WEEKEND

WEEKEND // FRIDAY, MARCH 27, 2015

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REALISM

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ROMANTICISM

RACISM

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HEAD VS. HEART

BROOKLYN VS. MANHATTAN

YOUNG VS. OLD

Learn about the paintings, songs, and poems in the YUAG’s new exhibit!

The new web series, “Young Like Us,” is about your future. Maybe. Probably.

Saatchi Kalsi learns some universal truths from “Everything that Rises Must Converge.”

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MARCH 27, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

MATTIA

WEEKEND VIEWS

A GENEALOGY OF SOLITUDE // BY MATTHEW MATTIA

NATHAN

I am going to begin by saying something in poor taste. But I am holding out my hand to you as I say it, and I hope you will trust me.

I don’t much like people. It’s not that we’re too selfish or too boring or too cruel, because how can that be when there’s nothing and no one to compare us to? Rather, it’s that flowers have been kinder to me.

I was told recently that there were no flowers in the age of the dinosaurs.

That makes me sad for the dinosaurs, but it also means the world can exist without flowers and therefore can exist without me, who devote myself to them. It frees me to love the flowers without the grandeur of a savior.

Although I must admit a bit of disappointment that I am no longer a savior.

Disappointment and relief.

I laugh when I think that I might someday be forgotten. The idea that I could keep myself a secret from all of mankind awakens in me a delight in mischief of which I didn’t know I was capable. But the fact that I am keeping myself a secret is also a secret because I still strive to be remembered. So it is even a secret from myself.

Make no mistake: I want to be famous. But even more than being famous, I want to know that I could have been famous but wasn’t. Then my life will have been a magnificent joke. All along I was thought to be just another sleepwalker but that is only because you didn’t see the splendor of my inner kingdoms.

I was about to lie and tell you that I save my best phrases for the flowers so that the world will never hear them, but I couldn’t bear it, I want them to ring in your ears. Anyway, if my joke is to play out, I can’t be aware that it’s happening, and neither can you. So let’s both forget about it.

What I want you to know is this: I am an empty cathedral in search of a congregation — and the song of bells which

I feel inside my body is my great call of love. I want to be heard for miles.

But I only know how to be beautiful for the sake of a phrase, not for another person. And even phrases aren’t enough. My writing forgets about me as soon as I put down my pen. When the sun wakes me I am always sad because, though my dreams were populated by splendid beings, my bed is empty except for me. To wake up alone is like waking up to the world after you have died: Everything has gone on without you. Especially when you wake up late in the afternoon, as is my custom.

Ah but I never feel so in love with the world as when I write to it, it is an ecstasy to abandon myself to phrases.

I wonder if I am the only one who has visions of a sea of pink peonies? I do not doubt that there are others but I do not know in what quiet rooms they are hiding, all the time telling no one of the splendor of the peonies. Perhaps those whose hearts are most like mine are also those who remain most out of reach.

If you have dreams of pink peonies will you write and tell me so? Or even if you have other strange and wonderful dreams and think from my words that a kinship is possible. Then we can both descend our marble staircases, leave our palaces behind, and meet miles beneath the clouds, speaking unforgettable phrases.

Or am I too delicate to be a

human? It is dangerous to speak and be spoken to, the great wings of our emotions thrashing about us as we speak.

And the subtler thoughts, too, which flutter lightly about our heads and are so easily crushed if we are not careful.

If only we had the delicacy to feel their sacred fluttering against our cheeks.

I have always asked too much of friendship. I have asked my friends to love me when I do not love myself.

Although I do love and glorify myself as a writer, I don’t love myself as a person, and it is as a person that I spend most of my time.

As a writer I can say, “I looked out my window by the beach and saw there a sea of pink peonies scattering petals against the shore.” You may find that phrase magnificent or dull, depending on your mood, and your taste in literature, and your inclination towards or against flowers, though if you don’t like flowers I imagine you will have stopped reading by now. If you do find that phrase dull, feel free to exchange it for one you prefer — there are plenty in this essay. Yet to write even the most magnificent sentence is easier for me than to walk down the street and face one thousand nameless eyes.

But I cannot be a writer for more than a few hours at a time. It is exhausting to be whimsical and serious all at once,

which I must be, in order to be inspired. I am in pursuit of the intimate and illogical heart of language. Beneath language is the heart of language and in the heart there is nothing but peacocks spreading their plumage. Or something much more luminous but which I do not know how to express, except as peacocks. That is to say, I cannot speak of the heart of language at all, or only in a hermetic phrase. When you look into the heart of language you may not, so to speak, see peacocks. That is not my concern: you will have your own paradisiacal visions.

If you do see peacocks, however, do not forget me. I will be waiting in my quiet room, sitting at my love-letter desk from 1890, surrounded by the scrolls of Qing dynasty poetry I have hung on my wall, and the map of Albany from 1770, and the print of Mount Fuji from the 1980s, and the fairy lights, and my painted mugs from Mexico, and my pillows from France and India, and all my books, young and old, and my perfumes. I am not like a monk despite my solitude—my splendors are as often material as they are spiritual. Often enough, material splendors inspire me unto the spiritual. These artifacts are of so many eras that I may make of them a lineage which roots me to the centuries. It gives me the illusion, at least, that I am part of a grand history. When it comes to emotions it’s the illusion that matters.

But for you this is a feeble illusion and you see through it. Why, you might ask, are you listing your possessions? I must admit I have tried to cultivate a certain sense of elegance; the eclectic elegance of one who knows a story that others do not, one who perceives a harmony invisible to everyone else. If my lineage did reside in a single object, though, wouldn’t it be my fountain pen? I could not have written were it not for the one who, in some distant workshop, crafted this pen from teak and steel; I could not have written were it not for the lumberjack who cut down the tree from which the workman made the pen. So perhaps it would be more honest to write a history not of my disparate possessions but of my pen and ink and paper. Perhaps they are my secret history, and the designer of the pen my true comrade.

But my great-grandfather was a maker of paintbrushes. So perhaps my true lineage does not reside in objects at all, or only obscurely. Perhaps my lineage is in the blood itself and he prefigured my artistry with his paintbrushes.

To return to my subject: I cannot be a writer for very long each day, but I find most conversations dull, or unnecessary. (So that I lie less, I am trying to speak as little as possible.

Do not ask me “how are you” because I have learned that most people cannot endure the delicacy of my wings, or their multitude. Intimacy with me is like a swarm of butterflies — an unbearable splendor.)

What, then, is the use of someone like me? I do not know. Do not forget that very few butterflies survive into adulthood. The death of the butterflies is a matter of many more thousands of pages, but I will end my prayer now because I am exhausted and must return to being a person. Amen.

Contact MATTHEW MATTIA at matthew.mattia@yale.edu .

Death in the Age of Facebook // BY APARNA NATHAN Years ago, I went to camp with a girl named Olivia. She was everyone’s friend, or at least seemed that way, and everyone envied her charm. She was the type that could sneak out one weekend to a concert in Boston, get caught in a storm and come back soaking wet and escape the whole episode without getting in trouble.

A few weeks ago, I came across Olivia’s Facebook profile for the first time in over a year. Olivia and I hadn’t been particularly close and hadn’t felt any obligation to keep in touch after camp ended. But, when I came across her profile, the words “Remembering Olivia” occupied the space where just her name should have been, and I had the chilling feeling of encountering a ghost. After all, Olivia had passed away a year earlier from leukemia.

I hesitated to explore any further, as it felt like disturbing a grave. But I read on. The page had become a memorial, a testament to Olivia’s life. Friends still regularly posted photos and messages to her, often saying how much they missed her and reminding her of the

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empty space she’d left behind. Others wrote messages that didn’t mention her death — her best friend had posted a link to Taylor Swift’s newest music video, and another left regular updates about college life. *** After coming across Olivia’s Facebook, I began thinking: What will happen to my Facebook after I die? Or my email accounts, or all the texts and photos on my phone? It’s strange to think of those things as a type of property, something that becomes ownerless at one’s death. We live in the digital age; what happens in the digital afterlife?

With that question in mind, I began doing some research online and discovered a whole range of services offering to help plan your digital afterlife.

Google allows you to determine what will happen to your emails when your account becomes inactive, while Yahoo even has a service that allows users to pre-write emails to be sent once the

company is notified of their death.

I was more than a little disturbed by this morbid side of the digital age, using technology to extend a person’s existence beyond the limits of mortal life.

But there are other ways to manage one’s post-mortem online presence. In February, Facebook announced a new policy allowing users to designate a “legacy contact.” This person would be able to write one last post on your timeline, respond to friend requests and change your profile picture and cover photo.

To me, this seemed much more natural than sending emails from beyond the grave. Rather than mimicking the person’s presence, this policy allows his or her death to be acknowledged, with the word “Remembering” added before his or her name. Facebook’s inherently social nature provides the perfect forum for people to communally mourn a friend or loved one while celebrating that person’s life, immortalized in a Facebook profile. ***

When I found out about Olivia’s death, I cried.

The tears startled me, because I’m not an emotional person. I don’t know if I even cried when members of my extended family passed away. I tried to figure out why I was so affected. Maybe it was her youth, the tragedy of a life taken too early. Maybe it was the shock of knowing that even my peers were not excused from mortality.

But I think I took her death hard because I had, in some ways, watched it approach. Facebook had provided a window for me and 800 other Facebook friends to watch Olivia battle her illness.

Although she rarely posted about it herself, Olivia’s sickness was reflected in her profile. In the early days of her diagnosis, during her senior year of high school, her page was flooded with encouragement and support. And for the rest of that year, her life was documented on Facebook with the same nostalgia of any other high school senior. But her illness marked every moment: She received her college

acceptance letter while in a hospital bed, and her graduation cap sat upon a head that had lost its hair to chemotherapy.

Through Facebook, we watched Olivia’s life from afar, never personally involved in events so distant that they seemed unreal. But it’s hard to distance yourself from death, so unequivocally absolute that it feels real no matter how far away it is.

On the day Olivia passed away, hundreds of people left messages on her timeline. Friends and relatives posted, as expected, but most people left messages that began, “I didn’t know Olivia well…”

I didn’t leave a message. Maybe that was out of self-consciousness, but I just didn’t feel that I had earned the right to publicly mourn her. Instead, I dug out an old memory card that held our photos from camp, and privately mourned a life lost.

Contact APARNA NATHAN at aparna.nathan@yale.edu .

CHESS: MARGARET LEVENSTEIN

WKND RECOMMENDS:

HELL CHYESS. Need we say more, mate?

Playing chess online against an ape named Bozo who has

Sterling Law // 12:30 p.m.

a chess score of 60 (that’s, like, 3 months in dog years).

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MARCH 27, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

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WEEKEND TRAVELS

SPRING BREAKING THE MOLD // BY EMMA GOLDBERG

t’s mid-March and I’m in a t-shirt. The weather is a welcome respite from New Haven’s never-ending winter — it’s that putting-on-sunscreen-won’t-staveoff-the-burn kind of day. Gotta love spring break.

We’re at our volunteer site, a farm connected to the University of Buenos Aires that offers work opportunities to individuals with developmental disabilities.

Today, one of the farmhands is showing me how to plant lettuce seeds in beds of soil. Sometimes we pause to trade jokes or start water fights. Sometimes he teaches me new phrases in Spanish. “Que buena chica,” he says, “Buen trabajo.”

Later that evening, I find myself in an Argentine restaurant using my broken Spanish to tell my waiter how I’ve wound up in Buenos Aires. “Soy de Nueva York,” I say. “Pero estoy de vacaciones.”

“Oh!” Suddenly he understands. “You have spring break, sí? Sprang break como James Franco!”

“Well,” I laugh, “Not exactly.”

I

*** In 2012, Yale-affiliate James Franco popularized the notion of spring break as a time for rumsoaked ragers in Florida/Cabo/ insert beachy region of choice.

But for many Yale students, spring break is the ideal time for a very different sort of travel. Over the past two weeks, more than 50 Yalies participated in service trips abroad with destinations as wide-ranging as Taiwan and Guatemala.

Aobo Guo ’17 spent her spring break freshman year on one such trip to Ghana and Togo — a nation she’d never even heard of before she applied to go. The trip was organized by Reach Out, a Yale undergraduate organization that coordinates international service. It was supposed to focus on volunteer work at an orphanage in Togo, where students aimed to implement a health curriculum

for the children. Soon after arriving at the volunteer site, however, Guo grew frustrated with the group’s efforts.

“I noticed that Reach Out’s ambitions were noble but weren’t necessarily being executed in the most effective way,” she told me.

“It seemed like there was this approach of ‘Look at these slums!

Play with these kids! Take in the exotic culture!’ But we weren’t getting a lot done in terms of our actual service project.”

Guo said their plans to implement the health curriculum hit a roadblock — many of the volunteers didn’t speak any French.

The language barrier, she said, made it difficult to communicate with the children at the orphanage.

Even though the group encountered structural and logistical difficulties, Guo gained a strong appreciation for the challenges inherent in international service work.

Her mission since then has been to devise better solutions to these difficulties. The following year, Guo led a Reach Out trip to Nepal that better fulfilled her vision of meaningful and mindfully planned service. She later became Reach Out’s president, making it her goal to clarify the organization’s goals and deepen its impact. As president, Guo was responsible for approving applications from potential trip leaders. She rejected a greater number of trips than her predecessors, intent on maintaining a higher standard — quality over quantity was her MO. “Previously Reach Out had this reputation for being just a cool spring break experience where you get to travel to an exotic location under the guise of helping out,” Guo said. The emphasis was on tourism rather than on volunteering. “I wanted to make it more centered on service in order to really drive impact.” *** Katherine Garvey ’16, the current president of Reach Out, has continued Guo’s mission to make spring break service matter. But

she is still well aware of the negative associations that come to mind when people think of community service trips. “It’s hard to design a six-day trip that doesn’t fall prey to the characteristics of voluntourism,” she acknowledged.

Some take that criticism a bit further.

For instance, Yale’s own Jim Sleeper, a lecturer in political science calls service trips “resumepadding” and “morally safe, because they’re distant and quarantined.”

“Students have told me the trips displace, delimit and debase good impulses by directing them to societies one can’t understand in a few weeks,” Sleeper told me.

“To better help others and themselves, students should try ‘service learning’ with fellow citizens in their own societies.”

Garvey, however, feels there is something critical to be gained through service abroad, so long as trips are carefully planned and executed with purpose.

This March, Garvey led a spring break trip to the Dominican Republic, where Yalies volunteered for Yspaniola, a nonprofit that promotes literacy in the impoverished Batey Libertad community. (Bateys are rural communities in the Dominican Republic, historically centered around the sugarcane industry.)

In planning her trip, Garvey made sure to include a service component that would leave the Batey Libertad community with something tangible and longlasting. So the Yale volunteers made flashcards, developed reading games and provided other resources that would be helpful to their literacy center. Garvey also organized weekly meetings at Yale leading up to the group’s departure for the Dominican Republic, in which volunteers gathered to study Dominican culture and the challenges faced by this particular community.

The volunteer site for Garvey’s trip, Yspaniola, is the brainchild of Jonathan DiMaio ’09, who is something of a poster boy for service trips gone right.

In 2007, DiMaio participated

in a Reach Out trip to the Dominican Republic. In 2008, he went on a second trip to the same location, which raised money to build a women’s center in the community and helped implement a better sanitation system. But DiMaio was frustrated by the limitations of his short visits to the community. He wanted to build roots in Batey Libertad, to truly immerse himself in the town’s unique fabric and culture.

After graduating from Yale, DiMaio received a fellowship to move to the Dominican Republic and expand Yspaniola’s work. Five years later, and he’s still carrying on the work he started there. He has directed the growth of Yspaniola’s literacy summer camp and a program offering university scholarships to community members. Each year, he liaises with Reach Out students to facilitate service learning trips, strengthening the organization’s connection with Yale.

To DiMaio, it is critical that students prepare for the trips by reading about the history of the

STUDENTS HAVE TO THINK ABOUT WHAT’S REALLY GOING TO BE HELPFUL TO THE PEOPLE THEY’RE WORKING WITH.

ALICIA SCHMIDT CAMACHO, PROFESSOR OF AMERICAN STUDIES AND ER&M Batey Libertad community and by thinking critically about their position as Yale students coming to an area of extreme poverty.

“It’s so interesting for people from one of the most privileged communities in the world to come to this community that is really on the margins,” DiMaio said. “There are all these fascinating connections and strange power dynamics created.” That was a leap DiMaio himself experienced when he traded the com-

forts of Calhoun College for a life in the Dominican Republic.

The most powerful moment of any service trip, DiMaio believes, is when participants come to realize the powerful forces that link them with those who come from radically different backgrounds.

He told me about a group of Yale volunteers he brought to the border between the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Students stood on the bridge looking over the town of Ouanaminthe, watching Haitian men and women wash their clothing and bathe in the nearby river. It was an uncomfortable moment, DiMaio continued, a visceral experience that revealed the extreme levels of poverty in the region, the chasm between the volunteers and the people they were trying to help.

Then DiMaio reminded the Yale students that the people they watched bathing in the river have lives beyond that brief snapshot — they have jobs, families, friends, Facebooks.

“There are connections between volunteers and the communities they visit that extend beyond these brief interactions,” DiMaio said. “We are more connected than we might think to these spaces of extreme marginalization.”

Those connections can create all sorts of complex dynamics.

Evelyn Nunez ’15, who led Reach Out’s trip to the Dominican Republic in 2014, described the sometimes tense encounters that can occur when American values clash with those of Batey Libertad.

She recalled one evening during her trip when the volunteers gathered to reflect on their service experience with members of the Batey Libertad community.

One of the Yale students said he felt particularly uncomfortable with the community’s rigid gender roles. Each morning at breakfast, the men would sit around the table to eat while the women stood around in the kitchen. It made him feel awkward, he told the group. The next morning when the Yale volunteers came down for breakfast, the women were all offered seats at the table.

To Nunez, that felt like a moment of triumph. But others might have looked at it differently.

Alicia Schmidt Camacho, director of undergraduate studies in Ethnicity, Race and Migration, said that service trips offer important opportunities for students to explore the contrast between American values and those of communities abroad.

But these interactions must be approached with caution and nuance.

“Students have to think about what’s really going to be helpful to the people they’re working with,” Camacho said. “It’s easy for us to see how gender inequalities operate in foreign contexts without noticing the inequalities we’ve grown accustomed to in our everyday lives.” Conversations about gender, she continued, have the capacity to embarrass rather than help women abroad. *** Though it’s the predominant organizer of such trips, Reach Out is not the only campus group that has taken on the international service agenda. The trip to Buenos Aires I participated in, for instance, was coordinated by the Slifka Center.

When Adam Sokol ’17 set about planning this trip with Ali Golden ’17 and Dani Czemerinski ’17, he was determined to avoid the pitfalls of traditional service trips painting a wall that later gets repainted by a new group of college volunteers, as he put it.

Sokol, himself skeptical of typical volunteer trips, wanted to set realistic goals for the group’s service project.

“Throughout the process of planning the trip, we were extremely self-aware and -critical about the implications of what we were doing,” Golden explained. The organizers asked themselves: How can we justify the resources invested in the trip? They recognized that trip participants were aiming to SEE VOLUNTOURISM PAGE 8

MAP YALE REACH OUT TRIP DESTINATONS 2015

//SAM WANG

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YALE DATA HACKATHON Kroon Hall // 5 p.m.

Bro, do you even code? Cuz this is gonna <b>sick.</b>

WKND RECOMMENDS: Anonymous. Like the anarchist web collective, but also the unknown medieval poet.

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MARCH 27, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND ROOTS

A SPORTING CHANCE // BY JON VICTOR

//JULIA HENRY

On the evening of March 14 at the University of Pennsylvania’s historic Palestra arena, the Harvard and Yale men’s basketball teams were tied at 51 in a game that would send the winner to the NCAA tournament. Then, with seven seconds left, Harvard forward Steve Mondou-Missi hit a 15-foot jumper left to pull ahead of Yale by two points. Yale got the ball back in time for Javier Duren ’15 to make one final drive to the net, but he missed a layup as time expired, and Yale failed to advance to tournament play, just as they had for the past 52 years.

Ansh Bhagat ’18, who doesn’t play a varsity sport, caught up on the highlights after the game.

“I think I just forgot about it, to be honest,” he said. “I might have been asleep.”

Many Yale students might have had a similar experience: of 155 students who responded to a News survey, 70 percent knew the game’s significance, but only 43 percent reported that they watched it.

But Bhagat and others’ relative ambivalence would have seemed out of place on campus 50 years ago.

History professor Jay Gitlin ’71, who teaches the course “Yale and America,” recalls the sense of dejection that gripped campus in the days following Yale’s infamous 29–29 “loss” to Harvard in 1968. In the last 42 seconds of the game, Harvard scored 16 points, tying the game against a heavily favored Yale squad.

“We were in a foul mood,” he remembers. “These things affected the mood of the campus.

When it was a Yale victory, everybody was happy.”

But Gitlin also remembers that the Yale team won a lot more than they do now.

UConn, for example, posed no problem. “We assumed that we’d win more than we’d lose, and the teams that we thought we might lose to were more often than not, Dartmouth or Harvard.”

But even with the football team going 8–2 this season, attendance at their games paled in comparison to the sold-out games of Gitlin’s day. This part of Yale’s culture, it seems, has been lost to history.

Some, though, are not content to let sports slip from the campus consciousness.

Ralph Molina ’16 is the president of the Whaling Crew, an organization dedicated to sup-

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porting Yale’s sports teams.

“I think the Whaling Crew’s job isn’t done until every single sporting game is sold out,” he says. “We’ll probably never get there, but that’s the goal.” *** In 1914, construction crews finished work on the largest amphitheater built since the Roman Coliseum: the Yale Bowl.

Costing the University $17.7 million, the imposing concrete stadium reflected the athletic dominance of a football team representing a school that had helped invent the sport. But the administration’s efforts came a little too late: By the time the Bowl was completed, the Bulldogs had already won 26 out of their 27 total national championships.

The 80,000-seat behemoth would never again see the kind of national spotlight it once enjoyed. Since then, attendance has fallen, and renovations to the stadium have reduced its capacity to just over 60,000.

Still, attendance didn’t suddenly fall off once Yale stopped winning national titles. According to Joel Alderman ’51, “It was a gradual process.” Alderman, a retired lawyer who now writes about Yale athletics for SportzEdge.com, said Yale was still a top team in his day, and the noticeable decline in attendance came in the late 1980s through the 1990s.

Prior to that, though, sports — and football in particular — remained an important part of campus life. Gitlin emphasized the greater importance that football had in the University’s social culture when he was a student.

“Football was part of the social calendar,” he said. “You went to football games. We dated a lot, and dating often included going to the football game and then to a dance.”

Since then, though, student interest in sports has declined markedly.

Last fall, the Bulldogs celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Yale Bowl with a rare contest against Army. In an extravagant pre-game spectacle, the game ball was delivered by a cadet parachuting out of a helicopter and landing at midfield. That day, the Bulldogs managed an unlikely victory over a highly competitive team.

But the Bulldogs’ rousing win

came in front of tens of thousands of empty seats. Pat O’Neill, associate director of marketing for Yale athletics, estimates that there were around 1,000 fans in attendance, a figure dwarfed by the crowds of 50 and 60 thousand that Yale games drew during the mid-20th century.

And the Army game offers only one example: 58 percent of survey respondents said they had been to three or fewer sporting events this year.

Alderman thinks this dip in attendance is a symptom of something deeper.

“Sports themselves don’t carry as much meaning to the students,” he said. *** Yale students’ attitudes towards sports have been shaped by social and institutional factors. But according to athletes and administrators alike, the most important determinant in a team’s support remains its winloss record.

“In my experience being here at Yale, kids are pretty educated when it comes to our sports teams,” O’Neill said. “You can’t fool Yale students. Our teams need to win and they’ll come out.”

But since their heyday early last century, Ivy League sports in general have ceded ground to other, larger institutions.

In 1923, Harvard, Princeton and Yale signed the Three Presidents’ Agreement, affirming that all athletes would be admitted as students and would have to conform to the same academic standards expected of others. This restriction opened the door for schools like Michigan and Ohio State to surpass Yale in athletics by using scholarships to recruit top talent. In 1945, the other Ivies agreed not to offer athletic scholarships either, clearing the way for bigger schools with millions of dollars to spend on their athletic programs. An Ivy League policy prohibiting postseason play further isolated the league’s teams, preventing them from participating in much-publicized bowl games.

“A lot of the time academia and national [athletics] don’t really work well together,” said Molina.

But some say that certain aspects of Yale itself keep athletics from flourishing on campus.

Many remarked on the distance from campus to athletic

YALE STUDENT FILM FESTIVAL WHC // All WKND

facilities like the Yale Bowl, Yale Field and Coxe Cage.

Caroline Lynch ’17, a member of the women’s tennis team and secretary of the Yale StudentAthlete College Council, said sporting events at Yale are generally well attended. But she added that those taking place at the Smilow Field House, as opposed to in Ingalls Rink or Payne Whitney Gymnasium, tend to attract fewer viewers because of the distance from campus.

Ree Ree Li ’16, also on the women’s tennis team, reiterated that sentiment.

“We always have good showings for sports that are in the gym because it’s so close,” Li said.

“The biggest challenge is getting people to come out for the games that are at the fields.”

Jackson Stallings ’17, a member of the football team and the president of YSACC, said he would like to see an investment in the Yale Bowl’s infrastructure. He thinks that making seating more comfortable or adding a jumbotron, like those at Cornell or Harvard, would encourage more students to attend football games.

O’Neill said budget constraints left no room for investment in the Bowl’s infrastructure right now.

But Li said there are non-financial measures that Yale can take to show more support for its athletes. She mentioned a policy in place at Princeton that ensures classes never take place while sports teams practice, meaning athletes could take whatever classes they want. Yale’s athletes, who must tailor their schedules to avoid conflicts, do not enjoy this luxury.

Li said she didn’t receive full credit for a course last fall semester because she had to miss class to travel to California with her team.

Those institutional features might also bleed over into Yale’s campus culture itself: Molina said one source of student disinterest might be administrative attitudes toward sports. Since Yale can’t give athletic scholarships, he said, many feel that sports aren’t important.

But not everyone thinks that Yale’s campus culture doesn’t support sports.

Lynch, for one, said the idea that Yalies don’t support their sports teams isn’t true. Some will know more about sports than others, she added, but that can be said of any aspect of Yale’s cam-

pus life.

If people are divided as to how Yale students feel about sports, everyone agrees that a supportive campus is vital to thriving athletic programs. And key to that support is a sense of connection between athletes and non-athletes.

“If we can create a culture where the students as well as student-athletes are all close, people will want to go out to support each other,” Li said. “I go to plays and dance shows because I have friends that are in them. If more people have friends who are athletes, they’d be more willing to go out to games.”

But the distance that some Yalies feel between themselves and those representing them on the field became clear in a video released by the Harvard comedy group “On Harvard Time” before the Game last fall.

In the video, disguised Harvard students interviewed Yalies about the state of Yale’s football program and asked them to sign a petition to defund it.

Li and Molina said it disappointed them to see how easily the actors were able to convince Yale students to publicly endorse cutting funding for the football team.

“We have funding issues already within athletics, and to see people wanting to take money from a program that hundreds of students are a part of-I was surprised by that,” Li said. *** If such a petition ever passed, at least two names would certainly not be on it.

In their first weeks as freshmen, Andrew Sobotka ’15 and Hal Libby ’15 noticed a lack of support for Yale’s sports teams. They decided to take matters into their own hands.

“The first football game had decent attendance but the second one was absolutely abysmal,” Sobtoka said. “Hal and I were shocked that on this beautiful fall day, nobody was out at the Bowl cheering on the ‘Dogs.”

In response, the pair founded the Whaling Crew, the organization of which Molina is now president. Starting out as a small group of friends, it now has over 1,300 likes on its Facebook page.

This year alone, the Whaling Crew has organized student tailgates, ordered pizza for fans in the

student sections at home games and arranged transportation so interested students can travel to away games.

“Before the Whaling Crew existed, there was no group to get students to come out to athletics,” Molina said. “It was just the athletics office, or through the grapevine. It’s different when you’re hearing about it from students than when you’re hearing about it from the administration.

O’Neill said the Whaling Crew’s efforts have had a tangible effect on sports attendance, enticing more students to come out to games, and the group now receives funding from the athletics office. “We value them immensely,” O’Neill says.

The Whaling Crew also appeared in August at a new event called Yale UP!, which Molina says added to their legitimacy and increased student interest in joining.

Yale UP!, inaugurated this year during Camp Yale, consisted of presentations made by members of the athletics department to the incoming freshman class. Students were taught Yale’s historic cheers, and the event featured a relay race between residential colleges, among other competitions. A conscious administrative effort to encourage support for Yale’s sports teams, Yale UP! was mandatory. *** Despite the lackluster competitive spirit of the past few decades and the eight-year losing streak at the Game, Yale sports fans have reason to hold out hope. The Bulldogs have seen major successes in recent years that are leading to attention on a national scale: the men’s hockey team took home the NCAA title in 2013, Yale football star Tyler Varga ’15 is competing for NFL consideration and the men’s basketball team missed March Madness by a hair’s breadth. And survey data suggests that campus support is on the rise: more than a third of respondents said they were more interested in Yale sports this year than last.

“Sports are on the up at Yale,” said Molina. “My attitude about athletic attendance on campus is not necessarily proud, but it’s optimistic.”

Contact JON VICTOR at jon. victor@yale.edu .

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Yale students are keeping it reel. Still.

Pretending to know what “Fringe Festival” means.

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MARCH 27, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

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WEEKEND ROMANCES

ILLUMINATING BLAKE’S LEGACY // BY GRACE CASTILLO

// KEN YANAGISAWA

“Illuminated Printing: William Blake and the Book Arts” was intended to complement the YUAG’s “The Critique of Reason: Romantic Art, 1760–1860,” but can stand on its own as well.

Although better known for his poetry, Blake was also talented in the visual arts, and this exhibit — located in the lower level of the Robert B. Haas Family Library — brings some of those artistic abilities to light, demonstrating the influence Blake had on printmaking through his innovative combination of text and illustration on a single copper printing plate.

“Illuminated Printing” is a modest but interesting exhibit, and like the books it contains, it succeeds by synthesizing words and images. I found as much value in the informational signs as in the prints themselves (though

the prints were beautiful). Blake claimed that his dead brother’s ghost came to him in a dream and revealed the new printing technique, which Blake called “Illuminated Printing.” The new method was a combination of two existing techniques, relief printing and intaglio printing: Printers put ink on a raised surface in the former, and into engravings or etchings in the latter. What made Blake’s prints unique was his combination of the two techniques on the same plate, allowing him to utilize the precision of intaglio printing and the ease of relief printing. And because Blake hand-painted each plate every time it went through the press, every print is slightly different.

As pleasing and unique as each of these prints may be, the exhibit contains precious few of

them. “Illuminated Printing” consists of 16 glass cases along a wall underneath a staircase, each case containS a few books and prints and an accompanying informational sign. There is one original print by Blake, which he made for a friend, along with several reproductions of his most popular book cover designs, like “Songs of Innocence and Experience.” The original print contains his friend’s name surrounded by small decorations, and is thought to be one of Blake’s last works.

The facsimiles of Blake’s covers, on the other hand, generally show the book’s title surrounded by colorful, almost swirling images.

Lovely as these images were, I soon realized that the display focused much more intensely on Blake’s artistic techniques and legacy than on his own artistic

achievements. The vast majority of the works, like Dan Carr’s handcrafted books “Gift of Leaves,” displayed are not Blake’s own, but rather, the creations of people inspired by him. Many of the cases also contain dense treatises dealing with Blake’s importance in book art and book history. Still another case offers examples of different printing processes from past centuries, with step-by-step explanations of the various techniques. In keeping with that historical perspective, an old printing press, similar to the one Blake himself would have used, is on display.

Though I found it strange that an exhibit claiming to be about William Blake didn’t contain much of his work, it was also interesting to see tangible evidence of his impact on later artists and book-

makers.

Going into the exhibit, I hadn’t considered bookmaking to be its own art form, but I am now convinced that it is. The careful combination of words and images (and, in some cases, the painstaking process of hand-binding each book) is so beautiful, intricate and well-planned that denying the artistic worth of the task is impossible. It’s difficult, in today’s world of laser and 3D printing, to understand the intimate connection between the human printmaker, the letterpress and the final product. The exhibit does a wonderful job of illuminating it.

The more time I spent wandering through the exhibit, the more I enjoyed it, and I would expect others to have a similar experience. There aren’t any flashy col-

ors or huge paintings to capture a passerby’s attention. Rather, the exciting aspects of the display (much like the display itself) take some effort to find. Those willing to slow down, read the provided information, and examine the prints, will find it an informative and enjoyable experience. Luckily, the small size of the exhibit makes a thorough examination of all the materials possible. Even viewers who pour over all the assorted visual aids, book displays and informational signs wouldn’t need to allot much more than half an hour for the exhibit.

Yet even in that short time, they can expect to learn quite a bit about William Blake, his printing process, and its legacy.

Contact GRACE CASTILLO at grace.castillo@yale.edu .

Romantic Reflections

Picture-Perfect Poetry

// BY SOFIA BRAUNSTEIN

// BY RHEA KUMAR

Like Romanticism itself, the YUAG’s new and exhaustive special exhibition “The Critique of Reason: Romantic Art, 1760-1860” is difficult to encapsulate. Drawing from a variety of collections — the Gallery itself, the Yale Center for British Art and Yale’s Lewis Walpole Library — the exhibition spans two floors and four galleries and creates a sweeping landscape of the Romantic movement. Sectioned into eight different themes and featuring works by such luminaries as Joseph Mallord William Turner and Francisco de Goya, the exhibition attempts to provide a clearer understanding of the movement’s multi-faceted nature. And while it would be impossible for any one exhibition, no matter how large, to capture the essence of the Romantic period, “The Critique of Reason,” a stunning exhibit, comes impressively close.

Each room in the gallery is painted a different shade of either red or blue, creating a slight tension that keeps viewers on their toes. The delicate contrast between colors alludes to the opposition between the Enlightenment and Romanticism: Light blues and heather greys suggest the clarity of reason and the cool certainty of the Enlightenment, juxtaposed with deep crimsons and vibrant reds that call forth the emotionally charged tempest of Romantic thought.

As the exhibition’s title suggests, Romanticism turned Enlightenment’s own investigative lens onto itself, questioning knowledge and whether reason might detract from the appreciation of beauty. The paintings on view suggest a quest

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for answers about one’s self and one’s place in the world, answers that cannot necessarily be found with a microscope. The gallery’s layout offers no set chronology or prescribed order in which to view the themes and allows the viewer free reign, encouraging a Romantic-like exploration of the self and the surroundings.

Much of the exhibit is dominated by landscapes: caverns, starry swatches of sky, seascapes punctured by boats, the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, ominous clouds.

Each painting invites the viewer to inhabit the artist’s mind and search for whatever meaning he (the vast majority of artist on view are men) found in the bareness of valleys or the grandeur of fantastical caves.

However, viewers can also imagine themselves into the landscape, to see how their thoughts align with any particular painter’s vision. I found myself enthralled in the pulsating stars and the faint horizon of Jean-Francois Millet’s “Starry Night.” The calm of the hazy trees and the deep cerulean sky drew me into Millet’s psyche, allowing me a moment’s break from my hectic life.

“The Critique of Reason” also highlights the intense Romantic fascination with the raw power of nature. Man is pitted against the uncontrollable, the mighty force of natural disasters. One painting in particular conveys this: John Martin’s “The Deluge.” A massive canvas wider than my 5’2” frame, it commands the attention of the room and drew me in immediately not just with its size but with its subject as well: a small island of impotent people at the center of a

dark seascape, surrounded by towering waves. I recognized the helplessness of the people, their complete lack of control over their fate, and was captivated by a scene of utter terror for those within it.

The paintings within this exhibition allow us to confront our fears from a safe distance. However the Romantics could also appreciate nature’s gentle beauty. For example, John Constable’s “Cloud Studies” depict a nature as nonthreatening, ever-changing and welcoming.

Although all the works within the gallery are over a hundred and fifty years old, many of the paintings still feel relevant. Francisco de Goya’s Disasters of War, an eighty-piece exploration of the realistic and fantastical horrors of war, brings to mind images we see every day on the news; each etching draws the viewer further into a real-life nightmare. Viewing the etchings, one begins to wonder why such terrors persist and why we haven’t learned from the past; Goya’s works suggest that, two hundred years ago, he asked the same questions.

With poise and exuberance, “The Critique of Reason” grapples with pertinent emotions and issues. Wandering the exhibition can be likened to walking through one’s own mind, seeing reflections, both welcome and unwelcome, of the world around us and within us.

Whether you’re looking for introspection, knowledge, or the simple pleasure of viewing the work of talented artists, “The Critique of Reason” is the perfect escape.

Contact SOFIA BRAUNSTEIN at sofia.braunstein@yale.edu .

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Leonardo da Vinci once said, “Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.” Da Vinci’s synesthetic suggestion found favor on a recent rainy Thursday at the YUAG, where art, poetry and music came together, allowing an audience to see, hear and feel the ethos of the Romantic period.

The poetry and music were part of “The Critique of Reason”, a new art exhibition put on by the YUAG and the YCBA next door — surprisingly, the first collaboration between the two. The evening began with a concert in the YUAG’s auditorium, consisting of two string quartets performed by students from the School of Music. The audience was next treated to readings of Romantic poetry meant to complement the paintings exhibited four floors above.

After a tiring day of math class and number-crunching, I, for one, was ready to enjoy some beautiful Romantic melodies. “The Harp,” Beethoven’s string quartet in E-Flat Major, balanced melancholy with occasional and muchappreciated bursts of vigor and energy, and was followed by the haunting tones of Mendelssohn’s String Quartet No. 2 in A Minor. The sudden shifts between tension and tranquility in both pieces evoked a strong and unique emotion, perhaps the “sublime” state that Romantic art often strove for. The masterful rendition of both quartets was uplifting, yet I could not help feeling that my enjoyment didn’t deepen or broaden my appreciation of the actual exhibition.

In this pleasant but confused state of mind, I made my way up to the fourth floor for the second (and undoubtedly more exciting) part of the evening: the artwork and poetry. Six undergraduates who had taken Paul Fry’s “Romantic Poetry” last semester stood by their paintings of choice in different rooms of the exhibition. Each recited one or two works of poetry from the same period as the painting they had chosen.

Well-matched paintings and poems gave me a new appreciation for the aura of the Romantic period. Some combinations, like Alison Hutchison’s ’15 recital of Percy Shelley’s “Clouds” against John Constable’s “Cloud Studies,” exemplified the

Romantic spirit and its traditional associations with landscapes and the celebration of nature; the image that the poem created in my mind perfectly matched Constable’s painting, enhancing the effect of both. In contrast to that classic Romanticism, Devika Mittal’s ’15 subtle and poignant recital of two Byron compositions alongside Pierre Paul Prudion’s “A Grief Stricken Family” and Ary Scheffer’s “The Retreat of Napoleon’s Army from Russia in 1812” exposed me to the more human side of Romanticism, far removed from ideal scenes of natural splendor. Although the subject matter diverged from Hutchison’s pairing, the synergy remained: The wounded soldiers in Scheffer’s painting seemed to have emerged straight from the conclusion of Byron’s “Lara.”

Yet not all poems were meant to recreate the scenes they accompanied, and many made me look differently at the paintings in front of me.

Eleanor Michotte’s ’15 articulate performance of Coleridge’s “Frost at Midnight” against George Romney’s “Ann Wilson with her daughter, Sybil” — perhaps my favorite moment of the evening — juxtaposed a simple mother-daughter portrait with a wistful dream of an ideal childhood, untainted by industrialization, many Romantics viewed skeptically. And Hutchison’s recital of Wordsworth’s “Idiot Boy” against Gustave Courbet’s “Hunter on Horseback” breathed life into a rather still scene by weaving an imaginary story around the figure in the painting.

Despite the enjoyable music and the effective pairings of paintings with poems, the exhibition’s three components seemed somewhat scattered, and it was hard to find a single cohesive message or idea connecting the three: The music that opened the evening seemed somewhat out of place, and upon arrival on the fourth floor, viewers were allowed to wander at will, without a set order. But was this an unintended consequence or a deliberate attempt to celebrate the Romantic “critique of reason” by abstaining from a prescribed order?

As the evening drew to a close, I still wasn’t sure. I guess some stories are best left untold.

Contact RHEA KUMAR at rhea.kumar@yale.edu .

WKND RECOMMENDS: Salon.com, WKND’s fourth-favorite online source of liberal social commentary and fun click bait.

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MARCH 27, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

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WEEKEND GORGES

Mamma’s Girl Goes out to Eat // BY RACHEL PAUL

// RACHEL PAUL

TRE SCALINI

Today was a really big day for me because today I went and ate at a restaurant (good décor, mediocre curtains). I only ever went to a restaurant once, with Mom and Dad (loving parents Amy and William), so this was really a big deal. I was totally independent and on my own (not all it’s cracked up to be).

My first dish, an appetizer of course (know that from when I went with Mom and Dad), scared me at first, but I got over it quickly. It was just food as always. The first bite was delicious through and through. It was Palle Risotti (yes — it’s as hard to pronounce as it looks), which is basically (as the menu reads) breaded Parmesan encrusted risotto croquettes, vodka sauce (woohoo!), with a truffle oil drizzle. I ate it, to say the least. I loved its crusty, warm heartiness, to say the most.

It came time for me to have my entrée (second thing between appetizer [antipasti] and dessert [dolce] {new things I learned on my own}).

This was delicious to eat. It was eggplant parmigiana and was spicy but not so spicy that it overwhelmed the other delicate flavors of the dish (lemony and olive oily). Reminded me a lot of that time I went to a restaurant with Mom and Dad because I ordered something that had spices in it back then.

Then the waitress poured me some water, which I thought was nervewracking. I didn’t know whether to talk to her or just sit there silently. So I did the in-between, which was a faint mumble of “thank you” (it went over just fine).

Lastly, (not firstly because it was last), I had the best dessert of my whole life — even compared to the time with Mom and Dad. That time we had pie but this was instead a plate with cookies, whipped cream and ice cream on it. Which are three things, not just one (like the pie). Three whole things on a plate just for me (Rachel). I ate the whole thing, and I know she didn’t say this (like Mom and Dad would) but I think the waitress was proud of me for

finishing my whole plate clean.

I just got off the phone with Mom and Dad. Now I am home (a dorm room with a dorm bed I am sitting on) and just reminiscing (thinking, remembering, pondering, etc.) about that time I went (drove) to a restaurant (Tre Scalini 100 Wooster Ave.) all by myself (made it out alive even haha) and how it started off scary (that antipasto!) but how I didn’t need to be scared by the end because the waitress (the one that was proud of me) was so nice and the food (croquettes, eggplant, and cookies) was so good (or buono [“good” in Italian]). So I learned that I can do almost anything (if I have to), but I don’t think I’ll be going to another restaurant without Mom and Dad anytime soon. Thanks and I hope you (my readers) all (every one of you) go to a restaurant alone (no one with you) just to experience it (but know it is always better with Mom and Dad).

NEW HAVEN: A MOVEABLE FEAST

Contact RACHEL PAUL at rachel.paul@yale.edu .

Come for the Octopus, Stay for the Family // BY ADRIAN CHIEM AND ANYA GRENIER

Upon entering Fornarelli’s Ristorante, we were told that we were going to come in as guests and leave as family.

Though we were excited at the prospect of meeting a group of people we’d never met before, the restaurant had tablecloths and chairs, which made Anya a little nervous.

“I don’t even like going to restaurants,” she admitted to Adrian. “I would always rather eat at home or in the dining hall.”

After sitting and talking about our interests for a while, we discovered that there was warm bread in the bucket on our table. We were surprised, having assumed it was an empty bucket with a napkin in it.

When the waiter tried to take away our drink menu, we said we wanted to keep it to read the descriptions,

although we did not order any drinks.

“Like when you buy a porn magazine to read the articles,” Adrian explained.

One of the drinks was called “Extortion Money” and featured ginger beer, and we vowed to return and try it.

After we had already ordered, owner John Fornarelli graciously offered us some complimentary octopus with lemon and olive oil, which also made Anya nervous. Adrian fell in love with the dish; the octopus was perfectly chewy and contained subtle tart undertones that managed to pop without being too overwhelming.

Next, we were offered another dish: a second pre-appetizer appetizer. It was called panzerotti. We had absolutely no idea what it was going to be, and when the slab of fried dough arrived we felt a dawning, familiar sense of doom.

“It’s like when you go to your Russian relative’s house, and you think the food on the table is all there is,” Anya said. “And then you realize there’s this whole other table of food secretly waiting for you. And you know that you will never leave and that you will have to eat all of it because it’s awesome.”

The panzerotti was indeed awesome. It was like an airy calzone, filled with tomato sauce, mozzarella and capers. We could not imagine having it at home, where we are only served borscht and rice, respectively. We were also feeling alarmingly full, and the main appetizer had not yet arrived.

When we received the antipasto plate we had ordered, we were impressed with how well curated the different flavors were. A thinly cut, smoky prosciutto paired wonderfully

with the three different types of cheese and the spicy, house-made, marinated peppers.

The sort of nostalgia that only came with Frank Sinatra and hearty food led us to believe that Fornarelli’s had succeeded in their promise to make us feel like family. It felt like every element of each dish came from a larger familysize dish, and they just happened to have been plopped down on our plates.

It was something we’d never experienced at a nice restaurant.

Still, having ordered a filet mignon and a piece of salmon with risotto, we worried that these were not the most Italian dishes — and, while great, they were not as great as the food we had not ordered. But Adrian maintained we had done the right thing, and began to mansplain: “A menu has to be like a basketball

team. The bench has to have depth as well.”

We ordered dessert, and decided that the tiramisu, made by Fornarelli’s wife, was the best we had ever eaten.

The cannoli, which was tarter than most, appealed to us as well.

Anya asked Adrian if he would take a date to Fornarelli’s. He replied wistfully, “Yeah I would. But I think it’s where I’d want to go with my husband, and we’d become regulars and friends with the owners and they would watch my kids grow up.”

When we finished our meal, Rob, our waiter, congratulated us and we felt like we had earned it. And we had: We were Italian now. Christmas carols played as we walked out.

Contact ADRIAN CHIEM and ANYA GRENIER at adrian.grenier@yale.edu.

// GRACE CASTILLO

OLEA // ADRIAN CHIEM

Olé Olé Olea!

FORNARELLI’S

// BY GRACE CASTILLO After spending over a week in Spain over spring break, I thought I was done with Spanish food — surely any tapa or paella I ate in the U.S. would be a letdown after leisurely patio meals of authentic Mediterranean fare. Could Olea, a beautifully designed Spanish restaurant on High Street, measure up to my experiences in Barcelona and Madrid? In the midst of restaurant week, I decided to find out.

When I arrived, the host led me to one of the small tables along the wall. Things started with a roll of bread and olive oil, followed by a mini torta espanola (Spanish omelet). I am able to say confidently that it measured up to the real thing. The appetizer, piquillos de pisto, consisted of three red peppers — stuffed with the typical squash, zucchini and onion — on top of a layer of creamy cheese sauce. They were tasty, the flavors well-balanced and not overwhelming.

The peppers were a strong start to the meal, and the entree had big shoes to fill. The “Polenta y Verduras” — polenta and greens — fell slightly short of these expectations. The polenta itself, served in a small cake form, was buttery and dense, the accompanying vegetables lightly grilled. It would have been nearly tasteless without the spinach pesto and romesco sauces drizzled around the edges, and even so, it simply wasn’t flavorful.

Though not a total flop, I can’t say it was my favorite.

At this point, I was happy with what I’d been served, but not overly enthusiastic. The impending dessert had the power to make or

Chopin, Chinese Food, and Marschino Cherries // BY SIMON SCHAITKIN

As you pass Shake Shack and enter Taste of China on Chapel, you might not realize that you’re about to have some of the best Chinese food in New Haven. Lantern-like lights give the restaurant a romantic glow; the music playing in the background sounds like a whitewashed version of Chopin. The waitstaff makes sure that your table always has what it needs, but when they bring out your side plate of pickled vegetables, they inexplicably garnish it with Maraschino cherries.

Don’t be put off by this, though; the similarities between this restaurant and McDonald’s end here.

Taste of China combines traditional Chinese dishes with the spicy flair of Szechuan cuisine. And

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when I say “traditional Chinese,” I don’t mean traditional American Chinese. The menu features classic Chinese dishes like jiaozi — dumplings — and jia cháng dòu fu — Home Style Tofu — but no American distortions: no General Tso’s Chicken, and no Orange Chicken.

The restaurant simply refuses to sink to the level of Ivy Noodleesque American Chinese cuisine; the entrées and appetizers at Taste of China derive from a purer Chinese and Szechuan cultural tradition.

This adherence to tradition applies to the freshness of the food as well. Every ingredient was fresh and perfectly cooked — no stale vegetables or flat flavors. Even the

ERMENI

Yale Rep // 8 p.m.

A tale of love buffeted by the winds of history and indelibly shaped by the unspeakable crimes of the Armenian Genocide.

tofu seemed to explode with flavor, landing somewhere between a rare steak and a thick pad of butter.

After the Maraschino cherries, though, I didn’t know what to expect from my main course. But I was pleasantly surprised. My Ma La Duck swam in a delicious broth of spice and lentils, with a kick of heat at the end of each bite. The duck was tender and juicy (although unfortunately not deboned) so that it contrasted nicely with the crunchy lentils. And the traditional side of brown rice captured an earthy flavor that complemented the heavy oil of the duck.

I was a little confused by my dessert. After such authentic Chinese food, I was expecting something

more along the lines of Red Bean Cake, or Chinese Donuts. Instead, I was served a mango cheesecake that, while delicious, wasn’t particularly Chinese. The cheesecake was so light and fluffy that I had to absolve Taste of China of this venial sin.

If you’re looking for a nice place to take a date in the near future, you might try Taste of China. The entrées are a little pricier than those of its blander competitors, but they’re worth it. And your date will love the romantic atmosphere and lively flavors. They may even like the Chopin, too. // SIMON SCHAITKIN

Contact SIMON SCHAITKIN at simon.schaitkin@yale.edu .

WKND RECOMMENDS:

Contact GRACE CASTILLO at grace. castillo@yale.edu .

TASTE OF CHINA

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Ermine. WKND trims all our coats with it.

break the experience. Happily, the cremoso de chocolate, a ganache-like creation filled with a light but creamy coffee flavored sauce, sealed the deal. It was a thing of beauty — rich but not overly sweet. I finished with a single shot of espresso.

The experience of going out to eat can never be isolated to the food alone. Atmosphere is important, which Olea knows and nails. The servers were friendly and competent, and the decor sleek and modern. The food presentation upped the ante. Every dish was perfectly centered on wide plates, sauces drizzled with care, the stray sprigs of parsley or scallion arranged just so.

Would I return? Yes. I entered moderately hungry and left moderately full — portions were on the smaller side but nowhere near microscopic. The combination of all the servings was a perfect size for dinner, and I think that “quite good” is a fair way to sum up Olea. It’s perhaps important to reiterate that Olea serves Spanish, not Latin American, food. Spice is not the goal: flavors are understated, occasionally bordering on bland (as the polenta made clear).

Olea is more upscale than most of New Haven’s offerings, a great place to go with adult family members or on a formal date.

Expect a sit-down dinner in a lovely space with a bit of time between each course — this is a meal to savor over conversation.

27

RESTAURANT WEEK ENDS New Haven // All Day

This is your last chance to scarf down slightly underpriced eats at restaurants outside of your price range.

WKND RECOMMENDS: Going to restaurants outside of your price range.

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MARCH 27, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND SERVES

BRINGING IT ALL BACK HOME // BY EMMA GOLDBERG

VOLUNTOURISM FROM PAGE 3 learn and not just to serve. The trip’s purpose, the organizers explained, was to inspire more long-term commitment to social justice.

The trip organizers also grappled with their position as American volunteers. Czemerinski said that when she first told her extended Argentine family that she would be traveling to Buenos Aires with a group focused on social justice, her relatives were taken aback.

“It’s easy to misconstrue the intention of this type of trip as a group of American students traveling to another country, believing they can change the world,” Czemerinski said. “We did not change the world, nor were we intending to. The purpose of the trip was to learn about ourselves, try to understand another culture, and lend a helping hand.”

Jake Wolf-Sorokin ’16, who went on the trip, was initially torn about serving abroad given “all the problems in our own backyard, here in New Haven.” But Wolf-Sorokin ultimately decided that the wisdom gleaned from international travel would be invaluable.

“In the same way that Yale funds academic research abroad, service trips give us the chance to reflect on our own communities and think about how we can make our service back home more meaningful,” WolfSorokin said.

Mornings in Argentina began with 7 a.m. alarms, and we were off to the farm, called Pecohue. Coordinated by the University of Buenos Aires, Pecohue hires developmentally disabled individuals in order to give them a source of income and a social routine.

Though I’m someone neither welltrained

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nor wellequipped for manual labor, there were luckily a wide range of tasks available to us. We would partner with the farm workers to whack weeds, water plants and shovel manure. And we were also there to socialize — to learn from and contribute to the farm’s vibrant familial community.

The content of service trips certainly varies, and it is often affected by factors like language and volunteer skillsets. Of the Reach Out leaders I spoke to, each had taken on wildly different projects, from working with survivors of sexual abuse in the Philippines to teaching theater in a public school in Taiwan.

Camacho emphasized that, likewise, not all service trips are alike in their impact. “I’ve seen students go to an orphanage for two weeks, and you wonder how much the volunteers and people being served really benefit from such a short visit,” she said. On the other hand, she mentioned the potential good that more contained projects can accomplish in that timespan.

SERVICE TRIPS CHANGED MY LIFE. JONATHAN DIMAIO ’09, FOUNDER OF YSPANIOLA *** We’re not in the easiest position as students on an internationally-oriented campus often disconnected from the surrounding community. Many Yalies may feel an obligation to address challenges in New Haven and a simultaneous responsibility to learn about global issues.

For Evelyn Nunez, this obligation necessarily extends beyond New Haven. Trips to the Dominican Republic have provided a necessary supplement to her international development textbooks. As Yale students, she explained, we are learning to be citizens of a global community, one that we cannot fully understand until we travel across it.

DiMaio conceded that there are aspects of a community that volunteers can’t fully come to grasp during a short visit. It was only once DiMaio moved to the Dominican Republic that he began to understand the nuanced difficulties encountered by members of the Batey Libertad community: military raids, deportations, court rulings that strip residents of their citizenship. It is conse-

OMNIFICENT

Morse Crescent // 5, 8 p.m.

A Different Drum’s spring show. No relation to God, or the villain from Sleeping Beauty.

quently frustrating when organizations come from the outside to provide services without taking the time to study challenges on the ground.

But short-term trips matter, DiMaio explained, because they open the door for deeper involvement in an otherwise inaccessible community. DiMaio has seen several Yale volunteers return to Batey Libertad after service trips to spend full summers working at Yspaniola’s summer camp.

Had DiMaio not visited the Dominican Republic on a Yale service trip, he might not be living there today. “Service trips changed my life,” he said with a chuckle. “Now the work I do isn’t for some foreign community. It’s for people I consider my friends.”

But when determining where our deepest service obligations lie, many Yale students argue we should focus foremost on volunteer work here in New Haven.

“Fixing problems like poverty comes down to the slow work of relationship building and community organizing,” explained Ariana Shapiro ’16, who has led numerous social justice initiatives around New Haven. “I think this work can happen anywhere, but since building trust, solidarity, and relationships takes time, a two-week service trip abroad is unlikely to do a whole lot in the grand scheme of things.”

Some Yalies argue that service trips provide crucial exposure to issues of class. But you certainly don’t have to leave Yale’s campus to explore questions of privilege and socioeconomic disparities when it comes to spring break.

“Spring break is just one item on a long list of things that exclude low-income students from fully integrating socially at Yale,” Andrea Villena ’15 told me. She noted the frustration some students feel with the expectation that Yalies spend their spring break somewhere exotic. For the past four years, Villena has spent almost every spring and fall break at Yale. It’s not the easiest thing, she said, watching her friends post Snapchats and Instagrams on sunny beaches while she sits in Bass.

Tyler Blackmon ’16 said that the class difficulties of spring break present a double-edged sword. On the one hand, many low-income students at Yale cannot afford to accompany their peers on lavish vacations to tropical locales. On the other hand, those who are able to save up and take trips abroad are sometimes pilloried for spending their money in self-indulgent ways.

It’s a lose-lose situation, in his eyes.

wo rk .

W e each took a moment to share what we would take home beyond souvenirs and sunburns. As each of us took our turn, I was struck by how many people looked to the trip’s long-term impact — our changed approaches and attitudes to service and international development.

Of Slifka’s trip, Czemerinski said: “I am certain that everyone will use this … to get more involved within the New Haven community, or as a learning experience to improve their current community endeavors.”

In other words, most of the important work born out of these trips happens once volunteers have returned to the Elm City. Do they post their Facebook pictures and move on? Or do they deepen their involvement in social justice, both at home and far away? Do they pull a DiMaio, move across the world and make this stuff their full-time job? There’s a catch to all the perks of these spring break trips — they provide a test of character that doesn’t end when the plane lands.

Camacho emphasized nuance in our attitudes about service. She explained that while we can’t fancy ourselves saviors, neither can we write off these trips as unproductive. Often, she added, they can change our identities and perspectives and discourse in meaningful ways. To make it corny, they’re as much about reaching out as reaching in. They’re powerful, so long as we recognize that we’re often the ones served by our mission of service.

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

*** During our last evening in Buenos Aires, the group of Yale volunteers gathered over dinner to reflect on our

WKND RECOMMENDS: Marching to the beat of a drum. It can be yours, or someone else’s. Just as long as there’s a drum.

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MARCH 27, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

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WEEKEND REELS

KEEPIN’ IT REEL: THE YALE STUDENT FILM FESTIVAL // BY EMILY XIAO

//CAROLINE TISDALE

A sleeping man, nestled in white sheets, stirs awake.

Suddenly, the sun rises. Winter covers a lake. A man applies powder to the exposed skin of his neck.

A buttery opens for business; cellophane flutters in the wind; a girl and a guy sit on a bench. A girl and a guy jog through a forest. There’s writing, wrestling, talking, staring, floating, fighting, riding, waiting, waking, sailing; there’s disappearing.

These are only glimpses from a rapid-fire supercut of the 21 films in this weekend’s first annual Yale Student Film Festival, posted on the festival’s Facebook event page.

Three days long, the festival commences on Friday, March 27 and will last until Sunday afternoon.

You’ll need an invite to attend the opening remarks by Bruce Cohen ’83, the Academy Awardwinning producer of “American Beauty” (1999) and “Silver Linings Playbook” (2012). Anyone, however, can stop by the Whitney Humanities Center for Saturday’s lineup, featuring a dizzying array of films, divided into three hourlong screening blocks.

“The festival is about Yale at large,” Festival Coordinator Travis Gonzalez ’16 said. Indeed, Yale alumni, graduate students and current undergraduates created all of the festival’s projects.

Beyond the screenings, other offerings include a production workshop with Cohen and a roundtable discussion during which audience members can talk with filmmakers and learn about movie-making. In addition, filmmakers who chose to enter their works into competition for prizes will receive constructive feedback from a panel of judges.

“What both the audience and the filmmakers are going to get out of this is the realization that the filmmaking community is diverse, and it’s present, and it’s something that’s very easy to be a part of,” Yale Film Alliance President Dara Eliacin ’15 said. *** The Yale Student Film Festival is a student-run effort — something that makes it particularly forward-thinking, according to Digital Media Center for the Arts Technical Specialist Louisa de Cossy.

The festival’s origins date back

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to the genesis of the Yale Film Alliance last April, Gonzalez explained. Within the past year, film production on campus has undergone major changes, set into motion by student filmmakers like Gonzalez and Eliacin.

According to Eliacin, students were having trouble meeting other filmmakers with whom they could work on projects. Realizing that they needed support from the University administration in order to make any progress, Eliacin reached out to Associate Dean for the Arts Susan Cahan.

Chief among students’ concerns were a lack of cohesion and resources. Although campus film organizations did exist at that point, such as Bulldog Productions — led by Gonzalez — and the Yale Film Society, such groups were never totally in conversation with one another. Aside from being disparate, the filmmaking scene also faced perceptions of insularity and inaccessibility.

The Yale Film Alliance emerged out of meetings between filmmakers and the Yale College Dean’s Office, pulling these clusters together into a centralized entity. De Cossy describes the YFA as a hub of creativity, where movie-minded people can collaborate, share resources and talk about film. In some ways, de Cossy said, it serves a similar function as the Yale Drama Coalition, the umbrella organization for Yale’s theater community.

In addition, for the first time this year, prospective filmmakers can choose to concentrate in filmmaking in the Art Department.

Previously, their only option was the production track within the Film & Media Studies major, which is more grounded in history and theory than in practice.

And then, of course, there’s the film festival. When they convened, the filmmakers bounced around several ideas: a festival was one of them. At the time, however, it seemed a far-off possibility.

“We had never dreamed at that point that it would actually happen within a year, but it’s happening now, and that’s exciting,” Eliacin said. *** The DMCA aims to facilitate learning and equipment access for students involved in the digi-

tal arts — film production ranks among these. As the center’s technical specialist, de Cossy has helped the festival’s filmmakers figure out the best way to deliver their projects. She believes that an event like this one can be particularly invaluable for students.

“When you’re in the edit booth and you look at your work, that’s one thing,” she said. “But when it’s a festival, and your film is up there for your peers, community, and strangers to see, you get an incredible read from the audience.”

That’s not to say that films are never shown on campus – just last month, Bulldog Productions held their seasonal showcase. But as things stand, many campus screenings tend to have limited audiences. Although Eliacin’s friends know that she’s constantly working on films, they don’t always get to attend castand-crew screenings. According to Eliacin, a goal of the festival is the consolidation of these isolated screenings into a single event, meant for a wider Yale community.

Some of the participating filmmakers are far from new to the festival scene; but even for them, a student event at Yale has its perks.

Eliacin cites the example of Daniel Matyas ’16, one of the festival’s participants and director of “Ready.” Matyas went alone to South by Southwest, an annual film and music festival in Austin, Texas, where he presented two projects. But student filmmakers who submit work to a festival at Yale — their “home base” — can share the experience with family and friends.

De Cossy believes that alumni, too, benefit from a symbiotic relationship with current students.

“You leave Yale, but you still feel connected to your time here and you want to help the people pioneering what’s happening now,” she said, adding that their presence raises the bar for undergraduate work. And although many alumni were unable to attend this year’s festival due to scheduling conflicts, the response was overwhelmingly positive, and several asked to judge or host workshops next year.

Film & Media Studies Senior Lecturer and Whitney Humanities Center Programming Director Ronald Gregg described the festi-

YSO CONCERT

Woolsey // 8 p.m.

On the program: Brahms. So it’s really a toss-up whether WKND will show up or not.

val’s atmosphere as both exciting and collaborative. The rise of the Yale Film Alliance and the festival mark a new era for a community previously characterized by insecurity and competition among filmmakers.

“A number of energies [seem] to have come together,” Gregg said, speculating on why these changes have been made possible.

In other words, we’re in the right place at the right time. *** The result is anything but homogeneous. The festival’s projects range from documentaries to experimental tinkerings and even to works-in-progress — as Eliacin says, there’s something for everyone.

“Yalies are doing really varied things in film, and this festival is just a small sampling of what that looks like,” Gonzalez said. Behind the pied visual styles and genres are creators who bring their own diverse sensibilities to the table.

Take, for instance, Anamika Veeramani ’18, who had little film experience before arriving at Yale.

She first learned about Bulldog Productions during Bulldog Days, and when she came to campus last fall, she soon began working with the production group.

Her independent documentary, “In Our City,” explores the aftermath of the 2014 death of Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old AfricanAmerican boy shot by a police officer in Cleveland, Veeramani’s hometown. Composed of interviews intercut with surveillance footage of the park in which Rice was shot, the documentary juggles different viewpoints, from those of Cleveland residents to the city’s law director. Eschewing the tendency among activist filmmakers to doctor reality, Veeramani is optimistic that good documentary need not rely on spectacle.

On the other end of the spectrum is Russell Cohen ’17, who discovered stop-motion animation on a trip to the science museum in fifth grade. Inspired, he and his friend spent the next several years making two featurelength movies starring Legos.

Cohen, the vice-president of Bulldog Productions, has since moved on from the colored construction toys to live action.

“Legos didn’t have classes or expect to be fed,” he noted.

However, he remains drawn to more offbeat films. The experimental film “Lost and Found,” produced by Cohen and directed

by Emily Murphy ’17, features a girl who leaves her watch in the library and then returns to find it gone — replaced by an umbrella. A fantastical journey around campus in search of the missing watch ensues.

Even some individual filmmakers represent microcosms of the festival’s artistic diversity. Livia Ungur ART ’15 and Sherng-Lee Huang, a wife-husband duo, will be screening several films this Saturday that each employ notably different formal strategies.

As a sculpture student, Ungur said that she feels particularly isolated from other filmmakers on campus; she sees the festival as a chance to connect with them and share work previously only seen by peers in her department.

These include “And Then,” which, according to Ungur, is a playful meditation on the passage of time. “Maybe we shouldn’t say too much. It’s only a 50-second film, and if we reveal too much, there’s no point even watching it,” Huang joked. “We’ll just keep it a surprise.”

Longer in duration is “The Listening Party,” which appropriates material from American rock documentaries to tell the story of workers listening to rock music in Communist Romania. Ungur herself grew up in Romania during the Communist period; her father’s story is at the film’s heart.

In addition to such autobiographical influences, Ungur and Huang’s collaborations draw on their differing media backgrounds. Ungur is trained in art; Huang, in traditional filmmaking. Hybrid works emerge that challenge the pair’s assumptions about either discipline.

“It’s sort of like an argument playing out on the screen,” Huang noted with a smile. *** Take the above to be only a glimpse into a glimpse of the possibilities that can emerge from a single campus, and what de Cossy says rings true: “[Film] is a medium that’s exploding.”

De Cossy sees the shifts in film

production on campus as reflective of the current climate in the nation at large. She describes the attitude towards filmmaking as dynamic — the medium’s accessibility and interdisciplinary nature have become increasingly apparent. What’s new, she said, is that, in some ways, students are leading this explosion.

Gregg says it’s a pleasure to witness such student-driven endeavors: for him, the festival is an example of what they’re working to build. The current transition on campus raises as yet unanswered questions for administrators about adequate resources — equipment, workshops and so on — to keep up with increased student interest in filmmaking.

But, he said, the conversation is happening.

The community is now in place, as indicated by the support that filmmakers like Veeramani have found. Setting aside technical limitations, Eliacin cited confidence as the big obstacle in filmmaking: putting yourself out there.

“If there’s something you want to do, come on. We can help you,” she said.

Cahan underscored her office’s commitment to student filmmaking.

“I’m thrilled to see our filmmakers pursue the benefits that flow from collaboration,” she wrote in an email. “They can count on our office to support their efforts.”

She added that, while Yale has provided opportunities in film and video production for decades, never before have student filmmakers come together to pursue the sort of collective vision embodied by the festival.

Similarly, Gregg believes that the festival, along with the creation of the YFA and the filmmaking track in the art major, speaks to the institutionalization of film production in a wholly new way.

In the past, he said, certain students might inject some life into the filmmaking community, but that energy would decline after they graduated. Something’s different now.

“For the first time,” Gregg said, “it feels like film has arrived at Yale.”

Contact EMILY XIAO at emily. xiao@yale.edu .

WKND RECOMMENDS: Brahms in bras. An avant-garde chamber group that performs Romantic music in romantic undergarments.

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MARCH 27, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND COLUMNS

“TO PIMP A BUTTERFLY”AND THE PROPHET OF OUR TIME // BY GRAHAM AMBROSE “Hip-hop is dead.” Nas, the genre’s east coast father, made this laconic declaration in late 2006. Despite prophesying doomsday, he didn’t bring anything overtly controversial to light: a decade of steadily declining rap sales, a widening, whitening fan-base that worshiped Eminem and Soulja Boy at the ousting of their sonic forefathers, and a mass-marketed sound that had lost the magic first drummed up on the streets of Chicago, LA, Brooklyn and Miami.

Nas’s challenge shook every branch of the hip-hop family tree, even its most nascent bud, then-nineteen-year-old Kendrick Lamar Duckworth, a precocious wordsmith out of Southern California who has since set the industry ablaze. Even the great Nastradamus could not have predicted his edict would be rebuked in six short years.

Lamar’s platinum-certified “good kid, m.A.A.d city” was ranked among the best albums of 2012 by the BBC, New York Times and Rolling Stone. His

major-label debut secured a spot in the pantheon of all-time greats, alongside Eric B. & Rakim’s 1987 standard-bearer “Paid in Full” and Nas’s seminal 1994 record “Illmatic.” To critics, fans and even king Kanye West, with whom Lamar performed on The Yeezus Tour, Kendrick Lamar sits alone atop the MC throne.

In his widely-anticipated follow-up album, “To Pimp a Butterfly,” released on March 15, Lamar answers the question: Was the premiere a fluke, or is the craftsman himself worthy of the praise?

In its magnitude, “To Pimp a Butterfly” is canonical, as ambitious as “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” with the fullness of Radiohead’s “OK Computer” and the poignancy of Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On.” It’s a grand opus with a compelling narrative, like Biggie’s “Life After Death,” layered with the same industry-topping production that launched Kanye West and his hungry protégé.

In 16 tracks, influenced by jazz,

funk, soul, psychedelia, spoken word and a novel fusion of genres, K.Dot spits on every inch of the concrete urban playground: racial politics, family, crime, homelessness, hypocrisy, poverty, religion and rap itself.

“To Pimp” is an acutely political album aimed at the heart of hip-hop, its timeless themes and preoccupations. But it’s also shrewdly conscious of current events and life in 21st-century America. Listeners will encounter familiar stories on the record, including unapologetic deptions of young black men like Trayvon Martin who die before they’re 30.

Lamar puts a modern frame on the eternal problems facing those who “picked cotton that made [America] rich.” “To Pimp” succeeds “just letting our dead homies tell stories for us,” through Lamar and the vanguard of contemporary rap. In this record, the artist departs from the less polemical “good kid,” which topped mainstream music charts and enjoyed broad crossover appeal to hip-hop and pop listen-

ers alike.

“To Pimp” is not for the fairweather fans of gangster rap, but for the bloody marchers rioting in the streets. Still, the same clubs that cycled “Poetic Justice” will also spin “Wesley’s Theory” and “These Walls.” But Lamar’s latest record demands thought before lighthearted entertainment. In fact, the lead single, “i,” a funky R&B-inspired ballad that promotes black self-assurance, is wholly different on the album than it was on its original radio release in September.

On the record, the interrupted song devolves into a lecture by Lamar, sermon-like in its tone and content, on the need for unity and lasting peace. Lamar often reminds his congregation of the brotherhood connecting those calling the shots and those shot wrongfully dead.

Over the next months and years, critics and fans will debate the record’s legacy. Lamar himself has hinted at its future: being “taught in college courses someday.”

This isn’t a baseless prophecy.

“To Pimp A Butterfly” — a titular nod to Harper Lee’s 1960 classic of American literature — is a work that engages deeply with Western thought. Tracks like “How Much A Dollar Cost” take hip-hop to the Sermon on the Mount, the foundation for charity as a restorative force against poverty. “Institutionalized” borrows from Thoreau and the ethics of individual responsibility before collective action — “shit don’t change until you get up and wash your ass.”

The entire collection pays homage to W.E.B. Du Bois and the still-relevant conviction, over one hundred years later, that the complex African-American past still steers the course of the complex African-American present.

Yet it’s Nietzsche who gets the final word, on “Mortal Man,” the album’s epic 12-minute denouement featuring a faux-dialogue between Lamar and Tupac Shakur. Talking with the divine king of west coast rap, Lamar reveals his vision to unify a moribund race dying in a war per-

petuated in a divided, racially motivated society. Here he’s the prophet from Compton, using rhyme to reap the harvest first sown by MLK Jr., Nelson Mandela, Michael Jackson and 2Pac, the God of hip-hop.

But the ever-sagacious Lamar hasn’t abandoned his sense of time. It’s 2015. God is dead. In His absence, all that’s left is “the mortal man”: Kendrick, you and me.

Through the “talent, the thoughtfulness and the / beauty within” every black man and woman, through “the only hope that we kinda have left, / music and vibrations,” we, Nietzsche’s “murderers of all murderers,” can repair the damaged soul of a people grasping for greatness. And though the Almighty has vanished from this temporal jungle of urban blight and bigotry, his prophets endure. Maybe their great medium, that butterfly of sound, hip-hop, will triumph.

weighed down by labored characterization and scene setting (perhaps due to the short-form time crunch). But once the episodes get going they find their comedic groove, a style incorporating zippy comebacks and humorous cutaways (a la “30 Rock”).

“Young Like Us” also includes some really clever and funny songwriting that sets it apart from other web projects. The editing and pacing occasionally feel a bit slow, but the episodes remain punchy and entertaining.

In the best scenes, all three leads play off of one another — their repartee is witty and infectious.

Over the past few years, the web series has become a popular launching pad for mainstream careers in the arts. “Broad City,” Comedy Central’s smash hit about two beautifully crass Manhattanites, began as a low-budget YouTube series. Issa Rae, creator and star of “The Mis-Adventures of Awkward Black Girl,” a critically acclaimed online project, landed a production deal with HBO and is currently working on several pilots. Instead of sending out spec scripts, content creators can make spec shows — bitesized YouTube morsels that show off acting, writing and/or direct-

ing skills.

Despite the contemporary glut of shows about girlfriends living in New York City, “Young Like Us” distinguishes itself with quirky characters and musical flair. The episodes, at ten minutes or less, are short enough to binge-watch and the accompanying songs are zany and memorable. If you’re looking for a quick and satisfying study break, “Young Like Us” might just be the ticket.

Contact GRAHAM AMBROSE at graham.ambrose@yale.edu .

Young (and Millenial) Like Us For decades, kids have picked up home movie cameras, bossed around their younger siblings and dreamed of being famous directors. And for most of those decades, their work went unwatched, confined to cassette tapes forgotten on dusty basement shelves. But with the advent of YouTube and other videosharing platforms, an amateur filmmaker can hit it big from the comfort of her own home. That’s what the creators and stars of “Young Like Us,” a new web series featuring two Yale alums, are hoping to achieve. The creator-writer-director, Chloe Sar-

MADELINE KAPLAN MAD TV bib ’12, has fashioned an enjoyable mini-sitcom with plenty of comedic promise.

When three college friends move out of their shared apartment, the newly-ex-roommates decide to start a fake band to stay friends. Charlie (Julie Shain), the trio’s Quirky One, comes up with

the fake-band-but-actuallyit’s-a-real-band idea. Charlie provides the show with most of its energy, and Shain strikes a nice balance between silliness and likability. Her friends, career-obsessed Ava (Sarah Rosen) and boyfriend-obsessed Mia (Cleo Handler ’12), agree that humoring her is probably the best option. The series also includes a handful of secondary characters, of which Larry (Brad Dourif), the girls’ aggressively weird former super, is the most memorable.

As a new series, “Young Like Us” got off to a solid, if imperfect, start. The pilot is a bit clunky,

Contact MADELINE KAPLAN at madeline.kaplan@yale.edu .

//CAROLINE TISDALE

SUND AY MARCH

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BLACK, WHITE

Sudler Hall // 2 p.m.

“From Pandora’s unleashing of the evils, we journey through war (Barber), to seek a nobler voice, (Beethoven) — then yet, transcendence beyond (Scriabin).”

WKND RECOMMENDS: Transcendence beyond.

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MARCH 27, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

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WEEKEND THEATER

THE BODIES OF POLITICS // BY KATE MILLER

v

// CAROL ROSEGG

Thursday’s performance of Bertolt Brecht’s The “Caucasian Chalk Circle” at the Yale Rep’s University Theater had an inauspicious start — a “slight technical difficulty” delayed the start of the performance by just over twenty minutes. But in due time, a large white circle appeared, as if painted with a brush, on the black curtain concealing the stage. It appeared portentous, like the redtailed comet that appears over the city of Nukha early in the first act. The comet spells immediate doom for the governing regime and sets the war-torn scene for the ensuing action. Soon after its appearance, an explosion rocks the stage, tearing a jagged red hole in the mottled black panels that serve as the production’s flexible backdrop. During the first

act, the rest of the backdrop gradually disintegrates as Grusha, our heroine, makes her dangerous journey across Grusinia — having rescued, in the chaos of Nukha’s overthrow, the infant son of the assassinated governor, who now has a price on his head.

Brecht’s play, begun in 1944, is overtly political and unquestionably reflects its historical moment. The playwright and his family fled from the Nazi regime as it came to power, eventually making their way to the United States and ultimately back to Germany after the end of World War II. The Yale Rep has chosen to set its production in an “imaginary contemporary country,” which means the Ironshirts are a SWAT team with machine guns, and the governor is attended by a

besuited, earpieced Secret Service type who carries an iPhone with a tinny ring. But the anachronism, if it’s worthwhile to call it that, is relatively undefined and inoffensive. The governor himself wears a generic fascist khaki-green with red stripes. In one of the most arresting visual moments in the play, three characters piled with luggage trek across a foggy stage (standing in for a glacier) draped in vaguely traditional Eurasian traveling dress.

The backbone of the Rep production is its excellent ensemble: the actors bring unfaltering energy and gestural precision to their scenes. Particular standouts were Julyana Soelistyo, an experienced actress of stage and screen, and Jesse J. Perez, perfectly farcical as the Fat Prince. Special rec-

ognition goes to Chivas Michael as Shauva, who, in the play’s climatic scene, drew a perfect freehand circle in white chalk on the stage. (This inspired approving murmurs from the two men sitting in front of me.)

Grusha (Shaunette Renée Wilson) and Simon (Jonathan Majors), the play’s romantic element, are both charismatic and sympathetic. Whether deliberately or not, both were noticeably more naturalistic than the rest of the cast, which was occasionally jarring. But in their scenes together—in particular, when Grusha and Simon reunite late in the first act, where they both seem most comfortable with the script — they strike a charming, open-faced harmony. Wilson also shines during the final courtroom

scene, when the fate of Michael, the governor’s son, is decided.

Playing the older version of Michael, Hartford fourth-grader Fred Thornley IV (he alternates in the part with New Haven first-grader Kourtney Savage) is appropriately blank-faced, and does an impressively convincing job of appearing jointless, in imitation of the creepily lifelike but decidedly floppy doll that stands in for the younger version of his character.

The most powerful moments of the play, however, come courtesy of the excellent Steven Skybell (a graduate of both Yale College and the Yale School of Drama) in his dual role of the Singer (a narrator figure) and the corrupt judge Azdak. As the Singer, he delivers almost incantatory monologues

accompanied by violin and drum.

And as Azdak, his flexibility and focus help to carry the second act—though he is, perhaps, a touch too prosaic and humane to match the power of his narrative songs.

During the climactic trial, a lawyer brings up a salient point: whoever ends up with Michael also claims the heir to his father’s substantial estates. Her co-counsel quickly tries to put the emphasis back on the bond between mother and child, but Azdak stops him. “The court is touched by the mention of the estates,” he says. “It’s proof of human feeling.”

Contact KATE MILLER at caitlin.l.miller@yale.edu .

Convergence of a Collision and the Universal Idea // BY SAATCHI KALSI (Almost) every Tuesday and Thursday morning, I sleepily wedge myself into a narrow chair in the SSS auditorium and listen to David Blight discuss the effects of Reconstruction on Southern society. On Wednesday night, however, the podium and Professor Blight’s antiquated magnifying projector disappeared, replaced by eight Compagnia de’Colombari actors, who performed Flannery O’Connor’s apocalyptic comedy “Everything That Rises Must Converge.”

It seemed fitting that O’Connor’s timeless and timely piece, which explores racism that persists beyond both emancipation and desegregation, took place in the space where Blight ponders our enduring fascination with the Civil War. The drama unfolds at a bus stop and then on a bus, as a young man named Julian accompanies his mother to a weight loss session. The mother has a typical mid-twentieth century Southern mindset — a genteel racism, a lingering nostalgia for her father’s antebellum plantation and a desire for social and political stasis. With a setting later rendered iconic by Rosa Parks, the play hinges on the racial tensions that intensify in a claustrophobic space, just as a fly goes mad in a sealed jar. More striking, however, is the generation gap between mother (ACTOR) and son (ACTOR) that comes to light in the context of said race relations.

Julian, with his “college education” and new-fangled liberalism, is mortified by his mother’s narrow-minded attitude towards integration. Possessing the unique cruelty of a child, he displays a chagrin that borders on

SUNDAY MARCH

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// WA LIU

violence, and words in his vocabulary like “vicious,” “savage” and “break your spirit” are uncomfortably close to those of a slaveholder. In the end, justice is served to both mother and son, and this is largely because of the play’s final moment, a song conceived by creator Karin Coonrod. Coonrod admitted during the talkback that she has “always struggled with endings” and so, in “Everything That Rises Must Converge,” she took the action to a different place. Still, she maintained abso-

lute fidelity to O’Connor’s decision to “not take any prisoners,” and the song neither renders the action more “feel-good” nor detracts from the piece’s biting social commentary.

While the dialogue takes care of itself, any adaptation of fiction to drama presents a unique difficulty — in this play, Coonrod preserves all the narration, which is read aloud verbatim by the actors.

In the talkback, she described the formal restrictions of form as a “liberation.” Furthermore, while

COMPLINE

Christ Church // 9 p.m.

A quiet time of prayer and meditation, in a calm, candlelit space. Sounds great, but what is a compline?

she bucks the popular trend of race-blind casting, at one point a grown man assumes the role of a four-year-old child, sitting and rocking on the lap of a woman only slightly older than the actor.

This scene, which instantly strikes the audience as perverse, interrupts our suspension of disbelief and helps us understand the play’s multifaceted message.

In the talkbalk, some members of the Compagnia de’Colombari discussed their initial encounters with Flannery O’Connor.

One revealed that he stumbled upon her work as a freshman in college and the experience terrified him. Another described a visit to O’Connor’s homestead that included meetings with the writer’s family. For me, also a college freshman unacquainted with O’Connor, the play was proof that everyone has something unique to learn from this prolific, sharpwitted woman whose 90th birthday the world would have celebrated on Wednesday. (And in a way, since the play also took place

on Wednesday, that’s exactly what we did.)

“Everything That Rises Must Converge” is a masterfully acted, wonderfully simple experience that delivers powerful lessons for everyone, from ungrateful children to people grappling with changing mores. Since the play only had one showing, you’ll have to tear yourself away from “50 Most” and grab a copy of the book!

Contact SAATCHI KALSI at saatchi.kalsi@yale.edu .

WKND RECOMMENDS: Drumline, that one movie starring Nick Cannon that WKND once watched 11 times.

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MARCH 27, 2015 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND BACKSTAGE

WHAT WE TALK ABOUT WHEN WE TALK ABOUT ACTIVISM // BY PATRICE BOWMAN

B

arbara Smith is a black feminist, scholar, writer and sociopolitical powerhouse who has spent decades advocating for marginalized communities. She’s published influential writing in every magazine you might aspire to be published in, and then some. Yesterday she came to Yale to give a master’s tea in Pierson College, where she touched on issues of activism and intersectionality. WKND sat down with Ms. Smith to talk history, race relations and LGBTQ issues in America.

//PATRICE BOWMAN

A: After attending Mount Holyoke College, I entered graduate school. My motivation for going to grad school was that I wanted to teach African-American literature, which was virtually not taught in universities in those days. Not even in historically Black colleges and universities. One of the first courses that I took was a seminar in Women’s literature. And just like African-American literature and studies, Women’s studies and literature was barely available. The person who taught the course was obviously innovative, but there were no women of color in the entire syllabus. Later, I had found out that Alice Walker was teaching a course on Black Women’s Literature at Wellesley College because I was a subscriber to Ms. Magazine. So I wrote to Alice Walker and asked if I could audit her course. That was the opportunity to be exposed to more Black women writers. People mostly associate me with helping to establish Black women’s studies in the U.S. and to build [the] Black feminist movement in the U.S. during the 1960s and 1970s. I went to become the co-founder of the Kitchen Table Press, a major publisher of stories by women of color.

Q: What about your activism during the Civil Rights Movement? And the changes and issues within it? What were your feelings at that moment?

A: It was exciting to come of age during the most dynamic periods — socially and politically — in U.S. history. As Black people living in the North [Ms. Smith was born in Cleveland], it was all impacting us. Especially the focus on Selma in the spring of 1965. I had graduated from high school with my twin sister, Beverly. We were anticipating going to college, but due to my age I was fully aware of the activism in the South. We were also paying attention to what was going on there because our family had moved from Georgia.

When we began building the

black women’s movement, we were exhilarated to find and work with other people who also thought that Black women were of value, were capable and that there was no need for us to be afterthoughts. There was a lot of sexism in the Civil Rights Movement and even more in the Black Power and Black Nationalist movements.

For very alert, young Black women, that wasn’t working for us.

Q: What were the results of challenging those movements’ sexism?

A: We experienced a large amount of pushback, defamation and marginalization from the mainstream. There were people who were so radical about confronting racism, yet they saw us as race traitors for talking about sexism. We worked on a variety of women’s health issues, particularly sterilization abuse, which mostly affects Black, Latina and indigenous women. And women who had cognitive disabilities. The state thought they could control their reproductive capacities and rights.

We also brought attention to violence towards women.

And you can still see that attention to violence against women in newspapers right now, with what’s going on in these campus fraternities.

The more things change, the more these issues are out in the open.

Q: Has there been any radical change in feminist thought and advocacy since the 1960s and 1970s, from your perspective?

A: There have always been different strains of politics. Everyone who says that they’re a feminist doesn’t necessarily believe the same things and have the same values as another person. There are mainstream and bourgeois feminists whose major concern is that they need to get paid the same as a man, they need to have as much power as a man and do things that men do. And then there are people who say that we need to look at the intersection of race, gender, class, sexual orientation and gender identity, then figure out how our politics are based on those things. I was one of the first people who began

to talk about an intersectional perspective and how we understand our political and personal lives. I was a part of an organization, the Combahee River Collective, and we wrote a statement in 1977 that was one of the first, strongest and most analytical articulations of intersectional politics. A lot of people use the word, but not many know where it came from.

Q: This mainstream brand of feminism, as you call it, could be seen as not enough.

A: It’s still quite popular.

We have that term “lean in,” and the book which became a mega-bestseller for Sheryl Sandberg. That is a way of understanding what women’s position is that doesn’t necessarily have depth. What if you are simultaneously a person of color, a woman and you don’t have economic or class privilege? This conversation occurred at this year’s Academy Awards when Patricia Arquette — an actor I love — talked about pay equity. But she went on to say that White women had done so much for people of color and gay people, so it was time they help them in return. Hello! Has she never thought that there are people who are simultaneously [all of] those things?

It made no sense. Besides, pay equity mostly affects women who don’t earn a lot of money. It’s not people who are the top of the pay pyramids most affected by pay equity. The vast majority of people who make minimum wage are women, and that’s where pay equity hits.

Some people are articulating these narrow thoughts of feminism, as opposed to a deeper understanding of feminism and politics from an intersectional perspective.

But I will say that it’s much more acceptable for women of color to be out as feminists now than back then.

Now, Beyoncé can perform at the music awards and have “feminist” in sky-high letters behind her and still be the queen of us all. I think she’s made statements about her understanding of feminism and I think that she has more depth than some of the other manifestations we’ve been talking about. That’s interesting and unique. And the fact that “Selma” was directed by a black woman

[Ava DuVernay] — that was powerful. In her film, the women are visible. There were women portrayed in that film that I didn’t even know about. Like the local women from Selma — I didn’t know about them.

Q: And what of activism today?

Are we more active now, or more apathetic?

A: The majority of people of my generation were not involved in making dynamic political and social change.

People who have that level of commitment and courage have never been the majority. So, don’t think that in the 1960s and 1970s that on an entire campus like Yale’s everybody was out supporting the Black Panthers or something. As far as today, I feel encouraged and impressed that the demonstrations around the verdicts in Ferguson and Long Island are happening. They seem more inclusive, when before there were such strict lines and lanes. People are more willing to be more accepting of diversity. Although I do know that the women who started “Black Lives Matter” feel that their work has been appropriated and have spoken out about that. But as someone who is an elder, I feel very inspired by young people speaking out. And people working across generations. I don’t know about

the nuts and bolts of what could be done better. I’ve heard from younger activists that there needs to be more specific demands. Like, what besides “Don’t Shoot” or “Black Lives Matter”? What else are you demanding from the power structure?

Q: You’ve never shied away from presenting yourself as not just a Black feminist, but as a lesbian Black feminist.

What sort of positive changes have you seen in regard to LGBTQ support, and what else can be improved upon?

A: One change I’ve seen is how President Obama and his views have evolved.

Of course, I heard that he was never opposed to lesbian and gay marriage, but, politically, he couldn’t come out with that. That the first black president is also the first president of any race to openly support gay, lesbian and transgender people is wonderful. And then we see in “Empire,” my favorite show these days, a character is gay and his mother is fiercely supportive of him. I see the changes. For me, being visibly out in this country during the 1970s — well, I’ve paid a lot of dues for that. But I’ve seen results.

One of the things that can be improved upon, I would say, is that we should see the intersectionality in LGBTQ issues. When you look at

class, race, gender in relation to LGBTQ identity you begin to see the complexity of what true freedom and justice look like. There was a report issued from the Center of American Progress late last year. It looks at housing discrimination, employment discrimination, poverty, health care discrimination, and on and on. it’s a nuanced and thoroughly researched document about what besides and above marriage we need to be concerned about. We need to understand that the LGBTQ community isn’t just about White, affluent, gay men on TV or in magazines. They’re a part of the community, too, but their experience does not subsume those of us who have multiple identities. The fact is that trans women of color are the most likely to be living poverty, to be incarcerated, to be the subject of hate crimes including murders.

Marriages aren’t going to solve hate crimes, transphobia and homophobia. There’s more to LGBTQ freedom than marriage. We must continue to keep plugging away.

Still it’s remarkable for me, coming out a few years after Stonewall, that a majority of the states now have marriage equality. We weren’t even thinking about that then. We were trying to stop Anita Bryant!

Contact PATRICE BOWMAN at patrice.bowman@yale.edu .

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Some people are articulating these narrow thoughts of feminism, as opposed to a deeper understanding of feminism and politics from an intersectional perspective.

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Q: In some of your past interviews, you mention how exposure to Black female literature greatly impacted your academic, political and social work. Could you explain more about that?