volumelivissue6

The Yale Herald Volume LIV, Number 6 New Haven, Conn.

Friday, October 12, 2012

From the staff The cold rolled in this week, just in time for midterms. It seems the introduction of Fall Break (or, in official parlance, “October recess”) inspired every professor to schedule all tests simultaneously, creating an academic hurricane season for all of us to weather. And yet—some of us managed to endure, crawling into bed on Wednesday after Psych or Cold War. Others didn’t fare so well and succumbed to the perfectly horrible storm of due dates, midterms, and the looming specter of Parent’s Weekend. And so we all come to Friday, rings under our eyes, hair unkempt, wearing the ultimate sign of defeat—yesterday’s sweatpants.

What do we call something like this, the nasty weather and crushing stress? We name hurricanes after people, but this week doesn’t deserve anything so elegant. No, I think this past week merits a simpler, uglier name: a Shitstorm.

This naming business is harder than it seems. That’s what Elliah Heifetz, TC ’15, investigates in this week’s cover story about the naming of the two new residential colleges. Find out about likely names, the picking process, and who cares (hint: everyone).

In Features, Alessandra Roubini, JE ’16, examines the biases holding women back in the sciences. Kohler Bruno, SM ’16, chats with David Gelernter, DC ’76 and GRD ’77, about the art of computer science and the Unabomber. Later on, you can learn about the Yale AIDS Memorial Project from Lara Sokoloff, TC ’16, and celebrate Shake Shack with Gareth Imparato, SM ‘15.

The Herald is out and the Shitstorm is subsiding. Regardless of how your week went and what you want to call it, take heart knowing that the heat’s turning on and if you’re lucky, your parents will soon be buying you dinner.

Fall Break’s coming—all we need is to weather the weather a bit longer.

Keep struggling, Colin Groundwater Reviews Editor

The Yale Herald Volume LIV, Number 6 New Haven, Conn.

Friday, Oct. 12, 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: Sophie Grais, Olivia Rosenthal, Maude Tisch 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, Jack Schlossberg, Jesse Schreck, 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.

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The Yale Herald (Oct. 12, 2012)

Cover by Serena Gelb YH Staff

IN THIS ISSUE

COVER 12 Elliah Heifetz, TC ‘15, reports on the meaning behind the residential colleges’ names, and looks at the decision facing the University—what to call the two newest ones.

VOICES 6

Kohler Bruno, SM ‘16, talks to computer science professor David Gelernter, DC ’76, GRAD ‘77.

7

Harrison Monsky, SM ‘13, divulges the secret of what he kept under his bed when he was growing up.

8

FEATURES 10

16

19

Victoria Sanchez, JE ’13, examines the marginal—but active—role of Republicans in New Haven political scene.

OPINION: Eamon Ronan, DC ’15, embraces loneliness. Devin Race, MC ’13, encourages Yale to embrace stress.

REVIEWS

CULTURE 18

Alesandra Roubini, JE ’16, addresses the questions that arise from recent study findings of gender bias in science.

Lara Sokoloff, TC ’16, explores the Yale AIDS Memorial Project.

Also, Jake Wolf-Sorokin, CC ’16, talks to Yale’s film projectionist, and Andrew Koenig, JE ’16, visits the comic book store.

20

Gareth Imparato, SM ’15, gushes over the Shake Shack experience. Also, End of Watch, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Tame Impala, and Fryborg.

The Yale Herald (Oct. 12, 2012)

3

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

CREDIT/D/FAIL Cr:

TAs Let’s hear it for the TAs, those graduate students who venture so boldly into our classrooms with absolutely zero teaching experience under their belts. They have to spend fifty minutes alternating between tooclose-readings (“Notice that this sentence starts with a capital letter”) and impossible vagaries (“How do we think capitalism affects structures?”). Most of them are well aware that they can’t teach—I had a TA last Fall who was never not verging on tears—but they do it anyway, with or without a firm grasp of the material or the English language.

I think we are too eager to “criticize” them, to “note” that they have “no teaching qualifications” or “background in this area of study.” OK, fine, true—feel like a big person now? Well guess what: while you’re complaining, they’re having the classic wearing-no-pantsto-school dream, only it’s real, public, and scheduled in advance. That’s gotta be rough.

—Jesse Schreck YH Staff

D:

Parents’ Weekend

“Hey Mom.” “Hi sweetie! Oh it’s so good to see you!”

“You too! Do you want to—” “Is this your room? It’s very messy.”

“I know, I’ve kinda been running around this week.”

“Wanna get dinner?”

“Sure, sure, but I want to make sure we’re not late to the Whifflepuffs!”

“OK.” “They were on national television!”

“Yes, I know, that was two years ago.”

“But still! National! How’s your homosexual roommate?”

“Mom!” “Sorry, sorry, suitemate.”

“You know, he’s actually a really great guy. Can we please get dinner now?”

“Yes, I’ve always wanted to eat in a Yale dining hall.

Let’s go.”

—Jesse Schreck YH Staff

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The Yale Herald (Oct. 12, 2012)

F:

The reply-all button Coffee? Check. Giant stack of books? Check.

Facebook and Gchat statuses letting the world know you’re pulling an all-nighter? Frantic smalltalk in Blue State where you let your acquaintances know, urgently, that you don’t have time for small-talk? Check and check.

I see you, midterm bragger—you’re not as subtle as you think you are. You say you hate midterms, but really you think they’re better than West Wing drinking games, and you LOVE West Wing drinking games. You enjoy testing the strength of your mental seams, and you derive further enjoyment from telling others about it.

Why? Because, secretly, stress is the metric by which you measure your self-worth, and if you’re more stressed than other people, it means you’re doing more—and therefore better—than they are.

And that’s a good thing, you tell yourself, because it means you really will run the world someday.

Who knows, maybe you’re right—but just, like, chill with the Facebook statuses, OK? I’d like to watch the Macklemore music videos on my news feed in peace.

— Jesse Schreck YH Staff

BY THE

BOOM/BUST INCOMING: Lindsay Lohan We’ll never miss an excuse to talk Lohan, and Lindsay’s Oct. 9 fight with her mom (and subsequent family drama) are no exceptions. Although she told her dad that Dina was on cocaine during the blowout, she later retracted this claim in a statement to TMZ. And Michael insisted that Dina had been kidnapping Lindsay earlier!!! We don’t really know what actually ensued, or even what everyone’s talking about, but we’re dying to find out.

OUTGOING: News Haven The Oct. 14 closing of our favorite newsstand on Chapel Street—or, let’s be real, anywhere really—signals serious changes in New Haven. It’ll be replaced by a Panera Bread, and most of the grumblings about how we go to school in a strip mall have already subsided in the process of getting used to it. But as of now, we’re just wondering where we’ll get our weird brands of gum, our lighters, and our tabloids—where will we get the scoop on LiLo now?! And perhaps more importantly, what will New England Journal of Medicine readers (not subscribers) do? We miss it already.

NUMBERS

#

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

200.5 186 183 168 155 146 141 131.5 111.5 111 100.5 42.5

INDEX 41:32 Amount of time (minutes, seconds) that Joe Biden spoke.

TOP FIVE

Habits to maintain in the face of midterms.

40:12 Amount of time (minutes, seconds) that Paul Ryan spoke

5 4 3 2 1

Laundry Oral hygiene

10 Number of times that Ryan said “Obamacare”

3 Number of times that Biden said “malarkey”

Gym Eating meals that consist of something other than Sour Patch Kids

26 Days between the debate and Election Day

Sleep Sources: 1, 2) CNN 3, 4) Washington Post transcript 5) calendar —Maude Tisch YH Staff The Yale Herald (Oct. 12, 2012)

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SITTING DOWN WITH DAVID GELERNTER

by Kohler Bruno (courtesy of David Gelernter)

Some claim that David Gelernter, DC ’76, GRD ’77, was the first to use the term “cloud” to refer to online information storage. Gelernter, a professor of computer science here, is ambivalent on the subject—what matters now is that the Internet is in a revolutionary transition, he says, and he thinks he knows where it’s going. Gelernter is about as close as one can come to a 21st-century Renaissance man: in addition to his PhD in computer science, he holds a BA/MA in Hebrew literature. His social and political commentary has been published in a number of magazines and periodicals, including The Wall Street Journal and The Weekly Standard. On June 24, 1993, he received a package at his office that contained a pipe bomb from Ted Kaczynski, the so-called Unabomber, which exploded and left him severely injured. We sat down to talk about computer science, politics, and how it feels to be conservative at Yale.

YH: You’re a painter as well as a computer scientist. Do you think of computer science as an art?

DG: I definitely think of it as an art. As far as I’m concerned, the design of software is an aesthetic proposition.

Software succeeds when it follows certain rules of cleanliness. There is certainly a lot of mathematics on the one hand and engineering on the other, but the design of software, which is my particular interest, is ultimately like the design of paintings—an aesthetic issue, absolutely.

YH: What do you think is the best way to organize information within a computer?

DG: We think in pictures. Most people function most easily and most naturally in the world of pictures and images, not in the algebraic world of equations and analytic assertions.

The old style Web made a bet on a space-based organization, like a cobweb, scattered all over the place, linked up arbitrarily to a random mess. But in fact people want to see their information in a way that’s most natural for us to approach and understand the world, and that’s as a story.

That’s the way we deal with the world: we deal with it in pictures. We deal with it as narratives in time.

YH: Looking into the future, how do you envision the evolution of computing?

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The Yale Herald (Oct. 12, 2012)

DG: The cloud was, I think, a very good idea in the 1980s and still is today, but we’re in transition to a different kind of network. I think all significant sites in the cyber sphere will express themselves as streams. I’m interested in simplicity, and this idea of a single world stream strikes me as vastly simpler and more elegant than today’s tangled, jumbled, randomly connected web.

YH: In terms of the Web, the most visited sites today are Google and Facebook. In fact, they are discussed almost as if they’re an essential part of using a computer.

DG: Right, which is ridiculous. They will very soon be part of the linoleum. They’ll just be part of the floor, which will be covered by much fancier creations, which will in turn become part of the linoleum. New layers of linoleum put over the old ones—that’s the way the software world works.

Certain people were and still are talking about Facebook as if it were some permanent part of the fabric—that’s ridiculous. It’s not good enough for that, and even if it were perfect, even if it were beautiful, it would have no prospect of being a permanent part of the scene except insofar as the basement plumbing.

YH: For years you have taught a class here called Computer Science and the Modern Intellectual Agenda. How do you see philosophy and computer science as connected?

DG: They’re right next-door. A major part of philosophy has been the philosophy of the mind. What does it mean to have a mind? What does consciousness mean? What does it mean to be intelligent? These have been questions that have preoccupied computer science, particularly the more theoretical parts of artificial intelligence.

YH: What do you suspect are the limits of what artificial intelligence can do?

DG: Way, way beyond the state of the art today. I have no doubt that we can build machines that can literally be said to think. What they won’t have is consciousness. The machines themselves will never develop awareness of what they’re doing. They will simulate emotions but never feel them. They will simulate having experiences but never actually experience anything. A thinking machine is not a mind machine. The mind is conscious thinking.

YH: Your social commentary has been published in a number of different magazines and newspapers. You’ve written that since 9/11 the United States has been prejudiced in favor of Muslims. Can you extrapolate on this?

DG: When I was a child in this country in the 1960s we thought it would be a good idea not to be prejudiced against or in favor of anybody. That was Martin Luther King Jr.’s great idea. It was the view of many religious and ethical and philosophical thinkers in the United States at the time that what we should aim for is a prejudice-free society. It is my belief that prejudice is morally abhorrent.

YH: You’ve also written about terrorism—do you feel that your experience as a victim of a terrorist attack affected your views on terrorism?

DG: No. I am not a victim. A victim is a psychological state that you choose for yourself. I’m incredibly lucky, lucky to be alive and lucky to be who and where I am. I am nobody’s victim and this particular vicious, cowardly attack was carried out by a person I loathe. I am not a victim and my life has not changed in any way—I would have thought that that would be a victory for terrorism if I allowed my views or my life to change. Thank God I survived and carried on. God knows many people have endured worse.

YH: What’s it like these days to be a conservative intellectual at Yale?

DG: First of all, I’ve always been very well treated at Yale and I have to confess to the fact that I love Yale. It’s an institution I’ve been associated with a good part of my life. I think it was wonderful when the whole country was proud at Obama’s election, including conservatives across the board. Everybody thought this is a wonderful thing that we managed to eradicate race prejudice in this country in one generation, an incredible achievement.

But this man is a total failure, and yet my colleagues are nearly unanimous that they are all going to vote for him. It feels strange to be living among people who regard themselves as intellectually sophisticated skeptics when in the field of politics they are willfully blind, willfully naïve, and willfully gullible.

—This interview was condensed by the author

ONE LAST STROKE

by Harrison Monsky

O

n the first day of my seventh grade health class, we watched a documentary about parents who were afraid to talk to their children about sex. “I don’t know what my son is doing when the door is closed,” one father told a church support group, his eyebrows twitching in panic. “Is he playing video games or is he engaging in sin?”

Unknowingly, this man had made a brilliant case for the closed-door policy, the ancient teenage stratagem that was the very source of his woes. If you always kept the door to your bedroom closed, or so the logic went, then your parents could never know for sure what you were up to inside.

You might be enjoying a second-hand Playboy, but then again, you might be perfecting your longhand division. Of course, the ploy could backfire. Your parents might never believe that closed doors are not meant for hiding things; they might assume you were smoking pot or watching porn or spoiling your dinner whenever the door was closed, which was now all the time.

Either way, did your parents really want to find out without knocking first?

WHILE I WON’T DENY THAT A PACK of Marlboros or a contraband DVD may have occasionally found a home in my sock drawer, I began shutting my bedroom door in the face of parental frustration to hide a different kind of clandestine purchase, one that remains a greater source of shame and embarrassment than any sin I have ever committed. It was the only item I have ever purchased using a toll-free number after dark, and, I hope, the last.

Carefully concealed beneath my bed, parked between a storage tub full of winter sweaters and the remains of a Lego castle gathering dust, sat what appeared to be a four-wheeled vehicle roughly the size of a shoebox. Its translucent cover, a fluorescent shade of turquoise particular to the cheapest plastic that a filched parental credit card could buy (coupled with the surprisingly correct assumption that $19.99—plus shipping—from a strange Infomercial site would escape detection on a Master Card bill), arched over a large central gear buoyed by two metal springs. This apparatus sat atop a sub-layer of smaller gears, which connected to the four wheels. Two metal handles with thin synthetic grips in neon blue, each just under a foot long, jutted out from the vehicle’s sides.

For the potential benefit of the snooping parent, nosy sister or gung-ho spring cleaner, I rehearsed an explanation I never needed to deliver: the object was on loan from school as part of an advanced science project. The explanation might have been acceptable enough to the untrained eye. But anyone who watched TV late at night would know that the marvel of Chinese manufacturing under my bed was called the Ab Slide, and that it was meant to tone the untoned torso.

Growing up in an apartment building meant there was always more than one “girl next door.” On my elevator bank

alone, for example, there was E., a blue-eyed flirt on Floor 2, and L., E.’s best friend, a tall brunette who lived on Floor 4. By seventh grade, we three had become close friends.

I would have dated either girl, but they were both more interested in sharing stories about other prospects. When E., gazing up at her poster of a shirtless boy band, said she had always wanted to date a guy with a six-pack, she was finally making clear I was out of my league. I had never considered myself a fat kid, but even after my middle school growth spurt, a modest layer of pliable pudge—the endearing kind that mothers call ‘baby fat’—remained. E.’s poster had prompted me to close the door and look in the mirror.

This is how, flipping through re-runs on cable on a Saturday night, I found myself watching an infomercial for the Ab Slide with more than a casual interest. The former Mr. Universe 1986, Doug Brignole, hairline receding and veins bursting, explained that I could transform my midsection in

just a single move! Begin on your hands and knees, facing the Ab Slide. Extend your arms, grab the handles, lock your elbows, and slide your torso forward. Lead with your chest, relax your shoulders, arch your back, and exhale. Feel your abs burn as they propel your upper body forward against the resistance of the springs. After three minutes, stop.

Repeat daily.

Apparently, it worked. At least according to an enthusiastic group of “average” middle-aged professionals, whose oiled midsections had all of the sharp ridges and reflective qualities befitting comparisons with a washboard. And they were eager to share the secret source of their transformed bodies, souls, and sex-lives—but only with the lucky few who had tuned in at the perfect time.

I was initially skeptical; but what if this could actually bring me a step closer to the ripped abs worthy of a spot on E’s wall? What if those years of painstaking medical research, explained by that silver-haired doctor in a white lab coat, had really determined the optimal mechanics for the perfect slide? And what about the dramatic before and after photos of couch potatoes turned smiling converts, now

standing in just one leg of their old pair of extra-extra large jeans? With the Ab Slide, I would no longer have to suffer the humiliation of surrender after just nineteen situps left me exhausted enough to justify a trip to the snack cabinet. Not with “the only exercise system that produced amazing results with just one easy move, in just 3 minutes a day.” Wasn’t now the moment to buy, at an all-time low-price of $19.99? All this could come to pass, as long I placed an order in the next nine minutes and 36 seconds.

When the Ab Slide arrived at our front door, I managed to smuggle the package back to my room unnoticed. Over the following months, behind closed doors, I dutifully swallowed my daily dose of slide nearly every afternoon before dinner. The exercise was simple; it could even be somewhat challenging if you extended your slide a bit farther than recommended. But that perfect six-pack never materialized. I had been duped, not as much by Doug Brignole as by myself.

ALMOST ALL OF US KNOW WHAT the Doug Brignoles of the world are really up to, and yet the infomercials play on; they may be oracles of false advertising, more snake-oil salesman than Delphic priestesses, but we know it. It may be too far a stretch to say that infomercials reflect that peculiar American blend of individual exceptionalism and old-fashioned bullshit;, but there is a reassuring truth in that. When I walked on to the varsity crew team my freshman year, which demanded hard strokes for many more minutes than three, it was only because I duped myself into it. Sure, that coach who approached me on Freshman movein day may have downplayed the difficulty to make the hard-sell, but my eyes widened at the opportunity to find athletic redemption in that single, swift sweep of an oar. Even as a lowly novice, a kind of stupid physical determination powered me through a handful of head races and hands full of popped blisters. I might have walked on in a state of self-delusion, but I left the team with some greater measure of self-respect.

Towards the end of my freshman year of college, my father began cleaning out my bedroom to prepare its transformation into a family den. He called me to ask if he could throw out a few things, including a strange model car on wheels. I asked him to save it for the sake of nostalgia, and to keep his eyes peeled for its remote controller.

The Ab Slide is probably more worthy of a junk pile than any of the Lego castles my father trashed, or the sweaters he sent to storage. I am glad he saved it, though; for I still take some comfort in fooling myself every now and then, thinking that I can close the door but never get caught, or that I can have it all in just one easy move, in only three minutes a day.

—graphic by Serena Gelb YH Staff

The Yale Herald (Oct. 12, 2012)

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OPINION EMBRACING SOLITUDE

STRESSING ON

by Devin Race

by Eamon Ronan I am, more often than not, alone. I eat alone, I work alone, I walk alone, and, occasionally, I even drink alone. These facts, particularly the last one, often elicit very uncomfortable responses from my peers. Collectively, we have an overall negative perception of being alone. We stigmatize being alone and oftentimes conflate it with loneliness.

The beginning of my freshman year meant jumping into a quick-paced and very social world. From the get-go, I found myself with at least nine new, seemingly meaningful relationships—I lived in Welch Hall’s 10pack. From there, the opportunities for social interaction abounded: my peers and I ran around Yale’s campus, jumping from FroCo meetings to FOOT dinners, study groups to extracurriculars. We’d finally gotten to Yale, goddammit, and we weren’t going to waste any time. Everyone was so special, unique, worthy of interaction. It was nearly impossible not to get swept up in the whirlwind of constant stimulation. I rarely, if ever, found myself alone, save for at night, right before I fell asleep.

By the start of my second semester, I had gained a wide-range of acquaintances, but, in many ways, had begun to lose a sense of who I was. As a result of always surrounding myself with other people and defining myself in relation to those around me, it became difficult for me to separate what I felt about a particular topic from what those around me felt about it. This pervasive group mentality replaced my own personal thoughts. It wasn’t that I no longer had a voice, but that it was difficult to determine what I wanted to say.

I was frustrated with the vacuous nature of some—not all—of my personal relationships. Constant socializing had offered me little time to reflect on these relationships.

As the winter set in, I began to question them: were they genuine and legitimate, or were they just products of proximity and convenience? Were these two categories mutually exclusive?

With time, I realized that, in order to understand both myself and the relationships

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The Yale Herald (Oct. 12, 2012)

that I had developed, I would have to embrace solitude. I began to retreat from this state of constant interaction that is so typical of freshman year—cautiously at first, but then more purposefully as time progressed.

I am not arguing that I’ve reached some stage of personal enlightenment: I’m still figuring it all out. But, I do believe that I have, at the very least, a better sense of myself than I did at this point last year. I rarely dole out advice to people I do know, let alone an entire group of people that I don’t, but if my personal experience and informal observations resemble anything close to reality, then I think a large portion of students here would benefit from spending more time alone.

If we allow ourselves to disconnect, at least temporarily, from the countless relationships that we have in our lives, we will be able to come closer to understanding what we truly want. While I do recognize the vitalness of human interaction—arguably, we need it just as much as oxygen in order to survive—I also realize that solitude and reflection lead to a greater clarity of self, and thus allow for more meaningful and genuine relationships.

Still, even this act of writing is a form of social interaction. I am physically alone right now, but I understand that my words, in some ways, constitute the beginning of a conversation between me, the writer, and you, the reader. And even though I’ve come closer to understanding who I am as a person, I cannot help but wonder what you are thinking of me. Are you engaged?

Do you find me strange? Are my thoughts off-putting?

I’d like to say that simple curiosity motivates these questions, but I know deep down that my own personal insecurity influences the equation somehow. I’m unsure of the extent to which this insecurity drives my thoughts and actions, but I think now I will retreat to my own room to consider this— very much alone, but not, in any sense of the word, lonely.

Two weeks ago, Marc DeWitt, ES ’15, wrote an editorial in the Herald titled: “The Yalie, the Commodity.” His article was well-written, well-received on Facebook, and rightfully celebrated for its unique angle on a riff I’ve seen in many other editorials: the typical Yalie is hyper-competitive, over-stressed, over-committed and needs to learn to chill.

His article and the others like it published in various on-campus outlets make good points. I agree with them that the typical Yalie is still in the process of working out the right balance between work and life. I agree that we sometimes forget that our relationships with friends might one day be as valuable to us as the things we learn or the organizations we lead. But these editorials make me feel unloved. Sometimes I like to feel the stress he and others talk about and pretend that it’s the intensity that comes from a life with purpose. I’d like to reflect on the magnetic appeal of those stressed-out obsessives and to see if it gives us a way to love our own stresses.

Instead of asking about the typical Yalie, let’s start by asking: what is the atypical Yalie like? Who are the people on the fringe? What are the weirdos up to? I’m thinking about the people we never see because they’ve locked themselves away in a tower of books on alpine marmots. Intellectual history is filled with big nut-jobs that I love hearing about, like Ludwig Wittgenstein—the revolutionary Austrian philosopher of logic and language—who would, while thinking out a particularly difficult thought, grip his head with his hands, thrash it about and yell “God, I am stupid today!” or “Damn my bloody soul!

Help me!” How do we feel about these weirdos? Do we love them?

According to DeWitt and others, these people are obnoxiously ambitious and out of touch with the chill aspects of daily life.

But I think that at some point we have all (including the authors of those pieces) felt love for the entrancing figure of the eccentric genius. In movies like Beautiful Mind or Rain Man, the extreme version of this figure is romanticized. But these characters aren’t just

in the movies. In daily life, I am charmed by someone obsessed with linear algebra who forgets the little social graces like matching their socks or zipping their fly. Or even think of someone you’ve talked to who is totally confident about their career path. It’s cool to be consumed with passionate certainty.

But from the outside, passion can look like anguish, stress, and ambition. If we celebrate passion, we should also celebrate the stress that comes with it. I want our editorials to send love to the people who seem stressed all the time and rarely make time to just chill. I wouldn’t want that alpine marmot expert to read those editorials and think that he needs to stop what he’s doing so he can take time to crack PBRs with bros on weeknights. I want people to have enough ambition to be stressed because I want the people who leave here to shake the world.

But what if you don’t feel like you’re shaking the world? What if you, like me, don’t feel a singular, obsessive passion of the kind we associate with those eccentric geniuses? For those of us who aren’t defined by an obsessive passion, moments of stress can provide intensity to our lives. I feel that in my most stressed moments, my mind can be completely occupied with the intensity of thought that gives me insight into what it would be like to have an all-consuming passion. Stress isn’t the same as passion or genius, but it is the other side of passion. In feeling it, we get a taste of the intensity of existence that characterizes the lives of those admirably eccentric geniuses. I’m asking us to celebrate the pursuit of passion and in so doing to celebrate the pursuit of its cruel shadow: stress.

I am not an eccentric genius with a consuming monomaniacal drive. But it’s in the moments that I wish I were like those hidden weirdos that I feel unloved by the editorials telling Yalies to chill out. Sometimes I want to luxuriate in my stress and pretend it’s passion. I don’t want people to de-stress, to relax, to cool their ambition, or to take a break. I want us to love, to worry, and to love our worries.

—graphic by Christine Mi YH Staff

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Fine Indian Cuisine “Amid elegance, a variety of Indian dishes” - New York Times “A treat for the senses” - Hartford Courant Lunch Mon - Sat: 11:30 am - 3:00 pm Sun: 12:00 pm - 3:00 pm Dinner Sun - Thu: 5:00 pm - 10:30 pm Fri - Sat: 5:00 pm - 11:00 pm Every Day Lunch Buffet Sunday special brunch with North and South Indian food

Yale Institute of Sacred Music presents

shaping community

Poetics and Politics of the Eruv Three exhibitions exploring a Jewish spatial practice, curated by Margaret Olin

• ISM Gallery of Sacred Arts | 409 Prospect St. • Rabinowitz Gallery, Slifka Center | 80 Wall St. • 32 Edgewood Gallery, Yale School of Art | 32 Edgewood Ave. opening reception with tour of all three exhibitions

thursday, october 18 4:30–6:30 pm Ellen Rothenberg, Measure 1 ©2012.

Guided tours available. 203.436.5955. More info at www.yale.edu/ism/eruv.

Presented with Yale School of Art and the Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale.

Measuring up Exploring bias against women in science

by Alessandra Roubini

long the path up science hill, one will notice an equal number of both male and female students trekking towards their science classes. This is due to efforts by Yale—and the scientific community at large—over the past several decades to promote gender equality in the scientific disciplines. Despite the visible equality in science classes across campus, however, new research from Yale’s very own science departments suggests that subconscious biases against women in science have prevented the progression of women in scientific careers.

On Sept. 17, five members of various science departments at Yale University published a collaborative research study entitled “Science Faculty’s Subtle Gender Biases Favor Male Students.” The randomized double-blind study concluded that science faculty members from six research-intensive universities, three public and three private, both male and female, tend to give preference to male applicants when hiring. The research maintains that these biases are not because of intentional attempts to hinder the success of female scientists, but rather the result of ingrained gender biases to which even the most impartial people fall prey. The controversial findings of the study have ignited a fervent debate among members of Yale’s scientific community about the subconscious prejudices of a group of people who are

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The Yale Herald (Oct. 12, 2012)

trained to value objectivity above all else.

Nationally, many more women are receiving PhDs in the sciences than in the past, but the number of women hired for positions as junior faculty members has not seen the same increase. For example,

listed a male name and the other a female name. The results showed that science faculty members rated the male applications higher than the female applications for hiring, starting salaries, and mentorship opportunities. Both male and female

faculty members were equally likely to exhibit this bias. Perhaps most surprising was the finding that the participants who most valued their objectivity and lack of bias were “paradoxically” the most likely to exhibit bias. The researchers suggested

“We are all reluctant to know or admit that we have biases.

Why is it that scientists think we’re different?”

—Meg Urry, Chair of the Department of Physics at Yale, roughly one third of the PhDs given in chemistry go to women, while only one tenth of new hires in chemistry are women, according to Meg Urry, Israel Munson Professor of Physics and Astronomy, Director of the Yale Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics, and Chair of the Physics Department. The authors of the study wrote in their article that “this gap suggests that the problem will not resolve itself solely by more generations of women moving through the academic pipeline, but that instead, women’s advancement within academic science may be actively impeded.”

Participants in the study were asked to consider two identical applications for jobs, the only difference being that one

Corinne Moss-Racusin (Julie Reiter/YH Staff)

that this is most likely because such people are less cautious about avoiding and addressing their biases.

The question of objectivity is especially significant in the scientific disciplines. Scientists are trained to place immense value on objective, rational thought. As a result, the findings that suggested that these biases are especially prevalent in the sciences were very surprising to some. Elizabeth Asai, MC ’13, a biomedical engineering major who received a $100,000 grant from the Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology (CIMIT) for her work with monitoring melanoma, voiced her initial puzzlement at this finding: “Science tends to really value objective opinion, that I would have expected bias to still be there, but to a lesser degree.”

Others, however, suggested that these seemingly contradictory trends are in fact

of women with children [versus] women without children.”

Female science students at Yale mostly voiced surprise with the study’s results.

Cynthia Chan, SM ’15, said, “My first reaction when I saw the study was to think,

initiative.” Organizations like Undergraduate Women in Science at Yale (UWISAY) and Women in Science at Yale (WISAY) also serve to help address these issues.

Aside from the social implications the authors of the study attempted to address,

“There’s no reason to think there are not similar processes happening at Yale.”

—Corinne Moss-Racusin, postdoctoral associate ‘Really? Still?’” Sarah Abdallah, SM ’14, a double major in biology and psychology, added, “I can’t say I’ve personally experienced any bias that I’ve been aware of.” This sentiment was a common one among female science majors at Yale. Basu suggested that

Meg Urry (Julie Reiter/YH Staff) perfectly compatible and that it is precisely the emphasis on objectivity in the sciences that leads to the perpetuation of implicit biases. “This is part of the reason that gender imbalance is so stubborn in the sciences, because each of us is so dedicated to objectivity,” Urry said. “We are all reluctant to know or admit that we have biases. Why is it that scientists think we’re different?” Sarbani Basu, a professor in the Astronomy Department, agrees.

“Scientists think they are objective, but we suffer from the same subjectivity as everyone else,” Basu said. Just because we are objective in our work doesn’t mean we don’t have the same cultural subjectivities as everyone else.”

The study also attempted to address several of the claims used to justify the disparity between the number of male and female hires in the sciences. Faculty members often suggest that the gender gap is to due to conscious rational considerations, such as personal choices. Corinne Moss-Racusin, a postdoctoral associate at Yale and the lead author of the study, explained this idea. “When people tend to have conversations about some of the factors responsible for the lack of women in scientific fields, they often say that women choose family obligations,” Racusin said.

The results of the study suggest that this in fact not the case because, as Urry noted, “There is no difference in the progression

Because these implicit biases stem from constant inundation of cultural imagery that perpetuates gender-science expectations, solutions to the problem are equally complicated. One potential—and relatively simple—remedy would be to make a concerted

this trend did not necessarily mean that Yale was free of gender bias in the sciences, but rather that it happens behind the scenes, leading to an unawareness that it is occurring. Indeed, Moss-Racusin said that in all likelihood Yale suffered from these biases as well. “There’s no reason to think that there are not similar processes happening at Yale. Our participants were from the exact same background as Yale faculty,” she said.

The language of the study was very clear in its insistence that the biases found in university faculty was not conscious or malicious: “If faculty express gender biases, we are not suggesting that these biases are intentional or stem from a conscious desire to impede the progress of women in science.”

While the unintentional nature of the biases may be somewhat relieving for female students pursuing the sciences, it also implies a much more complex and difficult source.

According to the study, the origins of these biases are largely cultural.

Abdallah said, “I can see why people associate males with the sciences just looking at how men seem to be rewarded more in the sciences. I can see how having more prominent men in the sciences will propagate a bias.” Chan, a sophomore science major, agreed. “We’re really visual beings, so if we don’t see a lot of females in sciences, it might not be a career path that’s foremost in our minds, just because we don’t see a lot of it,” she said.

effort to raise awareness. Indeed, Basu characterized awareness as the “key” to reversing these trends. Asai added, “It would be important to make sure that the heads of departments at Yale have this information and to put the pressure on them to make sure that their department is taking these things into account.”

Students and faculty alike also expressed the need for mentorship opportunities for women. Basu remembered an important mentoring relationship she had when she was a graduate student at Yale. “From personal experience at Yale, it was really nice to have a senior woman at the graduate level to help me along.”

Some believe that the university should make more aggressive efforts to encourage female science students. Moss-Racusin suggested a series of interventions that could make a dent in the issue, including the assignment of secondary mentors, the arrangement of clear schedules and expectations, third-party monitoring of advising relationships, and enhanced transparency of the progress of mentorships.

they also cited several pragmatic problems with the perpetuation of these biases in the sciences. Citing a 2012 report from the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, the study notes that over the next decade, there will be a 100,000worker shortage in the scientific workforce.

The authors of the gender bias study suggest that this deficit could be resolved if more women were encouraged to pursue the sciences past the doctorate stage.

Another issue is that the paucity of women pursuing scientific careers greatly reduces the likelihood of hiring the best and most qualified candidates. Urry said of this issue, “Some people worry that if you mention gender or race, that somehow means that you are lowering the quality. I argue that it is in fact that opposite. Only taking from one pool lowers the quality. Women are a not fully utilized population.”

After the publication of the study, some feared that its results would discourage young women from pursuing the sciences.

For many female undergraduates studying the sciences, however, the reaction

Elisa Lin (Julie Reiter/YH Staff)

Urry did maintain, however, that Yale has made important strides towards fixing the problem of implicit biases. “Yale has really been a leader in this. We have succeeded in hiring really outstanding people of color and women by providing extra resources. What Yale did some years ago was to create 35 new positions to be available to minorities underrepresented throughout the campus or in science. We look a lot more diverse now than we did before that

proved to be the opposite. Many students expressed a desire and even a feeling of responsibility to change this trend. Asai called the study a “call to action.” Elisa Lin, ES ‘14 and a chemistry major, emphasized her commitment to working harder in the meantime. “One of my biggest goals in life is to help reverse this trend,” Lin said.

“When I see this happening my impulse is to think that I really need to work against it and keep it in mind as I go along.”

The Yale Herald (Oct. 12, 2012)

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The Yale Herald (Oct. 12, 2012)

Naming a new Yale Elliah Heifetz, TC ’15, traces the stories behind Yale’s named buildings, and looks at the decision to name two new colleges

n 1438, King Henry VI of England founded a constituent college at Oxford University, which he named the Warden and the College of the Souls of all Faithful People Deceased in the University of Oxford.

Five hundred years later, Yale University, whose residential college system is based heavily on Oxford’s, also seeks to build two new colleges. It’s doubtful, however, that the names of these colleges will be anything like King Henry’s—or at least nearly as long.

This is because Yale holds a longstanding tradition of naming its residential colleges after luminaries affiliated with the college: existing namesakes range from university founders to especially prominent graduates.

Whoever Yale names the colleges after, then, has a certain standard to uphold. “It’s long term,” Julia Calagiovanni, SM ’15, associate editor of Yale feminist magazine Broad Recognition, said of the decision. “It’s saying that we think this person has done significant work, we think that this person deserves to be commemorated.”

After all, residential college affiliation holds serious weight among the student body: 92.9 percent of the 1,215 students that responded to a Herald survey said that they identify, at least to some extent, with their colleges. And when the surveyed students were asked directly if they care about what the new residential colleges are named—whether it is “important to them, on principle, that certain criteria be kept in mind when naming the colleges”—78.5 percent replied affirmatively.

So whether students’ concerns are satisfied and tradition is upheld, then, depends on the university’s naming process. Even if it doesn’t involve a king, or a name the length of a sentence, there is much more to the process than meets the eye. Really, Yale’s residential college naming process has historically been an intriguing one—and a rocky one, even from the very start.

In 1933, provost Charles Seymour (who would later become Yale’s president) led a

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committee on the planning of Yale’s residential colleges. Notably missing from the committee was Yale’s president at the time, James Rowland Angell. George Pierson, YC ’26, first official historian of the university, kept the reasons for Angell’s absence ambiguous in Yale: the University College, 1921-1937, saying that because the donor was to be kept satisfied, “right at the outset President Angell had to disqualify himself from being persona non-grata.” “The donor” Pierson refers to is Edward Harkness, the man who endowed Yale’s first residential colleges. It’s not entirely clear why Harkness would not have wanted President Angell around, and for whatever reason, as Larned Professor of History emeritus and author of an upcoming history of Yale Gaddis Smith, PC ’54, PhD ’61, said, “[President Angell] was not deeply interested in the residential colleges.”

Despite administrative rifts, though, there

nant,” Jonathan Holloway, GRD ’95, professor of history, African American studies, and American studies, and master of Calhoun College, said. “And he would find me repugnant, to be honest,” Holloway, who is black, added. In recent years, Calhoun College’s name has endured much censure by Yale students, faculty, and alumni alike.

Politician and slaveholder John C. Calhoun, YC 1804, for whom the college is named, famously advocated for the preservation of slavery so effectively that he kept Texas from becoming a free state, and spoke out for the South’s secession from the Union.

“I think that naming was a dreadful mistake,” Smith said. Other Yale historians have shed light on why this could be true: Antony Dugdale, GRD ’00, J. J. Fueser, GRD ’02, and J. Celso de Castro Alves, GRD ’02, put together a report in 2001 titled “Yale, Slavery And Abolition,” in which they outline key points in Calhoun’s intensely racist and pro-slavery

as to run for mayor of New York City on a pro-slavery platform.

This was not at all an issue, it seems, for then-President Whitney Griswold, YC ’29: according to Traugott Lawler, professor emeritus of English and former master of Ezra Stiles, Griswold named Morse and Stiles principally by himself. “I know that naming a college [at least] for Stiles was his idea, and I think pretty much his decision,” Lawler said.

If it was not an issue then, it has become one today. “Yale, Slavery, and Abolition” highlights student protests against the colleges’ names as early as 1992, when Calhoun students spoke out against their college’s namesake. More recently, a particularly sensationalist student protest caught the campus’s attention. In 2009, an anonymous student group—later self-identified as the Undergraduate Organizing Committee—plastered residential colleges and

“I’m the master of a college that is named for someone who I find repugnant. And he would find me repugnant, to be honest.”

—Jonathan Holloway, Master of Calhoun College was no campus-wide controversy about the initial naming of the colleges, because no one really questioned the decisions. These were the names of true Yale luminaries: Abraham Pierson, the college’s first president, a position which then was called rector; John Calhoun, a vice president of the United States; Jonathan Edwards, one of America’s most prominent theologians; John Davenport, the founder of New Haven. All seemingly illustrious graduates, worthy of being recorded for posterity. But, decades after the fact, the Yale community has begun to grapple with their complicated history.

“I’M THE MASTER OF A COLLEGE THAT is named for someone who I find repug-

career. The study asks whether “the fact of political power by itself merit honor.”

As it turns out, the case of Calhoun is far from an anomaly: nine of the 12 residential college namesakes were slave owners. Even churchmen like Berkeley and Edwards, and supporters of emancipation like Stiles and Trumbull, owned slaves at some point in their lives. In fact, both of the two most recent colleges, Morse and Ezra Stiles, which were built in 1962—nearly 30 years after the first colleges, and in the height of the American black civil rights movement— were named after slave owners. Samuel B. Morse is a particularly egregious case: as an active, published advocate of slavery in the United States, Morse went so far

other named buildings with fliers and chalk writing in an effort to suggest new names.

The protest intended to informally rebrand those buildings named for slaveholders with the names of prominent black figures, or abolitionists and civil rights activists.

The campaign initially faced criticism, primarily for being a form of vandalism, but eventually found esteemed supporters. “When I saw [the protest] and saw what was happening, I was like, ‘Alright, this is really cool,’” Holloway said. “I actually loved that protest. Even though I didn’t like the chalking, I thought it was smart, I thought it was consistent across the campus, and I just thought it was really great, because it sort of respected what was here but also challenged it.”

The Yale Herald (Oct. 12, 2012)

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In Holloway’s eyes, the protest alluded to a greater problem in the way Yale deals with the controversial history of his college’s namesake. “For me,” said Holloway, “the frustrating part is that, until I came around, there wasn’t a desire to acknowledge that history publicly. Yale didn’t want to talk about it; internally, Calhoun didn’t want to talk about it—and to me that’s not acceptable. Even if you don’t like the controversy about the name, I think it’s important to acknowledge it’s controversial, and to acknowledge that the person for whom Yale named this college would not like Yale the way it’s currently constructed.”

Holloway does not approve of the choice, in the first place, to name Calhoun College after John C. Calhoun. “I recognize he’s a prominent alum,” he said. “I also recognize that in the 1930s, there [were] any number of other accomplished politicians they could’ve named [the college for], but they made this choice. It’s a regrettable choice.”

But renaming the college is, for Holloway, out of the question. “They made this choice,”

feminist community, sees the issue as reaching beyond New Haven. “Right now,” she said, “Yale has a solid opportunity to make a pretty public statement: here’s someone we admire; here’s someone we see as a good example, who upholds the things that the Yale community should aspire to.”

That person, Calagiovanni contended, should be a woman. “You can say that it’s petty, right, but I think so many criticisms of the [university] have to do with, [for instance], when you look at DS and it’s all dead white dudes, and I think that [naming a college after a woman] is a way for Yale to say, ‘We’re going to broaden the scope of who we choose for these things.’ If it didn’t happen, I would be surprised. I would be disappointed.” Calogiovanni is not alone among her peers: 60 percent of survey takers responded that they believe at least one of the new colleges should be named for a woman.

But women are not the only options for diverse namesakes: 52.9 percent of those surveyed also indicated interest in a col-

THERE MAY BE SOMETHING CLOSE TO A consensus that the naming of the two new colleges is an important opportunity, both to pay homage to those who have historically been excluded from powerful and prestigious institutions like this one, and to celebrate how much progress has been made. Today, Yale’s network of students, professors, and administrators is far more diverse than it was 300 years ago, or even four decades ago. That there has been so much change, so recently, presents an interesting problem in the college-naming process.

According to provost Peter Salovey, GRD ‘86, “the Corporation has made the decision that, consistent with the naming of the existing colleges, the new colleges will not be named for a living donor.” If the vast majority of Yale students and faculty have their way, the colleges will not be named after any Yale figure still living whatsoever. If the pool of candidates is limited to the dead, it becomes, simply, a numbers game.

“People might be hard put to find a truly significant woman in the distant past

dices—until much later. “One of the things to remember,” Holloway said, “is that who knows what Bouchet might have been able to accomplish today? It’s important to realize that people could not rise to prominence because doors to society were closed to them.

[Bouchet] could’ve been the most brilliant physicist of his era [and] he still couldn’t have gotten a job.”

Over sixty-nine percent of undergraduate survey respondents said that the university should not sacrifice prominence for diversity, if that is in fact the choice it faces because of this stipulation that the colleges namesakes be dead. Dean of the Yale School of Architecture and principal architect of the new residential colleges Robert A. M. Stern, ARC ’65, expressed a wish for diversity in the colleges’ names, but ultimately made it clear: “I still think prominence is the bottom line.”

But prominence is a relative term. “There are a number of women who are no longer living who were distinguished as being first at something at Yale, either as a professor here or as a student,” Branch said. “You

he continued, “and the historian in me says that’s what we need to think about. Some alums wanted to erase the name of Calhoun.

I think that’s the wrong thing to do.”

To simply rename the college, Holloway seems to worry, does nothing more than help us forget the reasons we renamed it in the first place. “We are too amnesiac in this country,” he said. “We don’t know our history, and we don’t think about it in terms of what the consequences [are] of the decisions that we make.”

As it stands today, Yale has seen two rounds of residential college naming handled almost exclusively by the administration, and each with an ideologically troubled legacy. And whether Yale can offset this legacy largely depends on whom Yale names its new colleges for.

lege named after a person of color. Holloway agreed: “If you want to acknowledge groundbreaking people who made important contributions, who broke ground at Yale for who they represented, I think it’d be great to have a college named after a woman, a black woman, a brown woman, a Native American, an African American.”

Many of Yale’s alumni seem to have the same objectives in mind. In 2008, the Yale Alumni Magazine compiled suggestions from alums for naming the colleges. “In what we’ve heard from readers and what we’ve heard around campus, I think that one name that comes up frequently is Edward Bouchet,” the magazine’s executive directior, Mark Alden Branch, ES ’86, said.

Edward Bouchet, YC 1847, is also a frequent suggestion in the fight for a renamed Calhoun: Bouchet was the first African American to receive a PhD, both from Yale and in the United States. It appears likely that Bouchet’s name will be considered for one of the colleges. “It seems to be that there’s kind of a single African American candidate that people go to,” Branch said.

of Yale,” Lawler said. Considering that the first women to graduate from Yale College received their degrees in 1970, Lawler’s concern gains ground.

Surely, Yale has seen nationally outstanding women graduate: Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor graduated from Yale Law School in 1979, as did Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in 1973. But these women are major figures in the present, not the past. Additionally, almost all of institutionally significant women, like its first female officer, Hanna Gray (provost and, for a year, acting president), or its first female dean, Judith Rodin, are all still living. Keeping to this tradition would be particularly difficult, as would, moreover, the tradition of naming colleges for more broadly prominent Yale affiliates, like John Calhoun or Jonathan Edwards.

Again, this issue pertains not only to Yale’s women graduates, but also to other minorities. Although Bouchet enrolled at Yale College over a century ago, black graduates’ options after leaving Yale remained incredibly limited—due to societal preju-

could argue that that’s a reasonable cause for celebrating someone.” Notable women from Yale’s past include Alice Rufie Blake Jordan, who tricked her way into receiving a Yale Law degree in 1886; Shirley M. Moore, the first woman to receive a Yale Law degree after official enrollment, in 1920; and Otelia Cromwell, the first black woman to receive a degree from Yale (her PhD), in 1926.

Stern pointed to Jane Matilda Bolin, LAW ’31, as a strong contender: Bolin was not only Yale Law School’s first African American woman graduate, but also the first African-American woman in the United States to be appointed to a judgeship.

In the end, Calagiovanni is confident: “I’m sure in the 300-plus years of Yale we can drudge up a woman whose achievements were significant enough to have a college named after her. It would be a gross oversight not to.”

AS THE HERALD SURVEY ILLUSTRATED, Yale’s choice of names is important to its students. But the university may have to consider whether its decision will have greater implications.

Calagiovanni, an active member of Yale’s

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The Yale Herald (Oct. 12, 2012)

BEFORE YALE GIVES ITS NEW COLLEGES diverse namesakes, however, it may want to consider the potential risks of moving too quickly with such a decision.

To Holloway, this is a serious consideration: “I think that would be a huge mistake, to address a diversity issue in both colleges. That just ghettoizes that whole part of the campus, symbolically. What I wouldn’t want to see,” he said, “because it would invite the most simplistic and backwards kind of conversations, is to have these two colleges—that already seem to Yale students so far away—to have one of them be named after an African American alum, and the other to be named after, say, a white woman.”

HolIoway was frank: “It wouldn‘t just be a bad idea. It would just be stupid. Because then you have a situation where there might be some kind of a weird culture coming out of [students saying], ‘Oh you’re in one of ‘those colleges’.”

Moreover, there are other forms of diversity to take into account in the naming process. For instance, another group that is unrepresented in the names of Yale’s existing residential colleges are graduates who have been successful in the arts.

Yale’s culture is deeply rooted in the

perfect. And he’s already recognized as one of the great Yale figures, so [his is] a name that just solves all the problems.”

Member of student advocacy group Students Unite Now (SUN) Yoni Greenwood, BR ’15, also suggested Porter, as well as Eva Hesse, ART ’59, a pioneering Germanborn sculptor who immigrated to the United States in 1939 and died tragically of a brain tumor just 34 years later. Hesse, a leading figure in the world of visual arts during her lifetime, also appeals to many diverse Yale constituencies: in addition to leaving a considerable artistic legacy, Hesse was Jewish, a woman, and an immigrant.

So perhaps Lawler’s concern is not as grave as it seems. To Yale students and faculty, there is a wealth of names for the university to choose from—but ultimately, the task will be to find one that satisfies many of their concerns, and continues the traditions of the college.

arts: the school boasts the world’s oldest collegiate a cappella group (the Whiffenpoofs); a Tony Award-winning repertory theater (The Yale Repertory Theater); and a Fine Arts graduate program ranked first in the nation by U.S. News & World Report, to name a few examples. With such a focus on the arts, it seems it would follow naturally that Yale might consider honoring an alumnus in the arts.

Both Holloway and Stern mentioned this possibility, and, as Holloway underscored, major artistic figures often cover a lot of ground in terms of diversity.

Cole Porter, YC 1913, who was also one of the suggestions collected by the Alumni Magazine. Porter was not only one of the most important American songwriters of the 20th century but also a prominent Yalie: Porter sang in the Whiffenpoofs of 1913, and wrote many of Yale’s fight songs (including “Bulldogs! Bulldogs! Bow wow wow!”). Furthermore, Porter was gay. “Porter is a very complicated person,” Holloway said, “and so many different constituencies would be able to claim him as theirs. That’s

AS OF NOW, THE ACTUAL PROCESS naming the new colleges remains for the most part a mystery because the Yale Corpora-

ing the colleges. “I think the tradition of not naming colleges after donors is an excellent one,” Stern said.

Tradition may actually be the buzzword of the support for the University’s decision: most college masters interviewed said that they support Yale’s decision to keep to its so-called tradition of naming colleges after Yale luminaries.

The University has, however, given donors plenty of opportunity for named donations within the residential colleges themselves. In total, Yale’s official donations website lists 43 discrete portions of the new colleges that are available for naming, in addition to all student suites—and each has its price. The most expensive is the North College West Tower—Harkness’s sequel—at $100,000,000; the least expensive, a student suite for $150,000.

Still, Stern warned, it is possible for these named donations to go too far: “[If] every doorway in the college [were] be named [after one person]—well, I don’t think that would be appropriate.”

There is no limit to how much a donor can

don’t think donors should make it, but everybody should have a chance to say what they think,” he said. “What do they have the president and the Corporation for if they can’t make a decision of this kind intelligently and responsibly?”

The question is, then, who (if anyone else) will have the opportunity to influence that decision—even informally. At the very least, the architect will: “[My firm has] been asked to prepare a list of suggestions,” Stern said. But Stern is sure that the Corporation will consult others as well. Branch said he felt the same way, specifically about alumni: “My guess is that [the Corporation] will invite a lot of input.”

Greenwood said he believes, resolutely, that students should have some say. Through his work for SUN, Greenwood has been involved with ensuring student representation in the Corporation’s selection of Yale’s next president, which has given him further insight into the workings of the University. Although he admitted that the naming of the colleges is not one of his top priorities, he said it speaks to a more profound issue he

tion has not yet begun it. Initially scheduled for completion in 2013, the construction of the colleges has been continuously deferred since the economic recession in 2008. “All the technical documents are done for the colleges,” Dean of the Yale School of Architecture and principal architect of the new residential colleges Robert A. M. Stern, ARC ’65, said. “If the money comes in tomorrow, the steam shovels can start digging.”

But the money will likely not come in tomorrow, and some people have suggested that this is largely because of the university’s decision not to name the colleges after donors. “If we named them after donors,” Holloway said, “these colleges would be being built.” Stern agreed that the decision had concrete consequences: “It cost them a lot of money,” he said.

In spite of its financial repercussions, the choice has proven to be quite popular: nearly every faculty member and student interviewed for this article agreed that Yale’s was the right move. The decision is an affirmation of, not a break with, the school’s longstanding policy when it comes to nam-

give, which some people estimate might in turn influence the college-naming process. “[Donations] might well affect what a college is named,” Hungerford said. “Not that a donor could probably insist on a certain name, just that a major donor might have a role in that conversation.” Branch agreed, emphasizing that though the University has said neither college will be named for a donor, “they haven’t said that donors won’t have any input in what the name might be.”

So who really will decide the names of the new residential colleges? The easy answer is the Yale Corporation, the University’s governing body of trustees, alumni fellows, and ex-officio members (including the president). Every member of Yale’s faculty and administration interviewed said they thought that the formal decision would ultimately be the Corporation’s.

“That’s the sort of standard thing: the president and the [Yale] Corporation make major decisions, [though] they listen to others,” Lawler maintained. Overall, he said, this is for the best. “I don’t think the faculty should make [the decision], I certainly

has with Yale: “Not only are students not involved in the presidential search, they’re systematically not involved in any decisions that the university makes. I think [that], culturally, the university should make a habit of including students in everything that it does. We are the University’s most important constituency.”

Of course, it’s improbable that the university will satisfy everyone. “No matter what,” Holloway said, “someone’s going to be angry about it.”

It is likely, though, that the naming process of the new residential colleges will raise important questions—questions, as many have mentioned, about Yale’s troubled past, and about Yale’s path for the future. At any rate, there will be a tangible product: two new residential college buildings, hundreds more students in every Yale College class, and two new abbreviations for Herald articles.

Even if this is not enough, Stern is not concerned. “In time there will be more colleges built,” he predicts—and with them, more worries about what to name them.

The Yale Herald (Oct. 12, 2012)

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Republican’t?

New Haven’s dwindling political opposition

by Victoria Sanchez

ew Haven Republicans…Yes, there is such a group,” the New Haven Republican Town Committee website boldly declares. Out of 60,153 registered voters in New Haven, the Republican Party claims a paltry 2,371.

They have no members on the Board of Aldermen and the last Republican mayor left office in 1951. Still, while lacking in raw numbers, New Haven GOP members meet weekly in New Haven’s Hall of Records on Orange Street, where a core group gathers to discuss local party issues. Yesterday, nine members of the New Haven Republican Town Council gathered to discuss everything from Romney-Ryan yard signs—there is a lack, and the town councils must help defray the cost of the signs currently available—to a Columbus Day canvassing event in Wooster Square, where, of eight newly registered voters, four—“that’s 50%!”, exclaimed one participant—registered as Republicans.

“I don’t think we’re completely or partially defunct,” said Nancy Ahern, former Westville alderman and current treasurer of the New Haven Republican Town Committee. “Our importance has been diminishing over the years but there will always be room for that minority voice.”

The story of the party’s decline can be attributed to several factors, the most important of which is probably demographics: New Haven has a significant working class population, much of which is organized into unions. “There is very clearly a [Republican] rhetoric—it’s like the nineteenth century all over again,” Ben Crosby, PC ’14, one of the Democratic Party CoChairs for Ward 1 said. “Cities are cesspools

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The Yale Herald (Oct. 12, 2012)

of crime and corruption and lazy poor people waiting for handouts. The Republican message is not going to appeal.”

Richter Elser, BR ’81, chairman of the Republican Town Committee, contended that the New Haven Republican agenda garners additional support from outside the party itself. “If you look at the numbers of votes Republican candidates get in the city” he notes, “either the party has a 200 percent turnout, or there are a lot of Democrats who are inclined to support us.” He suspects that the extra votes come from registered Democrats voting Republican in the general elections.

There are also the unaffiliated voters,

sense of community, whether through activists canvassing neighborhoods or aldermen issuing newsletters to their constituents. Arlen e DePino, who served as New Haven’s last Republican Alderman from 2000 to 2010, representing Morris Cove, emphasized in an interview that constituent service and outreach was the essential part of her tenure on the Board. Crosby also emphasized the importance of community outreach: “The new folks running the city Democratic Party have worked very hard to be more visible and reach out and be active,” he said.

Of course, it is impossible to consider political party affiliation without regard to

“The message we need to carry to voters in New Haven and Connecticut is that they have to see that the politics are local.

We’re not running for president—the image of the Republican Party nationwide is irrelevant! It’s what we believe as individuals.” In fact, local Republicans have traditionally been moderate on social issues.

Recently, the Party’s relevance in the city has dwindled. In the 1970s and early ’80s, there were normally six or eight Republicans on the Board of Aldermen. By the ’90s, “we had as many as five and [as few as] two,” Ahern said. By September 2011, when incumbent DePino withdrew from the aldermanic race, New Haven Re-

“There is very clearly a [Republican] rhetoric—it’s like the 19th century all over again: cities are cesspools of crime and corruption and lazy poor people waiting for handouts.”

— Ben Crosby, PC ‘14 which is the fastest growing bloc at both the city and statewide levels. Elser argued that, with the emergence of the unaffiliated voter as a real political force, the influence of parties themselves may start to diminish, for Democrats as well as Republicans. “The real issue is the nature of political parties,” said Elser. “They’re losing their relevance because people have so much access to so much information on the local level.”

On the other hand, political parties and their activities often have contributed to a

national politics. Many Elm City Republicans, including Ahern, point out distinctions between their local goals and their party’s larger-scale stereotypes. “To a liberal New England-style Republican—what I consider myself to be—the image of Republicans nationwide can be a handicap,” she said. Ahern stresses the irrelevance of the national party’s hot-button issues within the New Haven community, arguing that they have very little to do with local politics, budgets, education and safety.

publicans were left without a single candidate for office in the entire city. “I was in long enough,” DePino reminisced at the Town Committee meeting. “10 years is long enough.”

But a few staunch defenders of the Grand Old Party remain. Elser believes that the party may yet have viable candidates in the future: “I’m an optimist,” Elser said. “That’s why I’m a Republican.” The locally-focused Town Committee continues to meet once a month

and has representation from eight of the city’s wards. Additionally, when the state Party needs support, the Town Committee does fundraising “so that if—I should say when—we get to the point where we can identify a viable local candidate, we have the credibility to ask the state Party to support the candidate.”

Despite this outreach work, the Party’s struggles are undeniable. “Clearly whatever we’re doing isn’t necessarily working because we’re not getting people to register as Republicans,” Elser said. Given that the New Haven Republicans’ local goals depend on budget details, the committee is not yet able to clearly outline its specific goals for the next election cycle. But Elser has an idea:“[It will] revolve around the city’s budget issues. The issue New Haven has to come to grips with is that it doesn’t live within its means. Unless you have a solution for that, everything else is really just taking up time at City Hall.”

Currently, a significant portion of the city’s budget comes from state funding— New Haven receives the most money of all the municipalities in Connecticut. Accordingly, as the state makes budget cuts, New Haven will see less money. For Elser, private development that expands the property tax base will be key. “The more you start to concentrate [private investment] in the central business district, the more that will push out into the neighborhoods, beginning to give the city the resources to stabilize the budget situation.”

The Town Committee’s website also lists public safety and education as two areas that could benefit from a fresh perspective. Ahern identified quality public

education,based within the neighborhoods, as a goal for New Haven. She also hopes, citing an experience she had as a substitute teacher, to increase awareness of local politics among Elm City residents. “I would ask the high schoolers if they knew what an alderman was—they did not have

of the Ward 1 campaigns, such as how New Haven deals with the working class, contracts, and business licenses. Aware of the marginal chance of victory and of the large time commitment running entails, the group chose not to put a candidate forward. “We have a lot of people involved in

the effort required. “Without at least two parties,” Ahern said, “democracy becomes demagoguery.” City Republicans still hope to provide crucial minority representation in a one-party government sometime in the future. Ahern said that for a candidate willing to work hard, “there is always an

“It’s always good to bring another perspective to the table.

The current Board has 30 seats and 30 Democrats. That’s a ripe atmosphere for corruption. And I would say that if it were 30 Republicans too.”

—Arlene DePino, former Alderman any idea,” Ahren said. “They were totally disconnected from the people with the most immediate impact on their lives.”

These objectives, of course, remain purely theoretical until the Party can elect another Republican to office. Often, the time commitment that comes with serving in office as a minority member can deter potential candidates from running.

While involvement in local politics is timeconsuming generally, as a minority party member (whether Republican or Independent), one representative is expected to attend at all meetings and committees.

Alex Crutchfield, BR ’15, political director for the Yale College Republicans, said that the group has talked about putting a candidate forward to “make a statement” and “create some momentum” for talking points that are not traditionally part

something from the football team to fraternities to other political organizations and it would require someone to give up their life,” Crutchfield said.

Ultimately, the College Republicans have not engaged in local politics on any level. Crutchfield sees reasons for this.

“Geographically, we’re not in an advantageous area. Ours is a really pragmatic rationale.” Richter, in contrast, believes that the College Republicans could have an influence, and cites Republican political groups at Southern Connecticut State and Quinnipiac universities, who “contribute time and enthusiasm.”

Most people might think that Crutchfield is correct—why waste time on a party with such minimal influence? Yet, for New Haven Republicans, the principle of expression of minority views validates

opportunity.” She and Elser both spoke to the importance of listening, communicating with constituents, and providing a voice of opposition.

More than that, though, Elser takes issue with critics who don’t make an effort to attend public hearings or otherwise participate in government. “Government only works when people participate,” he said. “We get the government we elect and participate in.” When asked about the best part about being a Republican on the Board of Aldermen, DePino emphasized ideological diversity: “It’s always good to bring another perspective to the table,” he said. “The current Board has 30 seats and 30 Democrats. That’s a ripe atmosphere for corruption. And I would say that if it were 30 Republicans, too.”

—graphics by Zach Schiller YH Staff The Yale Herald (Oct. 12, 2012)

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CULTURE Remembering AIDS

by Lara Sokoloff

rank Moore, SM ’76, graduated from Yale Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude, as a double major in art and psychology. He was a painter and a muralist, creating paintings and drawings, and designing sets and costumes. His work was shown in the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the New York Public Library. He died of AIDS-related complications in 2002. He was 48 years old.

Moore is just one of the approximately 450 Yale professors, students, alumni and staff who died of AIDS in the crisis of the 1980s and 90s. But there is currently no memorial remembering these men and women.

Christopher Glazek, BR ’07, founder of the Yale AIDS Memorial Project (YAMP), first became convinced of the need to memorialize Yale AIDS victims a few months after graduating from Yale. Glazek was at a funeral where multiple Yale alumni from the ’70s were reminiscing about their college experience. One alum began talking about Frank Gaines, YC ’75, a friend who had died from AIDS. Glazek was shocked to learn that Gaines was just one of hundreds of Yalies that had been lost to the AIDS crisis.

This discovery prompted Glazek to research the AIDS crisis, and the many lives it claimed. “The more I plunged into the history of the epidemic, the more I was shocked, and the more I became shocked at my own shock,” Glazek said. “How did I grow up in the United States as a gay man with only dim awareness that my direct predecessors endured a plague so pervasive that it bears comparison—in its decapitation of an entire culture—to the Holocaust?”

The idea of YAMP grew out of a discussion group he led with Elizabeth Gumport, BR ’07, in early 2010, in connection with the magazine n+1, where Glazek is a senior editor. The discussion group’s focus was on generating ideas for cultural interventions that went beyond articles or books, and it eventually led them to YAMP’s current model. Motivated by the discussion group, Glazek reached out to History department chair, professor of American Studies, and prominent scholar of LGBT history George Chauncey for help with realizing Glazek’s idea. In its final form, YAMP aims to honor Yalies who died from AIDS-related causes in the ’80s and ’90s through a print publication and an interactive website that provide a face to Yale’s AIDS victims. The publication, the Journal, was released in June 2012, and the website is set to launch in January 2013.

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The Yale Herald (Oct. 12, 2012)

The Journal includes profiles of eight members of the Yale community who died from AIDS. It is comprised of four-page booklets, one for each victim, with a short biography focusing on their time at Yale, and reminiscences sent in by friends and loved ones. Each booklet unfolds to reveal a photo of the deceased, capturing a promising young individual lost to the AIDS epidemic.

“While the Yale AIDS Memorial Project will document the lives and celebrate the achievements of numerous well-known writers, artists, scholars, activists, and public officials, most of the people it will honor were too young to have made their mark on the world,” Chauncey writes in the June issue of the Journal. “But their deaths left a gaping hole in the lives of those who knew and loved them, and with this project, we seek to preserve their memory.” Charles Gariepy, TD ’09, further stressed that YAMP hopes to reverse many of the negative perceptions of AIDS victims. “There was so much shame and stigma around this way of dying,” Gariepy said. “But the humanity is apparent in the way they’re remembered through family, friends, and classmates.”

One profile in the Journal is dedicated to John Wallace, PC ’82, an American Studies major and former member of Yale a capella group, The Spizzwinks(?).

The booklet includes a haunting reflection on Wallace by his classmate, Bill Rubenstein, MC ’82. “Our senior year at Yale, John and I had been in an American Studies reading group together, and I sat across the seminar table mesmerized by his beauty…and now, not even a decade later, I was kneeling by his bedside scribbling his dying wishes,” Rubinstein writes. “John’s plight was emblematic of an era. He was also my friend, and I miss him.”

ON SAT., OCT. 6, MEMBERS OF YAMP’S BOARD OF directors, including Board President and Chairman Richard Espinosa, BK ’10, held an information session for Yale students and alumni interested in volunteering with YAMP. I was the first to arrive, and found a decidedly laid-back atmosphere. The leaders of the project casually lounged and chatted. Once a group of interested Yale students had arrived—20 in all—the board members arranged the chairs in a circle and had us all go around, say our names, and then spell them backwards, before they began talking. “We genuinely enjoy each other’s com-

pany,” Espinosa said. “We eat snacks, we hang out. It doesn’t feel like work.”

The board members discussed the plans for the upcoming new website, which will feature around 25 profiles of deceased Yale students, alumni, professors and staff. Espinosa said that the website will make use of timelines, maps, and video and audio clips to both place each profile in a broader context. Further, Espinosa hopes that viewers will be invited to draw connections between profiles and get lost in the site.

According to Gariepy, this website is much more than just a memorial. YAMP’s board members feel that there is a dearth of information available to the general public about the AIDS crisis. The hope is that this memorial will do more than just honor those who died, but also educate readers on a largely unknown part of our country’s history. “We’re building a lot of this from scratch,” Gariepy told the group. “Right now, it’s not Google-able, and that’s what we’re trying to do. We’re bringing it to the fore. We don’t want AIDS to be below the fold.”

YAMP’s creators hope that the project will eventually spread beyond Yale. “We want to use Yale as a lens, but this is an exciting site for AIDS history,” Espinosa said at the meeting. “There’s this cool digital landscape we’re trying to traverse.” The group initially incorporated solely as the AIDS Memorial Project, with the hope that YAMP will serve as a model that other AIDS memorials can follow and make use of.

Perhaps the main difficulty YAMP must grapple with is that of memorializing an ongoing crisis. Although the AIDS crisis largely subsided in the United States with the discovery of protease inhibitors in 1996, AIDS continues to affect many U.S. citizens, while many African countries and other developing nations are still in the throes of a raging epidemic. The directors said that they hope that readers will begin to understand the severity of this disease through the stories of the Yalies remembered on the site. “The epidemic is far enough in the past that it’s worth now revisiting, but not so distant that the survivors are gone,” Glazek said. “An AIDS memory boom is inevitable—it’s already happening. I want YAMP to be a part of it and to help shape it.”

—graphic by Julia Kittle-Kamp YH Staff

The reel thing Tony Sudol is modest about his job. As he puts it, people should be as aware of film projectionists as they are of the Wizard of Oz—which is to say, not at all. Sudol is one of Yale’s current film projectionists and additionally helps to repair, preserve, and archive Yale’s collection of films.

Instead of using a DVD or other digital recording, Sudol generally screens movies the traditional way, by placing a physical strip of film in a projector. Yale’s collection numbers over 4,000 different films, and includes both 16- and 35-millimeter reels.

“What I always try to do is present film in the way the director would have liked it to be presented,” Sudol said, standing next to the two looming projectors in the Whitney Humanities Center’s film projection room. In order to most accurately project a film, Sudol conducts research and tests with the film before a showing. Sometimes, he has to make repairs to the film before it can be be shown.

Sudol clearly treasures the art of the physical film, but he remains realistic about its future. By next year every major movie theatre will have converted to digital projection equipment, which Sudol says will force many independent theatres to close due to the high costs of the capital investment.

He thinks museums and universities will become the primary venues for film-based screenings.

“The important thing is mentioning that yes, digital is here to stay,” Sudol said. Despite this, Sudol still feels that film has a certain character and richness that account for its preservation.

“Film, one could never consider antiquated. It has a superior value. It is comforting to know that film will be at locations where it will be treated as the art form that it is,” Sudol said. According to him, viewers enjoy a higher quality experience when they watch film instead of a digitally delivered movie. “Film will give you a depth, a clarity, a grain or a texture that one still cannot get from digital,” he said.

Although the entertainment industry has made the economic and logistical decision to transition to digital projectors, Sudol believes that telling a director they cannot produce film is like telling an artist they can no longer use oil paint. He’s confident film will continue to last and be treasured in its rightful place, museums and universities.

“Everyone’s goal in life is to find something they enjoy doing,” Sudol said. Amid the projectors and reels of film, it is clear that Sudol has found his passion: ensuring great artwork lives on in its true state.

—Jacob Wolf-Sorokin —graphic by Serena Gelb YH Staff

Superheroes on Chapel As I’ve never been one for comics, I had never given much thought to Alternate Universe, New Haven’s only comic book store. But visiting the shop, I found myself intrigued and swayed by its charms. Indeed, I had entered into a nerd paradise: shelves of superhero comics and figurines abound, as well as an impressing array of small-press independent graphic novels and comic books. The cashier’s cubicle holds the likes of Spiderman, the Green Lantern and their kin in action-figure-miniature. On a shelf a V for Vendetta Guy Fawkes mask smiles serenely and spookily, as though to reinforce the message of the “No Shoplifting” sign. The shop, though tiny at around a few hundred square feet, crams in an almost overwhelming number of comic books.

Alternate Universe has been around since 1996, and its storefront has seen three different comic book shops in the past 20 years. Though the offerings are diverse—the store boasts a host of manga, as well as slightly stranger fare in the “adult section”— Alternate Universe’s owner says that superheroes still reign supreme: “Avengers and Batman are most popular,” Joseph Stinson, Alternate Universe’s owner, said. When asked about recent trends, he said, “I think comics are kind of a constant. They’re like soap operas—they don’t change very much.” Neither does the target demographic—primarily “young adult males,” according to Stinson. The store still manages to draw in a wide variety of customers, ranging from little girls to men in their 70s.

When I asked Stinson if he still collects comics, he answered with a sheepish grin: “It’s hard to be a serious collector and own a comic book store—you’d want to take everything home and collect it.” Gazing up at the towers of comics and shelves of hand-painted, limited-edition action figures and tapping into my inner nerd, it’s not hard to see why.

—Andrew Koenig —graphic by Julia Kittle-Kamp YH Staff

The Yale Herald (Oct. 12, 2012)

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REVIEWS The efficacy of Shake Shack

by Gareth Imparato YH Staff (Courtesy Creative Commons)

have eaten at Shake Shack a total of five times since it opened on that epochal Thursday just a few short weeks ago. I have eaten at approximately zero other New Haven establishments in that same interval. The lines have stretched around the corner, the wait has been near-interminable, and my personal predilection for their custard flavor of the day has occasionally been misguided, but each time my culinary experience has transcended the reality of the food before me. For now, Shake Shack is the event.

This sense of zeitgeist has followed the chain from New York, where it became a genuine mass cultural phenomenon since its inception in 2004. In the eight years since, it has expanded at a breakneck pace, boasting 14 locations, seven in New York City and another seven in cities including Philadelphia, Miami, Dubai, and, of course, New Haven. We live in the post-McDonald’s age, in which the fast food-eating habits of my friends and family are dominated by the choice between Chipotle and Five Guys, not Taco Bell and Burger King. Within the new fast-casual reality, only one restaurant retains the aura of exceptionalism: the inimitable Shake Shack.

To understand the basis for the holy aura of hype that follows Shake Shack like a sacred shroud, you have to understand the nature of the tableau presented to each customer. The open secret to the chain’s success is an ambience that transcends and complements the eating experience. Upon entering the Chapel Street location your ears are treated to an expansive but inoffensive sampling of contemporary indie rock. Bon Iver, are those your lilting tones I hear? The tables you see are each stamped with a provenance, like a fine bottle of wine, and proudly proclaim that they are made of materials from a Brooklyn bowling alley. Lest we begin to bemoan faceless corporate gentrification, we are helpfully reminded that the restaurant is partially constructed from elements of the Yale Bowl, and that the menu features the just cheeky enough “Skull and Cones” custard concrete. The staff exudes a genial good nature and competence that borders on the extreme, seemingly unaffected by regu-

I

lar variations in human emotion. The final touch: a fireplace against the far wall.

The interior seems to say, “Yes, this is a better place than the world outside.”

Once enveloped in the loving, just-hip-enough atmosphere of Shake Shack decoration, it would be hard to pan the food. Luckily, I have no desire to do so.

The New Haven location remains shockingly consistent with the New York ones I’ve visited, the burgers perfectly cooked and well-seasoned, the concretes creamy and substantial, the shakes thick and full-flavored. The veggie “’Shroom Stack” represents an approach to the veggie burger that most high-end burger joints could learn from. Its fried Portobello mushroom stuffed with Munster cheese can go ahead and clog my arteries as much as they like. The defrosted crinkle-fries remain the off-note of the otherwise melodic menu, not bad in any strict sense but seemingly perfunctory, created because a burger place must have fries, not because Shake Shack has any vision for them. But then there’s the “Boola Boola Blue” concrete: unique to the New Haven location, a decadent mix of vanilla custard, blueberry jam, and lemon pie that leads me closer to nirvana than virtually any frozen milk product has before. Hyperbole? Perhaps, but Shake Shack is a hyperbolic place.

Sitting on the Shack’s lovingly upholstered chocolate leather seats, I see a different kind of New Haven Green out of the plate glass wall. The streetlights take on a romantic hue, and the trees look full and green. Shake Shack’s genius is its ability to create not just a meal but also a sensation of newness, a notion that each customer is experiencing something important. While finishing off a custard, it is difficult not to imagine a cooler, more cosmopolitan New Haven.

But each meal only lasts so long. Every time I leave Shake Shack, I do so satisfied, assured that my desire for the food and the sensation have been sated.

Inevitably, however, I will begin to crave some blueberry jam, or a fried Portobello mushroom. It is quite hard not to think about the taste of the future.

(Courtesy YouTube/YaleCampus)

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The Yale Herald (Oct. 12, 2012)

Music: Tame Impala

Movie: End of Watch

It’s difficult to think of Lonerism, the second studio album of Australian psychedelic rock group Tame Impala, as an album. Compared to the bold odyssey of sound and synthesizers that defined their 2010 debut InnerSpeaker, Lonerism reveals itself in pieces and fragments that don’t really fit together as a coherent whole. On Lonerism, every song acts as a brief snapshot of a particular story or emotion told by Tame Impala’s lead singer, Kevin Parker. And as song titles like “Why Won’t They Talk To Me” and “She Just Won’t Believe Me” suggest, Lonerism is told from a deeply individual perspective—Parker sings the words “me” and “I” more than 40 times over the course of Lonerism’s 50 minutes.

Tame Impala’s sound here is more fine-tuned and polished than in their work on InnerSpeaker. But Lonerism moves away from the maximalist styles of their previous album. Tracks like “Keep On Lying,” and “Apocalypse Dreams” (two of Lonerism’s best) prioritize the group’s peripheral sounds while significantly playing down its core vocals and guitars.

Despite Lonerism’s cloistered and incoherent style, it is an unquestionably beautiful piece of music. “She Just Won’t Believe Me” is a dramatic 57-second choral and instrumental rise that abruptly ends without any form of resolution, giving us only a small fragment of an assumedly larger whole. Through its limitations, Lonerism creates a mature sound that creatively surpasses its previous work. Even if we only gain a limited perspective of Tame Impala’s inner world, the brief view is still a treat.

—Alexander Saeedy YH Staff

One might say End of Watch is politically incorrect. But End of Watch is serious bro-time (vengeful drug gangs pursue two cops in southern LA), and—let’s admit it—bro-time is rarely politically correct.

I mention the lack of political correctness because, beyond the uncurbed cussing, both gender and race are presented in the most unapologetically stereotypical ways. The world presented by End of Watch is dominated by men. The criminals are either black or Hispanic. Director David Ayer (Street Kings, Harsh Times) loads his gun with a gritty, unornamented, and unapologetic vision of LA and pulls the trigger.

The result is an explosive, very aptly R-rated film with deliberately raw cinematography. The use of the hand-held digital throughout is the work of cinematographer Roman Vasyanov, a newbie in Hollywood—and who, one could argue, has yet to be defiled by the clutches of mainstream Hollywood. Through the freshness of Vasyanov’s cinematography and the film’s overall stylistic experimentalism, Ayer attempts to resurrect the cop film subgenre with some new tricks. It turns out cop films are best for their real, nitty-gritty bro-talk. End of Watch digs deep into the big questions of friendship and humanity through the witty and believable banter between the film’s two main cops, Brian Taylor (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Mike Zavala (Michael Pena).

Ayer and his cast (which includes Anna Kendrick and America Ferrera) do all the right things; they’ve produced a film that is deep, thrilling, and convincing, so it is difficult to admit that I’m yawning. But I must be frank: displays of testosterone and exaggerated tough-guy acts are getting old, with all the epics about men and their exclusive world playing in theaters these days (The Master, Arbitrage). End of Watch is simply a lot more graphic than the rest.

—April Koh

Movie: The Perks of Being a Wallflower The Perks of Being a Wallflower, the ultimate coming-of-age narrative, has finally hit the big screen, and it’s nearly flawless.

Based on the novel by Stephen Chbosky, Perks was written and directed by Chbosky himself. The film follows Charlie (Logan Lerman), the titular wallflower, as he navigates his first year of high school. After experiencing emotional trauma in his last year of junior high, Charlie enters high school without friends and expecting not to make any. Enter the flamboyantly friendly Patrick (Ezra Miller) and Sam (Emma Watson), Charlie’s beautiful yet damaged crush. With his two new friends, Charlie manages to survive his freshman year, albeit with a fair number of disasters, twists, and tears.

As a devoted fan of Perks since my own freshman year of high school, I could not have been happier with its transition to film.

Logan’s preciously awkward portrayal of Charlie and the film’s indie soundtrack, dimmed lighting, and extended silences illuminate the novel’s rich characters, plot, and humor, while still preserving its core themes. Perks is a story about the many troubles of childhood and adolescence: trauma, angst, love, and most importantly, growth.

All are miraculously retained in Chbosky’s adaptation.

Like most novel-to-film adaptations, Perks is missing several of its original subplots. For instance, Charlie’s relationship with his sister is sadly much less developed in the film than in the novel. Still, what’s more important is that I left the theater reassured of the two things most important to the novel’s purpose: that I was loved, and that I belonged. Perks succeeds, like the book, as a love letter not just to high school, but also to the euphoria of youth that can only be described as infinite.

—Wesley Yiin

Food: Fryborg With food trucks, the food is supposed to be straightforward. Food trucks tend to be hyper-specialized caterers that churn out a simple menu—usually variations on a primary item and a selection of sides and drinks. Since they only make one thing, chances are they make it terribly well. That’s the beauty of the food truck: gratifying, tastefully engaging food on the go. When you step up to the truck you know what to expect, and that’s what you get.

This, however, is not the case for Fryborg, one of the latest additions to the food truck ensemble on campus. The food served at Fryborg boasts surprisingly complex flavor compositions that prove to be nothing less than a gastronomic playground for the trained palate. Sure, lathering fries with sauce is a straightforward concept, but John Gibbons, the master of the Fryborg, puts enough thought and effort into his food that digging into a boatload of fries becomes an enthralling experience.

His sauces are extraordinarily rich and complex. The curry ketchup is exotic and aromatic, but certainly not overwhelming. Now imagine that sharp, exciting goodness squeezed over a boatload of smoky, browned French fries, with onions and mayo—the truck’s signature Dutch Fries ($5.50). Where Gibbons’s ingenuity really shines is his Old Bay mayo, which features an unforgettably intricate symphony of lavender, fennel, thyme, and rosemary. You can never get enough. A proud follower of the Fryborg on Twitter (where you can find the truck’s location), I myself am only halfway through the eclectic dozen or so sauces they offer, so I’m definitely going back for more—and this time, I’m asking for extra sauce.

—Lucas Sin

The Yale Herald (Oct. 12, 2012)

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“A MUST-SEE FILM!” –Sean Hannity, FOX NEWS AYN RAND’S EPIC NOVEL OF A WORLD ON THE BRINK

EVERYTHING HAS A BREAKING POINT

WWW.ATLASSHRUGGEDMOVIE.COM

LOCAL LISTINGS FOR STARTS FRIDAY, OCTOBER 12 ONLY IN THEATERS CHECK THEATERS AND SHOWTIMES

BULLBLOG BLACKLIST Only acceptable when Ellen is doing it.

They’re so effing happy.

SOMESOM Seeing

TA

puppies

Gangam Style

That point where sour patch kids from the library vending machine start to make your stomach hurt. We give up.

Canker sores

Chilly temps + midterm stress = Herpes’s lil cousin.

The locks don’t work. The doors are too big for the doorframes. This is relevant because it’s one of the two weeks of the semester when it’s actually necessary to work in Bass.

Just let me pee, please!

This is not fair game. I can’t even ask you to remove me from this panlist.

Gummy tummy

The stall doors in the women’s bathroom in Bass

The five minutes before a midterm

Facebook notifications for improv and a capella Parents Weekend shows

When everyone has their study materials out. We really, really do not enjoy these five minutes.

FellFe

The early morning Blue State crowd

The 20-minute essay It’s like the worst pregame ever.

No explanation necessary.

The Yale Herald (Oct. 12, 2012)

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