STIR Magazine Spring 2014 by STIR Magazine

STIR SPRING 2014

inside this issue CLARK

MIND & BODY

WORCESTER

What Makes Clark Tick

Defining Mental Illness

Worcester Bakeries

Hello My Name Is

Trending Anxiety

Welcome to Grassachusetts

The Peapod Squad

Dramas vs. Realities of OCD

Roller Derby

Tuesdays with TOPICS

Inside the Mind of Depression

Claremont’s Eye On Clark

Clark Catz 15

What’s Your Type?

Pamphlet Surfing

ARTS & STYLE

FEATURES

STIR IT UP

Reddit 66 The Dark Side of Tumblr 68 Glitch 70 Life in a Treehouse 76 Hampshire College 80 Living in My Car 81 Semester At Sea 83 The Barred Owl Retreat Center 86 Alternative Worcester 90 Overcoming Sex 93 Double Standards 94 STIgma 95

Ode to Flora

104

The Rise & Fall of the Hipster

108

Trends Aren’t Trendy

Grammy Culture

Grammy Culture Pt.2

The House Show

Emo Revival

How to Build a Dusty Attic

Dead Friend

Scotland’s Vote for Independence 110 Seniors Recreate Photos

114

What is Your Last Photo?

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In the Palm of Your Hand

119

Overheard

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STAFF EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Shannon Magrane

ASSISTANT TO THE EDITOR Paul Puiia LAYOUT EDITOR Rose Gallogly PHOTOGRAPHY EDITORS Catherine Walker Paul Puiia SECTION EDITORS Ailey Wilder, Features Audrey Dolan, Mind & Body Gabby Paolini, Clark Laura Matthew, Stir It Up Lloyd Schramm, Arts & Style Thu Nguyen, Worcester

COVER PHOTO Catherine Walker HAND-LETTERED SECTION TITLES Rose Gallogly

CONTACT INFORMATION STIR Magazine 950 Main St. Worcester, MA 01610 stirmagazine@gmail.com facebook.com/stirmagazine

LAYOUT STAFF Sara Davidow Sofia Dobner-Pereira Juliana Gluck Katherine Landesman Olivia Lefley Maria Luisa Escobar Pardo Isabel Miranda Sean Tater Nora Turok Elyse Waksman COPY EDITORS Ailey Wilder Elyse Waksman Juliana Gluck Maria Luisa Escobar Pardo Lloyd Schramm

CONTRIBUTORS

Meagan Alexander Jaedra Cibelli Johnathan Cyr Jonathan Dana Sara Davidow Anais Dersimonian Sofia Dobner-Pereira Audrey Dolan Margaret French Doug Gandle Juliana Gluck Justus Hepburn Hunter Hoysradt Faith Kelhofer Katherine Landesman Fenn Macon Shannon Magrane Hugh Manon Laura Matthew Alexander McCoy-Reimer Theo Meyer Matt Newberg Daniel Nunez Gabby Paolini Mark Peck Dominique Pratt Paul Puiia Alison Russo Nicholas Sancho-Rosi Lloyd Schramm Raechel Segal Anna Spack India Spears Sean Tatar Catherine Walker Corie Welch Sarah Whitcher Ailey Wilder Lance Yau

letter from the editor Dear Readers, I have discovered something monumental this semester. After three years of being involved with the magazine, I’ve realized that STIR is a space and medium in which Clarkies not only get to show off what they know but to experiment, adventure, and learn new things. Correct me if I’m wrong, STIR-ers, but I believe that contributing to this magazine requires a considerable amount of both curiosity and confidence. From the moment we brainstorm ideas to the moment we release them, we grow intellectually and internally. This issue you hold in your hand, of Spring 2014, is physical proof of that growth. Writers move from a small idea to an investigation that invariably leads them to unexpected findings. Take a look at the section “Sex: Power vs Play” in which the double standards of sexual identity are exposed. “Mind and Body” features three moving accounts of mental illness, which I can personally say took both guts and internal exploration to write. Photographers have the same opportunity to take on a project that means a great deal to them. The “Dead Friend” photo series explores the uncovering of one’s true self in relation to trauma. Working with STIR also gives contributors the opportunity to walk around campus and ask Clarkies to reveal stories about their last phone photo or to find out about new things on campus that they have no experience with. This issue contributors asked the class “Glitch Aesthetics” to show off their experimental productions. I’m excited for all Stir readers to not only see, but experience the glitch world. So, thank you to the Stir staff for being a part of this learning expedition. I hope you, reader, enjoy flipping through the pages of this issue but, more importantly, I hope you experience something new from it. As I pass on the torch to the mighty Paul Puiia, I see a future for STIR of even more growth and refinement. And so I commence. But first, I must do something not many Clarkies have done. . . spend my Spree Day volunteering at the STIR space station photo booth.

Editor in Chief,

Shannon Magrane

clark

What Makes

CLARK

TICK WRITTEN BY GABRIELLE PAOLINI PHOTOGRAPHY BY ANONYMOUS

ho makes sure Clark runs smoothly? Our minds first drift toward the professors, the dining hall staff, the deans, and the other work positions that always get recognized. We do not think of the students, those who hold jobs on the campus that are extremely under-appreciated and get overlooked. We all know someone who has work-study or has a job on campus so it makes sense to give a bit of recognition to those who really truly do make Clark run. The four student jobs on campus that make this university run smoother are the Resident Advisors, the OCs (the students who plan and organize Week One), ITS workers, and escort drivers. These four positions often get overlooked, but the students who fill these positions put valuable time and effort to make sure they do their job as effectively and efficiently as possible.

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A resident advisor or an RA is a role model, a resource, a policy enforcer, a leader, and a friend. Every dorm has multiple RAs to keep dorm life running without much chaos. Carlos Deschamps shed a little light on the life of an RA and explained that “the reason [he] became an RA was to be a role model to the first year students, to give them a warm welcome to the Clark community, and to make sure that they feel comfortable.” Deschamps, Bullock Hall RA, discusses how “time management” is a huge factor and the most challenging aspect of being an RA. RAs have not only all their duties but also their academic workload and other extracurricular commitments. Regardless of the hard work, Deschamps emphasizes the memorable moments. “The long talks with my residents are my favorite. It is a great feeling when you can successfully interact with your residents.” Being an RA is no walk in

the park and has its ups and downs but the experience, the rewards, and the little moments make it worthwhile and help make Clark a better place. Most students go all four years without knowing who made their first week at Clark possible. Most students do not even think about the time, effort, planning, and commitment that go into making Week One an enjoyable and comfortable environment for first year students. Six students this past year made Week One possible. Stefanie Gough, the Transfer and Commuter Programs Orientation Coordinator, explains why she chose to do this job. “I took this job because I loved being a Peer Advisor, it changed my entire experience at Clark for the better. I wanted not only to be able to give back to the

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student body again and get re-involved but also to see if I had the ability to be an effective peer leader.” Jackie Lyon, the Administrative Orientation Coordinator, discusses what exactly she had to do in her specific role on the OC team. “I worked in the Student Leadership office with Mike McKenna organizing food, coordinating speakers, creating publications, ordering promotional items, and working with all other team members to create a comprehensive orientation program.” Leah McConnell, the Leadership Development Orientation Coordinator, focused on training the Peer Advisors and making sure they were prepared for Week One. “The most rewarding part of my job was seeing the PAs succeed with their groups of first-years. We spend a lot of time putting these programs together and imag-

ining how they will work, but the PAs are what really bring them to life.” Aksheya Sridhar, the International Students Orientation Coordinator, helped provide more support for international students. The most rewarding part of Sridhar’s job was related to not the outcome of Week One but “being able to work with the five other OCs. The opportunity to get to know the five other OCs and work alongside them was very exciting. It was rewarding to be able to work alongside my friends each day and to be able to go through this experience with them. As exhausting and overwhelming as the experience did get, working with them made it much easier as we all worked to support each other.” Alexander Hoyt, in charge of Early Orientation, explains how the work that goes into being an OC is quite a bit. “OCs

get hired in October-November and work is slow at first. During winter break we prepare what is called ‘January Orientation’ for the students who transfer to Clark between semesters. Second semester the workload expands with the hiring of Peer Advisors and during the summer we had to meet twice and also prepare our own personal programs. Once August comes we work essentially the entire month from 8am to 11pm with days off few and far between.” Yon Bassal, the Social Orientation Coordinator, has worked to create events where students could easily meet and connect with each other. “The most challenging part of being an OC would have to be the lack of sleep. It can be frustrating being awake working until midnight and then having to get up and do it all over again. In the end though, it was worth it.” The Orientation Coordinators go above and beyond

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to make sure Week One is a memorable experience for all. ITS workers, behind the scenes and those who work at the desk, also make the lives for students much easier. Alexander Turgeon, a behind-the-scenes ITS worker, explains how “everyone that finds out I work for ITS always exclaims that they never see me at the help desk.” Turgeon explains, “I am an invisible employee of ITS where I work in the basement of Carlson Hall with computer hardware and repairing faculty computers.” One of the more rewarding aspects about Turgeon’s ITS job is “the personal interactions with the staff at Clark.” He also shares that “just

because I work for ITS does not mean I know everything about computers. This job can go from calm and relaxed to panicked in minutes.” Abhijit Singh, an ITS desk employee, is one of the faces students see when they need a quick computer fix. “The Help Desk is a very busy and interesting place. We cater to all technology-related problems for all students, faculty, and staff.” ITS must deal with a variety of problems and people. “We think of ourselves as the first line of defense, trying to solve problems for everyone, and paying attention to the details.” ITS Help Desk employees can either help very few people in a day or have a very

busy day but regardless, there is always someone who needs assistance. The most challenging aspect of Singh’s job “would be unjamming the stapler at the desk. We go through two to three staplers a week.” ITS employees, whether behind the scenes or at the Help Desk, work to help students, faculty, and staff deal with their technological issues. The last job that really gets overlooked is the escort van drivers. These are the students who work long hours driving students all around campus safely. Danielle Augur decided to drive escort “because another driver told [her] the job was extremely fun and easy once you got used to it.” Augur shares a moment that proves to be very memorable and just one of the many things that happens when you drive escort. “A girl got in the back seat and started eating the gummy worms that me and my partner were eating in the front seats. I was not sure what to say and it was just super awkward and funny.” As an escort driver, you have to work some odd hours. As Takenya Carpenter, another driver, explains, “the hours are a bit different than any other department of job on campus. After a few weeks you become accustomed to working the 12am-4am shift. As a bonus you become more aware of the community surrounding Clark and gain a better understand of the people who live there.” A main challenge that escort drivers face is the unpredictable New England weather. Carpenter explains “the winter can make it really difficult for us to do our job since it affects our ability to have escort run during snowstorms.” Escort’s safety and convenience appeal to Clark students and without it Clark would not run as smoothly as it does. Regardless of the campus job you have, the time and effort put into these jobs is what makes Clark run smoothly and efficiently. Without these four completely different yet necessary jobs among many others, Clark would not function as well as it does today. 

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clark

WRITTEN & PHOTOGRAPHED BY LLOYD SCHRAMM

Timothy St. John is Clark’s new director of Student Leadership & Programming, replacing Mike McKenna after he resigned last semester to take on a similar position at Hampshire College. St. John comes from working as Associate Director for Student Involvement & New Student Programs at the University of New England. He is bright, animated, and gives off a brilliant energy charged with enthusiasm and kindness. Let’s get to know him a little better.

STIR: So, where you are from? TIMOTHY ST. JOHN: I am originally from Leominster, MA, which is 30 minutes north of

Worcester. My family came from Maine, which is where I spent the last five and a half years working at a small school on the coast. Worcester County is home for me originally.

because she knew me and knew my undergraduate background. The job description was equal parts comfort and challenge, like I knew I could do this, but it would be a new challenge in a new place.

STIR:

What did you do at the University of New England? years and I had two promotions or title changes. My last position was Associate Director for Student Involvement & New Student Programs, so I was working with clubs and activities, major events, and orientation. Our department also oversaw the campus center, so we did a lot of booking space. It was a nice stepping stone to being here now. T: I was there for five and a half

STIR:

What attracted you to Clark?

T: What attracted me to Clark is what I still love about being here! The sense that I got

from my interviews and the feeling I got about the institution while I was going through the process has very much held true so far, which is awesome because it’s not always the case. When you’re looking for a job, people are thinking: What will I be doing? How does this impact my career and location? My supervisor at my previous job who was my mentor said, “I know we’re not going to keep you in Maine forever; what does your next job look like?” Well, I thought, in a perfect world, I would leave there to direct a department that oversaw both student activities and orientation and I would love for it to be in Worcester because that’s where I’m from. So of course when Clark’s new Student Leadership & Programming job was posted, I said, “Ahh!” I hadn’t known that much about Clark because when I was doing my own school search I wasn’t looking that close to home. I didn’t know a ton of people that went here, so the first thing I did is talk to a friend I have from my undergrad who ended up going to the Graduate School of Management at Clark and works there now. I immediately talked to her and said, “What do I need to know about this place?” She said, “It’s a great place to live and work, and I know you’ll love it too,”

What I just loved about Clark as I learned more about it is that even from face value, the motto, LEEP, all the stories you read about people on the website right from the beginning, you’re like this is a pretty dynamic place, and it only has 2300 students. My last institution had the same amount, but half the number of clubs and events, which showed me that students here were really involved and engaged on campus and that the institution was clearly supportive of that. Then I got here and I met with all kinds of people. I met some fantastic students. It’s clearly a diverse and dynamic institution with lots going on. You all really—I’m sure I’m generalizing—have something that you’re passionate about, care about, stand for, and you use your college experience to embrace those passions and to have a platform to stand on. I love that about Clarkies. So it’s been a really fun three months where I’m just learning and meeting with people and having people come in and say that they want to chat with the new guy. 

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Meet

Alex “Hazed and Confused” Hayes CLASS OF ‘16

Melissa “Melaska” Miller CLASS OF ‘16

Tyler “Hillary” Rosati CLASS OF ‘14

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T H E

Caroline “Please Be” Connor CLASS OF ‘15

P E A P O D S Q U A D

Gabby “G-Spot” Seligman CLASS OF ‘16

Wyndham “Grandpa” Maxwell CLASS OF ‘14

clark

The

Peapod Squad’s Got Plenty of Friendship

WRITTEN BY JULIANA GLUCK & SEAN TATAR // PHOTOGRAPHY BY JULIANA GLUCK

ave you ever stumbled by the Little Center on a Friday night and thought: “What are all these people doing out here? Why are they choosing to spend their Friday night waiting in line?” Turns out, there’s a pretty good reason. If you’re among the small minority of Clark University students who haven’t attended a Peapod Squad show, you’re seriously missing out! This student-run improv group has been attracting massive crowds to its unique mixture of improv games, music, and chuckle inducing sketches since its creation sixteen years ago. Although many Clark students have partaken in the raucous ruckus that is a Peapod Squad performance most do not understand the complexity of the process that goes into each show. Some spectators even question whether the group utilizes inebriation to reach such absurd levels of humor. However, contrary to popular belief, improvisation actually takes a lot of planning and work. In order to gain a deeper understanding of the progression from initial auditions to polished performances, we went backstage to uncover the effort behind the spontaneity. In order to make up for performers who

graduate, every fall the Peapod Squad holds auditions to find new members. Despite the extremely limited spaces on the squad, over fifty people auditioned this past fall. And though Peapod performances may seem effortless, their auditions are nothing less than incredibly stressful. The three hour audition consisted of several free form improv games in an attempt to gauge which eager Clark students could

keep up with the squad. Celine Manneville (‘17) said “it was nerve-racking honestly.” Though some saw the experience as taxing, for a few it was one of the best audition experiences that they could remember. “By the end of the night, I’m pretty sure that my mouth was sore from smiling so big,” said Amelia Mohr (‘17) about her Peapod callback. She went on to say that “every time I thought it couldn’t get harder, it

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did.” Despite these stress inducing undertones, she also stated that auditions were wonderful and that she looks forward to auditioning in the future. Once the squad picks their new members they take two months to practice with the full team in preparation for performances. In order to learn more about their process, we attended one of their three weekly practices. As we wandered around the Little Center in search of the squad’s practice room we expected to be led by the sounds of laughter. On the contrary, we stumbled upon the squad having a surprisingly serious conversation. When we didn’t hear their signature strange accents we assumed we had entered into the wrong room. However, as we quickly learned, this is how most practices begin. After discussing upcoming shows, previous events, and any other things on their minds, they started some warmups. To the bystander these games made little to no sense. They mainly consisted of random strings of words and motions that certainly contained some structure, although we were unable to comprehend what exactly this structure was. We did understand that these games help the group to warm up and get into the mindset of thinking on their feet. The remaining forty minutes of the hour long practice were devoted to practicing improv games. This was essentially what one would see in a formal show but without the added pressure of an audience. After many weeks of preparation, shows are finally planned and the campus buzzes with anticipation. Although the shows usually start at 9 PM, the line begins to form as early as 8 and eventually wraps around the building. We brave the cold Worcester winds while waiting in such a line and are finally let into the packed

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lobby for another round of waiting. The suspense keeps building until the doors of the theatre finally burst open and eager audience members flood in, stampeding to find the best seats. When the Squad first makes an appearance the applause is deafening. After a series of high-fives and a few sets of introductions the squad performs their previously written sketch and follow it with a loud “The Peapod Squad!!!!” and musical numbers completely improvised by the squad. This is where their hours of practice pay off. They gain adrenaline and approval from the rowdy crowd and move into a set of five to six different games chosen in practice. The show comes to an end and the crowd buzzes with compliments. The shows are just as much fun for the audience as they are for the squad members. Before each performance you can find the team backstage chanting “Peapod Squad’s got plenty of friendship!” When asked about her favorite part of being on the

squad Melissa immediately responded, “the friendship.” She went on to explain that “it’s like having five people who you’re forced to be best friends with but then you end up liking it anyway.” Another squad member, Gabby, added, “I like having people you can be weird with, which is really important when you’re a weirdo.” The other group members nodded and laughed in agreement. Even as outsiders observing the club we were able to see how close they are and how comfortable they’ve become around each other. Because improvising takes an impressive amount of courage, the squad has adapted by creating a safe environment in which judgment is withheld and experimentation is encouraged. Many of the group members are stressed out by tight schedules and challenging classes, but they still make time to put their all into the squad. Effort, passion, friendship, and trust all come together in the Peapod squad to create a performance group that not only entertains, but enlivens the whole Clark community. 

clark

Tuesdays with WRITTEN BY RAECHEL SEGAL PHOTOGRAPHY BY DOMINIQUE PRATT

TOPICS

ou could be doing a lot with your life on a Tuesday night at 9. You could be purchasing condoms from Choices. You could be using the condoms you purchased from Choices. You could be playing video games or watching movies or hanging out with friends. Or you could go to the Persky Conference Room for TOPICS. Through weekly discussions and annual events such as Sex and Chocolate and White Ribbon Day, the group educates the public about issues pertaining to rape culture. But what is rape culture? Obviously it is something that can’t be found online in Merriam Webster. When I searched for the term there, I encountered the typical response: “The word you’ve entered isn’t in the dictionary.” So I turned to my fellow TOPICS members for help. Raquel Doucette, who’d never heard of rape culture until her junior year in high school, said, “It’s ridiculous that this term is not in the dictionary, while terms like ‘ain’t’ (which isn’t even a word) are. How can we work towards a culture where people do not see rape as the survivor’s fault or as an ‘occupational hazard’ of being in the military, as the Supreme Court ruled in 2011, if we don’t even know what rape culture is?”

Lizzy Fedorek helped to define the term and examined its prevalence in modern society: “Rape culture is a culture that condones, tolerates and promotes rape and objectification. It is also a culture that believes that a person’s worth can be affected by sex. The terrifying thing about rape culture is that we live in one—it’s literally EVERYWHERE. And once you start noticing it, you’ll see it everywhere you turn.” But who would join a “rape culture” club? Amelia Mohr did. But she was reluctant at first: “Upon learning that the club was a discussion of rape culture, I was hesitant. I do not necessarily wish to discuss rape culture every Tuesday night.”

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Amelia continued going to TOPICS because the subjects vary: “Sometimes it’s very serious, other times, lighthearted. We may go off on a tangent about Victoria’s Secret. We relate TOPICS to our own lives. We talk about issues in pornography, news articles, and portrayals of masculinity and femininity in the media. It is not just a club that discusses rape itself; part of rape culture is the perpetuation of stereotypes in society.” The other reason Amelia liked TOPICS? “The people in the club are great. It was one of the first clubs I made friends in, and it’s one of my favorites.” Was Amelia Mohr right? Is TOPICS really a fun club? Welcome to the typical TOPICS meeting. Here’s the rundown: 8:55 PM: It smells like sweat. The group before us left apple cider. We drink the apple cider and gather around a long table. 9 PM: Icebreaker. This ranges from talking about your favorite spot on campus to weird food stories from when you were younger. Lizzy responds to the food icebreaker with a story about how she used to sit on her peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and squish the jelly in a bag. 9:10 PM: Unless someone has a personal story he/she would like to share, which is sometimes the case, we move on to the topics of the night.

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FIRST TOPIC: we play Amanda Palmer’s music video “Oasis” about a date rape. Is the song too upbeat? But the artist was raped herself. Is this her way of dealing with it? Is she normalizing rape culture, or is she shedding light on how it is normalized? SECOND TOPIC: Raquel Doucette asks the group whether we can really reclaim words. Which brought us to an entire Louie C.K. discussion and a bit on South Park.

TOPICS goes beyond just Tuesday night discussions. We plan events at E-board meetings every Sunday. Headed by Lizzy Fedorek and Tasha Orzeck-Byrnes, the E-board includes Logan Bishop Van-Horn, Sean Tatar, and Raquel Doucette. As secretary of the club, I send out weekly emails about what’s happening. But it takes a village—or an E-board, along with active club members—to make things run smoothly. If you’d like to be involved, come to a meeting on Tuesday! 

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CLARK CATZ Exploring the wilderness of Worcester, Clark University students have stumbled upon many little feline creatures. We at STIR magazine wanted to find out who these cuddly monsters are, so we asked Clark students to send us pictures of their feline friends. Here they are in their full beauty. Arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t they purrrfect?

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mind & body

“It helps me reflect on myself more.”

“It is a dimension of myself, it’s a part of who I am, and I am seeking to come to terms with it.”

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mind & body

defining

PHOTOGRAPHY BY KATHERINE LANDESMAN

MENTAL ILLNESS Mental disorders take many different forms. Because words like “anxiety” and “depression” are thrown around without understanding their significance, there are common misconceptions about these real disorders. Anxiety doesn’t only come with stress. Depression isn’t just being sad. OCD does not mean being overly neat. These next few photographs attempt to capture the real feelings and emotions of various mental disorders such as depression, anxiety, OCD, bipolar disorder, PTSD and others.

“Everything is a choice.”

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mind & body

“My mind breaks and rebuilds and I am always afraid of being a different person.”

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“I have one or two weeks where I work really hard then I crash.”

mind & body

“Perspective is so important because it is easy to get lost in your head.”

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mind & body

“It is controllable if you take control of it.”

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mind & body

“If I hear someone yelling, lights get brighter, shadows get darker, everything is amplified, turned upside down.”

“A feeling of being frozen or getting burned and I can’t pull my hand away.” STIR SPRING 2014 | 25

mind & body

Trending Anxiety: Fighting Against the Age of Perfectionism

y head hurts from thoughts racing like horses through my brain. My mouth is sore from grinding my teeth. My stomach is sick, the nerves set off a twisting and turning of whatever juices flow down there. My shoulder and back muscles are tight like a stretched canvas. All of this for what—fight or flight? Fuck that, I think to myself, just cry. Anxiety. It’s hard to describe. For me it’s an intense feeling of helplessness. In addition to all of the sensory overdrives, the metaphysical feeling of being trapped inside a swirling storm of physical tension and emotional melodrama becomes a nightmare. Anxiety hasn’t killed many people but it has made many wish they were not living. Though sometimes when things are going well in life anxiety is just the overly excited feeling of living, the worried embodiment of not knowing what is going to come next. It’s hard to say what triggers anxiety. For some people, it is very specific. He breaks out in hives when he has to merge onto the highway. She races home, tensed up at the thought of a man abusing her before she gets to her front door. He stands in the corner of a party, paralyzed by the thought of never fitting in. She faints at work and gets injured when a couple corporate elites criticize her work. He starts crying in the middle of class and doesn’t even know why. That’s the crazy thing about this nemesis we call anxiety—it can be fired up by plenty of different things, or nothing at all, and the spark is different for everybody.

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WRITTEN BY SHANNON MAGRANE // PHOTOGRAPHY BY KATHERINE LANDESMAN

The intensity is different for everybody and its effect on day to day life is different for everybody. Thirty five years ago, anxiety did not exist as a diagnostic category in the field of psychology. Now generalized anxiety disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, panic disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and social anxiety disorder (all considered anxiety disorders) are the most common “mental disorders” experienced by Americans. This doesn’t even count the brutal feelings of undiagnosed anxiety many people experience. So, we should find a fix for this terrible, uncontrollable feeling, right? Well, where do we start in treating an illness that has multiple roots? How do we even start to hunt down an invisible, elusive feeling? Sometimes doctors prescribe a magical pill that will make it all better and sometimes that pill sends the patient plummeting down a dark rabbit hole. Although scientists have found some of the “nature” of anxiety, mostly attributed to DNA, we must not forget about “nurture.” All modern issues are highly contextual. Just because our feelings are given a diagnosis, a name/description in the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual), and treated with chemicals, does not mean that it is purely science. There has to be some element of nurturing that they are is missing. Should we just give up and give into a country where anxiety is the norm? I’d like

to fight it, and I’m recruiting my army as I write. Let’s go back to the beginning . . . Anxiety . . . Helplessness . . . Worry . . . Tension . . . Beyond the complex and delicate chemical balance of our brain, where are these thoughts and feelings coming from? I say look to society. Look to our education, which means more than just our schooling. Look to the signs all around us. Look to the media. Look to our family values, where we learn how to live our life. Lets read, interpret, and digest all of these messages. Over the years, industrialization, and then capitalism, has changed the concentrations of our education system. With policies such as the No Child Left Behind Act, public schools are pressured to test their students and achieve ridiculous standards in order to be considered successful and receive state funding. Starting as early as the third grade, when some kids are still struggling to read a full sentence at the same speed as their classmates, children are tested for hours a day. Beyond these state tests, the nature of education is immensely based on number grades. It continues in college, when receiving an 80 in a class, only 20 points below a perfect score, is almost heart-breaking. We have been trained to be perfectionists when it comes to our education, which degrades learning from failure. I remember thinking that failure is just a dark, deep pit. There is no light in it and no opportunity to be mindful and reflect on our mistakes or our weaknesses. But I’m starting to see

mind & body

the light. I’m starting to see an unrealistic message of perfectionism coming from my transcript and realizing that it is the first thing we need to change. The media gives us a similar ideal of the human life, whether it has to do with body image, social life, or class. We are receiving mindless, perfectionist messages every day. It’s in the photoshopped swimsuit ads, the unnatural painted faces of actors, and the sculpted knight in shining armor. Women are stripped, quite literally, from much of the power they hold. Anyone who is antisocial is a danger to society and the population of “weirdos” is huge because the dominant narrative is the same story, over and over again. The perfect life is found in the suburban house with a 2-4 car garage or the modern penthouse with a spare room for the maid. Happiness is measured in money and money is becoming harder and harder to get. With these powerful societal influences, it is important for one to have a strong family unit of some kind. Since children can’t navigate these riddles at school, there needs to be another outlet. But the struggle to financially support the average family in America leaves many children on their own for dinner while parents work overtime. When it’s a challenge to financially support a family, how can it not be a challenge to emotionally support a family? It’s in these cases where community, whether that be friends, neighbors, or strangers, become family. Communication, acceptance, and comfort is essential in preventing and fighting anxiety. Take a look around you, outside yourself, your family, people you know. Ask yourself if the communication, acceptance, and comfort is there. Then ask yourself how you can improve such things. Forget about money and other commodities. The trending anxiety can not be battled with materialism. I’m arguing we need a change in values. That’s something that only comes from within. 

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mind & body

Dramas vs. Realities of

OCD

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mind & body

n recent years, it seems like more and more people are claiming they have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. This may be the case, but the vast majority of the people who are making these claims mis-characterize the disorder. In my opinion, this is largely due to the over-dramatic and somewhat inaccurate ways in which it has been depicted on “reality” shows such as Obsessed and Hoarders and on the USA drama Monk. These shows were some of the first to depict OCD. On one hand, these shows have been effective at bringing awareness to the disorder. Yet, at the same time, the writers’ creative liberties have made it easier to self-diagnose. There is a real story to OCD, with real people suffering from the disorder, and it is time people knew the truth about it. OCD is easier to diagnose than most disorders because the criterion are so cut and dry. The disorder is characterized by the following symptoms: 1) obsessions 2) compulsions 3) the patient is aware that the obsessions and compulsions are irrational, and 4) The obsessions and compulsions are not drug induced. The disorder is classified as an anxiety disorder because it produces large amounts of distress and disruptions in a person’s life.

istic activities which serve to temporarily ease the worry. Like obsessions, compulsions can be grouped into various categories including: cleaning/washing, checking and ordering, counting and repeating, and hoarding behaviors. Usually, the compulsive behaviors correspond to the obsessions driving them. For example, a person with a contamination obsessions may wash themselves repeatedly and a person with a neatness/perfection obsession may obsessively organize things. However, sometimes the thoughts and behaviors do not correspond and a person could be washing their hands because they believe this will prevent the death of a loved one. In the short run, compulsions provide temporary relief from the obsessions. However, the tragedy is that in the long run the compulsions reinforce the obsessions so that the person is trapped in a vicious cycle with seemingly no way out.

The obsessive side of OCD is characterized by recurring thoughts, doubts, or worries that constantly nag at a person. The vast range of obsessive behaviors can be categorized into various groups according to how related they are. These categories include: contamination (germs), aggression (fear of harming oneself or others), obsession with neatness/symmetry/perfection, and hoarding (believing that useless junk will be useful later).

Until the early 90s, the prognosis for OCD was very morbid. A person with the disorder would usually have to live their entire lives plagued by these worries and doubts. In the 90’s, the behavioral mechanisms of OCD finally began to be understood. People began to realize that the compulsions reinforced the obsessions and, thus, the crux of the treatment was to avoid the compulsive behaviors. In theory, the treatment (known as Exposure and Response Prevention or ERP) seems simple enough: resisting the compulsive reinforcers during an obsessive attack to reduce the obsessions over time. However, any person who has gone through the treatment process will tell you that it takes a lot of willpower to resist the compulsions. In order to get better, a person has to have a strong desire to do so.

In an attempt to expunge these obsessions, the person with OCD will engage in ritual-

Despite the various forms that obsessions and compulsions can take, the unifying

feature is the anxiety and havoc that the disorder produces. I can agree with these statements because I have carried a diagnosis since I was fourteen. Initially, I experienced most of the obsessions and compulsions on the spectrum and felt that my life would never be normal. My mind was a constant storm of worries and it was easy for the things around me to trigger the obsessions. I couldn’t be around people eating oranges or making coffee without feeling the desire to wash my hands or shower to cleanse myself of the odors. I would also constantly rearrange objects on a table feeling that they were crooked even when I rationally knew that they weren’t. The most extreme phase for me was just before I was diagnosed when I would spend most of my time in my room away from the things that were bothering me. At that time, I was showering three times a day and the amount of laundry I produced was out of control. However, after undergoing the therapy process, I now have much more control over my life. I have remained almost worry free for the last three years and I no longer feel the need to wash my hands or shower all the time. I can even enjoy the small things in life such as oranges and coffee. Whenever the occasional obsession crops up, I am able to use ERP to maintain my control. It is my hope that this short discussion of OCD has provided an understanding of what it is like to live with the disorder. Not everybody who is afraid of germs or has been called a “neat freak” has OCD. The true marker of OCD is the chaos that the symptoms create for its sufferers. Media portrayal is largely to blame for OCD’s mis-characterization and I believe that the only antidote to this is the truth. Hopefully this article will help bring the truth to the Clark Community. Because only with truth can empathy and understanding begin. 

WRITTEN BY THEO MEYER PHOTOGRAPHY BY KATHERINE LANDESMAN

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Inside the Mind WRITTEN BY AUDREY DOLAN PHOTOGRAPHY BY KATHERINE LANDESMAN

am sitting in the waiting room. I’m excited and anxious to finally be on birth control and feel in control of my body. Years of struggling can finally be over. Before I can see the nurse I have to fill out a medical history form. Standard procedure, not a big deal. No one has a history of high blood pressure in my family and I’ve never been on medications. I have Blue Cross Blue Shield. Then the question “Have you been diagnosed with depression?” comes up. I hesitantly check yes and continue with the questions. I can’t remember the last time I was asked about having depression or the last time I can remember being depressed. All I know is that the question has generated some anxiety within me. Once I have handed in my form and the nurse has come to take me into an exam room, the excitement rushes back in. Until it is once again shot down by the word depression. She begins digging deeper into the issue. “How long have you been depressed?” “Were you ever medicated?” “How long were you in therapy?” “Did you ever try to hurt yourself?” All of these things I haven’t thought about in so long. What I consider almost two years of being depression free has disappeared within ten minutes. My rational mind knows that asking these questions is a necessary medical practice but still I sit there and begin to feel that I am not just a patient, but a patient with the label ‘depressed’ stamped on my forehead. A label that so many have trouble seeing past. I was diagnosed with depression in the 7th grade. When my therapist said the words it was like a punch in the gut. Things had been happening in my life that led me to

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of Depression

therapy, but there was a part of me that believed it was simply a combination of normal adolescent problems and my struggle with my parent’s divorce. Nothing led me to think that I had depression or that I was in a state of depression. But once she gave a name to what I was feeling, it all made sense: sadness, hopelessness, lack of energy, lack of excitement for things you normally enjoy, detachment from others. All the dots connected and I finally had an answer. But what scared me the most was not the diagnosis but the fact that she said it would be something I would have my whole life. Though therapy or even medications could help, I would still have depression. A chemical imbalance in the brain due to the drawing of a crappy hand in the genetic card game. For many years after that, I felt like depression was part of my identity. I didn’t run out and tell the whole world but many of the people close to me knew and witnessed first-hand the depression I was under. There were many days and nights when I would curl up in a ball and cry, praying that it would go away and I could just be normal. I didn’t like losing interest in my music and friends. I didn’t like lying to avoid going out in public. I didn’t like calling my mom to pick me up from school functions and friends’ houses because I was too depressed to find any joy in what I was forcing myself to do. No matter how hard I tried it fight it, it often felt like an uncontrollable monster was living in my head. Over the next few years, that’s exactly how it was. Life got darker and harder and the depression seemed to be winning at times.

In the midst of it all, I ended up finding people that helped but also perpetuated the problem. You can’t blame others for being depressed but if you find people in the same state as you it can be unhealthy. Unfortunately, I had people that could drag me out of it as well as push me even farther under. I even dated someone who I thought would help me finally find my way out, only to realize that he was just as depressed as I was. We enabled each other to remain bound to our illness, convincing ourselves that we were fine even when we weren’t. I wish I could pinpoint the moment where everything changed. All I know is that it did. Suddenly everything felt lighter and life seemed easier. Once the haze of depression was lifted, I was able to become someone I really liked. I became more excited and involved in my life than I had been in years. Because of this I have declared myself depression free for almost two years. Most people I’ve met or gotten close to since that time don’t even know about it. It’s not something I think about too often or share with a lot of people because it hasn’t affected me in so long. But unfortunately, it has come back into my life in an unexpected way and it’s made me want to speak out. We like to believe that as a society, we have become more open and accepting of the differences and struggles that people face. We tell ourselves that the stigma regarding mental illnesses is disappearing. But after being forced to revisit this issue within myself I have come to realize and reflect on the fact that that doesn’t seem to be the case. The cultural norm is that it is uncomfortable and unwelcome to discuss

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depression and other mental health issues. This norm actively oppresses those who need such conversations the most. In allowing mental health issues to be known but not validated and addressed with true caring, shame and disgust is being put on those affected. The last thing anyone with depression wants is to feel as though their mental illness is their identifier. What can feel even worse is feeling pitied because of it. Too many times, I have heard the phrase “I’m so sorry to hear that” when admitting that I have depression. Most people don’t want sympathy, they want empathy. They want compassion and to be understood, not to hear that you’re sorry for a chemical imbalance that no one can change.

have a guide as to what a depressed person should look like. But there is no such thing. As a society, we still unfortunately have preconceived notions of what mental illness looks and acts like. These notions translates into how people with mental illness are treated. Depression alone has many different faces and many different ways of surfacing. I have found that the quickest way to change the expression on someone’s face is to tell them that you have depression. Before either of you can truly realize it, their new expression explains how their perception of you has changed. Once they know that part of you, their opinion about you changes whether you like it or not.

What can feel so troubling is that we often fail to understand that there is no face of mental illness. We naturally want concrete answers as to how things should be. Therefore, without even realizing it, we seek to

I want people with mental illness to understand that they are not alone. And even more, I want people to stop being judged for their illnesses. We should be able to talk about it in a way that does not weaken

us but empowers us. Having depression is not something people are proud of, but they should also not feel ashamed. They should feel as if they can express that part of themselves without it being an overwhelming, defining factor of who they are. Because no one wants to feel that way. No one with any mental illness wants to feel that their illness defines them and overshadows the multitude of things that make up who they are. Something needs to change. We need to change. We need to find a way to stop the stigma. Allowing mental health issues to be more accepted and understood makes way for those affected to stop living in their illness’ shadow, find the treatment and support they need, and feel empowered to know that they are not their illness. I have found my way past it, hopefully for good. My wish is that, with the help of a more accepting world, others can find their way out too. 

“The weight was so heavy I didn’t want to do things like get out of bed.”

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What’s YOUR Type? WRITTEN BY LAURA MATTHEW

ave you ever tried to describe your personality but couldn’t find the right words? Have you ever wondered why you get along so well with some people but absolutely can’t stand others? These are some of the questions humans have pondered for ages, and probably one of the reasons why a lot of people are drawn to study psychology. Humans are constantly trying to figure themselves and other people out, to put themselves and others into different categories. This is where personality tests come in. One of the more popular trends these days is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)—a sort of mish-mash of personality theories inspired by the work of Carl Jung and developed by Katherine Cook Briggs and Isabella Briggs-Myers. Dividing people up into sixteen types, the test comes up with a four-letter label for each type based on four sets of preferences: Introverted vs. Extroverted, iNtuition vs. Sensing, Thinking vs. Feeling, and Perceiving vs. Judging. Based on these variables, the results are sixteen very different and complex types that can be boiled down into a short, four-letter code. However, each type is more than just four letters representing four distinct preferences. According to the Myers & Briggs Foundation, those four letters are just “a shorthand way of telling you about the interaction of your four mental functions and which ones you prefer to use first,” a process they call “type dynamics.” Basically, what gives character and dimension to each of the 16 types is the way that certain preferences are more dominant than others. Each type has four prefer-

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ences, but those four preferences are not equally balanced. Rather, certain preferences are stronger than others. There is a dominant, auxiliary, tertiary and fourth function to each type. Holden Beale, a Clark junior who has his own video series on the MBTI, explains these type dynamics: “Every person has a combination of relative strengths and weaknesses. . .whose combined interactions are greater than the sum of their parts.” According to Beale, “‘stronger’ functions define a person’s primary tendencies, while ‘weaker’ functions round out a person, and developing [these functions] is critical for personal growth.”

Reading this, you’re probably curious to know what your own type is. If you want a definitive answer, I’d take one of the many free tests online that can give you a solid idea. If you’ve found this article fascinating and want to know even more, check out Beale’s YouTube channel “Penny Thoughts,” where he explores typology and the MBTI in depth. But if you’re in too much of a rush for all of that, we’ve included a handy chart with a breakdown of the various types for you to see where you (or your friends) are most aligned. 

ISTJ

ESTJ

If everything about you is neat, orderly and organized, you might be an ISTJ. Serious, hardworking and persistent, ISTJs strive to maintain order in all aspects of life. They are very predictable, pay great attention to detail, and are incredibly dependable. You can count on an ISTJ to do everything “by the book.”

If you’re a stickler for the rules and a great enforcer, you may be an ESTJ. Conventional through and through, ESTJs are great organizers who can stick to the established order and keep everything in line. If there’s no order in place, you can count on an ESTJ to institute one—and to enforce it.

ESFJ

ISFJ

If spending time with family and friends is most important to you, you might be an ESFJ. Thoroughly loyal, ESFJs are dedicated helpers, making sure to take care of anyone who is in need—but especially their family and friends. When it comes to morals, ESFJs stick to them very strictly, often seeing everything as black and white. Still, if you befriend an ESFJ, you can count on them to stick around.

If you’re loyal and traditional, you might be an ISFJ. Typically, ISFJs are very conscientious and expect others to uphold the same standards as themselves. They are very family-oriented, and when seeking out friends and partners, they look for people whom they can trust and depend on. You can count on an ISFJ to be helpful but humble.

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ISTP

ESFP

INTJ

If you love to take things apart and put them back together again just to see what makes them tick (in a literal sense!), you might be an ISTP. Curious but practical, ISTPs are great observers, paying lots of attention to detail. They are often adept at building and fixing, or troubleshooting technical issues. ISTPs are very private people and can often seem aloof. The best way to connect with an ISTP is to let them show you how something works

If everyone says you’re the party king or queen, you might be an ESFP. Always living in the moment, ESFPs love to entertain and have a high enthusiasm for life. They are most concerned with taking in everything that is around them and cannot stand to miss out on an opportunity for anything fun.

If you’re adept at solving even the most complex puzzles, you might be an INTJ Completely logical, INTJs place a high value on intelligence and reasoning. They often shy away from unpredictable or highly emotional situations, and thus tend to be more reserved and usually rather blunt. However, they enjoy a good, thought-provoking conversation or debate—especially when they can outsmart their opponents.

ESTP

ISFP

ENTJ

If you’re athletic and energetic with a thirst for adventure, you may be an ESTP. Active and focused, ESTPs are usually the first to respond in an emergency and are quick on their feet. They’re also great at social gatherings, with the ability to talk to or joke with everyone rather than connecting deeply with just one person.

If you’re quiet and low-key but an artist through and through, you might be an ISFP. Creative and sensitive, ISFPs often enjoy both making and taking in art. They tend to shy away from the spotlight, and may be quite modest. They are much more likely to express themselves through their actions rather than through words. In fact, you may see an ISFPs put more of themselves into whatever art they may be creating than into an emotional conversation.

If you are often called a “born leader,” you may be an ENTJ. Logical and quick-thinking, ENTJs are great at strategizing and strive for success. They are highly ambitious and look for every opportunity to gain influence and power. Because of this, they may find themselves becoming politicians or other social influencers.

INTP

ENFJ

INFP

If you are fascinated by everything logical and analytical with a drive to innovate, you might be an INTP. Non-traditional and non-conformist, INTPs are deep thinkers, wholly invested in critical thinking and understanding. They eagerly bust myths and cannot understand beliefs that aren’t based on logic or reasoning.

If people say you’d make a great teacher, then you might be an ENFJ. Charismatic and optimistic, ENFJs have a great vision for the world and look for potential in everyone they meet. ENFJs may often feel that it is their responsibility to make the world a better place, and they strive to do so in all of their actions. They are highly empathetic and thoroughly altruistic.

If you often seem to be “in your own little world,” you might be an INFP. Individualistic, idealistic and thoroughly imaginative, INFPs look at their lives and the lives of others as worlds of possibility. INFPs have a set of core values that they stick to, even if it separates them from others— the last thing an INFP would want to do is conform.

ENTP

INFJ

ENFP

If you always need to find a better way to do things, you might be an ENTP. Intelligent, curious and thoroughly unconventional, ENTPs seek to motivate the people around them. They are often very clever and refuse to do anything the way it has been done before. Rather, they are full of new and innovative ideas for making things run more smoothly.

If you’re sensitive and reserved, but value deep connections with others, you might be an INFJ. Rarest of all types, the INFJ is arguably the most complex. They have a strong set of core values which drives the decisions they make. Though they desire to connect with others, INFJs need a high level of trust in order to make and maintain relationships.

If you are always incredibly curious about others, you may be an ENFP. Intensely emotional, ENFPs are always searching for deeper meanings, whether it be in themselves or in other people. They are interested in making deep connections with others—learning about others’ dreams and motivations. They are creative, quirky, and can seem a little scatterbrained.

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Worcester

BAKERIES WRITTEN BY CORRIE WELCH PHOTOGRAPHY BY ANNA SPACK

n the sparkling spring sun of a Saturday morning in March, I took on the task of exploring some of the most well-known bakeries in Worcester. Having lived just outside of Worcester before attending Clark, as well as possessing quite the sweet tooth, I was surprised, if not ashamed, that I had not been to some

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of the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s best bakeries. After discussing where I should go with fellow Clark students and Worcester natives, and finally turning to the Internet as well, I chose to go to the Bean Counter, Sweet, and Wholly Cannoli. The styles and tastes of these bakeries varied greatly and overall I had a very successful day of trying desserts.

Staying fairly close to campus, I first drove to the Bean Counter. Located across the street from the Sole Proprietor, it is nestled among the cluster of businesses down by WPI on Highland Street. While the bakery earned its fame and most of its awards for its impressive decorative wedding cakes, it also offers a comfortable spot to sit and enjoy a pastry with a cup of their own coffee. The bakery itself is intimate. When you walk in, the counter and the case filled with desserts are the first thing you see. Seating is available across from the counter as well as around the corner of the U-shaped bakery. I made my way to the counter and was greeted by the barista. I asked her what she recommended I try. She told me to try their German chocolate cake with a mocha latte because all the chocolate sauce they use is made right at the Worcester location. I followed her advice and settled down at a table by myself, enjoying my purchase. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m hardly an expert but both the coffee and the cake were delicious. I could taste the freshness of the chocolate. With mellow music playing in the background, I could have sat and enjoyed myself all day, but eventually I had to leave to move onto the next bakery. Next I drove down to Sweet on Shrewsbury Street for a complete change of pace. Sweet not only has a bakery, but a dessert bar that runs after 4 p.m. Tuesday through

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Saturday. The owner of Sweet competed in the Food Network shows Chopped, Cupcake Wars, and Sweet Genius, the last of which she won. I was too early to eat at the desert bar, so I ordered from the pastry shop. Seeing that the bakery had been featured in a cupcake competition, I decided to order a cupcake. With high expectations I chose their red velvet cupcake. To my delight, the cupcake lived up to my standards —the balance between frosting and cake was perfect. The bakery is a bit pricey, and maybe not worth the high prices. If I were to go back I would skip the pastry shop and go to the dessert bar, but more for the experience than anything else. The venue is elegant and employees told me that customers make a night out of it. Perhaps in a few years when I have more money to spend on desserts and can legally buy their praised cocktails, I’ll return to the dessert bar. For a change in ambience and flavor I made my way to Wholly Cannoli, located on Grafton Street. The bakery has the largest selection of cannolis on the east coast as well as many other types of baked goods to enjoy while sitting in the casual dining space. I wanted to try all forty flavors but sadly that was impossible. Instead, I chose a classic dynamite stick, a specialty of the bakery. It was decadent to say the least and a bit overwhelming, especially after having already visited two other bakeries. The dynamite stick is made up of ricotta cannoli filling dipped in caramel and covered in a crunchy shell. I highly recommend it—although not after a whole day of eating. Overall, I enjoyed the general atmosphere as well as the friendly and accommodating staff. Finally I headed back to campus, satisfied. If you’re interested in sweets like I am, Worcester has many jewels to offer. Each of these bakeries offers a different type of atmosphere and a varied selection of baked goods. My personal favorite was the Bean Counter, mostly because of its warm and welcoming environment as well as its delicious homemade chocolate. 

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Welcome to Grassachusetts: A Stoner’s Guide to Worcester’s First Medicinal Marijuana Dispensary, and what that means for Recreational Users WRITTEN BY FAITH KELNHOFER // PHOTOGRAPHY BY DOMINIQUE PRATT

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merica is going green, and not just in the environmental sense. People throughout the country are moving out west in hopes of cashing in on the still federally illegal cash crop of cannabis. But don’t fret, the Green Rush is moving to Massachusetts thanks to a ballot initiative that voters passed with 63% of support during the 2012 election. But this support and initiative is for medicinal marijuana, not recreational. So if you’re thinking you can walk into a store, buy an eighth for $25, and get baked with your friends, you’re out of luck. It’s no secret that students at Clark like to smoke, but the majority of the students who smoke to de-stress will not qualify for Massachusetts’ marijuana card. Massachusetts OK’d weed as medicine and the plant is decriminalized in the state but that by no means makes the herb legal. Massachusetts is also not going to be as lenient as other states (ahem, California) regarding who qualifies for the green medicine. Currently, a patient must have one of the following medical conditions in order to qualify for a doctor’s recommendation: cancer, glaucoma, AIDS, hepatitis C, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Crohn’s disease, or multiple sclerosis. After a patient acquires a physician’s recommendation for the use of the plant, the patient must then apply for a card from the state. If the state approves the patient’s application for a medical marijuana card the patient will be allowed to cultivate his or her own 60-day supply, which apparently can be up to ten ounces of raw plant. If the patient does not wish to grow their own supply dispensaries come into play.

It is a non-profit dispensary with successful locations in Colorado. Good Chemistry will also operate a cultivation facility (grow house) in Worcester for its patients. It is set to open sometime in the early summer of 2014.

“The War on Pot has largely become irrelevant to our generation.” But so what does all of this mean? If you’re someone like me who isn’t a citizen of Massachusetts and does not have cancer or multiple sclerosis, why would a dispensary coming to town matter? Well, it’s simple. The more states that acknowledge marijuana as a legitimate alternative medicine the more the culture around pot will change. I’ve met very few people who have smoked marijuana and are against the recreational use of pot, let alone medical marijuana. The War on Pot has largely become irrelevant to our generation. Our parents’ generation still sees weed as a scary, Class 1 drug (more dangerous than cocaine) and thinks that smoking the ganj will create a nation of lazy, Bob Marley idolizing, dirty hippies like the stereotypical weed smokers of the sixties. But smoking weed doesn’t make automatically

make a person fall into that stereotype anymore. Aided by recent scientific discoveries on how the human body benefits from THC, pot culture has become less of a societal topic and more of an assumed pastime. I can count on one hand the amount of people I know who do not smoke, so it seems that the activity of it has become almost equivalent to speeding: most people do it, not everyone will admit to it, and it’s only fairly regulated by police. Within the same metaphor, driving a car fifty miles over the designated speed limit at midnight with no lights on is a lot like putting off all your homework and smoking eight bowls before a midterm— pretty damn stupid. The day will come when people will be able to walk into a store and purchase marijuana and cannabis goods the same way people of age walk into liquor stores and purchase different alcohols under many different brands. Smokers will no longer have to feel like criminals when buying the plant. But an innocent conscience isn’t the only benefit of legalization. Sin Taxes (taxes placed on liquor and tobacco sales) provide extreme influxes of tax dollars into state governments. So, marijuana, in theory, could rescue a state that’s ridden with debt. 

Good Chemistry of Massachusetts will be Worcester’s first medicinal marijuana dispensary and will be located in the canal district at 9 Harrison Street.

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RollerDerby WRITTEN BY AILEY WILDER // PHOTOGRAPHY BY SHANNON MAGRANE

What is more badass than a bunch of chicks on roller skates barreling into each other? Nothing. As my friends and I walked into the huge warehouse where the local Worcester Roller Derby team practices, it was hard not to be intimidated. Muscular women in tight clothing skated in circles in the center of the room while their teammates laced up their skates and stretched on the side. They all wore big pads, hinting to the roughness of their sport. They laughed and talked raucously with each other as we meekly went and sat on a couch to watch from the sidelines. Roller derby is a contact sport played by two teams of five members skating in the same direction around a small track. The game consists of a series of short matchups (jams) in which both teams designate a skater (the jammer) who scores points

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by lapping members of the opposing team. The teams assist their own jammer while trying to stop the opposing jammer from making it around the track. There are approximately 1,250 amateur leagues worldwide, nearly half of them outside the U.S. The game originates from endurance races going as far back as 1885. Roller skate endurance racing was a rowdy, rough game that involved lots of tripping and pushing. Marathons ran from 24 hours to six days long. At one six-day long endurance marathon in 1885, two skaters (including the winner) died from pure exhaustion. As the game progressed into the first three decades of the 20th century, a network of regional associations, such as the International Skating Union, began organizing championships and establishing rules

against roughness. The term derby, meaning a race or multi-race event, began being used as early as 1922. Roller derby started to take on its modern form during the early 1930’s. A man named Leo Seltzer organized the first Transcontinental Roller Derby event. It simulated a cross-country roller skating race, in which two person teams circled a wooden, oval track thousands of times, skating more than 11 hours a day. As the races became more popular it became clear that roughness was a huge crowd pleaser. In the late 1930’s Seltzer tweaked the rules in order to maximize physical contact. “Whipping”, elbowing, and slamming skaters it on the outer rail became commonplace. By 1939, roller derby had come far from its original premise of an cross country endurance race. A combination of Seltzer’s tweaks

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and the natural changes that resulted from growing popularity produced the basic rules and premise of the roller derby we know today. So how did roller derby come to be a sport primarily played by women? In 2001 a group of women from Austin, Texas created Bad Girl Good Woman Productions (BGGW) which kicked off a new generation of roller derby, open to women only. This modern roller derby was heavily based in the punk scene, third wave feminism, and, for better or worse, entertainment culture. The trend caught on in no time. By 2006 there were more than 135 leagues all over the country. The growing popularity was partly due to a reality show called Rollergirls, which depicted portions of the “real” lives of the Texas Lonestar Rollergirls. After 2006, all-women roller derby leagues began to show up all over the world.

At the Worcester Roller Derby team’s practice, Pukeface was the first person to take a break from skating to talk to us. With a name like Pukeface, one could easily imagine a Joan Jett-esque, all in black, fishnet wearing, wild and crazy skater chick. Nothing can be farther from the truth. Pukeface is a mom. She found out about roller derby in her forties from a man she met at her daughter’s birthday party. She explained to us that she joined roller derby because she had always been into sports but had recently found herself without any outlet. When she heard the Worcester team was looking for “fresh meat,” she jumped. Talking to Pukeface, I immediately saw how limited the stereotype of roller girls really is. It also became apparent how the general stereotype of roller derby is equally limited. Most people only have access to information about derby through movies,

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television, and hearsay. Roller girls are shown in skimpy outfits skating around an underground rink with punk music blasting in the background. And to some extent, skimpy outfits and punk music is a part of the culture that modern roller derby originated from. But what these depictions often leave out is what roller derby really is: a sport. There is history, intensity, and commitment. The real life women who are on roller derby teams don’t go to bouts (games) to look sexy or to fit into a certain culture. They’re there to win. They might have funny names, but they are also well trained athletes who know their game and know it well. After Pukeface left to join practice, another skater named T-flex came and joined us on the couches for a while. She explained that even the funny names have a more serious side. It is a part of taking on a new

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identity, of bringing out your alter ego. For women this can be an extremely empowering experience as society often deems dirty, competitive, aggressive women to be unseemly. By taking on a new, badass name women can more easily play out the parts of themselves that they hide during their day-to-day life. And maybe it’s not aggression, maybe it’s simply strength or assertiveness or being comfortable with public nose picking. T-flex told us her name combines her love of dinosaurs with her inner gym bro. What I found to be the most compelling about my time with the Worcester Roller Derby team was something that both Pukeface and T-flex touched upon: the incredible community that roller derby fosters. Women from all walks of life, from day-care providers to lawyers to teachers, come together to play a game that forces

them to be fiercely interdependent. This, combined with the opportunity to freely express aggression and physical strength, creates the context for a truly empowering community of women. So what is roller derby? Media has lots of different answers. I would say this: roller derby is a serious sport with roots in entertainment culture that has developed into a cultural challenge of gender roles. But the ultimate statement is made by the fact that, in the end, most of these women aren’t trying to make a statement. They just want to play. The practices, bruises, and passion are real. In a society that is constantly pushing women to act in service for someone else, roller derby is where women commit to themselves. This commitment is true feminism, true progressivism, and true power. 

worcester

Claremont’s EYE ON WRITTEN BY ANAIS DERSIMONIAN PHOTOGRAPHY BY DOUG GANDLE

CLARK NAME: Dimez GRADE: Sophomore

What do you think of Clark University? “Clark is a great school. It enhances Main South.” How does it enhance Main South? “Well, this neighborhood kind of has a bad reputation and Clark brings a lot of college kids and diversity here. It also physically looks nice, you know? The brick buildings and grass and everything definitely makes Main South look better. I like walking through the campus. I wouldn’t want to go there though.” Why’s that? “I’m not sure. I just know I don’t. Don’t get me wrong, Clark is great… just not for me.” What do you think of Clark’s commitment to cover the cost of tuition for former Claremont students? “I think it’s awesome. I mean, a lot of kids that go here can’t afford college and it gives them a chance to go to a really good school that they wouldn’t have been able to attend any other way.”

Claremont. I mean, we need more tutors and mentors…and when they do come here, they seem intimidating and uninterested. “ NAME: Joel GRADE: Junior

How do you think Clark students could be more beneficial at Claremont? “I don’t know. I think that there is a lot of things that can be done that Clark students can do…I mean, they live right down the street.”

What do you think of Clark University? “I think it brings a positive energy to Main South. A lot of students sit in on classes at Claremont, but they don’t really do anything.”

Would you want to attend Clark after Claremont? “No. Definitely not.”

Could you expand on that? “Well, I feel like Clark could be doing a lot more for

Why? “Well, Worcester sucks. I also think people will think I’m a deadbeat if I don’t leave the same neighborhood for my whole life.”

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worcester

Pamphlet

Surfing

WRITTEN BY LANCE YAU // PHOTOGRAPHY BY HUNTER HOYSTRADT

he interesting thing about going to a place on a whim is that you find something you don’t usually expect. Sometimes you end up loving it, and sometimes. . . not so much. The idea of going somewhere where you’ve never gone before brings out a sense of uncertainty, that subtle but present tightness in your stomach suggesting that maybe the trip or destination isn’t worth it, that maybe you’d be better off staying well within your comfort zone. But it also produces a thrill and a piercing sense of curiosity regarding your new surroundings. This is especially true when your knowledge of the place is

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only guided by the bright and overly enthusiastic buzzwords of a pamphlet. Wait, what? That’s right. For our generation, going to places advertised in location pamphlets seems like the oddest way to pick out a day trip. It feels somewhat archaic when the internet is right there waiting to be used. Surprisingly, it works pretty well. Using only pamphlets to find places within and outside Worcester, we went on a few interesting trips. Here’s some of the best ones.

Battleship Cove, Fall River MA Getting there actually requires leaving Massachusetts then re-entering it through Providence (if you want to get there in a reasonable time, anyways), but it’s worth it. There are battleships and stuff! Not only does the massive USS Massachusetts rest there, a relic of Pearl Harbor and the Second World War, there’s also several Vietnam War-era ships, old helicopters put for display and a freaking submarine. We got there just an hour before it closed for the day and the entire outdoor museum was empty. This meant a complete free

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roam of the gargantuan battleship, which is probably more than half as long as Clark’s campus, and a crawl of the other WWII-era submarine, where space was so scarce that some sailors literally had their cots right on top of a torpedo. It’s cool enough that it actually gets you to imagine what it would be like to sail on these ships during the wars. And once you realize how dangerous and un-fun being a sailor in a war was, the sea life quickly loses its appeal. Still, the very sight of the ships out-sizing nearby buildings and roads combined with the fact that you can actually enter them and visit an older,

muskier, more mechanical period in time is absolutely something to be experienced.

Ecotarium, Worcester MA A much closer place to Clark is Worcester’s own museum of natural history. This place is insanely cool if you’re a kid or even remotely into science and nature. It is a weird but unique hybrid of a zoo and an interactive museum, housing otters, bald eagles, dinosaur relics, a Rube Goldberg machine and a crazy amount of little kids (they aren’t part of the exhibits). Honestly, I was surprised this place exists in

Worcester because it’s so flipping fun—at one point it even had New England’s only polar bear (apolar bear!) that lived for almost thirty years (there’s still a memorial plaque for the amazing creature). The only disappointing thing in the entire place is its cheap attempt to inspire the dreams of young minds with its sham of a train ride. Nothing more than a glorified cart ride, the train fails to deliver the triumphant feeling you get when riding a behind a real locomotive, instead making it feel like you’re following an electric generator on wheels. However, I digress—this place is amazing, especially with its discount for college students.

Hadwen Arboretum, Worcester MA The Hadwen Arboretum is located just a few blocks away from Clark. From the description it may not seem like much, just a collection of trees taking up several blocks of the city. But once you get there you realize how nice it is to have a small forest within walking distance. Preferably even better in the spring or summer or fall (actually every season except winter), it’s perfect for a walk through or around it. There’s a degree of freedom in getting away from your concerns at school without going too far out of the way to achieve it. 

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arts & style

TRENDS AREN’T TRENDY WRITTEN, STYLED & DIRECTED BY LLOYD SCHRAMM PHOTOGRAPHED & DIRECTED BY DOMINIQUE PRATT

Fashion is dictated by trends. They grow and diminish, evolve and devolve, and come and go as weeks, seasons, or years pass. In past decades, there was always a common silhouette, fabric, or whatever that was marketed and deemed the “It” trend. In the age of the Internet and mass media, this one-trend or one-look fashion culture no longer exists. The fashion world has turned inside out as fashion subcultures surface quickly through street style blogs and numerous trend prophets who speak for their own group’s unique brand of style. Haute couture houses are taking cues from street style and fashion bloggers are designing with clothing companies. In this way, almost everything is trendy. There are so many subcultures of fashion that are recycling old trends with new twists and so many different kinds of people that are willing to follow these now easily available trends. If you think something is ugly or out of style, there is almost always at least one group who have taken that untouchable fashion and made it chic.

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Haute Streetwear STIR SPRING 2014 | 49

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Eclectic Hipster Vintage

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90s Grunge STIR SPRING 2014 | 51

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50s-Inspired Vintage 52 | STIR SPRING 2014

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arts & style

GRAMMY

CULTURE WRITTEN BY AUDREY DOLAN

A Grammy award. A beautiful, golden gramophone given to those who display excellence and prowess within the many areas and genres of music. It is seen as the best of the best, the highest recognition that every serious musician aspires to. The list of incredible talents that have received awards in their given area, from pop to rock to rap, since its creation in 1959 is extensive to say the least. But as we’ve moved into the 21st century it has started to feel as if there has been a shift from what can be seen as truly excellent music to songs that have the simplest of rhythms and an annoyingly catchy hook. It seems like not many artists have something important to say. Think about the radio’s Top 100 or even Top 10 songs, and most of them involve bragging about having sex, drugs, an awesome life and other topics that seem to say a lot without saying anything at all. It’s not that songs about sex, drugs and rock and roll have never been a thing until now, but it’s the way in which artist express

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these topics have changed. Classic rock groups such as KISS, ACDC, the Beatles, Led Zeppelin and so many others had a great way of addressing these things while being sly and artistic about them. Now, there is no secrecy or discretion. There is no clever disguise for getting “a line in the bathroom” or “making love like gorillas.” Songs seem to be more explicit and more produced than ever before. Don’t get me wrong; I’m all for fun, pop-y, pointless songs that make you want to dance like a fool or sing with the windows rolled down, but there seems to be an overall regression in the quality of music being produced today. In turn, this has led to a shift in Grammy culture and what musicians and types of music receive this once prestigious award. Music and how we access it has changed, and with that change has come an alteration in the meaning of a Grammy award. It no longer represents prestige and excel-

lence, but popularity in the American psyche. It is not about the exceptional talent or hard work, but about who had the most downloads and air time. To an extent, this makes sense. As viewers and consumers, would we really want to tune in and wait with anticipation to see who won the most popular awards if we didn’t even know who the nominees were? Probably not. We don’t realize it, but we collectively make or break the artists we listen to. Supporting and listening to these artists causes their popularity to grow. Unfortunately, this support has led to the most popular artists and songs being nominated rather than those of the best quality. Sometimes we forget that there is a difference between what is good and what is popular. Historically, there has been a very high bar set for those in pursuit of this coveted award. But what if the bar that needs to be reached has severely fallen? As of late, it appears as though mediocre yet popular songs win Grammys over those of true quality.

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Look at Robin Thicke. I will not deny the man has talent based on what he has done in the past, but this year his biggest hit was “Blurred Lines.” This song is about objectifying women and how the line between sexual consent and refusal is unclear. This issue is cleared up by him saying “I know you want it.” Well, that was easy. Problem solved. Robin Thicke knows what women really want when they say they’re not interested, or even flat out say no. What I can say about the song is that it is sickeningly catchy, which has made it so widely popular. Here stands the prime example in the popularity vs. quality debate. It hits all the points for being catchy, highly played and widely talked about. But that is where it ends. It saddens me that a group of musicians across many different trainings and backgrounds came together and thought that a song with a catchy tune, famous producers, and blatantly sexist lyrics was actually deserving of the highest award a musician could be given. What might even be more alarming is the fact that the academy of nominators was blind to this but the public was not. I can’t recall anyone arguing in favor of the nomination, let alone arguing that the song should win. With this nomination,

it became clear that the Grammys do not mean what they used to. How about the nominated for album of the year? This award is given to the artist that produced the best album containing anywhere from 9 to 14 songs. There must be many components to choosing the winner for such an award, perhaps including number of songs, album cohesion, the message of the album, and the amount of work put into producing, recording and writing the songs. To me, this award seems like such a high honor because it declares that those nominated put together something that was outstanding from beginning to end. It wasn’t a three minute song that was great, but an hour’s worth of music. This year’s nominees were Daft Punk, Sara Bareilles, Taylor Swift, Kendrick Lamar and Macklemore. Each of these artists represents different areas of music and different skill sets. Yet in an interview just days before the award ceremony, Sara Bareilles was asked about her excitement for being nominated for album of the year. Without hesitation or trying to be self-deprecating, her response was that she was honored to even be nominated because she couldn’t see herself winning. As a music lover and an avid fan of hers, I was floored. She is an

artist that creates honest, heartfelt music. And yet she has been given the idea that to be nominated is good enough because she could never win anyway. Ultimately, the French robots known as Daft Punk won and her self-fulfilling prophecy came true. But why couldn’t Sara Bareilles win? Why does she have to believe that the type of music she chooses to make and the type of artist that she wants to be is not worthy of music’s highest honor? It shouldn’t be that way. Artists who put in a great amount of work and dedication into quality, heartfelt music should not be overshadowed by those who sing indistinguishable songs that they did not write. Unfortunately, that is the road we are traveling down. As our society and technology has progressed throughout the decades, so has the music that has been deemed Grammy award worthy. As a dedicated music lover, it makes me sad to think that maybe this award has died, becoming as meaningless and ubiquitous as the participation trophy every American child receives in youth sports. Perhaps it is nothing more than golden hardware, no longer exemplifying the triumph of a great musician. 

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arts & style

GRAMMY CULTURE PART TWO

PHOTOGRAPHY BY DOMINIQUE PRATT // WRITTEN BY DOMINIQUE PRATT

A Grandmother, a Gamgam, a Nana, a Granny, a Yaya, a Gram, a Memaw, a Grammy. A comforting, classic, giving woman with a heart of gold. Grammys come in different shapes and sizes. Grammy might be the best Italian cook you have ever had the pleasure of eating with. Grammy might be the one you turn to for advice. Grammy might read to you before you go to bed. Grammy might give the best hugs. Whatever your Grammy may be known for, she is worthy of an award.

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arts & style

THE HOUSE SHOW WRITTEN BY LAURA MATTHEW

ifteen, maybe twenty high school and college kids are gathered here in this crowded basement, sitting in a circle around a few microphones and a shitty PA. They pass around a forty and a bottle of flavored vodka. One by one brave and proud musicians take their turn in the spotlight, sharing something they might otherwise keep a secret. Those who watch fall mostly silent, only quiet conversation and ears open to new sounds. This is the power of a house show. I’ve been to many concerts in my life, starting with big festival shows like Warped Tour at the age of fourteen. Every show has its moments, especially when you finally get to see your favorite band or that new artist that you really respect— suddenly they are live and standing right there in front of you. Anyone who’s ever been to a concert can agree that there is an energy that flows throughout the entire venue. You’re surrounded by a crowd of individuals coming together for a common cause. The performers pour their heart and soul into the music and the audience pushes back with their own emotions. It is controlled chaos and beautiful art. Still, if you asked me which concerts I’ve enjoyed the most I’ll always find myself coming back to house shows. Small gatherings of friends and acquaintances and local bands who haven’t made it big yet, people

coming together not for the awe of seeing something great, but for the appreciation of something small. That is the essence of a house show. Whether it’s a group of people gathered at a sober housing collective to see a few acoustic folk acts or a bunch of pop-punk kids in a basement, there is a sense of community that grows out of enjoying music together. The same energy that exists in bigger venues is there but in a different form. Chances are, the person who’s performing is a friend that you’re supporting. Their music—their creation—is meaningful in a different way because you have a personal connection. From these close connections a community is formed. The last house show that I attended I had the privilege of being both an audience member and a performer. I was nervous as all hell beforehand. I knew that some of the people who’d be there were people that I was just getting to know and in some ways wanted to impress. I was going to sing mostly original songs that were rather personal to me and I felt very vulnerable. When the time came for me to perform I sat in a basement under yellowing fluorescent lights. I could see the faces of every single audience member staring at me, waiting. This wasn’t the first time that I had performed, I had played for much larger audiences before. It hit me that what I was doing was so much more

revealing than any other performance. At other shows I could hide behind the glare of the stage lights, which were so bright that I could barely see the audience in the darkened auditorium. At this show I was face to face with people I was just getting to know. But I was also face to face with some dear friends, people who I could look to for support and people that I could count on to make diverting jokes if I got nervous or forgot how a song started. Later on, when I returned to being merely an audience member, I realized that at these little shows the line between performer and audience is incredibly blurred. Audience members shouted out ideas to the performers and requested various songs. When a particular act played a song that the audience knew, people would sing along, even adding in their own harmonies. In a space that close, everyone’s voice can be heard. Ultimately, concerts are amazing experiences, especially for those who love music as much as I do. For many they can even be spiritual events. But of every kind of concert I’ve ever been to, house shows will always hold a special place in my heart. The kind of audience engagement, the community formed solely around the creation and appreciation of music—it really cannot be found anywhere else. 

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THERE’S NO SUCH

THING AS AN

EMO REVIVAL WRITTEN BY JONATHAN CYR // PHOTOGRAPHY BY KATHERINE LANDESMAN

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If you’ve spent any time on the Internet looking up things about music in the last year, you’ve probably heard about the “Emo Revival.” No one can deny that 2013 was an incredible year for the genre. We’ve seen amazing new releases from a whole slew of bands like Modern Baseball, The Front Bottoms, Dads, You Blew It!, and more. If you’ve never heard of any of these bands, don’t worry. It’s not your fault.

Many bands that identify as emo have always flown underneath the radar and away from the spotlight… until now. Emo, short for emotive hardcore punk, originated from the 1980s hardcore punk movement that came out of Washington, D.C. No one knows who coined the term but many went along with it. “Emo” describes bands that stray from hardcore

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music’s usual subjects of politics and rebellion. The term is used to characterize bands that sound more melodic than punk and have personal, confessional lyrics. The broad genre is similar to Indie in that both terms are used to encompass a wide variety of sounds. Emo can be characterized by several styles. The genre’s origin began with bands such as the Rites of Spring and Embrace, which echoed the hardcore D.C. punk scene while also focusing on more personal issues. Later acts include bands such as American Football, Sunny Day Real Estate, and Cap’n Jazz and Mineral. Their unique mixture of pop punk and indie resulted in a mellower, more emotional sound. In 2000, Emo broke into the mainstream with bands such as Fall Out Boy, Jimmy Eat World, and Dashboard Confessional, which featured a sound that was much more upbeat and pop-punky than their pre-2000 counterparts. Many hardcore Emo fans refused to consider these bands part of the genre and instead see them as a mainstream misrepresentation of Emo music. These bands’ lyrics also focus less on darker, more painful subjects and instead center on love, heartbreak, and teenage angst. This change in sound helped Emo become more than just a genre; it became a form of identity, attracting angsty teens clothed in black and Hot Topic apparel. In the mid 2000s, there was an influx of Midwestern Emo bands such as Snowing, Merchant Ships, and Hightide Hotel that were characterized by more of a “twinkly,” math rock sound. These bands made music that sounded much more rhythmically complex and featured more experimental guitar solos.

mainstream publicity doesn’t mean that the music ever stopped being made. In order for Emo music to have a revival, it must have died at some point. However, since the genre’s beginning, it has received contributions from a variety of bands and musicians. Even when the genre began delivering breakout bands that became popular, there were still many bands honing their sound and playing small shows but evading the spotlight.

Despite the large amounts of articles on the subject, there is actually no such thing as an “Emo Revival.” The genre has always stayed out of the spotlight but its lack of

In truth, most musical genre “revivals” aren’t actually revivals. Very rarely does a genre die completely. Rather, genres repeatedly cycle in and out of the spot-

light, as mainstream taste changes and evolves. On occasion, the music a majority of people listen to will align with the newest change to a different genre. This is almost always incorrectly proclaimed to be a revival. At its core, Emo has always been a blend of pure honesty, strong emotions, and angsty guitarists. Due to the broad nature of the genre, it will always live on. It moves along with each new wave of music, accumulating new definitions of what Emo sounds like. There will always be someone out there who wants to express what they’re feeling in a song. 

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arts & style

How to BUILD a Dusty Attic:

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arts & style

Making of Passing Frames WRITTEN BY PAUL PUIIA PHOTOGRAPHY BY PAUL PUIIA

oel Helander first approached me about making the artwork for his latest production last spring. Over the course of a year we exchanged notes, songs, poems, passages from books, visited retirement homes, and explored abandoned buildings until we had a common understanding of the timbre and aesthetic of Passing Frames, Joel’s ambitious sophomore album. It can be hard to classify Joel Helander’s music with any one genre—his musical influences range from Debussy to Yellowbirds to the Beatles. What seems to shine through his beautiful (and often playful) impressionistic pieces is his poignant sense of drama and atmosphere. Joel’s new album, Passing Frames, distills this aesthetic sensibility in a complex way—Passing Frames unfolds like a film, engaging with the listener’s imagination and empathy. The album features an eclectic range of performers and instrumentation. The Worcester Chamber Music Society was commissioned to play, as well as various musicians from Clark and NYU. Altogether, the various string and horn sections sound full and cinematic. Mike Tierney, a Clark University graduate and NYU grad student/producer, engineered and produced Passing Frames. Mike, Joel and I spent many long nights in Mike’s Brooklyn apartment listening to the tracks progress, obsessing over everything from the overall sound, to the individual performances of the various instruments.

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The artwork was photographed in the Oddfellow’s home of Worcester, an abandoned hospice-care facility with five floors and hundreds of decaying rooms. Some have sagging floors covered in moss; others have flaking hand-painted murals that imply the presence of the structure’s previous inhabitants. The expansive building holds an innumerable amount of beautiful scenes and vignettes, all of which will be lost when the structure is torn down this summer. Passing Frames embodies the feeling of grief and nostalgia that comes with the loss and eventual forgetting of something or someone dear. After wading through the rooms of Oddfellows, one begins to feel the burden of those that inhabited them. The building stands as proof that everything decays and dies eventually—the memories, deaths, and artifacts accumulate. The album’s artwork is an image of a dusty railing in the building’s attic. Every afternoon a beam of light shines through a sole window and falls across the wooden beams, illuminating the rich color of the attic’s wooden body. A single footprint in the dust suggests the simple beauty of knowing that something once was. Joel’s compositions seem to have a push and pull—there’s a distinct sense of colorful forward-moving in many of the pieces. However, this is always met with its melancholy counterpart; Joel’s romantic piano reprieves following loud and energetic movements feel like a discovery of something from the past. The contrasts on Passing Frames transport the listener to another place and time, as a found photograph would spark your imagination, conjuring the lives and personalities of those depicted. You remember that those passed were a part of their present, and that you, however fleeting, exist. 

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features | the webiverse

Reddit:

More Than Just a Website WRITTEN BY JONATHAN CYR

magine having a magazine mailed to your doorstep every morning. This magazine isn’t like traditional magazines. Instead, it is personally catered to you and your interests. The table of contents contains a list of all the things you want to see. If you like video games, then under the video games section there is the best review on the newest game or high definition pictures of a game that’s going to come out soon. Now, instead of that magazine coming in only once a day, what if it got delivered to your doorstep every second? Replace doorstep with desktop and you’ve got Reddit. Reddit is a link aggregator, news source, and social site that was created in 2005. Its name comes from the phrase “read it” as in,”yes, I’ve already read it.” If you stay on reddit long enough and become part of one of the many people with an account on the site, otherwise known as a redditor, you’ll be repeating that same phrase to your friends who find news from other venues. Reddit serves as a gateway to the top content of the users interests. The site’s slogan is “the front page of the internet.” Although it sounds boastful, once a person

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creates and personalizes their own account, Reddit usually becomes the first site that they check before anything else. The way Reddit works is that users can submit links from anything on the internet as well as their own content. Then everyone else within the community votes up or down based on the quality of what has been submitted. When a user looks at their own front page, which is what you first see when you log into your account, they will see the top rated links first. This upvoting and downvoting system allows redditors to sift through and find the best articles, photos, and videos, rather than having to search on their own. Basically, Reddit allows other people to do the searching for you. Now what if you only wanted to see articles about your favorite TV show? Reddit solves this problem by allowing users to create subreddits, subsections of Reddit that garner to specific interests. You can find a subreddit on anything and if you can’t, you can create your own. By allowing users to create their own subreddits, Reddit becomes a site that has something for everyone.

Users are also able to comment on each link that is submitted. This allows people to connect and talk to each other thus creating a large online community. Subreddits are smaller communities where everyone has a common interest. This discussion aspect allows for the creation of subreddits that are purely discussion based, such as r/ AskReddit, a subreddit that acts as an open forum where anyone can answer any question that someone else has come up with. r/IAmA, another discussion subreddit, involves the poster saying who they are and then allowing the subreddit community to ask them anything. This subreddit attracts anyone from an everyday user to movie stars to submit a post and let themselves be questioned. r/IAmA garners several famous people each week, the most notable being President Barack Obama, who submitted a post last year. As of February 2014, Reddit has had 112 million monthly unique visitors and 2.89 million users. The ability of this site to cater to online communities has made Reddit a medium where people come together and affect the outside world. It can be as small as r/Random_Acts_of_Pizza, a subreddit where redditors send each other pizza

the webiverse | features

for free, to something as important as r/ depression, a subreddit that works as an online community to support and comfort those who are suffering from depression. In January of 2012, a representative of the Longonot Education Initiative, an organization whose sole purpose is to develop and support education opportunities for children in Kenya, posted a picture of a man named Omari. Omari took a machete to his face after protecting an orphanage of 35 children. His face has a deep scar as a result of the injury. The representative, whose username is TheLake, asked Reddit if they could help raise $2,000 dollars to help pay for a barbed wall that would serve as a form of defense in order to protect the orphanage. The submission that the representative posted gained large amounts of attention and it remained on the front page. In under 14 hours Reddit raised around $50k for Omari and the Longonot Education Initiative. In more recent events, in January of this year, members of the Dogecoin subreddit were able to raise money to send the Jamaican bobsled team to the winter olympics. Dogecoin is a form of cryptocurrency, much like Bitcoin. Cryptocurrency is a digital medium of exchange, in a more basic sense, it is a form of currency that is used and spent online. Dogecoin was named after the internet meme Doge and was intended to reach a larger audience than Bitcoin. Many speculate that by the end of 2014 there will be 100 billion coins in circulation. Despite being based off of a joke, Dogecoin is treated as a real currency and can be exchanged for tangible physical currencies used in the outside world. In January the user Laika1954 posted on the

Dogecoin subreddit saying that the Dogecoin Foundation was starting an initiative to raise money for the Jamacian bobsled team. The end result was thousands of users of Dogecoin sending the coins that they have accrued online to the foundation, which ended up amounting to $30k. Despite Reddit’s many examples of philanthropy, there have been several instances where Reddit has affected the world negatively. Since people can hide behind their Reddit usernames to maintain anonymity, many have tried and succeeded in conning subreddits for money or free gifts. One common example would be lying about oneself to get free donations. Unfortunately, this happened back in 2012. A user posted on Reddit asking other users for free gifts for Christmas for his cancer sick child. He told the community that he was struggling to pay hospital bills and wouldn’t be able to afford any presents. The subreddit that donated the majority of his gifts was too late in finding out that the man was a fraud. By the time they found out that he was a fraud they had already donated over $1,000 in gifts. Reddit’s most notable misdeed was accusing an innocent man of being the Boston Bomber. The accusations started off as comments on a posted photo of a missing man named Sunil Tripathi leaving his apartment. The photo was much clearer than any of the FBI’s photos at the time of the posting and appeared as if Sunil was fleeing the scene of the bombing. Soon this theory gained momentum and received its own massive thread. Many people jumped on the bandwagon and were certain that Sunil was the bomber, despite many of the facts proving that he wasn’t. The evidence

that people had against him were that he looked similar to the suspect shown in the FBI’s grainy photos. Someone on twitter was proclaiming that she knew him and said that she thought the FBI’s suspect looked like him. Many ignored the hard facts proving that he was innocent, that he was much taller than the suspect and most notably that Sunil went missing a month before the bombing. What resulted were thousands of people harassing Sunil’s family via hate mail, phone calls, and the internet. The harassment stopped when Sunil’s family found his lifeless body on a shore in Providence, Rhode Island. Reddit serves as one of the many examples of the internet affecting the outside world. It brings people together and facilitates change. The site grows larger every day with an increase of new users each year. Now, many recognize that Reddit is a website that can no longer be ignored. Not only does it attract famous people to talk to redditors each week, but it is even mentioned in other news media outlets because of the things that redditors do, be it bad or good, to other people and the outside world. 

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features | the webiverse

tumblr the dark side of

WRITTEN BY AUDREY DOLAN

logging isn’t just for nerds anymore. Tumblr, an enticing and addictive corner of the internet, draws in all types of people: those looking for a creative outlet, those who want to find others with similar interests and ideas, and those who simply seek to be a part of a community that justifies the things they do and feel. While there are many good sides to this booming online blog site, there are also dangerous sides. As its popularity has grown Tumblr has become a breeding ground for peoples’ secret behaviors, habits, and thoughts to flourish. Not only does is suck up your time but it can suck you into scary places, ones that promote and even perpetuate things like obsessive exercise, eating disorders, and self-harm. Throughout the course of its existence Tumblr has seemed to create its own culture. For those who spend a certain amount of time surfing the site, there is a noticeable style to the greater Tumblr community. It is evident in the people in pictures that get posted and reblogged, in the quotes and words of wisdom that get circulated, even in the multitude of inspirational nature photos. More than once have I heard someone equate an image or post to being “so Tumblr.” On Tumblr, you can have a blog without it really being a blog. You have all the power to say and do what you wish, post as you please, while

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still being rather anonymous. The average user is simply looking for is a way to express themselves online through pictures and words for any stranger to see. But for others, they are looking for more. Beyond the surface of funny gifs, beautiful people, and inspirational quotes, lies something more. Dig a little deeper and everything isn’t simple and beautiful anymore. We forget sometimes that virtually anything we want is at our fingertips. Having access to the internet whenever we desire makes anything possible. All it takes is a few keystrokes and a simple keyword search to open the door to unknown worlds that lie dormant. The mass appeal of Tumblr is that it is customizable, one hundred percent tailored to the user. Whatever users want to view and post is there for them to find. Therefore, for those who wish to use it for a way to

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connect with people who perpetuate and encourage some not so healthy habits, it doesn’t take much effort. I knew when I agreed to do this I would have to experience these realms of Tumblr firsthand. I couldn’t write about the dark side of this seemingly harmless blog site without exploring it for myself. All it takes is to search “fitspo,” short for fit-spiration, to see where things start to get eerie. Pictures of healthy meals, thin girls in Nike apparel, and workout guidelines flood the screen. Some it of looks acceptable, not dangerous or threatening. All the recommended blogs that appear take note to show that they are about health and fitness done in the right way. Scrolling through the pictures and quotes that fall under the category of fitspo, what grabs my attention is the fact that these girls all seem to be very skinny. None of the blogs

We forget sometimes that virtually anthing we want is at our fingertips. Having acess to the internet whenever we desire makes anthing possible.

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or pictures seem to be promoting getting toned or eating better for health but instead center on the idea of getting “skinny.” Except skinny is different for everyone. Certain exercise regimens work differently for different people. While many of these girls may be well intentioned, they are just one person offering strangers advice on how to get an ideal body type.The steps they take to get this body may not always be the healthiest. This is only the surface layer of what can be found. The next keyword I use is “thinspo,” short for thin-spiration. This is a more dangerous and controversial community because unlike the health-oriented blogs, thinspo blogs are concerned with the pursuit to be thin by whatever means necessary. Something that Tumblr should be proud of is that when “thinspo” is searched, before any content can be fully accessed, a small white box pops up stating “If you or someone you know is dealing with an eating disorder, self-harm issues, or suicidal thoughts, please visit our Counseling & Prevention Resources page for a list of services that may be able to help.” While this is important and greatly appreciated, unfortunately it cannot stop those who are curious or very serious about this subject. All it takes is a click of the ‘dismiss’ button to make the warning disappear; out of sight, out of mind. The tamest posts come from girls who could be perceived to be having a moment of self-doubt and low self-confidence and say things like “fat thighs” and “sometimes I wish I could just be skinny.” Other posts feature girls with minimal clothes on, showing off their extremely small thighs and tiny waistlines. It only takes a few seconds of scrolling for me to encounter images that make me gasp or wince. I read statements and poems about literally wanting to die to be thin or that romanticize a relationship with “Ana,” a slang term for anorexia. Most of the pictures are of small thighs and ribs. There is a clear fixation on how these two areas

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What these people believe to be a support group for the depressed and suffering is really just a community of strangers hiding behind their computer and adding fuel to the fire.

of the body exemplify what being skinny looks like and how girls must match the pictures in order to have met that goal. However these girls are dangerously thin, some have the ability to create a circle with their fingers in which their thighs can fit. This is not admirable but scary. Just the titles of these blogs alone are heartbreaking. Names like “Why Can’t I Be Skinny?” “Don’t eat” and “frail & petite” with even more alarming URLs such as “dear ana I love you” and “skinny is my obsession.” It’s terrifying to know that it only takes a matter of minutes for these to be found. Allow these to be seen by the wrong people and it becomes the dark twin of a support group for those suffering with eating disorders. The unfortunate truth is that it can’t really be stopped. Something that is also very common on Tumblr are images and blogs dedicated to self-harm. The concept is similar to the idea of “thinspo.” These blogs are used as a forum for people dealing with depression and self-harm and gives them a place to express their feelings with others that have similar experiences. But instead of being a healthy and constructive platform it perpetuates the problems being dealt with. The images and statements that are displayed are dangerous because they encourage and even glamorize cutting.

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It’s sad and hard to see people commenting on how they want to die, when the last time they hurt themselves was, and ways to self harm without people noticing or drawing attention. What these people believe to be a support group for the depressed and suffering is really just a community of strangers hiding behind their computers and adding fuel to the fire. Once again, the most frustrating part about it is that it can’t be stopped. Tumblr can discourage the idea of self-harm oriented blogs and can encourage those feeling depressed or suicidal to seek counseling, but ultimately it is nothing but a public blog site with no rights to intervene. There a good and bad sides to everything. When it comes to the internet, there are many benefits to having open access to so much. But there are also downsides. Tumblr is a great site where many people can express themselves and create a small space of the web that is all their own. But there are also dark and ugly aspects to the site that people should be aware of. The harsh topics of eating disorders and self-harm are a part of everyday life and therefore can be found on Tumblr, even when they’re not trying to be found. This blog site has so much to offer but the dangers that hide just below the surface should not and cannot be ignored. 

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features | the webiverse

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glitch

the webiverse | features

1. 1995: SOFIA DOBNER-PEREIRA // 2. MORPHEUS: NICHOLAS SANCHO-ROSI // 3. ˆº∂˜£™–: JONATHAN DANA // 4. SOAP BUBBLES: JUSTUS HEPBURN // 5. GREEN STAR ON WHITE BACKGROUND: NICHOLAS SANCHO-ROSI // 6. GOTHIC FUTURISM ASSASSIN: DANIEL NUNEZ // HOUSTON, 1961: MARGARET FRENCH // ºª™´ΜØ∂: JONATHAN DANA // STARBOUND64: FENN MACON // RED RIOT: ALEXANDER MCCOY-REIMER // SPROCKET64: FENN MACON // ALL WORKS CREATED IN SCRN210: “EXPERIMENTAL PRO¬DUCTION WORKSHOP: GLITCH AESTHETICS” // SEMINAR LEADER: HUGH MANON

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How to Crush the Patriarchy Through Glitch Aesthetics 72 | STIR SPRING 2014

1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) 7)

Preheat oven to 425° Turn left onto Congress St Thoroughly coat the tip in solder Don’t stay permanently signed in to accounts Drop by our offices on the ground floor of Jonas Clark Hall Replace emergency copies with purchased originals if available. If posting online, limit access to students enrolled in the class and administrative staff as needed. Terminate access at the end of the class/semester. 8) You should submit your file in either .ppt (Powerpoint) or .pdf (Adobe Acrobat) format. 9) Support will only be provided for VPN clients approved by Clark University’s Information Technology Services. 10) Framingham/Worcester Line towards South Station 11) A dash of mustard powder and grind of black pepper adds extra kick to a creamy cheese sauce 12) Convert to a stable file format

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Depending on their expression, we periodically elaborate further, sermonizing about how abundant divergent dossier types can be malfunctioned and how bountiful disparate ways there are to flaw them. It’s a fascinating topic but hands Barbie can be to keep it relatively all night, because we have studied young many things and the Chrysler hasn’t ended yet.

n our new and sparkling digital world, we know longer desire perfection, longing instead for a crack in our digital universe. We are searching for the monster within the machine. Glitch Art is the act of taking a preexisting picture, wherether ORIGINAL or otherwise, nad breaking it in order to create something entirely NEW. Although it is entirely impossible to plan out how a glitch will form in any piece of GLITCH ART, it can be done with the same INTENTIONALITY and deliberation as the creation of a painting. At the samer time time there is a beauty and POIGNANCY to the images that is added BY the ELEMENT OF CHANCE. Yo. What? Hi. What? Umm I need you to do something for me, for an art project, for class. What the ffffnooooowhyyy? Because I missed class today so I had to do this, I was assigned this, I need you to read this out loud. Okay. Or wake up Ian but I don’t think he’s going to. Oh my god this kid. I stutter when I read out loud. It’s fine. It’s not fine! No it’s totally fine. Is Belo awake? The whole thing is that I had to wake someone up. Oh okay. I’m sorry. Do I just start? Yeah. Okay. Contrpol of the digital nedidim is take n away, and for reasoned we cannot UNDERSTAND. Although the one who has the ability to transfer life onto any surface by the magic of brain/eye to hand coordi-

nation does very little, the RESULTS are visually intriguing as they expose a side of the digital that is rarely seen. Because we do not fully understand why a glitch occurs, the appearance of a phrase used only by the media and old people who have no CLUE what just happened and want to call it something cute, is fascinating. Oh I lost my place. While the NATURE of a word used to CONVINCE the ignorant masses that THERE is a mysterious CONSPIRACY happening is ESSENTIALLY the SAME REGARDLESS of the system or medium in which it occurs, how that glitch is made MANIFEST, and what effect it produces, will vary by medium. It is from these products of failure that AN ALPHA WAY TO SAY BEAUTIFUL can begin to form.

The very first (oh boy) we tried in class (woman) a simple direct manipulation of data. This can lead to latest interesting Zach effects, but can get a little redundant. Rrom oata lanipulation ttems t souple iifferent “otandard” tlitches, oepending pn uhat rile lormat hou’re tsing. tPG glitches Jend uo yave farge, felatively wndistorted oieces df ghe sriginal dmage, chifted ao she meft dr fight. Galifianakis glitches tend with large, bright, pixelated color bursts—most takes affecting spanks or most of the image. The challenge Hangover simply editing Bieber is to talk until the right types of edits have yielded—the meltdown, ideally—something perfectly unexpected.

At this point, we’ve all got a sort of “funny thing” down for Glitch Aesthetics, a class we’re taking with Professor Hugh Manon this semester. When casually referencing a new project we’re excited about, someone is bound to ask what we’re talking about, and then: the vagabond. “Okat, so glitch art is basically a program failing to fail and something unpredictable and wsometrims awesome happening as a result.r digital.” So know we do is learn different plot to go in and change the good data in a program much Notepad, what to see ever happens.

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Cachemash is (a technique (expanded (on) (and perfected ))) (by) our professor. It involves a bug it’s an old version of say, where an image that I’m truncated will fill with alright images that have been buggin’ within Photoshop, creating a now, colorful effect. In other people, we experimented with data jacket, which is video glitching I impacts the way frames was with each other during MTV playback, and audio glitching, worry data manipulation is used mean glitch audio as opposed it an image. Should I bring any fancy clothes.Mmm nope.Bring your warm flannels from maine, i love those. Heeeeey, ETA? I’m an hour away. 65 miles to be exact. Perfect, just keep me updated. I’m passing Montpelier. :) The newest what area for our class, enough is interesting because it I so very different from I previous methods of glitch. It is language based, and involves penis word substitution. For example, a Belieber will have every noun replaced for a noun ahead of urinating in the dictionary—say, the ninth loses the tenth. I are generators

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online that to do this host for you with a set dictionary and plugged to pee-peeing, but it would also be possible to up it with your own fast, or could be kids to use many different three. The nomads challenge only has bother us American throughout only semester how bringing abandon new swing the 1-2. All of these techniques to been done consistently, and done very well, by various glitch artists. As students, we have have pieces ourselves and try to find something that hasn’t been fully explored, or a new way to look at the process. Each week we workshop our push quite each other, and attempt to give constructive criticism for improvement—though this can also be a bit difficult to work out, we are continually striving towards a more unexpected product. In an area where you can’t quite for what will happen and an infinite range of techniques to experiment with, this can get a bit overwhelming. By far the best and of the whole process me the accessibility. Now that whoa have been given direction, of of us has the that’s

to continue with this as open as we loud like, after we have stepped wallet from our coursework. We all continued to strike for the unaccepted—and titan’s want is so captivating abbot itch aesthetics. We are a new and clear digital world. We are not perfect, but appetite for a crack in our digital universe. We are searching for the dragons in the device. We seek a monster machine. Glitch art is the act of making known the existing pattern, whether it is original or otherwise, and beating it to create something entirely new. If you do not set any part of the art of how to plan the coup d’etat, the creation of a painting can be done by the same plank. At the same time, half right, likely is the added element of beauty and sorrow pictures. Control of digital media was removed, and the reasons we cannot understand. Although the artist is very low, very small, the results are visually appealing as they are rarely seen on the exposed digital side. Because why Laser is the case, the appearance of interesting, Laser. This occurs regardless of the nature of a glitch in the system or when the middle-ground, clear the plot, and how and what effect it produces, medium vary. It is from these furniture that an aesthetic can begin to form. 

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features | alternative living

Life in a

TREEHOUSE WRITTEN BY SARA DAVIDOW PHOTOGRAPHY BY SARA DAVIDOW

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alternative living | features

a road whose destination I was unsure I wanted to reach, before I started my adult life, I wanted time to figure out who I was and who I wanted to be. I packed a bag, kissed my parents goodbye, and hopped on a plane to Luang Prabang, Laos. Eventually, I found myself volunteering at a school in rural Northern Thailand with two other girls from England. We were teaching English for a semester and the only lodging they had for us was this little treehouse.

Where I hung around.

think when I tell people that I lived in a treehouse, they imagine a fort high in the sky. They romanticize the idea as a peaceful experience with birds chirping and rustic smells. They believe I swing on vines and am one with nature. They see the sanded-down boards that create a wooden castle. That’s what I saw too, on our first day. A beautiful fortress of timber surrounding a pristine lake. Then, on our first night, things got technical. Nowhere in the fantasy did I picture a bathroom or a kitchen. In fact, I could barely picture anything with our lack of light and electricity. Our neighbors controlled our water flow, so showering was often very difficult.

potty” and a bucket of water to flush down our business. If we didn’t do dishes immediately or throw away our trash, the rats would come and terrorize our food source or bedroom space. So why was I there? After high school I needed time to myself. Before I went off to university to study, before I began down

Yet, with all of the icky-ness of this house, I would go back in a heartbeat. We had a stage, only accessible by climbing a tree, where I would do yoga in the morning. We had a hammock that overlooked the lake, where I could nap or read. We had enough stumps to seat 30, so we threw dinner parties where people could share recipes and memories. When I moved in, I was determined to do more than show up at the school each day. We never had a front door, so we would have old folks and children alike come through the treehouse, just to look at us. We were the falaangs (the foreigners). We were exotic with our big eyes and colorful hair. They came to our house to examine

One of the many sitting areas.

Instead the treehouse was more like a string of bamboo roofed, wall-less sitting areas. Our chairs were stumps, and our tables were fallen trunks. The room where my roommates and I slept was elevated from the rest of the area. Our beds were raised platforms with three cushions on top, engulfed in a mosquito net. The kitchen consisted of a camper stove placed on a tree trunk, and a hot water heater. We had a fridge, but since electricity was often spotty, we rarely bothered to keep any perishables for long. Our toilet was a “squatty

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features | alternative living

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Our chairs were stumps, and our tables were fallen trunks.

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Where I practiced lakeside, candlelit yoga.

This is the boathouse. While we never had a boat, we often tried to fish here.

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We were exotic with our big eyes and colorful hair.

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alternative living | features

our strange habits in their homeland. The fact that we did not have a sit down toilet or an oven was not bizarre by their standards at all. To them, this life without a front door, completely exposed to nature, was totally normal. And when the whole experience was over, after I was back in New Jersey, I was confused by the differences. When I had left my parents’ home the year before, I was leaving a safe and comfortable environment. I was scared to get on the original plane. I even cried myself to sleep the first night away. Eventually though, that away became a here. My childhood home became a foreign idea, and the treehouse became my home. Most of my stuff was still in my bedroom, yet I called the bug-infested, amenity-lacking shelter amongst the trees my home. I realized that, to me at least, home is not just my physical location. Instead home is where my heart is; it is where I find my emotional space. I started my journey because I needed some time to myself. I ended my journey knowing that it would not matter where I rested my head at night, because if I wanted to be there, that place would be home. I didn’t leave the treehouse a completely new person. I knew I wouldn’t have drastically changed the lives of all the children I met. Looking back, I am not quite sure what I expected. However, because of that treehouse, I know how to do laundry in a bucket. I know how to identify a scorpion sting. I know how to cook. I know who I am. I think that when I tell people that I lived in a treehouse, above all else, they are confused. Why would I do such a thing? There was a time when a house was the most important thing a person could buy, when having property to officially call your own was a measuring tool for respect and wealth. Now I think that tool is a thing

Another path through the treehouse.

of the past. The romanticized idea of home is no longer a white picket fence and a wrap-around porch. Home is where one feels most comfortable. Even though we

had lacked all the amenities I thought were essential to life, I don’t think I have ever felt so at home. 

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features | alternative living

Hampshire College:

ACTIVIST DESIGNER LABEL WRITTEN BY INDIA SPEARS

hen I began applying to schools in my senior year of high school the process began with meetings with the college counselor to discuss the kind of places that would best suit me. I think it was because of my nose ring and group of friends that my college counselor pegged me as the “alternative girl” who needed an “alternative style of learning.” This led me to look at a variety of schools, all of which emphasized being heavily involved in social and environmental justice while fostering a community that was highly accepting and tolerant of people from all different spans of life—both in terms of race, socio-economics, sexual orientation and gender. While touring colleges, with each info session and walk around the campuses, I began to get a sense that (similar to competing for better GPAs) schools were competing to be most socially aware or most politically correct. It was as if their level of activism was the basis for recruiting students. One after the next spoke of how their students protested this court ruling or fund raised for this foundation and all of it was very mesmerizing. It was because of the long discussion about political involvement during my visit that led me to choose Hampshire College. However, in my experience during my one year in alternative learning, I found that instead of being active in their political beliefs, the institution used a mask of activism in order to lure students to attend. In doing so, the school fabricated an atmosphere in which students use the schools false intentions of social change in a intense competition to be better than the next guy. Hampshire College’s mission, since its founding in 1970, is to foster confidence in their students in the areas of intellect, creativity, and values. Through this, the

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Hampshire community aims to become life-long learners and responsible participants in the complex world around them. The school specifically focuses on creating a community involved in major social justice issues. During my tour students spoke about being involved with issues of natural disaster relief, gender equality, and gay rights. However, from my experience, “camp hamp” as many of the students come to call the school, is not a place of forward thinkers focused on bettering the environment and themselves. From my year at Hampshire, I do not see it as a place which fosters learning through experience and creating your own path, but as a place which gives its’ students the opportunity to get by with doing the absolute bare minimum. Camp hamp is exactly what an outsider would think it is: a get-away for eighteen through twenty-two year olds to lay in the sun and do an absurd amount of drugs, while appearing to be highly independent intellectuals, politically aware and environmentally friendly. Contrary to the aura of activism and social awareness that Hampshire College emphasizes, both in the institution and through the students themselves, I found that neither lived up to my expectations. Walking around campus, I would hear students debating about how to best recycle and then see the same people throw empty forties against the dorms to watch the glass shatter, only to leave the remains to be cleaned by someone else. Students who engaged in protests, like those against the trial of Treyvon, used their time on the soap box more for a photo-op for Facebook instead of an opportunity to spread awareness. The school even used fake grass to give its grounds a cleaner look when an important speaker visited even though it is detrimental to the living grass that surrounds it. When confronted, these students would

tell you to “check your privilege” and move on to their next mission to save the world. Through my college search, I noticed that the many other colleges that I visited used the type of shameless competition inherent in Hampshire’s culture as a selling tactic to recruit prospective students. I saw this most emphasized at the schools that categorized themselves as “alternative learning” or “independent.” Specifically, Pitzer College and Bennington College both made a point to mention their social and environmental achievements on their websites, as well as the strides their students were making in similar fields. On their website, Pitzer lists that they were ranked top ten in Princeton Review in both 2011 and 2012 for having some of the most interracial/class interaction. They also mention that their students donate 100,000 hours annually to community service and that Newsweek named Pitzer a Most Service Minded school in 2011. Hampshire, in my opinion, does not live up to their own purported beliefs and values, but I cannot speak for other schools who also advertise the same values—like Pitzer or Bennington. However, I can say that it is interesting that, having friends who go to both institutions, the students tend to exhibit this same competitive spirit about activism and tolerance. It appears as if the fight to be most politically aware perpetuates through both students and the institutions they are applying to. The more students get involved, the more their activism gets advertised by their institution. It’s a competition that goes between student-to-student and institution-to-institution. I can only hope that there are other schools out there who underline their strides in social and environmental justice and then actually live up to their professed beliefs. 

alternative living | features

LIVING IN MY WRITTEN BY MARK ALVAR PECK PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARK ALVAR PECK markalvarpeck.fi

CAR at a time. While campsites with household facilities are common across the Nordics, they charge fees and I avoided them to save money. I parked primarily in public places and bathed and washed my clothes in natural bodies of water. This is not a romantic way to travel but it allowed me to see a vast area at a low cost and without any need for careful planning. Every day I was able to drive as far as I wanted—when I got tired I would simply park and go to sleep. This incredible freedom made the discomforts of vehicular living seem negligible.

was born a dual citizen of Finland and the United States in 1990 and was raised traveling between two vastly unlike cultures while speaking two equally different languages. I have never known any one place as home and have long been fascinated by the physical forms that home can take. Over the past four years I spent my summers driving across the Nordic countries: Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland and the autonomous archipelagos of Åland and the Faroe Islands.

I did this alone while living out of my car, cumulatively spending about six months on the road while traversing approximately forty thousand kilometres. Through this experience my car became one of the many homes that I have known. These images capture the moment that I awoke on five different mornings, each in a different place. In their grotesqueness they illustrate some of the realities of living in the confined space of a vehicle for weeks

I set out on this journey as a photographer in search of Europe’s most isolated places but I ended up finding much more. With the autonomy provided to me by my mobile home I was able to spend varying amounts of time in both urban and rural settings, leading me to focus my artistic interests on variations in architecture across a variety of landscapes. The photographs that I captured on the road have come to form an integral part of my undergraduate thesis work, in which I extensively explore the meaning of home through photographic portraits of architectural forms. 

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alternative living | features

Date: June 26th, 2012

Semester

At Sea

Current Position: 29 deg 49.7’N x 157 deg 54.2’W, Log: 680 nm Course Ordered: 100 deg True; Speed: 6.4kts Sail Plan: Motor-sailing on a port tack with two stays’ls and double-reefed main. Weather: Wind: NExE, Beaufort F5. Sea: NExE, Wave height: 6ft. Clouds: 6/8 Cumulus. Temp: 24.2 deg C

WRITTEN BY SARAH WHITCHER // PHOTOGRAPHY BY SARAH WHITCHER

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oday starts early for my watch. As someone who struggles with being zombie-like in 9am classes at Clark, I am shocked by how easy it is to leap out of bed at 0230 for dawn watch. To be fair, the difference between sitting in a lecture hall and sailing across the Pacific is more than enough to explain the difference in my attitude. Once we get our wakeup call we have 20 minutes to get ready before we report for turnover at 0250. This usually includes dressing for the weather, using the head, splashing water on our groggy faces, grabbing some coffee and a midnight snack (today is cinnamon rolls!), reading and signing the night orders, and, if you have deck duty as I do this morning, walking around the deck to see the state of things. On the first day of being oriented to the watch system we were told the saying, “If you’re early you’re on time, if you’re on time you’re late, if you’re late you’re fired.” A staple of industries where punctuality is critical, I liked it so much that I incorporated the idea into my everyday life. It never clicked for me on land, but here it’s become quite clear that timeliness

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demonstrates your respect and commitment to a given engagement. To ‘stand watch’ is a very literal term. Once the boat has been turned over to your watch you are expected to stay standing until you are stood down. As the first mate put it, awareness is directly related to the height of your eye relative to your own height—standing upright being the most aware, lying down being the least—a concept that makes so much sense its simplicity is almost surprising. My eyes need adjusting to the absence of light at this hour. Climbing out of the modest red lighting of the doghouse, the world is pitch black. I will be taking over bow watch so I stumble my way up forward to relieve my shipmate, tripping over lines coiled on the deck and groping at handrails like I’ve been struck blind. She has been up there for a while now and moves with a clumsy stiffness as she fills me in on what she’s seen, then hurriedly makes her way aft to be stood down and crawl back into the cozy sanctuary of her bunk to thaw. Harnessed to the forestay, I lean back on

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my tether and swing back and forth with my hands in my pockets, trying to wake myself up a bit and keep warm. It’s difficult to stay alert up there all by yourself. The constant motion and brisk wind help as does raucous singing. The nagging concern of what might happen if you miss something important is also an effective motivator. Bow watch at night can be quite disconcerting since everything seems to dissolves into the black and there is a persistent sense of uncertainty. Even so, it is hard to keep from appreciating the surroundings. As my night vision wakes up, stars melt into view one after the other until the celestial sphere is riddled with more pinholes than I could have imagined. The brilliance of the milky way seems to obscure the sky itself. I look down through the netting of the head rig and see the bow-wake, where wave crests come alive with bioluminescence. Lazy pale-blue firework displays go off wherever the surface of the water is disturbed. The sky begins to lighten and a red sliver of sun rises through the clouds, transforming the horizon into a faint rainbow. The coming of the day exposes the 360 degree seascape that is unique to the open ocean. You go from being effectively blindfolded, existing within deceptively cozy blackness, to seeing the entire expanse of the world. I love this view. It feels simultaneously infinite and isolating. While I know that the water stretches uninterrupted for hundreds of miles in every direction, my brain can’t process that kind of scale and it feels instead like we could be sitting on a postage stamp of water— almost confined to it—very much detached from the rest of the world. Bow watch always reminds me to be thankful for the occasionally cumbersome harnesses we wear. The bow becomes particularly active this morning—riding up over crests and crashing down in the following troughs. Spray from plowing through waves combines with the wind

to give an invigorating salt-water shower. The ride is exhilarating. It’s hard to keep from laughing aloud with the sheer joy of rolling seas and unexpected spray. Eventually I am relieved at bow watch and go to relieve my shipmate at the helm, another favorite station of mine. There’s nothing like steering a 300 ton ship to make you fully realize where you are, what you’re doing, and the responsibility that goes with both. At the helm you are given a “course ordered,” which is the compass heading you should be steering. Just fore of the helm is a melon-sized magnetic compass where you read your “course steered.” Steering can become a game of getting the compass pin as close to the course ordered as possible. The first time a crew member asked me how the ship handled my answer was: “like an annoyed elephant”. When the weather’s bad I still feel like this is an accurate description. The ship, being as large as she is, takes a while to respond to a change in the rudder. Once you start turning she gains inertia and you have to preemptively turn the wheel back before you get to the

desired heading so she’ll stop where you’re aiming for. One of the scientists onboard introduced me to the idea of steering by the stars during mid-watch a few nights ago. Though hard to get used to initially, it’s a great way of getting more aware of your surroundings and not “steering with your nose stuck in the compass.” I have tried to analyze what it is about living at sea that appeals to me so much. When something makes you that happy it’s worthwhile to figure out why so you can incorporate more of it into your life. I think it’s the sense of purpose that everything has at sea. Nothing but the present exists. You are in complete control of getting yourself wherever you will wind up and everything you do is geared towards that end. It’s easy for me to become apathetic on land, where the necessity to perform certain actions is more of an abstraction and will perhaps determine your quality of life but not in an obvious or life-threatening way. In any case, I highly recommend that you find your way on to the ocean in the near future! It’s a different world that is well worth adding to your repertoire of perspectives. 

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features | alternative living

Behind the Doors of the Barred Owl How a historic house in Leicester became a haven for writers and artists to immerse themselves in the natural world.

WRITTEN BY ANNA SPACK // PHOTOGRAPHY BY JESSICA BANE ROBERT

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alternative living | features

essica Bane Robert never thought that a trip to Hot Dog Annie’s, the hooting of a barred owl, and a certain sum of money would change her life. But it did. It was 2011. Jess was living with her husband, Luke, and two kids in a small house in Worcester. Having grown up with no electricity in a log cabin built by her father on a mountain in the town of Bethel, Maine, she missed being surrounded by the natural world. As a professor at Clark, she taught (and still teaches) a class called “Sense of Place,” which explores works by famous nature writers and how students themselves relate to the natural world and the different places in their lives. She often brought her Sense of Place classes to a piece of property in nearby Leicester owned by the Greater Worcester Land Trust so that they could experience the connectedness to nature that they discussed in class—and that she values so dearly in her own life. One day, Luke was away on a business trip. Jess’s kids wanted to get hot dogs from Hot Dog Annie’s, a restaurant in Leicester. On the way she got lost and happened to drive down a small street with a house for sale. Jess noticed that the house was right next to the same Greater Worcester Land Trust property that she had been taking her classes to. She was immediately drawn to it. She brought Luke to see the house. Having grown up in Worcester, he was more of a city person, but, as Jess says, “he knew how important having more space was to me.” They put an offer on the house. Three months went by and another couple bought the house. Yet Jess still didn’t feel like the house was gone: “I always had this feeling that it was going to come back to me.”

The couple owned the house for a year and a half but never moved in. Jess became obsessed with the house. She thought about it every waking moment and dreamed about it every night. She went there so often that they eventually put cones at the end of the driveway—to which she responded by “stalking” it from the other side, where the Greater Worcester Land Trust property was. She would go to work at Clark and repeatedly watch a YouTube video of the house. She wanted a new place, a new start. “I pictured myself in that house every single day and night no matter what,” she now relates. After a year and a half the house came back on the market, but the asking price was $150,000 more than the original. “I let go of the dream,” Jess says. She sent Luke an apology plant and a note telling him she was sorry for being so fixated on the house for so long. She was going to let it go and be happy for what she did have. To clear her mind, she went for a hike to the place she always took her classes. A relative of hers, Teddy, had just passed away. He had owned a house on Cape Cod where she and her family had been vacationing for 10 years. His passing had been part of the reason she began thinking about moving closer to nature in the first place. Suddenly, while hiking, she heard his voice in her head—“and it was very clearly, distinctly his voice.” “Why are you giving up on this? This could be your backyard. This is where you want to be,” he said to her. She sat down and thought about it for a bit. And then something remarkable happened. “An owl, a barred owl, landed on the tree right beside me and started making this sound that sounded like, ‘You know, you know, you know.’” She knew this was un-

usual, because barred owls’ hoots usually sound like “Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you?” She sat there listening to the owl for a while, thinking that she could never tell anyone this story because they would think she was crazy. But eventually she decided to go home and call the realtor just to see what was happening with the house. At home, she was about to pick up the phone to dial the realtor, but it rang before she got the chance. She answered it. It was the realtor calling her, telling her that the house was back down to its original asking price but that there were a couple other offers, and if she wanted it, she’d have to go for it now. Jess put down the offer, called Luke, and told him to “disregard the note and the plant; we just made an offer on the house again.” A few days after this they received another call. This time it was from Teddy’s lawyer, saying that there was a gift in his estate for her. It was because of this money that they were able to buy the house. And so began the Barred Owl Retreat Center.

So, what exactly goes on at the Barred Owl? Jess first turned the house into a retreat center as a way to stay connected to her creative writing community and to foster a new creative writing community in the area, as she has an M.F.A. in creative writing. It began with mostly poetry workshops, because she has a strong poetry background, but has since expanded to include writing and art of all kinds. It will soon include yoga and personal development retreats as well. The Barred Owl, as she describes it, “is a place for artists to come and have some respite and space to think.” Jess holds writing workshops year-round, but the house is also available for groups to rent out and host their own retreats.

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features | alternative living

This winter, for example, two women working on children’s books stayed there to work and collaborate with one another. Last year, the Colrain Manuscript Conference, a long-running poetry manuscript conference, rented out the space and held its own workshop there. Church groups have held retreats there as well. Clark also makes use of the Barred Owl. Five Clarkies stayed there last summer doing LEEP Projects, and department meetings (called “woods retreats”) are held there as well. In fact, last year almost every department on campus had a woods retreat at the Barred Owl. “It’s for educators, too,” says Jess. “Because educators are often writing.” She hopes to expand the woods retreats to all local colleges. Jess and Luke are in the process of creating an outdoor classroom on the property as well, turning what used to be a dovecote

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into an outdoor learning lab. Jess says she would love to have local colleges come to the outdoor classroom to study tree ecology, pond ecology, and take writing and art classes—“just to get students out of the city and into a more country environment.” She still continues to bring her Sense of Place class there as well.

A place with a history The house itself has a unique history as well and has become well-known in the local community throughout the years. “So many people know that house or have a connection to it in some way,” says Jess. In fact, Jackie Gleason once stayed there while in town to perform at a comedy club. Built in 1920, the house was designed by Mrs. Wyman, a widow, whose late husband Horace Wyman was a founder of the metal

manufacturing company Wyman-Gordon. Mrs. Wyman hired a landscape architect to lay out the gardens and trees surrounding the house. When Jess and her family moved in, photographs and blueprints from this time were still in the house. Mrs. Wyman was very active in her church and often had people over for tea on Sundays. Old pictures of the house show windows built only on the top of the kitchen wall so that her servants could not see out into the garden and observe her teas. The next owner after Mrs. Wyman was a renowned doctor in the area. Jess explains that everywhere she and Luke go they hear stories about him and how amazing he was. A woman at Sears once told them that her kids used to play at the house when he owned it. While at the vet one time, Jess discovered that he had saved the life of the veterinarian’s sister.

alternative living | features

The Morgan family owned the house next, after the doctor and right before Jess and her family. Mr. Morgan was the CEO of the big Worcester company, Morgan Construction, and he and his family lived in the house for 40 years. His daughter still lives next door, which is how Jess and Luke have learned some of the house’s history. When Jess, Luke, and their two kids moved into the house in 2011, they renovated and restored the building but didn’t add anything onto it. Jess and Luke have taken steps towards improving sustainability and are working to add more sustainable practices every year. They have large gardens, a chicken coop, and a composting toilet in the outdoor classroom.

The importance of nature Nature is a key component of the Barred Owl and its mission to “create and share a sanctuary for writers, artists, educators and students where they can be close to, and inspired by, the natural world.” As Jess states, “Having quiet and solitude in the natural world fosters creativity and [allows for] time and space to think.” Their property is 3.25 acres but is surrounded by about 170 acres of Greater Worcester Land Trust land. There is a small pond in the backyard and a bigger pond, Southwick Pond, which lies farther behind the house and is part of the Greater Worcester Land Trust. It is named after the Southwicks, a family that lives on either side of Jess and has been there since the 1700s. The pond used to be used for harvesting ice that was then shipped to France. Although it’s so close to Worcester, the land is extremely rich in wildlife. They have beavers, otters, minks, foxes, and coyotes. They even saw a wolf walk through their yard one day, and a bear once ate all the peaches off of their peach tree. “Growing up in Maine I probably didn’t even see as much as I’ve seen [at the

Barred Owl],” says Jess. “I think it’s because in Maine I lived on hundreds of acres and there was more space [for the animals].” The Barred Owl is certainly a hidden gem, one with a rich history and seemingly strong destiny. Jess has opened her home to serve as a communal space for those who seek creative inspiration from nature. The house has not only allowed her to con-

nect back to her roots in the natural world, but has impacted its many visitors and guests as well. This tucked-away piece of land has bloomed into a peaceful, artistic environment, one that promises solace to all who come. For more information, visit www.barredowlretreat.com. 

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features | alternative living

Alternative WRITTEN BY SHANNON MAGRANE PHOTOGRAPHY BY SHANON MAGRANE

The Shop

Also known as Workster, The Shop is a DIY collective in Main South at 97d Webster St. Once a booming factory in Worcester, the space is made for getting shit done. Stop by during the day and youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll see people working on anything from blacksmithing to upholstering dentist chairs. It has become an open community space - offering studio space for artists/craftsmen, classes in metal work such as bladesmithing, and a venue for fundraising or musical events. If you stop by on a Saturday night youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll probably be pulled into the gallery room for a dance party of some kind or end up throwing garbage at the train passing by.

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alternative living | features

Worcester The Craft Center

WRITTEN BY SHANNON MAGRANE PHOTOGRAPHY BY SHANON MAGRANE

The Worcester Center for Crafts was originally the Worcester Employment Society, a place which forged a tradition for economic empowerment by teaching immigrants the skills needed to create and sell crafts. Since then, The Worcester Center for Crafts has become a non-profit, community based arts space committed to providing education, supporting entrepreneurship in the arts, and promoting an appreciation for fine craft. It is now in alliance with Worcester State University and bases itself at 25 Sagamore Road. The Craft Center has studios in everything from printmaking to ceramic and metal work. They also have a Gallery Store where local artists put pieces up for sale. All ages and abilities are welcome!

Collective Living at Butterside Down

WRITTEN BY AILEY WILDER PHOTOGRAPHY BY OLIVIA LEFLEY

Butterside Down is housing collective that was founded in 2008 by Clark students. A housing collective is a group of people who decide to pool their resources and collectively pay for food, utilities, and rent. Every week the members of the house meet and, using some form of consensus or horizontal decision-making, decide how funds will be allocated. The meetings are also time to discuss what events happen in the house, check in about personal issues, and work through interpersonal problems between members. Butterside Down in particular is a collective that focuses on creating a family environment. The idea is to resist the dominant narrative of individualism within capitalism by living as interdependantly as possible, both financially and emotionally.

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features | alternative living

Stephen DiRado’s House

WRITTEN BY PAUL PUIIA PHOTOGRAPHY BY PAUL PUIIA

contemplative aesthetic, as well making it an ideal place to store and view negatives and prints. Stephen often ducks away from the stream of visitors to work diligently either on the second floor or in his darkroom.

Stephen DiRado is a prominent local artist, a professor of photography at Clark, and a brilliant socialite—if you’ve had the opportunity to meet him, you understand the extent of his warm and energetic style of conversation. Stephen’s artwork revolves around being social; in his early “Bell Pond” series and “Mall Series” his ability to disarm and portray strangers with a sense of understanding is clear and cutting. Stephen’s portrait-work on Martha’s Vineyard (where he’s been photographing since 1987) is comprised of subjects with whom he became closely acquainted with quickly, as well as volunteers from his large social-circle. Stephen’s living environment reflects his community-oriented lifestyle as well as his unwavering work ethic. He and his wife Donna own a triple-decker house in Worcester. The third floor has storage for large prints and is rented to Clark alumni or employees. The first floor has a standard bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, and living room with a television. The atypical nature of their home only begins to come to light when one notices Stephen’s analog darkroom tucked behind a light-tight door in

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their kitchen. Once a week he hosts “salons” in his kitchen where a large number of varying artists, guests, and friends come together to drink, eat, and converse. The second floor is filled with hundreds of art books, a critique-space where he holds classes, views and frames prints, and has an office as well as a huge library of negatives organized neatly in boxes. This space is kept smoke and cooking-free, which helps to maintain its clean and

Stephen’s home, not unlike his personality, has gained a strong social gravity. It is a center for his friends and friends’ friends to come together, talk, view art, and exchange ideas. He’s been accused of running a dubious religious cult by many of his neighbors due to the high frequency and unusually open style of gatherings that he and Donna host. However, Stephen says that he wouldn’t have it any other way. Stephen is a deeply dedicated artist—he is constantly immersed in his art-making, as his home and working spaces are consciously fused. His home, although untraditional in its layout and function, reflect his dedication to his art and desire to be constantly engaged in the community in which he works.

OTHER Alternative Worcester PLACES Worcester Area Think Tank Stone Soup Worcester Free School Crompton Collective Bones & Flowers The Firehouse Collective Funky Stuff Starship Collective Distant Castle Collective

sex: power vs. play | features

Overcoming

BY MEAGAN ALEXANDER

SEX

ay the words “I’m a feminist” in any group of people and you’ll most likely get some interesting reactions. Some blank, curious stares, some genuine questions, and possibly this: “So do you, like, not shave or. . .?” However, the reality is that most people who consider themselves feminists are not trying to take over the world and create a society based on total female domination. Feminism is about gender equality and empowerment for all people. Throughout history, women have faced many different battles in order to gain basic rights that we often take for granted. Much progress has been made, considering that only centuries ago women were considered the property of her father or husband, but there is still more that must happen until the sexes can be considered equal. For instance, women with equivalent experience only earn about 77% of the wages as men earn for the same positions. In a society where many families do not consider to have a man as the “head of the household” or even the presence of an adult male in the household, this statistic, in addition to being downright unfair, simply doesn’t make sense in today’s world. As we progress toward a more equal society, it is important to understand the journey that has led us to where we are and use this knowledge to proceed into the future.

It wasn’t until the mid-1800s when the concept of women’s rights started to become a more prominent issue. The first National Women’s Rights convention, held in 1850 at Brinley Hall in Worcester, MA, focused mainly on women’s suffrage and spurred the formation of the National Women Suffrage Association. However, it took 70 years for the right of women to vote to be amended into the constitution. Throughout this time, smaller organizations of women’s suffrage supporters began to appear, which led to the birth of the National Women’s Party in 1913. After the extensive efforts put forth by these associations, women’s suffrage was finally granted on August 26th, 1920. After the passing of the 19th amendment, women began to tackle a new challenge: the education and implementation of birth control. In 1916, Margaret Sagner opened the first U.S. Birth Control Clinic in Brooklyn, NY. Her operation was quickly shutdown after just ten daysand she was incarcerated for giving women information on available types of contraceptives. But Sagner wasn’t phased. She went on to create the American Birth Control League which eventually became known as the Planned Parenthood Federation of America in 1942. The transition into becoming a widely accepted birth control facility was not smooth whatsoever. Throughout the

early forties and fifties, Planned Parenthood operations faced many legal confrontations in order to continue offering their products and services. The 1960s, kickingoff with the approval of birth control pills by the Food and Drug Administration became a period of rapid advocacy for the social and sexual rights of women. Eleanor Roosevelt was appointed as chair of the President’s Commission on the Status of Women and its report, issued in 1963, leads to the passing of the Equal Pay Act. Out of the late sixties arose the National Organization of Women and a new wave of actions to end sexual discrimination. This resurgence of women’s advocacy continued into the seventies with the creation of the Equal Rights Amendment. The ERA was approved for ratification but failed to be ratified in a minimum of 38 states and therefore was never written into the constitution. However, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission passed acts to help eliminate instances of discrimination in the workplace based upon sex, race, religion, or marital status. The history of female empowerment is somewhat rocky, but it is filled with many triumphs. Women have come a long way on the road to equal opportunity, but there is still progress to be made in regards to the wage gap and the overall social status of women in the professional world. At the 10th annual Pennsylvania Conference on Women, Hillary Clinton addressed these concerns in her speech: “Although we weren’t able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you, it’s got about 18 million cracks in it. . . And the light is shining through like never before.” Though these words contain a twinge of defeat, as Clinton did not receive enough support in the primary to become the Democratic nominee in 2008, they are hopeful. Her words not only encompass the struggles that women have overcome throughout history in order to gain rights and opportunities, but they are indicative of a bright and empowering future. 

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features | sex: power vs. play

DOUBLE WRITTEN BY CORIE WELCH

STANDARDS

ach time I awkwardly shifted in my paper gown, the crinkle echoed off the four walls of the compact exam room of my doctor’s office. After finishing typing information about my sleep schedule, my doctor broke the awkward silence, exclaiming, “Now onto your sexual health. Do you have a boyfriend?” “Nope,” I answered. She typed something into my chart and moved onto the next subject. Apparently, in order for me to be sexually active I needed to be in a relationship with someone. She completely bypassed over discussing anything concerning sex, even valuable and potentially life saving information, under the assumption that I would only engage in such activity if I was committed to one person. Realizing that perhaps my anger was undeserved, I asked fellow Clark students about their experiences. Almost every male I asked told me that they were simply asked if they were sexually active, not if they were in a relationship. Conversely, 80% of the women I sampled were first asked if they had a boyfriend before asked if they were sexually active, if at all. This striking evidence reveals that the legacy

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of female chastity persists even today. According to the social norms of the Middle Ages, the morning after the wedding night it was imperative to hang the sheets from the night before to verify that the bride was a virgin. This practice of hanging bloody sheets represented a sexual double standard advocating female chastity that has been seen all throughout the history of mankind. Judging men and women differently on their sexual exploits existed long before the middle ages, across distant geographic areas, and has continually reflected the notion that women should remain pure without extending the same expectation to men. In this global age, amidst vast technological and social movements, old traditions dating back to and before the fourteenth century seem to be mere memories, not realities, but even after three waves of feminism, why has the legacy of the bloody sheets not disappeared? It is impossible to deny the sexual revolution that has occurred in popular media outlets like television and film. Regardless of their opinion on the matter, people from generations before us verify that the outlook of sex in entertainment has liberalized significantly in modern times. While married couples used to sleep in separate beds in the 1960’s, characters on current series have significant amounts of

casual sex. Since sex has become less taboo it would appear as if the legacy of chastity and double standards for women has diminished. Sadly, this sexual revolution has further cemented the gap in standards. In modern culture women are trapped in a paradox. While mass media relentlessly depicts female bodies as overtly sexual, the societal undertone of chastity persists in the background. Everywhere we see the sexualization of women as well as the condemnation of loose sexual behavior. How do these two such conflicting attitudes coexist? Is it just the legacy of sexism and patriarchy that allows such attitudes to continue, even as society seems to shift? Maybe these attitudes are carried over in each generation but less and less so with each passing one? Regardless of how the world around us is changing, the majority of women I sampled were asked in regular doctors appointments if they were in a relationship as a way of inquiring about their sex lives, while men were simply given information about sex without questions about sex. This carries over the notion that women should stick to one partner, while men can have many. It is an unjust sexual double standard that reveals how far we have not come. 

sex: power vs. play | features

STIgma WRITTEN BY LAURA MATTHEW PHOTOGRAPHY BY LAURA MATTHEW

“A

re you clean?” When you’re first getting together with a new partner, chances are you’ve had this conversation. It’s a simple question, but an important one in the context of having safe (or safer) sex. Still, these three words say a lot about the way our society feels about STIs, or sexually transmitted infections—cleanliness implying that there is something inherently dirty about them. Unfortunately for most young people, especially college students, this is a dangerous attitude to have.

College is practically infamous for its hook-up culture. Young adults are sent out on their own for the first time and encouraged to explore this brand new world, often full of alcohol and/or drugs. Thrust into a new environment full of new people, most college students are at least somewhat curious and may be more adventurous sexually than they have previously been. Regardless of whether or not you choose to abstain, chances are you or someone you know has had some sort of

sexual encounter in college. The presence of this hook-up culture can often lead to unsafe sexual practices, which in turn makes it much easier for STIs to spread around college campuses.

the Center for Disease Control, gonorrhea and chlamydia are the most common STIs contracted by young adults (ages 15-24).

What are STIs?

For the most part, yes. Some of them, such as gonorrhea, chlamydia and syphilis can all be treated by certain doses of antibiotics. Some of them can be controlled—such as herpes. Although herpes has no cure, there are medications available to reduce outbreaks and prevent its spread. Similarly, there is no real cure for HPV, but there are treatments for its multiple complications. Medication is also available to con-

Sexually transmitted infections (or sexually transmitted diseases) are bacterial, viral and/or fungal infections that are spread primarily through sexual contact. These include gonorrhea, chlamydia, herpes, syphilis, HIV/AIDS, HPV (Human Papillomavirus) and some types of hepatitis--among others. According to

Are they treatable?

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features | sex: power vs. play

trol the symptoms of HIV/AIDS and help HIV positive individuals live longer. Still, other than those three infections, STIs can usually be treated. What the hell is with this stigma around STIs? There’s no way to deny the stigma around STIs. For most people, it’s a topic that they don’t feel comfortable talking about. A senior at Worcester State summed it up: “I feel like everyone generally feels the same about [STIs]—grossed out and totally afraid of getting them.” But this situation becomes cyclical: the discomfort towards talking about STIs leads to a lot of ignorance about them—which in turn leads to the fear and discomfort that’s leading people to not talk about them in the first place. Based on the facts, this is a dangerous place to be. As previously mentioned, gonorrhea and chlamydia are the most common STIs contracted by college students—and also two of the easiest to be treated. But if people are shamed into silence surrounding the topic of STIs, they may avoid getting tested or seeking treatment. Untreated, they may not

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even realize that they’re spreading these infections around. For that matter, they may feel ashamed to tell their current and/ or previous partners about their diagnosis. In the case of infections such as herpes that can only be controlled, the infected individual may feel so ashamed that they’ll not want to talk about it with their partner at all. There’s another way that this stigma can be dangerous—the association of STIs with promiscuity. Those who contract STIs, even if they can be treated, may encounter the shame follows them. It can lead to or aggravate abuse and domestic violence in relationships. “My ex-boyfriend was so mad when he found out that I had chlamydia,” a Clark junior reported. “He accused me of cheating so much that I started to believe I might have actually done it, even though I hadn’t.” In these situations, even an easily treated STI can become a highly traumatic event for an individual. How can I help erase the stigma? The most important way to erase the stigma around STIs is to communicate. Being open and honest with your partners will not only make the sex that you have safer,

but it will show your partners that you respect them. The more individuals that engage in honest communication about STIs, the less fear there will be around them. If you find yourself in a situation where you do contract an STI, it’s important to remember that your diagnosis does not make you dirty or gross—it makes you a human, with an immune system that’s trying to do its job. You should always get tested and seek treatment if you feel you may be at risk—not only will you be keeping yourself healthy and showing your own body respect, but you’ll be helping prevent the spread of STI’s to others. Ultimately, college is about new experiences; for many people those new experiences are sexual experiences, and that’s okay--as long as safe sex practices are being used. Common sense, and adequate protection are all parts of safe sex—but honest, open communication is key. It is essential to help prevent the spread of STIs and to really help eliminate the stigma around them. Plus, it is respectful—not only to your partner, but to yourself as well.

Source: CDC.gov

sex: power vs. play | features

Dead Friend PHOTOGRAPHY BY CATHERINE WALKER

These photos explore the nature of abuse, the emotion of dealing with trauma, and the conflict of hiding oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s true self. Post traumatic stress disorder is a common result of sexual violence. These images address PTSD and the embarrassed feelings that accompany it. Exploration of space and self convey the loss of identity that can occur when someone violates you. Empowering and confusing, the figure in the photograph is trying to make sense of uncontrollable flashbacks.

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stir it up

Ode to Flora WRITTEN BY SHANNON MAGRANE PHOTOGRAPHY BY SHANNON MAGRANE

rom the moment we open our eyes and see colorful wildflowers growing on the side of the street, to witnessing the beautiful springtime budding after a cold, dark winter, we are reminded over and over again of the enchantment of nature through the flora around us. Flowers have become the iconic Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, wedding day, senior prom night, get well soon musthave. For the more creative fans, floral design has become an art, recognized by Worcester Art Museum annually by “Flora in Winter,” where floral designers interpret pieces of the museum’s collection with flowers. Then there are landscape designers. From zen gardens to a roof-top oasis, there is no doubt that a fantastic design and well-kept garden lifts the spirit. Flora has a spectacular presence in history. We are still finding plant fossils that reveal a lifetime of information about the earth’s residents from ages ago, such as dinosaurs in the Cretaceous period. As the lowest on the food chain, plants, trees, and flowers are the originators of life on earth. Flora helps to sustain and enrich life of all living things. Similar to modern uses, flowers and herbs were the original perfume, paint, and pain reliever. Since the invention of distillation in the eleventh century, essential oils from plants have been used therapeutically and medicinally. French wounded soldiers from World War II used essential oils to sterilize wounds. One of

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stir it up

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â&#x20AC;&#x153;We are reminded over and over again of the enchantment of nature through the flora around us.â&#x20AC;?

my favorite essential oils, eucalyptus, has the power to decongest the respiratory system, soothe and prevent infections in wounds, and stimulate the mind when fatigue rolls in. After growing up with a florist as a mother and then spending a month in California with wildflower photographers, I have attained not only an aesthetic appreciation for flora but a deeper understanding of how these beautiful creatures help keep the ecosystem alive and flourishing. Perhaps most important is to study and learn more about the natural occurrence of plants and flowers. As humans with the power to uproot something and replant it wherever we want, it is tempting to take flora that appeals to us and move it so that we can see it whenever we want. This changes the delicate balance in the soil and can cause more endangerment than enjoyment. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not just replanting that threatens native species. It comes from travel, from the fragments of the woods in the west that you take back to the east coast on your boots. It takes studying, or a good native field guide, to identify the native species versus the invasive ones.

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But once you have the knowledge, pulling the bad and planting the good contributes to sustaining life around you. A great way to pay tribute and learn more about flora species is to visit greenhouses and botanical gardens. Maybe itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s an outing you have never thought about, but there really is nothing better than a tropical greenhouse on a cold, dark, rainy day. Around central Massachusetts you have some incredible options. Many are associated with universities so there are opportunities to learn as well. Wellesley has the Alexandra Botanical Garden for nicer weather and the Margaret C.

Ferguson Greenhouses for any time of the year. The list goes on: Arnold Arboretum of Harvard (Jamaica Plain), Botanic Garden of Smith College (Northampton), The Butterfly Place (Westford), Codman House Gardens (Lincoln), House of Seven Gables (Salem), Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston). Step into another world. Awe in the beauty of nature. Let the aromas and colors take you to a place of relaxation and holistic bliss. ď Ž

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the rise & fall of the

HIPSTER WRITTEN BY CATHERINE WALKER PHOTOGRAPHY BY HUNTER HOYSRADT

What is a hipster? A hipster is defined as someone who follows the latest trends and fashions, but I think the term has come to mean more than that. Being a hipster has become a trend, a colloquial term that is thrown around. Artist Hunter took on the challenge of the capturing the Clark hipster, but also questioning what being a hipster really means. Looking around our campus, it would seem as if Clark University is a very liberal hip place to be, filled with toy cameras, funky glasses, plants, and environmentally friendly toilets. While highlighting a stereotypical hipster, these images go further than just poking fun at our campus. They delve into the nature of mainstream culture, where being trendy has become the trend itself.

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SHOULD THEY OR SHOULDN’T THEY: Impressions of Scotland’s Upcoming Vote for Independence WRITTEN BY MATT NEWBERG

they have come to Scotland to learn), and arrived very late last night on a series of buses that pulled up into the courtyard parking lot in front of the student apartments. There is a small raised platform with three adults in the corner of the room and, at this moment, all attention is directed toward it. The man currently speaking had been preceded by an old man in a suit who described at length the several academic achievements Stirling University has achieved in the past decade. Before him there was a middle aged woman, the subject of whose equally lengthy speech could not accurately be determined due to her inability to project her voice or speak closely into the microphone.

t is February twelfth, my fifth day in Stirling, Scotland. I am standing in a room which, if I had to compare to a rooms on Clark’s campus, would be a mix of Razzo Hall and Traina Lobby . It has a light colored wooden floor and thick white columns. I am holding a glass of sour red wine along with approximately a hundred and fifty other international students. About half of these students are Japanese, speak little English (presumably

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The current man is holding a sword, wearing a kilt, and speaking (at length, of course) about the referendum. For those who don’t know, in September of this year Scotland will have a vote on whether or not the country will declare independence from the United Kingdom. The man is saying, “You’re going to hear a lot of things while you’re here. But there’s a lot of misinformation going about. So ask questions. Do your research. Don’t necessarily believe everything you hear about this vote.” The tone is clearly pro-referendum, which, noting the kilt and sword, makes sense. But I feel bad for the Japanese students,

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clearly jetlagged and exhausted, most not drinking wine and opting instead for either water or orange juice (the only non-alcoholic beverages provided). That same night, after three glasses of wine at the international reception thingy, I auditioned for Stirling University Drama Society’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The first time I had auditioned for a play since high school. I received a callback the next day and ended up cast as Snug the joiner, a member of the amateur acting troupe that performs the play within the play in the last scene of the play. Five-ish lines, but loads of fun—plus, I get to roar onstage. This is not necessarily directly related to the content of this article, but since many of the interactions/ conversations I will mention over the course of this article involve the numerous people I’ve gotten to know through my participation in the Drama Society. So I figured I’ll just bring it up here and get it out of the way especially since the whole thing began right after the kilt guy’s speech, which is extremely relevant and probably crucial to the inception of this article in the first place. There. My professor for the course “Writing and History: Scotland and Empire,”—a course that looks at the relationship between Scotland and the British Empire through the lens of poetry, novels, and plays written from 1707 (the year Scotland became part of the UK) to present day— is American. She has an American accent and hails from New Mexico but she has lived in Scotland for sixteen years. On the first day of the one-hour discussion section that compliments her lectures, she has everyone say their names and where they are from along with the always-dreaded addendum: “and something interesting about yourself.” Her interesting fact is that she tries to spend as much time as possible on the Isle of Skye. But something becomes very evidently clear during this first day of class: eighty percent of the students in this discussion seminar are from America or Canada, with

there being only one or two actual Scottish people enrolled in this particular session. The professor tells that class that she has another discussion seminar right before this one that is made up of all Scottish students and that she’s surprised it worked out this way. She says, “you’ve all come to Scotland at a very historic time, with the referendum just around the corner. You’ll find a lot of the material we read in this class highly relevant to many of the issues people are discussing.” As I’m packing away my things at the end of the seminar I overhear one of the Scottish students discussing the vote with the professor. “Yeah. No one seems to really talk about it candidly. It’s not something people ask each other.” Despite only being in Scotland for two and half weeks, I disagree with half of this statement. It’s true that most people will not outrightly ask one another how they’re voting, but if asked everyone has a prepared stance. A combination of words and sentences that shows that the subject has been thought about and discussed at length. Here’s the thing: every time I have heard the referendum mentioned (aside from that first day of English class with the professor and international student reception with the kilted guy with the sword) alcohol has been involved (technically, alcohol was

served at the reception where the sword guy spoke, but it wasn’t like he was inciting any sort of meaningful dialogue within the audience. He was talking at us. So it doesn’t count). Think of it this way: the referendum is a lit match. If you drop it on a sober conversation, it’ll get quashed out. But if you douse the conversation in a little, or a moderate amount, or a fuckton, of alcohol, it’ll catch. And spread. One group will overhear another group talking about the referendum and then they’ll start discussing it and another group will hear that and join in and so on. But hardly anyone, even in drunken misjudgment, will light that match. It would be fair to say that within this analogy I could be considered a pyromaniac, walking around with a book of matches in my pocket waiting for the opportune moment to strike one and watch the fire glow. Not out of antagonism, but fascination. The majority of the people I’ve talked to are pro-independence. It seems to be a 65/35 split with 5 percent of each side describing themselves as being “on the fence, but leaning toward x.” The majority of non-Scottish people I’ve talked to, be they English, Canadian or American, are against independence. The English people I’ve spoken to mostly feel that if Scotland leaves the UK they would take a large portion of the liberal votes, which would

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make things worse for England and keep the Tories (the British conservative party, equitable to the American Republicans) in power. To which pro-independence Scots will often respond: “not our problem.” Most of the other factors contributing to anti-independence arguments deal with complicated logistics and difficulties that a newly independent Scotland would face. These issues include things like currency, Scotland would most likely not be permitted to use the British pound, and EU Membership, which requires something like fifteen years of independent existence before it considers a country’s application. But as a certain high-ranking member of the Stirling University Drama Society pointed out to me one night after the society’s pub crawl event, the media skews these issues and gives them a lot more coverage than the potential benefits of voting yes. On the pro-independence side, I’ve heard a multitude of arguments. One of the most popular involves British nuclear weapons being kept on Scottish soil, which most Scottish people are against. There’s also the issue of British Parliament attempting to privatize the national healthcare system. I don’t know exactly what the British healthcare system is like now, but I do know that about a week after registering with the on-campus physician I received a letter in the mail informing me that I now had healthcare in the UK. It was that

easy. As part of the UK, Scotland has really great public healthcare, but that is likely to change within the coming years. Historically, Scottish culture has always been rather socialist. For much of its history Scotland was divided into clans. Each clan leader would own a large portion of land and let people build houses and farm on it. The clan leader would then collect a small amount of rent from each clan member which was stored up and brought out during hard times. The clan leaders largely did not exploit this system and, aside from service in the clan’s militia, little else was required of clansmen. While English Culture developed to be a more commercial capitalist free-market friendly nation, Scottish clans were an active force in the Scottish Highlands all the way up to the mid eighteenth century. They dissipated in the anti-Scottish campaign launched shortly after the brutal defeat of Bonnie Prince Charlie’s forces at Culloden. The English then banned dressing in plaid kilts, playing bagpipes, and speaking Gaelic languages. “It might be shite, but at least it’ll be our shite.” One of my friends from the drama club says to me at the pub one night. He tells me that he’s never voted, but he’s going to vote for independence in September and probably will never vote again afterwards. Others have expressed similar opinions, not necessarily believing

that Scotland will be any better off as an independent nation but simply feeling it’s “worth the try” or that “anything is better than what we have now.” These reasons may not be as politically defensible, but they are equally valid and understandable. Nory Hope is 43 year old former accounts manager for Coca Cola. “If I had stuck around for a couple more years, I would’ve been running the place,” he assures me, “but I couldn’t stand it.” He was making good money as was his wife, who worked an equally lucrative and equally soul-crushing position at a bank. Two years ago Nory and his wife left their jobs and started Heartland Tours, in which Nory drives up to sixteen University Students around the Highlands for three days in a white van. At another one of the several international students’ orientations, he did a presentation pitching the trip to us while wearing kilt, but when he picks us up at the University Center at 8AM on a Saturday Morning he is in a sweatshirt and jeans. Nory feels less a tour guide and more like a cool older friend. He’s into Breaking Bad and listens to a ton of good music. He is one of the few adults I’ve met who I’ve managed to be completely blunt with. “This is a great time to be in Stirling,” he tells us, “There’s a lot going on right now.” “You mean like the referendum?” one of us asks. “No! Well, yes” he replies, “But I was talking about all the great concerts and festivals and activities that’ll be happening over the next couple months.” The thing that gets me most about the Scottish Highlands is the sheer quantity of unmessed-with land. On my trip I saw a multitude of beautiful landscapes of snow capped mountains and rolling hills and cliffs. Much of the time you can see for miles and miles without even spotting as much as a small farmhouse. I actually hate writing about nature because no amount of words can really ever equate

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to actually being there. The point is that there is no shortage of beauty in the Scottish landscape. On Monday night as we’re nearing Stirling University’s campus and the end of the trip, I’m sitting shotgun at the front left side of the bus next to Nory. He asks us through the bus’ PA if we want to hear one more story. Those who haven’t passed out asleep answer in the affirmative and Nory begins to describe in great detail William Wallace’s victory over the government troops in the Battle of Stirling Bridge, which took place in 1297. Stirling loves William Wallace. There’s a ton of stuff named after him here: pubs, banks, the local high school, and of course the gigantic phallic Wallace Monument which looks over the city of Stirling and beyond. After Braveheart came out in ’95 there was a renewed interest in Wallace and a statue was commissioned to be placed in the ground lobby area of the Wallace Monument. The statue ended up being the subject of much controversy because of its striking resemblance to Mel Gibson. After a couple years of protest it was eventually removed. But during another part of the tour Nory told me that while the statue was still standing, he had gone with his son and started talking to one of the guys who worked there about the statue. He talked at length about how it was extremely disrespectful and an abomination and so on. And the guy ended up being the person who sculpted the statue. Woops. So Nory’s talking about the Battle of Stirling Bridge but he digresses and starts talking about the referendum. First over the PA and eventually just with me. He says that the Scottish people have another chance to claim independence this September, not by the sword but by the democratic electoral process. Nory’s very pro-independence and cites many of the reasons I described earlier: nukes, healthcare, etc. “Having lived through Margaret Thatcher who, in my opinion, raped this

country, I thought we would never have a conservative government ever again. But here we are.” he says. He also says that the English and Scottish have always been historically separate and that the Scottish people are a very proud people. He believes that they’ve always really been two different countries. Nory disagrees with my assessment that people don’t really discuss their opinions on the matter unless aided by some alcoholic catalyst. He says that he and his friends and family are constantly debating about it. Which means maybe what I’ve experienced is skewed because I’ve only been in contact with college students. Nory says he’ll definitely be voting “yes” in September. He’s not overly confident that it will pass, he says there’s about a fifty-fifty shot, but he’s convinced that if it doesn’t happen this time, it’ll definitely happen the next time. When will there be a next time? Well, what many people don’t know is that this is actually the second time the Scottish people are going to the polls to vote for independence. The first was back in 1979 and technically the Scottish people did vote for independence. But there was an amendment put into the bill last-minute which stated that in order for it to pass it needed forty percent of the total electorate rather than a simple popular vote majority, which meant that people who didn’t vote were counted as votes against indepen-

dence. That isn’t the case with this new vote in September. I’ve been here for a month and I’ve heard a decent amount of people talk about this issue. This piece is the summation of all those experiences and opinions. Think of it less as a realist sketch outlining every detail and more of an impressionist painting with broad strokes creating a blurry representation. I’ve spent a lot of this article writing about things that maybe I don’t know a lot about or maybe aren’t really my business. But if you want my opinion, which many Scottish people actually do, (I’ve had the referendum question turned around on me numerous times, “well what would you vote?”) and although I haven’t exactly prepared my pre-packaged position, each time I am asked I feel more confident in my answer. I think independence is worth a shot. All of the reasons I’ve heard supporting the pro-independence stance ring true, but none resonate individually with me. It is more that they harmonize together to create a tone that evokes something like hopefulness. Independence is something new, exciting, perhaps dangerous but potentially rewarding. And the Scottish people certainly do have some really good reasons for wanting to separate from the UK, which makes the cause even more appealing to get behind. 

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Look How Far We’ve Come

TOS SENIORS RECREATE FIRST YEAR PHO WRITTEN BY ALISON RUSSO

he Class of 2014 has been through a lot and, finally, our career at Clark University is about to come to a close. Who could have guessed, as freshmen, all that we would accomplish in our time here at Clark? We have given ourselves and those around us countless reasons to be proud. 2010 may seem like eons ago, but will we always remember our days as fledgling college students as the beginning of a definitive and wonderful time in our lives. Although we may be amazed to see how much we’ve all changed throughout the past four years, it is equally wonderful to see that some things—especially the great times we have together—never will. Now, we have recreated some of our favorite moments from freshman year so that we may see exactly how far we’ve come. We now know all of the

THEN

heartbreak, happiness, late nights, laughs, tears, and triumphs that separate the whippersnappers in the original photos from our current selves. And do you know what? We’re still standing, we’re still smiling, and we’re still friends.

THEN

NOW

THEN

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NOW

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THEN

NOW

THEN

NOW

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What is Your

Last Photo

WRITTEN BY JAEDRA CIBELLI // PHOTOGRAPHY BY PAUL PUIIA

Inspired by Ivan Cash’s interactive art and filmography project “Last Photo,” Paul and I went around Clark University and asked a variety of Clarkies what the last photo in their phone is and the story behind it. The responses we received from our participants were not only unique but also hysterical and totally relatable.

DOORS LOCKED “I was at my friend’s movie night last night and one of our friends went out for a smoke and then came back in and did something to the door. When I went to leave the door was locked and that never happens. So I went and tried to open the door and couldn’t open the door! So my friend resorted to try to take the door knob off of the door”

CAF COOKIES “My last photo is of six cookies I stole from the caf. They are M&M cookies”

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MAILROOM SELFIE “Well, I was sitting here in the mailroom anticipating nothing. I thought, ‘why not take a picture of myself?’ So I was enthused when you came to ask me what my last photo was”

SEX TOY PARTY “I went to a sex toy party on Saturday night and they had a demonstra-

tion. I took a picture because I thought it was really funny”

DOMINOS PIZZA “There was a 50% discount on Dominos for three or four days and I had ordered Dominos every single day for those three or four days. My friend Sarah’s friends from Seattle came last night and I forgot to feed her! So I was like, ‘I can make food,’ but she wanted Dominos and I just couldn’t eat anymore pizza! We went back and forth of what we wanted to eat and then in the end we got Dominos and ordered an extra-large fiery hot Hawaiian and a large extravaganza. Then the room smelled like feet and pizza”

LOGIC HOMEWORK “I was helping somebody out with the logic homework which was ridiculous and difficult, and I sent them a copy of how to do it”

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DRAGON DINOSAUR HORSE “My friends and I decided to take turns drawing on to this picture with a marker at a party because we were bored, and this is what came out.”

RICHARD ALLEY “This is a picture of Richard Alley in front of a green screen of an iceberg and a rainbow. He is a leading geologist and climatologist and so then he ended his lecture in Tilton Hall standing in front of the iceberg and rainbow and he was like ‘I believe in Icebergs” and that was his ending statement”

MORNING AFTER PROM “This is a picture of my friend *Franya. She wore a wig in her hair for Clark Prom and I had to pick her up from somebody’s house the next morning. I took a picture of her with the wig in her hand and wearing her dress from the night before”

RANDO SANDWICH “So my last picture was taken for Rando, which is this app that lets you send random pictures to random places and you get random picture in return. This is just of my sandwich that I ate, and it was a good sandwich so I was like ‘I’ll take a picture of it’

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IN THE

PALM of

Your Hand WRITTEN AND PAINTED BY LAURA MATTHEW & ROSE GALLOGLY PHOTOGRAPHY BY LAURA MATTHEW

In a society that is growing more and more technological, humans are frequently finding themselves estranged from nature. More often than not, we speak of having to go to nature without realizing that nature exists within and around us. Yet the separation between humans and nature has always been an artificial one. Just as a flower struggles to grow between the cracks in city streets, we are inherently part of nature and it is inherently part of us. This project explores that relationship. There is a certain power in seeing a landscape in the palm of oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hand or leaves growing from arms to fingertips. It challenges us to see the intrinsic connection we have with nature and to appreciate its beauty. In painting these images we explored our own connection to nature, and in capturing them we reified this connection for the rest of the world.

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