WEEKEND

WEEKEND // FRIDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2014

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//By Stephanie Rogers

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SPORTS

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The High Life at Yale

SEX APPEAL

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WHAT’S YOUR SECTION PERSONALITY?

A PLACE FOR ROOKIES

JAMES FRANCO!

WKND uses state-of-the-art flow chart and quiz analytics to profile your classroom self.

Yale sports teams count children with physical disabilities among their strongest and smallest teammates.

That’s right. WKND talks with the English TA of your dreams.

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2014 · yaledailynews.com

MATTIA

SIEGEL

WEEKEND VIEWS

TIMELINES INTERSECT Twenty years and six days ago, I was born within the grayish-white walls of Dallas’s Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital at 6 pounds, 11 ounces, 20.25 inches long.

My family’s old photo albums show the clock frozen forever at 5:53 p.m.

My dad is in a faded Underdog T-shirt.

In every picture, my mom has a pillow propped behind her neck and back.

My mom’s labor nurse, Becky, has short, curly red hair. My mom said that her hugs could cure anything, even the nerves of first-time parents rocking their Rachel Leah Siegel to sleep.

On the morning of Oct. 4, 1994, my mom had checked into her labor and delivery room. She said the room was larger than normal with a comfy hospital bed, pullout sofa, cable TV, and stereo system. The air was cool, the lights dim, and a wood-panel facade hid all the medical equipment. Cold cloths and ice chips were aplenty.

My mom said she felt like she was at a five-star hotel.

Becky listened to my mom’s fears.

She lovingly dotted her cheeks with a cold cloth when the tears snuck out.

At 5:54, my parents were handed a baby girl swaddled in pink. They drove me home in a green Saab convertible.

This place where I took my first breaths — Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital — has made some unusual appearances in the national news ever since Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian national visiting family in the Dallas area, arrived at its emergency room with symptoms consistent with Ebola on Sept. 25. Initially sent home after seeking treatment, Duncan was finally admitted on Sept. 28 after falling critically ill. He died in isolation at the hospital at 7:51 Wednesday morning.

Weeks before his arrival to the United States, Duncan had taken a young neighbor dying of Ebola from her village in Liberia to the area hospital. When the hospital turned the girl away due to a patient overflow, Duncan drove her back home where she would die hours later, at around 3 a.m. She was 19 and seven months pregnant.

Upon his arrival at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, Duncan exhibited no Ebola symptoms and went to see family living northeast of down-

town Dallas, not too far from where my brother goes to school. On a New York Times map tracking Duncan’s visits, I can point to the intersection where my family lives today.

I like to think that our lives follow

THE FIRST PERSON TO DIE OF EBOLA OUTSIDE OF WEST AFRICA WOULD DIE IN MY HOMETOWN, AT THE HOSPITAL WHERE I WAS BORN NEARLY 20 YEARS AGO BEFORE TO THE DAY. timelines that stretch from when we are born to when we die. Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital was where mine began, and where Duncan’s sadly ended.

There are so many layers to this story that seem other-wordly, primarily the fact that the first person to die of Ebola outside of West Africa would die in my hometown, at the hospital where I was born nearly 20 years before to the day.

Our timelines are intersecting here, at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, and I wonder …

Did the nurse on duty listen to his fears?

Was his bed comfortable? Was the air cool? Was the medical equipment exposed?

As Duncan waited to die in isolation, were there newborn Rachels being swaddled in pink?

I wonder how the hospital rooms we are born in shape our future timelines.

What would have happened to me if I hadn’t been born under the fluorescent light of Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, but instead in a Liberian hospital ward overrun with the sick and the dying?

I hope those fluorescent lights were kind to Duncan.

Most of all, I think about how seam-

lessly my parents talk about the way I came into this world. There were no emergency surgeries, no drastic measures, no decisions of life or death. My grandparents were there to meet their first granddaughter, and my mom was healthy enough to stop for a burger on our first drive home. To me, Texas Health Presbyterian was simply where I passed “Go.” I hope that at least some of that peace was with Duncan when he died.

I would imagine that in the background there were beeping respirators and racing doctors as he took his last breaths. He likely contracted Ebola carrying someone to a hospital ward, and now he was dying in one.

I asked my mom for some of her memories from the day I was born. She told me stories about how Becky was firm, controlling, loving and encouraging all at once.

“I can’t imagine dying without someone supportive around you,” she said.

Contact RACHEL SIEGEL at rachel.siegel@yale.edu .

Petals (My Queer Womanhood) It’s not acted out for the sake of spectacle. It’s not a whimsical, gender-bending fuck-you to “the system”: Nor is it my way of saying, “I’m not afraid of what you think.”

Because I am afraid of what you think. This matters to me. This femininity.

It matters because I’m not playing dress-up. To dress up means to pretend. But I am learning how not to pretend. It’s not fun for me, it’s terrifying; so if you laugh, it’s not a carnival sideshow you are laughing at; nor is it a straight actor considered “brave” for playing a queer role; nor a gay boy who put on high heels once for a party and thinks he’s

earned the right to make drag jokes.

It is me: unadorned. My wild and tender heart beating as I am uncovered by make-up. At last I can reveal myself, and with a little flair.

Because we can all use a little flair, after all (I pray for a little flair for you, too. A little glamor. Let’s pretend: We’re all wearing diamonds, and going to a grand party.)

One night this summer, I put on lipstick for the first time, and eyeliner; my turquoise ring, and my silk robe, covered in blooming peonies. I pulled a cigarette from the pack and held it in my hand, like Audrey Hepburn — always I had thought she was beautiful, but I did not know it

was because inside me there was a woman just as beautiful waiting to be born. For a while, I simply sat. But soon, unable to help myself, I went to the mirror, and was bewitched by the woman I saw. She looked so natural.

I’m not here to tell you to refer to me as “they” or “he” or “she.” For now, I am paying attention to the flowers, not what pronoun you use.

Because I have seen how they rise up in spring. And I know they are not gentle. In every flower is the violence of one who trusted her own beauty.

In high school, I was taught that sex is a reproductive act. That pleasure exists, like a peacock’s feathers, to aid in reproduction. But what if a peacock’s feathers were simply an act of meaningless beauty? For I cannot bear children. But oh, my

feathers are lovely.

So when I walk outside with lipstick on, I won’t have a point to make. Already at the age of six, I was imagining that I was a Chinese princess. The only difference now is that you can imagine with me. (One day, maybe, we can all wake up inside my vision? And the visions of all those who know that inside them is a man, or a woman, or neither at all.)

Because I dare to believe: there is nothing in this earth but our visions.

When you close your eyes, isn’t it true that the flowers disappear? But if you keep your eyes closed, and imagine them, there they are again.

(Though a little bit different—they have become more intimate. A private garden that none can enter unless you let them. Every flower in a garden becomes an orchid when I close my eyes. And with a certain pain, isn’t it true that I could help you see the orchids, too?) But do not be so naive as to think that we are accomplishing only an illusion. It’s only that reality takes a little flair to make properly. And then: open your

IT MATTERS BECAUSE I’M NOT PLAYING DRESSUP. TO DRESS UP MEANS TO PRETEND. BUT I AM LEARNING HOW NOT TO PRETEND.

// THAO DO

FRI D AY OCTOBER

10

LIFE BEFORE HAIRSPRAY: THE ART OF HAIRDRESSING IN ANCIENT ROME YUAG//1:30 pm

WKND is suspicious of the claim that there was “life before hairspray.”

eyes. Life is lush.

If only I could learn to know that I am loved. That is the greatest courage, isn’t it? To know without having to ask. But I am not courageous.

I am a weak and frightened child and it is only in my visions that I can find my beauty. The world is heartless and beautiful and I cannot escape it. The escape is worse than to go on living. But someday the flowers will eat through my whole body and all that will be left of me is a garden. So inside the world I must create visions. And visions are a reality that cannot be denied and perhaps that is where I can find my courage — to believe in my visions until the end? But not all of them are complete, and so I share them with you.

I invite you into them. I cannot keep my gardens to myself any longer: if you want lilies, I will plant lilies. If you want azaleas, I will plant azaleas. Together we must make visions for the world’s sake. Love is a grand and terrible tapestry and a vision too large for my small body to carry alone.

Later in the summer, I told the boy I was seeing that I had put on lipstick. I was so afraid that he would leave me. It’s not inconceivable. On Grindr alone you will find “masc4masc” or “real men only” or “not into fems” on many profiles. Fem-

ininity, to put it gently, is not de rigueur in the gay community. But this boy, this sweet, funny boy, wrote back to me: “As long as you don’t wear high heels because then you will be taller than me.” So some days I will walk out with lipstick on, and eyeliner, and a bow in my hair, and other days I will not. To realize with my whole body the vision it has been my duty to inherit. To become intimate with the world. This, at least, is my hope. I don’t know if I have the courage: I am afraid of walking into a seminar and breaking down in tears. I am afraid that my friends will find this eccentric, rather than brave, and that the boys I may love and who may love me will find it tolerable rather than desirable. I am afraid that my beauty will be lost in the spectacle of the act. I want to know: Can I entrust myself to the world? Myself: my most delicate vision.

Yet I must, because I love the world so much I do not need a meaning in order to live. To live is enough.

(But only if I can live among the flowers. I wonder: are the flowers and I a “we”? Because I am no longer I and the flowers are no longer the flowers but I do not know what I am or what they are. I only know that it has not existed before. Maybe our name is simply: “the-flowers-andI.” But even that I do not understand because I have never been anything other than a human. To be a “we” is something else — and maybe it is divine? Is “the-flowers-and-I” that which I have called god and all along I have been waiting for myself? Ah, I do not know. I do not know. “We” barely exists and has a meaning too delicate for me to understand. I even searched in the dictionary and found nothing. It must be that before today, “we” did not exist. Secretly we are the creators of a fragile kingdom. We proclaim us, and thereby inaugurate a new reality: The flowers inside my body and becoming even more extravagant. This reality which cannot be understood is called living. Living does not exist from what makes sense. Living exists from saying “yes” when no one asked a question.)

Last spring I wrote: “I exist beyond language.” But there was a time, too, when flowers had no names. And then we caressed them with words. Let our vision be a caress. *** That night, when I put on lipstick for the first time, I recalled something Clarice Lispector wrote: “The beautiful orchid is exquisite and unpleasant. It isn’t spontaneous. It needs a glass dome. But it is a magnificent woman and that can’t be denied. I was lying when I said it was unpleasant. I adore orchids. They’re born artificial, they’re born art.”

And if a mask is my true face?

So be it: I, too, am a magnificent woman.

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

WKND RECOMMENDS: Going out to eat. Take advantage while your parents are here to foot the bill.

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2014 · yaledailynews.com

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WEEKEND COVER

LIGHTING UP AND LYING LOW // BY STEPHANIE ROGERS

t was Wednesday night and while a strong contingent of Yalies attended Woads, I decided to try out the alternative — Wine, Weed and Wenzels Wednesdays, lovingly known as WWWW (pronounced “wa wa wa wa”). Laughter could be heard from inside the off-campus apartment where WWWW was being held. Nobody noticed the knock on the door over the sounds of music and voices until the third try. Finally, the door opened to a friendly face and the pervasive scent of weed.

Looking around the room, I could see where the name came from. Solo cups filled with Franzia Merlot were strewn across tables; plumes of smoke billowed from students’ mouths, their eyes red and glazed over.

At one point during the evening, a girl motioned to a bong and tentatively asked another, “Is that your weed?” The other girl passed the bong over declaring: “This is a family of sharing.” Conversation floated like the smoky air. Smiling people passed in and out of the haze as the night wore on.

They caressed, hugged, laughed and sang. To complete the night, the final W arrived with a 2 a.m.

Wenzel run.

Recreational marijuana user Ricky,* who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of legal concerns, had invited me to this longstanding off-campus gettogether. He explained that WWWW was created as an alternative to Woads, a prescribed relaxation time and a context in which people can get to know one another. A “pot”luck of sorts, he calls it, where people bring what they can and don’t pay attention to work.

Ricky emphasized the importance of getting high in fostering such relaxed moments. While high, friends are willing to accompany him on tangents.

Emphasizing the liberation and revelations he feels while high, Ricky said, “I think sometimes people

I

at Yale get so wrapped up into complaining about work and stuff that it’s nice to have those moments of sensory appreciation. You will listen to a song that you’ve listened to a million times and this time you’ll really hear it and love it in a way you hadn’t.” *** Yale College Dean Jonathan Holloway doesn’t share Ricky’s positive feelings about these illicit, off-campus events. “I do know that there are smaller communities of Yale students who live on and off campus who smoke marijuana often,” he said over email. “Aside from engaging in illegal activity, they are a serious social irritant and seem not to care about how they are negatively affecting the quality of life for the people who live around them. In this way they demonstrate an abiding insensitivity to others.”

While Holloway strictly characterizes marijuana use as an illegal activity, Connecticut state law presents a fuzzier picture.

Since 2011, Connecticut is one of 19 states to have decriminalized marijuana possession, meaning that possession of small quantities does not warrant jail time. Decriminalization is not synonymous with legalization. Possession of small quantities of marijuana warrants a small fine; additionally, medical marijuana is legal in Connecticut for treatment of specified illnesses. Though they have not by any means approved a full-fledged legalization, Connecticut legislators have softened what was once a harsher restriction on cannabis.

Less than three weeks ago, the sixth medical marijuana dispensary opened in the state of Connecticut. According to a recent poll conducted by Quinnipiac University, 90 percent of Connecticut voters approve of legalized medical marijuana and 52 percent of voters support legalizing recreational marijuana.

*** Wallace* began selling edibles his freshman year in the form of “high-quality” brownies. A baking enthusiast, he learned how to make edibles during his junior year of high school. He acquired a reputation as a prominent dealer on Yale’s campus but was caught and faced the Executive Committee. Since then, he has ceased producing and selling edibles.

I CAN GET WEED HERE FASTER THAN I CAN GET A PIZZA DELIVERED - LESS THAN TEN MINUTES RECREATIONAL USER JOSEPH BRAGGED TO ME WHEN I SPOKE WITH HIM

Laughing at his notoriety on campus, Wallace said, “Contrary to common belief, I didn’t just wake up one morning and say, ‘I’m gonna start a drug empire on a college campus.’”

When Wallace came to Yale, he realized marijuana was not always readily available and that he needed to find his own supplier. Almost every other week, his dealer would roll up to an agreed-upon location on a black bike, provide him with the product and speed away, usually without saying a word.

At first, Wallace made edibles in his residential college kitchen since he didn’t have the utensils to do it on his own. One day an operations manager walked in on him. Although the operations manager didn’t figure out that Wallace was using Yale equipment to make an illegal drug, the experience con-

vinced Wallace that he needed to be more discreet.

After that, Wallace started cooking on a hot plate in the early-morning hours in his dorm room so that the smell wouldn’t bother his suitemates.

At first, the edibles were just meant for himself, but oftentimes he made too many leftovers and invited friends to join him in eating them. Eventually, friends-of-friends began texting and asking for marijuana. Shortly thereafter, a steady flow of people was paying for the product.

He started enjoying it, delivering a product that students wanted.

To better market his product, Wallace explained, “I made cute packages with green wrapping paper and a red bow.”

His clientele swelled. People outside of his residential college, upperclassmen, fraternities and large sports teams started buying from him. He realized that in a single night he could walk into a party with a backpack full of “merchandise” and leave with a wallet filled with almost $500. He sent most of the money he made to his mother to help her pay the bills.

Then, everything changed. Wallace didn’t give a second thought to providing a friend with some edibles late one night around spring break. The next morning, he awoke to a text from a friend telling him they needed to talk about a serious incident.

A girl, whom Wallace had never met, had eaten one of his brownies while excessively intoxicated.

Afterward, she needed to be brought to Yale Health by some friends and later went to Yale–New Haven.

Wallace’s friend informed him that the administration was searching for whomever had baked the edibles.

Wallace came forward and has since quit selling edibles. He chose not to comment on the disciplinary process he went through because he was told not to by the Executive Committee. * ** “I can get weed here faster than I can get a pizza delivered — less than ten minutes,” recreational user Joseph* bragged to me when I spoke with him.

But for other students, finding marijuana isn’t so easy.

Sophomore year, Annabelle* and her friends wanted to get high for Safety Dance. Sending out a slew of texts to friends, they discovered no one they knew had any marijuana available. So they started texting friends of friends. Many of the reputed stoners on campus looked at the screens of their phones to find a surprising message.

“Hi, this is Annabelle, I’m friends with Tommy*. I know this is awk, but do you have any weed????????”

After dozens of text exchanges, they finally obtained some marijuana, though it was by no means easy, Annabelle said.

The occurrence isn’t abnormal at Yale. Many students interviewed voiced the same sentiment — that although marijuana is not as common or as accessible as alcohol, the drug is not absent from campus culture. But at the same time, it does have to be actively sought out.

According to a Yale Daily News Survey administered to 42 students, 100 percent of Yale students surveyed said they have had alcohol while underage compared to only 50 percent of students who have tried marijuana at least once. Ricky believes this difference of usage contributes to a stigma against marijuana on campus.

Survey results demonstrated that while the drug’s usage is distributed among a variety of extracurriculars, some seem to exhibit higher percentages of use than others. For instance, 42 percent of students listing political groups as their top extracurricular said that they use marijuana a few times per week, with only 25 percent indicating less than regular use. On the other hand, a mere 10 percent of those who self-identified as athletes responded that they use marijuana a few times per week, while 40 percent indicated less than regular use.

“I think there is a stigma about it at Yale,” Ricky said. “People know how to treat people who are drunk but they don’t know how to treat people who are high.” The possibility of misusing alcohol is much higher than it is with marijuana, he added.

Ricky highlighted that one of his main reasons for using marijuana was to de-stress. “[Marijuana] eliminates any sense of stress or interpersonal competition. I feel [it] gives me perspective on things that seem, like, really big, anxiety-inducing issues in the bubble of Yale and allows me to look at them not through the context of Yale but dissociated from that context and see that they are meaningless,” he said.

Alcohol does not have a bonding effect like marijuana, he added. “You don’t pass a beer around a circle,” he joked, alleging that drinking is more conducive to dancing whereas marijuana fosters conversation.

For Ashley,* marijuana facilitates more than just conversation — she often smokes to write. Brought up in a liberal college town in a Southern state, Ashley smoked marijuana for the first time as a junior in high school, a “late bloomer” compared to many of the kids in her town. Frequent marijuana users themselves, her parents approved.

While working late on many of her Directed Studies papers, she would smoke to get the creative juices flowing.

“Hemingway said ‘write drunk, edit sober,’ so sometimes I write high,” she chuckled.

Ashley said she has also used marijuana to help her with insomnia and depression. Five out of the seven recreational users interviewed said they often

// ANNELISA LEINBACH

FRI D AY OCTOBER

10

PITCH MEETING WKND lounge//5 pm

IF YOU ARE A HUMAN BEING, YOU SHOULD COME AND BEFRIEND WKND. #METADISCOURSE

WKND RECOMMENDS: Going solo. Who needs parents to trot around?

SEE CANNABIS PAGE 8

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2013 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND FEATURES

// FOLAKE OGUNMOLA

KEEPING THE BALANCE: FUNDING YALE’S DANCE CULTURE // BY STEPHANIE ADDENBROOKE

Karlanna Lewis LAW ’15 knew that academics came first when she was considering her plans for graduate study. However, something else impacted her decision to attend Yale Law School as well: Yale’s dance program.

“What I love about Yale’s dance program is the studentled charge as opposed to something faculty-led. It means that there’s something for everyone,” she said.

Dance at Yale is on the upward trend. It’s growing and flourishing, with the Alliance for Dance at Yale now including more than 20 groups in its catalogue. Dance Studies is now a visible part of the Theater Studies curriculum, and a new studio space has just opened on Sachem Street.

However, while students expressed their excitement about the growing dance opportunities on campus, the rapid growth led to a number of problems. Groups find themselves struggling for space, and the money to fund ambitious routines and exciting new projects seems to be in short supply. *** Nicole Feng ’15 is co-president of Rhythmic Blue (RB), Yale’s first and only contemporary and hip-hop dance troupe, established in 1991. Feng said that the group’s options are often limited, simply because of inadequate funding.

This past year, RB traveled to a dance competition at Stony Brook University. It was the first time the group had competed, and they were the only group representing the state of Connecticut. After struggling to find sufficient funding through Yale, the group turned to an online campaign. They managed to raise double the necessary funds.

Although the online campaign was successful among students, Feng said that dance groups don’t benefit from the same alumni backing as a cappella and theater organizations.

As a result, the group has to be cautious when considering their most basic expenses for the year.

Feng expressed her disappointment that there are no local studios in New Haven offering hip-hop classes that her dancers could attend. Instead, like many other dance groups, RB brings in professionals for master classes.

Individual members of the group must pay for these classes out of their own pockets.

While there is University funding available, some groups have encountered problems in adhering to the funding guidelines. Groups have three main options: the Undergraduate Organizations Committee, the Arts Discretionary Fund and the Creative and Performing Arts Award (CPA).

The CPA, administered by the Council of Masters, only offers funding to groups that agree to provide free admission to all their performances. But Rhythmic Blue and A Different Drum (ADD), another dance group on campus, both need the money made from their performances to survive — this rules out CPA as a source of funding.

With the CPA award out of the picture, the UOC is usually the primary source of funding for RB. Feng noted that, although this is helpful to them, the committee tends to favor newer dance groups in order to help them find their footing.

“It’s understandable that UOC wants to support new groups, but as one of the older groups, it doesn’t always help us,” she added.

Tina Yuan ’16, chair of UOC, said that the committee does provide equal funding opportunities for all types of student organizations on campus.

“There is no specific policy towards dance groups on campus, and we try to meet the funding requests of any organization that has demonstrated financial need,” she said.

However, UOC and the groups themselves have differing understandings of what “demonstrated need” means. Hannah Leo ’15, president of A Different Drum, said that this semester the group would be primarily self-funded, following the rejections of their funding applications.

The reason why? The lack of appropriate performance spaces has forced the group to look for alternatives offcampus, and yet rent for these spaces is not considered demonstrated need.

“Performance-wise, there really is no dance theater. A lot of the spaces in the colleges are not good for dance at all. They’re small, sight-lines aren’t great, and they’re very limited in terms of tech,” Leo said, explaining

why their group needs alternative spaces.

Zoe Reich-Aviles ’16, ADD’s artistic director, said that the group’s desire to use off-campus performance spaces has caused funding difficulties. The Educational Center of the Arts, a local performing arts high school, has a stage that meets the needs of the group. However, even though its location is, according to Reich-Aviles, a “hop, skip and a jump away from TD,” its off-campus status prevents the group from receiving funding to cover a more expensive rent. *** These two groups aren’t the only ones dissatisfied with on-campus performance and rehearsal spaces. Broadway Rehearsal Lofts is a Yale-owned rehearsal studio that a number of groups profited from in the past. Gracie White ’ 1 6 ,

member of YaleDancers, described it as “the perfect rehearsal space” because it exceeded the size of any residential college space. However, the lofts are above the New Haven branch of Trailblazer, and continued noise complaints led to the closure of BRL during store hours.

Evelina Zaragoza Medina ’17, co-president of RB, said that the closure of this space led to more tension in booking rehearsal spaces. The groups all look to rehearse in the same places: Most of these places are residential college basements. Medina noted that it is difficult to reserve these areas in competition with so many other groups, and that rehearsing in those spaces is like rehearsing in a box.

“The spaces just aren’t ideal for groups of more than 25 people, which limits us as artists in our choreography and our rehearsal. In these spaces, it is difficult to unders t a n d what it i s to move,

dance big and eat up space,” Feng added.

In response, Associate Dean of the Arts Susan Cahan spoke of a new space on Sachem Street that is about to open. She said that it’s just as well-equipped as BRL, and in many ways, superior to the lofts. “It’s a really inspiring space,” she said, “which is very open and provides a lot of light for the dancers to work with.”

Cahan hopes to put up a photography installation there showcasing the history and progression of dance at Yale. She thinks the installation will inspire any students using the space.

White, for one, is excited to explore the Sachem Street location this semester, but expressed a similar upset about the closure of BRL, since the space had a more convenient location.

“When BRL was open, I could choreograph in my spare time, because BRL is so close to JE, and now I have to walk that little bit further to find the best space,” she said. *** This Wednesday, Cahan received an update: Trailblazer has coordinated with the University administration, allowing the co-curricular initiative, Yale Dance Theater, to return and use the space.

“This is an exciting and important development that will take pressure off the other spaces and allow them to be widely available for other groups,” Cahan said. “It is a result of a variety of different offices working together: the Provost’s Office, Undergraduate Productions, Elm City Properties, the Dean’s Office, the Theater Studies Departments and President Salovey.”

For students who worry that the administration ignores Yale’s dance culture, this is a major development that should alleviate stress and lessen competition between groups.

The return to Broadway Rehearsal Lofts also allows YDT to continue growing. Emily Coates, YDT’s faculty director, described the program as one merging artistic practice with intellectual thought through the resource of professional choreographers.

“It gives students the opportunity to interact with great works of choreography, staged by professional artists during a rigorous, intensive rehearsal

process,” she explained.

Professional dancers and choreographers come to Yale from New York and other major cities to share pieces of famous dance repertoire with students.

Cahan said that the initiative came about shortly after she arrived at Yale. At that time, groups primarily performed their own choreography.

“It was incredible to watch, but for me, it was analogous to watching a symphony orchestra playing only student-written pieces,” she said.

In a collaboration with Coates, who has performed with some of New York’s top dance companies, Cahan set up this unique, collaborative program.

Reich-Aviles said the Yale Dance Theater experience offers unparalleled training.

“It’s an amazing opportunity to unite theory and practice,” she said, but she also expressed her concern that the opportunity is not widely enough known.

“Yale’s just not a place where you pursue dance. People will go somewhere else to do that.”

Lewis, the Law student, agrees. Lewis studied her undergraduate degree at Florida State University, known for its professional dance program. The program’s national recognition allows for purpose-built facilities and a lot more available funding.

So, is Yale suffering without a professional dance major? Lewis assures that it is not, because it allows for a range of groups to flourish, attracting dancers of all abilities. She spoke of how each group on campus has its own voice and character, instead of the top-down approach she experienced at FSU. She believes that anyone looking for a highquality dance experience at Yale is capable of finding it. Lewis is part of YaleDancers, Yale Dance Theater and Yale Ballet Company and feels more than satisfied with her experience.

Reich-Aviles agrees with her, and admits that while there are some great problems with the opportunities for dance at Yale, there is nothing else she would rather do.

“Dance is such a source of joy for me, and A Different Drum is one of the things that makes me feel at home here.”

Contact STEPHANIE ADDENBROOKE at stephanie.addenbrooke@yale.edu .

// FOLAKE OGUNMOLA

FRI D AY OCTOBER

10

WYBC CONCERT 216 Dwight St.//9 pm

WKND is breaking out the denim and flannel for this one. Just kidding - WKND was already wearing denim and flannel.

WKND RECOMMENDS: Raking leaves. Reenact your childhood chores while your parents are here for the weekend.

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2014 · yaledailynews.com

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WEEKEND ARTS

ARTIVISM? // BY CORYNA OGUNSEITAN

ELENA MALLOY

Sustainability art has never meant anything more to me than office ornaments made of recycled magazines, usually by independent artisans from some developing country, to be sold at Barnes and Noble in the gift section. So, since the Yale School of Art’s “Rock, Paper, Scissor, Lizard, Spock” show features, according to the website, “artists considering how to make work being sensitive to the environment,” I expected something along those lines. However, upon entering the gallery, I discovered the exhibition isn’t necessarily sustainability art so much as art about sustainability.

Still, I’m not sure whether each art piece entirely captures the environmentalist spirit. I guess if you’re deep, you might

be able to see the connection between a flowered T-shirt on the wall and sustainability as a social, economic and political issue. (Flowers are…in…nature?)

Pieces like this one are at odds with less abstract installments — for example, the eight photographs, accompanied by captions, depicting the lives of New Haven residents on welfare. These photographs depict the tangible consequences of underprivileged communities’ limited access to food — particularly to fresh, sustainable produce. In the first photo, a woman proudly holds vegetables from her garden. She decided to grow her own food when her welfare was cut, and she needed to feed her children. In the caption, she writes that she’s happy she can

now provide fresh vegetables to members of her community who otherwise cannot afford this type of produce. Another photo in the sequence, “No Meat, Mom, Really?” is the portrait of a young, unsmiling boy in front of his dinner for the night. The caption (written by his mother) reads, “He wasn’t ungrateful, but there was no smile.”

Other more political pieces include a poster with stars on top, stripes on the bottom, and, in the middle, written in clean, bold font, the words “I AM AFRAID.” In these three words, I read, “Yes, I am scared that the world will end because of climate change, and there is nothing unpatriotic about that.” One artist included photos from the late September Climate March in

New York City: posters that read “There is No Planet B”, and angry faces, hopeful faces, inspired faces.

Nevertheless, most of the pieces toe the line between the purely political and the purely aesthetic. An oversized model of a broken CD lies on the ground, surrounded by real broken disks, a robot with spikes made of metal parts.

Because of the extremity of this disorder, I went and asked the receptionist which pieces were part of the sustainability show. She said all of them. I went back to the gallery, looked in, and thought to myself, “Maybe she doesn’t really work here.” Pieces weren’t grouped by theme or genre, and except for the eight photos, none had captions. I

assume the curator doesn’t want viewers to consider the exhibition as unrelated fragments, but rather as a complete artistic statement. Unfortunately, the lack of dialogue between the separate installments made the entire thing a bit incoherent.

The exhibition flip-flops between the concrete and the abstract. It showcases real consequences of unsustainable practices alongside art with loose ties to environmental materials/causes/sentiments/ ideas. The photos, essentially works of documentary journalism, felt incongruous with, say, someone’s experimental t-shirt art project, or a pyramid made of paint waste products. The former is heartbreaking; the latter is mind-boggling. If the show-

case aims to be purely aesthetic, documentary doesn’t belong.

Those photos should be someplace where they’ll get serious attention, where they’ll inspire dialogue and activism.

Still, I do feel that “Rock, Paper, Scissor, Lizard, Spock” is topical, especially given the recent New York protest. Combining art and environmental activism is a noble (if difficult) project. I left the show thinking seriously about the environmental movement, and realized that despite flaws in the curation, this exhibit succeeded. Here I was, contemplating sustainability, the meaning of art and how maybe I should go vegan.

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

The Mind-Body Problem // BY EMILY XIAO To understand “Perception Unfolds,” a video installation currently on view in the 32 Edgewood Avenue Gallery, you shouldn’t try too hard to understand it.

For once, you can do enough by simply perceiving.

That’s not to say “Perception Unfolds” is a simple exhibition. In fact, sometimes it can be more challenging to pause and perceive without slipping into analysis.

The exhibition, which runs from Oct. 7 through Dec. 5, is the brainchild of Deborah Hay, dance pioneer and, in the 1960s, a founding member of the highly experimental Judson Dance Theater collective.

As Emily Coates, director of Yale’s dance studies program, explains, the collective “embraced a democratic philosophy” regarding performance and challenged existing hierarchies of dance. The artists in the collective then shot off into different directions, with Hay moving to Austin, Texas, where she began to grapple with the relationship between perception and choreography. With “Perception Unfolds,” which debuted at the Blanton Museum of Art in Austin earlier this year, she makes her foray into the visual art world, moving away from her usual live performances. And the Yale School of Art, too, makes its own foray into the world of movement and dance, representative of an expanding engagement with disciplines outside of visual art.

In the exhibition space, four large and semitranslucent screens hang diagonally with respect to one another along the central axis of the room. These screens serve as canvases onto which a looped thirteen-minute video performance, entitled “A Continuity of Discontinuity,” is projected; it features the dancers Jeanine Durning, Juliette Mapp and Ros Warby each performing her own version of Hay’s score, “No Time to Fly.” In an

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adjacent resource room, supplementary videos, text, and written scores provide context and insight into the exhibition’s creation.

THE RESULT, A MULTIDISCIPLINARY COMPOSITION OF MOVEMENT, SOUND, FILM, SOFTWARE AND MULTIMEDIA, IS ANYTHING BUT VERBAL, AND ENTIRELY VISCERAL. Contrary to expectations, the kind of perception that Hay demands of us is far from passive; rather, what’s remarkable about this exhibition — and what sets it apart from typical video installations — is that it’s not only the work itself that refuses to be static. Instead, in an appropriately democratic fashion consistent with Hay’s radical approach to dance, the exhibition invites viewers into its dynamism; they can weave their way among the four screens, step back, step forward, lean in, lean out, and in doing so, access wholly different ways of experiencing the same event. This sort of engagement, too, distinguishes the dancetechnology-visual art chimera from live performance, while preserving the variability that makes each iteration of a live performance different from t h e

next.

Indeed, for all the exhibition’s outward minimalism and angular composition, it is fundamentally free-form and free-wheeling — the vitality of “Perception Unfolds” comes from the unpredictability, even messiness, of experimentation. Part of this stems from Hay’s unique take on choreography: She’s focused less on structuring the dance itself, a specific sequence of steps and movements, than on facilitating the dancer’s own organic response to the music — almost a sort of planned spontaneity. Rather than telling her dancers to go left or right, Hay formulates her choreographic direction through admittedly baffling “what if?” questions, such as: “What if every cell in your body at once has the potential to perceive time passing, HERE and gone, HERE and gone,

HERE and gone?” These convoluted verbal prompts — sometimes poetic, sometimes absurd, sometimes both — do not call for verbal answers; instead, the dancers work out responses in their own improvised movement, directed not by intellect per se, but by bodily intuition.

The overall result, a multi-disciplinary composition of movement, sound, film, software and multimedia, is anything but verbal, and entirely visceral.

As such, the dances captured on film are not fully polished works. Yet, the dancers don’t seem to hesitate or overthink their movements — and there’s something refreshing about that, and about Hay’s desire to “undermine,” as she says, “the response mechanism that leads all of us, including myself, to want to get it right.” From this, a freedom emerges, a freedom of individual-

ity nourished by the spontaneous and context-sensitive nature of perception.

According to Hay, this freedom exists in our very cells. “Perception Unfolds” not only makes the process of perception itself explicitly visible, but also validates the dizzying range of perceptive possibilities.

Go for the experience, if nothing else.

Plan your visit if you want, but once you’re there, lose yourself in experimentation, in wandering, peeking, and casting inadvertent shadows; as dancer Jeanine Durning describes it: “You really have to be empty and not have a notion of how it’s going to go.” Perhaps, though, in that emptiness we can begin to discover perception itself, and a fullness of being.

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

// ELENA MALLOY

VQ SHOW

LC 101//9:30 pm What is the actual Viola Question?

WKND only goes to VQ shows in the hopes of finding an answer. #tbh

WKND RECOMMENDS: Apple cider. Apple picking. Applesauce.

Apple bobbing. Apollonian reason.

PAGE B6

PAGE B7

WEEKEND WONDERS

WEEKEND WONDERS

ASLEEP/HUNGOVER

WHICH KID IN SECTION ARE YOU???

ASLEEP/HUNGOVER. You say nothing and have no thought. You may be asleep. You may be hungover. Or both. You still contribute to the class because you compel your neighbor to nudge you and wake you up, and other students may titter and whisper over your slovenly appearance. True, any publicity is good publicity, but you can do better.

tt

SAFE BETTOR You are the SAFE BETTOR. You only say things that can’t be definitively disproved. If you play your cards right and say things in a knowing enough of a tone, you just might fool some of your classmates into believing you to be a real section gem.

“They confirm the prejudices of the authors time, but on the other hand it was a different time”

No COOL, SHY GUY/GIRL

Yes

COOL, SHY GUY/GIRL. You have good thoughts but are just too shy to express them! That’s OK because other students secretly admire you. You retain the element of mystique. Still waters run deep.

“The author seems to be undermining his own meaning ”

No

“These passages are the same but different...”

THE RELATABLE ONE Have a thought?

Yes Nothing...

Have a thought?

“You see what I mean? It’s about being human...”

“You know I think it’s really insteresting that...”

Which do you say more often?

THE RELATABLE ONE. You are fun, casual and breezy. Sometimes you show up late, wearing sweatpants. You crack jokes about the absurdities of old writers, without being dismissive of the chasm of historical distance. You sprinkle some slang into your speech to avoid being labeled a “square” by your imaginary high school self.

“Just to piggy-back off what he said...”

Yes Yes

Does this actually have anything to do with what he/she said?

No Have a (fresh) thought?

Have a thought?

No OVER-SHARER No... “I have to use the bathroom.”

No Yes

SECTION ANGEL Congratulations! You are the SECTION ANGEL. WKND would venture that you have pretty good seminar instincts. You build on what other people say, contribute to the conversation, and don’t care excessively about your own eloquence/ grandiloquence.

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10

ARCADIA AT THE YALE REP University Theater//8 pm

WKND cried through the last act.

Because sex, but also, like, entropy and death.

PARASITE

SECTION ASSHOLE

You are the PARASITE. You lift material from other students’ comments to hodgepodge together your own comment, purely in the interest of your “participation grade.” You might use your laptop to look up an obscure reference, which will add just the luster you need to outshine the neighbor whose thought you’ve stolen. Boo you.

Oops! You are the SECTION ASSHOLE. You get off on hearing your own voice, pontificating, dropping names and the like. Curb those nasty habits. Maybe you’re a socially well-adjusted person in real life, but WKND wouldn’t know from the way you act in class.

WKND RECOMMENDS:

FRI D AY OCTOBER

Hammocking. With a book, with a friend, with a blankie.

10

SLAM POETRY SHOWCASE

Morse /Stiles Crescent Theater//8 pm WKND loves to feel kinda emotionally manipulated by talented poets who talk about their feelings.

You are the OVER-SHARER. Sometimes you just really want to talk about yourself. You are often caught saying things like: “As someone who’s not religious, I think Milton’s poetry is overdetermined.” Or: “As someone who’s been going through a rough patch lately, I can really relate to LBJ.” We didn’t know those things about you before. Now we do. Thanks.

WKND RECOMMENDS: Dropping a class. Even if it’s the wrong decision, it still feels liberating.

PAGE B8

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2014 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND COVER

SMOKE IN THE EYES // BY STEPHANIE ROGERS

WEED FROM PAGE 3

CANNABIS FROM PAGE 3 use marijuana to self-medicate.

Geoffrey,* who has a long history of alcoholism in his family, said he sees marijuana as a safe way to help brighten his mood. Outraged by the harm alcohol has caused to college campuses, he is dismayed weed is not more accepted at Yale.

A frequent user, Geoffrey believes the classification of marijuana as a Schedule I drug is unwarranted. Schedule I drugs are considered the most dangerous class of drugs, with a high potential for abuse and potentially severe psychological and/or physical dependence. This classification puts marijuana on a higher schedule than drugs like crystal meth and cocaine, while alcohol does not even make the list. Geoffrey, who smokes weed in lieu of drinking, is distressed by the much higher number of alcohol-related deaths among college students versus marijuana-related deaths, which are negligible. This, he says, renders the classification questionable.

Holloway provides some possible explanations for this distinction. “Alcohol is treated differently than marijuana in part because at any given moment onequarter of our undergraduate population can legally possess, purchase and consume alcohol,” he said over email.

“I’m not blind to the fact that marijuana is used widely on the campus, and I would love to find a way to disrupt that practice for the general betterment of the Yale community,” Holloway noted. “Although I know that marijuana is smoked frequently I do not know how much of a role it plays in shaping Yale’s general culture. I certainly think that alcohol plays a more significant role in the broader culture and that is why we focus more of our energy there.” *** A frequent user, Charles* is doubtful of Yale’s marijuana policy changing any time soon. He shrugged: “Yale is not the kind of place that is just going to let people smoke out on Cross Campus or smoke up the Ivory Tower.”

During his freshman year, Charles and a few friends were caught by the police smoking on camera in the Yale University Art Gallery sculpture garden. The cops arrived, and he admitted the joints were his. Inside the brightly lit rooms of Linsly-Chittenden Hall, he was given his court summons. At first, Charles was worried, but the police said if he showed up to trial in a collared shirt and told the judge he went to Yale, everything would be fine.

On his court date, Charles was the only person in court with a collared shirt and tie. His $150 fine was converted to a $50 donation to a charity of his choice, and the incident was wiped clean from his record.

But he wasn’t completely off the hook — Charles and his friends had to face the Executive Committee. Ultimately, all he received was a warning. Looking back, Charles said, “The buildup was a process totally designed to freak you out, but when we got into the room it was very fair, and they were concerned and respectful and asked all the right questions.”

Many small possession cases do not even make it to the Executive Committee. Ricky received a warning from his dean when he was caught his freshman year. Charles has heard of many similar cases to his own, in which

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10

offenders received a warning.

The Executive Committee is made up of ten “regular voting members” — three tenured faculty members, three untenured faculty members, three undergraduates and the dean of Yale College. It also includes a “Coordinating Group” consisting of three “officers” (chair, factfinder and secretary) and an undergraduate student.

Between 2004 and 2011, 806 students came before the Coordinating Group for various offenses, only 19 of whom were summoned for marijuana-related incidents. Their punishments ranged from “reprimands” and “probation for the remainder of one’s time at Yale” to “suspension for three terms.” Notably, only two students received the more serious punishments (one probation and one three-term suspension, respectively) and the remaining 17 got off with a “reprimand.” Executive Committee members could not be reached for comment.

YOU DON’T PASS A BEER AROUND A CIRCLE.

These data suggest that, even before the gradual decriminalization of marijuana in Connecticut, the Executive Committee was relatively mild in punishing offending students. Holloway explains that “it remains illegal to possess marijuana in the state of Connecticut.

Yale is in no position to ignore that law,” but the process is often softer than this official stance. Connecticut law is less dichotomous: A relaxation in the prosecution of marijuana-related offenses has gone hand in hand with a gradual, uneven process of decriminalization. *** Charles admired the way in which the Executive Committee showed such concern for his mental health throughout the process. Nevertheless, he said there needs to be more of an open conversation about marijuana on campus, especially with respect to mental health. He warned that the drug can easily become a crutch to assuage larger anxieties with which students do not know how to cope. He acknowledged that his own state of mental health the previous year led him to consume too much.

“It’s definitely unfair — the policy differences between alcohol and marijuana — but where I was at last year, the situation I was in definitely should have been treated as a health issue,” Charles said.

Part of the reason it isn’t treated as such may be that there simply isn’t a large volume of medical cases involving marijuana.

Yale Health director Paul Genecin commented that Yale Health rarely sees any cases of marijuana incapacitation in comparison to the high rates of acute alcohol incapacitation. He added that their role is not disciplinary; they treat cases as matters of health. Under new alcohol policy, students can be mandated to have counseling for an abuse disorder.

Although medical marijuana is now legal in Connecti-

DPOPS CONCERT

Davenport Dining Hall//9:30 pm WKND doesn’t really like Beyonce: WKND just respects Beyonce as an equal.

cut, Genecin explained it is only allowed for a very specific set of illnesses including cancer, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy and Parkinson’s disease. At this time, Yale Health does not prescribe medical marijuana because Genecin said it does not seem necessary for the student population, but he added that no one can be sure of what the future will hold.

Although there are very few cases of people becoming addicted to marijuana, Genecin explained there are some people who have withdrawal symptoms with an abuse disorder that is now classified in the DSM-V. “There is still not enough appreciation of how addictive marijuana can be in some cases,” Genecin said.

Although many recreational users interviewed said there are rarely negative consequences to marijuana use, survey respondents reported three cases in which severe health reactions occurred. One student described having a panic attack while under the influence, and another “fainted after a concert post-weed.”

Faithful WWWW attendee and frequent user, Anna* was upset by the lack of conversation about marijuana during Camp Yale. Over the course of her freshmen orientation, she remembers receiving multiple hour-long talks about alcohol safety, use and health concerns, while marijuana and other drugs received less than a sentence.

Marissa Medansky ’15, a strong advocate for drug policy change on a national level and a former opinion editor for the News, has done research on the University’s drug history. In 2001, she explained, Yale was the fourth university to reimburse students who lost financial aid because of the Higher Education Act Aid Elimination Penalty, an act that rescinded federal aid from students with drug convictions. Despite such advances, Medansky said she thinks the student body is no longer as open as it once was in discussing drug use and policy.

She surmises the openness about drugs that students like Anna and Charles desire no longer exists on campus because of the emergence of social media. Back in the 1960s, she said, “No one had any expectation that a YDN [issue] from 1968 about the price of weed on college campuses would then be recorded for all of time.”

Medansky pointed out that drug culture was seen as something very much confined to college, so people were more forthright in discussing it.

In Medansky’s opinion, the advent of social media has contributed to a culture much more secretive and much less fun. The fear of being associated with drugs postgraduation has chilled an active drug discussion on campus, she added.

“Nobody is going to form a ‘Students for a Sensible Drug Policy’ on campus because nobody wants to be president of that group,” Medansky said.

So instead, students congregate in smoke-filled rooms at low-key, off-campus parties. Bongs and joints are passed around a circle. The marijuana conversations are hidden, confined to small rooms while others pre-game for Woads, walking through the streets tipsy, unabashed. * Names have been changed for the sake of anonymity Sara Jones contributed reporting.

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

WKND RECOMMENDS: The MLB playoffs. Baseball is a great excuse to drink beer and yell.

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2014 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE B9

WEEKEND SPORTS

SPORTS MEDECINE // BY JAMES BADAS

Yale’s football team has 34 new freshman members this year, and most will toil in relative obscurity until they earn playing time as upperclassmen. But when Dante Chiappetta of North Haven joined the team, he got a press conference in a booth high above the Yale Bowl. While the cameras rolled, Chiappetta signed his name and committed himself to the team, then tossed a football to head coach Tony Reno in celebration. Those in attendance cheered.

But Dante’s addition to the Bulldogs’ roster was distinct in other ways as well. The most obvious is that he is only six years old.

Dante has cortical visual impairment and cerebral palsy, conditions that together nearly blinded him and have left him unable to walk without the assistance of leg braces. He attends physical, occupational and speech therapy daily, and can communicate only with basic words and sentences. His “draft” by the Bulldogs was arranged by Team IMPACT, a Boston non-profit that uses sports to improve the lives of children with chronic or life-threatening illnesses.

Only a few weeks later at Payne Whitney Gymnasium, the Yale men’s basketball team offered a similarly uplifting gesture to 14-yearold Riley Mack. A native of Florida who now lives in Trumbull, Connecticut, Riley was diagnosed at age three with a debilitating brain tumor that has sapped his energy and health.

But now, thanks to the largesse of the Friends of Jaclyn Foundation — also known as FOJ, a nonprofit pairing sick children with sports teams — Riley wears a No. 1 jersey while he looks on at Yale men’s basketball home games.

For kids and teams alike, the experience has been transformative. Dante’s and Riley’s parents say partnerships with the teams have given their kids energy and strength, while players say the kids’ presence helps power them through tough stretches. In an age of statistical analysis and sports by the numbers, some may be skeptical that such emotional gestures can have real returns. But if there are skeptics, those on the court or the field aren’t among them.

According to tight end Jackson Stallings ’17, “Dante is at the center of the growth of our team” — a team that is now 3–0 to start the season.

But the stories of Dante and Riley are more than just heartwarming. With professional sports constantly mired in scandal and players demanding multimillion-dollar salaries to play games designed to pass the time, their stories hint at questions of why we play sports in the first place. *** Dante’s “draft” took place on Sept. 11, in the company of his father and mother, Joe and Jeanine, as well as his two brothers, Nate and London.

“The night of the draft, it was evident from the smile on his face, from ear to ear, that he loved being the center of attention,” said Joe

SATURDAY OCTOBER

11

Chiappetta, adding that Dante has taken to the team and will be dressing as a Yale football player on Halloween.

Stallings and defensive end Marty Moesta ’17 have been instrumental as liaisons between the football team and the Chiappetta family, but their job has been an easy one: Players say having Dante around has been completely natural.

When asked about his role in setting up the event for Dante, Stallings was quick to offer a correction.

“Well, it [wasn’t] really an event,” Stallings said. “We have a family-type relationship with the Chiappettas. They come to most practices and all of our home games. We have dinner together sometimes, and Dante is at the center of the growth of our team.”

The Bulldogs’ growth has been on full display this season as they currently boast a 3–0 record, highlighted by a remarkable 49–43 overtime victory against Army. And according to Stallings, Dante’s presence has played a vital role in the team’s success.

That sentiment — that the teams benefit just as much as the children they take in — is felt just as strongly up the street from the Yale Bowl, at Payne Whitney Gymnasium.

That was the venue where, just a few short weeks after the football team drafted Dante on Sept. 11, the Bulldogs’ basketball roster also grew by one, and point guard Javier Duren ’15 could not be more grateful for 14-year-old Riley Mack’s presence.

“He’s going to be able to impact us more than we can impact him,” Duren said in an interview for an article last week. “Whenever we’re feeling down, whether it’s because of practice or it’s because of games, we know that we can look at Riley for support and he’ll be there for us.”

After head coach James Jones presented Riley with a Yale jersey bearing the number one, the team welcomed the youngster with open arms and his very own stall in the locker room where he could hang up his new Nike top. Adorned with a nameplate, the stall will be Riley’s indefinitely.

“This relationship is for as long as Riley is alive. He’s going to have that locker in there and he’s going to be No. 1 at their games wearing their jersey,” said Denis Murphy, the founder of the Friends of Jaclyn Foundation. As Team IMPACT provided the platform for Dante to join Yale’s football team, Murphy’s foundation united Riley with the Elis’ basketball team.

If anyone understands what parents like Joe or Jeanine or Donna — Riley’s mother — are going through, it is Murphy.

The “Jaclyn” in “Friends of Jaclyn” is Jaclyn Murphy, Denis’s daughter. Her story inspired Riley’s. *** Jaclyn was nine years old when, in 2004, she received news that would forever change her life as well as her family’s. Jaclyn was diagnosed with medulloblastoma, a malignant brain

OPERA THEATER OF YALE COLLEGE

tumor.

But Jaclyn is now 20 years old, in remission and studying at Marist College. And neither she nor her family could have predicted that her diagnosis would change thousands of lives besides their own — and for the better.

The Friends of Jaclyn Foundation was the Murphy family’s response to a special relationship of Jaclyn’s had the fortune of experiencing.

The year following the news of her tumor, Jaclyn happened to become connected with the Northwestern University women’s lacrosse team.

After building a most unlikely friendship, the team adopted Jaclyn as an honorary member. Even more unlikely, the team that had been established just three years prior went on to capture Northwestern’s first NCAA national championship in any sport in 64 years.

Inspired by Jaclyn, the team went on a run for the ages. One title would certainly have been enough for everyone to walk away happy and thankful to have witnessed such a feat.

Instead, the team went on to win the next six national championships.

The Murphys hoped to replicate the unique bond that only sports can produce, and in the nine years since FOJ was founded, over 500 children have been adopted by collegiate athletic programs across the country — Riley was the 520th. But Murphy says the experience will never grow old.

“It’s hard because we’ve lost 103 children.

I’m around death. People see me and they run,” Murphy said in an Oct. 1 interview for an earlier article in the News. “You don’t know how long a child’s journey is going to be, whether it’s a day or a week or a year — that’s how insidious this disease is. But one day at a time, that’s why we live in the moment and play in the moment.”

For FOJ and Team IMPACT, the missions are one and the same: to improve the quality of life for children who have been fighting uphill battles for the majority of their lives.

It’s hardly a surprise that sports are a key

ingredient. Murphy fondly recalled the memories of his family attending practice at Northwestern, and the sensation of immersing themselves in the midst of that team’s run to the title.

For a couple of hours at a time, sports enabled Jaclyn and her family a release from the immense pressures and stresses of real life.

Eleven years later, sports are doing the same for Riley.

According to Murphy, Riley suffers from chronic fatigue that makes completing his physical therapy near impossible. Nevertheless, Riley played for over an hour on the court at Payne Whitney, dribbling and shooting with his new teammates with energy his mother hadn’t seen in some time.

Though Riley’s turnaround on that day may seem inexplicable, Duren, the point guard — who has experienced the adrenaline rush of sports many a time — offered as straightforward an explanation as possible.

“Sports can change lives, man,” he said. *** Murphy declined to accept praise for what he has created with FOJ, noting that he’s “nothing but a brain tumor dad” trying to make Jaclyn’s vision come to life.

Like Duren or Stallings, he doesn’t see what he’s doing as one-sided charity. Teams give something to the kids they adopt and the kids give something back, whether they realize it or not.

All the same, Murphy acknowledged that what he does can be difficult, as is inevitable when in such an emotional and potentially heartbreaking line of work. But if you ask the players who have gotten to know Riley and Dante, the strength that such difficulty requires is what makes the relationship special.

Contact JAMES BADAS at JAMES.BADAS@YALE.EDU .

WKND RECOMMENDS:

Davenport Common Room//1:30 pm WKND is going because people will be singing Copland. End of story.

Parent traps. What better time than now?

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YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2014 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND COLUMNS

WHICH RORY GILMORE ARE YOU? // BY JACKSON MCHENRY

? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? // WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

I have spent the last week watching “Gilmore Girls.” If you know me, you’re not surprised.

If you don’t, you probably have a friend or social media acquaintance who’s done something similar. You might even be a little worried about them, after they fell into a pumpkin spice-scented fugue state, giving up New Haven for Stars Hollow and midterm studying for arguments about Dean and Jess.

Even if you’ve never heard of Amy Sherman-Palladino’s early 2000s WB masterpiece, you’ve probably heard of Rory Gilmore.

In part, this is because Rory Gilmore, daughter of rebel-child Lorelai, feels like a student on campus, or at least someone that many students want to be: She’s highachieving, she nabs cute if dangerous boyfriends, she edits the YDN, she’s “basic” before the term existed. In other words, she’s aggressively bland.

I’m not passing judgment on Rory. Most people my age who watch “Gilmore Girls” see some aspect of themselves in her, myself included. And for that to work, for her to mean many things to many people, she has to be bland.

There’s even a Buzzfeed quiz: “Which Rory Gilmore Are You?” On the scale from “rebel” to “serious journalist,” I got freshman year Rory — the one with the most stress and least man action.

But on some level, it’s pointless to consume entertainment that just reaffirms your own identity.

This summer, Ruth Gratham wrote an essay for Slate called “Against YA,” in which she accused educated adults of shamelessly indulging in unchallenging art.

When Ira Glass complained that Shakespeare wasn’t relatable, Rebecca Mead took the term to heel in the New Yorker, arguing that “to reject any work because we feel that it does not reflect us in a shape that we can easily recognize … is our own failure.” Nobody spends English class wondering

which Lear daughter they are.

When we demand that entertainment be relatable, we end up twisting it to fit our own interests: We take quizzes that reaffirm that we are what we want to be, and gush to our friends about shows that justify our own navel gazing.

“Gilmore Girls” arrived on Netflix a week before David Lynch said he would return to “Twin Peaks.” By now, the sum total of things you’re supposed to watch seems like a Sisyphean labor of nostalgia. Perpetual “Arrested Development.”

I found a website once where you can plug in the number of seasons of TV you’ve watched on Netflix and discover the hours you’ve wasted in front of the screen. The books not read. The serious cinema not appreciated. I couldn’t put in my whole viewing history, for fear I’d find a gap in my life as wide as “In Search of Lost Time.”

But as A.O. Scott pointed out in his essay on “The Death of Adulthood in American Culture,” the very notion that certain things are more serious than others is conditioned by a patriarchal culture.

Scott examines the “grown-up” as a case study. Stories about men holding their families together, Tony Soprano and Walter White, automatically reek of prestige.

Others stories — about wayward girls in Brooklyn (as in “Girls”) or frivolous women in Manhattan (as in “Sex in the City”) — automatically seem less important.

Scott also argues that adulthood has come under attack. A greater variety of TV shows and films means more possible ways to be adult. We imagine one trajectory, in which adulthood means responsibility and sacrifice, but the Seth Rogens and Lena Dunhams teach us otherwise. According to Scott, the concept itself is becoming obsolete — maybe it’s moved in with its parents or is taking time off to work on its memoirs.

“Gilmore Girls” appeared before the so-called death of

adulthood, and its characters still bridle against the limited trajectory Scott identifies. Where “adulthood” might mean the gift of freedom and self-actualization to Walter White or Don Draper, for instance, it hangs like the sword of Damocles over Rory and Lorelai. To them, growing up is turning into your mother or acting like Donna Reed.

Lorelai has already bucked convention — as the explosive fights with her mother clearly indicate.

But Rory — the ostensibly mature child — struggles with the norm in a quieter, more insidious way.

In the series’ best episode, “They Shoot Gilmores, Don’t They?”

Rory and Lorelai enter a dance marathon (these things happen). Midway through, Rory goes through her first big fight with her first boyfriend, Dean. If we’re being totally honest, it’s Rory’s fault. She’s too brittle; she’s clinging to him even as it’s clear her heart has moved on.

Rory clings, in part, because she buys into a myth of “adulthood” built around relatability, the notion that it’s somehow valuable to bend your own identity in order to reflect what other people want.

If she’s the good girl, if she does everything society asks of her, isn’t that mature, and even noble?

Dean can’t take Rory’s excuses anymore. He knows that she wants to be, and be with, someone else.

He leaves. The episode ends with Rory collapsed in Lorelai’s arms, the two swaying slowly in the middle of the dance floor as the “Rocky” theme song plays in the background (these things happen).

The Rory Gilmore of Buzzfeed quizzes, the archetype we see in ourselves, isn’t the one embracing her mother on the dance floor.

Rory spends so much time trying to be that Rory Gilmore, but like most people, she has to learn how to become something more.

Contact JACKSON MCHENRY at jackson.mchenry@yale.edu .

More Mulaney, Less “Mulaney” John Mulaney seems like a very nice boy. That might be a strange thing to say about a 32-year-old established comedian, but it’s a role Mulaney himself embraces.

Being a thirtysomething comedian who looks like he’s 12 is kind of his shtick. That’s also the basic premise of “Mulaney,” a new FOX sitcom starring young comedian Mulaney as — you guessed it — a fictionalized version of himself.

Mulaney is one of the most talented comedians in the business today. He was a writer for “Saturday Night Live,” and created the now-classic character Stefon. His stand-up is brilliant, his comic voice likeable and wacky. I have been anticipating the premiere of “Mulaney” for almost a year now. But as much as it pains me to criticize someone so terrifically gifted, “Mulaney” is bad.

Almost unwatchably so.

The plot of “Mulaney” is nothing revolutionary, though it sounds promising enough: A young comedian struggling to make it in New York City gets a job writing jokes for a hammy, self-important game show host.

“Mulaney” is much like older sitcoms: It incorporates a laugh track and employs a multi-camera setup, in which several cameras film from unchanging locations (that’s why you always get the same view of the Cosby family’s living room). Mulaney intended for his show to reinvigorate the old-fashioned multicamera vibe that has recently become nearly archaic. The problem is that “Mulaney” isn’t inventive or subversive enough to make the outdated format seem fresh.

The larger cast of characters is also not particularly engaging, at least not yet. They have shortterm goals in place of personality traits. They’re cardboard-

thin, a collection of great comic actors reduced to half-baked sitcom clichés. Seaton Smith plays Mulaney’s roommate and fellow comedian Motif, a decent, if not hilarious, Goofy Best Friend type. Nasim Pedrad, one of Saturday Night Live’s most versatile players, doesn’t quite find her footing as Mulaney’s other roommate, Jane (to be fair, she’s pretty much boxed into a stereotypical Crazy Stalker Ex-Girlfriend role). Elliott Gould makes a brief appearance as the Obligatory Strange Neighbor, and Zack Pearlman flits in and out as Weirdo Who Is Universally Hated And Inexplicably Always Around.

And finally, Mulaney’s new boss, Lou Cannon, is in the capable hands of veteran comic actor Martin Short. In this role, however, he’s relegated to a handful of cheesy one-liners and the everpopular Joke About Not Remembering Someone’s Name (“Jay Mulaylay?”).

Like “Seinfeld,” the show to which this one is most often compared, “Mulaney” is bookended by stand-up from its titular star.

But Mulaney also wedges truncated bits of his existing material into the plot and dialogue.

An extended observation about seeing an abandoned wheelchair, a hilarious bit from one of his specials, is shoehorned into a bizarre cross between dialogue and an aside. In one of his standup specials, he tells a hilarious story about lying to a doctor and having to undergo a prostate exam; however, when acted out in “Mulaney,” the story loses almost all of its comedic steam. Mulaney has proven himself to be a great storyteller when he uses his own voice. He just hasn’t found the right way to tell half-hour, sitcom-ready stories. As a huge fan of Mulaney’s work, I was familiar

MADELINE KAPLAN MAD TV with much of his self-plagiarized material. I didn’t want to keep watching the show; I wanted to turn it off and watch his comedy instead.

It’s possible that in an age of hyperrealistic, boundary-breaking TV the multi-cam, laughtrack-heavy sitcom just feels unnatural. “Louie,” another show about a struggling New York City comedian, conspicuously shoves aside traditional rules of television to extraordinary effect. But I don’t think the problem with “Mulaney” is its antiquated format. After all, classic sitcoms like “The Cosby Show” are still beloved, and current ones like “The Big Bang Theory” are still popular. The simplest, sincerest, most damning criticism of “Mulaney” is that it isn’t funny.

Questions of style and “Seinfeld” comparisons aside, the show’s not worth watching.

“Mulaney” was roundly panned by critics and largely ignored by Sunday night TV audiences. The pilot drew just 2.3 million viewers, a dismal figure for a much-anticipated, hypedup series premiere. For now, I can only cancel my series recording, turn on “New in Town” — one of Mulaney’s great standup specials — and hope that this very nice boy finds a better venue for his talents. In other words: I want more Mulaney and less “Mulaney.”

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

SATURDAY OCTOBER

11

REDHOT & BLUE

United Church on the Green//3:30 pm WKND is going because people will be singing Copland. End of story.

// WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

WKND RECOMMENDS: “Funes the Memorious” by Borges, in which Funes remembers everything and then dies.

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2014 · yaledailynews.com

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WEEKEND THEATER

“AMERICAN GOTHIC” BRINGS American Gothic terrifies. I felt it from the moment the play began, when the sounds of muffled chanting filled the dark basement theater of 217 Park Street. As the actors walked behind me towards the center of the room, I shifted a little in my seat with discomfort. Warily, I watched them shuffle through with their faces covered by white veils and their arms outstretched holding candles.

Conceived by Eli Epstein-Deutsch ‘16 and Nahuel Telleria ‘16 (who is also the director), the play is an experimental collaboration between students from the Yale Schools of Art, Music and Drama. Occult themes, true to the dark and brooding nature of the American Gothic genre, run throughout the work and fit in perfectly among the neoGothic buildings of Yale’s campus. The play’s write-up does a good job of keeping the plot vague while revealing what the experience will be like. When I sat down at my table in the Cabaret, I was expecting to be scared. An original score by students from the School of Music, featuring ominous piano riffs and eerie violin, only added to the atmosphere.

In light of what’s been said, I should specify that this play does not horrify (American Gothic literature distinguishes between horror and terror: Horror is revulsion and disgust, terror the anxiety that

accompanies impending horror). This is one of the most deftly crafted aspects of the work. When the murderer called “Misfit” finds himself alone on stage with the grandmother of the play’s main family, he tells her that the punishment he’s endured in his life is far worse than anything he could have done to deserve it. As she sits and prays for her life, the fear on her face is palpable and radiates throughout the room. We almost wish that the Misfit would just get on it with — blow her brains out and let us deal with the trauma afterward, instead of having us sit in apprehension over what he’ll do next. But when the murder finally comes, there are no gunshots; there is no blood pooled on the floor.

Instead, the scene is described by a narrator — cool, detached, simultaneously saving us from both the anxiety of the exchange and the horror of witnessing a grotesque scene.

The narration was one of the play’s strong suits, and I found it impeccably well conceived and quite effective. Each of the three actors plays multiple roles and all of them serve as narrators as well. There are times when narration blends with performance as when actors play out a scene, but narrate it in the third person while maintaining their characters’ voices: When the family gets in a car crash, the grandmother continues to describe the scene even as she is thrown into the dash. The effect is to soften the blow of certain scenes by using the narrator to detach the audience from shocking visuals while still keeping them engaged.

As for standout performances, Kevin Hourigan’s ‘17 acting really made the play. He is a gifted actor, as shown by his remarkable and instantaneous transitions from little boy to father numerous times in one scene; Because a cast of three plays a family larger than that, actors must take on multiple roles in a single scene — something Hourigan does with gusto. He is especially creepy in his role as a cold-blooded

killer (Suggs), when he really shows his impressive range and versatility. Even when he is not speaking, Hourigan commands attention onstage with his telling and sometimes humorous facial expressions.

My only qualm with the play is that Telleria and Epstein-Deutsch seemed more intent on experimenting with different ways to convey a dramatic message than they did on tying the play together into a unified whole. This is forgivable, though, since I was impressed by the dynamism of the performance and the overall nature of the piece.

As a whole, the play achieved what it set out to do: It was creepy and intriguing, and successfully blended music, dance and stagecraft.

American Gothic has set some big expectations for its two co-creators, and we should look forward to what is to come.

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

// JOEY YE

England’s Wildwest The brief musical interludes you hear during the set changes in Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest,” the Dramat’s Fall Ex which opened Thursday night, are mostly classical piano — the sort of whimsical, evocative music most strongly associated, at least in this reviewer’s millennial mind, with Harry Potter movies. The selections are oddly sentimental for so ruthlessly witty a play, but they also effectively transport the audience to 19th-century England, so they do the trick.

But as the lights come up postintermission, the tinkling piano notes are not the work of Handel or Purcell: We hear an instrumental version of Kanye West’s “All of the Lights,” an inspired choice in that it locates Wilde’s analog in contemporary pop culture: Despite his admiration of Steve Jobs, Kanye’s real forerunner is Oscar W i l d e . Plays don’t have mass appeal today, and hip-hop didn’t exist in 1895,

but Wilde, like West, was an unapologetic aesthete and brazen cultural critic whose flamboyance compensated for a defect of seriousness.

Crass sexual humor is another commonality.

Perhaps this production is a little more West than Wilde. Where British humor is usually associated with a deadpan delivery reflective of that society’s stiff upper lip, West is blunt, passionate and often angry. He’s a renowned entertainer and also a bit of a clown. Likewise, under Miranda Rizzolo’s ‘15 direction, this cast hollers, shrieks, rolls their eyes, jumps onto furniture and otherwise hams it up. Which isn’t to say it’s bad.

Rather, it’s a joy to watch, and there are wonderfully choreographed and tremendously energetic scenes. The actors have an exaggerated physicality: The women, for example, are forever holding things out toward men, haughtily looking the other direction, expecting the contents to be taken off their hands.

Appropriately enough, the actors mostly stick to American accents.

Some speak with a faux-British elocution, and one or two veer into and out of nationalities.

Algernon and Jack, played by Otis Blum ’15 and Adam Lohman ’18 respectively, make a lively and likeable pair as two young bachelors, each romantically interested in a relative of the other. Gwendolyn, Algernon’s cousin, played by Lauren Modiano ’17, illuminates the stage with her strong comic presence (even if she does rely a little too much on tics, like screwball facial expressions and nervously fast talking). Lucy Fleming ’15 is convincing as Cecily, Ernest’s ward, bringing to her character the apathetic affect of a text-messaging teen. The pastor (Skyler Ross ’16) has a pleasantly Woody Allen-ish demeanor.

There’s a standout here, however — one character whose sterling portrayal is beyond all reproach: Lady Bracknell. Played in drag by Eric Sirakian ’15, Bracknell is the play’s most enduring creation, and Sir-

akian’s performance is a memorable blend of terrifying and preposterous.

His icy, disgusted glares and moral outrage are perfectly calibrated.

“Earnest” stands the test of time.

Sure, barbs directed at three-volume novels or society dinner parties can fall flat, but themes of hypocrisy, social climbing, romantic love, sex and religion have no expiration date.

Not many plays are funnier.

In a play overflowing with aphorisms, epigrams, zingers and disses — exposing pomposity at every turn — the cloying last line, famously impossible to pull off, is a final “f– you” from Wilde, not to the characters but, at long last, to the audience.

From Wilde, though, it feels like a heartfelt send-off. And as the lights go down on the awkward silence that follows, one feels like Cecily when she says, in a line brimming with the play’s signature irony, “The suspense is terrible; I hope it lasts.”

Contact JACOB POTASH at jacob.potash@yale.edu .

// STEPHANIE ADDENBROOKE

SATURDAY OCTOBER

11

TUIB FAMILY WEEKEND CONCERT

WKND RECOMMENDS:

Slifka//7:45 pm

WKND also cried at the last TUIB show.

WKND has fucking allergies, okay?

October skies. Because they’re really pretty and everyone has feelings. Also that book now a Major Motion Picture - about rockets.

PAGE B12

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2014 · yaledailynews.com

WEEKEND BACKSTAGE

WHAT WOULD JAMES FRANCO DO? ON LEARNING, TEACHING, ACTING — AND NORTH KOREA // BY ELIZABETH MILES

// ELIZABETH MILES

A week after his departure, earnest, bright-eyed freshmen are still camped outside my English 125 class, far earlier than I am, trying to see if they can spy the only member of my class who has played the Green Goblin, a drug dealer (twice), a trapped canyoneer who must cut off his own arm, the Wizard of Oz and most recently, a celebrity journalist ordered by the CIA to assassinate Kim Jongun. James Franco’s off-screen persona is even wilder: His Instagram recently showcased naked frolics with Seth Rogen in a field and his ride from New Haven back to New York City after class — a helicopter.

Throughout the month of September, Yale students were thrown into a frenzy of selfies once again as he made appearances in Linsly-Chittendon Hall, shadowing professor Catherine Nicholson’s section of Major English Poets, and teaching one session on Spenser’s “The Faerie Queene” as part of a teaching practicum required of English graduate students. An actor, filmmaker and teacher, Franco is known for attending multiple graduate programs simultaneously, while appearing in a range of movies, from “Spider Man” to “Pineapple Express” to “Spring Breakers” to “127 Hours.”

On television, he jumps out of birthday cakes, twirling handcuffs while wearing a police cap and (apparently) nothing else. In person, he’s quiet and affable, a tall, Bose headphone and Toms-wearing grad student.

After finding a quiet corner of LC, free from nervously hovering iPhone wielders, it hits me. James Franco taught my English class. I’ll never think of the Green Goblin quite the same way again.

Disclaimer: This interview ended with a selfie.

Q: You’re frequently found on college campuses, as a student and as a teacher. What’s the trite answer to “What do you hope to gain?”

(Laughs.) I’ve been to a lot of different programs, and I teach now regularly in LA. I teach graduate filmmaking and writing, and then I teach experimental performance and direction at CalArts, and here, I’m studying something a little different. I’m in the English department, and it’s a more academic program, compared to the MFA programs I’ve gone to as a student and now teach in. So a long time ago, I guess it was about four years ago when I signed up for this, what I wanted was a program that would push me towards critical studies. I had been training as a creative person — that’s what an MFA program is, you know, meant to do — and I wanted a bit more of the other side, the analytical side … I felt like there were tools I was being taught as a creative person, you know, how to write creatively, but that there were this whole other group of people — like critics or scholars — that could write analytically in ways I wasn’t being trained in, so I wanted a program that would give me that.

Another part of your question is pointing to the fact that also, I don’t really need this degree for my livelihood. I don’t need it to get a job, and I’m already teaching anyways in addition to acting and directing.

But — what can I say? — I like that it pushes me in directions I would not have gone in on my own, and teaching has become very important to me, and although I can get jobs down in MFA programs because I have a degree,

I like the idea that teaching would become an even more concrete thing if I have this degree. And I don’t think I knew going into this that teaching would become so important to me, but it has.

Q: What else was I going to ask …?

You can ask me whatever, you can get a little juicier if you want. You can ask me whatever you want.

Q: Can you give an instance of the student experience pushing you in unexpected directions?

Not unexpected — just like, you know — I had to read. I just passed my oral. I had to read tons of theory, you know? And as a graduate student or a Ph.D. candidate, you read as much theory as you read the primary texts. So for example, we were in the Chaucer, Spenser, Donne class together where, in that class, you’re mostly reading the primary texts: “The Canterbury Tales,” “The Faerie Queene.” In a graduate class, you would read those texts and you would also read the scholarship surrounding those texts and get a sense of certain kinds of criticism. If I was just on my own, I probably wouldn’t have done a lot of that extra reading. I probably wouldn’t have even known where to go to get that kind of stuff, and so this program gave me a structure. It taught me to do a certain kind of scholarship.

Q: Do you do all the reading?

Yeah, I was an English major as an undergrad — so I’ve read all the stuff, a couple times. So I did refresh myself. It seems like the consensus in the class is that everyone likes Chaucer a lot better than Spenser, and that’s the same with me. Even though Chaucer and Spenser are not in my field of study — I mostly do American, 20th century, 21st century — it’s still in this tradition that I appreciate.

I did study a lot of Shakespeare, and so I appreciate the way that Chaucer and Spenser lead up to Shakespeare.

If anything, Paul Feig was one of the geeks, not one of the freaks. In the show, the geeks are part of the A/V Club, the audiovisual club, and I ran into Paul Feig’s actual A/V teacher and he told me a little bit about Paul, and I saw some of the students. I saw a guy who reminded me of Daniel a little bit, and then that was it. When I came back, all the other cast members were like, well, why the heck did you do that? At that time, I think it was important for me as an actor to do too much, to go the extra mile even if it didn’t equate into results, concrete results that could be felt and seen. It’s not like after that trip, I decided, oh, Daniel needs to be this way. But I think as an actor, that trip, maybe, say, pilgrimage or something? That reinforced the kind of dedication to the role that maybe helped me as an actor, that I knew I was throwing myself into it so deep that I would be more emotionally invested in the character. And that was important to me as a young actor. But now I’ve done maybe 100 projects, I don’t need to reinforce my dedication to a character by doing some kind of research that won’t necessarily end in tangible results. The kind of research I do now is something that would directly affect the performance, meaning, if the character needs to ride a horse well, he’s supposed to look like a great equestrian, then I would go and practice riding a horse. And then you’d see if I learned how to do it or not onscreen … I used to really throw myself into the roles, and now, I’m just as committed, but now I’m — I don’t know — smarter

about the kind of research I spend my time on.

Q: Kim Jong-un has promised “stern and merciless retaliation” if “The Interview” is released. What’s your response, and if you were in charge, what should the U.S. actually do about North Korea?

I don’t know all the ins and outs, but yeah, North Korea made … a statement … about our movie, “The Interview,” that’s coming out in December. Everything I’ve been told is that it doesn’t seem like the movie’s going to start a war. If it does, that’d be, uh, ridiculous. You know, the movie, once people will see it, they’ll realize it’s just as critical of certain American institutions and celebrity culture in America as it is having fun with certain ways that they do things in North Korea, and it’s a comedy. It’s really not a harsh, serious critique of North Korea and Kim Jong-un, as much as it is a fun reflection of the state of affairs globally.

Q: You’ve worked with a lot of the same people, Seth Rogen especially, since “Freaks and Geeks,” most recently jumping out of a birthday cake with him on “The Tonight Show.” What’s the best part of working with your friends, besides working with your friends?

So I just took my oral exams.

I’d been studying; I’d been reading for a year and a half, and studying like crazy and reviewing this past month. And so I had this whole plan,

I’d be in New Haven, spend the night before my orals and go in and be prepared. Then they asked me last minute, will you come on “The Tonight Show” with Seth and jump out of the cake for Jimmy’s birthday? That is the worst timing, and we couldn’t change it, because it was his birthday, and he didn’t know, and it was going to be a surprise. So the night before my orals I jumped out of a cake topless with Seth for Jimmy Fallon’s birthday — and I still passed. When movies and television and online videos are all collaborative exercises, they all involve groups of people, whether they be actors, directors, writers, working together. And so when you’re in that kind of environment, as opposed to a novelist, who primarily works alone, when you’re in a collaborative environment — I guess not everyone is this way — but when I’m in a collaborative environment, I like to like the people I work with. I want to know we’re all making things for the same reasons, that we’re all aiming towards the same goal. And so when you find that, when you find a connection or a dynamic that really works, like the one between me and Seth, you want to keep going back to it, because there are so many times when collaborations can’t work, or they’re fine, but they don’t have the magic. When you find the magic in a collaborative medium, you tend to want to just go back to it because you find that it makes you better.

Contact ELIZABETH MILES at elizabeth.a.miles@yale.edu .

Q: You’re known for researching your roles intensely. What’s been the most rewarding experience you’ve had with that method?

I’ve been acting for almost 20 years, professionally, and my approach has changed over those two decades. When I was young, I started throwing myself into the roles very deeply — I guess, even starting with “Freaks and Geeks.” So I’ll give you an example there. That was a show about kids in high school, in the ’80s, so it wasn’t my generation exactly, but it wasn’t that far from my experience in high school. I could have, in hindsight, more or less played it without a ton of research. I knew guys like Daniel Desario, my character, in high school — I mean, I was a little like him. I knew enough that I could understand that character emotionally and understand his cultural references. But at that time, I was a very passionate, overzealous kind of young actor. So I learned that the writer, Paul Feig, grew up outside of Detroit, and that he had based a lot of the material on his own experience. So I decided that I needed to go to his hometown and go to his actual high school, to get into character. So I went out there, I think it was summer, but there was summer school.

// MAIRSA LOWE