Professor Molly Murray pointed out in a lecture this week that Frank O’Hara wasn’t born in New York, a fact she brought up in conjunction with his seemingly boundless affection for the city. I think I’m in the same boat as O’Hara (a ferry, preferably, headed toward Manhattan). My parents live in Schwenksville, Pa., the near-absurd name of which should give you some idea of what kind of town it is. I did a double and triple take when I saw Schwenksville named in the first chapter of The Corrections—I’m still convinced Jonathan Franzen just opened an atlas and chose the real town that sounded the most like a fake town. If ever anyone desired a high-school experience brimming with pastoralia, my early teenage years fit the bill.

So when I went to the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens last weekend to see their cherry blossom trees on display, I felt a little displaced—all this nature around reminded me a lot of being at home in Pennsylvania. I had a great time at the gardens, but breathed an unconscious sigh of relief when I left their gates to find the 2/3 stop waiting for me right outside.

I think there’s something about nature being a destination, rather than a surrounding, here in New York that makes me appreciate it more. Sure, Central Park’s dominance of the island can slightly complicate getting to the Upper East. The slight inconvenience of crosstown buses, though, is a small price to pay for the maintenance of Manhattan’s sanity—a formidable task I think the park executes with panache.

While many of my high-school friends who ended up scattered across the country are going back to Pennsylvania for the summer, most of my Columbia friends are staying in the city. The job and internship opportunities are a huge consideration, of course, but I think there’s something else to the decision, too—so many Columbia students are in the same situation as Frank and me. We’d rather have Broadway than backyards, especially if we can

Happy summer, dear reader. If you are staying in the city, don’t forget to lay around in the park (Central, Riverside, Prospect…) every once in awhile. You’ll enjoy it more knowing there’s a subway handy.

Project Health has spread significantly since its birth, establishing sites across the country. The Columbia division is separated into six branches, each with a different focus. Four concentrate on specific diseases or health concerns and teach the patients how to best deal with their illnesses such as sickle cell anemia, HIV/AIDS, Type 1 diabetes, and asthma.
Within the program, each volunteer is assigned a “mentee” with whom they meet every week.

Elizabeth Edwards, BC ’10, and a Project Health member, works with children afflicted with sickle cell anemia. She says the participating children in the program initially have very little knowledge concerning their own diseases.
“Some didn’t even realize that sickle cell anemia isn’t simply having ‘wrong blood,’ but is much more complex and has nothing to do with their bodies being ‘wrong,’” Edwards says. “Oftentimes, at the doctor, a nurse will stay with a patient for a short period and only offer unspecific curative advice.”

The volunteers try to pick up from where the doctors and nurses leave off, educating program participants on the workings of their bodies and how they can get better.
The sixth branch of Project Health takes a more preventative stance toward healthcare. It is called Family Help Desk, and the program directs clients to external clinics or programs that can help them with their specific needs. Alex Woodward, BC ’10, who works for the Family Help Desk, describes it as a “compass towards other organizations or programs that can cater to each person’s individual necessities.”

Woodward and Edwards both expressed that perhaps one of the most detrimental influences of coming from an underprivileged background is that it instills in people an attitude of hopelessness.
Currently, Project Health is in a particularly formative time. It has decided to downsize, closing some of its programs in order to focus more on the increased participation.
“There are a lot of factors that influence whether or not a child can attend a program,” Woodward says. “Their family situation and life at home have great authority over their being able to truly take advantage of the Project Health programs.”

Project Health’s downsizing aims to redirect resources to preventative treatment. This will address quality of life issues that may improve attendance and interaction in the youth programs, helping participants gain access to and take advantage of other healthcare options.

The founders of Project Health want to get to root of those problems and establish a stable infrastructure for each of their clients. Therefore, they are focusing on preventative treatment, such as Family Help Desk, so that the patients have the security in their lives to regularly attend a program. 

The direct result of this change at Columbia is that three of the youth programs will be cancelled after this spring semester. The three that will remain are those focusing on sickle cell anemia, Type 1 diabetes, and the Family Help Desk. Though this may seem like a considerable setback the volunteers at Project Health remain positive. 

Woodward says of the changes: “This summer there’s going to be a lot of figuring things out and attacking the way we go about things. This past semester Family Help Desk had 68 cases alone and many referrals from doctors. We’re actually at the point now when we have so many cases that we can barely field them all. So although some of the programs are closing we’re still passionate and want to make it work. The general theme of Project Health isn’t changing.” \\\

The real surprise was tucked in the bottom right corner, however, under an innocent pink banner advertising “Cosmo News” in white lettering. Delicately framing Jessica Alba’s well-toned curves in small black text was the headline, “A New Kind of Date Rape You Must Know About.” Never one to steer clear of controversial sexual issues, Cosmo had overstepped its bounds.

Written by Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism alum Laura Sessions Stepp, the article introduced a phrase that would quickly become a dirty word in women’s rights circles: “gray rape.” Defined by Stepp as “sex that falls somewhere between consent and denial,” gray rape was rapidly decried by legal experts, antiviolence activists, survivors of assault, and readers in general. Not only is it legally problematic, inching toward the idea that rape can be a perpetrator-less crime, but it places blame squarely on the women who, Stepp’s article implied, asked for it. This sort of rape is less a criminal act than, claimed Stepp, “a consequence of today’s hookup culture” in which “lots of partying and flirting, plenty of alcohol, and ironically, the idea that women can be just as bold and adventurous about sex as men are” makes some instances of unwanted sexual contact “even more confusing than date rape because often both parties are unsure of who wanted what.”

Date rape—confusing? In Stepp’s view, apparently so. We live in muddled times, she lamented. In days of yore, when “social rules were clearer,” rape was a simpler concept. Gender roles were satisfied, as men sought sex and women dodged and parried in the classic relationship dance. Now we no longer adhere to such boundaries. Many women “feel it’s perfectly okay to go out looking for a hookup or to be the aggressor, which may turn out fine for them—unless the signals get mixed or misread.” In these cases, Stepp claims, gray rape is often a possibility, and it’s much easier in such situations for an assaulted woman to blame herself.

Stepp’s article was torn to shreds by seething feminists in venues from Jezebel.com to the Huffington Post, but the damage had been done. Gray rape, with all of its troubling implications and true-blue vintage ignorance (hadn’t we heard this “she asked for it” routine before?), had entered the popular lexicon. Women who engaged in such apparently high-risk behaviors as drinking, dancing, and flirting—a demographic that encompassed the vast majority of female college students—were made to wonder if they were somehow at fault. Those women who had experienced date rape were told in no uncertain terms that the traumatic nature of the crime was somehow lessened. At Columbia, a university attended by fiercely independent and politically active students and located in a vibrant city where socializing with strangers is the norm, the issue took on an even graver significance. What did gray rape mean on campus?

________

At the time the article was printed, Lauren, a member of the Columbia College class of 2011 whose name has been changed at her request, was just arriving on campus. She spent the first three weeks of September in the usual first-year pursuits: orientation, parties, adjusting to the college schedule. Since her first day on campus, she’d been hearing about one particular party. Hosted by one of the more socially active fraternities, in which she’d already made several friends, it was supposed to be the biggest party of the year.

She entered the party with two friends, both female, as the male students she’d come with hadn’t been allowed in. The three women started drinking a lemonade drink prepared in massive batches by the frat brothers. “I still have no idea how much alcohol I actually consumed,” Lauren recalls, but she knows she was drunk: her memory of the party is somewhat patchy, and she had to reconstruct the evening later by looking through her cell phone and observing the time stamps on text messages. About an hour after she arrived, she noticed a man wearing a suit and spoke to him briefly, asking why he was so dressed up. He told her that he had come from his internship, where he worked with one of the frat brothers, and that he was a Columbia senior.

Later that night, as Lauren stepped out of the bathroom, someone approached her from behind and began to dance with her. She quickly realized that it was the man in the suit that she’d spoken to earlier. When he spun her around, she noticed how drunk she was, but she let him kiss her. A few moments later he led her out of the party. Her friends, not knowing her well enough to realize this was out of character, didn’t stop her.

Lauren, the suited man, and his friend walked out of the frat house and onto 114th Street. “I’m not having sex with you tonight,” she cautioned, wanting to make herself clear. “That’s fine, that’s fine,” he responded, and hailed a cab for the three of them. Confused, Lauren asked him where his dorm was. “I live farther down,” he answered, elaborating that he lived off-campus with his half-brother in an apartment paid for by their mother.

They arrived at the apartment and went upstairs. Lauren began to feel ill at ease. Not only did his story seem odd—the apartment was far too luxurious for a college student—but she had just realized that she’d left everything but her CUID and cell phone at the party. New to the city, she had no idea where she was and no money for the subway or a cab. After an uncomfortable hour in which he kept trying to press drinks on her, she ended up following him back to his room.
The two made out for a while. He kept trying to take her pants off, but she kept refusing. “There were at least three or four times of me freaking out and being like, ‘This isn’t okay, I don’t want to have sex,’” Lauren says. Every time this would happen, he’d pull back and ask if she wanted to go back to campus. She’d say yes. He’d agree, then start to kiss her again and try to take her clothing off.

Finally, he asked her to watch while he masturbated. She agreed. At that point, she says, she was thinking, “I’m not getting out of here if he doesn’t come.” She didn’t like what was happening, but she didn’t feel that she would be able to leave. After a few minutes, he moved her hand to touch him. “Then,” she says, “he rolled me over and took my pants off and started to go at it. I kept saying no.”

After a few minutes, he stopped and asked her why she was saying no. “At that point my primary concern was the fact that he wasn’t wearing a condom,” Lauren says. “He was going to have sex with me whether I liked it or not ... and he had a brother waiting outside as far as I knew, and whatever happened with him would have been worse with two guys. So I said, you don’t have a condom. So he went and got one. And he raped me. He asked me during if I was okay, because I was crying.”
Afterward, Lauren went to the bathroom and got dressed as quickly as she could. She looked out the window and memorized landmarks, “so that if I decided to press charges I would know where he lived,” she explains. He walked her outside. She was still crying as he hailed her a cab, handed her money, and asked for her number. Lauren agreed to give it to him so that she could get away as soon as possible.

The next day, he called her and asked her out for coffee. She agreed. “I had to make sure he didn’t disappear,” she says. “Because he couldn’t get in trouble if he disappeared.” At some point during that day, she spoke to the frat member her rapist had identified as his coworker and learned that he wasn’t a college senior. Instead, he was in his late twenties, an investment banker at the same company where the frat brother who’d brought him was interning.

That evening, he met her for coffee at Nussbaum & Wu. She grilled him: “I asked if he’d realized I was crying, and he said no. And I asked if he’d realized it wasn’t a good idea, and he said he’d thought I was into him too and he didn’t realize how drunk I was.” Lauren didn’t believe him. “I don’t think he would call it rape,” she says, “but I think he knows I didn’t want to have sex with him.” To her, there was nothing gray about it—it was rape.

_____

The people Lauren has told about the rape have expressed less clear-cut views. One man, upon hearing the story, asked her what position it was, explaining that “it couldn’t have been rape” if she’d been on top. Others, like a few members of the frat that she tried to approach, “blew me off,” she says. “People have straight up said that it wasn’t rape.”

Such attitudes are familiar to Linnea Hincks and Kabita Parajuli, both CC ’10 and the co-coordinators of Take Back the Night, which is perhaps the most well-known antiviolence organization on Columbia’s campus. Hincks, who is also a certified peer counselor in the Rape Crisis and Anti-Violence Support Center, has had the opportunity to speak to a number of students about what defines rape. Many of these discussions have been positive, but there have also been “some pretty troubling conversations,” she says. “I’ve spoken to a lot of people who are very suspicious of the way we define consent, who think, especially when there’s alcohol involved, that the way we define consent doesn’t really work. Because if the perpetrator is drunk, how can he or she perceive consent?” In Hincks’ experience, many students simply don’t know how to think about rapes in which alcohol is a factor—which is problematic, as many of the rapes that occur on college campuses fall into that category.

A great deal of this confusion can be ascribed to the popularization of concepts like gray rape. To Parajuli, phrases like this are nothing but attempts to deny the severity of the problem. “I find it very puzzling,” she says, “that there are so many people who try and, not simply walk away from violence, but cover it up with words that make it seem almost acceptable.”

Hincks agrees. “It’s a way to remove blame from the perpetrator, and put it on the survivor. Because, you know, if it was a gray rape, she must have made it gray by something she did,” she says. “That’s not my understanding of consent at all.”
Many survivors of so-called gray rapes experience the reactions that Hincks describes and that Lauren went through. Unsure of how serious the problem is, people try to justify what happened by explaining it away. “Can it have been rape if both parties were drinking?” they wonder. Can silence be misinterpreted as consent? If you go home with somebody, don’t they have a right to expect something?

____

Most people have been taught to think of rape as a man attacking a woman in a dark alley. There is no alcohol, there is no shared cab ride, there is no gray area, and there is certainly no possibility of the gender roles being shifted or reversed.

The idea of men as survivors is still new to many college students and is even treated as a joke. As the co-president of Columbia Men Against Violence, Nicholas Bergson-Shilcock, SEAS ’08, has often encountered this problem. While he’s quick to admit that men are assaulted with far less frequency than women are, he’s found that male survivors face certain challenges that women don’t. “There’s definitely an added stigma of being a male who’s been assaulted and coming out in a college community,” he says. “The overarching, unsaid philosophy is that men can’t be assaulted or that men should be strong.” Men who try to talk about their experiences are often mocked or not taken seriously, which, according to Bergson-Shilcock, “adds a lot of extra baggage and barriers to men being able to talk about this openly.” The societal stigma attached to being male and being raped means that proportionately far fewer men come forward with stories of sexual assault than do women. Despite Columbia’s aggressive consent campaigns, the idea that a man might say and mean no is still foreign to many students.

Joseph Kaptur, SEAS ’08, a member of CMAV and the director of Nightline in 2007, also feels that male survivors are scrutinized more closely and taken less seriously than their female counterparts. “As CMAV’s statement at TBTN said, male survivors have in many ways an even more difficult time of it than female survivors,” he says. “They are told, ‘What happened to you isn’t real. It doesn’t happen.’ It’s the subject of a joke because it’s just so far removed from a ‘normal’ experience.” He brings up a YouTube video called “Bro Rape” as an example. In this eight-minute mockumentary from popular Web site Derrickcomedy.com, a fake investigative report is launched into the phenomenon of men raping other men, never missing an opportunity to make light of the issue and mimic the phrases and concerns common to serious discussions of rape. Kaptur is sure the video was meant in fun, but the implicit statement—that any man who claims to have been sexually assaulted is either joking or lying—disturbs him deeply.

Columbia’s antiviolence campaign has certainly taken steps toward broader, less exclusive understandings of rape and consent. This year marked the first time that men were allowed to participate in the TBTN march in its entirety. In previous years, the march had begun with only women, while CMAV held a discussion group for men. Last year, there were more than 50 men at that discussion group, leaving them time only for introductions before they had to join the march. This year, TBTN came to a consensus—they would limit the front of the march to those who identified as women, but they would allow men to march the entire time. According to Hincks and Parajuli, the reasons for this decision were varied, but one of the strongest arguments for including men was TBTN’s desire to provide a safe space for all survivors. “As more statistics emerge and as people speak more openly about their experiences, it becomes quite obvious that it’s both men and women who are survivors,” Parajuli explains. “If we do want to take this to the next step and allow allies to walk with us, then we needed to include men.”

Kaptur was thrilled by TBTN’s decision to try including men in the march. “Having men included in every aspect of the march makes so much sense, because men are every bit as much survivors of sexual assault as women,” he says. “On the other hand, it completely makes sense to me that symbolically and physically it would be a women-led event due to the gendered nature of rape.” Still, he feels that Columbia’s resources for survivors have a long way to go. “At the Rape Crisis Center, they don’t allow men to be counselors,” he says. Despite its recent experiments with gender integration, others have raised similar concerns about TBTN. It purports to be a “safe space,” or a supportive place for survivors, but when male survivors still aren’t allowed to join their female counterparts in the front of the march, TBTN might not feel safe for everyone.

______

“Safe space,” a term usually reserved for therapeutic settings, has a different connotation when it comes to Frat Row. Most of the larger, more stereotypically collegiate parties on campus take place in the brownstones on 114th Street between Broadway and Amsterdam that house many of the fraternities on campus. As such, the fraternities are under a great deal of pressure, and they often take the rap for the binge drinking and drug use that take place at such gatherings. Even worse, much of the blame for on-campus violence is placed on the Greek system.

Matt Heiman, CC ’09, bears the brunt of this as the president of the InterGreek Council—an organization that, according to its Columbia Web page, “provides guidelines and support” to the Interfraternity Council, Panhellenic Council, and the Multicultural Greek Council. In his time as IGC’s president and, last year, as its judicial chair, he’s certainly dealt with “perceptions of fraternities on campus in terms of disciplinary issues,” he says. “But none of the issues—thus far, at least—that have been brought to me have dealt with the subject of rape or anything like that.” Instead, they’ve been issues of registering parties or of improper alcohol use. The IGC and the individual chapters within it have been continually working to improve their alcohol education system and to encourage responsible behavior, but they’re not under fire for sexual assault policies. “We are aware that it’s a problem on college campuses,” Heiman says. “We do want to fight it.” To that end, IGC has shown support for TBTN, encouraging its members to cheer the march on and hang banners out of the brownstones’ windows. It even holds a banner-making event to guarantee that fraternities don’t forget.

The interactions between fraternities and antiviolence groups have been nothing if not amiable. “We definitely work with people who are very responsive to supporting TBTN” from within the Greek system, Hincks says. “We’re very happy that those people exist.”

Bergson-Shilcock and CMAV agree. “The relationship has actually been pretty positive,” he says, citing the traditional banners and the consistency of that message.
Although her assailant was invited on campus by a frat brother who didn’t stop him from lying about his age and standing as a student, Lauren bears no ill will toward the Greek system. Many of the frat brothers she spoke to after being raped were supportive. One even pulled her aside when he saw her in a bar with an older friend, to tell her that if she needed a safe out, he could provide it. “I was so grateful that he was willing to do that,” she says. “I thanked him, profusely, repeatedly.” He knew what had happened to her, and he was willing to go out of his way to ensure, as best he could, that a similar thing didn’t happen again.

Still, she can’t help but feel that the problem of assault necessarily looms larger in the fraternity party scene. Over the months, she’s been told a number of horror stories about that particular fraternity. “I’d heard many, many times that this was ‘the date rape frat,’” she says. When she went to a sexual assault counselor on campus and told her story, mentioning the frat at which the party occurred, the counselor told her: “They have that reputation for a reason. I’ve heard this a lot about them. This isn’t an isolated incident.”

Hearing this from a counselor who surely had insider’s knowledge into the truth about sexual assault on campus, Lauren was shocked. She had many friends in the Greek system and knew them all to be decent, moral guys. None of them believed that fraternities deserved their reputation for date rape. She spoke to one member of the fraternity in question who vehemently denied the rumors. “I think he had literally never heard anything which he had identified as rape,” she says. Otherwise, he and the other brothers she knows would have been horrified.

The problem with the frats, suggests Bergson-Shilcock, is a problem with every venue on campus. “Rape happens everywhere,” he explains. “Rape happens in the frats, but it also happens in the dorms. It happens all over the place. It’s not that they’re exempt from it, but unfortunately, it’s pervasive.” The problem is widespread, at least partly on account of a glaring disconnect between what’s mentioned in confidence and what’s on record. Heiman and the rest of the fraternity leadership think they’re doing everything they need to do, but stigma and a feeling of helplessness ensure that survivors, counselors, and friends who know the amount of work left to be done aren’t talking.

_______

Helen Arnold, the manager of Columbia’s Disciplinary Procedure for Sexual Assault, is familiar with the dilemma. “Sexual assault occurs more than it is reported,” she says. “It is the most unreported crime on campus.” It’s a common tragedy: shame about the incident, fear of attracting attention and anger, and the desire to go on with life as best one can all tempt survivors to let rape go unreported.

For students afraid to come forward with their stories, the University’s policy is often much more appealing than the criminal justice system’s. “The benefit of doing it through the University,” Hincks explains, “is that we use a definition of consent that is a lot more inclusive and encompassing than the criminal justice system’s. I’d say the University has a more progressive line and would accept things as rape in a way that the DA wouldn’t. Basically, at the DA’s office, if they don’t think they can win a case, they won’t pursue it and it ends there, whereas at most schools at Columbia, if you file a complaint, there will be a panel, there will be a hearing, much less formal and intimidating than in the criminal justice system.”

Despite the accessibility of Columbia’s policy, TBTN leaders and others on campus see a major flaw in the University’s inability to pursue justice outside of Columbia’s gates. “It might be legitimate to have actual criminal repercussions for violent acts,” Hincks says. Parajuli agrees, “I don’t really understand why the University doesn’t pursue legal action.” Both are frustrated by the apparently impenetrable gap between University and criminal justice.
The disciplinary system is a bit complex: as Arnold details, “if the student named in a complaint is in either CC or SEAS, the DPSA is the only internal reporting option available to the complainant,” whereas if the student named is in JTS, UTS, or the Law School, complainants must go through their Dean’s Discipline. If the accused student is in any of Columbia’s other schools, the complainant can choose the method he or she prefers. Earlier this year, Dean of Student Affairs Chris Colombo created a committee to examine and reevaluate the Dean’s Discipline process, which indicates that the flaws many students have pointed to in the policy over the years might soon be corrected, though the case will still never be taken to the DA.

Regardless of whether the action goes through the DPSA or through Dean’s Discipline, though, there’s a certain sense of support and community within a University that’s lacking in the larger criminal justice system. It seems, so far, that the University’s determination to see allegations of rape through has been successful in terms of reported crime. Arnold says that, over the past few years, “more students have been accessing the DPSA Office to file complaints alleging sexual assault.” Still, there are many survivors who never report the rapes and never pursue disciplinary action, within a college system or otherwise.

____

Lauren is one of these survivors. At first, she’d intended to go to the University with her story. But when she found out that her rapist wasn’t a Columbia student and realized her options were limited to the criminal justice system, she felt discouraged and decided not to have a rape kit done. She didn’t know how she could prove that she hadn’t consented, and she was afraid that the DA would throw her case out. “As much as I wanted something to happen,” she says, “as much as I wanted him to know that he was a rapist, the disempowerment of being raped would only be multiplied if I went in and had pressed charges and got told by the DA that I didn’t have a case.” She knew she’d feel even worse “if he interpreted that as, ‘See? She tried to press charges against me, but it didn’t work and thus I’m not a rapist.’” Now, she regrets her decision. She wishes that she had some way of proving explicitly to him that what he did was rape.

It’s been nearly eight months, but Lauren is still grappling with the enormity of what happened to her. “I still obsess over it,” she says. “There are days when I don’t think about much else. ... Until about reading week, I wasn’t okay with being alone for very long. I thought about nothing else when I was alone.”

Friends, boyfriends, family members, and therapists have all been there for her. They’ve reassured her that she’s not at fault, that what happened to her wasn’t her choice. She feels better when she realizes that her story has changed the way others understand what is and isn’t consent and when that awareness manifests itself in action. When a fraternity brother goes out of his way to make sure she feels safe in a bar or when a boyfriend is careful not to push her sexually, she knows she’s been heard. “If telling the story could make an impact,” she says, “if I could expand it beyond just me, then maybe a little good was done in the world.” \\\

Hello,
We sincerely apologize for the delay in notifying you of our decision. Thank you for making time in your schedules to meet with the NSOP Committee interviewers this past week. We were lucky to have such a talented candidate pool of almost 400 applicants for 175 positions this year, but that has also made the decision process very difficult.
Despite the amount of skill and experience demonstrated in your application and interview, we are unable to offer you a position as NSOP Orientation Leader at this time.
So it looks like I will not be an OL for the class of 2012. It’s a shame, really, because I had big plans for my orientation group. I would have taught it much about Columbia, about New York City, about the globalized world in which we live.
Here are seven lessons I would have imparted to my soft and impressionable young orientees:

1. All those free water bottles you get during orientation contain toxins. I don’t remember what these toxins are called, but I did read an article about this issue in the newspaper.

2. It is funny to make jokes about how “Columbia” sounds like the name of a country in South America. For example, you can tell a story about how you told someone that you were going to Columbia for college, and they were like, “Wow, do you speak Spanish?” This will never get old.

3. If you are really lazy and live on a low floor, you can avoid walking and the ire of your classmates by taking the elevator up to the top floor and then back down to your own floor. I have never done this, but it would work perfectly well I imagine.

4. Even though I can’t say it, that kid in our orientation group is a total herb. I pray that he has volcanic intestinal dysfunction all of fall semester.

5. Herodotus once wrote these immortal words: “Tomyris filled a wineskin with human blood and searched among the Persian corpses for Cyrus’ body. When she found it, she shoved his head into the wineskin, and in her rage addressed his body as follows: ‘Although I have come through the battle alive and victorious, you have destroyed me by capturing my son with a trick. But I warned you that I would quench your thirst for blood, and so I shall.’” That is the most awesome thing you will ever experience at Columbia. I don’t necessarily mean that you will get to shove a dead guy’s head into a bag of blood but rather that you will get to read Herodotus. Also, if you have any luck, you will get to shove a dead guy’s head into a bag of blood.

6. NSOP stands for New Students Orientation Program. However, in England, it stands for New Students Orientation Programme. As you will learn here, the distinction may sound meaningless, but it also is meaningless.

7. You are the future of Columbia. You are the future of America. You are the greatest. Do not let anyone tell you that you are not the greatest. Your acceptance rate makes other acceptance rates look arbitrarily, but also slightly, higher. If you do not use this orientation to become one with Columbia, you will perish, and darkness shall fall upon this University. At the very least, don’t wear socks with flip-flops.

Well kids, that’s all the lessons for today. Have a safe summer, and if you happen to encounter the NSOP Committee, feel free to ask them why they rejected my application. Otherwise, I’ll see you in September. \\\

“From the very founding, the sorority has been politically engaged,” explains Tyeisha Chavis, CC ’08, president of the Columbia chapter of Delta Sigma Theta, “Rho.”
The night Chavis speaks with me, along with social chair Glenda Smiley, BC ’09, Rho is screening a documentary about Shirley Chisholm, the first African-American woman elected to Congress, as part of Rho’s “Social Action Week.” Every year the sorority hosts a “Delta Week” for which the members organize programming relating to a chosen theme. The women of Rho find this year’s theme of social action to be quite appropriate considering the sorority’s foundations.

“One of the main reasons we decided on this theme is because social action has been so historically important to Delta Sigma Theta. Every day we have a program or event geared toward social action, whether it is about the Sean Bell case or the issue of black pain, and we are ending with a luncheon which celebrates the legacy and culture of black people,” Chavis says.

While this week might be directly geared toward social action, Rho finds the issue of community engagement to be a year-round commitment. Rho hosts a number of programs and events throughout the school year that seek to fulfill this mission. One main feature of Rho’s activities is the twice-yearly town halls, forums that highlight a pressing current issue. Chavis cites a past town hall on Manhattanville as one of the group’s most successful, as it brought together administrators and community leaders in a constructive way “despite our differences on the topic.”

This year’s town hall will discuss the deeply controversial Sean Bell case.
“We will be remembering the case and the verdicts and the protests. The beginnings of social action around the case are starting to build, and we’ll be looking at how that is playing out as well,” Chavis says.
Another program the sorority runs is “financial fortitude.” They are one-time “clinics” open to both Columbia and Harlem residents where participants learn “how to save, invest, and why it is important to do so.” In the past, Rho has partnered with Chase Bank, Manhattan Bank, and Bank of America for these informational meetings.

Recently, the Rho chapter has begun a series of youth-based workshops through the Harlem Children Zone, a non-profit organization whose mission is to enhance underprivileged communities through education, social service, and recreational programs.
“The workshops are on college preparation and finances, the importance of saving, and getting them in the habit of doing so,” Chavis says.

Additionally, Delta Sigma Theta has an “Arts and Letters” division that does unique work for the artistic community.
“It endeavors to support artists of color, who tend to be underrepresented and underfunded, through scholarships to help support their activities,” Smiley says.

The ladies of Rho are serious about service, and their dedication hasn’t gone unnoticed. They were awarded the Chapter of the Year Award from both the Multicultural Greek Council at Columbia and the InterGreek Council at Columbia. They won awards for Outstanding Campus Involvement, which looks at how involved members are in the Columbia community outside their own sorority or fraternity. Also, they won an award for Outstanding Achievement in Community Service. 
“Being in Delta Sigma Theta has taught me the importance of service and selflessness,” Smiley says. “In college, it’s hard to maintain that balance between school and civic engagement, and Delta makes it easier for me to do that.”

This past week, Rho welcomed two new members to their sorority, and Smiley notes that Delta Sigma Theta only accepts pledges who are at least of sophomore standing because they feel freshman are too new to the college experience to pledge.
“They need to be acclimated before joining so they know that it is the right sorority for them,” Smiley says.

The six members who will make up Rho next year will live together in an East Campus townhouse for the first time, as they were just approved this year to receive one.
“It’s really important to have a central place, not only to keep sorority property but also for fellowship purposes, such as our Delta down-home dinners,” Chavis says of their future space.

The Delta down-home dinners to which Chavis refers are another example of Rho’s commitment to civic engagement. While these meetings have a lighter tone, the women of Rho certainly don’t miss an opportunity to tackle pertinent issues.
“At one of our last ones we discussed the Don Imus controversy,” Smiley says. “We discussed the remarks as well as its implications and got in to a discussion about the hip-hop movement and how it plays a role in the image of the black female body in the media.”
“The dinners allows for fellowship with other members of the Columbia community. We engage in socially-conscious yet playful discussion. It is a combination of the two,” Chavis says. \\\

Your comic at Yale, Bull Tales, eventually became Doonesbury. Why the change?

Bull Tales began life as a simple sports strip, eventually morphing into a broader chronicle of undergraduate life at Yale. It had a very specific, local orientation, and it didn’t take pressure from the syndicate for me to grasp that it needed to be retooled for a national audience. So this was a process that I willingly undertook. The only editorial demands that were put on me had to do with making the strip more accessible, not more palatable. The generally subversive tone was not only left intact, but actually became much more pronounced after Doonesbury was launched.

Did any characters find their way from one strip to another?

The three principle characters, Mike, Mark, and B.D., survived the transition from Bull Tales to Doonesbury. The idea was that as three distinct political archetypes, they would serve as the main tent poles for this little parallel universe we were erecting. You have to get it right at the beginning, because you’re building a framework that has to be robust enough to stand for years. You don’t get a do-over if you run out of steam after six weeks.

You’ve been canceled, and even banned, from newspapers before. Does any of that carry over to today?

I obviously didn’t write to be banned (although many editors, noting the media attention it drew, suspected otherwise). I was always on probation somewhere, and the first 20 years or so were filled with lots of drama and controversy. Over time, though, editors got used to me, or began to trust me, or take me seriously—who knows? Since the Clinton years, I’ve had very little pushback. Part of it, I think, is that a new wave of media—from gangsta rap to South Park to the Kimmel/Silverman videos—became so extreme that Doonesbury seemed like a pillar of good taste in comparison.

Have you ever considered becoming more “user-friendly”?

No. I couldn’t have if I’d wanted to do. Pandering is a lot harder than it’s cracked up to be. If it weren’t, everyone would be a millionaire.

The name Doonesbury is a combination of Yale slang “Doone” (a good-natured fool) and your ex-roommate’s last name. Was the title something you were toying with for a while?

I don’t even recall making it, so spur of the moment sounds about right­—and consistent with all the other decisions I was making about that time.

In the mid-’70s, you earned the Pulitzer Prize, Yale’s Doctor of Humane Letters, and an Oscar nomination. Do you think the political climate of the time opened people up to satire?

Yes. Satire was a late arrival to the counterculture party, although it didn’t take long for irony to replace indignation as our generation’s signature motif. Initially, the stakes were too high and the political mood too earnest for satire to flourish, and there was only a handful of outliers. In 1970, the year I began, we had All in the Family, the short-lived Smothers Brothers, and two late-night hosts who told a few mild political jokes. SNL was still five years away. Cartooning had Feiffer and Pogo, but that still left me a lot of running room. No one had ever written about sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll, and politics on the comics page before, so the sheer novelty of it invited a lot of attention.

Many of your characters are based on political figures or celebrities. How do you decide who goes in?

Either they preexist as public figures available for parody, or they are created because none of the existing characters are suitable for the story line I’m focused on. This creative promiscuity has a big downside: the strip has about 50 characters, of which maybe 30 are in active rotation, making it a difficult for a novitiate to jump in. Some of the characters have decades of back story. It’s like opening a Russian novel on page 275.

Satirical cartoonists have to balance humor and social commentary. Have you ever found yourself leaning too far in one direction?

Well, I can’t imagine pulling back from an idea because it’s too funny. However, it is true that social commentary without humor violates the basic contract I have with the reader: I can write on any subject I want, regardless of how incendiary or grim, but I have to find a way to make it bearable, if not entertaining. That’s the essence of black humor.

How often do you receive letters or e-mails thanking or criticizing you for tackling controversial issues like say, AIDS or global terrorism?

There’s a page on Doonesbury.com called “Blowback,” where most of the comment now comes in. We edit it—not to screen out negative reaction, but to make it a worthwhile reader experience. Our visitors know this, so we get very little flaming—mostly thoughtful or whimsical feedback. Back in the day, the tone of my mail could get very vitriolic—Hunter S. Thompson once sent me an envelope stuffed with used toilet paper—but I no longer seem to attract that kind of response. The most compelling correspondence in recent years has been from veterans and family members of wounded warriors.

You’ve said that it’s “better to tell the truth, even in hyperbole, and hope that they [the people] will do something about it.” Do you still feel the same way?

That sounds pretty grandiose—must have been uttered by my beta self back in the day. Any young artist will tell you he’s championing the truth, but my own sense of certainty has lost altitude as I’ve aged. My goal now is more modest—to create entertaining stories, sometimes about subjects of consequence. I don’t get too wrapped up in the idea of changing the world.

Doonesbury has become a pop-culture reference of sorts. Is it disconcerting to realize something you created has become so relevant to modern culture?

I don’t fool myself. Yes, I’ve enjoyed more than my fair share of approbation, but let’s not forget that the Golden Age of the comics is widely thought to have been during the ’30s. Comic strips now are as anachronistic as the newspapers that deliver them. I’m happy to still have the gig, of course—an established comic strip is the closest thing to tenure that pop culture offers—but I would not encourage anyone with my skill set to enter the field. Go to Pixar. Or The Daily Show. \\\

-Shirley Chen

The basics are always crucial. Tim’s fashion staples are tailored shirts, cashmere sweaters, polos, and that one pair of perfect jeans.

For shirts, Tim favors American classic Brooks Brothers in a variety of colors. I also likes Michael Bastian—think French cuffs with matching mother-of-pearl button cuff links, hard-gathered shoulder pleating, and four-centimeter contrast color collars. Ralph Lauren Purple Label is always perfectly proportioned.

Cashmere sweaters are versatile and forever useful. Guys should invest in all fits and colors, both light and heavy. The V-neck has a cool, summer-fling vibe, but the grandfather cardigan is always a classic, and Steve McQueen high-collar sweaters are making a serious comeback.

Polos are the summer essential, and I recommend that you don’t shy away from intense colors. Tim’s polos are personalized, a small detail that gives them a special edge.

Jeans can really make or break the deal. A.P.C.’s New Standard is amazing: unadorned, with a lower rise than the original, but still maintaining that beautiful raw denim that is just begging to be broken in. Rag & Bone’s premium denim is also worthy of envy, with soft cotton lining and tri-tone stitching on its oversized back pockets. On the flip side, I can’t think of a more devastating deal breaker than a Swarovski encrusted backside. Unless you’ve recently escaped from the Ice Capades, rhinestone studs are not attractive.

When choosing basics, fit and comfort are the most important factors. Once you’re confident, start experimenting with colors, layers, and proportions.  Next come accessories, which give a man’s outfit charm and a sense of his personality. After all, who would Chuck Bass be without his scarf and bow ties?

Scarves, bow ties, and pocket squares are all about a nonchalant dandy attitude. Tim has a Columbia scarf from Ivy ideal J. Press. Avoid looking like you’re attending the prom by investing in high quality goods. Brooks Brothers and Thomas Pink make some quirky patterns, but I recently saw a strikingly aristocratic black velvet bow tie that used texture to full effect. 

Choosing shoes can be tricky. In the summer, flip-flops and light leather shoes are acceptable. If you are looking to make a statement, dangerously hipster wingtips and refined gentleman Oxfords are the best options. Conservative loafers are romantic and remind me of lovely nights on the shore. My favorite, however, is Tod’s driving shoe—the embodiment of elegance and comfort. Derek Lam is revamping the classic with red sole pebbles this summer.

You can never have too many sunglasses. Rayban Aviators and Wayfarers have definitely stood the test of time. Pick one or both. The optimal shape and style depend on your face shape, but recent styles by Yves Saint Laurent, Marc Jacobs, and Tom Ford are all great choices.

Scent is a strong aphrodisiac and it should be the finishing touch on your outfit. Tom Ford for Men is masculine but also surprisingly understated. An Indian root called cypriol is used instead of musk, swallowing the citrus undertone just enough to create a surprise. Another personal favorite is L’Homme by Yves Saint Laurent. It has a sharp, sweet smell—and for those of you who have you seen the movie Unfaithful, I’ve said more than enough.

As a final note, don’t be afraid to rock your own vibe. These are the basics for a preppy, modern, sophisticated look—it’s not for everyone. Follow your whims: as the mood strikes you, be either subtle or bold. The final details (gloves, hats, socks, jewelry) are mastered after years of practice. Your style will develop and grow to reflect who you are as a man.

For more inspiration, look to Tom Ford, Thom Browne, Bjorn Borg, Christopher Walken, Serge Gainsbourg, Robert Redford, Michael Caine, David Bowie, and the peerless Cary Grant. To their credit, these stylish men always look effortless.

Reminiscing about previous rush experiences, Bufalini fesses up to having seen The Wedding Singer a total of 24 times. In fact, she says that she was in the student rush line so often that the lead actress of the show noticed when she wasn’t there. “She came up and slapped my arm the next time she saw me in line,” Bufalini says. “She was screaming at me ‘Where have you been? I’ve been worried sick about you!’”

Diehard student rushers such as these eagerly boast about the relationships they develop with the cast members they cheer for multiple times a week. Much like Bufalini, Archiello remembers rushing the last show of The Wedding Singer. Archiello says that after the penultimate performance of the show last December, “I got out of the show and jumped in line ... pulled an all-nighter. It was like camping out. ... Felicia Finley [supporting actress in Wedding Singer] even brought out her mattress for us.”

You couldn’t make these stories up, and just 12 years ago you wouldn’t have heard any like them, either. In 1996 student rush emerged with the intent of making theater more accessible to a variety of audiences. Normally priced at about $120 a pop, orchestra seats do not exactly fall in the affordable price range for many people, especially students.

Rent was the first show to address the cost issue by offering $20 tickets for seats in the first two rows of the theater on a first-come, first-serve basis. But soon, the managerial staff of Rent realized that the same people were consistently buying seats and so a lottery rush was formed.

In a lottery rush, “rushers” put their names into a drawing two and a half hours before the show, in hopes that they will win up to two tickets for the day’s performance. Glenda Colebrook, an avid theatergoer from Sanford, North Carolina, likes the idea of a lottery rush. “It’s great, especially for people who don’t have their schedule reserved ahead of time,” Colebrook says.

Rent’s initiative has swelled to incorporate almost all of the current Broadway shows. Popular shows like Wicked and Avenue Q jumped on the bandwagon, offering lottery rush for each performance during the week. Other shows, such as Legally Blonde: The Musical and Spring Awakening, offer rush seats in the orchestra for patrons with a valid student ID for a mere $26.50 on the day of the show.

“There really is a system,” Bufalini says adamantly, which newbies quickly pick up on. Rushers take turns standing in line year-round holding spots while their friends go on quick bathroom breaks or hop inside a nearby store to heat up or cool down, depending on the season.

“The first time we rushed Spring Awakening, it was so cold, about 10 degrees outside,” Bufalini says. “I couldn’t feel my legs.” Rushers are willing to go to extremes for the shows they love, the seats they crave, and the prices they can afford.

Fanatics have learned that sometimes the best seats are the cheapest, if you are willing to wait. Waiting is a guarantee when it comes to rushing, and because of this necessity, Bufalini says, “There is definitely a group that specifically rushes.” Considering that both Archiello and Bufalini are longtime members of this group, it seems only fitting that they met on a student rush line.

Tony Weaver, a successful Rent lottery winner, says that before discovering rush, “I just didn’t see shows.” But Weaver did a complete 180 when he found out about rush last summer. “I realized I had wasted six months of my life,” he says.

Now a pro at ticket rushing, Weaver has learned the system. He knows that it’s better to rush on a Thursday “because Friday/Saturday is so crazy that the chances [of winning] are slim.” Once you’ve rushed a few times, you learn the tricks of the trade, even if that means taking extreme measures.

“There was a month where we showed up every day [at The Color Purple] before 6 a.m. in the freezing cold,” Weaver says. “You would imagine that you are the first one there, but then there is that one person who’s already there with their chair, bundled in their blanket.”

It seems each rusher is more intense than the next. Bufalini met a man whose ‘count’ is 1100 for Rent. “He comes in a couple times a year and sees every performance for a straight week since the show began its run.” For outrageous theatergoers like these, “People’s play count matters,” Bufalini says. “It’s a big deal.”

For others, “play count” can be more of an embarrassment than a badge of honor. The young college girls outside Legally Blonde: The Musical were reluctant to admit that they had seen the show 18 times. “It’s so embarrassing,” says one rusher who wishes to remain anonymous. “I really don’t like to tell people.”

With the emergence of student rush came the emergence of a culture. Each show represents a subculture of the larger rushing community. It seems as though student rush has become much more than any of the originators ever intended.

Rushers at Spring Awakening definitely reflect the younger demographic that the cast of the show represents. Patrick Coakley of the University of Massachusetts says that he feels “they are trying to keep it [the theater] full of people who can relate to the show.”

Interestingly enough, the Legally Blonde rushers describe the rush scene as intense and drama-filled, words that could arguably describe the show itself. A competitive atmosphere surrounds this rush crowd. “People are obsessed,” one rusher says recounting her overnight experience. When they arrived the night before, there were girls already lined up to sleep with their moms outside the theater.

“Rentheads,” as they have been dubbed, are often considered the most passionate rushers. “There is so much life and meaning and philosophy that you can take out of the show,” says Danielle Herrington of Michigan outside the Nederlander Theater.

Even as the names of the lottery winners are being called, rushers cheer each other on, shouts of congratulations and exuberant applause bewildering passersby. Those who were less than lucky appear enthusiastic for their fellow rushers, rather than overly disappointed for themselves.

The consensus of all the rushers is that this system is the best way to make Broadway more accessible to the general public. “You expose people who aren’t really into theater and get them involved and hopefully seeing more shows,” Coakley says.

“Rushing becomes part of the experience,” Archiello says. “You enjoy the show more when you’ve waited that long. You feel like you deserve the seats you’re in.”

An excerpt from his latest documentary effort, A Time to Stir, recently debuted at the Columbia-sponsored event “Columbia 1968 and the World: A 40th Anniversary Event,” meant to remember and analyze the student uprisings of 1968.The two-hour excerpt represents the fruits of 18 months of hard research: 130 interviews, 250 hours of footage, 11,000 photographs. “It’s an extract from a work-in-progress,” the director states as he introduces the film to an eager audience, “which basically means I ran out of time and money.” The movie thrust me into a cinematic cabinet of disorganized files, whirling about in a storm of murky historical context and audio files that abruptly cut off at the critical moment. Subtitles introduce a string of characters, and I struggle to keep up.

This audience, although experiencing the film for the first time, has no difficulty following the train of events. A Time to Stir tells the story of the 1968 protests at Columbia University, a week-long interval when students took over five buildings on campus and brought university life to a halt. The crowd sitting in the screening room had lived through these events. “Tell me when it’s you,” one woman says to the man beside her, pointing her finger towards the screen. The members of the crowd responded to the documentary with gusto—an interview with then-University President Grayson Kirk flashes onto the screen, and before one can digest the placard, a wave of laughter automatically sweeps forth from the audience.

They wear their name tags, each with a class year and a building: Hamilton, Low, Fayerweather, Avery, or Mathematics. As the movie finishes screening, a Q&A began, but the audience spends most of the time reminiscing. Many of these memories aren’t pleasant. “Killers,” says an audience member, referring to the police that eventually broke up the riots. “We don’t train people to kill people,” says Sanford Garelick, the man who had led the NYPD force. A man makes an angry announcement about the gymnasium plans (Columbia’s infamous expansion plan into the Harlem neighborhood that originally sparked the protest), and then abruptly turns his back and walks out of the screening room. Two women, standing across the room from each other, argue through microphones about how events really went down in Fayerweather.

The certainty of the audience echoes the certainty of the impassioned speeches that fill the documentary. But neither Paul Cronin nor his film has anything to do with such certainty. The director explains his thoughts on the documentary form: “If you come to a conclusion about something, you haven’t truly weighed up the small details. There’s new information coming in all the time—there’s no way at this early stage of the game—and I might be saying this for five years, and I might be saying it for the rest of my life. There’s no way I’m going to come to any conclusions ... when I finish the film, if I finish the film, it’s going to be even more confusing.”

Throughout the screening of A Time to Stir and during the discussion afterward, I have the impression of history slipping through my fingers. In one scene of the movie, an elderly lady drops food into a basket for hungry students, blows a kiss, and walks away. Who was this woman? Did she have radical beliefs? Who knows where she’s gone? After the screening, I briefly talk with one gentleman, Howard Lipan, GS ’66, a photographer who worked throughout the tumultuous week. The leaders in Mathematics, he recalls, wanted his photographs to be sent to North Vietnam, as an effort of solidarity to bolster flagging souls in Hanoi. Howard Lipan refused, horrified. Did a link between North Vietnam and the students in Mathematics actually exist? Could this history be reconstructed, or are the lines of communication forever dead?

“It had to be done now,” Cronin says of his documentary. “If I’d done it 10 years ago, it would’ve been even more extraordinary. But you do it now, you do what you can.”

While introducing the film, Michael Ryan—director of Columbia’s Rare Books & Manuscript Library, housed in Butler—refers to A Time To Stir as “history, and the making and remaking of history.” We see this process in living motion throughout the film, both as characters recall their lives 40 years ago, and later—after the initial emotions of revisiting footage of themselves as fresh-faced youth have somewhat faded—as they reevaluate their experiences.

Michael Jacoby Brown, CC ’69, reflects on his changing perception of those weeks: “Seeing the movie, for me it was really eye-opening to see the actual footage of the police and how they felt, which I didn’t have any clue about. I didn’t know those guys, they were just coming in to beat me up. To see their feelings, that was, I think, very interesting. I think the value of something like this, to see ... a cop from the Bronx who grew up on the street ... that’s his point of view, and that’s real.”

Mark Rudd—a student who was expelled after the events of 1968—shares similar feelings. “He uncovers some misunderstandings and miscommunications between the blacks and the whites, namely that the black students felt we were not disciplined enough. That was clear in the film, and I learned that,” Rudd says of Cronin’s documentary. But during 1968, Columbia made headlines in the New York Times repeatedly (as we see in the documentary, which includes a photograph of the front page, with the legend LIES scrawled across it). “Paul’s is different,” Rudd says firmly, “Paul’s a historian.”

Indeed, the documentarian does not plan to study film forever. “I don’t need film to express myself. I’d rather write books, and that’s why I’m coming to get my Ph.D.” In the coming years, Cronin plans to earn a doctorate in communications from Columbia, and he’ll be studying 1968 (A Time To Stir is his third film on the subject). “Columbia’s an extraordinary microcosm,” Cronin says. “Everything is here: the politics, the racism, the imperialism, the corporate structure, and the generation gap. It’s all here at Columbia, in that one week. It’s an amazing kind of Aristotelian unity of time, unity of place. The fact that it was in New York means that there was, you know, so much media, so many images. Columbia: smart people around, people articulate themselves, even if they’re totally deluded.” \\\

“I just want to say, those re-enactments were so real. It was just like Iraq!”

“How would you know?” Morris shoots back. “Have you ever been there?” The director looks beleaguered rather than shocked by the man’s question—misunderstandings about his re-enactments are nothing new.

In 1988, Errol Morris shot The Thin Blue Line, a documentary about a 1976 roadside shooting in Dallas, Texas that left a police officer dead. The documentary contained several historical re-enactments, casting doubt on the testimonies of various witnesses that had led to the wrongful conviction of a man named Randall Adams. These visual representations of the evidence Morris had gathered rewrote the conventional wisdom surrounding the case, ultimately helping Adams to get out of prison.

But the re-enactments of the crime often bewildered the public, blurring the line between documentary and fiction. One reporter from the Dallas Morning News asked Morris how he had coincidentally managed to be on the road the night of the shooting. The director recalls the occasion on his New York Times blog.

“The film was released in 1988,” Morris writes. “The crime occurred in 1976. Was this reporter suggesting that I had been out on the roadway with a 35-mm film crew the night of the murder, and just happened to be at the right place, at the right time to film the crime—over a decade earlier?”

This confusion haunts the director’s latest effort. Although Standard Operating Procedure won the Jury Grand Prix Silver Bear (essentially second place) at the Berlin Film Festival, journalists and critics in Germany weren’t entirely happy with Morris’ efforts. They said they liked everything but the re-enactments.

Standard Operating Procedure is a documentary about two things: the infamous photographs of prisoner abuse taken at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and the people who took and appeared in them.

The documentary, however, says virtually nothing about the Bush administration’s policies, or the machinations of Donald Rumsfeld and his cronies, or the War on Terror.  The details of the Abu Ghraib scandal itself have already been covered exhaustively in print (Salon’s “Abu Ghraib Files”) and in film (The Ghosts of Abu Ghraib, Taxi To the Dark Side).

What distinguishes the film is its meditations on photography—Do photographs tell the truth? What do the Abu Ghraib photographs say about America? What do they say about human nature?—and its extensive interviews with the seven “bad apple” soldiers at Abu Ghraib who were convicted of crimes in the wake of the scandal.

The re-enactments—slick, slow-motion sequences—are lavish, highly stylized, and set to a pulsing Danny Elfman score. They depict the torture prisoners endured at the hands of American military intelligence officers in closed, camera-free rooms. The re-enactments elicit a visceral reaction, but so do the actual pictures taken at Abu Ghraib: there are prisoners chained to beds wearing nothing but a pair of women’s underwear over their faces, prisoners on leashes, or soaked in their own urine. One infamous picture shows a dead man in an ice-filled body bag, with an American soldier smiling and flashing a thumbs-up over the corpse. Why do we need dramatic retellings of these crimes when we already have vivid proof of so many other abuses and engaging, fascinating interviews with the “bad apples?”

Sabrina Harman is one of the soldiers who became a convicted felon. She is the soldier who was captured on film flashing the thumbs-up over the man in the body bag, and her testimony shows the frightening ambivalence the soldiers at Abu Ghraib faced.

“I just wanted to document everything I saw. That was the reason I took photos,” Harman says in a recent New Yorker article. The article is an excerpt from a soon-to-be-published book, also called Standard Operating Procedure, co-written by Morris and Paris Review editor Philip Gourevitch. She and other soldiers were told the man had died of a heart attack, but when Harman looked closely she noticed the man’s various cuts and bruises. “It was to prove to pretty much anybody who looked at this guy,” Harman says, that “this guy did not die of a heart attack.”

How does Harman’s description of herself as outraged photographer jibe with her smiling thumps-up? She claims that her pose was a habit—the thumbs-up is just what she does when someone takes a picture. In one sense, the photographic evidence bears this out: there are many pictures of Harman, in a variety of situations, sporting an identical pose.

One of Standard Operating Procedure’s themes is that in photography, context is king. The meaning of an image changes if you put a few words beneath it or another photo next to it, and in this context makes the audience feel more sympathetic to Harman. But what does it mean that a maimed corpse was an ordinary enough occurrence to warrant a common photo-op? It must say something about the nightmarish conditions at Abu Ghraib.

Standard Operating Procedure uses these soldiers, and the photographs they took and posed in, as a fruitful way to talk about war, power, humiliation, obedience, and perception. It isn’t clear what the dramatic re-enactments are supposed to add to the discussion. According to Morris, the interviews and the re-enactments should be seen in parallel, for all interviews are themselves “re-enacted verbal accounts.” True, but let’s not forget that the spoken re-enactments here are created by people who were actually at Abu Ghraib, and Morris’ were created by a film crew in a studio.

In The Thin Blue Line, Errol Morris uses re-enactments to challenge scanty evidence that had landed a man in prison. But in Standard Operating Procedure the re-enactments are little more than stylized representations of what the soldiers at Abu Ghraib have already said. None of their testimony about the torture at Abu Ghraib is being challenged or overturned, nor should it. The way Standard Operating Procedure distills the soldiers’ testimony and the wealth of photographic evidence is thoroughly horrifying. It is enough. \\\

The Pitchfork Music Festival is the hipster holdout of the Midwest. Chicago’s Union Park is transformed into an indie music paradise for three days in July—Chicago’s hottest month—and music lovers in the Illinois area congregate to celebrate their love and wardrobes. Unlike its sibling festival, Lollapalooza (or “Monster-palooza”), Pitchfork is a manageable festival for both you and your wallet, with around 40 bands performing on three stages. Plus, what better way is there to experience the Windy City than to commune with its hippest crowd? 

Union Park is situated in the West Loop area of Chicago, at 1501 W. Randolph St., and is accessible by the Green line on the “L,” Chicago’s public transportation system out. The park has a clear view of the Sears Tower, as well as the ideal balance between sun and shade. The festival also vendors from all of Chicago’s trendy boutiques and hip restaurants. Last year, Temptation Ice Cream—local and vegan—especially won the crowd over. 

Once again, Pitchfork is collaborating with ATP (All Tomorrow’s Parties) and their “Don’t Look Back” concert series to present three major bands playing their seminal records live. Last year brought Sonic Youth’s Daydream Nation, but this year, Public Enemy will bring their 1988 record, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, to the stage. Mission of Burma is performing Vs., and Sebadoh is performing their record Bubble and Scrape. Saturday and Sunday are packed with great bands, including Columbia grads Vampire Weekend. New York heavyweights The Hold Steady, Animal Collective, and High Places and indie giants such as Dinosaur Jr. and Elf Power are also gracing the stage. Here’s a fun game to play if you get bored: count how many people are wearing American Apparel. I think I got to 200 last year. Pitchfork plays July 18-20th in Chicago’s Union Park. Be there or be square.

–Lianna Carrigan

ALL POINTS WEST

If you’ve spent summers past lamenting that there are no good indie-rock music festivals on the East Coast, don’t worry—Jack Johnson’s got you covered. This bizarrely eclectic lineup features not only Johnson, but also Columbia darlings Amadou and Mariam, Cat Power, and Radiohead in their only American tour stop. The festival, which runs from Aug. 8-10 in Liberty State Park, Jersey City, is as pricey as a West Coast festival, with tickets costing well over $200. With all the free opportunities this summer, the weekend lineup seems a bit excessive, but a two-day pass could be worth it to see Chromeo compete with the Roots, or Animal Collective follow Kings of Leon. The park is easily accessible by light rail or train, so spend a few days out west of New York City to see what’s probably the best (and priciest) line-up this summer.

–Jennie Rose Halperin

CENTRAL PARK SUMMERSTAGE

Every summer, the City Parks Foundation organizes a broad variety of free concerts and artistic performances in Central Park. Founded in 1986, SummerStage has since provided New York City audiences with a variety of quality performances. The event aims to bring New Yorkers together and provide a setting for local and emerging artists, along with more renowned acts. All told, the concert series has hosted over 1600 artist performances and entertained more than 2.5 million people.

SummerStage is not just for musical acts. Bands have been complemented by film presentations, literary readings, and dance shows. At the heart of the concert series, however, is the collection of musical artists featured every year. In past years, SummerStage has hosted acts from a wide variety of disciplines and genres, including The Strokes, Billy Bragg, The Killers, Fiona Apple, Bob Weir, and Patti LaBelle.

There are three broad categories for the musical act featured this year: “Honoring Soul,” “World Talent in a Global City,” and “New York City-Based Artists.” Among the acts who honor soul, the renowned Mavis Staples will be performing Friday, June 13th. Acts like Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, Stephanie McKay, Jamie Lidell, and the Menahan Street Band will perform later in the summer. Representing the “World Talent in a Global City” are artists including pop-folk singer Yael Naim, Los Lonely Boys, and roots-reggae artist Mosh Ben Ari. The “New York City-Based Artists” category includes Vampire Weekend, as well as Lemon, Will Power, La Bruja, the Roy Hargrove Big Band, and Black Dice.

The festive, inclusive atmosphere can cool a New Yorker off much better than lemonade or air conditioning, and this year’s outdoor stage will not disappoint.
–Reid Sandelands

SASQUATCH

Though it’s a bit of a hike for those staying in New York over the summer, the Sasquatch Music Festival this Memorial Day weekend is a can’t-miss for those on the left coast. It’s at the Gorge, a legendary amphitheater in central Washington state. It’s also relatively inexpensive, as West Coast festivals go—until the week of the festival, it’s $66.50/day. This price doesn’t include camping—an integral part of the experience—but at a $40-daily rate per vehicle, that’s easily split between friends. This year’s lineup is diverse enough to ensure you’ll encounter all types: R.E.M. and The Cure for throwback types, Death Cab and the Flaming Lips for the kids you were kind of friends with in high school, Flight of the Conchords, Michael Ian Black, Michael Showalter, Horatio Sanz, and Eugene Mirman for comedy enthusiasts, Dengue Fever for the Cambodian pop aficionado, Blue Scholars and Dyme Def for hyper-literate multicultural rap fans, and Throw Me the Statue for, um, me! You get the idea. Road trip, anyone?

-Alexandria Symonds

Also in the summer, in the city:  Croton Point Park Clearwater Folk Festival, Broadway Under the Stars, McCarren Park Pool Parties, New York Philharmonic and Metropolitan Opera in Central Park, River to River, Lincoln Center Festival, Celebrate Brooklyn!, Washington Square Music Festival, and more!

But at the Metropolitan Museum of Art—to say nothing of other art establishments—that assumption is simply not true. Certainly, security guards almost always direct you to the correct floor, the correct gallery. But more often than not, guards’ knowledge of artwork extends far beyond the floor plan. The guards’ familiarity with the artists on view also has to do with the fact that many of them were extensively educated in visual art and art history before donning the Met uniform. Many even have bachelor’s degrees in these subjects.

If the Met’s employee art show last September, which featured artwork from an estimated 200 to 250 employees, is any indication, the Metropolitan is home to many more artists than those whose paintings grace its walls. “It’s quite impressive ... a lot of really wonderful artwork comes out of this place,” says Owen Weber, a guard and aspiring illustrator who has been working for the Met for almost two years. Weber reported that last year’s show was held in the spacious galleries currently occupied by the “Jasper Johns: Grey” exhibition.

Although the employee art show is not open to the public, museum employees are able to view the artwork produced by their coworkers every two years. “I would say most young guards are artists or are somehow involved in the arts,” says Natalie J. Williamson, a security guard who has worked at the Met for nine months and will be attending Teacher’s College to study art education in the fall.

Williamson is not the only Met employee to attend Columbia. The Met has a special partnership with Alma Mater. According to several guards and an information desk employee, the museum will pay the full Columbia tuition for any guard who earns acceptance to the university and has been working at the Met full time for a year or longer. The museum will also reimburse any employee for tuition for any class (at any educational establishment) in which he or she receives a grade above a B, the information desk employee says.

Williamson, who obtained an undergraduate degree in painting from New York School of Visual Arts and still receives “the occasional commission,” is herself attending Teacher’s College on the Met’s dime. The source of these funds remain unclear, however, as the Senior Coordinator for Administration says that the Met has a long-standing policy of not commenting on matters related to its Security Department or guards. Nonetheless, Williamson reported that several other currently employed security guards will be attending Columbia next fall.

Weber, the son of a drawing teacher, graduated from the Hartford Art School at the University of Hartford with a BFA in illustration and a minor in art history. Like many guards, Weber’s interest in art came long before an interest in museum security. Weber explained that he and two other illustration majors wanted to move to New York after graduation. “As we were looking for apartments, we noticed that the Met was hiring. We applied and actually got the job before we got an apartment,” Weber says. Did they have any guard experience? “Not officially ... It’s pretty laid back. It’s easy to pick up.”

Weber’s dream is to become a book illustrator, and his artwork does indeed look as if it belongs on the cover of a science fiction novel. Creamy oil paint compositions depict an alien sending electric shocks straight into the roots of a tree and a hunchbacked giant walking through a barren landscape with the whole of New York springing from his back. More realistic paintings are characterized by delicate light effects reminiscent of artwork from a much older era—the soft, sepia lighting of Renaissance paintings illuminates many of Weber’s compositions.

Although they have to answer some inane questions—“Everybody’s asking for the Mona Lisa, a lot of people ask for the dinosaurs,” Weber says—Met employees are able to spend their days in a pantheon of artistic genius. Weber explains that working in one of the world’s premier museums and spending his days among the work of the Met’s Renaissance masters has had a large effect on his work. “I’m constantly around all this magnificent art,” he says. “I’m constantly inspired.”

Adam Green hearkens back to these singers by way of Calvin Johnson, combining sophisticated instrumentation and his signature velvety voice with slightly off-kilter lyrics. He and his friends, including Julian Casablancas of the Strokes, and Carl Barat, formerly of the Libertines (with whom he made a hilarious German video), are a sort of rock ’n’ roll Rat Pack, with Green providing the sophisticated vocal and instrumental tracks.

Green constantly surprises with unusual instrumentation, which separates him from usual singer-songwriter fare, particularly in anti-folk circles. For example, “Morning After Midnight,” the lead single on Green’s recently released album Sixes and Sevens, features a horn section and gospel singers. “I’m going to the next round, sinking huge amounts of money into ambitious recording projects that have no commercial potential,” Green says. “That’s what gives me a kick, you know?” The track immediately following features a string section accompanying lyrics about underwear. Here, indie rock irreverence overrides a potentially meaningful moment.

“I identify with Wes Anderson in this way,” he says about these seemingly over-the-top flairs. “Like, he can make a shit movie, he can spend as much money as he wants—like on the scale of Titanic—and then make The Life Aquatic. It’s beautiful.”

When Green’s first album Garfield was released, Rolling Stone objected to its overly explicit and often ludicrously obscene lyrics. After toning the humor down a bit and growing up a lot, Green has moved far past his former role as Kimya Dawson’s 18-year-old partner-in-crime in the now defunct-but-increasingly popular Moldy Peaches.

While his song “Anyone Else But You” made it into the rock ’n’ roll lexicon of a new generation after its inclusion on the Juno soundtrack, Green claims nothing has changed since the film was released. “Nobody’s requested ‘Anyone Else But You’ at a concert or anything ... Me and Kimya don’t play Moldy Peaches songs without each other anyway.” However, he can’t quite escape the song that put the Moldy Peaches into America’s collective mouth. His new album features a duet with his girlfriend that is continuously drawing comparisons to the slacker romance anthem.

America may not be completely ready for Adam Green—the string section and spaghetti-Western feel of much of Sixes and Sevens doesn’t exactly seem poised to take over the airwaves—but Europe has been far more receptive. Green is currently in Germany and has been touring Europe for four weeks. “I’m not trying to be obnoxious, but I think I’ve been on about 80 European tours,” Greens says. “And that’s not an exaggeration.” He attributes this to signing with Elektra Records, a London-based record label, at the tender age of 18. “My professional career was based off of London,” Green says. “America’s always been an outpost for them.”

Green, who signed to Elektra with the Moldy Peaches, elaborates on the tenuous relationship between business and music. “Every time I release a record I get ripped for not producing a big pop hit because I’ve chosen to submit myself to a professional circumstance. But that’s all there is to say about it. Beyond that, my music comes from love.” The moments of pure love on Sixes and Sevens are easily recognizable. In “Exp. 1,” Green employs a blues guitar over spoken, nonsensical poetry, creating a surprisingly multi-layered and charming song.

This European connection seems a bit uncharacteristic for Green, who grew up in New York City and whose father is a professor of neurology at Columbia. However, he has built a considerable following, particularly in France, where he notably hitchhiked in his pajamas across part of the country after overdosing on sleeping pills and alcohol. On this tour, he has ostensibly fared better health-wise and even managed to pick up some musicians on the way. “I picked up some gospel girls—two East London gospel girls. They’re part of the band now. I think they’re having fun. They’ve never been on tour before.”

Green calls his music “Adam music,” which is a sweet phrase for a man who “can’t really remember [his] life before playing music.” Green, who claims he “never had another hobby,” is remarkably genre-defying and somehow able to navigate from a full orchestra to an acoustic guitar with remarkable ease. “I think the people that buy my records appreciate [my use of full instrumentation]. It’s not every day that people get a whole orchestra to do things that are not, you know, Celine Dion.”

Like other artists breaking the mainstream in the past 10 years, Green got his start through home recording and claims that the techniques he used in home recording have helped him better sculpt his solo records. He has never worked with a producer, and he recorded the new album at a “school for autistic children in New Jersey.” He expounds upon his former use of a four-track before saying that now it’s “a sense of self-parody using a four-track when you have garage band on your laptop.”

The new album, while only partially home-recorded, took over a year to complete. Green claims that this album was the most alcohol-drenched and re-recorded, mostly because he had so much time. “I think I developed a nice artistic relationship with the record. I think I could best describe it as tears squeezed from a leather belt,” he says. “I feel a little bit like Clint Eastwood. I think it’s probably my most macho record.”

Macho or not, the Western theme pervades Sixes and Sevens, and Green’s songs, most notably “Broadcast Beach,” feature an almost “Rhinestone Cowboy” feeling that is listenable and fun with its gospel background and lead-in piano parts.

Like a good lounge singer, Green can hook a listener through a melding of the upbeat show-stoppers and the torch-songs. His lyrics remain vaguely subversive, and his voice makes it easy to picture him singing the orchestrated numbers while swinging a microphone in a velour sport coat. He may not ever reach Rat Pack status, but he and his friends have reinvented indie-rock, at least for a little while.