Method Magazine Issue II by Method Magazine

CREATIVE DIRECTORS: ROBERT ALVAREZ, ALICE GOLDSMITH CONTRIBUTORS: CHRISTIAN BACHRACH, EMILY BRACKMAN, ALLY CUERVO, EMMA DREW, CHARLOTTE HAUSER, SOPHIA HUSSAIN, SAMANTHA LEE,LEONORA MARDH, NORA MCCARTIN, YELENA NIAZYAN, MAX NUSSENBAUM, JACK PEARCE, HARRISON SCHAAF, EMILY SCHUBERT, AVERY TRUFELMAN Dear Reader, We’ve changed. So have you. A year has passed since our first issue was published—a year of swine flu and health care, of earthquakes and recession, of MJ and Gaga—and in that time we’ve expanded our staff, acquired an office, and started a subsidiary blog (methodmagazine.com). For this issue, we consider space—from the spaces we occupy on campus, to the spaces we use to display our art, even to the space on the pages of this magazine. Space determines our interactions, our beliefs, our history, our design. We present to you the 2010 issue of Method Magazine.

INSIDE THE ISSUE AN INTERVIEW WITH GLEN LIGON

LEONORA MARDH

RACE AND SPACE: A DIALOGUE

ALICE GOLDSMITH, YELENA NIAZYAN

AN INTERVIEW WITH MATTHEW WEINER

ROBERT ALVAREZ

WESLEYAN’S ADULT STUDENTS

MAX NUSSENBAUM

IT’S A WOMAN’S WORLD 22 THE FORGOTTEN VAULT OF ANSEL ADAMS 32 AVERY TRUFELMAN DEATH FROM ABOVE 38 JACK PEARCE WESLEYAN BY THE NUMBERS 40 MAX NUSSENBAUM “東京レインボー” 43 ASHER KELLY-NACHT AN INTERVIEW WITH SONIA DAVIS 44 QUESTIONS BY ALICE GOLDSMITH “WHAT WE TALK ABOUT WHEN WE TALK 46 ANTHONY SMITH ABOUT” “OUTBREAK” 50 JACK PEARCE, HARRISON SCHAAF, EMILY SCHUBERT ABANDONED 56 ALICE GOLDSMITH PAPERLESS NOVELS AND THE SPACE THEY 58 YELENA NIAZYAN LEAVE BEHIND 3

IDENTITY IS A STORAGE ROOM WITH A BUSTED LOCK

AN INTERVIEW WITH GLENN LIGON BY LEONORA MARDH

Although Glenn Ligon graduated from Wesleyan in 1980 as a Fine Arts major with a Painting concentration, his recent work is highly conceptual. While at Wesleyan, he studied artistic movements such as Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism; the influences of these are unmistakable in his current works, in which he references artists such as DeKooning, Klein and Sol LeWitt. Ligon uses multiple forms of media in his pieces, and text is usually a critical component. He finds inspiration in his environment, and has used ideas such as a quote from a Gertrude Stein novel and Thomas Edison’s film Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1903). He takes pieces of his surroundings and alters them to the point of abstraction. Most of his work addresses his label as an African American artist, as well as race relations and similar sociopolitical themes. Recently, President Obama chose to include his work Black Like Me No. 2 (1992) in the White House collection. On February 16th, Ligon returned to Wesleyan to speak about his work. During his presentation, he periodically interrupted a conventional audience–speaker relationship with humorous Power Point titles such as “tell them about how getting your eyeglasses made you lose the speech.” The talk was both entertaining and enlightening, and Ligon afterwards spoke with several students. He granted Method Magazine the permission to feature three prints from his series of lithographs Runaways. In order to create the piece, Ligon reproduced historical slave posters, asked different friends to describe him, and substituted the posters’ original text with his friends’ descriptions. I was able to interview Ligon and ask him the following questions about this piece and other elements of his work.

“I DON’T CHOOSE TEXT, TEXT CHOOSES ME.”

LEONORA MARDH: Your series of lithographs, Runaways (1993), is was exhibited at the Davison Art Center at Wesleyan University. Some students were confused about the prints before reading the description, initially thinking they might have been historical reproductions of slave posters. What role do you think context plays for the viewer viewing this piece, especially in terms of understanding that you yourself are the subject? GLENN LIGON: Confusion is good. Those prints are about the connection between one historical moment and another. While the iconography in the Runaways is from the 19th century, if one read the descriptions in the prints it is obvious that the “runaway slave” that is being described is not someone from the 19th century. What I wanted to do in that set of prints is think about slavery—which existed as our Constitution was being written, as our laws and institutions were being formed—as having an effect on the present, as having shaped our sociopolitical landscape. The prints are about the presence of the past in the present. LM: Text seems to be an important element of your art; many of your pieces consist mostly of text, or incorporate it. How do you choose which text to include, and how to present it? GL: I don’t choose text, text chooses me. That is, I don’t read to find quotes for artworks, I just read. And if a passage or essay stays burning in my brain long enough I try to figure out how to incorporate it into an artwork. Some things take multiple forms. For instance, the first neon piece I made said “negro sunshine,” which is a fragment from the Gertrude Stein novel Three Lives. But before I made that neon I made a drawing in oilstick and coal dust using the same text. Because coal dust is shiny and reflective (and the text referred to light) it was not such a huge conceptual leap from the drawing to the neon. LM: You often work in mixed media, including painting, photography, video, and lithographs. How do you choose which media or medium to work with on a specific piece? GL: Trial and error. Things often start out in the wrong form. For example, I did a piece that was a record of a therapy session about a lost painting. It was supposed to be an audio piece but halfway through making it I realized that it needed to be a video because therapist offices are fascinating and need to be seen. 8

LM: Do you believe others impose an identity unto you as an African American man and as an artist? Does your personal sense of identity conflict with this? GL: Identity is a storage room with a busted lock. You go there to find “me” but what you really get is “we.” I don’t believe you get to have a “personal identity,” an identity that is outside of culture. Also, I don’t believe that black culture exists as a separate (but equal) entity from culture at large. This is not to say that there are boundaries imposed by the culture on what subject matter (black) artists are supposed to engage with. That kind of policing comes from lots of different directions: from the National Endowment for the Arts to my mother saying “don’t put our business out in the streets.” Everyone is addressing everything, which is good because it means that the boundaries around what art is supposed to be have loosened up. As for my contributions, I just try to make work about what I am interested in. If that work is good work, it will hopefully be interesting to lots of different kinds of people. LM: You graduated from Wesleyan in 1982. How would you describe your experience as an African American student at the university? What were the race relations like on campus at the time? GL: Is there still an area of the dining hall where people of color like to sit? If so, that was my experience being a black student at Wesleyan in 1982. LM: I heard President Obama recently added Black Like Me No. 2 (1992) to his White House collection. What was your reaction to this honor? GL: I was thrilled, of course. We finally have a President and First Lady who are not scared of ideas. It is the first time in recent memory that artworks are being engaged with as intellectual activities, not just something to decorate a hallway or an office. I am proud to have a painting hanging in the White House for the next seven years.* Glenn Ligon (American, born 1960) Untitled, from “Runaways,” a set of ten lithographs, 1993. Russel T. Limbach Memorial funds and Friends of the Davison Art Center funds. ©Glenn Ligon (photo: Harrison Schaaf)

RACE AND SPACE A DIALOGUE Written by Yelena Niazyan and Alice Goldsmith Researched by Samantha Lee, Dema Paxton Fofang, and Nora McCartin

As a group, the members of Method Magazine proposed writing an article that explores the relationship between race and space on campus. This year, college campuses throughout the United States have witnessed more recorded acts of racial discrimination than in recent years. While Wesleyan has not suffered acts of extreme racial bigotry this year, we feel that is no reason not to maintain a dialogue concerning racial relationships on this campus. Talking about race is not easy, but we hope that through an exploration of past and present circumstances we may be able to ignite conversation and collaboration between all different types of groups.

The Wesleyan campus is fairly small and is largely shaped by an array of buildings, many of which are housing facilities. Among housing choices are program houses and fraternity houses which double as student housing and student group community centers. Some of the program houses celebrate specific ethnic groups. These houses have an important role in defining social relationships at Wesleyanâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;their existence, their physical space, and the ways in which they are used to foster a community affect the ways in which students function.Â On April 25th, members of the Vanguard class of 1969 will reunite to discuss the history of Malcolm X House, race relations, and the importance of community. The Vanguard class consists of the thirteen members who demanded Wesleyan to provide the black community a centralized living space. After a variety of actions calling for a black safe space and community center, the Wesleyan administration acquiesced to the demand for the AfroAmerican House (a house for black students that could only hold six people) to be moved to what is now Malcolm X House.

Since then, members of a wide range of racial groups have enrolled at the university, which is why it is important to remember that issues of racial relationships are not limited to those of black and white students. On the background of a merely binary discourse on race politics, a whole spectrum of racial identities become lost. Following the founding of Malcolm X House, program houses dedicated to providing community to various races and ethnicities (among other communities not pertaining to race identity) were formed. While the percentage of students of color has risen significantly since the 1960s, this does not mean that a space for community has become superfluous. An increase in diversity does not negate the ubiquity of white dominance nor does it indicate an end to discrimination. The year 1990 was particularly tumultuous. On April 7th, a university student firebombed the presidentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s office with a triad of homemade Molotov cocktails. In May, vandals spray painted racial slurs in the basement of Malcolm X House on the eve of Black Alumni weekend. On July 6 of that same year, Nicholas 11

Haddad, a Wesleyan student the State of Connecticut later determined was part of the conspiracy to bomb South College, was shot and killed by Kumar Visnawathan, his former friend and the son of Tanjore Viswanathan, an adjunct professor of music at Wesleyan. That year also saw tensions over allegations that minority professors were retiring or resigning because they had lost hope in receiving tenure and argument over University investment in South African businesses. Nineteen-ninety may sound like a lifetime ago; and on the surface, it appears to be an especially violent anomaly in Wesleyan’s history. We are, after all, the same university that had Martin Luther King Jr. speak in its hallowed halls an astonishing four times; the same university that boasts that 27 percent of its student body is made up of students of color; the same university that just last year erupted into joyous mayhem when this nation finally elected its first black president. Yet, while 27 percent may seem like a large proportion of the student body, it is the statistic of the admission office—and the ways in which the university defines “color” may be significantly different from the way an individual would define it. Just as Obama’s election doesn’t spell the quelling of racial tension or inequality in these united states, the comparative quiet of the past two decades does not indicate complete racial harmony or equality on campus. Indeed, a paltry three years ago, racist slurs once again marred the walls of a Wesleyan dormitory – the third such defacing of Clark since 2006. It is with these particular events in mind, alongside the inevitability of white culture dominance, that illustrate the continuing necessity for program houses. As sociology professor Jonathan Cutler comments, “Students of color constitute a significant minority at Wesleyan and it would hardly be surprising if enrollment at a white-dominated college required some serious time free from the constant surveillance of the white gaze. Would it surprise anyone if students of color hunger for a space that allows for empowerment and a kind of therapeutic reflection on the challenges of navigating life in a white-dominated context?” Program houses act as a center for community, but also as a place to educate those who aren’t directly a part of the group. Melina Aguilar ‘10, a Resident Advisor of 200 Church, notes “House mates usually want to make social justice learning events with the grand purpose of getting the community involved. Many of my residents have gone down to do as such, leading creative social justice activities and inviting the whole campus to attend.” Marie-Eve Augier ’11, the House Manager of Womanist House, comments, “It’s difficult to get people to understand that they don’t have to share that feature [of being a woman of color] to be a part of the house, program houses have a learning aspect to them. I think the toughest part of the job is getting people to stop seeing whether a label fits or not before agreeing to participate… It’s a difficult balance to maintain between creating a safe space for people of a community and not making people not of that community feel unwelcome or excluded.” A slight conflict arises when a program house desires to maintain a safe space devoted to members of one particular group and also bring in the outside community to educate them. At what point is there too much involvement or interest from “outsiders”? What 12

role do “outsiders” play if they are generally “insiders” within the white majority campus? Does a community only involve those of the community or include those interested in the community? This tension between celebrating a similarity and not trying to leave out those of different backgrounds is a confusing limbo, especially when it comes to education and dialogue. It is not only the intrinsic paradoxes which control social relationships on campus, but also the mere facts of physical location and position on campus. Aguilar believes that connections between houses and communities are sometimes determined by placement. She says, “There’s a connection between Malcolm X House and La Casa, the same with Chinese House and [Asian/Asian American] House, but there’s an intense disconnection between these two groups of houses. These houses are much closer to each other, thus communication is easier. I’m not saying that proximity will spark relations right away, but it will break down a burden that exists at the moment.” And yet, it’s just as likely that the connection between these two groups has just as much to do with racial affinity as physical proximity. After all, how many of us actually get to know our neighbors? Our home lives are spent in the community of the house, rather than hanging out in the backyard with the people who live in the house next door. As Augier points out, “The Bayit and International House are right next to each other, how great is the communication between those two communities on campus? Maybe my perception is wrong but I don’t see those relations being any better than others.” If the role of distance is unclear in elucidating inter-house relationships, it is no clearer in providing an explanation as to why even though program house events are open to all students, comparatively few white students attend events thrown by Malcolm X or AAA house. For instance, Han Hsien Liew ‘12, the House Manager of AAA House finds that “while the nature of many of our programs are geared towards to the larger Wesleyan community, the main audience during events are mainly the Asians and Asian-Americans who already know the house well, and frequent there often.” Partly this is an issue of familiarity. If your friends live in AAA house and you’re there often, of course you’ll go to house sponsored events. If you don’t go out of your way to visit other houses, you may just not be committed to looking beyond your social sphere (or already defined group) for the night. But partly this is an issue of distance. AAA house is located far down High street, Malcolm X House and La Casa are found past the CFA. If students can barely drag themselves to Fountain Ave on cold nights, they’re certainly unlikely to make their way fifteen minutes to social events at these distant houses. Alternatively, 200 Church is centrally located, which may be why Aguilar reports on a constant in and ex-flux of students who feel “like they can move across other areas of campus easily.” The Greek fraternities are an obvious example of the power of central locale and community. The fraternities are all located on High Street, close to the center of campus and close to each other. They are an important part of the social life at Wesleyan, in both the volume of members tied to each organization and in the amount of students who visit the fraternities for social events.

Delta Kappa Epsilon (DKE) was founded in 1844 at Yale, and has been a part of Wesleyan since 1867. It is one of the largest fraternities on campus with 62 brothers. The fact that DKE has a space on campus—both as a housing facility and a social meeting place—affects the members of the fraternity and the larger community. Yet this community remains mostly white, perhaps due to the fact that it has traditionally been white (as it was founded during a time when Wesleyan students were only white). That is not to say that the organization does not want to be inclusive—in fact the Wesleyan chapter of DKE once rescinded its place from the national organization when the national organization refused to let black students join the fraternity. In discussing how the organization deals with racial integration, DKE President Todd Keats ‘11 comments, “I think that because we are comprised of mostly white males, it can be difficult to recruit from different races. Our main recruiting areas are our respective sports teams. At Wesleyan, ice hockey and baseball are comprised of mostly white males.” But he also notes, “There are African American and Hispanic fraternities on campus which makes it difficult to recruit [students of those communities].” But if recruitment is hard for DKE it’s no less difficult for the African American and Latino fraternities themselves. Few Wesleyan students are even aware that these organizations exist on campus, let alone know the names of the groups or how to join. For members of Lambda Upsilon Lambda Fraternity, Inc, a fraternity on campus, recruitment begins with an interest meeting. Potential DKE or Psi U brothers, on the other hand, often become interested in the fraternity after attending open events hosted by the houses. Houses are clearly essential to not only nourishing a sense of community but creating this community in

the first place. Noel Flores ‘10, a member of LUL, put it simply: “Having a house on campus would attract more interest, provide a continuously free space to host events or meetings... And it would create more awareness of our organization across campus”. In the 1990s members of LUL tried to get a permanent house on campus, however, Wesleyan would not guarantee that it would remain an official LUL house. According to Flores, the University “reserved the right to move the boarders and/or change the ‘theme’ of the house if they didn’t feel that it fit into Wesleyan’s culture”. The problem is rather cyclical in nature. LUL currently has only two active members on campus—too few for a house, yet without a house they are less likely to attract new recruits. With so few active members on campus, members of LUL and Senoritas Latinas Unidas Sorority often interact with other organization chapters. Essentially, this means that these groups, in their quest for community, are forced to leave behind the possibility of community on Wesleyan’s campus. The issues of segregation, self-segregation, and integration are not easily resolvable. After all, as Cutler reminds us, “White liberal demands for racial integration and self-righteous indignation at the sight of racial self-segregation has nothing to do with justice. It represents nothing more than white panic. Whiteness is all about the centrality of the great white actor.” With this article, we do not expect that all students will interact closely with all other students—attending events, parties, lectures. And we cannot change the facts of history—that the fraternities were built and constructed a century ago or that new program houses have had to fit in where they can. But we hope it acts as a reminder to our history and our present—our progressions and our stagnations. This is not so much a call to action as a call to conversation and collaboration.*

ION SERIES MAD MEN,

ISODE OF THE TELEVIS IF YOU HAVENâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;T SEEN AN EP

you should put this issue down immediately and purchase the first season from iTunes, or Netflix, or whatever other video-providing service you can get your hands on.

Go forth; drool over the beautiful, meticulously designed 1960â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sets and costumes; indulge in the chauvinistic, cockta il-drinking, chain-smoking, Madison Avenue adv ertising business.

But most of all,

think about it.

STRANGERS OF THE PAST AN INTERVIEW WITH MATTHEW WEINER BY ROBERT ALVAREZ

...Yes, you read right. Think about a television series. Use your brain. This may sound incongruous with what television is all about—indeed it is—but Mad Men is not a just series about 1960’s advertising executives and their adulterous lifestyles; it’s much more. I had the great pleasure of meeting with Matthew Weiner, the creator, head writer, executive producer, and frequent director of the Emmy Award-winning televised phenomenon, to talk about his experience at Wesleyan, the success of the series, and what exactly that further depth consists of.

he Los Angeles Center Studios is located on a multipleblock compound amidst the heat of downtown LA. On the second floor of a building labeled “M” resides the Mad Men writers’ studio, a nondescript office with grey carpeting and an array of posters—from a framed and duly-noted old Lucky Strike clipping to an advertisement for the second season. My appointment was at 3pm and I was late. After circling the gated compound twice to find the obscured entrance, a technical difficulty at the receptionist desk that prevented me printing a proper permit. I was nerve-racked, thirsty, and sweating bullets. I finally arrived at the office to be greeted by Mr. Weiner’s calm and fresh-faced assistant. Had it not been LA, and had it not been the office of a writing staff of a television show, I might have said “you should think about acting”—but alas, I instead took him up on his offer for a chair, a glass of water, and a run to the bathroom. Mr. Weiner was still in a meeting. I sighed as silently as I could—I didn’t come out looking like an amateur college wannabe after all. A few moments passed, a couple of men walked out laughing and I was surprised to find the last one of them was Mr. Weiner himself. He’s different from how he looks in pictures or video interviews—there’s an energy about him, a brightening presence, that doesn’t get picked up by the camera. He’s confident, yet unassuming; considerate, yet not willing to waste time.

I learned that last point the hard way. After Mr. Weiner escorted me to his office and sat me down on his couch (a grey, 1960’s style three-seater not much different from the one Don Draper tends to pass out on in the show. I half expected him to make me a cocktail.) Naively, I asked the vague question, “What was Wesleyan like for you?” Mr. Weiner looked at me as if, for a moment, he was holding back rolling his eyes. “Uh, It’s been over 25 years, that’s a hard question to answer. I mean, it was four years of my life, so it was a lot of different experiences.” He sipped his coffee. I winced. While at Wesleyan, Mr. Weiner majored in the College of Letters. One question often asked is why COL and why not, say, Film Studies? He did go on to earn his masters at the University of Southern California School of Cinema and Television. “My parents didn’t think that film was an acceptable academic pursuit,” Weiner responded. “I thought about it briefly, but undergraduate film studies was too specialized an education. They had very strong opinions—I mean, they were paying for it.” That’s not to say Weiner’s experience in the COL was in vain. On the contrary, he vividly and fondly remembers the impact many of his classes had on him. “I mean, you know, you’re in a class and they make you read Mein Kampf. You actually read it,” he emphasized. “I remember there was this fascinating moment—I think the [College of Letters] Twentieth Century Colloquium was taught by Hope Weissman and Howard Needler—and we’re reading Mein Kampf, and Hitler starts describing these Jews. He goes ‘I see a synagogue, and I see this small dark man, and I say, “Is that a German?”’ Hope turns to us and says, ‘he’s saying “Am I a Jew?”’ and I can honestly say,” Weiner pauses, “that blew my mind.” A strong presence in Weiner’s educational experience at Wesleyan – an experience that influences Weiner’s current work at least a little —was the Feminism movement. “Feminism saturated every aspect of theory and education at that time,” he remembers. “I took a 20th century poetry class that literally 15

included maybe two men. The rest of it was all women. You know, I did not consider myself a part of the patriarchy—I had never even heard the word, other than in, like, Hebrew school,” he laughed, “and was defensive about it on some level. But intellectually it was fascinating to say ‘are we really different from each other?’” “You know,” I interjected, “for it being over 25 years, you have a pretty good memory.” “I have a great memory. It’s actually been the secret of my life,” he replied. A question Weiner is asked time and again is “why 1960’s?”—one Weiner simply refuses to entertain. “I’m not even answering that,” he says sternly. “I mean, there’s no short answer. I picked [that era] because it’s ignored. I identify with the 50’s. My generation, graduating college in the 80’s—the Regan Era was very, very similar to the 50’s—conformity, and self-consciously so. So, I wondered ‘what it would be like to go through that?’” This was the point at which our interview left the realm of question-and-answer and turned more into a discussion. “It’s interesting because, with my generation,” I said, “I feel there’s a similar sentiment towards the 60’s. We identify with the culture, the idea of ‘change.’” While Weiner agreed with me, he was wary of jumping to conclusions. This phenomenon, like most cultural movements, suffers a misconception of causality. Do films just reinforce a stereotype or create them altogether? As far as 1960’s revival culture is concerned, Weiner asks to consider the baby boomers. “They are the largest chunk of the population, and they’re getting old. So what’s nostalgic for them really can control the culture. They move their dollars somewhere, and it moves the culture.” This has a lot to do with why he is doing what he does. Cultural movements can be transparent, and lacking in real value. “The art of the 60’s is very powerful and meta-historical in a way, but I wanted to say, ‘I know a lot of this was mass-culture and not ideological. It was stylistic and empty.’ A lot of what I’m trying to do is take away all the stylistic and cultural trimmings and talk about humanity. And say ‘these are constants.’ When you read first-person accounts of anyone in history, you identify in some way. And that’s what I’m interested in.” That “interest” is, for many, the success of the show. Weiner took his time—almost the entire first two seasons—introducing us to the characters of Don and Betty, Joan and Peggy. We see them in every day, often uneventful, situations. And because of that—despite the historical context, the beautiful sets, the costumes—the show becomes about these people and their humanity. This show is not just about intense drama, it’s more sophisticated and subtle. It makes you think—this is not your average programming. This is also not your normal setting for a program. Mad Men is a product of its environment, and by that I mean, its technological environment. Television viewing has changed drastically within the past five years—viewers no longer have to tune in to a series at a specified time. They can record it on their TiVo, they can download it off of iTunes, or they can watch it on websites like Hulu. The ability for viewers to do so has been a key component to the success of the series, which airs on AMC; perhaps the last channel you would expect. “AMC isn’t a paid cable channel, you get it in a cable package,” Weiner added. “When you’re paying $80 a month for HBO, you know where it is. Nobody knew where AMC was. In fact, that [the channel] was even brave enough to go into the series business

was a risk. There’s no lead-in, no time slots—nobody knows where it is. The thing that worked with TiVo was nobody had to know where it is. You can just type in ‘Mad Men’ and there it is… It really wasn’t until the first season was off the air and people bought the DVD’s, or finally watched their TiVo’s, or went on itunes, that the show was really successful. All of these alternative forms of media allowed for it to hit.” Yet, airing on AMC, rather than a paid channel like HBO, prevents the series from being able to play with graphic content. There are no full-blown sex scenes, no cussing, no nudity. “Yeah, I know.” Weiner sighed. “But you know what, I don’t think that’s hurt it. I wish I could swear. That would be great. With everyone having been in the military and sort of suppressing [everything] until they get drunk—it’s very much a part of the men’s world versus the women’s world. And it’s very much a part of the counter culture, and I can’t tell that story. The sex thing is ideal for me. When you do sex on TV, you tend to lower the quality of acting. It’s hard to do. You can get dirtier with just the suggestion.” One scene that this specifically resonates with—and excuse me for spoiling it for those who have yet to see the episode—is in the third season when Don and Betty go to Rome together. We never actually see the couple in full coital splendor, but—whether it’s the beauty of actors John Hamm and January Jones, or the mounting sexual tension—the episode leaves you wanting a cigarette and a long bath. “Yeah that was really satisfying, wasn’t it?” he laughed. “It was great for the story that it was so sexy, too. They were rekindling their romance in this setting and, to her, when they got back, it just threw a shadow on the fact that they had nothing.” “Right,” I responded, half wishing I had asked for a cocktail, “but a lot of the issues these characters face are adult issues— Office problems, marriage, raising children. Whom are you writing for?” “I write for myself. I don’t think there should be a demographic. I want everyone to see the show. I’m trying to be entertaining and thought provoking, and I think everyone can identify with the alienation. I think there’s a real human identification with loneliness, the desire to be attached to other people, what its like to have one life when you’re alone and one life when you’re with other people—that’s the kind of stuff that I’m writing about. It was frustrating to me at the beginning cause people didn’t get it. A long shot of Don looking in the mirror isn’t to say ‘look at how handsome John Hamm is, look at that towel rack.’ The shot’s about a guy who looked in the mirror and didn’t like what he saw. We all have that experience, when you look at yourself and you’re looking at a complete stranger.” And there you have it: this is not a series about the 1960’s. Nor is this a series about ad men, or beautiful people drinking cocktails in suits and furs, or about gender relations, or racial relations, or marriage, or family. Regardless of time, location, and even costuming, we are all the same: we face the same fundamental problems, have the same fundamental emotions, and strive for the same goals. Mad Men may seem to be about the lives of complete strangers, but consider the series on a deeper level and you may soon realize —that stranger just might be you. *

* Photo collage by Leonora Mardh

“I THINK THERE’S A REAL HUMAN IDENTIFICATION WITH LONLINESS... WHAT ITS LIKE TO HAVE ONE LIFE WHEN YOU’RE ALONE AND ONE LIFE WHEN YOU’RE WITH OTHER PEOPLE—THAT’S THE KIND OF STUFF I’M WRITING ABOUT.” -MATTHEW WEINER

THE

40-YEAR-OLD

FRESHMAN d

Inside the Secret World of Wesleyan’s Adult Students BY MAX NUSSENBAUM

To avoid the potential embarrassment of, well, anybody,

the details of the following story have been left intentionally vague. But let’s just say that I showed up for the first day of a class—it doesn’t matter which one—sat down, looked to the front of the room, and waited. And waited. And waited. The professor—a balding, bearded man in a button-down shirt—said nothing, instead just scanning the room with the same mix of nervousness and anticipation that was plastered on the faces of everybody else in the class. Five minutes passed, then ten. Why isn’t he saying anything? I thought. This guy is the worst teacher ever. You can probably guess where this story is going. The professor—the real one—eventually showed up and began leading the class. The balding, bearded guy wasn’t the professor after all. He was just an adult Wesleyan student. Adult student. The very words seem incongruous together, like jumbo shrimp or ethical egoism. Who are these mysterious, aged creatures? And what are they doing on our campus?

Were these adult students a prominent if atypical part of Wesleyan, like math majors? Or were they the ghosts of the Wesleyan world, trapped eternally in the netherworld between college and adulthood? There was only one way to find out: track down some of these adult students and talk to them myself. After an intensive search (read: a few emails to the WestCo listserv), I found my first adult student: an incredibly nice woman named Dawn, who says that although she is old enough to be many of her co-eds’ mother, most students don’t think that she’s older than twenty-five. (I wasn’t able to verify this claim myself, since I interviewed Dawn over email, but I’m willing to give her the benefit of the doubt—especially since she followed the Grateful Dead after high school. So cool, right?) Dawn describes her high school-era self as “a rabid underachiever” with “a huge chip on [her] shoulder re:

The Establishment.” She was a classic smart slacker, failing classes but acing tests, and when she decided to take a year off before college, her parents bought a boat with the money they had saved in her college fund. The year off ended up turning into a lot more years, and after a series of jobs including secretary, park caretaker, babysitter, convenience store cashier, florist, and tye-die entrepreneur—plus the aforementioned stint following the Dead—she ended up working at Datura, a floral design store in Middletown. And then she decided to go back to school. “I interviewed at Wesleyan because I knew I was brilliant,” Dawn told me, “and was basically told, ‘That’s nice, dear. Prove you’re capable of attending college first. Why don’t you try Community College?’” So she did— “totally rockin’ it!” (her words) at Middlesex Community College and achieving a 3.98 GPA—after which she applied to Wesleyan once again. This time, she got in. Dawn says that being an adult at Wesleyan is, well, different: “Living off campus does put a damper on the ‘community’ feeling of the Wes experience, but I have fabulous friends on campus and several have been to my house. I definitely feel like I ‘belong’—it’s not like I just go to class and ditch campus as soon as possible. I attend events on campus, have lunch dates with fellow students and generally have a good time. However, I do miss the opportunity to hang out with others and have close discussions about classes, life, etc.” But, she says, there’s also

pluses to returning to school later in life: “I feel that my age and experience almost acts as a bridge in some ways between the culture clash of professorial historical pop culture references and my fellow students.” Besides, she adds, “I’m not going because my parents want me to. I’m going because I want to.” After Dawn, I talked to Deb, a thirty-five-year-old Wes student who’s currently working on completing her pre-med requirements. After starting college in her late twenties, taking community college classes a few at a time, Deb decided to apply to Wesleyan—and not “That Other School in Connecticut,” as she puts it—because, she says, we’re known for having an “engaged, creative, and thoughtful” undergrad population. “It’s you guys!” She says, laughing. (I don’t point out that technically, she’s one of “us” as well.) Deb also says that her experience here is different. “I came here already having a really full personal life,” she says. “Kids, a husband, friends cultivated over the course of my lifetime.” But, she adds, “I have cultivated a number of what I would call genuine friendships with other undergrads here.” And being an adult has prevented her from doing some of the Wesleyan things she’s wanted to do. “I’m not as courageous as I was when I was twenty,” she says. In other words, she’s hesitant to do things—theater productions, for example—that would involve embarrassing herself in front of groups of people. And she decided not to apply to be a Peer Health Advisor after becoming concerned that it might be a little awkward for an eighteen-year-old to talk to her about sex concerns. “If you don’t know me,” she says, “then I’m just a grown-up.” Deb credits her husband and kids for supporting her nontraditional schooling path. “Sometimes I’m here till 11 o’clock at night,” she says. “Wesleyan is not necessarily

super accommodating to adult students, but I personally love it.” And in conclusion? “I wouldn’t recommend to anyone that they take the path I’ve taken. But it’s worked out really well for me.”*

IT’S A WOMAN’S WORLD

Or is it? For a university that waves its progressive flag high, Wesleyan only began admitting women officially in 1970. That’s later than Yale, Bard, and even Texas A&M. The “good ol’ times” of 1950’s college spirit were boys-only. But what if they weren’t? We can do it too, as they say. And 40 years later, the members of some of Wesleyan’s current women’s groups show us how—in the process discussing their identity and the power of sisterhood today.

d â&#x20AC;&#x153;It can be frustrating to be a member of a sorority, because we have minimal representation at Wesleyan and it is difficult to get funding and support for single-sex organizations. However, it is very gratifying to be part of the first historically African American sisterhood with a legacy and purpose that transcends campus.â&#x20AC;? -Morgan McCray, member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.

On the previous page: Molly McFee, a member of the a capella group, Onomatopoeia.

d â&#x20AC;&#x153;Being in a female group on campus means that I can always find a least one young lady who understands the moment that I may be in. A true sister is a friend who listens with her heart.â&#x20AC;? -AhDream Smith, member of the Women of Color Collective

d â&#x20AC;&#x153;I love being in an all-female group. There's something about working together for music that makes it so much more unique than collaborating in other areas. I love that every voice is such a vital part of any song, but when done right it all meshes into one rich, fluid sound. Very few groups can provide that simultaneous individuality and unity.â&#x20AC;? -Kaitlin Ashley, member of The Cardinal Sinners

The Cardinal Sinners

Photography by Jessica Wilson, Nam Anh, & Chachi Hauser. Produced and directed by Robert Alvarez. Assistant producers Emma Drew, Sofi Newmyer, Christian Bachrach, Micharri Pratts. Styling by Avery Trufelman & Ally Cuervo. Hair and makeup by Emily Schubert, Genevieve Hutchings, & Tamar Charles.

THE TREASURES IN THE BASEMENT

WESLEYAN’S CACHE OF PRINTS AND PHOTOGRAPHS & THE FORGOTTEN VAULT OF ANSEL ADAMS BY AVERY TRUFELMAN

How often do you go to the Davison Center? No, not the one with the bowls of cough drops and condoms; Davison Art Center is right across from the health center of the same name. Though it is old, small, and somewhat overlooked, the Davison Art Center is not changing any time soon. The Davison Art Center houses some 18,000 prints, 6,000 photographs, and 100 paintings, the core donated by Wesleyan alumnus and New York lawyer George Davison. Davison’s donation of 6,000 prints included works by Rembrandt, Durer, and Whistler, as well as a sizeable collection of Goyas. One was actually stumbled upon by accident by the Davison’s first curator, when he found it pasted into an album of French lithographs in Olin Library. It is one of our rarest prints, one of only three known copies, with the other two housed in Paris and Madrid. President Michael Roth has stopped plans for a new museum to house the incredible Davison art collection, preferring that the funds be used for financial aid and more studio space for artists. Roth acknowledges that “we should have a more appropriate facility for their storage and exhibition”. Roth originally thought that McConaughy Hall would have functioned well as a new home for the collection, but he then realized it would expose the works to a dangerous amount of light. However, the Art History department will soon move into the old building that used to house the squash courts, sandwiched between North College and Usdan. While the campus central location of this new home will provide the collection greater accessibility, thousands of original prints will continue to lie in drawers below the Center For the Arts. Some professors, President Roth included, make use of the University’s incredible print and photography collection in their courses, like print making, history of photography, museum curation, and certain art history classes (a full list of courses that utilize the collection can be found on the Davison Center’s website). Though students can take these classes or visit the rotating displays at the Davison Center’s tiny gallery, most students don’t know that their school has one of the largest collegiate print

collections in the United States and thus these beautiful objects rarely provide the average Wesleyan student their pleasure. Most notably, the Davison has a collection of six prints by iconic photographer Ansel Adams. Russel “Derry” D’Oench, who co-owned the Middletown Press with his brother, Woodbridge, for 32 years, was the largest contributor, giving Adam’s “Winter Sunrise” in 1986, “Cascade” in 1991, and “Mount Williamson” in 1997 to Davison Art Center. Derry D’Oench had also accumulated a collection of some 200 photographs for the Middletown Press’ offices, and gave a good amount to the Davison Art Center when the Press was sold in 1992. Though Derry donated in quantity, one could argue that his brother Woodbridge D’Oench gave well in quality, bestowing the center its most famous work by Adams—“Moonrise Hernandez”. A third donor, alumnus Michael Senft, gave “Sequoia,” and “Rock and Surf ” in 1983. Davison curator Clare Rogan’s favorite of the six photographs is “Mount Williamson” for its intriguing back-story: it was taken while Adams was visiting a Japanese internment site in 1945. Clare Rogan makes new purchases and helps the Davison’s collection expand. Her goal is “to get new, exciting work, to move the collection into the future and find interesting pieces that connect to the past” (Rogan is particularly excited about new acquisitions from artists Ellen Gallagher and Nichola Lopez). According to Ms. Rogan, a curating rule of thumb is “for every month on display, pieces are stored for a year.” The Adams photographs were all on display in 2007, and, though it was only for a month, it is unlikely that they will all be shown together any time soon. Still, any Wesleyan student itching to see Ansel Adams’ photographs, or any other pieces of the collection, can call or email Clare Rogan to make a private appointment to see them in the Davison Art Center’s basement. Ansel Adams was a photographer, environmentalist, and icon. His crisp photographs capture the spirit of the American West with a simplicity and starkness that make them instantly recognizable. His images capture the sublime elements of nature: towering

Ansel Easton Adams (American, 1902–1984), Sequoia Gigantea Roots, Yosemite National Park, California, ca. 1950, printed ca. 1960–1970. Gelatin silver print. Davison Art Center collection. Gift of Michael M. Senft, 1983.12.1. By permission of The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust (copy photo: R.J. Phil).

cliffs, expanses of stormy clouds, and twisted, windblown tree limbs. The artist also locates natural elements within mighty man made structures, like loops of Los Angeles highways, stretches of agricultural fields, and even the UC Berkley mathematics building. Adams marked his place in the history of art as a founder and key member of the San Fransisco-based modernist group f.64, along with photographers Imogen Cunningham, John Paul Edwards, and Sonya Noskwiak. Though Ansel Adams was renowned for printing the perfect photograph, prizing what he coined the “psychological effect of cleanliness and perfection,” he was an easy and trusting customer, according to his framer and collaborator, Paul Frederick. I had the pleasure of speaking with Mr. Frederick in San Francisco, the same city where he first met Adams in the late 1950’s, when the photographer walked into his framing studio, The Atelier. Many of Adams’ photographs mounted by Mr. Frederick still bear the stamp “The Atelier” on the back. Ansel Adams first walked into The Atelier an unknown, to frame a work of another eminent photographer—it was a photograph by Alfred Steiglietz, a friend of Adams and husband of Georgia O’Keefe. Frederick helped Adams break new artistic ground in his own right. By lacquering his larger works, a practice once frowned upon by collectors, and by mounting his smaller photographs on illustration boards to create starker contrasts, Frederick helped Adams to develop his signature style. Paul Frederick remained Ansel Adams’ framer and close friend until Adams passed away in 1984. “He was an easygoing man who liked a good joke,” recalls Fredrick. “He was very knowledgeable in photographic chemistry, you know, he worked with Dr. Land in the development of the Polaroid Camera, the first camera that produced an instant picture.” In addition to helping create Polaroid film, Adams also pioneered the zone system of film development. Zone Processing controlled the relationship of brightness to density, and took the guesswork out of the system of developing. Zone Processing allowed crisp tonal control and range, with consistent results. “Zone 4,” Frederick told me, was actually the license plate on Adam’s old Cadillac, which he would take pictures from the roof of. Wesleyan University’s works by Ansel Adams are so precious and prized, and since the photographer’s death have increased in demand. Original prints now sell for tens of thousands of dollars, and other prints similar to Wesleyan’s are scattered around the world, in famous museums and private estates: namely, the home of Steve Jobs, who gave Paul Frederick a computer in exchange for reframing his impression of “Moonrise Hernandez”. To ignore the Davison Collection is to miss out on an incredible gift at Wesleyan. So take look inside the gallery or the basement treasure trove: 24,000 works are waiting, being carefully preserved for your pleasure.*

Ansel Easton Adams (American, 1902–1984), Sequoia Gigantea Roots, Yosemite National Park, California, ca. 1950, printed ca. 1960–1970. Gelatin silver print. Davison Art Center collection. Gift of Michael M. Senft, 1983.12.1. By permission of the Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust (copy photo: R.J. Phil).

Ansel Easton Adams (American, 1902–1984), Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico, 1941, printed 1973. Gelatin silver print. Davison Art Center collection. Gift of Woodbridge A. D’Oench, 1997.20.1. By permission of the Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust. (copy photo: R.J. Phil).

THIS ISN’T SCIENCE FICTION. IT’S RECOGNITION OF REALITY. THE ROBOT REVOLUTION IS COMING, AND IT’S PROGRAMMED TO KILL ON COMMAND. On August 5th, 2009, American officials watched Baitullah Mehsud recline comfortably on the roof of his father-inlaw’s house. They watched him meet with his wife, uncle and medic, who administered an intravenous drip. What makes this scene remarkable is that these American officials sat in Langley, Virginia, while Baitullah Mehsud relaxed in a small town nearly eight thousand miles away. He was one of the most wanted terrorists in Pakistan, and these American officials watched him recline in real time. Two miles above Mehsud’s head, an infrared camera on a remotely controlled, unmanned plane relayed every movement he made. Less than three weeks later, some of these same officials watched the same house burst into flames. Two hellfire missiles remotely fired from a joystick in Nevada killed Mehsud’s wife, his father-in-law, his mother-in-law, a lieutenant, and seven of his bodyguards. From those same screens in Virginia they could still see Baitullah. Well, half of him. His bottom half had been blown away. Stranger yet, the pilot who pulled the trigger could, within hours, sit at home and eat dinner with his family. Never before have humans experienced such a quick and seamless transition from combat to comfort. Almost every two minutes an unmanned aircraft takes off from an airbase outside of Cactus Springs, Nevada. These vehicles, either Predator or Reaper drones, were initially designed for surveillance but are now capable of carrying bombs—up to 3,750 pounds of them. Their pilots fly from camouflaged trailers clustered on the ground of the Mojave Desert. “Inside that trailer is Iraq; inside the other, Afghanistan,” explained one Air Force Lieutenant to an incredulous The Atlantic journalist in 2006. Since then the drone program has expanded exponentially from a handful of pilotless planes to over 7,000 drones flying forty round-the-clock patrols every day, an eightfold increase since 2004. In a nondescript and inconspicuous complex twenty minutes outside of Boston, a group of engineers designed and manufactured one the newest robotic warriors, the Modular Advanced Armed Robotic System (MAARS). This remote controlled vehicle resembles a miniature tank and comes equipped with day, night and thermal vision, a high power speaker system and a manipulator arm capable of lifting 120 lbs that can, within minutes, be swapped for a M240 machine gun capable of firing nearly a thousand rounds per minute with superhuman accuracy. To date, the military operates more than 12,000 ground based unmanned systems. The majority of these systems are non-lethal, but in 2007, the military deployed three robots to Iraq that could be modified to carry machine guns, grenade launchers or rockets. When that year, Michael Zecca, the programs manager, told Wired Magazine that they hadn’t “fired their weapons yet,” he added, “but that will happen soon.”

Last year the military set out to create, according to Maj. Gen. Marke F. Gibson, “a new type of pilot.” The battlefield demanded more drone pilots than the Air Force produced in a decade, so Gibson set out to train fresh officers without aviation training to fly Predator drones. He put them through a crash course program that condensed two years of training into nine months. At their graduation ceremony, the trainees received a new pin commissioned for their service: a shield bearing a lightning bolt stands at the center of the same wings worn by every other Air Force pilot. What do these developments mean for modern warfare? Essentially, they move soldiers out of danger and ostensibly increase the efficiency of operation. Peter Singer sees this as a breaking point in history. In his book “Wired for War,” Singer writes about an eighteen-yearold high school dropout who, after being deemed unqualified to serve as a helicopter mechanic, was transferred to an Army drone facility. To the surprise of his superiors, this teenager was an absolute natural with the joystick vehicle control. In fact, he was one of the best drone pilots they had ever seen. Ironically, the thing that explains this teenager’s natural ability was the reason behind his poor grades in high school—a passion for Xbox. He was quickly promoted to instructor at the training academy. Indeed, since the publication of Singer’s book, this young man contributed more to the American war effort than many F-15 pilots in the US Air Force. In place of a college education or millions of dollars of technical training, this teen used his skills acquired through addictive Xbox gaming to rise to critical importance within the military. To many, these developments are the obvious next step of technology in modern warfare. The justifications are rational; these machines can and do save lots of American lives. The Talon robot family alone claims to have performed over 20,000 explosive ordinance disposal missions since their introduction in 2000. But how will these robots fight in the future? And how will rapidly trained and unstudied “push-button” pilots and unmanned ground vehicle controllers handle killing from miles away? It is unclear. However, one thing is clear: we must be wary of seductive, unmanned technology fostering the perception of costless and easy war. It was General Robert E. Lee who wrote, “It is a good thing that we find war so horrible, or else we would become fond of it.” Our government is spending 5.5 billion dollars this year on unmanned military vehicles that make war more palatable to the public. That’s a 64 percent increase in the last three years. While this nascent technology changes how and from what places we fight wars, we must keep our critical humanity close by as the distance between war’s aggressors and victims grows.* 39

Wesleyan {By the Numbers}

BY MAX NUSSENBAUM

GENDER

EARLY DECISION

PUBLIC VS. PRIVATE SCHOOL

*INCLUDES HOMESCHOOL

FINANCIAL AID

RACE

*WESLEYAN RELEASES A RACIAL BREAKDOWN OF “ASIANS/ASIAN-AMERICANS,” “BLACKS/AFRICAN-AMERICANS,” AND “LATINOS/HISPANICS,” ALL OF WHOM THEY CONSIDER TO BE “STUDENTS OF COLOR.” THEY DO NOT RELEASE A BREAKDOWN OF STUDENTS WHO DEFINE THEMSELVES IN ANY OTHER WAY—INCLUDING AS “WHITE.”

Statistics for all current students (Class of 2010 - 2013). Percentages rounded to the nearest whole percent. SAT scores rounded to the nearest multiple of ten.

INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS

FIRST GENERATION TO GO TO COLLEGE

CLASS OF 2013

FROM NEW ENGLAND

THE CURATED PROJECTS

“東京レインボー” BY ASHER KELLY-NACHT

AN INTERVIEW WITH SONIA LOUISE DAVIS BY ALICE GOLDSMITH

Sonia Davis ‘10 has spent the past year working on her thesis, a multi-media project that includes written research about three artists, her own photography series titled “rememories” (see image on left), a physical material collage, and a video compilation. From March 26 to April 3, her thesis was installed on the first floor of Usdan. Alice Goldsmith: When did you begin this project? Sonia Davis: Last spring. I knew I wanted to write a thesis, but I knew I couldn’t just write. I wanted to be doing some artwork and have a visible product of my time at Wesleyan. A.G.: Can you describe your thesis? S.D.: I’m writing about Lorna Simpson, Wangechi Mutu, and Leslie Hewitt. They are all three contemporary black women artists. So I am basically talking about all three of their work in conversation with each other. The thing I am tracing through all of them is this critical questioning of the medium or the themes they are undergoing or the way they are aware of the way their work is read through their person. Their work for me, the most important part of their work, is that it asks questions and doesn’t have answers. I think that’s really valuable and really of its time. A.G.: And the visual work? S.D.: The visual stuff is three series—the photo series, a twelve print series, collages in little wooden boxes I’m making, and a video. The collage is using found images, found old family photographs from my father’s side of the family from as early as the 1920s. I just stumbled upon these, and they are absolutely great. I am sort of archiving and sort of art making, but they are really fascinating. I have a lot of photos of my grandfather, and I never met him. He ages in all of them, and that is crazy to see.

A.G.: Your photo series is titled “rememories.” Where does the term rememory come from? S.D.: The reference point is in Beloved by Toni Morrison. In that context, it’s kind of either the remembering of a memory or the acknowledgment of that past as it is alive in the present, and I think that in the scope of the novel that’s very powerful. But in a more general sort of term, it is an interesting idea of how you are living your past or how your past is living through you. It’s also lost in a sense. I don’t know if I am necessarily trying to find it, but it’s about a process. A.G: Do you think you will keep working on this project? S.D.: I would love to keep doing work in practice for being schizophrenic while doing work and making other things. That’s going to be the reality for a while. I see it going someplace…I don’t know where though. A.G.: Do you have anything you want the audience to take from your thesis? S.D.: No. I think a lot of the work means something to me, and I don’t want to get hung up on trying to make my art mean something for someone else. But it’s really great when I do hear people’s reactions to it, and how everyone comes to anything with their own set of experiences and feelings about it. It would be great if everyone took away something from it.*

WHAT WE TALK ABOUT WHEN WE TALK ABOUT A PLAY BY ANTHONY SMITH

k k

ROTATE ME

OUTBREAK THE INFECTED WALK AMONG US PHOTOGRAPHY BY JACK PEARCE & HARRISON SCHAAF. MAKEUP BY EMILY SCHUBERT

ABANDONED Perched on a bluff overlooking Waterbury, Holy Land U.S.A. stands as a decrepit site of neglect and decay. Only a giant cross, lit up and visible from the highway, remains in good form. The abandoned park holds some sort of magic, a type of eerie pull that startles the visitor’s imagination. Years after its fall, Holy Land still gets visits from the curious. What drives this desire to see the abandoned? The dead? The almost forgotten? At one time, Holy Land was anything but forgotten, boasting more than 44,000 visitors a year at its peak. The park was built in the 1950s, when John Greco, evangelist and lawyer, heard a personal message from God. With the hope to spread God’s message, volunteers built sculptures to showcase Christianity’s glory. Statues of religious figures, the Bible, the Garden of Eden, the Catacombs, and educational dioramas stood as a destination for Christian families all over the United States. During the 56

1960s and ‘70s, tens of thousands came to visit the holy amusement park. Now, since the official closing in 1984, only remnants of the New Testament verses and crumbling miniature houses remain on the lot. While there are rumors that three nuns keep up the area as much as possible, Holy Land is somewhat forgotten. Those who do not forget it remember it because of what it is: an abandoned and fallen piece of the past. Popular among photography students or curious explorers, Holy Land fulfills the desire to see the crumbling. Holy Land is not the only Connecticut site overridden by interest. There are hundreds of strange places—abandoned mental asylums, opera houses, schools, mills, etc. While most internet sites are devoted to marking those places said to be haunted, there are plenty marked for their unique history and weird beauty. We return to Holy Land or places like it again and again. Why? What

DENODNABA makes it so interesting to us? Perhaps we find beauty in the very old. Like portraits of the elderly, there is a wisdom and peace that follows an abandoned area. Crumbling paint, ravaged wooden boards show not only the present but also the past. The past survives in the fact that abandoned places have no people, only the reminders that they were once there. As we find beauty in human creations and nature, it is no surprise that the mergence of the two also fascinates us. What is most intriguing is that interest is not only designated to fallen civilization giants— such as Machu Picchu, Easter Island, or Stonehenge—but also to the miniature residues of past action. In examining and exploring abandoned places, we discover what our future looks like. Overtaken by rust and brush and disintegrated into rubbish, we see our own civilization’s death. Our houses may be abandoned; our favorite parks may be on their way to dust. Even our own bodies will someday lay vacant, eaten away by the earth.

BY ALICE GOLDSMITH

In any photography class, portraits of abandoned areas endure critiques. Shots of broken windows, falling barns, or dead cars pop up on rolls of film. Anyone is susceptible to the allure of the abandoned. But it seems, in my experience at least, the reproduced image often falls short of impressing an audience. Since the early 1800s, photography has provided a snapshot. As early twentieth century photographer Dorothea Lange notes, “Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still.” The desire to stop time brings photography students to the decaying Holy Land; this desire is thwarted by the fact that it is the process of decay—of the passing of time—that makes Holy Land so beautiful. While perhaps not impossible, it is obvious why a portrait of time will not settle well on a page. Try as one may to capture a successful photograph of the abandoned, a reproduced image can never live up to the presence of a slow death.* 57

PAPERLESS NOVELS AND THE SPACES THEY LEAVE BEHIND

BY YELENA NIAZYAN

hile sitting in the offices of Wesleyan University Press, I watched my boss demystify the operating instructions for a kindle. There, in that stronghold of the printed word, where editing is done in ink on paper manuscripts roughly the heft of a new born – even there the digital casts its siren call. Of course, the allure is hardly mystifying; at a time when every other art form - theater, film, painting, music - is found in the wilds of the matrix, why shouldn’t the novel exist in the paperless sphere? In December of 2004, a millennia ago in the age of iphones and cloud computing, Google simultaneously asked and answered that question, with a typical twenty-first century exponential escalation, when it announced the creation of a universal online library. Orchestrating and executing the digitalization of five major university research libraries is no paltry feat, but Google’s herculean endeavor is far from the only book scanning going on. Amazon and Barnes & Noble, the Chinese and the Swiss, our professors and small poetry presses are all scanning books. At base, this digitalization will prompt the ease of accessibility. A Yahoo search will no longer yield a mere title or Amazon price tag, but rather the novel itself: all the usual content without its usual hardback wrappings. What’s tantalizingly more, not only the accessibility but also the searchability of content will increase. Once books have spent some time fermenting on internet shelves, they’ll develop a history of links and tags that will allow readers to jump from one book to another book listed in the former’s bibliography. Research will no longer require the cutting and pasting of a title into a new search box, let alone the tedium of paper catalogue searches in a musty collegiate library. We will be able to read everywhere we read now but no longer will we have to put up with the agitation of misplaced volumes or the ISBN system. In short, the digitalization of literature is contiguous with our generation’s demand for immediacy and velocity. 58

wined between the pages of these speed promises is the rosy heralding of the possibilities posited by the so called information age: an age in which humanity’s collective horizons fuse and consequently broaden. Yea-sayers celebrate the spread of the information wave, picturing a world in which millennia of knowledge sits, patiently waiting to be accessed by a Google search. The problem with this conception is that it conflates information with knowledge. How information is presented, and how it is digested, is integral to its relationship with knowledge. The internet revolutionized the way content is presented. It took the table of contents and made it the main course. Newspaper web pages are a telling example of how different the world of digitalized information presentation is. Rather than laying stories out in their entirety, abstracts or the barest of titles entice the reader to read the article at length. Ads blink at the borders of a web page, offering everything from the awfully alluring (Tahiti vacations!) to the terribly mundane (Swapalease! Get out of your car lease!). Even the most trusted names in news expect you’ve developed a spot of ADD. But this (re)presentation of content is partly a response to changes in how we interact with content we’ve encountered in cyberspace. We skim, we nibble, we graze horizontally, rarely delving into the meat of the content, preferring to sample our news. But the day’s headlines aren’t the only thing we skim. We skim academic articles, video clips, streamed music and even Wikipedia articles (ie. already watered-down information). In our relentless appetite for immediacy and velocity we have fundamentally altered the way we intake information, the way we read. This externally-induced change results in a re-wiring of our brain’s neural pathways. Contrary to what was once believed, our brain’s wiring isn’t fixed once we reach adulthood. Rather, the brain retains its plasticity; perhaps it’s not silly putty-ing around language absorption the same way it did when we were kids, but it can still twist into a few new shapes. And so—one web session after another —it does. This is not to say we don’t gain from the information age, but this gain may be to the benefit of our multitasking skills rather than our IQs. Indeed, recent research conducted at the University of California suggests that multitasking may lower your IQ because the lack of focus obstructs the passage of information to our brain’s memory stores. Our penchant for cyberspace may be making us dumber. Finally, there is the question of the content presented and ingested itself. The answer is: if we’re changing, then of course the content we’re producing is changing. But is this change for the better or worse? Andrew Keen, in his recent book, The Cult of the Amateur, warns that the egalitarian nature of the Web promotes mediocrity. Mr. Keen argues that as intellectual property laws are circumvented or simply rammed through and as art is alternatively sampled and remixed, all we are left with is empty content in a container of digital sparkle. On the other side of the debate is David

Shield’s Reality Hunger, a book whose content consists of a sampling of hundreds of other writers. “Appropriation art” is nothing new; William S. Burroughs was sampling work half a century ago; the novelty is not the practice but the ease with which everyone and anyone can sample work. Even content that doesn’t play with the fragments and edges left in the throes of cyberspace molds itself to the demands of our internet modus operandi. We have learned to read like search engines: seeking words and phrases that interest us or confirm our views. Bloggers, columnists, and authors cater to this reading methodology – writing to catch our eyes rather than to make our minds pruny in the waters of intellectualism. So what happens when books becomes digital? Cyberspace is a space of fragments and bits that users re-paste, filter, and discard at new millennium speeds; at any given moment the average internet user have a small collection of windows open, rummaging between Facebook comments, newspaper feeds, and email notifications. If literature consumption enters the digital realm it’s possible that Jonathon Franzen’s novels will be nothing more than another Firefox window. Novels will cease to be capsules of escapism. We will no longer read with the same devotion, nor with the same commitment to knowledge rather than information. As a society, we will become readers of a dilettante nature. Ultimately, what will be lost are the spaces books inhabit and create. There’s a pleasure that is the sensuality of licked fingers turning familiar pages, a pleasure that is the charm of an armchair in a small cloud of dust motes in a familiar library, a pleasure that is the whispered silence common to cloisters and book stacks. It is this physical space that allows for the quiet, metaphysical space within which we contemplate what we’ve just read. It is these moments of quiet contemplation that we lose when we rush from link to page to video to link. Moments of imagining fictional worlds, of contemplating ambiguity, the spaces between logic and truth, form and beauty, question and answer - this is what we might lose if the book leaves its paper roots behind. Soren Kierkegaard once wrote that “to dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself.” Certainly, digitalization of the world has left us a little footless. But not to dare this digitalization would be to lose ourselves. For if humanity is defined by anything, it is defined by the continual alteration of what defines humanity. It is now human to fly, to walk on the moon and to download world history. Digitalization cannot be stopped. We have already begun to evolve. The question is, can we evolve in such a way as to not lose our capacity to sift through the moments of haze between text? Can we evolve and yet allow for these moments? For if we lose them, we risk becoming mere search engines, flicking between information bites, re-shuffling, never creating, never leaving space for what might be as opposed to what is.*

THANK YOU: YOUNG’S PRINTING, THE SBC, LEAH WRIGHT, CLARE ROGAN, UNIVERSITY RELATIONS, KATE TENEYCK, EVAN MOORE, SOFI NEWMYER, KENDALL MCKINNON, AND ALL INTERVIEWEES