The Pitt News
The independent student newspaper of the University of Pittsburgh | PIttnews.com | September 20,2016 | Volume 107 | Issue 29
science & health
Research models wearable tech Erin Hare Staff Writer
in which Sanders supporters pledged not to vote for anyone if Sanders wasn’t on the ticket, gained traction. But Sanders has since encouraged those faithfuls to vote for Clinton, and some others have switched to third parties — namely Green party candidate Jill Stein and Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson. The largest demographic component of Sanders’ fanbase, left floundering after the Democratic National Convention, were millennials. According to data published by the The
Computers commonly sit in our pockets or on our wrists, but the next generation’s “smart” materials could weave technology into the very fabric of our clothing. Pitt researchers have linked principles of chemistry, materials science and mathematics to design the model of a material that can recognize patterns and may someday be used to monitor human health. The material, which is only in the theoretical stage currently, is a meshwork of gel blobs about half a millimeter in diameter, capable of turning chemistry into electricity, and wired together to form ten 60-unit computing networks — no batteries required. The researchers published their model in the journal “Science Advances” earlier this month but are still looking for collaborators to create the prototype. Principal investigator Anna Balazs, a professor of chemical engineering at Pitt, has been talking with John Rogers, a University of Illinois professor also familiar with smart materials, to make the model a reality. According to Rogers, funding is a larger obstacle than technology. “I would say you could develop a pretty clear path for getting there based on what’s available now,” Rogers said. Once the material is developed, Balazs said clothing could alert the wearer to concerning
See Sanders on page 2
See Smart Materials on page 2
Pitt student Melissa Yang and the members of Yinzinique practice in front of the Carnegie Library . Madison Holden STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
BERN’D OUT
Bernie Sanders supporters now pushing for a revolution without the revolutional candidate
Sanders supporter junior Larissa Allen is one of many whose enthusiasm for the upcoming elecStaff Writer tion has declined. While campaign stickers and t-shirts for “I’d much prefer Clinton to Trump, so I’ve renow-defeated Democratic primary candidate signed myself to the fact that Clinton is who will Bernie Sanders still occasionally crop up around be getting my vote,” Allen said. “My personal encampus, “Feeling the Bern” chalk drawings and deavor is to not have Trump in office.” posters, marches in support of the far-left politiAfter Hillary Clinton cinched the Democian and the fiery vigor that once surrounded his cratic nomination in July 2016, Americans who campaign on college campuses have all but disaphad long been following Bernie Sanders’ seempeared. ingly revolutionary march to the presidency were Forced to support either of the two polarizing left jaded. Briefly, the Bernie or Bust movement, major party candidates or risk a third-party vote,
Casey Schmauder
News
Correction: In yesterday’s story “Former athlete, Navy SEAL opens Fest,” Pitt senior Johnny Walylko was inaccurately described as a Navy SEAL instead of a Navy SEAL candidate. The headline has been updated online to reflect the change. The Pitt News regrets this error.
Smart Materials, pg. 1 patterns in physiology or behavior. For instance, Balazs said, a smart bandage would alert the wearer that a broken bone is sufficiently healed, or a shoe insole would sound an alarm if it senses a change in stride — possibly the first indication of Alzheimer’s disease. “Ultimately, we’d like the computer to have ready interactions with human beings,” Balazs said. “One of the next developments is if you could wear the computer.” The trend toward wearable technology is increasing with advancements such as the Apple Watch and the Fitbit. Several companies, including England-based company, FlexEnable Ltd., and DuPont USA, are working to create new materials that can comfortably monitor health. FlexEnable utilizes smart materials by printing electronic circuits on flexible plastic film about the thickness of a sheet of paper to make the mate-
rial more comfortable, according to the company’s website. These flexible devices can be incorporated into bandages or catheters for patient monitoring or health and fitness trackers with shatterproof displays. “This is particularly important for health monitoring,” Paul Cain, FlexEnable strategy director, said, “because real-time monitoring can allow subtle conditions to be picked up at the earliest opportunity.” According to a report from the global management consulting firm Accenture, use of wearable health trackers that monitor steps, heart rate and sleep has risen from 9 percent in 2014 to 21 percent in 2016. The majority of those surveyed — 78 percent — either currently wear or are willing to wear health-tracking technology. At Pitt, this new theoretical model could push that trend further by eliminating the need for battery power and embedding computational power into the material itself.
Estimated Total Youth Votes in April, 2016, Presidential Primaries and Caucuses
727,837
1,942,657
746,518
654,065
353,422
KASICH
CRUZ
CLINTON
TRUMP
SANDERS
Data from the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement
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DuPont USA , one of the companies already experimenting with smart materials, struggles with relying on external power sources. TNS The model works by using a chemical reaction to cause gel within the material to expand or shrink, which bends a tiny piezoelectric hair — a lever that generates electrical energy in response to
applied pressure — mounted above the gel. As the gel moves, the voltage generated by the piezoelectric lever fluctuates.
Sanders, pg. 1
remain loyal to the party.” Others, including Pitt Students for Bernie Sanders club creator and grad student Alex Austin, have maintained Sanders’ progressive ideals without relying on the 75-year-old senator’s name to do so. The Sanders support was once viable on campus — when Austin ran Pitt Students for Bernie Sanders in 2015, he led a tuition march of about 300 students down Forbes and Fifth Avenues. Now, he’s throwing his energy behind the new Sanders-inspired charge, a movement called “Our Revolution” that aims to transform American politics through awareness-raising and political engagement. “We met for the launch of [Our Revolution] ... to make sure we’re getting rid of bad politicians in office,” Austin said, adding that the group “turned over from Pitt Students for Bernie Sanders into Bridges Not Walls, which will continue... hopefully at least the next four to eight years.” In a similar transition, the website Collegestudentsforbernie.org is now a single page that links viewers to the campus groups Young Democratic Socialists and Young Progressives
Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement in April 2016, almost 2 million people ages 17 to 29 voted for Sanders in the primaries across 20 states. More young people voted for Sanders than the amount of the same group who voted for Clinton and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump combined. So what are those impassioned young people in Pittsburgh — many of them college students — doing now? Trump will collect very few, if any, votes from former Sanders supporters, according to Fox News, CNN, Marist and YouGov polls who all found Trump would get support from less than ten percent of former Sanders supporters. Some of his advocates, like Allen, will shift their enthusiasm for Sanders to their party affiliation. “I’m still going out and getting people to register to vote. I’m still engaging in political conversation and trying to tell people about the Democratic Party,” Allen said. “Even though I don’t fully support the candidate that we have, I
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See Smart Materials on page 3
See Sanders on page 3
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Sanders, pg. 2
Smart Materials, pg. 2 The model material is made up of many gel and piezoelectric units. When they’re wired together into networks, their voltages can fluctuate either in or out of sync, allowing the system to communicate across the fibers in the material. When the units in a network sync up their voltages, it triggers an audible alert to the wearer or the physician. Lead author Yan Fang and his PhD advisor Steven Levitan — both in the computer and electrical engineering department at Pitt — took inspiration from the field of “oscillator-based computing” to construct the pattern recognition aspect of the model material. Unlike traditional computers that use mathematical operations such as addition or subtraction, oscillator-based computers can only perform pattern recognition, Balazs said, but the patterns it recognizes can be more complex than basic math. “Other materials that compute use electronics like batteries, wires [or] electronic components,” Balazs said. “Our combination of chemistry and piezoelectrics really is cutting edge.” DuPont USA, a chemical and healthcare company, is also working toward this kind of innovation, solving the problem of making “electronically enabled” clothing that is not bulky or
over-engineered, according to Michael Burrows, electronics and communications global segment leader of wearables. The company is printing stretchable electronic ink onto standard fabrics for tracking athletic performance. FlexEnable, as is the case with many other wearable technologies, typically needs a battery, and requires periodic charging, according to Cain. In other projects, Rogers has addressed the battery problem by converting mechanical energy in the body into electrical charge. For example, Rogers harnessed the mechanical energy of the heart to power the stimulating electrodes in a pacemaker. “In the context of wearables, batteries are always a problem,” Rogers said. “So, if you can develop an autonomous system that doesn’t require that kind of external power supply ... I think that’s a very exciting vision for the future.” Balazs and her co-authors’ model doesn’t require a battery either because their system uses chemical reactions as a power source. Right now, the chemicals required for the reactions are expensive, but Fang expects that with time, the system will become more affordable, similar to the way that computers have downsized in both size and price tag over the last 50 years. “Technology needs time to evolve,” Fang said. “This is brand new.”
The Pitt news crossword 9/20/16
Demanding Action, encouraging policy work as “necessary” to bring about the “Political Revolution.” This transformation of Sanders’ campaign — from electoral to policy-focused — makes sense, according to Pitt history professor Richard Oestreicher, who said the progressive candidate’s supporters rallied around his ideals more than his persona. The loyalty from the Sanders camp does not compare to other political candidates, Ostreicher said, but lines up with social movements. In the past, he said, movements such as the Women’s Rights Movement and Civil Rights Movement, had a “lifecycle” that revolved around issues similar to Sanders’ call for an economic revolution to help students in college loan debt. “If the organizers of the movement have read the mood of the moment correctly and have identified a problem that lots of people perceive as a problem, then social movements will take off in an explosive way with a great deal of enthusiasm,” Ostreicher said. Sanders supporter Nadia Pacheco, who graduated from Pitt in 2016 and now works for a nonprofit which she cannot disclose, was one of many who saw Sanders as a beacon of change in
a broken political system. Clinton, she said, is fine if more conservative voters are looking for more of the same. “I personally believe that Clinton would be the perfect president for the political system that we have in place right now,” Pacheco said, “but Sanders would’ve been the perfect president for the political system that we should have. The political system that we deserve to have.” When it comes to changing the political status quo, Austin said there’s still a chance to do some in local and state-level races. “It’s hard to put all of our attention on the presidential race when most change happens at the lower levels,” Austin said. “We know we immediately want to get rid of Toomey as Senator and give some support to Erin McClelland [DPA, for Congress] because she’s strong on unions and education policy.” Until the election, it’s impossible to tell exactly what kind of impact Sanders’ tribe of energetic millennials are going to have and whether they’ll continue his idealistic momentum in other ways or jump political ship completely. “Now you’re at the fork in the road,” Oestreicher said. “Do people find ways of responding to a defeat and find ways to reinvent themselves and address the issues that Sanders was addressing in other ways or not?”
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September 20, 2016
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Opinions
column
from the editorial board
Time for trans people to play trans characters While accepting his Emmy for outstanding lead actor in a comedy series Sunday night, Jeffrey Tambor — who plays a transgender woman in the Amazon series “Transparent” — decided to take a stand for the community he represents on television. “To you people out there, you producers and network owners, and agents and you creative sparks: please give transgender talent a chance,” Tambor said. “Give them auditions. Give them their story. Do that. And also, one more thing: I would not be unhappy were I the last cisgender male to play a female transgender [person] on television.” Tambor’s demand for greater representation follows years of debate surrounding presentation of transgendered people by cisgendered actors. But, as Tambor notes, this is more a problem with the people behind cameras than the ones in front of them. Jared Leto’s 2013 Oscar-winning performance as a trans woman with HIV in “Dallas Buyers Club” and Eddie Redmayne’s role as Lili Elbe in last year’s “The Danish Girl,” while drawing critical praise from Hollywood, earned sharp critiques from the LGBTQ+ community for their casting decisions. Their ability to perform was not in question, but why they starred instead of actual trans women went unanswered. Not every role needs to be portrayed by a person fitting the character’s exact description — that would somewhat diminish the task of acting. At the same time, shows focused on the perspectives of marginalized communities have an obvious interest in involving genuine perspectives. “Transparent,” despite its cis lead, at least has a writing staff filled with trans people. While the character may be in the hands of someone who has described the role as a continual learning experience, the people behind his character are educated by self-experience. Most other projects attempting to present trans characters probably can’t say the same.
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If the message of films and television series portraying trans experiences is to support the larger community, it’s a bit odd that producers don’t start by giving members of that community actual on-screen, money-making opportunities. If the intent of creating narratives that break stigmas is to validate the existence of the trans community without tokenizing them, then spotlighting actual members of that community should be an obvious decision. Television, as opposed to film, has made small leaps in the past ten years making casts more representative of marginalized communities. Producer and writer Shonda Rhimes, best known for “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Scandal,” has long been known for her diversity in casting. Other producers and writers, including Ryan Murphy of “Glee” and “American Horror Story,” have included disabled and non-cisgender actors in their casts, but the mainstream movie industry has been slow to follow suit. Benedict Cumberbatch’s trainwreck portrayal of an androgynous supermodel in “Zoolander 2,” and other roles that position men dressed in women’s clothing as a point of humor are embarrassing steps back for any progressive strides made in the film industry. And let’s not forget that trans people don’t even need to just portray transgender characters — producers can cast them as any role they please. It takes more than a wig and makeup to accurately present the lives of trans women. Tambor has succeeded with a nuanced and emotionally substantive portrayal of one experience, and his being honored at the Emmys shows people are willing and interested in trans stories. Now, it’s up to Hollywood to provide them, authenticity included. Now that we’ve seen what meaningful cis portrayals of trans identities look like, it’s time to get out of the way. Let’s move beyond artistic messages supporting trans rights and start actually including them on the silver screen.
Democrats must maintain unity beyond CMU Rally
Senate candidate Katie McGinty held a rally at Carnegie Mellon University Friday alongside prominent party Democrats. TNS
Henry Glitz
Instead, both Fetterman and Sanders were appearing together to boost McGinty’s bid for the Senate seat of Pat Three unlikely Democratic allies Toomey, R-Pa. The message from the gathered together Friday afternoon in speakers was clear: Pennsylvania DemCarnegie Mellon University’s Wiegand ocrats cannot allow intraparty differGymnasium to speak, one after anoth- ences, both personal and ideologier, despite the fact that they wouldn’t cal, to help Toomey keep his seat and have dared standing shoulder to shoul- maintain GOP control of the Senate. der in April. This primary season, Republican The three politicians standing on and Democratic sides alike saw no stage were Pennsylvania Senate can- shortage of sharp character distincdidate Katie McGinty, her former tions. While some of the resulting primary opponent, Braddock mayor intraparty clashes focused on policy John Fetterman, and his political — Donald Trump’s proposal to build a touchstone, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. wall on the Mexican border and HillThe fact that the politicians onstage ary Clinton’s perceived reliance on weren’t lobbing insults against each hawkish diplomacy, for example — other would have seemed strange just many clashes have focused on personal months ago. See Glitz on page 5 Columnist
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Glitz, pg. 4 characteristics. Both Sanders and Fetterman used McGinty’s and Clinton’s histories of “shady” partnerships with big business to paint the candidates as untrustworthy. The Braddock mayor’s campaign prominently accused McGinty of receiving money from energy groups, and the middle of the presidential primary saw Sanders spokesman Michael Briggs claim that Clinton “relied heavily on funds from lobbyists working for the oil, gas and coal industry.” Fetterman and Sanders both used this angle to question whether their respective opponents could understand the problems of middle- and working-class Americans. Throughout the primaries, these contests were about relatability and personal trust. Now, the primary season scuffles have been put aside to deal with the task at hand: beating Toomey. Listening to Fetterman speak at last Friday’s rally, it was obvious that, to him, campaignspecific issues like fossil fuel donations
matter much less than the party’s shared agenda. “I had 12 primary debates with Katie, and I know more than anyone that she will fight for the issues important to the people of Pennsylvania in the U.S. Senate,” Braddock’s mayor said, adding that he had “made it [his] duty” to elect McGinty after the primary voters spoke in April. Both Fetterman and Sanders realize that securing a shared agenda — with both McGinty and Clinton — is a far more important objective than primary fundraising. Surface-level differences in personality cannot and should not obscure real, mutual political interests, and Sanders made that clear. “My suggestion to you is to get involved, to get involved deeply,” Sanders told the crowd. He and his fellow progressives desperately need liberals, no matter who they are, to heed that call. The Democratic Party is an organization that has always relied primarily on its ability to coalesce social groups into a whole to achieve progress for those groups. And in a country where ideological conservatives consistently consti-
tute a plurality of the population, liberal-progressive action is hard-pressed to achieve much of anything without this consolidation of interests. In other words, unity on the left — partisan or otherwise — is not only desirable, but necessary. Sanders’ speech pointed out the importance of Democratic participation in some form: “If politics are so irrelevant, then why are millionaires like the Koch brothers spending hundreds of millions of dollars to buy this election?” Fetterman, too, seemed to grasp the vital importance of a Democratic takeover of Toomey’s Senate seat. A race “at the heart of the national Democratic effort to retake the Senate majority,” McGinty’s success or failure this November may very well determine how successful a Clinton presidency can be. Certainly, a robustly progressive agenda isn’t a realistic expectation without a Democratic Senate. Did these progressives sell themselves out in order to achieve that goal? Republican presidential nominee Trump seems convinced that they have, saying so in a stream of angry tweets following
Sanders’ initial endorsement of Clinton. But claims of this sort ignore large swathes of reality, not least of which is the fact that polarization between the two Democratic presidential primary candidates has been significantly exaggerated. Notably, the primary saw 53 percent of self-identified “liberals” vote for Clinton, 25 percent of “very liberal” voters each to Clinton and Sanders and a surprising 36 percent of moderateto-conservatives preferring Sanders to “centrist” Clinton. Instead, differences in perceptions of candidates’ personalities — relatively fluffy issues like likeability — have driven unrealistic disputes and a wedge in the middle of Democrats’ all-important electoral coalition. In speaking convincingly for McGinty’s cause, both Fetterman and Sanders displayed an admirable ability to rise above petty personal disputes for a common electoral goal. The party should collectively make it a mission to maintain this sign of unity as November approaches — there’s no “I” in Democrat, but the same isn’t true of “Senate minority.”
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Culture
See Online Thai ice cream making in action
Employees at Lawrenceville’s Naturoll mix, scrape and roll Thai ice cream. Stephen Caruso SENIOR STAFF
JUST ROLL WITH IT: THAI ICE CREAM COMES TO PITTSBURGH
Ariel Pastore-Sebring
For The Pitt News Cyndie Delucia carefully scrapes the last sheet of salted caramel cream into a roll and, using tongs, she places it in a cup standing up next to a row of other loosely-wrapped soft spirals. She tops the resulting rose-shaped ice cream rolls with whipped cream, caramel, shaved sea salt and crunchy pretzels to create her shop’s signature “Sweet and Salty” dish. Delucia, a former nurse and professional photographer, opened Thai ice cream parlor NatuRoll with business help from her husband in late August. The small storefront, previously a newsstand, is tucked onto Butler Street in Lawrenceville, neighboring Industry Public House, a popular gastropub, and Smoke Barbeque Taqueria. In Lawrenceville, a neighborhood that Pittsburgh Magazine dubbed the “Brooklyn of Pittsburgh,” Delucia was looking for an eclectic mix of retail shops and vibrant people. She specifically chose Lawrenceville over Squirrel Hill, Shadyside and Oakland to seek out more adventurous palettes in the city. “I was so nervous for that first person that came in, that actually paid,” Delucia said of opening day. “And we had to make them the perfect ice cream. That was really, like, an eye opener ... I’m
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so blessed. It’s a lot of hard work.” Less than a month after opening, the selfdescribed “ice cream artist” is now mixing four quarts of ice cream batter every 15 minutes on busy weekends and evenings. Thai-rolled ice cream — a common dessert in countries including Cambodia, Thailand and the Philippines — is only recently gaining popularity in the U.S. In just the past two years, locations serving the gourmet dessert have opened in New York City, Philadelphia and Los Angeles. In 2015, Zagat named Thai rolled ice cream summer 2015’s “hottest dessert,” after three shops specializing in the treat debuted in New York City that season. Will Kyaw, a sophomore political science major at Pitt, remembered seeing the dessert while trooping through Chiang Mai on a backpacking trip: “The vendor set up his shop in a brightly lit, busy, open air night market surrounded by many other street vendors selling desserts and treats of all kinds.” It wasn’t until Kyaw came back to the U.S. that he saw a video about Thai-rolled ice cream and realized how popular it was becoming here. So popular, that when Delucia visited the Thai-rolled ice cream store 10Below in New York City, she waited two hours to get a taste of the trendy, artisanal sweet. But the experience left her
feeling inspired, and she purchased her own ice cream rolling machine, equipped with a chilling plate and the necessary tools to open a shop. She practiced at home for six months before opening the store. The allure of Thai-rolled ice cream lies in the spectacle of its creation, though it’s a laborious task for the ice cream artist — each order takes at least five minutes. Delucia, or one of her employees, pours vanilla or chocolate ice cream batter onto a -10 degrees Fahrenheit plate, then adds either fresh fruit or cookies to the milky mixture. Once the batter begins to solidify slightly, she take two spatulas and crushes the ingredients into small pieces, then begins scraping and turning over the batter until it forms a small pile in the center. Then, she uses the flat edge of her tools to evenly spread thin layers of the mixture across the plate, addings streaks of Nutella, caramel or chocolate sauce until the cream reaches the perfect rolling temperature. After a minute of waiting, she checks the corners’ consistency, then slowly scrapes two inches of the mixture into a roll. She repeats this process four to five more times until there are five to six ice cream rolls laying on her plate, which she organizes in the cup and decorates accordingly. The result is truly a work of art.
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Before the store opened its doors one latesummer morning, Delucia taste-tested pumpkin spice ice cream, one of two fall-themed flavors. She doled out spoonfuls to employees in exchange for their critiques. Employees tossed around ingredients and jokes, backdropped by the store’s simplistic design: exposed brick walls and natural wooden floors and countertops. A daily chalk menu, with drawings of the Cookie Monster and monkeys holding bananas hung behind the rolling tables. The Cookie Monster is one of several staples on the menu, including Delucia’s favorite, Very Very Berry Cherry, and the customer favorite, S’mores, which is topped with a torched marshmallow. Delucia plans to add a vegan option to the menu and possibly move south and take her ice-cream-rolling skills along the boardwalk. For now, the self-taught ice cream artist said she’s happy with being the only Thai-rolled ice cream venue in the Steel City. The niche she’s found in Pittsburgh’s culinary scene is what got her into Thai ice cream in the first place. “I didn’t want the traditional scoop ice cream, because I wanted something different,” Delucia said. “I fell in love with this type of rolling.”
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The Pitt News
Thrival Countdown: Q&A with Metric’s James Shaw
Lexi Kennell Staff Writer
During his enrollment at the Juilliard School, James “Jimmy” Shaw, co-founder of the band Metric, found the curriculum a little stiff — his professors, he said, didn’t appreciate his abundant creativity. So within the first month of attending the School of Music, Shaw started a band, sold all of his trumpets, took a train to Harlem, New York, to buy weed and wrote hundreds of songs that would ultimately inspire his work as the guitarist of Canadian indie rock band Metric. Shaw and lead singer Emily Haines founded the band in 1998 but then it was called Mainstream. Since then, bassist Joshua Winstead and drummer Joules Scott-Key joined the band, together renaming it Metric. The band will return to Pittsburgh for the sixth time to headline this year’s Thrival Festival in Hazelwood on Sept. 24. Thrival is an initiative of a Pittsburgh-based nonprofit Thrill Mill, Inc. and will include three days of interdisciplinary and interactive programming of art, food, education, city policy and technology before two days of outdoor live music from national and local bands. Metric is best known for “Black Sheep,” a song the fictional band, The Clash at Demonhead, covered in the 2010 film “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.” The song was also a feature on both
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Courtesy of Alysse Gafkjen the “Twilight Saga: Eclipse” and “Cosmopolis” soundtracks. The band, whose sixth and latest album “Pagans in Vegas” came out earlier this month, has been grouped into the indie rock, new wave and synthpop genres. Before Metric’s performance at Thrival, Shaw told The Pitt News about his time in college, building the band’s setlist for the music festival and keeping creative momentum in an 18-year-old band. TPN: What advice do you have for college students trying to make it in the music industry? JS: One, you should probably bring up with your therapist that you have an issue with masochism. If you don’t have a therapist, you should get one, because the music industry will batter you up for sure. But, more than anything, there’s no money in it. You have to be doing it for the right reasons. If you’re doing it for the right reasons, don’t do it for the reward, because there’s no reward. The reward is you and your life and creation and the people that you meet and the time that you spend. Time spent is time owned. You have to be in it for the path. The path, if you dedicate your life to it, is an amazing path. It’s completely rewarding on so many life and spiritual levels. But don’t give two sh*ts what anyone else says — it ain’t important. TPN: Metric has performed at Pittsburgh’s See Metric on page 8
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Metric, pg. 7 Mr. Smalls Funhouse Theatre three times. What was it like playing there? JS: I remember it all too well. The first time we played, we played with Broken Social Scene. We ended up back on stage and jamming until six in the morning. We were all staying in the rooms, and the people who run it are super cool, and they let us have a run of the place. It was amazing. It was that time that made us go back however many times we went back because it was sort of like, ‘oh my god, we’re play-
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September 20, 2016
ing at the legendary Mr. Smalls again.’ There’s a few places in America where someone with an idea puts that idea into action, like, ‘I’m gonna buy that church, I’m gonna build a rehearsal studio, I’m gonna build a venue.’ And it kind of exists off the grid — it’s not corporateowned. It just sort of stands on its own. I think that’s so punk rock and awesome. We just love doing it for that reason. TPN: How did you build the setlist for Thrival? JS: We haven’t built a setlist yet. We’ll probably build it about 20 minutes before we go on stage, regardless of the fact that people have been bugging us for it as of a week ago so they can design lights for it and do all the things the crew has to do and needs to do. We’re very reluctant. When we start an album cycle, we usually go in with a pretty set setlist. When we do a two-month tour, we usually really settle into a set and really develop the nuance of the spacing between songs, the phrasings — the larger picture. At the end of album cycles, a lot of the time, when we just start doing one concert or a festival, we need to show up, and we need to be excited. We’ve been playing the same music for a long time, so we usually really change it up at the last minute. Emily goes, ‘Oh, by the way, we’re playing this song tonight,’ like 20 minutes before we go on, and we’re all like, ‘OK, we haven’t played that since 2007,’ so we all grab headphones and try and find it on Spotify, and then we go out there and wing it. TPN: Metric has been together since 1998. How do you stay inspired to come up with new material and ideas? JS: New material and ideas have never really been an issue for us. Emily’s ridiculously prolific — I don’t know what you’d have to do to that woman to make her songwriting stop. Probably give her everything she ever wanted, which is impossible. In terms of inspiration, I think the driving force really is the fact that the four of us still really like each other. Even when it’s not necessarily something musical, just a little dormant, which is gonna happen over a 20-year career for sure, and there’s nothing you can really do about it. The fact that the four of us really still like being in the same room together and really still just like playing music together — it really keeps it alive. I really can’t imagine what it would be like if I didn’t love those three. I can’t really imagine showing up, kind of feeling uninspired and then meeting up with three people that I really didn’t feel like seeing. That would suck. And it’s never been that way.
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Sports
See online Price named ACC weekly honor
Column
Maurkice Pouncey powers Steelers offense Steve Rotstein Sports Editor
At age 27, Pittsburgh Steelers center Maurkice Pouncey has already been through a career’s worth of devastating injuries, yet he always finds a way to return to All-Pro form. After his worst injury scare yet, Pouncey is back to leading the Steelers’ offensive line –– and he looks better than ever. The Steelers rumbled through the rain to a 24-16 victory over the division rival Cincinnati Bengals Sunday, thanks in large part to the team’s 124 yards rushing. In a 38-16 Week 1 win over the Washington Redskins, the Steelers churned out 147 yards on the ground. DeAngelo Williams has done a great job in the first two games making quick cuts and getting upfield, but Pouncey is the one creating the Texas-sized holes in the Bengals’ defense. “I was running through a lot of holes all night,” Williams told the Steelers’ official website after rushing for 143 yards in Week 1, giving all the credit to his offensive line. Pouncey is in his seventh season with the Steelers, although he missed the entire regular season last year Maurkice Pouncey (53) prepares to snap the ball against the Cincinand missed all but four minutes in 2013. In the four nati Bengals. Matt Hawley STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
years that he’s played at least 14 games, he’s been dominant –– making the Pro Bowl and first- or secondteam All-Pro every time. With a future Hall of Fame quarterback in Ben Roethlisberger, a record-breaking wide receiver in Antonio Brown and two of the best running backs in the league in Williams and Le’Veon Bell, the Steelers have no shortage of firepower on offense. But Pouncey is –– literally –– the center of it all. He’s the one who makes the pre-snap reads and calls out line adjustments before snapping the ball to Roethlisberger and smashing into whichever defensive tackle chooses to line up against him. “He is the rock of our line,” Steelers offensive tackle Marcus Gilbert told the team’s official website in August. “The way he commands the huddle and what he demands out of our line is unbelievable. He isn’t just a great leader in the huddle. He leads by example.” Sure, it’s great to have Pro Bowl players at every skill position. But football is still a game that’s won in the trenches, and the Steelers have dominated the line of scrimmage in the first two games of 2016. Since his arrival in 2010, the Steelers have experienced life without Pouncey in big games numerous See Steelers on page 10
Narduzzi moves past Oklahoma State, talks UNC
Dan Sostek
Senior Staff Writer With a showdown looming against the reigning ACC Coastal Division champion North Carolina Tar Heels, the Pitt football team has no time to linger on past mistakes. Coming off a disappointing 45-38 loss in Stillwater, Oklahoma, the Panthers will travel to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, to begin ACC play. The game is a rematch between the top two teams in the conference last year, when UNC’s 26-18 win at Heinz Field propelled the Tar Heels to the ACC Championship game. At a press conference in advance of this week’s matchup, Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi reflected on the Panthers’ close loss to Oklahoma State and looked forward to a challenge from UNC head coach Larry Fedora and the Tar Heels. Airing it out After Saturday’s loss to Oklahoma State, Narduzzi said
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part of the struggles quarterback Nathan Peterman and Pitt’s passing attack experienced were due to the talent of the Cowboys’ defensive backs. Narduzzi credited Oklahoma State’s secondary for stifling the offense but said he still expects more from Peterman and the receivers. “They’re talented — I’m not going to take anything away from who they are,” he said. “But we missed some throws. We missed some reads.” Peterman finished the game 14 of 29 for 237 yards with one touchdown and one interception with more than a quarter of those yards coming on a 60-yard touchdown pass to Jester Weah. Overall, Narduzzi said he was impressed with the quarterback’s performance, but hinted at some forthcoming changes in the passing game. Narduzzi said he expects wide receiver Dontez Ford, who missed the Oklahoma State game with an undisclosed injury, back “sooner rather than later.” Narduzzi See Narduzzi on page 10
September 20, 2016
Pat Narduzzi gets the Panthers ready for their first ACC game of the season against the North Carolina Tar Heels Saturday. Stephen Caruso SENIOR STAFF
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Steelers, pg. 9 times –– and it usually doesn’t end well for them. As a rookie in 2010, Pouncey played in all 16 regular-season games and, in the process, earned a spot in the Pro Bowl and made the NFL AllPro second team. He helped pave the way for running back Rashard Mendenhall’s 1,273 yards rushing and 13 touchdowns, and the Steelers won 12 games and a division title. Then, a New York Jets linebacker fell on Pouncey’s left ankle in the first quarter of the AFC Championship Game, forcing him to miss Super Bowl XLV –– which the Steelers lost to the Green Bay Packers, 31-25. In 2011, Pouncey played in 14 games and did so at an even higher level. He made it to his second straight Pro Bowl and was selected to the NFL All-Pro first team, and again, the Steelers won 12 games in the regular season. But Pouncey suffered a left high-ankle sprain in Week 14 that caused him to miss two regular season games as well as the Wild Card Round game against the Denver Broncos, which the Steelers lost in overtime, 29-23. In 2013, fellow Steelers offensive lineman David DeCastro accidentally took Pouncey’s legs out with a cut block in the first quarter of a Week 1 game against the Tennessee Titans, causing Pouncey to miss the rest of the season with a torn ACL and MCL. The Steelers finished 8-8 and missed out on the playoffs for the third con-
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secutive year. After returning from the gruesome knee injury to play a full 16 games for the first time since his rookie year in 2014, he entered the 2015 season in the prime of his career –– only to suffer through his most injury-plagued season so far. Pouncey suffered a broken left fibula when Packers safety Ha Ha Clinton-Dix fell on the back of his leg. This time, the injury happened in the preseason, and the Steelers expected him to return about halfway through the season. But his surgical wound didn’t heal properly, resulting in a staph infection. He also came down with an E. coli infection that wasn’t as serious but required attention. “It was scary,” Pouncey told ESPN in June. “I don’t want that on my worst enemy.” The staph infection hadn’t yet reached the bone when doctors caught it, and after six corrective surgeries and a skin graft, Pouncey’s leg finally healed. But any chance of playing in 2015 was long gone, so he instead focused on returning at full strength in 2016. He’s done exactly that so far in the first two games of the season. Defensive linemen either stick to Pouncey or get run over as soon as big No. 53 snaps the ball and engages them, unable to do anything but watch as Williams gallops through the open field. Pouncey might not get the headlines reserved for Roethlisberger, Bell and Brown, but if he goes down, the Steelers’ Super Bowl aspirations might go down with him.
Narduzzi, pg. 9 also said to anticipate an increased role for firstyear wide receiver Aaron Mathews, who still hasn’t recorded a catch this season. Narduzzi was impressed by redshirt freshman Tre Tipton, who hauled in his first three career catches on Pitt’s final drive Saturday. But the Panthers will need more wideouts to emerge to keep up with the ACC’s high-scoring offenses, starting with UNC. “You’re always concerned about depth,” Narduzzi said. Bounce back for Maddox Junior cornerback Avonte Maddox struggled to defend speedier Oklahoma State wideouts last week, surrendering a long pass in the fourth quarter to Jhajuan Seales that set up the eventual game-winning score in the fourth quarter. Maddox took responsibility for his struggles against the Cowboys’ passing attack, saying there were “no excuses.” Narduzzi said this is the first step to recovering from a tough week. There was no demotion on the depth chart for Maddox — he’s still listed as the starter at cornerback, which is something Narduzzi says will not change. “[Avonte] is a great kid, and he’s got a lot of talent,” Narduzzi said. “He’s one of our best corners when he plays with fundamentals. And I don’t worry about Avonte.” Maddox is beginning another tough week
September 20, 2016
facing Ryan Switzer and Mack Hollins, two receivers he and Lafayette Pitts struggled to defend last season. Narduzzi thinks Maddox’s tough day against Oklahoma State will serve as motivation in Chapel Hill. “I think you’ll see a different guy this week who will play with a chip on his shoulder,” Narduzzi said. Heading the Heels Over the past few seasons, former North Carolina quarterback Marquise Williams gave Pitt defenses fits with his blend of size, speed and arm strength. Now that Williams has graduated, Mitch Trubisky has taken his place as the Tar Heels’ signal caller. Trubisky –– a junior from Mentor, Ohio, who Narduzzi recruited while at Michigan State –– had his best game as a starter last weekend against James Madison, completing 24 of 27 passes for 432 yards and three touchdowns. “He’s a great player,” Narduzzi said. “He played a little last year and has three games under his belt. He’s very efficient at running the offense.” As a whole, Narduzzi said the offense looks exactly like what Pitt saw a year ago, crediting head coach Fedora as well as the return of talented starters Hollins, Switzer and running back Elijah Hood. He knows avoiding back-to-back losses won’t be easy for the Panthers. “When the first ACC team you play is the one who is the defending champion in that division, it is a great challenge,” Narduzzi said. “We look forward to going there.”
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