The College Hill Independent Vol. 38 Issue 9

07 Enforced disappearances in Kashmir

08 PVD tackles gay flag-football

09 Surveying digital archaeology

Volume 38 • Issue 09

April 12, 2019

the College Hill

Independent

the Indy

a Brown * RISD Weekly

R n* A B row

D IS

ly Week

The Indy

OUR FRIEND

BY Eliza Chen

Contents Little Snee Johnson Aayushi Pop-Spinaci News 02 Week in the Sky Sara Van Horn, Roxanne Barnes 03 Keep Your Tongue in Its Cage Mohannad Jabrah

From The Editors

07 Against Forgetting Tiara Sharma, Kanha Prasad

The image appeared in a Facebook message with no context: a fuzzy, orange ring.

“Are we looking an accretion disk?” I asked. “Black hole!” came the response. “It’s even got the jets...” Sure enough. The image was taken using data from eight radio telescopes at once, forming a composite telescope the size of the earth, thanks to an algorithm by computer scientist Katie Bouman. It shows a distant black hole with the mass of six billion suns. That’s so heavy that its gravity bends light, giving its signature halo shape. This also means that if you could somehow sit at the event horizon without being dismembered, you would see the back of your head. If you look closely at the image, you can even detect faint jets of material splurting from the poles, just as sci-fi illustrations predicted. This is cool, friends. Happy week.

Features 04 City on a Hill Jesse Barber 17 A High Stakes Game of Jenga Eve Grassfield Arts 05 Queering Bollywood Saanya Jain

- SHF

Metro 08 Waving the Flag Cate Turner 12 Mattiello and the Machine Brionne Frazier

Mission Statement

Science & Tech 09 As Seen From Above Matt Ishimaru

X 11 What does physics mean to you?

Jorge Palacios

The College Hill Independent is a Providence-based publication written, illustrated, designed, and edited by students from Brown and RISD. We are committed to publishing politically engaged and accessible work. While the Indy is financed

by Brown University, we hold ourselves accountable to our readers across the Providence community. The Indy rejects content that explicitly or implicitly perpetuates racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, ableism and/ or classism.

Ephemera 14 Don’t Spill Emma Kofman

Though this list is not exhaustive, the Indy strives to address these systems of oppression by centering the voices, opinions, and efforts of marginalized people in Providence and beyond.

Literary 15 afterLife Jorge Palacios

The Indy is constantly evolving: we are always working to make our staff and content more inclusive. Though our editing process provides an internal structure for accountability, we always welcome letters to the editor.

13 Beyond Rubbers Jennifer Katz

Week in Review Sarah Clapp Maria Gerdyman News Jacob Alabab-Moser Jessica Bram Murphy Giacomo Sartorelli Metro Julia Rock Lucas Smolcic Larson Sara Van Horn Arts Ben Bienstock Alexis Gordon Liby Hays Features Tara Sharma Cate Turner

Shannon Kingsley Lily Meyersohn Literary Shuchi Agrawal Justin Han Isabelle Rea Ephemera Nicole Cochary Claire Schlaikjer X Jorge Palacios Alex Westfall List Ella Rosenblatt Signe Swanson Will Weatherly

Science & Tech Miles Guggenheim

Special Projects Harry August Lucas Smolcic Larson

12 APRIL 2019

VOL 38 ISSUE 09

Staff Writers Jesse Barber Brionne Frazier Eduardo Gutierrez-Peña Mohannad Jabrah Nickolas Roblee-Strauss Gemma Sack Sophie Khomtchenko Emma Kofman Alina Kulman Dana Kurniawan Bilal Memon Kanha Prasad Star Su Gemma Sack Copy Editors Grace Berg Seamus Flynn Sarah Goldman Matt Ishimaru Sojeong Lim Yelena Nicolle Salvador Caroline Sprague

Design Editors Lulian Ahn Bethany Hung Designers Amos Jackson Cecile Kim Ella Rosenblatt Katherine Sang Christie Zhong Illustration Editors Pia Mileaf-Patel Eve O’Shea Ilustrators Sam Berenfield Natasha Brennan Natasha Boyko Bella Carlos Julia Illana Angie Kang Halle Krieger Katya Labowe-Stroll Sophia Meng

Sandra Moore Rémy Poisson Mariel Solomon Miranda Villanueva Claribel Wu Stephanie Wu Alana Baer Business Maria Gonzalez Web Ashley Kim Social Media Ben Bienstock Pia Mileaf-Patel

Signe Swanson Will Weatherly Managing Editors Ella Comberg Tiara Sharma Wen Zhuang MVP Cate Turner *** The College Hill Independent is printed

by TCI Press in Seekonk, Massachusetts.

Alumni+Fundraising Katrina Northrop Senior Editors Olivia Kan-Sperling Katrina Northrop Chris Packs

@THEINDY_TWEETS

WWW.THEINDY.ORG

WEEK IN THE SKY

BY Sara Van Horn and Roxanne Barnes ILLUSTRATION Stephanie Wu DESIGN Bethany Hung

WOW! AIRLINE FAIL!

creators of the group—who wouldn’t fly with WOW even “if you paid for my trip up front with free tickets”— have been dedicated trash-talkers of the airline that allegedly charged its passengers five Euros for a small water bottle, among other crimes.

“Great Scott!” said the CEO of Spirit Airline on Friday morning, whose New York Times push notifications must have seemed a proverbial parting of the clouds. “Holy Moly!” said helicopter parents and resentful Facebook groups everywhere, who experienced the news as sweet, sweet vindication. “Jesus Fucking Christ,” said the entire nation of Iceland, whose rapidly growing tourism sector is largely due to WOW Air’s initial success and who briefly debated using taxpayer money to bail out the airline. But having gained a generalized fear of three-letter words and having lost a lot of money, this bitter creditor prefers to silently interpret the news not as a lesson in corporate irresponsibility, but in capitalism’s inability to take a joke. Perhaps WOW Air was slightly too comical for an industry that still inspires enough fear to elicit nausea levels—higher even than those caused by suggestive clouds—in much of the population. And perhaps Morgensen, who believed that his carbon-gushing planes were “environmentally sound,” was the not the right man to pilot one of Iceland’s most precious companies. But in a world where corporate crimes facilitate myriad injustices as well as an impending climate catastrophe, an airline silly enough to call itself WOW deserves at least marginal respect.

-SVH

SPACED OUT!

two women.

NASA has never been particularly perceptive toward the needs of female astronauts. Before her first mission, Sally Ride reported NASA officials had timidly asked her whether 100 tampons would be sufficient for her seven day total mission. Though the agency is better populated with women than ever before—at time of reporting, NASA lists 38 active astronauts, 12 of whom are women—this gesture doesn’t reflect well.

That said, the gaffe of last week’s swap doesn’t really put the feminist takeover of space back any parsecs.

More interesting than NASA failing to do justice to their female staff is what this press embarrassment reveals about the agency’s eagerness to provide headlines for a presidential administration that has become somewhat obsessed with rekindling interest in space activity.

President Trump’s recent announcement of his plan to send more astronauts to walk on the moon was the latest in a long line of space-related policy measures. In 2017, Vice President Pence reconvened a space council that had been active during George H.W. Bush’s administration, and this past summer the President announced plans for a military Space Force. NASA has received more funding and attention than they have in decades, which is shining some light on their gaps in equipment and outdated policies.

One of these is the fact that in the 1970s, the agency stopped tailoring suits to individual astronauts, taking what the New York Times described as a, “Mr. Potato Head” approach to suit design. This “one-size-fits-all” strategy was the guiding force behind the creation of the suits, but in a report NASA engineer Elizabeth Benson wrote in 2009, she described the policy more accurately as, ‘“one-size-fits-all-men.” The suits were designed explicitly with men’s body shapes in mind; as astronaut Peggy Whitson, who holds the record for time spent in space, said, “As a woman, doing spacewalks is more challenging mostly because the suits are sized bigger than the average female.” Several women astronauts who have travelled to space didn’t even get the opportunity to walk, because NASA totally spaced, sending them up there without suits that would fit them.

Recently, NASA’s budget cuts in the 2000s contributed to the agency’s lack of medium-sized torso parts, considering that each part cost about $20 million to make. Frankly, the bait-and-switch with Anne McClain is of more interest because NASA is feeling pressure to make space relevant again. NASA’s mild gesture and then retraction probably won’t affect the course of gender politics, but the Indy doesn’t think it would be too much to ask for women astronauts get the same opportunity to walk in space as men, and suggests that if NASA gets the funding to make another space suit, they make one these female stars will feel comfortable in. With pockets.

A miniature milestone for women in STEM was clumsily cancelled last week when NASA announced it was changing plans for the scheduled all-female spacewalk on March 29. The walk was not, in fact, meant to be a carefully planned gesture for gender equality: The agency discovered quite by accident that the seven hour procedure to replace batteries would be space’s first staffed exclusively by women astronauts, and was excited to announce the fact that they would be accidentally celebrating International Women’s History Month. NASA spokesperson Stephanie Schierholz originally admitted of the all-female walk: “We feel lucky that it just sort of happened to be in Women's History Month.” Sadly, in what can only be considered a giant leap in neither direction, they retracted their impromptu announcement, because the International Space Station didn’t have spacesuits that fit the two women. Instead of astronauts Anne McClain and Christina Koch completing the mission, Nick Hague would tap in, as he has a different sized torso from the -RB

BY Kevin Dong

POST-RAIN SPARKLE

For months, the fiscal winds had been changing for WOW Air’s fleet of pink aircraft: fourth quarter reports appeared “materially worse than originally anticipated” and rival company Icelandair withdrew from a proposed merger in November, citing unspecified yet unsatisfied financial conditions. The relentless positivity of CEO Skúli Morgensen—who believed “not having all of the answers [was] part of the fun”—belied serious financial turbulence.

Ultimately, WOW’s economic situation, unlike its fleet of magenta airplanes, could not be painted over. The airline declared bankruptcy on March 28, stranding thousands of travelers and laying off over a thousand employees.

WOW Air’s planes, operating exclusively out of Keflavik airport in Iceland, were each labeled with three-letter names such as “DOG,” “WIN,” or “GPA” (short for Grandpa). “I often say it costs nothing to smile,” replied Morgensen when asked by Outlook Traveller about WOW’s unique qualities. “I know this sounds simple, but it’s amazing how most airlines seem to have forgotten this simple fact.” Fancy customer service—a hold-over from an era when air travel required your Sunday best—was never WOW’s priority; both checked and carry-on luggage cost extra, as did food, movies, and seat choice. Instead, the airline marketed itself as a cheap, upbeat alternative to its more sober competitors—all of whom seemed to be operating under the conventional, conservative, and not-very-fun assumption that air travel should be taken seriously. But for those who have no scruples stuffing extra underwear into their coat pockets, low-cost airlines like WOW have long been staples of shoestring travel.

Despite unheeded parental warnings and unGoogled financial histories, I boarded my pink plane with more than a little of the usual flight foreboding. After heading to the middle seat of row 36—window and aisle seats cost extra—I sat down under a large, affirming sign which informed me that, indeed, the “Cool kids sit in the back!” Inside my seat’s pocket flap, the standard paper bags came plastered with a personal VomitO-Meter which helpfully ranked my airline experience from low queasiness (due to 'inflight panflute music' and ‘the pilot’s jokes’) to high nausea (caused by ‘obscene clouds’ and ‘our competitor’s prices’). And to request water—which would cost extra—I could simply press the overhead button labeled “Saved by the bell!” and be assisted by any of the friendly flight attendants, garbed entirely in pink felt who, according to Morgensen, had been trained into smiling service by professional actors.

In contrast to its onboard cheeriness, WOW Air was named the “worst airline in the world” by flight compensation company AirHelp, which ranked the pink air carrier #72 out of 72 companies for overall flight experience. But a highly nauseous flight experience, as one thousand stranded travelers can tell you, is better than no flight at all. After receiving an appropriately bashful email from booking site Expedia Travel alongside radio silence from the cowards whose website still allowed for ticket purchases until 7:00 AM on Friday morning, this traveler proactively processed her loss by joining “Wow Airlines Fail,” an up-andcoming Facebook group dedicated to comparing the pink aircraft to vintage biplanes. Since 2015, the

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

NEWS

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KEEP YOUR TONGUE IN ITS CAGE Protest art and revolution in Kuwait, Sudan, and Egypt

BY Mohannad Jabrah ILLUSTRATION Ella Rosenblatt DESIGN Amos Jackson

On February 25th, the Kuwaiti government abruptly announced that it would be cancelling a performance

by Mashrou’ Leila, a five-member Lebanese alternative rock band that was formed in Beirut in 2008. Many were not fazed by the announcement. On the contrary, it was the initial invitation to perform that caught many by surprise, given the band’s famous history of stoking sensitive political embers in the region.

In countries like Kuwait, where heavily enforced laws and cultural norms steer many to stick to themselves, stay hushed, and refrain from engaging in controversial political discourse, Mashrou’ Leila set an image for themselves that clearly communicates their willingness to engage in topics that are considered to be heavily charged in the region. With their proclivity for taking part in conversations that swim deep into the taboo waters of gender equality and sexual freedom, Mashrou’ Leila possess an openness that is not necessarily welcomed by some governments and parts of society—they have been barred from entering Jordan, among other countries in the region. In their song “Roman,” Mashrou’ Leila collaborates with Jessy Moussallem—an emerging Lebanese female director—to produce a music video with images of Muslim women that diverge from their stereotypical depiction as victms. As explained by Mashrou’ Leila in one textual description they provided for the video, the work attempts to “address Western reduction of Muslim women to victims,” with a focus of “treating oppression not as a source of victimhood, but as the fertile ground from which resistance can be weaponized.” In a similar fashion, much of the band’s other music directly condemns dictatorial regimes in the region. Their music is a potent mixture of euphony and a facilitator of public dialogue that allows it to criticize the politically oppressive environments into which the band members themselves were born.

The conversations that Mashrou’ Leila are both starting and facilitating can be seen in more than just their music. In September of 2017, at one of their most attended concerts in Egypt, one audience member brandished the rainbow flag. Seen by 35,000 audience members and televised nationally, Ahmed Alaa—the flag-waver—unintentionally sparked one of Egypt’s worst crackdowns on its LGBT community. In an environment where deviation from the masculine heterosexual norm invites both legal punishment by the state and social alienation, Alaa’s statement brought legal consequences against him and some 100 other concertgoers, many of whom received prison sentences that ranged from six months to six years.

Nevertheless, Alaa’s course of action and the ensuing consequences for many of the prosecuted LGBT Egyptians, motivated by Mashrou’ Leila’s politically and socially engaging art, started more conversations about the movement in both Egypt and the region.

Through Mashrou’ Leila’s controversial, outspoken lyrics, the thread of silence concerning the mistreatment of many LGBT citizens by their governments was finally cut short.

With openly gay lead Hamed Sinno, and its non-reluctance to vocalize topics of feminism, LGBT, equity and injustice, the group is often understood as a walking, talking, singing amalgam of the region’s most silenced taboos. Stirring endless controversy through their body of work, Mashrou’ Leila is but one of many examples of artists in the Middle East whose art transcends entertainment. Continually shaping culture in the region, Mashrou’ Leila’s influence in Kuwait and Egypt strikes a chord when it comes to revealing the

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power dynamics between art and government in the Middle East—and how the latter is often threatened by the former. +++ In late November of 2018 in Mishref, Kuwait, artist and graphic designer Mohammad Sharaf installed over 200 tombstones with the names of banned books engraved on them adjacent to the annual Kuwait Book Fair. From philosophical writings by George Orwell to children’s books like The Little Mermaid, the makeshift graveyard was expansive in the literary selections it mourned. In what he calls a “symbolic piece of protest and public art intervention,” the artistic installations that Sharaf presented were used to protest Kuwait’s incessant ban on literature on arbitrary, unjustified grounds.

Although the piece was eventually removed because Sharaf did not have a permit to work on the land where his work was installed, it nevertheless motivated Kuwaitis to funnel their frustration with state-regulated artistic suppression into nationwide dialogue. More importantly, the incident highlights the presence of radical pockets in modern Middle Eastern society that create art as a means of processing and addressing injustice. These works garner mixed responses from a divided public, and indeed, conversation surrounding Sharaf’s piece were met with suppression. This suffocation of art in the region is never purposeless, but neither is it fully tied to the clash between tradition and art, which often comes to mind as the primary driver of conflict surrounding artistic censorship. Instead, suppression is driven from a perspective of power dynamics: In a region where there is a norm that conversations should not attempt to critique authoritarianism, artistic forms of protest— like Sharaf’s literary graveyard—prove to be some of the biggest threats to the political status quo.

rings to contest the violence of the struggle through artistic means. These creative bodies of expression are an inextricable part of the Sudanese revolution, and are used in the absence of freedom to amplify the voices of the protestors.

Another form of art that is particularly important for both those in Sudan during the protests and those in diaspora is poetry and spoken word, which is deeply embedded within Sudanese culture and folklore.

From the fervent, ever-appreciated poetry of Mahjoub Sharif—a Sudanese activist who passed away in 2014— to the contemporary poetry of young Sudanese artists much like Emtithal Mahmoud, the historical struggles of Sudanese people find a medium through which they can be amplified. +++

In Sudan, even the mere act of making satirical portraits of the president is punishable by law. ­The 2018 press freedom index from political advocacy non-profit Reporters Without Borders ranks Sudan 174th out of 180 countries with regards to press freedom. It is odd, then, to see such a heavily mobilized protest in such a stifling space; this spontaneous wave of motion and frustration can be traced back to various vehicles of art from Sudanese artists that provided many with brevity of voice and capability of demonstration. This recent push towards participation in forms of artistic empowerment could be attributed to the increase in anonymity garnered by the presence of social media and other global platforms, which allow many to stay under governmental radars and even provide Sudanese people in diaspora the opportunity to become involved with the movement.

As more people join the protest behind this wave of revolutionary art, the contributions of self-perpetuating protest art as the face of the demonstrations becomes explicitly clear. Sudan echos other protests that occurred in the region—such as the ones that +++ rippled through the Arab world in the spring of 2011 in The contemporary Sudanese revolution is one such Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya—and this intertwining relaexample where political and protest art have been tionship between art and revolution can be considered a source of fuel towards rebellion. Propelled by a as a mirror image to an extent as well.

30-year military dictatorship under Omar Al-Bashir, +++ the demonstrations began in December 2018 after growing frustration from the Sudanese working class over deepening economic fissures and political Nevertheless, it would be reductive to even attempt neglect­­. The demonstrations reached their apex in to encapsulate all Middle Eastern nations’ reactions the form of country-wide protests in December 2018, towards the arts as something that follows the previwhich remain active to this day. With chants of “Tasqut ously described trends of Kuwait, Egypt, and Sudan.

Bas” (you must fall) permeating every square inch of Regardless of the fact that politically motivated art the streets of Sudan today, comes a dawning realiza- does pose a threat to some of the traditional customs tion that a civil uprising of such magnitude has never that are upheld in the Gulf, the Levant, and North and East Africa, it is still nevertheless an integral part of occurred against Al-Bashir’s regime.

By depicting the graphic struggles of protesters the region, which flourished involuntarily regardless through installations and street art scattered all of authoritative attempts at its suffocation. Political throughout Khartoum and the rest of the country, art's contemporary presence—and excellence—is Sudanese artists are able to communicate the pain undeniable, and it is leading both civil revolutions, behind these demonstrations, and further alert such as the one in Sudan, and intellectual ones, like the world of the ongoing injustices that are being the women’s rights movement in Saudi Arabia. Art, to committed by the Sudanese government. These an extent, now has more space to breathe, which can artworks—which heavily use some of the materials be attributed to ongoing struggles against attempts to used against the protesters, including tear gas canis- suffocate it. ters and bullets—go to great lengths to showcase the violence incurred on those brave enough to partake MOHANNAD JABRAH B’22 is looking forward to in the demonstrations. Such collected objects are seeing Mashrou’ Leila live next year. connected together to create pieces that broadcast some of the protest chants, while others have used them to create sculptures and everyday objects like

12 APRIL 2019

CITY UPON A HILL A study in the geopolitics of elevation The Berkeley hills bound the city to the east. The ridge stretches up and down the eastern bank of the San Francisco Bay Area, draped with a network of narrow windy roads. A series of expansive regional parks and a network of pedestrian paths cover much of the land where nearby residents go to escape city life and soak up the open, green space. Nestled among the peaks and ravines of the East Bay hills are countless viewpoints gazing out over the Bay Area. Everyone in Berkeley has their favorite. In the summer, a blanket of fog swallows the hills in the morning. By afternoon, it surrenders into a crystal-clear blue sky, and an enchanting panoramic view of the Bay is possible. At dusk, retired hippies, UC Berkeley students, and stoned teenagers gather in the hills to watch the sun slowly bleed across the Pacific and the lights of the metropolis begin to dance.

Like many other urban hills, those in Berkeley are where the rich live. It is no accident that the hills (and foothills) are by and large white and wealthy, and the flats are home to more people of color and people of lower economic status. A 1912 pamphlet advertising property in the Berkeley hills said it was an unparalleled investment because of the amenities of the neighborhood, the restrictions that made it the “cream” of North Berkeley with “No Asiatics or Negroes,” the access to transportation, and the scenery. Over the course of a century, race-based zoning, restrictive covenants, and redlining reinforced the hills as a upper-class enclave. In the 1960s, no real estate agent would even show my great-uncle Burton (who is white) and my great-aunt Andrea (who was Black) a house in the hills. The amenities that made property in the hills profitable in 1912 have been preserved more than 100 years later: The hills are exclusive low-density neighborhoods with incredible views, beautiful natural surroundings, and proximity to the center of a worldclass urban center.

The Berkeley hills are not unique. Up and down the Bay Area, from Mill Valley to Pacific Heights, the hills function the same. The Oakland hills, Marin County, and the non-uniform slopes of San Francisco sprinkled throughout the city generally conform to the rule: the higher the elevation, the higher the income. Through my own research, I discovered that the median household income above 50 feet in elevation in the Bay Area is $127,929, while the median household income in areas lower than 50 feet is $98,943. The socio-political significance that elevation holds in the Bay Area is replicated in other American cities, including New York and Los Angeles. The hills, it seems, are often a visual manifestation of class divides. +++ In the Abrahamic religions, hills, mountains, and high elevation are associated with religious purity and enlightenment. In the Bible, Moses summits Mt. Sinai to receive the ten commandments—an allegory for spiritual elevation. Also in the Bible, the phrase “City Upon a Hill” rhetorically refers to something that is highly visible and held in high regard. Famously, John Winthrop evoked this idea before the Massachusetts Bay colonists set sail for the New World, and since then the idea has symbolized United States exceptionalism.

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

In the Quran, the Prophet Muhammad climbed Jabal an-Nour, a mountain outside of Mecca. It is on this mountain, whose name translates to “hill of the illumination,” where he is thought to have received his first revelation. In ancient Greek mythology, Mt. Olympus is the home of the gods. Hills and mountains offer a proximity to god; religious and spiritual purity exist up high.

Practically, hills have been a desirable place to settle. The “high ground” is more easily defended because of the tactical advantage of slopes and the visibility of the lands around them. Settling in the hills also has the advantage of keeping inhabitants safe from flooding and swamplands and the disease that they breed. That is why cities across the world— Ancient Rome, Athens, Montreal, Istanbul, Ammam, and Tehran—have been settled on hills.

In the contemporary United States, the hills represents a new and improved version of the suburban dream: the seclusion and open space of the suburbs paired with the economic opportunity and cultural capital of the city. Often only accessible by car, pseudo-suburban hill communities are set apart from the rest of the city. This isolation affords residents more privacy and less of everything that an urban lifestyle entails (noise, crowds, and the like). However, as in the case of 20th century of suburbia, the isolation of neighborhoods in the hills is not just natural. While explicitly racist laws—like those that were common in many upper-class enclaves, like Beverly Hills and Piedmont, LA—are no longer on the books, the spacious yards and boundless views of hill enclaves that used to explicitly discriminate cost so much that only the super-wealthy can afford to live there.

Living in the hills also often means low-density housing and more open, green space. Richard Walker, in his book The Country in the City, describes how the long history of environmental activism in the Bay Area was largely carried out by and on behalf of the economic elite. The product is a network of preserved green space in the Bay Area hills, publicly available to everyone, but most accessed by the upper-class districts that surround them.

Much is the same in Los Angeles. In his 1971 book Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies, Reyner Banham, a prominent English urbanist, calls the Los Angeles foothills the “epitome of the great middleclass suburb.” Since then, the property values of those neighborhoods have skyrocketed. The stretch of foothill neighborhoods from Pasadena and Highland Park to Hollywood, Beverly Hills, and Bel Air and out to Malibu are now upper-class suburbs of Los Angeles. In a city whose urban landscape is defined by concrete, with its famed automobile lifestyle and jungle-like highway system, the Verdugo and Santa Monica Mountains, which these wealthy neighborhoods border, are natural islands among the sprawling grey landscape. This natural sanctuary is most coveted and accessible to the upper-class neighborhoods surrounding it. As the rest of the city looks up to the Hollywood sign in reverence, so too does it revere the mansions of Bel Air and the Hollywood Hills as the quintessence of LA prosperity.

What is unique about living in the hills in LA or the Bay Area is that, if you are super-wealthy, you can have

BY Jesse Barber ILLUSTRATION Jesse Barber DESIGN Ella Rosenblatt

a single-family home, a spacious yard, and access to green space—all within walking distance of metropolitan amenities. The Berkeley hills possess everything that 1950s suburban dream promised, but instead of pre-fab houses in the middle of nowhere, they enjoy ever-increasing property values, the opportunities of city life, and the cultural capital of living in quirky Berkeley.

In New York City, the marvel and hegemony of elevation transcends the hill as a geologic formation.

By virtue of its flat terrain compared to the topography of the skyscraper, elevation is accessed through an elevator. Michael Sorkin, in his book Twenty Minutes in Manhattan, describes the intersection of class and elevation. In the 19th century, the top floors of apartment buildings housed servants, students, and artists.

Living up high meant long walks up, smaller units, and certain peril in the case of a fire. When the elevator was invented and the skyline soared, so too did the allure of elevation. “Desirability came to be associated with view and with a sense of commanding the uppermost, a value based on a combination of military, theological, privacy, and prestige matters,” writes Sorkin. The idea of the “penthouse” emerged as the most desirable place, a home with maximum visibility and privacy, sitting above all the mayhem of the rest of the city. A country house in the clouds. In an urban landscape like New York City, where tranquility cannot be secured by retreating to pseudo-suburban hills, the wealthy can escape the density and chaos of urbanity by ascending to the top floor. There, they can gaze at the rest of the city below them.

But hills do not evoke wealth everywhere. In many large cities in Latin America, the hills are home to low-income and squatter settlements. In Rio de Janeiro, favelas, dwelling places similar to shanty towns, usually constructed with salvaged material created by squatters, cover the steep hillsides. According to the 2010 census, 6 percent of Brazil’s population, and 2.6 million of the 13 million residents of Rio de Janeiro, live in favelas. Favelas occupy what geographers Greg O’Hare and Michael Barke call the “internal periphery”—land that is too expensive or unsuitable for building commercial buildings. Rio de Janeiro is a city laid out on drastic slopes covered in favelas—a far cry from the multimillion-dollar houses overlooking the private beaches of Malibu. Shantytowns in Caracas, Venezuela, Lima, Peru, and other large South American cities follow a pattern similar to Rio de Janeiro’s.

In a rural American context, the hills take on a drastically different connotation. Hillbilly—a term that is often derogatory—loosely refers to people living in rural, mountainous areas of the United States. In 1900, the New York Journal wrote, “A Hill-Billie is a free and untrammeled white citizen of Tennessee, who lives in the hills, has no means to speak of, dresses as he can, talks as he pleases, drinks whiskey when he gets it, and fires off his revolver as the fancy takes him.” Outside of American metropolitan areas and wealthy vacation destinations like parts of the Berkshires or Aspen, Colorado, elevation does not hold the same monetary or social value. The decidedly American suburban ethic that is so central to the shaping of American urban space and the American Dream no doubt plays a role in producing the appeal of the urban hills. +++ Providence (along with a suspicious number of other cities, like Ancient Rome, Moscow, and Jerusalem) was built on seven hills. It was on the banks below Prospect Hill where Roger Williams settled and created the Providence colony, and it is on that same hill that Brown University sits today. In Terrace Park stands a statue of Roger Williams. With the wealthier and whiter East Side, home to Brown and the Rhode Island School of Design, to its back, the statue looks out over the modest skyline of Downtown, the Rhode Island capitol building, and the working-class South Side. The hills of Providence, like so many other American cities, carve a class-based division into the city. Personified through the paternalistic settler watching over the rest of the city, with an impersonal expression and judicious gesture cut into stone, the East Side stands, a cut above.

JESSE BARBER B'19 is running for the hills.

FEATURES

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BY Saanya Jain ILLUSTRATION Illustrator DESIGN Christie Zhong

QUEERING BOLLYWOOD LGBTQ representation goes mainstream The last time a mainstream Hindi-language film featuring a lesbian lead was released in India was in 1996. The movie, Fire, about two women who fall in love after the failure of their respective marriages, had to be recalled from theatres when Hindu extremists vandalized 15 cinemas where it was playing.

In many ways, then, the positive embrace of Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga (How I Felt When I Saw That Girl) 23 years later on February 1 of this year represents a stark devation from Fire’s release. The movie, directed by Shelly Chopra Dhar, is about Sweety, a young woman living in the state of Punjab whose family wants her to marry a young man who loves her. She, however, is in love with someone else—a woman, Kuhu—and the plot follows her attempts to gain everyone’s acceptance, particularly her father’s.

Ek Ladki’s release comes on the heels of the Supreme Court’s ruling overturning Section 377, a colonial-era law banning gay sex, in September 2018.

Public opinion on homosexuality in India, however, remains divided. A 2017-18 survey by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies and Azim Premji University asked 15,222 people across eight states whether they thought that sexual relationships between two men or two women should be accepted by society. The suvey found that 28 percent of people agreed or somewhat agreed, 46 percent disagreed, and the rest had no opinion.

The dominant narrative in media coverage and in the marketing of the film has been its potential to transform these views. This theory was encapsulated by Ek Ladki’s lead, Sonam Kapoor, who in 2014 remarked, “I think movies can influence the way people think sometimes, and if we do start making love stories or we start making movies about people who are amazing human beings, people who have done something in life, people who are inspirational who aren’t necessarily only straight, I think people will start appreciating them more.” This statement not only reveals implicit assumptions of the causal link between on-screen and off-screen change, but also sets a standard for how queerness is depicted on screen.

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To understand the conditions under which queerness is made visible in Bollywood and mainstream cinema generally, we must ask where and why this narrative of transformation falls short. What changes have allowed these stories to be told at this particular moment in this particular manner? What are the consequences of the mainsteam’s co-option of both marginalized experiences and of language that celebrates difference—and how do these considerations shape content?

This approach by no means aims to invalidate the importance of queer representation in the mainstream.

Depictions of homosexuality as a whole in popular Bollywood cinema prior to Dhar’s landmark film have been minimal. When present, homosexuality has functioned as a comedic conceit, as in the 2008 film Dostana, in which two men pretend to be gay but are actually in love with their landlord’s daughter; or as a shorthand for deviance, as in the 2018 historical epic Padmaavat, in which homosexuality is associated with the villainous (Muslim) king and his scheming associate, used to underscore their deviance from the Hindu, heteronormative ideal.

I also saw firsthand the excitement of my fellow South Asian queer friends who organized trips to go see Ek Ladki the day it was released. In an essay for the Guardian, Sharan Dhaliwal similarly described a London screening of Ek Ladki that was filled to capacity with South Asians who by the end of the film were in tears, having watched their story told and existence reaffirmed.

We can recognize diverse representation as socially important while being aware of the ways in which it is shaped by assumptions of normative queerness and audience attitudes. Surface-level queering of casts and stories can create the illusion of progress; true representative representation cannot occur without corresponding economic and political changes in their process of production and in society at large.

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Profitability governs decisions around which screenplays are financed, who gets cast, and how the resulting film is marketed. One consequence of this fact is that movies require star power: Seeing mainstream actors who audiences know and love play queer characters is a positive development as it works towards normalizing homosexuality. In the case of Ek Ladki, this comes in the form of real-life father-daughter duo Sonam (Sweety) and Anil Kapoor (Sweety’s father Balbir). Their acting dynasty has been in the spotlight since at least the 1980s, when Anil Kapoor first started appearing in Hindi films. What’s more, this is the first movie in which they have appeared together, which cannot be extricated from the audience’s experience.

It not only serves as an effective marketing ploy, but also grounds the fictional story within a known, realistic context. This casting also means, however, that Sonam Kapoor, who is a straight woman and enjoys all the privileges and safeties of that status, profits from playing a queer woman. Furthermore, it takes away the opportunity for a queer woman to play the role and thus forecloses a valuable opportunity to present not only a fictional but also a real-life role model for audiences. This is particularly important given that no prominent Bollywood celebrities are openly gay, which means that homosexuality in Hindi-language cinema remains strictly in the realm of fiction.

The second consequence of the demands of profitability is the need to appeal to the largest possible audience. The movie’s marketing campaign, for example, was deliberately vague so as not to alienate potential viewers. Neither the character Kuhu nor Sweety’s sexuality are shown or explicitly mentioned in trailers, posters or by the cast themselves in the run-up to the film’s release. Although the secrecy partly served to generate marketing buzz, it was also likely out of a desire to avoid alienating viewers or causing controversy which would impact box office revenues, a real concern in a country with a long history of boycotts, violent protests and state censorship of movies depicting female sexuality.

Queerness in Ek Ladki is further constructed

12 APRIL 2019

"QUEERING BOLLYWOOD HAS TO GO FURTHER THAN QUEERING CHARACTERS AND PLOTS. IT ALSO REQUIRES ASKING WHY CERTAIN REPRESENTATIONS EXIST IN THE MAINSTREAM AND OTHERS OUTSIDE IF OF IT."

around what is thought to be legible for domestic audiences. The film is grounded in familiar tropes of the Bollywood romance, from the opening wedding scene in which Sweety is asked when she is going to get married to a song in which Sweety and Kuhu hug among ruins. This intentional familiarization extends to the title, which is taken from a hit song from the 1994 blockbuster 1942: A Love Story, starring Anil Kapoor.

This juxtaposition constitutes Ek Ladki as a kind of re-imagining of 1942, drawing an analogy between its same-sex love story and 1942’s heterosexual one.

Ek Ladki also equates the challenges faced by queer love with cross-religion love stories, which are relatively common in Bollywood romances, through a brief illustration of Sweety’s family’s bigotry toward a potential Hindu-Muslim marriage. By portraying different kinds of difference as equal, the film obscures the political demands and unique challenges faced by queer people, which are from different from those of India’s Muslim minority.

Moreover, the impact of going mainstream—in terms of number of viewers—is overstated. Ek Ladki underperformed at the box office, bringing in $3.3 million on a budget of $4.3 million. Although these numbers do not reflect the value of the media attention around the movie, which presumably reached a wider audience, Ek Ladki’s potential to change attitudes towards homosexuality and its impact within India have been exaggerated. This raises questions of the value of compromises made in the name of appealing to the masses if their attitudes remained largely unchanged, as well as of who this narrative of revolutionary change most serves.

Relatedly, Ek Ladki’s breakdown of domestic (35 percent) as opposed to foreign revenues (65 percent) is lopsided, whereas the average for other Bollywood movies is closer to 50-50. Given the importance of foreign audiences, Ek Ladki attempted to make queerness legible not only in a domestic but also transnational context. The ‘backwardness’ of Sweety’s family’s views, for example, is grounded in their location in rural India. The plot is built upon an implicit dichotomy between repression and liberation, wherein coming out moves Sweety and those surrounding her into the ‘modern’ world. Further, what it means to be queer can take different forms across cultural contexts. Queer studies scholars have thus argued that adopting Western constructions ignores alternative ways of being queer that may be particular to an Indian context. Incorporating the perceived limits of audience attitudes towards queer representation impacts how groundbreaking any attempts in mainstream cinema can be at transforming them.

The dominant narrative of this film’s revolutionary politics of these movies constructs media consumption in and of itself as a political act. This can be positive, as audiences can essentially vote with their wallets, showing studios the value of producing content outside of the norm. It can, however, obscure how the producers of mainstream narratives are themselves the ones who emphasize that these representations are novel and transformative. These characterizations present audiences with a false choice of watching or not watching the film as evidence of their politics.

This not only forecloses debate on all the other potential narratives that could also be on the screen, it also makes it so that the movie’s consumption seemingly stands in for other types of political action. Finally, the economics of mainstream media production make it

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so that the film’s financial performance will affect any similar attempts in the future.

The mainstream’s self-characterization as revolutionary can thus overshadow the progress still needed when it comes to minority representation in mainstream cinema, particularly the need for re-evaluating the very structures that shape both onscreen and offscreen representation of Indian queer people.

+++ Queering Bollywood has to go further than queering characters and plots. It also requires asking why certain representations exist in the mainstream and others outside if of it. The answers to these questions are necessary to implement the broader structural changes needed to allow these stories to be told more often and in multiple ways.

While it is important to celebrate the media attention and audience that mainstream film (theoretically) garner, to do so inevitably presents a standard for who can be queer and how, to the exclusion of other possibilities. In Dostana, for example, gayness is something that can be performed stereotypically by straight men in order to gain the ideal of heterosexual love. Ek Ladki centers male approval and help, whether in the form of Sweety’s father or Sahil, her friend who preaches tolerance to the villagers—and by extension, the audience— and acts as the mediator between Sweety and Kuhu and the rest of the village. Further, the plot revolves around Sweety’s relationship with her father, which is not necessarily a negative thing in and of itself. This fact, however, erases direct representation of Sweety and Kuhu’s love and relationship.

Studios have the the power to choose which of many potential films to produce, and it is no accident that Sonam Kapoor talks about conventionally accomplished, inspirational queer people as deserving of representation. This film’s frame as the first, and thus implicitly only, positive depiction of queerness in Indian film also erases the decades-long history of non-commercial queer media production by queer people, for queer people, many of which reject a universalizing aesthetic or common notion of queerness.

Queering can also be an approach to the archive of Bollywood films and films about Indians broadly.

One example is Bend it Like Beckham (2002) about a second-generation British-Indian woman, Jess (Parminder Nagra), who rebels against her parents by joining a local football team. By the end of the movie (spoiler alert!), she has found an opportunity to play for a club in the United States, a best friend, Jules (Keira Knightley), and a boyfriend (Jonathan Rhys Meyers).

Rumors claiming that the Nagra and Knightley's characters were originally supposed to end up together and that the director had “chickened out” for fear of offending Indian audiences, as well as analyses of the movie’s queer subtext, have made the rounds of the internet in recent years. The value of reconsidering existing representations is that it takes texts that are already mainstream and links them to queerness in a way that can also facilitate social change.

Furthermore, the economics of queer media production in India have to be re-evaluated. For the most part, queer representations have required intervention from outside of India. The majority of queer representation that garners media attention in India is in some way made possible by actors outside of India. Fire, for example, was funded by the Canadian

government and its director, Deepa Mehta, is IndianCanadian, while Ek Ladki was financed at least partly by the presence of a large diaspora as a potential paying audience. Streaming services are the most recent manifestation of this phenomenon. Anil Kapoor, for example, cited Netflix as a potential answer to concerns around his remake of Modern Family, thought to be difficult to produce because of it depicts a gay couple. After her 2017 movie Lipstick Under My Burkha was stalled by Indian censors for being overly ‘lady-oriented,’ Alankrita Shrivastava took another project, Made in Heaven, featuring a gay character, straight to Amazon.

The requisite for foreign intervention in domestic queer productions not only obscures the limits of domestic financing, but also means that any content produced requires a transnational legibility. Streaming platforms’ strategies are built around making local content that can also be consumed globally. This inevitably shapes representations of queerness so that they coincide not only with the expectations of global audiences but also those of foreign producers’. These platforms have self-censored out of a fear of decreased profits, just as Ek Ladki’s producers did. Amazon Prime, for example, cut parts of an episode of the car show The Grand Tour, in which the host drives a car made of animal carcasses, including those of cows, which are considered sacred in Hindu culture. The company explained its decision in a statement as bearing “Indian cultural sensitivities in mind.” An understanding of how onscreen representations cannot be separated from the context of their production must accompany any claims to art’s impact on off-screen social relations.

+++ While we may conceptualize censorship of queer representation primarily as suppression by heteronormative governments, media producers, and fundamentalist groups, it can also exist even more insidiously when these representations appear in the mainstream.

These films, after all, are still shaped by directors’ and producers’ decisions and their perceptions of what forms of queerness are and aren’t legible to audiences.

If we are to avoid re-inscribing new forms of normativity, our demands for queer cultural visibility must be accompanied by demands for the reformation of the structures that have led to invisibility in the first place.

On-screen representation cannot replace the value of political or economic representation; conversely, radical representation cannot occur without simultaneous economic and political change.

SAANYA JAIN B’19 thanks the Indy for once more providing, sadly for the last time, the best excuse to procrastinate on her thesis.

ARTS

06

AGAINST FORGETTING Enforced Disappearances, Visual Archives of Loss, and Collective Mourning in Kashmir

BY Tiara Sharma and Kanha Prasad DESIGN Amos Jackson

Mughal Mase sits at an APDP demonstration, holding a photo of her son. Photo taken as part of a series by Altaf Qadri

On the 25th of every month, dozens of members of the Association for Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) gather in Pratap Park in Srinagar, Kashmir.

They sit in a semicircle on an expanse of grass, women on one side and men on the other, around a handpainted canvas of faces laid out in the middle. Each of the participants in the action holds a photo of their sons and husbands, who have been disappeared by the Indian Armed Forces.

Nayeem Rather, a Kashmiri journalist who works with APDP recently spoke at length with the College Hill Independent about the use of enforced disappearances. “The Indian state is at war with the memory of Kashmir, so our work is also a kind of struggle against forgetfulness,” he said.

APDP’s website cites a tally of 8,000 to 10,000 reported disappearances of Kashmiri people since 1989, the beginning of a nascent armed insurgency movement for independence that prompted the Indian armed forces to enter into the region by the hundreds of thousands. Under the protection afforded to them by the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (1990), the Indian army continues to use disappearances as one of many tactics to repress the independence movement, including extra-judicial killings, custodial torture, rape, forced labor, and more recently, pellet gun shootings. The primary targets of disappearances include students, political activists, and any civilians who the Indian state suspects are agitating for independence.

Among the state’s many human rights violations, these disappearances are unique in their pernicious assault on the collective memory of the Kashmiri people. +++ Just five days ago, in an interview with News18 in New Delhi, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi rejected the possibility of repealing the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), comparing the suggestion to “sending [India’s] soldiers to the gallows.” This statement follows the February 14th suicide bombing that took place in Kashmir’s Pulwama district, in which a 22-year-old Kashmiri man, Adil Ahmed Dar, drove an explosive-laden vehicle into a convoy of Indian armed forces, killing 40 soldiers and injuring many.

Ather Zia, founder of Critical Kashmir Studies Collective, reported on the incident for Al Jazeera, tracing the originary point for Dar’s political motivations to an incident earlier in his life, in which armed officers detained and humiliated him, forcing him to repeatedly “rub his nose [against] the ground.” Few other media outlets, both in South Asia and abroad, have reported on Dar’s and his family’s past experiences with Indian armed forces—just one of many instances in which media coverage on Kashmir often fails to acknowledge how genealogies of Indian state violence shape the political consciousness of Kashmiri insurgents. Dar, like many his age, had never known a Kashmir free of occupation.

Javid was 17 years old when he was captured by the Indian National Security Guard from his home in Battamalo (close to Srinagar) in August 1990. His mother, Parveena Ahangar, attempted to trace him through legal means, by filing multiple petitions in the Jammu and Kashmir High Courts, including a complaint that reached the Home Ministry’s office in Delhi. She also tried conducting her own search for her

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son by visiting army camps and meeting with multiple government representatives, but ultimately these combined efforts were unsuccessful due to a combination of discrimination and corruption. As Rather told the Indy, “this was the time I lost faith in the justice system of India...They were all lying. They assured me that they would find my son. But they didn’t help.”

In her visits to prisons, torture cells and military camps, Ahangar came across numerous other aggrieved parents who shared similar stories. In Kashmiri filmmaker Iffat Fatima’s 2009 documentary, Where Have You Hidden My New Moon Crescent?, Ahangar listens as a fellow mother named Mughli Mase explains their first interaction: “[We] met on the road and connected.” Almost instinctively, Ahangar finishes Mase’s thought: “I was searching, she was searching.” +++ Ahangar started the APDP in 1994 alongside Kashmiri activist Parvez Imroz as a collective of family members united by a simple demand: for the Indian government to tell them where their disappeared sons and fathers are being kept and to return them immediately. In their disappearances of politically active Kashmiri men, the Indian state has left the households to which these men belong without stable breadwinners. Despite the ever-present threat of poverty and precarity, the wives and mothers of disappeared persons still volunteer large amounts of time and energy to the APDP. In fact, according to Rather, “the core of APDP’s decision making apparatus is controlled largely by women,” who take charge of day-to-day activities such as organizing protests and demonstrations, writing press releases and executing plans.

The wives and mothers of disappeared persons have come to be called ‘half-widows’ and ‘halfmothers.’ This language locates these women in a liminal space: The Indian state refuses them the right to fully mourn, yet also refuses to return their family members. Rather questions the very language of ‘half-widow’ and ‘half-mother,’ and is skeptical of its origins: “[The] APDP movement does not consider the disappeared dead,” he explains, “So, [...] if someone’s husband is not dead, how come she’s a widow?” And, indeed, APDP’s public demonstrations of mourning allow Kashmiri mothers and wives to reaffirm and visibilize their relationship to their disappeared loved ones in reaction to state powers that have attempted to render invisible. However, Kashmiri women like Mughli Mase are not mere icons of mourning—they are originators of anti-Indian-occupation organizing, vital to the struggle for Kashmiri azaadi (freedom) and to a global audience’s reckoning with the violence of enforced disappearance.

of Kashmir, the Indian state controls what can and cannot be seen—and who can be disappeared at any moment.

In response to the state’s constellations of visual control, APDP organizers establish mourning as a means of reappearing lost loved ones. The iconic pose of parents—and, specifically, mothers—holding portraits of their sons reinstates and visibilizes a relationship that the state has attempted to dissolve.

“APDP is involved in remembering and reconstructing the lives of those who were disappeared,” Rather explained. Images of both Ahangar and Mase at these demonstrations reveal how their figures, positioned behind the portraits, allow their sons’ visual presence to inhabit a material form. The women activists’ use of portraits to reconstruct the existence of their disappeared persons, therefore, serves as an inventory of loss, a means through which mourning, as public demonstration, calls attention to—and flagrantly denounces—the unending nature of enforced disappearances. Their displays of mourning, in this sense, are not mere performances or embodiments of victimhood—they resurrect and materialize the very memory of their disappeared relatives that the Indian state attempts to erase.

+++

Azaadi, for Kashmiris, has historically contained many valences and signified many political possibilities.

Some want to merge with Pakistan, while others, like Rather, believe in an independent sovereign Kashmir.

A long overdue plebiscite, authorised by the United Nations Commision for India and Pakistan in 1949, would give institutional sanction to the multiple voices within the Kashmiri self-determination movement.

However, despite diverging opinions on what an Azad Kashmir would look like in the future, “most people,” Rather says, “will converge on this point: azaadi means ‘Go India, Go Back.’” Many larger anti-occupation protests in Kashmir feature this rallying cry, which appropriates a famous Indian colonial era slogan, ‘Go Simon, Go Back,’ and repurposes it against the Indian occupation.

APDP activists’ demands for India’s withdrawal compound the urgency with which they organize for the right to reunite with their family members. “My God, just once,” Mase says, “may I look at [Yusuf] and he look at me...and then I [could] close my eyes forever.” Through the lens of Mase’s and Ahangar’s narratives of loss, azaadi not only means liberation from Indian occupation but also from the ongoing cycle of disappearances.

The last few moments of Fatima’s film shows Mase sitting in her home, next to Ahangar, who has joined her for afternoon chai. Mase speaks slowly and directly to the camera, “Precious son, you are lost. The sky is +++ blood rimmed—the earth is torn asunder … My Yusuf, I call you. Hear me.” Mase pauses, unable to continue.

Indian military occupation in Kashmir operates Again, and for the last time, Ahangar picks up where primarily through a visual register; the barbed wire Mase left off: “Come… my heart’s beloved, I await you.” fences, army tanks, stationed military personnel, unmarked grave sites, and mass blindings constitute TIARA SHARMA B'20 AND KANHA PRASAD B'21 what Deepti Misri, scholar and co-founder of Critical wrote this in memory of all those disappeared by the Kashmir Studies Collective, calls the Indian state’s Indian state—10,000 and counting “optical regime.” By superimposing symbols of militarized power and displays of death onto the landscape

12 APRIL 2019

WAVING THE FLAG

BY Cate Turner ILLUSTRATION Pia Mileaf Patel DESIGN Lulian Ahn

Competition and community at the Providence Gay Flag Football League

From a distance, the scene looks and sounds not unlike a standard fair-weather gym class. Players clad in mismatched jerseys dart back and forth, colorful vinyl strips streaming in their wake. Shouting, laughter, and the faint strains of Britney Spears’s “Toxic” mingle with the sound of cleats (alongside sneakers, from those less equipped for the scrimmage) and, occasionally, bodies hitting the ground. The one downside of the weather—sunnier, drier, and more temperate than seems possible for Providence in April—is that the smell of sunscreen is overwhelming, even from several yards away.

This is the Providence Gay Flag Football League (PVDGFFL)’s second-ever scrimmage. Four of the league’s eight teams spread out across the North Country Club Field in Warwick, preparing for the day’s first round of preseason matches. At this point, teams have known each other for only a week. But next weekend, they will be competing in their first game of the PVDGFFL’s inaugural regular season. Now is the time for teams to coalesce, develop game strategies, and, hopefully, decide on names. Officially, each team’s name is designated by its jersey color, but players and captains alike are, to varying degrees, interested in finding more exciting alternatives. The Green Team seems to be known interchangeably as “Mountain Doobie” and “Mount and Do Me,” while the Red Team is torn between “the Red Beards” and “Red Rocket.”

Alex L’Ecuyer, captain of the Blue Team, informs me that his players are going by “the Blue Cockies,” which originated as a “bar joke.” “Hey, everybody thought it was hilarious,” L’Ecuyer adds, laughing.

The players present today came to the PVDGFFL from many different athletic backgrounds and with many different skill sets. But all have two things, at least, in common: the desire to carve out a new LGBT community space in Providence and the will to play football. As administrators drag out goalposts and refs take to the field in preparation for a day of games, both aims start to materialize. +++ As the first set of games start, positions still seem up in the air—the PVDGFFL is many players’ first exposure to football, flag or otherwise, and these early rounds are an opportunity for learning and teaching.

The rules of flag football and tackle football are very similar, though flag leagues vary in their treatment of contact, field size, and other specific regulations. As a rule, flag is much lower-contact than tackle football, if not completely no-contact. Stripping a player of their vinyl flags, attached to their waist, amounts to a tackle and ends the opposing team’s play. It’s customary for the player who succeeds in taking another’s flags to hold the colorful strips high above their head in the universal gesture of athletic accomplishment—see Rocky with his belt, any given championship-winning hockey player with the Stanley Cup, or a wrestler performing a fireman’s carry of their opponent’s entire body.

Harley Jones is on the field for most of the first set of games. Her goal in joining the PVDGFFL is to meet people. “I don’t have very many friends in this area in the LGBT community,” she tells me. “I’m here to become more active.” She was also drawn in by the

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

opportunity to participate in organized sports. “I did cross-country in high school, and I missed the team bonding,” she says.

She brought a fan, her friend Andrew, who isn’t registered with the PVDGFFL but came to watch her in the scrimmage. “I’m straight, for the record, but I’m very supportive of the community, especially if there’s sports involved,” he says. His interjection is cut off by Jones’s thunderous cheers. Her team, Mountain Doobie/Mount and Do Me, has just scored against the still-unnamed Navy Team.

Jones’s motivations for joining are typical among newcomers to the PVDGFFL. Jay Noble, who moved to Providence less than a month ago, also registered in order to meet people and “stay active.” Noble, like several other players at the scrimmage, had previously participated in a (predominantly gay) women’s flag football league in St. Louis. Providence, too, has a women’s league, which many PVDGFFL participants also play for.

Many of the players and leaders of the PVDGFFL have previous athletic experience—a number were high school or college athletes—but several are new to organized sports. A gay league can offer players in both of these situations the chance to develop a new relationship to sports. “When you talk about joining a sports league that might be predominantly straight, you can still feel like a bit of an outsider, and like you can’t quite be yourself,” Duane Gosley, commissioner of the PVDGFFL, told me. “Providing an outlet that is primarily focused on the LGBTQ community provides a safe environment for them to come and be themselves.”

Gay leagues can also provide a familiar space for those in the process of acclimating to a new identity and community. John Zajicek, assistant commissioner of the PVDGFFL, joined a gay kickball league in Orlando within months of coming out. For him, gay sports leagues were a way to bridge the gap between his current life and a future of deeper engagement with other LGBT people. “I’d grown up playing sports, so to find out that there were these leagues that existed, and that identified with the kind of lifestyle or activities that I was normally part of ... that was my step into meeting people in the community.” The PVDGFFL is, first and foremost, a space for LGBT people to connect—with each other, but also with themselves. +++

social outlet” made as much clear. Taken at face value, this article reads like a proclamation of a new era of gay spaces, where bars are obsolete and queer people only ever congregate to practice kickball (specifically without “waving flags,” according to one man interviewed in the Times article). But the dichotomy between sports and bars isn’t as clear, or as competitive, as it might appear. The PVDGFFL has reached out to many other kinds of gay community spaces, including, but not limited to, gay bars and clubs across Providence. It has brought in players through queer centers on and off college campuses, mutual friends, and simple social media promotion. The assumption the Los Angeles Times article makes, that a gay sports league would necessarily drain energy from other kinds of community spaces, carries with it the idea that there is a limit to queer people’s ability or desire to connect with each other. To anyone watching this scrimmage unfold—the laughter, the cries of triumphant glee, the joy in connection—this assumption is self-evidently wrong.

However, recruitment does present challenges for the PVDGFFL, especially within the 18-to-32 demographic. “What does socialization look like for the queer community? Now, more than ever, a lot of it is digital,” Zajicek told me, mentioning the prevalence of dating apps. When so many introductions and interactions between queer people occur online, Zajicek thinks it can be difficult to mobilize interest in building offline spaces.

Despite the accessibility of online platforms, though, many young people continue to register for and show up to gay sports leagues. But, to some degree, these leagues have to compete amongst themselves for interested players. Between the Renaissance City Softball League, the Gala Bowling League, and the Ocean City Pride Volleyball League—not to mention countless other gay leagues in the Boston metro area, including FLAG, one of the largest gay flag football leagues in the United States—Providence is already home to many options for hopeful athletes in the LGBT community. But even with these many outlets, the PVDGFFL has attracted a full roster. They also have sponsorships to back them up, including doTERRA Essential Oils (whose representative Kaleb Bajakian mans a booth at the scrimmage). Many players participate in multiple other gay and women’s sports leagues in Providence in addition to the PVDGFFL. Come the end of the first set of games, with no scoreboards in sight, it’s only really possible to determine the victor based on Mountain Doobie/Mount and Do Me’s players’ cheers. More important than final scores seems to be the end-of-game chants, which, for Mountain Doobie/Mount and Do Me, involve each team member shouting their preferred pronunciation of the team’s name at the top of their lungs. As players begin to unlace their shoes, zip their bags, and set out for the parking lot or the sidelines, a new wave moves in for the next round of matches. These teams are all competing, but the object, especially today, isn’t really to win; it’s to build something together. The PVDGFFL may be made up of rookies, but they’ve proved themselves up to that challenge.

The PVDGFFL is far from the only space in Providence with the goal of bringing LGBT people together in community. For a city of its size, Providence has an unusually large number of gay bars. Historically, these have been centers of LGBT community in the area. But many LGBT residents of the Providence area are reaching for spaces outside of bars, as well. Mike Ung, a player for the Blue Team, called the PVDGFFL an opportunity for LGBT people to meet each other “doing something that’s not just going out to bars and all that.” He is far from the only player who mentioned the PVDGFFL’s relationship to gay bars—their similarities and, implicitly, their differences.

The comparison of gay sports leagues and gay bars is far from new. A 2013 Los Angeles Times article head- CATE TURNER B’21 has the shakiest possible grasp on lined “Gay sports leagues gain ground against bars as a the rules of football, tackle or otherwise.

METRO

08

BY Matt Ishimaru ILLUSTRATION Julia Illana DESIGN Ella Rosenblatt

In a dusty, treeless valley south of Kabul, Afghanistan, the ancient walls of Mes Aynak almost blend into the surrounding earth. Larger-than-life sized Buddha statues rest in alcoves, most weathered over time to only a seated torso or a lone foot, but some stand tall.

The complex of brick and earthen structures stretches out over 450,000 square meters of rolling countryside.

For more than 10 years, a team of dozens of Afghan and international archaeologists assisted by hundreds of Afghan laborers have been working to uncover this ancient site along the Silk Road, home to an ancient Buddhist monastery dating to the 3rd century CE. But this is no ordinary excavation. Surrounded by more than one hundred checkposts and patrolled day and night by 1,700 guards, Mes Aynak sits atop the second largest untapped copper deposit in the world, with more than 12.5 million tons estimated to lie beneath the surface.

An attempt to mine the site has met resistance from archeologists and activists who claim that mining would destroy undiscovered relics and irreplaceable cultural heritage. But recently, a French startup called Iconem has used drone photography and computer

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AS SEEN FROM vision algorithms to extensively document the site and construct a detailed digital recreation. Founded by architect Yves Ubelmann, Iconem has documented endangered historic sites around the world in the name of preservation, but its work to record Mes Aynak digitally may actually threaten the site itself. By positioning its digital Mes Aynak as a more durable, more useful version of the real thing, Iconem raises questions about the evolving relationship between the digital and the physical. +++ Mes Aynak means “little copper well� in Pashto. This is an understatement. Rediscovered by modern archaeologists in the 1960s, the history of the Buddhist monastery complex at Mes Aynak is intimately linked

to the copper deposit beneath it. Archaeological evidence suggests that the ancient Buddhist monks who lived here mined and refined copper, a trade that made them wealthy and enabled them to build a large monastery with fortifications. Their buildings remain today as an archaeological site strewn with ancient relics. Among the walls of temples and battlements, thousands of ancient Buddhist artifacts have been unearthed. The site is a wealth of information about ancient Afghanistan.

In 2007, the Afghan Ministry of Mines awarded the Metallurgical Corporation of China (MCC) the right to mine the site at Mes Aynak for nearly $3 billion.

The 30-year lease agreement included a promise to build infrastructure in the region, including roads, a railway, and an electricity plant. The purchase is part of a broader push by Chinese companies to make inroads

12 APRIL 2019

ABOVE Digital archaeology in Afghanistan

into mining and resource extraction in Afghanistan that includes a plan for three large oilfield in the northwest of the country. Driven by increased manufacturing demand at home, Chinese firms are trying to take advantage of the combination of Afghanistan’s immense resource wealth and US-led stabilization efforts in the country.

Pushback to the sale of Mes Aynak came immediately. Afghan cultural heritage activists and archeologists claimed that open pit mining like what was proposed by MCC would lead to the permanent destruction of the historical site at Mes Aynak. Open pit is one of the simplest forms of mining, and also one of the most disruptive. It involves digging a large, wide hole to extract minerals that are close to the surface.

Because some of the copper deposit at Mes Aynak is located directly beneath the monastery, an open pit mine would require that the archeological site be razed to access the copper underneath it.

In response, the Afghan Ministry of Mines agreed to delay the project. Disagreement over the terms of the deal between the ministry and MCC as well as safety also likely contributed to the delay of mining, which was scheduled to begin in 2012 but has yet to start. Rocket attacks by the Taliban have disrupted work on the site, and leftover Soviet and Al-Qaeda landmines remain a danger for archaeologists and workers on the ground. These hazards are part of the reason that Iconem cites for using digital archeology.

In a blog post about the project, Ubelmann writes that in light of anti-personnel mines strewn around the site, drone photography represents “the only possible technical solution” and that “it allows us to scan the whole mountain from far away, without putting ourselves at risk.”

Before the MCC deal, not much formal archaeology had been conducted at Mes Aynak. While looting of ancient Buddhist artifacts was common, it had never been the subject of any preservative excavation.

The MCC deal led to renewed archeological interest in the site. “If it will not be destroyed by mining, it will be destroyed by looting,” said French archaeologist Philippe Marquis in an interview with National Geographic. Instead, he said, it would be better to document the site now. In 2009, after the Ministry of Mines agreed to delay the project, Marquis led a team made up of both Afghan and international archaeologists to excavate Mes Aynak.

Since then, more than 2000 artifacts have been found at the site, including coins, pottery, statues, and other artworks. So many, in fact, that archaeologists are struggling to find safe places to keep them. Many have been sent to museums in Kabul, but for lack of space most are simply being kept in piles onsite. Large Buddha statues up to eight meters tall simply cannot be moved. Without proper preservation, artifacts are in danger of degradation and theft by looters. The ongoing excavation at Mes Aynak is one of the major factors stopping the destruction of the site and the beginning of mine construction. +++

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

In 2010, the Afghan Ministry of Mines brought in Iconem to document Mes Aynak. The startup has documented hundreds of sites, many of them in the Middle East. Iconem’s founder, Yves Ubelmann, was trained as an architect and became inspired to pursue preservation after studying ancient buildings in Afghanistan, Iran, and Syria. One of Iconem’s stated goals is to “document humanity’s most precious places to ensure their preservation for future generations.” Many of Iconem’s projects involve sites that are in danger of being destroyed or damaged. “These are the sites we need to protect the most. If we lose them, we lose all evidence of their history, of lives lived,” Ubelmann said in an interview with Reader’s Digest.

Iconem uses a technique known as photogrammetry which uses an artificial intelligence algorithm to stitch many photographs together into a single 3D model. Combining this process with overhead drone photography and documentation on the ground, Iconem has been able to create incredibly detailed models of historical sites.

The company has undertaken other large-scale projects, including the digitization of the entire Greek island of Delos. Iconem has also modeled parts of the ancient city of Palmyra, which has allowed them to digitally reconstruct monuments that were partially destroyed by ISIS between 2015 and 2017.

The models are fascinating. Not only photorealistic, they are fully rendered in 3D and can be viewed and manipulated on a laptop or using a virtual reality headset. They can be viewed from from overhead or zoomed in to a miniscule level of detail. Iconem claims that they allow viewers to experience the sites as if they were really there. And their work certainly seems to be more immersive than traditional representations of archaeology, which rely mostly on words and still images. But by claiming that their digital model allows viewers to experience Mes Aynak in a way that approaches the experience of the real site, Iconem betrays the dangers inherent to immersive digital representations of reality.

Iconem was brought in by the Afghan Ministry of Mines to scan the site at Mes Aynak not simply to help preserve the site, but rather to create a digital copy that could serve in the place of the site itself. Blogging about the process of documenting Mes Aynak, Ubelmann writes that digital modeling “gives an overview of all the archaeological discoveries” that have been made at the site, and “even [makes it] possible to study reliefs located in areas not yet excavated.” Implicit in Ubelmann’s vision is the idea that a digital representation, sufficiently advanced, can begin to meaningfully replace the original. While traditional methods of representing archaeological discoveries merely represent artifacts and locations, Iconem’s work is a significant step towards digital representations that claim to give the same experience as the original.

Because of this assertion of the fidelity of their models, Iconem’s work at Mes Aynak might actually undermine efforts to preserve the place itself. By creating a digital version of the site and positioning it as an adequate replacement for the real thing, Iconem

gives cover to MCC and helps them move forward in the construction of the copper mine. Unlike the work of more traditional archaeologists, Iconem’s models of Mes Aynak serve to undermine rather than support efforts to protect the site from destruction.

This effect is not new; it is familiar to the world of art and literature. Starting with the invention of the printing press, authors and literary theorists have recognized that the ability to make copies of a work of art undermines the value of the original. This effect was renewed by advances like lithography and photography. It grew by an order of magnitude with the advent of digital information and the internet. New technologies are breaking down the barrier between digital and physical: Techniques like Iconem’s photogrammetry bring physical objects into the digital world, while 3D printing and augmented reality work to bring the digital world into the physical. These advances have the potential to carry the devaluation inherent in digital reproduction into the real, physical world. +++ Proponents of mining at Mes Aynak in the Afghan government and at MCC have argued that the destruction of the archeological site is justified by the economic benefits that a mine would provide to an impoverished part of Afghanistan. Over half of the population of Afghanistan lives below the poverty line, and Afghan officials have estimated that the mine would add more than $1 billion to the country’s economy. The project would build infrastructure near the mine, and create hundreds of well-paying jobs for locals. However, there are other mineral deposits in Afghanistan that could offer similar benefits without the destruction of a historic site. Or, a less invasive style of mining might be able to preserve the historical site while allowing access to the copper deposit underneath.

Iconem’s efforts also raise questions of who can and should benefit from the preservation of cultural heritage. Saving the site could help to make it a destination for tourism that benefits the local economy, much like Afghanistan’s Bamiyan Buddha statues before they were destroyed by the Taliban in 2001. However, tourist traffic could itself cause wear and damage that threatens the preservation of the site. Digitization by Iconem might preserve Mes Aynak for future research by archeologists and people with high speed internet access, but for locals the site would be gone forever.

Iconem’s work serves to make cultural heritage more accessible to academics and museum-goers at the expense of the site itself and those who live near it.

The growth of less developed countries should not come at the cost of their cultural heritage, which is also the heritage of the world. Iconem helps to resolve this tension by allowing for a kind of cultural preservation without limiting the extraction of natural resources.

However, by portraying its models as faithful reproductions of physical sites, Iconem is jeopardizing the very places it is trying to save. As new technology moves closer to breaking down the barriers between digital and physical, archeologists and technologists alike will have to contend with the consequences.

MATTHEW ISHIMARU B’20 thinks archaeology ROCKS.

SCIENCE + TECH

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How does physics fit into your spirituality? d , an f l a u o t piri s view ns s g i io in yth with th planat h n a t d or g well tific ex ted wi he o g n t n n ia ve i oes alo ing scie assoc s with e i l e e n n’t b ysics g ep find ere onc ity alig o d “I nk ph e ke that w iritual .” i W . h It orld enon any sp fication w e th henom ack of l veri l a p for so my riment , e god of exp lack

“I believe in a loving creator who set up a space that inspires humans to seek understanding of the world and the other beings around them.

The study of physics has revealed phenomena that we can understand rather completely while constantly suggesting areas that we are on the cusp of understanding. My experiences with physics inspire me to try to understand more of all that goes on around me.”

Has studying physics influenced your perspective on love or your interpersonal relationships? and words that “It provides me with some concepts when are fun and sometimes helpful to use ersonal discussing relationships and interp interactions between folks.”

“Made it more objective.”

“I am not sure it’s physics itself. However, studying physics influenced my view of how the world works, and my place in the world, and this has had an effect on how I view interpersonal relationships, including the feeling of love.”

but maybe “I tend to date guys who do physics, e of thing.” that’s more of a common interest typ e it’s s u a c fe be ing.” i l n ers i e anyth tt a m b uld that o g c n e i ly th ing. Lov n o e n is th mea e v “Lo

11

X

it ves i g t wha

“I probably approach these things a bit more analytically than I would otherwise.”

“Y3s we are

all particles

and love is a

central forc

e”

“nope” “No” “Not particularly” “I can’t say it has.”

12 APRIL 2019

MATTIELLO AND THE MACHINE

BY Brionne Frazier ILLUSTRATION Eve O'Shea DESIGN Amos Jackson

Nicholas Mattiello and the centralization of the Rhode Island House

Nicholas Mattiello has been touted as the most powerful man in Rhode Island. This power stems primarily from his position as Rhode Island House Speaker­, which he has held since 2014, as well as his brazen leadership style. Unlike in many other states, in Rhode Island, the Speaker of the House controls the state’s budget, solely decides which bills make it to the floor, nominates judges, and vetoes the Governor’s decisions. For a man with such power, Mattiello lacks the charisma and charm typical of political leadership.

While speaking during legislative sessions, he maintains a droning baritone and a wry humor. When he isn’t speaking, his eyebrows stay furrowed and his lips pursed. The Speaker is also not known for choosing his words carefully, once calling employees on Medicaid a “burden to the citizens of Rhode Island.” His power lies not in affability and community engagement, but in strong-arm political maneuvers and fulfillment of campaign promises.

Last November, fellow Democrats organized a caucus dedicated to Mattiello's removal from the position of Speaker. After his reelection to office in January, Mattiello dismissed all nineteen members of the Rhode Island Reform Caucus from the powerful House Finance and House Judiciary Committees.

(Mattiello denies that the staff shakeup was retribution for their opposition.)

The Reform Caucus was created to oppose Mattiello’s leadership, promote greater decentralization in the House, and limit the singularity of the Speaker’s power. This advocacy is in response to Mattiello as a conservative old-guard democrat— also known as a DINO, or ‘Democrat In Name Only.’

Members of this caucus, as well as the group Citizens for a Corruption-Free RI, are concerned that DINOstyle conservatism does not allow for progressive reform and transparent politics.

Mattiello has been endorsed by the National Rifle Association, defended what critics maintained was a mishandling of sexual harassment allegations against a house representative, and endorsed a pro-Trump candidate running against Representative Moira Walsh, one of his most vocal critics. Prior to early March, he was also supported by Rhode Island Right to Life, an endorsement which was retracted after Mattiello scheduled a vote on the Reproductive Privacy Act, which would codify Roe v. Wade and the right to abortion into state law.

Despite his personal abrasiveness, he has had tremendous political success. Since his entering office, the unemployment rate in Rhode Island has decreased, and wages have increased, due to Mattiello’s pro-business stance. Further, the house has cut social security taxes for low-income residents, and Mattiello has been working to phase out the car tax, which many of his constituents have vehemently opposed.

Currently, he is working to establish threat assessment

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

teams in Rhode Island Public Schools to identify and stymie threatening behavior in schools that is often a precursor to gun violence.

In spite of his reactionary politics, Mattiello has maintained his position in a Democrat-controlled state for five years. He was re-elected to office in November by a narrow margin, then to the position of Speaker in January with 47 votes, 12 more than necessary. In a city known for its history of mob-style machine politics, it is not anomalous that a figure like Mattiello rose to such a position of power. +++

contribute to Mattiello’s ability to maintain power and consistent victories as the incumbent. Elections will not be free and open in Rhode Island if the Speaker’s employment is directly tied to the office. +++ Last fall, Mattiello and the Rhode Island Democratic Party endorsed pro-Trump conservative Michael Earnheart, who recently changed his affiliation from Republican to Democrat, in his bid against incumbent Representative Moira Walsh, a vocal Mattiello critic.

A Mattiello-controlled PAC donated $1,000 to the campaign, the maximum allowable amount.

Why would the party endorse a candidate well known for a since-deleted racist string of tweets referring to undocumented immigrants as “self-entitled lawbreakers and thieves” and Muslim immigrants to the United Kingdom as “garbage human beings”?

Walsh told Slate magazine that the endorsement was punishment for her opposition to his leadership.

In fact, a majority of Mattiello’s opposition, especially within the house, are women. Much of this is due to his mishandling of sexual harassment allegations against Rep. Cale Keable by Rep. Katherine Kazarian. Mattiello did not remove or reprimand Keable, claiming it was “not Statehouse business,” as he told WPRI Eyewitness News. Though Kazarian possesses sexually harassing text messages from Keable, Mattiello maintained that he had no specific facts or evidence to support the allegations. Though Kazarian had lodged multiple complaints as early as 2015, Mattiello did not remove Keable from his position as chairman of the House Judiciary Committeefor years. He did so personally an hour and a half after the story aired.

Rhode Island may be known for a boss style political culture, but the rising organized criticism towards one of the state’s most powerful men might signal a turn to progressivism in the House. However, this is only possible with continuous pressure to establish greater transparency and division of power within the state government. With Rhode Island’s uniquely centralized House structure, activists and critics must channel action uniquely as well. As revealed by the Kazarian and Keable situation, public pressure has forced Mattiello’s hand. It is another explanation as to why he scheduled a vote on the Reproductive Privacy Act—on which he voted no—after consistently promising not to. With a case like Mattiello on our hands, citizen mobilization in Rhode Island might be the key to break up a very compact political circle.

Providence is no stranger to personally abrasive personalities and still lives under the legacy of its late former-mayor Buddy Cianci. While Mattiello has no criminal allegations, his style in office does harken back to Cianci’s approach. By using his power to decide what bills reach the House floor, Mattiello is able to silence representatives with whom he disagrees. In late March, Mattiello allegedly refused to pass anything with Representative Teresa Tanzi’s name on it because she withheld support for his candidacy for Speaker in January.

Situations like this highlight how the centralization of the House poses a unique obstacle to progressive or even bipartisan reform. The purpose of a House vote is for representatives, who advocate for their constituencies, to make legislative decisions. The Speaker’s ability to postpone bills indefinitely runs contradictory to the ideals of representative government.

Beyond silencing opposition in the House, Mattiello bolsters support through the patronage system, keeping constituents on his, and the House’s, staff. This past February, the Public’s Radio’s Ian Donnis published an investigation which found that since the Speaker’s appointment in 2014, government jobs multiplied in his Cranston district. Mattiello’s opposition in last year’s election, Steve Frias, told the Public’s Radio, “I saw people who were working at the Statehouse, on election day and during the campaign season working for him. They are basically campaign volunteers that are paid for by the taxpayers.”

Promising jobs in exchange for support is not a foreign concept to US politics, and politicians have been filling staff positions with supporters and constituents since Andrew Jackson’s introduction of the spoils system. Since then, it has become a regular political practice for a new official to replace current office employees with their own. But as Donnis’s report notes, in Rhode Island this power is specifically vested in the Speaker who controls the Joint Committee on Legislative Services, the body that hires the entire BRIONNE FRAZIER B'20 unfortunately cannot vote legislature. The Rhode Island Speaker also has the in the state of Rhode Island. unique power to nominate state judges, a power which few other states allow. While this is not illegal, it does

METRO

12

BEYOND RUBBERS

BY Jennifer Katz ILLUSTRATION Sophia Meng DESIGN Amos Jackson

A short history of male birth control When patients come to Dr. Kelly Brogan MD, a Manhattan-based holistic women’s health psychiatrist, with complaints of low libido, insomnia, unstable mood, weight gain, hair loss, or cloudy thinking, one of the first questions she asks is, “Are you on the pill?”

Like many feminists, Dr. Brogan used to think of birth control as a woman’s right. Despite having taken it herself for 12 years, during her medical training she became concerned about the pharmaceutical manipulation of the natural menstrual cycle, bringing her to the practice she runs today, where she urges patients to pick the lesser of many evils in their search for contraception. She advocates for patients to restore hormone balance and stabilize mental health by dropping the pill altogether.

The term “birth control” does not usually require a specification of gender; it is automatically assumed that it isn’t used by cisgender men. Aside from its uses to control a range of menstrual disorders that involve physical or emotional symptoms just before or during menstruation, birth control largely concerns individuals with uteruses as a form of pregnancy prevention.

Even though they are only fertile a few days a month, the one with the womb must shoulder the responsibility of avoiding pregnancy. Meanwhile, people with penises are constantly making millions of sperm that can impregnate with each ejaculation.

There are a range of contraceptive choices for people with uteruses, including hormone-based pills, injections, and intrauterine devices, but condoms and vasectomies are the only contraceptive methods available to people with penises. This one-sided onus could be mitigated if there were not a wholesale delegation of contraception to females—male birth control could reasonably open doors for shared responsibility in avoiding pregnancy.

The hormonal male contraceptive is not a new concept. Researchers have been investigating options for people with penises since the 1950s, around the same time the pill was introduced for people with uteruses. From the very beginning, the search for birth control has been laced with eugenic political goals. Margaret Sanger's vocal support of the negative eugenics movement deeply complicates her legacy of advocating for the universal availability and legalization of birth control and establishing the first birth control clinic, now known as Planned Parenthood.

She framed birth control and family planning as ways to combat unplanned births and limit the reproduction of minority communities. Her racist language and disturbing comments regarding disabled people convolute Sanger’s long-time advocacy for (some) women’s reproductive rights.

In 1951, Sanger’s urgency to curtail unplanned pregnancy motivated her to encourage endocrinologist Gregory Pincus to design a female hormonal contraceptive in his laboratory. Pincus began researching how he could use hormones to prevent ovulation, culminating with his discovery that the female sex hormone estrogen and progestin, a synthetic version of a natural female hormone, can compositely prevent pregnancy.

The metabolism of these hormones elevates the body’s level of progesterone, which convinces the body that it is perpetually pregnant. Mimicking the body during pregnancy, the pill disrupts the normal menstrual cycle and stops the typical production of reproductive hormones, thereby hindering the release of eggs from the ovaries. This finding resulted in the production of Enovid, the first female birth control pill, which was approved by the FDA for menstrual disorders in 1957, with the convenient side effect of preventing pregnancy, and explicitly for contraceptive use in 1960.

Pincus sought a hormonal analog for males by the same logic of using progestin to disrupt the production of sperm. Although Pincus reached inconclusive results, scientists today continue to search for a male hormonal birth control by focusing on suppressing

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

spermatogenesis—the origin and development of sperm cells within male reproductive organs. Given that the average penile ejaculation contains between 40 million and 1.2 billion sperm, a male contraceptive must reduce that sperm count to levels that can reliably prevent fertilization. Although the ideal hormonal contraceptive would generate ejaculate completely free of sperm, studies so far have demonstrated that reducing sperm concentration to less than 1 million per milliliter of ejaculate is low enough to produce only one percent risk of pregnancy.

Since Pincus’s attempt, research has identified that the addition of exogenous testosterone signals the suppression of sperm production. Supplementing testosterone with progestin can further enhance that sperm suppression. But the delay in putting otherwise successful male contraceptives on pharmacy shelves lies in subject-reported side effects: loss of libido, fatigue, acne, fatigue, hair loss, and erectile dysfunction. These side effects bear an undeniably strong resemblance to the side effects experienced by females taking hormonal birth control. In males, however, it’s been enough to forestall birth control production.

In October 2016, the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism published the first multicenter, international clinical trial on the efficacy of a male contraceptive. The study administered a hormonal injection every eight weeks containing a regimen of testosterone undecanoate and progestin to 320 male participants aged 18 to 45. For most participants, their sperm count per ejaculate was reduced to the demonstrated effective level at 24 weeks, at which point the participants and their partners were instructed to stop using other forms of birth control.

In the next phase of the trial, there were four pregnancies––according to the study, a 96 percent effective rate.

In the course of this study, 20 participants discontinued due to product-related side effects, including acne, changes in mood, pain or panic at first injection, and erectile dysfunction. Several participants experienced serious adverse effects, and in one case, a participant committed suicide. Though researchers concluded that 39 percent of the adverse effects reported (including the suicide) were not due to the injections—and 75 percent of participants reported willingness to use this contraception method again— two committees concluded that the injection was unsafe. This resulted in the study’s early termination, a disappointing setback in the ongoing hunt for a male contraceptive.

Luckily, there are several current promising studies of male contraceptives in the form of pills, gels, implants, and injections. On March 25, a team of scientists co-led by Dr. Christina Wang at the Los Angeles Biomed Research Institute, and Dr. Stephanie Page, Professor of Medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine, presented the results of the first phase of a study that could potentially conclude with the long anticipated, inaugural male pill. Involving 40 participants with penises, the study looked at the safety, rather than contraceptive efficacy, of the pill.

While there were similar mild side effects, unlike in previous studies, no one reported serious side effects or dropped out. Wang and Page are also leading another promising study—a large clinical trial in nine countries involving over 400 participants to test a gel contraceptive, known as the NES/T gel. This gel uses Nestorone,

a type of synthetic progestin, along with testosterone.

Participants with penises apply the hormonal gel to both shoulders once a day.

Although these studies are encouraging, Wang predicts that a viable option will not be approved by the FDA for at least another decade due to tedious regulations. Research is also largely curtailed by minimal male interest because of cultural attitudes around the responsibility of pregnancy, the socially constructed relationship between manhood and fertility, and basic fear or refusal to experience side effects. Many cisgender men having heterosexual sex are reluctant to try birth control, and this is evident in the disproportionate number of people with vaginas undergoing the only existing contraceptive procedure—sterilization.

According to 2015 estimates from the United Nations, vasectomies are only half as common as female sterilization in the US despite the fact that the two procedures are equally effective and vasectomies are less invasive and risky. Apathetic attitudes also contribute to an overall lack of industry interest, which creates a challenge to get pharmaceutical companies on board and finance these studies.

Even with a male contraceptive on the market, some females might feel uncomfortable trusting that their sexual partner is covered. When Pincus first started looking into a male option, Sanger and Katharine McCormick (one of the primary donors to the research project) were not interested in creating a male pill. Sanger thought that if male birth control options were introduced, women would have less agency despite their ultimate role in the pregnancy.

In 1938, Sanger argued that the introduction of birth control would place “the burden of responsibility solely upon the husband—a burden which he seldom assumed.” Birth control does enable people with uteruses to have agency over their bodies—giving them control of when (and if) they want to have children without unrealistically sacrificing their ability to have sex, and allowing them to pursue an education and make career advancements.

Despite these benefits, the decision to be proactive about pregnancy prevention can feel like an unreasonably heavy onus for one person to carry when intercourse requires two individuals. Each contraceptive involves a trade-off: opting for the non-hormonal copper IUD can result in heavy bleeding and severe cramps once a month, while choosing the pill can cause acne, weight gain, or mood changes. A Danish research study even determined the increased relative risk for depression by each hormonal contraceptive method, with 23 percent for combined oral contraceptives and 34 percent for progestin-only pills. In light of male contraceptive studies being halted due to the same side effects that female birth control, the continuous oversight of pain and discomfort can have an extremely demoralizing effect on people with uteruses—ultimately, another instance of systemic erasure, dismissal, and disbelief of the pain of people with uteruses.

JENNIFER KATZ B’20 thinks Mirena, Skyla, and Liletta sound like Russian ice skaters.

SCIENCE + TECH

13

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

EPHEMERA

14

after A slight breeze tickles the hair on the young girl’s arms, and she scratches the surface to find her earth-toned skin tender. So tender that it flakes off along with the meat of her arms, exposing bone that disappears into white butterflies. The room was dense from the summer month, and pearls perspired off of everyone’s glossy skins.

and assembled sheet metal with brick stone. The evergrowing number of tents from outsiders coming with efforts to protect the river stood out in their bright reds, yellows and greens. Further ahead was the Red Clay River where her grandmother would wash clothes. An hours walk from home, from the sky the river painted a silk ribbon on the forest floor.

The sitting circle held the girl and her grandmother.

Her father sat to her left, nearest to the doorway, and her older brother who was not much older than her was focused intently on the grandmother’s tea kettle, an empty earthenware bowl that she crafted with river clay two summers ago — a deep orange-red. One of her father’s foreign advisors sat between the girl and grandmother. His flesh looked like tapioca, and the girl could see blue veins protruding.

Further, into the horizon, several bulldozers sat encroached in a nearby valley. They lined the riverbank with construction equipment and neighbored police force vehicles brought over by the overseeing GNS. The girl’s father explained how the GNS viewed this dam as a means towards prosperity. They bribed the village with small allotments in the capital city as While scrolling through his tablet, news of a recently compensation for forfeiting their land rights. murdered dark-skinned activist flooded every corner of his social media. The activist protested the construcThe girl rose into the sky until she could see the shore- tion of a dam that would ruin a river ecosystem in the line. Further ahead was an isthmus that emerged, green continent nearby. His mind remained captivated serving as a connection for the land below — another on the aerial view images of the river in the articles. greyer expanse. The continent of the foreign man The dam would provide a renewable energy source for and her own were, in fact, conjoined twin sisters. The the developing country of the GNS, but this was done sunset vanished, and the capital city of the GNS began ignoring the local communities’ qualms. Fundraisers glowing inside a green darkness. It paled in compar- for their protest circled globally on the internet. The ison to the concrete continent that resembled the night live interviews with local people who inhabited the sky above. village near the river announced a call for help from +++ anyone who was willing to defend the Red Clay River.

Having been to the GNS once, the man felt a pull to Several glowing human and nonhuman figures provide aid in person, proceeding to get his vaccine emerged, like kites, carving the air around the girl. shots the next day.

In her language, butterfly and kite shared the same +++ word, and these figures glowed white in the dusk. The wind churned and generated a wave of knowledge that The knowledge reverie subsided, but its tide continued washed over her face. Wet air permeating a story into tickling her limbs into mature long appendages. Her her skin cells. Eyes glazed over in a fog. dress, wet with moisture, fit tightly around her aging body. This ocean had touched every continental coast, Her vision became that of the foreign man’s eyes, and she could feel that the man left the village abruptly living his every moment from birth. His mother died due to the pressure of having his visa revoked by the at childbirth, so he was raised by a grieving father. The overseeing Green Nation State. untamed emotions of his household festered a disdain inside him. He developed a nihilist worldview in order The man came back to his square home where he soon to remedy living with a hollow parent under sterile developed a crippling disillusionment. Remaining in fluorescent lights. This gave him the illusion of peace of his mind was the memory of the tea from the clay pot. mind, but the girl, deprived of sunlight and serotonin, When he drank the tea, he saw the girl’s grandmother sobbed inside of the depressed body, hoping to fill the shapeshift into what looked like his own mother vessel so that tears would spill through his eye sockets. from old photos. He could not remember what they Nothing came however, and the man grew up to be a spoke about, but the conversation haunted him with a

This meeting was meant to discuss the next potential actions addressing the men in armor and noisy construction vehicles nearby. They were brought upon by hydroelectric companies which threatened the Red Clay River with the proposal of a cement dam to harness its mechanical energy. It was seen as a necessary step for the development of the Green Nation State (GNS), which oversaw all the land de jure. The job of the foreign man from the continent made of concrete was to provide guidance for legal procedures, since these hydroelectric companies used litigation to bypass the village’s approval. Outsiders did not come to the girl’s village very often.

When her grandmother’s lips quivered, a small thing crawled out of her mouth. It went down the pink and orange shawl, across the sitting mat, and towards the girl. The small red speck approached the girl, revealed itself to be an insect with small white wings, and murmured just loud enough for the girl to hear but no one else. Its gentle noise put the girl into a trance, and the child felt arms wrap around her until she couldn’t feel the reed-woven floor. Her body passed through the dwelling walls and up the shading trees. +++ The invisible hold accelerated its pull, lending a view of the village homes below, a mixture of grass roofs

15

LITERARY

computer scientist, finding meaning in the things he bought with a large paycheck. This kept him satisfied for a few years, but the material world grew boring too, so he took up hiking, rock climbing and traveling — in hopes of animating his spare time.

A nostalgia traveled through him when he journeyed to rural areas, not knowing of the young girl inside him, who felt a deep relief upon seeing a green-filled land.

He filled his social media with subscriptions to environmental activist pages, life advice for connecting with the earth, and even updates on protest rallies for Climate Change awareness.

12 APRIL 2019

BY Jorge Palacios ILLUSTRATION Jorge Palacios DESIGN Lulian Ahn

" FURTHER AHEAD WAS AN ISTHMUS THAT EMERGED, SERVING AS A CONNECTION FOR THE LAND BELOW — ANOTHER GREYER EXPANSE"

did come up. His usual guilt now turned into apathy.

Some of his colleagues took an interest when experimental trials showed signs of promise. This initial interest garnered an academic following and funding through science and entrepreneurial grants. The man patented the technology in a startup company by the name of afterLife, looking to invent the first software that could potentially contact those deceased. They called the project MEDIUM. The system’s mind only displayed abstracted visions of the spirit world at first. Connecting with a specific person required an external drive of memories for the neural network to generate the being. This information can be derived from the combination of a person uploading their physical memories from their brain to a computer and the data structures that extrapolated their interactions with the digital web. Most people in the developed world had their minds synced with their social media accounts, so sourcing information was a matter of negotiating with the social media conglomerates. By embedding this memory data into the AI simulation, the code could contact any desired relative or person as if they were in the physical world. This information could go back centuries as well, following the discovery that intergenerational memory can be inherited through epigenetic information. Further, this data split the application from the spirit world even further. Contacting a person’s soul was a search-bar away. +++

yearning to speak with her again.

His former career in AI development gave him the knowledge of an unforeseen potential for current technology. There was a faint notion that perhaps he could mimic the effect that the brewed tea has on the brain with a computer program and an AI. A phantom stone formed in the girl’s throat at the thought. +++ The man worked on and off for years independently on this endeavor. He stopped going to protests, though the occasional news article of an environmental fiasco

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

The girl, now in a grown woman’s body, could see the sunrise approaching from the horizon. The twin continents shimmered in the new sunlight, a tarnishing grey emerging from the green continent’s corners, revealing a shadow stretching from the isthmus forest center. In a daze, the woman struggled with each breath of thinning air. Metal satellites and other debris slow-danced in silence with the glowing figures around her. Tears dropped down from the woman’s face, but they splashed at a seemingly invisible surface instead of dropping to Earth. A glare cast on the transparent rectangle, blinding her for a second. Reaching out, the woman took the cold glass in her hands and saw herself inside the screen opening the application

for the first time. The woman was not a mirrored reflection, but herself in a different space and time.

The display on the screen tried to speak with her grandmother, now deceased. She sobbed and apologized for several things. The GNS took her village’s forest and river and displaced them to the city’s capital within small-square apartments. She now lived there, and there were no wild herbs growing outside to make tea. +++ The screen on the woman’s glass tablet then displayed the various articles debating if the application’s servers were considered conscious beings with rights of their own. Some science journalists questioned whether it is ethical to subject an AI to inebriated its normal neural network functions without consent. The tablet pulsed a warmth into the woman’s fingertips as she read.

For a moment, the girl inhabited the busy mind of the AI, recurring through several times the standard dosage of a cup of tea. She remained in a sightless void where millions of voices ran her mad and time felt like a circle. Bearing witness to each soul’s entire lives, tragedies, love, happiness, and pearls of wisdom, the beings answered blind questions that verged on the most intimate and absurd. Which grandchild did you truly love the most? Would you fuck me if you were alive today?

What is your biggest fear for the future of the country?

She re-emerged with shards embedded in wrinkled hands, her long hair the color of the river water. Her aged mouth, agape already, gasped for air but choked on saltwater that then stung her eyes. One of the glowing kite figures glided towards her, butterfly wings outstretched. Reaching out for the incoming embrace, the old woman fell through the immaterial shadow, somersaulting into fetal position mid-air. Tear droplets followed her like a comet’s tail in the evening sky as she spun endlessly towards the Earth.

An arm caught her, and she looked up to the face of the pale-skinned man. She looked at her arms, shortened and youthful again, and looked up to meet her grandmother’s glance.

LITERARY

16

BY Eve Grassfield ILLUSTRATION Illustrator DESIGN Christie Zhong

A HIGH STAKES GAME OF JENGA The first time Guy Davis ever moved a house, things did not go as planned. He was told it would be a standard move, perfect for a newbie like him to learn the ropes. So on a warm day in 1980, he woke up, cool and collected, and recounted his plan to himself with ease: Put steel under the house, jack it up, get it on wheels, and then drive it down the road. Everything went as planned until Main Street when Guy, and the house, attempted to turn the corner (Main Street is definitely is not the correct street name, Guy said he’s blocked out the real name out due to the trauma of the incident).

There he saw a row of parked cars at least six cars long each on either side of the street. All at once, he realized his mistake: he had not taken cars into account in his measurements. The cars, in perfect pecking order, stared back at him mockingly. They blocked any chance of the house moving further. He was stuck.

Panic set in. Guy Davis, now a fourth-generation house mover, was attempting and failing to manage his first ever move on a residential home in Islip, Long Island.

Then he noticed a church. It was Sunday, mass time.

Without thinking much, he ran full speed towards the two wooden doors. “I burst through the doors, I’m drenched in sweat, and they’re just in the middle of giving a sermon about John or something. They must have thought I was having some crisis with God, but I just screamed to get them to move their cars.” And they did: Churchgoers streamed from the building, started their engines, and quickly drove away. Guy, sweaty and wide eyed, was able to finish the move as planned.

Guy’s dad, Curtis, Jr., then-owner of Davis Building Movers, the company responsible for the job-gone-temporarily-wrong, was anticipating passing his business onto his son. “I went home and told my dad what had happened, and he just laughed and laughed.” Guy was only 17. Eleven years later, Guy Davis would fulfill his father’s prophecy and inherit the family business.

University revealed a new proposal that would save the four buildings and allow the performing arts project to be built as planned, only one block to the South. Brown University planners now refer to the Sharpe move as an “enabling project.” This decision, however, was not just an altruistic response to the resistance. It was also motivated by Brown’s preservationist approach to building: Aiming for a “traditional look” on its campus, Brown hopes to keep as many old buildings intact as possible. Sharpe’s move, unlike most other house moves, was an aesthetic and economically strategic choice, not one necessitated by environmental or structural problems. In contrast, the most common reasons for moving a house are involuntary. These include (in order of prevalence) flooding, residents wanting a new basement, and, most pressingly, soil erosion.

It took six months of planning to figure out the logistics. To ensure that the house did not undergo massive damage, engineers, contractors, and architects alike planned everything, down to Sharpe’s 90-degree turn; estimated the weight of the six chimneys; and added wood-bracing to all of the stairwells.

Then came the raising. Contractors put holes in the foundation to insert steel and wood beams known as cribbing. This holds up the house while hydraulic pumps are attached to start the jacking. Sharpe weighs 446 tons, extremely heavy on the house spectrum, which means each of these steps was that much riskier.

In an interview, contractor James Sisson told me it was like a “high-stakes game of Jenga.” When Sharpe was up in the air, 12 separate remote-cotrolled dollies (controlled from Guy’s joystick) were carefully slid under the house. Following this, Sharpe was ready to roll the planned 200 feet (to the west) and embrace its new location on Brown Street.

Meanwhile, Brown University administrators and all others involved in the move were invited to a watch party. On December 17, 2018, onlookers watched the house move at a rapid speed of six inches per second +++ from the nearby Granoff Building and celebrated its successful placement with small talk and cake, an In September of 2018, Brown University contracted exact gingerbread replica of Sharpe House. As it disapDavis Building Movers to move the University’s peared bite by bite, the real house stayed perfectly Sharpe House, a history department building located intact. on Angell Street. The house—pale yellow, 146 years old, 446 tons of brick and wood—was inconveniently +++ located in the plot of land slated to become the University’s new performing arts center.

Every single house that undergoes a move will invariThis move is a byproduct of the University’s ably sustain some damage, usually in the form of 2013 strategic plan, “Building on Distinction,” that cracks in the building’s walls. These damages are outlined its commitments for the next ten years, with corrected in post-move renovations. While cracks “campus development” stated as one of four main are inevitable, the most risky and tricky part of house pillars. This plan promoted major projects like student moving is disconnecting and moving all the utility body increases and the redevelopment of the Jewelry lines. The price of house-moving is roughly stanDistrict. For the University, development means dardized based on size and distance of the move, but enhancing building resources and campus image, rerouting utilities vary widely and can become highly, increasing Brown’s prestige and therefore profit in even prohibitively, expensive. To put it in perspective, the long run. Now six years later, we are seeing the Guy explains that any house can be moved, but many effects of this strategy. Sharpe is part of what Brown (most) aren’t, because of the utility cost, whether that University planners have dubbed the “mid-campus be standard rerouting or being forced to cut down tons zone,” a region that spans from the Ruth J. Simmons of above-ground wires for an extra-tall house. quad all the way to the historic Pembroke campus and House moving is a preservationist enterprise. is currently undergoing substantial change. Within Preservation, conserving buildings from demolition this one zone, four separate projects are currently through laws and zoning, has historically been used happening—the moving of Sharpe House and the as an exclusionary tool. Those in power have used construction of the new performing arts center, the landmark designations to block new development Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship, and 164 Angell that could threaten the “character of a neighborStreet, an administrative building that houses the hood,” meaning discrimination along both racial and Brown bookstore. economic lines. This history, however, is currently One of these projects, the new performing arts being challenged. In Why Preservation Matters, archicenter, was initially slated to be built on a plot of land tectural historian Max Page explains that a new era that would require the demolition of four historic build- of preservation is upon us—what he calls progressive ings. This plan was met with resistance from preserva- preservation. This movement sees conservation as the tionists and students alike. In a last second change, the “means to a more economically vibrant and sustainable

17

FEATURES

Or, how to move a house future”—one that values community and confronts its discriminatory past.

I am no stranger to building talk. My parents, a contractor and architect duo, spent dinners bickering over what type of windows should be used in their current project and enjoyed “full-scale modeling,” or designing and re-designing our home, a floor of a retired burlap bag factory. As a child, annoyed by their endless talk of building plans and destruction rather than Dragon Tales and Playmobil, I shrouded the concept of house moving in mysticism, making it the golden unicorn of construction. What if all people, even ones who don’t have homes now, could keep a beloved home? I became curious: what if, instead of erecting all these new buildings, we just kept them all and moved them around like Monopoly pieces? As a child, I couldn’t understand the political implications of the questions of who has homes, who gets to keep them, and who gets to pick them up and move them.

In reality, it is the golden unicorn only for places like Brown. For most, saving their homes is an unaffordable process. But like Max Page, I began to envision my own progressive preservation. I lived in a nostalgic dreamland—one full of toylike houses and magical contractors. +++ On January 26, 2019, I see Sharpe House, in its new location, floating in midair. Supported only by steel beams and wood, the building is a full six feet above its foundation. I am inspired to learn more. I email Guy Davis and he responds with a time to meet in-person.

We plan to meet on February 28, 5:30 pm on a Thursday, for an early dinner at Waterman Grill. The dinner is his decision. With a busy schedule, he wanted to combine two obligations, me and eating, into one. I suspect the scene, two people, one aged 55, the other 22—seeminglya father and daughter out to a nice dinner over steak and halibut—will look strange from the outside.

Then I think about adding in strange cordialities, heady questions about the theory of construction, and over twelve pages of notes, and it becomes all too comical to overthink. After arriving, being seated at a cramped high-top table, and exchanging enthusiastic small talk, I begin questioning him. I’ll start at the beginning.

James Isaac Davis, Guy’s great-great grandfather started moving houses on Long Island in the 1890s.

He and his team would raise a house, strap it to a batch of horses and pull it down the road. It took so long that sometimes they would have to park the house in the middle of the road overnight and start again the next morning. James himself was so famous for his skills that his obituary was published on the front page of the New York Times. Davis Building Movers, house moving company extraordinaire, was formally incorporated around 35 years later (in 1924), and the rest was history—a total takeover of the house moving field.

After two more generations and various technological advances, this booming family business became Guy’s.

Four generations of businessmen and four generations of picking houses right up and walking them down the street—or moving them on the same plot of land, or turning them clockwise or otherwise, or raising them

12 APRIL 2019

IN SEPTEMBER OF 2018, BROWN UNIVERSITY CONTRACTED DAVIS BUILDING MOVERS TO MOVE THE UNIVERSITY’S SHARPE HOUSE, A HISTORY DEPARTMENT BUILDING LOCATED ON ANGELL STREET.

shocked that I actually did. I had studied it three years ago as a freshman in Contemporary Architecture, the class I foolishly took, hoping I would gain more from my parent’s dinner discussions. I vaguely remember it had something to with Robert Venturi and how a building can be a symbol. “Well, we moved that building twice. The second time, in 2007, I let my daughters drive it. They were eight and ten, and now for the rest of their lives when they drive past it, they’ll get to say, ‘I moved that house.’” Guy continues to explain his dream of passing on the business to his daughters.

“I hope the duck move passed on some of the wonder.”

The image of the duck house walking down the street too perfectly mirrors my childhood dreamworld, but I stay silent and imagine myself as that eight year old, steering a duck-shaped building down a winding Long Island road.

into the air, or barging them onto an island for resale. me, I wish to live in a fantastical world of progressive Guy goes on to explain his approach to house preservation, where everyone gets to have a beloved moving, casually throwing in grand and fascinating home and keep it. statements like, “Contracting is all about creativity!

The meal is ending, they’ve cleared out plates, but You must know that firsthand from your dad!” (During he asks if I’d like desert. We look over menus, and I the small talk, I had thrown in my father’s profession, see an ice cream sundae that screams to me, honey ice but I feel like a fraud, because I can barely tell a flat- cream and chocolate sauce. When it arrives, I realize head from a Phillips.) He rattles off his list of achieve- all at once that I’ve mistakenly added to the fatherments casually: “So there were those three houses at daughter vibe. After gorging myself, I thank him EVE GRASSFIELD B ‘19 is still bitter that her parents Harvard I moved in 2007, that was interesting because profusely, say goodbye, and leave. Walking home, I refused to talk Playmobil. we had to cut down a bunch of street lights and wires in feel like I’ve doused myself in romanticism. I realize Cambridge… Paul Simon’s house in Montauk, I moved I arrived and left the dinner in much the same place, that back from the bluff it was six feet away from just reveling in my own concocted mysticism. What has going whoosh right into the ocean forever… Michael changed is the newfound stories that strengthen all Bloomberg’s house, over 600 tons… Jimmy Buffett, oh the mystery. Guy has offered me a treasure trove, an yeah, after I moved his main house, he had a sun house archive of his memories, to allow my house moving he wanted to demolish, so I just picked it up and moved nostalgia to continue unabated. it to my own property. We still use it, great light.” Soon it’s revealed that every house that Guy has ever lived in +++ has been moved. I ask him to describe his current property: “Oh, well, I have a lot of sheds. Four to be exact. A week later, I plan an interview with James Sisson, A lot of times when you’re moving someone’s house Brown University’s Senior Construction Manager, they want to get rid of a shed and so they’ll throw it in that then leads to an invitation to visit the job site. for free. Sometimes I’ll pay like a dollar. Now they’re I’m ecstatic. I hope my house moving knowledge will mine!” he laughs. become less based in fantastical stories, but in real When I ask him when during his career he material resources (think wood, plaster, steel). In a moved the most houses he responds dramatically, few days, I meet James outside the Granoff Center and “Everything changed in an instant when Hurricane he gives me my own costume to look the part, a high Sandy hit. I went from getting 15 calls a day to over 100.” visibility jacket in bright orange, a hard hat and safety He describes the tragedy of it all, how people who were protection glasses. We tromp on over to the job site flooded were forced to lift their homes (a service Guy and he comments, jokingly, on how “next time I come also offers), but that he could only help so many people I should probably wear better shoes.” In my loafers, I at once. Long Island, the area where Guy primarily walk below Sharpe House in midair, supported by works, was hit hard. Unlike the Sharpe move, residents only steel beams and wood slats (that really do look had no choice but to lift their home due to the environ- like Jenga pieces). It’s apparent that our shoewear isn’t mental damage. “My secretary’s hair would be straight our only difference. I’m interested in Sharpe House for out. She basically turned into a counselor, listening to my own mythological reasons, but he is for practical people’s stories of seven, ten, fifteen feet of water in ones. This is James’ fourth house move and 25th year at their homes.” His waitlist (first come, first serve) was Brown and as we wander below the house, he explains, so long and caused him so much stress that he went to “Moving a house is really exciting. There’s always risk, talk to his cardiologist to learn about how to cultivate but the challenge makes people coalesce around a his own bedside manner. “The worst part about it were single goal. We all are bonded in the moving.” I realize the storm chasers.” my assumptions were wrong. He, too, has romanti“The what?” I reply. Storm chasers, fraudulent cized the process, but for an entirely different reason. companies that swooped in to Long Island and promWhen he brings me inside Sharpe House, I see ised to raze people’s homes, took the money and left. cracks in the walls and some forgotten history departGuy explains that many people were left with nothing. ment posters. After an extensive tour, I realize I’m 40 “The worst part is I knew they were coming too, I went to minutes late to class. I resolve that I’ll be back to learn all the municipalities and told them the storm chasers more and dash out. Over the next few weeks he texts are coming, but I just became the boy who cried wolf of me photo updates of the construction and says I’m house moving.” welcome back anytime (if I remember to wear my hard I’ve saved my best question for last, but Guy is hat and proper shoes). I’m giddy from my findings and unphased by what I thought was a clever riddle: If my new friends, but can’t help but think about how my a family lives in a home and they decide to move it wonder seems unchecked. I am running back to class, somewhere entirely new, did the family really move? dressed up in high vis orange and loafers, hypothe“Definitely, they moved. It’s a new home. There’s a sizing a futuristic world where there exists no demoliwhole new foundation. It’s in a new place.” I’m let tion. Meanwhile, on the Sharpe construction site (and down by his matter-of-fact answer, so I attempt to ask similar projects), discussion surrounds things more again, clouding my next question in more nostalgia real and tangible, like steel, wood, and physical labor. and hoping to unearth some grey zone in his thinking.

“But what about the familiarity of a lifelong bedroom?” +++ Again, he seems unfazed. I realize my childhood notion of preservation is peeking out again. For Guy, “You know that famous building that’s shaped like a house moving isn’t a nostalgic act, it’s his daily life. For duck on Long Island?” Guy asks. “Yes I do!” I respond,

THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT

FEATURES

18

THE T H E LIST LIST fri 4.12

Massages and Martinis Friday Askew Prov (150 Chestnut Street) 4-7PM You feeling shaken? Stirred perhaps? Unwind at Askew with a stiff drink (a $5 martini special!) and a professional onsite masseuse. Add in some acupuncture by stabbing yourself with the little olive sword.

sat 4.13

Urban Agriculture Kick-Off 160 Sessions Street , 227 Dudley Street, 16 Ring Street, and 40 Florence Street 11AM-1PM Every year, the Southside Community Land Trust hosts this “annual spring celebration,” which is not a party per se, but rather an opportunity to pick up free organic vegetable and flower seeds as well as low-cost organic fertilizer. This is a great part of the SCLT’s mission to make healthy food available and affordable to low-income Rhode Islanders, as well as spring training for living off the land during the coming climate apocalypse!

Film Screening: The Gleaner’s and I FAV Auditorium Building (17 Canal Walk) 9PM-12AM Agnès Varda, who passed away late last month, was a pioneer of French New Wave cinema and just, like, impossibly cool. This documentary, which she made later in her career, which follows “gleaners,” scavengers roaming France’s cities and countryside. Varda was a kind of “gleaner” herself—scavenging the world with perpetual interest and care—and this screening is an opportunity to honor one of the greats.

sun 4.14

mon 4.15

Drag Brunch The Black Sheep Providence (397 Westminster Street) 10AM-2PM Brunch—usually a way to spend hideous amounts of money and time to wind up a little drunk on a Sunday—is undoubtedly the most “extra” repast humanity has ever conceived. Glamming up to eat eggs benedict, however, might just be enough to make this middle-meal extra in a great way. Plus, a quick search on the internet reveals that “though eating glitter is ill-advised, most commercially available glitter is non-toxic and won't hurt you in small amounts”!

Zoocation Week Roger Williams Park Zoo & Carousel Village (1000 Elmwood Avenue) 10AM-5PM $17.95 As part of a weeklong promotional deal called Zoocation (like ‘staycation,’ but at the zoo) Week, Roger Williams Park is offering free camel rides with the purchase of an ordinary ticket. As far as we know, reader, this is Providence’s only camel—and you’ve got just one chance to ride it.

6th Annual Newport Daffodil Days Festival Throughout Newport 7:30-10:30AM Amsterdam has tulips, DC has cherry blossoms, and now Newport is taking up the daffodil as the organizational principle its of its official civic comportment towards springtime. Over 1,000,000 daffodils are set to bloom throughout the city this week!

tues 4.16

Tragic Magic with Joshua Jay List Arts Building (64 College Street) 6-8PM Joshua Jay, a magician and lecturer, is most famous for having fooled the infinitely more successful magic-duo Penn & Teller on their hit show Fool Us. I’m tempted to joke that the term ‘tragic magic’ is about Jay’s hack career, but this talk is actually gonna be even grimmer than a washed-up escape artist because it’s about magicians who’ve died on the job!

wed 4.17

Magic Lantern Cinema: One Divides Into Two Avon Cinema (260 Thayer Street) 8:45-11:30PM This is a screening of two movies in succession: Abbas Kiarostami’s First Case, Second Case (Iran) and Sara Gómez’s One Way or Another (Cuba). The event’s title— “One Divides Into Two”—is a reference to the Maoist slogan “one splits into two; two cannot fuse into one;” these films offer experimental alternatives to the (socialist) realist cinema that both Kiarostami and Gómez were expected to conform to in their respective post-revolutionary nations.

thurs 4.18

Like No Udder Meets Fully Rooted: Vegan Kombucha Floats & Scoops Like No Udder (170 Ives Street) 12-2PM As someone whose lazy and witless friends have been known to crack jokes about the optics of her ***unapologetic*** love of kombucha, this LW is tempted to defend Like No Udder’s newest vegan-friendly snack pop-up. Ideology aside, though, a kombucha-vanilla ice cream float sounds really fucking bad. If anyone can prove me wrong, I’ll reward you with the bucket of SCOBY that’s been molding over in my basement for months!