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the
eye
The magazine of the Columbia Spectator
8 November 2012 / vol. 13 issue 8
Faces of
Undocumentation
Undocumented students search for a place at Columbia
by Naomi Cohen
Alt rappers Death Grips buck the system, pg. 13
Editor in Chief
Ashton Cooper
Managing Editor for Features
Anneliese Cooper
Managing Editor for Optics
Meredith Foster
Art Director
Cathi Choi
Staff Director
Anthony Clay
Deputy Editor, Lead Story
Rikki Novetsky
Deputy Editor, Online Content
David Salazar
Online Associates
Parul Guliani
Adina Applebaum
Senior Design Editor
Zack Etheart
Visuals Editor
Thuto Durkac Somo
Visuals Associate
Stephanie Mannheim
Eyesites Editor
PJ Sauerteig
View From Here Editor
Melanie Broder
Interview Editor
Monica Carty
Features Associates
Somala Diby
Andrea Chan
Laura Booth
Anna Marcum
Zoe Camp
Nicollette Barsamian
Production Staff
Annie Wang
Nicholai Roman
Suze Myers
Adil Habib
Zoey Pell
Katy Nelson
Head Copy Editor
Megan Kallstrom
Spectator Editor in Chief
Sarah Darville
Spectator Managing Editor
Maggie Alden
Spectator Publisher
Alex Smyk
FACES OF
UNDOCUMENTATION
Undocumented students search for a
place at Columbia, pg. 07
by Naomi Cohen
illustrations by Jessica Redmond
CONTENTS
03
EYESITES
IDEAS
04 Drugs Dot Com
Michael Samuels
FOOD
05 High on the Hog
Andrea Chan
THEATRE
06 ‘A Sorta Fairytale’ Musical
20/20
12 101 Stormtroopers
Rebecca Schwarz
Still on the Way Down
Find Us Online:
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follow us on Twitter:
@TheEyeMag
Contact Us:
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Editorial: (212) 854-9547
Advertising: (212) 854-9558
© 2012 The Eye,
Spectator Publishing Company, Inc.
MUSIC
13 No Love, No Rules
Brea Salim
Gina Segall
EYE TO EYE
14 Tolstoy and Techno Clubs
VFH
15 Common Ground
Carolina Gerlach
Jack Klempay
Rikki Novetsky
EDITOR’S NOTE
In the afterglow of the Obama reelection, pundits have been eager to
tease out the statistics concerning
voter demographics, and many have
pointed out that in this election, one
of Obama’s undeniable successes
was winning the Latino vote.
This victory may seem somewhat
predictable—but it wasn’t always
so: those same voters came out in
support of George W. Bush in 2004.
But on Tuesday, between 75 percent
and 79 percent of Latinos voted
for Obama, while 21 percent to 25
percent voted for Romney.
So, what has made Obama such
an appealing candidate to this
particular section of voters? In the
past months, critics have pointed to
his comparatively lenient position
on immigration policy as a major
deciding factor. For example,
Obama’s announcement in June that
the U.S. would not deport eligible
undocumented students created
a staunch divide on immigration
policy along party lines. While
Obama was calling for a revised
DREAM Act, Romney was promising
voters that he would overturn this
more tolerant policy should he take
office. The issue of undocumented
Americans is becoming ever more
pertinent—and perhaps, as this
year’s results have shown, a decisive
issue for the future leadership of our
country.
In this week’s lead story,
Naomi Cohen has endeavored
to tell the little-heard stories
of undocumented students at
Columbia. Naomi met with current
and past students, club leaders,
professors and administrators to
try to get to know this group and
understand better the particular
issues they face. While many
have expressed incredulity at the
possibility of an undocumented
community at an Ivy League
university, this doesn’t change the
fact that, quite simply, it does exist.
Perhaps once we recognize that
these issues of immigration policy hit
closer to home (or, at least, this place
where we spend most of the year)
than we may have expected, we can
begin to rethink their importance
not only to national politics, but also
to our everyday lives.
Ashton Cooper
eye@columbiaspectator.com
MAD LIBS
TWITTER FEED
EXPATRIATION EDITION
EYESITES
by
FALL BREAK
P.J. Sauerteig
Around election time, a common way of showing political fervor is the “If he wins, I swear I’m
moving to Canada” tirade. And while most of
the time this remains an empty, melodramatic
threat, this year’s election seems heated enough
that some could actually go through with it. If
you fall under this category, The Eye has made it
a little easier for you by crafting a letter to your
loved ones explaining why they won’t be seeing
you for a while.
It’s well understood that Fall Break
is the awkward, introverted cousin
of Spring Break; he mumbles about
partying and wears Bon Iver T-shirts
two days in a row. Yet, when he’s
here, we do what we can to enjoy the
two days off and the crisp weather.
In case you were napping the whole
time, here’s a brief synopsis of what
happened via Twitter feed.
Hello everyone,
By the time you ______________ this letter, I’ll probably be on a ________________________,
(verb)
(antiquated mode of transportation)
getting far, far away from home. It’s not that I don’t love you, but the prospect of four years with
__________________ is too much for me to handle. Why, you ask? Look at his policies with
(newly-elected President)
@IdealisticFrosh
So happy to be visiting home!
Back soon for Thanksgiving!
Great seeing old friends!
#they’llfadeawaygradually #sonaive
_________________ — does dropping _________________ on these villages really help anything?
(hip hop noun)
(middle-eastern country)
Or in ________________________ . We’ve already sent them enough _________________; we
(mid-18th century European state)
(Christmas trinket)
need to focus instead on domestic problems! He should be more worried about _________________
(destructive gerund)
@ContempCiv
Fall Break—more like fall, break
your spine on the way to the
library #Machiavelli #evillaugh
#densereadings
the ______________ on Capitol Hill, or maybe creating more jobs for the ___________________.
(emotion)
(marginal religious group)
In the meantime, I’ll be in _________________, where the _________________ flows like
(Nordic country)
(drink)
_________________, and the _________________ are kind and full of _________________. Adieu,
(chemical element)
(gender)
(illegal substance)
and maybe I’ll see you when America isn’t run by a _________________.
@HipsterfromIdaho
Love catching up on new music.
Anyone heard this new Animal
Collective? Kinda weird but I can get
into it. #sigh #no
(ethnic group)
Sincerely, ______________________________
(your name)
@JohnJay$
Using the break to reassess our
recipes. Turns out we’ve been using
towel lint instead of cheese on pizzas!
Lol! #dobetter #authenticItaly
EYE OF THE STORM
SURVIVAL KIT
While the recent hurricane mostly spared
Morningside Heights, the
devastation downtown
made many Columbians
realize how close they came
to disaster conditions. This
got us thinking—if Columbia had actually been
evacuated, what would
students have labeled essential enough to take with
them through the storm?
1: Record player. 2:
Grandma-style chambray
shirt. 3: Vegan chips. 4: Lolita poster. 5: Gluten-free
cigarette paper. 6: Fake ID.
7: Expensive clunky headphones. 8: Copy of David
Foster Wallace essays. 9:
“Change” T-shirt.
by P.J. Sauerteig
illustration by Stephanie
Mannheim
@BioMajor
Entering sleep coma bye forever
#lifeispain #greyhairs #worthit?
1
4
2
5
@TampaChick
Ughhh literally had to wear a hoodie,
trench, and peacoat tonight in
Chelsea. Hitting Uniqlo tomorrow.
This shit cray #weweepforyou
#Mozart’sRequiem
3
@JFKAir
Two days in Paris? Is that a
“necessary” trip? Just eat @LeMonde.
#thesekids
6
@MoodyAdams
It has begun—phase one of Operation
Shadow Phoenix engaged. By the
end of November I will rise again.
#longhaveIwaited #returnfromElba
7
8
9
by
P.J. Sauerteig
03
DRUGS DOT COM
IDEAS
FROM THE STREET CORNER TO THE INTERNET
by Michael Samuels
illustration by Suze Myers
Bridget Brennan, of the New York County
District Attorney’s Special Narcotics Prosecutor’s
Office, is having a good month. Early in October,
the NYPD arrested some two dozen drug dealers
selling through Craigslist in a sting-bust dubbed
“Operation Dot Com.” Undercover agents had
bought almost $29,000 worth of prescription pills
and cocaine over the preceding 11 months, all in
an attempt to battle what NYPD Commissioner
Ray Kelly has called “an epidemic of prescription
drug addiction and abuse in New York.” The arrests
included a number of dealers outside the usual
mold, including a teacher, an HR rep, a celebrity
photographer, and a dot-com entrepreneur. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the bulk of the buys involved
resales of Adderall and Xanax, a pair of drugs that
have seen their prescription rates rise by 100% and
50% respectively since 2007.
Brennan, who will be prosecuting the cases,
made the city’s position abundantly clear, saying
that: “Whether the drug deal occurs on the street
corner or on the Internet, it’s a crime.” Brennan’s
clear-cut statement is particularly pertinent in
light of the explosion of online drug trafficking
over the past few years.
The problem is not only limited to Craigslist. In
early 2011, a website called Silk Road launched with
a simple mission: In the half shady, half romantic
crypto-anarchic spirit of sites like The Pirate Bay
and WikiLeaks, Silk Road’s founders sought to
create an unequivocally free online marketplace,
allowing its users to trade just about anything
without persecution and with utter anonymity.
Perhaps not unexpectedly, the marketplace has
since become a haven for the black-market trade in
banned substances—in fact, almost exclusively so.
Users can browse a veritable cornucopia of conveniently organized narcotics, stimulants, psychedelics, dissociatives, and more, with none of the
obfuscating euphemisms and paranoia of Craigslist
drug ads. Listings for half-kilo bricks of cocaine
start at $2,500 and come complete with pictures,
glowing quality testimonials, and promises of discrete priority shipping from suppliers in Germany,
the UK, and the U.S. Meth listings are rarer—presumably due to the price competition inherent in
such a do-it-yourself heavy market. Marijuana
listings number in the thousands.
If Silk Road sounds extreme, that’s because it
is. The site quickly drew fire from the U.S. Office
of the Attorney General and the Drug Enforcement Administration, both of which have called
for its immediate shutdown. But playing the
online-pharma-superego to Silk Road’s narco-id
is a rapidly growing panoply of legitimate online
pharmacies that have sprung up in the last decade,
04
retailing cheap, generic versions of everything
from Viagra to cutting-edge nootropics. These
substances are still mired in the legal gray area of
not banned, but not quite legal, either: off-label
anti-depressants for the psychotherapeutically
skittish, Modafanil for the chronically undermotivated or unfocused. These sites serve a far wider
market than post-adolescent thrill-seekers, allowing the uninsured to access generics, and the
unprescribed to access self-medication. The upshot
of this across-the-board proliferation of online
drug retail, from pot on Craigslist to Viagra from
Indian pharmacies, has been a concerted upswing
in the government’s attempts to prosecute online
offenders, per Brennan’s dictum.
Now drug dealers, as a rule, are not a sociable
lot on the job. So when I took to Craigslist to try
and get in contact with some drug dealers, you can
imagine there wasn’t much interest in giving me an
interview. What there was interest in was selling
me drugs. Although I couldn’t find one listed dealer
willing to offer me (or even to respond to a request
for) an interview, I found some 200 dealers—in the
course of 15 minutes spent on Craigslist—willing
to sell me some illegal narcotic. All of them were
listed within the last four days. (Sections with a
high listing turnover indicate a highly liquid market, and therefore give an indirect indication of the
health of that market.) Looking only for a little bit
of weed, I was spared having to muddle
through the euphemistic gymnastics
that obscure the other wares’ sales—
e.g., “NYU student who can offer pain
relief and anxiety relief”; “Study longer
and without anxiety! Be professional
and not law enforcement,” etc.
A service offering “Good 420,
fast, reliable service” seemed friendly
enough, and I sent an email to the listed
address. Within 20 minutes, I’d gotten
a reply asking for my phone number.
I sent it, and in another 20, my phone
began to ring. I answered and was surprised to hear a woman’s voice on the
other end.
“Hi, this is the service?”
I let out a “Huh?”
before realizing what she
meant. I snapped to.
“Oh, hi. How are you?”
“Fine. What’s your
address?”
I gave it.
“OK. It’ll be about
an hour.”
And then she was gone.
About an hour later, I
got a text that said “I’m
here” and took the elevator down to the lobby
of my building. When I got there, I found a pretty,
probably 23 year old black girl with a backpack and
headphones on. She nodded briskly, and we sat
down. She opened her bag and extracted a small,
clear plastic cube with the top taped shut. The
thing looked like it could have come straight from a
factory floor. And that was it—in a little more time
than a food delivery takes.
In trying to get Brennan on the phone, I’d left
three voicemails and had an acrimonious conversation with her secretary, but I was ultimately
unsuccessful. It’s understandable: Anyone fighting
the drug fight in this city is sure to have an impossibly full plate. To get someone to show up with the
drugs she’s prosecuting, though, it’d taken me an
hour and a half.
Watching Craigslist’s drug ads blossom and
replace themselves like clockwork, over and
over every day, with hundreds of new, nameless
faces trying to buy and sell the drugs they want,
one can’t help but wonder if the fighting’s really
worth it. What can be said about a battle that’s
waged in dozens of arrests and thousands of dollars over a whole year, in a war that’s so lopsided
that Brennan’s cases represent only a miniscule
fraction of the other side? The Internet may be
as illegal as the street corner, but it’s infinitely
harder to police. Isn’t it possible we should just
stop trying? a
THESE SITES
SERVE A FAR
WIDER MARKET
THAN POSTADOLESCENT
THRILL-SEEKERS,
ALLOWING THE
UNINSURED
TO ACCESS
GENERICS,
AND THE
UNPRESCRIBED
TO ACCESS SELFMEDICATION.
HIGH ON THE HOG
by Andrea Chan
illustration by Mimi
Kaplan
If you ask someone what their favorite cut of
meat is, you’re likely to get standard answers:
“ribs,” “sirloin,” or “leg.” However, with the rising
popularity of a new dinner format in the city, New
Yorkers’ answers to that question may soon change.
Behold, the whole animal feast. More and more,
restaurants across the city are serving up the entire
beast—in most cases, whole hog—to large groups of
diners looking for more than your standard porterhouse for two. The Breslin offers their three-course
whole roast suckling pig feast for $75 per person at
the Chef’s Table. Maialino serves up whole pig in
a variety of preparations with side dishes for $165
per person. At DBGB Kitchen & Bar, the Whole Hog
meal, which includes sides and dessert, is $495 for
up to eight people.
The format may differ, but the idea is the same:
Groups of diners pay a large sum to be wowed by
a unique take on dinner. “Feasting is fun,” says
Christian Pappanicholas, the owner of Belgian
restaurant Resto. “I think in this city full of diners
and great restaurants, people have a want and
need to go out and dig into whole animals.”
Since 2008, Resto has been serving “large
format feasts” of a whole pig, lamb, goat, or other
animal in a bespoke menu to groups of up to 18
people, and Pappanicholas has observed a shift
from requests numbering one or so every month
initially to the current rate of three or four a week.
With the exposure to different eating cultures
fueld by today’s foodie media, communal and out
of the ordinary dining is increasingly sought after
as an experience. “Diners want to feel like they’re
investing in something more social, rather than
just going to eat, then saying ‘we’re outta here,’”
says Matthew Ridgway, the owner and chef at
Pennsylvania-based charcuterie PorcSalt. See:
events such as Meatopia and the Breslin Butcher’s
Ball, where dining enthusiasts gather to feast with
meat-centric figures such as April Bloomfield and
Pat LaFrieda for up to $150.
Chefs and restaurants also have their own incentives. Economically, restaurants benefit greatly
from such events, considering that the aforementioned prices do not include the cost of wine pairings. Purchasing and breaking down the whole
animal on premises also makes fiscal sense, as the
price per pound of a whole carcass is significantly
lower because it circumvents processing costs.
However, the sense of challenge and culinary
expression may also influence chefs’ choice to
incorporate entire carcasses. “Being able to cook a
whole animal, I think it proves to ourselves and to
each other that we’re not just here to make a fancy
plate of meat. We know what to do with a whole
animal,” says Heather Carlucci, the co-organizer
of Pig Mountain, an event held this past August, in
which 10 chefs each prepared a whole hog. Featuring Anthony Sasso of Casa Mono, Lee Anne Wong
of Top Chef fame, and Ridgway, among others,
the event attracted about a thousand attendees to
the obscure town of Narrowsburg, New York. At
Resto, the same creativity required to personalize menus for each feast inspires other dishes with
obscure animal ingredients, such as the beef heart
Milanese on their regular dinner menu.
Chefs are also increasingly taking their culinary
cues from abroad. Hong Kong style whole suckling
pig and Greek spit-roasted lamb are just a few
examples of international dishes that have served
as inspiration for whole-animal feasts. “Chefs
“DINERS WANT TO FEEL
LIKE THEY’RE INVESTING IN
SOMETHING MORE SOCIAL,
RATHER THAN JUST GOING
TO EAT, THEN SAYING ‘WE’RE
OUTTA HERE’.”
now are much more well-travelled than, say, ten
years ago,” Ridgway explains. “Chefs are not only
in France, they’re in Brazil, they’re in Colombia,
they’re in China, they’re in Vietnam, and so now,
you’re seeing chefs my age and younger bring that
expertise back.”
Ridgway points
to pork belly
for evidence:
although it is
now a popular ingredient
(think Momofuku pork bun),
it couldn’t be
sold 10 to 15
years ago. She
cites this as an
example of how
greater cultural exposure
on the part
of both chef
and diner has
been amplified by online
exchange to
rapidly produce
new culinary
trends.
FOOD
WHOLE ANIMAL FEASTS GAIN POPULARITY IN NYC
This renewed hankering for previously
unused—and, frankly, scoffed-at—parts of an
animal also goes hand in hand with a greater
awareness of animal treatment and preparation.
“There’s a new appreciation for the crafts that are
behind the scenes of the chef, the butcher and the
farmer,” says Carlucci. This emphasis on knowledge has elevated the profession of butchery, as
seen from the respect garnered by Pat LaFrieda
and an influx of independent butcher shops
around the city. Even tourists visit the butcher
shop Marlow & Daughters in Williamsburg.
“Nose to tail,” a term coined by British chef
Fergus Henderson, has joined the ranks of buzzwords such as “sustainable” and “farm to table”
in a culture that puts chefs and their priorities at
the fore. Anthony Bourdain observing an entire
community take a pig from slaughter to finished
product on his show No Reservations is but one
of many examples in popular media in which an
animal to be eaten is treated with utmost respect—and, increasingly, diners are paying for
that kind of recognition. “People are starting to
be more aware, and they’re starting to want to
pay more money for food and get that kind of
value out of it,” says Ridgway.
Perhaps it all boils down to a statement from
T.J. Burnham, the head butcher at Marlow &
Daughters: “you can do something with everything.” To achieve that end—and to satisfy
an ever more adventurous New York dining
crowd—more and more restaurants are stepping
up to the plate. a
05
‘A SORTA FAIRYTALE’ MUSICAL
THEATER
TORI AMOS PLANS TO ROCK MUSICAL THEATER
by Carolina Gerlach
Illustration by Jessica
Redmond
Tori Amos, the red-haired fairy godmother
of alternative rock, has enjoyed a 20-year-long
career, earning eight Grammy nominations for her
13 studio albums. Although the chanteuse could
easily have continued to churn out hits, she has
challenged herself to go where few musicians have
successfully gone before (“successfully” being the
key word): musical theater. Amos has been working with London’s National Theatre on The Light
Princess, a musical adaptation of the 19th century
Scottish fairytale about a girl who is cursed with no
gravity unless she comes into contact with water.
After the girl falls in love with a prince while swimming, her spiteful aunt sets out to deplete all of the
water in the kingdom.
Originally scheduled to premiere as the centerpiece of the 2011 spring season, the piece was
“shelved” indefinitely, due to the creative team’s
fear that it was not ready for the public. This announcement sent the press into a Spider-Man-style
tizzy, as yet another rock star’s musical was being
delayed in order to make time for more workshops
to perfect the piece.
The established-musician-writes-a-musical
trend is a controversial one. All Bono jokes
aside, there has been a recent trend of music
industry leaders entering the realm of musical
theater. In 2010, Green Day brought their hit
concept album American Idiot to Broadway,
while Elton John has
been churning out
06
musicals from The Lion King to Billy Elliot the
Musical to Aida for years. Most famously, Bono and
The Edge of U2 wrote the music for the $65 million
Broadway press circus that is Spider-Man: Turn Off
the Dark.
But this trend is only one facet of the wider phenomenon of pop culture infiltrating theater, with
big names such as Scarlett Johansson and Andrew
Garfield doing play revivals and Mike Tyson doing a
stand-up show (yes, you read that correctly). This
celebrity influx has caused some to mourn the death
of theater: Producers now seek big names as the
difference between a profit and a loss. Steven Chaikelson, a professor in the School of the Arts and cofounder of Snug Harbor Productions says, “If there
is a familiar musician attached to the piece, it’s
going to make it an easier sell to producers, investors, and theatergoers. If it’s based upon something
that’s familiar to people, it might be easier to sell it.
It’s certainly easier to raise money for it.”
But theater purists’ mourning may be premature. Christina Macchiarola, a graduate student who
is currently pursuing a Master of Fine Arts in theater
management and producing from the School of the
Arts, explains that the presence of such artists in the
industry is mutually beneficial: “One of my professors often used the expression, ‘high tides raise all
ships.’ If these artists can add new and innovative
work to the musical theater canon and, in doing so,
help raise the profile of the musical theater, I believe
that their interest is ultimately beneficial to the
industry at large.”
Still, the larger question—whether this work is
at all innovative or new—remains. Naysayers scoff
at the infiltration of pop culture into theater, claiming it has led to the proliferation of jukebox musicals
that simply string schmaltzy dialogue in between
the hits of ABBA (sound familiar?), or spectaclebased shows such as Spider-Man.
But established musicians have also
brought some of the most exciting work
to Broadway in recent years. American
Idiot chronicled the frustrations of a
post-9/11 youth in America; Duncan
Sheik wrote the music for the eighttime Tony-Award-winning Spring
Awakening, which tells the tale
of kids experiencing their sexual
awakening in 18th century Germany. These musician-penned musicals
aren’t necessarily total crap, so
long as artists aren’t only adding
their names and a few lyrics to a
musical adaptation of a popular
film or television show, but are
honestly building the show from the
ground up with a distinct vision.
This is where Tori Amos
may set herself apart: She has
been working on this show for
many years to deal with the
unique creative challenges it presents. “The trick
has been to have a fairy tale story on one hand,
but on the other hand, that it’s a 21st century
story for teenage girls and young women, and it
has to resonate and be valid with what women are
going through today. Marrying those two up has
been a great challenge,” Amos told the BBC, proving the extent to which she actually cares about
the substance of her show and its relevance to a
“AT LEAST 80 PERCENT OF
SHOWS DO NOT RECOUP THEIR
INVESTMENTS, SO PRODUCERS
ARE CONSTANTLY LOOKING FOR
MATERIAL THAT IGNITES AN
AUDIENCE’S AFFECTION.”
modern audience.
In order to avoid the pressure on the average
musical, Amos has surrounded herself with a team
of experts, including Sir Nicholas Hytner, who,
according to Amos, has been a driving force in the
production. Hytner, the National Theatre’s Artistic
Director, famously told Amos, “Making a musical is a
glorious nightmare. But this one can’t just be good. It
has to be better than good,” indicating the mounting
pressure put on these “big” names as they enter a
foreign field.
As if artistic pressure weren’t enough, Amos also
faces the burden of a multi-billion dollar industry.
Macchiarola explains, “Musicals have to dance the
fine line between art and commerce. At least 80
percent of shows do not recoup their investments,
so producers are constantly looking for material that
ignites an audience’s affection. With continually
increasing ticket prices, there is a mentality in this
industry that consumers want to see their money
onstage, be that via spectacle or star power.”
Amos seems keen to make her first foray into
theater a successful one, focusing on her craft to ensure that The Light Princess is ready for audiences.
While she could easily have written up a few tunes
set to the screenplay of Twilight and called it a day,
she’s aiming to do something different—something
that might rejuvenate the rock-penned musical.
Allowing for the possibility that Amos could
spread her wings creatively while simultaneously
filling seats, Macchiarola echoes the hope of the
theatre industry: “As long as the inclusion of existing pop culture into musical theater writing does
not deter artists and producers from also taking a
risk on wholly original material, I believe that this
trend has the potential to bring new audiences to
the theater.” a
FACES OF UNDOCUMENTATION
UNDOCUMENTED STUDENTS SEARCH FOR A PLACE AT COLUMBIA
C
inthya was fifteen when she packed her bags,
thinking she was visiting the United States to see
Disneyland. But upon arriving in Los Angeles, she realized that her parents had not booked a hotel room. She
was not going back.
During these years, few resources existed for
undocumented students in the United States. So when
she enrolled in UCLA four years later, Cinthya helped
found Improving Dreams, Equality, Access and Success (IDEAS), a support network for undocumented
students inside and outside UCLA. Cinthya continued
trailblazing in the budding national arena, up until
she became the first undocumented student accepted
to the Columbia University Mailman School of Public
Health. A few days before graduation in 2010, Cinthya
died in a car crash.
The tragedy came at a moment of poignance for
Cinthya. Columbia’s policy on financial aid forced her
to defer acceptance until it was no longer possible. She
then had to use all of her savings, max out the credit
cards of her friends and her friends’ parents and set up
a fundraising website, “Project Cinthya,” in order to
attend. Once a student, Cinthya found few people to
talk to about the issues closest to her, so she focused
primarily on schoolwork. Cinthya seemed happiest when she was with Tam, her closest friend in the
undocumented movement at UCLA and a doctoral
student at Brown.
The two were vacationing together when a drunk
driver hit. Undocumented student activists across the
nation mourned and blogged about inspiring memories
of these two movement builders, and media outlets
IN FOCUS
broke the news of the loss of the duo that defied
stereotypes. The Mailman School posted a paragraph
about Cinthya’s studies.
Though Cinthya felt isolated as an undocumented
student, her experience is not entirely unique. While
Columbia doesn’t offer specific resources for such
students, as does UCLA with IDEAS and Stanford and
Harvard with designated scholarships, its diversityfriendly admissions process means that Cinthya isn’t
the only undocumented student who has attended
Columbia. Some, like Cinthya, have struggled with
mental health; some with tuition; some with finding an audience. Two years after the crash, the stories
continue.
Brandon
Columbia College 2016
Prospective Major: Math
Hometown: San Antonio, Texas
Age came to US: 3
Columbia was Brandon’s top choice, his only
choice, because it was the only school that offered
enough financial aid for Mexican students. He cried
when he got his likely letter, and in April, he didn’t
flinch to accept his offer from Columbia.
But in July, Brandon became a registered felon under H.R. 4437. He discovered this when his immigration lawyer advised him to travel from San Antonio,
Texas to Juarez, Mexico—the world’s second most
dangerous city, after Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital—
for required medical exams. Now that Brandon was
no longer a minor, he could apply for a pardon for
overstaying his visa. He came equipped with a thick
packet of proof of his Columbia acceptance.
The officer ignored the packet. Instead, he asked
a question.
08
BRANDON’S YEAR OF
WAITING HAS MADE
HIM RE-EXAMINE HIS
RELATIONSHIP TO THE
COUNTRY THAT HAD
REJECTED HIM FOR SO
LONG.
When was your eighteenth birthday?
Nov. 12.
The official counted up to eight fingers. And
that was it. Six months past his 18th birthday, and
Brandon would have been off to enjoy his last summer
before starting classes at Columbia. But eight months
after meant that returning to the United States would
be complicated by a felony charge.
So he caught a bus to San Miguel de Allende,
Mexico, arriving to a crowd of his family members
who thought that fifteen years after his departure to
America, they would never see him again. All this two
months after the last date for deferral of admission,
and given a past Columbia ineraction—the financial
aid office demanded nonexistent documents from his
undocumented biological dad—the unexpected time
of leave was a gamble.
But this turned out not to be true: Brandon’s
Columbia admissions officer was supportive and even
offered to refer him to an immigration lawyer. The
gamble, instead, was petitioning a visa. The expected
date of processing came and went without response.
Brandon, imagining each Columbia event as he
missed them, scoured the Internet for any sign of an
end. After three months of managing the television at
the local sports bar and four days before Christmas,
Brandon finally heard back.
Brandon’s year of waiting has made him re-examine his relationship to the country that had rejected
him for so long. He now has status and attends
Columbia, but he says his undocumented past “is an
issue that doesn’t really leave.”
When Brandon “came out” at Columbia as having
been undocumented, some students were “shocked”
at how far an undocumented student could come;
some were interested to hear more. In a space with
diversity as a buzzword, Brandon says that his experience without status seems trivialized when spoken of
as his tagline, his background. Now, Brandon says he
assumes his Mexican identity more so than he had in
both the Mexican-dominant San Antonio and in San
Miguel de Allende.
Roberto
Columbia College 2014
Majors: Economics and Latin American and Iberian
cultures
Hometown: San Diego, California
Age came to US: 11
He went by “Robert” with r’s rolled, in Mexico;
“Roberto” with r’s Anglicized, in the States; “Rob”
in his teens; “Roberto” now by email and “Rob” by
phone. To his gangbanger friends, he was the guy that
studied after school; to the all-white golf team, he was
“that Mexican.”
Like Brandon, who grew up fishing toys out of
dumpsters with a clothes hanger, his acceptance to an
elite San Diego high school allowed Columbia to be in
his vocabulary. His five older siblings, who had stayed
in Mexico, added Columbia to their vocabulary when
their brother was accepted.
Because his mom didn’t speak English, Roberto
handled the finances. His eye on income prompted
him to move in with a friend. Though he assumed college was not an option, Roberto continued along the
Ivy League track—sports, extracurricular activities,
APs. During it all, Roberto saw his mom divorce after
his step-dad lied about his petition for residency and
his brother face detention after seeking asylum from a
drug cartel. He says he would “100 times rather have
the stress of school than the immigration battle,” a
battle that he says made him mature faster and in a
“less orthodox” way than his peers.
While Roberto struggles with defining himself as
either American or Mexican, one term he refuses to
adopt is “undocumented.” He associates the word
with a period of feeling nonexistent, a period that
brought him psychological problems and led to a suicide attempt. Now that Roberto has residency status
and doesn’t “have to think about this every 5 seconds
of my life,” he likens his condition to Posttraumatic
Stress Disorder. The police still make him cringe, and
he tends to think in terms of the immediate future.
Attending Columbia marks a point of Roberto
making public his concerns on immigration. Before,
he says he was ashamed of his status and afraid of
what his friends might think of him because of it.
Now, he feels compelled to share his story because he
wants to challenge his friends who “when they think
illegal, they think illegal farmer workers.” He only
joined the Chicano Caucus this year, but ever since, he
has consistently attended their meetings.
------------------------
Cinthya tested the waters in her first year at
Columbia. She visited the Chicano Caucus—the term
“chicano” was reclaimed by Mexican-Americans in
the 60s—when the DREAM Act was proposed federally. Cinthya shared her story, but she later told the
president at the time that she was hesitant to do so
because she felt the club was not ready.
Abril, a Columbia College senior, remembers a silence when she brought up her parents’ lack of status
at a Chicano Caucus meeting. The topic ended there
as to avoid creating discomfort. Though the club has
advocated for immigrants’ rights and connected undocumented students—Brandon, Roberto, and Abril
met through the Chicano Caucus—it is apprehensive
when stepping in political territory. When Jim Gilchrist, founder of border vigilante group Minuteman,
was invited to speak in 2006 by the Columbia University College Republicans, half of the Chicano Caucus
stormed the stage with a “No Student Is Illegal” sign,
and half of the group refrained. The more radical wing
resulted in LUCHA, a club for radical politics. LUCHA
declined an interview for this article.
This year, no campus organization has held a
monopoly over undocumented issues. A group of
Barnard students and professors protested President
Obama’s mass deportation of undocumented immigrants during his commencement speech. LUCHA
hosted its annual informational Immigration Week
and a discussion on detention and deportation, with
attendance rates a little above the usual. Students
for Education Reform (SFER) ran a discussion on the
DREAM Act last year and followed up with a teach-in
from the New York Immigration Coalition last month,
culminating in letter writing to Governor Cuomo.
Benji, SFER president, American studies major,
and a self-identified privileged Latino, says that the
DREAM Act is “not a brown issue,” but an issue not
unlike classist exclusion familiar to the Ivy League. He
says the issue resonates with SFER’s nonpartisan platform. While the DREAM Act may not seem taboo on
campus—anti-immigrant rhetoric on campus tends
not to stray past the anonymous comment section or
the half-dormant discussion section—Abril says that
what’s worse is that it’s a non-issue. Having grown
up in a Mexican corner of Las Vegas, Abril says she
is disillusioned by the work-centric mindset of her
peers. Even well attended events she finds unsuccessful because the empathy they generate—by “exhibitionary” means—can only last so long.
Rosario
Columbia College 2011
Majors: Sociology and Sustainable Development
Hometown: Hendersonville, North Carolina
Age came to US: 7
Rosario says she would not have had the peace of
mind to face arrest in a civil disobedience event had
it not been for yoga. For her, facing Columbia was
another matter entirely.
Rosario chose to apply to Columbia after watching YouTube videos of the Chicano Caucus’s protest
against Gilchrist, looking for a vibrant support system. But, when she arrived, one of her main sources
of financial support from the university—work
study—was an impossibility because of her status.
Looking for student support, Rosario approached
LUCHA, but she felt that her courage couldn’t meet
their level. On the other hand, at the Chicano Caucus,
she found friends she could relate to, though their
political voice wasn’t as loud. (Rosario had been at
the meeting when Cinthya paid a visit, and they
later reconnected through the New York State Youth
Leadership Council, a student-run organization for
undocumented students.)
Only after mobilization in the national campaign
for the federal DREAM Act did the first undocumented student that year share her status with the club.
Rosario then shared in response. And, after a period of
building trust, others shared with Rosario privately.
Their status didn’t leave the circle, but their activism
did. That year, the Chicano Caucus petitioned University President Lee Bollinger to publicly endorse the
DREAM Act. Twenty-five student organizations and
13 professors signed on. Even more voiced support—
without a signature.
Rosario was vocal in her disappointment about
some professors’ inability to follow through with the
petition, but she felt “shut down” by the comments of
some of her classmates: Undocumented immigrants
would be better off not infringing on minority benefits; undocumented immigrants should just go back.
Rosario did contemplate “just going back,”
and she set a departure date for October 21. After
a meditation retreat and a couple of blog posts for
The Huffington Post (she complains that one of the
headlines was changed to emphasize her attendance
at Columbia), Rosario is “in a waiting room of sorts.”
None of her immediate family is in North Carolina; its
immigration policies are too Draconian to stay. She
says that she is exhausted by the materialistic lifestyle
she found at Columbia and sees opportunity for
activism “at the roots,” but she cannot abandon her
mother or the movement on the ground.
Her undocumented peers are also split: some are
pursuing degrees abroad, while others are forging
futures in the States. Those who are abroad hope to
build resumés to expedite a second immigration process; those who remain in the US hope to live beyond
their immigrant pasts.
------------------------
With school as a haven for undocumented youth,
09
dreamed of returning home since he was 11—he had
been “the one” of the family to move to the big city,
Lima—but stays in Miami for his daughters. Both keep
their status private.
IN FOCUS
------------------------
graduation inaugurates a period of existential questioning. Before President Barack Obama introduced
Deferred Action for childhood arrivals, students often
clung to graduate school options to avoid falling to the
depths of the job market. Still, the same factors filtering out college applicants operate for graduate school
applicants.
Nancy, a leader in the national undocumented
student movement and ex-member of IDEAS,
dreamed of attending Teachers College, a school that
she was told was out of her reach as someone from
a low-income community. She says she wanted
to prove that an undocumented immigrant could
have access to an Ivy League in immigrant-rich New
York. Nancy applied and was accepted—but had to
turn Columbia down. It came down to money: the
financial aid office could only secure her minimal
resources. The “heartbreaking” dead end has made
Nancy rethink her educational goals. She is currently
exploring schools that offer enough aid regardless of
immigration status.
Nancy’s IDEAS peer Eder, who now has status, is a
first-year at the School of International and Public Affairs. He credits his enrollment in UCLA to Cinthya’s
story. After two months on campus, Eder already calls
the undocumented scene at Columbia non-existent.
He brought with him one “I’m Undocumented” shirt
but left his other four at home and with his brother
and ex-roommate (the two also have status). There,
his shirt met smiles and conversations. Here, it meets
confusion or nothing.
Mariella
Teachers College 2014
Program: Mental Health Counseling
Hometown: Miami, Florida
Age came to US: 5
Mariella says her path to Columbia was a race to
10
avoid becoming, in the eyes of a legislator, “just an
undocumented immigrant.” When she arrived at
Teachers College, she decided graduate school was
to be done differently. Her undergraduate years at a
liberal arts college were a “cushion” from the daily
realities of deportation and of work and transportation restrictions. Only the admissions director had
known her status. At Teachers College, everyone
was to know.
Yet being public didn’t translate to staying present. When she found herself unable to pay for her
first semester, Mariella went straight to administration. An email to the head of diversity affairs led to a
meeting with Dr. Kenny Nienhusser, who graduated from and had taught at Teachers College. Nienhusser offered her a position on his team researching possible stigma associated with documented
status and its impact on higher education. An email
to the president of Teachers College led to a meeting
with Vice Provost William Baldwin. Baldwin settled
her account, though Mariella still does not know
where funding will come from next year.
Mariella learned in class that an inability to
make plans causes anxiety. Instead of focusing on
tuition, she focuses on numbers to be dealt with;
instead of focusing on her uncertain future, she
focuses on daily tasks—though due to her status,
even daily tasks are sometimes limited. These strategies had to come from her studies, since formal
counseling services are not available because of the
inaccessibility of health care.
Mariella learned from her parents that a lack
of plans can be survived. Her mother, who had
been a math professor at a top university in Peru,
had to quit a 15-year hotel job in Miami when the
employer asked for papers. Her father, who had
been a computer analyst at Diners Club, now hosts
a political radio show, runs a computer repair business, and plays indigenous huaynitos music. He has
When Mariella came to Teachers College, she
knew no one. Within her first few weeks, Mariella
met Cyndi, who was familiar with the LA network
Mariella had begun to tap into. When Cyndi came,
she knew two people: Cinthya and Professor Ernest
Morrell, the director of Teachers College’s Institute
for Urban and Minority Education and Cinthya’s
mentor. Cinthya’s acceptance to Columbia inspired
Cyndi to apply too.
Though Cinthya is now gone, Cyndi says she
feels the same isolation that her friend faced, despite now having status. She sees complacency in
raising issues: partly, she says, because the conservative Ivy League space has few outlets for students
of color; partly because the prestige means students
feel entitled not to be open; partly because institutional aid means reluctance to stir waters. Students’
minimal contact with undocumented students and
with other Columbia schools makes conversation
even harder.
While Cyndi sees a structure at other schools,
she barely sees a base at Columbia. She finds the
university isn’t built for undocumented students.
“Inhabiting this space,” Cyndi says, “is more
than just physically being here but actually having
the issues that affect us being addressed.” Though
Columbia students tend to be independent enough
to find information and resources, in this movement, independence is not enough.
In October of 2011, SIPA student Mynor—now
Eder’s mentor—contacted Cyndi about a crossschool partnership. Mynor, a second-year student
in security policy and conflict resolution, had
stumbled upon the issue by accident. His second
day in the city, he was assaulted by four men in
Brooklyn and was left with nothing but a broken
jaw, a Blackberry in his front pocket, and the address of an acquaintance he was subletting from
written on his hand. The acquaintance, Lorena—a
friend of Cyndi from LA and a New York University
student—found the police at her house and took
a day off of work to take care of him. With his jaw
wired shut, Mynor didn’t see Lorena for the next
two months and could only keep email correspondence. When he saw her again, Lorena told him she
was undocumented. When his jaw healed, he knew
what he wanted to do with his time.
Mynor first approached the Latin American Students Association (LASA). This was 2010, the year
of the federal DREAM Act, the year of the Chicano
Caucus’s petition and the year of the car crash,
but the foreign national group wasn’t interested.
This same year, one of his friends ran for a board
position on the Migration Working Group (MWG).
Mynor went to a MWG meeting, presented the
issue, and this time, was appointed DREAM Act
liaison.
To organize his first event on the topic, Mynor
needed co-sponsorship. A broad spectrum of
cultural and advocacy clubs supported him enthusiastically. Attendance was just as successful,
and grew throughout the two-week series. Two
movie screenings were followed by a fishbowl panel
discussion; the fishbowl panel discussion was followed by students spontaneously coming out in the
Q&A session. The final event, an open mic segment,
ended with new partnerships. A few days later was
May Day, a national day of action for immigrant
rights.
The following fall, Mynor expanded his network to other Columbia schools (Cyndi at Teachers
College, Abril at Columbia College, and others at
the Columbia School of Social Work, the Mailman
School, Columbia Law School, and Barnard College)
and to other Ivy Leagues. The latter came unexpectedly. His fiancé’s cousin, a Harvard student,
initiated a series of Skype conversations and emails
to discuss a pan-Ivy League coalition for undocumented issues.
That December, the cousin hosted the first
summit of the Collegiate Alliance for Immigration
Reform (CAIR) for Ivy Leagues and NYU. Mynor
and other Columbia delegates were surprised to
see mostly first- and second-year undergraduates.
From this, he learned two things: First, that campus
activism should be led by undergraduates, whose
longer time at school rewards them with more influence. Second, that DREAM Act activism provided
relief for less than 1 percent of the undocumented
population, and that its rhetoric of victimized students tended implicitly to criminalize their parents.
------------------------
At Mynor’s May event, Jong-Min, who had met
Mynor, Mariella, Cyndi, and Cinthya through organizing, spoke about his experience as a “left out”
undocumented immigrant. At 31, Jong-Min is past
the cut-off age for both the 2010 federal DREAM
Act and Deferred Action. Rosario’s brother is also
ineligible for benefits. Neither has a path to citizenship, save maybe marriage, until newer reforms are
introduced.
Roberto Lovato, co-founder of the immigrants’
rights group Presente, says that like any movement, the undocumented students movement has
its own slang and its own factions. Some may be
institutional—public school students versus private
school students; some may be linguistic—those that
are eligible and those that are not; some may be
legal—those that can vote and those that cannot.
Rosario, who, as a graduate, feels more strategically
positioned to support students, says that she relies
on shared activism to build solidarity.
Though immigration came up once in the
presidential debates, and though President Obama
championed Deferred Action, Lovato says change
How do undocumented students
get into Columbia, and how do
they receive financial aid?
Candidates without citizenship status apply as international students,
though a Social Security Number
is optional even for nationals. Now
that financial aid is open to all
international students and not just
to students from North America,
access is more competitive. Graduate student aid is more limited, so a
student may look toward discretionary funding.
will come more from the realm of human networks
than from the current realm of politics.
Professor Rodolfo de la Garza, SIPA’s authority
on immigrant politics, sees the power of the Latino
vote, but not necessarily in the favor of the undocumented. He says that when he lived in Texas,
Brandon’s home state, there was a bar that hosted
undocumented immigrants on Friday nights and
immigrants with status on Saturday nights. The
two communities never talked. De la Garza also
doesn’t believe that undocumented students attend
Columbia.
Nienhusser acknowledges that educationcentered legislation like the DREAM Act affords
opportunities only to a sub-section of this underserved population. But he, with colleagues in this
eligible underserved population, colleagues in the
immigrant population and colleagues in neither, acknowledges that the undocumented student marker
can empower this eligible population and move the
political agenda forward.
Not all feel this marker works to define them—
Brandon and Roberto do; Rosario, Eder, Mariella,
and Cyndi don’t. Still, revealing their immigration
status, despite tangible risks, can open up resources. Nienhusser, who specializes in higher education
policies that impact undocumented students, says
that universities operate on a supply and demand
basis. When a critical mass of undocumented
students attends a university, it is generally more
responsive to this population’s unique needs. As of
recently, outside motivations like some states passing legislation to offer higher education benefits to
undocumented students are forcing more and more
universities to face the issue of the role of status in
college access.
WHILE CYNDI SEES
A STRUCTURE AT
OTHER SCHOOLS, SHE
BARELY SEES A BASE AT
COLUMBIA.
At Teachers College, a news story on the DREAM
Act caught the attention of Vice Provost Baldwin,
and he brought it up at an administrative meeting.
He says that while access to educational opportunity “fit in as a natural part of the conversation,”
no undocumented student had shown up on an
administrator’s radar screen before Mariella.
“Many of the Harvards, Princetons, Columbias of the world that have very large endowments probably have a little bit more discretion to
repurpose resources to address an issue like this,”
Baldwin says. “There’s also certainly the option that
institutions have to use bully pulpit of that institution to begin to speak out on issues of education and
access and opportunity.”
Yet Baldwin admits it’s not so simple. He draws
an analogy with disabled students: because privacy
laws make it hard to identify a student with a disability, he has had trouble granting them diversity
scholarships.
At Columbia College, identification is even trickier. Undocumented students are assumed to apply
through the International Students and Scholars
Office, but the ISSO “has no contact with undocumented students,” according to an ISSO officer.
While Eder says he’s concerned about administrative support, he chooses to focus his efforts on
students. Along with Cyndi and Abril, Eder plans
to inform campus dialogue with a university-wide
teach-in next semester. Cyndi is planning the same
with more students from SIPA and the Latino Caucus at the School of Social Work. Abril hopes to send
a more confrontational message with a university
sit-in—a kind of “Occupy Education.” The audience
she seeks, more than administrators, is her peers.
(After all, she says, Obama was once a Columbia
student.)
------------------------
This year, friends of Cinthya published a book
memorializing her and Tam and documenting the
new generation of undocumented leaders. A book
event at Teachers College brought together Cyndi,
Mariella, Jong-Min, Professor Morrell, and interested teachers, students, and activists. The panel
answered questions on politics, on visibility, on
resources—crucial issues facing the undocumented
community. Columbia has yet to do the same. a
Is your story missing? Share it in the comments
section at eye.columbiaspectator.com.
Who is an undocumented
immigrant?
How does an undocumented immigrant apply for citizenship?
What is the DREAM Act? What
is Deferred Action?
An undocumented immigrant was
either unauthorized to enter, overstayed a visa or had complications
affecting his or her citizenship status
once in the country. A lack of status
is a civil, not a criminal, infraction.
Because these immigrants have no
Social Security Number, they cannot
obtain a driver’s license, a passport,
a work permit, federal funding,
Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security,
or a vote. There are an estimated 12
million undocumented immigrants
in the U.S. with 50,000 enrolled or
previously enrolled in college. These
numbers, though, are outdated.
If undocumented immigrants have
a parent or sibling who is an adult
and a citizen, they can petition
for a visa If they qualified for an adjustment-of-status law in 1994, they
can become permanent residents
while staying in the country. If they
are victim to a crime and report it,
they may obtain temporary legal
status. If they leave the country
having been undocumented for
over a year, they are subject to a
ten-year ban from re-entering the
country. Some may marry.
The federal DREAM Act, first
drafted in 2001 with bipartisan
support, would provide conditional
permanent residency to eligible undocumented students and members
of the armed services. Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA),
announced by President Obama
this past summer, allows temporary
relief from deportation to DREAM
Act-eligible youth and, in this
period, the opportunity to receive
a work permit. It is granted on a
case-by-case basis.
What are the risks facing an
“outed” undocumented immigrant?
Legally speaking, the consequences
of being public about immigration
status may differ from person to
person. An “outed” undocumented
immigrant cannot be removed if he
or she is granted Deferred Action or
is designated by the Department of
Homeland Security as a “low priority” deportation case according to
“common sense guidelines.” Still,
some students who qualify for both
are in detention centers.
20/20
101
STORMTROOPERS
by
Rebecca Schwarz
While the East Coast was coming to terms with
the damage caused by Hurricane Sandy, Disney added
a wave of pop-cultural shock by announcing last
Tuesday that it would be buying Lucasfilm for $4.05
billion. This means George Lucas’s company—most
famous for producing Star Wars and Indiana Jones—
will now reside in the House of Mouse, opening up the
possibility for a whole new world of dazzling mashups we never knew: 101 Stormtroopers, Beauty and
the Hutt, The Wookie King, and The Emperor’s New
Groove (only a slight—and slightly horrifying—casting change required).
Though unsettling for artists of all kinds, creative
monopolies seem to be on the rise: Disney also recently bought Pixar in 2006 and Marvel in 2009, and book
publishers Penguin and Random House agreed to join
forces just a day before the Lucasfilm acquisition.
But it wasn’t the purchase itself that caught fans
off guard. The true imbalance in the force came from
the announcement of a new Star Wars film, Episode
VII, which is scheduled for release not so far, far away
in 2015—with Episodes VIII and IX to follow two
or three years apart. Since almost all blockbusters
by
Brea Salim
parison to the memorable characters and the engaging plot of Episodes IV through VI, The Phantom
Menace and its cohorts are mere flashbacks, unable
to stand on their own. Yes, I watched the three most
recent movies—even sat through the blathering of the
indefensible Jar Jar Binks—but it wasn’t because I was
genuinely interested in anything on screen. I did it for
my love of Luke and Leia.
Of course, I recognize that this level of fan devotion
is ripe for exploitation by Disney—probably why they
were willing to spend the whopping 4 billion in the first
place. Because whatever Episode VII turns out to be, I’ll
surely truck to theaters to see it, lightsaber in hand—if
only to find its flaws. So, with Yoda at my side, only
hope I can that Disney, lured to the dark side, it isn’t,
by newfound power. One can only hope that Disney
will seize this opportunity to extend the Star Wars legacy responsibility. I’d personally love to see elements of
the Star Wars Expanded Universe literature in the new
films—the new Jedi order led by Luke Skywalker, Han
Solo and Leia’s children as Jedi trainees.
One thing’s for sure, though: the new generation
of fans the Disney marketing team is sure to create had
better not think Episode I comes first. a
STILL ON THE WAY
DOWN
When I told my friends I had tickets to a Ryan
Cabrera concert last weekend, their responses varied
from “Who’s Ryan Cabrera?” to “Ryan Cabrera? I
know, like, one song by him. Why are you going?”
To be quite honest, I didn’t really know. But Cabrera recently released his first single in five years—
“I See Love,” out this past August—so I was curious. Plus, there was indeed that one song by Ryan
Cabrera I knew—and loved: “Photo” for me, “Say”
for the friend I managed to drag along, and for most,
probably “On The Way Down” (#15 on Billboard Hot
100, 2006). And who could forget Cabrera’s permanent guest spot as Ashlee Simpson’s boyfriend on
MTV’s The Ashlee Simpson Show?
At the very least, a scan of Google images proves
Cabrera nice to look at—aside from the huge, blond
porcupine of gelled hair (which I was willing to bet
was just a 2006 thing; he would have cut it by now).
Most of all, if this tour really did launch him back
into the music scene after his brief one-hit-wonder
career, why not see it happen firsthand?
Sadly, though, I can say with full certainty that,
judging by what I saw, Ryan Cabrera will not be
12
now come packaged with a sequel or four (see—or
don’t—Shrek, Air Bud, Beethoven, and The Land
Before Time), these new additions, although often
disappointing for original fans, shouldn’t come as a
big surprise.The difference this time is, back when
the franchise was still under his control, George Lucas
promised us he was done making Star Wars films.
Of course, a new chapter in the Star Wars saga is
no tragedy. Having grown up with TIE fighters and
X-wings, I gladly welcome the next generation who’ll
share an appreciation of good lightsaber replicas.
But with such a large corporation in charge of the
production, I can’t help but worry that special effects
will take precedence over storytelling, as they did in
the most recent run of prequels. Recall how these latest Star Wars installments feature a villain we know
almost nothing about (why in the galaxy is Darth
Maul is so angry?) and a ten-minute high-speed
chase between Anakin, Obi-Wan, and some assassin
who, for no apparent reason, has been assigned to kill
Queen Amidala.
Sure, the original trilogy has some pretty cool bad
guys and battle scenes, but what really draws such
a loyal fan base is the film’s creative heart. In com-
making his comeback anytime soon.
I think it’s pretty evident that you can’t survive
in the modern music industry without semi-regularly reinventing yourself. Take Taylor Swift’s newest
album, Red. (Yes, I love her with all my heart, no
shame). In her latest offering, Swift strays away from
country and goes more Carly Rae Jepsen, while still
keeping her original you-broke-my-heart angst.
The result? Pure brilliance, I say (and boy, don’t the
sales show it). Cabrera, on the other hand, even after
five years, isn’t changing it up at all. “I See Love” is
still the same old romance-infused, acoustic-guitar
based pop, objectively identical to all of his other
singles. It’s not a bad song; it was perfectly enjoyable
to hear live, actually. It was just stale.
Beyond musical style, I think what disappointed me most about Cabrera’s performance was his
lack of heart. Ryan is certainly visibly talented: He
has a decent voice and was showing off his guitar
skills all night. Still, his performance showed the
minimal amount of enthusiasm, littered with
questionable jokes. For instance, one of Cabrera’s
ways of “advertising” seemed to be talking about
the size of his penis. I do understand some bitterness on his part, since he was playing for a rather
small crowd that Saturday night (only around 50—
yikes). However, I believe a good musician should
play not for the sake of his audience, but simply for
the joy of playing.
Meanwhile, many others are willing to take his
place—Mikey Deleasa, his opening act, would actually be a great candidate. Deleasa was funny, lively,
and engaging, despite the fact only about 20 people
had shown up by the time he took the stage.
Also, plenty of other singer-songwriters have
already hopped from early-aughts one-hit-wonder
to present day success: Gavin DeGraw, who penned
2003’s alt-angsty “I Don’t Want to Be” (AKA, the
One Tree Hill theme song), topped the charts again
this summer with “Not Over You” (and, I’m sure,
more to come with his new album Sweeter).
The worst part, though? Cabrera’s hair is still just
as porcupine-like as ever with its new brown dye
job. Look, Ryan: if you really want to make a comeback, lose the gel and gain some perceptible passion.
And maybe try to get back with Ashlee. a
NO LOVE, NO RULES
by Gina Segall
photo courtesy of
MUSIC
DEATH GRIPS TAKES AIM AT THE INDUSTRY—AND OUR EARS
Jonny Magowan
“Come up and get me.”
That’s the opening track on Death Grips’ second album and would-be major label debut, NØ
LØV∑ D∑∑P W∏B. It’s also the message that Death
Grips seems keen to convey this time around: the
trio isn’t going to back down.
If there’s anything to be said about Death
Grips, it’s that they work in extremes. Vocalist
Stefan “MC Ride” Burnett and team Zach Hill and
Andy “Flatlander” Morin have created a sound
that’s severe in every sense of the word. Their
lyrics range from cerebral (“I’m epiphanic amnesia, I’m in Jimmy Page’s castle”) to inflammatory (“lash of the whip cracking every bitch into
position”), and their heavy bass and overblown
synth only serve to bolster the brutal language. If
you’ve heard a single track that they’ve released,
then you know that their music isn’t exactly what
you’d consider conventional, even within the
realm of hip hop.
So it may come as no great surprise that the
group leaked NØ LØV∑ D∑∑P W∏B for free under
a Creative Commons license, without the knowledge or permission of their label, Epic, after they
were told that an album release date wouldn’t
be set until sometime in 2013. It may also seem
natural that the album art features a picture of an
erect penis with the album name scrawled on it
in Sharpie. Or that, just hours before the release
of the album, the group tweeted a picture of MC
Ride with his back to the camera, standing on a
ledge high above the street in an affluent suburban
neighborhood, arms raised and middle fingers
out in an ultimate display of reckless insouciance.
These stunts seem to culminate in the expression
of a single idea: Death Grips doesn’t give a fuck,
and they want us to know it.
Now, just weeks after the leak, the group has
gone so far as to screencap and post an email correspondence with Epic on Facebook. In the email,
Epic states that the band has made decisions that
“financially damaged” the label by infringing
upon Epic’s copyrights, “despite the fact that
Epic has done nothing except wholeheartedly
support the band.” The label requests that Death
Grips take the album off the internet and provide
Epic with the tracks so that the label can “quickly
put the album up for sale.” And appended in the
signature, of course: “Any distribution, dissemination or reproduction of this e-mail message is
strictly prohibited.”
Death Grips’ caption: “HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
NOW FUCK OFF.”
Needless to say, the label dropped them the following day. Which raises the question: why would
a band like Death Grips sign onto a major label like
Epic in the first place, especially if they weren’t
willing to play by the rules? What did they expect?
Death Grips isn’t by any means the first group
to defy their label, nor will they be the last. Since
the NLDW leak, rap artist Mr. Muthafuckin’
eXquire has released a new mixtape, The Man in
the High Castle, without the consent of Universal
Music Group. “So I had this tape I wanted to drop
but my label fighting me cuz they hate me to rap,”
the rapper tweeted. “They keep taking it down,
Ima keep putting it up.”
It’s that simple. In an age where it’s possible
simply to link to a file on Twitter or Facebook and
get tens of thousands of viewers instantly, it is
undeniably easier to share and publicize music—and to get instantaneous gratification—than
ever before. Some might go so far as to say that illegal filesharing has even become the norm; it’s a
miracle if a popular album doesn’t leak before its
release date. Titus Andronicus frontman Patrick
Stickles recently posted on the band’s website:
“I invite you this morning to join me in a flight of
fancy, wherein we will pretend that the forthcoming Titus Andronicus LP … has not leaked
onto the internet, and that you are still frothing
with anticipation as to what it could possibly
sound like.”
Sure, when Death Grips tweeted that “the
label will be hearing the album for the first time
with you,” no one took it lightly. And sure, the
group now runs the risk of a likely lawsuit with
Epic. But the move may not have been as extreme
as it seemed; it does run in accordance with
the group’s rebellious image. To leak their own
album “makes them look cool, edgy … stickin’ it
to the man,” says Pitchfork’s Amy Phillips. Death
Grips wants to be the baddest group out there,
she says—so, of course their actions involve a
degree of calculation.
THESE STUNTS
SEEM TO
CULMINATE IN
THE EXPRESSION
OF A SINGLE IDEA:
DEATH GRIPS
DOESN’T GIVE A
FUCK, AND THEY
WANT US TO
KNOW IT.
When most
albums can be
downloaded illegally or streamed
for free, image
becomes crucial to
an artist’s popularity. On their blog,
the band Lower
Dens comments on
the changing music
industry, saying
that when music is so easily accessible, artists have
“the burden of having to get your attention.” Death
Grips has merely recognized the necessity of doing
so. Signing to a label that will get them the publicity
that they need—and then making their ungracious
exit therefrom—accomplishes exactly that.
In a 2011 interview with John Calvert of The
Quietus, Flatlander said that “our music and vision isn’t about being hard or tough, it’s about being real and raw, and feeling our shit. We counter
with energy, everything is energy.” But whether
the image is “hard or tough” or “real and raw,”
it’s hard to deny that Death Grips is projecting
some image, and that there was at least some forethought involved. After all, it’s a bit of a fortunate
paradox: Now that they’ve been officially dropped
by Epic, there’s no way Death Grips will be making much profit from this album, if any at all­— and
yet the act in itself has generated tremendous
publicity for the group that will inevitably result
in future commercial success.
MC Ride can display his penchant for the extreme—stand on a high ledge and invite the world to
come and get him—all the while fully aware that the
exposure Death Grip has garnered has his back. a
13
TOLSTOY AND TECHNO CLUBS
EYE TO EYE
TALKING TO THE COMPOSER/DIRECTOR OF A HERALDED ELECTRO-POP OPERA
by Jack Klempay
photo courtesy of
Ben Arons
Dave Malloy is the composer and director of
the electro-pop opera Natasha, Pierre & the Great
Comet of 1812, based on Tolstoy’s War and Peace,
which is playing now through Nov. 10 at Ars Nova.
Malloy has written seven full-length musicals and
won several awards, including an Obie. He lives in
Brooklyn and is the composer for the ensemble Banana Bag & Bodice. Malloy talked to The Eye about
his most recent musical, Russian dinner clubs,
Tolstoy, and vodka.
I just want to start by asking, why? Why War and
Peace, why these electro-pop influences? There
must be an interesting story behind this.
I read the book about six years ago, and the
second I read this particular section of the novel,
I was very drawn to it. I recognized that it was
structured like a classic musical, with an A story, a
B story, and a perfect intermission break where the
main characters are in jeopardy. But it also kind
of subverted those clichés by, for example, making
one of the stories not so much a romantic story as
it is about Pierre’s spiritual awakening, and I found
that pretty compelling. So I had this idea to do this
little section of the novel as a musical. I had always
wanted to work with War and Peace, and this idea
presented an excellent opportunity to do just that.
Are you talking about a specific section of the book,
or are you focusing on the relationship between
Natasha and Pierre in general?
It’s one very small section, like a 60 page section of the book. It’s just the very opening moment
of Natasha and Pierre’s relationship, and in fact,
Natasha and Pierre don’t actually meet each other
until the very end of this play. They’ve known each
other for a while, but they don’t really interact
until the end.
Musically, visually, plot-wise, and idea-wise,
what was your vision at the outset and how did
that develop?
I was very much influenced by a trip to Russia I took two years ago, to Saint Petersburg and
Moscow. There’s this specific club that I went to in
Moscow, this kind of hole-in-the-wall café with
live music that was just super, super crowded and
everyone was drinking vodka and eating dumplings and there was a tiny band playing, with
violin, viola, and piano, playing pop classical hits
like “Flight of the Bumblebee.” Like I said, it was
really crowded, so I ended up sitting right next to
the viola player, and it was a really interesting experience to hear mostly the harmony parts of this
band playing. This environment was very much the
launching platform for what we ended up doing
visually in the piece. We set the whole thing up as
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Cast of Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812
a sort of Russian dinner club, which is also something present in War and Peace where the social
center of the novel is a Russian dinner club. To create the setting of the piece, we turned the theater
space into a Russian dinner club, with the actors
scattered all around and people drinking vodka.
whole aristocratic society is ignoring the fact that
the war is marching towards Moscow. I feel like
that’s something that definitely has resonance with
today, where we are as a country at war but it’s
not something that we think about on a day to day
What do you think Tolstoy would have to say
about your opera?
Oh God, I have no idea. Tolstoy, you know,
he hated opera. There’s a section that we do in
this piece where Natasha and her cousin go to the
opera. Tolstoy uses this scene to make fun of the
opera, because he found opera to be a very highbrow thing, and Tolstoy was more interested in
the people and the peasant classes. I also think that
Tolstoy would find that we stay true to the story
and portray his characters accurately. It’s not an
ironic piece making fun of Tolstoy at all, despite the
fact that we’re adapting a 19th century novel.
“WE TURNED THE THEATER
SPACE INTO A RUSSIAN DINNER
CLUB WITH THE ACTORS
SCATTERED ALL AROUND AND
PEOPLE DRINKING VODKA.”
Do you see this piece as a social commentary, or
is this just purely an artistic experiment?
I hope that it does both, but I definitely think
that the problems the characters face are problems
people face today. The novel is called War and
Peace, and this is very much a “peace” section.
It’s a section where we don’t really encounter the
war at all, but the war is always bubbling underneath things. One of the characters is away at war,
and the war kind of breaks in at times while the
basis. And of course the story of Natasha’s reckless
love is a story that we all go through, which is why
the novel is still so great today.
How would you say the audience reception has
been? Does the vodka help?
Really, really great! I mean, it’s a fun piece
because it is so immersive, so we can have a really
intimate relationship with the audience. Typically,
you see the audience as a black void, but in this
piece, you can watch them the whole show and see
how they’re responding. So I’d say it’s doing really
well. And I’m sure the vodka helps. a
VIEW FROM HERE
COMMON GROUND
CAN A FRIENDSHIP TIED TO ISRAEL SURVIVE IN NEW YORK?
by Rikki Novetsky
illustration by Suzanna
Buck
The land of Israel forged our friendship. We
met in a gap year program: I an American, she
an Israeli. She introduced herself as Danielle,
but that sounded all-too-familiar for the foreign
being she was. Instead, I chose to call her by her
last name: Mazuz [Mah-zooz].
For a year, we studied the Talmud together. At
first, we did not speak the same language. I was
raised with the English of the Official Scrabble
Players Dictionary and New York Times crossword
puzzles: formal, American, planned. She spoke
Hebrew in a way that was natural and organic:
she played with it, turned it inside out, and let it
bounce off her tongue.
Despite our mutual efforts, some linguistic
hurdles were too difficult to surmount: in Hebrew,
there is no sound for the first letter of my name.
“Rikki” begins with the letter resh, the sound of
which is wholly different than the R in my lexicon.
An R-sound is light, allowing a light gush of air to
escape from the mouth; a resh-sound, on the other
hand, emerges from deep vibrations of the throat. I
could never quite perfect my resh, although Mazuz
was a master. In Hebrew, she could identify me
better than I could identify myself.
Throughout the year, she took me around the
country to places only a native could have known.
We went cherry picking and dirtied our hands and
our mouths with sticky maroon juice. We went to
a beer and song festival in the middle of the night,
deep in a dark pine forest. I spent a weekend at her
house in the Golan, a region known for greenery
and vineyards.
We drove there on highways carved out of ancient mountains. Her back porch looked out onto
sprawling fields, leading to paths of flat grass
that had been compressed by those who had trod
down to discover the stream. She dressed in the
colors of the landscape, as if prepared to embark
on an exploration of it. She wore baggy pants
and loose t-shirts in shades of light brown, olive
green, burnt yellow, deep orange. She pinned
her tight reddish-brown curls on the top of her
head, but some fell loose and careless to the side.
There was something carefree yet conscious
in Mazuz that helped me to decipher the dynamic Israeli spirit. She passed through the land with
ease and comfort, as if she could capture what
was good in her hand. She managed to make me
envious of life in Israel, and how she seemed to
feel inherently at home despite the many complications of living in the Middle East: A constant
water scarcity means showers cut short. Areas
in her backyard still hold mines from the strife
of previous generations. A dauntingly serious
regional conflict takes place near her home, and
politics promise her nothing but uncertainty.
However, the beating Middle Eastern sun is
her battery, and I know no Mazuz anywhere else.
Last year, Mazuz was offered a job that would
require her to live in America for the year to educate children about Israel. I urged her to come:
a full year, together! I would take her to Times
Square, Central Park, wherever she pleased. I
was sure that the height of midtown skyscrapers
would shock her, and the lush green of Central Park would fascinate her. But she turned it
down. Her land is no host for her: it is a home.
She can travel around the world, but she would
prefer not to live anywhere else.
A friendship so inherently tied to geography is hard to sustain, and even harder to
characterize or properly remember when I
find myself in a wholly different setting. It is
strange to know that I found a true friend with
whom I can hardly communicate now. Hebrew
no longer flows off my tongue, my lips; it gets
stuck in my throat and emerges some mangled
sound different from that which I vocalized in
my imagination.
In college, I am immersed in broad discussions about the works of Eliot and Milton,
IN HEBREW, SHE COULD
IDENTIFY ME BETTER THAN I
COULD IDENTIFY MYSELF.
making it increasingly difficult to recall idiosyncratic conversations in Hebrew about
the Talmud. In a way, it is a comfort to have a
friendship on reserve, a freeze-dried-ramennoodles-friendship, waiting to be recommenced, revivified, redefined.
But I am left to wonder whether there is an
expiration date on friendships that I tuck neatly
away into the shelves of my memory. I can only
hope that our friendship is rich enough to remain.
I cannot deny that there lies something
foundational between us. And for now, at least,
I remain here and she remains there. a
15