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(11/20/08 12:00am)
Author: John Elder The local food movement has become the catalyst for a new phase of environmentalism. In this regard it builds upon and complements many achievements of American conservation's past century. The wilderness ethic affirmed the beauty and the mutual dependence of all life on earth. The growing emphasis on local food now introduces a more socially inclusive and celebratory voice to the conversation.The wilderness movement still strikes me as (along with jazz) one of America's greatest contributions to civilization. But a significant number of people in our country and around the world have viewed it as exclusive and elitist; one's perception of the movement is inevitably influenced, for one thing, by whether or not one can afford the transportation, equipment, and time for extended back-packing trips in the mountains. A certain forbidding quality in some key environmental legislation of the twentieth century has also irked some critics. Too much emphasis on prohibitions - even of noise and pollution - can strike people as against the American grain. While I for one would want to defend the 1964 Wilderness Act, the EPA, and the Clean Water and Clean Air acts against all comers, this seems a good time to incorporate more festive vocabulary into our environmental lexicon.One advantage of the local food movement is its inviting and community-based character. At farmers' markets and CSA's, the underlying values may be on supporting our neighbors who are farmers and keeping more of our household expenditures circulating in our own towns. But what we find ourselves saying to each other in those contexts is not likely to be so overtly political. Friends meeting at the farmers' market are more likely to exclaim "Just taste this tomato!" or "Did you try some of this cheese?" Sensory pleasure, as Slow Food founder Carlo Petrini has often stated, can be the foundation for a social philosophy based on the mantra "buono, pulito, e giusto"-which might be translated in this connection as "delicious, wholesome, and fair."As with the wilderness movement, the local food movement is susceptible to criticism as elitist. Food from the farmers' market often costs more than that purchased at Wal-Mart. This is where the importance of the value "giusto" comes in. We have to think hard about access to local food for lower-income families. More community gardens, focused subsidies for people who are partially dependent on food-stamps, and farm-to-school networks need to be developed. Similarly, the rights and livelihood of migrant farm workers, as well as the needs of farmers themselves, have to be factored into the equation. But if we apply ourselves seriously to all of these areas of food security and equity, both environmental protection and community sustainability may reap a delicious harvest.(John Elder is professor of Environmental Studies and English and American Literatures. He is the author of Reading the Mountains of Home.)
(11/20/08 12:00am)
Author: Grace Duggan On a campus with its largest academic buildings - McCardell Bicentennial Hall and the Donald E. Axinn '51 Center for Literary and Cultural Sutides at Starr Library - almost diametrically opposed, the Environmental Studies program makes its physical and intellectual homes between the two, straddling the deeply ingrained divide between the sciences and the humanities. The interdisciplinary nature of the country's oldest environmental program at the undergraduate level allows students to incorporate interests from a variety of fields, including literature and the creative arts - but does it matter?Every Environmental Studies (ES) major at Middlebury must take "Nature's Meanings," a 200-level class offered each semester that focuses on the evolution of American conceptions of nature. The approach toward the course varies from professor to professor; it is not necessarily a literature course. While both Don Mitchell, Lecturer in English and Film & Media Culture, and Assistant Professor of English & American Literatures Dan Brayton have taught "Nature's Meanings," so have Kathryn Morse and Rebecca Gould, associate professors of History and Religion, respectively. Mitchell, who has been teaching the course since 1994, views it as a unique component of Middlebury's ES major."It took me several years to realize it," said Mitchell, "but one of the unusual features of Middlebury's ES program is the more or less central role that it gives to the study of environmental literature, broadly understood." Although students with a vested interest in environmental literature beyond "Nature's Meanings" can elect to focus in environmental nonfiction or literature - two of the 13 foci currently offered by the department - less than 10 percent of the over 100 declared ES majors or joint majors choose to do so. In general, students choosing one of the two foci tend to opt for environmental nonfiction rather than literature. Despite the discrepancy, Mitchell maintains that those in the field do not weight one genre over the other.Said Mitchell, "I don't sense that there's any sort of 'hierarchy' within the ES community here that would privilege scientific/scholarly writing - or, indeed, any particular genre of writing - over any other. We've been very successful, in my opinion, at 'letting 1000 flowers bloom.'"Speaking more broadly, Professor of English & American Literatures Alison Byerly, whose scholarly work has included examinations of landscape depictions in both canonical and non-canonical texts, noted that nonfiction has typically garnered more attention in the field. Brayton had a similar view of the divide between the two foci, noting that environmental nonfiction is where "the numbers tend to be, whereas the literature focus tends to be much less in demand."The overall low number of students concentrating in these two areas receives considerable support from the ENAM department in that the recent trend among scholars has included a growing validation of environmentalism as a lens through which to look at contemporary as well as canonical literature. Brayton, who just last year was named the Assistant Professor of Environmental Literature, is one such scholar. "There has definitely been a shift in literary study towards reconsidering fiction, poetry and drama and looking for environmental themes," said Brayton. "We're trying to teach a body of literature that can be called environmental straight out on the face of it … but what is also going on is a reconsideration of canonical English and American literature. How do we read canonical or non-canonical preexisting English and American literature from an environmental perspective? Do we rethink Shakespeare's "The Tempest" in light of our current environmental crisis? Is that intellectually legitimate? That would seem to be anachronistic, and yet many scholars are saying this is something we have to do.""It is only over the last decade or two that the labels environmental or ecological or ecocritical have been applied to nature-centered writers or approaches," added Byerly. "The creation of courses that are cross-listed between ENAM and ES has provided an opportunity to look at writing about nature thematically, using cultural, political or scientific contexts as well as purely literary contexts."
(11/20/08 12:00am)
Author: Tess Russell At the outset of the 1994 academic year, President Emeritus John McCardell delivered an all-campus address that highlighted distinct areas in which the College had emerged as a national leader. McCardell imagined that these "Peaks of Excellence," as he dubbed them, extended far beyond the classroom, though - more than a decade later - the phrase tends to be employed most often in an academic context. As students, we now universally accept Middlebury's unique "excellence" in certain fields like literature, foreign languages, international studies and environmental studies (ES). And yet, the inclusion of the College's environmental curriculum in McCardell's vision was quite remarkable in 1994, considering that the ES major had been on the verge of extinction just a few years earlier.The ES major, founded in 1965, was the first of its kind started at any undergraduate institution in the United States - other leaders in the field included Brown University, Dartmouth College and the University of Vermont, where similar interdepartmental programs were established in the 1970s. Initially, ES was quite amorphous in that it depended entirely upon faculty hired through other departments. It is worth noting that the College's infamous Northern Studies (NS) major also began as a freestanding (non-departmental) program, later becoming a track in the Geography department and then a focus in the ES major before being terminated.Professor of Biology and Environmental Studies Stephen Trombulak clarified the relationship, or lack thereof, between NS and ES in his response to a question about whether the NS major ever produced environmentally conscious alumni."This is a bit like asking whether the Math Department or the Studio Art Department ever produced environmentally conscious alums," wrote Trombulak in an e-mail. "I can't imagine that they did not. In my experience, Midd alums from across the full spectrum of the majors offered here have gone on to be environmentally conscious."Though the ES major retained consistent, if low, numbers of participating students throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s, its popularity soon fell off drastically, as evidenced by the complete dearth of ES majors graduating in the Class of 1988. At this point, the College enlisted Trombulak and John Elder, professor of English and American Literatures and Environmental Studies, to revitalize the ES program. Soon after, Professor of Political Science and Environmental Studies Christopher Klyza joined the faculty - significantly, Klyza was the first purposeful ES hire in the College's history. With Trombulak and Elder, he began to work on restructuring the major, and the three of them ultimately designed a program centered on four principal core courses that is virtually identical to today's ES curriculum.Klyza explained that McCardell's 1994 pledge was far from empty rhetoric. With the resurging popularity of the major in the mid-1990s, ES was in desperate need of additional faculty so that introductory courses could be taught more than once a year."[McCardell's address] suggested that the College was going to follow through with more support for the ES program, which they have," said Klyza. "It also coincided with [Professor Emeritus of Religion] Steven Rockefeller's 'Pathways for a Green Campus' report and the formation of the College's Environmental Council, which became the Energy Council. Theoretically, [academic initiatives at Middlebury] feed off of the larger commitments made by the College as an entity."The ES faculty now includes nine full-time professors - including Trombulak, Klyza and Director of Environmental Studies Kathy Morse - though there are a total of 53 faculty members that are affiliated with the program and can thus serve in advisory capacities to students.The graphic pattern of students majoring in ES over the past 40 years, explained Klyza, conforms to a sort of S-curve; since 2001, the number of graduates in ES has hovered in the 30s and 40s. Currently, the College has approximately 100 students among the sophomore, junior and senior classes who are declared ES majors, putting it in the top five most popular programs at the College. Students who receive ES degrees go on to have an impact in fields as varied as environmental consulting, green architecture and design, ecological research and green public policy.To Klyza, the 2007 completion of the Franklin Environmental Center at Hillcrest has been a perfect marker of the crest in importance of ES to the College's mission."When my window is open, I hear the campus tours come by, and they talk about the major and how it is part of Middlebury's identity now," said Klyza.
(11/20/08 12:00am)
Author: Jaime Fuller The birthplace of the Environmental Studies major and the home of the idyllic Bread Loaf School of English seems the perfect place to host an Environmental Journalism Fellowship. Under the stewardship of Scholar-in-Residence Bill McKibben and Visiting Lecturer Christopher Shaw, the fellowship program has given budding journalists from all over the world the opportunity to report on environmental issues they feel passionate or curious about. The program was established in September 2007 with the help of an anonymous donation of $1.5 million, and allows eight graduate and two Middlebury students to pursue a project of their choosing for a full year. The graduate students - who have reported from such diverse regions of the globe as South Africa, Zimbabwe and Bolivia - are given $10,000 to help cover living and reporting expenses, and they are also asked to participate in weeklong residencies at Bread Loaf in the fall and the Monterey Institute of International Affairs in the spring. Throughout the year, Director of the Middlebury Fellowships in Environmental Journalism McKibben and Associate Director Shaw offer guidance to students and help prepare their stories for print, Internet and radio. The fellows who took part in the maiden voyage of the program have been quite successful in getting their articles in print, with the young journalists' work getting published in such well-known publications as Mother Jones, Outside, Gourmet and the Virginia Quarterly. At an informational meeting on Nov. 12, Shaw highlighted McKibben's well-placed connections as a reason for their first-year success."Bill has a lot of influence … if Bill says 'you should read this' to an editor, they usually do," he said. Kevin Redmon '09 and Tim Reynolds '09 were the Middlebury students chosen as undergraduate fellows this year. Redmon is working on a project highlighting the sometimes conflicting aims of ardent conservationists and local entrepreneurs in the Adirondack Park. He examines this in the context of the recent land deal negotiations undertaken by the Nature Conservancy, which has the opportunity to pioneer "a sea change of environmental thinking in the Adirondacks.""Everyone in the Adirondacks … has a powerful attachment to the place and the land," wrote Redmon in an e-mail. "It is for this reason that land conservation can be a volatile prospect."Reynolds' project focuses on the construction of new national parks in southern China. The idea for his project originated from his work this summer with the Nature Conservancy in the Yunnan Province.The most enjoyable part of his trip, he said, "was traveling around to these proposed national park sites and staying in a few villages that lie within the park boundaries, getting to talk to people about how living in a 'national park' has changed their lives."The lessons and skills the fellows have picked up during their reporting will be invaluable as they continue trying to build careers in journalism. Redmon has learned that the secret to a good story is to ignore the pull of modern technology, and that human connection is key."The most profound thing I've learned from the fellowship thus far is how to pick up a telephone and call complete strangers," wrote Redmon in an e-mail. "It sounds trivial, but it's often the biggest barrier to getting an interesting story. Several times in the Adirondacks, I simply showed up on someone's doorstep with my steno pad and microphone. It's hard to say no to a guy who's standing on your stoop, obviously underdressed and freezing in the blowing snow outside."Another fellow, Heather Smith, is writing on colony collapse disorder after discussing possible topics with her professors at the University of California at Berkley. She found the fellowship a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to do in-depth reporting on an interesting and pertinent issue. "Most of us, upon graduating, would be going into jobs where we would be expected to generate an incredible amount of content, and not do much in-depth reporting," she wrote in an e-mail. "It was like Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. The fellowship was the golden ticket to spend months bumming around with entomologists, or hanging out with Uiger politicians in Northwest China, or pretending to be an illegal gold miner, without worrying about whether or not we could afford to eat while doing it."Adam Welz, a graduate of the first run of the fellowship, said the program has opened up many opportunities and given him experience that translates into work he can be proud of. "I have a story in the queue at a great American magazine and have worked with a fantastic editor there," Welz wrote in an e-mail. "I've also become more confident in my ideas for environmental media and have started making big plans for 2009. I'm seeing more opportunity than ever before, despite the 'economic meltdown', in fact, because of it."This economic meltdown, combined with the changes in journalism since the advent of the Internet, leaves Shaw apprehensive of how much longer print journalism like that being pursued by the fellows will remain relevant."This whole business is going to change drastically," he said. "Of course, I've been saying this for fifteen years."
(11/20/08 12:00am)
Author: Aylie Baker "Earth, Ourselves, Breathe and awaken, Leaves are stirring, All things moving, New day coming..."Six years ago, Chris Howell '04.5 read this Pawnee Native American prayer to a crowd huddled on a small plot of land just a quarter mile from the central Middlebury campus. There was a certain prophetic ring to his recitation. That afternoon, a train of students, professors and community members wended through the fields to the site, following a student with a bag of winter rye over his shoulder. It was Bennett Konesni '04.5 who led them, and as each person stepped forward to toss a few seeds over the freshly tilled earth, a year of careful organizing and petitioning came to fruition. The Middlebury College Organic Garden (MCOG) was born."Come back in 10, 15 or 20 years to see the effects of this garden," urged Konesni to those assembled. Six years later, the garden has been transformed into a vital shared space in the community, touching countless lives. As envisioned by its founders, the garden has become a site of celebration as well as intersection between College and community. Because the College subsidizes the garden's labor, MCOG has a non-competition policy with local farmers. In fact, rather than selling at farmers' markets or local stores, the majority of the garden's produce goes directly to the College's dining halls and local restaurants. The only crop they sell retail is honey; everything else goes at wholesale prices.What is more, each year, the garden tries out different seed varieties for local farmers in the area. Last year, the grape harvest went to a fledgling vineyard in the area. The garden also continues to evolve with the help of various student initiatives. One student drew upon his interest in architecture to design and help construct an outdoor classroom on the site. Associate Professor of Geography Anne Knowles and Professor of English and American Literatures John Elder routinely hold class meetings at the garden site, and a group of geography students recently teamed up with a professor to use GIS and Google maps to chart where food is consumed."Over the course of the garden's existence I estimate that over 400 students have volunteered at the garden and many more students and community people have come to relax and enjoy the garden's beauty," remarked Jay Leshinski, farmer and adviser to MCOG. "The point is to enjoy the space - not to feel obligated to work on it," said Leshinski. "There's something for everyone." In a world in which there is a gaping disconnect between the average producer and the average consumer - where food, appearing seemingly at will, is rendered mysterious and inexhaustible - MCOG has been able to offer participants a different perspective.The summer internship program, which employs students to work on the garden, has been a transformative experience for countless students.Dan Kane '09 was one student who was inspired by his summer experience. "I want to farm now," wrote Kane in a recent blog posting, "I want to use these very hands-on skills. I learned to promote environmental and social justice wherever I can. I want to be fully engaged in what we're calling the 'food revolution' all because of this space that the MCOG founders envisioned and invited me too."For Htar Htar Yu '09 of Burma, working at MCOG this past summer was special because it reaffirmed a part of her identity."I never thought of myself as a gardener partly because growing plants is so common where I come from," said Yu. "Everyone grows. There is a Burmese saying, 'A place Burmese leave behind is a forest.' And that is true. Where I grew up, we grew the food we ate. We grew all kinds of vegetables and rice." This past summer, Yu had the chance to plant Burmese sour leaves for the first time in five years. "It is like I am back to the real me," she said. "I love the feeling of knowing the plants around me are edible. I love picking things with my own hand."While the principal goal of MCOG is to serve as a common space that is both celebratory and informative, no doubt one of the desired outcomes is also to help assuage the current disconnect people have with food."People here think it takes a lot of courage, time and means to have a garden or to plant crops with a capitalistic life style that considers 'time as money,'" explained Yu. "Growing up in an armed conflict area in Burma, when I was young, we had a lifestyle in which 'time was survival' and we still had our gardens. Vermont has great soil. Any plant that can survive in Vermont weather will grow," said Yu, who only hopes "more people in Vermont will have little gardens."The seeds have been planted. While the garden has not yet reached its 10th anniversary, it has already had a profound rippling effect on the surrounding College and community. This fall, a group led by Max Kanter '10.5 secured funding and a plot of land to start a community garden here in Middlebury."Institutional bureaucracy can be stifling and frustrating, disinterest from students and administrators can be disheartening," said Kane, "but food has that unique power of bringing us together, of equalizing and calming the discourse, of truly setting the table for progress and discussion. At Middlebury, MCOG has certainly been key at setting that table."
(11/13/08 12:00am)
Author: Michael Geisler Metaphors are tricky business. No doubt, the editorial board in the Oct. 23 Campus is correct in reminding us that the small liberal arts college is "the core" of the Middlebury experience. But a "core," whether we are talking about an apple or a peach, has a function only in relation to its outer layers which are there to protect it and enhance its importance. Without the outer layers, the very word "core" becomes a paradox.Alone among its peers, Middlebury has an outstanding reputation as "the hottest school for international studies" (Newsweek poll of 2005). That reputation is based on the excellence of Middlebury's language programs (both summer and academic year!) and the C.V. Starr-Middlebury Schools Abroad, according to the same poll. With the Bread Loaf School of English, Middlebury also has the largest MA program in English in the United States, while the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference is the oldest and by far the most prestigious writers' conference in the country. These are enormous assets that most colleges would love to have. All of these programs have to pay for themselves and all of them contribute to the bottom line. But that's not the reason why we have them. Year after year, in addition to some 150 students from Middlebury (many of whom depend on the Language Schools to meet their major requirements and to go abroad), the Language Schools bring more than 1,200 students from institutions around the globe to Middlebury, plus some 200 faculty from 24 different countries. Bread Loaf contributes another 700 or so. Year after year these more than 2,000 "strangers" (as the editorial board seems to perceive them) carry the reputation of Middlebury all over the United States, to Canada and to their home countries around the globe. Many of our Schools Abroad would not have been established without the help of preexisting Language Schools contacts: the reputation of the Language Schools vouchsafed for the quality of Middlebury's students, before we ever opened our mouths in the negotiations with our partner institutions. When the more than 60 percent of Middlebury academic-year students who have studied abroad during their junior year later on look for jobs in the global economy, they are often helped by internships, friends, and other contacts they established during their time abroad, and often alumni of our Schools Abroad also lend a helping hand.On the issue of administrative attention: all the summer programs and the Schools Abroad report to their own deans and directors who in turn report to the office of the Vice President for Language Schools, Schools Abroad and Graduate Programs. All of these positions are financed through the internal budgets of these units. The Vice President in turn reports to the President - one report compared to dozens that represent the central concerns of the academic year.To be sure, the summer programs and programs abroad are not the core, and they are not intended to be. But there is no reasonable curricular or programmatic line that can be drawn between "the core" and "the periphery." Neither makes sense without the other.In a global society, a liberal arts college without significant programmatic connections to the external world would not last another 200 years, or even another 25 years. We have these outer layers because, without them, the core would not survive for long. That is why Middlebury has become "The First Global Liberal Arts College."
(11/13/08 12:00am)
Author: Andrea Glaessner How does a world-renowned contemporary Chinese artist find himself jet-setting across the world to deliver a lecture in the hills of rural Vermont? Chinese would say ?? (yuan fen, fate). Americans would argue globalization. But for Xu Bing the answer was quite simple, as he demurely replied, "Colin invited me." In fact, it was a combination of all three - Robert P. Youngman Curator of Asian Art Colin Mackenzie, a sprinkle of globalization and a touch of fate - that brought the award-winning MacArthur fellow to Middlebury last Thursday. In a lecture entitled, "Image and Meaning: the Art of Xu Bing," Xu discussed his prolific body of work that exploits the gamut of traditional and nontraditional media. From his signature Square Word Calligraphy ink paintings to "performance art" featuring tattooed pigs copulating over a floor strewn with books, Xu's work dabbles in the absurd, forcing viewers to toss out tired concepts and reinvent a new framework for looking at art. The lecture also afforded the Museum of Art community an opportunity to learn more about Xu's "new English calligraphy" paintings currently on view in the Robert Reiff Gallery of Asian Art as well as the two artist proof monkeys from the "Monkeys Grasp for the Moon" installation originally commissioned for a space in the Sackler gallery in Washington D.C. Xu's work arrived in Middlebury largely by happenstance. In conferring with the anonymous collector responsible for the current exhibition of Chinese painting and bronzes on loan, Mackenzie discovered that the collector also owned the two monkey sculptures that were a prototype for the original work commissioned by the Sackler. The original installation, comprised of 21 laminated wood pieces, is a chain of monkeys formed out of word shapes, each around 2 feet long. Each link in the chain is the word for "monkey" in a different language, ranging from Arabic to German, and the words resemble monkeys themselves, stretched at beginning and end to form long tails and arms with which they link together. The collector graciously offered to loan his two artist proof monkeys, at which point, said Mackenzie, "I thought, well why don't we try and borrow a couple of other works from him and invite him here for a talk. So that's how it came about."Dressed unassumingly in gray and white and donning a pair of iconic John Lennon spectacles, Xu arrived for lunch at the Center for the Arts looking surprisingly fresh-faced after a 14-hour flight from Beijing just one day prior. C'est la vie for the contemporary artist of the modern era. With work featured in public and permanent collections that span the globe from MOMA to The British Museum to the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum in Japan, Xu is a regular fixture in the international contemporary art scene."I regard him as one of the most interesting contemporary Chinese artists and I think he's really a major figure in contemporary international art," said Mackenzie, "One shouldn't simply typecast him as a Chinese artist. He's really very important in the history of late 20th century art." With a dominant position in the contemporary art arena and an appointment as Vice President of the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) in Beijing, Xu straddles the increasingly blurred boundary between East and West, occupying a space between the contemporary art hotbeds of New York and Shanghai. Traveling between the two realms produced ideas that translate directly into Xu's recent work. Intrigued by the use of universal symbols in airplane safety brochures, Xu determined to create a language based on everyday symbols with a capacity for universal recognition. An installation piece still in progress, "??" (di shu)or "Book from the Ground" approaches the conundrum of communication and perception in the context of globalism through the exploration of language and cultural symbols. First exhibited at MOMA in 2007, the installation consists of two computers facing each other, separated by a wall of frosted glass imprinted with a dialogue written in Xu's language of icons. "??" (tian shu) or "Book from the Sky," is the artist's most iconic masterpiece - a work that put Xu on the map and oriented the direction of his work to the present day. In an interview conducted in Chinese and translated by the writer, Xu referenced the piece heavily in his discussion of central themes and concepts in his art. "In my work, the most important thing I am trying to achieve is to break down concepts of language, culture, and knowledge. I seek to occupy the space between the boundaries of these concepts and synthesize or mix the boundaries. Language is the most fundamental concept or element of conception, and the work I do between the concepts is the most prolific," said Xu.Also an installation piece, "Book from the Sky," is in many ways the counterpart to the more recent "Book from the Ground," yet the two works diverge in their respective impact on the viewer. The recent "Book from the Ground" is expressly interactive and exudes a sense of playfulness in its critique on new forms of communication in the 21st century. In contrast, "Book from the Sky," is a sobering rendition of 4,000 mock Chinese characters painstakingly carved into woodblocks and reprinted on billowing paper that hangs from the ceiling. The work presents dramatically different interpretations depending on the viewer's cultural background and knowledge, yet the theme of universal understanding is still extant. Because the characters are essentially void of meaning or attribution, viewers of every education level and across cultures approach the work equally dumbfounded, finding themselves uniformly incapable of rendering meaning behind the symbols. "Chinese people understand the idea of playing with characters and this really stirs them up," said Xu, "People who don't understand Chinese still understand the work, but it's a different aspect. For example, they'll look at the work and think the characters are real. And the installation is really beautiful; it puts Chinese culture in a very important position, a respectful and important position, as if the viewer is standing in a temple. But the whole work is absurd. It appears as if it is something the viewer should take seriously, since it was painstakingly constructed, and this makes the absurdity more prominent. The more seriously I work on the installation, the more absurd the work becomes, making the art more powerful."Mackenzie, who helped install "Book from the Sky" for its debut in a group exhibition of contemporary Chinese artists at the Asia Society in 1998, discussed the powerful experience of viewing the work in-person. "There's a deliberate ambiguity about "Book from the Sky" that reflects his sense of confusion. It's a rather distressing feeling, whereas [in] the other [works], there's a delight there, not quite the same feeling of stress…Once [the installation] is hung within a room and it fills the room, it's not just that you're looking at strange, irritating graphs that you can't read, but when you go into that room you're surrounded by it, you're enveloped by it, and then you feel really disquieted by it," said Mackenzie. Following the debut of "Book from the Sky," Xu transitioned to what Mackenzie refers to as the "Chinglish" projects. Four typecasts of these works are currently on view at the Museum. Reinventing the depiction of English words as Chinese characters, the works are legible to English-speaking viewers, though at first glance such viewers are typically oblivious to their ability to comprehend the characters. Xu described his own Square Word Calligraphy as "a computer virus" or "an unusable word bank." Describing people as "lazy thinkers," Xu articulated how viewers rely on pre-existing concepts to think about art. "My work always offers the view that cultural concepts are limiting and pose obstacles to thinking, just like the ob
stacles presented in my new English calligraphy," said Xu, "The new English calligraphy presents English knowledge and concepts and Chinese knowledge and concepts. Just like a textbook, it offers knowledge about characteristics of the English and Chinese languages. But within our own previous spheres of knowledge this type of calligraphy does not exist, neither does an explanation of this calligraphy. In confronting these types of characters in my work, neither one of the concepts is functional," said Xu. Most viewers, particularly after repeated interaction with the Square Word Calligraphy paintings, wonder about the significance of the content Xu chose to translate into his new English. For example, "Song of Myself: Square Wood Calligraphy" is a direct translation of a Walt Whitman poem while another, "Talks at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art Square Word Calligraphy, 2001" is of a poem written by Mao Zedong. The title refers to the 1942 talks given by Mao concerning the impact of literature and art in class struggles. When asked about the meaning during the interview, Xu casually replied, "Of course it has meaning, these are just things I like, things from Chinese and western culture that I particularly like."During the question and answer session following the lecture, a member of the audience asked about the significance of the Mao Zedong poem piece in particular. Xu explained how the work reflects the conflicting legacy of Mao Zedong on aspects of Chinese culture, particularly language. According to Xu, "Mao Zedong started to change the way people think through changing our language. When I was first starting to study and go to school, the transformation of the language was in the middle of occurring." The national campaign to transform Chinese characters from traditional to simplified had a lasting impact on Xu Bing. Additionally, Xu discussed how a recurring childhood experience of being locked in a room full of books before Xu could read was "confusing," attributing to the often disquieting nature of his language-centric works. At the same time, Xu's art, particularly his later works, confer a sense of playfulness on the viewer. According to Xu, this playfulness is a tool to engage the viewer, drawing them deeper into the work. "My hope is that my works appear friendly and welcoming, and are easy to get into," said Xu, "Then the important part is that once the viewer is inside, they discover the work's many different aspects, especially the deeper meaning. I hope my works cause people's thinking patterns to change and has an influence on those thought processes in some way."Hence, Xu's work avoids the use of cultural symbols that carry too much meaning. "Cultural symbols that carry too much importance are not good to use. The inherent meaning of these types of symbols is too strong. For example, death, tomb, feminism, are so strong, including sex, these types of subjects are so strong that it's like being hit by a bullet," said Xu.While Xu's work strives for universal understanding, there is a thread of distinct "Chinese-ness" woven into each individual piece, the most obvious example being the influence of ?? (shu fa, Chinese calligraphy). Xu's deep interest in Chinese characters began while he was living in the countryside during the Cultural Revolution (1980-1987). Xu was "sent down" along with millions of other intellectuals and urban youth to perform manual labor in remote villages under Mao's famously orchestrated "thought reform" campaign. Xu explained the impact of this experience on his work."I lived in a small mountain village outside Beijing. Because this village was so remote, these incredibly ancient cultural folk traditions had been preserved. For example, after someone died, old people would take out these strange characters and copy them on a white cloth that they then hung in the wind. These strange characters were meant to allow the living and dead to communicate. At that time, these experiences and folk customs had a lot of influence on me. Then later, I rediscovered some of these traditions in books I was studying. But I directly came in contact with these customs in while living in the countryside," said Xu.Beijing today is a world away from the city it was during the Mao era. Xu himself described the city as "incredibly fascinating," despite his rather tumultuous experiences in the Northern capital under Mao's oppressive thought reform campaign. Today, Xu serves as Vice President of CAFA - perhaps the most prestigious art institution in China. Though the administrative nature of his new position keeps him busy, Xu is thrilled with the work going on. "[Working at CAFA] gives me a lot of new inspiration and ideas." As Xu continues to expand his prolific body of work, constantly adding new projects to the mix, his fans wait in eager anticipation of the conceptual artist's next tour de force.(The interview was conducted in Chinese by Andrea Glaessner before being translated into English.)
(11/06/08 12:00am)
Author: Eric Bartolloti It is important for United States citizens to exercise their citizenship. Paying taxes, jury duty, and the selective service are all great ways to keep this gift strong and supple, but the Bowflex® 9000 of citizenry would have to be voting, a workout so fabulous that it could not help but captivate German citizen Marita Schine, current co-head of Brainerd Commons. But just as one cannot buy powerful home fitness equipment on a whim, one also cannot go down to the local elementary school gymnasium and vote on a whim. There is a process.Marita Schine had been living in the United States for nearly twenty years with her husband, American citizen Robert Schine, before she heard the United States voting process calling her. The first call came in November 2000 while Marita Schine was living in Israel. Such an outside view dramatized the already dramatic dramatics of the election drama, prompting Schine to remark, as she now remembers, "We can't even choose a leader!" Schine resolved to succeed where the United States ballot process and half of the eligible voting body had failed (the approximate amount of people who did not vote at all, though completely in line with historic trends).The second call came soon after, when former Chief UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter visited Middlebury. Ritter delivered a powerful critique of the Bush administration's recent policies in Iraq, but the critique that interested Schine was Ritter's frank analysis of America's voters. He denounced their laziness and desire for spoon-fed politics when they should be engaging and informing themselves as active participants. Schine would identify with this message, "no pain, no voting" in the coming trials of securing United States citizenship, and thus the power to vote.In addition to obtaining this new citizenship, Schine wanted to retain her old one with Germany due to family reasons, travel reasons, and any of the other thousands of reasons why any person would want to stay connected to such a great country. While Germany allows dual-citizenship, it is verboten to anyone without a "compelling reason" (usually an economic reason). Being able to vote in another country, even a country of permanent residence, does not qualify as a "compelling reason."But Schine rallied and, wielding an economic loophole wide enough to lasso the entire German bureaucracy, squeaked out permission from her government to pursue United States citizenship with zero sacrifice of her Germanity. The loophole? Schine argued that if her husband were to die, the resulting taxes on the inherited property would cripple her finances (the United States government doesn't like it when foreigners own its land, and only allows it if it receives some juicy tax compensation).With Germany's blessing, Marita tackled the United States Naturalization process piece by piece. The first two components, the proof of residence and proof of English fluency, were a piece of cake for Schine. The $675 application landed as a surprise blow, but the ten page whopper would prove a good buy, if for no other reason than the hilarity of the YES/NO questions, including zingers like, "Have you ever been a member of or in any way associated (either directly or indirectly) with the Communist party?" and "Have you ever been a habitual drunkard?" After that, a test on basic United States Civics, a test exploding with key terms like "The Three Branches," "Separation of Power" and "Checks and Balances," and positively dripping with nostalgia for any decent middle school social studies textbook.The final step was a ceremony for speaking and signing the "Oath of Allegiance to The United States of America", a flowery piece of writing overgrown with powerful statements, the following one causing Schine distress: "I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty." She wondered how the United States could allow people dual citizenship, yet require them to swear to that statement (in a courtroom, no less). Fortunately, Schine was allowed to drop that phrase while speaking the oath, but, as she admits today, "I had to sign it even though it didn't make any sense." Despite this, Schine enjoyed the ceremony and the United States citizenship she had won (along with eighteen other countries represented in the ceremony).It may seem puzzling that the only United States citizens required to give the grand Oath to The United States are those from outside the country. There are many who seek the right to vote like Schine, and through their stories one will always reach this conclusion: the citizenships of native-born Americans are getting a lot less exercise. But this native group need not despair, for all they need to do is follow the examples of Scott Ritter, who reminds us not to "just vote" but to vote hard, and to vote smart. If that's not enough of a workout, well, no one's stopping you from looking up The Oath of Allegiance and swearing to it on your own time, are they?
(11/06/08 12:00am)
Author: [no author name found] Himalayan Market in MiddleburyNov. 8, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.Handcrafted treasures from Tibet, India and Nepal will be showcased in this benefit for the Bridge School scholarship fund. South Asian cuisine will also be for sale. Middlebury Bridge School, 1469 Exchange St.Champlain Philharmonic Nov. 8, 7:30 p.m.The Champlain Philharmonic Orchestra is performing at the Vergennes Opera House. Sammy Angstman, the winner of the concerto competition for young artists, will perform Ravel. Additional works of Handel, Saint Saens and Granados. Tickets $10, seniors and children $8 at 877-6737.Thinking about Frost and NatureNov. 9, 2 p.m.Middlebury's Waybury Inn hosts D.E. Axinn Professor of English and Creative Writing Jay Parini as he discusses Robert Frost's perspectives of nature in an afternoon tea sponsored by the Sheldon Museum. $20 general public, $18 for museum members. Reservations: 388-2117."Greater Tuna" performance Nov. 6, 7, 8, 7:30 p.m."Greater Tuna" will be performed by the Addison Reportory Theater Company at Middlebury's A.R.T. Studio Theater at Hannaford Career Center. Tickets $10 general admission, $5 students and seniors. Information: 382-1036."An introduction to homeopathy"Nov. 10, 7:30-9 p.m.Healing arts practitioner Sallie Mack will lecture on the history and fundamentals of homeopathy at Middlebury's Ilsley Library. Free, sponsored by the Humanities Council. "Flyfishing from a kid's perspective" Nov. 11, 6:30 p.m.9-year-old Ross Crowne and 12-year-old Thomas Crowne will share their flyfishing adventures at Gauger Theater in Middlebury's Lodge at Otter Creek.
(11/06/08 12:00am)
Author: Kevin Redmon My day begins at 5:23 in the morning when Adi sends me a series of text messages. He's standing in the pre-dawn dark outside a Virginia polling place, trying to talk his way inside with a camera crew. He sounds a little disappointed that I'm not in the Bureau yet. As I pull on pants, I tell him that I am already on my bike, nearly there. He knows I'm lying. Adi is my boss. He is an over-caffeinated Middlebury alumni of the 'manic genius' varietal. He has no semblance of a circadian rhythm, but, in his own panicked way, he does the daily work of three producers. A true Middlebury alumn, he layers long-underwear below his oxford and pairs wool socks with dress shoes. I work long hours for Adi; in return, he keeps me caffeinated and gives me the occasional cigarette. It is a very functional relationship. Understand that the principal potential energy in the Washington, D.C. equation is naiveté, the bulk of which is supplied by interns. It's difficult to imagine oneself to be the next great American novelist while waving around a press badge with 'INTERN' emblazoned across the bottom. Mark Twain piloted river boats and mined for silver, but he sure as hell never had an internship. (I'm equally doubtful he ever asked a career services office for 'networking tips.') I, conversely, am the embodiment of every intern cliché you have ever heard. I am very good at getting coffee. Pooja Shahani ('09) had this intern position before me, and I learned quickly that the most effective way to introduce myself in the Bureau was to skip my name and go straight to: "I'm the new Pooja." My credibility around here rides on her coattails. Now, fourteen hours after I arrived for the day, the newsroom of the BBC's Washington Bureau is not unlike an eighteenth century British sanatorium-utter bedlam. The place has gone completely mental. Cigarettes, espresso, and toffee Nips are the only things keeping the wheels from coming off the whole operation. People like to argue about partisan bias in the media, but I promise you-at this point, most of the media is too burned out to care one way or another. I am working the Results Desk. Unlike the American networks, which have platoons of analysts and pages of algorithms to aid them, we don't make projections in-house. Instead, we report what networks are reporting. Our exclusive use of the passive voice would horrify a high-school English teacher. It's not clear that the 'retract' function on our software works correctly, so we are very conservative with publishing official projections. I am supposed to be watching CBS and NBC, and reporting their projections. However, wires got crossed somewhere-quite literally-so I am watching CBS and 24 Hour Doppler Radar instead. Our neo-Luddite technology bothers me until I see that the local CBS news anchors have been reduced to colouring in newspaper map with blue and red crayons and holding it up to the camera. In half an hour's time, the first polls close; my middle school Latin teacher would refer to this moment as 'the excrement coming into contact with the cooling device.' I'm hoping for a trickle, but I fear a deluge. I'll out of the bureau sometime before dawn, stomach full of chemicals ending in -ine, heart full of renewed faith in American democracy. The conventional wisdom in D.C. is that, depending on whether your horse wins or loses the race, you'll spend the night either pulling champagne straight from the bottle or ripping shots of bourbon until you're three sheets to the wind. Personally, I'll take a cup of decaffeinated coffee, this week's New Yorker, and a shot of Thorazine. It's less than eighteen hours until tomorrow's deadline.
(10/30/08 12:00am)
Author: [no author name found] From our bookshelves, iPods and laptops to your Thursday morning breakfast table, here are our recommendations for the best of recent culture. "Warhol Live"Montreal Museum of Fine ArtsNow through Jan. 18th, 2009 the museum features an incredible Andy Warhol exhibition focused on the influence of music and dance on his art. An enjoyable barrage against the senses, the exhibit includes album covers, silkscreens, photographs, screen tests, previously unreleased audio, you name it...- Grace Duggan Log House Sou Fujimoto ArchitectsThis gorgeous villa, for lack of a better term, is built entirely from lumber logs and yet is still a functional space. Its inhabitants can crawl up to the kitchen, and crawl down to the bathroom. It is probably not the greatest place for entertaining, but who really cares?- Andrew ThrodahlJustineLawrence Durrell(Faber & Faber, 1957)The first of Lawrence Durrell's sweeping The Alexandria Quartet, Justine introduces and enraptures readers with the nameless young narrator as he situates himself in one of the world's oldest cities. Slowly seductive and quietly intoxicating, Justine burns with Durrell's crafted prose and philosophy, establishing The Alexandria Quartet as one of the most under-read English works of the 20th century. - Melissa Marshall
(10/30/08 12:00am)
Author: Andrey Tolstoy When I started watching football in the late 90s, Chelsea was a decent team in a pretty good national league. The kings of Europe then were Real Madrid, taking charge after the decline of AC Milan. If you asked me and my friends what our favorite teams were, we would list three or four - one in Spain, one in Italy, one in England, and one in our home country.A lot of eyebrows went up when Real went on a wild shopping spree, within a couple seasons acquiring Anelka, Ronaldo, Zidane and David Beckham to supplement their already star-studded line-up. Later, Chelsea's success was derided by critics as being solely the result of billionaire owner Roman Abramovich's profligacy. This has turned into the norm in top-flight football, with spending up 60 percent from last season in the English Premier League, and the critics aren't much happier.UEFA President Michel Platini recently lashed out at the purchase of Manchester City by the Qatar-led Abu Dhabi United Group. "If you bring people from Qatar and there is no-one from Manchester at the club, where is Manchester?" he asked. "I think the Qataris should invest in Qatar." His problem is not just with misdirected investment: "You have to have identity; that is where football's popularity lies."It may seem strange to invoke questions of identity when club football has historically been very cosmopolitan. Yet in their selection, clubs have exhibited particular consistencies that allow fans to connect with them on a secondary level. Arsenal, for example, was famous for its Dutch-French hybrid; Manchester United fielded more British stars; and Barcelona recruited extensively in independentist Catalonia.Today, these trends are more difficult to detect, since billionaire owners have shifted the focus towards buying international stars, sometimes to the detriment of both club and player. One notable example is the purchase of Andrei Shevchenko, who went from hero to pariah after his transfer from AC Milan to Chelsea. The English league did not suit his style, but having spent $56 million on him, Roman Abramovich demanded extra playing time for the Ukrainian.The deeper impact of this lavishness has been a declined interest in national leagues outside Europe. Abdu Maikaba, coach of FC Abuja, in Nigeria's first division, recently complained: "Whenever we play at the same time as an Arsenal game, nobody shows up." Of course, a gulf is to be expected between the two leagues, but not to the point of threatening the existence of a national football federation. And it doesn't stop at the professional level either, as European youth programs become affected by the clubs' voracity. Platini points out: "One player aged 11 is coming from Marseille to Chelsea. For the mother you think that is good?"There seems to be a lack of foresight in the system, because sooner or later supply lines will run thin. National leagues need to be competitive, sustained by well-funded youth programs and strong representation by domestic players. Roman Abramovich lost some $10 billion in the financial crisis, and Chelsea has already announced that it will manage its own budget for the next two seasons. Manchester United jerseys are branded with the AIG logo, so there goes that. I doubt these teams will continue to compete on the same level if they are outspent by the Qataris, which seems inevitable.There are several ironies to take away here. First, the teams that raised the bar for transfer spending are going to be hit the hardest when they tumble down the league table. Second, selling expensive players to cut budget deficits will yield a net loss, because sellers will have less leverage to back up their demands. Third, the Qataris, Egyptians and Americans are investing in their former colonizer's football league, while their domestic leagues are floundering in obscurity. And finally, a word of caution to the Brits: when was the last time the English national team did anything notable?I'm so glad to have no personal investment in any of this.
(10/30/08 12:00am)
Author: Jaime Fuller Rolling Stone magazine editor Eric Bates gave an opinionated address on the presidential election on Oct. 28 as part of the "Meet the Press" lecture series. Bates spent half-an-hour giving his perspective on the candidates, the campaigns and the mainstream media before relinquishing control of the conversation to the inquisitive audience.Bates has been executive editor of Rolling Stone since February 2008 and recently conducted a one-on-one interview with Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama for the magazine. Previously, he worked as the magazine's political editor, and also has experience as an investigative editor at Mother Jones and as editor-in-chief of the political journal Southern Exposure.When Scholar-in-Residence in English Sue Halpern, organizer of "Meet the Press," rose to the podium to introduce the journalist, she recalled the inaugural lecture of the "Meet the Press" series, which occurred exactly four years ago with the same speaker. "A lot has happened in those four years," she said. "I thought it was only fitting that Eric come back and help sort it all out, and I'm hoping to make it a tradition."She also gave the audience a disclaimer, noting that last time she remembered that Bates made an incorrect prediction that John Kerry would win the 2004 presidential election."Thanks for reminding me how much I suck," Bates responded as he took the podium.Bates began the lecture by reiterating Halpern's point that much has changed since the last election."We tend to look at past elections to predict what is going to happen, but often times the rules have changed."He argued that this is the reason that Senator Hillary Clinton was unsuccessful in the Democratic primaries, that "playing by the old rulebook" doesn't work when the old rules don't apply anymore. Obama's success, on the other hand, he believes is a direct result of his ability to respond to the changes in the political climate. "His path to the election is inspiring," Bates said. "It's a reminder to us that far more is possible than we could ever imagine. He saw that the conditions were such and the rules were changing so he could take advantage of the moment."However, Bates doesn't take stock in those who cite the polls as an augury of an Obama victory next Tuesday."Obama could be 30 points ahead in the polls and we'd still be biting our nails," he said. Republicans never get like that … but [Democrats] always think something is going to go wrong."The reason he doesn't trust the polls is because he believes that like the Clintons, the polls are still playing by the old rulebook. He cited the polls' reliance on landlines, their ignorance of new voters and the unknown impact of the Bradley effect as reasons why the public shouldn't get too comfortable with the current media narrative. Despite his distrust of the polls, he still is confident that Obama will be successful on Nov. 4."The Republicans really only have two things going for them this election: racism and the ability to rig the vote."Bates believes despite the Republicans' dominance in politics over the past few decades, that this election is going to recreate the political landscape in the Democratic Party's favor in a way not seen since the era of the Great Depression. What is even more important, according to Bates, is that larger shifts are happening in the American electorate. Some he sees as positive and diversity enriching, such as the impending loss of majority status for whites and the increase of unmarried and alternative families in the populace. The shift he finds more worrisome is the increasing homogeneity of the electorate."The world is starting to look like the Internet," he said. "People are only grouping together with like minded people and they don't have any idea what the other group is like or about." He then turned the discussion to the possible problems of an Obama presidency."There is eight years worth of pent-up Democratic energy where they didn't get jack done," he said. "Now [Democrats] are going to have their hand in the cookie jar, and Obama's going to have to manage this. The Democrats could easily blow it."He also noted that Republicans should be glad that they might lose the majority in Congress, as it would "restore [them] to the job they were meant to do-the opposition""Republicans don't believe in government," he said. "They really suck at government, but they don't suck at being the opposition. They're really good at that."At the end of the lecture, when the audience assumed the role of the press, many topics were discussed, including the nomination of Governor Sarah Palin, the potential for bipartisan action in an Obama administration and the role of David Axelrod in the Obama campaign. He ended with an analysis of journalistic responsibility in the political process, and the changing role of the mainstream media in an increasingly cacophonous arena of media outlets and opinions. His conclusion is that despite criticism that the media is biased, the media has "done a good job," and that fairness, not objectivity, should be the goal of journalism."The media plays a role in being combative, skeptical, funny and occasionally tasteless," he said. "The media puts things into perspective in a way candidates can't."The "Meet the Press" lecture series is presented by the Middlebury College Institute on Working Journalism and is designed to bring distinguished journalists to offer their experience and opinion to the campus community. The event was co-sponsored by Brainerd Commons and the Department of English and American Literatures.
(10/30/08 12:00am)
Author: Grace Duggan Rock 'n' roll may have developed in the United States, but almost immediately afterwards it became difficult to pigeonhole it as a uniquely American phenomenon. Rock music has cemented its influence everywhere from CBGB and the Viper Room to Wembley Stadium and Budokan, but what about the rock bands who don't necessarily care about making it across the pond or being huge in Japan? Souvenir is one such band. Formed in Pamplona, Spain in 1999, this electro-pop rock duo has released four albums, including last year's 64. Thankfully, unlike bands like Nous Non Plus (who performed at Middlebury in recent years) Souvenir doesn't camp up their Francophile status - they may sing in French, but they still remember what side of the Pyrenees they grew up on. On their web site they describe 64 as a collection of songs "interwoven with the different vocabularies of techno-pop, new wave, 80s dance music ... sung with Patricia's beautiful voice and Jaime's 'surf' guitar touch." The energetic songs - complete with more than their fair share of Bauhaus-inspired music videos and cover art - let Patricia de la Fuente's light vocals shine through and withstand the rock and electronic accompaniments supplied by Jaime Cristóbal (and the occasional help of a full band). "Accident à Londres," the album's opening track, has it all: twangy guitars, ethereal synthesizer melodies and de la Fuente singing husky, desperate lines that sound good regardless of how much French you remember from high school. Some Spaniards do in fact stick to their mother tongue, including Barcelona-based Refree, Raül Fernández's latest project (he also sings in Catalan). Formerly of influential Spanish indie band the Corn Flakes, Fernández began recording as Refree in 2003 and continues as lead singer of Élena. On his Web site his music is described as a successful union "of sounds, rhythms, instruments, collaborations ... [and] a markedly urban and modern profile ... [that] confirm a body of work simultaneously a concave and convex mirror in which all of our expectations are reflected." His sweeping songs and beautiful lyrics make albums like Els Invertebrats and Quitamiedos important rock/electronica works in the contemporary Spanish music scene. If you were that kid that didn't like your peas touching your mashed potatoes, maybe you don't like all that electronica mixed in with your rock 'n' roll. Maybe you're just a purist. In either case, Mexico's recent rock scene merits more than a cursory glance. The now-defunct Zurdok got its start in the city of Monterrey with a sound not altogether unrelated to English groups like Oasis and The Verve. Make use of the $o.99 downloads on iTunes and listen to songs off of Hombre Sintetizador, such as the creeping "Nos vemos en la luna" and "¿Cuántos pasos?," complete with strings and simple, ambivalent musings on a dead-end love. Maquillaje features a number of memorable tracks, including the single "Estático," a tight, irresistible track with an addictive hook and a delivery reminiscent of - stay with me here - post-Beatles John Lennon records, particularly Double Fantasy. Also from Monterrey is Kinky, a band of continuing importance and prominence in the Mexican rock scene. Ridiculous name aside, the best part of the band is their genuine integration of Mexican music traditions into the rock genre. Case in point: the sweet accordion melody on "Sister Twisted" off of Reina, their 2006 release preceding last month's iTunes-only debut of Barracuda. See also: the Latin percussion-heavy "Más" and "¿A dónde van los muertos?," a jumping, scratchy song with an accordion part you would expect from a lead guitarist or bass player. If Jethro Tull could make flutes cool, maybe the accordion isn't so bad. Also make sure to listen to their wonderfully subversive cover of Wall of Voodoo's bizarre hit, "Mexican Radio."What about the rest of the world? Well, this is a column, not an encyclopedia. Past these four bands, I guess sites like www.muzikalia.com, www.commonpeoplemusic.com and www.mondosonora.com will have to do.
(10/23/08 12:00am)
Author: Patrick D'Arcy Middlebury students gathered at nightfall in Mead Chapel on October 17th for a reading from Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Galway Kinnell as part of the College's Annual Clifford Symposium. In keeping with this year's theme of memory and place, Kinnell gave a reading of some of his own work, as well as a smattering of poems by some of his fellow poets to the two-thirds full, quaintly lit chapel.Once a faculty member at Middlebury's Bread Loaf School of English, Kinnell, 81, won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award in 1982 for his "Selected Poems." More recently, this past April he has published another collection of poems, "Strong Is Your Hold." Introducing Kinnell's poetry was D. E. Axinn Professor of English & Creative Writing Jay Parini, who emphasized how the influential writer's work presents the "possibilities of spirit in a dark time," urging readers to "pass through the physical world to make contact with the spiritual." Parini named some of Kinnell's influences as Walt Whitman and Robert Frost before noting his involvement in the Civil Rights Movement as well as his role as a social activist. A long poem published in 1973, "The Book of Nightmares" was written in protest of the Vietnam War. In his deep, rumbling voice, Kinnell began the evening by reading "Here," a poem by recently deceased friend and fellow poet Grace Paley. He also read "The Same Again" by Patrick Kavanagh, "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" by William Butler Yeats, "I heard a Fly buzz" by Emily Dickinson, "The Cows at Night" by Hayden Carruth and "To Autumn" by John Keats, which he called the "most beautiful poem in the English language." Of his own work he read "Wait," "Oatmeal" and "The Deconstruction of Emily Dickinson," among others. His own poems were often accompanied by small anecdotes telling of their origins. "Wait," for instance, was written for a former student of his contemplating suicide. "Wait, for now," Kinnell writes in the poem, "distrust everything, if you have to. / But trust the hours. Haven't they / carried you everywhere, up to now?" His poem "Oatmeal" was conceived at an artists' retreat when a painter was startled by the prospect that Kinnell was in the habit of eating his breakfast oatmeal alone. "That is why I often think up an imaginary companion to have breakfast with," Kinnell writes. "Possibly it is even worse to eat oatmeal with an imaginary companion.""Galway has been a regular to Middlebury over the years," Parini said. "I think he first read in Mead Chapel over twenty years ago. But it's always a pleasure to welcome a wonderful poet to our campus, and I personally love his poetry…I've gotten so many lovely comments from people who were there. I think that poetry is alive and well at Middlebury."At one point in the reading, Kinnell turned to Parini from the podium and admitted he had forgotten to note the time he had begun the reading. "When should I stop?" he asked. If the standing ovation that concluded the evening was any indication, the hour-long reading was much too short.
(10/23/08 12:00am)
Author: Derek Matus During Homecoming week, the annual Clifford Symposium hosted two faculty panels to discuss, debate and exchange ideas with the Middlebury community: by transcending department lines and uniting different methodologies to tackle specific topics, the event inaugurated the new purpose of the renovated Donald E. Axinn '51 Center for Literary and Cultural Studies at Starr Library as the home of literary and cultural studies. The Symposium's theme was directly inspired by the psychological transformation of the building from the C.V. Starr Library to the Axinn Center in the minds of the Middlebury community. "Sites of Memory" commemorated the generations of alumni who remember researching for hours deep in the library's collection while anticipating the different associations of future Middlebury generations who will use the building as a classroom and study space. Because many college traditions resurfaced in the week's festivities, it was held as alumni returned for homecoming, illustrating the dynamic yet static nature of Middlebury's history. The Wednesday panel and first event of the symposium introduced the "Sites of Memory" theme. Faculty moderator Jason Mittell of the Film and Media Culture Department began with a brief history of Donald Axinn and a description of the purpose of the Symposium: to promote dialogue among all members of the campus. Then, each member of the panel presented a unique example of the theme according to their discipline. First, Assistant Professor of History Rebecca Bennette discussed how the iconography of a German unification monument sought to create a new national identity through forgetting old factional disputes. Next, Assistant Professor of English and American Literatures Dan Brayton contrasted the archetypal image of the immutable sea in literature with his own trip through the Pacific Ocean in which he witnessed human trash infiltrate the environment and the diet of its bird population. Then, Assistant Professor of American Studies Rachael Joo told of her own experience in Seoul City Hall during the FIFA World Cup and how five years later the Korean people transformed the same space into a platform of political protest. Finally, Assistant Professor of Film and Media Culture Christian Keathley narrated a multimedia presentation illustrating how specific visual images in a movie become ingrained in the mind of the viewer. The event culminated with audience questions and discussion in an attempt to find "connective tissue," between each unique discipline and example. The Saturday panel entitled "Looking Back: Milestones in the Field," used the same format to discuss important methodological breakthroughs in each represented discipline. Film and Media Culture Professor Leger Grindon began with his discussion of how the later adoption of the long-take style brought the film "Citizen Kane" critical acclaim and American Literature Professor Brett Millier read Elizabeth Bishop's poem "In the Waiting Room." Professor of History Paul Monod discussed Simon Schama's top 10 history books to illustrate the abundance and variety of analytical innovations, while Professor of American Studies Michael Newbury discussed the change in symbolic meaning of the Statue of Liberty from American immigration to world civilization using Charlton Heston's scene from the original "Planet of the Apes" as an example. Faculty Moderator and Professor of English Jay Parini summed up the symposium panels and the Axinn center itself when he said that discussions that involve cross-discipline cooperation are an important part of modern academia. The audience for each panel was comprised of students, faculty and alumni who returned for homecoming, representing a diverse cross-section of the Middlebury community. Jarrett Dury-Agri '12 said that "seeing the professors excited me about the academic opportunities that Middlebury has to offer." Although Dury-Agri may have a different Middlebury experience than others in the audience, they nonetheless will share the memory of inaugurating the Axinn Center.
(10/23/08 12:00am)
Author: Emily Temple If you didn't know any better, you'd probably think that an EP entitled Satanic Messiah would be by some scary hardcore band or Marilyn Manson. But no, it was released by a band called the Mountain Goats. Do you know them? Notorious for stripped-down, tense storytelling by brilliant frontman John Darnielle, they are not at all a band that you would imagine printing 666 limited edition double-seven-inch Satanic Messiahs, just for fun. And yet this is what we have. Well, 665 copies to be exact, as the last copy goes to Darnielle himself. To top it all off, they are available only at live Mountain Goats shows. The album, however, became available to you and everyone Oct. 9, in true Radiohead style, at http://satanicmessiah.com. On Darnielle's blog, he writes, "The downloads will be open to everybody, with no hoops to jump through, though there will also be several options available for those who want to pay me for my work, since part of the point of the exercise is to see whether that's a viable route for smaller-potatoes-than-Radiohead dudes like me. But we'll cross that bridge when we drive the frightened horses across it. With their covered wagons behind them on fire. And the devil, scrawny and crazed, riding behind them on an Italian greyhound." He calls required payment for downloads "weasel business" and urges you to share. Take that, record industry. The new generation of fans won't be charged for their goods! And share you should, because this EP is worth a lot more than the nothing it costs.One of my main issues with Heretic Pride, the Mountain Goats' Feb. release, was what I considered the overbearing musical element. I fell in love with the Mountain Goats because of Darnielle's lyrical brilliance. At the same time, I was distracted by the lack of space and the lack of emphasis on the stories and images, which to me are the point and joy of the band. The Satanic Messiah EP is more to my liking, full of space even to the point where the breaks between songs are disconcertingly long. They are passionate and intense, featuring those black key background augmentations that are so typical of the Mountain Goats. Darnielle hopes we like his songs. He says, "I am fond of them; they remind me of old vanished things," and nothing could really describe them better. These stories are set in churches, concert halls or both, where boys howl like wolves and have black bandages over their eyes. To the attentive listener, Darnielle is a little bit like an exceptionally secretive lover. He is poignant, metaphoric and woefully fascinating. And as such a lover, part of the joy of listening to his music comes from putting two and two together, from hearing the echo of one story in another, the same phrases pressed upon you like scribbled love notes, sweaty palm to sweaty palm. One such moment of recognition comes in "Sarcofago Live," one of the two songs on the album that seems to be pointedly about the hero worship of musician, in which the hometown musicians look down at their neighborhood fans and one group calls out to the other, "all of you all of you, rage rage rage." It's not clear who's talking to who, an undoubtedly planned confusion, but the "all of you all of you" can't help but trigger an emotional reaction similar to the one elicited by "Idylls of the King", one of the stellar tracks off of 2002's Tallahasse, when Darnielle croons, "all of them all of them" to the same tune and in the same cadence. Maybe it brings some meaning to this new song that six years ago "all of them all of them" were clay pigeons, locusts, innumerable gibbons and bad ideas, and now they're musicians, worshipping fans, or perhaps both. Or maybe it's just that I'm an English major and I'm trained to make connections where they may or may not exist.
(10/23/08 12:00am)
Author: Grace Close The heroic deeds of Polish Catholic social worker Irena Sendler are now cemented in history. During the Holocaust, Sendler rescued 2,500 Jewish children from the Warsaw ghetto and relocated them to non-Jewish family households to protect their safety. Once safe in the homes of their adopted families, Sendler compiled the original names of those children and their families, placed them in a jar, and buried them under an apple tree. Like the jar, Irena Sendler's story was buried for years until a group of students from Kansas resurrected Sendler and her story. Now, Irena Sendler has been woven into Vermont history, following Gov. Jim Douglas' '72 announcement to name Oct. 17 "Irena Sendler Day" in Vermont. From now on, this day will commemorate "the power of one person to make a difference," said Jack Mayer MD, a pediatrician at Rainbow Pediatrics in Middlebury. Mayer is intricately involved in the resurfacing of the Irena Sendler story from the depths of history. Alongside his work as a pediatrician, Mayer is also historical fiction novelist - a job that he refers to as his "closet profession." "I have always been interested in the whole concept of 'rescuers' and those unsung heroes and why people would put themselves at risk for the sake of others," explained Mayer.After completing a novel about rescuers in France during the Second World War, Mayer turned to the Warsaw ghetto for the setting of his next novel. One day, Mayer discovered a copy of the Ladies' Home Journal that someone had placed on his desk, with the pages opened to a story about Irena Sendler and a group of high school students from Kansas. The article informed Mayer that it was not until recently that the remarkable story of bravery and selflessness of Irena Sendler was made public, thanks to three Kansas high school students doing research on a project for National History Day. Megan Stewart, Elizabeth Cambers, and Sabrina Coons of Uniontown High School happened upon a biography of Sendler during their research. With support and inspiration from their history teacher, Norm Conard, the students pieced together Sendler's story and wrote a play called, "Life in a Jar," about the heroine. To this day Mayer does not know who put the article on his desk, since his office does not even carry the magazine.In hopes of getting more information on Irena Sendler and a basis for a fictionalized story of the Warsaw ghetto, Mayer contacted Conard in Kansas, who, as it turns out, was looking for a writer to produce the biography of Irena Sendler. "One year later, I was going on one of their [the Kansas students'] trips to Poland," said Mayer, who has since completed the biography manuscript and has been a part of the "Life in a Jar Project" ever since.After hosting a talk on Irena Sendler and the "Life in a Jar Project" to the eighth grade at Mount Abraham High School in Bristol, Mayer was approached by two students, Kia Warren and Miranda Lucia, interested in learning more about Sendler's once untold story. The students, inspired by the Kansas students who had gotten the mayor of both Kansas City and Warsaw to declare an Irena Sendler Day, sought to bring Irena Sendler Day to green mountains of Vermont. Warren and Lucia, with the help of their teacher, Emily Beatty, soon petitioned Gov. Douglas '72 to declare the day of the Project's Vermont visit as Irena Sendler Day. The day serves as "as a way of calling state-wide attention to this remarkable woman and her philosophy," said Mayer. "What to me, as a pediatrician, is so compelling and inspirational, is that these are young people who are acting as agents of history, not just students of history. They [the Kansas students] are actually making history by doing this and they've inspired other students, like those in Bristol, to the same thing," said Mayer of the effects of the Life in a Jar project.The message of Irena Sendler and the emotional weight of her story are truly universal, touching everyone from Kansas to Vermont to Poland. Travis Stewart, one of the cast members of the "Life in a Jar" Vermont performances, remembered when he performed in Poland, in front of Holocaust survivors, many of whom did not speak English. A copy of the script was translated into Polish for each of the attendees, yet, "no one in the room looked at the script," recounted Stewart, "We were able to perform without the need of language." Each survivor knew the impact of Sendler's story, since the emotion of this narrative crossed "through the language barrier."Life in a Jar has evolved from a history project to a national and global effort to promote Irena Sendler's story, rescuing her from the depths of history, and elevating her to a Polish national hero. Although she passed away last May, Sendler has now been nominated by the Prime Minister of Israel and the President of Poland for the Nobel Peace Prize. "Irena Sendler was a blessing to us all," said Conard, "she would have been especially proud for these young people and their initiative." "Tikkun Olam," meaning "to repair the world," is a Hebrew phrase that the members of the Project hope will resonate with Vermont's young people. Mayer suggested that that is the true heart of the Project, and the message that he hopes will be passed on. "Tikkun olam, we're all capable of it," Mayer said.
(10/23/08 12:00am)
Author: James O'Brien When I started to write this article, I wrote the sentence, "Who are you?" I didn't think I wanted to write an article that began like that, though, mostly because if I was flipping through a newspaper and started reading such an article, I would immediately stop. So I decided to write an article about Facebook, instead… kind of.I've been reading a couple books about Zen lately, and, although they are for the most part incredibly insightful, the authors have an annoying habit of writing some variation of "Who are you?" at least once every four pages. While I've enjoyed the authors' insights, these questions have made me uncomfortable. I keep feeling as though I need to have some sort of Zen-ish answer to the "question of me." I thought about all kinds of odd ways to research myself, but I decided that the best thing to do would be to log onto Facebook. I looked at the "info" section of my profile, in an attempt to flash back to who I thought I was at a time when I wasn't thinking too hard about that particular question. It didn't take me long to realize that a Facebook profile is not a good place to determine who you are. It is, however, a good place for you to understand the difference between who you think you are and the identity that you portray to the world. My profile was a combination of true things about me (I like to listen to The Weepies), and things that aren't true but apparently I felt the need to say. For example, my favorite books list includes Tender is the Night - which I did read but neither liked nor understood - apparently because I wanted to prove that I had read it. Perhaps I was afraid that fellow members of the F. Scott Fitzgerald Fans Facebook group might inexplicably browse my profile and consider me unworthy if The Great Gatsby was the only Fitzgerald book among my favorites. I seemed to be trying to portray myself as a literary snob, which - along with my love for all things about sex and death - might be the same reason I'm majoring in English. You can learn a lot from your Facebook profile, especially from those words you once wrote which don't even seem to apply to you anymore.It seems silly to suggest that Facebook could help to explain who a human being is. But, oddly enough, it's actually not any sillier than examining your thoughts or actions. Think about all the words you say everyday that aren't quite true, or those seemingly uncharacteristic thoughts that pop up and make you think, "That's not me." Well, those thoughts and words are you. And they are not you at all. What I mean is, they define how you function in the world. They define the "you" that you can describe with words. But that is such a simple understanding of "you." To me, the word "you" or the word "I" refers to all the experiences that you have had in the world. Sometimes this includes the words that you say, or thoughts that you think. But these things are not you. Even your personality is not "you." Your personality's just a carefully crafted collection of reactions based on conversations, movie quotations, and previous experiences in social acceptance. Watch what you say closely and you'll see that this is true. Your brain seems to be creating a "you" right in front of your eyes. And it's all just sort of a movie scene. We spend a lot of time with ourselves-around 24 hours a day in fact-but we can probably learn more about ourselves from our Facebook profile than we can from asking ourselves "Who am I?" So if we aren't what we do, what we say, or what we think, who are we? The answer to that question is probably hidden somewhere where we would never think to look - like 51 Main. Or maybe, and this is more likely, there are illusions right in front of us, ones that we've created for ourselves. So I'm taking Tender is the Night off my list of favorite books. I figure that's a start.
(10/09/08 12:00am)
Author: H. Kay Merriman Whilst studying Shakespeare and Journalism at "the most creative college in the U.K." this semester, I have successfully resigned my Middlebury prepster status for that of a hipster, developed a nasty second-hand smokers' cough, watched multiple British professors mock Sarah Palin during lecture and picked up a few foreign phrases that I would love to hear used in the States. A brief guide to London student slang that I hope to hear in Freeman (Is that where all the Proctor kids have gone?) when I return:* "You alright?" - Their equivalent to our "how are you?" still catches me off-guard every time. It is a question of self, really. Am I alright? Do I look like I'm alright? * "Knackered" - This adjective goes a step beyond "tired," but doesn't sound as whiny as "exhausted." Use it as a euphemism for "hungover" and you will still sound sophisticated. * "I couldn't be bothered" - As a catch-all reason for why something was not completed, the phrase encompasses everything from "I was too knackered" to "I just didn't feel like it." My favorite is when it is used to describe someone else, as in: "My flatmate said she would clean the kitchen, but she couldn't be bothered." The statement makes it seem as though British students lead terribly important lives. * "Fit" - For a solid week, I thought that my new friends were only attracted to athletic people. Then, I realized that this term can be employed to describe the attractiveness of everyone from rugby players to art students without using the two words forever tainted by Paris Hilton: "That's hot." * "Proper" - It somehow can characterize anything from an outfit to a physical or mental state, as in "That guy at the club last night was proper fit." Use it in exchange for "legit" and sound more, well, proper.* "Taking the Piss" - Dry sarcasm, the British sense of humor at its finest, is often diminished to this phrase. Act offended because of a comment and a good-hearted Brit will respond, "Oh, I'm just taking the piss out of you." Unfortunately, this phrase can prove quite confusing when you are looking for someone and they actually have gone to "the loo."
