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Associate Publisher N atasha Kim

Photography Editor Erica Deahl

Senior Editors Paige Austin, Sarah Taskow Production Manager

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Research Director Helen Eckinger

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Bcnnetl, Edward B. Bennett, Richard Blow, Martha Brant, Jay Carney, Daphne Chu,Josh Civin,Jonathan M Oark, Constance Oe•••ent, Elisha Peter B O:xJper, Andy Court, Masi Albert J. Fox, Mrs. Howard Fox, David Fm: •••an, Geoffrey Fried, Sherwin David Gn.Ynbog, Tom Griggs, Stephen HeDman, Jane Kamensky. Brooks Kelley, Roger Lewis E. Lebt.rtn LLJ..jim Lowe, E. Nobles Lowe, Martha E. Neil, Peter Neil, Howard H Newman, Sean O'Brieu,Julie Peters, I ewis and Joan Platt, Josh Plaut, Julia Lauren Rabin, Fairfax C. Randal, Snmrt Rohrer and Arthur Sager, Richard Shields, W Hampton Sides, I jsa Elizabeth and WIDiam Sledge, Adina and David SnlstJ .an, 'Thot 1 aas Stta .g F'Ji?:abcth Tate, Daniel Yc •git1 and Angela Yflgin

THE NEW JOURNAL

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Volume 38, Number 2 October 2005

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and New Haven

The magazine about Yale •

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Democracy in New Haven W ~ Rebecca Livengood will win Ward 1 and how it wi/1 change her /!ft.

by Sarah Laskow 15

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Students

ithout Borders

The cha//enge of stucfy abroad pu//s students outside their comfort zones.

by Paige Austin •

The Opening Shots Cinema at the W hitnry sets the scene.

Starring Romy Drucker as The Reporter

Listening Through

ails

Yale fine-tunes its conception of.h earing impairment.

by Gabriel Diaz

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4 12 41 44 46

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Points of Departure Shots in the Dark The Critical le: The Quarterlife Crisis fry He/en Essay: The Naked Man lry Jon Hood Endnote: In Good Company lry Zvika Krieger

Ecl~inger

Cover photo by Erica Deahl Correction: In volume 38 number 1, Rabbi Jason Rappoport's name was misspelled. The New Journal sincerely regrets this error.

1HE NEW JOURNAL is published five rimes during the academic year by 1HE NEW JOURNAL at Yale, Inc., P.O. Box 3432 Yale Sution, ew Haven, CT 06520. Office address: 305 Crown Sueet. Phone: 203.432.0520. All contrnts copyright 2005 THE NEW JOURNAL at Yale, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction either in whole or in part without w• inen pennissinn of the publisher and editor-in-chief is prohibited. While this magnine is published hy Yale College srudents; Yale University is not responsible for its contents. Seven thousand fi:ve hundted of each issue are disttibuted free to members of the Yale 2.0d ew Haven community. Snbe •il'cions are available to those outside the area. Rates: One year, $18. Two years, $32. THE NEW JOCRN~-li. is printed by Turley Publications, Palmer, {.-\; bookkeeping and billing services are provided by Colman bookkeeping of New Haven. THE NEW JOURNAL encourages letters to the editor and comments on Yale and ew H:n-en issues. Write to Edito rials, P.O. Box 3432 Yale Station, ew Haven, CT 06520. All letters for publication must include addtess and signarure. We resene the right to edit all letters for publication. •

October 2005

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freelance indexers who comprise her "sta- ness I never again did such a strange ble." Although in the . standard book con- index. I got going from that I had one tract the author is responsible for making job on my reswne, and I started looking for and paying for the index, Yale University other people who were desperate. It came Press always offers .a way · out. "If the naturally to me. Some people, I think, are author says, 'This sounds really onerous,' just natural indexers, and some are not." A natural indexer, he and Weinreb agree, we will hire the freelancer ourselves and bill is detail-oriented, methodical, and curious, the author," Weinreb explains with a grin. Indexing might be onerous, but it's someone who doesn't wholly object to the nothing compared to what it was thirty idea of "toiling" alone at a computer, years ago, when it required typing thou- "type-type-typing all these words for days sands of key terms onto thousands of at a time." Most important, though, is a index cards and then arranging them by certain empathy, an ability to put yourself hand. Nowadays, the process is quite a bit in the reader's place, and -pretend to know simpler indexers use Microsoft Word and nothing about a book you've been poring Crosslisting newfangled software like Indexicon to over for weeks, to ask the questions a readspeed up the process of compilation and er might ask or pinpoint the information SAY YOU WRITE A BOOK. AND LET'S GO alphabetization. But Weinreb emphasizes that a casual browser might be looking for. out on a lirnb--say it's a good book, a book that there is no substitute for the human · For all the type-type-typing types out chock full of clever theories and jaw-drop- touch in the early stages of the process. there, the American Society of Indexers, Typically, an indexer will read a given book ping facts that people need to know or Inc., provides an essential social and pro. . . study or even write about. Say you have at least . twice, circling, highlighting, and fessional community. It rnaintains a "Find already found a publisher no worries underlining words that are crucial to the an Indexer" database, hosts conferences there and you're excited and a little bit meaning of the text. He has ·to keep a care- with names like ''You Say Cookies, I Say scared as you prepare to bring your labor ful eye ·o ut for references he'll combine Biscuits: Metadata and Controlled of love into the world. into a document that is both comprehen- Vocabularies,'' and organizes get-togethers It might be time to face the fact that sive and usable. This is particularly difficult and peer review sessions (''No, we won't be your book is useless. Sure, someone will since the index is typically the last part of sitting around peering at one another.") read it cover to cover. your mother, defi- the book to be completed; it needs to be The society also tries to promote the art nitely. Maybe your wife, possibly your col- spotless in about three weeks, one of the and science of indexing on a more philoleagues. But for the most part, nobody is shortest turnaround times in the business. sophical level. Boring and nitpicky though If you want to be an indexer, you can it may be, it's an important part of how we going to read your book. People are going to use your book. So you have to make it take a course Weinreb herself did years see the world. After all, civilization as we useful to the common reader, the kid who· ago, for fun--<>r you can just plug away know it is organized around ... well, organiwants to know who invented ice cream, or with brute determination and hope for the zation. Without a certain order, we don't the guy who's digging around for a juicy best a good reputation and a steady stream know how to begin to make sense of quote on Virginia Woolf~s sex life. This of jobs. Phil King, a soft-spoken YUP edi- things. The flip side of Phil King's belief person wants nothing more than a shortcut tor, knows this firsthand. He is one of the that "a reader's needs are limited otily by · to the heart of the matter. In other words, few full-time indexers to make the leap to your · ' is, of course, that the an editing career, and he recounts his indexer's job is precisely that: to limit a he wants an index. If you're publishing through Yale indexing days with an almost dreamy smile. reader's needs, to boil a book down '13asically word of mouth is eve · g to a list. University Press, you might be sent to . . Jenya Weinreb after your book has been in this business,'' he says. "I was a reporter At the same time, when you're flipping typeset. She runs the indexing departrnent at my college newspaper, and I was just through an index, these limits can feel marfrom a tiny, glass-fronted office that over- shooting the breeze with someone I was velously enrichitlg. What a perfect distillalooks the press's vast, wood-paneled main interviewing, and he said he made indexes tion of the 1990s you get by browsing the editing room. Above her desk is a shelf of for books, and I thought, 13y Jesus, I want index of Hi1lat y Clinton's autobiography, recent Yale publications a reference book that job!"' For his first assignment, he con- which juxtaposes terms like "Buddy (dog)," on breast cancer, an encyclop·edia of ew tinues, "someone desperate for an index and ''budget deficit," "Stand By Your England and .a neatly-typed list of the 17 sent me this really weird book about busi- Man" and "Starr Kenneth leak and

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smear campaign o£" And doesn't the easy- seemed to bubble and tWitch. bookshelf and the quality of the wood, I to-digest list of ''Jehovah's Witnesses," In order to gain temporary repose from intern;tpted him and pointed to the red book ''Jesus Christ, Second Coming," "Jesus the mass of consumers, I ducked into -a floor shouting the inscription Gift Med En Christ Superstar" and ''Jews [see Judaism]" model that was slightly less packed than the Kommunist and asked him to delineate the tell you altnost as much about American others. I collapsed onto a black, cushioned meaning. The employee shrugged and religion as the entirety of A History cf couch in one of the rooms and was taken responded flatly, ''Must have something to do aback by how comfortable it was; I thought with Communism." I pressed him further, American Religion ever could? The patton saint of indexers might be that perhaps I was the idiot for not joining the asking why IKEA :was displaying political · in the gospel. My gaze commentary on her bookshelves. The Sherlock Holmes, who obsessively com- throng and p piled a detailed alphabetical record of his strayed from the flocks meandering by a employee clearly unversed in his temple's most important cases to supplement his bookshelf on my left I remarked to myself secrets shrugged as if I had spoken in cocaine-addled memory. In "The that it was an exquisite piece of furniture, one Swedish and answered, "How should I Adventure of .the Sussex Vampire," he that I would very much like to purchase. But know?" So I did some research and inspected the plumbs through the ''V" volume of his what struck me most was not the really cheap index, looking for inspiration, and even price but the books that IKEA displayed on rest of the floor models. All of the rooms waxes a little poetic: ''Venomous lizard or that bookshel£ My gaze remained transfixed with bookshelves contained books with politgila. Remarkable case, that! Vittoria, the cir- by a book with a glaring red cover, procJajrn- ical subject matter, and the holy trinity of cus belle. Vanderbilt and the Yeggman. ing in bold white letters, Gift Med ·En IKEA was Philip Roth, Theodor Kamfatides, Vipers.Vigor, the Hammersmith wonder. Kommunist, the Swedish translation of a title by and Claes Andersson. Back at school, as if Hullol Hullol Good old index. You can't Philip Roth. I scanned the rest of the book- possessed, I found that Gift Med En beat it." shelf, which contained tomes with tides such Kommunist is, in English, Roth's I Married a ... .....; / . as, Mina tolv politiska ar: Fragmen~ minnesbi/derj Communist. Written in 1998, it conveys the -Julia Wallace drommar by Claes Anderson and Hjalmar ambiance of late 1940s cominunism in . . . . ...• '' .. ;. Bergman's Herr von Hanck.en. I could only America. Andersson, a distinguished Permoguess what those titles meant All the books Swedish writer and psychiatrist, belongs to the Thtflkea Project on the shelf seemed political in nature, and I People's Party of Finland; Kallifatides is a wondered what subtle, subliminal message Greek philosopher whose views straddle ON SATURDAY, AMIDST TilE MADNESS OF 1HE postmoden•ism and communism. first week of school, I convinced myself and IKEA was attempting to send. Feigning interest in ·the bookshelf, I sigWas there a subliminal message here? I my roommates to make the arduous· journey to IKEA (Yes, we thought we needed lamps naled an IKEA employee to assist me. I called IKEA and asked to speak to the genercalled ''Attarp" and coffee tables called pointed to some features of the bookshelf al manager. After bobbing my head ad nause''Bankesta.") As we stumbled into the palatial and asked him to explajn them. Then, as he um to the bass beat of the muzak, I ended up ...... ~ to Head of Public Relations. After I joylessly elaborated on the sturdiness of this store, we glanced at each other and cringed. Customers swarmed, descending upon IKEA as if it were the Dome of the Rock. IKEA devotees and the uninitiated alike prostrated themselves before the furniture, then embarked on a pi1gt image through a labyrinthine course that began at the "marketplace" and ended at the ''warehouse." Along the way, IKEA displayed · floor models of their products like the icons in monasteries of Late Antiquity. Consumers are encouraged to examine the items in the rooms, wandering a preordained . course marked by large yellow and blue arrows commanding: "Goeth this way' or "Suffereth the penalty of degradation and the wrath of fire alarms." I was appalled by this new orthodoxy of consumerism. As the dizzying course snaked through the mammoth store, a landmark of blue and yellow Swedish pride, converts became (somehow) even more chaotic and crazed. In the gruesome inner battle over marginal cost vs. marginal utility, the tension between a tight budget and a "vital" item, with each object they added to their carts, they Picturep eifect living room· or socialist propaganda? •

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·~

, ' .. ~

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October 2005

told her my intentions, she promised to put me in touch with the appropriate . people. That turned out to be no one. Sadly, the head of PR did not return my dozen messages. Perhaps she feared the exposure of IKE.& socialist propaganda. Or perhaps, like all religions, IKEA prefers its Holy Books to remain sacrosanct, paradoxical, and full of the sort of knowledge you can never fully translate.

-Andrew Karlin

Leiberman, an undergraduate who works at the lab, he has had to pay the monkeys to return tools he's accidentally dropped into their cage. They've been known to steal tokens from all but the most · · t experimenters. A recent New York Times article even reported an incident in which one monkey :!d money for sex, something that uni.ln. dismisses as a rumor. One common irrational behavior that . researchers have identified is "loss aversion." Loss aversion refers to the fact that we have a stronger desire to avoid a loss than to achieve world here." In traditional, neoclassical ecoa gain. Humans have been shown to be more . nomics, "to bring the two together you have to avoid losing money we ahl:ady own to assume away all factors of a person's than to obtain the same amount of money if behavior until they're rational." By bringing it's not yet ours. According to Leiberman, '~ psychology to the study of economics, one of matter of word choice can dramatically alter the goals of behavioral economics is to map people's decisions." How an option is present- · out the irrational tendencies that lie outside of 'e d can have an even stronger effect than its economics' understanding of human behav.. statistical merit. Loss averson poses a chal- ior. He says, "If everyone shares a different lenge to one of the most basic tenets of tra- preference from what economics predicts, ditional economics: that we make rational then it's no longer just a blip on the radar." !t becomes a systematic deviation that ean be choices based on predicted outcomes. ,.-..•.: Dr. Ch~n turned to monkeys to find .o ut understood, predicted, and even ha messed. The fact that we're for loss averwhether our loss aversion was culttirally instilled or innate. Because monkeys have no sion helps explain the appeal of something prior experience with currency, the assump- like Bush's tax cuts. .By portraying the cuts as tion is that if they also show loss aversion, it a way of allowing Americans to hold onto money that would otherwise have been taken must be genetic. The researchers gave each monkey 12 tokens and let them choose away, Republicans tap into our primordial fear of loss. Behavioral economics tells us that the between "paying" one of ·two · enters. The first experimenter displayed one apple . logical rebuttal saying taxes ultimately benefit citizens in the form of federal p cube. If paid, half the tim~ he would give the monkey one cube, the other half he would can't compete. People are naturally more give it two cubes. The second experimenter motivated by the fear of loss. Understanding why we make irrational displayed two cubes and, when paid, half the time would only give the monkey one cube, choices can help us to make better decisions and the other half would give it two. In both in the future. "Now that I'm aware of loss said, ''I notice cases, the monkey had an equal chance of aversion;' receiving two cubes, but in the first scenario it myself falling into it like constandy." appeared that a cube was being added, and the -II!J Wang second that a . cube was being taken away. rnelelmingly the monkeys chose the first Rusted Wickets gamble. Like humans, monkeys have a stronger desire to avoid loss rather than to . achieve gain, a finding which reveals loss averIN THE DESK DRAWER OF CHRISTC>'PHER sion to be innate. at the Capuchin "Kit" Reed '55, an editor at Harvard Cognition Lab now think it could carry some Magazine, a mysterious object is gathersort of evolutionary advantage, although ing dust. A pewter disc with a sphinxwhat that advantage might be is still unclear. like head appeared in his mailbox more Dr. Che•a and his team work in the new than five years ago accompanied by a field of behavioral economics, which uses note identifying it as the lid to the math to predict how people behave. But as Harvard-Yale Croquet Cup. Purloined Lakshminarayan it, his in 1991 by the roonunates of a Harvard hands out to show the distance between the Croquet player who had intended to two, "You have a lxxly of math here and the ransom it off, the authors of the letter '

Monkey Business

FEW PEOPLE TODAY WOULD CLAIM 1HAT

humans consistently make rational decisions. But this is exactly what traditional economics has assumed for over a hundred years. As a result, economists have ·long been unable to account for many of the irrational choices that people make. At the Capuchin Cognition Lab at Yale, a team of researchers led by Yale economist Keith Chen, is using monkeys to · expand the field's understanding of human behavior. They are attempting ·to show that many of our irrational decisions are not just random deviations, but innate and encoded through evolution as tools for survival. Their first was the fanciful-sounding job of teaching monkeys to use money. Capuchin monkeys are about the size of a dachshund They get their naine from the patch of black hair growing at the back of their head, which looks like a skullcap, or capuce in French. Eight capuchins live together at the lab in a large communal enclosure. Each is named after a James Bond character. There's Jill Masterson, Mayday, Holly Goodhead, Felix Leiter, Goldfinger, Nick Nack, and James Bond himsel£ Holly recently gave bird1 to the lab's newest addition, HugoDrax. The monkeys were given tokens to ex1 for grapes, Jell-0, and bits of apple. But they soon became quite adept at using money in other siruations as well. ''Frequently you are deceived or bested by the monkeys;' said research assistant Venkat I .akshminarayanan. According to David

THE NEW JOURNAL

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declared, "With the passage of time we have forgotten whom to ask, what to ask for, and where to send the demands. I hope you can return this object to its proper owner." · The Cup to which the lid belongs is the trophy historically awarded to the winner of the annual Harvard-Yale Croquet match. For 130 years, the Saturday before the big Thanksgiving game, Yale and Harvard have squared off on the football field. They spent the day avoiding the sweat of the gridiron and the fracas of the tailgate, dressed in white linen and engaged in a vicious yet civilized match of six-wicket croquet. This six-wicket, or "professional," croquet bears little resemblance to the game you once played in your grandparents' backyar.d. With six wickets and a stake spread across a 1 05x84 foot greensward, there is plenty of room for maneuvering a~.d executing precision shots. Throw in:. ··an opposing team -. doing their best, tf> k'~ock your ball out of the way and Wickets that are only two millimeters wider than that ball and you've got what Mark Reach '02, onetime captain of the Yale Club Croquet Team, describes as a combination of billiards and chess: a game that demands physical skill and calculated strategy in equal proportion. In comparison, he says, any other variant of the sport is "like using chess pieces but playing checkers." _ At its peak, the Yale Club Croquet Team could use those chess pieces more adroitly than any other university team in the world. Its achievements include a 1991 World Championship, besting Oxford and Cambridge on their home turf, a decade of good showings at Nationals, and sweetest of all, a twelve-year winning streak against Harvard. Martha Bagwell '00, remembers beating the Crimson "pretty much every chance we had." Asked if she remembered a missing lid, Bagnall said, "I don't remember the actual trophy itself I remember the glory. It was a .. big consolation in the years when we lost the football game." But by the time Kit Reed announced in Harvard Magazine that the lid had been located and would be handed over "to anyone in possession of the base of

October 2005

the Cup and plausible bona fides," few remembered that there had ever been a big game played without a football, let alone a lidless trophy awarded to one of the winners. The solace provided by those fondly-recalled victories on the croquet pitch disappeared just when Yale students, confronted with a fouryear losing streak on the football field, most needed the Croquet Cup to turn to in their grief for the club croquet team had unraveled completely in the '02-'03 academic year. Tom Migdalski, who has directed club sports at Yale since 1984 and witnessed a remarkable increase in their number an·d vitality, explains that "The nature of club sports is that, like the tide, they ebb and flow with student interest from year to year." ~ Bagnall agrees, arguing that the small size of the croquet team made it particularly vulnerable. "We had seven members at our peak; two or three graduated each year. It becomes a crapshoot all ove.r. again." When Bagnall joined the team in the fall of 1996, its only other members were another freshman and two seniors. But she has other theories regarding the program's dissolution, which Reach also mentioned: the vast amount of alcohol consumed at every game, and the fact that, as Reach asserted, on the croquet team, "Everyone slept with everyone." 'cyou can't take yourself too seriously when you're playing croquet," Bagnall emphasized. "Maybe that's what led to its

demise

too much partying." But while Bagnall cites revelry, Reach blames the team's demise on tension and fatigue on the national circuit. As a freshman at the University of Virginia in the fall of 2000, croquet prodigy Jacques Fournier call~d a "boy wonder" · by the United States Croquet Association helped persuade the directors of the national championship to change the rulebook so that the game looked more like the kind of croquet he had excelled at in high school. Outraged, the Yale team decided to boycott the tournament. At the same time, their other hallmark match, the Harvard-Yale Game, was crumbling under the force of Cantab laziness. "Harvard," charges Reach, "just never wanted to play." He attributes this sloth to a lack of structure in what passed for their team, saying tha.t the Harvard squad was "not serious" basically they "sucked." Whatever its source, this apathy left the Yale team devoid of major competitions, unless it sacrificed its principles and registered for the checker game at Nationals. With little to look forward to, Yale Club Croquet succumbed to the tide. So is Bulldog Croquet left for dead? Very possibly, though there is a good deal of chance in these matters. Should the team reemerge, as Migdalski believes is possible and as Reach and Bagnall hope, there is a dusty pewter circle awaiting its resurrection. Reed confirms that, unsmprisingly, "no one

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has picked up the lid." But, he says assuringly, "Don't worry. It's safe." -Jonrry Dach •

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Theatrical Selection

up its breast and preen its feathersinclude lv[y Fair Lacfy, A Streetcar Named Desire and stars like Marlon Brando and Katharine Hepburn that graced the stage. In a crowning acknowledgment of the Shubert's preeminence in the theater world, it was featured in the 19 50 cult movie AllAbout Eve. But despite its gilded reputation and apparent Darwinian fitness the theater was forced to close due to financial difficulties in the seventies. Rather than mourn the passing of its glory days, the Shubert reopened its renovated doors in 1984 with a fresh focus. This . . . time, the Shubert sought to adapt itself · into a socially ambitious, non-profit organization centered on the goal of providing greater theater access for the New Haven community. In 2001, the Shubert teamed with CAPA (Connecticut Association for the Performing Arts), a larger non-profit theater organization with a branch in Columbus, Ohio. According to Anthony Lupinacci, _ the Shubert's Director . of Public Relations, "the transition was a positive one" thanks to the "larger buying power" CAPA provides. In the past four years, this financial support has been primarily channeled into a broad range of programming tailored to the varied population of New Haven. These choices range from popular musicals such as Rent'-aimed at the University audience and mak•

BEGIN AT YORK STREET AND BROADWAY

in front of Off-Broadway Theater. Head down York and y~:m'll hit the University Theater. Take a left on Chapel and you'll pass the Yale Rep. If at this point you haven't quenched your _theatrical thirst, turn right on College towards the Shubert, then continue on the highway to Long Wharf. If New Haven's colony of theaters were the finches of the Galapagos Islands, the length and slope of their beaks would determine their chances for survivaL But the success of a theater's niche actually depends on such non-biological factors as ticket prices, facilities, and show bookings. One case study in this process of natural selection is the Shubert Theater. · Founded in 1914, the Shubert made its name with old-Hollywood glamour and grandeur. Originally a "try-out house" for shows headed to Broadway, the Shubert's brochure lauds it as the "Birthplace of the N arion's Greatest Hits," as well as .the stage that launched "many of the world's best and most popular actors." These sue~ cesses reasons for the Shubert to puff

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ing a much-anticipated return in Marchto a set of shows intended to draw the Hispanic community. The "Caliente Series," includes Spanish-language concerts by artists such as Juanes and Yerba Buena as well as performances by the high-profile dance company Ballet Hispanico. Today, the Shubert's ticket prices are arguably its most attractive feature. A Theatre Royal Bath production of As You Like It, a performance by the Connecticut Gay Men's Chorus, or an appearance by humorist David Sedaris can be viewed for the price of a movie ticket (plus popcorn) just $15 but better seats, however can cost a more daunting $72. For some New Haveners, tickets are free. S.N.A.P. (Shubert Night at a Performance) distributes a yearly total of 700 theater tickets to senior citizens and families who would otherwise be unable to attend a performance; while later this year, a Student Rush dis" count will guarantee students half-price tickets two hours before a show. Another ·, noteworthy community program entitled· Movin' 2 organizes workshops led by artists from the famed Pilobolus Dance Theatre Company for New Haven public schools. Since its reopening, the Shubert has not been preoccupied with trying to be the alpha theater. Last year, a joint venture entitled ''All New Haven's a Stage" merged the resources of the Shubert, Long Wharf, and Yale Rep to bring an abundance of Shakespeare performances to the city. Each theater presented a Shakespearean show during the season, while combined advertising and discounted ticket packages encouraged residents to enjoy the productions in any combination. Though the Shubert seems to have overcome its struggle with other New Haven theaters, it is now confronted with a new challenge specific to non-profit organizations a constant scramble for both individual and corporate funding. While the Shubert enjoys many loyal contributors, Lupinacci admits that it is "a challenge each year to keep these corporations on board and to grow." No matter which niche the Shubert Theater nestles into, the other finches will be nipping at its f~athers. But as it continues to secure its nest, the Shubert's beak is long and gracefully curved. --,Nicole Allan '

THE NEW JOURNAL

Hip to be Square LoUIS

Cox,

TI-IE OWNER OF

clothing, skateboard, and vinyl toy store on State Street, is attending to an awkward teenage boy wearing a vintage tshirt who appears to be asking nervously for a job. I can see how working for Lou would be the dream job for any teenager. Lou oozes cool. And the store speaks for itself. The art on the wall, the toys on the shelves, the projection of anime on a white wall .. .it's a little New York, a little stree·t, a little hip hop. While I wait for Lou to tell the boy about the store, I curse myself for forgetting to wear my edgiest dress. A few days ago, I read an article in which Lou described he clothes he sells as "hipster," and t)ow I wish I had dressed the part. . But Lou is' i~ci:edibly friendly. He tells me he wishes ·t,.had come a few " ' days earlier when•T fould· have seen the latest exhibition, "Soul Brothers," featuring the artwork of such famous graffiti artists as Brat, Demo, Eros, and Sket. Their work hung around the store, forming an art show complementing the retail one. As Lou lists the various artists' names and attributes, I realize that I have absolutely no knowledge of this genre. My dress, even if I had paired it with funky earrings from Japan, would have gotten me nowhere fast. Apparently, there is an entire vanguard of graffiti artists or, as Lou calls them, "legendary old dudes." Lou says graffiti is becoming "mainstream:" "It reflects the largest crosssegment of the market, reaching every day people, high brow, low brow." Graffiti has come a long way since it burst onto the streets and subways of Philadelphia and New York City. I, as a writer for an Ivy League magazine, am an illustration of that trend: coming face to face with graffiti art and thinking it's the new cool. I even purchase a t-shirt with a graffiti-inspired design for my younger brother, a member of his high school's concert band and Nexus game group, so that he too can be cool. Yet Lou's vision of Channel 1 is not merely about showing someone how to he a "hip individual," or how to say "I •

October 2005

cruise" and get nods of approval rather than laughs. Though Lou pulls this off, he is much more interested in creating a f usion of genres. He enjoys skating, snowboarding, clothes, graffiti, and toys. Channel 1 is his genetically enhanced brainchild. Art, he thinks, is the ·center that holds everything together: Everything in the store has an artistic flair or design, most of it graffitiinspired. Lou is also collaborating with Cafe Nine, a club next door, to bring alternative musicians to New Haven, which has an art scene that Lou believes is burgeoning, especially in the Ninth Square district where his store is located. The area reflects more of the "street art side of things." It's the place for "the guy sculpting the best whatever in his garage. Smaller known guys are getting more talk." As Lou goes on, I like him more and more. He seems so genuine and down to earth, like someone all hipsters· aspire to be. If New Haven hipsters have an idol, it's probably Lou. Since I am a wannabe, it's not the artwork in Lou's store that piques my interest but rather the vinyl toys, particularly the "Eggsters." I really want to buy an Eggster each one is custom designed but I convince myself I will be wasting money on a plastic eggplant with a face. My favorite was designed by the graffiti artist Demo. Lou tells me that Demo tore up bits of vinyl and ·

pasted them on the Eggster to create a multi-colored, collage-like figure. The glow-in-the-dark Eggster might also be a nice addition to my bedside table. I leave the store knowing that I will come back for the upcoming free exhibition. "Ratio 3/8" opened on September 30. "It's a vertical exhibition," Lou says, and offers further explanation because he can sense I do not know what a vertical exhibition is. The show will bring together twenty artists, each given an 8x32 inch panel with which he or she can "do whatever." The artists' panels will be displayed side by side, creating a conglomerate piece of art. I imagine myself in a room full of graffiti artists and start to panic. I make a mental note to start planning my outfit, and to google Brat, Demo, Eros, and Sket before my next visit. -Karla Chien

Neighborhood Watch

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THERE

ONLY

ONE

REQUIREMENT

imposed on all contributors to N ewhavenlndependent.org: "Be civil." The website, recently developed by former editor of The New Haven Advocate Paul Bass '82, resembles other news sites except that it · supplements its own coverage with comments from concerned citizens. The reporting , focuses exclusively on city issues and,

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with each new reader, becomes a more successful forum for community discussion. The site claims to produce a nascent form of journalism: "new news." The concept grew out of public dissatisfaction with traditional news suppliers, long criticized for compromising journalistic ethics with their corporate agendas. The · site declares that "Power of the press now belongs not to those who own one, but to those who own a modem." . . With this in mind, Bass established the Online Journalism Project, · which aims to develop online public news forums by financing websites run by freelancers committed to the return of "grassroots· news reporting vital to the health of a democracy." N ewhavenindependent.org is one such . site. Although available to a global readership, the site only features local news. It's Your Town. ·Read Afl About It, is the tagline an encouragement · to city residents to keep tabs on what's happening in their backyard. Bass claims one of the site's objectives is to "c~>nnect the political landscape to the neighborhood." In an article entitled "Chen vs. The Machine, II," Bass covered the Democratic Primary for Alderman in Ward 2. The race between incumbent Joyce Chen and Gina Calder proved a contentious subject, provoking a spirited online dialogue. Ed Mattison, an "aldermanic collegue" (sic) of Chen, was critical of her political record and did not support her re-election. He wrote, "I have always regarded [Bass's] enthusiam (sic) for [Chen] as an astonishing fantasy. The notion that she is some kind of reformer is absurd. How can she be a reformer when she doesn't show up at our meetings a good percentage of the time. Although she is a perfectly nice person, I cannot remember once having a substantive conversation with her... It isn't enough to talk about reform, it is necessary to do something about it." In response to this post; "true•

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bluect" commended Chen, a former Green Party Member, for shaking up New Haven's staunchly Democratic political climate: "In the face of the Mayor's hegemony, who could hope that Joyce would make a real difference, except as bearing witness against those who have sold their souls ... Mr. Mattison can take his smear campaign and pray for Absolution. The one Party system is the problem, and God Bless all those who stand against it. Joyce Chen may be imperfect, but at least she is independent of the power structure that chokes New Haven. What has Ed done for the people of New Haven (except hold the Mayor's cloak)." Such dialogue is missing from big media, but. is just what can be found in the much more .intimate "new news." Giving power of expression to the community removes th~ cor-· porate scrim between the public and the issues that impact them. In a ':::cover story for The New Haven · Advocate in early September, Bass wrote, "Local turf is too small for the media behemoths ... Yet local turf represents the future of American journalism, and of American civic society. Local journalism connects most directly to readers. It has the most potential to involve people in their communities and in the issues that affect their lives." A resident of New Haven since 1978, Bass knows the city well. His brainchild should guarantee that anyone with "a computer, a modem, and talent" can get to know New Haven and help to shape it. In bringing local politics to desktops throughout the city, Bass hopes to reignite civic interest, which places even more emphasis on the site's single requirement. The site defines its intended audience as: "New Haven. Its neighborhoods. Its government. Its people from the knuckleheads to the dreamers and schemers, and everyone in between." He's talking about you. '

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ebecca _Livengood's delivery was as precise as her pearl earrings, starched blue shirt, and professional blazer. Her debate with Nick Shalek had begun pleasandy enough, with polite agreement on the importance of campus safety. But after winning the Democratic nomination for Ward 1 alder last spring, Livengood already knew that cam• • patgrung was . not - always pleasant. When the attacks were launched, she was ready. Sitting next to her opponent before •

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held · the Ward 1 alder seat since for Ward 1 alder and a realistic repAugust, when she inherited it . resentative for mainstream Yale, not from Ben Healey, her long history an activist with knee-jerk leftist leanof organizing in New Haven has ings. "I am a Yale student who given her the force of incumbency. thinks the University is fundamenShe focused on the advantages of tally a great place," he explained. those relationships with the New The top button of his shirt was Haven unions, student-environmen- undone and his sentences occasiontal groups, and city leaders as a ally messy. His statistics, however, strength of her candidacy, one that were sharp as he took the offensive • on his favorite • • tssue: creattng • jobs in New Haven. To hear • • him speak, it was as if • Livengood had, • • • tn true acttvtst fashion, spent her ftrst month as Ward 1 alder lying in front of • the bulldozers • prepartng to would advance projects like the start construction on the Cancer contentious Yale-New · Haven Center until its projected jobs were Hospital Cancer Center. As a mem- unionized. For Shalek, any delay of her of the pro-labor Undergraduate the Cancer Center and the jobs it Organizing Committee (UOC) and a would bring to New Haven supporter of the graduate union disturbed hint on a professional as . GESO, Livengood is often berated well as personal level. Two of_ his for her ideology and idealism. grandparents, he explained, died While opponents often criticize from cancer. Livengood's support of UOC and The audience's gaze turned to GESO, deriding it as unrealistic, Livengood, as she rebutted: "Two of starry-eyed idealism, Livengood's my grandparents also died of canassociation with these groups has cer." She clarified the three ,condihelped her forge close contacts with tions she looked for in responsible development: secure jobs, health important players in city politics. In his turn, Shalek insisted that he care benefits for workers, and enviis the independent voice in the race rontnental soundness. In the audi•

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the gathering of campaign staffers, journalists, and Yale College Democrats, she defended her roots in the convoluted politics of New Haven. "I am proud of the relationships I have built," she insisted, her voice strong. Livengood and Shalek are vying for the Ward 1 seat on the Board of Aldermen a position that represents most of Yale's campus and for the past twenty years has been held by a Yalie, consistendy vaulting them into extremely successful careers. Tonight, both candidates are positioned to inspire the city and its voters, and perhaps change their own lives. Although Livengood has only •

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ence, Helena Herring, one of her voter registration coordinators, nodded along as · Livengood parried Shalek's lunges. On Monday, the results of the debate were clear: Livengood had won the Dems' endorsement. For a candidate accused of representing far-left fringe groups, the recognition of the more mainstream Dems legitimized her representation of Yale's entire Democratic community.

election. While he's running as an independent, he is positioning himself on the left the winning side of the Ward 1 equation, as a Democrat and New Haven devotee. Yet, unlike past alders, he claims, he is a Mainstream · Realist: an allaround nice guy, the hockey team captain who started as a walk-on freshman year, the economics major who got involved in the Yale . Entrepreneurial Society because · he wanted a better New Haven. He n Ward 1, is the type of • (( the only guy you might W a r d . see as a Rhodes • • made up primariScholar, or at 0 ly of Yale stuleast as an alder. • • dents, the elecHis message tion for alder has could resonate -· traditionally been • with the average a one-sided race Yale student, but ....-"" of Democrat vs. it exemplifies his _ Republican, New political naivete. Haven vs. Yale, He is overlookLeftist Idealism • • · ing the consisvs. Mainstream f tent success of . . Realism. Since Yale's political the first underinsiders in graduate became Ward 1 alder just domestic partnership, a public identifying and electing their over two decades ago, the position school writing workshop leader, and preferred alder. has gradually in-creased in impor- now an alder. But Shalek has his tance on the Board of Aldermen. own brand of idealism. While here are three differeh t Few New Haveners vote in the Livengood is idealistic about the voters in Ward 1: The New aldermanic elections, and, for some type of jobs the YNHH Cancer Haven politico who will alders, allocating a thousand dollars Center can offer, Shalek is idealistic turn out no matter what. The eightto fix a few fire hydrants in their about Yale students and democracy. een-year-old freshman, an excited ward will guarantee a content con- Much of the hard-core Democratic first tirne voter. And the average stituency and a reliable string of community· including the Yale Yale student, either strategically regelectoral wins. Ward 1, however, has College Democrats, New Haven istered at a parent's address in a few municipal problems and a core Action, a group started by New swing state, or not interested constituency that wants its alder to . Haven fanatics to organize issue- enough in local politics to makejt to act as a leader on issues whose based movements in the city, Dwight Hall on election day. In the import reaches beyond Old Campus. and many campaign staffers of past two decades, no more than 7 50 The ideal Ward 1 alder is a bright kid Dan Weeks, her opponent for students, less than a third, have with big ideas, ready to lead the the Democratic nomination last voted in an aldermanic election, a Board, and to remind its veteran spring has rallied behind statistic consistent with most aldermembers that there can be more to Livengood. Even so, Shalek trusts manic races in New 'Haven. city governrnent than flre hydrants his mainstream platform to do what Ironically, if it is voter participation and street lights. Recent Ward 1 has never been done before: inspire Shalek thinks will win hirn this elecaldermen have focused their politi- the masses of typically apolitical tion, he could learn from the Livengood campaign. By the time of cal energies on flashpoint issues: Yale students to turn out for a local .. •

Josh Civin x'96 fought for a living wage; Julio Gonzalez '99 reformed fmance ; and Ben Healey '04 worked to pass domestic partnership legislation. They were not monolithically Hleft" (Gonzalez, for instance, is quick to point out his divergent views on gun control), but they were all, in their own way, idealists. Livengood, like her predecessors, has followed her idealism · off Yale's campus and into active roles in the city as an advocate for·

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the Yale College Democrats debate, Livengood's staff had already gathered 250 new registrations, mostly freshmen, but . also . older students who feel strongly about this election. In an election with low turnout, those 250 newly registered voters could keep Livengood in office, if they show up and vote for her. Livengood's dedicated and professional staff is key to the success of her voter registration campaign. Her volunteer voter registration coordinators, campaign veterans Marissa Levendis and Helena • Herring whose sweet Southern greeting,r~ "Heeeyy, darling!" only barely conceals her intensity have Livengood anq ,.het· army of greenshirts, ofte~ tJ:itee :::nights a week, . .v knocking on' ,. c;l_oqt;s when they should be d6i1:1g their -homework. These two women, as well as Livengood and her campaign manager Suzanne Kahn, understand the importance of having conversations about the issues at hand. Livengood herself learned Ward 1 politics while working on Healey's successful campaign against Dan Kruger in 2003. Healey's philosophy on h<?w to win: "You talk to every voter, like anywhere else. The truth of it is, it's not rocket science." Livengood 's campaign staff Yalies whose ties range from the Roosevelt Institution, a non-partisan, progressive student thinktank, to the Undergraduate . Organizing Committee may share Livengood's idealism, but, if there is one thing that grounds them in political realism, it is the need to talk to voters. In a race this personal, voters often choose the candidate they've met. Five weeks before the election, Brett Edkins, Shalek's campaign manager, was not releasing figures about the Shalek campaign's voter registration. The Shalek campaign has a far loftier goal than registering '

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S halek hopes mousepads will draw computer • •

untried freshmen, anyway. te~ registration and high turn -out. As " I t may sou nd silly," said Shalek, the self-designated mainstream can" but I want to talk to the fraterni ties . didate, he must engage these silent and the sports teams." tnajorities of average stud ents in Silly? Not at all Shalek believes order to win. His vision of all-out that only wit~ the participation of democracy, however, does not th ese fringe groups will Ward 1 have demand the wearying, but tested real democracy. The voice of Yale in technique of door-knocking. Shalek New Haven politics has long been is chasing a renewed en thusiasm in d otn inated by the type of students unlikely places for local p olitics, a w h o work in the Mayor's office or bigger and vaguer prize than 250 join issue-based groups like th e Yale voter reg1strat1ons. Stude nt E n vironmen tal Coalition. Although Shalek did n o t win the The rest of Yale, alth ough m ostly Yale College D emocrat s' endorseD erno cratic, does not supp o r t ment and his campaign sh irts have G E SO, as Livengood and Healey only just shown up on campus, camd o. Shalek's vision for Ward 1 is a paign manager _Edkins is n ot worparticipatory democracy, with high ried. Shalek has been meeti ng o ne•

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on-one with individuals in the Yale community that a campaign staff m.e mber described as "leaders in their social groups." Besides his own connections with the YES and the hockey team, his staff has ties to the Yale College Democrats, a cappella, and the Yale Globalist. The Yale Political Union d~bate may have had a bad outbreak of bright green Livengood campaign shirts; on the Thursday night of -the debate, Shalek's ideal voter was chatting over beers about how great an alderman his friend Nick would be.

will have a much harder less, they all claimed, as Shalek involved . does, that their first loyalty was to time building that organization and Yale students not to the Mayor's communicating to students the reaoffice, the University itself, and son for greater involvement in the city." especially not to the unions. Why were they so decidedly beaten? The triumphant alders do he last time that Ward 1 not remember their ·opponents as . . saw a Democratic primary was in 1989. In particularly competent politicians . .. Of his opponent Witek, Morand theory, a strong Democratic chalremembers, "Tom Witek had lenge should take place in a prigrown up in a city, but that wasn't . mary, not in the actual election. compelling. We debated, and when But Connecticut primaries take they asked him about the city budg- place during the first few weeks of et, he had a deer-in-headlights Yale's school year, so that a,ny suclook." -cessful candidate would have to When Gonzalez, Ben Healey's start campaigning in the spring. predecessor as alderman, ran for But the serious Democratic candithe job, his opponent Bob Kokta dates, those who have legitimacy ran up a relatively impressive num- in the political community~ · ar~ concentrating on • • w1nn1ng a more - -~~:-' valuable contest o: in the spring: the · Democratic Party nom1nat1on . • • . Inevitably, the recipient of this nomination will become the Ward 1 alder. About • fifty Ward 1 citizens (the number varies from year to year) weigh the .,.. potential of the aldermanic hopefuls as candidates and as city leadher of votes over eighty. "He was ers. The process is far from perreally sweet," said Gonzalez. "He fect: Four . years ago, on the day · canvassed his heart out, and the before the vote, the nominating debate was so uncomfortable." committee almost disbanded and (Kokta, apparently, stuttered.) "I one of the candidates dropped felt bad," Gonzalez added. "It was- out of the race, only to rejoin n't fun." within 24 hours. Last spring, in All of these outsiders shared a the next major nomination battle, basic problem: where to find a Livengood walked away with the devoted, politically savvy staff, if nomination, but a scandal ensued not from Yale's community of die- as her opponent Dan Weeks hard activists? As Healey explained, reportedly decided to run in the then abruptly "A neophyte who hasn't been primary and •

egistering fraternities and sports teams"I've heard that one before," said Julio Gonzalez, Mayor DeStefano's former chief of staff and a · two term Ward 1 alderman. "A lot of people want to _reform the process. N ineteen-year-olds tend to have very sharp minds, and everywhere they see injustice." And, in fact, Shalek's strategy is not a new one. His accusation that . Livengood is too dis• • tant from the Yale community recalls Dan Kruger's attack on Ben Healey two years ago, as well as attacks in older races. In 1995, Tom Collins portrayed himself as a Yale man in contrast to Josh Civin's New Haven activist. (He lost, 28 to 312.) In 1989, Tom Witek called Mike Morand a "Democratic Socialist" advancing his "homosexual agenda." (He lost, 31 to 4 7 5.) 0 f course, they were all Republicans, and Shalek, though running as an Independent, calls hitnself a Democrat. But regard-

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changed his mind. The erratic process has disillusioned many students, · including Shalek, who asserts, "Yale students believe in democracy and the free and open exchange of ideas. Rebecca and Dan duking it out for a seat in November in March was not that." The committee is meant to represent the larger Ward 1 community; in reality, its organizers struggle to find enough participants. Gonzalez remembers having to beg two women to serve on the co·mmittee in 2001 so that the pro.cess could somewhat reflect the Yale}- C?mmunity. The students .. willing ..to serve are often those already dedicated tq_-/New Haven politics. As ~vres.ult, to observers like Shalek, the·. -v· co-mmittee seems stacked wi~h ~}re:-presentatives of ,r Yale's activist community. Approval by this small, specialized body should confer no more than an official stamp to a strong candidate. But in the world of Ward 1, it breeds unstoppable candidates like Livengood, who become alders without ever winning a real election. These ambitious alders are merely beginnjng their careers, which many intend to reach beyond the Board and beyond New Haven. The three most recent alders Healey, Gonzalez, and Civin all left office during their final summers as alder to pursue loftier goals. In this situation, the Mayor appoints a temporary alder, always in the past the Democratic nominee, to fill the seat. It seems that Yale's political insiders have found a way to hand-pick a candidate from their midst and vault him or her uncontested into power as a representative for us all. What politician would not jump at the chance to land a position without contest? Not Livengood, for one. She

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After working as Mayor DeStefano's . chief of staff, Julio Gonzalez enrolled in what he calls "the best business school in the country," the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Josh Civin won a Rhodes scholarship, attended ·Yale Law School, and is now a clerk on the Supreme Court for Ruth Bader Gins berg. And his predecessor, Stefan Pryor, works late into the night as the President of the Lower Manhattan D e v e 1 o p m e, n t....,·Corporation. Past aldermen have brought much more to the office ' than simply the "activist" position on certain issues. They were recognized by their peers because of who they were. It has also meant a willingness to take on the chal•

wm a seat in this chamber.

began · her campaign for the Democratic nomination in part because she was asked to run. She is not alone. Few successful candidates for Ward 1 Alderman have . . made that decision on · their own. .

Gonzalez puts it down · to the process of leadership leaders are constantly on the lookout for others who will make good leaders. This process may not fit our ideal of democracy, · but the peo-

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Healey was asked to run, not by - ple who know the most about polhis predecessor Gonzalez, but by itics and New Haven have made others active in the political com- good choices in the past. Even munity. Gonzalez was asked to though only a fraction of the Yale :run by Civin. population has actually voted for In a way, Shalek's critique is them, the Ward 1 alders have gone correct in :recent years, Yale stu- on to be leaders, in New Haven dents have not decided who will and beyond. Ben Healey is curbe their alder. The active commit- rently exercising the skills he tee seeks out a nominee and then developed as alderman working as essentially hands down the seat. a . political organizer in Boston. 20

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lenge of the job. The Ward 1 alder gets paid $2000 a year for countless hours of work and dedication and for shouldering the burden of representing Yale in what can be a hostile adult community. It's a tough position to hold, especially for a young idealist. · Several past alders have learned that lesson. Morand, who once worked on a campaign for the recognition of Local 34, now •

THE NEW OURNAL

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works for Yale. Public service made him see, he says, the v~lue of the private sector in getting things done. But in the reality of New Haven politics, getting things done can be a challenge. The Ward 1 alder holds one vote on a board of thirty others. Healey, like one of the idealistic freshmen Livengood hopes will vote for her, ran for alderman as a first-year without fully understanding that challenge. "I thought it would be valuable as a pulpit for things I cared about," he said. "I thought you had • huge power to make changes right away." ~ Now his memories of New Haven referen.ce "making relationshipS:,~,.. ··and "building " " . . coa 1lttons:... ' - .. _ . v. Livengq.c-fd /has learned that · , I /r . . lesson well ·from her predecessor, and in debates, she constantly reiterates that she is proud of the relationships she has already built. Her success in this area extends not only outside Yale, but on campus. Dan Weeks, Livengood's former opponent, and core members of his campaign staff, are now working on her campa~gn. She already realizes what Healey had to learn that the seat is not just a means of pushing her beliefs. In one of the most contested political issues this fall, Livengood had to abandon any straight-forward allegiance to labor in order to navigate Board politics successfully. Mayor DeStefano has supported alder Carl Goldfield in his bid for the Board presidency against Jorge Perez, and although the unions to which Rebecca is accused of being beholden support Perez, she has endorsed Goldfield. "The hardest decision I had to make on the Board was voting for Carl," Livengood said. "That meant I had to break with a lot of I

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October 2005

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people who had supported me."

manager by the remains of nachos the audience had nibbled. Across the room, Shalek, although not a speaker that night, had lingered for an unofficial meet-and-greet of his own, only to be cornered into a debate about jobs and

face to face for the first time just as the school year and their campaigns kicked off. That evening, Livengood had spoken with a group of Yale students, along with fellow alderman Drew King and

ne month remains before the election, and now that the Shalek crowd have shirts of their own, the competition will no doubt intensify. No matter what abstract ideas Shalek has 'J about exdting the average Yale stuear~ dent, his campaign • staff will need a concrete strategy to get their voters to the polls. A Ward 1 race is successfully run aldermanic hopeful (who has and won by the students who · since been defeated) Gina Calder. know New Haven politics best. The great gulf of empty room, litSince the beginning, Shalek has tered by chairs, widened as the been trying to make headway in few remaining audience members trickled away. Livengood hovered strange waters. Livengood and Shalek came uncertainly with her campaign •

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he best part comes right at the beginning, in a kind of staccato, when someone asks, "Where did you go?" and I get to respond with a one-two drumbeat: "I was in ... Syria." After that, few other questions are needed: I .am obviously extremely cool. People do have . questions of course, but n1ost of them are simply being .polite. Besides, however sincere their interest, it is unlikely to wear down my own reluctance to broach this topic. I usually try to change the subject as quickly as possible. It's not their fault they don't know what to ask: You don't have the questions until you go, until you trade what you're comfortable with for someplace unsettling, and then begin to feel comfortable there as well. But that day, as I watched about • 35 students file in, I wondered whether this might not be an hour for revelation, for conjuring words to fit feelings and reasons to account for my sense of dislocation or, more accurately, my sense of dual location. From the front of the room, Karyn Jones, Director of the International Education and Fellowships Program (IEFP), •

glowed with her usual good cheer and devotion to study abroad in all its forms. She began the meeting by touting new chances . for summer study, · then the International Opportunity Fair, and the 200-plus international internships now available through the office of Undergraduate Career Services . But, she added almost chidingly, a summer abroad is no substitute for spending a semester or even a year in a foreign country. "Yale is actually extremely supportive of study abroad on a number of levels,'' she began. No student, she told us emphatically, has ever said to her that they regretted studying abroad. But several who didn't have admitted wishing they had. This, for me, was the gospel. I had heard it all before; but, from my seat in the front row, my eyes still drooped in a kind of possessed reverence for the sanctity of Jones's words. I found myself nodding fervently. If I hadn't been worried about frightening all the potential converts sitting around me, I tnight have clapped. By the time I spoke, the audience had dwindled by almost half, but my task was, on the surface, no harder or less impossible than it had been to begin with. Syria hit me

square in the face with more visceral experiences major pa-radigm shifts, by the end than I had imagined possible. Like beginning to feel., the weight of political impotenc_e· .. (that was a big one), or tempering ambition to suit a rusty, halting economy. Shrugging in unimpressed acceptance of conspiracy theories that tie in everyone from • your government to m1ne. Accepting the control that random officialdom has over your life. Knowing history as tragedy. Always greeting your neighbors. Cooking something to bring to the lady downstairs after she delivers two kinds of desserts to your door just in case you're hungry. People in Syria think they know what is reasonable and what others want because they understand how things work there just like we think we do, because we know .... how things work here. But therein lay the impossibility: I only had three minutes, so I couldn't say any of that, and because I didn't say it no one knew to ask. I got home more than three ' months ago. The problem will not go away. In this case, there were a few questions posed, mostly for other speakers. One girl wanted to know

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. • what my year in the Middle East IEFP's institutional capacity and tentative goal is to have 200 to 300 was like: "I'm just cD:rious, what did range of programming has certain- students studying abroad during you do there?" .··;•'-' · ly grown since then, but the num- term-time by the 2007-2008 school Afterwards, Jop·e~ · was pleased ber of students studying in foreign year, but that strikes even her as a with the turnotit'!.·'~Ii "-would have countries during term-time has not. long shot. But apart from this step, • •• been higher if we had . gotten a According to Jones and IEFP Yale has. just established the first room in LC," she con~eded, but the Director Barbara Rowe, the number term-time study abroad program, IEFP Office at 55 Whitney was, as has held steady in the 100 to 120 due to open next fall in Beijin, always, getting the joh done. No range for as long as -they have been China. Almost no depar-tments one ever said international actively encourage majors to • • • education should be proxigo abroad, and students who me~ mate. go anyway still have to figure But of course, at Yale, out for themselves which • . people have said plenty of programs are strong .in their other things about it. In field, and how to get credit • • • 2003, one of the main recfor participating in them. ommendations in the So as the CYCE Report Report on Yale College predicted, many Yale students still prefer to limit their Education (usually called experiences abr·oad to the the CYCE Report) was to • • • strengthen international summer. Still, Rowe anticieducation at Yale. In the pates great things to come of future, it said, students Yale's nascent commitment should consider time abroad "as an here. Brown University, by contrast, to international education. She says integral part of their Yale educa- had 541 students study ·abroad last the emphasis will continue to be on tion," and IEFP should use "all year, and the University of summer and post-graduate oppor- . available resources" to expand pro- Pennsylvania, according to its web- tunities. And even that will take gramn1ing and study abroad opporsite, sends more than 600 students titne. ''It takes a while to change the . tunities. Since then, President abroad every year. And even at culture of the institution," she Richard Levin and College, Dean Harvard, which acknowledged its explained. "But as more people do Peter Salovey have taken up the call deficiency in the study abroad arena it, I think more will follow." as well, declaring the University's only shortly before Yale did, 213 Her logic made sense to me, committnent to bringing the world students studied abroad last year, which I suppose is why I confrontto Yale and sending Yale out into up from 130 two years before. ed my own loss for words as a study the world. Rowe reports that the University's abroad panelist. Because even if it •

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is hard for me to explain why, I want obvious difficulty of reaching uni. versity-level competence in Arabic, to help. . .. that mea.ns that the foreigners studyLOST IN THE LEVANT ing in Syria are generally concentrated at one of two private institutes, or ot a lot of American under- at the Languages Center at the graduates study in Syria. University of Damascus. Last year, to the best of my Before I left the U.S., I petitioned knowledge, I · was one of Yale to approve both IFEAD and the two and neither of us was pleased University of Damascus as acceptwhen we learned about the other. able programs for a junior term Damascus is not that big a place, and abroad, since I didn't know yet where . . if I didn't run into any of ·my ·coun- · I would study. I also applied for, and trymen at the handful of clubs in the received, a government fellowship Christian quarter or the few which could be used to fund study European-style coffee shops, I prob- - at either place. To my shock, ~bly met them on election night, the Committee on Junior Term when the American Cultural Center Abroad also approved both prohosted a midnight gathering to watch grams a testament, I assume, to results come in, or the following their eagerness to facilitate t!Ie pl.a_ns morning, when dozens of us · yawn- of enterprising students. ingly converged on the · only res tauThey couldn't have doubted thar. rant in the city that was known to I was serious. I had wan ted to go to have CNN. In attendance were near- Syria since my freshman year, when I ly all the Americans I would ·see on began studying Arabic with the streets of Damascus for the rest Professor Bassam Frangieh, who of the year: graduate students, teach- grew up there. Apparently, no Yale ers, Fulbrighters. There were enough student had done a junior term of us that for a few hours on election abroad in Syria before, but that didmorning, the restaurant's waitstaff n't mean the University could not doubled the price of coffee until help me. During my freshman and Ohio was called and we all departed sophomore years, I met with every into the cold November sunshine, professor I knew of and a few · back to Syria and back to class. graduate students who had studied, Class, for me, was two, blocks away, worked, or lived in Syria, taking at l'Institut Franc;ais d'Etudes Arabes notes and collecting tidbits of advice de Damas (IFEAD), a 39-student as I went. Ellen Lust-Okar, a political institute for foreigners operated by science professor who specializes in the French government and populat- the Middle East, was planning to ed mostly by Europeans, with a smat- spend several months in Syria while I tering of Americans in the mix. was there, _so I recruited her to help . Classes were taught in Arabic by me formulate a research topic .for my Syrian professors, many of them senior thesis. One of our advising well-known writers and intellectuals sessions months later was held on a forced by abysmally low pay at the bench in my favorite park in central University of Damascus to take on a Damascus, as we drank fruit smoothsecond or third teaching job. Syria ies from glass mugs that the owner of just established its first private uni- a nearby shop trusted we would versity last year, too late to save its return, as I always had before. The four public ones from the devastat- Syrian curator of the Near Eastern ing effects of under-funding and collection at Sterling Memorial over-crowding. In addition to the Library, Simon San1oeil, connected •

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me with a friend who took me out for my first serious, multi-course meal at a Damascus .restaurant. Afterwards, he introduced me to a fellow bookseller, who would become one of my best friends that year. It was hard to remember at the • • t1me, s1tt1ng 1n a restaurant surrounded by, L¢banese weekenders ' in town for the cheap shopping, that Yale was the tie that had bound ...... me to my new a:G:quaintances but , itwas. ·-·. l .··~:;J .: ... The take-ho~e ~less.oh; !.thought, , was not terribly' friendly, bpt it was realistic: Yale faculty could offer valuable resources to me on the other side of the world, but I would have to find them myself. The whole process of studying abroad is similar to mobilizing those resources: very doable, but heavily dependent on a student's initiative. The only department. that presently lists a possible study abroad option in the Blue Book is the Chemistry Department, which suggests that majors study at the University of Sussex, in England an offer that, according to the Director of Undergraduate Studies, John Wood, one student took up last spring, in a rare show of enthusiasm. Even if the Committee on Junior Term Abroad has approved a program for Yale course credit, upon their return students have to show their DUS their overseas work in order to get _credit in their major. That policy is similar to many other universities', but it lends an ad-hoc nature to a process that, given the consistent popularity of some overseas programs, could .

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be streamlined. I sidestepped any real uncertainty about whether I would get major credit by making Syria my major: or rather, Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. My second major, International Studies, posed more of a challenge, and I ended up

abroad warrior, who had my back. In many respects, I had it easy. For students who are Area Studies majors, concentrating in departments such as Latin American or East Asian Studies, the challenge of shaping a relevant study abroad experience is much easier than it is

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The U mtf}yad Mosque in the city Damascus in Syria.

dropping it this fall. Throughout the whole process, my point person at Yale was neither a DUS though I met with both of mine nor my Dean, though I met with him too. It was K~ryn Jones in IEFP, who always. responded to my emails and seemed to have one hand on the fax machine whenever I needed paperwork shuttled between departments. Other people were encouraging, but in the end I knew it would always be Jones, the study

(All photos by Blythe Austin)

for science or engineering majors. When asked to estimate, the DUS's of three popular departrnents gave a rough idea of how many junior majors typically study abroad: a third for International Studies, ten to fifteen percent for economics, and five to ten percent for history. In the sciences, the numbers are even lower, and with good reason. It is harder to find study abroad programs with strong science courses and, given the difficulty, •

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Downtown Aleppo} the second largest city in

many students assume it is impossible. Another problem that the Working Group on Social and International Studies identified, according to its Chairman, Professor Ian Shapiro, is the sequential ordering of many science courses, which makes it difficult for students to absent themselves for a term. These problems are not uniqqe to Yale and nor are Yale's ideas on how to solve them. •

find programs for science and engineering students. The office now publishes a handbook listing programs with high-quality instruction in the sciences, broken down by major. At Georgetown, a similar initiative was recently undertaken to expand opportunities for undergraduates in the Business and Nursing schools, where requirements are stricter than in the College. In both cases, the Universities' study abroad offices parsed curricular requirements and traded program suggestions with faculty. This year, Yale's IEFP office will follow suit. Rowe and Jones plan to meet with DUS's arid faculty in each department to create a list~of programs appropriate to their majors, and the office's new web designer will make those lists accessihle online. "If it is standardized within departments, that's going to make everyone's lives better the students and the DUS," Jones explained. IEFP has also applied for funding from the Yale College usttn) Dean's Office to send faculty (All phot9s by ~. abroad for on-site reviews of proRAISING THE NUMBERS grams in which their students have participated. Since the CYCE · ven universities with bet- Report in 2003, the office has been ter-established programs the recipient of much avowed supthan Yale's have to work to port. That institutional commitbolster their study abroad ment, Rowe and Jones agree, bodes numbers. Brown, for example, well for the future of study abroad boasts expanded offerings for sci- at Yale. ence concentrators, a change that The upshot of all this may well the University's current Director of be that the typical Yale undergraduthe Office of International ate experience will look very-differPrograms, Kendall Brostuen, says ent in a few years. And in the meanresulted from a concerted effort to time, an improved website and the

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zn ut as the IEFP team knows well, more obstacles than the difficulty of getting credit ·stand between Yale students and the . foreign country of their dreams. Since I · took up my place on the study abroad preaching circuit, I •have heard many of the same issues mentioned that Jones, in • counselingi students, confronts all the time. Juniors are just entering the heyday of t!leir ·undergraduate careers: they.·, have:!· preference in . seminars and f?r, ~tu~io_ space; they are leading extia-curricular groups; and they have tons of friends, most of whom aren't going anywhere until May. Yalies are our own breed, of course, so pointing out that the Yale experience can't be any less excruciating in its third year than the Harvard or Brown experiences probably is not the way to go. _ Instead, standing in front of tens of undergraduates two to three years my junior, I carefully compromise my own humility for the sake of the cause. My real feelings are hard to convey because of the fleeting flashbacks that flit around the edges of rny life at Yale, whether I am at Hot Tomato's, in a NELC . . se.rrunar, or 1n a presentation room at 55 Whitney. "I got to take on leadership roles in several groups

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wou during my sophomore year, and when I came back this fall it was easy to jump back in," I say, thinking to myself, there was a candle shop, on one of the covered streets in the Old City; I always meant to go back there. "I am having a blast this year, and I think it's because I can appreciate my friends and socializing at college more than ever" I would watch from the front seat of a coach bus as the lane lines split on the Damascus-Aleppo highway. I was always in the front, with an empty seat beside me, because I certainly couldn't be seated next to a man, and few other women travel alone. "My perspective on classes in my major is totally different now, and I think my understanding is much, much deeper." Pictures of Gamal Abdel Nasser still hang in occasional store windows, frayed and faded, like the ones of Hafez al-Assad are slowly becoming, like all the buildings named for the October War of 1973, like all t4e big talk. It is hard to explain, exactly-but then, it's the gospel. I didn't need a compelling panel or slick website to convince me to decamp

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for foreign shores. I don't adore study abroad because I loved Syria; I loved Syria in part because I knew already that I would adore study abroad. And there are plenty of Yale students like me: probably on the order of 100 to 120 a year. For the rest, the choice is less obvious, and the possibilities less accessible. Even among members of the working group ·that produced the CYCE Report's recommendations, there was ambivalence. "People differed on whether it was essential," Professor Shapiro, its chairman, recalled. "Some people thought we should shove everyone out of here for some period of time. Others were more skeptical." In the end, they agreed to make it easier,not requisite. After all, he added, students who don't want to study abroad certainly shouldn't have to. But they should at least know what they are missing.

Paige Austin} a senior in Davenport College} is a Senior Editor of TN].

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ull Shot Au Bon Pain Coffee Shop Night Humid September evening. Pedestrians whisk past the windows at digitallY enhanced speeds. Silhouette of a twenty:;ear-old female reporter seated at a table close to the glass wearing a fiendish red boa. She stares intent!J at the swift!J moving traffic, watching as she waits. Sound if.fect (SFX): a whit"1ing vacuum andfaint muzak. Voiceover (VO)-Young female reporter "My editor said this would be a break-through story. He said 'Hey kiddo, this is a big one. If it was a car, I'm seeing a Studebaker with a chrome grill, wingtips. I'm seeing you in thi priver's • • seat, full tht:Gttle and then he punchect th~ .r-. desk with his-fist, "~at-. :- ~ tlin' a day-old ~£.,pe< joe. This is a ;:stbcy /r · about real life in photo frames. Cinematography, Kino-eye, whatever. I'm looking for gothic • • prec1p1ces, stressy stu• dents, cookie-cutter college kids trying to set the scene. He says filtn at Yale is on the b~ about to bubble over, a spillover into a golden age. I'm seeing stars. Now here I am, Au Bon Pain and I'm waiting for my first lead. His name's Adam Davenpor~ cool kid, cool as a cucmnber. As a fresbtnan, first year on the lot, he founded Bulldog Productions Yale's first serious independent filtn production company. It all started with a grant a Sudler fund and a short filtn he directed. You can just see hitn in the here~ yelling 'That's a wrap.' Four years later, his baby is UOFC-funded -w ith an executive board, forty active members, and a zany average of two ~ery hoopla fihns each semester. But his greatest achievement at Yale rnay be one he's working on right now." Interior Au Bon Pain Coffee Shop~ J

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Adam Davenport enters. Twenty-one-:;ear-old m~n in tattered and sandals that .seem too . . jeans . . ·. big for his ftet. SFX: The scrljfle oj chairs on linoleum. Adam sits down, twists his afro with slenderfingers. He shifts in his chair as if all ryes are on him. · Cut to Closeup · (CU) Sofia Coppola Yale Law School Auditorium . S ojia is wearing a green man-tailored shirt andjeans, posture as casual as her clothes. "Just go out and start making movies that you're into." Montage-CU Prism shot of Adam Superimposed over a shot of Adam typing screenplay called Midnight Sun, we see the text of a letter naming him the recipient of the Panavision New FilmMaker Award, a grant ZS that will cover the • • cost of camera equipment to produce a 35 millimeterfilm. Interior Au Bon Pain Coffee Shop Night J "MidnightSun • lS the culmination of my 61tn at endeavors Yale a 15 tninute fihn on 35 rni11itneter; it's a character study of a New England college professor who leaves his wife to meet someone from the Internet." The young reporter smiles andfluffs her boa. "I don't have the means to attend filtn school, so I said to myself, 'I'll make a filtn on 35 rnilli•neter and use it as a calling card for career.' I'm so terrified by all this because I don't think 35 n1i1lirneter • has been done before at Yale but it's all the more reason to go for it. ''I hope to get it to Sundance. I'm working with Clint Eastwood's cinematographer, Tom Stern. He did Million Dollar Bal!J. "Yesterday I got an email from Julianne Moore's manager." S tarstruck, theyo11ng reporter imagines herself on the PartY beatfor The LA Times.

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'We're also going after Patricia of the film world at Yale. Michael Kerbel Clarkson. (H.e pauses.) I'm obsessed . greets her in his office; he is Director of the with actors! Meryl Streep is one of Film Stutfy Centefj a man with tousledgrt!) the reasons I want to be a fi1tnmaker." haifj deep-set ryes, and wearing a blazer of The reporter nods knowingly. grt!) flannel and gold buttons, the kind of "Oh, you've seen my picture on ·jacket that professors wear in the movies. A . . The Facebook." . poster for Citizen Kane, his favorite film, Cut to a shot of a website showing hangs in the corner. Adam} profile. Next to his name, where "The Fihn Study Center has been . his photograph . should be, is an image of in existence since 1983. It began with Meryl S treep. . _ a 16 mi11itneter collection and eventuFade to CU Sofia Coppola ally grew to include VHS, laser discs, 'What makes a good ·director? and now DVDs. I came to Yale in Having a point of view. A strong 1990. At that time, we were at 305 opinion about how you want things Crown Street. Out entire collection to be." was maintained in what had previousDissolve Mediutn Shot Adam ly been a bathroom. We had about Davenport 800-1000 titles and five video "I can see every shot in my study booths." mind ... I owe my realization that I He ushers her into the dark!J carpe!fd have to be a filtnmake.r to being at lai?Jrinth of the FSC, past row upo)J row of Yale. Yale as a creative environment is films lining lofty black shelves. The camera :~.· unmatched. follows the pair as Kerbel leads a tour of the.. ''Yale should never be an NYU or a center. The shot is continuous and doors Columbia Film School. If you come open automaticallY as Kerbel invites to Yale, you won't be a dumb artist. us inside. Yale has the potential for a .meaning''Now we have 10,000 titles. We ful marriage between the academic have a study facility, 12 individual and .e xtracurricular study of filtn." booths in which people can watch Fade to Exterior 53 Wall Street movies, one small screening room, Interior The WHC auditorium, and one seminar room." 53 Wall Street. Interior Michael Kerbel's We see the new!J renovated auditorium Office Morning with state-of-the-art equipment and surprisKerbel turns to his computer screen and ing!y plush seats. A shot from the front of brings up Yale} Online Course Index. He the theater focuses on the reporter sitting in types jilm" into the box that asks for the back, with tinted sunglasses so large her ('exact word or phrase." The query yields face is almost total!J obscured. VO of the ((198 courses found for Fall 2005." reporter: ''I don't know who these critics ''I've come here because this pala- are. This was a battle that I thought rial nothing, 53 Wall Street, is the was fought and won decades ago. I heart of cinema at Yale. It's home don't mean to sound defensive-about base for the Yale Filtn Studies Center, it, but the concept that filtn is not an a filtn collection whose scope speaks acaderuic discipline is not valid." for itself. It also funds one of Yale's Interior Au bon Painundergraduate and graduate filtn Afternoon organizations, the Cinema at the David Pratt-Robson, Head of Distribution Whitney, which just arrived on-scene of Cinema at the Whi~ sits ()t a table this year. Let's see what's inside." across .from the reporter and eats a · · Tottering on four-inch stilettos, tripping salad with ranch dressing. Messify. on!J once, she descends to the lower leve4 "So why are you writing this story? home of the Film S tutfy Centefj the nucleus What is it about?" .

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The reporter looks into her teacup for the answer. VO: "This is a story about the presence of filtn at Yale, entering into some kind of crazy new era. This is a story about how this campus phenomenon got started. I'm interested in how, maybe, ftlm at Yale is hurtling towards some kind of golden age." Interior Book Trader Cafe---: Late afternoon World renowned film thinker .Dudlry Andrew, Co-Chair and Director if graduate studies if the Film Studies Program, and Chair of the undergraduate Film Studies mCfior, sits across from a young reporter 'bedaztfed in sequins. CU Qudley Andrews "I can be pretty clear .~d direct about this. I thin~, ,f51r~ris . consistently a serious acad(!mlC -. dis.c ipline at this institution ... Yale ·h~,s. set;n something_ blossom that was iri "people's minds in the fifties. Whatever happens in this century, I think people who really know the debates of the past an:d the history of the past will be in the best position to make sense of what film studies is and make advances in it." ,.,-1

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success: Those Friday night 35 mil- . limeter revival screenings get packed to the gills, and I ain't talking fish. The money spurts from the WHC and the Film Studies Center crunches the numbers. · They're no YFS, a group that cashed in on showing sneak peeks. These fellas see themselves as a couple of artisans." Catherine takes a small bite if her pineapple and cottage cheese. W ij>es her mouth. "My sole interest in a student organization is to show filtn, and I wanted to be part of an organization who would. Yale Film Society seemed unwilling to bring back 35 mi11irneter filtns. I don't understand why there is not a united filin community. There's no reason for any of the filtn organizations to be in competition." Cut to a shot if the Yale Film 5 ociety E-Board meeting in the common room if Jonathan Edwards College. Natalia Duncan, the groups president, is sitting in an armchair, leaningfonvard slight!J. ''YFS is totally meant to be a social group, a: networking group. Our biggest and most exciting new devel-

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Interior Davenport College Dining Room Noon Catherine Brobeck bas assembled a melange if lunch items on her trt!J. 5 he is wearing a floral-printed frock and Jackie 0. sunglasses perched on her head. VO if the reporter as the camera pans in on the two girls sitting at a small table ~ the windows. . . "She looks the part. Sources say she's a cineaste with credentials to boot: once President of the Yale Film Society, now Secretar·y of the Cinema at the Whitney, blah blah. The kid's done her homework. And her baby, Cinen1a at the Whitney, is a boot ning

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opment is we are going to have 16 miHirneter screenings in partnership with the YCC. Re students are excited about fi1rn!" Cut back to Catherine. 5 he• takes a sip of Diet Coke. ''Everybody [at Cinema at the Whitney] cares about preserving the theater experience ... to bring an idea of curation to it like the Fi1tn Society at Lincoln Center. It's hard and expensive, but the effort is worth it. It's like a gift you give people." Interior Au Bon Pain Afternoon

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Alice Lov'!fqy, a PhD student who codirects Cinema at the Whitnry is sitting at a table near the entrance when the reporter, in floral slips into an a4Jacent chair. "Before Yale, I was an editor at Film Comment magazine, published by the Film Society at Lincoln Center. It straddles the divide between the main. . stream and the academic ... My doctoral work is in comparative literature as well as film. "What the Cinema at the Whitney . is about is expanding the presence of filtn on Yale's campus-to establish a ftlm culture at Yale that is based · around ftlm viewing as well as . filtn studies." She pauses. · "I think the professors, departmental administrators, and students are all doing a great job, but I think ·Yale has a long way to go in recognizing .filtn. The University just has to take the next step. Film culture is about the love for movies and the experience of moviegoing. We are trying to give it a more stable institutional basis." The shotfades into the reporter talking on . her cellphone. S uddenfy_her voice, along with the frame, disappears. We see Professor Maria Rnsa Menocal Director of the W hitnry Humanities Center, sitting in a hotel room one time zone awqy, also talking on her cellphone. ''It has evolved over the years. It allows us to have this artistic specialty of the Whitney. This symbiosis with the Whitney allows fil •n to become a part of other things. What begins to happen is you have more than accidental marriages. It's completely cool." Interior Au Bon PainAfternoon David Pratt-Robson is chewing a mouthful of lettuce and crouton. ''I could watch Casablanca a mmion titnes but eve · g goes right back to the script. Everything is pointing to the dialogue; without the dialogue there wouldn't be any of the rest of it. ''It's impossible to swtunarize it as being one thing. That there isn't a way

to deftne .filtn is why I really love it." Exterior York Street Day Shot of the reporter walking, impulsivelY tugging at the start of her blonde

afro. VO: "It's the personalities that are contributing to this, each as much a director as a character. Film is a mediun1 that's snappy and sweet, culturally and academically relevant; bridging a rickety gap between work and play. It gives these books a little oomph, there's, as they say, a little prescient cultural meaning in this liberal arts education." Cut to Dudley Andrew. "Motion Pictures are just stories, narrative and image." Cut to Adam Davenport. The year is 2016. He is sitting in a director's chair, on . a set, in Los Angeles, California. The sc~'!_e is crowded and bustling. Actors a?e· ~f!t of trailers, ha!f-clothed, with costumiers and :~ · make-up artists jogging behind them. By thq_ wall is a crtift-seroices spread, delivered f?Y a Zone Dietfriendfy caterer. Grips and extra hands linger I!J the table andpick at some lettuce. Adam stands up and people fall into place. The .lights dim. The production is Song of Solomon, written and directed f?Y Adam Davenport. A!frie Woodard is Pilot, Derek Luke is Milkman, Terrence Howard is Guitar, Samuel L Jackson is Macon Dead, and of course, Meryl S treep is Circe. In the background lulls the theme song, Song of Solomon. Vocals lry Audrey McDonald "Meryl, honey, could you do that • one mote tune?" "Sure thing Adam. I wasn't really satisfied with that last take anyway.'' ''This rin1e, more passion, more mystery." Interior Au Bon Pain Night Adam Davenport looks at the reporter, poised to speak. ''I can already picture the trailer. It's weird, I know. But that's how I think."

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Romy Drucker, · a junior in Davenport College, is Editor-in-Chief of TNJ. (PhoflJs tviiT'Ie!Y of •

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ing, or should they embrace the language American Sign Language. of the deaf community? The debate is complicated by the difficulty of diagnosing deafness. Here at Yale, both the lives of students who identify as deaf, and the work of professors who are developing new conceptions of how we com. municate, can help shed light on what it means to be "hearing." •

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erfect hearing isn't necessary to function in the everyday world. While the newest leg prostheses have taken • d~sign principles from the legs of the fastest land-animal, the cheetah, Amy's hearing aids imitate human hearing, not the aural _equivalent of the cheetah the owl. The barn owl has four auditory cav1t1es asymmetncally distributed on its face so that the owl perceives sound from both sides, above, and below. If Amy refuses to wear a "hearing helmet, ""it is hard to imagine hearing aids implanted asymmetrically across her face. For Alina Engleman, a deaf graduate student in global health, deafness is a matter of identity. While some deaf people choose to assimilate into hearing culture, she states that "There are deaf people who do not see deafness as a disability at all who accuse deaf people who see otherwise as 'hearing in the mind.'" Deafness to this group means being part of a rich •

cultural and linguistic minority. Ironically, Alina finds her disabili- · • ty empowenng. Hearing aptitude is almost impossible to quantify. Functioning ears don't guarantee that a person will hear what's said to him. Alina notes that. "There - . are deaf people who are more hearing than the hearing, and hearing people wP.o are m -o re deaf than the deafest." To prove this point, consider the people we

know: Who has good - hearing? Whose hearing is slightly below average? Who is deaf? There are no mainstream categories for different levels of hearing. "I can tell," Amy says, "when a person has hearing loss. They talk too loudly or n1umble." Yet there are "tricks that deaf people use to make it appear that they can hear. You nod a lot, make neutral comments or quickly change the topic." Amy's technique calls into

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question the way people judge the capacity of · others to understand them. People are constantly communicating without even realizing they are doing so. Perhaps it seems unfair that Amy could manipulate her disability to verify a boy had a crush on her. But he had already communicated to her that he liked her why else would she have sent in a spy? We unconsciously look for signals in non-verbal communication. When we're "heard " the con' versation is smooth, without uncomfortable pauses or unacknowledged questions. Through J!te unwitting signa~s we exchange, commu ~- nication transcends hearing. In a larger context, hearing acuity is much more a matter of social constructs. In the eyes of the world, a person is only deaf if he misses conversational cues. Hearing conversations with greater accuracy means nothing, while missing subtle conversational cues is everything. Yet, there is some medically-determined threshold that separates hearing and deaf. If we're above it, we hear; below it, we're deaf. Perhap·s the threshold is imprinted in our physiology. Just past the eardrum lies a fluid-filled sac entirely responsible for our hearing: the cochlea, tpe same organ activated by Amy's hearing devices. Inside, there are roughly 29,000 hair cells, each capable of detecting an aural frequency. These

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deafness puts you on the special track and that track usual(y doesn't lead to Yale. If I hadn't been integrated ear(y and diagnosed later I might not be here.'' cells transmit to the auditory nerve, which carries electrical signals to the brain. But the complexity of the cochlea's function suggests that there ~annot be only one way of being «deaf." A problem with the auditory nerve causes deafness in a different way thaq.. the death of hair cells. Alina's co.q.ception of deafness as identity undermines any «purely medical perspective." Considering such a threshold, Alina reminds the hearing population that "each and every deaf person has a totally different approach to communication" that stems from difference in preference, hearing, and experience. T he knee- jerk response is to d ivide ourselves into the hearing and the deaf. As Alina asserts~ "The cultural and social norms of the deaf community are totally distinct from the hearing world." This dichotomy reinforces the existence of an unspoken threshold of hearing. Amy acknowledges that the division gives hearingimpaired people a reason to feel disabled: "Early deafness puts you on the special track and that track usually doesn't lead to Yale. If I hadn't been integrated early and diagnosed later I might not be h ere." Judith York of ' Yale's Office of Disabilities responds, "I think I can surmise what Amy was thinking. If her deafness had been present since birth, it's likeOctober 2005

ly her parents would have taught her American Sign. Sign is not pure English. A non-oral person may not learn perfect English grammar and may miss out on wnung skills." Consequently, such students might have difficulties comparable to those of international students who immerse th emselves in a culture whose main mode of communication is foreign to them. The distinctions between verbal and non-verbal or deaf and hearing students are controversial. At what point are you deaf? Friends, neighbors, and co-workers refer anyone suffering from hearing loss to a specialist. T he specialist usually confirms the judgement that these people are on the other side of the hearing threshold. So how do we make that· · call? Despite those like Alina who believe that that there is no scientific definition of deafness, a group of Yale scientists are making progress towards understanding what it means to hear. Psychologists have identified a phenomenon called categorical perception of color. We've all seen a rainbow with its distinct bands. That rainbow actually exists as one continuous change in wavelength that has no sharp changes that would delineate red, from yellow or blue. Yet all humans perceive these. Thinking that this might be cultur-

ally mediated , scientis ts traveled the world looking for different groupings of wavelength in different cultures. T h ey discovered that with slight diffe rences, almost all cultures group colo r the same way. Something inside our minds shapes and simplifies the world of color, drawing sharp lines between red and orange w h ere n o such line exists. It's p ossible that we have the same inher-

Kismet is sad, its reaction is so natural, one can't help but feel remorse . for hurting its feelings. Despite this verisimilitude, Kismet does not respond verbally; you can see that it is a robot. Our criteria for hearing includes response, not just sensitivity to tones. There is something unconscious and innate about it. The cognitive device that constructs a hearing threshold is beyond our perception: While we don't know exactly how we can tell, we always can. An implant like Amy's helps humans cross the threshold in a similar way without modeling the processes of human hearing. "The cochlear implant filters our frequencies that are not within the rang~~ pf -

ear

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classifying . hearing-one category for either side of the threshold. J\ssuming the threshold is inherent, we should be able to define it. But what set of features do we use to judge someone's ability to hear us? We're not consciously testing, or even watching for traces of hearing loss, yet if it's there, we can tell. . But Brian Scasselati of the Yale Robotics Lab is testing just that·using robots to model human cognition. As Scasselati admits, "Sometirnes we have to cut corners. We can't build a system perfecdy from the bottom up." Consequently, when Scasselati helped build Kismet, a robot that recognizes scolding, praise, and other tones of •

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voice, the robot didn't even have ears. It instead heard through a microphone pinned to a lab assistant's shirt "to eliminate background noise." Yet Kismet can certainly hear. When scolded, the robot immediately showed sadness, and when praised, its ears perked up and it sn•iled. It can appear happy, interested, sad, or angry, depending on what's said to it. Kismet is able to "hear" by recognizing verbal proso<:fy how something is being said. By interpreting and reacting to speech, Kismet crossed the threshold morphing from a lump of metal to a hearing being. Rationally we know that Kismet can't actually hear us. Yet when

human speech," Brian Scasselati confirms. A person with a cochlear implant isn't going to hear everything; talking to Amy seems like talking to anyone else. Yet, Amy in unediately protests, "My interactions with you are highly contrived." At the end of the day, she still feels deaf inside. "If you were standing five feet further away, we wouldn't be able to have this conversation." •

Gabriel Dia~ a sophomore in Silliman College, is on the staff of TN].

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as a exandra Robbins~ The

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ast month, I turned twenty. It's been four years since I could legally operate z .a motor vehicle, two years since I_could legally vote; and about three weeks ,..since I realized that I can n(), lo~ng~r write off my grouchiness, rh.ooc} s,.Vings, irri.. .r_ .. tability, and sort}etifue"s unpleasant personality as byproducts of teen angst. Twenty is a road marker, one that essentially reads: "Hey Kid, You've Got One Year Before You Can Drink and Two Before You're Thrown out on Your Ass into the Real World." It's been almost two months since I left my summer internship, two weeks since I should have started applying for jobs for next summer, and it'll be another three before I get on the ball and update my resume. In two years, Yale will toss me out, diploma in hand, and I'll have to find a job, a home, and maybe a cat. Unless I turn out to be a statistical abnormality, I will be married in five years, have at least one child shortly thereafter (or shortly before, perhaps rnotivating said marriage), and pass through 8.6 jobs by the time I'm 32. In other words, I have to prepare myself for adulthood. Apparently I'm not alone in rny anxiety about the future. Five years •

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after the climax of teen angst (15) and fifteen years before the oft-cinematized mid-life crisis (40), a feeling of dread assaults most twentysomethings. Although the sentiment has only been recently identified, it has become widespread

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to go before I enter "quarterlife" ·territory, pre-emptive strikes are a trend these days and I figured I might need to know what I was in for. As I walked to the register, I couldn't help noticing the book's subtitle: Advice from Twenrysomethings Who Have Been There and Survived. · At least I'm not gomg to die. The term "Quarterlife Crisis" entered the cultural lexicon in . 2001 when Rob bins, prior to publishing Secrets of the Tomb and Pledged, co-authored Quarterlife Crisis. The book was a national bestseller, spawning numerous imitations Robbins' website bills Quarterlife Crisis as "The Official Book" and Conquering Your Quarterlife Crisis as "The Official Sequel." I was 15 when Quarterlife Crisis was published, · so it's not surprising that it slipped under my radar. But, given the success of the Prozac Nation genre in the late nineties, it seems only natural that a wave of self-help books aimed at healing Nation's author Elizabeth Wurtzel and her cronies has followed. Luckily, Robbins' sumtnary of Quarterlife Crisis in the introduction to the sequel eliminates the need to read it, let alone buy it. According •

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enough to warrant its own label: The Quarterlife Crisis. A couple of weeks ago, I wandered into the SelfHelp section at Barnes and Noble and discovered that the affliction has even generated literature: a slitn, stop-sign red volume by Yale alumna Alexandra Robbins promising help. I flipped through, read the blurb on the back, and bought it. While I still have a couple of years .

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to Robbins, "the Quarterlife Crisis Angelina soon yielded to the pres- And even though the purpose of is a response to reaching a turning sure to "do something reaP' and· these opening vignettes is solely to point in life in this case, the tran- spent two years "sampling 'grown provide context for the advice that sition between young adulthood and up jobs"' before she "finally gave follows, it's hard ·not to get sucked adulthood." She immediately notes in" and returned to school to pursue in. This isn't a book about how to that it can manifest itself in an a masters in education. I kept wait- deal with losing a limb or surviving a· ·almost infinite number of ways, but ing for Angelina to throw. off the plane crash it's about dealing with provides a helpful checklist geared cloak of convention andfind happi- daily minutae. Who can't feel a · twinge of sympathy for Leigh, who ness as a poodle groomer, a pet at self-diagnosis: . . EMT, or even return to her ·roots as "dread[s] Sunday nights because * You don't know what you want. * Your 20s aren:t what you expected. a dog walker, b?t this was not to be. they mean Monday morning is only She makes her exit still planning to a pillow away"? And Kelly's account * You have a fear of failure. * You can't let go of your childhood. be a teacher and describing her of her home-life is undeniably disretirement fantasy: "Going to every mal: "I have a cat who I talk to all * You waffle over decisions. * You constantly compare yourself major league ballpark, moving to the time, but last night I was just to others. New Zealand, owning a parrot and a crying, lying on the couch ·all by myself and askPresumably Quarterlife Crisis ing the cat, wasn't this con'What should .I do?' and the ,cat cise, but it did . .. doesn't &r:e!" stop short of offering concrete Thankfully, ~ tips for overcomavoided spiraling these obstaing into deprescles. Robbins sion over a selfadmits that the help book, even lack of advice in one that foreQuarterlife Crisis casts my twen" . was an egregtous ties to be an omission," and utterly miserclaims that able decade, Conquering Your because, frankly, Quarterlife Crisis some of the · tes- . will provide what titnonials are its predecessor just too ridicu. . did not: a form of lous. Take Larry, . mentorship for who says he's those who are too driven to succeed because overworked, This se!fhelp book} advice mqy makeyour life worse than it alreat!J is. "I've seen othdepressed, or remote to make it to one of the monkey and an iguana" and lament- ers my age making decent money, at numerous Quarterlife Crisis suppo.r:t ing that "I have to look forward to least enough to get them a nice wife, groups that have recently sprung up the final part of my life to do that." car, nightlife, or apartment., 1 can Robbins, it seems, is a proponent understand the basic needs for around the country. Let's analyze the structure of of the "break 'em down, then build transportation and shelter, but Part One of the book "Hopes and 'em back up" mentality conunonly come on this guy is complaining Dreams" as an example. The sec- used in n1ilitary boot camps. Each that he can't afford to buy a wife. tion begins with the story of chapter of the book follows a for- Then there's Laura, wh9 found Angelina, who, after graduating mula, beginning with a series of tes- empowerment after appearing on an from college, took a job as a dog timonials by agonized twentysome- Oprah segment entitled "Turbulent walker. Despite realizing that ani- things which is followed by advice Twenties" and hearing the talkmals were her true passion, from their better-adjusted peers. show guru instruct the audience to •

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"be the best person you can be." But I was unable to link Oprah's advice to Laura's eventual success. Although I can see how, if Larry · became "the best person he could be" (i.e., not a chauvinistic pig), he might stop regarding women as material goods and possibly get a date. The sage advice from the twentysomethings who have managed to get their lives together seems genuinely heartfelt, but I often couldn't read it without recalling the empowerment speakers who frequented my high school. In Robbins' book, there's John, w4o says "I wish I'd known at 2~ t~at 'you should slow down and think about what) important."' Only slight_l_y;,U:onic; consider,. ing that he caf1;1e' t-o JhiS" s::onclusion after having a f~w; ~ di1~ks, ripping "' $ ' ; --. down the intersta;te ·at 6ver 100 miles per hour, and winding up in a ditch. And, in perhaps the book's most dramatic testitnonial, after her husband is critically injured in a car accident, Maria finds herself transformed overnight from newlywed to caretaker. Noting that all situations that cause stress are "a big deal/' Maria tells readers, "It's important to free yourself from the preconceived notions of what adulthood should be. The preconceived ideas are often what lead people into a downfall of hopes." Most of the book's featured twentysomethings weren't faced with such dire situations as ditches and downfalls, but their advice is equally vague. Regardless of whether they're commenting on work, home, relationships, family, friends, hopes, dreams, or the vast expanse that is "identity," Robbins' surrogate ·therapists encourage readers to take risks, readjust worldviews, be open to change, and find inner peace. Robbins herself flits in and out of the advice segrnents, offering "More Ways to Conquer" at •

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the end of each chapter, in which . she rehashes the tips she already explained. Both Robbins and the twentysomethings suggest legitimate ways to beat the blues, but .because their advice is · so abstract, so onesize-fits-all, after . a while it begins to resemble the "Re-Vamp Your Life!" articles that are published, reworked, and republished in women's magazines every month. Flipping to the back of the book, I noticed that Cosmo is listed among Robbins' credits. It all began to make sense. I'm honesdy surprised that no one found a way to ·mass-market the concept of the Quarterlife Crisis sooner. But in spite of her claim that Conquering Your Quarterlife Crisis is the book with all the answers, I found its advice so general that it could be applicable to almost any unhappy or stressed person at any junction in life. The only thing Robbins manages to do in the book is establish that twentysomethings have issues.

Duh. She already wrote an entire book about that. Ironically, Robbins differentiates the Quarterlife Crisis from the midlife crisis, saying ''A middle age guy might feel his life is stagnant, characterized by predictability, stability, and certainty. At 25 however, a common feeling :is that there's too much unpredictability, instability, and uncertainty." But both groups benefit from being told to _mix it up, try new things, and spurn complacency. I finished the book more convinced than ever that the first couple of years out of Yale are going to be difficult. But I still had no clue what to do about that. Of course, I could always just follow Robbins' lead and impose my neuroses on the masses. '

Helen Eckinger, a junior in Trumbull College, is the Research Director of TN].

TNJ

RT Coi.I.F:GE

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An[hor and Director at China Central Television (C ), the nationaltelevision network of the People's Republic of China.

Thursday, October 20, 2005 at 4 pti~ Davenport College Master's House 43

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on have a dirty little secret His name is Naked Man. I know. It's a funny idea that there is . . . some New Haven man who lies completely nude in front of his window all njght, every rught, never under the covers, completely exposed, always revealing some traditionally private region of his body for anyone .....·, down the sidewalk to see. Most people don't · believe me until they see for themselves. Then they're as hooked as I am. I've seen the back of his head, but I've never heard him speak Actually, I've only ever seen him lie, motionless, with a telephone and a box of Chinese food perched next to his bloated gut, television flashing animal documentaries or CNN. But I cannot stop going to see him. Every time I walk by, I notice something new through the frame of his window; and catch a glimpse of a life I otherwise would never have known: a lamp with a tattered shade, a box of Tide detergent, a bicycle, a toe missing from his left foot. Something compels me to return multiple nights each week to his window to peer through the black security grate at his small and unchanging yet everexpanding world. The friends I often take with me--my converts are usually incredulous. Some don't believe my story at all; others simply can't believe that I come to see him so regularly. But our journey never fails. At the end of that concrete rainbow there is always a bjg, fleshy pot of gold He surprised us the first njght, my friend I .ane and I, as we took our midojght constitutional in

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New Haven's after-hours neon glow. Wa.Iklng by a white brick building shaped like a slice of wro; ding cake, I .ane and I caught sjght of an unexn :x:t penis. She grabbed my ~ pulled me back a few steps, and indicated a· small window looking direcdy onto the sidewalk Through the woven strands of the iron security bars, I had my first taste of middle-aged nudity. We stood dumbfounded, mouths agape, paralyzed with horror and ovetwhelmed with amusement Were our eyes deceiving us? Wa5 there rcal1y a naked man lying in full view no more than three feet away from his window in all his plll5-sized glory? Something about his posture.screamed for our attention. His knees extended across the bed, a racetrack steering my line of vision directly to his crotch. I was mesmerized. And with one simple sentence, the first mystery of Naked Man was hom: ''His penis is looking at us!" I Can't quite describe-rutd believe me, you probably wouldn't want me to what makes this staternent true; but it. is undeniable. He was sprawled in a lazy fetal position, and his penis was cert · in a prominent place. The frame of the window limited our vieW' into the apartinent, hiding his face at the head of the bed There was really nowhere else to look :Maybe it is instinctive, when accosted by a naked person, to gbnce at the crotch. 'I hat I undc:t stand But neither I .ane nor I could shake the feeling that this particular crotch retw ned our stare. We took a moment to let the scene settle in and then continued on our way. Though the · sentient qualities of this man's served as conversation between I .ane and me for the next day or so, there was no immediate desire to retur n to his window and relive the experience. While funny, it was hardly titillating or pleasant Nudity tends to be . when the only unclothed body itself is pJeasjng to behold. We were hardly warm for this man's fom1. His bulbous gut jutted out •

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beneath his flabby chest, a bloated trunk attached bluntly to the skinny chicken legs of a mjddleaged man. He wasn't partia 1larly hairy, his chest only home to a few sparse patches of gray curls, but this didn't mitigate the overall effect No, we didn't want to see that agajn. It was only by chance that several days later dawn the I ane and I found ourselves same sidewalk around the same time of njght I don't think either of us even noticed that we traced the identical path of our previous jaunt But as we approached that odd buikling, we suddenly realized where we were. Thelight from his apartment spilled onto the sideWalk, ~and, to embrace cliche, we were drawn to it like mo~ to a flame. We approachecl the window t:inlldly, braced ourselves for disappointmen~- and received the mixed blessillg of a repeat performance. Nothing had . Having overcome the initial shock of being accosted by a penis, we began to take in a little more of the Man's surroundings. The apartment was cheaply furnished, bright and harshly lit, yet oddly inviting. I jke the gaudy luxurious splendor of European palaces draws tourists to their vast confines, so did this apartment's stark, still ajr. We were like a pair of tourists marveling at an undisturbed, perfectly preserved scene. It was truly a living still life. He lay in the same position, his television still broadcasting Animal Planet, and the telephone still lay next to his gut as if he expected an important call in the middle of the night. The entire scene was exactly like the home of some historic figure lovingly restored and kept immaculate by a team of devoted curators. A few months -. later, Lane and I would visit the death place of Stonewall Jackson in rural Virginia. Standing there, behind the rail, looking at the bed in which Stonewall died, I would be reminded of our Man's eerie calm. At our second encounter, the initial inrt ig. 1e of Naked Man started to wear of£. Nothing had changed. He lito ally appeared not to have moved. As we walked away, I ane and I feared that we may have discovered not Naked Man, but Naked Dead :Man. Would a living person rea11y lie naked ctirecdy in front of a window every night? Ask any

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Morse or Stiles uppetdassman; guaranteed · and I'd been six. our main concern in the room draw is finding a about Our friends had heard us location where we can be naked without anyone it over the weeks but didn't know if we in the co seeing How could this n1an be so were inventing this It was only after we admitted to ourselve; that this different from the sn:.rcotypically unabaShed col~ lege junior or senior (particularly at a school man was of import to us that we began . . ·. known for naked parties) and not concern him- telling others. Just as the tour guide at the · •· ......· · •· ; •· Stonewall Jackson shrine would express · · ·.·· • · self with the fact that evuy late-night pedestrian his love of the Genernl to I ane and me, •.· · .•· . can see his penis? The only logical conclusion was we offet;ed this litrle piece of ourselves to ·. ·• •. · • •· .. . that he didn't know. And that he was dead a select, · ~ J few. · We were tc1 tified I don't deal well with dead We didn't think seeing this man bodies. Afrer this, Naked :Man turned into a fu11naked was funny anymore. We sure sca1e obsession Over the next week I ca11ed I ane weren't getting any sexual gratification at least three times just to hear her say that there from him, so why did we contin11e to was no -way that we'd seen Naked Dead :Man. go? I've puzzled over this conundnun Everytimewewere around each other, the convermany times since last spring It's possisation quickly co . on him. We knew that we ble that watching this man sleep satisfies had to reU1111 to find out the truth. some as-of-yet unreleased voyeuristic Another week later, we made the first impulse btuied in my psyche, but I value planned trip to .pis ..quiet apartment. In the witching hour's gloom, we stalked with purpose the individual's right to privacy pretty down the sidewalk; anxiously bracing oursclves highly and, in general, try not to active. for crime scene tape or. s,ome~other indication ly violate it. And fear not, fellow Stilesians I . ' that the body had beep f~d. :Bot the path was do not sit in the co scouting the as dear as ever, so we· ~pp~~~d the glow of _ next Naked Man amongst my peers. It must be Naked Man's window.:_-' T he· rO'orri still had not something about this particular man that keeps dt :w· me back. nged, save the addition of a box of Chinese food on the ~d next to his telephone. And And yet, in some ways I do recognize in Naked Man had rolled over. No penis met our myself a desire to simply view him. I certainly • feel some kind of

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t e) a enre gratification in seet is at once a sti ing Naked Man, • • • a narrattve. but I refuse to azntzn J an equate it with the .

gaze, just the sad bu1ge of an aging man's ass: I've never been so relieved to see a bare bum in · my life. Unless he was a zombie, this now mobile Naked Man could not be dead. And zombies aren't real. We left relieved, feeling as though a great intrigue had finally been settled Up to this point, Naked Man had been a communal CXpUience. Neither I ane nor I had evu dared search him out and revel in the CXpC. alone. But in the following two weeks, I couldn't resist reruming without her. Now that I knew he was alive, there was no clear reason to retnm. But I had invested so much time · · about him that I could not resist. And besides, though one mystery had been solved, a new one tit tgered We'd been there three times, and on every occasion we'd seen him naked I had to confit m that, no rna ttl: r what night of the week, OJ ae could always count on this naked exhibition. 'Ihe next titne that I ane and I went I lied and rernarked how long it had ba-u since VJe'd seen him. She looked at me shyly, and I knew she had retm ned. Fmally, we both confessed: I ane had gone about tc n times, '

October 2005

same impulse that glues the collective stare to the eXploits · of Paris Hilton. But like Paris, Naked Man displays himself shamelessly. I can't claim that he's inviting me to come and see him or bring friends along, ~ut I don't think he wouldne offended. He's comfortable with himself in a surreal way. Unlike attendees of a naked party, the man does not showcase his cool, unashatned attitude towards his body, but simply his body itsel£ There are no pretensions. And 1mexpectedly, with this attitude, the true allure no · longer revolves around his nudity, but abstracts it, allowing the imitge of his life to take center stage. He really is like a work of art, frozen within the window casement. What I~ve come to undustmd, especially since this semester began and I've found myself peering into his window sevr 1al times, is that going down tl•at road has vuy little to do with the actual physicality that is Naked Man His body holds no more surprises for me. Pee 1iog through that grated window is much less about the promise of his and more about ex1JOSing my appre- · ciarion for it. He is the instigation of an intense

and thorough introspection. Naked Man is depressing: His life seems exceedingly lonely, locked in the confines of a single room. My view of him is limited by the boundaries of a window frame, but within that viewpomt I can see all the essentials of his life: From his bed and his small kitchenette to the toilet right inside the"apartment's entrance. It is at once a still life, a genre painting, and a nat rarive. I can imagine his movementS from one station of activity to the next, and whether it is as limited to the three basic activities of human life as I believe, that's all that I have the power to see. And I don't want to see anymor<:I don't mean to dehumanize the man by reducing his life to a display of bodily functions. Nor do I c1aim that only an artistic or theatrical production can be enjoyed and contemplated I embrace what he has so blatantly offered to share with the world namely, his -body at its most basic. It's beautiful His apartment, his bed, his naked fonn these truths serve to remind me that unden1eath these clothes and despite the luxury (yes, luxury) of a Yale dorm, I am just like him. I sleep naked I use Tide detergent. I eat Chinese food. rve even been known to dream along to nature documentaries and Amierson

Couper 360. Maybe I see myself m Naked Man and that's why I can't really feel any guilt for -watching Maybe, in his life, I see a · er of the art that is so wanting everywhere else. I don't know. But rm pretty sure go see him tonight anyway.

Jon Hood is ajtmior in E~a Stiles Co/Hg!.

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by Zvika Krieger .

(Who areyou considering?" (The big three." .

airlines or department stores? Well, I'm working with a major credit card company that wants to attract more companies to do promotions with them. I'm jetting around the country, · to CEOs of different companies, trying to figure out what makes them pick different credit cards, what kind of deals we can offer them, why they go to our competitors, important things like that And this is only my first case. . . Here, take a· BCG deck of cards.

he first thing I want to tell you is that, at McKinsey, we're different Each of us, from the most junior consultant.to the most tenured partner, has a voice and an obligation to use it This diversity not only rD.akes our work enjoyable, but it also enables us to bring abroad range of perspectives to solving our clients' probhe first thing I want to tell you is that, at Bain, we're different lems. Although you'll be doing a lot of the "heavy lifting--gathering data, building and refining economic models, analyzing results and Bain provides an unmatched learning experience. You'll learn preparing reports this work is the cornerstone of our problem by doing and more experienced Bain colleagues will guide solving. Even as a new business analyst, your opinions, analyses, and you every step of the way. We'll prepare you with training both forrecommendations will affect the decisions our clients make. When mal. and informal from the minute you walk in the door. We're pragopen-minded. We're direct, honest, arid informal at all levyou work for McKinsey, you have the opportunity for far-ranging matic and . . impact. That's because our clients are the world's leading organiza- els. We tell it like it is. You'll be an active member of the team .......from --... tions, and we work direcdy with their management The problems day one, researching the client's business, interviewing key'b!stomers you will be called on to address are mission-critical and competitors, and then interpreting the data. You'll dig deep intg.. I was a psych major at Yale and up until a few weeks ·ago I spent the numbers to unearth the right solutions. You'll help top managemy whole life doing theater. Do you think I knew anything about busi- .· ment make the big decisions that transform their companies. You'll be ness consulting? For my latest project, .we were hired by a Mexican someone who acts decisively to get things done and make an impact beer company .that wanted to market its beer in the U.S. Can you I was a religious studies major at Yale, I'm supposed .... •· •. ·•. , . believe that? I'm getting paid ( • • to sell beer:. So they send me . . down to Mexico City, 1 go wasn't for me. Do ( straight to the company headyou think ' . >r .... .. . . quarters from the airport, and the CEO meets me outside. We're sitting there, talking about the company, .. smoking cigarettes because that's what they do in Mexico, the CEO discusses all · his most important business in the back . :·• . .·. garden over a pack of ·cigarettes. And here · · . ·• .•.· .... I am, this 23 year-old kid, giving marketing · i. advice to the CEO. Incredible. Here, take a McKinsey stress ball. I knew anything about business he first thing I want to tell you is that, at consulting? Everybody in the music industry is trying to figBCG, we're different ure out how to cash in on this digital music craze, how the record We invest heavily in your success.• Professional labels can actual1y make money off of it The latest idea is..product growth starts when you do. Ours is an environment that encourages bundles what we can package with the usual album's worth of initiative. The best ideas win, irrespective of your position in the hier- music to convince people to pay for the . CD when they can just archy. Our business requires the kind of teamwork that thrives on download it for free. So we were hired by a major record label to look diverse perspectives. We value and see power in your uniqueness. into the market trends. Why does a BowWow CD packaged with three exclusive tracks and two music videos sell less than a Black Respect for the individual is a key value at BCG. As part of a team, you develop hypotheses, gather and analyze data, discover patterns, Eyed Peas CD packaged with only one music video? Is it just the relcreate strategies, define action plans, and mobilize the organization for ative popularity of the artists, or is there something else going on success. We enable our clients to win decisively and sustainably. That here? I get to talk to a lot of industry experts, work through focus means · the rules of the game, not just playing it better. group reports, and consumer habit ttackers. It's actuaUy a lot of fun. I was an art history major at Yale with a focus on fashion. Do you Here, take a Bain botde opener. think I knew anyd•ing about business consulting? You know they have T\:J those things with credit car ss promotions? You know, with like Z vika Krieger is a senior in Silliman College. .

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46 •

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THE NEW JOURNAL

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The Yale ·c ollege Review o Books and the . itney Hurnanities Cente: present a panel discussion .

''Yale Studies in Autobiography: Student Critics on Facul riters'' with Autobiographers: •

John Morton Blum, ALi e with History • J~hn Donatich, Ambivalence: A Love Story .;~··· -.- Carlos Eire, Waiting or Snow in Havana: Con essions ·:;. ~ . ;~ ·:-:.. · o a Cuban Boy •

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J_.r

Sara Suleri odyear, Meatless Days, Boys Will Be Boys Sherwin B. Noland, Lost in America: A Journey with my Father Willie Ruff, Jr., A Call to Assembly: The Autobiography o a Musical Storyteller Robert B. Stepto, Blue as the Lake: A Personal Geography Edward Stankiewicz,·My War: Memoir o a Young Jewish Poet

and Editors of the Yale College Re~view o Books Tuesday, October 25,2005 4:30p.m itney Humanities Center, Auditori 53 Wall Street

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Reception immediately following, Room 108 · For more infortnati.on phone: Manana Sikic at 203 432-0673 _ or e-mail: manana.sikic ale.edu

Free

open to the

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April2005

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