The Tufts Daily - Friday, April 22, 2022

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VOLUME LXXXIII, ISSUE 49

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Friday, April 22, 2022

MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, MASS.

“We need places to sleep:” Tufts’ faith communities observe Rising sophomores Easter, Passover, Ramadan and Holi in frustrated by housing celebration-packed weekend selection process

by Madeline Mueller Assistant News Editor

by Claire Ferris

Assistant News Editor

After selecting housing for the 2022–23 school year on April 7, rising sophomores received an email from the Office of Residential Life and Learning on April 8 informing them of plans to redo the selection process for all doubles and triples groups on April 11. Students who wished to select housing in the general selection category, originally scheduled for April 8, were told by ORLL that their registration would be moved to April 12.

Registration for groups of doubles and triples first began at 10 a.m. on April 7, but at that time, several housing groups were not able to access and select rooms in Stratton Hall, Associate Director for Residential Education Tim Jordan explained.

“There was a small error in the process where Stratton Hall was not available for groups during a 30-minute timeframe for selection,” Jordan wrote in an email to the Daily. “Not having those spaces available caused concern for several students and initiated our decision to reselect this week.”

Julia Eneyni, a rising sophomore, was among those attempting to select housing when Stratton Hall was not available.

She explained that Stratton was the first-choice dorm for her and her future roommate, but when her roommate went to select housing at 10 a.m., Stratton was unavailable.

Eneyni’s roommate emailed ORLL, whose coordinators explained that they were able to fix the issue and open Stratton to sophomores around 10:40 a.m.

Through a phone call that morning, ORLL offered Eneyni and

her roommate a room in Stratton, but they declined, opting for a bigger room in Harleston Hall.

First-year Ethan Putlack was among those who, on the first day of doubles selection, were unable to select a room at all.

There were no available rooms left when his 5:18 p.m. selection time came around.

Putlack explained that the website showed triples and a few doubles that had one space occupied, rendering him and his roommate unable to select those rooms as a group of two.

“We’d … given up — we were going to, I guess, figure out something during general selection,” Putlack said.

Putlack attempted to leave his housing group, assuming general selection would happen the next day, so he could select a bed in a room as a group of one. When ORLL emailed about re-doing doubles selection later that night, though, Putlack was not re-placed into his doubles group and had to contact ORLL to be placed back in before April 11.

Both Eneyni and Putlack were able to select housing as doubles groups. Despite ending up with her preferred housing, Eneyni expressed some frustration with the redo.

“It was not ideal, especially because some of my friends, when they redid it, got smaller dorms,” Eneyni said.

Even after ORLL fixed the errors with doubles and triples selection, some students were unable to register for housing during general selection on April 12 and have yet to receive a housing assignment. see HOUSING, page 2

NATALIE BROWNSELL / THE TUFTS DAILY

Bush Hall, a first-year residential hall, is pictured on April 18.

The past week was active for many of the faith communities at Tufts, marking the celebration of Passover and Easter, the ongoing celebration of Ramadan and a belated Holi celebration. The University Chaplaincy offered in-person events to mark these holidays after two years of virtual celebrations.

Lynn Cooper, Tufts’ Catholic chaplain, described the excitement that she and her colleagues felt in anticipation of the spring holidays.

“It’s just been a joy to be preparing for these holy days with my colleagues and with our greater … multifaith community,” Cooper said. “I have really delighted in that spirit of solidarity.”

Muslim Chaplain Najiba Akbar was similarly excited to come together as a community to celebrate.

“Just being able to break fast and pray together in congregasee HOLIDAYS, page 3

KIANA VALLO / THE TUFTS DAILY

Goddard Chapel is pictured on April 21.

Skywalk, Therrapu, Active Heirs take top prizes in Derby $100k New Ventures Competition

by Coco Arcand News Editor

​​The Derby Entrepreneurship Center at Tufts announced the winners of the $100k New Ventures Competition following the virtual final round of competition on April 8. First-place winners included startups dedicated to technological innovation, advancements in wound care and building Black generational wealth.

This competition, which is in its 19th year, allows Tufts students and alumni to pitch their own innovative business plans to a panel of judges to win cash prizes and other resources worth over $100,000 total to help further their ventures. Participants can pitch ideas in one of three categories, including General Technology, Healthcare and Life Science and Social Impact.

The competition spanned multiple months with three rounds that narrowed down competitors. The first round was an application that involved written components as well as the teams’ video pitch.

Competitors are then chosen to advance to the semifinal round.

Ashira Pelt, one of the members of team Active Heirs, described how this round of competition was conducted.

“The semifinals [were] when we had our live [virtual] pitch … we had three different judges, and they were each different types of investors or social impact entrepreneurs in their own right,” Pelt, a first-year Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy candidate at The Fletcher School, told the Daily. “[Following your pitch], the investors ask you five minutes’ worth of questions afterwards and … you really have to be on your toes because they ask some pretty hard-hitting questions.”

In the past, the semifinal and final rounds of competition were held in person, but this has not been possible in recent years due to COVID-19 restrictions. Elaine Chen, director of the DEC and Cummings family professor of the practice in entrepreneurship, said that transitioning the competition to a virtual format allowed

SPORTS / back

FEATURES / page 4

ARTS / page 5

Golf on the upswing after victory in Western New England invite

Tufts FMS is, well, a movie

‘12 Monkeys’ is bananas — in a good way

for more students and alumni to participate in a more equitable process.

“We realized that by going virtual, we have eliminated all geographical barriers,” Chen wrote in an email to the Daily. “As a result, we were able to open the competition to students and alumni all over the world. People called in from China, India, Kenya, France, Italy, and everywhere within the US. Going virtual democratizes access and helps us serve more students and alumni.”

Chen explained that in the future, the DEC may experiment with hybrid or in-person event formats but will always keep an online option to maintain equal access for all students and alumni.

Following the semifinal round, 14 teams advanced to the finals. The final round began with welcome addresses from Chen, DEC Professor of the Practice Jack Derby, Dean ad interim of the School of Engineering Kyongbum Lee, University see DERBY, page 2 NEWS

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FUN & GAMES

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THE TUFTS DAILY | News | Friday, April 22, 2022

THE TUFTS DAILY Alexander Janoff Editor in Chief

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ORLL repeats doubles selection, leaves some rising sophomores waiting on housing assignments HOUSING

continued from page 1 Rising sophomore Aubrey Rahaim wanted to select a bed during general selection but with a lottery number of 2,820 — on the low end of the 1,000–2900 range for rising sophomores — and when her selection time came around, the housing website showed no beds available.

Frustrated by her uncertain housing situation for next year, Rahaim emailed ORLL to ask when she might be assigned a bed. She said their response lacked specific dates for when she would know her housing for next year.

“They fixed doubles selection within 44 hours, they at least

emailed people and they’ve told us nothing about general selection,” Rahaim said. “I don’t know what the plan is.”

Jordan stressed that Tufts guarantees housing for all firstand second-year students and explained ORLL’s plan for assigning housing to those unable to select during general selection.

“Our goal is to review all available spaces and determine available placements for those students who were unable to select on the day of selection,” Jordan wrote. “There are some sophomores who may not have been able to select housing initially who will [be] placed over the course of the next few weeks.”

Rahaim’s housing situation for next year remains uncertain.

“It’s stressful for sophomores because we know [Tufts] over-admitted our class, and they’re clearly having a housing crisis,” Rahaim explained. “It’s just a stressful time to be trying to figure out [if I will] have housing next year.”

Eneyni echoed Rahaim’s sentiments.

“After going through what my entire friend group did with … housing selection and the suites falling apart, I think anybody probably would have sent an email, too — just out of frustration,” Eneyni said.

Jordan elaborated on Tufts’ long-term plans for reimagin-

ing housing, explaining that ORLL has added beds and embarked on renovations to residence halls and wood frame buildings.

“We are planning to convert more university-owned buildings into apartments for juniors and seniors,” Jordan wrote. “We are planning a new residence hall for 370 juniors and seniors that is slated to open in fall 2025.”

Eneyni said the chaotic experience showcased the university’s need to build new dorms.

“Tufts needs to build more dorms instead of building [places] like [the] Cummings Center,” Eneyni added. “I think we need places to sleep.”

Tufts community members take home $100k in prize money from entrepreneurship competition

DERBY

continued from page 1 President Anthony Monaco and Executive Director of the Gordon Institute Kevin Oye. Participants then moved into separate meetings for each of the three tracks where the final pitching rounds began. Like the semifinal round, each team had the opportunity to pitch their ideas to a panel of entrepreneurial experts, who then were able to ask competitors questions.

A period of deliberation by judges followed before the winners were announced. Each of the three tracks had three winners announced, all of which received capital and other resources to help further their venture.

Skywalk, which according to its creators is “building a sensorized wristband that makes anyone an augmented reality native by translating hand motions into digital actions,” took home first place honors in the General Technology category. Markit Social, an app designed to revolutionize how people plan their own events and share them with others, won second place in this track.

In the Healthcare and Life Science category, Therrapu won the top prize. Rachel Kiehne, a senior who was part of team Therrapu, explained the purpose of this company. “[Therrapu] is essentially a company where we use smart fibers or … nanothreads to integrate them into bandages,” Kiehne said. “In this case, it was bandages for diabetic foot ulcers, and ultimately these bandages can detect infection, monitor the wound healing progress and then provide antibiotic treatment.”

Lumilin Therapeutics, which won second place in the Healthcare and Life Science category, developed an implantable cell therapy designed to allow Type 1 diabetics to more closely control their blood sugar levels.

In the Social Impact track, Active Heirs took home the top prize. Active Heirs is designed to empower Black heirs in the U.S. with the resources and knowledge they need to build generational wealth and combat land loss. Pelt explained the problems that dis-

MINA TERZIOGLU / THE TUFTS DAILY

The Gordon Institute, which houses the Derby Entrepreneurship Center, is pictured on April 21. proportionately affect Black heirs who inherit land.

“There are a lot of legal systems that have been put in place for heirs’ property rights owners … that really prohibit [people] from being able to do much with the land and put families in a situation [where it is] easy for their land to be taken away,” Pelt said. “The more I talked to other Black families that are in similar situations, I realized that this is … a problem throughout the Black community, especially the rural [southern] Black community.”

New Line Tire, which won second place in the Social Impact track, is a business that plans to combat tire waste by recycling the rubber from old tires into new tires.

This will help prevent the growth of tire graveyards, which pose a threat

to neighboring communities when toxic emissions are released due to spontaneous fires that arise.

In addition to the winners of the $100k New Ventures Competition, some participants were awarded the Paul and Elizabeth Montle Prize, the Friedman Nutrition Innovation Institute Prize, the Stephen and Geraldine Ricci Interdisciplinary Prize and the Cummings Property Rent Credit. Two women-led teams from each track were given a membership to the WE Global Studio, a digital start-up resource designed for women entrepreneurs.

The day of the $100k New Ventures Competition’s final round, the DEC was also able to share the news of a $1.2 million gift to the Tufts Venture Accelerator, which is an 11-week-long program that acts as an educational accelerator for

Tufts entrepreneurs. The donation was sponsored by Earle Yaffa (E’61), Kim Hartman (A’85), Alan Hartman and the Flom Foundation.

Chen urged students to learn more about and become involved in entrepreneurial pursuits using the DEC’s resources.

“Every year, we are proud and humbled to see the amazing work of our ‘Jumbopreneurs,’” Chen wrote. “It is inspirational to see them tackle wicked problems in the world with their passion, ingenuity, and entrepreneurial spirit and drive. The hardest part is to take that first step … take an entrepreneurial course with us, or join Derby Entrepreneurship Center in an Innovation Month event in September, and we can help you learn to apply the entrepreneurial method everywhere you go.”

News

Friday, April 22, 2022 | News | THE TUFTS DAILY

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Spring religious holidays celebrated in person for the first time since 2019 HOLIDAYS

continued from page 1 tion has been the most exciting thing after a fairly isolated Ramadan experience for Muslims worldwide during Covid for the past two years,” Akbar wrote in an email to the Daily.

Practicing Protestant and Catholic students spent the week leading up to April 17 preparing for Easter. Rev. Daniel Bell, Tufts’ Protestant chaplain, explained the importance of this week for many Christians.

“Holy Week [is] a sacred time considered to be very special for the faithful, falling between the end of the Lenten season and the coming of Easter, when Christians celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ,” he wrote in the chaplaincy newsletter. “Holy Week is when Christians remember with special devotion Jesus’ final days on Earth, including His arrest, crucifixion, and execution at the hands of the Romans.”

Observation of Holy Week for the Catholic community at Tufts began with the Stations of the Cross on Wednesday, April 13, led by sophomore Sebastián Fernández.

An ecumenical Good Friday service was offered by the Protestant and Catholic chaplaincies with leadership from Bell

and Cooper. Students participated in the service through Bible readings of the crucifixion and resurrection stories.

“It’s a story … that, the way it’s told in the Gospel of John, has deep implications for anti-Semitism in Christianity,” Cooper said.

“The way that we have to frame those texts is really important … in a multifaith landscape and in a context where anti-Semitic violence continues.”

Friday, April 15 was the start of the Jewish holiday of Passover.

Rabbi Naftali Brawer, Jewish chaplain and Neubauer executive director of Tufts Hillel, explained how meaningful it was to return to celebrating in person with the Tufts community.

“Judaism is a religion that is particularly attuned to family and community,” Brawer wrote in an email to the Daily. “And nowhere is this more pronounced than at the Seder where we sit together over a shared meal and tell stories about our people’s past and imagine its future.”

Brawer reflected on the importance of Passover and the Seder.

“Passover celebrates the birth of the Jewish people. Its overarching message is the importance of memory,” Brawer wrote.

“Passover is the repository of memories. At the seder we retrieve these memories and at

the same time, create new memories for our children and future generations.”

Students had the chance to attend community dinners and lunches at the Hillel Center with kosher for Passover food provided by Tufts Dining. At least one community meal is offered at Hillel every day for the duration of Passover, with additional meals at the Chabad House.

Saturday, April 16 brought a belated Holi celebration, organized by the Hindu Students Council and the Tufts Association of South Asians. Holi occurred this year on March 18. Hindu advisor Dr. Preeta Banerjee noted that students waited to celebrate until after spring break so that they could be together.

“It’s crazy that it’s actually been three years since our last Holi, which was in Spring 2019,” Sithara Nambiar, former HSC president, wrote in an email to the Daily. “But the wait has certainly made this year’s event especially memorable!”

The event included performances, food and the opportunity to throw rang, a colorful powder, at other participants to celebrate the Hindu festival of colors, along with white shirts for the first 100 attendees.

“Celebrating an event like Holi on campus is such a great

way to integrate Tufts students from a variety of backgrounds and cultures,” Nambiar wrote.

“It’s truly heartwarming that we can acknowledge and participate in this important Hindu festival as a community.”

Sunday, April 17 included Easter celebrations for the Christian community.

“We begin linked together on Ash Wednesday in Goddard Chapel and … we’re going to be in Goddard Chapel at 5 p.m. celebrating Easter Sunday,” Cooper said. “This is a communal experience.”

While a Catholic Mass was offered by the University Chaplaincy, Protestant students at Tufts were encouraged to attend Easter Sunday services off campus with a local congregation.

“The idea is to join a larger community to celebrate,” Bell wrote.

All students were welcome to attend a catered Easter dinner offered jointly by the Catholic Community at Tufts and Protestant Students Association.

The weekend also marked the midway point of Ramadan, a holiday marked by a month of fasting and prayer for observant Muslims. Ramadan began April 1.

“Ramadan is described as the month of fasting in the Quran, and it is prescribed as

a way for Muslims to increase their consciousness of God and also to increase one’s sense of gratitude [sic] for life’s blessings,” Akbar wrote. “It’s so lovely to see the community gather and eat together after a long day of fasting. It’s a special moment of pause, where everyone can just be together and enjoy a communal meal, something that is rare in the typical fast-paced week.”

The Muslim chaplaincy and Muslim Students Association have been focused on ensuring food access for fasting students who live in dorms. The Tufts Community Union Senate approved supplementary funding for Ramadan, which has made communal meals and upcoming Eid al-Fitr celebrations possible. Additionally, Akbar organized a Ramadan food pantry to ensure all students have access to nutritious halal food when they break their fast, even if they are not on the meal plan.

A sense of gratitude to be together once again connects all of these celebrations.

“Given how often we have been prevented by COVID from gathering and celebrating, I feel especially drawn to give thanks for the joy we find in community,” Bell wrote.

4 Friday, April 22, 2022

Koloris Wu Kolumn

Making reconciliation the zeitgeist

FEATURES

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Student filmmakers thrive at Tufts

L

ast Friday night, I gave myself a study break and went to see “Everything Everywhere All at Once” (2022) at the Somerville Theatre.

The film was great. Plot-wise, it contains many conflicts, ranging from a bicker in a laundry shop to an existential crisis. Although based on a fantastical setting, most of the scenes are as down-to-earth as the messages they deliver.

Concisely, it is a story about reconciliation between mother and daughter, between husband and wife, between existentialism and nihilism — between so many things and also within ourselves.

The film’s fundamental setting is that every time one makes a choice, there evolves a different branch in the universe. However, the protagonist, Evelyn, is living the worst life of all of her multiverses because she is bad at everything. This is why she is the center of her multiverse. This is also why the villain, Joy (her daughter), who can freely transit between all her universes and employs her skills respectively, spots Evelyn and tries to drag her into the ultimate void she constantly feels because of her omnipotence.

Here is where a common nihilist thought of the young generation enters the discourse: Everything doesn’t matter, so why should I care about anything?

As a responsible mother, Evelyn surely saved her daughter from this thought, achieved reconciliation and the family lived happily ever after. But before that, she went through quite a journey of her own.

She was once totally convinced by Joy. After seeing all the miserable or happy versions of her, her current life becomes unbearable. However, she reconciles with herself, accepting the incompatibility between her great ambitions and abject reality. This realization is achieved by thinking in her husband’s mind: solving problems with love and bravery.

This very action signifies Evelyn’s reconciliation with him, who is previously negatively depicted as effeminate, cowardly, garrulous and unreliable.

“Let me go. Please,” Joy said.

And then Evelyn did. The greatest reconciliation between the mother and daughter is this interesting dynamic that once the daughter falls into complete nihilism and freedom, she needs love again.

The film’s message sparked my thinking that maybe “reconciliation” is our zeitgeist.

Although it is a one-way — even a self-disadvantaged — action for peacemaking, reconciliation is different from “compromise.” The message is an active, sophisticated consideration of the lives of others or self, resulting in mutual understanding, while compromises are often mandatory and detrimental in continuing mutual rapport.

I think all issues at our age, no matter how personal or grandiose, require reconciliation so that we can live easier lives. For example, the role of an effeminate husband is reconciliation with the convention of hegemonic masculinity. The journey of Evelyn tells us to reconcile with an unsatisfying life while the screening of the film itself is a reconciliation between individual films and Hollywood production.

With that in mind, I hope we — amid COVID-19 — can reconcile with the world sooner, for we, after all, don’t have multiple universes.

Koloris Wu is a first-year who has not yet declared a major. Koloris can be reached at caibinfen.wu@tufts.edu.

NICOLE GARAY / THE TUFTS DAILY

Barnum Hall, home of the Film and Media Studies program, is pictured on Sept. 15.

by Maya Katz

Contributing Writer

The Film and Media Studies program has seen significant growth during the past few years.

Natalie Minik, a lecturer in the FMS program, noted how the program has grown since she first came to Tufts in 2015 as a part-time lecturer in both the FMS program and the Experimental College.

“There was a lot of excitement about the program … but not a lot of infrastructure yet to really help the students. … When I first started we were still sharing a space with the ExCollege,” Minik said. “We now have studio space, we now have classrooms, we have a lot more equipment and we have a lot more students.”

While people may not first think of Tufts when looking into studying film and media, Minik sees Tufts as a valuable place for an FMS education because it is constructed through a liberal arts lens of learning. Minik feels that this approach to learning film can accommodate different interests.

“It’s not just about technical elements of filmmaking [and] media but rather making things within a conversation with other formats and … in a liberal arts setting,” Minik said “I think that Film and Media Studies is a program also that can really be customized toward … students’ interests. We have an incredible amount of students who are double majors.”

Kaycee Feldman is among these double majors in her study of FMS and physics. Many of the other FMS double majors she knows are pursuing humanities, but she has found that the skills she has learned in physics have been applicable to her work in film.

“I have to think of things outside of the box and look at problems from different angles, and so that … has opened my thinking toward other ways of looking at

other problems in my life,” Feldman, a junior, said. “There might be a problem in film where it’s like something is not working, or a piece of equipment breaks, and so I have to look at it in a different way to try to figure out what I can do with what I have — the same way that I do with physics.”

For Feldman, physics is more of an interest rather than a job prospect since she wants to write in animated television. Feldman has found the FMS courses to be geared more toward film rather than television, yet she has still found ways to learn more about her interests.

“I wish there was more but I’m definitely happy and … I am still learning about [television],” Feldman said. “It would be cool if there was a television writing course, but I’m not devastated … my screenwriting professor has still given me a lot of good advice related particularly to writing for television.”

Senior Kayla Avitabile is also a double major, and she is studying FMS and American studies. Avitabile has seen the FMS education at Tufts as beneficial because it requires students to take film theory and film history courses as well as courses in social science and foreign language films.

“It really forces you to think critically about media and how it is represented to us throughout history,” Avitabile said.

“I think that if you want to be someone who makes good media, makes compelling stories … you have to know the content.”

Avitabile has also brought film outside of her academic life through her involvement in Tufts University Television. She is the head of the club as the station manager. Since joining her first year, Avitabile has enjoyed her time in TUTV from the friends she has made to the experiences she has had in creating media. “[TUTV was] kind of like the first place at Tufts that made me feel like

I belonged or had a community,” Avitabile said.

Feldman also joined TUTV during her first year and is currently the treasurer.

Feldman has enjoyed the TUTV community because it consists of people who are brought together through their love of film and media.

“It’s nice to have that community that is bonded around [film and media],” Feldman said. “I’ve met people in FMS that I wouldn’t have met because they’re in classes above me, and it’s wonderful to hear their experiences, [be] mentored by them and get to know them.”

According to Avitabile, TUTV’s subject matter falls under the categories of news, music and fictional scripted content. Avitabile also said that TUTV has its own take on Buzzfeed, known as “Bosfeed,” which can be found on the club’s YouTube channel. The club allows for a broad range of opportunities for students to get involved, whether this means participating in a club-wide project like “Pocket Docs” — where club members make documentaries on their phone — or getting their own project approved for funding by the TUTV board.

“If anyone’s not interested in doing any one of our big projects, we allow people to pitch projects to us if they want to pursue their own thing,” Avitabile said.

“We offer a lot of opportunities to just make media.”

For students interested in film and media, Avitabile suggests that they consider pursuing a major in FMS or joining on-campus student media organizations like TUTV. Avitabile thinks that FMS has great significance within the present day’s media-heavy landscape.

“Everything is so involved in media now that it’s just really an essential skill at this point,” Avitabile said. “I think that having media literacy and also just knowing your way around that kind of stuff is really, really useful in this time that we are living in.”

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WEEKENDER

5 Friday, April 22, 2022

‘12 Monkeys’ is a sci-fi masterpiece

Sacha Waters Public Cinemy No. 1

Arts Editor

Hollywood is torpedoing special effects

by Drew Weisberg

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COURTESY WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

The promotional poster for “12 Monkeys” (1995) is pictured. his mission. Gilliam’s imagination oozes through every frame. His obvious love for cinema is palpable in his various allusions to Hitchcock — from Dr. Railly’s change to a blond hairdo as a disguise to an actual screening of “Vertigo” (1958) in the film’s climax — which act as a support to the film’s intricate plotting and fantastic performances.

“12 Monkeys” is at times grim, hopeful, dark and comedic, but it is always a powerful experience that deserves to be appreciated. While not Gilliam’s most celebrated work, the film is an overlooked classic in modern discussions of science fiction and noir cinema at their finest. Its highbrow subject matter, refusal to hold the hands of the audience and exceptional direction from one of cinema’s true auteurs make it an unmissable and unforgettable film in this — or any — time.

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tinged with a sympathetic vulnerability that makes her own inevitable submission to madness all the more tragic. Even at her character’s lowest point, Stowe infuses a sense of warmth into her performance that makes the character so real she might leap off the screen at any moment.

One can easily tell that Gilliam is pushing his actors to their limits, as he seems to be pushing the boundaries of the world itself. Cole’s future home is a patchwork of tubes, hoses and metal, fused together in a dour bunker miles below the disease-ridden surface of post-apocalyptic Philadelphia. In the past, meanwhile, Gilliam distorts the present day by allowing for high exposure, creating a dreamlike effect as though one is walking through a fog. The visual places us in a dream state along with the disoriented Cole, who staggers through the past, slowly forgetting

NATIONAL A

Sterile, green text slowly crawls across a black screen reading, “5 billion people will die from a deadly virus in 1997 …

The survivors will abandon the surface of the planet … Once again the animals will rule the world.” A brief line of text attributing the quote to a “clinically diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic” appears and disappears. Finally, the sounds of the arrangement “Suite Punta del Este” (1982) by Ástor Piazzolla cut through the eerie silence. The moment is unexpected, gripping, a bit strange and oddly alluring — a perfect illustration of what’s to come.

The works of Terry Gilliam are fantastic quilts of creative madness. Though not a stranger to controversy, Gilliam’s works — from the Hunter S. Thompson adaptation, “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” (1998) to the Orwellian satire, “Brazil” (1985) — are stuffed to the point of bursting with details, brilliant costuming, challenging cinematography and a dreamlike aesthetic that is as polarizing as it is hypnotic. An oft-overlooked high point, though, came in 1995 when he released his neo-noir, scifi thriller, “12 Monkeys.”

Inspired by the 1962 French sci-fi short film, “La Jetée,” “12 Monkeys” (1995) chronicles James Cole’s (Bruce Willis) ill-fated trip back in time to stop a pandemic from wiping out humanity. Though this premise may draw sharp inhales from many, the film is less about the horrors of a pandemic and more about societal unrest, inequity of power hierarchies and the inherent absurdity of the modern world, as well as beauty, culture and small pleasures as seen through Cole’s eyes. Given Willis’ recent retirement, it feels prudent to mention that he perfectly acts as both audience surrogate and tragic pawn in the schemes of the leaders of the future who send him back in time, again and again, fraying his sanity each and every time. Willis executes Cole’s slow descent into madness as a devolution from a hardened criminal to a confused child with the subtlety and respect that the role demands, giving a performance that deserved far more award nominations than he was allowed.

On the matter of awards, though, Brad Pitt’s nearly unrecognizable turn as Jeffery Goines, the unstable leader of the mysterious “Army of the Twelve Monkeys,” earned him his 1995 Oscar Nomination for good reason. Pitt nails the manic, almost cartoonish energy in a way that plays perfectly against Cole as he is initially losing his mind, and later, Pitt manages to feign sanity exceptionally after Cole has fully lost it. Meanwhile, Madeleine Stowe’s character, psychologist Kathryn Railly, is

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eople have long stopped discussing Tom Hooper’s infamous “Cats” (2019), which features flat jokes, horrifying visuals and an Idris Elba cat that somehow manages to be so much more naked than any of the other cats. And I’m here to do the thing nobody asked for: bring it back.

When people discuss “Cats,” they tend to focus on the abhorrent computer-generated imagery that made it into both Internet meme and box office bomb. But what was the reason behind this? Did no one look at the CGI cat ears and fur on a human face and stop to think, “Hmm, maybe that looks weird?” Because I sure think they did.

One little-known fact about the industry is that makeup artists, costume designers and practical effects artists have unions, while CGI artists and VFX artists are unionized less. Computer-generated imagery becomes more cost effective in many ways. You can manipulate pixels in a way you can’t manipulate makeup or machines or people. Practical effects artists spend decades honing their craft, and demand sometimes surpasses the quantity of effects experts. Meanwhile, digital effects and editing is an oversaturated industry, and its practitioners are acutely aware that competitors who are willing to work for less could replace them at any time.

“Cats” was a nightmare because studios invest in practical effects ahead of time — before principal photography — and tend to be much stricter with their budgets at this time than in post-production. Meanwhile, CGI and VFX aren’t added until post-production, when studios are far willing to invest more in the project.

Even in cases where CGI for a specific movie or scene would be more expensive than practical effects, studios still see it as more cost-effective because they have more information to go off when making the investment. VFX artists also work for an upfront fee, meaning studios can have them rework the same effect multiple times with no added cost.

I’m sure the VFX employees did the best they could, and their skills are still impressive, but digital effects are intended to enhance movies — not to make them from scratch. Using them to create sets, costumes and extras from green screens and morph-suited actors is an abuse of the art form.

The special effects industry is collapsing, and it is taking an art form with it. “Cats” is just an example of what we lose with the rise of CGI in recent years. The effects of this are apparent; 21 special effects companies went bankrupt between 2003 and 2013.

Some predict that soon movies will become entirely digital, that even human actors will be reduced to a novelty similar to shooting on film.

It is always worth it to consider why the movies we watch are evolving the way they are and especially worth it to take the studios’ explanations with a grain of salt. Some would say excessive CGI improves movies, even makes them more realistic. But to me it just feels hollow.

0

Sacha Waters is a sophomore studying political science. Sacha can be reached at sacha.waters@tufts.edu.

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THE TUFTS DAILY | FUN & GAMES | Friday, April 22, 2022

F& G

tuftsdaily.com LATE NIGHT AT THE DAILY Ty: “I just came across a dead mouse in a mouse trap”

FUN & GAMES

SUDOKU

LINDA C. BLACK ASTROLOGY

Taurus (Apr. 20–May 20) Today is a 9. Personal matters take center stage with Mars (plus Mercury and Venus) in your sign. Sign contracts and negotiate deals. Money flows easier with Mercury direct.

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Difficulty Level: Holding in my excitement for the lead singer of Melt’s performance at the Tiny Desk Concert in The Tufts Daily Newsroom in the basement of Curtis Hall at 7 p.m. today!

Thursday’s Solutions

CROSSWORD

tuftsdaily.com

Natalie Brownsell Blue, Brown & Green

I

The big picture

f I know anything about the environment, it’s that connections between issues can be far-reaching. Though you’ve likely heard that water scarcity will be a massive, looming issue in the near future, it can be hard to see the big picture in the U.S., where freshwater seems so readily available and consumption is rampant. Today, many water sources — which sustain local ecosystems and our growing population — are becoming stressed. As the cli-

Opinion mate continues to change rapidly, the issue of water scarcity is anticipated to only become more dire.

It is estimated that each person in the U.S. uses over 100 gallons of water per day just performing indoor tasks.

This excludes outdoor water consumption like landscape irrigation, which uses nearly 9 billion gallons per day nationwide, accounting for almost one-third of all residential water use. Since most large cities get approximately 78% of their water from surface sources, meeting this consumption results in massive relocation of water in the environment.

This disrupts environmental processes and increases the already high strain on freshwater sources due to increasing demand.

Aside from direct water use in the U.S., one major indirect contributor to water scarcity is food waste. According to a report by the United States Geological Survey, “irrigation accounted for 42 percent of the Nation’s total freshwater withdrawals in 2015.” Globally, “agriculture uses 70% of the world’s accessible freshwater” yet a shocking “60% of this is wasted due to leaky irrigation systems, inefficient application methods as well as the cultivation of crops that are too thirsty for the environment in which they are grown.” This represents a massive portion of the world’s freshwater supply that is being wasted without creating any benefit. Additionally, since 31% of all food is wasted in the U.S., much of the water which successfully contributes

7 Friday, April 22, 2022

to food production eventually goes to waste.

Though many everyday choices may seem like insignificant actions, when it comes to water use, these actions often have significant impacts on water consumption. Reducing your shower time by only five minutes can save 10 gallons of water each day, and you can save about 8 gallons per day by simply brushing your teeth without leaving the water on.

National food consumption and waste are both impacted greatly by our individual choices and have huge impacts on water scarcity due to the massive water consumption of agriculture.

Though the U.S. is one of the top water consumers in the world, the reality is that we will likely be one of the last places

to feel the effects of water scarcity. The fact that the majority of water used for landscape irrigation, clothes washing, toilet flushing and showering in the U.S. is clean, drinkable water makes the waste of this water that much worse. This makes all the small choices we make everyday extremely important.

With 40% of the global population and a significant number of ecosystems facing water scarcity, the amount of water wasted around the world has direct implications on human and environmental health, making it all the more important to keep the big picture in view.

Natalie Brownsell is a sophomore studying applied environmental studies. Natalie can be reached at natalie.brownsell@tufts.edu.

SPORTS

Baseball sweeps Patriots’ Day doubleheader

by Arielle Weinstein

Assistant Sports Editor

The Tufts University men’s baseball team swept its twogame series against nonconference opponent University of Massachusetts Dartmouth this past weekend. In a Patriots’ Day doubleheader, the Jumbos were able to soundly defeat the Corsairs in both games. After being swept by Bowdoin Polar Bears the previous weekend, the Jumbos wanted to get back on track with wins against a lower ranked opponent.

“We had a pretty significant sense of urgency,” senior pitcher Brendan McFall said. “We have this opportunity to come in, and kind of take care of business now, … and get the ship moving in the right direction again.”

The Tufts team found itself ranked 23rd among Division III teams with an overall record of 17–6 at the beginning of the weekend. Conversely, UMass Dartmouth had been having a mediocre season overall, entering the weekend with an 11–13 overall record.

UMass Dartmouth snapped a five-game losing streak in the second game of a Friday doubleheader against Little East Conference opponent Castleton and was hoping to keep the momentum going through the weekend.

In the first game, McFall got the start and delivered a stellar performance. However, in the top of the first inning, the Corsairs were able to get on the board first off of an RBI single

by Jared Neikam. Tufts quickly responded in the bottom of the second inning, scoring two runs. Senior designated hitter Ryan Noone singled and took second base on a wild pitch. A walk to junior catcher Connor Bowman and graduate student second baseman Kyle Cortese was hit by a pitch to load the

COURTESY JENNIFER BOWMAN

Tufts outfielder Jimmy Evans is pictured during a game against Colby College on April 2. bases for sophomore third baseman Patrick Solomon. He singled to center field to tie the game at 1–1. In his first start of the season, sophomore left fielder Johnny Briody hit a sacrifice fly to score another run for the Jumbos and take the lead 2–1.

Neither team was able to score again until the top of the fifth inning, when UMass Dartmouth tied the game with an RBI single down the right field line by third baseman DJ Perron. The game didn’t stay tied for long, as the Jumbos broke the game open in the bottom of the inning. Two walks and another hit-by-pitch loaded the bases, and then Noone hit a single that drove in two runs. Cortese followed that up with an RBI double of his own to make the score 5–2.

McFall went the distance in the seven-inning game, surrendering one earned run while striking out a whopping 10 batters. He improved his record to

2–1 on the year as Tufts took the opening game of the doubleheader.

In the second game, both teams had scoreless first innings, and then the scoring started in the second inning.

UMass Dartmouth once again scored first in the top of the second. The Corsairs were able to load the bases and then second baseman Adam Horowitz hit a ground ball up the middle that was mishandled by Tufts sophomore shortstop Ozzie Fleischer and two runs were allowed to score. Fleischer attempted to turn the double play before he secured the ball in his glove, and the result was two unearned runs to put the Jumbos in an early hole. UMass Dartmouth followed that up with an RBI single from center fielder Scott Cromack to make it 3–0.

However, Tufts was once again able to respond. In the bottom half of the inning, Cortese hit a two-run homer over the right field fence to cut

the lead to one run. The wind was blowing steadily out to right field all game, and Cortese was able to turn on a pitch and take it over the fence. Fleischer was able to follow that up with a two-run single to take the lead for the Jumbos. Fleischer then scored later in the inning on a wild pitch, making it 5–3 Tufts.

The scoring stopped for a couple of innings until Tufts picked up another run in the bottom of the fourth inning on an RBI groundout by senior center fielder Miles Reid. More poor defense put the Jumbos in a trickier situation, as the Corsairs were able to score two runs in the top of the fifth off of another error resulting from a failed double play attempt which scored one, while another was scored off of an RBI single.

Entering the sixth inning, the score remained 6–5 Tufts, and once again the bats got hot to blow the game open. Reid hit a two-run single through the hole between the shortstop and

third baseman, and senior designated hitter Peter DeMaria hit an RBI single. The bases were then loaded once more for junior left fielder Jackson Duffy, who hit into a double play but also brought in a run to make it 10–5 Tufts. Cortese capped off his excellent hitting day at the plate with another home run to right field, this time a solo shot.

The home run was his fifth of the year and gave the Jumbos lots of insurance heading into the top of the seventh inning.

Junior starting pitcher Connor Kinney had a solid day on the mound, having gone six innings and only having surrendered one earned run. He collected the win and improved his record to 3–0 on the season. In the seventh inning, he allowed two runners on base and was then relieved by senior Steven Landry. The first batter Landry faced hit a sharp ground ball to Cortese at second. Cortese made a diving stop and tossed the ball from his knees to Fleischer at second base. Landry struck the second batter out and then induced a ground ball to Fleischer at second for the final out of the game “The emphasis is just always make the simple play and then when the opportunity comes you’ve got to dive,” Cortese said.

Landry closed the game out without giving up a hit, and the Jumbos swept the series on the weekend.

Tufts improved their overall record to 19–6 and look to ride the momentum from these games into their conference matchup against Trinity College at home this weekend. This series will be vital in determining the rankings of the Eastern Division of the NESCAC. “We’re real excited,” McFall said. “We’re hoping to go out and play [the] best baseball like we’re capable of playing, and if we do that, I like our chances against anyone.”

8

SPORTS

tuftsdaily.com

Golf places first of 8 at Western New England Invitational

COURTESY BRIAN GOLDEN

Tufts senior Travis Clauson is pictured competing in the Western New England Invitational on April 6th.

by Ananda Kao Sports Editor

The Tufts men’s golf team claimed first place at the Western New England Invitational this past Saturday. Tufts’ top four golfers scored a total of 297 strokes, beating out second place Nichols College, which totaled 310, by 13 strokes.

This tournament took place at the par-72 Wilbraham Country

Aiden Herrod The Intangibles

NBA storyline power rankings Sometimes when you’re watching basketball playoffs, you have to question if what you just saw was real. We, as humans, seek out compelling stories in every sporting event we watch, and the NBA is absolutely brimming with the types of moments that start, end and intensify those stories. No matter what outcome happens, a narrative always emerges or becomes validated as the playoffs march on.

So today, I’m looking at and ranking the most compelling stories of the NBA’s remaining squads to see which potential finals winner could create the perfect cap to this wild season of basketball.

The Grizzlies’ fairy-tale ending The Memphis Grizzlies have been basketball’s most electrifying new contender this season, and it’s not hard to see why. Ja Morant has made the leap to superstar, producing night-in, night-out thunderous highlights for all the world to see. But this team’s standing as the West’s No. 2 stems from a thoughtfully constructed young core with a surefire identity, one that was able to sustain 26 missed games from Morant.

What the Grizzlies are doing is the culmination of a swift and savvy rebuild. It would surely bring countless fans immense joy to see the small-market franchise win with homegrown talent. But this young team is here to stay, and an early playoff exit would merely make its players hungrier for future seasons.

While it would be remarkable to see them win it all, Memphis

Club in Wilbraham, Mass., with eight teams competing in the one day tournament. Trinity College came in third place, with its four best scores totaling 313. Springfield College, Roger Williams University, Amherst College, Wentworth Institute of Technology and Western New England University also competed.

“The course this past Saturday, I would say it’s pretty similar [to has an even brighter future ahead than their present day.

The Warriors extend a dynasty How great is it to see Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green all together on the court again? Klay’s devastating two seasons away from the sport have made this team’s resurgence back to contender status all the sweeter for Bay Area fans and likely spurred nightmares in just about every other fanbase. The Warriors’ run of titles a few years back was incredible, but many pundits were quick to declare them dead once Kevin Durant left.

The Warriors’ return to the big dance with the same superstars that made them a proper dynasty all those years ago would be truly remarkable and a testament to the Hall of Fame cases for Steph, Klay and Dray. But at the end of the day, do that many fans really want to see this after so many earlier titles?

No, I think we can do better.

The Suns achieve redemption Last year’s NBA finals was a shame because one team had to lose. Giannis Antetokounmpo’s hoisting of the trophy was incredible to see, and I don’t think a single non-Suns fan should be mad at such an outcome. But the Suns had built something truly special, and seeing them fall just short was absolutely brutal. Chris Paul’s greatness is only missing a championship ring to tie it all together, and the clock is ticking for the Suns to deliver it to him.

With the Suns pushing through a championship hangover and a lengthy Paul injury to build a team that’s arguably even more devastating, they seem poised to cap their three-year odyssey from tanking mess to bona fide contender.

Aiden Herrod is a senior studying film and media studies.

Aiden can be reached at aiden.herrod@tufts.edu.

our home course] in the fact that it’s just early in the spring,” sophomore Jack Meehan said. “The conditions are hard to be perfect this time of year, but we’re okay with that. …The front line [of the course] was wide open, [it was] hard to hit it out of bounds and the back line was a lot tighter, but the green complexes were difficult.

The weather was also pretty brutal; it got rainy on the back nine.”

Individually, Meehan and senior co-captain Travis Clauson tied for second overall with scores of 73, one over par. They came in just behind Amherst’s Steven Chen who scored a 70, two under, for the best individual score of the tournament.

“I think that mentally we hung in there well because the weather wasn’t good,” Meehan said. “We’d never seen [the course] before, and it’s just early in the season. … I think that our mental games were great, and I

think that we fed off each other nicely. A lot of us would talk mid-route and we all knew we were playing well, so the energy was good from all five of us which is pretty rare.”

The Jumbos’ third score, senior co-captain Adam Schwimmer, tied for fourth overall, shooting 75. Junior Kemp Bassett rounded out Tufts’ top four scorers with a 76 and junior Ben Blasé came in right behind with a score of 77, placing him fifth for the Jumbos.

This marked Tufts’ second tournament of the spring season, as the Tim Brown Invitational was canceled the weekend before.

The Jumbos will compete at the Williams Invitational at Taconic Golf Club this weekend before the NESCAC Championships on April 30 and May 1.

“This weekend the course will be a lot more difficult, but the greens will be a lot more

what we’re used to, and it’ll be a very fair test even though it’s a difficult course,” Meehan said. “I think we just need to keep things focused on the course and preserve rounds to keep things from falling apart and keeping all guys in the mid 70s.”

This year, the NESCAC Championships will be hosted by Hamilton College at Yahnundasis Golf Club in New Hartford, N.Y. “The goal is to win NESCACs, which seems very in reach,” Meehan said. “On a good day, we are very much better than [our competition]. This past weekend we played some of the NESCAC teams that were supposed to be pretty good and we handled them pretty swiftly, which was nice. … I think if we start making some more of those five footers for par, keep our mental game in it and avoid those disastrous holes, then I think that we have a really good shot at NESCACs.”

BRIEF OVERVIEW OF THE PROGRAM

MASTERS OF ARTS IN TEACHING SPANISH

Whether you are new to the language, on your second year and considering a major, or already working on your Spanish major, you should know that Tufts University offers a Masters of Arts in Teaching of Spanish (for grades k-12)

10-12 CREDITS: 8 COURSES THROUGH THE DEPT. OF ED. AND 2-4 COURSES IN SPANISH (AND/OR HISPANIC CULTURE) OF THE 100 LEVEL

ONE YEAR AND TWO SUMMERS (INCLUDING ONE YEAR OF PRACTICUM AT A PARTNER SCHOOL)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Teaching is a truly rewarding career, and there is a high demand for Spanish Teachers in our area and across the US. To know more about the program or hear about successful Tufts alumni please contact:

Prof. Juliana Berte Department of Romance Studies Liaison to the Department of Education for Spanish Teacher Certification Juliana.Berte@tufts.edu Olin Center Office 220

PERSONAL WORK WITH PROFESSORS, ADVISORS, AND MENTORS AT THE DEPT. OF ROMANCE STUDIES, THE DEPT. OF EDUCATION AND THE SCHOOLS WHERE CANDIDATES ARE TEACHING.