This WEEKEND

WEEKEND // FRIDAY, MARCH 8, 2013

James Kottage Richard Prum The Koutroumanis The Panzarellas Joan Cavanagh The Interview Issue Camille Chambers Dorian Grinspan Jin Ai Yap Nicole Sore Jon Kreiss-Tomkins Jane Levin Marta Moret Aaron Carter

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MARCH 8, 2013 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND COMBUSTION

THE UNION STRIKES BACK // BY ISAAC STANLEY-BECKER

As the New Haven Board of Aldermen voted this week to approve a new police contract with the city, firefighters continue to languish without an equivalent agreement. The police officers, after having been contract-less since 2011, struck a deal with the city on Feb. 6 that James “Jimmy” Kottage, president of the local firefighters’ union, called “pathetic.” As his union, Local 825 of the International Association of Fire Fighters, prepares to enter arbitration with the city on March 21, WEEKEND chatted with Kottage about his background, the state of union organizing in New Haven and his beef with the Feb. 6 police contract. Q. You currently serve as president of Local 825. How long have you held that position and what did you do before you assumed that role? A. I’ve lived in or around New Haven for approximately 35-40 years. My family was brought up in the city. I was a firefighter for 18 years before becoming president of the union. Very early on, I got involved in the police and fire pension fund. A few years later, I became secretary treasurer for the union, which is basically the numbertwo guy in the union. I held that position for about eight to 10 years. Then when Patrick Egan became the assistant chief on the management side, I moved up to being president in 2010. I’ve been elected for two more terms since. Q. So Patrick Egan was the Local 825 president for 10 years before being appointed by the Board of Fire Commissioners to an open assistant chief position. Do you see yourself making a similar sort of shift at some point? Would you ever consider going from union to management-side? A. If I were offered a position like that, I would not take it. I wouldn’t even think about it. It takes a really unique sort of personality to go from the labor side to the management side and still think you can treat your members fairly. It just causes way too many problems. What Patrick did was selfish. It was a selfish move that’s good for the individual and his family but, as for the membership that he represented, it’s not a good move, and it’s really disheartening. Q. Can you describe what it’s been like to work with Egan on opposing sides? A. It’s been a nightmare. When it comes to discipline and day-to-day operations, it’s been a complete nightmare. He’s been very difficult throughout contract negotiations and even basic policy stuff. There’s only one way to do business with Patrick Egan — and it’s Patrick Egan’s way. There are so many issues that we have made no progress on resolving because Pat is not willing to meet us halfway. From discipline to promotions to operational policies, he hasn’t been willing to compromise at all. He blocks every avenue I’ve tried to go down. Q. On the topic of union leadership, can you speak at all to the racial composition of the executive board? Given the large number of black and Hispanic firefighters, why do you think there has never been a nonwhite

union president in New Haven? A. The members of the union are elected by a body of firefighters that consists of whites, blacks, Hispanics, what have you. The union leadership should obviously be able to represent everybody. As to the racial makeup, there is some diversity on our executive board and we certainly have a diverse group of union members. I was challenged in December 2012 for president by Darrell Brooks, who is black. I don’t think that race played any role in the election. I ended up winning, and I will stand by my record that I represent everybody, independent of race. To my recollection, I don’t believe there has ever been a black president of Local 825. Q. You’ve been in the news recently for coming out in opposition to the police contract the NHPD struck in February. What is the nature of your opposition to the contract? A. I believe that the city was able to accomplish a divide and conquer tactic in making this deal with the policemen. They gave better benefits to senior guys who would vote yes for the contracts and they eviscerated benefits for guys in the middle of the pack and for the new guys coming on. They’re all split up now. The city got exactly what it wanted and is now saving all this money on the backs of its employees. The danger of this contract goes beyond the city, though. The contract was bad for public safety throughout the state, because it will be used as a model in other negotiations. It’s a terrible contract for public safety because when other organizations end up in arbitration, this contract can be used against them as a comparable. Q. The NHPD contract is a fiveyear agreement between the city and the 413 unionized officers who have been working without a contract since 2011. It includes a number of planned wage increases but also drastic changes to pension and health benefits. Can you describe some of these changes? What exactly about the contract do you find troubling? A. What the city has been allowed to do is put in all these different

tiers for different policemen. They’ve divided up guys who have a lot of time on the job versus guys that have about 20 years versus guys that have less than 15. They completely divided the membership. And they’re eviscerating benefits that they’ve collectively bargained for over the last 50 years. They’re destroying some of the health and pension benefits that are absolutely critical to their own wellbeing. A new cop coming into New Haven might be better off with a 401(k) and collecting social security than signing onto the fire benefit plan. Q. The city filed a complaint with the state Board of Labor Relations on Feb. 5 accusing you of obstructing its settlement agreement with the police officers. Why was this action taken against you? What have you done to oppose the contract?

THE FIREFIGHTERS HAVE NOT HAD A CONTRACT FOR 20 MONTHS. WE’RE NOW GOING INTO BINDING ARBITRATION. THAT’S NOT BY MY CHOICE. A. What I’ve done is voiced my First Amendment right to freedom of speech. I said a year ago, before the contract was done, that it would be a horrible agreement. I stand by that today. It’s a horrible, pathetic contract. I tried to get the cops to vote it down and tried to share these concerns with the police union president. I don’t believe the cops have been educated on exactly what they’re losing. On one of the healthcare plans, they’re going from a 12 percent cost-share that would cost about $2,800 per year and it’s rising to a 30 percent cost-share that will cost $7,900 per year. For a newly hired police officer, this is dev-

astating. When he retires, his children will have no medical benefits. For somebody that’s putting his life on the line every day he comes to work, to take away his children’s benefits is just horrible. Q. And what about your own contract negotiations? A. The firefighters have not had a contract for 20 months. We’re now going into binding arbitration. That’s not by my choice. Our first meeting is March 21, and it will be about the ‘ability to pay’ argument from the city. The city is saying they can’t pay for firefighters and their benefits and that’s why they need these concessions, or cuts to our benefits. Our old contract formally expired on June 30, 2011. There has been a huge delay on the city’s part since then because they hired a new labor director who ended up resigning. We’ve only had one meeting so far with the city’s new attorney, Marjan Mashhabi. Q. How’s it looking? What are the prospects of a mutually beneficial settlement? A. The mayor gave me a number for millions of dollars in concessions, and I have come back with still some of those concessions and he has said what I offered is off the table. We know there have to be concessions. We know that. We know that the benefits we receive today from our prior contract need to be adjusted due to the city’s financial situation. I just hope we can find common ground. The union is more than willing to work with the city to make some concessions and to adjust certain parts of the contract. But it appears we’re heading to arbitration and will have a third party decide where the concessions and cuts will come from. That’s what state statute says. We’ll see

// THAO DO

Fighting fire with fire!

who will be on the list of arbitrators. Q. You — and Local 825 as a whole — endorsed Mayor John DeStefano Jr. in his 2011 election campaign. Why is that? Would you endorse him again today? A. I still totally support the decision to endorse the mayor in the last election. He was the best candidate running for the city. I would hope that the mayor would still like to keep a good relationship with the fire fighters and to work with us in getting a contract. But that’s his choice. Q. And what about the 2013 mayoral race? Do you have a preference among the emerging candidates? A. We’re not ready to make an endorsement. We’re wide open. We’ll be listening to and speaking with all of the candidates. No matter what happens, we’ll be involved with the mayoral as well as the aldermanic races. Q. Board of Aldermen President Jorge Perez, who is heavily backed by labor forces in the city, said he might run. Would you support him? A. It’s too early to tell. I’ve always supported Perez in the past, and he has always been a good supporter of the firefighters. Whether he’s going to run? That’s his choice. Contact ISAAC STANLEY-BECKER at isaac.stanley-becker@yale.edu .

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MARCH 8, 2013 · yaledailynews.com

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WEEKEND FLIGHT

PRUM’S PLUMES // BY JENNIFER GERSTEN

You could call Richard Prum a birdbrain if you’d like, but only if you meant it in the strictly literal sense. It’s an appropriate term for someone who started birdwatching at the age of 10. The Yale professor of ornithology, awarded the MacArthur “genius grant” in 2009 for his theory on the evolution of feather structure, was cited by the MacArthur Foundation for work that intertwines “developmental biology, optical physics, molecular genetics, phylogenetics, paleontology, and behavior ecology to address central questions about bird development, evolution, and behavior.” He currently teaches “Ornithology,” a 9:25 a.m. lecture that’s known for its quality, not its painful schedule. WEEKEND’s Jennifer Gersten sat down with the professor to talk pets, paint and plumage before he flew off to his next class.

of the century, we thought we knew exactly why feathers evolved. And the answer was, “for flight.” We only made progress on what happened by not asking that question. Only by ignoring the possibility of a functional solution did we make any progress at all in how feathers evolved. There are still lots of questions about what adaptive advantage feathers might have had, and coloration is one of them. Q. Do you eat birds?

//KATHRYN CRANDALL

Have you taken Prum’s “ornithology” course yet?

ences and have subjective experiences that have real consequences. It’s the same process through which human beings gained a greater knowledge of the universe and their place in it. We used to think that everything revolved around us. Then we realized, “Oh wait, we’re actually orbiting around this star in the backwater of the cosmos.” We gained a greater appreciation of our own specialness because we realized we come from such an arbitrary and seemingly unspecial place. I think that the same contextual understanding of humanness is expanded by studying other aspects of biodiversity, especially in a realm like aesthetics where we seem to think we’re the entire story.

Q. I read that you’re thinking about developing a novel type of blue paint. Why the color blue? A. Blue pigments are really rare in animals, and nonexistent in vertebrate animals. That means that every time you see blue in the skin of an animal, you’re looking at a structural color, which is produced by the optical interactions of light waves with the material of the skin or feathers. These colors are made by nanostructures, and we’ve discovered that birds develop structural colors by using self-assembly — they create the physical conditions that allow the nanostructures to grow themselves. Blue birds make little tiny air bubbles that create their blue color. These bubbles selectively reflect blue light: You could make greens or reds or yellows using pigments or structures, but blue can only be created by structural colors in vertebrates. The color is then made through a process called phase separation, which is the same process that produces bubbles in a lava lamp, or bubbles in beer. That raises the prospect of a structural blue paint that would phase-separate like blue feathers and create a color that wouldn’t fade because, unlike a molecular pigment, it would be permanent and durable. Q. You’ve become well-known for your studies of feather coloration, and in 2010 you became the first to construct the full-feathered plumage of a dinosaur. Are there any colors you wouldn’t expect to see in dinosaur feathers? A. Our window into the color of dinosaur feathers was accidentally provided by the fact that some of their pigments fossilized well, so we’ve been able to construct well the colors that are produced by melanin. But we can’t really identify a lot of the other types of colorants, whether they’re structural colors or other pigments, so our window into that time is a little sketchy. What we do know is that the beautiful reds and blues and greens, even among living birds, appear to be of rather new evolutionary origin. So it’s quite possible that dinosaurs and early fossil birds hadn’t yet evolved those types of colors. There are definitely colors that are really hard for them to make. Hot pink turns out to be a very rare color, but there are birds that actually make it in a complicated way. Q. You’ve mentioned that it’s highly likely that dinosaur skin was colored prior to the evolution of feathers. What, then, would explain the need for colored feathers? A.

Fo r most

Q. You’ve been interested in birdsongs from an early age. Have you heard of the work of Olivier Messiaen? [Note: The 20th century composer and ornithologist Olivier Messiaen used birdsongs in a number of his compositions. His “Oiseaux Exotiques” incorporates no less than 40 distinct birdsongs in what has been characterized as an “avian fantasy.”]

WHEN YOU’RE A BIRDWATCHER, YOU HAVE TO KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE TREES, AND YOU CANNOT SPEND ALL YOUR TIME LOOKING AT YOUR ANKLES, OR YOU’LL NEVER GET ANYTHING DONE

A. I’m pretty much a fish-itarian. But when Thanksgiving comes along, I’ve been known to eat a bird part or two, though I don’t eat most meat. When I was an undergrad I read “Diet for a Small Planet” by Frances Moore Lappe, and I became a political vegetarian from the idea that if we eat lower on the food chain, we can lower both hunger and our ecological impact on the planet. And then I found out that I rather preferred the diet, although I still think that all those things are still true. Q. Have you ever been attacked by a bird? A. On nesting colonies of terns, sure. The terns near the nest, they do not like anybody around. They swoop at you and try to peck your head. … Usually they peck the tallest person. Sometimes, I’ve also been not the tallest person in the group, so in that case I haven’t had to worry. Q. What can we learn about ourselves by studying birds? A. My work in evolutionary aesthetics proposes that we will learn a lot more about the nature of aesthetics as a discipline by studying nonhuman species, which

evolve prefer-

Q. Your work posits that birds might pick mates based on traits they find aesthetically appealing in the opposite sex, not merely indicators of physical fitness. Do you think birds might be as superficial as humans when it comes to good looks?

A. I’ve done a little scholarship, never published, on Messiaen’s use of birdsong. As you know, Messiaen was a brilliant composer and creative person, and he was fascinated by birdsong. He used to go around with staff paper and notate pitches of birds from the wild, and since he had perfect pitch it was credible. I was interested in whether he was capable of transcribing the actual complexity of birdsong. Birds can actually sing two songs at the same time. They shape the quality of their notes, the timbre, with very complex, rapid modulations of two voices that we can

//KAREN TIAN

Q. What is the strangest bird you’ve studied? A. I haven’t actually studied it, but the strangest bird I’ve experienced is the oilbird, which is a nocturnal frugivore. It eats fruit, flies around at night, nests in caves and has echolocation. It’s called the oilbird because it eats mostly palm fruits and avocados that are very high in fats. The young oilbirds are basically big lardballs, and early colonists would collect them and render them down to scoop off their oil for lard for use in cooking. The birds expel the seeds of the plants they consume in their poop. In their caves, you’ll see little knee-high avocado and palm fruit trees that are entirely white growing in bird guano. Q. Have you ever kept birds as pets? A. No, I haven’t, and that’s kind of odd. We actually house-sat some parrots recently and got a chance to experience birds in the house — two small parakeets that flew around the house. I thought they were charming, I actually could have gone for them — but they ended up pooping all over the house, and because they really loved to fly, we didn’t have the heart to keep them in the cage

A. A lot of my work right now focuses on aesthetic evolution, which is the evolution of the aspects of organisms that function through the perceptions of other individuals. Often those perceptions are characterized by sensory evaluations and choice. Essentially, aesthetic choice: Do they like some-

thing? We know birds have specific preferences — the diversity of avian color and communication systems is actually a consequence of evolution. Every species of bird on the planet has a distinct courtship display, and every single species has a different concept of what it finds beautiful in a potential mate. [For example], bowerbird males create a home seduction theater where they

collect items — beetles, fruit, butterflies — and display them for the female. They do this full time. One-hundred percent of male bowerbirds invest a huge amount of their waking lives to the production of these aesthetic ornaments.

detect by slowing down birdsong to a tenth of its current speed. The question for me was if Messiaen actually knew this. What I found was that although he used chords to color sound, he didn’t modulate sound independently in time as the birds actually do to shape the notes that they make. So it turns out that no, he didn’t anticipate this aspect of ornithological science in his composition. Q. Did you see any other creatures while you were studying birds in South America? A. I’ve had encounters with toxic snakes. … Luckily, I wasn’t bitten. When you’re a birdwatcher, you have to keep your eyes on the trees, and you cannot spend all your time looking at your ankles, or you’ll never get anything done. You just have to have faith that your number isn’t going to come up.

all day. These birds needed to fly to be happy, but they needed to be happy in someone else’s house — that was my wife’s conclusion. Q. I hope you’ve never been accused of being a birdbrain. A. I think in elementary school, that was actually pretty common. … ”Ranger Rick,” you know, and all. When I was a kid, the hippie thing was still around, so everybody associated birdwatching with back-tothe-land hippiness. … I got a lot of ribbing when I was a kid. Q. I think you turned out okay. A. Yes, I think I did. Contact JENNIFER GERSTEN at jennifer.gersten@yale.edu .

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MARCH 8, 2013 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND TASTES

GEORGE AND ELENI KOUTROUMANIS: MAKING YOUR PIZZA, WATCHING YOUR DRUNKEN ESCAPADES AND INVITING YOU INTO THE FAMILY // BY JACKSON MCHENRY

// ANNELISA LEINBACH

Last Sunday morning, a student from Quinnipiac University broke one of the windows of Yorkside Pizza on York Street in an early morning brawl. The restaurant, a favorite of Yale students since it was founded in the ’70s, is still in the process of rebuilding its property, but to the restaurant’s owner, George Koutroumanis, drunken patrons are just part of the business plan. Just a couple days after the incident, WEEKEND sat down with George and his daughter Eleni to discuss the ins and outs of a family business that depends on cravings of undergrads. Q. So what’s the history of Yorkside Pizza? GK. [My family] came to America in 1958 from Greece. They grew up doing part-time jobs in factories or as restaurant workers. Three brothers [in the family] went through New York. Then they ended up working in restaurants. We’ve been in New Haven in the restaurant business in some sort of way or another since 1958 or 1959. Q. Was that all three brothers working together?

came home one day and said, “Have you ever heard of this rapper guy ‘Canyon East,’” and I said, “Oh, you mean Kanye West.” So, he was close! That was years ago. GK. I mean, there are some names I’m not familiar with, but most of the people who come through here, we’ve got pictures of. Really everyone and anyone who’s anything. We fed them at one point or another. EK. And it’s nice; you have people come back years later.

GK. Actually, most of the pictures people have brought in themselves. We buy some, the teams give us some. So we try to gather things, you know? And then we frame them, arrange them and try to make a little memorabilia station. People hopefully remember us not only for pictures, but also for our food service — we try. We put in a lot of hard effort, and we might not be No. 1, but we try. EK. And we’re all family. A lot of family time is spent in the restaurant. [Laughs.] But it’s a good thing! Q. Do you get to know individual students who come here a lot?

Q. How many family members work in the restaurant now?

GK. Sometimes, yeah. Listen, kids go away — it’s like they’re going on vacation with their folks’ money. They are going to go out and experience things, drink and do whatever they do and however they do it. And hopefully they remember that the people they’re dealing with in this town stay here. Unfortunately, sometimes we’re forced to do things we really don’t like to. Like, “Hey guys, hey girls, let’s keep it down.” Then you have to escalate a little bit, call the police or do something you really don’t want to. But it’s just human nature.

Q. What’s the history with your connection to Yale? You can see a lot of Yale memorabilia in the store.

GK. Yeah, yeah, it does. But Toad’s has been a great neighbor since it opened in 1976. We’re always working cooperatively to make a better community, to make a better neighbor to take care of each other’s needs — whether that means us feeding them or them protecting us from the drunkards that come out. They’ll send out a guy who says, “Come on, let’s move, move!” We’re a neighborhood. We’re here.

Q. And do you remember them? Do they come and see their pictures?

GK. Our family mostly worked separately. We worked at Lake Quassapaug Amusement Park in many different jobs from chefs to cooks to waiters. You name it, we’ve done it. One of our first ventures was the Embassy Luncheonette in 1960 or 1961. From there we went to a place out towards Orange called the Bonfire DriveIn. Then we migrated towards West Haven and opened up West Haven Pizza Palace and Broadway Pizza [on York Street]. In 1973, we opened Pizza Den, which was over on Chapel, just below Church, but we ended up leaving there. Finally, in 1977, we founded Yorkside.

GK. Well, there were three brothers originally. So now, brothers, cousins, different people, sisters, daughters … EK. Right now in this restaurant, you have four relatives. GK. [pointing to the rest of the restaurant]: Me, my sister, my daughter, my son … EK. And a cousin. GK. So five.

brings that out.

GK. Going back years ago, it was easier and more common for people to use speech and communication, you know, through the mouth. [He mimes talking.] Now everybody’s online, everybody’s texting. People are walking around [he hunches over to mime texting] doing this, and we’re saying, “Can we help you?” Going back it was all verbal. Eyesight and handshakes. Now it’s like, laugh out loud and a sideways smiley face. Q. Do the kids ever get hard to manage?

Q. Does that happen often?

GK. Well, we started on Broadway with the Yale memorabilia, and then we came here and made this a little more. We had a Yale graduate from the Yale School of Art who did the original shields. Then little by little, we accumulated pictures. Many alumni have been through here — President Bush, Governor Pataki and Barbara Bush — and music stars from the Rolling Stones to Billy Joel. Basically anyone you can get on the Toad’s Place T-shirt, they’ve probably been through here.

GK. We get a little rowdy here on a Friday or Saturday night, after a game, but it’s all in good fun. Everything’s always in good fun. On occasion, you’ll get a person who passes out, a person who falls down outside or goes through a window. EK. Or punches a window! GK. People fight, which is a shame. Because really, everyone’s not bad, it’s just beer and that need to become a macho person. They all say, “I can do it, I can drink this!” But we’re all human.

Q. Have you met any of them?

Q. I’m sure being close to Toad’s Place

GK. Yeah, most of them. George Thorogood has a thing where he needs three drumsticks and one thigh, just boiled. EK. My favorite story was when my dad

// YALE DAILY NEWS

It’s second dinner time!

WE TRY. WE PUT A LOT OF HARD EFFORT, AND WE MIGHT NOT BE NO. 1, BUT WE TRY. Q. Do you have anything on the menu that you especially recommend? EK. Honestly anything people eat here. That’s what we eat for dinner every day. GK. People might misconceive us for a slice joint, but we process our own chicken, make our own meatballs, cook our own meats, make all our own lasagnas, roll our own manicotti and fry our own eggplant. The cold cuts we slice, but other than that we make everything on the premises. Real food, real people. And I wish people would try more dinner, I feel like we’re a diamond in the rough. EK. And I have to say, you guys are lucky. I went to school in New York, and the pizza was not nearly as good. GK. We didn’t find anywhere like a Yorkside at all the different schools that we went to.

EK. We’d go and sit down and he’d say, “What’s your local pizza place?” Q. You guys stayed open during the snowstorm, what was that like? GK. It was crazy. It was an adventure. I stayed with a friend downtown, and we opened up with a skeleton crew, and we were there. Q. Did you get many customers? GK. Very many. We did a lot of business with students and the plow workers, just many different people. It’s family taking care of family. Q. Have you had to make any changes to the menu over the years? GK. Not really. The things that people are talking about now, we’ve been doing forever. Not to mention names, but like Quizno’s toasted buns was a hot thing [that we made before they became popular]. We’ve been toasting people’s buns for 45 years. Handspun shakes. I don’t know if you’ve heard of that terminology, it’s the new big thing at Wendy’s. We’ve been scooping ice cream, putting in syrup and mixing it around by hand for 35 years. I don’t like to be too trendy because you kill yourselves for trends. Real food is real food. Q. Has the restaurant environment around New Haven changed much over that time? GK. Competition is a lot more immense. There’s about the same number of people, because there’s only so many parking spaces. But the number of restaurants has gone up. A thousand percent. There used to be like five restaurants around. There’s hundreds now. Food carts are all over the place. They dot the countryside

like locusts. Everyone has a place, but it’s tough. Those carts pay almost nothing to be here. Q. What sorts of relationships do you have with other restaurants? GK. Louis’ Lunch and Sally’s Pizza are good friends of ours. Also, Bobby’s and Ricky’s. It’s a community, and everyone has their thing. We try not to step on each other’s feet and keep a nice balance in the environment, just like in the real world. Q. Working late must be exhausting. GK. Right now, I’m here from 8 or 9 in the morning to 8 or 9 at night. Friday and Saturday, I’m here from 8 to 11, for after the sports games. Q. Do you have any other anecdotes? GK. I wouldn’t even want to start, because they’re endless and I wouldn’t want to get anyone in any trouble. EK. If walls could talk, you know. GK. I mean, you recognize all sorts of people. Q. I’m sure you recognize some who don’t remember later. EK. Oh, absolutely, yeah. GK. Unfortunately you always get a little action, the drunkard action [he points towards the broken window] and it’s like, I try so hard to make things this way, and then these yoyos come in. The only thing I would stress to tell every student, everywhere in the world, is just to think it’s someone’s family you’re going to see. And the nicer you are to them, the nicer they’ll be back to you. Contact JACKSON MCHENRY at jackson.mchenry@yale.edu .

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MARCH 8, 2013 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND STANDS

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FOR SOMETHING

RESISTING WAR // BY DUR E AZIZ AMNA

While Yale students toiled away during the last days of midterms, concerned simultaneously with overdue papers and last-minute spring break planning, WEEKEND met up with three individuals with very different concerns. Joan Cavanagh, Paula Panzarella and Frank Panzarella, three peace activists living in New Haven, talked to WEEKEND about their history as anti-war protesters, their weekly Sunday Vigil near Broadway and how they see the future of peace activism in the country. Q. What was your first act of protest or activism? PP. I think my first activism in New Haven was in the 60s, at the time of the Black Panthers. FP. We’ve been activists for a long time. JC. We’ve been alive for a long time! FP. My first activism was against the bombing of Cambodia. JC. I think my first activism was against the bombing of Cambodia in 1973, in Maryland. In Connecticut, there were movements in the 80s against the US government’s involvement in Central America, supporting the regime in El Salvador, and then the anti-apartheid movement at Yale. Q. Could you talk more about that movement? FP. Yeah. In 1986, we built shanties in the Beinecke Plaza, and they stayed there for two years. They were occupied by Yale students. CV. It was a call for divestment of Yale funds in South Africa. We were also involved in the anti-nuclear weapons movement, especially against Trident. Q. When did the Sunday Vigil start? JC. 1999. There had been vigils all over town, since the beginning of the first Gulf War. After the war ended, sanctions were imposed against Iraq, and people continued to vigil against them, because the sanctions were killing people, denying medical care and necessary food supplies. There were also continual aerial bombings, and we were protesting that. But in 1999, there was the invasion of Kosovo, and the Connecticut Peace Coalition formed at that time, specifically to oppose this invasion. And there were branches in Hartford, Middletown and New Haven. The organization, as a statewide entity, was short lived. It dissolved right after the war in Kosovo ended. However, the vigils continued. We decided the location on Broadway, Elm and Park Street, was a very good place to talk about the devastation of

// DUR E AZIZ AMNA

Vigilant, resilient, dedicated.

D AY MONTH ##

the sanctions on Iraq. So we continued with that theme predominantly, because we were aware that war had not ended. The vigil continued from then on. Of course, then Bush came into power, and then there was 9/11, and the invasion of Afghanistan, and we continued to oppose that invasion. We also continued to talk about the build-up to the war against Iraq, almost immediately after 2001. Q. Was it more controversial to oppose the entry into Afghanistan in 2001 because the invasion had been in response to 9/11? JC. There were negative responses and positive responses to our stance. The war was totally about something other than the planes crashing into the World Trade Center. It was used as an excuse, and a lot of people understood that. I mean at that moment, after 9/11, for about a week, the world looked as us with sympathy and empathy, because people across the world have been bombed. They have experienced it and they knew what it felt like. So we were part of the universal community that was appalled by what had happened. And there were vigils and people who did not talk to each other normally were talking to each other, and there was a historic opportunity to really stand in solidarity with the world. Instead, the warmongering government decided to completely squander that opportunity and start another war. FP. The government also conflated it to Iraq, and tried to whip up the most hysterical anti-foreigner feeling that had been seen in years. I mean, even during the first Gulf War, it wasn’t easy because there was so much visceral hatred against anybody who looked vaguely Arab or was from the Middle East. There was really horrible stuff going on, people being beaten up and assaulted. There were a lot of things that we experienced at the time that were horrendous. When 9/11 happened, it was totally exploited by Bush and his cronies, who purposefully made it seem as if it was all one big thing, it was all the same people. Then the same hysteria appeared as in the first Gulf War, and I think the antiArab, anti-Middle Eastern bashing only got worse. Of course, there were people who agreed with what we were saying. JC. The opposition to the Iraq War of 2003 was immense. There was a huge demonstration in D.C., the largest one ever, I believe. PP. All over the world, there were demonstrations. It was in the winter, the

beginning of 2003. JC. I remember coming home from the demonstration on March 20th and turning on the TV. The bombing had started. Q. Were you ever prevented from protesting by the government? JC. Well, there were demonstrations in D.C. and then there were also demonstrations in New York. And the ones in New York were particularly challenging because the police put up barricades all over the city. You couldn’t get from Point A to Point B easily, it was very difficult, and the cops were harassing people all over town. I saw less of that in D.C. In 2004, there was a huge protest near the Republican National Convention in New York. The war was now being fought but there were a lot of people on the streets. And a group of us from War Resisters, gathered at the site of the former World Trade Center. All we were planning to do was march from there to the site of the Republican National Convention. However, we were arrested, and stayed in jail for 24 hours. They had no reason to arrest us; we had done nothing wrong. I think 1,600 people were arrested, and some held up to 48 hours. Clearly, that was an attempt to preempt protest.

I THINK EVERYBODY SHOULD HAVE THE RIGHT TO LIVE WITHOUT FEAR. Q. Throughout the past 10 years, has the membership of the vigil group been consistent, or do people come and go? JC. I think during the height of the Gulf War, we had many, many more people. Usually when things heat up in some areas, we have more people. Right now, we are down to three or five people at the weekly vigil. Q. Your website’s mission statement contains a specific section about drone warfare. When did that issue become important to you? JC. I think it really came into prominence, in my consciousness anyway, towards the end of the Bush administration. They started talking about drone warfare and it was being used in Afghanistan, but then it started widening, and the Obama administration

has just escalated it beyond belief. It has become the new mode of warfare. In the last two years, we have done a lot of leafleting about it, because it is something that the American people are either unaware of, or do not want to know about. It’s become our new anonymous way of killing people by remote control. To me it’s the ultimate refinement in the kind of wars that the United States is prepared to fight all over the world. I do not mean refinement in a good way. FP. But I think, to me, it started back in Clinton’s time because in those times it wasn’t the technical drones, but it was cruise missiles that were being used from hundreds of miles away. And they could be shot wherever, killing many innocent people. JC. Historically, less and less Americans feel the need to be concerned with these wars, and I think it is because of this refinement. To me, it started with Nixon’s secret plan to end the war in Vietnam. As I said, thousands of people were protesting Vietnam because people that we all knew were coming home in boxes. Nixon comes into office, and he changed everything. They slowly took away the ground troops and started bombing. FP. They carpet-bombed Cambodia. JC. Withdrawal of the ground troops, and then the Paris Peace Accord, made people think that the war was over. It was not. But it became more and more remote from the American experience. Then the draft ended and Americans needed to care even less. Drone warfare is also very cost-effective. They are trying to reduce the cost of war, and this is what we get. Q. You talked about increasing apathy within Americans regarding wars abroad. Do you think there are reasons to that besides fewer casualties? JC. I think the understanding that you can make a difference through protest is waning. However, these wars are having a tremendous impact on society. Veterans who come back might be living through injuries they wouldn’t have lived through during Vietnam, but the psychological injuries, the mental toll, is insane. In addition, there are people who were exposed to depleted uranium, and that is giving rise to birth defects among the children of returning soldiers. FP. And there is the whole psychotic gun culture it has helped amplify within this country. So many veterans are killing themselves; the suicide rate is huge. But in another way, I think the culture of protest has shifted to the Internet. Protestors use the Internet to oppose

a lot of these things, and have created their own culture. It has burst out in a lot of major events in the world, like Tunisia, Egypt. People are looking for new ways to resist. PP. The Occupy Movement really broke through the no-protest culture that was pretty much settled. Occupy took a lot of people’s imagination and bloomed all over the country. It didn’t last but a lot of the connections were being made, of economy, of the war, of no jobs for returning soldiers, no jobs for college students, heavy student loans, etc. There was a lot of flow between people with anti-war sentiments and people who were working for civil rights within this country. I think if this interview had taken place last March, we would not have said that the activism culture within the US has died, because there was one protest going on right at the Green. Q. Are you optimistic about the future of activism? PP. People are always going to be active. You can’t keep pushing people down. FP. Well, I have a different take on that. On the cosmic side, I am an optimist, because the world will survive even if humans don’t. On the human scale, I am not so sure, because I think Mother Nature can take only so much abuse, and we are reaching a point where what we have done to the planet is so egregious that it could be pretty dangerous. My hopes lie in the little kernels of resistance that we see, like Portugal this week, like Egypt, the Occupy movement. I think there are a lot of very bright young people out there who can do a lot. I am astonished at how creative they can be. I also think more countries are resisting the way American foreign policy treats them. Q. What would you say that you stand for at the end of the day, as peace activists? JC. I think everybody should have the right to live without fear. I think that we have no business killing people for an idea. I think we have no business targeting people for assassinations. I think we should not be fighting wars anywhere. I think we should be working to develop the Marxist system that asks “from everybody according to their abilities, to everybody according to their needs.” PP. And also a society with fairness, everybody having the right to a home, to healthcare, to education. FP. Yeah, that’s good enough for now. Contact DUR E AZIZ AMNA at dureaziz.amna@yale.edu .

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MARCH 8, 2013 · yaledailynews.com

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WEEKEND STYLES

Camille Chambers ’15: model student

Jin Ai Yap ’16: feminist on the go // BY MICHELLE HACKMAN

// BY LEAH MOTZKIN

Here’s someone who looks like she’s going to be a force on the Yale scene forthe forseeable future — and WEEKEND’s introducing you to her right now, so can you can try to be as hip as she is as soon as possible. Time to meet the inimitable Jin Ai Yap ’16. Q. What’s the deal with the scooter?

A. That’s an interesting question. I don’t, but I’m well aware that it adds to my strange hipster girl aura. As much as I hate that word. Q. How would you describe your aesthetic?

A. I’m from New York, and I found it pretty convenient there, and I used it a lot in the last months of senior year. I use it a lot on Science Hill, I have to go there about four times a week — but I usually take a shuttle up because I’m lazy.

A. It really varies, depending on my mood or what I’m inspired by on a particular day. I have trouble dressing in the morning when I’m not feeling inspired, but a lot of the time I like to become people who inspire me.

Q. Do you use it indoors?

Q. Like who?

A. Yes, when there are long, beautiful empty hallways. I’ve been called out a few times, but surprisingly not in Sterling Chemistry Lab where I like to scoot. I thought they’d be the most strict there.

A. In high school, I would go all out — dress up in a different Halloween costume every Friday. I have been Ramona Quimby, Gwen Stefani, Madonna. I try to embody what is most essential about them. I’ve definitely been the same person on two different days and done two completely different things.

Q. Are there a lot of people who used scooters at home or here at Yale? A. The most common scooter users are 8-year-olds. I was. I put away my scooter and I brought it back out — which was a good choice. It’s either children or adults who ride these scooters with big wheels. At Yale, it’s a small group of people. It’s a strange mix. // ALLIE KRAUSE

aesthetic?

Q. Do you consider it a part of your

Q. By different things, do you mean you’ve made different fashion choices? A. I have a relatively extensive wardrobe, but I still get tired of it. A lot of the pieces in it, for instance a fishnet shirt that I have, have a lot of different associations. I like surprising myself by finding new ways to look at clothing, like, ‘Oh,

that looks like it’s from the 80s if I pair it with something else.’

wanted to wear the fishnet shirt, and I needed to wear something underneath.

Q. We’ve heard that you work at the Women’s Center. What does the Center mean to you?

Q. Describe what you are wearing today.

Q. How do you think your aesthetic compares to most people’s at Yale?

A. Well, I’ve identified as a feminist for quite a while. It’s been something I’ve been interested in actively for a few years … I never really identified with Asian communities as much as feminists.

A. Oh god. I was having a terrible day today so I wore leggings and a Hunter athletics shirt. But right now, I’m wearing a maxi dress with a print that has people on it and a balcony scene with clouds, and it’s salmon and teal. And my fishnet shirt. Q. So you’re wearing a fishnet shirt on top of a dress? A. Yes. With a navy and dark green plaid blazer on top. And my Doc Martens, which are the only shoes that I own. Q. Why are they the only shoes that you own? A. I think I decided two years ago that, as much as I love shoes and as much as they let me express myself, most beautiful shoes are horrendous to wear and expensive, so I decided I would spend a lot of money on a pair of shoes that would last me for years, and they have. Q. What are you trying to embody today? A. Oh god. It’s not always a particular influence. It’s just my mood. On some days, it will begin with my make up — I’ll do something crazy with it, and that will give me inspiration. And today, I just

A. To be completely honest, I don’t see much of an aesthetic at Yale. I honestly don’t know how to compare it, because most of what I see is pastel and boat shoes and Yale clothing. Yale clothing is a big part of that. I don’t own any of that except for what’s been given to me for free. Q. Is it too preppy? A. There’s nothing inherently wrong with prep, I guess, and there’s nothing wrong with people not putting as much thought into clothing. This just happens to be my creative outlet. Q. Would you say that your aesthetic is feminine? A. For the most part, it is. That’s interesting. Most of my inspiration comes from femininity or particular female personas or characters. I recently became aware of how I sort of fetishize female celebrities or female icons and I embody those in my aesthetic. That conflicts with my personal views about how women are fetishized, even if it’s worshiping rather than degrading. But I can’t help it. Women are inspiring.

Q. What are you trying to do through the Women’s Center? A. My goal — I was more optimistic at the beginning of the year — but my goal, for quite some time, is to bring feminism to a wider audience. Not just demystify it, but eradicate a lot of the negative stereotypes or misconceptions that cause people to not identify as a feminist, even if their views are completely aligned with forms of feminism. Or just the stereotypes and misconceptions that cause people to dismiss what I’m saying when I say, ‘I’m a feminist.’ My opinions are undermined because I am marginalized. Aside from staffing at the Women’s Center, Erin Vanderhoof (a former WEEKEND editor) and I started a feminist discussion group that meets every other Tuesday. The goal is really to bring people of all backgrounds or familiarity with feminism to discuss freely a lot of issues — not just about feminism and gender, but about race and class here at Yale. Contact MICHELLE HACKMAN at michelle.hackman@yale.edu . // WILHELMINA MODELS

Dorian Grinspan ’14: fashion editor // BY KIKI OCHIENG Dorian Grinspan ’14 is not your average Yalie. At 20 years old, the Parisian native may be at the pinnacle of college fashion and looks poised to dominate the fashion world in the near future. As editor in chief of Out of Order Magazine, Grinspan has brought together a collective of topnotch artists, writers and stylists to create a biannual mammoth publication that brings together multiple aspects of culture — everything from fashion to lifestyle to music and film. His life and his work are a testament to high culture. WEEKEND caught up with the jetsetter in between meetings, photo shoots and shows at Paris Fashion Week. Q. How did the idea for Out of Order come about? Was it your idea or was it a collective process? A. When I got to Yale, I was asked to join a magazine and take care of fashion for that magazine. Unfortunately, I didn’t like the way things were going, but I was interested in everything we were doing and producing, so I quit. When I quit, some people that were on the team at the other magazine decided to do something with me as well. And so some of the people from the magazine I was working with before came with me and started a new magazine which was then called Blur. It was supposed to be 40 pages and produced at Yale, shot with people from Yale and only with stores around Yale. We had, you know, J.Crew and Urban Outfitters and stuff like that. We did a photo shoot that was supposed to be 10 pages — our main shoot for the issue — with a few friends. I really, really liked what the shoot looked like, so one day I decided to ask some friends from Paris, from before I came to college, to shoot for me. I had a young friend of mine who’s 16 or 17 and a really good photographer shoot with me and I styled it. I actually didn’t like that one either, so I started another one. Then that other shoot came about, then we started doing inter-

views and decided to get bigger and start a website, then a blog, and then it evolved from there very organically. None of it was really planned or anything like that. Q. So the magazine was originally called Blur, and then became Out of Order? A. It was called Blur for a little bit, and we all agreed that this name was kind of awful. We couldn’t figure out another name, so we spent a lot of time thinking about what kind of name it would be, and eventually we landed on Out of Order. Q. What sparked your interest in fashion? A. You know, I was always around it from when I was very young. I always used to kind of hang out with people who were older than me, and my first boyfriend was a photographer. He’s the one who first took me out to fashion parties and stuff like that in Paris. My first experience with fashion was with him, although I interned with Numero before. Numero’s a fashion magazine in Paris, and I really liked that too. I don’t know — it was a mixture of a lot of things. The social aspect of it and then the creative aspect of it, that I really liked. It’s an overall experience of fashion that is very interesting to me. Q. How did you go about recruiting writers and contributors from other universities for Out of Order? A. Again, it was very organic. Well, the one who’s been working with us most consistently and the one I rely on the most is Juliet Liu [’14]. She’s at Yale and is our managing editor. Then we had Cristina — well, two Cristinas actually — and Jessica. It was friends of friends and people they went to high school with, people I went to high school with. We’re all in college, and we’re all friends. It’s like,

“Hey, do you want to work with us? Do you want to write an article on this because I know you know a lot about this?” or “Do you want to interview this person?” and going from there. I had a friend who is also a music editor and now at Tufts. I first approached him to write articles about music, and then he became an editor, then he found people he thought would be interested in writing. And it kind of goes from there. It’s kind of word of mouth. Q. I’ve seen Out of Order’s website, and it’s frequently updated, stylistically appealing and really accessible. How do you think digital and social media are impacting the fashion and art worlds? A. I can speak less about the art world because I don’t think I’m an authority. Well, I don’t think I’m an authority on fashion either, but I know more about fashion than I know about art. In terms of fashion, it changed it completely. Especially with Instagram, and Twitter before Instagram. Facebook, now I feel less so, but maybe that’s just the wrong impression. It’s very important from the magazine aspect because you’re being judged now on your Twitter followers and it’s very important in terms of advertising. Q. In your opinion, how do you think Yalies fare when it comes to their personal style? A. I think it really depends. Fashion is different for everyone. I used to wear crazier outfits, and now I’m more into jeans and sneakers. It’s perfectly acceptable. I feel like some things you’re just comfortable in. If you look around on campus, people dress pretty well. Q. Do you think there’s a distinct difference between American style and European style? A. No, I think it’s all interconnected. I think there’s an American

style or a European style although American prep is kind of a look that’s very American, but you find a similar version in French bourgeois type of vibe. But you see the similarities in Italy or London as well, just as much as you see the New York grunge or thrift shop look in Paris. The style goes across borders. I don’t think it’s very continental. Q. Do you have any advice for people who might say that they don’t have the time or money to think about fashion regularly? A. Someone once told me that good advice is to tailor jeans. It’s something that doesn’t require a lot of money or time and actually looks much better every time. Otherwise … most of the time, people look awkward when they try too hard, you know? The more comfortable you feel with yourself or the less effort you put into it, the more “you” it is. Q. Do you see Out of Order as a college commitment or something that will be an ongoing project? A. I have no idea. I don’t think Out of Order can now, as it is, go on without me because the way it’s set up would be very complicated to take over right now. I don’t know how to answer this question, but I guess I’ll know more in a year. I have no idea what’s going to happen, but we’re working on our second issue now. I like what we’re doing, and I do believe that it’s good, but I don’t know how it’s going to be received. Now I’m just constrained with making this work. Contact KIKI OCHIENG at akinyi.ochineg@yale.edu .

// ADRIEN CHENEL

Even at the beach, Grinspan never has a spare moment.

Camille Chambers ’15 is beautiful and intelligent. Yale’s favorite model has been taking a year off to live and work in New York City. WEEKEND had a chance to chat with Chambers on the phone in between casting calls to hear about what she’s been up to.

do it now when I have the option?

Q. You’re currently in New York, taking a year off to pursue a career in modeling. Your life must be very different in New York than that of a current Yale student. What have you been doing since then?

Q. What role did modeling play in your life at Yale?

A. I started modeling full time this summer, and I realized that this is the only time in my life that I’d be able to do it and give it a shot. After taking fall semester off, I decided to take another — the agency was definitely pressuring me to take the full year off. I’m really happy with the decision. Q. What agency? A. Wilhelmina in New York and Los Angeles. Q. Can you describe your typical day? A. Normally, I get my chart — that is, my schedule of what is going on in the next day — anytime from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. the night before. If I don’t already have a job that will take all day, I will go on casting calls. I can go on anywhere from one to 15 castings in a day, running around the city to meet clients. Currently, Paris Fashion Week is going on — so things in New York are slow. [Leading up to] New York Fashion Week, however, I had about 100 castings a week.

Q. What is a mother agent? A. A mother agent is the person that scouts you. They then place you with an agency.

A. I was always very clear with my agencies that when I was in school, I was in school. It was very rare that I’d go on castings or have jobs when I was at Yale. Every now and then, I’d get something and miss class for a day or two. But it was never too hard to balance. I think for a lot of girls, if they aren’t up front with agencies, it can be hard to balance. Q. I just saw the Vimeo from your shoot with Emily Cho. What projects are you currently involved in? A. The Emily Cho shoot was the most recent job I had last Friday. Emily Cho is a new handbag designer, two girls from New York who get all of their bags professionally made. I did their fall look book. The video is the behind the scenes from the shoot. The real video is coming out in wthe fall, when they release the new line. Q. Who are some of your favorite designers? A. Oh my gosh, I have so many! I actually really love the Emily Cho handbags. In terms of clothes, I love Calvin Klein, Chloé, Balmain, Vince, Zac Posen and Ralph Lauren.

Q. When did you know you wanted to pursue modeling as a career?

Q. Do you hope to pursue modeling professionally after graduation?

A. I started modeling as a junior in high school and had a mother agent who was based in New York. She was placing me with agencies in New York, Chicago and Milan. She was always who I would go to when I was thinking about modeling. She was the person who most encouraged me to do it. I never wanted to grow up to be a model, but once I got involved, I realized it was a unique opportunity to do something I wouldn’t get to do later on. I kind of thought, why not

A. I’m not completely sure. I definitely want to keep my foot in the door, because it’s really hard to get back into modeling. I probably will not do this after undergrad. I’m hoping to get direct books for jobs to make money, but not necessarily pursue it full time. Q. What is it like living away from Yale’s campus? How was that adjustment? A. It’s been really nice, actually.

I’ve never had my own bedroom at Yale. It’s actually really nice to have a little more space, even though that’s weird in New York City because no one is used to having space there. But coming from a dorm room, I think it’s really nice to be independent. In terms of getting away from school, I really miss everyone. I try to come back as much as possible and love it when people come visit — I’m really excited to come back though. Q. Do you think it will be hard to readjust to college life after being away? A. I think it will be harder than I think it is. I haven’t really thought about if it is going to be hard or not. I’m sure there will be certain things. I’m definitely excited about coming back to dining hall food. I’m totally supporting myself in New York. So being back in college, where all food is paid for, will be nice. It will definitely be an adjustment in terms of classes and all of the readings. Q. What are you studying? How can you see modeling fitting in with that? A. I am an American Studies major. I am focusing in business and media culture. I want to go to law school after undergrad, and I am interested in fashion law. I started working with The Model Alliance a few months ago, and it has been really interesting seeing how the model industry and fashion world plays into legal aspects and what important things are left out of the model industry. Q. What are some of the coolest experiences you’ve had as a model? A. I had a job this summer working in Milan. It was a bridal shoot, and the location for the shoot was at a villa on Lake Como — the same villa that was in the James Bond movie “Casino Royale.” It was so beautiful and really glamorous. Normally people think the modeling industry is glamorous when it’s not — but this time it was! Contact LEAH MOTZKIN at leah.motzkin@yale.edu .