This WEEKEND

WEEKEND // FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2012

CARPE NOCTEM THROUGH THE LITTLE-KNOWN FIELD OF PARTY STUDIES, AARON GERTLER SHOWS YOU HOW TO SEIZE THE NIGHT. PAGE 3.

3 WISE PROFS

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15 MINUTES

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5 RESTAURANTS

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FROM HERE TILL ETERNITY

BEHIND THE ‘STACHE

WEEK OF THE MUNCHIES

What are you going to do with the rest of your life? Margaret Neil on the secrets to happy living.

On president elect Salovey, fame and his status as a pop culture icon.

WEEKEND fed its five hungriest reporters during Restaurant Week. Their reviews are scrumptious!

// SARAH ECKINGER

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2012 · yaledailynews.com

DAWE

WEEKEND VIEWS

CAN YALE WITHSTAND THE WORST?

complex. Chances of survival: low.

DAVENPORT-PIERSON COMPLEX

This one is tricky. Davenport students, defending the front gate and the Park Street entrance, can last quite a while. From the Dport dining hall, they can even fire upon zombies assaulting Pierson through whatever people call that alley thing. However, the number of Park and Elm Street entrances to the complex, and the fact that if one college falls, the other falls with it, is a fatal flaw in this scenario. Chances of survival: medium.

// BY JAKE DAWE Dear Mr. President-elect Salovey, I write to you as a concerned citizen and student. I write to you to ask a simple question: how prepared is Yale to defend itself against the very worst?

And yes, I am referring to an elaborate monthlong siege of Yale in the event of a zombie apocalypse. Does Yale have a contingency plan? Are there evacuation, defense and sustaining procedures in place for a “zompoc” scenario? If not, I feel it my duty to present to you my expert opinion.

Let us consider, as stated, the necessity of surviving a month on our own.

The National Guard will not reach Yale until that time in this scenario. We are alone. What will most likely occur, given Yale’s current levels of preparedness? The most practical method is to assess the

likelihood of success for each of Yale’s major housing areas.

OLD CAMPUS AND OFF-CAMPUS HOUSING

The lowest hanging fruits. Let’s just take that one for granted. Chances of survival: negligible.

TIMOTHY DWIGHT AND SILLIMAN

The isolated colleges. TD’s large front gate will prove difficult to barricade, as will its open courtyard. TD students’ proclivity towards swapping saliva with one another will cause the zombie strain to spread quickly — that’s the price of college-cest, kids.

Chances of survival: low.

With four airy gates and, again, a wideopen courtyard, Silli-

man students will have a difficult time properly defending themselves from assault. While Silliflicks, the Sillibuttery and the Sillikitchen might prove to be valuable Silli-safe houses, the rest of the Silli-college will prove Silli-indefensible. Chances of survival: Silli-low.

CALHOUN

In this scenario, the most … okay, let’s all be honest. Given Calhoun’s inability to do anything bordering on positive in intramural sports and the fact that the entire college is just literally a giant square, they’re screwed.

Granted, Hounies’ ambivalence for everything might catch the zombies off-guard, so I don’t even know.

Chances of survival: medium, but who really cares?

MORSE AND STILES

You would think the zombies would bypass these two colleges because of their sheer fugliness. Not so. Recently emboldened after taking over Sushi Mizu and Popeye’s, the zombie masses will gain entrance to the courtyard. As the undead cannot feel pain, they will quickly smash through the large glass panes separating the Morse-Stiles dining hall complex from the outside, overrunning the entire

BERKELEY

I’m inclined to say that the NorthSouth division will be a handicap for the college’s

defenses, as will the easily scaled walls and flimsy gates. If all BK students massed in South Court, but still defended the buttery under North Court for food, they might have a fighting chance. Chances of survival: medium.

JONATHAN EDWARDS

With three small gates, JE students will stand a solid chance of fighting back the hordes. If zombies enter the courtyard, JE students can continue to fight back from the complicated system of libraries that JE is somehow allowed to have. Cornered up there, though, students will eventually run out of lobster dinners. Regardless — chances of survival: high.

BRANFORD AND SAYBROOK

Although the complex has as many as six gates, all are small, giving their student population enough of a presence to properly guard the entrances. However, as with other college pairs, their fates are intertwined.

The remainder of the Yale community would lament the fall of Branford.

Somehow, though, I think we can all manage without Saybrook. Chances of survival: high.

TRUMBULL

Yale’s smallest college, and a “granite fortress” according to Master Janet Henrich. On three sides, Trumbull is surrounded by a moat, with the fourth shared with the impregnable cliff face of Sterling Memorial Library. In the unlikely event that the zombies break through one of the two small gates, Trumbull students can mass in one of three compact courtyards, each easily defended via a smattering of small archways. Should Trumbull students require a last resort, they can all regroup in one of the four independent towers of the college. This battle plan could successfully hold for a month.

Chances of survival: very high.

So, Mr. President-Elect, this is the scenario Yale faces. We are nowhere near prepared to withstand the full force of an all-out undead assault upon Yale. President Levin has failed to plan for the worst. Will you?

Sincerely, Jake Dawe ’15 Contact JAKE DAWE at jacob.dawe@yale.edu .

“Will Adams is simply DA BEST!!!” // BY WILL ADAMS

When I friended Yale Compliments on Facebook a few weeks ago, I did so under the impression that I would be tagged in a post soon after. The red speech bubble containing the number “1” would appear at the top of the page, and in one click, I could read the kind words a friend (but hopefully my crush) had sent in.

“Will Adams is smart, funny and caring. He’s so multitalented too, like with his music skillz and his red hair skillz and his charming demeanor skillz. But he’s so humble about it and that’s what’s great about him! Any girl would be Krazy with a kapital K not to date this studmuffin.”

As of writing, this has not happened yet. :’( Yale Compliments embodies the excesses of social networking, indulging our desire to have our personae manifested on the Interwebs. I discovered Yale Compliments during Thanksgiving break, when I had nothing better to do than to trawl my news feed. It inspired the most cynical of reactions. There was its debt to the cloying, hyper-positive aesthetic of “Glee” & Co. There was its user-generated messiness: half of the compliments barely qualify as such, unless you consider having “the finest ass of them all” a truly worthwhile pat on the back. There was its meaningless function: if everyone is the BEST person at Yale, then no one is. There was its inherent narcissism: you have to be a friend of Yale Compliments in order to be tagged but not to read or submit compliments, so a friend request suggests little more than a desire to be publicly lauded. Yale Compliments’ mission involves “[spreading] joy to the Yale Community.” Since friending her, I have received nary a trace of joy. Really, whenever the daily deluge of praises of

F R I D AY NOVEMBER 30

people I don’t even know pours into my news feed, I groan.

Perhaps I’m the problem. My unwillingness to view Yale Compliments as anything beyond a conduit for selfserving validation could mean that I’m just an asshole. Recoiling when people who I think suck receive praise and 53 “likes” suggests the same. But my annoyance is only ancillary to the real problem with Yale Compliments: the implication that without it, Yale would be joyless, students would feel unloved, and Cross Campus would look like that part in “Mean Girls” when the Burn Book becomes public. Our comfort with oversharing on the Internet has reached a fever pitch. To show appreciation for someone now requires an anonymous public post that over 1,900 people can see. To show appreciation for someone showing appreciation now requires a click of a thumbs-up icon. Yale Compliments champions this kind of passive activism, a system that allows its participants get by with the bare minimum.

Is this platform even necessary, though? I would love to receive a daily email containing all the nice things my friends bothered to write to me, which I would read over breakfast. I won’t derive any fuzzy feelings from strangers reading about how nice/attractive/ extremely attractive I am. I’d rather speak for myself and prove to you that I am the person that my hypothetical submission said I was (or maybe not — remember, I’m an asshole). In short: Let’s throw Yale Compliments into a well. My day-to-day interactions with Yale students cast them in a far better light than black-on-white text will ever do.

Contact WILLIAM ADAMS VII at william.adams@yale.edu .

YALE CONCERT BAND FEAT. THE YALE GLEE CLUB Woolsey Hall // 7:30 p.m.

There are no novel “Glee” jokes left to be made.

HURSEY

ADAMS

// ANNELISA LEINBACH

Marriage: Evaluating some pagan bullshit // BY MILA HURSEY

I forget sometimes that I’m legally an adult. My folks still pay for things, I wear a backpack and I eat from a dining hall, so it’s really easy to do, but now there’s this thing where I’ll go to a bar, and I have to look for wedding bands, or engagement announcements will pop up on my Facebook news feed. Only adults get married, obviously, and when people around my age tie the knot (and not because the condom broke), I freak out a little bit. I still think about marriage as this thing that is so far away, so I relish in watching “Say Yes to the Dress,” because buying wedding dresses is for those other people over there in their strange nearpagan cult ritual, and I can make fun of their Cinderella dresses (they are ridiculous, let’s be real). Seeing some of my peers get married or think seriously about it has made me really, really think about why people get married and what they expect from it. For so long, I just assumed that I would get married one day. I took it for granted because it’s a thing that adults do. Now that I am one (ish), I realize that maybe making a lifelong commitment to another person is not something I should expect to do at all, and that operating from a place of “I should do this thing because it’s what everyone else does” probably results in people making promises they can’t keep.

This is not to say that marriage isn’t great and I don’t believe in it. I totally do! The idea of having a lifebuddy to love, trust and respect forever sounds great. If ever I’m with the right person, and want to for the right reasons, I’m so down!

I’m also not proposing a restructuring of dynamics within a marriage

— I think that is up to the discretion of the people within the marriage — but I think now it’s more harmful than productive to conflate marriage with maturity. I can understand why our society has developed this way. Until very recently, being a single woman often meant poverty in this country, especially if you had children. In order to ensure survival in a land without women’s rights and birth control, early marriage was the best option. Telling your children that marriage was a necessary developmental milestone was to point the way to the land of economic stability.

Even though women still earn less than men for doing the same job, not being married does not mean destitution, and it certainly doesn’t mean women abstain from sex to avoid raising a child alone. Still, our society continues to act like that need is still there, like your adolescence isn’t complete without marriage, nothing counts until you get married and that the person you marry will be the ideal love of your life. That’s a huge pressure on any developing relationship!

The imperative to not be alone, to be an adult, to settle down and have a family can be overwhelming, to the extent that we can fool ourselves into getting married when it’s not what we actually want to do. Loneliness is a huge concern for everyone, sure, but not being lonely has nothing to do with being married, just like marriage won’t fix problems you had before getting married, like, I dunno, not being in love.

The assumption that one day we will find that one person who will be forever and that they will come before our eggs dry up just doesn’t seem believable or realistic for every-

one. If marriage is something that you feel is inevitable, won’t you plan for it? I have conversations with people all the time where they’re like, “When do YOU think you’ll get married?” What if 28 comes and goes, you thought you’d be married, and you aren’t even dating anyone? That seems like a recipe for anxiety and depression.

Shouldn’t the real question be, “Are you happy in your relationship, if you’re in one?” and, if the answer is yes, “Do you want to sign a contract solidifying and denoting the terms of your economic interdependence?”

If the end result just happens to be marriage, then yeah, wonderful, you get those tax benefits. Sometimes people are happier being alone, and cultivating a relationship with themselves! Awesome, do that too.

Does that mean they should be deemed unproductive or unlovable or missing out on something? Absolutely not.

I’m still gonna go look at Oscar de la Renta wedding dresses, but that’s just ‘cause they’re pretty.

Note: If marriage is now about two consenting adults loving each other and wanting to be together for the rest of their lives, there is no room for marriage inequality, period. Maybe ask yourself if you’d be willing to fight legislative and societal discrimination to get married, because, just like interracial couples before 1967, it’s something queer people have to face daily. So many people take the right to marry the person they love for granted, so if you can, be grateful.

Contact MILA HURSEY at mila.hursey@yale.edu .

WEEKEND RECOMMENDS: Flannel shirts without a T-shirt underneath.

And you thought they were comfortable before. Let loose.

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2012 · yaledailynews.com

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WEEKEND COVER

LOOKING FOR A BETTER PARTY? TRY SCIENCE // BY AARON GERTLER

You can do it naked. You can do it drunk or sober. You can do it with strangers, or your closest friends. On your birthday, or someone else’s. But sooner or later, almost everyone does it. It’s in our nature. When it’s good, it’s really good, and when it’s bad, it’s still pretty good.

I refer to parties, of course. Over the recent break, I heard a friend from Columbia call us the “Party Ivy.” I perked up.

Really?

“Well … not actually. That’s Penn, for a normal party. And if by ‘party,’ you mean ‘crawl out of a frat at three in the morning,’ that’s Dartmouth.”

But who cares about our Ivy peers, as long as we’re happy with our current scene? WEEKEND surveyed over 30 students to hear their thoughts, and satisfaction was mixed. Many told us they thought the scene was diverse and welcoming, but others bemoaned the lack of dance parties or the smell of certain fraternities. Boyd Jackson ’13 delivered another common indictment: “Too many bodies, too little space. You go to a party in a tiny room and there are a hundred people there.

Something is wrong with that.”

The consensus: Yalies are great, and our parties a cut above those of certain schools — ”People here are pretty neat drunks,” noted Hal Libby ’15 — but a significant subset of the student body yearns for something more. Something beyond Toad’s Place and the Greeks and the crowded suites. Something to integrate the “insular” social culture many believe keeps us boxed in afterhours.

So I set out on a mission: to improve our parties, through the application of my wisdom and experience. But a few problems cropped up. I don’t go out much, and I don’t drink. I can count my Toad’s nights on one hand, and my frat parties on zero hands. Thus, I required surrogate wisdom and experience. But from where?

Science, of course! Parties, it turns out, are a fixture of modern academia. The human brain evolved largely to accommodate our skills as a social animal, and every discipline from biology to sociology is incomplete without the study of nightlife.

Even Yale acknowledges this: Madison Moore GRD ’12, a doctoral candidate in the American Studies program, taught “Dance Music and Nightlife Culture in New York City,” a seminar through which students heard lectures from DJs and took a field trip to the Boom Boom Room, one of the city’s hottest clubs. The class, though frowned upon by everyone from Fox News to the New York Post, was wildly popular, and its unique professor was my first step on

the road to party perfection.

Before we meet him, however, a statement of purpose. My research took me places I’d never expected — through rave culture and party history and the science of attraction — and the following lessons mark my attempt to pass on what I’ve learned.

Enter if you’d like: all ages are free, with or without your Yale ID.

— LESSON ONE: THE WORK — “A scholar of any genre, scene or culture will invariably be a participant, either as a musician, dancer or in some other capacity.”

— Graham St. Thomas, editor in chief of Dancecult, a journal of electronic dance music Moore is still hot on the party trail, even as he finishes his dissertation, “Fierce: Performance, Creativity and the Theory of the Fabulous Class.”

One cannot study nightlife, Moore believes, without going all-in for a firsthand experience.

“There are two options for the kind of work I do,” he told me. “You can study it like a scientist dissecting something.” Or, he added, you can be part of the party.

Though he doesn’t disparage the former option, Moore prefers the latter, owning the dance floor and getting potential subjects’ numbers when he can, so he can interview them in some later daylight.

When the party ends, “I rush home and write everything down,” says Moore, but he refuses to enter “dissecting mode” in the heat of the moment. In one sense, though, his mental state is different from that of the average dancer; Moore doesn’t drink or do drugs. This, he says, is a matter of personal preference rather than any standard of academia. And besides, the best parties are “visually and aurally stunning spaces” that function without the “artificial interest” inspired by alcohol.

Moore’s methods, however, aren’t universal

among those who study parties.

Simon Morrison is a current Ph.D. student at Leeds University in the United Kingdom, but he came to academia relatively late in life. His previous gig was a column for a DJ Mag entitled “Around the World in 80 Clubs,” whose contents have been read aloud to the tourism-hungry Albanian parliament, and whose writer has been warmly welcomed everywhere from Singapore to postwar Kosovo. “They were so happy to see me!” Morrison recalled.

The author “took it upon [himself] to get more twisted than anybody else,” lest his temperance leave him “geographically and chemically

ance: giving partygoers dark and bright spaces, loud rooms for dancing and quiet ones for talking, neutral areas for comfort and rooms rewired to grab your attention. The YerkesDodson effect plays a role here. At a certain level of stimulation, your senses cease to process anything further.

Kadeem Yearwood ’15, the Sigma Chi brother responsible for most of my Facebook party invites, likes the concept. “I prefer parties where there are different areas of the party.

Some for dancing and others where it is a little more casual,” he said. The takeaway: Separate! If you’re hosting 30 people in a house, that might

“YOU GO TO A PARTY IN A TINY ROOM AND THERE ARE A HUNDRED PEOPLE THERE. SOMETHING IS WRONG WITH THAT.” removed from the action.” While this might have interfered with his memories, he took on-site notes and was always followed by a professional, un-twisted photographer (“my Sancho Panza.”) The resulting work, collected in his new book “Discombobulated: Dispatches from the Wrong Side,” is light and breezy, the work of a younger, friendlier Hunter S. Thompson. There are, however, two downsides to his wayward style of scholarship. First, he needs to keep the book hidden from his four children until they turn 18. Second, he’s been forced to scale back his activities: Once you’ve hit 40, “you can’t be ‘that guy’ anymore.”

But while you can take the scholar out of the party, you can’t take the party out of the scholar. “I do still dip my toes back in those waters from time to time,” Morrison said. You can leave, but the spaces pull you back in.

— LESSON TWO: THE SPACE — “Nightlife design is set design for plays that haven’t been written yet.”

—New York restaurateur and club owner Serge Becker First, you’ll need variety. Sources emphasized the importance of bal-

mean placing your speakers a couple of rooms away from the beverage table to keep conversation possible.

On a grander scale, if you’re hosting Freshman Screw in Commons, you could put snacks, thematic décor and icebreakers in the Woolsey Rotunda.

Next lesson: If you’re looking to make the night memorable, wow your audience with something unexpected. “The party starts the moment you walk up,” noted Jane’s Ballroom owner Carlos Quirarte in Vice Magazine’s “Discotecture” video series.

Once you’ve given guests a fun first impression — a unique invitation, or maybe a ridiculous welcome playlist — Moore emphasized the importance of continued interest, rather than the energy drain that undermines many parties: “People have to have a reason to want to be in your space for hours and hours and hours.”

If you’re lucky enough to have access to a massive venue, dancers won’t feel crushed and are likely to last longer, but even a small space can feel magnetic if you occupy guests’ attention on multiple levels. Borrow a strobe light and give them visual stimulation or set up something tactile (art! ping-pong! darts!) in a side room.

Better yet, avoid the limits of space altogether, as have the students behind Yale’s floating dance parties — occasional adventures in which participants dance around the city sidewalks to the beat of synchronized MP3 playlists. Susannah Shattuck ’13, one of the current organizers, loves taking floaters to Becton Plaza and other spaces SEE PARTY PAGE B8

// MARIA ZEPEDA

F R I D AY NOVEMBER 30

ART RENT

Maya’s Room, Silliman College// 7:30 p.m.

Time to replace that tired print on your wall with the real deal: original art from a fellow Yalie.

WEEKEND RECOMMENDS: Mixing sweetened and unsweetened tea in the dining hall.

Too bitter? Too sweet? Just right.

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2012 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND ARTS

PULCHRITUDINOUS BUT PAINFUL // BY CAROLYN LIPKA

I’m going to start this review a little unorthodoxly with a couple disclaimers.

Firstly, I am a sucker for a guy in a corset. Seriously, I’ve been to three drag shows this year and loved every second of them. I love them because I have an incredible respect for anyone who is willing to challenge any accepted part of society, especially in such a public venue. I think genderbending is so important, and I love that drag shows do it in such a way that celebrates the femininity or masculinity of whoever is performing in such a joyful way. I love celebrating bodies of any type instead of hoping that someone looked skinnier or fatter or had bigger boobs (or real boobs) or a smaller butt.

Secondly, this Bad Romantics performance I attended was not their actual show, or even a dress rehearsal.

It was a run-through.

Bear these things in mind as you read this review.

For those of you who don’t know, Bad Romantics is Yale’s resident drag troupe. They’re putting on a show this weekend entitled “Circus,” and theatricality is the theme that connects all the acts. There are stilts! There are wigs! There are cat costumes! It really is a circus.

Let’s start with the good things.

This show had tons of heart. The performers gave their all, and it showed. Bikini Skill, the drag persona of Hannah Mogul-Adlin ’13, and her cohort were jumping and cartwheeling around on stage during their number “Can Can.” Regardless of the fact that they had performed minutes earlier, their enthusiasm made it feel like the first act, even though it was firmly in the middle of the program.

Moreover, the costumes were PHENOMENAL. I cannot stress this enough. Kyra Fey came onstage in the act “Fuck Me” (one of the best skits of the show) completely bling-ed out and totally owning it. Her voice was beautiful, and her acting was completely on-point. Throughout the show, the various decorative bras of Bikini Skill were impressive in both their ability to adequately contain her breasts in the midst of a lot of jumping around and their abundance of glittery embellishments.

There was also a huge variety of well-executed acts. My favorite act was the second-to-last “Circus of Love” (performed by the drag king Justin Rider) — a departure from the high-energy feathered acts that preceded it. Rider’s performance as a jaded alcoholic divorcee who sings about love was as funny as it was poignant and slightly depressing. He per-

formed various acoustic covers of love songs like “How to Love” by Lil Wayne and “No Hands” by Waka Flocka to chronicle the process of falling in love and falling out of love. Along with a great voice and a present stage persona, he was really committed to his act — not something I could say rang true of the rest of the show.

I know that this was the first time they put the whole show together, so I feel harsh saying that they are totally unprepared, but it’s the truth. Some of the acts didn’t know their lines, the emcee (who is on stilts, which is pretty grand) didn’t know when to come out and at one point hadn’t even been given lines for an introduction yet. The lighting was *just* getting figured out while I was there, and the pacing was all over the place.

These are all things that I hope will be fixed with serious practice and

severe ironing out of the program before their first show tonight.

Unfortunately, the show had some problems that can’t be fixed in a day.

Some of the acts didn’t really resonate or even make much sense. “Heartbreaker” with Anita Man, Jack(ie) k.o. and Bikini Skill seemed like it had a story, but it wasn’t communicated to me in a way that made sense. I think it might have been about weird robot love. Maybe if I had understood it, I would have liked it better.

Another act, “I’m Tired,” suffered from what seemed like limited choreography. I thought the song choice was great, and Madam Mount Men (played by Cody Hooks ’13) looks great in heels, but the movement was stiff, and the two people that came in as supporting characters just stood there while the Madam was dancing. They didn’t add anything except an ounce

// ZOE GORMAN

The performers of Bad Romantics throw their legs up in the air sometimes.

of awkwardness.

But all in all, I liked this show. I think it has a lot of potential, and if it were better rehearsed or even a little bit more thought out, then it would be a great performance. Perhaps tonight they’ll put on the show that I know it can be.

“Circus” is showing Friday and Saturday night in the Calhoun Cabaret.

Contact CAROLYN LIPKA at carolyn.lipka@yale.edu .

Get happy, or die trying // BY MARGARET NEIL

With just three weeks left in the semester, it’s getting harder to draw a crowd anywhere except a library — but on Tuesday night, LC 101 was overflowing with students. People were sitting on the stairs, standing in the back, crowding in the front.

And many were even turned away.

It’s difficult to determine which part of the event hosted

by Vita Bella! Magazine — the only on-campus publication dedicated to the celebration of happiness and beauty — was more responsible for attracting such a mass: the all-star, student-beloved panel composed of philosophy professor Shelley Kagan, psychology professor Laurie Santos and math Professor Michael Frame, or the topic of why Yale students should not be afraid of life after college.

“We’re basically terrified that we’re not doing something right,” said Vita Bella! Editor in Chief Shira Telushkin ’14 in her introductory remarks. She added (while standing on a chair next to the panelists, prompting Kagan to joke, “don’t jump!”) that she wants to combat the idea that “if you’re happy you’re

F R I D AY NOVEMBER 30

oblivious.”

It was unclear whether the panelists fully agreed with Telushkin. At one point, Kagan even said, “You know what, you are not all going to be fine.” Santos also quipped that about 50 percent of happiness is based on a factor not in our control — genetics and other cognitive habits. We have to work hard to get there.

When I told some people I was going to the event, almost all of them responded by saying their Vita Bella! emails went directly to spam — and it isn’t so hard to understand why. Thinking about our lives as nothing but butterflies and rainbows, love and beauty or only in terms of happiness feels like an insult to intelligence and self-awareness. The antithesis of being honest.

Yet the event’s optimistic nature should not be dismissed.

Anxiety is very present on campus, so perhaps there was a need for a forum like this. Professors, sharing their life experiences, were open and thoughtful in their responses to the audience’s questions. Frame’s words were especially touching: He was diagnosed with an incurable

cancer four years ago, and is now also suffering from symptoms likely related to Alzheimer’s. He was sincere about his adversities, such as being depressed when he struggles to do math problems that were once very simple for him, but also remarkably upbeat, friendly and funny in describing his struggles.

If you didn’t go to the event, and are interested in ways to improve your happiness or want to be reassured about life after Yale, here’s one of the event’s highlights: Kagan spent college thinking he wanted to be a rabbi, but got rejected from rabbinical school.

In the year after graduation, he decided to try out philosophy instead. Moral? Don’t think you have to have it all plotted out now.

Ultimately, some of the things that you think are going to matter really won’t make a huge difference — so if you’re panicking about jobs, who you’re going to marry, if you want to get married, where you want to live, well, according to the panel’s resident statistician Laurie Santos, satisfaction in those areas actually make up a mere 10% of

your feelings of happiness. Santos suggested three things that you can do to be happier: First, be grateful for the things in your life, second, spend money on someone else and third, go for the experiences and not the newest gadget.

Frame continued the encouraging words, and, though it may seem somewhat trite, he emphasized that the ride is more important than the desti-

nation, reflecting on having to let go of three manuscripts he’s been working on because of his health. But along the way, he said, he learned some new math, new physics and made some good friends.

So if you’re worried about your GPA or what you’re going to do with a life, take a breath and let life take its course — or go down one of the more traditional routes and get a pet, as advised

SHAKESPEARE’S “TWELFTH NIGHT”

Philosophy prof Kagan has lecture series on both “Life” and “Death.” So he’s got you covered.

by the professors. And if you’re a big Frame fan, make it a cat.

Contact MARGARET NEIL at margaret.neil@yale.edu .

WEEKEND RECOMMENDS:

Whitney Humanities Center // 8 p.m.

“Twelfth Night.” A play by Shakespeare or the day of celebration directly before the start of reading week.

// MARIA ZEPEDA

The new “Twilight” movie.

Just kidding.

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2012 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND MUSTACHE

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MYSTIQUE

THE CULT OF PETER SALOVEY // BY YANAN WANG AND SOPHIE GOULD On the night of the 2009 Yale Symphony Orchestra Halloween Show, the lights are dim inside a packed Woolsey Hall. Students look up towards a large projection screen which displays a darkhaired boy in an Aladdin costume.

As the boy rubs a bronze lamp, a dancing Provost Peter Salovey, attired in genie garb, rises from the digital blue flames. His appearance is greeted with loud applause and cheering from the crowd, an audience that is accustomed to seeing Salovey in dramatic roles.

Since the University administration announced on Nov. 8 that Salovey will replace University President Richard Levin as the next leader of Yale, support for the Yale Corporation’s choice has emerged from various corners of campus, from undergraduate students to faculty, program directors to deans. He has been described as “compassionate,” “charming,” “humorous” and “personable.”

Junior Class Council President Caroline Smith ’14, who is currently enrolled in Salovey’s much-discussed seminar, “Great Big Ideas,” said the president-inwaiting is “this incredible combination of both thoughtfulness and brilliance that is really rare.”

But just as much as Salovey is recognized for his service to the University and his scholarly work, he is defined by his quirks: his bluegrass band, his acting flair and the mustache he sported for over three decades.

This is not a new phenomenon: jokes about Salovey have been a part of the Yale zeitgeist for years, becoming increasingly common as his visibility grew. He began courting undergraduates with his folksy charm and silver mane after he moved from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences to the Yale College Dean’s Office in 2004.

While he has been more removed from students since he became provost in 2008, the presidential announcement inspired renewed attention on one of Yale’s most caricatured administrators.

Today, the same idiosyncrasies that have made this University’s future president a recognizable figure on campus are also those that have rendered him more persona than person.

“I really don’t know anything about him other than that he used to have a mustache,” Christofer Rodelo ’15 remarked.

Had the Corporation chosen a figure from outside the University, she would have arrived on campus as an unknown quantity, a blank slate onto which students could project new expectations, new jokes, new identifiers. But undergraduates already have an opinion about Peter Salovey. What they don’t know is how that image could change with a new role.

SALOVEY IN THE SPOTLIGHT: A CLOSE SHAVE

Few undergraduates can explain what a provost does, but ask one to paint a picture of who they think Salovey is, and you’ll immediately get an eccentric image: a bespectacled middle-aged man holding a psychology book on emotional intelligence in one hand and a bass bow in the other. His walrus-like mustache glints in the sunlight, giving him an aura of both whimsy and wisdom.

Salovey emerged as a campus figure in the late 1980s, when he started teaching the popular “Introductory Psychology” course as a young professor.

Yale historian Gaddis Smith ’54 GRD ’61 called the class “marvelous.”

“It filled up Battell Chapel — hundreds of people took that course.”

At the same time, Salovey could also be found onstage in a different

capacity: as a musician. A bass player, he founded the group Professors of Bluegrass in 1990, and the band has since traveled to several music festivals, competed in Yale’s annual Battle of the Bands and even played at Toad’s Place.

Once Salovey was appointed dean of Yale College in 2004, he began to play to an audience larger than that in the concert or the lecture hall. Faced with his new constituency, he made a concerted — and successful — effort to be an even more visible presence.

I’M SURE THAT WE WOULD HAVE ALL PITCHED IN FOR YOU TO KEEP YOUR MUSTACHE. DANIEL CARVALHO ’10

“He’s hands-down the most student-friendly administrator I’ve experienced,” then-Yale College Council President Andrew Cedar ’06 told the News shortly after Salovey was appointed dean.

Indeed, much of the praise directed toward Salovey has been rooted in his connection to students. School of Architecture Dean Robert A.M. Stern credited Salovey’s tenure as dean of Yale College for his understanding of “the undergraduate psyche.”

But even as he took on more direct responsibility for Yalies’ lives, Salovey continued to be defined in frivolous terms — such as by his iconic mustache.

Once described on his Wikipedia page as “Groucho Marxesque,” the fearless facial hair began to eclipse the fame of its owner and develop a persona of its own.

A mock diary entry in the April 2004 issue of the Yale Record, a veritable campus humor m a g a zine, read: “Everything has fallen into p l a c e .

With my host body in control, I can finally take over the world!” It was signed, “Dean Salovey’s Mustache.” The human appendage seemed to have no will of its own.

Students panicked during the summer of 2007 when a convincingly Photoshopped picture of Salovey-sans-‘stache emerged online. A News report noted that Salovey received several emails from sorrowful Yalies that summer and several more

missives in the fall congratulating him for supposedly regrowing the mustache, even though it had never actually disappeared.

Their relief was short-lived.

Two years on from the false alarm, students were hit with the real deal. As they arrived back on campus blissfully unaware that Salovey’s upper lip was now bare, Yalies found an offensively cleanshaven provost. In the press and on the stage, members of the Yale community collectively mourned the death of Salovey’s 33-year-old mustache.

Daniel Carvalho ’10, for instance, wrote and performed a song about the ‘stache at a WYBC showcase on Old Campus that fall.

“I know that there’s an economic crisis, and maintaining a mustache is kind of expensive,” Carvalho crooned. “But I’m sure that we would have all pitched in — wouldn’t we? — for you to keep your mustache.”

Even the more serious Yale Alumni Magazine picked up on the joke, calling Salovey’s facial hair a “Yale institution.” The Magazine added that the mustache was “rumored to be in storage at a climate-controlled West Campus warehouse.”

Despite the glaring loss of what was once Salovey’s most recognizable feature, his mystique was alive and well. As a recently filmed News video feature highlighted, many students continue to see

the mustache as Salovey’s identifying feature — even though, having begun their time here after the shave, they have only seen it in dated photographs.

A post on Rump Chat following the announcement that Salovey would be Yale’s next president speculated that the Yale Corporation must have made their decision because of the administrator’s mustache.

(The website’s moderator posted the assertion above a photo of a smirking Stalin. Mustaches, she said, are not always the best indicator of competence.)

In contemplating this year’s list of the “50 Most Beautiful” people on Yale’s campus, Rumpus Editor-in-Chief Alex Goel ’14 said he would love to feature Salovey — but only if he brings back the mustache.

“It makes him,” Goel said.

SALOVEY VS. LEVIN

In 2004, the News published a photograph from Levin’s annual Halloween party. A student in sunglasses with a tie wrapped around his head poses with two Yale administrators. To his right is baseball player Johnny Damon — or, to be honest, a close approximation: Salovey, grinning from ear to ear, in an oversized Red Sox beanie, jersey, wig and fake beard.

To his left is Levin, sporting a blue button-down, khaki pants and a leather belt.

This shot of Salovey juxtaposes the provost with Levin, whom many have criticized as being disconnected from Yale undergraduates.

At this year’s Halloween event, a number of attendees waded through the crowds without noticing the current president or his wife.

“Wait, I don’t even know which one was President Levin,” the News quoted one student saying after she shook hands with Levin and other administrators at the front door.

The majority of respondents to a November survey conducted by the News said that they did not understand the president’s influence on their daily lives, and 58 percent reported that they have never interacted with Levin.

Salovey, in contrast, is something akin to a man of the people.

In the week leading up to the Yale-Harvard football game, Salovey paid a visit to one of the football team’s practices, a gesture that defensive lineman Nick Daffin ’13 said he had never seen Levin extend over the course of the last four years.

Members of the community in a separate Yale bubble concur: “He’s been willing to come to Mory’s at 11:00 at night or climb Harkness at 7:00 in the morning to shoot [video footage] with us,” said YSO violinist Wells Andres ’13.

A president with more personality might be a positive change for the University.

During the short-lived presidential search, students protested the process’s lack of transparency — a function, some argued, of a historically distant President’s Office. Activist group Students Unite Now (SUN) drafted petitions requesting more avenues for student input.

When the Presidential Search Committee and the YCC teamed up to collect student input about what qualities students hoped to see in the next president, a key theme running through their findings was a desire for a president willing to engage with undergraduates to a greater extent.

“We need a president who is in touch with students — a campus celebrity,” said one Yalie quoted anonymously in the YCC’s Presidential Search

Report, a compilation of students’ reactions to the process. “How can a person run an undergraduatefocused institution without hanging out with undergrads every once in awhile?”

Notes from a Pierson College Council meeting published in a YCC report said the ideal next president should be more of a “Dumbledore” figure.

“Levin, though effective, was rather unapproachable and did not engage with the undergraduates,” one respondent wrote in the YCC report. “I am hopeful that future presidents can take a little time to understand the student body they’re working with.”

Well-loved and commonly described as a “people person,” Salovey may be just what students ordered.

But such expectations are contingent upon the next president’s ability to mold his new position to match his qualities. A number of students said they think the position of president is inherently removed from undergraduate life.

Forty-five percent of respondents to the November survey said that they were not interested in the presidential search, citing the distance they felt between the undergraduate population and the President’s Office. “I never expected at any point during my four years here to sit down and get to know President Levin,” Apurv Suman ’16 told the News in early November. “I think it’s really unrealistic that one person be responsible for 5,000 undergraduates in any way that’s actually meaningful.”

So how well Salovey will be able to maintain his trademark personability during his presidency is anyone’s guess.

“Yale College has often felt that the president belongs to them … but in fact, he’s the president of the entire University,” said Penelope Laurans, Jonathan Edwards College master and special assistant to the president, told the News in early November.

Philosophy professor and former Branford College Master Steven Smith pointed out that the presidential job will be different from any position that Salovey has held before and could cause him to reduce his current level of interaction with students.

“I think he will be accessible, but once you’re the president, you have so many responsibilities,” Smith said.

For now, undergraduates remain charmed by the presidentto-be’s real-life charms. A recent post by a “female seeking male” on the Yale GoodCrush website honored Salovey with a poetic proposal: “Spotted at HGS, anonymous president-elect: ‘stache or not, you’re pretty hot. coffee [sic] sometime soon?”

Contact YANAN WANG and SOPHIE GOULD at yanan.wang@yale.edu and sophie.gould@yale.edu .

// KAREN TIAN

F R I D AY NOVEMBER 30

“CAT CLUB”

Yale Cabaret // 8 p.m. and 11 p.m.

We’re not sure what it is, but if it’s in ALL CAPS, it must be exciting.

WEEKEND RECOMMENDS: Participating in studies at the Medical School.

The Medical what? Never mind, they pay you.

PAGE B6

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2012 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE B7

WEEKEND DINES

/'#.**+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

!"#$ R

estaurant Week allows Yale students to stick their noses in the air and play at being Ruth Reichl or Pete Wells. We only wish the following were written exclusively in rhetorical questions (Were you struck by how far from awesome the Awesome Pretzel Chicken Tenders are? Why did the toasted marshmallow taste like fish?). WEEKEND reports.

::::::::::::::::

%&'()***++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ This past Tuesday night, we found ourselves in Ibiza. Unfortunately, not the Ibiza in chic, exciting Spain — but New Haven’s Ibiza, a “very special Spanish restaurant,” according to the restaurant’s fairly dated website.

We arrived a few minutes late for our 8:30 reservation and were shuffled to the bar to await our table.

After a few frustrating inquiries (and longing looks at the food of the patrons next to us), we were seated just before 9:00.

Our first picks of the evening were the grilled shrimp salad with avocado and the butternut squash soup. You’ll note that neither of these dishes seems particularly Spanish.

Looking back, the main issue with our meal was that we did not have any traditional Spanish cuisine, or even hints of Spanish flavor. The third aperitivo offered was a stew with chorizo, called Fabada — none of these dishes scream Spain!, do they?

The contrasting textures of the salad, between the warm shrimp and creamy avocado, were delicious. Mixed with baby greens and a light vinaigrette, it was a tasty way to start the meal. The soup, meanwhile, was less hearty than a normal butternut squash soup, and a strong undertone of lemon contributed to its tasting a bit like spa water. Not the best start to a meal, guys.

// BY EMMA SCHMIDT AND KIRSTEN SCHNACKENBERG

While waiting for our main dishes, we enjoyed the “toasty bread” (a phrase from the ever-eloquent Kirsten), a lightly salted focaccia with high-quality olive oil, and surveyed the other diners. “Who actually eats here during the week?” Kirsten asked. We noted the multitude of businessmen and peered at the rare student in the mix.

Not long after the aperitivo piqued our appetites, our meals arrived: mushroom risotto with oysters and hanger steak. The steak, cooked perfectly medium-rare, was tender and juicy. It came with a potato confit and a chimichurri sauce — “too much sauce for me,” Kirsten exclaimed. But the risotto was underwhelming. Risotto is known to be a dish for which the right amount of time is absolutely essential. Given that Restaurant Week results in such increased volumes of diners, we’re not sure why a chef would choose to make risotto. Risotto involves constant stirring and watching, until the grains of Arborio rice are bursting with liquid and flavor; the rice in the risotto at Ibiza was not quite cooked, but was instead mixed in with a soupy, creamy sauce, presumably to cover its inadequate preparation.

Our meal ended with the chocolate truffle cake, a small rectangle of chocolate mousse with some crunchy chocolate pearls on top (we were confused and intrigued by the weirdness of these pearls). It

was a very ehhhh end to our meal, nothing worth finishing or writing home about. By this point, waiters were hurrying us along as they began to clear off the tables around us. Our Ibiza experience had come to a pretty obvious, pretty underwhelming close.

It’s not to say that we didn’t enjoy our meals — we did. We just weren’t wowed; we didn’t experience any uniquely Spanish cuisine. After the meal, we checked out Ibiza’s normal lunch and dinner menus.

We were not so surprised to find that none of the dishes from the Restaurant Week menu, except for that one undercooked risotto, exist on either.

The idea of Restaurant Week, it seems, is to expose diners to a restaurant at which they might not otherwise consider eating. But if restaurants like Ibiza choose to dumb down their signature cuisine and offer crowd-pleasers that are not particularly expensive to make, we’re left with less of an incentive to go during this particular week — why not go on a normal week and just share a couple of dishes to be cost-conscious? We’re eyeing the grilled octopus salad and the rabbit.

Contact EMMA SCHMIDT and KIRSTEN SCHNACKENBERG at emma.schmidt@yale.edu and kirsten.schnackenberg@yale.edu .

::::::::::::::::

,)-).)**+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ A combination of factors — living over a block away, having at least one Mexican food night a week at the Yale Daily News building, and never quite knowing how to pronounce the name — kept me from ever visiting Oaxaca Kitchen Bar & Restaurant before Tuesday night. But I started hearing some Oaxaca hype from friends, so I made my way to 228 College St with mounting anticipation for what I heard was some excellent guacamole.

When my friend and I entered the darkened restaurant, my eyes were drawn to a large green lizard that was lit up behind the bar. While my Connecticut upbringing doesn’t quite make me an expert on the authenticity of Mexican ambiance, the lizard, paired with the warm lighting and rustic, reddishbrown decor, seemed festive enough without being too tacky.

We were seated at a table for two by the front window. Once I got past the crazy fonts on the menu, all of the items looked exciting, inexpensive and unlike the standard Yale Dining Mexican entrées (I forgot what a tofu-less menu looked like). I was tempted by the Barbacoa taco and the molé rojo on the Restaurant Week prix fixe menu, but ended up choosing a molé tamale to start, chile rellenos at the recommendation of the waiter, and tres leches cake to finish. My friend ordered the necessary guacamole and two chicken tacos, as well as the complimentary rice and beans to round out the feast. We were soon presented with crispy house-made chips and a red and

green salsa, so the meal was off to a promising start.

My fellow reviewer and I agreed that the green salsa had a bit more kick than the red, but both were light, smooth and not too overwhelming.

Soon el molcajete, the large stone bowl of guacamole, arrived at our table, and though we only appreciated the artfully arranged tortilla chips for about four seconds before digging in, they were a welcome addition. The guacamole itself was colorful and fresh, with chunks of avocado and tomato to give it texture and a hint of lemon adding to the expected guacamole flavor. There was also way too much for two people, but for a $10 dish there should be enough for a group.

The pollo con mole y tamales de queso, which was a tamale of corn dough, soft queso fresco, cilantrowhisked white balsamic and maldon salt served with traditional mole sauce was the most visually stunning dish of the night, though it came with the entrées so I suddenly found myself surrounded by dishes. The filling, which we ate out of the surrounding corn leaf, didn’t have a lot of flavor in itself, but the molé (a chocolate and poblano pepper-based sauce) was memorably flavorful and well-spiced without using too much chocolate and tasting like a dessert. The dish as a whole was greater than the sum of its parts.

The chile rellenos was made of poblano peppers and baby spinach with a sweet corn and queso fresco filling, surrounded by salsa ranchera. The salsa stood out as having a nice kick and a complex roasted

To begin with, I am rather risk-averse when it comes to restaurants. I avoid them unless a date, Grand Strategy or the Yale Daily News pays the bill. For someone who survived in New York on a $40-a-week grocery budget, spending $35 on a single three-course meal seems prodigal. Every single cent of that meal must be worth it.

Although the News reimbursed me for my Restaurant Week dinner at Zinc, I stepped into the restaurant with some trepidation. My meal at Zinc did not disappoint. It satisfied but did not amaze me. In short, my experience at Zinc proved to be pleasant but not impressive.

I prefer shrimp to soup, salmon to chicken, and sorbet to ice cream. But I ordered what readers would most likely try from the Restaurant Week menu.

Squash soup, grilled chicken and apple crisp with gelato are all safe options. But they provide a great reference point for evaluating the quality of a restaurant because we have been eating these dishes week in and week out in our dining halls.

It would be unfair to compare dining hall squash

Contact JULIA ZORTHIAN at julia.zorthian@yale.edu .

potatoes in America. Not exactly Proust’s madeleine but sentimental nevertheless. Likewise, the spinach — soft but still brightly green — reminded me why spinach is my favorite vegetable. I ate all the spinach. My mother would be proud.

Finally, I enjoyed a lovely apple and cranberry crisp topped with vanilla gelato. Unlike the red goop you find in the dining hall, this dessert actually has favors beyond corn syrup. The bright sweetness of the gelato melting into the sour fruit mixture creates an ideal mixture.

Was the three-course meal at Zinc worth the full $32 (minus tax) I paid? Not exactly. But it was a satisfying experience I could not have achieved in a Yale dining hall or my own kitchen. If you just got a job offer or wanted to celebrate your first-month dating anniversary, go to Zinc. But if you’re flat broke and single like me, buy some ingredients, go to your college kitchen and make a nice dinner for your friends.

Contact BAOBAO ZHANG at baobao.zhang@yale.edu .

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001*2345#*+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Even if you have been at Yale for a while, it’s unlikely that you would have heard of 116 Crown.

Known only by its street address, 116 Crown is a swanky dinner-only spot tucked relatively far away from Yale’s main campus. However, do not mistake its obscurity within Yale circles to imply a lack of quality, for the restaurant is nothing but interesting furniture pieces and an upscale in-lit bar.

Arriving 10 minutes before official hours (5 p.m.– 2:00 a.m.), I was seated promptly by a smiling server.

Even though the restaurant was empty, I found myself enjoying the calm music and the lack of activity in the space. Since the restaurant transforms into a lively bar at night (for those fortunately over 21), I was happy to get a chance to relax and focus just on the food.

Looking at their Restaurant Week menu, I wasn’t sure whether I was disappointed by the lack of options for each course or excited by the prospect of deciding within the options — all of which seemed promising.

I decided to go for crispy ravioli, a hanger steak and a chocolate mousse. My first course, the ravioli, was rather underwhelming. This may be is in part because I had completely failed to register the word “crispy” in

// BY JULIA ZORTHIAN

tomato flavor. The dish was warm and gooey on the inside from the cheese, with a fried outer coating that didn’t add much except another physical layer to the dish. There were a lot of flavors going on when I managed to fit pepper, spinach, cheese, corn and salsa in one bite, but they worked together well and amounted to a nice departure from the classic taco/ burrito meal that’s so available on Wall Street. The black beans and rice dishes that came with the meal (upon request) completed the entrée spread and led to a good amount of mixing the dishes.

Our waiter forgot the tres leches cake at first so it was all the more rewarding when, topped with a ton of whipped cream and a chocolate tuille, the spongy cake arrived. The cake was light and fluffy without being too sweet, and came sitting on top of a pool of the condensed milk — a nice surprise for a cake that is so often served dripping in the stuff.

While following the Restaurant Week menu led to a huge meal, it would also be possible to stop by for only two tacos for a pretty inexpensive $6 meal that includes chips, salsa, rice, beans and tortillas for no extra charge. The major drawback of the Restaurant Week menu is that the $32 dinner charge is actually more expensive than ordering the three courses on their own. So don’t worry that Restaurant Week is over — the year-round menu is the real reason to go.

soup to Zinc’s first course. The latter soup has a creamier consistency and a more natural color. I happen to enjoy food more towards the mild side. But if you’re adventurous and enjoy winter soups packed with flavor, this is probably a bit bland for you.

The entrée — grilled chicken, creamed spinach and garlic mashed potatoes — is a structurally complex dish. Two pieces of chicken rest upon a bed of mashed potatoes that rest upon a pile of creamed spinach. By slicing away the skin of the chicken in contact with the potatoes, the chef avoided the common mistake of soggy chicken skin. Simply genius.

Unfortunately, the crispy skin on the top piece of chicken proved to be bitter. I tasted hints of peppercorn every third bite. Furthermore, the meat of the bird lacked moisture. I had better grilled chicken at formal hall in Pembroke College, Cambridge, where poor, young Spaniards staff the kitchen. Maybe the eurozone crisis forces people to become better cooks.

On the other hand, the mashed potatoes and spinach tasted superb. Swimming in a creamy sauce, the potatoes reminded me of the first time I tasted mashed

// BY BAOBAO ZHANG

its name. Instead of a delicate blend of meat and pasta, I got three tiny ravioli pieces, each of which was fried to oblivion, effectively destroying the taste of the stuffing. The only real flavor in the dish came from the apple compote that accompanied. Reminiscent of packaged baby food, it added nothing to the dish and left an unappetizing aftertaste. The dish in its entirety left me dissatisfied and yearning for something more refined.

However, despite this unexciting start, the night was to hold many surprises.

The first of these was the hanger steak. Although it was served lukewarm, the dish’s multiple layers of taste came together beautifully. The onions were roasted till they were caramelized, the tomato-based romesco sauce was just about draped on the steak to provide a hint of flavor and the steak itself was cooked right and seasoned well. However, what separated this hanger steak from the others I’ve had was the accompanying polenta. An airy blend of Spanish cabrales, cheese and corn, it was fitting companion to the meat.

The pièce de résistance of the menu, however, had been saved for last — the dark chocolate and hazelnut mousse. A mixture of hazelnut grain, chocolate and

// BY DEVIKA MITTAL

flour provided a base that was both chewy and crunchy.

This was complemented by layers of fine dark chocolate mousse and whipped cream. The concoction was topped with chocolate shavings and hazelnuts, leaving a lingering taste of coffee. If I could sing its praises across New Haven, I would. Really.

Overall, I left happy that I had made the trek.

Although I was sporting a hefty backpack and had committed the ultimate social faux pas by coming unfashionably early, the staff was very nice and did not snottily look down at me. The bar, tantalizingly out of reach, was well-stocked. The lighting and the music were fitting, and most of the food was delicious. So if you’re like me and you love food, ditch the usual Zinc or Barcelona and try this one instead. I promise the chocolate mousse will not let you down.

Note: The mousse and the hanger steak are only part of the special menu for Restaurant Week and are not available during the rest of the year.

116 Crown is only open for dinner, Tuesday to Sunday.

Contact DEVIKA MITTAL at devika.mittal@yale.edu .

::::::::::::::::

%67)#&$8*2)9"*+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ You feel like you’re about to enter a lair. Confronted by a deep red curtain cascading from ceiling to floor, you tuck your iPhone away and cautiously part the heavy cloth. You are in the heart of Istanbul.

Within, candles flicker and wineglasses glint upon intricate mosaic tabletops. Elaborate chandeliers suffuse the room with a dim, dreamy light, while white curtains drawn over the windows block out the harsh concrete edges of Crown Street. Sitting here in Istanbul Cafe, it’s impossible not to relax your shoulders, exhale your anxieties, and forget about where you just were or where you’re soon going.

Artfully arranged on decorated platters, the food is rich, nuanced and authentic to its roots. It is also served in liberal portions. The waiter, when not taking orders or delivering dishes, surveys the tables from behind the bar, which pulses furtively in partial shadow.

The appetizers are satisfying all on their own. The Mücver, a vegetable fritter, is crispy and golden on the outside before melting in your mouth, the zucchini soft and perfectly unctuous. It is part-potato pancake

and part-baked zucchini, but more carefully flavored and crafted than either. Slather some Ispanak Ezme — a smooth, luxuriant spread of spinach and garlic — on chunks of bread, torn from a soft, freshly baked slat cradled in a wicker basket. The cool of the spread on the warmth of the bread wakes up your taste buds and deepens your cravings.

The salads are light and delicate, the Coban a tossup of cucumber, parsley, onion, mint, vinegar and olive oil, and the Green Salad a gathering of red cabbage, lettuce, feta cheese and a few other fine friends.

For your entrée, you might go for the Sultan’s Delight. Sitting here like a sultan, it only makes sense.

Your choice of lamb, chicken or vegetables arrives marinated in tomato and creamy smoked eggplant.

The cubes of lamb are succulent and slightly chewy, hidden within a mélange of roasted peppers. As classic as this Ottoman dish is touted to be, my hands keep returning to the bread which, throughout the meal, somehow maintains its softness and a lingering warmth.

Istanbul Café is an underappreciated asset, a lovely,

// BY TAOTAO HOLMES

hushed alcove in the harsh cold and concrete of New Haven. For vegetarians, the menu, filled with dishes centered around spinach, eggplant and hummus, is a relief from scouring for Caesar salads and veggie burgers at your typical American joint. The waiter is quiet and genteel, his speech slightly accented, and exhibits a genuine concern for the quality of your meal. The prices, too, are reasonable, with $7 appetizers and $16 entrees.

As for a finish, go for the Kazan Dibi. It’s like flan, but edgier, cool and sweet on the tongue. It balances on the tightrope between heavy and light so often sought by desserts but so rarely accomplished. Perhaps to balance the sweetness, order a cup of Turkish coffee or tea, thick and strong and served in porcelain cups.

Stomach smug, anxieties settled, I part the curtain once again and step back into the New Haven night air.

Contact TAOTAO HOLMES at taotao.holmes@yale.edu .

// KAREN TIAN

S AT U R D AY DECEMBER 1

INAUGURAL YSOA REUNION

Yale School of Architecture // All day Schmooze and booze with the next Frank Gehry.

WEEKEND RECOMMENDS: Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health in Las Vegas.

Getting to know the 411 on Gehry’s latest project will give you something to talk about at the reunion!

S AT U R D AY DECEMBER 1

MOZART’S “LA CLEMENZA DE TITO”

WEEKEND RECOMMENDS:

Sprague Memorial Hall // 12:55 p.m.

It’s Mozart, so it’s gotta be worth it.

Not going to Toad’s tonight.

You won’t regret it.

PAGE B6

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2012 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE B7

WEEKEND DINES

/'#.**+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

!"#$ R

estaurant Week allows Yale students to stick their noses in the air and play at being Ruth Reichl or Pete Wells. We only wish the following were written exclusively in rhetorical questions (Were you struck by how far from awesome the Awesome Pretzel Chicken Tenders are? Why did the toasted marshmallow taste like fish?). WEEKEND reports.

::::::::::::::::

%&'()***++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ This past Tuesday night, we found ourselves in Ibiza. Unfortunately, not the Ibiza in chic, exciting Spain — but New Haven’s Ibiza, a “very special Spanish restaurant,” according to the restaurant’s fairly dated website.

We arrived a few minutes late for our 8:30 reservation and were shuffled to the bar to await our table.

After a few frustrating inquiries (and longing looks at the food of the patrons next to us), we were seated just before 9:00.

Our first picks of the evening were the grilled shrimp salad with avocado and the butternut squash soup. You’ll note that neither of these dishes seems particularly Spanish.

Looking back, the main issue with our meal was that we did not have any traditional Spanish cuisine, or even hints of Spanish flavor. The third aperitivo offered was a stew with chorizo, called Fabada — none of these dishes scream Spain!, do they?

The contrasting textures of the salad, between the warm shrimp and creamy avocado, were delicious. Mixed with baby greens and a light vinaigrette, it was a tasty way to start the meal. The soup, meanwhile, was less hearty than a normal butternut squash soup, and a strong undertone of lemon contributed to its tasting a bit like spa water. Not the best start to a meal, guys.

// BY EMMA SCHMIDT AND KIRSTEN SCHNACKENBERG

While waiting for our main dishes, we enjoyed the “toasty bread” (a phrase from the ever-eloquent Kirsten), a lightly salted focaccia with high-quality olive oil, and surveyed the other diners. “Who actually eats here during the week?” Kirsten asked. We noted the multitude of businessmen and peered at the rare student in the mix.

Not long after the aperitivo piqued our appetites, our meals arrived: mushroom risotto with oysters and hanger steak. The steak, cooked perfectly medium-rare, was tender and juicy. It came with a potato confit and a chimichurri sauce — “too much sauce for me,” Kirsten exclaimed. But the risotto was underwhelming. Risotto is known to be a dish for which the right amount of time is absolutely essential. Given that Restaurant Week results in such increased volumes of diners, we’re not sure why a chef would choose to make risotto. Risotto involves constant stirring and watching, until the grains of Arborio rice are bursting with liquid and flavor; the rice in the risotto at Ibiza was not quite cooked, but was instead mixed in with a soupy, creamy sauce, presumably to cover its inadequate preparation.

Our meal ended with the chocolate truffle cake, a small rectangle of chocolate mousse with some crunchy chocolate pearls on top (we were confused and intrigued by the weirdness of these pearls). It

was a very ehhhh end to our meal, nothing worth finishing or writing home about. By this point, waiters were hurrying us along as they began to clear off the tables around us. Our Ibiza experience had come to a pretty obvious, pretty underwhelming close.

It’s not to say that we didn’t enjoy our meals — we did. We just weren’t wowed; we didn’t experience any uniquely Spanish cuisine. After the meal, we checked out Ibiza’s normal lunch and dinner menus.

We were not so surprised to find that none of the dishes from the Restaurant Week menu, except for that one undercooked risotto, exist on either.

The idea of Restaurant Week, it seems, is to expose diners to a restaurant at which they might not otherwise consider eating. But if restaurants like Ibiza choose to dumb down their signature cuisine and offer crowd-pleasers that are not particularly expensive to make, we’re left with less of an incentive to go during this particular week — why not go on a normal week and just share a couple of dishes to be cost-conscious? We’re eyeing the grilled octopus salad and the rabbit.

Contact EMMA SCHMIDT and KIRSTEN SCHNACKENBERG at emma.schmidt@yale.edu and kirsten.schnackenberg@yale.edu .

::::::::::::::::

,)-).)**+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ A combination of factors — living over a block away, having at least one Mexican food night a week at the Yale Daily News building, and never quite knowing how to pronounce the name — kept me from ever visiting Oaxaca Kitchen Bar & Restaurant before Tuesday night. But I started hearing some Oaxaca hype from friends, so I made my way to 228 College St with mounting anticipation for what I heard was some excellent guacamole.

When my friend and I entered the darkened restaurant, my eyes were drawn to a large green lizard that was lit up behind the bar. While my Connecticut upbringing doesn’t quite make me an expert on the authenticity of Mexican ambiance, the lizard, paired with the warm lighting and rustic, reddishbrown decor, seemed festive enough without being too tacky.

We were seated at a table for two by the front window. Once I got past the crazy fonts on the menu, all of the items looked exciting, inexpensive and unlike the standard Yale Dining Mexican entrées (I forgot what a tofu-less menu looked like). I was tempted by the Barbacoa taco and the molé rojo on the Restaurant Week prix fixe menu, but ended up choosing a molé tamale to start, chile rellenos at the recommendation of the waiter, and tres leches cake to finish. My friend ordered the necessary guacamole and two chicken tacos, as well as the complimentary rice and beans to round out the feast. We were soon presented with crispy house-made chips and a red and

green salsa, so the meal was off to a promising start.

My fellow reviewer and I agreed that the green salsa had a bit more kick than the red, but both were light, smooth and not too overwhelming.

Soon el molcajete, the large stone bowl of guacamole, arrived at our table, and though we only appreciated the artfully arranged tortilla chips for about four seconds before digging in, they were a welcome addition. The guacamole itself was colorful and fresh, with chunks of avocado and tomato to give it texture and a hint of lemon adding to the expected guacamole flavor. There was also way too much for two people, but for a $10 dish there should be enough for a group.

The pollo con mole y tamales de queso, which was a tamale of corn dough, soft queso fresco, cilantrowhisked white balsamic and maldon salt served with traditional mole sauce was the most visually stunning dish of the night, though it came with the entrées so I suddenly found myself surrounded by dishes. The filling, which we ate out of the surrounding corn leaf, didn’t have a lot of flavor in itself, but the molé (a chocolate and poblano pepper-based sauce) was memorably flavorful and well-spiced without using too much chocolate and tasting like a dessert. The dish as a whole was greater than the sum of its parts.

The chile rellenos was made of poblano peppers and baby spinach with a sweet corn and queso fresco filling, surrounded by salsa ranchera. The salsa stood out as having a nice kick and a complex roasted

To begin with, I am rather risk-averse when it comes to restaurants. I avoid them unless a date, Grand Strategy or the Yale Daily News pays the bill. For someone who survived in New York on a $40-a-week grocery budget, spending $35 on a single three-course meal seems prodigal. Every single cent of that meal must be worth it.

Although the News reimbursed me for my Restaurant Week dinner at Zinc, I stepped into the restaurant with some trepidation. My meal at Zinc did not disappoint. It satisfied but did not amaze me. In short, my experience at Zinc proved to be pleasant but not impressive.

I prefer shrimp to soup, salmon to chicken, and sorbet to ice cream. But I ordered what readers would most likely try from the Restaurant Week menu.

Squash soup, grilled chicken and apple crisp with gelato are all safe options. But they provide a great reference point for evaluating the quality of a restaurant because we have been eating these dishes week in and week out in our dining halls.

It would be unfair to compare dining hall squash

Contact JULIA ZORTHIAN at julia.zorthian@yale.edu .

potatoes in America. Not exactly Proust’s madeleine but sentimental nevertheless. Likewise, the spinach — soft but still brightly green — reminded me why spinach is my favorite vegetable. I ate all the spinach. My mother would be proud.

Finally, I enjoyed a lovely apple and cranberry crisp topped with vanilla gelato. Unlike the red goop you find in the dining hall, this dessert actually has favors beyond corn syrup. The bright sweetness of the gelato melting into the sour fruit mixture creates an ideal mixture.

Was the three-course meal at Zinc worth the full $32 (minus tax) I paid? Not exactly. But it was a satisfying experience I could not have achieved in a Yale dining hall or my own kitchen. If you just got a job offer or wanted to celebrate your first-month dating anniversary, go to Zinc. But if you’re flat broke and single like me, buy some ingredients, go to your college kitchen and make a nice dinner for your friends.

Contact BAOBAO ZHANG at baobao.zhang@yale.edu .

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001*2345#*+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Even if you have been at Yale for a while, it’s unlikely that you would have heard of 116 Crown.

Known only by its street address, 116 Crown is a swanky dinner-only spot tucked relatively far away from Yale’s main campus. However, do not mistake its obscurity within Yale circles to imply a lack of quality, for the restaurant is nothing but interesting furniture pieces and an upscale in-lit bar.

Arriving 10 minutes before official hours (5 p.m.– 2:00 a.m.), I was seated promptly by a smiling server.

Even though the restaurant was empty, I found myself enjoying the calm music and the lack of activity in the space. Since the restaurant transforms into a lively bar at night (for those fortunately over 21), I was happy to get a chance to relax and focus just on the food.

Looking at their Restaurant Week menu, I wasn’t sure whether I was disappointed by the lack of options for each course or excited by the prospect of deciding within the options — all of which seemed promising.

I decided to go for crispy ravioli, a hanger steak and a chocolate mousse. My first course, the ravioli, was rather underwhelming. This may be is in part because I had completely failed to register the word “crispy” in

// BY JULIA ZORTHIAN

tomato flavor. The dish was warm and gooey on the inside from the cheese, with a fried outer coating that didn’t add much except another physical layer to the dish. There were a lot of flavors going on when I managed to fit pepper, spinach, cheese, corn and salsa in one bite, but they worked together well and amounted to a nice departure from the classic taco/ burrito meal that’s so available on Wall Street. The black beans and rice dishes that came with the meal (upon request) completed the entrée spread and led to a good amount of mixing the dishes.

Our waiter forgot the tres leches cake at first so it was all the more rewarding when, topped with a ton of whipped cream and a chocolate tuille, the spongy cake arrived. The cake was light and fluffy without being too sweet, and came sitting on top of a pool of the condensed milk — a nice surprise for a cake that is so often served dripping in the stuff.

While following the Restaurant Week menu led to a huge meal, it would also be possible to stop by for only two tacos for a pretty inexpensive $6 meal that includes chips, salsa, rice, beans and tortillas for no extra charge. The major drawback of the Restaurant Week menu is that the $32 dinner charge is actually more expensive than ordering the three courses on their own. So don’t worry that Restaurant Week is over — the year-round menu is the real reason to go.

soup to Zinc’s first course. The latter soup has a creamier consistency and a more natural color. I happen to enjoy food more towards the mild side. But if you’re adventurous and enjoy winter soups packed with flavor, this is probably a bit bland for you.

The entrée — grilled chicken, creamed spinach and garlic mashed potatoes — is a structurally complex dish. Two pieces of chicken rest upon a bed of mashed potatoes that rest upon a pile of creamed spinach. By slicing away the skin of the chicken in contact with the potatoes, the chef avoided the common mistake of soggy chicken skin. Simply genius.

Unfortunately, the crispy skin on the top piece of chicken proved to be bitter. I tasted hints of peppercorn every third bite. Furthermore, the meat of the bird lacked moisture. I had better grilled chicken at formal hall in Pembroke College, Cambridge, where poor, young Spaniards staff the kitchen. Maybe the eurozone crisis forces people to become better cooks.

On the other hand, the mashed potatoes and spinach tasted superb. Swimming in a creamy sauce, the potatoes reminded me of the first time I tasted mashed

// BY BAOBAO ZHANG

its name. Instead of a delicate blend of meat and pasta, I got three tiny ravioli pieces, each of which was fried to oblivion, effectively destroying the taste of the stuffing. The only real flavor in the dish came from the apple compote that accompanied. Reminiscent of packaged baby food, it added nothing to the dish and left an unappetizing aftertaste. The dish in its entirety left me dissatisfied and yearning for something more refined.

However, despite this unexciting start, the night was to hold many surprises.

The first of these was the hanger steak. Although it was served lukewarm, the dish’s multiple layers of taste came together beautifully. The onions were roasted till they were caramelized, the tomato-based romesco sauce was just about draped on the steak to provide a hint of flavor and the steak itself was cooked right and seasoned well. However, what separated this hanger steak from the others I’ve had was the accompanying polenta. An airy blend of Spanish cabrales, cheese and corn, it was fitting companion to the meat.

The pièce de résistance of the menu, however, had been saved for last — the dark chocolate and hazelnut mousse. A mixture of hazelnut grain, chocolate and

// BY DEVIKA MITTAL

flour provided a base that was both chewy and crunchy.

This was complemented by layers of fine dark chocolate mousse and whipped cream. The concoction was topped with chocolate shavings and hazelnuts, leaving a lingering taste of coffee. If I could sing its praises across New Haven, I would. Really.

Overall, I left happy that I had made the trek.

Although I was sporting a hefty backpack and had committed the ultimate social faux pas by coming unfashionably early, the staff was very nice and did not snottily look down at me. The bar, tantalizingly out of reach, was well-stocked. The lighting and the music were fitting, and most of the food was delicious. So if you’re like me and you love food, ditch the usual Zinc or Barcelona and try this one instead. I promise the chocolate mousse will not let you down.

Note: The mousse and the hanger steak are only part of the special menu for Restaurant Week and are not available during the rest of the year.

116 Crown is only open for dinner, Tuesday to Sunday.

Contact DEVIKA MITTAL at devika.mittal@yale.edu .

::::::::::::::::

%67)#&$8*2)9"*+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ You feel like you’re about to enter a lair. Confronted by a deep red curtain cascading from ceiling to floor, you tuck your iPhone away and cautiously part the heavy cloth. You are in the heart of Istanbul.

Within, candles flicker and wineglasses glint upon intricate mosaic tabletops. Elaborate chandeliers suffuse the room with a dim, dreamy light, while white curtains drawn over the windows block out the harsh concrete edges of Crown Street. Sitting here in Istanbul Cafe, it’s impossible not to relax your shoulders, exhale your anxieties, and forget about where you just were or where you’re soon going.

Artfully arranged on decorated platters, the food is rich, nuanced and authentic to its roots. It is also served in liberal portions. The waiter, when not taking orders or delivering dishes, surveys the tables from behind the bar, which pulses furtively in partial shadow.

The appetizers are satisfying all on their own. The Mücver, a vegetable fritter, is crispy and golden on the outside before melting in your mouth, the zucchini soft and perfectly unctuous. It is part-potato pancake

and part-baked zucchini, but more carefully flavored and crafted than either. Slather some Ispanak Ezme — a smooth, luxuriant spread of spinach and garlic — on chunks of bread, torn from a soft, freshly baked slat cradled in a wicker basket. The cool of the spread on the warmth of the bread wakes up your taste buds and deepens your cravings.

The salads are light and delicate, the Coban a tossup of cucumber, parsley, onion, mint, vinegar and olive oil, and the Green Salad a gathering of red cabbage, lettuce, feta cheese and a few other fine friends.

For your entrée, you might go for the Sultan’s Delight. Sitting here like a sultan, it only makes sense.

Your choice of lamb, chicken or vegetables arrives marinated in tomato and creamy smoked eggplant.

The cubes of lamb are succulent and slightly chewy, hidden within a mélange of roasted peppers. As classic as this Ottoman dish is touted to be, my hands keep returning to the bread which, throughout the meal, somehow maintains its softness and a lingering warmth.

Istanbul Café is an underappreciated asset, a lovely,

// BY TAOTAO HOLMES

hushed alcove in the harsh cold and concrete of New Haven. For vegetarians, the menu, filled with dishes centered around spinach, eggplant and hummus, is a relief from scouring for Caesar salads and veggie burgers at your typical American joint. The waiter is quiet and genteel, his speech slightly accented, and exhibits a genuine concern for the quality of your meal. The prices, too, are reasonable, with $7 appetizers and $16 entrees.

As for a finish, go for the Kazan Dibi. It’s like flan, but edgier, cool and sweet on the tongue. It balances on the tightrope between heavy and light so often sought by desserts but so rarely accomplished. Perhaps to balance the sweetness, order a cup of Turkish coffee or tea, thick and strong and served in porcelain cups.

Stomach smug, anxieties settled, I part the curtain once again and step back into the New Haven night air.

Contact TAOTAO HOLMES at taotao.holmes@yale.edu .

// KAREN TIAN

S AT U R D AY DECEMBER 1

INAUGURAL YSOA REUNION

Yale School of Architecture // All day Schmooze and booze with the next Frank Gehry.

WEEKEND RECOMMENDS: Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health in Las Vegas.

Getting to know the 411 on Gehry’s latest project will give you something to talk about at the reunion!

S AT U R D AY DECEMBER 1

MOZART’S “LA CLEMENZA DE TITO”

WEEKEND RECOMMENDS:

Sprague Memorial Hall // 12:55 p.m.

It’s Mozart, so it’s gotta be worth it.

Not going to Toad’s tonight.

You won’t regret it.

PAGE B8

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2012 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND COVER

PARTY STUDIES IN THE HOUSE TONIGHT! PARTY FROM PAGE B3 we associate with school: “You’re dancing on the chairs where you’d normally be sitting and taking notes!” Outdoor festivities also allow for freer dancing; curious passersby often join in on the fun for a few moments. If you like your parties public and are willing to alert Yale Security in advance (or else be surveilled all night), making them float is a low-budget, highenergy solution.

With a little more time and effort, however, many forms of space can be successful. One of Morrison’s all-time favorites is the Warumg Beach House: a club on stilts, playing Latin-flavored techno on the edge of the Brazilian rainforest. If you don’t have access to a rainforest, Moore offers

do in a laboratory is different from what you’ll do in a club,” he said.

Lovatt knows of an eye-tracking study carried out largely in strip clubs. The result: Men look at a woman’s entire body unless she’s menstruating, at which point they zoom in on her hips. Dance and pheromones share an intimate connection.

One of Lovatt’s best-known studies involves “dance confidence” — how willing we are to dance, and how highly we rate our moves, at every stage of life.

At most ages, women dominate men in both categories, with the notable exception of self-conscious teenage girls. In our early 20s, however, both genders experience a surge of confidence. In men, this rise flattens out in middle age but spikes again around

“A GOOD PARTY ISN’T ALWAYS ABOUT A SET SPACE — IT’S ABOUT THE THINGS AND PEOPLE YOU POUR INTO THE SPACE.” hope for your suite, explaining that any location can become thrilling if sufficiently transformed.

Put mirrors up on the walls, disguise the room as another place or defy expectations in some nonspatial dimension: “A good party isn’t always about a set space — it’s about the things and people you pour into the space.”

—LESSON THREE: THE DANCE FLOOR— “On the dance floor Gonna lose it in the music On the dance floor Got my body gonna use it” —Kylie Minogue, “Dancefloor” While deep experience gives certain academics cultural authority in the party realm, others target minor elements of nightlife — on occasion, accidentally.

Dr. Peter Lovatt, a lecturer at the University of Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom, was a fulltime dancer and actor until the age of 26, when he re-entered school to study dance therapy, winding up in the rarer field of dance psychology. Though much of his work deals with improvisation and rhythmic movement as tools to sharpen cognition, he’s also done research in the field of self-expression through dance, which could include most of a partygoer’s typical night.

Some of his work happens in an academic setting, but Lovatt is keen on field experimentation. “[Other scientists] fail to realize that the kind of dancing you’ll

65; meanwhile, women gain confidence until 35, but lose it after menopause, demonstrating fertility’s role in how they handle the dance floor. Either way, the message is clear: College students have no excuse to be timid.

But it’s hard to get those hips going when you barely have room to move — or when the room you’re looking for doesn’t exist. Carolina Trombetta ’15 complained that Yale “definitely doesn’t have a big dancing scene. They need better spaces if they’re going to try to have dances.” While she vowed never to set foot in Toad’s “just to dance,” most students called it their primary dance destination, and therein lies the rub. Nobody mentioned Alchemy, Empire, Karma — the clubs are there, but they aren’t attracting Yalies.

When even the pros can’t lure us into their spacious lairs, how can we put Lovatt’s advice to good use?

Even if we aren’t leaving the Yale bubble to party, we can still add club psychology to our own events. For Frank Patrick, owner of New Haven nightclub BAR, keeping dancers happy is Rule No. 1. In practice, this can mean leaving his own taste at the door and catering to the audience (his in-house DJs play mostly mainstream pop). This doesn’t mean the audience has to be the same every night; BAR hosts bands ranging from freakfolk to indie-pop. You’ll find Patrick prowling the crowd on a typical night, keeping an eye on the collective energy level.

So feel free to switch up the playlists at your next party — just

advertise the tunes in advance, and listen to your guests. David Rudnick ’09, a London club enthusiast who founded the popular but short-lived party series “Modern Love” in his junior year, gave me similar advice.

“Larry Levan, who made the Paradise Garage the greatest club of its time, was a terrible DJ!” he said. Though Levan was never much of a mixer, he knew how to please a crowd, throwing genres around with wild abandon as long as the next song kept the groove going.

Rudnick feels that one strength of “Modern Love,” which gave any attendee the chance to DJ, was that the parties created a new space for an audience hungry for variety and bored with Yale’s existing options.

“There might be 3,000 people at Spring Fling, of whom 2,000 are really enjoying themselves, and that’s great — but you need to have something for the other thousand.”

To Rudnick, this meant venues as large as he could find, open for dancing until sunrise, which overflowed with Yalies of every stripe looking for an unusual night out.

For their host, these parties’ most rewarding moments came in their final hours, when Rudnick would reward himself for hypnotizing the final few guests by plugging in his iPod and playing whatever the hell he wanted — Mariah Carey, in particular. And the crowd, hooked on their own good vibes, ate it up.

— LESSON FOUR: THE PEOPLE IN THE SPACE, AND ON THE FLOOR — “You want to encourage outrageous people to be there — that makes it more interesting for everyone else.”

—David Byrne, lead singer of Talking Heads If a party space is the set for an unwritten play, you’ll need actors; everyone I spoke to was adamant as to the importance of inviting the right people. This does not, however, have to mean exclusivity.

Moore calls openness the key to some of his favorite parties ever: “I like when unexpected things can happen because people are from completely different backgrounds.” The beauty of nightlife is that it opens us up to new experiences. If you’ve grown up in suburban New Jersey, without ever setting foot in a club, and stumble upon Toad’s your first weekend at Yale — “for you,” Moore argues, “that can be the world.”

Rudnick also advocates for diversity in social spaces, and in this sense, Yale let him down.

“Everything else at Yale had been so high-level,” he explained, but compared to our intellectual fearlessness in the light of day, our parties were watered-down affairs, as the same groups of people crammed into the same houses

Other Lessons for the Dancefloor, from Dr. Lovatt 1. If you like the way someone’s dancing, it bodes well for their fertility: those who rate dancers close to their own age can subconsciously detect high testosterone levels or their stage in the menstrual cycle. In other words, when dancing leads to a hookup, be very, very extra-sure to use a condom.

2. Nobody knows what the “original human dance” looked like, but Lovatt thinks we have a few clues: tribes unaffected by civilization, babies, and the “dancing plagues” of 16th-century Strasbourg (in which 400 men and women danced for days on end in a

S AT U R D AY DECEMBER 1

case of uninhibited mass hysteria; 34 died).

3. “There’s not one right way of dancing, but there is a wrong way.”

Change styles every few minutes, and make bold movements; dancers who seem nervous are seen as less attractive.

4. If you’ve got your eye on another dancer, mimic their moves; even if you’re across the room, they’re more likely to notice you than otherwise, and similarity breeds attraction. If you fall in love mostly with professional ballerinas, however, you should probably learn some jokes. Just in case.

YALEDANCERS FALL SHOW ECA DanceSpace // 8 p.m.

We agree, the lack of spaces is pretentious, but they’re actually VeryGood.

week after week to dance to pre-set playlists and relive high school.

Though Rudnick called most Yalies “supernaturally nice” — nice people being the first ingredient of any successful party — he felt as though the weekend routine alienated students who hadn’t partied much before college, even as they flourished in the classroom.

It isn’t like parties are restrictive. Renita Heng ’16 expressed a common sentiment in referring to nightlife as “available, if you’re looking for it.” But what about those whose perception of the current scene as boozy and crowded stops them from looking at all? Rudnick’s favored solution involves establishing a spacious, clean and accessible party space in one of the new colleges, hosting diverse and semiregular events with moderate University oversight. But there’s a problem. “What donor’s going to put his name on a student nightclub?” he asked.

For now, that’s a question I can’t answer. There seems to be a middle ground, however: Find what keeps people away from Yale parties and remove those obstacles. Many students tired of pop expressed a desire for “good music”: that’s too subjective to be a solution, but what harm is there in peppering your playlist with some acid house or folk rock? Dor Mizrahi ’16, of Tel Aviv, noted that the scene feels “repetitive and boring at times” to those with urban experience. If you’re feeling uninspired on a Friday afternoon, make next week’s bash a mini-Screw or something out of left field (Rudnick’s most recent outing was a “darkroom” party — as few light sources as possible). A few tweaks can expand your potential audience, which, according to Moore’s theory, ought to make things more interesting.

A larger guest list isn’t always optimal, however. When you’re working with limited funds and a room smaller than, say, an aircraft hangar, you’d be advised to keep the party small-scale. Robin Dunbar, professor of evolutionary psychology at the University of Oxford, is known for his proposal of “Dunbar’s Number” — a figure between 100 and 220, normally approximated at 150, that seems to be the optimal size for most peoples’ network of active acquaintances (as found in Neolithic villages and Amish towns).

For networking events, Dunbar advised 150 invites, but his discussion of longer parties (like a weeklong cruise) was more complex: “What would happen, I guess, if you put a bunch of people on a cruise is that they would sort out into sets of four to six, who would split up into 15s, which would link into 50s, etc. — each

link being weaker.”

Unless you’re looking for an allout anonymous dancefest, 150 is a solid upper bound to what works for mingling, though this might change if you provide rooms where smaller sets can split off and socialize.

Attendance is unpredictable, of course, and when hosting a smallish event, it’s best to be conservative in limiting the scope of the news you spread. If you’re confident you can control who enters your party suite, however, look out — Eamon Ronan ’15 learned otherwise his freshman year, when he lived with nine other students. At first, they figured they’d get fewer guests than they formally invited.

Then, as the year progressed, their estimated guest-to-invite ratio rose to ridiculous heights.

Bottles were quickly drained and attempts to collect booze money failed miserably — nobody likes a bouncer, especially on Old Campus. Instead, they settled on the cheapest-available alcohol. As you might have realized by now, this bare-minimum strategy is a common practice, and one of those which dismayed Rudnick when he recalled Yale’s social scene. Ronan noted that the suite’s Christmas party was the year’s best: “Everybody dressed a little nicer, we played Christmas music … it was something different.”

Again: “something different.” When we plan parties, we might just be looking to relax for a few hours — but on occasion, we should seek to rise above beer pong and Calvin Harris. “A nice scene isn’t that hard,” said Nick Taki ’16. “Just requires a little bit more time, a little bit more effort, better taste in music and more money.”

Or, perhaps, more creativity. Unusual happenings are what we remember when the night is over, and a few minutes of brainstorming can add hours of entertainment to the life of anyone who steps through your door. Moore and Morrison weren’t born experts on fun. The former stumbled into his area of study, and the latter told me: “Basically, I went out so often I got a job.” There’s a party scholar inside every one of us, screaming to be let out, but it will take more than liquor to set him or her free.

Instead, we must screw our courage to the sticking place and call for something crazy. Costumes! Board games! Dancing in the streets!

(On the sidewalks, that is.) We are 5,000 young people and change, and in my now-less-inexpert opinion, it’s time we seized the night and wrote new scripts for plays yet unacted and parties unenacted.

Yuval Ben-David and Issac StanleyBecker contributed reporting.

Contact AARON GERTLER at aaron.gertler@yale.edu .

The Best Party Songs Simon Morrison: “Blue Monday” by New Order, the Oakenfold remix of the Happy Mondays’ “Wrote for Luck,” and “Where Love Lives” by Alison Limerick. On the last, which includes a stunning piano loop: “I wanted to walk down the aisle to it, but my wife vetoed that…”

Madison Moore: “Very tough question, but if I were in a club right now, and I heard ‘House of Jealous Lovers’ by The Rapture come on, I would go crazy. ‘Thriller’ is also up there.”

Peter Lovatt: “Supernatural” by Stevie Wonder, “Goodies” by Ciara, and Usher’s “Yeah!” top the list. “Sensorimotor Coupling in Music and the Psychology of the Groove” by Janata, Tomic and Haberman, a band that rated songs based on the subconscious movement they inspire in listeners.

WEEKEND RECOMMENDS: Listening to WYBCx.

It’s not just for hipsters. At least, not quite.

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2012 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND GETS

PAGE B9

DOWN

YALEDANCERS’ FALL SHOW DOESN’T MESS AROUND // BY EMMA GOLDBERG

What’s one of the perks of being an uncoordinated wallflower? You can really appreciate college students with the sass and confidence to rock a dance floor.

But the Yaledancers’ Fall Show is bound to impress not only the wallflowers, but just about everyone who can attend, with numbers ranging from effortlessly elegant ballet to pelvic-thrustheavy R&B. It’s a colorful, energetic performance where Bon Iver meets Macklemore with equal parts talent, grace and the familiar sexy moves that dominate the Toad’s dance floor.

“Where do they get all that energy?” a fellow audience member exclaims as the dancers disappear into the wings for a brief intermission mid-dress rehearsal. I swear you can hear their collective panting as they step offstage. The performers’ palpable excitement is sus-

tained throughout the show as they explode onto the stage with leaps, twirls and the occasional backflip. The show features a jazzy duet set to the song “Shattered Cross,” which opens with the lyric, “You don’t mess around with a man in black.” Make that a team in black — from the moment the lights dim and black-leotard-clad ladies take the stage for “Tous ceux qui s’aiment” to the closing company-wide number, the performers never fail to captivate.

The two-act show features 25 pieces. They are drawn from a wide range of music and dance genres and are all choreographed by various members of the Yaledancers. Eight solo movements and several duets showcase the extensive talent and training of the YD team. From Catherine Camp’s ’14 passion-filled thrusts and flips, to Scott Simp-

son’s ’13 sassy shimmies and attitude-driven strut, the performers have clearly spent much time and energy honing their craft. By the time Natalia Khosla ’14 and Alana Thyng ’16 take the stage for a fun-filled hip-hop performance (flashing some moves you can surely steal for the Af-Am House’s twerkfest this Saturday), your smile will be getting pretty huge. Maybe even as big as the one Christian Probst ’16 flashes while tap dancing across the stage to Artie Shaw’s “Begin the Beguine,” hands tucked into his pockets and head tilted jauntily.

Emphasis on the maybe — Christian’s is a pretty impressive grin.

The choreography is a particularly strong show of student talent. Especially memorable is Michael Rosen’s ’14 number that opens the second half of the performance, a piece set to the Fleet Foxes’ “Battery Kinzie” that

weaves together the bold and the gentle. The performers go from understated swaying to melodramatic forward leaps. Elena Light ’13 creates an avant-garde artistic meditation on Dylan Thomas’ “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night.” Solemn artsy work not your thing? Within minutes you’ll be re-engaged with Laura Bass’ ’15 “Be the Last to Kiss My Lips,” a blast of color and adrenaline as six girls kick their way across the stage with Beyoncestyle hand motions. The transition from Bass’ pop to Light’s poetry is what makes the Yaledancers show so entertaining — it offers something for everyone, regardless of your taste in dance. It balances a wide variety of genres seamlessly.

If my fellow audience member was asking, “Where do they get all that energy?” my question was, “And can we please raid the

Yaledancers’ closets?” From top hats to purple-feathered masks, the costumes complement the various music choices perfectly.

Same goes for the lighting.

Whether it was an eerie red glow or a single circle of white light, it added flair without going over the top. The Fall Show is located at the Educational Center for the Arts Theater at 55 Audubon St. It’s a schlep, but let’s face it — it’s the end of the semester and your Toad’s dance moves are probably getting old. Spend an evening with Yale’s premier dance group, and you just might soak up some of their sass and energy.

And it’s hard not to enjoy yourself when you’re watching a group of

// SARA MILLER

Dancers from YD hold the audience’s gaze — and each other’s.

performers who are clearly having so much fun with their art.

Up until the last moment of the show when the company pours out onto the stage for final bows, cheering, “I see you YD!” their smiles hold constant, and yours will too.

Contact EMMA GOLDBERG at emma.goldberg@yale.edu .

Dances to Fit Everyone’s Groove // BY MAYA AVERBUCH

Train is not usually played back-toback with Missy Elliot and Rihanna, but at the Groove Dance Company’s shows, anything is fair game. In keeping with the group’s previous productions, the 10th anniversary event is a diverse showcase, with everything from raunchy hip-hop to graceful ballet worked into 11 different pieces and five interludes. Though the quick switches between styles sometimes feel too abrupt, the dancers execute most of the student-choreographed works with skill, regardless of whether they call for delicate pirouettes or moves with a little more pizzazz.

In the jauntier, more rhythmic numbers, such as “All You Do Is Talk” and “Hot Like Wow,” the dancers show no lack of strut. They incorporate the classic body rolls and booty shakes, with a little bit of sensual finger-licking thrown in. The sweatpant-clad dancers in the post-opening interlude also deserve some praise

// ZOE GORMAN

Yale’s grooviest performers in action.

S AT U R D AY DECEMBER 1

YALE FILM SOCIETY PRESENTS: “OFFICE SPACE”

Whitney Humanities Center // 11 p.m.

For most of us? A light-hearted comedy.

For seniors? A terrifying reminder of what lies ahead, if they’re lucky.

for their rough-and-tough snappy motions, which fit excellently with the heavy beat of the song “Lose Control.”

One of the more captivating modern dance pieces is titled “The Nicest Thing.” In this number, dancers in various colorful dresses perform in particularly strong unison, somersaulting and extending their legs skyward with nearly perfect timing. At one point, they move their arms in circles while hopping forward, as if about to fall over — an intriguing choice that stands out from the slightly repetitive twirls and gentle arm waves seen in many of the other pieces.

The most somber of the performances, “Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance,” is noteworthy for its treatment of dancers as emotional characters, rather than just nimble figures. They bring flowers onto the stage, as if in mourning, and proceeded in a slow, deliberate manner. Single dancers break away from the rest of the group and momentarily double over, as if in pain, or prostrate themselves while reaching out in anguish. However, the choreography sometimes slips into cliché; though initially mesmerizing, the prolonged

dramatic walk of one dancer toward the audience at the end begins to feel like a clip from a tearjerking movie.

Still, this is the only sour note struck in a gripping performance.

The most memorable parts of the show are not whole dances, but small moments that show a touch of artistic brilliance. The dancers’ bouncing on the balls of their feet in time with the accordion notes of the song “The Winner Is” in a work of the same title is a simple, yet apt and adorable gesture. The opening and closing of “Hot Like Wow,” in which the performers lay nearly intertwined in the center of the stage is compelling, since it transforms the individuals into parts of a larger organism. Similarly, in the show’s closing piece, “Groove Bday,” handfuls of dancers sitting with the entire company appear to flare up one after another, creating a riveting effect when combined with the well-timed background-light color changes.

According to Julia Rohrer, Groove Dance’s artistic director, the show has no overarching concept, so it “ends up being very eclectic,” she said. While the variety promises something exciting for all audience members, the company might benefit from trying

to craft more of a continuous narrative, so that the pieces relate better to one another; the fact that “The Nicest Thing” is separated from “Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance” by only a brief solo interlude is indicative of the emotional shuffling that occurs throughout the showcase. While President Lauren Mellor-Crummey ’14 noted that costume changes and the appearance of dancers in multiple pieces necessitate the given dance order, it would be interesting to see what the talented performers in Groove Dance could accomplish with more coordination between choreographers. This kind of choice might turn the next performance into a more cohesive presentation rather than a showcase.

Even so, if you’re looking for a little something-something on Friday evening, you can be sure to find it at the Off-Broadway Performance Space, where some fly dancers will be getting their groove on — no matter what type of groove that may be.

Contact MAYA AVERBUCH at maya.averbuch@yale.edu .

WEEKEND RECOMMENDS: Eating the Thanksgiving leftovers that are still in your fridge.

Nothing lasts forever. Yams especially do not.

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2012 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND COLUMNS

CHRISTMAS SPECIALS: THE GOOD AND THE BAD // BY SOPHIA NGUYEN AND GRAYSON CLARY

SN: Since this will be our last installment before winter break, we thought we’d take the time to talk about a special subspecies of television: the holiday episode. This stretch of calendar from Thanksgiving to New Year’s is rich with possibilities: an excuse for characters to gather and guest stars to return; the chance to establish in-jokes; moments of unusual tenderness or total mayhem.

Personally, I like the opportunity for something overstated and haywire. One of the best Christmas episodes of all time is “Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas,” which is entirely done in claymation. The episode is incredibly clever and not a little bit manic, like a lot of “Community” — but it’s also got a bit of a melancholy twinge to it, too.

And when I want comfort food, I can’t go wrong with “The West Wing.” Sorkin is the king of schmaltz.

He spikes it with a little bit of banter, and serves it to you warm. President Bartlet handing down his heirloom knife to Charlie? Toby giving a homeless veteran a funeral? This is stuff to curl up to during an otherwise cold, cruel winter.

But there’s plenty of room for failure, too. For me, “A Very Glee Christmas,” from the show’s second season, was the point of no return. That was when Ryan Murphy’s formula of sentimentality and nastiness veered way too far into after-school special territory; it was so painfully precious I knew I couldn’t watch “Glee” again.

GC: It’s a shame you stopped with “A Very Glee Christmas”; you missed out on “Extraordinary Merry Christmas” in season 3, which is the original example for me of how Christmas specials go wrong. It requires almost no context to understand why that episode so dramatically doesn’t work. First, it’s never a good idea to sing “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” in a homeless shelter. Something’s deeply, profoundly, sourly in bad

SOPHIA NGUYEN AND GRAYSON CLARY SPLIT-SCREEN taste there. But more importantly, don’t make the meaning of Christmas the meaning of your Christmas special. It’s safe to say that’s been done before, and it’s enormously frustrating to see familiar faces contorted into out-of-character expressions of holiday spirit. “Glee” adds insult to injury by heaping mountains of spastically winking irony on the whole mess, which, c’mon … not on Christmas.

I like ‘em understated. To my mind, the good Christmas specials feel more like, well, Christmas — sincerely, down-to-earthly so. Everybody’s a little nicer than they might otherwise be, there’s a little more goodwill to go around, but no tidal wave of transformative rectitude sweeps through to smash your suspension of disbelief.

For one of the good ones, I’d point to “How I Met Your Mother”’s episode “False Positive.” There’s no effort made to cram the cast into outlandish Nativity scenes. Instead, we get the simple and charming set piece of Ted trying to get the gang to a screening of “It’s a Wonderful Life,” complete with Christmas-themed movie snacks. Around that center are looped a series of vignettes about the friends taking some meaningful baby steps towards personal growth as the year draws to a close.

And that’s it. Nothing more and nothing less than a group of people making slightly better choices than they might typically, treating each other and their fellow man right. Too often, catching the Christmas spirit on TV is a kind of demonic possession — “Our name is holiday special, for we are trite and uniform.” “False Positive” is sweet, modest and appealingly true to characters we spend time getting to know and love. With a

gingerbread house. That’s my kind of Christmas episode.

SN: Actually, “demonic possession” perfectly describes another least-favorite holiday episode of mine. “Grey’s Anatomy,” with its ensemble of surgical-fellows-without-lives, could usually be counted on for something bittersweet, in which the Seattle Grace staff would gather for an “orphans’ Thanksgiving” — a lovely example of being with the family you choose, rather than the family you’re born into. But “Holidaze” crammed Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s all into one overstuffed episode. Some patients get married; someone’s long-lost daughter turns up, passes a paternity test and finds out that she herself is pregnant; some kid gets a life-saving surgery. Typical “Grey’s” episode, just on speed. The holidays marked the passage of time, and the turkey and mistletoe served as set dressing — which is a deeply depressing life lesson if you squint at it the right way.

GC: The balance of examples here is telling, I think (hope people don’t start thinking we only use this space to gripe). Charlie Brown and Co. notwithstanding, the holidays can produce some real dreck.

The all-too-common, cookie-cutter, just-reheat-and-serve approach to Christmas specials is a TV dinner recipe for tasteless mush.

But that’s ok, because your yuletide time is better spent elsewhere.

“Santa Claus Is Coming to Town,” “White Christmas,” “It’s a Wonderful Life”: curl up next to the fireplace with those and family.

So happy holidays: Catch up on “2 Broke Girls” when you’ve taken down the tree.

Contact SOPHIA NGUYEN and GRAYSON CLARY at sophia.nguyen@yale.edu and grayson. clary@yale.edu .

The Benefits of Yale College Theater, From a Tomato’s Perspective // BY ZOE GREENBERG

I wanted to be in a play, which partly explains how I ended up surrounded by scattered bits of Chex Mix and sticky tomato seeds on the floor of the JE Theater, wearing only a large red turtleneck, pretending to be dead.

One of my favorite parts about Yale is that any student, regardless of experience or externally determined talent, can put on a show. Every residential college offers Creative and Performing Arts (CPA) Awards to fund the presentation of your folkrap opera, or your reimagined “Macbeth,” or the four-hour play you wrote and can’t bear to edit. And some of the best theater I’ve ever seen was presented by students, in the halls of Calhoun and Trumbull, with the help of the CPA Awards. The whole point of funding college theater is to give students the chance to take risks and experiment on stage. I’m a big fan of that mission, particularly after being in a play that took experimentation to a whole new level.

“Osama Play” was meant to be an anti-capitalist, anti-hegemonic, queer, class-conscious musing on consumption, toothpaste, texting and other things. According to the director, everyone in the audience should become aware of their place in society while watching the show.

I was cast in “Osama Play” as “Tomato et al.” At our first readthrough, I learned that the Tomato should be the “consumer object, personified.” I’m totally down with personifying consumer objects. As I read

S U N D AY DECEMBER 2

ZOE GREENBERG SOME THINGS CONSIDERED aloud my two long monologues, I tried to think about how I might feel if someone was trying to buy me off a purple cardboard container at Stop and Shop. At one point Tomato says, “And it is understandable to me that on this walk, I am a walk.” And later: “I love to mystify in front of a burrito and ponder terrorism critically.”

I asked the playwright what Tomato’s story was. Did I have a family? Did I have a background or a future? No one could tell me who I was.

Still, there was a lot of action in the play. Most notably, every character made out with at least one other character. I was supposed to lock lips with a character named “Twinkie.” It was unclear whether Tomato loved Twinkie or if our characters were just drawn to each other because we were both consumer objects personified.

We practiced and practiced. We talked about whether this was a play or a poem or a flame of brilliant light.

The playwright told me I should say all my lines without taking a breath between the words. The artistic director asked if she could film me squirting ketchup into my mouth so she could play the tape behind my monologues and I said no.

And then, it was time for the show.

The house was packed for each of our performances. Two of my friends

EXHIBITION TOUR: “THE ENGLISH PRIZE: THE CAPTURE OF THE ‘WESTMORLAND,’ AN EPISODE OF THE GRAND TOUR” Yale Center for British Art // 1 p.m.

We hope they conduct the whole tour in a British accent.

couldn’t get a seat inside the theater and had to watch the entire play (which was only about half an hour long) through the window to the left of the lighting booth.

The character of Osama starts the play by screaming, “There is toothpaste here, and I love it!” at the top of his lungs as he strides down the stairs.

For my first monologue, I took real tomatoes and tore them apart, throwing the pulpy red chunks against the wall and across the floor as the audience looked on. Then we chanted and threw carnations at the audience and watched a cowboy/child try to build a house out of chairs; at the end, we got shot, crumpled to the ground and stayed there until the entire audience left.

On the last day, as I lay on the floor, my arms splayed to both sides and my red turtleneck Tomato costume riding up my thighs, I wondered what I had done. One of my housemates had already started referring to me exclusively as “little tomato,” and I guessed it wouldn’t be long until other people followed suit.

But, as I waited for the last of my baffled friends to leave the theater so I could stand up and pick the tomato pieces out of my hair, I found myself being grateful for that CPA Award.

Experimenting is a good thing, even if it leaves you on the floor, wondering what it means to be in a play.

Contact ZOE GREENBERG at zoe.greenberg@yale.edu .

// WARNER BROS. PICTURES

“Cloud Atlas” and the Art of Adaptation // BY MICHAEL LOMAX

Stanley Kubrick once said that if something can be written or thought about, it can most definitely be filmed as well. But just because you can film something doesn’t mean you should.

I’m thinking specifically about adaptations here, and even more specifically, I’m thinking about the recently released “Cloud Atlas.” That’s not to say I didn’t like Lana and Andy Wachowski’s latest work, but if the original novel is a genre-bending exploration of humanity, the screen version is a haphazardly beautiful hot mess.

In the David Mitchell bestseller, six seemingly unrelated stories are stitched together to create a loose mosaic narrative. A 19th-century Pacific journal, a collection of post-Great War letters, an American disco mystery thriller, a present-day escape comedy, a dystopic interview session and a post-apocalyptic fireside chat — these disparate elements are linked to one another by the thinnest of stylistic threads. The journal that makes the first story is a footnote in the second, just as the letters of the second are mentioned in the third.

And in their own subtle ways, each story examines the same issues of time and significance thrust under wildly different microscopes.

AN ADAPTATION IS GOOD ONLY IF THE NEW WORK IS SOMETHING COMPLETELY INDEPENDENT OF THE ORIGINAL. But unless you’ve read the book, the film is almost incomprehensible. From the opening tip, you’re thrown without warning into a three-hour opera that dips in and out of intense action and emotion as effortlessly as leaves rustling in the wind, or clouds drifting across the sky. As such, the tagline of the film (that everything is connected) eventually becomes ridiculous — not because of its ostentation but because of its uncanny applicability.

Every individual strand in this movie is in fact connected, but the synapses are so erratically linked that you might find yourself at times caught in some seizure-like trance, numbingly absorbing each frenetic and seemingly ill-judged jump through time with little care or cognition.

Does this mean we can say that the film is a poor adaptation of what is oth-

MICHAEL LOMAX CINEMA TO THE MAX erwise a phenomenal book? To solve that question we have to spell out what exactly makes a good adaptation, and as with all such issues in art, that logic is entirely subjective. Let me therefore offer as plain an answer as I can: An adaptation is good only if the new work is something completely independent of the original.

Think about it. Unless the source material is a pile of crap, you’d find it next-to-impossible to convince enough people that the adapted piece is any better. In layman’s terms, the book is always superior to the movie, just as the film is always better than its novelization. That’s just the way it is. So if you’re going to make the bonehead mistake of trying to translate something across mediums, especially if that something is particularly good, then you’d better be capable of turning [insert name here]’s work into your own reimagining. The Wachowskis did just that: It so happens their efforts were fruitless.

That doesn’t mean the gesture should go unappreciated. Like I said, I enjoyed every second of “Cloud Atlas,” as I enjoyed every page of the Mitchell novel. But the latter captured the thrill and wonder of disconnecting genres — made clear by the power of the printed word, if only because you can do a lot more with 500 pages. The film, on the other hand, is just as pleasurable a ride for the first 20 or so minutes. Then it fades fast into a cinematic collage that touches on a lot of variable nerves but can’t fully explore any one idea all the way through: “Cloud Atlas” the Movie tries to be Cloud Atlas the Book, and the results are not exactly impressive.

But even the best adaptations are not without detractors. “The Prisoner of Azkaban” and “The Half-Blood Prince” were two stunning films that took great liberties with the J.K. Rowling novels on which they were based.

And if I were to start a list of every alteration Peter Jackson made when producing the “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy, this article would be unreadable. The point is that artistic mediums do not exist in vacuums. While the tricks and tropes might change from paradigm to paradigm, the emphasis always remains on the individual artist’s version of the story, which is something you just have to accept for what it is, making your own judgment on it in time.

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

WEEKEND RECOMMENDS: The Roots’ “Undun”.

Hip-hop brilliance. We were undun.

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2012 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND THEATER

‘THE COLORED MUSEUM’ WELL-CURATED // BY VANESSA YUAN

George C. Wolfe’s “The Colored Museum” opens with Miss Pat (Kyra Riley ’16) and partner (Zola Quao ’13), two pretend-stewardesses with blaring eyes and plastic smiles, who robotically demonstrate to the Middle Passengers behind them the proper way to fasten their shackles. They are slaves.

We are looking at slaves here, with their backs facing us shamelessly or shamefully, a powerful director’s choice. This first vignette (of the 11 that make up the entirety of the show) takes us into a celebratory and satirical time warp through African-American stereotypes and identities in Racist America and abroad.

The major parts of the set are three white podiums, as if they are parts of an exhibit at a museum.

However, unlike a day at the museum, there is no security guard slapping your hand away if you get too close to a piece — or if a piece gets too close to you. “The Colored Museum” is in your face, debuting at the very intimate Morse/ Stiles Crescent Theater. But what I’m really getting at is the overrepresentation of parts in which the actors dance or scream up and down the aisles in the audience, encouraging it to dance or respond in some way.

I do not mean to say that these were bad performances. Gabriel DeLeon ’14 steals the show as the glittery drag queen Miss Roj. In the fourth vignette, “Soldier with a Secret,” Leonard Thomas ’14

stands a couple feet from my face and performs a heartbreaking and perfectly exaggerated monologue with a glistening tear in his eye.

Thomas described the decision to kill all of his fellow soldiers so they could avoid the “pain in the future that comes with blood in the past,” referring to a home life not much better than being at war. I was both an audience member and the friend that he was about to shoot. But there is just too much contact, making the experience inevitably confrontational. Even so, perhaps this is the intention — in which case, the amount of prolonged eye contact I’ve made with the cast is justified.

Still, I don’t think I’ll dance.

In addition, bright lights on the faces in the audience in some parts of the show add to the in-yourface nature. There were also defining light effects. The intense dim and focus on Thomas in the “Soldier” monologue make the war zone setting more convincing. I also appreciated the slow darkening that accompanied the “smileand-click” mantra at the end of the vignette “The Photo Session.”

This technique allows for the stereotype of modern African-American celebrity as nothing more than a photo-subject to effectively resonate in our minds as the vignette gradually ends.

Again, if the play’s intent is to exaggerate and over-emote, then Quao delivers it seamlessly. I’m still a bit chilled from her wide-eyed

// JACOB GEIGER

The colorful cast of characters on view in the Morse/Stiles Crescent Theater.

gaze and sneer as Miss Pat’s partner in the Middle Passage, and mesmerized by her act as Beyoncé next to Jay-Z, portraying what stereotypes have got to say about being an African-American star and also bringing this 1986 show to our time. The exaggeration is evident in Quao’s oscillating identities: as her American self and as French celebrity Lala. Actually a Mississippi native, she moves to France to pursue stardom (and a really bad French accent) without the oppressive American public.

While there are a total of 11 vignettes, the show is overall cohesive and conclusive. Even if the transitions from vignette to vignette seemed a bit choppy at times, the final vignette closes with a powerful conglomeration of all the “stereotypes” throughout the play. “The Colored Museum” offers a groundbreaking reminder of existing tensions that might just have to be in your face.

“The Colored Museum” will run through Saturday in the Morse/ Stiles Crescent Theater.

Contact VANESSA YUAN at vanessa.yuan@yale.edu .

Reasons to see “reasons to be pretty” // BY LEAH MOTZKIN

While the lead character in Neil LaBute’s “reasons to be pretty” gets dumped for calling his girlfriend’s face “regular,” this is definitely not just a “regular” production. This weekend, director Irene Casey ’14 and producer Shannon Csorny ’15 bring us their production of the relatively young show — and they don’t shy away from any of its visceral awkwardness. After Steph (Simone Policano ’16) breaks up with the show’s star, Greg (Ben Symons ’15), a lot of shit goes down in his life, both with Stephanie and with their best friends, Carly (Eden Ohayon ’14) and Kent (Spencer Klavan ’14). I think you should all see it: It’s pretty fucking good. Here are the reasons why: 1. You could learn how to insert curse words into almost every sentence. “You know … you swear a lot when you’re mad,” Greg says when his ranting, soon-to-be-ex girlfriend Steph finally takes a breath. I can only think of about one word that was not used, and you’d be offended if you saw it here. Though the abundant swearing seemed sometimes overkill and sometimes hilarious, it definitely made the characters more real.

2. The characters are just as fucked up as you are. The show opens with an altogether believable screaming match. It proceeds to highlight each character’s insecurities, and, at times, hits uncomfortably close to home.

3. The actors are phenomenal.

Though the cast is small in number, comprised of only four people, each

S U N D AY DECEMBER 2

actor effectively conveys a rough and rounded character. Policano is particularly captivating. Though her character is sometimes a bitch and the show’s entire premise is a result of her overreaction, she completely becomes Steph in a manner that’s very relatable. Let’s just say I would be scared to pick a fight with that girl.

4. You get to witness an onstage fight. The direction of the fight scene between Greg and Kent is phenomenal. I am not sure if they were actually hitting each other or not — that’s how good it was. Though the verbal sparring before the physical teeters between intense and ridiculous, the fight itself is thoroughly believable and entertaining.

5. You want to witness these sound effects and scene changes. To be honest, I thought they were a bit weird at first. When the characters are working or in a public place, there is a constant racket behind them. Ultimately, though, the background noise did add a lot to the otherwise barely changing scenery. Loud music plays with dark lighting, which snaps off when the scene starts and the stage is lit up.

Sometimes, the actors are in character and do something weird like embrace, but at other moments, it is clear that they are just changing the set. I was intrigued by this choice. I found myself looking forward to what they would be doing between the scenes — each time was like a little surprise.

6. The play provides an interesting take on interactions between, and

within, the sexes. These two couples have a lot of fucking issues. Meanwhile, Greg and Kent’s friendship is a central motif of the show. They go through everything together, from double dates to fist fights — and other guy stuff. On the other side of the spectrum, Steph only knows that her face is regular because Carly told her what she overheard Greg say. That seems like a good take on girl friendships too.

7. There are great allusions to other works. At one point, Greg, an avid reader, says he is reading Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Birthmark.”

In that novel, the protagonist does everything he can to remove a small blemish from the otherwise perfect face of his wife. He ultimately kills her in this pursuit. I found this allusion to be one of the funniest parts of “reasons,” because although Greg keeps contending that he likes her face, his life sucks because Steph doesn’t buy it.

But I kinda do. “reasons” showcases a solid cast and a situation relevant to our lives — almost a little more relevant than we’d like.

Contact LEAH MOTZKIN at leah.motzkin@yale.edu .

// ROSA NGUYEN

Face it: You should pretty much see this show.

DOUBLE BARS — THE MUSIC OF COUNT BASIE AT GPSCY

WEEKEND RECOMMENDS:

Yale Cabaret // 3 p.m. and 7 p.m.

Get your 1920s on.

Gin and Tonics.

If the jazz doesn’t make you feel classy, this sure will.

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2012 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND BACKSTAGE

PAUL GOLDBERGER ’72 // JAMES CALLANAN

SCULLY STUDENT, SCULLY-AWARDWINNING ARCHITECTURE CRITIC // BY YUVAL BEN-DAVID

Q. You just won the Scully Prize.

Congrats! Vincent Scully was a legendary Yale professor, right, and also your teacher? What should my generation know about Scully?

A. Well, he was an extraordinary professor because he managed to connect architecture to all of culture and all of life. He was a very compelling lecturer.

His lectures were famous, they were extraordinary things. He filled up the auditorium — he was a very powerful presence — and would talk about architecture in this way that I’d never heard it talked about before, with incredible passion and energy and connection to the rest of culture. He would read from Wallace Stevens or Robert Lowell or what have you and make connections between architectural ideas and literature and so forth. So it was very exciting and eye-opening, and I think the greatest impact he had over time was not on people who became architects but on nonarchitects, in making a greater constituency for architecture: in making people look more, in making people care more, maybe making people better clients.

For all I know, a thousand bankers over the years took his class and when they became heads of banks made better buildings.

We’ll never know for sure, but I really think so.

Q. When you were a student at Yale, did you appreciate the campus architecture?

A. Yeah, very much. It was one of the things that attracted me to Yale. I first saw some of the modern buildings in magazines, and that got me very excited. And then when I actually arrived, I had the sort of weird experience of discovering that I also liked the Gothic architecture, and all the old stuff, which, if you were serious about architecture in those days, you weren’t supposed to like. And coming to terms with all that was actually one of the interesting things of my years at Yale — just discovering that it was okay to like very different kinds of things. That sometimes buildings got surrounded by a set of ideas that were almost too much, and that made [the two] seem inconsistent — as if they didn’t belong together. In fact, architecture and morality didn’t make a very interesting argument. In the end, I think it’s much more about visual pleasure and about ideas of use and, potentially, aesthetic excitement.

Q. What goes unnoticed about Yale’s architecture?

A. Today, I don’t know that anything goes unnoticed, because, over the last generation, there’s been so much more attention paid to it. Also, so many of the great Yale buildings have been beautifully restored. Yale’s put a huge amount of money into taking care of the great architecture it has. And now a lot of the modern buildings are half a century

old, and they’re getting rehabilitated as well as the older ones.

The last set of the Rick Levin years have been an amazing time in terms of just taking care of what Yale has. But the thing that is so subtle about those buildings is the way they come together to make a larger place. Yale is an urban campus — it’s not off in some beautiful countryside somewhere. It’s in the middle of a city, and yet those buildings are so powerful and they come together so beautifully to make a whole that is larger than the sum of its parts. That’s what great urban architecture is supposed to do — it’s supposed to come together to make a larger whole. That wasn’t appreciated once. In the ’50s and ’60s, when the modern buildings were being built, every building was kind of a prima donna of its own, and the idea that these buildings should defer to a larger whole to give the place coherence was just not something people got or cared about. I think now they do. I think now people recognize that’s part of the virtue of the Yale buildings.

Q. As an architecture critic, can you ever truly isolate one structure?

A. Well, you can. I think you have to look at buildings in both ways at the same time. I think that’s part of the excitement of architecture: it’s many things at once. Every one of those buildings can and should be looked at as a building unto itself and also

as part of a larger whole. And I think the modern buildings, too.

The modern buildings are usually more successful as buildings unto themselves and less successful as parts of a larger whole.

The older buildings, a lot of them are successful both ways, which is in some way the greater accomplishment.

Q. Does that apply only at Yale?

A. Well, it’s an ideal that applies everywhere. It’s not always achieved. And I’m certainly not going to say older buildings are always better than new ones. In fact, it’s important that architecture continue to invent, and be a living, changing art — like painting and literature and music.

Understanding and appreciating and respecting what’s come before is the foundation of invention.

Q. But as an architecture critic you don’t just focus on buildings, do you?

A. No, I’m interested in cities, in city planning, in historic preservation; in design of objects, too.

I’m interested in going both bigger than buildings, with urban design, and smaller than buildings, to objects. I’m sitting at

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my desk looking right now at an iPhone and an Apple computer.

Those are amazing objects that show we’ve come an extraordinary distance in terms of the design of consumer objects in the last generation.

Q. Is there a difference between an architecture review and, say, a book review or a theater review?

A. Yes and no. I think an architecture review is less of a consumer guide. With a movie review, part of the function is to tell you: should you or should you not bother to go to the movies to see this? An architecture review is not about buying a building.

It’s about: “What role does that building have in the culture?

What role does it have in the city?

What role is it going to have not only for the people who use it every day, but for the people who pass it and never go in? What’s its presence? What’s its meaning?” It’s not a consumer guide in that sense. Though maybe it is, because maybe the way we consume buildings is by looking at them.

Q. Architecture is at once functional and aesthetic; so are essays. Do you see any similarities between crafting an essay and

designing a building?

A. An essay has a certain kind of structure and logic to it. Hopefully, it’s a beautiful piece of writing, so it has some degree of aesthetic accomplishment or quality to it, but it also fulfills a function in that it conveys an idea. So yeah, in that sense, an essay does exist in all those different realms — in some of them, at least.

Q. One last question: did you write for the News?

A. I never did write for the Daily News, no. I wrote for The New Journal, which truly was new when I was there. It started a year or two before I came to Yale, but it was still a pretty new thing. And I just kind of fell in with the people running it, and I was particularly interested in magazine writing, and I’d done a bit of it already. I wasn’t trying to avoid the News; it’s just that I started writing for The New Journal and eventually I became an editor of it. So I never did write for the Daily News. My son, who’s in the class of ’08, did. He was a sports reporter for several years. You got one Goldberger.

Contact YUVAL BEN-DAVID at yuval.ben-david@yale.edu .

AN ARCHITECTURE REVIEW IS NOT ABOUT BUYING A BUILDING. IT’S NOT A CONSUMER GUIDE. THOUGH MAYBE IT IS, BECAUSE MAYBE THE WAY WE CONSUME BUILDINGS IS BY LOOKING AT THEM.

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ast week, Paul Goldberger ’72 won the National Building Museum’s 14th annual Vincent Scully Prize — as good as it gets in his field — for his lifelong work as an architecture critic, first at The New York Times (where he won a Pulitzer in 1984) and, until last year, at The New Yorker, where he wrote the magazine’s “Sky Line” column. These days, he serves as a contributing editor to Vanity Fair and lectures at The New School in New York, where he holds the Joseph Urban Chair in Design and Architecture. Goldberger’s most recent book, “Why Architecture Matters,” was released by Yale University Press in 2009. Goldberger caught up with WEEKEND and riffed on his former professor, campus buildings and the contemporary constituency for architecture.