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A BROWN/RISD WEEKLY
SEPTEMBER 12, 2014 | V29 N1
N E W S
Week in Isolation
kyle giddon & sebastian clark
Risen Shine
elias bresnick
M E T R O
Early Returns
rick salam
Chain Gang
mika kligler
A R T S
Gallery Pals
erin schwartz
Boyz 2 Men
lisa borst
L I T
To the Ocean
leah steinberg
2
3
5
7
12
13
16
S P O R T S
Get that Bacon
zeve sanderson
F E A T U R E S
Red Light
j.g.
F O O D
Among the Stars
sam bresnick & alex sammon
E P H E M E R A
Chiseled
mark benz
X
Lunar Luau
layla ehsan, sara khan
& pierie korostof
11
9
15
14
18
FROM THE EDI TORS
P.O. Box 1930 Brown University Providence, RI 02912
Letters to the editor are welcome distractions. The Independent is published weekly during the fall & spring semesters and is
printed by TCI Press in Seekonk, MA.
MANAGING EDITORS Greg Nissan, Lili Rosenkranz, Alex Sammon NEWS Elias
Bresnick, Sebastian Clark, Kyle Giddon METRO Sophie Kasakove, Cherise Morris, Rick
Salam ARTS Lisa Borst, Eli Pitegof, Erin Schwartz FEATURES Jackie Gu, Matt Mar-
sico, Sara Winnick TECHNOLOGY Patrick McMenamin SPORTS Zeve Sanderson
FOOD Sam Bresnick LITERARY Kim Sarnof, Leah Steinberg EPHEMERA Mark Benz
X Layla Ehsan, Sara Khan, Pierie Korostof LIST Polina Godz, Megan Hauptman DE-
SIGN + ILLUSTRATION Casey Friedman, Ming Zhen COVER EDITOR Jade Donald-
son SENIOR EDITOR Tristan Rodman STAFF WRITERS Pranay Bose, Will Fesperman,
Stephanie Hayes, Mika Kligler, Jamie Packs STAFF ILLUSTRATORS Andres Chang,
Amy Chen WEB Edward Friedman COPY Mary Frances Gallagher, Paige Morris BUSI-
NESS Haley Adams COVER ART Jade Donaldson MVP Ming Zhen
VOLUME 29 | ISSUE 1
THEINDY.ORG II @THEINDY_TWEETS
If its foating, poke it frst. Chances are its dead, but the
pond scum may have globbed on so thick that the small
signs of life youd usually noticerising chest, twitching
pawdont surface. Youre probably thinking, My Airbnb
rating is fucked. Ill never get that loft in Copenhagen. But
heres the catch: beavers die all the time. Would your hubris
rise so high that you might think you had any part in this
cosmic game of give and take? Gather some twigs and build
a pyre. Send this chomping champion to sea and watch the
fames rise into the Many Heavens, a slice of red tucked
between briny blue and celestial periwinkle. Someone say a
prayer.
Te Anglicans: From asses to asses, bust to bust...
Rick Springfeld: I loved her like a sister...
Te Seven Seas: We didnt much care for the beaver.
And what are we to make of this cosmic chorus? We, who
eulogize even what is living, who count death in number,
who grill cheeses? Is there meaning in a beavers death, when
we ourselves are so covered in pond scum we cant see the air
in front of us?
-GN, LR, AS
SEPTEMBER 12 2014
HERE WE GO AGAIN
Once upon a time, Stewart Brand, the iconic founder of the Whole Earth
Catalog, was in attendance at the worlds frst Hackers Conference in 1984.
Sitting next to Steve Wozniack, whose infamy needs no explanation, Brand
turned and let out a rambling spiel that bore no relation to the conversation.
Speaking as if the word of God were fowing through him, one sequence of
syllables stood clear amongst the rest: information wants to be free. With
a transcriber at hand, this dubious phrase was recorded, published, and then
later, republished. Before we knew it, utterance became ideology, and we now
stand at the foot of a never-so-muddled debate on censorship, with a doctrine
that has bred a libertarian spirit in which all information is mindlessly under-
stood as the same, something quantifable in kilabytes, not regarded in terms
of its content.
Facilitated by Silicon Valleys crafty invention of the e-book, Adolf
Hitlers Mein Kampf came to top Amazons Propaganda & Political Psychology
chart earlier this year. Costing $3.56 a copy, Hitlers incoherent drivel now
circulates amongst the masses alongside Tori Spellings Spelling It Like It Is.
Its actually a shame Tori wasnt around in the Weimar days to ofer Hitler
a lesson or two in grammar. It would make the thing at least readable, even if
still not emotionally comprehensible.
Tat should never happen. As Martin Amis recently wrote in the Fini-
ancial Times on the nature of Hitlers evil: the facts, set down in a histori-
ography of tens of thousands of volumes, are not in the slightest doubt; but
they remain in some sense unbelievable, or beyond belief, and cannot quite be
assimilated. It follows Primo Levis belief that to understand what Hitler did
is to justify it. Understanding is an act of empathizing, identifying.
Tis is the fear that preys on the mind of the German government as
2015 nears. Mein Kampfs copyright is now held by the Bavarian state, who
banned it in Germany and Austria following Hitlers demise in 1945. But,
theoretically, now, 70 years after the authors death, the copyright will expire
and literally anyone will be able to publish it.
Whether Germans like it or not, the voice of Hitler will be emerg-
ing from state-imposed isolation, opening itself up to mass comprehension.
Its impact will hinge on how we decide to manage, if at all, the fow of its
content. How can neo-Nazis be prevented from exploiting its redistribu-
tion? One proposition is to publish it only alongside a critical, analytical text,
making clear its evils. But, when todays digital libertarians feel that worthy
ideals are being so readily upbraided in cases like that of James Risen, will they
break from their ideology to allow the censoring of Mein Kampf? As Bavarias
Interior Minister Winfried Bausback said earlier this month: the entire demo-
cratic world is watching Germany on this one. -SC
WEEK IN ISOLATION
by Sebastian Clark and Kyle Giddon
NEWS 02
SPACE ODDITY
Curious little kids have been putting lizards in glass jars for years. It was a
simple numbers game that some percentage of these kids grew up to become
rocket scientists, and it should surprise no one that they thought to them-
selves: lets do the same thing, but in space.
On July 19, Russias federal space agency, Roscosmos, launched a satellite
containing a number of biological experiments, including tests of mushroom
growth in low-gravity conditions and a study of solar radiation on moth eggs.
It also contained fve live geckos, whose stated mission was to fuck.
Te gecko cohabitantsone male, four femaleentered Earths orbit
as part of an attempt to study the efects of weightlessness on copulation.
Delicately placed cameras charted every salacious shimmy aboard their satellite
love-nest. But with no live video feed, questions about what exactly happened
in the zero-gravity lizard orgy had to wait until the spacecrafts return. Was the
experimentation a smashing success? Was the male gecko a real slimeball?
Alas, coitus interruptus. After only a few sensual spins around Earth, the
geckos satellite lost contact with mission control back in Moscow. Yet the
geckos had no choice but to voyage on, hurtling through space, abandoned,
utterly alone, their only comfort found in each others small slippery bodies.
Roscosmos tracked down the rogue satellite a few days later, with
the promise of recovering the spacecrafts footage. Tis week, after 44 days in
space, the satellite was returned to Earth and its capsule opened.
All fve geckos, according to Moscow ofcials, were found dead.
We can say with confdence that they died at least a week before the
landing because their bodies were partly mummifed, a project scientist told
Russias Itar-Tass news agency. It is unclear if the mummifcation was caused
by the geckos demise or was some kind of fetish thing.
So when were all up in space, having spacesex in our Wall-E-inspired
foating recliners, lets not forget the sacrifce of these star-crossed lovers. In the
meantime, with anxieties over Russian actions at a local maximum, it wouldnt
be entirely shocking for NASA to come up with some kind of response to
their Russian rivals.
Like, say, lizards fucking on the moon. KG

For some, the summer was long and lonely. While most of you rollicked in sunlit felds to the sweet sound of harmoniums, others languished in bleak seclu-
sion. For a taste of the abject, we ofer you a week in isolation.
THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT
PRESSING THE LIMITS
OF FREE PRESS
In June of 1972, two little-known journalists working for Te Washington Post were as-
signed to report on a burglary at Watergate, an ofce building in downtown Washington,
DC that happened to house Democratic Party headquarters. Tough it appeared they had
no more evidence than reporters at any other news outlet, over the next two years, Bob
Woodward and Carl Bernstein revealed a series of dirty tricks the Nixon administra-
tion had employed during its reelection campaignmost notably bugging the ofces of
political opponents. As the reporting duo continued to unearth a wealth of incriminating
evidence that would later lead to Nixons resignation, the public marveled at their ability
to almost miraculously discover scandals well before the FBI.
Te thing was: Woodward had an in.
As would later be revealed in the duos 1974 book, All the Presidents Men, FBI As-
sociate Director Mark Felt codenamed Deep Troat had been leaking classifed in-
formation to the pair from the beginning of the fasco. Bernstein and Woodward refused
to name, or even admit the existence of a confdential source within the government until
after the scandal had ended. Without Felts contribution, its unclear just how many of the
crimes committed at Watergate would have been brought to light.
Whistleblowing has come to be broadly recognized as an act of courage in recent
years. President Barack Obama, who ran on a platform of increased government transpar-
ency, tacitly endorsed whistleblowers in his 2007 Obama-Biden Plan, stating that, Often
the best source of information about waste, fraud, and abuse in government is an existing
government employee committed to public integrity and willing to speak out. Such acts
of courage and patriotism, which can sometimes save lives and often save taxpayer dollars,
should be encouraged rather than stifed.
With the vaunted goal of transparency in mind, it may come as a surprise to fnd
that, the Obama administration has prosecuted more leakers in its two terms than all
other presidential administrations combined. Te recent Edward Snowden case marks the
eighth time since 2009 that charges have been fled against government agents under the
Espionage Act, compared with just three total during all other presidencies since the act
was established in 1917. While it may be true that the president wants more informa-
tion out in the open, as for the secrets he wants hidden, he seems to reserve a particularly
vicious protective urge. Speaking about the Obama administration in a report dated
October 10, 2013, former Washington Post editor Leonard Downie wrote, Te war on
leaks and other eforts to control information are the most aggressive Ive seen since the
Nixon administration.
Other players in government, such as attorney general Eric Holder, have come to the
defense of the Obama administration, noting that the digital age has made it easier than
ever before to release vast amounts of information all at once. With the ability to down-
load hundreds of thousands of classifed documents onto a disk drive, as in the 2010 case
of Bradley Manning, leaking information has never been easier.
+++
All this has led up to the case of James Risen B77, a New York Times reporter who is cur-
rently being subpoenaed by federal prosecutors for information in a case against Jefrey
Sterling. Sterling, a former CIA ofcial, has been indicted by the government for leaking
details of a failed operation against Irans nuclear program. Sterlings leaks appeared in
Risens 2007 book, State of War, prompting the government to request Risens testimony
against Sterling in court. Tough the facts of the case seem relatively mundane, this case
is a monumental moment in the fght for the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of
the press.
For seven years, Mr. Risen has doggedly refused to identify his source for the contro-
versial chapter in his book. Citing Reporters Privilege, a set of loosely defned laws that
protect a reporters right to keep his sources confdential, Risen simply refuses to budge.
At this point, with all his legal options exhausted, Risen says hes willing to face jail time
if need be, even claiming to have picked out the books hell take along with him. As he
said in a recent interview for the Times, the choice is simple: Give up everything I believe
inor go to jail.
For the journalistic community, the stakes are enormous: if journalists cant guarantee
protection to confdential sources, information available to the public about government
misconduct will undoubtedly decrease. If confdential sources are unconvinced that
their names will remain anonymous, it follows that far fewer people will be willing to risk
their careers and even their freedom in order to point out faws in the system.
To this efect, Daniel Ellsberg, the legendary leaker of the Pentagon Papers, wrote in
a petition defending Risen, Te pursuit of Risen is a warning to potential sources that
journalists cannot promise them confdentiality for disclosing Executive Branch criminal-
ity, recklessness, deception, unconstitutional policies or lying us into war.
It has been repeatedly documented that the government classifes too much informa-
tion. Take, for example, a recent report by the Brennan Center for Justice called Reduc-
ing Overclassifcation Trough Accountability. Te report shows that a vast number of
secrets protected by the classifcation system pose no threat to national safety. As can be
seen in many of the leaks released by Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning, often the
information that remains classifed is simply the type which, if revealed, would merely
embarrass the United States.
In a statement supporting Risens refusal to cooperate with the governmet, Delphine
Hagland, the director of Reporters Without Borders Washington ofce, said elegantly,
Freedom of the press is the most important freedom, it is the freedom that allows us to
verify the existence of all other freedoms.
While Risens case and the call for assured confdentiality of sources have picked up
widespread support across the nationa notable collection of more than 20 Pulitzer Prize
winners have come to his defensethe issue at hand is more ambiguous than it would
appear at frst glance.
In a 2013 news conference, Obama explained that leaks related to national se-
curitycan put men and women in uniform that Ive sent into the battlefeld at risk. I
dont think the American people would expect me, as Commander-in-Chief, not to be
concerned about information that might compromise their missions or might get them
killed.
Te Post agreed in an editorial, stating that there is a core of true national security
information that does need to be confdential [I]f reporters were completely immune
from testifying, those laws and rules would be toothless. Without the key witness, many
leaksno matter how damagingwould be impossible to prove, and even information
that all agree is properly classifed would be impossible to protect.
Te problem, then, is that if the government cant compel journalists to hand over
the identity of leakers, both whistleblowers and traitors alike will have equal opportunity
to release classifed information without fear of punishment, as the seal of Reporters
Privilege would prove absolute.
+++
Te current state of afairs sets up an interesting, if intractable, question: will the nation
set a precedent for confdential sources to be revealed, diminishing the number of these
sources and trusting the government not to abuse its own power; or will we allow insiders
to publish national secrets with impunity and threaten to compromise the covert nature
of agencies like the CIA and FBI?
Te roadblock to answering the problem is this: the essential diference between
whistleblowing and treason relies on a qualitative assessment. Take the extremely polar-
izing case of Edward Snowden, for example. While the Obama administration and many
Americans view Snowdens recent revelations as treasonous criminality, a good portion
of US citizens on the other side view him as a heroic fgure bent on revealing the NSAs
wastefulness and abuse of power. One side sees Snowden as a criminal for breaking the
law; the other side believes his breaking of the law exposes the very illegitimacy of law
itself. Peeling back the histrionic rhetoric used by both sidestraitor versus hero,
and nothing in betweenexposes the most essential problem: how can a coherent and
fair justice system be put in place for whistleblowers who commit crimes in the interest of
justice?
A law does exist for this purpose. Known as the Whistleblowers Protection Act, the
law ofers protection for government employees who report misconduct. Under the law,
whistleblowers are encouraged to report ofenses to the investigative Ofce of Special
Counsel. But with a track record of only three out of 56 cases brought before the commit-
tee resulting in a positive verdict for the plaintifs, the act does not appear to ofer genuine
sanctuary for whistelblowers.
Where can we draw the line between whistleblowers and traitors? Should we judge
each new perpetrator by his intentions or by the efect of his actions? Is it possible to
come up with a governing body that can adjudicate issues of whistleblowing without an
inherent bias?
+++
In a statement given to the news outlet Pro Publica, the Justice Department claimed it
doesnt target whistleblowers who follow the rules, but admitted that it cannot sanction
or condone federal employees who knowingly and willingly disclose classifed informa-
tion to the media or others not entitled to receive such information. In a sly showing of
equivocation, the DOJs statement would seem to imply that the government condones
whistleblowers even as it condemns whistleblowing.
With all that said, the pressing question remains: does the case of Jefrey Sterling and
James Risen amount to whistleblowing? Decide for yourself. In his 2006 book, State of
War, Risen details a botched CIA plan to delay the progress of Irans nuclear program. In
a story more far-fetched and mystifying than the plot of Showtimes hit TV show Home-
land, CIA operatives gave a Russian defector phony nuclear blueprints to pass along to
Iranian ofcials. Te hope was that the Iranians would assume the blueprints for a TBA
480 high-voltage block were legitimate and would waste crucial resources constructing a
bomb that, when detonated, would ofer nothing more than a tantalizing fzzle. Opera-
tion Merlin, as it was called, quickly ran amok, as the Russian chosen to pass along the
blueprints proved unreliable. Hoping to hedge his bets by carrying out orders and not
angering Iran, he tipped of Iranian ofcials in a handwritten letter stating that the plans
were, in fact, fake. Te pay of? With detailed knowledge of what exactly in the blueprints
was phony and what was authentic, its possible that Iranian scientists were able to use
what was genuine in the prints to their advantage. Like giving someone a car without an
engine, the US had still ofered up valuable information on some of the bombs essential
03 NEWS
by Elias Bresnick illustration by Sara Kahn
SEPTEMBER 12 2014
parts. Ultimately, the operation was categorically reckless: an ill-conceived and colossal
failure.
Risen concludes the chapter noting that this espionage disaster, of course, was not
reported. It left the CIA virtually blind in Iran, unable to provide any signifcant intel-
ligence on one of the most critical issues facing the USwhether Tehran was about to go
nuclear.
So, was this fasco something the American people ought to have known about? Was
Sterlings intervention genuine whistleblowing or simply the release of classifed informa-
tion for personal gain? Is the government justifed in going after Sterling, and by exten-
sion Risen, for a story about a bunch of bumbling CIA ofcials?
In a particularly damning piece of criticism, journalist Dana Priest wrote, If the US
government were so concerned about the information revealed in Risens stunning chapter
on a now 14-year-old CIA operation against Iran gone wrong, it would have moved
quickly to resolve this matter eight years ago when it was frst published. Instead, it seems
obvious now that what ofcials really want is to hold a hammer over the head of a deeply
sourced reporter, and others like him who try to hold the government accountable for
what it does, even in secret.
New York Times writer Maureen Dowd added pointedly in a recent op-ed that the
tale made the CIA look silly, which may have been more of a sore point than a threat to
national security.
+++
Many observers view the Risen case as an act of pure retaliation, one that has noth-
ing whatsoever to do with national safety. Risens book challenged the Bush administra-
tion on a number of levels, and some believe the governments reaction might just be
payback. Gregg Leslie, a legal defense director at the Reporters Committee for Freedom
of the Press, stated, Te government likes to keep its house in order and likes to go after
every possible leaker it can fnd. Tey really just dont believe in whistleblowers.
As it stands, Risen is waiting for the subpoena to be either renewed or retracted.
With widespread supporta petition in support of him recently garnered its 100,000th
signatureRisen has become the poster child for First Amendment freedom of the press
to print the truth.
As Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama classifed more and more of the
governments actions over the last 14 years, wrote Dana Priest, it has fallen to reporters
like Risen to keep Americans informed and to question whether a gigantic government in
the shadows is really even a good idea. We will all be worse of if this case proceeds.
Both sides have elements that merit, at the very least, dialogue. On the one hand,
the government has a necessity to keep classifed information a secret if it wants results
from its covert agencies like the CIA and FBI; on the other, the press has an obligation to
reveal government abuse of power. Without a doubt, though, government ofcials should
be more afraid of breaking the rules than should be the journalists who report on them.
Democracy fails without an aggressive and undaunted press.
A few weeks ago, Risen sat on a panel of journalists discussing the future of press
freedom. Gruf and impersonal, the steely look plastered on his face throughout the hour-
long discussion suggested a man unwilling to compromise. For him, the case lacks any
ambiguity. In a recent conversation with Maureen Dowd, Risen refused to mince words:
A lot of people still think this is some kind of game or signal or spin. Tey dont want to
believe that Obama wants to crack down on the press and whistleblowers. But he does.
Hes the greatest enemy to press freedom in a generation.
ELIAS BRESNICK B17 is completely immune from testifying.
NEWS 04
+15
5 METRO THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT
Primary Analysis
by Rick Salam
+15
+16
+7
+24
+46
+13
+3
+6
+20
+38
Governor (D) Statewide
Gina Raimondo 42.2%
Angel Taveras 29.2%
Clay Pell 26.9%
Todd Giroux 1.8%
Within Providence
Gina Raimondo 44.0%
Angel Taveras 39.8%
Clay Pell 17.9%
Todd Giroux 1.3%
Lt. Governor (D)
Daniel McKee 43.5%
Ralph Mollis 35.9%
Frank Ferri 20.6%
Rep. In General
Assembly Distict 7
Daniel McKeirnan 53.3%
Maria Cimini 46.7%
Mayor of City of
Providence
Jorge Elorza 49.3%
Michael Solomon 42.9%
Christopher Young 4.7%
Brett Smiley 3.1%
Council Providence
Ward 10
Luis Aponte 61.0%
Jenny Rosario 39.0%
Council Providence
Ward 9
Carmen Castillo 52.3%
Hector Jose 34.4%
Gerard Catala 13.4%
Council Providence
Ward 11
Mary Kay Harris 44.1%
Darian Sanchez 39.5%
Francisco Franco 16.4%
Council Providence
Ward 14
David Salvatore 82.8%
Anthony Sionni 17.2%
Data from State of Rhode Island Board of Elections
SEPTEMBER 12 2014 EPHEMERA 06
THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT
TEN MORE YEARS
Gang Sentence Enhancement Legislation in Rhode Island
Picture Atwells Avenue. A few minutes shy of5 AM. Te surveillance camera shows a
young man sporting a baseball cap and cutof jeans, a skateboard tucked under one arm,
casually tagging a wall. As he turns to leave, the camera catches this would-be hooligans
mug in perfect detail. If hes caught by the Providence Police Department, and this is the
third time hes been nabbed for grafti, hell be charged with a felony ofense, brought to
court. If, however, the prosecutors link his tag to a Rhode Island street gangMembers
of Pine, maybe, or the Hanover Boyzthis kid suddenly faces 12 years in state prison.
Tis past July, Governor Lincoln Chafee signed into law what is known as Criminal
Street Gang Enhancement legislation, which allows prosecutors to add up to 10 years
to the prison sentence of any person who is convicted of any felony that is knowingly
committed for the beneft, at the direction of, or in association with any criminal street
gang, according to the bill. If you think being in a gang makes you special, said Sena-
tor Paul Jabour in a press release last March, it will when it comes time for sentencing.
Te law is the next move in a series of ongoing crackdowns on gangs and gang-relat-
ed activities by Rhode Islands state authorities. Last October, Providence was one of 16
districts in the nation to receive $150,000 in federal funding from Project Safe Neighbor-
hoods to reduce gang violence. By that December, city, state, and federal authorities com-
pleted Operation Gas, a two-year campaign in which they arrested 36 alleged Providence-
based members of the Salvadoran gang MS-13 and confscated 50 pounds of heroin.
Reliable genealogies of Providence gangs are hard to come by; gangs do not publicize
their own origins, so most of the information available comes from police intelligence
or sketchy and biased Internet guesswork. According to the Providence Journal, though,
street gangs frst started cropping up in the 90s, as the Mafas infuence ebbed. At the
same time, a generation of children whose Cambodian and Laotian parents had settled in
Providence as refugees from Pol Pots reign and the Laotian Civil War were coming of age.
Early gangs, such as the Bad Junior Boys, were made up largely of these second-generation
teens. Stefano Bloch, a criminologist and professor of Urban Studies at Brown University,
explains this phenomenon: One of the reasons immigrants [might] engage in criminal
activity is that they are locked out of the mainstream networks that provide jobs and
opportunities because of racism, ethnocentrism, nationalism, he says. So people engage
in these underground, black market, subversive networks as a means of survival. Soon,
the Bad Junior Boys splintered, and the Providence Street Boys, the Oriental Rascals, and
Laos Pride joined the scene. National gangs were laying roots too; the Chicago-based gang
the Latin Kings moved in to Providence about two decades ago.
Tese days, the Providence Police Department estimates that there are 36 gangs and
1,800 gang members or associates of gangs in Providence. Of these gangs, about 10 to
12 are currently active, including Young Bloods, Lockwood, C-Block, M.O.P., Hanover
Boyz, Laos Pride, Trinitarios, Young Gunnas, and Trow Back For Days. Te situation
is volatile; as of July, Providence had seen 10 homicides in 2014, three of which police
consider gang-related.
+++
Its unclear how often Gang Sentence Enhancements will be used in court. Amy Aempe,
a Public Information Ofcer in Attorney General Peter Kilmartins ofce, stated that the
legislation is intended only for individuals whose loyalty to a criminal street gang and
whose disregard for public safety has resulted in death or serious injury. Aempe believes
that established precedent will keep the law from being misused. Tis language has been
widely and consistently utilized, she told the Independent. According to the Attorney
Generals ofce, laws are only dangerous if theyre the frst of their kindif there is too
much space to manipulate phrasings and twist intention. If things have worked out else-
where, in other states, why should Rhode Island be any diferent?
But Teny Gross, the director of Rhode Islands Institute for the Study and Practice of
Nonviolence (ISPN), points to Rhode Islands system of family court waivers as a damn-
ing precedent. When the law to waive young people from the juvenile system into the
adult system was enacted, it was intended initially for crimes like homicide. And now you
get waived into adult courts for maybe shooting at a house or something. Gross says he
has an acquaintance who has already been charged under the new law, though the man
has not been involved with gangs for eight years. Its a slippery slope once the foodgates
are open.
And Aempes insistence that gang sentence enhancements will be applied only to
violent felonies is not explicitly stated in the language of the law. If its about violent
felonies, it should simply be specifed, says Bloch. Te reason they dont say it is because
they still want to put the fear of this legislation into the minds of those committing
felonies that are non-violent. Tey know what theyre doing. Civil rights groups have
also argued that even if the legislation is rarely invoked in court, it could be used to coerce
defendants into pleading guilty to lesser charges. Bloch points to himself: I was actually
charged with felony vandalism in the 90s. And I pleaded down to a misdemeanor. If I
thought I was facing 10 years, thatchanges the whole outlook of a court case. If I had
been facing 10 years, I wouldve pled to anything.
Te criticisms dont end with courtroom coercion. In June, Gross and the ISPN,
along with the American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island, and 20 other organi-
zations, sent a letter to Governor Chafee, urging him to veto the bill. We believe the
bill will be unfairly used to target the minority community in particular for increased
imprisonment, the letter reads. Te legal defnition of a criminal street gang in Rhode
Island is far too broad, the groups argue, and makes no diferentiation between a gang
that engages in occasional random acts of vandalism and one that has been involved in
murders and other serious felonies. Gross and his allies also believe that the law might
even encourage higher-up gang members to push vulnerable youth into committing felo-
nies on their behalf. Fred Ordonez, the director of Direct Action for Rights and Equality
(DARE), says that under the states legal defnition, prosecutors could call Brown Univer-
sity fraternities gangs; they are groups of three or more people, they have identifable
names and common identifable symbols, and they engage in illicit and illegal activities.
But no way in hell will the police come raiding those frat houses, says Ordonez.
+++
Te Rhode Island legislature is not breaking new ground with this legislation; the whole
country is on high alert. Te list of states with similar laws is extensiveat least 24 be-
sides Rhode Islandand there is also a federal statute with comparable aims, albeit with
a more stringent defnition of street gangs (according to federal law, a gang must have
more than fve members instead of just three, be involved in interstate or international
commerce, and commit drug-related or violent felonies). Tough the costs of such legisla-
tion may prove steep, the supporters of these anti-gang laws say they are willing to pay the
price. Aempe rebuts Grosss claim of inordinate costs to taxpayers bluntly: and whats the
cost of a human life? Grosss images of vulnerable, at-risk youth dont ring true to her
eithershe points to Luis Fatboy Gonzalez, a member of the Harriet Street gang, who
was controversially acquitted in June from charges of shooting of an 12-year-old girl at a
graduation party last year. Tese are not innocent people, she says. We have an obliga-
tion to prosecute people who commit crimes.
But dissenters with a more radical bent aim to dismantle this notion entirely, arguing
that more severe prosecution is not the way to deter crime. Most people are not thinking
rationally about consequences when they commit crimes, argues Bloch. And if they are
thinking rationally, he adds, then they are most likely committing a crime in the name of
their own survival, in which case legislation will do nothing stop them. Ordonez makes
the same point. Te whole idea of legislation as a deterrent is upside down, he says. Its
a farce. Policing and criminalization happen after the fact of crime, and will do nothing to
stop crime.
All youre going to accomplish with draconian legislation and criminalization,
Bloch says, is taking more members of urban communities and placing them into prison
communities.
Tis population shift is expensivefor every year an individual is imprisoned,
Gross points out, it costs the state around $50,000 on average. Every additional year in
sentence given for a gang member, Gross told the American Civil Liberties Union of
Rhode Island, could pay for fve returning inmates employment engagements for a full
year after they pay their debt to society and the ranks of the rest of us taxpayers. Califor-
nias implementation of its street gang sentence enhancement act (STEP) supports Gross
estimations. Over the past two decades, the City of Los Angeles has spent over one billion
dollars on costs associated with increased sentences for gang members. Rhode Island is
currently about 12 billion dollars in debt. Everything is under cuts at the moment, says
Gross. Tis just added potentially millions of dollars worth of taxes.
+++
Ten years will stretch out in front of many accused felons in the months and years to
come. 10 years can distort the world, skew reality, slide things out of focus. Its a long
time to lock someone up for the circles they move in and the company they keep. In a
press release in July, Attorney General Kilmartin put it simply: Gang violence will not be
tolerated.
For others, its not so simple. My ofce is on Lockwood, by Hayward, says Or-
donez of DAREs South Providence location. I look out the window, and I see a sea of
people with nothing. Gang memberwe dont label people like that. Tats a police
term. Tese are kids, and they grow up in these neighborhoods, and they say OK, those
guys shot our friend, and theyre mad, and they go do something. To Ordonez and Gross
and Bloch, its clear that were letting too much fall on the shoulders of these kids.
Not everyone is on the same page, though. At a peaceful rally following the Chad
Brown drive-by shooting this summer, Dewayne Hackney, of the organization Urban
Men Against Murder (UMAM) framed the situation diferently: We really cant com-
plain about city ofcials, national ofcials, the mayor, he said. Were really not carrying
our weight. Its on us. Ordonez agrees that neighborhoods should take some respon-
sibility for violence that occurs there, but argues violence will not be abetted without
government resources. Mediationyou can mediate one confict, but then a thousand
other beefs are going to rise upI think [Gross and the ISPNs] nonviolence training is a
07 METRO
by Mika Kligler
illustration by Ming Zhen
SEPTEMBER 12 2014
good idea, but inefective. Te root causes run deep and require systematic changes. On
the phone, his voice even and controlled, Ordonez sounds discouraged but undeterred by
the recent legislation. For him, theres only one way to move forward: were going to get
louder and louder with our demands.
MIKA KLIGLER B17 would plead to anything.
METRO 08
THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT
CLOSED DOORS,
SEALED MOUTHS
by J.G.
illustration by Andres Chang
Te building that stands at 385 South Main Street is a three-story brick structure: nonde-
script, its windows papered over from the inside. A weathered sign hangs over its awning:
OFFICE SPACE FOR LEASE / UP TO 10,800 SQ. FT. AVAILABLE.
Located fve minutes away from Brown University by foot, the building is situated
on an upscale avenue in Fox Point, littered with law ofces and beauty salons, small shops
and restaurants. Te street is nice, albeit a bit blandthe type of place upper-middle-class
families might go shopping on a Sunday morning.
But beyond the paved sidewalks lined with new European cars and cofee shops lies
an Asian slave campan entryway into shaded hallways and coded language, surveillance
cameras and boarded-up windows. On the second foor of 385 South Main resides a busi-
ness that Providence police thought they had eradicated eight years ago. But the worlds
oldest industry is backand business is better than ever.
Te seemingly abandoned building has been occupied since 2006, with what the
Providence White Pages lists as a massage parlor called Downtown Spa, but its clientele
doesnt appear to be going for spinal adjustments. In fact, the only role of the massages
here is as foreplay for the male clients that frequent it.
Downtown Spa calls itself as an Asian massage parlor (or AMP), which is a front
commonly shared by brothels across Providence and the rest of the country. Its entry on
Backpagea classifed advertising website notorious for its listings for sexofers skilled
young Asian staf, gorgeous Asian staf, and sweet soothing Asians alongside images
of young East Asian women posing suggestively in various stages of undress. Tere are
dozens of other listings on Backpages Providence sector just like this one.
But apart from these ads and the spas business listing in the Providence White Pages,
the only real clue that Downtown Spa exists is the neon OPEN sign that fashes on the
second foor every night until 2 AM.
Owners of nearby businesses either deny knowledge of Downtown Spa or are
unaware of its existence. Te owner of Tir Na Nog Spa, just one building away, could list
every other spa or massage parlor on South Main Street. Te receptionist at Tax Credit
Finance, which shares a building with the spa, vehemently denied knowledge of the busi-
ness on the second foor. (She had been working there for over two years.) Tanya Sar, the
owner of Radiance Laser Skincare located in the basement of the building even responded
with hostility. I dont know. I dont want to know, she said, upon being asked if she
knew anything about the business on the second foor. I have my own business and they
have theirs.
So, given this fog of secrecy, how do Downtown Spa and other brothels in Provi-
dence stay in business? With a cultural cone of silence, clients, or johns, have turned to
the darker recesses of the internet to share tips, contributing to forums dedicated to the
search for Asian prostitution services across major cities in the United States. Trough
websites like RubMaps, USASexGuide, and countless others, these johns compare experi-
encesprices, services ofered, favorite girls, ages, attractiveness. Breast sizes. Tightness.
Te forums read like Yelp reviews. Te forum for massage parlor reports in Providence on
USASexGuide.com alone has over 10,000 posts, dating back to early February 2006, not
including the thousands that have been deleted by site administrators for violating forum
guidelineswhich prevent site-goers from posting anyones true identity or personal
phone number or posts that are too sexually explicit. Some posts, of course, slip through
the cracks.
Tese euphemistically-named massage parlors are often fronts for human trafck-
ing, housing girls brought to the United States from Korea, China, or Tailand. Tere are
dozens scattered across Providence, hundreds in New England, and thousands mapped
across the entire United States in a twisted web of sex trafcking. Some have survived lo-
cal police raids or federal investigations. Often both. Many are connected to international
organized crime rings, as discovered by the U.S. Department of Justice in a 2006 federal
investigation. Tese are manifestations of the oldest form of slavery, sexual slavery, operat-
ing on intricate circuits nearly impossible to break, with horrors that extend far beyond a
boarded-up second foor in Fox Point.
+++
Rhode Islands story
For over a decade, Rhode Island has been quietly infamous for its booming sex in-
dustry. An article published in the Providence Journal in April 2002 calls Providence the
most densely concentrated red-light district in New England that attracts thousands of
out-of-town spenders.
One reviewer, calling himself Ri Designer, posted in May 2006, I went to DT
[Downtown Spa] to remember the days I spent with my Brothers in Arms, on leave in
various countries. Lao Ma reported in February 2009 that he stopped in an AMP for
sex during a layover at T.F. Green Airport, coming all the way from China. Dozens more
have posted that Providence brothels are superior to their local AMPs, the ones they typi-
cally frequent.
Aldrich317 wrote in March 2014 that I have come to truly appreciate how lucky
those of us are in reasonable commuting distance to Providence. Tere is nothing like the
sensuousness of the [experience] the AMPs provide. He added, Te girls also tend to be
more intimate, dress more provocatively and give their best efort for the full hour, and
less expensively.
Rapid growth in the massage parlor brothel industry from the 1990s to today seems
to have been caused partly by this recognition, but mostly by the decriminalization of
indoor prostitution in 1980. Lawmakers adopted a law targeting those who sold sex in
public but ignored paid sex in privateand so Rhode Islands outdoor sex industry at
that point, which was concentrated in a handful of prominent strip clubs and some street
prostitution, dissipated, while the indoor sex industry quietly fourished. But the decrimi-
nalization of prostitution didnt mean that it was legalized, either: legalized prostitution
would have necessitated regulation, whereas decriminalization only peeled back laws
meant to regulate or suppress it. In other words, it wasnt technically legal, but nothing
could be done about it.
In 1998, after almost 20 years of neglectful law enforcement, local media called
attention to the existence of Asian spa-brothels after a police raid on Club Osaka, where
undercover ofcers were soliciting sex acts. Te Providence Journal discovered that the
prostitutes had been lured from Southeast Asia and paid only the tips given by their
patrons. Detectives arrested the club owner and six alleged prostitutes, seizing almost
$15,000 in cash and plastic bags stufed full of pink condoms.
Sgt. Nicholas Cardarelli, commander of the Special Services Division at the time,
used dire and evocative language to describe the scene, saying that it was like slavery.
Te women, who worked 16- to 18-hour days, had been told that their work paid for the
cost of bringing them to the United States, in some cases as high as $10,000. Essentially,
they were forced into prostitution to pay of travel expenses.
One womans arms featured cigarette burns.
And yet the discovery of Club Osaka brought about no legislative change. Te law
remained stagnant, allowing the Asian massage parlor/brothel industry to expand rapidly.
In 1998, local media indicated only two or three AMPs in Providence. By 2009, however,
there were at least 32 that advertised publicly, a number that seems more or less consis-
tent with that of todaydespite the fact that prostitution, both indoor and outdoor, was
fnally recriminalized in 2009.
Although the spa-brothels leave an easily traceable paper and digital trail, law en-
forcement has found that regulating the industry or eradicating it permanently is nearly
impossible. Almost every time one parlor gets shut down, it reopens a few months later
under a diferent name, at a diferent location, with a diferent phone number.
Even Downtown Spa has undergone changes to make it harder to retrace. According
to a press release from the U.S. Department of Justice published on August 16, 2006, the
spa-brothel had been involved in an Asian sex trafcking ring spanning across the North-
east, from Rhode Island to Washington, D.C. Its manager, Kyong Polachek, was arrested,
along with 30 other pimps, middlemen, and madamsfemale managers of brothels. Tey
discovered that not only were the conditions Cardarelli found in Club Osaka nearly uni-
versal among the fake spas, the women were often traded back and forth among brothels
within the ring. Supposedly, over 70 enslaved sex workers were freed in that investigation.
But mere months later Downtown Spa reopened, moving from 1 Custom House St. to its
location now385 South Main Street, second foor.
Polachek was released from federal prison in 2007, barely a year after she was ar-
rested. Today, at 62, she resides in Ohio, but could not be reached for an interview.
Why are these brothels so difcult to bust, even now, after prostitution has been
criminalized? Attorney Melanie Shapiro, whose research was critical in re-criminalizing
prostitution in 2009, doesnt have an answer. Shapiro claims that before the loophole was
closed, police werent able to do the arrests in the raids, [only] see what was going on in
the places. And often the madams, who legally constitute trafckers, would be present
with the prostitutes, so the girls would be too intimidated to speak. She added, Its
necessary to get them away from the brothel, to get them away from the people there so
they can feel safe in explaining what happened to them. Otherwise, police would have no
legal right to arrest anyone.
Law enforcement ofcials could not be reached for comment.
+++
Inside the mind of a john
At the heart of the brothels popularity and persistent ability to regenerate is the
racial dimension of the business, the sexual commodifcation of East Asian women. Yel-
low fever, as it is commonly known, refers to the fetishization of Asian women by those
of non-Asian descent, particularly white men. Its existence relies heavily on the European
colonizers of the 19th- and 20th-centuries, who attempted to erase the existing culture
of East Asia and inscribe upon the indigenous people a forceful new authority, relishing
their power when they found success. When American soldiers occupied combat zones
throughout the Pacifc Rim for much of the 20th century, dozens of comfort stations
sprung up around each military camp, with women brought from their homes to work
as prostitutes, often against their will. Soldiers often joked about conquering the women
alongside the land. Tus emerged the stereotype of Asian women as shy, submissive,
docilea type of china-doll, lotus-blossom beauty whose roots trace back to the soil of
white colonialism.
A brief perusal of any online review forums shows that many of the men who fre-
quent the Asian massage parlor-brothels harbor such a racial fxation. Not even counting
all the posts that feature some kind of fetish for Asian womenand there are a lottheir
usernames provide clear displays of it. On USASexGuide, dozens of men signed up under
usernames derived from yellow fever: YellowFever, YellowFever #69, Yellaman,
Yellafever, Yellerfever. Te list goes on.
One of the most active users on the Massage Parlor Reports forum for Providence,
Yellowfever023, said in a private message that he prefers Asian prostitutes because even
if they are 35-plus they look much younger. He added that their teasing drives me
crazythey look so innocent but they are wild. He also noted, they are usually easier to
fnd, especially in Providence.
Another user, SteveBerg, posted in January 2014 about brothels with older Asian
women, expressing anger that they fail to meet his expectations. It seems that everytime
I check these places out I either cant get a lineup or Im forced into having a session with
an older and often broken English speaking batshit crazy chick, he said. Not that I
mind broken English, but its cuter coming from a dollfaced petite girl.
To buy these women as prostitutes is one way of dehumanizing them, but to distill
09 FEATURES
The racial politics of Rhode
Islands sex trade
SEPTEMBER 12 2014
them down to a racial stereotypean inanimate objectis to completely erase their
humanity.
So how did the fetish for Asian women evolve into what it is now? Vickie Chang
speculates in a 2006 article for OC Weekly that the means of entry into the United States
for many Asian women has perpetuated the problem.
Its arguable that Asiaphilia, ironically, stems from legal attempts to exclude Asian
Americans from the United States, Chang wrote. Te criteria by which many Asian
women were permitted to enter the US were not exactly morally sound: prostitutes,
picture brides, war brides, mail-order brides. In short, sexual commodifcation was a
prerequisite for many Asian women to enter the United States. It was, historically, the
price they had to pay.
Te same August 16, 2006 press release that indicted Downtown Spa in its earlier
form states that the trafcking process typically begins when recruiters identify women
in Korea who want to come to the United States, often to make money to support their
families. Te recruiters then arrange their transportation to North America, sometimes
securing illegal immigration documents in the process. By the time the women arrive,
they have typically incurred large fnancial debts to recruiters in Korea and other members
of the organized network, and they are forced into prostitution to pay of these debts.
A few of the johns online appear to have caught onto the womens backgrounds. One
post in July 2006, by A Regular Guy, reported of a girl at a spa-brothel in Providence:
She did mention she works everyday and has no time ofsounds like shes working
[of] a debt or simply, not free to set her own schedule.
Shapiro once spoke to a prostitute at One Spa on Atwells Avenue in Providence
a brothel still in operationwhom she described as a confused-looking woman in her
mid-twenties. She was wearing hardly any clothing, and she was very, very skinny, she
said. I asked her a few questions and she just kept saying my boss, my boss, where is my
boss?
Tats what these brothels are ultimately about: dominance. Te power play is promi-
nent in the dynamic between both prostitute and pimp and prostitute and customer, not
only in terms of sexual domination but also in terms of administering control over the
business. Many of these girls will take kindness for weakness if we dont remind them
whos in charge and holding the cash, wrote Bigben99 online. Boycotts and violence
have even been threatened: Can you imagine the message we can send out to AMPs if
we all got together and avoided their service completely or only supported specifc ones?
said SpermSac in response to Bigben99. Or have mongers [customers] patrolling
locations with bad providers. Breaking legs will send a defnite message.
Some have written reports that display an obvious unwillingness on the prostitutes
end during sexual intercourse, regardless of whether or not these women have freely cho-
sen to work at the spas. Someone calling himself Raven1950 wrote in a review of One
Spa, a spa-brothel of Atwells Avenue in Providence: She got upset and dismounted. I
got pissed because she asked for all the money upfront and I was getting my bang for my
bucks, so I force[d] her to lay down, hike her legs over my shoulder, and fnished. An-
other user, Little Tony II, posted about a girl in Downtown Spa, Several times I tried
to reposition her, but she kept backing away. No touch, no, is all I heard. As I started to
get up to leave, she fnally grabbed little Tony and sat on him for a quick ride. Te only
good thing was she was verrrry tight.
Some johns, too, take pleasure in their sexual dominance over the prostitutes,
expressing a sadistic thirst in their display of power and control. In one instance, Little
Tony II tried to convince another prostitute at Downtown Spa to let him use an object
he brought. She could barely speak English, making a gesture that she did not want the
object used on her, but he forced it on her anyway during intercourse: After a while I was
ready, and she was making broken English remarks about too bigI fipped her on her
back and went at it. NO SHIT!!! She was really small, and I think it actually hurt her. She
was tight as hell.
Downtown Spa in particular is known among the forum-goers for having younger
women. Many of the girls there are described as very tight and uncomfortable with
touchone man said that his provider [sounded] like I was ripping her apart.
So, is prostitution rape? Melissa Farley, a clinical psychologist whose research focuses
on prostitution and trafcking, says that women in prostitution generally describe it as
paid rape. Perhaps this is an unfair accusationperhaps, in the Asian-run brothels
guilty of sex trafcking, the women taken from their home countries, working in such
conditions, forced to sell their bodies, forced into plastic surgery, threatened with violence
or murdercould be doing this willingly. Or perhaps not.
Donna M. Hughes, a professor of womens studies at URI, wrote a report titled
Race and Prostitution in the United States that included a survivors testimony from
a Korean-American woman referred to as Dal. Trafcked in Las Vegas, she described
her years in the sex industry as harrowing: Te women and I were in constant fear that
our lives would soon endI remember seeing hundreds of dollars being exchanged from
one hand to another. Money seduced the people that kept us in silence and our existence
empty. Most of the women were actually young girls ranging in age from 12 to 16, she
said, and many were foreign, trafcked from other countries.
Even though I couldnt speak the same language [as] these women, we defnitely had
one thing in common: fear and hope. I remember holding each one of them in my arms,
she said. I let them cry all over me and Id feel the same pain.
+++
What can be done today?
In Shapiros time investigating and staking out the brothels, she would often go
inside and pretend to be an unassuming customer, asking to book an appointment for a
massage. Other times she would pose as someone looking into real-estate. But every time,
without fail, whoever was at the front deskusually the owner or madamwould tell
her that she needed to leave immediately. Sometimes she was physically removed.
One of the madams chased me down the street once, she said.
Te chokehold on the prostitutes at the hands of their pimps, their brothels-owners,
their madamsthis is the top reason why the women refuse to go to the police, she said.
And, in most cases, its simply impossible. According to Shapiro, the women are kept on
such a tight leash that they are unable to leave the brothel freely or independently.
Today, one of the top arguments in favor of legalizing prostitution is that it would
beneft the prostitutes. Opponents of the 2009 law argue that legalizing prostitution
would be the only way to regulate it, to protect women currently ignored in the face of
the law. Shapiro, however, disagrees.
Legalizing something legitimizes it, she said. I dont support legalizing the exploi-
tation of a person. I dont support legalizing because I dont support the rape of women.
She acknowledged there are perhaps people who willingly become prostitutes and fnd it
liberating, but the vast majority of people have a pimp or have a drug addiction or were
abused as a child.
Te average age of entry into prostitution is 13. In a 2002 study based in Chicago by
the Center for Impact Research, researchers found that one-third of women had entered
prostitution by the age of 15, and of these women, 72 percent ran away from home, one-
fourth had completed a high school education, and as a whole, they were more likely to
have used drugs or alcohol growing up. Tis is not something we want to make legiti-
mate and legal, Shapiro said.
Legalization proponents, however, contend that enforcing rules and regulations
would be able to prevent such statistics. As Erin Fuch writes for Business Insider, We
legalize and regulate a ton of commerce thats morally controversiallike gambling, alco-
hol, lap-dancing, and pornography. Were not helping [anyone] by making consenting sex
work a crime. Furthermore, proponents ask, how would arresting the prostitutes beneft
them? And perhaps they have a pointafter all, it does strike a sour note when the rare
police raid does happen, only to put one pimp and 12 prostitutes behind bars. (Tis is
not a hypothetical situation: in 1974, before indoor prostitution was decriminalized, 87
percent of prostitution-related arrests in Providence were on women. In a 2003 study
conducted in Boston, 11 women in prostitution were arrested per male customer.)
But Shapiro maintains that while arresting the women sounds bad in theory, its the
most realistic way to help them.
A night or two in jail, where [law enforcement] can fgure out who they are and
whats going on, compared to a night in a brothel where theyre raped 10, 15 times a
nightpeople just dont like the idea of arresting someone, she said. But its necessary
to hold people for a period of time to understand their situation.
Additionally, having spoken to numerous government ofcials and law enforcement
ofcers, Shapiro believes that the police are essential in helping the women escape their
situations. After arrest, if the women dont have a place to go, or immigration docu-
ments, or anybody here who can help them, police should be directing them to services
that are available in this region, she said. If theyre not from this country, there are visas
that they can apply for so that they can stay if they want to.
While this process sounds rosy in theory, its translation to real life rarely goes so
smoothlythe women might be deported instead, police might not have the necessary
resources to conduct investigations, or perhaps law enforcement simply isnt fulflling its
responsibility to combat human trafcking.
Until something shifts, though, the circumstances look as dismal as ever. Five years
have passed since 2009, and very little has changed. Hundreds of victims of sex trafcking
across Rhode Island are still getting raped by johns every day. Ads still run in the Adult
section of the Providence Phoenix, proclaiming, Te A S I A N GIRL of your DREAMS
is here! Dont make her wait! And who knowsthat advertised girl might be huddled in
the corner of a room on Atwells Avenue or Fountain Street or South Main Street, waiting
to see her 20th client of the day, wondering what her little brother looks like now, if shell
ever see her family again.
After all, Downtown Spa is still tucked behind an artisan bakery, disguised by the
blandly bourgeois exterior of College Hillhidden under the radar of the apartment
complex across the street and the university just blocks away.
J.G. B17 would prefer not to explain her browser history.
Tis is the frst installment of a series titled Seeing Color, which features articles with racial
issues at their forefront.
FEATURES 10
11 SPORTS THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT
increased autonomy, allowing them to create diferent rules
than those that govern the 285 other Division I schools. Tis
autonomy includes recruiting standards, the size of coach-
ing stafs, and permissible practice hours, to name a few, but
the impetus for this realignment is rooted in money. Te
aforementioned 65 colleges generate massive profts from
football and basketball; UT Austin, for example, makes over
$60 million a year on its football team alone. Tey want to be
able to give their student-athletes stipends above the cost of
a full scholarship. Te latter colleges, which have less lucra-
tive television contracts, cant aford to do so. A day later, on
August 9, a federal judge ruled that universities with Football
Bowl Subdivision football or Division I basketball programs
will have to pay their athletes a limited share of the revenues
generated from the use of their names, images, and likeness-
es. In practice, this means colleges must put at least $5,000
per athlete per year into a trust fund accessible upon gradua-
tion. Given that only 23 athletic departments are proftable,
its unclear where the money is going to come from, especially
for those colleges in conferences without major network
contracts.
From these fnancial disparities, writer Alexander Wolf
prophesies a disintegration of the college sports machine.
Set in 2039, Wolfs recently published thousand-word Sport
Illustrated essay entitled Members Only describes a forth-
coming reality that, when we look back, will have started with
that fateful August day. Dont things that come to pass have
a way of seeming inevitable in retrospect? he asks rhetorically
about our future-past. And what has come to pass in Wolfs
world-in-thought a quarter century from now? Governed by
separate rules and funded by higher television contracts, the
65 schools are able to lure high profle recruits with more and
more money, and competitiveness between the athletic haves
(Duke, Michigan, Alabama) and have-nots (Butler, Creigh-
ton, Brown) disappears. Without the possibility of upsets or
Cinderella stories, March Madness and its correlate bracket
are stripped of their fun, nobody watches or joins the ofce
pool, and the tournament ceases to exist in its current form.
Gone are the unending days of competitive intrigue at Bufalo
Wild Wings. Te NCAA goes bankrupt after losing its $10.4
billion TV contract with CBS, which accounts for roughly 90
percent of its revenue, and the rest is historyor, rather, the
future. It all happened the way Hemingway described going
brokegradually, then suddenly, he reminisces. His piece
reads like a kind of college athletics eschatology.
Wolf is bracing himself for universities that merely
educate, and he isnt the only one. Big Ten Commissioner Jim
Delaney foretells the end of college football if players are paid.
Jonah Rosenbaum, an LA-based writer and avid Michigan
sports fan, told the Indy, Nobody wants to see their colleges
players paid. Teres commercial value in fans thinking these
college stars are just like the rest of us in every way other than
theyre amazing athletes and were not. Paying players will ruin
the faade, and thats what were buyinga beautiful, empty
faade. Te moment it comes crashing down, so does the
whole industry. If the NCAA cant survive fairly compensat-
ing athletes, cant survive building a system on truthful lan-
guage, cant survive remedying its post-racial racism, perhaps
its time to let it collapse. Or, even better, blow it up.
ZEVE SANDERSON B'15 will take cash or money order.
PIGSKIN PIGS
by Zeve Sanderson
Te NCAA, a non-proft institution with 501(c)(3) tax
exempt status, is governed by a Board of Directorseighteen
college administrators and NCAA ofcials, seventeen of them
whitewho vote on rules that determine everything from
recruiting guidelines to eligibility standards. Tough not able
to dole out profts to shareholders, the organization generates
roughly a billion dollars in yearly revenue and pays its top
ofcials over a million dollars a year, mostly of of the work of
black football and basketball players. Ninety percent of the
NCAA revenue is produced by one percent of the athletes,
said Sonny Vaccaro, a marketer who ran successful sponsor-
ship campaigns at Nike, Adidas, and Reebok. Go to the skill
positions, the ones who bring people into the stadium, the
ones whose jerseys sell out and whose faces are on billboards:
ninety percent African Americans. Dale Brown, a retired
Louisiana State basketball coach, has also come to see the
racial dynamics of the college sports industry: Look at the
money we make of predominantly poor black kids. Were
the whoremasters, he said in 2011. But as mostly white
university administrators, NCAA ofcials and college coaches
make millions of dollars, the Board prohibits its athletes from
receiving any compensation above their scholarships. Schools
cant pay them to play; agents cant sign them to contracts;
shoe companies cant ofer them endorsements. Te Board
even regulates moneymaking endeavors that are seemingly
tangential or even unrelated to athletic participation. Athletes
cant model; they cant endorse products; they cant become
brand ambassadors; they cant use their names or pictures to
advertise businesses they start; they cant receive free meals
from local eateries. No money can be made using their name,
image, or likeness in fear that their status as a student-athlete
will have contributed to their proftability, rendering them
professionals. Its efectively ownership.
And the free education, their current payment for ath-
letic services, ofers little beneft. Trust into an environment
that values athletic victory over academic achievement, many
athletes, especially black athletes, dont earn a diploma. A
study by the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics
describes a near-professional culture in which athletes are of-
ten admitted to institutions where they do not have a reason-
able chance to graduate As soon as they arrive on campus,
they are immersed in the demands of their sports. Te gradu-
Race, Money, and the NCAA
ation rate is roughly 70 percent for Division I football and
basketball players, and the number is often 50 percent lower
for black athletes. In 2013, Florida State graduated 90 percent
of its white football players, compared to only 38 percent of
its black players.
Te whole system seems more suited to a 1950s white
suburb than a 2014 diverse national audience. And yet, its
breed of racism also seems wholly moderna system built
around purportedly race-neutral rules negatively afects one
group more than another. Its what we see in the prison
industrial complex: a body of law that makes no mention of
race incarcerates fve times more black men than white men.
Phillip Gof, a social psychologist at UCLA writes, Most of
the way race functions is without the need for racial animus.
Its not that the NCAA ofces are flled with children of the
Jim Crow South; its that the NCAA has put in place a system
that benefts their administrators (disproportionately white)
while hurting their athletes (disproportionately black) who
produce value. But for most viewers, this racism without
racists is invisible, shrouded in ambiguities and impenetrable
euphemisms.
Te NCAAs stated mission is to initiate, stimulate and
improve intercollegiate athletics programs for student-athletes
and to promote and develop educational leadership, physi-
cal ftness, athletic excellence and athletic participation as a
recreational pursuit. Within this mission statement, though,
is a vocabulary constructed to legitimize the system in which a
predominately white NCAA has total control over a predomi-
nately black group of student-athletes. Words like initiate
give the organization carte blanche authority to create rules
about what athletes can and cannot do while words like
improve endow the ability to punish any transgressors who
it fnds to be guilty. Student-athlete is a highly political term
crafted in the 1950s to defend the NCAA against workers
compensation claims for injured football players. Athletics
participation as a recreational pursuit elevates the amateur
student-athlete who participates for the love of the game over
the professional who plays for compensation; rules, then, are
created to ensure that athletes remain unpaid. Tis politi-
cal doublespeak rings Orwellian: Defenceless villages are
bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the
countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fre
with incendiary bullets: this is called pacifcation.
+++
On August 8, the NCAA Board of Directors voted to give
the 65 universities in the fve major athletic conferences (the
ACC, Big 12, Big Ten, SEC and Pac-12, plus Notre Dame)
getting invited to fairs. But it also became sort of what you
were talking aboutit was a group show of all the art that we
were interested in that ft our mission statement, and it was
a combination of people we had met in the time we'd been
in Rhode Island, people we knew before from when we were
doing this in New York, people we knew internationally that
we had come to know through the gallery. It was this great
mix: painting, photography, illustration, with this big melting
pot of diferent media in contemporary art. But there were
also these ideas of showing the local versus the international,
so that sticks out to me.
Vanphouthon Souvannasane: It was great to follow through
on a commitment. When we met a lot of local artists, we
talked about strategy and what we hoped to achieve. Some-
times we got this look, like, You guys are just out-of-state
bullshitters. You say you'll take care of your artists, you say
you'll take us to fairs, but how much of that is true?" And for
us, it was a challenge. Yes, these are things we'll hope to do,
and this is what we'll do on a strategic level to get there, and
so far everything's been falling into place and we've followed
through on a lot of our commitments.
Te Indy: Im curious about the name of the galleryit
clearly has a lot of political connotations. What made you
choose it?
VS: It's had its controversial moments. I grew up on the East
Coast, and I didn't really understand this whole concept of
the yellow peril until I read A Separate Peace in high school.
I thought, "Yellow peril, what a weird slur to call someone."
It wasn't until I was in college that I learned more about the
history of Asians in America... For someone who grew up
around mostly non-whites, I didn't really have an understand-
ing of my place in history, so it was pivotal for me in terms of
understanding who I am, where I came from, and how people
see Asians in America. So I took it in an empowering way. A
lot of young people who come to the gallery ask, "What does
Yellow Peril mean, what's so threatening about the color yel-
low?" A gallery with a name like "Yellow Peril," it's provoca-
tive but at the same time you're able to have conversation
with people about context, and a lot of what we do here at the
gallery involves context
I think "Yellow Peril" for me is fnding confdence in your
heritage and who you are. For artists, it's important, and also
for political reasonsI think it's important to remind people
that not everything is as bright or as cheery as it seems. Tat
doesn't mean it's a bad thing, it just means that you have to
be cognizant of history.
RS: One of the lines in our mission statement is about
showcasing art that creates a conversation that will last after
the viewer leaves, so that's the reason we show a lot of topical
stuf and some political stuf. But I think its also important
that the name of your gallery has that same point of view.
So, the name is provocative, and a conversation starter, and
indicative of a lot of the work we show.
Te Indy: Your mission statement names inclusion, diversity,
and participation and giving back to the community as
some of your central goals, which is pretty unique for an art
gallery.
VS: I think it's unique for a commercial gallery. We are a
commercial galleryour business is the business of selling
artbut at the same time, it doesn't mean we're heartless.
Having been involved in nonproft organizations in other
ways, you want to give back to where you live. Tat's how you
have a more fulflling life. You can't just take the money and
run, you have to really celebrate where you are. Te only way
to reach diferent audiences is to be inclusive; snobbiness or
elitism is not what were about. We like to engage with people
who come in; we like to walk them through the works.
RS: Galleries are interesting because, on one hand, it's a
business model that's kind of like a hardware store; I have
something to sell, you have something you need, you come in
and I sell it to you. But it actually operates more like a cofee
shop or a bar, in that it becomes a social setting. It's quite a
hub for the artists and the community; they meet each other
at the opening and form new friendships. So there's a com-
munity center aspect to it, because it becomes social as well as
commercial. It's like a hardware-store-slash-cofee-shop.
Te Indy: How is your work informed by your location in
Olneyville?
VS: We are probably the only gallery in the entire state that
showcases work from contemporary Latin American artists.
We have a strong base of contemporary Latin American art-
ists, like Raquel Paiewonsky from the Dominican Republic,
Quintn Rivera Toro from Puerto Rico. We also have Diego
Rodriguez-Warner from Colorado, Rodrigo Nava, whos
Mexican, Anabel Vsquez-Rodrguez. We try to work with
artists who we think would connect with the community. A
lot of these artists work is political; it deals with issues like
race and gender. So when we've had shows with these artists,
we've hoped to bring in a diferent demographic other than
the normal art crowd. We've been on Spanish-language radio,
doing interviews. We've been in the Spanish press and I can't
speak Spanish, so that's kind of embarrassing. But at the same
time, a lot of the issues that these artists encounter resonate
with the community. And, as a minority, I understand what
they're going through. So we work a lot to promote their
point of view.
RS: It's a very interesting neighborhood with the river and
the mills, and it's really great to get to know it on that level.
I grew up in Elmhurst but since I've been living here, I've
found out how much my family had ties to the neighborhood.
But by the time I came around, they had moved out. A couple
blocks away, my uncle had opened up his frst business; my
dad's frst job in Rhode Island was in Olneyville Square.
Tere's all this genealogical, archeological sort of stuf. In a
way, I'm not only getting to know the neighborhood better,
but also my relationship with the neighborhood that I didn't
realize was there before.
Yellow Peril Gallery is located at 60 Valley Street, Building #5,
Olneyville. Teir website is yellowperilgallery.com.
ERIN SCHWARTZ B15 is no out-of-state bullshitter.
MAKING SPACE
by Erin Schwartz
illustration by Polina Godz
ARTS 12
SEPTEMBER 12 2014
To get to Yellow Peril Gallery, you take the ninety-two bus
west, passing through downtown Providence and Federal Hill.
Get of at the stop variably named Price Rite/Eagle Square/
Valley Street, soon after the bus enters Olneyville. Take a left
and walk down Valley Street, past Donigian Park, and turn at
the second historic mill complex refurbished for hip artistic
endeavors and light industrial use. Te frst such structure in
this neighborhood is Rising Sun Mills, but youre looking for
Te Plant. You can fnd Yellow Peril Gallery in Building 5.
Te gallery shoulders up alongside triple-decker apart-
ment houses in need of paint, a scrap metal company, and a
smattering of empty lots. Its newness alone represents a spatial
rupture. Te Plant, as well as Rising Sun Mills up the road,
is an anomaly within a largely Spanish-speaking immigrant
neighborhood for young professionals, artists, and business
owners who are attracted to Olneyvilles reputation for an
underground art scene and its industrial past.
Tere are several discourses on what Olneyville means
to its residentswhether it is a supportive working-class
community, an up-and-coming neighborhood for the creative
class, or a post-industrial wasteland, gutted of its factories and
drained of its population. Tese identities are not necessarily
incompatible, but still, the story is familiar. In time, the group
that has the most capital and privilege wins out and trans-
forms the built environment in its own image.
Yellow Peril Gallery seems aware of the need to navigate
these tensions. Te gallerys mission statement encourages
community participation, and ten percent of their art sales
are given to a charity of the artists choice. Te gallery recently
hosted an oral history of the neighborhood curated by Ol-
neyville Housing Corporation, a local nonproft. I stopped by
on the gallerys day of to talk to gallery owners Robert Stack
and Vanphouthon Souvannasane about their take on art,
place, and politics. Stack (a Providence native) and Souvan-
nasane have the rapport of friends and business partners who
already know what the other is going to say.
Te College Hill Independent: Lets start of with your per-
spective as curators: why did you choose to locate in Provi-
dence?
Robert Stack: We actually specifcally came for Olneyville.
[Co-owner Vanphouthon Souvannasane] found the space
originally online. I grew up in Providence and Olneyville was
in some ways quite diferent then, so when he frst suggested
it, I was like, Absolutely not! He brought it up again and
we looked at it and said, Oh, this is really cool. It was a
work-live situation, which was what we were looking for.
Te whole building is work-live apartments for artists, so we
were attracted to that. We just made this conscious efort that
we would have the gallery where the artists were making the
work, and that would keep it fresher and keep us more tapped
into the scene and what was happening.
Te Indy: I know you also do Art Basel and some interna-
tional art fairs. How do you navigate being plugged into the
local art community but also trying to have an international
presence?
RS: Te frst thing that comes to mind is a pop-up show we
did in Bushwick called Work Harder. Tat was a crossroads
for us because it was during Freize Week; we weren't in the
Freize Fair yet, we hadn't yet been invited to our frst major
fair, so we did our own. We got a space in Bushwick and
we mounted our own group show. We gave an opening and
everybody came. In one way, it was important to us because
it showed the Fair people that we could do it; then we started
An Interview with Yellow Peril Gallery Owners Robert
Stack and Vanphouthon Souvannasane
THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT
YOU END UP BECOMING YOURSELF
by Lisa Borst illustration by Layla Ehsan
Richard Linklaters Boyhood, which fnished its run at the Cable Car last week, is not
afraid to date itself. Te flm, shot incrementally over the course of twelve years, chroni-
cles the twenty-frst century Texas childhood of a boy named Mason and his family. It is a
portrait of both an individual and, peripherally, the frst decade-and-change of the 2000s.
Te flms temporality and pacing is anchored by the cultural landscape through which its
protagonist navigates, by the television and music and current events with which he en-
gages. Early on in the movie, we watch Masons sister, presumably seven or eight years old,
sing a Britney Spears song, and we can deduce that the flm begins in the early aughts.
Troughout the flm, much of the action is alternately bolstered by or entirely dependent
upon these specifc, hyper-timely artifacts of pop culture: a song, a summer blockbuster,
a presidential election. A Dragon Ball Z poster hangs in Masons childhood bedroom; a
long scene consists of nothing more than Mason and his step-family attending a midnight
Harry Potter book release. Te music that plays diegetically during the flms many car
ridesTe Flaming Lips, Wilco, Arcade Firehelps us locate each scene in a specifc
calendar year (Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots was released in 2002 and is played by Ma-
sons dad early on in the movie; Te Suburbs came out in the summer of 2010 and, sure
enough, soundtracks a scene between a teenage Mason and his girlfriend).
For flms set in the present day, a certain degree of timeliness is unavoidable, often
even desirable. Te architecture of a flmthe cars its characters drive, the cell phones
and computers with which they interacthelp clue us in to the year of production,
along with any music or other pop culture artifacts that surface throughout. Linklater
in particular is historically fond of allowing pop music to reinforce or even dictate his
flms temporality: this is the man behind School of Rock and Dazed and Confused, both
of which are movies ostensibly about music. Yet rarely do cinematic worksespecially
those, like Boyhood, that could maybe be called art-house flms, or perhaps just thought-
ful, non-blockbuster Oscar baitgrapple quite as directly with current popular culture
as Linklaters latest does. For many contemporary flms, some illusion of timelessness
persists. You could watch Blue is the Warmest Color, for example, and recognize that it was
probably made in the early 2010s, but nothing would inform a casual viewer that it was
shot exactly between March and August of 2012. Boyhood, though, insistently tethers it-
self to specifc dates and times: Mason discusses the Iraq War with his father, plays Oregon
Trail and Halo with his friends, switches out his fip-phone for an iPhone over the years.
As Mason becomes lankier, deeper-voiced, more mature, the pop culture artifacts around
him modernize, catching up with those of the present.
Filmed and written as its actors and characters grew up, Boyhood was largely
made without the beneft of hindsight; unlike other works that span a large period of
time, the flm is not told in fashbacks or narrated from the vantage point of the present
day, but is rather a slow, continuous crawl through time. Tus, the onscreen pop culture
artifacts that mark its temporality have not been curated for their lasting relevance to a
viewer in 2014. Te songs and TV shows and media imagery that appear throughout
Boyhood are simply the ones that seemed, in 2003 or 2006 or 2010, like they mattered
most at those points, and felt the most ubiquitous. You or I may have forgotten all about
Dragon Ball Z, Boyhood reminds us; or about how much hope a single Obama sign
seemed to contain in 2008; but at some point those things felt, in a very real way, like
defnitive markers that summed up the mood of an entire point in time. For many view-
ers, one of Boyhoods greatest strengths is its ability to craft a familiar emotional landscape
from the material objects we remember from our own lives.
+++
I grew up in the early 2000s, the chronology of my childhood aligning almost perfectly
with that of Boyhoods Mason. Having been raised in a southern suburb by eerily Ethan
Hawke-ish parents (many of my childhood car rides were soundtracked by Te Flaming
Lips and Wilco), the flm struck an almost uncomfortable chord, resonating especially as a
result of its reliance upon a cultural zeitgeist I found very familiar.
After I saw the flm, I immediately scrolled through its ofcial website, hosted on
Tumblr, and found a series of pictures ready to be reblogged. Some are stills from the flm,
but many are simply images I recognized from my own childhood: a photograph of a
water gun, a Pokemon card, a GIF from the TV show Hey Arnold. #boyhood, the pictures
are tagged, and #richardlinklater, and then, strangely: #tbt. Trowback Tursday? Are
these images, created and collected specifcally for this 2014 flm, really throwbacks for
every viewer?
Keep navigating through the website, and youll fnd a page called the NOSTALGIA
GENERATOR. Te link takes you to a sort of Mad Libs activity, meant to be flled out
and Tweeted or posted to your Facebook timeline. Pick a childhood memory, users are
instructed, and then: When I was ___ my favorite ___ was _______. #Boyhood. Users
are provided with a drop-down menu of options: My frst [love, kiss, crush] was [perfect,
confusing, wild, unrequited]. Tere are some amusing choices: My guilty childhood pleasure
was [Pogs, intentionally killing my Tomagotchi, Hoobastank]. #Boyhood. Te best advice I got
growing up was [wear sunscreen, buy gold, always wear clean underwear]. #Boyhood.
Teres something deeply weird about this transparently manufactured nostalgia. It
exploits our (very real) desire to connect over our mutual cultural experiences, to share
the signifers of our paststhe movies, music, television and toys that often feel like
they have defned and shaped our development as individuals and as a collective. At the
same time, it fattens these nuanced experiences into Tweet-able, hashtagged truisms, the
ultimate aim of which, of course, is to drum up online buzz for the flm. Te whole site
which feels oddly corporate and exploitative for a flm that has strived to market itself as
independentcalls to mind a lazily written piece of click-bait: You know youre a nineties
kid when
We love nostalgia because nostalgia loves us, at least at a very basic surface level,
wrote Jes Skolnik in a piece for the radical online publication Te Media this summer, in
which she discussed the wave of 90s nostalgia thats cropped up in music (think fuzzed-
out, guitar-heavy indie rock), fashion (the neo-grunge aesthetic thats become weirdly
ubiquitous in the past year or so), and general social media discourse (the ironic return
of early web shorthandrn, uand those aforementioned 90s-themed listicles).
Institutionalized nostalgia, she argues, provides us with a chance to talk about our shared
cultural touchstones, though it does not allow much for diferent perspectivesthe nos-
talgic reading in mass media is pretty unilateral, assuming that we all come from pretty
much the same background.
Skolnik writes that the imagined universal background implicit in institutionalized
90s nostalgia assumes a white, middle-class, Western upbringing in which a culturally
tuned-in fgureposited, by entities like Buzzfeed and Boyhoods Nostalgia Generator, as
yougrew up with the opportunities and capital necessary to access the movies, televi-
sion, music and technologies of the era. Clearly, this illusion is false: for every person who
watches Boyhood and recognizes with delight a moment from his or her own childhood
when, say, Mason plays an expensive video game or discovers Kurt Vonnegut in middle
school, there are surely several others who feel alienated or out of the loop: those artifacts,
while familiar to many of us, were not natural or present during the comings-of-age of
manyeven mostpeople alive today. Mass nostalgia for the artifacts of a dominant
culture, Skolnik argues, has the potential to erase perspectives that have already been
marginalized.
+++
Te protagonist of Boyhood grows up in a series of suburban homes of varying socioeco-
nomic value. He reads a lot, watches a lot of television, eventually becomes interested in
taking photographs and is given an expensive camera. He starts having sex with a girl-
13 ARTS
Boyhood and universalizing nostalgia
YOU END UP BECOMING YOURSELF
SEPTEMBER 12 2014
friend, he graduates from high school, he goes to college.
Does Boyhood, with its white, straight, college-bound, middle-class male protagonist,
assume a universal cultural experience? In many ways, thats what its been lauded for and
how its been connected toas a very real, very relatable portrait of a subjectivity and
time period that spans backward just far enough to be remembered fondly by many.
Boyhood is a movie that a lot of people are talking about, and Ive spoken to many
people about it, most of whom are college-educated, middle- or upper-middle-class, US-
raised individuals around my age. Ive heard the same opinions voiced over and over: the
movie is almost eerily realistic, its landscapecultural and physicalunsettlingly similar
to the ones in which we grew up. It made me feel not unique, a friend told me. I felt
like it was made especially for me, said another.
Boyhood is principally about the development of a unique self, the emergence of a
thoughtful and creative adult out of a child whose existence is defned primarily by his
surroundings. Tis is a process that occurs everywhere, for everyone, regardless of their
socioeconomic standing and access to music or TV or toys or technology. But the thing
about Boyhoodand arguably what makes it so relatable and fun to watch for someone
like me, having grown up listening to Wilco in my dads car, and at the same time so
potentially alienating for the countless viewers whose childhoods looked nothing like
thatis that Masons development of self hinges so strongly on the pop culture with
which he engages. Tere are some raw, timeless, fully human moments in the flmespe-
cially between Mason and his motherbut an enormous portion of Masons dialogue is
him discussing Star Wars or Tropic Tunder or Kurt Vonnegut or the politics of Facebook,
and for most of the flm, this is the Mason we see mostmediated, tuned-in.
Implicit in the flm is the question: what makes you become yourself? Te forces
that Jess Skolnik calls the nostalgia machine (a sinister phrase that bears an uncanny
resemblance to Boyhoods Nostalgia Generator) tell us that its the artifacts we grow up
withthat the person you are today is wholly a result of Fisher-Price and Nickelodeon
and Myspace and Harry Potter and whatever parts of the zeitgeist felt most present in
your childhood. Boyhood addresses the superfcial ease with which we associate who a
person is with what he or she likes and wears and listens toHes way into Bright Eyes,
so thats not so bad, Mason says of his college roommate before they meetbut at the
same time, the flms innovative depiction of an entire childhood is a little more realistic
and nuanced than that: pop culture shapes us, Linklaters movie reminds us, but so does
a lot of other stuf.
ARTS 14
+++
Tere is something almost unavoidably sad about stories that spanand necessarily
compressa great deal of time. 100 Years of Solitude is devastating; so is Slaughterhouse-Five.
But Boyhood is arguably the frst movie to do what literature has been doing for centuries: no
flmmaker has ever really crawled in increments through an entire coming-of-age in the way
that Proust did with In Search of Lost Time, or Joyce with A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
As such, its sadness is unique. Guided by the music and pop culture onscreen, we see the flm
jump through time, always aware of what we are missing between scenes. Toward the end of
the flm, Masons mother, weeping, says of her entire life: I thought there would be more. Its
an arresting moment not just because of Patricia Arquettes virtuosic delivery, but also because
we, as viewers, feel the same way: we have witnessed Masons whole childhood, sped-up, but we
have missed so much.
Twelve years is an absurd expanse of time to compress into three hours. An unimaginably
huge amount of stuf happens to an individual in a dozen years, let alone to an entire culture.
Obviously, some amount of curation is necessary to represent the last twelve years of American
life in three hours, and the fact that the movie privileges artifacts from that expanse of time
that refect a primarily white, Western, middle-class sensibility is perhaps frustrating, but also
unsurprisingLinklater knows his audience, and knows how to cater to the part of a viewer
that loves recognizing and relating to shared icons and experiences. But its also very difcult to
imagine a flm that manages to encompass a multitude of experiences and perspectives in the
space of three hours: its impossible enough, as Boyhood elegantly proves, to do justice even to
one.
LISA BORST B17 doesnt even like Dragon Ball Z.
15 FOOD THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT
P
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T
Y
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U
R
N
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W

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T
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A
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Y
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What type of food?
NEW
NEW
American
Parking
reserved for?
Noble
Steed
Nobel
Savage
Photo-
synthetic
Vehicles
Did you
say
"haute?"
My Parents
Dropped Me Of
Dietary
restrictions
accomodated?
Venture
capital backing?
Neil Degrasse
Tyson lookalikes
Describe your
neighbourhood? Carbon
Allergies
Fred Astaire
Mindfulness
Bottomless
Mocktails
Bowl Cut
Moisture
Fructose
Liquid
Modernity
The Blood of
the Innocent
Oysters on the Half-
Shell Silverstein
General
Cacophony
Signature dish?
Restaurant
powered by?
Black Eye
Black Tie
#Normcorn
Beer-Battered
Void
Building
style?
Good venue
for?
Sleepy
Teepee
Dutch Colonial
Marxist
Kareoke
Voter
Registration
Burlap
Sacks Fifth
Avenue
A highly curated and
tastefully deliberate
mix of deep house,
witch house, acide
house, accid house,
suburban house,
this house is not a
home house, white
house and halfuny
house, tied delicately
together by late
career switchfoot
Soundtrack?
Belgian Bilge
Up and
Coming
Margaritaville
Radio
Gregorian
Chance the
Rapper
What's on
tap?
Wait staf
aesthetic?
Sox & Sandals
Loincloths
Lunch
Leather
Aprons/
Assless
Chaps
NO
OK..
YES
YES
Indo-Canadian
Data Brunch
Hot Cuisine
Dress code?
by Sam Bresnick & Alex Sammon
THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT
HIKING
by Leah Steinberg
illustration by Jade Donaldson
You know Ive actually been wanting to do this for a while, my sister said, sitting in the
passenger seat with her feet on the glove compartment. She wore small shorts and a head-
band to catch her little hairs. We had seen the mountain online in photos of our peers. Te
pictures were all about angles, using the natural slope of the mountain to gather the light
and send it down to the girl, whose thick socks looked wooly over her ankles. I think the
girl was preparing for a month long wilderness program. For some reason she was sucking
on a juice box.
Tat summer, hiking was hip. But we weren't thinking about that when we woke
up. My plans for the day were pure. I had always wanted to hike, just to move around the
mountain.
Te way I wanted to hike didnt really exist. I imagined setting out alone, leaving one
person and hiking silently to another. Saying goodbye, beginning my hike, walking uphill
through an awful period of time, sufering and continuing and fnally, arriving, pained and
arriving, into the care of another.
Sometimes we bent over and placed our palms on the trail. We wanted to feel like the
mountain was so steep that we needed to lie down on it, not to fall. My sisters complaints
never caught even her own attention. It was hot out and she was naturally weak. We hiked
until she got tired. Ten we found a tree. We lay, panting, under its shade. Tis was what
we had been hoping for when we set out: improper supplies, dehydration, the eventual
conclusion that not hiking is the better choice for those who can avoid it.
As I rested under the tree, she climbed up to its branches. My sister put her stomach
on the lowest bough and hung her legs below. Tat was when she remembered that the only
reason she had ever wanted to go hiking was because of the pictures. My sister laughed and
said she couldnt believe she had ever thought that this was something she actually wanted
to do. She put her chin in her hands and swung her legs.
I said, I think I can see the ocean between the leaves, she said.
She should have been used to knowing that the ocean was nearby. We had always been
coastal people. Our mornings were full of fog and a slight wetness around everything. We
could sit on the beach, and we had as children, until I realized the sand was so white and
expansive it had no texture at all. Stepping out from under the tree, I took of my dorky
baseball hat. I tossed my head back and stood there. Under my eyelids, the sky was red and
crawling towards me. To close your eyes to the sun, I thought, is a diferent sort of rest.
My sisters wants were always new and racing forward, and it was a game for me to be
around them, energy I could surf on top of. I didnt have my own energy. So I liked being
near someone desperate like her.
If only we could walk to the ocean my sister saw. If only we needed, with dizzying
emergency, to walk to the ocean. Tere had been no ocean in the photos online. Te sum-
mer needed to make something fat of me. I put my hat back on so I could see what was
beneath the tree. My sister's hanging legs, puckered blue from walking. I entered the trees
shade, which was like a dark room with a low ceiling where an old person waits.
+++
She looked like she was trying to sleep. I tapped my sisters thigh, pale salami. I pulled on
her to get her down from the tree. She folded over the branch, screaming and clawing, to
try to stay up there, but her stomach slid against the bark until we both fell backwards. I
got up and looked down at her.
My legs, she said. What luck to have that problem, I thought. I wished I were at
least physically exhausted.
She was bleeding. Her knees looked rotted with dirt. She propped her face up with
her elbows on the ground. She didn't say anything about what I had done. She just looked
up at me and asked if there was any water. I pulled a bottle out of my backpack. When she
opened the bottle I heard its spinal noise as its seal became teeth.
Gosh, she said with an inhalation as she drank.
What direction is the ocean? I asked her. She was disposed on the dirt, and I was all
we had. I decided we would go to the ocean. I felt bad for my sister because she was tied
up on the ground, but I also felt bad for me. For me since now Id have to carry her. For
the ocean because when wed get there, it would still be moving, and wed be tired pieces of
true material, all hurt through.
We were failing at being wild.
I carried my sister on my back. Tat was when I realized we both liked to sufer. She
liked to sufer like a person starting or ending life, at all hours a show, sometimes a show no
one watched. I always watched the show. She shifted on my back but my knees were strong
as replacements. I took littler steps to keep her there. We looked like just the cross, coming
down lonely from the hill. Red wood.
She ironed me out. She was heavy, but it was more that she was pressing me into the
ground, holding my nose to the ripe grindstone, and fnally I could smell. I had recently
lost my sense of smell due to an over the counter nasal spray I had found in our dads medi-
cine cabinet. I had just wanted for once unhindered breathing. No one had told me how
deep my sinuses were placed within me.
And then, like how I was suddenly able to smell again, I could see the ocean. Te
mountain continued down green and yellow until it hit sand and was the water for the rest
of its way. Standing there looking at the ocean, the world became a map. And unfortunately
I was not on the map but on top of the map, a piece of paper. Moving along like a stranger.
I was trying to get to the ocean, because I was trying. And when we would get to the ocean,
I thought, my sister and I would be given all new problems. Our clothes would be wet. Our
thighs would rub into redness, a victory.
I dropped my sister and she sledded down the hill. Until the trench she made by dig-
ging her toes into the dirt slowed her. I walked towards her and as I did, I learned I could
not unbend my back. Even with her of of me, in a pile on the foor with a bib of brown
dust on her t-shirt, I was stuck staring at the ground. I hadnt felt a spinal disk slip, but I
knew that one had. From now on one of them was gone forever.
I looked between my legs back up the hill, where the trail was sad and obvious, clearly
16 LITERARY
SEPTEMBER 12 2014 LITERARY 17
the only way to the ocean from there to here. Our trail was pockmarked from when it held
rivers for quick gushing moments in the winter. I tried to look forward, down to the ocean,
but I couldnt. I could see only my shoes. Te feet of my sister lay ahead. But I did not see
farther, I did not see to the ocean. Te ocean was where I intended to dissolve whatever was
left of me. My sister might be gone, dissolved, before her wound was, I thought. Ten I
would be left reaching for a thread, and the thread would mean my sister. Or whatever was
left of me would be left, grabbing the loop as it spun in the water. I would unwind it until
my arms were wide, holding one big circle. Id turn around in the ocean. I would look up
at the hill in awe. I would be alone.
I had always felt like a remote man on a hill. Quiet and serious. Except every day I was
just a teenage girl in a car, in a bed, in a toilet stall. My quietness was trapped in the mess
on my bedroom foor. Or asleep in front of the television, drooling. I woke up in silence.
I placed my head back on the pillow. I went back to sleep. I had always had an afnity for
hills. I assumed when I got on one Id be doing an activity like a cave does, always gasping.
On the hill, my quietness and seriousness would boom outward into something beautiful.
Id feel a real sense of magic this evening and it wouldnt even be the evening. I shouldnt
have gone hiking with my sister, who was a broken engine. I should have known that with
her Id be at work, bringing her body to the water like a jug thats already full. Tat was how
things had become with my sister. My sister who used to write herself notes on graph paper.
She would fold them up fve times and put them in her underwear. She was a little surprised
when she found the notes to herself the next time she went to the bathroom. She told me
about this a long time ago. When she told me about this I told her she was amazing. I was
stunned at how vast her interior landscape must have been. I told her this. I didnt even get
to see any of the notes.
And now, what were her notes to herself? Tey were nothing. Now, what did she
discover, later any afternoon, when it fell to the tiled foor of our schools tidy bathroom?
+++
I can walk, my sister said from where she was, still belly down, limp and providing blood
for our trail. She pressed her hands into the ground and tried to get up. But she couldnt
walk, especially since I was there.
Get back on, I said. Im bent anyways.
I got her on my back by telling her to make herself into a ramp. Her legs bobbed
behind me as I walked. I looked straight at the ground as I carried her. My body for once
worn at last, or at least citrus pain.
Im alone in this, I said. In a certain way I am weirdly alone in this, I said. I said
it so she remembered who was on whose back. But I didnt mean it to be harsh. Really, as
cargo, she was a gift. She helped push us down the hill to the water. She had found the
water in the frst place.
Ten we were near the ocean. Te hill continued down with us, sloping with us and
bringing us. Te plants there were more salted, the dirt of the path was of-white. Tere
were giant shrubs, a few dunes, and then the beach in earnest. Te shrubs were being slowly
blown into the water. When I got to the water I kept going until I was so deep that my
sister foated up of my back. When I almost couldnt breathe I removed the hair from over
my nose and mouth, and breathed again. We didn't know what to do, so I said the ocean
responds best to weakness. We imagined ourselves as pool toys. We fell asleep foating with
our hands together. I hoped that if our fngers came apart it would hurt enough to wake us
up. She would wake up frst because it would be more than the little pain she could handle.
She would wake up and look around and watch me sleeping in the sea.
SEPTEMBER 12 2014 X 18
Start Making Sense Talking Heads Tribute
The Met, Pawtucket // 9 pm // $12-14
Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite
70 Brown St, McCormack Family Theater // 6pm // Free
Community Discussion on Police Body Cameras
JWW 302 // 7-8 pm
Restore the Pell Grant Symposium
MacMillan 117 // 6-8pm // Free
African American History Walking Tour
RISD Auditorium // 10-12am // $10, $5 for students
Smut Night!
95 Empire // 7:30-9:30 // $5-15 sliding scale
This Pennsylvania-based tribute band pays homage to some of
RISDs most famous alums. They promise the show will be a
rockin, funkin, danceable celebration of the new-wave art
punk you loved from the 80s. This must be the place.
William Deresiewicz, former Yale University professor and author
of Dont Send Your Kids to the Ivy League (New Republic,
July 2014) and The Ivy League, Mental Illness and the Meaning
of Life (The Atlantic, August 2014) is coming to Browns
campus to discuss the disadvantages of an elite education.
Would mandatory body cameras cut down on incidents of police
brutality? Come talk about pros and cons of this policy with the
Brown ACLU.
In 1994, Clinton passed legislation denying financial aid to
incarcerated students, which dramatically reduced the number
of college programs in US prisons. Learn about recent reforms
and initiatives to expand higher education opportunities in
prisons at this symposium organized by Open Doors and the
Education from the Inside Out Coalition.
DESIGN x RI kick off
Trinity Rep //8:30 AM - 6 PM
Starting on September 17th, Design Week RI promises some
local design superstars, open spaces and design treasure
hunt as a part of this inaugural event. It culminates in the
already dear to our hearts Better World by Design, but in reality
starts almost two weeks earlier and has a number of talks,
lectures and workshops, focused on Providence Architecture
and resources. Not to miss: Designing with Light, Keynote
Address by Michael Hendrix and Downtown Providence Archi-
tecture Walk. Check their full schedule at http://designweekri.
com/about/ and keep your eyes and browsers open to find out
more.
Movies on the Block: O Brother, Where Art Thou?
260 Westminster St. // 8pm (dusk) // Free
Free outdoor movie screening. Set in Great Depression Era
Mississippi, this adventure comedy loosely satires the Odyssey
as it follows the treasure hunt of three escaped convicts.
Go a little early to get set up, probably bring a blanket and
some snacks.
Cannabis Caucus
Aurora, 276 Westminster // 8 pm // $5
Hear about local efforts to legalize and regulate marijuana
backed by experimental synth-pop from Philadelphia (Moon
Bounce) and other jams at this fundraiser hosted by Regulate
Rhode Island.
Led by a local historian, this walking tour will explore African
American history on College Hill since 1701. All proceeds go to
the RI Black Heritage Society. Reservations required.
The Center for Sexual Pleasure and Health (CSPH) are teaming
up with AS220 to present the 2nd Annual Smut Night, with
performances, music, DIY erotica, sex advice and a sexy
raffle. Revel responsibly and pick up some free safer sex
supplies from the CSPH.
Three local writers will be reading their poetry at Symposium
Books downtown location. Katherine Murphy is the hum of the
dust settling. Rebecca Willner / fragments. serena putterman
gets inspired in doctors waiting rooms.
Speak: Celebrating women and trans writers of poetry
Symposium Books, 240 Westminster st. // 6 PM // free
Enjoy the last weekend of summer outdoors in Pawtuckets
Slater Park, with food trucks, a farmers market, crafts, a
haunted tunnel, paddleboat rides and the Stone Soup Folk
Festival. Catch the No Tobacco Day poetry slam at 12pm
on the Kids Stage, then head to Daggett Farm from 11-4 to
scope out the Classic Car Cruise.
Artist Andrew Paul Woolbright makes art about his love for his
wife; his work is forged from the spirit of Clinton-era American
optimism, love, and sentiment.
Slater Park Fall Festival
RR1A // Saturday and Sunday 11-5 // Free entrance
ShrineBeast: Mixed media exhibition on the
transformative nature of love
Yellow Peril Gallery, 60 Valley St. #5 // September
4 - October 5 (open Thurs + Fri 3-8 pm, Sat + Sun 12-5)
Listen to your heart
by Roxette is released
this week in 1988