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T H E O L D E ST C O L L E G E DA I LY · FO U N D E D 1 8 7 8

NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT · WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 14 , 2012 · VOL. CXXXV, NO. 53 · yaledailynews.com

INSIDE THE NEWS MORNING EVENING

SUNNY SUNNY

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CROSS CAMPUS

MUSIC YALE COMPOSER WINS AWARD

DINING

CITY HALL

MEN’S BASKETBALL

Graduate students struggle to use swipes in residential colleges

NEW HAVEN TAX ASSESSMENTS QUESTIONED

Team faces tough loss against St. Joseph’s in front of a raucous crowd

PAGE 6–7 CULTURE

PAGE 3 NEWS

PAGE 3 CITY

PAGE 12 SPORTS

Sec-Gen pushes global citizens Indigo Blue continues off-campus

Jon Stewart speaks. Before

a taping of The Daily Show yesterday, one Branford sophomore asked satirical news host Jon Stewart who he thought would win the upcoming Yale-Harvard football game. Stewart’s response? “I’m pretty sure Goldman Sachs wins that one.”

BY CYNTHIA HUA STAFF REPORTER

president on June 30, 2013, served as master of ceremonies for the event and introduced Ban, praising the Secretary-General’s ongoing commitments to sustainable development, women’s empowerment and arms control. During his lecture, Ban urged professors to cultivate “global citi-

Both the University and Indigo Blue have separately continued to provide programming for Yale’s Buddhist community following administrators’ abrupt decision last month to cut ties with the center for Buddhist life and former Buddhist Chaplain Bruce Blair ’81. The Chaplain’s Office has begun to hold a series of meetings seeking student input on potential programs to replace Indigo Blue, which was canceled without any prior warning or explanation on Oct. 21. University Chaplain Sharon Kugler hosted a second meeting between administrators and students Monday evening, but students say they feel the conversations have “not been productive” due to a communication gap between administrators and members of the Buddhist community. The University has still not disclosed reasons for the program’s cancellation, which was met with significant student criticism. Blair continues to offer Indigo Blue programs at his house near campus where he has relocated the Buddhist shrine formerly housed in the Branford Memorial Room. “Formulating and implementing a new Buddhist program at Yale requires hearing the ideas and concerns of those it would serve,” Kugler said in a Tuesday email to the News. Rita Pin Ahrens ’99, a member of Indigo Blue’s Board of Directors, said Indigo Blue is actively trying to restore its relationship with the University, but she added that a “condition” of re-establishing the relationship dictates that she cannot specify the reason for Blair’s departure. Indigo Blue board members have not yet made any formal contact with Yale administrators, she said.

SEE BAN PAGE 5

SEE INDIGO BLUE PAGE 4

Trolling in the deep. The

Yale College Council fed campus trolls last night when it attempted to crowdsource students about safety at Yale via a Google Doc that was shared with the entire campus. Suggestions ranged from the helpful to the absurd. Some students asked for warmer weather, while others wondered whether the YCC could “make it Halloween again” or build a footbridge over Elm Street. At one point, the entire document was erased and replaced by a series of “ooooo’s.” Looks like the YCC needs to learn how to tame the troll. Boola boola! Today is the last day to purchase student section tickets for the YaleHarvard game this Saturday. Tickets cost $20 per student and $35 for one guest and can be purchased at the Yale Athletics Ticket Office next to the Payne Whitney Gymnasium. Ban Ki style? United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told Yalies at his talk yesterday that despite his excitement about being on campus, he would not be performing “Gangnam Style,” a dance move made famous by his fellow countryman, South Korean pop star PSY. No word on whether Berkeley Master Marvin Chun, who dressed up as PSY for Halloween, would step up to the task. Dress warmly. For those of you worried about the chilly Cambridge weather, the Sophomore Class Council has you covered. Literally. SoCo will be selling “Harvard Sucks” flannel boxers for $10 each all week. The weather at Cambridge is expected to reach a high of 48 degrees this Saturday during The Game. Sandy isn’t over. United Illuminating said the cost to restore power after Hurricane Sandy may total $35 million to $40 million in Connecticut. Damaged poles, wires and other equipment along the state’s shoreline accounted for roughly 40 percent of the total.

JOYCE XI/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon praised the role of U.N. anti-poverty efforts in facilitating global political participation. BY JOHN AROUTIOUNIAN CONTRIBUTING REPORTER In a speech entitled “Shaping Solutions for a World in Transition,” United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon discussed the major problems facing the world and the need for people to consider them-

selves global citizens. Speaking before an audience of roughly 200 in Luce Hall Tuesday afternoon, Ban discussed his push for immediate global attention to continuing conflicts in the Middle East, climate change and the lack of basic resources in some of the world’s poorest regions. Provost Peter Salovey, who will become University

Cliff threatens economy STAY restructures leadership

GRAPH U.S. ECONOMY PROJECTED GROWTH, IN PERCENT GDP growth forecast

BY AMY WANG CONTRIBUTING REPORTER

GDP growth forecast with fiscal cliff

2.0

1.9 1.3

1.5

2.7

2.3

1.9

1.3

Where the wild things are.

Bear, moose and bobcat sightings have increased steadily in Connecticut over the past few years. In the fall and spring, animal control officials may receive up to 10 calls reporting a bear sighting. Keep your eyes peeled, Yale.

Q3, 2012 -1.3

THIS DAY IN YALE HISTORY

1952 Yalies prepare to gather in front of Durfee Hall for a mass rally to kick off the YalePrinceton weekend festivities. Submit tips to Cross Campus

crosscampus@yaledailynews.com

ONLINE y MORE cc.yaledailynews.com

Q3, 2013

-2.2 BY JOHN AROUTIOUNIAN CONTRIBUTING REPORTER As Congress attempts to negotiate an agreement on taxes, spending and the debt ceiling, businesses in Connecticut and across the country are growing uneasy about what the impending “fiscal cliff” could mean for their operations. If a compromise is not reached

before the end of the year, the Budget Control Act of 2011 — which was passed last year as a temporary solution to increasingly raising the debt ceiling — stipulates that a combination of tax increases and heavy cuts to government programs will take effect at the start of 2013. “Sequestration,” as the automatic budget trigger is called, would mean the end of mea-

BLOOMBERG

sures such as payroll tax cuts and components of the Bush-era tax cuts. As many as 1,000 government programs will also feel the impact, with Medicare weathering a 2 percent cut in spending and other mandatory nondefense social programs bearing a 7.5 percent reduction. Facing a 10 percent budget cut, mandatory SEE FISCAL PAGE 5

After a summer of organizational rearrangement, Students and Alumni of Yale has slimmed down its leadership structure this semester to increase efficiency. STAY — a group that aims to bring together students and alumni for social, service and career networking opportunities — opened its doors to member applications last January, and the group has seen rapid growth in events the months since. The group partners with the Association of Yale Alumni to offer panels, forums and social gatherings to current undergraduates, graduate students and alumni. Group leaders say the organization restructured its board and membership this semester to operate more productively and provide a greater number of events to the Yale community. “In terms of the big picture, STAY has hit the ground running this semester,” said Stephen Blum ’74, AYA senior director of strategic initiatives and founding STAY board member. “The biggest challenge was to revamp and improve our organizational structure — we’ve succeeded in doing that. Beyond that, we’ve also obtained financial support.” Blum said the group

received hundreds of applications from students last January, though it only expected around 70. STAY attempted to place the applicants into a workable committee structure, he said, but ultimately the committee leadership was too large to manage. Over the summer, the group’s leadership decided instead to reorganize itself as six committees of 30 total members and an executive board of around 15 members. He added that STAY provides both “channel and content,” as it helps market University-sponsored events to larger groups of people while also hosting self-generated events, such as student leadership forums and studentalumni mixers. Eric Eliasson ’14, chair of STAY’s alumni membership committee, said though the leadership structure of the group has been “pared down,” members are still enthusiastic and committees are now much more manageable. “I think the core of what STAY is hasn’t changed,” he said. “It’s an organization focused on connecting students and alumni in meaningful interactions.” Eliasson added that the group has “really started to get [its] name out there and reap the benefits of the marketing SEE STAY PAGE 4

PAGE 2

YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2012 · yaledailynews.com

OPINION

.COMMENT “I don't know why you think it's a 'judgment' to think that people ought to be yaledailynews.com/opinion

Reading better for real marriage I have limited tolerance for intolerance, and perhaps even less tolerance for those people who take texts solely at face value. Because much of my life has been about reading books critically and working with and for minority communities, I have an abiding sense of confusion about people who espouse a set of beliefs without questioning where those beliefs came from, and the effect of those beliefs on other people. My intolerance for textpounding and bigotry means that I have exactly no patience with campaigns against legalizing gay marriage or with individuals who believe that members of the LGBTQ community across the country are owed fewer rights than other citizens. I write this with mingled pride and outrage: we as a country have made real progress in the last several years on this issue. We have made marriage legal for all people in an increasingly large number of states, and civil unions are legal in others. But this progress is insufficient: equality is unequal across the nation, and equality cannot come quickly enough. In spite of the fact that our founding documents are some of the most liberal of their kind, we have always managed to oppress someone. To justify this oppression, we have principally turned to the Bible and pseudo-science. Movements ranging from the Confederacy, to those who stood against women’s suffrage to Social Darwinism have argued for the pre-eminence of heterosexual white men. People associated with the principles of these movements still exist — and some of them are running our country. I want to call them out not only for their intolerance, but for their hypocrisy in supporting equality only for some and for their poor critical reading skills. Whether or not you believe that the Bible was written by God, it is important to understand that the Bible was put together (and I would argue written) by a small group of formerly nomadic individuals who were trying to create and preserve a sense of community identity. In a world in which children died all too frequently, and in which great enemies loomed at every side, it is no wonder that they wanted a larger population. So they wrote tracts about the importance of strong male leadership in politics and war, the place of women in the domestic sphere and the importance of heterosexual couples to procreation. These qualities were what they felt were necessary to stay together, and survive. But these texts were written

thousands of years ago, and while I embrace the ethical f ra m ewo rk the texts gave us, as well as the ZOE culture of MERCER- scholarship and diaGOLDEN logue that Meditations s c r i p t u r e wrought, I find it hard to embrace an ancient culture as our ideological role model. We can respect them as intellectual forbearers without needing to espouse everything that they taught, because our world is radically different from theirs. Just to show how different our world is, I turn to my childhood in Berkeley, California, where many of my friends had two moms or two dads. These friends weren’t any different than I was, or my classmates with straight parents were. I doubt if we really recognized a difference in the gender composition of our parents, as we paid attention to them mostly as a source of rides and snacks. We accepted these partnerships on the same terms that we accepted heterosexual marriages — as something all grown-ups did. It wasn’t until years later that I discovered that none of these couples had been married. Some got civil unions when they became legal in California, receiving the limited set of rights that civil unions carry with them. But to this day these couples, my surrogate parents, cannot get married unless they leave the state or country, despite the fact that these couples have been “married” in the eyes of our community for decades and raised healthy, successful children together. Does it seem fair to tell these good parents and pillars of their communities that they aren’t worthy of equality because a book written more than two thousand years ago, a book many of them don’t believe in, says they shouldn’t live as they do? I contend that it is possible to believe in God, read the Bible and be an American without needing to choose amongst these three identities — I do. But it requires a little more intellectual effort, and a little more self-reflection, than many seem willing to put in. I hope that the most recent election is a sign that we as a country are moving into a new world of equality — and a new world of reading critically.

in bed by a certain time”

'INSONG' ON 'ONLY STILLNESS FROM THE CHAPLAIN'S OFFICE'

GUE ST COLUMNIST GENG NGARMBOONANANT

Great big ideas for Salovey Thank god it’s Peter Salovey. Who would’ve thought that such a murky search process would turn out such a fantastic selection? It’s a little ironic that Salovey’s selection — arguably the best decision the Yale Corporation has made for students in many years — severely lacked valid student participation. No students were appointed to the committee. The only two chances for 11,000 students to get a say in the process were terribly flawed surveys and a town hall meeting. That’s it. The Yale Corporation was also under tremendous pressure to elect a woman or minority simply to make a statement — a statement that would have unnecessarily narrowed the candidate pool by half simply because of an arbitrary characteristic. So it is perhaps with a sigh of relief that I welcome Salovey’s appointment. But I also welcome it with hope. I have an inkling that, in a decade or two, the search process for Salovey’s successor will be more representative of the community, because of his initiative to make administrative decisions less top-down and more inclusive. Salovey has worn many different hats at Yale, and he understands them all. I first met Salovey through my “Great Big Ideas”

class — an innovative course, cotaught by Adam Glick, that Salovey had worked hard to bring to Yale. “Great Big Ideas” is a seminar where students survey 12 different disciplines in 12 weeks. There were no lectures; classes were filled with heated debate, and homework consisted mostly of watching lectures online. The proposal for this class was controversial, to say the least, and many professors disapproved of the course when it entered the Bluebook. But Salovey did not buckle under the pressure. He saw tremendous potential in the instructor and great opportunity in the class. Because of his faith, the end result was the newest classic Yale course: a chance for 20 students each term to receive the kind of education that truly pushes and pulls at your assumptions, the kind that sticks with you well beyond your bright college years. It takes a bold leader to run against such faculty crosscurrents. Salovey did so because, as a social psychologist, he understands each type of education brings forth its unique strengths. Similarly, he believes in the equally valuable perspectives that everyone brings to the table — from athletes to freshmen, to staff and alumni. He understands that this university

is only as good as the interactions between its students, staff and faculty. This bedrock understanding will shape the decisions he makes — and it is what makes Salovey such a great choice to lead us. Mr. President-elect, the vast majority of the student body celebrated on Thursday as we learned of your appointment. From the beginning of the search process, we viewed you as our candidate, as our advocate, because of the small, seemingly meaningless, interactions we’ve had with you. Mr. President-elect, we would like a president who realizes that the presidents’ job does not end with making University policy, who recognizes that he also has a personal role to play: that of listener, role model and chief instructor. We realize that you may not fundraise with the prowess of President Rick Levin, but fundraising is worth much less to us than presence and approachability. Though raising money is important, we want you to affect our lives in a much more personal and profound way. We would like a president who extends Levin’s spectacular financial aid expansion; a president who advocates sensible, safe alcohol policy on campus; a president who attracts the best faculty to the school; a president who dedicates

enough resources to sports, who attends games, who brings Bulldog Athletics back to the days of its glory. We would like a president who protects the liberties of its students every time and everywhere, even in Singapore, and who supports leaving that country before we betray our open, liberal arts tradition. We would like a president who treats this place like an experience, not a business, and who is equally accountable to the student body and the Yale Corporation. We would like a president who is interested in new things, the kind of leader who fought to bring “Great Big Ideas” to fruition. Mr. President-elect, this may seem like a daunting list. But its goals are within reach. The students are on your side. If you continue to approach your job the way you did as professor, dean and provost, with a genuine caring for intellectual and moral development of students —the raison d’être of this place — you will have left a wonderful legacy behind when the next transition takes place. GENG NGARMBOONANANT is a sophomore in Silliman College. Contact him at geng.ngarmboonanant@ yale.edu .

Hero no more I lost a hero the other day. When I first heard the news about David Petraeus’ resignation as director of the Central Intelligence Agency following the discovery of his extramarital affair, I literally cursed out loud. I had thought he was the consummate scholar-leader-servant, a man to emulate. That naïveté, on my part, made his downfall — just another in an ever-growing and seemingly endless litany of similar failures by American public officials — all the more disappointing. Edwards, Gingrich, Schwarzenegger, Spitzer, Clinton and now Petraeus. These are only some of the better-known names of men we elevated to positions of leadership who betrayed their significant others and, in doing so, spectacularly let all of us down. Why are there so many of them these days? The true count of adulterous public officials is necessarily impossible to know. There’s a chance that any perceived uptick in that kind of behavior is just an artifact of contemporary technology. The increased use of email and text messaging — media which lend themselves to easy sharing, hacking and tracing — is doubtless one factor that leads to much higher rates of discovery than in earlier eras. But those halcyon times also had their fair share

ZOE MERCER-GOLDEN is a senior in Davenport College. Contact her at zoe.mercer-golden@yale.edu .

of men who should have justly been subjected to disgrace. Even former Boy Scout JFK is now known to MICHAEL have commitadultery, MAGDZIK ted though this was not pubMaking lic information during his lifeMagic time. But aside from technology, another factor is clearly at play here. Our toxic and self-destructive contemporary culture continually diminishes and downplays the severity of infidelity’s harms. Many of my liberal friends have argued that it is unfair that most politicians and public servants are expected to resign after their affairs are revealed. If Petraeus was being a good director of the CIA, they argue, he should stay on. Only his professional performance matters in his professional life. Given this kind of thinking, it’s no surprise this country’s leaders don’t take adultery seriously — their constituents don’t seem to, either. Of course, the first and most obvious reason for the director of a covert intelligence and spy agency

to resign for these kinds of reasons is the staggering opportunity for blackmail. It would be devastating if foreign agents could coerce a man like Petraeus into giving up secrets. But these pragmatic concerns are hardly where cause for our censure should end. The vows two individuals make when they are lawfully wed, whether in the eyes of God or man alone, constitute the foundation of all society: the family. When couples adhere to matrimonial oaths, they form stable, supportive relationships that are critical to everyone’s happiness and fulfillment. Nothing gets you through the toughest challenges in your life like the ability to count on someone who will be there in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, until death do you part. Humans are social creatures and find ultimate satisfaction in their counterparts in life. When the going gets tough, the best couples work through problems in a spirit of compromise that our politicians would do well to emulate. When the nights get lonely, they stay true to those oaths for the sake of trust, the lifeblood of love. Recognition of the importance of marriage spurred liberals to action in this recent election cycle. Gay people now have equal access to that institution in several more

states. But Republicans, who crusaded against gay rights because they perceived them as a threat to the institution, are not entirely wrong about the state of marriage today. Gay marriage is not the source of the decline of marriage, but marriage is nonetheless declining, largely thanks to infidelity and the cheapening of oaths. Men like David Petraeus set examples by their leadership or lack thereof. Petraeus’ betrayal of his wife contributed to that phenomenon, and as such, he deserves crucifixion upon Capitol Hill. Straight and gay people alike need to work to reinject meaning into the oaths we take in marriage, because those oaths are reflective of our national character. When this institution fails, so will we, and so we all need to adopt a zero-tolerance policy on infidelity, no matter the stature of the leader committing adultery. I still acknowledge the significance of General Petraeus’ work on counterinsurgency. I still acknowledge his important role in running America’s wars. But I will never again look to him as an inspiration, role model or hero, and nor should anyone else. MICHAEL MAGDZIK is a senior in Berkeley College. Contact him at michael.magdzik@yale.edu .

GUE ST COLUMNIST MARC DEWIT T

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Amaia Egaña, age 53, taught Spanish literature at the neighborhood public school. Lorca was her favorite author to cover. She had divorced ten years ago — an always frustrating marriage with a high school sweetheart. Her three boys had all graduated from university, though the youngest, Alberto, still lived at home, unemployed, like most 25-year olds in Barakaldo, a small town in the Basque country. The two of them lived in a quaint apartment on the fourth floor of a gated complex. From the terrace, where Amaia regularly spent her afternoons correcting homework, you could see the school building in the distance. In March, the director of Amaia’s school regretted to inform that all salaries were frozen for the following school year. Amaia canceled the family’s annual vacation to Biarritz, in southern France, where they had close family friends. In August, her salary was reduced by 10 percent. The mother and her son had less meat for dinner, probably only twice a week. Alberto complained. He always slept in, and was always high, always hungry. In September, Amaia’s salary was cut by another 15 percent. No meat, no Christmas

vacation. The mother sold her car so her son could buy a motorbike. She told herself that she would enjoy walking and taking the bus to work. It would be good exercise and it would build character. In October, Amaia defaulted on her mortgage payment. The phone calls from the bank, the letters in the mail, the agony, the sleepless nights seemed endless. They sold their television, but only in vain — its value was nowhere near the thousands she owed on the payment. On Nov. 7, two bailiffs from the bank were sent to deliver a 24-hour eviction notice to their apartment. Amaia opened the door, read the letter then dropped it, turned around, hobbled to the terrace, grabbed a chair and threw herself out the window. A neighbor later commented that her landing sounded like a twig snapping under a footstep. Amaia Egaña has been reduced to a mere statistic on the spreadsheets of policymakers and politicians in Brussels and Madrid. Indeed, governments across the world have responded to the economic crisis with austerity measures to stimulate economic growth at the cost of an increasingly catastrophic social crisis.

This consequentialist rhetoric has, by definition, limited respect for human dignity. Amidst all this frenetic "belt-tightening", the economic and social well-being of the Spanish population has been subjugated to the crippling demands of the global economy. The sacrifice of social services has become acceptable “collateral damage” for economic efficiency and higher levels of productivity. Human dignity has become expendable. When explaining my opposition to austerity measures, I am often asked, “If we don’t first survive, how are we to value human dignity?” But my question is precisely the opposite: If we don’t first value human dignity, how are we to survive? Amaia did not survive. Several have not — Amaia was the fourth evicted homeowner to commit suicide over the past year. The news channels once enthusiastically reported on a woman who sold her organs to pay the rent. These are extreme cases of an entire society that has been held captive by a profit-driven market system that lacks any inherent morality of its own. This economic nihilism has pragmatically decimated public health, education, transport and other essential ser-

vices of the welfare state. Today, Nov. 14, thousands in Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece have called for solidarity against these repressive measures through a mass strike. They are striking against an economic and political system that fails the most trivial definitions of democracy. They are striking against a rampant free market capitalism that calls for the removal of economic regulations, the privatization of public enterprise (health, education, social security, water) and the destruction of the collective good. This neoliberal ideology is entrenched in many Western institutions, affecting certain departments and programs at Yale, where profit-driven, positivist, utilitarian approaches are used to tackle global problems. By dismissing the fundamental importance of respect for human dignity, this ideology has led to a sharp deterioration of the livelihoods of millions in southern Europe. The suicide of Amaia Egaña expresses the true struggle of those on strike: They are fighting for their lives. MARC DEWITT is a sophomore in Ezra Stiles College. Contact him at marcus.dewitt@yale.edu .

YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2012 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 3

NEWS

“We might not be the best people — but we’re not the worst! Graduate students are the worst.” LIZ LEMON “30 ROCK” CHARACTER

Grad students eye swipe access BY JACK NEWSHAM STAFF REPORTER Though graduate students’ meal plans allow them to eat in residential college dining halls, most cannot use their ID cards to enter the colleges. Two residential college masters interviewed said the policy of denying graduate students swipe access to college courtyards, which has been in place since at least 2007, is intended to preserve community among college residents. But seven of 10 graduate students interviewed said they were frustrated that they had to loiter at the gates of residential colleges on weekends, when the dining hall of the Hall of Graduate Studies is closed. Morse College Master Amy Hungerford said the college dining halls will soon forbid graduate students from eating in dining halls on Sunday nights. “College access is granted to members of [the college’s] community and not granted to those who are not members of the community,” Berkeley College Master Marvin Chun, who chairs the Services Committee of the Council of Masters, said in an email to the News. He added the policy of excluding most graduate students from the residential colleges was made by the Council of Masters and predates his mastership, which began in 2007. Chun added that graduate stu-

YDN

The dining hall in the Hall of Graduate Studies is closed on weekends, forcing some graduate school students to eat in residential colleges.

GAKKO enters second year

dents who are matched with a residential college through the Graduate and Professional Affiliate Program have access to their host colleges and their dining halls, though he said such programs are limited for budgetary reasons. Over 150 graduate and professional students currently maintain affiliations with residential colleges. Hungerford, another member of the Council of Masters’ Services Committee, agreed with Chun. “Graduate students are welcome in our dining hall, and we don’t want them to feel unwelcome,” Hungerford said, but she added that high numbers of graduate students in Morse dining hall lead to overcrowding.

Graduate students are welcome in our dining hall, and we don’t want them to feel unwelcome. AMY HUNGERFORD Master, Morse College

Hungerford said that she did not know of any complaints from graduate students about the policy, but added that they are subject to the same barriers to entry as many faculty, who only have access to a residential college if they are fellows of the college or if their offices are in the college. Cathy van Dyke, the director of residential dining, said in a Tuesday email that of roughly 164 graduate students enrolled in a meal plan, 40 to 50 eat in residential college dining halls on the weekends. Other Yale Dining and Graduate School administrators were not available to comment on the masters’ policy. Graduate students interviewed said they find fault in the masters’ policy. Ksenia Sidorenko GRD ’15, who does not have a dining plan, said that her friends do complain that they have to “lurk” outside residential colleges to eat in dining halls. “It makes things very difficult that we aren’t allowed the same access,” Charles Faint GRD ’13 said, who added that graduate students also lacked weekend access to classroom buildings, language tutors and other resources, though these resources are available to undergraduates. The HGS dining hall is open for lunch and dinner on weekdays. Contact JACK NEWSHAM at jack.newsham@yale.edu .

FLORIAN KOENIGSBERGER/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Fourteen Yale students and two Harvard students ran the GAKKO camp in Japan last summer. BY LAVINIA BORZI CONTRIBUTING REPORTER After a successful first year, GAKKO — a student group that targets education reform — is getting ready for its second session. GAKKO was founded last academic year by Kenta Koga ’14 and aims to reform education worldwide by bringing a team of American college students to Japan to work with local high school school students during a six-day summer camp. The program, which arranges lessons taught by Japanese public personalities for the high school students and had its first session last summer, was funded by $250,000 from the Japanese education firm Benesse and is currently negotiating funding for the coming years. GAKKO is now accepting applications from college students for summer 2013. “The idea was to give a strong voice to amazing people who don’t usually have one in the education world,” Koga said. Fourteen Yale students and two Harvard students ran the camp last summer, bringing a professional magician to teach a class on surprising people, a designer to teach a class on giving aesthetic value to ideas and a journalist on conveying ideas to others. Though GAKKO’s initial funding came from Benesse, which runs a number of programs designed to help Japanese students apply to college in the United States, Koga said his aims in creating GAKKO were to cultivate a passion for unconventional learning in the high school students involved.

“This is not us trying to get Japanese students to come to Yale and Harvard,” he said. “It’s for us to design a new learning environment.” Koga said the idea for the GAKKO program originated in his own frustration with his education in Japan and at Yale. He added that the education he has received has underemphasized “creativity, inspiration and ideas.”

This is not us trying to get Japanese students to come to Yale and Harvard … It’s for us to design a new learning environment. KENTA KOGA ’14 Florian Koenigsberger ’14, official photographer for GAKKO 2012, said the group’s planning meetings centered on the question of “How do we change education?” “It became this weird philosophical ‘change everything’ camp,” Koenigsberger said. Koga said the 2012 session received substantial local media coverage and was generally well received. Ben Boult ’14, the filmmaker for GAKKO 2012, said the program was successful with the high school participants. “The kids were breaking down and crying by the end,” Boult said. “We were

shocked by the amount of influence it had.” Koga said he hopes to expand the program to other countries in coming years, though he said he is “uncertain about what has to happen in order for Gakko to evolve.” Masanori Fujii, an executive at Benesse who decided to fund GAKKO, said in a Tuesday email that GAKKO’s education reform ideals were worthwhile. “I strongly believe that looking at education from different angles, especially from the perspective of the youth, and trying to create a new learning structure are what not only Japan but the world is in need today,” Fujii said. “GAKKO definitely provoked a question of ‘what is a good learning environment, and what is actually important in the process of learning?’ to the Japanese society in a very direct way.” Four students who plan to apply as coordinators to GAKKO 2013 said they want to participate because of its innovations in education. Leyla Levi ’16 said she is concerned about education reform and feels that the GAKKO project could have a real influence in the field. “I can’t think of a better way to investigate what a good education should be than being with a group of people from different backgrounds all invested in the same ideas,” she said. GAKKO 2012 was held at the “Benesse House” in Naoshima, Japan. Contact LAVINIA BORZI at lavinia.borzi@yale.edu .

Alderman requests tax assessor at meeting BY DIANA LI STAFF REPORTER In light of last year’s opaque tax assessments, Ward 7 Alderman Doug Hausladen ’04 asked the Elm City’s tax assessor’s office for greater future clarity and transparency. Hausladen requested late last month that the city’s tax assessor, Alex Pullen, attend a public Board of Aldermen meeting to explain the way the office conducts its tax assessments to aldermen and interested New Haven residents.

In preparation for the meeting, Hausladen said he will submit a list of questions this week to the assessor in an attempt to understand why certain tax rates on similar properties “vary wildly” from neighborhood to neighborhood, a phenomenon critics have said may worry potential investors. “I’d like to do anything we can at the Board of Aldermen to let people know that [New Haven is] open to investment and that there is a clear and even playing field when people come to our city,”

BY THE NUMBERS TAXES How much New Haven’s grand list, the

$860 million total assessed value of all taxable property in the city, grew in 2012

$139 million 20,885 46 percent

How much of the grand list’s growth is attributable to net new growth of taxable property and assets Residential properties in New Haven Percentage of residential properties in New Haven that increased in value in the latest property revaluation

Hausladen said. “There’s a lot of variation in assessments and I want this meeting to be mainly informational for the Board and anyone else who wants to pay attention.”

The lack of transparency is a big problem, as it forces taxpayers to go to court to obtain information and resolve questions. TILLY HATCHER Consultant, Multi-Employer Property Trust Pullen said that the tax assessor methodology is “all in a book in the [tax assessor’s] office” and that anyone can come to the office to educate themselves on the methodology. Office staff is always willing to explain the terms in the book and help people understand anything that is confusing, he added. The tax assessor’s office held public meetings in different neighborhoods last December and at City Hall this past September to explain the way tax assessments

are determined. Still, Pullen said he could not “see any reason why [he] wouldn’t” agree to Hausladen’s request to attend a Board meeting. However, Hausladen said that despite the tax assessor’s efforts, many of his constituents tell him they are still confused as to how the assessments are determined and the processes by which they can be appealed. Ward 10 Alderman Justin Elicker FES ’10 SOM ’10 repeated the need for transparency in tax assessments to attract investors to New Haven, citing the 360 State Street apartment building as a potential warning sign for investors. City officials had originally projected annual taxes of $1.4 million for the 500-unit, 32-story luxury apartment tower at 360 State, but the final bill came in at $4.3 million. “The important thing is to make sure there is some predictability, and 360 State may send the message that New Haven might not be the most predictable to invest in if investors can’t predict how much their costs really will be,” Elicker said. Tilly Hatcher, a consultant to Multi-Employer Property Trust, which owns 360 State, criticized the process that currently exists for taxpayers to resolve tax

assessment disputes by going to court. “The lack of transparency is a big problem, as it forces taxpayers to go to court to obtain information and resolve questions, which is expensive for both the city and the taxpayer. It also discourages investment and job creation which the city needs,” she wrote in a Tuesday email to the News. Pullen explained that the tax assessor’s office cannot disclose certain information relating to how specific assessments were determined, as information such as incomes and personal property declarations are not publicly accessible and are therefore not subject to Freedom of Information laws. He also added that the tax assessor’s office struggles to make accurate assessments when information forms it sends out are not returned. Both Elicker and Ward 22 Alderman Jeanette Morrison, whose ward includes Silliman, Timothy Dwight, Ezra Stiles and Morse colleges, said they would welcome Pullen at a board meeting. “Sometimes I think in any entity in which there are rules, as time goes on, people just take for granted that everyone understands the rules,” Morrison said. “When you give an opportunity

CITY OF NEW HAVEN

Doug Hausladen ’04 asked that the city’s tax assessor attend a Board of Aldermen meeting.

to people to rehear or relearn the rules and regulations, that can also bring up things that maybe need to be changed, and I am definitely for the tax assessor coming to explain to all of us that process.” The next Board of Aldermen meeting is Monday, Nov. 19. Contact DIANA LI at diana.li@yale.edu .

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YALE DAILY NEWS Âˇ WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2012 Âˇ yaledailynews.com

FROM THE FRONT

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.â&#x20AC;? GAUTAMA BUDDHA SPIRITUAL TEACHER

Yale to rebuild Buddhist shrine INDIGO BLUE FROM PAGE 1 University Spokesman Tom Conroy said the University â&#x20AC;&#x153;has no plans to resume an arrangement with Indigo Blue,â&#x20AC;? but Blair told the News Wednesday night that â&#x20AC;&#x153;people are talking to each otherâ&#x20AC;? and his attorney â&#x20AC;&#x153;just talked to the Universityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s attorney [Monday] night.â&#x20AC;? Two events, a tea and a congee brunch, were held at Blairâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s house last weekend and there are plans for expanded programs, Blair said in an email to members of the Indigo Blue community. The Chaplainâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s office has told students that they are welcome to visit and maintain communication with Blair, said Geoffrey Liu MED â&#x20AC;&#x2122;15, a member of the Indigo Blue community. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I feel really comfortable at his house because even [though] itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not Harkness or Battel, at least the setting is familiar and I really like being around those [same] people,â&#x20AC;? meeting attendee Kuang He â&#x20AC;&#x2122;14 said. Still, Kugler has begun an effort to offer alternative Buddhist programs to serve Yale students. She told the News that she has made preparations to reopen the Buddhist shrine in the Branford Memorial Room, adding that she hopes it will be constructed after Thanksgiving break. The Chaplainâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Office has asked Tsondru Sangpo, a Tibetan teacher and an employee of the Center for Language Study, to bless and open the space, she said. Kugler added that she is currently collaborating with Buddhists outside Yale to write a job description for a new Buddhist Chaplain and that student input will be considered in the hiring process. At Mondayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s meeting, Kugler, Dean of Student Affairs Marichal Gentry, Program Coordinator for the Chaplainâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Office Nathaniel DeLuca GRD â&#x20AC;&#x2122;06 and a group of roughly 20 students that Kugler calls the â&#x20AC;&#x153;student steering

committeeâ&#x20AC;? discussed progress in implementing new Buddhist programs. Patrick Cage â&#x20AC;&#x2122;14 said the group also proposed ideas to replace Stillness & Light, an Indigo Blue program where students could gather nightly from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. for conversation and contemplation, but he said Kugler has not yet made concrete plans to reopen such a latenight space. At the last meeting, several students began to cry and half walked out halfway through because they felt the University was not adequately listening to their concerns. Cage added that he thinks the Chaplainâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Office does not fully understand the importance of Stillness & Lightâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s religious aspects. He said Blair ensured that the space remained â&#x20AC;&#x153;sacred,â&#x20AC;? which made it particularly comfortable.

I think they perhaps misunderstood some of the reasons Stillness & Light was important. PATRICK CAGE â&#x20AC;&#x2122;14 â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Chaplainâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s office seemed to be saying they already have programming during those hours on Friday and Saturday nights, referring to Global Grounds,â&#x20AC;? he said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I think they perhaps misunderstood some of the reasons Stillness & Light was important.â&#x20AC;? Hung Pham â&#x20AC;&#x2122;15, who was present at the meeting, said another attendee brought up testimony submitted to Friends of Indigo Blue â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a support group for the Buddhist community during the transition period â&#x20AC;&#x201D; from a rape victim who said Stillness & Light provided emotional support in a way that Yale Health and Walden Peer Counseling did not. A former co-worker of Blair

KATHRYN CRANDALL/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

The closure of Indigo Blue prompted a Monday meeting between the Chaplainâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Office and about 20 students who discussed new Buddhist programs. interviewed said that Blair has had previous problems with administrative capabilities. Roughly seven years ago, Blair was asked to step down from his previous position of roughly 10 years as an unpaid abbot for the New Haven Zen Center because of an inability to fulfill his administrative duties, said Paul Bloom, who took over the abbot post after Blairâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s exit. Bloom said Blair created difficulties with administrators of NHZC for several years by failing to respond to emails and phonecalls in a timely manner, to fulfill his event-organizing responsibilities and to manage finances responsibly. â&#x20AC;&#x153;[There was] no horrible

impropriety of any sort,â&#x20AC;? Bloom said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;His administrative functioning was problematic and challenged.â&#x20AC;? Blair does not currently have a relationship with the NHZC, said Keith Angilly, president of the Board of Trustees for NHZC. Blair said Bloomâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s claims were false, and that he left the position after reaching an agreement to work with Indigo Blue exclusively instead of NHZC. Indigo Blue was founded by Ahrens, Blair and Loretta Staples â&#x20AC;&#x2122;79 in 2005. Contact CYNTHIA HUA at cynthia.hua@yale.edu .

JENNIFER CHEUNG/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR JENNIFER CHEUNG/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

OPINION.

Former Buddhist Chaplain Bruce Blair â&#x20AC;&#x2122;81 has continued programs for students off-campus.

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PAGE 5

FROM THE FRONT CELEBRATION IN COMMONS

19.6

Percent increase in tax revenue after 2012

The fiscal cliff means that unless policy changes are made, tax rates will be automatically raised at the end of fiscal year 2012. This will be accompagnied by a 0.25 percent decrease in spending. The effect of this change on the nascent economic recovery is disputed by economists.

Conn. economy in danger FISCAL FROM PAGE 1 defense spending will be the most severely influenced; and with an active defense industry, Connecticut could feel an outsize portion of the impact. “A lot of companies have lost confidence in Congress’ ability to do something,” Zimmer said. “Last time, the presumption was that at end of the day, they’d figure it out. They didn’t.” Benjamin Zimmer LAW ’12, director of the non-partisan Connecticut Policy Institute, said a number of studies have predicted varying job losses, including one from the National Association of Manufacturers that estimates 9,000 to 10,000 lost jobs. Other studies have placed as many as 50,000 jobs at risk, but Zimmer thinks such estimates are generally above realistic projections. Zimmer said the state will inevitably lose jobs if sequestration goes forward. Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation, located in Stratford, Conn., is a large supplier of military aircraft for the U.S. Air Force. Military contractor General Dynamics also maintains a facility in Groton, Conn., which has long served as a primary supplier of submarines for the U.S. Navy. Another issue, Zimmer said, is that many of these spend-

ing reductions are affecting budgets for departments that do not need to be cut. Defense as a share of spending has not been increasing, he said, adding that long-term debt reduction is going to involve a “serious” look at entitlements, which have grown as a percentage of total federal outlays. “Cutting funding for PBS – or raising taxes on the wealthy, whether or not it’s the right thing to do – isn’t going to solve the debt problem,” Zimmer said. Connecticut Independent Senator Joseph Lieberman ’64 LAW ’67, who will take part in negotiating a budget deal before his retirement in January, is opposed to considering any cuts to defense spending as part of the agreement, said his communications director Whitney Phillips. “Our armed forces are already under unprecedented strain given previous cuts and aging assets,” Phillips said. John Piecuch, a spokesperson at international rating agency Standard & Poor’s, said sequestration would not automatically mean a devastating economic impact. Increased tax revenues and cuts in spending visible by the end of 2013 can be “credit-positive,” Piecuch said, “provided that the recession didn’t result in large numbers of people removed from the work-

force to the extent that their skill sets permanently deteriorate.” With regards to the U.S. credit rating, which was downgraded following the 2011 debt ceiling crisis, Piecuch said that another drop given sequestration is a possibility but not a certainty. The last downgrade was fueled by a negative appraisal of the debt trajectory and the current political situation, two of the five “pillars” used by S&P when evaluating credit ratings, he explained. Neither is likely to improve this year, but it is unlikely that these scores will come down even further, he said. But the Defense Technology Initiative, a research group based in Massachusetts, released a study in November warning that the defense industry in Connecticut “has driven economic growth for the region over the last decade,” and that cuts would mean a more sluggish recovery. Companies like General Dynamics are not yet laying workers off, but Congress might force their hand in the coming months. The fiscal cliff’s year-over-year changes for 2012–’13 include a 19.63 percent increase in tax revenue and 0.25 percent reduction in spending. Contact JOHN AROUTIOUNIAN at john.aroutiounian@yale.edu .

Ban talks global conflict BAN FROM PAGE 1

PHILIPP ARNDT/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

STUDENTS CELEBRATE DIWALI Diwali - commonly known as the “Festival of Lights” - is one of of the most important Hindu festivals. It symbolizes the victory of Truth over Evil. On Tuesday, the Yale Hindu Students Council invited students to gather in Commons to attend Yale’s 8th annual “Diwali Pooja” (Diwali Prayer) and to indulge in traditional Indian cuisine.

STAY reorganizes STAY FROM PAGE 1 [it has] been doing” and that it hopes to plan many more events in the near future. STAY has also secured funding from several sources, including the AYA, UCS and an anonymous gift from a donor, allowing it to expand its programs. This semester, STAY has already held several leadership forums and career panels. “Frankly, I’m surprised by the amount of early success we had

— we were catching up behind the scenes to keep up with the excitement,” said Brandon Levin ’14, former president of STAY. Alyssa Siefert GRD ’15, STAY executive treasurer, said the restructuring has been an “extremely large improvement in efficiency.” This semester, she added, the group has been able to focus on specific action items such as mentoring and outreach. Kate Taylor-Mighty ’15, chair of STAY’s publicity committee, also said she finds the new

structure more streamlined because it gives each member more responsibility. “Something we heard last year was that people didn’t feel like they had enough tasks to go around — now that’s definitely alleviated,” she said. Over winter break, the group will offer several local networking events in various parts of the country. Contact AMY WANG at amy.wang@yale.edu .

in their students, adding that students must approach their futures with an eye to international problems. Ban said the modern era is one of dramatic transformation. “We are living in an era of inequality, instability, injustice and intolerance, but people are demanding freedom, accountability and equal opportunity,” he said. Citing the continuing violence in Syria, Ban said the Arab world has undergone a period during which regimes content with a “repressive” status quo have been falling apart. The Secretary-General said he remains “gravely concerned” about the situation in Syria, particularly with regard to the brutal force the Assad regime has employed against peaceful protestors and its refusal to honor a truce during the important religious holiday of Eid. Ban said he has appealed to both the Assad government and the opposition to stop the use of violence and to begin the process of political dialogue immediately.

recycleyourydndaily

Ban also voiced support for the Obama administration’s promises to curb climate change, and discussed U.N. efforts to bring critical resources to communities in need. He said the creation of Every Woman Every Child, the Zero Hunger Challenge and Education First during his tenure helped create stable living conditions and gave historically underserved populations worldwide the tools necessary to have an active role in the 21st century. He stressed that these goals are inextricably linked to global security challenges. “Terrorists don’t fear governments’ guns, but they do fear education,” Ban said. “They fear girls with a textbook. When people are educated, there remains no place for terrorists to stand.” During his lecture, Ban emphasized the importance of the United States’ partnership with the U.N., remembering his own childhood and recalling that U.S.-backed international forces from the U.N. fought against North Korea during the Korean War. He also reminded the audi-

ence he was in tune with contemporary culture. “I guess you came to hear a Korean on the international scene,” Ban said, “But I’m not going to dance Gangnam Style.” Four students interviewed said they were disappointed that Ban did not bring a new perspective to the issues he addressed in his lecture.

We are living in an era of inequality, instability, injustice and intolerance. BAN KI-MOON Secretary-General, United Nations “His speech was entirely rhetoric,” Luis Schachner ’15 said. “I was expecting thought-provoking new ideas about international problems but they weren’t there.” Ban became Secretary-General in 2007. Contact JOHN AROUTIOUNIAN at john.aroutiounian@yale.edu .

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YALE DAILY NEWS · WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2012 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 7

ARTS & CULTURE

Minimalism and Post-minimalism In post-minimalism, the sparse and iterative aesthetic of minimalist composers like John Adams and Phillip Glass is mediated by the personal musical preferences of the composer. The result is a work of music that takes minimalism as a thematic reference point but attempts to transcend its often overtly linear form. Thus, “postminimalism” evokes a sense of both genre and historicity.

Lang MUS ’83 GRD ’89 wins composing award BY SARAH SWONG STAFF REPORTER On Nov. 6, School of Music professor David Lang MUS ’83 GRD ’89 received the title of “Composer of the Year” from the highly respected classical music publication Musical America. The award is a testament to the breadth and depth of Lang’s work and his leadership in the classical music world, School of Music Dean Robert Blocker said. In past years, Musical America has awarded the title to composers like Elliott Carter, John Adams and Stephen Sondheim, and recipients of the publication’s other awards this year include Gustavo Dudamel, the superstar Venezuelan music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. “We’re known for selecting the artists with strong musical standards as opposed to who happens to be the most popular of the year,” said Sedgwick Clark, the editor at Musical America who selected Lang for the title. Lang’s achievements in the classical music world have been recognized before, Clark said. In 2008, Lang won the Pulitzer Prize for a chamber piece titled “the little match girl passion.” Blocker said Lang will soon be the composer-inresidence at Carnegie Hall and, as Clark explained, will then be responsible for soliciting commissioned pieces from other composers. Receiving the Musical America award is a “tremendous vote of confidence,” Lang said, explaining that the prize establishes that he has been more widely recognized as a composer. “I feel like I’ve spent my whole life writing weird music, and this means I’m getting established enough so that normal people can listen to me,” Lang said. Clark said he heard a live performance of “the little match girl passion” earlier this year and was “bowled over.” “The expressivity and emotion of the piece captivated me, and it was more heartfelt than anything I’d heard from him before,” he said. Lang’s style has been described as “post-minimalist,” a style that blends the minimalist tropes of repetition and iterations of sparse patterns with composers’ personal influences, which have included styles ranging from rock to folk to Renaissance music. But Lang did not iden-

tify with a strict label. As a young composer, Lang said he felt he needed to “find one way of making music that I would claim as my own and never change,” or “to commoditize [himself].” Instead, his body of work has included anything from “quiet, meditative, simple pieces” and “complex, aggressive, obnoxious pieces.” His impulse to resist categorization is reflected in his decision to help found a community organization in New York City for innovative music called Bang on a Can in 1987 with composers Michael Gordon MUS ’82 and Julia Wolfe MUS ’86. At the time, Lang said many young composers did not fit cleanly into specific genres of music and instead experimented with all types of musical styles. “We wanted to make a home for these kinds of music that were homeless,” Lang said. From sponsoring an annual 12-hour free marathon concert in New York City to helping young musicians find resources and opportunities, Bang on a Can attempted to build a community for such artists. In addition to developing his own music, Lang said he wanted to “build the world [he] wanted to live in,” in which composers cooperate and support each other rather than compete. To create this world, Bang on a Can supports not only innovative music but also the conditions required for its performance, which may differ from the grand concert halls associated with classical music. “Every piece of music needs its own environment and has a right way to play it — a right audience to play for and the right musicians to play for it,” Lang said. Lang added that he thinks the organization has helped change the way young musicians treat each other as evidenced by New York music scene’s becoming more supportive than when Lang began his composing career in the 1980s. Young musicians have also started to perform in clubs and bars to expand the range of performance spaces considered suitable for classical music. Students and colleagues said Lang is a passionate teacher in addition to a talented composer. Lang has taught composition at Yale both part-time and fulltime for at least 10 years. Composition professor Martin Bresnick said the Musical America award will spread Yale’s reputation for hosting a strong composition program to a “wider community than is

Comedy meets classical music

normally able to see us,” and that Lang’s “unusually large and intelligent personality” has contributed to the school’s well-rounded composition faculty. Two of Lang’s students praised him as a great teacher, explaining that private lessons are primarily philosophical conversations about the ideas driving the student’s work. This ideas-based approach reflects Lang’s own compositional thought process. Lang described his music as an “intellectual response to some kind of problem.” “The point [of composing] is to build a conversation between me and everyone else,” Lang said. “It’s an emotional bridge between people. That’s a mission to me — how to make sure music retains and explores its emotional and communicative core.”

Reading George Nelson

I feel like I’ve spent my whole life writing weird music, and this means I’m getting established enough so that normal people can listen to me.

YALE SCHOOL OF MUSIC

Aleksey Igudesman (left) and Hyung-ki Joo (right) hope to make classical music more appealing to young people.

DAVID LANG Professor, School of Music Lang said that in composing “the little match girl passion,” he interspersed the language of the dying girl in Hans Christian Anderson’s “The Little Match Girl” story with text from the tales of people responding to Jesus’ suffering in the gospels of St. Matthew Passion. He explained that he hoped to answer questions of how listeners would react to suffering in religious and non-religious contexts. Recently, Lang said he has grappled with the role of live performance in the digital world. He offers one answer in his ongoing work on “whisper opera” — a vocal piece so quiet that only 10 people can listen to a live performance at one time. The audience must sit right next to the singers, and the performance cannot be recorded and amplified without destroying the nature of the work itself, he said.

BY LEAH MOTZKIN CONTRIBUTING REPORTER

PETER SERLING

The work of David Lang MUS ’83 GRD ’89 has been described as post-minimalist. “It’s reclaiming from the recording world the power of the experience of performance,” Lang said. And he said he is aware of how ridiculous his idea may sound. “[Lang] likes to be preposterous to make a point — he pushes things to the edge to stand out,” Bresnick said. “He’s very witty in a dry, humorous way.” To Lang, music is completely unaffected by the intelligence of a listener. He explained that music in an emotional movie scene elicits tears from audience members regardless of their individual

intelligences. Instead, music is “primal and elemental” and provokes an emotional response beyond human control. “That’s what makes it incredibly mystical and powerful, with a long connection to religion, spirituality,” Lang said. “It’s this fundamental thing that moves between people, but you can’t exactly put your finger on what it is and what it does.” Lang began composing at the age of nine. Contact SARAH SWONG at sarah.swong@yale.edu .

The business of creativity

As Aleksey Igudesman and Hyung-ki Joo began their first piece, a cellphone rang. The music abruptly stopped, and the audience audibly gasped. All that could be heard was the phone’s musical ring tone and the audience’s staccato breathing. The two men onstage looked at each other in mock horror and began to play a classical version of the ringing tune — and the audience burst into laughter. Igudesman and Joo — a classical music and comedy duo — performed their show “A Little Nightmare Music” to a full house at the School of Music’s Morse Recital Hall on Tuesday night. Joo said in an email that their act aims to elevate the combination of music, comedy and theater to its own art form. The show was an unexpected choice for

the school’s Oneppo Chamber Music Series, which will host eight groups this year and has never selected an act that deviates from traditional chamber music before, School of Music press secretary Dana Astmann said in an email. Astmann said she hopes the untraditional choice of the group will appeal to a wider audience. “It’s a little different from what we usually present on the series,” Astmann said. “I hope that Igudesman and Joo bring in some new audiences.” Joo said he and Igudesman have been successful at targeting younger audiences during previous performances, explaining that in the United States they are most popular among 15- to 35-year-old spectators. He added that one of the group’s goals is to dispel young people’s discomfort with classical music concerts.

“From a young age on, we felt that the whole business and ceremony surrounding classical music was too serious for its own good,” Joo said. “Part of our aim is to dispel this hesitancy by making classical music more accessible, through performance and humor, to the public.” Joo, who plays the piano, and Igudesman, a violinist, met when they were 12 at the Yehudi Menuhin School for Musical Excellence in England and discovered a mutual penchant for watching great comedians and performers, Joo said. Both decided to incorporate their interest in comedy and music into their careers, and they formed the Igudesman and Joo performance duo. Since their beginnings in 2004, the two men have gained fame through their videos on YouTube — such as a parody of Gloria Gaynor’s 1978 hit “I Will Survive” — which have collectively had more than 28

million views. The concept behind their current show is “Mozart meets Monty Python,” Joo said. While the typical audience at a chamber music performance is comprised of older adults, “A Little Nightmare Music” attracted a significant number of students and young families. The light-hearted atmosphere envisioned by Joo was reflected by the constant laughter and three encores. “The show was sharp,” Phil Jameson ’16 said. “I really liked the way that they had character and didn’t just tell music jokes.” Igudesman and Joo, accompanied by 100 violinists from around the world, hold the world record for the most “Dancing Violinists” performing together onstage. Contact LEAH MOTZKIN at leah.motzkin@yale.edu .

Contact ISABELLA D’AGOSTO at isabella.dagosto@yale.edu .

Contact JORDAN PIERCE at jordan.pierce@yale.edu .

JOYCE XI/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

At Carmen Lund’s “Big Brush” painting workshop, students discovered their inner creativity.

The secret for securing that elusive consulting job: Put down those textbooks and paint. Carmen Lund, international artist and self-proclaimed “creative life catalyst,” spent last Sunday at the Yale Office of International Students and Scholars, or OISS, trying to unleash the creativity of the five participants in her trademarked “The Big Brush Workshop™.” Inspire Yale, formerly known as HappyHap, asked Lund to instruct three sessions of its semester-long series of art workshops, which are free to Yale students and New Haven residents and bring local art-

ists to the University. The skills taught in “Big Brush” are more useful than those learned in the average college class for entrepreneurship, Lund said. “In this new global economy, even if you’ve had a great education, knowledge is not enough. You need creativity,” Lund said. “You can’t just tell them what’s on page 62 of your economics book.” Lund said she recognizes a deficit in the typical college education, in which students spend between 1,000 and 10,000 hours in classes that focus on left-brain thinking but often dedicate less than 10 hours to the creative, rightbrain intensive studies that are necessary for problem-solving in the office place. Aaron Lewis

’16, a member of Inspire Yale, said many Yale students do not dedicate time to developing their pre-existing creative skills because they are burdened by other obligations. “Big Brush” gives such students the opportunity to step back and embrace their artistic side, he said. “When [participants] do art, the world slows down for them. Their lives change,” Lund said “I think if they can take risks on paper, they’ll learn how to take risks in life.” Many participants arrive at Lund’s workshop firmly believing they cannot paint before even putting brush to paper, she said. But she added that she has not taught one person unable to embrace their creativity in the last 15 years of her teaching

career. Lund plays reggae music while participants paint to “get them out of their heads” — once they realize there are no rules in the workshop, she explained, they tap into the artistic potential of which they were previously unaware. Christian Rhally ’15, president of Inspire Yale, said the group wanted to provide the Yale and New Haven communities an outlet for creative expression and the opportunity to develop creative thinking. Rhally said that for Yale students especially, the workshop is an escape from thoughts of resume padding and homework. “You have to dare to just paint and not think about it,” Rhally said. Lund requires people to work

together during “Big Brush.” Often, students are uncomfortable with this idea at the beginning of the workshop, Lund said, but they soon grow to respect each other and to realize that collaboration can result in something beautiful. “Big Brush” functions as a team-building exercise — Lund recalled a workshop she held for the Yale World Fellows Program during which participants became comfortable enough with each other to run around throwing paint at one another. This sense of comfort gives participants the confidence to explore their creativity without feeling judged, she said. “You don’t have to think, just paint, and no one’s going to judge you,” said Sophie Depel-

ley, coordinator of the Yale Center for the Teaching of French.

In this new global economy, even if you’ve had a great education, knowledge is not enough. You need creativity. CARMEN LUND The next workshop will be held at OISS on Dec. 1 from 2 to 5 p.m. Contact JESSICA HALLAM at jessica.hallam@yale.edu .

BY ISABELLA D’AGOSTO CONTRIBUTING REPORTER The 112-year-old Yale-China Association is continuing to bridge the Sino-American cultural gap with “Foothills,” an exhibit featuring the photography of Aaron Reiss ‘10. “Foothills,” which held its opening reception and lecture for roughly 30 Yale community members last Friday, is self-described as “a window” into Wan’an, a village in the impoverished Annhui Province in Southern China. This past September, Reiss completed his two-year term as a YaleChina Teaching Fellow in Wan’an, teaching English at a rural public high school. “For many students in China, education is a lecture,” Reiss said. “Being a Western teacher in this school was … a unique experience.” “Foothills” is the third exhibit of individual artists’ work that YaleChina has hosted. Together, these exhibits represent the association’s

recent focus on the arts — in the past, the Yale-China Association has interacted with China much more through “grassroots efforts,” said Nancy Yao Maasbach, the executive director of the Yale-China Association. “We’re trying to do more to bring what we see on the ground in China to the New Haven community,” Maasbach said. Reiss’s talk was largely anecdotal as he revived for attendees both the comical and solemn moments of his term as a Yale-China Teaching Fellow. In answering the crowd’s numerous questions, Reiss often referred to specific photographs, exposing the characters and stories behind many images. Reiss said that the pictures collectively represented a slice of the surprises he encountered in China and painted a portrait of a village on the fringes of urban development. The photographer also described the exhibit’s personal yet representative nature — while specific to the people

of the village, the collection in some sense depicts the half of China’s population living in agrarian communities. “This exhibit was just of this village, but I have a lot of pictures of rural labor outside their province,” Reiss said. “These places could very well not be like this in 15, 20 years from now.” As an undergraduate student, Reiss, who said he was interested in food and farming at the time, majored in Environmental and Urban Studies and managed the Yale Farm and New Haven Bike Collective. But he explained that his time in China revealed that only Americans romanticize subsistence farming, explaining that farmers engaged in agrarian work in rural areas of China are working to provide a different life for their children. “For photographers, you watch things disappear and you document them,” Reiss said. “But for them, losing these traditions isn’t a sad thing.”

GEORGE NELSON WAS UNIQUE FOR ARTICULATING HIS PHILSOPHY OF DESIGN

Reiss, who is currently working as a freelance photographer, said he used black-and-white schematics to portray images that seemed “raw and ancient,” such as the rice paddies. Photos in the exhibit varied from anonymous street photography to frontal, colored shots imbued with personal relevance. “Our goal in curating this exhibit was to share a part of China through Aaron’s lens in a manner that any person — Chinese or otherwise — could walk away with some insight into the people and the traditions that have been passed down from a time when tractors and machines had not yet been invented,” Annie Lin ‘09, a former Yale-China Fellow who helped Reiss curate the exhibit, said in an email. The exhibit will be on display at the Yale-China Association during business hours through May 31, 2013.

‘Foothills’ depicts rural China

JESSICA HALLAM/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

God can only hand out so many gifts. The very beautiful are seldom great wits. The strong are not always kind. And those with artistic aptitude are infrequently eloquent. If the parade of speakers at the School of Architecture’s recent symposium — “George Nelson: Design for Living, American Mid-Century Design and Its Legacy Today” — is to be believed, it seems that while God’s back was turned, George Nelson cleaned out his safe. This past week’s symposium, and the accompanying exhibition, showcased the work of a rare polymath in the design world. George Nelson is a canonical figure in industrial design, credited with a share in the founding of American Modernism. He was equally gifted as an artist, architect and, significantly, as a writer. Though Nelson may be best remembered for the bubble lamps, kite clocks and marshmallow sofas elegantly arrayed in Rudolph Hall’s gallery, his ability to clearly articulate a philosophy of design makes him an unusual figure. In a field where bewildering prose is often mistaken for a literary aesthetic, Nelson stands apart for his wit, lucidity and ability to incorporate a thoughtful, human perspective into a corporate career.

Nelson’s “How to See” is a book written for an idiot. The author assures us, his readership of “visual illiterates,” that we qualify as his target audience. In spare, graceful prose, Nelson explains very simple things in fine detail, enumerating the parts of an umbrella, explaining that highways have many signs with arrows and announcing the ubiquity of circles. In this short illustrated text, Nelson attempts to train his readers in that “visual literacy” and in the process showcases a verbal acuity and philosophical perspective that is surprisingly rare in the design profession. His is a philosophy more readily put into practice than a ponderous German’s, less dogmatic than a cult’s. It is a gentle philosophy that politely but insistently tugs on the edges of common perception and demands a reassessment. Nelson implores his readers, those who use his products, to carefully consider the objects surrounding them and to better understand their relationships to the stuff of the visual world. As Nelson put it: “Seeing things is an intellectual-aesthetic exercise which increases one’s inalienable capital: riches that can be accumulated without cost and, once acquired, cannot be lost or stolen.” Nelson applies the same level of care to his career as a designer of housewares, furniture and office seating systems; the objects that comprise the school’s current exhibition titled “George Nelson, Architect / Writer / Designer / Teacher.” This close marriage of design and philosophy results in a set of products that challenge their purchasers, critiquing and shaping the lives they lead. Nelson tore the numbers from clocks, put clutter in “storage walls” and turned workplaces into “Action Offices,” where furniture complemented an office’s flow of work. He altered the function of products and the course of daily events, rather than merely applying a style to an existing type. Nelson’s lasting influence in the field of design may be measured by the fact that two of the world’s most radiant design luminaries were amongst the pilgrims to New Haven this week: Marc Newson, author of Quantas Airlines’ in-flight experience, and Jonathan Ive, Apple’s senior vice president of design, better known as the bald man with the British accent who assures you every six months that the new iPhone is “the best yet” from the depths of your now-obsolete “retina display.” Nearly 30 years after his death, Nelson’s work still draws prominent contemporary designers. Nelson’s legacy, in addition to the clocks and lounges now adorning retirees’ homes and galleries alike, may well be the lesson that humanity, wit and eloquence are valuable design skills in themselves.

The latest exhibit at the Yale-China Association showcases photographs of rural Chinese scenes.

BY JESSICA HALLAM CONTRIBUTING REPORTER

JORDAN PIERCE