Buzzsaw Haircut

bastard alternative lovechild

As you likely know by now, dearest reader, Buzzsaw is turning 20 all 2019. Our magazine came together in 1999 when eight Ithaca College students were so angry about the world around them that they decided to write about it. In the ten year anniversary issue of Buzzsaw from ‘09, the founding editors cited their motivation for the birth of what, at the time, was known formally as Buzzsaw Haircut. For some, it was hate that turned into love; anger that turned into art. Many of the founders cited unfulfilling experiences writing for The Ithacan. They wanted to create an outlet that was better. We think they were successful (but we’re a little biased). So here’s to our founders for giving us an excuse to talk a lot of shit and write it all down.

Here’s to our past editors for upholding what this magazine is, to our present editors for continuing to fight the good fight, and to our future editors who we already know are gonna continue to kick journalistic ass.

Production Editor News & Views

Julia Tricolla Anna Lamb Owen Walsh Upfront Alexis Morillo Audra Joiner Ministry of Cool Mateo Flores Prose & Cons Kimberly Morgan Sawdust Will Cohan Layout Brianna Pulver Art Rachael Geary Website Christine McKinnie Social Media Emma Rothschild Production Rachael Powles James Baratta Mae McDermott Isabel Murray Tara Eng Advisor Carlos Figueroa Founders Abby Bertumen Kelly Burdick-Chambala Bryan Chambala Sam Costello Thom Denick Cole Louison James Sigman Sarah Wright Printer Arnold Printing Co. Photography Joe Minissale

Write Us! Our magazine exists to inspire thoughtful debate and open up the channels through which information is shared. Your comments and feedback are all a part of this process. Reach the editors by email at: buzzsawmag@gmail.com.

2

her ded heir hate ing e’re wn. ght ass.

News & Views

Current events, local news & quasi-educated opinions.

Upfront

Selected dis-education of the month.

5 15

Ministry of Cool

28

Short fiction, personal essay and other assorted lies.

40

Arts, entertainment and other things cooler than us.

Prose & Cons Sawdust

Threatening the magazine’s credibility since 1856.

3

46

The Unexpected Demise of Third Party Politics

What happens when fringe political positions become the norm? // By Isabel Brooke, Contributing Writer

P

icture America, but different: one where jobs, health care, and college education are guaranteed public services; one with reformed immigration and criminal justice systems; one where the dignity of underserved and the worth of historically marginalized communities are not only recognized but prioritized and promoted by the State; one which ensures the distribution of wealth rather than its concentration; and one which leads in climate-conscious initiatives rather than working against them.

This America, or something close to it, has become the progressive’s idyllic vision in response to the Trump era: to increase partisanship and the environmental crisis. But long before mainstream Democrats began “feeling the Bern” and embracing the Green New Deal, this was the vision of largely ignored third parties like the Green Party and the Party for Socialism and Liberation.

That vision, in fact, was Peta Lindsay’s platform two election cycles ago. Lindsay’s campaign for President in 2012 as the

candidate for the Party for Socialism and Liberation was more symbolic than serious, as she wasn’t even eligible for office at 28 years old. A self-proclaimed Socialist running on an antiwar, social-justice focused platform, her small-dollar campaign went largely unrecognized by mainstream media; instead, she spread her message on college campuses and in high schools.

This campaign trail landed her at Ithaca College in October of 2012, where she held a rally that was, incidentally, covered in the November 2012 issue of Buzzsaw by Qina Liu. In Liu’s account of Lindsay’s speech, it’s clear that Lindsay’s ideas are radical and far outside the realm of mainstream media. And she wouldn’t deny that—the purpose of her campaign was to expose her ideas to whoever would listen.

For the most part, that audience was young people, perhaps not yet jaded by mainstream politics, who might be open to her message. Her profile was limited by a lack of big donors and media attention, but she said: “I firmly believe that if we were … on all the major broadcast stations, that if millions of people actually heard that there was a presidential candidate

6

who was calling for the immediate cancellation of all student loan debt, I believe there would be a million more socialists overnight.”

But she didn’t get that media attention, she didn’t attract big donors, and she couldn’t establish a formidable constituency.

In the general election, she got 7,791 votes, which translates to about 0.01%.

And yet, from the perspective that only temporal distance can give, we can hear the truth in her prophecy.

In 2016, Bernie Sanders rose to prominence as the unlikely Democratic star, his celebrity grown through the enthusiasm of young people eager for immediate, radical change in the face of an unrepresentative, even perhaps undemocratic, government. The established two-party system and prudent political observers alike resisted the idea of such a radical candidate; after all, no self-titled Socialist could possibly carry enough votes to put him in the White House.

Instead, the opposite brand of radical—nationalistic, hyperindividualistic, defensive, and protectionist—landed there.

By stoking and encouraging radical, jingoistic fears about declining hegemonic power, the Trump Campaign built the intensely loyal base that won him the election. And in giving racist ideologies like white supremacy a platform, he proved the depth of their roots in our society.

And Sanders and Trump—apparently about as ideologically far apart as possible— are the two frontrunners for nomination in the 2020 election. Sanders outraised the entire field of Democratic primary hopefuls in the first quarter, bringing in $20.7 million, according to FiveThirtyEight. Trump, by contrast, raised more than $30 million in the first quarter.

These numbers and their 2020 presidential campaigns are a useful, if sometimes fallible, yardstick in reading the political climate and the state of party ideology in the country. Middleof-the-road candidates no longer seem to be resonating with or tapping into “the American psyche” as it’s characterized through media and polls.

The support for both candidates is visceral, emotional, and impassioned. This energy fosters walled political communities and leaves little room for amicable disagreement. It’s an energy which, for better or for worse, used to be considered fringe, but is now mainstream.

A Pew Research Center survey conducted every few years since 1994 shows clearly that the median Democratic ideology is consistently becoming further and further distanced from the median Republican ideology. So, what does this mean for those formerly fringe parties? Have they shifted with the mainstream politics, or have they become the mainstream?

The Democratic Party, anyway, seems now to occupy the place that Peta Lindsay’s party—the Party for Socialism and Liberation—occupied in 2012. The issues listed on Bernie Sanders’ website as his 2020 priorities now include eight out of 10 of the issues outlined in Lindsay’s 2012 “10-point plan” platform. The point of the third party is not necessarily to hold positions of power, but to pull major party ideology further to the left or the right. In a balanced system, this presence provides a healthy and necessary check on the establishment, but today, one of its effects is to further alienate the parties from each other.

Pew Research also found that the priorities of the two major parties no longer compete—they have departed from any sort of significant common ground in the last two decades.

As the radical, more extreme viewpoints take center stage, debate has become primarily intra- rather than inter-party. In this system, bipartisanship isn’t even coherent; the opposing “side” is non-sequitous.

Centrism is no longer middle ground. Centrism is slowly but surely becoming the new third party. This isn’t to say that the socialist agenda doesn’t deserve air time, or even that the kinds of grievances Trump draws out from the shadows don’t need to be voiced. Protests, riots, and even terrorism prove again and again that without attention, any ideology or even person will use any means at their disposal to be acknowledged—even violence, if suppressed long enough.

The respective performances of this historically large and diverse slate of candidates making bids for the 2020 Democratic nomination will undoubtedly be informative in measuring our ever-evolving political climate. The ballot includes every option from centrist to self-described socialist, from ages 37 to 77, from establishment to first-time political candidate, with candidates representing states from California to Massachusetts.

Even the fact that 22 different Democrats think they have a chance at the nomination is telling. It shows how factious the party has become, it shows how obscure the mythical “average voter” has become. But it also perhaps hints that politics is becoming more accessible. In 2012, Peta Lindsay said to Ithaca College students: “It’s funny because they say that anybody can be president, but when you actually run for president, you realize how untrue that actually is.”

But maybe this is changing. The fact that our mainstream ideological landscape is growing more diverse makes for a disunified system right now, but also seems to be creating space for a larger, more bottom-up marketplace of ideas.

Whether a better government can come out of this confused climate remains to be seen; but for now, take advantage of and take part in the noise. Representative democracy can only be realized when every ideology has and uses their voice.

Isabel Brooke is a junior writing major ready to make her voice heard in the 2020 election. They can be reached at ibrooke@ ithaca.edu.

7

Fighting the Food Wasteland Understanding student hunger at IC // By Rachael Poweles, News & Views Editor

T

en years ago, Buzzsaw described Ithaca College as a “food wasteland.”

With the cost of meal plans rising rapidly, there were few opportunities for students to find accessible food outside of dining halls. But within the last decade, the college has made major steps toward eliminating food insecurity on campus.

In 2017, IC partnered with the Food Bank of the Southern Tier to create the Mobile Food Pantry, a monthly pop-up where students can fill bags and boxes with both perishable and nonperishable goods. Swipe-Out Hunger, run by The Center for Civic Engagement, allows students to donate unused meal swipes to peers in need. Most recently, Civic Engagement created the On-Campus Food Pantry, a permanent location located in the DeMotte Room in Campus Center that provides food and other grocery items. Civic Engagement is actively working to partner once more with the Food Bank of the Southern Tier in order to provide even more resources for students. David Harker, the Director of the Center for Civic Engagement, believes this future collaboration will only grow the campaign to end hunger on campus.

The average university charges around $4,500 for an eight-month meal plan that includes three meals a day; the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates a single person will spend $3,989 on food in one year. With such disparity, hunger on college campuses is inevitable. The

National Student Campaign Against Hunger and Homelessness recently found that 32% of college students have said hunger impacts their education.

Swipe Out Hunger reports that one in five students have skipped meals in order to afford other college necessities.

New organizations seek to address the root of this problem.

The Food Pantry is in the midst of a pilot program this semester, opening for one hour per week rather than once a month. Members of the Honors Program serve as volunteers and work with Civic Engagement to advertise and brainstorm new ideas. Both faculty and student organizations have also been fundamental to the promotion of the pantry. Open to all members of the greater Ithaca community, it is most heavily used by students. Harker explained, “It’s a truth to hunger in general that there is no one type of person who experiences hunger. It comes in all forms, shapes, and sizes, and is probably under-reported.”

Next semester, Civic Engagement will host an AmeriCorp position that focuses strictly on combating hunger on campus, as well as conducting research into regarding the true prevalence of hunger. As Ithaca College transitions to in-house dining services, Harker hopes that the Food Pantry can branch out to include nutrition curriculums as well as explore issues of food insecurity beyond the local level. “It’s always been about meeting an immediate need,” said Harker, “but it is leading us to bigger

8

questions about hunger and how we address it.”

Rachael Powles is a freshman Theatre Studies and Culture&Communication major who can’t wait to have her own kitchen again. They can be reached at rpowles@ithaca.edu

Izzy Winners and Inside Stories

A

Award-winning writers on the state of independent journalism // By Owen Walsh, News & Views Editor

few hours before receiving the “Izzy Award,” David Lindorff sat in the lobby of the downtown Marriott—feet up on a coffee table, arms stretched casually behind his head—and reflected on a long career in journalism. Decades as a dissenting, independent reporter has made him “persona non grata” in the eyes of the mainstream media, he said in an interview with Buzzsaw, and called winning this award vindicating.

The Park Center for Independent Media’s Izzy Awards has been recognizing the constructive dissent of journalists like Lindorff for the past 11 years. The other winners of 2019 were Aaron Matè of The Nation, Laura Flanders of the Laura Flanders Show, and the publication Earth Island Journal, accepted by its editors Maureen Nandini Mitra and Zoe Loftus Farren.

Though attending a celebratory event, the recipients did not come to Ithaca to tout victory, but to discuss the uncertain road ahead for independent journalism. With a tiny group of corporations controlling the vast majority of mainstream media outlets in the U.S., the continued vilification and imprisonment of whistleblowers, and the host of stories going unreported by mainstream outlets, the recipients had plenty

to talk about.

Climate change may be one of the most significant stories that legacy media are routinely criticized for covering underwhelmingly, leaving independent outlets like Earth Island Journal to pick up the slack. Its editors, Mitra and Farren, are constantly considering how to cover the issue more effectively.

“I think what we need to do better as journalists is to tell better stories about how it is already impacting us… if we could actually tell it from the point of view of people who are impacted but who do not still quite get it, I think we’d have a better chance of having some meaningful policy changes,” Mitra said in an interview with Buzzsaw.

Farren said that in addition to localizing stories, providing solutions-based reporting is essential.

“We can highlight solutions and provide somewhat positive news about climate change, because it is pretty dark and depressing,” she said.

The journal won the Izzy this year specifically for its issue on the intersectionality of women and the climate crisis. Identifying these overlooked connections, finding out how different peoples around the globe are affected disproportionately by

9

climate change, is a key mission for both Mitra and Farren.

An older edition they are particularly proud of investigated the relationship between prisons and the environment. In this edition the editor aimed to examine both the environmental rights of prisoners and the impacts that large-scale prisons have on the climate.

“We were really proud of [that issue], we wished it would’ve received some more national recognition,” Mitra said. Farren laughed in agreement.

As a fellow indy journalist and Izzy winner, Lindorff is more than familiar with this sentiment. He won his Izzy for an investigative piece revealing massive accounting fraud in the Department of Defense. A bombshell story, though you wouldn’t hear about it from most news outlets.

Since 1990, Congress has required every department and agency in the federal government to develop auditable accounting systems; all have done so, except the Pentagon— the country’s largest recipient of discretionary spending.

Poring through the numbers and talking to insider sources, Lindorff found that the Pentagon has fabricated the numbers on its annual budget request to Congress, which ensures a higher military budget for the next year. In addition, instead of returning its unspent money to the U.S. Treasury as they are required to do by law, the DoD will sometimes move around or otherwise launder surplus cash in order to make it untraceable.

Asif Khan, director of the Government Accountability Office’s Financial Management and Assurance team, told Lindorff that accounting irregularities like these make the Pentagon one of the highest risk agencies for fraud, waste, and abuse in the federal government.

Lindorff called this last point the most shocking to learn.

“It’s simply staggering… it’s madness,” he said. “Just imagine if the EPA was considered to be at high risk of fraud and abuse; Congress would be going ballistic, but nobody says anything about it when it’s the Pentagon.”

Lindorff’s story sparked a conversation about military spending at outlets across the country, but not all of them.

You can probably imagine which outlets have not deemed it newsworthy.

“When this came out, for three weeks I couldn’t do any work… because I was simply overwhelmed with scheduling interviews and talking to people all day, every day, for three weeks… But I didn’t get a single request for an interview from any mainstream media organization,” Lindorff said.

This summarizes a dilemma in the world of independent journalism that all of the Izzy recipients would express later that night at a public Q&A session. Working at independent outlets affords journalists greater editorial freedom than legacy reporters but limits the reach and profitability of their work substantially.

Matè implored the young crowd to support alternative media by contributing money to the outlets they consume, and by trying to share the work of indy journalists with their friends and through social media.

Flanders talked about her desire for a robust network of independent journalists and outlets that can unite and support each other through hard times. Independent outlets have experimented with such ideas in the past, but have yet to yield much success.

Talking with Buzzsaw, Lindorff called for a similar camaraderie among journalists in general, especially as terms like “investigative reporter” and “whistleblower” become dirty words in the U.S. Lindorff recalled an instance when he published a risky story on an alternative news site that he runs with four other journalists called “This Can’t Be Happening!” Due to the sensitive information he was revealing, the story had the potential to land Lindorff in legal trouble.

“My four colleagues said, ‘Can we put our names on as cobylines on that piece? Because if you’re going to get charged with a felony… we want to share the prosecution,” he said.

“That’s the kind of spirit an investigative reporter has to have today.”

Owen Walsh is a senior journalism major who hopes to win his own Izzy Award someday. They can be reached at owalsh@ ithaca.edu.

10

BDSM Without Shame The truth about sadism and masochism // By Carly Werkel, Contributing Writer, Images by Rachael Geary

D

uring intercourse some people like giving pain and others enjoy receiving it, sometimes people deem themselves switchable between fetishes, and before you ask, “Wtf are you talking about?”

I can assure you this is in all good fun. Inflicting pain on others is a fetish called sadism, while enjoying the pain being inflicted is called masochism, and when you enjoy switching in and out of these roles, it’s called sadomasochism.

These fetishes are shaped into categories that are part of the BDSM (Bondage/Discipline/Dominance/Submission/Sadism/ Masochism) community, and while these types of sexual pleasure may seem extreme and intimidating, like any other type of sexual act, these acts should only be done consensually.

There are many misconceptions about BDSM and other fetishes, and this may be because people still find them taboo. However, BDSM is pretty common and can be healthy

to explore. People who correctly practice sadomasochism do not use these behaviors out of aggression. They like pain or receiving pain in the sense of sexual excitement, not in any way is this considered abusive. But the question arises: what is sexy about receiving pain or inflicting it?

Many emotions play into sadomasochism, and these emotions are actually quite universal. No one is a stranger to sensations like control, power, dependency, and receiving attention. Sadists are most aroused by domination.

Psychologists say that people who are sadists like to dominate because they can free their internal emotional pain, but this is not always the case. A sadist also seeks control, and they may seek control if they feel like they are not in control in their everyday life. According to BDSM blogger Taylor Markarian, if you are a masochist, then you have no issue being completely submissive and volunteering yourself to be essentially helpless.

You also enjoy pain. However, there is still a small element of control, which makes submitting much more interesting. You are volunteering to submit, meaning you have the control of whom you submit to and how you do so.

Trust plays a huge role in this. Psychologists believe that masochists love their role so much because it allows them to be dependent on their partner and even feel completely safe in their hands. This type of dependency causes these experiences to be so intimate. By submitting, the sadist is getting approval from the masochist and vice-versa. They are both the center of each other’s attention, which again, allows trust to play a huge role in this type of fetish; trust builds the intimacy, a unique, yet powerful way to show love. Practicing this type of sexual lifestyle may seem extreme to some, but it’s filled with passion and desire, which is why it’s so intriguing to those on the outside and so alluring to those within the subculture A 2004 edition of Buzzsaw Haircut published an article discussing the controversiality of dildos. Dildos and sex toys alike aren’t as controversial as sadomasochism is today, but they had their time. It was only in 2003 when a Texas woman was arrested in December by two undercover cops for selling a vibrator. At the time, selling vibrators was prohibited.

Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi had similar anti-obscenity laws. These anti-vibrator laws were criticized for being antifeminist because they made female masturbation seem dirty

11

while criticizing the female orgasm. By contrast, Viagra, a product for men that works to improve men’s sex lives, has never been illegal.

Controversiality and sex seem to constantly go hand and hand even 15 years after this original Buzzsaw article was published, which is why it’s important to explore the sexual subcultures that exist like sadomasochism deeper. While there may not be any laws regarding sadomasochism or anything under BDSM explicitly, it’s important to understand the pain factor. When you are in pain, the body immediately releases endorphins that target the pain to make you feel better. This type of chemical release can be the cause of the pain being more pleasurable when endured during sex (Markarian, 2016).

Additionally, the 2004 article verifies that gender plays a role in sex and pleasure and therefore, sadomasochism as well. We see it in movies, books and pop-culture where the role of a sadist is performed by the male dominant figure and where the role of a masochistic is fulfilled by a submissive female.

Very rarely do we see these roles reversed in the media.

It’s interesting to see a fetish that is somewhat well known to have these underlying issues that go unnoticed in the mainstream. These questions blatantly prove that men feel pressure and pressure each other to be more masculine. This forces men to believe that taking the submissive route in the bedroom is the exact opposite of masculinity when it’s not.

It’s could be so easy for people to stop criticizing others for their sexual desires, but thanks to societies always changing standards, it’s not so easy after all.

While some of the comments left on these forum posts were uplifting and encouraged the men to be their true selves in the bedroom, others were nasty and criticizing the men. The social pressures men feel on a daily basis are to maintain a certain type of dominance throughout his daily life. No, this is not sexual dominance, but men feel that there is no room for error, they have to look a certain way to be perceived as masculine, and if they don’t, they are belittled. It’s clear to see how these standards affect a man’s sex life if he does not wish to pursue the dominant role when engaging in BDSM activities. If this lifestyle is not congruent with the man’s sexual desires, men can feel unattractive, unwanted, and confused. So, not only do men who enjoy a submissive role feel pressures in their daily life, but they also feel pressure on how they perform sexually.

The truth is, society has created too many ridiculous standards that not everyone will meet. There’s clearly insecurity between men who are submissive and wants to practice being masochistic. Being insecure in the bedroom isn’t fair and can lead to unpleasant or unfulfilling sexual experiences, and there’s nothing wrong with fulfilling these submissive fantasies and trying something new. The most important thing is communication. If a male wants to have a consensual sadomasochism sex life and wants to fulfill the masochist role, then there shouldn’t be an issue. It’s important to understand that in order to be sexually fulfilled you have to be confident in what pleasures you. Sex is great and fetishes are fun; in no way should anyone feel ashamed of their desires.

Carly Werkel is a junior writing major who won’t put up with blatant sexual shaming. They can be reached at cwerkel@ ithaca.edu.

12

Voices from the Third Floor

Inside Ithaca’s community radio station // By Anna Lamb, News & Views Editor

I

t’s odd really, the way that it works.

You, the listener, are presumably in the car or the office or walking somewhere with headphones on, and a disembodied voice from inside a place you’ve never seen is talking to you.

It’s invisible, yet it’s everywhere.

Somewhere, in a tiny soundproof room, there are people that have worked for hours, writing and editing minutes long content that then reaches your ears, and is most likely, quickly forgotten.

One of those rooms is in a building that was built before radio was even invented. When you look at The Clinton Building, like really look at it, you scratch your head. It sits properly on a street corner — two sides facing out onto different blocks. One side, the side facing the commons, has big columns in the “Greek revival” style with sagging steep stairs and chipping paint. It has an air of grandeur long forgotten. The other faces a nondescript apartment building of which it could compete with in a boring contest. Brick walls and non-descript glass double doors. The first time that I went there I circled the block for a solid 20 minutes, passing the entrance several times before eventually wandering inside to find the office listing next to the elevator.

Up three flights of stairs, and down a hallway that only contains a couch and not one but two paintings of a majestic bird surrounded by flames, there’s a door. It’s beige and sticks a bit. Inside to the right, there’s a church pew (“the green room”) and to the left are two

computers loaded with basic audio editing software. The studio is on the right and all the way in the back is the office. Felix and Laura share this space, complete with one whiteboard, one desk, a Smartboard, a cabinet full of mics and wires and other miscellaneous pieces of radio tech. At the center is a table that serves as both Laura’s desk and a place for meetings.

The Ithaca radio of the past was housed in spaces fully equipped with organs, pianos and turntables. Huge radio transmitters took up the space of Laura and Felix’s entire office. The space WRFI has now wouldn’t be able to fit half of the equipment necessary in those early days. In the early days of radio in this city, WRFI’s studio in the Clinton Building was still operating as a hotel (four presidents have stayed there!).

WRFI is unlike any of its local predecessors, by many standards.

Stations like WHCU and WICB were started out of the two universities in town. WRFI was started by a group of like-minded community members — one of whom re-mortgaged her home to obtain the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) license for 88.1 FM in Ithaca.

Since its inception, WRFI has incorporated news, and local storytelling into their mission, and there has been a paid part-time position to run the news team.

The News Director Laura swears a lot. It’s actually one of the first things she ever told me about herself. I was working with WRFI

13

producing content in the summer of 2018 and Laura had just become the interim news director. We were sitting at Sweet Melissa’s, the ice cream shop right around the corner from the office, doing a sort of introductory meeting.

She tends to like meetings that involve food and she slipped an f-bomb into her sentence like it was any other adjective.

This was only the second time I had ever met this woman, and the first time I was ever sitting down to have a full-on conversation with her.

She speaks matter-of-factly. She’s the type of person who doesn’t pause when they speak, and talks in full sentences as if the words were already waiting to come out at the drop of a hat. It’s like she’s on-air all the time.

In the last few years, Laura has heard the word “no” a lot. No to reporting positions, no to story pitches and no to any full-time jobs.

“They always give me pretty bullshit reasons for not hiring me,” she said.

One job told her that her competition “fit the company culture better.”

Her husband is an academic, finishing up a PhD at Cornell, and she has followed him throughout his careerーa labor of love that she suspects may be to blame for a lot of the rejections.

“I think frankly most of it probably had to deal with the fact that I was a trailing spouse. I think realistically the bosses were probably like, ‘oh she’s really talented but she’s probably going to leave in a couple of years.’” That’s another thing about Laura. She doesn’t doubt herself.

In this current iteration of life, she’s a

journalist. In what seems like an alternate reality, Laura studied social work and holds her master’s in it. But when love brought her to Israel, she decided to try her hand at writing. “There’s sort of this nickname now that Israel was the ‘startup nation,’ so I do think that there’s this kind of entrepreneurial element to Israeli society that I was influenced by.”

While abroad, it seemed like just putting her mind to it could make things happen. One job after another came to her — she worked as a magazine editor, a reporter and a freelancer for a tech publication. But as a trailing spouse, things don’t last forever.

The Newsroom Community radio is a bunch of people, most of them with full-time jobs, committing to making this thing happen without any financial compensation.

On the news team, there is a woman that works at a winery — standing on her feet for six hours a day who then comes home to write the script for the evening news program. There is a man who teaches at Cornell but in his limited free time produces a weekly 15-minute spot for the Thursday news about arts and culture in Ithaca. There are college students learning radio and retirees who are learning the basics of computer editing for the first time.

Volunteer Ed Von Aderkas is a trailing spouse just like Laura, and he gets up at 5:00 a.m. every Monday and walks from his apartment on East Hill to Ithaca Commons, rain or shine (or more often than not, snow) to produce the weekly drive-time news program. Aderkas said that it’s worth it when people call in after the show and give feedback. Knowing that you’re helping to tell a community’s story is worth it.

These people keep the station running and provide hundreds of community members with local news, but at the end of the day, they are just volunteers. The news team fluctuates between 10-15 members who write and host the news, yet on Mondays at 7:00 p.m. when the news team meeting takes place, only one person other than Laura shows up.

Sometimes people don’t write the script when they’re supposed to, or it’s a few hundred words short. Sometimes people don’t sign up to host.

Problems are constantly arising, at all

hours of the day. Laura does not have all hours to commit to problem-solving.

Her education helped her prepare for the task of organizing volunteers and recruiting members. It did not prepare her for juggling the ever-evolving hierarchy of needs that community radio news demands. She is currently re-writing a piece about local politicians which, as it was originally written, is unreadable for the nightly news.

She is running late; she should’ve looked over this script in the morning but she had other things to do in the office, plus she is only hired part-time.

Laura has worked a couple of different jobs since becoming the news director officially. She did freelance tech-writing for a magazine called Geek Time, grant writing for Cornell and now works as a part-time reporter for the radio syndicator Public News Service.

Laura is a self-made journalist, but even so, one does not automatically become well-versed in radio broadcasting.

Broadcast is a whole other beast — having to do taped interviews where all the sound levels are checked and the mics are appropriate and you remembered to actually turn the thing on. She threw herself into it after connecting with an acquaintance on Facebook.

“I was looking at their archives, and I saw that there was this guy there who I had met ten years prior at a housing cooperative conference, several lives ago,” Laura said with her unrelenting confidence, shot him an email explaining her situation and asking for the in to WRFI. He invited her to a party, she casually joined the news team and used it as a homebase for her radio endeavors. Throughout 2017 Laura was a regular team member, committing about four hours a week to writing and hosting the evening news--while at the same time trying her hand at developing a podcast.

As she’s reading things over, Laura eats a dry wheat sandwich. Her doctors have told her that she needs to watch her diet, as she is now at risk for gestational diabetes. Oh yeah, on top of her crazy journalism schedule, Laura is pregnant now too, expecting her first child.

The co-host tonight is Kathryn Miller, a junior at Cornell. She’s studying history and is looking to do journalism as a way of getting out of her shell. She practices

14

the script many times over before reading it live, but her voice still has a subtle shake in it.

Laura tells her some joke, I think to put her at ease, that I couldn’t write down because I was trying to squeeze into the corner of the studio for the show-this room was not designed for many people. The 30-minute program goes on without incident, and the two stay after and chat for a bit, like good friends rather than a boss and subordinate, before parting ways.

Pay off Laura works well with college students.

She delegates really well and works best with people who are more idea-driven and need less of the technical help.

That’s why when she had an idea for a new series last year, she sought out the help of students at Ithaca College.

Together they created a series on mental health in Tompkins County, called the Loneliness Project. Laura was the creative genius behind it all, and after months of work, the station aired episodes week by week.

Just recently, the Loneliness Project won an award from the New York State Broadcasters Association for Outstanding Public Affairs Program or Series. This had been a crazy couple of years, between moving to Ithaca, looking for work, getting the interim news director job and having to reapply against an open applicant pool just to get recognition for a job she had been doing successfully for months. All of it was exhausting and all of that was validated by this award.

While we may listen to talk radio as background noise in the morning, or podcasts while we work out, those stories that catch our attention can change our lives. The loneliness project may prompt someone to seek help for their depression, or election coverage may influence someone to get involved in local politics. In any case, Laura, Ed, Kathryn and all the other disembodied voices will continue to come to that little office on the top floor and make the pieces playing on the news.

Anna Lamb is a senior journalism major who has seen enough of the broadcast world to last a lifetime. They can be reached at alamb@ithaca.edu.

upfront

15

The Declaration of Independence

Indie media on the Ithaca College campus // By James Baratta, Upfront Editor, Mateo Flores, Ministry of Cool Editor, and Alexis Morillo, Upfront Editor, Images by Rachael Geary

T

he founders of Buzzsaw Haircut all had different backgrounds and experiences that made the magazine come to life. At the time of its birth, it acted as the antithesis to The Ithacan, the mainstream media source on campus. In the 20 years since the creation of Buzzsaw, there has been a constant influx of publications trying to make names for themselves on Ithaca College’s campus (I’m looking at you, 360 Magazine). And in the last four years, the number of successful, student-led independent media outlets have grown significantly. We wanted to shout out our mediamaking peers while highlighting the story of their creation, just as we’ve been reflecting on ours.

Distinct Magazine In 2016, Sara Belcher, Class of 2019, had an idea for an on-campus lifestyle magazine called Distinct. She brought this idea to life with three others, including Annika Kushner, who will be graduating with Belcher, and served as the magazine’s first editor-in-chief.

Although Belcher had written for The Ithacan and Buzzsaw, she said she had never fully connected with either. Belcher had always been interested in women’s magazines. However, at the time, there wasn’t a lifestyle publication on campus. She yearned to expand the college’s independent media so that it could provide more diverse content.

“I felt there was nothing like a lifestyle publication on campus . . . it was this weird niche that was missing,” Belcher said.

Belcher, who will be graduating in May as a writing major with a concentration in feature writing and minors in journalism and graphic design, was originally a journalism major. However, she said that although she respects the journalism department, the classes weren’t challenging enough.

“I really wanted to do more magazine journalism, long-form, national pieces, and I just didn’t feel as supported in that department,” Belcher said. “I wanted to better my stories so that they were articulated more clearly, had more of a pull to them as opposed to words on a page.”

During the Distinct hiring processes, Belcher made it clear that the magazine has no place for nepotism. While she looks for the best-qualified individuals to take on editorial positions, she is still willing to turn down even the most qualified people if their personalities don’t match the team’s.

“I very much look for people who are qualified, people whose personalities mesh well with the team — I’ve turned down my friends,” Belcher said. “I don’t want it to become a hierarchy, I don’t want it to become a clique [and] I try to make it an open environment for everyone.”

Belcher called her time at Distinct a learning experience about the grit required to run a magazine.

16

“Writing a publication is a lot more than just writing and editing . . . it’s about working your ass off,” Belcher said. “There is also not a day that I walk by Distinct in the halls [and] am not proud of it.”

Passion Project When Kylee Roberts was young she dreamt of being a broadcast journalist. But after attending a summer journalism program at American University following her junior year of high school, she realized broadcast journalist was not her true strength.

While she was skilled at the editing aspect of the program, reading off a teleprompter was a challenge, she recalls with a laugh.

Nonetheless, she entered Ithaca College as a journalism major.

Amidst the 2015 POC at IC movement, which led to Tom Rochon’s resignation, she found it was hard for her to separate her identity while writing the unbiased stories that were expected of her in the classroom. “Learning about myself as a black woman at that time I realized I wanted to help movements like that and not just report on them,” Roberts said.

Roberts explored strategic communication courses throughout her first year, and became a Communication Management and Design (CMD) major her sophomore year. This background in CMD allowed her to push forward with the idea of Passion Project and create a unique brand for what would become the online media outlet.

After being approached by a peer about starting a socially conscious fashion magazine on campus, Roberts started brainstorming ways that this idea could come to fruition. She recalls falling into what she described as a “sophomore slump” during her second year and remembers thinking, “I really need a passion project, I really need something to express myself with.”

Originally focused on the intersections of fashion and social justice, the publication eventually broadened its scope to encompass youth expression of all sorts. Roberts believes the importance of independent student media is due largely to the fact that they are able to report on stories that may otherwise be ignored. Having experience with other outlets like The Ithacan, feeling “scared” to walk into their office, she knew she wanted Passion Project to be a safe space for people to recognize that their individual stories matter.

Graduating in May means it’s time for Roberts to put her own passion project into the hands of new members that were not there from the beginning. But she’s not scared for the future of the outlet. In fact, she wants Passion Project to continue evolving.

“The whole point of Passion Project is to constantly embrace our youth culture which is always changing. I don’t want our future e-board to feel that they have to follow a formula. I want them to feel that they can experiment [with the brand] just as they are experimenting with their own lives,” Roberts said.

Embrace Alexis Davis and Yetunde Smalls conceived and now facilitate the production of Embrace, the newest alternative publication on campus. Embrace, which is now planning it’s second issue of the year, “aims to curate the true narrative of students. With each publication, we intend to capture, express, reflect, and highlight the vibrancy, struggles, creativity, and experiences of the intersectionality of underrepresented peoples.” Their first issue, “Identities” was released last semester and “embraced the identities that have yet to be embraced.”

Davis and Smalls hope to give underrepresented students the power and platform to tell their own stories. Davis, a journalism major, said that other publications didn’t have the space for her to share the stories that [she] wanted to share.

Embrace was a collaborative process for Davis and Smalls since their freshman year. The pair, who will graduate with the class of 2021, set out to give the power to the people who wanted to tell their own stories.

“Often times you hear people say... ‘I’ll be the voice for the voiceless’ and all of this. Embrace intends to amplify those voices because those people who are marginalized very much have a space and very much have been voicing these things. They don’t need anyone to take their narrative and exploit it in any way,” Smalls says.

Embrace isn’t just aiming to fill in the gaps of journalism that are lacking on campus, but also to create a space for those who aren’t provided a place where they can safely tell their own stories.

However, before their first publication the two found a bit of “angst” around their upcoming edition. Smalls says that she felt that people misconstrued their goals.

17

They still feel that as two women of color leading a publication they face discrimination. “We’re still thinking about what to do with that knee jerk reaction about two black women running this kind of publication,” Smalls said. “A lot of the discrimination we get in terms of not being invited to certain conferences and why that is...

We’re just trying to figure out what to do with that information.”

Davis, Smalls and the editorial and writing staffs of Embrace, have been enormously successful. After publishing “Identities,” the co-editors found that the response improved significantly. Embrace ran out of publications within days and suddenly the two were being invited to meet with The Ithacan and Dean Gayeski. The Ithacan wanted to communicate how the two outlets can grow and learn from each other, and Gayeski wanted to provide feedback and support.

In the wake of “Identities,” people and groups have reached out to have their stories portrayed in upcoming editions, as they feel that Embrace may be one of the only publications to handle their stories appropriately.

As for the future, the two have made a plan for the next three years which involves branching out an Embrace to Cornell and Tompkins County Community College. Through their connections they also hope to bring Embrace to a national level, reaching out to other colleges and universities across the country.

Above all, Davis and Smalls want to emphasize that Embrace is open and accessible to everyone. Smalls feels that intersectionality is often used as a buzzword on campus, but the staff of Embrace seek to truly put intersectionality at the heart of their work.

“Trying to really unpack what that is, analyze what that is, and then put that into our core– in our value and into everything we produce– because there’s layers and nuance and we want to portray that,” Smalls said.

Through their unabashed emphasis on true intersectionality, they hope largely and above all to create a space for those who feel like they don’t have one.

“I can only speak for myself, but in the experiences that I’ve had with other people on this campus they felt like they weren’t able to share their experiences either...I didn’t really see a lot of people who looked like me within many of the publications on campus. A lot of the time people say in our meetings they feel very comfortable there because there are so many people from different backgrounds. Intersectionality is a big thing for us, not just in our publication but in our club as a whole.” Davis said.

James Baratta and Alexis Morillo are both journalism majors, and Mateo Flores is a Writing for Film, TV, Emerging Media major.

All three of them, honestly, think their media making peers are pretty fucking dope. They can be reached at jbaratta@ithaca. edu, amorillo@ithaca.edu and mflores@ithaca.edu.

18

What’s in the Chamber?

A hypothetical look at the future of ammunition control in America //

By Ethan Weisman, Contributing Writer, Image by Adam Dee

T

he United States has been the site of thousands of mass shootings. The widespread debate over gun ownership has overshadowed legitimate concerns about ammunition control, which is the regulation of both the amount of ammo that can be purchased at one time and the sale of augmented bullet types.

Following the events of the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012, which claimed the lives of 20 children and seven adults, guncontrol activists, like March for Our Lives, have butted heads with the National Rifle Association (NRA) in recent years about laws concerning gun ownership.

According to Vox, there have been 116 people killed and 346 wounded in 98 mass shootings, collectively. In an article from the February 2013 “Numbers” issue of Buzzsaw, Pat Feeney reported that “for every 100 U.S citizens, there are nearly 90 individual firearms owned — some 270 million guns amongst the nation’s population.”

While some argue that the right to own firearms, which is backed by the 230-year-old second amendment of the U.S. Constitution, is subject to change, but others argue that gun ownership should not be compromised.

Amy Hunter, a spokeswoman for the NRA, said that the right to own firearms is not something that should be revoked from the American people.

“There is no reason to over-regulate law-abiding gun owners. If law enforcement wants to reduce crime, they should focus on the criminals who break laws – not the people who follow them,” Hunter said. “The Supreme Court has made clear that the Second Amendment is in place to protect the right of self-defense for everyday Americans.”

However, ammunition control differs from the typical gun control debate in that it reflects the laws and ordinances in place to regulate the exchange of ammo, rather than ownership of firearms in general.

Laws concerning the purchase of ammunition vary from state to state. Augmented bullet types include armor piercing, full metal jacket incendiary, tracer, hollow point and more.

According to Giffords Law Center, one cannot purchase bullets that contain “an explosive substance designed to explode or detonate on impact” in New York State.

Freedom Munitions, an American-based armament company, sells a single .50 caliber armor-piercing incendiary bullet (APIT) with a full metal jacket (FMJ) bullet profile or $3.64. The same bullet with FMJ sells for $2.59 per round — that’s a $1.05 difference.

If the only ammo available consisted of specialized rounds, it’s possible that it would be less cost-effective for the consumer to buy ammunition because these specialized rounds are more expensive. The starting price of bullets would become more expensive, and ammunition companies could raise the prices of other bullets which would allow them to continue to make the same profit margins as before.

Hunter said that the second amendment should not be income-selective.

“In this country, you have a right to protect yourself regardless of your income,” Hunter said. “Pricing low-income folks out of exercising that right is wrong.”

Additionally, if people were inclined to buy in fewer quantities or less often, it could be easier to put regulations in place that would dictate how much ammo civilians are permitted to possess.

Regardless of how ammunition is regulated, it is evident that the firearms industry is a bustling one. In 2016, there were over 27 million guns sold across the United States. However, according to an article by the International Business Times, this number has since been decreasing.

Michael Cargill, the owner of Central Texas Gunworks in Austin, TX, said that raising the minimum price of augmented ammunition would only cause an increase in the prices of traditional ammunition. Thus, reestablishing a new tier system of pricing and potentially leading people to make their own, prohibition-style ammo.

“The firearms industry won’t see less customers,” Cargill said. “People can easily get the tools to make ammo, and they can shoot, and reload and reuse those spent shells to make more again.”

Politicians like Senator Richard Blumenthal have pushed for more ammunition regulation and criticized the lack of background necessary in the purchase of these goods.

However, this concept remains elusive in American politics because of the heightened attention given to firearm control.

“Ammunition sales should be subject to the same legal requirements that should govern firearm sales: universal background checks,” Sen. Blumenthal said in a CNSNews.com article. “The same laws that prevent dangerous individuals from purchasing firearms also prohibit them from amassing arsenals of ammunition, with one major loophole: there are no background checks for ammunition sales to enforce the law.”

The discussion about ammunition control should prompt us to think about the implications of potential solutions to the matter at hand, specifically which of them stress individual safety and which stress individual rights.

Ethan Weisman is a first year sociology major who has a different initial thought when you say it’s “shoot your shot szn.” You can reach them at eweisman@ ithaca.edu.

19

Fake It ‘Til You Make It

Underage drinking on college campuses isn’t going anywhere // By James Baratta, Upfront Editor Images by Frankie M. Walls

I

t’s a Friday night and you’ve got a pregame in an hour. You go to Campus Center dining hall and down four glasses of water, a mound of steaming hot rice, the driest chicken breast available, and refuse to eat your greens because you’ve got very specific plans to break the law tonight.

In your wallet is an ID that says you were born in March 1997 and appears to be issued in the state of Connecticut, except you’ve lived in New York your whole life. This little piece of plastic is your key to the wild world of brews, booze and even e-juice… if it fits your fancy.

On college campuses, it’s common to have friends with false identification or fake IDs. For some, it feels almost essential to engage in the art of pregaming, which includes binge drinking before going out to a nightclub or party. Binge drinking, as defined by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, is the consumption of five (four for women) or more drinks in a two-hour period.

“I know that, for some people, the general trend is to pregame and then go [out],” said Flynn*, a freshman. “You drink before you go out, go out, have a couple more and by that time you’re already cruising.”

But it’s 2019 and students aren’t exactly living out their “Animal House” fantasies. Also, the drinking age is 21 and not 18 like it was in 1978. Instead, Ithaca College students go to house parties — typically already in a drunken state — to dance and socialize but ultimately end up drenched in their own sweat.

Beer is a rare commodity at these parties because of how crowded they typically are. Pregaming is usually done to compensate for the lack of alcohol available. After a handful of friends drink themselves drunk, they pile into an Uber and venture off to one of the many promising addresses Ithaca has to offer.

When the parties are expected to suck or get busted,

students with fake IDs always have a backup plan.

“The parties are fun, but they get shut down quick, so it’s nice having a fake in case you want to go out longer, so you go to [redacted] until one o’clock,” said Jackie*, a freshman.

“I don’t think having a fake is essential, but it enhances your college life . . . it gives you more options.”

IDs are harder to replicate than they were 20 years ago.

However, this hasn’t stopped the growth of websites like King of Fakes and ID God, which sport tantalizing header images of parties and concerts.

It is incredibly easy to purchase a fake ID. Once you provide your credentials, a photo and a signature, you can expect it to come within 2-3 weeks.

While it may be easy to acquire a hyper-authentic identification, it’s still expensive. On ID God, it can cost up to $200 if you’re purchasing alone but can be as low as $40 if purchased with four or more people.

“My best friend was actually putting the order together, he used ID God, and I wrote my information into a text message and handed him cash,” said Deborah*, a freshman who ordered a fake ID prior to starting her freshman year.

ID God accepts payment through Western Union, which is a company that specializes in moving money across borders, and even Bitcoin. Not only can you purchase IDs representative of American states, but you can also buy Canadian and United Kingdom IDs. Students who were interviewed about their fake IDs said that the likelihood of being caught is higher if someone tries to purchase at a liquor store instead of a convenience store.

Damian Dodge, an employee at Top Shelf Liquor in Ithaca, N.Y., seconded this when he dumped a bag of over 100 confiscated fake IDs on the store’s counter upon Buzzsaw’s visit with him.

“We take the ID and stuff it in this little bag,” Dodge said.

20

“I’ll try looking through a lot of these cards just to see if there’s any common patterns I find, and there’s a lot of them — we stack up on quite a few IDs.” According to New York Alcohol Training, it is illegal for convenience or liquor store employees to confiscate fake IDs from people who are trying to purchase alcohol illegally.

Instead, employees must refuse the sale of alcohol and should contact local law enforcement. However, this hasn’t stopped places like Top Shelf Liquor from taking fake IDs off of those who attempted to break the law.

Despite this, Dodge speculated the number of fake IDs potentially confiscated at Northside Wine & Spirits, which is also located in Ithaca. LocalWiki called it the biggest liquor store in town.

“We’re a small liquor store, so just imagine how many [IDs] can be found at a place like Northside,” Dodge said.

In the April 2011 issue of Buzzsaw, “Members Only,” Brian Hayes, a writer for the magazine, wrote an article about fake IDs in the Ithaca area. He referenced the process used by Wegmans employees when checking IDs. “The policy at Wegmans is that anyone purchasing alcohol must show some form of ID, whether they are 21 or 91,” Hayes wrote.

In 2016, the CDC reported that 19 percent of individuals between the ages of 12 and 20 had consumed alcohol within the past 30 days.

According to Alcohol.org, college drinking occurs because of the freedom available to students and the social environments presented by typical events like frat parties.

They also attribute this phenomenon to academic stress and reduced structure of time.

“You didn’t have time to experiment before it mattered,” Deborah* said. “You come here now, screw up and get kicked out of school — it explodes.”

Since the drinking age was raised from 18 to 21, college students have been forced to drink alcohol in their dorm rooms, at parties or in nightclubs through the use of fake IDs. It is a phenomenon that is rooted in high schools and even middle schools.

One of the major arguments against this is the fact that men become eligible to either join or be drafted into the military. However, definitions of the so-called age have changed since the 1980s.

The United States Census Bureau stated that over 18 million students are enrolled in college across the

country as of 2017.

“At 18 I’m eligible to fight [and] die for my country, handle a weapon used to take other lives, but I’m not mature enough to have a beer,” Flynn* said.

Regardless of gender, 17 and 18 year-olds make the decision to either go to college or pursue other careers. Deborah* said that at 18, young adults are required to make life-altering choices that people don’t give them enough credit for.

“If we’re old enough to live on our own, make decisions that affect us for the rest of our lives very drastically, join the military and be tried as a legal adult, we should be able to drink,” Deborah* said. *Names have been changed to protect anonymity.

James Baratta is a first-year Journalism major who only drinks appletinis. You can reach them at jbaratta@ithaca.edu.

21

22

From the senior editors at Buzzsaw

23

There are so many reminders that this is the end.

There’s a countdown on my fridge to graduation. I keep hearing the word “last” around every corner. I’ve said goodbye to many things I’ve loved doing for the last four years.

As I look back at my time at Buzzsaw, it’s bittersweet but also makes me so proud. I came into Buzzsaw with no knowledge of the magazine. At all. I applied on a whim to the web editor position since it sounded like a chance to hone my skills. I wasn’t expecting to get invested. I wasn’t expecting to find a family in the people who are this magazine.

I’m not much of a writer, yet this magazine has given me the chance to share my soul and get published. And I’m grateful for that chance.

A lot of work that I do for the magazine is solitary. I don’t often go to the weekly meetings and I’m not exactly required to do most of the editory things that everyone else does (or if I am I’m sorry I’ve been neglecting that for the last three years). I helped Buzzsaw find a new look for their website, I am glad I could help. Most of the time I’m in the Buzzcave, I’m here by myself. Grabbing stuff off of the server to throw on the website.

That doesn’t mean this magazine isn’t a family. We can share jokes and we care about each other. If I see one of these people around campus, I know I can say hi to them. And I think that’s what I’m going to miss about Buzzsaw.

We can pass down our positions, we can pass down our knowledge. It’s harder to pass down camaraderie like you can find in Buzzsaw.

Thank you Buzzsaw for giving me all of these things.

To the new and continuing editors, keep kicking ass. You guys are awesome.

To my fellow seniors, good luck with all of the things. I can’t wait to see all of the amazing places you go. And maybe see you back in Ithaca on occasion. If you want, you can crash in my apartment.

Here’s to 20 more years of this beautiful magazine.

Christine McKinnie, Website Editor

When I was a measly little junior in high school with wonky eyeliner, big aspirations and all, I visited Ithaca College for the first time. It was April and it was snowing. I remember picking up a copy of every publication I saw on campus. The journalist in me knew that this was one of the best ways to get to know the quirky little town that would eventually become my new home over the next four years. I remember picking up my first ever copy of Buzzsaw: the cover was bold and orange with a snail drawing… the “Nasty” issue. I flipped through the pages (which, at the time, were ugly gray newsprint that didn’t do our content justice at all) and I was hooked. The writing was brave and unapologetic, it was raunchy but timeless, it was everything I wanted to be as a writer. The first student org fair that I went to in the fall of my freshman year, I searched mercilessly through each and every club’s table in search of this magazine. I remember looking at the editors seated there and saying “Buzzsaw! I’ve been looking for you!” and one of them replied, “No, we’ve been looking for you.” This reaffirmed to me that Buzzsaw was my place.

I wrote about everything from the Kardashians to capitalism, eyebrows to insomnia, e-cards to subtle racism in college hookup culture. I explored my own abilities while being able to appreciate and learn from our writers and the other editors each and every day. Becoming an editor for this publication was without a doubt one of the greatest gifts my four years here has given me. I remember looking at the senior editors through the years and thinking to myself that I would never be able to be that sure of myself — but here I am. The Buzzcave became one of the safest places for me on our campus. There, I have laughed so hard I’ve cried, and cried so hard I’ve laughed. I have had the great honor of reading the work of my peers and seeing the immense effort that every single individual on our e-board puts into making a magazine that we are proud of. We have changed advisors, printers, budgets, branding, but never once have we changed our mission for our campus community. I am proud to be a part of that and can’t fathom what life without that dehydrated Bogart basement room will be. To the editors we are leaving behind… continue to kick journalistic ass just like Buzzsaw has been doing since ‘99. I already know that you will.

Alexis Morillo, President and Upfront Editor

I picked up my first issue of Buzzsaw during a college visit when I was a junior in high school. At this time, I was struggling to find my identity and I was searching for it within a plethora of college options. This was back when I thought wearing a band t-shirt with a pair of boat shoe Sperrys was making a statement. Clearly, I was confused.

I found Buzzsaw sprawled across a table in the Park School. Its grit and grain drew me in, as well as the classically attractive, blonde cartoon woman on the cover (was this my first real hint at my queerness?). The Swimsuit edition was packed with investigative journalism, creative writing, gross images and a lot of curse words. Immediately, I went home and taped this issue to my wall, and promised myself when I was finally at Ithaca College that I would write for Buzzsaw.

Four years later, I write this farewell as a former staff writer, former multimedia editor, treasurer and production editor.

I didn’t realize until now how the magazine’s and my own growth were undeniably linked. As I slowly came into my own identity, Buzzsaw began recreating its identity. With our printer closing, losing funding and editors graduating, we were greeted with powerful new editors, more readership and way better paper quality. Similar to my angsty teenage self, the magazine’s ups-and-downs have contributed to its greatness as an independent publication.

As I reflect on my four years at Buzzsaw I can confidently say I have never met a weirder, more opinionated, resilient, educated and brilliant group of individuals. I have seen many editors come and go, but what doesn’t change is each person’s passion to produce journalism that matters.

Thank you, Buzzsaw, for seeing me at my best, and at my sleep-deprived worst. I won’t miss staying up until 3:00 a.m. on Sunday nights, but I will miss the energy we have created as a publication. I can only say that I am happy to have been a part of Buzzsaw, even if it was just a blip on a long spectrum of talented editors.

Julia Tricolla, Treasurer and Production Editor

I’m going to cry.

Buzzsaw didn’t start out as a dream of mine, but it became one of the most influential parts of my time at Ithaca College. I saw the magazine in a stack full of publications on campus my freshman year and thought its content was so powerful and so unapologetic. I wanted to be a part of it. A month or so after I picked up my first copy of Buzzsaw, I saw the editors’ call for layout artists and said “this is fucking it.” I had already had three years of experience with InDesign from working for the newspaper at my Catholic high school, but as you can imagine, we were so limited in our voices.

We were stuck with a strict guideline of do-not-talk-abouts, a less-than-free freedom of speech, and a small box where our points of view could try to live: in my section, the opinion column. Moving onto Buzzsaw was like breathing fresh air. I had never seen a periodical do what Buzzsaw does, at least not one that wasn’t Bust or Adbusters, CRWN or Damn Joan, or any of the like that were far out of reach and far off a college campus.

We’re three years older now, coming to the end of our senior year. We’ll be graduating in a week.

But the Buzzcave will still house late nights, with new editors and different playlists. It’ll never see daylight or proper ventilation, but it’ll always have a lifetime supply of Old Spice, so who needs to breathe?

I’m damn proud of us and I’m damn excited for the new editors to take Buzzsaw to new places.

Brianna Pulver, Layout Editor

I remember being a high school senior, visiting Ithaca College for the first time. It was Accepted Students Day, and during the campus tour I saw a stack of magazines with the nameBuzzsaw. I remember thinking that was the coolest name for a magazine I had ever seen. I legitimately chose IC over other schools because of that name.

I remember writing my first piece for Upfront about the ecological impacts of the internet. I also remember getting yelled at via Google Doc by the section editors, “SOURCE???”

I remember my first time getting published. It felt surreal to see my name printed inside a publication I respected so much. It still feels surreal every time.

I remember when I got asked if I’d like to apply to be an editor of News and Views, and trying to act like it was no big deal that the cool kids were officially letting me into their club.

It was Buzzsaw’s name that brought me to Ithaca four years ago. But it’s been Buzzsaw’s staff that kept me here. So I’d like to sincerely thank all the editors, past and present (especially Anna, my wonderful co-editor) for making my college experience infinitely more meaningful, and for being the antidote to the bleakness of college journalism.

It’s time for me to move on from Buzzsaw. But I know it will continue to beckon lost and confused high school seniors like it did me. It will continue to be the place where young writers find their voice, get their first taste of rallying against injustice, and know they’re somewhere they belong.

Thanks for everything, Buzzsaw.

Owen Walsh, News & Views Editor

Thank you, Buzzsaw.

Thank you for teaching me how to write — helping me succeed where my formal journalism education could not.

Thank you for teaching me about rejection — it’s made me more humble.

Thank you for introducing me to like-minded people — I’m happy to have such talented colleagues in the world.

Thank you for reminding me that journalism is still worthwhile and that this kind of writing matters, if, at the very least only to its author.

Thank you Owen, you’ve been the best co-editor I could ask for, and best of luck to Rachael — the mag is in good hands.

Anna Lamb, News & Views Editor

Originally, I started writing articles for Buzzsaw (few and far between) my first year at school after my roommate Julia told me that it was something I would like. I took a hiatus from it for a few years, but come spring semester of my junior year, Buzzsaw and I met again.

This time, my roommate, Julia, approached me about doing social media for Buzzsaw after my Instagram (which shall not be named) gained traction. I love social media to its core and find it to be a powerful tool in promoting and bringing people together. Thus, I took on this role and have enjoyed every second of it.

Buzzsaw has allowed me to meet some amazing people and grow as a person. There is something about sitting in the Buzzcave, a room in the basement of Bogart with no windows or a bathroom, one weekend a month, that makes my heart tingle. Not really… but it was something that I looked forward to. Being surrounded by such hard-working people with aspiring goals and robust intelligence is not something everyone can say they are surrounded by — but, somehow, I am.

So, thank you Buzzsaw for everything and I cannot wait to see what all of the amazing graduating seniors will be doing in the future. I know it’ll be great.

Emma Rothschild, Social Media Editor

I first found out about Buzzsaw during the first semester of my freshman year. I was sitting in my S’Park lecture scrolling through Yik Yak because that class was pointless and the person sitting next to me was telling me about how they were writing satire articles for Buzzsaw. I thought that sounded pretty cool, so I completely forgot about the magazine until a year later at the Student Org Fair. I walked up to the Buzzsaw table and asked, “What do you guys do?”

The person behind the table said I could write about whatever I wanted. So I came to the meeting and took a pitch for Sawdust. I was hired as Sawdust editor in the middle of the last production cycle of the semester so the previous editor didn’t really have much time to train me. I don’t think I ever really figured out how to do my job, but I’ve done alright.

I’m writing this in the Buzzcave in the middle of production weekend. For anyone who doesn’t know, the Buzzcave is the location equivalent of a fever dream. There are no windows or bathrooms. All of the chairs and couches are slightly uncomfortable. There’s a weird closet full of Old Spice products and a one-way mirror indicating that maybe the Buzzcave was an interrogation room at some point.

The room is also decorated with a blow-up doll, collages, a dinosaur mask, a beheaded Barbie doll, a poster of Ronald Reagan and other spooky shit like that. It’s pretty much impossible to do anything productive in a place like this so forgive me for going off on it for the last paragraph.

As strange as Buzzsaw is, getting involved with it was one of the best decisions of my time in college.

I’ve gotten to know so many wonderful people and loved working in such a creative environment. We just hired a bunch of new amazing editors and I’m so excited to see where the magazine goes from here.

Will Cohan, Sawdust Editor

P

28

A Letter from the Editor Dear MOC Readers,

I am not a journalist. When I first came to Buzzsaw, I knew that I wanted to write and get published in a printed publication.

I came to Buzzsaw fresh off of my short one-year career as the fiction editor for my high school’s literary magazine. I came to Buzzsaw mostly writing film and TV reviews, so imagine my surprise when I broke out of that and started writing longform feature pieces. Reviews were easy and short, but breaking out into articles became a foot in the door for me. At the encouragement of my editor and soon to be co-editor, Alex Coburn, I suddenly found myself as an editor of the magazine’s pop culture section. Who would’ve thought?

In my short time as an editor of the mag, I’ve had the pleasure of working with fabulous talented writers and journalists. I’ve been paying attention to pop culture more than I ever have before. In the editors’ goal for “Haircut,” I went back and looked at articles written by Ministry of Cool staff and contributing writers in the past.

A call for representation in the media industries– a topic that I’ve written about now several times over my short career at Buzzsaw– has been written about for several issues going back a little over five years. Samantha Guter wrote about the disparity of women in the film industry in “The Numbers” issue which was published in 2013: “Actresses aside, the number of women working in film is still disappointing; it’s still considered a rarity for a woman to work behind the camera as a screenwriter, cinematographer, or director,” Guter wrote.

Bryant Francis discussed the discrepancies in the portrayal of suicide in cinema in March 2010: “Unfortunately, visual media, in many ways, fails to hold the realities of suicide up to the light. A 2007 study conducted by the Center for Suicide Research at Wayne State University highlights several obvious differences, for example women are less likely to be shown as suicide victims in films, but in reality they’re more likely to attempt suicide.”

I think many desire a call for realism and accurate portrayal of important subjects to be shown in the content they consume, and not only this but for equity amongst the people who are telling these stories in general. The progress made has been slow and unfortunately tedious. As we watch from afar, hopefully becoming the change we want to see in the media and pop culture, it’s painful to watch a film like Green Book win Best Picture. Celebrities are still selectively silent about injustice and sexual predators continue to be heralded despite the allegations around them.

With this in mind, it’s important to remember that pop culture is defined by trends– trends that have the potential to repeat or resurface. Later in this section, you will see how female rappers are currently being pitted against each other in a largely maledominated field. We’ve seen this before; as the early female rappers who paved the way and changed the game for future artists often times were feuding with other female rappers. Perhaps even the uglier parts of pop culture behave like trends as well.

In my deep dive into the 20-year long history of Buzzsaw, it’s clear to see that the Ministry of Cool section wasn’t always pop-culture centered. It’s also largely about culture; hopes and dreams for it, critiques of it, and observations of those living it. Brandon Guarneri wrote a piece about the oncoming demise of metrosexuality (II’m going to preface this by making it explicitly clear that paying attention to how you dress is NOT a sexual orientation): “The death of the metrosexual will be tragic. No outside force will destroy it; no alien spacecraft or gigantic dinosaur with sharp teeth has pegged the metrosexual for annihilation. Actually, the metrosexual will destroy himself,” Guarneri wrote. The time was October 2005. Everything was different.

I think it’s fair to point out that perhaps the pop culture focus has developed over time. It’s hard to figure out where this started or ended, but our personal Buzzsaw archives only go as far back as 2005.

I think a focus on culture is still maintained in our current and more recent editions. The “.edu” issue is a pretty clear example of this, as it’s mostly about the cultures of higher education and the Park school. So then, let me say this: if this is the first copy of Buzzsaw that you’ve ever picked up, or you never really grasped what this section is; the Ministry of Cool section is about art, media, life, food, sex and above all else, culture. While this is the last edition of the semester, if you find yourself wanting to explore the complexities of the larger world around you, consider coming to us next semester. Whether it’s reviews, deconstructions, critiques, investigations, or something else I can’t think of, just know that Buzzsaw would love to have you so that twenty years down the line someone can find you interwoven into the magazine’s bizarre and amorphous history.

Sincerely, Mateo Flores (Ministry of Cool Editor)

Mateo Flores is an overly sentimental sophomore Writing for Film, TV, & Emerging Media major who can’t wait to meet the new voices coming to Buzzsaw. You can reach them at mflores3@ithaca.edu.

29

James Jarmusch: An American Enigma Unsuspecting genius // By Tom Lawson, Contributing Writer, Image by Tom Lawson

A

sword-wielding hitman who follows the Samurai code. A happily-married bus driver and poet. A depressed vampire musician. A nameless, cryptic criminal. A withdrawn libertine looking for lost love. Tom Waits. Iggy Pop. Cate Blanchett. Steven Wright. RZA of the Wu-Tang Clan. This disparate mix of colorful characters and celebrity cameos at first appears wildly eclectic, yet it is their differences that bring them together. Violence and serenity, the extraordinary and the understated, pop culture and cult appeal — this is the cinema of Jim Jarmusch.

It’s impossible to put Jarmusch in a box. He bristles when called an “indie filmmaker.” To him, all cinema is equal, whether mainstream or niche. His work often straddles the two, a loose style that makes sense for a filmmaker both raised and shunned by the film industry’s conventional institutions. Denied his degree by NYU’s masters program for his plotless thesis, Jarmusch entered the landscape of cinema as an outsider, branded a rule breaker and a failure. Rather than conform to industry expectations, he doubled down and found success and recognition creating eclectic, freeform works such as Stranger Than Paradise (1984).

Jarmusch’s early films, shoestring-budget affairs that eschew narrative in favor of melodic character exploration, are crucial in understanding his beginnings as a kind of amateur enthusiast. But his most interesting works are those made in the midst of rising cult status, featuring avant-garde performers who found their voice reflected in Jarmusch’s spirit. While his reputation has only strengthened with time, he still finds himself on the fringe of traditional cinema, his unique visions intact.

People unfamiliar with Jarmusch’s talent might assume a film named Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999) to be a tonal mess. Surely a movie that combines gangster iconography, Mafia bosses, swordplay, the teachings of the Hagakure, and the French New Wave classic Le Samourai (1967), all played to the rhythm of hip-hop beats composed by RZA, would be an unmitigated disaster. Curiously, the strength of Ghost Dog stems from its unconventional collage. Like a musician sampling different genres, Jarmusch deftly entwined concepts from across the globe into an bewitching patchwork quilt.

Critiques of Jarmusch’s work often invoke the word “European,” as if to deem him an immigrant to American cinema. His friend and frequent collaborator Tom Waits thinks of him as a “fascinated foreigner.” Ironically, it’s his outsider perspective that has put him more in touch with the soul of America than anything Hollywood has produced in the past 20 years. Ghost Dog, amid all its flourishes, expresses Jarmusch’s deep interest in the social history of the U.S., from the African-American experience to the loss of Native American land.

Transcending culture and style are just a few of Jarmusch’s talents as a filmmaker, matched only by the likes of Tarantino and Soderbergh. But few of his contemporaries can say they’ve transcended time, too, as he did with Coffee and Cigarettes (2003).

Simply a series of vignettes featuring the titular activities, this amusing oddity exemplifies Jarmusch’s refusal to take cinema too seriously. Just as the film drifts along at its own unhurried pace, so did Jarmusch take a laissez-faire attitude in assembling it over its 17-year production (the opening was made as an SNL skit in 1986).

“It’s not going to solve any great philosophical mysteries... If you get a few laughs out of it, I’ll be happy,” Jarmusch said of the film at its premiere. Ever humble, he may not be giving the film its due credit. However skin-deep he considers the quirky discussions between, for example, British actors Alfred Molina and Steve Coogan or musicians Jack and Meg White, there is something to be said for how they examine, even eulogize, the mundane. In Jarmusch’s cinema, the blissful lulls in life are just as valuable as the thrills.

Naturally, this perspective leads to many deadpan performances, none quite so flawless as Bill Murray’s in Broken Flowers (2005). The actor delivers a heartfelt turn as an aging Don Juan who embarks on an odyssey to track down former flames after receiving an anonymous letter telling him he has a son. Simultaneously humorous and affecting, Jarmusch injects genuine feeling into a piece that could have easily been stilted. Received warmly by general audiences, the movie is dubbed his most accessible, however it still played well for film enthusiasts — it won Jarmusch critical acclaim and the Grand Prix at Cannes.

As with any risk-taking artist, missteps are never far away. Jarmusch’s next work, The Limits of Control (2009), faced a devastating avalanche of criticism. And quite fairly; by any metric it’s a monotonous exercise in minimalism. The esteemed Roger Ebert slammed it with a half-star review, noting that, although it contains all the trappings of a narrative film — a camera, locations, actors — they fail to synthesize into one. Jarmusch had reached the limits of his own control, losing sight of the fact that empathic characters are the lifeblood of his best work.

It’s hard to ignore the thematic resonance of Only Lovers Left Alive (2013) to Jarmusch’s own career. A mournful tone pervades this story of a centuries-old vampire and recluse who yearns for musical inspiration in our modern world of quick

30

rewards. Jarmusch, soon after being shunned by critics (usually his proudest supporters) in the wake of his previous film, poured his soul, his passions — and perhaps his frustrations — into this next work. Self-reflection is often tied to the most provoking art, and in this case that holds true. Staggeringly beautiful, poetic, and haunting, it’s a true pinnacle in his filmography.

Keen-eyed fans have noted the plethora of artistic inspirations on display in brief shots and the backgrounds of the story’s locales. Icons from Bach to Basquiat and Keaton to Kafka populate the walls of our hermit Adam’s space. In packing her bag, his lover Eve includes Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace and Yukio Mishima’s The Temple of the Golden Pavilion. “Originality is non-existent,” famously wrote Jarmusch in MovieMaker magazine. “Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic.”

Obsessed by art in all its variety, Jarmusch has a keen passion evident to observers of his work: music. In his rock-star appearance, his pop-infused soundtracks, even his sense of pace and editing rhythm, it’s clear Jarmusch is someone to whom music truly matters. His documentary on The Stooges, Gimme Danger (2016), charts their rise to fame and is an overt but no less nuanced tribute to the art form. Its decade-long gestation period, prompted at the behest of frontman Iggy Pop, speaks to the effort and care put into its production.

One may assume from Jarmusch’s output and outlook that he’s more of an imitator than a creator, more at home remixing the musings and motifs of his idols than contributing a new perspective on the human condition. One would be wrong, and no greater summary of his ability to fluently explore the soul exists than Paterson (2016). The brilliant Adam Driver headlines as Paterson, a quiet bus driver in the city of Paterson, New Jersey. This peculiar namesake is our first clue to the universal theme at play: the poetic details of everyday life.

For one week, we simply observe Paterson’s daily routine. He wakes up, always before his wife Laura, dresses, always in the same clothes, and drives, always the same routes. What others would call boredom is to Paterson’s contentment. Few disturbances to his peace arise, but when they do he meets them with acceptance, not aggravation, making sense of the world through short-form poetry. Scored by the tranquil ambience of Jarmusch’s band SQÜRL, the film triumphs as a relatable meditation on both the act of aspiration and the charms of circumstance.

Like Paterson, it seems Jarmusch is content with his place. While endlessly innovating with every new film, he has made no attempts to transition from the periphery. His upcoming June release, a zombie comedy titled The Dead Don’t Die (2019), appears simultaneously a step in a new direction and a comfortable affirmation of his voice. And excitingly so, for it’s at the limits where the most fascinating art resides. Over the past two decades Jarmusch has given us the unexpected, the emotional, the soulful, and the eccentric. Never predictable, he is an American enigma — one whom, hopefully, shall remain unsolved.

Tom Lawson is a first year cinema and photo major with front row tickets to The Dead Don’t Die. You can reach them at tlawson@ithaca.edu.

31

It’s Not Just Nicki v. Cardi

C

ardi B or Nicki Minaj? Fans of rap immediately have an answer to the question that has plagued society since the Dominican-Trinidadian rhymer emerged onto the scene. They may also have a rebuttal defending their choice and explaining why anyone who says otherwise is wrong. You often don’t hear the same arguments—at least to the same extent—when it comes to male rappers. Jay Z, Kanye West, Lil Wayne, Drake, Travis Scott, A$AP Rocky— you get the point— can all coexist in the industry. You may feel strongly about why one is the best but your argument probably won’t diminish any of the other artists’ musical ability. There’s room for the endless numbers of males in the rap industry, so why isn’t there room for the females?

In the 2009 issue of Buzzsaw, “Independence,” Jocelyn Codner makes the point that “the rap industry is a ‘men only’ club,” and “women seem to be having a harder time finding their place.” Well Jocelyn, nothing’s changed.

In the early 2000s the conversation about female rappers centered around Missy Elliott vs Queen Latifah vs Lil Kim. The rap industry, unlike the pop industry, has “never allow[ed] for more than one female superstar at a time while treating the other women as incidental, pitting them against one another, or ignoring them entirely,” as journalist Briana Younger explains. Female rappers “would either have to rely on a male cosign to get the exposure they deserved, or they’d end up getting pitted against each other in trivial feuds,” says Bianca Gracie in an article for Billboard.

This sentiment in the rap industry of only being able to have one “Queen” can be traced back to larger patterns within our culture. Growing up we learn about the stereotypical mean girl and cliques. Though our cultural climate and acceptance toward women has improved over time, women have been subconsciously taught to compete and compare. This behavior seems to stem, according to Tracy Vaillancourt, from sexual selection.

Female

If she’s shining, every woman’s gonna shine // By Alyssa Curtis, Contributing Writer competitiveness is a form of “indirect aggression” which is a mixture of “selfpromotion” and the “derogation of rivals” in order to look more appealing than their rival to the opposite sex.

We see female competition amplified in the black community. Black women have a long history of competing against each other instead of embracing and supporting one another. Many attribute it to the idea of black men’s hatred of black women. In 1962 Malcolm X said the most disrespected, neglected and unprotected person in America is the black woman. This disrespect all too often comes from the black man. Bianca Vivion discusses in her article “Between the World and Us: Why Black Men Won’t Love Black Women” how the romantic pursuit of a black man often results in him seeking out non-black women. This pattern causes black women to feel as if they must compete with each other to get the attention of the few black men who do seek black women. Instead of embracing and uplifting one another, the community has faced a long history of tearing eachother down.

When female rappers do try to empower women through their music, their behavior is often met with extreme scrutiny. In “Where the Ladies At?”, Codner writes that “one of the only ways a female rapper can be competitive in today’s industry, is by exploiting her sexuality.” While most lyrics performed by female rappers are about sex, like “Come through and fuck him in my automobile / Let him eat it with his grills and he tellin’ me to chill,” in Nicki’s “Anaconda,” the conversation surrounding their decisions to use these lyrics has changed. Instead of exploitation, female rappers have decided to take back the conversation and use their sexual lyrics to empower women to be comfortable in their own bodies and with their sexuality. “Cardi B’s adeptness at spinning slurs around is rooted in her refusal to feel anything other than pride about her personality or her path,” writes journalist Alex Macpherson. Cardi has defended her lyrical decisions by saying “[Male

32

rappers] always talk about what they want to do to women...Well, this is what women want to do to men: buy me a bag and go about your day… I want you to feel that empowerment, like you could do that.” She’s right.

Ever since the beginning of rap, men have been praised for rhetorics such as “fuck bitches get money” yet women automatically become “hoes” when they express their sexual desires.

While change has been slow, 2019 may prove to be a turning point. Female rappers such as City Girls, Megan Thee Stallion, Rico Nasty, Lizzo, Tierra Whack and more have been making headlines these past few months and gaining more mainstream attention. There have been rumors and suggestions of a XXL Freshman Class of all females, which could do a lot for the conversation surrounding females in the industry.

Ultimately, as a culture we need to make room for female rappers just as we do for men, because “hip-hop culture will suffer if only a small handful of these artists are showered with the bulk of the attention—often for reasons that have nothing to do with their music.” While featuring these women on the cover of a magazine may be a start, “we cannot truly deal with what is wrong in hip hop without facing the broader cultures of violence, sexism, and racism that deeply inform hip hop, motivating the sales associated with these images,” as Tricia Rose declares in The Hip Hop Wars. Until men stop getting praised for misogynistic rhymes at the same time women get belittled for rapping about their sexuality, the rap industry will stay a men’s only club.

Alyssa Curtis is a fourth year Journalism major who’s waiting for you to pass the AUX. You can reach them at acurtis@ ithaca.edu.

Hidden Gems from 20 Years Ago

1999

was the year everybody wanted to be John Malkovich, a little kid saw dead people and we didn’t talk about Fight Club. The twilight of the 20th century also birthed The Green Mile and Galaxy Quest, and American Beauty walked away with five Oscars the following year at the Academy Awards. In theaters, Notting Hill, The Matrix and the start of a new Star Wars trilogy ruled the box office. Stanley Kubrick’s final film, Eyes Wide Shut, emerged, and audiences got their first taste of duplicitous foundfootage horror with The Blair Witch Project.

But some films inevitably get swept away by the waves of time, especially if they aren’t buoyed by Academy Awards or ticket sales. In 1999, the work of reputable auteurs such as Shohei Imamura, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Spike Lee and Jeremy Thomas was buried.

Lee’s Summer of Sam was his first project without a predominantly black cast, and it gets bonus points because it stars Adrien Brody with foot-tall spiky hair. Then there’s Thomas, who produced some of the greatest films of the last 40 years, including most of David Cronenberg’s, Bernardo Bertolucci’s and Terry Gilliam’s oeuvres. His first and only directoral foray was the bildungsroman All the Little Animals, wherein a young Christian Bale runs away from his stepfather, who killed his pet mouse.

Niche independent and international voices were lost in the late nineties too, as James Merendino’s zeitgeist esque SLC Punk!, Julio Medem’s timebending Spanish romance Lovers of the Arctic Circle and Erick Zonka’s Cannes favorite The Dreamlife of Angels went

completely under the radar in the U.S. But the real artifacts from the year are the works of female artists. There’s plenty of bracing, forceful filmmaking from the late nineties directed by and about women, such as Kerri Green’s Bellyfruit, starring Michael Peña in a dramatic role. Toni Kalem made A Slipping-Down Life, which stars Guy Pearce as a famous musician whom a girl pursues after carving his name into her forehead backward with broken glass.

And from China, actress Joan Chen gave us Xiu Xiu: The Sent Down Girl, about a young woman who, following the Chinese Cultural Revolution, is sent to work in the rural countryside, where she befriends a eunuch plowman.

At a cross-section, the period showcased work by filmmaking deities Ingmar Bergman and Robert Altman, but it also offered glimpses at wouldbe auteurs Harmony Korine and Horekazu Kore-eda. 1999 was the height of an era of tectonic cinematic change, and the films that follow should serve as antidotes to the bullet-time entertainment and overwrought, malecentered dramas that ended up defining the year in retrospect.

GENGHIS BLUES Roko Belic didn’t have the career he deserved. In the 2000s, he had a brief and lousy life as a documentarian, and in the 2010s, he directed special features for the DVDs of Inception and The Dark Knight Rises for his childhood friend Christopher Nolan. Belic’s Genghis Blues, which was nominated for Best Documentary at the Academy Awards, is a work of genius– a soulful, resonant work of nonfiction.

Genghis Blues deals with a blind man’s fading legacy — its star, Paul Pena, had a brush with popularity as a blues singer in the ’70s. The documentary picks up

33

Sorry, we missed these ones //

By Tyler Obropta, Staff Writer in 1995, when Pena is determined to go to Tuva. Tuva is a republic under Russian control, a mountainous space to the north of Mongolia whose residents are known for their throat singing. Throat singing is an ancient art from Mongolia and Tuva; it’s beautiful, it’s ominous, and it sounds like the human throat transformed into a didgeridoo. It makes up most of Genghis Blues’ soundtrack.

Belic’s cast is colorful and outrageous— most notably, sound recordist Lemon DeGeorge, who looks like a dollar-store James Dean and who introduces himself by saying, “I’m a treetrimmer by trade, but I’m also a recording engineer, and sometimes I mess around with filmmaking a little bit, and I play some rock and roll.” Truly a jack-of-all-trades.

But Pena carries the soul of the doc.

He’s a large black singer who wraps friends in bear hugs and shakes the room with his laugh. He’s been trying to get to Tuva for 12 years, and when he finally gets there, he’s aptly nicknamed “Earthquake” by the locals.

In Tuva, he enrolls in a throat singing competition. And just when your interest might start to wane, when you’re beginning to wonder why critics sang praises for a movie that’s basically an anthropology doc mixed with a biography, he performs.

Pena walks onstage with no idea what he’s going to sing, and with only a fleeting command of the language, he plays a few songs — some traditional, some original Tuvan compositions and some that meld throat singing with the blues. His kargyraa show is one of the most brilliant documentary moments I’ve ever seen, and it owes completely to how the film engaged me with Pena’s journey. Genghis Blues treats Tuvan culture with such reverence and glee that it’s infectious, and watching the

To Being 20 in 2019 crowd cheer again and again for Pena to sit down and play one more song is one of the documentary’s purest pleasures.

Genghis Blues feels of a time different Ah, the good ol’ days // from its own, as if its indefatigable spiritualism and love of Tuvan culture turn it into a time capsule, an ode to an art form and a culture that few Americans have the privilege to experience.

GOD SAID “HA!” In 1999, romantic comedies were at a sea change. Those clean yet provocative high school comedies in the John Hughes mold were on their last legs with She’s All That and 10 Things I Hate About You, and every high school-set movie was in for a brutal awakening via Sofia Coppola’s romantic drama The Virgin Suicides.

And the Meg Ryan-Tom Hanks vehicles like 1998’s You’ve Got Mail and 1993’s Sleepless in Seattle would make way for Notting Hill and Richard Curtis’ followups, 2001’s Bridget Jones’s Diary and 2003’s Love Actually.

The rom-com industry was shifting under the feet of Julia Sweeney, a comedian who had a four-year stint on Saturday Night Live and failed to break into motion pictures. (She also looks a bit like Meg Ryan herself.) She wrote, directed and stars in God Said “Ha!,” which feels as though it’s an attempt at redemption, at convincing America that she’s still full of comedic talent.

It’s a filmed version of her 1995 onewoman play of the same name, and though many people, including Roger Ebert, thought it was hilarious when it came out, I hesitate to call it a comedy.

Sweeney’s mostly interested in grief and coping with terminal illness. For the majority of the play, she’s talking about her brother Mike’s lymphoma diagnosis, and there’s only the thinnest silver lining of comedy to keep the act from spiraling into depression— “He was in stage 4,” she says. “And there are only four stages; stage 5 is dead.”

I’ll forgive you for not giggling.

There’s also strands of Full House, Frasier and Seinfeld permeating her act. Part of dealing with Mike’s cancer meant that Mike and her parents had to move in with Sweeney and her three cats. Her mother worries about everything under the sun, and her father’s an NPR-obsessed shut-in who

seems to be trying to tune his wife out whenever possible. One of her cats, Gus, understandably can’t live with the company and leaves to stay at her neighbor’s house. I don’t blame him. In

By Jordan Szymanski one of the show’s best gags, Sweeney relates the tale of Gus’ betrayal while smooth jazz croons in the background, as though she’s sunken into one of those film noirs the family would stay up watching to let off some steam and forget about Mike’s disease.

It’s socially aware and revolutionary in the way you’d expect from the era of You’ve Got Mail and Hurlyburly — though it’s about a woman trying to succeed on her own and overcome her grief. She comes from immense privilege, but you’re expected to look past that to appreciate the progressive spirit at its core.

At least it reached more Americans than it would have if Sweeney had tried to market it on her own. Quentin Tarantino (and Miramax, but the less said about Harvey Weinstein’s company, the better) helped produce it, and regardless of your opinion of the films he’s directed, Tarantino’s produced some exceptional movies. His seal of approval helped to sell Wong Kar-wai’s Chungking Express and Zhang Yimou’s Hero to American audiences as well as God Said “Ha!” THE SPECIALIST In 1985, Claude Lanzmann’s epic nine-and-a-half-hour Shoah set the bar for what Holocaust cinema could be. Every Holocaust documentary afterward exists in that film’s shadow, including Eyal Sivan’s The Specialist.

But where Shoah and its successors— including James Moll’s The Last Days, also from 1999— focus on the victims and survivors of the Holocaust, The Specialist trains its eye on the perpetrators. Really, just one perpetrator— Adolf Eichmann, who’d been placed in charge of developing and detailing the “final solution.” In The Specialist, he’s on trial in 1961, nearly 20 years after the end of World War II. In The Specialist, Eichmann isn’t enraged or swearing or foaming at the mouth. He’s the inversion of every cartoonish invention we’ve come to expect from the word “villain.”

He’s first seen in his glass box, as Hannibal Lecter was in Silence of the

34

Lambs, the tense, feverish strings escalating to his introduction— but when we see him, full-on, in a proper medium shot, he’s a balding old man, sitting up straight and polishing his glasses with a rag, unconcerned. What’s most off-putting is how he puckers his lips, speaks plainly and adjusts his glasses— he had 20 years to evaluate what he’d done during the Holocaust, to prepare for his trial. His calm cadence and almost grandfatherly demeanor conjure a completely different kind of monster.

The Steven Spielberg Jewish Film Archive disputes The Specialist, saying that the film, despite being composed nearly entirely of footage from the real trial, misrepresents Eichmann. The film was criticized as showing Eichmann to be a pleasant man, both in terms of how it presents him during the trial and the way accounts of meetings with him are edited.

He’s a frail, small man, reminiscent of Mark Rylance in Bridge of Spies— more like a typist than a mass-murderer. But I think this portrayal of Eichmann’s evil offers plenty of nuance. We can track the ways Eichmann tries to play the victim card, saying he merely “obeyed and executed the orders [he] received,” repeating “it was wartime” as an excuse and as often as possible giving answers that knowingly fall short of satisfying the court.

The Specialist affords us two hours to study Eichmann’s face, to understand his evil. The film ends with the question of whether or not Eichmann believes he’s guilty of complicity in the murder of millions of Jews. He replies, “In human terms, yes. Because I am guilty of organizing the deportations.

Remorse changes nothing. It won’t bring anyone back to life. Remorse is pointless. Remorse is for little children.

What is more important is to find a way to prevent these things happening in the future.”

Lanzmann, the filmmaker behind Shoah, firmly believed it was blasphemous to recreate Holocaust atrocities in art and entertainment.

Instead of easy answers and cheap recreations, The Specialist offers a more resonant exploration of the Holocaust and a more profound depiction of evil with Eichmann’s final words at the trial and the question of whether or not this

man truly is remorseful.

ROMANCE Catherine Breillat’s Romance features what Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian called “a pink orchard of erect penises.”

The film is an 84-minute French arthouse porno where the sex comes fast and dirty. Copulation is Breillat’s forte, if her follow-ups Sex Is Comedy and Anatomy of Hell are anything to go by.

Notably, Breillat’s depiction of intercourse is entirely informed by the female perspective. Breillat’s interested in her jaded nymphomaniac protagonist Marie (Caroline Ducey) as she navigates her unsatisfying relationship with Paul (Sagamore Stévenin). Paul’s dispassionate and wooden, yet not wooden in the way Marie’s other men are— once she fellates Paul and he falls asleep, she goes to a local café and picks up Paolo (Rocco Siffredi), who seems to spend the rest of the morning fondling her breasts in her car.

Marie is tired of Paul’s rejecting her sexual urges. “If a guy could fuck you and simply doesn’t, that’s like the agonies of Tantalus,” she says to yet another partner. Ducey’s monotone mumbling gives the impression of someone who’s fornicated so frequently that she could very well teach a course on it.

Instead, Marie teaches grammar to children— when she writes “dictation” (in French, “dictée”) on the chalkboard, it feels as though sex is invading every aspect of her life. Marie’s also seeing the school’s headmaster, Robert (François Berléand), a BDSM enthusiast— because of course she is, and of course he is. This is Breillat, after all.

With the exception of Robert, Breillat’s characters only wear white and off-white, as though she raided the costume department from George Lucas’ THX 1138. Everyone’s apartment looks too clean, too sterile, as though Marie’s intense desire is completely alien to Breillat’s world.

Independent cinema has a long, treasured history of glamming up sex and imbuing it with artistry, stretching as far back as Kenneth Anger’s work from the 1950s and the homoerotic American biker films from the ’60s and ’70s. 1962’s Satan in High Heels and 1966’s The Maidens of Fetish Street bring femininity to the trappings of the sexploitation genre and smash it together with

art cinema, and as was the case with Romance, both were derided at the times of their release, with many critics saying they were classless, artless porno films. Perhaps they were uncomfortable with nudity and sexuality removed from the male gaze. In Romance, Marie’s vagina gets less screen-time than the litany of phalluses she tours.

The climax (storytelling-wise) comes when Marie, now pregnant, gets a gynecological exam. Every act of sex Marie’s been involved in thus far has hinged on power dynamics– Marie even thinks of fellatio as an act of ownership, so she only gives it to Paul. In the examination room, Marie’s stripped both of clothing and agency, made to lie still while one doctor after another probes her vagina with rubber-gloved fingers.

She imagines a whorehouse where women lie on tables, their upper halves visible only to their husbands, who lovingly hold their hands and look into their eyes while paying customers use the women’s bottom halves. The scene is a dark, dirty, Freudian carousel, and as if this wouldn’t make audiences and critics uncomfortable enough (people could barely stand American Beauty — how could they stomach this?), the scene culminates with a man ejaculating onto Marie’s pelvis, whereupon we hardcut to a doctor spreading ultrasound jelly on her belly.

Some of the most fascinating overlooked films of the late nineties focus, as Romance and God Said “Ha!” do, on women’s perspectives. Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby’s Canadian animated short When the Day Breaks, for example, attempts a grainy, close-up aesthetic for a genre that in 1999 was dominated by Toy Story 2, Tarzan and The Iron Giant.

The law of the land in Hollywood has long been misogynistic. Filmmakers such as Audrey Wells and Barbara Sonneborn, who directed critical darlings and festival-favorite films, didn’t go on to have the same reputations that their male peers did.

1999 is known as the year The Matrix changed sci-fi forever and the year The Blair Witch Project changed horror forever. Yet Genghis Blues and The Specialist should have been formative documentaries, and Julia Sweeney and Catherine Breillat deserve the same success their male peers enjoy. Instead

35

their films came and went, barely making ripples in the pond, and while the turn of the century fell into the rearview mirror, our cinema as a whole continued to look very much the same.

Tyler Obropta is a fourth year cinema and photo major who’s watchin’ movies like it’s 1999. You can reach them at cobropta@ithaca.edu.

madsex buzzlibs!

Old issues from Buzzsaw’s past have been rearranged, stapled, highlighted, smirked at, and lost in other piles of rubbish around our Buzzcave to bring you madsex buzzlibs: the only madlibs on campus NSFW. Enjoy this tiny compillation of Buzzsex past (and always put down 69 or 420 in the number slot).

36

While searching through the abyss of my deep, dark past, I realize my classiest night fell on the evening of my high school senior formal. Unexpected, right? But you’d be surprised at teenagers’ _________ (or lack thereof) these days. noun

My county has a formal dance known as the Red and Whites Ball, in which the girls ask the guys in one cutesy way or another.

A month in advance, I left a _________ and not on my date’s _________—a tasty and sexy treat alluding to the night to come. noun

place

On the night of, my girlfriends and I got together to make sure we looked sexy enough for the occasion. The room smelt of burnt hair and _________ and was hot with steam from the shower and air from the _________. I pulled on my one-shouldered scent

noun

black velvet cocktail dress that just barely covered my ass, and strapped on my _________-inch gold high heels. number

We made our big entrance to take photos and smiled until our faces were numb, then drove to the venue. And after we rushed inside to take our Breathalyzer test, we spent a few awkward hours _________ in sweaty circles with our girlfriends verb

while our dates and other boys tried to grind from behind. Around 11 p.m. the doors opened and we quickly left the dance with excitement, anticipating a night full of inebriated “X-rated” fun.

Back at the after-party house, I ripped off my _________, downed a couple of shots and immediately found my on-again-offarticle of clothing

again hookup. And following every _________ movie, we started hooking up in various locations of the house. A few hours genre

went by and we eventually decided to move our foreplay to the empty _________– very _________. room in a house

TV show

We continued making out—our hands drunkenly re-exploring each other’s bodies—hungry after too much cheap liquor and a few weeks off. As things became progressively steamier, I got down on my knees and leaned in for the next step: the jimmy haha, the mouth-hug, the blowjob.

I opened my mouth and prepared to fill it with some _________-inch man meat, but right then, the door to the _________* number

place

swung open and we spun around. What a(n) _________ surprise when we were reminded that we weren’t the only two adjective

people in the house! Two of our friends (one being my actual date to the formal) started shouting and laughing, whipping my _________ with their ties as he quickly zipped up his pants. euphemism for a sex partner

Mortified, I dashed into the living room and pounced on my passed-out best friend. I buried my face into her peacefully unconscious body and I felt intense humiliation; however, with it came with a hint of swag. But more importantly, I felt like I had broken some rules, done some damage, and, almost, gone down in history.

37

Maybe you picture two shots of _________, a shot of peach Schnapps, some _________ juice and a little bit of orange juice. liquor

noun

Maybe you picture a sunset or a full moon and the waves crashing rhythmically on the shore. You picture heat, _________, and noun

passion, and then you put it on your bucket list, because you insist that one day you must accomplish your fantasy of having sex on the _________. place

Living in a beach town, this is one item on our bucket lists that’s pretty easy to check off. From the moment we all started getting our _________, boys would pick us up, and we would drive around talking and listening to music like any other teenagers. The noun

difference is that our drives always took us east, in the direction of the _________. place*

The summer was winding down. It was the end of August and I was leaving for school within the week. The night was warm, but a cool breeze blew from the ocean. I was at the _________ on the boardwalk, with my friend who had been dragging me to place

shows all summer. That night, it was _________. I knew maybe two of his songs but figured, “Why the hell not?” It was a concert singer

on the _________ and my remaining _________ days of the summer were numbered. place*

place*

My friend and I were sitting by the bar when two guys approached us. They were both very friendly and considerably older. I played it cool and allowed the _________ guy to talk me up. He said he was from out of town, so out of habit, I suggested we adjective

leave the concert and go to the _________. place*

I’ll be honest, it was cool, but it was no Hollywood movie scene. Let’s be realistic for a moment. _________ is not pavement noun

and _________ is not grass. _________ has a nasty habit of sticking onto any piece of _________ that it contacts. Any piece of noun

noun

body part

_________. So, when the making out started getting hot and heavy, you can guarantee we remained standing, and when he body part

finally did suggest we _________, you sure as hell know I stayed on top. verb

Sex on the _________ is not like the drink suggests. It’s more like what you do after you’ve had several of those drinks and you’re place*

feeling about ready to take your clothes off and a _________ conveniently happens to be right next to you. place*

Perhaps if I hadn’t been so eager to live out my own version of MTV’s _________ that summer, I would have planned this out TV show

better. Maybe I wouldn’t have had sex on the _________ with that 27-year-old gym teacher from God Knows Where, New place*

Jersey. I probably would’ve done it with someone whose last name I actually knew. Also, I most definitely would have gone to a private, secluded _________ and brought along a giant towel or two. place*

The whole experience, I must admit, was both thrilling and satisfying in an extremely trashy way. There weren’t any people on the _________ in our area, and although there were people strolling the boardwalk and inside the concert hall, I’m almost place*

positive that no one saw us. However, if they had, I sort of hope they would’ve _________ this random act of spontaneity. verb

Having experienced the fantasy of sex on the _________, I must say I think it’s probably best left as just that: a fantasy. Honestly, place*

the idea of moonlit _________ and the rhythm of the crashing _________ sounds much better noun

noun

than the gritty reality of getting _________ in all the wrong places and the chills from cold noun

_________ blowing up and down your back. After that experience, sex in the bedroom definitely noun

sounds more enjoyable than sex on the _________– but I suppose the drink name wouldn’t have the same ring to it.

place*

38

It’s March of 2015. I’m graduating high school in a matter of weeks. I still don’t know where I’m going to college (or if I’m going to college), or where I’m going to be otherwise in the next six months. Zach, Timmy, Jordan, Amanda and I were at a senior event after _________. The _________ was filled with bubble blowers and a couple big speakers noun

place

bumping ‘07 We the Kings and Timbaland. There were bouncy houses set up alongside buckets of _________, and a game of drink

_________ was commencing under the bleachers. The popular girls were braiding each other’s fried platinum hair and taking noun

pictures on their iPhone _________s’ in their _________-print mini skirts. Meanwhile, the five of us were stoned next to a pile number

animal

of stale donuts from Mariano’s that the after-school tutoring program had left over.

There isn’t much fun to be had at a private Catholic high school _________, and everybody who went to my school made me bodily function

want to choke, so I only stuck around for the people I could actually consider my friends. (Shout out to the real ones.)

Zach tapped me on the shoulder mid-thrust of the powdered sugar munchkin into my mouth and asked me if I wanted to walk around upstairs. I said “Hell yeah,” and swallowed the last of the donut, “let’s smoke your bowl in the _________.” place in a school

We snuck up the stairwell and rattled the _________ with our hands all the way down the hall. He asked me about the noun

_________ project I had been working on at the time and asked if I would to show it to him in the studio. (It was a bust of class

_________ — and yes, I do hate myself.) I guess showing him a clay bust of a giant curling _________ must have really got body part

artist

him going because within seconds we were making out on top of the _________ (sorry, Mr. G). Something the _________ kids noun

class

knew that the rest of the students didn’t was the hidden hallway behind the storage closet in the studio that led our school’s chapel a couple doors down — naturally, I wanted to show off, so I took him back there, guiding him with my hand in his.

We pried open the door of the chapel and walked out into the room where the priests get ready and robe themselves or whatever. We broke into their _________ stash. It wasn’t great. Too _________. noun

adjective

Sitting in the pew, we were silent apart from our giggles every few minutes at the situation we put ourselves into. I got on top of him, and we kissed again. He grabbed my back with his hands and rubbed my nipples under my shirt, telling me we were so _________ and how much he loved it. He asked if we should really do this. “Are we _________?” adjective

adjective

“Yes.” “Do you want to?”

“Yes.” He slid my _________ off, and we fucked right in the pew of my lame-ass Catholic high school’s chapel — _________, article of clothing

adjective

_________, and _________. adjective

adjective

Fuck you, God. I nutted on your _________.

noun

39

40

Lock and Key

by Gabrielle Topping

Chained up Like a beast locked inside a cage.

Isolated from the outside world, Longing to escape.

The restrictions, the loneliness, The unbearable pain and suffering.

To be forgotten, abandoned, Left to survive on your own.

Set free Like a bird released into the sky Exposed to the real world for the first time, Embracing the change.

The resilience, the freedom, The unbelievable power and self-sufficiency.

To be independent, individualized, Left to survive on your own.

41

I Am The Division of Pain, Peacock Bare of Feathers

by Adam Dee

Licking her lips and smiling slick the nun wears the hooker’s heels.

Her foam flowers conceal the slaking scent.

She inflicts wounds she no longer heals.

These images ruin pleasure.

Titans of smoke caged by deluded notions, are kissed by her cruel fist of worship.

Helpless, they are betrayed by their fragile emotions.

My impression of her is unimpressed by this sad attitude, As her true self does not desire those who can’t see what she feels.

I realize her shadow is the character I have known, And there is no precedent for this confrontation of my ideals.

42

What Does it Mean to be American?

by Lytiek Gethers

There are many perspectives on what it means to be an American. Some Americans think being an American is unlimited opportunity, patriotism, diversity, integrity, tolerance, etc. Others think it must be homogeneous to everyone else. Being an American citizen means nothing to me personally. I am not forced by the government to be patriotic to the president, our military veterans, or serve in the military. All I do as an American citizen is go to school, pay taxes, work, and volunteer in my free time. What does being an American mean to you?

We should not call ourselves “American” for nationalism. When we call ourselves American, we are trying to fit ourselves into an imaginary common identity. Nationalism can easily turn into xenophobia. Innocent people can be victims of hate crimes if they are not homogenous with our expectations of what an American should be.

When we call ourselves American, we are being discriminatory because we decide who is American and who is not. Our founding fathers said, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” Though they had their bias on race and gender, their quote advocates unity and is used presently to ensure equality for everyone. When we call ourselves American, we are creating a division and contradicting our founding fathers’ values. Defining ourselves leads us into judging those who are different.

To call ourselves American is to homogenize ourselves. But the United States has never been a homogeneous country in its establishment. We always had diverse religions, cultures, and ethnicities. Our constitution borrowed ideas from the Iroquois Confederacy. Spanish is our second most spoken language due to a large population of Latino/a Americans that call the U.S. home. This is beautiful. Some countries will not tolerate outside ideas because they want to maintain the status quo. The United States has come a long way because we are open to different ideas. When a country is open to different ideas, good things happen.

Multiculturalism is good for America because we are exchanging ideas. If our country accepts other cultures and ideas, our country’s social atmosphere improves. Not only will our reputation go up, but also our country will be praised by the world for living up to its ideals of liberty and happiness. The United States currently has a reputation of being colonialist and racist.

But by allowing our borders to be open and keeping an open mind, our country can overcome xenophobia and racial division.

Because the United States is a multicultural nation, being American is not a priority. If you abide by the U.S. Constitution and the laws, you have liberty. We have natural-born citizens who practice their ancestors’ cultural customs, like Muslim Americans and indigenous people. The First and Fourteenth amendments in the Bill of Rights give everyone the right to religion and equal protection under the law. America has always been a diverse nation and that the title “American” has no true meaning.

The term “American” is absurd. The United States of America is a multicultural nation. People from all over the world fight to get here. Our country was built on diversity and always will be diverse.

43

Maybe it was fate. Or maybe just a weird coincidence.

Whatever it was, he knew he would never be the same when the strange girl sat down next to him. The sickly-green tiles of inside the train station reflected the dim lights in the ceiling, and unreadable graffiti glared at them from the walls.

The girl was panting as she sat down, as if she’d run from somewhere. He gave her a sideways glance but said nothing.

She wore a black cocktail dress with six-inch heels, and thick eyeliner rimmed her eyes. Her blonde hair hung halfway down her back in waves. He supposed he looked drab sitting next to her in his faded leather jacket, graphic t-shirt, and jeans.

He noticed she was shivering. It was twenty degrees outside. What was she doing without a sweater or something? He shrugged off his jacket and extended it to her.

She met his eyes. She looked at the jacket for a full five seconds, then shook her head.

“No, thanks,” she said, her voice like velvet. “I’m good.”

“You sure?” Finn asked.

She nodded.

“Oh. Okay.” He said, still holding his jacket in his hands.

After a moment of silence, she cleared her throat and said, “Nikki.”

“Hm?” “I’m Nikki,” she said.

“Oh.” He sat straighter against the wall. “Finn.”

She smiled. “So where you from, Finn?”

He blinked. “Sorry?”

“Where are you from?”

He shifted. “Oh. Um, nowhere really. Doesn’t matter, does it?”

She nodded as if she understood, though her eyes said she didn’t. She crossed her legs and said, “Just came here from Dallas, actually. Pretty long way, huh? My mom thinks I’m crazy for coming up here. A good Southern girl like me wouldn’t last long in the cold, she said.”

Finn shrugged. He wondered the same thing. What was she doing all the way up here? He shifted and looked away from her gaze. There was something piercing about her eyes that made him shiver.

“I’m sorry. Am I bothering you?” Nikki asked.

The question made him look back up. “Oh, no.” He shook his head. “Not at all.”

She smiled again, then turned to the tracks and leaned back against the wall.

“Do you talk to strangers often?” Finn asked.

She blinked and pursed her lips. “No, I suppose not. But I like you.”

His heart skipped a beat, and he felt his face flush. Who the hell was this girl, anyway? Who just said shit like that? He shivered.

His next words surprised him. “You were at Mack’s, weren’t you? I, uh, saw you at the bar. Not to be creepy.”

What was he doing? Why was he still talking to her?

“Yeah, that was me.” She straightened. “I saw you, too.

I’m not creepy either, I swear.” She chuckled. “But you were the only one drinking alone.”

He nodded. That was true. Drinking with other people was too distracting. “What happened to your friends?”

She looked away. “They, um, left.”

“Oh.” “Yeah.”

“Hey, how long have we been here?” she asked. “Isn’t the train coming soon?”

He looked at his watch. “Um, like three minutes? Almost four now.”

“Seriously? Feels longer.”

He smirked. “Yeah.”

“Hey…” She turned towards him. “Have we met? Sorry, I just thought…”

“No, I get it. I guess you’re a little…”

“Familiar?” She finished for him. He nodded. She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. Her nails were painted cerulean blue. She nibbled on a nail and asked, “So where’s your stop?”

“Clinton. You?” “Same.”

She was lying, but he didn’t say anything.

“Hey…would it be too late to ask for that jacket?”

He smiled wide. “Nah. Take it.” He handed it over, and she slipped it on. It looked good on her.

“Sorry, it’s just super cold.”

“No, you’re right. It is cold, Nikki.”

Her name felt like cinnamon sugar on his tongue.

Four Minutes

by Katherine Langford

44

Green New Future...Or Not

by Kristen Gregg

A Blistery January Day Today is just like any other day in Ithaca. I get up, toss on a light jacket and make my way to the door. As I reach for the handle, I stop, remembering to grab my surgical mask and phone. Alerts flash across the screen: Wildfire Approaching Your Area, Drought Alert, New Ration Schedule. I swipe away the familiar messages that seem to occur several times a week and open the door.

As I step outside, the immense heat envelops me, making my skin itch underneath my light layers of clothing. Dozens of people walk around me, covered up head to toe with no indication as to who anyone is. We bustle through the city, the pavement clogged with pedestrians. Here and there is an odd vehicle, all using up the last bits of fossil fuels.

I stop short before a large patch of dirt. I can remember the days when the park was open, the grass green, and winter was actually cold. It is a distant memory, one from childhood. But the more I daydream about it, the more I become convinced it is made-up, something I imagined from the information we learned about what the Earth used to be like in history class. I brush it off and fall back into the flow of people. We walk on.

A Blistery July Day Today is just like any other day in Ithaca. I get up and look out the window to see the bright green leaves of the trees swaying in the breeze and the shining of solar panels on the roof of the house next door. It reminds me to check on how much energy my own have captured.

As I pick up my phone, the News app flashes the headline The US Celebrates 50 Years of Granting Free Higher Education to All. I pocket it with a smile as I step outside.

The clean and earthy smell of plants wafts through the air. I glance across my garden to see my neighbor. I smile and wave to him as he tends to his garden. While we all don’t have our own gardens, it certainly has become a popular thing to have. We gather every Saturday to swap gardening secrets and offer surplus food. I water my own plants before getting into my car that runs on renewable fuel and drive away from my house.

After parking, I head into town square. Vendors selling all sorts of clean food either side. A wide variety of people are milling about, enjoying the warmth and fresh air. I couldn’t imagine the world any differently, couldn’t imagine it with those old problems that have since shrunken, with the abundance of burning fossil fuels or the heaps of trash that would be deposited far away from the public eye only to never decompose. But instead I am here, among a crowd of smiling people, and I know that the globe is full of more places like here than ever before. Here we are spending our morning full of bliss.

45

46 when i say “yee” // you say “haw” - Rupi Kaur

haw”

Ithaca’s Real 125 Icons

A list of shit we actually care about //

By Alexis Morillo, Upfront Editor

1. Chicken tenders from the pub 2. Don from Towers 3. The #ICPopUp 4. Energizer bunny in front of Smiddy 5. Magic Man in the commons 6. Sandella’s (#RIP) 7. Late night in Towers 8. The baked goods you get when you’re in the library at 4 p.m. on a Friday 9. PRW free tea that isn’t free for students 10. The Whalen bathroom 11. Stealing from SubConnect 12. Club O 13. Your midday Kendall Day nap 14. Your Freshman year RA 15. Emerson Hall 16. DJ Washburn 17. Blue Bombers 18. Brian from Moonies 19. Smoking a blunt in the Natural Lands 20. The walk to Troy Road 21. The Frattic 22. Green Hornet cabs 23. Taking the TCAT to Target 24. The Park Cart 25. Steak Night at Campus Center 26. Every Single TCAT Driver ever 27. Jeff Cohen 28. The person swiping your ID at the gym 29. The guys that work in Master Control 30. Alex Coburn 31. Everyone that smokes cigarettes on the Textor Ball 32. The composition book you have to sign at Northside 33. Overheard at IC 34. The voice of Bomber Beats at the gym 35. IC Crushes 36. Lower Quads 37. The ICC 38. T13 39. The windbreakers that all the D3 athletes wear 40. Grab and Go in Dillingham 41. Rogan’s (fuck Dandy!) …. …. …. ….

125. The Buzzcave Alexis Morillo is a fourth year Journalism major who is the real #1 IC icon. Reach them at amorillo@ithaca.edu.

47

Lamenting Blockbuster Video The charmingly outdated business will live on in our hearts //

By Sean Stouffer, Contributing Writer

I

don’t know why, but I’ve been feeling very nostalgic lately. My mind keeps roaming back to the good old days when walking into people while texting wasn’t really a thing and avocado toast was just a confusing phrase that someone might mistakenly utter. Back then I didn’t have to worry about the NSA spying on me or Russian hackers threatening my democratic sovereignty. Before the Internet literally ruined everything… including video rental.

The moment when Netflix decided to start streaming things over the Internet instead of sending physical copies of the movie through the mail was the day the movie rental experience began its slow, agonizing death. Your kids will have no idea what in God’s name a Blockbuster is, and that is a literal human tragedy on par with the death of Yahoo.

Before you go judging me, hear me out. Some of my greatest childhood memories came out of a Blockbuster. See, it was the ritual experience that meant so much: the hours of searching through stacks and stacks of terrible movies just to find one that might have a chance of being interesting; the waiting in line to check out the movie; the arriving home to discover that the movie inside the case was not what the outside advertised; the going back to Blockbuster to return the movie for the one you actually picked out; the haggling with the cashier who doesn’t want to give you a break; the getting home for a second time to put in the movie only to realize that it is not at all interesting, but you force yourself to sit there because of the trouble you went through to get to this point. It’s all so beautifully flawed and human.

Sure, you get to watch the movies and TV shows you want with no hassle and very little effort, but you miss out on all the wonderful human interaction that came with the Blockbuster experience. The judging eyes as you put together a stack of guilty pleasure movies was not only validating that you should be guilty, but also a fun way to learn that life is an awkward mess and you should just embrace it. You see, I’m not saying that Blockbuster was more efficient, nor am I saying you would be happier if Blockbuster was still around. I’m merely telling you that we’re missing out on so much now that Blockbuster is gone.

Sean Stouffer is a second year Writing for Film, TV, and Emerging Media major who still uses a flip phone to send text messages. Reach them at sstouffer@ithaca.edu.

48

To My Prince Charming, Sodexo, We need to talk.

You were once the Sodex- to my o, and without you my ID will be left un-swiped. I miss your slow service and fast calorie intake, your slightly overcooked grilled cheese and undercooked cheeseburgers but mostly, I miss us.

After our almost 20-year relationship, I needed to express my feelings as publicly as possible.

I want to let the world know of our once fiery, fully-cooked relationship and the raw scraps we hold on to today.

And even after The Odyssey wouldn’t even accept my proclamation of love, Buzzsaw finally allowed me to publish this PDA (Poetic Display of Affection). So here it goes: 20 years ago, your bright blue aprons caught my eye and I was hooked faster than I could swipe in to the old Campus Center booths. I’d look up you up online and be impressed by your worldwide service. I always saw my glasses of oddly thick chocolate milk as half full. I’d smile as I viewed the poorly washed leftover lipstick stain as your way of showing that you loved me too.

The honeymoon phase was everything a girl like me could hope for. I’d stop by late night for Cinnamon Swirl ice cream cones and go to Towers for some build-your-own sandwiches.

But as is true with all long-term relationships, the honeymoon phase ended like a slap in the face with a raw fish on my plate.

How could I trust you again after that week of food poisoning? After buying a premade sandwich that hadn’t been refrigerated correctly in the pub?

My Google search results for you changed as well. I saw you serving not just students, but cellmates. Instead of opening my eyes to a global food service, you locked up my heart with your for-profit industrial service to private prisons.

I began to see the stains on your not-so-blue aprons, and the stains you put on my heart.

I grew up, Sodexo. I learned what food outside the dining hall looks like and I don’t think I can ever come back.

And while I’m here, I have to tell you that I’ve been spending time with Gimme Coffee at the business school when I craved flavor and not-so-processed food.

I’m sorry it has to end this way. We had a good run, but now I need to move on. While you and your stale cereals have stayed the same, I’ve grown to learn of food outside of your prison cells.

In order to go with my gut, I need to take care of it first.

It’s not you, it’s me. I know too much. I’ve been food poisoned too often.

Love, Your Sodexerella Sarah Horbacewicz (Sodexerella) is a third year Television-Radio major who keeps a fry-grease stained hanky as a memento of her love. You can reach them at shorbacewicz@ithaca.edu.

49

Buzzsaw Going Back to its Roots by Selling Saws Creativity is too hard // By Isabel Murray, Sawdust Editor

B

uzzsaw had a good run, working hard to create countless magazine issues for the last 20 years, but all good things die in their own time. We should have guessed that the strain would be too great, and now we’re left experiencing burnout like never

before.

It’s time we moved back to our roots. Many of you may have forgotten, but before we were a magazine, we were the best darn travelling sales team for saws in Tompkins County.

We sold chainsaws, handsaws, circular saws, saws with wide teeth and saws with no teeth at all. We’ve pretended to love the magazine life, but there’s no denying that saws are in our blood.

Besides, it’s hard to ignore how little we’re leaving behind.

First of all, it’s far easier to express yourself through saws than it is through creating art or carefully articulating necessary journalism. You’re angry? Big table saw! You’re humming with delight? Tiny electric saw! You want to express the complexities of modern youth and the fleeting attempts at connection in an increasingly virtual society? Hand saw! Saws are just easier to understand than writing. They just get us.

Plus, who even reads Buzzsaw anymore? Who are we really reaching? Travelling around, selling saws to people who need them, seeing them cut things, carving things into buildings and tools, cutting down perfectly healthy forests to make paper, aiding in chainsaw massacres, removing diseased trees to keep fungi outbreaks from spreading – now that’s influence we can map.

I don’t actually remember why we changed over to being a magazine. Why the fuck did we think we would benefit from trying to be creative? It obviously wasn’t worth our time. The Imposter Syndrome, debates over formatting, journalism ethics, fact-checking slog, frustrating photoshoots, redraws – and for what? Feeling like no matter what we create, it will

never be good enough? Like we’ll never leave an impactful stamp on the world? Like we might as well have never been born in the first place?

Today, youth culture is obsessed with having a voice. Maybe all of us would be happier if our opinions were drowned out by sound of saws. Maybe all of us would be happier if we just listened to the saws, and like, let ourselves drift away. Let the saws lead. Yeah, that… sounds…. nice…. so easy… so — sorry! Sometimes I just get hypnotized by those rotary blades.

But anyway, it’s been a good run. We’re resigning, and we hope you do too.

If you’d like to join Buzzsaw Inc. and help us reclaim the title of Saw Kings of Tompkins County, we’d love to have you join us. If you hire four people to work for you, and they each hire four people, then we’ll spread in no time. If that’s too confusing: email us! We’ll send you a three-dimensional pyramidic infographic explaining the details. We guarantee you’ll saw those student loans in half.

Isabel Murray is a third year Writing major. If you’re interested in buying any buzzsaws, chainsaws, hacksaws, or any other kind of saw, reach them at imurray@ithaca.edu

50

buzzsaw asks why... this column became desperate attempts at humor?

S

o I was flipping through an old issue of Buzzsaw Haircut and I noticed something strange when I got to the end of the magazine. The “Buzzsaw Asks Why” column was actually good. It was asking serious questions that people actually wanted the answers to. Questions like, “Why did Park spend $350,000 on the lobby?” and “Why doesn’t President Rochon want to talk about Sodexo workers’ wages?” You know, things that matter.

At some point, “Buzzsaw Asks Why” went from discussing serious issues to being the regurgitated remains of someone’s Twitter drafts folder. This has given way to unforgettable gems like “Why do olives divide us so?” and “Why do teeth exist?” Maybe there’s someone out there who genuinely wants the answers to these questions, but I doubt it.

The history of Buzzsaw is long and convoluted, so it’s difficult to track where we lost our way. At some point, “Buzzsaw Asks Why” went to the Sawdust editor. That was probably a bad move. If you want a column about something meaningful, give it to literally anyone else besides the Sawdust editor. I don’t know who was responsible for this but I suspect that they may have been trying to sabotage Buzzsaw from the inside. If anyone wants to write an investigative piece about the deterioration of “Buzzsaw Asks Why,” feel free. I’m sure there’s lots of material.

In the meantime, I cannot keep contributing to the destruction of this beautiful magazine. After seven issues of being Sawdust editor and writing eight “Buzzsaw Asks Whys,” I’m probably going to head out. Bye, everyone!

Your editor in rethinking my life, Will Cohan

51