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(11/10/05 12:00am)
Author: Joyce Man The Italians should be disturbed. From now until 2025, a giant pink bunny will lie prostrate and rotting from the inside out on the Coletto Fava mountainside with its arms, legs and ears flopping spread-eagled at its side, its entrails curling out and its mouth frozen in a tragic, silent scream. Stretching 200 feet along the hillside, the monstrosity is a wool-knit monument stuffed with hay that is at once cute and extremely disturbing. This is Hase, or Rabbit, the latest project by a group of provocative Viennese modern artists called Gelitin.Whichever way you approach it, a rabbit fallen from the heavens on the Italian hillside is destined to cause a stir. But surprise, this is not the first instance of giant animal art our confused audience has seen. Bill Heine's Headington Shark has been a permanent protruding fixture in a semi-detached house on High Street, Headington for almost 30 years. Hastumi Ban's enormous anime "VWXYellow elephant Underwear/HIJKiddyElephant" sculptures shocked new Yorkers with their scarily large yet cute trunks and orange ears earlier this year.And let us not forget Jeff Koons' kitschy pop-art "Puppy," a 43-foot tall over-grown West Highland terrier sculpture made up of 70,000 fresh flowers and 25 tons of soil in a frame with a sophisticated internal irrigation system. Erected once at the Rockefeller Center in New York City, it now sits quietly towering over the Guggenheim Bilbao Museum in Spain. It's cute, it's flowery, but it's also scary and big as hell. Size doesn't matter to many people, but to these artists, it matters a whole lot. The big is now a big deal - but why?What's strange about giant animal art is that the artists are using size to form completely different meanings. Gelitin's "Hase" is designed to bring the viewer into a kind of Gulliver's fantasy-land, while Hastumi Ban's diapered elephant's purpose was to magnify anime cuteness on a previously-unimaginable scale. On the other hand, the Headington Shark was Heine's personal monument in commemoration of the 1945 Nagasaki bombing, as it was erected exactly on the tragedy's 41st anniversary. One thing is for sure. These sleeping yet disturbingly animated giants change our perception of size instantly. Part of the fun, as the press release from Gelitin says, is interacting with the familiar in a completely new way and experiencing that semi paradigm-shift. "This vast rabbit," they write, "[makes] you feel as small as a daisy."At the same time, however, the fear these creatures produce is elemental and all pervasive. Yes, these are cute, fluffy creatures of children's fables, but they are monstrous. In their shadow, we are minuscule beings crawling between their daunting legs. "Happy in love, you step down the decaying corpse," writes Gelitin to impress the real point behind their work. "Now small like a maggot, over woolen kidney and bowel."Rabbits are cute, elephants are cute, terriers are cute. When you super-size them, though, you have monumental, scary art.
(11/10/05 12:00am)
Author: ERICA GOODMAN Travel along NY Route 4 on any weekend and you will probably reach your destination a few cents poorer.Just over the Vermont border in upstate New York rests the small town of Whitehall. The hamlet of about 4,000 people asserts its title as the birthplace of the U.S. Navy. The high school advertises the biggest celebrity it has produced, Tim Layden, a journalist who covers horse racing and skiing for Sports Illustrated. But unless you are a naval historian or a town citizen, these attributes go unnoticed. What else is Whitehall known for? The infamous "coin drop," an institution in itself for the rural community. Although small towns lack the heavy traffic of metropolitan areas, they are not excused from obstacles to motorized travel. From firemen dressed in their yellow suits to cheerleaders with pom-poms in hand, organizations in need of funds halt traffic, backing it up between the town's two traffic lights. It's a social affair for the townspeople who have the opportunity to chat while waiting for the light to change.Roadblocks on many a county route or village main street are not uncommon. In the summer months, men and women sporting orange hard hats and matching reflecting vests swarm the rural byways. They stop traffic in order to safely complete their much-needed work of mending the damages incurred to the pavement throughout the rest of the year. Frost heaves leave mountain roads split-level and rutted. The asphalt receives a daily beating from the repeated travel of milk and fuel trucks and farm machinery. No, swerving drivers are not under the influence of alcohol or any illegal substance but are just doing what they must to avoid the treacherous potholes.If not for philanthropic endeavors or road reconstruction, natural occurrences are likely the cause of traffic jams. It's a constant game of dodgeball as cars screech to a halt to avoid animals darting out along the roadways. Deer, a crepuscular animal, tend to wander out of the woods and fields just as dusk settles in, a time when the dimming sunlight tends to trick the eyes. Wild turkeys are, unsurprisingly, not the fastest moving creatures, especially when they try to lift their weighty bodies and fly across the road. Keep that in mind and you might save a windshield someday. Wandering cows are no speedier and much larger, oftentimes making it faster to physically shoo them back into the pasture than to wait for them to mosey past. And with storms also come road damage, from downed trees to flooded brooks.Sure, the city folk can complain about the congestion and the traffic of their urban centers - stoplights at every block, hordes of people pushing over the crosswalk, etc. etc. Well, those outside of the cities have their own list of travel impediments. And no matter how bothersome slowing down our rapid pace is, stopping to watch a family of ducks amble across the road is often well worth the interruption.
(10/13/05 12:00am)
Author: Justine Katzenbach "I'd like to begin with poems that relate to Middlebury and the seasons," poet Larry Raab said as listeners gather in the Ross Fireplace Lounge while he read a poem entitled, "Happiness." It is hard not to identify with the poetry of Larry Raab, not only because he so often writes of his own experience as a Middlebury student, but also because of the honesty of his poetry. He peered thoughtfully into the audience, reading slowly and intuitively from his latest book, a collection of poems called Visible Signs.He began with "a quartet of Middlebury poems," which reflect most lives on the Middlebury campus. His descriptions of the Vermont landscape and what it is like to be a student here grabbed the audience's attention. They seem entranced, perhaps imagining that these moments of happiness he describes are unique to us all. There were nods of agreement as he spoke of a Middlebury that existed for him 30 years earlier much as it does for us today. Engaging the audience with ease, he told anecdotes about the Marquis Theater in downtown Middlebury before he read "My Life at the Movies." He laughed, remembering how on one particular rendez-vous, the ceiling of the theater literally started to fall on top of he and his date. He spoke of his old fraternity and walking down Otter Creek. When asked about memory in poems, he said "one of the pleasures of writing is you can create a poem which describes not merely nostalgia, but how can you use it - both in making something new and remembering what it was like."As the night proceeded, I found myself sitting next to Raab at Tully and Marie's with a group of faculty members and his wife, Judy. He eagerly answered my questions, animatedly responding regarding the writing advice he gives his students at Williams College. "Teaching writing is about teaching students how to revise. Students seem extraordinarily unwilling to give up what they have," said Raab. "I encourage the idea that poems are acts of discovery. The excitement of writing is discovering language as you move through the poem." As we discussed both his aesthetic and professional advice pertaining to the art of poetry, the attitude of the conversation took a slightly melancholy turn. "There is a certain sadness in feeling that American society doesn't take poetry seriously," said Raab. "The academic world takes poetry seriously, but poetry is a less than marginal activity in American life." Yet as swiftly as the conversation turned gloomy, Raab returned to his humorous nature. He told me stories of his most influential teacher, former Middlebury Professor Robert Pack, who taught him the power of revision. "I remember working 100 times on that same poem," said Raab. "There was no phrase in it at the end of the year that had originally been in it." At the end of the evening, I walked back to Starr Hall, the same dorm where Raab once resided, perhaps dreaming of poetry and prose. Despite the chilled autumn air, I was warmed by the thought that maybe someday, one of today's students may come back to Middlebury to read from his or her own book of poetry, inspiring others to believe that, in fact, they do have a chance. The Ross Fall Poetry Series was conceived and organized by Ross Commons heads Stephen and Katy Abbott, in conjunction with Brainerd Commons. Poets still to come this fall are Billy Collins on Friday, Oct. 28 at 4:30 in Mead Chapel, the Tin Pan Caravan (four singer-songwriters who will play their music and talk about their artistic process) on Monday, Nov. 7 at 7:30 in the Ross Fireplace Lounge and Gary Margolis on Tuesday, Nov. 8 at 4:30 in the Ross Fireplace Lounge. Each event will be followed by a dinner with the poet. If you would like to join, contact Katy Abbott at extension 3341.
(10/13/05 12:00am)
Author: Andrea Glaessner and Jessica Clayton Frolicking in the vast expanse of green pasture, Charles Dickens and Robert Frost chase after Mercury and Aurora Borealis. Names which normally arise when discussing literature and stargazing are now used to refer to four of the fluffy young alpacas of Moonlit Alpaca Farm in Cornwall, Vt. Established with the purchase of the land and barn in February of this year, Moonlit Alpaca Farm is beginning to realize the goals and missions envisioned years ago by its founders, Cass and Carol Tillman; while perusing a copy of Forbes magazine on board a flight, Mr. Tillman discovered an article that inspired him to develop his own alpaca farm. The farm's founders are both business consultants and travel extensively for their respective careers. According to Mrs. Tillman, the alpaca farm is a rewarding investment offering "the advantages of what a family owned business can give," including a career option for their two children and a "kinder, gentler, lifestyle for the retirement years."Initially, the Tillmans planned to remain in their home in New Orleans, alternating the responsibility of spending 7-10 days each month each staying at the farm to keep an eye on the business. But when Katrina hit, their plans were washed away along with their home and community. As a result, the Tillman family packed up and moved to their Vermont farm along with other family members seeking refuge in the wake of the torrential disaster. Rather than focusing on their loss, Mrs. Tillman quickly noted a positive consequence of Katrina. "We don't know if we want to stay yet. But we have been given a great opportunity to get the farm up and running with a lot more hands-on access [than we had initially planned]. So from that standpoint Katrina was a tremendous benefit," she said. Mrs. Tillman is also optimistic about the exposure to running the business and farm that her children receive while living at Moonlit Alpacas. The Tillmans plan to pass on the farm to their children, recognizing that while the children may decide not to run the farm themselves, it will remain a profitable investment for the family.But the Tillmans are not the only ones whose lifelong plans and goals involve alpacas. In fact, Mrs. Tillman explained that part of the reason the alpaca business is becoming increasingly popular is that most people who get into the industry are reaching retirement age and, like them, are looking for an exit strategy that ensures a "productive yet relaxing enterprise." Mrs. Tillman emphasized that although farming is not really relaxing, certain characteristics of the alpaca facilitate a farm with few complications. She explained that alpaca farmers avoid the trouble of rotating pastures because there is little pasture damage caused by raising alpacas. Unlike sheep, the animals do not have hoofs to tear up the land. In addition, Mrs. Tillman referred to the alpaca as "a very green animal" who only eats the green part of the fields, thus avoiding root damage in pasture land.Luckily, alpacas also take care of themselves. "One of the reasons they have been around so long is because they always go to the restroom in the same spot and then avoid eating around that spot, limiting the bacteria and viruses they consume as compared to other animals," explained Tracey Duffield, the farm manager. Alpacas are never slaughtered, since the animals' value lies in the production of alpaca fiber, cherished by textile connoisseurs for its resilience and insulatory benefits. The alpaca comes from a high altitude and cold climate region of the Andean highlands, particularly in Peru. Its coat, comprised of microscopic air pockets, yields a fiber with a high insulation value, allowing for the creation of lightweight but incredibly warm garments. Thus the benefits of alpaca raising versus sheep raising are enormous for the Tillmans and their customers. While the consumer enjoys the benefits of the exceptional quality of the fiber, the Tillmans profit from the comparatively simple process of acquiring the fiber, as the alpaca is a compact animal with no guard hair or lanolin. By saving time and costs in the production process, the Tillmans can focus on other services of the farm, such as breeding, boarding and maintaining the on-site retail shop.While alpaca fleece proves valuable after the yearly shearing, the year-round profits are more concentrated in the breeding service. With two grand champion males and one blue ribbon male, the Tillmans are able to offer high quality breeding partners for other alpaca farmers. Currently, the Tillmans offer trade of breeding partners via the online trading site Alpaca Nation. By selling the breeding through the mail and what has been termed "drive-by breeding," the farm avoids endangering their alpacas with the possible encounter of foreign bacteria or disease. Best of all, owning the farm allows interaction with these amazing alpacas. Each alpaca is distinctive in more than a physical sense. When Charles Dickens once again bounds toward the strangers and kicks up his heals to show off before running back into the crowd, Duffield laughs and says, "They each have such distinct personalities...like Charlie, [who] came out of the womb that way." A few of the Moonlit Farm alpacas will visit campus later this month for the Middlebury Mountain Club's annual Pumpkin Smash. So if you want to know more about the soul behind the sweater, be sure to check out the newest fad in the farming world -- the amazing alpaca.
(10/13/05 12:00am)
Author: Rural Banter Car making a funny sound? Should your mechanic not find the problem, perhaps you had best call animal control. Last week, my mother's sedan had a lonely stay in the garage without anyone taking it for a spin. Mom Goodman pulled out of the driveway for her Friday afternoon grocery shopping and noticed an unusual sound coming from the engine, which was puzzling, seeing as the vehicle is not even a year old. The muffled sound continued as she drove home and so she enlisted my father to take a look under the hood in hopes of discovering the cause of the annoying drone. Without much prodding, he found the source. A nest of some sort, probably created by a wayward squirrel or chipmunk, was causing an obstruction. No animal was in sight - the critter inhabiting the bundle of sticks and grass had probably scurried off when the engine first started. And thus, Mother Nature can record another battle in her war against the Goodman family. A part of living in an area of forest and fields is the constant battle of the local fauna to take back their lost property. The insurgency began in the kitchen garden. Like a military blockade, animals of shapes and sizes tried to cut us off from the food supply. Deer, generally timid and aloof, started to snack their way through the strawberries and lettuce. The moles have since developed their own intricate tunnel system and burrowed in to dine on beets, onions and garlic. The most recent invader, a diligent woodchuck, cleared the broccoli of all its crowns. He kept my mother frustrated all summer long, skillfully setting off the Have-a-Heart trap without ever actually being trapped in it himself.Rumblings of discontent have found their way into the house as well. There is the occasional swooping bat that sneaks in through the back door. More than once I have been hit by a surprise attack and waited spread-eagled on the floor until the bombardment was over. Having a log home, it is no surprise that our walls are sometimes mistaken for entire trees. There has been many a fall day when an army of ladybugs has set up camp. They swarm the house, dive-bombing everyone who crosses the front porch. We hope for peace on earth and good will toward all men (and animals). Still, no matter the scale of the conflict, the war between man and beast, the machine and the land is played out daily on our backyard battlefields. Humans may have budding technology and opposable thumbs, but even the smallest creatures have yet to give up their cause of reclamation. My mother now drives more cautiously than ever before, frightened that another mysterious woodland creature might again make its home in her car and come scurrying beneath her feet while she is driving. Her fear is proof that the revolution continues.
(10/13/05 12:00am)
Author: Justin Golenbock Three years ago, while voting in Barney Frank for another 20 years, I innocently checked "yes" on question four, effectively banning the abusive sport of greyhound racing in the state of the Massachusetts. This conscientiousness, I determined, would reverberate throughout my actions for the rest of my life. Sports would become my medium for protesting the powerful and inspiring the innocent.When the euphoria wore off a couple weeks ago, marked by some Pulitzer worthy stuff on performance enhancement abuse, I resolved to return to my roots. Once again turning to unofficial and unpaid Campus research consultant Niall Sullivan '06 for assistance and moral support, the two of us grabbed a pair of timely tickets from Southwest's "DING!" sale and hopped a plane to Qatar, the small, oil-rich nation bordering Saudi Arabia that, since 1972, has hosted the world's most prominent and extravagant camel races. What the two of us had hoped to discover was not which rider was in line to win the Golden Spear of the Challenge Race, but rather to what extent H.H. the Emir Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani had kept his promise to outlaw the exploitation of child riders as young as four years old, who had been kidnapped from the Indian subcontinent and starved to make for lighter riders. Little did we expect to find that the innovative Sheikh Hamad was on the verge of eradicating this horrific practice by replacing all child riders under 18 with...you guessed it: Swiss robots.Signing an historic $1.37 million contract with the Swiss Robotics firm "K-Team," Sheikh Hamad has already agreed to purchase 100 robots that, at 57 lbs. each, are dramatically poised to reshape the sport. On July 13, seven camels paced the track in Doha, Qatar in the historic, first-ever all-robotic competition, with their attached riders being given commands via satellite remote control. With a push of the button, the robots showed precision in steering the reigns and bringing down their crops. The Sheikh's progressive example is already being felt around the region, with the United Arab Emirates and Oman already announcing plans to overhaul its own camel racing tradition with similar reforms. As the "K-Team" enters its final stage of production, I was glad to be on hand to witness the miracle of technology, as these cute little metallic dolls showed that even machines can be trained to whip animals. One hummus and papaya salad later, we were back in the air, waiving progress goodbye with pen in hand, and beautiful phrasing in pocket.
(10/13/05 12:00am)
Author: Mallika Rao This past Friday's lecture, "Art and Politics under the Habsburgs 1450 to 1650," was not only well-attended and well-received, but conducted by a man well-suited for the task. Archduke Géza von Habsburg, grandson of King Frederick Augustus III of Saxony and great-great grandson of Emperor Franz-Joseph of Austria, presented what Professor of Political Science Alison Stanger called a "tour de force." With the help of slides and his own comprehensive knowledge, von Habsburg detailed the interdependency of art and politics under his family's rule in an accessible and humorous style."The sun never set on the Habsburg Empire," the Archduke stated at the beginning of the talk. Indeed, the magnitude of wealth and power shown on the screen as a visual counterpoint to his presentation proved the point. The art depicted ranged from elaborate gold urine dishes to automated clocks that moved to music, and fired an arrow at the music's end. "If the arrow hit you, you had to open the clock and drink from the contents inside," von Habsburg explained. "This is how they had fun."The Archduke's dry sense of humor carried the lecture, as he traced the famous Habsburg nose and lip from the Holy Emperor Rudolph to Ferdinand I, King of Austria, Bohemia and Hungary. Aside from his illustrious features, Ferdinand also possessed what was thought to be the Holy Grail, owing to the supposedly supernaturally-occurring presence of the word "Christos" in the stone. But as the Archduke pointed out, "nobody's been able to read that since the Age of Enlightenment."Von Habsburg's tracking of his ancestral nose and lip did not limit itself to the Habsburgs. He described how vital it was for the royal family to assert the length of its span as far back as Noah. "Did you know," von Habsburg asked playfully, pointing to the lip on a statue - one of the many in a rather wishful version of the Habsburg line, "that King Arthur was a Habsburg?" While he did not ignore their quirks, von Habsburg gave due credit to the royal family's appreciation for art. Their collection includes some of the greatest pieces ever conceived - mountains of corals worked into animal shapes and deftly molded bronze statuettes. This aesthetic awareness affected all facets of their way of life. In recounting his favorite historical Habsburg, Ferdinand II, the Archduke asserted that the castle he built is among "the most charming castles ever." It featured an open-air dining room, complete with a revolving table powered by water.Ferdinand II also instituted the first organized museum, a building intended to mirror the entire world. Sharks floated in the rooms, suspended from ceilings and walls spotted with enormous dead lizards. The museum housed a wide range of curiosities - the earliest cases of Chinese and Japanese art in Europe sat alongside stunning pieces from the Aztec civilization in Mexico. Even humans made up the exhibitions, with hairy men, dwarves and cripples all on display. Von Habsburg's lecture covered a large and overlapping set of characters. He moved expertly through the material, stopping rarely to readjust a date or name. "I get confused," he said once, after correcting himself. "They intermarry so much." The talk ended with an opportunity for audience members to speak with von Habsburg. Many students and professors thanked him for the lecture. Susanna Merrill '09 found the objects to be "impressive." "It was cool to meet a Habsburg," she said. "It added force to the presentation." David Murphy Haglund '06 thought the talk itself was "very informative."Intended as a complement to Stanger's first-year seminar on empires, as well as to the various other classes that touch on the Habsburgs, the lecture served as a broad window for the general public into a historically important family. "The scope of his talk was sweeping," Stanger said, "so I would not consider this a specialized talk." Around 110 people attended the talk, a fact Stanger pointed to as an indicator of the wide scope of interest. "The large turnout on a rainy Friday afternoon suggests there is significant demand for talks of this sort."Von Habsburg is speaking at the Metropolitan Museum of Art this week. His "delightful" sense of humor struck Paul Monod, a History Professor, as one of the lecture's most compelling facets. "He has a very good sense of humor about his own family," Monod said. "How many of us can make jokes like that about ourselves?"
(10/13/05 12:00am)
Author: Joyce Man The works of master painters Degas, Monet, Rodin and Pissaro are housed in the most illustrious museums and highbrow collections in the world. Some of them rest among other famous canvases in the exclusive collections of the Musee d'Orsay, others repose in the grand halls of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, while still others are honored in London's National Gallery. In this day, when a van Gogh painting goes for $100 million to a billionaire hedge-fund investor and the biggest impression the impressionists make is through their gavel prices at Sotheby's and Christie's auction houses, the average art enthusiast can feel pretty detached from the revered masterpieces. But happily, the likes of Monet and Renoir can still be found mingling with the commoners. In fact, many world-class works, far from being inaccessible, are housed a mere four hours' drive from Middlebury in Williamstown, Mass.While our sports fans may associate this town with Middlebury's supposed rival, for art lovers, the Williams College area holds much worth seeing. Peel away the layers of the same yellow-and-red foliage that surrounds our campus, and find Monets, Remingtons, pale oil paintings dreamt up by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, expressive wax forms sculpted by Edgar Degas - and that's not all. Just 20 minutes away from the masters is a collection of equally renowned yet completely different contemporary art. Venice Biennale participant Patricia Piccinini's silicone part-human, part-animal sculptures labeled "wonderful and sinister" by Art Forum magazine stand in one arena. Next to these biomorphic forms tower the dramatic, large-scale installations by one of today's foremost Chinese artists, Cai Guo-Qiang.The two museums in question are the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute and the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (Mass MoCa). With the combined energy of famous impressionists, nineteenth-century American masters and modern-day installation artists, these two rich collections make up an impressive duo of fine art and culture right here in rural New England.The Clark Institute, now celebrating its 50th anniversary, lays claim to an impressive permanent collection of art that has been carefully accumulated over several decades by Sterling and Francine Clark. The collection boasts European art from the 15th to 19th century, including such celebrated works as Claude Lorrain's "Landscape with the Voyage of Jacob" and Francois Boucher's "Vulcan Presenting Arms to Venus for Aeneas," which was commissioned by King Louis XV's Minister of Arts. Joseph Mallord William Turner, the 19th century painter whose depiction of the Battle of Trafalgar is currently being celebrated in London's National Gallery as "Painting of the Month," is represented at the Clark by his resplendent 1840 work, "Rockets and Blue Lights to Warn Steamboats of Shoal Water." "The Clark has a positively world-class collection of paintings," said Instructor of History of Art and Architecture Eliza Garrison in an e-mail commentary. This was a sentiment that has been echoed by many of the museum's patrons. On Sunday afternoon, one visitor was overheard exclaiming in Russian, "This is amazing, it's like the Hermitage!"While any comparison with Saint Petersburg's gargantuan Hermitage museum collection would require incredible exaggeration, the idea that The Clark's collection is worthy of praise is well-founded. Indeed, its collection of impressionist art, which includes 30-odd works by Renoir, is truly impressive. The vibrancy in color and light, so typical of Renoir's work, are displayed in his 1881 oil paintings "A Girl with a Fan" and "The Blonde Bather." Equally exciting is Edgar Degas' "Little Dancer," whose quiet yet expressive pose at the center of the room calls to mind the artist's famous ballerina paintings. Further bolstering the collection are works by Edouard Manet, Camille Pissaro and Paul Gaugin. But, as Garrison pointed out, showing masterpieces is only half of what The Clark does. The Institute also has an enduring commitment to its traditional role as a center for public education and continues to offer a lengthy series of lectures and interactive programs for children. "The Clark has a great many scholarly resources that are invaluable [and] absolutely top-notch [in bringing] the most highly-respected scholars from every field," said Garrison, "[but] even with their illustrious master's program, the Clark is truly committed to making the museum a place where everyone can come away with something, no matter whether they have had History of Art Course 110, 101 or 111."On a completely different note, and as a delightful contrast to The Clark's masters of the past, Mass MoCa displays cutting-edge contemporary works. The museum's beginnings lay with the then-director of the Williams College Museum of Art Thomas Krens, but it was not seriously conceived as an institution until his colleague Joseph Thompson completed the center's industrial home, procuring its status as an interactive center for contemporary art in 1999.Today, their 13-acre, 27-building campus of creativity opens its doors year-round to the striking and innovative works of today's most influential contemporary artists. At the moment on display in Building Four is "Life After Death," curated by Laura Heon and Mark Coetzee, which reveals the moving yet disturbingly silent compositions by seven talented students of the Leipzig Art Academy in former East Germany. Cai Guo-Qiang's "Inopportune," an installation of leaping tigers and flying cars, frozen in motion, completely transfixes the viewer. Meanwhile, Long Bin-Chen's "Buddha Project" destroys conventions of sculpture by showing figures carved out of rows of old books. Separately, from Oct. 28 to Nov. 6 Mass MoCa will house part of the seventh annual Williamstown Film Festival.Last Sunday, perhaps sensing that Greyhound's termination of service has left many of the college's students high and dry, not least in their ability to reach larger cultural centers, the College's Department of History of Art and Architecture organized what they nicknamed the "Artbus." "Artbus" transported a group of students, professors and art enthusiasts from Middlebury to Mass MoCa and The Clark. For one rare day, they got to come face to face with the Renoirs and Monets that would otherwise have remained unknown.Sadly, with the exception of such opportunities, the harsh winters and virtual lack of public transportation means that this group of art museums which should, as Garrison said, "be on any art-lover's list of places to see, no matter where they live," remains inaccessible to most of the local population. To add to the pity, Middlebury is also in the midst of other great art and cultural treasures: the Fairbanks Museum in St. Johnsbury, Vt., the Smith College Museum of Art in Northampton, Ma., and the Williams College Museum of Art. Renoir's works may have traversed the Atlantic and Cai Guo-Qiang's the Pacific, but the Middlebury student still has a hard time crossing the state line to see them.
(10/06/05 12:00am)
Author: ERICA GOODMAN The cow barns are much quieter at Paul Seiler's farm these days. The Swiss native started his American dairy-farming career in Woodstock, Vt., before relocating to Addison County. When Paul started up his own farm, he milked conventionally - meaning he ran his 40-50-cow dairy in the traditional manner that 98 percent of U.S. farmers work. However, as the price paid to farmers for milk dropped, the customary methods were no longer cutting it and Paul decided to try his luck in organic farming. The shift to anti-chemical food has become quite the craze. According to the Organic Farming Research Foundation, the field has clocked in an annual increase of at least 20 percent over the past decade, making it the fastest growing sector of agriculture in the United States.But the shift to organic farming is no easy task. An "organic system plan" must first be designed and implemented. This strategy should describe the practices used to produce crops and livestock products without the use of synthetic pesticides, fertilizers or animal "steroids," if you will. Buffer zones between adjacent fields must be established to prevent inadvertent contamination. Once the plan has been put into place, a three-year wait is required to obtain government certification - a much-coveted status among organic farmers, as an official "Organic" label ensures higher prices for goods produced.About five years ago, Paul Seiler made the switch to organic. Surely he experienced the ebb and flow of any fresh venture. It takes time to master a new way of farming, but sometimes, in the end, the risks outweigh the rewards. Weather in Vermont, not surprisingly, is very unpredictable. In any given year, crops may be parched from a drought or left unharvested in swampy fields. After 15 or so years of farming, Paul decided it was too much for him to do alone anymore. It is hard to find a job outside the field once a farmer decides to hang up his straw hat. Paul had offers to be Herd Manager at other farms in the area. Instead, he decided this fall to relocate his family to sunny Florida and has since found luck with work there. Still, life is different away from pastoral Vermont, in a place where metal detectors line the doorways of the children's school and your connection to the land has been taken from beneath your feet.On a grassy knoll, a quarter of a mile west of the Middlebury College campus, the Slow the Plow organic garden is having a go at organic growing. You have certainly tasted these students' success in many a meal at the dining hall. But on a hill in Cornwall, things look different. A neighbor takes care of a few yearlings that wander through the seemingly empty barns. The pipes and water bowls that once served the Seiler herd have since been drained and put away, and left to dust and rust.
(10/06/05 12:00am)
Author: Polly Johnson Last Saturday morning on Middlebury's Town Green was no ordinary weekend morning. On Oct. 1, dogs and their owners took over the town from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., all in the name of participating in the Addison County Humane Society's (ACHS) annual Woofstock. The event brought together dogs and their owners from all over Addison County and raised a large amount of money for the ACHS.Middlebury's Volunteer Services Organization (VSO) spread the Woofstock word to the Middlebury campus, and although only a small number of Middlebury students turned out, the day brought together the College and the community - and the dogs of both. For Woofstock participants who did not have their own dogs to accompany them, the ACHS offered their sheltered dogs for the three hours. Erin Bell '06, co-president of VSO and Woofstock attendee, said, "The only thing I regret about the event is that not all the dogs from the Humane Society were taken out to walk. A lot of townsfolk opted to bring their own pets instead of picking one up at the shelter, so it was sad that a lot of the homeless dogs remained cooped up during an event meant to benefit them." The festival included a half-mile walk for the participants and their pooches, as well as an agility course, pet contests, a "dig-like-a-dog" for prizes contest and animal care and rescue information tables. Sandra Farrell, the president and adoption coordinator for Greyhound Rescue of Vermont, provided some interesting facts about her role at Woofstock. She said she was there "to let people know about the organization. If they're interested, we send them information [...] our basic mission is to introduce people to the breed." She described greyhounds as excellent therapy dogs that are calm and great for homes. I attended Woofstock with a friend, and we shared the leash of a dog from ACHS that we picked up prior to the event. Bo - our loving pup for three hours - could not have been happier to see the light of day and escape from his small space at the Humane Society. However, he seemed to be a little too excited and was unable to participate in the half-mile walk, due to his tendencies to pull out of his leash and drag us around. We sat happily on a bench, coaxing Bo to sit by feeding him the entire bag of treats given to us.Sarah Shaikh '07, my dog-walking-partner-in-crime, enjoyed the unorthodox Saturday. "This was my first year participating in Woofstock and I really enjoyed being involved in an extended Middlebury community event," she said. "Everyone from town was really friendly and extremely interested in learning about our experience with Bo. They were also very helpful when Bo became a bit of a handful. I never realized that the town was so involved in the Humane Society and it was truly awesome to be a part of the event!"The warm sunny afternoon was complemented by pizza from American Flatbread, music by Cooper and Lavoie and the good vibes emulating from the crowd. Prizes were awarded to the participants who had earned the most in pledge money and everyone who had raised at least $50 won a free ACHS T-shirt.Bell summed up the event, "I guess I would have to say that despite the constant barking of my dog, I loved getting the chance to spend the afternoon outside in the amazing weather. A lot of awareness and money was raised, so hopefully these dogs (and cats and rabbits) won't remain cooped up much longer!"
(09/22/05 12:00am)
Author: JUSTINE KATZENBACH Imagine waking up one morning to find your current lover's bags packed and ready for departure, while simultaneously opening a mysterious letter enclosed in a pink envelope revealing not only that 19 years earlier you and an anonymous woman had a son, but also that this young man is on the prowl, not stopping until he finds you. Such are the conditions for poor Don Johnston (Bill Murray), a middle-aged retiree from the computer industry, who, undeniably depressed, confronts this life-altering information with a response of indifference. While sitting in his metallic suburban home, filled to the brim with objects: a large flat screen tv, leather couches, a stereo system equipped for "The Beatles" - there still remains a haunting sensation of utter emptiness. So, convinced by his dear friend Winston (Jeffery Wright), Don commences a trip that will lead him from one ex-girlfriend to another in an effort to find the mother of his child, encountering bizarre and ironic occurrences at every corner. Traveling from one woman to the next, he searches desperately for hints that she is the one. The film captures the journey beautifully. While this story encapsulates the literal voyage, Don also undergoes an emotional and psychological passage that holds far greater importance. His images of each woman are destroyed - one ex-protesting hippie now lives in a quintessential McMansion and sells real estate with her husband, while another once determined student has realized that she'd rather live with her female partner and work as an animal-human liaison, translating barks and purrs into verbalized emotions and opinions. Throughout it all, Don is constantly urged to question the past. If everyone he remembers a certain way has transformed into something else, then what has happened to him?With some beautiful shots and imagery that director Jim Jarmusch clearly spent hours of concentration on, visually speaking, the film has some truly enjoyable moments. Jarmusch works with Murray in order to capture his humor not only through his actions, but also by the way in which his actions are filmed. Long, pensive shots focus on Murray's incredibly detailed and stoic face while he creates his particular comic effect propelled by a simple smirk of the lips or a lift of his right eyebrow.Although Murray's performance is conducive to his character (sullen, bored, ineffective), I can't help but feel discouraged by his consistency. Within the first minute of the film, the tone of the movie was set in that most unsurprising of manners. His performance was exactly how I had imagined it to be: quietly humorous and slightly depressing, not unlike his past character Bob Harris in "Lost in Translation," or even Phil Connors in "Groundhog Day." This is not to say that Murray's seeming lack of broad range is a default. It simply means that for individual film-goers he is a very predictable character, and therefore the genre of film that he enacts is often just as predictable. "Broken Flowers," which won the Grand Prix at the Cannes International Film Festival, is refreshing in the sense that it departs from the conventional Hollywood movie definition. However, I still felt a sense of disappointment created by the lack of originality. I wonder if the new independent film craze has, in effect, become just as generic for displaying emotionally dysfunctional "ordinary" human beings who stand as a commentary on modern America, as Hollywood films have become generic for car chases, uninventive love triangles and explosions.
(09/15/05 12:00am)
Author: Andrea Glaessner Soldiers of the Vermont National Guard were dispatched last week to the towns of Harvey, Terrytown and Gretna - the southern suburbs of New Orleans, La. - where Hurricane Katrina whirled through with 150 mph winds, uprooting citizens and battering homes and businesses. Before the soldiers reached the suburbs, they stopped in New Orleans, where they witnessed first-hand the decimation of "The Big Easy." The city most famous for beignets, jazz and Bourbon Street was teeming with the murky waters of the Mississippi River. Upon arriving in Harvey, the soldiers immediately recognized the extent of the damage inflicted upon these communities in the wake of the Category 4 hurricane. Many of the 24,000 residents of Harvey have evacuated since Katrina rolled through, but there is still a tremendous need for the soldiers' help. According to The Burlington Free Press, "The Guard's first five days in suburban New Orleans were filled with contrasts. Devastation surrounded them. They patrolled neighborhoods where siding lay in the road and brick walls had collapsed. They smelled garbage rotting in the streets under a scorching sun. They stroked starving, abandoned animals." After surveying the damage, Specialist Eric Ingleston, 24, said, "Everything's a mess. It's bad. It's going to take a lot to rebuild, that's for sure."The Vermont soldiers set up a base at Helen Cox High School, their home for the next few weeks, as they began to assist the communities affected by Katrina and the post-hurricane influx of crime and disease. A description of the school offers a poignant image of typical destruction to large-scale structures. As quoted in The Burlington Free Press, "Wind and water had left the school scarred. A shallow, tepid pool filled the center of the gymnasium and drowned the cougar mascot painted on the floor. A cafeteria wall had collapsed. A section of bleachers had been blown through a fence." It was not unusual to find such massive objects relocated by Katrina's winds. Despite such dire circumstances, the soldiers managed to make the school habitable. The soldiers began their duty as guards at the local mall and a food-distribution center, and later learned they would be specifically assisting Jefferson Parish County's 30-member sheriff's department in patrolling and protecting the three towns in the southern suburbs, especially in high-crime areas. Looting was a major issue of concern for remaining citizens, and the soldiers made it a priority to put an end to this and other forms of crime and violence exacerbated by the chaos of this monumental disaster. For security purposes, the Vermont Guardsmen are equipped with body armor, Kevlar helmets, 9 mm pistols and M-16 rifles or shotguns.Most members of the Vermont unit belong to the 1st Battalion 86th Field Artillery Regiment, and many returned just six months ago from a year-long combat tour in Iraq. Some soldiers experienced dèja vu from time served in the Middle East as they patrolled the streets of Harvey. The Burlington Free Press reported that "details of the mission were scarce. Officers and senior enlisted men knew only that they were needed, but not for what. But they were willing and ready to go. This unit is no stranger to sketchy mission details. They received similar vague orders when deployed in the Middle East last year." Not only were the soldiers reminded of Iraq, but as Vermonters, some recalled local disasters, namely the flood of 1998.The troops plan to be in Louisiana for approximately 45 days, but will stay as long as necessary.
(04/21/05 12:00am)
Author: Elspeth Pierson Don Mitchell, lecturer in English and Film and Media Culture, announced to our lecture hall on the first day of Nature's Meanings (EL 215) that we would each be required to spend an April night in his barn birthing lambs. We were all a bit surprised, perhaps, but in the cold of February, April was still a long way off and we were too preoccupied with trips to the Snow Bowl and Spring Break plans to worry about the off-beat assignment too much. Last week, however, as lambing season approached in earnest and we were each asked to sign up for a night on watch, our interest (and our apprehension) grew. A note on the blackboard instructed us to "think bell curve" as we picked our night, meaning that we should base our decision on the fact that the most births were likely to occur during the middle of the month-long season. Fearing the promise of a night filled with bleating lambs and possible complications, I chose one of the earliest dates and marked the fateful day warily in my assignment notebook. We covered the basics of delivery and emergency protocol during discussion on Friday, and Monday night at 9 p.m. sharp I met my trusty partner, Patrick Leibach '06, at Adirondack Circle to make the trip to Mitchell's farm. We arrived around 9:30 p.m., in time to get the tour of the house and the barn from Mitchell's wife Cheryl. After being shown to our "office" - a windowed loft overlooking the barn floor - and given a few basic instructions, we were left on our own with the flock. We quickly discovered that there had already been numerous births, and checked on each ewe and her lambs in the make-shift wooden pens that lined the barn walls. Recalling what we had learned in discussion, we noted that several of the newborn lambs needed to have their umbilical cords cut, and set about carrying out this first task. As Patrick held the first lamb and I readied the scissors, my anxiety mounted and I prepared myself for the resentful screams of an animal in pain. I snipped the shriveled black cord away and was amazed to see that the lamb did not even flinch, let alone cry out. After this initial success, my fear was mitigated and the night proceeded with relative calm. Patrick and I managed to collect the recently birthed placenta (it often does not come out until several hours after the birth of the lambs) from the barn floor and place it in the well-loved "placenta bucket" that Cheryl had pointed out to us earlier. We then resigned ourselves to waiting and watching from the office, where a futon, an armchair and a space heater offered some relief from the chilly barn air. After about an hour of attentive watchfulness, I began to have difficulty staying awake. Patrick offered to take over the watch for a while, so I allowed myself to doze off for an hour or so. Around 2 a.m. we went down to check on the barn again - all was well - and I took a turn on watch while Patrick napped. At 3 a.m. we noticed an ewe in distress, pawing at the barn floor and circling uncomfortably, and my uneasiness quickly returned. We went down to corral the other ewes away from her, and stepped back to watch her from a careful distance. I was expecting to witness a long, painful labor, but before 20 minutes were up, the ewe was licking lovingly away at her newborn lamb. Her contractions appeared to be continuing, however, and we remembered Mitchell's warning that the ewes in his flock had been selected for high fertility, and that therefore the births usually occurred in twos or threes. Twenty easy minutes later, another lamb joined its sibling on the barn floor, and within an half hour both were on their feet and searching for milk. The mother-child bond was solidified quickly and soon they were all three licking each other and the two siblings were playing at falling into adorable little heaps in the hay. The night continued without too much more ado - although the excitement of the births made sleep a bit more difficult - and when Mitchell came to retrieve us at dawn we were no worse for the wear. After morning chores and a hearty breakfast in the Mitchell kitchen, I was tired but smiling and ready to return to campus with a story of success and high spirits.
(04/21/05 12:00am)
Author: DAVE BARKER MADRID - I have always dreaded Sundays at Middlebury. The day brings a late wakeup and a hearty brunch, but shortly after a final refill at the Ross pastry counter, the inevitable segue from dining hall to library looms. Underlining and typing carry me until dinner and then resume until sleep. In Madrid, however, former home of the grisly Inquisition trials and capitol of a country that claims to have a third of the world's 85,000 Opus Dei members (think The Da Vinci Code), religion holds strong on the seventh day of the week. Sunday is truly, a day of rest. For me, rest from work leaves little respite from exploration of the city. My Sabbath starts early when the Rastro flea market opens in La Latina. Here I can procure everything from plaid slippers to French horns. Once packed with people, the Rastro should be avoided like a lot of the junk that fills the stalls. The tranquility of the Buen Retiro Park on the other side of Central Madrid lies just a 1 Euro 20 Metro ride away. However, with most stores closed on Sunday, it is a quick walk through less congested streets.Little has bloomed in Retiro owing to a long winter, but I enjoy a nice bask by the side of a man-made lake. Rowboats are rented for a few Euros and a rather Bohemian contingent plays the drums nearby. Picnics in the grass almost always include a cheaper-than-water box of red wine. Upon exiting Retiro, I pass a most secular symbol, a statue of Lucifer. Thought to be the only statue of the devil in the world, Lucifer fights a snake in the statue much like I struggle to comprehend its presence in Madrid.I see similar contrasts at the Prado Museum, free on Sundays. The canvases of the Spanish masters are displayed on the second floor. In the Velázquez wing, the most sober portraits of Hapsburg Kings hang just steps away from a depiction of the God of Wine, Bacchus, surrounded by peasants indulging in all sorts of libations. The grinning peasant who stares at the observer must be the happiest figure in the whole museum. Overwhelmed and needing a cure for "aesthetisitis," the ailment triggered by long visits to art museums, I stroll back to the central city stopping for a gelato or an espresso shot that the Spaniards call coffee. Being April, the option of a bullfight intrigues, but the slow death of six animals will have to wait for the San Isidro Festival in May. A crowded Flamenco venue not found in Foder's gets rolling around 10:30 p.m. as does free jazz at a café near my apartment. The library, at least for a few more months, never felt so far away.
(04/21/05 12:00am)
Author: Lauren Smith Aliens, decapitations, Cupid and Greek mythology all figure into the work of Christian A. Johnson Artist-in-Residence Will Villalongo in his current Johnson Gallery exhibition of work completed during his residency. The show consists of five cut velour pieces, one acrylic and cut paper on velvet painting and a video of a performance piece. Villalongo said he is "taking Western mythological characters and exploiting them" by combining traditional images from mythology with alien-like forms and UFOs. "I call it a process of colonization. The aliens allow me to have a sort of image that stands for the act of taking and destroying and colonizing Western art history. [The aliens] come in and rape and pillage and fornicate and make an alien-Greek mythology hybrid," he said.The largest piece in the exhibit was created by painting figures on paper and collaging them onto a canvas covered with velvet. The flora and plant life in the piece were painted directly onto the surface with acrylics. It depicts a scene similar to the cut velour pieces, involving human figures interacting with alien-like forms. The pieces, with the exception of the video, are exciting and stimulating. Villalongo, with his grotesque and often mutilated figures, creates a terrifying world that immediately elicits an emotion from the viewer. The emotion produced is not always pleasant, but who says art has to be pretty?A narrative flows throughout his work and, though there does not seem to be a continuous story linking the pieces as one moves throughout the gallery, it cannot be denied that each piece is enlarging on Villalongo's theme of destruction. He conveys the destruction in an almost comical fashion, with decapiated women's heads laying abandoned on the ground and women in bikinis interacting with the tentacles of an octupus-like alien. The characters are even drawn in a comic book style which adds to the feeling that what we are witnessing is like the chaotic, apolyptic scenes often depicted in sci-fi comics. The fire, the screaming women, the sexually predatory aliens - all are elements of the last scene of a sci-fi cartoon. The science fiction aspect of Villalongo's work disappears in the video taped performance piece playing around the clock on one wall of the Johnson Gallery. The performance took place at the Studio Museum in Harlem and was the first piece of its kind for Villalongo. The video, entitled "Arsenal," is a 45 minute performance edited down to 12 minutes. Villalongo said, "The basis [in choreographing the performance] is wanting to make the characters and some of the imagery that happen in a painting come alive. It's not about a detailed narrative, but taking the stillness of a painting and shifting it into a type of movement." The video depicts Cupid preparing for war by cutting notches in knotted, crooked branches, which were brought to him by a woman dressed in a white gown and with a horse's head covering her face. Behind Cupid are several muscians, also wearing animal masks. Villalongo says that the performance music was improvised, but based on John Coltrane's "A Love Supreme." When viewing the video, one has to wonder, "When are the aliens and the raping and pillaging going to come in?" The thing that makes Villalongo's paintings so great is missing in the performance. Greek characters from well-known tales are indeed in the video, but there is no conflict between them and no alien like, modern day forms. The video is too long and sloppily videotaped. If one had actually witnessed the performance live and in person, it might have been better and perhaps more exciting. The music provided by the video is lovely and perhaps the only aspect of the video worth noting. Villalongo began to work with these ideas three years ago, though the pieces in the exhibit were created during his residency at Middlebury during this semester. He is currently teaching a course of his own design, "Painting Processes and Concepts" and advising independent theses. Before coming to the College for a residency, Villalongo taught classes at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in New York City and will return there in the fall.Villalongo received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from Cooper Union in 1999 and later attended the Tyler School of Art at Temple University where he received his Masters of Fine Arts in painting. The most current exhibition of Villalongo's work can be seen at the PS1 Greater New York Exhibition, PS1 Museum in New York City.In addition to his current residency in Middlebury's Studio Art program, he has also held a residency at the well-respected Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture.The exhibit is on view daily from 9a.m to 5p.m. through April 21.
(04/14/05 12:00am)
Author: Josh Axelrod This weekend's production of Eve Ensler's '75 play "Necessary Targets" begins with two women meeting for the first time in a posh psychiatrist's office. J.S. (Lauren Turner Kiel '07) and Melissa (Laura Harris '07) immediately rub each other the wrong way since J.S. is a naive upper-class psychiatrist and Melissa is a jaded trauma-specialist, whose view of the world the audience immediately sympathizes with because she seems to understand suffering so well. But what happens, the play asks, when these women are removed to an actual Bosnian refugee camp? Whose side are we really on?Under the direction of Assistant Professor of Theatre Claudio Medeiros '90, the seven women in the cast brought the life of refugees to the stage with poignant understanding. Singing, dancing, eating and coping as refugees might, the characters suffer through the trials of the real world. Following the lives of Jelena (Rebecca Kanengiser '05.5), Azra (Caitlin Dennis '06.5), Nuna (Julia Proctor '06.5), Zlata (Myra Palmero '07) and Seada (Lucia Stoller '05), the play unfolds as a series of developments between the American women and the Bosnian women as they come almost to trust one another, offering brief glimpses of their past lives and the horrors through which they have lived.But the play aims much higher than simply storytelling. From the beginning, J.S. and Melissa are met with open suspicion and scrutiny. The refugees want to know why they are there. "What is normal?" they wonder, questioning why America has decided to send psychiatrists instead of medical doctors. How does being a "tramatized war victim" help them on the road to recovery? Does Melissa's recording of their stories help them confront their past and move on in their current lives? Ensler takes a large chunk of the philosophical and psychological worlds and attempts to develop them all with ambiguous success. The play puts forth many fairly bland ideas and leaves the audience wondering what new insight Ensler is providing.The answer seems to be that, like the play itself, our beliefs in the importance of understanding and reporting on traumatic events have become as meaningless to us watching television for entertainment. As Zlata so profoundly puts it, "Cruelty is boring." Or, in other words, we have seen it all before and nothing has changed. In the play's most beautiful moments, the women transcend the lives of refugees and become filled with the beauty of their culture's song and dance, but this, we know, is only a denial of the present. Nonetheless, why must characters constantly be dragged back to earth where, out of the blue, they are suddenly ready to have their therapy and tell the stories they have been working so hard to hide?It is a letdown when Seada, reduced to a crawling animal, tells the gory details of her rape and the loss of her child - if Ensler had truly sought to horrify us, Seada's silence would do just that. Only Azra and her wish to die - if only to be with her cow again - seem real and poignant in a play so concerned with situations beyond our understanding. Likewise, Zlata, with her unwillingness to tell her story, seems a person worthy of our respect because she is skeptical of the "help" that the Americans wish to give. For, in truth, how can J.S. and Melissa help when by the end of the play, they have both left, escaped the lives of refugees where things not only "don't change," but can't?But beyond these concerns, we must applaud the efforts of the cast and crew who performed the show beautifully, from Dennis' nearly flawless portrayal of a dying woman to Harris' complete transformation from a strong defiance to a morally repugnant figure of American misunderstanding that contrasted so brilliantly with Kiel's journey from blind optimism to heartbreaking awareness. With Proctor's rebellious youth, Kanengeiser's gossiping matriarch, Palmero's cool and collected doctor and Stoller's broken young woman, all the performances created a cultural tapestry of hope and resistance in the face of tragedy. Their work carried a production that illuminated a text of complexity that was sometimes overdone, though more often commendable.
(04/14/05 12:00am)
Author: [no author name found] Bush - a Chimp? Photos comparing the facial expressions of President Bush with those of a chimpanzee have appeared in a manual for the formation of Belgian police officers, but were to be removed by the Belgian home office in March. The photos, which have long been circulating on the Internet, were used to illustrate the peppy and humorous importance of body language. They show the president as a dreamer, in a dubious state or sticking his tongue out, while on the same page, a monkey counterpart performs similar actions. While Belgian Interior Minister Patrick Dewael claimed never to have seen these "tasteless images," he had originally signed a letter inciting the magistrates and the corps chiefs in police zones of the kingdom to use the manual for the formation of the personnel that would also supervise national soccer games. The manual had been available for order at the ministry for quite some time, although Dewael insisted,"This collage was not an initiative of the Belgian home office." - La Libre Belgique, Brussels Bidding on the pope's death A number of Italian Lotto players have been bidding on the numbers related to the death of the pope. In Rome, the combination 21-37-2-84 is particularly prized - these numbers represent respectively the hour of the sovereign pontiff's disappearance, the day of his death and his age. In Naples, the most played numbers is 47, a symbol of the dead in the local arts of divination. Lately, Neapolitans have also been attracted to number 26 - the length of the pontificate. - Le Courrier International, Paris Hairy business A cactus that grows pubic hairs? This piece of art by Laura Cinti and was one of the key creations for the International Science Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland. For this "Cactus Project," the artist placed human transgenic material into the genome of a cactus. In 2000, Brazilian artist Eduardo Kac had exposed a fluorescent green transgenic rabbit, with the genes of a jelly-fish. If the director of the Scottish Arts Council - and former bishop of Edinburgh - had reservation as to the manipulation of animals, he exclaims about Cinti's piece: "To grow pubic hairs on a cactus will not hurt anyone." - Scotland on Sunday, Edinburgh
(04/14/05 12:00am)
Author: Brett Cluff Religious Life Awareness Week, a 10-day celebration of the richness and diversity of the College's religious groups, came to an end Sunday. Over the course of the week, an impressive array of speakers, services and events attested to the vibrancy of religious communities on campus.The week got off to a rousing start on Friday, April 1, when the Islamic Society broadcast its weekly "adhan," or call to prayer, from loudspeakers set up outside Mead Chapel. Over the next 10 days, campus groups from ALPHA to Prayz held open meetings that encouraged the attendance of "visitors, observers, questioners and the curious," as advertised by the Chaplain's office. Meetings ranged from an intimate discussion of "Who is the Christian God?" in the Mitchell Green Lounge to a packed house at Hillel's Shabbat "Service for the Curious" on April 8.Besides open meetings led by the religious organizations, several special events added flavor to the celebration. Friar Mark Sherman came to campus at the behest of the Christian Orthodox association to give vespers on April 5. On the following day, Associate Chaplain Rabbi Ira Schiffer hosted a talk designed for gentiles but open to all, entitled "Judaism 101." On Wednesday, a panel of religious believers discussed the joys and biases encountered by active practitioners on Middlebury's campus. The highlight of the week may well have been the Bluegrass Gospel Project's concert at Mead Chapel on the night of April 9. The band's self-proclaimed "bluegrass music infused with gospel lyrics" had the impressively large crowd energized all night. Proceeds from the concert benefited Heifer International, an organization that provides breeding pairs of animals to poor families in developing regions of the world.The concept for Religious Life Awareness Week came jointly from the Chaplain's Office and the Religious Life Council (RLC). College Chaplain Laurel Jordan encouraged the RLC, which is composed of leaders of the various campus religious organizations, to get out and publicize its activities to the wider campus. Though there are more than 10 religious organizations operating at the college, the average student may not always be aware of their activities. To provide a greater measure of visibility, the RLC decided to hold an event to highlight its actions. Religious Life Awareness Week was born out of this desire to advertise the inclusiveness and sense of community fostered by student associations. By all accounts, the week was a success. More than 300 people attended the various meetings of student religious groups, fulfilling the RLC's goal of raising the community's awareness of spirituality on campus. Whether the increased attendance will translate to higher membership remains to be seen. Sumaya Huqye '06, president of the Islamic Society, has already received e-mails from students who enjoyed the organization's weekly Khutba service. Current members of religious organizations were equally enriched. As Huqye noted, the pressures of schoolwork often relegate religion to the back burner of college life. By encouraging believers to interact with those of different faiths, she said that the week "revived interest among current members" as well.Though there are no concrete plans for future events, everyone associated with Religious Life Awareness Week was in favor of making it an annual event. Jordan already has a few ideas for next year. As she saw it, the most important lesson of the week was the emphasis on reflecting on what is really important in life. "At Middlebury, you're always going and going and going," Jordan noted. "Religion allows you to stop and catch your breath." As many students turn to their faith for inspiration as exams and other end-of-the-year commitments pile up, her words ring especially true.
(04/07/05 12:00am)
Author: [no author name found] To the Editor:As a Middlebury parent, a working journalist, and a one-time editor of The Cornell Daily Sun, I was dismayed by Andrea Gissing's resignation as Editor-in-Chief of The Middlebury Campus. In my view, the debate over Rudolph Giuliani represents Ms. Gissing's finest hour, the liveliest and healthiest discourse I've seen in The Campus this year. Giuliani's doctored photograph from the March 17 issue was essentially a political cartoon. By their nature, cartoons trade in hyperbole. Some will argue that it is in bad taste to compare anyone with Hitler. President Liebowitz goes too far, however, when he attacks The Campus for "an unacceptable and embarrassing ignorance" of the Holocaust. I'm certain that Ms. Gissing and her staff understood the obvious differences between Giuliani and Hitler. What's more intriguing, though, are the similarities in the two men's policies: their wholesale use of slave labor, known as "workfare" in New York, their contempt for the law, as in Giuliani's illegal persecution of welfare recipients and the homeless and their ruthless scapegoating of minorities. To whitewash Giuliani's record is to betray "a gross misunderstanding of history," in the president's phrase. In the wake of President Liebowitz's unfortunate lecture to the editors and now of Ms. Gissing's resignation, can anyone doubt the chilling effect on the next Editor-in-Chief faced with a controversy? A press is only free when it can be uncomfortable and disagreeable to those in high places. By this standard, a free press at Middlebury College appears to be in jeopardy. I urge Ms. Gissing to reconsider and to finish her job.Sincerely,Jeff CoplonMiddlebury Student ParentTo the Editor:In an era when business executives, community leaders, politicians of all persuasions, religious leaders, entertainment and sports figures and yes - even educators - are quick to shirk any and all responsibility for their actions, it is very refreshing to see a college student recognize and take responsibility for one's actions and the effect one's decision has on a larger community. Andrea Gissing's last editorial could have been anything but the heartfelt apology it was; that she addressed the issue and her role head-on speaks volumes about her character and the type of young woman she is. But I might be biased, for unlike the rest of the Middlebury community, I have had the pleasure of watching Andrea's every move from the day she entered this world. You see, I am her father and I am very proud of my daughter.Sincerely,Paul GissingMiddlebury Student ParentTo the Editor: Where's the love for the new Febs? We show up in the dead of winter, invigorate the campus, shower it with our laughter, smiles and "boundless energy" and what does it do to thank us? It complains that we are up at all hours of the night drinking, smoking and generally recreating "Animal House." But before we are placed on double secret probation, are not we allowed a rebuttal?One of The Middlebury Campus' Opinions Editors went on a personal vendetta against a couple of Febs and ended up libeling our entire class. One of my favorite lines was when she told us to "grow up." Grow up? In the fall this editor was on campus spending a night every weekend drinking alcohol - illegally I presume - while our Febs were spread out across the world doing a myriad of activities. This is just a sampling, but some worked on presidential campaigns, while others traveled solo to six different continents, saved lives as EMTs or established a tutoring center in the Dominican Republic. the list goes on and on. Tell me, who really needs to grow up?Secondly, even though I am a Feb, no one told me about the policy that precludes Febs from being assigned homework. This allows us to party at all hours of weeknights and piss off as many of the studious upperclassmen as possible at least that is what I gathered from reading that piece. Also, since when were sophomores anointed upperclassmen and allowed to pass judgement as such? Do not misinterpret this rebuttal - the February admissions class of 2008 does not wish to have qualms with any individual - however, this fight was brought to our doorstep and we are not going to take abuse like that sitting down. Sincerely,Alex Garlick '08.5
(04/07/05 12:00am)
Author: ERICA GOODMAN For most people, "cow" means milk for breakfast, hamburger for lunch and a prime rib for dinner. It is not a matter of inhumanity or of heartless recognition that the average person associates cattle with food consumption. Cattle owners themselves generally appreciate a juicy steak just as much as the next guy. Yet a hobby, and sometimes a livelihood, for many farmers is showing off their prized animals to promote their own cattle's celebrity. At any given time throughout the year, one can find dairy cows at county fairs across the nation that are given star treatment. True, it is no "American Idol," but competitive dairy cattle judging is a popular pastime of thousands of Americans. A "dairy show" is essentially a beauty pageant for cows. The animals are separated into different classes and evaluated by a professional judge. Ribbons, trophies and cash awards are given out to the animal that closest matches the dairy ideal. What dairy cattle judges look for is a "dairy" figure - straightness of back and legs, open ribs and the proper carriage of her udder. Much time and effort goes in to preparing a show animal for the big day. After numerous soapy scrub downs, haircuts and pedicures, she is ready to step into her stretch limousine - a livestock trailer - and head on down the road to spend a week sleeping in a fluffy straw bed and getting all the attention in the world. The most competitive herdsmen spend thousands of dollars on their beautiful bovines, treating them to the life of luxury all year round. They live on the road like rock stars, competing at venues throughout the country. Like any up and coming celebrity, these lovely ladies experience at least one downfall to the job - they are often denied the companionship of a steady beau. While the one or two bulls that mingle with in a herd court average cows on the farm, the females of show quality find love, I guess you might say, more artificially. Companies, such as "Select Sires" and "Excalibar Sires of Excellence," are the sperm banks for cows. Breeders can flip through a magazine for a listing of potential suitors - with names like "Zenith," "True Grit," even "Magnum" - to find the bull whose offspring have shown the most impressive dairy quality and milk production. And when the time comes and the little vial of the chosen father has arrived in the mail, there is no romance, but just a long plastic glove and an uncomfortable situation.I have often wondered what an outsider thinks of all the fuss put into the exhibition of dairy cattle. Should an alien happen to land his UFO or a suburbanite park his Audi outside of the judging arena on a muggy summer day, he would see human beings and their immaculate cows walking steadily around in a circle. Looking down on the peculiar scene, I'm sure they would wonder who was leading whom.
