WEEKEND

WEEKEND // FRIDAY, APRIL 18, 2014

Pike International

FOR RENT A look into the practices of a real estate empire. //By Rishabh Bhandari and Hannah Schwarz Page 3

SWUG NO MORE

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IS THE INFAMOUS LABEL GONE FOR GOOD? Caroline McCullough writes on the relevance of SWUG.

SUSTAINABILITY

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SUNRISE

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FOSSIL FREE WANTS TO LAST

REFLECTING ON “THE LAST HOUR”

Lillian Childress and Yi-Ling Liu explore how the divestment campaign will move forward.

Nick Efstathiou delivers fiction on home, family and secrecy.

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 18, 2014 · yaledailynews.com

MCCULLOUGH

WEEKEND VIEWS

Where Did All the SWUGs Go?

// BRIANNA LOO

harsh florescent light.

I was shocked. I have been a senior for over seven months now, and it never occurred to me to think of myself as a SWUG. SWUG is a little like YOLO. I would guess that the last time I heard someone say SWUG was probably around the last time I heard someone say YOLO. And like YOLO, although the term SWUG has become almost obsolete, the behaviors associated with it have not entirely disappeared. Senior girls are still the first ones at Toad’s on a Wednesday. Senior girls still sit around on a Tuesday and drink wine in pajamas (or I hope that’s what happens when everyone crawls out of their thesis caves).

It’s still miserable and it’s still magical, even though Taylor Swift is over, too.

IT NEVER OCCURRED TO ME TO THINK OF MYSELF AS A SWUG. I identified much more with #swugnation as a junior, looking up in awe at the most vocal SWUGs as they danced on the bar at Box. Their carefree attitude enticed me to be a little crazier on that nonexistent

dance floor. Those were the days when Box had the wall.

Remember that?

The pervasiveness of chatter about what it meant to be a SWUG had a “trickle down” effect on us junior girls, watching the seniors, viewing them as models for what our own lives would look like the following year. Some girls wanted to refer to themselves as JWUGs. We were impatient to wait even a year to become like them.

Once we began to label anything and everything as SWUG, we used it as a crutch to explain away all kinds of behavior.

Going to get a G-Heav sandwich at 3 a.m. was just as much of a SWUG move as dating a freshman. It was everywhere,

Bursting the Bubble The journey began with two hats in a store window. I was walking back to my apartment from the train station the Monday after spring break and found the words “Peace” and “Violence” glaring at me through the window. Unable to avert my gaze, I tossed aside the three duffle bags strewn over my shoulder and craned my neck to get a closer look. Two camouflage hats with brilliant red- and orange-blended brims came into view. The store manager was quick to notice my fascination, and darted over to open the door for me.

I was ushered into a world of New Haven urban culture, one so far removed from the majority of students on Yale’s campus. He picked up one of the hats and threw it over his head backwards, tossing the other — “Violence” — onto my head in a swift motion.

With Big Sean’s “Control” blaring through his surround speakers, we made ourselves comfortable in adjacent seats and launched into a discussion about our respective music interests, and our thoughts about the city.

It soon became obvious that New Haven meant entirely different things to each of us. My New Haven is defined by the unending stream of tour groups, surveys on Cross Campus, and springtime barbecues on the manicured lawn of Old Campus. The store manager listened with unabated curiosity, yet also with full awareness of his own oblivion. He didn’t understand any of these terms because he’s never been close enough to see them. That his perception of New Haven is entirely different from mine is no surprise; I go to Yale and he doesn’t. What’s alarming is that we’ve never even deemed it acceptable to journey into our different sides of the city.

I ended up bringing one of my good friends back to AllStar a week later, and it was a win-win. My new friend was elated to have another Yale patron, and John and I scored hats for a Spring Fling debut. I was shocked by how surprised the owner was — he clearly assumed that my polite interest in returning had been for appearances only.

F R I D AY APRIL 18

The coolest facet of these hats is their reversibility — the “Violence” hat says “Peace” on the other side, right above the adjuster strap, and vice versa with the other. As John and I marveled at our new purchase, we promised to bring back more friends on our next visit. The store owner was still incredulous at this prospect — he and his friends couldn’t help but laugh at the two white kids in Polo shirts. The sad part is, their suspicions will probably be confirmed by the end of this year unless, by some miraculous chance, more Yale kids actually venture outside the comfortable confines of College and Chapel.

I think it’s time to break down the invisible demarcation that separates Yale from the rest of the city. The mutual benefits of this paradigm are obvious. Students are exposed to an entirely new atmosphere, and store owners get to interact with the very people they’ve been trained to never expect visits from. And with the evervigilant Yale Shuttle service at our disposal, we have no excuse for continuing to ignore the vast majority of our city.

As a former member of the men’s cross-country and track teams, I have experienced the wild side of New Haven on many occasions. I’ve seen people cooking drugs in their backyards at 10 in the morning, as the team meandered by on our Sunday long run.

That said, to live in any urban setting in our country comes with an inherent risk of meeting people that could present danger. New Haven is no exception, and for us to use this as an excuse to justify staying within the Yale bubble isn’t fair to ourselves or to the community around us.

We shouldn’t view it as an obligatory mission of ours to go downtown.

If you don’t want to, you shouldn’t.

But be wary that, by choosing the latter, you’ll be missing out on a wildly different and more culturally diverse world that isn’t handed to us in the halls of WLH. Contact TOM HARRISON at thomas.harrison@yale.edu .

GOOD FRIDAY WORSHIP Dwight Hall // 7:00 p.m.

Kick off Easter weekend in a holy way.

and then it was gone.

I would venture to say that SWUG graduated with the class of 2013. The class of 2014 could have carried on this term into our own senior years, but we didn’t. This wasn’t an active choice on our part, either — somewhere, at some point, the term fell into the same ditch that “fiddlesticks,” “groovy” and “That’s whack,” went to die.

You could almost say, though, that this was inevitable. Because for all our use of SWUG, we never quite knew what it meant. Everyone from writers at New York Magazine to Bro Bible to Yale students themselves had their own opinions on its definition, but

we could never seem to agree.

People clung to this ambiguous label so fiercely that they in turn became caricatures of themselves. SWUG — as a label, not a lifestyle — was limiting.

We do owe the class of 2013 for making the term SWUG part of the campus conversation. The term encouraged people to be more carefree. 2013 normalized a carpe diem attitude. Because of them, we now can bring our pizza into the bar and not feel the urgency to justify it by calling it “SWUG.” We owned our actions, did what made us happy, and didn’t have to cling to a label in the process.

Contact CAROLINE MCCULLOUGH at caroline.mccullough@yale.edu .

Beyond the Words WANG

HARRISON

This morning I was visited by a ghost.

When I woke up, I went to go splash some water on my face.

I had gone to Woad’s the night before, and I felt like I had gone to Woad’s the night before. I was wearing a sweat-xedo (it’s a term I’m trying to start — a matching sweat shirt and sweat pants), with last night’s makeup still caked around my eyes. I looked in the mirror and …

SWUG. Suddenly I thought it, and there it was. SWUG, that word, that acronym (Senior WashedUp Girl) that haunted this campus last year. And now it was here again, floating between me and this pale and tangled version of myself reflected in the

Last Wednesday, I attended the reading of the the posthumous book

by Marina Keegan ’12, “The Opposite of Loneliness.” I walked into the Yale Bookstore, down the stairs, behind a few bookshelves and into the alcove where the reading was being held.

There were chairs set for about 50 people. I took a seat in the second row from the front, directly facing the podium.

When it was time, and the room was filled just beyond capacity, Marina’s dad stepped forward to make a few introductory remarks, and then the reading began. One by one, four of those closest to Marina approached the podium and read excerpts from different pieces of her book. I watched her professor smile in joy and sad remembrance and her friend smirk wryly, heard another friend’s voice crack as they read Marina’s words.

Marina passed away the summer before I started Yale. I remember seeing the portrait shot of Marina that is now the cover of her book and recognizable to millions of people across the world: red-brown hair, yellow pea coat, her face sporting the beginnings of a smile.

“Yale is full of tiny circles we pull around ourselves,” Marina writes in her eponymous essay. “A cappella groups, sports teams, houses, societies, clubs … We won’t have those next year. We won’t live on the same block as all our friends. We won’t have a bunch of group texts. … This scares me … But let us get one thing straight: the best years of our lives are not behind us.”

I looked up at the blown-up book cover framed on the reader’s podium, thinking about these words. Over spring break, I was away from home and Yale, and every night, I fell asleep alone, with no parents or suitemates comfortably close by. At the foundation where I was working, the older employees reminded me to “enjoy my college years.” Each time, I’d smile and nod, but their urgency made me nervous — has my life already reached its peak? I couldn’t process the implications of what they were saying.

As I listened to the readers, I hung on to every stress, pause, smile, smirk and glance at the audience, stunned by the blunt bravery behind Marina’s prose. They felt like that first push on the swing, that first whoosh of energy from someone strong when my feet still couldn’t quite touch the ground.

Marina had fought for our “college years.” For our ‘felt sense,’ as my dean would say. Her words breathed new strength into me to keep on moving forward despite the uncertainties of what comes after college, despite the popular notion that it’s all downhill from here.

MARINA’S WORDS ...

PICKED ME UP AND GOT ME SWINGING AGAIN. Marina’s dad’s face was flushed red at the end, his eyes glazed over in emotion. Her mom spoke swiftly and gesticulated as she told us stories. Her high school English teacher showed us the tote bag that she had inherited from Marina. There were so many people that spoke for her that night — the impact of the reading reverberated far beyond just me.

I walked into the cool darkness with my hands in my pockets, quicker and more purposeful than usual.

Marina’s words were not only beautifully honest or determinedly hopeful: They had been a transfer of energy that picked me up and got me swinging again.

In three weeks, I will have reached the halfway point of my time at Yale.

I know I’ll reminisce over the summer. It’s been a breathtaking journey.

Maybe too breathtaking for what’s to come, I might think. But then I will remember that the best years of my life are not behind me.

Contact EDDY WANG at chen-eddy.wang@yale.edu .

WEEKEND RECOMMENDS: Springtime: Disappearance and the Question of Memory An essay grounded in realism.

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 18, 2014 · yaledailynews.com

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WEEKEND COVER

UNDER PIKE’S ROOF // BY RISHABH BHANDARI AND HANNAH SCHWARZ

ylvie McNamara’s ’16 heater won’t start. It is January in New Haven, and for two weeks, she has dealt with the cold of winter in her thirdfloor Pike International apartment on Park Street.

When her heater stops working, she puts in a work order — a request for utility fixes — online.

She receives no confirmation email, no response. She tries again. After submitting a second work order, once again unanswered, she picks up the phone and begins leaving voice messages.

“I feel like when your heat is broken in January, that’s something that you pay attention to as a landlord,” McNamara says.

When maintenance staff come into her studio apartment to fix the heater, they leave no note indicating they have been there or addressed her concern, a practice she says is typical of the real estate services company.

McNamara’s story is not an uncommon one. Of the 14 current and former tenants interviewed, many of whom requested anonymity out of fear that Pike would seek retribution through litigious or other means, a vast majority expressed negative opinions of the company’s management and customer service.

The real estate organization’s blue signs and white letters are ubiquitous in the Elm City. Founded in 2000 by Rabbi Shmully Hecht, the company — which has been renamed several times — aggressively expanded its operations as housing prices plummeted during the 2008-’09 recession. With over 1,000 apartments across the city, Pike has emerged as New Haven’s most influential landlord.

While the company’s hold over area real estate properties continues to grow, little is known about its operations. Heating issues, as it turns out, are just the tip of the iceberg. *** Former mayor John DeStefano, Jr. rejected the suggestion that Pike’s expansion during economic downturn was an opportunistic business strategy. Rather, he saw the move as a sign of the company’s confidence in New Haven’s continued growth. “[Hecht] lives here. He’s involved in the community,” DeStefano said.

“He does a good job with his properties. They’re clean. He’s been a solid landlord and he does what you’d expect a landlord to do,” the mayor said.

When the University-Wide Advisory Committee on Graduate and Professional Student Housing met with Pike, committee member Marie-Amelie George GRD ’17 said it became apparent that Hecht has very close ties to both Yale and City Hall.

S

F R I D AY APRIL 18

DeStefano denied this connection. Although he said Hecht has donated to his past political campaigns and those of other Democrats such as Henry Fernandez ’94, the amounts were neither significant nor donated with an intent to acquire political capital.

Although he raised about $400,000 for his last campaign, DeStefano said he only received a thousand or so dollars from Hecht.

He added that Hecht “never sought to be involved in politics” and was only donating within his right as a politically engaged citizen.

University Director of Housing and Fleet Management George Longyear said Yale seeks to have partnerships with all the major landlords in New Haven, including Pike, in the hopes of acting as a mediator when problems or miscommunications arise. He added that Yale’s on-going discussions with Pike have been fruitful and have already yielded positive changes in the way Pike conducts its business.

“We believe that Pike shares our desire to have students satisfied with their rental arrangements and wishes to work with us to achieve that goal,” he said.

“I think one of the pitfalls might be that they are juggling too many balls at once,” George noted.

Despite the voluminous complaints that students and residents have filed against Pike, she said the company has largely escaped consequences, likely because it benefits from the political influence that Hecht wields.

Hecht declined repeated requests to comment for this story, forwarding all questions via email to Pike Director of Operations Christina Rossetti.

Hecht’s connection to Yale rests largely in his involvement with the Jewish community on campus. In 1996, he co-founded Eliezer Society with future Harvard Law professor and public intellectual Noah Feldman LAW ’97 and future U.S. Senator Cory Booker LAW ’97. Since its inception under the name Chai Society, the group has remained Hecht’s most visible connection to the University. Eliezer invites Yale students to discuss Judaism and other theological or secular issues with prominent guest speakers. A 2011 TIME Magazine article reported that “world leaders clear their schedules to attend Shabbat

“THEY HAVE A NEAR-MONOPOLY ON AFFORDABLE APARTMENTS IN NEW HAVEN.” MARIE-AMELIE GEORGE GRD ’17

GRADUATE STUDENT HOUSING COMMITTEE MEMBER But students with experience in Pike-owned properties disagreed.

Brandis Yarrington ’14, who lived in a Pike house last year, said the company’s business practices were questionable and targeted students who, either because of financial constraints or naiveté, have no other alternatives.

“They have a near-monopoly on affordable apartments in New Haven,” housing committee member George noted.

She added that the company’s acquisitions have been strategic, with a focus on securing properties close to campus. A former Pike tenant herself, George said the advisory committee was formed after a number of graduate students complained to the Graduate Student Assembly and the Graduate and Professional Student Senate about the living conditions.

Both George and Songhee Bae DIV ’15 said Pike’s rapid expansion could be one reason for its poor responsiveness as a landlord.

Bae said a former employee informed her that Pike was expanding at too fast a rate. Rather than consolidate and provide quality services to existing apartments, Pike was more focused on acquiring properties as swiftly as possible, the employee told Bae.

dinner” at the society. Past guests include Senator Joe Lieberman ’64 LAW ’67, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and former Israeli ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren.

But while Hecht continues to be a chief participant in and advisor to Eliezer, the management of Pike remains his day job. In a July 2011 New Haven Independent profile, Hecht claims to have received “tens of millions of dollars” from out-ofstate investors to fund Pike’s expansion. Because the company is privately-owned and uses a number of limited liability corporations to house its properties, these investors are difficult to identify.

“Money’s coming from Canada. Money’s coming from Tel Aviv.

Money’s coming from New York City. Money’s coming from Florida.

Money’s coming from all different types of families and institutions,” he told the Independent, adding that his investors are typically high net-worth families who also believe in New Haven’s growing attractiveness as a city.

One Yale senior, who wished to be anonymous because he feared Pike would exploit the social security number and credit card details he gave them, said Yochanan Levitansky was one of the Pike employ-

ees he and his friends dealt with last year. Levitansky, according to a 2009 New Haven Independent article, was found guilty of defrauding hundreds of eBay customers by selling them electronic goods he never intended to deliver. Levitansky pocketed $237,257 from these false transactions. Although she did not confirm the years during which Levitansky worked for Pike, Rossetti confirmed that he was a former employee who has since left the company.

When Rossetti was asked how a rabbi could find the millions in investments needed to build such an extensive property portfolio, she wrote in an email that she was not involved in raising the company’s seed money. *** Hyungmi Lim ’15 and Carlisle Runge ’14 moved into their apartment on 162 Park St. later than expected. Pike had not cleaned the property in time for their September 2013 move-in date.

But within a month of residency, their problems were going to get much worse.

It was October when the building began to reek with a pungent stench: “God, it wasn’t like anything I had ever smelled before,” Lim said.

The smell grew so strong that she began to have a gagging reaction each time she entered the house.

Soon, it permeated her and Runge’s clothes, and the smell followed them outside. For nearly a month, Lim, Runge and a Yale School of Management student who lived on the third floor attempted to contact Pike almost daily about the smell. The third-floor tenant, who requested anonymity out of fear of retaliation, said he often went to the office only to be rebuffed.

“They were just stonewalling me.

Just ignoring me. They don’t give a shit — they assume it was just a stink and didn’t bother,” the tenant on the third floor said. He added that often Pike employees would tell him that they were sending somebody shortly. That person never came.

When Lim finally noticed activity around the door leading to the firstfloor apartment — from which the smell emanated — the movement was traced to maggots that were making their way through the building. She realized then that something had gone horribly wrong.

Edmund Valuskas was found dead due to natural causes on Oct. 28, when Lim returned to the apartment to find New Haven police officers and medical crews in HAZMAT suits congregated outside. By then, the smell had been present for over a month.

The SOM student said Pike tried to conceal Valuskas’ death.

“They tried to deny [his death] at first. They told me he was missing or usually unresponsive,” he said.

Pike Director of Operations Ros-

“THE HOUSE THAT WILL NOT STAND”

Pike International owns over 1,000 properties across New Haven. setti wrote in an email to the News that Pike responded immediately to the smell at 162 Park.

Referring to Valuskas as a “hoarder,” Rossetti explained that they considered his unresponsiveness normal.

“He was on a subsidy from the government and the government consistently failed to do their inspections,” she wrote. “This was a government failure not Pike International.”

While New Haven housing officials deemed the property unsanitary, Lim said Pike was unresponsive when the three remaining tenants asked for assistance in procuring replacement housing. It was only when Runge’s guardians, who are both lawyers, threatened to intervene that the company began to engage with their requests. Still, Lim added, Pike argued that they bore no legal responsibility because they had not played a part in Valuskas’ passing. *** Not all the stories are so morbid, but accounts from other students and faculty represent Pike as equally evasive and unresponsive.

As a woman entering Yale from South Korea with a husband and a four-year old daughter, Bae knew she had to make the right call with her off-campus housing.

Because she also manages several businesses in South Korea, Bae wanted to rent two apartments in New Haven, one where she would live near the Divinity School, where she would begin her graduate studies, and another which would serve as a make-shift office. From South Korea, Bae searched for apartments online and found two apartments from Pike that seemed exactly what she wanted. The first apartment, a three-bedroom place on 670 Prospect St., was $3000 a month, the most expensive and luxurious apartment owned by Pike. The second, which was to be her office, cost $2000 a month and was on 477 Prospect St. Although she was not able to visit these locations in person because she was in Korea, Bae said she thought Pike’s frequent referrals to Yale on its website was a sign that the company was Universityapproved.

Bae arrived to find the living conditions unsuitable for her family.

And her new office on 477 Prospect St., she said, looked nothing like the photos of the apartment listed on Pike’s website.

“When we walked inside, it was not the space on the Internet,” she said. “It was comSEE PIKE PAGE 8

WEEKEND RECOMMENDS:

Yale Rep // 8:00 p.m.

“Following the mysterious death of her white lover, Beartrice Albans, a free woman of color in New Orleans in 1836, imposes a six-month period of mourning on herself and her three daughters.”

// SARAH ECKINGER

A Neo-Feminist Critique of Woad’s Turn down for....what?

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 18, 2014 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND DIVEST

Rubber Fish and Business Suits: Fos sil Free’s Dilemma

// WIL

L FRE

EDBE

RG

// BY LILIAN CHILDRESS AND YI-LING LIU Last Tuesday, a group of eight students clad in a striking combination of business formal and hazmat suits poured oil on rubber fish and birds outside of Woodbridge Hall.

“We’re securing Yale’s financial future. Allocating our assets responsibly,” the students repeated. As passerby lingered near the group, they were handed “business cards” made out of paper money.

On the ground in front of the students was a black tarp spelling the words YALE STUDENTS D E M A N D D I V E S T M E N T. Though divestment is the wellknown goal of the organization Fossil Free Yale, this demonstration was not affiliated with the group.

On Friday, a much larger group of students appeared outside of Woodbridge Hall. This time, there were no hazmat suits — just business. For around an hour, they stood in a line, quietly and passively. Many people held small signs with phrases like “There’s no Planet B” and “Don’t Silence Me.” Some signs were more understated, simply reading “Divest.”

At one point, the students erupted into a chant, repeating the words “Eighty-three percent!,” a number that has become somewhat symbolic for the movement. Eighty-three percent is the proportion of Yale students who chose “yes” in an divestment referendum in November, which represents 43 percent of the total student body.

Flecks of orange moved through the crowd — the characteristic square piece of orange felt sported by members of Fossil Free Yale. But when asked about the protest, members of FFY were quick to correct the wording of the question. What happened on Friday was not a protest. It was an action.

Max Weinreich ’16, who has been involved with FFY since October his Freshman year when the group was still in its embryonic stage, explained that FFY called the event an action because “it would come off as friendlier.” The group doesn’t want to jeopardize the progress it’s already made with the administration.

“But actions speak louder than words, ironically,” he added.

And he believes that this tension speaks to how FFY has “difficult balance to tread.” On one hand, the group needs to ensure that the administration understands the urgency of the situation. Members pointed out that climate change has already begun to affect people across the world and it will not improve on its own. On the other hand, FFY needs to avoid antagonizing the very people that they have spent

F R I D AY APRIL 18

so much effort working with.

The protest ended up being a mix of suits and signs, but arguments about how to present the group lingered. While some had a vision of a massive crowd, chanting and yelling, others felt the action should be limited to the fossil free core group, silent and signless. Weinreich wondered what that action would have looked like. He wondered whether anyone would notice the group at all.

“It’s a very real tension, and one that fossil free has always had trouble negotiating,” Weinreich said.

The tension, and the question: How loud should Fossil Free Yale be?

THE FIRST TWO YEARS

Last fall, when Hannah Nesser ’16 received a text revealing the results of the Yale College Council referendum on divestment, she was euphoric.

She had first gotten involved in divestment when she arrived on campus as a freshman in 2012, when it was, according to Nesser “barely on anyone’s radar.” Over the last academic year, Fossil Free Yale toiled away on a proposal calling on companies to disclose their fossil fuel emissions. The group then successfully called for and passed a referendum, earning the support of much of the student body.

But the referendum did not lead directly to divestment. No matter how many students support divestment, the decision belongs to the administration.

Indeed, after months of debate, petitions and formal dialogue between administrators, faculty and students, the Yale Corporation Committee on Investor Responsibility, the highest governing Yale’s investments, announced on April 8 that they have decided to delay their decision.

The delay was disappointing to students who had hopes that the work and effort they had put into the proposal and referendum in the past two semesters would lead to tangible gains and successes.

“It was extremely frustrating,” said Mitch Barrows ’16, outreach coordinator of Fossil Free Yale. “I felt like the were not realizing the urgency of climate change.”

The announcement also threatened FFY’s visibility.

Many students supported the movement quietly and passively through the referendum, but some within the group pointed to the fact that Fossil Free only has a relatively small core group of environmentalists who are willing to devote their precious time to the cause.

And after the referendum, the group’s members began to realize

that they had different visions of what the next step would be.

Weinrech, who had been one of most active coordinators in canvassing around the referendum, realized that he didn’t have the same role to fulfill anymore. He stopped attending regular meetings.

“In the wake of the referendum,” said Weinrich, “it was less clear what the role would be for somebody interested in grassroots organizing.”

THE ACTIVIST APPROACH

Alexandra Barlowe ’17 describes herself as the radical voice within Fossil Free Yale. She has been involved in environmental organizing since she was in middle school. This year she has helped organize trips for Yale students to environmental rallies like Power Shift in Pittsburg and XL Dissent in Washington, D.C. The XL protest put an arrest on her record, a fact she is proud of.

Barlowe started Fossil Free Fieldston, a divestment campaign at her New York City private school that had an endowment “bigger than some small colleges,” she said. She held meetings, wrote up a proposal, passed out buttons, and eventually got to meet with the school’s principal and CFO. In the end, she felt like neither of them took her campaign seriously, despite the hundreds of signatures her petition had garnered.

So when Barlowe originally saw the orange Fossil Free Yale banner at a rally her senior year, she described the possibility of a new campaign as “really exciting.” She joined the group immediately upon coming to campus, though she has experienced some of the same frustrations she felt in high school.

Barlowe said she is extremely proud of what the group has accomplished with the referendum this year, but admits that she sometimes chafes at FFY’s reluctance to engage in grassroots action.

“I think the problem is that we’ve really been prioritizing working with the administration over working with students,” she said. “While I do think we need to put pressure on the administration, at this point we need to engage the students more-- the whole point of divestment is to create a paradigm shift.”

Barlowe’s envisions a campus wide coalition of divestment supporters and allies; a group of people who are willing to show up at Salovey’s door if the administration says no. Barlowe knows that if Yale were to divest, it would make a national statement.

The most important goal, she argues, is to change students’ attitudes. A “yes” from the

YALE BELLY DANCE SPRING SHOW: “HIPS AGAINST HUNGER” Sterling Hall of Medicine // 8:30 p.m.

They don’t lie.

administration has to go hand in hand with student awareness of and pride in that “yes.”

“If students can’t go back to their communities after they see [that Yale has divested] in the New York Times and talk about why this is important, then we haven’t really achieved what we’re trying to achieve,” she said.

But Patrick Cage ’15 and Grace Steig ’15 — who planned the Tuesday protest featuring hazmat suits and rubber fish — have a different vision for how to convince the Yale administration to divest.

Steig and Cage believe that, to make a clear impact, environmentalists have to move beyond the traditional pathways. Cage characterized Yale’s way of dealing with student unrest as passively sweeping it under the rug until dissenting opinions eventually fizzle out. And the CCIR’s decision (or non-decision) is a case-in-point example of this.

“I guess there’s just a group of us that felt like the voices of the students weren’t being heard adequately, and wanted to put a little bit of pressure on the administration by working outside the internal policy framework,” said Cage.

He and Steig are also responsible for the orange spray-paint stencils on sidewalks around campus urging divestment. They ran into a bit of trouble when they realized that paint they used was more permanent than they expected.

According to Stieg, the protest came out of a sentiment that they were interested in demonstrating that as “independent students, we still find divestment an incredibly urgent concern, and something that Yale should definitely do immediately. “ Forcing the administration into a decision dilemma, seems for some the only shot. Barlowe said that, if the corporation is put under enough pressure, they will have to make a decision sooner rather than later.

And even if the corporation were to agree to divest tomorrow, the plan that FFY has proposed will take effect over a course of years. Cage, and others like him, fear that if they wait around too long, the cries will die down, and it might be too late.

TOO LOUD

But if FFY is going to be as loud as Barlowe, Cage and Steig want it to be, it risks forcing the corporation’s hand, and permanently separating the group from the connections they’ve made so far.

Elias Estabrook, one of the original members of FFY who today serves as project manager, said he feels like the group should escalate their action to

appropriately match the corporation’s decision, whatever it may be. Fossil Free, he said, has planted its roots strongly in the institutional relationships they have.

“We’re maintaining a certain level of legitimacy, and through that, I think, setting ourselves apart,” he said.

Indeed, in contrast to divestment movements at other universities, Fossil Free Yale has been unique its approach of working with the administration through established channels.

According to Mitch Barrows ’16, the outreach coordinator of Fossil Free Yale, there are pragmatic strengths to this approach.

For one, it ensures that they can’t be accused of not trying all measures.

“It’s important that we demonstrate the willingness of Fossil Free Yale to pursue divestment to the very end,” he said. “If we do end up getting a no from the administration, we can say that we tried this path first.”

But, as Barlowe and others have stated, pragmatism can only last for so long. And members of FFY have started to sense that not everyone is satisfied with this approach.

Weinreich spoke to the difficulty of uniting the desires to pursue cooperation with the administration and to express the urgency of the matter within the group. According to him, this tension leads to a seeming lack of cohesion.

“It’s like, for every person who shows up to the protest in a polar bear suit, you might as well cut the size of the protest in half,” Weinreich said.

Hannah Nesser ’16, the Communications coordinator of Fossil Free Yale, disagreed with a portrait of FFY as deeply divided.

She believes that these diverging opinions about how to approach divestment enhance the movement instead of fracture it. It’s possible, she argued, to unite both perspectives in pursuit of one goal.

“I don’t think that this is a divide at all,” says Nesser “and it is actually damning to characterize it such.”

According to Nesser, the very strength of the organization lies in the fact that it is both administrative and grass-roots based.

She says that members of Fossil Free Yale needs to be able to walk between the two worlds - of the bureaucracy and the larger student community - and bridge the gap between them.

LOOKING FORWARD

No matter how many perspectives there about how to approach divestment, there remains one unfortunate possibility: a no from the administra-

tion. And here, the group knows it will stand together.

“We’ll be loud,” Nesser said.

“We aren’t going away.”

And while they wait, the group is actively continuing to develop new strategies and seek new ways to achieve their goals.

In addition to organizing more activities such as the action in front of Woodbridge Hall last Friday, and ensuring that divestment continues to be at the forefront of conversation, the group has began to orchestrate an alumni engagement campaign, calling upon alumni to pledge donations if the University decides to divest.

In the event that the administration decides not to divest, the members of Fossil Free Yale remain optimistic. “Even if we get a no,” said Barrows “I will still feel like we have done something important by creating conversation.”

Although Harvard’s administration decided not to divest, just last week, they signed onto a United Nations-supported organization Principles for Responsible Investment. This decision greatly strengthened the university’s commitment to environmental sustainability and renewable energy.

The divestment movement extends beyond the Yale community. Yale has a unique model of asking for phased disclosure from fossil fuels, whereas other colleges have developed a variety of different proposals, ranging from complete divestment to divestment from the top 200 fossil fuel extracting companies.

The fact that the movement is broader than the Yale campus means that divestment groups across the nation are constantly learning from each other, feeding off each other’s successes.

As Nesser argued, this means that there is always something to learn.

“Although there are things that we don’t achieve, there are also constantly new opportunities,” he said.

While Fossil Free’s future role seems nebulous given the inconclusive nature of the decision, one thing seems certain: FFY will continue to be a campus presence. No matter what decision the CCIR makes, and no matter how loud they have to be.

“Whatever happens, fossil free will still have a role,” says Chelsea Watson ’17, social media point person for FFY. “And even when we do get divestment — because I think we will!,” she said, pausing to smile, “Fossil Free will have a role.”

Contact YI-LING LIU at yi-ling.liu@yale.edu and LILLIAN CHILDRESS at lillian. childress@yale.edu .

WEEKEND RECOMMENDS: The Evolution of Procrastination in the Post-Modern Age To be written past the deadline. As meta commentary, of course.

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 18, 2014 · yaledailynews.com

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WEEKEND ARTS

NOT ALL PUPPETS ARE EVIL // BY CORYNA OGUNSEITAN

// WA LIU

I’ve been scared of puppets since before I can remember, and I don’t know how this happened.

It probably has something to do with an episode of Scooby-Doo in which a nice man who’s been helping Shaggy and the crew out suddenly collapses and, voilà, we see that he was not, after all, a good Samaritan. Instead, he’s a mindless vessel through which the villain could trap Scooby and friends in a large and psychopathically decorated mansion.

Anyway, since then I’ve never been able to trust a puppeteer, or enjoy any sort of performance involving puppets. Besides being scary, I always thought puppets were pointless. A sock doesn’t tell a story any better than a real mouth, nor is it particularly interesting to look at.

This negative perception radically changed today when I went to see “Visions of the

Sacred: Puppets and Performing Arts of South and Southeast Asia” at the Whitney Humanities Center. Though puppets comprise most of the art displayed, there are also photographs of puppeteers themselves and other performing artists.

The exhibit showcased works of art that depicted gods, monsters and other religious figures in order to make sacred stories accessible to wide audiences.

Unlike the entirely evil puppets of Scooby-Doo, these puppets are specifically designed to include angelic and demonic elements that reflect the cosmic balance of good and evil in each living thing. Most puppets are made either of wood, leather or paper. Their intricate designs and vibrant clothing highlight the puppet-makers’ painstaking attention to detail.

Little pamphlets are avail-

able at entrance of the exhibit, a great help to patrons like me who don’t know much about Southeast Asian history and culture.

The pamphlets detail the myths behind the puppets being showcased. Many puppets portray characters from the Ramayana — one of the great Hindu epics — such as Sita, Rama and Hanuman. This excited me because I had recently watched a documentary about the Ramayana, and I felt both #informed and #culturallyliterate.

I then moved on from the one myth I was familiar with. One of my favorite pieces was a series of puppets that were, respectively, a clown, female dancer, a king and an ogress. They represented characters from either from the Ramayana or the Mahabharata and were all dressed beautifully, except for the ogress. While the female dancer wore a nice green

dress, the ogress wore a black blouse with two red cut outs over her breasts in what looked like a middle school attempt at sexiness. The artist further differentiated her from the story’s protagonists by having her stick her tongue out, while the rest were smiling.

The foursome described above were the last display on one side of a long hallway that led into a room, which I was at this point about to enter. Up until this moment, the way the art was arranged was not particularly awe-inspiring and did not do justice to the sacred quality of the subject matter. However, the room at the end completely changed this aesthetic.

Seeing the puppets in a large, dark, silent space helped me better grasp their holy, powerful and slightly terrifying nature.

Bizarrely, someone had set up

the interior of the room with dining tables and chairs, and I have no qualms saying that it was easily the last place on the planet I would ever want to eat.

In this space, in sharp contrast to the other areas of the exhibit, everything felt more sacred. As I was reading the stories in the pamphlet, I found myself truly expecting that the Barong (protective lion) would come to life to defend Ratna, the princess who’d refused to marry a powerful witch. And the indoor ogress had a more credible monstrosity than the ogress in the hallway. I was especially struck by one display that showed a small man crawling into the ear of a larger version of himself, the latter of whom was having a discussion with a potbellied old man. The little man had discovered, in his larger alter ego, the cosmos. This is presumably

what he was discussing with the fat little man, who was a “Godclown” and who, in addition to being very wise and the first being to emerge from the crack of the cosmic egg, is a “farting old man with the voice of the little guy.”

The idea of a flawed god figure in many ways encompasses the exhibit’s underlying theme.

God-clown spreads wisdom, but is still accessible to people; the puppets serve to bring religious messages to people who are illiterate and cannot access them otherwise. Overall, I thought the exhibit effectively communicated both the incredible form of the artwork as well as its function, and it will leave viewers with a more informed opinion on puppetry as a field.

Contact CORYNA OGUNSEITAN at coryna.ogunseitan@yale.edu .

Seeking Rhythm in Byzantine Iconography // BY THERESA STEINMEYER Saints, beards and egg tempera — the Byzantines are back! George Kordis is reconceptualizing Byzantine iconography to focus on the relationship between the body and the sacred, giving traditionally two-dimensional spiritual subjects a humanity visitors can relate to. Until April 25, you can check out his work in an exhibit titled “Rhythm and Light” at the Institute of Sacred Music’s Gallery of Sacred Arts, and experience a refreshing connection to this celebrated artistic tradition.

The collection’s presentation is underwhelming. When you visit, you’ll walk down the driveway just past the Divinity School to the white sign labeled “Art Exhibit.” Inside, you can grab a plastic bag for your umbrella and a printout listing the titles for the unlabeled paintings in the gallery. Expect a couple of New Testament scenes, some dome photographs and saints, saints and more saints.

Information on George Kordis and the individual paintings would have been helpful, and unless you’re already familiar with his work, you’ll only be able to glean an uninformed first impression.

The title “Rhythm and Light” anticipates a mediocre middle school art lesson, but Kordis’ work is intelligent and precise. There’s plenty of light, to be sure — you’ll see it in the glowing streaks on his subjects’ cloaks, wound up in saints’ beards and reflected off gold frames. Kordis fearlessly experiments with red lighting, as in a pervasive tint over Last Supper or soaked over the background and frame of his portrait, Saint Martinianus the Ascetic, giving his reinterpretation of the Byzantine tradition a modern energy. But elements of rhythm do not translate as well — perhaps occasionally in the texture of a fabric or beard if I’m really searching, but it does not shine through as a compelling theme.

I do like the way that several of his subjects break playfully from their frames with a wing, sleeve or rosary, as in Saint Efriam the Syrian, or Saint Peter in Jail, which nearly bleeds out onto the wall. These compositions, along with Kordis’ use of light, successfully challenge the two-dimensional Byzantine tradition, and offer a fresh interpretation of typical iconography portraits of subjects that seem to lean out into the present.

But Kordis’ pieces do more than chal-

lenge the conventional appearance of Byzantine art. Although his subjects echo the two-dimensional Byzantine style, they take on an active, three-dimensional corporality that makes them more accessible to a modern audience. These sacred subjects may have been lying flat in their Byzantine renditions for centuries, but Kordis has given them a second life, a chance to lean forward from their paintings to communicate with their beholders. Many of Kordis’ icons have anxious, confused expressions, as though they’re disoriented in their three-dimensional portrayals. It’s jarring to see these prestigious, sacred subjects exhibit such human vulnerability, but it is this conflict that makes Kordis’ work engaging.

I spend several minutes with one of Kordis’ portraits, Saint Anthony the Great. I’m initially struck by Kordis’ decision to disregard the frame entirely, instead leaving the figure exposed against the bare wall. Compared to many of Kordis’ other portraits, this one is simple — just Saint Anthony posed in the center, with an orange robe, halo and a bit of Greek lettering above his shoulders.

Light is at work in Saint Anthony’s clothing, beard and cheekbones, but it’s his expression that keeps me staring – he’s looking down at the right from an elevated, saintly pose, and yet there is a vulnerable tension that I can’t understand. I wish he’d turn thirty degrees so that I could get a better look, but it’s a moment lost in time.

Ultimately, Kordis effects the “Light” elements of “Rhythm and Light” with ease and precision. “Rhythm,” however, is less easily found. More information on the works could have helped remedy this shortcoming, but the lack of placards and the like means you’ll probably plow through the exhibit in twenty minutes or less. Nevertheless, “Rhythm and Light” is an interesting take on the Byzantine icon tradition, a worthy break if you happen to be at the Divinity School this month. But unless you’re an iconography aficionado or longing for a recreational Science Hill hike, you may want to wait for the Byzantines to return another day.

Contact THERESA STEINMEYER at theresa.steinmeyer@yale.edu .

F R I D AY

“A NEW SAINT FOR A NEW WORLD”

APRIL 18

“God feels bad about what happened to Joan of Arc. So, he cuts her a deal: She can be reincarnated on Earth, but under one condition. No more revolutions.”

Yale Cabaret // 11:00 p.m.

// YALE

WEEKEND RECOMMENDS: “It was Just a Box Hookup”: A Contemporary Examination of Yale Dating Love at Yale, Actually: Part 2!

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 18, 2014 · yaledailynews.com

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WEEKEND VOTES

Elsa Which of these candidates will lead us through our Most Important Bright College Years? We are the company of scholars, the mighty Bulldog! We deserve a leader — heck, we deserve several.

One who speaks our language.

One who joins the numbers. One who understands true beauty.

Polls close tonight at 9 p.m: quick, let it go, the aesthetic character of Cross Campus is at stake!

Drake

BIGGEST SUPPORTER YDN CAMPAIGN SLOGAN “Let it go” CROSS CAMPUS PHOTO Animated VIEWS ON GENDERNEUTRAL HOUSING She lives alone.

TRANSPARENCY Clear as ice // YDN AND CREATIVE COMMONS

BIGGEST SUPPORTER WYBCX CAMPAIGN SLOGAN “Take Care” CROSS CAMPUS PHOTO Profile against blue sky TRANSPARENCY Depends — do you talk his language? // YDN AND CREATIVE COMMONS

Frank Underwood

Don Draper

BIGGEST SUPPORTER YIRA

BIGGEST SUPPORTER Yale Ski Team

VIEWS ON GENDERNEUTRAL HOUSING Everything is about sex.

CAMPAIGN SLOGAN “Powerwood” CROSS CAMPUS PHOTO Brooding FINANCIAL AID POLICY Money is the McMansion in Sarasota that starts falling apart after 10 years.

CAMPAIGN SLOGAN “Mad for Don” VIEWS ON GENDERNEUTRAL HOUSING? Yes

DIVESTMENT The nature of promises, Linda, is that they remain immune to changing circumstances.

TRANSPARENCY? No DIVESTMENT? The universe is indifferent. // YDN AND CREATIVE COMMONS

2048

SCORE

BEST

1980

1990

OPTIONS

LEADERBOARD

16 8

16

2

2

32

4

4 8

8

4

Gabriele Cirulli (Creator of 2048) BIGGEST SUPPORTER HACKYALE CAMPAIGN SLOGAN “Join the numbers!”

VIEWS ON GENDERNEUTRAL HOUSING Residential College 2048

Lupita Nyong’o

FINANCIAL AID POLICY $2048 DIVESTMENT Fossil Free 2048

// YDN AND CREATIVE COMMONS

S AT U R D AY APRIL 19

// YDN AND CREATIVE COMMONS

BIGGEST SUPPORTER Yale Dramatic Association CROSS CAMPUS PHOTO Everyone holds an Oscar statue

VIEWS ON GENDER-NEUTRAL HOUSING? Home is where my family is.

FINANCIAL AID No matter where you’re from, your CAMPAIGN SLOGAN dreams are valid.

“Compassion”

// YDN AND CREATIVE COMMONS

“WILD STRAWBERRIES”

Whitney Humanities Center // 7:00 p.m.

Often considered one of Ingmar Bergman’s most optimistic films.

WEEKEND RECOMMENDS: Neopets: An Analogy for the Suffering Masses They were hungry, and then they were hungry again.

S AT U R D AY APRIL 19

NET IMPACT’S ANNUAL COLOR RUN New Haven Green // 2:00 p.m.

WEEKEND loves colors. Running, less so.

WEEKEND RECOMMENDS: Is Channing Tatum attractive? A New Perspective.

Thesis: in “21 Jump Street,” and nowhere else.

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 18, 2014 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND COVER

CONDITIONAL LIVING PIKE FROM PAGE 3 pletely different and definitely smaller,” she added, noting that unlike the actual property, the one on the Internet was very modern.

Even the more expensive apartment was underwhelming. The ‘living room’ was a basement, she explained, and constant stream of cold air from downstairs made her daughter sick. Soon Bae and her family moved into the one-bedroom apartment that she had planned to use as an office.

Yet beyond the poor conditions — which included a lack of heat, uneven floors and windows that were structurally unsound and posed a safety risk to her daughter — Bae was most disappointed by Pike’s customer service.

“It was my first time being offended by a receptionist on the phone. She just hung up the phone on me whenever I wanted to talk to someone higher up,” she exclaimed.

Although she was laughing about it over the phone when interviewed on Tuesday, Bae recalled feeling sad and confused at the treatment she received.

When Bae realized she was pregnant again, she knew her living situation was untenable. After speaking with friends and University officials, she met a former employee of Pike who sympathized with her story. The ex-employee advised Bae to break her lease.

When she did so and drew up papers with a lawyer, Peter Blasini, who had worked with other former Pike tenants, she recounted the anger with which Pike officials reacted. Every day in the lead-up to her move-out day, Bae said two or three people from Pike would come and angrily knock on her door.

“I felt terrible and scared something was going to happen when we moved out,” she said, adding that she approached Divinity School faculty about being afraid for her safety.

On the day that she moved out, Bae turned off her phone because she feared Hecht would call her and try to convince her to stay.

Although her original home was just a few minutes away from the Divinity School by foot, Bae decided to leave her Pike rental property in favor of housing in Trumbull, Conn.

— a 45-minute drive from school.

Her new landlord often responds to emails within minutes, she said.

S AT U R D AY APRIL 19

By the end of her stay with Pike, Bae and her husband had considered a class action suit against the company, but ultimately did not file one due to time constraints. *** When Matt Lawlor ’14 and his roommates moved into their Pike house on 401 Crown St., there was a mountain of trash by the front steps.

Inside, there were abandoned kegs, holes in the walls and footprints on the ceiling. All of the first floor drains were clogged and crusted with black mold — and there was no hot water, he said.

“We went to [the Pike staff], and we told them ‘you have to fix this,’” Lawlor said. Initially, Pike was somewhat responsive, fixing the plumbing and water heater.

But then, he recalled, “They started ignoring me.” So much so that when Lawlor and his housemates called into the office multiple times, in need of further utility fixes, they received the same message for days on end: that the person they were looking for was in a meeting.

Soon, Lawlor and his housemates established a rotational calling schedule between the five of them, one person on duty every hour to call.

Yarrington, one of Lawlor’s housemates, explained the problems that led to this endeavor. Their apartment’s floor was detached from the wall and sinking, causing, cold air from the basement to seep through. As a result, their apartment was chilly and they were forced to pay more for heating.

Yarrington added, mice were constantly scuttling around.

Cody Kahoe ’15, who lives at 37 Lynwood Pl. with five other undergraduates, has also dealt with increased heating costs as a result of broken windows. The house’s washer and dryer, which have been inoperable since the summer, were only repaired by Pike last week.

While Kahoe said he and his housemates are fond of their living space because it has its own “flavor,” he added that it is not a place he would want to live for the rest of his life.

“It’s kind of dumpish,” he said.

“The stairs are incredibly warped, to the point that my friends will ask me, ‘am I high, or is there something wrong with your stairs?’” He added that from the back of the house, it becomes clear that the structure is

YALE BASEBALL VS. HARVARD Yale Field // 3:00 p.m.

Take us out to the ball game.

crooked.

Lawlor, Yarrington and Kahoe’s experiences with Pike’s unresponsiveness do not surprise McNamara.

When she moved into her apartment in August, the man showing her around handed her the keys and his card and said, “Call this number if you ever need any maintenance done, and we’ll get people within four days.” That turnaround time is nothing to brag about, McNamara said.

Under these conditions, what causes students to sign leases with Pike?

Some undergraduates, like McNamara, a transfer student who was not familiar with New Haven before coming to Yale, enter offcampus housing unaware of others’ experiences.

“Most of my friends know better,” McNamara said. “[Pike] has such a bad reputation that when I tell people that I live in a Pike-owned build-

“WE’RE PAYING NEW YORK CITY RENT FOR A HOUSE IN NEW HAVEN.” CODY KAHOE ’15, PIKE TENANT

Still, Rossetti said Pike is becoming proactive whereas it was once reactive. In an email to the News, she said the company sends out regular emails and letters to check in with residents. The company is also upgrading its software, she said, to make sure maintenance teams can be notified of requests in real-time to expedite the process. In addition, Rossetti said she personally visits both Pike’s buildings and also Yale administrators to ensure that “nothing is slipping through the cracks.” *** Despite the prevalence of these incidents, students interviewed said rent in Pike properties is much higher than that of comparable spaces in the city.

“Pike is more interested in getting your money than in providing the services,” Yarrington said.

Kahoe feels this acutely. Though he is bothered by Pike’s utilities and maintenance issues, he is particularly frustrated with the high price he has to pay.

“We’re paying New York City rent for a house in New Haven,” he said, adding that his six housemates pay around $5,500 a month in rent. Price ranges depend on room size, which means that his housemates living in the largest rooms pay upwards of a thousand dollars a month.

And while Kahoe has the house’s smallest room, he said he pays two to three times more than friends living in similarly-sized spaces in nicer houses on Dwight Street.

ing, they’re like, ‘I’m so sorry.’”

But others know about Pike’s reputation and decide to live there anyway. They say there are simply no other choices.

Kahoe said Pike is a part of an “oligopoly” on the housing market for students, so when it decides to increase rent, students are in no place to negotiate. When Pike wanted to increase Kahoe and his housemates’ rent by 5 percent (compared to the previous year), Kahoe tried to speak with them about it.

But “they claimed they had other people who were interested.” Eventually, they negotiated the increase to 2.8 percent.

“They claim that it is customary to raise rent 5 to 10 percent per month each year,” Kahoe said in an email to the News. “This is really not true. I have friends who rent from other people in New Haven who have not had their rent increased in the last two years.” *** Several students and faculty interviewed said they wish Yale were more involved, in some way or another, with properties off-campus.

“Many graduate students would like the University to build more housing for graduate or professional school students,” said George, adding that the principal problem is New Haven’s high occupancy rate.

At 98 percent, George said, the rate makes it is difficult for students to negotiate with landlords because they can easily find other tenants.

Yale French Lector Ruth Koizim, whose friends have broken leases with Pike, said she hopes Yale will apply more pressure on the real estate company. Still, Koizim, whose late husband was involved in local politics, pointed out that in the New Haven community, Hecht is recognized as “a big mover and shaker” — a status that perhaps protected him from political consequence.

Some students expressed hope that Yale will purchase more properties that the University could lease as off-campus housing for students.

They cited as an example Harrison Court, an apartment building adjacent to Pierson College that Yale owns and leases to students at market prices. But Koizim said such an action is likely unfeasible due to complex fiscal reasons.

Bruce Alexander, University vicepresident for New Haven and state affairs and campus development, said Yale only purchased properties on Howe Street “to arrest a serious decline in that neighborhood adjacent to Davenport and Pierson.”

Longyear said while the University cannot control off-campus housing it does not own, Yale recognizes that students’ living arrangements affect the quality of their college experience. As such, Yale’s Off-Campus Living website is in the process of establishing a Landlord Ratings platform where students can compare and evaluate their rental experiences. Longyear believes that this resource will incentivize landlords to build good relationships with their tenants. *** Lawlor and Yarrington now live in an Off-Broadway Inc. property. Their current landlords have been quick to fix burst pipes and shovel snow throughout the winter months, they said.

The students were eager to leave their Pike house last spring, but even moving out posed its challenges.

For several months, Pike refused to return their security deposit. After threatening to go to court, Lawlor also showed the company timestamped photos of the house.

After a year, the mold that greeted them at the beginning of their stay had remained intact.

Contact RISHABH BHANDARI at rishabh.bhandari@yale.edu and HANNAH SCHWARZ at hannah.schwarz@yale.edu .

WEEKEND RECOMMENDS: Is *insert fictional character* Gay? The hackiest way out of any English essay.

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 18, 2014 · yaledailynews.com

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WEEKEND THEATER

JOAN OF BROOKLYN, LOOKING FOR TROUBLE // BY CAROLINE HART

God, a Caucasian middle-aged man of medium height and slim build, who dresses casually and slicks his hair back in grey paste, is disappointed with the current state of things. But he’s not yet ready to throw in the towel. This he explains to Joan of Arc the final scene of “A New Saint for a New World,” the only scene in which he appears in the flesh.

“A New Saint” opens in present-day Brooklyn in the apartment of Libby Wall (Maura Hooper DRA ’15) who is otherwise known as — and soon revealed to be — French Revolutionary Joan of Arc. Sitting in a wooden chair and sipping red wine out of a mug, Joan futilely attempts to comfort her boyfriend over the loss of his grandparents. After her attempts at consoling him fail, she deems it an appropriate moment to explain to him how, in 2010, she landed in New York City in the body of a 19-year-old girl called Libby.

As punishment for successfully leading the French troops, and out of envy for her connection with God, religious opponents burned Joan at the stake when she was only 19. God admitted to her that this was not a part of his plan and allowed her to return to earth in

the place of a deceased 19-yearold on one condition — that she did not involve herself in politics or revolutionize in any fashion.

After Joan’s boyfriend declares her crazy and storms out of the apartment, the play flashes forward to “Southeast and Midwest United States,” 2020. Joan is in jail for — you guessed it — leading a violent revolution of millions within the United States, causing the “Second Civil War” and the breakup of the United States into disparate territories. After explaining to a prison official that she is neither a murder nor terrorist in a futile attempt to get out of her execution, a pair of angels arrives in her prison cell. The two inform her that she is to be exiled to God’s new planet called Kaia. The final scenes take place in year “4XB39” on God’s newand-improved ocean oasis where Joan is upset to find that “nothing is ugly.”

The lighting in “A New Saint” was powerful in and of itself. In the cozy Cabaret theatre, the burst of light prompted by the two angels simulating Joan’s last look at the sun before her departure from earth was striking. Additionally, the extremely

bright and uncomfortably harsh lights in the questioning room of the prison created a pressurized environment. And in this intense light, Joan’s relaxed and unexcited demeanor was all-the-more excited. At the end of the play, God is illuminated by soft bluegreen light as he talks with Joan across the theatre; the audience gets the sense that his presence is important without being intimidating.

Joan expressively explains her history, however, makes the most of the available space. Her character is written a carefree, modern-day, rebel and her movement reflects this.

The joint, two-person character Okun (Annie Hagg DRA ’16 and Elizabeth Mak DRA ’16) on planet Kaia eerily reflects the joyous and community-oriented planet with its golden dress that drapes over both actors. As the charac-

THE AUDIENCE GETS THE SENSE THAT [GOD’S] PRESENCE IS IMPORTANT WITHOUT BEING INTIMIDATING. The play, written by Ryan Campbell DRA ’15 is rich in its uncomplicated and straightforward plot. Shifts in time are projected on the back wall and obviously reflected by changes in dress. The play centers around dialogue as opposed to physical action, which would prove difficult on the tiny stage anyway. The blocking in the first scene when

ters thoughtlessly sway in unified movement in their attempt to uplift a frustrated Joan, the audience gets a glimpse of what God regards as an improved earth. The theme of change, which manifests in a variety of ways throughout the play, surfaces on Kaia. Okun explains their inability to understand the word “can’t,” which has only been brought to the planet by

// NICK THIGPEN, YALE CABARET

A medieval revolutionary goes modern.

a discouraged and human Joan.

The use of modern colloquialisms by Joan when she refers to her historical past is hilarious and reflects her complete immersion in the present-day. The dialogue among angels was also well received by the audience. At one point, we learn that Raphael and Raguel are “f**king sh*t up” in heaven and that “starting the second American Civil War is a terrible look” on Joan.

Featuring the musical stylings of Kanye West and Lorde in its opening and closing scenes, “A New Saint for a New World” takes a definitively modern look at the age-old themes of faith and human nature. While the play boasts an unforgivingly optimistic ending — God and Joan agree to not give up on the ailing earth — there still remains the question of how and when we’ll all just get along.

Contact CAROLINE HART at caroline.hart@yale.edu .

“Window” Reflects on Something Familiar // BY GAYATRI SABHARWAL

With its opening set as a college dorm’s common room, “Window Full of Moths” made me feel at home right from the first act. Deglamorizing “college life” and highlighting the irritants that most college students are too accustomed to to bother with, “Moths,” written by Nick Baskin ’14 and directed by Thomas Stilwell ’16, attempts to sensitize its audience members to their own lives.

The set invokes a sense of familiarity with its sofa, pillows and quintessential scattered pile of books, which belong to Susan (Lily Shoretz ’16), a college girl in her junior year. Clad in a pair of comfortable-looking pajamas, Susan immediately strikes a cord with the tired and overworked college student. An ambitious physics major, with lofty goals of changing the world, she tells

S U N D AY APRIL 20

her audience her story with a brutal honesty. She sings to them the tale of her mediocre high school and her desire to become a competent scientist. Susan’s story doesn’t seem unique, built around the expected hallmarks of unpopularity in high school and great expectations for college. Still, her delivery is, at once, both charming and unembellished.

Shoretz’s performance is fluid enough to assume the character of any Junior with a tendency towards quarter-life crises, and Susan’s character could serve as prototype — reminding the audience members of either themselves or someone they know.

Susan is joined by her friends, Darryn (Charlie Bardey ’17) and Seth (David McPeek ’16), who support her in her late-night academic (mis) adventures. Darryn and Seth,

EASTER SUNDAY

a couple in love, themselves struggle through assignments and other scholarly commitments while balancing the desire to spend quality time together. The three characters navigate their lives in college together, collectively whining away their worries.

ITS CONCLUSIONS LEAVES THE AUDIENCE WITH THE URGE TO RETHINK THEIR LIVES. But despite their ostensibly mundane and often miserable college lives, these students regularly break out into extraordinary soul stirring songs, which describe their everyday struggles. Problem sets, readings, arguments with

Everywhere // All day A new life begins.

friends and romantic ‘chases’ suddenly take on the complexity of Herculean tasks, which burden the 20-somethingyear-old characters enough to make them oscillate between regular college students and seeming professional opera singers. In one song, Darryn

complains about how tired he feels every day. It’s a common enough complaint, but with Bardey’s vocal talent, the song turns into a heartfelt plea for recognition.

The play mixes casual conversations, jaded late-night

heart-to-hearts, prolonged allnighters and everyday romantic encounters with the more complicated themes of identity, self-worth and sexuality. And its conclusion leaves the audience with the urge to rethink their lives; it encourages them to reevaluate the seriousness of their own troubles, and identify the somewhat darker undertones they often overlook. The play, however, also hints of a rather sarcastic mockery of college struggles; the characters may sometimes come off as making a mountain of a molehill.

Baskin’s writing, then, wants us to balance both the superficial and the more important deeper connections. The performers carry out these best through song, each actor displaying a remarkable ability to find meaning in a tune.

The play’s most beautiful

message is to remind the audience members of the importance of making the most of their lives by finding happiness in the small things. Making clear music’s ability to add magic to otherwise common lives, the play is a successful combination of a musical and a skit. It left me with a deep empathy, and with a desire to elevate my own ‘normal’ college life to a higher emotional plane, full of heavy words and nuanced expressions. Runof-the-mill activities are portrayed with a heartwarming integrity, which the characters employ to silently reassure the audience: “We’ve been there.”

Simple, relatable and melodious, “Window Full of Moths” is worth a watch, especially for the worn out!

Contact GAYATRI SABHARWAL at gayatri.sabharwal@yale.edu .

WEEKEND RECOMMENDS: “After the Full Moon”

Part personal essay, part historical account.

PAGE B10

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 18, 2014 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND COLUMNS

FLIRTING WITH FEMALE FIGURE // BY STEPHANIE TOMASSON Have you ever made an appointment to see a robot? Well, I have and I highly recommend it. Though beforehand, I felt rather scandalous as I shuffled nervously into the mirrored room of the David Zwirner Gallery, not quite knowing what to expect.

I was greeted by New York sculptor Jordan Wolfson’s “Female figure” — a tall, blonde animatronic woman wearing a witch mask, and singing and dancing wildly.

She is somewhere between woman, monster and machine. From the back, she looks un-human, but not unattractive. She is attached to a mirror by a large metal pole, fastened on the other end to her body, bisecting her breasts — a sharp cut to her womanhood and a reminder that her body does not support itself. The witch mask, dark green and paired with forehead wart, hooked nose, and hawklike eyes, covers the majority of her face. Peaking out from just below the end of her beak, soft pink lips allude to the delicate face that could lie below the mask, if she were a real person.

Yet, Wolfson leaves the viewer unsure of what is beneath — either wiring or more fake skin, just dyed and treated to a more flattering and feminine quality.

She wears a white strapless leotard with a short transparent skirt that barely grazes her bottom. Tall, heeled white boots end several inches above her knees and matching long white metallic gloves comprise most of her arms past the elbows. Nailed into this white metal, her skin layers over the gloves and takes on an armor-like quality. Finally, around her neck, she wears a thick white choker.

All of her joints are visibly mechanical. She is not pretending to be a real person, but the grace of her movement makes her closer to erotic dancer than robot. She eerily looks at herself in the mirror as she dances, as if keeping the beat only by perceiving her pulsing hands and hips. The thumping of dubstep, electronic and pop music seems

STEPHANIE TOMASSON PUSHING THE PALETTE KNIFE to encourage her. Remarkably, nothing she does looks programmed.

In between thrusting her body back and forth, she stops abruptly to offer musings that one might be able to categorize as “autobiographical information.” Adding further surprise to the already alarming creature, her voice is deep and male. In one memorable proclamation, she twists her hands through the air above her head, announcing, “I don’t believe in God. My mother is dead. My father is dead.

I’m gay. I’d like to be a poet. This is my house.”

The animatronic woman — and Wolfson through her — aims to shock.

Her entire being stands at the intersection of repulsive and suggestive.

Wolfson names the work, “Female figure,” which — along with her voluptuous body — make her woman. Yet, she is neither fully female nor fully figure. She is instead somewhere between a rough machine with visible joints and a sexy dancer. Yet, the work does comment on both definitions of the phrase “female figure” — bodily form and a woman in the public sphere.

Wolfson’s work makes a claim about the sexualization of the female body for popular consumption by placing a both erotic and monstrous platinum blonde in a room full of mirrors that she calls her “home.” We cannot see her front unless we look into the mirror she faces, ourselves. Perhaps

the reflection that we are staring into — of that disturbing witch mask — is our own reflection. There is a certain grotesqueness to us coming to see this curvaceous blonde dance from behind.

Videos and pictures are allowed in the room, but it is nearly impossible to capture the “Female figure” without appearing in the mirror in your own recording. Wolfson won’t let us forget that we are attracted to this tattered and freakish animatronic woman.

The sculpture also raises questions about feminine morals and what it means to be a “proper” woman. She says, “good morning mom … raised me well now here I am,” and “I’ll have sex with you but that’s not my goal.” But she also orders, “Close your eyes, close your eyes.” Her confusing proclamations raise questions — should she be embarrassed or should we? Which party is “badly raised”?

It’s difficult to get an appointment to see “Female figure,” but it’s easy to see her online. Wolfson has used all of the available recording technology to bring this perversion of performance art to anyone who wants to see it. Still, it’s not quite the same if you’re not there while she dances.

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

// JOSHUA ABELOW

Not quite human, but definitely not inanimate.

Sneakers and Seders

Have more questions?

Email WKNDadvice@gmail.com or submit them anonymously on the Yale Daily News website.

// BY REBECCA LEVINSKY

Dear Rebecca, I can’t handle this weather.

The daily fluctuations are so extreme that I end up sweating by the end of the day even if I’m cold in the morning. How will I know what to wear to Spring Fling?

Sincerely, Frazzled Fashionista Dear FF, I’m honored you turned to me to ask this question, instead of to your favorite fashion blog. I can definitely give you a great answer, because I’m from Cleveland, and the weather in Cleveland fluctuates far more than it does here.

It’s so bad, that we typically get snow in April — oh, wait, we just had snow in New Haven this week. Well, whatever. Here are my tips for dressing for an uncertain Spring Fling.

Next Saturday, we’ll be outside all day. As of press time, Weather.com predicts that the weather will be a partly-sunny 66 degrees, with 10 percent chance of precipitation. I’ll cross my fingers that ends up happening, but the weather forecast often lies — and as we saw this week, torrential rain gives no warn-

ing. You might be able to depend the liquor jacket you’ve pieced together by mid-afternoon, but you want to be dressed appropriately from the first pre-game on.

First of all, you need to carefully consider your footwear.

(How will you write 65 pages of final papers if you have blisters everywhere?) If you spent your high school summers listening to Nashville’s biggest stars serenading the crowds at outdoor arenas, then you’ve probably learned that the best choice for any outdoor concert is sneakers. Rainboots could work if it’s at all muddy, but your feet and legs will be super sweaty. The cooler your kicks are, the more points you get in my book. Either way, make sure that you don’t mind your shoes getting trampled.

Beyond that, wear something that might help people spot you in a crowd. You’ll be doing yourself and your friends a favor. Last year, I spent all of Macklemore’s set being sad that I was alone, only to realize that one of my best friends was right in front of me.

Had she been wearing a more colorful outfit, maybe I would have seen her there.

I typically go with a monotone bottom (shorts or a skirt, pants would be too hot) with a fun shirt on top. Freshman year, I wore a belly-dancer shirt, which you would not be remiss in equating with a body-sized jingling dog collar. This was really helpful because my friends could hear the melody of the metal coins hitting each other during the lull between sets and find me. Last year, I wore a top that I can’t really describe, beyond the fact that it was beaded with sequins and from China. Over it, I wore a furlined denim vest. Neither covered my belly button , but I don’t think that mattered. The denim vest, one of my trademarks, couldn’t be missed. Look for pictures on Facebook.

The bottom line is that next Saturday’s weather really doesn’t matter. Your primarily goal in dressing for Spring Fling is finding an outfit that will be remembered, and that will help you stay with your friends. If you succeed, you’ll be able to spot yourself in the pictures taken from stage.

Look for me in my gold sneakers, Rebecca

Dear Rebecca, It’s Passover, and I was doing really well with my Myrtle diet.

How can I observe the holiday without backtracking all the way to my pre-New Year’s resolution lifestyle?

Matza Molly Dear MM, Unfortunately, as with most Jewish holidays, the focus of Passover ends up being on food — even when almost everything that we’re allowed to eat seems inedible.

One of my friends calls Passover food “fake food,” and I think she’s right. The main food groups for the holiday seem to be carbs, eggs and foam. And at Slifka, the chefs seem to have mastered the ability to remove the nutritional value from even the vegetables they serve.

I’m not about to give you advice on dieting, though I’m enticed to suggest you try subsisting on smoothies and fruit for the remainder of the holiday.

I will suggest that instead of focusing on how upset you are about what food you’re being forced to put in your body, you

focus on the other meaning of the holiday. Passover is all about freedom, right? So free yourself from the peer pressure of working towards that Myrtle body and remember that your ancestors were slaves in the land of Egypt.

The rules set for Passover are the reminders of even greater limitations. And though you might be working like a slave through reading week, at least you’re not being forced to build the pyramids.

You’re free to reject society’s expectations for you, and use this time to reset those you have for yourself. Instead of working towards a Myrtle body, or even cramming for a perfect grade, remember you have the freedom to aspire to whatever you want.

After eight days of constipating and flavorless meals, maybe we’ll all be able to see this more clearly.

Between now and then, I’ll see you at lunch in Slifka for some passover potato pasta.

Yours in carbs and eggs, Rebecca Contact REBECCA LEVINSKY at rebecca.levinsky@yale.edu .

// WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

S U N D AY APRIL 20

4/20

WEEKEND RECOMMENDS:

Errywhere // Errytime Remember to inhale!

“E cannabis unum: Marijuana in the Age of Revolution” A chill history paper.

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 18, 2014 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE B11

WEEKEND FAMILY

GIGI L’AMOROSO // BY NIKOLAOS EFSTATHIOU // ANNELISA LEINBACH & EMMA HAMMARLUND

“This is it then. The last hour.”

“Alex, stop making everything sound sinister.”

Their laughter echoed in the darkness like bubbling water.

Below them, myriad small houses formed a sea of purple and warm, yellow lights. Hundreds of acres covered with houses and olive trees. The night was painted with the faintest tinge of blue while the morning breeze carried an invigorating saltiness as it danced with the fumes of their cigarettes. It was the last hour.

“Do you think Dad will wake up soon?”

“I don’t know. Why would he?”

“Well, he’s such an early bird.

Especially before travels.”

“I wouldn’t worry. He had too much wine last night. It was quite the farewell party, even the Mayor was wasted.”

Natalie’s smile was timid, almost invisible. Her lips barely moved. Her cheekbones were swollen with life as always; it was her eyes that smiled. Something shimmered in the irises, blue and bright as ice. Alex looked deep into his sister’s eyes and watches her smile.

“What? Oh, come on, not again! It’s not as if you won’t visit us for Christmas.”

“Still … I can’t believe this is our last sunrise.”

“Alex, do you ever have second thoughts? About leaving Greece, I mean.”

There was a rustling noise and, only seconds later a nightingale soared across the sky. Athens looked vast, yet beautifully nested and contained between the dark red mountains, a sleeping child. If it weren’t for the changing colors of the sky, time might have suspended entirely.

“No, I don’t. I’ll miss you and Mom. And Dad I suppose, sometimes. But I just have to see the world through the top of the Empire State Building. So much to live …”

“Stop. You tire me with your poetic ‘big fish in a little pond’ crap.”

Alex raised his eyebrow before they both burst out laughing.

“What will I do in New York without my sassy voice of reason?”

“You will learn. And then you’ll become amazing at whatever you do, Alex. You really will.”

For a second, there was a strange silence, hissing softly into their ears. The birds and the motorbikes and even the wind stopped.

“Alex.”

“What?”

“Isn’t it weird?”

“What is?”

“This last hour, before dawn.

No matter how much we distract ourselves during the day, no matter how lost and confused we are when we twirl around bed at night, this hour changes everything. It’s like … everything suddenly makes sense. Like a jigsaw falling into place. Maybe you

should write a book about that when you become all rich and famous in America. The last hour.

The first beams of sunlight.” *** The smell of freshly brewed coffee and lavender detergent.

Gentle steps on the wooden floor and a voice drifting in from the sidewalk, shrill and perfectly monotonous. Icy light flickering on the yellow walls.

“Morning! I thought you’d never wake up. It’s already 7:40, you know.”

Alex knows he should panic. He should jump out of bed, feverishly get dressed, grab a scarf and head to work. He should probably skip breakfast or order a bagel from a truck down at Spring Street. He might even have to take a taxi, in case the next 6 train arrives late.

Alex calmly looks at Erol’s face instead. His long, dark eyebrows arch sharply, an omnipresent look of curiosity about them. Below them a pair of the most inquisitive, yet soothing eyes. Dark on the outside, gray like a sea on a winter day, and near the pupil a light warm brown. A chestnut tinge, almost golden. Chiseled, angular face, and a jaw just a bit too strong. Alex could feel the warmth of his breath flirting with the top of his lip for a few seconds before they kiss.

“If I end up losing my job, it will probably be because of you.”

Alex says smiling.

“And if anyone fires you, it will probably be because they’re insane.”

They kiss again, softly this time. The shrill-voiced man is still talking outside, but he seems more monotonous; more and more distant as the seconds go by.

The sound of an ambulance siren, two minutes later, is their only reminder that it’s just another cold October morning in New York City.

“OK, it’s ten to eight. I really should go.”

Alex puts on his clothes, grabs a pea jacket and a grey scarf from the closet. He runs to the bathroom and briefly shuffles his hair, until messy becomes simply disheveled.

“Oh, I forgot to mention. Your dad called a few minutes ago.”

“What?”

“Don’t worry, of course I didn’t answer. It went straight to voicemail. Just don’t forget to call him later or he’ll leave a billion messages and it will all sound Greek to me.”

“If only you’d let me teach you some.” Alex laughs as he wraps the scarf around his neck, opens the door and walks down the staircase, jumping over the last two stairs.

The autumn wind is unexpectedly strong, yet Mercer Street buzzes all the same. A cab is parked at the corner of Broome Street, and Alex runs against the cold wind and gets in.

“Madison Square Park, as fast as you can?”

S AT U R D AY APRIL 19

The wheels make a swooshing sound against the asphalt, and in no time the car has already turned onto Broadway. Even in daytime, a few neon signs shine bright, fluorescent lights. City cars rush everywhere around, occasionally complaining with a loud honk.

Alex checks his phone, and is not surprised to see a text. He knows who sent it before he even opens it.

“Hi Gigi, I called earlier but you didn’t pick up. Call me when you see this. Dad.” Alex gets off the cab at the corner of his building, which is lofty and covered in dark glass. Its walls are divided into small squares, like a giant Rubik’s Cube. A crimson poster covers half of one side, with gaudy retro letters reading “The Big Apple.” His watch points exactly 8:09 as he walks through the iron door. He stops walking, stands in the lobby and smiles contentedly. What’s better than being only fashionably late?

“Oh Alex! Hello dear. I guess that makes two of us being late?”

It is hard to explain, but Sydney Lane’s voice has something raspy yet incredibly piercing in it. Her thick, dirty blonde locks frame her round face; her pouty lips are covered in dark red lipstick. Few eyes were as stony and aloof as hers.

“Well the last time I remember being late in my life was quite the scandalous story. Appointment with my college dean back in Northeastern, and I showed up still drunk and wearing cheerleader clothes. Hilarious, isn’t it?” Her cackle is consuming.

“It is, Sydney. Do you mind sharing the details once we get up? We’re somewhat late already.”

“Oh right. Yes Alex, dear, we must. To the seventh floor then.”

They walk into the elevator as Alex presses the button for the seventh floor twice. As soon as the doors close, a deep, woody musk hampers the air. Sydney Lane lets out an extensive sigh and then presses her body against the elevator glass.

“So Alex, are you seeing anyone these days?” she says as soon as they reach the second floor.

“Still single”. Alex rushes to respond and then exhales, imitating Sydney’s deep sigh almost perfectly.

Seconds later, the door opens sharply, and a tall, lanky man with glasses is waiting by the door.

His eyebrows are thick as curved snowdrifts.

“Oh there she is! Mrs. Sydney Lane.”

“Mr. Desnick?”

“Great job on that piece about vegetarianism as rebellion. Hilarious. Joe and I were laughing all morning. Follow me, Sydney; I have some good news for you.

Good morning, Alex.”

Alex nods back at his boss with a clumsy gesture. Smile next time, Alex. You know you can be charming if you want to.

He walks past the reception

BICYCLE DAY

all-day // everywhere We thought this was about bicycling, but then we followed the Wikipedia link.

area and turns right. There it is, his office. A few square feet of creative space, a nest enclosed by tall, plastic partitions. A picture of Natalie’s invisible smile and a bigger frame with Mom and Dad; a green desk lamp with the light still on from last night. At the corner, an abandoned sunflower stares at the desk like a defeated athlete.

Maybe, sometime soon, Alex will put a picture of Erol on the desk.

Alex sits down on his worn blue suede chair and picks up the pink Post-it glued to the center of his desk. The handwriting is cursive, and jumbled together.

800 words on school-bus driver union strike, due next Friday. Make it funny. Could be in next week’s edition.

P.S. Your dad called, again.

Alex walks to an unoccupied cubicle. He pours some hot coffee into a mug, pulls his cell phone out of his pocket. He dials the number and doesn’t need to wait more than just a brief moment.

“Gigi?”

“Dad.” “I have been calling you all morning. What happened?”

“I had to leave the house early to run errands. And I’ve started working on a new article already, Dad.” “I see.”

Dad’s deep breaths blend with Sydney Lane’s loud cackle; they synchronize perfectly.

“How are things back? How is Natalie?”

“Good. Peaceful, as always.”

Dad exhales one of his long, austere pauses; the ones that expect nothing but silence. “Natalie misses you a lot, you know. She had her first art exhibition today”.

“Oh she did! How was it?”

“Good, I guess. She can do better. How are things there, big boy?”

“You know, a lot of work.

Barely any sleep.”

“Any luck with girls yet?”

Alex pauses. “Still fooling around a little bit. There’s been a few, I guess.”

“Keep ‘em coming, son. Keep ‘em coming.”

Dad’s throaty voice resonates.

Deep and commanding, yet so soothingly familiar. Reminiscing soft morning breezes.

“Good. Gigi I got to go. Take care, alright?”

“Alright, Dad.” Alex hangs up. He walks quickly back to his cubicle, coffee in hand. He straightens his keyboard, and wipes his computer screen with a towel. He briefly plays with his wavy hair, frivolous as a teenager. But he is still fixated on the phone. Secretly, and only for a few moments he hopes the phone will ring, his father’s name once again flashing on the screen. *** Mercer Street is unusually empty for an early evening. The buildings all around Alex pulse neon blood into a lifeless hour.

He struggles for a few seconds, unlocking the painfully difficult door to his building. A flickering light greets him as soon as he opens the apartment’s door.

It emits a peculiar warmth. Erol stands by the door, his eyebrows as curious as always.

“I’ve been waiting all day for this. Alex, today is your first year anniversary.”

Alex hesitates in confusion.

“But … but we started dating in December.”

“You are forgetting about your other partner. Today is your first year anniversary with New York City.”

“Oh my God, you’re right, it is!”

Erol touches Alex’s palm tenderly, presses it with both hands.

“I know she can be quite busy sometimes, so I made you dinner myself. The sesame chicken is, I daresay, delicious.”

“Erol.”

He knows there are few things he could say that will not sound cliché. His hand dives into Erol’s thick black hair. Their lips meet once again, taste bittersweet as plum wine.

“Let’s open the champagne before it gets cold.”

“You do it. I’ll get it all over the place.”

“No, no, no. It’s your anniversary. You just get to clean afterwards.”

Alex pops the champagne bottle open, spilling just a little bit at the table.

“I can’t wait for your second year in New York. You know we’ve never been to my favorite place in town yet? Nolita, you’re gonna love it there.”

“Can’t wait. I haven’t even been to the Statue of Liberty yet, my family is bugging me about it.”

“There’s also this amazing restaurant by Hudson River Park. I don’t think I’ve ever had better Italian. Next weekend, after my concert?”

“Sounds like a plan.”

Erol breathes out a word but then hesitates. The candle light flickers, playing with their eyes.

“Alex, I … I have a question to ask. It’s been on my mind for a few days. It’s about that text from your dad that I read accidently.”

“Go ahead.”

“I don’t know if this is important, or intimate in any way. It’s just been bugging me.”

“What is it, Erol? “… Why does he keep calling you Gigi?”

Alex’s laugh floats through the air, bouncing to the yellow walls and echoing down the living room.

“Oh, my Dad is weird. Well, you know how he loves French music, right?”

“That might be the only thing we have in common.”

“So there is this old French song, called Gigi L’Amoroso. He used to listen to it all the time when I was young. Always said I reminded him of the song, though

my French is too terrible to ever understand why.”

Erol’s inquisitive eyes smile warmly. He gets up and walks to the piano. His masculine hands make a cracking sound as he stretches them. A moment of silence and then he starts playing, his fingers sliding on the ivory keys. “Gigi L’Amoroso. We used to practice this at my high school conservatory. It’s quite a lovely story. Charming young man from a village in Napoli, all the women are madly in love with him. The greatest Italian lover since man discovered fire.”

The melody is vivid, staccato and simple. There is a certain melancholy to it, fragile as icicles.

“So one day, Gigi meets some Hollywood producer and leaves for great America. Everyone gathers on the village square with a lump on their throat to wave goodbye to beloved Gigi.”

The melody gets slower and quieter. The pauses between the notes allow the music to transcend, reverberate.

“Years later, the village sees Gigi again, crying in the shadow.

He has returned from America, defeated. But what do Americans know except ‘le Rock et le Twist.’ Oh what were you thinking, Gigi? That’s not for you; you are Giuseppe Fabrizio Luca Santini. And you are Napoletano.

The entire village gathers again and they celebrate his return with a big feast. And Gigi is, again, a happy man.”

The melody speeds up again, explodes in a frantic staccato.

Erol’s hands move up and down the keys skillfully, his curious eyes now fixated on his art. Faster and faster and faster until the music finally erupts in a brassy harmony.

And there he is, clear, in front of Alex’s eyes. Dad’s tall frame, much younger; his hair still a faint dark brown. He holds Alex’s back with his thick, protective arms, as the melody resonates in the background. Dad hiding his tears when Alex gives his valedictorian speech, Dad proudly smiling when Alex takes his first girl to prom. Dad playing the song’s last few notes while Natalie and Alex sit by the fireplace.

Alex misses it. He needs it all back.

“Are you still there?” Erol asks.

“Anyway, that’s the song! To be honest it’s kind of childish for my taste.”

The last notes still reverberate in the hall. Outside the window, the cold neon signs are wavering. There is no sea of purple and warm, yellow lights. No nightingale soars across the sky.

“Erol …”

Alex touches Erol’s broad shoulders and looks straight into his hazel eyes.

“Do you want to stay up and watch the sunrise with me? The last hour.”

Contact NIKOLAOS EFSTATHIOU at nikolaos.efstathiou@yale.edu .

WEEKEND RECOMMENDS: A Practical Study of Fictional Drinking Games

True American, that one trivia game they play in “Friends,” etc. etc.

PAGE B12

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, APRIL 18, 2014 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND BACKSTAGE

// RENT THE RUNWAY

JENNIFER FLEISS ’05: Runway Revolutionary // BY SARA JONES

Q. You co-founded Rent the Runway in 2008–2009. Tell us a little bit about that experience, and how you arrived at this concept.

Q. Now, over five years since its founding, you’re still working with Rent the Runway. How have things changed?

A. My friend in business school, Jennifer Hyman, came over to me one day and we had a lunchtime conversation about how her sister wanted to purchase a $2,000 Marchesa gown to wear to a wedding. She said that all the dresses in her closet were “dead” to her, because she’d already worn them. … [Hyman] and I realized that this wedding was a very high stakes event for her, and that she wanted something new she could look and feel great in. At the same time, we were also looking at trends like the rise of social media, and talking to women. [It was] by talking to women [that] we kind of evolved the concept of Rent the Runway. We’re big believers in not writing a business plan. For this concept, that meant purchasing dresses at retail price and bringing them to undergraduate college campuses like Yale and Harvard for some of our testing. We tested the different aspects of the concept, to see if women would actually pay to rent a dress.

A. Things are always changing. …

In typical startup fashion, there are new challenges every day. We’ve grown very quickly, which is exciting, [but] just managing that growth is a challenge. We’ve implemented things like renting accessories, and we’ve launched products for sale like stockings, underwear and bras, so the styling services that are part of Rent the Runway can give our customers that head-to-toe look. And we now have three retail locations — two in NYC, one in Las Vegas — that allow the customer to actually interact with the brand in a physical setting. We’re constantly listening to consumers’ thinking about what to offer, how we can expand.

Q. Have you always had a desire to work in a fashion-related industry, or did Rent the Runway really just emerge from that lunchtime conversation?

A. I’ve always been very entrepreneurial and wanted to be an entrepreneur. I don’t think of myself as working in fashion. … My actual job function and the majority of what [Rent the Runway] actually does is all business-oriented. We have eight people here who go to fashion shows and live and breathe that, but for the majority of the business there are a lot of other components that are really important.

Q. Could you tell us a little bit about Rent the Runway’s business strategy?

A. Never before have women been able to access designer fashion at 10 percent of retail price. When we started, fast fashion was emerging and growing but they didn’t really have an economical way of bringing what was on the runway to the average woman. Many of the ways of accessing fashion were eating away at the value of these amazing designer brands and the quality of their products, which was something we wanted everyone to be able to experience. By changing the price point and using the rental model, we’re able to do that. … We hope it’s an experience that will help our customers make better-informed purchasing decisions in the future — even if they can’t buy these brands now, down the road when they can make a purchase they’ll be more informed. Collaborative consump-

tion has entered many industries, but we’re definitely the core innovator in retail in terms of how you think about your wardrobe.

Q. What does a typical day at the office look like?

A. We have over 230 employees now, about 80 of which work in our warehouse. … We have so many different departments — there’s fashion, analysis, technology, marketing — we’re touching practically every area of expertise. It’s been a really fun learning opportunity and has enabled me to “live” in a bunch of different areas. Across the business, we’re very focused on retail, and we’re always funneling the customers’ ideas back into evolving existing concepts and services. I currently spend most of my time with brand management, talking to key partners [Rent the Runway] could work with.

Q. What are some of the most memorable experiences you’ve had since beginning Rent the Runway?

A. One is just when we started the concept, and seeing what an emotional impact our product had on women. And that has continued, with women sending us handwritten notes and photos of them wearing their dresses. Those have always been really memorable for me — it makes us realize that our product is so much more than just a dress.

A second would have to be the fundraising process, just meeting with VCs [venture capitalists] and having them believe in your idea — and seeing how (often male) VCs identify and relate to a “female” product.

I would say, as well, talking to all the designers responsible for creating the dresses we carry. Each break-

through of getting designers excited about our brand has been memorable. It was exciting to have one of those “wins” each time we signed on a new designer. It’s not easy to sign on designers, so getting them to work with you is a success.

And, finally, our warehouse. We have a 50,000 square foot warehouse right now and we’re moving to a larger one soon. We’ve vertically integrated our own dry cleaning, repairs. … Every time I step into that warehouse and see its work and flow that’s a big achievement; a moment that really wows me.

Q. What’s the best part of working in fashion (or, at least, with a company that participates in the industry)?

A. It’s definitely a fun and very creative industry. … Going to fashion week and all the shows is always fun and enjoyable, and being able to see the transformative effect that fashion can have on a person, the bounce that it can put in someone’s step or the confidence it can give. I guess the best part is getting to know the creativity behind that.

Q. And the worst part?

A. It’s a really hard industry to break into. You have to be persistent, and maybe a little bit naive. [In fashion], no doesn’t mean no — it just means “not right now.” Sometimes designers will tell you they don’t want to work with you. You just have to be really persistent and not let them deter you.

Q. What’s next for Rent the Runway?

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A. We’re still just staying very focused on providing these kind of magical experiences for women; letting women access designer brands.

We have over 4 million members right now, and we’re just focused on providing better and better experiences and getting even more members.

Q. Do you have any advice for young entrepreneurs?

A. In general, I think the concept of testing your idea out and bringing it to a market — making sure that your concept “has legs,” and seeing the different challenges and getting feedback — is key. Putting yourself on a timeline is important too, setting different “milestones” for yourself as a startup. And not being afraid to fail — realizing that each failure has learning opportunities that come with it.

Q. And specifically for young female entrepreneurs?

A. Often females are a little more realistic, “restrained” with their concept. Encouraging women to think big is really important — to be really aggressive when thinking about how big of a platform their concept could be. Don’t be timid with your concept, because when you’re going to VCs [venture capitalists], they’re looking for the next “billion-dollar idea.” You really need to be able to sell it, to make them believe in your idea.

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

WE’RE...VERY FOCUSED ON PROVIDING THESE KIND OF MAGICAL EXPERIENCES .

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f you’ve ever found yourself buried in a mountain of crumpled clothes and credit card debt, whining about having nothing to wear and maybe downing a bottle of Chardonnay, there’s a good chance Jennifer Fleiss ’05 could be your new best friend and/or the Messiah. (WEEKEND has had more of these moments than we’d like to admit.) Since Rent the Runway’s official launch in 2009, Fleiss and her business partner, Jennifer Hyman, have been eliminating pre-event sartorial angst with their revolutionary “designer-for-less” rental platform. Read on for the co-founder and head of business development’s advice for young entrepreneurs, thoughts on why business plans are overrated, and the lunch conversation that started it all.