BVRB - French-American School of New York

French-American School of New York
Spring 2013
Débuts
Spring 2013
The French-American School of New York
Literary Magazine
Editors-in-Chief:
Jacques Guyot ‘13
Mireille Bejjani ‘14
Art Editor:
Kiara Bernard ‘14
Editors:
Emma Guyot ‘15
Tatiana Hadchiti ‘14
William Mason ‘16
Faculty Advisor:
Constance Creede
The staff of Débuts would like to thank the
French, English, Spanish and Latin teachers who
submitted material for the magazine.
Our thanks to art teachers John Murray and
Merrill Gisondo for their creativity and support.
And finally our thanks to Alexandra Creteur for
her generous support.
Laurie Azoulai ‘15
WHY DO WE
READ
Cher lecteur,
?
La Nuit
Ce recueil de poésie française rassemble quinze poèmes, du XVIe au début du XXe siècle,
tous sur le thème de la nuit. En effet, ce thème omniprésent à travers les siècles a évoqué des sujets souvent communs, mais variés. Originalement seulement source d’obscurité, la nuit a, pendant bien longtemps, plongé les hommes dans le noir avec, pour seule source de lumière, la lune,
symbole selon les cultures des sentiments de la mort à l’innocence, en passant par l’insouciance
et la protection. Or la nature de l’homme le rendant vulnérable dans le noir, dans un monde où
il ne peut pas voir et ne sait pas ce qui l’attend, son imagination joue un rôle considérable; ce
qui en fait un sujet extrêmement intéressant à étudier. Terrifiés par l’inconnu, les hommes se
retrouvaient à imaginer toutes sortes de mythes et fables terrifiantes, que les rêves ne faisaient
qu’encourager. Cette peur du noir et des terreurs qu’il cache est retrouvée dans le poème de Victor Hugo « Nuit », qui décrit la nuit comme un « grand être silencieux », une immensité obscure
que la nature craint ; ainsi que le poème « La nuit » de Marc-Antoine Girard de Saint-Amant,
dans lequel il nomme certains de ces mythes terrifiants, développés lors d’une nuit « sans lune et
sans étoiles ».
Cette remarque nous amène ensuite au rôle de la lune dans la nuit. D’après le poème «
Clair de lune » de Victor Hugo, la nuit est une séance de jeu pour la lune qui crée des rêves exotiques. Cependant, Hugo défini aussi la lune comme « l’Idée », dans le poème « Luna ». La lune
étant la seule lumière dans la nuit, son rôle serait de ramener la paix et la justice dans le monde.
Verlaine quant à lui, dans « Clair de lune », définit le clair de lune comme l’endroit où chantent
les âmes heureuses. La lune serait donc justicière, source de rêves et de bonheur, dans tous les
cas positives. Cette conclusion concorde avec le sentiment de soulagement et de protection que
devait apporter la lune aux hommes du Moyen-Age et avant.
Pour en revenir à la nuit elle même, qui est malgré tout le thème principal de cette anthologie, les réflexions sur la nuit n’en sont pas restées au monde mystérieux et terrifiant. Des
poètes comme Gabriel du Bois-Hus dans « La nuit des nuits » ont entrepris d’explorer la beauté
de la nuit, comparant notamment les couleurs et la nature du jour avec les flammes et l’océan la
nuit. Du Bois-Hus fait dans son poème une métaphore filée des larmes d’Isis, qui feraient vivre
POURQUOI
LIRE ??
la nature lorsqu’elle se réveille, pour parler de la nuit. Mais pour la plupart des poètes,
la nuit devient l’« heure exquise » où l’âme se repose, comme le dit Verlaine dans « La
bonne chanson VI ». Elle est soit libérée, pour Anne de Noailles dans « À la nuit », soit
symbole de solitude et tranquillité à la fin du travail de la journée pour Cécile Sauvage
dans « Enchantement lunaire », ou encore dans « Nocturne » de Jules Breton. La nuit
aurait aussi, par sa nature reposante, un pouvoir apaisant des maux, en partie grâce
à l’oubli des malheurs. Cette caractéristique se retrouve dans les poèmes «A la nuit »
d’Evariste de Parny et « La nuit qui tombe et le train qui passe » de Maurice du Plessys ;
ainsi que dans « La nuit » de Jean Lorrain, qui fait de la nuit la mère du Sommeil et de la
Mort, suivie d’un monde d’ombres qui apporte le repos en s’étendant sur la terre. Tout
au contraire, Théodore de Banville désigne la nuit dans « La nuit » comme un soulèvement des émotions.
?
Le dernier sujet abordé lors de l’étude de la nuit est celui des rêves, qui se rapporte aux anciens mythes surgis de l’obscurité. Les rêves et les légendes ont en effet
la même origine : l’incompréhension de l’inconnu et l’imagination. L’évolution de ces
inventions à travers le temps est un sujet particulièrement intéressant que nous ne pourrons étudier que très superficiellement dans cette anthologie basée surtout sur la nuit ;
j’ai cependant choisi, pour ne pas laisser à part un des principaux thèmes de la nuit, de
sélectionner certains poèmes sur se sujet, notamment «Clair de Lune » de Hugo. Retrouvés dans plusieurs poèmes de l’anthologie, les rêves illustrent bien la définition que fait
Du Plessys de la nuit dans « Cette nuit » : la nuit est « le noble accord des êtres et des
choses ».
Avec des points de vue et des sujets aussi variés, la nuit est donc un thème extrêmement fascinant. C’est d’ailleurs pour cette raison que je l’ai choisi, la sélection
de poèmes de siècles différents me permettant une étude de l’évolution de ces points
de vue. Les poèmes sont donc classés par ordre chronologique. Cette anthologie vous
permettra à vous aussi de découvrir la variété qu’est la nuit dans la poésie et, je l’espère,
vous donnera envie d’en apprendre plus sur ce sujet.
En vous souhaitant une bonne lecture,
—Matilde Alvarez Morera ‘14
Préfaces d’anthologies
...
?
Les Quatre éléments
Vers le Ve siècle av. J.-C., la théorie des quatre éléments fut développée par certains philosophes grecs. Cette hypothèse, dont Empédocle fut le fondateur et qui fut supportée par des philosophes tels que Aristote ou Platon, affirme que tous les objets constituants le monde seraient
composés, en quantités différentes, de quatre éléments : le feu, l’air, la terre et l’eau.
“Connais premièrement la quadruple racine
De toutes choses : Zeus aux feux lumineux,
Héra mère de vie, et puis Aidônéus,
Nestis enfin, aux pleurs dont les mortels s’abreuvent.”
(Texte à la base de la théorie des quatre éléments, Empédocle)
Bien que nous sachions, grâce à la physique moderne, que la théorie des quatre éléments
est fausse, les quatre éléments sont restés au fil du temps des thèmes récurrents dans les arts.
La poésie n’est donc pas une exception à cela, et on retrouve souvent dans des poèmes de tous
temps des liens avec l’eau, le feu, l’air ou la terre, que ce soit dans des poèmes de la Pléiade, dans
des fables de La Fontaine, dans Les Fleurs du mal de Baudelaire, dans des poèmes romantiques
de Lamartine ou de Victor Hugo ou encore dans des poèmes plus récents du XXème siècle. De
plus, chacun de ses éléments a plusieurs symbolismes ; l’eau peut représenter la vie, la mort ou
encore l’insaisissable. Le feu peut aussi représenter la vie ou la mort, ainsi que la passion ou la
destruction. L’air peut suggérer la liberté, le chaos ou évoquer des sensations. La terre représente
l’ancrage, la sécurité ou, encore une fois, la mort. Les poètes utilisent donc souvent le lexique
d’un ou plusieurs de ces éléments pour suggérer une idée particulière ou simplement décrire un
paysage.
Pour constituer cette anthologie, j’ai donc cherché des poèmes du XVème au XXème siècle
en rapport avec les quatre éléments. Je les ai ensuite séparés en quatre parties, chacune d’entre
elles représentant un élément. J’ai inclus six poèmes à chaque partie, en faisant en sorte qu’ils
soient de siècles différents. Ainsi, dans chaque partie, on trouvera différentes connotations aux
quatre éléments, de nombreuses métaphores ignées, des champs lexicaux abondants des quatre
éléments et des descriptions de paysages. De plus, une petite analyse expliquant comment le
thème des quatre éléments est utilisé accompagnera chaque poème ; le lecteur pourra ainsi suivre
ma réflexion sur les quatre éléments au fil de l’anthologie.
Je vous souhaite maintenant une bonne lecture et j’espère que vous pourrez apprécier à
leur juste valeur les différents poèmes qui se trouvent dans cette anthologie.
—Axel Ehlinger ‘14
Préfaces d’anthologies
Théo Gamito ‘19
Ecriture d’invention
Mardi, 10 mai 1986
POEZI
8 bis, Rue Rivol
PARIS, France
Monsieur, Madame,
Je vous écris aujourd’hui en tant que personne âgée qui vit seule. Je souhaite exprimer
mon opinion qui, d’après moi-même, a encore une valeur suffisante pour être transmise à l’écrit
et lue.
Dans l’édition du mardi dernier, j’ai retrouvé le poème « Académie Medrano » de Sonnets
Dénaturés, de Blaise Cendrars. Je souhaite tout d’abord vous remercier. J’avais vingt ans en 192 ?
lorsque j’ai lu ce poème pour la première fois. Le relire la semaine dernière m’a permis de goûter
à un tendre nostalgie. Je souhaite à présent vous expliquer pourquoi ce poème m’est cher.
Cendrars est un génie. Lorsque l’on pense à la poésie du vingtième siècle, la plupart des
français s’écrieront « Apollinaire ! » parce qu’il est le précurseur du surréalisme et qu’il est très
connu grâce à son recueil intitulé Alcools. Je tiens donc à signaler un fait qui est souvent oublié.
Apollinaire a puisé son inspiration chez Cendrars en lui empruntant le non-respect de la ponctuation et de la structure rigoureuse des vers. C’est à Cendrars que nous devons ce format révolutionnaire.
D’après moi, le progrès n’est qu’issu de la rébellion, de la révolution. Pour avancer, il faut
détruire et recréer, sans oublier ce qui a été détruit. Prenez la Révolution Française par exemple.
Nous avons détruit l’injustice infligée par le Roi sans oublier cette injustice parce que Les Droits
de l’Homme en sont issus. Il faut renouveler et recycler les idées enfouies dans ce qui a été détruit dans la poésie. Comme la cétoïde, insecte de composte qui crée à partir de déchets. Cet insecte
apparaît d’ailleurs dans « Zone » d’Apollinaire et symbolise, en partie, le poète qui renouvelle,
innove, et transforme l’ancienneté. Cendrars suit ce processus tout en méprisant l’ancienneté,
et il a bien raison, les règles rigoureuses qu’elle impose ne sont qu’une barricade qui restreint et
emprisonne la liberté d’expression.
« Académie Medrano » regorge d’attaques sur cette barricade. Le titre du recueil est tout
simplement merveilleux. Il contient une ironie violente qui insulte et par la suite détruit le concept de la poésie classique, ancienne. Cendrars nomme son recueil Sonnets Dénaturés et ces sonnets sont tout sauf des sonnets. Les quatrains et tercets du sonnet ont été versés dans une abyme,
ils n’existent plus, les vers désordonnés et donc libres, parce qu’ils sont écrits exactement comme
le poète veut les écrire, connaissent leur heure de gloire. Le titre est le début de la destruction des
barricades de l’ancienneté. Le premier vers est écrit en alexandrin, aspect de la poésie ancienne,
l’utilisation d’alexandrins dans ce poème qui incarne la modernité est une insulte à l’ancienneté.
Ce vers est écrit en employant un ton familier, informel, de conversation. Cendrars parle d’un
« […] tout de piste|sur un tout petit basset|noir ou haquenée […] » (vers 2 à 4). Le « noir »
représente la poésie qui traite des sujets graves et sérieux alors que « haquenée » représente la
poésie lyrique. Il met ces deux genres de poésie sur un pied d’égalité, ceci est tout à fait révolutionnaire pour l’époque ! Pour Cendrars, que ce soit la poésie du Parnasse, « l’art pour l’art », ou
celle qui cherche à révolutionner, à protester, tant que le poète réussi, d’après lui à transcrire ses
idées, c’est accompli tant que le poème est libre.
Aux vers 14, 15 et 16, les mots écrits à l’envers et les espaces précisément choisis par
l’auteur renforcent la condamnation de l’ancienneté immobile. Ceci est du jamais vu, c’est un
format tout à fait nouveau, révolutionnaire. C’est la fin de la destruction, dans le poème.
Le « saut périlleux » (vers 14) est celui que fait Cendrars en osant rédiger un poème de
cette manière, c’est une réelle preuve d’audace, d’originalité et de courage. Le « coup de fouet
» (vers 15) est celui que la société va recevoir, plus particulièrement ceux qui se raccrochent à
l’ancienneté, en lisant ce poème qui abrite une modernité inconnue aux nouveaux-venus.
La poésie doit être libre. C’est un domaine complexe qui diffère des domaines comme
celui des mathématiques où l’ambiguïté est inexistante et chaque chose a sa solution.
C’est osé comme constat mais à quatre-vingt-trois ans il ne me reste plus qu’à oser : réjouissons-nous d’être débarrassés de poètes comme Ronsard, du Bellay, Boileau, et ces autres ! Ils
n’étaient pas des poètes car ils n’étaient pas libres. Ils s’imposaient des contraintes avant même
de créer. Ecrire un poème en se disant « Attention, seulement douze syllabes par vers et 14 vers
au total » ce n’est pas écrire un poème, c’est suivre une recette qui étrangle l’imagination. Dans
ce genre de poèmes l’imagination est exsangue mais dans les poèmes d’Apollinaire, d’Eluard, de
Soupault, de Breton et de Cendrars, l’imagination vibre, c’est le cœur qui bat entre les vers.
« Poésie » en Grec veut dire « faire créer ». Si l’on a donné ce nom à cet art autant respecter
la définition et créer complètement et non pas qu’à moitié comme l’ont fait ces Anciens.
Vous ne pensez peut-être pas grande chose de cette lettre parce que vous dites que je
ne suis qu’une « petite vieille » et que votre revue est destinée aux jeunes pour les inciter à
s’intéresser à la poésie et donc que ce que j’ai à dire n’a pas d’importance, mais je tiens à vous
remercier tout de même, cela faisait longtemps que je n’ai pas pris le temps de transcrire mon
énergie à l’écrit.
Bien à vous,
Gertrude du Lascar
—Emilie Matthews de Beaulieu ‘14
Iambic fragments
The clock ticks life away so carefully,
Unlike the shatter of a whiskey glass.
— Tesher Zafrin ‘18
About a girl, the man did hope and dream,
Out his window did he observe a face.
He wished he could be by her side at night,
And hold that love in his strong arms.
— Margaux Salz, Jurnivah Desir ‘15
The Storm
I hear thunder crack in the grey sky,
And then the rain begins to fall. The trees
Outside begin to dance in the tempest.
The storm has commenced its mighty wrath.
— David Jarry, Alban Douady ‘15
His mighty love he wished to speak aloud,
But all of those who watched him cry inside
Knew that he could never speak to her,
And that he’d end. Himself. Always alone.
— Alban Douady, David Jarry, David Guyot,
Hugo Della Valle, Juliette Clochard ‘15
Oniri
Au centre de l’univers
Une perle découle
Comme une larme silencieuse
Qui saigne des yeux nébuleux
Yeux rageux
Cristallins de tristesse
Mais de derrière on nous en veut,
De chaque faute d’ivresse
Car bien au loin dans le désert
Le sable nous brule
A chaque bouffée délaissée
Que la fontaine vomit.
Et les oiseaux
Tout la haut
Crient du sang vert
Pendant qu’en dessous
Les enfants jouent dans l’argile rouge
Leurs rires, des échos
Brisent les reflets.
Poetry
Rêves et illusions
Maintes images défilent
Tourbillonnant
Les feuilles satanées jonchent au sol blanc
Où roulent les clochettes
Tachetées de sang
On dit que la terre fut détruite en un jour
Des cieux de l’enfer l’ange s’échappe
Mais tant que l’inventeur aux ailes blanches tombe
L’ange flambe toujours
Toujours épris du sort de Dédale.
Rare est la chose
O tragique merveille
De mourir comme Icare
Trop près du soleil
—Maddie King ‘14
Victoria Cassar ‘13
A Modest Proposal:
Old people aren’t cool
When I was in the third grade, I went to a retirement home as a volunteer. What I saw
shocked me to no end: dozens of elderly, incapacitated people, sitting in ugly, dimly lit rooms,
respirators on at least half of the residents, and a couple of others barely able to shuffle through
the halls with their canes. I was grief-stricken.
I would look at all these nursing homes filled to the brim with unwanted old people with
such fear and disgust. After this moment, as I grew up, I started to learn how state pension funds
were becoming a real problem. I learned how, due to these undesired creatures who spend their
whole lives waiting for their pension funds, the younger population works its head off funding
the elders’ everyday actions. Not only do old people oppose health care reform (bad), but they
smell (worse), they talk too much (even worse), and they gross out everybody when they eat (the
worst). Seriously, have you ever seen an old person eat? It’s repugnant. They get food all over
their lips and they don’t even realize it, and half of the time their clothes are on sideways and
they don’t care because they will spend the rest of their lives waiting for the Grim Reaper to take
them away from the real-life hell that has become their existence.
I believe that we should grind up the elderly into protein bars. We could extract the Aspirin that they take every day and give it to athletes. Anyway, if we convert them into high-protein
energy bars, we could solve numerous problems plaguing society. First, health care reform will
be more viable. Second, we can deprive fat people of any food except for these energy bars.
Third, kids can learn to appreciate the values of their elders by consuming their flesh for their
slimy, gray nutrients.
Considering all the benefits that transforming the elderly into edible foods has, I don’t see
why people would even hesitate! One major concern is that if old people are ground up, who
will be the “Wise Elders”? But who would want to live in a world where there are people who
think and act for the future of all of us? I know I wouldn’t…
If MIT decides to get off its lazy behind and do something for society, it will figure out a
way to convert old people into sustainable energy. I don’t care if we’re throwing their wrinkled
useless bodies into train engines! Let’s just do something with them because frankly, I’m tired of
having my Friday nights at McDonalds ruined by old people eating in front of me. When the old
population starts reaching the retirement age, converting them to energy is the only way to save
people’s money and stimulate the national economy! Instead of having them occupy space and
influence the over-population of the world, we can have them ground into protein bars, which
can eliminate obesity and help lazy people all over the world do something productive with their
lives.
I conclude my proposal by really emphasizing the fact that a world without old people is a closer
step to a utopia!
—Alex Adam ‘14
Cuentitos
We have the pleasure to present these short stories written by Mrs. Fernández’s grade 8 Spanish Novice students. They have created them using the verbs in the Imperfect tense. They
show great creativity and a fine sense of humour. We hope you enjoy them while you practice
your Spanish! ¡Gracias!
Marie y el dragón volador
Había una vez una chica que vivía con sus padres en París. Ella tenía el pelo rubio y
ojos azules. A ella le gustaba jugar con sus amigos y paseaba sola frecuentemente. Un
día, ella tomaba un paseo y, ¡de repente!, veía un dragón que volaba a su lado.
Sorprendida, ella seguía al dragón a un castillo. Aún más sorprendida, la chica caminaba por el castillo. Ella veía al dragón y gritaba porque tenía miedo de él. Entonces, el dragón
le decía:
- “¡No te asustes Marie, yo no como seres humanos!.”
La niña estaba feliz, Marie saltaba en su espalda. El dragón volaba con Marie a muchos lugares
turísticos. Por la noche, el dragón viajaba con Marie a la casa de sus padres y vivieron felices por
siempre jamás.
— Marc-Erwin Djomo ‘17
Mi persona favorita
Cuando yo era pequeña, yo conocía a una señora muy guapa y delgada. Ella era muy simpática.
Ella trabajaba mucho, pero ella me sacaba a pasear al parque todos los días. Los domingos, ella
me sacaba a comer el desayuno en el restaurante.
Yo comía un pan con “nutella” y ella comía una tortilla. Nosotras hablábamos de princesas, de
dragones, de amigos, de la escuela: de todo. Ella me sonreía y me decía que ella quería llevarme
a Disneylandia.
A mi me gustaban los domingos porque eran el día que yo veía mas a la señora. Nosotras estábamos felices juntas. Ella me llamaba su “pequeño ángel”. Todas las noches, ella me leía un
libro. Entones, decía “buenas noches mi pequeño ángel” con una sonrisa.
Ella era mi madre y la persona que yo amaba más en el mundo. Me gustaría que ella estuviera
todavía viva.
— Gabriella Swartz ‘17
Pedro, el cerdo egoísta con alas de ángel
Había una vez, un niño que se llamaba Pedro. Pedro vivía en un pueblo pequeño en un bosque.
Un día, Pedro iba a la parte obscura del bosque. Pedro encontraba una cabaña de madera.
¡De repente!, una bruja aparecía mágicamente. La bruja transformaba a Pedro en un cerdo
feo, loco y egocéntrico. Pedro iba a su pueblo y encontraba un par de alas de ángel.
Pedro era muy feliz porque él podía volar. Pedro se convertía en un cerdo muy simpático
y feliz. Pedro ayudaba a muchas personas en su Reino.
Un día, Pedro volaba al lado de un bosque y encontraba a un mago que podía transformarle en
una persona normal. El problema era que el mago no podía transformarle en una persona normal
si no tenía una flor de Edelweisse. Pedro buscaba una flor de Edelweisse por cien días. Cuándo
Pedro volvía con su flor de Edelweisse, el mago le transformaba en una persona normal. Pedro
vivía feliz por siempre jamás.
— Balthazar Olivier ‘17
Cocoloca el mono “caradura”
Yo estaba perdido en la jungla. Caminaba despacio, mirando a mi alrededor. Sobre un árbol,
había un mono marrón. Él era muy flexible. Él pasaba de un árbol a otro. Él venía y me decía:
-
“¡Hola! ¿Cómo estás? Me llamo Cocoloca y tú?
-
¡Ohh! ¿Tú puedes hablar?
-
¡Sí, en español y en inglés!”
Cocoloca y yo teniamos una conversación larga. Cocoloca hablaba de su gran familia y de su hermano adoptivo, era un oso perezoso, llamado Jimmy. Cocoloca tenía nueve años y Jimmy tenía
tres años. Cocoloca me pedía una banana. Yo le daba una banana extra. ¡De repente!, se escuchaba un fuerte ruido, Cocoloca se echaba a reir histericamente, y desaparecía.
Yo estaba sola en la jungla, escuchaba a los pájaros y oía la risa de Cocoloca.
— Lucie Desvallees ‘17
Porque los dragones están extinguidos
Había una vez, un dragón y un león que cooperaban para gobernar sobre la tierra de todos los
animales. Todo el mundo estaba contento. Los cerdos practicaban deportes, los caballos trabajaban duro, los monos cantaban canciones, los elefantes enseñaban a los animales bebé y todos
eran simpáticos.
Los ríos eran claros, los árboles eran verdes, el cielo era azul, y el fruto alimentaba a todos. Los
animales bailaban y tocaban instrumentos y ellos celebraban todo. Pero un día tranquilo, un
nuevo animal entraba en el reino: una serpiente.
La serpiente era verde y antipática. Ella contaminaba los ríos, destruía los árboles, ennegrecía el
cielo, e interrumpía la felicidad. El león le decía que
parase, pero la serpiente no
escuchaba. Ella continuaba su mal compartimiento,
y punto. Los animales estaban
enfadados.
El dragón le pedía: - “¡Márchate!” pero ella no quería.
Estaba tan molesta con estas
peticiones y quejas que ella envenenaba la bebida del dragón. Los animales la veían, pero era
demasiado tarde… El dragón moría y los animales perseguían a la serpiente y la expulsaban del
reino.
Es por esto que los dragones están extinguidos.
— Nathalie Eid ‘17
La Historia De La Bruja Maldita
Había una vez, una bruja que se llamaba Elfeba cantaba una canción maldita. La canción maldita
tenia palabras que transformaban a las personas. Todas las personas se transformaban en caballeros malditos. Los caballeros invadían muchas ciudades inocentes. Las personas de las ciudades
mataban a la bruja maldita, y todas las ciudades vivían felices por siempre jamás.
— Lucie Bolzan ‘17
El día extraordinario
Había una vez, en un pueblo, una niña que se llamaba Marina, tenía ocho años. Un día, ella y su
amiga, Carlota, iban al zoo. Ellas veían un hombre del zoo que abría la jaula del león para transferirle a otro zoo.
Cuando la puerta de la jaula estaba abierta, el león veía a una persona que llevaba carne en su
mano. El león corría pero el hombre con la carne escapaba hacia el pueblo. Las chicas le perseguían. El hombre con la carne, era un charcutero y el león entraba en su charcutería.
Una anciana, que estaba en el interior, golpeaba al león con su bolsa. El león regresaba y el hombre del zoo le atrapaba.
— Guillaume Dupaquier ‘17
Baloncesto Interplanetario
Hace mucho tiempo, en un planeta situado dentro del planeta de palmas y sol, había una civilización de jugadores de baloncesto. El rey se llamaba LeBron James, y tenia dos amigos que eran
también extraordinarios jugando al baloncesto, se llamaban: Dwyane Wade y Chris Bosh.
Todo iba bien, hasta que
otras civilizaciones iban a conquistarlos. Primero, los Celtics del planeta verde. Eran
unos conquistadores increíbles, pero eran viejos, y los
Heats, la civilización que
vivía dentro Marte, les ganaba la guerra.
Luego, los Knicks del planeta que no duerme nunca. Carmelo Anthony era su rey
y les ayudaba para ganar
la lucha contra los Heats.
En la actualidad, los
Knicks son la mejor civilización de la galaxia, y LeBron
James es un dios del baloncesto, con Michael Jordan, Dr. J, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar y Bill Russell.
Pero una nueva civilización va a competir contra los Knicks, OKC y su rey KD y su amigo Russel
Westbrook.
¡El futuro es una incognita!
— Paul Castaybert ‘17
¡Destrucción Total!
Había una vez un perro, un
gato y un enorme demonio ratón que querían controlar
el mundo de los animales. El perro se llamaba Avatar y el gato se llamaba Mickey. Ellos eran
los héroes de la historia. Y el ratón se llamaba Voldemort. Avatar tenía los superpoderes que
aumentaban o disminuían los objetos. él aumentaba a Mickey. Mickey comía a Voldemort. Y se
convertía en un demonio y se llamaba Invador Zim. Avatar tenía que matarle y el demonio era
destruido.
— Joanna Teyssonnière de Gramont ‘17
La historia de Emilina
Erase una vez una chica que se llamaba Emilina. Ella vivía en un bosque con un lobo que se
llamaba “Spirit”. Emilinia era una chica fuerte y muy guapa. Ella era la reina del bosque. Su lobo
era muy
rápido e inteligente. Ellos eran muy felices juntos pero ellos estaban
embrujados por el demonio emperador. El emperador era alto y antipático.
El quería
gobernar el bosque pero Emilina luchaba contra el emperador con la
ayuda de
“Spirit”.
El emperador era muy poderoso y Emilina no podía derrotar al emperador.
Emilina tenía que entrenarse para derrotar al emperador. Pero el dios del
bosque decía que la única forma de derrotar al emperador era cantar.
A Emilina no le gustaba cantar pero era la única forma que tenia para lograr su objetivo. Cuando
ella estaba enfrente del emperador, ella estaba nerviosa. El emperador reía pero ella cantaba.
El emperador estaba asustado y se escapaba para siempre.
¡Emilina salvaba el bosque!
— Mony Krafft ‘17
Y COLORÍN COLORADO ESTOS CUENTOS SE HAN ACABADO....... FIN
Récits fantastiques...
Hôtel Hanté
L’histoire de Jakson,
Thanatopsis, Asher
voulez-vous vraiment que je la raB. Durand (1850)
conte ? Oh ! Bon d’accord, si vous
insistez. Quelle horreur, cette histoire ! Il m’arrive toujours de faire
des cauchemars à ce sujet.
Tout a commencé il y a à
peu près vingt-cinq ans. En pleine
campagne, en Pennsylvanie, un
immense château abandonné a
été transformé en hôtel où descendaient les plus grandes stars
d’Hollywood. Les premiers mois
de cette nouvelle entreprise se
déroulèrent sans embûche. L’hôtel
attira de nombreux acteurs célèbres comme Sylvestre Stallone,
Don Johnson et Olivia Brown.
Mais un jour, on assista au revers
de la fortune : les lumières se mirent à clignoter sans arrêt, on sentit des forces agiter les murs et
on entendit des bruits inquiétants ressemblant à ceux de fantômes.
Puis, après que le chaos fut terminé, l’heure de se coucher arriva. Billy, le propriétaire
de l’hôtel, assura tout le monde qu’il s’agissait simplement d’une erreur technique et que cette
situation, apparemment effrayante, ne se reproduirait plus. Mais quelques stars qui avaient déjà
tourné dans des films d’horreur, comme Linda Blair, éprouvèrent une sensation troublante et
inédite et décidèrent alors de se loger ailleurs. Ce pressentiment leur a sûrement sauvé la vie.
Pourtant, malgré les plaintes de ces hôtes, d’autres vedettes choisissent toujours cette auberge,
incrédules à cette histoire diabolique.
Il était donc deux heures du matin. Tout le monde dormait, chacun plongé dans son rêve.
C’est alors que la présence diabolique ré-émergea, cette fois dans les rêves des acteurs ! Les images oniriques inconscientes se métamorphosaient en des couleurs sombres puis rougeoyantes.
Et, tout d’un coup, le visage effrayant d’une petite fille apparut dans le sommeil des clients. De
nombreux grands acteurs furent victimes de crise cardiaque, certains en moururent. D’autres
périrent sous l’effet de l’overdose de médicaments.
C’est alors que Jakson Williams fit son entrée dans cette histoire. Jakson était un jeune
homme de vingt ans, orgueilleux, convaincu de pouvoir résoudre ce grand mystère. Il conjecturait qu’avec un prêtre à ses côtés, en dormant, il exterminerait ce diable. Toutefois, ce qui motivait son projet était son caractère à la fois courageux et quelque peu fou. Jakson était du genre à
vouloir faire quelque chose d’incroyable qui le rendrait célèbre, car jusqu’à présent, il menait une
vie ordinaire dans un appartement de Baldwin, ville banale de Pennsylvanie.
Jakson rencontra M. Anthony, alors propriétaire de l’hôtel. Ce dernier lui rappela que
même des scientifiques n’avaient pas réussi à résoudre l’énigme et que cette nouvelle tentative
lui paraissait bien dangereuse. Cela, pourtant, ne posa pas de problème à Jakson et il assura Mr.
Anthony qu’il était en mesure de relever le défi.
Jakson se dirigea vers une église catholique à quarante minutes de l’hôtel pour chercher
un prêtre qui serait d’accord d’exécuter la mission. Un homme d’à peu près soixante ans accepta
et la nouvelle équipe décida de procéder à l’exorcisme.
La grande nuit arriva. Le prêtre tenait sa bible à la main, Jakson était prêt à s’endormir
et faire face à la fille étrange. Vers minuit, Jakson sentit le sommeil l’envahir et, dans ses rêves,
la bataille commença. Au début, ses rêves s’inspiraient de faits réels. Mais c’est alors que la
transformation débuta. Graduellement, le visage de la jeune fille s’exhiba devant lui Pendant ce
temps, le prêtre lisait des passages d’exorcisme. Le corps de Jakson s’agitait comme un serpent, à
cause de la bataille entre la fille et lui, bien entendu. Tout à coup, Jakson s’immobilisa, et, inexplicablement, disparut, laissant seulement ses vêtements derrière lui, sur le lit. Le prêtre, n’ayant jamais assisté à pareil spectacle, s’évanouit et contracta, à son tour, la malédiction des cauchemars.
La légende raconte que l’esprit de Jakson est toujours vivant, coincé dans un monde
diabolique, où il erre sans issue. L’esprit flotte probablement dans l’air à l’intérieur de l’hôtel, terrorisant les hôtes.
Alors, si vous voulez un conseil, cherchez à vous loger dans d’autres auberges. Cependant, si
vous décidez de ne pas suivre mon conseil, sachez que des remords hanteront le reste de vos
jours.
—Alexandre Sherman ‘17
J’habitais un paradis perdu, loin de
toute civilisation, où j’étais seule à
vivre, un endroit à couper le souffle,
Edward Hopper,
d’une beauté semblable à un tableau
House by the Railroad,
imaginaire. Pourtant ce lieu existait
1925
bien. La nature luxuriante, les falaises qui semblaient toucher le ciel,
la rivière magique, sinueuse et transparente tel un serpent me comblaient
de joie.
Depuis plus de cent ans, j’habitais
là, seule, avec comme uniques amis,
mes animaux. Jadis, j’avais choisi
de vivre dans ce lieu pour garder
un secret. En effet, le cours d’eau
avoisinant possédait des vertus incroyables. Il me permettait de rester à jamais éternelle. Je buvais chaque jour une gorgée de cet élixir. Mais pour bénéficier de ce privilège, il fallait avoir été
choisie.
Je menais donc une longue vie paisible quand, un après-midi, le ciel tout à coup
s’assombrit, le vent se déchaîna, le tonnerre gronda, les éclairs résonnèrent comme des tam-
Au Paradis
bours. La rivière était déchaînée, elle débordait et semblait vouloir me transmettre un message.
Je décidai alors de rentrer les animaux car ils étaient effrayés. Nous ressentions un mauvais présage, comme si un évènement épouvantable se préparait. Soudain, un énorme bruit
retentit. Je ne savais pas d’où il venait, mais j’étais apeurée. Alors, à ma grande surprise, une
créature surnaturelle émergea de la rivière. La nuit et le brouillard m’empêchaient de la distinguer clairement. Je voyais des ombres noires se rapprocher de plus en plus de moi. Cette situation
devenait cauchemardesque. Au bout de quelques instants, le monstre se présenta : c’était un
homme-poisson d’une extrême laideur. Mon corps se figea et mon sang se glaça.
Tout à coup, la créature m’empoigna et bondit dans la rivière. Je compris que ma fin était
proche. Il nagea pendant quelques minutes et nous arrivâmes dans une grotte. Il y avait là, sur
un coquillage, une femme d’une beauté exceptionnelle. Elle était allongée et semblait souffrir.
Le démon m’expliqua pourquoi il m’avait capturée. Il voulait sauver sa femme et, malheureusement, j’étais la seule à pouvoir l’aider. Il connaissait donc mon secret. En m’agrippant par
les cheveux, il me tira jusqu’à sa bien-aimée et m’obligea à lui faire boire l’élixir. Je savais que si
j’acceptais, je perdrais à tout jamais mes pouvoirs. Malheureusement, il ne me laissa pas le choix.
Les larmes aux yeux, j’approchai la potion des lèvres de la malade et elle en but quelques gorgées. A l’instant même, je compris qu’il se passait quelque chose d’insolite. Mon corps avait reçu
les souffrances de cette femme, il ne me restait plus longtemps à vivre. L’épouse était guérie, elle
me remercia et semblait peinée pour moi.
L’homme-poisson s’empressa de me ramener chez moi. Il ne voulait pas, semble-t-il, assister à ma mort. Il n’était sans doute pas aussi cruel que je ne le pensais. L’amour avait été pour lui
plus fort que la raison. Mon paradis était désormais perdu car maintenant, j’étais seule à mourir
face à mes falaises et à ma rivière enchanteresse.
...
from
—Margaux Goudal ‘17
DEATH...
...TO LIFE
My pulse had stopped. The room was no longer spinning, my insides no longer bleeding.
Feeling was gone; Emptiness prevailed. My mother’s endless tears drowned the room, while my
father tried to contain his sorrow, but his eyes said it all. Dr. Bates came into the room, a binder
in his hand, concern written on his forehead. He took
Camille Williams ‘13
my parents aside, and the tears erupted once again.
They started to sign a paper, despite their reluctance
to do so. That single piece of paper represented the
end of their only daughter. My parents walked out of
the room, the doctor by their side.
My mother had slept at the hospital, every
night sleeping on a couch by my bedside. Praying,
hoping, asking for a miracle. Every day, though, it
seemed like I was getting worse. Dr. Bates came twice
every day, performed a couple of tests and then reappeared with the results. No progress. The coma had
been going on since my first operation, the first day I
checked in. I arrived at St. Joseph’s Emergency Hospital, glass shards all through my body, my rib cage
fractured, and with a brain hemorrhage. The carrier I
laid on held my body in place; the oxygen mask, my
only way to breathe. The ambulance ride was a blur;
I had absolutely no recollection of what happened in
the fifteen-minute gap between the accident and the
hospital.
I could smell the smoke, hear the screams, the
ambulance sirens were coming closer and closer. Lucas and Lexi stared at my body, situated on the front
of the car, the windshield shattered. Shock inhabited
their expression. Lucas sat shotgun, no harm done. Lexi in the back seat was unable to move
her legs, pieces of glass having made their way through them. I could still hear the loud music,
pumping in my veins. A bright red light shone in the sky, and I didn’t slow down. Lucas drank
his beer; the party hadn’t satisfied his thirst. We talked about everything and nothing.. My mind
was missing; I could not control my thoughts nor distinguish right from wrong, stop from go,
left from right. It took me some time before I realized that my decision to drive the car had not
been prudent. Nevertheless, it did not seem to be a problem for now. As I drove, Lexi kept on
bringing up the experiences of the night, repeating herself constantly, screaming at the top of her
lungs.
As we walked out of the house around twelve o’clock, I seemed to be the only person
capable of driving, or so it appeared. The party was booming: loud music, numerous seventeen
year olds doing what they do best in an empty, parentless house. Nothing seemed to matter for
those four hours. We were only faced with one objective: let loose. Nights like these did not take
place very often and so most people drank excessively. I must admit I was one those girls that
after a long week of work, needed a break from all the demands and pressure. Living in a house
with one Yale graduate and one Harvard graduate set the bar pretty high. My parents, though,
never had a problem with me going out; I had always known my limits.
Lexi and Lucas waited for me outside of their houses like we did before every night out.
As they entered the car, we set the music to the loudest, our voices barely audible over our
laughter. We were a bunch of carefree seventeen year olds, our whole lives ahead of us.
—Lelia Kacha ‘14
LIFE
Depuis que maman me l’avait annoncé, j’étais impatiente! Chaque jour je lui demandais « c’est pour quand ? » et elle me répondait : « Bientôt , bientôt ». Au bout de quelques
mois, j’avais un peu perdu espoir. A la fin, j’avais même compris le stratagème de maman! Elle
m’avait juste fait croire toutes ses sottises rien que pour me faire manger mes brocolis! Pendant
un moment je lui en ai voulu parce que tout de même... Les mensonges c’est nul! En plus de ça,
les brocolis, je ne vois pas pourquoi elle veut que je les mange puisque ça fait grossir! Maman,
elle ne fait qu’en manger et elle grossit comme un ballon de football! Des fois elles sont compliquées les grandes personnes !
Un jour, alors que j’étais en train de jouer aux barbies avec le beau carrosse que papa
m’avait acheté, j’entendis papa et maman s’agiter en bas! Maman criait et papa était tellement
stressé qu’il courait partout en s’exclamant: « mes clefs, mes clefs». Pff… il ne voyait même pas
qu’il les avait dans la main! Ils vinrent me chercher et me dirent de prendre mes chaussures.
Je n’avais pas la moindre idée d’où ils m’emmenaient! Ce qui est sûr, c’est que maman,
elle ne voulait pas y aller! Elle criait dans tous les sens et n’arrêtait pas de souffler! Papa roula
drôlement vite, jusqu’à ce qu’on arrive devant un grand immeuble tout blanc! Il y avait quelque
chose d’inscrit dessus mais je ne sais pas encore très bien lire, alors je ne compris pas. Il faudrait
que maman m’apprenne à lire un jour, ça serait super pratique, mais pas aujourd’hui. Elle dans
un trop mauvais état!
On me laissa dans une salle avec plein de jeux et de magazines, tandis qu’ils emmenaient
maman je ne sais où. J’attendis longtemps, très longtemps. Puis je finis par m’endormir et fus
réveillée par papa qui me demandais de le suivre. Il était tout rouge avec le sourire aux lèvres.
J’arrivais devant une porte entre ouverte, je ne sus pas pourquoi, mais j’avais un peu peur de
rentrer! Papa me prit par la main et l’ouvrit, il y avait maman, allongée sur un lit, son ventre
en forme de ballon de football qu’elle avait depuis des mois avait disparu et à la place il y avait
une chose toute petite qui se lovait dans ses bras. Je m’approchai lentement, et vit une tête toute
ronde, une toute petite bouche et des pieds minuscules. Je trouvais cette chose tellement jolie,
elle ressemblait à ma poupée Suzie à la maison. Elle avait les yeux verts comme moi! Je ne sais
pas pourquoi mais je l’aimais déjà beaucoup! Je me disais que si maman pouvais la garder, je
jouerais avec elle et Suzie, et que nous ferions des salons de thé trop géniaux! J’étais en train de
la regarder quand maman me dit: « Océane, je te présente Lilou, ta petite sœur.»
—Océane Bouhier ‘15
VIE
beginnings...
Marie Creteur ‘15
Souvenirs d’enfance
Lord of the Flies- Chapter 13:
The End of Everything
Now many years later, Ralph lay on his deathbed and felt a flashback to the time in his life
that marked him the most. He turned to his youngest child who was about twenty years old
and shared his thoughts about the adventure.
When I think about what happened on this island, I realize that if we had stayed just a bit
longer, all of us would have become savages. Wild, carnivorous animals in desperate need
of blood, killing others to feed. It’s sad, isn’t it? Little kids, still in their sweet and innocent
years, suddenly becoming people with no reason nor limits.
I still wake up every night because of the same nightmare. Jack and his tribe, hunting me
across the entire island to put my head on a stick and pretend it was only a game. Just like
they did to Piggy and Simon.
During the whole trip back to England, nobody said one word. Each one of us was staring
down at his feet, not daring to speak. It was as if everyone’s brain was finally working again
and setting the record straight on the past months.
When the boat arrived, everyone remained silent. Nobody said goodbye and everyone took
a different way home. There were no cries, no smiles, no “I’ll see you tomorrow!” Only a
bunch of boys, coming back from a long, long trip.
For my part, my mom didn’t come to take me home. She was a very sick woman and I knew
that even though it had been months, she was in her bed or in the rocking chair, her mind off
in another universe. A better one. One without the constant fear of war and bad news, one
where her husband is still alive. So I walked home, alone. I didn’t really know where I was,
but I knew where I was going.
On my way home, I had wide-open eyes, looking at the shops, streets and cars. I was like a
newborn, discovering the world for the first time. I remember exactly what went through my
mind at the moment I saw the sky. I was so used to the clear, blue and peaceful sky above
the island that I felt this strong pain in my stomach when I discovered the sick and polluted
sky above my head. How can humans, living creatures with the flair of reason, accomplish so
much wrong to nature?
I knocked at my old house’s door and remembered that my mom never locked it. I went
straight up to my mom’s bedroom where the door was left open and waited at the doorstep. She kept her eyes closed as she asked me to enter. She kissed me on the forehead and
said: “There’s some soup left in the kitchen. Drink it and go get some rest, but don’t forget
to shower; because, no offense, but you smell like a wet dog.” I was about to leave the room
when she carefully opened her eyes and whispered: “I’ve missed you Ralph.” And she fell
asleep with a benign smile on her face, the same one that she had given me the last time I saw
her before embarking the plane. My head was full of thoughts when I went to bed that night,
but at the second my head touched the soft pillow I had dreamt to sleep on for a long time, I fell
asleep and woke up clear headed.
I went to school the next day. My mom had prepared breakfast and I was finally wearing clean
clothes. I felt good, I felt at home.
Jennifer Roux ‘14
I saw Jack every day at school, in the hallways, until he got suspended and sent to a private
school. When I would see him, I’d nod, he’d nod, and that was it. No sign telling that we had
been together on an island for about a month, nor that he had tried to kill me.
Eventually, my mom died two years later, of pneumonia. I am now an eighty three year old man
who lived happily the rest of his life. I’ve loved, laughed, cried, bought a cat, traveled in fifteen
different countries, got married, had three children, four grand-children. God, time elapses so
quickly.
I know it’s the end, not just the end of my life, but the end of the story. As a writer, I wrote several books for children, and not one of them included an island, a fire, nor a choir. I never regretted my decision of keeping the excursion a secret. My name is Ralph and I am the last survivor of
the island. Or at least I was.
— Louise Billault ‘17
&
“La Belle Dame Sans Merci”
“The Lady of Shalott”
Contrast Essay
Clara Martin ‘14
The poems “The Lady of Shalott” by Tennyson & “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” by Keats
both tell stories of doomed love. However, the authors’ tone in each of these poems is different.
In “The Lady of Shalott”, the tone is joyful in the beginning and becomes depressing near the
end whereas the tone in “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” is gloomy throughout the whole poem. This
is important because it shows how the story of doomed love can be told in different perspectives.
“The Lady of Shalott” tells the story of a woman trapped in a tower on the Island of Shalott. The Lady of Shalott has a curse cast upon her forbidding her to look outside the window.
Even though there is “A curse on her if she stays to look down to Camelot” (40), she weaves “A
magic web with colors gay” (39). She sees outside using her mirror, is in a happy mood, and
“little care hath she” (39) in the world. To portray the joyful mood, the author uses vivid and
colorful descriptions of the setting and the surroundings. The Lady is “gazing where lilies blow”
(7) and Camelot “overlooks a space of flowers” (16).One afternoon, Sir Lancelot comes riding
down to Camelot. Tennyson uses alliteration with the consonant “b” to emphasize Sir Lancelot’s
power and all his glory. He is a “Bold (77) Red-cross knight (78)” and his armor “burned like one
burning flame together (94), and “the bridle bells rang merely as he rode down to Camelot” (85)
Stricken by his handsomeness, The Lady of Shalott looks out the window and the curse is casted
upon her… she dies. At this point, the tone becomes very depressing and dark: “A stormy east
wind straining” (118) “Heavily low sky raining” (121). Tennyson again uses alliteration in the
form of a long “o” sound showing the mournful tone. “Heard a carol, mournful, holy/ Chanted
loudly, chanted lowly/ till her blood was frozen slowly/ and her eyes were darkened wholly”
(145-148) It is no surprise that the tone of the poem abruptly turns because there is a case of foreshadowing near the beginning. Tennyson speaks about “Only reapers reaping early.” (28) The
reapers foreshadow the upcoming gloom of the poem because they symbolize death.
In “La Belle Dame Sans Merci”, the tone is very heavy and dark from the beginning. Two knights
encounter each other in a forest. One of them is sick, “Alone and palely loitering.” (3) Keats
uses metaphors to describe the knight’s pain. He is “so haggard and so woe-begone” (4) “With
anguish moist and fever dew” (10) on his brow. His skin is pale: “on thy cheeks a fading rose.”
(11) The knight then explains why he is in this state. He had encountered a wicked and beautiful
temptress who enchants him to fall in love with her. This is the only time in the poem Keats uses
cheerful words to describe the woman such as: “Beautiful (14) wild (16) love (19). However, the
meaning is still gloomy because the woman does not truly love the man and is simply making
him fall for her. The quote “She looked at me as she did love” (19) implies that she may be faking
her love. In a cave, the woman lulls the knight to sleep. When he wakes, he is on a cold hillside,
and it is inferred he dies of starvation. To portray the sadness more evidently, the author repeats
depressing phrases several times. “A cold hillside” (37) (45) is written twice to make the point
that the knight is suffering alone lying in the cold. “And no birds sing” is mentioned twice, at the
very beginning and the last line of the poem to describe the setting as quiet and melancholic.
The contrast of the different tones is important because it emphasizes how poems of
doomed love can be written in different ways. The tone develops from joyful to gloomy in one,
while the sorrowful tone stays the same throughout the other. In both cases, the ending is still the
same, with both primary characters passing away.
&
—Paul Hadchiti ‘18
La Bataille
Gontrans de Saint-André, un seigneur ami et allié de Guilhem Arnal rend une visite au château quelques
jours après la guerre. Lors du dîner, Guilhem fait le récit à son ami de la bataille : « Lorsque le tocsin
sonna, nous regardâmes tous au-delà des remparts. Une armée venait de l’horizon… » Écrivez la suite
de ce récit en faisant un usage correct de tous les temps que vous avez appris à utiliser, à savoir : présent,
futur, imparfait, passé simple, passé composé, plus-que-parfait. Votre récit devra être de la page d’une page
et demi.
« Lorsque le tocsin sonna, nous regardâmes tous au-delà des remparts. Une armée venait de
l’horizon. Nous nous levâmes et nous nous mîmes à scruter les assaillants. Nous les vîmes en
quelques secondes. Je dis à mes hommes : « Vite ! Préparez les flèches des archers ! Les cinq, là,
allez aider les serfs à rentrer dans les châteaux ! Il va falloir se préparer ! Vite ! » Les serfs rentraient, petit à petit. Pendant que cela se passait, nous nous préparâmes pour la bataille : les ar-
chers prirent leurs carquois et les chevaliers dirent à leurs écuyers de les habiller, de leur donner
leurs épées, leurs heaumes, leurs hauberts, leurs boucliers. Les écuyers préparèrent le matériel, et
je dis à mon vassal de rassembler son armée. Je pris mon arc, déposai ma lance dans un endroit
où je pourrai retourner la chercher, et je m’élançai. Les assaillants étaient partout : ils faisaient le
siège. C’était la pagaille totale. Mais cette bataille était semblable à toutes les autres. Les archers,
un pied contre la muraille, la pointe de leur flèche engagée dans la meurtrière, bandèrent leur
arc. C’était vraiment la lutte organisée. Ils virent beaucoup de flèches dans l’armée ennemie. Ils
tuèrent de nombreux guerriers. Les chevaliers attendaient, en même temps, près du pont-levis
pour défendre le château si l’ennemi rentrait dedans. Je joignis les archers. Tout à coup, je vis,
au fond de l’armée ennemie, le seigneur maudit : Timenant de Champagne. Je compris aussitôt
que celui-ci avait envoyé son armée nous combattre et que le taux de blessés et de morts allait
être élevé : Timenant avait la meilleure armée de France. Perdu dans mes pensées, je n’avais pas
remarqué qu’une fumée épaisse venait de l’est. Un des villages des paysans fut enflammé. C’est
à ce moment que la bataille éclata. Les jeunes paysans prirent de grosses pierres et les lancèrent
sur les hommes en dessous. Leur assaut s’arrêta en un hurlement de souffrance. Les hommes de
Timenant montèrent les échelles qu’ils avaient mises sur les remparts. Nous les repoussâmes. Les
hommes tombèrent et leur bras s’arrachèrent. Les cavaliers essayèrent de détruire le pont-levis et
de croiser les douves en même temps. Ils réussirent. Cette bataille s’aggravait. Je dis à quelques
hommes de rester sur le chemin de ronde, et les autres vinrent avec moi. Nous renforçâmes les
chevaliers. Nous capturâmes leurs chevaux et mon écuyer les mirent dans mes étables. Tout à
coup, Timenant vint de derrière ses rangs. Il se dirigea vers moi. Il me dit : « Nous ferons un
duel. Celui qui gagnera gardera le château en sa possession. Ce sera un combat jusqu’à la mort.
» Je ne savais pas quoi dire. Mes capacités avec une épée étaient limitées, mais je priai à Dieu et
le combat commença. Timenant était très bon. Il me força jusqu’au sol en peu de temps. Je sentis
une houle d’énergie dans mon corps. Je me retournai, je me levai, et j’enfonçai mon épée dans
son bras droit. Il ne pouvait plus tenir son épée correctement, et celle-ci tomba par terre. Je la récupérai et la lançai dans la douve. Je me plaçai au dessus de lui pour qu’il ne puisse bouger et je
plongeai mon épée dans son cœur. Il mourait lentement. Ses derniers mots furent : « J’aurais dû
gagner. » Et il ferma les yeux pour toujours. En sachant qu’ils avaient perdu, les soldats ennemis
abandonnèrent le château en prenant le corps de leur seigneur. Cette bataille fut terrible : les
douves regorgeaient de cadavres et de débris. Des chevaux erraient dans la campagne. Certains
traînaient leur cavalier, blessé ou mort, dont le pied était resté pris dans l’étrier. Des êtres souffraient sur l’herbe tachée de sang, d’autres mourraient. Beaucoup de combattants avaient péri
mais la guerre avait été fructueuse. Je retirai mon heaume, tombai sur mes genoux, et remerciai
Dieu pour cette victoire.
— Alexa Jacob ‘18
EXC
ineribuS
A soldier stands alone in a field of ash.
Just a few moments ago it seems, he had been standing in a city. But then fire rained down
from the sky, and a black pillar of smoke extinguished the sun.
And now he is alone, fate’s little prank, looking towards the future at an empty world.
You walk past him. Weak as you are, you want to help him, nurture him, tell him his future is bright, however dark it may seem to him now. It is in your nature to want to mend things
after all. But you cannot. You must continue. There’s nothing that can save him now anyway.
Go on, stroll through the ashes, as if there was still a sidewalk under you. Pretend that
skyscrapers still loom high above, instead of these crumbling vestiges. Pretend there are still
people walking next to you. Pretend they still have something to live for.
Remember 1969? Can’t you recall the people then, so optimistic, so proud of their little
miracle, so aware of mankind’s superiority? The people here are mere fools compared to the
people four decades from now. Science is from now till forever a competition, a game that must
be developed ever faster as the years go by. If you do see that aura of enthusiastic ingenuity,
shoot it down. “Progress” is what got us into this mess in the first place.
Just keep walking, even if they sting you. The memories I mean. Whatever you do, don’t
look back at that boy you left behind. You have a job to do.
It’s getting very bright isn’t it? You must have entered the 1950s (a time when it was foolishly easy to be blinded by sanguinity). Let me warn you, this was a particularly contemptible
decade. Do you feel that humid cloud of insincerity that enveloped you just now? It came from
that faction of men over there. To most, they are powerful and esteemed leaders of the world.
All I see are petty generators of hypocrisy. They may feign consternation at horrors past, they
may negotiate and confer, settle and collaborate, they may barter promises of peace. But don’t
be fooled. All lies! All duplicities! How can they, in all fairness fake amity when under the table
they mass produce their destructive play things like grain and engage in war a century later?
You’ve only been walking for a few minutes when the earth starts to tremor beneath you.
Up ahead, a snaking wound in the ground shakes and shudders. Black pain and terror seep
through, despite the shoddy seams that keep the edges sealed together. It shouldn’t be too hard
for you to cut through them. 1939 wasn’t that long ago after all.
X
Here, use these scissors. I borrowed them from these three friends of mine.
Don’t bother returning them, they won’t need them anymore.
You bend down, fateful tool in hand. The blistering
heat is almost too much for you to bear.
You’re afraid.
You shouldn’t be. We’re doing this for your own good, History.
*Snip*
*Snip*
X
*Snip*
And all hell breaks loose.
Before your very eyes the ground heaves and shudders, spewing the poisonous infection it had
kept locked inside itself for ages. Waves and waves of molten, seething brutality swell and bear
down upon you.
You can no longer see, but you can feel. You can feel everything. The cries of death fill
the air as the militias, the bomber planes, the masked beings, the guns and bombs, the repulsive
emblems, the fear and the mortal cruelty; all rise and collide in an apocalyptic surge, that rages
through the past and future, destroying everything in its wake.
For days, years it seems you huddle there crying, begging for sweet death to end your torment. But it doesn’t end and you do not die. It is not yet time.
Finally, the storm subsides. Hesitantly you stand, to find yourself once again in the desolate expanse of war’s destruction, only one of the molten rock this time and not of ash.
Despairingly you sink to your knees.
But there isn’t time for that!
It’s starting. Only a few feet from your hand, a small sprout of intellect pokes through the
still sizzling rock. Quick! Uproot it before it blooms! It is imperative for you to be alert now, for
this is your hardest trial yet. Well go on now, move it! Get to work! A puff of skill just blew past
and you missed it! You know what you have to do. Go: stab invention, murder art, drown consciousness, strangle poetry, silence music, on and on and on. You must continue, you must not
stop. Annihilate as if your very soul depended on it.
Somehow, by no means of probability, some dusty manuscripts and a few familiar paintings survived the wreckage. A mournful tune plays in the distance. You sigh. The strokes of
genius are always the most resilient.
Take a moment to contemplate these masterpieces. You’ll notice that after everything
you’ve gone through recently, you’ve become much less sentimental.
The paper burns nicely, as does the paint. Unfortunately, the crackling and spitting of the flames
does very little to quiet the dying souls of Shakespeare, Picasso and all the others you robbed of
immortality. It feels good though doesn’t it? You’re almost purified.
You must be tired now. Just lie down a bit. Forget today’s destruction. Cleanse your mind of
memories and remorse. Let the peace ebb to the thresholds of your mind, let it break and swell,
washing over the landscape, over the graves, and carrying it all away.
You’re fading fast, I wish you good luck.
The soldier falls.
And High above an idea is formed:
“And what would life be, if in this world existed a Humanity?” thought the Creator from Paradise.
— Maddie King ‘14
MOVIE
TRAILERS
“The Lottery”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGHTWlN4j3U
In our movie trailer based on the short story “The Lottery”, we used
many literary features. The concepts we used are imagery, setting, symbolism, foreshadowing, mood, and plot. Each of these literary features is very
important to the audience’s understanding of the trailer and, by extension,
the story.
We used many literary features in the creation and filming of the
black box. Imagery is used to make sure the black box is exactly as described
in the text: a box that is taken out of its “hiding place” every year for the
lottery and is old and worn. The box is also a symbol of blindly following
tradition. People in the town continue to observe the tradition of the lottery
even when they know that it is not right or kind to kill someone every year.
Setting is another literary feature that we felt we needed to emphasize
in our trailer. In this work, setting is very important. The streets are deserted
because everyone is at the ceremony and it is very quiet. It is very important
to show the contrast between the “normality” of the people and the village
and the strange tradition. Foreshadowing is also a prevalent literary feature
in “The Lottery”. It is used to predict that the lottery is a negative thing and
that the winner will die. Some of the clips in our trailer, such as the blood
and the pile of rocks, suggest this fact the same way that hints in the written story do. Furthermore, mood is the literary feature that represents the
atmosphere and feelings of a work. In “The Lottery”, the mood is dark and
ominous. The background music helps to suggest this as well as the worried
expressions on some of the characters’ faces. Yet another literary feature in
the story is plot. In “The Lottery”, the plot is very important because it is
crucial that every action is understood in our trailer. Altogether, these literary features combine to make the trailer interesting and entertaining.
—Alexa Jacob ‘18 and Justine Williams ‘18
The Ruby in the Smoke
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKQfYR-jW34
When we did the trailer, we wanted to focus on two main literary features: characterization and setting. The book The Ruby in the Smoke by Philip Pullman takes place in
Victorian London, which is described as narrow, dark, filthy, and with crowded streets.
At the beginning of the trailer, Sally is entering a mansion-like place. We tried to represent the moment in the book where “she stood up, looking at the building for a moment
and then she climbed three steps and entered” (p. 3). When Sally is given the book by
Major Marchbanks, she reads it on the train; we thought it was important to shoot that
scene in a real train because it is more persuasive and realistic. When Mrs. Holland is
chasing Sally, we shot that scene in the forest because in the book she is chasing Sally in a
deserted place where no one is around.
During the whole trailer we used costumes to preserve the characterization of
the characters in the book. Each character has a different style and attitude; for example,
Mrs. Holland is a chic, “old woman” (p. 213), so in the trailer, she wears an old dress and
shawl. On the other hand, Sally is presented as “uncommonly pretty” (p. 6) for her time
period. Frederick Garland is a photographer, so we represented him wearing a shirt and
with a camera.
—Astrid Filipov ‘18 and Julie Bernard ‘18
Alice Amarnath ‘17
Teacher’s Work
The Shishmaref Cannonball
The room filled with a fine, white powder when the band-saw cut into the blunt end of the
walrus tusk. Leda Teyoutina, an expert ivory carver from Uelen, a village on the Russian side
of the Bering Strait, had come to Shishmaref, Alaska, as part of a three-week cultural exchange.
Throughout Siberia, and even in Moscow’s museums, she is known for her delicate carvings of
seals, whales, reindeer, polar bears, and walruses, often intermingled in Northern fantasy.
For the Inupiat people—one of the Inuit nations spanning Northern Alaska, Canada, and
Greenland—ivory carving falls within the male tradition, and Leda’s arrival had raised a few
eyebrows. Not surprisingly, Shishmaref’s best carvers leaned a little closer as she set the tusk
on the table and began hacking away at the outer surface with an adz. Ivory chips skittered to
the floor, and I noticed Bill Barr lift his eyebrows across the table. His work is well respected in
Nome where native artwork is sold along Front Street.
As a radio journalist, I had flown up to cover the story for Nome’s KNOM and the Alaska
Public Radio Network. I was sorting my equipment when I heard a soft-spoken man say, “I like
your bracelet,” as his weathered finger inspected the beads around my wrist. When I looked
up, there stood another great ivory carver, a man I knew only through photographs and stories. I thought of him then, as I always do now, as Herbie Nayokpuk, The Shishmaref Cannonball.
The village of Shishmaref sits on an island in the Chukchi Sea that separates Northwestern
Alaska and the Siberian Coast. It is three miles from mainland Alaska and just below the Arctic
Circle. In Shishmaref, all but a few of the five hundred residents are Inupiat Eskimos—a people
wedged between a subsistence way of life and the 21st Century. The incongruities are startling:
whale hunters listen to rap music waiting for the silent bowhead to surface; students walk to
school wearing the latest from Nike and handmade sealskin hats; the school gym is home to both
basketball and Native dances set to the beat of a walrus skin drum.
In Shishmaref, there are no trees, roads, bars, billboards, cars, elevators, restaurants, or
dry-cleaners. They hunt their own food (grow is not an option), make their own winter clothes,
and still speak their own language. Recently, however, the Inupiat way of life, unchanged for
four thousand years until the 19th Century, has struggled with the onslaught of Western culture
and its accoutrements: drugs, alcohol, disease, television and climate change.
As Leda’s ivory carving presentation was coming to a close, Herbie and I chatted a bit.
Herbie had earned his fame as a talented musher along the Iditarod Trail. The Iditarod Sled Dog
Race is a thousand-mile, endurance event across the Alaskan wilderness, from balmy Anchorage to windswept Nome. Herbie had finished in the top-ten eight of the eleven times he ran
it. (Once, at the age of 53, he came in fourth—less than six months after open-heart surgery.)
Because of my work as a journalist in Nome, we knew some of the same people involved in the
race, and we made small talk while looking at the ivory carving. Finally, Herbie nudged my arm
Teacher’s Work
and said, “I live in the blue house next to the church” and silently departed. Later that night, I
pondered his last words as I tried to drift off to sleep in the Shishmaref School: Was he inviting
me to visit? If so, when? Should I just show up?
Like many villages in rural Alaska, Shishmaref allows certain visitors to sleep in classrooms because no other accommodations are available. It is, however, always risky because
what time students will arrive in the morning is often a mystery. Once, in Savoonga, on St.
Lawrence Island, I woke up in a classroom surrounded by a dozen Siberian Yupik third graders. Clustered around my sleeping bag, they kept asking, “Who are you?” Wisely, I had slept in
more than underwear.
Walking towards the sea-ice the next morning, I saw Herbie near the tiny post office.
Despite a thirty below wind-chill, he wasn’t wearing a hat. I stopped to say hello, and he asked,
“Why didn’t you come visit me last night?” I should have realized that his parting shot, “I
live in the blue house next to the church,” was an immediate and graceful invitation, but I had
missed his subtlety. At that instant, I felt like
an outsider, one incapable of understanding the nuances of his culture. Nonetheless,
Herbie invited me over for coffee and, as we
walked slowly, he told me, “I’m getting better, you know.” A stroke had weakened a
strong, proud man. His home was simple: a cluttered
counter divided the living room from the
kitchen, a multitude of trophies filled the
shelves, large photographs hung on the walls,
a game show lit the TV screen. Sitting on the
couch, I could see how his stroke had affected
him. When he yawned, his weaker left arm
twitched outstretched; his left cheek drooped
slightly. During my second cup of coffee, I
asked about a large black-and-white photo of
two young men wearing handsome sealskin
parkas. It was Herbie and his older brother
Walter in a time before the snowmachine
replaced the dog team. In fact, in the 1930s,
when the snowmachine (what Alaskans call a
snowmobile) first arrived in Shishmaref, the
Inupiat called it the iron-dog.
When Herbie was young, people still
used dog teams for hunting seals and polar bears. He told me how a good dog team would track
down a polar bear and circle it until the hunter could shoot it. The meat then fed his family and
dog team, and the fur became warm pants and parkas. When Herbie was young, his father died,
and he and Walter spent long days trying to provide food for the family. In fact, during one
spring hunt, more than fifty years ago, Herbie and Walter were far out on the ice hunting seals
when a strong, sudden wind came from the east. In the storm, the ice began to break apart. The
two, young brothers tried to drive their dogs across the ice, but they had been too late. On a
large floe, Herbie, Walter, and the dogs went out to sea. For five days and nights, they drifted on
the Chukchi Sea as wind and waves eroded their ice-island. Their only water came from small,
fresh-water puddles; their only food from the weakest dog. Eventually, the wind shifted back
to the northwest, but by the time Herbie had safely returned to the shore-fast ice, he had become
numb to fear. Looking at the photograph and all of his Iditarod trophies, I sensed it was true: During his
long and successful sled dog racing career, Herbie knew nothing could match the danger of five
days adrift on the Chukchi Sea. In spite of his small kennel and budget, Herbie had successfully
competed against mushers with hundreds of dogs and wealthy corporate sponsors. On the trail,
he was famous for guiding his team of dogs through bad storms, leading them out on snowshoes
when no one else would. In his later years, his artwork, spirit, and wisdom earned him respect
throughout Alaska, but in his racing days, it was his speed, determination, and fearlessness that
earned him his nickname—The Shishmaref Cannonball. Breaking my silent reverie, Herbie noted, “Not many dogs in Shishmaref today. Everybody watches TV, Madonna, but nobody runs dogs.” I had to laugh, but, of course, he was right.
TV, particularly cable, had brought modern society to parts of rural Alaska where just a few
generations ago, villagers practiced a subsistence way of life pre-dating the rise and fall of the
Roman Empire.
Yes, Herbie was right: For many Inupiat people, dog teams are, unfortunately, a thing of
the past. Snowmachines allow a hunter to travel faster, lighter, and farther, although, as Herbie
shrewdly observed, “You can’t eat a snowmachine.” Today, most dog teams belong to non-native people living near Anchorage or Fairbanks, cities with well over half the state’s population.
Along the coast, the stronghold of the Inupiat people, you can count the competitive dog teams
on one hand.
I was putting on my coat when, on the scanner, we heard the pilot announce he’d be landing in about fifteen minutes. I said goodbye to Herbie and, as I shook his good hand, I realized
the dignity of the man before me. Out in the wind, I began my short walk to the landing strip,
and I thought of his subtle hospitality and acceptance of me, a member of the invading culture.
In his warmth, humility and strength, in his close ties with the land and sea, Herbie symbolized
the grace of the Inupiat people for me.
As the small Cessna struggled upwards in a heavy crosswind, heading south towards
Nome, I looked down at Shishmaref as it became smaller—an island in an ever growing expanse
of frozen sea. As we climbed higher, I reached into my pocket and found a small chip of ivory
from Leda’s presentation. Smiling, I turned it over and rubbed my palm on the fogging window.
I thought of my visit that morning and looked out, past the grinding sea-ice, back to the time
when Herbie was young.
—Mr. Jim Lawhon
Éloge paradoxal de
la laideur
Contrairement à ce que les plus beaux peuvent penser - s’ils avaient aussi la richesse de
penser- loin d’être un défaut, la laideur est un cadeau de la nature qu’il faut savoir apprécier. En
effet, on ne sera pas jaloux de votre beauté, et vous vous passerez de toute cette rivalité que notre
société connaît. Vous serez plutôt l’ami de tous, on vous appréciera pour votre personnalité et
non pour votre physique, cela ne fera aucun doute. Votre entourage cherchera en vous d’autres
qualités à exploiter, et vous serez ainsi davantage mis en avant. Rassurez-vous, la laideur facilite
les rencontres. Vous aurez plus de chance de trouver une personne aussi laide que vous, plus
que les belles personnes qui elles, s’entretuent pour faire ainsi partie de l’élite. La laideur est
si précieuse. Il est nettement plus facile d’être laid que presque beau. Vous au moins, vous ne
perdrez pas votre temps à essayer d’égaler les beaux. Vous êtes laid, rien n’y changera. Du point
de vue de votre profession, on vous embauchera plus facilement car votre physique ne sera pas
susceptible de déconcentrer les autres employés. Ne sous-estimez pas votre laideur, car elle peut
être une source d’inspiration. Et s’il vous arrivait un jour de l’assumer, prenez garde, elle pourrait vous mener très loin.
—Mélisande Bal ‘14
Romane Mizeret ‘14
Amor semper
Amor
Passer mortuus est meae puellae,
Passer, deliciae meae puellae,
Quem plus illa oculis suis amabat.
Nam mellitus erat suamque norat
Ipsam tam bene quam puella matrem,
Nec sese a gremio illius movebat,
Sed circumsiliens modo huc modo illuc
Ad solam dominam usque pipiabat.
Quis nunc it per iter tenebricosum illuc,
Unde negant redire quemquam.
At vobis male sit, malae tenebrae
Orci, quae omnia bella devoratis:
Tam bellum mihi passerem abstulistis.
O factum male! ô miselle passer!
Tua nunc opera meae puellae
Flendo turgiduli rubent ocelli.
Catullus
Lesbiae
passer
Le moineau
de Lesbie
Le moineau de ma mie est mort,
Le moineau, délices de ma douce amie,
Qu’elle aimait plus que la prunelle de ses yeux.
Il était doux comme le miel et connaissait sa maîtresse
Comme une fille sa mère.
Il ne quittait pas son giron,
Mais sautillait tantôt par-ici, tantôt par-là,
Et sans cesse pépiait pour sa maîtresse seule.
Et maintenant il s’en va par un chemin ténébreux
Là d’où personne, dit-on, ne revient.
Mais soyez maudites, méchantes ténèbres d’Orcus,
Vous qui dévorez tout ce qui est joli :
Vous m’avez enlevé un si joli moineau!
O malheur! ô pauvre petit moineau! C’est pour toi que maintenant
Les beaux yeux de ma mie sont gonflés et tout rouges de larmes.
Traduction de la classe de latin de 2de
2
VERSIONS
Ad
Lesbiam
Vivamus mea Lesbia, atque amemus,
Rumoresque senum severiorum
Omnes unius aestimemus assis !
Soles occidere et redire possunt ;
Nobis cum semel occidit brevis lux,
Nox est perpetua una dormienda.
Da mi basia mille, deinde centum,
Dein mille altera, dein secunda centum,
Dein usque altera mille, deinde centum.
Dein, cum milia multa fecerimus,
Conturbabimus illa, ne sciamus,
Aut ne quis malus invidere possit,
Cum tantum sciat esse basiorum.
Catullus
2
Vivons, ma Lesbie et aimons-nous,
Et que des vieillards moroses les murmures
Aient pour nous la valeur d’un seul as !
Les feux du soleil peuvent mourir et renaître ;
Mais quand s’éteint la brève lumière de notre vie,
Il nous faut dormir une nuit éternelle.
Donne-moi mille baisers, puis cent,
Puis mille autres, et puis de nouveau cent,
Puis encore mille et puis cent.
Et puis, quand nous en aurons fait beaucoup de milliers,
Nous brouillerons le compte afin de ne plus le savoir
Et qu’un méchant ne puisse nous envier
En apprenant qu’il s’est donné tant de baisers..
Traduction de la classe de latin de 2de
A Lesbie
O beaux yeux bruns, ô regards détournés
O chaud soupir, ô larmes épandues,
O noires nuits vainement attendues
O jours luisants vainement retournés !
O tristes plaints, ô désirs obstinés,
O temps perdu, ô peines dépendues,
O mille morts en mille rets tendus,
O pires maux contre moi destinés !
O ris, ô front, cheveux, bras, mains et doigts !
O luth plaintif, viole, archet et voix !
Tant de flambeaux pour ardre une femelle !
De toi me plains, que tant de feux portants,
En tant d’endroits d’iceux mon cœur tâtant,
N’en est sur toi volé quelque étincelle.
O beaux
yeux bruns,
ô regards
détournés
Louise Labé
2
O pulchros
fulcosque
oculos,
ô aversos
aspectus
O pulchros fulcosque oculos, ô aversos aspectus
O calida suspiria, ô diffusas lacrimas,
O nigras noctes frustra expectatas
O lucidos dies frustra inversos!
O tristes questus, ô desideria pertinacia,
O perdita tempora, ô manatos dolores,
O mille mortes in mille retibus tensis,
O pessima mala in me destinata !
O risum, ô frontem, capillos, brachia, manus, dígitosque!
O queribundam citharam, lyram, plectrum vocemque!
Tot taedas ad feminam ardendam!
De te queror ut, tantas flammas me ferente,
Hi ignes in tot locis cor meum tangentes,
In te scintilla quaedam volaverit.
Traduction de la classe de latin de 2de
THEMES
2
Sur ma remington portative
J’ai écrit ton nom Laetitia
Elaeudanla Teïtéïa
Laetitia les jours qui se suivent
Hélas ne se ressemblent pas
Elaeudanla Teïtéïa
C’est ma douleur que je cultive
En frappant ces huit lettres-là
Elaeudanla Teïtéïa
C’est une fleur bien maladive
Je la touche du bout des doigts
Elaeudanla Teïtéïa
S’il faut aller à la dérive
Je veux bien y aller pour toi
Elaeudanla Teïtéïa
Ma raison en définitive
Se perd dans ces huit lettres-là
Elaeudanla Teïtéïa
Sur ma remington portative
J’ai écrit ton nom Laetitia
Elaeudanla Teïtéïa
Serge Gainsbourg
Laetitia
Laetitia
In meis levibus pugillaribus
Tuum praenomen Laetitiam scripsi
Elaeudanla Teïteïa
Laetitia, dies qui sese sequuntur
Eheu ! non similes sunt
Elaeudanla Teïteïa
Ego dolorem meum colo
Illis octo litteris scribendis
Elaeudanla Teïteïa
Hic flos ipse morbosissimus est
Eum digitorum extremum tango
Elaeudanla Teïteïa
Si deflectendum mihi est
Pro te id facere volo
Elaeudanla Teïteïa
Ratio mea ad summum
In illis octo litteris se ipsam perdit
Elaeudanla Teïteïa
In meis levibus pugillaribus
Tuum praenomen Laetitiam scripsi
Elaeudanla Teïteïa
Traduction de la classe de latin de 2de
LAETITIA
My adventure with the Palefaces
It’s me, Red Chief, the terror of the east, leader of Indians.
Today, I captured two palefaces. They put up quite a fight, but
I knocked one of them out with a brick. Snake-Eye was a clever
scout of the palefaces and he was trying to sneak up on me, but I
caught him. Old Hank, the one I hit with a brick, was still badly
hurt from the fight. We ate some gravy and bacon and it was
darn good. Also, we had quite a good chat. I said “I like this fine.
I never camped out before; but I had a pet ‘possum once, and I
was nine last birthday.” The palefaces seemed stunned. Then,
Snake-Eye asked if I’d like to go home, and I thought ‘Who
would want to go home when you’re in a cave having fun?’ Of
course I said I don’t. It wasn’t a peaceful night; we slept in my
secret hideout. In the middle of the night I scared Old Hank
to death by sitting on him and trying to scalp him. It wasn’t a
peaceful night; Snake-Eye didn’t sleep at all because he was to
be burned at the stake at sunrise. I was having the time of my
life. Then Snake-Eye went to the village; I think he was scouting
the area. While he was away, Hank and I played. Hank was my
horse while I was a cowboy. In the end, Old Hank tried getting
rid of me and boy, he failed. First, he brought me to the road to
my town, Summit, and told me to go home. Then, he kicked me
about eight feet nearer to my home. Quickly, he ran to SnakeEye. Meanwhile, I got up and followed Old Hank. The palefaces
were talking about returning something and mooney (I never
was good at spelling). Suddenly, I revealed myself and scared
Old Hank to death, again. That night, they brought me to my
father. They quickly paid him about two hundred dollars and
gave me to my father. They ran all the way to Canada or Alaska;
I never was gifted in geography. I hate myself for allowing the
palefaces to escape and for this adventure to be over. And now
to boring, girl-filled school…
—Anatoly Grablevsky ‘19
O. Henry’s “The Ransom of Red Chief”
Change in Point of View
L’engagement
Ils sont venus jour par jour
Avec leurs armes menaçantes
Et ont capturé des personnes innocentes
Qu’ils ont exterminées sans pitié
Ils ont brûle et torturé des gens
Qu’ils n’ont jamais connus auparavant.
Ils ont détruit toutes les maisons
Sans avoir une bonne raison.
Ils sont partis de la ville rasée
Sans avoir de bonté
et ont laissé les corps des morts
Se décomposer à tort
Pour toutes les personnes exterminées,
Je demande justice
Pour tous les gens brûlés et torturés,
Je demande justice
Pour tous les enfants effrayés,
Je demande justice
Pour toutes les mères qui ont souffert,
Je demande justice
—Nicolas Draghi ‘16
Emanuelle Rizk ‘14
Homeric
Similes
Hours upon hours of pounding, constant, deafening sounds. A light flashes. The roar grows
louder; it never stops. The light flashes a second time. A power chord falls inches from your car.
A third flash. You can hear the distant rumble of the wind blowing tree branches in opposite
directions. The house creeks, as it adjusts to the never-ending flow of noise. There goes another
burst of light, blinding, and powerful. The rain claps against your windowpane, as you lie still,
in fear that it will soon enter the comfort of your room. You feel helpless and powerless, as if the
world is going to end, until it happens: the final glare of the newly lit sky makes an appearance,
for just a moment. A moment frozen in time, it seems. A moment, so intense, that it will forever
be etched in your mind. Then, silence. No one moves. Everything is calm. The sky clears away,
and you look outside: nothing. Phone lines are piled in a jumbled heap on your front lawn,
blocking the entrance. You have nowhere to go, and nothing you can do about it. There is no
escaping the storm once it hits. The aftermath has just begun.
The ants can feel the big machine, looming over their precious –
yet insignificant – world.
The everlasting buzzing grows louder and louder, like the cries of birds about to attack one another.
Distress haunts the anthill, and the industrial hum of the contraption is omnipresent,
just as the recurring thought of death in their already crowded heads.
A shadow covers the whole ant colony, like a wave.
It blocks the sunlight from reaching the ants, and casts their universe into a dark state.
Under a spell, they await their fate.
Suddenly, without warning, they are swept off the ground, whirling in the air like they’re being sucked
into a rattling tornado.
The device has finally hit, pouncing on them like it would treat its prey.
What once was their home is now a mere desert.
It proceeds by sucking the life out of them, until they no longer exist among the remains.
Nothing is left behind: instead, a blank, barren, desolate land surges, washed out,
along with their and their neighbor’s lives.
“Death” is a strong word. But so is “extermination.”
—Allegra Brochin ‘15
Margaux Blanchard ‘13
No Man’s Land
Everything is quiet and calm before the storm. They wait at their ladders, hoping it is only a drill.
But no, they are giving out the ammunition. Each soldier looks into his friend’s eyes and sees
fear. Then, as the sergeant brings the whistle to his lips, that look changes for some into a look of
determination: the determination to survive. “Tweet”. Suddenly this dead battlefield becomes
alive with gunfire. Machine guns and other weapons of destruction roar to life. Instantly soldiers
begin dropping, succumbing to the hail of bullets coming at them. The rest charge into the fray,
looking for some kind of shelter. Every second, men die. Those who are still alive know that their
only chance of survival lies in reaching the opposite trench and then fighting for their lives. They
try to move, but the muddy wasteland seems to engulf them, to suck them in. Men watch as their
friends, their brothers in arms, die around them. Some stop to try to comfort the wounded but
most do not even look back. They do not feel compassion for their fellow soldiers; there will be
time for that after. War has destroyed all thought of sympathy or care. Now a moment’s reflection means death. Finally some men make it to the other side, and must now simply survive and
wait for the next charge.
Slowly, the vast herds of wildebeest line up at the edge of the water.
The water is still, its surface unbroken except by a few stray bubbles.
Tension is soaring among the animals as they get more nervous by the minute.
Across the river lie lush green lands and pastures, a haven during the wet season where
none go hungry.
Suddenly, a young and inexperienced buck jumps in;
The water becomes alive, giant mouths full of teeth begin tearing at the young and foolish
animal.
The rest of the wildebeest follow, their safety lying in their numbers.
Everywhere, members of the herd are dragged under water, succumbing to the sheer
power of the crocodiles.
None look back; it is a life or death charge to the other side.
—Cedric Nakashima ‘15
The sun was beating down on the sizzling white sand, making it nearly impossible to remain
barefoot. A burning, almost unbearable sunny day had just begun, and many families had all
piled into their minivans first thing in the morning and headed to the over-crowded local beach.
Children, clad in bathing suits, swimming shorts and all but bathed in sunscreen hopped from
toe to toe, making their way to the clear, blue water. They splashed each other in glee and without a care in the world, the smiles etched so wide on their features that their cheeks were sure to
hurt. The children bounced a ball from person to person, going around in a never-ending circle
of joy. Their parents, who had taken this rare alone time as a moment to relax, set up their umbrellas and put on their sunglasses, letting their eyes slip shut for the time being. Others meanwhile, chose to lie down on their towels in the scorching sand and bask in the glory of this jovial
first day of summer.
The rain forest was like a firework of green,
Different shades of the colour covering just about every surface,
As the wildlife roamed free and careless,
Breathing in the damp, blissfully humid air.
A light, content hum could be heard
From the bees that were circling the same flowers
Over and over again.
Apes swung from tree to tree in large numbers,
Seeming almost graceful in their swiftness,
While down below the insects traveled side by side
Between the tiny crevices that covered the moist earth,
Like small soldiers obeying the command of their leader.
All of these creatures, whether big or small
Were taking advantage of their peaceful day
In the soothing atmosphere of the tropical forest.
—Jurnivah Désir ‘15
Camille Nakashima ‘13
Margaux Goudal ‘17
The Great Flood
The crowd waits silently in the cold and dark in front of the enormous closed doors. As the seconds tick away, despite the apparent calm, an undercurrent of barely contained tension becomes
palpable. The thousands of people shift restlessly while mist from thousand of mouths fogs up
the chill night, as they can barely contain their pent up energy; it is obvious something important
will soon occur, yet, still not a sound is heard among the teeming throng. Finally, as the clock’s
needles slowly complete their final revolution, excitement ripples through the crowd as a collective breath is taken and the thousands brace for what will come. Agonizingly, painfully slowly,
the longer hand leisurely approaches the apex of the disk. As the space between the hands decreases, the tension increases to unbearable levels, yet still the mass of humanity stays eerily silent, watching, waiting. At last, the two needles overlap, and the doors are thrown open. At that
signal, innumerable people immediately stampede into the store, not wanting to be left behind.
No attention is paid to the poor souls who get caught up in the human flood as it rushes into
the now undammed doorway. Nothing can stop it, not the greeters or the guards, not the ropes,
not the stacks of goods placed near the entrance. Nothing can slow the onslaught of people as it
enters the building. Finally, after hours of frantic activity, the human tide finally ebbs, leaving
only empty wrappings, possessions discarded in the rush, the odd article of clothing and the few
disoriented stragglers remaining who are rapidly shown the door, leaving the now empty building but a hollow shell, only containing discarded debris.
The brilliant blue lake is calm, yet the earth still holds its breath.
It seems like just another normal day, nothing strange,
While the seemingly steadfast dam holds back the clear water.
Yet, secretly cracked, it cannot withstand the pressure.
Without warning, it ruptures, releasing a wild torrent.
And, with a thunderous roar, the river sweeps away all in its path.
Nothing resists: not the plants, not the animals, nothing,
Even the tallest tree is but an insignificant stick
To the tumbling, all-encompassing torrent
As the now muddied waters carry all out to sea.
When they finally recede, all that is left is a wrecked land,
No sign of what stood before, only mud remains.
—David Guyot ‘15
“Traveling
through
the dark”
Traveling through the dark I found a deer
dead on the edge of the Wilson River road.
It is usually best to roll them into the canyon:
that road is narrow; to swerve might make more dead.
By glow of the tail-light I stumbled back of the car
and stood by the heap, a doe, a recent killing;
she had stiffened already, almost cold.
I dragged her off; she was large in the belly.
My fingers touching her side brought me the reason—
her side was warm; her fawn lay there waiting,
alive, still, never to be born.
Beside that mountain road I hesitated.
William Stafford
Close Reading –
Analysis
The car aimed ahead its lowered parking lights;
under the hood purred the steady engine.
I stood in the glare of the warm exhaust turning red;
around our group I could hear the wilderness listen.
I thought hard for us all—my only swerving—,
then pushed her over the edge into the river.
William Stafford’s deceptively simple poem, Travelling through the dark, presents a vivid
scene in which a man finds a dead doe on the road and chooses to throw her into the nearby
canyon in order to keep the road safe. Throughout the narration, Stafford establishes contrasts
between life and death, light and dark, and nature and man, which serve to set up an all the
more vibrant description of the choice the speaker faced.
From the start, an evolution from musings to concrete reasoning takes place. The first
verse has an inverted sentence structure, which serves to place the gerund “traveling” in the first
position, in such a way that the reader can immediately picture the setting in which the poem
is taking place. Thus, the action begins in medias res: we don’t know where the narrator comes
from, where he’s going, or who he is. This is just a moment in time of which we get to catch a
glimpse. In addition, the narrator is traveling through the dark: we can sense that he is splitting
the darkness, in a way. Whereas if Stafford had used in, we would be picturing a solitary man on
his path to god knows where, instead we find here that the narrator is disrupting nature by forging his way through it instead of in it. The way the narrator chooses to travel not through a place
but through the dark is also peculiar: darkness isn’t habitually seen as a tangible thing, especially
not something one travels through; yet here it engulfs everything and takes on a whole new importance.
The musings come to an end along with the line; the word deer is emphasized by its placement
at the end of the first verse, and the action of finding a deer takes on an unusual significance that
is explained by the next line. The word “dead” is bluntly dropped at the beginning of the second
verse. This stuns the reader, who was still in the middle of picturing a deer in his head; the fact
that the dear is dead forces the reader to conjure up a different, less pleasing image. Stafford also
makes a point of using “the edge” to describe the deer’s location; it serves as a sort of foreshadowing of what will happen (because edges are never simply there, they serve a purpose, or else
Stafford would have used the word side). The “edge of the Wilson River Road” locates the scene.
We have gone from the “dark” to a specific road, from musings about traveling through an un-
defined space to an abrupt encounter with reality. The narrator subsequently switches to reasoning and tries to apply general wisdom to his situation (“it is usually best”), which can either
show that he is distancing himself from the event (a supposition which is enforced by the use of
the word “that” to describe that road), or that he is trying to fit human logic into a situation that
involves nature.
This contrast between man and nature blurs at some points in the poem, but overall remains: the narrator’s car serves as a reminder that he is not part of his surroundings, but he’s
part of the group in which someone killed the deer he is now having a dilemma about. The car is
nonetheless personified, as it “purrs”; this somewhat brings it out of its isolation and into contact with nature. The wilderness is also personified while it “listens” to the unusual man-nature
“group” of a man, a doe, and a car. While the narrator is “stumbling” and “standing”, though,
the doe is a “heap” and what once was a vibrant natural being is now a fat pile of nothing. The
reason of her death is described as “a recent killing”, and it seems as though the narrator is basing his accusation of humans harming nature through the example of the killing of a pregnant
doe, ignoring the fact that is was most probably an accident. Again, Stafford places the word killing at the end of the verse in order to emphasize it and its implications.
The doe is “stiffened already, almost cold” and it seems as though the narrating is saying that
because of the fact that the doe hasn’t lost her body warmth yet, the scent of life is still on her,
which brings him even closer to seeing what could have been if a man hadn’t killed her. As a result, something once so alive is now being “dragged off” as a heap (here, the fact that off is used
instead of away presents the idea that the narrator is dragging her off this Earth and). The fawn
is another of humanity’s victims, although he is yet “waiting” for his moment to pop onto Earth.
In addition, the fawn is “alive, still, never to be born” which seems paradoxical: he is unborn yet
alive. But making the unborn fawn another living creature seems logical, since in the narrator’s
eyes he represents a real victim and not an unborn creature that means nothing.
Lastly, the narrator is continually flirting with the frontier between light and dark. The
canyon into which he contemplates throwing the deer before executing the task is nothingness;
it’s the edge of the darkness, and who knows what’s beyond that? Therefore, by throwing the
doe into the canyon, he is banishing her into the limbo between darkness and absolute nothingness. Physical lights also clash with the darkness throughout the poem: there are the car lights
and the “glare of the warm exhaust turning red” that light up the darkness that weighed down
so much on the first verse. The narrator’s choice is also viewed as a choice between light and
dark, although the decision of which choice is which is left for the reader to decide. Thus, the
narrator’s “only swerving” is when he is making the decision whether to push the doe into
the canyon and subsequently kill its fawn, or whether to leave it there and let the fawn die on
its own (which would be a natural death that arises from an unnatural event, the killing of the
fawn’s mother). The reader must pick which way the narrator’s swerving was.
Overall, William Stafford’s Traveling through the dark puts in place a narrator who seemingly takes the load of the crimes of civilization against nature in a single encounter with a dead
deer. To shed light on the separation between man and nature, contrasts between light, dark,
musings and concrete reality are made evident. Thus the reader is faced with the separation between nature and civilization, and sees not only the constant struggle between the two, but also
the way in which civilization has taken away all of nature’s breathing space and is slowly killing
it, just like a driver killed the doe.
—Emanuelle Rizk ‘14
Sprinting to the
Finish Line
Finally my highly anticipated day had come; I was going to participate in the National
Sprinting Championship representing my school, “FASNY.” I had a feeling that all of my hard
work and dedication towards my goal would pay off. After school, I would do my homework
and then go to the local YMCA to train for a couple hours under the guidance of my personal
instructor. He used to be a professional in the Northeastern region. With my coach’s instruction,
I greatly improved my endurance, strength, and mental toughness- all necessary attributes to
succeed at the sport. After my exhausting workout, I’d come home to eat dinner, complete my
homework and finally retire, usually too tired to read in bed.
That morning I woke up feeling a little tired, though powered by motivation. Walking
down the stairs to eat breakfast, I envisioned myself surrounded by my intense looking competitors who appeared to be just as hungry as I was to seize the trophy. I then quickly snapped out
of my bubble when my mom greeted me with a joyful, “Good morning!” After eating a bowl of
cheerios, I put my shorts on and went outside to stretch and jog to prepare for the race.
When the time came, my mom called for me to hop in the car and take me to the grounds
at a university in upstate New York. The drive was rather tedious; the rural environment was
repetitive and my legs tense. We found the exact location of the race by following the line of cars
that led to it.
As I stepped onto the field, I felt a little punch to my gut. Thinking of how critical this race
was to me almost caused me to faint. My hard work would be put to the test. My dad clearly
noticed my anxious behavior and gave me a few words of encouragement words to boost my
confidence. He told me how all the kids were feeling the same way I was feeling. I acknowledged
he was right, took a deep breath and kept only positive thoughts in my head.
My heart was pounding multiple beats a second, hundreds of “what ifs” raced through
my mind. My mom asked me if I still wanted to compete in the race. I decided that I would be
okay. The official of the event gathered all the competitors mainly to talk about the rules, sportsmanship, and having fun. We then found out which race and which lane we would be in. I specialized in the 100m because I can accelerate better than most but my endurance isn’t great. As
we made our way to our positions, we wished each other good luck.
It was finally my group’s turn. I slowly toddled to the starting line, not trying to look
pompous, or attract attention. I relaxed and focused on small details of my technique. I made
sure that the foot blocks were firmly on the track. Resting my knees on the ground, I positioned
my feet on the blocks. I then pulled back my fingers behind the line so as not to be penalized.
I
then remembered to position my hands slightly wider than shoulder width. My shoulders
hunched slightly forward and vertically above the hands. While relaxing my muscles, I breathed
in and out and focused on the ground just a few feet in front of me. I inhaled and gradually lifted
my waist above the shoulder level and made sure my head and core were aligned with my back.
“On your mark!” the official yelled. “Get set!” I raised my front knee making a right angle
and pushed both of my feet into the block, preparing to explode forward. Able to sense the gunshot firing, I eagerly counted down the seconds: “3,2,1…” Then “bam!” I darted forward, driving my arms as never before. Quickly glancing at the others, I noticed I was right in the middle
which gave me a small but important degree of encouragement. Closing in on the finish line,
I could tell I was ahead of the pack. In fact, winning was just a matter of my passing a fellow
sprinter a lane over. I sensed my sparse energy wearing out, so I prayed I would have enough in
the tank to give me the win.
Now, there were only about twenty-five meters left. To think of how much effort it took
to get to that moment and not win would be deflating. Thinking that made me switch to the
next gear. Ten meters left. The guy busting his tail next to me was making the same effort. Four
strides left. The crowd was on its feet; each parent cheering on their son. Everything slowed
down and the rush of excitement, the noise, and the effort mixed to form complete chaos in my
head. Just a few feet remaining… I crossed the finish line, worn out with no clue of what just
happened. As I was gasping for air, it was announced that I had won! What a relief! I was overcome with euphoria. I then quickly glanced over to the bleachers and saw my parents cheering.
All of my hard work had finally paid off. What a finish!
—Alex Sherman ‘17
B.V.R.B.
The Mystery of a
Great Cabinet Maker
B.V.R.B. : For many decades, in both the 19th and 20th centuries, these initials were
found stamped on the carcasses of beautiful French cabinets or commodes of the
Louis XV period. Who was B.V.R.B.? How could his identity remain a mystery for
so many years? He was already regarded as an artistic genius during his lifetime,
creating some of the most beautiful furniture of the 18th century, which were later
sought after by collectors and major museums all over the world?
It was, in fact, not until the early 1960s that the identity of the man behind the
famed B.V.R.B. initials emerged. The initials were traced to a family of Dutch origin who lived in
France. The grandfather, the son, and the grandson all shared the same name; Bernard Van Risen
Burgh. The one who had made the magnificent cabinets was the son, Bernard Van Risenburgh
II. His father, Bernard Van Risenburgh I, was also a famous ébéniste or carpenter who worked
in the heart of the furniture-making industry at the Faubourg Saint-Antoine in Paris. Unlike his
father, Bernard II signed his pieces, using the initials B.V.R.B. After Bernard II’s death, his son,
Bernard III, took over the business but with limited success.
When Bernard II died in 1765, he was nearly penniless and there are several reasons why this
was so. Being a furniture maker was a very difficult job at the time. Not only did one have to
B.V.R.B.
be very skilled and patient when it came to making the furniture, but one also had to be a good
businessman to sell the pieces. The majority of furniture makers had to rely on merchants to sell
their furniture. The merchants had access to the rich customers of the time, like the court of the
king and the noblemen, and therefore made most of the money. They were not eager to reveal
the name of such a talented cabinet maker. Today, it is ironic because nobody remembers who
the merchants were, but the talent of cabinet makers such as B.V.R.B is still recognized. He may
have died poor, but his fame lives on.
Stamping or signing one’s piece was very important and required by the guild of Paris cabinet
makers. Only the trained cabinet makers who had become “masters” after years of apprenticeship could sign their pieces. When my parents
bought a commode made by B.V.R.B., my father
showed me where to find the stamp. At first I
could not locate it, as the stamp is typically small,
discrete and placed either underneath the marble
or behind a back leg. It was faded due to age, but
after a few moments of inspection, I finally saw it.
This is what gave me the opportunity to learn more
about Bernard Van Risenburgh II and appreciate
his work.
I find this commode very interesting and elegant
due to the elaborate marquetry of the leaves and
flowers (for which this artist is famous) on the
front and the sides of the piece. I also admire the
great contrast between the flowers in dark wood,
the lighter background, and the gold colored
bronze framing the wood design. The details of
the bronze pieces are very elaborate. Compared to
other B.V.R.B.’s known commodes, this commode
is relatively small, measuring 39 inches in width and 19 inches in depth. Overall, this commode
has a beautiful and timeless shape, and is remarkable by its undulating lines. In fact, not only the
front but also the sides of the wood body have gentle curves, and even the marble top follows
their design. An intriguing detail is visible on the underside of the commode: two ink marks (one
inventory number and a name), that appear to be 18th century in date and likely refer to a château or a past owner, remain currently unidentified.
It is amazing to think that after two hundred and sixty years, this commode is in such a good
condition, ready to last for many more generations. Now that B.V.R.B.’s identity is no longer a
mystery, he and his art can be better understood and appreciated.
—Maxime Fouilleron ‘17
Mes vacances à
Il y a cinq ans, pendant les vacances de Noël, je suis allé à New York pour visiter la ville et
faire les magasins. Quand je descendis de l’avion, à l’aéroport JFK, je n’en croyais pas mes
yeux. Entre Starbucks, McDonald’s, et Burger King, je me demandais ce que les américains
faisaient à part manger. En me dirigeant vers la sortie, pour prendre un taxi direction Ritz
Carlton NYC, je vis des gens de toutes tailles, de toutes formes, et de styles touts à fait différents. J’ai aussi remarqué qu’il y avait beaucoup de policiers. Il y en a de plus en plus à Paris mais ici c’était encore pire. Je pris un taxi, dormis pendant une demi-heure, puis fus réveillé
par les klaxons de voitures en plein centre de Manhattan. Jamais de ma vie je n’avais entendu
un vacarme pareil. J’étais profondément fatigué par le voyage, et le décalage horaire. Alors,
j’ai demandé au chauffeur de taxi de nationalité indonésienne de m’amener à un endroit où je
pourrais boire un bon café. Il m’a dit qu’il connaissait l’endroit idéal. Deux minutes plus tard,
il me déposa devant un café appelé « Dunkin’ Donuts. » Je l’ai remercié et je l’ai donné deux
billets de vingt dollars américains.
Je suis ensuite entré dans « Dunkin’ Donuts. » J’ai commandé un café sans lait ou sucre, et j’ai
remarqué que celui qui me servait le café était de nationalité indonésienne, comme le chauffeur de taxi. Ce ne fut pas tout : une fois que j’eus fini mon café, une jeune fille indonésienne
m’apporta l’addition. C’était une véritable « indonésienne connexion ! » « Dunkin’ Donuts
» était sans doute une compagnie américaine dirigée par les indonésiens. Je sortis du café et
marchai à pied jusqu’au métro New Yorkais. Dans le métro, il y avait un cowboy blond en
slip recouvert de rayures du drapeau Américain. Il jouait de la guitare et prenait des photos
avec ceux qui voulaient. Mort de rire, j’ai décidé de prendre une photo avec lui, pour grader
un bon souvenir de New York. Il me fit payer cinq dollars, puis une personne qui travaillait
sans doute avec le cowboy pris la photo.
Mes vacances à New York il y a cinq ans on changé ma vie. Je suis devenu clown. Bien sûr,
le métier de clown gagne bien moins que le métier d’hommes d’affaires, mais au moins j’ai
trouvé le bonheur dans la vie. Merci New York.
New
York
—Mattias O’csay ‘18
Humans of
The Man with the Colorful Clothing
New York
According to data of 2011, there are 8,244,910 people living in New York City who speak 800
languages, making it one of the most populous and diverse cities in the United States. Many cultures contribute to New York’s atmosphere. The city is known for its gigantic impact on media,
technology, fashion, education, and entertainment. Just walking down the streets of this concrete
jungle is exciting. One never knows what to expect. It takes lots of skill, creativity and drive to
be able to capture the essence of this marvelous atmosphere, and Humans of New York does just
that. With over 5,000 pictures on the blog on Facebook, HONY has quickly become one of the
most renowned photographic blogs in the entire country.
The Humans of New York’s focus is on real-life people who walk the streets of New York
on a daily basis. The people to be photographed are not randomly chosen, however. The photographer must see something special or inspirational in each subject. His wish is to show the beauty and uniqueness of each of these New Yorkers. The photos tell a story in intimate detail, but
they are not titled. Only a brief description is given, explaining the conversation that took place
between photographer and subject.
Brandon Stanton, the photographer and founder of HONY, was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia. He attended the University of Georgia. After college, Stanton took a job trading
on the Chicago Board. After losing his job, Stanton decided to move to NYC on a whim. He
thought New York would be an exciting and interesting place to live in, and he hoped to pursue
his dream of becoming a photographer in the Big Apple. Then, in the summer of 2010, he created
the Humans of New York, which almost instantly became popular.
Today he has over 600,000 likes on his Facebook page and he updates his blog and website with pictures daily. Stanton has an imaginative and different perspective on life, which he
expresses through his photographs. One of the most mesmerizing factors of his work is that no
two of his pictures are alike. He has the unique ability to capture the different personalities of
these random pedestrians.
The photograph that I chose to highlight displays many characteristics that can be seen
daily while roaming the streets of New York City. These features are shown through the subject’s originality, vibrancy, culture and style. The man in this picture has both of his arms extended as though he is saluting the photographer with open arms, or about to embrace him. He has
rings on his fingers and a bracelet on his left arm. He is holding a pamphlet in his right hand.
His outfit is unusual; the colors on his shirt and pants are so vibrant they can lighten the mood
of any room, and the man in the photo looks as if he could do the same. The only article of his
clothing that doesn’t match his wild attire is his shoes. In the background, there are many people
walking by, without looking at this wonderful man. Most of the pedestrians care only about
what the bright screens on their cell phones say. Stanton writes in the description of the photo
that the man tried to sell him his clothing which Stanton politely declined, saying, “I’m not sure
I’d look as good in them.”
H
O
NY
What I find most compelling about the Humans of New York is that each of the photographs taken tells a story of an individual, or situation that the majority of the population never
notices. Each story is told with realistic detail, emotion, and beauty. Stanton is, in my opinion,
the true definition of an artist. He sees the beauty in humanity that others do not. Stanton has
an incredible gift, and through his amazing photographs others can take part in what he sees.
For many who are fortunate enough to have discovered his work, their view and perspective of
every day life in New York City has changed forever. Stanton’s photographs and his vision are
truly an inspiration to many aspiring photographers, myself included.
Photographs aren’t Stanton’s only priority, however. Even though he has an extremely busy
schedule, when he is not taking pictures, he is collecting money for Sandy’s victims, and reading
every single comment and email he receives. I decided to email Stanton the article that I wrote
about him, so that he would know how much people appreciate him. He answered my email
within twenty minutes. He said that he loved the report.
—Emily Kramer ‘17
The Guggenheim
On Fifth Avenue on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, a building resembling a colossal
white beehive rises out of the ground. This is the Solomon R. Guggenheim museum, one of the
most iconic modern art museums in the world. The building, as much as the art it displays, attracts visitors from all over.
The Guggenheim looks wholly incongruous in a city of tall glass boxes. From the other
side of Fifth Avenue, the museum resembles a snail. The base is a rectangle stretching from
north to south creating a strong horizontal shape. The southern tip of the rectangle is rounded
off. The museum’s name is inscribed in small print at the base of the rectangle. Otherwise, the
rectangular base is a block of white concrete, without windows or any decoration. Hidden under
the overhang formed by the rectangular block, is the entrance. Unlike most other museums,
there is no grandiose staircase, or plaza marking the entrance.
What makes the museum so identifiable is the rounded shape that sits on top of the south
side of the horizontal block. A bowl of white horizontal bands spirals out of the block, growing
wider as it rises. Other than the stripes created by the spirals, the bowl has no windows or ornamentation.
The overall impression of the exterior seen from across the avenue, is of a space ship that
has landed in New York City. The Guggenheim’s odd, mysterious shape incites the viewer’s
curiosity as to the building’s purpose- what it holds inside.
Frank Lloyd Wright … claimed that “[the Guggenheim] will make the Metropolitan Museum look like a protestant barn” (Frank Lloyd Wright: the Film). Although this is a gross exaggeration, Frank Lloyd Wright’s creation rouses much more curiosity than does the Metropolitan.
Once a visitor finds the entrance – tucked away on the side of the museum -- and walks in,
he or she is hit by abundant space and light, flowing through the only window of the museum,
a skylight that serves as a roof. The light flowing into the space creates an aura of a church or
cathedral. Indeed, the Guggenheim is a cathedral of modern art.
Next, the visitor sees the spiral ramp, coiling upward like an alabaster snake. The ramp
allows museum visitors to see the art in the entire museum in one visit. At the Guggenheim,
rather than having different rooms with the art side by side, one path guides the visitor through
the artwork.
Many artists and critics believe a ramp is not a proper way to display art. When the Guggenheim first opened, in 1959, 21 artists sent letters to the New York Times, hoping to register
their discontent. Critic Hilton Kramer said that the building “succeeds in having only one
organic function: to call attention to itself” (Frank Lloyd Wright Film). Kramer is correct
in saying that Frank Lloyd Wright cared primarily about his building. Wright had a large
ego and sought publicity. The Guggenheim was the last important building he designed,
and Wright wanted it to be iconic. As for the art that was to be showcased, he disparaged it, saying that he found the paintings fit for “lessons in finger-painting” (Frank Lloyd
Wright: the Film).
Still, however inadvertently, he created a completely new museum experience. The ramp
allows the visitor to see art from many different perspectives: from above and below, from
either side of a painting, from the other side of the building. No other museum can make
that claim.
One painting that benefits from its position in the Guggenheim is Preparedness (1968), a
Roy Lichtenstein painting. Seen from different angles, it becomes a completely different
painting. It is Oil and Magna on three different joined canvases. Straight on, one can tell
that the painting is actually three different paintings side by side, each of equal size. One
of the canvases seems to be the inside of a tank, another of soldiers, and finally another of
the outside of a tank. But from the right side, the painting appears to be soldiers marching
towards a military factory. Finally, from the left side, it looks as if cannons are firing at opposing soldiers. These different perspectives make the painting all the more interesting to
even the average art lover.
The Guggenheim is an icon of modern art. The building invites both painting and sculpture connoisseurs as well as simple art lovers back time and time again, no matter what the
specific paintings are being displayed. David van der Leer, Assistant curator of the Guggenheim, explains that this is because “the building functions both on the art and architectural level. It’s a great piece of architecture, and it’s the biggest object in our collection. ”
— Paul Castaybert ‘17
Reverse Process
The Dance of Smoke
If you’re bored, if you’re pensive, and if you have nothing better to do, wake up early
one day and take in the crisp, morning air. Feel the humidity, the dawn dew; can you smell the
musky scent of the moist pine trees around you? Can you also see the far-off smoker on the
bench, taking in the warmth of the rising sun? Are you able to distinguish the smoke coming
from his cigarette, can you see it dispersing in the air? Imagine a single molecule of vapor, you
can’t see it, but maybe it is floating around you as of this moment. Try to follow it towards what
seems to be a great mass of these very same molecules, and as they congregate, you will lose
sight of that special molecule. But do not mourn; instead keep your eyes on the bigger picture,
the swirling, twisting, dancing mass of molecules,
unattached, but still together. Stare a moment, allow yourself to be entranced by the mesmerizing,
hypnotizing multitude, focus on one little wisp
of what is now beginning to resemble smoke, and
relax. Follow its passage through the currents of the
air. And eventually, as you won’t be able to concentrate for that long, take a step back and try to
observe its entire movement, its chorus of balance
and symmetry. Admire the harmony of each strand
of smoke cavorting, flitting and frolicking smoothly
and naturally.
If you happen to still be in a contemplative mood,
watch as the smoke slowly but surely descends
down underneath the lofty branches towards the
ground, try to espy its slithering pattern as it crawls
in the air like the snake does on the ground in its
ever-leisurely and gradual pace. Allow your mind
to wander while you watch the diagonal descent of
your subject; it is in these moments that the epiphanies and the “Eureka!” of life appear. As you keep
thinking, or maybe you’re not thinking and are
rather in one of those blank states of mind, don’t
Sarah Amarnath ‘13 lose track of that cloud of smoke. Try to follow it all
the way to its destination; but don’t cheat, follow it step by step. Now the smoke could be getting a bit far, so you might have to get a bit closer; or if you’re too tired as I often am, lie down,
close your eyes and try to recreate the scene. Start where you left off and monitor the passage of
this cloud through the air. Watch it approach the lone, silent smoker, who may be doing the same
process as you are right now. Design the cigarette protruding from his mouth, and observe as the
pall of smoke that took up so much space now, quickly picks up speed and condenses itself into a
thin thread, darting straight towards the end of the cigarette.
This next part is physically impossible to watch, as eyes cannot see through opaque objects, but for one moment release your most potent weapon: your imagination. Gaze at the tobacco and nicotine turning into red-hot, burning ashes and peer into the mouth of the smoker while
the smoke passes through the filter, and down into the hungry, addicted throat of its victim.
Look as it keeps dancing and swirling, faster and faster, past the pharynx, down into the larynx,
and through the trachea. Watch as it zooms from the trachea into the lungs, as it passes from the
upper lobe, into the middle and lower lobes, try to follow as it wriggles through into the bronchus, and into the bronchioles, as it permeates the blood and flows throughout the body like a
venomous snake waiting to strike.
Finally, watch as it is all exhaled out, quickly and efficiently, but notice also that it is too
late, that the damage is done, and if you scrutinize the lungs carefully, maybe you’ll get to see
what the host is unable to: a little black spot that appears on the side of the lung. Like a poison
permeating and percolating through the blood, this spot will grow and grow until it occupies the
whole surface it is offered. But that’s another process, for another day of pensive thinking.
—Alex Mason ‘14
Devolution
Something is very wrong with the world. I look down from my seat in the heavens, only
to see chaos and strife everywhere. How did the benevolent beings I created become such
greedy monsters? At what point did things turn for the worse? I must go back. I must retrace
my steps to discover the error in my plans. I will take my creation apart, piece by piece, and
replace the faulty fragments.
The humans must be the problem. Homo sapiens, supposedly the “wise man”, now
spreads terror instead of wisdom. Slowly, I break down the species’ intelligence and reduce its
brain mass to 74 percent of its original capacity. They play with fire, they stand up straight: the
hominids are no longer humans, but Homo erectus instead.
I keep deconstructing, going back to the origin of the human race. I take apart the genus
Homo, there is no more “man”. I plunge further into history to reduce my creatures to australopithecines. They grow hair and become dumb, therefore they are unable to make the grave
mistakes that keen intellect once led them to make. They can no longer make nuclear weapons,
or build factories, or use fossil fuels, or destroy the planet.
Still I find no fault to change, still I dig to find a cure. The more I take away, the more the
‘humans’ look like their chimpanzee cousins. Their tongues fumble to form words, their hands
become less adept at performing minute tasks, and slowly they start to hunch over and eventually walk on their hands and feet. My beloved beasts lose their individuality as they blend in with
the lesser apes of the world, indistinguishable from the orangutans, the lemurs, and the bonobos.
They climb trees, eat fruit and lose social network complexity.
I keep peeling away the layers, searching for the root of the problem. The primates descend from the trees and become simple mammals. They lose the neocortex area of their brains,
stop feeding their young milk, and begin to lay eggs. Unable to maintain a constant body temperature, their activities are limited to basking in the sun and periodical hunting.
ssecorP esreveR
Something is very wrong with the
world. I look down from my seat in the heavens, only to see chaos and strife everywhere.
How did the benevolent beings I created
become such greedy monsters? At what
point did things turn for the worse? I must
go back. I must retrace my steps to discover
the error in my plans. I will take my creation
apart, piece by piece, and replace the faulty
fragments.
The humans must be the problem.
Homo sapiens, supposedly the “wise man”,
now spreads terror instead of wisdom.
Slowly, I break down the species’ intelligence
and reduce its brain mass to 74 percent of its
original capacity. They play with fire, they
stand up straight: the hominids are no longer
humans, but Homo erectus instead.
I keep deconstructing, going back to
the origin of the human race. I take apart
the genus Homo, there is no more “man”.
I plunge further into history to reduce my
creatures to australopithecines. They grow
hair and become dumb, therefore they are
unable to make the grave mistakes that keen
Flore Delaporte ‘13
intellect once led them to make. They can no
longer make nuclear weapons, or build factories, or use fossil fuels, or destroy the planet.
Still I find no fault to change, still I dig to find a cure. The more I take away, the more the
‘humans’ look like their chimpanzee cousins. Their tongues fumble to form words, their hands
become less adept at performing minute tasks, and slowly they start to hunch over and eventually walk on their hands and feet. My beloved beasts lose their individuality as they blend in with
the lesser apes of the world, indistinguishable from the orangutans, the lemurs, and the bonobos.
They climb trees, eat fruit and lose social network complexity.
I keep peeling away the layers, searching for the root of the problem. The primates descend from the trees and become simple mammals. They lose the neocortex area of their brains,
stop feeding their young milk, and begin to lay eggs. Unable to maintain a constant body temperature, their activities are limited to basking in the sun and periodical hunting.
These animals seem harmless enough, yet I continue shaving away at the complexities of
their body systems. The reptiles begin to move into the water, laying their eggs there, until they
eventually spend their entire lives submerged, complete marine organisms. They lose their limbs
and sprout fins, lose their lungs and sprout gills. The change is slow as the animals readapt to
their new environment, gradually transforming from tetrapod to fish. They maintain the majority of their skeletal system as they make their way out of the rivers and ponds and into the ocean.
As I stay my course, bone turns to cartilage and fins disappear. But jawless cartilaginous
fish are not enough, the procedure must continue. I erase yet another part of my designs, and
skeletal structures vanish altogether, wiping the earth of vertebrates. What do I have left? Eelshaped beings with extremely simple organ systems and no spine, just a notochord.
However, I am not convinced that I have purged my world of the seed of malice. I rid the
organisms of their brains and their bilateral symmetry, making them circular organisms: cnidarians. Eventually I eliminate eyes, nerves, muscles, and definite body shape entirely, to obtain
sponges. I cut down on the number of cells per organism and eradicate sexual reproduction,
slowing down evolution.
I come to one of my earliest drafts, eukaryotes. Deciding that even they were a step in the
wrong direction, I jettison their organelles and make them unable to consume oxygen. The prokaryotes thus attained are still photosynthetic, so I take out their chlorophyll. No more photosynthesis, no more oxygen in the atmosphere.
Still stripping down, I arrive at protobionts, ancestors of the prokaryotes, exhibiting some
of the properties of life. But nevertheless life exists, so nevertheless I must continue. Taking apart
these membrane-bound structures, I reach the four major organic molecules necessary for life:
proteins, nucleic acids, carbohydrates, and lipids. Broken down, these molecules become mere
atoms, inorganic matter.
Finally, I have succeeded in getting to the core of life, the elements. Now nature can once
again take its course, with my guidance, and bring forth its wondrous constructions. Step by
step, the fragments will be put together, adding up to a sum that is greater than its parts. Over
millions of years the world I have just decomposed will be rebuilt, for the better, and the product will surpass the previous one in every measurable and immeasurable way. There will be no
destruction and no chaos. There will be unity and harmony among all. This time, no species will
rule over all the others. I have found the problem I must solve: this time humans will not evolve.
—Mireille Bejjani ‘14
Nathalie Eid ‘17
Inevitability and its
Complex Significance
Andrea Lafuente ‘17
Inevitability is a topic present in both “I
Go Back to May 1937” by Sharon Olds and
the Iliad by Homer. In these works, unavoidability is portrayed in slightly different ways and with different consequences.
However, these two poems’ representations of inevitability differ in one main
way: in the shorter, more recent text, situations are considered inevitable after they
have already occurred, while in the ancient
work, inevitability is declared before an
event even takes place.
Inevitable is defined as “incapable of
being avoided or evaded; bound to happen” (The Merriam-Webster Dictionary).
The term “bound to” relates to probable
events in the future. Now, this is not to say
an occurrence loses its inevitability once
it has taken place; however, the term does
apply best to an occasion that has not yet
happened. Once an event has occurred, it
is much harder for one to look back and
describe it as “inevitable”: indeed, increased knowledge of this event makes it
partially lose its inescapable aspect. This
precision, the fact that an event is more
easily described as inevitable before it has
happened is crucial to the understanding
of the subtle nuances in unavoidability in
these two works.
In “I Go Back to May 1937”, the speaker
relates the experience she has had, trying to prevent her parents’ marriage before her own birth.
The idea in this poem that can be considered inevitable by a reader is the meeting of a young
man and woman, who are apparently destined to be married. Moreover, the speaker pushes the
inevitability further, stating that his parents “are going to do bad things to children” (Olds l. 17).
However, once we have studied the exact meaning of “inevitable”, we realize the term can only
be used in a colloquial way to describe this particular poem. Indeed, the speaker is commenting
on her parents’ past, with the certainty that they “are going to want to die” (l. 19) later on as a
consequence of their marriage. This inevitability is by definition fake because the speaker has a
retrospective look on the situation. Being the daughter of the two young individuals in the poem,
she already knows her parents are going to do bad things to children and she already knows her
parents are going to want to die. When she goes back to the youth of her parents in the poem,
she has foreknowledge, and the fact that “she’s the wrong woman, / [and] he’s the wrong man”
(l. 14-5) is much clearer. To make this unavoidability more plausible to the reader, the speaker
tells her parents, in the past, to “do what you are going to do, and I will tell about it” (l. 30). This
line is misleading because it seems that the speaker is not yet born at the time it is written. As a
consequence, when the speaker does indeed “tell about it”, what her parents have “done” seems
to have been inevitable, although it was truly not.
In the Iliad, inevitability is closer to its true definition, principally because of the presence
of gods. Indeed, the Greek had blind faith in the words and omens of the omnipotent figures.
Calchas, a seer, predicts that when he sees a serpent devouring hatchlings, the great city of Troy
will fall after a bloody ten-year war. The Achaeans are absolutely not doubtful, and they simply
accept this prophecy as the truth. Here, the situation can truly be described as inevitable: the
Greek all accept the predicted outcome of a distant event to be unquestionable, despite no proof
that has a direct link with the matter. However, when one considers inevitability in the Iliad, the
major character that comes to mind is Achilles: this hero knows he will live a short yet glorious
life. He also happens to be the only Greek who asks himself “why […] Agamemnon led the army
to Troy?” (Lombardo, Book IX, l. 346) and “why do the Greeks have to fight the Trojans?” (l. 345).
Despite knowing that these events must inevitably happen, Achilles does occasionally question
the reasons behind them. Achilles and his Greek companions simply assume every event is inevitable. The consequence of this inescapability is a certain confusion. Indeed, the Achaeans believe
they have free will; however, when they make a decision, regardless of how much they deliberate, they will chose what the gods have previously decided for them.
Inevitability is a subject that raises a lot of questions in any literary work. The use of this
frequently appearing term “inevitable” in our modern language is often slightly incorrect or out
of context. As we’ve seen with “I Go Back to May 1937” and the Iliad, much of the discussion
is centered around the precise definition of inevitability itself. Furthermore, the way a piece of
literature is narrated can make inevitability seem more or less accurate. Notwithstanding the
complexity of this word, it is evident that unavoidability can have many implications and different consequences for different works.
—Elliott Bolzan ‘15
Depuis toujours, les hommes ressentent des émotions qu’ils gèrent de façons
différentes selon leur caractère et les circonstances. Certains aiment dissimuler leurs
émotions et les garder pour eux-mêmes tandis que d’autres, au contraire, préfèrent les
exprimer. Que gagne-t-on à cacher ses sentiments et secrets ? Pourquoi vaudrait-il
mieux les exprimer ?
Il y a de nombreux avantages à cacher ses sentiments ainsi que ses secrets.
Pour certains adolescents, c’est une nécessité de garder pour soi quelques secrets de
façon à se faire accepter par ses camarades. Par exemple, certains, afin d’éviter de
devenir la risée de tous, cachent leur admiration pour un chanteur et font semblant
d’adorer à la place un artiste à la mode. D’autres cachent leurs difficultés
personnelles, telles qu’un parent au chômage ou des difficultés financières, afin de ne
pas être jugés.
Par respect des autres, il est parfois nécessaire de garder ses sentiments
cachés. En effet, un sentiments négatif, si exprimé, peut heurter la sensibilité des
autres et les blesser dans leur amour propre.
Dans certaines circonstances, garder ses secrets peut être fondamental pour se
protéger. En effet, pour les enfants juifs, le seul fait de dire la vérité ou de la cacher
pouvait décider entre vie et mort. Par exemple, dans Un secret de Philippe Gimbert, la
vérité condamne Simon et Hannah à une mort presque certaine.
Cependant, cacher ses émotions et garder ses secrets n’est pas la seule
solution. Au contraire, il vaut même parfois mieux s’exprimer. Tout garder pour
soi-même peut être un fardeau trop lourd à supporter. Un enfant à qui l’on cache
des secrets de famille peut souffrir consciemment ou même inconsciemment. Par
exemple, toujours dans Un secret de Philippe Gimbert, le narrateur, petit, souffre
inconsciemment de l’existence, cachée par ses parents, de son demi-frère, mort à
cause des nazis.
De plus, s’exprimer peut souvent libérer. Quelqu’un qui partage ses secrets
et sentiments les plus intimes avec un ami se voit soulagé du fardeau qui l’opprimait
et l’étouffait, même si aucune solution n’est apportée, Par exemple, dans Oscar et la
Dame Rose de Eric-Emmanuel Schmidt, Mamie Rose parle ouvertement de la mort à
Oscar, se qui lui permet d’apprivoiser la mort et de le libérer de sa peur,
Mais l’expression orale n’est pas la seule possibilité. En effet, de nombreuses
personnes utilisent l’écrit pour communiquer leurs secrets et sentiments. Toujours
dans Oscar et la Dame Rose de Eric-Emmanuel Schmidt, Oscar ne peut parler à ses
parents et y remédie en écrivant des lettres à Dieu. Il se sent ainsi moins abandonné
et le poids se trouvant sur ses épaules est encore allégé. Les lettres d’amour sont un
autre exemple d’expression par écrit.
Il me semble que, sauf en cas extrême, s’exprimer, dévoiler ses secrets et faire
part de ses sentiments vaut mieux que de tout garder pour soi, dans le risque de se
faire écraser par ses secrets. Gérer ses émotions en les partageant libère d’un poids
énorme. Certains cachent celles-ci, pensant les contrôler. Mais peut-on vraiment les
contrôler ?
—Capucine de Talhouet ‘16
Mony Krafft ‘17
COLLEGE ESSAYS
The next four texts are essays that seniors have written as part
of their college applications. The third essay responded to the
University of Chicago’s prompt, “So where’s Waldo, really?”
while the others were all part of the Common Application.
Sometime between 12:48 and 1:09 P.M, a young man - whose name I do not know - simply stood
on the edge of a large patch of green grass, contemplating something. That something was a
mystery to me.
He was standing in the middle of four buildings, in the center of four paths, with a violin case at
his feet. I was sitting on a bench directly diagonal to the lawn, observing the stranger, wondering
what he could possibly be doing staring slightly up at what seemed to be like nothingness. Perhaps he was trying to see particles, or maybe he was in the middle of some important scientific
experiment. Either way, seven whole minutes passed before he actually moved. Then, he turned,
opened and closed his laptop, gathered his bag and his instrument case, and began walking my
way.
As this perfect stranger who had utterly captured my attention began to approach me, I walked
towards him, excused myself, and proceeded to ask him what on Earth it was that he had been
doing. He smiled, pushed his relatively long, attractively messy brown hair aside, looked at me
with his golden brown eyes, and answered matter-of-factly: “I was just thinking.” Struck, yet
strangely satisfied with his response, I let him carry on with his day, without even asking his
name. To this day, I’m stuck referring to him as “the Thinking Guy.”
Having watched too many dramatic teenage soap operas, I couldn’t let go of the idea that maybe
I had just forgotten to ask the name of my now, long lost, soul mate. As he walked away, the
image of the endearing wrinkles on the corner of his eyes as he smiled with perfectly aligned
teeth, laid its foundations in my mind, and I considered running after him. I’d make some kind
of speech about how I saw him as a familiar stranger, because his chance positioning on the lawn
seemed to me to be symbolic of my own state of life-defining evolution. However, I came to the
conclusion that he would probably see me as a crazy person. So instead, I stood still, thinking
about the moments when we unintentionally share a glance, or perhaps a smile; maybe even a
joyful “have a nice day” with complete strangers, without giving them a second look - without
realizing they could be the ones to make all the difference in our lives.
The music and lyrics to “I Dare You to Move” by Switchfoot ran through my head, and I walked
over to the edge of the lawn, inadvertently setting my pace to the rhythm of the song. I stepped
where he had stood and lifted my head toward the skies on the imaginary downbeat that played
in my head. I stayed, for approximately seven minutes, thinking. I knew why he had intrigued
me. I had noticed in him much of what I perceive in myself: the artist, the eccentricity, the pensiveness in the face of life’s uncertainties.
Ultimately… I’m the girl on the lawn, in the center of different places to go and choices to make –
with a startling, yet undeniably thrilling story, ready to be written.
—Carla Bennahmias ‘13
Evanescent Waves
The feather danced swiftly and nimbly as it ascended and
descended, energetically waltzed by the cool winter breeze. A
nearby snowflake, seeking a partner to ride the unrelenting waves
of polyphonic melodies, joined the feather’s acrobatics, and together they swirled and spiraled, swooped and swayed, in a splendid
sequence of Chopinesque arabesques and arpeggios, trilling over
snow-covered peaks, slurring over ice-covered creeks. The pair
elegantly executed a perfect cadence* and the breeze softened and
sighed before beginning to fade.
The last echoes of melodies created a distant, soothing, and
Jacqueline Sarro ‘13
pleasant dissonance before vanishing beyond the endless horizon.
As the breeze ceased, an unnatural stillness filled the sky, like the calm before a storm. The dancers, catching their breath, hung motionless for a split second before beginning to waver, hither
and thither, ever so slowly floating down toward a vast ocean beneath. Both knew they were no
Odysseus, and hopes to reach their beloved Ithaca, their home, would soon become engulfed in
Charybdis’ whirlpools beneath. Tension rose and whispers of anxiety could be heard from distant lands. It was like the omnipotent gods themselves were holding their breath, observing the
sacrifice of a feather and a snowflake as both drifted down closer and closer, lower and lower, to
the enraged waves, whose mouths foamed with appetite. The mood was somber: a suspenseful
interlude.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, a band of Turkish winds swept over the seas and propelled
the terrified dancers once more into the air. It was Mozart’s rondo alla turca, sent from heaven to
rescue the two performers. Once again, the two partners engaged in a whirlwind of sequential
scalar patterns, rejoicing at their spontaneous reunion. Away they were carried, past the oceans
and seas, hills, and pastures, above the mountaintops. At last, they performed an impressive rallentando, and the rondo faded into Debussy’s Clair de Lune. With great finesse, the suite carried
them down to the summit of the mountain on a bed of soft, fluffy air. Down to Ithaca, where a
world of dreams and mystery awaited, they glided and landed. “L’écroulement des apothéoses
rejoint le champs des hauteurs ou les centauresses séraphiques évoluent parmi les avalanches. »*
There they lay, in this field of Elysium, in a universe of endless possibilities, where the sun sets
and rises with imaginations, in a world of music.
I opened my eyes and cherished the remaining rapturous beauty of the chorus of melodies that I had so passionately interwoven into a realm of my own. Music, to me, is a world
created by my deepest passions and expressions, turned into sound, which gives rise to the hills,
mountains, villages, cities and stories previously unknown to all. But music is more than just an
adventurous escapade of solitude and transcendence. Music is a catharsis that brings me back
home, light as a feather and pure as snowflake, with an acute vision of the world. The joy, thrill,
and relief of sledding up and down glissandos, trembling through trills, and sighing on Picardy
thirds; the fear, suspense, and terror of experiencing rugged sequences, melancholic melisma,
and macabre movements. These all shape, improve, and develop my music experience and expand and enrich my whole self.
—Yannik Büchi ‘13
W
Where is Waldo?
Waldo is always in the last place we look, simply because we stop searching once we have
found him. After all, we are a goal-oriented society.
Upon opening a new volume of Where’s Waldo, we concentrate our talents on the problem at hand – namely, finding Waldo. But we soon become so focused on locating that one man
in the striped shirt that we rarely look at anything else on the page. We risk missing out on the
highly intricate drawings that each page presents, the exotic locales portrayed, the little jokes
sketched in the corners of the page.
And, after all, what is so special about Waldo? Why do we choose to look for him, rather
than for Wenda, or for Odlaw, or for any number of the nameless characters in the crowd? A priori, they are no less important than Waldo himself. We have attached an arbitrary significance to
Waldo, but in and of himself he is unimportant.
Thus there is a fundamental flaw in the way we approach Waldo, and our lives. We as a
society tend to be too focused on achieving success (often monetary), and little else.
High school is a case in point. Many of my friends and classmates aim for that “A” that shines in
the distance like the Holy Grail. History dates and physics formulas are mere obstacles in their
path to a flawless transcript.
But there’s beauty in math and literature. Mathematics, like philosophy, is pure logic and
reason. Whether we prove a statement directly, by contradiction, or by induction, we are forced
to think rigorously and ask ourselves some of life’s most important questions: Where are we
coming from? Where do we want to go? And how do we get there? These are some of the same
questions that the study of literature helps us ask and attempt to answer. Literature helps us
understand the fundamental driving forces of human culture and consciousness: in short, human
nature and the meaning of life. Through literature we can connect to other people’s experiences
and ultimately to our own.
And there is no satisfaction like coming up with a math proof that is both short and
simple, or finally defining honor at the end of a ten-page research paper. It’s important to look
beyond the grade; and when one is truly interested by a subject, the good grade in the course
should merely be a bonus, and not the be-all and end-all of education.
Our focus on success not only hinders our enjoyment of learning and of life in general, but
can also dilute our moral values. When we see the destination as more important than the journey, suddenly the means getting us there are not as important either – and there is little stopping
us from lying and cheating to reach our objective. Whether it’s the Harvard cheating scandal of
last spring or Libor interest-rate manipulation, society is rife with examples of those who don’t
mind trying to get ahead through unethical means.
I last opened a Where’s Waldo in 9th grade. I was in the school library, procrastinating on
some yearbook deadline with my friend Vicky, when we stumbled across an old copy. But we
quickly became bored with it – someone had already scribbled on the pages and circled all the
Waldos. The book had lost its meaning – we had no use for it anymore.
I have come to realize that this is a dangerous mentality to have. If, for whatever reason,
we fail to reach our goal of becoming a doctor, or a best-selling writer, or being married by the
time we’re 26, suddenly life can lose meaning. Having been entirely defined around that one
purpose, our life is left with none. This is not a road to a healthy, wholesome, honest society.
So before we set out to find our respective Waldos, we should all remind ourselves that the journey is as important as the destination, and that Waldo’s location, or our success at finding him, is
far from primordial – that title belongs to what we discover and learn in the process.
6
—Jacques Guyot ‘13
643.
Not a name, just a number. It was her sole form of identification. The previous sentences could
be mistaken for describing a casualty of genocide, or the numbers tattooed on a Holocaust victim. In reality, this number stands for something very different, very different indeed.
Perforated through her tiny, peach-fuzz covered almost translucent ear, is a stainless-steel number tag engraved with the digits 643. Her ear tag swings to and fro as she circles around aimlessly in her plastic cage. This number is her only form of identification; without it, she is just another small, white-coated, ill-fated mouse. Her small red eyes scintillated under the strong artificial
lighting of the laboratory. Lucklessly, this mouse was born only to be sacrificed in the name of
science. Her demise was to be premature, whatever her cause of death was to be.
Of the twenty mice shipped to the lab for our experiment, 643 was immediately my favorite.
For some reason, I felt the need to choose one mouse and call it mine. None of them were actually mine, but 643 was mine at heart. While learning how to work with the small rodents, “Don’t
name them,” and “Don’t get attached,” were sentences that were endlessly reiterated. Not wanting to violate the golden rules of lab animals, I obeyed. Her name remained 643. It wasn’t magnificent, but it worked.
Throughout my six week internship in the Schneider laboratory at NYU’s Langone Medical
Center, I learned more than I thought possible. Yes, of course I learned quintessential lab skills,
like how to culture cells, run Western Blot analyses, pipette volumes of liquids smaller than I
ever thought feasible, and how to look through a microscope until my neck became stiff, after
counting a legion of minuscule metastases on dozens of pairs of mouse lungs, which reeked of
formaldehyde might I add. However, I gained knowledge and understanding about more than
just concrete science.
Although 643’s life was brief and somewhat uneventful, she and all of the other lab animals I met
inspired me. Most people don’t stop to think or appreciate what these miniature martyrs do for
the world. I now have. In my opinion, their life is of the noblest form, dedicated solely to making others well. These little gals are true unheralded heroes. Fictional characters like Superman
and Batman are celebrated throughout the world. What did they actually do, though? Whom did
they actually help? The mice merit ten times the respect and attention that Batman and Superman are awarded every single day.
Even though 643’s death was insignificant on a large scale, symbolically her death was worthy of
my attention. Despite the fact that I reluctantly grew attached to 643 and that her death saddened
me, the whole experience helped me discover that her death was essential to understanding and
saving lives. For life to go on, death must take place. I feel as if the experience as a whole built
the foundation for the future molding of my brain. More than just teach me remarkable laboratory skills, it changed the way I think, the way I see.
Thanks to this new outlook, I also reinforced something I have known about myself for a while.
I want to be just like 643. Now I’m not saying that I want to sacrifice my life to being a lab mouse
for drug trials or experiments, not at all. Regardless of the fact that I was always taught by my
firefighter father and schoolteacher mother to help others, and that I have a naturally obliging
personality, no one ever opened my eyes like 643. That mouse taught me how I really do desire
to help people throughout my life and how I truly aspire to make a difference.
Hopefully, one day I will earn the esteem and admiration that I had for star-crossed 643.
643
—Jacqueline Sarro ‘13