heraldlivissue5 by The Yale Herald

The Yale Herald Volume LIV, Number 5 New Haven, Conn. Friday, October 5, 2012

B-school

From the staﬀ Twenty-two years ago to the day, on Oct. 5, 1990, the Herald breathed— er, printed—its last. Dwindling circulation and decades of being a backwater of the Murdoch media empire did it in. Backwater? Murdoch? Got ya there. (Probably not, but hey.) The Herald in question belonged to Melbourne, Australia, and it’s most certainly an exnewspaper. But not our Herald. We’re still going strong. This week, though, we do take on a variety of business transactions— some sweet, some, like those of Melbourne’s Herald, much more sour. For our cover story, Micah Rodman, BR ’15, traces the evolution of the School of Management, from eclectic breeding ground for non-profit administrators to aspiring top-tier, straight-and-narrow business school. In Features, Hayley Byrnes, SM ’16, takes a look at the proliferation of food chain stores in New Haven. At the Culture desk (yes! the Herald has desks! wrought of top-quality laminated particle board), Monica Hannush, PC ’15, investigates the not-so-thrifty dealings of New Haven’s thrift stores. Over here in Voices, I interview Elizabeth Payne, GRD ’07, Conservator of the Yale Babylonian Collection and expert in the economic transactions of Neo-Babylonian temples, which figure fuzzy, cute animals prominently. And that’s only what I can make sound tangentially related to this letter. Elsewhere, Otis Blum, BK ’15, reviews The Master, Tao Tao Holmes, BR ’14, reflects on a life of dial-up internet, and more. Times are good here at The Yale Herald, where the audience is captive, the staff unpaid, and Murdoch nowhere in sight. Here’s to not thinking about midterm season and to savoring fall in New England (a.k.a., not daydreaming yet about life in Australia). Love (?), Eli Mandel Voices Editor

CORRECTIONS: An article in the Sept. 28, 2012, issue of the Herald entitled “Zine fever” contained an error. The writer quoted Isabel Ortiz, JE ’14, but she was never interviewed for the piece. The article has been removed from our website. An article called “New reserves,” also in the Sept. 28 issue, incorrectly stated that the Navy provides the lowest level of tuition assistance to ROTC students enrolled in liberal arts majors.

The Yale Herald (Oct. 5, 2012)

The Yale Herald Volume LIV, Number 5 New Haven, Conn. Friday, Oct. 5, 2012

EDITORIAL STAFF: Editor-in-chief: Emily Rappaport Managing Editors: Emma Schindler, John Stillman Executive Editor: Lucas Iberico Lozada Senior Editors: Sam Bendinelli, Nicolás Medina Mora, Clare Sestanovich Culture Editors: Elliah Heifetz, Andrew Wagner Features Editors: Ashley Dalton, Sophie Grais, Olivia Rosenthal Opinion Editor: Micah Rodman Reviews Editor: Colin Groundwater Voices Editor: Eli Mandel Design Editors: Serena Gelb, Lian FumertonLiu, Christine Mi, Zachary Schiller Photo Editor: Julie Reiter BUSINESS STAFF: Publishers: William Coggins, Evan Walker-Wells Director of Advertising: Shreya Ghei Director of Finance: Stephanie Kan Director of Development: Joe Giammittorio ONLINE STAFF: Online Editors: Ariel Doctoroff, Carlos Gomez, Lucas Iberico Lozada, Marcus Moretti Webmaster: Navy Encinias Bullblog Editor-in-chief: John Stillman Bullblog Managing Editor: David Gore Bullblog Associate Editors: Alisha Jarwala, Grace Lindsey, Cindy Ok, Micah Rodman, Eamon Ronan, Jesse Schreck, Jack Schlossberg, Maude Tisch The Yale Herald is a not-for-profit, nonpartisan, incorporated student publication registered with the Yale College Dean’s Office. If you wish to subscribe to the Herald, please send a check payable to The Yale Herald to the address below. Receive the Herald for one semester for 40 dollars, or for the 20122013 academic year for 65 dollars. Please address correspondence to The Yale Herald P.O. Box 201653 Yale Station New Haven, CT 06520-1653 Email: Emily.Rappaport@yale.edu Web: www.yaleherald.com The Yale Herald is published by Yale College students, and Yale University is not responsible for its contents. All opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect the views of The Yale Herald, Inc. or Yale University. Copyright 2011, The Yale Herald, Inc. Have a nice day. Cover by Julia Kittle-Kamp YH Staff Photo on opposite page courtesy of Yale SOM

IN THIS ISSUE

COVER 12 Micah Rodman, BR ‘15, heads up Prospect Avenue to report on the experimental past, unsure present, and hopefully promising future of Yale’s School of Management.

VOICES 6

Eli Mandel, BR ‘14, sits down with Elizabeth Payne, GRD ‘07, conservator of the Yale Babylonian Collection.

Tao Tao Holmes, BR ‘14, ponders living with dial-up internet.

FEATURES 10

Aaron Gertler, TD ’15, heads to New Haven turnaround school High School in the Community to investigate dramatic policy changes.

Hayley Byrnes, SM ‘16, explores the new phenomoneon of chain restaurants opening in New Haven.

OPINION: Cindy Ok, PC ‘14, explains why it took her so long to register to vote in Connecticut, and Zoe Greenberg, BK ‘13, suggests changes to Dwight Hall.

REVIEWS

CULTURE 18

Monica Hannush, PC ‘15, explores New Haven’s thrift stores, like “pop-up” vintage store {Cut. Cloth.}. Also: the Latin American Film Festival and the Mayan apocalypse.

Otis Blum, BK ’15, on Paul Thomas Anderon’s The Master. Also: Looper, Flying Lotus, Matt & Kim, and Muse.

The Yale Herald (Oct. 5, 2012)

THANK GOD IT’S FRIDAY The Herald’s week in review: what rocked, what sucked, and who took the lead in IM bowling.

CREDIT/D/FAIL Cr:

Reconsidering cliches It was Heraclitus who said “You could not step twice into the same river; for other waters are ever flowing on to you” and until the other day, I almost believed him. But recently desultorily flipping a book’s scattered pages, I read some new words of wisdom: “If the flow is slow enough and you have a good bicycle, or a horse, it is possible to bathe twice (or even three times, should your personal hygiene so require) in the same river.” I think this is a really good point that hasn’t been recognized enough about rivers. All too often rivers are described as rare, unrepeatable sequences of water; each molecule’s continuous movement upon your flesh is seen as some singular ecstatic event, never to be revisited. Not so with that new Vespa of yours! Gallop across that Yangtze! Or, as I now like to say when taking a swim in the Fertile Crescent, “Goodbye Euphrates, Hello Again Euphrates!” —Ava Kofman

Mean machines The ATM outside of Toad’s Place, right on the way to HGS, gets a D this week because it’s somewhere in between awesome and not. It has one pro going for it and one con. The fee is $1.75 which admittedly is still annoying and a rip-off but, (and this is key), is a fee that is 25 cents cheaper than the Gourmet Heaven ATM which charges a fee of $2.00. On the other hand, the ATM really intensely says on its screen that you cannot under any circumstances open the plastic container while your two 20 dollar bills are being deposited. Maybe this is sometimes the standard fare but the warning on this screen is so intense that it’s almost begging you to disobey its authority. And when you do because it was practically asking for it, your transaction will be duly cancelled. Ugh. —Ava Kofman

The Yale Herald (Oct. 5, 2012)

The antibiotic armageddon From what I’ve been hearing, this is really going to suck when it happens. Basically, as antibiotic resistance increases, we’re soon going to be cut off from the medicine that normally works to treat, prevent, and cure bacterial diseases. This will be the end of antibiotics as we know them (that is, as things that work). Plus, the wide and indiscriminate mixing of antibiotics with animal feed only further increases the rate at which lethal, antibiotic-resistant “superbugs” develop. Yikes. The PBS website recommends not asking for penicillin when you have a cold as one possible remedy. Is that a thing? —Ava Kofman —graphics by Zachary Schiller YH Staff

BY THE

BOOM/BUST INCOMING: Fall-themed drinks New Haven’s coffee shops have made it official: it’s really fall. Book Trader’s got cider to celebrate the season; Blue State’s one-upping them with their “chai-der” (obvi a delicious mix of cider and chai tea, in case the wordplay wasn’t clear) AND homemade pumpkin flavoring to add to coffee drinks. And Willoughby’s will not be left behind — they’re advertising their “Mexican Spiced Cocoa/Mocha,” which seems to be a more subtle nod to the joys of autumn.

OUTGOING: YDN elections Looks like we’ve finally found out who’s gonna wear the khakis on York Street this year. Mazel tov to the new crew, but honestly, the only fun part of the whole election process — sorry, we meant “structure” — is watching YDN folks get real paranoid and schemey. Now that we’ve got the new managing board picked out and the awkwardness of the “joke issue” behind us, it’s time for that publication to resume its usual role as that thing you read when lecture gets unbearable but things on Gmail are just a little too real.

NUMBERS

TYNG CUP STANDINGS 1. Jonathan Edwards 2. Pierson 3. Saybrook 4. Trumbull 5. Timothy Dwight 6. Silliman 7. Morse 8. Davenport 9. Ezra Stiles 10. Berkeley 11. Branford 12. Calhoun

174.5 170 163 155 146 142 131.5 124 111 100.5 84.5 27.5

INDEX 34 Days between the Oct. 3 presidential debate and Election Day.

TOP FIVE 5 4 3 2 1

67 Chains we wouldn’t actually mind seeing on Chapel Street

Percentage of debate-watchers questioned who considered Romney to have won the debate.

17,000 Number of tweets per minute for “Big Bird” at 9:45 p.m., right after Romney quipped, “I like Big Bird.”

Trader Joe’s Wendy’s — where the hell is this?

4 Number of minutes more that Obama talked than Romney did.

541 Dave & Buster’s. Skee ball, anyone? Whole Foods

Number of words more that Romney said than Obama did.

2 Number of presidential debates remaining before the election.

GANT New Haven second location!!! Sources: 1) Calendar 2) CNN/ORC 3) Twitter 4) Bloomberg View 5) The Atlantic Wire 6) The New York Times — Maude Tisch YH Staff The Yale Herald (Oct. 5, 2012)

SITTING DOWN WITH ELIZABETH PAYNE by Eli Mandel Rebecca Wolenski/YH Elizabeth Payne, GRD ’07, is conservator of the Yale Babylonian Collection. The collection houses about 45,000 cuneiform tablets and other objects from ancient Mesopotamia, and is the largest of its kind in the United States. Cuneiform refers to the wedge-shaped writing invented by the Sumerians and later used by the Akkadians and the other civilizations that flourished in and around what is now Iraq. (The study of these text and the civilizations they come from is known as Assyriology.) The texts, which were stamped in clay using a stylus, span a vast period from 3200 BCE to 70 CE, and cover a range of topics, from the literary (the Epic of Gilgamesh) to the mathematical (the computation of the square root of two) to the administrative (the number of sheep belonging to such-and-such temple). When I visited Payne, she was busy gluing together a shattered 3,000-yearold tablet. We sat down to talk about her work at the YBC, the looting of antiquities in Iraq, and how she came to study Assyriology. YH: What’s the story of the Yale Babylonian Collection? EP: Our collection was founded in 1909. Our first curator was a guy called Albert Tobias Clay—which, with all the clay tablets, is a good name for an Assyriologist. He was good pals with J.P. Morgan, and so that’s where the money for the collection came from. He began purchasing tablets on the antiquities market. About half of the tablets were purchased by Clay. The other half of the collection was assembled by the Reverend James B. Nies. Those together form the collection of tablets we have here. YH: Were Clay and Nies buying things that had just been excavated, or had the tablets and such already been floating around on the antiquities market? EP: It was more the latter. We have some that were scientifically excavated, but for the most part these were not scientifically excavated. But it’s also an old collection. We do not collect tablets any more. Antiquities are just dodgy now. It’s like getting into drug money or gun money. There’s a black market, and the money goes to really bad things. So for that reason, and also just for ethical reasons, Yale has not been collecting for decades and decades and decades. YH: Who is collecting these days? EP: There’s a lot of stuff coming out [of Iraq]. After the

The Yale Herald (Oct. 5, 2012)

invasion [by the U.S. in 2004], the sites, especially in the south, were just devastated. The Baghdad Museum was also just looted terribly. Where exactly those things ended up, or are ending up, we’re not sure. Some of it has been caught at the border, some of it has been returned, but a lot of it has just sort of disappeared. There are markets all over the place—wherever there’s money. So Saudi princes will collect things, or some of [the looted materials], I’ve heard, are going through Switzerland, or through Israel, or through Japan.

tablets] require full conservation, which means I bake them, fire them, and then soak them to get the salts out, because the soils in Iraq are very saline, and so if the salts aren’t leached out with water, they then attack the tablets. Then I glue them back together [when necessary]. Assuming the pieces are there, it’s possible to get them back together quite well.

YH: Can you tell me a little about cuneiform and the languages it was used to write? EP: Akkadian is a Semitic language. Sumerian, we don’t know exactly. The script itself is not alphabetic. There are alphabetic signs, but most of them are either vowel-consonant or consonant-vowel, or consonant-vowel-consonant signs. So it’s syllabic. Then there’s ideograms. So you’ll have a sign that means “house,” a sign that means “man,” a sign that means “king,” a sign that means “to go,” whatever. You have all of these things working together.

YH: As an undergrad? EP: Well, as a four year old. I was obsessed with Egypt at age four. But yeah, as an undergraduate I did Egyptology and archaeology. Then I did a master’s in archaeology, and then more Egyptology. But I decided that archaeology and Egyptology weren’t really what I wanted to do. I was taking a couple of years working at Brown in the Egyptology department and had the opportunity to take a course with a world-class Assyriologist—just for fun, just auditing. I was hooked, and I started learning Akkadian.

YH: That must make it extremely complicated to read. EP: I have no idea how the brilliant people who deciphered this to begin with did it.

YH: Do you have any idea why you were always so drawn to the ancient Near East? EP: Well, as a kid you like mummies and gold and things. [Laughs.] But the hieroglyphs—they really appealed to me. I became interested about the time I was learning to read, and just learning to read English was sort of mysterious, but hieroglyphics was even cooler because it was, like, falcons and dudes sitting there! And I was like, “Man, I’m going to learn how to read that.” And I just never dropped it.

YH: What kind of cuneiform texts survive? EP: About 20 percent of our texts are scholarly or literary, and so there are things like epics and mathematics, medical texts and astronomical texts. But the other 80 percent are administrative and archival. You have accounts where you have temples taking care of, “How much barley do we have?” and, “Have we properly accounted for the onions we’re paying our workers?” We have letters going back and forth, house sales, and pre-nuptial agreements, and divorce contracts—the recording of daily life. YH: What do you do as conservator of the collection? EP: I care for the physical well-being of the tablets. I’ve been in this position for about three and a half years now—and so I’ve done a full inventory to make sure that everything is where it’s supposed to be. And while going through all the drawers doing the inventory, [I have been] figuring out what needs conservation and then providing it. Some of [the

YH: How did you become interested in this stuff? EP: I started out in Egyptology, actually.

YP: Do we know more or less what Sumerian and Akkadian sounded like? EP: We have a pretty good idea. But exactly how things were vocalized, where the accents would go—we know grammatically where they should go, but how would it sound, how would the different dialects sounds… I mean, if we were to go back and read the Code of Hammurabi to Hammurabi, he would be just befuddled. But after a couple of weeks being in the same company, the Assyriologists would learn, and he’d learn, and I think we’d get along. But, uh, maybe not socially. —This interview was condensed by the author

THE FLICKER OF HOME by Tao Tao Holmes

nce, while I was waiting for a website to load, I gave myself a haircut. I’d wandered into the bathroom, where I encountered a pair of scissors, and absentmindedly began snipping, vaguely hoping to achieve a sort of layered effect. After idly pruning an inch from the left side, then an inch and a quarter from the right, then a compensatory half inch from the left, and so on and so on for nearly 10 minutes, I looked in the mirror and realized that my long, even hair was now above my shoulders and grotesquely lopsided. I hurtled down the stairs and displayed the catastrophe to my mom, who told me life would go on. Left no choice but to accept my folly and trudge back up the creaking wooden steps, I plopped back down in front of the computer, where my webpage had just finished loading. My house, nestled quietly in a hill town of western Massachusetts, was built in 1790. Found among its many quaint relics of the past are sagging ceilings, dusty fireplaces, and a granite horse hitching post complete with rusty iron ring. And also, dial-up. Dial-up (how easily we forget!) is an endangered and early form of Internet; it enables a computer to connect to cyberspace through a telephone line. Often the telephone and internet modem share the same line, which means that they cannot both be used at once. With dial-up, a page of Google search results takes a steaming mug of Swiss Miss or a thorough tooth brushing to load. This pace of life forced me away from the computer screen and into an only child’s world of creativity. While I made pop-up cards near my dad’s slippered feet, the chirping and chirring of the internet modem harmonized with the deep, rhythmic tolls of the centuries-old grandfather clock, the clock’s brass pendulum and the copper wires of telephone line measuring out their asymmetric beats. Like the clock, these wires were old and never upgraded, so that snow and thunderstorms and even passing showers could sever us from the grid—no landline, no Internet, not even a horse hitched to the horse hitching post. Luckily, we had cross-country skis, so that when winter and its crisp, sweet air delivered an especially generous load of snow, my parents and I could slice chopstick tracks into the un-

plowed road to a neighbor’s house a morning’s journey away. Six years ago, the Massachusetts government officially announced that it would expand broadband service to the whole western end of the state. My house must have been in a forgotten corner, so impossibly tucked away from it all that no broadband or DSL service thought to bother. When I researched DSL a year or two later, I found that houses in Ashfield center, a two-mile jog away, were eligible. But the wooden clapboard house at 732 Beldingville Rd., with its tilted floorboards, wild turkeys, and me, was not. ON THE LAST DAY OF THIS PAST AUGUST, I received an email from my dad. I read and reread the subject line: “WIFI ! FREE AT LAST !!” I felt immediately queasy. A few days later as I was speaking to him over the phone, he asked me, “Can you guess what I’m doing right now?” He quickly filled the pause. “Checking email!” he said, like a child who had just discovered he could play drums and sing at the same time. Sitting in my dorm room with my iPhone to my ear, for a moment I didn’t know what to say. For seven years, my dad dropped me off and picked me up from my middle and high schools, both in a town 20 minutes away. Throughout this time, it had been a never-ending battle of luck to get in touch with my parents, who both worked at home—my mom an artist, my dad a Bostonborn Sinophile. If I called during certain hours of the morning or evening, I invariably heard the sneering croak of the busy tone; between nine and noon, I knew that my dad was reading articles online (probably Chinese newspapers), and after 8:30 p.m., my mom was deep into her nightly tête-à-tête with her sister in Beijing. My parents have never had cell phones, so I had no choice but to wait, smelly and tired, until I could finally call to go home. At school I took advantage of the high-speed internet, with its research databases and seedy online shows, but once home, I retreated to my bedroom desk, only venturing to prostrate myself before our desktop’s dial-up in times of dire need. During school breaks, particularly in college, I would drive to the town library and sit outside in the car, edged right up against the

curb to lap up the public wifi. I remember one December evening sitting in my little Honda on Ashfield’s empty main street with an ice pack bonnet swaddled around my swollen cheeks, my wounded gums still recovering from wisdom tooth surgery. Cradling my MacBook in the down folds of my knee-length parka as light frost embroidered itself on the windows, I Skyped my best friend. A PALM-SIZED BOX, ABOUT THE SIZE OF A deck of cards, now crouches next to our home computer. It receives a 4G signal from a Verizon tower in a town five miles away, little twinkling lights indicating the strength of the reception, with three blue lights signifying a strong signal, one light indicating a weak one, and a yellow glow warning of imminent failure. “I pound the key and WHAO! Everything is there!” spurted my mom over the phone, her faint Chinese lilt not quite “whoa” or “wow,” but “whah-ow.” My dad, in his own fashion, wrote in an email to a former law buddy of his: “A flurry of wifi pixie-dust, and troglodytic Holmeses emerge half-blind into the brilliant cyber daylight. So many forbidden fruits now within reach… perhaps happier in the cave?” Away from the blinding cyber daylight, the cave had become home. The stoic house with its puffing chimney was my inviolable retreat. With friends scattered across different states and Facebook and YouTube commoners’ luxuries, I was happily disconnected, buried in scratchy, hand-knitted blankets in front of the blazing wood stove, sipping chamomile mint tea in one hand and stroking the feather-soft ears of my golden lab with the other, my dad reaching over me occasionally to stoke the coals. I worry that Verizon has shattered this reclusive bliss, placing our dialup’s formerly forbidden fruits within reach. I’m comforted, however, knowing that as I pace within these five secure bars of campus wifi, our new 4G gadget is still victim to the hilltown elements. With our wind, rain, and godforsaken isolation, I’m told the new internet reverts quite frequently back to dial-up speed. I smiled when I heard the current colors of the flickering signal: a blue and sickish yellow-green. —graphic by Christine Mi YH Staff The Yale Herald (Oct. 5, 2012)

OPINION CAST AWAY

TRADING SPACES

by Cindy Ok

by Zoe Greenberg

Remember when Diddy wore the same shirt for seven straight months in 2004? The one that said “VOTE OR DIE!” in giant red and blue letters? (And also how at that point his name was P. Diddy?) I think I was the only kid in my seventh grade civics class who was not on-board with Diddy’s campaign. He was using his fame for good, went the argument, and could potentially really “make a difference”—apparently the thing for all celebrities to do once they passed their artistic peak. For one, “Vote or die!” really sounds a lot like “Voter, die!” I retorted, and the mantra just seemed excessively dramatic. What did he think we were, Australia? This was America, where people don’t just have a right to vote, but a right to choose to vote. My parents came to this country to have that freedom, damn it, and when they voted it should be because they decided to. (I didn’t and still don’t actually know what the voting laws were like in Korea in the 80s, but in government classes my M.O. was always to relate my arguments to my immigrant parents’ so-called American Dream.) Later in that class, I gave a short presentation about the election. It consisted of a PowerPoint slideshow with one slide. On the right side of the screen, I made word art on Microsoft of the word “nucular” with the caption “Can’t you read e’s????”; on the left, I pasted a photo of my pink Havianas, captioned, “He’s a flip-flopper!!!!!!!!!” I was 12, and that’s what I thought the election was about. (And for so many grown-up Americans, that evidently is always what the election is about.) It didn’t matter that I couldn’t debate the merits of each party’s platform, because what I really cared about at the time was that I was going to vote one day. That I would register the day I turned 18 and vote in every election from then onward. I’m 20 now, and I’ve disappointed little Cind, because I’ve barely voted at all. I’ve been registered in California since 2010, and for the two years I’ve been at Yale, have sent in only an occasional absentee ballot, usually about some minor change in a school lunch regulation. “Why vote in Connecticut when I don’t know anything about

The Yale Herald (Oct. 5, 2012)

anything here?” I justified to myself. “They really need my vote in the non-presidential elections back home, you know?” I told canvassers who shoved registration papers in my face before various local elections on Cross Campus, or in my dorm room. It was an easy lie. I just never wanted to do the paperwork (which, by the way, takes about three minutes and only if you are the slowest writer of all time). It didn’t feel worth it to learn about a place if I was just going to leave it in a few years. And what would happen if, say, I actually started calling the city I live in my home? I missed the Ward 1 aldermanic elections last fall, and I never did Google the candidates for Connecticut’s Senate seat like I promised myself I would. But it wasn’t loyalty to California that kept me from educating myself and voting here; it was sloth, and it was ignorance. As of this week, I am proudly registered to vote in Connecticut. I figure that I own a couch here now, and that means I’ve got me some real East Coast roots. Come Nov. 6 I’ll be in line at the public library—join me, I’m going to make peach Obam-bbler. I’m not saying vote or die, to you or to anyone else. I’m not even saying vote or be categorized an irresponsible citizen. But I am saying this: vote, or pretend people didn’t give their lives so you could. Vote, or find yourself guilty of perpetuating all the Generation Y stereotypes about apathy, passivity, and egocentricism. Vote, or be just as lazy and as cowardly as I have been for two years too many. Let’s ring them bells and cast those votes. New Haven is a city that dreams, and we’re here to stay, at least for a little while. —graphic by Serena Gelb YH Staff

In the summer of 2011, I directed the U.S. Grant Foundation, an academic enrichment program for New Haven public middle school students that is run out of Dwight Hall. Dwight Hall houses all of Yale’s public service and social justice organizations. It was my second summer in that very special building, and, based on my wealth of experience, I would like to propose that we take a wrecking ball to it and build a new home for campus activism in its place. The Dwight Hall staff was extraordinarily kind to us, and I don’t say this to hurt them. I actually think it would help them. We should destroy their workspace because they deserve better. Even if we started with a pile of broken logs from the parking lot outside of Brick Oven, we could create a space more conducive to activism and community service than the one we have now. I officially decided this one day when I was in Dwight Hall, setting up my classroom and struggling to find a way to cover a hole in the wall. During lunch, I went onto Old Campus and saw the crowds gathering for the opening day of “Explo,” a horrible schoollike summer camp for wealthy high schoolers. The sky was bright blue, the grass was glossy, pamphlet-shade green, and Explo was blasting music while their color-coordinated balloons floated extravagantly in the breeze. Most of the high schoolers were wearing tight ripped shorts and strappy sandals that aren’t supposed to get wet. When I saw this, I felt a snap of rage— quick like when a New Year’s Eve firecracker pops on the ground—and then I felt the rage slow down and spread through my body. Part of it was the very human reaction of seeing someone who has something better than you. Part of it was the fact that all Explo students wear matching lanyards. But the main reason I was angry was because I could see the blatant inequality of the two experiences that unfold every summer on Yale’s campus.

Six weeks at Explo costs $9,555. Six weeks at U.S. Grant costs $75. In July and August, Explo uses an enormous amount of space on campus—air-conditioned rooms in LC, dorm rooms in Welch and Farnam, and the sprawling green of Old Campus. U.S. Grant stays in Dwight Hall, which has falling ceilings, stained rugs, mice in the walls, and both strangers and bats roaming around cheerfully inside. Dwight Hall, Yale’s “institution for others” (as its website claims) is provided as a space to those organizations, like U.S. Grant, that depend on Yale’s generosity most. And while U.S. Grant definitely benefits from Yale, it gets the worst resources that Yale has to offer, while programs like Explo, that have tons of money and a host of privileged kids, get the best resources. It seems very black and white to me in the way middle school teachers tell you things are not. Poor, smart kids sit sweating in tiny classrooms with motivated teachers and no supplies, while rich, smart kids are exposed to the beautiful world of Yale science labs and air-conditioned Yale theaters and Yale brand composition books. The students in my class were often distracted by how hot it was; we had to play “Waterfall” (non-drinking edition) to make sure they stayed hydrated in the stifling rooms. Having 12 sixth grade students sitting so close to each other that their elbows are touching is not an excellent way to maintain a productive classroom environment. As someone who has both taken classes in LC, where Explo classes are held, and taught in Dwight Hall, where U.S. Grant classes are held, I can say for a fact that it is harder for students to learn and for teachers to teach in one than it is in the other. My proposal is this: we level Dwight Hall and construct in its place a glorious building, perhaps also called Dwight Hall, where Yale students and New Haven community members can join together under non-leaking ceilings, in well-lit, appropriately-heated rooms, to try to fix the problems that face our schools and our city. I think that having a space that shows, physically, that Yale is committed to social justice would make a huge difference both on campus and in the larger community. Hey, we could even get lanyards.

Power to the teachers Experimental policies at New Haven’s High School in the Community by Aaron Gertler YH Staﬀ

ere it not for the sign, I’d have completely missed the entrance to High School in the Community (HSC). More than anything, it resembles the back of my own high school—loading docks, unmarked doors that won’t open, a single basketball hoop hinting at student life inside the hulking structure. But when you climb the stairs to the main office, the walls present a surprise. Your average high school bulletin board, praising high achievers, on the left—but on the right, an art collection worthy of Rick Levin’s living room. (Well, prints, but good prints: “Starry Night,” “Christina’s World,” lots of Cezanne). The stark difference between the two sides of the same corridor echoes the tension between the school’s present reality and ideal educational philosophy. 114 HSC freshmen—“foundation students,” they’re called—are the first group to take part in one of the state’s boldest educational experiments, and as David Cicarella, president of the New Haven Federation of Teachers, puts it: “Everyone’s looking at us.” In June, HSC became the city’s sixth official “turnaround school.” Hoping to raise its Connecticut Academic Performance Test (CAPT) scores to match the state average, New Haven has given low-performing schools the chance—and budget—to radically transform themselves in a variety of ways. HSC received over $1,000,000 from

The Yale Herald (Oct. 5, 2012)

the state Board of Education this year. In the case of HSC, two changes stand at the forefront of the school’s new policy choices: the school is now run entirely by its teachers, and age-based promotion is a thing of the past. Union-run schools exist in other states, but Cicarella calls HSC’s past the only real inspiration for its decision to give sole ad-

HSC teachers had to re-interview for their jobs, a feature of turnaround policy which Cicarella supports. Ten teachers declined to go through this process and were subsequently placed at other schools in the district. The ones who remain “both chose to be there and were chosen to be there,” Cicarella said.

skills. Larry Schaeffer, senior staff associate with the Connecticut Association of Public School Superintendents, told Bailey that the policy—for which he helped train HSC’s teachers—will hopefully raise the value of their diplomas in the eyes of colleges and employers. HSC math teacher Riley Gibbs loves the

114 HSC freshmen —”foundation students,” as they’re called— are the ﬁrst wave to take part in one of the state’s boldest educational experiments. minsitrative control to teachers, musing that “this is always something we’ve entertained.” Since its founding in 1970, the former “alternative” (and now “experimental”) school has always given teachers a louder voice than is the norm; teachers often rotated through the head “facilitator” position (there is no principal). With union control, Cicarella argues, teachers can implement changes they’ve always wanted without seeking approval from district or city administrations, a formality which has slowed down the “historically teacher-run” HSC in the past. Although Cicarella still signs off on certain proposals, he tries not to be “a boss.” All 31

HSC is Connecticut’s first school to practice competency-based promotion. Starting this year, students no longer enter as members of the freshman class; instead, they begin as “foundation students,” working at the lowest level in each subject area until they can prove their mastery and move on to the second tier, becoming “core” students. This may take six months of school, or 12, but as facilitator Erik Good told the New Haven Independent’s Melissa Bailey on Aug. 20, there will be no more “assembly line” for students who don’t know material well. There is no slipping through the cracks at HSC: any student who graduates will, without a doubt, possess certain

new policies, especially the grading. In his eyes, the extra credit and points given for “effort” in most other schools are problematic: “a D doesn’t really mean you’ve learned anything. Even a B might mean you haven’t learned enough.” HSC awards grades differently, using a zero-to-four scale based only on relevant class-work, and requiring that students demonstrate a wide range of proficiency to reach the next level: one cannot pass geometry knowing triangles but not circles. Gibbs believes kids have responded well to the new system: “No one expects anymore to move from ninth to 10th grade just because 10th comes after ninth,” he said.

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I caught Kourtnee Staton, a junior (nonfreshmen still go by standard class names), in the hallway after lunch. Staton has found skill-based promotion rewarding: “I like being able to move at my own pace and be at my

from their homework that they understand the abstract solutions to the problem asked of them. However, they explain their foolproof strategies like this: “Trick them and control the outcome,” one student said. “I

Sex Week 2012

other few years to see what the future holds for foundation students who can’t advance to “core,” but John Bryan Starr, who teaches the Yale College course “Public Schools and Politics,” thinks past evidence bodes ill

“No one expects anymore to move from ninth to tenth grade just because tenth comes after ninth.” —Riley Gibbs, HSC math teacher own level,” she said. In math, this level is AP Calculus, which she said was “easy,” so she got to move ahead of some of her peers. Tom James, PC ’12, is one of 10 new teachers brought in to replace those who declined to re-interview. When I visit his classroom, it’s empty of students, but a sign on the wall hints at their time in the class. The rules are posted: “1) Be excellent to each other 2) No stupid stuff 3) No fire 4) Take mathematics seriously” James, who took the rules from a math camp where he worked as a counselor, says they’ve worked out well—he’s teaching game theory to juniors and seniors not quite ready for pre-calculus (he also teaches some classes with first-year foundation students), and I see

know the answer! I just don’t want to write it,” another said. “I told them to write rules so a third-grader could read them and win the game,” James said with a shrug. On the one hand, he finds that some kids asked to work at their own pace “take advantage of the decreased [short-term] accountability.” On the other hand, one of his foundation students is well ahead of classmates, and while setting his own pace also allots time to help some of his struggling peers. For clever students, skill-based promotion has clear advantages: who wants to sit in a math class, listening to concepts they already know, while surrounded by peers who can’t grasp the material? But for those on the other end of the spectrum, who may take six years to graduate without age-based promotion, the benefits are less certain. It will take an-

for the lowest performers: “The literature on social promotion suggests that holding students back significantly increases dropout rates,” Starr said. Gibbs disagreed, arguing that kids respond poorly to “You’ll fail if you don’t,” but well to, “You won’t learn if you don’t and you’re just going to sit in this class.” HSC has tools in place to compensate for students who fail to keep up with the rest of the class. For struggling students there are 75 minutes of tutoring two days a week. The classroom reliance on mostly self-guided materials also gives teachers the chance to let kids who understand the material work alone, and focus instead on individuals who need more assistance. For Gibbs, this teacher-run environment is preferable to the restrictive atmosphere

of the Bronx charter school he previously worked in. He also praises the constant collaboration between faculty members, particularly veterans new hires (spoken while sipping on a smoothie delivered by a teacher from across the hall). That sense of collaboration characterizes the faculty-student relations as well—it certainly helps that teachers go by their first names. According to Gibbs, the school still has one obstacle to overcome: presenting an appealing image. He despairs of the school’s ability to attract children of wary parents. “Are you going to send your kid to Metro, which has this gorgeous building, brand-new, four stories tall with a MacLab on every floor—looks like it was designed by Frank Gehry?”, he asked. “Or are you going to send your kid to a collection of miscolored cinder blocks, covered in loading bays which have been bricked over, and [that] they put a parking lot in the middle and call it a school? There are plans to renovate, but Gibbs is not hopeful. “Does that mean they are going to do something about it? No. I ignore all plans that started to me in the future tense in this district.” It’s too soon to tell whether HSC’s transformation will be able to make up for its uninspiring facade or New Haven’s weakening middle schools. But its approach is refreshingly different from many charter schools whose policies weaken teacher influence in favor of administrative control. —graphics by Zach Schiller YH Staff The Yale Herald (Oct. 5, 2012)

Julie Reiter/YH Staff

Courtesy of Yale SOM

The Yale Herald (Oct. 5, 2012)

Nobody’s business Micah Rodman, BR ‘15, traces the ideological roots of the Yale School of Management and questions what they mean for the school’s future

ike most of Yale’s other great embarrassments, this one happened at The Game. This time, in November 1988, it wasn’t a blowout or a fumble. It came from the sky, but it wasn’t a Hail Mary pass. A small airplane towing a simple banner glided through the Cambridge sky, adding an exciting flare to the day’s tired insults. The banner read: “Benno—Save Yale School of Organization and Management. Send Levine to HBS.” “Benno” referred directly to then-university president Benno Schmidt, who hired Michael Levine as Dean of the Yale School of Organization and Management (SOM) back when the “O” in its title stood for “Organization” and not for “of,” as it does today. To protest President Schmidt and Dean Levine’s reforms, a group of recent SOM graduates funded this publicity stunt. Among other things, the organizers were protesting Levine’s appointment itself, which was made without the input of students, faculty, or alumni. Almost as soon as he took office, Levine instituted fundamental changes to the school’s curriculum that aimed to fully eliminate SOM’s strong interdisciplinary focus. In exchange, he instituted a more conservative emphasis on teaching economics and finance “in the way that most graduate schools, like [Harvard Business School] do,”one organizer said in the New Haven Register after the incident at The Game. Students, faculty, and alumni organized in furor to oust the unpopular dean. Given SOM’s close-knit community, and

academic perspective, many saw the changes that came along with Levine as an egregious violation of the school’s soul. However, concern over the seemingly impractical nature of this program—along with its slumping rankings—pushed Levine to the point where he felt like he had to seriously alter SOM’s priorities to salvage what was left of what was after all, a business school. The school’s students, professors, and alumni responded to Levine’s purge with an aca-

ministrators. Like Yale College and Yale Law School, SOM was founded to be a center of discussion, debate, theory, and collaboration. But somehow all of this seems impractical for a business school. “THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A PLACE TO lead, and fulfilling Yale’s missions that there is an importance on educating people who would then go on to lead universities and

tives disciplines to work together under the auspices of one business school. “Yale is one of the more successful interdisciplinary universities,” said SOM professor and Honest Tea co-founder, Barry Nalebuff in an email to the Herald.“Size and location really do matter. Unlike HBS, we are not located across the river from the rest of the campus. Unlike Princeton, there is a Law School. Many of our faculty teach undergraduates. We serve on university committees. We go

“Many of our faculty teach undergraduates. We serve on university committees. We go to seminars that are joint with Economics, Psychology, Law.” —SOM professor Barry Nalebuﬀ demic coup d’etat. Recently, the Yale School of Management has been a program in transition. In July 2011, it hired a new dean, and in late 2013, it will finally expand from the two mansions it currently occupies on Hillhouse Avenue to a brand new state-of-the-art campus on Whitney Avenue. However, unlike Yale College or Yale’s other professional schools— notably the similarly socially-conscious Law School—SOM is not a top ranked school in its field, and never has been. Overtime, SOM’s unique identity has been difficult to maintain—becoming more like “the other guy” is a constant temptation for school ad-

hospitals and federal regulatory agencies because of the importance that all of these thing have in society,” Tabitha Wilde, director of Media Relations for SOM, said. The school’s motto is “Educating leaders for business and society.” At SOM, they take the “society” part more seriously than at peer institutions. The combination of the school’s interdisciplinary curriculum—designed to get students thinking across public, private, and non-profit sectors—and its distinctly small size produces a culture of innovation and collaboration among the its faculty. SOM draws on faculty from a variety of perspec-

to seminars that are joint with Economics, Psychology, Law.” The Yale curriculum has always approached the MBA from an alternative perspective. It features an “Integrated Core Curriculum” that is the foundation for its interdisciplinary approach to business education. In 2006, Dean Joel M. Podolny installed this new curriculum as Yale’s reaction to the more typical “silo curriculua” of other business schools, which push students to specialize in one discipline. The Core is composed of nine courses: Investor, Innovator, State and Society, Employee, Operations Engineer, The Global Macroeconomy Cus-

The Yale Herald (Oct. 5, 2012)

tomer, Competitor, Sourcing and Managing funds. This comprehensive curriculum provides students with the strategies to solve the type of complex real-world problems that they’d see in their actual careers. “We’re preparing our graduates to do anything in any sector,” said Steven Mello, SOM’s associate dean of communications and strategy. The new curriculum is the latest form of the openness that has always been a part of SOM’s brand and that attracts students with a variety of different interests. Clinton Tepper, SOM ’14, said he chose Yale for its differentiated and holistic approach. “Not many people here know what they want to do,” Tepper said. “People don’t even know what sector they’re into yet.” Nikhil Bumb, SOM ’14, a recent graduate from Princeton, is more certain of his goals, which are by no means the standard business track. Bumb, who’s interested in the biomedical devices industry, said that he chose SOM for its “intense focus in the social sectors.” In fact, of the 12 students interviewed for this piece, ten said that they came to SOM for its unmatched Integrated Core Curriculum and overall interaction with the larger university. To many, these changes seem like the ob-

of Chicago’s Booth School of Management, where he earned national praise. During his tenure, Snyder took the Booth School from 10th in the Businessweek rankings to first, a ranking it has held since 2006. In his ten years at the helm of the school, Booth was ranked in the top 10 in 74 out of 78 total rankings. In 2008, he brought in a $300-million donation from alumnus David Booth—the largest gift ever made to an American business school—to the institution that now bears his name. When his 10-year tenure commenced, he left the school with a $100,400,000 budget surplus. By every quantifiable data point, Snyder’s deanship was a resounding success. But since the introduction of the new curriculum, the buzz around SOM has quieted. The innovative core hasn’t helped SOM improve its spot in the rankings. This past year, it was named 21 in Businessweek’s industry leading ranking, falling behind Michigan State’s Broad College of Business. In the Economist, SOM is ranked 26. In US News and World Reports, it came in at number 10. And in the Financial Times, it ranked 20th. Daniel Simon, LAW/SOM ’14, expressed mild skepticism about the effectiveness of the school’s uncommon approach. Simon

ACCORDING TO REMARKS DELIVERED BY William S. Beinecke, at the first ever Yale School of Organization and Management class reunion in 1978, former Yale President Alfred Whitney Griswold, YC ’29, would periodically refer pejoratively to business schools as “‘trade schools for business,’” Griswold’s successor, Kingman Brewster, SY ’41, was also strongly opposed to a separate Yale business school. According to George Gaddis Smith, YC ’54 GRD ’61, Brewster wrote a letter to The Ford Foundation in 1965 in which he said that for Yale to found a business school, as its peer institutions had, would be “very short sighted.” He pleaded with the Foundation not to endorse such a school, which he claimed would lead to Yale’s “balkinization.” However, unlike Griswold, Brewster did not oppose the expansion of the social sciences at Yale categorically—in fact, he was strongly in favor of it. “Kingman Brewster’s own initiative was to build up the social sciences at Yale,” Gaddis told the Herald in an interview. The late ‘60s were marked by student protests and unrest, both on campuses across the nation and here at Yale. Given this climate, Brewster felt that he could not

“The degree was called the Masters in Public and Private Management [MPPM], because it places the word ‘public’ in front of ‘private’ to show that the public ‘wasn’t an afterthought.” —SOM professor Victor Vroom vious best approach to business education. “You’re never in your job going to look at something and say ‘oh look this is a finance problem! I’m gonna use my finance skills to solve this,’” Mello explained. “That’s just not how life works.” Recruiters took notice of these changes, which they saw as a new version of SOM’s signature pedagogy. “With recruiters, this change in curriculum put SOM back on the [business] school radar,” Geoff Gloeckler, a staff editor at Bloomberg Businessweek and member of the team that composes its business school rankings, said in an interview with the Herald. “When I was at Booth, I was a keynote speaker at the AACSB Dean’s conference, and I thought I gave a good talk on globalizing,” current SOM dean Edward “Ted” Snyder recalled. “Then I heard then Dean Podolny give a talk on Yale’s curricular innovation, and it was like being next to a rockstar.” Snyder, who assumed his position in July 2011 and is SOM’s 11th Dean, thinks he inherited a program with a great strategy for future success. “What continues here is the sense of innovation and the willingness to do something different,” Snyder said. Snyder, who is tall, grey, confident, and mild-mannered, had immense success as dean of the University

The Yale Herald (Oct. 5, 2012)

was accepted to Yale Law School, and decided to embrace SOM’s interdisciplinary availability as well. He wonders, however, about the substantive differences between SOM’s course entitled “Investor” and Harvard’s entitled “Finance.’ “It’s hard to tell if the integrated focus produces real outcomes,” he said. WHILE IT IS HARD TO GAUGE THE IMMEdiate effect of the integrated core curriculum on SOM’s standings, the school’s size seems to inhibit it from gaining rank. At 475 students, SOM is at least a third as small as industry-leading Harvard Business School (1,937), Stanford Graduate School of Business (2,284), Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania (1,671 ), and Booth (3140). Gloeckler said that SOM’s small size is both “a good thing and a bad thing.” It can be seen as an attraction for students looking for a tight-knit community where they know all of their classmates and professors. But it also means that companies recruiting SOM grads aren’t as familiar with the work of the school’s graduates in the field. Employment percentage of the total class after graduation and starting salary at first sites of employment are two components of the ranking system, and given SOM’s size, it is less likely than its peers to do well in these areas.

give the go-ahead for the management studies program that certain wealthy alumni were trying to pressure him into creating. In his 1978 speech, Beinecke remarked that, had Brewster initiated the program at that time, “any such move would have been branded as proof that Yale had become a lackey of corporate America.” However, when Beinecke’s father, Frederick William Beinecke, a 1901 graduate of Yale’s long-defunct Sheffield Scientific School, passed away in 1971, he bequeathed one-quarter of his estate to the university. This donation, on top of Beinecke’s past support for a business school at Yale, made the establishment of a new school seem imminent. The supporters of a stand-alone school argued that the business program would only be attractive to prospective students and instructors if it constituted its own branch of the university. According to Smith, several members of the Yale Corporation, led by Beinecke, moved to overrule Brewster. In 1973, they succeeded, establishing the Yale School of Organization and Management. THOUGH HE HADN’T WANTED IT, BREWSster’s university now had a business school. He knew that the Board didn’t necessarily care about the school’s particular pedagogy,

so he went ahead and conceived it in the spirit of Yale’s other graduate programs. He wanted to apply the university’s principles towards its education of future leaders in the field of management, which meant that the school would focus on the not just the private sector but the public and non-profit sectors as well. To create his fantasy curriculum, Brewster brought in professor and management guru Victor Vroom. “Yale turned down lots of opportunities to create a business school [because] it didn’t fit in with the nature of the institution,” Vroom, who is now 80 years old, told the Herald. Brewster came to Vroom with specific goals that the school needed to achieve in order for it to be successful. He says Kingman told him that the school could not be a duplicate of any other business school in the country. The school had to respect the humanities tradition of Yale College and uphold the mission of social consciousness. “I was excited but it looked like a big challenge,” Vroom said. Accepting this challenge, Vroom assembled a board comprised of faculty and administrators, which went about conceiving a degree that only SOM would administer. They called it the Masters in Public and Private Management (MPPM), and with it they hoped to demonstrate the public values that made the school different from its peers, and in-line with the goals of the university. Vroom says that they chose to put the word ‘public’ in front of ‘private’ to show that the ‘public’ “wasn’t an afterthought.” Vroom felt that team dynamics were a crucial part of public management, so he designed a course titled Individual and Group Behavior. Taught to small groups of only eight students, the class took an unorthodox approach to management, through the social sciences and the humanities. “There was a sense that they were all doing it together—that they were all part of the experiment,” Vroom said. Laura Walker, SOM ’87, president and CEO of New York Public Radio and mother of Herald publisher Evan Walker-Wells, TD ’14, said that Vroom’s curriculum resonated with her, and continues to guide her in her career in public management. “Every day, I see the dynamics of a group and the kind of decisions that a group makes, in a way I wouldn’t have if I [hadn’t gone to] SOM.” The departure from the business school formula, however, did apparently come at a cost to students. The school’s idiosyncratic approach made it tough for its graduates to find employment. “There were some good jobs on the congressional committees, and there were some good jobs in New York City and New York State finance departments, but you’re talking about a handful of jobs,” Geoffrey Hazard, the school’s second dean, said. “Some of the grads were already explaining their degrees as being ‘like an MBA’ because the denomination of MPPM was virtually unknown, and sort of puzzling to perspective employers.” Throughout the ‘80s, the program experienced internal tension that threatened to undermine its founding mission. In the midst of this difficulty, Schmidt appointed Michael Levine, LAW ’65, a conservative

A cartoon from the Exchange, an SOM student newsletter (Nov. 14, 1988). member of the faculty with proven workforce experience, to be dean of SOM. Levine was given the authority to dictate the curriculum and to appoint and promote faculty. “He violated the whole tradition at Yale, in all of the schools, [of giving] authority to the faculty—especially the senior faculty—to set policies,” Smith said. The SOM professors did not take well to this shift in authority. Levine instituted drastic changes to the core curriculum that Vroom had developed, cutting not just courses but also the faculty members who taught them. Kurt Anstricher, one of two professors who remained in a department whose four other members were cut, wrote in his

it had in the beginning. “There were talks in private circles that the school should just shut down,” says Vroom. However, the successive deanships of Dean Jeff Garden, and Podolny, helped turn the school around, strengthening the school’s finances and donor base, and redesigning its core curriculum. Then in 2000, the school dropped “Organization” from its name, and began to offer the more traditional MBA degree. “The MPPM degree [had been] a broader professional orientation; It was sort of MBA on steroids,” said Alexander P. Moss, SOM ’89. When the school gave the option to change his degree to an MBA, he denied their offer,

said. He feels that when people saw that the school was extending its focus beyond the private sector they were quick to label is as the “non-profit” business school—a characterization which “is sort of ludicrous when you look at the numbers.” Last year, five percent of SOM graduates took jobs in the non-profit sector, which is not much higher than the numbers at Booth, Harvard, or Stanford, who each send about three percent of their graduates to the nonprofit sector annually. Two years ago, SOM saw eleven percent of its graduates enter the non-profit sector, but many students still entered the financial services sector. Given the hire of the new dean from a

“The MPPM degree was a broader professional orientation; it was sort of an MBA on steroids.” —Alexander P. Moss, SOM ’89 letter of resignation that the “situation was to overthrow a democratic government by a powerful junta. To see the school butchered by the contempt of a small group of faculty with contempt for students.” The alumni were also incensed at the school’s sudden departure from its founding principles. On Nov. 14, 1988, The Exchange, an SOM student newsletter, reported that 250 alumni gathered before Woodbridge Hall to shout, “Save our school!” According to the SOM Alumni Association, 350 of the school’s graduates vowed not to donate more money until the problem was resolved. This is the same group that paid for the banner and plane to fly over Cambridge. From this point until 1995, SOM was struggled to build up the level of support

“I kept the MPPM because that’s why I went to Yale, and I wanted that,” he said. IN A CONTROVERSIAL NEW YORK TIMES magazine article from Jul. 7, 2012, entitled “Is Michigan State Really Better Than Yale?,” Adam Davidson examined SOM’s current ranking given its recent changes. Davidson stated that over time, SOM has developed a reputation as “a bastion of socially minded do-gooders who were less focused on maximizing profit,” and that improving in the rankings “will almost certainly require shedding its do-gooder reputation.” Mello finds the claim that Yale is the “nonprofit school” to be specious. “We were the first school to come out and say that we’re not just looking for fortune 500 people,” he

more traditional school—one who has a track record for improving rankings—as well as the imminent arrival of the new campus in late 2013, it might seem that the school is at the onset of another identity crisis. But Snyder expresses no desire to change the program, whose unique tenets he thinks give SOM a competitive edge. “We have a strategy in place here already that will provide the world the leaders it really needs now,” he said. Snyder has no plans to change the core curriculum, or any of school’s leadership values. He actually thinks Yale’s pedagogical philosophies are especially powerful considering the current business market. “We’ve now started to realize that the core curriculum is entrepreneurship 101,” Snyder said,

expressing an opinion shared by Vancouver native Joe McGloughlin, SOM ’14: “In a start-up you need to know how to do everything, and that’s what we’re learning here,” he said. Stacy Blackman, an MBA advisor and writer for US News and World Report expects SOM to rise in the rankings. “The student body is becoming more qualified and the recruiters are seeing better talent,” she said. Snyder does admit that it is his goal to see SOM in Businessweek’s list of the country’s top 10 business schools sometime in next five years, and in the top five in 10 years. He thinks this goal is doable, but not it won’t be easy. “We have the strategy in place to do it,” he said. “This is really exciting for me.” Gloeckler thinks that the addition of Snyder the school has been reinvigorated. “The faculty is excited, the students are excited—everyone is excited to have this well known faculty member to come in and lead them,” he said. Right now he says the students’ biggest complaint are the facilities, but with the addition of the Norman Foster+Partners designed Edward P. Evans Hall set to open in late 2013, this disadvantage will certainly transform into one of the school’s biggest draws. His goals may be ambitious, but Snyder thinks that he can reach them without violating what makes SOM unique. “When you pass the puck you have to pass it ahead of the skater,” he said. This familiar hopefulness seems appropriate now, but in two weeks, who knows what the tone surrounding the SOM administration will be like. “Buisnessweek releases their rankings in two weeks,” he said.

The Yale Herald (Oct. 5, 2012)

Chain reactions The changing face of New Haven food culture by Hayley Byrnes

ews Haven smells like stale cigarettes and moldy paper. I walk in on a rainy afternoon and disrupt the quietness with my sloshing boots and dripping umbrella. Past the empty front counter, issues of Esquire and Playboy mingle with the Economist and the Columbia Journalism Review. Tony Kowalski, who has worked at News Haven for 15 years, described its clientele as “eclectic”: students looking for trashy tabloids to relieve themselves of everyday college stress; professors seeking enlightenment from obscure journals; locals buying their weekly dose of the news. Last week, News Haven announced that it will close in mid-October. A branch of the national chain Panera Bread will take its place—news that comes just one week after it was revealed that the McDonald’s-owned Chipotle will soon open at 900 Chapel St., the former home of Caffé Bottega. It’s easy to characterize News Haven as dying — gasping for breath next to the bustling Starbucks next door. But just as I am about to leave, I bump into another customer, a man who stares at the magazines with a smile. He reaches for a paper, clasps it in his hand, and turns to me: “I don’t know what I’m going to do without this place.” Ten minutes later, at 3:47 p.m. on a weekday, Shake Shack stirs during its version of a mid-afternoon lull. A line forms,

The Yale Herald (Oct. 5, 2012)

though it’s not out the door. No tobacco in here—just polished wood tables and atmospheric lighting. Looking around, the question presents itself: has the Chapel Street invasion only just begun? Are all “mom and pop” shops surrounding the Yale bubble doomed by the powers of corporate burritos and bread bowls? Kowalski fears that chains are the only businesses with enough stability and cap-

the years, in spite of the arrival of more chain restaurants. Carroll worried that the influx of chains, however, will ultimately jeopardize the city’s appeal to visitors. “Why would someone want to come and pay for parking and worry about the hassle of coming to the city when they live in Branford and they can go to the Panera there at the strip mall?” she asked.

U.P.’s policies can limit creativity in business ventures. Last year, Jack Schlossberg, TC ’15, tried to open a restaurant on Park Street and wanted to rent from a building owned by U.P. He said that the company only brought him frustration and disappointment. It rejected Schlossberg’s proposal, though he had a chef, investors, and even a name—Holy Crepe—for his business. Schlossberg believes that the corpo-

“I can’t imagine some chains surviving in New Haven when we have better alternatives right down the street.” —Nick Blair, ﬁve-year Miya’s employee ital to stay afloat for any long period of time. “Within a year, [this street has] lost about seven businesses,” he said. But Erin Guild, a manager at Claire’s Corner Copia and a New Haven resident of 12 years, said that change is a natural part of living in a city. She added that Claire’s has not been affected by the increase in chain restaurants. “People always want fresh, home-style food,” she said, adding that customers appreciate the business’s commitment to organic, sustainable ingredients. Colleen Carroll, a five-year employee at Atticus Bookstore Café said that the shop’s customers have also remained loyal over

According to Carroll, the future of New Haven’s food landscape rests in the university’s hands—“It’s up to Yale, really,” she said. Her point is a salient one: Yale University Properties (U.P.) currently has 500 New Haven properties and 85 retail tenants to its name, according to the company’s website. U.P. owns most buildings on Broadway, in addition to many of the stores in the Chapel and Audubon shopping districts. If U.P. decides which businesses will stay and which will go, which it will support and which it will reject, the future of New Haven’s commercial development—and that of its food culture—lies largely in its hands.

ration has a dangerous amount of power in selecting tenants for its properties. “They have so much money, they can afford to have an empty space until someone they want comes and gets it,” he said. But Abigail Rider, director of University Properties, said in an email to the Herald that 87 percent of downtown New Haven businesses continue to be run by local merchants. Because of its many cultural centers—the Peabody Museum, the Yale Center for British Art, the Yale University Art Gallery—New Haven will continue to be an experience “much more varied, fun and interesting than a trip to the mall,” Rider said.

Maya Binyam, BR ’15, said that U.P. should make greater use of community spaces. She said she believes that chain restaurants do not contribute to local culture in the same way that community spaces do. One such example of a “community space” is the Elm City Market, which opened in 2009 on Chapel Street as a “hybrid co-op” with an emphasis on local, organic ingredients, according to its website. But Robert Wilson, assistant grocery manager of the market, said that the increase in chain restaurants is not necessarily detrimental to the city. “As a natural food advocate, I’m all about choice,” he said, adding that Shake Shack, Chipotle, and Panera attract people to the Chapel Street area and encourage people to walk around. Derek Faulkner, bulk supervisor for Elm City Market, said that the business has a committed customer base. “We have a Subway right across the street from us, but people still come in to buy deli sandwiches,” he said. Wilson considers the diversity of New Haven’s food culture to be its greatest strength. “I’m from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and we have one pan-Asian restaurant,” he said. “New Haven has all these small ethnic enclaves—Latinos, Indians, Pakistanis—and that’s reflected in the food scene.” The competition among New Haven pizza places, he said, beats what can be found in New York. Alhough he is committed to food choice, Wilson’s con-

cern is that some of that diversity will be lost with more chain restaurants. Nate Blair, who has worked at Miya’s Sushi on Howe Street for five years, said that New Haven’s food culture is rooted in a sense of excitement and diversity. “Most

expensive, sit-down restaurants, adding that only the standard fast food chains like McDonald’s and Burger King are now available. Chipotle and Panera will bring more affordable, healthier options to students hoping to avoid the dining halls.

Sykes added that though more chains are moving in, she believes that New Haven will keep its diverse and thriving food culture. “Shake Shack may change how we as students see New Haven, but it won’t change how the average citizen will view

“Within a year, [this street has] lost about seven businesses.” —Tony Kowalski, 15-year News Haven employee people are excited about the dish they had with purple cauliflower at some downtown New Haven restaurant,” he said. Blair said that he enjoyed going to Shake Shack for the first time and holds nothing against chain restaurants. He still thinks, though, that local restaurants will prove more successful. “I can’t imagine some chains surviving in New Haven when we have better alternatives right down the street,” he said. Jess Hallam, SM ’16, said that she thinks New Haven has a “majorly diverse food culture” and that chains like Chipotle and Panera can be found anywhere. For some students, though, chain restaurants may actually diversify food options. Marina Addams, SM ’14, said that Panera and Chipotle will bring more affordable food options to New Haven. Addams said that most of the current options for students seeking food off-campus are more

Jeremiah Kreisberg, SM ’14, noted that local restaurants are not always committed to sustainable, local food. After skimming Chipotle’s website and learning about their use of at least 40% organically-grown beans, he said he was impressed by the company’s commitment to sustainability. Will the arrival of Chipotle expand the Yale bubble beyond Claire’s, which sits right on the edge of the New Haven Green? Jessica Sykes, SM ’14, hopes so. Sykes said that the arrival of Shake Shack has already prompted students to venture farther down Chapel Street than most were willing to go before. Chipotle, expected to open across from the New Haven Green, may encourage students to do the same. Sykes hopes that expansion of the Yale bubble does not come at the cost of the New Haven residents. “There’s a chance that Chapel Street, all the way to Wooster Square, could be entirely different in two years,” she said.

New Haven,” she said. Her main concern, she said, is that gentrification in general will transform downtown New Haven in a way that displaces residents. “I think that Yale is a very small community right now, and these [changes] will have a huge impact. That [impact] is what I’m most hesitant about,” Sykes said. Back at News Haven, Kowalski expressed the opposite concern. He said he worried that the advent of chain businesses might make the boundaries of the Yale bubble even more defined than they are now. “Over the years, I’ve seen how students used to explore more of the city,” he said, motioning away from campus. “Now they stay over there,” he said, swinging his hands to the other side, pointing to Phelps Gate.

—graphic by Serena Gelb YH Staff The Yale Herald (Oct. 5, 2012)

CULTURE Previously worn by Monica Hannush YH Staﬀ ednesday, Oct. 3, marked the end of the weeklong Fall 2012 Flash Sale at {Cut. Cloth.}, a “little pop-up vintage clothing thing,” as owner Janis Foo, LAW ’13, described it. For one week, {Cut. Cloth.} joins the ranks of Fashionista and the Salvation Army Thrift Store, the main shopping destinations for those seeking secondhand clothing in downtown New Haven. Since December 2011, Foo has orchestrated three pop-up stores, including one in Tribeca, a trendy neighborhood in downtown Manhattan. This time around, Foo rented 2,000 square feet at 1020 Chapel St. and set up a boutique-like atmosphere full of vintage and vintage-inspired apparel, boasting a smattering of recognizable designer brands. “I originally thought I wanted to have a little place kind of like Fashionista, but I’m a full-time student,” Foo said. “The time investment, plus the expense of having a brick-and-mortar [business] in New Haven, would just suck the fun out of it.” While the store turns a profit, Foo doesn’t operate it for the money. “The company gives me a break from legal work, gives me an opportunity to express myself creatively, and provides me with the experience of running a small business,” Foo said. Last week’s Flash Sale customers were mostly Yalies. “They’re not necessarily the people who spend the most money,” Foo said. “The ones who spend money are a slightly older crowd: middle-aged, in their 50s I’d say. We had a woman who came in and bought an item that no student would have purchased: a pair of vintage Chanel pants for 360 dollars. And she paid with a black American Express card!” Foo gets her stock from all over the country, but mostly from San Francisco and New York City. “I often travel with an empty suitcase,” she said. Though Foo made clear that the Chanel pants were uncharacteristically expensive for her stock—the most expensive item in the store, in fact—it would appear that extremely cheap prices aren’t the main draw of stores like {Cut. Cloth.}. Emily Gustafson of Vintanthromodern, a web-based vintage store that shared the retail space at Chapel Street with {Cut. Cloth} from

The Yale Herald (Oct. 5, 2012)

Sat. Sept. 27 to Wed., Oct. 3, suggested that Yale students’ affinity for shopping at secondhand-clothing shops is due to the fact that these establishments offer a breath of fresh air. “In New Haven, there’s a lack of affordable retail that caters to people of diverse tastes and styles, particularly in the student population,” Gustafson said. “I mean, what do they have to choose from? J. Crew, Urban Outfitters, and American Apparel. That is not a wide selection.” Foo agreed: “Now everyone’s wearing the same dress!” The appeal of shops like {Cut. Cloth.} is the uniqueness of their products. “No one else on campus will be wearing the same thing if you’re okay with secondhand or vintage,” Foo explained. However, Gustafson suggested that even the most vintage-friendly shopper prefers a more refined, retail-type environment. “We do have that boutique-y feel, as opposed to a place like Fashionista, which is a very different environment from ours,” says Gustafson. “Here, the space isn’t super crowded. You can breathe easy; you’re not overwhelmed with vintage, vintage, vintage!” Later that day, I took a visit to Fashionista, on Whitney Avenue. Nancy Shea, one of the two self-described “kooky old broads” who own the vintage and variety shop, was insulted when I mistakenly referred to Fashionista as a “thrift store.” Even though they claim to be a shop, Fashionista is really more of a vintage museum. “We carefully curate every single item that’s in the store,” Shea said. Since Fashionista buys its stock from outside estates (the store does not take donations), they make a point to find out the history of each piece of clothing. Fashionista co-owner Todd Lyons showed me one of the many handwritten tags she makes for each of the store’s clothing items. The tag read, “Hooray! It’s a pale blue 1970s polyester tuxedo jacket with dusty blue trim. I do believe my date wore this to the junior prom in 1973.” “You won’t get that at the Salvation Army,” Shea said. “That’s for sure.” Much of Yalies’ thrifting occurs around specific themed party events, such as the 80sthemed Safety Dance. Indeed, the Thursday before this year’s Safety Dance, the Salvation Army was swarming with students making rough

estimations (of varying levels of accuracy) as to what constitutes 80s-style clothing. Taking a lap around the store, it wasn’t hard to tell that Yalies comprised just about all of the customer population present. Sure, it was that time of year—Safety Dance is a holiday of sorts that is all too familiar to every employee at every secondhand shop I visited that day—but how representative are party-going Yale students of Salvation Army’s intended customer base? According to Kristina Howard, Salvation Army employee who requested her last name be changed for this article, Yale students actually make up the majority of the thrift store’s customers. “When you guys left for the summer, it was dead in here—like, tumbleweeds,” Howard explained. “[My coworker] told me, ‘Wait ‘till they come back to school, this place will be hopping!’ Now that you guys are back at school, almost all of our customers are you guys.” Howard, who manages the branch’s paperwork, said that there was not a day this past summer during which the store saw over 80 customers. During the school year, the number jumps up to almost 200 customers per day. Aside from a handful of about 50 regulars who visit almost every day, Yale students make up the rest of the store’s clientele. It might seem odd that this particular donation center is frequented mostly by Yale students. Since Salvation Army thrift stores are associated with the organization’s charitable mission, many people think of the stores as a means of providing cheaper, secondhand goods to the poor. Howard did, and was initially surprised by the store’s popularity amongst Yalies: “Sure, it’s stereotypical of me, but I thought, ‘They’re not gonna shop here! ‘If they can afford to go to Yale, they can afford to go to the mall to get their clothes.” Howard, who is from East Haven, said that where she lives, money is all people care about. “The more money you’re wearing on you, the more you mean something as a person,” she said. When asked if she thinks kids at Yale are the same way, Kristina replied with a confident, “No.” Which is, for what it’s worth pretty reassuring. —graphic by Madeline Butler

Until the world ends

Justice in ﬁlm Each year, the New England Festival of Ibero American Cinema is hosted in Providence, Rhode Island and New Haven, Connecticut. The NEFIAC, which ran from Sept. 27 to Oct. 3, marked its third year in a row in the Elm City, drawing a number of actors and directors to campus. After an Oct. 1 screening of Ecuadorian filmmaker Jorge Torres’s documentary “Undocumented,” Torres gave a question-and-answer session, which was both hosted and attended by Yalies and residents of New Haven. Following a brief introduction from Yale Spanish professor Margherita Tortora, a coordinator for the New Haven branch of the festival, and Raul Erazo Velarde, Ecuador’s Consul General in New Haven, Torres introduced his documentary. “I wanted to use this as a social tool for justice,” Torres said, reflecting upon the value of the film medium as a source of inspiration and societal change. The 20-minute documentary reflected a larger theme in this year’s festival: the promotion of human rights through film. The festival showcased a range of perspectives in Ibero-American filmmaking, encouraging discussion about the plight of Mexican and Latin American immigrants in contemporary American society. The documentary placed a general emphasis on countering the pervasive image of the immigrant as a “parasite” and went so far as to state that immigrants give more than they receive from society, specifically referencing what is paid in taxes versus what is received in benefits. The film ended with the phrase “No human being is illegal” emblazoned on the screen in stark black and white. “We have to start fighting to get our space…and try to give hardworking immigrants the respect that they deserve,” Tortora said following the screening. The event, held in Linsly-Chittenden Hall, alternated between Spanish and English. The audience was comprised primarily of members of New Haven’s Latino community. The subsequent question-and-answer session revealed the audience to be inquisitive, with many of its members asking Torres to specify how the emotionally climactic documentary would be used as a tool for social change. “The idea is to use this sadness as a tool to organize,” Jorges said. —Isabella D’Agosto —graphic by Zachary Schiller YH Staff

On Tuesday, Oct. 2, a small group of individuals summitted Science Hill, despite light rain and sub-60-degree weather, seeking an answer to one of the most pressing questions of our time: will the world end on Dec. 21, 2012? According to popular belief (and a less popular John Cusak movie) the ancient Maya predicted this date would mark the end of the world. With the hope that the impending apocalypse would render studying for my biology midterm pointless, I found myself in the Leitner Family Observatory to hear Dr. Michael Faison, director of the observatory and lecturer of astronomy, give a talk titled “Mayan Astronomy and the End of the World.” Despite the headlines on my Yahoo homepage (among other similarly well-respected news sources), the world will probably not be coming to an end this December, Dr. Faison assured the event’s attendees. He went on to point out that the answer to headlines ending in question marks is almost always no. In fact, the Maya never made any predictions as to when the world will end. The only significance of this date to the Maya is that it falls exactly 1,300,000 days—or 13 Baktuns, a Mayan unit of time — after day zero in the Mayan Long Count calendar. If anything, this would be a particularly good day in the mind of an ancient Mayan, as the number 13 was considered sacred. A recently excavated Mayan calendar includes dates far beyond Dec. 21, 2012. Since the world probably won’t end in December, what are you to do with the rest of your potentially long life? If you want to spend it learning about our galaxy, cultural astronomy, and astrobiology (yes, that’s aliens), you can check out the Leitner Family Observatory, open to the public on Tuesday nights for talks, planetarium shows, and star observation. Then again, Dr. Faison did add that there is a one in 1,000,000 chance that an earth-destroying asteroid will hit Earth on Dec. 21. So just in case, I recommend forgoing all midterm studying, and focusing on more appropriate last-three-months-to-live activities. —Emmett Kim —graphic by Zachary Schiller YH Staff

The Yale Herald (Oct. 5, 2012)

REVIEWS The masterpiece by Otis Blum

y first, and thankfully only, experience with a cult happened when I was 10 years old. My older brother and I had gone bowling one Saturday afternoon in Hollywood. As we were walking out of the bowling alley, some guy approached us and asked if we were interested in taking a personality test. I was curious and agreed, hoping my awesomeness would be confirmed by science. My brother, however, told the guy, “No thanks,” and we walked away. I asked my brother why I couldn’t take the test. “Otis,” my brother responded, “that wasn’t a real personality test. Those were Scientologists. They ask you some questions, tell you your life is messed up, and say they have all the answers to help you. You don’t need them.” Since its creation in 1953, Scientology has gathered a sizable international following. Now, its creation and principles have inspired Paul Thomas Anderson’s new movie, The Master, starring Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Joaquin Phoenix, and Amy Adams. The movie follows Freddie Quell (Phoenix), a World War II Navy officer with a drinking problem whose reintegration into society is bumpy, to say the least. After being fired from several jobs and wandering the country aimlessly, Freddie finds himself as a stow-away on a ship carrying a man named Lancaster Dodd (Hoffman), his wife, Peggy (Adams), the rest of the Dodd family, and several of their friends. It is soon revealed that Dodd, who describes himself as “a writer, a doctor, a nuclear physicist and theoretical philosopher, but above all, a man,” is the leader of a new movement called “The Cause,” and the people on the boat are some of the many followers. The exact principles of the Cause are never clearly laid out in the film, but the main idea is that human souls have existed for trillions of years and go from body to body as time passes. Many of a person’s problems stem from issues of past lives, but if that person listens to the Dodd’s teachings, he can be free. These ideas are not too far from those of Scientologists, and Hoffman’s Lancaster Dodd parallels the religion’s founder, L. Ron Hubbard. However, don’t let the connections to Scientology skew your view of the movie: this movie is not a statement specifically on Scientology—the cult’s formation and principles are simply a jumping-off point for Anderson. The main topic of the movie, really, is submission to something that is bigger than yourself. As humans, we want to belong to something, but how much of ourselves are we capable of giving up? Whether it’s love, religion, or a—in this case, the—Cause, in order to belong, we must face the challenge of submitting ourselves. The movie has a distinctly American feel to it. In a similar fashion to Anderson’s There Will Be Blood and Boogie Nights, there is a distinct sense that the world of The Master

(Youtube/movieclips)

The Yale Herald (Oct. 5, 2012)

(Youtube/movieclips) could only exist in America. Like those other movies, there is a feeling that this story is a greater allegory for the period in which it is set, in this case right after World War II. Although people will formulate a variety of opinions about the film, even critics will find it hard to dispute that the acting is amazing, the cinematography is beautiful, and the sound is remarkable. The performances of the three leads in this movie are phenomenal, some of the best in recent memory. Adams, who has quietly become one of the best actresses of her generation, portrays a frightening matriarch of the Cause. Throughout the movie, one begins to notice that though she is often positioned silently in the corner of scenes, one cannot help but feel her formidable presence. That said, the movie still ultimately belongs to Phoenix and Hoffman. Even though both of them deliver stunning individual performances, the movie is at its best when the two play off of each other. The best example of this (and the scene that stays with the viewer after the movie) is when Dodd first “processes” Quell. Although one would think watching one man hypnotize another would be boring, the two actors make it absolutely enthralling. There is already well-deserved Oscar buzz for Hoffman and Phoenix. The cinematography of the movie deserves mention; this is truly one of the most beautiful movies I have ever seen. If you are not enjoying the movie, just zone out and look at the pretty pictures in front of you. Whether a scene is taking place on an indoor set or on an outside location, Anderson doesn’t waste a single shot. Each moment is visually stunning. Mixing in both wide scenic shots and very personal close-ups of actors, Anderson creates quite a visual blend. He often employs long, single shots throughout scenes, which give the movie a theatrical quality as well. The beauty of each shot creates an entrancing effect, fitting for a movie about a cult. Another notable component of the film is the sound, impressively executed by sound designer Christopher Scarabosio and composer Jonny Greenwood. The underscoring in the film aligns exactly with the mood of each scene: the movie and the sound depend on each other to a tremendous extent, not feeling like two separate entities but rather one seamless creation. Almost as important as the sound is the occasional silence, when the actors speak unaccompanied by any score or soundtrack, a contrast that creates quite a compelling effect. This film is not for everyone. The story lacks an obvious arc, and those looking for definitive answers and plot resolutions at the end will be displeased. However, despite such valid criticisms, some will undoubtedly find themselves too lost in the movie to notice—I know I did.

Movie: Looper

Music: Flying Lotus

Yep, Rian Johnson is a master filmmaker. He first caught my attention with the 2005 neo-noir film Brick, and has now firmly secured a place in my heart with Looper, the third film he has written and directed. This time, he forays into the sci-fi genre, illustrating a dystopian America where specialized mafia assassins (“loopers”) kill people who have been sent to them from 30 years in the future. Disaster strikes when a looper is tasked with killing an older version of himself. Looper supplies everything that makes movies today worth going to today. Actors Bruce Willis and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who play different-aged versions of the same character, play off of each other admirably, and Willis, at 57, shows few signs of decay. The gory and supernatural special effects, as well as smooth—rather than frantic—action-movie cinematography, continuously blew me away scene after scene. Johnson’s screenplay delivers doses of wry humor and heart-squeezing horror; one particular scene explores the concept of the ripple effect in a blood-chilling, nail-biting way. I was impressed by the lack of a formulaic plot—all throughout the film, I had no idea what was going to happen next. The film probes deeply into the philosophical consequences of time travel that other sci-fi flicks simply wave at with a dismissive hand. The complicated moral dilemmas prompted by the question of what a man owes the future version of himself, are presented in a clear but nuanced manner. Looper will have you gasping numbly as the cinematic package unfolds, and will linger in your mind long after you leave the theater. —Jackson Blum

A nagging snare inauspiciously opens Until the Quiet Comes, and persistently sticks around to keep time at circa 120 BPM. Huh? Oh, hold on—here’s the familiar Flying Lotus in that looped chime-chord that comes in after a few seconds. And there he is again a track later in the kick, kick, snare that doesn’t quite match up to down- and upbeats. Because I’ve loved about everything Lotus has put out thus far, I was expecting about 30 “Ohh SHIT!” moments on this 46-minute record. But there are only about five. Here’s one: about 20 seconds into “Tiny Tortures,” after the crackling percussion settles into a rhythm, a tender, simple bass line creeps in. Then the atmosphere braces for takeoff with this woodpecker click reminiscent of that thing in James Blake’s “To Care (Like You).” But the track doesn’t take off; the beat doesn’t drop, and the feeling fades. So the album is a letdown. Yeah, Erykah Badu shows up, as does Thom Yorke (although you have to double-check the title of the song he’s on: it doesn’t sound like Thom Yorke). But nothing from Until the Quiet Comes stays in your head as Cosmogramma sections did, or as Los Angeles beats indelibly did. If 2010’s Cosmogramma was Lotus’s Kid A, this is his Amnesiac. Fortunately for him, he doesn’t have to prove himself now after doing so two years ago. On Quiet, he wanted to tell a new story, one that “had this innocence to it,” as he told Complex Magazine. For one song, he explained on his Twitter, “I imagined being 7 years old in a floating bathtub that popping noise u hear at 30sec are the bubble jets.” Call me reactionary, but I’ll take the older FlyLo with his Arabian guitars and glitch-beats over the new FlyLo with his bubble jets. —Marcus Moretti YH Staff

Music: Muse For the fan, musical experimentation is a scary thing. Naturally, early buzz about The 2nd Law made Muse listeners concerned. First, there were the chills from the rumours that Muse had gone dubstep. Then, they released their first single from the album, “Survival,” an uninspiring, Wagnerian chant more appropriate for the apocalypse than the Summer Olympics theme song as intended. Two months ago, there was the somewhat baffling Queen-EDM mishmash that was their second single of the album, “Madness.” But luckily, by the time their new album was released this week, Muse pulled it all together. Once “Supremacy” begins, the worry that the album would become bombastic, confusing, and inaccessible dissipates soon enough. There is no question that 2nd Law is outside the band’s comfort zone, but it’s the tongue-in-cheek, technically boastful approach of front man Matthew Bellamy that ultimately makes this album a cohesive and hugely satisfying spectacle. What’s new in the album is the dubstep, which meshes surprisingly well with Bellamy’s emotional vocals. What isn’t new—and indeed, what is most satisfying—is the original spirit of Muse that lingers over each track. “Animals,” for instance, maintains the industrial-flavoured growls and Radiohead-inspired guitar licks that have defined their previous albums. Bellamy’s feverish oww’s and oh’s swoop through divebombing bass lines in “Panic Station,” and there is immediately an overwhelming sense of invigorating familiarity. Nevertheless, the greatest surprise in the album is bassist, Chris Wolstenholme, whose talents have largely been eclipsed in the past by Bellamy’s overblown showmanship. His vocals in “Save Me” and “Liquid State” are glossy and cerebral, trapping us in a brief but rather refreshing dream sequence. Once again, Muse infuses their sound with overblown, preposterous drama but somehow that’s okay. They may be teetering on the cusps of alienating their audience, but at least we’re still head-banging to it. —Lucas Sin

Music: Matt & Kim Contrary to what the title would indicate, Matt & Kim’s new album, Lightning, doesn’t strike you with anything new. Instead, it returns the duo to the simple keyboard-and-drums paradigm of their breakthrough hit single, “Daylight.” Recorded in their old Brooklyn apartment, Lightning eschews Sidewalks’ heavily produced, ramped-up sound, while still showcasing the band’s signature energy and upbeat tempo. By dialing down the sonic intensity, Matt & Kim allow a greater exposition of their lyrics—specifically, the carpe diem message that commonly threads through their songs. In this way, Lightning feels like a direct communication with the audience. On the opening track, “Let’s Go,” the echoes of Matt’s voice give listeners the unequivocal sense that he is calling out to them. His sense of urgency further pervades the album when he demands listeners “make today worth it” on “Now.” The pair doesn’t plead with the audience—they command, never straying from their trademark take-no-shit philosophy. Is it predictable? Perhaps. After all, the album lacks the electronic vibrancy of “Wires” and the rhythmic pulsations of “Silver Tiles.” But Matt & Kim stick with what they know best, and manage to capture the overall trajectory of the band. If Lightning does strike you with anything, it’s that in it the band has achieved a balance between the nascent sounds of their early album, Grand, and the evolved nature of their later works. There are the elements of two post-college kids screwing around on a drum set and keyboards, as well as of those of a duo that has established a lasting presence in the indie music world. The way they straddle this line reflects their current position—as a band continuously burgeoning in popularity, but whose values are still as simplistic as their recording studio. —Erica Leh

The Yale Herald (Oct. 5, 2012)

BULLBLOG BLACKLIST This isn’t Hogwarts. It doesn’t work here.

Kind of offensive, and not different enough from a regular issue. Am I supposed to care or not care?

SOMESOM

Fog

The YDN spoof issue

STOP APOLOGIZING!

“Halloweek”

Happens during our week off this year, so we’re blacklisting it in advance.

Alternatively, people who think they’re better than you because they don’t do the reading.

Self-conscious TAs

People who think they’re better than you because they do the reading

Presidential debate statuses

Midterms worth 15% of your grade

You’re actively making me want to vote less, just in general.

FellFe

Safety Dance relationships

Partial Orbis access If that’s where it started, it’s destined to end in rhinestones and vomit.

Whatever happened to “free love and free learning?”

The Yale Herald (Oct. 5, 2012)