THE COLLEGE HILL

INDEPENDENT
VOLUME XXII, ISSUE 10 GOP Candidates // 3
APRIL 21, 2011 Reality TV // 9
BROWN/RISD WEEKLY Open Source Academia // 11

T H E I N T E R V I E W I S S U E
 FROM THE EDITORS: THE ISSUE:
The New York Times reported today that iPhones are recording their locations in a hid-
den file, amassing a log of points in space-time which, plotted out over a map, can show
News
their users’ trajectories. — Fireflies make spiralled traces through the night: it’s just a WEEK IN REVIEW p.2
symptom of our sluggish vision, but perhaps it also means that we leave ghosts of our by David Adler, Mimi Dwyer, and Erica Schwiegershausen
own presence behind. — A psychogeographer of Paris tells us of one student whose
daily life took him to only two or three locations, by the same route each time. If his
movement were that of a stylus on a map, it would have worn right through the paper:
DO THE RIGHT THING p.3
and then through the table under it and down onward, into nothingness. — Klee says by Emily Gogolak, Emma Whitford, and Ashton Strait
that drawing is just taking a line for a walk: and in the Nazca Desert, that’s precisely
what one pre-Incan culture did. They dug shallow trenches through the topsoil, form-
ing geometric figures miles wide, or looping into massive pictographs: llamas, mon-
Metro
keys, hummingbirds. New Agers and anthropologists debate their function: routes WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS
of pilgrimage, spaceship runways, astronomical markings à la Stonehenge, drawings
by Jonah Wolf
p.5
for the benefit of gods. — Perhaps a long time from now ‘hidden files’ and other such
digital terms will look like arcane philosophical categories, like scraps of Kant or Plato:
made metaphysical by their antiquity, as time turns grape juice into wine. What would BOB THE BARBER p.7
it mean to look at the present as if it were archaic already? Perhaps this is the opiate of by Malcolm Burnley
theory: to dim the present’s vividness with folds of thick imaginary time. —ASV

Opinions
A LOGICAL CHOICE
by Aaron Regunberg
p.6
THE INDY IS: Food
MANAGING EDITORS Gillian Brassil, Erik Font, Emily Martin • NEWS Emily Go-
golak, Ashton Strait, Emma Whitford • METRO Emma Berry, Malcolm Burnley, LIBERIA COMES TO AMERICA p.8
Alice Hines, Jonah Wolf • FEATURES Belle Cushing, Mimi Dwyer, Eve Blazo, Kate by Grace Dunham
Welsh • ARTS Ana Alvarez, Maud Doyle, Olivia Fagon, Alex Spoto • LITERARY
Kate Van Brocklin • SCIENCE Maggie Lange • SPORTS/FOOD David Adler, Greg
Berman • OCCULT Alexandra Corrigan, Natasha Pradhan• LIST Dayna Tortorici •
Features
STAFF WRITER Erica Schwiegershausen • CIPHRESS IN CHIEF Raphaela Lipin- A TASTE FOR TRASH
sky • COVER/CREATIVE CONSULTANT Emily Martin • X Fraser Evans • ILLUS-
by Eve Blazo
p.9
TRATIONS Annika Finne, Becca Levinson • DESIGN Maija Ekey, Katherine Entis,
Mary-Evelyn Farrior, Emily Fishman, Maddy Jennings, Eli Schmitt, Joanna Zhang
• PHOTOGRAPHY John Fisher, Annie Macdonald • SENIOR EDITORS Katie
OPEN SOURCE ACADEMIA p.11
Jennings, Tarah Knaresboro, Erin Schikowski, Eli Schmitt, Dayna Tortorici, Alex by Annie Macdonald
Verdolini • MVP Emily Martin

COVER ART Emily Martin Arts

9/11: THERE’S AN APP FOR THAT
Contact theindy@gmail.com for advertising information. // theindy.org
by Maud Doyle
p.13
The College Hill Independent receives support from Campus Progress/Center
for American Progress. Campus Progress works to help young people — advo-
cates, activists, journalists, artists — make their voices heard on issues that
matter. Learn more at CampusProgress.org.
Science
A NEW DISCOVERY ZONE
by Maggie Lange
p.14

AS IF YOU CARE: Literary

EXCERPT FROM BOTTLENECK
At its theatrical release in Sweden, Mel Brooks’s The Producers (1968) was given the
by Kate Van Brocklin
p.15
Swedish title Producenterna (The Producers), but it was not a success then. After it was
re-released under the title Det våras för Hitler (Springtime for Hitler), it scored with
the Swedish audience. Because of this, all of Mel Brooks’s films were given a title with
Det våras för... (Springtime for...) in Sweden, up until Life Stinks (Det våras för slummen,
Springtime for The Slums). For example, Blazing Saddles was retitled Det våras för sher-
iffen (Springtime for the Sheriff) and Spaceballs was retitled Det våras för rymden (Spring-
time for Space).

EPHEMERA:
 APRIL 21 2011 | THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT | www.THEINDY.org NEWS| 2

V I E W
R E
E K IN
E
n
ause

W
M i m i Dw
r,
v i d Adle
a a
by D B ecc
y
t i o ns b
tra
Illus
4/20 UPDATE
Detroit is a decrepit city—its former in-
dustry in dark shambles, its slums rife with
poverty. But don’t worry! Gubernatorial
candidate Geoffrey Fieger has the solu-
tion: legalize marijuana and prostitution
and thus create “the new Amsterdam.”
Like fairy dust, all it would take is a sprin-
kle of Euro-style “coffee shops” and a
few streets where sad women can dance
slowly in cages and Detroit would be back
on its feet. Such revisions would “make
Detroit a fun city,” Fieger asserted. “They
would flock here.” Of course, who “they”
were was left entirely unclear. Perhaps
“they” are thousands of venture capital-
ists seeking a weed-and-prostitute friendly
environment to house the new decade’s
Silicon Valley. Or, perhaps, it’s the same
“they” who flock to the old Amsterdam:
18-year-old stoners dropping daddy’s
money for a Eurotrip looking to get so
baked, bro. When asked how these policy
changes would help education and unem-
ployment, feathered-haired Fieger retort-
ed, “Detroit couldn’t get much worse.”
Though this statement is outright false
(see: Detroit with more drugs and more
prostitutes), Fieger’s claim is merely an
outgrowth of a larger movement toward
marijuana legality that is growing by the
day.
In a recent poll conducted by Pew Re-
search Center, the percentage of Ameri-
cans who support the legalization of mari-
juana has grown from 16 to 45 in the past
twenty years; those against it shrunk from
81 percent to only 50. Meanwhile, Cana-
dian judge Donald Taliano swiftly struck
down many parts of Canadian law against
marijuana this week, giving the govern-
ment 90 days to either appeal the ruling or
reform its strict laws regarding marijuana.
At the end of this 90-day period, growing,
possessing, and smoking pot will become
legal (100 points for Canada).
With such fervor sweeping through
the hemisphere, it’s hard to label Fieger
an outlier. Our twenty-first century mani-
fest destiny is unfolding—let’s just hope
Detroit à la Amsterdam doesn’t lie at its
end. –DA
e r s h
eg
a S chwi r d ena
s
E r i c C a
y e r , and u l i eta
n a nd J
o
L e vins
LADY LIBERTY FOREVER COM-
MEMORATES SIN CITY KNOCKOFF
The Las Vegas hotel and casino New
York-New York received a literal stamp
of approval from the U.S. Postal Service
this week: apparently, the recently issued
Statue of Liberty Forever stamp is based
on a photograph of the casino’s 14-year-
old replica. That’s right: what you may
have assumed was a headshot of the repu-
table statue in New York Harbor that has
ushered in huddled masses for the past 125
years actually depicts a half-size imitation
that welcomes drunken gamblers to a Go-
tham-themed Disneyland.
The blunder was brought to atten-
tion last week when Linn’s Stamp News, the
leading publication for American philate-
ly, pointed out what in hindsight seem like
some fairly obvious tip-offs. Apparently
the hair on the two statues is different, the
replica’s eyes are much more sharply de-
fined, and the fake crown has dark areas
instead of windows. Others point out that
the faux figure has a wider nose, more dis-
tinct eyelids, and a furrowed brow, as well
a curious rectangular patch located on the
center spike of its half-size crown.
The USPS remains largely unper-
turbed by the revelation and has stated
that it doesn’t plan to pull the stamp out of
circulation. Perhaps with good reason. Af-
ter all, as Gordon Absher, spokesman for
MGM Resorts International, pointed out:
“Everyone thought the post office was just
honoring one great American institution,
when in reality they were honoring two—
the Statue of Liberty and Las Vegas.”
Roy Bettes, manager of community
relations for the Postal Service in Wash-
ington, said that although the post office
had no idea that the photograph was not of
the original (apparently the Postal Service
used stock photography and neglected to
read the caption), “there are no errors on
the stamp, so we’re not recalling them.”
Jay Bigalke, associate editor of Linn’s, told
NPR’s Robert Siegel that this incident
will go down in history as one of the big-
gest philatelic blunders of all time. “This
is right up there with the Grand Canyon
mistake that they made…where they ac-
cidently printed a caption underneath
the Grand Canyon photograph that said
‘Grand Canyon, Colorado,’” Bigalke said.
–ES
VIVA GERIATRIC REVOLUCIÓN
This Tuesday, Cuban government officials
strapped the wheels onto their respirators
and swept the dust off their state-subsi-
dized walkers for the first convention of
the Cuban Communist Party Congress in
fourteen years. The geriatric members of
Congress met at the demand of president
Raul “Sunshine” Castro, 79, and his broth-
er Fidel “Not Dead” Castro, 84, intent on
appointing a “new generation” of Cuban
leadership to helm the crumbling state.
While numerous commentators have
speculated that the Cuban government
will complete its slow opening to capital-
ist investment after the Castro brothers
join that big revolution in the sky, Fidel
insisted that the new leadership will “de-
fend, preserve and continue perfecting
socialism, and never permit the return of
capitalism” in Cuba. He proceeded to an-
nounce his resignation from the second-
in-command position in the cabinet.
Castro named José Ramón Mach-
ado, 80, as the new head of the Com-
munist Party, and Ramiro Valdés, 79, as
his lieutenant, citing a dearth of compe-
tent younger leadership in the govern-
ment. (Kids these days just don’t sport
a .12-gauge and ammo overalls with the
same swagger they used to.) The two new
appointees fought alongside Castro in the
original revolution. They are also mem-
bers of the hardworking witch coven suc-
cessfully working to keep members of the
regime alive forever. Indy staff members
can’t wait ‘til their first wrinkle—we hear
that is the first step to spearheading a suc-
cessful revolution these days, and to fuck-
ing like Che. –MD
 3|NEWS APRIL 21 2011 | THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT | www.THEINDY.org

What to consider as the race begins

1996.
Wendy Schiller, US Politics expert and Professor at Brown, on the GOP: Huckabe
when a cr e has been the fron
iminal he t
paroled in man of the rock ba
The GOP race for the presidential nomination for 2012 is wide open at this point in cluding m 2000 kille n
urderers. d pour po d “Capitol Offense
time. It appears that the Republican Party is currently choosing from familiar figures Huckabee These dec lice office ” since
pardoned isions cam rs.
e back to
from the past (Gingrich, Romney) and newer faces (Michelle Bachmann, Donald During h or shorted
the senten h aunt
Trump). But what is important is the issues that will become the focus of primary and alone talk is term, a
nd against ces of hun Huckabee in 2009
about Ind th e advice o dreds of c ,
onvicts, in
caucus voters’ attention next January. Will the Republican Party focus on Tea Party base unea epe
sy. Too fa ndents. f his party
and advis -
issues like the national debt and deficit, or more familiar social issues like gay marriage CONS: H
is record a
r to the so
cial right ors,
and abortion? Or will the Republican Party unite around a platform that calls for the get enoug s a pro-go to win over
h). vernment the middle
repeal of ObamaCare even though that has already failed to pass Congress?
governor
dained So
uthern Ba makes the , let
what to e ptist minis GOP
xpect and ter (aka th
Political scientists still argue over whether primary voters are sincere or strategic; in PROS: W
ell
prepare fo e re
r the race ligious right can’t
other words, do they vote for their ideological or policy preferences, or do they vote tial Candid known and popula ahead. He
is an or-
ate r with th
for who they think can win the general election? President Obama has to be hoping Experienc , 2008 e party. K
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e: Former
that the Republicans nominate someone who is too far to the right to win the general Lives: San
ta Rosa B
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election, or someone who is a lightning rod for controversy such as Palin, Gingrich, or Birthplac each, Flor f Arkansas, Preside
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Trump. Age: 55 Arkansas
pected un
til April.
Just remember that most voters did not know who Bill Clinton was at the end of 1991, STATUS:
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and they did not know much about Barack Obama in December 2007, so a strong con- and his de
cision isn
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presidency were all for show (and revenue). But his recent out- c
ne ar a ami BLI s th t th this loba br e G ce en
ss h $$
reach to the evangelical community and key officials in early vot- 19 apol t W ly, b CAN e cau e cau one l wa oade OP e er
ing states suggests that Trump’s political aspirations are for real 7 i i u
ing 3 n s St non t sa RE se, w se o an rmin he lect , n Io-
pu F o ve a r a y s V i th f a d th g r ap ra o
—and he has the rabblerousing rhetoric to match. DT brought a T St sh E ll s
thi tting thers l, Bu ribu ate. e di LAT sola this g e sci kept peal te (i.
back an old far-right favorite this week: the question of President a D kin it i and rr. ne, It h n’t ON fla lob nce ics: ? Als e.
n d I r e
Obama’s citizenship. em g, ‘ n m …I “He wh app bec : B res, al w in “Th o is
oc Yo y la jus w en en om ach etc arm dic e s
“Maybe I’m going to do the tax returns when Obama does rat u k p,
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l e e
his birth certificate … I’d love to give my tax returns. I may tie mu now ook mem ind wa she Rep nn g . A tha
nd t
st b wh ing be of m s re rece ubli rew tha
my tax returns into Obama’s birth certificate,” he told ABC’s e a t? a o u r o a d n c a u
George Stephanopoulos on Wednesday. Re I do t the read ckin ing tly t n un p in a t
pu n’ w ing g G o old til D
The birther debate might Trump Donald’s credibility, or it bli t th ind th he re t t h em
can in o e F V he er o
could be just the thing to give him the Tea Party street cred he’s .’” k I’ w an boo oun ida Mi senio -
m d k, d- l’s n- r
looking for.
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Led the “Republican Revolution” in 1995 in the House, ending 40 years of

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APRIL 21 2011 | THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT | www.THEINDY.org

as 1 w e ro   5, outsider. c p ’l W
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POLITICAL RX: His platform ranges from strong national security to personal responsibility, but he’s not a by-
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the-book Republican. On immigration he favors a strong border policy, but also is a supporter of a guest worker pro-
(H or direct ties to the Bush administration. Active a ro M
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“MY VOWS TO...AMERICA”: In an interview aired on Christian Broadcasting Network, Gingrich discussed his infidelity:
od and va 4 (w for . H in C ho g s e s n ain ,” D
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ho - thing as the UN. There is only the international com- rt ts in n in s a o tt
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lar
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fo as i ak om
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i c t a nt n d sou elf i i gh
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I o u
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itt
tra d,
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ily n S m s h ou ite, the gaz e
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M tra a nominations.” “H y fa s no ary a y
ar it rt t’ nt St
tin Another thing Bolton has going for him, his mustache. Pa k, i me
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tiv
NEWS| 4
5 |METRO
WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS
I n a 4,275-square-foot lot among Harri-
son Street’s clapboard houses in West
Providence, 14 cubic yards of com-
post stand at a second-grader’s height, and
orange flags mark eight different beds.
This is Sidewalk Ends farm, which Laura
Brown-Lavoie B’10.5 founded this spring
along with her sister, Tess, and their friend
Fay Strongin.
FROM PROVIDENCE TO FRANCE
TO MAINE AND BACK
A Comparative Literature and Literary
Arts concentrator whose lyric essays
have been published in publications both
national (the Seneca Review) and local (the
Independent), Laura first got her hands
dirty during her semester off, traveling
France with the popular program World
Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms,
which allows world travelers to help out
on farms in exchange for room and board.
Upon her return, she started working at
both Red Planet Vegetables, the local farm
run by Catherine Mardosa B’03, and City
Farm, the 3/4-acre farm in Providence’s
South Side that serves as a (literal) train-
ing ground for many local growers. Tess
will graduate next month from NYU’s
Gallatin School of Individual Study, where
her self-designed curriculum investigated
“the way that industrial agriculture is un-
derpinned by a whole system of economic
and political values, but also social values,
and even certain narratives of American
history.” Over the last summer, the two
sisters and Strongin all worked at a farm-
to-table restaurant in midcoast Maine.
GETTING THE LEAD OUT
The urban farmer’s second task, after
finding a space, is controlling its lead lev-
els: many city plots, once occupied by
lead-painted houses, still contain trace
amounts of the contaminant. When Side-
walk Ends began, their soil had lead con-
centrations upwards of 400 parts per mil-
lion. As a result, they haven’t been able to
plant anything; in the meantime, Fay and
Laura’s Governor Street apartment plays
host to a young crop of carrots, as well as
six baby chicks they bought off Craigslist.
The farmers are planning to build a chick-
en coop on the most contaminated part of
the lot (“We thought it would just take the
Pythagorean theorem,” Laura says, rue-
fully, of her first foray into architecture);
for the rest, they’re replacing the top five
APRIL 21 2011 | THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT | www.THEINDY.org
Farming on the West Side
Photography by John Fisher
by Jonah Wolf
inches with alternating layers of dry leaves
and compost. (This latter will include the
clippings from haircuts Laura will provide
over the summer, along with a muffin, for
$5.)
CSA-OKAY
The Sidewalk Ends farmers take encour-
agement from Front Step Farms, down
Harrison Street, whose farmer, Nathaniel
“Than” Wood, has been able to rehabili-
tate his soil over the one year he’s been
in business. The two farms share a steel
broadfork to work the soil and a plot on
Bowdoin Street in Olneyville, whose low-
er lead concentrations are more amenable
to deep-growing roots and tubers. This
summer, they will pool their produce into
a small Community-Shared Agriculture
program, a subscription service whereby
Rhode Islanders can pay $10 a week for
fresh vegetables. An optional bread share
will be baked weekly in the cob oven
Wood built, out of all-local clay and straw,
on his plot. (Wood also plans to run, for
the second consecutive summer, a clan-
destine restaurant serving pizzas topped
with his vegetables on a picnic table in
the back of his plot.) The two farms have
joined the Little City Growers’ Coopera-
tive to distribute their produce to local
restaurants, and will participate in the
Farmers’ Market at nearby Armory Park
over the summer.
CONCLUSION
In the five years since Michael Pollan pub-
lished The Omnivore’s Dilemma, urban agri-
culture has become something of a hipster
cliché, the stuff of Stuff White People Like
(#5: Farmers’ Markets, #6: Organic food,
#132: Picking their own fruit). Still, the
environmental benefits of eating locally
are as undeniable as the hegemony sup-
porting large, single-crop farms. Even if
the new jobs barely dent Rhode Island’s
eleven-percent unemployment rate, one
can’t but be heartened by the initiative of
these farmers and their investment in this
city.
White people like JONAH WOLF B’12.
For more information about Backyard Farms
CSA, and to subscribe, email backyardfarm-
scsa@gmail.com. The Armory Park Farmers
Market occurs Thursdays 4-7 from June 2 to
October 27.

Why it makes sense to repeal tax cuts for the wealthy in R.I.
R hode Island has a $295 million defi-
cit. That’s a lot of money, and none
of the solutions proposed thus far sound
very just or very smart. Despite what the
Tea Party says, we cannot cut anymore—
we just can’t. We’ve been cutting for the
past decade, and with schools closing and
bridges crumbling, there simply aren’t
any services left to cut. But there’s also
a strong pushback brewing against plans
that put most of the tax burden on work-
ing families and small businesses. So it
seems Rhode Island is stuck between a
rock and a hard place.
Or at least that’s what some would
have us believe.
Luckily, there is another option, one
that would solve our fiscal problems in
a socially and economically responsible
way. State Representative Larry Valencia
is currently drafting a piece of legislation
(it will be officially entered next week)
that would function as a state-level repeal
of the Bush tax breaks for the wealthy.
Though the tax breaks were implemented
at the federal level, this piece of legislation
still functions as a repeal because it raises
the state income tax for the wealthy by
the same amount President Bush cut the
federal income tax for these highest earn-
ers, thereby restoring their overall rates
to what they were before W. took office.
When people talk about the deficit, the
term ‘shared sacrifice’ comes up a lot.
But what usually happens is this: working
families and small businesses are asked to
absorb all the cuts and extra fees, while
those who can best afford to share in the
sacrifice are given a free pass (it is no co-
incidence that they’re the ones who write
the big campaign checks to the politicians
APRIL 21 2011 | THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT | www.THEINDY.org
A LOGICAL
CHOICE
by Aaron Regunberg
Illustration by Annika Finne
who make these decisions). The idea be-
hind Valencia’s bill is to actually share the
sacrifice. It’s not a huge sacrifice; Valen-
cia is simply asking the rich to pay what
they were paying before the Bush tax
cuts—back when our country and state
were running a budget surplus, and when
the unemployment rate was less than half
what it is today.
That last statement may come as a
surprise for those who buy into the right’s
refrain that taxing the wealthy hurts the
economy and causes job loss. To those
folks, I’d recommend looking at a graph
showing Rhode Island’s state income tax
rate increase for the wealthiest 1 per-
cent and Rhode Island’s unemployment
rate over the last 15 years: it’s a big fat X.
As the tax rate on the wealthy has been
steadily cut, from a little under 10 percent
in the mid-1990s to a little under 6 percent
today, the state unemployment rate has
steadily grown, from around 5 percent in
the mid-1990s to over 11 percent today.
Some conservatives claim that even
if this cut will help the economy in the-
ory, it will actually just make all the rich
people pack up and leave. And here we
see myth #2, or what I like to call the
‘Flight of the Earls’ folly. The right wants
to scare Rhode Islanders into thinking
that we can’t ask the wealthy to pay their
fair share or they’ll move, but the truth is
that there’s a wealth of research showing
this myth has no basis in reality. Just this
month, Jeffrey Thompson, a researcher
at the University of Massachusetts-Am-
herst’s Political Economy Research Insti-
tute, published a study called “The Impact
of Taxes on Migration in New England,”
in which he definitively states, “Taxes do
not play any notable role in causing people
METRO OPINIONS| 6
to leave Rhode Island.” The study found
that in five of the six New England states
(the sixth being Vermont), the relation-
ship between net migration and relative
income is positive. That means more peo-
ple enter and/or fewer people leave the
state as relative taxes rise.
The truth is that tax increases gener-
ate revenue, which can be spent in ways to
make an area more attractive to current
and potential residents. That concept has
been missing in Rhode Island, where for
the past decade the establishment has ar-
gued that we need to cut taxes to improve
the economy. If that tactic had been work-
ing, if our economy were in great shape
and the rich’s rising tide had in fact been
lifting us all up, then I’d be all for more tax
giveaways. But we’re not in great shape.
We’re in a pit, and we’re certainly not go-
ing to get out of it using the same policies
that got us here in the first place.
I support Representative Valencia’s
upcoming bill because it is, quite simply,
the only answer to our budget deficit that
makes any sense. In this time of need,
when small businesses, students, cities,
teachers, and working families are being
asked to sacrifice, it makes sense to ask a
little more from those citizens who have
been receiving an immense windfall for
the past decade thanks to President Bush’s
tax breaks. Let’s hope our leaders in the
Statehouse are finally able to learn from
their mistakes and move on to a better fu-
ture. If not, we’re all going to have to pay.
AARON REGUNBERG B’12 works
with Rhode Islanders Advocating for Fair
Taxes.
7 |METRO
30 YEARS IN THE GAME WITH
B arbers
haven’t al-
ways just cut
hair: during the Mid-
dle Ages, so-called bar-
ber surgeons performed
bloodletting procedures
on plague-ridden and
disease-stricken folk to al-
leviate them of evil spirits,
through leeching or cutting
their veins. Once finished
with bloodletting operations,
barbers displayed their crimson
bloodstained bandages on cylin-
drical posts outdoors in order to
advertise their medical practice.
Out of this custom arose the mod-
ern emblem of the barber’s pole.
While the role of the barber has
evolved over time, from a part-time doc-
tor to a professional trimmer to a pop-cul-
ture stylist, the red, white, and blue helix
has endured as the industry’s calling card.
But you won’t find one outside Bob’s Bar-
bershop in downtown Providence: that’d
be a bit too flashy for its owner.
Bob Lepore, 62, prefers simplicity
to swagger. He runs an old-school opera-
tion, but would not go as far as call himself
medieval. “Barbers used to pull teeth, you
know? If I had to, I would just tell them
to drink a gallon of whiskey and hand over
the pliers.”
Lepore, who is bald, grew up in Prov-
idence and has barbered in the city for
three decades. He has made the same dai-
ly commute, six days a week, for the last
28 years, arriving off Bus 57 from John-
ston each morning, even on sleepy Satur-
days. While the rest of downtown Dor-
rance Street is near-dead, when City Hall
is still in slumber, Lepore stiffly hobbles
down Dorrance, staggers up four flights
of stairs, and is open for business at 8:30
AM, ready to welcome walk-ins. “I’ll be
working until I’m dead,” he says.
OLD-TIME APPEAL
Bob’s Barbershop reflects Lepore’s hum-
ble, easy-going demeanor. “I fly under the
radar,” he insists. “I keep it simple.” His
space is 260 square feet of clean white walls
and wood-stained floors. It is a scaled-back
example of the old-time barbershop and a
simplified alternative to modern day sa-
lons. “No computers, no rushing around,
no hustling,” is one of Lepore’s mottos,
demonstrating his concern over comfort,
rather than commerce. “Everything is
money now. That is status.”
Lepore sells no retail products,
doesn’t bother with appointments, and
never advertises beyond keeping the door
propped open. This formula has kept him
in business since the ‘80s, attracting the
same clientele for years. Bob’s Barber-
shop draws mainly professionals in search
of a trim either before or after work. “The
businessman—that’s my style of haircut,”
APRIL 21 2011 | THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT | www.THEINDY.org
BOB THE BARBER
Old-school haircutting in Providence
by Malcolm Burnley
Photography by the author
Lepore says.
Although his space lacks the lavish
accommodations of some old-time bar-
bershops, like a personal tuxedo service
(Lepore prefers to wear black t-shirts
and khakis), it still exemplifies their lei-
sure. He sees 50 customers on average
each week, about one for every hour he
works—meaning he can provide an abun-
dance of attention to customers and still
be left with long stretches of idleness. He
spends most of the day alone, routinely
killing time: getting a coffee, reading the
newspaper, or listening to the Oldies play
on the radio, like his favorite—the Rat
Pack.
Lepore relishes the convenience and
consistency of the trade. “It is always
clean, warm in the winter, and cool in
the summer,” he says. Sipping on iced
tea and eating peanut butter crackers,
he reminisces about the old days, “when
there was a barber shop on every corner
in Providence,” each offering old-time
amenities.
He remembers Tony’s on Hope
Street—now a CVS—with its hot lather
foams and two-track razors, warm tow-
els and relaxing massages. Lepore is a
hold-over from this era, a generation of
barbers decreasing in number. “They say
small barber shops are coming back, but I
don’t believe in it. Kids want to go to Su-
percuts.”
Style and speed are what appeals to
today’s customer, and Lepore admits he
provides neither. He dislikes it when cus-
tomers show up in a hurry, talking on cell
phones while he works. “You have to be
gentle, and have lots of patience.”
WHAT IT TAKES
During his three-decade career in Provi-
dence, Lepore has witnessed the barbering
industry ebb and flow: it was at its lowest
during the ‘60s, he claims, when flowing
locks and freedom ‘fros ruled supreme; it
peaked in the booming ‘90s, when sleek
business-cuts were all the rage. The ‘80s
were the heyday for business, when one
of Lepore’s regular customers was Gov-
ernor John Chafee; Lepore found him to
be “a straight-shooter,” unlike his son,
the current Governor Lincoln Chafee.
“The kid is spaced-out,” Lepore says,
groaning about Rhode Island’s pot-
holes, filth, and the Governor’s call to
implement a new sales-tax on barbers
and other exempt cash businesses. “It
will never pass.”
When Lepore started out as an as-
piring barber in the late ‘70s, it was an
intimidating business to enter. Young
barbers dealt with second-hand smoke
from customers (ashtrays were built
into chairs in the ‘80s), and endured
second-class treatment from veteran
barbers. Providence had a notoriously
hostile and exclusive barbering com-
munity, where veteran barbers held
a monopoly over the business, often
working into their ‘90s, and required
long hours and low pay from assistants.
“They liked to get respect, to show you
who is boss.”
Back then, customers were more
open and confided in barbers while
getting their hair cut, treating them as ser-
viceable replacements for paid psycholo-
gists. Now, Lepore says, “you got to take
a lot of shit, because the customer is al-
ways right.” To prepare him for the mod-
ern demands of the trade, Lepore credits
the Army of all places—home of the buzz-
cut—for his longevity in the industry, call-
ing his time in the reserves, “the best thing
that ever happened to me.”
After graduating from Providence’s
Central High School in 1968, he enrolled
in the Massachusetts School of Barbering
in 1971, located on Boston’s Washington
Street, known as “The Combat Zone” at
the time for its violent shootings. It was
a safe haven compared to the alternative:
Vietnam. “My number was very close to
being called,” Lepore says, but he man-
aged to circumvent combat action by en-
listing in the Air National Guard for six
years.
He would travel to South Carolina or
Alabama for two weeks each summer, ful-
filling active-duty training. Drill Sergeants
doled out discipline like candy: push-ups,
morning runs around the barracks, and
worst of all for an aspiring barber, dry
shaves. “That was torture,” Lepore says.
In the staggering Southern sun, drill
sergeants checked their troops for stubble.
If they found sufficient 5 o’clock shadow,
an excruciating dry shave was warranted.
Using a dull blade and no shaving cream,
each man would scrape the stubble clean
from his cheeks and neck. “They don’t do
stuff like that now,” from what Lepore
hears, but he continues to believe in mili-
tary discipline. “You need some kind of
structure in life. They should bring back
the draft, so you won’t see these guys on
the street, bumming around.”
LONELINESS AND LONGEVITY
After completing 1,000 hours of barber’s
training, while serving his time in the Re-
serves, Lepore earned his certification and
began working three days a week at Paul’s
Barber Shop on Chalkstone Avenue, in
Providence. In 1984, he opened the Hos-
pital Trust Barber Shop, tidying up the hair
of bankers and bureaucrats who stopped
in during lunch breaks. Lepore relocated
to his current location on Dorrance Street
in 2006, where he plans to remain for the
foreseeable future. “I can work until I’m
85, unless my hands start shaking. Then
they’ll put me in a home,” he chuckles.
According to Lepore, the owner of
Tony’s on Hope Street worked until he
was 95 years old. “It probably took him all
day to do one customer though,” he says.
Lepore is resilient in his refusal to retire,
bragging that he is just as proficient with
scissors and clippers as ever.
When Lepore furnished the Dor-
rance space, he installed two swivel
chairs, even though he lacked an assistant.
Originally, he hoped that his friend and
colleague, Francesco Marsocci, might join
him some afternoons to snip sideburns at
his side. Marsocci was known as “Frank
the Barber,” a one-time Barber Commis-
sioner for the Rhode Island Department
of Health, who used to work part-time for
Lepore at the Hospital Trust Barbershop,
but he passed away just before the grand
opening of Bob’s Barbershop.
Without a partner or successor,
Lepore held out hope that one of his two
sons might end up taking over the busi-
ness, but “neither wants any of it,” he says.
Bob’s Barbershop continues to be one
man’s solitary pursuit. “I get on the bus, I
go to work, I get back on the bus, and I go
home,” Lepore says, where he lives with
his wife and one of his sons.
In July, he will begin collecting Social
Security, although he has no extravagant
plans for the money. Lepore never trav-
els, claiming that he gets tired (and bored)
after two or three days away from Rhode
Island, but predicts he will indulge in some
modest luxuries like cigars, brandy, and
family cook-outs. He might even invest
a portion of his Social Security “in the
tracks,” meaning gambling, he says.
Most days are slow, and Lepore likes to
spend downtime in the customer waiting
area, un-anxiously awaiting the next busi-
nessman. “You gotta be low-key in this
business,” he says, yawning. “If you have
a lot of energy, you’d be climbing up the
walls.”
MALCOLM BURNLEY B’12 didn’t get
a hair cut (he got them all cut).

IA
ER
LIB
B oard the number 11 bus at Kenne-
dy Plaza, ride it south down Broad
Street, and you’ll get a sense of the kinds
of people that have made Providence their
home over the past two decades: block af-
ter block, bright Spanish signs mark Do-
minican, Guatemalan, Puerto Rican, and
El Salvadorian restaurants. But if you keep
going, over the border and into Cranston,
you’ll eventually see a small sign attached
to a telephone pole with “ELEAS” printed
on it in big red letters. Nestled under a
small yellow awning at the end of a wide,
windowless, concrete building is Elea’s
Restaurant, where Elea Beaie has been
cooking Liberian food since 1996.
Liberia, a West African country about
the size of Tennessee, wasn’t colonized
until 1822. What makes Liberia different
from any other country in Africa—or any
other country in the world, really—is the
fact that its first foreign settlers were freed
American slaves. The settlement was the
brainchild of the American Colonization
Society—an organization working to “re-
patriate” African-American slaves to Af-
rica. That first colony of former slaves was
built on a 36-mile-long and 3-mile-wide
strip of land that the ACP purchased—
most say forcefully—from a group of local
tribes. In 1824, the colony was named Li-
beria, after the Latin word for liberty, and
the capital was named Monrovia, after
President James Monroe.
As the colony flourished, more and
more American states started shipping
freed slaves back across the Atlantic. In
1847, the Americo-Liberians voted in fa-
vor of independence. Not surprisingly,
Americo-Liberian culture was deeply
rooted in the antebellum American South,
and a stark split formed between the
Americo-Liberian colonizers and the Afri-
cans who had been there all along. In a bi-
zarre version of the conditions they’d left
behind, Americo-Liberians acted as the
master-class over local tribes they forced
into slavery. For over a hundred years,
Liberia was ruled by a small number of
families whose ancestors had been on that
first ship back to Africa in 1822. In Africa,
Liberia was known as “Petite America.”
Then, in 1980, an African named Samuel
Doe murdered the President in a military
coup. From 1980 until 2003, Liberia was
in a state of virtually continuous violence,
resulting in over 200,000 Liberian deaths.
Hundreds of thousands of refugees fled
the country, many of them to America,
and many of those to Rhode Island.
With an estimated 15,000 Liberian
residents, Rhode Island has the highest
percentage of Liberians of any state in the
country. Though Liberians only make up
0.4 percent of Providence’s population,
Providence maintains one of the three
largest Liberian immigrant communities
APRIL 21 2011 | THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT | www.THEINDY.org
COMES TO
West African eats in Cranston
by Grace Dunham
Illustration by Becca Levinson
in America. Given the relative size of the
community, it’s even more impressive
that Elea’s was the first Liberian restau-
rant in Rhode Island—and, for a long time,
the only one.
***
Elea’s is big and open, with light yellow
walls, white tile floors, and a few circular
tables spread out around the room. When
I first walked in, there were four people at
tables and no one at the register. Though
everyone sat alone, they all seemed to be
eating together. When I asked if Elea was
around, they stared at me for a moment
and then shouted her name. After a min-
ute, Elea emerged in an apron from a door-
way behind the register. We introduced
ourselves, she softly asked my friend and
me what we wanted to eat. We said we’d
eat anything, and she disappeared through
the doorway again.
Elea’s is covered in flyers and post-
ers promoting local Liberian events and
businesses. “Liberian Fastest Rising Star:
in concert for one night only at Jovan’s,
South Portland Avenue,” reads one post-
er by the bathroom, the text framed by
headshots of the contestants. A few home-
made flyers pinned to a corkboard adver-
tise “Januetoh Enterprise,” a company
specializing in wedding cakes, Liberian
donuts, and African crafts for “weddings,
baby showers, birthdays, baptisms, etc.”
A glass case by the register displays DVDs
and videos for sale.
Everyone at Elea’s seemed to know
each other. At one table sat Esther W.,
her hair set in a ‘60s style flip, a see-
through plastic bib over her chest as she
spooned palm butter out of a big bowl
(palm butter, the national food of Liberia,
is a creamy green sauce made out of palm
fruit). Esther and Elea were schoolgirls to-
gether in Monrovia in the ‘70s. Back then,
Monrovia was a thriving city. “We had
everything America had,” Elea told me
later. “We had all the movies. We listen to
Elvis Presley, James Brown, all of them.”
Later, Elea and Esther studied economics
together at the Univeristy of Liberia.
At another table sat Nya Taryor, a
self-professed “practical theologian” who
has studied at seminaries across America
since he left Liberia in the ‘80s. Mr. Tary-
or is a Liberation Theologist. He was also
the chaplain and a professor of African-
American studies at Hamilton College.
When I asked him how he ended up in
Providence, he laughed loudly and said,
“You don’t wanna know.” Soon, Mr.
Taryor was giving me a brief history of
Liberation Theology and a list of book rec-
ommendations.
Ten minutes later, Elea emerged from
the kitchen with two red plastic trays.
Each carried a big plate piled high with
steaming food: crispy fried chicken, col-
FOOD| 8
AM
E RIC
A
lard greens, creamy palm butter poured
over tender chunks of beef and greasy,
delicious jollof rice (a mess of rice, meat,
play drums, and watch the President give
a speech. “Each and every one of you has a
role,” the President said. “Each and every
and vegetables). On the side, she brought one of you has a contribution to make to
us containers of fiery pepper sauce and big help Liberia achieve a vision that includes
oily hunks of rice bread—a dense sweet peace, reconciliation, and national cred-
cake made of rice and mashed bananas. ibility.”
Liberian food combines traditional Providence’s Liberian population
West African cuisine with the Ameri- may be small, but for Liberians, it’s expan-
can influence of its 19th-century set- sive and important. It has churches, com-
tlers. Elea’s daily specials are written out munity associations, and dozens of events
in crooked white letters on a big black a year—balls, benefits, talent shows, even
board on the wall. Some of the specials a Miss Liberia Rhode Island competition—
on the board—potato salad and okra—are but things like that aren’t always so acces-
as American as fried chicken and greens. sible. But eating good food at a restaurant
Others, like oxtail stew and plantains, are is easy. It’s the best way to see a slice of life
a little more exotic. Some, like kittily tor- not generally on display.
borgee and fufu, I hadn’t even heard of be-
fore (fufu, I later found out, is a fermented GRACE DUNHAM B’14 licked the rice
cassava dumpling and a staple of the Libe- bread and fried chicken grease off her fin-
rian diet). gers.
Our food was great—in a spicy, crispy,
heavy, saucy kind of way. Elea sat with us
through the whole meal. Whenever we Elea’s Restaurant
complimented her cooking, she laughed 1542B Broad Street
and said “Really?” with what seemed like Cranston, Rhode Island 02905
real surprise. We talked about business, (401) 383-9404
about Liberia, about America—and about
being Liberian in America.
Elea came to Providence in 1984.
For a long time, she owned a produce
store. People used to ask her how to make
things. One day, after her friend at the
barbershop told her to try cooking, she
made a few different things and sold them
at her store. People loved it, so she made
more. One thing lead to another, and fi-
nally Elea decided to open a restaurant.
She says she never thought she’d own a
restaurant, let alone her own business.
She likes that about America. “If you
work hard in America,” she said, “you can
make it.” When Esther heard Elea saying
that, she shouted across the room, “The
American dream!”
Elea, Nya, and Esther all admit that
they plan on going home someday. They
miss Africa. But when Elea visited Libe-
ria in 1997, it was a completely different
place than the one she’d grown up in.
“They’d broken into everything, burned
big buildings, killed people,” she said.
“They killed my relatives. They killed
my brother, killed my sister-in-law, killed
some of my nephews. They killed so many
people.”
Elea, Nya, and Esther are all confident
that things are on the way up. “Liberia is
good now,” Nya said. “Good for business.
We’re the first in Africa to have a female
president! That’s her,” he said pointing at
a framed picture on the wall. There in the
picture, standing next to the President,
was Elea. She met the President, Ellen
Johnson-Sirleaf, when she visited Provi-
dence in 2006. Thousands of Liberians
gathered in Kennedy Plaza to sing, chant,

his is the real world. There are no prizes for piecing to-
gether the best office-appropriate outfit or eating bugs in
T the wilderness. There are no expert celebrity judges de-
termining how well we can ‘smize’ in photographs while being
harnessed in mid-air.
The reality we watch on television is a fantasy. Yet
even the most scripted reality TV shows reveal something about
life—the banality, the little victories and loses, the absurdity—that
fictional shows can’t. Whether we watch with irony or sincer-
ity, reality TV has seeped into our cultural consciousness—intro-
ducing words like Andre Leon Talley’s ‘dreckitude’ and various
Snooki-isms like ‘kookah’ or ‘badonk.’
“We Are Who We Watch: Reality Television, Citizen-
ship, Celebrity,” the reality TV symposium taking place at Brown
University this Friday, April 22, addresses the perverse pleasures
and complexities involved in watching reality TV—how the form
both entertains and moralizes, insidiously instructing its viewers
on what it means to be a good or bad citizen. Professor Lynne
Joyrich and MCM PhD candidate Hunter Hargraves, organizers
of the symposium, spoke to the Independent about the necessity of
interrogating the really real affects of this global phenomenon.
INDY: So why host this symposium now? Why at Brown?
What can we learn from reality TV in an academic institu-
tion?
Hunter HARGRAVES: The genesis of this course started in
the Fall… I was talking to Professor Joyrich, who said she’s go-
ing to be teaching a course on Television Realities, which is a
graduate seminar that’s running this Spring in MCM. We were
just kind of bouncing some ideas off of one another about how
reality television, at least within the field of television studies, has
accrued a significant weight of books and articles and scholar-
ship as a whole, and how a lot of that [scholarship] has tended to
start thinking through questions of citizenship and what sort of
lessons reality TV ultimately ends up teaching the viewer, or its
audiences.
Lynne JOYRICH: We’re trying to think about it critically from
our positions as scholars and as viewers. We really tried to mix
who’s there—so we have internationally renowned scholars from
different fields, some from a mass communications background,
some emphasize more issues of political economy, and some of
the other scholars come from a more MCM-ist, textual-theory
background. We also really wanted to mix in Brown students. So
the panels are a mix of visiting scholars, Jill Zarin, star of The Real
Housewives of New York City, and also presentations from Brown
graduate students and one Brown undergraduate student. And,
obviously, the reality TV viewers who we assume will be our au-
dience.
And, as Hunter was saying, there is a lot of very interesting
scholarship in television studies about reality television, obvi-
ously because it is such a big and important trend in TV itself—so
therefore television studies is trying to analyze why is it such a big
and important trend, not only in the US, but globally. There’s a
lot of [scholarship] on the economics behind global reality televi-
sion and what lessons it teaches us on how to engage with the
world, about reality television in terms of our culture’s construc-
tions of race, gender, and sexuality. And celebrity—what does it
mean to live in a society of instant, real celebrity? So there are
all these issues that television studies scholars are debating, and
THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT | FEATURES | APRIL 21 2011 | www.theindy.org
tends to be seen, as Hunter said, as the bad object. It’s interesting though,
given its dominance across TV, that now there are subdistinctions made
within the genre, like high-class reality TV versus low-class reality TV.
Actually, one of our MCM alums, Lauren Zalaznick, the head of Bravo,
was interviewed in the New York Times about how Bravo is now seen as
making high-class reality shows, like Project Runway and Top Chef.
INDY: Not Jersey Shore.
J: Yeah, and The Real Housewives series is different from Fear Factor or Sur-
vivor. So even with their attempts to create status distinctions within the
genre, what’s most interesting for me is to interrogate what’s at stake in
people even wanting to do that. What is that code for? How is it itself just
a marketing term, a kind of branding, and how does that fit into today’s
economic world?
H: Which is also to say that celebrity culture has turned to reality TV as
a fantastic, untapped reservoir of what we now know of as tabloid celeb-
rity. So you look at any of the supermarket tabloids and they’re talking
about Teen Mom, they’re talking about The Bachelor, and these are now
the kind of sources where we get this celebrity culture that migrates into
other media forms such as the Internet. This is why I think having a Real
Housewife as part of the symposium makes it precisely that much more
fascinating, because there is something about reality television that has
now adopted celebrity as both what it produces
and what it relies upon. So you need celebrities
like Tyra Banks or Heidi Klum or Jennifer Lo-
pez to serve as your judges. But [reality TV] also
produces celebrities. You have people who
win reality-show competitions that then
get another reality show document-
ing their own lives. So there’s a
way in which the notion
of celebrity has become
part and parcel of the
A CONVERSATIO
ducing, what identities or ways of being is it naturalizing, enforc-
ing, and disrupting?
J: Reality television has offered many more spaces for women, queer
folks, [and] African Americans than most TV, but also in very circum-
scribed ways. So you could ask: is it changing the notion of what it is to be
American—for good or for bad? We have a panel that looks at reality TV
as a moralizing machine, the way it suggests for people notions of good
and bad, and how it enters into ethical discourses. And then we have one
panel about reality TV and notions of citizenship, the way reality TV is
so much about people actualizing themselves within communities. How
do you think about how to literally survive in the world of business or in
a social situation and what is this suggesting to people about the ways we
enact the self?
H: We’re also bringing in scholars such as Anna McCarthy, whose work
looks at programming in the 1950s and what sort of genealogy of reality
TV we can trace in television’s own rich and expansive history.
J: McCarthy looks at early developments of television in which there was
in an interest in using it as a tool for governance, teaching people what it
meant to live in a civil society. She’s interested in the way that’s articu-
lated in Golden-Age documentary on television up through today’s ideas
of reality TV that offer these lessons for citizenship. Laurie Ouellette’s
work is also about these issues of neoliberalism, governmentality, and
citizenship. She’s another one of our invited speakers who’s co-written
a book entitled Better Living Through Reality TV: Television and Post-Welfare
Citizenship.
H: That whole book is about how makeover programs, rehabilitation pro-
grams, and court TV are very instructive in teaching individuals how to
manage their own selves.
J: In very particular and historical terms, in that they teach a notion of
success and citizenry as managing the self and learning how to be entre-
E N S H IP,
N A B O U T CE LE B R IT Y, C IT IZ
T O F R E A LI T Y TV
AN D TH E B AD O B JE C
H: Now she calls them “fiercely real.” This reality program is a
way for her to—not wage war on the fashion industry, but cer-
tainly challenge a lot of their preconceived notions of beauty.
But on the other side of the coin, you also have shows that have
a much more narrow focus, like a Jersey Shore in which it’s all
about a kind of repetition and circulation of what it means to be
an Italian-American in your twenties.
J: Or even the ones that are broader like The Real World. People
joke about how there’s always the angry black-man role and
the naive white-girl role and the fiery-Latina role. So in a way
it’s opened things up, but in very circumscribed ways. But also
I think it’s important to think about issues of reception with re-
ality TV, that when people condemn reality TV for producing
these troubling images, it’s always these other viewers that they
talk about, these “dumb” other viewers that model their lives on
Jersey Shore. But one of the things that a lot of TV theorists are
interested in is precisely the real complexity of the way that peo-
ple engage with television shows. A lot of it is a game that people
play with [reality television], knowing that it’s not real life. Peo-
ple play with those levels of what counts as real, what doesn’t
count as real. When is somebody the really real or the parody of
the real. There are all these different levels that are producing
new understandings of what we mean by reality. Nobody puts
themselves in that position of, “Oh yeah, I just fall for reality
TV,” but we have these patronizing discourses of those other au-
diences who are supposedly just so dumb that they fall for it. But
everybody has a much more complicated spectator relationship,
I would argue. Which doesn’t mean we’re also still not falling for
certain things, often in ways that are more invisible.
INDY: What is the pleasure or guilty pleasure in watching
reality TV? What makes it additive, appealing, entertain-
ing? Is this just voyeuristic pleasure? What is the fascina-
Illustrations
by Annika
Finne
it seemed it would be useful to bring them together and take this
thing that a lot of people see as the lowest of the low in some
ways, and say it actually raises these very important issues for Design by
thinking about our culture. What does it mean that this is such
a prevalent, dominant media form now? We have to take it seri-
ously, we can’t just dismiss it, or laugh at it, or cry about it, or
Eli Schmitt
whatever.

H: It’s almost as if within the history of TV studies itself, there’s

always a kind of bad object. It used to be that TV studies would
critically interrogate the soap opera and actually talk about how
the soap opera is a lot more complex than just being daytime
women’s trash TV. And then it became the daytime talk show,
the Jerry Springer, the Ricki Lake, and scholarship appeared
about that. Now I feel like it’s reality TV’s turn to occupy the
site of the trash object of TV, where people like to say, “We’re
smarter than that.” Audiences can actually watch it with a de-
gree of skepticism or irony. What we’re trying to say [in this
symposium] is that, just as much as audiences are responding to
this, reality TV is sending some very curious messages back to
A TASTE
the viewer about what it means to be a citizen, what it means to
be of particular identity groups, or not.

J: I feel like people who are not in the discipline immediately

think that it sounds so silly to do a whole [symposium] about real-
by Eve Marie Blazo
ity TV. Whereas, again, I would say, TV is the world’s most dom-
inant media form, it pervades our entire society and defines the
form and the genre. preneurial and self-enterprising, having to both market and make use of tion with watching what can often be banal, mundane
times and spaces of our lives. We can’t just ignore it. TV studies
the commodity form in our culture—but not too much. It’s interesting things going on?
FOR TRAS
is not about either approving or disapproving, it’s serious analy-
sis of what does it mean to live in a world where these are the
forms that people are seeing, this is what people do in their lei-
H
J: And, as with any form, it has certain conventions. There are things
you can do with it and there are limitations. So with any of these shows, I
would say it’s not that the form in and of itself is inherently good or bad,
and potentially quite troubling how that fits into today’s state discourses.
We’re in a society that tells people to take care of themselves, sacrifice
themselves, to be entrepreneurial. We have this whole cultural [rhetoric]
J: I think it’s a mix of a lot of different kinds of pleasures, and
different ones in different mixes for different shows. Certainly
sure time, these are the things that they talk about. We are trying
but it’s the particular way it’s articulated. I feel that you can use some of all about self-reliance, so what does it mean that state functions of govern- there is the pleasure of voyeurism, but there’s also the pleasure
to really study this thing that is making up the fabric of our lives
the conventions of reality TV in interesting, unique ways, and there are ment are getting less and less support while this entertainment form based of playing with voyeurism—imagining oneself as the object of
and talk about it critically, to produce a media literacy in people.
even artists playing with that form. Or you can use it in incredibly trou- on watching people compete for their self-actualization [is getting more]? voyeurism, the exhibitionist pleasure—taking Andy Warhol’s
bling and exploitative ways. So I feel like one has to really stand back and “everybody can be famous for 15 minutes,” but now it’s like 15
INDY: Where do you think reality TV fits on the high-low-
analyze what exactly is this form, what are the conventions, and there- H: In very direct cases, charity has shifted from the state to reality TV seconds. Everybody kind of imagines the reality show of their
brow art spectrum? What are its implications for issues of
fore start to be able to see how could one maybe play with it, articulate it programs like Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. life. It’s about voyeurism but it’s also the critique of voyeurism. I
“taste” in art? Is this the death of popular art or is this cre-
differently, explode it, or restructure it. think often people watch precisely to say, “I can’t believe those
ating something new?
J: And a lot of the therapy shows, where people can’t get medical cover- people want to be filmed.”
H: Importantly, this isn’t just an American phenomenon. Many of the re- age. What does it mean that now we can turn on our TV and watch people I also think part of the pleasure is moving throughout what
H: High and low culture traffic with one another. Reality TV
ality programs that are considered to be some of the more famous ones, call in and get their families into an intervention center, or a new home we think of as different levels of the real. It’s a form of episte-
provides a funny example of that with something like Slumdog
at least in an American context, we actually poached from other areas of built for people who are established as models of their own civic duty? mological game playing—[people want to] get a glimmer of the
Millionaire. It was a reality TV show that was then exported to
the globe. Big Brother used to be Dutch. real-real within the reality. But everybody also knows that it’s
another country, then a book was written about that reality TV
H: It’s always people who have lots of community involvement and vol- a fantasy. Many of these shows are unscripted but clearly con-
show in another country, that then became a movie. So there’s
J: Even American Idol used to be Pop Idol in Britain. That’s a great example unteer. structed through editing, casting, etcetera. We still don’t have
this really interesting re-circulation of this reality TV text, Who
of the ambivalence of reality TV. Because it is such a hugely popular glob- an adequate vocabulary in our culture to talk about the complex
Wants to Be a Millionaire, but that literally travels across the
al form, it is so easy to import and export. Instead of having to export J: Even Trump’s The Apprentice: what does it mean to prove you’re a wiz at ways in which we all live in a mass-mediated world between
globe and across media, but then also across the registers of taste.
a whole program and then subtitle it and translate it, you can just sell business? It’s TV as a job market. The way that reality TV fits into certain virtual realities, fantastic realities, gritty realities—they’re all
Which is to say, a movie that won Best Picture at the Oscars was
the format. These media conglomerates will sell the formats to differ- social and historical conditions is really important for people to analyze marketing terms, yet also the realities in which we live. I think
first something that starred Regis Philbin, which we laughed at as
ent countries to remake them with their own contestants so it has that instead of just dismissing these shows. [These shows], in fact, have a real that people in their daily lives are constantly making judgments
a primetime reality TV program.
kind of local flavor. So you could say, well, it’s totally part of a kind of impact on our world and help construct the way people think. They’re about how you present and perform yourself to the world. We
economic media imperialism. On the other hand, it’s not that simple, be- fitting in to what’s going on in our society in ways we really need to inter- don’t have a good language to talk about this yet, which is partly
INDY: Something that is so explicitly about making mon-
cause when they are redone in other places, they do take on other local rogate. why scholarship about this is so important to get people to think
ey can be translated into more of an art form as a film.
meanings. They’re articulated differently and they read differently in dif- about: what do we even mean by reality?
ferent places. I think it’s important to look at the different ways in which INDY: Is it possible that resistances to, or subversions of, domi-
H: Exactly.
local audiences always make sense of things through their own particular nant culture emerge from this form? “We Are Who We Watch: Reality Television, Citizenship, Celebrity”
social and discursive frames, so it’s not just like Western culture taking will take place at Brown University Friday, April 22 from 9:30-7:30pm
J: As opposed to wanting to argue about what is high or low,
over the world. They’re way more complicated relations. H: Tyra Banks has always said about America’s Next Top Model that this pro- in Pembroke Hall 305.
in television studies, it’s better to actually ask: what’s at stake in
gram for her is a way for her to expand the Western notion of beauty to
those very categories? Why do people want to categorize things
INDY: I’m so interested in what you said about citizenship and include more women of color. EVE MARIE BLAZO B’12 is critically interrogating the fiercely
like that? What does that signify, how does it let audiences make
morality. What does reality TV do to its viewers? What is it pro- real.
sense of other audiences or themselves? But I do think reality TV
INDY: And plus-size women!
11 |FEATURES
OPEN
A C A SOUR
Distri
D E M CEbutio
n of k
IA
by An
nie M nowle
acdon
ald //
O n April 4, 2001, a project spearhead-
ed by the then-president of M.I.T.,
Charles Vest, was announced in the
New York Times under the heading “Au-
diting Classes at M.I.T., on the Web and
Free.” The goal of the initiative was to
publish lecture notes, problem sets, syl-
labi, exams, simulations, and even video
lectures for nearly all of its 2,000 course
offerings on a completely public and free-
ly accessible website. Vest’s undertaking
was motivated by a value that is present
in many university mission statements—to
disseminate knowledge as widely as pos-
sible. The site would not provide a degree,
but rather access to educational mate-
rial that had previously been confined to
admitted and paying M.I.T. students. A
decade later, Vest’s project, MITOpen-
CourseWare, currently averages 1 million
APRIL 21 2011 | THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT | www.THEINDY.org
dge i
Illust n the
ration
by Ro
bert S
andle
visits each month—56 percent of which
originate outside of North America. The
site has been recognized as an invaluable
step towards developing a public body of
knowledge, and many universities have
followed suit, including Yale, Carnegie
Mellon and Duke.
A HACKER’S MANIFESTO
It was not a huge surprise that something
like this came out of Cambridge, MA,
since the very ideals embedded in the pro-
duction of OpenCourseWare are deeply
rooted in the language of a technologi-
cal movement of the 1950s and ‘60s led
by M.I.T. students. A group of self-pro-
claimed hackers developed and depended
on free and open-source codes to further
the functionality of room-size IBM com-
puters hidden away in a university build-
digita
l age
r
ing. They developed assemblers to trans-
late instructional language into binary
code, debuggers to locate the glitches,
and simplified and re-simplified codes to
maximize efficiency by minimizing the
necessary memory space. They invented
the word as it is known today: a hack was
defined as a project that was driven by the
pleasure of involvement rather than con-
structive end results; however, this com-
munity of mutual sharing, after breaking
into some locked doors, got results. The
ethic behind this security breach was that
access to information and machinery op-
erations should be unlimited and total to
allow for user-generated modifications
for improvement. This concept has since
been furthered and legitimated by looser-
copyright (“copyleft”) licensing options
offered by Creative Commons, used as a
fundamental launching point for exceed-
ingly familiar tools such as the online en-
cyclopedia Wikipedia and web browser
Mozilla Firefox.
CLOSED/OPEN/CLOSED/OPEN
Though some have hailed these free-in-
formation sites for making great strides
in dispersing knowledge that was previ-
ously limited to collegiate ivory towers,
others are not as pleased with the limit-
less access—especially in the legal arena.
The fair use doctrine, which guides the
re-use of intellectual property, has been
used to challenge the publishing of notes,
as it arguably provides a substitution for
university enrollment. But, the counter-
argument goes, an undergraduate edu-
cation, especially one in liberal arts, has
increasingly come to emphasize the value

of interpersonal relationships with profes-
sors who can provide personal feedback
on work, rather than merely providing a
direct relay of information.
The more pressing concern lies in the
Copyright Act of 1976, which states that
a lecture is automatically protected under
copyright law if a professor has prepared
a tangible expression in the form of notes,
an outline, or a script, or documented the
class via video or audio recording— mean-
ing professors aren’t required to have pat-
ents or other formal disclaimers to protect
their work. (This exclusive right becomes
rather convoluted by discussion seminars
where the format is determined in real
time by students and professors alike and
any recorded preparations are merely
prompts for collaborative dialogue.) The
statute was referred to when certain pro-
fessors at Harvard objected to the publish-
ing of class notes on Finalsclub, a recently
formulated version of OpenCourseWare
developed by Andrew Magliozzi. With
Finalsclub, Magliozzi sought to create
an outlet for students at his alma mater
to share without relying on a third party
for-profit company to assume ownership,
such as Study Blue, Cramster, Koofer, and
Grade Guru, or ad-hoc materials which
are difficult to consolidate and organize.
“I believe that education is founded
on the freedom of ideas. We build new
knowledge on top of old knowledge. And
without freedom and openness of expres-
sion it is very difficult to innovate on the
idea level. In a sense, education must be
open if you want it to be generative—if you
want to create new knowledge. I don’t
think any professor or academic or schol-
ar would say his or hers ideas come out of
a vacuum. Everyone needs to learn in or-
der to teach,” Magliozzi told the Indepen-
dent. To further the scope of his project,
Magliozzi is looking to develop non-pro-
prietary software—including a rewriting
of the backchan.nl program, which has
been successfully used in conferences to
allow attendees to ask questions and post
comments that can be voted up or down
“
in priority while being viewed on a screen
at the front of the classroom—harnessing
the tendency for side conversation during
lectures.
APRIL 21 2011 | THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT | www.THEINDY.org
FREE AS IN FREE SPEECH, NOT AS
IN FREE BEER
Magliozzi’s project, although not recog-
nized by Harvard, has been granted sta-
tus as a 501(c)(3) non-profit and has re-
cently received funding from the Will and
Flora Hewlett Foundation to the tune of
$150,000. Though the objective in open
source is to make information, software,
and culture freely accessible and usable,
that does not mean that it is free to pro-
duce. Funding can come in the form of
donations, in which case the project re-
tains its sharing economy through and
through, or it must develop into a hybrid
by involving mechanisms of commerce,
usually through forms of advertisement
or selective pay-in features. These politics
of labor, (often ignored to prioritize the
ideals of community and collaboration in
open-source production) do point to the
benefits of copyright legislation. When a
copyright clause was included in the US
Constitution, Thomas Jefferson espoused
the author’s right to compensation so as
to incentivize innovative production that
allows for ‘the progress of science and the
useful arts’—a benefit to all of society. This
tenuous balancing act between the private
and public good is still extremely relevant
today.
The professors protesting at Harvard
have since been appeased by an instanta-
neous email alert that is sent when their
class is added to the site, giving the ability
to opt out and have the notes removed.
The claims that Finalsclub breached their
intellectual property rights or that the
public platform would disturb the inti-
macy of their classroom were recognized
as valid—even though Magliozzi doesn’t
agree with them. Another concern, pre-
sented by a Harvard professor of English,
Amanda Claybaugh, to The Chronicle, was
that the quality of the student notes pub-
lished on the site compromised the infor-
mation she delivered. Yet this content
concern could probably be alleviated by
more time and attention given by users
to the open-sourced editing feature of the
site and with the development of a com-
prehensive rating system.
Harvard professors have recently
received another alternative for making
their work available—DASH, an open ac-
HOW LONG WILL
STUDENTS CONTINUE TO
VOLUNTARILY SUBSIDIZE
THEIR OWN
COLLEGE EDUCATION FOR
THE COMMON GOOD?
FEATURES| 12
cess repository of research that would
make the mediated student notes less
appealing. The problem, however, with
substituting OpenCourseWare variations
with a free online research journal writ-
ten by professors is the accessibility of the
language; this work is not written with
the student in mind, but rather to build
a reputation with colleagues and peer re-
viewers in order to be eligible for tenure.
DEMOCRATIC EDUCATION
The Free School Movement offers anoth-
er variation of open academia, insofar as
it opens up educational decision-making
to all levels to the student body. Based on
the model of the Summerhill School of
Suffolk, England, founded in 1921, these
schools “emphasi[ze] learning as a natural
product of all human activity. They as-
sume that the free market of ideas, free
conversation, and the interplay of people
provide sufficient exposure to any area
that may prove relevant and interesting to
individual students” (“Democratic Edu-
cation”, Wikipedia). In this self-reflexive
sphere, anything can be put up for debate,
including the role of adults, evaluation,
rules and human rights. As one might ex-
pect, a significant amount of time is often
devoted towards play—encouraged within
the framework as an essential component tion in Finalsclub up to this point is “altru-
of social learning but regarded from the ism—but altruism alone is a necessary but
outside as excessive leniency. not sufficient component for doing this on
Self-imposed responsibility for stu-
dents is also an issue when it comes to
the intention of the user of OpenCourse-
gagement with the material. Though this
is a legitimate apprehension, it is impor- “
Ware-like sites. The fear is that this access
will be used as a crutch for students who
want to skip class or save time, instead of
serving as a supplement to individual en-
tant to recognize that this potential for the
evasion of schoolwork has always existed
in some capacity. The real progress here is
the opening up of information to non-col-
legiate users who could make use of this
leverage to self-learn and teach in areas
off campus. The question remains: how
a large scale, so we need something more.
Something more in my perspective is a
novel way of collaborating and communi-
cating within education, which I think we
have our finger on the pulse of.”
ANNIE MACDONALD B’12 is open.
[Finalsclub is planning on bringing more
schools into its fold next fall, including
Brown. If you are interested in program-
ming or being a campus representative
long will students continue to voluntarily email Andrew@FinalsClub.org]
subsidize their own college education for
the common good? Magliozzi believes
that the motivation for student participa-
13 |ARTS APRIL 21 2011 | THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT | www.THEINDY.org
T he first official memorial to the 9/11 trag-
edy was built in light, twin beams serving
as an intangible but indelible memory of
the buildings. Before that, though, there were
the grassroots memorials, collections of objects
left by disparate individuals—the missing posters
preserved on the walls of St. Vincent’s Hospital,
candles and flowers by the fences downtown,
commemorative tiles painted by New Yorkers
and hung on the chain-link fence around a 7th
Avenue parking lot.
All of these versions of memorializing are
far from the monolithic tradition of perma-
nence and stone. Local Projects, a young media
design firm, developed an iPhone app, Explore
9/11, to create a “Memorial Experience” with
a GPS-guided tour of Ground Zero, complete
with images and testimonies from the actual
event. Local Projects creates interactives, web-
9/11: THERE’S AN APP FOR THAT
sites, mobile apps, and digital and tangible instal-
lations for museums, public spaces, and public
projects such as StoryCorps. They developed
Explore 9/11 as one element of a suite of me-
dia projects for the 9/11 Memorial Foundation
(which is responsible for both the 9/11 Memo-
rial Museum and the 9/11 Memorial). The suite
includes interfaces to navigate the memorial,
and, with Thinc Design, the exhibition itself.
Jake Barton, the founder and principal of
Local Projects, talked to the Independent about
making an app for history.
INDY: How did the Explore 9/11 take
shape?
Jake Barton: The app takes its cues from the
approach of the Museum itself, which is very
much made up of the voices of witnesses to his-
tory. We created the website “Make History”
to gather images, written stories, and videos of
people’s experiences on 9/11. We wanted peo-
ple to narrate the events of that day and the his-
tory that they created, and got thousands of sub-
missions from around the world. We then took
those submissions and composed them into the
walking tour and storytelling experience that is
Explore 9/11.
INDY: Traditionally, memorials are very
permanent, both aesthetically and literal-
ly. On the other hand, the app is by nature
temporal––it could be updated and recon-
figured both by users and by programmers.
Do you think of this project as a memorial
or as something else?
JB: I think of this project as a Memorial Expe-
rience. 9/11 was witnessed by one-third of the
world in the moment, and another third within
the first 24 hours,  meaning that 9/11 was an
event of unprecedented human attention. This
Memorial is made up of so many experiences,
from those far away, to those at the sites them-
selves. The fluidity of digital media means that
as we learn more and gather more material, Ex-
plore 9/11 can evolve with it.
INDY: So 9/11 was experienced by most of
the world virtually, is what it comes down
to.
JB: It’s hard with a consumer product like an
iPhone to make something appropriate, and in
fact, Fox News did an hour special where they
asked people on the street if it was even okay to
have stories like this on an iPhone. People didn’t
seem to mind, given the way the stories them-
selves were treated with respect and were in the
voice of the witnesses themselves.
INDY: I think that in this case the possi-
bilities offered by a mixed-media platform
with live GPS tracking actually enables
more than it binds. Do you think of the app
as an educational platform, or a memorial-
izing one? Is there a difference?
Illustration by Alex Corrigan
JB: One is meant to be more didactic and explana-
tory, while the other looks to secure memory in a
memorial fashion.  They are intertwined here, but
not the same.
The development team had always recognized
that it would be a challenge to make an experi-
ence that could speak both to those who ran out
of the burning buildings, whose lives were forever
changed on that day, and then also to young adults
who had no direct experiences of the event. We
always wanted to have the one group describe the
event to the other group.  So we highlight the sto-
rytelling through oral histories and first-person ac-
counts to create something authentic and meaning-
ful for all visitors.
INDY: One of the things that struck me about
the app experience was the facelessness of
those offering us witness testimony. In the
documentary tradition, we are used to attrib-
uting words and voices to individual faces.
This version feels more anonymous to me.
Perhaps by not anchoring the experience to
an individual with distinct features, it offers
one experience as an experience of many—or
at least all of the individuals who appear in the
an interview with the creators of the “explore 9/11” app
slideshows being voiced over.
JB: While the speakers aren’t pictured, their voices
are arguably more intimate and create a closer rela-
tionship then you might experience from just a pho-
tograph. Having a person tell you his story in your
ear is a very individual experience.
INDY: Interesting, particularly because we’re
accustomed to having individual conversa-
tions over the phone. Actually, the stories, as
received through this app, are easier to con-
centrate on and really listen to than I think
they would be in a museum setting. Some-
times, educational memorial museums feel
cluttered and close. The app, on the other
hand, offers images and words together, one
at a time, orchestrating a simpler experience
of the material. On the other hand, it cannot
provide tangible relics. Is this a proposal for a
new kind of memorial museum?
JB: The New York Times review said that the personal
and intimate nature of the app experience offered
the perfect memorial for 9/11 and how New York-
ers in particular feel about the event right now. But
when the Museum opens, with the raw physicality
of the artifacts, that will have such potency and pres-
ence, I believe it will really transform our relation-
ship with 9/11, whether you are a New Yorker,
whether you have an intimate personal experience,
or whether you know very little of the event.
INDY: For me, the beauty of this app is its con-
nection to physicality. It’s rooted in the spaces
of downtown New York.
JB: There is a power to physical space and to the
authenticity of being at the site itself that is indel-
ible and chilling. The experience of memory can be
heightened by that reality, so the intangible height-
ens the physical location.
INDY: Do you think that as this strange rup-
ture that we call Ground Zero becomes the
Freedom Tower—hopefully a living, function-
ing space—the nature of the app as a grounded
thing will change? How do you avoid the re-
placement of memory with memorial?
JB: I think the space of our experience will change
as the event grows into the past. There will be many
who will never be able to get out of that day. How-
ever, there are young people today who won’t have
that personal relationship with the event. Hopefully
the app will allow them to feel like they are standing
and witnessing history,and help them understand
the experience a little more deeply.
by Maud Doyle
 APRIL 21 2011 | THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT | www.THEINDY.org SCIENCE|14

A NEW
DISCOVERY An Interview with Bonnie
ZONE Epstein of the Rhode Island
Museum of Science and Art
by Maggie Lange the 11 and up group won’t ever see it. But
in Rhode Island, the cultural attitude is
Illustration by Robert Sandler that the children’s museum does a great
job and they think ‘we’re good!’ I think

T
that it’s never too early to start, but there
he Rhode Island Museum of Art and is also no good age to stop.
Science (RIMOSA) is a nonprofit
that calls itself a ‘wall-less’ museum. For INDY: So is this really for eleven and
now, the museum’s founders travel up—adults included?
around the state, to schools, events,
and festivals. Their installations are BE: Adults love the exhibit as well. We
mesmerizing: colorful sand that driz- have our Board test each exhibit before it
zles through sieves to create a flow of happens to make sure they are interested.
amazing patterns, a inexplicable bub- Also, we make sure the height of the ex-
ble-machine—as if Willy Wonka and hibits and the information in the signage
Bill Nye the Science Guy were asked are geared towards older children.
to collaborate. The experiments have
an impressionistic combination of art INDY: Tell me about the debate on lo-
and science: the visuals are stunning, cation for this museum.
there is some principle at work, but
no heavy-handed message is forced BE: I’m deciding between Providence and
upon the participant. These installations Pawtucket. Both are urban, accessible,
have been at WaterFire, FooFest, and and both have this creative, funky, muse-
most recently at Slater Mill. um-y culture.
But RIMOSA’s nomad status is short-
lived. Their Board of Directors—a dozen INDY: And your plan now is to prove
accomplished educators, scientists, and the success of your projects so that
artists—are in the midst of looking for a you can interest investors?
home, and they plan on setting up a full-
fledged museum with four walls in the BE: Yes, that’s why we are wall-less.
next five years. We got great advice from the New
Bonnie Epstein is the founder and York Hall of Science, who said that
CEO of RIMOSA. She received a Biol- we had to prove our concepts first. No
ogy and Geology degree from Brown, and they have a dif- ficult job because one will offer anything to crazy people
said I thought of this on my own, but it’s with an idea.
then a PhD in Oceanography from the they don’t have the time.
based on the San Francisco Exploratori-
University of Rhode Island. Since then,
um, which I visited when I was fifteen. It ML: How have you been proving this?
she has taught everything from elementa- INDY: What would be a better way to
has the same feel as MoMA—but with less
ry school science to a course called “Envi- teach about science?
on the wall and this invitation to play with BE: We have been proving our success at
ronmental Disasters” at RISD. Bonnie sat
it, and there was science involved. places like Waterfire and Foo Fest. There,
down with The Independent to explain why BE: The way kids learn best is by letting
art and science should be combined, and them play and experiment on their own. we actually get some numbers and can do
INDY: Did it feel forced at all? evaluations. It’s not just enough to have
what she envisions for RIMOSA’s next Kids remember what they discover for
step. —Maggie Lange themselves. It’s that joy of discovery, this good photos, but metrics, ages, how long
BE: The pairing of science and art is natu- people are spending there. Then we can
ral if we think about the beginnings of moment of “I did this!” You can see it,
INDY: So, why art and science togeth- they show all their friends, and they are be attractive to funding. Don’t just say
both. What is the passion the fuels them? you can do it, prove you can. We have
er? the discoverer and the teacher.
The ability to observe the world and ask to prove we are a feasible, attractive non-
questions about it—to ask questions and to profit. We can move in but we are going
BE: Well, both my parents were physi- INDY: Based on your observation
experiment. to need a little help with our rent, and
cians, so I grew up knowing about sci- at other science museums, like San
ence—I always knew how things like diges- Francisco’s Exploratorium, how do that’s where this proof will help us out.
INDY: You think that their minds
tion worked, but I was always very drawn kids behave?
work in similar ways? MAGGIE LANGE B’11 says it and proves
to art. I love that it is literally creative, that
you are supposed to start with raw materi- BE: When you bring kids to a science mu- it.
BE: Some scientists are very logical… but
als and come up with something beautiful seum they fan out. Then you hear, ‘Hey,
the true breakthroughs, and people who
or interesting. come look at what I found.’ You can see
look at things in very different ways, have
When I was a grad student in sci- the discovery. I remember, there was a
the minds of artists. You know quarks—
ence, many of my friends took pottery, little boy explaining to anyone that would
that is absolutely a crazy idea! Subatomic
and wove, or painted. From the scientist’s come by how his exhibit works. He had
particles… seeing a bug stuck in amber,
side, I’ll say that they never saw them- total ownership.
and wondering how to figure it out.
selves cut off from art. But I fear that art- There is also the inter-group commu-
ists feel that they are cut off from science. nication—this is proven by studies. These
INDY: And you hope that RIMOSA
will stimulate this curiosity? museums promote intercommunication
INDY: What are examples that you between families and from kid to kid,
have seen of artists who feel cut off even kids that don’t know each other.
BE: It’s this wondering I want to encour-
from science?
age. The installations we set up—like a cool
table that allows you to play with gears INDY: And what about learning on
BE: When I taught at RISD, I learned that an individual level?
and a mesmerizing sand in a sieve—aren’t
artists had the same attitude about science
supposed to have any end goal or resolu-
that I had had about art—some of them had BE: It gives kids a chance to work some-
tion. Video games, games where you can
always been interested in science. I knew thing out by themselves, rather than a
win them, don’t have this thrill of endless
a lot of scientists that had been torn be- parent or teacher telling them how things
permutations.
tween choosing a career in art or science, work. It’s about experimentation and
and they decided to continue with science, learning—that hard work is necessary.
INDY: What has inspired you to do
because who has ever heard of a starving They might not know the names of the
this?
scientist? However, I think that there are concepts that they are learning, but they
a bunch of people who had come down on are looking at the natural world and how
BE: The thing about formal scientific edu-
the side of art. Really, it’s unfortunate that it works.
cation right now is that it’s about trans-
we force people to choose one direction.
mission. You know: I give you the facts,
then please tell them back to me on a test. INDY: What age group are you really
INDY: Do you see art and science as targeting?
Teachers just don’t have the time or re-
inspiring each other?
sources for anything else. The fact is, kids
can ace the tests and then not remember a BE: The Providence Children’s museum
BE: Definitely. I wish that I could have does a good job with the early stuff, but
thing. I admire science teachers hugely—
 15 |LITERARY
T he pillow was a soft, cool cave for everything dark.
Waking up with a damp neck and mossy hair, she
was still stuck in the hot seaweed. A howling wind
battered the windows, thirsting to crack her. There were
only windows; she had never known walls. Salt flooded
her nostrils and her stomach swooped and she knew that
this was it, that this time she was truly paralyzed. If she
tried to lift her ankles she would only feel buzzing teeth
chewing across her brain. When the numbing subsided
she would be released. Breath tuned to the wind’s hollow
sucking, she narrowed in on her own howls. Each inhala-
tion brought her farther from her body. She was leaving
this shell, finally. Baring her teeth at the skeletal brace
that hulked in the corner, she soared, then faltered. A big
toe flexed beneath the covers.
She knew the words before the meaning struck. She first
heard it when she was learning how to walk again—that
glass forms when lightning hits sand. That’s what happened
to you, her father would say. That’s why you’re all glassy. She
used to believe that all teacup-boned girls lived in towers
above the roiling sea. Then she found a stash of National
Geographics while chasing a marble and maddeningly
blushed while ravaging the pages, getting paper cuts
and smearing blood on a gaunt-faced village. No metal
encased them, no plaster. Before long her father found
oily stains all over the gloss, the pictures of hungry girls in
Laos, places where someone had fingered their malnour-
ished bones. After that she found calcium supplements
under the bed instead.
The moon and a full glass of milk leered above her spine
in its serpentine curve. The wire between the girl and her
father became taut at night, though he tried to lighten the
air with cello concertos, violas, and the sounds of hollow
instruments. Every time milk appeared her eyes fogged
over, little ocean marbles. She sat in the high-backed
wooden chair, chin raised, posture searing. If she faced
the black window a monstrous figure was spat back.
The spotlight pulsed its code into the void, illuminating
the metal plate that covered her torso. She hummed and
avoided the glass’s gaze. Her father’s veins throbbed all
over the cream cascading down the sink. Plugging her
ears against the gurgling that went straight down into the
sea, she imagined that her unwanted milk was what made
the waves froth and furious.
Walking around the lighthouse, she never knew where
to put her hands. She would stumble around on her large
feet, arms stretched out, as if blind. Only in the earliest
morning could she play these games. Abandoning the
insulated slippers at her bedside, she pretended she was
a grasshopper and sidled along the whitewashed floors,
wincing and smiling with each splinter. On the rare occa-
sions when empty wine bottles were on the kitchen table,
she knew she could risk the door. It always surprised
her how nimbly the lock sprung after having gathered
so much pressure. Stepping pointed-toed on the balco-
APRIL 21 2011 | THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT | www.THEINDY.org
ny, she could never brace herself for the fury. Shutters
clapped above water’s standing ovation. A murmuring
crawled across the depths. Pressing her plastic-sheathed
body against the curved stucco wall, she fell into the vio-
lence and watched the clouds bloom. Each bloody hue
screamed on the horizon. That means East. This is when
she first began dreaming of deserts and how to reach one.
Her bones sweltered beneath her shell. Sometimes a
breeze flooded her spatial bits and she imaged falling
from a window. There was a time when she tried jump-
ing off tall chairs, dressers, her bed, only to find the metal
trappings beneath her feet magnetized to the floor. She
would practice lifting her tingling legs as high as they
could before they suctioned back down. Her father
would hunch down the narrow hallway and stand in the
crooked light, watching her trudging through invisible
molasses, her face electrified.
EXCERPT
With one lurch it would all be flushed away. Her feet
were bare and raw where the metal had rubbed. Looking
FROM
down at her lobster flesh, she curled her toes around the
balcony’s edge and felt the concrete’s abrasion. Below,
BOTTLENECK
the swells formed hoops. She was not her body so her
body let go.
A claw gripped her. Her eyes ran up the stranger’s arm,
the lacework of veins and moles. She searched his face
but found no anger. He was a raccoon boy with deep by Kate van Brocklin
caverns under his eyes and sand in all his cuts. There was
something about the way he rasped that struck her. His Illustration by Annika Fine
hand was still wrapped around her metal sheath so tightly
she thought she saw an indent. The breathing, something
about his breathing. She remembered it growing louder as
someone trundled up the winding staircase. The sound of
smothering, the gulping. The food boy. Teetering against the
wind in a violent hug, beets rolled at their feet and over
the edge.
He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her
farther over the railing. Stomach lurching, she saw what
she was stiff and confined in her trappings. The metal
he aimed at—the little rowboat being knocked against the
hummed on her bones. When she reached the last step,
rocky bank. She stared at the frantic wooden frame surg-
her whole body propelled backwards. Spine arced and
ing with the maniacal waves. Running her hands down
limbs splayed, she clattered and yet could still move. She
her second skin, she peered at his bony face and shook
stood up again, realigned her vertebrae and gawked at
her head. Her owl eyes blinked too much. He looked at
the boy. I didn’t break. She flapped her arms wildly as the
her intently before swinging up the paper bags of food
metal smashed against itself. Of course you didn’t. What did
and slipping back into the kitchen. Following him, the
you think you were made of? The boy chortled and began
girl heard muffled poundings from down the hallway.
cutting at the metal with a sharp blade. Each piece falling
She staggered into the shadows where the voice like a
to the rocky floor screeched. The final piece was wrapped
hot iron rod clanged. Let me out! She’ll disintegrate I tell you!
around her torso, and without it her stomach expanded as
She’ll just die! Slowly backing away, she turned around and
she let out a long breath. She ran her fingers across the
saw the deep eyes rippling. He set the silver key on the
doughy expanse. Lagoons of purple and green spotted
wooden table and stepped away, raising his eyebrows.
her whole body. The boy draped a thick woolen blanket
over her and held the boat steady as she clamored in. He
Metal dug into her thighs with each winding step. The
cut the rope loose and started the small motor. Shaking
boy’s hand guided her along the narrow curvature, but
under the wool, she feverishly pushed on the marks. No
matter how hard she rubbed at the bruises they wouldn’t
smear.
She had found it all strange: how he had two train tickets
for that afternoon, the way he ignored people who tried
talking to them, that the tent was already set up on the
anonymous landscape. But the sand was the so richly clay
red that she laid her head back down and let the thought
skate away. If she squinted, her vision blurred the edges
of all that she could see and the vastness could eat up the
sea. Tiny particles shivered over her arm hairs as she
licked her dry lips. She closed her eyes and imaged sink-
ing beneath the sand. Burrow yourself down enough and no
one even knows you lay there in the dampness, she told the
boy. The trick is to close your eyes very tight and even you don’t
know you’re there. But the boy wasn’t listening. He sprung
up, suddenly alert, and craned his neck in the direction of
nothingness. Grabbing the girl’s arm, he pulled her skin
into the tent. The small purple canvas swished as she tum-
bled in, still getting used to her own limbs. The boy’s eyes
were swollen and swimming. She looked to him in hope
that this was a game that he was making up as he went
along. She stuck a finger into his jawbone. He whipped
his head around and gaped. His angles were shifting; he
no longer appeared carved but hollow instead. The tent
was palpitating now. What’s happening? Howling. He took
one of her limp arms. You can move, see? Flap your wings.
Look, real skin! He swung her pendulum arm. Ouch. Stop
it. She crawled toward the tent’s flap but he caught her
with one arm. They sat crouched with eyes flying. The
girl watched the canvas gulping sand through the cracks.
There was a wailing outside that wanted in.

NUPUR SHRIDHAR
Nupur has been referred to as the Pancho
Villa of Providence for her brave stand-
offs against the forces of evil time & time
again. When she spots mischief afoot,
she’s DTF, duh—but when she spots cru-
elty: Noop, there it is! She swoops right
in, rugby shirt crisp & dimples dimpled,
and challenges the wrongdoer to a battle
he’s sure to lose: CHUG-OFF. One point
eight seconds & one can of fine local brew
later, Nupur stands triumphant, foam
dripping down her chin—“My lack of gag
reflex is wasted on me,” she says—but she
doesn’t stop there, oh no: she’ll drag you
up to her face, your collar in her fist, and
say: “DON’T FORGET TO PLEASURE
YOUR WOMAN TONIGHT.” And
she’ll know if you do. The woman’s got
radar or some shit.
FRASER EVANS
July 18, 1969
IN EVENT OF MOON DISASTER:
Fate has ordained that the man and wom-
an who went to the moon to explore in
peace will stay on the moon to rest in
peace.
These brave people, Fraser Evans and
Neil Armstrong, know that there is no
hope
for their recovery. But they also know
that there is hope for mankind in their sac-
rifice.
These two people are laying down
their lives in mankind’s most noble goal:
the search for truth and understanding.
They will be mourned by their fami-
lies and friends; they will be mourned by
their nation; they will be mourned by the
people of the world; they will be mourned
by a Mother Earth that dared to send two
of her children into the unknown.
In their exploration, they stirred the
people of the world to feel as one; in their
sacrifice, they bind more tightly the broth-
erhood of man.
In ancient days, men looked at stars
and saw their horses in the constellations.
In modern times, we do much the
same, but our heroes are epic men and
women of flesh and blood.
Others will follow, and surely find
their way home. Mankind’s search will
not be denied. But Fraser Evans and Neil
Armstrong were the first, and they will re-
main the foremost in our hearts.
For every human being who looks
up at the moon in the nights to come will
know that there is some corner of another
world that is forever mankind.
EMILY FISHMAN
Emily Fishman wants to shop with you
and play X-box with you. She wants to
pillow-fight in the middle of the night.
She wants to drive your Benz with five
of her friends. She wants to creep past
the block, spying again. She wants to roll
with you all day, and chase skeeters away;
she wants to fight with lame chicks; she’ll
blow you away. She’ll expect the best;
she’ll kick you to the curb if she finds one
strand of hair longer than hers. She wants
love in the Jacuzzi; she wants to rub up in
the movies. She wants access to the old
crib, keys to your new digs; she wants to
answer the phone, tattoo her arm, that’s
when you have to send her back to her
mom. She’ll call you ‘heartbreaker,’ when
you’re apart it makes her want a piece of
paper to scribble down ‘I hate ya.’ But she
knows she loves you because she loves ev-
erything you say and everything you do.
KATIE DELANEY
Kathryn “Katie” C. Delaney was born in
a top-secret government lab on a small
island off the coast of the Celtic Sea. The
only photograph ever recorded under
her true name is from when she won the
lab’s Most Beautiful Blastocyst contest by
an embarrassing landslide. At the age of
three, she assumed a new identity and set
sail for the Americas on a boat made out
of popsicle sticks and glitter glue. When
she arrived, she told everybody she was at
least five and began kicking ass instanta-
neously. At eight, she single-handedly won
the World Series, and at nine, she won the
Pulitzer for penning a truly touching ar-
ticle about it. After that, Katie took a small
break from her accomplishments and
grew to be unforgivably good-looking.
Her side-smile is now the legal equivalent
of a space heater turned all the way up.
News sources report she may actually be
thirteen years old. Katie plans to attend
medical school next fall.
KATIE JENNINGS
By far the most brawny competitor at
this humble newspaper, Katie Jennings
is the only person I’ve ever heard of who
needed to be hospitalized after the vora-
cious rage of athleticism she displayed
at the Indy-BDH kickball game. We all
thought we heard the gentle murmur of
choice anti-imperialist swears as she was
wheeled away in her giant fur coat and
leather boots. Additionally, Katie has been
run over by a fully-grown motor vehicle.
Eying it up and down, she couldn’t resist
throwing it a thin-lipped glare and flicking
the ash of her last cigarette on its brutish
hood before slouching off to the hospital,
where the nurses had begun to depend on
her for spontaneous a cappella routines
and cooking tips.
LOLA BATES-CAMPBELL
Lola means godmother in fairy-speak. To
walk into her lair is to be enveloped in a
magical womb: you are fed a bowl of de-
licious soup, stripped of your dull hab-
its, clad in lace and fringe, rechristened
Xavier, and reborn as a calmer, softer,
better-smelling version of yourself. Lat-
er, you wonder whether your soup was
spiked—the witch does have a spicy side.
In past lives, she was the herb doctor of
brahmins, a ‘90s Guess? model, and maybe
Annie Oakley. How else to explain her
eerie awareness of secret happenings in
Providence? Or her brilliance in every-
thing from chemistry to cuisine to beauti-
ful newspaper collages? Her cackle casts
spells, bottom line. And no one’s bottom
has ever looked so fly in them high-waisted
jeans.
ERIK, HIJO de María y Angélica Font,
lesbias rancorosas, hermanas incestuo-
sas—concebido bajo los cielos encendidos,
los cielos dantescos y cenicientos del DF,
en la manera menos inmaculada. Se cayó
riendo del útero doble, tomó una cerveza
y partió inmediatamente al norte. Es por
eso que, en línea recta entre el DF y Nueva
York, hay miles de niños, precocemente
barbudos y fumadores compulsivos, que
aún el nombre de su padre ignoran—pero
en cuyos pechos arde indistintamente las
brasas de un linajedesconocido. Es por eso
que, todos los 23 de febrero, todos los ríos
de México se vuelven negros de ceniza, y
todos los ríos norteamericanos se vuelven
rojos de sangre. Despuéstomó otra cerve-
za y pidió una za…
De verdad no entendemos a este
hombre, y no estamos seguros si debería-
mos. Sólo queremos que no nos haga sufrir
demasiado. Y cuando a la orilla del Infier-
no se encuentra finalmente con Roberto
Bolaño, su abuelo por propiedad conmu-
tativa, y cuando los dos se pinchan al lado
del mar fluorescente y teñido de mezcal—
esperamos que pensara en nosotros, los
pobres que abandonó.
TOE
RACHEL WEXLER
Sometime between Gutenberg and the
Banishment to New Pembroke, Rachel
and Liat descended upon the Indy like a
pair of InDesign angels, Rachel fluttering
down on the wings of a flowy boho shirt.
Upon landing, Rachel used the mystical
powers of her cameo necklace to conjure
FRANCIS GONZALES
spreads that left you weak at the knees.
On the day of his scheduled interview, the
Rachel has fluttered back to the heav-
words “Congratulations New Photo Edi-
ens from whence she came. But hark, chil-
tor” miraculously appeared on the door of
dren; if one Wednesday night you detect
Wilson 101, the horn of Gabriel sounded
a sweet-smelling presence hovering over
like a vuvuzela, and a new era dawned on
you, fear not. If it carries a shoulder-bag,
the College Hill Independent.
fear not. If it gives you a sideways glance
Since then, Francis “Our Savior”
that says “Fuck all of this cigarette-induced
Gonzalez has blessed us with Epic Meal-
anorexia, Imma eat this Oreo and then 3
times; there have been endless bags of
more and still manage to look bangin’ in
Green Mountain Gringos deep-fried in
my sweater that buttons up the back,” fear
beer batter and perpetually-full jars of
not. ‘Tis but the ghost of a great designer. 
Sweet Baby Rays. Not to mention all the
Sir Richards condoms one could ever
dream of. We would adorn ourselves in
CHARLOTTE CROWE
In the glow of the first full moon to shine clothes from Savers and read from the
over the wilds of Canton, Connecticut, holy scriptures of Harry Potter if only we
thought this paradise would last. But evil
the immaculate baby lizard Charmander
has risen and villains resembling Amy Poe-
came into being. Raised by giant black
hler and in desperate need of stylists have
poodles in a magical world full of lichen
driven Francis away from our publication
but devoid of Starbucks, the charmed liz-
and our lives. No photo editor/athlete-
ard baby learned yoga, and not to wear
scientist-astronaught (sic) can fill the dino-
brown with navy, and was very happy.
saur footprints that remain.
Soon, a spider who wove beautiful stories
Francis, you walked into the inter-
heard of this unblighted creature. The
view room and walked away with our
spider granted Charlotte her legendary
hearts (as well as our saw horses, Alumnae
name, and her gift for finding resonance
Hall benches, and refrigerator doors).
in the dark corners of the mundane word. 
That Canadian Ham is still in the freezer.
Charmandar grew into Charmeleon,
Maybe it will help heal the deep pain your
and Charmeleon soon grew into Chariz-
absence has wrought. Goodbye.
ard. Eventually, her power of Empathy
grew so strong that she shed her lizard
skin with the cry, “I am Woman!” and
KATIE LINDSTEDT
found herself in the world of men. Newly
Once upon a time, Lil’ Red Lindstedt
softened with Kiehl’s moisturizer, she
decided to go on a walk through the for-
descended in full Amazonian glory, with
est. She wore high-waisted acid wash jean
a glimmer in her eye and a gavel to rival
shorts and a red halter top, and she car-
John Boehner’s, to croon folk music
ried a huge purse full of muffins for her
among the mortals of the Indy. She ban-
grandma. En route, Lil’ Red Lindstedt
ished cruelty and snark from Conmag, and
saw a liquor store. “Oooh,” she said. “I
melted the icy hearts of Indy readers with
think this walk would be better with some
silvery stories. “They’re not sentimental,”
wine!” The liquor store man knew she
she would insist, “they’re just about feel-
was too young for wine, but charmed by
ings.” And so she blew our minds.
her shy smile and sweetly bobbed hair, he
handed over a big ol’ bottle. So Lil’ Red
Lindstedt continued on her walk, grow-
JOHN FISHER
ing red-cheeked and tipsy, calling out to
Whether he is drinking wine or whisky,
her animal friends and skipping. When
whether he is wearing a collared shirt or
she arrived at her grandma’s house, there
a shirt without a collar, John is modest
was a WOLF instead of an old lady in the
and handsome. He springs as he steps, he
bed—but Lil’ Red was having none of it,
smirks when he likes you. He stands tall
and bashed the wolf over the head with
and speaks truthfully. Even his name—say
her empty wine bottle. “That takes care of
it aloud, “Fisher, John, John Fisher”—
that!” she said, and went on to become a
rings out with a direct, untarnished hon-
wildly successful journalist and photogra-
esty, for he is, in fact, a fisher avid about
pher of sexy male actors. The end.
fly-fishing—a sport at which he has a distin-
guished talent. Thankfully, John had the
foresight to cultivate another his natural BEKAH BERGMAN
In the far off land of the Kingdom of Kind
talent, that of picture-taking. Through his
Souls, it was time for the villagers to elect
photography, we have been able to share
a Queen. “It should be somebody who
in his honest, virtuous gaze: a vision that
likes cats!” one villager shouted. “She
marries the charm of a wide-eyed child
should be calm and patient, even when un-
and the wisdom of a worldly old man.
named co-editors don’t pull their weight!”
John has been the Indy’s eyes, and with-
The crowd murmured assent. “She should
out him the Indy is not so much blind as
be ambiguously ethnic-looking, so that
incomplete.
people of all kinds can identify with the
Queen!” Villagers stood up with excite-
ment. “SHE SHOULD WRITE POETRY
AND LIVE BY THE SEA!” The Kingdom
cheered and had a potluck to celebrate.
And so it was that Bekah was elected
Queen of Kind souls. She left the Indy to
live out her reign, living a quiet but regal
life presiding over royal matters and wear-
ing knits in her seaside cabin. 
TA G S
ALICE HINES
In Shanghai, I fell in with a cold and indif-
ferent group of French expats. On sum-
mer evenings, we would run to the edge of
the water, irritated with the incessant at-
tentions of bourgeois gaze, and made our-
selves ill with drink to escape this fondling
that disgusted us. One savage evening, a
nondescript playwright swaggered in in
the latest New Look. The silk dresses lived
out her martyrdom through perfection of
ennui. She possessed supreme composure
and an apparent tranquility that masked
terrible transports. I knew when I first
saw her that she would be the death of me.
While she bathed in milk, I whispered
to her: “Mon petit chou, viens avec moi.”
Alice protested: she had arranged her
mode. My idiocy meant nothing to her
wit, grace & wild sass. She acted as she
liked, chewing up and spitting out careers
and lovers at will. Roger Federer reported
that she had named an elephant after me,
but, as is wont to do, it fell ill at her fourth
wedding.
ALEX VERDOLINI
You probably know Alex Verdolini as
that kid who rolled his eyes when you
mispronounced something basic in some
easy French lit course first semester of
sophomore year, which—for the record—
he didn’t find particularly challenging
anyway. Be not mistaken: underneath
that blue gingham shirt is not only a deli-
ciously tall and slender physique, but also
a heart of silk gold yearning to reveal it-
self. Here’s how to access Alexander Silk
Verdolini’s cuddly side in record time:
1. If you’re gonna design for any pub-
lication over which ASV presides, leave
your wide-ass columns in Athens, OK?
2. Make him a mix tape—bbbuttt lay
off the Fleetwood Mac.
3. Obtain one quill pen to write him a
letter by the light of the moon. Use a Slav-
ic tongue (you may have to borrow one)
to lick the envelope. Sign it, “Miluju t,
Saa.” Then, seal, send, deliver; he’s yours.
4. Tickle him with umlauts.
5. Prove that you share his refined
taste. Fake it til you make it. Pretend that
your favorite European cities are bound
together by some arbitrary alphabetic
commonality: “Oh my god, my favorite
places to visit also all start with B’s: Buda-
pest, Berlin, Bratislava…”
6. Change your name to Gillian.
LAURA TSUNODA
Ever since I could speak, I demanded of
my progenitors, “Little sister, please.”
They never provided, and Laura Tsunoda,
well, someone else grabbed her first. It’s
not that I wanted Laura for my own be-
cause she was so young or so naive—she
wasn’t. It’s that she was precocious. In
class she mostly hid behind that scintillat-
ing curtain of hair but when she did speak,
I finally understood the phrase “out of the
mouth of babes.” Laura would dismantle
the canon with the most jaded blowhard
but when she bounced out of class she
wore her backpack high and her tennies
fresh. I had the sensation of wanting to
buy her her first beer. She will attribute
this to “that Cali good”—some native chill-
ness which disarms the strivey East Coast-
er—but do not be mistaken. The stoner’s
pleasure principle is not her shield but her
stimulus. Like OG hedonist Aristippus, in
Laura the abstract Form of the Good be-
comes the concrete notion of Pleasure,
vividly rendered: the banquet on Thayer
Street, the prattle on FML, the sluice of
California rain, the skin of an avocado.
MICHELLE NGUYEN
It’s 4AM and the Internet isn’t working.
Andrew isn’t picking up your calls. You
still need to design a spread & nobody
wants to listen to “Party & Bullshit in the
USA” anymore but it’s stuck on repeat.
And the Jay-Z song was on. Fuck, right?
But then you hear “Uh” in a droll mono-
LIAT WERBER
tone that says so much with so little, gen-
Liat doesn’t think that looks good. She
tly upbraiding and infinitely generous. It’s
doesn’t think that looks good either. No,
Michelle Nguyen, there to solve all your
no, move over and let her do it. Yeah, it’s
problems. She was always already there,
humbling. You thought you had a ‘good
at the SciLi at 10AM when you screwed ELI SCHMITT
sensibility,’ an ‘intuitive sense’ of how
up the PDF—and three hours before, when Intimacy with Eli Schmitt is quick. Pray,
things should be. You don’t. Face it. The
you finished the first issue & swayed to take your time—but suddenly he’s saving
shit you make looks like shit. The only
Mary J Blige as the sun came up. I’m look- your life, heaving you out of a sinkhole or
reason Liat doesn’t tell you to your face is
ing for a Real Love  Michelle mouthed, pulling you against a riptide by your big
because she can tell you with her face. The
eyes closed, stroking the cinderblock toe, and in no time you’re crying on his
only reason Liat hasn’t Command+E’ed
walls of CONMAG II. You looked at her. shoulder, deep in the K-hole, while some-
then Shift+Click+Dragged your ugly, big
You’d found yours. body’s humping your leg. It’s OK though.
face smaller is that it would be a waste of
her time. And she doesn’t waste time. Inside that impeccable brain, trenchant as
BRIAN JUDGE a blade and glittery as a Fabergé egg, some
Most of us will die and go to Hell. Not unplumbable well of empathy makes it
MAUD DOYLE
Brian. As you tread your way down the OK. Both a dark forest and a tall mountain
It’s still a mystery how Maud went, but it
steep staircase from Purgatory to Inferno, himself, Eli gets it—and however fond of
was probably more fun for her than it was
you may see him cruise by in his green Fierce Independent Criticism he may be,
for you, more fun than we can even un-
pick-up truck, listening to DragonForce Eli’d “rahther” invent categories & cry
derstand. She probably came in wearing
or La Roux, talking to an estranged lover False Dichotomy than act the man of max-
black leggings with leather panels down
on his Blackberry, exclaiming that so-and- ims. There he goes now, a walking contra-
the outer length of them—maybe she had
so was being “such a pussy.” But what will diction—breezing through the party with
a glass of white wine in her hand. As she
happen to Brian, in Heaven? He will prob- that Dionysian swagger & those Apollo-
emerged, some straight girl you barely
ably recline on the sunny porch of a rural nian calves. Oh my goodness. Girl, look at
know couldn’t help but whisper in your
law office, sipping mint juleps in a white him. He’s the cutest brother in here. And
ear: “I want to have sex with Maud.”
pinstripe three-piece, talking on his Black- he’s coming this way, Ooh!
Then, pretending she didn’t know ex-
berry about how everything Nussbaum
actly what was whispered, and despite her
thought is wrong. SIMON VAN ZUYLEN-WOOD
frown, Maud probably said something
clever and/or uplifting. Then she kissed Simon’s main line of work is being a para-
you on the cheek, delicately and decisive- gon of human excellence. You don’t look
TARAH KNARESBORO him straight in the face without becoming
ly, and laughed a little, maybe at you. Then
The last known eruption of the Chimbora- somehow incapacitated, and even when
she was gone. 
zo volcano in Ecuador was thought to be in glimpsing his profile, you should prob-
550 AD. Scientists were baffled when on ably take an antacid. You can’t edit his
EMILY MARTIN
June 24, 1989 a rumbling sounded from articles because you’d just besmirch the
Sorry, were you trying to pay attention?
deep within the earth and Chimborazo be- beauty of his prose. Simon once re-wrote
Did the sound of uproarious laughter dis-
gan to spit and sputter clouds of volcanic a thousand-word article completely from
tract you? Were you making a Photoshop
ash. Residents report being overcome by memory after it was destroyed by a com-
collage while telling someone that you
the sweet smell of homemade bread. As puter who couldn’t keep up with his supe-
were thinking about them thinking about
the cloud floated over the equator, scien- rior mental capabilities. He is the only one
the thing they just told you they were
tists chartered its path to San Jose, CA. who truly understands that every article
thinking about, and laughing really hard?
Once the sky cleared, a never-before-seen in every issue should really be about the
No. You weren’t doing that. Emily Martin
tropical plant rose from the ashes, which local election. Word count doesn’t mat-
was. Yeah, of course, you see her around
botanists affectionately referred to as the ter for Simon because the pages expand
a lot. In fact, seeing her around a lot con-
a. rares boar knoth [the K and the H are to accommodate his genius. One of his
vinced you that there were humane, beau-
silent, duh]. Unfortunately, the Americas “Activities and Interests” is JSTOR. His
tiful, charming, hilarious people for you to
were never the same, as most residents be- handshake is firm. A true man.
try to get to know in this frustrated tundra
came addicted to the hallucinogenic sub-
of over-educated mediocrity. But now you
stance, sold on the street as Big T. RAPHAELA LIPINSKY-DEGETTE
are trying to read, or finish that problem
set, or copy-edit, and her laughter keeps Given: E=G, R=D, and Y=I. Begin code:
MAGGIE LANGE DRJPXG XC JDEATACI NPG EWCI
you from it. Well you know what? She
Maggalicious def. Maggalicious def. JGDMEW QPE QXCC AG TACG NE
knows you’re thinking that. And it’s mak-
Maggalicious def....def-def-def-def-def DGTL NPXM. QPTN QXCC QG LE
ing her laugh harder. Even though she’s
Maggalcious definition make the boys go QXNPEON PGD? DTJPXG, NPG XWLI
kind of embarrassed. So just feel lucky that
crazy. They always claim they know her, CEVGM IEO. That’s an XXX Mega Porn
she’s thinking about what you’re thinking.
comin’ to her call her Stacy. But—hold if you ask me, but don’t ask me. Ask Ra-
Because you probably won’t be that lucky
up. This AIN’T STACY. So don’t be con- phie.
again for a long, long time.
fused. She’s the M to the A to the G to the
G to the I to the E and watch out, ‘cause EMMA BERRY
GREG BERMAN
I’m thinkin’? my bets are? first edito- The Emma C. Berry, built in 1866 by
He slicked back his hair in one fluid mo-
rial VIP in space. SAYIN’? Callin’ it now. James A. Latham of Noank, CT, is the
tion, golden locks falling neatly into place.
Also? Under those winter gloves? Midas- only surviving example of a “well smack,”
The tortoiseshell comb caught the light
fingers. Sayin’. Get over here and touch a fishing sloop whose wells could be used
of the setting sun as he tucked it away in
all these wack-ass news stories and turn to store live fish. Emma F. Berry, born in
the inside pocket of his blazer, close to his
‘em to gold, Maggie. Four, tres, two, uno. 1988, comes equipped with comparable
heart. How I longed to be a tine upon that
comb. wells of knowledge, both of local news
ALEX SPOTO and of Romance languages. During her
Oh, but how he deluded me, this
In a town called Spoto, mustachioed men semester on the Metro desk, Emma could
morsel of WASPdom, thief of hearts. I
roam the street in wintertime, bumping be counted on to never ‘berry’ the lede.
always had a weakness for the poetry of
softly against each other in puffy down Just remember to use formal address
Greg’s single sext: “hey sorry to be bitchy
coats. Everyone writes country-western when you ask her the merits of the Chafee
and call i think i left my udon noodles but
songs to express the emotions of their ev- administration. And don’t expect her to
other peeps will have food…was going to
eryday lives: “Delighted and Excited for come to meetings on Valentine’s Day.
text about how not finding these noodles
My Thrift Store Pants,” “Hanging Ceiling
is ruining my life but just realized you’re in
Fabric (In My Jetta),” “Oh, Darlin’, You MARGUERITE PRESTON
Indy discussion so good luck instead. der-
Wouldn’t Believe This Swedish Room- Oh, Marguerite, we remember the first
ek, whose hip I apparently have become
mate of Mine,” “My Ol’ Commie Dad.” In time we saw you at run down, with those
attached to in recent days, and myself are
Spoto, there are only three meals: shrimp eyes, those eyes that remind us of kale –
grabbing a drink at one or two places and
& grits, lentil soup, and brandy. And O, kale in wintertime. We see you. We see
my RISD crowd is calling but for some
it’s a town of ladykillers, of slick seventies you, Marguerite, and you get us dreamin’:
reason no amount of caffeine can per-
dance moves and boyish grins and record someday, we’re gonna wake up slow to
suade me to do anything but lounge. so i
collections. WELCOME TO SPOTO, the walk the dogs, and we’re gonna hike (our
am unsure as of yet but if you find yourself
highway sign reads, GET READY FOR backpacks filled with organic/local pea-
doing anything unexciting feel free to let
SOME STORIES. nut butter and jam sandwiches), and the
me know. uhhh I am so long winded some-
times.” whole time we’re going to be licking our
lips, wondering what’s the easiest way to
get you out of those cute little pastel pants.
Ah, Marguerite, here’s to what we were,
and what we’re going to be.