t h e undergraduate m a g a z i n e o f c o l u m b i a u n i v e r s i t y , e s t . 1890

Vol. XIV No. III November 2007

“PRETTY GOOD” BOOKS Why Barnard First-Year Seminars Fall Short of Greatness By Juli N. Weiner

On the Street Where You Live: The B&W Walks the Length of Broadway By Hannah Goldfield

a l s o : b i r d f l u , b a r n a r d d a n c e , p r o f e s s o r s ’ o f f i c e s

Editor-in-Chief Taylor Walsh

Publisher jessica Cohen

Managing Editors James R. Williams Lydia Depillis (Bwog)

Culture Editor Paul barndt

Features Editor Literary Editor andrew McKay flynn Hannah goldfield

Senior Editors ANNA PHILLIPS Katie reedy juli n. weiner

Graphics Editor ALLISON A. HALff

Layout Editor Deputy Layout Editor Daniel D’ADdario j. joseph vlasits

Web Master Copy Chief zachary vaN schouwen Alexander statman

Staff Writers hillary busis, justin gonçalves, david iscoe, kurt kanazawa, kate linthicum, Christopher Morris-Lent, alexandra muhler, maryam parhizkar, armin rosen, lizzy straus, lucy tang

Artists JULIA BUTAREVA, jenny lam, zoë slutzky, Alexandra Voûte

Contributors brendan ballou, jonathan berliner, Anna Corke, Merrell Hambleton, Karen Leung, Joshua Mathew, Yelena Shuster, rob trump, sara vogel

2 Th e Bl u e a n d Wh i t e THE BLUEtopcap AND tk WHITE

Vol. XIV FAMAM EXTENDIMUS FACTIS No. III

Co l u m n s 4 Bl u e b o o k 8 Ca m p u s Ch a r a c t e r s 12 Di g i t a l i a Co l u m b i a n a 36 Ve r i l y Ve r i t a s 37 Me a s u r e f o r Me a s u r e 39 Ca m p u s Go s s i p

Co v e r St o r y Juli N. Weiner 14 “Pr e t t y Go o d ” Bo o k s Why Barnard first-year seminars fall short of greatness.

Fe a t u r e s Andrew Flynn 10 Ro o m s o f Th e i r Ow n The untold treasures of professors’ offices. Hannah Goldfield 20 On t h e St r e e t Wh e r e Yo u Li v e Th e Bl u e a n d Wh i t e walks the length of Broadway. Armin Rosen 24 Ap o c a l y p s e So o n Columbia’s secret plan to save us all from bird flu. Kate Linthicum 28 En Po i n t e Barnard’s dance department embraces the avant-garde.

Cr i t i c i s m Daniel D’Addario 34 Bo m b s Ab o u t Ba g h d a d How Hollywood trivializes the war on terror. Maryam Parhizkar 38 Pi n t e r ’s Da r k e r Sl e u t h A revision of a 1970s whodunit.

w w w .theblueandwhite.org f c o v e r : “Special Education” by Zoë Slutzky

No v e m b e r 2007 3 transactions

arrivals Lorum ipsum bla bla bla The Great Teacher Award for Jacques Barzun, in absentia

Injustice, in the form of a Western-cen- tric core. And a lack of support for Eth- nic Studies. And for the OMA. And the administration’s lukewarm response to hate crime. And an unethical expansion plan.

“Solidarity”

This isn’t the Barnard issue. Rather, it’s an issue of Th e Waterboarding waffling by Colum- Bl u e a n d Wh i t e , a Columbia publication, with articles af- bia grads (Torture is still illegal, Mu- filiated with themes of Barnard. The cover says Th e Bl u e a n d kasey!) Wh i t e , but the cover story’s about Barnard. And we are a Co- lumbia organization, but we let them on our staff. The good Cage-free eggs at John Jay Dining Hall ones. And we’ll let them read it. We may even distribute it on their (separate) campus. Community Food and Juice

Our Barnard issue isn’t about “The Barnard Issue,” it’s Pinkberry! about the fact that Barnard shouldn’t be an issue. Rather than questioning its right to exist or chiding girls with lower SAT scores (but higher high school GPAs) for wearing Columbia apparel, it’s time to treat our neighbors across the street on their own terms. Thus, we offer this publication’s first ever in-depth pieces on Columbia’s feminine side.

Delving into the topic of Barnard academics, Juli N. Weiner explains why the First Year Seminars privilege Mi- chael Crichton over the canon—because the content dis- cussed really doesn’t much matter (p. 14). Conversely, Kate Linthicum’s piece on the Barnard dance department (p. 28) sheds light on a unique asset to the Columbia experience, requiring equal dexterity of mind and body. And Hannah departures Goldfield offers a walk down Broadway (p. 20), that line in the sand between the two campuses, to reveal the mysteries Summer-Fall of Creationist street artists and the Marriott elevators. Secular Starbucks cups Yeah, Barnard jokes are easy... really easy. But these girls may have it all figured out—attentive advising, Barnard The old pass/fail policy Babysitting (with pay so high it’s like taking money from a baby), no swim test, and access to all the Columbia resources The color blue in Blue Java’s logo and they desire—sounds like the best of all possible worlds. decor Maybe the real issue is a case of Barnard envy. The Paul Simon, Bob Dylan, and Louis Armstrong CDs in the SGO Jukebox, —Taylor Walsh replaced by Hairspray: The Sound- Editor-in-Chief track to the Motion Picture

Norman Mailer, and with him the dream 4 of NewT Yorkh e B lCity u e aseccession n d Wh i t e topcap tk By the Numbers According to the Cunix alias list, the top five Lorum ipsum bla bla bla largest email aliases for student groups are: 1. The Ballroom Team 2. CU Dance Marathon 3. Roadrunners 4. “Iranians” 5. Philolexians

And the smallest 5 are: 1. Triple Helix Society 2. Polish Club 3. Charles Drew Pre-Med Society 4. Thai Club 5. AEPi alumni

ACROSS DOWN 1 one of the three goddesses of 2 The Noble Savage and Uncle the land, raped by the white van- Tom, full of innate skill and child- quishers. like wonder. 6 Quasi-mythological viral vessel 3 The fetishized fo[u/w]l. injecting the new land with its 4 The first outpost of the City on pestilence. a Hill, the American hegemon 8 The archetypal indigenous fe- destined for world subjugation. male on whose body was enacted 5 The Aryan ur-male come to the power capitulation to the spread his Western pathologies. conquerors. 7 One of the first successful im- 9 deniers of humanism; worship- ports to the new colonies, natch. pers of abject self-denial. Check www.bwog.net for this month’s solution.

Revelation of the Month The good folks at CUIT have recently re-vamped Cubmail, result- ing in an email system that is less visually grating—yet barely more functional—than the old one. The most notable change? When users receive an email with a photo attachment, the accompanying icon de- picts a small, dark-skinned, mustachioed man.

Bluebook compiled by Katie Reedy and James R. Williams, No v e m b e r 2007 illustrations by Allison A. Halff 5 Bluebook

Lorum ipsum bla bla bla

uring an American Urban History lecture sev- family is enormously important—theirs just happens to Deral years ago, Professor Kenneth Jackson re- unite around an unadulterated, multi-cultural, class- flected sagely that “cities are places where freaks go defying love for dance-skating, the most whimsical of to congregate.” To anyone who has ever stumbled all dying arts. upon the Central Park Dance Skater’s Association, Most of the skaters never miss a weekend, even if it this maxim might ring true. Every weekend and holi- means being late with a credit card payment to afford day afternoon between mid-April and Halloween, the drive from Philadelphia, as one man confessed. dozens descend upon “Skaters Road,” a mid-park They love the sport, sure. Some of them have been boo- stretch of blacktop, to form “The Skate Circle,” a gying since dance-skating’s heyday in the early 1980s, disco al fresco pulsing with a live DJ’s funk and reg- and rumor has it that Lezly Ziering, one the founders gae beats and the sheer, boundless joy of organized of the CPSDA, even got married on quad skates at the roller-dancing. Roxy. But what really keeps them coming is the natural At first glance, it is easy to classify these people as high that they get from belonging. freaks. They’re so happy! They’re in costume! They’re Like any family, theirs is not without oddballs. twirling around on ROLLER-SKATES! But what be- Robert Oxnam is a world- renowned East Asian comes apparent after just a few hours in the circle is scholar with multiple-personality disorder. One of how normal they are. The skaters are traffic cops and his personas, Bobby, likes to roller-skate with sev- Ph.Ds, flight attendants and real estate developers. eral Nalgene bottles stacked atop his head, earning They are native New Yorkers from all five boroughs, him the skater-title “Bottle Bob.” But the circle is Americans from the redwood forest to the gulf-stream about acceptance. Learn to share its bliss with who- waters, and recent immigrants from Jamaica, Holland ever should choose to join it, and you’ve got your- or Montreal. And, above all, they are people to whom self something harder to find than a freak in a city: a genuine community.

—Hannah Goldfield e

t 11 a.m. on a drizzly Friday morning, a ragtag Aassortment of undergraduates filed into a narrow seminar room. At the head of the long mahogany table dominating the trim space, the monolithic, balding, bespectacled Michael Seidel—Columbia’s preeminent Joyceian—addressed his students. “Let’s relax,” he said in the soothing tone of an Oxbridge scholar. Wel- come to ENGL 3940, the creatively entitled Finnegans Wake and, according to Seidel, the only undergradu- ate class in the nation exclusively devoted to the study of Joyce’s infamously cryptic magnum opus. “I’ve got twenty-three notions,” Seidel said. “Twen- ty-three macro-notions about the Wake in general.”

6 Th e Bl u e a n d Wh i t e bluebook

LHorume began ipsum to expound bla bla onbla notion number one: the Wake act of collective creation is intended to have a pal- as comic novel. Eighteen minutes later, he introduced liative effect on sick children and an esteem-building number two: “If Ulysses is the day book, then Finnegans effect on healthy ones. The group calls this project Wake is the night book.” Theme twelve deals with “Garden In Transit” and claims to be the largest col- Catholic guilt; nineteen mentions masturbation. An laborative work of art in the city’s history. hour later, Seidel had enumerated and explicated all The colors are bold and the cause commendable, twenty-three. “Let’s not take a break!” he said cheer- but how do the drivers feel about the petals and stig- fully, commencing with a catalogue of a dozen more mas? Do curmudgeonly cabbies resent the whimsical ideas. Once he finished these, the class was dismissed. embellishments on their hoods? Most of those I asked “This isn’t usually how we do class,” Seidel said, were surprised anyone cared. leafing through a pile of papers by way of explanation. “The flowers? My boss told me I had to do it.” “Look,” he said, gesturing towards a stack of stu- “Sure.” dents’ assignments. The first of them was a geometric “Uhh…you mean on my hood and trunk?” schematic consisting of two equally sized, callipigean “They’re for kids with cancer, right? I guess circles set side-by-side with a pair of triangles sugges- they’re okay.” tively inscribed within their overlapping area. Many cab drivers I spoke to were surprisingly re- “This girl really went crazy!” Seidel said, his enthu- ceptive to my hailing them, asking them a few ques- siasm crescendoing. “I mean, this is the book right tions, and sending them off without a cent. here. You’ve got the ass, and you’ve got the—well, the “So very pretty,” said one. pussy—and if you turn it around, it’s the asshole. It’s “I was so happy I got purple ones!” also the portrait of the artist—Joyce’s two nearsighted One smiled and explained, “This is my first year eyes, his nose. And the whole loop, the infinity thing.” owning my own cab, and it was such a good little sur- He paused for a second before launching into an an- prise when I got to do this to my car.” And twice I ecdote about some faraway Finnegans Wake society. heard a variation of “the flowers are nice but I don’t “They’d only do a page a month,” he said. like the GPS system.” I pointed out that it would take upwards of fifty No driver said adorning their automobiles with years to get through the entire tome. “Maybe so,” he floral arrangements made him feel effete. Only one replied, “but they had fun with it.” threw me for a loop—this time while I was a full- fledged patron in the back seat. As I extended my —Christopher Morris-Lent hand forward to pay the fare outside of my dorm, he announced that, I, like the colorful creations on his car’s hood, was a flower. “And I will put your tip to e the sick kids,” he promised. hey say that the best art moves you. Well, this “Tart will really move you.” —Jessica Cohen – Mayor Michael Bloomberg

Over this past spring and summer, flocks of local schoolchildren and young hospital patients painted the enormous flowers that can now be seen on a sizable proportion of NYC taxi- cabs. Enlisted by Portraits of Hope, the nonprofit “cre- ative therapy” organization behind similar aesthetic ven- tures on blimps, NASCAR vehicles, and airplanes, the Illustrated by Allison Halff

No v e m b e r 2007 7 topcap tk LorumCampus ipsum bla bla bla Characters

ou might not know the following figures—but you should. In Campus Characters, Th e Bl u e a n d Wh i t e Yintroduces you to a handful of Columbians who are up to interesting and extraordinary things, and whose stories beg to be shared. If you’d like to suggest a Campus Character, send us an e-mail at theblueandwhite@ columbia.edu.

St e p h a n i e Da v i d s o n table. She has a fraternal twin sister, a mother who she counts among her best friends, and a younger Several months ago, Stephanie Davidson, CC brother whose first college essay was a feminist cri- ’08, was standing on a curb when a bus drove past tique of The Odyssey. And her father? with an advertisement for the television series Nip/ “Oh,” she shrugs. “He’s a gynecologist.” Tuck. The show’s two main characters—both plas- Once, in high school, Stephanie and a friend got tic surgeons—sat dressed in tuxedos with a naked into a fight over a boy. (Fair warning: She was voted woman lying prostrate over their laps. The woman Most Likely to Be a Heartbreaker.) But rather than rip was swooning, her toes were curling, and a gleaming out some hair extensions and call it a day, she respond- scalpel was stuck in her side. ed by creating a girls mentoring program designed “It felt like I had been slapped in the face,” to “get girls to recognize the reasons why they don’t Stephanie said. “Just the symbolism…” She trailed always turn to each other” as allies. The program was off. “The naked woman…the violent alteration…” a solid idea, Stephanie insists, but it lacked structure: She isn’t feigning offense, either—she is deeply hor- “I hadn’t discovered feminism at the time!” rified. As she speaks she stares at her hands as if she There is not a hint of self-mocking in Stephanie’s had played a key role in the fictional stabbing. voice when she says that she found feminism on a Stephanie, admittedly, doesn’t experience the Jewish, vegetarian, community service trip when world the way many others do. someone introduced her to Ani DiFranco’s music. As the coordinator of Columbia Urban Experience Virginia Woolf and Simone de Beauvoir came much (CUE), the one-time producer of the Vagina later, and though she found their work inspirational, Monologues, a leader of the yearly “Take Back the Stephanie isn’t steeped in feminist theory. Her brand Night” march, and a Rape-Crisis/Anti-Violence peer is more DIY feminism; it’s personal, it’s political, and counselor, Stephanie is one of the more active activ- it allies her more strongly with Eve Ensler and Naomi ists and feminine feminists on campus. Wolf than, say, Julia Kristeva. Stephanie clearly loves women—no, not like that— In many ways, Stephanie never left Jewish day but given the environment she grew up in, her devo- camp. “She’s wonderful, but there’s nothing hip tion to the anti-sexual violence crusade seems inevi- about her,” said one friend. “It’s actually really refreshing.” Sometimes though, Stephanie sounds like she’s reading from a rape crisis textbook. Her speech is peppered with politically correct phrases like “rape culture” and “support system.” She’s tired of talk- ing about “safe spaces”—not because the term is an irritating piece of politically correct jargon and an excuse to kick reporters out of meetings, but because it’s so often misused. If she has a favorite word, it’s probably “consent.” “I love overhearing people talk about consent. That kind of language is really exciting,” she said. “They’re definitely mocking it, but it’s becoming part of the cultural vocabulary.” There can never be too much consent in Stephanie’s world. When she first

8 Th e Bl u e a n d Wh i t e started dating her current boyfriend, he asked for Editor-in-Chief at the Spectator’s weekly arts maga- consent to hold her hand. “That’s awkward,” she said, zine The Eye, considering that his resume is heavy on “but he was just listening to me.” entertainment journalism. On a Thursday evening, I ran into her at Kim’s As the magazine’s second EIC, Alex is largely re- Video. I was pacing the store with an expression of sponsible for The Eye’s tone and style. He’s known existential and geographical loss, and before I knew among writers for his no-holds-barred critiques, and what had happened, she had pulled me across the room among readers for his labyrinthine editor’s intros. and found the movie I was looking for. “And what about Typical Gartenfeld columns have titles like “Unpack- you?” I asked. “Oh, I can’t decide,” she said. She’s been ing a Self-Referential Opening” and “Breaking From agonizing. “What do you think, Evita or Rent?” the Hipster Mold.” He’s blasé about issues of privilege on a campus where they are touchy subjects; his intro — Anna Phillips from February 22nd begins: “For Lent I was going to give up my BlackBerry.” Over the past three years Alex has interned at Al e x Ga r t e n f e l d Pa- per Magazine (for which he now freelances, writing Like most people, Alex Gartenfeld, CC ’08, bites about fashion and music), The New York Observer, his fingernails. Unlike most people, he began to wor- Rolling Stone, and The Sun. More recently, he worked ry about the psychological implications of this partic- for the art theory journal Parkett, evidence of his ular bad habit when he read an article on Lesch-Nyan gravitation towards more scholarly pursuits that will put his art history major to use. syndrome in a September issue of The New Yorker. “There’s a genetic gradient between biting your “My boss [at Parkett] and I were talking about what fingernails and totally gnawing your hand off,” Alex ex- I was going to do when I graduate,” Alex says. “I said, plains, glancing at his hands. “To think that my disposi- ‘I might want to go to Berlin and learn my German.’ tion is part of a spectrum with these people who are to- She said, ‘I know of this estate, Colin DeLand’s—a tally having to wear lead gloves because they otherwise guy who lived in Soho or the East Village. He died will eat themselves. The guy said, ‘My left hand’s my in 2003 and had an estate in Germany. They need an devil hand.’...I think my index finger is my devil finger.” archivist.’” With his thick, black horn-rimmed glasses and Alex was quickly offered the position, starting im- pants that resemble denim-patterned spandex, Gar- mediately. The deal includes airfare, room and board, tenfeld comes off as the archetypal Brooklyn hipster. and an hourly rate to thoroughly catalogue DeLand’s But even on the surface, there is something alien, archive over winter break. When I last spoke with even anachronistic, in Alex’s demeanor. Whatever it Alex, he had just returned from his first sojourn into is, don’t call it New Jersey. Berlin. “I went there this last weekend to begin work “I definitely have a Jersey complex,” says Alex, on the archive,” Alex explains. “I have a little intern born and raised in Edison. “People who are most New named Magnus, and he is so nice.” York are from New Jersey. I think it was Philip Roth, he said something like that.” He thought again. “That — Justin Gonçalves was a butchered quote and a butchered attribution.” Though he doesn’t chug Bud Light, root for the Gi- ants, or rock out to Bon Jovi, Alex’s tastes may well be credited to his roots. “I have an aesthetic,” Alex explains. “I love the Technicolor, new wave. That’s the kind of music I like. I was listening to girl groups for a year and a half. I kind of got sick of it, but it’s the kind of thing I re- spond to. Part of it is a kitsch thing. It’s like an expres- sion of mastery.” Quick to separate himself from the ever-growing Williamsburg music scene (“Todd P shows are just too sweaty for me”), Alex insists, “Cool music sucks. It’s very zeitgeist-y to not be listening to cool music.” This seems a strange outlook for Alex, the current

No v e m b e r 2007 9 Rooms of Their Own The untold treasures of professors’ offices. By An d r e w Fl y n n

he professor’s office is a curious thing. Forget long empty table, and an leather jacket. The owner Tthe cubicles of commercial America: in the acad- was nowhere to be found. I knocked, and a startling emy–or at Columbia, at least–no two offices are alike. “Come in” resounded from an archway obscured by You might be shunted in with a junior colleague, what appeared to be love beads—just one of the many forced to operate out of a cinderblock-and-white- Middle Eastern accoutrements Bulliet has acquired paint monstrosity, quietly praying for retirements over his 32-year tenure at Columbia. and/or deaths. Or, if you’re lucky, no one will realize The second room was also lined with bookshelves, that you landed a wood-paneled room so large that paintings, hangings. Knickknacks and a motley you almost feel guilty. Almost. assortment of tattered chair crammed the empty Just as jeans and a bow tie are a perfectly appropri- spaces, as Bulliet himself typed away at an old com- ate sartorial combination in academia, family photos puter. This was his third office, he told me, and his are easily paired with, to give one example, a futon most satisfactory, as it was large enough to partition. and six massive oil portraits of 19th century phi- He could conduct seminars on one side, and write in losophers. Professors, denied the privilege of making the other. business deals and filing TPS reports, are free to dec- Bulliet got up, and with a wry smile began sham- orate their offices as they see fit. Some of them do. bling around the room, pointing to many of his Richard Bulliet started by dividing his office in favorite knickknacks—droves of glass camels (one half. When I showed up to talk with the scholar of of his areas of expertise); a converted kerosene lamp the Middle East on the 11th floor of IAB, I was con- (also adorned with camels) that he’d inherited from fronted with the first half: solemn bookshelves, a his cousin; a decorative hanging he had convinced a graduate student to cut off of a lamppost in Tehran shortly after the 1979 revolution; the Edgar (Allen Poe) Award he won for Best First Mystery Novel; and a number of quirky paintings from the col- lection of his grand- father, art critic C.J. Bulliet. on the other side, through the love beads, Bulliet showed off his Hello Kitty doll (“I teach about domes- tic animals, so I lec- ture on Hello Kitty”) and The Pen at War Illustrated by Allison Halff

10 Th e Bl u e a n d Wh i t e Curio columbiana

With Onslaught, a rare collection of anti-Salman when all twelve rods are in place, but flexible when Rushdie cartoons that he got his hands on in Iran only one is showing that the original can be rigid in (“Someone was not so great at English”). A painting a different formation. Thurston seemed most proud, of Alma Mater and its environs is perched above the however, of a giant almost-ball, made of what looked doorway. “That’s the only blood-red Low you’ll ever like multi-colored K’nex, that rested near his win- see,” he smiled. “I painted that.” Then, Bulliet turned dow. “This is the largest four dimensional regular slowly towards the bookcase and sighed. “I have three polytope,” he told me, and held it up to his window at thousand books here,” he looked at me. “I’m going to various axes. As with most of the objects in his room, teach for three more years and then I have to figure Thurston built the large polytope from Zone tools, out what the hell I’m going to do with all this shit.” which are indeed a fancy version of K’nex. “Well, it’s Ralph Holloway doesn’t have mostly a toy,” he smiled, “but it’s that problem. In fact, the physi- a fun toy.” cal anthropologist is not much When Victoria de Grazia ush- for decorations, per se. His office “That, I think is called ered me into her office on the is small and empty except for a sixth floor of Fayerweather, I computer and some metal cabi- New Jersey Chinese was taken aback. I hadn’t imag- nets. But he opened the cabinets choinoiserie. That ined that the doorway, wedged with a grin, revealing rows and between an alcove and stairwell, rows of teal, rubbery endocasts was probably made could lead to a room this large, he makes of the inside of human in Burlington.” a room that just sort of mean- skulls. And just outside the door ders back towards the building’s is the Schermerhorn bone lab, exterior—if de Grazia took a seat where rows and rows of the orig- at her desk, and I had stood in inal skulls are laid out on long lab tables – real skulls, the doorway, I thought she might have to shout. As de the market for which Holloway told me is now closed. Grazia told it, no one had really wanted the long office “I’ve got lots of interesting things here,” Holloway when she first joined the history department in 1994. said. “Gunshot wounds, sword slashes.” “They were worried about how they were going to The wooden cabinets that line the walls feature decorate it,” she laughed. “I was just happy that I’d monkey skeletons and abnormal skulls, evoking gotten a larger apartment, because this was about the Frankenstein more than modern science. This has size of where I lived when I was junior faculty.” been Holloway’s home for his studies of the brain and As for interior decorating, de Grazia hasn’t gone evolution for many years – ever since he and some nuts, but the office is certainly not empty. There’s students, fed up with their inadequate lodgings, plenty of room for books along one of the long walls, simply moved up to a recently emptied floor in the which face the office’s most distinctive feature on the Schermerhorn extension. “This is all from squatters’ other: a mysterious, beautiful tapestry, reportedly rights,” Holloway said with a smile. 18th century Flemish. De Grazia has also hung up an Perched on the sixth floor of Mathematics, Dylan Italian circus poster that features a ravishing female Thurston’s office is moderately-sized and as incon- snake charmer dancing among some startled-looking spicuous as Holloway’s. But Thurston, who special- alligators. “That’s one of those they put up when the izes in topology, will gladly show off his collection circus comes to town,” she said. “I took that off a of geometric objects that fills his bookshelves and city wall in Greece during my wanderings in, oh, the spills over onto filing cabinets—polytopes of various 80s.” The center of the room has ample space for a shapes, sizes, and colors, origami versions of Platonic comfy sofa and some chairs, on top of a rug de Grazia solids, and a Klein bottle, which has only one side. brought with her from Rutgers. “That, I think, is “They’re…” he paused and pondered. “They’re defi- called New Jersey Chinese choinoiserie.” She looked nitely somewhat related to my work.” down. “That was probably made in Burlington.” Thurston opened a box of what looked like Tinker Of course, not all office aesthetics are the object Toys: a series of red rods and rubbery, yellow con- of intelligent design. “I don’t know why more people nectors. From these, he quickly built an icosahedron don’t decorate their offices.” Richard Bulliet shook (he had to write the word on the board for me)—rigid his head. “I mean, all this stuff – it just piles up.” w

No v e m b e r 2007 11 DIGITALIA COLUMBIANA

hese excerpts were culled from documents left on Columbia’s lab computers. We encourage our readers to T submit their own digitalia finds to us, via e-mail, at [email protected]

What is it that language provides for us that is of such The body posture of the female points to a certain value? level of comfort, as she is half naked with her bra gen- tly slipping off her shoulder and her hands tenderly e clutching the neck of the male figure. Her features are carved as if from marble and stained e a golden chestnut brown. Part White, part Chereke, part Black Foot, and part Black. Her blood is a hodge I.M. Pei designed building so all patients would have modge, a cocktail where generations of conquest, the a window to look outward (even inside patients!) genetics of conquerers and their conquered, meet and mingle. The lights of passing cars slide down e her figure illuminating full lips, promonent eyes, and My philosophy of life, the way I go about pursuing what her mother would term a hooked “Mangum” knowledge, is to question. I try to question every- nose. As the lights pass further down they play upon thing, whether it be religion, politics, or why I like the rounded melon of her belly. She looks like a snake ice cream. that has swallowed beach ball sized meal twice its own size, and might choke at any moment, is fit to e burst.

e The five of us: Zev, David, Raffi, Michal, and I pulled up to the Palm Beach Hotel and rolled down the win- dows of our rented black Yukon XL. “I don’t believe we have no duties directly to animals; rather, animals this!” Raffi shouted. The luxurious streets of Palm are a sort of medium through which we may either Beach were a long way away from the subway smells succeed or fail to discharge those direct duties we and tall buildings of New York City. Arriving at two owe to nonanimals, other human beings AM the morning before the beginning of the holiday of Sukkot , we had come here with the mission of e helping the New Synagogue of Palm Beach make it through the three-day holiday. * While this one example does not explain all the rea- sons why I am thinking about a future in investment e banking, it does illustrate many of the important with an inflatable polyurethane phallus when she got things about it that I find appealing. her new forehead

e e

Not reading intently, I looked up at the television Most men prefer women who have Drew berrymore only to see Ann Coulter sitting cross-legged in a pat- and Angelina Jolie’s face, height and bust. The impor- terned minidress, tossing her long, blonde hair while tant point is that standard of beauty ahs not changed answering questions for Donny Deutsch. What was for last 60years. Why are men attracted to beautiful she up to this time? women? It looks like a simple question, but it’s hard to answer even though judges are scientists.

12 Th e Bl u e a n d Wh i t e I actually read all the readings assigned, the old ones I’m afraid of water. It’s silly, I know. Terrified. I can’t by accident and then all the new ones, so I’m going to even begin to tell you. I go to sleep at night thinking write about both. of slow, dark ripples way out in the middle of the sea. e My bed becomes a water bed and when I wake up I still feel it moving, flowing like a gradual current Congratulations! You have been selected for final below is pulling me towards something, anything. round interviews with the Investment Banking The more I wake the more I feel a pull like an under- Division of Goldman Sachs Asia in consideration for tow. My husband laughs at me softly now, it’s been so a full-time analyst position! long, I don’t know. Whenever it rains I want to hide, I want the leaves of the plants in my garden to grow e ten feet wide so that I can cover myself from the rain, bury myself, hide somewhere deep inside of my womb Feelings continuously sputter out of range. where it’s warm and safe and secure. Deep inside of me where Seth first learned to swim, to kick, to grow, e to love. I’m afraid of it, yet for some strange reason, I can’t sleep without surrounding myself in it. Late at night, after Derek is asleep I draw myself a bath and First, the pointed to Now is negated as that which has submerge myself in the water. I hold my breath as long been; then the negation itself is negated to “return as I can, some miracle to take me to Seth, to show to the first assertion, that the ‘Now’ is” (63). This me my baby, so that I can play with him for one more double negation leads to the Universal ‘now’, which hour, five minutes, ten seconds, a day, anything but I interestingly involves a process of self-reflection that always rise to the top of the tub exhausted, soaked, mimics Life and Consciousness. For the ‘now’ posits ready for bed. the otherness of the particular ‘now’s which have been, but then supercedes this otherness to bring this e set of particulars back under itself (64). The process is complex and mediated. Lastly, my thoughts on the dynamic between Jason e and Medea. Their interaction greatly reminds me of the book Men Are From Mars, Women are from Venus. ** Vodka: Poland, Mendeleev, the man who brought you periodic table; aqua vitae ** e e Death seems to be waiting for its turn in the game. This painting creates a scene where multiple racial and cultural groups are portrayed together all the e individuals seem to be happy and getting along but that is the fallacy of the work because they seem to Guns are too strong and too fast to avoid. There is no get alone racial and cultural bias still shrouds the time to resolve the misunderstanding and not enough work. Every painting has a different perspective and time to run away. There is no one or nothing that can this painting also seems to propose the continued survive in front of a gun. It is very difficult for victims inequality that existed in the Americas through the to survive, but also attractive for murderers. lack of action because everyone seems happy the art- ist is perpetuating a lie. e

e Hot fluff although seemingly substantial and right, under closer inspection, one finds the loopholes and “What I want to know,” Pam interjects, “is what’s up the pomp intellect with all these boys? I mean, it seems like the girls are doing fine.” Six eyes look at me, Glenda’s twenty-year e old daughter, with quizzical accusation. Gen Y, Gen Why.

No v e m b e r 2007 13 “Pretty Good” Books Why Barnard first-year seminars fall short of greatness. By Ju l i N. We i n e r

haos was my first choice. But it was complete- is an occasion for helping people do something else.” ly full, so instead I was assigned Symmetry But the “Content as Occasion” philosophy—name- Cfor my Barnard First-Year Seminar. My other ly, that worthwhile content is not a necessary com- options included The Art of Being Oneself, The ponent of meaningful discussion—contributes to the Beautiful Sea, The Summons to Adventure, Exploring widespread dissatisfaction with the FYS program. The the Poles, Shapes and Shadows of Identity, The Crisis seminars are a jumble of disorganized syllabi, reluctant of Authority, and The Uncanny, among others. professors, and disillusioned students. Furthermore, First-Year Seminars (FYS) constitute 1/9 of the when it comes to meeting their objective—providing 9 Ways of Knowing—the ridiculous name given to an intellectual foundation outside the rigid strictures Barnard’s not necessarily ridiculous set of distribu- of the canon—many students say they fail. The disap- tion requirements. When FYS began in 1983, it was pointment is particularly acute because these are seen as a liberating counterweight to Columbia’s first-year courses. They should provide the means and phallocentric, Western-philic Core. “It was a reac- the desire for four years of intellectual growth—one of tion to the Core’s list of dead white men,” said David the aims of the 9 Ways of Knowing. Instead they risk Goldfarb, who taught Death—a seminar created years extinguishing any academic curiosity. ago when Barnard was trying to position itself as a Lauren Saltiel, BC ’10, characterized the collec- more intellectual alternative tive disdain as a sentiment directed not at to NYU. specific classes, but at the entire pro- These days, with the gram. “I didn’t really go into the semi- Core loosening its collar, nar thinking it would be this great the most significant way discussion class—it’s just something in which FYS differ from I had to do and didn’t have high their siblings—Literature expectations for.” The lack of Humanities and Contemporary seriousness Civilization—is the role the texts play in pedagogy. Lit Hum and CC, the centerpieces of the Core, require the study of canonical texts with inherent histori- cal, literary or philosophical value, while in the seminar program, the books function as a springboard for discus- sion. “The emphasis is not on what we read,” explained Mindy Aloff, a professor who currently teaches The Art of Being Oneself. “The seminars are to encourage skills in writing, reading, and speaking. The content Illustrated by Zoë Slutzky

14 Th e Bl u e a n d Wh i t e hepomene toi logismoi regarding the construction of FYS and the incoher- of disobedience that went unnoticed by the professor. ence of the syllabi are evident in the administration’s My boyfriend requested that I liveblog him the class. nonchalant attitude toward canonical considerations. What follows is a discussion of a chapter of Borges’ “We like to say: ‘Not Great Books, but pretty good The Death and the Compass captured verbatim on books,’” laughed Robert McCaughey, looking down October 4th, 2006 and archived for posterity on at his anchor-patterned tie. A current professor of The Google Talk: Beautiful Sea, McCaughey was the founding director Professor: “Now that we’ve heard some criticisms, of the FYS program from 1983-1987. Were this same let’s hear some defense of the story.” statement applied to Barnard’s intellectual mission Student 1: “Well I just don’t think it was very well the result would be offensive: Let’s not produce great written.” minds, but pretty good minds. silence During my interview with Lisa Gordis, Director of Student 2: “Um, I have a question. This isn’t so the First-Year Seminar Program, she asked me what much on the subject of symmetry, but this is about how inspired me to write this article. I squirmed in discom- everyone hated the story so much...” fort, unable to make eye contact, and responded that I Professor: “I think that’s a very interesting ques- had taken Symmetry. tion... and one that you should figure out for your- “Oh,” she said. self.” From there on out, the interview was off the Student 1: “Are we just looking at this way too record. closely? Making something out of nothing?” Professor: “Uh, well. I mean, it’s certainly a pos- ymmetry has earned the dubious reputation as a sibility to consider.” Smetonym for the First-Year Seminar program’s Narrow themes like Symmetry would have made failures. Symmetry’s raison d’etre is weak, but it was great one-hour lectures, but not mandatory bi-weekly designed around identifying “symmetries” in litera- discussions for 14 consecutive weeks. “The topic was ture, art and the natural world. The syllabus included interesting for two days, but everything was repeated “The Tyger” by William Blake; Gödel, Escher, Bach a hundred times,” Cyrena Lee, BC ’10, said of her (a tome of propositional calculus and Lewis Carroll, seminar, The Uncanny. “There were a lot of long popular among the computer-programming set); and pauses cushioned with the professor trying to force artist M.C. Escher’s autobiography Escher on Escher. some kind of dialogue, because there was nothing of In the first month of class, the professor drew substance to talk about.” the letters of the alphabet on the board so that we Symmetry, along with several other courses that could draw dashed lines through them, proving their semester, was a residential seminar. Before their geometric symmetry. “I could understand that the freshman year, students apply for seminars and hous- syllabus proposal could pass but I don’t think it was ing simultaneously and if they opt into a residential fair for them to actually hold this First-Year Seminar,” seminar, they’re housed on the same hall, sometimes Sharona Kahn, Symmetry survivor and BC ’10, rea- in the same room, as their classmates. In other words, soned one night in Butler Café. Last year’s First-Year when Symmetry the class ended, Symmetry the life- Dean Hilary Lieberman Link “asked how it was going style had just begun. and I said I think that someone needs to go check on “The experiences with residential seminars are the class because I don’t see how we’re all going to last mixed. A problematic dynamic in the hall can carry the semester.” over into the seminar,” Gordis said. Likewise, a prob- But many of Symmetry’s problems lay beyond lematic dynamic in the classroom can carry over into the scope of the First-Year Seminar Oversight the hall: “Living together perpetuated the fact that Committee’s powers. Discussions were unplanned we all hated Symmetry while we were in it. We would and bordered on the absurd, yet they were legendary. all come back and discuss how much we hated it and Girls kept quote notebooks of nonsensical things said then that would just all build,” recalled Haley Zamer, in class and performed re-enactments of class discus- BC ’10. sions to the delight of the hallway. By the end, laptop Residential seminars are designed to encour- abuse was rampant and to stay awake students would age discussions of the subject material outside the view movie trailers (complete with low volume), an act classroom—though recording the professor’s voice

No v e m b e r 2007 15 hepomene toi logismoi on a MacBook, remixing it with the sounds of thun- already attempted (albeit unsuccessfully) to address der and lightening on GarageBand, and naming the issues of race and gender. The First-Year Seminars song “Yrtemmys” (symmetry backwards) presumably Oversight Committee mandates that all syllabi include doesn’t count. Madeline Langlieb, BC ’10, formerly of at least one woman and one minority. Though Gordis Ethnicity and Social Transformation, laughed when I stresses that these compulsory inclusions on the syl- asked her if the residential seminar fostered the dis- labi are not a quota, they still allow for the possibility cussion of class topics outside the classroom. “Maybe that in a student’s first semester at Barnard, she will we all took the elevator back and forth, but that was only read one text by a woman – and not because it’s pretty much it.” germane, just because it’s mandated. If a syllabus fails Barnard is currently weighing the failures of the to meet the provisions of the non-quota, the Oversight residential seminars against their ideological signifi- Committee will send it back to the professor for cance to the program. “Residential seminars are not revision. “That’s a little rigid,” replied Peggy Aloff, under formal review, but it’s an issue we’re thinking amazed, upon learning of these requirements. about,” Gordis explained. It’s a little saddening that this requirement exists Another major gripe—and disincentive for fac- to mandate one-woman-per-syllabus at a women’s col- ulty—is the pay structure. “Staffing bottleneck is a lege known for cultivating celebrated female authors. huge problem,” said Professor Perry Mehrling of the Many students attend Barnard because of an interest seminar Economics in the New World, referring to in women’s studies, but the current structure of the the difficulty of finding faculty to teach the seminars. seminar program seems not to know its audience. In Though he said that professors are compensated with the case of The Ordinary Estranged, the list reads: an extra $1000 for teaching a seminar, “It’s a lot of Descartes, E.T.A. Hoffman, Dostoevsky, Poe, Henry work,” he emphasized. “Teaching a seminar. $1000— James, Nietzsche, Freud, Kafka, Beckett, Camus, it’s like a tip!” This is about $30 an hour—which is less and Mary Shelley. One of these things is not like the than your average SAT tutor makes. other. “Barnard faculty aren’t given that much incentive While the same criticism can and has been direct- to teach in the program,” agreed David Goldfarb. ed at Columbia’s Core, Barnard is the last place “Actually, when professors find out the differences you’d expect to find women as afterthoughts. “The between Columbia’s program and Barnard’s, they’re seminars were especially lacking in addressing issues livid.” He explained that if Columbia faculty teach of gender,” Sarah Kupferberg, BC ’10, said. “I’m at a the Core for three consecutive semesters, they are women’s college and I just think that I missed out on given a full semester of course release. This reprieve some great literature and some great discussions I allows faculty members to take a break from teaching could have entered into school with.” to focus on their own research. “This is a major thing In the course of researching this piece, all the that Columbia does. They’re spending more money, students and most of the professors interviewed but they’re getting a better product,” Goldfarb contin- had never heard of the “suggested inclusion,” but ued. But Merhling, an economist, believes that some- upon finding out they were equal parts incredu- thing like the Core is a fiscal impossibility at Barnard. lous and horrified. Keondra Prier, BC ’08, is the “I’d say it would be prohibitively expensive to adopt Student Government Association representative to the Columbia model of Lit Hum and CC,” he said. the Committee on Instruction and founding editor of The Proxy, an undergraduate magazine that focuses nother side effect of the “Content as Occasion” on issues concerning the African Diaspora. Of the Aphilosophy—besides allowing for peculiar top- non-quota, Prier responded in disgust, “Everyone ics like The Summons to Adventure to anchor a assumed that was what’s going on!” She laughed in semester-long discussion class—is that the seminars disbelief. “I don’t think any of this is malicious. It’s are inherently ineffective at dealing with issues of honestly just ignorant.” race, ethnicity, class and sexuality. If one of the goals Prier does not reflect on her FYS experience in the creation of the seminars was to provide a more fondly. “I remember when we read Their Eyes Were nuanced look at the canon, it’s certainly not doing any Watching God...We just didn’t have any discussion of better than the Core itself. race and history,” she said. The text was “marginal- Barnard, in its own counter-intuitive way, has ized and wasn’t linked to any of the other texts. It’s

16 Th e Bl u e a n d Wh i t e hepomene toi logismoi like, ‘Oh, let’s have a Harlem Renaissance section and she said. (As of November 7th, Choi joined a hand- not weave any theme between them.’” Prier said that ful of other students in a hunger strike against the when it comes to the “ethnic texts” many professors University.) turn to the one or two students of color in the room But, because of the non-quota, in many instanc- as primary sources, leaving them feeling tokenized. es it’s impossible not to marginalize certain texts. “Students of color feel like teachers will turn to them Professor Mehrling said that when he first submitted and expect them to be knowledgeable about issues his syllabus, it was sent back. “It needed to include concerning their heritage.” In some cases, there’s no one woman, one minority and one book before 1900,” opportunity to be tokenized as not a single “ethnic he said. To put different economists’ theories in con- text” exists (refer back to the syllabus of The Ordinary text, Mehrling planned to include biographies. The Estranged—that’s a pretty white crew). Committee told him no biographies—they didn’t have Aretha Choi, a sophomore who took Chaos as enough literary qualities and he had to include nov- her FYS, voiced nearly identical complaints about els that he said he’d never read before, such as one the nature of Asian American literature chosen for by Edith Wharton. “I was told there was too much the class. “The fact that the professor selected some economics,” he said. The Committee told him to add ancient Korean princess story bothers me,” she said. Henry George and Thorsten Veblen. “That pissed me “Even modern day Koreans wouldn’t read that as what off,” Mehrling said. “I didn’t want to do this in the Korean literature is.” Choi said she was frustrated with first place.” her professor’s tendency to reduce Asian American lit- He shrugged and reached for his computer. “Here,” erature to an example of minority thought, rather than he said, pointing at his computer screen. “It’s on the reading it as literature. “Asian American writers are Wiki.” He twirled the screen around to show me a not studied as writers and the whole genre shouldn’t be password-protected Barnard FYS Wikipedia page. limited to discussion about “There’s a Wiki?!” I exclaimed, inching to get a their troubles as Asian better look at the computer. A m e r i c a n s ,” he faculty’s password-pro- Ttected Wiki page includes guidelines for constructing a syllabus, examples of suc- cessful past syllabi, and information about the aims of the First-Year Seminar pro- gram. It also contains

No v e m b e r 2007 17 hepomene toi logismoi archived minutes from what Gordis described as others. It’s also a required course for all first-years at “monthly pedagogy meetings.” A quick Google search the University of Texas. But there is a healthy amount for “Barnard First-Year Seminar Wiki” pulls up notes of skepticism about the philosophy and intellectual from one such meeting—apparently they forgot to value of Reacting to the Past. “Oh I hate it.” Goldfarb password protect all of it. “Science students can’t shook his head. “Carnes tried to rope me into that, deal with critique, humanities students can’t deal with too. It seems like a gimmick. It substitutes emotions empiricism,” read the meeting notes for February 21st, for an intellectual approach. It’s like Physics for Poets, 2007. It gets better: the minutes provided insight but for people who don’t want to become intellectu- into the observed differences between Barnard and als. But Barnard likes the recognition and the grant Columbia students, calling Columbia students “more money from the Department of Education for innova- adversarial.” The notes also indicated that there were tive pedagogy.” only five people present at the meeting (including Seminar reform seems inevitable, but it’s com- Gordis), out of approximately 20 who were, in theory, plicated by the need to balance the flexibility of the required to be there. 9 Ways of Knowing with the reality that Barnard “It seems to me that the pedagogy meetings are not students share classes with canon-versed Columbia covering new material,” said FYS instructor Patricia students. “The Core is irreplaceable,” Stokes stated. Stokes. Mehrling also recognized problems within the “There’s a common body of knowledge, of discourse, design of the Oversight Committee and its meetings. I can assume that’s there in Columbia students. I just The Oversight Committee “believes in the program, have to make the assumption that Barnard students so its continuity is guaranteed. It’s just made up of are picking it up from somewhere.” The Core’s intel- previous heads of the program. They don’t meet very lectual rigor only underscores the vapidity of many often, and it’s a slow-moving body, so it’s not going to of the seminar topics; while CCers across the street change very much.” move from Freud to Foucault, students in the Chaos One radical reform to FYS occurred when Barnard seminar progress from Jurassic Park (the novel) to professor Mark Carnes invented a class called Reacting Jurassic Park (the movie). “I would really like Barnard to the Past. In this seminar, each class session corre- to have a Core,” Stokes said. She paused, and then sponds to a historical event (e.g. the trial of Socrates) laughed, “Oh, God don’t get me in trouble!” and students are assigned to take on the roles of Barnard students are also pressuring the adminis- historical figures within a debate. Stokes teaches a tration to look critically at the 9 Ways of Knowing— Reacting class and the structure of the loves the non-tra- general distribution ditional approach. requirements has “It’s so difficult to been up for review put yourself in the for about a year. SGA place of another President Laura person. It’s hard to Stoffel spoke about drop out of thinking the current re-evalu- about who you would ation of the Barnard be in terms of who requirements. “SGA you are in the 20th is trying to under- century.” stand how students The course is feel about the 9 catching on across Ways of Knowing. the nation—the Students feel like the Reacting to the Past Barnard curriculum Consortium includes isn’t dealing with Smith, Trinity, certain issues.” the University of Jill (a pseud- Georgia, and Drake onym, as she is cur- University, among rently taking the

18 Th e Bl u e a n d Wh i t e hepomene toi logismoi

Technology and Society seminar) is one such student. junior professor’s third year, department heads review “I like the 9 Ways of Knowing because it gives me aca- the evaluation comments and numerical ratings as demic freedom. It’s the best way to have a curriculum. part of the tenure process. I think it’s a good program, with good structuring, but Small steps forward like the arguable success of I would take the seminar out of there. It’s all torture— Reacting to the Past and the alleged “re-thinking” it’s not a hard class, I just get nothing out of it.” of residential seminars have had little effect on the Existing problems with seminar reform are exacer- air of static hopelessness that surrounds discussions bated by first-years’ reticence to speak up. One might about the program. “I have to take this class, I’m not even say they’re not being “adversarial.” going to spend time talking to the professor about “The main issue is that with- something I can’t get out of or in the administration, there’s change,” Jill rationalized. But no idea that anything’s wrong. the SGA is furiously trying to First-years don’t know who to “Don’t pay attention to cultivate open dialogue and the talk to, and they don’t even know potential for reform—especially what the standard level of a class the First-Year Seminars. in light of the hunger strike and at Barnard is like—this might be And don’t let them recent spurt of bias incidents at the norm. But it’s when you’re a Columbia. Now would be a good junior or senior that you realize, scare you off of Barnard time to talk to the SGA or write wow, I was really slighted,” Prier English classes.” to the provost if you’re unhappy,” said. Prier said. While comparisons “I don’t even know who the with the Core give FYS the aura seminar director is, and even if of tradition and permanence, the I did, I wouldn’t have gone and complained because I program is a young one and its flexibility may be key was a freshman and scared and naïve to the process,” to saving it from itself. Prier is convinced of this: Madeline Langlieb, BC ’10, said. “It hasn’t been around for that long and it can be There’s also no understanding of the responsive- changed.” ness (or unresponsiveness) of Barnard’s bureaucra- The seminars’ shortcomings go beyond fodder cy. The reticence of the first-years to talk to the for Barnard jokes—they risk engendering a culture administration has created an environment within of academic mediocrity. Problems run the gamut the Oversight Committee of reinforced ignorance. from monetary concerns to reluctant participants “It’s hard to imagine 38 seminars without a single to deranged topics, and neither students nor faculty complaint, but no students have come to see me to seem to understand the program’s mission. It’s the complain about their seminars,” Gordis admitted. blind leading the blind for two hours a week. “Basically the seminars are a joke and everyone The transition from a fresh-faced first-year to a knows this and the freshman are told this,” Choi said. jaded upper classman is a natural one, but a bad (She is especially aware of what first-years are and first experience unfairly accelerates the process. The aren’t told: she was an Orientation Leader last year). seminars have a particularly strong ability to shape As a first-year, Lindsay Griffith, BC ’10, was told by an the way a student looks at Barnard’s curriculum in its older student: “Don’t pay attention to the First-Year entirety. It’s a credit to the Barnard woman’s mental Seminars. And don’t let them scare you off of Barnard fortitude if she emerges without transfer applications English classes. Your other classes will be so much in hand, and her ABCs intact (those letters are, inci- better.” dentally, symmetrical). Ironically, the students’ disenchantment with the “The First-Year Seminar is the first thing you seminars is precisely what the program was designed take at Barnard, and it shouldn’t be mediocre at all,” to prevent. According to Professor McCaughey, the Griffith sighed. In asking students to recount their seminars were the first program at Barnard with travails, the stories told are entertaining, even enjoy- course evaluation forms. “The program is designed able. But the humor may be a defense mechanism—a to be especially alert to problems,” McCaughey said. reclamation of a lost semester. After four years and But Mehrling said that the course evaluation forms $200,000, stories of Symmetry and Chaos aren’t that are currently used for promotion decisions. During a funny anymore. w

No v e m b e r 2007 19 On the Street Where You Live

Th e Bl u e a n d Wh i t e walks the length of Broadway. By Ha n n ah Go l d f i e l d

he average New Yorker experiences Manhattan Field, heralding the Homecoming football game. Tin pieces—a neighborhood here, an avenue Not much is going on: stands selling Columbia there. But what would it be like to swallow the city merchandise, people milling around, but no sign of whole? I decided to find out by walking the length of the mobbed 9 a.m. tailgate you’d find at the Harvard- Broadway—the only street that runs from tip to tip—in Yale game. We snag some free snacks before return- a single day. ing to Broadway. About a week after I’d completed my sojourn, I Over the next half an hour, we make our way got an e-mail from a friend. “Did you find yourself through the rest of the 200s, past dozens of auto on Broadway?” he wrote, “Or did you find that when repair shops, paint and office supply stores, and you assess a street in its entirety, it tends to be kind of a smattering of Irish pubs. It doesn’t feel like ugly and unremarkable?” Manhattan, especially since most of the signs The answer to both questions is no. What I found include the word “Riverdale,” suggesting the Bronx. was a narrow slice of city life, both literally and Residential gentrification—dare I say it—is apparent figuratively. What I found is that this enormous, in the occasional Pilates studio and organic neigh- complex organism we call New York simply cannot be borhood restaurant. engulfed in one gulp. At around 207th, we stop into Pic-A-Pet pet store, Because of archaic zoning, Marble Hill, though intrigued by an elaborate window display of pet technically part of the landmass of the Bronx, is supplies and—inexplicably—cacti. Owner Anthony officially considered a neighborhood of Manhattan. Madonna, an Inwood native, tells us he’s been in At around 10:20 a.m., my companion Ashby and I business for 45 years. He used to have two stores, start here, getting off the 1 at 225th Street. Marble but one of them went under after 9/11, when for- Hill Broadway is very, very quiet at this hour, mer downtown residents fled North—way north— lightly trafficked and lined with a smattering of doubling his rent. “New York’s gonna be one big small shops that seem demure compared to the mall,” he sighs. huge Target looming just off Broadway to the East. And yet as we continue, Inwood feels more and Within minutes, we are crossing the Harlem River. more idyllic. With the sun on our backs and a From the east a flock of long, slender boats sweeps breeze rustling through the trees, we fall into a sort around the curve of the river, a single motorboat of drowsy lull, so dazed that we nearly miss one of playing sheepdog: the Columbia Rowing team! As the historical landmarks we’ve been most eagerly they glide out of sight beneath us, we continue on anticipating. Luckily, I happen to glance over my to Inwood. shoulder as we begin to cross 204th Street and By 10:30, Columbia confronts us yet again. It is I’m jolted back to earth by the site of an extreme impossible to ignore the huge bunches of blue and rarity in Manhattan: a free-standing house. The white balloons tied all along the fence that leads Dyckman Farmhouse is Manhattan’s last Dutch down 218th Street towards the entrance of Baker colonial, built circa 1784 and donated to and

20 Th e Bl u e a n d Wh i t e Promenade restored by the city in 1916, after which point it flanks Broadway on both sides. But by the time became a museum. Step inside and you’ll really for- we reach the 140s, the charm has started to wear get you’re in Manhattan, let alone the 21st century. off. As we near Harlem, we pass more and more The tiny formal garden, nestled in the backyard and chains and generic clothing stores. We cross 125th boasting 1,600 plant varieties, has all the qualities Street just before 3p.m. and the divide is palpable— of an oasis. stately Columbia is the Romanesque figurehead on The neighborhood’s the ship that is the rest of complexion changes as Manhattan. restaurants, nail salons, The letters on the marquee We’re tired and start- and barbershops (some- ing to get a little cranky. times as many as four of declare that everyone is At around 91st Street, we each on one block) owned pledge to survey the island by recent immigrants welcome, but we don’t make it in another way—by talking take over in the 190s, past the front lobby, thanks to people. and we begin to over- At 76th Street we find hear snatches of Spanish to a Gestapo-like security guard the perfect opportunity. conversation. At 181st who refuses to explain why Like many on the Upper Street, our progress into West Side, this block Washington Heights is we are denied entry. boasts an abundance slowed by tables of cheap of street vendors hawk- jewelry, toys, sunglasses, ing books, records, cats and fruits and vegetables (technically for adoption, clogging the sidewalk. not sale) and what some call art. One of them, It’s now about 1 PM—time for lunch. After refu- Ionel Talpazan, stands behind a table covered in eling on rotisserie chicken, rice, peas, and mango his paintings and drawings—and photographs of shakes at bustling Dominican-diner El Malecón, his paintings and drawings—of UFOs.Mr. Talpazan we cross the street to the historic United Place is wearing a fraying trench coat and oversized Theater. One of the most majestic New York movie bifocals. He is missing several teeth and most houses of the early 20th century, the former Loew’s of his hair. Jumpy and hostile, he refuses, in a 175th is most commonly known as the Reverend thick, unidentifiable accent, to be photographed or Ike Theater, after the popular African-American answer any of our questions—referring us instead evangelist who has been preaching there since he to a worn copy of a magazine called Raw Vision, bought it in 1969. Lately, it has also showcased in which he is profiled—until Ashby forks over $15 such musical acts as Bjork and Bloc Party. The for a photograph of three of his UFO renderings. letters on the marquee declare that everyone is From the article and the few reluctant sentences he welcome, but we don’t make it past the front lobby, offers after we pay him, we gather that he is from thanks to a Gestapo-like security guard who refus- Romania, that he sees UFOs, and that one of his es to explain why we are denied entry. paintings is actually on display at the American It’s not long before we hit more Columbia real Folk Art Museum. estate: the 168th Street Medical Complex. Fresh- At a table exactly ten blocks down, signs advertis- faced medical school students in scrubs bustle past ing “Free Advice” and “Free Dream Interpretation” us for the next few blocks. We pass a Starbucks are nestled among Arthur Robins’ collection of oil with a “Grand Opening” sign and are shocked to paintings (which have titles like “Sleazy Hotel” and realize that it’s the first we’ve seen on Broadway. “Neighborhood Billiards”). I wait while Robins clos- Ashby points out a low, gilded building on the cor- es a sale—he assures a giggling middle aged woman, ner of 165th Street: 3940 Broadway, the Audubon “You will never get sick of my art,”—before I take Ballroom and the site of Malcom X’s assassination him up on his offer for free prophesy. He’s wearing a in 1965. cracked leather jacket and a tie-dyed cotton skull cap Serenity overtakes us again at 155th, where the pic- and tells me that God taught him to interpret dreams. turesque Trinity Church Cemetery and Mausoleum He agrees to interpret mine, staring off intently as I

No v e m b e r 2007 21 Promenade describe the most vivid one I can remember. He through but Ashby insists we stop at the Marriot accuses me of leaving something out and asks me to Marquis and ride the elevator. repeat it. I do, embellishing a few details, and then The hotel is built around a cavernous atrium, at he says, “I’ll be back in 20 seconds,” walks over to a the center of which is an enormous elevator shaft folding chair and tiny table behind his art stand, and with little glass space pod elevators zooming up sits down with head between his knees. and down its exterior. Balconies run the length of When he comes back, each floor, lit by dim, his watery blue eyes gaze glowing sconces, add- deeply into mine as he It’s getting darker and we’re ing to the bizarre futur- delivers his muddled anal- starting to feel a sense of ur- istic effect. We hop into ysis, repeating the words a pod and ride it up and God and love enough to gency. Times Square is mobbed then down again. The make me question the by the time we reach it at speed leaves me feeling potency of both. When weightless and dizzy, he’s finished, I thank him about 6:30. I want to barrel on and this, compounded and start to make my exit. with the view, literally “What do you do?” he through but Ashby insists we takes my breath away. asks me. stop at the Marriot Marquis and Back on the street, it “I’m a student.” feels like we’ve just “What are you study- ride the elevator. stepped out of an alter- ing?” nate universe. “Evolution.” We pick up our pace Whoops. and forge ahead, past Macy’s at 34th Street, which “Evolution?! Let me tell you something. There looks strangely foreboding and mysterious in the are zero pieces of evidence to support evolution, and dark. It is 7:38 by the time we reach Union Square, hundreds to support creationism. I’m going to give and the outdoor market is about to close. At 8th you just one. Scientists—scientists!—have proven that Street I make my first and only celebrity sighting— animals need plants to live, and plants need animals. but she’s so obscure I don’t know her name. I So there’s no way one could have lived for thousands know I’ve seen her in something, but this could be of years before the other. It’s fact. I used to believe in just because she’s middle aged and looks vaguely evolution. But it’s fact.” British, her warm, round face framed by soft blonde “That’s an interesting perspective,” I suggest. hair. “Oh no, it’s not a perspective—it’s the truth.” By 8:15 we’ve hit Soho and by 9:00 we’re cross- I smile and make a point of walking away. As we ing Canal and ready for dinner. We stop at a depart, Ashby points out the bumper sticker on his Chinese restaurant just off Broadway on Walker car, parked behind his table. It reads, “Jesus would Street and feast on scallion pancakes, sesame never tailgate.” chicken, and rice noodles with fish cakes. Sated The sun is setting as we make our way around and revived, we’re ready for the last leg of our Columbus Circle. Just past it, we encounter a couple journey. dressed entirely in crochet, right down to their bicy- By this point, pedestrians are scarce. We see cle seats, on one of which sits a large fluffy white cat. nary a soul until White Street, where people are As I’m getting ready to take a picture, I notice some- bustling about on an elaborate film set just west thing else: a sign charging for photos. I roll my eyes of Broadway. I stop to ask what they’re filming and and lower my camera. “Take a picture!” the woman the man guarding the orange cones looks at me shouts as we pass. Smoke from the sticks of incense disdainfully and replies, “Something small and shoved into her bike spokes twists through the air. independent.” “Come and pet my pussy!” A few minutes later we’ve reached 290 Broadway. It’s getting darker and we’re starting to feel a Just steps to the east of this federal office building sense of urgency. Times Square is mobbed by the lies the oldest known African cemetery in urban time we reach it at about 6:30. I want to barrel on America, once called the Negro Burial Ground. It

22 Th e Bl u e a n d Wh i t e Promenade was nearly excavated in the early 1990s when the are alone on the subway platform except for a man building went into construction, but a group of in a tuxedo. When the train arrives he chooses a concerned citizens managed to enact a federal law different car than we do but then, just as the doors that not only stopped the excavation but also allo- are closing, dashes onto ours. It is fate. He sits down cated three million dollars for on-site reburial and directly across from us. As the train pulls away, I turn a memorial. At night, the cemetery is particularly to Ashby and sigh. “I never want to stand up again.” haunting. The man in the tuxedo looks up and smiles, curious. Down here, at the business end of Manhattan, “What’d you guys just do, walk the length of everything is closed and there’s no sign of life Manhattan?” w beyond the occasional night watch- man. When a stretch Escalade slows beside us, we start to fear for our lives. But the driver just wants directions, and when we can’t help him, he speeds away angrily and pulls a dangerous looking U-turn. We’ve hit 26 Broadway, which appears to be a hotspot for niche muse- ums. Home now to the Museum of American Financial History, a ban- ner announces “Sports Museum of America coming soon! 2008.” We are tantalizingly close to the end of our trek and elated to find ourselves in front of 2 Broadway. We rush toward the dimly glowing storefront that we think must be One. What could be at One Broadway? What treasures could it hold? Apparently: tortilla chips and guacamole. It’s a Chipotle. One Broadway is a Chipotle. Luckily, when we look up at the street sign, we realize that we have veered off Broadway and are now on Whitehall Street. We hadn’t realized that Broadway forks at its very end, divided in two by Bowling Green. We race back and cross Bowling Green, past the majestic steps of the Museum of the American Indian, and there it is: over twelve hours after we embarked at 225th Street, and we are standing in front of Number One Broadway. It’s nothing more than an office building, but it’s a beautiful, old office building, and it’s certainly not serving fast food. Our odyssey is over. Exhausted, a little sick of each other, and yet glowing with triumph, we make our way to South

Ferry to catch the 1 back uptown. We Illustration by Zoë Slutzky

No v e m b e r 2007 23 Apocalypse Soon Columbia’s secret plan to save us all from bird flu. By Ar m i n Ro s e n

olumbia epidemiologist Steven Morse can’t followed suit: about a year later, Associate Dean Csay for certain, but he expects the pandemic for Health Affairs Dr. Robert Lewy assembled a will start in Asia. Pandemic germs have historically Pandemic Preparedness Working Group, which has kicked off their destructive world tours from there, developed a campus plan for the worst event in human although scientists haven’t figured out why. In fact, history. The group, which Lewy says exists to prepare Morse told me, there’s a lot about pandemic flu that for “any type of biological epidemic,” consists of six science can’t explain or predict. But in a worst-case doctors and associate deans, including Morse and Dr. scenario, once a single infected individual boarded Samuel Seward, head of Health Services. a plane to a major over- While Lewy described seas population center, preparing for a pandemic it would already be too as just “good organi- late. zational planning,” “It’ll move fairly he acknowledged that quickly through the fears about H5N1 partly entire country and prob- inspired the group’s cre- ably the entire world,” ation. “There was a lot of Morse hypothesizes in information about a year a clinically calm voice or so ago about a potential that hardly suggests the pandemic, bird flu, and a chaos he is contemplat- short supply of influenza ing. “It’s not a matter of if vaccine,” he said, refer- the pandemic will come,” ring to the flurry of warn- he added, as an after- ings from scientists and thought. “It’s when.” journalists that bird flu The germ in this sce- could turn into a major nario doesn’t have to killer—including Foreign be H5N1, the pathogen Policy magazine’s pre- popularly referred to as diction that a pandemic avian influenza, or simply could kill close to a bil- “bird flu.” It is believed lion people. to be an efficient killer: “The CDC and many contagious at close range, of the other organiza- but also consistently vicious in places that are thou- tions were recommending that institutions pre- sands of miles apart. pare a plan in advance, so we took the initiative,” America, presumably, is ready. In November of Lewy said. Other schools have done the same: a 2005, Congress approved a comprehensive, $7.1 respected bio-defense journal recently published billion pandemic preparedness package. Columbia a survey of preparedness plans for schools in the Illustration by Julia Butareva 24 Th e Bl u e a n d Wh i t e book of revelation

Philadelphia area, and Dartmouth epidemiolo- through the Columbia homepage is by directly typ- gist Michael Blayney has helped design a plan for ing the words “pandemic flu” into the search field. his school based on a 90-day pandemic scenario. Sociomedical Sciences professor James Colgrove Dartmouth’s isolated location has led Blayney to suggests that this is the right tack for public health orient his plan around “continuity of operations.” officials planning for a pandemic: “If you react Blayney speculates that worker absenteeism and too aggressively and nothing happens, you lose disrupted supply lines could require Dartmouth the public trust,” he explains. But, he adds, over- to conserve electricity and sustenance by “taking reaction is a sign of responsibility for doctors—for some buildings offline” and stockpiling about two example, in the 1970s, it appeared that swine flu weeks worth of food. would turn into a rampant killer. It never did, and At Columbia, the working group’s plans are based much of the hysteria surrounding that flu (which on a broad hypothetical: “We say: let’s imagine a included a costly inoculation program) had been situation where a student is infected with a pandemic based on a few crucial scientific miscalculations. strain,” Seward explained. “What do we do about Colgrove insists that the public health community that?” In brief, the answer is to send healthy students was right to play it safe. “It’s always easy to second home and try to care for whoever is left behind, guess,” he says. “But what would you do if you were a strategy detailed in the group’s not-yet-finalized the head of the CDC and the health of the nation report. In the interest of concision, the latest draft of depended on you?” the Pandemic Response Plan is only 19 pages. While The group’s discretion suggests it is sensitive to some internet message boards are abuzz with discus- this kind of dilemma. But its anonymity undercuts sion of what a street full of dead bodies might smell the dangerous position many Columbians would find like, the report owes more to Greek tragedy than it themselves in if a pandemic struck. While students does to George Romero, and its sterile, Strangelovian from the East Coast would be able to get home as language appeals to the darkest corners of its read- soon as the first wave canceled classes, a good num- ers’ imaginations. ber of Midwestern, West Coast and international During “Stage I”—human to human transmission students would be stranded on campus. outside the U.S.—the University Provost is to “develop With transportation disrupted and killer flu policy for suspension of classes and sporting events,” on the loose, Morse says that marooned students while the Department of Environmental Health and would be confined to sparsely populated floors Radiation Safety would “inventory, order and stock- where social contact would be kept to a minimum. pile personal protection equipment.” Once the pan- These Columbians would be in for some lonely, scary demic reaches North America, Public Relations is to months, spent on half-empty floors in Carman or prepare a press release in case a Columbia student John Jay. “This isn’t a prison situation,” Morse says. becomes infected. Students, faculty and staff are Even so, the committee isn’t too keen on students advised to check “influenza updates at least daily.” venturing off campus or even into any moderately- And finally, when the time is nigh, a team of “Incident sized gatherings of people—while the preparedness Commanders” representing Public Safety, Health plan allows faculty to continue at least some campus- Services and various other departments will activate based research projects during the pandemic, the the third and final stage of the pandemic response lunch rush at Ferris Booth would be put on hold. plan. They will order Public Safety to “protect quar- “We’ll try to keep people at low density,” said Morse. antine and isolation areas,” and begin staffing des- “Food will be brought to them.” ignated “social isolation floors” for students who The working group has the strange responsibil- are unable to make it home during the pandemic’s ity of imagining a situation that is horrifying and assumedly panicked first days. Morse says that the abstract, yet one informed by legitimate precedent. average pandemic “wave” lasts about two months. In The 20th century saw three pandemics. The worst of a bad wave, Columbia would be in Stage III for a very them, which killed over 50 million people worldwide long time. in 1918, infected several hundred Columbia students The working group has been operating mostly and killed two. According to Blayney, whose voice under the radar. Although Public Safety links to is split between professional detachment and real the group’s webpage, the only way to get to it concern, the “Spanish Flu” claimed between 15 and

No v e m b e r 2007 25 book of revelation

18 Dartmouth students and a couple of faculty mem- Kamen says he overcame as soon as he started bers. If anything, 1918 proves that flu preparedness imagining friends and family members struggling is essential work. through days and weeks without food and basic While Morse and Blayney are preparing for a resources. “I know that there will be a pandemic pandemic of 1918-proportions, they stress that a flu at some point in my lifetime,” he said. The only “worst case scenario” approach does not reflect thing that scares him is the possibility that we scientific certainty. But Justin Kamen, CC ’08, won’t be prepared. His fears have rubbed off on at is prepping for a civilization-buster. For the past least a few people: about a half dozen like-minded year, pandemic flu has been friends are helping him launch an obsession of his, and he is www.StudentsPrepAmerica. starting a website to raise stu- org later this year. dent awareness. Kamen’s knowledge Morse, on the other hand, is Kamen’s knowledge of flu of flu borders on set against any preemptive hys- borders on the encyclopedic, teria. “We’re saving the website probably because his expecta- the encyclopedic, for the big one,” he said, in ref- tions border on the apocalyp- probably because his erence to the pandemic com- tic. Ever since his father began mittee’s grey-toned, Columbia- encouraging his family to devel- expectations border on hosted webpage. op their own preparedness plan, For Seward, the terrorist Kamen has been reading up on the apocalyptic. attacks of September 11, 2001 the possibility of pandemic flu, are a reminder of just how dan- and hasn’t found much comfort. gerous it can be to discount “You have to construct a logical argument that goes near-unimaginable possibilities. “Bad things do hap- against your psychological tendency to discount pen,” he said. “9/11 was time when a lot was thrown scary things,” he said, and for him, logic indicates into question. It’s like a fire alarm.” To Seward, that the worst pandemic in human history is on its a world in which the World Trade Center can be way. brought down by terrorists is one in which the worst He rattles off stats and facts about bird death of natural disasters have to be considered a serious in Indonesia, human-to-human transmission in possibility. Vietnam, warnings from major public health figures, But how serious? Colgrove says that it probably and H5N1’s increasing resistance to treatment. The doesn’t matter very much. “The big question is: typically easygoing Political Science major never how do you proceed in the face of uncertainty and comes off as having lost his grip, but rather as some- insufficient evidence?” When asked about their one who badly wants you, and everyone else living in personal safety measures, the doctors involved with ignorance of the coming pandemic, to believe him. flu preparedness gave pretty similar responses. He immediately dismissed a Swedish and Vietnamese Seward said he has some “basic supplies stored up, study estimating a death rate of less than one percent. and some cash set aside” for a pandemic. Blayney “I haven’t heard anything about that,” he said, before is glad to have a generator attached to his home launching into another litany of pessimistic news and in New England, and has his own plan in case of figures. a pandemic. Morse, however, regrets the spatial Most of Kamen’s information comes from the PFI limitations of his New York apartment, which make forum, an online message board where about 600 it less than pandemic-ready: no room to stockpile people fixated on pandemic flu share everything food or supplies. from articles to pandemic fan fiction. The board Of course none of this means that a pandemic will is a place for esoteric, compulsively well-informed hit tomorrow, and the flu planners’ hypercautious discussion, and while epidemiologists apply a sci- approach makes grim demands of the imagination. entific skepticism to pandemic preparation, the But convincing the world that they’re not just para- posters harbor an almost religious trust in the noid—that they might save us from The Big One—is virus’s ability to kill millions of people. Believing part of their job. otherwise is denial—an “adjustment reaction” that Says Blayney, “I’m not some crazy yahoo.” w

26 Th e Bl u e a n d Wh i t e advertisement

Art Communication Systems

Prints Th e Bl u e a n d Wh i t e !

Quality Printing and Quality Service

1340 North 17th Street Sponsored [in part] by the Harrisburg, PA 17103 Arts Initiative at Columbia University. This funding is made possible through a gener- 717-232-0144 ous gift from David and Susie Sainsbury.

Advertise in Th e Bl u e a n d Wh i t e Email: [email protected]

No v e m b e r 2007 27 En Pointe Barnard’s dance department embraces the avant-garde. By Ka t e Li n t h i c u m

n a muggy late September afternoon, Mary York’s avant-garde dance world. The shift has OCochran gave her students a set of vague been more than just symbolic. Two years ago, instructions. She asked the women, who stood in Cochran moved Barnard’s annual fall performanc- pairs among the ballet barres in a Barnard dance es, which for decades had been held at Columbia’s studio, to control their partners’ movements with- Miller Theater, to the Dance Theater Workshop in out using their hands. The movement should be Chelsea. light and airy, she said, more about the skin than The partnership with DTW has given lesser- the bone. known, non-traditional choreographers a chance “I want to see just skin against skin,” she told to direct Columbia dancers. Barnard’s hasty turn them. toward this “downtown aesthetic” has raised eye- Cochran turned on some warbling Cambodian brows on campus and in the dance world, but it has music, and they began. also won over critics—a One pair of dancers started by resting their wrists New York Times review lightly together. Slowly and with great flourish, they of the first Barnard per- used this delicate point of contact to push and pull formance at DTW in their connected arms back and forth. Soon they softly crumpled, and one used her toes to urge the other gently across the floor. They danced like this, intimate and odd, for several minutes. Outside, a light rain began to fall. When Cochran finally stopped them, she had a big smile on her small face. “Beautiful,” she told them, nod- ding with approval. “That was gorgeous.” In the three and a half years that she has been the direc- tor of the Barnard dance department, Cochran has put an increased empha- sis on experimentation. This weekly improvisa- tion class is part of a larger scheme to edge the program closer to the center of New Illustrated by Jenny Lam

28 Th e Bl u e a n d Wh i t e hepomene toi logismoi

2005 praised the program’s “intriguingly different company, said this while seated on the steps in the look.” shadow of Low Library. With elegant, but reserved Barnard, which is the only dance department on gestures, she explained that some ballerinas think Colunbia’s campus, has long been the lone Ivy to they’re being edged out of the department, espe- offer a dance major, and each year, about 15 students cially when it comes to performances. “There are major or double major in dance. The department amazing ballet teachers and ballet technique classes, was formally established in 1987, but the school has but there are no ballet performances, and there had a reputation for turning out talented dancers, haven’t been for two years,” she said. “I definitely choreographers and critics since the 1950s, when think that fewer professional ballet people will come dance was offered through the physical education here now.” department. Modern master Walker said she felt forced Twyla Tharp, Barnard’s most to take matters into her own renowned dance star, gradu- hands. She and several friends ated in 1963. “You’re never just a formed the Columbia Ballet Its extensive modern and Collaborative, a student-run ballet offerings, combined with dancer, you’re never group that will offer ballet its location in the center of the just a little worker bee dancers a chance to practice dance world, makes Barnard and perform on campus. The appealing to serious dancers doing steps on stage. University recognizes more than who also want a liberal arts edu- You’re an artist.” a dozen dance clubs on campus— cation. Each semester, students including a hip-hop troupe and a can choose from six levels of ballroom team—but CBC will be both modern and ballet tech- the first ballet-oriented group. nique as well as classes in African dance, classical CBC is awaiting recognition and funding from the Indian, flamenco, jazz and tap—a selection compa- Activities Board at Columbia, but Walker said dozens rable to that of a conservatory. of students have already expressed interest. Many of the roughly 2,500 students who take Traditional dance, Walker argues, deserves a big- dance classes at Barnard each week don’t want to ger place in Columbia culture, “Ballet is not terribly work in the dance world when they graduate. For relevant on this campus, which I think it tremen- those who do, the two performances that Barnard dously sad,” she said. “We’re taught the core cur- puts on each year are incredibly important. Hopeful riculum, and ballet is one of the high forms of western students must go through a rigorous audition pro- culture.” cess, and they spend so many hours preparing the dance that the school gives them studio credit (which igh Modern authoritarianism,” Mary Cochran is required for majors). “Hsaid sharply. “That’s what I’m seeking to The department’s former director, Janet Soares, avoid.” She was seated in her snug office in Barnard typically presented modern and ballet programs Annex, a small building behind Barnard Hall. The heavy on the classics, often directed by established office was filled with the sorts of things you’d expect choreographers. With Cochran in charge, that’s all a well-regarded professional dancer to have: a con- changed. Of the 16 or so choreographers whom tainer of “optimal health and beauty” dietary supple- Barnard has featured since she took over, only two ments, a bottle of Chanel No. 5, and a huge poster of have put the dancers in point shoes. an October 1995 issue of Dance Magazine. Cochran While some students have embraced the exper- is the dancer on the cover. imental, performance-art style that characterizes Cochran is quite small, but her steady energy and DTW choreography, others feel left out. unruly red-brown curls give her a large, spunky pres- “What’s going on with modern is great,” said ence. Her body is never in repose; everything she said Lydia Walker, a professional ballet dancer and part- or thinks is reflected in her movements. When she’s time General Studies student. “I just think that asked a question, she sinks back to absorb it. When something else is missing.” Walker, who toured she answers, she seems propelled forward by the force the country for years with Suzanne Farrell’s ballet of what she’s saying.

No v e m b e r 2007 29 hepomene toi logismoi

From 1984-1996, Cochran was a celebrated solo- DTW. The piece is currently nameless; Loulaki ist in the Paul Taylor Dance Company. She has con- said she and the class are working together to title tinued to work for Taylor over the years—restaging it. The students have had a similar role in shaping his master works and directing his second company— the artistic direction of the dance. “I don’t even see but has branched out to make her own art. These them as my students, I see them as my choreogra- days Cochran is primarily concerned with expanding phers and we’re working together,” Loulaki said. notions of beauty in performance. With the help of “It’s my work, but I’m interested in having their choreographer Sara Hook, she’s performing pieces voices there, too.” that are about aging, about ugliness and about anxi- When asked how she would classify her work and ety. “People have this idea that dance is supposed to contemporary dance as a whole, Loulaki bristled. be beautiful,” she laughed. She is more interested in getting at the root of dance The most exciting work today is being made out- than exploring its semantics. “I think we’re going to side of the “narrowness of conservatory training,” a period where a bunch of us are investigating what Cochran said. “Conservatories are authoritarian, is the essence of dance,” she said. “People are really they’re trying to create a specific product. [Barnard] pushing the envelope.” She said she hopes her work is anti-authoritarian. Courage, questioning, depth, at Barnard will help open some eyes. “There are a refusing to let yourself be defined by someone else, lot of different ways to approach making art and stu- all these things fit in perfectly with my dance phi- dents should experience that,” she said. “It’s really losophy.” important that students are exposed to downtown Those analytical skills one acquires in a liberal community.” arts education, then, go hand in hand with the tenets Smith, for one, thinks that the downtown of the downtown dance scene that Cochran seems to approach deserves could energize the uptown have embraced. dance scene. She and fellow dancer Tara Willis, Hadley Smith, BC ’09, has both participated in BC ’09, are working to assemble adventurous and studied that scene. She said these downtown, Columbia artists to form a dance group that would avant-garde choreographers work by subverting be the post-modern equivalent of Columbia Ballet expectations, collaborating with dancers, and ask- Collaborative. Though they’re only in the begin- ing for improvisation—more than any singular aes- ning phases of organization, they have a name and a thetic, they are united by this choreographic process. mission: “CoLAB,” the Collective of the Ludicrous Sitting outside of Lerner Hall with a cigarette and and Beautiful, will be a collection of dancers that her “nighttime cup of coffee,” Smith said the works in collaboration with all types of recent changes in the department performer on campus. have made Barnard dancers more Both Smith and Willis attractive to many choreographers. fell in love with dance as Improvisation classes teach dancers kids, took ballet and mod- how to spontaneously create, which ern technique classes for make them better collaborators. years, and chose Barnard “You’re never just a dancer, you’re because they wanted to never just a little worker bee doing continue dancing while get- steps on stage,” Smith said. “You’re ting a good education. They an artist.” say the things they’ve been Smith and a handful of other stu- exposed to in the last three dents have spent the semester col- years have made them re- laborating with professional think everything. “Barnard choreographer Amanda gave me a range of Loulaki on a work awareness,” Willis that will be part said. of this winter’s This re-ed- Barnard Project ucation hasn’t performance at always been

30 Th e Bl u e a n d Wh i t e hepomene toi logismoi easy. Willis said she struggled last year in a DTW helping her students build those relationships was performance directed by avant-garde choreogra- her primary motivation in moving the fall dances pher Ivy Baldwin, in which she spent half of her downtown. “It was a big statement on my part, but time on stage simply twitching. She said she was it’s misunderstood,” she said. “It’s less an aesthetic annoyed at first because the role didn’t allow her to statement and more about connecting with art- use any of her hard-earned technique. Eventually, ists and organizations in the city in a bigger way.” though, Willis came to respect the dance. “Yes, She believes the institutional partnership between all of the postmodern stuff is crazy,” she said. Barnard and DTW will have “trickle down” benefits “But it’s also what’s happening right now.” for students. Because Willis and Smith have both been in Hadley Smith said Barnard’s partnership with dances where technique doesn’t DTW has helped her on both a matter much, they understand creative and professional level. the frustration of Columbia bal- I’ve always waited for “The thing that I like about let dancers who practice their how we do performances now is craft but who have no place to this thing to turn on you get to meet people who are perform it. “If I was someone in my head that would working and creating in your really dedicated to ballet, I’d be time and space. We have access mad,” Smith said. “I think this say, ‘You don’t need to to people who have been around campus could benefit from some and are well-respected. That’s good contemporary ballet.” do this anymore.’ But it one of the best things you can Lydia Walker hopes to make just hasn’t happened. give an artist.” that happen. She recognizes Smith believes Barnard has ballet has a reputation of being given her another tool to help patriarchal and old-fashioned, but that the Columbia inform her art. “So much of the academic world has Ballet Collaboration is bound to be different. After given me the power to be a better artist,” she said. “It all, all of the choreographers are female students gives you better context.” Unlike most college dance with a professional background. “It’s definitely an departments, Barnard’s puts a near equal empha- opportunity to subvert the norms,” she said. “Not sis on dance technique and academics. Aside from because we’re trying, but because we’re all there technique, majors are required to take writing-heavy is.” classes in dance history, as well as a senior seminar. They may either write a thesis, or perform one. n a recent Monday night hundreds of people Lynn Garafola, BC ’68, was the first dance pro- Opressed into a Barnard lecture hall to catch fessor in the department to receive tenure in winter one of the most anticipated dance events of this 2007. She had been an acclaimed critic, editor and fall: Alastair Macaulay, newly-anointed chief dance curator before returning to the school to teach dance critic at The New York Times, was giving his first history. Though she identifies herself primarily as public talk. Macaulay spent almost two hours ban- an academic, she holds herself like a dancer. She tering with the audience, which was packed with stood in front of her History of Dance II class a few students and a who’s who of the dance world, includ- days after Alastair Macaulay’s talk, interspersing a ing Wendy Perron, the editor-in-chief of Dance discussion of Macaulay’s theory with tidbits of dance Magazine. world gossip. Cochran is working to raise the profile of Barnard Garafola believes the Barnard dance department’s dance, and the department has clearly benefited emphasis on academics has helped it gain legitimacy. from her connections. Since 1995, when federal Still, she noted, it’s only recently that scholars in support for the National Endowment for the Arts other academic fields have begrudgingly begun to took a 40% cut, the dance world that depended on accept the dance department’s presence. “Certain it constricted. The funding has hardly increased colleagues have treated me differently since I’ve since then, making it nearly impossible for young gotten tenure,” she said, arching her thin black eye- people to infiltrate the dance world without rela- brows. tionships with insiders. According to Cochran, Dance as an academic discipline is ignored at

No v e m b e r 2007 31 hepomene toi logismoi many universities because some administrators don’t would take her mind off of dance. “I’ve always waited think it should be a part of a liberal arts education. for this thing to turn on in my head that would say, Schools that do offer dance often focus their courses ‘You don’t need to do this anymore,’” she said. “But on the physical side of the discipline. Although it just hasn’t happened.” A few months ago Smith Harvard students can now earn a minor in dance made the decision to pursue dance professionally, no and take technique class at the school’s new $4.5 matter the costs. One day, she’d like to choreograph million dance center, they cannot take classes on boundary-defying works like the ones she performs theory. And while Yale does offer some technique at DTW. and theory classes, there is no dance department, Partnerships like the one between DTW and program or center. Barnard could one day be the saving grace for cho- Most dancers have theories reographers trying to make about why dance often goes experimental dance, according unrecognized as a legitimate “The majority of to Holly Williams. “I think this liberal arts pursuit. Holly is a very important time for con- Williams, a Barnard graduate dancers who graduate temporary dance because of its who is now the Associate Chair from American connection with colleges and of Theater and Dance at the universities as a support system University of Texas at Austin, universities will for the art form,” she said. “As posited that dance is treated funding and support has been with more skepticism than never get a job as a on decline in this country, I music and visual arts because professional dancer.” think a lot of interesting and of its focus on the body. “Dance experimental work is being done traditionally came to college at colleges.” from kinesiology and sports. In a lot of schools it Though Williams would not say whether she still kind of lives in those areas, it lives in recreation thinks Barnard should emphasize the contemporary and health.” Williams argued dance should be “downtown aesthetic,” she did say it makes sense treated and studied like a foreign language. “It just for a good dance department to pour its energies happens to be that the language is on the body.” into developing strengths in one particular kind Williams, who sits on the boards of the American of dance. A department shouldn’t be “the United College Dance Festival Association and the Council Nations of style,” she said. “I think it really depends of Dance Administrators, said Barnard’s attempt to on the constitution of the institution, you cannot be forge a synthesis between academics and technique all things to all people all the time.” is one of its biggest strengths. “To me that’s the Back at the Barnard dance studio, where Cochran beauty of it, it allows students to be thinking dancers had run her class through a few more improvisation and thinking movers. It doesn’t think of people as a exercises, she gave her sweating students a break. dichotomy, as ‘your body’ and ‘your head.’ What’s “Come over,” she said to them. “Let’s chat.” fueling your mind is equally important to how you’re They straggled toward her and gathered in a training your body.” circle beneath a struggling ceiling fan. Cochran Almost all Barnard dance majors double major in asked their impressions of the exercises and lis- something else, from biochemistry to comparative tened as they went around in a circle to articulate literature. While that is in part an indication of the the challenges. The students said they had had fun, department’s emphasis on academics, it also makes but that they felt a little awkward not knowing how practical sense. “The majority of dancers who gradu- or when each dance would end. Cochran smiled and ate from American universities will never get a job as said it had been a success. “People get stuck in their a professional dancer,” Garafola said. “This is why it’s notions of beauty,” she said. “They forget that there important that they know how to write and read and are many kinds.” think critically.” Then she leaped in the air to do a quick ballet kick The dancers themselves know that careers in the and to demonstrate exactly whom she was talking dance world are hard to come by. Hadley Smith about. “One of the things in exploring the art form is arrived at Barnard hoping to find another passion that expanding the boundary of what is beautiful.”w

32 Th e Bl u e a n d Wh i t e advertisement Into the Woods

A musical by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine Citizens Union

Be a Poll Worker in the Presidential Primaries! Directed by Hannah Kass Produced by Erin Byrne and Jeff Schwartz

Thursday Nov. 29; Friday Nov. 30 Roone Arledge Auditorium, Lerner Hall

Tivoli Square, Ltd. Jamaica, NY

supports

Th e Bl u e a n d Wh i t e

No v e m b e r 2007 33 film

Bombs About Baghdad

How Hollywood trivializes the war on terror.

ast Oscar season seems, in retrospect, an inno- ambiguity. It is very easy to dismiss torture, and a L cent time. It was the autumn of Queen Elizabeth well-educated citizen ought to. But the film gives no and her corgis, sexed-up suburbanites, and what- voice to any counterargument, beyond a practically ever Dreamgirls was about. Even a movie about the mustache-twirling Streep bleating about govern- African diamond trade had a romantic subplot and a ment protocol. Of course Witherspoon’s husband perversely happy ending. (Omar Metwally) is innocent, of course his tor- It is only in 2007, as the Iraq war stretches turer (Jake Gyllenhaal—isn’t he dreamy?) sets him into its fifth unpopular year, that films dealing free, but not before a car bomb explosion literally with the turmoil in that region of the world have leaves Gyllenhaal with blood on his hands. And of begun to be released. Perhaps taking their cue from course the film ends with Metwally running into Syriana—the competent, critically-respected (but Witherspoon’s arms. Never let politics get in the widely overlooked) 2005 thriller about the global way of your Hollywood ending. oil trade—directors with Something To Say about With its multi-plotline structure and simplistic conflict in the Middle East, from Iraq to Saudi worldview, Rendition strongly resembles Crash, the Arabia, have queued up and occupied the multiplex. 2005 Oscar winner about how everyone is a racist. The films are largely didactic, and in their desper- Crash’s director, Paul Haggis, made a surprisingly ate attempt to better inform the moviegoer, they watchable Iraq war film of his own, In the Valley of often go down like cinematic cod Elah, in which Tommy Lee Jones plays a retired liver oil. Marine searching for his son, who went AWOL after Rendition is a prime example returning from Iraq. Unlike Crash and of the Iraq war film. Released in mid-October to great fanfare and disappointing box-office returns, the film is about U.S. torture of terrorist suspects in secret over- seas prisons. This is a suitable topic for a newsmagazine article or a 60 Minutes report, or even for a small film willing to take its subject seriously. Director Gavin Hood is liberal with images of waterboarding and beatings, but rather than examine America’s justification of torture or the management of the war on terror, he cuts to a pregnant Reese Witherspoon crying—in front of the Capitol, in case we missed the significance. Rendition gives us Good, in the person of Witherspoon. It gives us Evil, in bureau- crat Meryl Streep, doing Miranda Priestly with a chicken-fried Texas accent. It gives us a Confrontation. What it lacks is moral Illustrated by Alexandra Voûte

34 Th e Bl u e a n d Wh i t e film

Rendition, this film sidesteps issues of right or wrong lowing the assault of the Iraqi girl speak as strongly in the Iraq war—at least for most of its running time. about Americans’ capacity for cruelty as the four In the Valley of Elah finds success in small tooth-gnashing hours of Rendition and In the Valley details: the strip clubs around Fort Bragg, Jones’ of Elah combined. The violence seems almost restrained dignity. Still, as the film unfolds, Haggis’ beside the point—the true cruelty of Redacted is desire to make a Significant Statement can’t help in American soldiers’ choice to record the violence but nag. The title refers to the story of David and and play it back, treating carnage as an entertaining Goliath, without making explicit whether Iraq is aesthetic experience. David, Goliath, or the setting for the battle. If the soldiers’ callous home videos had a bud- While Jones’s investigation is fairly intriguing, get in the eighty-million-dollar range and starred the conclusion (spoiler alert)—that Jones’ son was Jennifer Garner, they might resemble The Kingdom, killed by his fellow officers, for sport, and thus the a slice of Oriental revenge fantasy served on a war has been a horrifically destabilizing force in plate for a bloodthirsty audience. Directed by Peter American life—is unsatisfying Berg, this film is an action-ad- and almost silly. The conse- venture about four brave, righ- quences of war have been por- The story is no longer teous American operatives sent trayed throughout the film; this to administer justice in Saudi final touch feels self-indulgent. about Jones and his Arabia in the mid-1990s. While In abandoning moral ambigu- son but about David The Kingdom begins as pure ity, Haggis abandons logical genre, it’s not long before dash- narrative as well. A final, lin- and Goliath. How es of “seriousness” are thrown gering shot of the American between explosions. The film flag flying upside-down cheap- can any actor compete ends with a reversal that will ens the poignant details of the with that? shock anyone who has never film. He ultimately sacrifices had an independent thought—it storytelling for a statement, and turns out the Americans and falls back on the moral certitude that made Crash so the Saudis are not that different! Such sentiment irritating. The story is no longer about Jones and his seems an afterthought to a movie that lovingly son but about David and Goliath. How can any actor showcases its stars blowing up Saudis with bombs compete with that? and machine guns while sending the Americans In In the Valley of Elah, Tommy Lee Jones’ char- home as heroes. acter watches recovered cell-phone video footage The political turmoil of the 1970s inspired mov- featuring American soldiers misbehaving ghoul- ies like All the President’s Men and Network, mov- ishly, portraying Iraq as the quagmire one would ies that avoided easy answers. These films were imagine it to be. Videos of this sort comprise acclaimed at the time and are now considered clas- Redacted, the new film by Brian De Palma, in its sics. Reviews for Rendition, In the Valley of Elah, entirety. Screened at the New York Film Festival The Kingdom, and Robert Redford’s Afghanistan and opening this month in limited release, Redacted war movie Lions for Lambs have been mixed at best, takes the form of spliced-together YouTube videos and public reception has been largely apathetic and security tapes, and depicts the events surround- (though The Kingdom exceeded modest box-office ing the rape of a young Iraqi girl and murder of her expectations). family by American soldiers. Unsurprisingly, it was Redacted aside, these films, aiming for Oscars made on a far smaller budget than, say, Rendition, and high-minded prestige, sidestep provocative and American brutality in this Middle East doesn’t issues in favor of Hollywood simplicity—the wife end with anyone running into Reese Witherspoon’s and husband reunited, the flag flying upside down, arms. the plane full of heroes returning home: Mission The film is unspeakably graphic, but its political Accomplished. It’s enough to make one nostalgic message is surprisingly subtle by the standards of for Dreamgirls. the season’s other Middle East mélanges. The non- chalant attitudes of the soldiers in the moments fol- —Daniel D’Addario

No v e m b e r 2007 35 verily veritas TOLD BETWEEN PUFFS In which our hero entertains an unexpected visitor.

erily Veritas was writing an etymo- offered Verily by way of apology over Vlogical tract about the neo- soggy salmon cakes at Deluxe. Freudian implications of the “Frankly, I don’t know why term “metrosexual” (“metro” you dashed out so quickly. from the Greek mater, or moth- You were hit by what was er, and “sexual” from the Latin essentially a tiny bolt of sexum, or sex) when a bird flit- lightning, and even people ted through his window, landed hit by large ones out in nature on his desk, and extended a scaly rarely suffer any lasting injury; leg. There was a rolled-up mes- all you needed was a glass of wa- sage on its ankle; it was a carrier ter.” pigeon! Verily remembered, for the “In NY for a spell—meeting ten-thousandth time, crawling, with investors about a new inven- horrified and horripilated (Ver- tion. We’ll get dinner. Some Colum- ily’s hair has forevermore been bia parents I know say good things a shock), out the door of the flat. about a place called Deluxe. –Auntie He had hidden out in Prague for the Vespa” summer—tragically, the escalator won Vespasia Veritas—Verily had suspected first prize. It hurt! The rage built, but Verily as much from the bird, a mode of communication the attempted small talk: wench picked up from Nikola Tesla, her former col- “Still using carrier pigeons, eh?” league and occasional hang-gliding partner. Every “Actually, it’s a homing pigeon, a rather different family of moody aesthetes has one incorrigible science breed, although of course both are, taxonomically dweeb, and in the Veritas clan it was Auntie Vespa. speaking, Columba livia. You should know that—you From the copper bowels of her laboratory, she are after all a Columbia student, are you not?” berated Barthes, dressed down Diaghilev, shat on Bad science humor! Vespasia was all but snorting Schiele. Vespasia was without doubt a black sheep, the house red on her frumpy blouse. Verily hummed but Verily holds a particular, and he thinks justified, with rage. Must ignore, look away, focus on the ambi- grudge. ence… It was the year of the Exposition Universelle in All but impossible given Deluxe and its environs—a Paris, and Verily had just taken a flat for the summer grimy bourgeois diner where a small watery cola is 20 in the Quartier Latin, when one of Vespasia’s birds francs and the costliest port comes to just 900 f. VV, flew par la fenêtre: eventually, was forced to make one last attempt at “Have a booth at the Exposition. Everyone’s abuzz conversation. about this new moving staircase contraption, but they “The Portsmouth Estate seems a good place for a don’t know what I’ve got in store! Need a place to run dip this weekend, but the forecast is stormy, and the some tests. You have lodging, yes? –Auntie Vespa” water will certainly be too cold and choppy—” Verily did not reply, but she arrived soon after— “—You know, of course, that what determines the with eight trunks’ worth of apparatus—and claimed contours of waves is not the wind or other phenom- the largest room for herself. Three days later, she ena, but the surface of the ocean,” Vespasia inter- summoned Verily. “Stand over there,” she directed. rupted. “Transverse patterns are, as regards…” Suffice it to say that what happened next involved a Verily tossed a morphine tablet in his glass of filthy lightning gun, a misplaced vinculum, and one unfor- port, swilled, and clenched his steak knife. tunate test subject. “It should have whizzed right by you,” Vespasia —Verily Veritas

36 Th e Bl u e a n d Wh i t e Me a s u r e f o r Me a s u r e

Ca p e Co d

Here we are all lobster trap and lupine Dock and hull Salt is our rock and rock is our salt And every hour there are stones in our scalps And more prickles in our path, Nettles here, mothers there, Than any other grove or low spot. All is crustacean crust, barnacles drooling their jags And dragging their frosting florets up every pressure treated piling. I remember when they planted these pilings. Two men cut them down and the water was pollinated with Arsenic dust, its swale and wash Fibrous, almost papery, Their shoulders were green with it. They were tan and smoking and shook it off in huge clouds, Back-flipped off when they were done Butts floating like other debris. The cluttered tide swallowed our poison.

There is no end to this lapping and scuttling. Fish turn warmly under terns. I seek cormorants, black smudges of birds To stretch masts to the sky but This pier is beaded with gulls.

— Lizzy Straus

No v e m b e r 2007 37 film

Pinter’s Darker Sleuth

The key moment of the 1972 film Sleuth comes weakness. While in the 1972 version Shaffer uses when the wealthy, aging mystery novelist Andrew drawn-out dialogue as a way to highlight his charac- Wylke (Laurence Olivier) strikes up a conversation ters’ absurdities—in one memorable scene in which with the young and charismatic Milo Tindle (Michael Olivier’s Andrew forces Milo to wear a clown costume Caine) over drinks in his Gothic English manor: and proceeds to humor him endlessly. Pinter, whose “I understand that you want to marry my wife,” plays are characterized by their moments of silence, Andrew says. “With your permission, of course,” has cut the chit-chat (making the 2007 adaptation Milo replies. fifty minutes shorter than its 1972 counterpart). At Andrew and Milo, both in love with the same one point, Milo stares at his opponent slyly while woman, commence a maniacal battle of wits. As the fielding a call from his lover, to whom he says, “I love plot complicates, however, the competition becomes you too.” But the audience never hears the other half less about winning the girl and more about who can of the conversation—who’s to say that the person on outwit the other, even if the game takes on violent the line is Andrew’s wife, or that there’s anyone on proportions. The setting is perfect: Andrew’s man- the other end at all? The audience fills up the dead air sion is filled with bizarre toys that often complement with questions. the plot’s twists with abrupt tinkering and laughter The 2007 Sleuth is a darker variation on Shaffer’s and give the film the eerie feel of a puppet play gone treatment of deception, which works in concept—but wrong. some of its themes don’t quite fit. For one, the new Sleuth is a refreshing twist on the classic mys- Sleuth ditches the original film’s well-handled empha- tery. Originally a Tony-winning play by Andrew sis on class distinction (i.e. snobby novelist vs. poor Shaffer, the film version of was written by Shaffer and hairdresser) in favor of an aggressive, homoerotic directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, CC ’28. Olivier’s tinge (in one scene Milo humiliates Andrew by forcing performance walks the line between comic relief his wife’s jewelry around his neck). Homoeroticism is and malice, and the combination of his and Caine’s rarely an unworthy inclusion, but Shaffer would have Oscar-nominated performances and Mankiewicz’s done well to deemphasize such theatrics. Front and direction support Shaffer’s complex plot well, carry- center, they distract from the heart of the plot. ing the viewer through its two hour running time. In both inceptions, the directors do well in cap- In October of this year, playwright/screenwriter turing the essence of Sleuth: In a grim contest where Harold Pinter and director Kenneth Branagh (of reality and fiction collide, the object of the game is thin-lipped Shakespearean fame) released a new ver- not merely to be the better deceiver, but to avoid tak- sion of Sleuth. Jude Law stars as Milo, and an older, ing the fantasy too far. Viewers looking for a classic now knighted, Sir Michael Caine is Andrew. In its “whodunit” may fare better with the former film. third iteration, the film has Crazy props and dark humor taken a dark, enigmatic turn. aside, the new Sleuth doesn’t The surrealist playthings quite live up to the original, have been replaced with sur- though Pinter fans and those veillance cameras and other unfamiliar with Shaffer’s gadgets, while Caine is less screenplay may appreciate the child-like than Olivier and results in spite of its flaws. 35 much colder—his stone face years later, the Pinter-Branagh is the cause of much audience team, still manages to pull the discomfort. viewer into the same trap of The new Sleuth is a deep- deception. ly discomforting film, and this is both a strength and a Illustrated by Jenny Lam —Maryam Parhizkar

38 Th e Bl u e a n d Wh i t e Campus Gossip

A few weeks ago, Th e Bl u e a n d Wh i t e received, for Late one night at the end of September, the second- utterly inexplicable reasons, the following email: floor men’s bathroom in Butler was temporarily shut down. A sign on the door read: “Subject: Season 2 of MTV’s #1 Rated Show: “A Shot at Love” Wants Bard Students! “This piece of equipment is temporarily OUT OF SERVICE. Please use another terminal or printer.” “Season 2 of MTV’s smash-hit reality dating show “A Shot At Love” is presently casting its second Campus females were shocked to learn that those season. If you are at least 21 years old and have things on the walls are actually word processors. the sex appeal, heart and spirit to win the love our NEW Bi-Bachelorette, then we want to hear from e you!” Overheard in front of the Condé Nast building: You know what they say about Bard kids. By and large, they’re bi and large. Woman approaches another with a tiny dog in a purse. “Oh my God, is this your dog? I haven’t met e him yet! Does he work at Glamour too?”

Editor-abroad Brendan Ballou sends the following e gossip from Cambridge: Professor Michael Seidel, during his Beckett/ Outside a little English cemetery in a little English Nabokov Seminar: town, hangs the following sign: “I’m gonna whip out a theory at the start. I mean, I “We hope you enjoy your time here.” don’t mean a real theory. I don’t have theories that are theories, like real theories. When I say theories, I e mean cockamamie, bad ideas.”

On the Student Services course listings, the titles of C’mon, Siedel. “Der-ri-da. Light of my life, fire of classes are often shortened or abbreviated to ensure my loins.” that they fit on a single line. One English lecture this semester: e

STDS IN THE 18TH CENTURY NOVEL Overheard in Lerner, with no context:

Th e Bl u e a n d Wh i t e signed up, hoping the subject “Living in Carman is like hitting the jackpot!” matter was more de Sade than demure.

No v e m b e r 2007 39 On Halloween weekend, two girls in costume were One hour after the official start of Hunger Strike waiting in the long line to enter East Campus (as two ’07, members of the Freshman Class Council stood men in Mexican wrestling garb duked it out in on College Walk passing out tasty vittles, front of the crowd): free of charge. In exuberant voices, they yelled: “Free pastries and hot Girl 1: “What are you dressed chocolate! Free hot chocolate up to be?” and pastries!” A Blue and White Staffer approached Girl 2 (wearing a cheap, for a frothy cup. frizzy blonde wig and a dress that resembled B&W: “What’s this all Dorothy’s from The about?” Wizard of Oz): “Oh, I’m Courtney Love.” Freshman Rep: “We’re in a good mood.” [brief awkward pause] B&W: “You know the hunger Girl 2: “Yeah...I think once I get strike’s going on, right?” the pills and the beer in a brown paper bag, it’ll be good.” Freshman Rep: “Yeah, but we’ve had this planned for weeks. They just sort of e showed up.”

OVERHEARD AT PINKBERRY: OUT OF The next day, our B&W staffer passed by again, only AFRICA to find that a campus theater group had set up a bake sale even closer to the striker’s tents. An expensive-looking M’side woman in her 60s— clearly a novice—walks up to the register. Next in the administration’s covert plan to break the strikers’ wills: a full spread, brought to you by Woman: “Now what’s a pinkberry?” Columbia Catering. e Manager: “Hi ma’am, welcome to Pinkberry. There’s actually no such thing as a ‘pinkberry,’ it’s just the Early one morning, as the sun rose over Wien, a foul name of our company.” stench crept down the hallway of floor 5, rudely awak- ening one B&W writer. She gingerly left her room, Woman: “No, it’s something…” each step taken in the economy of fear. Before her, lay the remains of a very dead chicken—its feathers Manager: “We have plenty of other lovely berries. strewn about, its innards still attached to those feath- Raspberries, strawberries, any kind of berries—just ers. Flecks of dried blood and chicken were stuck to no pinkberries.” (Manager starts to snicker a bit to the carpet. Was it fowl play? The once-live chicken, his female co-worker) she suspected, had sloughed off its mortal coil at a fraternity initiation; the body has not been found, and Woman: “Pinkberries are real. I think they’re the perpetrators have not been identified. from Africa.” (At this point, the two employees— who happen to be black—can barely contain their Despite circumstantial evidence, including back- laughter.) packs full of bricks, combat boots, and oversized black sweatshirts, there appears to be a lack of pollus The female employee leans over to the manager and corpus. whispers “I think we’d know.” e Barnard…it’s less controversial than the Hunger Manager: “Can I get you anything?” Strike!

40 Th e Bl u e a n d Wh i t e