Vol. XIX Issue 8

The Yale Herald YALE’S MOST DARING PUBLICATION SINCE 1986 | VOL. XIX ISSUE 8

Join Julia Hedges, SM ’20, as she recounts the backstory behind Compline an Episcopal service at Christ Church on page 12.

3/30/18

FROM THE EDITORS My homies, lovers, and friends,

Welcome back! Now that many of your sunkissed faces have returned from Cancun, Florida, and “the Cod,” we can collectively dip into some good old, Yale-induced seasonal depression.

Who made the decision to schedule Sorority BigLittle Week, Pundit pranks and the last sprint of Midterms all at the same time? I am exhausted.

Whoever set off that fart machine in my Bioethics midterm, please step forward.

But if you’re looking to sooth your back-toschool stress, look no further than this week’s front, where Julia Hedges, SM ’20, explores the otherworldliness of Compline services at Christ Church. She speaks with Episcopalian members of St. Hilda’s House, as well as Jewish and secular Yale students, who all come to bathe in the peaceful, spiritual, maybe even transcendent, Compline experience.

Elsewhere, check out this week’s feature by Kathryn Paton, BK ’21, who soul searches in Book Trader Cafe, investigating how the spot walks the line between cafe and bookstore. And if you do frequent Book Trader, in order to avoid writing essays or to block out that manufactured fart noise squawking at your brain like a malicious parrot, why not get well acquainted with the Youtube world of accent videos? If you need more convincing, or recommendations, check out Emma Keyes’, PC ’19, peculiar video habit in Culture.

So as you procrastinate, nap, lament, rejoice your return to Yale, why not do so with a fresh copy of the Herald in hand? Here at the Herald, we care about you and your intellectual, emotional, and spiritual growth. This isn’t a lead-up to a joke. I am just ending on a wholesome note. We love you.

THE HERALD MASTHEAD EDITORIAL STAFF EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Eve Sneider MANAGING EDITORS Margaret Grabar Sage,

Jack Kyono, Nicole Mo

EXECUTIVE EDITORS Emma Chanen, Tom Cusano,

Emily Ge, Marc Shkurovich,

Anna Sudderth, Oriana Tang, Rachel Strodel

SENIOR EDITORS Luke Chang, Hannah Offer FEATURES EDITORS Fiona Drenttel, Brittany Menjivar CULTURE EDITORS Allison Chen, Nurit Chinn OPINION EDITORS Lydia Buonomano, Tereza Podhajska REVIEWS EDITORS Gabe Rojas, Tricia Viveros VOICES EDITOR Carly Gove INSERTS EDITOR Zoe Ervolino AUDIO EDITOR Will Reid BULLBLOG EDITOR Marc Shkurovich

DESIGN STAFF GRAPHICS EDITOR Julia Hedges DESIGN EDITORS Audrey Huang Rasmus Schlutter Lauren Quintela Nika Zarazvand

The Yale Herald is a not-for-profit, non-partisan, incorporated student publication registered with the Yale College Dean’s Office.

If you wish to subscribe to the Herald, please contact the Editor-in-Chief at eve.sneider@yale.edu. Receive the Herald for one semester for 40 dollars, or for the 20172018 academic year for 65 dollars.

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 2018 The Yale Herald.

Except for you Mr. I-think-a-fart-machine-midmidterm-is-funny. Fuck you, dude.

Onwards and upwards my friends, Nurit Chinn Culture Editor

VISIT THE YALE HERALD ONLINE AT YALEHERALD.COM 2 THE YALE HERALD

IN THIS ISSUE 6

8

OPINIONS

VOICES

Madeleine Hutchins, BR ’19, makes the case for an earnest, tender form of love. Carly Gove, BR ’19, contemplates night and some earthworms.

10,16 FEATURES

Partly a clever deconstruction of the Trump administration’s most recent display of xenophobia and partly an impassioned call to action, Tracy Chung, PC ’19, brings us an exposé of the recent change to the USCIS mission statement.

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CULTURE

12

COVER

Take time to reflect with Julia Hedges, SM ’20, as she recounts the backstory behind Compline, an Episcopal service at Christ Church that has become a weekly ritual for undergrads of all religions.

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REVIEWS

Dance for stress release and social issues! Sara Luzuriaga, BR ‘21, investigates the uniqueness of Funk Movement Medicine--a modern dance class at Yale that takes a new approach to technical perfection and addressing gentrification.

Once a recluse, Frank Ocean has over the past year exhibited his artistic bravado after cutting ties with Def Jam Records. Conor Johnson, DC ’21, chronicles the series of singles that Ocean has released since Blonde.

Ever wondered about the story behind the cozy used bookstore on Chapel Street? Kathryn Paton, BK ‘21, delves into the shop’s history and the reasons people love it so much.

Wanna master a Dublin Dialect? Emma Keyes, PC ’19, explains her infatuation with YouTube accent videos in a piece rife with recommendations of the best and bizzare accent videos available.

Tricia Viveros, BF ’21, commends Yo La Tengo’s latest release, There’s a Riot Going On; Nic Harris, BR ’18, considers the shortcomings of Unsane; Sahaj Sankaran, SM ’20, expresses dismay over Instinct’s drawbacks.

WEEK AHEAD FRIDAY, MARCH 30 @ 3:00PM

MURALISMO: THE ART OF COMMUNITY REPRESENTATION LA CASA CULTURAL

COACH ELLA Stop throwing basketballs at my face!

CAB 16: YALE CABARET’S SATELLITE FESTIVAL YALE CABARET

SUNDAY, APRIL 1 @11:00AM EASTER SUNDAY EGG HUNT HULL’S ART SUPPLY

OUTGOING

SATURDAY, MARCH 30 @8:00PM

INCOMING

YH Staff breaks down a recent vote in the Connecticut Senate in which the Republican caucus passionately rejects the nomination of Andrew McDonald for Chief Justice of the state Supreme Court.

COACHELLA We can all see your nipples through that seashell “bralette,” Stephanie.

MONDAY, APRIL 2 @9:30PM MATZAH PIZZA MAKING! SLIFKA CENTER 3

a

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up. Sure, I say I’m gay but only fuck men, but that’s what makes my life so hard.

In the end, if you’re like me, life is going to be much harder. People won’t understand you, but that’s okay because I understand you.

I am your advocate. I will lead you to the Mountain Top. I will part your Red Sea (but not your thighs, unless you are a man).

You’re just as underprivileged as any other queer person so wear that with pride and also go to a Pride Parade and make a scene because it is your space, too.

Write poetry about it. Cry when you get drunk. Get a tattoo that says “I Love Vagina.”

ay. lso g

I grew up in New York City where I didn’t have exposure to people

The coming out process was traumatic and so oppressive.

I wanted people to roll out the red carpet and paint it rainbow. I wanted people to recognize that being socioculturally gay is not as easy as being homosexual, where everything is clear cut and obvious. I wanted them to shout “Yaas Queen.” But no one shouted “Yaas Queen.” No one understood. Instead they said, “Tracy, stop co-opting an oppressed identity just for social capital.” Just because it’s cool to have struggle in your life now doesn’t mean my struggle is made

It’s my life. It’s my choice. And I may be straight, but I’m definitely also gay.

londe pixie b id , a l n c u I t o o ha d a t p s , an d lle minority E sexual idve entity.

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4 THE YALE HERALD

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What does it mean to be socioculturally lesbian? A sociocultural group is identified as people with similar preferences and backgrounds who share their social and/or cultural values.

Since gay people love Ellen, blonde pixie cuts, and plaid, and I love Ellen, blonde pixie cuts, and plaid, I’m clearly a member of that group. Being socioculturally gay means that my walls are covered with Georgia O’Keefe paintings.

It means that my Audi has a sticker on it that says “Say No to Sausage: Eat Vegan.” It means that I cut my nails really short but I’m not entirely sure why. It means I sat through The Kids Are Alright and bawled the entire time. After, I got so drunk that I made out with a girl at Box, but went home with Jeremy because he thought it was “so hot.”

like me. I was socialized to think that, because I liked men, I was straight. This was a toxic way to live. There were definitely gay people in high school at Dalton, but my own internalized shame made me think that I wasn’t like them. It wasn’t until I got to Yale, where suddenly it was cool to be gay, that I realized that I too had the same struggles in my life. I too had a minority sexual identity. I knew that just because I was straight, that didn’t mean I couldn’t also be gay. And no, I’m not bisexual. Bi people still benefit from some straight privilege and most of them are just saying they’re bi for the attention. I identify as gay, socially and culturally, and thus shoulder all of the bigotry and burden of gayness.

AL E ER R A E W efi

Before you say anything, yes, that’s a fucking thing, you closedminded bigot. People have tried to tell me that my identity is invalid and I’ve honestly had enough of it. I’m here to speak up for those who are like me. We’re here. WE ARE REAL. We are heterosexual-homosociocultural.

We don’t actually like vaginas, but we say we do. And we are a minority group which experiences struggle, too.

”

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CHASE AMMON, PC ’18

sage: Eat Vega u a S n. to

ra ocultu soci

I’m Sexually Straight, But Socio-Culturally Lesbian

d Eve I’m n t h o ugh I’m straight,

Mar.30.2018

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I N S E R T S

Top 5 Passwords

Aboard JetBlue Flight Number A4K72 ZOE ERVOLINO, MC ’21 YH STAFF

Hello passengers aboard JetBlue Flight Number A4K72 to Fort Lauderdale. This is your captain speaking. First off, I want to thank you all for choosing JetBlue, America’s safest airline. Turns out every other American airline has had some sort of catastrophic disaster. When you add up all the deaths, tens of thousands of people have died in some incredibly brutal plane crashes. And in planes just like this one! Did you know that? I didn’t, but it sure makes me glad to be a pilot with JetBlue. Anyways, just want to let you all know that we are encountering some unforeseen turbulence ahead. Hopefully we don’t hit one of those mountains! That was a joke. We anticipate arrival in Fort Lauderdale at 18:34. This has been your captain. Thank you for choosing JetBlue. *** Hello passengers aboard JetBlue Flight Number A4K72 to Fort Lauderdale. This is your captain again. The flight attendants have just informed me that I may have disturbed some of you by mentioning the history of violent plane crashes in light of the upcoming turbulence. I realize that such a juxtaposition may induce a sense of anxiety and for that I want to formally apologize. JetBlue has been America’s safest airline since 1956 and that’s not changing on my watch. So, just for the record, if this plane goes down it will not be on me. But then again, I can say with confidence that the plane won’t crash. Or, like, it could, but it’s statistically unlikely… But, to clarify my position again, I don’t know how statistical probability works so I guess I’m just saying that I don’t think the plane will go down and that if it does it won’t be because of me. This has been your captain. Thank you for choosing JetBlue. *** Hello passengers aboard JetBlue Flight Number A4K72 to Fort Lauderdale. I have heard from the flight attendants that my most recent apology failed to quell your anxieties and instead achieved the opposite effect. For that, I sincerely apologize. If it’s any consolation, I will let you all know that it’s been a very long day for me. I’m doing my best up here. I’m very tired, practically falling asleep in the cockpit, so cut me some slack. I only took this shift because Greg is on paternity leave. This has been your captain. Thank you for choosing JetBlue.

BY ELLIOT CONNORS, MC ’20

5.

My impenetrable Instagram password, DanburyRoad551!#&, a clever reversal of my home address followed by a random series of characters that will certainly secure me from even the most wily script kiddies.

4.

The carefully constructed password to my email account, wILLIAMcHRISTINE, a conjunction of my grandparents’ middle names with inverted capitalization.

Good luck guessing this one, hackers!

3.

2.

*** Hello passengers aboard JetBlue Flight Number A4K72 to Fort Lauderdale. Stop fucking complaining to the flight attendants. If you have a problem with me, man the fuck up and tell me to my face. ALL I’m trying to say to you guys is that there is a POSSIBILITY that this plane might go down.

You fucking pussies. This has been your captain. Thank you for choosing JetBlue.

1.

The inscrutable password to my Herald Medium account, Namaste415, which safeguards my journalism from online vandalism and hUge Penises!!!

The meticulously crafted password to my bank account, 91867543. While this might seem like a random series of number, it’s actually my social security number, making this password both impervious to hackers and easy to remember. Digital security FTW!

My Facebook password: WelcomeCambridgeAnalytica!

5

V O I C E S Mar.30.2018

What I mean is MADELEINE HUTCHINS, BR ’19 YH STAFF

When I say, “make love to me,” I don’t mean, “fuck me.”

I mean run your hands over my sides weave your fingers into my hair kiss my back and my neck and that spot just there on my shoulder, like you’re trying to memorize me— in case I disappear —and look into my eyes, and see all of me— in case it turns out that I am just a mirage and I shimmer away, leaving you alone in the dark of a desert night.

6 THE YALE HERALD

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long CARLY GOVE, BR ’19 YH STAFF

and every time i pull you down it’s into a mess of sunflowers. it’s less about the yellow and more about dirt—thick damp soil, a bed, a solid place beneath the sky. what’s the explanation for your fingernails. how do they work? white edges, smooth, round, big dry hands, all that digging, never a trace of dirt. i was re-born at the precipice of your certainty. it’s a layer of thick black topsoil, just rained on, chock-full of earthworms— night crawlers. afraid of the light. have you heard you can cut them in half ? that they have five hearts? that they breathe through their skin? there is so much that you don’t know. there is so much dirt in my skin.

fried brown sky, 4am worth killing for. we’re awake and i hate everything. except your scapulas. the way they make your skin stretch. worms make compost and compost is wet, and heavy, and it wants something. we’re alike, in that way. when it seems like the right time, i spend hours and hours in front of the fridge, opening and closing. little light bulb, on and off again. with every quiet repetition, i jack the sun up another inch. when the sun arrives i’m spent. the clouds move in like a wall. between its impossible whiteness and me, the ground, drift a few wispy grey nothings like lesions. white sky. under/over marble sky. earthworms, left in the light too long, become paralyzed.

when we’re still “figuring it out”, a deep kiss is as good as an endgame. what’s the world of a morning when the night, the night, is still an ember fire at my door.

“and every time i pull you down it’s into a mess of sunflowers. it’s less about the yellow

and more about the dirt” graphics from The Noun

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O P I N I O N Mar.30.2018

Our New Colossus

TRACY CHUNG, PC ’19 YH STAFF

Last month, the American government made a dramatic statement about what it means to be American—or rather, who the current administration believes can be American.

This occurred under cover of the cycle of political and personal scandals that have become our new normal, and, surprisingly, didn’t come in the form of a tweet, press conference, or leaked dossier. Rather, members of the administration commissioned a disarmingly subtle linguistic change in the mission statement of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the bureau that handles granting visas, bestowing green cards, and naturalizing new citizens. The previous, long-standing mission statement read: “USCIS secures America’s promise as a nation of immigrants by providing accurate and useful information to our customers, granting immigration and citizenship benefits, promoting an awareness and understanding of citizenship, and ensuring the integrity of our immigration system.” The new statement, molded by Trump-appointed USCIS director Lee Francis Cissna, now reads: “U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services administers the nation’s lawful immigration system, safeguarding its integrity and promise by efficiently and fairly adjudicating requests for immigration benefits while protecting Americans, securing the homeland, and honoring our values.” The shift in language and tone is not directly inflammatory or abrasive, but it is symptomatic of an insidious shift in agency priorities and in how the administration views the process of becoming an American. Eradicating any intonation of assisting immigrants, purposefully “undefining” America as a nation of immigrants, and implying that those requesting immigration benefits and “Americans” are inherently at odds threatens the foundation of our national identity. The change in wording of the mission statement doesn’t actually change the functioning of the agency, but shaking up the description definitely sends a clear message, a message that is shaping up to be one of the greatest dangers of the Trump presidency.

I have been interacting with USCIS for my entire life. My family emigrated from South Korea when I was an infant and it was not until last week (19 years later) that I was finally fully naturalized as a citizen. I entered the country under Clinton, applied for permanent residence under Bush, received my green card under Obama, and became a full-fledged United States citizen under Trump. These men held views on immigration varying from fully embracing the “nation of immigrants” to adamantly opposing anyone that is “other” from entering the country, but the process has never been easy. In the best case scenario—rarely put into practice but often touted as a possibility by anti-immigration politicians and lobbying groups—an immigrant can enter the country, gain sponsorship for a green card, establish residence, and become a citizen in about six years, slightly less if they gain resident status through marriage or through military service. Even this is longer than it takes to finish a degree at Yale, longer than the release of the first nine films of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and about as long

8 THE YALE HERALD

as it took spacecraft to reach Jupiter from Earth. And most immigrants to date have found the procedure much longer and much more complicated than this idealized, fantasy naturalization process.

My nearly two decades-long process began as a child of an immigrant worker visa-holder, moving with my nuclear family away from our other relatives and sacrificing all familiar patterns of life to come to America. Then began the paper trail of our relationship with USCIS: waiting the appropriate lengths of time to establish residence, building a case with my father’s employer about his “worthiness” to the United States (which meant showing proof of an advanced degree, at least 10 years of industry experience, proof of “exceptional ability”, and active participation in other professional organizations), petitioning separately for family members of the employee, paying the requisite fees (at the time, about $980 per person), collecting our biometrics, waiting for USCIS review, receiving our green cards two years later, waiting the requisite five years to be eligible for naturalization without taking any significant international trips, waiting additional months because we moved addresses and applicants must reside at the same address for three months, submitting the naturalization form and paying the appropriate fees ($725), collecting our biometrics again, waiting for USCIS review again, flying home from college for my interview and civics test, and, finally, receiving citizenship. And although I am grateful for the hard-fought, justly-earned Certificate of Naturalization I now hold, it definitely came at a cost that is underplayed by policy-makers that dictate the system. I list all of the above not just to prove how hard I’ve had to work for citizenship (though it is cathartic to articulate this laundry list), but also to showcase how drawn-out, stressful, and expensive it is to attain status as a naturalized citizen even for individuals like myself who are privileged by socioeconomic standing, by national origin, and by chance. My father was already an established professional in South Korea and was able to secure employment at a company that offered to sponsor him. We had family willing to help us move across the globe.

We happened to hail from a country that is already allied with the United States. When I reflect on how difficult it was for me to gain citizenship, I am struck by the many further challenges my family would have faced without those advantages. In fact, for most of the nearly 700,000 who are naturalized every year, it doesn’t all go to plan. USCIS’s processes have long been rife with bureaucratic uncertainty.

But prior to this moment, at least on paper, it seemed that the agency intended to contribute to a nation that embraced immigrants from around the world. This no longer appears to be the case.

So, we return to the gall of the current USCIS administration in removing every single mention of America as a “nation of immigrants,” scrubbing language promising service to immigrants, and replacing the aforementioned with veiled statements about acting in the interest of American citizens.

This disheartening about-face is antithetical to the direction the USCIS should be moving, based upon the work that they were created to do in the interest of immigrants and future American citizens. Crucially, USCIS’s services are not funded by the federal budget; rather, each transaction is paid for by the applicant. So although not every interaction is a guaranteed exchange of services for payment (as those who have been denied citizenship and re-pay the fees in every cycle can attest to), the immigrants that work with USCIS are still the “customers” of the agency, another lexical set that has been eradicated from their mission statement. The extreme aversion to associating this federal agency with anyone who is not a natural-born citizen is representative of a shift in rhetoric that Trump has touted since announcing his candidacy: anti-immigrant sentiment as a corollary of his general xenophobia. This reversal of the federal stance on what it means to become an American, in conjunction with the hostile work that USCIS and ICE have been doing to target non-resident aliens like never before, signals the slow transformation of America as a country built by immigrants, that welcomes the tired, the poor, the huddled masses, to an insular nation that only serves those that match arbitrarily determined descriptors. It simply doesn’t track to exclude from the services of our government those individuals who collect forms and documentation, pay exorbitant fees, and make countless other sacrifices borne of passionate desire to become American. And my fear is that without loud noise, and soon, those who claim to represent us in our government will view our tacit passivity as an indication that this trend is generally acceptable to Americans. The recent frequency of anti-other language (that can beget policy) cannot become the new normal.

Readily acclimating to this shift would fundamentally alter America’s ideological foundation and destroy many of the merits that arise thereof, and the change to the USCIS’s mission statement is truly just scratching the surface of these alarming revisions to what our country stands for. But unless we are more vocal about our distaste for the xenophobic leanings of our elected and appointed officials, this scratch has the potential to crack the very bedrock of our country’s long-standing vision of opportunity, empathy, and equality.

9 “USCIS’s processes have long been rife with bureaucratic uncertainty. But prior to this moment, at least on paper, it seemed that the agency intended to contribute to a nation that embraced immigrants from around the world.�

F E A T U R E S Mar.30.2018

Senate Scuffle YH STAFF

Mar. 27,

On Tuesday, the Connecticut Senate convened to vote on the nomination of Andrew McDonald as the Chief Justice of the state Supreme Court.

51,

McDonald, was nominated by Gov. Dannel P. Molloy to succeed retiring Chief Justice Chase T. Rogers.

He has served as Associate Justice on the Connecticut Supreme Court since

2012 ,

12

and is one of openly gay state supreme court justices currently serving in the United States.

13

The day before, McDonald’s public hearing lasted nearly hours. Legislators questioned him for hours on his political record.

“Let there be no doubt that [McDonald] was treated differently than any other person so nominated. And quite frankly, the only difference is that he was openly gay.”

-Gov. Malloy

20-20

The hearing ended in a tied vote, and his nomination was thus sent to the full legislature.

For many, it feels like a confirmation that Connecticut Republicans and Washington Republicans are not too different—employing the same partisan, discriminatory strategies.

The Senate Republicans voted as a bloc, rejecting Andrew McDonald’s confirmation as Chief Justice.

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All Senate Republicans voted against McDonald’s nomination, and were joined by one centrist Democrat—Sen. Joan Hartley of Waterbury.

10 THE YALE HERALD

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Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and other Democrats have expressed outrage at the vote, accusing Republicans of blatant partisanship and homophobia.

1st

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McDonald would have been the openly gay Chief Justice in the nation.

This vote takes on heightened importance in the face of the approaching November election, where a Governor’s seat and control of the General Assembly will both be up for grabs.

Senate Republican Leader Len Fasano added, “This is not about politics. It’s about policy.”

“We don’t want an activist Chief Justice driving this branch of government,’’ said Sen. John Kissel of Enfield.

“Let there be no doubt that [McDonald] was treated differently than any other person so nominated,” remarked Gov. Malloy. “And quite frankly, the only difference is that he was openly gay.”

Connecticut Republicans have denied these accusations. A lot of Republican criticism of McDonald centered on his vote to abolish Connecticut’s death penalty.

Image courtesy of Public Domain

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ON

Stepping into a darkness hazy with incense, cut by the flickering of candles framing the altar, a rich silence greets the people arriving at Christ Church for Sunday evening Compline services.

As people filter down the aisle and take their seats they experience something beautiful, something that isn’t seen in classrooms or dining halls or dorms. Streetlight illuminating panels of stained glass in blues and yellows, the intricately carved stone of the Rood Screen, the candlelight gleaming off of polished marble, the huge space, high ceilings vaulted by dark beams. As the attendees’ eyes are just beginning to adjust to the dark, the choir, obscured to the left of the nave, begins singing. It all feels foreign and comforting, solemn and sacred. And dispersed throughout the seats are a community of undergraduates, almost none of whom identify as Christian, that take the twenty minutes out of their week to attend these Episcopalian services.

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SU

Greeting this community are the members of St. Hilda’s House, seven college graduates participating in the Episcopal Service Corps. For one year they live in the red house next to Christ Church, prepare Compline services, learn together, and serve the New Haven community through various organizations. They come from Atlanta and New York and Indiana. They studied theology and history and religious studies. Many of the Hildans chose to apply to Christ Church because it’s focus on service matched it’s focus on spiritual development, formation and growth.

They attend Mass each morning. On Fridays, they participate in Didactics where they read and study the Bible, books, and articles, and in the afternoons they have spiritual direction, similar to spiritual counseling.

dark,” “spiritual,” “meditative.” He didn’t tell me it was in a church. I went back again the first time because I found the physical space holy in a way that was unfamiliar to me as a reform Jew. Since then I’ve gone back almost every week.

The church attracts students who come from many different religious backgrounds, whose observances have maybe lapsed at college without the family pull to Mass on Sunday or Shabbat on Saturday. Compline services offer a beauty that is spiritual without being overtly denominational, engaging without being participatory. The ease of existing within this anachronistic space has created an escape from the constant busyness of Yale. It’s part of the reason I and so many of my peers have worked Compline into our weekly routines.

Last year a friend told me to come to these services. He described something that was “in the

Christ Church’s heavy dark stone moors it in place on the island amidst the rush of traffic on Elm

St. and Whalley Ave. While getting Junzi Night Lunch or doing work at Maison Mathis, you can see the Church’s tower looming over Yale’s popular shopping and eating district. As you walk towards off-campus housing, the three arched lancet windows lie flat and opaque against the apse. It appears almost lost on this intersection, a relic from another time, built in 1880 as an Anglo-Catholic offshoot of Trinity on the Green by

UN-

Henry Vaughn, one of the original U.S. Gothic Revival architects. On first impression the church, which calls to mind Medieval England, is intimidating and immense, formal and upper-class. On its surface it is a strange draw for students. But Anglo-Catholicism, initially scorned by bishops for being seen as on the fringe of Protestantism, usually served areas considered “slum parishes.”

According to Charlie Heeley, a member of St. Hilda’s House, “It was kind of out of the eye of the bishop and so a lot of the first Anglo-Catholic parishes were formed in neighborhoods that weren’t as wealthy.” And having a less wealthy parish, the church never rented out pews. It was a fact that the church literally advertised with plaques declaring, “You can sit wherever you want!” This openness is

DAY

still felt among the attendees of Compline. In the dark, out of the harsh daylight, attendees can slip in and out without being seen. It is a completely non-threatening space. People walk into the Church and they feel that this place is different.

I walk through gothic churches silently and reverently, convinced by the intricacy and sheer mass that it is a place constantly in holy use. And so it was surprising that being led into the Sacristy by Father Carlos de la Torre, the curator and program director of St. Hilda’s House, felt ordinary.

The Sacristy functions as the most sacred storage room ever, where all the vestments, cassocks, thuribles and processional crosses are kept. Laid out in color-coded drawers, the garments looked lustrous, but also extremely usual, folded crisply like shirts just out of the wash. The processional crosses and other items were placed haphazardly in corners, encrusted with stones or covered in silver and gold. These are items in active use.

The room has a lived-in feel: it’s where I met the group of Hildans as they prepared before Compline, wanting to learn more about their work.

Here, I observed the manual processes of the rituals that create Compline. The incense that fills the church is ground from frankincense and myrrh in the building’s basement. During Lent, the usual lavender is swapped out for cedar—lavender is too happy for the occasion. I watched as the Hildans laid out tin foil in the bowl of the thurible, heated coals the size of gumballs, and then

spooned the incense on top, poking at the coals until plumes of smoke start emanating out of the holes of the censer. I asked KC, the Hildan who swung the thurible back and forth to disperse the incense, how the tradition of using incense first came about. “Because people didn’t bathe all that often, and it just kept the church from smelling bad with all the bodies in there.” I asked if she was serious and she confirmed, “It just smelled really bad.”

In fact, most Episcopalian rituals began for practical reasons. Cassocks, the black robes, were worn so the liturgy’s clothing didn’t get dirty.

Sam Vaughn, a Yale Divinity student, and a member of St. Hilda’s House from 2016 to 2017 said, “Putting that cassock over my shoulders, and buttoning it up all the way to the top, that was the first thing I would do when I walked in. It was a rite and a ritual, a way of preparing myself for what I was going to do, which was to prepare a space and open a church and enable people to have some sort of experience.”

The Compline traditions are necessarily strange and different. The sensory experience of the incense and the candles brings people out of their daily lives. As I talked to the rector of Christ Church, Reverend Stephen C. Holton, I was struck by his language in speaking about God and Jesus and the Church. It was the first time I had ever heard religion addressed so passionately and candidly. He was convincing—after all he

NIGHT Julia Hedges, SM ’20

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14 I WATCHED AS THE HILDANS LAID OUT TIN FOIL IN THE BOWL OF THE THURIBLE, was a professional. “We hope that just by doing the thing,” he said, “by inviting people in, they’ll catch a glimpse of the beauty of holiness, and the sense that they’re deeply, deeply held by God.” In the Monastic tradition, the day was marked with specific prayers, concluding with Compline. If you listen to the choir at the service, the prayers are of protection, of going to sleep and not knowing if you are going to wake up. I asked Father Carlos and Father Stephen what the agenda of the service was, and Father Stephen answered simply: “Compline is to have a time to pray.” Father Carlos explained further that “the overriding arch of Compline is the trust of living within God’s love, and being held in place, even when the illusion of control is stripped away and we’re asleep.”

Many of the students attending Compline seek out this space specifically because of this feeling of being grounded, though not necessarily of being grounded in God. Coming from a Jewish background, God is not a foreign concept to me, but the language and the method of Christian prayer is so different that in the darkness of the nave, even as I think big thoughts and feel something holy and present, I don’t fully understand the mechanism of the Church. I can’t think about Jesus and I can’t physically picture God holding me. And for many other undergraduates, prayer doesn’t even cross their mind. The choir sings in Elizabethan English, they sing Medieval polyphonic music, and so the words to someone who isn’t familiar with the prayers usually blend into the air. It’s easier not to think about the prayers when you don’t know what they’re saying. Mark Rosenberg, PC ’20, the friend who introduced me to Compline, told me that he just thinks about things he has to do. His mind races, but by the end of the service he feels like his preoccupations have been sorted out.

14 THE YALE HERALD

“To go to a space and be like, ‘This week sucks and everything is terrible but beauty still exists in the world.’

You just look left and see all the empty chairs and the candle at the end and the tall ceiling and you’re like, ‘Wow.’ There is some deep stuff in the world,” Soledad Tejana, DC ’20, says. It’s hard to express the meaning of a service like this—in a way, just sitting silently in the dark is powerful enough. It’s not as if the clergy doesn’t know this.

They are aware that not every person is following the service and crossing themselves at the appropriate moments, thinking about God. Father Stephen knows that people come who identify with no faith but find the service “a still and quiet place to rest.”

HEATED COALS THE SIZE OF GUMBALLS, It’s easy to take this lack of religious confrontation for granted. On Easter last year, Mark and I brought a group of friends to Compline for the first time. It didn’t occur to us that one of the holiest day of the year would be a bad time to introduce an Episcopal service to our non-Christian friends. People were taking communion, and kneeling, there were candles being passed out and the attendees were singing. When we left the Church and stood in the brisk night, in a cluster on the sidewalk, one boy turned to us and said, “This is not what I signed up for.”

At that moment, it became painfully apparent that in having what we thought was our spiritual-but-not-religious moment, we were benefiting from something that in reality we hadn’t fully grappled with.

AND THEN SPOONED THE INCENSE ON TOP,

Yale students respect what Compline is a part of, but often use it more as an escape from campus than as a connection to God. “I think at Yale I often don’t feel centered,” Mara Hoplamazian, GH ’20, says.“I was looking for something that wasn’t talk therapy that I could go to every week to feel outside the weird train you get on at Yale of homework and class and partying—Compline is a nice way to have half an hour a week to not do anything.” Others who don’t necessarily find God during Compline find the familiar. It reminds Mark of his days at summer camp.

Students are aware of the potential disconnect between their personal use of Compline and its formal purpose. “I would say that the religious aspect of Compline only makes me uncomfortable insofar as I feel weary that I’m sort of intruding on a spiritual tradition that’s not really mine to claim,” Mark said. I originally felt the same way.

Each Friday I lead reform Jewish services, where we sit in a tight circle of 15 or so and sing with a guitar. “How would you like it if a random Christian person came to your services, and was there to just be ‘spiritual’?” a friend’s roommate once asked me. A fair point, but there’s no reason that religion should be intimidating or unwelcoming.

At Christ Church, the clergy embraces anyone who finds respite at Compline. “I don’t know why they come,” Father Stephen said to me. “But God does. So my job is to make sure those doors are open, to make sure we’re doing what it takes to proclaim the love of Jesus in the world.”

After Compline, the members of St. Hilda’s set out hot chocolate and cookies in the brightly lit building across the courtyard from the church.

It’s next to the large room where the soup kitchen is held, and looks just like any other community space. Here, my friend talked to one of the Hildans about cutting her hair, Father Carlos showed off pictures of his dog, someone had their palms read, I talked about the Herald. “The

people in that space are just normal folks like you and me, who will go back out to the streets of New Haven to do a study or go to sleep or to plan their week. But to have in that moment a spiritual moment, it’s pretty transcendent,” Father Stephen said to me. No one asked me what I prayed about that evening.

Attendance and engagement of the next generation are focuses of most religious communities.

When Sam was an undergraduate at Wabash College in Indiana, he was the only college student at his church. “As someone who is training to be a priest,” he recounts, “it’s not like I wasn’t going to go to church. That’s where I wanted to be, that’s where I feel most alive, that’s where I feel called to be. But it’s hard sometimes to feel lonely in that way.” And for him, seeing 100 college students in church at 9:00 PM on a Sunday is “very cool.”

Next year I’ll be living in a house with six other people just a couple blocks away from Christ Church. We’ll be eating together and spending time together and living together, and in that way my life will overlap with the life of the Hildans.

Yes, the Hildans are balancing prayer and service, and yes, their storage room is full of cassocks while mine contains shoeboxes. But their commitment to spiritual balance and community engagement is something that as students, living collectively, my friends and I can and should strive for.

At the end of the service you can hear the rifling of sheet music as the choir finishes singing. The light in the alcove switches off and the church is left in silence again. “I close my eyes and as soon as the music ends I can hear everyone walking around me. I hear them passing,” Soledad says.

I usually sit long after people leave, and in those last couple of minutes, I hear the warm sounds of boots on the tile floor, traffic from Whalley Ave., and the rustle of clothing as people move to stand, and then to walk away.

POKING AT THE COALS UNTIL PLUMES OF SMOKE START EMANATING OUT OF THE HOLES OF THE CENSER.

15

F E A T U R E S Mar.30.2018

Stacks and Sandwiches KATHRYN PATON, BK ’21

You cannot find books at Book Trader Café. They are there, of course, but trying to locate a specific title rarely results in success. The small store keeps no internal database, and the piles of books roosting on upper shelves undermine the apparent order of alphabetization and genre labels.

certain books appeared slightly browsed, nudged from their shelves.

At first reckoning, these café-dwelling books represented the store’s “less serious” fare, but then, venturing back to the Book Side, I found DVDs—Big Mama’s House and Bellydancing for Weight Loss—abutting poetry.

This bewildered me, at first. As a hopelessly romantic bibliophile, I had expected—and craved—automatic kinship with any bookstore.

I was a first-year at Yale, caught in the frantic maelstrom of new independence, classes, and people, and I was homesick for certainty.

When I wandered into Book Trader—tucked behind a Chapel Street clothing store, facing the brutalist Architecture School—I expected to feel immediately at home.

On later visits, I discovered more tensions and contradictions. I learned that almost all books cost under $5.00, meaning any old paperback is cheaper than a latte. Economic disparity and cultural diversity distinguish the city, where a wealthy university contrasts with the $38k median household income, according to the U.S. Census Bureau website. However, café customers are mostly students or white, uppermiddle-class city residents. There are exceptions, but if customers hesitate at the $5.00 credit card minimum, the baristas nonchalantly point to the encased pastries that will “put them over the edge.”

Instead, I got lost—absurdly disoriented in the single long aisle of books that isolated me from the rest of the store. I clutched my list-filled phone but could not find even one of the books with whose names I had armored myself. Confused and wearied, I eventually plucked a book, The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, from a middle shelf. No stickered price declared itself, so, alone in the aisle, I wandered back to the sounds of people. In the front foyer, I caught the eye of a girl standing behind a case of muffins and list of hot drinks, and she advised me, her smile crinkling her nose piercing, to check for a pencil mark on the first page: $3.99!

Elated and relieved at my seemingly lucky find, I bought a tea and stepped into the adjoining room, which I had previously failed to notice. Only dimly remarking its dimensions (two walls were glass, softly reflecting the memoirs and adventure stories that lined the others), I slid into a squat table and silently finished my drink, then bought my book and slipped out the door into the autumn evening. *** Because I met Book Trader this way—as simply a bookstore—it surprised me when I returned and paid attention to the rest of the space. The room with books is just one of three sections; as you enter from the small-city rush of Chapel Street, a slim, book-studded desk on the left and a refrigerator on the right squeeze you into a narrow passage. This relaxes at a front counter, behind which a pristine white sign, shaped like an open book, presides over all. To either side, an archway beckons: if, awaiting my Hamingway and Cheese or Feast of Eden, I turn left, I visit my old friend, the Book Side. But my second time around, I turned right and embarked more fully into Café Seating.

On a busy, bright Saturday, this room resembled a glass greenhouse, alight with sunshine and cheerful productivity. It was packed with pairs chatting and singletons working, of whom many were students.

This vibrant world seemed alien to my earlier, isolated wandering, yet these worlds encroached on each other. The laptop-clutchers seemed absorbed, lagging in their chairs long after local snackers came and went, but they betrayed evidence of having explored:

16 THE YALE HERALD

A fragile orderliness holds this universe in curious suspension. Yet, its intangible strictness inevitably eases: as books begin leaning, mussing angles, the store tends vaguely toward disorder. Even so, it is always clean: exposed red brick and overhanging lamps abound, and musty tomes with broken bindings are notably absent. Book Trader Café rejects the romantic cult of the struggling used bookstore that would insulate it with dust, cramped quarters, and comfortingly stagnant nostalgia. It does so cheerfully and relatively successfully—many customers fail to notice the extent of the store, but Book Trader stocks over 16,000 titles. Most are kept off-site and sold online.

The narrow, book-studded desk near the entrance is for buying books.

There, I meet Dave Duda. He is the owner and co-founder, a solid middle-aged man with vaguely gray hair. He inhabits this desk on most weekday afternoons, and if he is absent, prospective sellers can leave their collections, at the risk that unused works will be donated to the local book bank with no compensation. Book Trader’s tastes are diverse: it likes academic texts, philosophy, history, religion, drama, literary (as opposed to popular) fiction, jazz and classical CDs, and very gently used DVDs, but does not accept romance novels, most hardcover mysteries, or encyclopedias.

Dave tells me he opened Book Trader 20 years ago with his thenwife. “I had worked in cafés and bookstores, and even 20 years ago, I had the idea that books might not be the best way to make a living forever,” he says. He started by selling books and coffee, which led to pastries, which led to soups and sandwiches, which led to the Travel Channel featuring a Tale of Two Turkeys. His books have to be cheap to compete with the prices found on Amazon. “Some of the books we sell now, people bought from us years ago and sold back. Now, we can charge less.” He laughs. They do not warrant the cost of stickers, but still, they sell.

Book Trader Café, confidently bustling, does not advertise its vulnerability. To its customers, it seems “a kind of constant,” as Peter Damrosch, LAW ’20, reflects. Having lived in New Haven for nearly

a decade, he appreciates this. “I’m sure they change the food and such,” he speculates, “but so much changes around New Haven that the fact that this doesn’t is nice.”

“It is unique,” says Manuel, who teaches at the Yale Art School. “I grew up in Seattle and there were a lot of places like this there.” Now they are rare, even in New York, his new hometown. Book Trader is the last used bookstore in town, and one of few left in the state. “It feels like it’s from a different era, from the nineties or something.”

Another customer, an architecture student, agrees. She also loves the light, openness, and great variety of nooks. “The other aspect is that it doesn’t feel like a commercial space. It doesn’t feel like a place that got in high-end designers or interior designers. It feels locally owned, everybody knows each other—and at the same time it has a welldesigned aspect to it.”

Book Trader offers a comforting eternity in immediacy. It welcomes the psychiatry student, who flips the thousands of tissue-thin pages in her textbook and does not look up as brunch fades into evening; and the quiet, middle-aged man who reads a comic book, entranced, at the winding café bar; and the activist moms, armed with laptops, in a work meeting; and the internship interview; and the old friends; and the old man, vaguely genteel but worn, who clutches his paper cup in one hand and pages through the New York Times with the other. *** I do not return too frequently—I mostly study in a campus dining hall, where the coffee is always free—but when I do, it is because books, while essential to this place, do not dominate its character. Book Trader Café has both a quiet wonder and a noisy exuberance: it commands its intersection, between city and university, between privilege and accessibility, between the intellectual and the social. It is loved, by many.

“I kind of grew up here,” says Kelly Pyers. “I started working here in the café in 1999, just after it opened.” She smiles at me from the other side of the book desk, where she now works. “I really like being here because it’s got a sort of family atmosphere—asides from just hanging out, people really care about each other.”

Dave is proud of his community. “I think we have carved out a place for ourselves,” he says. “But we have to work very hard. The rents in New Haven keep going up—we have been around for 20 years but, probably, will not be around in twenty more. Still, we love the community here.”

For now, at least, you can walk out of the store, recently purchased book in hand. You can pass the front window, noticing as you do: two girls, backpacks abandoned, sift through wobbling towers of books that they have stacked on the Book Side bar. You can leave as they get lost, briefly but wondrously.

“IN THE FRONT

17

FOYER, I CAUGHT THE EYE OF A GIRL STANDING BEHIND A CASE OF MUFFINS AND LIST OF HOT DRINKS, AND SHE ADVISED ME, HER SMILE CRINKLING HER NOSE PIERCING, TO CHECK FOR A PENCIL MARK ON THE FIRST PAGE: $3.99!”

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C U L T U R E Mar.30.2018

Dabbling in Dialects EMMA KEYES, PC ’19 YH STAFF A couple of months ago, my roommate walked into our living room and immediately asked me, “Why the fuck are you watching a video about how to speak in an American accent?” He’s Italian and I am American, so it was a fair question. The gist of my response was that I wanted to know what specifically an American accent entails, since just because I have one doesn’t mean I understand which exact set of sounds and words go into it, hence my foray into the deeply specific world of Youtube accent tutorials.

Although I actually ended up on this specific American accent video by getting lost in the Youtube rabbit hole; I had originally been watching videos about Welsh accents (huge confession here: earlier I had been watching BBC’s Merlin and historically Merlin is Welsh, but the actor didn’t speak with a Welsh accent as far as I could tell and so I wanted to find out more). I had truly devolved over the course of a couple hours in which I certainly should have been doing homework. And then I basically lied to my roommate about it. This is my long-winded way of admitting that I watch too many accent videos on Youtube.

According the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), an accent is “a way of pronouncing a language that is distinctive to a country, area, social class, or individual.”1 Accents tend to specifically mark regional background and class status (or at least upbringing), although certain accents give stronger insight into those two characteristics than others. Slightly differentiated from an accent is a dialect, which the OED defines as “a form or variety of a language which is peculiar to a specific region, esp. one which differs from the standard or literary form of the language in respect of vocabulary, pronunciation, idiom, etc.”2 Dialect is more about differences in words and grammar within languages and accent is more about the pronunciation of specific words, but the two are often conflated and I am going to use accent here fairly interchangeably with dialect. Accent videos on Youtube range from random people on the internet doing “accent tags,” which are basically just videos where people read out a list of words to demonstrate what their accent sounds like, to actual linguists discussing the specific properties of different accents.

The absolute best accent video to start with, for all you (or, in terms of accent variation possibilities: youse, you guys, and y’all) who are unfamiliar with the niche Youtube genre (although, is it more or less niche than my other favorite Youtube genre, namely literary vlog adaptations? Please weigh in!) is with a video entitled “Movie Accent Expert Breaks Down 32 Actors’ Accents” posted by the WIRED Youtube Channel.3 The video does exactly what it describes and there is no more soothing way to spend 17 minutes than watching this dialect coach named Erik Singer break down the successes and failures of different actors doing different accents in various movies. It is truly the best. He also has two follow up videos. In one, he discusses constructed languages in film and television (think Sindarin from Lord of the Rings and Klingon from Star Trek as key examples) and in the other he goes through actors attempting specific idiolects (definition: “the linguistic system of one person, differing in some details from that of all other speakers of the same dialect or language”4) or more plainly, he goes through how successfully different actors do playing real people with distinctive voices (think Natalie Portman playing Jackie

18 THE YALE HERALD

Kennedy or Jamie Foxx playing Ray Charles). I love these videos so much that I make everyone I know watch them. I made two different groups of friends watch the first of these accent videos over spring break! I am not playing around here.

There are a few other key accent videos of vital importance in my opinion. A great category of accent videos, for example, is French people trying to pronounce the wiliest of English words.5 I’ll give you one spoiler: they really don’t know what to do with the word rural. A follow-up video to the one I’ve linked involves basically the same group of French people try to pronounce French words the way Americans pronounce them6 (the words in question are of French origin that have ended up in English. Shoutout to the Norman conquest for that) and it is incredible. I would die for these French people even though they have so much disdain for Americans. Another key video to me, personally, is one that runs through all of the various Irish accents,7 which I find notable considering how small a country Ireland is in terms of both landmass and population. And before you ask, yes I do like showing off my dual Irish-American citizenship, but I actually tracked down this video in order to attempt to place where in Ireland my Irish lit professor is from. My best guess is somewhere nearabouts Dublin, but Joe Cleary, if you happen to read this, please correct me!

But either way, check out that Cork accent! Or go listen to a video of Cillian Murphy reading poetry because that will also give you the idea.

If you’re not sold on the allure of accent videos, but you are interested in interrogating your own accent and you have not already taken the classic New York Times dialect quiz, you should definitely do so.8 Or you can just skip ahead and look directly at the data that quiz is based on from the Harvard Dialect Survey.9 Or you can take “Intro to Linguistic Anthropology” with Paul Kockelman (although I think the name of the class is something else now), which is one of the coolest and most niche classes at Yale! Long live the complexity and diversity of the human experience in all its forms, but especially in accent and dialect variations that can now so easily be observed by way of Youtube.

“I had truly devolved over the course of a couple hours in which I certainly should have been doing homework.”

graphics from The Noun Project

D

e c n a as

Medicine

SARA LUZURIAGA, BR ’21 YH STAFF

The class begins with a cross-legged circle. Aimee Meredith Cox, Associate Professor of Anthropology and African American Studies, looks around at the circle of dancers, smiling at each one. The class, a weekly, not-for-credit modern dance class entitled “Funk Movement Medicine,” focuses on energy and movement as opposed to the technical perfection typically required in dance. As such, it does not open with a traditional warm up but rather with each of us naming a person whose energy we want to call into the studio, voicing how we are feeling, then showing a movement to accompany that feeling.

Cox, kicking off the circle, stands from her cross-legged position and jumps three times, stomping her feet against the ground with her head ducked down and arms rebounding, breaking the circle’s muted stagnancy. Her arms are long and impressively muscular from her background of dancing with renowned companies such as The Dance Theater of Harlem and Ailey II. Sponsored by the Theater Studies department, the Alliance for Dance at Yale, and undergraduate dance group A Different Drum, “Funk Movement Medicine” has been offered since January 29 and will continue until the end of the semester. After spring semester, Cox, who’s teaching her first year at Yale, will take a year-long sabbatical, returning by fall of 2019, but she says she hopes to offer some form of this class “all the time” upon her return.

The class is unique since it isn’t an academic course—which would require grade-based evaluations and some final project— and is beyond extracurricular dance groups, the majority of which culminate in semester shows. Cox’s class does not exist for the sake of creating a polished product. Instead, it provides a space for dancers of all levels to just move.

“I think everybody, including myself, needs a space where we can just move and feel freed up… where people can be freed up and let go of some stuff and get back into their bodies,” Cox told me over the phone. The class, which has a weekly attendance of around eight regular students and about a dozen floaters, provides a collective space for such movement. “There’s a certain type of person who’s gonna come to this class,” she continued, describing this type of person as “having an openness, and wanting to be there.”

Indeed, the 12 other students present when I attended the class seemed very open, both with Cox and with each other.

During the initial circle, many students said how much they had been looking forward to this weekly meeting, the various pressures of their lives weighing down on them. “This,” one dancer said, gesturing at the circle of dancers, “has been getting me through.”

I’m trained in competition dance in which the standards of a class are clearly set—full body warm-up, progressive movements across the floor, and a combination, or excerpt of choreography, which students learn then perform in groups. In some ways, “Funk Movement Medicine” echoes this format, but without the rigidity of movement, the emphasis on precision and flexibility, the constraint. The emphasis is on release instead.

Though new to me, such dance communities are common among disadvantaged communities. Cox said she finds

herself continually returning to her dance background in her ethnographic work, a tendency she initially resisted.

“I’ve felt like I’ve had to make excuses for why I’m [returning to dance],” she told me. “Then I had to step back. Actually, it was other people who reminded me, ‘This is your work.

This is what you talk about. This is not a side hobby. This is part of how you’re thinking about how people find ways to create alternative spaces for themselves, how they develop different understandings of what might be possible, to challenge the status quo.’”

While working in Brooklyn, Detroit, and Newark, Cox noticed communities, particularly communities of women, gathering together to create a common place for making art, utilizing such forms of expression, in some ways, as a form of protest. “It’s a way [for women] to remind themselves of the power of their individual bodies and collective bodies as a way to address things like gentrification,” she said. She utilized this understanding of community-driven art while serving as the director of a homeless shelter in Detroit where she founded the BlackLight Project, in which young women collaboratively used writing and dance to address community issues, performing and offering workshops throughout the city.

my own reservations, my desire to stop dancing usurped by some strange force which took my exhausted body beyond conventions of modern dance. I shifted across the floor, bending at different joints, folding up then down again, extending my limbs then gathering them back to my center.

It wasn’t like any dance I’d ever done. It was beyond dancing.

When it was over, and we had run glaringly over time, we lay down on the floor, tired to the bone, as Cox turned the lights off. My heart pounded against the marley floor, still settling from the exertion. We lay there for a moment, eyes closed, as Cox reflected upon the previous two hours. “We are enough,” she said. Her voice, firm and sure, permeated the darkening space. I felt something cracking open inside of me. An understanding, perhaps, that I would soon leave that studio and jump right back into my busy life at Yale, but it wasn’t time for that yet. I was still there, with those dancers, in the space our bodies had carved out, the lingering energy of our exertion settling over our rising and falling chests.

“We are enough,” Cox repeated. “We are perfect.”

Cox did not anticipate encountering similar spaces at Yale, but was pleasantly surprised at the interest in the “Funk Movement Medicine” course, hoping to eventually open the class to the New Haven community to further facilitate community-based creativity.

“You know how you have that thing that you feel really solid in? That one thing that you feel like, ‘Okay, that’s my thing’?,” Cox asked me, pausing to let the question linger.

“I’ve always felt like one thing I’ve loved to do, and felt good about, is holding space and creating space for people to step into it across different contexts. My intention starting the class was to draw on my experience as a professional dancer, but more than that - my experience teaching yoga and thinking about how you can create an open space that people, no matter where they’re coming from, can kinda step into it.”

While teaching, Cox observed us getting caught up in the choreography’s minutia—the exact angle of our arms, which foot to step with—and paused to encourage us to connect the movement, letting it flow together. “It’s-” she began, shutting her eyes with the feeling before turning to face us and opening them again with a laugh, “I guess they call it dancing.”

We split into two groups to perform the choreography, forewarned that once the combination was over we would continue to improvise movement. Most classically trained dancers detest improv—it requires a freedom of movement, spontaneous decisions, dancing without knowing the exact steps. My group went first and after the combination ended we moved into improv. I felt the eyes watching me, the other students dancing alongside me, hyper-aware of my surroundings, of not knowing what to do. It felt like I’d never been so tired. I wondered when Cox would cut off the music so I could stop and sip on some water, but I noticed her observing us, making no movement toward the sound system, and suddenly, felt myself release against

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R E V I E W S March.30.2018 image from pitchfork.com | graphics from The Noun

FRANK OCEAN UNLEASHED

CONOR JOHNSON, DC ’21

Frank Ocean is a quiet superstar. In an era of oversharing, Ocean seems to be one of few singers who values privacy and absence. While the lives of other singers are the subject of constant discussion, Ocean provides little to no personal details to his fans, opting to maintain an aura of mystery.

Stars like Kanye constantly tweet out thoughts like, “Man... ninjas are kind of cool...I just don’t know any personally,” but Ocean maintains virtually no social media presence, save for a Tumblr he posts on infrequently. In contrast to other stars who tour constantly, appearing at festival after festival, Ocean is nowhere to be found. His live performances are about as rare as a shooting star sighting—a set in Denmark last summer was his first in three years.

It follows, then, that Ocean’s new music appears as frequently as he does, which is to say almost never. Fans eagerly anticipated a follow-up to Ocean’s Grammy-winning, genredefying Channel Orange, and despite the endless speculation it took a little over four years for Ocean to release his Endless and Blonde albums. During this hiatus, Ocean was a mute, silent except for the occasional collaboration with Tyler, the Creator and Jay-Z. All of this has changed since Blonde. Despite Ocean’s propensity for waiting what seems like eons between new music, he has recently been producing music at a furious rate with a profusion of releases either coming from his infrequent Beats1 radio show “blondedRADIO” or just randomly appearing on music streaming services like Spotify. These singles include “Chanel,” “Biking,” “Provider,” “Lens,” and most recently, “Moon River.” *** So, what changed? Why has Ocean the recluse, so removed for so long, suddenly decided to share music at this unprecedented rate? The answer lies at least partly in the music itself, in the lyrics and tone of his new releases.

In 2009, Ocean signed a three-album contract with Def Jam Records, but during and after the release of the first two albums he began a “seven-year chess game” with the label, aiming to regain control of his work and extricate himself from the contract. The Endless/Blonde combo was his tour de force: Endless was produced and distributed by Def Jam, thus fulfilling the three-album requirement and releasing him from label purgatory. One day later, Ocean independently dropped Blonde, which instantly rose to the top of the Billboard 200 albums chart and ended up being the third-largest release in 2016.

“Chanel” was the first of his series of single releases, dropping in March 2017. The song is an extension of many

20 THE YALE HERALD

of the themes of Blonde. The album’s cover art, with a stylized “blond” and an androgynous picture of Ocean, emphasizes gender fluidity within a world that sees “blond” as masculine and “blonde” as feminine. Ocean continues this theme on “Chanel,” starting off with the lyrics “My guy pretty like a girl / But he got fight stories to tell / I see on both sides like Chanel / See on both sides like Chanel.” Ocean, who is bisexual, is exploring both sides of his partner: he is pretty in a traditionally feminine sense, yet he feels a need to prove his masculinity through fighting. In this instance, the Chanel logo is Ocean’s metaphor for gender fluidity: the two C’s facing each other are traditional roles for men and women, and Ocean explores the part where they interlock. Musically, the song is also an extension of Blonde, which used melody and instrumentation sparingly. “Chanel” uses a simple drum and light piano, allowing the listener to focus mainly on Ocean’s voice and lyrics.

Then, during the summer came “Biking,” which signaled a subtle shift away from “Chanel” and Blonde. “Biking” is about exactly what the title suggests, although Ocean hides deeper meaning behind the carefree image of riding a bike, using it as a rollercoaster-type metaphor for the ups and downs of life. The song is simply happier than most of his earlier work, and he uses stronger, more rhythmic beats that are simultaneously forceful and relaxed. He belts, “God gave you what you could handle / What you could handle / I got the grip like the handle / And I’m bikin’ / I’m bikin’ with me and my Daniel.” While lines like these still spout common themes found in Ocean’s work—his “Daniel” is most likely a biblical allusion to the possible homosexual relationship between Daniel and Ashpenaz—Ocean has a newfound confidence not really seen in Blonde. He has mastered the bike, he has a stable grip on the handles of his life, and he is declaring who he is with an authoritative tone that directly contrasts his crooning, melancholy voice on older songs, “Bad Religion” chief among them.

This confidence is also apparent in the few recent interviews Ocean has done with reporters. “I’m in a very different place than I was four or five years ago with all that [relationship] stuff,” he said in a New York Times story following the release of Blonde. “Different in my relationship with myself, which means everything. There’s no, like, shame or self-loathing.

There’s no, you know, crisis.”

“Lens” and “Provider” both dropped later in the summer through Ocean’s “blondedRADIO.” Both songs are lyrically complex, typical of Ocean’s work. The former, which relies on an electric keyboard and drums that build throughout the song, mainly focuses on people who have inspired him throughout his life and career. In the chorus, he repeatedly sings “I feel their smiles on me,” and at the end of the songs he names a number of individuals he has connections with,

singing “Lionel got a lens / Janet got a lens / Matthew got a lens on me right now / Cleve got a lens / Kevin got a lens.”

The song is both a word of thanks to people he feels indebted to and a reflection on the pressure he feels to live up to the expectations of those he cares about. The line about smiles, however, seems to indicate that Ocean embraces the pressure, rather than retreating away from it.

“Provider” is simple but effective. Ocean’s lyrics have some moody, romantic themes (which are also present in “Lens”), but he also talks about the path he has provided for other singers and the trappings of success he has seen in those people. While it is not as positive as “Biking” or “Lens,” Ocean’s ability to navigate between these completely different lyrical worlds is a testament to his musical range and confidence. He is the tsunami, a natural force unleashed.

After the August release of “Provider,” six months elapsed without a release. Ocean hinted on Twitter this past November that he might be sitting on a completed album, but if he is he has declined to share that with the rest of the world. It seemed as if Ocean’s wave of music was over.

And then, on Valentine’s Day, Ocean did something that he had only done a couple times before: a song cover. It was a synthesized, primitive, gut-turning rendition of Audrey Hepburn’s 1961 classic “Moon River,” one of the most widely covered songs of the past 50 years. Artists from Amy Winehouse to Frank Sinatra have put their own spin on the song, but Ocean’s is unlike any other. He starts singing with a high-pitched autotune voice, similar to “Nikes” on Blonde, crooning the famous lines: “Moon river, wider than a mile.” Although he switches back to non-autotuned singing shortly afterwards, the variance in the tone and volume of his voice throughout the song is masterful, shifting in a way that brings out the emotional love and heartbreak already in the lyrics. Ocean also creates gorgeous harmonies, layering his crescendoing voice until it sounds like a chorus of pure gold. The music is a perfect accompaniment. A muted guitar strums electronically-tinged chords throughout, allowing the Ocean’s melody to shine. Of all Ocean’s new releases, “Moon River” might be his best. It is the most meaningful, the most vulnerable, and the most fundamentally human of the bunch.

Ocean turned 30 last October, about a year after he fulfilled his record contract and took back complete control of his music. He is now free: free from restraint, free from the demands of labels, free from self-doubt, and his new music certainly reflects this change. Although we can never really be sure what to expect from the enigmatic Ocean, I, for one, hope he continues to push his boundaries with new musical releases. Who knows what else he has in store.

THERE’S A RIOT GOING ON TRICIA VIVEROS, BF ’21 YH STAFF On March 16, Yo La Tengo (YLT) released the 15th masterpiece of their 34-year-long career: There’s a Riot Going On. With a total of 15 tracks, there was plenty of room for the band’s iconic experimentalism. From peculiar instrumentals to innovative six-minute pieces, Yo La Tengo again stays true to their strange yet entrancing character. There’s a Riot Going On embraces the authentic style of its creators, and serves as a testament to the success of exploratory sound.

The album opens with an entirely instrumental track, “You Are Here,” whose guitar reverb, bells for percussion, and steady tempo promises an uplifting potential for the rest of the album. Although the song runs past the lengthy five-minute mark, the melody’s construction by the gradual addition of

UNSANE NIC HARRIS, BR ’18 YH STAFF

Steven Soderbergh’s latest film, Unsane, contains elements of an intriguing thriller, but its excessive cinematic experimentation cripples intensity when it matters the most. The film is shot entirely on a phone camera; and while this gambit works exceptionally well at times, more often than not it turns out disastrously.

In Unsane, a young woman perilously loses control over her life after unwittingly committing herself to a psychiatric hospital.

After confessing suicidal thoughts to her therapist, Sawyer, played by Claire Foy, finds herself trapped in the ward with a collection of other patients, as well as one unexpected guest – a stalker from Sawyer’s past. However, due to Sawyer’s purported instability, virtually no one at the hospital gives credence to her seemingly outlandish claim a man she has tried to escape is hiding there in plain sight. Sawyer only worsens her predicament by violently clashing with other patients, thus

INSTINCT SAHAJ SANKARAN, SM ’20 YH STAFF

It’s a sad day when I must disparage a new network show, especially one that breaks exciting new thematic ground. And yet integrity (or what passes for the it among TV reviewers) demands that I confess that the premier of CBS’ Instinct left me deeply, deeply disappointed.

Starring Alan Cumming and Bojana Novakovic, Instinct follows abnormal psychology professor and ex-CIA agent Dylan Reinhart (Cumming) as he is approached by NYPD detective Elizabeth Needham (Novakovic) to help solve a murder whose killer seems to be inspired by Reinhart’s book. Of course, the crabby, sarcastic Needham slowly opens up to the charismatic, brilliant Reinhart as they grow closer as partners and solve gruesome murder cases…

Yes, this should sound familiar. The NYT put it well; Instinct is trying to be Castle – and it’s failing. The only decent acting comes from Cumming (who musical fans might remember from Cabaret), but he’s not nearly at his best—unlike Martin Freeman’s excellent American accent in Fargo, Cumming’s frequently slips into an unnerving thick Scottish brogue.

new instruments allows for repetition without the dread of redundancy—a technique long mastered by the trio.

The hopeful guitar plucking is what augments the sentimental mood, and follows through until the end.

Perhaps the album’s best songs, “Shades of Blue,” “She May, She Might,” and “For You Too,” follow in successive order, forming a brilliant first half of the album. “Shades of Blue” is the standard YLT folk tune, with vocalist Georgia Hubley’s mellow, rather raspy voice leading the way. The melancholic lyrics, “Laid in my room to reflect my mood / facing my feelings for a life without you” seem ironic against the upbeat background of chipper guitar strums, but even so, Hubley’s tone effortlessly complements the arrangement. In “She May, She Might,” band-leader Ira Kaplan’s singing wades hesitantly through the soft waves of seventh chords, culminating in a timid yet dreamy melody that reflects the tentativeness of the piece’s title. Finally, when “For You Too” comes around, listeners are cast into a hazy glow of distorted vocals and electric basslines.

Evidence of YLT’s eclectic personality is sprinkled about on songs like “Ashes,” with its sudden shift to synthetic keys and beats, or “Shortwave,” with its celestial extended notes. When we finally arrive to the closing track, “Here You Are,” we again are exposed to another experimental selection of sounds: a muffled spoken dialogue from a telephone call, an upright string-bass, a shaker. The song’s long introduction reminds us of the opening track, “You Are Here,” bringing There’s a Riot Going On to a satisfying full circle. Once the voices of all three band members kick in, the frenzy of sound is stabilized beneath the inspiring unison of the band announcing their exit: “We’re out of words / We’re out of time…” And like the track’s title states, there we are, a little dazed and a little saddened at their departure, but looking forward to their next return.

extending what was originally a 24-hour stay to a weeklong confinement. Unsane plays with the notion that Sawyer is not completely sane (hence the “Un” as opposed to “In,” or just “Sane”), but it becomes clear early on that her stalker has in fact infiltrated the hospital’s staff, and is willing to go even further to be with Sawyer.

of stalker David Strine, played by Joshua Leonard, blubbering out his love for Sawyer. In moments like this, as well as during Sawyer’s mother’s stiff plea to the hospital superintendent for her daughter’s release, I felt as if I were watching a high school class project rather than a professional film.

Unfortunately, the biggest problem with Unsane—its camerawork—is also what was supposed to make the film unique and chilling. Contrary to other films, where phonecamera footage is typically shot from the perspective of the phone holder, here it seems to come from an intermediate source, to confusing effect. There are several moments where, though there is in fact no technological medium (a phone, a laptop, etc.) facilitating a conversation between two people, the camera’s fisheye effect evokes the sensation that the speaker is being observed from a device, which comes off as amateur rather than innovative. At other times, the phone camera simply makes Unsane laughable, as during a close-up

Novakovic delivers her too-frequent sassy quips with a bland gaze, and the chemistry between the pair is nonexistent. Lost’s Naveen Andrews is generic as an elite hacker, and Whoopi Goldberg’s short scene as Reinhart’s agent fails to impress. The show’s all-star cast supposedly can act, but, for unfathomable reasons, doesn’t.

To be fair, they’re not working with spun gold. Michael Rauch’s script is overwhelmingly dull. The apparently emotional scene where Reinhart reveals his CIA past to Needham—an important development—is so clumsily executed that, even as an amateur writer, it offends me. The script is so full of banal one-liners that it feels like we’re just killing time until the big reveal that really surprises nobody. Even excellent acting couldn’t save this plot.

The surprisingly bad technical execution is almost an afterthought; director Marc Webb (of 500 Days of Summer fame) uses frequent clichés, like an overhead crime scene shot repeated no less than thrice. The scene transitions are awkward, and the entire episode’s pacing feels as if we’re being rushed along a particularly seedy Amtrak train populated by the standard cast of procedural tropes.

Except that Dylan is married to another man. Here’s where this gets interesting: CBS claims Reinhart is the first gay lead on a

While the phone camera issue is compounded by a host of other defects—uninspiring dialogue, poor acting, and sequences that last altogether too long—a bright spot in the film is Nate, played by Jay Pharaoh. Nate is a crafty, slicktalking patient at the hospital whose friendship with Sawyer infuses humanity into a film that is otherwise essentially lifeless.

Despite her grave predicament, Sawyer is initially not very sympathetic, but Pharaoh’s character makes her more so by teasing out Sawyer’s personality while also providing comic relief. Alas, this friendship, while enjoyable, does not save the film from being decidedly mediocre. What could have been a brilliant film, Unsane instead ultimately sabotages itself through continual laziness and poor execution.

primetime network drama, and they’re largely correct. To say this, however, is to lose sight of all the LGBTQ+ characters in shows outside this narrow descriptor that made such a move possible at all—the legacies of Will & Grace, Transparent, Orange is the New Black. Hardcore TV fans will remember that over a decade ago, The Wire had two immensely popular gay characters in Omar Little and Kima Greggs. Reinhart’s marriage is a step forward, but CBS’s claim to the moral high ground does not excuse the decades broadcast networks have spent refusing to depict homosexuality, and it certainly doesn’t excuse a show that otherwise refuses to innovate.

So, if you skipped ahead to my usual scathing conclusion, here it is—don’t watch Instinct. The show is a 60-minute trudge through a swamp of overused plot devices and played-out character interactions. It’s clear that the networks are looking for the next Castle and The Mentalist clone. But where those shows were innovative, Instinct seems to believe that Alan Cumming’s dazzlingly boyish grins will distract us from the burning schoolbus of a TV show behind him. Except, if you know what good procedurals look like (for future reference, they look like NYPD Blue), you’ll see right through it.

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THE BLACK LIST

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THINGS WE HATE

BEN AFFLECK’S BACK TATTOO

PEE THAT SMELLS GOOD

Unlike the phoenix, his dignity will never rise from the ashes

It’s a trap!

BEING CALLED “CHIPPER” You’re right, today I didn’t have Seasonal Affective Disorder CHIP AND DALE My two favorite furries ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS My three favorite furries

EDIBLE GLITTER Aka normal glitter HEAD LICE I recognize the scent of anti-lice shampoo anywhere, and I will expose you EDIBLE GLITTER Aka normal glitter

WHITE ASPARAGUS Does it make your pee smell good?

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