WEEKEND

// FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2014

Scales and Sutures: One Doctor’s Fight for Safer Pregnancies in Obese Women

Erinma Kalu ’14 explores the escalating numbers of obese and pregnant women in America, and what Dr. Katherine Campbell of Yale-New Haven Hospital is doing to stop them. // page 3

DATES

B5

DAZZLE

B6,B7

DRAMA

B9

RENDEZVOUS #2

ACADEMY AWARDS 2014

DIY THEATER

Bachelors and bachelorettes recap their WKND-sponsored encounters.

Reporters speculate on winning films and fashions, sometimes in verse.

Eric Xiao shines the spotlight on original student productions.

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2014 · yaledailynews.com

A WALK // BY DAVID MCCULLOUGH dosing taxi drivers, old faces on young people, rustling birds and the two-tone 1962 Ford pick-up with army veteran plates. The walk of the unencumbered mind, the walk free of a intentional destination — perhaps what one might call a Thoreauvian walk — is not really a walk at all, rather, an immersion.

Whether in a wooded hillside or on a bustling street corner, the walker leaves the narrow, quotidian track and discovers the world around.

The mind follows the feet. Purposeful walking gives way to purposeful thought. You begin to focus on a single finite issue, whether a confusing algorithm, a looming paper, nervous anticipation for the big game, or that girl who just won’t respond to your texts. And the twisted alleyways of the mind divide into hundreds of parallel one-way streets that insist on a common destination. This is not to suggest linear focus is the wrong way to think. But every now and then, jumble up the setting, let the avenues overlap, throw in a boulevard or backcountry road, maybe a few skyscrapers, or vast meadows. Let your mind meander through the new landscape. Venture alone, find your unique stride, and let the imagination go.

Notice Nadine’s tired eyes as she swipes your ID before a Davenport dinner, or the small faces carved into the overhangs beneath the Harkness bells, or the cracked window panes on the Sterling Library, or the hundreds of other idiosyn-

crasies within your new landscape.

And you may discover the world in which you have immersed yourself is no longer the blurry setting whirring by your shuffling feet and focused mind, but a stirring, vibrant being.

So, the next time the moon is full, or the morning young, throw on a pair of comfy socks and good shoes, turn up your collar, and step out.

Fill your lungs with the city air, and stride along slowly. Give it a try. If anything, it’s healthy exercise.

Contact DAVID MCCULLOUGH at david.mccullough@ yale.edu .

My Opinion Is Worth Your Time(?) // BY EMMA PLATOFF

On the first day of class, my English professor told us that our guiding philosophy for the semester should be “Dare to be stupid.” It’s a class about reviewing the performing arts, so this is crucial. We’re being paid for our opinions — we are to imagine — and so we had better express them.

In that class we had a debate recently over a critic who made a huge claim about a film, calling it the absolute best of its genre. I argued that his extensive knowledge and reputation allowed him to make such a sweeping statement, while some of my classmates thought his remark was off-putting. It comes down to this: I know that this critic knows more than I do, so I yield to the weight of his opinion. My classmates wanted to be allowed to decide for themselves.

The issue came up again when we were discussing our own reviews. We have to be opinionated because neutral is the worst thing a review can be, but are we allowed to express ourselves as strongly as the professionals? Without the knowledge base that an expert would have, where do we find rationalization for our gut reactions? And even if we do muster justification — if we manage somehow to explain why our words deserve to be printed — how can we expect that anyone will want to read them?

In addition to this English class, I write art and theater reviews for the News sometimes. Recently, a friend, who was considering starting to do the same, asked me, “But wouldn’t everything I write just be bullshit?”

I got a little defensive. “No,” I argued.

“It’s your opinion. You’re not claiming to be an expert.”

The truth is that I agreed with him, as I usually do. I often feel like a fraud expressing my opinions, whether it’s in a review, in section or even in selecting a dining hall. I feel like I don’t know enough to tell potentially more knowledgeable people that a production was fantastic or disastrous, or that Leibniz intended this but not that, or that Trumbrunch really is tastier than all other options. Even if my opinion is somehow valid, given my relative ignorance, who cares to hear it?

At Yale, we are being taught to express ourselves assertively and to be proud of our opinions. We are constantly instructed to participate in section. We

F R I D AY F E B RUA RY 2 8

are supposed to be learning to speak like the leaders of our fields, because everyone here hopes that someday we will become them. But as for now, we’re just students — and by choosing to matriculate, we’ve admitted that we don’t know everything. In discussion, then, is it okay that we’re not experts? Are we permitted to speak anyway?

I’ve never been one to talk much in class, probably because I am too busy doubting the merit of every thought I have. But other people do not have this problem, and I have to admit that there is something admirable about the section asshole, the confident critic, the friend who has no qualms about expressing her preferences. I have respect (and a little jealousy) for people who don’t hesitate to share their opinions — the people who, as my English professor directed, “Dare to be stupid.” It requires a certain kind of confidence to put your hand up, to open your mouth. Every comment you make implies, “My opinion is worth your time.”

Some people worry too much about this, and others too little. Some students are so silent that the TA never learns their names; others seem to talk more than the professor. These are extremes, but we all struggle to find a balance between them.

One day you might try to dominate class conversation. On another you might shrink behind your notebook and hope no one notices you.

In an English class recently, visiting theater critic Tanya Dean offered a middle ground. She said to trust our nïave perspective, to recognize its unique value — that just because your take is different from a professional’s or a professor’s does not mean that it is inherently worse.

Our inexperience, she argued, can yield just as helpful and valid an assessment as any amount of education would.

Dean’s comments were about theater reviews, but like most nuggets of artistic wisdom, they’re generalizable. Whatever our opinions are, their merit lies in their originality. To stifle our unique form of ignorance because we are ashamed not to have someone else’s expertise would be counterproductive. All I can offer is what I have. I sell myself short and cheat my readers, my friends and my classmates if I hold it back.

// ANNELISA LEINBACH

CUNNINGHAM

The common theme among the hundreds of walks I’ve taken since school began some five months ago has been purpose — moving with purpose, walking with intent. And it’s hard to recognize this theme when all the people around you move to the same rhythm; hustling into the library, pacing across the common room, jogging to class, sauntering back to the dorm, sprinting to Walgreens, trudging to the gym … the list goes on. And whether walking, pacing, jogging, or sprinting, the intent is always the same — one foot in front of the other, at varying frequency, in an intentional direction, with a specific destination in mind. That seems the issue with this kind of walking, not the movements, rather the mind’s focus on a predetermined destination. Walking then becomes a process to achieve a well-planned goal, like brushing one’s teeth or mowing the lawn.

Out of curiosity, the other morning I tried to break this trend.

With no planned course, no urgent need to be anywhere, I slipped on my sneakers and strode out into the morning air. I found myself strolling through the city, along the sidewalk between the wooded New Haven Green and Shake Shack and the various shops and restaurants along Chapel Street.

The city was beginning to stir, to vibrate, dark shops and long lines of humming cars at stop lights, the scent of bacon from a nearby diner, crowds huddled at the bus stop,

PLATOFF

MCCULLOUGH

WEEKEND VIEWS

Let’s Try Believing in People: Reading Privilege at Yale // BY JAME CUNNINGHAM

Look around you at Yale any day of the week. Who do you see? People? Humans? Souls?

The oppressive environment of Yale makes our personalities see each other like assignments, pages to be read and talked about in a classroom “seminar” setting. But what does this mean? How can we truly feel this way about peers whom we are supposed to love and touch their souls?

Yale is a microcosm of the human world of societies.

According to the National Studies, some of us can’t even look people in the eyes without seeing them as an objectification. What place is this?

What does this say about us as people? We need to work on our skills of really connecting without thinking about social constructs like stereotypes and society. If you really think about your role in the community, you might grow to learn how common values like truth and sharing contribute to a meaningful discourse about campus life — just like when we were children.

If you think about it, children are the only ones who can really appreciate oneto-one behavior between humans, as one. When a child looks at a book, he can’t read it, but he knows what it means. We as Yale students in the community of Yale really need to remember to know what things mean. We as Yale students, all in all, reach a point in each of our lives where we bear responsibility for ourselves and others in the noble endeavor of our lives.

Can we trust ourselves as creators of the new generation of society to pave the way of true knowledge?

Take the instance of iPhones, for example. When we look at a screen, it automatically means we cannot look at a face. When we read a “text” we automatically cannot “read” our friends. As we have become more and more a society that values material culture and the values that it discharges over a culture that values people and animals as they are and should be, are we not becoming what the famous Hemingway once called the Lost Generation?

And after all, are we not just, like Hemingway, animals too?

YALE IS NOT A FACTORY; IT IS A FARM. What the administration doesn’t understand is that students need room not only to learn and create but also to grow as people and believe.

Yale is not a factory; it is a farm. Our professors should be concerned not with molding our plastic minds but nurturing the eggs of our souls.

The administration should not be concerned with what method is most “efficient” or “productive” but rather with feeding us the freshest grains and oats.

Another aspect that plays into the role of campus in society and vice versa is this overwhelming obsession with the culture of the hookup culture on campus. If we cannot make meaningful connections with each other, but like the proverbial preying mantis only eat our mates after making love, so to speak, we will fall into a deep pit of moral

decay and failing as a society. Hook-up culture is only beneficial to those for whom hooking up benefits, and the rest of students who may not be comfortable with those social norms are put on the sidelines like the proverbial basketball players.

This is not to say that we cannot know one another merely by the processes of looking and seeing; but, rather, to delve into one another in a new way that eliminates stereotypes completely. Preconceived notions can only be understood as a reflection of our deep-seated discomfort with hierarchies and the pressures they emit on each of us as Yale students.

And that is why no one person can be held accountable for the actions and beliefs of our collective inner demons, but rather all of us, as a society, must take action to counteract the tide of isolation and make everyone feel at home. Think about that Peter Salovey!

So the next time you’re walking on Cross Campus, or sitting in your class in a “seminar,” look around you. The world might be more complex than you ever give it credit for. All these people are more than interesting books; if you only took the time to read them, they might be interesting people. Maybe the really important reading isn’t on the syllabus at all. Maybe, for once, the Yale community can come together to realize that truth is more than just how much you “know,” it’s how much you are.

Contact JAME CUNNINGHAM at thisis.afakename@yale.edu .

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

THE 21ST ANNUAL GRANNUM TALENT SHOW

Mary S. Harkness Memorial Auditorium // 7–8:30 p.m.

“Jashan Bahangra group, Breakers at Yale, the Yale Gospel Choir and much more!”

WEEKEND NOMINATES: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind Best use of Jim Carrey.

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2014 · yaledailynews.com

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WEEKEND COVER

THE WEIGHT OF THE MATTER // BY ERINMA KALU

n a chilly evening in early March, I stepped through the doors of the YaleNew Haven Hospital. Wide-eyed and exhilarated, I was on my way to observe Dr. Katherine Campbell deliver a baby.

I was soon to learn that this delivery was unlike ordinary ones, the deliveries often marked by the predictable but remarkable anticipation of a newborn. This delivery would shift everything I knew about medicine.

“Today, I and a team of surgeons will deliver a baby for a woman who is obese,” Campbell explains as we head toward the patient’s hospital room. The physician-nurse team considers this patient high-risk because her obesity is a threat to not only her own life, but also that of her baby.

After wrestling into an oversized set of sea-green scrubs, I continue on with Campbell into the maternal-fetal medicine ward of the hospital. An energetic married mother of twins, Campbell is an obstetrician-gynecologist who treats New Haven women with high-risk pregnancies.

She knocks on the door of the patient’s hospital room and enters. The patient is a young Latina woman, who lies listlessly across the hospital bed, clearly in pain. Her family surrounds her with worried expressions. I would soon see this woman stripped, anesthetized and limp on a delivery table with bright lights, physicians and technicians taking the place of her family members.

Campbell, the other surgeons and I would soon be witnesses to the battle between obesity and this woman and her child’s life. *** The only part of the patient I see is her pale belly bulging out of the opening of blue surgical drape sheets. Campbell and the other surgeons use scalpels to peel away her skin, muscle and fat to perform the cesarean section. Blood oozes over their gowns, settling into the mass of towels that are strewn on the bottom of the operating table.

O

signs such as a drop in the baby’s or mother’s heart rate.

After a flurry of activity, a newborn baby finally emerges. The surgeons hand over the infant to the technicians to be cleaned and taken to the neonatal care unit.

Because Campbell has to attend to another patient, she leaves the other surgeons in charge to suture up the incision and whisks me away. My adrenaline high dies down.

For Campbell, this kind of surgery has become routine. As a physician, she’s made it her personal mission to combat the risks involved in obese pregnancies.

But the intense, and often emotional, complexities of the problem extend far beyond the operating rooms of Yale-New Haven.

America’s fat problem is hardly new news: Each year, obesity costs the U.S. $150 billion a year and causes 300,000 premature deaths. But obesity takes on an entirely new set of dangers for pregnant women — and with onefifth of pregnant women in the U.S. currently obese, Campbell’s work is more urgent than ever. *** Campbell and I meet again on a cool morning in early October at Yale-New Haven’s Primary Care Center. Once inside, she eagerly introduces me to “the team” of the day: Elizabeth Miller, Dr. Lydia Shook, Dr. Lisa Zuckerwise and Dr. Stephanie Bakaysa, a group of women aglow with enthusiasm.

Today, there are 20 patient visits scheduled for ultrasounds and non-stress tests, a measure for heart disease in the patient. These meetings serve to keep the team members up-to-date on what diseases the women have had, what diseases they now have, and what they need to have for a healthy pregnancy.

Dr. Bakaysa scans a patient list while placing a hot, steaming spoonful of oatmeal into her mouth. She begins to speak with a thick Boston accent, running off a series of medical conditions of the first patient of the day. “Obesity, congenital heart disease, anxiety, depression, suicide attempt, GERD …” she says, waiting for her audience to ask questions about

WITH ONE-FIFTH OF PREGNANT WOMEN IN THE U.S. CURRENTLY OBESE, CAMPBELL’S WORK IS MORE URGENT THAN EVER. Campbell is intensely focused.

As she later puts it, delivery for an obese patient can be strenuous for both doctor and mother. There is more skin and muscle tissue to cut through, and more strength is required from the surgeons to heave through in order to reach the baby.

“We get tired,” she says.

Obese women are also at a greater risk for blood clots during delivery, along with diabetes and hypertension, according to Campbell. Because these illnesses can produce severe complications before, during and after childbirth (hemorrhage, stroke, anesthesia problems, surgical wound infections), Campbell and her team are on their toes, waiting for warning

the patient’s current and past treatment.

“This baby is going to be very sick when it’s born,” Campbell declares abruptly. Questions and comments erupt from the other physicians and the nurse, bouncing from one person to the next.

It becomes clear that Campbell is the leader of the group.

“The practice of medicine has had to change so much to accommodate our obese patients,” Campbell later explains. She describes how, although vaginal deliveries are safer than cesarean sections, she often has to quickly decide to perform cesarean sections on obese women.

Campbell and her team do these urgent cesarean sections often-

times because of dystocia, “when the baby is unable to fit down and out the birth canal.” Obese women face a greater risk of dystocia because they have extra soft tissue in the birth canal.

Furthermore, she says, when an obese woman is scheduled to go into the operating room, the labor and delivery team (made up of nursing, anesthesia and surgical teams) must change its protocol for many factors. They must plan for the extra time needed to transfer her into the operating room, the time it takes to position and prepare her for surgery and the time required to administer anesthesia. Most importantly, they must prepare for the added strength and concentration needed to move from making skin incisions to delivering the fetus.

For Campbell and other doctors, when it comes to delivering the child of an obese woman, time is of the essence.

But time can also be their biggest enemy when a baby is under distress, experiencing inconsistent breathing levels and low heart rates. In such cases, the child needs to be delivered quickly, and a slower cesarean section is dangerous. Ultimately, any wasted time in the womb could be fatal for the child.

“We don’t want to be in a situation where we say ‘we need to deliver this baby right now,’” Campbell says.

She contrasts this with the practice for non-obese women whose babies are undergoing similar distress during delivery. She explains the episode of a thin, 160-pound patient who insisted on having a vaginal delivery rather than a cesarean section. When the patient went into labor, the baby’s heart rate began to decelerate abnormally. Campbell and the other surgeons waited for the protocol time of half an hour so that the baby’s heart rate would stabilize and the vaginal delivery could proceed.

It’s a luxury that doctors cannot afford for obese women.

“If this patient had been obese, I never would have waited,” Campbell says firmly. *** It’s 11 a.m., Campbell’s typing information into the electronic system, and I step away for a moment to get a cup of tea. On my way into the break room, I run into Katie Sullivan, who coordinates the diabetes pregnancy program in the maternal-fetal medicine department. As a nurse practitioner, Sullivan works to control and treat diabetes in obese pregnant women.

I speak with Sullivan for a while, who tells me that when treating these obese pregnant women, “it’s all about education.” Sullivan believes, above all, that education and communication are the most effective ways to minimize risks in the pregnancy. Further, education and communication ensure that obese pregnant women not only understand their own condition, but also the dangers it poses for their future children.

To educate patients, Sullivan is upfront: “The way you eat is the problem.”

If this is true, what is Campbell SEE PREGNANCY PAGE 8

Women who were obese before pregnancy, or in early pregnancy, have an increased risk of having a baby with birth defects like: Cardiovascular defects:

30% higher risk

Cleft lip and cleft palate:

20% higher risk

Hydrocephaly (abnormal buildup of fluid in the brain):

60% higher risk

Limb reduction abnormalities:

30% higher risk

F R I D AY F E B RUA RY 2 8

“THE SINGULARITY: WILL WE SURVIVE OUR TECHNOLOGY?”

WEEKEND NOMINATES:

WHC Auditorium // 7:30 p.m.

THE FUTURE IS COMING. ARE YOU PREPARED?

She’s the Man

Best excuse to have Channing Tatum play a character named “Duke.”

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2014 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND ARTS

S E T Y B D N A S E S S E BUTTR // BY BEN FAIT Between its clean-cut geometry and aura of cutting-edge technology, a certain subset of modern architecture screams an aesthetic that can be best classified as “super villain” — gloriously inefficient, substituting functionality and cost-effectiveness for maniacal laugh-inducing technological coolness. To that effect, throughout Rudolph Hall’s new “Archaeology of the Digital” exhibit, Chuck Hoberman’s motorized wire spheres expand to improbably large proportions and plexiglass domes magically selfassemble — if Lex Luthor were building a beach house, he would probably peruse this exhibit for inspiration.

Organized by the Canadian Centre for Architecture, “Archaeology of the Digital” explores how digital technology has expanded and influenced modern architecture. It focuses on four notable examples: Frank Gehry’s Lewis Residence, Peter Eisenman’s unconstructed Biozentrum, Chuck Hoberman’s Expanding Sphere and Shoei Yoh’s roof structures for Odawara and Galaxy Toyama Gymnasiums. Each architect used digital ideas to craft their buildings, from the abstract DNA structure that inspired Eisenman’s Biozentrum to the difficult geometric calculations needed to construct Hoberman’s famous expanding spheres. Blueprints and models of each build-

ing form the center of the exhibit, along with interviews with the architects. Several 3-D computer models are also on display for the public to rotate and manipulate.

Though logical, the exhibit’s presentation was fairly difficult to navigate. “Archaeology” is meant to lead the visitor through each major work, but this isn’t immediately apparent to viewers who wish to quickly peruse the models — several visitors appeared to be proceeding through the exhibit backward, occasionally skipping a sequence. Additionally, much of what’s featured is somewhat technical — many blueprints of the same building, for example, appear in succession and differ only slightly. Neither of these effects would trouble a visitor with sufficient time to digest the display, but a quick 20-minute visit won’t give much insight.

That said, the arrangement of models and blueprints excellently demonstrates the relationship between architect and technology. As computers adopted a system of modeling consisting of points connected by lines, architectural modeling followed suit, with metal wire becoming a common form of demonstrating concepts. In addition to influencing traditional architecture, computer modeling also allowed new breakthroughs, and the variation among the styles displayed reinforces this notion. Whereas

each Gothic building more or less resembles every other Gothic building, each project aided by technology is completely novel — one may take the form of a biological macromolecule, another a fish and yet another an indescribably curvy prism.

The exhibit manages to drive home the idea that technology is rapidly infiltrating every aspect of our culture — even art. Technology does not necessarily reduce formerly artisanal activities into cold, rapid and linear pursuits, but rather expands the artist’s creative reach. I stopped to meditate on Frank Gehry’s Lewis Residence for more time than I grant most pieces of art in similar nonarchitectural exhibits. The building, made up of an assortment of geometric objects, seems to defy physics even as it holds together.

“The brain that transforms [thought] into art is needed to get beyond the recognizable language of the computer program,” Gehry explained in a quote displayed next to his work.

The space also makes a compelling case for bridging the “intellectual curiosity gap between history/theory and design” — as “Archaeology” argues at the beginning of the exhibit. As scholars look back on the development of architecture in our time and in the recent past, they will need to have access to the digital record of an architect’s progress — the cus-

tom programs, digital models and more.

Despite this, almost no institutions maintain databases of these digital tools, failing to account for data’s being as important as the physical models and drawings previous designers left behind.

Through its interactive computer models and documentation of each architect’s creative process, “Archaeology of the Digital” demonstrates the importance of archiving the entirety of a building’s construction, digital or not.

Victor Hugo wrote in “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” that architecture is a product of each generation’s evolving culture — “the residue of successive evaporations of human society.” “Archaeology of the Digital” is a unique examination of the overlap of art and technology. Certainly this mixture, with its unprecedented creative freedom, will characterize the residue modern architecture leaves behind.

as these, Pope associates himself with all the finest minds past and present.

Slowly, subtly, the curators of the exhibition complicate this aristocratic impression. In the eight busts, all done by Roubiliac, at the center of the exhibition, Pope slips into many guises. We first see Pope as he most wishes us to see him — a classicized, marble man, cold and canonical.

Then, in terracotta, we see some of his defects — his eyes sink into their sockets; his forehead is creased with consternation and social anxiety. A plaster bust softens these wrinkles, lending Pope smoothness and humanness, while retaining some of the emotional intensity of the terracotta bust. Perhaps the most powerful of the busts is one of the smallest. It shows Pope without grandeur, bare-shouldered and frail, a pitiful innocent body on a pitiful innocent scale.

Pope crafts an at once artificial and extremely seductive literary identity. The seductiveness lies in the malleability and elusiveness of Pope’s identity — just when we think we have reached a fragile, all-too-human and vain man, we are confronted with a classicized laureate, a man of enormous stature and fame. This exhibition captures this range and invites the viewer to layer these various postures, and discard none of them.

Fruitful contrasts in the exhibition allow these competing impressions to sink in. A bust of Pope is placed next to one of another celebrated English author, Laurence Sterne. Sterne’s face is virile, strong and sure; it betrays a heartier humor. Pope by contrast is socially anxious (“he hardly drank tea without a stratagem” once quipped Dr. Johnson). His languorous eyes show a soul that has ground itself finer and finer into delicacy, a sensibil-

Contact BEN FAIT at benjamin. fait@yale.edu .

// ALANA THYNG

Pope-pourri // BY ANDREW KOENIG If Shakespeare is the English poet of whom we wish we knew more, Alexander Pope is the poet of whom we already know more than enough. Pope, perhaps more than any other poet before or since, was a master of self-promotion, commissioning images of himself, striking literal and social poses and plying the art of ceaseless reinvention.

Ample evidence of this is on display in the Yale Center for British Art’s new exhibition: “Fame and Friendship: Pope, Roubiliac, and The Portrait Bust in Eighteenth-Century Britain.” The exhibition presents a number of famous portraits of Pope, as well as some manuscripts culled from the Beinecke and Lewis Walpole Libraries, which provide generous historical context for understanding Pope as a self-fashioned man. Afflicted with tubercular infection at a young age, the poet’s otherwise handsome fea-

F R I D AY F E B RUA RY 2 8

tures were forever marred by a hunchback and unusually short stature. Much like Franklin Roosevelt, Pope had himself portrayed either sitting down or as a bust, thus concealing his physical deformities.

The exhibition presents us with the many faces Pope put on, slowly building up and revising our conception of him as we pass through. Throughout the first part of the exhibition we see iterations of the indolent aristocrat.

Jonathan Richardson the Elder paints Pope with tired luminous eyes, a frilly silk chemise and the most dandyish of velvet ensembles. In Jean-Baptiste van Loo’s portrait of Pope, we see the aspirant artist lost in thought. He rests his delicate, sleeved elbow on a leather-bound copy of Homer (in the original Greek, of course); in a niche in the background we see a hazy bronze sculpture of Isaac Newton. Through allusions such

ity that favors the sparkle of wit, the shimmering couplet and the twinge of love, to the epic grandeur he fakes in Romanized portraits.

The curators of the exhibition have done a remarkable job in tracking the many faces of Pope, both through the presentation and its accoutrements. The explanatory placards are informative but not irritating. This conscientious scholarship gives one the same sense of comfort and pleasure as English scholarship at Yale does. Indeed, the two are not unrelated. The exhibition affords us the pleasure of reading through not only the history of Pope but of Pope criticism at Yale. In a corner, we view notes from seminal scholars like W.K. Wimsatt, whose “The Portraits of Alexander Pope” is the driving force behind the creation of this exhibition. “Fame and Friendship” doesn’t just give us works

LIVE AT THE D!

Contact ANDREW KOENIG at andrew.koenig@yale.edu.

WEEKEND NOMINATES:

Digital Media Center for the Arts, 149 York St. // 6 p.m.

WKND’s d for the D.

of art out of context, as so many exhibitions do, but links issues of biography, canonization and artistic patronage to the pieces on display. We see several editions of Pope’s poetry as well as books he owned and annotated, a compendious offering of primary and secondary sources that grounds the exhibition without drowning it in biographical minutiae.

Although, according to my English professor, “Yale was once a tower of eighteenth-century criticism: no more,” we can still take pleasure in perusing the scrupulous Pope scholarship once done here.

Perhaps that is because Pope gives us no easy answers, makes no straight faces or undisguised looks; but to the patient viewer, guided by ingenious curation, the poet might start to reveal himself.

Lost in Translation

Best casual Yale reference (Scarjo’s character went here, and is sad post-graduation).

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2014 · yaledailynews.com

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WEEKEND FEATURE

This Week’s Dates // BY WEEKEND So WEEKEND’s going to start referring to ourselves as Yenta, because we are pretty much the best matchmakers ever (and we don’t even sing!). Our pairs of Bachelors and Bachelorettes shared stupendous dinners on the YDN’s dime

and found, well, read on to see how it went. Many thanks to our voters and best wishes for Bachelors 6 and 8 who won the initial vote count (we hope you feel better!), WEEKEND presents this year’s results.

He Says

He Says

// BY HUNG PHAM

// BY DARIEN LEE

Darien and I, both finely suited up, met at the Pierson College gates at 8:45 p.m. and immediately got engaged into funny and fluid conversation about midterms, art history and photojournalism. We chose Kamal’s as our restaurant of choice because neither of us had gone there before — and what an excellent venue it was! Though there was a small party of about four sitting in the restaurant when we entered, they eventually left Darien and me alone for a rich conversation over dinner that lasted almost two hours.

It took a while for us to even order our food because we couldn’t stop exchanging family stories and pride for our home states (which for him was Texas and, me, California). I ordered some spicy chicken saag that was magical, to say the least, and he ordered a sample platter. I didn’t feel that was much to take advantage of since the Yale Daily News was reimbursing us for eating out, so I got an extra order of naan bread in case he became hungrier later.

Though Darien and I had met cursorily in BIOL 103 section last year, we hadn’t gotten to know each other outside the context of classes. In sharing narratives about love for family and the excitement in meeting people different from us to Olympic hockey and responsibilities of an oldest child (which we both are), we humanized each other last night.

Laughter saturated Kamal and I couldn’t stop smiling. I’m thankful for what the Yale Daily News did for us because I truly enjoyed myself on the date and felt like I really got to know Darien without forcing myself to be outwardly flirtatious or socially amicable. In today’s society where technology can both bring people together and distance them further, I don’t particularly like how sometimes people my age meet someone new and start texting but have to invest immense, cold calculation and formulation behind their nascent relationship — to text or not to text today, to wait, to play hard to get, to use Emojis or not, is a winky face too forward right now. Simply do what you feel and feel what you do.

I didn’t have to try on my blind date with Darien. I just did. And quite frankly and I think that’s how most dates — if not most human interactions — should be.

After my suitemate checked over the outfit I had chosen — not sloppily casual, yet not stiffly formal, as my dress must say “I effortlessly look suave” — I meandered my way towards the Pierson gate, just a couple minutes early — early enough to seem responsibly punctual but not so early that I look desperate.

First dates are hard.

When Hung came out, there was the briefly awkward moment where I had to figure out if he was going for the hug or the handshake, but the moment passed quickly with a couple firm pats on the back. Confession: Hung and I had bio section together last year, and we’re Facebookfriend-acquaintances, so he’s not a stranger.

Still, there’s a lot that I didn’t know about him, and during our stroll to the restaurant — Kamal’s, which neither of us had been to — he filled me in on his photojournalism class, his seminar with Dean Mary Miller, his passion for art.

Dinner was a delicious affair, and I ache with regret at having eaten at Chemistry Club’s professor dinner night before coming. Our conversation wandered organically, weaving between our families’ immigrant stories, my “Molecules and Radiation” class, his work as an EMT, our suitemates and mutual acquaintances. He’s a great conversationalist, an active listener who asked engaging questions, who colored in our exchange with hues and shades of his pretty incredible life experiences.

Though I wasn’t keeping track of the (tooswift) passage of time, from the corner of my eye I saw and recognized the agitated movements of the wait staff — we were the only patrons left in the restaurant, and reluctantly I suggested that we finish up soon. Hung had been impeccably polite the entire night to the staff, and our departure was no exception; we wrapped up and headed back out into the cold.

Our light discussion about Asian foods and our particular food preferences grinded to a halt when it came time to part ways, us standing on the street between our respective colleges, and because I’m an awkward fool who is absolutely horrendous at goodbyes, all I know is that I ended up babbling something incoherent and indecipherable. We shook hands — in retrospect, I’m wondering how many first dates end with handshakes — and I crossed the street back towards Branford, with a silly little grin on my face.

Contact DARIEN LEE at darien.lee@yale.edu .

// HENRY EHRENBERG

She Says

She Says

// BY SOPHIA

// BY KELSEY LARSON

I’ll be honest: I entered this competition without really thinking about it, on the off chance that I might get a free meal and meet someone cool. But when I read Kelsey’s profile I really hoped that we would win, because I thought she sounded awesome. I thought right. Talking to her was the most fun I’ve had in a while. We talked about everything from Doctor Who to Chinese philosophy to the threat of widespread single-ness to Japanese cultural self-concept (I’m not kidding). On a somewhat unrelated note, I learned that I make a ridiculous face when I try to take selfies.

I THOUGHT SHE SOUNDED AWESOME. I THOUGHT RIGHT. The food aspect was also great.

We went to Miya’s Sushi, a place I’ve always loved on the rare occasions that I had the chance to eat it. It was my first time having a proper meal there, though I did

eat a few late-night specials my freshman year, and it was Kelsey’s first time ever, so going over the menu was quite an adventure.

They have the most creative role selection I’ve ever seen — the “best crunchy roll ever,” for example, had gormeh sabzi, which is the last thing I would think to put on sushi. (If you don’t know what that is, I highly recommend eating at a Persian restaurant in the near future. Or far future, since there aren’t any Persian restaurants in New Haven. I think.) I was, in fact, so unfamiliar with Miya’s Sushi that I accidentally went to Sushi Mizu first. I made two fundamental first date faux pas by showing up late and leaving much earlier than I would have wanted to, but Kelsey was nice about it. I really enjoyed meeting her and I look forward to getting to know her better in the future, and I’m so glad the News (and its voters!) gave me that chance.

In the end, I got exactly what I wanted, a free meal with someone cool. But I didn’t expect just how cool she would turn out to be.

Sophia requested that WEEKEND not print her last name.

F R I D AY

THE LEAST BLINDEST DATE

F E B RUA RY 2 8

We wish Jess Buckey ’15 and Shikha Garg ’15 well, but the News will not reimburse.

Looking at Sophia’s biography, I figured we’d have a good date. I was more right than I’d expected. Meeting up at Miya’s, we covered the core Yale Questions (Major? Year? Residential college?) and then started into the real conversation. We quickly realized we had as even more in common than our scarily similar biographies suggested. We both loved “Doctor Who,” adored the same fantasy series from high school, and held the same rage over the cancellation of “Firefly.” We swapped recommendations for podcasts and webcomics and gushed over Hayao Miyazaki’s movies. We also share the same passion about social justice in the developing world, with Sophia planning to go to Thailand to work on waterway preservation and me applying for a semester in Mongolia studying economic development and social change. We jokingly wondered if the News contest was rigged.

The conversation flowed easily as we snacked our way through the sushi. Finding myself rambling enthusiastically about Chinese philosophy and my favorite

Contact HUNG PHAM at hung.pham@yale.edu .

fictional characters, I stopped and mumbled, “Sorry, I’m a little nerdy about this stuff.” She smiled and said it was fine, and I felt myself become a little less self-conscious. We stole each other’s sushi and chatted about the unusual flavors, although we decided to keep my delicate Midwestern palate away from her pepper-laced nine-spice sashimi.

At the end of our date, as we both walked to WLH, I reflected that the restaurant had been an excellent fit for the company.

The conversation had been even more fun than the menu (and a menu with items such as “Kiss the Smiling Piggie” is pretty hard to top), and I admired Sophia’s and Miya’s passion for making the world a better place. When we got to the spot where our routes separated, we hugged and planned when we’d next meet.

Especially as a recently out bi girl, I was more than a little nervous about the date, but I’m pretty sure I was grinning by the time we went our separate ways.

Contact KELSEY LARSON at kelsey.larson@yale.edu .

WEEKEND NOMINATES:

Caesus // 7:30 p.m.

The Philadelphia Story

Best performance of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” (Jimmy Stewart, drunk).

PAGE B6

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 20143 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND RED

PAGE B7

CARPET

BREAKING DOWN THE RACE FOR BEST PICTURE // BY MICHAEL LOMAX AND BECCA EDELMAN

With the 86th Academy Awards in just a couple days, WEEKEND film buffs Michael Lomax and Becca Edelman exchanged a few emails to get an idea what to expect this Sunday night. This is an excerpt of what they came up with.

Michael Lomax: Another year, another batch of movies. I only hope we can redeem ourselves after being so down on “Argo” in 2013. (Seriously, I loved “Argo,” but Best Picture?) So first impressions of 2014’s nine nominees: and the Oscar goes to…?

Becca Edelman: “12 Years a Slave.” Most definitely. It deserves the win and I think the academy will comply. Not only has it been sweeping the pre-Oscar award ceremonies, but I would say it’s the most important American film of the past five few years.

ML: “12 Years a Slave” is the smart pick. I remember when “Gravity” was blowing people out of the water, but let’s be real, director Steve McQueen and screenwriter John Ridley both delivered a film that is moving, lyrical and literary all at once. Both men are winning their respective awards, and the race shouldn’t be very close.

BE: I enjoyed “Gravity,” but mostly for its elements of spectacle. Although I loved the vivid

beauty of Alfonso Cuaron’s world, I cannot help but compare the film to the director’s other work, particularly “Children of Men,” which I feel far surpasses Gravity in its narrative depth. Certainly “Gravity” is a beautiful film with technological significance, but it misses the deeper social significance of films like “12 Years” or “Her.” ML: I actually liked “Her” quite a lot, and of the nominees, it was my favorite. Solid writing, phenomenal visuals, moving performances — but it just doesn’t have the timbre of an Oscar-winning movie. (Though to be fair, I said the same thing about “Argo.”) You know what does instead? “Dallas Buyers Club.”

BE: The problem with “Her” is that some will see it as a rather small film about the life and problems of a single man. But it is in fact a brilliant exploration of what it means to be in a human relationship and, frankly, what it means to be human. If not for “12 Years,” “Her” would certainly be my pick.

As for “Dallas Buyers Club,” there were some unbelievable performances, particularly Jared Leto’s.

But for me, this is a film that tries to be big but ends up small. It felt like a never-ending series of melodramatic buildups to cliché, unsatisfying climaxes.

ML: I completely agree with you on the merits of “Her,” but

by Oscar-timbre, I mean Oscarbait. “A man falls in love with his computer” doesn’t have the same Academy-approved buzz-worthy ring as “a homophobic Texan gets AIDS in the 80s” or “a free Northern black man is captured and sold into slavery for twelve years.” The Oscar-bait tag also applies to movies made for their performances — of which, “Dallas Buyers” is a prime example. Leto and Matthew McConaughey are probably taking home the acting Oscars.

BE: But no nomination for Oscar Isaac? He carried the entirety of “Inside Llewyn Davis.” Speaking of that film, what a snub for the Coens!

ML: I’m not surprised by the “Inside Llewyn Davis” snubs, nor do I particularly care. I’ve watched it twice and been unimpressed both times. Don’t get me wrong, it’s an objectively good film, but I’ve come to expect more out of the Coens. “Llewyn Davis,” simply put, is just not all that spectacular.

BE: I don’t think the Coens did anything particularly new with “Llewyn Davis” — we’ve seen this kind of thing from them before.

But the cinematography is beautiful, I found the performances compelling, and, as always from the Coens, “Llewyn Davis” is a thoughtful film, which I think has to count for something. I was certainly surprised that “Captain

Phillips” was nominated instead.

ML: The cinematography in “Llewyn Davis” was about on par with any of the Coens’ other great movies, and for however thoughtful the film was, it was a relatively lazy effort from a pair of directors whose bar is already set through the roof. That being said, when we see that it was passed over in favor of “Philomena” and “Captain Phillips” — two movies clearly made to attract Oscar buzz — I can understand the outrage. But if we really think about it, does it matter who’s nominated fourth through ninth?

“Llewyn Davis,” “Philomena,” “Captain Phillips,” etc. don’t stand a chance of winning big this Sunday.

BE: But isn’t being nominated an honor in itself? And what do you think of “Wolf of Wall Street?”

Does it have a shot?

ML: It definitely is, but we’re talking about winners here, and speaking of which, “Wolf” won’t be winning much of anything. It’s one of my favorite Scorsese movies, but it’s proved too controversial and critically quiet to stand much of a chance at the Oscars.

BE: One of your favorite Scorsese’s? Sacrilege! On par with “Taxi Driver?” “Goodfellas?” “Raging Bull?” “Gangs of New York?” I even vastly prefer “Hugo.” In fact, my biggest problem with “Wolf” is its inability to escape the long

shadow cast by “Goodfellas.” Both films watch young men rise in some sort of “industry,” quickly abandoning ethics when faced with the allure of money and power. Both films begin with a flash to the middle of the plot (interestingly, so does “American Hustle,” which also owes something to “Goodfellas”) and feature a voiceover narration from the main character. And both men eventually rat out their criminal cohorts. The problem with these similarities isn’t just that it’s repetitive. It’s that “Wolf of Wall Street” is inherently not as good a film as “Goodfellas.”

ML: I stand by what I said. It’s “one of” my favorites — not THE favorite. (Remember: Scorsese has made a lot of movies, and many of them have been duds.) I do agree that “Wolf” is probably too similar to “Goodfellas” for people to take it seriously, but for however much the two films match stylistically, they depict incredibly different worlds. That, and “Wolf” is absolutely hilarious from start to finish.

It was about this time that the email chain fell silent. Regardless, Lomax and Edelman see “12 Years a Slave” cleaning up the major awards. Tune into ABC this Sunday to find out for yourself.

Contact MICHAEL LOMAX at michael. lomax@yale.edu and BECCA EDELMAN at rebecca.edelman@yale.edu .

WKND Precaps the Oscars

BEST PICTURE “American Hustle” “Captain Phillips” “Dallas Buyers Club” “Gravity” “Her” “Nebraska” “Philomena” “12 Years a Slave” “The Wolf of Wall Street”

JENNIFER LAWRENCE

In honor of Throwback Thursday, let’s take a little walk down memory lane (carpet?). Exactly one year ago Sunday, Duvet-gate broke.

The iconic fall happened. Not one, but three, Dior ad campaigns were offered up as tribute (Hunger Games reference, get it?). #WeAreAllJ.LawTonight Luckily, none of this seems to have fazed everyone’s favorite celeb-next-door in the slightest, and Jennifer’s back, Best Supporting Actress nomination in hand, for Round 2. In our dreams, she would be rocking Saint Laurent’s Spring 2014 jumpsuit-tuxedo, which has the added benefit of safeguarding against “Jen Takes a Tumble, the Second.” In reality, though, we all know she’s gonna go Christian Dior Couture (duh). If WEEKEND has any say, we really, really hope

it’s Spring 2014’s gorgeous white A-line, or the collection’s playfully polka-dotted strapless.

AMY ADAMS

At this point, it’s basically household knowledge that Amy Adams murdered it in “American Hustle.” Between her stellar performance and the sartorial magic worked by costume designer Michael Wilkinson (also up for an award, obviously), the film was a dramatic and visual feast. Who knew the ’70s could look so good?

At the Golden Globes, the auburn beauty paid homage to A.H.’s aesthetic (and disco fever’s plunging necklines) in a stunning red Valentino. The real question for this weekend: will Amy opt for ’70s revival one more time, or go for something a bit more understated?

Whatever she chooses, WEEKEND can’t wait … to offer our two cents.

In camp #1, we want the deep-V

trend to continue and to see her in Valentino Spring 2014 Couture’s sparkly, neutral-and-gold masterpiece, or their billowy nude number, or Elie Saab’s ethereal metallic gown from their S/S ’14. In camp #2, we’re partial to a high-necked — also very gold, also very sparkly — Oscar de la Renta column gown.

Go gold or go home, we say.

LUPITA NYONG’O DRA ’12

After a quick survey of the allpowerful World Wide Web, it seems that more than a few are calling Lupita the hands-down Best Supporting Actress favorite for her role in “12 Years a Slave.” (Did we mention she’s a grad of the Yale Drama School?)

Whether you’ve seen the film or not, anyone who half pays attention knows that Nyong’o is not just a rising star on the silver screen, but an emerging fashion darling off it as well. A quick run-through

of some of her best looks, shall we?

The teal Gucci at the SAG Awards: dying. The caped Ralph Lauren at the Golden Globes: dying. The white gown she wore at the Critics’ Choice Awards: dead. Between jewel tones, daring cutouts, and even a jumpsuit Lupita makes the red carpet green with envy.

Because Nyong’o’s never one to shy away from a pattern, our vote is for Carolina Herrera’s geometric printed one-shoulder (F/W 2014).

Or what about a bright red Prabal Gurung (F/W 2014)? Or, actually, if WEEKEND has anything to say, it’ll be Alexander McQueen’s black floor-length tour de force (S/S 2014) that takes the cake, updating a classic silhouette with more than a few of Lupita’s (dare we say) signature cutouts.

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

A Different Kind of Oscar Meter

David O. Russell “American Hustle”

Matthew McConaughey in “Dallas Buyers Club”

Cate Blanchett in “Blue Jasmine”

“Prisoners”

Alfonso Cuarón “Gravity”

Bruce Dern in “Nebraska”

Sandra Bullock in “Gravity”

Alexander Payne “Nebraska”

Chiwetel Ejiofor in “12 Years a Slave”

Judi Dench in “Philomena”

“American Hustle”

Steve McQueen “12 Years a Slave”

Leonardo DiCaprio in “The Wolf of Wall Street”

Meryl Streep in “August: Osage County”

“The Great Gatsby”

“Nebraska” Written by Bob Nelson

“Gravity” “Her”

BEST COSTUME DESIGN

BEST FILM EDITING

“The Croods”

“American Hustle”

“Despicable Me 2”

“The Grandmaster”

“American Hustle”

“Ernest & Celestine”

“The Great Gatsby”

“Captain Phillips”

“Frozen”

“The Invisible Woman”

“Dallas Buyers Club”

“The Wind Rises”

“12 Years a Slave”

“Gravity” “12 Years a Slave”

Lupita Nyong’o in “12 Years a Slave” Julia Roberts in “August: Osage County”

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE BEST VISUAL EFFECTS “Gravity” “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug”

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

“Dallas Buyers Club” Written by Craig Borte and Melisa Wallack “Her” Written by Spike Jonze

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN

“12 Years a Slave”

BEST ANIMATED FILM

June Suibb in “Nebraska”

“America Hustle” Written by Eric Warren Singer and David O. Russell “Blue Jasmine” Written by Woody Allen

“Nebraska”

Martin Scorsese “The Wolf of Wall Street”

Jennifer Lawrence in “American Hustle”

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

// BY MASON KROLL

“Inside Llewyn Davis”

Salley Hawkins in “Blue Jasmine”

Jonah Hill in “The Wolf of Wall Street”

“Gravity”

Amy Adams in “American Hustle”

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Barkhad Abdi in “Captain Phillips”

“The Grandmaster”

BEST ACTRESS

Christian Bale in “American Hustle”

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR Bradley Cooper in “American Hustle”

SHOULD WIN BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

BEST DIRECTOR

Jared Leto in “Dallas Buyers Club” celebrity stylists, anyways.

WILL WIN

BEST ACTOR

Michael Fassbender in “12 Years a Slave”

// BY SARA JONES

What are you doing Sunday night? Watching the 86th Academy Awards, if you have a soul. Honestly, though, tell me, what can you possibly have that’s any better to do, now that Sochi 2014 has come and gone (other than maybe mourning the fact that Sochi 2014 came and went)? On a related note, ice skating commentators extraordinaire Johnny Weir and Tara Lipinski WILL BE BACK. The dynamic duo has been signed on by Access Hollywood to do red carpet fashion commentary, which basically translates to “take the Oscars’ by storm, in all of their sequined, outfit-coordinated glory.” That’s the sound of your dreams coming true, in case you weren’t aware.

Join Weekend as we pregame cap the best Sunday of the year, which mostly means predict/ judge the fashion choices of three of our favorite famous people ever.

We always knew we’d make great

OSCAR BALLOT LEGEND

WEEKEND loves spectacle (we’re already figuring out the best way to bribe ourselves into next year’s YSO Halloween show), so it’s no wonder that we love the Oscars. They have everything: fashion, film, Ellen DeGeneres. So, in preparation for this Sunday’s festivities, we’ve provided you with our ultimate guide to the Academy Awards.

“Iron Man 3” “The Lone Ranger”

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

“Star Trek Into Darkness”

“Happy” from “Despicable Me 2”

“Gravity” Steven Price

“Let It Go” from “Frozen”

“Her” William Butler and Owen Pallett

“The Moon Song” from “Her”

“Philomena” Alexandre Desplat

“Ordinary Love” from “Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom”

“Saving Mr. Banks” Thomas Newman

“Before Midnight” Screen Play by Julie Delpy, Richard Linklater and Ethan Hawke “Captain Phillips” Screenplay by Billy Ray

BEST ORIGINAL SONG

“The Book Thief” John Williams

BEST SOUND MIXING

“Philomena” Screenplay by Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope

“The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug” “Gravity”

“12 Years a Slave” Screenplay by John Ridley

“Captain Phillips”

“Dallas Buyers Club”

“Inside Llewyn Davis”

“Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa”

“The Wolf of Wall Street” Screenplay by Terence Winter

“Lone Survivor”

“The Lone Ranger”

BEST MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING

“12 Years a Slave” once set the pace With new looks at slave’ry and race.

But a PGA draw, And no DGA awe, Means it may go to Bullock in space.

We’ve arrived at a realization About Meryl’s profuse admiration: Put her with the groups Filming “Everyone Poops” And she’ll get her 19th nomination.

Though Lupita may be the champ, There’s passion within JLaw’s camp.

But if she prepares For a walk up the stairs, Let’s just hope that they put in a ramp.

For the Oscars I’ve thought up a theory You won’t win if your film isn’t teary.

But a film gaining clout Is a movie about Having sex with a surrogate Siri.

With Ellen, the Oscar guys hope For a show with a far broader scope.

I’m sure in her greeting She won’t be repeating MacFarlane’s “We Saw Your Boobs” trope.

A Broadway star adds her allure To the “Best Song” original four.

Idina will belt, As the filmmakers melt And hope to defy “Gravity’s” lure.

When choosing your Oscars attire, Please know the results may be dire.

A cut that’s too low, Or an overlarge bow, Is akin to a fall on a pyre.

What happened to poor Mr. Banks?

No love here for Thompson or Hanks.

It’s left with no more Than a nom for it’s score — Just one less than where “Lone Ranger” ranks.

Contact MASON KROLL at mason.kroll@yale.edu .

S A T U R D AY MARCH 1

HOW TO GET LOCKED IN A PSYCH WARD WITHOUT REALLY TRYING

“The Hunt” Denmark

Up

Best opening sequence to cry to.

“Helium” “The Voorman Problem”

BEST DOCUMENTARY

BEST ANIMATED SHORT

“The Act of Killing”

“Feral”

“The Missing Picture” Cambodia

“Cutie and the Boxer”

“Get a Horse!”

“Dirty Wars”

“Mr. Hublot”

“Omar” Palestine

“The Square”

“Possessions”

“20 Feet from Stardom”

“Room on the Broom”

WEEKEND NOMINATES:

Yale Repertory Theatre // 10 a.m.

A pleasant start to the weekend.

“The Great Beauty” Italy

“Do I Have to Take Care of Everything?”

“Just Before Losing Everything” “That Wasn’t Me”

“The Broken Circle Breakdown” Belgium The Oscars are a time of magic.

Before a backdrop of red carpet glamour and award season hype, Hollywood’s best will arrive on Sunday to witness the 86th year of celebrating movie excellence.

And whether you are a casual ceremony viewer or you have nine Oscar blogs bookmarked on your Google Chrome, you are most definitely in need of the eight limericks below to make the most of your Academy Awards experience.

BEST LIVE-ACTION SHORT

S AT U R D AY MARCH 1

“Cave Digger”

“All Is Lost”

“Facing Fear”

“Gravity”

“Karama Has No Walls”

“Captain Phillips”

“The Lady in the Number 6: Music Saved My Lfe” “Prison Terminal: The Last Days of Private Jack Hall”

“Lone Survivor” “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug”

LATIN PHILOLOGY DAY: POETIC JOURNEYS

WEEKEND NOMINATES:

Phelps Hall Rm. 207 // 10 a.m.–4 p.m.

Which ship sacked Troy? WKND reports.

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT

BEST SOUND EDITING

Inception

Best spinning top commercial.

PAGE B8

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2014 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND COVER

PREVENTION THROUGH EDUCATION In the United States: More than

1/3 of women are obese.

Over

8%

50%

of reproductive-age women are extremely obese.

PREGNANCY FROM PAGE 3 doing to educate her patients about the risks they face? She introduces me to a patient whose case illustrates just how crucial education is in lowering the risks of obese pregnant women. *** Don’i Caesar is the most glamorous pregnant woman I’ve ever seen. A pink bandana garnishes her head, green eye shadow glitters her eyelids and floral pants and animal print acrylics add a special touch to her ensemble. She is 34, single and 22 weeks pregnant. According to her chart, she’s also clinically obese.

On a Tuesday in mid-October, in a room in the back of the Tompkins clinic, I sit down with Caesar to talk.

A school bus driver in the neighboring town of Milford, Caesar had five children before this one, all boys. “My 6-year old and 3-year old were both born early,” she explains.

“26 weeks for the 6-year-old, and 30 weeks for the 3-year-old. The one who came out at 26 weeks weighed two pounds.”

A full-term baby is born anywhere from 37 to 40 weeks into the pregnancy and weighs five to eight pounds. In many ways, the startlingly low birth weight of Caesar’s child was to be expected: preterm birth is one and a half times more common in obese women than it is for normal weight women.

Caesar tells me her children are all healthy today, but when the 26-week-old boy was born, “he couldn’t keep his body warmth.”

This is because Caesar had pre-

S AT U R D AY MARCH 1

eclampsia, which occurs when a pregnant woman develops high blood pressure. Sometimes it can cause the baby to grow slowly, and it can lead to more life-threatening outcomes. Obese women have six times the risk of developing preeclampsia compared to women of normal weight.

“They gave him a 10 percent chance to live,” she recalls. “They said that his lungs were underdeveloped. They thought he would be handicapped, but now, he doesn’t have any issues at all. The only thing is at nine months, he developed asthma.”

I turn the focus of the conversation to Caesar herself. “Do you have any health problems?” I ask.

“I’ve had diabetes for eight years, and high blood pressure for three years,” she tells me. “I take care of the diabetes with insulin, but now that I’m high-risk and pregnant, I can’t take anything for the blood pressure.”

Caesar tells me the diabetes “goes up and down, but lately it’s been good.” She also says that her high blood pressure has been fine recently.

Although I don’t know Caesar well, I want to know her answer to a critical question. What is she afraid of with this pregnancy?

“Having another baby early,” she says quietly. “Some babies are born with a lot of complications.”

Caesar is well informed. She tells me Campbell has been teaching her “a lot” about her condition, and she frequently uses to internet to look up information. She also tells me that she has been following Camp-

of pregnant women are overweight or obese.

bell’s instructions and watching what she eats, avoiding starch and bread and trying to be active.

Caesar seems to have a thorough understanding of her situation, but does she consider herself as obese?

“I would probably say I’m overweight,” she says.

The clinical definitions of “obesity” and “overweight” are different. While overweight is defined as having a BMI as over 25, obesity is defined as having a BMI of over 30.

Campbell tries to dispel these misconceptions — the definitional difference between “obese” and “overweight” — from the moment she meets a new patient. She undergoes a thorough education session with each of her obese pregnant patients at the beginning of their pregnancies. In this session, she defines obesity; explains the patient’s increased risks for diabetes, preterm birth, stillborn birth, blood clotting and wound infection; talks about optimal weight gain during pregnancy; and explains the proper eating and exercise habits.

Despite all this education, obesity is still a tough issue to discuss.

“Sometimes it’s hard to talk about [obesity], or patients may not have the same language. For example, Don’i may not fully understand the word ‘obese’ and think that ‘obese’ and ‘overweight’ are interchangeable,” Campbell says.

Still Campbell says Caesar “had insight into her risks.” Most of her patients understand that their pregnancies are more complicated than other pregnancies, even though they may not like talking about it.

“Some women embrace the necessary changes during their pregnancy and do a great job, but some women are not as organized as that,” she says. “It’s very hard to change your diet, especially if you grow up in a household where you eat a certain way.”

But others are less successful, and many of these patients are faced with myriad economic and social factors that may limit their understanding or capacity for change, she adds. The frustration that comes from attempting to lose weight, while also naturally gaining weight from the pregnancy, leads many women to give up entirely. Furthermore, Campbell says that her obese patients often live and work around other obese people, clouding their understanding of where their weight falls on the spectrum.

Both nurse Katie Sullivan and Campbell agree that, while they can provide the education and support needed to make these changes, it’s up to the patients to follow through.

“Ultimately the patient makes their independent decision … whether they are going to buy the whole grain pasta or the cookies,” Campbell says. “It’s two-sided — we’re a team and they have to meet us in the middle.”

According to Campbell, such is what makes Caesar’s case particularly encouraging. Caesar’s efforts have proven, above all, that her methods for minimizing risks of obese pregnancies are “making a visible difference” in the lives of her patients. *** A couple of months after my con-

SHAPE NOTE SINGING

Contact ERINMA KALU at erinma.kalu@yale.edu .

WEEKEND NOMINATES:

Stoeckel Hall Rm. B01 // 2 p.m.

Notes show off their shapes post juicecleanse.

versation with Caesar, Campbell informs me that she delivered a premature baby.

Under the lights of the operating table, Caesar was the portrait of a woman who heeded the advice of her doctor, taking every precautionary step to ensure the safe delivery of her baby. For Campbell, the preparation was as thorough as possible, with every preventative measure fulfilled. But even with all these bases covered, and then some, the severe risks of an obese pregnancy remained. This reality speaks to the larger cultural problem of obesity, one that Campbell and her team consistently must face during each day, each delivery.

The pregnant and obese women who file into these operating and consulting rooms are soldiers; they carry their fears on their backs like a rucksack, unpacking their loads in the hearts and minds of the physicians, nurses and receptionists who wait on them every step of the way.

But as Caesar shows, many are open to learning about their risks, eager to change their habits to improve their own health and the health of their future children.

Campbell understands that for the most part, the roots of obesity are beyond her control.

“Every patient has the potential to change,” Campbell says. “And as a physician, it’s my job to unlock that potential for my patients and let them see that they are capable of making changes to improve their health.”

Black Swan

Best close-up of Natalie Portman’s toes.

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2014 · yaledailynews.com

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WEEKEND ONSTAGE

Oct. 13, 2013 was an eventful day for Jaime Sunwoo ’14. While the rest of the Yale community was busy reveling in the festivities and free water bottles that came with the inauguration of President Peter Salovey, Sunwoo was sitting in her art studio at 36 Edgewood with a lampshade on her head.

An Art major interested in performance art, Sunwoo had placed the object there as part of the brainstorming process for her senior project. While wearing her new lampshade “hat,” she began thinking about the “coffee house” frequently hosted at the Saybrook Underbrook Theater and considered turning this avant garde outfit into a solo performance.

“I imagined myself doing a lampshade-themed burlesque where I would wear sexy attire and flirt with a bunch of inanimate light fixtures in the room,” she recalled.

That thought was short-lived, but several weeks later, when the Yale Dramatic Association sent out a call for submissions for its spring experimental production, Sunwoo was inspired to revisit the lampshade. At 1 a.m., she met with her friend Austin Jung ’14 in the Saybrook Dining Hall, and together the pair replaced Sunwoo’s original burlesque concept with a tale of everyday objects come to life. Three months following that conversation, Sunwoo and Jung found themselves in the Davenport Auditorium, days away from the premiere of their now-complete play, “Household.”

Everyone is familiar with the story of how Isaac Newton’s theories on gravity were inspired by an apple falling on his head. These tales tend to evoke skepticism because pure coincidence is associated with only miraculous events such as winning the lottery or not having to wait in line at the Elm Street Post Office.

But for many of the 11 original student productions being put on this academic year, inspiration really did strike by chance.

But unfortunately for these playwrights, the idea for a play may be the only part of the writing and staging processes where random inspiration is useful. The rest relies on hard work — lots of it. Each play must go through several stages of revision before the production process even begins, and playwrights must sacrifice countless hours of sleep and midterm-studying to the theater gods along the way. Then, dramatists must recruit teams of actors, designers and production staff in order to turn their ideas into reality.

But if the challenges these projects face are unique, so too are the rewards at the end. *** Nick Baskin ’14 was unexpectedly hit with an idea for an original musical during his sophomore fall.

Seemingly out of thin air, a melody emerged and floated into his head.

As an aspiring composer, Baskin

instinctively wrote down the mysterious tune. And instead of throwing the notes into a drawer and stowing them away, he asked himself two questions: “What kind of person would be singing a melody like this, and why?”

Within a few months, Baskin had completed a rough character sketch of Susan, a fictional Physics major at Yale navigating the challenges of junior year. He had also created other characters for Susan to interact with, and by the beginning of his senior year, Baskin finally had in his hands a full draft of a new production, “Window Full of Moths.”

It was a similar kind of serendipity that led Ruby Spiegel ’15 to the concept of her play, “Dry Land,” which would eventually be selected as this spring’s Dramat Experimental Production. Spiegel, who has a self-professed penchant for political controversy, was inspired by an article in The New Republic titled “The Rise of DIY Abortions.” She decided to let go of the play she had been working on at the time in favor of a new one based on the piece and other personal accounts of dangerous abortion methods online.

“I’m really interested in the intricate, intimate realities of everyday experience that we wouldn’t imagine,” she said of the article’s subject matter.

Spiegel spent sophomore spring and the following summer writing a script and researching the details of non-surgical abortions. By the end of the process, she had lost many hours of sleep and accumulated an unusual Google search history, full of nightmarish tales about women performing abortions on themselves. Before completing a draft, Spiegel said she deleted roughly 200 pages worth of writing.

Spiegel was forced to grapple with the often-bleak realities of her research.

“One of the hardest parts about writing is believing that I am not going crazy as a person in spite of the darkness in my work,” she said. *** While these original productions may differ in scope and content, the playwrights whose works are being performed this season share one experience: that of never having staged their own writing at Yale.

“We are all kind of doing it for the first time,” Spiegel said.

Dan Rubins ’16, creator of the musical “The Skylight Room” (which showed in November 2013) thought staging his show would be straightforward, and justifiably so.

He had already written all of the script, music and lyrics for it. But a few weeks after finishing the text, he began to have formal conversations with his technical crew, and Rubins quickly became overwhelmed.

“Basically at every production meeting, I’d hear about another piece of production or stagecraft that was being added on — the few chairs that were planned were now a

full set, now we’ll have period costumes, we’re getting six projectors, and so on,” he recalled.

His show was growing more complex each day, and Rubins found himself terrified. He did not have the time to oversee every aspect of his production, nor did he understand all of the technical elements that it required.

“When you create something that’s so new, you feel that you want as much control as possible,” he said.

“But as the process went on, I was getting less and less.”

Unsure of what the future would hold for his brainchild, Rubins decided to entrust his production team with much of the decisionmaking. This choice yielded positive results, from the orchestration of his score to the addition of elaborate image projections around the venue.

These independent production elements allowed Rubins to see his own creation in a new light.

“Hearing orchestrations for music you’ve written is like clicking the ‘Enhance’ button on Photoshop on a photo you’ve taken,” Rubins said. “It’s still your photo, but there’s new colors and new stories you didn’t know were there.” *** Support from Yale’s performing arts community is essential for playwrights hoping to realize their creative visions.

When Laurel Durning-Hammond ’14 and Alex Ratner ’14 approached Theater Studies lecturer Annette Jolles ’91 in the fall of 2012 with an idea for a musical, they knew they would need to gather a large team.

Their proposal was shortly accepted by the Shen Curriculum for Musical Theater at Yale as a production seminar, which gives students course credit for enrolling in the class and participating in the show. It was the first time that a student-written musical had been accepted as the basis for such a course.

While Durning-Hammond and Ratner were tasked with recruiting the majority of their production team — roughly a dozen students — they had little trouble putting together a crew because of their strong connections within the theater community.

Persuading students to commit their time to a play of no established reputation, with a potential for failure, can pose a challenge. Several student playwrights interviewed said it is helpful to have friends in the performing arts who trust in their abilities enough to journey through uncharted territory.

Spiegel convinced two members of her theater group “Common Room,” as well as her friend and former Whiffenpoof Henry Gottfried ’14, to participate in her production.

She said Gottfried agreed to serve as the play’s director before even seeing her script. Between the two of them, Spiegel and Gottfried called on other students they knew, filling their cast and crew lists without dif-

ficulty.

The importance of having a strong network in the theater community was especially apparent in the case of Sunwoo and Jung. An art major and a Spanish major respectively, neither has been particularly active in the theater scene, which posed a large obstacle for them in the recruitment process.

“It’s hard for people to commit to this project when they don’t even know who we are,” Sunwoo said.

But luckily for Sunwoo and Jung, there were risk-takers to be found in the undergraduate performing arts community who are willing to dress up like lamps and vacuums, as they will do in “Household.” After sending over 100 emails in search of student actors, musicians and designers, the duo finally assembled their cast and crew.

“There are so many talented people here that someone will want to work on your show,” Baskin said. *** Of the original student works that have undergone the production process, each faced its own unique obstacles and anxiety-inducing moments. While all of them ultimately dazzled audiences, the cast and crew of these shows remember all too well the nerve-wracking moments when their chances of achieving success seemed uncertain at best.

While Abigail Carney ’15 and Elliah Heifetz ’15 entered production following a fairly smooth writing process, they returned to campus after winter break with only three weeks to put the entire show together. The team set for themselves an extremely tight schedule, scrambling to fulfill the many technical and artistic demands of the show. But when the lights in the Crescent Theater illuminated the stage on the night of Feb. 6, everything was in place.

“It was pretty insane trying to put up a musical in three weeks, especially since we were still making changes to it at the last minute,” Carney recalled.

But the insanity that drove the team to persevere ultimately rewarded the cast and crew with a successful show, so successful that Carney and Heifetz are planning to propose “Dust Can’t Kill Me” as a production for the New York International Fringe Festival, the largest multi-arts festival in North America. Not long ago, Marina Keegan ’12’s “Independents,” another original Yale folk musical, won Best Overall Production at the Fringe.

In the future, Yalies may have to take an Amtrak train into Manhattan if they wish to see “Dust Can’t Kill Me,” but fans of Carney and Heifetz will also have something else to look forward to. The two dramatists have already begun writing their next musical.

BEFORE THE CURTAIN RISES // BY ERIC XIAO

// KAMARIA GREENFIELD

Contact ERIC XIAO at eric.xiao@yale.edu .

// SARA MILLER

S AT U R D AY MARCH 1

DINO’S AUTO EMPIRE

WEEKEND NOMINATES:

Yale Repertory Theatre // 7 p.m.

Possibly about Dino’s business ventures in a post-Flintstones universe.

A Beautiful Mind

Best justification for Princeton’s existence.

PAGE B10

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2014 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND COLUMNS

FROZEN: FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION // BY ALLIE KRAUSE With the Oscars this weekend, I put forward to you why I will shit bricks if “Let It Go” does not win Best Original Song.

I only got to watching “Frozen” for the first time last week (I know, I know, so far behind).

Needless to say, I was blown away. Of course, I had heard great things about it and already knew the lyrics to “Do You Want to Build a Snowman?” by heart (the soundtrack had been on played on repeat by my straight male suitemate since the beginning of the semester.) But I wasn’t prepared for exactly how much I would love “Frozen.”

It helped that I watched it with my little sister, whom I happen to be extremely close with, and that I have a soft spot for reindeers (who wouldn’t want Sven as a pet?) Yet I truly believe that “Frozen” stands up against, and possibly above, the best of the classics.

I, like many others of my generation, was raised on the Disney Diet of “Lion King,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “Little Mermaid,” etc.

As a result, I have exceptionally high standards when it comes to the new slate of Disney movies.

For many years, Pixar wore the

ALLIE KRAUSE HER GRACE’S TASTE crown for best animated films, with a string of hits ranging from “Toy Story” to “Finding Nemo.”

Disney Animation Studios, on the other hand, had been wilting. Numerous critics, myself included, dismissed its releases as wanting. Time after time, its films failed to catch fire in the same way the oldies-but-goodies did, and things were looking bleak for Disney. But when in 2006 they acquired Pixar, it proved just the life raft they needed.

In this dawn of a new age, Disney began to thrive again. 2010’s release of “Tangled” proved this by hearkening back to the time of musicals, capturing people’s hearts with its strong and welldeveloped cast of characters, catchy songs and perfect mix of adventure, fun and romance. It grossed $600 million worldwide.

2012’s “Wreck-It Ralph,” the tale of video game characters come

to the life, proved another massive success. But they’ve truly hit a home run with “Frozen,” which has been universally acclaimed by critics and audiences alike.

It really is a winning formula.

“Frozen” manages to combine the best parts of the Disney classics — fabulous songs and loveable characters — with the finest Pixar and Co. have offered up in more recent times: amazing advances in animation and departures from traditional storylines.

Breathtakingly beautiful CGI (that ice palace, tho) meant that “Frozen” would always have been well-received. But what made the movie for me were its strong, relatable female characters, and, in the end, its redefinition of “true love” (SPOILER ALERT!).

Some critics have argued that “Frozen” is not truly feminist and have damned the film for trying to come across as such.

Though I agree that “Frozen” doesn’t promise a revolutionary new age of feminism in the world of Disney, I don’t think that the film would have been better for it.

Much of the feminist critique points to the fact that Anna

Unexpected Gifts // BY ELEANOR MICHOTTE

When I was 11, I received a parcel in the mail. My mother, assuming it was a care package from my cousins in Connecticut, brought it along with her when she came to pick me up at school. At the time, American candy (along with scented gel pens and sneakers that lit up) was a hotly traded commodity in the girls’ locker room.

For bucktoothed Brits in training bras, a shipment of Reeses was potentially a very big deal. So, obviously, I called all my friends over, and ripped open that brown paper envelope right in front of the school gates. This made for a particularly fun surprise when it actually turned out to contain a Chlamydia testing kit, courtesy of the National Health Service.

Eleven, in case you were wondering, was a rough age for me. I wore two retainers to fix what my orthodontist maintains was the worst underbite he has seen in his 40-year career. I had shot upwards so quickly that the only pants to fit both my hips and my legs were Gap boys’ jeans — which, by the way, come in a trendy choice of acid wash, or very acid wash. To distract from these misfortunes, I had recently asked my hairdresser for a “grownup” bob. What he gave me was definitely not a grown-up bob. Needless to say, the Chlamydia testing kit was not only embarrassing to receive, but, as I heard two classmates whisper the next day, definitely not needed. Girls are so rude.

Things only got worse when I got back from school with the offending package. Still glowing with shame, I flung the Chlamydia testing kit into some corner of our basement. Two days later, this was revealed as a bad move when Justin, my sister’s very Catholic music theory teacher, found it. After the lesson, he took my mother aside and asked in hushed tones if she was aware that her daughters were already leading a life of sin.

Despite all of this, or maybe out of some urge to make all the embarrassment worthwhile, I dutifully packed my urine sample off in its preaddressed envelope, giggling hysterically when the poor postman came to collect it. It later turned out that the testing kits were part of a youth Chlamydia reduction initiative, and were sent to all Londoners aged 11-18.

Apparently, the program was very popular, and received a huge number of submissions (just imagine the thousands and thousands of urine vials zipping across London). I suppose the public health folks must have been overloaded, because 10 years on, I have yet to hear back from them. So disappointing.

However, when I checked my P.O. box this week, what did I find but a set of urine analysis results, priority mailed — but with a New Haven post-

S U N D AY MARCH 2

ELEANOR MICHOTTE CRIT FROM THE BRIT mark. How exciting! And yet, unless the strep test that I took sophomore year was more comprehensive than I had previously thought, I am pretty sure these do not belong to me. Incidentally, if any of you reading this are missing some lab results, don’t worry: apparently, your urine sample is normal.

The moral of this story is not that we should have no confidence in our health care systems. (Although, given that a certain dental clinic recently told me I would get a 20 percent discount if I paid cash, I wouldn’t rule that out.) Nor is it that hard times and crushing embarrassment only make you harder, better, faster, stronger.

(Although, when I recently slipped on ice and torpedoed feet-first through a crowd of old cronies outside Mory’s, I told myself this also.) No, friends, the life lesson here is that what goes around, comes around.

STILL GLOWING WITH SHAME, I FLUNG THE CHLAMYDIA TESTING KIT INTO SOME CORNER OF OUR BASEMEMENT. This is a toe-tinglingly awful time of year. If you’re anything like me, you currently have more midterms than you do meals a day. Opening your iCal for next week is like ripping open my package in front of school: full of terrible surprises. Meanwhile, the search for summer jobs (or, if you’re old and unlucky, actual jobs) is starting to feel a little too real for comfort. It’s all a struggle. But everyone around is struggling, too. I’m even struggling to make this column something more profound than a gratuitous pee tale.

I wanted to have an original — or at the very least a topical — takeaway for you. This will have to do: Put down your double-shot soy latte, and pick up something nice for a friend. Don’t go this week alone. Do a good deed, and who knows? Like the proverbial set of urine analysis results, you might get someone else’s back in return.

Contact ELEANOR MICHOTTE at eleanor.michotte@yale.edu .

“THE PERFECT MAN” AND OTHER ACQUISITIONS ON VIEW IN THE CUSHING ROTUNDA

Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library // all day Someone tell us who he is. TELL US AND WE WILL LISTEN.

always seems to be searching for a man. I take issue with this for two reasons. Firstly, though Anna’s obsession with Hans is clearly ridiculous — in fact, Disney takes a self-deprecating tone to its historical portrayal of romantic relationships — I don’t believe that being a feminist means rejecting the entire male species. If she wants to be with Kristoff, who clearly loves her, she can be with Kristoff. This should not be a big point of contention. More important is the final message that the film leaves us with.

The movie’s true meaning lies in the bond between Elsa and Anna that overcomes all. Not the “love” that exists between a man and woman who’ve just met — here, either Anna and Hans or Anna and Kristoff — but one borne of years of family, sisterhood and friendship. As a sister, I’m pretty down for this message.

It’s a throwback to my favorite Disney classics, where the heroine was kickass — think Mulan and Belle — except here there are two of them, and they look out for each other. (And there’s an ICE PALACE.) Which brings me back to why

to I will shit bricks if “Let It Go” doesn’t win Best Original Song.

Let’s start with the film sequence, in which our conservative Nordic queen, the Queen of Isolation, begins with climbing the mountain. Alone, unable to contain her powers, she suddenly comes to the realization that she doesn’t need to hold back. By leaving Arendelle behind, she has freed herself of the problems that prevented her from becoming the person she was born to be.

Ultimately, what the song proclaims is a message of moving beyond convention and what is expected of you and being okay with doing that. Beyond this truism, it’s just a damn good song.

Unbelievably catchy — you only have to look at the number of YouTube covers floating around to see that — and superbly performed by Broadway darling Idina Menzel. It’s about as perfect a nomination for Best Original Song as you’ll get.

So now I address the Academy: This WEEKEND columnist has spoken. Let’s make it happen.

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

Crowding out Meaning // BY STEPHANIE TOMASSON Los Angeles artist Alex Prager plays a game of “Where’s Waldo?” with visitors to Washington D.C.’s Corcoran Gallery of Art. In her first solo show in the United States, “Alex Prager: Face in the Crowd,” on display until March 9, Prager explores a personal anxiety that many share: the fear of large crowds and congested spaces.

The show focuses on Prager’s massive, elaborate and multifarious photographs as well as four short films, including her latest one featuring Elizabeth Banks. In these staged and carefully cast pieces, she artfully blends eras and slyly clashes personalities. In one of these constructed crowds, she places a 70s-era woman, conspicuously carrying a magazine with the face of Michelle Obama. Photos such as this one are set in a wide variety of over-crammed and claustrophobic spaces including movie theatres, airport terminals, beaches, government buildings, sidewalks and crowded events.

Prager’s images explore the paradoxes of crowd dynamics, namely being anonymous and alone in a sea of equally anonymous people, while simultaneously wondering and perhaps even creating fictitious narratives about these strangers’ lives. Prager calls attention to the importance of individual stories, giving each of her actors very distinctive features, dress and facial expression. The figures wear remarkably distinct countenances, but direct them at no one in particular. If there is a story to be told, it can only be about an individual, because the subjects of her photos seem to have nothing in common beyond the shared space they all occupy.

Prager leaves the viewer wondering where all of these people are going and where — or perhaps, what era — they come from. Prager says in a promotional video for the exhibit, “I wanted there to be a kind of awkward disconnect. When you first glance at the pictures, you see a crowd that seems very active and interactive, but the longer you stare at the crowd, the more you see the space in between each person and the emptiness.” Prager is touching on two issues: the cliché of being “alone in a crowd,” but also, more subtly, the disturbing decline of in-person interaction in our technology-centric society. The sense of emptiness her work describes is derived from the growing inability to cultivate new human relationships beyond the screen.

The photos are all taken from a high vantage point, reflecting another specifically twenty-first-century, Snowden and 9/11-fueled anxiety: the fear of surveillance. Prager herself is

STEPHANIE TOMASSON PUSHING THE PALETTE KNIFE the surveillance camera, and the viewers of her photos take in these crowd scenes from an otherwise impossible perspective — that of a bird’s-eye camera. But the actors in her photos are largely dated to the latter half of the 20th century, a time during which people’s lives were unaffected by these concerns.

The exhibit also includes some of the artist’s earlier work to articulate the progression and transformation of her style. However, her technique does not appear to have changed much: Her photos then and now resemble movie stills of suspended action.

There is, of course, a question of ingenuity that muddles Prager’s project. All of her scenes involve hundreds of actors carefully costumed and directed on constructed sets. The power of dramatizing and staging her scenes allows for a subtext of temporal blending and pop culture. But this choice is at risk of threatening the stated goal of her project. The fear of crowded spaces and their condemnation of the individual to anonymity does not shine through as clearly as one hopes. Turning her subject and their surroundings into such caricatures only serves to weaken the potent anxiety that she purports to examine. Communal spaces are naturally diverse; in staging her entire composition, Prager fails to arrive at a more authentic portrayal of crowd anxiety.

In her trademark Cindy Shermanesque style, she continues in these photos to obsessively stylize and typecast, removing any sense of reality.

This execution carries an interesting message regarding the consumption of popular culture iconography, but does not live up to the exhibit’s title, “Face in the Crowd.”

Prager tackles a uniquely twentyfirst century issue — the fear of surveillance in public spaces — all the while adding a timeless tinge by infusing her photos with glamorous 1960s Hollywood elite and stereotypical 1980s tourists alike. The effect is to produce an intriguing, but overwhelming visual experience that does not allow the viewer to quite put her finger on what the artist is trying to say.

Contact STEPHANIE TOMASSON at stephanie.tomasson@yale.edu .

WEEKEND NOMINATES: He’s Just Not That Into You

Best slogan that we all just need to just, like, accept.

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2014 · yaledailynews.com

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WEEKEND THEATER

WHEN THE SOUL LIES DOWN IN THE GRASS // BY STEPHANIE ROGERS

My grandmother is not a sentimental person — far from it. We have this running joke in my family about her response to emotions — keep them in and shove them down. When I was about 15 years old, I concluded one of our longwinded mandatory birthday calls with an effervescent “I love you Grandma.” Her rushed response: “Okay, bye-bye now.” Her email sign-off, “Love, Grandma”, is perhaps the only display of her affection.

At Wednesday’s opening night performance of “4000 Miles” at the Long Wharf Theatre, I was immediately reminded of my grandmother. And I wasn’t alone in sensing familiarity in Vera (Zoaunne Leroy), a hard-of-hearing, befuddled 91 year old. “She reminded me of my Aunt Gladys!” asserted one audience member. I saw elements of my grandmother in Vera’s tough, comical and sometimes crude mannerisms, and in her reluctance to share a physical embrace. On the other hand, I doubt that many people can boast about having a Marxist, Progressive, peace activist grandmother — one who is willing to share a bong with her grandson while discussing his late grandfather’s sexual habits.

Micah Stock plays Leo, the archetypal hippie grandson who stays at his grandmother’s house following a cross-country cycling trip. His rising inflections, exorbitant use of the word “like” and constant slouch can make it hard to take his character seriously,

especially when he predictably eschews social norms such as the use of a computer or cell phone.

After a long period of separation, the formerly estranged grandmother and grandson duo begin rebuilding familial ties, supporting each other through heartache and loss. Vera’s husband has been deceased for 10 years, and she still hasn’t taken his name off of the apartment listing. Leo is shaken by a recent death and break-up. Together, the intergenerational pair tries to reestablish their respective places in society.

With the magical relationship that grows onstage between Leroy and Stock, the show becomes a raw tribute to love, loss and continuation after death.

Our generation of theatergoers has been criticised for its need to be constantly entertained with one-liners and comedic downfalls. While I was endlessly amused by the production’s oneliners, never once did the show sacrifice truth for comedy. The actors were never afraid of standing alone in the silence of a dark stage.

At the play’s climax, the stage is almost pitch black when Leo divulges to Vera the pain he has suffered over the loss of his best friend. Without a division of stage light, the audience becomes part of the experience. We were able to immerse ourselves in the all-consuming, seemingly never-ending darkness of loss. I had tears rolling down my face. But just as suddenly, light reappeared and my

tears soon replaced with laughter.

The poignant scene is capped with a comedic twist.

In an attempt to assure his girlfriend of the sincerity of his love, Leo quotes the poet and Sufi mystic Rum. “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field,” he says. “I’ll meet you there when the soul lies down in the grass and the world is too full to talk about.”

Maybe, like Rumi implies, there is no right or wrong way to live, no answer to how we should express love. Emotion goes beyond these confines. Maybe my grandmother does it best. We can lie down in the grass together where the world and love is too full, real and present to be commented upon; words cannot justify their purity. Sometimes Vera’s and my grandmother’s love must be inferred, but it is beautiful nonetheless when you realize how much they care.

As I was prepared to leave the theatre, I felt a tinge of anger at the audience for not giving the performers a standing ovation.

But maybe it was only because they were too afraid to express their love in such an overt, ostentatious way. Instead, we sat in our seats clinging to the hope of capturing this moment as a memorable snapshot. We mourned the loss of the show with the bittersweet sorrow of no longer being allowed to continue with Vera and Leo’s story.

// T. CHARLES ERICKSON

Contact STEPHANIE ROGERS at stephanie.rogers@yale.edu .

What Cannot Be Described // BY JANE BALKOSKI “We find the words for what cannot be described,” says Duma Kumalo in the Yale Cabaret’s newest show, “He Left Quietly,” directed by Leora Morris DRA ’16.

The words are “shit” and “blood.”

The words are “noose” and “coffin.” And all of these are punchy, sure, but inadequate. Genocide is senseless and impenetrable. Our causal chains and linguistic nets will never fully capture slaughter.

Who can explain why thousands were killed, abused and tortured?

Playwright Yaël Farber doesn’t ignore the gap between word and reality. She studies it closely.

“How to arrange the unarrangeable, order what is shattered?” her character asks, palms up, as if in surrender.

Of course, Farber first establishes a semblance of order, a sim-

S U N D AY MARCH 2

ple, skeletal narrative she later deconstructs. She tells the true, harrowing tale of Duma Joshua Kumalo, a black South African accused of murder following the 1984 riots in Sharpeville. Though he is innocent, not even a witness to the mayor’s death, Kumalo is condemned under the law of common purpose. (Because he rioted alongside the murderer, he is equally responsible.)

He spends the next four years in prison, awaiting the gallows.

The play unfolds and unwinds in a chronological limbo, swaying between the 80s and early 2000s, when Farber and Kumalo first meet. The older Kumalo, played

by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II DRA ’15, sits downstage with a suitcase at his side, while his younger self, played by Ato Blankson-Wood

DRA ’15, acts out the unsettling memories — nights spent talking to himself or sobbing hysterically.

Hovering nearby, Farber’s character, played by Maura Hooper, gives the play its momentum. She prods Kumalo when the story slows and occasionally offers the audience inspirational takeaways.

But Kumalo avoids generalities — instead, he gives us anecdotes so vivid they’re almost nauseating. In those moments, moments of claustrophobic intimacy, the play feels not only tragic but true.

Kumalo admits that he extracted his own teeth. He pulls back his cheek to expose the gaps and says, “A trip to the dentist meant if I looked out the car window, I could see the sky.” Farber recoils and gasps. The audience recoils and gasps. Still, he is unashamed.

He goes on to explain how prisoners communicate — they dry out their toilet bowls and whisper into the pipes. The plumbing, he says, is full of “secrets and shit.”

When the script sinks to platitude, however, “He Left Quietly” becomes just another preachy war story. Breaking the fourth wall, Farber turns to the audience and pontificates, questioning the very nature of liability. Under the law of common purpose, who is to blame for the Apartheid? Who is to blame for all the bloodshed?

Farber’s musings sound both simplistic and self-important — these are questions better left unsaid.

And the final scene, which has cast and audience members sorting a pile of dead men’s shoes with reverence, feels like a gimmick. A successful war story is a detailed

MODELING SCHOOL NEW YORK

// STEPHANIE ADDENBROOKE

Attempting to articulate a tragedy.

that jolts a sleepy audience awake.

“He Left Quietly” is savage, so honest and bloody you’ll sometimes want to turn away and examine your fingernails instead.

Even the spare set and shaky projections on the back wall are painful. But, as the lights first go up, Kumalo asks: “If the truth falls on empty chairs, does it make a sound?” At the Cabaret this weekend, the chairs will not be empty, and the truth will not fall silent.

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

WEEKEND NOMINATES:

Location by appointment // 12:00 p.m. fashionshowteam.com. In case the whole Yale thing doesn’t work out for you.

one, not a numbered list or a metaphor or an ethical debate.

Yet the three actors bring the requisite complexity and depth to an imperfect script. Hooper can look apalled, listening to Kumalo’s story, and suddenly vicious, when she doubles as a prison guard.

And with his sonorous voice and leisurely delivery, Abdul-Mateen is the perfect narrator and focal point. He makes deliberate eye contact with the audience and delivers choice phrases with a wry smile. Recalling his last meal, a boneless chicken, he pauses.

“I ate that fucking chicken,” he adds. And Blankson-Wood is no puppet: In reenacting Kumalo’s past, he has energy and grace. He screams and tears at the metal gate upstage with astonishing ferocity, the brute, theatrical force

Rat Race

Most artful use of a cow in a feature film.

PAGE B12

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2014 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND BACKSTAGE

Political Science Counts, Too! The Enigma of STEM at Yale // BY YUVAL BEN-DAVID

How did you explain yourself to the UOC? CM: We just told them what we were. We told them we’re a support group for STEM majors at Yale.

MH: They were very receptive. We applied for funding and received all $300.

And what are you doing with the money?

MH: Well, you saw a little bit of that tonight. We had a study break, and the theme of our study breaks — each one is food, of course, but with a scientific twist. So tonight we had an electricity ball, that people were able to touch.

WD: I also touched it.

CM: Great experience.

WD: The overarching theme is just knowledge in general.

What’s the next study break?

MH: We have three different options. One is a telescope that people could look through.

Another is, we are trying to do a chemistry tutorial with Dr. G, the chem professor, because in our funding package $30 were earmarked for potions. We’re uncertain what to do with that because potions aren’t real, and we figured chemistry was the closest we could get. We figured, with St. Patrick’s Day coming up, maybe we could make a “luck potion.” I didn’t take Dr. G, I’m not in chemistry, I’m in physics. But in the emails we exchanged, he seemed a little confused.

WD: I actually have a very personal relationship with Dr. G because I offended him many times in class, so we got to know each other really well. So I could bridge the gap, if you need me to.

MH: Might work the other way.

Anyways, then our last experiment, the grand finale, we’re going to have a vinegar and baking soda volcano on Old Campus. We’re

waiting for the weather to clear up.

Nobody will be harmed. It’s not a real volcano. Although volcanoes are fascinating. Recently we had a group member who posted a video of a volcano on the Facebook group.

CM: Are you in the Facebook group?

WKND: No. MH: Well, what’s your major?

WKND: History.

MH: Ah, sorry, can’t join. We’re very strict, if you are our definition of a STEM major, you’re allowed in. If you’re not, you’re not allowed in. There are some people who disagree with our definition of a STEM major.

So what’s your definition?

MH: Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics Political science, too?

CM: Political SCIENCE. MH: Words are words, Yuvie.

CM: Computers and the Arts is ART. MH: Science Fiction is SCIENCE. WD: Just fiction? Not science.

MH: Ethics, Politics and Economics? NOT science.

ND: Political Science research is actually funded by the National Science Foundation.

So what’s the best science gut you guys have taken?

MH: I’m in ROTC, so I have to take real physics.

CM: I don’t think there’s any gut.

STEM, you know, it’s very hard.

One of the funnest classes I’ve taken at Yale, just all around great, is “Movie Physics.”

WD: It’s actually an escalated version of physics. You have to grasp physics and you have to grasp mov-

ies!

MH: Yuvie, let’s switch it up here and we’re going to interview you.

What is your favorite movie? I’m trying to find the physics in it.

WKND: Let’s say “Forrest Gump.”

MH: Running. Energy. That’s his velocity — you could calculate how long it took him to run across the country.

WD: Vector is his direction.

So why are you guys just a Facebook group?

MH: It’s a community of individuals.

CM: I like to think of it as a family.

WD: It’s a nation-state.

MH: We were taking a group photo and someone said, “That looks like the most awkward family photo I’ve ever seen.” We said, “Yes. Family.”

CM: A family of biology, but not a biological family.

So you guys are discriminatory if you only let in STEM majors, right?

MH: Let me ask you this. Is it discriminatory for airlines to not hire blind pilots?

Are you STEM supremacists?

MH: No, because we don’t put down other majors.

CM: We don’t think that our major is superior, but we recognize that STEM majors are very difficult.

MH: The challenges are unique.

What are the challenges?

MH: If you’re taking a history class and you have to write a paper, you can talk to your TF, you can submit a rough draft and your final product can change with the help of someone who’s going to be grading it. On a STEM test, you get the test and you start rumbling, and that’s it.

You know it or you don’t. There’s an element of risk and terror.

CM: And a lot of stress, which is why it’s necessary to have a support group.

WD: I feel like we get locked into black-and-white on our tests, whereas on papers you can use imagination.

The flipside is that you’re all employable.

WD: I know some non-STEM majors who’ve gotten jobs.

NK: You can form a non-STEMat-Yale group to discuss your nonSTEM challenges.

How do you identify a STEM major?

Walking down the street, what are the telltale signs?

CM: You walked in here today and saw Michael and me wearing lab coats. And I’m not saying everyone who is a STEM major wears a lab coat, but that is a pretty easy way to tell.

WD: Or if someone’s really tired, as if they just came from a four-mile walk directly uphill — probably a STEM major.

What about the goggle eyes?

MH: I think the goggles thing is more of a STEM straw man, because usually the goggles come off when you leave the lab. That’s been my experience.

WD: The gloves also come off, although I leave them on some times. It’s a hostile environment, the real world.

Assuming this is a humor group, what’s it like to break into the humor scene at Yale?

WD: I think specifically for science it’s a new frontier.

MH: I don’t think of us in the humor context.

CM: We’re fun.

We’re not really funny but we’re making it fun.

Though one humor aspect would be our STEM puns.

So what are your best STEM puns?

WD: STEMpervise.

MH: EnthusiaSTEM. Or, my personal favorite: c-STEMan’t. Take can’t

“

and add STEM. That’s the most adSTEMturous STEM pun I’ve ever seen. Look at Bill Nye, Mythbusters — they all tell some jokes. I’m sure astronauts tell jokes in the space station from time to time.

WD: If you tell a joke in space, does anyone hear it?

MH: We also have Throwback Thursdays on the Facebook group, where people post pictures from their STEM youth.

Are there any intra-group hostilities, seeing as some of you might have easier majors than others? Like political science…?

MH: I once described organic chemistry as the mother of all STEM. And I got a lot of flak for that, because I think there is a demand for an inclusive community within STEM at Yale. And eventually I had to walk that comment back.

WD: There’s a big bubble that is STEM at Yale. And once you get in, it’s warm and fuzzy. It’s what the inside of a bubble would feel like, soapy, very pleasant. Everybody is so excited to be inside a real bubble—there’s no room for hostility!

MH: You can’t have a knife in a bubble.

Honestly, I’m still so confused.

CM: Confusion is the problem.

STEM at Yale is the solution.

WD: So we’re trying to see through the confusion to see us, and so you’re seeing the confusion in front of us.

Who’s the joke on?

MH: I think a better word than joke is, who’s having fun? And I would say the members — the members are having fun.

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

A FAMILY OF BIOLOGY, NOT A BIOLOGICAL FAMILY.

“

“

STEM at Yale” is many things. A Facebook group, but more. A humor group, sort of. “Fun, but not funny,” they’d say. Whether they’re mocking STEM majors or everyone else is frankly up in the air. The brainchild of mad scientist Michael Herbert ’16 (hint: he’s a Political Science major), “STEM at Yale” claims it just wants to provide a support network for all the frazzled science, technology, engineering and math majors out there. They’ve even got a budget for potions. Here, Herbert, Christopher Moates ’16, Will Davenport ’15 and Nikita Dutta ’16 attempt to explain this new enigma of a student group, along with the fact that political science is, indeed, a science.