Weekend

WEEKEND // FRIDAY, APRIL 11, 2014

The

Tenant?

Isabelle Taft and Pooja Salhotra examine whether Yale’s real estate ventures risk widening the town-gown divide.

COURTROOMS

B4

“Right” // Page 3

CONNOISSEURS

B6, 7

COMMEMORATION B10, 11

WHAT’S THE VERDICT?

THE SCOOP ON RESTAURANT WEEK

REMEMBERING MARINA KEEGAN ’12

Stephanie Addenbrooke pronounces her sentence on an all-male, all-Yale production of “Twelve Angry Men.”

Weekend chows down — Bentara, Zinc, Geronimo and more!

Students reflect on Marina Keegan ’12 and the launch of her much-heralded posthumous writings.

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 11, 2014 · yaledailynews.com

2048, 24/7, 365 // BY WILL ADAMS In the simple computer game 2048, the player must move numbered squares together in a grid in order to reach the number 2048. When the grid is full and there are no possible matches, the game waits for a half-second — a false glimmer of hope — before greying out the screen and telling you that you have lost. A clean box with the text, “Try Again,” offers another chance at winning. And, of course, you try again.

Every few months, a new addictive game grips my friends and me in its clutches. This school year alone, I have moved through three major throes.

First, it was Candy Crush, in which you swipe your finger on your phone’s screen in order to crush candies. Then it was Cookie Clicker, in which you click on a cookie in order to make cookies. The current one is 2048, and also its customizable version in which you can replace the numbered squares with everything from residential colleges to “Game of Thrones” characters. And I have spent way too much time playing each game.

Addictive games are a different beast than refreshing Facebook every five seconds or trawling through BuzzFeed.

They can instill the same shame of procrastination, but the games mask it by making me feel accomplished for reaching a new level, creating a certain number of cookies. Where an essay or seminar reading takes a good deal of concentration and critical thinking, these games give me large rewards with just the swipe of a finger. The rules are easy to grasp, and the games seem to want to take over my life. I develop skill sets and strategies — in Cookie Clicker, for example, I’ve learned how to position my hand such that my index finger vibrates uncontrollably, resulting in a rapid cookie clicking rate. I go to sleep with visions of my phone screen, lit up with bright fruit colors or numbered squares. The cost seems minimal, since these games are either free or have ad-cluttered free versions. But the cost is tremendous: losing track of

time before a class that’s a 10-minute walk away; devouring a block of time that I had set aside to write a reading response; stress on my back as I crouch over my phone in the library because I’m embarrassed to have others notice that I’ve been conned by these games.

But then, time wasting isn’t new territory for me. In high school, I had Doodle Jump and Fruit Ninja and Bubble Spinner and The Sims 2. In elementary school, I had Pokémon Crystal and Pokémon Gold and Pokémon Red. Then, I similarly craved an escape from the mundane, the sense of pride in catching a rare Pokémon in a Pokéball, trapping pixels within more pixels. The only difference is that now there are consequences. I don’t finish my work, I don’t fold my laundry, and I’ve even missed the end of dinner while playing these games. I wonder if I’ll ever grow out of this phase. I wonder if I’ll ever win. Under the current reign of 2048, a popular celebration is to post a screenshot of the “You win!” message on Facebook, which symbolizes both the actual “beating the game” and liberation from 2048’s clutches. I envy those people, both for their victory and their freedom. I envy those who are able to channel their study breaks into more productive endeavors.

Perhaps my distraction says something about my workload. Perhaps it is unreasonable to feel shame about wanting a break. Perhaps it’s healthy, even, to take my mind off of dense readings in favor of lighter fare. But when I step into the real world, and will have to make the crucial decision to attend to the spreadsheets in front of me or slink into my phone and load up whatever the next game fad is — perhaps guiding a pig through space to collect shiny celery stalks — something will have to give. I get the feeling that my boss will not be sympathetic to the pig.

2048

That Summertime, Summertime Sadness // BY EMMA PLATOFF This morning in philosophy lecture, my professor, despicably, went over the format for our final exam.

This might not have been so atrocious — you might even suggest that I should have been appreciative — had it not come in conjunction with a few other illdisguised attacks on my emotional well-being. Last weekend, one of my TAs sent out a schedule of the readings we will discuss in our two (two!) remaining Tuesday morning sections. Emails about summer storage options and choosing a sophomore advisor (I assume that this is what they’re about, based on the subject lines — I still refuse to read them) pile up in my inbox. Apparently the year is coming to a close, but I don’t remember granting it permission.

The semester’s end alarms me for several reasons. One, that the acceptable, even recommended aimlessness of being a freshman, the easy excuse for any clueless or irresponsible behavior, the sense that the entire world lies in wait before you, will be over. I’m not entirely sure what I was supposed to have discovered this year (should I have found myself already, or is that better left for the post-grad existential crisis?) but I am fairly sure that I haven’t done it. I have failed the “ring by spring” exhortation popular at some Southern schools; I have even failed the twelve colleges dining hall challenge.

Apparently it has been two full semesters — I have the looming finals and deadlines to prove it — but I can’t say I

F R I D AY APRIL 11

SCORE

BEST

1980

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LEADERBOARD

Contact WILL ADAMS at william.adams@yale.edu .

feel finished.

Worse than the end of freshman year, though, is the beginning of freshman summer — or, to put it more stressfully, the summer before sophomore year.

For many, summer symbolizes relaxation. At Yale, summer is hardly even a respite from classes. Even those who don’t study during the vacation continue the year’s relentless productivity, interning at big name companies and often making impressive salaries.

Yale summers seem better defined by dress shoes than flip-flops. Slackers and beach bums need not apply.

I live on a quiet street in suburban Connecticut, but over spring break this year my place of residency would have best been given as 55 Whitney Ave., Third Floor.

If you haven’t been there (bless you), this is Yale’s Undergraduate Career Services office, a dog pound for the aimless and desperate.

This change in address had a lot to do with my laughable attempt to be productive while on vacation: My spring break agenda (identical, funnily enough, to my failed winter break agenda) was to plan my summer. To this end, I spent hours in UCS, endlessly irritating the otherwise unoccupied career advisors with my utter hopelessness.

I did this because the question “What are you doing this summer?” has been haunting me for months. Everyone else seems to have their answers practically scripted by now, while I’m just hoping that my jokes about my lack of prospects

are still more funny than they are pathetic.

Not only do I not have an internship settled yet, but any I consider will be neither prestigious nor paid.

This fact in of itself bothers me: If I were the type of person who would be content sitting on the couch all summer, I doubt I also would have been the type of person who would go to Yale. But even more, I’m bothered by the idea that at Yale, a summer spent working for minimum wage is essentially a failure, while for nearly all of my high school friends, scoring a job at all is a great success. Of course I don’t want to be bored all summer, but I’d prefer to feel that the pressure to succeed only comes from me.

As I fruitlessly surf UCS Symplicity, sometimes I long for childhood, when summers were not yet seen as just another chance to get ahead. I miss the days when vacation meant sticky fingers and tacky family vacation photos, sunburns at the local pool and drive-through ice cream shops, Tuesday evening concerts on the town green. May through August has been commodified — it has become a time to network and impress.

Summers, now, are opportunities, and as Yalies we never waste opportunities.

I realize the summers of tan lines and ill-fitting day camp uniforms are over, but I’d happily go back if it meant spending my days running through sprinklers instead of jumping through hoops.

Contact EMMA PLATOFF at emma.platoff@yale.edu .

// MOHAN YIN AND CARTER LEVIN

BALKOSKI

PLATOFF

ADAMS

WEEKEND VIEWS

What Arbitrary Thing Are You? // BY JANE BALKOSKI Last semester, Olivia and I discovered the Enneagram Personality Test, which doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page. According to the “Enneagram Institute” website, the test is “one of the most powerful tools for understanding ourselves” as well as an “ancient symbol of unity and diversity.” I don’t really know what that means.

Neither did Olivia. I do know, however, that I took a free version of the quiz one Wednesday night. I checked a lot of boxes, clicked SUBMIT, and watched the Internet puke up my results — a webpage with some clip art and some flashing, pornographic advertising.

I read, “You are a 4/5, nicknamed The Individualist.”

And at first I thought, “Not bad, that actually sounds an awful lot like my MyersBriggs Personality Type, The Idealist.” The two pseudopsychological tests offered similar results: Jane is a shy perfectionist who likes her friends a lot. She even has a “creative” streak. The same platitudes hold true for a lot of Yale kids but, still, I don’t object. After all, the MyersBriggs quiz is popular because it’s so goddamned flattering; every personality type is a long-winded compliment.

Idealists are dominated by a strict moral code and deep compassion! Shakespeare was an idealist!

But I’m not very good at moving on or letting things go. I don’t Facebook stalk people — I Google them. I don’t watch one episode — I watch the whole season. And so I didn’t let my Enneagram results go either.

Spend a few minutes

researching “4/5 Enneagram” and you’ll end up in the dark, swampy wasteland of Internet forums. You’ll be kneedeep in bad grammar and long usernames. And on personalitycafe.com, you’ll read that an “unbalanced 4/5 can move into the extreme withdrawal of depression, then, with still further disintegration, into a sort of dark impulsiveness.” Great. Skip a few lines and you’ll get: “Servility and self-abasement provide a … very temporary relief from the constant torment of self-hatred.” And finally, you’ll find: “As life becomes less and less tolerable, suicide becomes increasingly likely … in some unusually gruesome way.” *** I started writing at 15. I sat down one evening, opened my sister’s old laptop, and typed three neat pages about a girl named Mary. Mary (also 15) has two friends named Laura and Shelly, polar opposites, each a particular adolescent archetype. Laura is clean and cute and polite. She has a “plaid skirt and ironed hair.”

Shelly, on the other hand, likes “the feeling of leather against her naked skin.” Anyway, Mary struggles to find a happy medium. She doesn’t quite know who to be.

The first line was: “When presented with a personality quiz, Mary often let the cursor blink endlessly.” As I typed up the next three pages — never once stopping to edit or reread — I scattered a few of the questions that had stumped Mary. It seemed like a clever technique.

“How do you react to social situations? Poor – Decent – Exceptional”

ARTIST TALK, KOHEI OKAMOTO

Contact JANE BALKOSKI at jane.balkoski@yale.edu .

WEEKEND TAPS:

Yale University Art Gallery // 12:30 p.m.

Our Chinese professor tells us our calligraphy gives insight into the soul. She also said ours was “messy.”

“Are you outgoing? Poor – Decent – Exceptional” “Do you enjoy life? Poor – Decent – Exceptional” At the end of the story, Mary makes a new friend, Ida, who’s read “The Republic” and who knows how to flirt.

With Ida’s help, Mary gives up personality tests once and for all. The two girls click “the little red x at the top right hand corner of the window” and go to the movies. *** I’ve been taking a lot of Buzzfeed quizzes lately, spending time among cute GIFs and far from the foreboding prophecies of personalitycafe.com. After dinner, before heading to Sterling, I sit in my room and scroll through the options, experiencing a fair amount of selfloathing. Last week, Buzzfeed answered the question “What Should [Jane] Actually eat for lunch?” Monday, it answered “What Font [is Jane]?”

Today, after lecture, I scrolled through the options and clicked “What Arbitrary Thing are You?” I spent a good 10 minutes on the quiz, thinking over each question.

If I could bathe in any liquid, I’d bathe in a tub full of mayonnaise. (Whiskey’s a close second.) If I had to fight a hell beast, I’d use a sock full of coins. Finally: What would I do with a time machine? I stared at the screen and considered my personality. I wouldn’t take my mom to prom or re-eat lunch. I would watch my own death.

Buzzfeed didn’t falter. It just spit up an answer: “You’re a Big Rusty Hook!”

Beyonce for Drunk and Love

We hear their secret drink is watermelon.

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 11, 2014 · yaledailynews.com

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WEEKEND COVER

der’s proposal. The office began to purchase properties and, in 1996, created UP to focus exclusively on New Haven real estate.

Today, the office continues to strive for a particular image around campus — one characterized by high-quality and aesthetically pleasing tenants. The University keeps high standards for its tenants, such as requiring them to lengthen their businesses’ operating hours and create an elegant façade for their storefronts. With its vast financial resources, UP can afford to keep its properties vacant — sometimes for over five years — until the “right” tenant makes an offer.

“You could fill all of Broadway with fast-food chains, but that’s clearly not something that we want to do,” Alexander said. “One reason we have been able to maintain the quality [of UP] is by not compromising on the quality of the tenant.”

To maintain its pristine image, UP works with Elm Campus Partners, a New Haven-based property management company that coor-

I DON’T THINK A CITY IS BETTER BECAUSE IT HAS A J. CREW. I THINK A CITY IS BETTER BECAUSE IT IS A HUMANE PLACE TO LIVE. JULIA CALAGIOVANNI ’15

A NEW IMAGE

Armed with a proposal that he hoped would change the course o f New Haven’s economic development, Alexander headed to a meeting at the Rose Alumni House, walking past an array of liquor stores, barber shops and vacancies on Broadway Ave. It was 1987, and Alexander was the chair of the Urban Advisory Committee, a group charged with giving then University President Benno Schmidt ’63 LAW ’66 advice on how to revitalize the deteriorating city. Schmidt had just announced that the University would invest $50 million from its endowment into developing New Haven. And after hearing students and community members report that they felt unsafe in downtown New Haven, Alexander knew exactly where the money should go: Broadway.

Alexander pledged that the revitalization would “set the image of New Haven” for many visitors and serve as a catalyst for development in the rest of the city. The Yale Investment Office took up Alexan-

dinates UP’s maintenance efforts such as planting flowers and cleaning the streets and sidewalks. UP also requires that its tenants live up to high aesthetic standards, mandating, for example, that Gourmet Heaven display flowers on the sidewalk on Broadway. And, to draw more customers who might otherwise turn to shopping malls, UP requires its Broadway tenants to remain open until 9:00 at night.

According to University officials, these rules have been instrumental in driving foot traffic to downtown, and in maintaining a safe and pleasant environment. And many New Haven residents support these efforts. Sheila Masterson, Executive Director of Whalley Avenue Special Services District, who has been in New Haven since 1979, said she “could not say enough good things about UP.” “More than 20 years ago that place was a pretty scary place to go,” she said. “The gardens were all overgrown. It was so overgrown that most of us had no idea that there was a War Memorial at that triangle that’s near Ivy Noodle.” She added

that Yale’s “sprucing up” has made the area a great place to shop and grab a cup of coffee.

The new face of New Haven has had the added effect of making the University more competitive among other institutions located in urban settings. Whereas the decision between Cambridge and New Haven was once a no-brainer, the work of UP has made deciding between the two cities a much tougher call. Both of the parents of Sarah Landau ’17 graduated from Harvard College, but she decided to apply early to Yale in part because she found the retail options on Chapel Street and Broadway attractive.

She liked Cambridge better overall, but the work of UP made New Haven “good enough” to compete.

“If the stores and restaurants brought in by UP weren’t there, I would have had to really consider it,” Landau said. “I don’t know how it would have impacted my decision, but location would have then played a bigger role in my decision and it would have been a point in favor of Harvard.”

Students like Landau are a testament to UP’s progress in making New Haven a much more attractive place to study and live. But for Julia Calagiovanni ’15, their work was nowhere near a factor in her decision to come to Yale. If anything, UP left her feeling uneasy.

When Calagiovanni participated in the ONHSA-sponsored President’s Public Service Fellowship the summer after her freshman year, Alexander gave a presentation to the summer interns, describing ONHSA’s work to bridge the towngown divide. She remembered that the presentation included pictures showcasing the aesthetic changes of Broadway between the 1980s and 2000s. In spite of the overwhelming differences between the two, she felt that the University focused too much on marketing its own image of New Haven, rather than helping the city to improve.

She said that the presentation seemed to depict J. Crew as “the best thing that Yale has done.”

“Sometimes we all need to buy our business casual clothing,” she joked, “but I don’t think a city is better because it has a J. Crew. I think a city is better because it is a humane place to live.”

SCRUTINIZING A LANDLORD’S ACCOUNTABILITY

“Humanity” and “social justice” have been buzzwords lately in conversations about one of UP’s most

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popular tenants: Gourmet Heaven.

The grocery store garnered media attention last August when the Connecticut Department of Labor discovered that manager Chung Cho was paying employees well under the minimum wage — as one employee told the News in November, as low as $4.44 per hour. In an exclusive interview with the News, several employees said that Cho imposed threats on their housing and job security and forced some to work up to 72 hours a week. The scandal has spurred student protests against unjust worker treatment and raised the question of how much accountability Yale shoulders for its tenants’ actions.

The DOL arrested Cho on Feb. 20 and charged him with 21 felony counts of violation of wage payments greater than $2,000, 20 misdemeanor charges of defrauding alien workers and one first degree larceny charge, according to online records. Although UP released a statement last fall condemning the injustice allegedly happening on its property, the University failed to take any action until March, said Evelyn Nuñez ’15, president of Yale’s social justice group MEChA de Yale.

Students in MEChA wrote a letter to UP last fall requesting a meeting with University officials to discuss the issue. Nuñez and Community Action Chair Cathleen Calderon ’17 met with Alexander and two of his coworkers and asked that they take action. ONHSA said that there was nothing they could do until they verified that the allegations against Gourmet Heaven were accurate, Nuñez recalled.

When Nuñez and Calderón met with Alexander again in March, ONHSA was receptive to taking steps to prevent an incident like this from happening again.

“They are looking into ways that they can change how they approach their contracts with tenants so they can ensure that they don’t have to worry about tenants being involved in wage theft,” Nuñez said.

Still, she said that the University has not yet taken any concrete action — something she would have liked to see last August, when the DOL first found that Cho was mistreating employees.

City officials, including Mayor Toni Harp, also criticized the University for failing to oversee its tenants and monitor wage theft. In response to Cho’s arrest, Harp called on Yale to protect the

HCV CLINICAL CONFERENCE

SEE PROPERTIES PAGE 8

WEEKEND TAPS:

Fitkin Memorial Pavilion // 3–7 p.m.

There’s an eighth-grade-level joke to be made here, but we’re resisting.

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positive sentiments, reporting that they like the retail mix and feel safer at night.

But even though UP has undeniably turned the downtown district around, its presence has made some residents question the University’s motives when it comes to engaging with the city. Many residents, including some Yale students, see UP’s retail mix of upscale tenants as catering to the wealthy and excluding a significant segment of the New Haven population who cannot afford to shop at high-end stores like L’Occitane en Provence and Jack Wills. And recently, when the owner of Gourmet Heaven — Yale’s tenant at 15 Broadway — was arrested for wage theft and other offenses, city leaders and community activists criticized the Ivy for not taking a stand on social justice.

At the end of the day, although University officials label UP a “town-gown partnership,” others wonder whether the investments are a marker of Yale’s expanding influence in New Haven.

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University Propertiesth St owned storefronts

When Claudia Merson drove down Chapel Street in 1995, the city seemed asleep.

By the time Merson had finished dinner and was driving back to her room at the Colony Inn, the patchwork of service stores that lined Chapel Street were closed, and the neighborhood was pitch black.

From her window at the aging inn, the same spot where the posh Study at Yale now sits, Merson could see littered streets, abandoned store fronts, and — right across the road — a community center with broken windows.

“It was a pretty run-down place,” said Merson, who directs public school partnerships for the Office of New Haven and State Affairs (ONHSA). “Everything just used to get so dark.”

But today, when Merson drives through downtown late at night, she sees a bright and vibrant city bustling with students and New Haven residents alike. What was once a neglected area known first and foremost for violence and high crime rates is now a shopping district filled with big-ticket retailers like the Apple Store and J. Crew, and popular restaurants like Chipotle and Panera Bread.

It’s a transformation for which Yale is largely to thank. Founded as a part of ONHSA two decades ago, University Properties (UP) manages Yale’s commercial and residential properties in New Haven. Its primary mission is to attract a diverse mix of “high-quality retailers” that will increase traffic downtown.

Since its founding in 1996, UP has accumulated over 80 retail tenants and 500 apartment units in the areas surrounding campus, including on Broadway, Chapel, Whalley Avenue and in the Audubon district.

Although Yale is exempt from paying taxes on its educational buildings, it pays nearly $4 million on its commercial real estate property each year — making it one of the city’s highest taxpayers.

According to ONHSA Director Bruce Alexander ’65, this investment has changed New Haven into “a vastly different place” from what it was two decades ago. He said that the notion that tenants like J. Crew or Maison Mathis would choose to operate in New Haven would have been “unthinkable” in the ’80s.

And in surveys about impressions of downtown, Alexander noted that visitors have expressed increasingly

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nS // BY ISABELLE TAFT AND POOJA W SALHOTRA

A ve

THE PRICE OF RENOVATION

Liz Lemon for Night and Cheese

Please arrive at 8 p.m. blindfolded and in a Snuggie.

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 11, 2014 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND THEATER

REALITY THROUGH THE SHADOWS // BY JOYCE GUO How real is a shadow, when it is so filled with emptiness? This question, and the theme of innocence, forms the running thread of Athol Fugard’s most recent play, “The Shadow of the Hummingbird.” The production at the Long Wharf Theatre signifies Fugard’s return to the stage following a 15-year absence.

“The Shadow” centers on two characters: Oupa (Fugard) who is old and weighted with knowledge, and his grandson Boba (Aidan and Dermot McMillan) who is young and vibrant. Oupa and Boba are noticeably different: While Boba rushes to catch a glimpse of the bright hummingbird feeding outside the window, Oupa is satisfied looking only at its shadow, flitting across the wall. When Boba comes to visit Oupa for an afternoon, the two embark on a journey to examine the importance of k n owl e d ge

Not Y our

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As the first few notes of Billy Joel’s “Only the Good Die Young” resonated throughout the theater, six members of the Yaledancers emerged from the shadows. They danced in darkness, until the classic first line — “Come out Virginia, don’t let me wait” — rang out, and bright lights flooded the stage. As the dancers tossed around a red sunflower and playfully assembled into a kick line towards the end of the piece, this opening dance — choreographed by Laura Bass ’15 — carried a lighthearted, jovial feel that is likely to be appreciated as final exams loom before us. It is the ideal beginning to the Yaledancers’ spring show, which will be performed in the Education Center of the Arts Theater this weekend.

While one might initially question the choice of such a distant location, the superiority of the ECA Theater to other theaters like Off Broadway, which are slightly closer to campus, is immediately apparent. The ECA Theater offers an abnormally large stage and fantastic lighting, which make it perfect for intense and dramatically-lit dances like “Enamored,” which was choreographed and performed by Natalia Khosla ’14 and Tim Creavin ’15. Although this duet was set to “Latch” by Disclosure, a party favorite, Khosla and Creavin’s sharp movements were drastically different from the motions this song typically inspires at Toad’s.

Rebecca Brudner’s ’16 “Mother Nature” piece also took advantage of the theater’s lighting, as three dancers performed an interpretive dance that departed significantly from the jazz and contem-

and the cost of gaining it. It is a story about generations: How age separates two people and how their love can bring them back together.

The play opens in Oupa’s living room, set in present day Southern California. The home has a cozy feel to it: bookshelves crammed with notebooks and journals, a worn couch near the center of the stage, a basket of fishing equipment in the corner. Oupa enters the stage looking for his glasses. “Spectacles, spectacular!” he announces. He is charming and eccentric, and as he finds his glasses he begins rifling around for a journal entry.

His constant mutterings of the word “shadow” are the only clue we are given to what the entry might be.

As Oupa searches through the piles of notebooks, he reads some of them aloud. These entries, which are taken from Fugard’s personal journals, range in their scope. Some are lighthearted, like descriptions of birds

from his home in South Africa. Others are haunting; one entry recalls Oupa desperately opening windows to dispel the darkness within him.

While Oupa reads, we are moved by his frailty: He drops his books, he has trouble getting up. At one point he barely makes it to the couch before he collapses in a heap. The set aptly exposes Oupa’s worn state: As he moves from the cluttered desk to the fraying couch, he seems to be aging and weakening. As props, the journals reflect his life; they are eclectic and worn, they are frayed on the edges and peeling at the seams.

Toad ’s Dan ce Flo or porary pieces commonly seen in dance shows. Strobe lights flashed violently throughout the theater each time the song reached its chorus, and the silhouettes of the dancers were illuminated on the walls behind them as they moved in time to the echoing voices of the Dirty Projectors, resulting in a haunting and almost disconcerting effect.

Many other eclectic pieces were featured, including an interlude by Karlanna Lewis SOM/ LAW ’15 in which she performed an original rap and danced to it, and a piece choreographed by Molly Gibbons ’14, in which the dancers showed off some of their finest technique in front of a large backdrop displaying an inspirational video about passion and creativity, set to Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’ “Ten Thousand Hours.” At the end of this particular dance, one lone dancer remained on stage as a Ray Bradbury quote was typed across the screen: “Jump, and you will find out how to unfold your wings as you fall.”

One of the highlights of the show was the piece by Gracie White’s ’16, which artfully blurred the lines between dance and trapeze. White began precariously suspended in midair, then preceded to contort herself into various positions, flipping and twirling closer and closer to the ground as Amy Winehouse’s croons echoed throughout the

theater. The other dancers were able to display their flexibility and precision on the ground, but when White twisted into the splits while in midair, it was an entirely new experience for the onlooker.

Following intermission, eight dancers resurrected the show by snapping and posing in time to Beyoncé’s “Partition.” Midway through the song, the dancers sped off stage and quickly returned wearing new outfits, as “Animals” by Martin Garrix began to play. This dance, set to some of today’s most recognizable hits, ran the risk of being hackneyed (especially following White’s gravity-defying act). But the synchronicity of the dancers and the intensity of their performance transformed this otherwise ordinary dance into an exciting showstopper.

And there lies the brilliance of the Yaledancers — each dance, regardless of whether it is performed on the ground or in the air, or whether it is set to a banal pop tune or a piece of classical music — is performed passionately and with the utmost precision and grace. Some pieces in the spring show may be slightly more innovative or groundbreaking than the others, but each piece is still

// T. CHARLES ERICKSON

In the same way, the shadow entry reflects Oupa’s vulnerable condition, in which he questions what can truly be known about reality and reflects on the shadow of a tree limb on his bedroom wall. Oupa knows the shadow is nothing, yet from its movements he cannot help but feel that it is real.

Boba breaks through the play’s darker mood, rushing onto the stage and yelling, “Oupa! Oupa!”.

His grandfather responds by commanding him to “draw his sword,” and the two engage in an imaginary play-battle. But after the mirth subsides, we see hints of a tense relationship between Oupa and his son-inlaw (Boba’s

father), whom he unapologetically deems an idiot. But for Oupa, it is clear that Boba is the center of the world. The actor’s tender portrayal of the characters captures with sincerity the essence of a grandfather-grandson relationship. When Oupa rubs his arthritic hands, Boba immediately moves to massage them. When Boba’s eyes wander over the bookshelves, Oupa tells him the cookies are under the Bible without missing a beat.

There is a synchronicity between the two actors that gives their dynamic an added depth.

The relationship between the two also mirrors that of teacher and student. Oupa tries to teach Boba about knowledge, quoting Tolstoy and introducing the child to Plato. When Boba fails to understand the allegory of the

cave, Oupa grows upset. Boba’s indifference to his teachings makes Oupa frustrated, and he tries harder still to drill into Boba the difference between reality and knowledge.

At the end, the play returns to shadows. Oupa tells Boba that his only dream is to be able to look at shadows like he once did as a baby. He gazes at the shadow of the hummingbird because he wants to regain the innocence that would allow him to think catching a shadow is possible.

The play concludes on a dim note, but there’s a bright kernel to be found. Despite Oupa’s learned nature, what he really wants is to look at the world like the young and naive Boba. The knowledge of the shadow’s transience doesn’t stop him from admiring its dance.

Contact JOYCE GUO at joyce.guo@yale.edu .

inevitably as enjoyable as the next, because the Yaledancers are not simply dancing on the stage of the ECA Theater: they are on a mission to create art.

The show’s finale — “Catalyst,” choreographed by Bass and Jane Fisher ’14 and performed by the entire company, concluded the show on light note. It is in this piece that every member of the Yaledancers collected to exhibit the skills of the company as a whole. One could not help but gawk as the dancers leaped, turned, kicked and body rolled together as the walls behind them shifted between shades of red, blue, pink and orange, along with the moods of the song. The piece included several lifts (all due to the physical strength of Christian Probst ’16 and Creavin, the two male members of the Yaledancers), ending the show with one visually stunning last hurrah.

EJOY LY LOV // CAR

Contact TYLER FOGGATT at tyler. foggatt@yale.edu .

Real beyond reasonable doubt // BY STEPHANIE ADDENBROOKE

This weekend’s production of “Twelve Angry Men” will undoubtedly face criticism for its deliberately exclusive male cast. Despite my skepticism of the original concept, upon seeing the show, I have to agree with the decision of director Gabe Greenspan ’14. The production would have excelled equally with an all female cast, or one with no gender boundaries, however, what Greenspan presents to us is something rarely seen in Yale theater: the unique dynamic between twelve very different men.

The production, adapted from Reginald Rose’s 1954 teleplay, is the simple presentation of a jury deciding the fate of a 19-yearold accused of murder. They are abiding by their duty to separate “facts from fancy,” to decide

F R I D AY APRIL 11

whether he is guilty “beyond reasonable doubt,” whatever that means. Nineteen is not too distant from a Yale audience, so to see this life fall in the hands of strangers, those who often seem too preoccupied with their own lives to be concerned with the fate of another, is the most poignant arc of the show. What moral dilemmas are we evading to satisfy our own selfishness?

A cast of 12 talented and established actors portrays this jury.

The characters are not named; they are identified by number.

These characters collectively expose every dimension of the everyman. These 12 angry men could be anyone, and the audience is just as much a part of the jury as the characters on stage.

The play runs in real time with no entrances or exists. The men

aren’t leaving the situation any time soon, and neither are we.

With that comes an undeniable want to reach out and add our opinions and ask our own questions — the audience is frustratingly voiceless in a situation where each of us wants to be heard.

The seamless distinction between audience and actor is partly due to the choice of space.

The confined and narrow stage in the Davenport Auditorium means it doesn’t exactly spring to mind when one considers staging a piece of theater, especially with an ensemble cast of 12 fully grown men. However, the claustrophobia, bleakness and blankness of the set means that it truly feels like a juror’s room. There is nothing fantastical about this set.

When the characters complain

about the heat and the cramped nature of the room, the audience doesn’t have to imagine — we feel it too.

However, Greenspan and his actors continue to make the space stimulating. The blocking is sometimes obtrusive, but continues to define this play as realist.

We are watching it as it happens, and the authenticity of movement and speech doesn’t make it feel like an artificially staged piece of theater. This authenticity stems from the actors. It is ultimately an ensemble show and every performance is so accomplished that there is not one that stands out for either its exceptional quality or inability to keep up. There are 12 distinct characters played by 12 distinct actors, whose dynamic perfectly mirrors that of an actual jury: a conglom-

eration of strangers abiding by a common duty. It almost seems as though the script was written for these individual actors.

While the tension in the room is high because of the subject matter, the actors appear relaxed in their performances — everything is a natural and logical action or dialogue for each character.

The show’s title does not do justice to the play’s careful sentimentality and emotion. It is not 90 minutes of men yelling at each other. In fact, the show’s quiet ending can join the other incredibly moving moments we have seen in this semester’s theater season. Despite all the questions “Twelve Angry Men” raises, Greenspan does not force any answers onto us, but rather gives us the tools necessary to decide for ourselves. Everyone will react

“SINGING STRINGS OF RAJASTHAN”

Not just 12 angry men — 12 emotionally nuanced men.

to this in their own way; my protagonist won’t be yours. As one character repeats, “It takes a great deal of courage to stand alone.” Greenspan is pushing us to do this: stand alone and ask questions; the courage and firmness of the men who do so drive the play and the jury to its ultimate conclusion.

When the door closes at the end of the play, Greenspan leaves us with a haunting question: did they make the right choice?

Guilty, or not guilty?

Contact STEPHANIE ADDENBROOKE at stephanie.addenbrooke@yale.edu .

WEEKEND TAPS:

Stoeckel Hall // 12:30 p.m.

We really want a sing-along.

// STEPHANIE ADDENBROOKE

George W. Bush for Skull and Bones Sadly, this is not a joke.

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 11, 2014 · yaledailynews.com

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WEEKEND ARTS

POSED IMPROVISATION // BY ERICA PANDEY

Jazz rooted itself in the American tradition by harmonizing sultry blues with European classical and combining African beats with Cajun rhythms.

As the birthplace of jazz, New Orleans remained a hub for jazz music throughout the 20th century, but the style also spread north and west to New York and Chicago. The photographs of Lee Friedlander and Milt Hinton on display at the Yale University Art Gallery capture the lives of jazz musicians at home, in the studio and on the road.

The exhibit, “Jazz Lives,” places jazz music in a new frame by pursuing a fuller picture of the stories of these American musicians. Friedlander and Hinton take jazz out of structured performances spaces and into homes, studios and streets, and, through their work, American jazz music is both personalized

and publicized.

The display ranges from dramatic to intimate. Friedlander’s exhibit of photographs taken on trips to New Orleans from the 1950s to the 1990s is divided into three parts: “Portraits,” “Parades” and “Second Liners.” Each portrait places the subject in his or her home, conveying character through facial expression and inanimate surroundings. A 1958 up-close of Johnny St. Cyr shows the musician with his arms slung over his guitar, the shape of the instrument mirroring the curvature of his thin mustache: the bulky guitar occupies most of the frame, but Friedlander creates a visual relationship between the curve of the instrument and St. Cyr’s mustache, which pulled my attention to the musician and held it there. George “Kid Sheik” Colar swaps his trumpet for a

cigar in a 1974 portrait. Here, Friedlander disconnects the musician and his instrument and pushes focus solely on Colar the man instead of Colar the trumpeter. Instruments seem less the necessary tool of the musician and more an aspect of character, of personality.

Friedlander’s “Parades” and “Second Liners” capture the cultural community built around jazz. While I saw the bonds between musicians themselves in the parades, the photographs of the “second line,” which was the name given to people who danced along with the “main line” in brass band parades, showed the connections between musicians and their audiences.

Friedlander’s “Second Liners” are alive. He photographs adults and children mid-song or midswing. Unlike the “Portraits,” these works have a documentary

feel and show jazz music spilling into the streets of New Orleans.

The informality of such a photographic approach gave a sense of the improvisation and spontaneity that colored jazz music of the time.

The most recent performance at the exhibit, by a student band called Newspeak featuring Hans Bilger ’16 on bass, Eli Brown ’17 on trumpet, Alexander Dubovoy ’16 on the keys and Harvey Xia ’16 on the saxophone, created the kind of community between performers and audience members that Friedlander’s photographs illustrated. The band performed at the exhibit in joint appreciation of community and art.

Hinton approached his body of work from the perspective of a musician. A bassist from the South, he followed jazz to New York City, and the selection

of his photographs on display includes some iconic portraits of jazz greats Dizzy Gillespie, Billie Holiday and Aretha Franklin. Dizzy and his wonderfully pouched cheeks come to life in “Dizzy and Friends,” which shows the trumpeter with a group of fascinated children trying to puff their own cheeks. The piece echoes the relationships between musicians and audience that appear in Friedlander’s “Second Liners,” but here we see a more low-key performance. Holiday and Franklin are photographed instead in quiet moments, right before a recording session or a performance.

The raw vulnerability of these moments — where these famous musicians are not lit up by the grandeur of the stage — tell unexpectedly intimate stories.

One wall of Hinton’s photographs shows musicians “In the

// WA LIU

Immortalizing improvisation

Studio” at work. And the opposite wall depicts “Life in New York,” where musicians are performing and at play. The contrast between the intimacy of the studios and the loud city bar scene presents a fuller picture of the musicians’ “jazz lives.” But it’s in the context of the whole exhibition — through partying, performance and even private moments — that Hinton and Friedlander capture the completeness of the jazz tradition.

Or maybe not completeness, but a sense of a complete moment, a clear window into the way jazz lived, and ruled its own era.

Contact ERICA PANDEY at erica.pandey@yale.edu .

That WestCoast Feeling // BY YI-LING LIU

I am not from the Bay Area.

I’ve only been to the West Coast twice, and I am the furthest thing from your typical California native, the kind of person who projects their love for California onto every place they visit. Yet walking into the airy space on the top floor of the Yale University Art Gallery, I already felt as if I had taken a pleasant stroll from New Haven into a quiet Santa Monica neighborhood. Pale sunlight filtered through the skylight and onto the canvas of Richard Dienbenkorn’s “Ocean Park No. 24” — a bird’s-eye-view landscape of cayenne, hemlock and placid blue — evocative of the beat poetry of mid-century San Francisco and the cool and ballad-like melodies of West Coast Jazz.

“Five West Coast Artists,” organized by YUAG Director Jock Reynolds, features Richard Diebenkorn’s work alongside that of Wayne Thiebaud, Elmer Bischoff, Manuel Neri and David Park. All five were part of the Bay Area Figurative Movement that emerged from studios and art schools in the greater San Francisco area in the mid-20th

F R I D AY APRIL 11

century. Inspired by the abstract expressionists of the postwar 1940s, the Bay Area movement combined trends of stylistic abstraction with a unique emphasis on the portrayal of real, tangible objects.

Diebenkorn’s “Girl with Cups” reveals most clearly this combination of two schools — figurative and abstract — into a new aesthetic form. Bold, broad brushstrokes, for example, are characteristic of Abstract Expressionism, and here the paint is tangible, buttery almost, applied with a force that lingers through each stroke. The piece’s subject matter, however, is concrete. Unlike a Pollock piece, here there is a narrative: a girl, standing by a table, pouring coffee into three cups. At the same time, that narrative is ambiguous enough that Diebekorn presents not a specific girl, but a feeling. You don’t feel that you are intruding upon someone’s life, because there is not enough information to enter the scene fully. Working between two traditions, Diebekorn fuses impression and reality.

Wayne Thiebaud’s paintings do not depict landscape

or human figures, but candy sticks, frosted cakes and trays of herring; still, they achieve a unity of object and feeling.

“Drink Syrups,” for example, a painting of three drink syrup dispensers in a row, uses fine lines, heavy pigments and a palette of vivid blues and reds and greens. Looking at the painting, I thought about what it’s like to walk into a candy store as a kid — the pleasure that comes of holding a small, colorful object in the palm of one’s hand, a pleasure that adults simply cannot grasp.

In contrast to Diebenkorn, Thiebaud derives his power not from a lack of information, but from excess of it. The precise detail — and the pastel-colored cheeriness — of his paintings, evokes an aura of nostalgia, of melancholy and of longing.

The West Coast artists bring together another set of seemingly disparate ideas — the urban and natural worlds. In literature, the city is often a site of degradation and claustrophobia (think Zola’s Paris and Eliot’s London), and the natural landscape is divine and solitary, a retreat from the dim urban “cloisters” (think Wordsworth

// WA LIU

On the Western artistic frontier, where abstract and figurative meet.

and basically all the Romantics).

Elmer’s Bischoff’s oil painting “Cityscape” seems to challenge everything that I have learned in English 126. The painting shows an urban skyline from from the vantage point of a balcony. With soft pastel blues and greens and pinks, Bischoff endows the city with the restorative and meditative qualities of the natural landscape. Were it not for the straight lines of the balcony, and the title of the painting itself, I would’ve thought I were loafing around in Tintern Abbey, not huddled among skyscrapers.

Leaving the exhibition, I am comforted by the fact that, in the midst of the constant hubbub of Yale and New Haven, on the fourth floor of the YUAG there is a quiet slice of a solitude, a calm almost Wordsworthian West Coast.

Contact YI-LING LIU at yi-ling.liu@yale.edu .

ANTE-FLING

WEEKEND TAPS:

Toad’s Place // 8:30–11:30 p.m.

Last year it was “anti,” but the “ante” has been upped.

The Real Slim Shady for Crushes and Chaperones He has our attention

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WEEKEND NIBBLES

I

t’s the most wonderful time of the year — Restaurant Week! In order to celebrate this glorious event, we’ve sent our intrepid reporters into four New Haven eateries to tell you what’s good and what’s not. Read on for the verdicts on Zinc, Geronimo’s, Bentara and Christopher Martin’s.

//BRIANNA LOO

//ALLIE KRAUSE

//ALLIE KRAUSE

We Don’t Know Who Christopher Martin Is, But We Sure Loved His Restaurant // BY NICK DEFIESTA AND MADDIE MCMAHON

Nick Defiesta: Hey, Maddie, where are we going again?

Maddie McMahon: Christopher Martin’s, it’s over by Modern.

N: Oh yeah, that place. Isn’t it a bar or something? I only really know it as “that place I pass on the way to Modern,” so I guess this restaurant week deal is a chance to change that.

M: I think it’s a combination bar and restaurant, but I guess we’re about to find out. We’re here!

N: Wow, this place is pretty empty for a restaurant-week lunch … although I guess we did arrive right when it opened.

M: No you’re right, last year when I went to Caseus’ restaurant-week lunch it was packed. But I don’t mind, this place has a much more laid-back vibe.

N: Yeah totally, I dig it. Hey, here

comes our appetizer! It’s almost like we completely ejected from this dialogue the part of the meal where we ordered and got our ice teas.

M: That is weird … oh well. Did you order the lobster bisque too?

N: Yep, this looks great. [slurp] Oh wow.

M: Wow. N: That was creamy but not TOO creamy, yum.

M: And just the right level of lobster, too — not too overwhelming.

N: Definitely. I think I’d come here just for this.

M: What’d you get for your main course?

N: I went for the pan-seared sea bass — it’s glazed with miso and sake, which sounds incredible, plus there’s a raspberry sauce. Oh yeah, and it sits on top of a coconut rice cake. How

about you?

M: I picked the Chicken JD — sauteed chicken with a spinach and mushroom risotto, topped with Jack Daniels sauce.

N: There’s a Jack Daniels sauce? I really need to get better at cooking … oh here’s our food!

M: This chicken. Try some. Get a little bit of the risotto.

N: So savory, and the risotto’s great too; granted, it’s a little difficult to mess up risotto. Have a bite of the sea bass? Make sure you get some of the raspberry sauce.

M: Seared just right … I’m not used to having fish that’s cooked so well.

N: Me neither — thanks, Yale Dining! — and the glaze is perfect. Plus, the fresh raspberries sitting there on the plate balance this dish really nicely.

M: I’m so stuffed. Literally couldn’t

eat another bite.

N: So … time for dessert?

M: Of course.

N: I’m definitely getting the white chocolate mousse — our server recommended it, and the menu says it’s award-winning so it’s obviously the right choice.

M: Since we’re going to have to share, I’m getting the chocolate bourbon pecan pie. Hope you’re not allergic to nuts!

N: Don’t worry, I go to Yale, I have to put up with nuts all the time.

M: … that was really bad.

N: Sue me. Here’s our dessert!

M: Wow, the mousse is worth the entire price of this meal. The top layer of chocolate ganache seals the deal.

N: Pecans. Chocolate. Ice cream.

What a fantastic way to ruin my diet.

M: Is it weird that we tried each oth-

ers’ dessert first?

N: Not at all. We’d better get ready to go, though, I have class in a few minutes. I’m impressed with how fast their service is … I was convinced I’d be late to lecture.

M: So what’s the final verdict on Christopher Martin’s? Are we coming back?

N: Oh for sure. Great food, relaxed atmosphere, friendly service — it’s a shame more Yale students don’t frequent this place.

M: That almost sounds like you’re writing a restaurant review of this place and needed a gimmick to hit your word minimum.

N: Nonsense.

Contact NICK DEFIESTA at nicholas. defiesta@yale.edu and MADDIE MCMAHON at madeline.mcmahon@yale.edu .

Zinc: Numbers in Safety // BY DAVID WHIPPLE

I wasn’t exactly in a bad mood as I sat down to dinner at Zinc on Monday night. But the Red Sox had just been swept in their home opening series, I had a slight cold, and it was, as I’ve just said, Monday. So my mood wasn’t exactly bad, nor was it exactly good.

By the time I left the restaurant roughly an hour later, though, my affect had been significantly elevated by an excellent meal that, if not for writing this review, I would have forgotten entirely by week’s end.

Zinc is a nice restaurant, one of many of these in New Haven.

But Zinc is “nice” like another restaurant might be “Italian.”

“Nice” permeates every aspect of Zinc to the degree that it replaces any other descriptor you might throw at the Chapel Street eatery. You could call it “modern American,” as the restaurant bills itself, but it’s more “nice” than it is modern; the same would be true if you called it “trendy.” And “fancy” has too many syllables to truly convey the sleek, mini// YDN

Modern American storefront

S AT U R D AY APRIL 12

mal presentation of an establishment named after a non-precious metal. Zinc isn’t fancy, as an element or an eatery. It’s just nice.

There plenty of restaurants like this, and it’s difficult for one to set itself apart. Zinc doesn’t help its case with the “Modern American Kitchen” label, which to a Modern American doesn’t seem all that noteworthy; my kitchen at home is a Modern American Kitchen. But my kitchen at home is not operated by Zinc’s chefs (no offense, Mom), who make up for their establishment’s unremarkable theme with a menu spanning a variety of tastes, from “crostini” (that’s Italian for toast) to paella.

Ordering off of the Restaurant Week prix fix menu, I opted for the crostini as an appetizer, with white beans, pesto and feta cheese. I’m a sucker for feta, and it pulled the otherwise mellow appetizer together nicely. The salmon I ordered for an entrée needed something to do the same for it, as the promising “gingerpiquillo pepper emulsion” turned out to be a pleasant but underwhelming red pepper sauce.

Don’t get me wrong, the salmon was good, but nothing

SELF AND SPACE

Contact DAVID WHIPPLE at david.whipple@yale.edu .

WEEKEND TAPS:

Whitney Humanities Center, Rm. 208 // 8:45 a.m. onwards A symposium on “household identity and domestic cult in the ancient Mediterranean and Near East.”

set it apart from any other good salmon one might order at any other “nice” restaurant. A Restaurant Week prix fix menu, like the one from which I chose the salmon, is a chance for chefs to try something new and showcase a restaurant’s strengths to new customers. The salmon did not seem to do that. But better than the salmon was the chocolate mousse cake I had for dessert.

The mousse used for the cake was excellent, especially its featherweight consistency.

Consistency might be Zinc’s defining feature. The menu is well rounded and, from what I could taste and guess, uniformly satisfying. The décor is restrained, and the waiters come around roughly every 6 minutes and 24 seconds to refresh your water and ask how everything is.

A common pairing with consistency is risk aversion, and Zinc’s menu plays it exceedingly safe. But the restaurant business is still a business, and given the packed seating area I witnessed on a Monday night, it appears there are numbers in safety.

Angelina Jolie for LIPS She was a shoo-in.

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 11, 2014 · yaledailynews.com

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Nice and Niche // BY DJENAB CONDE

The first time I heard of Bentara, a Malaysian restaurant located at 76 Orange St., was in my “Writing About Food” seminar. As someone of Asian background and a lover of all foods spicy and flavorful, I put the restaurant on my definite to-dine list. However, until this assignment, I still had not made it past the boundaries of the New Haven Green to visit the establishment. On a pleasant yet windy evening, my friend (who was taking photographs for the piece) and I arrived at a tastefully decorated SouthAsian restaurant complete with bamboo space dividers.

We took our seats by one of the many windows that offered wonderful natural lighting and began perusing the Restaurant Week menu. This was also my first time I’ve been to Restaurant Week, but I had pored over enough menus online to know the offerings at Bentara were more than decent. My friend and I quickly decided that we would share the appetizers, so we ordered the chicken satay and tofu sumbat.

Often when I eat out at a nicer restaurant, I am disappointed by the portion sizes, but that was not the case here.

The comforting smells tickled my nose, and the presentation was pleasing to the eye: the lightly deep-fried thick pieces of

tofu were stuffed with bean sprouts and carrots, and arranged over a spicy, red sauce bursting with chopped peanuts.

When the ratio of sauce to tofu was properly arranged, the spice level attained the “hot” that we had specified. We chose the chicken satay because it is a mainstay of South Asian cuisine, and this one was decent. I couldn’t get enough of the peanut satay sauce, and the sliced cucumbers and cubes of sticky rice on the side were a nice palate cleanser.

My friend was unfamiliar with Malaysian cuisine but informed me of her love for spices, so I steered her towards the selections that were more authentic (hanger steak and blackened salmon don’t really meet that standard, but I suppose they needed some “normal” dishes). She ordered the chicken rendang, which was chicken spiked with lemongrass and turmeric, all simmered together in coconut milk. The chicken was tender and thoroughly infused with flavor; paired with white rice, it was very soothing. I ordered one of my favorites: mee kari, or curry laksa, which is tilapia, shrimp, calamari, and mussels with egg noodles and vegetables in a coconut curry soup. Once again, points for the presentation — although that of the chicken rendang was a little lacking. My

//ALLIE KRAUSE

Come for the chicken satay, satay for the curry.

portion was more than enough; in fact, I had to ask for almost half of it in a doggie bag. This is rare for me because I am a renowned eater, but I knew if I was going to continue, I had to swallow my pride to leave space for dessert.

The best part about dining with a friend is the sharing. Even if it only adds up to a few bites here or there, I am a firm proponent of trying as many dishes as you can. Blame it on my Chinese heritage — we share everything at the table.

So, pistachio cheesecake and fudge cake it was! These were pleasant, as was the entire meal, but not overwhelming in any sense.

For the price and the niche cuisine, I heartily recommend Bentara. But if all you want is something spicy and flavorful, I suggest the Chapel St. Thai restaurants (in particular Pad Thai), because while we ordered “hot” for every dish, it wasn’t quite as “hot” as we were used to.

Contact DJENAB CONDE at djenab.conde@yale.edu .

A Different Geronimo Experience // BY MARISSA MEDANSKY

If you can’t sneak your way into Skull and Bones, 271 Crown St. is the closest you can get to Geronimo. The Southwestern restaurant serves cuisine described on Yelp as Tex-Mex and in the New York Times as “of Santa Fe, N.M., with Apache, Navajo, Mexican and Anglo-American influences.” I have never been to Texas, and my experiences with New Mexico are limited to Breaking Bad, so I cannot attest to the veracity of either claim. I can, however, state with certainty that my Monday night dinner at Geronimo was a successful Restaurant Week experience — reassurance, perhaps, that the tomb is no mightier than the tequila bar.

This was my first time at Geron-

S AT U R D AY APRIL 12

imo, and so too for my suitemate.

But the ambiance of the restaurant is comfortable and familiar, if not a bit dimly lit; its walls are lined with Native American art, and the shelves of the bar are stocked with tequila.

Geronimo’s got over 300 varieties of the stuff, supposedly the largest selection on the east coast. (#Protip: use the money you’ll save via the Restaurant Week menu to justify dropping the cash on a margarita.)

The clear perk of this particular prix fixe menu is the number of options. Most participating New Haven restaurants offer three appetizers and three entrées from which to choose — but Geronimo ups the ante to four on both counts. For my first course, I ordered a chili dish

known as Frito pie, not a pie but an actual bag of Frito chips, sliced open and topped with sour cream, tomato, jalapeno and your choice of vegetable or buffalo chili. At the time I did not realize that “buffalo” implied the majestic prairie mammal instead of the wild wings preparation method.

Still, the chili was flavorful, and the novelty of putting knife and fork to a bag of Fritos was not lost on me.

Rebecca ordered the hanger steak skewers — delicious, but the ghost pepper glaze overwhelmed even my Sriracha-addict palette.

For my main course, I picked the grilled New York strip steak, which comes with Brussels sprouts, fries and an orange Chipotle butter. Let me be clear: This was a large piece

of meat. Beyond my meal on Monday the steak became a study break that night, a dinner the next day and a snack late that evening for a friend. For her part Rebecca chose the shrimp and cheddar grits, whose proportions were not as triumphant.

Still, both proved equally tasty, except the former necessitated so much more time to consume would have required some uncomfortable mealtime pacing had I hope to clear my plate.

For dessert there were two options: I chose the chocolate polenta and my suitemate opted for the tiramisu. The polenta was rich, dense and topped with a single blackberry; that I did not consume the entire thing is among my

SEX, DRUGS, AND EXISTENTIALISM

Southwest, south best cuisine.

first major regrets of this calendar year. I’m not a huge tiramisu fan, but Rebecca seemed satisfied with her choice.

Alas, I cannot compare my Restaurant Week experience at Geronimo to a regular meal in the dining room or night out at the bar. But my Monday dinner endeared me to the restaurant and for that alone this was a successful Restaurant Week — not just for me, but also Geronimo.

Contact MARISSA MEDANSKY at marissa.medansky@yale.edu .

WEEKEND TAPS:

Trumbull College, Nick Chapel // 2 p.m.

That’s what it’s all about!

// BRIANNA LOO

Dean Mary Miller for Judgment Day

It began with an email from themayantrust@gmail.com.

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 11, 2014 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND COVER

RENEWING NEW HAVEN

// BRIANNA LOO

PROPERTIES FROM PAGE 3 wages of workers in University-owned properties.

“They probably could exercise more oversight. They have very strong contracts with their business owners,” Harp told the News following the arrest in February. “We would just hope they would oversee those so that this embarrassing condition doesn’t exist anymore there or at any of their other facilities.”

Nuñez expressed the same sentiment, noting that UP’s stipulation to have flowers on display suggests that they certainly have the ability to enforce proper wages.

The future of Gourmet Heaven’s relationship with Yale remains unknown. Following the arrest, University Spokesperson Tom Conroy said that the University had not decided whether it would renew the grocery store’s lease in 2016. And this week, Associate Vice President for ONHSA Lauren Zucker said in an email that Yale is focusing on “getting employees treated according to the law” as opposed to determining the future of the space.

FIELDING CANDIDATES FOR 1 BROADWAY

While national issues of workers’ rights play out at Gourmet Heaven, a different set of concerns about college students’ dining and retail preferences are the focus just steps away at 1 Broadway. The building has sat empty since UP refused to renew Au Bon Pan’s lease last May, triggering speculation and debate among students and community members about what tenant University Properties will choose.

In talks with potential tenants, UP must consider practical issues like what brands the 10,000 square feet space could accommodate. Stores like Target, which average 126,000 square feet, cannot be considered as potential candidates. It also faces some broader questions with bigger consequences.

Should the eventual shop cater mainly to Yale students, or should it bridge the gap between town and gown? Should the shop be specialized and high-end, like much of the retail on Broadway, or should it offer a wide range of affordable products? Ultimately, what should be the goals of UP now that New Haven is safer and more vibrant than it has been in decades?

In late March, Alexander said UP would likely announce a deal within 30 days. Because a contract has not yet been signed, Alexander would not comment on which tenant may greet the Class of 2018.

One potentially controversial tenant has already been ruled out; Alexander said in March that Brooks Brothers, a high-end men’s clothing store, will not be coming to 1 Broadway. Abdul-Razak Zachariah ’17, who grew up in West Haven, 15 minutes from downtown, expressed relief. A store like Brooks Brothers, he said, would be financially accessible only to a small segment of Yale’s student body.

James Doss-Gollin ’15, a native of New Haven, finds the shops not only unaffordable, but also functionally use-

S AT U R D AY APRIL 12

less.

“The upscale stores and boutiques, they are pretty to walk past but as a student it’s not something I’d ever shop at,” Doss-Gollin said. “I feel that it’s a wasted opportunity to bring in stores like that.”

Doss-Gollin wants to see a drugstore or office supply store at 1 Broadway, while Zachariah thinks a branch of locally owned soul food restaurant Mama Mary’s could offer a community gathering spot for college students and New Haven residents alike. He believes the current mix of shops on Broadway further removes campus from the city because the collection of chain stores lacks local color. Moreover, their existence discourages Yale students from venturing further into New Haven.

area, but also create a more positive living experience for Yale students. For now, he knows that his dream of a Mama Mary’s at 1 Broadway is just that. But he believes Yale could pursue a different strategy of involvement in New Haven’s economy — one based less on control of property and more on support of existing small businesses.

AN ALTERNATIVE TO THE UP MODEL

Just steps from the UP mainstays of Apple and Panera Bread, a version of that model is already in place.

Adjacent to the UP holdings on Chapel and Broadway are two separate Special Services Districts — groupings of businesses that agree to pay higher taxes in return for street cleaning, security, promotional events, business advice and

“STUDENTS AND VISITORS THINK THAT THEY’RE EXPERIENCING SOMETHING BY GOING TO A SHOPPING CENTER IN NEW HAVEN, BUT THEY’RE REALLY GOING TO A SHOPPING CENTER IN YALE.” ABDUL-RAZAK ZACHARIAH ’17

“Students and visitors think that they’re experiencing something by going to a shopping center in New Haven, but they’re really going to a shopping center in Yale,” Zachariah said.

Because of the high rent at 1 Broadway and the strict contractual obligations UP imposes on tenants, the property is likely to be leased to a national chain. Alexander said UP has reached out to “virtually every retailer in America,” including Express, H&M and Banana Republic. But UP’s options are often more limited than students complaining about high prices might imagine.

Despite the resurgence of downtown New Haven in recent decades, many retailers do not want to open branches here, Alexander said. Space restrictions limit potential sales volume, and well-established malls with convenient parking and more predictable customer bases hold more appeal for major retailers. In the search for a 1 Broadway tenant, UP has had to actively pursue retailers in order to overcome their initial reluctance. Alexander said patience is key: ONHSA was in talks with Apple for three years before the company agreed to open a store in the Elm City.

The painstaking approach UP has taken to selecting a tenant is indicative of its philosophy that finding the right tenant is more important than finding a tenant quickly. Alexander cited the corner of Chapel and Temple as an example of what Broadway might look like without careful UP management, a cluster of fast-food chains including Dunkin’ Donuts and Subway.

“If you have a lot of individual property owners, they will often take the most expedient lease that comes along rather than trying to create a mix of merchandise,” Alexander said.

Zachariah understands why most retailers on Broadway are national chains with high prices. But he said he thinks another version of the “right” tenant could not only do well in the

other benefits. In short, the SSDs provide many of the same benefits to their communities as UP, but landlords keep ownership of properties and have the final say when it comes to choosing tenants and signing leases. Ultimately, SSD administrators have a fully cooperative partnership with tenants and landlords, rather than the more hierarchical relationship that exists between UP and its tenants.

The Whalley Avenue SSD, headed by Sheila Masterson, begins at Popeye’s and extends a mile up Whalley to Pendleton Street, encompassing a number of restaurants, automobile service shops and retailers. Beyond UP-owned Atticus, the Chapel West SSD stretches from York Street to Sherman Avenue, linking Yale’s campus to the Yale-New Haven Hospital St. Raphael Campus. Like UP, the SSDs are credited with revitalizing downtown New Haven.

Vincent Romei, President of the Chapel West SSD, believes his organization has played a major role in making Chapel beyond York Street a pleasant place to shop, dine and live.

“We’ve gone from an area of destitution almost to an area where rents are rising, property values are rising, the streets are clean, people are happy and the students like to live here,” Romei said, referring to the large number of students who rent apartments and homes in his district.

Though the similarities between the goals of the SSDs and UP create some inherent competition for high-quality tenants and paying customers, Masterson and Romei both view UP as a positive force in the city’s business community. They feel that UP’s primary impact is to increase visits to shops and restaurants all over downtown New Haven.

“The national chains help,” Romei said. “They bring walking traffic.”

But George Zito, owner of Rubber Match, a furniture store and head shop outside of UP’s domain, disagrees. In his view, Yale’s expansion into com-

mercial real estate is self-interested and aggressive. To Zito, the Whalley SSD is a group where business owners can work together to make decisions for the area— he serves as marketing director for the organization, planning ad campaigns and promotional events to draw customers to the district. He sees UP, on the other hand, as a behemoth that dominates its tenants and treats the Elm City like a giant fixer-upper.

“They’re buying New Haven,” he said.

Zito blames Yale’s tax-exempt status for increasing the tax burden of small business owners, mitigating any benefits of greater traffic to the city’s commercial areas. And though Masterson thinks UP’s tenants help draw customers to shops across the city, Zito, whose shop is just a block from Popeye’s, hasn’t seen any uptick in sales or profits since UP’s founding. Whalley Avenue has transformed since Rubber Match first opened in 1973 — a time when the street was violent, dirty and “looked like Beirut,” according to Zito. But Yale students remain reluctant to walk beyond Popeye’s, he said.

Zito gives credit for Whalley’s transformation not to UP, but to the Whalley SSD. The SSD model, however, comes with its own drawbacks. Romei acknowledged that the lack of unified ownership can create problems with negligent landlords and undesirable tenants.

The Chapel West SSD has no immediate recourse to address empty storefronts and blighted properties. With its enormous resources and clout, UP does not face those issues and has greater flexibility in addressing challenges that arise.

Outside of the SSDs, local business owners have felt the benefits of urban revitalization, but disagree on the role Yale has played in the process.

To many merchants beyond the tight radius of Yale’s campus, UP has little impact because its stores are targeted at a completely different customer base.

Jay Brown, floor manager of Rendez-

Contact ISABELLE TAFT at isabelle.taft@yale.edu and POOJA SALHOTRA at pooja.salhotra@yale.edu .

// BRIANNA LOO

WANDER

WEEKEND TAPS:

36 Edgewood Ave. // 7:30 p.m.

Andrew Freeburg and Jen Kramer (former Backstage star!) find magic in the mundane.

vous, a clothing shop on Chapel past Orange Street, said Yale students hardly come to his store. Though Brown eats at Educated Burgher and has shopped at Denali, he thinks the UP-owned properties are targeted mainly at Yale students and out-of-town visitors. To Brown, UP’s actions are not immoral but amoral, driven by concerns about profit and security — just like the actions of any small business.

Ultimately, that’s just what UP is: a business, with the dual goals of making money and creating a downtown area that gives off enough signs of life to satisfy students and appeal to visitors. These goals drive UP to make decisions that can strike some observers as unfair or even abusive, such as not renewing News Haven’s lease in order to make way for Panera Bread in September 2012. News Haven was a local business that had been a Chapel Street staple for 20 years, but Panera, a national brand with broader appeal, could draw in more customers and more revenue.

A Special Services District in place of UP ownership might offer greater freedom to tenants, but it’s not clear that an SSD would create the same level of coordination and stability UP has brought to its holdings. For now, the UP model is here to stay, and UP’s decisions over the next few months and years—what to put at 1 Broadway, how to deal with Gourmet Heaven’s wage theft, whether and where to expand — will impact the entirety of New Haven.

And for residents like Brown, this reality is a catch-22.

“I like it to be there because it might bring more to New Haven, a little attention to New Haven period,” Brown reflects. “But at the same time, is it being fair to me and my employees? Is that fair to us?”

Donald Kagan for Myth and Myth It’s abbreviated “DS.”

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 11, 2014 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE B9

WEEKEND COLUMNS

TOP 10 BOOKS OF THE YEAR

e c f t r L e ittle Wo P s ’ e e L rld g n A

In the last year, I have written 15 book reviews for WEEKEND. These reviews have been, of course, a labor of love. Emphasis on the love. And the labor. Finding time in our busy college schedules for pleasure reading is tough, but every now and then we can set aside an hour, curl up next to the boarded up fireplace, and whip out the Kindles. Our second grade selves might be shocked, but, today, pleasure reading is a treat — a special privilege for only the especially dedicated or those with just enough free time. (Or those with an Audible.com account; I’m serious, books on tape are the way to go.) ’Twas just one year ago that I wrote my first installment of “This year’s 10 must-reads.”

Now, 12 months later, I’ve decided to try my hand at a second list. The following books are compiled in alphabetical order by author, as I did not rank within my list. And as with last year’s piece, this collection of titles is super subjective. Alright, disclaimers done — so enjoy!

1. “The Cuckoo’s Calling” by Robert Galbraith: Cormoran Strike was just your runof-the-mill depressed British sleuth when the murder of a supermodel propelled him to fame, misfortune and maybe death? In this explosive novel — by a first-time author and one-time policeman — we meet unforgettable characters, observe heartbreaking strife and witness the rare magic of a really good detective story. Oh, and Galbraith is actually a pseudonym for J.K. Rowling.

2. “The Faithful Executioner: Life and Death, Honor and Shame in the Turbulent Sixteenth Century” by Joel F. Harrington: Truly interesting diaries are rare — especially those of everyday people, and definitely those from 500 years ago. But this historian has discovered one such diary, that of Meister Frantz Schmidt, who served as a professional exe-

SCOTT STERN READING BETWEEN THE LINES cutioner for Nuremberg for nearly 50 years.

“The Faithful Executioner” deconstructs its subject’s sentences, discovering the shame and brilliance and dare we say compassion lying beneath. This is a book about life — those taken and the one Schmidt tried so hard to live right.

3. “And the Mountains Echoed” by Khaled Hosseini: In this brilliant and cathartic novel, Hosseini weaves together a series of vignettes to produce a complex and unforgettable story of love and hate, family and friendship, life and suicide. Hosseini takes his reader from a tiny, dusty village in Afghanistan to the windy streets of San Francisco to the cobblestones of Paris. He indirectly and slowly reveals what happens when a father must give up his daughter in the hope of securing for her a better life.

4. “The Opposite of Loneliness” by Marina Keegan: This is the only title on this list that I have not read. (Amazon is shipping as we speak.) But I am familiar enough with Keegan’s work to write that this will be a consequential book. Indeed, anyone who has read one of her essays — including those in the News — has surely realized that she possessed a fresh and distinctive voice. Keegan, who died tragically in a car accident in 2012, just days after graduating from Yale, was a stunningly good writer. I’m excited to read “The Opposite of Loneliness” not to lament what could have been, but to celebrate the beauty

Earlier this week, two of my friends and I went to a course screening of “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.”

I’ve seen the movie a couple times in the last few years, but I went anyway.

First, because you should always jump at the chance to see a movie in actual film print. (A bit snobbish? Absolutely.) But second, because I knew I was in for something special.

“Crouching Tiger” is a truly moving film — a story not so much about star-crossed lovers as it is about the frustration of love in the face of culture, tradition and obligation. And of course, there’s a lot of kung fu. Not even in that hand-to-hand way: more like in that mythical weapons/flying through trees way. Beautifully choreographed and economically shot, here is a film that offers us all a glimpse into a very genuine place in our hearts — that dark recess that nags at you, telling you that whatever it is you’re doing isn’t really making you happy.

You end up watching movies like “Crouching Tiger” to remind yourself that you’re a human being with emotions and dreams and fears. Anyone, across any walk of life, can let the humdrum monotony of the dayto-day dull their senses. “Crouching

that she could create in such a short time.

5. “Book of Ages” by Jill Lepore: In this stunning biography of Benjamin Franklin’s youngest sister Jane, Lepore, perhaps the nation’s preeminent historian of early America, creates a portrait that is both touching and thrilling, uplifting and depressing. Lepore uses a tellingly spotty record to plot the few definite moments of Jane’s life, and then uses her considerable skill as a writer to fill in the gaping archival holes with context and beautiful imagery. We know virtually nothing about Jane, but Lepore convinces us that, but for the discriminatory strictures of her time, Jane might have been as great as her brother.

6. “TransAtlantic” by Colum McCann: This novel is an initially confusing series of poignant and enigmatic vignettes, tied loosely together by the many generations of one Irish-American family. It takes the reader from the swamps of rural Ireland to the icy lakes of the American Midwest, from the travels of Frederick Douglass to the voyage of Sen. George Mitchell.

McCann’s is a story as much about poverty and loneliness as it is about Irish politics.

7. “The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America” by George Packer: In this thick, meaty book, an acclaimed journalist spins together several small biographies and vignettes to form a cohesive map of the United States since the late ’70s. The America Packer observes is one in which the people have lost faith in both the public and private sectors, in their leaders and in their laborers. A whirlwind of color and emotions and verve, Packer’s portrait is both depressing and energizing.

8. “This is the Story of a Happy Marriage” by Ann Patchett: In this beautiful collection of essays by one of America’s

MICHAEL LOMAX CINEMA TO THE MAX Tiger” helps to show us that we have to take smart risks. We have to pursue that which brings us legitimate happiness — not just what puts a wishywashy smile on your face for one, two, three hours at a time.

It’s a very broad idea, but there’s a universal nugget somewhere in there that, at the end of the day, points to a pretty idyllic way of living your life.

You do what makes you happy, provided you’re a good person. If more people took a trip down that avenue, the world would be a better place. And I think Ang Lee knows it too.

The Taiwanese-born filmmaker is a true outsider. Lee’s family left China in 1949 for Taiwan, then left Taiwan for America, then eventually returned to China. A foreigner everywhere. But Lee picked something up along the way: awareness. After seeing “Crouching Tiger” the other night,

most gifted novelists, the reader follows Patchett as she scales a wall with the LAPD, impulsively adopts a dog on the street and befriends an aging nun. Patchett, who began her career by writing for magazines so that she did not have to work as a waitress any more, has built up an oeuvre that is as smart as it is funny.

9. “Love, Dishonor, Marry, Die, Cherish, Perish,” a novel by David Rakoff: This is Rakoff’s first — and last — novel. Rakoff, who was a wry and funny critic, passed away last year after a lengthy battle with cancer. He tells the story of a loosely connected group of characters whose lives span a hundred years — with a downtrodden Irish immigrant, a prim secretary, an artist dying of AIDS, Rakoff redefines America. His novel, written entirely in anapestic tetrameter, is just 113 pages. It rhymes, it sings, it moves, you can finish it in an hour or two. But you won’t read it just once. And you won’t stop thinking about it for a long time.

10. “The Goldfinch” by Donna Tartt: This mammoth book truly is best saved for last — but only because you’ll want a nice long time to savor it. Though “The Goldfinch” is nearly a thousand pages long, it’s the sort of quick, feverish read that makes you want to push it on all of your friends. It is a kind of bildungsroman; it’s main character, Theo Decker, survives a terrorist attack that kills his mother and upends his life; he moves from Park Avenue to Vegas to the West Village to the dark world of art theft. “The Goldfinch” is a story of class, love, loss and one boy’s captivation with a famous, potentially dangerous, painting.

I ran through his list of movies to find a thread.

Lee’s first couple films — from “The Wedding Banquet” to “Sense and Sensibility” to “The Ice Storm” — all trace the paths of families in flux. His characters often struggle to adapt.

Or at least, they struggle to maintain appearances. These are also all characters seeking some form of happiness within themselves. Some find it, many do not, but Lee keeps plugging away.

He won his first Best Director Oscar in 2005 for “Brokeback Mountain,” which is in many places condemned and dismissed as just a film about gay cowboys. This couldn’t be further from the truth. “Brokeback,” like “Crouching Tiger,” follows a duo denied their right to happiness by the circumstances around them. And like “Crouching Tiger,” the characters must confront a bittersweet demise.

A couple films later, Ang Lee struck Academy Award gold again with “Life of Pi” — itself a technical achievement that dazzled and mesmerized anyone who saw it. But beneath the incredible aesthetic is yet another story that can speak to all of us: one of fear. It’s a film that subsequently feeds us darkness while still offering hope that peace is

Contact SCOTT STERN at scott.stern@yale.edu .

out there to be had.

So what do we take away from this career? Ang Lee is no doubt an accomplished man. His ethic and his quality of sheer output is all the more impressive considering he’s likely got many long years of work ahead of him. But something stays constant along the way: his sentimentality.

Lee travelled back and forth across the Pacific Ocean, emerging out the other end with a few pennies and a wealth of stories. With each film, he reminds us again and again that for Ang Lee, there indeed exists some perfect world out there.

But Lee rarely offers direct answers to the questions he explores. Rather, like a great storyteller, he throws his characters into situations that demand their best. If they can’t quite cut it, there’s no guarantee they’ll last very long. And the same goes for us. Life will always be there to test us beyond what we think is our furthest degree, but we must keep conviction in ourselves. We need to know what we want and strive for it. Otherwise, we’re just wasting our time.

Contact MICHAEL LOMAX at michael.lomax@yale.edu .

Selina Meyer 2016 Last Sunday, Julia Louis-Dreyfus returned to our screens as the bitingly funny Vice President Selina Meyer in the third season premiere of HBO’s political farce “Veep.” The show has become widely known thanks to its uproarious foul-mouthedness and fabulous cast, which features a host of seasoned comedy actors from Seinfeld’s Louis-Dreyfus to “Arrested Development’s” Tony Hale.

But besides teaching us new and inventive methods to curse six ways to Sunday, “Veep” joins a legion of television shows that challenge modern-day perceptions of women in governance.

Today, we can take our pick of a whole array of political shows — “Veep,” “House of Cards” and “Scandal,” to name a few. But divergent from traditional Washington dramas, where the order of the day ranged from an almost clinical asexuality to pure misogyny, this new generation of programming has brought about a debate on the current and future roles of female politicos

S AT U R D AY APRIL 12

ALLIE KRAUSE HER GRACE’S TASTE both on and off the screen.

The 2008 U.S. election cycle was momentous in more ways than one.

The country elected its first African American president, who only narrowly beat a woman in the Democratic primaries, and the Republican Party nominated its first woman for the position of Vice President. A truly historic time indeed.

Yet, while Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin’s standing would seem to be indicative of the “closing gap” between men and women in the American political world, a closer look at the situation seems to suggest otherwise.

I like to think that when electing

THE ENGLISHMAN WHO WENT UP A HILL BUT CAME DOWN A MOUNTAIN YCBA // 2 p.m.

A film screening that’ll be coming ’round when it comes.

officials to power, we take into consideration primarily their competence and ability to do the job as best as possible. But rampant sexism continues to plague this process. Women in particular frequently fall prey to media attacks that either oversexualize them or criticize them for being “too masculine,” and as a result, the societal perception that women are less qualified to lead pervades.

Thankfully, this new wave of shows tackles these stereotypes head-on.

The gorgeous and wildly intelligent Olivia Pope of “Scandal,” though not an elected official, oozes confidence and power, navigates the toughest job in D.C. and an affair with the POTUS, all while draped in a stunning white Burberry trench coat.

“House of Cards” features a range of strong female characters, from the opinionated Jackie Sharp to icy, strongwilled rape survivor Claire Underwood.

Some are elected officials, some are not — but they certainly didn’t get to where

they are by batting their eyelashes at any males.

And then there’s “Veep.” Unlike many shows, it does not feel the need to sugarcoat the political experience of females in power. Selina Meyer is not trying to have it all. She wants the presidency, and that is what she goes after ruthlessly. Often, this is to the detriment of her family, something we infer has always been the case — early on, we learn that Selina has a daughter but is already divorced.

The creators also make no efforts to portray her as the plucky girl who, through charm and good luck, achieves all her goals. In fact, though she gains the position of VP and thus finds herself as the second most powerful person in the Free World, she is powerless thanks to the endless drag of bureaucracy, forever incapable of accomplishing anything concrete.

In all three of these shows, we see time and again that the women are deep, richly developed characters, but

in their own fictional worlds are undermined and made one-dimensional by the media that hounds them. Whether it is “the President’s mistress,” “the victim” or any other number of labels, the shows continue to highlight the media’s propagation of harmful stereotypes surrounding women in power.

Though each role is accompanied by its own issues and shortcomings — of these examples, all are successful, heterosexual women, and the only woman of color is not an elected official — they’ve successfully popularized a discussion that needs to be had. Regardless of whether or not you enjoy the shows, looking toward the 2016 election cycle, it will be vital to scrutinize the candidates and media coverage in a way that simply wasn’t done in 2008.

And who knows? Perhaps the time for America’s first female president will finally have arrived.

Contact ALLIE KRAUSE at alexandra. krause@yale.edu .

WEEKEND TAPS: Pope John Paul for St.’s.

Sources tell us the process was tough.

PAGE B10

WEEKEND REFLECTS

T

his week marks the launch of, “The Opposite of Loneliness,” the first and last book by Marina Keegan ’12. While an undergraduate at Yale, Keegan was a frequent contributor to these very pages. Her work varied from reported features to personal essays, but sustained a clear faith in her audience’s ability to be more than what was expected of them. Keegan’s life was tragically cut short in a car accident days after her graduation. Her writing and her memory survive.

In this issue, we have reprinted excerpts from pieces by Keegan that ran in the News, along with reflections on her enduring spirit from those who met her, read her and knew her from afar.

gb

The “Ferrocarril” Test // BY GABRIEL BARCIA

I am still at The Lynwood. Marina had hired movers to transport her furniture to New York on June 2. K came in this past week to leave her own furniture in Marina’s apartment. T, the rising senior taking over her place next year, bought all my furniture. I had arranged with Marina to move my stuff into her apartment by the time I move out on May 31, as it now belongs to T. She was going to ask her movers to take my bed downstairs to her place. It’s really heavy for me to move on my own.

Marina approached me the first week of freshman year, at a party. She spoke to me in resolute Spanish. I remember asking her to say the word “ferrocarril,” jokingly, as a test. I also remember, and with strange accuracy, how well she pronounced it. She was wearing a very pretty white dress that night. White looked so good on her, but the color she really liked to wear was green.

I asked Marina to write the last WEEKEND cover of my tenure as editor because I wanted it to be memorable. She told me she was honored that I asked. I was only thankful that Marina would even consider devoting the time to write a long piece for the News; I knew she was working on “Cold Pastoral” and “Independents” at the same time.

I initially wanted that story to be about the Yale chapter of DKE, which had been banned from campus but was still fully operating, underground. She didn’t think that was interesting and suggested writing about the popular-

nh

ity of finance and consulting jobs among recent college graduates. She came up with “Even artichokes have doubts.”

The story was the most viewed of the year, and one of the most viewed in the history of the News’ website.

Marina would email me every time she got a mention anywhere on the Internet. She’d thank me for asking her, for editing with her, for giving her “so much freedom.”

Marina and I were not friends by either of our definitions of the term, and that never bothered us. I would tell her how much I admired her all the time.

I’d say, How are you so talented? How do you do so much? I’d compliment her hair.

“Is it dirty? Are you making fun of me?” She was always suspicious.

Some have to work hard and some are extremely talented. Marina was an extremely talented person who worked hard.

I still become paralyzed every time I think about how angry she would have been if she’d known that that was it, that so much of her potential would remain unrealized.

I spent the summer after her death trying to rationalize what had happened to no avail. I only found some comfort in the thought of my own death.

One more time, Marina had made the unimaginable feel proximate and less scary.

“

I read somewhere that radio waves just keep traveling outwards, flying into the universe with eternal vibrations. Sometime before I die I think I’ll find a microphone and climb to the top of a radio tower. I’ll take a deep breath and close my eyes because it will start to rain right when I reach the top. Hello, I’ll say to outer space, this is my card.

From “Song for the Special” September 9, 2011

rg

The first and only time I saw Marina was when I visited Yale as a senior in high school, giddily excited about the prospect of being in college but also experimenting with my newly found nonchalance toward societal expectation, authority and respect. I was only half listening. I sat on the floor in a corner with the friend whom I’d come to see perform, and we whispered over her spoken word poem. When Marina apologized for the fact that she hadn’t practiced it in a while and would be reading it off of her laptop, he and I grinned at each other. But somewhere in there, I started listening. Her words about all of the glee and nostalgia associated with being a junior in college were stunningly similar to what I was going through as an almost high-school graduate, and I had to silence my cynical friend to have more of a listen. By the end of it, I was touched, but I still hadn’t heard it all.

But the poem stuck with me for months. I emailed my friend at Yale quite a while later and asked him to find out her name for me and send me her email address. I got in touch with her and asked her to send me a copy of “Bygones.” She responded right away with the poem, and asked me if I was coming to Yale the following year. I told her I was choosing between Yale and Harvard, and her immediate response was, “What’s your phone number? I’m going to call you and convince you to come to Yale.” I made the usual excuses of homework and no time but sent her my number and asked her to call me over the weekend. She called right away.

What followed was a breathless two-minute call of Marina energy and listen-I’m-walking-to-classand-I’m-in-college-so-I-don’t-havetime-to-talk-either-but-if-you-careat-all-about-the-arts-or-poetry-or-

GABRIEL BARCIA was a WEEKEND editor in 2011.

// BY NICOLE HOBBS

S U N D AY APRIL 13

ship, the Yale Dems were a community that embodied what she wrote about. I will always be grateful to her, not only for welcoming me to Yale, but also for reaching out and encouraging me to take a leadership role with the Yale Dems.

The last time I saw Marina was at an event for the Yale Dems at the end of her senior year. She told us how excited she was for us to get involved during the 2012 election cycle, and she promised to take the train back from New York some weekends to help out, never wanting to miss an opportunity for elections work. Sadly that never happened, as she died a few weeks later.

Looking at my copy of “The Opposite of Loneliness,” I know we lost a brilliant writer who spoke for our generation in a way few others could. But we also lost someone who was a fierce advocate for the causes she believed in. Marina was a progressive, not just in thought but in action, unapologetically working for progress, for change and for hope. It is that spirit, that belief that change could happen, that I miss the most.

NICOLE HOBBS ’14 is the former president of the Yale College Democrats.

On “Bygones” // BY RATNA GILL

The Democrat I don’t quite remember where I first met Marina. The only thing I can say with certainty is that we met at an event for the Yale College Democrats. I joined the Yale Dems the first semester of my freshman year, when Marina was serving as the elections coordinator. Though I was hesitant to get involved — I had never done elections work before — Marina’s enthusiasm was infectious. I found myself regularly attending Yale Dems meetings.

At the end of the semester, Marina asked me to grab coffee and told me I should run for a board position. I was hesitant to run, and I didn’t feel qualified, but Marina told me that I had been one of the most involved freshmen. With her urging, I ran for and was elected communications director. Over the next year, while Marina served as president, I worked closely with her on different projects including repealing the death penalty, passing the DREAM Act here in Connecticut, and registering students to vote for the aldermanic election.

In her most famous essay, Marina wrote that she had found the opposite of loneliness at Yale. But Marina didn’t just find the opposite of loneliness; she created it. Under her leader-

We talk into these scratchy microphones and take extra photographs but I still feel like there are just SO MANY PEOPLE. 1035.6 books are published every day; 66 million people update their status each morning. At night, aimlessly scrolling, I remind myself of elementary school murals. One person can make a difference! But the people asking me what I want to be when I grow up don’t want me to make a poster anymore. They want me to fill out forms and hand them rectangular cards that say Hello This is What I Do...

“

RATNA GILL is a sophomore at Harvard.

I want to watch Shloe’s movies and I want to see Mark’s musicals and I want to volunteer with Joe’s non-profit and eat at Annie’s restaurant and send my kids to schools Jeff’s reformed and I’m JUST SCARED about this industry that’s taking all my friends and telling them this is the best way for them to be spending their time. Any of their time. Maybe I’m ignorant and idealistic but I just feel like that can’t possibly be true. I feel like we know that. I feel like we can do something really cool to this world. And I fear — at 23, 24, 25 — we might forget.

From “Even Artichokes Have Doubts” September 30, 2011

THE NINTH ANNUAL YALE FESTIVAL OF NEW ITALIAN CINEMA

WEEKEND TAPS:

Whitney Humanities Center // 1 p.m.

Go get cultured!

having-fun-you-HAVE-to-comehere-and-NOT-Harvard talk. She blew me away. She was the single factor that made it hardest to pick Harvard. When I emailed her to let her know I’d made my choice, she responded with a beautiful, “Harvard is despicable, but perhaps less so for your attainment. GOOD LUCK!” In the same email, I’d told her how “Bygones” continued to inspire and illuminate even the most confusing emotional crises and she replied, “I can’t tell you sincerely enough how much it means to me that my poetry has helped you. It’s really an ultimate goal of mine and I’m so happy you can relate to some of my concerns and anxieties and quandaries and happiness’!”

By some wacky coincidence, I was reading the same poem again, many months later, when I got the news. It was my tried-and-tested pick-me-up, and I was going through a rough patch during my gap year. I pasted a link to a video of Marina reciting the poem at the end of a blog post I was writing, and my friend sent me a link to the article about the end of her life. If someone had told Marina three years ago that her first book would be coming out in April of 2014, I’m sure she’d have been overjoyed. If someone had told me three years ago that I’d know Marina’s mother so well today, and that I’d be working with her on a project to publicize that book, I would have been happy and honored. I am happy and honored. This isn’t the way I would have chosen to read Marina’s words, but she reminds me every day to stamp out some of that too-cool-for-college nonchalance and be thankful, so that someday when the sun dies and the human race ends I won’t still be texting to see if that other party’s better. Thank you, Marina.

Meryl Streep for Monarchs All hail the queen.

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 11, 2014 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE B11

“

We’re so young. We’re so young. We’re twenty-two years old. We have so much time. There’s this sentiment I sometimes sense, creeping in our collective conscious as we lay alone after a party, or pack up our books when we give in and go out – that it is somehow too late. That others are somehow ahead. More accomplished, more specialized. More on the path to somehow saving the world, somehow creating or inventing or improving. That it’s too late now to BEGIN a beginning and we must settle for continuance, for commencement...

We don’t have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I’d say that’s how I feel at Yale. How I feel right now. Here. With all of you. In love, impressed, humbled, scared. And we don’t have to lose that.

From “The Opposite of Loneliness” May 27, 2012

ag

In Passing // BY ANDREW GIAMBRONE There’s a line in Marina Keegan’s “The Opposite of Loneliness” that will make you stop in your tracks. “We’re so young,” she writes. Then again, for emphasis: “We’re so young. We’re 22 years old. We have so much time.”

Keegan died shortly after the piece was published, in a car accident made all the more tragic by her recent graduation from Yale. I was studying abroad in Paris at the time, between my sophomore and junior years, and had just received some bad news myself: My Italian grandfather and namesake, Andrew, had suffered a massive heart attack and died on the way to the hospital, the night after I arrived in France. My parents contacted me via Skype to let me know. Grandpa was 77. His last words to me, before my departure, were: “Parlezvous français?” I still remember him waving goodbye with his usual toothy grin as our car pulled out of his driveway.

The news of these deaths hit me like a one-two punch. On our first day of class, a friend enrolled in the same French program told me about Keegan’s passing (she had learned of it online) and explained that she didn’t know how to feel. Neither of us had gotten the chance to say goodbye. And both of us, I suspect, felt guilty for essentially being on vacation while our loved ones grieved at home.

I never met Keegan but her name had been among those Yale upperclassmen who you know will find success in life.

She seemed capable of so much: She led the Yale College Democrats, wrote various pieces and plays and interned at The New Yorker the summer before she died. How did she do it all? How could she? Keegan was one of those Yalies who make you feel inadequate and impressed at the same time. She appeared “effortlessly excellent” in every sense of those words.

Still, Keegan’s story forces us to confront a reality that many of us tend to avoid — we just don’t know how much time we have.

Keegan didn’t, my grandfather didn’t, and I certainly don’t either.

This is a terrifying thought, and one which Keegan — a true intellectual — probably confronted often. But it didn’t stop her from pursuing her passions, and it shouldn’t stop us from pursuing ours. I, for one, aspire to be an author, and Keegan’s memory serves as a model. Her writing haunted the halls of The New Yorker office, where I interned last summer, and it haunts me now as I wrap up my senior thesis on the French author Albert Camus.

He also died in a car crash too young, at the age of 47, and is widely remembered for his lucid, moral voice. In the wreckage was the manuscript of Camus’s unfinished memoir, which now survives as “The First Man.” It’s a beautiful and tender story of the author’s childhood and the forces that shaped it.

Over fifty years later, although the accident that ended Keegan’s life smashed her laptop, it didn’t destroy the hard drive containing her most precious writings. These are now preserved in a book available on Amazon and in stores nationwide, for those who knew her and those who didn’t.

I can only dream of such success. But Keegan — as much as she makes me feel both inadequate and impressed — continues to be a source of hope.

Contact ANDREW GIAMBRONE at andrew.giambrone@yale.edu .

// RENU NADKAMI

S U N D AY APRIL 13

YALE CAMERATA & YALE GLEE CLUB: MUSIC FOR PALM SUNDAY

WEEKEND TAPS:

Woolsey Hall // 4 p.m.

Sure to be a beautiful performance.

Emma Stone for Saint A’s

She got a scarlet letter slipped under her door.

PAGE B12

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 11, 2014 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND BACKSTAGE

// GARANCE DORÉ

Garance Doré’s Chic World // BY SARA JONES

A

sk anyone who’s anyone, and she’ll tell you: Garance Doré is fashion’s favorite (French-) girl-next-door. Since launching her eponymous blog in June 2006, the Manhattan transplant (originally from Girolata, Corsica) has cornered the online market on sartorially-minded illustrations, enviable street style snaps and down-to-earth vignettes about everything from yoga foibles to second-day hair. When she’s not busy brainstorming new content in her TriBeCa studio (those 70,000+ hits a day don’t generate themselves) or jamming to Missy Elliot, Garance can be found collaborating with publications like Vogue, Glamour and Elle — and giving WEEKEND great advice. Read on for her musings on Pharrell Williams, the ideal dinner party guest list and why it’s essential to know your own definition of success. And to visit Doré on her blog, head to http://www. garancedore.fr/.

Q. What does a typical day look like for you?

A. It’s really different all the time.

When I came back from fashion week, I had a lot of commissions; videos to do, shooting for magazines. Then for a week I stayed in the studio, working on blog content with my team. And this week I’m focusing on my book, so I’ve been spending a lot of time at home working on that. Every day is super different from the next.

Q … and an ideal one?

A. I think it all depends. My favorite days are those where I can be in the studio working with my team. I’m very happy to have people work with me and know that we have the same goals, and explore new things. I love being at the studio, it’s a very inspiring place for me.

Q. You’ve been blogging since June 2006. It’s now April 2014 — what has changed?

A. It’s almost eight years I think; so much has evolved. Because, you know, when I started … you can start a blog for a lot of different reasons; at that time it was really like a personal diary. In France there was really a movement … there were a lot of bloggers, so blogs were there, and I was starting my career as an illustrator and I was ready to show my work to someone — to professionals. That’s the reason why I first opened my blog, so that’s how it started. I think now the reason people do it is for get-

ting known or making a business; the “personal diary” part is not as important as it used to be. For me, I discovered something I really loved to do, which is communicating, and I made my blog evolve with the times.

have where I can meet with my readers, I love. I didn’t want it to be a press launch, so I thought it would be interesting to do it that way, to have the press but to also be able to let everybody come in.

Q. Over the past several years, you’ve expanded from photography and illustration into video. What inspired you to adopt this new medium, and what do you think it has accomplished?

Q. We’ve talked web series, stationary collaborations … what’s next?

A. I think for me it’s all one thing. I don’t differentiate so much [between] the different mediums; you can communicate the feelings and stories through photos, words, videos.

When I have the chance to be able to explore, I just want to try. It was not to achieve something special … it was just another way to connect that I felt was different or interesting.

Q. You just launched a line of stationary with Rifle Paper Co. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

A. The first thing I always wanted to do was a line of stationary — it was a dream of mine from day one, because I felt like cards, notebooks, all these things, carry illustration so well. It’s a great way to make the illustration “travel.” I love to be able to communicate and share what I do with many people, so it was a matter of just being able to find the right people to do that with. The idea of the Open Studio was really to push that forward, because I think that’s always complicated, finding a way to have readers to actually get together — so any occasion I

A. I’m working on my book right now; it takes a lot of time. I’m exploring [different] possibilities, but that’s definitely the next stage.

Q. I remember reading somewhere that inspiration for the name of your blog came from 19th-century illustrator and engraver Gustave Doré. Any other inspirations (artists, authors, etc.) who have been particularly influential in your development as a photographer/ illustrator/writer?

A. I’m always looking at when people try to push boundaries … I love the hip-hop movement. I loved it because they totally redefined the way we look at music — they sampled, did so many collaborations, worked with other creators. Missy Elliott and Pharrell [Williams] — these kind of people really inspire me to try and find new directions. I’m always trying to think what can I do with what I have in my hands, and how can I push it forward.

I have some writers that inspire me too — Nora Ephron, [for example].

People like that, who “tell things the way they are,” are always people that I find inspiring.

Q. Do you have any advice for budding

illustrators, photographers, or bloggers — or anyone hoping to break into the fashion industry? Any lessons you’ve learned that you feel are worth sharing?

A. I think that for most people, the first thing is to know what is your own definition of success; knowing who you are, knowing what you want to achieve. When we’re young, we often use our parents’ definition, or our friends’ definition, but the most important thing is to find: “what is important for me?” Try to know yourself, try a lot of things, and don’t listen too much to what people think is good — it’s all really personal. And then, you know, I think it’s really amazing what the Internet has to offer us. Depending on the kind of career you want, it’s all changing, and I think it’s going to give a lot of chances to people — now you can have a blog, it’s not just magazines, that kind of thing.

Q. Because you work in fashion, I have to ask — how would you characterize your personal style? Has it changed since opening your blog in 2006?

A. I guess I’m more fashion-aware, and I see a lot of what’s going on, so of course my tastes are more refined … in a lot of ways, what I did with my blog was try to refine my taste.

Shooting people on the street was a quest to finding what was “good

style.” But I’m also true to my personality — I like things that are simple, beautiful, quality.

Q. Paris vs. New York: It’s a topic you’ve covered before on your blog, and maybe one you think about considerably as a French expat living in the City.

Anything you love/miss, funny cultural differences worth mentioning, or lessons you’ve learned?

A. I guess it’s a lot just being ready to be challenged in what you thought, what’s the truth. I think traveling is so important because when you grow up in a small place, like I did, you assume that everyone will think the same way that you think. You travel and you see that in other countries people think things totally differently — traveling itself is very important to see how people live. I think it’s a lot about experiences.

Q. The classic: If you could invite four people (dead or alive) to dinner, who would they be?

A. I would have loved to meet Nora Ephron, for sure. I like the filmmaker with the square glasses … [Martin] Scorsese. Maybe Pharrell [Williams] and … a fourth person … let’s say [René] Gruau, the illustrator.

Contact SARA JONES at sara. jones@yale.edu .