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FALL 2012 COLUMBIA MAGAZINE Solitary Man The Inner Life of Paul Auster C1_FrontCover_FINAL.indd C1 9/19/12 4:23 PM your columbia connection. The perfect midtown location: • Network with Columbia alumni • Attend exciting events and programs • Dine with a client • Conduct business meetings • Take advantage of overnight rooms and so much more. APPLY FOR MEMBERSHIP TODAY! 15 WEST 43 STREET NEW YORK, NY 10036 TEL: 212.719.0380 in residence at The Princeton Club of New York www.columbiaclub.org C2_CUCNY.indd C2 9/13/12 12:46 PM CONTENTS Fall 2012 16 12 32 DEPARTMENTS FEATURES 3 Letters 16 The Solitude of Invention By Stacey Kors 10 College Walk Home alone with the novelist who calls For a raft of Columbia newcomers, it’s himself Paul Auster. sink or swim . The long, long, long-range forecast . Robots and saucers and 24 The Brain Trust Martians, oh my! . Election Day fi esta . By David J. Craig “The Deal”: a poem Columbia’s Mind, Brain, and Behavior Initiative is probing the fi nal frontier: 44 News the space between our ears. Columbia acquires Frank Lloyd Wright papers . New data-crunching institute 32 Tennessee Rose planned . Sree Sreenivasan named By Paul Hond chief digital offi cer . Safwan Masri leads Country-music artist Laura Cantrell is Global Centers . Mailman School going back to the roots –– her own. revamps its curriculum 40 Walking the Walk 50 Explorations After ten years on the job, President Lee C. Bollinger 52 Newsmakers talks about Columbia’s future. 54 Reviews 62 Classifi eds 64 Finals 24 Cover portrait of Paul Auster by Sam Messer (Paul, ink on paper, 14" × 17", 1996) 1 ToC.indd 1 9/19/12 4:22 PM IN THIS ISSUE COLUMBIA MAGAZINE Executive Vice President for University Development and Alumni Relations Fred Van Sickle David Denby ’65CC, ’66JRN is a fi lm critic and staff writer Publisher at the New Yorker. He is the author of Great Books, an account Tim McGowan of his second journey through Columbia’s Core Curriculum. Chief Editorial Adviser His latest book, Do the Movies Have a Future?, is a collection Jerry Kisslinger ’79CC, ’82GSAS of essays and fi lm criticism. >> Page 58 Editor in Chief Michael B. Shavelson Managing Editor Rebecca Shapiro Senior Editor Karen Green ’97GSAS has worked at Butler Library David J. Craig since 2002 as the ancient and medieval history and religion Associate Editor librarian. She created the Columbia graphic-novel collection Paul Hond in 2005 and since then has championed the use of comics in Copy Chief academic research and teaching. >> Page 12 Joshua J. Friedman ’08JRN Contributing Editor Eric McHenry Art Director Eson Chan Assistant to the Editor Michael Shadlen is a professor of neuroscience at the Nicole Brown College of Physicians and Surgeons and an investigator Editorial Assistants with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Shadlen Emelyn Lih ’11CC, Samantha McCann ’12SIPA studies the computational processes used by the brain Mailing Address to formulate thoughts. >> Page 24 Columbia Magazine Columbia Alumni Center 622 W. 113th Street, MC 4521 New York, NY 10025 Tel. 212-851-4155 Fax 212-851-1950 [email protected] www.magazine.columbia.edu Jeffrey Skinner ’78SOA teaches creative writing at the University of Louisville. His poems have appeared in the Address and Archive Assistance [email protected] New Yorker, the Atlantic, DoubleTake, and the Paris Review. 212-851-4155 Skinner’s book The 6.5 Practices of Moderately Successful Poets To update your address online, visit >> Page 14 was a New York Times editors’ choice this summer. alumni.columbia.edu/directory, or call 1-877-854-ALUM (2586). LAURA SKINNER LAURA Advertising: Publisher’s Representative Bruce Ellerstein 917-226-7716 To download our advertising brochure or Charles Zuker teaches in the Department of Neuroscience submit a classifi ed advertisement online, and the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics visit www.magazine.columbia.edu/advertise. at the College of Physicians and Surgeons. He is an investiga- Columbia Magazine is published for tor with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. His research alumni and friends of Columbia by the focuses on the neurological mechanisms underlying human Offi ce of Alumni and Development. sensory experience. >> Page 24 © 2012 by the Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York 2 Columbia Fall 2012 2 Contributors.indd 2 9/19/12 1:31 PM letters FRACK ATTACK It is appropriate for an alumni periodi- ever been any inadequate regulation by the I am appalled. Your summer cover article cal like Columbia Magazine to celebrate DEP, the advocacy by them of Act 13 — a (“The Gas Menagerie,” Summer 2012) is alumnus Josh Fox; “The Gas Menagerie” new law that substantially increases regula- hype, devoid of fact, and you should be honors him for his fi lm Gasland, which has tory control — demonstrates the incorrect- ashamed to publish it. received fame and awards for its treatment ness of her argument. Fracking has been an effective technique of the environmental risks of fracking for The article’s imbalance is illustrated by for sixty or seventy years without adverse natural gas. While it is understandable that the lack of comment by Columbia Maga- environmental consequences. It has brought his own opposition to fracking would be zine on Fox’s gross misstatement concern- the US an increase in reserves and a decrease included, it is not appropriate for Colum- ing the casement of fracked wells. He is in energy costs that can pull the US out of bia Magazine to weigh in and make the quoted as stating that the casement con- economic stagnation. Despite what you story into a polemic. sists of “cement to protect the groundwa- read, fracking has been done in a largely Our committee, New Yorkers for Jobs ter.” The reality is that casements are made safe and environmentally secure manner. To and Energy Independence, composed of of multiple layers of steel and cement, the promote Josh Fox and his views is equiva- committed but reasoning environmental- cement’s purpose being to hold the steel in lent to promoting Mark Rudd. ists, made a balanced case for fracking to place, a critical safety feature. Columbia taught me science, but Colum- the New York Department of Environ- R. N. Bhargava ’66GSAS bia Magazine is ignoring it. Columbia mental Conservation. The Urban Design Ossining, NY teaches journalism and unbiased report- Lab’s 2009 “Hancock and the Marcellus ing, but you are ignoring it. In the 1960s, Shale,” which the article highlights, is seri- Thank you for highlighting the world- when Columbia was tainted as part of the ously out of date. We used more current changing work of Josh Fox. I am a sev- military-industrial complex, I supported information, such as the 2011 MIT and enteen-year resident of Wayne County, the University. Now that Columbia ignores Penn State studies and the Department of Pennsylvania. Four years ago, I had no science and truth for left-wing government Environmental Conservation 2011 request strong feelings about natural-gas develop- funding, I cannot support it. I trust that for comments. Obsolete facts lead to incor- ment, but after being offered $444,000 plus other formerly loyal alumni supporters will rect conclusions. royalties for a lease on my farm, I began to also cut contributions until you eliminate An example of an obsolete argument study the industry carefully. Frankly, I was the bias. If you teach this crap, how do you comes from law professor Susan Kraham: seeking justifi cation to take the funds. But expect the next generation to survive? “The Pennsylvania Department of Environ- after talking with families who suffered Peter Rugg ’69CC, ’70SEAS mental Protection has been wholly captured the terrifying effects of methane releases Founder and CEO, MacArthur Energy by the natural-gas industry. I don’t think into their homes, after discovering that New York, NY there’s any question about that.” If there had Cabot Oil & Gas released three loads of Fall 2012 Columbia 3 3-9 Letters2.indd 3 9/12/12 4:37 PM LETTERS chemicals into a nearby wetlands habitat in way the author intended. After Fox runs Josh Fox strikes me as one amazingly ironic 2009, after studying the culture of natural- through the long list of alleged environ- zealot. If he is even modestly opposed to gas wastewater disposal, I can report that mental dangers posed by hydraulic fractur- the vast petrochemical industry, he would Josh Fox, if anything, is underestimating ing — including aquifer and groundwater do as others have done, which is to utterly the enormity of the crisis and the corrosive contamination, increased seismic activity, eschew the use of petrochemical products, impact that this crisis is having on public and excessive consumption of scarce water which not only include natural gas for heat- trust in government. resources — it becomes clear that his main ing and cooking but also the gasoline used Based on Fox’s work, I know that he has problem is not with fracking but rather to propel his automobile, oil, coal, and put his life on the line to defend the hun- with drilling for natural gas and any other petroleum-derived plastics. If every person dreds of thousands of fracking victims who fossil fuels. Fox’s obsession with green- were to avoid the deadly plague infl icted on are being frightened out of their homes, house oblivion seems to justify using frack- us by the petrochemical industry, the moti- who are watching their children succumb ing as a wedge environmental issue in the vation for fracking would disappear and to potentially fatal asthma attacks, who pursuit of a broader green agenda.