The Justice, November 8, 2011 issue

ARTS Page 21

FORUM Occupy Aramark 12

DRAMATIC DANCE

SPORTS Fencing squads win at the “Big One” 16 The Independent Student Newspaper

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B r a n d e is U n i v e r sit y S i n c e 1 9 4 9

Justice

Volume LXIV, Number 11

www.thejustice.org

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

UNION TRIALS

ADDRESSING A HOUSING CRISIS

Riverside trial buses to start

■ The Department of

Public Safety will fund the two trial runs of a shuttle to Riverside Station.

By ALANA ABRAMSON JUSTICE EDITOR

Director of Public Safety Edward Callahan and the Escort Management team have collaborated with Student Union President Herbie Rosen ’12 and three other members of the Student Union to implement a trial run of a shuttle bus running from campus to the Riverside MBTA Station for the next two weekends, according to a press release from the Head Coordinator of Operations for the Escort Safety Service Shirel Guez ’12.

The Riverside Station provides public transportation to multiple destinations on the Green Line in Boston, including Government

ASHER KRELL/the Justice

Equality through the home ACADEMICS

Board approves dual HSSP degree

HSSP majors to take two courses towards a MPP.

By TATE HERBERT JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

The Board of Trustees recently approved the Health: Science, Society and Policy Master of Public Policy Advancement Program, a fast-track course of study for a master's degree in the field of public policy. The program is an option provided by the HSSP program in conjunction with the Heller School for Social Policy and Management.

According to Prof. Peter Conrad (BIOL), chair of HSSP, the Board of Trustees approved the program at its October meeting.

Before that, the program had gained approval from Heller, HSSP, the Council of Graduate Professional Schools, Dean of Arts and Sciences Susan J. Birren and Dean of the Heller School Lisa Lynch.

“This is something we’ve been

working on for a while, to try to get it right,” said Conrad in an interview with the Justice. Prof. Michael Doonan (Heller), director of the MPP program, described it in an interview with the Justice as “a way to help [HSSP students] meet their career goals.”

The program allows Brandeis students majoring in HSSP to take two courses to count toward both an MPP and their bachelor's degrees during their senior year. Then, as a requirement of the program, students would work for one to three years as what Conrad called “a deferred Heller student” before returning to Heller to finish his or her MPP in three semesters, as opposed to the usual four.

According to the program’s official proposal, students would secure work with assistance from Heller and HSSP to network with organizations such as City Year, a nonprofit organization that sends workers to public schools in the hopes of decreasing the dropout rate, and AmeriCorps, a government service organization whose members undertake such varied projects

■ The Usdan P.O.D.

as “[building] affordable housing” or “[improving] health services,” according to its website.

“Advantages for students are several,” said Conrad. One advantage is time: Brandeis HSSP students can be accepted to the program as early as their junior year, and can complete their MPP a semester ahead of schedule. This also eliminates a semester’s worth of tuition. “The program offers other financial aid,” said Conrad, but details are unclear at this early stage.

Conrad also considered work experience among the advantages of the program, calling it “a tremendous benefit” for students to have worked for a year or two.

As for enrollment, “Our hope is that there will be anywhere between six and 10 students … a year that want to do this,” said Conrad.

Because of its small size, the program is not expected to require any additional faculty or space, according to its proposal. However, the proposal also cites “an increased need for support from the Heller career services office.”

Market may change its hours depending on the success of the trials.

By SAM MINTZ JUSTICE EDITORIAL ASSISTANT

Student Union President Herbie Rosen ’12 announced in an email to the student body on Friday that the Provisions On Demand Market in the Usdan Student Center would be open until 2 a.m. on the first three Saturdays in November on a trial basis. The P.O.D. Market is usually open until midnight on Saturdays.

The trial run was initially proposed by Class of 2014 Senator Ricky Rosen, was approved

by Director of Dining Services Aaron Bennos and finally received authorization from Senior Vice President for Admin-

See RIVERSIDE, 5 ☛

istration Mark Collins.

Rosen is the head of the Senate’s ad-hoc committee and has been working closely with the University Dining Committee, headed by Ari Tretin ’12.

“I am absolutely elated about the progress that this university is making in dining,” wrote Ricky Rosen in an email to the Justice.

“These are tremendous first steps towards more student-centric dining facilities.” He also said that, depending on sales during this period, this could become a permanent change.

Ricky Rosen and the Union Senate used an online survey from the website surveymonkey.com to gauge students' opinions on dining. Out of 220 students who responded to the inquiry, 82 percent said that they would buy food from the P.O.D. Market if it were open later on

See POD, 5 ☛

Exposing fraud

Men defeat UAA rival

Beating cancer

 Dr. Gabriel Feldman ’82 wins $14.7 million in a Medicaid fraud case against New York City.

 The men’s soccer team beat NYU 2-0 in its final match of the season.

 Colleges Against Cancer won the Leader of Hope award from the American Cancer Society.

FEATURES 7 For tips or info email editor@thejustice.org

Center, Copley Station and Fenway Park.

According to Guez’s press release, “the Department of Public Safety will be providing and covering the cost for a shuttle bus that seats 39 passengers.” The press release further states that the shuttle will be conducting its test run on Saturday, Nov. 12 and Sunday, Nov. 20, operating between 12:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m.

Callahan wrote in an email to the Justice that he had met with members of the Student Union several weeks ago, and that they had agreed to implement a test run of a shuttle to Riverside Station.

“I was asked to attend a meeting concerning a Riverside shuttle. This is the first discussion that I was involved in,” he wrote, further explaining that members of the Student Union and Escort Safety Service managers were at

POD opens for two extra hours

Prof. Anita Hill (Heller) discussed her newly released book at an event sponsored by the Heller School last Wednesday in the Rapaporte Treasure Hall. See Features, p. 8.

■ The program will allow

Waltham, Mass.

Let your voice be heard!

Submit letters to the editor online at www.thejustice.org

INDEX

SPORTS 16 ARTS SPORTS

17 16

EDITORIAL FEATURES

10 7

OPINION POLICE LOG

10 2

COMMENTARY

News 3 11

COPYRIGHT 2011 FREE AT BRANDEIS. Email managing@thejustice.org for home delivery.

d

2

TUESDAY, november 8, 2011

●

THE JUSTICE

NEWS POLICE LOG

SENATE LOG

Medical Emergency

Senate introduces new methods for approving clubs and launches Pulse survey series

Vandalism

Student Union President Herbie Rosen ’12 addressed the Union Senate on this week’s survey series, the Student Union Pulse. The surveys, which will be sent to the student body via email, are grouped into five themes, one for each day: dining; housing; student life; Student Union; and “what else,” a free-form comment section.

All sections and questions in the survey are optional and will be open at all times, said Rosen.

Rosen also mentioned plans to send Student Union representatives to this semester’s Boston Intercollegiate Leadership Council conference, which meets this Saturday. BILC is an association of student governments from Boston-area colleges and universities.

Rosen praised the success of the first trial run of extra Provisions on Demand Market hours, which extended its closing time from midnight to 2:00 a.m. this past Saturday. “There were a ton of people there,” said Senator for the Class of 2014 Ricky Rosen. Senator Rosen helped organize the extra hours, which will run again on Nov. 12 and 19.

Dillon C. Harvey ’14, co-director of Community Advocacy, spoke to the Union on

Nov. 3—A staff member at Stoneman reported a back and groin injury as a result of falling down a spiral set of stairs in the Slosberg Recital Hall. BEMCo was called to the scene, and the party was transported via ambulance to the Newton-Wellesley Hospital.

Nov. 4—The counseling center requested an ambulance for a student at the Gosman Sports and Convocation Center in need of a psychological evaluation.

Nov. 4—A student in the Foster Mods reported not feeling well. The party was treated by BEMCo and refused further medical aid.

Nov. 4—University Police received a report of a student bleeding from the leg. The student was treated by BEMCo with a signed refusal for further care.

Oct. 31—University Police received a report that the shuttle van booth at the base of Charles River Apartment 110 was broken. Police on the scene determined that the windows had been broken by a thrown object.

Authorities were notified to repair the window.

Larceny

Nov. 2—A graduate student in the Gosman Sports and Convocation Center reported that someone stole another person’s cell phone. The student requested University Police’s presence on the scene. The suspects were gone upon the officer’s arrival.

Nov. 3—A student reported to University Police that his university-issued phone had been stolen from his apartment.

“[upgrading] the engagement between the Student Union and the student body at large,” and presented ideas for interacting with constituents that he helped to develop at a diversity workshop with the senate last weekend.

Senate Vice President Gloria Park ’13 discussed plans to organize an event that would bring together students and Public Safety in the near future. Park said she wanted to promote “a deeper relationship” between the two groups.

Executive Senator Shekeyla Caldwell ’14 made a similar proposal for an Athletics Initiative, with the intention of building a connection between the Union and the Athletics Department. “I feel as though our Athletics Department is very distant from our Union,” said Caldwell.

Caldwell, as chair of the Club Support Committee, also announced that the Union would begin a new “hands-on initiative” to charter and recognize clubs. According to Caldwell, the process would require a club’s charter to be approved by the entire Club Support Committee, which is comprised of six senators, instead of Caldwell alone. This would extend the approval process by a week, according to Caldwell.

Miscellaneous

Shirel Guez elected as judiciary chief justice

—compiled by Marielle Temkin

AP BRIEF

Lady Gaga launches initiative with MacArthur Foundation and Harvard NEW YORK— Lady Gaga is launching a foundation with the help of the MacArthur Foundation and Harvard University.

The singer announced Wednesday that she is launching the Born This Way Foundation, a nonprofit focusing on youth empowerment and “issues like self-confidence, well-being, anti-bullying, mentoring and career development.”

Gaga’s partners include the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the California Endowment and the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.

The foundation will be directed by the 25-year-old singer and her mother, Cynthia Germanotta.

“Together we hope to establish a standard of bravery and kindness, as well as a community worldwide that protects and nurtures others in the face of bullying and abandonment,” Gaga said in a statement.

The multiplatinum singer is known for speaking out for others. She recently said she wanted to meet with President Barack Obama to discuss her concerns over bullying, and she visited Maine last year to support the repeal of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy concerning homosexuals.

“Lady Gaga will help empower and give [a] voice to young people who find themselves overwhelmed, undersupported, disconnected, isolated, bullied, or struggling,” said Dr. Bob Ross, the CEO and president of the California Endowment.

The official launch for the Born This Way Foundation will be next year, and an advisory board will be announced soon.

n An article in Arts contained an incorrect statement about the author’s family members. Michal Govrin’s half-brother died, not her mother’s half-brother. (Nov. 1, p. 23) n A photo in Sports incorrectly stated the name of the photographer. The photo was taken by Jon Edelstein, not Josh Edelstein. (Nov. 1, p. 13) The Justice welcomes submissions for errors that warrant correction or clarification. Email editor@ thejustice.org.

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—Tate Herbert

BRIEF

Nov. 1—Two male parties were caught smoking marijuana behind Deroy Hall. Paraphernalia was confiscated from two students; judicial charges will follow.

Nov. 4—University Police received a report from a student that several people appeared to be breaking into a storage area in the South Residence Lot. Officers interviewed the men, who turned out to be contract employees retrieving work materials.

Nov. 5—A party came to the University Police station and reported that she had received a threatening email. A follow-up showed that the email was not a threat, just a bad joke.

CORRECTIONS AND CLARIFICATIONS

As of Sunday night, said Caldwell, there is also a renewal process for existing clubs.

Clubs must fill out a form on Google documents with information on their activities and leaders. “What we want to do is make sure that every club … is available to the students. Too many times have people come up saying that they thought that a club existed, and it didn’t really exist,” said Caldwell. The deadline for clubs to submit the form is Nov. 23. After this date, clubs will be classified as inactive, and may be de-chartered or de-recognized by the Senate.

Other plans discussed by senators and Senate committees included adding healthy options to the Midnight Buffet, de-stressing events during finals and a possible “[toilet] paper mobile” to distribute supplies in Rosenthal and Ziv Quads. Several senators brought up the need to get more people vancertified for the upcoming Turkey Shuttles.

Herbie Rosen swore in Racial Minority Senator Jonathan Beaver ’15 at the meeting.

The “Senator of the Week” was East Quad Senator Jeremy Goodman ’14.

Blades of Glory

ASHER KRELL/the Justice

Briana Bensenouci ’12 skates on a makeshift ice rink in the Levin Ballroom, which was installed Wednesday night as part of Louis Louis week, which this year was themed “iLouis Louis.” The event, called “Ice Ice Baby,” featured free s’mores and hot cocoa.

The Student Judiciary voted unanimously to elect Shirel Guez ’12 as chief justice, according to Union Judiciary members in both emails and in interviews with the Justice.

Guez, who served as vice president, said that she will have a “nice” transition to the chief justice position. Currently, there are four other Justices on the SJ. According to SJ member John Fonte ’12 in an email to the Justice, Guez is the only SJ member with previous experience and wrote that for that reason Guez that “deserve[d] to be elected as Chief Justice.” In a phone interview with the Justice, SJ member Gali Gordon ’15 said that Guez had a “very impressive track record.”

Guez said that as chief justice, she looks forward to staying involved with SJ and continuing to enforce the Constitution. In addition, Guez said she also aims to examine the Constitution and work with the Union to find ways to clarify the wording.

In particular, Guez said she would like to alter language concerning the roles of the “abstain” and “skip” options in voting, as well as language about student eligibility to run for office.

“There’s a lot of ambiguity about who can run for positions,” said Guez.

She said that students have expressed confusion regarding senior and junior representative posts and whether students of certain years may run for them.

Currently, the constitution does not specify differences between senior and junior representative positions or dictate if certain seats are only open to underclassmen or upperclassmen.

In addition, Guez said she anticipates working with members of the Union and reaching out to the Brandeis community.

“I’m excited,” said Guez. “I think this will be a good year.”

—Sara Dejene

ANNOUNCEMENTS Alumni shadowing program info session

Learn about the benefits of shadowing a Brandeis alum this Winter Break. From career exploration to specialized networking, a shadowing experience can help you learn about career options and connect you with experts in a field. Today from 4 to 5 p.m. in the Hiatt Career Center.

Former IDF soldier discusses ethics

Join BIPAC as we bring former Israeli Defense Forces soldier Nadav Weinberg to Brandeis to discuss IDF military ethics as well as the practical application of U.S. foreign aid in the the field of battle. There will be a question-and-answer session following Weinberg’s remarks. Tomorrow from 8:30 to 10 p.m. in Mandel G03.

Study Abroad info session

Navigating the off-campus study process and finding the best study program for you can be challenging, but fear not! The Office of Study Abroad is here to help. Each of the Study Abroad Information Sessions is designed to give you an overview of the off-campus study process at Brandeis

including: tips for researching programs and destinations, the application process, getting credit for your work off campus, financial aid and resources and services our office provides. Attending a general information session is mandatory for students wishing to study off campus for the semester or academic year. Tomorrow from 4 to 5 p.m. in the Usdan Student Center International Lounge.

Government Careers Forum

Explore public service careers through this very popular networking and recruiting program. Sponsored by the Hiatt Career Center, the Government Forum will feature a keynote presentation by Representative Tackey Chan ’95, followed by round-table networking sessions for students, alumni, faculty and staff with agency representatives. Thursday from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Hassenfeld Conference Center.

Mark Auslander lectures on religion

Master-slave relations and the artistic representations they have inspired figure

prominently in diverse religious and ritual systems. The structural relationship of lord to bondsman informs monotheistic and polytheistic traditions all over the world. In this presentation, Prof. Mark Auslander (ANTH) considers varied cosmological and aesthetic meditations on slavery and revolution in classical and contemporary works of art. He then turns to a specific historical and ethnographic case, the long contested narrative of a specific enslaved woman in the American South, whose ownership by a prominent Methodist bishop led to the national schism of the Methodist Church and helped launch the nation on the road towards Civil War. Building on his new book, The Accidental Slaveowner: Revisiting a Myth of Race and Finding an American Family, Auslander explores the ambiguous affordances of the master-slave aesthetic and spiritual imagery in pro-slavery and anti-slavery initiatives across 160 years. Auslander is an associate professor of Anthropology at Central Washington University. Friday from 4 to 6 p.m. in the Mandel Atrium.

THE JUSTICE

awards

scheduled to give a lecture at the University this academic year.

By damiana andonova JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

This year, the Brandeis Selection Committee awarded the prestigious Gittler Prize to co-recipients Frances Smith Foster, professor emerita at Emory University, and Clayborne Carson of Stanford University for their lasting scholarship in the field of racial and ethnic relations.

Instituted by Joseph B. Gittler, an established sociologist, the $25,000 Gittler Prize is meant to recognize “outstanding and lasting scholarly contributions to racial, ethnic and/or religious relations.”

The prize is awarded by the University to recipients upon their visit to the campus for a guest lecture.

On receiving the Gittler Prize, Carson said he “was very pleased” and that he will use the prize money to further his work.

“I don’t think it will have that great of an impact in the sense that if I hadn’t received the prize, I would still be doing the same work that I am doing,” he added.

Foster, co-recipient of the Gittler Prize, said in an interview with the Justice that she experienced a “warm flush tinged with cold caution” upon hearing that she received the award.

Foster also said she was excited to hear that Carson was the co-recipient because it put her in very “big-bug” company. She said that she was excited to have been selected to be a co-recipient of such a prestigious award.

In the interview, Foster shared that she is continuing her work in racial and ethnic relations by writing another book, but is planning on using her prize money on a much needed family reunion.

“My children travel for business and research but not for pleasure. I have never had a vacation with my children and my grandchildren all together, and that is on my bucket list,” she said.

Carson explained in an interview with the Justice how he began working in the field of racial and ethnic relations, what his work meant to him and the global impact of his work.

He began his scholarship as a college journalist in the 1960s, stating

he “liked to ask interesting people about their lives” and that it gave him an excuse to be “nosy.” He began his exploration of freedom struggles when he attended the 1963 March on Washington.

Carson said, “It’s hard to imagine my life without Dr. [Martin Luther] King. Going to the march at Washington, I was 19 at the time, and it was a turning point in my life.” Since then, he said, he has believed that it is his job to tell the story of that struggle. Carson has spent 26 years collecting, editing and publishing. Since 1985, Dr. Carson has lectured throughout the world and has seen firsthand the impact of his scholarship.

The selection committee includes nine Brandeis administrators and faculty chaired by University President Frederick Lawrence and gives the award to deserving scholars each year.

Associate Vice President for University Affairs John R. Hose, who provided the staff support on the committee, described the selection process and the history of the Gittler Endowed Fund in an interview with the Justice.

“This was a very competitive year. Several dozen individuals from the United States and abroad were nominated. There were a number of serious finalists,” he said.

Hose explained that “There was a strong consensus of the top two, [and because] the research interests were complementary, the committee shared a feeling that both were enormously deserving.”

In 2009, the Gittler Prize wasn’t given because of the financial crises and because the Gittler Endowed Fund was “underwater,” explained Hose. “The expectation is that the prize will continue in the future years.”

As a requirement for the reward, Foster and Carson will be giving a talk at Brandeis this year.

Foster’s talk, titled “Conjuring Culture and Other Extracurricular Activities,” is scheduled for Tuesday, Nov. 29 in the Rapaporte Treasure Hall.

Carson will visit Brandeis Feb. 13 to 14, 2012 and will discuss Dr. Martin Luther King’s global historical significance.

“The topic is going to be … the work I’ve been doing for last 45 years—of investigating the life of Martin Luther King and studying his ideas to gain more of an understanding. I would like to reflect on global significance,” said Carson.

TUESDAY, november 8, 2011

HILARY HEYISON/the Justice

BAILOUT: (From left) Herbie Rosen ’12, Marc Eder ’12, Shirel Guez ’12 and Jason Dick ’14 bribe students to donate to CAC.

Brandeis CAC receives Leader of Hope award ■ The Brandeis chapter of

CAC held about 17 events last year, almost triple the requirement for the award.

By sam mintz JUSTICE EDITORIAL ASSISTANT

The Brandeis chapter of Colleges Against Cancer received the Leader of Hope award at the American Cancer Society’s New England Division Relay for Life Collegiate Leadership Summit earlier this month.

The award is given to university chapters that fulfill requirements that include hosting at least six events over the course of the academic year, participating in conference calls, submitting content to the American Cancer Society website and filling out a year-end report.

Brandeis was one of many universities that won this award.

According to Relay for Life Chair Hannah Katcoff ’12, Brandeis’ Colleges Against Cancer held approximately 17 events last year, well beyond the minimum for the award.

The events included the annual Relay for Life, film screenings and Daffodil Days, during which the club teams up with the Waltham Group and sells daffodils to fundraise for the American Cancer Society.

Relay for Life is the signature fundraiser for the ACS, of which Colleges Against Cancer is a division. According to Katcoff, in the past, the Brandeis Relay raised as much as $86,000 in a year and had as many as 900 participants. Last year, the event had more than 800 participants and raised around $65,000.

“I think because of the type of people who go [to Brandeis], people want to help, people want to be at Relay,” said Katcoff in an interview with the Justice. “No matter what background you’re from, what political views you have, everyone still comes together at Relay [in support of] this one cause.”

Ari Boltax ’14, the publicity cocoordinator for Relay for Life, said that students don’t need to have a direct link to cancer to get involved with the Relay and other Colleges Against Cancer events. “I don’t have a personal connection [to can-

cer],” said Boltax, in an interview with the Justice.

“I’ve just found that it’s really the community that drives it. You really get a sense of how much [of] a community Brandeis is, and it brings out the best in people.”

The Relay organizers held a kickoff event at Cholmondeley’s on Nov. 1 that featured a cappella groups and a talk by a cancer survivor.

They also put on an event on Nov. 2 called “Jail and Bail,” at which participating students and faculty were “jailed” in the Shapiro Campus Center, and students could bail them out with donations or pay to keep them in jail for longer. The event raised more than $1,400 for the Relay for Life.

Colleges Against Cancer has hundreds of chapters nationwide, according to the ACS website. The four “strategic directions” of the program are advocacy, cancer education, Relay for Life and survivorship.

As of Friday, this year’s Relay had raised $2,892 and had 96 participants signed up.

BRIEF

Waltham residents vote today for 19 open positions

HILARY HEYISON/the Justice

“Ride a Cowboy” Edmund Oribhabor ’14 rides a mechanical bull at the Louis Louis week event titled “Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy)” in the Shapiro Campus Center Atrium.

3

JAILED FOR A CAUSE

Two professors win Gittler Prize for racial studies ■ Both recipients are

●

Waltham voters go to the polls today to elect the next mayor of Waltham, nine ward councilors, six councilors at large and three members to sit on the school committee.

Two-term Mayor Jeannette McCarthy is running against Andrew Wirth, a 22 year-old MassBay Community College student.

Despite the fact that Brandeis is located in Waltham, there have been no movements on-campus to raise awareness and most students interviewed were unaware that city elections would be taking place today. None interviewed could name the candidates.

McCarthy’s two major projects that she would like to complete in a third term as mayor would likely not have direct effects on the insulated Brandeis community.

The projects entail developing and properly planning the use of the 200-acre state-owned Fernald School property and the privately owned 119-acre former Polaroid

property off Main Street, according to McCarthy.

Part of the plan to develop the Polaroid property is to bring diverse retail stores, restaurants and office buildings. “We are excited about that but we are also cognizant of the traffic,” she said.

This plan is currently in its first phases of implementation.

McCarthy said the relationship between Brandeis and the City of Waltham is “good,” citing the Waltham Group as a positive influence, but has room to improve.

“I think, overall, it’s a better relationship [than it was] in the ’60s and ’70s.”

McCarthy suggested bringing more Brandeis students into Waltham schools.

“I think there should be more with regard to the science programs, I think that bringing the strength of the Brandeis academics to the day-to-day mentoring, I would like to see more programs like that,” she said.

McCarthy also said that Brandeis does not “give as much money to the City of Waltham as Bentley does.”

McCarthy’s competitor, Andrew Wirth, could not be reached for comment by press time.

Wirth—who is aspiring to gain a place in the Guinness Book of World Records by spinning the book on his finger for over 40 minutes—told the Waltham News Tribune in August that he would like to focus on improving the roads and sidewalks.

Seven ward councilor incumbents are running unopposed, according to the sample ballot.

Nine individuals are running for six open councilor at large positions and six people are running for three open seats on the school committee.

Polls are open today from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.

—Andrew Wingens

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AWARDS

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TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2011

5

ISSUES IN INDIA

Univ ranked a best value

■ Brandeis is placed between

Boston College and Tufts University in the Kiplinger ranking system.

By ALLYSON CARTTER JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

Brandeis has been ranked 23rd out of 100 private universities in Kiplinger’s list of best values in private education.

According to Kiplinger’s website, the purpose of the list is to “identify institutions that are both academically strong and affordable.”

For this year’s list, Kiplinger, a business and personal finance publication, has taken “a fresh look at … issues that affect real families” and has placed more weight in high four-year—rather than five-year— graduation rates and efforts to lower student debt upon graduation, according to its website.

The five categories considered in the ranking are—in order of importance—cost and financial aid, competitiveness, academic support, graduation rates and student indebtedness.

Brandeis has a 35-percent admission rate, nine students per faculty member and an 84-percent four-year graduation rate. The average needand non-need-based aid allotted are $27,772 and $23,117, respectively, and 24 percent of all undergraduate students receive non-need-based aid.

The total cost per year is $54,954, and the average student debt at graduation is $21,351.

Brandeis falls between 22nd-ranked Boston College and 24th-ranked Tufts University.

The top-ranked university for 201112 is Princeton University, and the number-one best value liberal arts college is Pomona College. A total of 200 schools were evaluated, 100 for the university category and the other 100 for the liberal arts college category, selected from more than 600 private institutions.

“I believe most of our students choose Brandeis for the incredible academic experience along with a shared commitment to our common values,” wrote Senior Vice President for Students and Enrollment Andrew Flagel in an email to the Justice.

“Being a great value is consistent with those values, and I am very glad we continue to keep our student debt at what appear to be low levels when compared to other institutions nationally.”

JENNY CHENG/the Justice

SPEAKING OUT: Simmons College Professor Jyoti Puri discussed India and the homophobic attitudes of its security services in the Mandel Atrium last Tuesday.

Prof lectures on Indian homophobia ■ Professor Jyoti Puri spoke

about widespread brutality of the Indian police force against homosexuals.

By LORELEI VENER JUSTICE CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Jyoti Puri, a professor from Simmons College, discussed homophobia and racism in the Indian penal code and police department in a lecture titled “Racialized Communalisms, Criminalized Queers and the Police in Contemporary India” last Wednesday in the Mandel Center for the Humanities Atrium.

Puri is a professor of sociology at Simmons and received the Fulbright Award. In her lecture, she discussed communalism as a lynchpin of power, knowledge and pleasure in modern India, as well as Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code and on the inherent police bias against Hitras, a caste made up of eunuchs, transsexuals and transvestites.

The debate about Section 377, which criminalizes sexual activity “against the order of nature,” centers around the possible decriminalization of sodomy. It epitomizes the intersection of sexuality and state

and illustrates “the anxiety around sexuality and how it ought to be regulated,” said Puri in her lecture.

Puri opened by speaking about homophobic attitudes among police.

Puri used interviews with officers, students and constables to support her ideas.

“The police in India is one of the most opaque institutions,” said Puri. There was widespread evidence of police brutality against homosexuals, but officers made no attempt to cover it up. Instead, it was justified by police.

Delhi officers perpetrated widespread brutality against homosexuals and they justified this behavior by stereotyping homosexuals as an inherently violent and criminal social group who warranted officers taking preemptive “crime prevention” steps to safeguard the public.

These steps are considered unwarranted brutality by Westerners. Police, for instance, are openly violent toward Hitras. “To be a Hitra in the eyes of the Delhi police is to be a criminal,” Puri said. Hitras are automatically suspected of kidnapping and castrating children and deemed a group of hereditary criminals.

One constable interviewed said, “I say what I have seen,” after making a statement that the majority

RIVERSIDE: Trial shuttle runs set to start Saturday CONTINUED FROM 1 the meeting.

Guez explained in an email to the Justice that “we were asked to sit in on this meeting after being approached by the Student Union. We were able to provide relevant information regarding van and shuttle usage during weekdays and weekends.”

Guez wrote that those implementing this run decided to make it a trial run to ensure student interest would be high.

“It was decided that a trial run would best benefit our service and the student body because it would allow us to gauge the demand for this shuttle service,” she wrote.

Callahan explained that the Depart-

ment of Public Safety is paying for the cost of the two-day shuttle but would not fund the shuttle should it become permanent.

“It is important to write that this is a Test Trial two day service. If this is a permanent service that is requested by the Student Union, funding will have to obtained from a funding source,” Callahan wrote.

Callahan said he did not know who would fund it should the shuttle become permanent and that the budget office would determine available funds.

Guez did not provide an answer when asked if she thought the shuttle would become permanent University policy. She did note, however, that

student responses have been very positive.

“Since our press release I have received about 25 emails from students who are very excited about this trial run. The Escort Safety Service is a completely student-run service, we depend on our students and our goal is to satisfy the student body as well.

At the end of the day I believe that this is a very positive trial run and we’ll see where it goes in the future,” she wrote.

Rosen wrote in an email to the Justice that Union Vice President Gloria Park '13, Off-Campus Senator Rachel Goutman '12 and Senator for East Quad Jeremy Goodman '13 headed much of the initiative.

of crimes and unnatural sex were perpetrated by “Mohamedans,” the colonialist term for Muslims used in a derogatory manner by the Delhi police force. Puri explained that the majority of the force shared this perspective.

However, Puri explained the police felt that the law itself was misunderstood. The law refers to unnatural sex as sex with animals, old men raping young children and wives who were forced to have anal intercourse. It was not written as inherently homophobic.

In regards to social issues, the police ran into further problems because India is a divided nation, with Muslims constituting a mere 12 percent of the population, while Hindus make up 84 percent.

“The mostly Hindu, male police is prejudiced,” said Puri.

The anti-Muslim sentiment affects Sikhs and Muslims in every aspect of their lives. For example, there are “widespread and disproportionate gaps in education attainment [for Muslims],” said Puri.

On the topic of Section 377, the law concerning unnatural sex, the police are divided about whether it should be changed or not. “If this is removed, it will increase homosexuality,” said a Delhi police officer, ac-

cording to Puri.

The force articulated that they felt there was something inherently wrong with same-sex sexual activities. However, one officer, according to Puri, said “that the law is wrong when it applies to two consenting adults and that the law should change.”

Many of the complaints classified under Section 377 were made by underage children raped by adults.

Although the law was seen as inherently homophobic, it also functioned as protection from sexual assault for minors, explained Puri.

Puri said that the police are neither pro-change nor unified in their homophobia, raising the “possibility of fractures in these seemingly monolithic structures.”

Students said they enjoyed the lecture for the way it articulated the sensitive subject of homosexuality and the law and tied it in with the anti-Muslim sentiment in Indian policing.

“I really appreciated ... how [the lecture] approached this from a different cultural context, and the ... way we look at homosexuality, especially from a legal perspective— how it doesn’t always translate into other languages and cultures,” said Sarah Herson ’14.

DINING: Senate initiates discussion with Aramark CONTINUED FROM 1

weekends, according to the survey results obtained by the Justice.

“I am very excited about the CStore Trial runs, and I am hopeful that they will become permanent,” wrote Herbie Rosen in an email to the Justice. “I am especially appreciative of Ricky for making this happen and sharing his goals with the Student Union so that we may make even more positive changes on this front.”

The Senate’s survey also asked students about the hours of Sherman Dining Hall, but most students were satisfied in that respect. “The thing with Dining Services talks is that you need to represent the population, you need to be a liaison from the students to dining,” said Ricky Rosen. “If there’s no demand for change, then it’s not going to

happen.”

Ricky Rosen’s conversations with Dining Services have led to other changes to the P.O.D. Market.

There are now several brands of frozen foods from the P.O.D. Market included in University meal plans.

The Senate is also working to add gluten-free items from the P.O.D. Market to the meal plans.

“What’s most important throughout this whole process is that students’ voices are being heard,” continued Ricky Rosen’s email.

“I think it’s a great idea for anyone doing late-night studying,” said Kelsey Segaloff ’15, about the extension of P.O.D. Market hours.

Once their work with the P.O.D. Market is complete, Ricky Rosen and the Senate plan to work toward changes for Einstein Bros. Bagels.

Take pictures for

the

Justice!

ASHER KRELL/the Justice

Contact Yosef Schaffel and Tali Smookler at photos@thejustice.org for more information.

Interested in journalism?

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Want to be the rst to know the facts?

Be a reporter for theJustice!

Contact Sara Dejene and Andrew Wingens at news@thejustice.org for more information.

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just

features

Dr. Gabriel Feldman ’82 exposes fraud in New York City’s health care system

By Dafna Fine justice editor

He grew up in a modest home in Brooklyn, N.Y. and looked up to his grandfather who worked as a doctor. He spent a period during his time at Brandeis searching for the right career to pursue before settling on a pre-med track. He spent two and a half years fighting for a cause he felt passionate about when no one else would speak out.

He won one of the largest whistle-blower cases of New York City last week in a $70-million settlement to achieve justice in the city’s health care system.

Accusing the city of using taxpayer money to provide recipients of home health care with more expensive services than necessary, Dr. Gabriel Feldman ’82 filed the Medicaid fraud lawsuit against New York City in 2009.

“In the settlement, filed on Monday, the city admitFeldman ted that it had violated state rules governing the Medic- aid program,” according to a Nov. 4 New York Times article. Feldman will receive $14.7 million from the $70-million settlement.

As an independent medical reviewer with an M.D., Feldman has made thousands of visits to elderly and disabled patients in the New York area who are receiving health care services within their home. In a state that provides one of the most generous home health care programs, he has watched countless patients receive aid in their homes to prevent them from having to live in nursing homes.

“I’ve been to every bureau in almost every neighborhood in the city making my own home visits to see how people are and how well their care is working out,” Feldman said.

“If we’re going to help people, that’s great. But there’s no reason to spend three times as much on each program if you can get the same outcome for a dollar as opposed to three dollars,” he said.

Feldman decided to bring the case against the city under the federal whistle-blower law that allows a person to expose dishonest or illegal activities occurring in a government department or organization.

Initially met with little enthusiasm by the lawyers he sought to hire for his case, Feldman worked hard to prove the importance of pursuing his case against New York City. “We have a Medicaid program that is wildly expensive and ineffective and does not produce great outcomes,” he said. “New York has to get their Medicaid program together. They’ve got to cut out the waste and fraud. There’s got to be audits and regulations and oversight,” he explained.

Ultimately gaining the opportunity to bring his case before a judge, Feldman faced challenges from the city that requested the case be thrown out. “One of the reasons they felt that way was because they said, ‘Look, this is an altruistic program, we’re trying to care for the elderly and disabled,’” Feldman explained.

“Which ... I support as long as the program is run legally,” he said. Others accused him of trying to cut care for the elderly and disabled and force such people into nursing homes.

“I think that made the case extremely controversial and extremely difficult for me to navigate. Because as a public health physician, I want to make sure the individual is cared for, and I want to make sure the taxpayer is cared for, and I want to make sure Medicaid is fair for everyone,” he said.

While Feldman found others who felt passionate about cutting Medicaid fraud and wasteful spending from the system, few were willing to speak up. “Everyone says we have to cut out the waste, fraud and abuse from these systems. But then as soon as you start trying to cut anything or adjust anything or downsize anything, people say ‘You don’t like the elderly, you don’t like disabled people,’” Feldman said.

“If we’re going to become a country with a real working health care system that’s fair with

THE JUSTICE

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7

VERBATIM | JOSEPH ADDISON Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love and something to hope for.

ON THIS DAY…

FUN FACT

In 1793, the French Revolutionary government opened the Louvre to the public as a museum.

The first Ferris wheel was built in Atlantic City in 1869.

A social justice

settlement

NASHRAH RAHMAN/the Justice

social justice, people are going to have to come forward and say, ‘We know that folks are wasting money. We know that some folks are getting more care and more services than they need and others are not getting enough.’ And I think that that’s the bottom line in this case,” he explained.

Feldman therefore stepped up as the whistleblower in the case which was settled last week for $70-million dollars after a long fight from Feldman. The settlement came after the city conceded it had not followed all regulations of the Medicaid system and that certain patients were getting more expensive care than necessary.

“The city acknowledged that for a decade, from 2000 to 2010, it had re-authorized personal care for certain patients without having physically obtained the required assessments from doctors,

nurses or social workers,” according to an Oct. 31 New York Times article. The settlement requires New York City to pay $70 million to the federal government, $14.7 of which will go to Feldman.

“It’s not as though folks are being deprived,” Feldman explained for the future of Medicaid recipients. “What is going on now is [that] the program is being run properly. People are getting what they’re supposed to be getting. Everyone gets the services they need, it might just be from a different program,” he said.

And though he may be millions of dollars richer than just a few weeks ago, Feldman’s simple lifestyle is still not far from his modest Brooklyn upbringing.

“Brandeis University [instilled] in me the feeling that social justice is important. I feel strongly

that justice was done here and hope to use whatever funds I get for good purposes,” he said.

He plans to continue his job and the work he is passionate about and may now be able to visit Israel more frequently, where he spent time attending medical school.

“One of the things that constantly came running through my mind while I was involved in the case was something Justice [Louis] Brandeis said which was that, ‘Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants,’” Feldman said.

“You’ll be amazed how simple and how effective that is. To this day, people would rather just push things to the side, push them under the table. To bring things into the light of day is always difficult for many reasons. But his words were guiding during this entire time,” Feldman said.

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TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2011

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THE JUSTICE

ASHER KRELL/the Justice

AUTHOR’S ADDRESS: Hill speaks about her motivations for writing her book ‘Reimagining Equality: Stories of Gender, Race, and Finding Home’ at an event in the Rapaporte Treasure Hall sponsored by the Heller School.

Achieving equality Prof. Anita Hill discusses the release of her most recent book

By JESSIE MILLER JUSTICE CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Today’s economic crisis is all around us. Millions of Americans are facing housing foreclosures across the country. Along with losing their homes, families are losing access to the American dream and will suffer the consequences for many generations to come.

Prof. Anita Hill, senior advisor to the provost and professor of the Heller School for Social Policy and Management, addresses these growing inequalities and hardships in her latest book, Reimagining Equality: Stories of Gender, Race, and Finding Home. Released Oct. 4, the book is a collection of stories about women and the challenges they face as they try to develop the meaning of home in their own lives.

Hill spoke about her book release and her motivations for writing it at an event sponsored by the Heller School in the Rapaporte Treasure Hall on Nov. 2.

“One of the questions I get is what motivated me to write this. What’s the personal motivation, how did I get to this issue?” Hill said during the opening of the event. “The pivotal issue is the foreclosure crisis,” she explained.

Her hope is that the book will “help people to think about how we can change our course and how we can build more inclusive communities and a stronger democracy by changing the way we think about home,” she said in an interview with the Justice. “[The home] is in fact a determinant of our access to so many opportunities,” Hill said. It determines where our children will be educated, who will represent us in local and state offices and nationally in the federal congress. Where we reside for many people determines our access to basic needs,” she said.

The home therefore plays a pivotal role in determining access to opportunity. And in the United States, access to opportunity determines access to equality, Hill explained.

Therefore, one of the most im-

PHOTO COURTESY OF DONNA EINHORN

PROLIFIC PROFESSOR: Hill released her second book on Oct. 4, which discusses the search for equality through the home. portant aspects of this book is the concept of the American dream and what it means to people, especially those affected by the downturn of the economy.

Due to the rising cost of the standard of living and the decrease in the average wage, Americans will continue experiencing the hardships we face now if we don’t address these issues, according to Hill.

“I see a lot of people being priced out of the market, and unless we start thinking about how to create

better communities, people are going to be pushed into communities where they have little access to safety, public services, to commercial services.”

If this current trend of families losing their homes and access to things as simple as education continues, the nation as a whole will suffer, according to Hill.

Until people are removed from these situations, the root of the problem will not disappear, and it will continue “into second and third

generations. Their grandchildren will be feeling the impact of this unless we get back on course,” Hill said.

“We can’t say to all of the people who are living in devastated communities, ‘If you just move, you will get to equality.’ We must now address those individuals where they are,” she said.

Her book therefore aims to capture the perspective of African Americans, “not from movement, but from staying and building. What

are the stories of people who stay and build?” Hill asked.

Inspired by her mother who never left her home on a rural farm in Oklahoma despite segregation and hardships, Hill explains that her personal and academic experience were not separate in writing the book.

“I really have the luxury of having my academic work driven by who I am as a woman, an African American [and] as a lawyer,” she said in the interview.

“I couldn’t really separate, or I didn’t really want to separate, my life work and my research. So this book, Reimagining Equality, is just that.”

Hill’s personal connection can be traced back to the story of her greatgrandmother, who was enslaved for the first 19 years of her life. Despite this, her son, Hill’s grandfather, was able to build a better life for himself and his family as a free, land-owning man.

Once he was freed, her grandfather was able “to homestead 80 acres of land in Arkansas,” creating a home for him and his family.

Hill largely attributes this establishment of a home to where she is today.

She therefore hopes Reimagining Equality will help people rethink how we see the issues of equality and the factors that affect it.

“If you’re interested in policy, in social change, really your children’s future and their ability to establish themselves in this country and achieve to their full ability, I think you should read this book. … And of course, I would love for [President] Barack Obama to read it,” she added with a smile in the interview.

In addition to her experience in law, Hill says her exposure to women’s issues and public policy during her time at Brandeis was instrumental to the writing of her book.

“I don’t think that I could have written this book had I not moved to Brandeis because being here allowed me to really take advantage of the liberal arts faculty and thinking,” she said.

THE JUSTICE

PHOTO COURTESY OF SAM PORTER

OUTDOOR ADVENTURES: JBS students have class outside in Kentucky’s mountains.

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9

PHOTO COURTESY OF SAM PORTER

GETTING TO WORK: Anna Khazan ’13 (left) and Emily Peterson ’13 paint the outside of an elderly woman’s house in Kentucky.

Experiential

classes in Kentucky

PHOTO COURTESY OF JENNY CHENG

VIEW FROM THE TOP: Sam Porter ’14 and Anna Khazan ’13 enjoy a mountaintop view following the group hike up the mountain.

Students study environmental issues with hands-on learning

By Tyler belanga JUSTICE staff writer

Leaving the everyday routine of classroom life before daybreak, 11 students piled into two packed vans in search of a handson learning experience. They drove over 17 hours to a place where their class time would consist of hiking the Appalachian Mountains, painting houses and exploring the great outdoors of Kentucky.

Students taking Prof. Laura Goldin’s (ENVS) Environmental Health and Justice course traveled to Harlan, Ky. on Sunday, Oct. 23 for a weeklong immersive experience in Environmental Studies. The class is one among a variety of Justice Brandeis Semester courses that aim to provide students with real-world experiences.

In a state notorious for using the environmentally destructive practice of mountaintop removal mining, a form of surface mining that requires the removal of the summit of a mountain to access coal seams, the JBS students hiked the Appalachian Mountains to witness the damage firsthand. They visited a museum devoted entirely to coal mining and met with a number of people in the community to learn about different ways in which mountaintop removal mining has affected the lives of the locals.

“Fifty percent of our energy is fueled by coal, and here we were going to the source of the coal and spending time in communities that are suffering by the way it is being removed from the ground. … It was truly an amazing experience,” Goldin said.

Upon arriving in Harlan, the class began by taking a hike through the Appalachian Mountains, one of the oldest mountain ranges on earth. To highlight the difference between natural beauty and human-caused devastation, the students then visited a site that had undergone the mountaintop removal process.

“You could just see the juxtaposition between what something should look like and what [humans] created,” said Sam Porter ’14, who also referred to the trip to Kentucky as “mind-blowing.” The class then visited a coal mining museum, which outlined the history of the coal mining industry in Kentucky and had a mock coal mine that visitors could enter.

Despite the negative effects of the coal mining process, the class was careful to present itself as a group of students interested in learning about coal mining and not there just to critique coal mining and its environmental consequences, according to Ariana Berlin ’14.

“When you go down to somewhere like this as an activist group, you can’t let people know exactly what you are doing. The coal mining industry is life; families in this area [of Kentucky] are able to have food because of coal mining. If you tell them you are against coal mining, they won’t talk to you,” she said.

The JBS students got to know a number of people in the community, including a priest who spoke about the connection between the

PHOTO COURTESY OF SAM PORTER

EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING: Students from the Environmental Health and Justice JBS explore the Appalachian Mountains while visiting Kentucky for class. environment and the Bible, a couple who had been ostracized from the community for their anti-mountaintop removal stance and an elderly woman whose house they painted one day of their trip.

“You hear abstractly about what strip mining is, and you might see a picture of it, but you never get to go hang out with the people whose lives it has actually affected. I know I would never have that experience if not for the JBS,” said Emily Bunker Peterson ’13, who added that the weeklong trip to Kentucky played a large role in helping the class connect with each other on a more personal level.

“The trip to Kentucky was my favorite part [of the JBS] so far. It was a big factor in forming relationships with other students because of the amount of time we had to spend together away from campus,” she explained.

A double major in International Global Studies and Anthropology, Peterson said that, although she is not an Environmental Studies major like many other students in the class, she chose to take the JBS because it sounded like a valuable alternative to regular classroom learning.

“As an IGS major, I was interested in how environmental and human rights work, and

this course was an opportunity to be involved in both. … Getting to interact with so many different people and groups has been amazing; it is such a different way to learn,” she said.

Though students have returned to campus from their Kentucky trip, they have already begun work on their next hands-on project to continue their experiential learning outside the classroom this semester.

The JBS class will be studying toxic exposure for the remainder of the semester by investigating exposure levels of workers in various nail salons in the Boston area.

“The materials used in nail salons are known to be highly toxic, especially in terms of reproductive health effects. Most are endocrine disruptors and they have not been regulated out of the market,” Goldin explained.

The class currently plans to investigate 20 salons but hopes that number will rise to as many as 50. Over the coming weeks, the students will visit each salon and attempt to devise better ventilation methods to lower prolonged exposure levels among workers.

“These chemicals are not going to be taken off the market anytime soon, so we are trying to figure out what can be done to protect these

workers,” Goldin said.

Last offered in summer 2010, this semester is only the second time that the Environmental Health and Justice JBS has been offered.

According to Goldin, the course was offered during the school year this time to allow a greater number of interested students to enroll in the course, as well as to extend the class to a full 13 weeks so that students can accomplish more.

“Learning really happens when you are getting deeply engaged in the subject by interacting with the community. When you do this, the issues around people, soil and water become real,” Goldin said.

“We are not just trying to create solutions, we are working with people on the ground to do so,” she said.

The Environmental Health and Justice JBS will likely be offered again in either summer or fall 2013, according to Goldin.

“I have definitely gained a greater understanding and appreciation for Waltham and the community,” Porter said.

“We are kind of in a bubble at Brandeis, isolated from a very rich population. Working with [so many] community partners in the Waltham area allows us to give back,” he said.

BACKGROUND PHOTO COURTESY OF SAM PORTER

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TUESDAY, November 8, 2011

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THE JUSTICE

Justice Justice

the the

Established 1949, Brandeis University

Brandeis University

Established 1949

Emily Kraus, Editor in Chief Nashrah Rahman, Managing Editor Brian N. Blumenthal, Production Editor Alana Abramson, Rebecca Blady, Bryan Flatt, Rebecca Klein, Asher Krell, Tess Raser and Robyn Spector, Associate Editors Sara Dejene and Andrew Wingens, News Editors Dafna Fine, Features Editor Eitan Cooper, Forum Editor Jeffrey Boxer, Sports Editor Wei-Huan Chen and Ariel Kay, Arts Editors Yosef Schaffel and Tali Smookler, Photography Editors Nan Pang, Layout Editor Marielle Temkin, Copy Editor Cody Yudkoff, Advertising Editor

Take survey seriously It has been some time since the Student Union took a comprehensive survey of student opinion on this campus.

While the Union is correct in assuming that students do not want their inboxes overloaded with lengthy surveys and questionnaires, this board believes that regular assessments of student attitudes are necessary for the Union to function well.

In this vein, we offer our praise to Student Union President Herbie Rosen ’12 and the rest of the Student Union for the creation of the Student Union Pulse.

The Pulse, a five-part survey issued over the course of this week, is a clever way to make students focus on one aspect of campus life at a time. Each day, Monday through Friday, students have the opportunity to voice their opinions on dining, housing, student life, the Student Union and miscellaneous things that concern them. We anticipate that this will be an effective way to gather student voices. We urge students to complete this survey so that the Union and its committees have a better idea of what to focus on for the betterment of the student experience.

We especially encourage students to pay attention to Thursday’s survey on the Student Union. Given the complications the Union and the rest of the student body experienced with the voting system and the chartering of more clubs than the Student Activities Fee can afford, it is essential that students dedicate time to this section of the survey to maximize their ability to do whatever they want with their Brandeis experience.

On this note, we also want students to think about supporting the cause for

Union values student voices a constitutional review next semester, as Mr. Rosen discussed in an interview with the Justice. Traditionally, the constitutional review is held every four years, as mandated by the Union Constitution.

The last constitutional review took place in spring 2010. While another constitutional review may seem premature, we believe that it would certainly be productive, especially given the new relevance of a potential Club Support Board and the errors with instant runoff voting and miscounts in the Student Judiciary election.

Performing a constitutional review at this stage would also increase awareness among the student body of the constitution.

It would highlight the proposals made by last year’s Constitutional Review Committee, such as the Club Support Board, that should be reconsidered in light of the events that transpired this year. From the results of the survey, we implore the Student Union to consider the students’ opinions when conducting this constitutional review.

As seen with the upcoming trials of a Riverside shuttle and extended weekend hours at the Provisions on Demand Market, the Student Union listens to students and takes their proposals seriously. Students have the opportunity to witness a major turning point in student governance on this campus, but only if they make their voices heard.

We urge students to recognize the importance of this week’s survey series and voice their opinions to our Student Union.

Raising cancer awareness Last week, the Brandeis chapter of Colleges Against Cancer received the Leader of Hope award from the American Cancer Society for its efforts in raising funds and awareness of the fight against cancer through campus events.

We recognize that the club went above and beyond the requirements for the award and we applaud its members’ dedication to this cause. Furthermore, we encourage the organization to continue hosting events that involve the entire Brandeis community.

Of these events was “Jail and Bail,” held last week. For this event, students and staff, like Student Union President Herbie Rosen ’12 and Associate Dean of Student Life Jamele Adams, were fictitiously locked up in the Shapiro Campus Center Atrium, and spectators were given the opportunity to donate money to either release them or detain them further. The donations from the event are going to help fund the Relay for Life event in the spring semester.

At the event, Colleges Against Cancer raised more than $1,400; an impressive sum given that the event lasted only two hours.

The success of the “Jail and Bail” event was due largely to the widespread support from the student body, and University departments such as Dining Services and the Department of Public

Get involved in worthy cause Safety. While the event generated interest because it was an entertaining and well-advertised idea, students may have been more willing to participate because they knew that the donations were going toward a worthy cause. Previous fundraisers by the organization have also been consistently prosperous. Last year, Relay for Life hosted Daffodil Days, raising over $2,214 for the American Cancer Society just by selling flowers.

The actual overnight Relay for Life event raised nearly $65,000. Last Thursday, Colleges Against Cancer hosted a coffeehouse in Cholmondeley’s, and this week Relay for Life will partner with International Club for the Rumba dance, further spreading the club’s message.

The substantial student involvement in these events shows our student body’s potential for accomplishing tremendous feats if they invest their time and energy.

Students should be even more inclined to participate knowing that money they donate to for these events will be going towards fighting cancer.

We encourage Colleges Against Cancer to continue their work in bringing attention to its cause by involving students through interesting and innovative events.

RISHIKA ASSOMULL/the Justice

Make higher level education affordable Diego

Medrano Missing link

OP-BOX Quote of the Week “I love that moment when I feel complete silence, when there is complete still. I can tell that everybody is with me.”

— Naoko Sugiyama, a pianist talking about playing music (Arts, page 19)

Brandeis Talks Back Just about everyone you’ve met at Brandeis is probably in some form of debt.

The amount varies from person to person, but student loans have become commonplace for college students. Especially in institutions tightening their budgets, the era of free rides and huge scholarships are in serious jeopardy.

While other schools have been increasing their tuition, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in Manhattan’s East Village has remained free for all accepted students.

Founded in 1859 on the ideal that higher education should not cost money, Cooper Union has maintained a system of meritocracy and low acceptance rates. Now, after over a century of providing free higher education, Cooper Union is considering charging tuition to deal with its debt.

Let’s hope it doesn’t.

While Cooper Union administators says that they’re exploring all methods of brings in new revenue, charging tuition shouldn’t be an option.

The college is a reminder that education shouldn’t be something only available to the privileged. The government only provides us with public K-12 education, but that doesn’t mean that higher education should be unattainable. Cooper Union is the American dream incarnated: working hard to pull yourself up by your bootstraps.

Every other school seems to justify its increasing costs with the opportunities it provides; Cooper Union provides those opportunities only to those most deserving. By charging for their school, they will no longer represent any ideal; they simply become like every other college. Who would want Cooper Union to become another middle-of-the-road college?

I know the money could potentially make them an even better school, but there is a bigger issue at hand. Cooper Union challenges the status quo; it challenges the notion that higher education has to be expensive.

Far from a radical, far-fetched experiment, they are a respected institution that carries that mantra with them. Most schools cannot afford to simply let everyone attend for free, but the current culture of higher education has most undergraduates leaving with a heavy burden of debt.

Many college students understand this debt is unavoidable, but Cooper Union at the very least represents a system that rewards us solely for our work.

Closing the school is obviously the worst possible choice and isn’t even on the table, but it’s really in the hands of the donors to keep its dream alive.

I know the importance I place on that school may sound overly idealistic, but every year, a few hundred graduates leave the college debt-free and able to take on the next phase of their lives.

To those who value education and contribution for the prosperity of future generations, their donations are best suited not only to keep a school like Cooper Union alive but to allow for its expansion and for the creation of new schools in the same model.

While they may not be able to be completely free, schools can at least provide quality education at reasonable costs.

In many countries, higher education is provided by the state at exceptionally low costs. Yes, America has some of the most impressive colleges and universities in the world, but that’s not to say that many people paying low rates at in other countries are getting a second-rate education.

They’re simply getting educated while gathering less debt. As students, we don’t expect most schools to have sudden changes of heart and simply cover all students’ tuition, but universities filled with our country’s brightest minds need to realize that students simply cannot afford the amount of debt now associated with getting an education.

The more educated people are, the more likely they are to contribute to their society and economy. You can ensure a country is built for future success by making sure that people receive higher education.

That assurance relies on the participation of an entire society, and excluding those who cannot afford to further educate themselves doesn’t provide an equal opportunity for success.

Rather than just protect the future of Cooper Union, schools should take a page out of their book: education for all who deserve it.

What are you going to do for Kindness Week?

Gaurab Reja ’13 “Be nice to people.”

Emmanuel Obasuyi ’12 “I’m buying a pie to donate and throwing a big event, A Night for Africa.”

Andrea Katz ’14 “I’m being kind to all my new friends.”

Emily Bunker Peterson ’13 “I’m going out of my way to spend time with friends I haven’t seen in a while.”

—Compiled by Rebecca Klein Photos by Tess Raser/ the Justice

THE JUSTICE

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TUESDAY November 8, 2011

11

Don’t stereotype elite college students Philip

gallagher back to basics

As many of us have probably realized, attending a well-respected college carries a great degree of social value.

Mentioning the fact that you attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology or Stanford University in a conversation can often add a degree of gravitas to everything you say from that point on.

Several elite schools have a clubhouse that only grants membership to alumni of the university, such as the Harvard Club, the Yale Club and Brandeis House.

In academia, professors are very proud of where they went to school, sometimes even name-dropping their alma maters in classes as if to validate the content of their lectures.

As a Brandeis student, I have seen some of this social value firsthand and believe that much of it is frequently misplaced.

The social value of attending Brandeis becomes evident as soon as someone inquires where you go to college.

Upon your response, assuming he or she is familiar with the school, he or she often comments on how impressive Brandeis is, or occasionally, explicitly praises your intelligence.

Furthermore, he or she might now think more highly of you as a person, taking values associated with Brandeis, such as intelligence and diligence, and associating them with you.

Suppose, however, that you instead attend a university that is less competitive than Brandeis.

That person might not have the same opinion of your intelligence, as he or she might generalize that Brandeis is more academically rigorous than other schools.

However, it’s quite possible that a student at a less-competitive school is polishing a 3.9 GPA and has a merit-based scholarship, while his or her alter ego at Brandeis is holding a 2.4 and waking up hungover on Wednesday mornings.

SARA WEININGER/the Justice

As I see it, the only judgment that can be definitively made about an individual from knowing that he or she attends Brandeis or any other well-respected school is that a couple of admissions officers decided they liked his or her application.

Being a Brandeis student also provides you with social capital to spend, as the Brandeis name alone supposedly validates your intelligence.

Pamela Haag explains this very well in her Oct. 30 article in The Chronicle of Higher Ed-

ucation, describing how society will assume you to be sane regardless of whatever crazy idea you pursue as long as you have an elite college degree in hand.

In her words, the elite degree is “something to fall back on psychologically” as a certification of your success to others.

However, using a school as a psychological fallback is dangerously close to defining oneself by one’s school rather than more appropriate personal qualities.

There is also an expectation of wealth associated with attending Brandeis, which is usually untrue.

When I tell people that I’m a Brandeis student, I am frequently reminded that Brandeis is very expensive, sometimes being told an actual dollar figure (“Doesn’t it cost like $60,000 to go there?”).

This idea is well-illustrated by an experience of mine on the commuter rail, during which a conductor rudely reminded a car full of Brandeis students that we all go to a “fancy private school.” Her implication was that, by extension, we must have enough money to pay for all of it.

Her tone dripped with condescension, as if we were children who were too stuck up to recognize our privilege when, in fact, there were a couple of students in that car who were receiving full-tuition scholarships. This idea can be extrapolated to students at any private university.

Many students receive need-based aid to attend private schools and graduate with thousands of dollars of debt.

It is very risky to draw conclusions about a student’s personal finances based on the university they attend.

Brandeis may have a good academic reputation, but we should be wary of the impact that the name “Brandeis” can have on both others and ourselves.

There are many stereotypes that are associated with that name, some of which can be flattering, but most of which are very premature. It is important for us to recognize that people can make incorrect judgments about those around them based on their alma maters.

Whenever we meet people outside Brandeis, we always seem to ask where they go to school.

There are definitely better questions that can be posed to get to know someone.

Voters’ enthusiasm is required to heal system Naomi

VOLK eT cETERA

According to a recent study by the Pew Research Center, Millennial voters, those born between the mid-1970s and the mid-1990s, are still supporting President Barack Obama in the upcoming election, but the enthusiasm and spirit of the 2008 election is fading.

It seems as though voters recognize Obama as the best choice, but it’s not a choice they’re particularly thrilled about making.

The scariest thing is that according to the Pew data, only 69 percent of those polled said they cared who won the presidency, as compared to the 81 percent who said they cared in 2007.

While it may seem like many voters are still concerned about the election, it’s a 12- percent decrease in only four years.

This significant of a decline in such a short period of time is scary.

The survey also brings up a partisan gap between those interested in the campaign and those not: Republicans seem to be watching the race unfurl with rapt attention, while Democrats, particularly young Democrats, have been left out of the excitement.

The possible reasons the survey cites for this drop among Democrats is due to the absence of a Democratic primary and the fact that many Democratic voters feel like Obama has not brought the change he promised dur-

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ing his campaign.

Along with the Pew’s data that says Democrats are disappointed with Obama’s performance, I think a large number of people are just frustrated with politics in general. I understand being frustrated with the government because of the partisan politics and lack of collaboration in Washington, D.C. However, that doesn’t mean people should back away from the political process in general.

Partisan politics may not be working, but by turning away from the system in general, we lose our ability to make any difference in politics.

We need to believe that the basis for our political process is, at least in some way, connected to the will of the people.

Instead of removing ourselves from politics because we don’t approve of the system, we should instead try and change the system by voting for people we feel can bring the change we want.

The outcome of this election especially affects the younger voters; we are the ones who are going to have to deal with an environment that has been destroyed by climate change or with the consequences of a candidate like Rick Perry, who believes social security is a Ponzi scheme.

This means that Perry would like to cut programs like disability insurance, unemployment benefits, Medicare, Medicaid, old age insurance—programs that were all put into place as a kind of insurance policy if we, as Americans, ever find ourselves getting down on our luck.

Their place is to ensure that Americans will still be able to survive in case anything ever happens. What kind of future are we looking

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at without that insurance?

The Pew survey tries to explain this decrease as the post-Bush-era aftermath. Michael Dimock, an associate director of Pew, told The Huffington Post, “A lot of the energy in 2008 was not due to Obama; it was due to George W. Bush.” Dimock is saying that the reason there was such a fervor in the last election was not because Obama brought something particularly special, but because Bush’s failure brought people together to try. Voters were inspired to get up and create change by electing a new president.

Because Obama doesn’t have a Bush for comparison, many of the voters have lost their interest because they are not as riled up about this year’s election as they were about changing the nature of government post-Bush.

By being more energetic and enthusiastic about the process, we will feel, once again, that we will be able to make a difference. As such, this will make us more likely to campaign for a candidate and to understand the difference that they can make for our country when they’re in office.

I understand frustration, but I don’t understand completely giving up by saying the voters don’t care who gets the White House. It’s natural to feel like Washington isn’t responding to the concerns of the voters, but the reaction should not be indifference.

Instead of backing away from politics, people need to protect what they have and the gains we have made through Obama’s presidency.

Instead of saying that they’re indifferent and that they don’t really care about the presidential race, young Democrats should fight to ensure that the Republicans, in turn, don’t win the race.

The Staff

For information on joining the Justice, write to editor@ thejustice.org.

While not every Millennial is a Democrat, the biggest drop in excitement has been among young Democrats. Young Republicans do have a chance to get involved with this election cycle because they are in the midst of presidential primaries.

However, the partisan gap does not negate the age gap amongst voters. If Millennials are, in general, less interested than they have been in the past and in comparison to older voters (older republicans, especially, have actually seen a spike in interest and excitement), then this is something characteristic about our generation. We have become less engaged in politics, without realizing the actual effects of this indifference.

No matter what your political stance is, it’s so important to have a voice in the political process because those in office are the ones who determine the nature and extent of the government’s influence in our lives. We are directly impacted by the actions of the Federal government.

Thus, it is so desperately important that we ensure enthusiasm by voters our age, because we are the generation of voters with the most at stake right now—we will have to deal with the long-term consequences.

Now, Obama does still have a majority with the Millennial voters, but the decrease in enthusiasm is symptomatic of the way many young voters feel: They’re numb toward the concerns of Washington because they feel like there is nothing good out there.

Instead of taking the fatalistic approach, we have to instead make our voices heard; make sure that we go out there with enthusiasm and create a system in Washington that we know will be responsive to the needs of our generation.

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12

TUESDAY, november 8, 2011

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THE JUSTICE

FORUM

Investigate Aramark with critical lens Leah

Smith In a word

Most good liberals will agree that the Occupy Wall Street movement that has swept across America is a great thing. And of course, Brandeis students, being from this great pinnacle of social justice, are champing at the bit to get involved.

Unfortunately, it’s disheartening to see that the Brandeis students who have gotten involved haven’t been using the movement to think critically and raise questions about the institutional practices of our university. Rather, they seem to have just jumped on the Occupy Wall Street bandwagon because they think that this is what social justice is all about.

The fact of the matter is that we would be making a lot more of a difference if we stayed on campus and examined some of our own institutional practices as a university instead of getting arrested for holding a few inflammatory signs.

There are a multitude of things that happen at our university that are extremely contradictory to our well-known mission of social justice.

Yet one never sees people taking a long, critical look at the practices of this university before they bus themselves into Boston to stand in solidarity. I don’t have the space or time to discuss everything that’s wrong with Brandeis, but I can point to something that affects all of us every day—the food we eat, or more specifically, the corporation that provides that food.

While most people feel pretty good about the fact that Dining Services agreed to serve exclusively cage-free eggs this year, how many students were aware that Goldman Sachs, one of the corporate giants that Occupy Wall Street is protesting, owns 20 percent of Aramark?

It’s a little unsettling to think that even if we all closed our accounts at Bank of America today, the thousands of dollars we pay for meal plans still ultimately end up in the hands of a corporate giant.

Then there are the practices of Aramark itself. If you take the time to Google the company, the glowing reports of Aramark’s efforts to build community are peppered with articles about some of Aramark’s more unsavory practices, especially when it comes to their workers.

According to the Courthouse News Service, at the beginning of

MARA SASSOON/the Justice

this month, Aramark was implicated in the exploitation and defraudment of 38 immigrants who were legally brought to the United States to fill temporary jobs.

In October, the Philadelphia Weekly reported that concession workers at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia protested Aramark’s refusal to negotiate a better, more just contract. In addition to refusing to give the Citizens Park workers pay parity with the higher paid workers in Fenway Park, the corporation has been purposely overstaffing the ballpark so that employees work fewer hours, make less money and are not eligible to receive health benefits.

Aramark’s blatant disregard for the rights of its workers is a bit difficult to stomach. Yet, somehow, even their attempt at the beginning of this year to cut the health benefits of the workers on our own campus wasn’t enough to make us start questioning Aramark’s practices.

Where do we draw the line?

Shouldn’t we care that some of the cost of our exorbitantly expensive meal plans ends up profiting a corporate giant like Goldman Sachs?

Shouldn’t we care that Aramark has a string of labor complaints following the company around the country, including on our own campus?

If we’re so gung ho about social justice, why have we allowed Brandeis

to repeatedly contract with a multinational, multibillion dollar corporation that seems to care so little about its workers?

Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that Jeanette Lerman ’69, the wife of Aramark’s CEO Joseph Neubauer, sits on the Brandeis Board of Trustees.

True, that piece of information means little on its own, but it does make you wonder if Aramark has ever even had any competition as Brandeis’ food provider, or if we just blindly recontract them every time, no questions asked.

Lerman is a huge donor to the University, and contracting with her husband’s corporation is a

major conflict of interest that we shouldn’t be tolerating.

So let’s get back to the Occupy Wall Street movement for a minute.

I know it’s really tempting to get out there with your signs because it feels like you’re fighting injustice and getting your voice heard.

But the truth remains that we’ve got a lot of work to do on this campus if we really want to live up to our legacy of social justice.

We would do much better to question the practices of the corporation that provides food for our university and the judgment of our University for contracting them than we are currently doing with camping in the street and holding signs.

Campaigns in need of substantial reform

By Jeremy Elkaim Justice Contributing Writer

Based on a 2010 poll from the Center on Congress at Indiana University, 84 percent of Americans “disapprove of the way Congress is handling its job.”

Mired by the influence of special interest groups, the men and women who we have elected are no longer acting with the best interests of the American people in mind. As noted in “Federalist No. 39,” written in 1788

by James Madison, “It is essential to [our] government that it be derived from the great body of the society, not from an inconsiderable proportion or a favored class of it.”

Today, our government is being disproportionately influenced by special interest groups not representative of the general population. In order to get Congress working for the public again, two things are needed: smarter elections and campaign finance reform.

What we must understand sooner rather than later is that the inherent problem with Congress is that we consistently elect the wrong people.

As Americans, we do not realize just

how important our congressional decisions are. We tend to place a much heavier emphasis on who we elect as president and, in general, we are under the false impression that it is the president who runs the show when, in reality, Congress has the constitutional power to make law.

Granted, the president has the power to veto, but this can be overridden. Ultimately, it is Congress that formulates and approves the laws of this nation. That is why it is immeasurably important that the American people place a very heavy emphasis on the importance of our congressional decisions.

Unfortunately, congressional leadership is under the control of special interest groups to the point where it has become very difficult to pass a bill that runs contrary to the interest groups’ desires.

Instead of attempting to cooperate in order to formulate sensible public policy created for the benefit of the public, many men and women in Congress make decisions based on how their vote will affect their reelection campaigns.

In this nation, everybody is sup-

posed to have a voice, but special interest groups have microphones.

With the power of their campaign money, these groups lobby Congress and try to influence the passage of laws that are consistent with their wishes and desires.

“

All candidates should be forced to use the same amount of money.

The most important action the people can take is to start electing different people to Congress.

Today in America, you have one party that is the servant of the special interests and the corporations and another that caters to them as well. To be clear, the problem is not 100 percent of the people in Congress; some representatives and senators, whether Republican or Democrat, do have honest and sincere intentions and do propose bills that constitute

sensible public policy.

The problem is that many party and committee leaders have entrenched relationships with special interest groups. In order to attain policy created for the benefit of the public, we must stop reelecting candidates with an inability to govern without special interest groups whispering into their ears.

Yet electing the right kind of men and women is not enough; it is also necessary to eliminate the “microphones” possessed by special interest groups. In order to get rid of their disproportionate influence on Congress, serious campaign finance reform is needed.

An election should not be influenced by which candidate has more money but by which candidate’s opinions appeal most to the people.

Thus, all candidates should be forced to use the same amount of money in their campaigns, which should be very little.

While some opponents of such campaign finance reform will be quick to state that limiting campaign donations would be equivalent to limiting liberty, I believe that protecting the

integrity of campaigns is more important than protecting the freedom to donate as much money as you want to any candidate or political movement.

The American people must make the effort to seriously consider who they elect to Congress. The most immediate trouble facing us today is that such men and women must be found. I imagine demonstrations on the street demanding that the honorable statesmen of this nation stand up and present themselves for public office.

I also believe in the potential of American people to elect the right men and women for the job. It is time for us to stop judging candidates based on their height, appearance and smiles and start judging them based on the substance of their intellect and character.

It is time for us to use our common sense to elect honorable men and women who sincerely believe in good governance grounded in reason and an intellectual consideration of the many conflicting interests in this nation. It will take nothing less than a nationwide revolution of the mind.

THE JUSTICE

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TUESDAY, November 8, 2011

13

SPORTS volleyball

LASER FOCUS

Team winless in final three games of play

■ The volleyball team was

swept by all three of its conference foes in the UAA Championships at NYU. JOSHUA LINTON/the Justice

EYE ON THE PRIZE: Midfielder Alanna Torre ’12 bolts past an opposing defender with the ball in a 1-0 loss to NYU on Saturday.

WSOCCER: Women shut out in final match of the year CONTINUED FROM 16 Overall, NYU outshot Brandeis 17-14, but Brandeis had a 7-3 advantage in corner kicks. Both sides had seven saves, with Pitten notching her second shutout of the season.

NYU junior forward Serra Tumay led all players with five shots while Theodore and Edalati tallied three shots apiece for the Judges.

Theodore said that she regretted that she had to end her career and the team had to end its season with a tough loss.

“It was disappointing,” said Theodore. “I don’t think anyone ever

pictures that the last soccer game they will ever play will be a loss, but at the same time, the whole team put forth a great effort, and we really gave NYU a fight. Besides, for the outcome of the game, it was really a fun last game to play. I would have to say that the last 45 seconds was one of the most exciting minutes I have ever played in soccer,” The Judges will sorely miss their senior leadership, including Theodore and her twin sister, defender Ali Theodore, as well as midfielder Alanna Torre, defender Ali Maresca and midfielder Fran Shin, but

Brandeis has reason to be optimistic about the future.

Some of the team’s rising players displayed impressive performances, including Edalati, who had three shots, and Savuto, who despite allowing the lone score, was solid in goal all season.

“I am excited for the younger class,” said Theodore. “They have a lot of talent that with each year will get better and better. I am definitely looking forward to seeing the strides they make after the upcoming winter session and the spring season.”

FENCING: “Big One” is a success CONTINUED FROM 16 the bracket. Adam Mandel ’15 led the way, earning a second-place finish in his first collegiate competition. Mandel swept his pool and rallied off five straight wins, including the top seed in the bracket, before falling 15-4 to Sacred Heart University senior Marty Williams.

“Adam Mandel was on fire [last Saturday],” Messinger said. “He did very well in pools and, though he was a little bit aggressive at times, he was able to control himself and finished strongly.”

Another Brandeis first-year, Jess Ochs-Willard, finished in seventh in the meet. Ochs-Willard won his pool and reached the quarterfinals before being forced to face Mandel. The battle of the Brandeis first-years ended 15-11 in Mandel’s favor.

“It was [Mandel] who finished second, but they were both just beating up on kids,” Zook said. “It was their first meet of the year coming out of high school, so they both did phenomenally.”

Mark Borreliz ’14 finished 11th in the event. The sophomore went 6-0 in his pool and won his first two elimination rounds before falling to Vassar College sophomore John Arden. Ben Loft ’15 was next for the Judges, finishing in 23rd place. “[Loft] had to fence [Brown junior] Teddy Weller, who is a really difficult opponent,” Messinger said. “Our team usually has a very hard time fencing him but [Loft] kept it under control. For a freshman, I was very impressed.”

Ben Schmidt ’14 was Brandeis’ final saberist, finishing in 26th place.

Messinger led the way on the women’s side, finishing tied for 10th place.

The junior had an impressive 7-1 record on the meet, but fell to Brown freshman Christine Whalen in quarterfinals. Emmily Smith ’13 finished in 17th place after going 6-1 on the day.

Sophomores Eunice Ko, Deb Rothbard and Vivian Zeng ’14 finished in 51st, 67th and 86th places, respectively.

The team’s first conference meet of the season will be in two weeks at University of New Hampshire. Though Zook said that the “Big One” was a good tune-up, he said the team is looking forward to fencing in a conference meet.

“Now is when stuff starts to matter,” he said.

Editor’s Note: Julian Cardillo ’14 is a Justice Sports staff writer.

By JACOB LURIE JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

The Judges had one final chance to defeat their conference rivals this year, when they competed in the University Athletic Association Championships at New York University last weekend. However, the Judges dropped all three conference matches in the tournament, falling to 9-20 for the season.

Regardless, outside hitter Si-Si Hensley ’14 noted how the team improved over the course of the year.

“This weekend, our team played extremely well, even though we didn’t win any games,” she said. “It was one of our better weekends as a team. I was very happy with how we played.”

In their last match of the tournament, the Judges squared off against Carnegie Mellon University in a true nail-biter. Brandeis led early in the first set, going up 8-4 on the Tartans, but they allowed their early edge to slip away. Three consecutive kills by the Tartans tied the set at nine. After the Judges briefly pulled ahead on a service error, the Tartans went on a 5-1 run to pull away midway through the set. Brandeis showed some life and cut the lead down to two points late in the set, after outside hitter Liz Hood ’14, setter Yael Einhorn ’14 and Hensley all notched kills, but the Judges would get no closer, falling 25-21.

The second set was a slugfest with four early lead changes, and the point difference was never greater than three points. Brandeis led for the majority of the set, but while leading 22-21, two attacking errors by the Judges gave the Tartars the momentum to take the second set 25-23.

In the third set, the Judges fell behind early and could not battle all the way back. The team trailed 20-10, before whittling the Tartars’ lead down to three points on a determined 10-3 run, pulling to within 23-20. Instead, two successive kills from the Tartars doomed the Judges.

Hood and Hensley split the lead in kills with 10 while Einhorn tallied 31 assists. Libero Elsie Bernaiche ’15 and defensive specialist Susan Sun ’13 led the defensive

effort with 14 and 12 digs respectively.

In their other match on Friday, the Judges faced off against New York University. Once again, Brandeis played strongly in the first set and almost came away with a victory. Brandeis took a 16-14 advantage, but the Violets bounced back and pulled ahead of the Judges. Brandeis fought back one last time, due in large part to a kill by Hensley and a ace from setter Vanessa Bodie ’15 allowed Brandeis to claw back to take a 2625 lead.

However, two straight kills from NYU and an attacking error on Brandeis clinched the set for the host side. Brandeis never recovered from the first set, dropping the next two by scores of 25-19 and 25-14. Hood notched the team lead in kills with nine, while Hensley chipped in with eight kills. Einhorn contributed 19 assists and libero Elsie Bernaiche ’15 anchored the defense with 21 digs.

Brandeis started its weekend campaign last Friday night against No. 1 Emory University. Brandeis came out strong, earning 22 points in the first set, but could not muster the same momentum in the following two sets, earning 18 points and 11 points, respectively.

Hood and Hensley both tied for the team lead in kills with eight.

The rest of the team, however, chipped in with only four kills.

Hensley was also the only player to post a positive kill percentage in the game, demonstrating the Judges’ difficulties on offense.

Although the season is now over, it is never too early to begin thinking about the next step.

“Next season, we’re going to have the same team; we’re not losing any girls,” said Hensley. “We just need to bring our team chemistry together again and make sure we’re consistent. And it’s a lot easier because our team dynamic is set in stone.”

Middle blocker Lauren Berens ’13 said that having the entire team back for next year should certainly help with team chemistry.

“Half our team [was first-years], so it was interesting to see how they grew over the season,” she said.

“And next year should be great because we already have some communication and chemistry down. And our team does have so much potential, and I’m just excited to see how our team dynamic will carry over into next year.”

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TUESDAY, November 8, 2011

15

INTERVIEW

Men’s Soccer UAA STANDINGS

TEAM STATS Goals

Not including Monday’s games UAA Conference Overall

W L D W L D Pct. WashU 5 2 0 14 3 1 .806 Case 5 2 0 14 4 0 .778 Emory 4 3 0 10 8 0 .556 JUDGES 3 3 1 12 5 1 .694 Rochester 3 3 1 9 5 2 .625 Carnegie 3 4 0 7 8 1 .469 Chicago 2 5 0 9 7 2 .556 NYU 2 5 0 7 9 1 .441

Three players lead the team in goals so far this year with six.

Player Goals Lee Russo 6 Tyler Savonen 6 Sam Ocel 6 two tied with 5

Assists Steve Keuchkarian ’12 and Sam Ocel ’13 lead in assists.

Player Assists Steve Keuchkarian 6 Sam Ocel 6 Tyler Savonen 5 Theo Terris 5

UPCOMING GAMES ECAC first-round matchup tomorrow vs. Southern Vermont

WOMen’s Soccer UAA STANDINGS

FINAL TEAM STATS

Not including Monday’s games

Points

UAA Conference Overall

W L D W L D Pct. Emory 6 0 1 15 0 2 .941 WashU 5 2 0 15 4 0 .789 Case 4 2 1 12 3 3 .750 NYU 3 4 0 12 6 0 .667 Carnegie 3 4 0 9 7 0 .562 Chicago 2 3 2 9 6 2 .588 Rochester 2 4 1 8 7 1 .531 JUDGES 0 6 1 6 11 2 .368

Mimi Theodore ’12 led the team in points with eight.

Player Pts Mimi Theodore 8 Mary Shimko 7 Hilary Andrews 5 two tied with 5

NOTE: The team finished its 2011 season last Saturday, earning a 6-11-2 overall record.

Shots Alanna Torre ’12 led the team in shots taken with 60.

Player Shots Alanna Torre 60 Hilary Andrews 31 Mimi Theodore 31 Mary Shimko 27

VOLLEYBALL UAA STANDINGS

FINAL TEAM STATS Kills

Not including Monday’s games UAA Conference Overall

W L W L Pct. WashU 9 1 32 1 .970 Emory 9 1 34 4 .895 Chicago 7 3 29 5 .853 Case 5 5 22 10 .688 Rochester 4 6 21 15 .583 NYU 3 7 19 16 .543 Carnegie 3 7 15 15 .500 JUDGES 0 10 9 21 .300

NOTE: The team completed its 2011 season at the UAA Championships last Saturday with a 9-21 record.

Liz Hood ’15 led the team in kills this year with 304.

Player Kills Liz Hood 304 Si-Si Hensley 213 Becca Fischer 144 Lauren Berens 131

Digs Elsie Bernaiche ’15 led the team in digs this year with 400.

Player Digs Elsie Bernaiche 400 Si-Si Hensley 210 Susan Sun 181 Yael Einhorn 173

cross cOuntry Results from UAA Championships in Chicago on Saturday, Oct. 29

TOP FINISHERS (Men’s)

TOP FINISHERS (Women’s)

RUNNER TIME Chris Brown 26:00.5 Marc Boutin 26:20.2 Ed Colvin 26:35.2 Alex Kramer 26:40.1

RUNNER TIME Kate Warwick 23:22.8 Miriam Stulin 23:55.9 Ali Kirsch 24:08.7 Victoria Sanford 25:14.7

UPCOMING EVENTS Saturday at the New England DIII Championships at Bowdoin; Saturday, Nov. 19 at NCAA DIII Championships at Wisconsin-Oshkosh

JOSHUA LINTON/Justice File Photo

AT THE HELM: Students participate in last month’s IM soccer championships, part of the program that Tom Rand runs.

Rand discusses IM sports at Brandeis ■ JustSports sat down with

Associate Athletic Director Tom Rand to talk about Brandeis intramural sports.

By ADAM RABINOWITZ JUSTICE Editorial assistant

Whether for a laid-back game of coed B-League soccer or for the full-court basketball championships, intramural sports figure prominently into the daily lives of many Brandeis students. Last Friday, justSports had the opportunity to sit down with the man behind it all, Associate Director of Athletics Tom Rand, to discuss intramural sports and Brandeis athletics overall.

JS: How would you characterize your experience running Brandeis intramural sports?

TR: It’s been great. I really love my job, and I’m glad to give students the chance to participate in athletics as much as possible. In my eight years here, the intramural program has expanded from nine sports and 700 participants to

13 sports with close to 1300 members. Thanks to use of the turf and lights, we’ve really been able to expand our program.

JS: How has your prior experience prepared you for your current role in Brandeis athletics?

TR: I started out as an undergrad at the University of Rand Vermont as a facilities supervisor while refereeing intramural games. Then I had an internship to run intramural sports at the University of Southern Maine, and from there, my path was set. After obtaining my Master of Education at University of Southern Florida and working briefly at Keene State, I’m now here at Brandeis as associate [Director of Athletics]. That experience has been extremely helpful throughout my years helping run the athletics program.

JS: How do you think the renovation of the pool and Linsey facil-

ity will impact Brandeis athletics?

TR: I have a feeling the pool is going to be very popular. We plan to have open swim times, fitness classes and restart new clubs such as kayaking and water polo that were once extremely active.

This also means we can revive our swimming and diving program.

The Linsey building is also a great addition, given besides the pool, it can be of use for martial arts, squash and other sports. Overall, it gives us new and exciting opportunities for our athletic program.

JS: Do you see any additional room for growth in intramural sports?

TR: Well, we’re definitely excited to add intertube water polo, now that we have the pool back.

This is also our first year offering badminton and table tennis, which is exciting. However, I think our main goal is to move beyond using the turf field. It is difficult to only have use of one field for such a large array of sports, but if we could find other facilities to use, new sports such as lacrosse and floor hockey definitely become a possibility.

Boston Bruins beat Bruins rebound from tough losing streak with 12 goals in two games to improve to a 5-7-0 record Boston Bruins announcer Jack Edwards often refers to defenseman Johnny Boychuk’s slap shot as a “Johnny Rocket” due to its speed and power. Last Tuesday, Boychuk fired his first “Johnny Rocket” of the season past Ottawa Senators goalie Craig Anderson with 13 minutes, 19 seconds remaining in the game, giving the Bruins a 4-3 lead.

The Bruins added a goal 37 seconds later from left wing Daniel Paille, securing a 5-3 win over the Senators, who entered the game riding a six-game winning streak. The win also snapped the Bruins’ three-game losing streak.

Later in the week, the Bruins beat the Toronto Maple Leafs to move to 5-70 on the season.

In the game against the Senators, Boychuk was relieved to get his first goal of the season.

“Obviously, it feels a lot better,” Boychuk said of the goal. “Getting that first one by you, and now, you don’t have to worry about it. I think last year it took me until January, so I feel a little bit better.”

“It’s obviously a huge goal for us,” added forward Patrice Bergeron.

“That’s exactly what we needed to respond right away, almost right after. It showed that tonight, everyone was on the same page, and it paid off.”

Five different Bruins players scored goals in the game, while nine players contributed with assists.

“That’s what you want,” Bruins coach Claude Julien said regarding contributions from several players in the game. “That’s what made our team successful last year, and I think it’s important to get some of that and obviously help guys get their confidence

too. When everybody goes out there and contributes in the fashion that they did tonight, it’s a lot better for the confidence of the whole team.”

Although the Bruins outshot the Senators 41-26 in the game, the Senators scored the first goal of the game at 5:19 in the first period. Senators left wing Nick Foligno’s shot from close to the crease bounced off Bruins defenseman Adam McQuaid and went into the goal before the net went off its moorings. The score was reviewed upstairs and eventually upheld.

The Bruins eventually tied the game in the first period on a power play goal from left wing Milan Lucic at 7:12.

Lucic took Bruins defenseman Zdeno Chara’s wrist shot from the blue line, went to his backhand near the crease and lifted the puck up and past Anderson for his fourth goal of the season.

However, the Senators answered with a goal of their own 16 seconds later. After the puck deflected off Bruins defenseman Joe Corvo’s stick, Foligno made a nifty backhand pass to Senators center Stéphane Da Costa, who fired a shot past Thomas’ glove.

In the second period, the Bruins again tied the game, this time on a wrist shot from Bergeron, whose goal extended his consecutive point streak to five games.

After both teams traded off potential scoring attempts, the Bruins finally captured the lead at 4-3 for the first time with two minutes remaining in the game. Bruins forward Rich Peverley skated from past the midline on the right side and around the net, where he then sent the puck to Kelly, who was standing alone several feet from the crease and blasted a shot in the top,

right-hand corner of the net.

“I think it was a great play by [Peverley], and I think everyone was kind of focused on him because he entered the zone with such speed, so it was a great pass by him, and I just happened to find that area up in the high spot,” Kelly said.

Overall, Julien was pleased with how his team was able to rebound from their losing streak.

“Our compete level was better and our focus seemed to be there,” he said.

“When you look at the way they scored that first goal, it was a little bit snakebitten right there, but tonight, we looked like a group that wasn’t going to let those kind of things beat us.”

The Bruins next play at home Thursday night against the Edmonton Oilers at 7 p.m.

— Josh Asen

just

Sports

Page 16

THE MAN BEHIND IM SPORTS JustSports sat down with Associate Director of Athletics Tom Rand, who runs intramural sports at Brandeis, p. 15.

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

women’s soccer

SIDE SWIPE

Judges end year with home defeat ■ The women’s soccer team

finished its season with a tough 1-0 loss to conference opponent NYU last Saturday.

By MAX GOLDSTEIN and JACOB ELDER JUSTICE SENIOR WRITER AND CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Among a supportive crowd of family and friends, the women’s soccer team’s seniors played the last game of their collegiate careers as Brandeis fell 1-0 to UAA rival New York University last Saturday. The Judges finish the season with a 6-11-2 overall record and 0-5-2 in conference play.

For the seniors, it was the culmination of four years of hard work and dedication to the Judges.

“It still hasn’t really hit me yet,” said forward Mimi Theodore ’12. “Still feels like I will be going to practice at 4 p.m. tomorrow. I think once I realize I am not participating in the winter training and spring season that I will really start to feel that soccer is over. But in the meantime, I am really just happy that I got this experience and had a great [four] years.”

Brandeis appeared sluggish and unfocused to start out the game, struggling to adapt to NYU’s physical style of play. Much of the first half of play was spent on Brandeis’ side of the field, as NYU controlled

Waltham, Mass.

position and the Judges were unable to string passes together.

Regardless, Brandeis played solid defense as NYU only outshot Brandeis 7 to 6. Goalkeeper Francine Kofinas ’13, who started the game for the squad, only had to make three stops to preserve the shutout for the first half. Late in the half, Brandeis had several counterattacks that led to some quality chances but the team could not convert on any of them.

In the beginning of the second half, NYU continued to control position.

Late in the half, NYU came up with its only goal, as sophomore forward Erin Ahmed picked up the ball from midfield, dribbled up the field for 35 yards, and then blasted home a 25-yard shot under the crossbar and over the outstretched arms of goalkeeper Michelle Savuto ’15.

In a frenzied final five minutes, Brandeis notched four corner kicks and earned quality chances to score on goal, but the squad could not capitalize on them. In the 87th minute, midfielder Sapir Edalati ’15 hit a well-timed shot from 10 yards out that was Brandeis’ best chance of the second half. However, the shot bounced off the legs of diving NYU freshman goalkeeper Meg Pitten. NYU finished the second half having outshot Brandeis 10-8.

See WSOCCER, 13 ☛

fencing

Youth lead the way for team at the “Big One”

■ The fencing teams

notched three medals at the “Big One,” their first major meet of the season.

By JEFFREY BOXER JUSTICE EDITOR

If the “Big One” is a sign of things to come, this could be a great season for the Brandeis fencing squads.

Competing at the 2011 Northeast Intercollegiate Fencing Conference Fall Invitational, a non-conference tournament also known as the Big One, the men’s and women’s fencing teams earned two silver medals and a bronze to start the season off with a bang.

“We all fought very hard and all fenced very very well,” saberist Zoe Messinger ’13 said. “We are very proud of how everyone did.”

Vikki Nunley ’13 earned the team’s first silver medal, finishing second in women’s foil. The captain went 6-0 in pool play, allowing just a single touch in the six bouts. After five more wins in single elimination, Nunley dropped 15-9 to Brown University sophomore Kathryn Hawrot, an NCAA qualifier. “[Nunley] fenced really well. It was a great finish for her,” épéeist Michael Zook ’13 said. “She had a little trouble with the girl in her final match, but overall, it was a terrific day for her.”

Hallie Frank ’14 finished in 12th for the Judges in foil. Emily Levy ’12 grabbed 24th place, while Abigail Hirsch ’15 and Jessica Kirshner ’15 finished 48th and 51st, respectively, in their first collegiate meet.

Men’s foilist Julian Cardillo ’14 ran the table in pool play as well, earning

the fourth seed in single elimination play. Cardillo rolled through bracket play as well before falling 15-11 to Brown freshman Barrett Weiss in the semifinals. Weiss would go on to defeat Boston College freshman Ryan Prince 15-6 in the finals. “[Cardillo] was fencing well, but he got knocked out by a kid who was just on fire,” Zook said.

Brandeis’ top finisher in épée was Kristen Ha ’14, who grabbed sixth in the women’s competition. Ha won her pool with a 6-0 record and defeated opponents from the University of New Hampshire, the Rutgers State University of New Jersey and the University of Massachusetts Amherst before falling to the eventual champion— Brown junior Cory Abbe—by a 15-10 score.

“Kristen Ha was the real standout of the day,” Zook said. “It was her first big result, and she really fenced well.”

Leah Mack ’14 finished 18th in the event. She won her pool but was upset by 30th-seeded Rutgers junior Camella Bonnick, who finished tied for third in the event. Épeéist Eliza Powell ’15 finished 29th.

The men’s épéeists disappointed a bit, with Alex Powell ’12 finishing 31st after winning the bracket a year ago.

The men’s captain was knocked out

by Massachusetts Institute of Technology sophomore Joey Rafidi, who won the event. Zook was the men’s épéeists’ top performer, finishing 30th. Nick Gordon ’12 finished in 44th place, while Harry Kaufer ’13 grabbed 47th.

A young men’s saber squad excelled in the meet, with all five competitors finishing in the top third of

See FENCING, 13 ☛

JON EDELSTEIN/the Justice

FANCY FOOTWORK: Defender Ben Applefield ’14 sidesteps past a defender during last Saturday’s 2-0 home victory over NYU.

Team shuts out NYU to end regular season ■ The men’s soccer team

defeated NYU last Saturday, earning them the No.1 seed in the ECAC tournament.

By HENRY LOUGHLIN JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

Despite ending the regular season with a 2-0 victory over New York University last Saturday and a 125-1 record overall, the men’s soccer team still missed qualifying for the Division III NCAA Tournament.

Instead, the team is the top seed in the Eastern College Athletic Conference Tournament and will take on eighth-seeded Southern Vermont College at home tomorrow at 7 p.m.

“The last few years there have been four at-large bids [to NCAAs] given to New England teams, and this year we only got three,” coach Mike Coven said. “We would have had a good chance of getting that fourth spot—it would have been Brandeis or Williams [College]—but it wasn’t there this year.”

Unlike other occasions this season in which the Brandeis offense has taken a while to click, the Judges wasted no time in getting on the board against NYU, as forward Sam Ocel ’13 scored twice within the first eight minutes.

With just five minutes on the clock, Brandeis forward Lee Russo

’13 took a corner kick. His serve found midfielder Kyle Feather ’14, who flicked the ball on toward the back post. Though it appeared that the chance would be wasted, Ocel arrived and slammed a volley past freshman goalkeeper Forrest Sexton and into the net for the first score of the game.

The Judges did not let off the gas offensively, notching the team’s second goal just three minutes later.

Midfielder Theo Terris ’12, often the orchestrator of the Brandeis attacks, dribbled down the right flank.

The senior kept his composure under pressure, sending a cross to the back post, where Ocel nodded it into the top corner for a two-goal advantage.

Despite possessing a commanding 2-0 edge, Coven noted that the Judges found themselves on the ropes at various points throughout the game.

“We played a bit direct at times,” the coach said in reference to the team’s use of long balls, “but luckily they weren’t able to take advantage of that.”

Though the offense shone in this match, Coven was quick to praise those in the defensive third of the field, most notably goalkeeper Blake Minchoff ’13, who racked up his 10th career shutout, tying the school single-season record.

Coven also had good words for the centerback tandem of Ari Silver ’12 and David McCoy ’12, who Coven

stated were “two of the best players that Brandeis has ever had.”

The duo’s leadership has also had a huge influence on the rest of the team’s performance. In an Oct. 30 interview with the Justice, Russo explained that “[Silver] reads the game very well—he’s ten steps ahead of you—and McCoy is a great tackler.

It’s great to know that they’re back there even if they don’t get a lot of press.”

But despite the win, Brandeis finds itself in ECACs instead of the NCAA Tournament.

“You feel bad for the boys because they worked so hard, but we made our own bed,” Coven said. “We lost to Babson [College] in a game we dominated. We lost to Clark [University]. We lost to [Washington University in St. Louis]. We lost to some teams that we shouldn’t have lost to. Obviously I’m disappointed, but I’m not surprised at all.”

Still, Coven was pleased with how the team has played this season.

“This team has a lot of character,” he said. “We have great upperclassmen leadership. And they’re great, great people.”

If the Judges win tomorrow night, they will host the ECAC semifinals and finals on Saturday and Sunday.

“We won that last year, so we’d like to do well again,” Coven said.

—Jeffrey Boxer contributed reporting.

just

November 8, 2011

ARTS Comedy and philosophy flourish in ‘Waiting for Godot’ p. 20

Photos: Morgan Fine/the Justice. Design: Robyn Spector/the Justice.

18

TUESDAY, november 8, 2011 ● THE JUSTICE

POP CULTURE

INSIDE ON CAMPUS

18-20

■ ‘A Room of One’s Own’

19

Broadway actress Alexandra Borrie came to campus to perform an inspiring interpretation of Virginia Woolf’s works.

■ Naoko Sugiyama piano recital 19

The Japanese-American pianist and professor at the New England Conservatory played works by Liszt, Debussy and Gershwin.

■ ‘Waiting for Godot’ play review 20 Brandeis Players put on Samuel Beckett’s existential play in South Campus Commons.

■ Alumnus comedy album review 21

Josh Gondelman ’07 was an improv star when he was a student at Brandeis, and now he is making a career out of his comedy.

OFF CAMPUS

21-24

■ ‘Romeo and Juliet’ ballet

21

The Boston Ballet put on the Prokofiev ballet for the opening of its 2011 season.

■ ‘Harold and Kumar 3D’ review 21 The third installment of the comedy series brings a return to the films’ original style.

■ ‘In Time’ film review

22

■ Murakami and ‘IQ84’

23

■ Hall of Fame Pizza & Wings

23

Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried star in this dystopian film in which no one ages.

Acclaimed Japanese author Haruki Murakami’s latest work is a magical-realist wonder.

The local restaurant serves up authentic Boston pizza with a Mediterranean twist.

CALENDAR

Interview

Piano Club offers keys to music success

by Shelly Shore

So remember how, over the summer, Kim Kardashian was on the cover of every magazine in existence, going on and on about how excited she was to get married and how this was going to be the best decision she ever made and how it didn’t matter that it was costing millions of dollars because she was going to have her happily ever after?

Well, it didn’t take.

This week, after only 72 days of marriage, Kim Kardashian filed for divorce from her husband, Kris Humphries. Within minutes of the announcement, #thingslongerthanKimsmarriage became a top trending topic on Twitter, with examples like “R. Kelly’s ‘Trapped in the Closet’ video,” “Michael Jordan’s baseball career” and “that pause Dora the Explorer does after she asks us a question.” You get the idea— it was a really short marriage.

Now, while I make it a habit to pass judgment on celebrities (you don’t get to write a weekly gossip column by being a nice person), I do think that the Internet in general is being pretty mean to Miss Kardashian, who fortunately did not take the time to change her name. That being said: Girl, you spent $10 million on your wedding, and you’re not even going to give counseling a shot? Maybe sit down and talk to a therapist? Maybe, I don’t know, turn off the cameras for five minutes and work on your marriage?

Understandably, the population that seems to be most upset about the divorce is the gay community, with gay celebrities and their allies taking to the Twitterverse to express their annoyance that Kim can meet a guy, marry him and divorce him in less than a year, but in most of the country, gay couples who have been together for decades still cannot marry.

“Kim Kardashian files for divorce after 72 days.

Another example of how same-sex marriage is destroying the sanctity of the very institution,” George Takei (Captain Sulu of Star Trek) tweeted sarcastically on Monday, starting the tweet

 JustArts spoke with Music major and pianist Yakov Israel ’12, who recently founded the Piano Club, an organization dedicated to fostering interest, performance and studentto-student lessons in piano.

EVA RINALDI/Flickr Creative Commons

DIVORCED: Kim Kardashian’s marriage to NBA player Kris Humphries ended after just 72 days. wave. Perez Hilton, Kathy Griffin and many others all followed Takei’s example.

I won’t say whether Kim’s farce of a marriage has anything to do with the sanctity of the institution of marriage. But I will say this: If there’s anything sacred about marriage, it’s the love between the people involved, not their genitals, that matters. Kim didn’t care enough about her marriage to even try and make it last, but my best friend’s parents had to wait years for their wedding to be legally recognized in their home state? That’s just seems a little backwards to me.

And Kim, for all of our sakes: next time you’re thinking about getting married?

Don’t.

What’s happening in Arts on and off campus

ON-CAMPUS EVENTS Take the Lead: Dancefest 2011!

Adagio Dance Company is presenting its annual fall dance spectacular. Seven Brandeis dance groups, as well as groups from Simmons College, Suffolk College, Bentley College and other schools will also perform.

Tomorrow from 8 to 10 p.m. in Levin Ballroom. Tickets are $5 or free with a Brandeis ID.

Dancing with the Brandeis Stars

Members of the Ballroom Dance Team partner with staff and faculty to perform in this competition based on the popular reality show.

Dance lessons will be offered by students before the dance-off begins.

Thursday from 7 to 10 p.m in the Shapiro Campus Center Atrium.

‘The Comedy of Errors’

Brandeis Theater Company will perform one of Shakespeare’s most beloved comedies this week. The farce features two sets of identical twins who meet one another. Mistaken identities and slapstick hijinks ensue.

Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m and Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m. in the Spingold Theater Center. Tickets are $20 for the general public, $15 for community members and $5 for students.

World Citizen: A Night for Africa

The Brandeis African Students Organization is putting on its first annual cultural festival.

Club members will be performing traditional African music and dances, and African food will be served. Proceeds from the event will go to the Mustard Seed School Project in Uganda, a school for deaf children. An after-party will also be held from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. with the Brandeis Black Students Organization.

Friday from 7 to 9 p.m. in the Levin Ballroom.

Tickets are $3 in advance and $5 at the door.

Crowd Control’s semester show

The comedy troupe will be performing improvisations based on audience shout-outs at their biggest performance of the semester. Anything could happen.

Friday from 9 to 10 p.m. at Cholmondeley’s.

ASHER KRELL/Justice File Photo

SPIN ME RIGHT ROUND: Adagio Dance Company brings its annual Dancefest to campus tomorrow. African Dance Club, Belly Dance Club, B’yachad, Hooked on Tap, Kaos Kids and So Unique will all perform.

‘The Reconstruction of Asa Carter’ screening

This documentary recounts the life of Asa Carter, a notable 1970s racist and advocate of segregation. Carter also published the “autobiography,” The Education of Little Tree, under the pseudonym Forrest Carter. The book championed Native American rights and environmentalism. The Reconstruction of Asa Carter questions the dichotomy between bigotry and indigenous rights that existed within this man.

The producers of the film, Douglas Newman and Laura Browder, will answer questions after the screening.

Sunday from 6 to 8 p.m. in the Wasserman Cinematheque.

OFF-CAMPUS EVENTS Béla Fleck and The Flecktones

Their name means “let us rejoice” in Latin, and that is just what this group of singers aims to do. The choir will perform music from the Medieval, Renaissance and early Baroque periods. They perform without a conductor, meaning that these 13 individuals must rely heavily on their musical instincts as well as their close relationships with one another.

Saturday at 8 p.m. in the Slosberg Recital Hall.

Banjo virtuoso Béla Fleck has been nominated for Grammy Awards in the jazz, bluegrass, pop, country, spoken word, composition and world music categories. Together with his band, the Flecktones, Fleck has been brilliantly removing boundaries between musical genres for over three decades.

Presented by the Celebrity Series, the concert will feature the original cast of the Flecktones, consisting of renowned bassist Victor Wooten, percussionist Roy “Future Man” Wooten and harmonica player Howard Levy.

Nov. 18 at 8 p.m. at Sanders Theatre at Harvard University, Cambridge. Call (617) 496-4595 for more information.

Birth of the Duo

Water is Rising

Exsultemus

Piantist Joshua Gordon and cellist Randall Hodgkinson come to campus to play a concert celebrating Beethoven’s combination of the two string instruments. The musicians will also play a piece by the late Brandeis faculty member composer Arthur Berger.

Sunday at 3 p.m. in the Slosberg Recital Hall.

The Pacific islands Kiribati, Tokelau and Tuvalu are on the front lines of global warming and are at risk of becoming submerged by rising sea levels. They represent cultures on the verge of decimation as a result of climate change.

The islands’ history, spiritual teachings and

social values were passed down using dance and song rather than writing. Now, 36 dancers and musicians from Kiribati, Tokelau and Tuvalu are stopping by Boston to create an elegant and emotional performance that has deep ties to nature, tradition and the issue of global warming.

Nov. 19 at 8 p.m. at Sanders Theatre at Harvard University, Cambridge. Tickets are $28-40.

Call (617) 876-4275 for more information.

Boston Ballet’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’

Before Boston Ballet puts on its popular seasonal show, The Nutcracker, the troupe gives a nod to the Bard.

John Cranko’s Romeo and Juliet, set to Sergei Prokofiev’s eponymous score, premiered in 1962. Germany’s Stuttgart Ballet exquisitely performed this challenging ballet inspired by William Shakespeare’s timeless tale. The Stuttgart Ballet danced the American premiere in 1969 and soon the Boston Ballet also performed the piece, becoming the only American company to hold three of Cranko’s greatest works, including Onegin and The Taming of the Shrew.

In Boston, Romeo and Juliet was met with rave reviews for its eye-popping choreography and vivid storytelling.

Running Thursday until Nov. 13 at the Boston Opera House, located at 539 Washington Street in Boston. Tickets are $25 and up. Call (617) 6956955 for more information.

Scott Cunningham: Steel, Paint & Ink

Cunningham’s sculpture work is on display at Emerson College’s Umbrella Center for the Arts’ large-scale outdoor sculpture exhibition, BIG ART 2. The abstract sculptures are made forged and found steel and other metals. and are what the artist describes as “visual poetry.”

Running until Nov. 14 at the Emerson Umbrella Gallery, located at 40 Stow Street in Concord, Mass.

There are numerous a cappella and musical performance clubs on campus, but the realm of instrumental music has so far gone without much representation in the Brandeis club scene. Sure, if you’re a singer and want to join a group in order to get your voice out on campus, there are plenty of opportunities at Brandeis. But for those who want to learn to play a new instrument, there’s not much to do besides coercing your more musically inclined roommate to offer you some tips or paying for University-sponsored lessons at $60 a pop.

That has changed with Yakov Israel ’12, a Music major who recently created the Piano Club at Brandeis. JustArts sat down with Israel this past week and spoke with him about his newly formed club. Yakov talked about his early experiences with the piano, why piano is his favorite instrument and the possibilities he hopes his club will open for students.

JustArts: Can you describe what the Piano Club is all about?

Yakov Israel: It’s just about giving an outlet for people who like piano. Why try to motivate people to play the piano? There was another initiative to attract people to the music department. I’ve been trying to advertise it a little bit. I’ve been trying to get a piano in the [Shapiro Campus Center] for a while, but it seems like that’s not going anywhere. So I’m going to see if I can replace the [Intercultural Center] piano. I’ve realized that so many people who play the piano for maybe one years or two years just lose that [skill], they just forget about it. For those who want to remember it, to come back to it, [the club is] an outlet for them.

JA: When did you start learning piano?

YI: When I was four. I got into it by composing or improvising my first piece on the piano. And my mom was like, “You’ve got to take piano lessons.”

JA: What was it about the piano that attracted you above other instruments?

YI: The fact that it’s like an orchestra. You can just play what an orchestra actually plays on the piano. No other instrument has that [ability]. You have 10 fingers, so at one time you can play at least 10 notes. It’s a versatile instrument.

JA: Do you have a particular style in your training?

YI: Classical. Mozart, Beethoven. But you branch out, you go to jazz and blues. I even started trying to play the tango. The instrument doesn’t have to just be used [for one thing], which is what I stress in the piano club as well. It’s not just for classical music, there’s a wide variety of music for the piano. There’s film scores, … there’s pop songs, there’s hiphop, there’s all kinds of things you can play.

JA: Do you think a lot of people in the music program can benefit from the club as a supplement to what they’re studying in the program?

YI: Yeah, eventually. I think we need more interest in it, which we can build once we get our word out there. That’s why we’re going to have this Dec. 8 holiday concert. Hopefully, the grad students can come, and some members of the piano club are going to play a few pieces here and there and try to do something Christmas-based or Hanukkah-based.

We’re teaming up with the Russian Club, and they’re going to provide food. This is the first event that we’ve [ever tried] to put on. It will be in the [Rapaporte] Treasure Hall.

JA: Where do you hope to leave the club after you graduate?

YI: I hope to leave it in a good spot where people are interested, and where we offer lessons too. The first questions I get asked is “Does it offer lessons?” And [the answer is] “Yes, we can, if everyone comes to the meetings.” You have to put something in if you want to get something out. As of right now, [the club is] more an outlet for people to get comfortable playing in front of others, and not in a pressured setting. And then we talk about the pieces, we analyze and ask how we feel [about what we played]. It’s a really relaxed atmosphere. … I’ve been talking to a couple of teachers here and there [about coming to play for the club.] They’ve shown some interest, but they don’t know exactly where [the club] is going so far. I think I have to get more grounded with the students first before I bring in faculty. For now, I think the students are more important. … I’m really a piano enthusiast, and I just hope more people can come so we can share that enthusiasm together.

—Aaron Berke

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ON CAMPUS performance

Borrie’s Woolf spurs feminist exchange

■ A dramatic reimagining of

Virginia Woolf’s ‘A Room of One’s Own’ raised questions of modern-day feminism.

By rachel gordon JUSTICE contributing WRITER

Alexandra Borrie came into the Women Studies Research Center on Tuesday, Nov. 1 clad in typical 20thcentury garb and a superior British accent to recreate one of the most acclaimed feminist literary figures of her time, Virginia Woolf. Borrie spoke with a stubborn elegance as she reenacted passages from Woolf’s extended essay, A Room of One’s Own. Borrie, who has taught acting at the Tisch School of New York University and at Muhlenberg College, has had a long career performing on Broadway and has accumulated a wealth of directing credits. She is also a founding member of Vocollage, a performance group that uses both music and text, which premiered an original production titled “Sho’ah Voices” this past spring.

A refined stream of classical music played in the background, emanating from a recorder. Borrie marched around the room giving voice to the lectures that Woolf gave to numerous women’s colleges in England. As Borrie spoke of how “a woman must have money and a room of one’s own if she wants to write fiction,” she managed to highlight the necessity for a woman to have private space, money and time to create art. “Making money didn’t interest me, I’d better leave that to my husband,” she said, which drew laughs from the predominately female audience.

Not only did Borrie manage to give Woolf’s challenging prose a voice, but she also stayed in character throughout the entire performance. She made use of the entire room, moving to and from the couch and covering the entire perimeter to ask a string of thought-provoking questions to the audience members.

“Why did men drink wine and women water? Why was one sex so prosperous and the other so poor? What

effect has poverty on fiction? What conditions are necessary for the creation of works of art?” Borrie, still as Woolf, ended the performance by showing a montage of photographs showing libraries, churches, dining halls and what Oxford University looked like at night.

Borrie was inspired by reading A Room of One’s Own and enjoying the book’s topic; she wasn’t searching for a particular subject on which to base her performance. Borrie said that she sympathizes with Woolf in the struggle of trying to get paid for art. She defines her performances, which are typically an hour or, as “chamber performances of text and music. [You] learn more when you come at things [from] different angles. The shows are designed for aural consumption.”

During the question-and-answer portion, a woman in the audience posed a question specifically to the younger crowd who attended the event. She inquired if the elements that Woolf discussed were too dated for young women in our modern era. The consensus from the younger crowd was that topics such as a woman’s access to education and the history of women’s writings were relatable, not archaic. However, on the topic of motherhood and spouse-related duties, different kinds of challenges were discussed. Another woman touched on the issue of fundraising, saying that women will not make donations without consulting their husbands, and that if both members of a couple have both graduated from college, the donation will likely go to the man’s college.

Ann M. Caldwell, president emerita of the Massachusetts General Hospital Institute of Health Professions, contested that claim. She said that statistically, per capita, women give more money to their colleges (single-sex schools), than men. And when the school was coed, both sexes donated more money than they would have to a single-sex college.

Woolf also mentions a tale of a woman who rejects motherhood in her essay, which sparked discussion about the role of a woman in the home and sacrifices that she must make. Various women spoke

JENNIY CHENG/the Justice

NOT AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF: Alexandria Borrie donned 20th-century clothing to reenact works by Virginia Woolf last week. of the ever-persistent stereotype of men being the breadwinners and women working in the home. Woolf, nevertheless, does not blame this on men because “life for both sexes … is arduous, difficult, a perpetual struggle. It calls for gigantic courage and strength. More than any-

thing, perhaps, creatures of illusion that we are, it calls for confidence in oneself.”

What I believed to be a reading of the tragic literary hero Virgina Woolf turned into a charged, analytical discussion of feminism, fundraising and a look at how Woolf’s

themes apply to current day struggles.

Borrie’s fusion of music and text created the necessary medium to give Woolf’s 1929 essay a modern voice, creating a riveting stir of debate applicable to a modern-day audience.

music

Musical narrative parallels pianist’s life story ■ Naoko Sugiyama, who

performed at Brandeis last week, enjoyed new musical expressions in the U.S. By olivia leiter JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

ASHLEY LAU/the Justice

VIRTUOSO: Naoko Sugiyama performed works by Liszt, Debussy and Gershwin.

For pianist Naoko Sugiyama, playing beautiful music and connecting emotionally with her audience are not mutually exclusive. “I love that moment when I can feel complete silence, when there is complete still. I can tell that everybody is with me,” said Sugiyama.

Sugiyama’s audience traveled on an extraordinary journey with her last Sunday at 3 p.m. when she performed at Slosberg Recital Hall. For the first half of the two-hour concert, Sugiyama played Franz Liszt’s “Sonata in B minor.” Liszt wrote this piece as a coming-of-age story, putting to music the stresses and joys he experienced at different stages of his life. The emotional depth of Liszt’s work was translated beautifully by Sugiyama, who puts her own style into each of the pieces she performs.

Sugiyama explained, “Every time I perform I feel different. What I have been going through changes how I want to play this piece.” Sugiyama takes her private emotions and lets them manifest in her music, lets a part of herself come through. She explained, “People can tell a lot about my character when I perform.”

Sugiyama, a native of Japan, explained that she did not always

have the freedom to be expressive in her music. At home, Sugiyama was trained to focus on the objective, the technical. “Everything has to be perfect before the music,” she said.

“If you play one note wrong, you will fail.” When Sugiyama came to America, she discovered an entirely different conception of music. “In America, music is more fun. It can be emotional. Here in America, I learned that you can show yourself. The audience can tell what I’m feeling and travel with me,” she explained.

For the second portion of her performance, Sugiyama played “Pour le Piano” by Claude Debussy, and ended with a short piece, “Rhapsody in Blue,” a jazzy melody by George Gershwin. Present throughout the entire concert was a sense of emotional richness. When Sugiyama finished playing, she was met with a standing ovation.

I was surprised to learn that Sugiyama, a virtuoso performer, had once thought about quitting the piano when she was an undergraduate student. She said, “It’s been a bumpy road. I came to Boston in ’97 and I was planning on quitting that year. A teacher told me I didn’t have enough talent and that I should find something else.” Sugiyama explained that she had already started looking for alternatives when she met a teacher who changed her entire perspective. “He showed me how great music is and that I can become a pianist, even though he said he didn’t want to be responsible for my future.” The inspiration that

this teacher instilled in Sugiyama was the driving force that kept her going and her much-needed hope.

“I’m glad I kept playing,” Sugiyama said.

Sugiyama saw the difference that her teacher made in her life and decided to teach music herself. She is currently a faculty member at the Longy School of Music and the New England Conservatory, both of which she attended herself. Sugiyama talked a little about teaching, explaining, “I love it. It’s interesting teaching. I can still learn from my students. I teach where I went to school, and it’s great to be back—it’s like being home.”

Based on her own experience, Sugiyama realizes how much of an impact one teacher can have on a student. With that knowledge, Sugiyama is mindful about her approach to teaching. She explained, “You can’t just be treating teaching like a job, you have to be a mentor.” However, Sugiyama does recognize that in teaching, she also has to criticize her students. “I realize that I still have to be honest with my students.

If they are not meeting standards, I have to be honest and trust my instincts, my experiences.”

Ultimately, Sugiyama’s performance unfolded a beautifully vulnerable narrative that paralleled her own inspiring story of self-discovery. Hopefully, more students and members of the Brandeis community will come to see many more of the musical performances at Brandeis this year, as I thought this was a fantastic experience.

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TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2011

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THE JUSTICE

COMEDY

EXISTENTIAL QUANDARIES

Alumnus starts his comedy career ■ Josh Gondelman ’07

performed in comedy clubs while at Brandeis. He recently released his first humor CD.

By ARIEL KAY JUSTICE EDITOR

MORGAN FINE/the Justice

WAIT FOR IT: Gogo (Dan Katz ’12), right, and Didi (Christopher Knight ’14) await the arrival of the mysterious figure Godot.

Players’ ‘Godot’ brings philosophy, big laughs ■ Brandeis Players put on

Samuel Beckett’s existential farce ‘Waiting for Godot.’

By VIET TRAN JUSTICE CONTRIBUTING WRITER

The South Campus Commons provided an intimate setting lastThursday through Sunday for the Brandeis Players’ performance of Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett. The play was created by Director Justy Kosek ’14, Stage Manager Jessica Pizzuti ’15, Executive Stage Manager Nora Mitnick ’12 and Producer Iyvon Edebiri ’13. It was clear that there was a sense of excitement for the play before the show even began. Attendance on Friday was so high that a number of latecomers couldn’t find seats, but they were still willing to sit on the floor.

As everyone finally settled down, the lights went out, the stage lights came up, and the show began.

Enter Gogo (Dan Katz ’12) and Didi (Christopher Knight ’14), who appear to be travelers stopping by a bare tree and a bench. They wear shoddy clothing and their only defining characteristic is their dialogue. They talk about nothing in particular: a short Biblical story, the date, the time of year, erections and so on. So what are they doing here? At one point, Gogo thinks of leaving, but Didi reminds him, “We can’t. … We’re waiting for Godot!”

So begins their quest for answers.

Soon Pozzo (Grace Fosler ’14) and Lucky (Stephen Badras ’13) enter.

These characters also appear to be traveling and serve as character foils for Didi and Gogo. Pozzo is an elitist and seemingly bipolar woman. She holds her young servant, Lucky, on a leash and forces him to carry all her belongings—bags, a stool and a coat. They both dress in leather outfits. Pozzo seems to have complete control over Lucky, who answers to her every beck and call. She orders him around in loud exclamations (“Up, Pig!”), with an arrogance reminiscent of the Red Queen from Alice in Wonderland.

Lucky tolerates all of this to the point of exhaustion—he frequently falls asleep standing up. He also never speaks for himself except for one unintelligible monologue in the second act. Pozzo knows her servant well enough, explaining to Gogo and

Didi that he is not nice with strangers, and that you have to yank his leash just right to get him to do what you want—you know, the usual.

Pozzo and Lucky’s entrance only complicates Didi and Gogo’s quest for answers. Perhaps Didi and Gogo enjoy this; they are no longer bored waiting for Godot since they have Pozzo and Lucky to annoy, question and battle with their wits—or lack thereof.

Finally, Pozzo and Lucky exit near the end of act one, and a masked girl (Barbara Rugg ’15) appears. Godot’s messenger, she tells them that Godot won’t come today, but surely tomorrow. So Didi and Gogo must wait some more.

The second act contains familiar echoes from the first half of the show, while adding deeper meaning and humor to the play. More absurd things continue to occur as Didi and Gogo wait. But still, Godot never comes.

The play ran for two hours, but the audience appeared involved in the characters’ struggles throughout the performance. The seemingly random and funny events told much more than met the eye.

For one, the play contains many of the major questions of philosophy: What is knowledge? What is ethics?

Does God exist? and so on. The play challenges these questions and renders them ironically futile. What is the hope of ascertaining knowledge when these characters have such defective memories?

Then there is the issue of ethics.

In the second act when Pozzo falls and cries for help, Didi and Gogo argue about what she wants exactly, and then whether to help her (thereby putting her in their debt).

Meanwhile, she is left to suffer for minutes on end. Pain has never been so funny.

And then, of course, the play challenges the existence of God and what He does. Didi and Gogo wait for Godot, who is mysterious and offstage, and who never provides them with a message, a purpose, or an order that they so desperately seek—sounds like God to me.

There is a lot of terrific yelling going on throughout the play: yells of commands, of announcements, of victory. But mostly, yells of “Why?” The characters are dissatisfied; they want something more. They seek Godot, though it is never explained

why. There is a lack of explanation throughout the play. Why did the trees’ leaves grow overnight? Why did Gogo’s boots disappear and a better pair appear in their place?

Even the simplest things, such as why Lucky won’t ever put down his bag, are troublesome questions for the characters. The answer is so delayed that it makes Gogo hysteric for explanation, “WHY!?!

BAAAAG!?!?!” And when Lucky finally does put down his bag, the question then becomes, Why did he put down his bags? Very philosophical questions.

Despite the philosophical discussions, there is actually a lot of humor in Waiting for Godot. The audience often waited in anticipation for the punch line of a joke, but instead received a completely unexpected answer. This itself became a continuing joke. Beckett sets up a world in which the most unexpectedly funny and unexplained things occurs. The tree branch flicks the characters three times of its own accord, for example. Pozzo constantly misplaces her belongings: a pipe, a spray bottle, and a watch, among other things. I admire how these actors could take a ridiculous situation and milk it to the last drop. It was clear that they had a great deal of fun with it.

If I seem to be listing a series of unrelated events when describing Waiting for Godot, it’s because I am. This play is not a rational series of actions, and I did hear a few audience members confused by what was going on. During the intermission, some people remarked that this is a play in which nothing happens. However, this is also a play in which everything happens, philosophically. I felt the majority of the audience was enthusiastically involved in Waiting for Godot, both through their laughter and silence anticipation.

Viewers observed characters that were incapable of looking at themselves and rising above their seemingly self-made, restraining circumstances. They saw the characters’ persistence to wait and to demand answers. They laughed at this rich, dramatic irony. Waiting for Godot is certainly not a play for everyone, but I think that the Brandeis Players made it comical, thought-provoking and entertaining all at the same time. I commend them for that.

Brandeis is a pretty funny campus. It seems as though at least one of our five improv-comedy groups (Bad Grammer, False Advertising, Crowd Control, To Be Announced and Brandeis’ Premiere Improv Comedy Club) or one of our two sketch-comedy groups (Boris’ Kitchen and Little Hands) always has a performance coming up, and the Blowfish and Gravity Magazine publish regularly. For a small school, we seem to have more than our fair share of people willing to make fools of themselves for a laugh. So it should come as no surprise that a Brandeis alumnus is making waves as a professional comedian.

Josh Gondelman ’07 started performing stand-up at comedy clubs in Boston while he was still a Brandeis undergrad. Now he has released his own comedy CD, titled Everything’s the Best.

Everything’s the Best’s 20 tracks showcase Gondelman’s skill as a humorist and an entertainer as he describes his life as a former preschool teacher, a Jew and an allaround nerd.

In an interview with justArts, the comedian described where he gets his material. “I try to reflect the things that are happening in my life on stage. I talk about the kids that I taught, I talk about relationships that I’m in. I talk about stuff that I like, like minor league baseball and Encyclopedia Brown.”

Gondelman elaborated on his love for the boy detective, a bit that he also performs on the CD. “Encyclopedia Brown could have turned out in one of two ways: He either could have become a tights-wearing vigilante weirdo with a name like The Librarian and a catchphrase like ‘Justice is Overdue!’ … Or, worstcase scenario, which I think is far more likely, Encyclopedia Brown grows up to be Dexter,” referring to the serial-killer Showtime show.

He adds that this is a “high-brow” joke because not everyone in his audience could afford the premium cable channel.

Bits about nerd culture pop up throughout Everything’s the Best. After all, Gondelman honed his routine while he attended Brandeis. He performed at bars and comedy clubs off-campus, he was a member of TBA for four

years, and he also formed a sketchcomedy group, Friends Like These, with several roommates in his junior year. They weren’t an official university club, but rather a selfcontained group that performed original sketches weekly. Gondelman recalled one eventful evening on campus: “Once [mashup DJ] Girl Talk played at Brandeis, and our show was scheduled to go on after his. So, we thereafter claimed that Girl Talk opened for us, even though the two shows were completely separate events.”

Since graduating, Gondelman has seen his career grow. He has performed throughout New England and recently moved to New York to pursue his career. He has also appeared on G4’s Attack of the Show. Everything’s the Best came about when, after performing at the Aspen Comedy Festival, representatives from Rooftop Comedy Productions approached him about recording a CD of his routine. Gondelman considers it his “capstone project” to “capture the material [he] had performed in Boston.”

Gondelman has also written for McSweeneys and for several comedy websites, including slacktory. com and thoughtcatologue.com, and hopes to continue to write satirical pieces. “I am in a pretty fortunate position. I am looking to be on the road a lot in the coming year,” he said. “I would like to get a steady job writing books or for a TV show. I love stand-up, but unless you’re in the top one percent of stand-up comedians, you can’t really sustain yourself or have a retirement plan or anything. There’s no one watching your back. Stand-up is fun and rewarding, but the constant touring is tough on your body and brain, and I don’t think I could do it in 30 years.”

For now, however, Gondelman is continuing to tour and perform at bars and comedy clubs throughout the Northeast. And of course, you can follow him on Twitter at @JoshGondelman. But despite his success, Gondelman still has a softspot for his alma mater.

“Brandeis is an oddball place, in a really genuine way,” he said.

“In [Friends Like These], there were people pursuing all sorts of different degrees, but they were all totally respected. When you’re in Brandeis, things like Liquid Latex seem normal when they’re totally not. Shaving your body and painting yourself like a Ninja Turtle and dancing to Vanilla Ice is not normal, but at Brandeis people are just accepting. At other schools, everyone streamlines into a ‘partier’ or a ‘studier.’ At Brandeis, everyone got to be a complete person.”

PHOTO COURTESY OF ROOFTOP COMEDY

FUNNYMAN: Gondelman jokes about his bald head and nerdy features on his CD.

THE JUSTICE

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TUESDAY, november 8, 2011

21

OFF CAMPUS DANCE

Boston Ballet enchants with season opener ■ The Boston Ballet put on a beautiful production of Prokofiev’s ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ performed by a diverse cast.

By ARIEL KAY JUSTICE EDITOR

Romeo and Juliet is perhaps the most well-known of Shakespeare’s plays. Its themes of love and loss are classic and it has been interpreted in hundreds of ways—into plays, movies, songs and works of art since it was first written four centuries ago.

One of the most brilliant of these interpretations is composer Sergei Prokofiev’s ballet, which first premiered in Germany in 1962.

This week, the Boston Ballet officially opened its season with Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet. JustArts was able to speak with one of the performers, Melanie Riffee, a dancer from Vienna, Va. who joined Boston Ballet in 2010. Riffee is a member of Boston Ballet II, the two-year preprofessional program for dancers ages 16 to 21, hosted by the Boston Ballet. There are currently nine dancers in the program. Of Boston Ballet II, Riffee said, “We get to be involved in almost all the performances and share the stage with [the Boston Ballet dancers]. We’re learning all the time.”

The ballet opened with a memorable fight scene between members of the Montague and Capulet families.

The stage was filled with an array of bustling townsfolk conducting their business in the center of Verona, which then gave way to the classic duel between the rival families.

Despite the lack of dialogue, I was able to clearly follow the action of the scene. The music, though it is a classical score without lyrics, also helped explain the plot through its

PHOTO COURTESY OF BOSTON BALLET

JUMP AROUND: Bo Busby was one of two principal dancers to play the Carnival King (center), a character not in the original play. Busby’s gymnastics stole the spotlight. emotional highs and lows.

Indeed, the music itself, conducted by Boston Ballet’s Music Director Jonathan McPhee, is worth studying. The different instruments seemed unwilling to let their voices go unheard. The passages overlapped one another, one beginning before the former had died out. Additionally, the pieces arranged for specific characters, such as the Duke of Verona, embodied their characters’ personalities and provided a particular thrill. I was also very impressed that the clashing of the swords during the fight scenes matched perfectly with the beat of the music. This precision reminded me that every tiny detail, down to the number of steps a character takes or the length of a pause between spins, is meticulously choreographed and rehearsed to perfection.

Of the rehearsal process, Riffee

explained, “We were rehearsing for about two months before we opened.

We worked on individual parts before we brought the ballet all together. We rehearse typically Monday through Friday, from 9:45 in the morning to 6:30 at night.” The company works at their studios on Claredon Street in Boston, and only came to the Boston Opera House, where Romeo and Juliet was performed, the day before the show opened.

All of that work seriously paid off. The dancers were exquisite. The show is double-cast, meaning that most main characters were played by different dancers on different nights. On opening night, Misa Kuranaga of Osaka, Japan played Juliet. She was clearly a crowd favorite and the true star of the show.

Kuranaga is a tiny person, but when she flitted and spun around the stage, she was in complete control

of the entire performance. Of the male dancers, I thought that Yury Yanowsky, who played Tybalt, was the strongest performer. He too commanded the stage, and had the swagger and self-confidence that his character is known for.

Other than these two principles, Bo Busby, who plays Paris in the other cast, was terrific as the Carnival King, a role not found in the original play. Busby, along with his troupe of four clowns, provided the biggest laughs of the night as a group of carnival performers who impress the crowd with their notable feats of balance and gymnastics in the second act.

Riffee said that the double casting is typical of professional ballet companies, and that “it’s fantastic because every pairing has a different interpretation and tells a different story.” This is not only because the

dancers are performing with different partners, but also because of the diverse backgrounds of Boston Ballet’s cast. Of the company’s 10 principle dancers, only three are from the United States. The rest are from Latin America, Asia and Europe.

This diversity exists not only in the group of principles, but throughout the entire 55-person cast. Riffee explained, “It’s really neat. Every day is a new experience. You get [dance] styles from around the world. It makes for a really well rounded production and company. It also gives a lot to the audience, because there’s something for everybody.”

That statement certainly applies to Boston Ballet’s Romeo and Juliet.

The production had beautiful music, detailed staging and dramatic costumes, and of course exquisitely skilled performers. As Riffee said, this is one show “not to be missed.”

film

‘Harold and Kumar’ returns to its comedic roots ■ ‘A Very Harold and Kumar 3D

Christmas’ has the usual cast, plus a high baby and a singing, dancing Neil Patrick Harris.

By AARON BERKE JUSTICE SENIOR WRITER

Our favorite stoner pals are back, this time bringing some yuletide mischief along with them, in A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas.

This time Harold (John Cho) and Kumar (Kal Penn) set off to find a 12-foot Christmas tree for Harold so he can appease his menacing fatherin-law (Danny Trejo). Their journey is impeded by the usual absurd obstacles, including a girl desperate to lose her virginity (Jordan Hinson) and her gangster father (Elias Koteas), a mysterious substance that turns the stars into claymation versions of themselves, a drug-addled baby, a waffle-making robot, Santa Claus and, of course, the uproarious scene-stealing Neil Patrick Harris.

The film, scripted by series veterans Hayden Schlossberg and Jon Hurwitz, is a rip-roaring good time, fusing a merry brand of racially offensive yet gloriously self-aware humor with holiday cheer and a sweet-spirited message. The film also makes a great use of its 3D elements, including eggs flying from the screen, smoke rings puffing out at viewers and a newspaper montage that flings headlines and moving photographs at the audience. These visually creative ideas are thanks in no small part to series newcomer and first-time director Todd StraussSchulson.

Strauss-Schulson, a 2003 graduate of Emerson College, was back in Boston this past week and participated in a round-table discussion about the film. He spoke about his attempts to bring a more visually active and fast-paced style to the proceedings, attempts that fully came across in the film. “I definitely did not try to replicate the aesthetic [of the first

PHOTO COURTESY OF WARNER BROS. PICTURES

MISCHIEF MAKERS: John Cho (right) and Kal Penn reunited in ‘3D Christmas,’ which takes place six years after the second film. two films],” he said. “For me, when I went out to pitch the movie, I pitched it as a fan.”

Strauss-Schulson’s love of the first two films prompted him to stay true to the narrative while looking for his own cinematic voice, both as a newcomer to the series and as a firsttime feature film director. “I wanted it to be flamboyant and show-offy and try to make a splash with it. …

There are images that are different, a movie that looks a little bit slicker, and [it’s] a visual comedy more like Shaun of the Dead. [It’s more] than just a point-and-shoot comedy that looks like a TV show,” he explained.

The film’s visual style is one element that has enabled it to greatly improve over its predecessor, the disappointing sequel Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay. Whereas Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle was all about two buddies on a simple journey, its sequel made the journey overly complicated, relying on an unnecessary subplot about counter-terrorism.

Strauss-Schulson and the writers of 3D Christmas were aware of this

misstep and made the conscious effort to bring the franchise back into a good old-fashioned buddy-movie style. “I think [the writers] had the sense in the second one that every time we left Harold and Kumar, … the movie just started to pace itself down,” the director said. “The audience loves those guys. … They want to see [them] together. So part of the idea was to get them back on a simple road trip.”

One thing immediately different about this movie from its predecessors is the passage of time. Whereas Guantanamo Bay took place moments after White Castle, this movie takes place six years after the second film, and the two formerly inseparable friends have largely grown apart and moved on with their lives. The movie’s heart and soul lies in bringing the two back together in time for Christmas and is part of what makes it so successful. The difficulties of growing up were something that Strauss-Schulson found personally relatable. “There’s something true about losing your college friends as you get older and growing apart from

each other,” he said. “I was thinking about my own personal experience: … having to act like an adult, directing my first movie, but also wanting to be a child and playing with the [waffle] robot. … There’s something to me that’s personally relatable to it and also to the writers and to John and Kal.” Cho and Penn, of course, have been with the series since the beginning, and despite the characters’ separation, the actors’ on-screen bond has only strengthened. Their chemistry is infallible; the way they play and bounce off of one another is a constant riot. For newcomer Strauss-Schulson, it was a daunting task to come into the fray with these two veterans. “The franchise is theirs, and I’m the new kid on the block,” he said. “I had to prove myself to them. I had a lot of questions for them, they had a lot of questions for me, so that was a pretty rich relationship.”

Of course the third essential ingredient in any Harold and Kumar film is the gloriously entertaining Neil Patrick Harris, who literally makes

his entrance in a show-stopping musical number. As in the previous two entries, his scenes in 3D Christmas are the best in the film, and this time the writers have amped up the comedy by tackling the actor’s open homosexuality head-on. But the Neil Patrick Harris of the movie is as brash and perverted as ever, and the way the writers clash his Harold and Kumar persona with his real one is unbelievably hilarious.

Harris’ musical introduction is Strauss-Schulson’s favorite scene in the movie, and rightly so. It was his idea “to stop the movie completely for three minutes and forget about Harold and Kumar and forget that they’re looking for a tree and just have Neil sing and dance for you.

Those were just sort of directorial ideas that everyone was on board for.”

Besides contending with series veterans, Strauss-Schulson had the added challenge of dealing with potentially risqué material, including a baby who, throughout the course of the film, gets high sequentially on weed, cocaine and ecstasy. These sequences are outrageously hysterical and potential trouble for the censors, but Strauss-Schulson maintains that they didn’t have any studio interference. “It just was very simply a hard R movie. Nothing had to be cut or censored or anything like that.” He adds that ultimately it was the movie’s heart that won the censors over.

“I think that because the movie is kind of sweet and because that stuff borderlines absurdity … it lets you laugh at it. It’s not cynical, it’s not mean; it’s just crazy.”

In the end, it is that combination of sweetness and absurdity, comedy and humanity that really defines Harold and Kumar. For fans of the series, A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas presents a fabulous return to form, and Strauss-Schulson certainly has left his mark on the franchise. One can only hope that Neil Patrick Harris wasn’t just teasing the audience when he said, “See you in the fourth one.”

22

TUESDAY, november 8, 2011

●

THE JUSTICE

film

Ageless thieves running out of ‘Time’ ■ ‘In Time’ is a stylish but

predictable thriller about a futuristic capitalist society where money is literally time.

By jeremy elkaim JUSTICE contributing WRITER

The newly released film, In Time, starring Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried, is a classic dystopian thriller written and directed by Andrew Niccol. It’s filled with scenes of large groups standing in the middle of wide, empty boulevards and workers walking among concrete blocks while wafts of smoke float overhead. The plot is based on the premise that everyone in the world lives until age 25, at which point they are given another year and forced to work, steal, kill or beg for more time. In essence, this is a future where time is money, and if you run out of time, you’re dead. A cup of coffee costs around four minutes, and 10 minutes with a floozy might cost one hour off of your life clock.

The fact that everyone in the movie is supposed to be 25 must have made casting very interesting. In one of the opening scenes, protagonist Will Salas (Timberlake) walks into the kitchen and gives his mother Rachel a kiss.

The funny thing is that she is played by actress Olivia Wilde, who is younger than Timberlake.

In general, the aesthetic of the movie is elegant and refined. In addition to being beautiful, nearly everyone in the film is dressed quite well, and the cars resemble marvelous futuristic versions of late ’60s classics. Two characters in the film are actually named Ulysse and Nardin, which together make the name of a famous Swiss watchmaker. What becomes clear as one watches In Time is that it is very much in touch with the aesthetics of pop culture today.

Will Salas is an average workingclass man who, after being falsely accused of murder, kidnaps Sylvia Weis (Amanda Seyfried), the daughter of a wealthy tycoon. Will then embarks on a Robin Hood-like quest through the opulent timezone—neighborhood—of New Greenwich, stealing time and redistributing it to the public.

The film is an obvious statement about the perils of capitalism. In Niccol’s world of the “near future,” life is tough for the common man. The cost of living has risen to the point where people are dying on the streets, and the income gap has grown considerably. To make matters worse, thieves known as “minutemen” lurk behind

COURTESY OF 20TH CENTURY FOX FILM CORPORATION

‘JUSTIN’ TIME: Justin Timberlake (left) and Amanda Seyfried play a type of future-day Bonnie and Clyde as Will Salas and Sylvia Weis in the dystopian thriller ‘In Time.’ every corner, waiting to steal all of your remaining time.

Niccol’s film is intriguing in the sense that it depicts a very capitalistic society through a medium that is typically used to envision misery-trodden, egalitarian worlds. This is because the movie, like nearly all other dystopian thrillers, is simply a reflection of society’s fears at the moment. In Time evokes frustration with capitalism and feelings of futility and hopelessness. Similar to the current Occupy Wall Street movement, it criticizes capitalism yet offers no viable alternatives.

Because In Time depicts two beautiful people on the run from the law, the film has clear parallels to Jean-Luc Godard’s Pierrot le Fou (1965). There

are technicolor-like shots of Will and Sylvia driving a convertible that seems to mirror the aesthetics of the French New Wave genre. Even more tellingly, Seyfried was styled to look strikingly similar to Danish film actress Anna Karina, the female lead in Godard’s film.

The film also conjures up vibes of Bonnie and Clyde. In one scene, Sylvia’s father, played by Vincent Kartheiser of Mad Men, explains to two bandits that, although they may succeed in disturbing the peace for one or two generations, the appeal of the capitalist system is too great to ever be put down permanently. It’s at this point that one realizes that the grand statements on capitalism in this movie are simply too blunt. Although the

concept is captivating, the metaphor is a bit too unveiled.

One criticism that must be made concerns Timberlake’s acting. One gets the impression that he is constantly aware of the presence of the camera. Cillian Murphy, on the other hand, delivers a fine performance, reminiscent of Javert from Les Misérables, as one of the “timekeepers” (or police officers) who chases down the two outlaws.

Another downside of the film was that the writing was too dramatic.

Movies are meant to evoke human emotional experiences realistically and, in this regard, the film failed.

As far as general features of the film go, In Time is a classic big-budget production. The music is a standard

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high-quality, high-intensity original score and the film as a whole has exciting action sequences. The cinematography starts out uninspired but slowly reveals moments of clarity and brilliance. There is one creative nude scene involving Sylvia swimming in the ocean in which she is revealed through the water. Another shot is seemingly based on the famous running scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest (1959).

The movie finished with a typical Hollywood ending, which can be expected from a large production starring pop star Justin Timberlake. In my opinion, In Time was a classic blockbuster: entertaining in this case, yet not a film that is bound to enter the canon of dystopian thrillers.

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Write reviews for movies, plays, concerts, restaurants and more!

To get started, come to our weekly meetings at the Justice office, at 4:00 p.m. on Sundays.

Questions? Email Wei-Huan Chen and Ariel Kay at arts@thejustice.org.

THE JUSTICE

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TUESDAY, november 8, 2011

23

NOVEL IDEAS

Dreaming and running with Murakami

PHOTO COURTESY OF AMAZON.COM

ACATEA/Flickr Creative Commons

MAGICAL REALISM: ‘IQ84’ chronicles two parallel stories in a world with two moons.

NEW PERSPECTIVES: Murakami’s literary influences include F. Scott Fitzgerald, Thomas Mann and Raymond Carver.

■ Japanese bestselling

narratives accessible to the average literary mind. He is a perceptual amplifier who magnifies the slightest senses to supernatural proportions. His novels and short stories exhibit the characteristic qualities of magical realism. Raining sardines, parallel worlds, talking cats and lingering spirits—these fantastic images are a mere fraction of the paranormal scenes you will come across in a Murakami novel. Most of his protagonists are indifferent, passive individuals who somehow wind up in absurd situations paired with eccentric characters. They float through life like feathers caught in the wind, subject to both mundane breezes and irregular gusts without gaining a foothold.

One Murakami novel which is especially indicative of this style is Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. Published in 1985, this book follows two nameless male characters in alternating chapters. One of the protagonists is a data processer who takes on a mysterious assignment from an old scientist that leads him to distant physical and mental planes. The other character enters into a village where he is disconnected from his shadow and required to read the dreams of unicorn skulls. With all of its eccentricities, this novel is prime Murakami.

novelist Haruki Murakami recently released his 944page ‘1Q84’ worldwide.

By harrison goldspiel special to the justice

Dreams, sex, jazz, cats, solitude, running, wells, sheep and the Beatles. To some people, this list may seem like an incoherent string of unrelated concepts. But to millions of avid readers, these words strike a chord of literary passion. They are none other than the motifs and fixations of internationally acclaimed Japanese author Haruki Murakami.

For millions of people in the United Kingdom and North America, the wait for the next Murakami novel is finally over. On Oct. 25, stores unveiled Murakami’s magnum opus, 1Q84.

Containing a staggering 944 pages, the three-volume novel follows the converging exploits of two characters, Aomame and Tengo, in a parallel narrative across time, space and reality. Already a huge bestseller in Japan, 1Q84 is sure to mesmerize Western readers as well. I’m currently deeply immersed in it myself.

1Q84 presents an interesting mix of themes, ranging from murder to

plagiarism. The most engaging component is the subtle accumulation of connections between the two characters’ narratives. If there is any time to discover Murakami, this celebrated author, athlete, translator and cultural commentator, now is the perfect occasion.

Murakami is the one author who I recommend to everyone. He changed my life significantly, transforming me into the avid reader I am today. I have a bit of an obsession with his work. I’ve consumed all of his books, with the exception of two novels not printed in America. I’ve read Murakami blogs online and seen modified movies and short films. I’ve downloaded all the musical tracks mentioned in his stories.

I had a short running craze, after being inspired by the 62-year old author who runs marathons and competes in triathlons every year. I’ve even read the works of his favorite authors who pop up in his books frequently, such as F. Scott Fitzgerald and Thomas Mann. Since the first time I opened Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (1994), one of Murakami’s largest novels, I’ve gained a great appreciation for literature.

Reading Murakami is like peering into a dream, in that his scenes are both wildly imaginative and utterly realistic. He writes with incredible clarity, making even his quirkiest

But fiction is not the only genre in his repertoire. Murakami has written several distinguished essays and non-fiction pieces. While riding the subway to lower Manhattan this summer, I read Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche (1997), Murakami’s gripping account of the 1995 subway terrorist attacks in Tokyo. I was probably insane to expose myself to the stark reality of an underground terrorist attack in such a similar setting, but, oddly, I did not become anxious or paranoid. If anything, Murakami provided me with feelings of security and awareness. I now know exactly how to perceive and respond to an underground gas attack after reading the recollections of the Tokyo victims. Underground should really be required reading for every New Yorker.

On a less terrifying note, if you need a good read while strolling along the Charles River, I would recommend Murakami’s memoir What I Talk About When I Talk About Running (2007). As a busy Brandeisian, I barely have enough time to read leisurely or work out. If I can squeeze in a run or two into my crazy week I consider it a success.

But Murakami manages to do it all.

He reads and writes voraciously and runs miles upon miles, six days a week. At 62 years old, Murakami

has a long history of running long races. In his memoir, he reflects on his running experiences while training for the annual New York City marathon.

Though he refrains from calling himself an athlete, Murakami fits the label well. For over 25 years, he has been running, biking and swimming all over the world, from Boston to New York City, Hawaii, Greece and Japan. He has even completed a 62-mile ultra-marathon in Hokkaido, Japan.

One of the author’s favorite running spots happens to be along the Charles River, where he exercised while living in Cambridge for some scattered years over the past two decades. He regards running as an essential component to his writing.

Like competing in a marathon, constructing a novel requires endurance, an open mind and a whole lot of energy.

Murakami is my personal inspiration. He opened my mind to new cultures, ideas and great works of literature. If you are looking to pick up a new author, purchase a Murakami novel, find a comfy chair and lose yourself in his magical words. Your life may never be the same again.

Editor’s note: The writer is a member of the Class of 2013.

food

Hall of Fame on Main offers best pizza in Waltham

■ Hall of Fame Pizzeria &

Wings’ pizza trumps that of Domino’s and Upper Crust.

By jeremy elkaim and ahmed abdel kouddous JUSTICE contributing WRITERs

This week, we decided to review Hall of Fame Pizzeria & Wings on Main Street, which we found through FourSquare Explore with the help of our friend, David Lasher ’13. At first glance, Hall of Fame appears to be a typical New York pizzeria kind of place. Pizza boxes with the words “Proud to be American” tower above the counter and portraits of Times Square and the New York City skyline adorn the walls.

Upon closer inspection, however,

it becomes clear that while the restaurant is in the New York style, it evokes a distinctly Boston charm.

As you walk in, you immediately notice two classic stone ovens behind the counter. To the left is a large refrigerator filled with all the drinks you’d expect; to the right, a few simple tables. All of this is enveloped by glorifications of Boston sports teams, which hang from all the available walls and empty spaces.

The whole place also has a charmingly gritty feel to it. Pipes are exposed, wires dangle from the TV (which is constantly on ESPN) and the cable box perches comfortably on top of the fridge. One lonely plant sits quietly by the corner, a testament to the rurality of the locale.

Founded in 2009 by a young Armenian-American entrepreneur, John

Piranosian, Hall of Fame Pizzeria & Wings boasts a menu of “Gourmet Pizza,” “Famous Wings,” calzones, burgers and chicken and steak rolls.

They also offer vegetarian roll-ups and dinners that include steak, chicken, falafel and lahmajoun, which is a type of Armenian pizza.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the menu, however, is the crossover calzones, which are essentially classic calzones filled with different flavors of boneless hot wings.

We decided to start off with two slices of cheese pizza, which we hereby declare to be the best pizza in Waltham. We find it to be crispier than Prospect Café’s and not as chewy as Upper Crust’s. The pizza is very New York; the crust is thin (though not charred), the sauce is old-school (not too sweet or savory),

and the cheese is mozzarella (shredded). It is important to note that Hall of Fame is not trying to make New York pizza; they make a distinctly Boston slice.

Next, we tried the wings, which we thought complemented the pizza quite well. The barbecue and buffalo sauces we sampled were filled with flavor, and it was evident that the chicken was freshly fried. At this point, one of the cooks let us know that our crossover calzone would only be another two or three minutes.

The service was fast as well as amiable in a friendly neighborhood type of way. They even let us pay at the end of our meal, which is not typical of pizza-by-the-slice style places.

We ended our meal with a honey

barbecue crossover calzone, which we found to be pure genius; a true collegiate delight.

All in all, Hall of Fame Pizzeria & Wings is a quality eatery that anyone can make into their standby delivery pizza place. They conveniently deliver anywhere in the Waltham/Weston area. We would love to see more of their pizza boxes around campus. Though they may not have Domino’s online-order extravaganza or Upper Crust’s brand image, we are confident that they offer the best pizza in Waltham. Their stone oven and fresh ingredients render their pies healthier and tastier than most other pizza places, and their well-priced menu is certainly within students’ budgets.

Hall of Fame is located at 912 Main St. in Waltham. Call (781) 899-0500.

24

TUESday, November 8, 2011 ● THE JUSTICE

TOP of the

ARTS ON VIEW

TRIVIA TIME

CHARTS

1. What artist is the subject of the 1970s Don McLean song that begins, “Starry, starry night”?

2. When and where did the first African slaves arrive in America?

3. What was the name of the craggy peak overlooking Whoville in How the Grinch Stole Christmas?

4. What is absolute zero as measured in Celsius?

5. What was the home planet of the Transformers alien robots who came to Earth?

6. What is a baby horse called?

7. Which U.S. president proposed the Great Society?

8. Who wrote The Canterbury Tales in the late 14th century?

9. What is the tine test used to diagnose?

10. What elements were discovered by Pierre and Marie Curie?

ANSWERS 1. Vincent Van Gogh 2. 1619 (Jamestown, Va.) 3. Mount Crumpit 4. -273 degrees 5. Cybertron 6. A foal 7. Lyndon Johnson 8. Geoffrey Chaucer 9. Tuberculosis 10. Polonium and radium

STRANGE BUT TRUE  It was the 40th president of the United States, Ronald Reagan, who made the following sage observation: “Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed, there are many rewards; if you disgrace yourself, you can always write a book.”  If you’re like 75 percent of Americans, you like to doodle.  There was a shipwreck in 1664 that had only one survivor, one in 1785 that also resulted in all but one aboard being killed and one in 1860 that, likewise, left a single person alive. Considering the fact that shipwrecks are not that uncommon—particularly in the heyday of ocean travel—you might not think this much of a coincidence. Think again, though; in each of those shipwrecks, the sole survivor was named Hugh Williams.  Those who study such things say that Roman Emperor Caligula’s last words were, “I’m still alive!”  If you go bankrupt, your creditors are forbidden from seizing your wedding ring to pay off your debts.  In 1984, a woman named Deborah Martorano was shopping at Bloomingdale’s in New York City when one of the store’s employees, a perfume demonstrator, sprayed her with scent. The experience caused Martorano, who suffered from allergies and asthma, to spend 10 days in a hospital. This respiratory distress resulted in a $75,000 settlement from the store.  The Dead Sea isn’t a sea at all; it’s a lake.

Top 10s for the week ending November 6 BOX OFFICE

1. Puss in Boots 2. Tower Heist 3. A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas 4. Paranormal Activity 3 5. In Time 6. Footloose 7. Real Steel 8. The Rum Diary 9. Ides of March 10. Moneyball

NYT BESTSELLERS

WEI-HUAN CHEN/the Justice

OCCUPY SNOWSTORM: Tents drip with rain in Boston’s Dewey Square as a record-breaking storm brews. Occupy Boston campers remained vigilant even in the extreme weather.

ACROSS 1. “You’ve got —” 5. Japanese sash 8. Remain undecided 12. Car starter 14. Lotion additive 15. Round Table VIP 16. “Bye” 17. Dinner for Dobbin 18. Had coming 20. Tashkent native 23. Threesome 24. Carriage 25. Kids’ baseball site 28. Sch. org.

29. ­— ski 30. Cistern 32. Rorschach picture 34. One of the Gospels 35. Settled down 36. U.S. voters since 1920 37. Rue 40. Droop 41. Eye layer 42. Multi-linguistic person 47. Transmitted 48. Gradual destructions 49. Genealogy chart 50. Penny profile 51. Sheltered DOWN 1. Wire measure 2. — Khan 3. Hostel 4. Reindeer moss, e.g.

5. Unctuous 6. Halloween shout 7. Wi-Fi hookup 8. Walk a beat, maybe 9. Verve 10. Memorandum 11. Out of play 13. Ship-building wood 19. Helps 20. Diamond arbiter 21. Tubular pasta 22. Pinto or lima 23. Fortune-telling deck 25. Green soup variety

CROSSWORD

iTUNES

1. Rihanna feat. Calvin Harris — “We Found Love” 2. LMFAO — “Sexy and I Know It” 3. Adele — “Someone Like You” 4. Flo Rida — “Good Feeling” 5. David Guetta feat. Usher — “Without You” 6. Maroon 5 feat. Christina Aguilera — “Moves like Jagger (Studio Recording from The Voice Performance)” 7. Foster the People — “Pumped Up Kicks” 8. Gym Class Heroes feat. Adam Levine — “Stereo Hearts” 9. T-Pain feat. Wiz Khalifa and Lily Allen — “5 O’Clock” 10. Bruno Mars — “It Will Rain”

BILLBOARD

1. Coldplay — Mylo Xyloto 2. Kelly Clarkson — Stronger 3. Michael Buble — Christmas 4. Adele — 21 5. Toby Keith — Clancy’s Tavern 6. Tom Waits — Bad as Me 7. Scotty McCreery — Clear as Day 8. Lady Antebellum — Own the Night 9. Tony Bennett — Duets II 10. Casting Crowns — Come to the Well

26. Egg 27. Obtain 29. Competent 31. Midmorning hour 33. Chopping spree?

34. Actor Robert from “Big 36. Methods 37. Oxidation 38. Always 39. Kelly or Hackman 40. — gin fizz 43. Sphere 44. Chatroom chuckle 45. Inseparable 46. Mao - -tung

Top of the Charts information provided

by Fandango, the New York Times, BillBoard.com and Apple.com.

Solution to last week’s crossword

King Crossword Copyright 2011 King Features Synd, Inc.

STAFF PLAYLIST

“Now’s the Time”

By WEI-HUAN CHEN Justice arts EDITOR

SUDOKU INSTRUCTIONS: Place a number in the empty boxes in such a way that each row across, each column down and each small 9-box square contains all of the numbers from one to nine.

 The average price for a bowl of New England clam chowder in Boston restaurants is $4.40.  If you ever travel to Borneo or Sumatra and come face-to-face with an orangutan, keep this tidbit of information in mind: If one of these great apes belches at you, you might want to back off; that’s how they warn others to stay out of their territory.

Thought for the Day: “Irrationally held truths may be more harmful than reasoned errors.”

— Thomas H. Huxley

Fiction 1. The Litigators — John Grisham 2. 1Q84 — Haruki Murakami 3. The Best of Me — Nicholas Sparks 4. The Snow Angel — Glenn Beck 5. The Christmas Wedding — James Patterson and Richard DiLallo Nonfiction 1. Steve Jobs — Walter Isaacson 2. Killing Lincoln — Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard 3. Thing, Fast and Slow ­— Daniel Kahneman 4. Boomerang — Michael Lewis 5. Unbroken — Laura Hillenbrand

Solution to last week’s sudoku

Sudoku Copyright 2011 King Features Synd, Inc.

Know anything about jazz music being produced nowadays? Want to?

Newcomers to modern-age jazz should start out with these superb artists, many of whom have collaborated together.

THE LIST 1.f“Polliwog” — James Farm 2. “Aze’s Blues” — Aaron Goldberg 3. “Flat Tires” — Medesksi, Martin & Wood 4. “Never Stop” — The Bad Plus 5. “Pass it On” — Dave Holland 6. “Czarology” — Jerry Bergonzi 7. “Paranoid Android” — Brad Mehldau 8. “Clarity” — Julian Lage 9. “Reflections” — Kurt Rosenwinkel 10. “Cambodia” — Paul Motian