and he was a fan of Piglia. “I’ve read several of his books ... I like him a lot,” Salas said. “I really liked hearing Piglia talk about his own diaries, and [for it] to be surrounded by the historical fragments was also really interesting.”

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February 15, 2018

Opinions

column

from the editorial board

'The Vagina Monologues' Presidential portrait takes on tired taboos captures Obama’s presidency

Among a sea of white faces belonging to former commanders in chief, Barack Obama marked a decisive change in what an American president looked like 10 years ago when he won his first term. And with the unveiling of his official presidential portrait Monday, the nation’s first black president is continuing to affect the visual presidency. The painting, introduced alongside former First Lady Michelle Obama’s, premiered at the Smithsonian Museum’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., among official portraits spanning back to George Washington. The striking composition featured the former president seated, leaning forward, arms crossed, in a chair with a layer of flowers and leaves directly behind him. With other presidents in recent history portrayed in comparatively boring postures — George W. Bush holds the back of a chair in the Oval Office and Bill Clinton stands staidly in front of a fireplace — the new Obama portraits caused a stir among some of the former president’s supporters and detractors. As with much commentary from the Obama era, the discussion was rife with absurd and extreme reactions. “Obama’s Portrait Artist Has Habit Of Painting Black People BEHEADING White People,” read a breathless headline on conservative activist Ben Shapiro’s online website, the Daily Wire. On Twitter, Fox News talking head Sean Hannity tweeted out an article alleging “inappropriate sexual innuendo” and “SECRET SPERM” in the portrait. Cooler heads focused on the painting’s aesthetic and political aspects, dis-

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cussing its role as a historical artifact and objective representation of its subject. But it’s important to remember that every presidential portrait functions to some extent as a work of propaganda. And this particular piece of propaganda performs its part as a powerful symbol of the spirit of Obama’s time in office almost perfectly. The recently unveiled Obama portrait is undeniably more enthusiastic about its subject matter than most of its predecessors. Colorful flowers, individually representing places of personal significance to the former president like Chicago, Hawaii and Kenya give the image an air of optimism and festivity. Obama’s posture suggests confidence and preparedness. The effect is similar to a more colorful version of the 2008 depiction of the then-Illinois senator in artist Shepard Fairey’s classic “Hope” poster. Of course, every depiction of a political figure as important and universally recognized as the president of the United States will be political. But in the aftermath of a presidency rife with baseless conspiracies propagated about the president’s identity — dealing with everything from his birthplace to his religion — it seems apt for Obama’s official presidential portrait to dispense with the useless pretense of objectivity. It’s been a little more than a year since Obama formally stepped down from his post as commander in chief, and feelings about him are obviously still heightened. If, like many, you’re feeling nostalgic for his time in office, it’s not a bad idea to take solace in this memento.

Emily Rush (left) signs the monologue spoken by Savannah Garber (right) while Katie Mcgovern (center) acts out the story about a woman had an experience with a man who made her feel confident with the appearance of her vagina at “The Vagina Monologues” Saturday. Issi Glatts | ASSISTANT VISUAL EDITOR

Anne Marie Yurik Columnist Mere feet in front of me, a confident, talented, inspiring woman stood on stage, moaning before the audience in the William Pitt Union. She was holding a flogger in her hands and wearing nothing but red underpants, a garter belt and a blue blazer. I saw this woman in front of an audience Saturday night, not just as an object of sexual desire, but as a woman with a commanding stage presence at the Campus Women’s Organization’s rendition of “The Vagina Monologues.” Her monologue — and the many others before and after it — changed my perspective on vaginas. For the purposes of this article and based on my interpretation of the performance, the vagina serves as a metaphor

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for female sexuality — whether you’re a cisgender or transgender woman, with or without one physically there. Vaginas, while not the essence or even a necessary part of being a woman, are mysteries to most people — even to those who have one. This lack of personal knowledge needs to change. Initially, I didn’t expect to gain much from the experience, but I left realizing I had a lot to learn. The show talks about a woman’s experience in a way that is relatable, heavy, lighthearted and honest — all at the same time. Last weekend’s performance came from an adapted version of a play originally written in 1996, inspired by a series of interviews with women conducted by feminist author and playwright Eve Ensler — who later combined the interSee Yurik on page 5

column

The NBA’s injury problem is overblown Cale Berger For The Pitt News Celtics forward Gordon Hayward was set to make his team debut opening night of the 2017-18 NBA season. He had just signed a four-year, $128 million contract during the off-season, joining forces with Kyrie Irving and Al Horford in an attempt to dethrone the Cleveland Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference. Boston led by three just seven minutes into the season opener against Cleveland Oct. 17. Irving lobbed an alley-oop pass to Hayward, who was running toward the basket. The errant pass caused an airborne Hayward to collide with two Cavaliers, forcing him to land awkwardly, fracturing his tibia and dislocating his ankle.

Yurik, pg. 4 views to form the original script. The script and its portrayal is complex, yet presented simply, without much other than chairs, a stage and a cast of women. For me, as a woman who grew up in a predominantly Catholic environment and had little exposure to discussions about female sexuality before college, “The Vagina Monologues” was about sexual enlightenment, empowerment and discovery. Performers in the production demonstrated the need to be proud of one’s own sexuality and body parts. Being proud of your sexuality doesn’t have to mean taking a hand mirror and really looking “down there,” finding your clitoris or even learning that your “coochie snorcher” — as one of the monologues calls it — isn’t a bad place. But everyone should be encouraged to accept all parts of themselves and their sexualities. Pitt sophomore and English writing major Sarah Gross, who performed in this year’s production, described why the monologues are important and potentially eye-opening for many in the audience and cast.

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Players, coaches and fans gasped and cringed at the rising star’s gruesome injury. Just as soon as it started, Hayward’s season was all but finished. Like most injuries, Hayward’s was a freak accident — an unfortunate fall. Still, the myriad of additional injuries to star players this season has given rise to the narrative that there are more injuries now than in the past. It may feel like the NBA is rattled by injuries more so than the past, but the truth is we have no way of knowing if that’s true until the season ends. Injuries could seem worse this year because they’re affecting notable players like Knicks forward Kristaps Porzingis and Pelicans center Demarcus Cousins. The plethora of injuries to stars is not a sign

of rising injury rates, but simply a stroke of bad luck. Injuries are inevitable in any sport. The physical nature of competition pushes the human body to its absolute limits of strength, endurance and flexibility. Professional basketball is no exception. Hayward, Cousins and Porzingis have all suffered season-ending injuries. The real shame regarding these injuries is that these players were either recently signed to large contracts or were having career-best seasons. Cousins was starting to look comfortable playing with New Orleans after being traded last season. He was averaging 25 points per game and career highs in rebounds and assists. He was well on his way to the first playoff berth of his career

when he ruptured his achilles tendon diving for a loose ball Jan. 26. Porzingis had been a phenomenon since entering the league as the fourth overall pick in 2015. The Latvian superstar was scoring nearly 23 points per game and leading the league in blocked shots on his way to his first All-Star game appearance. He tore his ACL Feb. 6. Cousins and Porzingis are not the only All-Star selections who will miss the game in Los Angeles this Sunday. Cavs forward Kevin Love will be held for six to eight weeks due to a broken hand, while Wizards point guard John Wall is expected to miss the same amount of time, out with a knee injury. Warriors guard Stephen Curry, Rockets See Berger on page 9

“I think the show was just trying to tell people in the audience, ‘Hey, it’s OK to talk about vaginas in these spaces,” Gross said. “These are things that have happened, these are real stories about women, this is stuff we have to deal with, this is stuff other women have dealt with, this is stuff just in general people need to know about.” Although some have criticized the

ity doesn’t have to be defined only as it relates to male sexual desire — it has a beauty all its own. So while I sat in the crowd of whooping and cheering women Saturday night, I felt different. Not in a cliche, “I just lost my virginity, and now I feel like a woman” kind of way, but in the “I didn’t even realize that I was doing this to myself until I came here” kind of way.

alities are? Why is it a common experience to be unfamiliar with a physical part of yourself ? These questions burned in my mind throughout the program. Obviously, every woman should be able to decide for herself how she wants to explore her own sexuality. But many times women aren’t even given the chance to explore their sexuality. Getting to know your body and your sexuality — not just in a sexual way — can be an empowering process. Every woman should feel familiar with her sexuality. This doesn’t mean forced exploration, but it does mean that women should stop dissociating their vaginas from their bodies, stop thinking of them as dark and disgusting and stop being afraid to really understand what their sexuality means. Part of understanding your sexuality comes with being comfortable with your bodies and all its parts. Even if you don’t know what your vagina would say, or what it would wear, you should always recognize it as a beautiful part of yourself and feel the freedom to expand the knowledge of your own sexuality. Anne Marie primarily writes about gender and student issues for The Pitt News. Write to her at any41@pitt.edu.

“Every woman should feel familiar with her sexuality.” play for its focus on women’s genitals, I found it wasn’t simply about defining women by their vaginas. “The Vagina Monologues” personified vaginas to reclaim them and get women in touch with a part of themselves they otherwise might not have given much thought to. Asking people what their vagina would wear or what it would say, for example, is a way to get women to think of themselves as more than just an object of another person’s desire. Female sexual-

I too am guilty of not being knowledgeable about my sexuality. I identify as a woman, but how my gender shapes who I am is often a mystery even to myself. The monologue “The Flood,” in which an older woman describes her vagina as a cellar — a part of the house that’s infrequently considered and often out of mind — resonated strongly with me. Why it is such a relatable experience for women to not know what their sexu-

February 15, 2018

Culture

review

Pitt Stages puts modern spin on ‘Little Shop of Horrors’

Amanda Reed Contributing Editor Upon walking into the Charity Randall Theatre in Oakland Friday night, I was immediately transported from the dreary Pittsburgh weather to the even drearier Skid Row. But after two hours there, I didn’t want to return to the Steel City. Pitt’s production of “Little Shop of Horrors,” a 1982 off-Broadway gem, brings the ‘60s doo-wop-inspired musical to the modern day, toning down the camp without losing the laughs. Despite the modern retelling, the show doesn’t lose its charm and heart. “Little Shop of Horrors,” with book and lyrics by Howard Ashman and music by Alan Menken, is inspired by a lowbudget film from 1960 by Roger Corman. It tells the tale of Seymour Krelborn —

played by first year Patrick Meyer — and his struggle to win the love of Audrey, his co-worker at Mushnik’s Skid Row Florists, played by senior Kylie Dunne. When a solar eclipse hits the city, a mysterious plant named Audrey II, played by junior Adia Augustin, a Pitt theater veteran, enters his life — bringing him fame and misfortune for nefarious reasons. Pitt’s show has kept elements from the 1960s — including a Supremes-esque trio called the Urchins, played by junior Emily Cooper, sophomore Maya Boyd and first year Alison Hnatow. But with the help of junior Dorothy Sherman’s costumes and local director Reginald L. Douglas’ direction, Pitt’s production tells a more modern version of the story. Seymour dons a striped shirt, cuffed jeans and red Chuck Taylors instead of

the horn-rimmed glasses and tie he wore in the 1982 production. And, in this production, the cast rejects reductive gender stereotypes: Audrey is a broken, downtrodden brunette instead of a ditzy, busty blonde. The Urchins wear black-andwhite checkered overalls and corduroy A-line skirts instead of “Dreamgirls”-inspired garb. “Little Shop” was adapted into a movie in 1986, so there is a tendency for some productions to simply mirror Rick Moranis’ awkward, timid Seymour and Ellen Greene’s breathy, spacey Audrey. But Meyer and Dunne make the characters their own by reimagining line inflection and comedic timing. The musical is intrinsically outrageous — it includes a bloodthirsty alien plant, after all — so the choice to modernize

makes it more relatable and forces the actors to rely on their own comedy skills instead of just camp. Since Ashman’s book is already funny, the cast doesn’t need to work too hard to get laughs. But the show shines when characters make a bold choice to go over the top. Junior Davis Weaver’s rendition of Orin Scrivello, D.D.S., easily received the most laughs of the night, thanks to his deranged cackle and wholehearted commitment to portraying the sadistic dentist. Even when he played other characters, like a passerby near Mushnik’s Skid Row Florists or the editor’s wife at Life Magazine, his presence lit up the stage and put a smile on the audience member’s faces — including mine. Augustin’s Audrey II was also a joy to See Little Shop on page 7

SREE’S FOODS SERVES UP INDIAN CUISINE IN OAKLAND Sarah Connor Staff Writer Nestled next to Peace, Love and Little Donuts on Meyran Avenue sits a small, family-owned shop selling homemade Indian food. A colorful sign hanging from the top of the building reading “Sree’s Foods” welcomes customers into the quick-service restaurant. Sree’s Foods is a restaurant that serves authentic, homemade Indian cuisine. Sree’s has gained a considerable following in Pittsburgh for its vegan and gluten-free options, with the majority of its food considered safe for most dietary restrictions, from vegetarian to dairy free. Sree’s currently has two locations — one in Oakland and one Downtown on Smithfield Street. The Downtown location came first, while the Oakland location opened recently, in June 2017. A friendly man behind the counter

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made me a dish called spicy coriander chicken, served with rice with a spicy sauce. The meal also included eggplant curry, a mixture of chickpeas and potatoes, some yogurt salad and a tortilla — and the whole meal only cost $7. I took a seat at one of the three tables in the small restaurant that does mostly carry-out business, ready to give the homemade food a taste. The man behind the counter was Shiv Reddy, who runs the business with his wife Vydehi Reddy — commonly known as Mrs. Sree to regular customers. They are the only two employees at the Oakland eatery, which might explain the business’s limited hours: Monday through Friday, 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. for lunch and 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. for dinner. Despite the modest staffing, there was plenty of food to offer customers, and my plate was overflowing. At the first

bite, I was intrigued and satisfied with the savory flavor of the spicy coriander chicken. I was excited to try the side of yogurt salad, which was something I had never had before. It was similar to potato salad, except instead of mixing potatoes and eggs with mayo, fresh veggies like cucumber and tomato were mixed with yogurt. The vegetables in the salad were so fresh and flavorful, I could have eaten a whole plate of the salad, but I tried to control myself to save room for the eggplant curry. As I chatted with Shiv, some of his regular customers — mostly students — came through the restaurant. One Pitt student, junior neuroscience major Varun Rao, said as a frequent visitor to Sree’s, the eggplant curry was his favorite dish. “Today is my third day in a row here. When I have time to get lunch, I love

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coming here,” he said. “I miss homemade food.” After tasting the eggplant curry, I quickly agreed with Rao — it was the best part of my meal. These fan-favorite homemade dishes were first offered to the public when Vyedhi opened Sree’s Foods’ first location in 1991, while she was married to her first husband, Sreevardhan Mekala — known as Sree. Vydehi preferred cooking to working her marketing job. According to the restaurant’s website, Vydehi was tired of her monotonous office job and the travel it required, so she decided to pursue her first passion — cooking — as a full-time job instead. She uses traditional cooking methods learned mostly from her mother, but also techniques she picked up at the Cultural Academy in Madras, where she studied cooking, nutrition and household See Sree’s on page 7

Little Shop, pg. 6

Sree’s, pg. 6

experience, as she used a belty alto sound to take on a nice-diner-waitress-gonerogue attitude. To accompany the superb acting choices, Lori Lynn Bollinger and Britton Mauk’s scenic design — showing a street covered in graffiti and peeling paint — immediately immerses the audience in the grit and grease of Skid Row, while Lea Bosilovich’s red-heavy lighting sets the show’s dark mood. The six-member band, lead by Pitt theater professor Rob Frankenberry, has a big presence despite its small size. And each member of the company displays strong vocals that never waiver or crack during the belt-heavy show. The ending is anything but happy, but the energy of the cast and the gut-busting comedy leaves the audience content — despite having viewed one of the strangest shows produced for the stage. Running from Feb. 8 to Feb. 18 at the Charity Randall Theatre, tickets for the show can be purchased online or at the department of theatre arts box office on the 16th floor of the Cathedral.

management. After Sree passed away in 2011, Vyedhi was still able to keep their business alive. Recently she married Shiv, who was more than happy to help run Sree’s Foods. “For so many years, I worked in IT, and as soon as my son was stable and had a job of his own, I was happy to be done with that job,” Shiv said. Shiv said most people who become

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regular customers are lovers of spicy foods, and I quickly understood why this might be true. The spicy flavors combined with homemade quality and freshness of the food made Sree’s a lovely change from the blandness of a typical college student diet. The restaurant’s website says the cuisine served at Sree’s has its roots in the city of Hyderabad, an ancient city in southern India. Hyperbadi cooking combines two different Indian food traditions — “rich court cooking usually associated with the Moghul north and

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the traditional vegetarian cooking of India’s south,” the website says. Ingredients and spices that might indicate northern-style food include cinnamon, cardamom, cloves and garlic, while southern flavorings such as curry, red chilis, mustard seed, coconut, tamarind leaves and pathri are all utilized in Hyperbadi food. With a price tag of $7 for a homemade meal full of spicy flavor and rich in history, I think I will be making more trips to Sree’s in the future. Mrs. Sree and Shiv have gained a new regular.

Sports Jon Shaiken

Pitt to Pros: Donald Dominates NFL

Staff Writer Before Aaron Donald was the NFL’s Defensive Player of the Year, he spent his Saturdays terrorizing college quarterbacks at Heinz Field. In the NFL, Donald has a reputation of being a hard worker and relentless competitor playing for the Los Angeles Rams. According to Chris Lasala, Pitt’s associate athletic director for football administration, the defensive lineman has always been that way. “One of his mottos is ‘hard work pays off,’ and that’s just what he did,” Lasala said. “He just worked. He didn’t run his mouth ... he didn’t announce to everybody he was coming in early or staying late, he just did it.” His work certainly paid off at Pitt, where he won the 2013 ACC Defensive Player of the Year award in his senior season. That year he also took home the Vince Lombardi award for Lineman of the Year, the Chuck Bednarik award for NCAA Defensive Player of the Year and was a consensus All-American. Donald went on a week-long awards circuit in December 2013. The trip lasted four days, and he arrived back at Pitt late in the night. He was given the next day off, but when the coaches arrived for practice, Donald was dressed in full pads, ready to go. “I remember watching it just kind of laughing,” Lasala said. “That’s Aaron Donald. You try to give him a day off, and he’s not gonna take it, and it’s because he knows he’s gotta keep working.” Donald has been outstanding in the pros as well since being drafted in 2014. He has been selected for the Pro Bowl all four years he’s been in the league, and he earned first team All-Pro the past three seasons. He was the NFL Defensive Rookie of the year in 2014. This year, the Associated Press named Donald the NFL Defensive Player of the Year for the first time in his career. E.J. Borghetti, the executive associate athletic director for Pitt Athletics, remembers Donald as a consummate professional, even in college. “The great thing about Aaron was — and remains — Aaron’s a worker,” Borghetti said. “Aaron certainly always dutifully met his obligations

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Aaron Donald won four national defensive awards in his senior season at Pitt. TPN File Photo.

Pitt defensive lineman Aaron Donald sacks Virginia quarterback David Watford in 2013. He had 29.5 sacks in his Pitt career. TPN File Photo. and commitments as it pertains to the media. But Aaron is a worker.” Donald has been a general in the trenches for the Rams over the last four seasons, helping lead the team to its first playoff appearance since 2004 and its first winning record since 2003. On the field, it was evident to the Pitt football staff from the beginning that he was going to succeed. Borghetti recalled a conversation he

had with one of Pitt’s offensive lineman during Donald’s first season. “Jason Pinkston, who himself went on to become an NFL offensive lineman, I can remember him remarking, ‘We’re going to have a hard time keeping him off the field. He’s going to be ready to play,’” Borghetti said. Off the field, that competitive nature spilled over into friendly games of ping-pong in the

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team locker room. “He would just compete to the end of the world in a ping-pong game and [I remember] watching him just dominate whoever he played,” Lasala said. “Or if he couldn’t dominate him, just will himself to beat him.” Donald has always been a quiet competitor. In fact, he is a quiet guy in general, Lasala said, who was involved in Donald’s recruiting process. Lasala first met Donald when he was a junior in high school, and described him as “very similar to what he is now. Very quiet, focused, doesn’t say a lot.” Originally from Penn Hills, about a 20-minute drive from Pittsburgh, Donald showed talent and natural ability in high school as well. His former defensive line coach at Penn Hills High School, Demond Gibson, played for Pitt from 1996 to 1999. He remembers an impressive playoff game from Donald’s senior season that he said was the “culmination of all the work that we had put in.” “[It was] probably the most dominant performance I’ve ever seen a high school player have. We were underdogs in that game, we were supposed to lose,” Gibson said. “Aaron pretty much single-handedly won that game.” Gibson said Donald hasn’t changed from the person he was in high school. “The biggest thing for Aaron is that he has been able to remain Aaron. He hasn’t taken on this facade of someone else and this alter ego, he’s still the same person,” Gibson said. “And that’s the best part about him. I think that’s why he has so much success, because of the humility and the person he remains.” Donald always jumps at the opportunity to return to Pitt, even with his professional life taking him to Los Angeles. He regularly comes back to work out at the Panthers facility in South Side, Borghetti said. Head coach Pat Narduzzi keeps a locker for Donald, “with Aaron’s name on it and everything.” “His emphasis is, ‘this is where it all started, this is my home,’” Borghetti said. “And when he’s talking about home he’s not just talking about being from Penn Hills, he’s talking about Pitt. Pitt is his home.”

Berger, pg. 5 guard Chris Paul and Lakers guard Isaiah Thomas have all missed extended time, while Spurs forward Kawhi Leonard’s lingering injuries from last year’s playoffs remain an incredible conundrum. The first three have since returned to action, with Leonard only returning for 13 games before falling back out of the lineup. It’s entirely possible that these injuries could simply be a result of overwork and accumulated fatigue. This is the case for Porzingis’ injury. He had a career high usage rate — a stat that estimates how many of a team’s plays involve a player — at 31.2 percent before being ruled out for the year. He told reporters he was worn out back in early January — an admission that much of the sports world scolded him for. But it is likely that he was, in fact, fatigued. Porzingis was likely beginning to feel the effects of the long NBA season, but this isn’t so for all injuries. When players that are seventh, eighth

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and ninth in the rotation get hurt, it is only an issue to the fans of that particular franchise, but when star players tear a ligament or break a bone, the gravity of the situation is felt across the league. Numerous current and former AllStars have and will miss significant portions of the 2017-18 NBA season. Fan favorites are now prevented from participating, creating the illusion that everyone is hurt. Injuries just happen. They are unavoidable. Players have been tending to their own bodies better than ever before, far from the days of Charles Barkley eating McDonald’s prior to games. They still find their bodies ravaged by the physicality of the game. It just so happens to be the case that those inevitable injuries have struck stars as opposed to role players. It is the name recognition of these injured players that has led the public to believe that injuries are on the rise. Just because a few of them get banged up does not mean that the NBA has an injury problem.

The Los Angeles Lakers’ Lonzo Ball (2) trips up the New York Knicks’ Kristaps Porzingis at Madison Square Garden in New York Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2017. The Knicks won, 113109, in overtime. (Howard Simmons/New York Daily News/TNS)

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February 15, 2018

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