Sexless in the City - Columbia Daily Spectator

�e magazine of the Columbia Spectator
26 February 2009 / vol. 6 issue 5
the eye
Sexless in the City
inside columbia’s lackluster dating scene
by Shane Ferro
analyzing disney dance scenes \\\ two takes on fashion week \\\ jeff lewis, singer-songwriter-artist
Editor-in-Chief
�omas Rhiel
Managing Editor, Features
Melanie Jones
Managing Editor, A & E
Hillary Busis
Deputy Editor, Features
Raphael Pope-Sussman
Senior Design Editor
Meredith Perry
Photo Editor
Kristina Budelis
Online Editor
Ryan Bubinski
Eyesites Editor
Carla Vass
Interview Editor
Zach Dyer
Film Editor
Peter Labuza
Music Editor
Rebecca Pattiz
Books Editor
Yin Yin Lu
SEXLESS IN
THE CITY
Art Editor
Hannah Yudkin
Shane Ferro examines why some
Columbia students must look outside
Morningside Heights for love, and why
most don’t bother looking at all, pg. 11.
�eater Editor
Ruthie Fierberg
cover photo by Kenneth Jackson
Food Editor
Devin Briski
Dance Editor
Catherine Rice
TV Editor
Christine Jordan
Style Editor
Helen Werbe
Production Associates
Samantha Ainsley
Alexander Ivey
Shaowei Wang
Associate Photo Editor
Rachel Valinsky
Copy Editors
Wesley Birdsall
Katrin Nusshold
Spectator Editor-in-Chief
Melissa Repko
Spectator Managing Editor
Elizabeth Simins
Spectator Publisher
Julia Feldberg
Contact Us:
[email protected]
eye.columbiaspectator.com
Editorial: (212) 854-9547
Advertising: (212) 854-9558
© 2009 �e Eye,
Spectator Publishing Company, Inc.
FEATURES
\\\ EYESITES
03 Football in Jordan Rajiv Lalla
04 Translating Gender Studies Jia Ahmad
05 Love and Life Evam Omi and Tony Gong
\\\ EYE TO EYE
06 Dancing Disney Zach Dyer
ARTS
\\\ MUSIC
7 Drawing Inspiration Jennie Rose Halperin
\\\ STYLE
8 Fashion Week Alexandra Owens
and James DeWille
\\\ BOOKS
10 Questioning Conventions Joseph Cross
\\\ FOOD
15 Culture Shock Storm Garner
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
After a month of tossing a PDF of each
week’s Eye onto an apologetic online
placeholder, today the Eye launches a
real Web site,
eye.columbiaspectator.com. Previous incarnations of the magazine’s
Web presence have been buggy, temperamental creatures, and so we’ve
striven for simplicity this time. Dieter
Rams, whose minimalist creations
for Braun in the ’80s made him a sort
of legend among designers, said famously that “good design is as little
design as possible,” but he also said
that “good design is durable.” A
school like ours, which festers with
technological dereliction (off-campus
Flex, anyone?), doesn’t need another
well-intentioned, but short-lived,
high-tech enterprise. And so we’ve
tried to put together a Web site that’s
straightforward and functional.
�e “we” in this case is really two
people, both of whom deserve their
names in print (and now, of course,
online). First, it was Cindy Zhang,
who industriously built from scratch
a working version of the Web site,
and did so under an ambitious deadline. Coaxing these finicky things to
cooperate requires unflagging patience, and Cindy, who among other
difficulties struggled to suppress the
whims of a disappearing search bar,
performed admirably. Second, it was
Ryan Bubinski, who created the site’s
back-end structure and polished
the final design, who made today’s
launch possible. Over the past week,
I met with Ryan a few times to make
some final tweaks, and I think I made
eye contact with him only twice,
so focused was he on his enormous
monitor spanned by lines of code.
Our new Web site probably
doesn’t represent the future of online
journalism (we don’t have a blog, let
alone a practicable online-only business model), and it certainly doesn’t
represent the future of the Internet
(that would be thisiswhyyourefat.
com). But for now, a modest, working site for the Eye—as little site as
possible—is all we, and this world,
really need.
—�omas Rhiel
Submit your creative writing to the Eye.
We are now accepting short stories, narrative
non-fiction, and humorous essays. For more information,
e-mail [email protected].
THE EYE ABROAD
EDITORS’ TEN
What We’re Into
�is Week
BY RAJIV LALLA
2. Goop.com: Gwyneth Paltrow’s random blog.
Includes a mix of new age advice, recipes, and
overpriced nick-nacks one can purchase. Makes no
sense, but kinda fabulous.
—Carla Vass, Eyesites Editor
People like to make the joke that Jordan is
between “Iraq and a hard place”—not all that
funny. But Jordan is a pro-American country
squished between a lot of U.S. State Department travel warnings: Israel and the Palestinian
Territories, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and, of course,
Iraq. Being in such a central location in the
region lends Jordanians a lot of the flavor from
these other countries, as well as some of the
politics. On Jan. 30, I traveled to Amman, Jordan, to begin my four-month study abroad experience. I’m currently taking classes in Arabic
and middle eastern studies at the University of
Jordan in Amman. I’m living in and commuting
from an apartment I share with another American from South Dakota, in a small district of the
city called Jabal Amman.
I recently took a trip to the center of Jordanian athletics, a sprawling sports complex
in Amman called “al-Medina al-Riyadhiya”
(roughly translated as “Sports City”), to watch
Wihdat, a football team—that’s soccer team,
if you speak American—with a following from
the Palestinian refugee camps outside Amman.
Wihdat was going to play a Jordanian team,
Faisaly; the two teams have the biggest rivalry
in the Jordanian Football Association. Upon
our arrival, each of us was patted down and
our bags searched by a contingent of police in
full riot gear. They soon decided that it would
be too disruptive to have a line of Americans in
the stands, and directed us to our own special
seating section, away from the crowds. On a
side note, the reasons Jordan has not been afflicted with some of the security problems of
its neighbors are its extremely efficient police,
intelligence, and security services. The day after
we arrived in Jordan, the other students in the
program and I went on a train tour of part of
the desert outside Amman. We were told after
the fact that the white-haired woman wearing
a hijab on the train was an intelligence officer,
and that her suitcase contained an automatic
weapon and a satellite radio.
After some finagling for seats, we managed to use “wasta,” a term Jordanians like
to use for name-dropping or pulling rank, to
negotiate our way into the Jordanian section of
the stands. There, each girl in our group was
promptly surrounded, photographed, and given
free merchandise by a fascinated crowd. Once
the game began, the attention shifted from the
six Americans in the stands to the players. Despite cultural differences, like being in a group
with the only two girls in the entire stadium, or
EYESITES
Football in Jordan:
A Study in Similarity
1. Antifolk: �ere’s a festival going on at the Sidewalk Café—where Regina Spektor and Jeff Buckley
got their start—till the 27th.
—Devin Briski, Food & Drink Editor
3. �e First Annual Texas Independance Day Concert: On Saturday night, I’m going to see Robert Earl
Keen, along with Cross Canadian Ragweed, Charlie
Robison, and Ray Wiley Hubbard at Terminal 5. I
can’t wait to wear my cowgirl boots and two-step.
—Meredith Perry, Senior Design Editor
4. Being creative with my wardrobe: Since I don’t
have the time to shop but crave new looks, I’ve
been mix-and-matching what I already own in
ways I haven’t before. Last weekend, I wore a large
scarf as a dress with a cinched belt I found at home
over winter break.
—Helen Werbe, Style Editor
5. Slumdog Millionaire: Final Answer—D. It is written.
—Peter Labuza, Film Editor
having the guy next to you grab your hand and
kiss you on the cheek, many aspects of Jordanian and western football traditions are the
same. Chants were as obscene as football chants
anywhere else in the world, despite the fact
that the crowd was completely sober, and they
largely carried racial overtones—political correctness be damned—as both the game’s participants and fans were split along racial lines.
The crowd demonstrated their team preferences
by wearing the “keffiyeh.” The checked scarf,
used in the west as a hipster fashion statement,
is here a declaration of allegiance: a red checked
keffiyeh is a declaration of “East Bank,” or
Jordanian allegiance, whereas a black checked
one shows support for the West Bank, and more
generally the Palestinians.
So, while Jordan may be a peaceful abode between “Iraq and a hard place,” it is faced with a
twist on the challenges of your average American city—rivalries based on such factors as tribalism, family affiliation, and Bedouin, peasant,
or urban lineage, as well as the constant threat
of terrorism or domestic disruption. As a visitor
to Jordan, I found that a football game is the
perfect arena to witness these challenges.
Rajiv Lalla, a Columbia College junior, has also
traveled through Uganda and Kenya as part of his
study abroad program.
6. �e Magic Bullet: What other contraption can
make you guacamole, salsa, pesto, smoothies,
grated cheese, omelets, AND margaritas? Oh right,
a blender. But does a blender have color-coded
individual rims? I think not.
—Zach Dyer, Interview Editor
7. Kate Winslet’s and Sean Penn’s Oscar acceptance
speeches: I put Kate first because shampoo bottles
beat communists every time (if you don’t get this,
you should have watched them Sunday night).
—Melanie Jones, Managing Features Editor
8. Playing with my Tickle-Me-Elmo Xtreme:
Honestly, he is just hilarious when he starts rolling
on the floor, slapping his knee, and giggling. Elmo
always puts a smile on my face. If you’ve never
seen one, youtube him.
—Ruthie Fierberg, �eater Editor
9. Freerice.com: What could be better than expanding your vocabulary and helping to ameliorate
world poverty at the same time?
—Yin Yin Lu, Books Editor
10. fmylife.com: People write in with stories about
horrible things that happened to them. For me, it’s
a daily dose of life-giving schadenfreude.
-�omas Rhiel, Editor-in-Chief
COMPILED BY CARLA VASS
03
HUMOR
ROAD RAGE
EYESITES
BY EVAN OMI AND TONY GONG
ILLUSTRATION BY REBEKAH KIM
IDEAS
Translating Gender Studies
the expansion of feminism at columbia university
BY JIA AHMAD
PHOTO COURTESY OF HUFFINGTON POST
Asked to picture a feminist, the average
Columbia student might think of the images of
Wollstonecraft or Beauvoir adorning Contemporary Civilizations’ canonical texts, or scour his
memory for grainy photographs of early women
suffragists hidden in high school history books.
He might think of hordes of enthused hippies
with waist-length hair burning bras, or lipsticked
women of the ’90s reappropriating short skirts
and high heels. It’s likely that for many students
at Columbia, the notion of feminism is still deeply
embedded in a historical narrative addressing the
economic, legal, and political inequality of women
in society. But this vein of feminism—one which
is organized around essentialist divisions between
women and men—is only one of a multiplicity of
perspectives represented in the field of women
and gender studies today.
Professor Janet Jakobsen, director of the
Barnard Center for Research on Women (BCRW),
argues that feminism is anything but straightforward. “�e version of feminism popularized by
the media becomes a moniker,” she says. “One
of the questions we have to ask is ‘why does
one strand of thought stand in for feminism as a
whole?’” Challenging gender norms and gender
expression is a natural undertaking for Barnard
College, which has been a pioneer of feminist inquiry since the ’60s. Today, it explores a critique of
04
feminist theory and activism through a particularly interesting lens: transgender studies. Transgender studies have been a part of LGBT studies
since the inception of the discipline in the late
’70s, but recently a new wealth of scholarship
has emerged. Since the 2006 publication of Susan
Stryker’s seminal text, �e Transgender Studies
Reader, trans studies have come far to carve out
their niche in gender studies departments across
the country.
This semester, visiting professor Paisley Currah is offering a seminar entitled “Sex, Gender,
and Transgender Queries.” The class examines
“trans” both as a particular kind of claim for
gender recognition and as a move away from
norms organized around the gender binary. An
expert on gender identity and the law, Currah
will publish an article in the Journal of Feminist
Philosophy this summer entitled “‘We Won’t
Know Who You Are’: Contesting Sex Designations on New York City Birth Certificates.” This
study, conducted with sociologist Lisa Jean
Moore, examines the way in which the state
reinforces traditional gender/sex binaries by
regulating gender identity on the basis of physical characteristics. His upcoming book, slated
for publication in the fall of 2010, furthers the
examination of the relationship between the
state and the individual, exploring how the state
categorizes gender and sex in relation to its
larger project of distributing resources.
But Currah’s work isn’t always confined within
the walls of the classroom, he often collaborates
with fellow law professors and activists on matters
of transgender advocacy. �is should come as no
surprise; as a discipline borne from the labors of a
powerful social justice movement, gender studies
still blurs the line between academia and activism
today.
Barnard alumnus Dean Spade (BC ’97), an exemplar of the kind of activist who combines public and academic spheres, was recently sponsored
by the BCRW to speak on campus. A professor at
the Seattle University School of Law and active
figure in the transgender rights movement, Spade
provided an insightful critique of the contemporary liberal landscape and the gay rights movement in his lecture “Trans Rights in a Neoliberal
Landscape.”
For over an hour, in the James Room of Barnard
Hall, Spade enthralled his audience with his conceptualization of the current neoliberal mindset,
in which social justice movements are normalized to serve the interests of their most privileged
members. A minority within an already marginalized population, he argued that transgender activists have a unique opportunity to challenge the
values and goals of well-funded LGBT non-profit
organizations, such as the Human Rights Campaign. Social justice, Spade argued, doesn’t trickle
down—it trickles up. For social justice movements
to maintain their integrity and maximize their
efficacy, they must take on the issues of the most
oppressed in a given population. Spade’s own
organization, the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, takes
this very approach to activism. It provides a venue
for non gender-conforming individuals from
exceptionally marginalized backgrounds (low
income, homeless, minorities) to access political
agency and fundamental human rights. a
As we’ve all been told, Columbia sucks for dating.
Someday, we’ll graduate and leave this romantically
challenged institution behind for a brighter, more
passionate future—one that resembles more closely
the ending to a Disney Channel Original Movie. OR
WILL WE?
What’s really next? A junior-level entry position at
a midtown office? A sublet in suburban Chicago? Sundays at IKEA? Like it or not, most of us face immediate futures in dull, corporate work environments. So
it comes down to this: a face-off between the now
and the later. Evan holds on to his faith in Columbia’s
emotional vacancy, while Tony believes the worst is
yet to come.
People
Evan: Hook-ups aside, when it comes to picking
boyfriends and girlfriends, Columbia kids can be a
little too calculating.
Below, the “should I try to talk to her a little bit
but not too much to see if she is like cool and
might want to go out sometime in the future?”
calculator (data provided by Facebook):
- 5.39 (Really likes Coldplay. Ironically?)
+ 8.46 (Looks good in sweaters + slight ghetto
booty.)
- 7.21 (Too hot? Not exotic enough?)
+ 2.89 (Totally “gets” Synecdoche, New York.)
- 9.13 (Enjoys theme parties.)
+ 6.37 (Bangs!)
- 5.45 (Quotes a lot of blog articles I’ve already
read.)
+ 12.45 (Has a single.)
= 2.99 (Good luck figuring out what this number
even means.)
Tony: �e types of people you’ll find post-Columbia quickly deteriorate in quality. Cinematic
evidence suggests that only three types of people
exist in the working world: chauvinist male executives, like Christian Bale in American Psycho,
anxious female professionals who will likely
crack under the pressure and have you killed
scandalously, like Tilda Swinton in Michael Clayton, and employees who are actually 13-year-olds
trapped in 35-year-old men’s bodies, like Tom
Hanks in Big.
Communication
Evan: When talking to people you don’t know at
Columbia, conversations generally have bleak starts.
Freshman year: “Where are you from?”
Sophomore year: “What are you thinking of
majoring in?”
Junior year: “Where are you thinking of interning over the summer?”
Senior year: “What are you doing after graduation?”
Fifth year (super senior): “Damn girl, you
rockin’ that ghetto booty! You got a MySpace?”
Tony: �e truth is that once you hit work, your
options go downhill rapidly.
Age 22: “Hi, what’s your name?”
Age 32: “What department are you in?”
Age 42: “What department are you in?”
Age 52: “What’s my name?”
And from then on you kind of stop speaking in
coherent syllables.
Dating
Evan: While formal dates at Columbia are rare,
they often transpire as follows:
1. Finish burning mixtape of forlorn acoustic
music because Bon Iver songs are the only way
you know to express your love.
2. Meet at the sundial. So awkward.
3. Eat at random so-so Morningside Heights sitdown restaurant. Downtown, if you’re feeling
classy, but train ride—so awkward.
4. Watch quirky romantic comedy or intellectually stimulating drama. Why can’t your date be
more like Natalie Portman in Garden State?
5. Go back to dorm and share favorite YouTube
videos. Kid high after the dentist somehow still
funny. Is anything going to happen?
6. Something about a paper or getting up early
tomorrow muttered. Brief kisses or hugs exchanged.
7. Feel bad about the whole thing in the morning.
8. Repeat in a week.
Tony: While formal dates at Columbia are rare and
not fulfilling, and you’ll probably end up watching
a YouTube video at some point, at least they happen to some capacity. After watching hours upon
hours of pornographic films set in the corporate
workplace, I am forced to conclude that a) dating
is ignored by co-workers in every major industry,
and b) office porn is not really a turn-on at all. a
Overheard
EYESITES
Love Beyond
Life Beyond College
“I’d like to pour hot acid on the bus dispatcher’s
face! I’d like to punch his head in! �ose assholes!
�ey’re lucky I’m not a terrorist... And I try and stay
away from violence, you know.”
-Little old lady on the M4
THE INTERNETS
�e Wi-Finest
In no particular order, the most creative, ridiculous,
and stupid wireless Internet names at Columbia.
See if you can find yours.
Wallach:
Dane Cook is a Douche
Wallach 3B
Wallach 3B is a Douche
Butler:
12 Sesame St
48 Hr Detox
homebase 01
Broadway (between 111th and 116th Streets):
AngryIrishman
akaloid
eekamouse
evil dentist
welovemathandscience
hades
Al Gore Jr.
Nussbaum:
�e McBaininator
Living Large
DragonSlayer
Oren’s:
miles is a good boy
skuggaRouter
Deluxe:
Winnie�ePooh
yellowbear
Jschool:
Scarcity
Café 212:
CherryBloom!
spacemonkey
iloveyoukraus
Quad:
IfUSeekAmy
616:
Loveshack
harold
FlyByNight
COMPILED BY BRIANA FASONE
05
EYE TO EYE
Dancing Disney
zach dyer interviews mindy aloff
BY ZACH DYER
PHOTO COURTESY OF DISNEY
Mindy Aloff is a dedicated member of Barnard’s dance
faculty, and a published writer. She has contributed
to the New York Times, the New Yorker, �e Nation,
the Dance View Times, and Voice of Dance, among
other publications. She has published several books
related to dance, and her most recent, Hippo in a Tutu:
Dancing in Disney Animation, explores the intricate
relationship between Disney animation and
choreography. From Disney shorts to full-length,
modern movies, Aloff examines the way dance is used
by Disney and what it means for the viewer. Zach Dyer
talks with Aloff about the hippos, ducks, and implications of Disney’s choreographed animation.
Where did the concept for this book come from?
Christopher Caines—then an editor at Disney
Editions [the publisher of Hippo in a Tutu:
Dancing in Disney Animation] and, as I note in
the acknowledgments, the author of the book’s
title—had been thinking about the idea of such
a study for several years. As it happened, I’d
also been thinking about the topic, and for well
over a decade. When I wrote a small weekly,
unsigned column on dance for the New Yorker
in the early 1990s, one of those little essays was
devoted to a discussion of dancing in animation, with an emphasis on Disney. Christopher
knew about my column, and he recommended
me to Wendy Lefkon, the editorial director at
Disney Editions. I wrote a proposal and then
met with Wendy and her staff. They liked what
I suggested, and felt that even though I was a
dance person and not an animation expert, I was
capable of learning enough about animation on
the job to produce a useful book.
How long did this project take you?
Around five years, including three trips of a full
week each to Disney archives in California.
Is this a topic that has always interested you?
Yes! That’s what the book’s introduction is
mostly about. Disney’s feature-length animated
film Peter Pan was the second movie I ever saw.
I grew up with many of the shorts and features,
including the ones from the 1930s and ’40s in
their theatrical re-releases, as well as the TV
programs and the live-action films. At the same
time, I saw many animated shorts from the
Fleischer and Warner Bros. studios. I found them
all enchanting; they were funny, and strange—
even haunting, sometimes, in the case of the
Fleischer films—and I was enraptured by the
idea that lines and patches of color could, when
moved around by craftsmen who knew what
they were doing, be so magical and entertaining.
06
However, the Disney animated films were
something more; perhaps the word is “thoughtful.” �ey were driven by story and character,
and their narratives unfolded both patiently and
logically. Also, so many of the Disney films in
particular were musical. Music and movement
lead irresistibly to dancing in Disney pictures;
and since I not only studied dance from an early
age, but was also encouraged by my family to
read about dance history, and was taken to see all
kinds of dance in the theater from the time I was
in elementary school, my love of animation and
my love of dance converged in the Disney films.
animation, and that stimulates them to seek out
the films.
There was obviously a lot of research involved in
the writing of this book. How was it, working so
closely with the people at Disney?
Heaven. I’ve tried to name everyone I worked
with at Disney in Hippo’s acknowledgments.
From the top animator Andreas Deja to a student
intern named Steve Vagnini, they kindly and
patiently tutored me. I learned a lot there about
devotion, as well as about animation.
Why is there so much choreography in Disney
animated films?
The mission of Disney animation is to give the
“illusion of life.” As a variety of motion, dancing
is useful in pursuit of such a mission. However,
it’s important to remember, too, that Walt
Disney was committed to the best in music, and
music plus movement equals dance. Furthermore, the top priority for a Disney animated
picture is to tell a story, with a clear beginning,
middle, and end, and to tell it through visual
art, whose principles are based on the art of older masters. You can’t speak of such art without
speaking of design, patterning, in time as well
as space, in the case of animation. Choreography
is the design of bodies in space and time. It furthers the key mission of the entire enterprise.
CHOREOGRAPHY IS THE
DESIGN OF BODIES IN
SPACE AND TIME.
What do you want people to get out of this book?
I’d like readers to get an inkling of how complex
and difficult it is to choreograph, and to dance,
and to compose, and to produce an animated
film, so that they will have respect for animation that even attempts to combine them. I’d
like for readers today, many of whom write off
animation in general as “kiddie stuff,” to think
again about the value of films that are made for
general audiences. I’d very much like people
who dismiss Disney pictures for various political
reasons to be made aware of how decisions were
actually made on some of the historical films,
especially the ones where Walt Disney himself
had tremendous input. And I’d like intellectuals
who routinely dismiss both dancing and animation as not worth their time to take a moment
before they project their preconceptions on
these arts. But the thing I’d most like readers to
find in this book is pleasure that perhaps makes
them want to learn more about dancing and
What was it about the Hyacinth Hippo that made
you want her as the representation of your book
as a whole?
She has the most complex choreography of any
animated character in the Disney canon, she’s
a star personality, and her character—now
flirtatious, now vulnerable, now assertive, now
meek—is quite complex as well. And we know
everything we know about her entirely through
her dancing.
What is your favorite choreographed number
from a Disney film?
I have three favorites: the “Dance of the Hours”
in Fantasia, the Carioca in the Silly
Symphonies’ Cock o’ the Walk, and the jitterbug-truckin’ number in the short Mr. Duck
Steps Out. I name them because the music and
the dancing are two aspects of the same energy,
because the dancing figures are presented with
fantastical sensitivity and nuance, and because
the choreography is very fine. Close to them
in my affections are the minuet-jitterbug for
Ichabod Crane and Katrina Van Tassle in the
featurette The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, the
“Nutcracker Suite” in Fantasia, and the utterly
magical construction by forest animals of the
heroine’s dress in Cinderella. That scene, and
not the ballroom scene, contains the picture’s
true dance number, and it’s enchanting. a
Drawing Inspiration
MUSIC
singer-songwriter jeffrey lewis gets sketchy
BY JENNIE ROSE HALPERIN
PHOTO BY JOEY SHEMUEL
Looking through Jeff Lewis’ sketchbooks, I
realize why he compels me. �e almost impossibly talented comic artist and singer-songwriter
is simultaneously self-deprecating and eloquent,
nerdy and too cool. A large, inked page that shows
Jeff meeting his favorite comic book character—Rom from Rom Spaceknight—opens every
sketchbook. �e walls of his Williamsburg apartment are lined with Lou Reed records, and when
he plays Biff Rose for me and gets excited about
Woody Guthrie, I can barely contain my enthusiasm. Lewis surrounds himself with his influences,
materially and musically, precisely because he is
so cognizant of them. “It’s always horrifying to
realize after the fact the roots of your own ideas,”
he says. “Sometimes it’s years later that you realize
where these inspirations come from.”
�is awareness is the subject of one of Lewis’
well-received New York Times blog posts, which
came in the wake of 12 Crass Songs, his critically
acclaimed cover album. �e tracks feature catchy,
elaborately arranged covers of songs by Crass, a
seminal anarchist punk band. “It’s interesting
that the album that’s gotten the most press has
been the one that has the least to do with what I’m
known for, which is a very lo-fi, simple recordings of my own songs,” he says. Em Are I, his new
album with his current band, Jeff Lewis and the
Junkyard, will be released on May 12th.
“TRUE LIFE IS
FASCINATING AND HAS
A CERTAIN POWER TO IT
JUST BECAUSE IT’S TRUE.”
�e album reflects Lewis’ changing relationship with production. He believed for many years
that arrangements and production were insignificant, and that live performance and audience
connection were what really mattered. Lewis’
lo-fi, anti-folk, home-recorded songs gave him a
cult following, and he was signed by Rough Trade
Records in 2001. For Lewis, songwriting is a “desperate” act—he claims he writes most songs when
he’s procrastinating on writing a comic.
His comics often complement his music, both
as visual representations of songs and as full comic
books. �irty of his illustrated songs can be seen
only in concert. �e songs are impossible to find
outside of YouTube—which may augment Lewis’s
cult status, but ultimately frustrates the artist. His
label hopes to release new videos as a collector’s
edition, but Lewis is wary: “I wanted something
that would be more widespread and accessed by
people who may not know those songs.”
To bring his art to every fan, Lewis’s new
album’s cover is, like previous covers, handdrawn with a full comic insert. “I’ve been trying
to design these album covers that are weird and
unique and theoretically still cheap to produce,”
he says. Lewis, who once wrote a song called
“Don’t Let the Record Company Take You Out to
Lunch,” says his label often opposes his hands-on
approach to his liner notes because of the rising
cost of CD production.
Lewis’ comics are, much like his songs, brutally honest, self-consciously critical, and filled
with unexpected rhymes and turns. “I’m sort of
traditional in the way I approach it. I’m not abstract. My comics are all functional for the sake of
telling a story,” he says. Lewis uses his sketchbook
to outline both his songs and his comics, explaining, “Some of the comics that I do rhyme, and
sometimes rhymes or lines that I jot down could
still end up being comics.”
Literacy and self-reference come easily to Lewis. His songs conflate the personal with the political
and historical—sometimes with startling results. In
“�e Chelsea Hotel Oral Sex Song,” he writes about
discussing Leonard Cohen with a stranger, and the
experience becomes a parable for human relationships. “Williamsburg Will Oldham Horror,” a
song about seeing Will Oldham on the subway, is
ultimately about artists’ own influences and music
history. “History is so much more amazing and interesting ... Even if it’s my own personal history,”
he says. “True life is fascinating and has a certain
power to it just because it’s true.”
�is predilection for honesty can endear and
enrage Lewis’ friends and fans. Asserts the artist,
“If you say something, there’s a certain amount of
responsibility to feel like you’re saying something
true, or not deceptive. Especially when it involves
other people.”
Seeking the truth, Lewis is hyper-conscious of
his audience and admirers. He compares himself to
a translator, claiming, “It’s knowing what’s going
on inside you and knowing how to translate that
into a language that other people will understand.”
After sitting on Lewis’ couch for about two
hours, I have the distinct feeling that there is
someone else in the apartment. Unsure if I should
ask, I drink my tea and we continue talking and
playing records. We get ready to go outside, and he
pokes his head into another room. Sure enough,
there had been someone there the entire time,
reading a book and waiting for me to leave, which
makes me as self-conscious as he was during the
interview. Unfazed, he turns to the door in his
blue puffy coat and we walk out under the Williamsburg Bridge. a
Jeffrey Lewis surrounds himself with his musical and
artistic inspirations in his Brooklyn apartment.
7
STYLE
A Surge of Creativity
form and function are both features of new york fashion
week’s fall 2009 shows
menswear designers demonstrate strong personality in
their fall 2009 collections
BY ALEXANDRA OWENS
New York’s Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, which
wrapped up last weekend, was fighting against
the odds this season. With a rapidly deteriorating
economy, bombing magazine ad sales and designers skipping out for less costly presentations—not
to mention that shows began on Friday the 13th—it
didn’t seem like this was going to be style’s year. But
as Fern Mallis, the senior vice president of IMG Fashion, points out in an interview, functions like these
are needed more than ever when times are rough.
As Mallis reflects, “I believe Mercedes-Benz Fashion
Week will bring some positive energy and activity
to the industry. It’s the creativity that we now need
to celebrate more than ever. Our schedule is full and
despite the constant focus of the economy, we will
be back to business almost as usual.”
While, as Mallis alluded, artistic encouragement is a significant motive, running fashion week
smoothly is also imperative for more practical
reasons. Never were these two sides more evident
than at this Fashion Week. Designers had to tailor
their visions to financial reality. As even the richest
of clients are prioritizing their purchases these days,
brands demonstrated smart marketing by falling into
one of two categories—irresistible statement pieces
and investment basics. Luckily, this means shoppers
will have a choice between 3.1 Phillip Lim’s exotic
goat hair shrug and Ralph Lauren’s luxurious tweed
coat, or maybe Alexandre Herchcovitch’s unusual
bi-silhouette bedazzled frock and Hervé Léger’s
classic bandage dress. �ough all of these clothes are
highly creative, in order to be successful, designers
must also bow to commercial pressures, including
an extremely rapid turnover cycle.
�e fashion world works on a unique calendar—these fall/winter collections were presented
about six months ahead, just like the spring/summer collections were presented in September—allowing the press and buyers ample time to preview
designs and incorporate them into their media,
marketing, or store’s stock. Because of this scheduling trick, consumers can incorporate trends into
their wardrobes in time for the appropriate season,
and designers get a chance to publicize their latest
work, potentially making or breaking their careers.
Beginning in 1943, New York held the first
formal Fashion Week in order to give new American designers exposure when the collections of
popular French brands were held overseas. Since
then, shows have evolved into major prêt-a-porter
(ready-to-wear) events that are watched, covered,
and coveted in the fashion capitals of New York,
London, Milan, and Paris. New functions continue
to emerge every year, much to the advantage of
young, fresh designers who can’t make it to one
of the “big four.” Today, there are nearly a hundred fashion weeks taking place everywhere from
8
Scottsdale, Arizona to Zagreb, Croatia. �ough native designers typically dominate each city, fashion
weeks are international affairs that allow industry
members to sample what‘s new in a variety of
places. Editors and buyers globe-trot for a month in
order to cover and take in all of the major shows.
Of all of these, New York Fashion Week is a
highlight, and this season was no exception. �e
panicked rumors that events and collections were
going to be dramatically downsized due to the
economy were far worse in the pre-Fashion Week
gossip than in reality. Despite the doom and gloom
of some telltale signs, such as smaller guest lists
and a tragic lack of orgy-like parties, the shows
were just as—if not more—fabulous than ever.
Maybe it was overcompensation, but it felt more
like determination: �e fashion industry took the
opportunity to band together and turn a potential
disaster into an Obama-esque moment of audacious, gold sequin-clad hope.
What better way to express optimism than by
bringing back the over-the-top exuberance of
the 80’s? It was the unanimous look of the season,
channeled in the clothing of almost every major
designer. Legging pants popped up in the collections of Yigal Azrouël, Rag & Bone and Peter Som,
to name a few. Elbow-length gloves also made a
comeback as the new accessory, thanks to designers Charlotte Ronson, Anna Sui and Zac Posen.
Erin Fetherston’s lacy confections, with their
distinct Madonna vibe, stuck closest to the theme.
And then there were the Joan Collins shoulders.
Max Azria put pronounced, squared ones on his
dresses at Hervé Léger, Miss Sixty’s blouses featured pouffed sleeves and Marc Jacobs’ outrageous
padding stole the show. Although neutrals usually
dominate fall collections, color palettes at Fashion
Week were the brightest they’ve been in years.
“What? Is all black going to help the economy?”
Marc Jacobs reportedly joked backstage. Jacobs’
pink, yellow and green neons, complemented by
his new Stephen Sprouse bags, blinded. Keeping up
with the movement of offering investments as well
as statement pieces, traditionalists like Oscar de la
Renta and Michael Kors also featured neon frocks
and suits, praising their refreshing urbanity.
But don’t stow your black suede boots just
yet—the bad-girl chic trend isn’t going anywhere.
Alexander Wang, who has found his niche in tough
but sexy pieces, showed crocodile shorts alongside skintight cutout-laden dresses. Even softer
brands, such as Charlotte Ronson and Cynthia
Steffe, are joining the pack, offering fringed biker
jackets and leather leggings. Matthew Williamson had a more playful take on the look, featuring
leather trousers in punchy colors like red and blue.
No matter what you end up wearing next fall,
all of these collections were designed for a good
time. �ough today might have its problems,
thanks to designers, we have something beautiful
to look forward to in the future. a
BY JAMES DEWILLE
Kristina Budelis
Kristina Budelis
Mary Ye
Asiya Khaki
Lauren Weiss
Angela Radulescu
“Life must be a straight line of motion from
goal to further goal.”
�is quote, from the Objectivist author and
philosopher Ayn Rand, was printed across the invitation for designer Shipley and Halmos’ fall 2009
presentation. �ose words seemed a bizarre muse,
but as fashion week went on and I attended more
shows, it became clear that Rand could be an apt,
though perhaps absurd, paradigm through which
to view the seemingly disparate, even schizophrenic fall menswear collections.
Across runways this year, young menswear
designers showed styles that ranged from sartorially serious to casual versions of vintage finds or
work wear.
Rag & Bone showed off black ninja pants and
collarless jackets that came with dramatically
angular cuts. Robert Geller, winner of the second
annual GQ/CFDA Best New Menswear Designer
award, offered a morbidly Victorian elegance.
Meanwhile, Yigal Azrouël (another contender
for the GQ prize) rolled out comfy, chunky knits
and deconstructed garments. Still, not everyone
managed to settle into the either/or of dumpy
comfort or sleek severity. Band of Outsiders,
Loden Dager and Trovata showed off absolutely
wearable, if a bit predictable, lines with mixes
of Francophile, nautical, and uptown casual in
each. Patrik Ervell seemed torn between manly
outerwear and daintier sweaters with skinny
schoolboy pants cropped at the ankle, while
Justin Timberlake’s William Rast eschewed all of
the above to go with shredded jeans and leather
biker vests.
With so many possible directions for menswear, it seems fashion is certainly no “straight line
STYLE
�e Shows Must Go On
of motion.” Where does this diversity come from?
What is it reacting to? It seems too convenient to
decisively pinpoint the recession as inspiration
when Patrik Ervell’s powder blue denim jacket
goes by, or when Depression references from
bowler caps to suspenders pop up at Diesel Black
Gold or Gilded Age. It seems too simplistic to deem
the brooding ninjas at Rag & Bone as decked out
for more dire times. Is men’s fashion just an illustration of context?
We’ve certainly seen sharply structured, slimcut garments before, and men’s luxury work wear
has been making a home for itself for a number of
seasons. �eir most recent appearance on the runway cannot simply evoke the economic downturn.
Instead, this greatly contrasting assortment
suggests Rand more than random: it represents
the empowering of the individual as designer
and consumer. In recent years, young menswear designers have been offering increasingly
diverse ideas for the future of menswear, and its
place in a world where fashion for women gets
a good deal of the limelight. �ey’ve revitalized
interest in menswear, and demonstrated a new
confidence in shaping their own collections. �e
clothes don’t reflect singular, sweeping trends,
but reveal a wide variety of sources and inspirations. �ese looks become the concrete (or wool,
leather, even alpaca) forms of a designer’s vision.
Meanwhile, this fall, men looking to pursue
their own aesthetic happiness will be offered
a smorgasbord of suiting and sweaters, be it
Yigal Azrouël boho baggy or Tim Hamilton’s
slim and structured. With fashion as one of the
most capitalist of industries, the only question
remaining is why Rand herself didn’t throw
her hat into the menswear ring for fall ’49. On
second thought, maybe Atlas Shrugged instead
of Atlas in a Fencing Coat and Twill Trouser was
the right choice. a
Angela Radulescu
Kristina Budelis
9
BOOKS
Questioning Narrative Conventions
in his second novel, jesse ball blurs the contours between poetry and prose
BY JOSEPH CROSS
PHOTO COURTESY OF BJÖRN SIGURJÓNSSON
Most readers feel comfortable distinguishing
poetry from prose—we often unthinkingly accept that there is an essential difference between
the two. When I look at a sonnet, I know it’s
a poem. When I look at Ulysses, I know it’s a
novel. But if you asked me to defend those classifications, I would probably resort to citing
popular conventions: Poetry has stanzas! Prose
has no meter! Novels are prose! Poet and novelist
Jesse Ball, who earned his MFA from Columbia,
encourages readers to think critically about
these questionable distinctions in The Way
Through Doors, his second novel, published in
February 2009 by Vintage Books.
�e Way �rough Doors begins when pamphleteer Selah Morse sees a young woman get
hit by a taxicab. She is badly hurt, and has no
identification on her. Selah brings her to the hospital, poses as her boyfriend, and receives bizarre
instructions from her doctor: He must keep the
young woman awake for 18 hours, telling her
everything he can remember about her life, or
the memory loss that she suffered from the accident will become permanent. Despite knowing
nothing about the woman’s life, he keeps her
awake by telling her stories, hoping that she will
recognize bits of herself in his fictions.
At this point, the frame story melts away.
Selah’s stories intertwine, characters within
stories tell their own stories, and the role of
narrator constantly shifts. �e resulting web of
fragmentary myths and fairy tales is the heart of
Ball’s novel.
But to call �e Way �rough Doors a novel
is really a contentious claim—from some angles
the book looks more like a collection of thematically related poems. Ball even substitutes traditional pagination for a system of line numbering
reminiscent of epic poetry (the book closes after
“line” 1905). “A page in one of my novels could
have been a poem,” he admits. “But I think the
decision to write fiction is a good one at this
point, because a lot of people are not interested in
poetry, or they’re afraid of it, and yet that same
person will take great pleasure in a novel.”
“A LOT OF PEOPLE ARE NOT
INTERESTED IN POETRY, OR
THEY’RE AFRAID OF IT.”
Are readers really afraid of poetry? Do we
feel safer reading prose? Do we need to be
tricked into reading poems? Novelists like John
Grisham, James Patterson, and Danielle Steel
consistently fill the New York Times Bestseller
list, while poets almost never make the cut. This
sad discrepancy in popularity could be due to a
natural human obsession with predictability—
mass-market fiction writers understand that
most people love reliable formulas. In a mystery
novel, predictability is guaranteed: you know
the detective will solve the crime. Similarly predictable formulas are crucial in all popular media: a 30-minute sitcom will have several jokes
before each commercial break, a three-minute
pop song will have verses and choruses, and a
two-hour blockbuster will adhere to the threeact structure. In each case, the consumer knows
what to expect, which makes him feel safe.
But the rules for poetry are less clear-cut,
which might explain why some readers fear or
avoid the medium. Ball affirms that “a book of
poems doesn’t have the narrative burden of a
novel” because it doesn’t need a clear narrative arc or a central character. Lacking these
conventions, poetry is never as predictable as
mass-market fiction or Hollywood films. In
fact, because the conventions of popular fiction,
music, and film are so embedded in our culture,
poetry, a lawless medium in comparison, can be
terrifying.
So how should The Way Through Doors be
approached? Should readers bring novelistic expectations along for the ride, or should they discard them at the door? The latter choice would
be best, for Ball’s delightful and fascinating book
strikes a powerful balance between the traditions of poetry and prose—demonstrating that
a piece of writing doesn’t have to be branded as
one or the other. a
Jesse Ball will be speaking about �e Way �rough
Doors at KGB Bar on March 22nd at 7 PM, and at Book
Court on March 23rd at 7 PM.
POETIC MEMORIES
Readers like it when they can relate to a text. They often break a work’s obscurities apart by searching for the familiar, the understood. Yusef Komunyakaa, an American poet and professor, and Jesse
Ball deliberately make this pursuit a challenge. The incorporation of memory in their work, an unreliable and hazy theme by nature, enhances the unpredictable patterns in their language.
Ball’s ambiguous narrative, which mingles poetry with prose, makes it harder for the reader to fully
relate to his novel. To Ball, the confusion born from this style delivers realism, an opinion that Komunyakaa shares in his own poetry. As Komunyakaa claims, poetry “is a way of expanding and talking
around an idea or question. Sometimes, more actually gets said through such a technique than a full
frontal assault.”
Both authors channel this realism through their descriptions of memory. Komunyakaa’s “A Good
Memory” describes memories that are not necessarily connected, but are placed together to
emphasize their random, nonsensical pattern. Some of Komunyakaa’s titles, such as “Translating
Footsteps” and “At the Screen Door,” express the same idea as Ball’s The Way Through Doors—that
of moving in and out of spaces. Memory, like poetry, has no clear explanation or destination, but is
what remains.
—Elisa de Souza
10
SEXLESS
IN THE CITY
inside columbia’s lackluster dating scene
by Shane Ferro
photos by Kristina Budelis, Kenneth Jackson, and Mira John
It’s Saturday morning, 10 a.m. I
roll out from underneath the guy
sharing my twin extra long, careful not to wake him. I’m sitting
at my desk, checking my email,
15 minutes later when I get a call.
“Shane, where are you? Weren’t
you going to let me in the office at
ten?” I’m late.
IN FOCUS
Location, Location, Location
Apologizing to the guy now awake but still
in my bed, I stuff myself into some trainers and
a jacket and run for the door. As I am returning
to my suite 20 minutes later, I bump into him
letting himself out. His roommate locked himself
out, he says. He’s got to go let him in. He left his
number on a Post-it. I should call him sometime.
We should hang out.
�at was two days before the semester started.
I haven’t had the time to call since.
And I’m not the only one.
In the course of writing this article, I spoke
to dozens of students about their love lives at
Columbia, and I kept hearing the same complaint—that Columbians struggle mightily to
find romantic success (even of the single-night
variety) here in Morningside.
This is a campus where ambition thrives, and
relationships can take a backseat to networking
and GPAs. In order for individuals to distinguish
themselves academically and professionally,
they may need to make sacrifices in their social
and emotional lives. Columbia produces Nobel Prize winners and captains of industry. But
these best and brightest are still college kids.
Are they sacrificing love (or lust) in lieu of more
professional concerns?
Between Columbia’s location, its decentralized atmosphere, and the perfectionist students
that it draws, we sometimes seem destined for
lonely lives of academic and professional obsession. Whether because of fear of rejection, or just
because of strings of bad luck, it seems that the
majority of Columbia students fall into one of two
categories: those who forgo romance in the name
of class work, and those who look for love beyond
the borders of Morningside Heights.
12
Too Involved to Get Involved
�ere is a constant struggle at Columbia to keep
up good grades and pursue extracurriculars in
order to pad resumes. When ambition is the focal point of college life, it’s difficult to devote
yourself to another person. “People aren’t really
looking to get together,” says Nora Hirshman,
a sophomore at Barnard. “�ey are in their own
little world.” For most, it is a world whose center
moves from papers to exams to applications for
internships and fellowships—there’s rarely time
to build intimate relationships.
“PEOPLE AREN’T REALLY
LOOKING TO GET
TOGETHER. THEY ARE
IN THEIR OWN LITTLE
WORLD.”
�is work-till-you-drop mentality, a defining
characteristic of life in New York, is a pervasive
malady at pressure-cooking Columbia. Time to
develop romantic relationships must be fit in
amid class time, work time, club meeting time,
dinner time, sleep time, and more work time. If
the population at large participates in this workaholic culture, even those who would rather play
find the surroundings hostile. “�e environment
does not really promote it [dating] with busy
schedules and all the work we have,” speculates
Charlie Gillihan, a Columbia College first-year.
Gillihan describes his environment—the glori-
Students at all elite colleges are driven, but
Columbians—who choose to go to school in New
York City—are immediately immersed in the
breakneck pace of the metropolis.
According to an article published last November in New York magazine, single-individual
households make up 51 percent of all Manhattan
dwellings—by far the largest number of singles
in any county in the United States. Perhaps New
York attracts solitary individuals in choice of college as well as home and career, and by coming
to Columbia we willingly submit to that same
rhythm, that solitary lifestyle.
When they do venture out of Butler, many
students bypass the bars and frats of Morningside
to take in downtown’s vibrant nightlife. �ey
chose to come to Columbia because of its location
in the big city, not for a social scene that they
could find at any college in America.
Bianca Perta, a Barnard sophomore, isn’t
interested in finding romance on campus. “I
haven’t even really found people that I would
consider dating,” she says. “I don’t really look,
I’ve met a lot of people elsewhere.”
For Perta and students like her, all it takes is
a swipe of the MetroCard to remove themselves
from the equation. Instead of hanging out at a
campus party, they head downtown, to bars and
clubs much closer to “that other school” in New
York—NYU.
“I have been with a few NYU boys,” says
Perta. “You meet them in cool environments—it
shows a better side of them.”
“I like going downtown,” says Elizabeth
Bibi, also a sophomore at Barnard and a friend of
Perta’s. “I think that is one of the draws to living
in the city.”
Small Spaces, Familiar Faces
Morningside Heights is a comfortable,
student-friendly neighborhood, but it’s no
Greenwich Village. Students at NYU have an endless selection of bars, clubs, and eateries at which
to rendezvous. And when they do meet someone, NYU students—whose housing is flung all
across lower Manhattan—can walk away the next
morning, no strings attached. Columbians aren’t
afforded that sense of privacy.
Columbia is a little bubble—which University
Provost Alan Brinkley once described as a “postage
stamp” campus. �e fact that most students live
within a 0.5 mile radius from College Walk means
there’s really no way to escape awkward run-ins.
Hirshman says this awkwardness is her no. 1 reason for not dating Columbia men anymore.
“I went on a few dates with some people,”
she says, “It was short and intense—I won’t be
too graphic.” But for Hirshman, this “intensity” refers to both emotions and sex, especially
after the flings ended. Morningside Heights is
a compact area, and avoiding specific people is
difficult, even if you don’t share classes or live in
the same building.
“Even though we feel like we’re in a big city,
I would constantly run into people and it would
constantly be awkward,” Hirshman says.
Despite the weekday bubble consuming
Columbia, weekends tend to be decentralized,
with the campus being deserted. Bars seem to get
plenty of business, but the crowds are unchanging. Beyond EC and clusters of underclassmen
nestled in their respective dorms and suites,
dorms are generally quiet on the weekends.
Even at midnight on a Friday evening, the
streets of Morningside are largely dead, with only
a few stragglers spilling out onto the street in
front of open bars.
“I think this is a common criticism of Columbia,” Hirshman said, “We don’t have a campus
culture, and maybe if we did, people would be
more into relationships.”
Weekend after weekend, the same faces show
up at the same places. If you didn’t hit it off with
someone the first 20 times you saw each other,
it’s probably not going to happen. So random
hook-ups become less and less likely as the
semesters progress. By the end of sophomore
year, before students are even legal, who is really
excited about the prospects of meeting someone new at a bar in Morningside Heights? You’re
more likely to meet a stranger at Butler’s Blue
Java—which is hopping on a Friday night—or on
the platform of the 116th Street subway station.
For those expecting Greek life to provide
anything beyond the occasional fling, Columbia’s
frats disappoint. �e fraternity scene is certainly
no Animal House—frat row does not have the
social magnetism here that it does at more rural
schools. �e parties are tame, and the sexual
activities, which most schools’ frats are infamous
for promoting, are tamer. After all, even brothers are still Columbia students, with the same
Columbia problems.
“I’ve seen less hooking-up in Greek life,” says
Randy Subramany, a Columbia College first-year
and a Sigma Phi Epsilon brother. His fraternity
and others have their share of hook-ups, but random sex is less common here than it might be at
other schools.
As for serious relationships, Subramany defies
the frat-boy stereotype. He had a girlfriend for
several months last semester; but they have since
broken up, because of that perennial obstacle—
workload. “I really wanted to date,” he says,
“But sometimes I could tell that if she had a lot to
do she would pick the work over dating.”
Getting Scientific
Even for those who might seek companionship
on campus, the fear of rejection can prove an
insuperable obstacle. We are a school of type-A
personalities, the sort of perfectionists not likely
to relish the risk of being turned down by the
person who lives down the hall.
And what we cannot explain, we analyze.
Chris Crew, a doctoral student in psychology
at Columbia, is eager to explain how rejection
sensitivity affects Columbians. It “negatively
impacts their desire to go seek relationships.”
He concludes, “Individuals that are sensitive to
rejection have a lower probability of starting a
relationship.”
IN FOCUS
ous John Jay 12—as a sexless locale. What happens
when you house 19-year-olds in co-ed dorms
without even the hindrance of roommates?
Apparently not much. “Almost everybody is
completely abstinent. �ey are too wrapped up in
their own work to venture out.”
What does this say about our futures? �e
pressures surrounding us are not likely to lessen
until retirement. If students are too busy for
romantic exploration at 20, is there any reason to
expect more free time five years from now?
EVEN AT MIDNIGHT
ON A FRIDAY EVENING,
THE STREETS OF
MORNINGSIDE ARE
LARGELY DEAD, WITH
ONLY A FEW STRAGGLERS
SPILLING OUT ONTO THE
STREET IN FRONT OF
OPEN BARS.
For most Columbia students, this explanation
yields a sigh of relief. Finally, something they can
understand logically. But romance can’t be solved
with an equation.
Hence, we have our workaholics, the abstinent John Jay 12. We have the group of people
who are still dating their high school sweethearts long-distance, and what is rumored to be
a substantial population of online daters at sites
like OkCupid and JDate—where rejection is far
less personal.
Are We Alone?
Of course, Columbia students aren’t alone. Other
competitive schools are nerdy, too. “I’m not sure
if this is exclusively a Columbia phenomenon but
at Harvard, we do too much work,” writes Lena
Chen, a senior at Harvard and author of the popular blog “Sex and the Ivy,” in an e-mail. “And
that’s on top of already being handicapped by
lack of exposure to the socialized world (which
I’m pretty sure is a prerequisite for admission).”
Chen, of course, is the exception, and because
of it she has captured the imagination of mainstream and campus media. Her blog details her
most intimate college moments and has earned
her notoriety from the Ivy League circuit, as well
as Gawker, New York magazine, and the New
York Times.
Even at Brown, a school known for its sexual
liberation movement and the SexPowerGod
dance, which promotes dance floor promiscuity,
students don’t seem to be having all that much
physical or emotional intimacy. Arthur Matuszewski, an editor at Post-, Brown’s weekly features
magazine, writes, “In terms of perception, Brown
students, when hooking up, dating etc. are typically at the far extremes of the spectrum.... �is
leads to an inflated perception on campus of how
much sexing is actually going on.”
In a poll released in December 2007, 43 percent of Brown students reported not having had
sex in the past semester. In colleges nationwide,
that statistic is about 31 percent, according to the
American College Health Association’s National
College Health Assessment from 2008.
Rejection sensitivity is not just a Columbia
thing. Maybe it’s a college thing. Maybe it’s an
13
Looking to the Future
and his girlfriend, who both live on John Jay 12,
succumbed to floor-cest. “We met bumping into
each other in the hall,” says Gillihan. Living next
door to your significant other can be risky—especially if you break up—but at Columbia, these
But there has to be hope somewhere. Relationships
and social situations are constantly evolving entities. �ey also go beyond the people interviewed
for this article and the observations I make as a
lone reporter. Relationships beyond long-distance
ones, though rare, do exist on campus.
Gillihan, for example, has a girlfriend, a
stroke of fortune he never saw coming. “It just
kind of happened—before that definitely I wasn’t
searching. I was anti-searching,” he says. He
WHATEVER TYPE OF
THING IT IS, IT’S THERE,
DRIVING A WEDGE
BETWEEM THE X AND Y
CHROMOSOMES OF OUR
STUDENT BODY.
IN FOCUS
ambition thing. Whatever type of thing it is,
it’s there, driving a wedge between the X and Y
chromosomes of our student body.
relationships tend to be the ones that stick.
For Gillihan, one of the disadvantages of our
claustrophobic campus—not being able to escape
the confines of a floormate booty call—has become a blessing of sorts, making the relationship
convenient enough to work.
No matter how grim things may seem on
campus, the mentality that dating someone here
is hopeless is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Instead of
dwelling on all the reasons for dating or hooking
up being impossible, Columbians would do well
to take a chance. Go beyond your suite and Café
212. Talk to the girl in line at the deli. Call that
guy back. Sometimes, like Gillihan, the pieces fit
in spite of the odds. Sometimes, you have to make
your own luck. a
THE PERFECT DATE:
TIPS AND TRICKS FOR DEFYING THE ODDS
Make Sparks Fly
�e Situation: You don’t know her well
�e Solution: Find out what kind of
music she likes and take her to a concert
at some random, hole-in-the-wall downtown venue. In this city, music is cheap
and loud, meaning you will have at least an
hour or two to figure out what to say next.
If you can’t think of anything, talking about
the music is always a good ice breaker.
ESSIS NON EX ET, QUAT.
UT VULLA FEUMMY NOS
ALISMETUE MODIT UTAT
WIS NIS NIM QUISI.
Keep �em flying
�e Situation: You’re broke, it’s cold,
you don’t want to walk very far.
�e Solution: Make dinner together.
Choose whoever has the nicest/least occupied kitchen. Either collaborate on the
menu or each pick one dish to make. �e
possibilities are endless—it can be casual, it can be romantic, and you
will both have the opportunity to
be open, funny, and endearing.
Make Love Blossom
�e Situation: You really like her.
�e Solution: Ask her friends. If they
don’t know, go Broadway, pre- or
post-dinner and drinks, and bring
flowers. Everyone loves flowers.
Walk It Out
�e Situation: It’s been a long
week. You want to get out, but you
don’t have any specific plans.
�e Solution: Take a walk. Walks are
spontaneous, low-pressure, and in New
York, easily scenic. Walking gives you the
opportunity to think up what to do next,
and may lead you to unexpected places. In
Manhattan, you have the bonus of having
a subway station somewhere within the
next half mile if you get tired. Good places
for a walk at night are Battery Park, any
of the Villages, or down 8th Avenue from
Hell’s Kitchen to the Meatpacking district.
14
Culture Shock
FOOD
a kombucha-drinker questions the appeal of this traditional
tea-turned-cultural phenomenon
TEXT AND PHOTO BY STORM GARNER
It was a hot, humid, July day in 2006, halfway
through the second Bush administration. Every
Democrat in DC was gasping for fresh air, enduring an unquenchable thirst for something pure,
something true, something made of pronounceable ingredients. I happened by a Whole Foods,
wandered in, beelined to the refrigerated-bottled-beverage section, and spotted a newcomer
amid the iced teas: “Organic Raw Kombucha.”
Organic is good, I thought. Raw is good. But
what on earth is Kombucha? Moreover: is it really pronounceable? I picked it up and read the
label: “KOMBUCHA (pronounced kom-BOOcha) is a handmade Chinese tea that is delicately
cultured for 30 days. During this time, essential
nutrients form like: Active Enzymes, Viable Probiotics, Amino Acids, Antioxidants, and Polyphenols. All of these combine to create an elixir
that immediately works with the body to restore
balance and vitality.”
I checked the ingredients: “100% G.T.’s
organic raw kombucha, and 100% pure love!!!”
Pure love, huh? Great, just what I needed. I
bought it without a second thought and opened it
as soon as I had exited the overly air-conditioned
store, taking a sip. I immediately felt betrayed
by the label. “Gross!” I yelled telepathically. “I
wasted almost four dollars on this!”
�en I chugged the rest of the 16 oz. bottle.
My unsettlingly emotional initial reaction to
this queer brew made me question my sanity. I
then experienced what many first time kombucha-drinkers do: I found myself sneaking it regularly, questioning and simultaneously trusting
my newfound addiction.
And then I learned, to my great relief, that I
was not alone. There is something about kombucha that does this to people, that lures them
into these love/hate, addictive/secretive relationships. What, though? What could possibly compel people to allot a disproportionate
fraction of their food budget to buying expensive
bottled kombucha on a daily basis, to renovate
their kitchen to allow for perpetual kombucha
home-brewing, to pare down their social lives
to include only fellow kombucha-lovers, or to
spend all their free time perusing online kombucha-making discussion forums? Could it really
be its scientifically unsubstantiated “health
benefits”? I don’t see people joining cod liver oil
meetup.com groups.
Two and a half years later, although I’m still
just coming out of the kombucha closet, I am at
least now a slightly more informed consumer.
Kombucha does contain sugar, even though
the G. T. Dave’s brand doesn’t list sugar as an
ingredient on their bottle. �e substance is what
you get when you put a pancake-shaped living
kombucha SCOBY (Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria
and Yeast) in a gallon of sugar and black tea and
wait 15 to 30 days. Most but not all of the sugar is
consumed in the fermentation process.
One of the many end products of the kombucha-
As bottled kombucha becomes more expensive, drinkers turn to fermenting the raw tea at home.
making procedure is alcohol. G.T. Dave’s (the
most heavily fermented, and therefore the most
alcoholic of the bottled kombucha brands available in New York) claims its alcohol content is less
than 1%, which is (conveniently) the legal limit
for “non-alcoholic beverages.” Another product
is a leftover piece of the “mother” culture, the
slimy, oyster-like object that rests at the bottom
of each kombucha bottle.
As kombucha ropes in more addicts, people
are turning to cheaper methods to get their
SCOBY-fix. “It’s definitely becoming more
popular,” says Josh Garcia, a kombucha fan that
ferments SCOBYs in his kitchen and sells them
on Craigslist. “A few months ago, I had a waiting
list going for people wanting to buy SCOBYs that I
hadn’t even made yet.”
“GROSS,” I THOUGHT.
THEN I CHUGGED THE REST
OF THE BOTTLE.
Making kombucha in your own kitchen is now
not just for the hardcore enthusiasts. As Garcia
says, “It was an economic choice. I realized how
much I was spending on kombucha, and I knew
I wasn’t going to stop drinking kombucha, so
the only choice left was to get it cheaper. Which
meant I had to start making it myself.” With the
online SCOBY market thriving, homemade kombucha is easier to access than ever.
If you prefer your kombucha pre-packaged,
though, High Country brand’s Wild Root flavor is
by far the best-tasting bottled variety: it contains
sasparilla and is reminiscent of home-brewed
root-beer. For a cheaper fix, head to Barzini’s (at
Broadway and 91st), which sells Wild Root cheaper than anywhere else in Manhattan—$2.99,
versus up to $8 elsewhere.
Still, knowing more about kombucha doesn’t
explain the strangely personal relationship that I,
along with the numerous other NYC and Columbia addicts, have developed with the drink. I will
inevitably sound New Agey as I try to explain my
hypothesis: Kombucha is tangibly alive. Not only
that, it’s a whole world-in-a-bottle, billions of
diverse populations living together in symbiotic
harmony. It conjures up images of “the galaxy is
on Orion’s belt!” from Men in Black.
As students of heady stuff at a heady, stuffy
Ivy League university, it’s easy for us to forget
that we inhabit bodies. On a healthy day, for every trillion cells in our bodies, we host ten times
as many microorganisms in our guts. Drinking
kombucha—welcoming more microorganism into
our macro-organisms—reminds us of both our
mortality and our multiplicity. a
15