March 2016

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. II

Advocacy Across the Spectrum The changing face of queer groups on campus

I Love College PrezBo’s undergraduate years Also Inside: Columbians in Pop Culture

March 2016

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 ROBERT JACK GROSS, CC ’16, Copy Editor 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 KUNAL JASTY, SEAS ’16 IRINA TEVELEVA, CC ’17 JOSEPH MILHOLLAND, CC ’17 LUCY JAKUB, CC ’17 GENEVA HUTCHESON, CC ’17 MIYA LEE, CC ’18 EMMA BOGLER, CC ’17 DANIEL SINGER, CC ’17

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 Manager AUBRI JUHASZ, BC ’18

THE BLUE AND WHITE Vol. XXII

FAMAM EXTENDIMUS FACTIS

No. II

Columns

4 Blue Book 6 Blue Notes 8 Campus Characters 12 Verily Veritas 22 M easure for Measure 30 Digitalia Columbiana 31 Campus G ossip

Mabel Taylor & Virginia Fu

Sean Augustine-Obi

Nick Kensinger

13 The Spectrum Examining queer and trans student groups 16 Famous Fictionals Columbia alumni from the big screen

Nia Brown

18 Defect Found A B&W editor faces death at the hands of a faulty elevator

Dan Singer

19 Copywriting Culture Columbia's history of musical appropriation

Caroline Hurley & Channing Prend Emma Bogler

theblueandwhite.org

Features 10 At Two Swords’ Length: A re We G oing to Room Together? Our monthly prose and cons

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cover :

20 P rezBo’s Glory Days Even our esteemed president was once an undergraduate 24 “H appiness Is a Closed Circuit” A conversation with Leslie Jamison

“In Like a Lion and Out Like a Lamb ” by Alexandra Warrick

BLUE BOOK

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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

Ah, midterms season, the time you really start to feel the weight of your procrastination. Did you really start your assignments the day you got them this semester? Have you been keeping up on your reading for classes this time, like you vowed you would during stressful cramming session the semester before? I for one am writing this letter at 2am in the library after having put if off for several days. Fitting, no? While I may be wishing at the moment that I were a fictional Columbia student (see p. 16), I can almost smell Spring Break’s arrival in Butler’s musty hallways. And when I finally do escape campus and make it considerably farther south than 110th Street, I will be celebrating with some bubbly–perhaps a bottle of Bollinger champagne (see p. 6). Speaking of PrezBo, turn to p. 20 if you want to learn about our friend Lee’s undergraduate legacy as the vice president of student government at the University of Oregon. Semesters, like seasons, come in cycles. March feels like a transitory stage, an interim period–even the weather can’t make up its mind. To read about another entity that is currently in flux, the Barnard library, see p. 6. Still, I am comforted by the fact that each day has a few more minutes of sunlight than the last. The queer student groups at Columbia have also evolved forr the better in recent memory, becoming more intersectional and engaging with the outside community (read about it on p. 13) Soon we’ll all be basking on Low Steps and enjoying the part of spring semester that actually feels like spring. For now, I will try to appreciate each day as it comes. Unless that includes being stuck in a campus elevator (see p. 18). Never fear, March comes in like a ferocious midterms lion and out like a sweet Bacchanal lamb. Enjoy the issue! — Channing Prend

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TRANSACTIONS ARRIVALS Anne-Marie Slaughter Bacchanal tickets—exclusively on Tidal Thicker toilet paper School-sponsored tampons Columbia University Apartheid Divest

DEPARTURES Hot water Your hope of getting a single Columbia’s chances at March Madness Academic freedom across the world Kent Elevator

Come Again?!

“At first, I started to work out at the beginning of high school, end of middle school, and then I got a little more into it, and then I kind of started, but then I really stopped lifting for a while, but then I got back into it, then I eventually, I just started lifting with a friend or two? [...] And then once you start lifting, like, it’s just not, nice, like, you just don’t want to stop. Mainly it just feels good. You feel like shit if you don’t lift.”

– Eric Gonzalez, as quoted in The Eye

The Blue and White

BLUE BOOK

What Did You Learn? Apparently, people actually bothered to fill out those course evaluations sent repeatedly during finals week last semester. Now they’re available on Vergil for your perusal. We scoured them for the most entertaining insights so you don’t have to. Principles of Economics, Nicola Zaniboni “I learned the basics of Economics. Very basic.” “patience” “Nothing” “How to think like an economist outside of the box.” e Calculus I, Chao Li “Throughout this course, I was exposed to the two fundamental pillars of Calculus. I learned how to manipulate and draw graphs in order to extract vital information, as well as how to manipulate algebraic expression and functions in order to derive integrals and derivatives.” “basic calc” “better note-taking skills” “we just learned a bunch of calculus…” e Organic Chemistry, Virginia Cornish “I learned that I have a horrible work ethic” “Everything on the syllabus...” “Too much, too quickly” “I can honestly say that this course was a waste of my time and money”

Freedom of Speech and Press, Lee Bollinger “I took this class to see if I wanted to go to law school and it worked. I am certainly going to law school. I liked PrezBo’s balance between stern and nurturing.” “I learned how to think about law­—specifically the First Amendment—as it applies to myself, society, our country, and the world. I learned that I have a true interest in the legal field and for that I am forever grateful.” e Major Debates in the Study of Africa, Mahmood Mamdani “I learned about the study of Africa. Like, how Africa has been studied differently throughout time.” “How to see Africa” “The provincialization of the West was grandiose. I would not say that I was a total settler in my mind before because in France with critical sociology, although the keys of understanding are different and not necessarily putting emphasis on subaltern studies, there was a critical approach too. But it was still White critical people writing about the world. So it was one of the greatest class I have ever taken.”

POSTCARD FROM MORNINGSIDE

March 2016

Postcard by Leila Mgaloblishvili

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BLUE NOTES

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hen the tapered, art deco towers of Rockefeller Center opened in 1939, America’s richest family did not own the bedrock upon which they stood. Rather, they were leasing the land from Columbia, which had acquired the property 125 years earlier. The present day home of NBC was built upon land originally purchased in 1801 for $5,000 by David Hosack, a Columbia Medical School professor who had treated Alexander Hamilton after his infamous duel with Aaron Burr. Hosack decided to use his land to build Manhattan’s first botanical garden, but when the cost of maintaining it grew too great, he sold the property back to the state for $75,000. The state, seemingly uninterested in maintaining the property, donated the land to Columbia in 1814. The Trustees of the College were dissatisfied with the gift. They viewed the land (which was then outside of the city limits) as “neither attractive nor useful,” because it was “so far out in the country.”

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Although the College could rent out small parcels of the property, its taxes outweighed its revenues. The property became much more useful in 1928, when Columbia signed an agreement with the Rockefeller Group that would secure the university an annual income of $3.3 million for 21 years. With its new tenant, Columbia was guaranteed a significant and consistent financial resource while the rest of the country suffered throughout the Great Depression. Under the leadership of Columbia President Dr. William J. McGill, the University was able to almost triple the annual income from the Rockefeller property when renewing their lease in 1973. McGill spun the profitable deal as an act of public service— stating that “Columbia University and Rockefeller Center will continue to work harmoniously and in concert to strengthen New York City and to insure the City’s future excellence, goals to which we are both deeply dedicated.” Apparently, the University’s dedication to the “future excellence” of the City extended insofar as it was lucrative. When the University’s Trustees realized that a larger profit could be made by selling the property and investing the money from the sale in government securities and bonds, they quickly sold it in 1985 for $400 million, doubling the University’s endowment at the time. Although the University effectively severed its legal ties with Rockefeller Center through the sale, Columbia still maintains a periphery connection to the property. In 2000, Jerry Speyer—a Columbia alumnus and former University Trustee—bought the entirety of Rockefeller Center for $1.85 billion. — Miya Lee

Illustration by Anne Scotti

The Blue and White

BLUE NOTES

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ne beautiful snowy day this winter, I was walking down Broadway when something stopped me in my tracks. In the window of a liquor store, I noticed a massive sign that read “Bollinger Champagne.” I consider myself something of a sparkling wine aficionado, but for some reason I’d never made the connection between this storied champagne house and Columbia University’s very own beloved President Lee Bollinger. What a spectacular empire our main man is at the helm of—Ivy League and bubbles—beautiful! Further down the block I had another serendipitous realization. I had scurried into a home improvement store to buy some primer to cover up the human blood splattered across my dorm walls. Wandering down the aisle, I realized that every can, from floor to ceiling, from wall to wall, was labeled “Benjamin Moore.” Benjamin Moore! Benjamin Moore, the 5th president of Columbia University, an Episcopalian bishop, and, apparently, king of a midrange paint production company! How had I never connected my favorite brand of paint with one of my school’s most distinguished rulers? Moore presided over Columbia for a whole nine years in the late 1700s, yet nobody talks about him OR his reasonably priced paints! I decided to rush home and do some more research. Before I could say “lickety-split” eighteen times fast I was awash in a treasure trove of historical trivia that Columbia has so eagerly tried to hide. Lee and Benjamin aside, we also have a funkadelic man in our mix! George Clinton has not only made unparalleled contributions to the history of Funk and Soul music, but he also made time to govern Columbia from 1784-1787. Columbia’s audacity—its refusal to even acknowledge the powerful history that makes this university so unique—infuriated me so much that I decided to take action. I called up my travel agent and had her buy me a one-way ticket to Colombia.

March 2016

Packing my bags, I managed to get a call through to another silent hero of our humble institution, President Juan Manuel Santos. He agreed to meet and discuss the best way to put Colombian history on the main world stage in 2016. — Mabel Taylor

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n unsightly green plywood wall blocks off Lehman Lawn and Wollman Library from the rest of Barnard’s campus. Through the small diamond windows along the barrier, one can see an odd juxtapositioning of construction tape and student murals. On the handle of the former library’s front door, someone has written “NO” and an “X” in red letters. In the shadows of demolition and construction, many students have begun to feel ill at ease. What does this change mean for the community? As if in response to this anxious atmosphere, one student has painted: “Don’t be afraid.” The move has not been entirely smooth, and books are scattered across campus in such a confusing way that the Barnard Instructional Media and Technology Services (IMATS), along with a Barnard Librarian, made an explanatory video on the distribution. The 20,000 most circulated books have been moved to Butler, while the LeFrak Center houses new purchases, the archives, and the zine collection. Located in Barnard Hall, the newly dubbed “LeFrakbary” ironically serves as a better community space than the library’s former location. Jenna Freedman, the Zine Librarian and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Librarian at Barnard spoke about what was gained in the move: “For me the biggest gain is intimacy. I love being so close to the archives, which was two floors away from Lehman.” The close proximity to the Empirical Reasoning Center has allowed for greater exchange between the archival and technical departments, and the opportunity to interact with other researchers. Whether it is Collection Services staff, students studying, or faculty walking past her office, she “can’t help but look up when someone passes by.” Freedman continues, “Being in Barnard Hall feels great, too. We’re on the ground floor of the first building you see when you enter campus from the main entrance. That’s the kind of prominence a library should have, right?” — Geneva Hutcheson

Illustration by Alexa Economacos

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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.

Xan Faber

X

an Faber, CC ’16, was brought up Episcopalian in the small town of Hays, Kansas. “My church at home has 9 people, maybe 13 on a good day and they’re all about 80 years old,” she laughs. “They actually power our organ using a vacuum.” “Episcopalians are pretty chill people,” Xan tells me. “I would actually define us as the chillest denomination, which is not to say we’re Methodists.” Despite always considering herself a spiritual person, she didn’t anticipate leading or even becoming involved in the Canterbury Club, Columbia’s Episcopal student group, which she affectionately refers to as the “Episco-posse.” “When I got to Columbia, I found out that they were the nicest people who still think critically about their faith,” Xan says. As the daughter of a philosophy professor, she was raised to question her faith in this way. “My dad likes to interrogate people about their

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beliefs all the time.” Xan’s father was also the one who gave her her name, which comes from Xanthippe, the wife of Socrates. Xan is the only student at Columbia majoring in Medicine, Literature, and Society, a track within the Comparative Literature and Society department. “It seemed like a perfect way to combine my interests in philosophy, psychology, and foreign languages,” she recalls. “I don’t feel like I came out with any concrete skill set though,” she adds before bursting out in laughter. Xan may not know what she’s doing with the rest of her life, but she knows what she isn’t going to do: “I think consultants suck. You’re actively perpetrating a really messed up system of wealth inequality and…” she abruptly stops herself and scrawls her face. “You’re not going into consulting, are you?” After graduation, Xan is moving to Taipei to conduct bioethics research. She says she isn’t nervous despite not knowing a single person in the city or speaking Chinese. “Once you get excited about a place you just want to move there and do something.” Xan has this same sense of adventure about New York. “One of my favorite things to do is find bizarre art events around the city,” she says. She tells me about several of these, including an Ann Hamilton installation at the Park Avenue armory with huge wooden swings hanging from the ceiling (“It was absurd!”). “Xan’s always doing weird things and finding random events all over the city,” Brigid Connell, CC ‘16, Xan’s roommate and friend says. “We’re going to the Westminster dog show next week.” According to Brigid, there is never a dull moment living with Xan. “We actually had this plan at the beginning of the year that I was going to teach her Spanish and she was going to teach me German,” Brigid says. “So I labeled everything in our suite with post-its in Spanish right when I moved in. She never did it for German though and she never learned

The Blue and White

Spanish, but those post-its are everywhere now!” Perhaps the most impressive thing about Xan is not her diverse set of interests but her genuine desire to experience and learn about new things. Over the course of our interview she speaks animatedly about everything from German folk music to hiking to public health. Still, Xan seems unconvinced of her own uniqueness. “I honestly don’t feel like I’m that worthy of being a campus character,” she remarks. — Channing Prend

Sinjihn Smith

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here are a lot of things Sinjihn Smith, CC ’15, will not miss when he leaves the United States and moves to Japan next month. When asked to name a few, he says, “That’s hard. Probably people wearing Doc Martens. I hate those so much. And also hair buns. Mostly things I find in poor aesthetic taste. That’s hella superficial. Oh, and transition sunglasses.” But Sinjihn, a recent December graduate, has roots in New York that will be difficult to move across the globe no matter how much Doc Martens bother him. “I’ll miss good pizza. That’s what I’ll miss about America the most. And New York is sloppy. It’s made me love dirt and grime. Japan is so clean. I’m gonna miss ashy people on the subway and people trying to fight each other. There’s no violence in Japan and on paper those things are good but—I’m about to making a sweeping statement—I feel like people who value cleanliness and safety are kind of fake.” Sinjihn, a Computer Science major, is also interested in producing electronic music and currently works on the side as a DJ. This past December, he put together a mix for Rare Candy magazine under the name Simara. The mix focuses on a future, post-apocalyptic world in which racial issues take center stage. Of his inspiration for the mix, he says, “I was really interested in what black female artists are making.” Sinjihn tries to materialize culturally relevant themes, particularly those related to race, through his music. While Japan is extremely different from the United States, he is confident he will find a community there in which he can continue producing art from his experiences engaging with the culture. He is excited to start a new life in Japan, though his main reason for moving there is to be with his girlfriend of six years.

March 2016

“It’s a collectivist society, but as much as it is collectivist, there is a lot of individuality that doesn’t exist in Japan. But I think when you have a culture like that—that is very homogenous—there’s still other people interested in other things. So that creates a really nice underground community. There’s lots of underground music. It’s not as cutthroat as New York; it’s community based and I really like that.” Sinjihn says that he wasn’t always attracted to the community and society of Japan, but his values have changed after coming to Columbia. “Maybe this is what it means to be old, but I care about how much I’m going to make, and how much they value engineers, and if I’ll make friends at work,” he muses. At one point in our conversation, he remarks how much he “really cares about money these days,” but that money is not actually the most important thing to him. (He apologizes to me in case I was beginning to think otherwise.) After reflecting on his own observation for a few minutes, he comes up with his credo: “It’s crazy that we live in a world that caring for other people is a radical form of love. Okay, so then do it like you’re going to war. Actually care about people. If you want to fight fire with fire, you can fight fire with something with the same intensity as fire, but do it with something better. In this silly war of attrition of people not caring about stuff, be someone who cares a lot. Be strong. Like the love Hercules or something.” And upon realizing that this may come off as “soft” or “preachy,” he adds an exasperated, “Goddamnit.” — Caroline Hurley

Illustrations by Joanna Zou

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AT T W O S W O R D S ’ L E N G T H

Are we going R

oom together? Let’s ROOM-inate on this for a ine what it’s going to be like. We’re really doing hot sec… Lol, just kidding, yes! Of course! Yes, it, aren’t we? We’re gonna go through the housyes, yes!!! How could you ever even think I’d say no? ing lottery together, we’re gonna move in together, God, my heart is racing. I love this conversation! I we’re gonna take turns showering, we’re gonna share love this question! I love this answer! I love you! I shampoo, but only if we run out of our own shampoo always knew we’d end up roommates. No, I’m not because we use different shampoos, we’re gonna being an idiot! I swear. sleep in the same room every The first time I saw night and also study together you, across the classroom in pretty often… I literally canCritical Approaches, man, not wait. Like I cannot wait. I my heart was thumping. I can’t. Can you move in now? I knew from the moment I have a Twin XL, it’s a lot bigsaw you that we’d get along ger than a twin. You should like North Carolina and look at it. I think we could South Carolina. It was so both fit in there. cool. Remember when we Maybe next year we can first talked, that day in the just push the beds together. bathroom, when I needed We can sleep head to foot, talk toilet paper and you had too about foot massages! And at much toilet paper? From night, we will dream together, that day on, I knew we would sweet, sweet dreams all night, be glued at the hip and that every night. I’m not afraid to you would be by my side for admit that I’ve dreamt about the entirety of the afterlife, you before. Nothing dirty! heaven OR hell. And we all Just nice little adventures know that after what hapwith you in my dreamscapes. pened in FroSci last weekI love those dreams, because end, we’re probably going they’re going to be like the to hell. Lol! building blocks, the brick and morffirmative Our friendship progressed so tar of our year together. I love to By Mabel Taylor quickly, it was like I’d known you dream about the walls of our friendmy whole life. Totally one of those ship going up, surrounding us, “I’d miss you even if we never met” reaching up to heaven. Man, I am so kind of moments. Like all those nights when we excited about rooming with you! would just sit, side-by-side, in the library and I’d try It feels really good to envision our life together. to convince you to go out to get a drink with me, and I see us living together for the rest of college and then we would go out a get a drink. Those were the then finding an apartment after we graduate, though moments of my life. Those moments when I’d just we’d probably have to part ways when we get marlook over at you, texting on your smartphone and ried. But we can be each other’s maids of honor. If be like, “damn.” That’s what friendship is about— we plan properly we can even have a double wedding! moments. I’ve also read about couples splitting brownstones And what we have is so much more than friend- in Brooklyn, so we could actually live together once ship now! Roommates? Holy crap. I can’t even imag- we’re married too.w

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The Blue and White

AT T W O S W O R D S ’ L E N G T H

to room together? I

don’t know. God, you are so sweet. Maybe tonight after Pilates? Look, we gotta talk. You know how much I value Maybe right now since we just finished Skyping? Are your friendship. And you’re not being an idiot, I we still on for our IKEA date? And after that you feel the same way! The could skip your 6:10 first time I ran into you in and come with me to Hewitt, and you spilled Cannon’s? We could that glass of chocolate drink beer there? I just almond milk down the want to be with you front of my cardigan forever too! That’s my and tried to wipe it away dream. I want to steal with bread, I was like, your children and raise damn, that’s a really them on milk and honey pretty shade of nail polon the beach resort my ish. Like, oh my god, you dad owns in Guam! I looked so pretty I wanted want to break down the to kill you. No, I’m being walls between us and be serious! I would kill you. the same person as you. It’s been so nice to I want to kill you and spend all this time with wear your soft body and you this year in all of the your dope shirts. You school’s best spaces, like are so good at choosing when we go to the library what shirts to buy. together, or classes, or But—about the your room, or my room, roommate thing. I’m or bathrooms. You know not saying no! I really all those times you would want to be your roomtalk about how swell mate. I just don’t think it would be if all these it’s that simple. Think spaces were connected--like with about it. There are definitely things egative tunnels or something, or just like we should talk about some more. By Virginia Fu smushed together! Like, if you Like for example, if there’s broke down the walls between the one window, whose desk would we stalls at Mel’s. Like, if my room were also your room put by the window? Would it just be the desk that was and our rooms were bathroom stalls in Mel’s—and I already by the window? Should we even have desks said yeah! Then it would be like we’re always in the or should it just be all flowers? Should the flowers be space! Because then there would be only one space. orchids which I know are your favorite? What if they That was so smart! Oh my god! I love that. I love that get too much sunlight???? Should the posters on the so much. I hate you for being so smart. I literally hate walls be of puppies or U2?????? you! I’m going to kill you and dump your body in the God, it’s so stressful to even think about being river. roommates! I can’t. I can’t. I’m staring at a picture I That is a thing that definitely needs to happen took you of this morning in Ferris and crying. God at some point! And of course I would move into your you’re so perfect. I can’t. Meet in front of the IKEA single! I love Hartley! It is so sweet of you to ask! ferry at 3? Omg so excited to see you again!!!w

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March 2016

Illustrations by Alexa Economacos

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V E R I LY V E R I TA S

TOLD BETWEEN PUFFS

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In which our hero awakens from a one-night stand

ad all the ships that had embarked from Mycene been diverted from the lofty walls of Ilium, swept aside by rogue Borean blasts, and had instead sailed blind into the confines of V.V’s inner mind, only to cause turmoil unrestrained, clamor beyond provocation, pain beyond comprehension, then perhaps V.V’s head would have been less aggrieved and not so drastically racked by anguish. Oh how it would throb and convulse with daemonic fervor, whirl as a Bacchic chorus! V.V opened his eyes. “Aqua” was his first thought. He craved it as the wayward Odyssean exile, through desert and dust, yearns for the relief of his parched throat. For it was dry, drier indeed than most of the week’s lectures, whose tedium had driven him to seek refuge in inebriation. Again, V.V opened his eyes. Blurry shadows emerged from the darkness as V.V began to regain consciousness. (Cogite ergo est.) Shadows gave way to colors, colors to shapes, shapes to forms. Water! It was there, atop the lacquered Ming Dynasty table that V.V kept close to his bed for its pleasing smell. Oh, how Mallory strove for Everest, how Moses drove for the Promised Land, how Xenophon fought for the Sea—all such efforts were nothing but crumbs under V.V’s paisley neckerchief. V.V lifted up his hand and stretched it outwards towards his be-lacquered prize with elegance akin to Sistine Adam. But his quarry, at the most potent moment of its imminent possession, was wrenched away. Another hand, soft, delicate, surreptitiously plundered V.V’s beloved aqua. V.V shed a heroic tear for his dispatched comrade—not even the slaughter of Patroklus bore Achilles such grief—until he realized with discordant alarm that the other delicate

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soft hand was in fact not his! An intruder, could it be? V.V flung off the covers. Fire was his eyes, tempests were his brows; what righteous retribution was he about to inflict, not even the Muses could sing. Once before, he had encountered an intruder whilst hunting tigers near the Euphrates. That poor man, that damned foe who stepped in our hero’s path, was smitten down to Tartarus, hurled as Hephaestus off the snowy peaks of Olympus to land in dolorous mire. But V.V’s anger suddenly melted, the ice of his cold veins softened into lustral streams, the odious clench of his fist relaxed; for what was before him was indeed a maiden, a beautiful Prosperina clothed in all the glory of Egyptian cotton. How on earth? V.V was a charming man, he knew (all women knew), but this was unexpected. For her beauty was indeed a pleasant shock. The stricken maiden, meanwhile, startled with the speed of our hero’s cover-flinging and the aura of his command, was taken aback and blushed an orchard of wildrose. This was the man who, the night before, had serenaded her with stanzas of “Prufrock,” who explained to her the ancient Mayan sport of Techquetlin, who had, from the inner works of his breast pocket, revealed a species of exotic bird thought long extinct. How impressive was he now though dampened by headache and lack of slumber. The pair locked eyes in magnetic attraction, stared through each other past all superficiality, past all things flesh and blood; they stared at each other beyond the confines of Plato’s cave. “Verily?” she asked; “Verily,” he affirmed; Verily it was.w

The Blue and White

Q U E RY I N G C H A N G E

Advocacy Across the Spectrum Examining cultural changes among queer and trans student groups on campus By Sean Augustine-Obi

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ast November, a Carman Hall bulletin board celebrating Trans Awareness Month was repeatedly vandalized. After the bulletin board was torn down three times, the floor’s resident advisor posted a statement in support of the transgender community, which was then torn down as well. A note was then taped to the bulletin board, reading, “I RESPECTFULLY QUESTION THE VALIDITY OF TRANSGENDER IDENTITY!” Once news of the vandalism became public, campus response was swift—messages of support filled the Carman Facebook group, and the executive board of the Columbia Queer Alliance submitted an op-ed to the Spectator denouncing the vandalism as a hate crime while calling for more institutional support. “Let’s be clear: These repeated offenses are hate crimes. Repeatedly and deliberately vandalizing a community bulletin board expressing support and solidarity for a marginalized group on campus is not ’respectfully questioning,’” read the op-ed. “In light of recent events, it is crucial that the Columbia administration, especially Residential Life, continue taking quick, concrete action against transphobia to fulfill their mission of ’fostering safe and inclusive living and learning environments.’” Administrators had already pledged some degree of support—two days before the op-ed was published, Residence Hall Director Aaron Hukari informed Carman residents via email that Residential Life and the Office of Multicultural Affairs would be tabling in the lobby alongside student group GendeRevolution. But the op-ed asserted that this response didn’t go far enough; the needs of trans students went beyond a single dorm, and CQA argued that communicating with student groups was the best way to gauge the needs of the trans community on campus. It wasn’t the first time CQA had issued a public response to an anonymous act of vandalism targeting queer or trans students. Eight years prior, at the same dorm, a pillar was defaced with graffiti reading “QUEERS RAPE.” Aries Dela Cruz, GS ’09, recalls

March 2016

how the initial shock gave way to an opportunity to use the vandalism as a means to call for institutional change. “I remember how frustrated we were, because we called Facilities—and this was before there was an LGBT director. [...] They left it to us, the queer community had to clean up the graffiti being made against them.” Cruz continued, “But we used that. We sent out a press release that said, ‘The LGBT community is not supported by the administration, we don’t have resources.’ So we used these things to leverage the hiring of an LGBT advisor. These incidents point to a lack of resources or a lack of cultural change, or they point to the fact that for all the good of the admin, they’re not doing enough.” History appears to have repeated itself, and as LGBTQ-centric demands toward the University have progressed from hiring advisors to recognizing trans students’ preferred names and allowing trans women to enroll at Barnard, the organizations making them have shifted priorities as well.

Advocacy and Community Queer organizations at Columbia are multitudinous—in addition to CQA, there are student-led groups such as Q, Proud Colors, GendeRevolution, Q House, and the GS Alliance, as well as administrative outlets meant to serve the community, such as the Gay Health Advocacy Project and LGBTQ@ Columbia. Even among the former group, some organizations prioritize community building while others also engage in radical activism. Those who choose both walk a fine line between their activist work and their work providing support to members. Former CQA President Caitlin Lowell, CC ’15, described these internal tensions. “One of the ongoing conversations that has been happening within CQA for decades, as far as I can tell, is how much CQA should be a social or cultural group as opposed to a political group.”

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Q U E RY I N G C H A N G E Lowell believes that over the past few years, CQA’s priorities have shifted along with its membership. “It can be easy to dismiss different issues as too political when they don’t affect you personally. But when a large portion of our membership didn’t have counselors at Columbia Psychological Services that were ready to meet their needs, because at the time there were no men of color on staff and no [queer/ trans people of color] on staff, of course that was an issue that affected our membership and leadership, and of course, it would be something we’d advocate for.” But while advocacy remains a priority, many of these groups also serve as a social hub through queer-centric programming, with some hoping that enthusiasm towards parties like First Friday would increase awareness towards CQA’s other projects. Cruz, himself a former CQA communications head, described the need to build strength through visibility. “In order to have a community to politicize, you have to have that community in the first place.” “First Friday had been sort of on the decline when we took over the reins of CQA, but we used that as sort of our vehicle to make LGBT community at Columbia more visible so that admin could see it, and so that student leaders in student councils could see it. And that when we made demands and that we made requests, they could see that we weren’t just these five or six board members in a basement, there’s hundreds of us, and every month we go to this dance and there are so many people here.” Since then, however, Lowell says that CQA’s membership sought “social spaces that didn’t center around dancing or drinking,” and so programming shifted to more “casual social events.” CQA is hardly alone in counterbalancing more

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serious discussions with levity. Kay Ferguson and Rowan Hepps Keeney, both BC ’18 and respectively president and treasurer of GendeRevolution, find that both are necessary for the community to thrive. “We’re a trans advocacy group but also a support group, so some of the things we focus on in meetings are, what are the things we can change, like the CUID name change, having Trans 101 sessions, [...] and the other half is a sort of safe space where students can talk about their experiences and only have trans students in the room, so there’s not, like, fetishizing or weird questions,” said Ferguson. “Somewhere where people can just be really private.” Keeney added that the tone of meetings could vacillate between two extremes. “Sometimes we have deep conversations about trans things, and identity, and stuff like that, and sometimes it’s just like, ‘Let’s all just be in solidarity and spend time together and just enjoy the positive parts of being trans. We’re gonna try to do a pizza party, stuff that can remind us that it’s not all bad and oppression.”

Not One Size Fits All With its storied history (the organization turns 50 in 2017), CQA has come a long way from its roots as the first campus LGBTQ organization. After facing discrimination from administrators and less tolerant students, founder Stephen Donaldson, CC ’70, created what was then called the Student Homophile League to provide a home for all queer students at Columbia. But with the changing demographics of the queer population on campus, does it still serve that purpose? In an October interview with the Eye, Amari Tankard, CC ’17, contrasted perceptions of CQA’s makeup with that of Proud Colors, a queer affinity group specifically for students of color. “Because CQA, which is supposed to be Columbia’s big queer group, is mostly white people, and their topics are definitely whitewashed, they can ignore that there’s a whole different side to queerness that you experience as a person of color.” Lowell acknowledges the need for “supportive spaces that were fundamentally different from CQA” and stressed that many of their initiatives, such as the push for better representation in CPS, improved the lives of queer students of color. She believes that CQA’s prominence doesn’t come at the expense of other groups.

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Q U E RY I N G C H A N G E “Even though CQA’s board during my time was majority [queer and trans people of color] folks, it still wasn’t the same as having a closed space for queer and trans people of color. So, we tried to make sure we showed up when asked—either by supporting the work of other organizations by showing up, or by co-sponsoring monetarily.” Lowell also recognized that participating in CQA events in buildings without elevators or wheelchair ramps can be difficult for queer students with disabilities. “When I was president,” Lowell said, “we had some really wonderful sold-out First Fridays in the [Intercultural Resource Center] and in Q House basement, although those spaces are also not physically accessible.” First Fridays have since moved to the Lerner Party Space. However, representation and accessibility aren’t the only things that set queer clubs apart from one another. For instance, because Barnard’s administration exists separately from the administration governing the other undergraduate schools, Barnard students often find themselves fighting for changes that have already taken place across Broadway. Krish Bhatt, BC ’18, is part of Q, a group that advocates for queer and trans issues specific to Barnard. “Queer and trans communities at Barnard look different because Barnard was, until recently, a school marketed toward cis women.” Bhatt expressed frustration with the incongruities between being trans at the two schools. Columbia Health provides a webpage explaining the resources available to trans students, but “there are no urologists, or queer centric health practitioners currently employed at Barnard Primary Health Care Services.” Additionally, while Columbia has rolled out the Preferred Name Policy, no such policy exists at Barnard. “Rosters, ID cards, gBear accounts, et cetera, are under our birth names,” said Bhatt.

Building a Legacy With the diversity of LGBTQ-centric organizations available to queer and trans students, it’s clear that no one club holds a monopoly as the standard-bearer. Yet this plethora of options can pose a challenge to groups seeking to retain membership and preserve institutional legacy. In the case of GendeRevolution, the task apparently fell to administrators. According to Ferguson and Keeney, Assistant

March 2016

Director of Multicultural Affairs and LGBTQ Outreach Chris Woods reached out to them to take charge of the organization as many of its active members were graduating. “Kay had a conversation with Chris Woods at a GendeRev meeting last spring, where he was like, ‘Will you do this? Otherwise it’s going to disappear,’” said Keeney. But while GendeRev managed to survive, another group, Everyone Allied Against Homophobia, closed its doors. EAAH, which had been active since 1999 and were best known for their annual pink flyer campaign, announced that it was shutting down on its Facebook page last June. “We see this as a victory for queer and trans students on campus,” the message read. “When an organization like us goes out of business, it means that queer and trans students have found a community outside EAAH and the lack of demand for a group like us can only be good news.” Is this true? Indeed, Columbia’s treatment of gender and sexual minorities has come a long way since the days of Stephen Donaldson, and the culture on campus enables many queer and trans students to find their niche outside the realm of affinity groups. Queer and trans individuals exist within the ranks of student government, athletics, and even the administration itself. But much of that progress was achieved through the past advocacy of these student organizations, who continue to make demands and put pressure on decision-makers. And it appears there’s still plenty to do: campuswide Quality of Life surveys indicate lower satisfaction among trans students, and incidents such as the Carman vandalism of 2007 and 2015 suggest that getting institutional support isn’t enough to eradicate outright bigotry. Perhaps, then, the challenge of LGBTQ organizations is adapting to the changing needs of students and serving as a platform for their voices.w

Illustration by Alexander Pines

Elena Burger contributed reporting.

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Famous Fictionals Words by Nick Kensinger Illustrations by Sarah Gale and Lani Allen You may not have seen them on campus, but these movie and TV characters all claim to have graced Columbia at one point or another. Unfortunately, their time here is all too often left out of their stories. Luckily for you, we at The Blue and White have done some research into what these characters were up to during their time in Morningside Heights. Lainey Carrington (CC ’05–Biology & Pre-Med) and Jake Barnes (CC ’04–Computer Science)– Sleeping with Other People (2015) The couple met sophomore fall, when Jake hid Lainey from Public Safety after she was caught sneaking into Wien via the EC tunnels. They lost their virginities to each other that night on the Wien rooftop and it was all downhill from there. That night opened the floodgates: their remaining two years were full of carnal pleasures, the likes of which would make the Greeks proud. Shortly afterwards, Jake’s advisor informed him the dual degree program in Dope Music & Marijuana Studies was an urban legend. Bouncing back from this disappointment, he joined CORE and lived in the ADI house the following year while teaching himself how to code. Eventually, he and his freshman year roommate, Xander, developed a wildly successful match-making website. Lainey, meanwhile, took a more scholarly road, pulling a 3.9 and joining TFA to become an elementary school teacher. A few years later, spurred on by a bad breakup and her therapist’s advice, Lainey attends a sex-addicts meeting. As fate would have it, Jake is also plagued by a similar ailment. The rest is history. James Brennan (Journalism ’90)–Adventureland (2009) Like most comparative literature majors, James Brennan found that job listings seeking a working knowledge of medieval English were sparse. After graduating from Oberlin in 1987 and “interning” at Adventureland amusement park, James made the bold decision to go double-or-nothing on student loans and apply to the J-School. James was amazed by the culinary variety of New York City, and promptly began studying the art of food criticism. His unexpected success ultimately allowed him to make enough dough to continue at Columbia School of Journalism the next year. James’s scrumptious reporting made him a star at the Columbia News Service. Despite this, he still found time to run the first ever radio show dedicated to the moral philosophy of Epicureanism on WBAR, in which he showcased the musical stylings of Jimmy Buffet and Lou Reed. James’ career peaked in ‘95, when he nearly won a James Beard Award for his critique of Papaya Dog in The Village Voice.

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The Blue and White

Tracy Fishko (BC ’14–English)–Mistress America (2015)­ Tracy came to Barnard intent on pursuing her interest in creative writing. However, she quickly became disillusioned by the utter lack of stimulation in MoHi. In a bid to find a place where she belonged, she applied to join Columbia’s foremost literary society, the sadly now-defunct Mobius. Her submission was by all accounts decent: a brooding meditation on millennial life. But it lacked the same things that were lacking in Tracy’s college experience: a certain joie-de-vivre. Like many Columbians, Tracy came into her own off-campus. Accompanied by her soon-to-be sister-in-law Brooke, Tracy took trips to Piano’s on the Lower East Side for nights of Jazz and vermouth, the Museum of the Moving Image for her weekly dose of culture, and Artichoke Basile’s for her pizza fix. Her exploration paid dividends: her second story earned her admission to Mobius. Unfortunately, the storied organization didn’t live up to her expectations. Or rather, the unbearably pretentious members didn’t. But what was she expecting from a club called Mobius? So she did what any Columbian would do: started her own club, the now-venerable Columbia Journal of Literary Criticism. Her first novel, Mistress America, is in the works.

Serena van der Woodsen (CC ‘14–Undeclared)–Gossip Girl (2010) In a less than shocking turn of events for someone who thinks “college is just high school with more expensive books,” Serena never graduated from Columbia. That said, in her one year in MoHi she managed to do a lot more than many of us do in four years. After being snubbed by the über exclusive Hamilton House on the first day of classes, Serena made some calls and was accepted only a few days later. For the remainder of her time at Columbia, it became her singular hang-out spot, often with pal and fellow Constance Billard School grad Blair Waldorf. When not in Hamilton House, Serena could often be found spending time with her Psychology of Business professor and most-eligiblebachelor-on-the-UES, Colin Forrester. Just as Serena failed to make it more than one year at Columbia, so too did Professor Forrester— accused of taking his platonic mentorship of a certain student just a bit too far. Serena left Columbia primarily for social concerns; Deluxe wasn’t exactly up to her standards of mimosa-filled brunch, and the self-proclaimed ‘Queen of the Upper East Side’ was far to good to huddle into a Mel’s bathroom to snort cocaine. XOXO

March 2016

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GETTING SHAFTED

Defect Found In which a B&W editor gets trapped in a falling elevator By Nia Brown

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ate to my 10:10 class once again, the cranky morning elevator routine is well worn—push the down button and agonize in annoyance over why it isn’t coming to me faster. My pettiness is abruptly snuffed out after the doors shut and I hear a beep. Nothing moves. I look up at the red-lit “13” above, unconsciously planning to hold my breath until it changes. It doesn’t. I press the button to open the doors. I press it again and again. FUCK I am stuck up here. The metal around me starts skidding down the shaft as it plunges several inches and then several feet. I jerk to hit the CALL button, I hear the sound of a phone dialing. I hit the red lacquered Fire Department buttons, no sounds. The floor numbers, in garish alarm clock font, keep going down as the elevator makes rapid and irregularly distanced dips. I hear a voice Is everyone is okay? He keeps repeating himself and doesn’t seem to hear my responses of NO and I DON’T KNOW and IT KEEPS FALLING. The elevator finally halts. I have not stopped looking up but there are no more red numbers, only multicolored lines. I keep pressing the OPEN button.

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The doors calmly creep apart like they weren’t just sealing me in a descending metal horror. I leap out and down the stairs in what feels like one stride, not bothering to see what floor I’ve landed on. The university says it cares about my safety. Public Safety is prompt when disseminating blurry security camera footage of hooded youth and crimes on 120th. They provide us glowing blue phones, shuttles, walking escorts and tell businesses in the neighborhood to barricade us in when we feel like we are in danger. What about when it comes to unexpectedly careening several levels down an elevator shaft, trapped in metal box? The one-man Office of Vertical Transportation, which The Blue and White first investigated for our October issue, has yet to get back to me about why the third Schapiro elevator stalled and dropped, with me in it. I also have yet to discover what was done to fix it or why it was put back in service that same day or why the doors keep making a strange clanging sound when they pull shut or wrench apart. I tracked down the NYC Department of Buildings violations for 605 West 115th. Schapiro is cited with three active elevator violations, all issued on November 4th of last year. That is also when the last routine inspection seems to have happened and the entry is marked with “DEFECT FOUND.” There is no corresponding “AFFIRMATION OF CORRECTION” for this entry because, I assume, none have been made. Why can’t institutions that insist on calling themselves the greatest of the great seem to maintain their moving parts? Will America fix its bridges and highways? Will Columbia repair its elevators? Maybe humanity can’t handle building its way so many stories into the sky? Maybe the 13th floor really is unlucky? All I know is, I’ll be taking the stairs.w

Illustration by Alexander Pines

The Blue and White

THANK YOU FOR THE MUSIC

Copywriting Culture Looking into Columbia’s history of musical appropriation

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arrow, Alaska is the northernmost city in the Soon after United States. When Laura Boulton, a self- Fox took over the styled “music-hunter” and Columbia professor to-be, Center in 2003, he arrived there in 1946, her mission was to record got an email from the songs of the Iñupiat, a group of Alaskan Native a Ph.D. student at people threatened by the arrival of American mis- the University of sionaries and government. “I had missed the coming Oklahoma named of spring to Alaska, which is pure magic,” Boulton Chie Sakakibara wrote in her autobiography. “But I was fortunate that requesting access winter found me still at Point Barrow, and I watched to some of the the ocean slowly icing in our world.” recordings for her own research on the Iñupiat. Fox For all Boulton’s enthusiasm, most of her col- had been looking for ways to share the collection with leagues regarded her as a sham. Her training in ethno- the Iñupiat and considering that Sakakibara would musicology was weak and she had no real knowledge be heading to Barrow as part of her project, Fox sent of the cultures she claimed to study, according her the CDs along with a letter asking descendants of to Aaron Fox, the current director of Columbia’s the original performers to contact him if they wished. Center for Ethnomusicology. What Boulton did have Three years later, Riley Sikvayugak did just was a collection of about 1,500 hours of music— that. His grandfather, Joe Sikvayugak, had perincluding Iñupiat songs—recorded on five continents formed for Boulton in 1946. In his email to Fox, Riley over forty years. All of this music had existed in oral explained that the music Sakakibara had brought tradition before Boulton hit record, but because U.S. with her had not been heard for sixty years. His plan copyright law did not recognize music that existed now was to form a dance group called Tagiugmiut. outside of physical media, Boulton’s act of recording For the Iñupiat, music is just as much about dance as became an act of possession. it is about song, a fact Laura Boulton did not pick up About fifteen years after her trip to Alaska, on. In the absence of any information on what dancBoulton began an affair with a Columbia College es matched the music she recorded, Tagiugmiut’s alumnus, and millionaire, Julian Clarence Levi. Levi members began developing their own dances and made a deal with Columbia: he would pay for the performing them to wide acclaim from the Alaskan University’s acquisition of all Boulton’s recordings, Native community. Through dance, they reclaimed provided that they give her an office and staff support. Boulton’s recordings as part of their cultural history. Thus, the Center for Studies in Ethnomusicology was And as Fox watched this unfold, he saw the details born in 1967. Boulton had missed, reconstructed. Even after cashing in her collection for a proAfter an initial trip in 2007, Fox has been back fessorship, Boulton continued to earn about $5000 many times to conduct interviews, share materials, a year (and tax benefits) from Columbia because make presentations, and negotiate the legal return of she still retained certain rights to the recordings’ music to the people who created it. Looking back on publication. According to Fox, Boulton received this the relationship between Boulton and the Iñupiat, he money for nearly twenty years. “There are literally summarizes it like this: “We’re making a deal here thousands of pages of legal documents associated and you gotta keep your end. I now find myself keepwith this archive,” he says. “I’ve read them all. In all ing Laura Boulton’s end of the deal.w those pages, no one ever mentions the possibility that the people on the recordings have any stake in the Daniel Stone conributed reporting. conversation.” Illustration by Darya Fariman

March 2016

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#TBT

PrezBo’s Glory Days By Caroline Hurley and Channing Prend We all know how PrezBo bides his time these days-- alternating between his office in Low and his fireside armchair in his Presidential mansion, eagerly awaiting the call that he has been appointed the 113th Justice of the United States Supreme Court. But how did he spend his time when he was just a lowly undergrad at the University of Oregon in the 1960s? We at The Blue and White were curious to find out. After a little bit of hunting, we have put together a snapshot of what PrezBo, the frat boy (Theta Chi) and vice president of the Associated Students of the University of Oregon (ASUO) senate, was like during his 1964-1968 run at UO. An excerpt from the 1967 Oregana, the university’s yearbook, about the ASUO senate during Bollinger’s reign. “In the past few years, however, attempts have been made, on both fronts, to give some meaning to the term student government. The direction is clear, toward more student voice in the real centers of power, the faculty and administration. What is not clear is how far, in this direction, student government can, or wants to, go.” e A February 1967 article in the Daily Emerald, University of Oregon’s student newspaper, reporting on a panel at which Prezbo spoke about activism on campus. “‘Entrenched and upholding the puritanism of strict faculty control’ was ASUO Vice President Lee Bollinger’s description of the University administration. ‘The student is not here just to learn,’ maintained Bollinger, ‘but to develop an activism that will influence the outside community.’” e From a November 1966 article that ran in the Daily Emerald reporting on a panel Prezbo spoke at centered on the attitudes of students at Oregon in the turbulent 1960s.

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“Bollinger stated that the basic sources of student frustration were the bureaucratic quality of the University administration, the professionalism of the faculty, and the meaninglessness of the course system. These problems, said Bollinger, lead to ‘emphasis on training students rather than teaching them to think, organize, discuss and create.’ Bollinger asserted that the university community should be the joint responsibility of the legislators, administrators, faculty and students, alike.” e In an October 1966 column written by Prezbo in the Daily Emerald headlined “Student Maturity Required in ASUO Posts Says Bollinger”, he laid out his vision for a healthy student-faculty relationship. “The student-faculty relationship can only be enhanced by pursuing a democratic process whereby issues concerning all are decided by all.” e PrezBo reflecting on his undergraduate years in the spring 2002 issue of Cascade, the biannual alumni magazine of the University of Oregon. “College had a profound effect on me. I recall it as a remarkably serious intellectual experience when I felt deeply the quality of the education available to me.” As a student in the politically turbulent 1960s, Bollinger initially became involved in student government but later realized he was an academic at heart. “My senior year was one of the best years of my life,” he recalls. “I lived alone and read—it was a wonderful opportunity to digest an incredible array of novels, philosophy, and social theory, and to be around great intellectuals.”

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#TBT

We recently asked PrezBo what he had to say about his glory days at UO. “I felt there were two basic experiences that students had at that time. One was that of being in opposition to the administration and the other was, if not complete alignment, then still working towards the same set of values. And I felt very much the latter. I saw that there weren’t so much irreconcilable differences between the perspective of young people in universities and the senior people I had to deal with. I felt it was a cordial, respectful relationship. My experience in college gave me an enormous respect for universities and the people who lead them as faculty, as deans or as presidents. I saw that that was a worthy life.”

president. Some may think of being a U.S. Senator or maybe a successful CEO, but at that age I don’t think many people think of themselves as aiming to be a university president.” e We also checked in with Henry Drummonds, who was the president of the ASUO senate while PrezBo served as his vice president. “I did not specifically think in those days that Lee would become a University President, but only because I fully expected him to become a President of our country or a U.S. Senator or a Supreme Court justice.”

“The experience was a very important one for me because I was working with a number of people who were very dedicated not only to campus issues but to the important problems of that period–the war in Vietnam and Civil Rights. Campus activism really centered around those larger national debates. You really felt part of it. There were a number of national organizations that were connected to student government. It seemed to matter. And I think it did matter. So I would say doing things that tried to advance the debates about these issues. I felt I learned a lot about the world.”

“Lee was a serious, hardworking, super-smart, and very personable campus politician. In our work as student politicians and officeholders, he helped in such campus fights of the day as the elimination of “closing hours.” for women in the UO dorms, better seating for students in the football stadium, starting a program to bring controversial speakers to campus, and starting a program of publishing student evaluations of profs. There were also issues like the draft and the Vietnam War, and Lee supported my own and numerous other activities drawing attention to and protesting our government’s policies in these areas.”w

“No one ever imagines that they will be a university

Daniel Stone contributed reporting.

March 2016

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M easure

for

M easure

FIV My cat waxes and wanes like the moon he is named “Buzz” for the astronaut his tuxedo is gritty with dust. Did you know there is also a feline HIV? He used to leave intricate intestines hearts, livers, lungs on the gravel walk but now he is at peace even with the mice who live in our stove. He licks my father’s rough cheek because he knows he is a man. My sister calls him “Nug” which is short for “Nugget” Some nights he pokes his feet into my back and kneads my panda’s head like dough. Every time he dies his eyes get weird wizened and wet and bulging like milky grapes pawing open closets nosing under bureaus he looks for a dark place to hide from the Reaper while I hover like his shadow asking “What do you need? What do you need?” — Lucy Jakub

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The Blue and White

M easure

for

M easure

The Octaves 1 the three of us out walking early fall of my second year Mama pushing the teal jogger Ciana looking up at the sycamores their yellow leaves arching over 34th sunlight coming down in patches and here we are in dark and here we are in light

5 the frost comes in with winter ice on the windows cracks in the walls “that’s all right,” my father says and he hangs blankets in the bedroom “insulation,” my father says and Mama laughs, “yes,” she says, “it’s just like camping!”

2 the street floods in winter water rises up to the lawn ankle-deep on the sidewalk I hold out a knobby branch fishing in the depths of the road watching the water reflected in the blood bank windows ripple my reflection blue then green

6 cold feet on the floor heater looking for pennies in the belly of the house, that peels grey to white listening to them in the dining room their voices buzz fast and slow pooling in my ears — I hear it swish he leaves now gold curls out the arched front door

3 Mama in the backyard painting on the canvas under the garage overhang cigarette to lips between brush strokes the orange porch light illuminates just her, the cement, a strip of grass “love, it won’t be your birthday again tomorrow, just today. okay? you understand?”

7 Dona comes over with a present an electronic jewelry box I open it in the front room she watches and then says, “sorry, about him going” and little anger takes over little body and little body throws box to floor pulls down bookshelf — breaks vase

4 this man at Weatherstone Cafe has invented a new board game he teaches it to me while my father plays chess on the back patio I drink my apple juice and watch as he colors each piece by-hand the board is sharp right-angles color-blocked and crowded

8 Mama hangs my drawings (white pages and little scribbles) on the windows of the washroom (sticks them up with scotch tape) and the light soaks through them past summer into autumn and they fade — first pale then barely there at all — Geneva Hutcheson

March 2016

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T H E C O N V E R S AT I O N

“Happiness Is a Closed Circuit” A conversation with Leslie Jamison By Emma Bogler Leslie Jamison is the author of The Empathy Exams, a widely acclaimed collection of essays that recall Jamison’s days as a medical actor, for which she was paid to act out symptoms of conditions to be diagnosed by medical students. The book explores pain: why we feel it and what it means, how we care for those who feel it, and what it means to empathize with someone who is—or isn’t—suffering. Jamison recently joined Columbia’s faculty as an assistant professor of nonfiction writing. Blue and White writer Emma Bogler met her in her office in Dodge to talk about irony, feminism, the validity of suffering, and gin. The Blue and White: You mentioned [in an email] having vivid memories of your time writing for your own undergraduate literary magazine. Leslie Jamison: Oh my god, yeah. The Advocate was the literary magazine that I was part of at Harvard. We had a house off-campus— B&W: You had a house? LJ: Yeah, there’s this house on South Street, this old clapboard, and the second story is called the Sanctum. It’s so saturated with pretension—probably like everyone’s most horribly stereotypical imaginings of Harvard— but it was so personally meaningful to me. The Sanctum was sticky-floored with, like, eight layers of gin from the last eight parties... B&W: Gin? That’s hardcore.

Advocate] was this community where people loved to sit on ratty couches and eat Entenmann’s donut holes and smoke endless cigarettes, and just talk about stories, and talk about writing and what it could do. People got really passionate about stuff, and the stakes felt really high—even though they weren’t—and that was awesome. I remember those conversations. I was on the poetry board and the fiction board, and I was the editor of the fiction board. That role was really important to me because when I first joined, I felt simultaneously that I loved the space but that it was deeply intimidating. When I ran the board, I at least fancied myself ushering in this era of social inclusion and kindness. I wanted that to be my legacy. My sophomore year, I was also the publicity manager, which meant early-morning poster runs on whatever days the college would tear down the posters. B&W: Oh yeah, we have that here too.

LJ: It was always what was left over! B&W: That’s rough. LJ: Yeah, definitely. Part of what I loved about The Advocate was that it felt like the chamber in which a certain kind of transformation happened in me. From this shy, extremely selfconscious, cripplingly insecure person that I was when I entered college—and I was probably all those things when I left, I was just better at masking it. [The

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LJ: I’m so curious, is it different now? With the internet? I mean it’s not like I was in college a million years ago, but in 2001 I think postering was a bigger deal. B&W: No, flyering is a huge deal here, weirdly. LJ: It’s so competitive! People were just cutthroat

Illustration by Zane Bhansali

The Blue and White

T H E C O N V E R S AT I O N with their flyers! We were out there at like seven AM... It’s just this crazy rat race! B&W: Your writing is, by its nature, very intimate and raw. Do you ever feel overexposed? LJ: No. The texture of rawness is really interesting to think about—what makes a piece of writing feel raw? How much does that have to do with the subject matter, and how much with the tone? But, for me, form and craft is always such a huge part of how I work, especially with deeply personal material, that when a piece is out in the world I’ve gone through so many drafts of it that it’s very cooked—not raw at all. I am very interested in creating a texture of intimacy between author and reader. The experience of drafting and re-drafting is about getting to a version of the story that can hold the kind of complexity that I want it to, but it also ends up creating a distance between me and the piece. By the time it goes out into the world, it’s just a version of the experience; it’s never the whole experience. I’m always aware of the thousand things that are not in the piece and that the readers don’t know, whereas somebody reading the piece has more of a feeling of absolutely knowing this experience in my life. For me, it’s so evident that this is a partial and crafted version. It’s so fascinating to me, though, as a reader and a writer, that desire to be close to an author, that impulse towards access and proximity.

I’m also keenly aware of using experience to get at certain questions rather than just revealing experience for its own sake. B&W: A friend of mine recently shared with me the idea of weaponized vulnerability, and I’m curious as to how that might play into your work? The idea of posturing a kind of rawness or weakness as a means to strength and confidence and self-expression... LJ: I’m definitely interested in vulnerability and certain ways of performing vulnerability. One of the things I keep finding myself coming back to is the way in which articulating some experience of vulnerability or need or pain can be performed and authentic at once. Those aren’t mutually exclusive. In the last essay in my book, I quote my friend Harriet, who said that performed pain is still pain. I used that quote because I think that about sums it up. Like, that’s all that needs to be said on that subject. That holds a kernel that feels durable to me, and that I can keep coming back to as a touchstone. Have you read Chris Kraus?

“The experience of drafting and re-drafting is about getting to a version of the story that can hold the kind of complexity that I want it to, but it also ends up creating a distance between me and the piece.”

B&W: Do you think there’s a kind of voyeurism at play there? Do you encourage people to be voyeurs of your life when you share experiences that are intended to create intimacy between you and the reader? LJ: I believe in the inherent interest in other people’s lives. I love hearing secrets, I love hearing other people’s shit, you know? I think narrative, as a form, inherently has propulsion and draw to it. One of the things I use as a resource when I write is the inherent way that personal narrative can draw people in, but

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B&W: I haven’t. LJ: She writes at one point— I’m going to paraphrase it wrong, but—“Why do people not understand when vulnerability is examined like philosophy, with some remove?” I like that idea of examining vulnerability at some remove; treating vulnerability as a state that can be approached and documented, rather than just some binary where either you are vulnerable or you’re not. Certainly, uncoupling vulnerability as subject from vulnerability as posture. That idea of weaponized vulnerability is interesting. I think there’s a negative connotation that can attach to that—vulnerability as a form of manipulation. It plays into the taboo around cutting that I write about, performing your sadness for attention. B&W: That that makes it less genuine.

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T H E C O N V E R S AT I O N LJ: Right. I mean, manipulation and attention are words that attract a negative baggage, which is interesting to me: aren’t we all always manipulating everyone? You know what I mean? By saying something, I want you to say something back. By saying something, I want you to say, “Oh, that’s so smart.” It seems like manipulation is one way to talk about what it means to engage in a way that’s desirous of a response. B&W: I don’t think I’ve ever read the word “feminist” in your writing, but it seems like a lot of what I’ve read is an attempt to negotiate between different modes of being feminine— the strength and the vulnerability, and whatever is in between. Is that fair to say? LJ: Yeah, I don’t directly tackle feminism, as such, in my work, but one of the moments where it comes up most directly is the last essay in my book, [The Grand Unified Theory of Female Pain], where I talk about the resistance that certain women have to articulating pain. It’s the idea that articulating pain would necessarily mean disempowering oneself, which would be some kind of feminist failure. I’m interested in a negotiation that understands articulations of pain as assertions of strength rather than assertions of weakness. But in a non-static way. Not as in, “I am woman; I am pain; I am forever in pain; this is an intrinsic part of my being; being disempowered is an intrinsic part of my cultural position.” Those kinds of things don’t have to be asserted as inevitabilities of the world, but that’s the peril considering articulations of pain as inherently disempowering gesture. That feels so dangerous to me; it feels like it asks for a certain kind of silencing.

B&W: In The Grand Unified Theory, you talk about the idea of women today being “post-wounded.” The impression I got there was that there’s a muting or a shallowing of the expression that you’re allowed if you don’t allow yourself to be wounded. LJ: Right, or if the only tone in which it’s acceptable to talk about wounded-ness is full of scare quotes. I was just re-reading some David Foster Wallace for this project I’m involved in, and I’m interested in a lot of the points he makes about irony as a way of ground-clearing. You have to find some mode of positive assertion that can do the work that irony can’t. I would be really interested in revisiting that last essay in my book, The Grand Unified Theory of Female Pain, in terms of intersectionality. The title is definitely tongue-in-cheek, but it surprised me how many people read that piece as aspiring to some sort of total offering. I don’t even know what a unified theory of female pain would look like that took itself fully seriously...I’ve done a lot of thinking in the years since I wrote that essay about race and class, and how they inflect what sorts of pain can be spoken and how the pain that’s spoken gets received. I don’t know if you know Margo Jefferson, who teaches here, but her memoir Negroland talks about the prerogative of white women getting to articulate angst as an identity, and that prerogative not being available to black women in the same way. B&W: Just to backtrack to David Foster Wallace for a second—his whole thing was irony, which he used a lot of the time to mask the pain he was in. In some ways, I think that’s the exact opposite of what you try to do; your vision of empathy stands in exact antagonism to the endlessly self-referential, self-indulgent ironies

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Illustrations by Zane Bhansali

The Blue and White

T H E C O N V E R S AT I O N he plays with. LJ: At least insofar as I understand him—and I’m very much aware of myself as part of a generation of people who love projecting onto him and turning him into what we need him to be—the things that were deeply important to him are North stars that I share. I think he was really interested in the ways in which we can battle against an intrinsic absorption, and I think empathy itself is intrinsically interested in overcoming self-absorption. His idea of how to offer a humane gaze to others... His mode and my mode are different, though. I think that how he fought against irony involved engaging a lot of irony and creating these vast, elaborate forcefields, and my mode involves a lot less convolution. Some of his convolution, though— it’s almost like he wanted to make a really complicated case for simplicity. His case looks different from my case, but I think some of our aspirations are really similar. I’ve been reading a lot of scholarship on Infinite Jest and one of the debates there is whether or not he succeeded in writing an un-ironic novel. Because he very much wanted to write an unironic novel, but it’s also a novel that’s deeply and explicitly engaged with irony. Just because a novel is engaged with irony, doesn’t mean it’s ironic; it can be a sincere treatment of the way irony is permeating a culture. There are critics who feel that he wanted to write this deeply un-ironic work, but that what he created ultimately collapses under the weight of its own virtuosity. Its aspirations towards humanity are overshadowed by all the games that it plays.

LJ: A lot of the case studies I use in the book are about empathizing with someone who’s in pain, but I absolutely think that pain isn’t the only thing that can be empathized with. Any emotion you can have is a potential site for empathy. Part of why I think pain and empathy tend to come up together is that pain is more often a state of need than, say, bliss. There’s more urgency around empathizing with somebody in pain than with somebody in a positive state. B&W: Especially with pain there’s an impulse to confess; would you say that confession begets empathy? LJ: Yeah, yeah, it can create an avenue by which one could be empathized with. There’s the diary effect where bad stuff gets reported more. I, at least, feel more of a need to share the stuff that’s hard. Happiness is its own closed circuit; it doesn’t need to be witnessed in the same way that pain sometimes does. The bad parts want to get heard more because they want something back—they want recognition. I’m really interested in the question of how to write well about happiness, because happiness can be one of the toughest things to write about.

“Any emotion you can have is a potential site for empathy. Part of why I think pain and empathy tend to come up together is that pain is more often a state of need than, say, bliss.”

B&W: Would you say that happiness isn’t a narrative the way pain can be? LJ: Yeah, that’s a good way of putting it. Happiness is the end of a lot of our received narratives. It universalizes; it blands out. Happiness writes white truths.w

B&W: Do you think empathy needs pain?

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Book Culture 536 West 112th Street between Broadway and Amsterdam Monday-Friday 9am-10pm Saturday 10am-8pm Sunday 11am-7pm 212-865-1588 Book Culture 2915 Broadway at West 114th Street Monday-Friday 9am-11pm Saturday 10am-11pm Sunday 10am-10pm 646-403-3000 bookculture.com

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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. I propose to write a story examining the neuroses of Columbia students though the experiences of six tri-racial students. Each character will be a mix of Chinese, Jewish, and Anglo-Saxon. Names will reflect different varieties of these combinations through the choice of first, middle, and last names. For instance, Lance Wong Rubenstein or Ying Bin Feldman Adams. e An aggrieved former member made recent edits to Student Worker Solidarity’s WikiCU page: Israel Boycott “In February of 2016, SWS announced its support for CU Apartheid Divest, a group on campus devoted to boycotting the State of Israel. Adam Deutsch quickly requested that his name be removed from this page’s list of Executive Board members. He is no longer a member of the Executive Board, he renounces any and every association with SWS in light of the group’s position on the State of Israel, and he eagerly awaits the removal of his name from this page.” Adam Deutsch’s full statement: “Please remove my name from the Executive Board list on this page. I do not want to be associated with SWS, in light of this position on the State of Israel, and strongly condemn the position that SWS has taken. This is a sad day for me, as I helped to found this group and was actively involved in its very first campaign to fight for workers on campus in 2012. Know that you have lost an ally and an original founder. You are not showing solidarity with the Palestinian people. You are showing ethical weakness and moral ineptitude. You have decided to participate in a long history of nefarious confusion

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related to the Jewish people and Zionism, a confusion that will alienate you from the strongest allies you could hope for in the fight for justice on this matter including myself.” e From an advising email: Book Talk: Mathematics without Apologies by Michael Harris (2/25) Michael Harris, professor in the Mathematics Department, will discuss the charisma, romance, and darker side of mathematics on Thursday, Feb. 25, at 6:00 p.m. in the Science and Engineering Library (401 Northwest Corner Bldg). e Posted on the Piazza account of ECON W2257 Question: Quiz Collection For those of us Who didn’t get our quizzes In the rush at the end of class Will there be Another opportunity To get them back? The Student’s Answer: If you must write in verse Which, I think, is worse Than writing in prose Then I suppose It would be better if you made it so that each line Ended with a rhyme.w

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CAMPUS GOSSIP PRIORITIES After CCSC President Ben Makansi sent a mass email asking students to sign a petition for thicker toilet paper in campus bathrooms, some students posted their grievances about CCSC’s priorities on the Class of 2019 Facebook group: “CCSC won’t send out a petition to increase resources for survivors but sends out a petition for thicker toilet paper. Glad to know I’m less important than two-ply.” e According to a tipster, when Dean Valentini was asked about the pressure for high school students to spend their adolescence building resumes, he responded, “If Harvard and Columbia had said that being able to ride a unicycle backward was a requirement for admissions, you would probably have done it, no questions asked.” Don’t give them any ideas. e A satirical Spectrum post asking aspiring Mozarts in the Lerner piano lounge to stop the music caught the attention of pianist, wind ensemblist, and Varsity Show-ist Charles Sanky. In response, Sanky performed a rendition of Adele’s “Someone Like You,” replacing the lyrics with “Find another place to study, because this lounge is ours / We’re gonna play the piano in the piano lounge.” e PEACE ON EARTH This semester has seen a prolonged tit-for-tat between supporters and opponents of the nascent Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) movement. First, reports of pro-CUAD posters being torn down in the Carman basement led the Student Governing Board to issue a statement decrying the vandalism. (The statement noted that “taking down student group flyers violates SGB policy and will not be tolerated” and “all groups have something valuable to add to the fabric of our campus conversation.”) e The recently reincarnated Zeta Beta Tau seems eager

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to distance itself from the events surrounding the fraternity’s disbandment in 2013. ZBT’s WikiCU page was edited by “one of the founding fathers and secretary for the revived ZBT” to remove the section detailing the alleged hazing and probation violations; it now says that ZBT’s membership “consists of all men of good character on campus,” a designation broad enough to include professors, administrators, and arguably even President Bollinger. e FIGHT THE POWER An email sent to residents of Claremont Avenue by Barnard referred to the “deconstruction” of Lehman Hall. Nothing says critical theory quite like bulldozers and jackhammers. e In response to perceived anti-activist bias in campus media, students are forming “an alternative publication by and for people of color, low income, queer & gender non-conforming, silenced folk of Columbia for the purpose of advancing liberation.” While organizing meetings were only open to students of color, future meetings will be open to all students who support the cause. e POLITICIANS THESE DAYS According to one account, former Attorney General Eric Holder is still sore about receiving a B in one of Eric Foner’s lectures as an undergrad. Buck up, Holder! It’s not too late to ask for a regrade. e Overheard in the Lerner SGO, reputed meeting place of class councils: “Could you guys hand out wine openers next time? I have the bottle opener you guys handed out, so I’m like, set for beer and everything. I just need a wine opener with Columbia branding on it.” e Trump University...it’s just like Columbia University!w

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E AT I N ’ G O O D I N T H E N E I G H B O R H O O D

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