Day/Night

BUZZSAW APRIL 2017

What the Healthcare? pg. 6

Nine to Five pg. 11

MORNING GROOVES

Second Self pg. 15

Buzzsaw presents...

EDITORS’ COMMENT

The Day Issue

Work, school, nine to five. A unit of time, when the sun is above the horizon. Duties, obligations, clarity. You wake up, go to work, and come home.

Is the day as simple as it seems, or is there something more complicated between the clear-cut lines of daylight? Whether you’re on your first cup of coffee or you’ve lost count, things always look different by the light of day.

It’s not so bright for local Ithaca store Sunny Days as they try to outlast financial burdens. The owners have since turned to the close-knit Ithaca community to fundraise and keep the unique store alive (Cloudy Days, pg. 6)

BUZZSAW News & Views Upfront Ministry of Cool Prose & Cons Sawdust Seesaw Layout Art Website Social Media Production

40 hours a week, nine to five? Or sunrise to sunset? The advent of modernity has transformed the ways that humans live their lives. (Work, Play and Fatigue in the Modern Age p.11 ) How many people have said their alter ego is Beyoncé? How many of those people realize that Beyoncé’s alter ego is also Beyoncé? (Second Self, p. 15)

Adviser Founders

Divider and Table of Contents Photography

By Elena Haskins

BUZZSAW:The Day Issue

Elena is a photographer that hails from the kingdom of DeRuyter, NY. She’s a junior Cinema and Photo major studying in Sevilla, Spain. All of these photos were taken in Spain. Her favorite word in spanish is “Mochilla” which just means “backpack.” When she’s not almost getting hit by cars trying to get the perfect shot, she is drawing, cooking stir fry, or using the stair climber.

Alexa Salvato Michele Hau Alexis Morillo Sophie Israelsohn Lexie Farabaugh Jordan Aaron Julia Tricolla Tatiana Jorio Tara Eng Brianna Pulver Claire McClusky Megan Banning Christine McKinnie Katie Siple John Jacobson Alex Coburn Mila Phelps-Friedl Kevin Swann Kimberly Caceci

Jeff Cohen Abby Bertumen Kelly Burdick Bryan Chambala Sam Costello Thom Denick Cole Louison

Buzzsaw is published with support from Buzzsaw is also funded by the Ithaca College Student Governance Council and the Park School of Communications.

Vanguard Printing is our press. (Ithaca, N.Y.)

Buzzsaw uses student-generated art and photography and royalty-free images.

Views expressed in this magazine are not necessarily those of the editorial staff or of Ithaca College.

Feedback and contributions should be sent to buzzsawmag@gmail.com.

Front cover art by Alexa Salvato Center art by Lexie Farabaugh Back cover art by Alexa Salvato

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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.

Table of Contents Seesaw ..........................................................4 Print media is dead, check out multimedia on the web.

News & Views .................................................5 Current events, local news & quasi-educated opinions.

Upfront ........................................................17 Selected dis-education of the month.

Ministry of Cool ........................................30 Arts, entertainment and other things cooler than us.

Prose & Cons .............................................39 Short fiction, personal essay and other assorted lies.

Satire threatening the magazine’s credibility since 1856.

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BUZZSAW News & Views

Sawdust .......................................................45

Seesaw Presents The Day Issue

Gabby: Tatiana Jorio

Day and Night Routine: Mystikal Scalzi

Christina: Tatiana Jorio

“ I’m

a morning person because breakfast food is superior.” - Seesaw Editor, Julia Tricolla Subscribe: www.vimeo.com/buzzsawmag www.youtube.com/buzzsawmag

Cloudy Days

Local business turns to community engagement to stay afloat

By Maddison Murnane, Staff Writer & Avalon Singer, Contributing Writer

O

ne of the first places a tourist in Ithaca will stumble upon is a bright and inviting storefront on the corner of one of the busiest intersections of S. Cayuga St. and W. Green St. This gift shop and marketplace, Sunny Days, was created by Deirdre Kurzweil and her husband Todd Kurzweil to capture the essence of Ithaca and to help both visitors and locals find their way.

Sunny Days specializes in handmade crafts by local artists in the community, food items sourced from the area and items, such as buttons, created by the owners themselves. Goods that are sold in the store range from Purity Ice Cream sandwiches to local wines to earrings made from dried fruit. The goal of the store is to replicate the positivity and community-oriented feel of Ithaca, being a small piece of the city itself.

“I love Ithaca. I love the vibes, the nature, the diversity, the size of it, and I just love everything about it,” Deirdre Kurzweil said. “I wanted people who visited to be able to take a piece of it home.”

The Kurzweils both hold full-time jobs, one a middle school teacher and the other the owner of the market research firm, WBA Research.

Yet they make time to be at the store daily to welcome customers and to be a resource for people in

do. She’s a very positive and sunny person, we work at Sunny Days and we’re at the point of why not.”

While the Commons were undergoing construction, the governing body of the downtown Ithaca area, the Downtown Ithaca Alliance (DIA), attempted to amplify the marketing of the stores in order to keep business flowing. However, the DIA did not have sufficient funds to run this campaign for 36 months. Gary Ferguson, the executive director of the DIA, said that they are doing what they can to help keep Sunny Days, and other affected businesses, afloat.

“Deirdre works very closely with us, so we know a great deal about their business,” Ferguson said.

“One of our missions is to provide as much technical support, help, assistance and facilitation to businesses as best we can.”

With the help of the GoFundMe campaign and the slow resurge in the amount of shoppers in the Ithaca Commons, the Kurzweils are confident that they will be able to keep their store open. Even though they are in a much different situation than they hoped to be in three years after opening their doors.

“My hope is that this year that we get to the point of where we expected to be the first year of the business plan,” Deirdre Kurzweil said.

“Basically restarting.”

Editor’s note: A version of this story was first published in Ithaca Week: ithacaweek-ic.com ___________________________________ Maddison Murnane and Avalon Singer are third-year journalism majors who are currently wearing earrings made of dried fruit. You can email them at mmurnane@ithaca. edu and asinger@ithaca.edu.

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News & Views

the community.

Despite Sunny Days’ joyful exterior, the store has been financially suffering since its opening in April of 2014. The store’s opening day was planned to coincide with the completion of the Ithaca Commons project, but the construction took twice as long as was estimated. Although Sunny Days still opened on the day it planned to, construction would not be finished for 18 more months due to many unforeseen complications.

“I would’ve been stupid if I had opened with 18 months left of construction,” Deirdre said. “It was under construction doubled in length.

The frustration that it had caused the people was unimaginable. It is what it is. I don’t have words.”

Due to the financial struggle Sunny Days has faced, it has cut its staff from five employees to one.

Angela Harrison, Sunny Days’ sole employee for the past two years, said that the construction is the main barrier keeping customers from the store.

“A lot of people were turned off that the Commons were under construction, so they stayed away,” Harrison said. “When the Commons was supposed to be done, everyone was supposed to come back and it would have a beautiful start, but the Commons construction kept getting pushed back.”

Deirdre and Todd believe that the construction heavily affected their business, but they are confident that the community of Ithaca will support them. On Feb. 23 of this year, they began a GoFundMe campaign where locals and tourists alike can donate to the business.

“One of the things I love about Ithaca is how community-driven it is and how supportive everyone is of their neighbors, so why not a go-fund-me for that reason alone?” Harrison said. “I’m staying positive and that’s something my boss likes to

What the Health Care?

Political strife threatens Obama’s landmark healthcare bill

By Isabel Brooke, Contributing Writer

BUZZSAW: The Day Issue

I

t is safe to say that President Trump was disillusioned in his recent claim that “nobody knew that health care could be so complicated.” We all knew. One doesn’t need to understand American health care policy to appreciate its complexity.

Health care language can feel coded, discouraging many from learning about policy and its implications, but its policy is well worth trying to understand, as it affects every citizen. To understand where we are now, let’s begin in 2009, before the Affordable Care Act. Before Obama signed the ACA into law, Americans who had health care got it in one of three ways. The two government-funded, or public, insurance systems were and still are Medicaid, which is intended for low income families and individuals, and Medicare, which is intended for elderly members of society. Everyone else either received private insurance through their employers, bought their own private insurance, or simply weren’t covered. Purchasing private insurance was costly, and, as a result, few did. The Commonwealth Fund reported that in 2010, before the rollout of many of the ACA reforms, “four of 10 adults went without care because of costs.”

Companies were at liberty to deny insurance based on pre-existing conditions, which made coverage even more inaccessible.

The other problem with American health care is its high costs.

In 2009, health care costs reached $8,000 per capita, and accounted for 17 percent of the gross domestic product. In comparison, data suggests that the per capita costs were around $9,000 dollars in 2014, after the ACA was signed into law, though the rate at which costs are increasing has slowed.

This is far more than other comparable countries. PBS reported that in 2010 the United States, combining public and private spending, spent $8,223 per person on health

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care, which is 2.5 times more than the $3,268 per capita that was spent in the average comparable country.

For all this spending, fewer people are covered here than in other developed nations, and the care that Americans get is the same or worse than these other countries. This, clearly, is a fundamental problem.

There are two main challenges that the American health care system faces: we need to be covering more people, and we need to spend more efficiently. The ACA aimed to address the coverage issue in several ways. First, “health care exchanges” were introduced to improve accessibility, creating a virtual space for private companies to compete for people’s business without discriminating based on gender, age, or preexisting conditions, which was a major issue prior to the ACA, because it prevented many from getting health care.

Secondly, the ACA expanded eligibility for Medicaid because there was a gap between Medicaid income qualification levels and marketplace subsidies income qualification levels. This gap led to a large chunk of poor Americans who couldn’t reasonably get insurance. Another way the ACA got coverage to more people was by requiring employers with more than 50 employees to provide insurance to employees.

This expansion, and the rest of the ACA, is funded in many ways. It included cost control measures like getting tougher on Medicare fraud.

It incentivizes hospitals to keep elderly patients healthy so they don’t need to be readmitted to the hospital. There were new or higher taxes on the wealthy and large businesses, and a number of other taxes on tanning salons, brand name drugs, etc.

These taxes were projected to raise over $800 billion by 2022.

In March, the ACA turned seven years old. This health care reform had a 12-year timeline, with the final elements of the act going into effect in 2022. The question, therefore, is

not “did it work?” but rather, “is it working?” To assess this, let’s return to the original problems identified with health care in America: lack of coverage and unsustainably high costs.

The health care exchanges, which were intended to assist with the access problem, had a widely publicized and disastrous rollout in 2014. Now, though, these exchanges are user-friendly, insurance premiums are increasing at a slower rate than before the exchanges, and more insurers are participating, creating more competition. Consequently, more than 12 million people have gotten insurance through the exchange marketplaces.

The Medicaid expansion aimed to make more people eligible for the program so that it would more effectively cover low income individuals and families. Because of the expansion, over seven million individuals have gotten health insurance through Medicaid. However, the 2012 Supreme Court case National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius made the Medicaid expansion optional for states.

As a result, 19 states still have not adopted the expansion, leaving millions in the same position that they were in before. In these states, even very poor individuals still do not qualify for insurance under Medicaid.

The other problem identified with American health care is the unsustainably high costs. Before the ACA changes were implemented, in 2010, health care expenditures accounted for 17 percent of the GDP, and in 2015, this figure increased to 17.8 percent of the GDP. This increase is to be expected with the expansion of programs like Medicaid, yet still, the costs are unsustainably high. In the average developed, OECD country in 2015, health care accounted for 12.1 percent of the GDP. For all this spending, health care in America is not measurably better, and fewer people are cov-

poor, result in less coverage. covered than with a simple repeal Additionally, the ACA encouraged of the ACA. The AHCA also doesn’t enrollment by requiring “people address the systemic problem of who can afford it to obtain health unsustainable spending. insurance or face tax penalties.”

If the ACA only addresses one of The AHCA repeals this, meaning the two major problems, and the that people would not have to pay AHCA addresses neither, then maa penalty for being uninsured. The jor reform needs to be on the horipoint of the measure in the ACA zon. The solution is a complex one, was to drive down costs, as without and I don’t have it. Policy, however, it, healthy people may be less likely is a process, and bills rarely, if ever, to buy insurance, which results in look the same at the end of conhigher prices for people who need gressional negotiation as they do it more, like the elderly and sick. at the beginning. Even with this in Repealing the “individual mandate” mind, the AHCA stands to further will result in fewer people being disadvantages already vulnerable covered.

Americans. The U.S. has to look to The expansion of Medicaid would other nations for a solution, as they change, too. The AHCA allows model that universal health care for Obamacare expansion until 2020, significantly less is achievable. Our at which point “fedsystem now is dyseral funding functional. for people who addition “The Affordable Care Act to Inlooking became newly to eligible starting did not replace our earlier other countries, in 2020 or who unsustainable system, but representatives left the prohave to start gram and came rather built on top of it.” living up to back would be their titles and reduced.” representing It is these Americans. The changes and more that stories and interests inform the report released by the of a diverse body of Americans seem Congressional Budget Office which to not be considered in the AHCA, predicted that the AHCA would as for some reason, the elderly result in 14 million fewer people and the sick, two populations that without insurance in 2018 than if should be central in health care the ACA were to remain in place. policy, are put at a disadvantage in That number rises to 21 million this new proposal. fewer insured people in 2020, and American policymakers need to 24 million fewer in 2026. Overall, look to other countries and listen by 2026, “an estimated 52 million to the stories of American citizens. people would be uninsured, comIn a democracy, the interests of the pared with 28 million who would people come first and health policy lack insurance that year under cur- should reflect that. rent law.”

On the other hand, with the im___________________________________ plementation of the AHCA, federal Isabel Brooke is a first-year exdeficits would be reduced by $337 ploratory major who still has a few billion over the 2017-2026 period. years on her parents’ healthcare But as the AHCA does not do what plan and is taking full advantage of health care reform is intended to it. You can reach them at ibrooke@ do, which is to increase access to ithaca.edu. health care, the benefit of a reduced deficit is, in some ways, beside the point, as the legislation is completely ineffective as health care reform. In fact the New York Times recently reported that under the AHCA, fewer Americans would be

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News & Views

issue. This is largely because the Affordable Care Act did not replace our earlier unsustainable system, but rather built on top of it. It sought to cover more people under the current system, rather than attack our problem of unsustainable health care spending.

So, in a sense, the ACA is working. It is indisputable that more people are now covered, although still, 10.4 percent of adults in America do not have health insurance. While this number is impressive compared to five years ago, care isn’t universal. There are still millions of Americans lacking health insurance, and the problem of inefficient spending remains unaddressed.

Regardless of its effectiveness, with the polarizing nickname “Obamacare” and Republican control of congress and the presidency, the longevity of the ACA is in peril.

Barack Obama needed a democratic president to cement his legacy, especially in this regard, and with Trump in power, it is unlikely that the ACA will remain.

The question now is what will happen instead? The plan put forth on Mar. 6 by house Republicans, dubbed the American Health Care Act, is different in many ways that leave the elderly and poor people at a disadvantage, which is one of the reasons it was rejected by the house.

For example, the ACA introduced tax credits for insurance premiums that were adjusted based on income level and cost of living, intending to encourage people to sign up for insurance through the exchanges. They most benefitted and were intended primarily for low income and elderly people. Under the AHCA, these credits are not adjusted for income or cost of living, meaning that a 65-year-old with a yearly income around $20,000 qualifies for the same amount of credit as a 65-year-old with a yearly income around $75,000. The effect of this is that the people who really benefitted from and needed this aid would receive far less, making insurance unaffordable for many.

Higher premiums, especially for the

Revving Up

A location for innovation in Ithaca

B

BUZZSAW: The Day Issue

By Celisa Calacal, Staff Writer & Max Denning, Contributing Writer

lue and orange chairs surround wooden conference tables. Several whiteboards are set up around the space.

Many of the windows overlook the snowy streets of Ithaca below. All around the space, there are people on their laptops, some working alone and some working with one another. Common throughout this space is a spirit of collaboration and entrepreneurship.

This is the environment at Rev: Ithaca Startup Works, a co-working space that provides resources for startups and small businesses in the Ithaca community. In addition to a two-floor co-working space for businesses and entrepreneurs, Rev Ithaca also offers member-only networking events. A product of collaboration between Ithaca College, Cornell University and Tompkins Cortland Community College, the Rev Ithaca space is intended to provide access and advice to small business companies by offering connections to other business experts. The company currently hosts 32 member companies.

The Rev Ithaca space has expanded since its initial opening in Sept.

2014. While the original location was only one floor on the Ithaca Commons, Rev Ithaca transferred to a two-floor space on E. State St. this past September. With the transition, Bonnie Sanborn, communications coordinator at Rev, said it has allowed Rev to increase the number member-only events they host, such as a monthly meetand-eat.

“It’s been really nice to have the full space open again because we can have all the community events we want to hold, presentations and workshops,” she said.

Rev Ithaca also helps to facilitate partnerships between businesses in the area with growing start-up companies through networking events.

Sanborn added Rev Ithaca was unaware of the potential connections

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that could arise between businesses in Ithaca and start-ups.

“I think we just didn’t anticipate, when Rev opened two years ago, how much people in the established business community would want to meet start ups,” she said. “The networking nights have always been really popular but realizing just how excited people are from local companies to sit with a start-up and talk to them, I think we’ve yet to kind of reach the bottom of that well of interest.”

In regards to networking opportunities, Sanborn said Rev Ithaca also helps startups with finding potential sources of funding.

“We have connected start-ups with a lot of smaller local partners or angel investors that then create a bridge to a funder from California or Seattle or Texas,” she said. “And so the other network that we have that is really powerful for start-ups is those funding connections that each of our entrepreneurs and residents have.”

Rev Ithaca has partnered with several small business around the area, including Firelight Camps, a “glamping” company that offers luxurious camping trips to those interested in camping at the La Tourelle Resort and Spa in Ithaca.

Greg Tumbarello, general manager of Firelight Camps in Ithaca, said the company has partnered with Rev since it opened in 2014, and has followed it throughout its transition period to its new two-floor space. He said working in the space and partnering with Rev Ithaca has benefitted Firelight Camps.

“It’s like they’re a gym,” he said,

“but for businesses.”

With Rev Ithaca in its second year and expanding, Jeremiah Cotman, coordinator at Rev, said the company is constantly finding ways to build on its dedication to start-up companies and entrepreneurialism.

“We’re really finding what is Image by Max Denning

necessary to reach that mission of being a successful incubator for start-ups,” he said. “We are constantly expanding our programs to figure out how to better serve the entrepreneurship community.”

Editor’s note: A version of this story was first published in Ithaca Week: ithacaweek-ic.com ___________________________________ Celisa Calacal and Max Denning are both third-year journalism majors who are learning how to code in Java just in case.

FRONT. UPFRONT. UPFRON

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Nine to Five

Work, play and fatigue in the modern age

By Isabella Grullon, Staff Writer

BUZZSAW: The Day Issue

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orker’s rights have been an ongoing and nonsettable issue for what seems to be forever.

Ever since humans have worked for other people, there have always been issues in regards to working conditions, wages and work-family balance.

In contrast to feudal times, the Industrial Revolution brought these issues center stage as people were suffering from unfair working conditions. Although it was a time when the exploitation of paid labor was at a high. Most factories had their workers on assembly lines from 10 to 12 hours with very little pay.

“Throughout the 19th century, workers in the labor movement worked very hard to limit the number of hours of work in a day, and most of that was for the sake of people doing hard physical labor in factories and construction sites,” said Ileen DeVault, Professor of Labor History at Cornell University. She said working those long hours were extraneous for the workers, leading them to be absent from the family.

The long hours also made workers susceptible to injuries because there was no safety in regards to machines. People usually lost limbs or got sick as a result of pollution and if a person got injured they would not get rehired.

Ever since the labor movement’s success, we have maintained a model in which people work eight hours a day, sleep eight hours at night and use the last eight hours for leisure.

The solution to this problem doesn’t just lie in changing the hours people work or when they work, it depends on how we view the work-day as a whole. Changing the work day starts with tackling when the day starts and figuring that out has a lot to do with the human sleep cycle.

Jessa Gamble, Canadian and English author and co-owner of the science blog The Last Word on Nothing, said that artificial light has in-

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terfered not only with the natural sleep cycles of humans, but also the quality of sleep.

“The duration of sleep is less important than the quality of sleep,” Gamble said. It is important to build a correct sleeping culture, and this starts with offices not having harsh lighting on when it’s dark outside.

Other things that have damaged the quality of sleep are having caffeine later in the day or the use of iPhones and iPads before sleep. Gamble said that these things interfere with the function of sleep which is essentially forming memories and discarding information you don’t need.

But, the biggest interference with quality of sleep is artificial light because it affects a person’s natural sleep cycle.

“We’ve had fire since before modern humans, but the type of light that is going to mess with your clock — brightness and full spectrum and so on — was only available starting when candles were less expensive, and people were able to have lights on all the time. We then evolve into electricity and move towards 24hour factories during the industrial revolution,” Gamble said.

The need for higher productivity during the Industrial Revolution structured the consolidation of human sleep cycles into one eighthour chunk “whereas, before all of this, sleep happened in two relatively separate chunks,” Gamble added.

Those “chunks” are different for everyone.

Roger Ekirch, Professor of History at Virginia Tech has published many papers in which he explains that in pre-industrial societies people have a “first sleep” and a “second sleep.”

His article “Segmented Sleep” published in August 2016 for Harpers explains that a lot of the time that was spent “[performing] chores, [tending] to sick children, [raiding] a neighbor’s apple orchard. Others, remaining abed, recited prayers and pondered dreams.” It was “me” time.

For others it was the time to write or read, what everyone did with their

time was different, and when they woke up and went back to bed also varied.

Forcing humans to sleep eight full hours is unnatural, but “it is very appealing in this productivity culture to minimize sleep and to say that humans don’t need any sleep.

But sleep is the most powerful cognitive enhancer that we know of, and so it is much smarter to sleep and then work effectively,” Gamble said.

If someone is a morning person, and their work day is coming closer to four or five, the artificial light from offices and computers interferes with the individual’s productivity, forcing them to keep working even when the brain and body are tired.

Others have a natural clock where they work better when there is little light, so the harsh lights in offices make them non-productive at their desk. But, once they leave to go home they become alert and productive. This makes them take their work home with them because work needs to get done. This takes away from a person’s leisure and sleeps time because they have to be up again in the mo­ r ning even if that does not sync with their clock.

“There are people who like to have genius sessions first thing in the morning or the part of the night, and throughout the day work is on their mind but, they’re spending time with their kids in the daytime,” said Gamble. This means that people are neither really at work or at “play.”

However, DeVault points out that sleep is a very personal issue and the inclusion of women in the workforce was what began to throw the work-family balance a little off.

“One of the big changes, when you throw any question of workfamily balance into this, is that since the mid-1970s well over 50 percent of women have been working outside the home for wages, and so that really does complicate things,” DeVault said.

She emphasized that when it came to working-class families, most of the times parents had to adhere to strict schedules, and sometimes those schedules do not “line up.”

For example, “when the father of the family is a construction worker who is working from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. and the mother of the family is a nurse who is working from 11 p.m. to 3 a.m. that has a very different family balance than when both parents

Image by Francesca Hodge

work from nine to five,” DeVault said.

These family relationships usually have an adverse effect on the children. A 2013 study from North Carolina State University found that “a job that doesn’t keep 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. hours can hurt the relationships between parents and adolescents, increasing the likelihood that children will engage in delinquent behaviors.” According to the study, the odd hours parents work lead to a weak relationship with their children which in turn made them more susceptible to committing crimes.

Nowadays, a very different socioeconomic class is going after work schedules and patterns. Many in office jobs — usually filled in by college graduates and the upper middleclass — believe working eight hours a day from nine to five is inconvenient, or at least this sentiment seems to be

the norm. The prioritization of productivity and the industrial model of 8-hours of work, 8-hours of play and 8-hours of sleep has begun to crumble, but only for upper-middle class jobs that have more of a focus on employee happiness and health.

For example, SaleHoo’s CEO and Co-Founder, Simon Slade, is well-known for not only eliminating the 8-hour work day but for letting his employees choose their hours.

SaleHoo is an online wholesale directory of more than 8,000 prescreened supplier, and most of the people who work for the company are salespeople who have to deal with a variety of timezones and customers. Having a flexible schedule makes sense for a company that requires people to be at their chirpiest to make sales.

“I have received regular feedback from staff that says the freedom to set their hours is an important factor in their overall job satisfaction. The staff is happier not only because they can achieve a better work-life balance by choosing their hours, but also because this arrangement fosters trust. Granting this autonomy to my staff sends a message: I trust you, and I know you’re capable of handling this responsibility,” Slade said.

The way Slade organizes work hours is that people choose the hours they want to work regardless if it’s eight hours a day and five days a week or five hours a day three days a week. “I expect my staff to get their work done and to maintain a reasonable response time. Outside of those requirements, I don’t make any mandates about hours or timing,” Slade said.

Although this form of management does not focus on ensuring good sleep. The ability for people to choose their hours is based on the idea that they’ll pick the times they’re most productive and in turn make time for leisure and rest when it’s convenient for them.

If your employees work when

they are most productive, then a company will have a better product as well as a higher working environment, “but letting people chose their own hours is reserved for those jobs where people are not treated as machines, and they have more space for creativity,” Gamble said.

“There’s still a lot of working class people in this country and [a flexible schedule] is not going to be a possibility for them,” DeVault added. She explained that people who are a part of the working class would have to show up when it’s needed of them, especially in factory or construction jobs. “[A flexible schedule] could be wonderful for the people it’s wonderful for, but it’s not going to touch everybody by a long shot.”

Both Gamble and DeVault emphasized that although changing the way we approach working hours, mental health and sleep issues are important when we think about systemic change we leave out a great part of the workforce who do not have the luxury of choice.

This is not to take away from the improvements that have been made in regards to ensuring a better, more productive and healthier environment. According to Gamble, there have even been technological efforts to ensure a better quality of sleep in less time to make sleep more efficient. She also emphasized that “we’re not moving in the wrong direction” in regards to being more conscious of the fact that humans are more productive when they chose to be.

But at the heart of the issue is that these efforts to improve leave an ever growing part of the workforce out of the narrative. __________________________________ Isabella Grullon is a third-year journalism major that thinks the “work hard, play hard” mantra is too good to be true. You can reach them at igrullon@ithaca.edu.

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Second Self

Celebrity alter-egos and why they have them

By Alex Coburn, Staff Writer

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alter ego not to protect herself from stage fright, but instead to critique social norms for women. Her second album, Electra Heart (2012), revolved around a character called Electra who, due to the categorical standards imposed on women, is a heartless, cold and completely invulnerable — the opposite of Diamandis’s real personality. Even in creating an entire album around this identity, Diamandis kept her perspective.

“With Electra Heart, it did hinder me because the aim with that was to be a straight-up pop star. So when I was promoting it I realized, OK, this is why I don’t like being a pop star: because people assume you don’t know anything and you don’t make your own music,” Diamandis said. “I saw that change as soon as I dyed my hair blond and created music that had a different production style. It was fascinating but it made me think: ‘I’m not going to do this again.’”

For Diamandis, her alter ego ended up being impossible to maintain because it completely changed the audience’s perception of her. Her alter ego, which was meant to critique the way that women are unfairly placed into boxes, forced her into a box by people who didn’t understand the satire.

In the mainstream realm, even Beyoncé has experimented with creating an alter ego. Sasha Fierce, who was created to coincide with her 2008 album I Am…Sasha Fierce, is similar to Ziggy Stardust in that she is the total opposite of her performer. The Beyoncé we see perform has an incomparable presence, but like Bowie and Diamandis, their real personalities are not necessarily as bold as their alter egos.

“I wouldn’t like Sasha if I met her off stage. She’s too aggressive, too

strong, too sassy, too sexy! I’m not like her in real life at all. I’m not flirtatious and super-confident and fearless like her,” Knowles-Carter said. “What I feel onstage I don’t feel anywhere else. It’s an out-of-body experience. I created my stage persona ... so that when I go home, I don’t have to think about what it is I do. Sasha isn’t me. The people around me know who I really am.”

While Sasha Fierce, like Ziggy Stardust, is an iconic musical figure, she is not interchangeable with her real life counterpart. Instead, she is a way for Beyoncé to reconcile two very different parts of her life. Sasha Fierce may make for a good album, but she isn’t somebody that Beyoncé

Image by Megan Banning

could be forever.

One thread that connects all of these alter egos is that they are temporary. Ziggy Stardust, Electra Heart, and Sasha Fierce cannot be forever — they are phases, ways for artists to grow and change without radically altering their own personalities. While none of these figures can stay around forever, they will live on in fans’ memories, and in the case of Ziggy Stardust, become permanently embedded into the culture. ___________________________________ Alex Coburn is a first-year cinema and photography major whose alter ego is April Ludgate from Parks & Rec. You can reach them at acoburn@ ithaca.edu.

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Ministry of Cool

iggy Stardust. Slim Shady. Sasha Fierce.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Even Hannah Montana. Artists have taken the idea of the second self and transformed it into a way to separate their real self from their performer self — whether it be for one album or their whole career.

But why would an artist who already puts so much work into constructing their public persona already decide to invent a completely new one?

There are several answers to this question. But one of the most famous alter egos of all time, Ziggy Stardust, was actually created out of David Bowie’s stage fright. While Ziggy Stardust is a rowdy rock and roll figurehead, Bowie is naturally a shy person. His alter ego was an attempt to explore a different side of himself that was more comfortable with being in the spotlight.

“I’m not particularly a gregarious person. I had an unbearable shyness; it was much easier for me to keep on with the Ziggy thing, offstage as well as on. Who was David Bowie and who was Ziggy Stardust?

It was motivated by shyness,” Bowie explained in a 1977 interview with The National.

While Bowie was known for his groundbreaking, bold, gender-bending musical performances, Ziggy Stardust was more than just a way to make a statement; it was a way for him to put up a boundary between himself and the audience.

Just because a performer is in the spotlight doesn’t mean that they’re always comfortable being the center of attention. For a natural introvert like Bowie, an alter ego makes the adjustment easier — creating one of the most iconic albums and personas of all time is just a nice perk.

But not all artists with alter egos are doing it out of shyness. Indiepop artist Marina Diamandis of Marina and the Diamonds is a recent example of an artist who formed an

Trophy Lives

What happens when celebrities really like each other

By Alexis Morillo, Upfront Editor

BUZZSAW: The Day Issue

2

016 seemed to be the year of celebrity breakups and not just for couples that were only together for 72 days (I’m looking at you, Kim). The Osbournes split after 33 years of marriage, Taylor Kinney and Lady Gaga have publically decided to “take a break” from their relationship, and of course, there’s the messy ending of beloved Brangelina. As a culture, we love the love of two of our favorite celebrities almost as much as we love watching their relationships fall apart under the scrutiny of the public eye. To imagine a tabloid cover without a catchy headline about two stars breaking up is next to impossible, but we never hear much about the celebrity couples that have stayed together.

Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick have been together for 19 years but are rarely seen on the cover of magazines or promoting their latest roles. In an interview with Daily Mail, Parker admitted “My secret is that I don’t talk about it.

I don’t talk about my marriage.” It would be fair to say that both Parker and Broderick are a bit past their prime in the industry, which may have contributed to their healthy relationship. Parker hadn’t been cast in any big projects since Sex and the City ended in 2004 until her recent role in HBO’s new series, Divorce, and Broderick hasn’t seen much screen time since his role in The Producers in 2005.

Spending less time in the spotlight has probably contributed to their marriage’s success. According to

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a Cosmopolitan article titled “Proof That Celebrities Break Up Because of Their Giant Egos,” fame can have lasting psychological impacts that make relationships more difficult to maintain. Psychologist and fame expert Donna Rockwell explains, “Famous people can become addicted to adulation from the public because it feels fantastic to have all these people loving you. It’s very, very difficult Image by Claire McClusky

to turn that off because the pleasure centers of our brain get stimulated.

We produce hormones that make us feel good when people are yelling our names and loving us from afar, even though they don’t know us.” Separating home life from work is hard in many “normal” relationships, but with a job that comes with the added pressure of publicity, it can be even harder to separate the two. Maybe Parker and Broderick have the right idea when choosing to not talk so openly about their marriage.

As for the couples that don’t work out, it’s easy to find out every detail about their breakup through the media, which in a sort of cyclic arrangement could also be a contributing factor into the failure of their relationship. In a Huffington Post piece titled, “Why Are Divorce Rates So High Amongst Celebrities?”, an anonymous blogger writes, “Even

celebrities can and do develop crushes on each other over their image in the media. When you’re in a relationship with one of them, you get to see the real them.” Not that the media is to blame for breakups directly, but it could potentially add to the messiness of many celebrity breakups. This effect was seen recently with the rumors surrounding the Brangelina divorce; everything from cheating to child abuse was spread around with the joint statement they released citing “irreconcilable differences.”

Although it seems like every day a new breakup happens in Hollywood, divorce has become so normalized in our culture that celebrities don’t necessarily split up more than normal people do. The Huffington Post article said it best: “For an American celebrity, getting a divorce is ‘one of the things many people do here.’ For a British celebrity, getting a divorce would more feel like a fail and unusual because they see Hugh Laurie and his wife Jo Green, Victoria and David Beckham, Sting and Trudie Styler.” It may have an added effect on just how much of a pedestal Americans put celebrities.

All in all, there doesn’t seem to be too much of a difference in the break up rates of celebrities versus the general populace; the former is just more reported on, therefore seemingly more prevalent. Rockwell suggests that in order for a celebrity’s relationship to work out, selfawareness is key to differentiating between their famous persona and who they are in their personal lives.

And if that doesn’t work, they can always afford therapy. ___________________________________ Alexis Morillo is a second-year journalism major who is placing bets on how long Selena Gomez and The Weeknd will last. You can reach them at amorillo@ithaca.edu.

D A Y / N I G H T P L A Y L I S T

Follow Buzzsaw Magazine and this playlist on Spotify at http://ow.ly/vInA30agJae Ministry of Cool

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BUZZSAW: Dunk Issues

NS. PROSE&CONS. PROSE&

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Blue Morning

by Hakeem Anthony

I

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Prose & Cons

woke up this morning to huge, white clouds outside the window with no mastery over their bladder. My bed felt a little damp and she was not present at all. Superstitions cannot be that powerful, but here I am alone, in the dark morning. I get up. A note is left on the mini-fridge: please take medicine. Where did she get a flat tip black Sharpie? An orange case containing the Luvox is holding the note in place. I am not sure what kind of tears I’ll cry today.

I have a wedding to go to. The rain is heavy outside, banging on the windows, begging. I have a black tux on, all black. In the mirror I believe I am looking into, it’s all black. I work my way towards the bed once more to grab the never-used glass beside the psalms she had me muse over last night. I set the still-dry glass on the black Sharpie-written note. Instead of the half-empty case next to the glass, I reach for the metal Altoid case.

Wintergreen. It is April 10th.

Ron comes into the room and turns the light on. He didn’t knock. He says, “It’s time to go, we cannot be late.” He didn’t ask to turn the light on. His tux looks blue. The light also makes my blues show themselves.

He looks at his watch, gold, and iPhone, gold, and the table near the bed. He smiles gold and looks at me. Smiling used to be contagious.

There is a knock on the door. Ron says, “We need to leave.” I look around the room: the mini-fridge, the television, the door to the bathroom, the un-wrinkled sheets on the King-size, the gold King James Version, the windows that only allow the rain to beg — I’ll be back here. There’s another knock. Ron advances to the door, saying we need to go. He opens the door and from my angle, I can only seem him backing up slowly. It looks like his arms are about to raise, but then they go back to his sides. He steps aside and now inside of the wedding suite, a voice whose only authority is the gun being held demands that we give it the money, phones, jewelry we have. The voice says “I will hurt you.” Ron looks naked already. The gold and green he possessed are on the floor. He looks a little teary-eyed. Ron tells me to just do it because we have to get to the wedding. A groom cannot be late.

I walk towards the man. The light is on and from my high school video game knowledge, it looks like a silencer on the gun. No one would blame me. I look at Ron. The voice tells me to hurry up because it has shit to do today. While looking at Ron, I tell the voice my wedding is today. The voice doesn’t care. Mutual feelings.

I look at Ron. I hope my eyes look hopeful. I start walking towards the voice — the voice telling me to keep away if I want to attend my wedding. Ron says “Oh no,” three times. The voice asks him what’s going on. Ron doesn’t answer. He’s on his knees, praying. I don’t understand prayer. The voice aims its barrel somewhere near me. I smile for the first time today.

My phone rings. The voice starts demanding for my phone. I pull my phone out, and answer it. I say “Good morning.” She says “Where are you?” The voice commands I get off the damn phone or I will be very sorry. I tell her “I’ll shortly be in paradise.” She says “Baby, I can’t wait until we are really together and we are really one and we will keep each other happy.” I think she is crying. The smile fades as usual and I start crying.

The voice re-aims the gun at my head. She says “I love you.” Mutual feelings, stronger. I say “I am sorry” and I hang up before she can inquire about my apology. There’s a pile of Ron’s golds and greens. I put my silver phone in the pile, still apologizing to the voice. My greens are put in the pile. I tell the voice “That’s all.” The voice picks up the colors we had to discard and leaves the room.

Five minutes later Ron finishes his prayer. He sees me standing, in my blues, crying. In one hand I have a full glass of water. In one hand I have some of my prescription mixed with some Altoids. Wintergreen. Ron slowly walks towards the only gold in the room on the bedside table. I tell him “We have to hurry up.”

By

Ta ra

En g

HOW I WOULD LIKE TO BE AS A B IB LE V E RS E I . GR O W TH

God grew me in the sidewalk cracks of the suburbs.

He gave me broken petaled-toes and dew drops for eyes, and lined my body with thorns for good measure.

“Your ideas are safe here,” He said, but I was trapped. I don’t want to be the champion of this story.

I watched the world beat before me.

ii. GIRLHOOD

I felt most like a girl when I played roller hockey with my boy neighbors.

I would always fall and bleed from my elbows and knees and watch them play on from the tarmac.

BUZZSAW: The Day Issue

I was too afraid of broken skin to learn to skate (I didn’t learn to swim until grade school), so when we picked teams, I was always drafted last.

iii. BLOOM

Little memories strike me like watching Ghost Adventures with a boy who would become my first ex-something after four years of best friendship.

We saw our first blood moon from the crumbling marble steps of a poor neighborhood, drinking in galaxies with our eyes and ignoring mosquitoes that take rich, round bites from our skin.

When we lose each other, God will look at me.

“You’ve changed.”

I’ll look at the suburbs across the street, through the violets sprouting from my sockets.

“I’d hope so.”

When I look into a mirror, years later, I hope I see reflections of a wrinkled girl with scabs healed over and a hockey puck in her hand, whispering: I am not here to be held underwater. I am here to rise from the ground.

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You can find the complete piece online at buzzsawmag.org.

A Private Public Playlist

by Matthew Radulski

“A ll Things M u s t Pas s ” by Geo rg e Ha rri so n At t he annual Ha llo we e n Itha ca Re co r d St o r e Fair, I p ur c has ed a v iny l r ec o r d o f G eo r ge Ha r rison’ s All T hings Must Pass . I d o n’ t o w n a r ec o r d p layer t ho ug h, s o I g ues s I ’ m t r y ing to latc h onto so me o u td a te d mo d e o f lif e. To t his d ay it s it s o n my d es k at s c ho ol, a nd w hen I’ m ho me , it sits o n my d e sk t her e. “ Sunrise doesn’ t la st a ll mo r ning. T he c lo ud bur s t d o es n’ t las t all d ay. ” As a s o ng, t he r e r eally isn’ t muc h to “All T hing s M us t Pas s. ” T he b es t v er s io ns ar e s im p ly G eo r ge Ha r rison with an a co ustic g uita r. W he n I w ent int o t her a py, my t her a p is t as k ed m e w hat I w ould listen to w he n I ne e d e d to ca lm my s elf d o w n . “All T hing s M us t Pas s ” is t h at s ong. “ Runaw ay” by Ka ny e We s t T he r e is a sound tr a c k to p e o p le ’s d e sp air. Panic at t ac k s c an b e g in s lo w ly o r all at onc e, and these a r e no t mutua lly exc lus i v e o p t io ns fo r p anic .

T he ar c hitect and he a le r o f my p a nic o ne f at ef ul s p ring nig ht w as K anye Wes t , f ar and a w ay my f avorite ge niu s. “Runa w ay” is am o ng his s t r o nges t s o ng s, and it f ind s w hat’ s be hind de pr essio n. T he f a ça d e , the mo no t o ny o f a s ing le p iano no t e. Sc r eam ing and not being hear d b e ca use o f d isto r tio n. T he s o ng d id n’ t help m e c alm d o w n, but it d id he lp me wee p un co ntr o lla bly in the mid d le o f t he s t r eet . So m et im es t hat ’ s eno ug h. “ Wher e do we go fr o m he r e ?” “ V ien na” by B i lly J o e l My friend loaned me a co py o f T he Str anger w hen he w as go ing t hr o ug h an inc r ed ibly ha r d time. At tha t p o int I ha d n’ t r e a liz e d t hat I t o o need ed t o help my s el f. I d id n’ t k now t ha t I’ d soon be go ing to the r a py e ve r y Frid ay. I d id n’ t k no w ho w o f t en I w o uld s t ar t c ont emplating g r i m e nd ing s. I d id n’ t kno w t hat I c o uld s t o p c o nt em p lat ing t ho s e end ings. I didn’ t kno w tha t “Vie nna ” w a s w ait ing.

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Prose & Cons

You can find the complete piece online at buzzsawmag.org.

BUZZSAW: Roots Issue

AWDUST. SAWDUST. SAWDU

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What is Baseball???????????

No seriously, what is baseball?!?!?!?!?!

By Cara Olson, Contributing Writer

A

h, the crack of the bat.

The seventh-inning stretch. The cleats. The costumes. The singing.

The baton-twirling. The harrowing story of one innocent man’s spiral into madness.

Wait, what were we talking about?

Oh, that’s right. Baseball.

But if you dumb readers are anything like the other 80 percent of the country, you have no idea what baseball is.

Lucky for you, Sawdust is here to fill all you ungrateful plebians in on the ups and downs of what we call “America’s Pastime.” So without further ado, let’s get started.

A salute to our country is always the best way to kick off a baseball game.

Nothing beats that warm feeling when the whole stadium has their hands on their hearts, singing along to the song that encapsulates the spirit of America: “Fire Burning” by Sean Kingston. A different performer sings the beautiful melody at every game, and it rouses a rollicking comradery of all the fellow Americans who share a love of patriotism.

Okay, now we’re into the nitty gritty: the mechanics of the game itself. Well, you know how some sports flip a coin to determine what team gets to kick the ball first or whatever? Well, baseball does things a little bit differently.

Instead, the player from each team with the smallest feet faces off against the other in a to-the-death dance battle.

The winner, who is the first person to die, gets the first pitch for their team.

And what is a pitch, you may ask?

Well, my dear boy, “pitch” is the slang term that means the ritual secret handshake between all the team members. This takes up roughly 45 minutes at the start of each game, but

by Jove it’s entertaining. Some say the handshakes are too intricate, but isn’t that what baseball is all about?

The team with the highest scoring handshake gets to choose: Coke or Pepsi? And you just know that debate’s gonna last at least a few hours. But once it’s settled, it’s time to really get down to business — after a half-hour lunch break.

At the root of it all, baseball could be compared to an extreme version of

the schoolyard game Telephone. All the players and coaches, plus some random fans chosen from the stands, assemble in a circle around the field and whisper silly phrases to one another, and the final result gets jumbled all to holy heck. It’s really a sight to see. Everyone has a good laugh. And that, young Padawan, is the true spirit of baseball.

After all this, the baseball game is declared over. There’s no real winner, because we’re all winners at heart, if you think about it. A celebratory ice cream social takes place in each of the bullpens, and the mascots from each team shoot confetti cannons into the crowd. It’s glorious. Hopefully this article has at the very least scratched the surface of the majesty that is baseball, and now you can share the rest of the world’s enthusiasm for the greatest game of all time. ____________________________________ Cara Olson is a second-year TelevisionRadio major who just wants to know what baseball is. SERIOUSLY! Let them know at colson@ithaca.edu.

God Accepts Presidential Medal of Freedom When you thought the ever-lasting hadn’t done enough

By Yasmeen Mughal, Contributing Writer

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to make my students understand that the Earth revolves around the sun?” griped Mr. Lawhorn, a local high school science teacher. Local religious leaders also gathered in celebration for God’s new achievement. Hymns, prayers, and recitations filled the surrounding streets through the afternoon in great jubilee. However, the harmony quickly deescalated as participants couldn’t agree exactly whose God was being commended.

The Metropolitan Police Department, Homeland Security, and Secret Service moved into the situation amongst the religious leaders to intervene.

“I hadn’t seen anything like it since I was on the West Bank,” said Senior Homeland Security official, [name redacted]. Just before the conflict turned from bad to worse, the already gloomy day of rain and clouds broke.

The clouds parted and dissipated across the city. The sun shone, filling the sky with a brilliant blue and the temperature went from a balmy 40 degrees Fahrenheit to a warm 72. The most noticeable feature of the odd yet pleasant weather pattern was the great beam of light that came down directly from the sky to the top of the White

House.

“What a magnificent day for ice cream,” cheered Vice President Biden, who rolled up to Lafayette Park in an ice cream truck and began handing out frozen novelties to protesters, religious leaders and federal authorities alike.

Former Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Charles Frank Bolden, accepted the medal on behalf of God, stating, “Many people are unaware that the sun is also a star.” He was also heard after the ceremony saying that without day and night we would all be very, very, alone.

“We are all just specks. We are all just specks,” he whispered under his breath as he exited the White House with the rest of the NASA team.

God could not be reached for comment. ______________________________________ Yasmeen Mughal is a third-year Writing for Film, TV and Emerging Media major who has a lot of complicated thoughts on religion but will only talk about them over coffee. Reach her at ymughal@ithaca.edu.

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Sawdust

his afternoon, in one of his last movesas Commander-in-Chief, President Obama awarded Vice President Joe Biden the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his 8 years of loyalty during his administration. Later that afternoon, in another emotional ceremony, the President presented the second Presidential Medal of Freedom of the day to God, for inventing day and night.

“To the one who has done only the best for the American people,” said the President in a tear-filled ceremony. “Many Americans have done great things in the name of day and night.”

He cited the inventions of ultimate frisbee, film noir and Kid Cudi’s hit single, “Day ‘N Night,” as some of the greatest achievements that have occurred in both the day and the night.

This heart wrenching ceremony was disturbed by the ruckus occurring outside the White House. Protesters had lined up since that morning, making vocal accusations towards the President regarding the separation of church and state.

“Do you know how long it took me

Disney to Open Avatar Park Ride

James Cameron would rather talk about his tiny little submarine

R

By Will Cohan, Contributing Writer ecently, Disney announced that they will be opening a new theme park ride based on James Cameron’s 2009 classic, Avatar.

The attraction, called “Pandora — The World of Avatar,” will be an immersive experience for visitors who will able to explore the world of the film they forgot about seven years ago.

When speaking about the attraction, James Cameron was very enthusiastic but seemed more focused on his submarine voyages than Avatar itself.

“I want to create a world that’s wide open to the visitors. It’s very important that they don’t feel constricted or closed up, not like when I’m in my submarine. Speaking of which, did you know that my submarine, Deepsea Challenger, is 24 feet long but has a pilot sphere that’s only 43 inches in diameter?”Cameron said.

Avatar fans who always wanted to ride dinosaur-birds from the movie will be excited to hear that they can do

just that in Disney’s new attraction.

Visitors can also take a boat ride down a special river that was probably in the movie and look at glowing plants.

Cameron described the world saying, “The best way I can explain it is like being down in the Mariana Trench.

It’s a whole new alien world. Have you ever been there? I went in my submarine if you didn’t know.”

James Cameron says that he’s wanted to create the world of Pandora ever since he came up with the concept. He stated that, “It’s so amazing seeing an idea in your head come to life and all the work that goes into it. It’s not easy building a submarine that can withstand that kind of pressure, but my team and I found a way to make it happen. It just goes to show how important it is to stay focused on the task at hand and not lose sight of what you’re working towards.”

When asked if his recent projects in deep sea exploration have made him lose any interest in Avatar, Cameron replied, “No way! Avatar’s great,

Steve Bannon Eats Cats Yes. It’s true. Very weird.

always been my true passion. That submarine stuff is just a side project.

But seriously though, if anyone hasn’t seen the documentary, Deepsea Challenge, definitely check it out. It’s all about my submarine and it’s in 3D. What’s not to love?”

“Pandora — The World of Avatar” has been set to open in May 2017.

And for anyone who doesn’t remember what Avatar is, don’t worry, because James Cameron’s been working on four sequels that should be coming out any time now. He’s described the future of the franchise as being “almost as cool as the time I spent 10 hours crouched inside my submarine 30,000 feet underwater.” With a description like that, it’s hard not to get excited about what’s to come in the world of Avatar. __________________________________ Will Cohan is a second-your Cinema & Photography student who also has a tiny little submarine, but everyone keeps talking about James Cameron’s.

You can reach them at wcohan@ ithaca.edu.

By Kirby Wilhelm, Contributing Writer

BUZZSAW: The Day Issue

T

rump’s littler hand creeps toward 4 on the great-great-greatgrandfather clock residing in Steve Bannon’s Hexagon Office, designed with the idea that Bannon needs to be “one side better than the military elite of America.” As he holds two graduate degrees and has worked in the Pentagon, Bannon knows the real truth about the different kinds of planning, bullets, dollars, people and national securities existing in this world. After a long day of cleaning up Trump’s messes—the linguistic, the ideologic, and the bodily fluids—Bannon is ready to go home and complete his robust nighttime routine.

“Four o’clock is when my day is over, just like modern Europe is over.

You know, they’re in a state of postMediterranean whiteness, which just can’t happen here,” he said.

After discussing the role of cats in

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ISIS for two minutes, he abruptly rose and left the room, headed out of the White House.

After pulling into his cave that passes for a home, car still running, Bannon watched Sesame Street for 8+ hours via his iPhone 8, (“China does some things right”) with an obligation to understand “the hidden jihadculture-message promoted by queer Elmo, communist Snuffleupagus and that gay couple.”

Taking notes in crayon, he looked up about halfway through his fieldwork and stated, “I used to be like them, but then I did my research online. I know I’m a better man after watching 35 seasons of this show.”

By day, it’s well known Bannon lives as a creepy, conspiracy theorizing liver-spotted toad-man, but little does the public know that by night Bannon exists as a conniving, kittendevouring world-destroyer.

“Kittens have a soul-power charge unprecedented in the animal king-

dom,” he sermonized at half past midnight.

Picking out two kittens from his herd for his nightly kitten-vodka-Reganpube-brew, he added, “This elixir keeps me young, limber, and smooth.

I thank Jesus that some fellas in Hollywood informed me of the correct way of using cute Kittens the God-intended way.”

Soon shoving, pouring, and dropping said ingredients into his blender, Bannon’s only home-furnishment (“I don’t need much to be happy besides the Donald doing what I say”), he plugged it into his car and turned it on, creating a green, bubbling mess.

Bannon took the top off the blender, imbibed the liquid hodgepodge before turning and stating, “I should really tell Donald about this.” ____________________________________ Kirby Wilhelm is a second-year sociology major whose favorite movie is Kirby Fully Loaded. You can reach them at kwilhelm@ithaca.edu.

Four White Actors Likely to Play Asian Characters Face it, it’s probably going to happen.

H

By Edward Willshire

ollywood has a long history of casting white people to play the roles of Asian characters.

From overtly offensive examples like AustroHungarian actor Peter Lorre’s character from the 1930s, Mr. Moto, to the more recent and no less problematic examples of whitewashing in films, such as The Great Wall and Ghost in the Shell, this ignorant practice has silenced Asian voices and appropriated their stories for white Hollywood. Unfortunately, with little to no progress being made in Hollywood in recent years, it has become clear that white people will continue to be cast in roles that make no sense for them to be cast in. So to that end, here are four white Hollywood actors that will be probably be cast in a role that an Asian actor deserves far more for pretty obvious reasons.

1. Chris Pratt - Have you guys seen Guardians of the Galaxy? Jurassic World? Chris Pratt is one of the hottest actors in Hollywood. This is probably due to him being a quippy white guy who learned how to go to the gym. Yeah, they’re a dime a dozen, but did you see him in Parks and Recreation? He used to have a gut! That certainly makes him qualified for any role Hollywood decides to throw at him. Considering the fact that almost any successful film from an Asian country inevitably gets a much worse American adaptation (see: Oldboy, The Grudge, Rings), I’m sure Chris Pratt will get thrown this bone at some point in his career.

2. Keanu Reeves - not to take anything away from Keanu Reeves as an action star. John Wick was awesome and The Matrix is a classic. That being said, he gets a lot more credit than he’s due. If you’ve seen any of the many great action films made outside of the

BUZZSAW

I live with a morning person.

He wakes up at like 6:30 a.m. and makes coffee. He goes running, or to the gym or something – I don’t know, I’m sleeping. Sometimes I wake up after hearing him make noises and get spooked.

Sometimes, when that happens, it’s still dark out and I don’t know what time it is (I can’t see my clock because my eyes are still groggy) and I panic. The moral of this story is that it seems like he’s kind of living the better life here.

Asian woman almost as much as it loves using white dudes to play literally every role ever. Emma Stone got her shot in 2015’s Aloha. There’s the previously mentioned Scarlett Johansson example in Ghost in the Shell. Even Katharine Hepburn played a character named Jade in the 1944 film Dragon Seed with taped eyelids and a black wig. So what’s all this got to do with J-Law? With no end in sight for the whitewashing, I am just hedging my bets that Lawrence will likely be the next white woman Hollywood will jam into a role that someone of Asian descent would deserve far more. But you know what, maybe that’s just being pessimistic.

Lawrence would be aware of the issue, right? I thought so too; after all, she’s so charming and relatable because she talked about burping once in an interview. I lose some faith when I hear about how she scratched her butt on a sacred Hawaiian monument during the filming of Passengers with fellow inevitable white-washer Chris Pratt.

That and the laughing that went along with the telling of that story.

Look, Hollywood probably will change with time. After all, art reflects reality and reality has changed just as film has. That being said, if this list comes true in any fashion, I think it’s safe to say Hollywood may never learn that the reality in which their art is reflecting has several billion nonwhite people in it that deserve to be represented. _____________________________________ Edward Willshire is a second-year Cinema, Photography and Visual arts student who will hopefully not be guilty of this one day. Reach them at ewilshire@ithaca.edu.

People who wake up early have the whole day ahead of them. They have a few hours until their workday starts to get their personal things done like read the news and adapt to another day of having to be human.

I never have breakfast.

Morning people seem to always have a great breakfast. I want a great breakfast! This is a seriously healthy life to live. Three meals a day? Exercise? A clear will to live? What is

this sorcery?

Sure, it seems that morning people get to sleep early too, and I can’t commit to that life. But I’m also aware of morning people who wake up fully functional on just a few hours of sleep.

Honestly, I’m not sure what I’m talking about anymore.

I’m not a morning person and never will be.

Your editor in waking up no earlier than 10am, Jordan Aaron

Sawdust

ASKS WHY…

Aren’t we all just morning people?

United States, you’d know some of the talent that is out there. Jackie Chan has an extensive filmography from long before he ever made a film in America.

A more recent star, Iko Uwais, is sadly bettern known now for his small cameo in Star Wars: The Force Awakens than for his excellent performances in The Raid and its sequel, where he shows off his mastery of the martial art Penkat Silat. Keanu Reeves knows Kung-Fu, though, and let’s be honest: when it comes to casting the next big Hollywood adaptation of a massively successful action anime, that’s enough for white America.

3. Tina Fey - Tina Fey is a funny person, and has been a powerful voice of white feminism for years.

Unfortunately she let’s her racism show a little bit too often to keep herself off this list. She deserves credit for being able to successfully write, produce, and sometimes direct a lot of the work she acts in. That’s impressive for anyone.

However, Fey loves using this as an excuse to put herself and other white people in roles they probably shouldn’t be in. 30 Rock is a hilarious show, but it’s hard to ignore the repeated use of black and brown face makeup that is done for laughs. Not to mention Tina Fey’s starring role in the comedy about the war in Afghanistan, Whisky Tango Foxtrot. This took the conflict that has claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and turned it into its most natural state: A comedy about dating in a war zone starring two white woman (Fey and Margot Robbie) and British actor Alfred Molina in brown face as an Afghan. Tina Fey tells some hilarious stories about white people, but when it comes to anything else...

Well, she doesn’t really care.

4. Jennifer Lawrence - Hollywood loves using white woman to portray

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BUZZSAW: Roots Issue

Sawdust

27

Jimmy Kimmel Sucks Hopes to connect with common man

By Edward Wilshire, Contributing Writer

S

ince Oscar Host and civil rights activist Jimmy Kimmel successfully grounded the world of the Hollywood elite by bringing in a small tour bus full of 10 people into the Dolby Theater during the Academy Awards, many have been asking what Kimmel may be up to next. Well, a brand new business endeavor for Kimmel will hopefully be that next step.

For those who did not watch this year’s Academy Awards ceremony, there was a short five minute segment in which host Kimmel invited a tour bus of people to walk through the ceremony. Most of the tourists were understandably confused by the hundreds of celebrities that they suddenly shared the room with. However, one tourist captured the hearts of millions with his enthusiasm and energy.

Gary Coe from Chicago strutted confidently through the Dolby Theater. Kimmel, proud of his bold and progressive work as Oscar’s host, spoke highly of the regular people onstage. “They’re incredible people, absolutely lovely. I really got to know them in that five minutes. I talk to so many famous people it’s nice to get to know a couple of just normal people. Such easily pronounceable names too!”

To continue to connect with people like Coe, Kimmel has decided to turn his attention towards Chicago. “I thought to myself, ‘Hollywood is out of touch.’ We’re all so elitist. We hold these big events only in New York and Los Angeles and only invite the richest and most influential people.” To rectify this Kimmel has decided to bring a little slice of Hollywood to the mid-west.

Starting with one location in the south side of Chicago, Kimmel is bringing the Hollywood lifestyle to the people by opening a partcoffee shop part-art gallery chain.

“It’s incredible! Chicago has all these empty lots and parks that are just itching for new exciting

businesses. I’m just amazed no one has thought of this before.” Kimmel explained of his new self-described “philanthropic project.”

The Kimmel owned cafe chain will be named Mahershala, after the Academy Award winning actor Mahershala Ali, from the best picture winning Moonlight.

“I love that name, it’s such a funny name. I made a bunch of jokes about it that went over really well at the Oscars. Did you know I hosted the Oscars this year? I hope when people see the sign on the cafe it catches their eye the same way it captured mine when I was making fun of him in a room full of his peers.” Kimmel explained in an interview conducted while he was getting fitted for a new tuxedo for the grand opening.

Mahershala is like a taste of Hollywood culture and coffee. It is being advertised as an authentic Hollywood experience. A valet service is offered for customers priced, along with everything else sold, accurately to the average of similar business found in Los Angeles. Kimmel, who at this point in the interview was getting his $6,000 shoes polished, summarized his vision for Mahershala, “I think this is a great opportunity for the people of Chicago to learn what it’s like to be a famous Hollywood celebrity. Now that I’ve gotten to know Gary, I’ve realized he’s not that unlike some of the famous people I know. He just hasn’t been given the opportunity to live that lifestyle because Chicago is so far away from New York and Los Angeles.

I’m proud to bring this exciting new experience to Gary and the rest of the windy city.” ____________________________________ Edward Willshire is a second-year Film, Photography and Visual Art major whose favorite Jimmy Kimmel bit is that one where he’s mean to Matt Damon. Reach them at ewillshire@ ithaca.edu.

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BUZZSAW ASKS WHY…

Aren’t we all just night people?

I am a night person. Or maybe I’m just not a morning person, I don’t know.

After getting all my work done during the day, going straight to sleep just isn’t enough for me — I need to milk all I can out of the rest of the day. If I finish my work at 10 at night, I need four hours to fuck around to feel like I had a full day.

Sometimes going to sleep just feels like defeat, especially on a not-particularlygreat day. I can’t just go to sleep and let the day win; I have to stay up and beat it for the principle. Yes, it’s ridiculous, but it’s valid.

As much as staying up late is a part of my routine, waking up early in the morning is just not for me. There’s nothing like the feeling of waking up, blinking the morning goo out of your eyes, being blinded by the daylight coming through the window and facing the anxiety of yet another day. Some people approach the day with gusto, saying, “Yay! Another Day!” This guy, however, wakes up saying, “Ugh. Another day.” The good news is that I’ve usually slept through breakfast; one less thing to do.

Your editor in neurotic sleeping habits, Jordan Aaron

BUZZSAW: The Night Issue

Mission to the Moon

Wealthy elite loves view of world’s peasantry from above

H

Tessa More, Contributing Writer

ave you ever had that itch that you need to escape Earth’s gravitational forces for the buoyancy only space can provide? This father and son duo is living your wildest fantasies, taking an exuberant vacation around the moon. I tagged along to see the vast abyss of space for myself (and for the first class inflight snacks).

Richard Jones, CEO of AM steel, the world’s largest steel producer, has teamed up with NASA to engineer a recreational space ship for the adventure. But it was his 11 year old son Declan who propositioned his father to build it, after he and his Brazilian nanny took a private tour of the popular Air and Space Museum in D.C. Afterwards, still feeling his stomach churning from the astronaut simulator, Declan looked up to the night sky in awe and dismay.

The stars shimmered down taunting him, “I just remember each twinkle speaking to me saying, ‘You’ll never be able to feel your skin simmer and sizzle from the proximity of our scorching heat from the volatile mixture of hydrogen and helium combusting, better luck dying from eating too many Big Macs resulting in congenital heart disease on planet Earth.”

I later asked him where he learned all of this at the ripe age of 11 and he retorted, “No, the stars actually spoke to me, I don’t even know what congenital heart disease is.”

Declan reached into the pocket of his Givenchy suit, retrieving one of his seven smartphones.

The rich baritone of his father’s voice greeted him, “How was the Air and Space Museum? Are you feeling like an astronaut yet?”

Declan replied, “It was childish at most, I just wish there was some way I could go to space and see the stars in person. All the layers of the atmosphere and light pollution dilute the true magnificence of the night sky.”

His father chuckled, “Did you forget that we are exuberant

billionaires that can afford anything and everything? Soon enough you’ll become the astronaut you’ve dreamed of becoming since — when did you have this epiphany?”

“About five minutes ago.”

“Well then we’ll make your five minute old dream come true! You’ve waited long enough.”

Declan skipped with glee all the way home, only tripping over one homeless man, who his father later sued for reckless endangerment.

A week later, Declan, his father, Blue Ivy and myself were strapped into a brand new rocket ship heading for a slingshot trip around the moon.

Blue Ivy leaned over to Declan and whispered, “How can you afford to take a trip around the moon?”

Declan chuckled, “My Papa is a billionaire CEO. This spaceship is made with his company’s steel!

What about you?”

“My mom, Beyoncé, has been spending all of her time with the twins, so I bought myself a round trip ticket with the money I made from my luxury child beauty line, Blue Hivy. All of our products are made with organic beeswax and honey.”

As the spaceship grumbled beneath us ready for launch, Declan shifted anxiously in his seat: “I can’t wait to watch the plebeians shrink to the size they deserve to be,” he smiled sinisterly, “They’ll be miniscule ants I can squish with my pinky toe! I’ll be larger, in charger and on top of the world!”

As the ship rocketed up out of Earth’s atmosphere, Declan leaned against his seat with his eyes closed, “This is how God must feel, I will be a God amongst men.” He must’ve thought that for the rest of his life, which granted, was not going to be much longer.

As we passed through the thermosphere the ship’s steel began to warp in the heat and friction.

Declan desperately looked to his father next to him, but realized much too late he was only a hologram.

“Papa! What is happening to the ship?” We all screamed as our skin began to blister in the intensifying heat of the ship.

His hologram blinked back at him,

“Son, we cut corners producing our steel so that we can have the biggest margins possible. The ship’s steel is actually 35 percent human flesh and bones from the child laborers who have died under the grueling conditions we force them to work in for five cents an hour. It’s the most efficient way to deal with the bodies, and it’s recycled so it’s not bad for the environment.”

He looked out the inflamed window of the space ship, and tried to peer down at the Earth, but the smog from the multitude of his father’s steel factories densely clouded the ozone, so he couldn’t actually see the surface.

Blue Ivy smirked as Declan’s body began to disintegrate. Swiftly, she grabbed my hand and whispered “hold on”, and using her new age StarFleet technology, we teleported out of the sweltering space ship, leaving Declan to die.

As Blue Ivy and I rematerialized in a hip recording studio, she let go of my sweaty palm, declared “What a rush!” and hopped into Jay Z’s lap.

Delirious and skin still blistering, I wandered outside just in time to look up and see the ship explode like fireworks. I closed my eyes and thanked my lucky stars for Beyoncé who inadvertently saved my life for the second time (the first was with her release of her Grammy snubbed Lemonade). __________________________________ Tessa More is a second-year journalism major who periodically dreams about being abducted by benign aliens. You can reach them at tmore@ithaca.edu.

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Satire threatening the magazine’s credibility since 1856.

AWDUST. SAWDUST. SAWDU

31

On Being Present

by Megan Banning

I

n my treatment session on Friday, we talked about mindfulness, the act of living vibrantly in the present. A way to cut out distractions and live a fuller, happier life.

I’ve always found this skill impossible to master. There’s so much happen-

ing around me, in my head, that I can’t always bring myself to know where my feet are. All I can focus on are my past and future mistakes.

On Friday, my new girlfriend and I were in her room. We were both a little

nervous since we hadn’t kissed yet, but at the same time, we also felt strangely at ease with each other. While we were lying on her floor in a pile of blankets, noses nuzzled in books, a little voice in my head kept yelling, “Kiss her! Kiss her!”

The moment our lips touched, my life came to a screeching halt. I was

So I asked if I could kiss her. She said, “Finally!”

grounded. Present. In the now. She pulled me from the clouds and planted me onto earth.

When we finally stopped kissing, I rested my head on her shoulder and

held onto her tightly. For the first time in a long time, I felt at peace, at ease.

BUZZSAW: The Night Issue

I hope she sticks around.

22

Breathe in. Breathe out.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

Oh no, now I’m passing out.

You waited to see how long you could test me.

See how long I would withstand everything, see how long you had before the rope finally broke and my perception of life was tampered.

One breath.

Two breath.

Three breath.

Four.

Five breath.

Six breath.

Seven breath.

Floor.

You dangled me off a cliff holding a fragile rope of the person who I was and could be.

The rope of my sanity, the rope of my dignity, the rope of me.

The person growing up in an unknown world.

Say NO once, shame on you.

Say NO twice, shame on me.

So I erased all traces of the word NO from my memory.

Learning quickly that I could never say NO to you.

That NO should have helped me climb back up.

Back to safe and solid land.

I didn’t see what you were doing until it was too late.

You cut the rope and I crashed, thanks to the laws of gravity, down into a place of no return filled with phobias and panic attacks.

All these anxieties and fears flutter inside me.

They’re there just to remind me of what this could have been, of what this would have been, of what this should have been, of what this will never be.

The this being you and the been being the future if I’d allowed you to stay for just one more second.

And it’s all my fault, all because I couldn’t say.

No, because I wouldn’t say.

No, because I should have said.

No, because I didn’t say.

by Kimberly Caceci Prose & Cons

NO

21

BUZZSAW: The Night Issue

F r i d ay N i g h t

by Rae Harris

I spend all my late nights searching for a vice.

A manic ballerina — pirouetting, stumbling into the spotlight.

I won’t make the same mistake twice.

I gamble my bets, always rolling the dice.

I play dirty and I keep my hand of aces out of sight.

I spend all my late nights searching for a vice.

All leather and lace, black eyeliner so precise.

Twisted fairytales — I’m not Cinderella, but soon it’ll be midnight.

I won’t make the same mistake twice.

Crimson lipstick stains, and my heart unmoving ice, I’ll swear I won’t act on instinct, but I might.

I spend all my late nights searching for a vice.

I’ve got a lot of say, but never take my advice.

I’m not leaving this bar without putting up a fight.

I won’t make the same mistake twice.

You’re not the one for me, but for now you’ll suffice.

You look a lot like heaven in the glow of the night, I spend all my late nights searching for a vice.

I won’t make the same mistake twice.

20

BUZZSAW: Dunk Issues

ONS. PROSE&CONS. PROSE&C

34

Fantasy, Reality Anonymous

We’ r e in your bed Yo u r h a n d i s g r a z i n g t h e b a r e s k i n o f m y waist/ I’m in my bed I lift the edge of my shir t, moving slowly/ I reach for your hand Lead it fur ther under my top/ My hand settles on my breast Bra already strewn on the floor/ The movements of the you in my head match those of me in my bed./ Yo u s l i d e a c r o s s m y b o d y, h i p s o n h i p s But I’m not having it/ My hands slide to my waistband It’s time to play/

BUZZSAW: The Night Issue

There’s an impassioned battle between kisses I win because I always run the fuck/ Lip biting, breast fondling Sighs slip out from deep inside of me/ Sitting on your hips Kissing your collarbone/ Sighing, smiling The smell of sex rises/ I move my way down your body Removing the barriers in my way/ I move my way down my body Removing the barriers in my way/ Fantasy/ Reality

18

Kong: Skull Island Horizon: Zero Dawn

Film Review Jordan Aaron

Sawdust Editor

Game Review Segaro Bozart Staff Writer

Marlow deserves an Oscar. Marlow’s been stuck on Skull Island since crashing there in World War II and is starting to lose it up there.

He’s become a member of the native society and learned to value peace over war, but he’s loaded with one-liners and a humanist outlook on life. His advice to the camp stuck on Skull Island: don’t kill Kong. Leave the natural order as it is; there is no need to interfere. Reilly’s character’s humor is the face of this movie’s tone.

Kong is a movie that cuts away from intense action sequences between Kong and several Military helicopters to show shots of a Richard Nixon bobblehead in one of the cockpits. It’s a movie that shows super 16 footage of Hank Marlow drinking a beer and watching the Cubs during its credits sequence. It most certainly is a movie that is willing to laugh at itself. It’s nice to see a movie that allows one to sit in whimsy while watching a bunch of inept humans fight a gargantuan gorilla, and one that’s willing to rewrite Apocalypse Now Colonel Kurtz as a goofy peace-lover who just wants to get home to see his family.

This is exactly the movie we need to see in the age of Trump: anti-violence without being melodramatic, pro-nature without being preachy, optimistic without being naïve, and above all, human. Kong: Skull Island knows its faults. It’s not perfect. It’s not Oscar material.

It’s not pretentious. It is what it is. The quote that comes to mind when talking about this movie is, “If you can’t handle me at my worst, you don’t deserve me at its best.”

Kong: Skull Island marks the return of the Hollywood B-movie that knows what it is. Only the second feature in the filmography of longbearded Jordan Vogt-Roberts, Kong veers away from the dark, brooding style that has plagued blockbuster franchises since The Dark Knight.

And although I enjoyed the dark fantasies of 2014’s Godzilla, it was nice to see a monster movie be goofy.

Set in the wake of America’s exit of the Vietnam War, the film pits war hunger with peace and order. Legendary’s monster films are uniform in their stance of anti-war and removing humanintervention with nature: a staple of classic Tojo films. In Kong, the monster is not Kong, but Samuel L. Jackson’s Preston Packard and his soldiers who were shipped from Vietnam to Skull Island. Kong —­­ the King, the Keeper of Peace — is worshipped by the native people when he saves them from the evil lizard monsters that hunt humans. And Tom Hiddleston’s James Conrad and Brie Larson’s Mason Weaver are the humans that try to reason with beasts.

This brings me to one of the biggest problems with this movie: Why on earth is Tom Hiddleston there? Conrad’s established as the big-time Special Forces battle man, but he doesn’t do any day saving, and only exists to be the man that delivers messages for Mason. While the film tries to depict Mason to be a woman, thus pushing back against gender discrimination, the presence of James Conrad still looks like nothing other than a blockbuster maintaining it’s leading man credentials.

However, John C. Reilly’s portrayal of Hank

Ministry of Cool

splendor, and the ingenious design of these robotic creatures is present throughout the process of game-play.

The most exciting aspect of Horizon’s gameplay is the way it forces you to play smart... or die a lot. Aloy moves with grace and precision, but can hit hard when need be.

The game establishes rules that are harsh, but ultimately fair once you understand them, and extremely rewarding when you learn to utilize everything at your disposal. Enemies require unique strategies per species, as well as exhibit specific behaviors, so it’s beneficial to know thy enemy before engaging in combat.

Horizon: Zero Dawn is a masterpiece in every sense of the word and is one of the best presented games to date. With gameplay that relies both on quick thinking and quick reflexes, Horizon caters to several play styles and rewards diversity of thought. Whether you’re looking for the next great sandbox, next great character, next great story, or just the next great game in general, Horizon: Zero Dawn delivers.

Horizon: Zero Dawn has been marketed as Sony’s next big IP. Following the spectacular close to Nathan Drake’s adventures in the Uncharted Series, PS4 users are introduced to Aloy, gaming’s next big heroine. Exploring a lush open world is fairly commonplace in today’s gaming ecosystem, but Horizon stands out in more ways than just that.

Horizon’s plot is a genuinely intriguing science fiction story that deals with current issues. This story is told not only through the main questline, but in the history of each successive civilization in the game’s’ story world. Collectables tell stories, give you incentive to explore the world, and can be traded for special gear.

The camera is positioned to make the player feel like Aloy, smaller in comparison to whatever else is on screen so the player feels genuinely afraid of enemies. The player feels like they’re exploring the world both with, and as Aloy. She wants to know what the player wants to know, and is just as annoyed when other characters manipulate her into doing what they want.

Horizon is the best looking game on PS4, and they know it, hence the surprisingly deep photo mode. The lighting is fantastic and environments look and alive with grass flowing and rivers bustling everywhere. Rabbits, boar, and other small animals fill the overworld, making it feel like a place that exists, even when the PS4 turns off. Detailed character animations make Aloy feel like she’s actually exerting energy to climb, roll, and slide around the rough terrain. Whether it’s a field of roaming machines, or a ruined skyscraper, or the very common combination or both, the need to sit and take in both the natural

17

Heartworms Album Review Rebecca Szlajen

Contributing Writer

Kedi Film Review Tyler Obropta Staff Writer

BUZZSAW: The Night Issue

16

The five-year drought following the last Shins album had fans anxious to hear what the alternative band would bring next. Heartworms opens with “Name for You,” a pop-rock tune which relies heavily on snare drum and has similar psychedelic aspects to The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band.

The album is a combination of a more modern version of the Shins and some of their previous work, such as Wincing the Night Away (2007) and Port of Morrow (2012).

Lead vocalist and guitarist James Mercer shows his versatility and does not follow a single direction in this album, instead pulling inspiration from a variety of music genres. Most songs have a simple drum pattern which accompanies more complex guitar riffs. The hooks in “Fantasy Island” and “Name for You” are much more electric and fast paced, while “Mildenhall” is laid back and has much more of an early Shins sound.

The layout of the album isn’t necessarily consistent and does not follow a pattern, seeming to mix country, synthetic pop, psychedelia and alternative, in no apparent order. The resulting effect is intriguing.

Most songs on the LP pull from electronic music, with the snare drum and keyboard being the most commonly featured. However, “Mildenhall” provides a good reprieve The worst thing about cat movies is how the entire dog-loving population turns up its nose at them before even giving them a chance.

But Kedi isn’t your ordinary cat movie. For one thing, it’s a documentary set in Istanbul, and for another, it spends plenty of time exploring how these cats interact with the Turkish people in that ancient city and what the feline presence represents.

It beautifully renders the bustling city these cats exist in with graceful, sweeping aerial shots and clever cat POV photography alike. Its passionate interview subjects are keen to analyze the relationship between cats and humans, and the director’s loving portraits of the animals’ lives evoke more warmth and awe than a dozen cat videos on the internet ever could.

And now, to all of those dog people I mentioned earlier, I must begrudgingly admit that yes, the insightful cultural commentary in Kedi often takes a back seat to the cats.

The seven cats at the core of the film have distinct personalities. But as fun and personable as these cats are, the film still regresses to them when there are more interesting topics on the table. It’s that lack of depth that sometimes threatens to undermine Kedi.

If I cared. But Kedi is so artful in its execution, and its feline subjects are so affable and charming that I often forgot to be digging for deeper meaning.

The cultural and philosophical morsels offered

by Turkish director Ceyda Torun’s interviews with the locals are tantalizing and diverse. One woman describes how the cats project a fierce femininity, while another man talks about how the thou-

from the intensity of their more electronic sounding songs and has an acoustic feel.

The closing song, “The Fear”, ends with a sad harmonica and ukulele, but wraps up the album well. It epitomizes what it must be like to be a middle-aged man still working with the same band he started 16 years ago.

Heartworms was released March 10 and is considered by Rolling Stone to be the “most charming” music produced by Mercer. It combines their older sound with their newer sound, and it does so successfully. The album is an obvious progression for the band.

The Shins have come full circle. The next album (if there is to be one) has the ability to take a multitude of routes. After finishing listening to Heartworms, fans will wonder if the next album will return the Shins to their roots or progress further to the country or pop side. While it would be out of character, the featuring of these genres on the album proves that Mercer is ready to take risks and see what happens.

With Heartworms, Mercer went the right way. The album is well-received by reputable magazines such as Rolling Stone and Pitchfork. Pitchfork claims Heartworms is the “most hermetic LP James Mercer has released since 2001.”

sands of strays that wander the city represent all that stands to be lost by the churning wheel of industrialization and urbanization. The cats are more comfortable outside, we see, scaling trees and doing their business in the dirt on the side of the road. As the city of Istanbul expands more and more, the cats face a world they can’t possibly exist comfortably in. One of the more memorable moments, however, comes when the owner of the cat Bengü regards his feline friend reclining in a chair and says, “You really know how to live.”

The adventurous lives these cats lead excuse the lack of time spent on that “So what?” question central to every documentary. But who has time to think about the lack of nuance when the jealous abusive housewife Psikopat attacks another cat for getting too close to her husband?

Consider the childish, innocent xylophones that play as the cream-colored Sari lithely dances across rooftops, or the slapstick comedy of Aslan Parçasi’s late-night mouse-hunting efforts.

The personality of the film forgives all of its shortcomings, though at least those among us who aren’t so felinely inclined have more meaty themes to grab onto.

But for the rest of us, those restless cat lovers and fans of feline mischief, Kedi supplies all the soul and fun we’ve come to love in those clever, agile animals the film is named for.

Concert Review

RAW SAW

38

FROM THE

The Head & The Heart Katie Siple Web Editor

their self-titled debut album that launched their career. Their older music has a much more acoustic indie vibe with a strong piano line and harmonies that speak to the soul. Their music was infectious — it permeated every part of the audience and made us want to get up and dance along. You could feel the connection between the audience and the Head and the Heart on stage as they gave it their all.

Simple but powerful lyrics are their forte — from “Put your dreams away for now/ I won’t see you for some time/ I am lost in my mind/ I get lost in my mind” to “I know there’s California, Oklahoma, and all of the places I ain’t ever been to/ But down in the valley with whiskey rivers/ These are the places you will find me hidin’,” their lyrics are a type of beautiful poetry that inspire you. The Head and the Heart has a song for every emotion, painfully raw and evocative with every listen. So you can only imagine how fantastical this band was live — the lighted orbs floating above the stage, the glimmering sheen on Thielen’s dress. The band went on to play favorites like “Down in the Valley,” “Homecoming Heroes,” “Let’s Be Still,” and “Cats and Dogs,” seamlessly blending their albums together in a wonderful cacophony of sound.

This show was very special to Thielen because it happened to also be her birthday. The band brought her out a cake to celebrate and the whole venue sang the most beautiful rendition of Happy Birthday I’ve ever heard.

She was overwhelmed with joy and shed tears of happiness as she thanked everyone for the well-wishes. Thielen gazed out over the audience with a look of

pure ferocity and tenderness as she reflected on her time as a musician thus far.

The Head and the Heart played an amazing encore for the audience, ending with the famous song “Rivers and Roads,” which fans had been anxiously waiting to hear the entire concert. It was the perfect note to end on, one that was both emotional and liberating.

“Rivers and Roads,” in its solemn simplicity, hopeful but heartfelt, unified the audience. You could tell the band poured themselves into that song, laying everything they had left on the stage.

The bouncers let fans crowd the stage and my friend and I ended up front and center practically underneath the lead singer. As I looked up at the idols I’ve been listening to since 2009, I thought about what a surreal concert experience this was, one that left every single person in that audience amazed and wanting more.

Ministry of Cool

The audience was lost in their minds during The Head and the Heart’s performance at the State Theatre in Ithaca. On March 4, the indie-folk band played a soldout show that rocked the stage.

Formed in 2009, band members Josiah Johnson, Jonathan Russell, Charity Rose Thielen, Chris Zasche, Kenny Hensley and Tyler Williams have created a unique sound with strong harmonies, powerful instrumentals and emotional lyricism. They have since released three successful albums, of which their newest, entitled Signs of Light, was released in September. The band shortly announced their world tour for Signs of Light in Oct. 2017.

The Head and the Heart was hands down one of the best concert I’ve ever been to — the atmosphere, the stage, everything was just captivating to watch. As soon as the lights dimmed, the crowd jumped to their feet and clapped wildly. The energy and good vibes of the audience cheered The Head and the Heart on as they opened with their single “All We Ever Knew.” For a majority of the concert, the band focused on past albums like Let’s Be Still and

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Ministry of Cool

COOL. MINISTRYofCOOL. M

39

es can be charted and made sense of through astrology.

Helfand disputed another common pro-astrology scientific claim, adding, “The argument that the moon raises tides of water and we are 60 percent water, so there must be some effect, is completely ludicrous.

Tides are not limited to water; they affect everything.”

Harper feels differently. “No serious modern astrologer believes that the planets have a physical influence on people’s minds or bodies via gravity, waves or any other measurable scientific phenomena,” she said. “Instead, we think that what goes on in the skies can symbolically reflect and give us insights into what goes on in our lives.”

Conflicting viewpoints aside, “Mercury retrograde” is an astrological phenomenon that has been widely publicized. This phenomenon occurs during the three to four times a year that the planet Mercury appears to be moving backwards in the sky.

During this time, one might see a Tweet or a Facebook post complaining about how an email didn’t send correctly, how they got into an argument with a friend, or about how their coffee spilt all over their laptop because “Mercury is in retrograde!”

Mercury in retrograde is the assumed culprit because it is thought to disturb communication since Mercury is thought to be the planetary messenger. During these times, it is thought that all forms of communications, technology and electronics are affected, which can cause increases in confusion, misunderstandings and poor communication.

Jones offered up some advice to those who subscribe to the phenomena. “Mishaps during a retrograde can be incredibly frustrating, but they actually give us a chance to try a new way instead.”

“Retrograde periods also remind us to be more internal – to take a moment to breathe and center yourself before you act,” Jones said. “Whichever planet is in retrograde will show you an area where you can learn something new instead of operating out of habit.”

Is it just easy to chalk things going wrong up to forces out one’s control? Or does the direction Mercury appears to move in actually have an affect on our lives?

In Helfand’s point of view, the only effect the planets have on human lives is “someone seeing Venus bright in the evening sky and finding

it aesthetically beautiful and/or being inspired by the fact that our species has evolved from slime molds on this pale blue dot and has come to apprehend the entire Universe.”

But one thing is certain: the skepticism around astrology is more complex than simply questioning if it is “real” or not. Regardless of its scientific validity, astrology will likely continue to have relevance in today’s turbulent society as people seek guidance and answers in an increasingly unpredictable world.

“Having a tool to see what we can learn right now and what actions we can take can be empowering, and comforting,” Jones said. ___________________________________ Rae Harris is a second-year journalism major that blames most of her problems on mercury retrograde. You can reach them at rharris3@ithaca. edu.

Upfront

13

BUZZSAW: The Night Issue

The Sun and the Moon Looking for (false) hope in horoscopes

By Rae Harris, Staff Writer

T

he idea that life could be explained by the positions of celestial bodies dates as far back as 1950 B.C. The practice of astrology has long outlived those ancient times, and continues to be widely used in modern culture. It is used by individuals to look towards the future, help with decision making and provide internal insight, amongst other uses. Despite claims that the practice is not scientific, astrology is still practiced all over the planet.

According to The Blackwell Dictionary of Western Philosophy, astrology is the study of how the positions of stars and movements of planets have supposed influence on events and on the lives and behavior of people. While both fields have a focus on the planetary bodies, astronomy is different than astrology. ScienceDaily defines astronomy as the scientific study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the Earth’s atmosphere. Astronomy uses various forms of science such as physics and chemistry.

Not everyone subscribes to astrology. In fact, the 2016 Study on American Fears from Chapman University revealed that only about 13 percent of Americans believe that astrology is real.

“It’s only in the past few hundred years that humans have considered themselves alone in the universe, ‘divorced’ from a connection with nature and the cosmos,” said Aurora Tower, an astrologer and horoscope writer for Cosmopolitan magazine.

“For thousands of years, it was assumed, even by scientists, that we are not separate from nature and nature’s rhythms, but are a part of them.”

One way to connect to the cosmos is through horoscopes. Daily and weekly horoscopes are often printed in magazines and newspapers, and there are websites and

apps dedicated to creating personalized horoscopes according to one’s zodiac sign. An individual’s zodiac sign is also known as their “sun sign,” which is determined by what position the sun ws in the sky when they were born. The astrological sky is split into a “zodiac” wheel with 12 sections, which is why there are 12 different zodiac signs.

When Tower is writing her weekly horoscopes, she first examines the “aspects” for the week.

“Aspects are the geometric positions of the planets, the sun, and the moon — to see if they are having any interactions with one another,” she said. Tower then interprets what each aspect means for the 12 zodiac signs.

“The interpretations are based on traditional associations for each planet. Venus, for example, has always been associated with love and beauty. These associations are ancient,” she said.

Horoscopes, like the ones that Tower writes, are popular and are an easy way to be intuitive. Yet, they are often so vague that anyone can relate to them. This is explained by the “Forer effect,” which claims that individuals have a tendency to accept general statements as true to themselves without any real objective measurement. People will see what they want to see in a horoscope, and interpret the vague phrases used in a way that is meaningful to them.

Astrologer Nikki Harper, who has written for publications such as The Huffington Post, said: “They are for entertainment purposes, really. They provide a kind of cosmic weather forecast, if you like. Because of the way horoscopes are calculated and written — just one interpretation for the 12th of humanity with their sun in that sign — they are by default very generalized.”

Amy Jones, who started Spirit Comfort Astrological Counseling in

Kew Gardens, New York, said the information in daily horoscopes is incomplete. “It refers only to the sun sign,” she said. “It doesn’t take into account the other planets in your chart, the houses, or the ways the planets in your chart modify each other. That’s different for all of us.

So a daily horoscope will not give you the full picture.”

A natal birth chart can be used to further examine aspects of a person.

The chart illustrates where many of the celestial bodies were positioned in the sky at the time of an individual’s birth, with the goal that the planets’ spots in the sky will give insight into that person’s character.

“There’s really a lot you can learn from your birth chart,” Jones said.

“The planets and signs in a birth chart represent archetypes or symbols within us. We can express the higher or the lower possibility of everything in our chart, depending on our awareness and intention.”

Although astrology is used as a tool by astrologers and everyday people alike, it faces criticism from the scientific community. It is typically classified as a “pseudoscience” because it has some scientific aspects, but it is not typically regarded as a science.

David Helfand, an astronomy professor at Columbia University said: “Pseudoscience is defined as an enterprise that adopts the trappings of science without adopting the key attributes of science which include a reliance on carefully collected evidence, admission of the falsifiability of one’s theories, and the adoption of nature as the ultimate arbiter of what is a good model.”

The University of California Berkley’s “Science Checklist” also denies that astrology is a true science.

Yet some astrologers oppose this, saying the scientific basis of astrology is the gravitational forces on Earth from the Sun, the Moon and other planets. Therefore, these forc-

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ducted by DJ Taylor and colleagues found that 9.5 percent of the 1,074 college students in the sample were found to have symptoms in line with the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders definition of insomnia.

No matter what the cause of sleep deprivation is, Americans still find themselves sleepy throughout the day. According to the Daily Mail analysis, Americans seem to be the most sleepy (and therefore, grumpy) on Tuesdays. Our relationship with sleep could be an answer as to why 54 percent of Americans drink coffee every single day with an average of 3.1 cups per day (totaling upwards of 27 ounces of the beverage) as published by Harvard in 2010.

It’s important to remember that caffeine is indeed considered a psychoactive drug and because it can be both water and fat soluble it has the ability to enter the brain through the blood-brain barrier. SmithsonianMag.com explains that caffeine allows the already existing stimulants in our bodies to run wild — giving us just enough energy to get through the day, until another cup is needed before the post-coffee crash ensues.

As Gaines Lewis said, “avoiding caffeine and alcohol late in the day” is one behavior that can be a step in the right direction for one’s night’s sleep.

The cyclic nature of how many people choose to ingest caffeine mirrors addiction a little too closely, causing people to become dependent on coffee or other

caffeinated beverages to get through their daily tasks. But with a national problem with sleep deprivation, it doesn’t seem like our country’s dependence on caffeine will slow down before our sleeping habits improve.

Before the country as a whole can improve its sleep habits, individuals must become aware of the importance of healthy sleep and how they can go about changing their own sleeping behaviors for the better.

This awareness is what many sleep experts call “sleep hygiene,” according to Papalambros. “There are basic steps that can be taken to remove barriers to getting a good night’s sleep. We call this having good ‘sleep hygiene’ and there are plenty of resources out there for people interested in that topic,” she said.

And although these resources exist it’s necessary for individuals to realize their behaviors may need improvement in order to seek out the additional help. Once there is a greater priority for good sleep, the time and effort toward changing the behaviors ingrained in our society can finally begin. ___________________________________ Alexis Morillo is a second-year journalism major who is just as suspicious of people that wake up to the ringtone Marimba as you are. You can reach them at amorillo@ithaca.

Upfront

sleep. Jordan Gaines Lewis, a neuroscientist and sleep disorder researcher at Penn State College of Medicine, noted that one of the best ways to improve sleeping habits is to first address your behaviors during the day.

“Naps can be good, but taking too many (or too long) naps can interfere with nighttime sleep,” Gaines Lewis said. “The best way to improve daytime alertness is to make sure you’re getting adequate sleep at night, adequate sunlight throughout the day to keep your circadian rhythm synced, and developing a regular sleep pattern by going to bed and waking the same time on weekdays and weekends.”

Papalambros also emphasized the benefits of naps when done correctly. “The reality is that nothing can quite make up for sleep loss. Ultimately, some scientists argue that sleep debt is accrued over time and can never be mitigated (or gotten back) after it is lost,” she said. “However, there is evidence that suggests that short naps during the day can help mood and memory.”

Developing more consistent sleep habits is easier said than done, though, because insufficient sleep is affecting Americans across the country. This is supported by the increase in the prevalence of insomnia over the years. In 2014, SleepEducation.org stated that up to 35 percent of Americans have brief symptoms, 20% have short term insomnia (lasting less than three months) and 10 percent have chronic insomnia that occurs multiple times per week.

Insomnia is not just struggling to get to sleep initially, but it also includes problems staying asleep throughout the night and being able to wake up at reasonable hours.

These problems could be credited to unhealthy sleep habits like electronics before bed and the like, but is often paired with an overall anxiety about sleeping. “While people should be conscious of their sleep habits, obsessing over the amount of sleep you need can also have consequences such as anxiety and insomnia,” Papalambros said.

This could account for the prevalence of insomnia in college students, a group that is often anxiety prone to begin with. Outside forces, like consumption of alcohol or stimulant “study drugs” like Adderall also influence their sleep patterns in a negative way. A 2012 study con-

Image by Francesca Hodge

11

BUZZSAW: The Night Issue

The Young and the Restless America’s sleep deprivation epidemic

By Alexis Morillo, Upfront Editor

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one are the days of counting sheep in order to get a full night’s rest. Now there’s everything from remote control mattresses and memory foam pillows to even medication to aid with restlessness. And if none of those solutions work, there’s always the option of a dependable cup of morning coffee to help you get through the day after a sleepless night.

In the United States, it is estimated that about 83.6 million adults are sleep deprived, according to a February 2016 Huffington Post article

by Anna Almendrala called “More Than A Third Of Americans Don’t Get Enough Sleep.” Sleep deprivation is considered anything less than the recommended seven hours of sleep for those ages 18 to 60.

These numbers are so notable that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) classifies sleep deprivation as a public health issue in the United States. And although sleep deprivation as a whole is a problem, there is also the issue of diagnosable sleep problems, like insomnia, which around 60 million Americans show symptoms of as reported by National Public Radio in 2008.

Sleep is a human behavior that is necessary to our health. Without the recommended seven hours per night, individuals face an increased risk of conditions like obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke and mental health as a whole, according to the CDC. Even so, it seems Americans have a more problematic relationship with sleep in comparison to their international counterparts.

A 2015 article by Daily Mail analyzed the popular smartphone application Sleep Cycle to find out which countries have the best relationship with sleep. In the top three spots for sleep quality were Slovakia, China and Hungary, respectively, with the United States taking spot 48 on a list of 50 countries.

A reason for the country’s sleep

deprivation epidemic could be related to how Americans use technology. An article by Everyday Health entitled “Why Don’t Americans Get Enough Sleep?” explains that the blue light that we come in contact with through phone screens and television sets suppresses the hormone melatonin which helps us to fall asleep. Americans have the choice to constantly be connected and the effects of screentime last long after phone direct use.

Electronics aside, Americans can not achieve substantial sleep because they simply do not set aside the time for it. Culturally, Americans are always keeping themselves busy with work, exercise, entertainment and, oftentimes, more work.

This reigns true for college-aged Americans as well as older adults.

Between class, studying, extracurriculars and maintaining some sort of a social life, 70 percent of college aged Americans are reported to get insufficient sleep and 50 percent reported daytime sleepiness despite their sleeping habits in a 2014 study

by Shelley D. Hershner. This should not be surprising, as many college students consider their 2 a.m.

Snapchats of the library a badge of honor rather than the preliminary sign of a chronic health problem.

Hershner does point out in her study that college-aged individuals are psychologically wired to have a delayed circadian preference; in layman’s terms, they’re “night owls”.

This change happens during puberty and accounts for why students stay up so late to finish their work. It’s the early wake up calls for classes or other responsibilities, say sports practice or a job, that don’t allow them to reach the necessary hours of rest that would help alleviate their daytime sleepiness. So the sleep deprivation of college-aged individuals may not be a generational problem, but rather a result of their inconsistent daily schedules.

This idea is supported by Penelope Papalambros, a PhD student in Northwestern University’s Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program

who focuses her research on sleep and circadian rhythms.

“Certainly the pressure to pull an all nighter in college is detrimental, not just to mental health but also physical health,” Papalambros said.

“The early college years can be similar to the late high school years in that sleep is particularly important to function properly. Life factors often make it difficult to get enough sleep. The circadian rhythm still tends to be shifted to prefer later hours and waking up later in the morning. Therefore, early classes in college can be an issue.”

Fortunately, there are more and more technologies coming to fruition that are being used to help students reclaim their relationship with sleep.

MetroNaps is one such company. It was founded back in 2003 based off of a rather simple principle: employees in the workplace and students at universities need more sleep in order to improve performance. MetroNaps provides services to these communities by installing what they call “EnergyPods” which are chairs engineered to help individuals reap the benefits from a 20-minute nap in order to increase productivity. The curve of the seat of the chair itself, a privacy visor over the headrest, and a gradual “waking” mechanism that includes lights, vibrations and music all work together to ensure maximum relaxation and sleep.

Christopher Lindholst, CEO and co-founder of MetroNaps, has noticed how impactful these services have been to their clientele.

“They serve as a reminder of the importance of sleep,” Lindholst said.

“EnergyPods installed at universities tend to see the most utilization of all of our installations in part, because students don’t have any inhibitions to taking a brief rest, but also because the equipment tends to be installed in 24/7 facilities like student unions and libraries.”

It’s important to remember that there is a happy medium when it comes to napping, because too much sleep during a daytime nap can actually negatively impact nighttime

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BUZZSAW: Dunk Issue

FRONT. UPFRONT. UPFRON

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BUZZSAW: The Night Issue

The Media Conundrum

Censorship of the truth in Trump-era journalism

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By Isabella Grullon, Staff Writer

onald Trump’s relationship with the media is psychologically abusive, and the media is suffering from Stockholm syndrome. Most mainstream news publications can’t seem to break off from being played by the Trump administration. The media not only made his election possible, but have also facilitated his anti-everyonewho-is-not-a-white-cisgender-male propaganda, free of charge.

Most media companies covered Donald Trump incessantly throughout the election cycle to get profitable ratings. The issue with this was that many people were only getting the Trump side of things. Many Americans sympathized with the idea of shifting away from the establishment, as well as making an America for Americans, forgetting that many American’s aren’t white.

The point is how dangerous Trump’s 24/7 media model can be.

Most news outlets do, or claim to do, what is said to be the norm of journalism: to report the facts without context. The problem with this is that if The New York Times, Politico or CNN, attend a press conference, they quote Sean Spicer, Trump’s press secretary who only talks about how great the administration is, then that is the master narrative.

However, when mainstream media fact checks and provides context for Spicer’s comments, Trump announced left-of-center media outlets such as Buzzfeed, CNN and The New York Times as “fake-news”. This announcement impacted the ability for these publications to report the news to their readers, allowing only publications that wholeheartedly support the administration in the press room.

This brings to mind the saying, “Whatever a patron desires to get published is advertising; whatever he wants to keep out of the paper is

news,” which was displayed on the desk of L. E. Edwardson, day city editor of the Chicago Herald and Examiner in 1918.

Political advertising is synonymous to political propaganda, and the Trump administration has promised to keep what they want in the news and what they don’t want out of it.

For example, during his campaign, some media outlets barely covered his sexual abuse allegations or numerous lawsuits. They cannibalized the Trump University scandal and buried many small businesses Trump used-and-abused to build hotels and casinos. Instead, they focused on his outlandish quotes and ignorant comments, and although there is merit to proving that most of the things he has said aren’t true, actions speak louder than words.

If mainstream media would have focused on how Trump’s company was one of the many who has outsourced its production elsewhere in the world, his argument that the government took factory jobs away might have fallen flat.

However, more prominent than the inability of the media to escape Trump’s rhetoric is its failure to break free from his chokehold. According to the Tyndall Report, Donald Trump got a total of 1,144 minutes of coverage in 2016. The second most talked about category in T.V. news for the year was Hillary Clinton with 506 minutes of on-air news time.

If news outlets don’t talk about him, then they won’t get views.

What he does or doesn’t do has become a spectacle, not politics, and the show is a distraction to keep people

from looking into what is happening behind the scenes and on the floor of Congress. Members of Congress have introduced more than 100 bills since Trump’s inauguration, and they range from terminating the Department of Education to punishing “rebellious states” also known as Sanctuary cities.

Governments have used tactics such as bombarding the media with “other” news in the past. Augusto Pinochet used propaganda to justify the disappearance of political dissidents. Adolf Hitler used it to promote nationalism and hide the horrific genocide of the Holocaust.

From what we can see right now Donald Trump is using his new model of propaganda to dismantle women and immigrants’ rights, label Muslims as sub-human, negate education and stifle sustainability efforts, but whether these activities are the actual end-game of the Trump administration remains unclear.

And the media can’t avoid but help him do it. ___________________________________ Isabella Grullon is a third-year journalism major who will not stand for false labelings of “fake news.” You can email them at igrullon@ithaca. edu.

8

What Keeps Us Up At Night?

Examining the illusion of privacy

By Liam Audet, Contributing Writer

W

e are a nation of anxiety.

Everything from our bills to the news is keeping us up at night, leaving us to stare into the blank space of the ceiling above us. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, over 40 million Americans suffer from some sort of anxiety disorder. With the ability to access information at its peak, Americans more have reasons to be anxious than ever. Every night we scroll through our smartphones before bed — Trump’s Twitter, police brutality, Russia — and learn about what we’re supposed to be afraid of.

What people are afraid of is based both on their generation and where they fall on the political spectrum. For instance, a liberal millennial might be afraid of police brutality and the electoral college that failed them this past election. Similarly, a conservative baby boomer is more likely to be afraid of the rise of the the liberal elite or an immigration crisis happening in the United States. Both points of view are valid, and both points of view cause people to lie in bed, hoping these problems won’t lead to their country’s demise.

The phantom of the “Red Menace” that struck this nation with fear 50 years ago is making its way back on the public’s radar. A study published in February of 2017, by YouGov that surveyed over 7,000 adults, found that over 55 percent of Americans consider Russia either “unfriendly” or a total enemy. Only 19 percent of Americans believe that Russia is a friend of ours on a political level.

With the current controversy of Trump being investigated by the FBI for his potential ties to Moscow, despite his efforts to minimize Russia as a perceived threat, Americans are being pushed back into the mindset that we had during the height of the Cold War. On top of this, WikiLeaks makes headlines about once a month with a new leak that makes us believe we

are directly affected. We’re living in the age of post-Edward Snowden paranoia, where we’re constantly in fear of who’s listening to our phone calls, who’s reading our texts and who has access to this information.

Within the past four years, the National Security Agency has been a very common source of anxiety

what the government does and what private companies do is money,” he said. “They [our government] aren’t listening. They aren’t watching you… If a red flag goes up, they’ll start honing in… If they really do need to watch you, then they have to go to court and get a warrant.”

Edward Snowden isn’t McShane’s biggest hero either. He claims the controversy surrounding the leaks about the NSA did more harm than good.

“Snowden tried to wrap himself in the flag… He put a lot of people at risk… [Our government has] to go through a lot of work to make sure we’re safe.”

So it seems that our anxieties are a bit misdirected when it comes to what we should be afraid of. While major news broadcasters tell us regularly that we should be afraid of our government infringing on our privacy rights, it seems like our true enemies are big corporations collecting data to customize what advertisements we’re going to see when we log on.

This keeps me up at night because I have come to realize I am a just a product to the products I am using. ___________________________________ Liam Audet is a second-year politics major who only surfs the web on Google’s incognito browser. You can reach them at laudet@ithaca.edu.

“Americans are being pushed back into the mindset that we had during the height of the Cold War.”

News & Views

among all Americans, as the public learns more and more every day about how much of our information is being shared with the government.

I have never taken a strong issue with what the NSA does, because I don’t feel like I have very much to hide. They can listen to my phone calls with my mom all they want. I was never afraid of my personal privacy until I sought out the opinions of attorney Mike McShane, a class action lawyer from San Francisco.

McShane had a lot to say about commercial surveillance, claiming that his biggest anxiety comes down to who’s gathering our information.

“Privacy. There are a lot of class actions [lawsuits] out there involving the tracking of people in what they do on their phone and what they do on the internet,” McShane said.

“It leads to a lot of companies who are really just gathering information solely so that they can identify this person in their habits and sell that information to advertisers. He wants citizens to believe that we shouldn’t fear the government, or the NSA, as many of us have been led to believe.

In his words, we should be fearing a “Big Brother Google.”

McShane claims that the NSA listening to our phone calls isn’t a big concern. “The difference between

7

BUZZSAW: The Night Issue

Don’t Berate –­ Coordinate!

Part-time faculty seek a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work

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By Taylor Ford, Staff Writer

first got involved in the contingent faculty movement my sophomore year, 201415 when I went to an event where professors talked about their experiences working for the college. After the teach-in, I was deeply struck by their stories their struggles to make ends meet, and that they are receiving neither healthcare nor benefits from the college. They are forced to reapply for their jobs, some once a year, while others every single semester. They were never sure if they would have an income in just a few months — whether they would be able to pay rent, make a car payment, or buy groceries.

At that teach-in, one professor shared that he was being pushed to a breaking point. His working conditions and uncertain nature of his position were so taxing, it was making him so miserable that he was seriously considering quitting. For this professor, this attempt at organization was his last effort to continue teaching. He chose to try and make a change instead of just finding a new job, because he believed that teaching was the thing that he was best at — he loved working in the classroom with students and forming relationships with them.

His words didn’t have to stand on their own. They were backed up not only by the students who had come out specifically to support him but also all the other students who had come for their own professors.

Recognizing the value that their professor’s brought to the institution, many students spoke up to express gratitude and admiration for their professors, advocating that such professors should be treated fairly in return for all their hard work.

This was how Students for Labor Action came to be. The contingent faculty formed a union, negotiated, and are anticipating a strike. The group has supported contingent fac-

ulty in their fight for living wages and job security. This work by students has always been driven by the connections between students and their professors, and an acknowledgement that the way professors are treated impacts students. In my own time at Ithaca College, I’ve taken class with more contingent professors than I can count, and I’ve found them to be excellent and caring individuals, who are deeply dedicated to their work and their students.

It’s important to talk about the demands of contingent faculty, and

the issue of wages of this campaign, being the most serious for part-time faculty. Many are on public assistance of some kind, such as Medicaid or food stamps. These professors are paid substantially less than even their full-time contingent colleagues.

People doing the same work should be paid at the same rate. This is the principle of pay parity. Part-time professors aren’t asking to be paid at the same rate as tenure-track or tenured professors, just to be paid the same as full-time contingent professors.

Pay parity would do a great deal to bring part-time professors to a living wage. I’ve spoken to the college’s

legal counsel, Nancy Pringle, and she told me that she couldn’t argue against the idea. She says that she is committed to pay parity—it’s just finding a path to this that the college can afford. This argument isn’t persuasive to me. Currently, contingent faculty teach about 30 percent of the courses not only at Ithaca College, but nationwide as well. For teaching these courses they are paid about 1 percent of the annual operating budget. The compensation plan proposed by the union would bring the pay for contingent faculty up to 2 percent of the annual budget—a change of less than one-third of 1 percent. Moreover, the contingent faculty has put forward plans to phase this in over a period of as long as five years. The idea that we can’t readjust such a tiny amount of our budget to help ensure that everyone in our community can meet their basic needs is preposterous.

The administration has long argued that being an adjunct or other contingent faculty member is a choice, and that if professors are unhappy with their working conditions, they should leave. But they don’t want to leave. And their students don’t want them to leave; they recognize that their professors belong at IC. Contingent faculty should be treated fairly for the work that they do.

Students for Labor Action is a group that will exist as long as it needs to, as long as professors are being mistreated by the college. Movements like this one have strength because they are born out of love and compassion. I believe that contingent faculty will win this campaign because of the enormous amount of love that they share with the other members of our community. ___________________________________ Taylor Ford is a fourth year sociology major who is not being paid by Buzzsaw to write this article. You can reach them at tford1@ithaca.edu.

6

Our Two Cents On Karen Pence

Oh my God, Karen! You can’t just promote art therapy

By Mila Phelps-Friedl, Staff Writer

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pects of Mike Pence’s rise to vice presidential status is the alarming rumors that he is a proponent of electroshock conversion therapy for homosexual individuals. These rumors were ignited during Pence’s run for congress in the 1990s when a byline on his website spoke about how “Resources should be directed toward those institutions which provide assistance to those seeking to change their sexual behavior,” according to an ABC News Article. In Nov. 2016, Pence’s representatives called this a mischaracterization of Pence’s intentions for the aforementioned research — however, as written by Liam Slack of The New York Times, “Mr. Lotter said the vice president-elect had been calling for federal funds to ‘be directed to groups that promoted safe sexual practices’ during his 2000 congressional campaign, and he said it was a ‘mischaracterization’ to see the statement as a reference to conversion therapy.

But he declined to explain which organizations Mr. Pence had wanted to lose their federal funding.”

So how can Karen Pence and her pet project for art therapy target at people with “developmental, medical, educational, and social or psychological impairment,” if her husband openly opposes gay rights?

Take it a step further and examine what kind of marriage they must have if her project works to support art therapies while at the same time Vice President Pence shows his own kind of subtle allegiance to the kinds of treatment centers that allow for conversion therapies.

After announcing art therapy as her choice, Pence’s representatives explained to the Associated Press that, “Although art therapy isn’t usually covered by health insurers, Pence doesn’t feel it’s her place to try and encourage companies to provide for it. She simply wants to use her platform to bring awareness.” Ironic that she’s preaching about the importance of health insurance coverage when her husband’s party based their entire platform on the promise that they would repeal the Affordable Care Act, a healthcare plan that

has benefitted a lot of people, despite some of its flaws. Moreso probably a lot of people that would maybe turn to art therapies — if only their insurance would cover it. I guess that’s what Karen Pence is for.

But what do art therapists think of their newest supporter? Well according to New York Times authorr Catherine Saint Louis, this issue is quite divided among art therapists. While “The American Art Therapy Association announced in its newsletter that it was ‘enthusiastic about Mrs. Pence’s commitment’ and eager to support her efforts,” other art therapists disagree. One is “Kate Broitman, an art therapist in Chicago, started a Facebook page called Art Therapists for Human Rights to organize with other art therapists who ‘felt that great harm might come to our field, our clients and our work, if the association were to enter into a dialogue with Karen Pence.’” The latter division directly oppose the Pence’s stance in regards to some of the very core principles of art therapy as well as some of the people art therapies directly benefit: immigrants and trauma survivors.

One thing to be said for Karen Pence’s efforts is she does have a platform and the public attention to actually make a difference in this kind of therapy and its outreach as long as she does it with the good intentions that she has professed to having. As Second Lady, Mrs. Pence could really have a lot of influence, and maybe that’s the most important thing to consider in all of this.

Does the end justify the means in the case of Karen Pence’s uncharacteristic crusade for insurance, art therapies and healthcare? Only time will tell. ___________________________________ Mila Phelps-Friedl is a second year journalism major that thinks the Pences need the most therapy of all. You can email them at mphelpsfriedl@ithaca.edu.

News & Views

t started with Abigail Smith Adams, and now here we are in the era of Second Lady Karen Sue Batten Pence. Beginning around the 19th century, the first and second ladies of the United States, began to become involved in charity work or some kind of goodwill cause. This developed into more of an expectation for these women in the public eye to take on on some kind of cause, “pet project” if you will, that is supposed to set the tone for their role in the political sphere. Just as Michelle Obama took on eradicating the purveyance of junk foods in school systems during her time as First Lady, Second Lady Pence has chosen the platform of art therapy to guide her political actions whilst occupying the role.

Now if you were to follow the arrows of the internet to the official White House website, Karen Pence’s personal biography is illuminating.

It begins, “As Second Lady of the United States, Karen Pence works to bring attention to issues facing children and families by shining the spotlight on the mental health profession of art therapy.” The statement goes on to detail the people for whom art therapy is beneficial, explaining its links to individuals with a wide range of impairments.

It specifies that art therapy is most commonly utilized for “individuals who have survived trauma resulting from combat, abuse, and natural disaster; people with adverse physical health conditions such as cancer, traumatic brain injury, and other health disability; and individuals with autism, dementia, depression, and other disorders.” Speaking of disorders, homosexuality was a diagnosable psychological disorder, listed in the official psychological disorders manual or the DSM until 1973. If Karen Pence is so hell-bent on helping out individuals with any one of these disorders or conditions, is she aware that homosexuality was removed from the DSM fifth edition of psychological disorders handbook 44 years ago?

One of the most controversial as-

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The Night Issue

Fog: Sam Fuller

East Eleventh: Tatiana Jorio

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Table of Contents Seesaw ..........................................................4 Print media is dead, check out multimedia on the web.

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Upfront ........................................................9 Selected dis-education of the month.

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Sawdust .......................................................23 Satire threatening the magazine’s credibility since 1856.

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The Night Issue

EDITORS’ COMMENT

Sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll. Being afraid of the dark, looking up at the stars. Night is about illusion — from late night texts to weird dreams to strange conversations lasting until three a.m. There’s so much to be seen under the cover of darkness.

Trump and his relationship with the media is sordid at best. How has this impacted the kind of news we are receiving? (The Media Conundrum, p. 8) We’re a generation that always has something to do: work, class, personal entertainment and more. In order to ensure optimal productivity in all of the above proper sleep is needed but this seems to take the back burner to all of our other seemingly more important tasks. (The Young and the Restless p. 10) The best-looking game on PS4, or just a way to crawl around in the grass as a badass video game heroine? Either way, Horizon: Zero Dawn delivers beautiful visuals and a compelling storyline.

(Horizon: Zero Dawn review, p. 17) Divider and Table of Contents Photography

By Elena Haskins Elena is a photographer that hails from the kingdom of DeRuyter, NY. She’s a junior Cinema and Photo major studying in Sevilla, Spain. All of these photos were taken in Spain. Her favorite word in spanish is “Mochilla” which just means “backpack.” When she’s not almost getting hit by cars trying to get the perfect shot, she is drawing, cooking stir fry, or using the stair climber.

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Don’t Berate — Coordinate! pg. 6

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Review: Kedi pg. 16