“This Grinnellian Life” speaks to all
Jon Sundby, News Editor
Every Saturday night at 8 p.m., the chaotic sounds of rock and hip hop suddenly stop, and onto the airwaves of Grinnell’s KDIC floats the measured voices of Hannah Lundberg and Emma Roszkowski, both ’18. Reciting poetry and telling quirky stories, Lundberg and Roszkowski host the show “This Grinnellian Life,” a radio story hour loosely based off the National Public Radio (NPR) show “This American Life”.
While admittedly not as polished as their NPR counterpart, Lundberg and Roszkowski have tried to maintain a similar vibe, describing situations that they believe are universal to the Grinnellian experience.
Lundberg and Roszkowski tell stories that they feel will be relatable to all students. Photo by Jun Taek Lee
“Stories from our lives that we think could be relatable to other Grinnellians … you know, kind of general, trying to be relatable, quirky things,” Lundberg said of the content of the show.
These stories range from roommate difficulties to awkward grocery store encounters. Often the pair will play music and read creative short stories and poems based on whatever topic they’ve chosen for the week.
“A lot of times, since our show is on Saturdays, we will be inspired by whatever event is on that day. So if there is a particular Harris, we will play music that fits within that theme and then tell stories that sort of relate to it,” Lundberg said.
Roszkowski started the show with another friend during her first semester. The pair bonded over their love for radio, especially NPR, which is how they happened upon the idea for “This Grinnellian Life.” Halfway through the year, however, Roszkowski’s original partner left Grinnell and Roszkowski asked Lundberg to join her. Both agreed that the first semester performance had wandered too far from the NPR model, and they made a commitment to try to steer the show towards a more storytelling direction.
“Hannah and I are moving more toward the American Life vision that we kind of strayed from with the original idea,” Roszkowski added.
Despite starting out as novices, since partnering last year both DJ’s have gained some valuable radio experience outside of KDIC. This summer Roszkowski interned at Wisconsin Public Radio and Lundberg took a class on radio storytelling. Through these experiences they learned a lot about both the technical and creative sides of radio and hope to bring their newfound knowledge into the KDIC studio.
“I learned a lot about sound editing and what you want in a show,” Roszkowski said, reflecting on her time this summer.
Lundberg, for her part, worked extensively on editing through the school computers during her class. She is currently trying to utilize this expertise to create more dynamic, polished shows that can not only air on Saturdays but also be put into a podcast form.
“I think it would be really cool if we had one piece that each of us made that’s really well-produced and has music and stuff. But, right now it is the beginnings of that—we tell the stories and read them dramatically, but they’re not super edited,” Lundberg explained.
Although balancing schoolwork and other responsibilities with the show is a struggle for the pair, both Lundberg and Roszkowski hope to carve out more time in their schedules to craft a more finished show.
“I really like the NPR-style radio stuff, and I guess from [radio storytelling] it gave me hope for making a more polished, podcast-style product for next semester,” Lundberg concluded.
Coyote offers life advice Coyote spoke about his journey to Zen priesthood. Photo by John Brady.
Peter Coyote ’64 has devoted decades of his life to studying Zen Buddhism, becoming a Zen priest in 2011. He is also an esteemed actor and narrator, most well-known for his work in the documentaries of Ken Burns. Coyote came to the College last week to give a talk on the power of intention. The S&B’s Copy Editor Jack O’Malley sat down to talk to him about his time at Grinnell and his philosophy of life.
The S&B: What is your favorite memory from your time at Grinnell?
Coyote: There are many. My closest friends, sitting in the student union every night, smoking cigarettes and talking about poetry from Donald Allen’s book, “The New American Poetry, 1945-1960.” Also the nurturing of a community of people that were just like me, meaning we read the same books, we thought the same things were important, and we had the good luck to meet from all over the country right here. They are still my closest friends to this day—that is, the ones that are still living. Were there any specific events that pushed you towards Buddhism? Had you dabbled in other religions beforehand?
Well, I had been raised as a secular Jew in a family with a lot of socialists, communists and capitalists. There was a lot of high-level, high IQ chatter. Then there were events in the 60s where people I loved very much died in a way that I felt, had I been smarter and more observant, I could have taken more responsibility and maybe prevented that. This was communal living — … kids looked up to me that I wasn’t really aware of and [I] didn’t monitor my behaviour and didn’t protect them from my own charisma. Three kids in particular never made it to 23. That was something that stayed with me long after the 60s. I had been a drug addict in the 60s and when I was cleaning up my life and putting it together I had been interested in Zen and had been reading about it. I actually was dating a woman who was living at a monastery. I started to practice and it became a part of my process of healing from addiction and guilt and all sorts of stuff.
What was your favorite film or TV show to act or narrate for?
It’s hard to pick a favorite. You know, sometimes you do a movie like “Timerider,” which is a silly little cult science fiction western. I got to play this dumb cowboy and be funny. I loved doing that; it was not really that important. A movie like “A Man in Love” put me on the cover of every magazine in Europe … It was a really complicated movie about a charismatic, selfish American movie star and I still get stopped by people on the streets who say, “You nailed that guy.” Also, I love working for Ken Burns: I feel like I graduated and went to heaven. I love doing documentaries because each one is something that somebody cared about passionately and struggled for. It’s like a crash course in a single subject. I don’t have a favorite. I like the genre and the process of actually doing it.
If you could tell your college self just one insight that you’ve learned since graduation what would it be?
Don’t shoot heroin. That would be one. The other is that life is longer than you think. Take care of yourself and pace yourself. Everything’s not gonna happen all at once.
In today’s fast-paced, egocentric world, do you think that it is ever really possible to break out of your ego?
I absolutely do think it’s possible to not destroy the ego, which we need and helps keep us healthy, but to put it on a long leash and let it go when it’s not appropriate. It’s not appropriate to be thinking of yourself when you’re making love, when you’re in a fight for your life or if you’re trying to help other people, then your self gets in the way. Ego is a tool, but we elevate it to the stature of a guardian and all of the sudden it’s mediating all of our experiences. There is a whole world out there that has nothing to do with us. Hummingbirds and leopards and spiral nebulae and the Amazon. It’s just like the captain is in the wheelhouse and has put up all these photographs of his personal history, his friends, his neighbors and his qualities. He is living in this tiny room and around him is the immensity of the ocean. There are spiritual practices that help you get out of the wheelhouse and the one I practice is meditation Buddhism. Every religious tradition has a wisdom tradition, and yes, it is something that you can do, it’s something you can accomplish, something you can experience in this life and then you won’t have certain kinds of questions plaguing you anymore.
Edith Smith: a Century of Life
Photo by Sofi Mendez. Edith Renfrow Smith talking at Drake Community Library Oct. 7. Corey Simmonds [email protected]
The first African American woman to graduate from Grinnell College, Edith Renfrow Smith was born in 1914 in Grinnell and left after graduating to live in Chicago. Smith is currently 101 years old. She spoke on Wednesday, Oct. 7 at Drake Community Library about living a century of life.
“If people reject you, don’t worry about them, they don’t matter,” Smith said.
At the event, she spoke about her experiences visiting Arbor Lake and running from cows with friends, painting a scene of Grinnell at the beginning of the 20th century.
Smith describes her past as one that was full of adaptation and understanding in the face of racism and adversity in Grinnell, but also describes her mother as someone who helped to harden her resolve in the face of adversity.
“They may be richer, they may be more beautiful, they may have more clothes, but you are unique,” Smith said, quoting her mother in response to questions about how she dealt with racially charged statements.
Smith described a love she has for Grinnell. Although she did not have a lot of money growing up, strong family ties and a loving mother made the experience something that she reflects upon very positively.
“People are people. Some are nice, and some are not. If they’re not nice, leave them alone,” Smith responded when asked about how she felt as one of the few African American women on campus.
This was a theme in many of Smith’s responses: universal acceptance of herself and strong will. Smith married in 1940 in her Grinnell home.
“I can’t say we were poor … I never lived in an apartment, I always lived in a house, and we were never hungry, so consequently we had to be rich,” Smith said of life around the time of her wedding.
This positivity permeated a great portion of the interview.
When asked about her awareness of being the first African American woman, she says that it was not on the front of her mind when she was actually living in Grinnell.
“Some things are better, some things are worse and some things you don’t think about,” Smith said.
Smith made it a point to say, in relation to her old age, that there is no secret recipe or diet. What she has done, consistently, is remind herself of what mattered in life. There is no nutritional secret either, she says, but rather her family made do with what they had available which was a diet consisting of organic foods that her family planted and consumed, also using natural preservation tactics for the food.
“You have to decide your worth, the Lord made you perfect for you,” Smith advised. Orange juice, accents and life lessons
Column by Ritika Agarwal I’ve been a people-pleaser my entire life. Not in a healthy, everyone-loves-me-for-my-charming-personality kind of way. It’s more like a paranoid, I’ll-cry-if-I-think-people-are- making-fun-of-me type thing. When I was eight, I was so desperate to please my teacher who had explicitly told us not to go to the toilet unless it was an emergency that I peed myself. Right at my table in the middle of the classroom. I told all my tablemates that the puddle of yellow liquid on the floor underneath my chair was orange juice—and they believed it—until it was inevitably found out that my pants were soaking wet and smelled like nobody’s business. I must however give my eight-year-old self props for maintaining the orange juice position even as she was shamefully led away from the classroom to change her pants; she couldn’t, of course, risk her reputation at any cost. At age ten my parents made me move from my home in the hills of Sheffield back to their hometown, Kolkata (in India). I, being the people-pleasing, attention-seeking ten-year-old that I was, immediately set to work pleasing people and seeking attention. But there was one problem: my broad Yorkshire accent. I absolutely did not fit in with my new classmates. There was a little teasing, as is usual for a group of fifth grade girls cooped up in a classroom for long periods of time but I let it get to my head. Every time I spoke, I could hear my aspirated “t”s and “p”s; my diphthong vowel sounds as opposed to my classmates’ monophthongs (linguistics enthusiast here, sorry). It got to the point where I couldn’t talk in public without severe anxiety attacks. I began to feel like I was inherently less capable than people around me and this triggered a whole host of other issues which I still struggle with today. Nine years later I found out that nobody even knew my accent had been an issue for me in school. Turns out, I’d made the whole thing up in my head and let it affect how I saw myself for the better part of a decade. Here’s a secret everyone knows but doesn’t really know: people are unimaginably selfish. Most people are too wrapped up in their own lives to give the things you’re most conscious about a second thought. All that worrying you did about that pimple next to your nose… Guess what? No one could even see it. That dress that made your hips look big? It didn’t. You didn’t make a fool of yourself that one time you tried Speech & Debate. No one remembers the time your voice cracked while singing the solo at your sixth grade production of “Guys and Dolls.” As cliché as this sounds, your experiences will be what you make of them. You can choose to dwell over apparently mortifying events and build them up in your head till it seems like you can’t possibly get over them—or you can choose to get over them. No one cares as much as you do and holding yourself back for fear of judgement is possibly the worst thing you can do. Caring what other people think of you is a human instinct that dates back to when we lived in tribes and conforming to societal norms was necessary for survival. Times have changed. We live in an individualistic society where being your own person is respected, not looked down upon. My people-pleasing, scared of judgment voices still yell at me from time to time, but I do my best to tell them to shut the hell up and go home. I have no use for them. They’ve done nothing but make me feel inadequate and afraid. So, reader, live on your own terms because it really isn’t worth living any other way. Truly. And next time you pee yourself out of some ridiculous need to please someone, just accept that you peed yourself. No one will believe that it’s orange juice.
Capturing life in Korea through photography Longtime Grinnell resident Cliff Strovers explored everyday life in Korea through his photography. Photo by Mary Zheng
When Cliff Strovers was drafted into the army and sent to serve in the Korean War in January of 1953, he did not even know where Korea was, much less anything about what Korean life looked like. Having only ever lived within ten miles of Grinnell, Strovers took the opportunity to photograph his surroundings. Today, Strovers still lives in town and an exhibition of his photography is on display in Burling basement.
“There were a lot of pictures of the war but not much pictures of the day-to-day,” Strovers said.
Strovers did not speak any Korean and the locals he encountered did not speak any English, so he depended entirely on the cooperation of the locals letting him shoot pictures of Korean architecture and street life.
“I didn’t know a darn thing about photography, but somebody told me a little bit about it,” Strovers said. “You set the speed and the focus, but you have to have film in it of course … it was a learning experience all the way.”
Strovers depended on other Americans to teach him about photography and get a light meter, which helped him determine what settings to use on his film camera. Back then, film canisters cost three or four dollars and Strovers had to send the film to Hawaii to get it developed because Korea did not have film processing facilities.
Though most other soldiers with cameras photographed war shots and military equipment, Strovers focused on day-to-day shots.
“Being from a rural area, I liked the rural scenes [in Korea] that were very different from what it was back home,” Strovers said. “I wanted to show my family back home what it was like in Korea … I sent the slides home to my wife so she knew what she was looking at.”
Since his time shooting pictures in the 1950s, Strovers returned to Korea in 2010 as part of an anniversary trip for Korean War veterans. Strovers went with his grandson and photographed some of the same landmarks he shot the last time he was there in 1953.
“It was truly unbelievable because it was such a dramatic change,” Strovers said. “I think one thing about it is that everything was just about wiped out, so they could start from scratch. There are very few buildings in Pusan that were there when I was there originally.”
At his talk in the Burling lobby on Thursday, Strovers showed side-by-side comparisons of the photos he took on his trips, including shots of a beach the first summer after the Korean War ended next to a shot of the same beach today lined with high rise skyscrapers.
During his trip to Korea, Strovers gave his photographs to a publisher, who assembled a book of 300 of the 400 photos Strovers took. His photos are also part of a traveling exhibit that will soon be featured nearby in Kellogg, Iowa. Fairy tales come to life
Miller’s performance reframed fairy tales through dance and song. Photo by John Brady Last Thursday, April 23, Grinnell’s Dance Ensemble held their opening performance for the spring semester. Their show was split in two halves, with the first half choreographed by Olivier Tarpaga, a dance instructor who visited campus earlier this semester. The latter half was choreographed by Professor Celeste Miller, Theatre and Dance.
The piece choreographed by Tarpaga was titled “Aucun probléme tout va très bien ici,” a French title which translates roughly to “No problem, everything goes very well here.” The five dancers in the piece performed to rhythmic music. The lighting shifted over the course of their performance from darkness to a low light so that they appeared to be dancing in front of a sunset. Their choreography involved many lifts, body contortions and rhythmic movements.
After their dance, an intermission was held before the piece choreographed by Miller, “Snow White Retracted.” The original rendition of “Snow White” was created when Miller collaborated with another choreographer in 2007. When she was contacted about recreating the performance, she decided to take ideas from her initial performance and reinvent the show. Miller, a believer in tailoring every performance to its dancers and audience members, reshaped the choreography based on the improvised movements of her current cast.
Miller said that she was inspired in her work by function and phenomenon of fairy tales. She calls her piece “a feminist exploration of the perception of women in society through the lens of famous fairy tales and references such as ‘Snow White,’ ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ and ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude.’”
Once some performers came on stage, the show began with a dance where numerous dancers danced slowly on chairs while performer Lizzie Eason ’17 singing Sara Bareilles’ “Once Upon Another Time.” Once the lights dimmed, everything changed pace. A performer and a prop apple were thrown out from a door beside the stage, in a lyrical representation of Eve being thrown out of paradise. The door slammed behind her as snow fell from the ceiling while a prop window descended onto the stage.
When the window came down, a speaker that identified herself as Snow White began giving a monologue about her dwarves and their orders for her to stay inside to protect herself from the evil queen, despite her desire to be free and run outside on her own.
Throughout the monologue, some performers ravenously ate apples in the corner while others engaged in conversations and even washed laundry onstage.
“The performance is awesome and magical with a lot of visual and aesthetic value,” said Teo Geiger ’15, who danced in Miller’s performance. “There’s also a lot of intellectual components and references, I hope the audience picks some of it up.”
Miller and her dancers incorporated numerous types of theater into the performance, which included dance, acting and singing.
“[I hope] people will take away questions, delight, humor and intensity from this performance,” Miller said.
Performances will continue on Friday, April 24 and Saturday, April 25 at 7:30 p.m. in Flanagan Theatre. Student compositions come to life onstage
Student musicians perform onstage in Sebring- Lewis last Tuesday, Dec. 2. Photo by Sarah Ruiz
Last Tuesday, Dec. 2, student musicians performed pieces written by students enrolled in the Introduction to Composition course in front of a large crowd in the Sebring- Lewis Hall. The recital featured “world premiere performances of new chamber music,” as noted by the program.
The five students in the class, Daniel Delay ’17, Lea Marolt Sonnenschein ’15, Sam Han ’17, Imad Bakhira ’15 and Aaron Levin ’17 each worked to compose an original piece over the course of the past semester.
“We usually have around eight students, so having five students this semester has been a more intimate setting,” said Professor Eric McIntyre, Music. “We have been able to spend quite a bit of time on each composer’s work in workshop.”
McIntyre said he considers the performance a success.
“The performances were good and they were well put together,” McIntyre said. “[In] most cases when you write a paper for a class only one person reads it. In this case, there was a good size audience, a lot of people heard it.”
The students’ pieces varied extensively in both mood and instruments played. Violin, cello, piano, saxophone, flute and guitar were all played throughout the five performances. Some pieces possessed a more somber and serious mood and others took on a light and playful tone. Most pieces switched between these two tones or mixed them together.
McIntyre noted that the variety of pieces reflected the autonomy and creative freedom students enjoyed throughout the course.
“The only limitations on student composers are that their piece must be less than six minutes and no more than five players,” McIntyre said. “In any Intro to Composition course, the thing that always surprises me is how we come together on the performance with so many different kinds of pieces. For me as a teacher that has got to be satisfying because it says my stamp isn’t on it, everyone is not just doing it my way.”
Students in the course also got a chance to work one-on-one with the student musicians performing their compositions.
“The one worry I had was getting them to articulate my piece right,” Bakhira said. “I think they did a great job though … I got to talk to them about what my piece was about, the backstory behind it. They are all people I know personally. That helped as well.”
When asked about the creative process behind these pieces, McIntyre joked with a laugh that creative inspiration “is a whole course!”
While in reality the whole course was not dedicated entirely to the creative process, a good deal of it did focus on the activity of creation. “Forty to 50 percent of what we talk about [in the course] is creative process. Creative process is going to be the same no matter what creative process you are involved in. The students begin with writing very short simple exercises, like just a rhythm,” McIntyre said. “After a while they are set free to do their final project.”
Students attested to the confidence they gained over the course of the semester.
“I am becoming a lot less scared of writing music and of the whole process in general,” Bakhira said.
McIntyre said that students of all musical abilities and backgrounds in composing have taken the class.
“I’ve actually been composing since before I got to college,” Levin said. “This class is a good step to have some formal training.”
Sonnenschein noted that although she has a background in music, composing was a new experience for her.
“I’m a classically trained pianist, but I never really did any of my own composing,” she said. “To be on the side of the composer, and instructing the people who are playing your piece is a different experience, it is interesting.”
Students who took the course were quick to recommend it. “People should definitely take this class,” Levin said. “It is great for students from all disciplines. It was a great experience.” Balancing Act portrays real life in Grinnell
“Balancing Acts,” a MAP-based play written about working in Grinnell, hits the Flanagan Theatre this weekend. The play, or “evening of storytelling,” as Director Lesley Delmenico, Theatre described it, will leave audiences with a better understanding of Grinnell and its community. “Balancing Acts,” as the title suggests, is about balancing work and life for those employed in the Grinnell workforce after the financial crises.
The production has been a year-long project. The six students, Louisa Silverman ’15, Tye Smith ’15, Anna Banker ’15, Kate Whitman ’14, Grace Tipps ’14 and Caitlin Beckwith-Ferguson ’14 interviewed 77 members of the community who work in places such as factories, bars and the high school, and asked them various questions about working and living in Grinnell. Once students finished their interviews, they transcribed the text and structured it to create the dialogue.
“The hardest part was structuring it so that people who are not talking to each other have their ideas and their feelings placed into dialogue with other people,” Delmenico said.
Yet the finished structure works well—although the script was taken verbatim from what the interviewees said, the text comes together well to create conversations, such as one between two female characters who sit discussing the hardships of being women in the workforce.
The ages of cast members span a wide range, including more than five Grinnell alumni, but the cast developed their own community as they began rehearsing.
“It wasn’t an active process to meet people, that’s just a by- product of being in a play with other people,” said Grinnell alum and Communications Editorial Fellow Luke Saunders ’12, who is a cast member.
The cast also includes non-College Grinnell community members, such as Mike McKenna, an employee at Hyvee who has been participating in community theatre for the past 15 years.
“I’ve met more kids from the College in the past five weeks than I have in the past 50 years I’ve been here,” McKenna said.
Part of the rehearsal process for each cast member was developing and working with their multiple roles. Saunders, who plays both a surgeon and a painter, experimented with his characters until he could find the wants and needs of each. McKenna found switching between his character as a fireman and a farmer to be fun.
“They both have the same core, they both have a sense of responsibility, but they both do very different things” McKenna said.
The goal of this project is to help College students and members of the community understand one another. It is a part of a larger project called the Too Big To Fail Project. Developed in the Theatre department at Drew University, the project has been implemented at Wayne State University, Drake University and the University of San Francisco. The underlying goal of the project is to give audience members a sense of what work means to community members and how they have dealt with the financial crisis. 77 people were asked to be interviewed and 77 agreed.
Upon remembering how one local volunteered, Delmenico recalled discussing the MAP with a student at Saints Rest and the student expressed interest in covering the issue of sexualized labor. “A lady at the next table leaned over and said, ‘I’m sorry, I couldn’t help but hear you, but I used to be a stripper and so were a lot of my friends. Would you like to interview us?’”
The show is interesting, informative and entertaining, and it is bound to shed light on ‘that little town in the middle of the cornfields’ and the people who work in it.
The performances will take place in Flanagan Theatre tonight and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m.
College students and community members perform together. Photo by Shadman Asif. MLK Day speech focuses on great migration
On Monday, Jan. 20, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Isabel Wilkerson came to Grinnell to celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and discuss her 2010 book, “The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration.”
Wilkerson is a journalist at the New York Times and the first African-American woman to win a Pulitzer Prize, which she received in 1994 for her profile of a fourth grader from Chicago’s South Side and her coverage of the 1993 Midwestern floods.
“The Warmth of Other Suns” was inspired by the six million people who moved away from oppressive life in the South and traveled to the North during the Great Migration, which lasted from the early to mid-twentieth century and was one of the largest internal migrations in the United States.
Although the United States has experienced many migrations throughout its history, Wilkerson specifically stressed how these people sought to oppose a caste system that denied them citizenship when they had every right to claim it.
The tremendous oppression that these people felt was present in their everyday lives, but never was its injustice made clearer than when they had to face a court trial, she said, as African-Americans and white Americans were made to swear to different Bibles.
“Even the word of God was segregated,” Wilkerson said.
Eve Lyons-Berg
After a short silence, Wilkerson told the audience that one of the things that impressed her the most when lecturing high school students about her book was that they were so “beautifully removed” from the kind of oppressing pressure that had been experienced by so many others right before and during the Great Migration.
She said part of her objective in writing “The Warmth of Other Suns” was to make this part of history come alive. Some who attended the lecture enjoyed the subject matter, but thought that the speech itself would have been more appropriate for a younger audience.
“I thought her talk may have been geared towards middle school or high school students,” said Geo Gomez ’15. “She mentioned a lot of names continuously, and it seemed like one of those talks that went, ‘You too can do it!’ which seemed more inspirational for a younger, not necessarily our, audience.”
Other audience members said they wished the speaker had focused more on the book itself and its characters, as well as what made her decide to write it.
Wilkerson stressed that the movement demonstrated how far people were willing to go in search of freedom and improve their condition of life. In many ways, she said, it planted the seeds of the civil rights movement.
Whatever they felt about the substance of the lecture, the audience agreed that the spirit of freedom and opportunity that Wilkerson described was admirable.
“I enjoyed how she continuously related the themes of her novel to something that was not an experience specific to one group of people. I like how she related the experiences of the people in her book as an American experience,” Gomez said.
Holiday Movie Traditions
There’s a light at the end of the tunnel! The semester is wrapping up and everyone’s buried under snow and papers. In honor of the upcoming winter break, this week we talked for a bit about our holiday movie traditions and what constitutes a “holiday” movie.
Lauren: So tell me a little about your holiday movie traditions?
Teddy: As my family’s self-declared film aficionado, I would like to say that my taste in movies is taken seriously in my home. However, as many of my siblings lack the attention span necessary to bask in the heartwarming glory that is “It’s a Wonderful Life,” or the nostalgic appreciation for the stop- motion Claymation Christmas specials (i.e., “Rudolph the Red- Nosed Reindeer,” or “The Year Without a Santa Claus”), the Hoffmunchkins and I share a common love for sentimental classics such as “Elf” and a good old-fashioned “Harry Potter” marathon with hot cocoa in hand. Interestingly enough, one of my treasured holiday-film traditions is a “Lord of the Rings: Extended Edition” marathon with my high school friends. This leads me to the question: What constitutes as a holiday movie? “Lord of the Rings” has no chestnuts roasting on an open fire and yet it has become a holiday staple as crucial as candy canes. Likewise, one of my friends cannot watch “The Godfather” until carols and snowflakes charm the winter air. So what say you, Ms. Sheely? How would you classify a holiday movie?
Lauren: That’s a great question. The Sheelys definitely tend to steer towards more overtly holiday movies, like “Christmas in Connecticut” (an unsung classic) or “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” We also save our “Lord of the Rings” marathon for winter, but actually prefer our “Godfather” marathons in the heat of late summer. Holiday movies for me also mean Oscar- bait. While my family doesn’t go to the movies on Christmas itself, I’ve spoken to a lot of friends who make that trek as part of their own holiday tradition. And the movies slated for December releases are almost all big studio releases in line to win some awards. This year alone, three huge tickets are opening on Christmas Day: “The Wolf of Wall Street”, “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” and “August: Osage Country.” And that’s not even including Oscar-bait released throughout the month of December. I spend about three or four days watching actual holiday-themed movies and the rest of winter break prepping for Oscar season. I think the most cohesive definition I can give of a holiday movie is one that is a communal viewing experience. What do you think?
Teddy: Perhaps in the holiday spirit, I find myself agreeing with you. Something about this time of year (for those of us who celebrate this season’s holidays) encourages the togetherness that movies champion. In this way, the very act of movie watching is inherently a holiday activity, thus establishing the holiday-based subject matter as secondary, an afterthought. However, I would like to complicate your inclusion of Oscar-bait in the holiday-movie category. While seeing movies in theaters is about as communal as you can get, my interpretation of what makes an “essential holiday movie” necessitates tradition. Something about the seasonal returning to a film enhances its holiday spirit, setting it apart from the ebb and flow of movie theater titles. Like baking gingerbread people or decorating the tree, revisiting a movie in the name of holiday celebration makes it special. You can watch movies with friends and family all year, but tying tradition to certain films makes them something beyond Hollywood’s latest blockbuster.
Lauren: I love re-watching the classics, and thinking about how you’ve changed since the last time you watched the movie. It provides a great, fun marker of the end of the year. I think going to the movies can be tradition, too; I know families who make takeout and a movie their Christmas every year, and I have a tradition with one of my best friends of going to see two movies every winter break, one her pick and one mine. No matter if the movie is new and in theaters or a classic that you revisit every year, the important part is to establish tradition, to spend time with loved ones on the sofa or in front of the big screen. Make your winter movie-watching traditions special, and that’s the definition of a holiday movie.
Happy Holidays and a restful break, from us to you!
Becca Dayton fondly remembered
Becca Dayton. Photograph Contributed.
Last Friday, Sept. 13, another death shook the Grinnell community. Rebecca S. Dayton, 51, died of injuries suffered from a motorcycle accident.
Dayton worked at Grinnell College for over 20 years, most recently as a Chef de Cuisine. A member of the American Culinary Federation, she was passionate about cooking and enjoyed her work at the Dining Hall.
“Becca worked and lived as passionately as anyone I have ever known. She cared about what she did and who she worked with immensely,” said Chef Adam Darland, Catering Sous Chef, in an email. “I was speaking with one of our catering students from Romania, and she was telling me how just the other day she was telling Becca how homesick she was and Becca, true to form, gave the student a big hug and told her that everything would be okay.”
Peter Aldrich ’15 had worked closely with Dayton in Catering. Dayton was the first person he met on the job and one of the chefs with whom he was the closest.
“Though she was technically my supervisor, she was, more than anything, a friend. Becca was easy to talk to; she was non- judgmental, sympathetic, and a great listener. She always put others before herself … Through it all, she never failed to come to work each day with a smile. For that, I will always remember her,” he wrote in an email.
Besides her relentless work ethic, Dayton’s youthful personality was a gift to her friends and coworkers.
“She feverishly took notes at each session and was inquisitive at every opportunity. But when the day was over I was able to see a different side of Becca that was absolutely hilarious and entertaining,” said Billy Gilbreaith, Dining Hall Supervisor. Students, family and staff alike will miss Dayton.
“Her dedication to her job, a mother to her kids, a daughter to her mom through thick and thin and her friendship will always be with me,” said Scott Turley, Executive Chef.
“Becca was the most caring and understanding person I have ever met in my life … She was a great friend and she will be missed by everyone she has touched in her life. She was a free spirit and loved life. Always a room filled with laughter when Becca was around,” wrote Kelly Edgington, Dining Hall Supervisor, in an email.
Memorial donations may be directed to the American Alzheimer’s Association and sent in care of Smith Funeral Home, P.O. Box 368, Grinnell, Iowa 50112.
Punk is sure to rattle Gardner Saturday night
Wet Hair is a low-fi band from Iowa City. They are a noise rock band whose music sounds like an empty street springing to life under a full moon, the streetlights flashing and manhole covers trembling while neon lights froth underneath. Their first album, In Vogue Spirit, features songs that range from simplistic beats to thunderclouds of noise. In “The Garden Room,” a keyboard tittles throughout the song, while the vocals are delivered in an echoing, droning voice. The song vibrates between moments of stillness, plateaus punctuated with humming strings, and then suddenly quickens as if it’s expanding as much in space as it is in pace. Their most recent release, “Spill Into Atmosphere,” sees the band tighten focus on melodies and increase their energy. They retain their unique sound that could soundtrack an abandoned flea market coming to life in Technicolor, with all its noisy collaborations and high-pitched synths. “Color and Shape” opens up with a bravado of drums and resonant bass, until the synths kick in and ties the sounds together, which forms a call and response to vocalist Shawn Reed singing:
“Tonight, I seek motion like life, outside I feel everything right on time. I just mostly like wasting time, I see everything right in line.” Iceage is a punk band from Copenhagen. Their sound is reminiscent of a surprisingly talented garage band from one’s hometown. The band’s singer, who you want to shyly congratulate after a show, has a raw frustration and a tangible energy of adolescence. This is a band whose sound encapsulates all the surprisingly complex and intense emotions of youth. In a video for “You’re Blessed,” VHS cameras capture the bands shows in basements and small clubs, always surrounded by a swarm of jumping and sweating kids. The song begins with isolated guitar riffs and cymbal clanging, like the band preparing their own opening fanfare. Then the red carpet rolls out and Iceage delivers everything you want from a punk band: fast-paced vocals that echo the drawl of UK punk bands, guitar riffs that crash into your ears and pounding drums that sound like the heartbeat of the song itself, exhilarated and unstoppable. The charming video shows kids so sweaty you’d think they just came out of the kiddie pool, pushing, hugging, hair tousling and kissing each other with joyous recklessness. At some points, the low lighting of the show just leaves you with the image of dark silhouettes crumpled into one big mess, which, visibility aside, still manages to sizzle with vitality. Their more recent music explores a deeper and decidedly darker atmosphere. The name of their 2013 release, “You’re Nothing,” speaks for itself. The sound is frustrated, unapologetic and anthemic in its bleakness. In a black and white video of the band performing their song “Mortals” in NYC, an audience head nods to the song’s drumroll march. “If I could leave my body, I would. Crashing a wave, disappear.” On ABC Radio, Iggy Pop has described the band as one of the few bands nowadays that actually sounds “dangerous.” Praise from Iggy, the ageless Prince of Punk, for a rock band of young 20-somethings is like The Backstreet Boys traveling forward in time and telling One Direction that they’re the best thing they’ve ever heard. Yet with this popularity, the band is getting noticed for some of their less than savory choices. According to The Guardian, the band has been accused of endorsing various fascist images. There are screenshots of audience members “sieg heiling” (which may just be fist pumping) and the band sells Burzum patches, a band whose leader endorses White Nationalism and spent years in jail for murder. Punk bands have notoriously relied on such shock factors in the past, like late 70’s Chicago band Silver Abuse having a song called “All Jews Must Die” in response to Nazi marches in Skokie. The band had this to say: “Of course it is unpleasant to be accused of something so harsh on such shallow grounds, and to be accused of being something we ourselves have only resentment towards.” Grinnelians didn’t respond too warmly to the shock tactics of the last punk band we saw, The Orwells, when they started punching out ceiling tiles and freely using the word “faggot.” Whether this band lives up to Iggy Pop’s praise and is worth overlooking various hooligan antics, you’ll have to find out for yourself this Saturday, April 6, at Gardner.
-Geo Gomez ’15