October 26, 2017

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THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE IS ON SOCIAL MEDIA

the California Aggie

SERVING THE UC DAVIS CAMPUS AND COMMUNITY SINCE 1915

THEAGGIE.ORG

VOLUME 136, ISSUE 5 | THURSDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2017

MACLEAN HARTFORD / AGGIE

CAITLYN SAMPLEY / AGGIE

Silo Review:

Missing Starbucks or Loving Peets? Student reviews of Silo changes and renovations, fast food chains vs. local chains, study spaces BY SAHI T I V E M UL A features@theaggie.org

Campus has been undergoing various constructions and renovations recently, from the opening of the Memorial Union last spring to the current Activities and Recreation Center renovations to the recently renovated Silo and South Silo. Major changes to the Silo include swapping out Starbucks for Peet’s Coffee and replacing all fast food chains owned by Sodexo, including Taco Bell, Carl’s Jr. and Pizza Hut, with food options run by UC Davis Dining Services, such as Spokes, a burger joint, and Crepe Bistro. In addition, the market area that sold salads, bagels, yogurt and other to-go products is now being housed separately in the South Silo. Kristina Ivanova, a second-year biochemistry and molecular biology double major, enjoys the new space created by the renovations. “I really love all the new space,” Ivanova said. “It used to be jampacked in here, so I love that there’s more space to breathe and walk around.” Tessa Hansen-Smith, a second-year psychology major, appreciates the trade-out of fast food chains and their calorie-filled meals. “I like that it’s not chain, fast-food restaurants anymore because [those] just forced you to gain fifteen pounds,” Smith said. “I do

kind of miss Starbucks though. Peet’s is okay, but I definitely like Starbucks a lot more.” On the contrary, Anna Rita Moukarzel, a second-year mechanical engineering major, put in a good word for Peet’s. “I come to the Silo a lot because most of my classes are nearby,” Moukarzel said. “I really miss Taco Bell because it was my before-class food. [But] I kind of like Peet’s more so I’m not really complaining.” Adding more points to team Starbucks, Taruna Neelakantan, a second-year pharmaceutical chemistry major, regrets its loss and the gold card rewards program that she used to benefit from. “I have mixed feelings about the renovations in terms of Starbucks and Peet’s,” Neelakantan said. “I like Starbucks because I can use my gold card and get rewards to use for free drinks later, so I’m not a huge fan of [the switch] — but maybe with time.” Anaiah Ramirez, a first-year English major, shared her fresh perspective on the Silo, without having seen the older version of it. “I really like how there’s different varieties of food,” Ramirez said. “You have halal food and you have American fast food, and then you get to have desserts [at the] Crepe Bistro, [or even] something a little bit more healthier like a smoothie.” As a freshman living in the dorms, Ramirez was concerned about SILO on 9

LGBTQIA Resource Center hosts National Coming Out Day event

RAUL MORALES / AGGIE

UC Davis graduate delivers keynote address followed by student open mic BY AA RO N L I SS campus@theaggie.org

National Coming Out Day on Oct. 11 was celebrated by the UC Davis LGBTQIA Resource Center with an open mic night for students to express their coming out experiences. Before the student open mic commenced, UC Davis alum Bee Curiel delivered insight into their own experiences and shared their poetry. As the center stated in its Facebook post, the event was intended to “respect and honor individuals with varying degrees of ‘out-ness.’” Curiel, who identifies as a “first generation, non-binary, fat, queer UC Davis alum,” talked about being a community coordinator for the Center while at UC Davis. “I was lucky that my job at UC Davis fostered queerness,” Curiel said. “School was kind of my escape.” In a smaller room within the Student Community Center, Curiel told the audience of about 50 that they were outed to their parents at age 18 by other parents. Coming from a Catholic and Mexican family, Curiel explained how their parents did not provide the healthiest forms of support.

Curiel also spoke about how varying situational outness is a reality for many people. According to Curiel, coming out can often cause problems based on an individual’s personal situation — identifying as LGBTQIA can still be unsafe and can change how they are viewed by others in their everyday environments. In reference to their own personal experience in their workplace, Curiel said they “want to work somewhere where [they’re] valued.” Angelo Quiroz, a third-year double major in gender, sexuality and women’s studies and psychology as well as a community coordinator for the center, introduced Curiel and coordinated the open mic presenters. The event went from 7:30 to about 9:30 p.m. When asked, Quiroz talked about the importance of National Coming Out Day. ”I think it’s really powerful for our community to come together, especially when coming out is a privilege,” Angelo said. “[Coming out] can lead to abuse, it can lead to murder — it isn’t always safe for everyone. Days like this are really important because it allows us to declare our identities and existence, because they’re often erased by institutions and people in power.”

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Here for the Laughs: Comedy as Art Davis comedians straddle border between funny, offensive BY CAR OLI NE R UTTEN arts@theaggie.org

Fourth-year history major Roman Spinale had his first standup comedy show when he was in fourth grade. Well, at least a version of such. “I remember there was a substitute teacher, and I was talking in class trying to make my friends laugh, so she told me if I was quiet for the rest of class she would let me come up for a couple minutes to make jokes,” Spinale said. “[I] went up for two minutes, killed it. Now I guess I’m doing the same thing at Davis.” Aspiring student comedians with humble beginnings may find themselves in a variety of places, including UC Davis. Comedy is indeed not exclusive to the eager audience of elementary peers and a frustrated substitute teacher. “We really had to create that community on campus from the ground up; there are not a lot of places for comedians to perform in Davis,” said Rebeca Nava-McClellan, a third-year communication major. “I helped start the stand-up club my freshman year to make such a community.” The fact that Davis is not a major comedy-hub can limit the options for those who want to pursue comedy. “It is hard for people to commit to comedy in general,” NavaMcClellan said. “It is a lot of collaboration, it is a lot of working with people with a lot of different styles and you won’t often have the same perspective. It is hard to follow through with comedy as a career — you have to be really strong-headed to do so. So if you’re just having fun and not intending on pursuing it further, teams and clubs will eventually dissolve on their own.” Comedic minds nonetheless find themselves congregating on campus, so the art of comedy finds itself relevant. Yet something as involuntary as a laugh can be difficult to explain; good comedy is ambiguous and often misunderstood as an art form. “I have known people who think that comics don’t think out what they are going to say,” said continuing lecturer Karma Waltonen, who teaches a first-year seminar on stand-up comedy. “Unless that person is doing crowd-work, which is a very specific subset of comedy, of course they have thought about it. Some people can get really upset when they find something like this out about comedy — but you don’t get mad about a pianist reading notes while they play. I think that comedy, especially conversational-style stand-up artists, make it seem like they are just talking to you. There is a special art to comedy as well.” Comedy can be a very personal experience for the audience and often equally as much for the performing comedian. For Waltonen, the success of a comedian — either that night at a club or as a whole — is largely based on the audience. The comedian stands on a tightrope, as there is an instant reaction from the audience with little time to analyze the success of their own material. The audience holds a lot of power in their reaction. “When I show stand-up to my students, they tend to judge if they liked a comedian more based on how they related to the comedian and what their material is about,” Waltonen said. “But they are judging relatability on art, and that doesn’t necessarily make it good or bad. People often forget that it is art.” In the same vein, however, comedians can make a perfectly successful career by not catering their work to the audience’s desires. “There are some comedians known as comedian’s comedians, who are getting more respect from the people in their field than they are getting recognized by audiences,” Waltonen said. “The comedians can see that they are doing something really new and different and brave, and the audience is like, ‘They are weird.’” Subjectivity thus comes into the mix; there is no formula for the perfect comedian. The comedian must then decide whether to follow their intuition or the judgement of the audience. This issue is not reserved for only comedians with a different performance style. The audience’s concern with subjectivity — a COMEDIANS on 9


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October 26, 2017 by The California Aggie - Issuu