T H E U N D E RG R A D UAT E M AG A Z I N E O F C O LU M B I A U N I V E R S I T Y, E S T. 1 8 9 0
THE BLUE AND WHITE Vol. XXII No. III
April 2016
Changing the Conversation Campus discourse on Israel / Palestine
Cognitive Dissonance Military veterans studying MESAAS Also Ins
ide:
Exploring Earl
Hall, St. John the Divine’s Great
Organ
CHANNING PREND, CC ’17, Editor in Chief NIA BROWN, CC ’17, Managing Editor ANDREW LOSO, CC ’19, Publisher VIRGINIA FU, CC ’17, Senior Editor BEN SCHNEIDER, CC ’17, Senior Editor YASEMIN AKÇAGÜNER, BC ’17, Senior Editor CAROLINE HURLEY, CC ’19, Senior Editor ALEX SWANSON, CC ’18, Senior Editor AARON SU, CC ’19, Layout Editor ALEXA ECONOMACOS, CC ’18, Senior Illustrator SEAN AUGUSTINE-OBI, CC ’16, Creative Consultant DANIEL STONE, CC ’16, Editor Emeritus HALLIE NELL SWANSON, CC ’16, Editor Emeritus ZANE BHANSALI, CC ’16, Illustrator Emeritus Staff Writers MABEL TAYLOR, BC ’18 NICK KENSINGER, CC ’18 VIRGINIA AMBELIOTIS, BC ’19 NIKHIL DOMINIC, CC ’18 Contributors ELENA BURGER BC, ’18 MARIAM ELNOZAHY, BC ’16 CATHERINE PEIHAN SONG CC ’19 KUNAL JASTY, SEAS ’16 IRINA TEVELEVA, CC ’17 JOSEPH MILHOLLAND, CC ’17 LUCY JAKUB, CC ’17 GENEVA HUTCHESON, BC ’17 MIYA LEE, CC ’18 EMMA BOGLER, CC ’17 DANIEL SINGER, CC ’17 IAN TRUEGER, CC ’16 SOMMER OMAR, CC ’16
Staff Illustrators NATHANIEL JAMESON, CC ’18 RACHEL CHIN, CC ’18 Artists DARYA FRAIMAN, GS ’16 WALLACE KALKIN, BC ’18 ANNE SCOTTI, CC ’16 ALEX SWANSON, CC ’18 JOANNA ZOU, CC ’18 NATHANIEL JAMESON, CC ’18 JACK PIERSON, CC ’19 LEILA MGALOBLISHVILI, CC ’16 SARAH GALE, CC ’18 LANI ALLEN, CC ’18 Social Media Coordinator AUBRI JUHASZ, BC ’18
THE BLUE AND WHITE Vol. XXII
FAMAM EXTENDIMUS FACTIS
No. III
Columns
4 Blue Book 6 Blue Notes 8 Campus Characters 12 Verily Veritas 18 M easure for Measure 30 Digitalia Columbiana 31 Campus G ossip
Sommer Omar & Hallie Swanson
Channing Prend
Yasemin Akcaguner
Ian Trueger
Virginia Ambeliotis
Ben Schneider
theblueandwhite.org
f
Features 10 At Two Swords’ Length: A re We G oing to Room Together? Our monthly prose and cons
13 Vital Organ Learning about St. John the Divine’s noteworthy instrument 14 Defining the Discourse A look at how campus is talking about Israel / Palestine 20 On Duty Talking to MESAAS majors who served overseas 22 K eeping the Faith A brief history of Earl Hall 23 A Zealot and a Sybarite A conversation with Sean Wilsey
cover :
“Low Stock Exchange” by Alexa Economacos
BLUE BOOK
a
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
My response to seeing admitted students at Days on Campus depends largely on my mood. Sometimes I feel like I could wax endlessly about the virtues of the Core and all but thrust a copy of the Iliad into their hands. Other times I have the urge to grasp their shoulders and shake them while shouting, “pick any other school–no really, any.” Columbia has a tendency to invoke conflicting emotions. Along those lines, there is something that I find both reinvigorating and depressing about Days on Campus. The new students are filled with enthusiasm and this reminds me of the freedom and possibility I felt on my own revisit day. I could be anyone I wanted to be at Columbia. But at some point in our four years here each one of us has to decide the impact we want to have on this campus. Some of us choose the limelight, running for positions in CCSC or starring in the Varsity show. Some of us choose to spend our time editing campus publications. Some of us get involved in activism (see p. 10) or Israel/Palestine discourse (see p. 14). And some of us choose to slip by unnoticed by the majority of campus. While Columbia’s student body is constantly in flux, the physical campus is more or less set in stone (although additional sculptures may be installed at the administration’s discretion). In this issue we explore some of the lesser known spots on campus, including Earl Hall (see p. 22) and the Barnard Greenroof (p. 6). We also head a few blocks south and hear about the Great Organ at St. John the Divine (see p. 13). With that said, please enjoy our final issue of this academic year. Enjoy the summer and the respite from this campus. And to the Class of 2016, enjoy your permanent respite. You will be missed. — Channing Prend
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TRANSACTIONS ARRIVALS Ethan Wu, sandwich ambassador Class of 2020 optimism A $15/hr minimum work-study wage (eventually) Commencement barricades Re:claim BCSN tours of Wien
DEPARTURES Ethan Wu, sandwich ambassador Class of 2020 Groupme Reclining Figure Slant The Class of 2016
Come Again?!
“I am cautious of travel for the sake of travel, of the almost-fetishization of novelty for the sake of novelty, of mindless tourism that prevents my temporary environment from leaving a lasting imprint on me or from interacting meaningfully with my destination. Study abroad avoids that.”
– Alice Hu, as quoted in the Columbia Spectator
The Blue and White
BLUE BOOK
What Do You Think of the Placement of the “Reclining Figure” Sculpture on Campus?
Recently, our fearless campus leaders at CCSC (they are real activists!) took it upon themselves to personally work with the administration regarding the placement of “Reclining Figure,” Henry Moore’s modern sculpture that almost landed in front of Butler Library. To aid them in their activism, CCSC collected responses to the statue in a campus-wide survey. We at The Blue and White gathered some of the most important responses for you here: PRO
CON
“I dig it.” “I really don’t give a fuck.”
“It’s pretty fucked up to place a sculpture of a headless woman with her legs spread in front of a library which only commemorates men.”
“I will sit on it.”
“I want it to be a statue of me.”
“This whole protest is ridiculous and unnecessary—he’s one of the most important sculptors of the 20th century, we’re lucky to have it! Arguments on aesthetics simply aren’t enough.”
“I am a female CC student and find it distasteful and offensive….I carry a 4.0. I have not “reclined” during my time at Columbia.”
“Those who are opposed to this can really go suck on a rock.” “Why must we cave to these philistines?” “Students shouldn’t have a say in this. Also, if students are speaking out against a Henry Moore sculpture, Art Hum isn’t serving its purpose.”
“In front of butler looks cramped. Maybe half way between sundial and butler would be better?” “IT IS BUTT FUCKING UGLY.” “It’s the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen. This is why you won’t catch me at the MoMA.” “Place it in the green area in front of John Jay. Or in EC. But really, put it in front of John Jay because John Jay already sucks.” “The prospective placement is absolutely moronic. Save it for Manhattanville, you colonist scum.”
POSTCARD FROM MORNINGSIDE
April 2016
Postcard by Lani Allen
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BLUE NOTES
W
ith Bacchanal ’16 disappearing fast in the rear-view and the future of Bacchanal up in the air as always, it seems an apt time to consider how Columbia’s yearly day as a party school came to be. Since the early 1900’s, the steps of Low Library have been used as a concert venue for various student groups looking to showcase their talents. These concerts, while popular and numerous, lacked the consistency and widespread appeal of our modern day Bacchanal. As is generally the case at Columbia, the everpresent need for more bureaucracy encroached on this free spirited approach to concerts on the steps. In the early 1980’s, the precursor to Bacchanal, Columbia Fest, was established. Run by a student group and funded by Student Life fees, the event mainly consisted of a festival atmosphere and presentations by student groups—think of a mix between Glass House Rocks and the student activities fair. While the event was largely successful in entertaining stressed students for a week during the spring, it did not gain the same status that the modern day Bacchanal commands. Bacchanal as we know it was first held in
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April 1998 as the culmination of “Naked Spring,” Columbia’s week long celebration of spring and the return of good weather. The first concert, featuring Busta Rhymes and Sonic Youth as its two main acts, was held on Low Steps, much like the Bacchanal we know today. In fact, the inclusion of headlining musicians (often from two different genres of music) is about the only thing that has stayed the same. Unlike our singular afternoon of debauchery featuring only one stage and a militarized campus, the first Bacchanal was replete with student groups peddling food and art. As this was in the pre-war-onfun years, the administration went as far as allowing a tattoo artist, a fortuneteller, and a ‘freak show’ to set up camp on college walk. More recent Bacchanals have seen revellers create their own freak shows, rebelling against the hyper regulated atmosphere with copious amounts of drugs and alcohol. — Nick Kensinger
T
he often forgotten Arthur Ross Greenhouse, which was built on Milbank Hall shortly after the founding of Barnard’s uptown campus, offers a necessary haven from the pollution and noise of the city. It houses a diverse collection of plants that can act as a reminder of home for some, or an escape to the tropical rainforest. Nick Gershberg, the greenhouse coordinator, said of the structure, “Its beautiful aluminum and glass shell should last well into the 21st century. Largely, it is a conservatory, housing about 800 tropical and arid species. The collection is used to supplement class activities, and also provides a refuge for all who come visit. There is space for research, which we try to keep in use year round.” A relatively recent addition to the green-
Illustration by Leila Mgaloblishvili
The Blue and White
BLUE NOTES
house, the Giant Corpse Flower, obtained three years ago, is infamous in the botanical community for its putrid smell and massive inflorescence, or the complete flower head of a plant (stems, stalks, bracts, and flowers). Of the Giant Corpse Flower Amorphophallus titanum, Gershberg said, “While this plant mostly exists as Mgaloblishvilia tree-like single leaf, its tuber will eventually go dormant and re-emerge as the world’s largest unbranched inflorescence. Capable of standing over 10ft, the inflorescence famously smells of rotting flesh.” The Sensitive Plant, Mimos pudica, almost immediately attracts visitors’ attention. It recoils at the slightest touch, a reaction developed to protect its delicate leaves against desiccation. Gershberg refers to it as, “one of the few that display rapid movement in response to outside stimulus. Touch the leaves, and they close up almost instantaneously.” The Living Stones, Lithops sp., in the cactus room, are a subtler oddity. They appear to be dully colored stones; one is tempted to pluck them from soil. “These curious looking plants live just above the soil surface, in the extremely hot and dry climate of southern Africa. Having no spines or chemical defenses, they’ve adapted to simply blend in with the surrounding pebbles and debris,” said Gershberg. But perhaps, the most impressive specimens of the Barnard Greenhouse are the clean air, sunlight, and quiet—welcomed rarities to our crowded, stressful lives. — Geneva Hutcheson
B
efore the establishment of Barnard College, women could not formally enroll at Columbia. Many however, sought to receive a higher educa-
April 2016
tion here through an 1884 University initiative called the “Plan for the Education of Women.” According to the 1884 Columbia Handbook, the “course of collegiate study… should be offered to such women as may desires to avail themselves of it.” Women over seventeen years old were eligible to apply, and needed to sit for an entrance exam of similar standards that the men had to pass to be admitted. The women in the program were not permitted to study on the campus proper, however. The 1884 Handbook spins this exclusion as desirable independence, stating that the enrolled woman “shall be entirely free as to where and how to pursue her studies, whether in some school, private or public, or at home.” The education these women received under the plan was far from the instruction men received in their classes at Columbia. A report on the status of Columbia from 1893, ten years after the program began, said, “Students enrolled in the Collegiate Course for Women were entitled to ask advice from the instructors at Columbia, but not to claim instruction, nor were they permitted to attend lectures at the college.” Women enrolled in the plan therefore enjoyed few of the benefits of being a Columbia student and could complete the program without ever setting foot on campus. Despite this fact, the Trustees decided in 1886, that women enrolled in the plan would receive BA degrees rather than certificates of completion previously awarded. This development was met with criticism by the female students and the men at Columbia, both of whom felt that women were not receiving adequate education to be awarded Columbia degrees. In 1889, Spectator reported that, “The need of an institution where the women of this city can receive a college education has been long felt, and popular sentiment has always declared that Columbia was the only college able to satisfy this want.” Barnard College was founded later that year in 1889. — Catherine Song
Illustrations by Kellie Zhao and Sandokuhle Mlambo
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Campus Characters You might not know the following figures—but you should. In Campus Characters, The Blue & White introduces you to a handful of Columbians who are up to interesting and extraordinary things and whose stories beg to be shared. This issue, we bring you two people whose charisma exceeds their mark on campus. If you’d like to suggest a Campus Character, send us an email at editors@theblueandwhite.org.
Matt Dalrymple
T
hese days, Matt Dalrymple, SEAS ’16, rocks a jagged, bleached-blond bowl cut. Like the baggy workman’s clothes he frequently wears, his hairstyle is unusual, but still not enough to attract stares. This was not the case when Matt arrived at Columbia in the fall of 2014 to study Civil Engineering in the University’s 3-2 Program. Fresh off the train from Bard College, Matt sported a spiky do dyed bright magenta. His look didn’t help with the already difficult transfer process. “Maybe I was getting a little alienated for having this weird haircut,” Matt recalls. “Like people specifically wouldn’t talk to me.” Matt very quickly learned just what a difference a few miles downriver makes. “It seems like a lot of people are really impressed with themselves here. There are a lot more people interested in going into business or finance. That wasn’t the case at all at Bard.” But it’s not as if the aspiring civil engineer
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hadn’t known what he was getting himself into. “That’s partly why I decided to do the [3-2] program... The job security and the prestige of going to Columbia is attractive.” Since his arrival in Morningside Heights, Matt has gracefully reconciled his desire to take advantage of the University’s resources and his commitment to live according to his values. Matt has undoubtedly made Alma Mater proud—winning the American Planning Association’s student essay contest (which is usually awarded to graduate students), and landing a job in green infrastructure implementation with the city of Philadelphia. Simultaneously, Matt has found more critical and emotionally fulfilling outlets through his social life and extracurriculars. Soon after coming to campus, Matt joined Student Worker Solidarity (SWS), where he worked on the campaign to win $15 wages for all student workers. As a first generation college student and a student worker himself, the activism is very personal. Yet he also finds it worthwhile on a more intellectual level. “I don’t want to get too theoretical or anything,” he muses, “but I feel labor issues are related to all other social justice issues.” Another important space for Matt has been Potluck House, where he has lived since the fall semester of this year. Through his five years of college, Matt has valued being “part of a community that was consciously trying to live together.” He found that at Potluck, where he consciously prepares elaborate vegetarian meals for his friends, like “pine nut quinoa salad with sweet potatoes and brussels sprouts.” Fellow Potlucker (or, in official parlance, “pooty luquer") and SWS activist Jada Young, CC ’17, admires Matt for his skateboarding prowess as much as his cooking. She describes a recent incident in which Matt skated up to a chair, jumped over it with the board still rolling beneath him, landed back on the board and continued skating.
Illustration by Sandokuhle Mlambo
The Blue and White
Jada also enjoys Matt’s unique brand of humor. “A lot of times he’s joking, but it’s not for other people to laugh.” For his part, Matt sees humor as a way to experiment in tone. “I think you can simultaneously really like something ironically and sincerely,” he opines. “It’s not a clear distinction anymore.” For Matt, these conflicting tones are a natural response to the culture we live in. “Our contemporary media frames things... in such a way that I want things that are opposite to each other and totally conflicting. I want to move up some corporate ladder, and be some engineer, but I also want justice for worker’s rights. So you have to recognize those contradictions.” — Ben Schneider
Sarika Kumar
“T
echnically I didn’t really know how to say my name properly until this year,” Sarika Kumar, BC ’16, says, “and that’s because I started taking Punjabi.” She had always gone by her nickname “Saru” at home and at school. Growing up her name was usually further mispronounced. As the youngest child of immigrants from Punjab, Sarika was raised in Long Island in what she describes as “a really white neighborhood and never felt being comfortable with the white crowd [or] brown crowd, so I always falling in this weird, liminal space.” Feeling in between didn’t mitigate the impact of her experiences with racism. Sarika recalls an episode in high school, in which a white woman harassed her and her mother in a Rite Aid parking lot—telling them “You don’t belong here” and “Get out of this country.” “Things like that, those are things you share, they don’t just stop with your parents—that becomes part of my understanding of my family history and of who I am. I think a lot of what I do on campus is charged from those types of experiences.” She is the former co-president and current senior advisor of Columbia University Sewa, a Sikh advocacy organization primarily focused on social justice and practicing Sikh values like “selfless service” (the meaning of the word sewa). Last May, she co-founded South Asian Feminist Alliance which recently received official recognition by the Governing Board at Barnard. This process, says Sarika, was not without its challenges. “You have this idea like ’South Asian Feminist Alliance,’ but like, what the hell does that mean? How do you start shaping a community?” The alliance tries to form dialogue around issues such as “sexual assault in the South Asian community, what rape culture means in
April 2016
Bollywood.” This question of community pertains to her academic pursuits as well. The urban studies and environmental science double major is currently in the middle of her thesis looking at post-Hurricane Sandy development and redevelopment issues in Far Rockaway. According to Sarika, a significant part of her research consists of the idea of “resilience” within the waterfront Queens community. “In an engineering/biological sense, it’s literally bouncing back from a disturbance in the system— getting back to base level. But then in terms of social resilience, it’s more about transformation, so not just bouncing back but thriving.” We return to this theme of the “discord between the hard sciences and how science talks about the humanities and vice versa” when she admits she had an “existential crisis” after spending a summer studying habitats and lemurs in Madagascar. She came back and took a course on Madagascar anthropology in which she learned how, as her professor put it, “Conservation kills people.” When not attending to conceptual quandaries, Sarika has a light-hearted side as well. On Soundcloud, she is known as DJ Saru Kaur. Though it was an April Fool’s joke (Sarika says she tries to do one every year) people still believe the mixtape, made of 22 tracks, each just the same mix of a video she found on YouTube, is a genuine foray into making music. There are now over 100 plays of a couple songs on the album. “It’s pretty good for something that isn’t real—at all,” she says laughing. — Nia Brown
Illustration by Zane Bhansali
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AT T W O S W O R D S ’ L E N G T H
Is this O
f course I’m an activist. See, activism is a life- morning when I wake up, I see what New York’s style, not just an activity. Existence is resis- affordable housing crisis really means. If people only tance, and I resist your corporate mumbo-jumbo and knew about these systemic problems facing my hallstructural hegemony just by occupying space with my way (No AC?! What is this, NYCHA?), then I could radical, Othered body. I put myself on the gears of the call more students my brothers and sisters in this Machine, and I’m chipping away at your imperialist fight for freedom. statues with my words. I am dedicated to giving back and serving this I don’t sit in Butler; I occupy Butler. For real, community. Every night, I don my wicker-woven free that’s my stuff, it’s been there for days, get out. I’m not trade beanie and my Docs and become Gotham’s going to be shunted along the oppressive higher edu- last shot at redemption. My weapon of choice: Truth. cational industrial complex by just quietly doing the Instead of doing my readings, I leave notes in the reading. When I attend Lit Hum every 3 weeks or so, margins: the same logic that assigns 200 pages of I occupy those classes, because Hegel a week erects the image the patriarchy needs a stern of the structural oppressor talking to. (Where are all the in the mind of the structurwomen writers on the syllabus? ally oppressed! And connects Why has no one ever asked all structural oppressions! this question before?) I’ll keep Complicity! Black and brown my hand raised throughout an bodies! Decolonization of entire Introduction to Latino knowledge production! Studies lecture, in order to Seneca is a dick. point out that total and comI’ll decolonize my bank plete equality doesn’t already account in a sec, but to do exist and should. I spit upon that I first need to decolothe words of Aristotle and tear nize my mind, and maybe my asunder his bullshit ideology. I MacBook and its plethora will curb the patriarchal tides of important stickers helps and divide the heretical waves of me do that. I share BuzzFeed and backwards thought: call me Moses. EverydayFeminism articles and ffirmative It’s not that I refuse to flush, it’s comment “this” on sassy comBy Sommer Omar that I insist on keeping toilets occuments in my class Facebook group pied. The toilet is a site of struggle! so people realize the tremors I’m You’re welcome, Schermerhorn, Mudd, and IAB. stirring. I populate op-ed space with lessons learned And my nails? That’s what it looks like when and truths untold about sculptures, inequality and you dig your hands into the Earth to understand its injustice. The power of the pen is mightier than the sufferings. Occupying toilets is one thing, but it’s a power of the men. whole other ball game to occupy land - and no, it’s So I spit on you, and I spit on Marching Band not colonialist when I’m doing it. But it is when an members too. I don’t look up when I’m entering objectifying primitivist sculpture displaces me from Butler because Demosthenes is triggering. I don’t my Butler smoking spot, or the patriarchy is playing wear white because white is offensive. I flip off clouds. ball games on my soil. All I’m saying is what we need Yesterday, I kicked a sheep. So wake up, sheeple, and to do is end balls. And hegemony! #staywoke. It’s only by actively disrupting the ideoloI know about injustice—I live in Wien. Every gies of the system that we can really be activists.w
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Illustration by Alexandra Warrick
The Blue and White
AT T W O S W O R D S ’ L E N G T H
activism? I
often hear that we’re a campus of activists. But Ethnobotany syllabus is giving me a headache. everyone on this campus thinks that activism is a Lighting a scented candle in the name of selflifestyle, not an activity. care is not activism. However much your Facebook The following things are not activism: Holding status tried to make it look that way, your hair is up a whiteboard on Low Steps (“I need feminism not activism, and calling out other people’s hair because women poop too?” Don’t tell me how to be is two degrees of not-activism. Not going to class a woman). Being in CSER, MESAAS, or Women because you feel especially oppressed by the patriand Gender studies. Clicking archy today isn’t acting at all, “Attending” on a lecture with it’s inertia, and so is smoking “Womanist” in the title (it’s rollies outside Butler while you at CUNY—you’re not going.) talk about it. You don’t get a Writing an op-ed about a statue cookie for not being a straight, you don’t like or a speaker you white male. don’t like or an op-ed you don’t But I do get a cookie, like. Writing a discussion post because I’m a real activist. I where you call out Rousseau for scorn the linguistic turn in being problematic. Writing for critical theory’s neglect of HuffPo, or BuzzFeed, or Slant, structural factors. I’m all up or the Columbia Spectator, in that economic base, and I’m about the trouble you faced as using my privilege for good. the only half-Dominican halfI’m on student council! I work Jewish queer nonbinary kid at within the system, not outside Harvard-Westlake who wasn’t it, to innovate and ideate soluinvited to Joshua’s bar mitzvah. tions. I’m not the bad guy. I did The “share” button. Stickers an unpaid internship at a social on your laptop. Writing “tw.” enterprise startup that leverFlashing your tits at Bacchanal. ages the sharing economy to Having tits. Piercing them. disrupt exploitative hierarchiYour radio show. Your Twitter bio. cal employment structures. (It’s egative Your thesis. Being vegan. called Uber.) By Hallie Swanson You people are all hypocrites. Look, I’ve moved past the Your anthropology fellowship is hypocrisy, and you should too. funded by money from the slave trade, and the site Wake up and smell the fair trade, organic coffee: that paid you for that open letter to your racist profes- real activists are in sororities—Theta is dismantling sor is backed by an Israeli tech firm. That whiteboard the patriarchy from the inside. Real activists major in probably came from a sweatshop, just like your “This Econ and are going to do great things giving back to is what a feminist looks like” shirt, your Apple Mac Columbia College with all that cash from JP Morgan. (“designed in Cupertino”) and your Doc Martens Real activists wear boat shoes. Real activists get a (“Made in England”) did. Your illegal drugs are fuel- King’s Crown Leadership Award. Real activists gening America’s exploitation of people of color in the trify. Real activists are Dean Valentini. Let’s not lie Global South, your Adderall is funding the American here: while we’re all implicated in systems of oppresmedical-industrial complex, and your nightly whin- sion, the best we can do is act on it, get stuck in and ing about white supremacist undertones in your take advantage. Now that’s activism.w
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April 2016
Illustration by Nathaniel Jameson
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V E R I LY V E R I TA S
TOLD BETWEEN PUFFS
V
In which our hero goes to class
.V. hurried to his 4:10 class in Fayerweather, Discrete Mathematics and Justice in the Modern European Imagination (the only class he attended now). As usual, he had overslept. His late arrival made no impression on the rock-faced man at the front of the room, who continued to intone in his godless tenor. “The upside down V means union, which is what two sets share. The backwards E is the existential quantifier. The true meaning of justice is having a good time. Schopenhauer did not have a good time but he had at least six poodles, and suppose you were a bug-eating vegan. Vegans, it is said, are the holy men of our time. Are these sets I have drawn disjoint?” VV crept to the back of the classroom, awkwardly folding his stiff frame into H66, his customary perch (what V liked best about it was how only the top crook of the second six remained, like the waning moon half of a frown). Patting his front pocket he found that, in his rush to class, he had forgotten his votive candles. And where were his cigarettes? He massaged his unshaven cheeks and sank lower in his seat. “By the pigeonhole principle, we should have no poodles. No pigeons, I mean. They should all be vegetarians. Where is the meat you ask? Well, remember that the material body does not exist. The subject is produced only by discourse. Yes, Caravaggio?” A blue-cardiganed young man had raised his hand: “I don’t understand what you mean by assigning probabilities to outcomes. It just doesn’t seem right. Properly, only events should have them.
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Because they happen. Isn’t that right?” It began to seem to VV like his classmate’s words were pieces of velvet, poorly painted to resemble horses and being pulled along the ceiling by poorly hidden ropes. Oh, how he longed to tear them down and crush them beneath his boot! Instead our hero squeezed his eyes shut and forced himself back into contemplation of his skull collection. Candace, Yorick, Derrick, Emille—and dear Elphonse with his crumbling fontanelle! To hell with Justice, Love, Art, Truth—had his dear dachshunds but known in life that their cool remains would become the last intensely meaningful thing VV had left! Grinning K-9 craniums were the only Form Verily still believed in. “Yes, but think back to the true meaning of justice. I saw a young man the other Tuesday standing in the sun, holding a sign. Think about Bayes, son, I said to him. You a history major? You eat meat? Math tells you what’s true. Think about it.” Oh, thought Verily, what was the point of it all! For was not man doomed to run the circle of life with no respite from toil? Verily could hear shushing coming from his lower right side and was about to respond with a most vituperative hiss, when, with a jolt, he realized he was standing on his chair, full throatedly humming the prelude to the Parsifal. Obscurely satisfied, Verily slid back into his seat, which folded his form back into its neat gesture of subservience. Perhaps his daily opium cigarette was working too well.“Verily?” she asked; “Verily,” he affirmed; Verily it was.w
The Blue and White
PIPE IT UP
Vital Organ A B&W editor investigates the neighborhood’s largest instrument By Channing Prend
“T
his is like the cockpit,” Ray Nagem, the Associate Organist at St. John the Divine, tells me as we walk up a rusted iron staircase and enter the organ console. From this small perch above the cathedral nave, a musician can use the four keyboards and dozens of knobs, called stops, to control the instrument’s 8,514 pipes. The organ is being tuned when Nagem shows me around. The tuner holds down each key for a few moments, and with this simple action, long dissonant tones penetrate every inch of the cathedral. “This instrument is extremely responsive,” he says. “Some organs feel like steering a big barge. But this instrument is like driving a Formula One.” The Great Organ, as it is affectionately called, was installed at St. John the Divine in 1910. The instrument has been rebuilt twice since then, once in 1954 and then again in 2001 after suffering fire damage. The organ today contains components from 2001, 1954, and 1910, which Nagem tells me are among the oldest functioning electrical equipment in Manhattan. According to Nagem, this combination of pieces from different eras contributes to the Great Organ’s versatility. “It can play multiple styles of music very effectively,” he says. “There’s really not much in the entire repertoire of the organ that doesn’t sound good here.” Given the instrument’s diverse abilities, Kent Tritle, the Director of Cathedral Music, notes that there are many secular organ concerts held at St. John the Divine. “We try our best to add to the greater cultural value of the city,” Tritle adds. “This a unique space in New York, and the organ has an important role that extends beyond religious services.” In addition to events for the Episcopal Diocese, Nagem mentions that he has played the Great Organ for everything from the opening of art exhibits to gala functions held by hedge funds (where else but New York City can hedge fund managers commodify a liturgical instrument?). The cathedral also hosts visiting musicians. “People from across the country and across the world come to play this instrument,”
April 2016
Nagem remarks. What makes this particular instrument so unique? Tritle says it’s the combination the organ’s power and setting. “It has an extraordinary sound, deep, rich and fiery,” Tritle states. “It’s also located in a spectacular room with great acoustics. Not many buildings in the US have this kind of 8-second reverberation.” Nagem also highlights the building’s architectural significance and its influence on how the organ is perceived. “It’s a lot like the cathedrals in Europe,” he says. “And there’s a great repertoire of music written by European composers who lived and worked around these massive churches and who took into account that kind of atmosphere, that kind of setting for their music.” From up in the organ console, Nagem looks out at the cathedral nave. The cacophonous drone of the instrument being tuned fills the immense room. “Playing it can feel daunting,” he says. “It’s a little terrifying to know that 2,500 people are in the building listening and depending on you to lead them while singing.”w The cathedral hosts a short organ recital every Sunday following Evensong at 5 pm that is free and open to the public.
Illustrations by Darya Fraiman
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Defining the Discourse Analyzing Columbia’s most polarizing issue By Yasemin Akcaguner
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or the first time this year, Israeli Apartheid Week—organized by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP)—was protested not just by pro-Israel students on campus, but also by a blow-up Pinocchio doll rumored to cost around $800. IAW, as the organizers call it, has been an annual fixture since 2005, marked by heated op-eds in Spectator, scandals as groups accuse each other of tearing down posters, and aggressive confrontations as pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian groups literally stand in opposition on Low Steps. Traditionally, tables supporting Israel face the mock-apartheid wall that Students for Justice in Palestine put up every year. But this year, the drama was exacerbated by two new developments. One is the formation of Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), which “calls for the University to divest its stocks, funds, and endowment from companies that profit from the State of Israel’s ongoing system of settler colonialism, military occupation, and apartheid law.” CUAD is embedded in the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel. The second is a Columbia chapter of the group Students Supporting Israel, which arrived on campus in January, just as CUAD was kicking off. “When you have the ability, you start a BDS campaign because it’s never not an appropriate time,” says Shezza Abboushi Dallal, BC’16. SJP and JVP decided to launch a BDS campaign on campus at the start of the semester, as they felt they had the manpower to organize on a larger scale than in years past. Shezza, who is a prominent SJP member, says that SJP’s continued growth, combined with JVP’s recent formation, puts the movement in a strong position to pursue this goal. JVP was founded in 2014 by Christopher Godshall, CC ‘15, and Eva Kalikoff, BC ‘16. Eva was shocked to observe what she calls the “militant nature of pro-Israel protesters” on campus in 2012, particularly in the form of the student group Aryeh, then known as LionPAC. Eva says that one of the reasons why she helped found the group was because
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she was eager to change the discourse on campus, which she thought was very two-sided. JVP started tabling at IAW in 2014 and has now grown to about 15 members from Orthodox, Reform, Conservative and secular backgrounds. Aryeh: Columbia Students Association for Israel, a pro-Israel, Zionist group that supports a two-state solution and vehemently opposes the BDS movement, typically tables at IAW, yet chose not to this year. The vacancy was taken up by a new group called Students Supporting Israel (SSI), which formed at the beginning of the semester. The group is perhaps best known for the so-called “Pinocchio incident,” where the group inflated a 15-feet Pinocchio balloon holding up a sign that read “Apartheid Week: Compassion Abuse” on College Walk across from SJP’s mock apartheid wall. SSI was co-founded by Alexandra Markus, School of Professional Studies ’16, and Rudy Rochman, GS’17. A former IDF paratrooper and “public figure” according to his Facebook profile, Rudy says SSI was formed in order to create a welcoming space for Jewish and non-Jewish students to support Israel’s right to exist. SSI immediately adopted more aggressive tactics than Aryeh had been pursuing, including the Pinocchio. Aryeh members have characterized the movement as “loud” and have qualms about its effectiveness. Meanwhile, Aryeh has also ramped up efforts members describe as “more effective,” such as writing op-eds in the Spectator, frequently organizing community outreach events as well as putting out statements and petitions in opposition to the BDS movement on campus. While 77 professors have signed CUAD’s petition for divestment, an anti-petition statement was released on March 20th by over 200 Columbia faculty and administrators opposing CUAD’s petition and demanding that the University maintain its ties to Israel. In addition to the anti-CUAD petition, over 600 students, faculty and alumni have signed a “Statement of Condemnation of Terrorism: The
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“They talk [about the First Intifada of 1987-93], about 20 twenty years of peace, then all of a sudden the Intifada—like wow! I’d like to point out—for whom was the 20 years of peace? Who felt 20 years of peace: the people conducting a military occupation, or the people living under twenty years of military martial law? The term ‘peace’ doesn’t apply equally to one of the two situations.” Thaer Al-Sheikh Theeb, a graduate student pursuing a PhD in Columbia’s Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies department and a member of Barnard Columbia Socialists, sees the argument over sensitivity to terms like ‘Intifada’ as reflective of a wider trend towards silencing pro-Palestinian activism. “Pro-Israeli groups are actually trying to change the conversation and not have it be about the human rights of Palestinians and the violations that the Israeli state has committed against that,” he says. Instead, he argues, “they are actually using different scare tactics to make sure that that conversation is fully shot down.” “Dialogue is a Dirty Word” Marissa Young, CC’16 and Aryeh executive board member, vehemently refutes the charge of “silencing,” often leveled by SJP at Aryeh and other pro-Israel groups. “Silencing who?” she says, “That is never our intention. I disagree with most of what SJP has to say out there during Apartheid Week, but I’ll defend their right to stay out there and say it until the end.” Daniella insists, however, that this support stops at the language of Intifada. Instead, Daniella and Marissa point to SJP’s “anti-normalization” stance as a form of silencing. “I really do think that it’s an unfortunate barrier to solving any problems, and to talking about solving any problems. I feel like ‘dialogue’ has become a dirty word on this campus, and I think that’s terrible,” Daniella says. Anti-normalization, according to JVP member Eva Kalikoff, challenges the notion that the conversation surrounding the “Israeli-Palestinian conflict” is one of two equal partners. It is not a conflict, she says, but a relationship of “an oppressor and an oppressed.” She also believes that dialogue with pro-Israeli groups is frequently used as a stalling tactic. “So SJP has that right to say we, as a group that supports Palestinian rights, are not going to sit down with a group that supports the Zionist project
Illustration by Rachel Chin
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MIXED REVIEWS and is pro-Israeli militarism and all those things and pretend that we’re on two sets of equal footing.” Daniella, while acknowledging Israel is much superior militarily, does not see those inequalities as existing here at Columbia, arguing, “On this campus…in our roles here, there isn’t really that same asymmetric warfare, there is no hierarchy, we’re all students at this university. We’re all privileged to be here. It’s unfortunate that we can’t overcome that situation.” Unequal footing Yet the claim that the military asymmetry on the ground does not translate into unequal footing for campus activists is hard to legitimize, especially in light of SJP and JVP members being profiled by the Canary Mission, an online database of activists it labels as “promoting hatred of the USA, Israel, and Jews on college campuses in North America.” The database “provides freely available material gathered from publicly available sources” that are oftentimes submitted by students or others uncomfortable with the ongoing activism in their campuses, without the consent of those being listed. Shezza is listed on the database, as well as other members of SJP and JVP—indeed, there is a sizeable number of Columbia professors and students on the site. The profiles on the website feature quotes and screenshots of Facebook pictures and posts of the activist in question. When you google Shezza’s name, the second link that comes up after her LinkedIn profile is her profile on Canary Mission. “It’s no joke. There are serious consequences, a lot of professional consequences, social alienation… There’s a real McCarthyist campaign going on regarding anyone involved in Palestine solidarity work,” Shezza says. One of the reasons why Shezza has been among the prominent faces of the BDS campaign on Columbia’s campus is because of what she calls “visibility issues.” “For a lot of people, the consequences are a lot larger than they would be for me as an American citizen, as somebody who comes from a background that accepts my political orientation in this situation,” she says. Alexandra, a former SSI member, while denying that she has ever contributed an entry, knows people on campus who have, and added that she had been in contact with the organization.
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“The Canary Mission is a very misunderstood organization,” she says. “They are purposely clandestine for protection reasons—they don’t want to get targeted. What they do is, they don’t post like every single anti-Israel activist that exists. They target the people who are really, on-record saying infamous, blatantly anti-Semitic things. Ariella GH, a GS student who requested we redact her last name, particularly due to the further professional and social repercussions she fears as a result of her involvement with Palestine solidarity work, is an example of an activist who faced estrangement from her immediate community when she became a member of SJP. Ariella, a former cochair of J Street CU, became disillusioned with the liberal-Zionist discourse throughout her first two years at Columbia, and moved to Bethlehem in the summer after her sophomore year. Experiences there transformed her political views on the issue. She witnessed the deaths of five people she knew due to escalating violence in the summer of 2014, and says that when she started vocalizing her experience publicly and writing about it, she was estranged from the Jewish community everywhere. “It was a really hard situation to be in, because I couldn’t mourn the death of a child because his name was Abdurrahman and it wasn’t Shlomo. To me that was really telling that I did not belong in that community anymore.” When she returned to campus at the beginning of this semester, Ariella was greeted by a group of students from the Jewish Theological Seminary who had reached out to the administration saying they didn’t feel safe with her presence in Goldsmith Hall, where many students in the GS/JTS program live. While she was in Palestine, Ariella had met with a member of the Hamas party in the Palestinian legislative. The backlash came after she wrote a blog post entitled “The Day I Met Hamas” in which she argues that the people’s resistance to occupation “is not only normal, but human” and questions whether resistance is terrorism. “Or is it more terrifying to sit and wait while your whole people disappears in a matter of decades?” “Truth is a hazy concept” An editorial published on March 21st in the Wall Street Journal by Kate Bachelder remarks on the CUAD petition’s signatories, taking issue with the
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departments that professors who signed the CUAD petition come from. “Most signers teach anthropology or comparative literature, where truth is a hazy concept. This may explain why they ignore the depredations of Hamas, which fires rockets at civilians from the cover of schools and hospitals,” she writes. Max Fineman, JVP member and a philosophy major, disagrees. He believes that the academics who signed the CUAD petition are even more able to recognize patterns of oppression owing to the work they have done in their academic fields. He adds, “Specific truths and facts are only going to have meaning given the kind of perspective and larger awareness someone has... So it’s not a question of who is more committed to the facts, it’s a question of commitment to particular political movements.” Bachelder lauds the academics who signed the anti-divestment statement on their “show of sanity.” Referring to pro-CUAD activists, she writes, “Most days there’s no difference between campus activists and the tenured professors who tutor them in grievance politics...” Remarking on the so-called ‘tenured professors who tutor in grievance politics’ and the disparity in the number of signatories to both of the petitions, Max says, “All of the professors that signed the [CUAD] petition are tenured, if not most of them, whereas that’s not true of the other petition. And I think the reason is that no one risks anything by signing a pro-Israel petition. There’s a huge amount of risk associated in academia with supporting Palestine.”
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For pro-Palestine activists, their political views come not only from their personal experiences but also from the critical theoretical framework they acquire from their disciplines at Columbia and with which they view the issue of Israel and Palestine. However, this way of thinking about the discourse is counter-intuitive to pro-Israel activists and academics, many of whom come from scientific and professionally oriented disciplines. Nothing is apolitical Daniella says that since CUAD launched, the idea of an apolitical conversation has been made impossible. Daniella and Marissa point to the fact that two years ago, Aryeh and Turath, the Arab Students Association, hosted a debate on U.S. foreign policy between the College Republicans, Democrats, and Libertarians. “That was a really big accomplishment in terms of having people with very very different views of the conflict who were coming together to organize an event about Middle Eastern foreign policy. That was a great experience for me,” says Marissa, who was disappointed that this year, Turath refused to cosponsor an Aryeh event entitled “The Syrian Refugee Crisis and IsraAID Humanitarian Relief.” Daniella says that Turath refused to co-sponsor because they perceived of the event as “political and politicized,” while Turath identifies as a cultural group. She added, “But then to endorse CUAD is, you know, political.” Turath is one of ten student groups on campus endorsing CUAD’s call for
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MIXED REVIEWS divestment, alongside groups like Columbia Divest for Climate Justice, Columbia Muslim Students Association, Columbia Queer Alliance, Columbia University Black Students’ Organization, and others. Daniella says that, from their perspective, the event was an apolitical one, and that they felt Turath politicized the issue. “We were told that, behind the scenes, in the room when they decided not to cosponsor, the conversation was like, ‘Well, anything that doesn’t officially condemn Zionism is obviously off limits to us.’” However in an email comment to The Blue and White, Mennaallah Uosri Elsayed, President of Turath, writes, “Our decision not to co-sponsor Aryeh’s IsraAID event this year was based on ethical reasons...Many of our board and general body members and their families grew up in regions directly impacted by the Israel Defense Force’s military violence against Arabs. As a group, we agreed that IsraAID’s humanitarian aid for Syrian refugees cannot be described as apolitical.” IsraAID has ties to the IDF and has coordinated with IDF personnel in relief and rescue missions such as those in Haiti and Nepal. “K now your enemy” Daniella says she thinks that it’s important to “get to know your enemy,” adding, “The things that are written sometimes on Facebook that people send me screenshots of are insane. ‘I can’t wait for those Zio tears to pour!’–I’m a human, I’m a student!” She insists the problem is that “this is a human conflict and I don’t find that we’re humanized to each other. I don't think that we’re human in their eyes. We’re big bad Zionists with an evil agenda.” Daniella, whose grandparents are Holocaust survivors, would like to learn more about the backgrounds of the members of SJP. She says. “I recently learned that one of the members of SJP has refugee status. That’s so fascinating—that tells me how she got involved, why she got involved–that informs me [that] that informs her activism.” “I would like them to know why I’m involved, why this means so much to me,” she says. “Get to know the people that you’re speaking to when you write your Facebook posts or you write your op-eds, have a conversation!” Aryeh’s choice to not table this year across from SJP’s wall during Israeli Apartheid Week to
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avoid reducing the issue to two opposing parties is an attempt at depolarizing the campus political atmosphere. Yet they still use language that perpetuates the idea of two inherently confrontational sides, making this harder to accomplish. Meanwhile, all SJP and JVP members that I spoke to have refrained from using a vocabulary of “two sides” on the issue. Shezza has explicitly expressed in our interview that she doesn’t like using the term. Yet SJP and JVP’s sentiment that it is immoral not to view Israel-Palestine through the settler-colony paradigm feels like a personal affront to many pro-Israel activists who strongly connect their personal backgrounds with their activism. Shezza does see the issue as one people need to respond to above the issue of identity. “It’s a moral issue.” she says, “We shouldn’t just stand behind a movement with which we can personally identify. We should be able to locate injustices and act accordingly even if we don’t have one drop of blood that associates even remotely to the region, to the people et cetera. There’s no morality if you understand it in the terms of your own identity.” Demarcating Discourse More than disagreeing on a particular solution to the issue of Israel/Palestine or having different personal histories and identities, there is a fundamental difference in the ways through which pro-Palestine and pro-Israel activists understand and think about the issue. The paradigms through which these groups understand the issue on the ground—namely the settler-colony paradigm CUAD subscribes to versus the national conflict paradigm that groups like Aryeh and J Street uphold, have echoes in the ways through which these groups understand campus discourse as well. Aryeh sees the debate over the uses of certain words, such as the word “Intifada,” as a negotiation on the boundaries of discourse that takes place between equals. For CUAD however, many members—perhaps owing to their academic backgrounds—have internalized the argument that the power to define the terms of the discourse is in itself an act of power and resistance, as it is an attempt at resisting to operate within the vocabulary and the episteme of their oppressors. Acceding to negotiating the terms of this discourse then would mean giving up this resistance.w
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M easure
for
M easure
Spring Poem for J
At Sunoco, you can buy a bear claw for two dollars. If you want Green Mountain coffee, that’s a dollar-thirty. All winter my nose has dripped like a black bear’s. Feels like I’ve been asleep for months now. I wear your moth-eaten sweater, I don’t sew the holes. It seems lucky to let the green threads unravel. It’s the first of the month. Did you say “rabbit-rabbit”? Did you run in the woods? Is your car full of berries? Would you eat them with maple yoghurt, like I would? I’ve been here now all day, at the Sunoco. Won’t you come pick me up? Won’t you come drive me North? — Irina Teveleva
April 2016
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STUCK IN THE MIDDLE
On Duty Military veterans reevaluate their assumptions of the Middle East By Ian Trueger
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olumbia University has the highest proportion of undergraduate military veterans in the Ivy League. Not surprisingly, these 430 individuals enrolled in GS are somewhat different from their undergraduate counterparts. For professor Rashid Khalidi, it’s more than just the fact that they are “extraordinarily mature,” and “usually more diligent.” It’s the fact that these individuals have unique perspective on US foreign policy. For them, “it’s lived history.” This difference becomes nowhere more apparent than in classes associated with Columbia’s department of Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies (MESA A S). Khalidi, the Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies, notes that there is always a concentration of veterans sitting together in his lecture, History of the Modern Middle East. Yet while rehashing the area’s history can be an ordeal for veterans, it is perhaps MESAAS’s theoretical emphasis that proves the most difficult to swallow. When I asked Kevin Anderson, GS ’16, what he thought of Edward Said’s canonical text Orientalism, he said he felt as if he’d been kicked in the balls. He likened the affair to a grieving process: “Originally, Edward Said greatly offended me. His approach to things and his view of the US as occupiers. Coming to terms with, well, was I an orientalist? Was I a part of his gaze? It’s a painful process to come to the realization that, yeah, I kind of was.” Kevin served two tours of duty, one in Iraq, and the other in Afghanistan. He worked in Civil Affairs and Nation Rebuilding, as well as a medic. While it was “nice travelling on someone else’s dime,” there is something disheartening about reflecting on his experiences now. “The work that I did, and the money
that I spent, and the people I thought I helped, I didn’t help. So there is something depressing about that.” Kevin ended up in MESAAS almost by accident. He took a class, got an A, and thought to himself, “This will work.” Still, it can be tricky given his experiences. Many of his classmates haven’t taken too kindly to him. “Let’s be honest,” he said, “being a white veteran in the MESAAS department, you don’t always get a friendly look when you walk into a room.” Nonetheless, the department prompted an intellectual breakthrough for him. Reflecting back on what he saw in Iraq, Kevin observed, “A lot of it was derived from the intellectual basis from which the book Orientalism originates.” He continues, “You see these attitudes with the youngest, simplest soldier running around on the ground—saying ‘sand niggers,’ ‘hajjis.’ Anything you can think that was negative, made them the enemy. To isolate them as a group, to keep them as the Other. These patterns of speech and language floating around do this. So taking action upon them, killing them—it becomes trivial.” Cody Wiles, GS ‘16, another former serviceman in the MESAAS department, echoed this sentiment. In the Marine Corps, he “felt like there was so much bigotry and racism, just a lack of understanding and not even a desire to understand.” MESAAS merely confirmed these sentiments, and gave him a language with which to express them. “I mean it just confirmed to me that the narrative that was being pushed was essentialist, it was formed in a way to mobilize military support, but it was just wrong. I think it was morally wrong, and strategically wrong.” For Cody, the biggest takeaway seems to be his disavowal of American exceptionalism. As he explains, “You don’t have to go as far as very anti-
“It just confirmed to me that the narrative that was being pushed was essentialist, it was formed in a way to mobilize military support, but it was just wrong.”
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STUCK IN THE MIDDLE establishment Marxism, or deep critical theory to just think: are we doing more good or bad?” Mike Small, GS ‘16, has a different perspective. He says he never thought the Iraq War made sense in the first place (he joined the Marines because of Al-Qaeda, not Saddam Hussein). Still he maintains, “I don’t think anything I personally did was morally repulsive, so in regards to the time I spent personally as an individual, just me, in Iraq and so on, no, my time in MESAAS hasn’t made me think twice about what I did.” As Kevin notes, their actions were a matter of procedure. He describes his service as a bunch of 20-something-year-olds trying to accomplish x, y, or z objective, and they didn’t know what for. “You honestly don’t care about cultural and political realities as you are shaping them,” he adds. Kevin says MESAAS has left him disillusioned, but has also instilled in him a new sort of urgency. “You can only tell an idiot he is wrong so many times before you get tired. He’s not going to change, but if you find the smart guy teaching the idiot, maybe you can help.” Still, there is a sense that the policy making apparatus might just be a bit too warped to even try one’s hand. MESAAS’s anti-institutional bent has made Kevin think twice about joining the State Department, or trying to “change things from the inside.” If there is a way, Kevin insists, it’s through education. Citing the parochialism of Americans as part of the problem, Kevin tells me it’s all about “getting them while they’re young.” For Cody, one the US Foreign policy’s problems is deferring to the military on too many issues. It’s good at killing people, he says, and there are times when that is helpful. “But the guy you have trained to be a vicious killer is not the person that you need helping you figure out how you interact with that region.” When I ask Cody
April 2016
whether he is bound for the State Department, he tells me he’s conflicted. Cody spent his entire undergraduate career thinking that was where he would end up. He is no longer so sure he wants to take the plunge. “This is a legitimate crisis which has taken me quite some time to get to.” Mike is less ambivalent. He tells me he has no intention at all of heading to Washington. But he reasons that for the lessons of MESAAS to have any purchase, someone has to. “It would be better to have a State Department that has a contrarian and constructive point of view within its policy making apparatus,” he says. But then again, people want to make a good living, get promoted. The idealism of collegiate life inevitably fades, and people find themselves treading much the same path as their predecessors. Therein lies the fundamental irony at the heart of studying MESAAS as a military veteran—the department equips its students with the skills that would prime them for a career in the intelligence community or a think tank, while its classes warn students not to contribute to the military-industrial complex. After listening to the likes of Rashid Khalidi, Joseph Massad, and Timothy Mitchell decry the ills of American foreign policy and its policy making apparatus, some MESAAS military veterans have been compelled to reevaluate their pasts. In the process, many have become less certain of their futures.w
Illustration by Alexa Economacos
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GOSPEL ACCORDING TO EARL
Keeping the Faith Exploring the history of Earl Hall By Virginia Ambeliotis
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irectly west of Low Library stands a building whose frieze is inscribed with the words “erected for the students that religion and learning may go hand in hand and character grow with knowledge.” The message perhaps appears out of place: many words might be used to describe Columbia, but “religious” is probably not one of them. Yet our formerly Anglican university has long been conscious of religious identity, albeit not always in the most tolerant ways. Earl Hall, the building that bears the aforementioned inscription, has remained an important center for spiritual life on campus despite Columbia’s fluctuating attitudes on the necessity of religious inclusivity. The construction of Earl furthered President Seth Low’s initiative to make Columbia a welcoming environment for students of various religious backgrounds. It was funded by Presbyterian patron William Earl Dodge, a man of strong religious convictions, who espoused Low’s policy of religious inclusivity. His $100,000 donation was predicated on the condition that Jewish, Roman Catholic and Protestant students would all be afforded equal access to the space, as well as female students who attended Barnard College and Teachers College. Earl was one of several buildings slated for construction under President Seth Low’s Morningside Heights expansion plan. Architects McKim, Mead and White were enlisted to design the prospective additions. Under McKim’s proposal, fifteen buildings of coordinating dimensions, materials and aesthetic details would surround Low Library. Critical to this design were the structures positioned just north, east and west of Low, St. Paul’s Chapel and Earl Hall respectively. McKim planned Earl as an amalgam of Low Library and St. Paul’s Chapel, yet also incorporated “homelike” touches such as rectangular windows per Dodge’s request. The main entrance of the structure is located on the east side of the building. A flight of steps leads to a portico, where four limestone columns shoulder the inscribed frieze. The portico leads into the second floor of the building. This floor
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initially consisted of a reception hall, an exhibition space for the university’s trophy collection and an office space for Catholic, Protestant and Jewish student advisers and the University Chaplain. The third floor was designated as a performance theater with a 400-person occupancy, while the ground floor served as the headquarters for University Medical Services and accommodated members of University staff and student body seeking treatment beginning in 1919. The clinic boasted a waiting room, several examination cubicles, a doctor’s office and even “two dark chambers” for surgery on the eyes, nose and throat. Earl’s relevance to the Columbia community has evolved a great deal since the building opened on March 8, 1902. By the time it was finished, President Low had left his post to serve as the mayor of New York City. His successor, Nicholas Murray Butler, somewhat undermined Earl’s potential to be an inclusive space as a result of his anti-semitic sentiment, which eventually coalesced into a discriminatory admissions policy towards Jews. Management of the building, which Dodge had delegated to the Y.M.C.A., was taken on by the University in 1922. Medical operations were diverted to John Jay Hall following its opening in 1927, along with the trophy collection. In recent decades, the number of ministries has greatly increased and footbaths and a prayer room have been installed on the ground floor for student use. As I walk up and down the ground floor observing the number of denominations represented, I can’t help but think the building best embodies the inscription it boasts. And maybe Columbia too.w
Illustration by Alexa Economacos
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T H E C O N V E R S AT I O N
A Zealot and a Sybarite A conversation with Sean Wilsey By Ben Schneider Sean Wilsey is the author of the New York Times bestselling memoir, Oh the Glory of it All, which details his at once charmed and traumatic childhood among the eccentrics of San Francisco high society. His most recent book is More Curious, a wide-ranging collection of essays about rats, soccer, skateboarding and America. He is currently working on another memoir, this one about his salacious family history. Since 1999, he has been Editor at Large at McSweeneys. Wilsey also spent five years at the New Yorker, where he was Managing Editor of Fiction, among other positions. Benjamin Schneider, CC '17, spoke to Wilsey—for whom he has recently begun interning—over rosés at Mekelberg's in Clinton Hill. The Blue & White: How does it make you feel knowing that your readers have such an intimate picture of your childhood and other personal experiences you’ve had throughout your life? Does that ever make you uncomfortable?
want to read a story that’s told well, by somebody who cares and has something to convey. I’ll read any story about anywhere, and I don’t know who that reader supposedly is who only wants to read stories set in Maine or that involve whales, or anything like that.
Sean Wilsey: Not really. I think what would make me uncomfortable is the reader who has a really keen eye for errors in terms of sentence structure and grammar and would call me out on bad writing. That would make feel really uncomfortable. That would make me feel really exposed and vulnerable. But talking about stuff that’s happened to me when I was a kid, when I’m forty years past all that—it’s like who cares? I’m not really writing about stuff that’s intimate and confusing. And I think confusion is kind of the key there. I think I get embarrassed when I don’t understand something. Embarrassment for me has its root in error and mistake and misreading a situation.
B&W: That’s not how it works. SW: No! So when somebody would review [Oh the Glory of it All] and talk about it as a piece of writing and when it worked and when it didn’t work and how certain things were shaded in such a way to reveal other things, that’s when I was like, yeah, cool, that’s what I want. Because I feel like everybody’s got interesting stories, but if you can figure out a way to tell them that will be edifying and hold someone else’s attention, that’s when it’ll be worth all the work. B&W: So has your creative process shifted between your first book and your subsequent book of essays and your forthcoming book?
B&W: So it’s all about the writing? SW: Yeah. I feel like there’s such a convention in reviewing where you have to just synopsize the book. It’s so boring. It doesn’t tell you anything in terms of whether you want to read it. Is anyone like, ooh I really want to read a story about this or that? No, I
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SW: I wrote a novel before Oh the Glory that never got published. I worked on that book so hard on the level of the sentence and I remember it got rejected by every agent. Really I think I tried every single person who was a literary agent in New York at that
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T H E C O N V E R S AT I O N time. And they all said, “Great writing, but I don’t understand what the hell is happening in the story.” And it pushed me to be a non-fiction writer, because I found myself incapable of making up a story. I didn’t even understand how people make up stories. But I think the more you learn about writing, the more you realize that most people don’t make up stories. Most novels are collections of thefts from people’s lives that are stitched together in a satisfying way. B&W: Like the saying, “Write what you know.” SW: Yeah well I just felt really wrong stealing things, which is kind of strange, because of course writing something where you use actual names can be seen as a huge violation, because those people didn’t sign up to be turned into a character in a book when they did the stuff that they did. I think I have a lot more consciousness about that now. In Oh the Glory, I was like, I have every right to tell this story. I was just a kid when this stuff happened. And I believe very strongly in that still. I have pretty much no right to write about my kids except in the most innocuous, “this is how cute my kids are” way.
SW: So outsider. B&W: So how do you feel looking at the history of skateboarding or other outsider identities that you have an affinity with, and seeing them become mainstream and commodified, and yet, at the same time, they’re more accessible than they once were? SW: I don’t like what’s happened to skateboarding that much. But I don’t think it’s that different from what’s happened to a lot of activities outside of the mainstream that have now been snapped up by people who can make money off of them. That’s all that’s happened to skateboarding; there’s a parasitic corporate culture attached to it. I think you can say the same thing about soccer, but to an exponentially greater degree. It used to be so small time. Even in the World Cup there used to be amateurs, people who had day jobs. And now it’s just a global juggernaut. I don’t think skateboarding’s ever gonna go that far. Skateboarding is so homegrown, it’s so American. It’s really difficult to skateboard in a lot of places outside the US because the pavement quality isn’t as good. You can’t skateboard in Italy. You hardly see anyone skating there, because it’s all cobblestones. And I feel like skating in a skatepark is a totally different pursuit. What I love about skating is laying that skateboard down when I walk out my front door and never picking it up. And I guess I got attracted to gondola rowing because it’s kind of the same idea. It’s even a similar stance; it’s kind of weird. And it allows you to the see the city in a new way. I love the relationship to your environment that comes with skating. All the stuff that’s fucked up about America is suddenly great when you’re on a skateboard. You’re like “Ugh, it’s so paved, it’s so ugly,” but you get to have these gritty, intimate, beautiful experiences in this ugly landscape. And to me it’ll always be a California thing.
“Most novels are collections of thefts from people’s lives that are stitched together in a satisfying way.”
B&W: Are you saying there’s an element of karmic retribution in some of the things you’ve written about your family and your childhood? SW: No, I’m just talking about power. I think that the people who have a right to tell their story are the people who have less power. And I think it balances the scales. You always have to be aware of that stuff. Now that I have a certain amount of power as an adult, I think my responsibility to what I say is really different. B&W: I want to hear more about the relationship between writing and power. You write a lot of skateboarding, and at least during your youth in the ’80s and early ’90s, skateboarding was a sort of outsider identity.
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B&W: Going back to soccer... In your second book, More Curious, you embark on some pretty esoteric projects. You write about watching the entirety of the 1970 World Cup on VHS, which, interestingly
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T H E C O N V E R S AT I O N enough, is also your birth year. And then there’s your journey from Marfa, Texas to New York City in a 1960 Chevy Apache, which had a max speed of fortyfive miles per hour. Do you have any more of these journeys on the docket? SW: Well I did one for the book I’m working on now, which was to row around the Venetian lagoon in a Venetian boat and camp out on all these abandoned islands. Those are the parts of Venice that nobody knows anymore, but are just as Venetian as anywhere else. I guess that’s what I’m always after—I’m after some sort of intimacy, and that felt really intimate. I’m actually building a boat in my backyard—in fact I need to keep working on it tomorrow—and the idea with that is to row it around the New York harbor, and camp out on all these abandoned islands out there. B&W: That’s so cool. SW: Yeah, except that it’s going to result in an immediate confrontation with the cops. Although there is an artist named Marie Lorenz who built her own boat and has done a lot of similar rowing around, and she always gets away with it. There’s something about a rowboat that’s so stripped down and kind of harmless. It’s like a skateboard. It’s nothing to be too concerned about. Although what I’d really like to do is, a lot of the bridges have these amazing anchorages that go down into the rivers. That would be a great place to spend the night. B&W: Your World Cup project was an intimate experience with a mass media spectacle. But I’m really interested in this idea of intimacy with the city—with skateboarding, with this rowing adventure. What compels you to nestle into the dark corners of the city? SW: I guess just the desire for a genuine experience. B&W: Is that hard to come by these days? SW: Yeah. Don’t you think? B&W: Yeah [laughter]. It was a leading question. SW: It’s really hard to come by. Really hard. Everything is so predetermined now.
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B&W: I like the word “curated.” SW: Yeah, you’re just expected to do things one way. And as soon as you step out of that way, there are a lot of impediments, but it’s suddenly much more interesting. Like driving that truck from Texas back to New York. Just the simple act of driving lower than the speed limit was so subversive. Of course it makes no sense that we’ve decided to base our economy on cars. There are so many ways cars could go wrong, because they’re all driven by people. Trains make so much more sense. There’s the track, the driver, nothing’s going to get in the way of it. The margin of error with cars is so great. And I got really curious about how much money I had cost the economy just by slowing down the roads with one car. I did a lot of talking to various bureaus of commerce, and at the very least, I cost America $500,000. At the most it might have been $30 million. B&W: I think there’s definitely a burgeoning potential for these seemingly benign forms of civil disobedience, looking for glitches in the system. Especially when our society feels so much like some sort of internet enabled machine. SW: “Seemingly benign” is a really good phrase. Because no one’s really going to be attracted by
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T H E C O N V E R S AT I O N seemingly benign, but it’s actually effective. B&W: But what is it accomplishing? SW: I think there’s a growing awareness in our society that none of what we’re accustomed to and take for granted is actually sustainable. We’re probably living in a very unusual moment when it’s just okay to throw out tons of trash. And it’s okay to have an internal combustion engine. None of that stuff can last. B&W: To have a university with an endowment in the tens of billions of dollars just sitting there—what is that doing for anybody? SW: Right. And so I think once people become aware, I think there’s this revolutionary potential. But I think people are super freaked-out. I’m afraid. I like cars, I like taking out the trash [laughs]. I’m like, well, what’s it gonna be like if I don’t get to do that stuff? It’s funny because Venice is this place that I’m really obsessed with, and Venice is a really interesting example of a place that kind of came out of an apocalypse. The Roman empire collapsed, and the Barbarians were coming down and wreaking terrible destruction. And so the people who lived in
the Roman city on the edge of the lagoon fled into the lagoon. And it was really primitive, they were just living in mud huts and they had boats. But no one came after them. And then it grew up into this glorious place. B&W: So is that a potential metaphor for future America? SW: Well I guess so. When you look at Venice, it’s kind of a city based on fear. It was a place where people fled. It was probably really miserable living in Venice for the first hundred years. But now, that city is the ultimate human accomplishment, it’s so beautiful and surprising and strange; it rivals nature. But that’s not how it started out. No one wanted to leave their comfortable, protected, Roman situation and go live in some mud hut in a lagoon. So something has to change, obviously, in our country. B&W: I think there’s something to be said about the contemporary American city being built on fear. SW: I always think of the suburbs as being built on fear. B&W: But as the city suburbanizes, creating spaces that feel safe for the types of people who live in the suburbs, I think it’s a similar logic. And then I think the threat of terrorism is really boosting that whole ideology. SW: What are people most afraid of? They’re afraid of violence and poverty. Those are the things I’m most afraid of. I don’t want to be hurt, and I don’t want to be destitute. And I guess purposelessness is something people are afraid of. There was one throwaway line in More Curious, where I volunteered at this support center for 9/11 victims. And we were getting all worked up, like, man, why do we have to be fighting against Islamic extremism? Why can’t we be fighting a value system like the one in Spain? They would be like, “Take more naps! Stop working so hard!” B&W: If they were after us they would have convinced everyone to join. SW: It’s the difference between a zealot and sybarite. And we’re kind of zealots in America, too. I mean
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Illustration by Anne Scotti
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T H E C O N V E R S AT I O N look at the way Donald Trump has been able to work the population into a total froth with a bunch of bullshit. And I think the supposed tenets of Islam that are used to incite violence are total bullshit. But they’re effective. They’re easy answers to complicated questions. And sitting around, eating a nice lunch and taking a nap—that’s not an easy answer to a complicated question, that’s enjoying your life. Some people just aren’t able to do that. This is a bit of a stretch, but I’m sure there’s a certain type of personality that would way rather crash a plane into a building than have to sit and communicate and enjoy and take other people into account. B&W: Or at least they’ve been inculcated into an ideology that makes them feel that way. SW: Well it makes me think about masculinity. There’s a certain moment when you’re full of testosterone and you don’t know what to do with it [laughing]. There used to be a lot of opportunities for war and mayhem. In a weird way this comes back to what we were talking about with skateboarding. It used to be this thing that you could do that was outside of the mainstream. And I think the more the mainstream co-opts and monetizes desire, the more frustrated desire becomes. You’re like, “Oh I just want to go out and raise hell! But somebody is making money off me raising hell.” B&W: I can think of so many places where that idea applies—when young people’s energy is directed in socially acceptable, monetizable ways. SW: Yes! And it’s fucked up. That’s why I hate San Francisco as it now exists, with its internet identity. I find it disgusting. It’s all about monetizing desire, but it’s so empty, it’s so banal. But it’s really seductive. One of the pieces I didn’t put in More Curious was this piece about Steve Jobs and Apple for Bloomberg Businessweek. I remember watching a speech that he gave, I think at Stanford.
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B&W: Is that the famous commencement speech where he announces he has cancer? SW: Yeah, but it’s terrible. It was completely shallow, and just full of applause lines and platitudes. Whereas the famous Foster Wallace speech [“This is Water"]—there are speeches that make you feel good and there are speeches that make you think. And that speech doesn’t make you think it all. It makes you think Steve Jobs is really cool and it makes you feel really good about yourself for going to Stanford. B&W: So if you were to give a commencement address, what would you say? SW: [Laughs] Thanks for the softball question. That’s a good question to ask somebody with a lot invested in the status quo. And I do have a lot invested in the status quo. I like to have my fun and I like to subvert the status quo in my way. But I also have an established career and I have children in school and I have to pay their private school tuition. So how much do I want to upend the status quo? To be really honest, it’s not in my self-interest to do so. But I would never say that to a graduating class. I would want to completely urge them to upend the status quo. It’s an uncomfortable paradox for me. And I actually think the very idea of targeting a piece of thought to a specific age demographic is a little elitist. I would never ever agree to give a commencement speech because I would just not want to segregate people based on age. We’re all in it together. Among people my age, and I’m forty five, there’s a lot of hemming and hawing about getting old; your body, your weight, your hair—it’s all so shallow. And I think it’s all sold to us. I think the whole idea of generational segregation is a total corporate concept. So there, that’s my commencement address. I would address it to everyone. It’s such a cop out to just tell people who are graduating college to go change the world. You’re still alive, you go change the world.w
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April 2016
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DIGITALIA COLUMBIANA These excerpts were culled from documents left on Columbia’s lab computers. We encourage our readers to submit their own digitalia finds to us, via email, at bwgossip@columbia.edu. What’s brown and sticky? ...Could it be that grime at the bottom of your desk drawer? ....Maybe it’s the greasy film covering your stove? ....Hopefully it’s not that mystery substance at the bottom of your garbage can... The answer: A stick. e EC RHLO’s here to help you out with those other brown and sticky problems, though. With only a month and a half left until move out, it’s time to get a head start on your spring cleaning. Come out this Friday at noon for FREE cleaning supplies. We will have DISH SOAP, SPONGES, GLOVES, CLOROX WIPES, TRASH BAGS and other cleaning goodies for you to pick up. First come first serve! e CLASS DAY SPEAKER SELECTION Successes: The committee has been efficient and collaborative on this project. We submitted everything by the required deadlines, and were able to agree on with a list of options for speakers in a methodical manner. Unlike previous years’ speaker proposal, we allowed students who were not on CCSC 2016, since we felt that the Class Day Speaker was an important selection, for which we should have input beyond just the 2016 Council. Things to Improve: We probably have to work a bit on perfecting the reasoning in our arguments for our class day speaker list, given that the proposal was returned to us with a request for edits. This could probably be improved by looking over each other’s work and being more collaborative in writing the proposal, rather than splitting up and each owning a particular part. Other than that, the speaker selec-
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tion process has been productive and fun. e A Lionshare listing for a “Compliance Aide”: The Tobacco Enforcement Unit inspects merchants to enforce State and City Laws that prohibit the sale and distribution of tobacco products to individuals under 18 for New York State and individuals under 21 for New York City. Our units conduct unannounced inspections of retailers of tobacco and other products that are banned by law. These compliance checks are conducted by teams of inspectors with individuals under 21 years of age who attempt to purchase products to determine if merchants are following the laws. Reporting to the Supervisor of Tobacco Enforcement, responsibilities include, but are not limited to: •Assist Inspectors in the performance of routine compliance checks and/or specific complaint inspections/investigations of Tobacco Retailers to ensure compliance with the relevant laws, rules and regulations. •Perform undercover assignments by attempting tobacco purchases at specified locations under the direction of a tobacco inspection team. Qualifications: 1. High school graduate 2. Ability to travel to and from all five boroughs of the City of New York. •Punctual and detail oriented •Organized and self-motivated •Respectful and professional demeanor in diverse contexts •Superior communication and interpersonal skills. •Customer service experience a plusw
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CAMPUS GOSSIP BY ANY OTHER NAME A Change.org petition with 81 supporters at print time beseeches President Bollinger to change Butler Library’s namesake from university president Nicholas Murray Butler to postmodern gender theorist Judith Butler. As it turns out, the male Butler was a staunch supporter of Mussolini and vacillated in opposing Hitler. But Judith Butler, the petition argues, “is a contemporary hero that anyone can find inspiration from, and her ideas are much more worth sharing than the parochial, out-dated ideologies of Nicholas Murray Butler.” e During Bacchanal, one student infiltrated the Class of 2020 GroupMe only to tell prospective students repeatedly that he was “blackout,” before then removing himself from the group. His messages may have contributed to the group’s recent dissolution. e WikiCU user “The Engineer” recently edited the Senior Scramble page to say, “The Senior Scramble involves two individuals, generally both having low self esteems. Whether it’s because they just met and the pressures to be popular are too strong, or they’ve dated for years and realize that their personalities are junk and everyone else has been taken by the Scramble [...] If you end up not making the cut, three studs will throw a party to help you find love in this hopeless place.” Coincidentally, this B&W staffer was invited to a “Senior Scramble Backup Plan” Facebook event hosted by three male seniors. HOLD FAST TO THE SPIRIT OF YOUTH Senior Fund donation has been sluggish, according to a recent push for donations, with only 4% of the senior class participating thus far. e CrackDel sold out of 40s the night of 40s on 40. Meanwhile, one smooth underclassman convinced Milano’s to accept Flex for his Four Loko purchase.
April 2016
A student in an Affect Theory seminar was told by her professor to “stop thinking so much.” SMALL GOVERNMENT “None” had a strong showing in this year’s student council elections, winning a plurality or majority of the votes in the races for Sandwich Ambassador, Student Groups rep, and Campus Affairs rep. e CCSC candidates gave out brownies in front of Butler and promised to build a wall around campus “to keep out jokes.” BIG GOVERNMENT The Weatherhead East Asian Institute was started by the CIA. NEW YORK VALUES Ever the entrepreneur, Columbia PR boss Robert Hornsby has co-founded an art collective and made a kickstarter for “New York Values” merchandise. e One person was ticketed at the subway party this year for crawling under a turnstile. e The naked rump in the Hewitt Dining Hall mural has officially been painted out. The Blue and White most sincerely protests this change. e The Physical Education department is letting students make up absences by cheering at basketball games, proving that watching people exercise is just as good as doing it yourself. e Overheard in Lerner: “If your parents own the means of production, they do not want their daughter to be lesbian.” e Tampons..they’re not pads!w
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