Post- magazine, September 29, 2011

8/4/2019 Post- magazine, September 29, 2011

1/8

two views on browns need-aware admitsA Friend in Need


2/8

2CONTENTS3

45

6

7

8

upfront

feature

arts & culture

arts & culture

lifestyle

lifestyle

*ck h*rvard // post

a riend in need // zo ho-man and stan ern

grimm and disney // ben resnikbig texas smile // kate nemetz

prelude to a sneeze // tylerbourgoise

veggie tales // janebrendlinger and anna tit

sexicon // MMcan i have yo numba? //savannah cheyanne

Editors-in-ChiefSam KnowlesAmelia Stanton

Managing Editor ofFeaturesCharles Pletcher

Managing Editor of Arts& CultureJennie Young Carr

Managing Editor ofLifestyleJane Brendlinger

Features EditorsZo HomanEmily Spinner

Arts & Culture EditorsClayton AldernTyler Bourgoise

Lifestyle EditorsJen HarlanAlexa Trearchis

Pencil PusherPhil Lai

Chief Layout EditorClara Beyer

Aesthetic MastermindLucas Huh

Copy ChiefsJulia KantorJustine Palesky

Staff WrterBerit Goetz

Copy Editors

Lucas HuhKristina PetersenAllison ShafrBlake CeciNora TriceChris Anderson

Post- Magazine is pub-

lished every Thursday inthe Brown Daily Herald.It covers books, theater,

music, flm, ood, art, andUniversity culture around

College Hill. Post- edi-tors can be contacted [email protected]. Letters are always

welcome, and can beeither e-mailed or sent

to Post- Magazine, 195Angell Street, Providence,RI 02906. We claim the

right to edit letters or style,clarity, and length.

OUR ILLUSTRATORS

cover // caroline washburn

*ck h*rvard // madelinedenman

a riend in need // phil lai

grimm and disney // anishgonchigar

big texas smile // kah yang-ni

prelude to a sneeze // sheilasitaram

veggie tales // caleb wein-reb

brown market shares //adela wu

can i have yo numba? //kah yangni

fi1 2 3

4 5weekend

TOM TURNS TWENTYFriday

BROWN VS. URIUNDER THE LIGHTS

Brown Football StadiumSat 7PM

STARLA & SONSSalomon 001

Fri 9PM

BODY CHEMISTRYAEPi

Sat 10PM

A BETTER WORLDBY DESIGN

Fri - Mon

NAKED PHOTO

Gross! Indecent! Naked people! In a show!

Check out Gross Indecency at Leeds Theatre in Lyman Hall,September 29 through October 9.

Oh, youre a transer? Whered you transerrom?Deep Springs. Its a small, two-yearYeah, no, Ive heard o it. No girls, right?NOT ANYMORE, BITCHES!

The editors asked me to write about Deep SpringsColleges recent decision to go coed. Brown prob-ably wont notice anything dierent until DeepSpringers lacking Y-chromosomes start infltratingthe transer classeseven then, Brown probablywont notice anything dierentbut I still thinktheres reason to celebrate. Raise a glass to coedu-cation, and dont orget to use protection.

charles

LETTER FROM THE EDITORS

GOT PROBLEMS?formspring.me/emilypostmag

formspring.me/lovecraftdorian


3/8

3upfrontTHURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2011

books is

music is

tv is

food is

booze is

If you search Harvard-Brown football game onGoogle, the second hit is an article in last FridaysCrimson newspaper, which urged fans to attend thenight game. In it are a number of jabs at Bruno.

So now that the game against those Massholes (Ican say it, Im from Boston) is over, I nd it peculiar,this high-class hatin. My rst experience with ourIvy League rivalry was at an accepted students lun-cheon in some schmancy hotel downtown, where Imet an unconscionably uncomfortable soon-to-be CSmajor who had, of course, been accepted to don bothCrimson and Brown. As we shared pleasantries (read:raised our eyebrows with painful frequency), I simply

blocked out his indecisive faade and pegged him asCambridge bound.

Then came orientation, when I found myselfsquinting in disbelief across the Main Green at otherfresh-faced, tightly-cinched-backpack-toting coeds

wearing what looked like Harvard apparel. Ah, no, I was wrongjust one of our clever, overpriced book-store Ts: Harvard because not everyone can getinto Brown.

Really? It just seems gratuitous.Im not saying were better or worse, but thats like

when the Blue Jays spend bundles of money in the off-season and talk mountains of trash, when we all knowits going to be Sox-Yankees come October.

On a similarly juvenile note, I dont know whichwas worse at the football game two years ago in Cam-bridge: Brown students clamoring over one another tosit in Emma Watsons section, or the hometown crowd

doing the same?Lets check the record books, and the tattered pagesof our League (and let me remind all you hipsters thatthe Ivy League began not as an expensive status sym-

bol, but simply as a sports conferenceand it is suchto this day. So dont go griping about how the sportsdepartment is bad for Brown, la Susannah Kroeber11). The most contentious clashes on the gridiron, inthe rink or on the court have been between you-know-

who and some place in New Haven. You could see thefaded H-Y on the 30-yard line.

So why does it seem like we have tried to crash theparty? This was obviously an important game, not be-cause we are historically rivals, but because our foot-

ball team of recent memory has been ghting for theIvy title. It just so happens that the title runs throughHarvard.

As an athlete whose team has gone toe-to-toe withHarvard over the past decade for the title, I completelyunderstand this erce competition. I think its healthyto have embittered athletes vying against one another,

but I cannot wrap my head around a school feeling theneed to augment itself by discrediting a perfectly le-gitimate and respected university in the form of triteparaphernalia. It comes off as insecure.

Last years football game was a fantastic showingof school spiritI was proud to rock the chest paint, as

were many othersbut there could be so much morehere. Why not embrace the tradition of the Ivy Leagueand simply show our fellow students support in thethings they do best? Its no different than attending aplay, a concert, or a debate. Let our institutions and in-dividuals challenge one another in academic prowess,in order to collaborate in the future and make the bestof the education we are afforded, while still unclench-ing our collective anus every once in a while. Were

young, occasionally stupid, and sometimes theresnothing better than going wild after Bruno scores the

winning goal.We dont need to be rivalsjust competitors, pas-

sionate about our schools.But hang on. That Crimson article mocked S/NC

andMs. Watson. Shit just got real. We may not have won on Friday, but f*ck Har-

vard.

F*ck H*rvardwhat rivalry?

post MAGAZINE

editor emeritus

tel l ing Je Bezos to

sit down and shut up.Youre not Ste ve Jobs,and we dont read e-books anyway.

listening to the newBlink-182 album. Yep,that happened.

wondering whathappened toAmanda Bynessace.

vomiting uppumpkin bee r,pumpkin bread,and pumpkin spiced

latts. Ah, the too-sweet taste o all.

debating the prosand cons o 18+ barnights. Pro: everyonegets in. Con: every-one gets in.

gross, indecent, andtoo important to betaken se riously.

theatre is

TOP TENThings We Did Instead o Going to the

Fall Concert

12

3

45

67

8

910

What concert?

Whos The Fall?

Slept o our FinalClubinduced hang-over. F*ck Harvard!

Combed through RealEstate listings.

YouTube!!!

Updated our emergencycontact inormation onBanner.

We *cking did coca ine!

Listened to Curren$y andtUnE-YarDs.

Waterire. SI KE.

Went mainstream ...saw The Shins in Boston


4/8

4 featurePOST-

In 2002, Brown took a step thatput the University more in line with

both its peer institutions and theliberal-leaning image the school en-

joys: They adopted a need-blind ad-missions policy. This decision wasntparticularly novelother Ivy League

schools had gone need-blind in pre-vious yearsbut it marked a signifi-cant push by the University to make aBrown education accessible to anyoneadmitted, with two caveats: Transferand international students were leftout.

You would think this issue would be of immense concern to me, as atransfer student, but I have largelyleft my applications behind me. Myessays are buried in a folder some-

where on my computer; transcriptsfrom my previous institution arestuffed in the back of my desk draw-er. However, there is one action I

distinctly remember from filling outmy transfer applicationI made theconscious choice to check No whenasked if I needed financial aid.

At first, Browns policy seemsoverwhelmingly unfair. In fact, itseems as though it could reinforce akind of class-system with regards toadmissions: The well-off, financiallystable transfer and international stu-dents get in while those who mightneed some assistance are left out.Even though only 10 percent of ap-plicants were admitted to my transferclass, this policy can call into ques-tion the very validity of admission.Did I get a leg-up because I dont

need financial aid? Am I simply a$200,000 check Brown gets to add toits revenue stream?

These anxiety-ridden questionsdont necessarily get to the meat ofthe issue, though. We have to rec-ognize that Brown is, no matter howmuch we may try to deny it, a busi-ness. When we think of Brown as anon-profit organization, we tend tothink theres no bottom line, no rea-son they would want to remain in the

black. Like any other firm in a com-petitive market, Brown strives to at-tract students based on image, ser-

vices, and resources available, hoping

to cash in tuition checks to improveupon their offerings.Given the discrepancy between

Browns message of inclusivity andaccessibility and its relatively smallpool of funds, it is easy to see a cen-tral dilemma facing the administra-tion. Who should benefit more, thosestudents who are already here orthose transfers and interna-tional students whom wedlike to see attend in the future?The added revenue from admittedstudents with less need surely allowsBrown to diversify its offerings to cur-rent students, adding the improvedprograms, facilities, and faculty that

make our school unique.It is these resources,

these perks we Brownstudents enjoy, that cre-ate a problem in regardsto need-blind admission.

While we may look at Brown

as a prestigious institution with a constant cash flowof sky-high tuition bills, itis a pauper relative to someof our so-called peer institutions.In 2010, Browns endowment was$2.155 billion, an amount most ofus would see as more than suf-ficient for the upkeep of 8,600students, graduate and under-graduate. Comparatively, inthat same year Yale raked in$16.652 billion, and Har-

vard broke the bank withan astonishing $27.557

billion. Both schools are

able to offer their transfer andinternational applicants a need-blind admission process, thoughtheir transfer classes are muchsmaller than ours.

For me, the systemis working. I get to en-

joy a strong and sizeabletransfer community, a phe-nomenon that might not existif the administration had tolimit those admissions inorder to offer need-blindadmission. And as I in-tegrate myself into thecommunity, I lose thatfeeling that Im just

a check cashedby Brown, andI begin to ap-preciate that mytuition serves toimprove my intel-lectual home.

two views on browns need-aware

admitszo HOFFMAN

A Friend in Need

On its admissions website,Brown trumpets its need-

blind admissions policy next toa link to its nancial aid web-site. Clicking the link brings upa number of generous nancialaid initiatives: Parents whose

combined income is less than$60,000 per year are notrequired to contribute to

their students educationexpenses. Families earningless than $100,000 per year

have no loans as part oftheir nancial aid awards.

But an asterisk next to need- blind admissions policy re-veals the catch: Funding for

transfer and internationalstudents is limited, sothey are admitted under

a need-aware policy.Basically, the nan-

cial aid ofce passesalong its determinationof an applicants needto the admissions ofce,

and admissions reservesthe right to reject an ap-

plicant on the basis of his orher need.

According to the mostrecent gures, 44 percent ofBrowns student body receives

some form of nancialaid. Try nding thatsame gure for transfer

and international stu-dents. Ive spent hours

trawling through brown.edu

to no avail. One could arguethat transfer and internationalstudents comprise too small

a portion of eachclass to merit sucha statistic, but then why does the ad-

ministration brag about the proportionof internationals in the student body?How is it justiable to set up an implic-it plutocracy without revealing its trueextent?

I dont mean to suggest that transferstudents who do not apply for nancial

aid would otherwise be unqualied foradmissionwe have to have more faithin the process than that. But I do wantto question Browns commitment to afair admissions process. If nothing else,Brown must be a model institution andone worthy of emulating. The cona-tion of money and merit to any degreeis shaky grounds for emulation.

Countless students have opined onthe Universitys equivocations regard-ing its status as a business and an in-stitution for higher learning. The twofunctions are not simply opposed, ofcourse, and one can benet the other. I

want to make the case that Brown is not

striking the correct balance. Our schoolhas come a long way in a decade, butit strikes me that turning away an ap-plicant, any applicant, because he orshe cannot pay Browns sticker price isprofoundly unjust.

Students on nancial aid arent blind to the Universitys generosityand could prove prolic donors in thefuture. I understand that my opinionis not entirely economically sound, butthe Universitys concerns should not beprimarily concentrated on the bottomline. Rather, Brown must focus on thedevelopment of the best and bright-est students it can possibly attract inan environment based on meritocratic

principles and not monetary contribu-tions. Diversity of experience begetsa richer (get it?) student body, and aBrown education can do much to cor-rect for past inequalities.

In short, the University needs toevaluate all of its applicants on thesame terms. We know from past arti-cles (Stigmatriculation, for example)that the University is at liberty to castany of an applicants attributes in posi-tive light, be it the applicants status asa legacy or his or her lack of nancialneed. We could just throw in the towel,admit that the process isnt fair, andcall it a day. And thats okay, I guess,

but then we might as well throw in thetowel on the athletic cuts, too. Weshould nd even thepossibility that one stu-dent could be passed up

for another based purelyon socioeconomic means rep-

rehensible and in direct violation ofBrowns commitment to a spirit

of free inquiry. As Brownstudents, we must demandmuch of our peers, and it

only makes sense to de-mand the best.

eatures editor

stan FERNcontributing writer


5/8

5arts & cultureTHURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2011

Finding new music is difcult. Ina world where bands are discovered,groomed into producing a radio-readysingle, and then dropped, comingacross a genuine sound can be a realtime commitment. Many devote theirfree time to this task, combing localand national music blogs, stalwartlysearching for something they can beproud of nding.

Some come by their music a littleless heroically. For instance, they mayhave rst encountered the notable mu-sician Annie Clark, better known asSt. Vincent, at home, watching So YouThink You Can Dance?with their dad

and stepmother. Hypothetically.TheSYTYCD?performance opened with choreography set to Paris isBurning from Clarks debut solo al-

bum,Marry Me. An array of surpris-ingly exible twenty-somethings jerkedaround the stage in bizarre pseudo-

Victorian attire. It was like the cast ofAClockwork Orange was having a rave:truly strange, but darkly funny too.

This atmosphere surrounds not justthat dance but St. Vincents music ingeneral. Two albums and a respectableamount of success later, Clark has be-come a master of these strange juxta-positions. She is both delicate and sur-real, morphing very old school concepts

into the avant-garde, at once emulatingand transcending her sources to createsomething gripping and bizarre and re-ally, really cool.

You wouldnt gather any of thatfrom her interviews. Raised in Dallas,Texas, Clarks rst foray into the worldof music came as a teenager, managingher uncles jazz band. After droppingout of the Berklee College of music, hercareer blossomed; she joined the Dal-las-based Polyphonic Spree and thenSufjan Stevens touring ensemble be-fore starting her solo career, releasing

Marry Me in 2007 andActorin 2009.Both albums were critically acclaimed,

and the latter became a fair commercialsuccess. Clark claims that the sound ofher most recent release,Strange Mer-cy (2011), was inspired in part by oldDisney movies likeSnow White.

These disarmingly innocent musi-cal roots, not to mention her angelic-looking face and bubbly demeanor,paint a picture of the musician thatsmuch more Kimya Dawson than TheClick Five.

But then you listen to her lyrics.And then you watch her perform.While her uncles jazzy inuence is

certainly to be found in her instrumen-tation, St. Vincents onstage rifng is,she has admitted, more a child of prog

rock. Clark is in the habit of switchingfrom dreamy ute and piano scores to

jerky, near-epileptic guitar solos andback with an ease and grace that is as jolting as her lyric shifts. In the nalsong ofActor, the vocals change fromthe unassuming Oh honey, I was therein the dark where you lay to the clos-ing line Bodies like wrecking balls,f*ck, f*ck with dynamite without los-ing a moment of their airy, etherealquality.

Whats more, every piece of her styleseems completely organic. Strange

Mercy, an album replete with languor-ous Disney-era strings and harsh gui-

tar lines alike, is less Frankenstein andmore Prius. As with her persona, St.Vincents style manages to evoke verydifferent ideas without having themclash. She has managed to rene thisstyle more with every release.

Granted, Strange Mercy isnt per-fect. The opening song in particular,Chloe in the Afternoon, seems to havetoo much happening at once, and half-

way through the track list youll pickup on a pattern: evanescent, Disney-cum-LSD intro, atonal, mechanical yetstill gripping body, outro comprised ofthe previous two, with the whole thingoverlaid by Clarks ever-disconcertingharmonies.

But the albums triumphs are revealing. Her roots are clear. Cruelis her best strange-pop creation yet,managing to be both catchy and bizarre

without falling under the moniker of

psychedelia, and Surgeon absolutelydrips with jazz.Clark may say that she owes some

of Strange Mercy to Disneys SnowWhite, but she owes her personalitymore to Grimms Fairy Tales; theresa bite and a darkness to her lyrics andher presentation that a lilting ute be-lies. Her music is at times both sur-real and comic; Champagne Year islled with sardonic irony that is directenough to be unsettling. She ties pop,

jazz, and rock together into somethingcaptivating and new, and its power liesin the juxtaposition of those elements.Maybe that twisted dance number hadthe right idea.

st. vincents creepy, captivating parts

Its 3:30 a.m. I zip up my cut-off denim shorts, put on my wide-

brimmed brown leather hat and skipdown the Grad Center ramp into theidling taxi. I havent slept in 18 hoursand wont for another 24, but sleep isthe last thing on my mind. I have thedriver pick up my friend and travelcompanion, Hilary, and then instructhim to T.F. Green airport.

Wasnt expecting to see such a bigTexas smile this early in the morning!says the security agent as I proudlyhand him my ID and boarding pass.

Im headed home, I say. I canthelp but be excited!

It doesnt hurt that a Mr. West, Mr.Wonder, and Mr. Win Butler are alsoscheduled to appear in my near future,

as well as over a hundred other musi-cal acts. Im on my way to attend mysixth consecutive Austin City LimitsMusic Festival, ACL, as it is affection-ately known, in (where else?) Austin,Texas.

Austin, the Live Music Capital ofthe World, is like no other place Iknow, and everything I love about it(the music, the food, its vivacious spir-it), is concentrated over ACL weekendon the 350 acres of Zilker Park, theFestivals home. The citys diversity isevident at ACL, where for three days,everybody from the tiniest babies toaging hippies, University of Texas frat

stars to plaid-clad hipsters, meld to-gether under a shared passion for mu-sic to form one happy collective.

As at any big music festival, life-altering decisions inevitably presentthemselves. On the rst night, Hilaryand I forgo seeing Santigold and PrettyLights in order to get a prime spot forKanye West, who is playing oppositeColdplay as one of the nal two acts ofthe evening. We inch our way to about30 feet from the stage and stand foran hour, immovable, glued with sweatto the strangers around us. This is allforgotten as soon as Wests now iconic

ballerinas ferociously hound the stage,and Yeezy himself appears on a a lift,high above the masses. As H.A.Msegues into Dark Fantasy, a dancing

craze erupts and only intensies asthe hit-lled show continues. Touchthe Sky, Gold Digger, All of theLightsits the Good Life indeed.

Thankfully, on Sunday, the nalnight, there is no decision to be made.

Arcade Fire is the only choice. ACL isone of the few, if not the only majorU.S. music festival to have the pri-mary headlining act play completelyunopposed. I see this as not only asign of respect for the artists, but alsoas an opportunity for the entire festi-

val crowd to come together as a wholefor one last hurrah. Even before leadsinger Win Butler and the rest of the

octet take the stage, there is a pal-pable intensity pulsating through thecrowd of tens of thousands. When the

band opens with the tting Ready toStart, their energy seems to mirrorthat of the crowd. It gradually gainsspeed throughout the rst few songs,thrusts itself forward during Inter-

vention, and explodes with WakeUp. Win, Rgine, Jeremy, and theothers become completely maniacal,propelling the crowd over the edgeand into their vivacious, dance-lledrealm. The rest of the set continuesas such, with both the performersand the audience entranced inanother world. Its by far the

best show of the weekend.When the band rounds out

their encore with SprawlII (Mountains BeyondMountains), I try to clingto that joyous place, butas the music endsand the band saystheir goodbyes, I canfeel it slipping away,and the real world en-croaching.

Back at Brown, thatnight seems like an-other world indeedthough its force stilllingers within me andis ignited every time

I turn on my iPod and blast a songthrough my speakers. Whether its an

Arcade Fire tune or not, Im remindedof the intensity and passion that mu-sic fosters. I remember its ability to

bring together all types of people andexport them simultaneously as a col-lective and as individuals to a com-pletely unique place, where anythingseems possible.

tearing it up at acl

ben RESNIKcontributing writer

kate NEMETZcontributing writer

Big Texas Smile

Grimm and Disney


6/8

6arts & culturePOST-

There are certain mothers who go tothe computer when their kids are sick

with the common cold. They linger overthe CDC website, doubling back overlists of symptoms. They ask themselves,

Am I sure this cold isnt something un-usual, something worse?

That worse is the fear Contagionmakes explicit and palpable. It onlytakes half an hour for this lm to llsomeone with that mothers hypochon-dria, at which point, one can notice no

one in the theater is touching their fac-es.

From its start, Contagion hewstightly to a structure that wastes no timeor action. This tight packaging requiresimplicit patterns to help tell a story.Lighting is usually realistic, reectingthe minutiae of any given scenescape.

When a person is visibly sick, the light-ing subtly drops into dark, cavern-ous tones of green, blue, or harrowing

white. In the rst scene, an airplane baris rendered plainly. Already the secondday of the disease epidemic, middle-aged Beth Emhoff (Gwyneth Paltrow)takes a salacious phone call minutes

before her ight home. Its not her hus-band. Something is going on, but thatis not immediately claried. Instead weare given tight, dialogue-free clips of illpeople from across the continents. Em-hoff and these people die, but the scopeofContagions cataclysm is born. Em-hoff is Contagions patient zero.

Emhoffs network of infected peoplelinks a cast of characters t for Greektragedy or Marina Abramovic perfor-mance art. The most memorable per-formance is easily that of Matt Damonas Emhoffs widower, Mitch. Halfway

between his wifes and sons deaths(and just 15 minutes into the movie),he doesnt even inch as the ER doctor

tells him his wife is dead: Ok, yeahsocan I talk to her now? Where is she?True to life, and difcult to show in ashorter lm, death and disbelief are inharmony. Laurence Fishburne plays Dr.Ellis Cheever, the ofciating head of theCenter for Disease Control, who leads acollaborative effort against disease and

widespread panic. His mantra is clev-erly slipped into his rst dialogue witha janitor from his ofce, DoctorYougotta think with your head, not yourheart.

Elements of Hollywood fantasy stillcreep into some other character proles.The unnamed head of the Departmentof Homeland Security, played by EnricoColantoni, is one of the other, less inter-esting kind of character in Contagion.He is not only at, but he projects ste-reotypes of the military as slick and cal-culating godhead over human affairs.Slightly naive, given Contagions acuityin dealing with other aspects of real life.This is not the only clich in 106 min-utes of lm; because no time is wastedin transition from clich to originality,they are never overly bothersome.

Government and NGO distinctionsprove difcult to keepthose who aretrying to save humanity become sick,

become victims of crimes; national and

international reputations become jeop-ardized with every strategic advanceagainst illness, as masses continue to

weaken and die. Contagion depicts aninternational community that cannotsimply eradicate a disease. The collec-tive interests that form a federalist gov-ernment provide nightmarish answersto ethical questions.Who is the rst oneto get the vaccine once its patented, af-ter all? The easy retort is to ask: is Holly-

wood qualied to give a faithful answer?No, probably not. But it is surprisinghow well the writers of Contagion areable to intuit the frailty inherent in gov-ernmental systems. The specialized ter-ritory of government agencies becomean obvious problem added onto theepidemic of disease. And, remarkably,Fishburne makes us feel like hes practi-cally commandeered to work under theDepartment of Homeland Security. Itsrare that a movie affects us with the im-plications of bureaucracy.

It seems that only elite experts andmasses are the focus of Contagionthen the subplots multiply. They varyin qualityone even fails to resolveitself. But they all are intricate. Per-haps this intricacy is meant to serveas a supplement of plot substance for

a narrative that is too fast and one-dimensional otherwise. But as they tryto t into a speedy arch-narrative, thesubplots become confusing. Too muchcompounds too quickly, and the struc-ture of the movie begins to feel weak ataround 45 minutes. One should know:a scene showing an autopsied womanhaving her scalp folded over her face,

which occurs less than 20 minutes in,is a good metaphor for the rest of themovie. So dont think the viewer is atrisk of inattention, regardless of slip-ping plot.

Contagion is overwhelmingly rich with themes, some edifying and real,others self-disarmingly ctional. If theentire movie had to be summed intoone applicable term, that term would bebreakdown. Breakdown at all levelsgovernmental, social, cultural, familial,dialogicalcharacterizes Contagions

world, everywhere from the earliest car-icatures of biomedicine to the emptiedhallways and ofces that give rise to se-

vere existential questioning.We believeno one is safe. No one is safe in the thinconstructs of comfort Contagion provesare easy to cancel.

But such commentary on Americanlife came from Hollywood perhapsfrom a source audiences were not ex-

pecting. Steven Soderbergh is knownfor directing Erin Brockovich, TrafcandOceans Eleven, all of which enjoyedcritical and box ofce success. Four-time Academy Award winner, Trafc, isprobably the most relevant comparisonfor Contagion. Trafc shook Ameri-can audiences with gritty imagery anddrama that jeopardized the presumedsecurity of family valuesjust like Con-tagion.What separates Contagion fromTrafc, however, is that Contagion getsthings right. Unlike in Trafc, few of thecharacters appear to be faking their oc-

cupations, or contrived at all (save forAlan Krumwiede, who is a dishonestlyor uncarefullyrendered pantomime of2011 name-drop Julian Assange). Traf-

cs subject, drugs, is morally compli-cated. Because drug-dealers and drug-users are both people, its a little easierto blame their misfortunes on their badactions. Contagions subject is dominat-ing, non-human. It is morally rich, be-cause a disease is not a person, and still

we dont know how to ght one when itthreatens us.

Frightening diseases are a forerun-ning post-millennium problem. Bio-terrorism in 2001 taught us that An-thraxand by extension, illnessis an

attack we are unequipped to ght with-out fear. The media conrmed this byleaving no paranoia unused. SARS fol-lowed in 2002, and if anyone was skep-tical that Anthrax indicated a problem,they slept less after SARS. Then a hia-tus. For about seven years after SARS,

America thought it had laughed off itsobsession with fearful diseases. Notthe caseH1N1 Flu emerged in humanpopulations in 2010, and we reactedhysterically. Because of its recent oc-currence, livestock vector, and Chineseorigin, Contagions germ seems mod-eled after H1N1. With this basis in re-ality, Contagion becomes an effective

means to elaborate on American inse-curities.Contagion uses fear to address its

audience, but nobly. We feel fear inresponse to the characters initial re-actions to adversity. They jump in andout of self-interest and good nature.Ultimately, most are forced to act so

virtuously that, as catharsis sets in, onequestions the existence of cynicism.This is where art and media divide intheir use of fear: Contagion not onlychallenges humanity, but also upliftsit and recognizes its collective powerto fail and revivein almost the sameinstance.

Prelude to a Sneezehollywood just went contagious

tyler BOURGOISEarts & culture editor


7/8


8/8

8 lifestylePOST-

Sometime this week when I shouldhave been studying, I embarked ona YouTube excursion that led me,

by way of Jack White, Insane ClownPosse, and early-1900s British folkrevival, to realize a profoundly posi-tive correlation between genius andperversion. By now, sex-scandal isa tired phrase, an invocation of news-anchors feigned surprise that stales

with every Weiner pic and referenceto Tiger Woods most recent score.I was not scandalized when I readabout Berlusconis latest prostitute,

nor when I saw pics of a Puerto Ri-can Senators spread buttcheeks onGawker. Oregon Congressman David

Wu (D) announced his resignationlast month after word got out that he

was both an alleged sex offender and astraight-up furry (tiger being his alterego of choice). Even that didnt reallyshock me. I mean, I have infinitelymore affection for wildcats than for,say, bodybuilders-cum-actors-cum-governors with secret children.

But recently, I found myself scan-dalized by far less offensive infor-mation regarding a celebrity thatdied a good two hundred years ago.I was bopping around the intertron

when suddenly I stumbled on a JackWhite-produced Insane Clown Posse

rendition of an under-the-radar Mo-zart ditty from 1782, Leck Mich Im

Arsch, or in English, Lick me in theass. My first reaction: okay, ICP,

youve shit on electromagnetism andMendelian inheritance, but do notfuck with Amadeus. That guy wastickling the clavier at an age whenJustin Bieber and Willow Smith werestill learning bowel control. Thereseven a popular theory that listeningto Mozart actually makes you smart-er, popularized by author and musi-cian Don Campbell. Never did there

live a purer, more upright example ofbourgeois sophistication. Wrong. No sooner had I typed

Mozart into the search bar thanGoogle autocompleted with the wordscatology. Maybe youre already fa-miliar with Mozarts love of shit, butI wasnt. Just like the kinky inclina-tions of Rousseau and Einstein, Mo-zarts fecal fetish has been coveredup by the forces of institutionalizedrectitude. Until ICP covered it, themasters original scatological canon,Lick my ass, was known to Englishspeakers as, Let us be joyful. An-other canon, Lick my ass right welland clean, was translated, Nothing

pleases me more than wine. Its likeif 2 Girls 1 Cup was renamed I Love

Kittens In Pashminas.In addition to Wanking All-the-

day-us Mozart (sorry, I had to),James Joyce was also an undercoverperv. The guy had a thing for flatu-lence. Sure, Ulysses epitomized theModernist movement in literature,

but the letters Joyce exchanged withhis wife really characterized his con-tribution to the Avant-Fart (sorryIm not sorry). In all seriousness, he

wrote at length about the big fat fel-lows, long windy ones, and littlenaughty farties his wife produced

during sex. He claimed he could findhis wife in a room of farting womenbased on sound alone. If you read hisletters (the rest of which arent fit toprint), it becomes increasingly clearthat his passion for sex was compa-rable to his love of writing.

Its a similar story with the fatherof modern physics. Einstein had alove child and married a woman who

was not only his first cousin, but wasalso related to his family on the otherside. He told his first wife to expectneither intimacy nor fidelity. And thesize of his stiffy was always directlyrelated to the mass, energy, and mo-mentum of whatever black hole he

was exploring at the time.Legendary British folk composer

Percy Grainger was so into S&M thathe used to photograph the bloody

bed after his wife flayed him. He cov-ered the bedroom in mirrors so hecould watch the flogging take place.The biography of Lawrence of Arabiaincludes a totally gratuitous descrip-tion of the time he was captured andraped by Turks, which most histori-ans think never actually happened(though in cases like these, doubtingthe victims story is generally dam-aging, destructive, and uncompas-sionate). He did, however, pay his

friends to whip him sometimes so hecould get off and record it in his di-ary.

The takeaway? Theres a strongcorrelation between genius and horn-iness, as there is between genius anddepression, genius and synesthesia,genius and social ineptitude. If yourenot a huge fetishist, it doesnt pre-clude you from being a savant, and if

you love getting farted on, it doesntmean youll grow up to write a con-temporaryPortrait of the Artist. Itsinteresting, though, to deconstructsocietal romanticism surrounding ourhistorical figures. After all, theyrepeople just like us. People who desire

love, intimacy, and, in Mozarts case,poop.

n. a historically important horn-dog.See also prodorgy.

Although we barely remember it,there was a time before cell phones.I didnt get a cell phone until my sec-ond year of high school (my parents

were less than cool), so freshmanyear was fraught with awkward mis-communication. The worst example

was when my mom forgot it was a halfday. I didnt realize she had forgottenuntil it became clear, long after allmy friends had left campus, and mycreepy, middle-aged drama teacherinsisted he could give me a ride home.

Although I managed to somehow talkmy way out of that one, I think thatincident was the reason Mom finallycaved and bought me a phone.

Remember the days when youactually needed to know someonesnumber to call him or her? I can stillrecite the number of my first bestfriend by heart. These days, however,I couldnt guess the first three digitsof the numbers I call every day. I donteven know my dads number. The ad-

vent of cell phones has allowed usto swap numbers like trading cards,and, much like those Pokmon cards

youve probably buried in the back ofyour closet in the hopes theyll sell oneBay someday, we allow them to ac-cumulate. Id go so far as to say that

we call fewer than 20 percent of the

numbers we have in our phones.

Of course, thats part of the fun. As a college senior, looking throughmy contact list is as much a trip downmemory lane as perusing old Face-

book albumsif not more so, becausemy contact list manages to capturethe truly random moments that makecollege the phenomenal experience itis. I still have the numbers of peoplelike my ENGN 9 TA, who graduatedtwo years ago and brought beer toevery section. The kid my roommatesexiled me with for a month. Girls Istayed up with until four in the morn-ing studying in the Sci Li for oneexam in one class one time. Randompeople I met at parties or hooked

up with once (entries like EthanHockey and Kevin DTau). Friendsof friends who proclaimed me theirsoul mates after a lot of tequila anddrunken heart to hearts. Some kid

who randomly sat down next to me inthe Blue Room but I never saw again.

And one poor, unsuspecting youngman who had slighted a friend of mineand hence received my delightfully

vengeful prank call late one Saturdaynight, listed forever in my phone asJake ANSWER AS TRACY.

Why do we hold onto these numbers, often knowing well never callthem? Is it for the laugh we get when

we happen to glance through and

recall those bizarre exchanges? Is itfor the surge of pride and self-impor-tance that comes with a long contactlist? Or is it something deeper thanthatare we holding on to them inthe hopes that, like our Pokemoncards, theyll prove valuable onceagain? Maybe one of the contacts

you forged long ago might be the keyto networking your way to a fabulous

job interview, or turn out to be thelove of your life. Maybe were holdingon to these numbers just in case thestory isnt over.

Still, there comes a time whenyou have to cut the cord. After a fewrough nights at the start of the semes-

ter, I went through and deleted allthose numbers I know I shouldnt callagainrelationships that went sour,crushes Ive drunk texted, creepers Idont need to see again.

Yet even when deleting these less-than-ideal contacts, it hurts to give upon their story lines. Deleting numbersfrom your phone is a concrete recog-nition of just how evanescent our re-lationships can be. Especially in col-lege, people constantly flit in and outof your life, and its difficult to admitthat how close you feel to someoneone dayor one nighthas no bear-ing on how important they will be to

you tomorrow.

Even so, I do think its importantto shake the dust out of your phonefrom time to time. Save the memories,

but clear out the numbers that youdont need anymore to make way fornew ones. After all, there are alwaysnew people to meet at Brown, alwaysnew exchanges to be made. And whoknows? The next time someone asks

you Can I have your number? couldbe the start of a great new plot twist

you never expected.

can i have it?

MMsexpert

savannah CHEYENNEsex columnist

Penius

Can I Have Yo Numbah?

Post- magazine, September 29, 2011

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