Emerson College’s student newspaper since 1947 • berkeleybeacon.com
Thursday, Feb. 4, 2021 • Volume 74, Issue 15
@berkeleybeacon // @beaconupdate
Hot Pockets, Popcorn, and Pints The Tam weathers the pandemic by offering a limited menu
Dana Gerber Beacon Staff The Tam, a venerable Tremont Street dive bar, is best-known amongst Emerson students for its potent drinks. But this summer, it was a menu of turkey sandwiches, Hot Pockets, and popcorn that enabled their quintessential green doors to once again welcome patrons last July. Massachusetts’s phased reopening does not allow bars to reopen until Phase Four; restaurants, however, could reopen in Phase Two, a goalpost reached in late June. This led many Boston businesses to apply for a food establishment license and start serving up grub made on the premises. During a shift in management in 2018, The Tam—which has been open since the 1940s—received a food establishment license, according to data from the city of Boston. It wasn’t until the Theatre District haunt reopened last summer after shuttering in March due to the pandemic that they put the license to use beyond basic vending machine snacks. “I think the popcorn was pretty popular, honestly,” alumna Kate Foultz ‘20, a barback and bouncer for The Tam until August, said. “I’d always get people be like, ‘Oh, can I actually have another bag of popcorn?’” Although the storied watering hole now nourishes its patrons, the pandemic has forced a goodbye to many of their other services and traditions. Bar seating is cut up by plexiglass, the Tuesday trivia nights are abandoned, and the usual throngs of college students dancing to ’80s music
The glow of the green neon sign outside The Tam on Tremont Street. Alec Klusza / Beacon Staff and putting away cheap shots are now limited to about a 25-person capacity, according to Lyn Grande, a bartender at The Tam. The statewide dining curfew established on Nov. 6 forced the bar to close at 9:30 p.m. for nearly three months. Since the Jan. 25 lift on the curfew, they are now back to their late-night hours of closing at 2 a.m. Thursday through Saturday, and 1 a.m. every other night. “Thursday, Friday, and Saturday,
SOPHIE, a trailblazer in the world of pop music Josh Sokol Beacon Staff SOPHIE, a Grammy-nominated electronic-pop producer and artist who revolutionized the genre of hyperpop, died on Saturday in Athens, Greece. At 34 years old, she was known for her reinvigoration of the pop genre and producing some of the most unique and new-age sounds in modern music. Transgressive Records, SOPHIE’s management, put out a statement breaking the news of the artist’s death on Saturday stating, “True to her spirituality she had climbed up to watch the full moon and accidentally slipped and fell.” The producer and songwriter
INSIDE THIS EDITION A tale of two quarantines Pg. 2 Editorial: Local businesses need our support Pg. 4 Wall Street’s contempt for the “free” market Pg. 5 Norman Lear awarded Carol Burnett Award Pg. 6 ECAPS helps student athletes’ mental health Pg. 8
was not only known for her revolutionary use of sound in her own music, but also for producing some of the most renowned songs of the modern era, namely Charli XCX’s “Vroom Vroom,” Vince Staples’ “Yeah Right” and a production appearance on Lady Gaga’s “Chromatica,” released in 2020. To see an artist who identified openly as a trans woman resonated deeply with LGBTQ+ audiences, myself included. Owning your identity and using that to act as an idol for those who may feel lost or who feel they do not have proper representation is a powerful and essential part of SOPHIE’s legacy—one that should not be forgotten. In her song “Immaterial,” the lyrics, “You could be me and I could be you / Always the same and never the same,” gave the listener a sense of infinity. She told us that we can be whatever is true to ourselves, always changing and ever fluid. Sophie Xeon, SOPHIE, was born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1986. She was raised listening to her father’s cassettes, attending raves and regularly making music throughout her teenage years. Her career started initially in a band called Motherland, and in 2011, she created the score for a short film titled “Mr/Mrs.” SOPHIE, Pg. 6
we usually had a line all the way down the street,” Grande, who has worked at The Tam for 16 years, said in an interview with The Beacon. “It’s gone from feast to famine.” Foultz said she adopted more hostess duties once the bar reopened, ushering patrons in to safely seat them at proper distances. This, with the required mask-wearing and constant sanitizing, changed the atmosphere of the stomping ground. “It definitely was weird, in terms
of just having such less people in The Tam,” she said. “When I’ve talked to the bartenders and stuff in the past few months, they’ve been like, ‘The Emerson kids do not come in here anymore.’ Or if they do, it’ll be obviously a much smaller group.” Emerson students, Grande said, now come in “dribs and drabs.” Since the crowds—once made up of theatregoers, club hoppers, and sports fans— are now far more modest, they’ve had to cut back on workers’ shifts.
Though the flocks are smaller, many Emerson students and alumni still regard the neon “Michelob” and “Budweiser” signs as the glow of a safe haven. Going to the bar, a stone’s throw from Emerson’s stretch of Boylston Street dorms, is a “rite of passage” for students, said Eleanor Hilty, a ’20 alumna. “Before I was even of age to go, I had heard the tales of The Tam from older students and walked past and seen the line and everything and understood that it was a bit of an Emerson hot spot,” she said. Hilty hasn’t been to The Tam, which she termed “a weird little outcasts club,” since the onset of the pandemic. Despite this, she found a way to bring some of the bar’s panache to her home in Walpole, Massachusetts over the summer. “A bunch of my friends, we all got on a Zoom call and changed our background to the stock picture of The Tam that’s on their Google page, and we had a virtual Tam,” she said. “We all made drinks a little bit too strong.” For others, the bar was a social mecca. Junior Fabiana Muci said going to The Tam for a whiskey sour was a weekly ritual. The jam-packed space, she said, lent itself to mingling. “The reason why I made so many friends last year was because of the Tam,” Muci said. “It was [often] people I had class with that I would just never talk to, but then when I would see them at the Tam I’d be like, ‘Oh, you have class with me, so we should talk.’” Tam, Pg. 8
Pelton’s successor to be named by end of academic year Dana Gerber, Frankie Rowley Beacon Staff
With just under four months until current President M. Lee Pelton is slated to step down to head the Boston Foundation, Emersonaims to find his successor by the end of the academic year with the help of Storbeck Search, an executive search firm that specializes in leadership hiring for education and nonprofits. The board of trustees’ Presidential Search Committee, made up of 19 college community members— including five board of trustees members, four professors, and two students—will begin meeting soon to scout the college’s 13th President. More details about the search process are expected in the following weeks, and input from members of the Emerson community— including students, faculty, and staff—will be included throughout the search. The next update is expected in mid- to late-February, according to a Jan. 29 email from Michael MacWade, chair of the Presidential Search Committee, and Jeffrey Greenhawt, chair of the board of trustees. The timeline of the search may complicate the adjustment period for the new President. Pelton’s predecessor, Jaqueline Liebergott, announced in December of 2009 she would be stepping down at the end of the 2010-11 academic year. Pelton was announced as the successor in September of 2010 following an intensive national search—also spearheaded by Storbeck. The 12th President of Emerson and the first Black person to hold the position, Pelton did not assume office until July of 2011,
President M. Lee Pelton after his inaugural speech in 2012. / Beacon Archives following an eight-month transition period. Sofiya Cabalquinto, associate vice president of communications and marketing, declined to comment on the timeline of hiring Pelton’s successor. “The college will share more information about the search process with the Emerson community, including a sense of the timeline, as soon as that becomes available,” Cabalquinto wrote in an emailed statement to The Beacon. Given the stated timeframe of the hiring process, if Pelton’s successor is hired at the end of the academic year, there will likely be no transition period. Instead, the 13th president will take the helm of the college as it navigates reopening for the fall 2021 term— likely still amid the COVID-19 pandemic and vaccine distribution. The hastened hiring process raises the possibility of the college appointing an interim pres-
ident until a permanent replacement is found. Cabalquinto declined to comment on whether or not Emerson will appoint an interim president. Liebergott served as interim president beginning in 1992 before fully assuming the role in 1993. Pelton, Pg. 2
113
positive COVID-19 tests
.18%
positivity rate *Accumulated from 2020-2021 school year