WEEKEND

WEEKEND

// FRIDAY, MARCH 11, 2016

GUTS AND GLORY David Shimer and Jon Victor plumb the innards of Yale’s supposedly easiest courses. // Page B3

COPING

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LEARNING AND GROWING IN SCHOOL Alice Zhao talks about bananas, other surprises, and becoming an adult in this world.

CUPOLA

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CASTING

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YALE’S HIPPEST SCENE, ABOVEGROUND

WALKING THE WALK, NOT JUST TALKING THE TALK

Sophie Dillon explores a classic Yale hideout in Davenport.

Noah Kim asks whether Yale theater is doing enough to amplify underrepresented voices. // KAIFENG WU

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MARCH 11, 2016 · yaledailynews.com

ZHAO

WEEKEND VIEWS

Sometime in February, when it was dark and raining and I was upset with myself, I saw a whole unpeeled banana on the ground and hated it immediately. It was so bright, and so obvious, and so ridiculous, I almost kicked it. This is a cruel joke, I thought, someone left this out so I could trip on it, or he could trip on it, or she could trip on it. I stood there for too long, glaring at a piece of dining hall fruit on the pavement.

My shoes were soaked; my hair was wet. The banana stared back, impassive. I walked away and made a joke about it later, to one of my friends.

“I don’t pay taxes so that people throw bananas on the ground,” I said.

And then I started to cry.

The truth is, I still don’t know what any of this means. None of it makes sense: the banana, the crying, the taxes — I don’t even pay taxes. This memory, it has the same hallucinatory quality as a bad dream: Certain details stick out to me, and I know they’re real, they must be, because they’re so in focus, so obsessively concrete. The way the banana curved, the way my socks felt in the cold, the way the rain dripped down the hood of my coat and stuck to my forehead: I’ve attached meaning to this moment, and I’ve wanted to write about this moment, and I am writing about this moment, but why?

I guess I could say something about sadness. I’ve come to realize that I’m not happy here, not entirely. There’s this sentence that keeps slinking around my head, that I’m a squatter in this place, one day I’ll be going back to wherever I’m supposed to be. Part of this — this pit that opens up occasionally without warning — is homesickness. I think about the sun, and the

FRUIT // BY ALICE ZHAO

cacti, and the way grit feels on the fingers when the wind blows from the mountains or from Mexico. I think about the dry heat, the 80 degrees, how all the houses only have flat roofs. I miss Arizona terribly, and this I can reconcile.

But there’s this other part, too. It’s an indescribable weight that manifests without warning. It starts to sleet; it starts to snow, I miss the bus, the pocket of my jacket rips. For some reason, I keep thinking that I’ll write this really melancholy short story, about loneliness, or loss, or whatever.

I want to tell this to people, this ache, this needing — and at the same time I can’t. I don’t want to be the girl who breaks down when she sees bananas on the ground. I don’t want to be a person who doesn’t make sense.

I’ve gotten better about this.

I remember one time, my friend and I were at dinner, and I was cutting my breaded chicken and I said I was sad. I was anxious and sad, and I’d been hysterical five minutes before I saw her, before I wiped my eyes and put on my good face, trilled out, “Hey — how’re you?” She put down her knife and said, I know, believe me, I know. She said, I hid under some bushes yesterday and sat there for two hours — I sat there for two hours, because I didn’t know what else to do with myself. Thank God, I said, I mean — She cut me off, and

o f those l i t tle columns by the // CATHERINE PENG side of the road.

I paused, again. I almost — almost — smiled.

Because I imagined this Yalie — some anonymous, nondescript Yalie — in winter clothes, lugging around smiled.

“It’s OK.” this sack of bananas that they filched I’d like to say at that moment I from the dining hall or spent their changed, but to be honest, I don’t Durfee’s swipe on. They stop in ranreally remember when I started talking dom places around campus, take a about it, when I started fighting back banana out and leave it there. The against the shame that kept my mouth bananas are awkward and rude and shut. I only know that this happened, completely irrelevant. Sometimes weeks later: they rot, entirely unnoticed.

I was heading back from Panera, and But other times, they’re stumbled it was dark and chilly, with the kind of upon. Other times, they’re thought wind that cuts straight into the bone. about.

Outside of the Yale Repertory Theatre, there it was, another banana on the Contact ALICE ZHAO at ground, this time propped against one alice.zhao@yale.edu .

On returning to a home I’ve never been to LIU

// BY CARLEEN LIU

In China, they teach you the geography of the country by telling you that it looks like a rooster. “I don’t know what it’s called,” my middle school friend said, “But my dad’s from the rooster’s butt!” I was born and raised in the United States, so I didn’t learn much about China, or how it looked like a rooster. Geography is sorely neglected in U.S. education. Here, it’s harder to trace where we’ve been, harder to recognize where we are now.

Every country wants to be the center of the world. China especially, so much that it named itself Zhongguo, “the middle kingdom.” But I didn’t give a map of China more than a glance until I was older. I was looking for a Chinese name in English letters, my family’s first known starting point.

Guangdong.

My fingers trace the map, scaling distances in seconds. My hands cross land much faster than feet could, or even planes, trains or cars, but the thoughts in my mind and the thump of my heart are faster still. My body is always trying to keep up. It grew up in two places at once. Children of immigrants are ghostlike in that way, drifting back and forth between worlds.

Our bodies and souls are warped by the pulling and pushing away of our homes until we are stretched thin like paper between teeth. I have a dried-up native tongue that speaks simply, and only when it has to. I have a colonial tongue that speaks loudly and whenever it wants to.

Guangdong Province is in the south, the soft underside of the rooster’s belly, where you would hold the rooster if you were to cradle it close to you. I’ve never touched Guangdong.

I’ve never even sat in an airport there or passed through on a train, couldn’t even say I’ve “technically” been there.

But I can’t say I’ve never met Guangdong — it knows me too well.

I have a bad habit of turning people into places and places into people: My parents became China for me and

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my sister, and we became the United States for them. My father is Guangzhou because he’s all I know of Guangzhou: his slow-cooked soups are Guangzhou, his Cantonese is Guangzhou, his parental discipline and expectations are Guangzhou. But people are hesitant to call him the United States, even though he was Beatles haircut and aviators when he met my mom in English class in the ’80s, and even though he is father of children born in California.

When my father called me a banana, I knew he almost meant it as a good thing. Yellow on the outside, white on the inside. I am the youngest, but my parents prefer that I order when we go out to eat at American restaurants. My English is the best because it was born and raised here. I am the United States. *** “Where are you from?” “No, where are you really from?” Even my parents use the words “American” and “white” interchangeably, though I try to tell them that we are American too.

In China, no one questioned my presence unless I opened my mouth.

There was a freedom that comes with looking like I belong, walking onto the subway and staring back at a sea of bobbing black hair and faces that tell me we’re connected somehow. The second time I went to China, I spent a summer in Beijing, where I signed a pledge that I wouldn’t speak English, only Mandarin, because I was there for a language program. But after just one year of college Mandarin, it may as well have been the same as a vow of silence. I never learned how to read or write Chinese until I came to college, and I spoke Cantonese conversationally with my family. I never knew when to push or pull a door because I couldn’t recognize the characters.

When I ordered food at the cafeteria, I could only point — zhe ge, na ge — this, that. But I’d learned from a young age to smile and keep my head down.

SPRING BREAK

Everywhere // 24/7 Be free, little birds, be free.

Our classes were funny because our Chinese was so bad. My friend from Harvard accidentally said he doesn’t know how to use pants when he wanted to say he didn’t know how to use chopsticks. The teacher gently corrected him and we all laughed and it was lighthearted. It did not remind me at all of the way some of my dad’s customers laugh at his English.

On weekends, we walked in the park. Grandparents slowly stretched out their palms in tai chi and middleaged women danced what I like to call the aiyi (auntie) exercise moves. Some of my friends’ moms do the same cringeworthy movements in the park around the corner from my house in Los Angeles. On apartment balconies, clotheslines fluttered with clothes and unabashed underwear. Chinese people don’t really use dryers. My grandmother pins everything on clotheslines as well. Out of an open window somewhere, the smell of someone cooking with garlic, ginger and oyster sauce tumbled down. So much reminded me of home, but so much of home came from here.

The first time I stepped foot in China was the first time my mother went back to her hometown of Shanghai since she left. I was 10 years old.

She didn’t say much about it, except to remark how much has changed. When we drove down a street, she could only tell me what used to be there — her home, where my grandfather used to work. It’s all gone now, replaced by shiny stores or corporate buildings.

one their faces, bodies and blood are still faithful to. They won’t be able to speak to their elders. Their silence will be worse than mine and larger because they won’t care. It will be like uncooked grains of rice slipping through fingers, and they will ask for ketchup and ranch on everything.

When I think about the generations to come, I remember the grandfather who died the year I was born. The closest I’ve gotten to meeting him is

kneeling in front of his portrait at my grandmother’s house, incense smoke filling the space between us. We are alone and it is quiet because I don’t know what to say. When I die, I want to be buried facing home. When they can’t figure out if that means East or West, set me with the sun. I will rise with it as well.

Contact CARLEEN LIU at carleen.liu@yale.edu .

*** When we left, I wasn’t sure if or when I could return again. Now a decade has passed since the first time, and I still haven’t been to a place in China where I speak like I do with my family. I don’t know if any of this counts as coming home. I know that the longer I stay in the United States, the more likely it is that my children will reject their second home — the

// ASHLYN OAKES

WKND RECOMMENDS: You Know You Love Me — Blair gets a step-brother.

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MARCH 11, 2016 · yaledailynews.com

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WEEKEND GUTS

GUTS WORKLOAD RATING AND ENROLLMENT

THERE ARE GOOD REASONS TO HAVE COURSES THAT ARE PITCHED TO PEOPLE WHO ARE TRYING TO BE CULTURALLY LITERATE IN A VARIETY OF WAYS.

379 ENGL 293 Race and Gender in American Literature

Enrollment

126 PLSC 415 Religion and Politics

2.0

102 MATH 190 Fractal Geometry

2.2

2.3

Workload rating

// EMILY HSEE

HAVING THE GUTS // BY DAVID SHIMER AND JON VICTOR ot all courses at Yale College are c rea te d e q u a l .

While Yale takes pride in the quality of its undergraduate course offerings, most students know that some of the University’s most popular courses are reputed to shell out As and A-minuses in return for minimal work. These classes, commonly known as “guts,” may or may not be interesting or welltaught; they may or may not be worthwhile; and students may or may not care. One factor ties them together: they’re easy.

“Can be very boring, and was probably one of the most boring classes I’ve taken, but it’s not too difficult,” wrote one anonymous student reviewer of PLSC 415, “Religion and Politics,” which has received an average work rat-

N

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ing of two out of five over the past five semesters, according to student course evaluation data. The course currently enrolls 126 students — nearly 60 percent more than in spring 2014. “Very very easy to get an A-, much harder to get an A. But this class is almost no work.”

Another reviewer wrote of the same course: “The class is a massive gut but incredibly boring.

You can get away with not going to class and still probably get an A. The readings are random and unnecessary so you don’t even need to do that. The final exam was pretty much all opinion questions. Take it as a gut if you need the distributional credit or as an easy PLSC class.”

Based on interviews with more than 30 students, professors and administrators, there is wide disagreement on the value of gut courses and whether they even

exist. Some say they are as integral to the fabric of academic life at Yale, similar to shopping period or the option to take a class Credit/D/Fail, while others say they undermine the purpose of distributional requirements.

And others still say the very idea of gut courses is dangerous, in that it encourages students to put in little effort before receiving poor grades in classes they expected to excel in easily.

DO GUTS HAVE VALUE? There’s no simple consensus on whether guts add value to Yale’s curriculum. To some, guts have only positive implications: They enable students to balance their schedules and focus on the subjects they care most about. Olivia Scharfman ’19, who is enrolled in “Fractal Geometry,” a math course geared mainly

FLOWER FESTIVAL 花朝節 OISS // 3 p.m.

Spring has sprung!

toward non-STEM majors, said she considers gut classes to be a strength of Yale’s curriculum, rather than a weakness.

“Classes like [‘Fractal Geometry’] might be widely considered by the student population to be ‘gut courses,’” Scharfman said.

“But that’s just because they’re the first class of that subject that students find accessible.”

Scharfman added that regardless of whether students take a course because it is easy or because they are genuinely interested in the subject, what matters is that they are being exposed to material they otherwise would not have encountered. Secretary and Vice President for Student Life Kimberly Goff-Crews also noted some benefits to lessdemanding courses that enable students to explore academically.

From the perspective of student life, she said, part of a liberal arts

education entails gaining exposure to a wide variety of subjects.

“You can call them whatever you want to call them, but there are good reasons to have courses that are pitched to people who are trying to be culturally literate in a variety of ways,” Goff-Crews explained. “The ability to look at and understand topics that you know that you want to be exposed to because you’re seeking to be a lifelong learner, to go to a class created with the purpose of giving students exposure to an area that might not be their life’s work — that is a positive thing in a liberal arts environment.”

But University President Peter Salovey was not convinced that gut courses add value to Yale, instead viewing them as unfair to those who enroll in more rigorous classes.

“Although courses can certainly vary in terms of the level of difficulty and challenge, courses in which students receive top grades for very little effort and in which they’re not challenged to do their best work I think are unfair to those students who are motivated to take their studies seriously,” Salovey said.

While Salovey sees guts as unfairly disadvantageous to students who avoid taking them, some students interviewed contended they are more harmful to those who do.

For instance, Lucinda Peng ’18, who is currently taking 6.5 credits, said the popularity of guts is unfortunately driven by student obsession over their GPAs. “People are cheating themselves if they take a gut for an easy A,” Peng said. “As cheesy as it sounds, one of my favorite classes is also the one I have to put the most work into because it’s so relevant to what I want to do.”

Min Sun Cha ’17 expressed a dissimilar sentiment, stating that part of a liberal arts education is having the option to choose which courses to take. If students want to compromise their learning experience to get good grades with little work, that’s their choice, she said.

However, Saran Morgan ’18,

who is currently enrolled in “Science of Science Fiction,” disputed the notion that students are hurting themselves by taking guts. Despite taking the class for a science credit, Morgan said she has found that enrolled students get as much out of the course as they put in. She isn’t required to learn a significant amount, but she can when she wants to.

“Guts don’t undermine distributional requirements; it is the emphasis on GPA — that’s what hurts the liberal arts education,” Morgan said. “Having guts can be a very good thing because if I had to take introductory chemistry to get my science credit, that would go badly. But this way I still learn something I normally would not have.”

Many students choose to take gut courses to fulfill their distributional requirements in fields in which they have only a limited amount of interest. But Claire Grishaw-Jones ’17 said that often, students are afraid to explore options beyond what’s easy in fear of receiving a bad grade.

Grishaw-Jones said she would advocate for more Credit/D/ Fail options or being able to take distributional requirements Credit/D/Fail.

“I am really interested in math and would love to take more math classes, but because I know it would bring down my GPA I feel like I can’t,” Grishaw-Jones said.

“I feel like I have no room to take anything that’s a risk.”

STUDENTS LOVE THEM In a way, the popularity of socalled gut courses speaks to their importance in the Yale undergraduate curriculum. The numbers are stark: 102 students in “Fractal Geometry;” 126 students in “Religion and Politics;” and, at the peak of shopping period, 335 students in “Strategy, Technology and War.” Course demand for “Race & Gender in American Literature,” or ENGL 293 — a course often seen as an easy writing credit for SEE GUTS PAGE B8

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MARCH 11, 2016 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND HIDES

I WAS HERE // BY SOPHIE DILLON

Way up entryway B of Davenport College, past the lone, gnawed carrot that’s found a home under the second-floor radiator, up the narrow staircase where one starts to feel her presence forbidden, through an attic flecked healthily with detritus, its ceiling just short enough to strain a neck, lies a white door marked in thin pencil: “The Place.” From outside, Davenport’s cupola stands clean and decorative, like a groom on a cake. Inside there are three tiers of garbage.

“The Place’s” floor lies open like an autopsy; its boards uproot to soft pink bellies of insulation, its brick wall crumbles to a halt, its struts and buttresses rot like dead guts. Up a rusty ladder is the lower cupola, a small cement landing with just room enough to sit. On the floor I count 17 bum ends of joints, 13 cigarette butts, two Budweiser cans (lightly dented), two wine bottles aligned opposite, two Torpedo IPA bottles aligned opposite, the calcified remnants of a soft pretzel

and a whopping 34 Black and Mild filters — wood-tip wineflavored, according to the five empty boxes, and anyone who knows anything about Black and Milds, a lesson I learned from Javi Brennan sophomore year of high school. The place is a fivestar stoner den, “a little treasure,” says Darren Watsky, who visited four times his freshman year. Watsky found out about the cupola from a friend who’d heard it from a friend in his cello group. Word of mouth has kept visitors coming and leaving their names for the past couple decades (the oldest date I find listed is “Steven M + Jonathan Z, Sept ’90”). As I climb another ancient ladder into the upper cupola, a closet-sized space that is mostly window, the names multiply.

“Morgan was here” “Patrick Ng was here” “Rima, Global Affairs, Age: 21, Interests: Queefing” “Laura Martinez BF ’14 fuck yeah! <3 I love everyone who loves ME!” Martinez, who has lived in

Thailand since graduating, visited the cupola senior year with a couple of friends from dance.

“We were looking to do some bucket-list things.” As to her note: “I was feeling particularly gutsy about the fact that I was leaving and Yale could do nothing to me.”

Another name reads “2013 Stovetop Mike,” the only name I recognize — a thick-fingered junior with a ponytail and bolo tie who’d insisted I would “find my people eventually” after I’d fretted over starched, whitesocked Yalies upon my first visit here in high school. We haven’t spoken of the interaction since.

“Yeah, I’ve been up there a few times with my friend. We’d just hang up there and smoke.

One time we had a Danksgiving,” (an event that did not take place on or near Thanksgiving) “We smoked a lot of j’s. It was dope.”

When I ask Stovetop Mike if he was put off by the archaeological dig of trash, he responds, “I’m a disgusting, shitty human.

I’ve slept on roofs for the past three nights. It takes a lot to

gross me out.”

“The revolution will never be televised,” wrote Jamie Singer ’15, an alum who is also accustomed to sleeping on roofs. “It’s a funny story,” he says when I ask him about the cupola, “sophomore year I was actually living up there for a bit.” Singer, shafted by a bad housing draw, landed in a suite with a roommate “who shall not be named,” he says with a laugh. “For a while I was sleeping in a different suite every night. Then one day I found that little tower with my friend Tia. I ended up spending the night there.” Singer dragged a couch (now gone) up to the first floor and slept there for a couple months before Yale Outdoors found someone had been living out of their storage closet in the lower cupola — Singer had borrowed a tent and sleeping bag.

“They changed the locks so I couldn’t get back in,” Singer says, though he was never caught. I ask why he wrote his name. He says immediately, “It’s the same reason you write your name anywhere, to leave a piece

of yourself behind for the next generation.”

Standing in the upper cupola at night, the whole of Yale strung out like tea lights, there is certainly the feeling that you’ve conquered something, that you’ve bested Yale in some indelible way. Truth be told, the view is better in the daytime, though everything looks farther away. I watch a pack of muscled boys play touch football with Davenport Dean Ryan Brasseaux and his son. They catch effortless passes across the neat summer grass. They have short hair and clean smiles and the kind of sweat that is somehow pretty.

From up here you can see the other disheveled Yale roofs — some forgotten scaffolding on top of Sterling, a great dent in J. Press where various weather has gummed into a dense, black pool. The windows of the cupola are painted shut.

“Before I came here I thought everyone loved exploring.

That’s just what we used to do at home,” says Watsky, who showed me the cupola for the

first time last week. “This place feels nostalgic.” I agree, rolling around an old Black and Mild with my toe. He insists on being quiet, thought I think he’s being overly cautious. The stairwell door is taped open, “The Place’s” door is unlocked, there are sturdy ladders resting from floor to floor of the cupola that are clearly not there for maintenance men. Watsky explains that a group of athletes living in the suite below complained last year about kids smoking in the cupola, an activity the dean turns a blind eye to so long as people aren’t disruptive. It’s unclear if graffiti in the cupola is an act of roof-hopping, weedsmoking rebellion or a sanctioned Yale activity, a poorly kept secret for those who feel more at home in piles of Ricola wrappers than on freshly rolled lawns. The walls comfort rather than announce: “I was here” “Me too” Contact SOPHIE DILLON at sophia.dillon@yale.edu .

STANDING IN THE UPPER CUPOLA AT NIGHT, THE WHOLE OF YALE STRUNG OUT LIKE TEA LIGHTS, THERE IS CERTAINLY THE FEELING THAT YOU’VE CONQUERED SOMETHING, THAT YOU’VE BESTED YALE IN SOME INDELIBLE WAY. // CAROLINE TISDALE

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LITERARY HAPPY HOUR

Happiness Lab (756 Chapel St) // 6 p.m.

Poetry & Pints. (BYOB.)

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MARCH 11, 2016 · yaledailynews.com

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WEEKEND ARTS // JACK BARRY

ABSENT WITHOUT LEAVE IN MASHANTUCKET // BY JACK BARRY

A few weeks ago, I received an email advertising “free concert tickets.” As I consciously choose not to read the many warnings about phishing from Rich Mikelinich, Yale’s chief information security officer, I opened the email and skimmed its contents. “Free,” “concert” and “tickets” were the only words I gleaned from the message, and that was enough for me to fire back a response with my name, phone number and social security number.

Three weeks later, on March 5, the eve of my 20th birthday, I and four other movers and shakers traveled to Foxwoods Hotel and Casino in Mashantucket, Connecticut to see a live performance by AWOLNATION and Fall Out Boy. The trip was sponsored by Red Bull Records, a recording studio owned by the energy drink company, Red Bull.

(Red Bull. Red Bull. Red Bull.

Say it three times and Michael Keaton will appear dressed as

Betelgeuse with a 12-pack of the energy drink.)

You may not know the name AWOLNATION, but you’d probably recognize Sail Cat. In 2013 and 2014, the same time the band’s song “Sail” was climbing the charts, a video of a cat slinking around to “Sail” went viral. The cat leaps from an open window right as the band’s frontman, Aaron Bruno, shouts “SAIL.” The video has been viewed almost 20 million times on YouTube. Emboldened with confidence from my fellow Red Bullies, I resolved to ask Bruno about Sail Cat during our interview later that day.

Foxwoods is composed of six casinos and five hotels, and covers a total of 9 million square feet, making it the largest casino in the United States.

It took us 15 minutes to walk from the entrance to the restaurant for dinner. The bingo hall overflowed with octogenarians carrying their oxygen tanks and

cigarettes. Armed with a hardhitting question about Sail Cat, I found the tour manager outside the theater and followed him through a series of black swinging doors, finally entering Bruno’s dressing room.

As soon as I saw Bruno, I knew I would never pair the words “sail” and “cat” in his presence. A sweet concoction of SoCal and punk-rock, he probably inspired Avril Lavigne’s “Sk8er Boi.” He offered me a seat. I peed a little.

Bruno characterized his musical career as a series of failed bands that led to nowhere, which ultimately inspired him to forge a different path with AWOLNATION. He describes “Sail,” the band’s most successful song to date, as “artistic, stranger, left of center,” and said the track’s success and longevity — it was on the Billboard Hot 100 for 79 weeks — continues to surprise him.

Bruno thrives off of under-

ground venues’ intimate energy, and says he tries to forge an intimate connection with audiences even in packed stadiums.

He’s currently on an arena tour with Fall Out Boy, and played Madison Square Garden the night before I spoke with him.

While Bruno laments the lack of stage dives and smash dancing at AWOLNATION’s concerts now, he still finds ways to foster alternative-punk, bombastic energy in his performances.

“My favorite shows are the ones where people sweat and have a great time,” he told me.

“I noticed there are some seats here [at Foxwoods,] but I will make sure people stand.”

He kept his promise.

AWOLNATION’s performance felt like a surreal, laser-filled dream. Flashing strobe lights and a thumping bass brought the audience to its feet as it scream-sang along with Bruno.

At one point, Bruno doubled over as he clutched the micro-

phone. He fell to his knees and scooted on his forehead across the stage as he wailed the song lyrics. The band’s live performance differed from the sound of their albums. Live, they were fluid and more adventurous, expanding upon the alt-rock influences in their music.

Lasers sliced across the auditorium, dazzling the audience in a dizzying spectacle of light and sound; pulsing strobe lights entranced us. AWOLNATION’s performance was a sensory experience. The bass thudded through our chests, and the smell of sweat filled our nostrils.

During “Soul Wars,” the bass seemed to syncopate against my pulse, and I couldn’t tell whether my heart had stopped or become one perpetual beat.

I was surprised at the number of AWOLNATION’s songs that I recognized; I’d heard songs like “I Am” and “I’m on Fire” countless times, even if I didn’t know their names.

Finally, at encore, the band began to play “Sail.” The acidtrip light design paired with punk-rock edge packed a sonic and visual punch. Hearing it live was an entirely new experience.

It took over our bodies in a way listening at home never could.

I feared the 4,000-seat theater would turn into the giant mosh pit of Bruno’s dreams.

I remembered, before the concert, Bruno’s emphasis on connecting to the fans while onstage.

“I think that I see myself in the audience,” he’d said. “I don’t feel above the people we’re playing for. There’s so much I could learn from people’s faces and reactions. I think that comes from most of my career being unnoticed or unheard. I feel this need to speak loudly and sing loudly so people hear me.”

Contact JACK BARRY at john.c.barry@yale.edu .

Reconstructing Reality at the Silk Road Art Gallery // BY RACHEL AN “The first reconstruction is shape. The second reconstruction is sense and color,” Dan Li, the manager of the Silk Road Art Gallery, told me. “The third reconstruction is the reality we process.”

On a freezing Saturday afternoon, I entered “The Third Reconstruction,” the latest exhibition at the Audubon Street gallery. Run by two Chinese women, it regularly features both contemporary Chinese and talented local artists. On Saturday, Feb. 27, it held an opening reception for the solo show of local artist Karen Dow. Before I could take in the art on the surrounding walls, try the assortment of snacks and drinks or even soak in the gallery’s warmth, a cheery woman accosted me, shaking my hand and greeting me in broken English.

Gallery owner Liwen Ma brought her experience in art and business from China to New Haven two years ago. Earlier in the week, I had interviewed her for a News piece where she described the gallery’s aim: to increase understanding of Asian art in New Haven, a city Ma chose due to its academic climate and international environment. Today, she happily chatted about the success of the installation and the reception.

Dow’s prints and paintings, mostly grouped into twos and threes, hung on clean white

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walls. All her pieces were square or near-square, filled with other rectilinear shapes touching and overlapping each other. Squares and rectangles popped up both within a single work and around the gallery in different sizes and colors, unifying the entire gallery space despite its irregular layout.

Ma’s ambition to provide a space where community members and local artists could meet and interact seemed inherent in the room’s arrangement. Matching furniture sets provided comfortable seating, and various bookshelves — which housed art books, Chinese ceramics and potted plants — divided the space, often forming clusters of people. Among them, crowds of news correspondents, curious community members and other local artists gathered — studying the art, chatting with each other, drinking white wine. I awkwardly sipped iced tea from a plastic cup instead, and plopped down on one of the couches, staring at three large paintings.

“Side Effect,” “Arcadia” and “Nova,” all done on 30-by-34 foot canvases, are three of Dow’s most recent works. Among the first pieces noticed by an observer, the paintings sit near the front of the gallery, illuminated by natural lighting.

Dow’s works explore relationships: between form and color, material and shape, negative and positive space and surface and depth. Her working process

involves spontaneous painting and repainting, constant editing, taking away and adding, until balance is achieved in every area. Harmony arises as a result, despite the constraints of a square frame.

For Dow, the “Third Reconstruction” theme signifies this process. Coincidentally, she said, she painted over each painting three times. The finished product, what we see on the surface, is the third layer, and the result of three reiterations. Because of this, the foreground and the background closely interact, each supporting the other, and the boundary between the two is often blurred.

There exists “a tenderness,” Dow explained, in the way these relationships are created — each shape’s meaning is dependent on those around it.

But the works’ “human quality” really attracted me to her works. Dow described how she manually created all the shapes in her prints and paintings. Instead of using instruments such as tape or rulers to produce exact, square shapes, she allowed the edges to waver and imperfection to show through. Dow improvises and relies on intuition throughout her process, and her resultant works exude authenticity.

Further into the gallery hung smaller monotypes. Dow views her prints as a preparatory sketch for larger paintings, and an arena to generate imagery. On one wall, there hung three pieces titled the

“STEAM OF LIFE” FILM SCREENING Institute of Sacred Music // 6:30 p.m.

A splendid series of Scandinavians seeking solace in saunas.

“Laws of Coloring,” monoprinted with gouache. Her approach to color theory, much like her painting process, hinged on relationships.

“The way I think of color is born out of the methodology of keeping an open relationship between colors,” she explained.

“It’s about watching what happens when colors come together.”

Indeed, the three prints, although similar in size and compositional elements, featured distinct color schemes that, working together with the rectilinear shapes, created a sense of unity.

The exhibition also featured a few ceramic pieces by another local artist, Kiara Matos. Her pieces, influenced by vibrant color and nature, convey her Venezuelan roots. Her objects also explore play and functionality, and added to the gallery’s homey décor.

I felt at ease at the exhibition as I loitered, empty plastic cup in hand, Snapchatting the space.

Dow’s abstract pieces spur reflection on various themes, from imperfection to authenticity, and are complemented by Matos’ different take on color. But although both artists have displayed art worth discovering, and most people go to art galleries for art, I would go back to the Silk Road Art Gallery for its low-key space, harmonious arrangements and international elegance.

Contact RACHEL AN at rachel.an@yale.edu .

WKND RECOMMENDS: Like It Like That — Dan fulfills Yalie wet dream by working at pretentious lit mag.

// NGAN VU

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MARCH 11, 2016 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE B7

WEEKEND RENTALS

ABOMINABLE AIRBNB // BY WKND

Spring has sprung, and with it enviable and not-so-enviable Spring Break trips. Whether you’re jetting to your private island, doing good in far-off lands or road-tripping with your absolute besties, you’ll probably be needing Airbnb. Just keep an eye out for listings like these:

3 stars Met many lovely people through this Airbnb, but our lifestyle choices were just not compatible. Be aware that the owners are in residence, as well as some friends who are installing a performance artwork in the living room. The bedroom was described as accommodating 1–2 people or “however many your heart can hold”; this is an admirable sentiment but when we arrived we found only a twin-sized trundle bed, which was a bit of a squeeze for me and my husband, although the walls were beautifully decorated with prayer flags. They are not kidding when they say the apartment is “strictly vegan” — they located and confiscated my yogurt-covered pretzels immediately upon arrival.

Future guests should make sure to note that meat, gluten, shellfish, sugar, soda, nuts and sesame are also forbidden.

2 stars A number of disturbing factors in my stay. Firstly, it’s obvious that the owner, Jake, is only listing his apartment on Airbnb in order to fill time since his longtime girlfriend, Chelsea, moved out several months ago. Jake’s continuous references to Chelsea in almost every sentence and his repeated insistence that he was doing fine and just taking some time for himself (I hadn’t asked) struck me as odd from the outset. It was also a little strange to encounter close-up pictures of Chelsea’s face not only framed on the mantel and over my bed, but also taped to the insides of cupboards and stored in dresser drawers. The apartment is missing some amenities which Chelsea took with her after the breakup, such as a hair dryer, a microwave and all silverware; Jake seems to feel her return is imminent and there is no need to replace these items. In the evening, Jake compelled me to examine all of Chelsea’s recent Facebook updates, as well as those of all the men he suspects she might be dating. He was a very friendly renter, but I did lock my door before going to sleep.

2 stars While the listing advertised a “private and secluded space,” there were actually 18 beds in the room. The owner assured me that if I closed the curtain around my bunk, it would seem just like having my own room. I followed her advice, but many of the other guests seemed to have severe sleep apnea, and the curtain didn’t protect me from that.

1 star Would NOT repeat. The owner, Marla, had an irrational fear that I would steal things from her house and only allowed me inside when she was there, which wasn’t a lot given her work hours. Every morning before she kicked me out she searched my bag, which she assured me was “standard practice” but felt pretty invasive. She was convinced I had designs on her collection of Brady Bunch memorabilia, which was certainly not the case. Any future guest should avoid looking at particular objects for too long, or she will become suspicious.

0 stars Two words: cat pee.

Negative infinity stars Owner was in residnece and i was VVV displeased. like leaving me a note on the toilet seat saying ‘srry the toilet can only take a certain smart amount of old lady poop????”

RUDE i can’t control my IBD. n e way the landlady bothered me MUCHO and i would in my personal opinion avoid staying with. house had “good bones” as is said in Ameriqua, but frankly is it rlly worth it? wood floors good and separate bath tub was alluring but idk in my opinion it is not the central thing. all i want is love and GOOD hospitality and these were unprovided. next time will sleep on park bench.

Negative stars The listing advertised a washer, dryer, stove and terrace. This is a LIE — there were NO amenities. The roof leaked, and halfway through my stay the electricity stopped working. There was only one window and certainly no terrace. Due to the several eviction notices I discovered on the door, I believe I was actually squatting.

// ASHLYN OAKES

FRIDAY MARCH

11

TINASHE

College Street Music Hall // 7 p.m.

All hands on deck, all in the [CSMH] just like that (like that).

WKND RECOMMENDS:

FRIDAY MARCH

You’re the One That I Want — Blair is waitlisted at Yale!

11-12

HAVING OUR SAY: THE DELANY SISTERS’ FIRST 100 YEARS

WKND RECOMMENDS:

Long Wharf Theatre // 8 p.m.

Oldies but goodies.

Nobody Does It Better — Blair moves in with … ---- …

---- … Vanessa (!!!)

PAGE B8

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MARCH 11, 2016 · yaledailynews.com

// BY DAVID SHIMER AND JON VICTOR

GUT REACTIONS

WEEKEND GUTS

GUTS FROM PAGE B3 non-humanities majors — peaked during shopping period at 608 students, more than 10 percent of the undergraduate student body.

Two years ago, just 49 students took the course.

“The course has minimal reading, so I don’t learn as much as if I were taking a regular class,” said Marc-André Alexandre ’17, who is currently enrolled in ENGL 293.

Alexandre said he and others were likely attracted to ENGL 293 because it supplies an additional credit and gives students time to focus on other courses.

Mohamed Karabatek ’19 characterized ENGL 293 as a gut writing class, but noted that the class was still comprehensive in its subject matter. He added that many students may have flocked to take the course after hearing that it included little work. Indeed, the excessive demand for ENGL 293 created monumental scheduling challenges early in the spring 2016 semester, with some of the course’s 22 discussion sections becoming oversubscribed, canceled or mislabeled.

Andrew Casson, the director of undergraduate studies for the Mathematics Department, noted the popularity that “Fractal Geometry” has achieved, calling it a good option for non-STEM students.

“In a way, I wish we could expand these offerings of interesting, challenging courses that don’t involve a technical sequence like calculus,” Casson said. ”There seems to be a demand for it, and so I think it is valuable for people who are not going to specialize in math or science to learn something mathematical. [“Fractal Geometry”] fulfilled that role very well.”

However, the popularity of some guts may stem not from their educational value, but rather from the flexibility they give students.

Kevin Kim ’18 said he took the course “An Issues Approach to Biology” to fulfill his science credit requirement, saying that the class was a gut. However, he also said it is possible to benefit from such courses without putting significant effort into them, making them a better option than

a difficult science class for students who are not wholly interested in the subject.

“We can’t all be taking fourand-a-half credits of classes that are very difficult,” he said. “Having the time to take a class that we take because it’s easier is wholly necessary.”

BUT DO THEY EXIST? Students commonly complain that the very notion of gut courses is misleading and even dangerous to students’ academic standing. Sometimes undergraduates expect perceived gut courses to be easy As, so they put little time into them and ultimately do poorly.

Others find that some gut courses are substantially challenging and poorly taught.

“I think it depends on how you interpret them,” Lauren Modiano ’17 said. “Any class can be a lot of work if you choose to put a lot of work into it.”

Lina Goelzer ’19 agreed, saying that very few classes are automatically guts, although many have the potential to be. She said there are some classes in which students don’t really have to do any of the readings, but those who choose to do so may actually find the class challenging.

Modiano conceded that some classes give out As more easily than others. But even these classes can result in an undesirable grade if not taken seriously enough, she said.

Other times, students in supposed guts find they get little out of class and have to learn course material independently, which some find doable.

“After the midterm, the gap between the level of the work that we learn to do ourselves and the work that [mathematics professor Michael Frame] demonstrates to us in class becomes pretty large — which is not to say that it isn’t fascinating. The class doesn’t teach you how to think, but it’s a fun and often worthwhile way of fulfilling QR,” wrote one reviewer of “Fractal Geometry.”

But students like Ivetty Estepan ’18, who is currently enrolled in two supposedly easy courses— “Fractal Geometry” and “Frontiers and Controversies in Astrophysics” — said they feel

tremendously stressful. According to her, the material is challenging and requires significant thinking. To make matters worse, she said, students are expected to learn the material on their own — increasing the courses’ difficulty.

“Guts do not actually exist,” Estepan said. “The only difference is your grade might be a B instead of a C.” Grishaw-Jones too, felt skeptical about the existence of true gut courses. She took the course “Great Hoaxes and Fantasies in Archaeology,” which she said was “gutty” in the sense that students did not have to do assigned readings and many students only showed up to lecture a fraction of the time. However, GrishawJones said, it’s a myth that you can get an A in the class without doing any work for it.

Nathalya Leite ’19, who said guts are attractive because they are not time-intensive, has struggled to find easy writing courses.

In her opinion, all writing classes are rigorous.

“I don’t think writing guts exist,” she said. “They are all difficult and demanding, and teaching assistants grade very hard.”

Rubi Macias ’18, who is currently enrolled in “Science of Science Fiction,” said she decided to take the course to fulfill a distributional requirement. She said the course does not feel like a gut, though, and that she is surprised by how little she knew going into the course and how worried she is about her final grade.

Indeed, Casson said courses like “Fractal Geometry” are not necessarily less rigorous than any other math course at Yale. While the level of mathematical knowledge expected would be significantly less than in a math class for STEM majors, “Fractal Geometry” and its ilk have serious content to them and require significant commitment by participants in order to do well, Casson explained.

“I don’t want to give the impression that they’re sort of an easy option,” Casson added.

Frame, who teaches “Fractal Geometry,” said he thinks the course’s main draw for students is the visual aspect of the subject matter, rather than the workload.

While the course is not challenging in pure mathematical terms,

it does have significant geometric rigor, he said.

Alexandros Koutsogeorgas ’19, who is taking “Fractal Geometry” this semester, said the course’s difficulty wasn’t really a factor for him during shopping period.

Instead, he wanted to learn from Frame, an important scholar in his field, Koutsogeorgas said.

Salovey said it would be inaccurate to label guts as courses that students really enjoy and provide an introduction to a subject area.

To him, the types of courses that constitute as guts are those which are easy for the sake of being easy and have top-heavy grading distributions.

FOR BETTER OR FOR WORSE, A PART OF YALE Whether or not they exist, the idea of guts is central to the academic life of many Yale undergraduates. Hundreds of students are drawn to them for a range of reasons — a desire to focus on other subjects, a plan to balance out their schedules, an urge to pad their GPAs. The question remains over whether students derive greater benefit from these courses than they would from more challenging ones. Students might be succeeding in their short-term objectives by enrolling in supposedly lax courses, but they are also potentially sacrificing the academic exploration central to a liberal arts education.

Still, it may be uncharitable to say that Yale students are motivated solely by these factors — some do find guts worthwhile. In a relaxed academic setting, it is possible to focus on learning for learning’s sake, rather than doing what it takes to score an A. And it is possible to be a student without feeling the pressure that burdens so many at Yale.

For Frame, the draw of his class is more than its workload.

“Mostly it’s just really pretty stuff,” he said.

And it might be best not to drown out the beauty with mountains of homework.

Contact DAVID SHIMER at david.shimer@yale.edu and JON VICTOR

at jon.victor@yale.edu .

// AMANDA AGUILERA

WHETHER OR NOT THEY EXIST, THE IDEA OF GUTS IS CENTRAL TO THE ACADEMIC LIFE OF MANY YALE UNDERGRADUATES. SATURDAY MARCH

12

UNITED STATES NAVY BAND Woolsey Hall // 7 p.m.

Anchors aweigh...

WKND RECOMMENDS: Nothing Can Keep Us Together — Enter Lord Marcus.

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MARCH 11, 2016 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE B9

WEEKEND ACTS

CA TH AC N Y E S CO AL AME MM E TH OLD SH OD EATER OWS: ATE ACTUALLY DIVER SE VOICES?

// CHAI RIN KIM

// B YN OA H

Last KI week, M N i c ko las Brooks ’17 agreed to take part in a reading of a play featured in the 2016 Yale Playwrights’ Festival. After thumbing through the script, he discovered that the piece was set in post-Civil War America, and he and all the other black actors had been cast as servants. As he continued reading, Brooks grew outraged by racial stereotyping that he found highly disrespectful of the AfricanAmerican experience.

“There was one scene in the play where I was talking to another servant about wanting to beat my wife.

This scene had absolutely nothing to do with the overarching plot, but it was very revealing,” Brooks said. “I was supposed to be aggressive, to disregard my kids and be violent towards women.”

He said the play’s misrepresentation particularly angered him because of his own familial ties to the era being depicted.

“Hailing from the South, my greatgrandmother was a slave, and my grandmother was a sharecropper, basically a slave, so I’m not that farremoved personally from that period,” Brooks said.

In addition, he also felt infuriated that the play had been written by a white male.

“There’s no way that a white male could have real insight into the black experience in post-Civil War America,” he said. “The whole performance, all I wanted to do was leave.”

Despite finding the material flagrantly offensive, Brooks said he takes pride in following through on his commitments, and decided to stick with the reading despite having an opportunity to back out. Many minority and queer actors at Yale have complained that they are typically forced to play either stereotypical roles, or roles that erase aspects of their personal identities. This year, the Yale Dramat has faced increased criticism from queer students and students of color, many of whom have been vocal about their discontent with programming and the disproportionately high quantity of plays centering around predominantly heterosexual, white narratives.

This Monday, a small group of theater community members gathered in Linsly-Chittenden Hall to discuss inclusivity and diversity. The Yale Drama Coalition, which hosted the open town hall meeting, originally intended to address rising concerns among students surrounding representations of race, gender and sexu-

SATURDAY MARCH

12

ality.

But the turnout wa s sparse, with roughly 12 in attendance and only a handful of students from outside the YDC board.

Still, according to Michaela Johnson ’17, president of the Yale Drama Coalition, meeting attendees suggested methods by which to encourage a more racially diverse undergraduate theater community. Ideas included hosting frequent, campuswide discussions on diversity and encouraging an ethnically diverse range of theater figures to come speak at Yale.

But Gregory Ng ’18, YDC training and career coordinator, said discourse has not been sufficient to solve the issue.

“Part of what YDC is trying to do is foster conversation, but we’re very much at or past that point where conversation is not enough,” Ng said.

“There needs to be very strong affirmative action taken to ensure that there’s programming that reflects and represents the diverse places that exist on this campus.” ***

Miles Walter ’18, who directed the Dramat’s Fall Mainstage, believes widespread distrust of the Dramat has contributed to the racial gap in casting.

“The fact that many minority actors feel as if the Dramat isn’t going to cast them means that far fewer of them audition for shows,” Walter said.

“This often means that directors have a smaller pool to draw from.”

Even though a number of diverse narratives have gone up in Yale theaters in recent years, most of the productions were put on independently of the campus’ central theatrical institutions. Dave Harris’ ’16 “Exception to the Rule,” put on last fall, marked the first time the University had put on a play with a cast and crew composed entirely of people of color. Harris’ explicit intention was to cultivate a safe and diverse space, and he said he consciously chose not to act in conjunction with the Dramat, which he perceives to be a chiefly white institution.

The Dramat will, however, put on Harris’ play “White History” this

INTERNATIONAL WKND DAY We Run The World // All day

WKND is celebrating — are you?

semester. In addition, the Dramat has attempted to democratize the play selection process for the 2016 Fall Mainstage by opening up voting to all undergraduates, who can propose shows by filling out an emailed survey. Previously, only Dramat members could submit plays for the Mainstage.

This year, the new process resulted in the selection of Andrew Lippa’s “The Wild Party,” a show that highlights strong female and minority leads.

Ng recently finished directing Aristophanes’ “Lysistrata” as a drag performance. He said he was inspired to put on a production highlighting diversity after seeing “Exception to the Rule” and Nailah HarperMalveaux’s ’16 “for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enough,” both put on this fall.

Ng sought to reinterpret a canonized work as a story about both gender and racial identity.

“It definitely was a response to the lack of diverse casts and stories about people of color and queer people both.

It seemed as if it were very much an either-or situation, and I wanted to do both — just because I am both queer and a person of color,” he said.

In the face of heightening controversy, gender- and race-blind casting has been put forth as an alternative to casting procedures some consider exclusionary.

Ng, though, said he does not think color- and gender-blind casting is a sufficient way to incorporate minority and queer actors into the theatrical world.

“I think they’re in fact harmful ways of going about doing so. A lot of the time when there’s colorblind casting, people are cast and asked to erase those characteristics that are used to limit them as a minority,” Ng said. “When somebody of color is cast in a white role, for example, the performer’s race is often never acknowledged in the play — it becomes a really bizarre viewing experience. There’s a clear disconnect between what is being said and what is being seen.”

Jacob Rodriguez ’18, stage manager of the Dramat’s spring semester show,

“Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike,” said many problems have occurred when the Dramat brings in outside directors who are not open to unorthodox casting methods.

He explained that the Dramat’s attempts to close racial gaps in casting have been stymied by a lack of power over directors’ casting decisions.

Ng suggested that a more constructive way of incorporating queer and minority experience into theatrical productions would be in staging new plays that focus chiefly on identity, or in staging canonical works in different ways so that gender or racial issues are brought into the limelight.

“We need to be able to discuss these issues honestly and with integrity,” Ng said. “To have tons of plays that don’t represent Yale’s diverse population is just … inaccurate, and I think it’s that inaccuracy that makes the people of color on campus feel very dissatisfied.

We know we’re here, so why don’t we see ourselves on stage?” *** After the YDC’s town hall meeting, Harris said the low turnout did not surprise him. While attempts to diversify theater on campus have been made — through formal and informal discussions or color- and genderblind casting — Harris, and many of the actors, directors and playwrights interviewed, said efforts have fallen short. Members of the Yale theater community are willing to speak, they say, but less willing to act.

“People know what the issue is, and yet they turn around and make the same mistakes,” Harris said. “We talk about how we need shows that have roles for non-white actors, and we say we’re dedicated to making a change, and then we turn around and do the same shows that don’t offer genuine opportunities. Nobody needs another Shakespeare. Nobody needs another musical about white men. The major theater organizations are too selfprotective and unwilling to take the larger steps to correct the problem.”

Contact NOAH KIM at noah.kim@yale.edu .

WKND RECOMMENDS: Only In Your Dreams— Artful use of alliteration when Nate dates a Hamptons townie named Tawny.

PAGE B10

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MARCH 11, 2016 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND COLUMNS

a r d/B z z i l B los so

// BY HAYLEY KOLDING

ing m

RECENT HISTORY // BY MADELINE KAPLAN // LAURIE WANG

And I Was Alive And I was alive in the blizzard of the blossoming pear, Myself I stood in the storm of the bird–cherry tree.

It was all leaflife and starshower, unerring, self–shattering power, And it was all aimed at me.

What is this dire delight flowering fleeing always earth?

What is being? What is truth?

Blossoms rupture and rapture the air, All hover and hammer, Time intensified and time intolerable, sweetness raveling rot.

It is now. It is not.

--From Stolen Air by Osip Mandelstam, translated by Christian Wiman (NY: Ecco Press, 2012) Reading of blizzards and blooming, I can’t help remembering the snow that fell over a cracked October field where my neighbors and I, numb-nosed, sorted tulip bulbs.

Halloween was the next day, and there would be a parade in town. It was all we talked of as we fumbled to keep clippers in our gloved hands and snipped mesh bags of the things, trying not to let them tumble. Some of us dug holes, the trowels spitting dirt up into our laps, our sleeves. When the first flakes came drifting, I brushed my caked gloves one against the other and reached up to re-snug my wool hat. Others were doing the same, and I watched as dirt spilled off our hands and over our brows and cheeks, not clinging, continuing down into our collars. It was so cold that the earth would not stick to our skin.

Reading of the blossoming pear, I imagine myself in the next-door orchard, sun out, my dog nosing at the slim, liver-spotted trunk of a fruit tree. Apples grow there, too, and plums and peaches. Mostly these last two, the drupes. When summer storms come, they lob the fruits with abandon, hurling them, some landing with a thunk even in my own yard, some splattering, becoming sweet swamps of flesh from which the wrecked stones smolder. The orchard knows violence then, when it’s grown full of itself. But at blossom-time, when the trees blush? Only peace, petals falling like time suspended.

In the tulip field, I felt a similar suspension. The early flakes hung dreamlike. But by nightfall, the wind raged through our trees, breaking branches, hurling ice chunks against our windows like the dry, unwelcoming little hearts of the bulbs we’d sorted.

That was a real blizzard. I shivered because the power had gone out and it was cold; and the cold was real, the snow was real, the winds were real. The blizzard that Osip Mandelstam describes in “And I Was Alive” is not.

The poem is a confused one, or at least complicated, in that Mandelstam writes as if viscerally experiencing two seasons at once. “And I was alive,” he begins, “in the blizzard of the blossoming pear.”

Going on, he reports the violence and thrill of the blizzard in terms so intense and specific that I want to believe him. He writes of “starshower, unerring, shelf-shattering power,” and I wonder how he could have imagined such things. Taken out of the context of blossoms, “[a] ll hover and hammer” sounds just right for winter snow.That’s what

SUNDAY MARCH

13

hangs me up: it is in the context of blossoms. For all the wintry madness of his language, Mandelstam insists on the poem’s springtime, balancing cold “starshower” to green “leaflife” and claiming that falling petals—not snow—“rupture and rapture the air.”

I’ll admit it: when I first read the poem, I thought, He got it wrong.

I was reminded, from the opening line, of what I considered irreconcilable events: the October blizzard and, discrete from that, the nextdoor blossoming of pears. Finding spring’s groves completely unlike the branch-broken ones of the storm, I blamed Mandelstam for shrieking the dreamy peace of blossom into discordance. The images are discordant as tenor and vehicle, immensely so.

And yet! How much more so as literalisms! I began to imagine a world in which Mandelstam might stand below a flowering birdcherry, the sky clear, and find himself buffeted by a nonexistent but viciously real storm. No wonder he panics mid-poem, vulnerable before the unknown: ...it was all aimed at me.

What is this dire delight flowering fleeing always earth?

What is being? What is truth?

This dire delight flowering fleeing always earth. Stacked this way, the words aspire to expression of an experience that Mandelstam may fear cannot be expressed. I hear in them, teetering, the many subparts of a troubled simultaneity: dire delight flowering, delight fleeing, delight flowering, dire flowering fleeing.... All this at once, but more than that. What is being?

What is truth? These are queries that we address to God, or in debate of him, or in his absence.

I do not know whether Mandelstam believed in God, but from other poems of his, I believe that — like most of us —he doubted Him. It’s this doubt that I think of now whenever I read the vague but haunting last lines: It is now. It is not. I think of how faith, in so many cases, is itself an experience (a now) of what is not. To feel the divine without seeing it, to experience the concretely absent “starshower” of the heavens… It’s as frightening as meeting winter’s anger in spring. In risking testimony of the “unerring” blizzard, then, Mandelstam verges on the faithful: swearing to himself, or to the world, that he has felt the power of something not quite there.

// DAN GORODEZKY

On Oct. 3, 1995, O. J. Simpson was found not guilty of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. Like millions of Americans, I watched the verdict on television. Unlike most of them, I don’t remember any of it — I was six months old, probably dozing in my mother’s arms and certainly unskilled in legal reasoning. Almost all current Yale undergrads are too young to remember the crime and subsequent media circus surrounding Juice (Simpson’s nickname).

Wikipedia and YouTube offer a decent overview, but neither quite captures the scale of this national obsession. Cultural history tends to trickle through time in fragments — bits of insider info gleaned from TV documentaries, clickbait headlines and the occasional sight gag on “The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.” Now, 20-plus years after the crime of the century, a new series unpacks our unending obsession with O. J. “American Crime Story: The People v. O. J. Simpson,” an anthology series that premiered last month on FX, is part legal drama and part character study.

Cuba Gooding Jr. plays Simpson — a doubly difficult task since he doesn’t

MADELINE KAPLAN MAD TV let on whether or not Simpson/his character, you know, did it. Robert Kardashian (David Schwimmer) and his wife Kris (Selma Blair) show sides of themselves never fully explored on the E! Network. Then there are all the people whose names your parents still remember — Johnnie Cochran (Courtney B. Vance), Lance Ito (Kenneth Choi) and Christopher Darden (Sterling K. Brown).

The real star of the show is Sarah Paulson, who gives Marcia Clark (one of the prosecutors) a rich and nuanced inner life. During the trial, Clark was often maligned in the press, her public persona refracted through the unforgiving (and incredibly sexist) lens of American media. “American Crime Story” gives Clark her due, depicting her personal and professional struggles with riveting depth.

As a work of historical fiction, “American Crime Story” has its fair share of imperfections. John Travolta gives a distractingly strange and inconsistent performance as Robert Shapiro. The tone sometimes veers into soapy melodrama.

But on the whole, “American Crime Story” delivers fascinating legal drama and a ridiculous number of satisfying emotional arcs.

There is no shortage of ’90s nostalgia on American TV (and laptop) screens

these days. “The Powerpuff Girls” and “Hey! Arnold” are both being rebooted. A “Cruel Intentions” TV show is in development. Netflix just ordered a second season of “Fuller House” (whose existence may well qualify as the crime of this century). But “American Crime Story” does more than just capitalize on a grisly murder or exploit lurid gossip. The series addresses the implications of fame, both for its star-athlete defendant and the many figures thrust into the spotlight during his trial.

“American Crime Story” has turned the media-crafted caricatures of Kardashian, Simpson and others into threedimensional characters. It considers the influence of race on legal proceedings and broadcast coverage. In focusing on Clark, it examines the sexism pervading American culture, and the very particular impact of that sexism on professional women.

Television has fast become a dominant art form of the 21st century, accommodating new experiments in form, function and genre. “American Crime Story” blurs the line between historical and fictional drama. The second season, currently in development, will focus on even more recent history — the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. It may be overblown to declare this series an academic text worthy of peer review and obsessive study. But “American Crime Story” makes a compelling case that television may be the next frontier of important revisionist history.

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

Contact HAYLEY KOLDING at hayley.kolding@yale.edu .

GREATER NEW HAVEN ST. PATRICK’S DAY PARADE

Chapel St. —> New Haven Green —> Grove St. // 1:30 p.m.

Rumor has it there’s a leprechaun & a pot of gold inside Skull & Bones.

WKND RECOMMENDS: Would I Lie to You? — The answer is yes.

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MARCH 11, 2016 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE B11

WEEKEND THEATER

INSIDE SCOOP // BY SARAH STEIN

// COURTESY OF NATHANIEL ROMERO

It was 7:45 p.m. on Wednesday night when I left the Stiles dining hall and leisurely made my way to the Crescent Theater for Sister Insider’s debut show. At least, I started out leisurely but soon hurried up when I saw how many people were waiting outside.

There had to be at least 150 students flowing out of the hallway, crammed into corners and lined up on the stairs. Fortunately, I’m enough of a non-standup citizen to not feel bad about squeezing in with my friends, who were in the front of the line.

The doors opened, we rushed into our seats, and after a bit of settling down, the show began.

Nickolas Brooks ’17 was the first to take the spotlight in what has been advertised as a “once-ina-lifetime show,” and though he

was there to sing, I thoroughly enjoyed his impromptu interpretive dance as he waited for mixer Mac Sutphin ’17 to get him background music. He then sang the first verse of an original song, “Closure,” and welcomed Sister Insider to center stage.

Four women, all dressed in maroon, sashayed into the room, followed by a trumpeter, violinist, keyboard player and flautist.

And then we were floored.

The group began the night with a rendition of Jazmine Sullivan’s “Let It Burn,” led by Dianne Ayo Lake ’16 with backup vocals by Brea Baker ’16, Edwina Aniue ’16 and Anita Norman ’19. The band has marketed itself as a “jazz, R&B, and hip-hop fusion sound,” and they really came through.

The R&B influence was clear —

the song was jazz-based, with a heavy beat — but what struck me most about Sister Insider was their use of electronic-sounding instruments, mixing and hip-hop to make the songs their own.

The second song, by Mary J. Blige, was punctuated by volleys of snaps from the crowd. At one point, everyone got so excited that simply snapping didn’t suffice — audience members were waving their hands in the air, clapping enthusiastically and even whooping when Dianne hit a particularly long note.

After their first two songs, Dianne introduced the next performance as a “poetic interlude” and Grace Alofe ’18 of WORD came up to the microphone. She spoke about a woman’s place in society with “Doo-Wop (That

Thing)” playing in the background. I was amazed at Grace’s ability to bring in the crowd and the talent of David Danso Amanfu ’17, who played the song on his flute.

And then, as if things couldn’t get better, Sister Insider performed a remix of the one and only “Hotline Bling” — only this version was actually called “Cel U Lar Device” by Erykah Badu. I found myself wishing that Drake had used the violin, flute, keyboard and trumpet the way that Sister Insider did; they even managed to make his weird dance moves look good!

The band followed the remix with a slower number, “Superpower,” by Queen Bey. Yes, I know — attempting to take on anything by Beyoncé is a daring,

if not foolish, endeavor. Yet Sister Insider pulled it off. Even I, who would normally fall asleep with such slow music playing during a midterm week, was on the edge of my seat, waiting to hear what the girls’ voices and the guys’ instruments would do next.

Afterward Sophie Dillon ’17 performed, wowing the crowd not only with her incredible vocals, but also with a spokenword poem about love. It was all pretty intense and I couldn’t help but be grateful that this wasn’t just a musical performance, but also demonstrated various talents from different spheres at Yale.

In the next numbers, Isaiah Genece ’17 came up to rap (appropriately wearing a Tupac shirt), as well as Nick, who had opened

the show. Eddie Joe Antonio ’19 got his shining moment with a complex and remarkable trumpet solo. And because the night couldn’t end without something upbeat, Sister Insider performed an encore of “Hey Ya.” I can’t be totally objective, since I practically have the song memorized, but they rocked it. Their ability to engage the crowd was flawless, and I momentarily forgot that these women are actually students here and not professional musicians.

Fortunately, I still have enough snaps saved up for more of their shows. They probably won’t have a seat for me — but for Sister Insider, I’ll stand.

Contact SARAH STEIN at sarah.stein@yale.edu .

Macbeth: Despair for the Ages // BY LOGAN ZELK Shakespeare’s plays are timeless classics, but with classics comes the fear and expectation that they might be cliche, uninteresting, made apparent in their worn age. And as I was strolling up the stairs to the Iseman Theater to watch the Yale School of Drama’s new rendition of Macbeth, I had curiosities dwelling in my mind. What emphasis would they place on the witches? What lines would they cut and which ones would they preserve? Would they focus on a more modern psychological interpretation, or on a supernatural exposition? Most importantly, how would they make a fresh performance bleed from ancient pages?

Preparing for the performance, I noted a few things about the stage. It was small, and jutted out toward the audience, who were arranged around its three sides. It had one wall in the back, which had three poles and black interweaving bars across.

Far into the recesses of the stage above the wall, there was a platform on which actors could stand.

The set itself consisted of mostly dirt, a small stone slab and then a

SUNDAY MARCH

13

larger boulder near the wall in the back corner. It was barren. It was small. It was dark and enclosed. I didn’t have much of an opinion, but they certainly weren’t going for a baroque style, or anything refined and classical.

The play began in pitch black darkness. Poured out from the nothingness was the guttural riff of a guitar. The grungy sound caught me off guard. This was peculiar, but scintillating. An anxiety was bubbling in the pores of my body, and this was all from the first sound. There was a pulsing of the grungy metal, but with a hint of war revelry tied up in the sound. It was anxious, angsty, with an undercurrent of rage.

This was a good omen for the Scottish Play.

The music died down. The barren scene, bordered in darkness, flashed before us. We saw a few men. They seemed to be preparing for war, decorating their faces with ghostly white powder, applying blue paint and mentally psyching themselves up. Three characters watched from the darkness, pressed up against the wall. There was something odd

here, something odious. After a few minutes of this tense silence, darkness fell again.

We watched the creatures slither across the stage following the exit of the soldiers. The three split, walking toward separate sides, staring into the souls of the audience. A sickly pale blue light shone on their faces, and it was then that we heard the witches, their banshee cries. Silence, then rage. They were disheveled.

They were grotesque. And it was as they opened their mangled maws, as we saw the blood gurgling in their throats, as we saw the dark deathly red coating their jaws, that I knew this performance would satisfy any doubts as to the ability to provide a rich, bloody performance from something ancient.

Indeed, as I watched the play, I observed a style that again and again reinforced the thrilling anxiety, one that inherently makes Macbeth interesting. Care was placed to emphasize this wild, erratic terror, and was found not only in the structure of the play, but also the visual aesthetics.

Lasting an hour and 40 minutes,

DYNAMIC EARTH

Leitner Observatory // 3 p.m.

Get starstruck.

t h e action never stopped, and this produced a palpable effect: The audience never had a chance to relieve the anxiety, just as Macbeth was never released from his thrashing and tumbling toward death. That the empty stage was filled with shocking horrors emphasized the nothingness that was the foundation for Macbeth’s fury. In addition, scenes were cut from the original play, including several fighting scenes in Act 5. This served to streamline the story of Macbeth, reinforcing the eerie sense of time being so short yet filled with crazy, senseless energy. The witches were used extensively throughout the play, often in surprising ways, from crawling up walls to imitating and replacing several impor-

tant characters. They also perpetually watched from their platform, giving a creepy sense of supernatural voyeurism, especially as we, too, watched Macbeth descend into madness.

Were we implicated? And were the witches simply setting up Macbeth for downfall, or were they influencing him all along?

The play manipulates these questions several times in pleasing and interesting ways.

The play was visceral; it was shocking and revolting and anxious. It possessed incredible angst. And out of this, I left pleased. The Iseman Theater’s

// ASHLYN OAKES

re n d i tion of Macbeth is one that I can call a personal favorite. Perhaps the most notable impact is when one exits to the street after all the strife and savagery is done, and the world’s mundane grayness settles in. All one could wonder was how absurd everything seemed in the face of such intense fury.

Contact LOGAN ZELK at logan.zelk@yale.edu .

WKND RECOMMENDS: Don’t You Forget About Me — Dan gets presents for being gay.

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, MARCH 11, 2016 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND BACKSTAGE

DISTRACTED BY MATT JAFFE // BY SOFIA BRAUNSTEIN

L

ast year, Matt Jaffe — who would now be a junior Film Studies major in Calhoun — chose to drop out of Yale to pursue his childhood dream of becoming a full-fledged

musician. Mentored by Jerry Harrison, the lead guitarist and keyboardist of the Talking Heads, Jaffe seeks to carve his own musical path. He’s the lead singer of Matt Jaffe and the Distractions, a rock ’n’ roll band that also includes Paul Paldino on bass, Adam Nash on guitar, and Thomas Yopes on drums. Jaffe spoke to WKND about his songwriting process, how his time at Yale influenced his music, and his expectations for the future.

Q: How would you describe your band’s sound?

A: I would say in one word, just rock. I’m into pretty much anything that’s aggressive and simple. Punk rock is definitely a huge influence. Other [influences include] country rock or alt-country. But definitely just rock, primarily guitardriven.

Q: Were there any moments in your youth that catalyzed your interest in music?

A: My [older] sister, who also went to Yale, started playing violin when she was 5. I also started playing violin when I was 5. It seemed like the thing to do. She’s a very strong role model for me.

But about five or so years into playing violin, I got interested in songwriting, which is a lot easier on guitar. I started singing at age 10, although I view it more as getting the words out.

I wrote

songs and performed for about five more years until I started working with Jerry. It was then that I started thinking of making [music] a career. I really loved it as a hobby and as a passion. Since it’s my favorite thing to do, I’ve looked into how I can make a living from it.

I view it more as something I love doing than as a career. If that balance flips, it would really be a problem.

Q: How did your relationship with Jerry Harrison of the Talking Heads begin?

A: I’ve been a big Talking Heads fan since I was in about third or fourth grade.

In fifth grade, I had to do a project for school — I think it was called a Passion Project. Little did I know, Jerry Harrison actually lives very close to me. I was walking around the neighborhood one day and I saw him. It was like I had seen a ghost. Years later, I had to interview him for a song I was doing and he very graciously acquiesced to that. Very shortly afterward, he saw me perform at an open mic. We’ve worked together a number of times since then, and he’s been a really great friend and mentor.

Q: From where do you derive inspiration for your lyrics? Can you describe your

songwriting process?

A: It’s a theoretical versus experiential sort of thing.

When I was in high school, I was really inspired by other people’s work — not only music but also books. “The Great Gatsby” or “Crime and Punishment” — I was really inspired by novels and poetry, and of course other songs. That really did change once I came to Yale and was suddenly surrounded by more people my age than ever before. This inundation of new people from all over the world, and this influx of new interactions, really inspired me to write more about people and how I view myself in relation to them.

Once I got to Yale, I started grounding my songs more in experience than in concepts.

In terms of process, I’m sort of obsessive about trying to catalogue any ideas I have.

Anytime I get any lyrical or melodic idea, I write it down or record it in my phone. I need a fair amount of time and space to write anything.

I catalogue a bunch of ideas and find a four-hour block of time to sit — usually in my room — and to come up with something that isn’t terrible.

People ask, “What do you do first, words or music?”

With songs I like best, it all comes together. [It’s a] less tangible formula. If I keep forcing a lyric onto a melody, it sounds wrong. For the best songs, everything comes simultaneously.

Q: I listened to your songs “Libertad” and “Girl from Buenos Aires.”

“ FOR THE

BEST SONGS, EVERYTHING COMES SIMULTANEOUSLY.

”

Where did the inspiration come for those?

A: I was hugely into [writer] Jose Luis Borges during senior year of high school.

Both songs, especially “Girl from Buenos Aires,” are inspired directly by a poem and a short story of his. [For] “Libertad,” some of the language is inspired by him. The idea of trying to blend Spanish into the song is from the Pogues, a great Irish band, who have a song called “Fiesta” that’s this drunken slur of English and Spanish — you can’t tell where one begins and the other ends.

Both “Libertad” and “Girl from Buenos Aires” were very much me saying I love how this person is writing.

How can I write something that echoes that? They aren’t terribly motivated by experience.

Q: What has been your favorite moment throughout your musical career?

A: It’s hard to say. There have been some gigs where everything feels miraculously aligned. There are also times when writing a song seems to coalesce perfectly, or meetings with people that have been really special.

My band and I have been doing some new recordings in the last couple of months, and for the first time ever, we’ve been recording to analog take instead of digital.

As simple as it may sound, a favorite moment of mine is listening back after a take and feeling happy and proud of how i t so u n d s.

We ’ v e

b e e n l u c k y to have a few achievements that sound like success to a lot of people. People we’ve worked with and places we’ve played, that’s all superficial if there isn’t a pure happiness with how the music sounds.

Q: Do you believe your brief time at Yale influenced your musical trajectory? How? Why did you leave?

A: There was no factor that was the last straw or anything. There were two paths: the more conventional academic one, or the more striking musical one.

We’ve gone on a few really great tours, including a national one last fall. I’m happy with all that I’ve been able to accomplish. There’s lingering but not crippling doubt. I don’t go through the day wondering what it would be like to stay at Yale. Any time you make a major life decision, you wonder what would have been. But it’s silly to worry about it too much.

My time at Yale energized me musically. In terms of songwriting. I started writing at a much more intense rate. When I got to college, all of a sudden my schedule was mine. High school is pretty regimented. You wake up, bike to school, go to class for seven hours, bike home, do homework, then play a show or go to an open mike.

At Yale at any hour of the day, I can determine what I want to do. I sat myself down and thought about what I really wanted to be doing with my time. The answer [was always] songwriting.

// COURTESY OF MATT JAFFE

Q: Would you ever come back to Yale?

A: I think that’s the million-dollar question. I don’t even have a good answer. All I know is that Yale is pretty tolerant of people coming back with their tails between their legs. I hope if and when I do that, I would never consider it a failure — it would just be another road to take.

Right now, I’m really happy with what I’m doing outside of Yale. I don’t have the arrogance to think I know what will make me happy in five or 10 years. It may well be that going back [will make] the most sense. For now, I’m still trying to dive headlong into music.

Q: What’s coming up for you in the next few months?

A: I’m always working on songs. We’re doing some more recording this weekend that’ll become the second half of an album — we’re hoping to put it out on vinyl actually. I’m not really a purist in terms of whether something needs to be on vinyl or recorded on tape. I do think music has been devalued, and a way to revalue it is to put an album out as a record and not just as MP3s. We have a lot of local gigs coming up, and we’re planning a tour for the summer. I’m also writing songs with other people to try new things, to tackle songwriting from different perspectives.

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