The

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TheBrown/RISDWeekly|FEBRUARY172011|VolumeXXIIIssue2
 FROM THE EDITORS: THE ISSUE:
The latest rumble in the never-ending battle of man vs. machine has been taking place on the set
of “Jeopardy”—over the last week, two human “Jeopardy” champions (Ken Jennings and Brad News
Rutter) have been pitted against an I.B.M. computer named Watson.
To put it bluntly: Watson’s kicking ass. At the end of the second (of three) days, the com- WEEK IN REVIEW p.2
puter stood at $35,000, while Rutter and Jennings lagged behind, with $10,400 and $4,800 re- by Jonah Kagan, Sam Levison, and Ashton Strait
spectively.
Is anyone surprised? They shouldn’t be: after all, Watson uses data stored on 10 I.B.M. serv- A NEW DAWN FOR SUDAN p.3
ers—the equivalent of 2,800 computers—that take up a whole room in the “Jeopardy” studios by Emily Gogolak
(though he’s not allowed to use the Internet). And it has an undeniable advantage in buzzing:
Watson’s reaction time is superhuman. Jennings and Rutter were slightly helped out by the fact
that Watson will only buzz in if he calculates a high probability of his answer being right; none-
theless, it was able to answer first for 24 of 30 Double Jeopardy questions.
Still, we’re probably not on the verge of a brainy-computer takeover: unlike Deep Blue, the
Arts
chess computer that toppled world champion Garry Kasparov in 1997, Watson’s successes are THE NEXT BIG THING p.4
likely attributable to an extensive knowledge base and lightning-fast speed, not to particularly
by Mary-Evelyn Farrior
advanced artificial intelligence. Case in point: he fails on the Indy’s #1 test of intelligence—puns.
While Watson has been surprisingly adept at working out the riddles and word patterns of the
show’s questions, a New York Times demonstration shows that wordplay still isn’t its forte: in re- THE BEST-LAID SCHEMAS OF MICE AND MEN p.9
by Maud Doyle
sponse to “This new dynamic duo is made up of Bruce Wayne’s superhero self and a famous ban-
dit of Sherwood Forest,” Watson’s top answer is, bafflingly, “Lincoln Green Revolution.” He
didn’t feel strong enough to buzz in with his answer (nor the runner-up: “Ribbon Tree Farm,”)
but in any case, it’s likely that the pun-minded humans of the world will be on top for a while. Metro
–GB
STATE OF THE UNIONS p.5
by Simon van Zuylen-Wood

THE INDY IS: Features

MANAGING EDITORS Gillian Brassil, Erik Font, Adrian Randall • NEWS Emily
Gogolak, Ashton Strait, Emma Whitford • METRO Emma Berry, Malcolm Burn- LOVE STORIES THROUGHOUT HISTORY p.7
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LOCAL FLAVOR p.12
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DEVlLBOLICAL p.15
Letters to the editor are welcome distractions. The College Hill Independent is
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Occults
EPHEMERA: SECRETS OF THE PULSE p.17
by Natasha Pradhan
1916
LAROUSSE ILUSTRADO
EL PEQUENO

AS IF YOU CARE:
Around 8PM Wednesday night,reports of attacks on Pearl Square, the center of protests
in Bahrain, began to surface. The following are Tweets sent from the BlackBerry of Mary-
am Alkhawaja, head of the Foreign Relations at the Bahrain Center for Human Rights.
The tweets began around 3AM in Bahrain:

People are whistling clapping and chanting,
and someone is telling them on mic to stay
peaceful and not leave
now they’re chanting “peaceful, peaceful”
Messages are going around about missing chil-
dren
News tht anyone walking or driving is stopped
and beaten by riot police in villages around

I see them on the bridge, hundreds of them
They’re shooting at us
People are chanting “we demand the fall of the
regime”
There are wounded, area is surrounded
They’re attacking from everywhere
Women are running carrying their children
they’re shooting repeatedly non stop
“Alkhalifa are criminals, history and the world
are our witnesses” the crowd chants.
News that ambulance was stopped by riot police
and driver and nurse were beaten
Guy telling me he saw riot police tie up men,
hands n feet, then beat them. And he saw them
burning tents while ppl were still inside.
ppl lying on the floor more than 1000 injured
at pearl roundabout. police not allowing access
to help them by ambulance

On my way to hospital now to see wounded

News of more than 70 wounded and tht para-

medics are nt being allowed to pick up wounded
from the roundabout

WEEK
by J
on
ah
Ka
g
an
,Sa
m
Le
vis
on
RE-
SHRUNKEN HEADS
According to University of Wisconsin
anthropologist John Hawks, the human
brain has been shrinking. Nope, it’s not
from all that ecstasy we’ve been taking,
but simply good ol’ natural selection at
work. “Over the past 20,000 years, the av-
erage volume of the human male brain has
decreased from 1,500 cubic centimetres
to 1,350 cubic centimetres, losing a chunk
the size of a tennis ball,” wrote Kathleen
McAuliffe in Discover magazine, citing an
interview with Hawks. “The female brain
has shrunk by about the same propor-
tion,” she added.
This new revelation raises a multitude
of new questions: Why is this happening?
Are we getting dumber? Several groups
of scientists have offered different expla-
nations for what Hawks called a “major
downsizing in an evolutionary eyeblink.”
Harvard University primatologist
Richard Wrangham believes that as natu-
ral selection has weeded out our more ag-
gressive traits, humans have become do-
mesticated—just like dogs, whose brains
FEBRUARY 17 2011 | THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT | www.THEINDY.org
FIRE ‘N’ FIRE IN AZ
In what has become a national pissing
contest, Arizona is now counter-suing
the federal government for blocking the
state from enforcing its harsh immigration
laws. The Justice Department sued the
state last year to challenge S.B. 1070, the
controversial law aimed at cracking down
on illegal immigrants in the state. For
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, the clear
solution was counter-suing the national
government in federal court on behalf of
the state. The lawsuit claims that the feds
have neglected to maintain “operational
control” of the border or protect Arizona
from “harms associated with rampant ille-
gal immigration.”
This fight-fire-with-fire approach has
apparently stirred up the enthusiasm of
constitutional authority hot-heads across
y Kah Yangi
b
ation
tr
us
Ill
are 10 to 15 percent smaller than those
of the wolves they evolved from. Another
theory contends that the warming trend
of the past 20,000 years has favored the
development of smaller skeletons, and
thus, smaller skulls, since bulkier bodies
retain more heat.
While it’s just as tempting to blame it
all on global warming as it is to imagine hu-
mans one day living a carefree life playing
fetch with ourselves, a group of scientists
from the University of Missouri has used
what little brainpower our species has left
to come up with a more plausible explana-
tion. They hypothesize that as societies
became more complex, individuals no
longer needed to be as smart to survive.
Humans born with a little less gray matter
could rely on the help of others to get by.
To put it in terms we modern cretins can
understand: smaller brains mean lower
IQs. So if we are left with the sad conclu-
sion that the human race is getting dumb-
er, at least we will finally all agree that size
does matter. –JK
NEWS| 2
the state—if the fact that the counterclaims
have been funded entirely by private do-
nations is any indication. Arizona’s also
playing fast and loose with Webster’s,
claiming in the suit that they are facing an
IN
invasion that the federal government has
failed to stop. After all, didn’t you know
that the “word ‘invasion’ does not neces-
sarily mean invasion of one country by
another, but can mean large numbers of il-
legal immigrants from various countries”?
The claims in this lawsuit make it
sound as if Arizona is under siege by an
invading horde. Of course, they expect
their very own Great Wall to keep out the
angry Huns—the suit calls for construction
of a 700-mile-long reinforced fence along
the border between Arizona and Mexico.
–AS
t
rai
St
n
hto
As
an
d
VIEW
FAILIN’ PALIN: SARAH’S TRADEMARK WOES
She may be able to see Russia from her
house, but it seems that Sarah Palin’s
trendy eyewear has failed her in the
task of discerning the all-important dot-
ted line. According to the U.S. Patent
and Trademark Office, the conservative
sweetheart’s application to trademark her
name was rejected after she neglected to
include her signature on the document.
Following in the footsteps of accom-
plished female celebrities like Paris Hil-
ton, Cher and Barbie, Palin is seeking to
add “brand” to her long list of titles that
currently includes former governor, for-
mer vice-presidential candidate, and cur-
rent face of ghostwriter Lynn Vincent.
Palin, who’s been basking in the conser-
vative spotlight since John McCain got
desperate in 2008, hopes to acquire the
trademark as she begins a career on the
lecture circuit and prepares for a possible
2012 presidential campaign.
It appears that dotted-line blindness is
genetic. Palin’s daughter, Bristol, also had
her trademark application rejected for
failure to sign. The younger Palin gained
national exposure by reaching the finals on
last year’s Dancing with the (pseudo)Stars
despite receiving consistently low scores
from the judging panel, but is also known
for preaching the gospel of abstinence to
young women across America following
her unplanned pregnancy in 2008. Both
Bristol and her mother believe that the
trademarks are necessary for protecting
the use of their “motivational speaking
services” against exploitation. –SL
3 |NEWS
A
NEW
DAWN
FOR
SUDA
N
ogo lak
ily G
b y Em
nb y Ro
Illus tratio
S
udan is no stranger to struggle. For most of its
post-colonial history, the largest nation in Africa has
been at war with itself. Two bouts of civil war have rav-
aged Sudan since its independence in 1956, taking the
lives of 2.2 million. Ongoing bloodshed in the western
region of Darfur has forced more than two million from
their homes and killed over 200,000. The government is
a nightmare for human rights, and its President Omar al-
Bashir is among the International Criminal Court’s most
wanted. The most recent development in the Sudan’s
bloody history, however, may give the nation a new rea-
son for hope.
In January, the Sudanese people finally got the
chance to take the future of their nation into their own
hands. Hundreds of thousands turned out to vote for a
referendum on the independence of southern Sudan,
which was mired in war for decades for with the north.
The process began on January 9, and lasted through the
15th. According to the final count, 98.83 percent of the
over 3.8 million registered voters in southern Sudan
chose to separate from the north; in many parts of the
country the affirmative vote was over 99 percent. On
February 7, President Bashir publically accepted the ref-
erendum results, and the date was set for July 9, 2011 for
southern Sudan—to be named the Republic of South Su-
dan—to become the world’s newest nation.
The gReAT DiViDe
To understand the significance of this vote, one must
first look at the dynamic between northern and southern
Sudan. While the north is predominantly Muslim and
identifies with the Arab world, the south is Christian and
animist and has closer ties to sub-Saharan Africa. The dis-
FEBRUARY 11 2011 | THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT | www.THEINDY.org
San dler
bert
cord between the two regions is not only religious and
cultural, but also economic and political. Wealth and
power have historically been concentrated in the north
and northerners have consistently sought to rule Sudan
along Islamic lines, including the official appropriation
of Shariah law. Meanwhile, the non-Muslim south has
been steadfastly opposed to Arab control and has long
harbored secessionist sentiment. Just as Sudan won inde-
pendence from joint Egyptian-British rule in 1956, these
tensions spiraled into a full-scale civil war that lasted until
1972, when the military regime of then-President Jaafar
Numeiri agreed to autonomy for the south. The respite
was short-lived, however, and fighting resumed in 1983.
The civil war—the longest in African history—finally came
to an end in 2005 when the main southern rebel groups
signed a peace treaty with the government of Sudan.
The agreement granted the south “semi-autonomy” and
included the option of a 2011 vote to remain part of the
Republic of Sudan—or to leave.
Six years later, the south has nearly unanimously cho-
sen secession. “This is a new, historic moment for Sudan,
a new dawn,” Haile Menkerios, head of the UN mission
in Sudan, announced to the Security Council. Although
spirits were high and the general mood very optimistic,
this new phase for Sudan is not without its share of fears.
The most immediate concern is how to draw the border
between the two Sudans: it remains highly ambiguous just
where the Arab north ends and the Christian south be-
gins. Jeffrey Gettleman, chief Africa correspondent for
the New York Times, explained the sharp local division:
“One thatched roof hut carries a roughly-hewn cross at
the top and next door an identical hut flaunts a crescent
moon.” In the 2005 agreement, this regional crossroads,
named Abyei, was placed under joint north-south au-
thority with little success. Violence has since persisted
between Abyei’s Muslims and Christians; and a separate
referendum to decide whether the region should join the
north or the south was canceled last month due to parti-
san disagreements over who in Abyei is even eligible to
vote.
Further complicating the matter is the question of
oil. Nearly three-quarters of the nation’s crude is pro-
duced in the south, but the pipelines to export it run
through the north. Sudan has recently witnessed massive
economic growth—oil exports since 1989 have tripled the
country’s GDP. A cut in the flow would be devastating
for north and south, and both sides have expressed deep
concern over how to divide their resources and share in-
frastructure.
In addition to the oil and border quandaries, an-
other major roadblock to a peaceful transition is demo-
bilization. Sudan is haunted by hundreds of thousands of
former military and armed rebel groups who fueled the
civil wars, and continue today to wreak havoc across the
country. Analysts warn that low-level clashes could easily
expand into another full-scale war.
On February 6, the day before Mr. Bashir publi-
cally approved the vote, a Sudanese army mutiny broke
out in the oil-producing Upper Nile State. The military
reported over 50 deaths. Last week, 16 were killed in a
clash between rebels and a former army commander. A
few days later, 100 were reported dead in more rebel-mil-
itary disputes. What is worrisome is that there is no way
of knowing now just how these clashes will impact peace-
ful transition. As Sudan scholar and Professor at Univer-
sity of Haifa in Israel wrote in an email to the Independent,
“We are witnessing the secession between North and
South and it is not peaceful; however, this does not imply
that it will escalate into full scale civil war, we have to wait
and see.”
CRUDe, KAlAShNiKoVS, AND CAiRo
As if the threat of violence weren’t enough, Sudan now
faces yet another reason for anxiety: political unrest. Mr.
Bashir faces many of the same economic woes as his Egyp-
tian neighbor to the north, and anti-Mubarak protests
have spurred a wave of anti-Bashir sentiment in Sudan.
While most think that it would be highly unlikely for the
government of Sudan to follow Egypt in revolution, the
opposition’s timing is worrisome, coming just when the
government of Sudan should be focusing on post-refer-
endum negotiations with the south. Initially, thousands
joined the streets in peaceful protests, but the momen-
tum—and speculation of regime change—all but disap-
peared when the government responded with force. In
Khartoum, the Christian Science Monitor reported that
Sudanese security forces attacked protesters with tear
gas, water pipes, and sticks. One student was killed, an-
other 113 were arrested, and Bashir made clear that he
would continue to rule his country—or what remains of
it—with an iron fist.
In analyzing the Sudan vote, it is important to also
consider how southern secession may impact the north.
In light of the government’s response to the protests, it
is clear that the development will not solely change the
fate of the south. In a recent op-Ed in the New York
Times, Sudan expert and Washington Post correspon-
dent Rebecca Hamilton explained, “With the south now
out of the equation, dissident northerners fear being left
without allies at a critical moment in the battle to define
their new country.” The battle is for political reform, and
recent remarks from Bashir paint a bleak future for the
north. In December he announced, “If South Sudan se-
cedes, we will change the Constitution, and at that time
there will be no time to speak of diversity of culture and
ethnicity.”
In the midst of celebration for a new Sudan, both
sides are right to temper idealism with caution. The south
is escaping the wrath of a tireless tyrant, but half a nation
is still privy to the wrath of Bashir. And while southerners
largely see secession as the light at the end of a long, dark
tunnel, for many, memories from decades of brutal war
still ring too close to home. “This war killed millions. You
cannot believe just how many people died,” Jany Deng
told the Independent in an interview. Deng, a refugee from
southern Sudan living in Phoenix, fled Sudan in 1987 and
was one of the first refugees from the civil war to be reset-
tled in the US. “But,” he said, his voice picking up, “this
is a moment of a lifetime, of history. All the dead, they
died for this moment. We are going to have some issues
at first. We are a new nation. We need a constitution. But
people are tired, tired of the dying. We cannot mess up.”
He paused. “The world is watching.”
EMILY GOGOLAK ’12 wonders what Omar al-Bashir
has for breakfast.

THE
NEXT
BIG
THING
Brown’s Granoff Center waxes contemporary
by Mary-Evelyn Farrior
F orty million dollars in donor funds
and 38,815 square feet later, the
Granoff Center for the Creative
Arts officially celebrated its opening last
Thursday. In a swanky gathering of trust-
ees, donors, university administration,
professors, students, and more, the kick-
off displayed the building to its fullest. As
in any proper assembly of well-to-do peo-
ple, scenes from Pippin were performed,
Stephen Sondheim was in attendance, and
Ruth Simmons gave a speech.
The Granoff Center seems to encap-
sulate our current concept of modernity,
but the idea for a building of this type
has been around for decades—over forty
years, to be exact. Richard Fishman, the
director of the Creative Arts Council, ex-
plains that the concept first came into ex-
istence at about the same time as the open
curriculum. But not until ten years did the
Creative Arts Council assemble and put
together their super-power rings to make
this idea a reality. “There was a movement
within art to cross boundaries between
disciplines, so we wanted to find a way to
encourage that to happen,” said Fishman.
The Council championed the idea of
a collectivist space in which the needs of
each individual art department was met in
a shared environment. Even upon comple-
tion, no one department holds claim of the
building. Instead, the center is open to ev-
eryone, only approval from the Creative
Arts Council is needed to officially use the
space. Currently, classes, ranging from
Africana Studies to Modern Culture and
Media, are conducted in the building and
multiple student-produced arts and the-
atre performances are already scheduled
for the upcoming months.
“It is revolutionary in that it brings
together a diverse group of people and
disciplines that represent not only art, but
a brief architectural history of brown:
University Hall Manning Hall
1770 1834
Joseph Brown Russell Warren,
Tallman & Bucklin
FEBRUARY 17 2011 | THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT | www.THEINDY.org
sciences, humanities, and no individual
department has ownership of any space”
said Fishman. To foster this, the building
houses everything from a robotics lab to
a recording studio: “[this building] will
bring people together and allow them
to see into the working process of other
people. I think this building will act like a
magnet for the campus community.”
Once the Corporation got on board with
the idea, the wheels began spinning quick-
ly. In 2006, the Facility and Design Com-
mittee of the Corporation, staffed by Fa-
cilities Management, began preliminary
work on the project. By 2007, twenty-two
different architectural firms, selected by
the committee, were in the running to
design the new building. The committee
then toured buildings by these six finalists,
as well as the firms themselves, and met
the proposed design teams. Architectural
firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro’s recent
work on Boston’s Institute of Contempo-
rary Art wooed the committee. “That was
well known at the time; it was a similar
type of program to what we were trying
to do,” said Stephen Maiorisi, Vice Presi-
dent of Facilities Management. “There
was something about Diller Scofidio, that
we knew that if we hired them something
special would come out of it.”
The New York based architectural
firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R) is
used to the limelight by now. As their
website boasts, Diller and Scofidio, a hus-
band and wife design duo, were together
ranked in “World’s Most Influential Peo-
ple” by Time Magazine in 2009 and were
also the first architects to ever receive a
MacArthur Genius Grant. In addition to
working on sexy projects like creating the
entrance to New York Fashion Week in
2010 and giving a facelift to the Lincoln
Sayles Hall John D. Rockefeller Library Sciences Library
1881 1962-1964
Alpheus Morris
Center, their architecture has become a
favorite among top American universi-
ties—such as Juilliard, UC Berkley and Co-
lumbia—and museums such as the Broad
in Los Angeles and the Museum of Image
and Sound in Rio de Janeiro.
Brown Professor of Architectural
History and architect Deitrich Neumann
explains that designing for universities
can often be a challenge due to the com-
plex nature of creating something for so
many users, but DS+R thrive under such
pressure: “Diller Scofidio + Renfro were
really wonderful architects to work with.
They responded to each new idea on our
side…always with a positive response.”
The building, an architectural gem
that Neumann believes “really puts us on
the map as a place to go to see good archi-
tecture,” is located on Angell Street, near
the center of campus. With the comple-
tion of “The Walk” between Pembroke
and main campus within the last three
years, this area may very well become the
new heart of Brown.
As you walk down the one way street,
gray, zinc, curtain-like pleats begin to re-
veal the walls of glass that form the entire
west side of the building. The choice of
gray throughout the building is intended
to provide a backdrop for the creativ-
ity inside the center, rather than distract
from it. The use of glass and transparent
materials throughout the entire structure
was the brainchild of DS+R, particularly
Charles Renfro, who served as “princi-
pal-in-charge” for this project. The split
level design of the building, which was
presented in one of the initial meetings
between DS+R and the committee, allows
people inside, as well as outside, to see the
goings-on in different rooms of the build-
ing. Everything from the walls between
the split level to parts of floor are visually
1968-1971
Warner, Burns, Toan and Lunde
ARTS| 4
Iwan Baan
iwan Baan
permeable. This artistic voyeurism aims
to catalyze the creative process. Richard
Fishman hopes that the Granoff center
will lead students to “open their eyes and
minds to these things they would not nor-
mally.”
Brown has a history of embracing
new architectural styles and uber-celebri-
ty architects. After all, the List Arts Cen-
ter was designed by Phillip Johnson in
1971, the architect also behind postmod-
ern chef-d’œuvres like the AT&T Build-
ing (now call the Sony Tower) in New
York and the ultra-modern Glass House
(CT) where he died in his sleep. “There
is a certain courage to try things out, and
I think we all know that some buildings
[at Brown] weren’t quite as successful as
we wish them to be, so I like the fact that
you can find buildings from every period
of the 20th century and 19th century and
see sort of development and history and
richness,” said Neumann. However, with
every new building the question of coher-
ency comes into play: some may find a
high-tech, grey and glass building out of
step with the Georgian brick Main Green,
the suburban brick of the bookstore, and
the postmodern brick of the BioMed cen-
ter.
Still, for a university that prides itself
on its diversity, the choice of different ar-
chitectural styles could be seen as a natu-
ral reflection of its student body. Maiorisi
voices this attitude: “It’s looking for the
best, just like looking for the best students.
Looking for the best in everything that
they do. That doesn’t mean that the most
money has to be spent, but it does mean
that you are searching for excellence in
everything—including architecture.”
MARY-EVELYN FARRIOR B’14 is
also working on sexy projects.
List Art Center Watson Institute
1971 2002
Phillip Johnson Rafael Vindy
5 |METRO FEBRUARY 17 2011 | THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT | www.THEINDY.org
STATE OF THE UNIONS
A ngus Davis is a handsome local boy
who skipped college and became a
Silicon Valley prodigy when he was
18. That was in 1997, when becoming
Netscape’s youngest-ever employee was a
huge deal. Ten years later, he had earned a
fortune, a reputation as a fervent charter-
school advocate, and a seat on the Rhode
Island State Board of Regents, the state’s
engine for education policy. In 2008, he
orchestrated legislation that overturned a
ban on new charter schools; a year later,
he helped found the first “Mayoral Acad-
emy” Blackstone Valley Prep, a charter
school in Cumberland, which operates un-
der the direction of several area mayors.
Last year, his Board of Regents worked
with Education Commissioner Deborah
Gist—his recruit—to win a $75 million
grant in the federal Race to the Top con-
test, which includes provisions for more
charter schools. Citing the harmful in-
fluence of “brain-dead, asinine” policies
which blindly protect unions and senior
faculty, in 2007, Davis claimed that “the
public education system is absolutely
screwing low-income kids of color.” Less
than a month after he was sworn in, Gov-
ernor Lincoln Chafee sacked Davis along
with two other board members. Chafee’s
replacement candidates, unlike Davis,
have the full support of local teachers’
unions.
Without their support, Chafee, who
won only 36 percent of the vote, likely
would have lost the election. This fall,
empowered by the Citizen’s United v. FEC
Supreme Court decision, the National
Education Association RI and the Rhode
Island Federation of Teachers and Health
Professionals—the state’s two major teach-
er unions—spent $183,000 on pro-Chafee
television ads. Local teachers unions’ po-
litical action committees gave more than
$11,000 directly to Chafee’s campaign,
and individual teachers and administra-
Chafee, Charters, and
Choices in Rhode Island
tors across the state contributed more
than $4,000 of their own money. No oth-
er set of interest groups spent close to that
much for Chafee—or any of the other gu-
bernatorial candidates. Chafee, needless
to say, also received the endorsement of
both unions.
In return, unions are relying on
Chafee to slow the pace of Gist’s plans for
school choice expansion. Gist has stood at
odds with big labor since last year, when
she drafted a proposal that got all 72 Cen-
tral Falls teachers fired, then re-hired un-
der harsher terms of contract. Though la-
bor representatives have been cagey over
the reasoning behind their distaste for Gist
(and would not comment for this article),
there’s little doubt it comes down to the
battle over Gist’s belief in school choice,
which represents the latest, greatest
threat to the political strength of teachers
unions. As (non-unionized charter schools
grow, unions have fewer bargaining chips
to lobby for a preferred contractual terms
and funding for their school districts. Gist
has stated that the Rhode Island Depart-
ment of Education (RIDE) will use the $75
million Race to the Top funds in addition
to another $2 million dollar federal char-
ter school grant, to expand the number of
charters from 15 to 35 over the next few
years.
A TASTe oF ViCToRY
So far, the teacher unions have gotten
their way. On January 31, Chafee asked
US Secretary of Education Arne Dun-
can for “flexibility” on the portion of the
Race to the Top grant, which funds char-
ter schools and requested a “thoughtful
pause” on the current direction of pub-
lic school reform. Some speculate that
Chafee’s talks with Duncan may jeopar-
dize the entire grant, which is not yet in
Rhode Island’s possession and awaits final
confirmation based on RIDE’s allocation
proposal. The situation may also be jeop-
ardized by Chafee’s new Board of Re-
gents, named on January 2 (and currently
awaiting confirmation from the State Sen-
ate), which has full control over whether
new charters are granted or not. Regents
board members have three year terms.
Eight of the nine members’ terms were
up this year. The three ousted were pro-
Gist. Two of the four new members have
union ties. One appointment remains to
be made.
Central Falls superintendent Fran
Gallo, who pulled the trigger on the in-
famous fire/re-hire plan for her low-per-
forming district, isn’t optimistic about the
immediate future of public school reform.
The Board of Regents expurgation, Gallo
says, is “a clear indication that the educa-
tion reform effort…now has weighted
breaks on it... Anybody who has stood
their ground and put children first—in-
stead of the union agenda of adult com-
fort—was definitely targeted for replace-
ment.”
Among the board’s new members
are former State Assemblyman George
Caruolo, who has echoed Chafee’s am-
bivalence over the Race to the Top grant
(only a fraction of which deals with char-
ter school funding) and Carolina Bernal
from the Institute of Labor Studies, whose
president is a former official for the Na-
tional Education Association—along with
the American Federation of Teachers, the
largest teacher union in the country.
Replaced alongside Angus Davis
were former State Supreme Court Judge
Robert Flanders Jr., a Gist supporter, and
Anna Caro-Morales, the president of the
Central Falls School Board and a head fig-
ure in the nascent education reform group
Rhode Island Campaign for Achievement
Now (RI-CAN). On January 25th, RI-
CAN director Maryellen Butke wrote an
open letter urging Chafee to keep Gist in

power and the Board of Regents intact.
In spite of the signatures of heavy-hitting
school choice advocates Joel Klein and
Jeb Bush, Chafee shuffled the board, and
some speculate that Gist will soon be gone
too.
If Gist is ousted, anyone familiar with
the entrenched battles between unions
and charter-school advocates in poor ur-
ban areas won’t be surprised at the out-
come. The scenario is likely to be similar
to events this December in Washington,
D.C., when Mayor Adrian Fenty was de-
feated largely at the hands of the teachers’
unions, who poured money into the cam-
paign of Vincent Gray, his challenger in
the Democratic primary.
A few months later, D.C. Schools
Chancellor Michelle Rhee, one of the
stars of Davis Guggenheim’s anti-teacher
union documentary “Waiting for Super-
man,” offered her resignation. In her
three-year tenure, Rhee fired hundreds
of underperforming teachers and closed
down under-enrolled schools to free up
funding for new programs and charter
schools. Rhee resigned because she felt
the new mayor’s stance on public educa-
tion would make it impossible to maintain
the trajectory of her reforms. Chafee’s
Regents Board could play the same role.
“You wonder at what point Gist turns
around and asks if this is worth it,” says
Jim Sturgios, the director of the Boston-
based education research/advocacy firm
Pioneer, and education blogger for the
Boston Globe. Chafee’s appointments are
“a pretty black and white issue,” Sturgios
says. “I do have documents showing that
[the appointments] are precisely what the
unions wanted.” Not that one needs much
help reading between the lines.
AllieS oR eNeMieS?
On some level, the unions’ trepidation
about school choice is understandable.
Money that could be going to public
school districts may go toward charters
instead. And if teacher evaluations are
linked to test scores, one of Gist’s pro-
posals, equally competent teachers from
poorer and richer districts will not be
judged fairly—the 2010 statewide NECAP
science results revealed that students in
economically disadvantaged districts per-
formed 20 to 35 percent worse than their
by Simon van Zuylen-Wood
Illustrations by Annika Finne
FEBRUARY 17 2011 | THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT | www.THEINDY.org
wealthier peers. This scenario becomes
especially troubling if some of the better
students test into charter schools, and tra-
ditional public schools are left with even
worse-performing students.
Nonetheless, one of the stated aims
of the school choice movement when it
emerged in the early 90s was not only to
provide an independently-run, publicly-
funded alternative to underperforming
public schools, but also to facilitate coop-
eration between public schools and char-
ters.
“I don’t understand the hostility,”
Gallo says. “We have partnerships with
our charters. We partner with the Learn-
ing Community Charter in Central Falls—
they assist us with professional develop-
ment at the early childhood level. With
their assistance, we are improving.”
looKiNg AT The NUMBeRS
Governor Chafee hasn’t indicated that
union pressure factored into his new
Board of Regents selections and his mis-
givings about Race to the Top. Instead, he
cites the work of Diane Ravitch, a promi-
nent education expert and school-choice
advocate turned school-choice naysayer.
In her latest book, The Death and Life of
the Great American School System: How Test-
ing and Choice Are Undermining Education,
Ravitch argues that many charter schools
perform far worse than neighborhood
public schools.
Still, Jim Sturgios notes that Gist’s
commitment to reforming—not just char-
tering—alternative public schools distin-
guished Rhode Island’s Race to the Top.
In addition to her proposal to link state
teacher evaluations and test scores, Gist
has threatened to cut off funding for char-
ters that test worse than comparable dis-
trict public schools.
“It’s not just a proposal that says char-
ters are the answer,” Sturgios says. “It’s
a full, comprehensive plan that she put
together, that frankly [stands] head and
shoulders above many,” including Mas-
sachusetts.
One of Chafee’s sacked Regents
Board members, Bob Flanders, said
that although plans for charter schools
were only one of many provisions in the
state’s Race to the Top application—the
main ones being new state-wide common
course plans, better teacher evaluations,
and technological innovations like ‘virtual
classrooms’—its hot-button topicality was
a leading factor in securing the grant.
“It provided not only a promise of a
lot of money to do this work, but it proved
to be a tremendous unifying factor in
bringing together disparate stakeholders
toward goal of reforming education for
benefit for student achievement.”
The local education community
has been effectively split in two, and the
traditional Democratic stranglehold on
union support has been challenged by pro-
gressive reform groups like RI-CAN and
Democrats for Education Reform. But
they have had little effect in Rhode Island
so far. Though Chafee ran as an Indepen-
dent, his platform was old-school Demo-
cratic and netted him the support of most
of the state’s public employee unions.
One look at the campaign contributions
going to the overwhelmingly Democratic
state legislators also reveals the union’s in-
fluence in state politics.
The next debate between the RI-
CAN Democrats and the union Demo-
crats may hinge on students’ recent per-
formance in the NECAP science exams,
standardized tests administered for 4th,
8th, and 11th graders.
So far, the results—released last
week—reflect an existing geographical
dichotomy. The best scores have always
comes from suburban districts like Bar-
rington and East Greenwich and the worst
from Providence and Pawtucket. Of all
4th graders this year, the second and third
best scores of the 169 Rhode Island pub-
lic schools went to two suburban charter
schools, Kingston Hill Academy and the
Compass School. Both schools’ students
tested around 90 percent proficiency, an
improvement of 40 percent over last year.
(The median proficiency level in Rhode
Island was 44 percent.) Inner-city charters
Times2 Academy and Highlander Charter
saw their 4th graders test at 13.7 percent
and 8.3 percent, both about 9 percent
worse than they did last year.
It’s likely that the union-friendly
Board of Regents will cite these statistics
if they decide not to approve the slew of
new charters and Mayoral Academies that
will be applying for funding this year.
METRO| 6
RiSiNg TiDeS
Outgoing Regents member Bob Flanders
was recently appointed Receiver for Cen-
tral Falls, where he’ll function as a mayor.
This fall, the school district’s NECAP
scores improved for all students and were
significantly better than most Providence
public schools, despite a high number of
teacher absences.
Flanders says he’s committed to an
approach to school reform that encour-
ages “best practice.” In other words,
the better-managed charter schools will
work to help the underperforming public
schools. A rising tide, he says, will lift all
boats, he says, in the traditional rhetoric
of the trickle-down economists.
“It’s insane to not do anything. We
keep turning out people that are behind
the 8-ball, who face a life of economic
despondency—as a result of very little edu-
cation that they can use in life,” Flanders
says. “These are the people who end up on
the social dependency lists—if not in jail or
the training school—so the rest of us pay
through the nose because of the failures of
the education system.”
Clearly, Flanders’s words aren’t a vote of
confidence. But if he hopes to enact any
change at all for the troubled city, he’ll
have to work with union leadership. Ide-
ally, the state can one day have the best of
both worlds—unionized charter schools—
something the GreenDot network in Los
Angeles has tried with great success. But if
GreenDot or anything like it is coming to
Rhode Island, it’ll have to be approved by
the new Board of Regents first.
SIMON VAN ZUYLEN-WOOD B’11 is
neither brain-dead nor asinine.
 7 |FEATURES
r i e s t h r o u g h o u t his
e s t o t o ry
lov
Lilth
and
Adam: an
Argument
T
he legend of Lilith, Adam’s wife before Eve,
found its first mention in Sumerian times. Li-
lith appears as an ancient Middle Eastern god-
dess, vampire, and harlot. Other variations portray
her as a winged cherub with horns. The most well-
known Lilith appears in a Talmudic scripture writ-
ten by Ben Sira, a Jewish mystic or Kabbalist, whose
writings were rejected by the Hebrew Bible. Accord-
ing to Sira, Lilith was created at the same time and
from the same earth as Adam. When Adam wished
to sleep with her, he demanded that she lie below
him, but Lilith, dismayed at Adam’s need to occupy
the dominant position during sex, responded, “Why
should I lie beneath you when I am your equal, since
both of us were created from dust?” But Adam was
determined to overpower her, so Lilith defiantly
flew away to the Red Sea full of lecherous demons.
There, Lilith partook in rampant promiscuity and
bore over one hundred demon babies per day, some
of whom she ate. God sent Lilith three angels who
begged her to return to Eden, but she refused, even
when the angels threatened to drown her in the sea.
Lilith negotiated with the angels and agreed to the
death of one hundred of her babies each day.
In need of a new wife, Adam used his thirteenth
rib to create Eve, his second and more subservient
wife. Upon learning of Adam and Eve’s marriage, Li-
lith returned to Eden and slept with Adam against his
will. Lilith has been immortalized as the incarnation
of lust—the child-killing, nocturnal demonness who
haunted the beds of men who slept alone, and who
caused women barrenness and miscarriages.
So why couldn’t Lilith be envisioned as a quasi-
perverse symbol of female empowerment? Or as
a great creator and destroyer of life valorized for
her dissidence, challenging the belief that the drive
to nurture is as instinctual as the drive to destruct?
Although some artists and academics have rewritten
the history of Lilith as an empowering archetype for
women, standard commentary depicts her as a se-
ductress and devouring demon mother—the embodi-
ment of our collective morbid imagination. –EB
FEBRUARY 17 2011 | THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT | www.THEINDY.org
Byron
‘N’ CREW
T
he summer of 1816 was a steamy one in Lake
Geneva, Switzerland. Lord Byron invited Mary
Shelley, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary’s half-sister
Claire Clairmont, and Byron’s doctor John Polidori
to holiday at the Villa Diodati. Already celebrities,
the group presented a business opportunity to a local
hotel owner who rented out a telescope to tourists to
watch the Villa from a perch across the lake.
At the villa, tourists/peeping toms reported
seeing petticoats strewn across the balconies. Then
the stories got wilder: naked women running across
the yard, and nearly every possible permutation of
group coupling caught in the act. The “league of in-
cest” of 1816 gained notoriety back in England, and
Byron took most of the heat for it.
Still, some fruitful pillowtalk was had at Diodati.
At Lord Byron’s suggestion, the group began a ghost
story competition. Mary Shelley took the prize: she
composed most of Frankenstein that summer. –MD
Garbo
and Dietrich
I
t’s been said that Greta Garbo and Marlene
Dietrich had an affair in post-war Berlin prior
to their Hollywood fame. Famous for being
Euro-imports of exceptional beauty and tal-
ent, the two 1930s icons also had a penchant for
cross-dressing and ambisexual activities. The wom-
en were known onscreen as femme fatales, but off-
screen sported butch-drag, vamped both sexes, and
engaged in “sewing circles”—the discrete gatherings
of early Hollywood’s lesbian set. Not only did they
look similar—with their pale skin, chin-length coif-
fure, and pencil-thin eyebrows—but they both ro-
manced the same woman: Mercedes de Acosta.
Unlike Dietrich, who wore her sexuality flam-
boyantly even while married, Garbo led a reclusive
life and never married. According to the New York
Times she referred to her affairs with women as “ex-
citing secrets.” Dietrich ostensibly seduced Garbo
on the set of the 1925 silent film The Joyless Street,
and introduced her to the infamous drag balls and
cabarets of Berlin’s emerging gay mecca. Neverthe-
less, the two women would pretend for six decades
that they had never met. Although the duo sustained
a rivalry throughout their lifetimes, Garbo and Diet-
rich survive as gay icons with huge followings in the
queer community then and now. Through their an-
drogynous fashions and illicit romance, the actresses
played a role in making lesbian subculture of the era
visible and valid. –EB

illu
Freaky
Pygmalion
Y
ou remember the story: Pygmalion, devoted
sculptor/recluse, falls head-over-heels in love
with his masterpiece ivory sculpture. He’d
seen some prostitutes in town and found himself so
disgusted by the baseness of real (read: fleshy) wom-
en that the only thing that could get him rock hard
was, well, stone. His stone, to be specific. His pre-
W
cious. He took to his chisel and began to sculpt the
form of Venus, but instead created his ideal bride,
whom he named Galatea. He begged Venus to trans-
form his inanimate maiden into a real woman. She
complied, and the couple lived happily ever after.
We tend to view this story romantically—Pyg-
malion believed so deeply in art as an expression of
love and vice versa that he literalized that love, etcet-
era, etcetera. But over the last two centuries, like-
minded “Pygmalion syndrome” fetishists have tried
to exercise their stony love to little social avail. In
Psychopathia Sexualis, Dr. Richard von Krafft-Ebing
reports on a gardener who, in 1877, became so en-
amored of the statue of the Venus de Milo he’d been
tending that his neighbors found him pants-down in
the act of copulating with it. Psychopathia also reports
a man expressing a compulsive desire to engage in in-
tercourse with an unspecified statue… but only after
placing a hunk of meat on its crucial area.
The fetish thrives today, as evidenced by discus-
sion on p-synd.com, a Pygmalion syndrome fansite:
some “are into the classic plaster, marble or alabas-
ter look, denoting the look of a statue from myth,
sculpted by some artist extraordinary, or petrified
by a Gorgon... I myself would completely dig a com-
pletely reflective gold Milla Jovovich from the neck
down.” –MD
FEBRUARY 17 2011 | THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT | www.THEINDY.org
stra
ted b
y kah yangi
LA Confidential
illiam Randolph Hearst had it all: the pub-
lishing tycoon sat through the Roaring
Twenties atop his financial empire, which
included the Los Angeles Herald Examiner and a money
bag full of movie investments starring his mistress,
Marion Davies. The inspiration for Orson Welles’s
movie Citizen Kane, Hearst was ruthless in his ambi-
tion. He was also possessive of Davies and prone to
jealousy, despite the fact that he remained married
throughout their entire affair.
On November 24, 1924, Hearst’s yacht, the
Oneida, took off from San Pedro, CA. Davies,
Hearst, his production manager Thomas Ince, Char-
lie Chaplin, and gossip columnist Louella Parsons
were among the Hollywood types aboard for what
was hoped to be a relaxing cruise in honor of Ince’s
birthday.
But before the party could land in San Diego,
Ince was rushed to shore on a water taxi and taken to
two hospitals before returning to his Benedict Can-
yon estate where he died 48 hours later. The official
cause: heart attack. The real story: murder.
Rumor is, Hearst caught Davies and Chaplin,
who were rumored to have a secret relationship, as
they stole a forbidden kiss. Enraged with jealousy, he
grabbed his gun and shot at the couple. In his blind
rage, however, the bullet flew wild and struck Ince
in the head. A doctor on board accompanied the pro-
ducer to shore, but it was too late.
The Examiner reported that Ince had been rushed
off the boat with a severe case of indigestion,and
died of health complications. Chaplin denied ever
being on the yacht, Parsons was bought with promis-
es of an even juicier story, and the scandal was swept
under Heart’s expensive Oriental rug. --BC
FEATURES| 8
g
h a
a z
a n n
j o
b y
es i g n
d
Héloise
and Abelard
P aris’s reputation as the city of irrationally pas-
sionate acts in the name of love dates back to
the twelfth century. Then as now, the personal
lives of the elite caused scandal and outrage. Abelard
was a renowned scholar who immersed himself in his
work with little outside contact. Until he met Hélo-
ise. Twenty years his junior, Héloise was known for
her beauty and quick-witted intelligence that put her
ahead of her time. Abelard, whether out of preda-
tory intentions or true love at first sight, arranged to
become Héloise’s tutor, and moved into the home
where she lived with her uncle, Fulbert, the canon
of Notre Dame. Whatever the dubious nature of the
affair’s beginning, the two soon fell passionately in
love and carried on their relationship behind closed
doors.
When Héloise discovered that she was preg-
nant, the couple married in secret and Héloise had
a son, whom she named Astrolabe. Following their
clandestine wedding, Héloise took shelter in a con-
vent at Argenteuil so as to not draw attention to
their relationship. Her uncle, in a classic case of star-
crossed misunderstanding, didn’t know about the
marriage and believed that Abelard had forsaken his
niece and driven her to the convent out of despair.
He hired servants to sneak into Abelard’s house in
the middle of the night to punish him, where they
brutally attacked and finally castrated him. Abelard,
stripped of his manhood, buried himself in his work
and shame. Héloise, upon learning of her husband’s
demasculinization, gave up her son, whose fate re-
mains unknown, and retreated to the convent. Their
love story became an epistolary tale, and their sur-
viving correspondence will forever retell their me-
dieval melodrama. The two are buried together in
Père Lachaise cemetery, in the city of love. –BC
how a full cabinet
distills the universe
“‘Curious-
er and curiouser!’ cried Alice (she was so
THE
much surprised, that for the moment she
quite forgot how to speak good English).”
So opens the exhibition “Curiouser” at
the Museum of Natural History and Plan-
etarium in Roger Williams Park. For the
exhibition, several contemporary artists
BEST-
were asked to go through the museum’s
natural history collections and create
works using the objects they found there,
effectively reinterpreting the Cabinet of
Curiosity.
The works on display in “Curiouser”
all point to a relationship between art and
LAID
life: art imitates life, and life—arranged in
glass display cases or Rococo cabinetry—
becomes art. For The Cabinet of Another
Order, Susannah Strong considered an
amateur’s study of the museum’s collec-
tion as a “work of art,” and assembled
SCHEMAS
the scrap-book pages (drawings, notes,
their taxidermied subjects) of an amateur
natural historian like a collage. Jennifer
Raimondi’s beautiful assemblage Comfort
consists of a small, kneeling fawn draped
in a blanket of hundreds of delicate grey
butterflies, identifying “art” in the objects
OF MICE
themselves.
WILD LIFE
“Cabinets of Curiosities,” private collec-
tions that featured everything from an-
tiquities, African masks, and portraits of
AND MEN
historical personages to the teeth, claws,
and horns of exotic animals, rose to
prominence during the Renaissance. The
mysteries of the universe, Renaissance
collectors felt, could only be represented
by “curious,” rare, and exotic objects––
giants’ bones, geodes, American Indian
moccasins––that encapsulated divine pos-
By Maud Doyle sibilities that more ordinary objects could
Illustration by Emily Martin
not attest to.
From 1550 to 1750, a time
suspended between widespread
religious acceptance and the more
contemporary scientific belief in
method and organization, these Kunst-
und Wunderkammern (Art and Wonder
Cabinets) sprang up across Europe in the
hundreds, driven by exploration of new
worlds and the rise of a comparatively sec-
ular intelligentsia. Chambers with stuffed
alligators hanging from the ceilings and
corals lining the walls were meant to be
encyclopedic records of the world’s won-
ders.
In Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland,
the wonders of the natural world defied ra-
tionality. The early collectors of the 16th
century, too, felt that the world exceeded
human category; unlike the collectors of
today’s museums, they did not distinguish
between the natural and the man-made––
the collection was meant to chronicle the
entire universe, including human history.
This was an era in which people still be-
lieved in God-made miracles; they did not
believe in categorical laws of nature, but
rather in the infinite variation of form.
Such collections housed images and
objects that were rejected by official pub-
lic collections (those of the state) and the
collections of the standard-setting Church.
Eventually, these collections would be
opened up to the public, becoming the
first modern “museums” as we under-
stand them. (It wasn’t until 1770, when
Joseph II of Austria opened the Hofberg
collection as a natural history museum,
that any collections were freely opened to
the broad public.)
ANIMAL HUMANISM
French author Antoine Furetière de-
fined a “Curieux” as “he who wishes to know
everything.” Possession and knowledge of
curieux, or rare objects, were means for
the individual to form a relationship be-
 tween
himself NATURAL COLLECTION
and totality, The Rennaissance curieux treated nature
to transcend the as inherently metaphorical. Each natural
“earthly
how a full cabinet
condi-
tion.” The Wunderkammern would
object was already gifted with meaning
signification––a work of art inFrom
not attest
and of
orto.
1550it- to 1750, a time

verse.
distills the universe
render visible the totality of the uni- an-
other object
describe the contempo-
self. Collecting and preserving
much an exercise in display
nature isbetween
suspended
and arrange-
religious
as
acceptance and
widespread
the more
So naturally, curiosity was morally to be chronicled. Re- “‘Curious- ment as it is one of possession––that
contemporary is, itscientific belief in
productions transformed the collections rary human universepop
interdit. “Curiosity is a harmful science,” er and curiouser!’ cried Alice is an(she
art was
worksoof amalgamation
method and asorganization,
much as these Kunst-

THE
into allegories for man’s ability to appre- culture, society, the Modern mas-
wrote Isadore of Seville. “It leads to her- much surprised, that for the moment she
Schwitters’s highlyund
regarded Merzbau. (Art and Wonder
Wunderkammern
hend art and nature: trans-temporal ren- ters. These works quite
of amalgamation--exem-
forgot how to speak good Alison English).”
esy.” (The “curious sciences” included Owen’sCabinets)
piece forsprang
“Curiouser”
up across Europe in the
derings that set the cabinets outside of his- plified across the century
So opens by the
major figures “Curiouser”
exhibition mounts objects’ at dissociated
alchemy, chemistry, and physics.) St. hundreds, labels
driven(labels
by exploration of new
tory while simultaneously making them like Arman, MantheRay, Joseph
Museum of Cornell,
Natural History
that haveand become
Plan- separated
Augustine warned that curiosity, an Eve- worlds andfrom theirofob-
the rise a comparatively sec-
part of it. Kurt Schwitters, etarium
Robert in Rauschenberg,
Roger Williamsject) Park. onFor the pins
butterfly and arranges them
like human pursuit, would lead the ques- ular intelligentsia. Chambers with stuffed
tioner away from God by asking after Toward the end of the 1770s, around and Damien Hirst--often
exhibition, treats contem-
several contemporary artists configurations
in reimagined alligators hanging of species
from the ceilings and
porary objects aswere collectable specimens.

BEST-
what should remain unknown. Even St. the same time museums became a phe- asked to go through and the museum’s
subspecies––by color,
corals lininghandwriting,
the walls were meant to be
Thomas Aquinas differentiated between nomenon, Wunderkammern grew increas- Kurt Schwitters built a veritable
natural history Cabinet
collectionsandand createSheencyclopedic
typeface. relished the records
humanity of the world’s won-
curiosity and study, study was a virtuous ingly rare. Natural history collections of Curiosities in the Merzbau,
works using the a modern
objects they offound there,“Onders.
the labels. each successive visit,”
endeavor that pursued only acceptable were still amassed, perhaps even more im- interpretation of effectively
the grotto reinterpreting
constructed the she Cabinet
says, “theofmuseum In seemed
Lewisless sterile,Alice in Wonderland,
Carroll’s
knowledge; curiosity, a worldly vice. Cu- pressively, but the purpose was no longer entirely with found materials over a pe- less objective, andthe
Curiosity. much more of
wonders subjective,
the natural world defied ra-
riosity is human, and study divine. with God, but with science. Wonder gave riod of ten years (1923-33),
The workswhichoninclud-
display in “Curiouser”
human, fragile.” She asks, The
tionality. “Why do collectors
early we of the 16th
Collectors, despite being accused of way to dim Victorian practicality, and the ed work by his contemporaries (Hannah between
all point to a relationship art and Fritz
collect things?” Karch,too,
century, thefelt
editor
that ofthe world exceeded

LAID
flying too close to the sun, continued to at- curiosities were tamed by glass cases and life: art imitates
Höch and Raoul Hausmann, life, and life—arranged
for example) collecting atinthe humanMarthacategory;
Stewart unlike
Living the collectors of
tempt an encyclopedic record of the uni- butterfly pins. Curiosity was supplanted glass display
alongside odd objects. Damiencases Hirst
or Rococo cabinetry—
magazine, says, “You go back
today’s to primitive
museums, they did not distinguish
verse. The collector Pierre Borel (1620- by method. becomes
has arranged hundreds art. as
of pills Forthough
The Cabinet of Another
life—it’s like hunters and gatherers.
between the natural Someand the man-made––
1671), a doctor from Castres, called his Order, Susannah
chronicling the variations of a species. Strong considered
people are wired an some ways and was
the collection somemeantthe to chronicle the
Wunderkammer the Elysian Fields––a EARTHLY WORKS While man-made amateur’s
objects study
haveofcome
the museum’s
other. I’m collec-
doubleentire
wired.universe,
I love the hunt human history.
including
room full of dead things brought back The tension between the Wunderkammern to dominate thetioncontemporary
as a “work ofland- art,” and
and Iassembled
love to gather.”
ThisAmassing
was an era the objects
in which people still be-

SCHEMAS
to life: snake skins, giants’ bones, fishs’ as a timeless preservation of objects and the scrap-book
scape, natural specimens are stillpages
often(drawings, notes,chronicled
of our world, contemporary
lieved in God-made miracles; they did not
skeletons, antiquities, preserved birds, artifacts, and as a historical moment (as their taxidermied
figured as particularly breathtakingsubjects) of an amateur
ele- artworks and ancient wonder
believe rooms, is laws
in categorical a of nature, but
insects in amber, fossils, fruits, flowers, seen by the inclusion of famous visitors ments. Several ofnatural historian like
Rauschenberg’s com- a collage.
humanJennifer
instinct. rather in the infinite variation of form.
fragments of stone. They played Noah, in their reproductions) continues to be bines––assemblages Raimondi’s
of found beautiful
objects thatassemblage Comfort Such collections housed images and
if not God himself, attempting to recre- played out in art museums today. In the combine sculptureconsists of a small, kneelingMAUD
and painting––feature fawn draped
DOYLE B’11objectsis curiouser
that were rejected by official pub-
ate all the wonder of the universe in their 1970s, the art critic Harold Rosenberg de- taxidermied animals,in a blanket
such asofthe hundreds
large of delicate grey lic collections (those of the state) and the
Angora goat withbutterflies, identifying
its middle“art” in the objects collections of the standard-setting Church.

OF MICE
library.
Collecting provided, then as now, a
move towards immortality. The amassing
of objects satisfied the human desire to
record the world in which we live. Those
records were, in turn, immortalized in
commissioned etchings and paintings of
scribed the original conception of the mu-
seum: “In Malraux’s view, the museum
stands above the torments and defeat that
the iron determinism of history inflicts on
the man of action. Its sacred obligation is
to compile and keep intact the record of
a tire around
themselves.or the bald
that dominates Monogram, Eventually, these collections would be
eagle featured in Canyon. In each case, he opened up to the public, becoming the
bought the creature before conceiving of WILD LIFE first modern “museums” as we under-
the painting or sculpture
“Cabinets it would belong private collec- stand them. (It wasn’t until 1770, when
of Curiosities,”
to—it took him five years to get from
tions that featured everything a from an- Joseph II of Austria opened the Hofberg
stuffed goat to the tiquities, African masks, and portraits of collection as a natural history museum,
complete Monogram.

AND MEN
human freedom and creativeness.” This
the Wunderkammern. The reproductions The success of Hirst’s
historicalButterfly
personages to the teeth, claws, that any collections were freely opened to
Paint-
emphasis on the timelessness of preserv-
detailed each object meticulously, delin- ings, in all their and horns of exotic animals, rose to the broad public.)
mock-religious wonder
able, collectable, recordable art, which
eating the vast universe in a single image. at transcendent specimens,
prominence attests
duringto the
ourRenaissance. The
exists outside of history, has given way in
Etchings included Venuses, Cupids, and continued fascination with the varieties
mysteries of the universe, of Renaissance ANIMAL HUMANISM
all the historical figures who had visited the face of contemporary art, which seeks
the natural world.collectors
Phaidon’sfelt,monumental
could only be represented French author Antoine Furetière de-
the collection over time––as though the to combine art and life (again). 2001 rendition ofby Albertus Seba’s Cabinet
“curious,” rare, and exotic objects–– fined a “Curieux” as “he who wishes to know
gaze of important visitors was While the contemporary art of amal-
giants’ bones, geodes,of American Indian everything.” Possession and knowledge of
of Natural Curiosities, the massive record
gamation does not reflect the same God- drawings from Seba’s collection, encapsulated
graces
moccasins––that divine pos- curieux, or rare objects, were means for
By Maud Doyle
made universe that Pierre Borel’s 17th- gleaming coffee tables everywhere.
sibilities that more ordinary objects could the individual to form a relationship be-
century collection did, it does seek to
Illustration by Emily Martin
11 |SCIENCE
SEX, LIES, AND SURVEY RESULTS
Studies on Love, Sex, Snuggling
by Maggie Lange
illustration by Charis Loke
T here is a seemingly ceaseless stream
of studies that reduce each gender to
a vaguely irritating stereotype. The men
fear commitment, the women crave inti-
macy. One study suggests that a coquett-
ish attitude and coy game-playing pave the
road to seduction.
The two studies below have a charac-
terization of gender that nearly describes
the male and female leads of a formulaic
romantic comedy. Though they come
from peer-reviewed journals, their sim-
plicity and repetition is reminiscent of
Cosmo’s 500 variations of “500 Ways to
Please Your Man – TONIGHT!”
CUDDliNg: NoT A MAle PRioRiTY
The Journal of Sex Research’s recent study
“Sex Differences in Post-Coital Behaviors
in Long- and Short-Term Mating: An Evo-
lutionary Perspective” focuses on the inti-
macy gap between men and women after
sex.
The study, conducted by Susan
Hughes and Daniel Kruger at the Univer-
sity of Michigan, surveyed 170 college-
aged students. The online survey listed
options for the participant to rate their
post-sex inclinations: talking, sleeping,
cuddling, leaving the room, smoking and
drinking, asking for favors, eating, and
considering “the likelihood that pregnan-
cy may have resulted.”
Women listed bonding activities like
chatting and cuddling highest on the list
of post-sex activities, while men preferred
eating, smoking, or making a drink—gen-
erally activities that involved withdrawing
into the next room.
The evolutionary analysis of this study
explained: “Males tend to mate more op-
portunistically,” while females “are less
likely to dissociate coitus from emotional
involvement.” The “pair-bonding” ac-
FEBRUARY 17 2011 | THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT | www.THEINDY.org
tivities were initiated and preferred much
more by women than men, both in short-
term and long-term mating. Enlightening:
women prefer intimacy while men are
programmed to sow their wild oats.
While these results are not particular-
ly groundbreaking, the study of post-sex
behavior is: this is one of the first studies
to examine people’s predilections after
sex. The vast majority of studies in human
reproductive strategies discuss behaviors
leading to sex: mating dances, primping,
courtship rituals, and demonstrations of
strength and desirability. But Hughes’s
and Kruger’s study stresses that reproduc-
tive strategies don’t stop after intercourse.
Mates are analyzed as long-term or short-
term based on their actions following the
main event. “These findings may not seem
surprising, as they are consistent with evo-
lutionary psychological theory,” Hughes
and Kruger write, “but, to our knowl-
edge, this is the first attempt to document
and quantify post-coital preferences.”
WoMeN loVe TheM SoMe RelATioN-
of the girls were told they were the most are hardly built solely on the Facebook in-
ShiP gAMeS
highly rated, a third were told they were terface; they’re usually just sparked there,
Meanwhile, another recent study in Psy-
rated as average, and a third were told in the same way that seeing someone at a
chological Science concluded that women
they were rated either the most highly or party might spark a little crush.
are most attracted to men who make
average. It was the third group—the group “This study only explored initial ro-
their feelings unclear. Conducted by two
uncertain about their male prospect’s at- mantic attraction—so no, this study does
University of Virginia professors, Erin
traction—that ranked the males as most not support the idea of playing games once
Whitchurch and Timothy Wilson, and
attractive. in a relationship,” Whitchurch writes.
Daniel Gilbert of Harvard, the “He Loves
The study noted that while hearing “Personally though, the advice I give my
Me, He Loves Me Not…” study found
that someone is attracted to you is affirm- friends is to play the game to the point
that men who send mixed signals are the
ing, it is not thrilling. “In contrast,” the there is an obvious attraction—right to the
most desirable.
study reports, “when people are uncer- point where you both want to admit your
The test surveyed about fifty female
tain about an important outcome, they feelings—then wait until the next conver-
undergrads at UVA. Each girl was shown
can hardly think about anything else.” The sation, text, date to do that.” After all she
four men’s Facebook profiles (fabricated
study concludes with this statement: the warns, too much uncertainty can cause a
for the study, but the participants believed
“popular dating advice is correct: Keep- partner to “get frustrated and quit.”
they were real). The girls were told these
ing people in the dark about how much
men had viewed her profile along with
we like them will increase how much they PleASe YoUR MAN ToNighT
those of a dozen or so other coeds. A third
think about us and will pique their inter- Implicitly, these studies offer some form
est.” Does this conclusion, then, encour- of advice, since empirical studies have an
age people to play games in their relation- implied relationship to truth. In the case
ships? To keep everyone guessing because of these sex/love studies, they appear
they’re worried they will turn their crush- to shed light on the true predilections of
es off if they show some straight-up affec- members of the opposite sex.
tion? The language often pits the genders
Perhaps, but only in the beginning. It against one another, and implies that there
seems that the study, rather than looking is an irresolvable gap between them. This
at substantive attraction, focused on initial might be why these peer-reviewed studies
frequency of thoughts. In the beginning, seem so close to magazine headlines. “16
it is the uncertainty that heightens the at- Dirty Guy Phrases – Translated!,” actual
traction. “I don’t think it’s that people Cosmo headline, runs off the same steam.
enjoy the chase,” Erin Whitchurch wrote Both these studies and “16 Dirty Guy
in an email, “but that uncertainty increas- Phrases” offer a translation of behavior
es our thoughts about a person in a very between the two sexes.
subtle way and that is what, to a certain Ostensibly, the information from
extent, increases attraction.” these studies will wiggle into some advice
Furthermore, it’s worth nothng that offered in Cosmo or Maxim, as a sure-fire
the researchers chose to examine this way to seduce the object of your desire.
initial attraction through a virtual me- Though these studies are backed by em-
dium. This lens of removal, Whitchurch pirical research, both will offer the same
says, helped her and her co-writers build simplified vision of romance, sex, and
a more believable situation. Certainly, love.
the scenario was believable—people do
peruse and pursue their potential crushes
on Facebook—but in reality, relationships MAGGIE LANGE B’11 – translated!

LOCAL FLAVOR
RI Local Food Forum serves up optimism,
but little else
illustration by Shay O’Brien
“F
resh where we work” was the catch-
phrase of the day at the seventh annual
Rhode Island Local Food Forum held on
Tuesday February 8 at Brown University.
Members of every part of the local food
industry gathered in Andrews Dining Hall
at this brainstorming-cum-networking
event with the goal of making profes-
sional connections and sharing ideas to
increase the amount of locally food con-
sumed in Rhode Island. This year’s theme
focused on bringing local foods to schools,
hospitals, and workplaces. Sanitary chefs
in white coats shared tables with fleeced
farmers. Striped and suited sales reps
passed out business cards to food writers
and restaurant owners, and eager Brown
students chatted with butchers over or-
ganic vegetarian bisque. It was a meeting
place for environmentalists, epicureans,
and all the characters in between.
glAZiNg oVeR The iSSUeS
The forum had the feel of a middle school
leadership conference for adults, com-
plete with cheese sandwiches at lunchtime
FEBRUARY 17 2011 | THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT | www.THEINDY.org
by Belle Cushing
(albeit with Narragansett Creamery moz-
zarella and rustic French bread). At net-
working time, professionals were guided
from table to table and the well-meaning
facilitators used clapping games to calm
the rowdiness.
The keynote speaker, Dorothy Bray-
ley, enthusiastically encouraged listen-
ers to join her mission for “happy kids,
happy adults!” Brayley is the founder of
Kids First, a nonprofit designed to bring
healthier food options to public schools in
Rhode Island, and a newly formed spinoff
called Real Food First, which aims to wid-
en the distribution of local goods to conve-
nience stores, hospitals, workplaces, and
universities. Her programs have been ex-
tremely successful: she brought 200,000
pounds of local foods to public schools in
2010, and helped revise the RI nutrition
requirements to include all whole grains,
less processed foods, and healthy vending
machine options—a big change from the
Super Donuts kids received for breakfast
when she first started her campaign. She
might have been speaking to the elemen-
tary school kids she caters to, with her
deliberate enthusiasm and emoticon pep-
pered PowerPoint presentation. The tone
was set for an event that emphasized sug-
ary success stories, but failed to effectively
address issues for future progress. Confer-
ence presenters preached to the culinary
choir, lauding the benefits of crisp, fresh-
grown cucumbers to an audience of CSA
subscribers and loyal patrons of farmers
markets.
A panel made up of a farmer, two
chefs, a purchasing coordinator, and a
produce supplier discussed the effects of
bringing local food into schools and hos-
pitals in Rhode Island. Success stories and
minor logistical snags were well received
by the panel and audience. It was when
issues arose about affordability that the
answers began to get vague. An organic
farmer found little support when she
brought up the challenge of keeping pric-
es low while still paying her workers a liv-
ing wage. When the public can get access
to local foods through school and work,
without paying for it directly, the recep-
tion is widely positive. When shopping for
themselves, however, many people will
not pay more for local over conventional
food. Panel members insisted that patrons
must see and taste the tangible difference,
but the price gap remains a barrier for the
local movement.
ReAl PRogReSS
More down-to-earth speeches came from
Ken Ayars, the Chief of the Department
of Environmental Management’s Divi-
sion of Agriculture, and Noah Fulmer,
executive director of Farm Fresh Rhode
Island. Ayars spoke on governmental ac-
tion, such as the mapping out of a five-
year plan toward sustainability and the
initiation of a Rhode Island Food day in
October. Fulmer spoke eloquently about
Rhode Island’s potential for growth in lo-
cal industry. He outlined plans for direct-
ing federal dollars toward the local food
industry, through food stamps that can be
redeemed at farmers markets and a plan
to prove the link between health and local
foods in efforts to receive more funding.
Both speeches focused on increasing the
amount of in-state produced food con-
sumed in Rhode Island. For all the hype
about local foods recently, the statistic is
still a mere one percent.
Brown student Lillian Mirviss spoke
about the university’s efforts at trayless
dining and composting, while Johnson
and Wales instructors and students looked
like they wanted to take a butcher knife to
FOOD| 12
the next person who lauded Brown and
RISD’s involvement in the local move-
ment. It was a RISD executive chef who
sat on the expert panel, and Brown stu-
dents who publicized student organiza-
tions on everything from market shares to
biodegradable take out containers. Due
to high attention to food safety laws and li-
ability issues, Johnson and Wales is behind
other Providence schools in bringing local
foods into food service programs. The JW
chefs and students present, however, ex-
pressed a strong desire for change, look-
ing for ways to bring one of the nation’s
top culinary schools up to par in the local
movement.
eASieR SAiD ThAN DoNe
The projects being discussed have gener-
ally found success in widening the avail-
ability of local foods. Despite the positive
reception of local produce on behalf of
the public, it became clear that eating lo-
cal would take some getting used to. De-
manding diners at elementary schools sent
back their local broccoli because it looked
different from the florets at the grocery
store, and workers at Blue Cross Blue
Shield were concerned about the state of
never before seen local vegetables: “Why
is my potato blue?”
Although the forum was flavored
with a definite cheesiness, the optimism
was truly genuine. In a time when much
of the public has adopted a “been there,
done that attitude” towards local sustain-
ability as an over-hyped foodie fad, it was
refreshing to see that none of the guests
needed convincing about the importance
of the issues. The conference served its
primary goal of establishing lasting rela-
tionships among food industry profession-
als that would have more power to address
the issues at hand than would a five-hour
conference. The most effective discourse
took place during Speed Networking,
where all different sectors of the industry
exchanged business cards and hopes for
progress. Questions that had not been ad-
dressed during the panel found interest in
these more casual conversations. Most ap-
parent was a shared love for food, and for
the land that produced it.
BELLE CUSHING B’13 sometimes
needs her rowdiness calmed.
13 |FOOD
A mericans didn’t invent the art of
drinking. Instead, like the art of
governing, they simply revolution-
ized it. People had been drinking and
governing for thousands of years before
the first English boot tread on North
American shores—the only problem was
that most of the drinks had been unpleas-
ant and most of the governing oppres-
sive. For those of us who didn’t doze off
throughout the entirety of high school,
the latter part of that revolutionary equa-
tion should sound familiar.
The story goes something like this:
around 1776 an underdog team of misfits
defeated a bigger, stronger, better-fund-
ed team of jerks, ultimately saving the
day and making the world a better place
for all. But while we all know the heroic
story of Washington crossing the Dela-
ware, very few of us know the equally he-
roic story of Washington getting sloshed
at the Revolutionary War victory party,
proposing a staggering 13 individual
toasts, one to each of the newly liberated
colonies—or the fact that John Adams,
our second president and iconic patriot,
is rumored to have enjoyed a large help-
ing of beer with his breakfast.  wine originating in Italy—on American
Sure, America combined the ideals
of liberty, freedom, and democracy into
a form of self-government, the likes of
which hadn’t been seen since the golden
age of Ancient Greece. But America also
combined liquors, sugars, and juices in
equally revolutionary ways, creating
potable concoctions that would inspire
downtrodden peoples the world over.  popular today, the true legacy of this pe-
Today, it might seem odd that some-
thing that is now so commonplace, so
predictable—merely a palatable mixed
drink—ever even had to be invented, let
alone that any nation could claim cultural
rights to it. A brief look at the history of
the cocktail, however, reveals that alco-
hol runs in the blood of America—not just
in a chemical sense, but in a cultural one
as well.
The golDeN Age oF The CoCKTAil
No one knows exactly where the word
“cocktail” came from—reported origins
range from half-breed horses to Mexican
princesses—but none stand out as more
authentic than the rest. What we do
know is that for the majority of the nine-
teenth century, cocktails were relatively
crude concoctions consumed at bawdy,
raucous taverns. In his book The Joy of
Mixology, Gary Regan discusses these
grungy establishments in painstaking de-
tail. Most of these 19th century taverns
far upstaged even the dingiest of contem-
porary dives, playing host to cockfights
and offering up all-you-can drink specials
wherein a customer paid a nickel to suck
FEBRUARY 17 2011| THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT | www.THEINDY.org
The history of America’s most spirited cultural
institution
as much whiskey as he could out of a rub-
ber hose. Regan writes of one especially
unsavory saloon that featured a gutter
running around the foot of the bar to
serve as a urinal for the truly passionate
consumer.
In 1862, bartender Jerry Thomas,
commonly considered to be the father of
American mixology, published his semi-
nal work, How to Mix Drinks. The book
formally collected and organized what
had previously been a diffuse knowledge
of recipes based primarily on word of
mouth. A charismatic professional and
born showman, Thomas was something of
a celebrity in his time. His signature con-
coction, the Blue Blazer, was not so much
a drink as it was pyrotechnic display. To
prepare a Blazer, Thomas would pour
flaming whiskey back and forth between
two cups, creating a waterfall of blue fire
in the process.
The 1890s mark the dawn of the
so-called Golden Age of the cocktail. In
many ways, this came as a result not only
of calculated experimentation, but also in
response to improvements in transpor-
tatpearance of vermouth—an aromatic
shores. Vermouth proved to be excep-
tionally well suited to mixing; it’s telling
that arguably the world’s two most fa-
mous cocktails—the Manhattan and the
Martini—were invented around this time,
both featuring vermouth as the essential
ingredient.
While many drinks of this era remain
riod is the establishment of essential cock-
tail types. The sour and the highball for-
mats—cocktails containing fruit juice and
carbonated liquids, respectively—were
formally established in this period, and
represent the vast majority of all cocktails
served today.  It was also a period in which
the cocktail finally made its way into the
realm of high society. That’s not to say
people weren’t still paying nickels to
suck whiskey from a rubber hose and piss
through their trousers onto the floor. It’s
just that there were now also stuffy, mus-
tachioed gentlemen lurking around fancy
Manhattan bars, nibbling fruit cocktails
garnishes with miniature spoons and grip-
ing about the nuisances of labor unions. It
was precisely this ability of the cocktail to
occupy dual cultural spaces that made it
one of the most democratic and egalitar-
ian institutions of its time.
AN igNoBle eXPeRiMeNT
Not surprisingly, the Eighteenth Amend-
ment’s constitutional ban of alcohol in
1919 had a profound effect on the devel-
illustrations by Adela Wu
opment of the cocktail.  Prohibition also
had an effect on another American cul-
tural invention, a relative to the cocktail:
jazz music. The speakeasy culture of the
1920s exposed thousands of Americans to
the swinging music that had been brewing
in the African-American communities of
New Orleans and Chicago since the turn
of the century. The lively upbeat melo-
dies provided the perfect backdrop to the
wild, illicit, and slightly risqué atmosphere
of the speakeasy. But while jazz gave the
soundtrack, it was booze that kept the
dance floor packed.
During the 1920s, cocktails on the
whole became significantly sweeter. This
was not because of a mass shift in taste
on the part of the consumer, but because
the quality of the liquor dropped drasti-
cally during prohibition—much of it was
literally brewed in bathtubs or had toxic
agents added to mimic the sting of alcohol.
In response to the repulsive taste of most
Prohibition-era liquor, the bartender’s
primary goal became the masking of the
“alcoholic” taste—which many contem-
porary drinkers still cling to as the modus
operandi of all drink making. Eggs, cream,
and enriched fruit syrups were all em-
ployed in an attempt to smooth over and
cover up the taste of crudely brewed alco-
hol. Thus, prohibition gave to the world
a series of strange concoctions, many of
which would have been considered horrid
mutants by the Golden Age bartenders of
previous decades.
The DAWN oF A NeW eRA
Though prohibition formally ended in
1933, the cocktail would continue to re-
main mired in its sugary sweet past for
decades to come. The situation was not
helped by the advent of certain conve-
nience products in the 60s and 70s. Con-
centrated fruit juices, dehydrated flavor-
ing packets, and presweetened mixes all
contributed to a general erosion of the es-
sential principles that guided the mixolo-
gists of the 1890s.
It wasn’t until the late 1980s, when
certain rebellious bartenders began exper-
imenting with what Regan labels “punk
cocktails,” that new life was breathed
into the industry. These “punk cocktails”
tended to be highly alcoholic and featured
grotesque and often sexual names (like
the Fuzzy Navel and the Slippery Nipple).
Hardcore punk bars also offered a “down
and dirty” atmosphere reminiscent of the
19th century taverns—one could order a
round of Abortions before head-banging,
or, as Regan details, lounge by the bar,
by Greg Berman
leisurely sucking a “sperm du jour” from
the inside of a hollowed out banana. While
such punk cocktails were often hit-or-miss
in terms of taste, the spirit of experimen-
tation that underlay them sparked a re-
newed interest in the art of the cocktail.
For the past two decades, there has
been increasing interest among bartend-
ers and epicureans alike in rediscovering
the traditional aspects of cocktail-making.
Boutique cocktail bars have been growing
in popularity and more and more restau-
rants have begun offering upscale drink
menus. In July 2008, a life-size wax model
of Jerry Thomas welcomed visitors at
the grand opening of the Museum of the
American Cocktail in New Orleans. The
museum features, among other things, an
extensive display of vintage cocktail shak-
ers—most of which bear a closer resem-
blance to Roman vases than they do to the
chic chrome devices we are familiar with
today.  On weekends, the museum holds
mixology classes, and a quick glance at
their website reveals dozens of video tu-
torials whose meticulousness borders on
the neurotic—one such tutorial took over
8 minutes to explain how to make a mar-
tini, a two ingredient drink. While there
is no shortage of watered-down, over-
sweetened mixed drinks available today,
one cannot help but hope that this recent
recognition of the cocktail portends the
dawning of a new golden age: a renais-
sance of the American cocktail.   
Perhaps it was David Embury, a cock-
tail enthusiast of the 1950s, who best ex-
pressed the transcendent potential of truly
great cocktail. “The well-made cocktail is
that most gracious of drinks. It pleases the
senses… this refreshing nectar breaks the
ice of formal reserve. Taut nerves relax;
taut muscles relax, tired eyes brighten,
tongues loosen; friendships deepen; and
the whole world becomes a better place in
which to live.” Cheers to that.
GREG BERMAN B’11 is a teetotaler.
 FEBRUARY 17 2011 | THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT | www.THEINDY.org FOOD| 14

Here are a few rough

RECIPES for cocktails
representative of various time periods. As always,
proportions may be altered subject to individual
taste. Remember, the mixing of a cocktail can be
just as enjoyable as the consumption of one, and
experimentation is a cornerstone of the craft. But
blind mixing can be daunting—not to mention putrid—
so it helps to keep a few basic rules of Embury’s in
mind: Most cocktails are composed of three distinct
parts: a base liquor, a modifying agent (vermouth,
fruit juice), and a special flavoring/coloring agent
(bitters, grenadine, sugar syrup, eggs). Those three
components are to be used in decreasing order of
quantity, with the base liquor making up at least 50
percent, and much more likely somewhere upwards of
80 percent—Embury recommends a standard 8:2:1 ratio.
This is a good guide, but its certainly not set in
stone, one of the best things about cocktails (and
America) is that you have a great deal of individual
freedom, don’t be a afraid to innovate; it’s what
made this country (and its drinks) what it is today.

The (Old) Old Fashioned (early 1800s)

True to its name, the great granddaddy
of cocktails.
The White Lady (1920s)
1 cube of sugar (or 1/2 oz sugar syrup) Don’t be scared by the egg, it actually
Angostura Bitters smoothes the drink out in a delightful
way. Ratios have been adjusted to make
Put the sugar or syrup in a rocks glass, saturate it more palatable than its true prohibition
with bitters and muddle until fully absorbed. version, which was created with bathtub
Add ice and fill with whiskey. Nowadays, they gin in mind.
are often topped off with soda water, but
purists blanch at the thought. 2oz Gin
1/2oz Lemon
*While not in the original recipe, a wedge of 1/3oz Triple Sec (preferably Cointreau)
orange is sometimes included in the muddling 1 egg white for each 2 drinks.
process, resulting in a fruiter, sweeter drink.
Put egg white in shaker with ice
and shake vigorously until frothed
(alternatively, whisk it up separately).
The Manhattan (1890s) Add other ingredients, shake briefly and
Probably the best cocktail in the world.
strain.
2:1 ratio of Whiskey to Sweet Vermouth.
The Brown University
Stir with ice and strain. (Adapted from Esquire and Embury)
1.5oz Bourbon
Add a dash of angostura bitters and garnish 1oz Sweet Vermouth
with a maraschino cherry. Orange Bitters
Stir with ice and strain.
Interestingly, if you swap out
the whiskey for brandy, you
have a drink called The Harvard
(snobs).
 DEVILBOLICAL
by Sam Alper
illustration by Becca Levinson

ChARACTeRS: JUDY: Really? JUDY: So?

JUDY – Young and starved for company.
BRY – Same. BRY: I’m serious. BRY: I love you. I do. You got me.

JUDY: It was an innuendo. JUDY: How much?

Night. The back porch of a country house, in
the deep country, the backwoods. A rocking BRY: What’s that? BRY: First you tell me what you saw.
chair and a steel bucket, placed at a diagonal
from each other. Sound of an owl. Something JUDY: It’s a way of talking sexy where no JUDY: I saw you pickin’ tomatoes.
drops out of the sky into the steel bucket and one can get mad at you.
makes a loud sound. Pause. JUDY comes out- BRY: Oh.
side. She looks around. She looks in the bucket. BRY: Sounds nice.
She reaches in and takes out a ball. It has the JUDY: And you were havin’ an ecstasy.
weight of granite and is perfectly round and JUDY: Well you missed yer chance to do
black. JUDY looks at it, moves it from hand to it. BRY: Oh. I’m sorry you saw that. I know
hand. She sticks out her tongue and cautiously I’m not ‘sposed to. Those tomatoes are just
starts to lick it. BRY: I did? so...

BRY (off-stage): Hay! Don’t lick that! Put JUDY: You’ve lost yer window of oppor- JUDY: Smooth?
that ball down, girl! tunity.
BRY: Yeah.
BRY enters. BRY: Well damn.
JUDY: And round?
BRY: I said put that down. Pause
BRY: Yeah. Yeah, that’s about the cause
JUDY: Well I ain’t gonna. JUDY: Yer the neighbor boy. of it.

BRY: You should. BRY: Yep. JUDY: Thought so. How much do you
love me?
JUDY gives it another lick. JUDY: I’ve seen you.
BRY: Very much.
BRY: I’m only sayin for yer health. BRY: Doin what?
JUDY: Make an arms of it. Show me how
JUDY: Whada you know about it? JUDY: Nothin. I’ve seen you, is all. much in arms.
Around.
BRY: Just everything. I saw one of these BRY stretches his arms to show her how much.
balls. fall outta the sky and kill a wild tur- BRY: You’ve seen me doin somethin.
key. It was like a bolt from god. JUDY: That much.
JUDY: How do you know?
JUDY: So. BRY: Yes I guess so.
BRY: Yer eyes. You’re not the only one
BRY: So you don’t lick a thing like that. who sees people around. I see you around. JUDY coughs.

JUDY: What kind of thing do I lick like? JUDY: Oh yeah? What do you, love me or BRY: I never thought we’d talk like this.
somethin?
BRY: What? JUDY: I never thought about it.
BRY: I ain’t sayin that.
JUDY: What, what? BRY: Oh, I thought about it a whole
JUDY: Then I ain’t sayin what terrible bunch. I never approached yer house be-
BRY: What do you mean? thing I saw you do. cause my momma—

JUDY: You know what I mean. BRY: Aw shucks, really?
BRY: No. JUDY: Yep. Everything’s trades with me.
BRY: I guess it is. That’s fair.
JUDY: Yer momma scares me senseless.
Why’s she carry ‘round a crossbow?
BRY: It’s from the war gainst the draculas.
One of them fanged her eye. That’s why
she wears that felt patch.
JUDY: Oh.
JUDY coughs hard, she looks pale.
BRY: You alright?
JUDY: Ya, I’m just feelin funny.
BRY: My momma’s not so scary when
you get to know her. She lets me stroke
her eyepatch sometimes, when her head’s
splittin. But she doesn’t like you for some
reason. She calls you that neighbor girl.
And hussy.
JUDY: You make me feel sorta hussy.
BRY: Stop that! You’re drivin me crazy.
I’m feelin all shaky.
JUDY: Me too. I’m feelin all...
JUDY coughs hard, she coughs a little blood.
BRY: Can I get you some water or some-
thin?
JUDY: No. Thassalright. I’m alright. I
think I know why your momma doesn’t
like me.
BRY: I can’t see any reason not to like
you.
JUDY: Shh, you’re makin me red. I feel
like a tomato.
BRY: You look like a tomato. You look
like a whole bunch of tomatoes.
JUDY: Givin you ecstasy.
BRY: You could. I wouldn’t mind.
JUDY: Oh, I know. You wouldn’t mind a
bit. You’d the opposite of mind.
BRY: Uh. We were talkin bout...
JUDY: Yer momma. She probably doesn’t
like me cause my daddy was a dracula. So
JUDY: Don’t go. I don’t want you to go.
I’m part.
BRY: I just gotta go for a moment. I got a
big flashing light in the house, it’s a signal
JUDY coughs violently, seizes up.
light my momma has, like they had in the
war. We’re registered with the local po-
BRY: Oh gawd. Oh no.
lice, it’ll get them here, quick, I promise.
We’ll get you to a hospital—
JUDY: Oh I hope you don’t mind too
much. It’s not my fault. And he don’t live
JUDY: Don’t go. Do you think I could
with us. He’s back in Transylvania with
die?
the rest of em. I think of myself mostly as
a human.
BRY: I’ll go and do it so fast. Fastest thing
you ever saw. I promise.
BRY: How’re you feelin?
JUDY: You promise?
JUDY: Just awful, actually. I don’t know
what’s—
BRY: I said it so I do.
BRY: That ball you licked? I gotta tell ya—I
BRY starts to go.
threw that ball to get yer attention. There
wasn’t nothin droppin out of the sky. I jes
JUDY: Hay! Wait!
wanted to talk to you, and my momma
only goes to town once a year so I—
BRY: What?
JUDY: You made a pretext fer talkin to
JUDY: What’s yer name?
me?
BRY: Bry.
BRY: Yes but—
JUDY: Judy.
JUDY: So you had a plan and everythin?
You were home thinkin about me and
BRY: Ok Judy. You just sit here. And...
thinkin how to talk to me—
pretend you’re a bunch of tomatoes, just
sittin on the vine. Not mindin anythin.
BRY: Ya, but—
JUDY: What kind?
JUDY: You had a whole devilbolical plan.
BRY: The kind in ma garden. The big
BRY: Yea, I did but I gotta tell you. That
bright peaceful kind. The kind that makes
ball’s my momma’s. It’s from her—
me lie down and feel everything rushing
like bees. That’s the kind—
JUDY freezes, goes somewhere.
JUDY: Oh my head’s startin to hurt!
BRY: Hay! Hay!
BRY: Sorry. I’m going now. Sorry.
JUDY snaps back.
BRY exits, running. JUDY sits alone, shiv-
JUDY: Oh my mind feels slippy.
ering. After a moment a beam of light arcs
across the sky. JUDY concentrates on becom-
BRY: It’s from my momma’s war chest. I
ing a tomato.
don’t think it’s good for draculas.
JUDY: Oh. Oh no no no. No no no no no.
THE END.
BRY: I didn’t know you was one. Or that
you’d lick it. I’m sorry. I gotta—I gotta go
get...
17 |OCCULTS
SECRETS OF THE PULSE
From the subtleties of our pulse, Ayurveda intuits
our physiological and spiritual foundations and
imbalances
My brother and I walked in unannounced
to a small doctor’s clinic along the banks
of the Gangha in Haridwar, India. My
brother urgently needed care for a skin
condition. Inside, Dr. Jagdish began by
asking him basic questions about his skin
and diet and then went on to place three
fingers on my brother’s wrist. For a few
moments, he stared intently past the two
of us.
Suddenly, we were enveloped in a
deeply personal discussion of anger, initi-
ated by Dr. Jagdish. In my brother’s pulse,
he had perceived a particular dissonance
with the world—a profound anger with
subtle manifestations in the body. His pre-
scriptions for my brother were abstract,
demanding a radical shift in attitude, to be
carried about by means of meditation, asa-
na, cleaner (read: simpler) surroundings,
herbal detoxification, and varied combi-
nations of a few open powders he pulled
from the cupboards. I was overwhelmed
by the powers of this man, who had pen-
etrating eyes and a quiet sense of humor
running through his fingers.
As we prepared ourselves to leave,
I shamelessly turned to him and placed
my left hand, palm up, onto the table. He
shot me a knowing glance, aware of my
childish fascination for the theatrics of
his medical practice. Dr. Jagdish placed
his hand around my left wrist, smiled, and
pronounced most things to be in order. I
am unusually calm, he decided, due to a
premature onset of vata (the energy cor-
responding to ether and water; the energy
that surges as one matures into old age;
my most prominent dosha).
When a physician of ayurveda touch-
es the pulse, the noise of surroundings
mute, and patterns within the pulse—the
peaks and valleys, ridges and waves of this
nadi that possess a wealth of intelligent
consciousness—can be heard. The pulse
is the electricity of spaces and conscious-
ness around-and-within us channeled into
a single flow.
NATURe’S WiSDoM
Dr. Jagdish didn’t even consider charging
for his intuitive pulse diagnoses, and so,
bearing the weight of restoring the bal-
ance of prakruti, my brother and I left the
clinic feeling stunned and shifted by the
sense of how we knew our own bodies.
A few weeks later, I landed in my home-
town of Bombay. The tragic ecstasy of the
place left my body feeble, fevered, and
contagiously hollow. I became depressed
and fearful, feeling the absence of safe and
tempered human relations.
I retreated to the world’s oldest yoga
and ayurvedic research institute and treat-
ment center, which lay an hour outside
Bombay. Every meeting with the doctors
was prefaced by a deep reading of the
pulse, during which I would hear incred-
ibly pointed knowledge and advice re-
garding my own body, spiritual faith, and
mental state.
Often, these readings alerted me to
the profound relationships between symp-
toms that I had learned to artificially seg-
FEBRUARY 17 2011 | THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT | www.THEINDY.org
by Natasha Pradhan
regate. Other times, the doctors simply
reaffirmed intuition. My first morning,
I knew my fever to be exacerbated with
each human interaction, my body increas-
ingly dismembered by the stress of having
to reason through words. The seemingly
unknowing doctors sensed in my pulse a
sense of loss and abandonment, inspired
by the empty chaos of recent times. I had
become emotionally overwhelmed to the
point of forceful physical detachment.
At the center, prescribed medita-
tion and pranayama (breathing tech-
niques) radically reconciled internal
battles. These practices deal with doshic
imbalances holistically, rather than sim-
ply fronting physical symptoms. Despite
some contemporary medicine practitio-
ners’ efforts, body, mind, and spirit resist
compartmentalization.
RiVeR oF UNiVeRSAl CoNSCioUSNeSS
Translated as the science of life, ayurveda
joins scientific knowledge with human in-
tuition and belief. One cannot learn to un-
derstand the pulse without being trained
and educated scientifically. Pulse diagno-
sis depends largely on the reader’s intu-
ition and spiritual strength. The principles
of ayurveda, including nature, purpose of
life, and physiological and metaphysical
health, were revealed to rishis while in
states of deep meditation.
The term for pulse reading in the
original Sanskrit Vedas is nadi vijnanam. Vi-
jnanam refers to a specialized understand-
ing or knowledge. Nadi is used in a variety
of contexts that correspond to ideas of
flow. For instance, vishva nadi (vishva =
universe) is the flow of universal energy.
The word nadi, in ayurvedic texts, most
commonly refers to the river of life, or the
flow of life channeled in the pulse. Tantu
has become synonymous with the pulse.
The word also denotes strings of a musical
instrument, fittingly. Both produce waves
we can listen to.
Each individual has a natural doshic
balance—also called prakruti. Our prakru-
ti, or constitution, is suited to our purpose
in life. In order to maintain the balance of
prakruti and good physical and spiritual
health, one must practice a certain diet,
pranayama, and yoga for their constitu-
tion.
The realization of universal con-
sciousness, existent in all living and non-
living matter, lies central to ayurveda.
This consciousness manifests itself in the
omnipresent female energy of Prakruti
and male energy of Purusha. Purusha is
formless, undefinable abstract energy—
a witness. Prakruti is the divine mother,
source of form and color. These energies
are perceived intellectually by the tran-
scendental intelligence, known as mahad.
Mahad flows into buddhi, the individual
mind and intelligence.
Buddhi gives rise to Ahamkara which
gives each individual being a sense of its
own existence, or ego. Though formed
around the individual, ahamkara pos-
sesses the same qualities reflected in all
of creation, or prakruti. Those are sat-
tva—purity, essence,
perceptive clarity; ra-
jas—dynamic movement
and action; and temas—iner-
tia, heaviness, attachment
to material, and resistance to
change. The interplay and bal-
ances or imbalances between
these qualities reflect in the do-
shas of vata, pita, and kapha that
flow through our blood. Vata
corresponds to water and ether
and is light and flowing; pita, to fire
and water, and is bold and warm; ka-
pha, to water and earth, and is stable
and nurturing. With sensitivity, one
perceives condition and quantity of
three doshas throughout the different lev-
els of pulse.
Diseases and major bodily shifts are
caused by doshic imbalances, diagnose-
able by pulse. The science of ayurveda-
forms ntricate systems for listening
to the pulse in order to extract
knowledge about everything
from indigestion to HIV,
arthritis to
pregnan-
cy. My
mother
first
learned
she was
to have a
daughter from
a practitioner of ay-
urveda. He had de-
tected rection of the
shift in the fifth level of
her pulse.
loST iN TRANSlATioN
While ayurvedic centers are prominent in quire detailed information regarding the
worlds where the norm is Western imbalances within our individual flow,
medicine, these centers differ significant- understanding it as a stream of universal
ly in their approach—if only because of the consciousness. The magic of ayurveda lies
attitudes with which they are confronted. in our own instinctual abilities. When we
A mechanical understanding of our bod- act in tune with this flow of conscious-
ies are not conducive to pulse reading, ness, we do not succumb to the compart-
which demands full faith in our intuitive mentalization of the human, and can only
capacities. One most often encounters then experience genuine healing.
an online questionnaire that claims to
determine one’s doshic balance, forc-
ing the energies of vata, pita, and kapha NATASHA PRADHAN B’12 is mostly
into a Myers-Briggs format. While some vata.
methods are helpful to an extent, the do-
shas themselves are not fixed categories
that can be determined by these means.
Ayurvedic principles cannot be extracted
from their holistic context and placed
into a mechanical framework. Nadi vijna-
nam is central to ayurvedic diagnoses, as it
presents the most authentic and penetrat-
ing insight into one’s balance (prakruti)
and imbalances (vikruti).
The ayurvedic practioners’ diag-
noses and “prescriptions” in the form
of herbal concoctions, diet suggestions,
asana, and pranayama empowered me to
be more attentive and less questioning of
my instinct. By tuning into the very wis-
dom concealed in our pulse we can ac-