3/19/15

Vol. 105 Issue 132

@thepittnews

SGB works to strengthen neighborhood relations

Thursday, March 19, 2015

Pittnews.com

Pitt pops tags, opens student-run thrift store

Dale Shoemaker Assistant News Editor Pitt’s Student Government Board wants students to be good neighbors.

In light of a recent city initiative against overcrowding in Pittsburgh housing, Pitt’s Student Government Board is developing an off-campus student association to serve as a bridge between students, their neighbors and community organizations like Oakwatch.

SGB’s association, according to Board President Graeme Meyer, will connect students who live in Oakland neighborhoods and the permanent residents. Meyer said the association is only in its beginning stages, but will help to avoid contention and identify potentially unsafe houses in Oakland by working with community organizations like Oakwatch.

“We want to improve our relationships with our neighbors,” Meyer said, “so we’re working together rather than against one another.”

Oakwatch, a branch of Oakland Planning and Development Corporation, works to “improve the quality of life for residents,” by enforcing codes and addressing disruptive behavior, excessive noise and underage drinking, according to OPDC’s website.

Read the rest online at Pittnews.com.

Students dug through troves of vintage clothing at Pitt’s new student-run thrift store Wednesday. Nate Smith | Staff Photographer

Anjana Murali Staff Writer Pitt went hip — and opened its own thrift store on campus.

The thrift store, University of Thriftsburgh, is a University-owned, student-run thrift shop focused on sustainability that opened for business yesterday. Located on the first floor of the O’Hara Student Center, the store, is small but brags a wide variety

of colorful purses and backpacks as well as racks of shirts, jackets and dresses. Items in the store range in price from $1 to $12, with specialty items being more expensive, according to Maura Kay, one of the store coordinators.

Handmade ugly Christmas sweaters and vintage sports pullovers, for example, will fall within the $3 to $12 range, but the Coach purses ($20) and pair of Jimmy

Choo shoes ($90) demand higher prices.

Students who donate clothes to the store will get store credit, Kay said. The store only takes Panther Funds and operates Wednesdays from 3 to 8 p.m. and Thursdays and Fridays from 12 to 5 p.m.

By business close on day one, the store had made $538 from 60 purchases. In the

Thriftsburgh

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THRIFTSBURGH biggest sale, a student purchased $64 worth of various clothing items.

All of Thriftsburgh’s initial inventory came from the Give a Thread campaign, a clothing drive meant to recycle unwanted clothes and break the world record for amount of clothes donated. Around five percent of the campaign donations went to the store, according to Thriftsburgh co-founder Anna Greenberg. The campaign collected 111,913 items from December 5 to March 5, falling short of the world record but surpassing its 100,000 articles goal.

Student-run thrift stores are not unique to Pitt. Other colleges across the country feature similar concepts, including the Trunk at Middlebury College in Vermont and the Ole Thrift Shop at St. Olaf College in Minnesota. Otterbein University in Ohio also features the Otterbein Thrift Shop, while Clark University in Massachusetts has the Clark Community Thrift Store.

Greenberg said that, although the thrift store is a trendy place to buy cheap clothes,

March 19, 2015 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com it also serves as a teaching tool about sustainability.

“It’s meant to show students the value of something second-hand and the value in reusing items they might have otherwise thrown out,” Greenberg, a sophomore environmental studies major, said.

Greenberg got the idea for Thriftsburgh last year, in Geology 1333 — taught by R. Ward Allebach — where she and co-founder Paul Heffernan brainstormed ways to make campus life more sustainable for a group project.

“One of the things people kept bringing [up] in our dialogues was clothing waste and the waste from people moving out at the end of the semester,” Greenberg said.

Heffernan, a senior environmental studies major, acknowledged that Pitt provides an abundance of free t-shirts to its students, which sometimes end up in the dumpster.

“We thought if we could divert clothing from landfills, then we would be addressing social and environmental impacts of clothing in a positive way,” Heffernan said.

On opening day, the store was scheduled to open at 3 p.m., but people started to file

in at 2:30 p.m., according to Greenberg.

Up to 15 people browsed the small store at one time.

“At its height, it was hard to maneuver around, between people and clothes,” Kay said.

According to Greenberg, the store will have two paid student store coordinators who will handle the day-to-day running of the store. Additionally, Erika Ninos, the sustainability program coordinator at PittServes, will serve as the staff sponsor of the store and will oversee its general progress.

“I think the thrift store is a really good working model of an important concept of sustainability,” Ninos said. “Sometimes people don’t understand the practicality of sustainability because it can be a higherlevel concept, but this store is a tangible way for people to engage in [sustainable practices].”

As store coordinator, Kay, a freshman political science and urban studies major, will be in the store most of the hours it’s open to do inventory and coordinate the volunteers working there. On opening day, six volunteers worked in the store.

According to Kay, the goal is to have

one store coordinator and one volunteer at the store at all times. Currently, there is a running list of at least a dozen students interested in being involved with the thrift shop.

Eliott Totura, a senior environmental studies major, bought a fleece sweater as his first purchase from the store.

“It has cute little flower leaf things and ambiguous shapes, but it’s the coziest thing I’ve owned in a while,” Totura said.

Totura didn’t have to reach deep into his pockets to make his purchase.

“I would spend at least $50 for this at a regular store, but here I got it for $12,” he said.

Greenberg said the group will keep some of the money made from the store in a rainy day fund in case they need to make a large purchase for the store. Thriftsburgh will donate the rest of the money to the Pitt Green Fund, because the organization gave Thriftsburgh $2,400 in start up money. The Pitt Green Fund allocates funds to sustainability projects, according to Greenberg.

Kenneth Arble, project liaison for Pitt

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THRIFTSBURGH Green Fund, said the organization was eager to give money to the store. “It was unanimously voted on, except from the abstentions because of people that were involved with the store,” Arble said.

“We are trying to keep Thriftsburgh in the realm of sustainability, and now we are going to help give money to other sustainability projects on campus,” Greenberg said.

Last year, Greenberg said, the duo didn’t get very far with the store because they didn’t have much direction. After meeting with Misti McKeehen, director of PittServes, at the beginning of this year, they put together a proposal and presented it to then-Dean of Students Kathy Humphrey.

Humphrey allocated them a room in O’Hara for the thrift store. Now that Pitt has made that commitment, it owns Thriftsburgh, and is responsible for its operation.

“It was our idea initially,” Greenberg said, “but now it’s Pitt’s store.”

March 19, 2015 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com Heffernan also said he will now dedicate less time to the store.

Kay said she is trying to include as many recycled and creative items as possible in the store.

The surplus from the Give a Thread campaign is located in the basement of the Union temporarily, and will replenish the Kim Diah checks out the wares at the opening day of University of Thriftsburgh. Nate Smith | Staff Photographer store’s inventory as needed. The store flattering no matter what they are focus- a lot of people have previously asked her coordinators also plan to run clothing ing on,” Kay said. “They make your closet about where to go thrifting in Pittsburgh. drives in the future and encourage dona- more sustainable, and therefore you are “To go thrifting, you can go any directions during move-out time at the end of not really contributing to this consume, tion from Oakland, but there is nothing the semester. consume, throw away culture.” in Oakland for you,” Kay said. “So having “Vintage pieces are timeless and they Kay said that she is optimistic that something right on campus is going to be continue to draw compliments and be Thriftsburgh will be successful because really nice.”

March 19, 2015 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com

EDITORIAL

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OPINIONS

Football risks warrant more open discussion

San Francisco 49ers linebacker Chris Borland has tackled an issue more powerful than any NFL player. The 24-year-old upand-coming star told ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” on Monday that he is retiring from the NFL after just one year, citing concerns over possible brain damage, according to espn.com.

As we reflect on Borland’s decision, we should not generalize and contend that all players should either follow or reject the path Borland chose.

Rather, we should celebrate his bravery, as it can positively foster further discussion about the legitimate health concerns surrounding American football.

Numerous studies have linked football-related brain injuries to severe neurological problems, such as dementia, Alzheimer’s disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

In 2012, a study published in the medical journal Neurology found that professional football players are three times more likely to have neurodegenerative diseases than the general population.

The correlation between football and brain damage hits home locally. In 2002, Allegheny County forensic pathologist Bennet Omalu found evidence linking football-related brain injuries to dementia, when studying the brain of late Pittsburgh Steelers great Mike Webster. Over the past

year, actors and filmmakers have descended on Pittsburgh to film the movie “Game Brain,” which stars Will Smith as Omalu and tells the story of Omalu’s discovery.

It is important that we do not criticize athletes who choose to continue playing, even with the possibility of major health risks. At the professional level, football is more than a game. It is a livelihood, and players should have the option to participate if they choose.

Borland’s announcement to step away from football also provides young players with a positive role model. Society too often encourages athletes to “suck it up,” “quit whining” and mask their pains or troubles.

This attitude, however, does not benefit the players.

We cannot diminish Borland’s bravery. We must instead use his decision to construct an environment in which realistic discourse can flourish on the matter of football safety at all levels — whether early schoolage or professional — about the health realities concerning football and a need for safety solutions. We must equip parents and players to make responsible choices regarding the game.

Going forward, let’s use Borland’s example to discuss the realities of football at each level. It’s the right call.

TNS

COLUMN

How to Hillman: A study guide

Anna Tomani For The Pitt News

If you’ve ever studied at the Hillman Library, you know just how it got the nickname “Club Hillman.”

Despite the library’s constant crowd of students, I still continue to meet students who proudly proclaim they’ve “never been to Hillman.” Well, kiddos, when you finally realize you’re missing out on something, here are some rules and tips to help make your first trip there as successful as possible.

1. Getting there First step to successfully studying at Club Hillman is to actually bring your work. Despite some students’ beliefs, it is not a bar, and 5 p.m. is not happy hour. It is cry-internally-because-youare-just-realizing-how-much-workyou-actually-have-to-do-tonight-soyou-better-get-your-butt-moving hour. So, pack up your books, notebooks and your computer.

Forethought: it would be a very painful realization to walk all the way to the library to learn you forgot your computer charger. Chances are,

someone has one you can borrow. Unless you do not own a Mac, or you’re making a solo trip. Then, for your own good, have forethought.

2. Snackage It would be a poor decision to pack a snack for your trip. Journeys to the ground floor Cup & Chaucer Café provide a multitude of opportunities for procrastination, for socialization and for wasting dining dollars on grossly overpriced snacks and beverages.

Walking down to the café is really a social test. If asked, “Want anything from downstairs?” the expected response is “Sure. Actually, I’ll just come with you,” because, 11 times out of 10, the asker really does not actually want to pay for their snack and yours, too.

So, “want anything from downstairs” translates to “I’m bored, don’t want to do my work anymore and want you to stop doing your work, too.” My number one recommendation from the café would be a Rockstar — particularly the sugar free originals in the white cans.

3. Vampire tendencies A Rockstar is the No. 1 most effective drink for keeping you up all

night. It is an unwritten rule that you are, in fact, not permitted to leave Club Hillman until all of your work is finished. It is the repulsive cough syrup-tasting “beverage” that will make you gag and potentially even dry heave the first time it touches your lips, but eventually, after drinking it day in and day out, you will be able to down it like water — yum. In this particular instance, you may want to come prepared, because, sometimes, on café adventures, the girl standing directly ahead of you in line will dare to take the last white Rockstar.

Since you are not allowed to leave, sometimes you must take naps at the library. It might be a good idea to pack a toothbrush and toothpaste in your backpack to take care of that weird film that develops over your teeth. If you’re just starting out in your Club Hillman escapades, it is not time to worry yet, for only the most intense, hardcore Club Hillman goers who spend 14 plus hours there tend to run into this problem.

Tomani

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March 19, 2015 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com

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TOMANI 4. The Hillman curse With all of this rule-following going on, sometimes it can be hard to actually study.

So you might try to study on a less populated floor of Club Hillman than the alwaysbumping first level. The fourth floor does hold promise for studying, yet you find yourself in silent competition with the other hardcore library goers. You can’t be the first to leave.

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This forces you to study longer. However, if you’ve had it with studying, just Tumble until 8 a.m.

Tumble (v): The act of reblogging everything on your dashboard on a website designed as a creative outlet for the self-expression of the misunderstood.

Or you might try to study in another campus building, like Cathy. Right in the middle of campus, the really tall, gorgeous, sexy Cathedral of Learning that looks like Hogwarts on the inside with thousands of stained glass windows facing out. Or you might try the Wil-

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liam Pitt Union. However, since it closes 12:30 a.m., security will kick you out and force you to go to Club Hillman anyway.

Overall, there are several telltale signs of a successful residency at Club Hillman.

And while they might vary in detail for each individual, here are some universally recognizable indicators: - You’re in a group chat that consists almost entirely of descriptions of your table location.

- You start to recognize other Club Hillman frequents.

- When you actually go out, complete strangers come up to you and say, “I see you at the library all the time.”

- You see your friends outside of Hillman and they genuinely inquire as to why you’re not at the library.

For the remainder of the semester, put these tips to use and make the most of your last month in Hillman. It’s the smart thing to do.

Anna Tomani primarily writes about college and social issues for The Pitt News.

Write to Anna at aet29@pitt.edu.

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March 19, 2015 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com

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ARTS and ENTERTAINMENT Better off dead?: The heartbreak of finding a band past its expiration date Jack Trainor Staff Writer Last March, the ’90s indie rock pioneers Neutral Milk Hotel came to Pittsburgh for the last time in the foreseeable future.

It was part of a massive farewell tour that won’t end until June.

As was the case in Pittsburgh, the tour gives the fans, most of whom are in their early-to-mid thirties now, a chance to see the legendary group one final time before they might fade to complete obscurity forever.

I didn’t have emotional nostalgia swooning in my heart at the show, as many around me seemed to, but that show has since become important to me for another reason. During my three-to-four days of post-concert binge consumption of Neutral Milk Hotel and other music from its avant-garde label, The Elephant 6 Recording Company, I discovered a band that h a s r a r e ly

Neutral Milk Hotel 1989-2015?

stopped playing in my head. Unfortunately, in real life, the band stopped playing years ago — and it likely won’t reenter the touring circuit.

Beulah — who only released one of its four records on Elephant 6 — is the band. A modern reincarnation of The Beach Boys caught up in prevalent indie rock motifs — like self-consciousness and applying dull parties as metaphor for growing older — the San Francisco indie-pop rockers have held my affection with songs like the playful yet unmistakably determined “If We Can Land A Man On The Moon, Surely I Can Win Your Heart.”

Discovering a new favorite band is like entering into a new relationship — you want to spend all your time with them, even when doing monotonous things like homework. Listening to their albums is euphoric, and each song seems perfectly agreeable to your tastes — so much so that you wonder what you’ve even been listening to the last few years before they stepped into your life.

Naturally, as I did after a few listens, you want to get

serious and see your new love face-to-face. Those just finding Neutral Milk Hotel, for example, know this sense of urgency. The Internet has made doing so mindlessly easy, as bands keep their devoted fans updated through Facebook and email lists, alerting the fan base when they will be coming to a venue near them.

But now, likely as the mutual friend who introduced you to your lover, the Internet has also grown into the bearer of bad news — a cemetery, littered with the abandoned cybergravestones of deceased bands, engraved with long-past tour dates and defunct merchandise links with “sold out” printed over the images.

One of these graves belongs to Beulah, which broke up tragically young in 2004 — around the age of eight — despite budding commercial success. For

Dead Bands

Madonna Beulah 1996-2004

1979-2015

Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Butterfly’ a rich, vitriolic masterpiece Dan Willis Staff Writer

Kendrick Lamar

To Pimp a Butterfly Grade: A

Earlier this year, New York pop critic Sasha Frere-Jones left his post to become executive editor of the user-generated lyric annotation website Genius (formerly Rap Genius). In an interview with Newsweek, he said that his goal for the site was “raising the standards for all the annotations, bringing in different layers of meaning.” If that statement is truly the salvo that it sounds for a soon-to-be utopian literary community, Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly is how it’s going to get 9 there. It’s worth noting that, not three days after the surprise release of the Compton rapper’s tough and funky new album, his fans have annotated more than 99 percent of its lyrics.

As Lamar’s profile increases, his work only gets knottier and hits higher concepts. His debut album, 2011’s Section.80, had serious political and confessionalist tendencies, plus a loose narrative about two women named Tammy and Keisha that won the admiration of not only hip-hop purists, but the general underground. But Lamar was still tempering his eccentricity at that point. His voice sounded affectedly low and aggressive, and for every genre-bending emo track, there was a hook-verse “I’m-good-at-rapping” counterpart.

This made the plot seem feeble, at least compared to his 2012 cinematic breakthrough album good kid, m.A.A.d. city, which earned him plenty of rave reviews, Grammy nods and guest spots, ranging from his scene-demolishing

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March 19, 2015 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com

Madonna throws away pop identity, dignity on ‘Rebel Heart’ Stephanie Roman Staff Writer

Madonna Rebel Heart Grade: D+ It might be difficult to imagine how 56-year-old Madonna could reach a lower low than her Super Bowl halftime show supported by the laughably condemned LMFAO, but perhaps her prolonged musical career made such a case inevitable.

Rebel Heart, Madonna’s 13th full-length album, hits that unlucky number in too many unfortunate ways.

An artist that somehow still floats around in the wake of new female pop icons (Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, etc.), Madonna’s record seeks to steal everything hot in the industry and then proceeds to butcher it. Not much about Rebel Heart evidences rebelliousness — or even a twinge of heart.

The effort starts off with “Living for Love,” a politely blasé, repetitive and

tonally undifferentiated textbook pop song. The following few tracks lack all distinctive features too, as Madonna’s monotone, unconvincing and exhausted-sounding voice merely covers up the poorly-constructed synthesizers and simulated drum kit.

Both “B*tch I’m Madonna” and “Unapologetic B*tch” evince painful reactions — Madonna really should consider apologizing for the reggae and dubstep she scrambles into “Unapologetic B*tch,” then follow that with a second apology for the faux saxophone and police sirens overlaying “B*tch I’m Madonna,” which actually resembles flatulence more so than fantasia.

Nicki Minaj, famed rapper and wacked-out cultural figure known for her sexually explicit lyrics and crazy regalia, drops in for a brief verse to help remind Madonna who she is on “B*tch I’m Madonna” (Nicki raps “It’s that go hard or go home zone, b*tch/ I’m Madonna, these hoes know”).

Some critics have a tendency to compare Madonna to the “artpop” of Lady Gaga, but Minaj might be a more fitting analog, as Gaga’s “Sound of Music” tribute at the Oscars this year showcases real sensibility and talent, rather than mediocrity masked by an elaborate wardrobe.

Situated between these gems is the un-

“Not much about ‘Rebel Heart’ evidences rebelliousness - or even a twinge of heart.”

intentionally campy “Illuminati,” which serves as a primer on all of the figures whom society suspects are Illuminati agents (“It’s not Jay Z and Beyoncé/ It’s not Nicki or Lil Wayne/ It’s not Oprah and Obama, the Pope and Rihanna/ Queen Elizabeth or Kanye”). Overprocessed with autotune, Madonna answers, “The AllSeeing Eye is watching tonight/ That’s what it is, truth and the light.” It appears “Illuminati” intends to educate listeners on the elusive society, but its straightfaced seriousness ironically belies its joke.

Even more ridiculous than the Illuminati and Nicki Minaj is Madonna’s “Iconic,” featuring Mike Tyson — yes, the boxer Mike Tyson. Tyson opens the egregiously synthetic electronica with some ad-libbed lines, “I’m the best the world has ever seen/ The best ever/ I’m somebody you’ll never forget.” The whole song cries for recognition for the fading stars, but auspiciously features the con-

Madonna

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March 19, 2015 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com FROM PAGE 7

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DEAD BANDS MADONNA instance, Fox’s “The O.C.” featured the Beulah song “Popular Mechanics for Lovers” in the second volume of its critically acclaimed soundtrack.

“What I write about isn’t so much mortality,” singer and guitarist Miles Kurosky said to Rolling Stone in 2003, prior to the release of Beulah’s fourth and final record Yoko, “but the mortality of being in a band: How long can this last? Here I am in an indie rock band that’s done quite well ... but at the end of the day I wonder what I’ve done.

All I got is some crow’s feet. What’s the f *cking prize?”

The prize is neither tangible nor quantifiable. It is not measured in album sales or Spotify plays, and it probably comes years after it’s most desired in the form of praise from underground online fanzines and lists of great overlooked albums of the 2000s. As the influence of major figures like Neutral Milk Hotel continues to grow retrospectively, the Internet will similarly bring curious young fans Beulah’s way, where they too will be disappointed when redirected to the band’s cybergrave. That’s the prize.

Kurosky’s disillusionment with Beulah’s mild success reflects a larger problem in indie rock, where the genre has become flooded with acts achieving varying levels of success and some eclipse many others who arguably deserve success more. The singer and guitarist’s disappointment also, most importantly, mirrors the disappointment of the young listener who discovers the band too late — which, in the Internet age, is as close as it gets to laying flowers on a dead band’s grave and whispering “rest in peace” as the deceased’s songs loop on repeat in their headphones.

siderably less iconic voice of 21-year-old Chance the Rapper, who smoothly charges in and seizes control from Madonna and Tyson to salvage the track.

But Rebel Heart isn’t a totally desolate waste. Tucked away at the very end of the album are its two most palatable tracks: “Inside Out,” the first and only catchy and sing-songy pop movement, and “Wash All Over Me,” a slow, sweet ballad that

reminds everybody that Madonna does still possess some capacity to sing. Of course, these tracks close out what seems like a monstrously long marathon of 14 songs — and if that’s not enough, the deluxe version comes with an additional five songs, four of which you’ll want to skip.

Although the titular “Rebel Heart” merits a listen, it comes insanely far too late on the deluxe version to redeem the album.

Madonna’s latest venture borrows too much from modern music and then unsurreptitiously blends it into an ungainly,

9 bland paste she slathers end to end. A disjointed, directionless and ineffective pastiche of genres, the diva forgets that her wordsmithery is part of what made her a tour de force in the 1980s. Now, her writing’s punctuated with excess and aggrandizement, like this masterpiece from “Holy Water”: “B*tch get off my pole, b*tch get off my pole/ You can’t buy this at no luxury store.”

The luxury store won’t take it, and someone should tell her that MTV doesn’t buy this stuff anymore, either.

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March 19, 2015 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com FROM PAGE 7

BUTTERFLY verse of Big Sean’s “Control” to his most likely profitable appearance on Robin Thicke’s “Give It 2 U.” On To Pimp a Butterfly, he has not backed down one bit.

Mischievous but never playful, angry but never blind and smart but never pretentious, this is Kendrick at his most puzzlingly Lamarian (because, let’s be honest, he deserves his own adjective by now).

The opener “Wesley’s Theory” establishes much of the album’s musical palette. It begins with a crackling loop of buttoned-up, string-kissed ’70s soul that repeats “every n*gger is a star,” before launching into an instrumental that demonstrates masterful choice of collaborators. He triangulates modern funk by incorporating the afrofuturistic synth work of Parliament’s George Clinton, the sample-happy gangsta-ness of executive producer Dr. Dre (who praises Lamar in a voicemail interlude) and the brainy fusion of Flying Lotus and Thundercat.

The result is one of the most joyously funky things you will ever hear, but the lyrics are a vehement treatment of privilege. “What you want you?

A house or a car?/ Forty acres and a mule, a piano, a guitar?/ Anything, see, my name is Uncle Sam on your dollar/ Motherf *cker you can live at the mall,” Lamar intones in his trademark voice, a hypnotic, throaty countertenor that has somehow not prevented him from becoming massively popular. His language is dense. He seems to criticize capitalism’s effects on reconstruction, art and race relations, yet he admits to its seductive power. Believe it or not, it’s probably the most tame and coherent song on the album. There’s no “B*tch, Don’t Kill My Vibe” for white dudes to do acoustic covers of anywhere here.

“For Free?” sees Lamar channeling the late black liberation writer Amiri Baraka, spitting a vitriolic high-speed collision of high and low culture over two minutes of mercurial free jazz that recalls early Ornette Coleman. Here, Lamar reveals the ascetic and militant politics of the 1960s black left and hiphop’s dream of liberation through excess as two sides of the same cultural

coin. He then arrives mercilessly at “Oh America, you bad b*tch, I picked that cotton that made you rich.”

The remainder of the album rearranges lyrical and musical elements of the first two tracks. Yet, it never settles down — the music is constantly finding new vantage points, new emotional and rhetorical positions that make the album’s 70-minute runtime feel about half as long. The near-schizophrenic malleability of Lamar’s voice plus the choice to supplement the programmed beats with live musicians keep everything fresh.

Lyrically, there’s just as much devotion to variety. “For Sale?” and “i” are both songs about love among abject poverty, but the former pins self-destructive romance against Burt Bacharach flugelhorns and canned Latin percussion, while the latter uses a fiery Isley Brothers sample to profess liberatory self-love.

When lyrics are repeated, it’s not because they’re clichés — it’s because this album is a massively interconnected concept album. Motifs and characters abound, but one formal element is particularly notable. For one, Lamar performs a poem beginning with the line “I remember you was conflicted” in between songs, each time with a few additional lines until the 12-minute closer “Mortal Man.” There, he delivers the poem to completion, and it’s revealed that he was presenting it to 2Pac, who responds with clips from a 1994 interview conducted just two weeks before his death. It’s a little heavy-handed, but that might just be because it’s the ending to a concept album whose concept we have yet to pin down.

Even with its limited sonic and thematic palette, To Pimp a Butterfly is Kendrick Lamar’s richest listening experience yet. It’s also a puzzle whose pieces lack annotation into a greater whole, which makes it difficult to evaluate.

But most of what it does, even in its most provocative moments, it does tastefully. As long as he keeps giving us beats as moving as “How Much A Dollar Cost” and lines as crushing as “Would you know what the sermon is if I died in this next line?” we’re blessed to have him still alive and rapping.

March 19, 2015 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com

BASEBALL

11

SPORTS

Panthers win slugfest in final game of homestand Jeremy Tepper Staff Writer

After grabbing his 500th win as manager of the Pitt baseball team with a 13-7 victory over Akron, it’s hard for Joe Jordano not to look back on his tenure fondly.

“It puts you in a position to a reflect a little bit,” Jordano said. “This is my 18th year here. I’ve had some great coaches, some phenomenal players, great support staff. When you hit a benchmark win like this, you kind of reflect back on all of those people and how important they were to the success of this program.”

A stout offensive effort carried the Panthers on Wednesday, as the team collected 13 hits, with all but one of the seven players putting together multiple-hit efforts. It’s an effort coming off of a 6-1 loss against Penn State in 12 innings on Tuesday, after a five-run inning against senior Hobie Harris. Wednesday’s win pulled the team back to one game below .500 and advanced its record to 9-10.

“Yesterday was just not an inspired performance by anyone,” Jordano said. “And we wanted to correct that, and I just told them, ‘Let’s just go out there and play some

FOOTBALL

baseball and swing the bats like we know how, and obviously we needed to after that first inning’.”

Both Akron and Pitt got off to a quick start. Akron started the game with three straight hits off of sophomore starting pitcher Sam Mersing, the last of those three being a single by redshirt senior right fielder Joey Havrilak. The hit brought in junior designated hitter Daulton Mosbarger, who started off the inning with a double.

Three batters later, redshirt junior first baseman Gerrad Rohan grounded out to Mersing to score Havrilak.

Pitt, however, struck back harder in the bottom of the inning, scoring five runs.

Junior center fielder Aaron Schnurbusch spearheaded the inning, blasting a threerun home run to right field to bring in freshman shortstop Charles LeBlanc and junior catcher Alex Kowalczyk, who reached on a single and a walk.

The bats kept going after the homer, as senior second baseman Jordan Frabasilio doubled to left field and redshirt freshman right fielder Frank Maldonado ripped a triple down the right field line to bring him in.

Baseball

13 First baseman Eric Hess hit a home run on Wednesday. Nate Smith | Staff Photographer

Pitt, Tennessee announce home-and-home series Chris Puzia Sports Editor

Pitt and Tennessee will play a home-and-home series in 2021 and 2022. TNS

Pitt and the University of Tennessee announced a home-and-home football series for 2021 and 2022, according to a release on Wednesday.

Tennessee will host the first game on Sept.

11, 2021, and Pitt will host the following year at Heinz Field on Sept. 10, 2022. The two teams have met only twice, and both games occurred in Tennessee’s Neyland Stadium, but the visitors won both times. Pitt’s strong defense led the way as it won with scores of 30-6 in 1980 and 13-3 in 1983. The wins came during a spell of success for the Panthers, as Pitt won the 1976 National Championship

and finished 11-1 in the 1980 season.

The Volunteers finished the 2014 season with a 7-6 record (3-5 SEC), including a 45-28 win over Iowa in the TaxSlayer Bowl on Jan. 2.

Pitt, which finished 6-7 last season under former head coach Paul Chryst, now has one more non-conference multi-year series scheduled through the next eight years.

The team will travel to Stillwater, Okla., to face Oklahoma State University in 2016, and the Panthers will host the Cowboys the following year. Pitt is also scheduled to host Penn State in 2016 and 2018, and travel to play the Nittany Lions in 2017 and 2019.

Tennessee is the only non-conference opponent that Pitt is scheduled to face so far in 2021 and 2022.

12 COLUMN

March 19, 2015 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com

Mid-major bubble teams on wrong side of tourney field

As the NCAA Tournament approaches each year, some teams are nervously tapping their feet as they hope to break into the Big Dance.

They heard analysts debate for weeks about whether their team would make the tournament or not, yet they were stuck sweating it out until Selection Sunday when they saw if they made the cut.

To get there, all of these “bubble teams” must make a case for themselves as to why they, and not their rivals, deserve a shot at the tournament. Now that we have seen teams like UCLA, BYU and Georgia make it into the field, we can assume the selection committee thought they were deserving.

Committee’s decision aside, I still think other teams made an even better case for inclusion than the schools mentioned.

Other teams such as Miami, Temple and Old Dominion — all of which missed the tournament — have the biggest gripes over why they should be preparing for the NCAA Tournament rather than the NIT. Those

gripes probably fall with teams like BYU, which squeezed its way into the field instead.

The selection committee rewarded BYU (25-10, 13-5 WCC) because it was the secondbest team in the WCC conference behind No. 2 seed Gonzaga. BYU got its signature win over the Zags just a week before conference tournaments started, but it also had the luxury of getting three opportunities to beat them. BYU’s next best win came against non-invite Stanford, at home in December, by two points.

But consider that BYU, the only top 25 team to make the cut, had three losses to teams ranked outside of the top 100 — twice to Pepperdine and once to San Diego — while also losing all of its games against tournament-quality teams, with all of those games either coming on a neutral site or its home floor.

Compare that to a team like Miami (2212, 10-8 ACC). Not only does Miami play in a tougher Atlantic Coast Conference, but it had seven true road wins. Those wins included Pitt, Syracuse and Florida, which are

tough places to play even though the teams recently suffered through down years. The Hurricanes also hold a double-digit road win against No. 1 seed Duke and another quality home victory against tournament team North Carolina State.

To me, this gives them a passing grade in the all-important eye test. Miami gets my vote for tournament inclusion. Temple does also, as a team that both ESPN bracketologist Joe Lunardi and I would have included in our fields.

But the selection committee disagreed with Lunardi and excluded the Owls. They crushed Kansas and Cincinnati, beating them by a combined 41 points, while also challenging themselves by playing against Duke and at Villanova. All of the Owls’ losses, except for two, came against the top 50 teams in RPI, and they finished the season winning nine of their last 12.

The selection committee shocked me when it let UCLA into the tournament. The Temple barely missed the NCAA Tournament,

Column

The Pitt News Crossword, 3/19/2015

Brandon Duerr Staff Writer

ACROSS 1 Sweet Spanish wine 7 Work unit: Abbr.

11 Mendel’s sci.

14 Place to surf 15 Washbowl partner 16 Protein-building molecule 17 Holy woman sculpted by Bernini 19 Battleship letters 20 Self-conscious question 21 Preceder of old age?

22 Peoria-to-Decatur dir.

25 It may call for lateral thinking 28 Iconic figure with an anchor tattoo 30 Tenochtitlán natives 31 Zenith 32 Chanted phrase 35 Van Gogh painting depicting peasants 41 Hostile advance 42 Toe loop kin 43 Not around much 46 Campaign ad urging 48 Many a sofa 52 Common animal in “The Far Side” comics 53 Participated in a poetry slam 54 Holey reef dweller 56 Give __: pay attention 57 Words spoken often this time of year, one of which is anagrammed four times in this puzzle 62 Whirlpool site 63 __ nitrate 64 Allow 65 Lush 66 In the wrong business?

67 Scone fruit DOWN 1 High pts.

2 “So that’s the answer!”

though some analysts predicted they would

13 make the field. TNS

4/2/15

By Gareth Bain

3 Island souvenir 4 Years in the Roman legion 5 Manages 6 It’s worn 7 Physics Nobelist of 1938 8 Typical “Divergent” reader 9 Guitar man Paul 10 Beach top 11 Banana blemish 12 How many artists work 13 Police weapons 18 Greek vowel 21 Gangster film sound effect 22 Cross words 23 Junior-to-be 24 Sport with double touches 26 Museum that awards the Turner Prize 27 Biblical scribe 29 No longer valid 32 “Nixon in China” tenor role 33 __ moment’s notice 34 Auction bid, often

Wednesday’s Puzzle Solved

©2015 Tribune Content Agency, LLC

36 Formerly 37 Half of seis 38 Board member, usually 39 Slots spot 40 Impede 43 Overachiever’s concern 44 Chintzy 45 Turkish peak 46 Thin layer 47 “Star Wars” surname

4/2/15

49 Best Angler and Best Jockey, e.g.

50 Ask (for), as a job 51 First car, for many 55 Actor Morales 57 Harrison role 58 Ovid’s “I love” 59 CNN launcher 60 Wearer of a “Y” sweatshirt 61 Stimpy’s chum

March 19, 2015 | The Pitt News | www.pittnews.com FROM PAGE 11

BASEBALL The next inning, Akron picked up where it left off as Mosbarger grounded out to bring in freshman second baseman Alex Dirienzo, who had tripled to right-center.

It was the first of two triples by Akron that inning, as Havrilak tripled to right-center to plate senior shortstop Matt Rembielak, who reached via a walk.

After surrendering another run in the third, Jordano pulled Mersing at the end of the inning for redshirt freshman Dan Furman. Mersing pitched three innings, allowing six runs — five of them earned — on seven hits.

“He was elevating a lot of his pitches,” Jordano said. “Anytime you elevate the ball against any team, you’re going to get hit hard.”

Luckily, Furman — who had previously pitched just one inning this year — patched up the Panthers’ pitching with six innings of three-hit, one-run work.

After using up much of his pitching staff yesterday, Jordano said the decision to bring out Furman paid off.

“We threw four, five guys yesterday. We were a little thin on the mound. With him coming in doing the job for us, it’s special,” Jordano said.

Furman’s effort means even more for Jordano and his team, given the relationship they have with him.

“He’s always putting out for everybody.

His teammates absolutely love the fact that he got the win today,” Jordano said.

The coach added that Furman’s ability to keep the ball down helped him.

“He was just throwing strikes,” Jordano said. “He mixed his pitches well and worked ahead of the hitters.”

The Panthers matched the lone run that Furman surrendered when senior first baseman Eric Hess homered to right field to give Pitt a 7-6 lead.

The teams traded runs in the fourth again, with the Zips scoring on a ground out from junior infielder Kris Simonton to bring in Mosbarger and Pitt with a LeBlanc single up the middle to score redshirt sophomore outfielder Jacob Wright.

The next inning, the Panthers gave themselves a bit more breathing room after junior third baseman Ron Sherman doubled to bring in sophomore outfielder Nick Yarnall, who also doubled after coming in as a pinch hitter.

Furman pitched five scoreless innings after surrendering one run in the fourth. Pitt collected four more runs, with three coming in the seventh and one in the eighth.

After this brief stint in non-conference play, Pitt will return to playing ACC teams when it travels to Durham, N.C., this weekend for a three-game series against Duke, beginning on Friday at 6 p.m.

With the help of Furman’s effort, Jordano will approach the weekend with a full bullpen.

“We’ll be fully loaded going into the weekend and ready for an extremely talented Duke team,” Jordano said.

“I’ve had some great coaches, some phenomenal players.”

Joe Jordano

FROM PAGE 12

COLUMN Bruins (20-13, 11-7 Pac-12) did play the 29th most difficult schedule in the country, but they won only once in eight attempts against ranked opponents, with their best wins both coming at home against Oregon and Utah.

While those are good wins, UCLA lost by an average of 18.8 points per game against teams with an RPI in the top 50. Not only did they lose badly to strong competition, they also lost five more games against non-tournament teams that included horrendous defeats by lowly Colorado and Oregon State.

Let’s compare them to a team like Old Dominion. That the Monarchs finished 13-5 in a weak Conference USA poses some questions, but they did challenge themselves in the nonconference with games against Virginia Commonwealth, LSU, Georgia State and Richmond.

Old Dominion won all of those games.

It went 8-2 against the RPI top 100 teams, but lost to Middle Tennessee in the conference championship game, essentially the final blow to knock Old Dominion out of the tournament.

Despite the bad losses, the good wins — espe-

T P N S U D O K U

13 cially in the non-conference — give the Monarchs my vote instead of UCLA. Finally, the No. 10 seed Georgia Bulldogs (21-11, 11-7 SEC) earned a tournament bid.

Georgia did not have many bad losses throughout the season, aside from to Auburn at home, yet it lacks one key resumé-builder: The Bulldogs haven’t beaten anybody. They don’t have a single win against the RPI top 50, losing in all five attempts, and the only tournament team they beat was Ole Miss — one of the last to make the NCAA field.

Before I forget — did I mention they lost at home in February against a 20-loss Auburn team?

The committee often too heavily rewards power conference teams for consistently playing better teams due to their conference schedules. Mid-major schools struggle to schedule as many top-level games, and for teams like Old Dominion and Temple, it costs them muchdeserved spots in the NCAA Tournament.

The selection committee seems to hold them to a higher standard than power conference schools in terms of how many games they can lose to make the field.

Maybe they just need to go undefeated to have a chance.

Today’s difficulty level: Medium Puzzles by Dailysudoku.com