1. art and entertainment
2. humor

25 September 2008 / vol. 5 issue 4
the eye
Internal Affairs
by Yelena Shuster
scott schuman shares sartorial secrets \\\ what you can do at 242 \\\ designing the women
Editor-in-Chief
Alexandria Symonds
Managing Editor, Features
Hayley Negrin
Managing Editor, A & E
Rebecca Evans
Deputy Editor, Features
Hillary Busis
Interview Editor
Melanie Jones
Style Editor
Moira Lynch
Film Editor
Learned Foote
Music Editor
Jennie Rose Halperin
Books Editor
Lucy Tang
Food Editor
Shane Ferro
Art Editor
Julia Halperin
�eater Editor
Laura Hedli
Television Editor
Dani Dornfeld
Humor Editor
Raphael Pope-Sussman
Senior Design Editor
�omas Rhiel
Production Editors
Maria Laura Torre Gomez
Meredith Perry
Helen Werbe
Senior Production Editor
Haley Vecchiarelli
Photo Editor
Molly Crossin
Copy Editors
Wesley Birdsall
Tess Rankin
Online Editor
Lara Chelak
Associate Online Editor
Nilkanth Patel
Spectator Publishers
Manal Alam
Tom Faure
INTERNAL
AFFAIRS
Journalism internships can’t all really be
like �e Devil Wears Prada, right? One
obsessed student finds out, pg. 07
by Yelena Shuster / photos by Joey Shemuel
FEATURES
\\\ EYESITES
03 One Stop on the 1 David Berke
04 �e Audacity of Pope Raphael Pope-Sussman
\\\ EYE TO EYE
05 Force of Nature Caroline Mort
ARTS
\\\ MUSIC
06 A Long, Long Way From His Home
Jennie Rose Halperin
\\\ FILM
11 Nix �is Chick Flick Laura Torre
\\\ ART
12 Point CountARTpoint Julia Halperin and
Dima Kislovskiy
Contact Us:
eye@columbiaspectator.com
eye.columbiaspectator.com
Editorial: (212) 854-9547
Advertising: (212) 854-9558
© 2008 �e Eye,
Spectator Publishing Company, Inc.
\\\ THEATER
14 Making the Political Palpable Laura Hedli
\\\ STYLE
15 Sartorially Speaking... Moira Lynch
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
My experiences in the intern
corral have, in general, been
comparatively painless—thanks,
Philadelphia City Paper! But I
do have one disconcerting story
about an internship I ended up
not taking.
�e interview, for a book
publicity firm, was going well,
and my interviewer—the vice
president (let’s call him Brian,
because that was his name)—
really seemed to like me. �e
position would be a good fit,
we agreed, and the interview
ended with his offering me the
job! Everything, it appeared,
was coming up Alex.
We concluded our meeting
with a little tour around the
office: now the coffee machine,
now the restroom, now Helen
in accounting. Hello, Helen! I
could see myself fitting in here.
Until my interviewer uttered
seven fateful words.
“And this is where the
interns sit.”
Smiling, I followed his gaze
to a cluster of cubicles where
four girls smiled back at me.
�eir smiles looked a lot like
mine, in fact, and it only took
me a split second to realize
that it was because their faces
looked a lot like mine—and so
did their eyes, their hair, their
clothes. Brian, it seemed, had a
type. �is guy collected me.
Maybe this wasn’t as big
a deal as I was making it,
but really, the resemblance
was uncanny—it was like
looking in a funhouse mirror.
I couldn’t shake the mental
image of my head lined up
with all these girls’ heads
on a shelf in a basement
somewhere. So I mumbled
something about how glad
I was to have met him, and
dashed off an e-mail later
that night saying something
about scheduling conflicts.
Sometimes, the extra three
lines on your resumé just
aren’t worth it.
If you have an interning
horror story, send it along—to
eye@columbiaspectator.com—
and we may feature it in a
future issue. In the meantime,
read Yelena Shuster’s cover
story this week on the media
intern culture—it’s almost
as much of a reality check as
Brian’s doll collection.
-Alexandria Symonds
COMPILED BY HILLARY BUSIS
AND RAPHAEL POPE-SUSSMAN
EYESITES
Editors’ 10
what we’re into this week
1. Equus on Broadway: “While Richard Dysart may have
his doubts, being in treatment has never been quite this
rewarding. Peter Shaffer’s Equus opens today, and the
West End import is phenomenally re-imagined, albeit
completely disturbing. Shaffer’s words will stay with you
long after you’ve left the Broadhurst, and so may the
mental image of Harry Potter’s wand.”
-Laura Hedli, theater editor
2. Homemade bread: “Eating homemade bread makes
me feel like a simple rustic farm girl whiling my time
away before I have to churn butter or milk the cows.”
-Lucy Tang, books editor
3. “Real Talk” on YouTube: “Sure, nothing can top the
magnificence of Trapped in the Closet. But this behindthe-scenes video of Kelly’s latest masterpiece gets close.
Real talk!”
-Hillary Busis, features deputy editor
One Stop on the 1
TEXT AND PHOTO BY DAVID BERKE
As most parents instruct their college-bound Columbia students, “south” is synonymous with “safe”—
city excursions involve trips downtown, never in the
other direction.
Visiting the northernmost stop on the 1 train, Van
Cortlandt Park-242nd Street in the Bronx, is as blatant
a violation of that dictum as one can find, but despite
the parents who may cringe at the thought, this Bronx
enclave deserves a northward trip from Morningside.
�ings to Do at 242
�e area’s chief attraction is Van Cortlandt Park.
�is almost two-mile tangle of fields and trails is
well worth the subway ride—the park’s nature
paths are far better than anything one can find
in Central Park. �e trails are secluded and cut
through dense forest. True, speeding cars and
trains can be heard in the distance, but within
New York City, this area is as close to real woodland as one can get.
Van Cortlandt also holds many records and
originals, such as the nation’s first public golf
course, still operating. A full weekend match runs
around $50 per person. Its 700-yard fairway on
hole nine, crossing two stonewalls and two small
brooks, is notorious.
�e park is also home to the Bronx’s larg-
est freshwater lake. �e
Like the tortoise, you
Van Cortlandt House
may need to be patient
to get there—but it’s
Museum, open Tuesday
worth the trip to Van
through Sunday, is the
oldest house in the city,
Cortlandt Park.
and in the northern area
of the park, one can find
remnants of the city’s first
large-scale aqueduct.
�e allure of open space makes the fields of Van
Cortlandt Park a cross section of local cultures.
�e field areas, the largest just across the street
from the subway stop, are a hot spot for a range
of weekend sports matches. Along with fields for
soccer and baseball, the park has basketball, tennis, and bocci courts.
After an afternoon of ambling through the
park, try Lloyd’s Carrot Cake, a bakery 100 yards
north of the 242nd Street stop on Broadway. It’s
famed among frequenters of the park and is an
ideal post-exercise stop. �e independent bakery’s
cakes, which its marquee proudly asserts are
“made from scratch,” are cheap enough to fit a
college budget.
While exploring the area, take a peak into Manhattan College, a short stroll up Manhattan College
Parkway. Although its name may be nonsensical
(why is Manhattan College in the Bronx?), this
Roman Catholic institution, alma mater of Rudolph Giuliani, has a beautiful campus. �e college
cathedral is the major highlight.
�ough traipsing around this neighborhood at
night is anything but advisable, the Van Cortlandt
area is ideal for an autumn afternoon. a
4. �e weather: “It is so beautiful out—the perfect
time of year. It’s cool enough to wear a sweater, but
still warm enough to comfortably order an iced coffee—c’est parfait!”
-Shane Ferro, food editor
5. Augusten Burroughs’ coming to campus: “I’m into great
writers making up ‘facts’ about their lives, especially the
gay ones. But it’s Augusten Burroughs (not David Sedaris),
who will be speaking at Columbia next Monday, which
makes him exponentially more awesome.”
-Learned Foote, film editor
6. Real southwest burgers: “You take a real, grilled
burger (rare), and add guacamole. Not crappy, tasteless
avocado-like substance, but guacamole. Enjoy with a
toasted bun.”
-Raphael Pope-Sussman, humor editor
7. Turning pants into shorts: “I know it’s totally the
wrong time of year for this, but something recently
moved me to cut up some underperforming pants, and
now I’m eyeing the rest of my closet.”
-�omas Rhiel, senior design editor
8. Tom’s milkshakes: “Enjoy them now while the ‘hot’
weather lasts—soon it will be snowing and the notion of
a milkshake will sound ridiculous.”
-Laura Torre, production editor
9. Josh Groban’s theme-song medley on the Emmys:
“YouTube this immediately. I promise you won’t regret it.
Groban doing the South Park voices alone is worth it.”
-Alexandria Symonds, editor-in-chief
10. Cute little plaid dresses: “�ey’re in this season, along
with the color purple—or so I’m told. Also I can pretend
I’m Charlotte on that episode of Sex and the City when
Trey takes her to the Scottish Spring Fling and she gets
yelled at for wanting a mandarin baby. Always fun.”
-Hayley Negrin, features managing editor
03
EYESITES
Eye Spy
One Bank Street College of Education teacher to
another:
“Today, I yelled at my kids. Then we used it as a
jumping-off point to talk about anger and how I didn’t
handle it correctly.”
- 112th and Broadway
First-year #1: “And now I have to fucking tell my fucking U. Writing teacher that I can’t turn it in.”
First-year #2: “Did you wake up on the fucking wrong
side of the bed today?”
- Lerner
Financial Crisis
In Perspective
5
0
Number of independent investment banks, May
2008
Number of those banks still independent, as of
this week
1
19
Rank (in size) of Lehman Brothers’ collapse in
American corporate bankruptcy history
Trading price (in cents) of Lehman Brothers’
stock, as of Monday
595
Dollar amount (in billions) the federal
government expects to spend on
Medicare, Medicaid, and the State Children’s
Health Insurance Program—combined—in 2008
700
Dollar amount (in billions) the federal
government currently expects to spend
on a financial bailout of Wall Street
What Women Want
In this week’s Film section, Laura Torre argues that recent
films targeting women have featured shoddy writing and
questionable messages about contemporary femininity.
Don’t lose hope, though. If you’re in the mood for a chick
flick that’s actually, well, good, there are plenty of movies
that fit the bill. Here are some of our favorites:
Ever After: Ignore Drew Barrymore’s heinous English accent—this Cinderella story is by far Barrymore’s best film.
Working Girl: �e film proves that girls from Staten Island
deserve a chance on Wall Street and elsewhere. Also,
Melanie Griffith is the hottest ’80s businesswoman ever.
Sixteen Candles: Who doesn’t love golden age Molly
Ringwald? Just fast forward through the embarrassing
Long Duk Dong scenes.
Shakespeare in Love: So good that it beat out Saving
Private Ryan for Best Picture in 1999. Take that,
action movies!
04
�e Audacity of Pope
BY RAPHAEL POPE-SUSSMAN
PHOTO BY MOLLY CROSSIN
In the most important election of our generation, only one candidate stands for real change.
I want to return the humor section to its rightful place as a shining beacon of hilarity. �at’s
why I’m running for humor editor of �e Eye—to
change it.
You see, we just can’t afford another year of
business as usual at �e Eye. We need change, and
we need it now, because the humor section of �e
Eye is not working for you—the hardscrabble Ivy
League youth who make Columbia the greatest
university in the history of the world. If it were
working, you’d be laughing. But you’re not laughing. You’re weeping.
And you have had enough!
It’s time to put Columbia first. I’ve always said
that Columbia comes first in the Ivy League. Yet
my opponent said just the other day that “alphabetically, Brown actually comes first.”
Whatever.
My opponent with the Ivy League bias
blames me for the crisis in the humor section.
He’ll tell you, “Raphael Pope-Sussman has been
humor editor for the past year, and he hasn’t
done squat in that time.” Exactly! I haven’t done anything.
Ergo, I haven’t done anything
wrong. It’s just ipso facto common sense, my friends.
I know how important this
election is to you. Sadly, my opponent doesn’t get it. He doesn’t
understand the gravity of the
threat we face. If this section of
The Eye doesn’t make you laugh,
will you really even bother to
wake up in the morning?
Now I hear that some people
have questioned my campaign
tactics. They say, “Raphael
Pope-Sussman, why are you
running such a dishonorable
campaign?” Dishonorable? More
like THIS honorable! Ha! And
don’t try to ask me to define
“honor.” If you want your Eye
humor editor to define things,
cast your vote for a dictionary.
Speaking of dictionaries, if you
look up “liar” in the dictionary,
you’ll see a picture of my opponent. I glued it there.
I asked my opponent to participate in a series of folksy meetand-greets with the campus community, but he refused. Claimed
he had a “prior obligation.” Did
you know that “prior obligation”
can be rearranged to spell “nail
robot pirogi?” I’m not going to
get down in the gutter and suggest my opponent
wants to have sexual relations with an animatronic
dumpling. I just want to know what he’s hiding.
Of course, the real tragedy is that the issues
get buried. I wanted this campaign to be about
the humor section. I have so many ideas of how to
make it better. I mean, whoever has been running
this section has shit for brains.
My friends, if elected, I promise to bring
salt-of-the-earth folks on board. You’re fed-up
with the sniggering elites cracking jokes at your
expense. My opponent wants so-called “experts” running your humor section. He claims
that it’s better to have experienced humorists
on staff. I say, let’s open up the section to everyone on campus. You don’t need to be funny
to write humor.
Today, I am sitting here at my computer desk,
asking you for your vote. I will bring the change
we need to this section of �e Eye. Not the kind of
change my opponent talks about. �e only thing
my opponent has ever changed is his adult diaper.
Give me your support. I’ll crack you up so hard,
you’ll be laughing at your own funeral!
Oh, and did I mention I once spent five days
locked in my dorm room trying to write a funny
haiku about the president of Iran? �at’s the sort
of sacrifice I’ve made for you.
And if necessary, I’ll do it again. a
Force of Nature
BY CAROLINE MORT
PHOTO BY CAROLINE MORT
�ere’s a juggernaut taking the world by storm as you
read this. It’s relentless. It’s unstoppable. And it’s got
great taste in music. Midnight Juggernauts, an Australian band based in Melbourne, was a true juggernaut
during its USA/Mexico Tour this September. Members
Vincent Vendetta (vocals, keyboard), Andy Juggernaut
(vocals, bass), and Daniel Stricker (drums) create a
truly unique music genre, an electric/synth/rock mix
with David Bowie-esque vocals. From Los Angeles to
New York City, Midnight Juggernauts have turned dark
nightclubs into festivals of rainbow light and keyboardpounding goodness. �ey came, they saw their stage
manager kick girls off the stage, and of course, they
conquered. As soon as Caroline Mort realized the
group was performing in New York City last week, she
jumped at the chance to interview drummer Daniel
Stricker—and got it.
You’re in California right now?
Yeah, it’s been crazy. It’s our third day in the
States. We’ve been to L.A., then we went to Austin, and now we’re in San Francisco. And it’s a lot
different from previous times when we’ve come to
the States, when we were sort of criss-crossing all
over the place to Canada and such, driving.
sound different, to have a name that no one else
has. Juggernaut is this sort of unrelenting force
and it describes the music. It’s funny because in
some countries they don’t have the word juggernaut, so when we were in France everyone was
asking us, “What is this juggernaut?” So sometimes it’s hard to get across.
EYE TO EYE
caroline mort interviews midnight juggernauts
and we were traveling around France and we only
had one day to shoot the video, so we just shot it in
the south of France. We wanted a sort of epic ’70s
psychedelic feel to the video.
You are often associated with Australian bands
like Cut Copy, Miami Horror, and Sneaky Sound
System, that also blend genres. Would you say you
have something of a camaraderie?
I mean, we’re all friends. We all do different stuff.
We all like dance music, like, the Pixies are my favorite. I like rockier bands. But we’re all friends,
even though we’re all on our own. It’s like saying... well, I’m trying to think of an example with
New York bands, but, you know, we all know
each other.
You have an amazing new video out for your song
“Into the Galaxy” from the 2007 album Dystopia.
Where was it shot?
In the Pyrenees in France. We did a lot of summer
festivals all over the world this summer, which
was a lot of fun. And we had a bit of a vacation,
What was it like to perform in New York City the
first time?
It was when we were touring with Justice a while
back. We performed at Terminal 5, and it’s just
an amazing venue. I had a few days off while I
was here so I went and saw a few exhibitions.
But yeah, it’s a great place, a great place to do a
record or something.
JUGGERNAUT IS THIS
SORT OF UNRELENTING
FORCE, AND IT
DESCRIBES THE MUSIC.
You should. You have quite a fan base here!
Yeah, we love coming. We’ve been busy this year
but we’ll come more in the next few years because
it’s always amazing—it’s almost the best in the
world. �e first time in the States the crowds were
a bit more reserved, but once we started playing
more people got really into it. a
How do you like playing here?
It’s great! It’s our third time in the States, and
there are always good crowds, always very responsive. My first time I didn’t know what to expect because you always get different crowds. But
the crowds have been great, getting the music.
At a Crookers concert last summer, Vincent Vendetta was doing a DJ set. Do you guys do those on
the side?
[Laughing] Well, we’re not really DJs. We’ve been
going to a lot of Europe’s summer festivals this
summer, and we don’t DJ that much. We’re really
a band with keyboards. I mean, we like dance
music, but we’re really a traditional band with
drums and bass and guitar. �e DJ thing is more
of a spin-off. It’s fun, but it’s not really representative of the band.
So, about your name. Are you really named after
Andy?
What? What do you mean?
I mean, are you named after Andy “Juggernaut”?
Andy’s last name really isn’t Juggernaut. I wasn’t
in the band with Vincent and Andy originally,
so the name was picked before I was a member.
I think they chose the word juggernaut to create
a mystique around the band, to kind of make it
05
MUSIC
A Long, Long Way From His Home
folk legend richie havens on art and freedom
BY JENNIE ROSE HALPERIN
PHOTO COURTESY OF PEACEFULTOMORROWS
Richie Havens hunched over his guitar,
strummed wildly, and belted out the single word
“freedom” one summer day 39 years ago. His image
and voice became anthemic for the hippies who
gathered to hear him open Woodstock in 1969,
bringing to a climax the work he had done his whole
life, first in doo-wop and then in folk.
“I am a kid from Brooklyn, and here I am on the
other side,” he says. “Even at the age of 28 or 29, I
had been doing doo-wop all my life.”
As a musician, he is mostly an interpreter—his
covers are often better than the originals, and better-known. Havens made the Jerry Merrick ballad
“Follow” a classic, and his covers of “Here Comes
the Sun” and “Woodstock” are popular among fans.
Havens says that the only songs he covers are those
that educate him personally, but maintains that “all
music is education.”
A young artist who came of age in the muchfabled Greenwich Village coffeehouses of the
early 1960s, Richie Havens is considered the top
interpreter of Bob Dylan’s music, bringing his
unique voice and strumming style to Dylan’s
much-played hits. Havens blends a distinctive
staccato strum pattern with his silky, soulful
voice, which he claims was honed during his
years singing doo-wop on the street corners of
Bedford-Stuyvesant.
�is playing, which is almost punk in its power,
forms the core of Havens’ sound. His aggressive folk
is considered revolutionary, but he laughs, claiming
his strumming “is one of the things that I don’t really
think about ... My hands are like a drummer. �ey
just keep going.”
AS A MUSICIAN, HE IS MOSTLY
AN INTERPRETER—HIS COVERS
ARE OFTEN BETTER THAN THE
ORIGINALS, AND BETTER-KNOWN.
Havens claims that without the coffeehouses,
he could never have become a musician. “I came
up to the Village and I was doing poetry and
drawing portraits. �en I would go back up off the
street and go down to a coffee shop and sit there
for eight hours ... And as many as there were, we’d
go from one to the next.”
Even learning to play the guitar was a product of
the scene. Havens says, “Fred Neil [the folk artist]
said, ‘You’ve been singing my songs for six months,
in harmony no less, take this guitar and learn it
06
Folk legend Richie Havens may have been an icon of the 1960s, but his relevance and popularity haven’t faded.
yourself.’ I borrowed his guitar ... I took it home, and
the doo-wop came back into my life, because doowop was about chords.”
As a black musician, Havens provides a different perspective—few folk singers could pull the
genre shift from doo-wop to folk. He says of African-American folk artists, “It’s quite an elderly
group of people that was there for my generation.
In folk, they had a voice already.” His greatest
hit, “Freedom,” is a part of an African-American
spiritual, and the lyrics, “Sometimes I feel like a
motherless child,” express power beyond their
simplicity. He drew upon these artists as inspiration because, as he says, “We needed a voice to explain what was happening, and to be able to share
the songs that someone shared with us, when we
were passing around their stories.”
And they did explain “what was happening”—Havens is a political musician and believes that
his generation was “a special generation,” but that
political activism is “all a circle, and it comes back.”
He says, “Basically I’m watching back to the ’60s,
and being conscious of the same things, but trying
to get it out in the open. I’ve watched, I think, a few
cycles come around, and dropped a few people at the
start, and we’ve filled in people.”
Even now, his politics take center stage. At his
Friday night show at Le Poisson Rouge, Havens performed a heartbreaking cover of Jackson Browne’s
“Lives in the Balance,” a dark and brooding song
about imperialism and war that recalls the anti-establishment feelings of the Woodstock era. �e youth
of the 1960s was “going to be heard whether anyone
liked it or not ... We went out to find out,” he says.
In his own political work, Havens has drawn
upon his love of children to improve communities
and build green spaces. His organization, �e Natural
Guard, which educates children about the environment, led him to receive the Peace Abbey Courage
of Conscience Award. On City Island in the Bronx,
he founded a museum called North Wind Undersea
Institute, an oceanographic children’s museum.
Even with his environmental work, Havens’
focus is still on his music. His latest album, Nobody Left to Crown, is his eighth self-produced
album. Havens also appeared in the Todd Haynes
film I’m Not �ere and contributed a song to the
soundtrack this year.
In addition, the 67-year-old musician tours prolifically, and has been on the road every weekend for
the last 29 years.
He enjoys this constant traveling because, for
Havens, the open exchange of ideas is the greatest
promise for the future. He says, “�ere are places
now in Manhattan, on the Lower East Side, there’s
still a family down there. It’s exactly the way the
Village was in the 1960s. �ey’re all down there. You
can go by one door and hear jazz, and the next door
you can hear folk music. It’s like a compact Woodstock epic.”
On stage last weekend, Havens was energetic,
seeming far younger than his 67 years. �e audience—
a mix of aging hippies, hippies-turned-yuppies, and
their children—swayed, clapped, and yelled when
he reached the climax of the show, the repetition of
the word “freedom,” which has rarely held as much
power as it did that August morning in 1969. A longbearded, robed sage, still clinging to his ideals, this
kid from Brooklyn touches generations through his
activism and music, a long way from the coffee shops
where he sat in the 1960s, still surprisingly relevant
and carrying history in every note. a
Internal
Affairs
BY YELENA SHUSTER
PHOTOS BY JOEY SHEMUEL
T
he night before my
first day interning at
a major magazine,
I tried on a modest
outfit: a pair of flared jeans and
a collared button-down shirt. A
floormate and burgeoning New
York fashionista took one look at
me and said, “You’re not going
dressed like that, are you?” She
lectured me on skinny jeans and
H&M bangles before following
me to my room, sifting through
my drab closet, and finding a
IN FOCUS
decent sleeveless top and beige skirt I once wore
to a restaurant. After strapping on my only pair of
four-inch pumps, I was ready to hobble my way to
my dream job.
When I arrived at the gleaming Hearst Tower
with its indoor waterfall and heavenly café, I
was instantly awed. I called my mom to tell her:
“OMFG! �is is exactly like �e Devil Wears
Prada!” before stepping into the office.
�e first girl I met was blonde and clearly not
from New York. Her every sentence implied an
exclamation mark—definitely a fellow intern. Before I met anyone else, she gave me the unofficial
intern commandments.
Be seen but not heard. Eat lunch at your desk
to be more productive. Arrive earlier than your
editor, leave later. Follow your editor’s phone
and e-mail etiquette. Try saving all of your
questions for one e-mail or phone call so as not
to bother your editor. Always take notes when
your editor is talking (you think you’ll remember, but you never do!). �e bottom line: your
editor is queen, and you are fortunate to be her
humble servant.
“And remember,” the girl said, concluding
our impromptu sisterhood of the four-inch heels,
“You are incredibly lucky to be here. So take a
deep breath and enjoy it. �ousands of girls would
kill to be in your place.”
Cue the Anne Hathaway doe-eyed look.
A
my Smith (name has been changed), BC
’08, was premed but always dreamed of
working at a glossy. Making a last-minute
career change would never have been possible had
she been living anywhere but at the hub of the
media world. In fall 2007 she bravely put her bio
classes behind her and plunged into the industry,
scoring an internship with Women’s Wear Daily
and then using her hands-on experience and good
recommendation to move to Vogue fashion editorial the following spring.
“One of the benefits of going to school in New
York is you have the opportunity of getting a job a
subway ride away,” she says.
After spending half an hour getting dressed to
impress, on any given day Smith made coffee runs
for the entire editorial staff and fielded “almost
physically impossible” requests like shipping out a
trunk to Milan in 60 minutes during rush hour.
Smith and I aren’t the first Columbia students
to trade in Plato for Perez Hilton. We East Coast
overachievers seem particularly susceptible to the
intern-or-die mentality, which causes wannabe
editors to log hundreds of unpaid hours learning
the magazine world’s insider tips.
I
interned for four semesters of my college
career and I loved every pressure-filled, heelhopping moment of it. But for some Columbia
students, the glamour of glossies can’t replace
the occasional gut feeling that they have shortchanged their Ivy League education—
especially when classmates are reveling in electives like Sustainable Development with Jeffrey
Sachs while interns are busy transcribing interviews with hair experts. My own friends have
called me everything from a masochist to an
08
extracurricular whore—and it’s easy to see why.
From reality TV to scripted shows to the big
screen, the media portrays magazines as glamorous hotbeds of catfights and makeup tips. �e
women who work for them fare no better. Powerhungry, conniving, and gorgeous, these ladies
breathe headlines and Marc Jacobs footwear—if
not fire. �ere is no doubt that the magnifying
lens of the Hollywood camera adds 10 pounds and
plenty of exaggeration. But the pressure to succeed, earnest graduates looking for their big break,
and ego-driven editors do exist on a smaller, yet
no less dramatic, level in the real world.
S
mith remembers one incident when the
fashion assistant she worked for clashed
with the interns. Smith’s boss called
an emergency meeting after the art department discovered a mess by the photocopier and
complained. The assistant told the interns that
they couldn’t behave like barbarians. As she
explained to them: “This is Vogue. It’s not Lucky
or Glamour.”
“I think to an extent my boss knew she was
playing this specific character,” Smith says. “She
was only a few years older than us but clearly had
to command this sort of authority. It was just
I
T
hen there’s the matter of money. Working 20 hours a week without being paid for
even one semester can be more than some
students can handle.
Josie Swindler, CC ’07, a freelancer for Radar,
GOOD, and Black Enterprise magazines, was an
intern goddess in college. She has racked up seven
internships—and thousands of dollars in debt.
“Looking back, I would have done fewer,” she
says. “Because I would have liked to make money.
�e first two are good intros into the industry. But
by the time you’re on the third internship, you
need to make money or get clips.”
Editors acknowledge that the industry ends
up catering to better-off students who can afford not to get paid for their work—often resulting in mastheads dominated by the white upper
class. Columbia’s Center for Career Education
offers a grant for students on financial aid who
have obtained an unpaid summer internship.
Barnard has a similar program for its students
throughout the school year. But no one has a
permanent solution.
“Frankly, a lot of media companies just don’t
have the budget on the editorial side. �e more
competitive the field, the less likely you are to
cater to the people getting into it. You’re less likely
as a business to offer them incentive,” Turner says.
�eodore Bressman, founder of the Intern
Memo advice newsletter, sees the same trend
in Hollywood where he works as an assistant to
IN FOCUS
about respecting the standards. I never felt afraid
Albano was shocked. “Call out, but don’t
or took anything personally.”
come into the office and expect to be paid for
In fact, Smith made a clear distinction between
doing your homework,” she says. “We want to
the visible hostility on display in �e Devil Wears
hire people who want to be here.” �e intern was
Prada, centered on a fictional magazine inspired
promptly fired.
by Vogue, and her own experience. At Vogue, the
only stress she felt was internal. “It’s not going
“
to be some girl bitching you out, telling you that
would love to hire interns who know the
system and already have a chemistry with
you’re not pretty enough or cool enough. Certainly there is an extreme pressure in an environeveryone. Otherwise you’re just guessing,”
ment where everyone is well-groomed and wellAlbano says.
But how much experience is too much and how
dressed and extremely passionate about fashion,”
she says, choosing her words carefully. “Vogue
much too little? Internships are more than rites
has a reputation for doing things with a very
of passage. �ey are, in every editor’s mind, an
obligation—what separates you from thousands of
high standard. Interns are representatives of that
brand. I internalized that and wanted to represent
other aspiring Tom Wolfes and Nora Ephrons.
them the right way.”
Chandra Turner, executive editor of CosmoGirl,
has been in the industry for over a decade. She
Smith had her own intern rules—the Anna
Wintour etiquette. Wintour has been the editorhires for entry-level positions as well as interns.
in-chief of Vogue for 20 years and commands a
“Interning is just as crucial as graduating from
certain amount of respect. She was also the realcollege when it comes to working in the magazine
life inspiration for Meryl Streep’s Miranda Priestly, industry. With one exception—your father owns
the titular Prada-clad devil herself.
the company,” she says.
“You’re not allowed to look Anna in the eye in
�e HR representative agrees, adding that she
the hallway. You should defer to her in a crossingwould rather hire someone with five internships
paths situation. You’re not supposed to take the elover a graduate of the Graduate School of Journalevator down with her,” Smith says, adding without ism with none. “Editors are looking for someone
a hint of sarcasm, “Everyone else is very humble.”
who can hit the ground running,” she says.
Even so, Smith loved the internship: “Vogue
And the competition is stiff. For a recent execuwas something I idealized my entire life. It will
tive assistant opening in Harper’s Bazaar, the HR
be a very long time till I get to work at the Vogue
rep received 200 e-mails a day for the first week.
offices again now that I’ve graduated. I got to go
People who didn’t have internship experience
were completely disregarded.
on a fashion shoot and be part of a crew creating
something I’ve always loved.”
Sometimes editor-speak can sound like a tribal
And Smith scored the biggest perk of all—a
dialect. Chatter of abbrevs, TKs, Illo’s, FOB, BOB,
deks, heds, and slugs permeates the cubicles.
great reference. “My boss really appreciated the
effort put forth. Having her as a recommendation
Learning the tricks of the tongue twisters is one
was a really redeeming part of all the time I put
reason that internships (plural) are crucial.
“Magazines on the editorial side are really a
into the internship,” Smith says.
�e magazine industry is so small and inbred
trade. As much as we like to glamorize them, it is
that wannabe editors cannot afford to get on
a trade that you practice. And you practice during
school,” Turner says.
someone’s bad side. An HR representative at a
major publishing company, who agreed to speak
While hesitant to specify an ideal number of
freely under anonymity, emphasized how imporinternships, Turner emphasizes the importance
of being on staff at your student publication as
tant it is to leave a good impression.
“It’s a small industry. If I picked up any mastwell. “Are you getting the same experience of rehead, including our competitors, I would know at
ally being on staff and being part of the problems
least three people. �ose are the people I would go
and solutions that are part of the daily paper? I
to for an evaluation of the candidate. I would exdon’t think you get that by interning a few times
pect them to give me an honest answer,” she says.
a week. It might be wiser to work every day for
“It’s really important to do well at every internyour school paper than to work two days a week
ship. It is a small world and people know people.”
answering phones at a major magazine,” she says.
In fact, the intern-or-die mentality Columbia
Lisa Freedman, senior associate editor at Time
Out New York, agrees, “Sadly, it’s who you know
students embrace is not common to anyone who
who’s going to suggest you for a job.” She’s had a
goes to school outside of urban centers. Eric Bishop, a
23-year-old graduate of Duke University, has always
number of unprofessional interns. One instantmessaged her throughout the day without using
believed that interning is strictly a summer option.
punctuation, as though they were BFFs exchang“�ere aren’t a whole lot of media outlets in
ing text messages. Another intern offered FreedDurham, North Carolina where one could intern
man her own play-by-play commentary on an
during the school year. It was never really on the
radar for me or many others,” he says. Duke had
interview she had to transcribe (“OMG! I can’t
a program in New York City and Los Angeles that
believe you asked this question!”).
Most editors understand that school comes
involved an internship during the school year, but
participating in it “definitely wasn’t the norm.”
first. Heather Albano, managing editor at
Maxim.com, says: “We’re very flexible. You can
Bishop worked for the Raleigh News & Observer the summer before his senior year, when he
make up the hours.”
served as the music editor for his school paper. He
But one intern showed up to work and told her
editor first thing in the morning, “I’m just going
scored his first major magazine internship a year
after he graduated, when he moved to New York to
to tell you: I have a paper due, so I’m going to be
intern for Esquire.
working on that all day.”
HOW TO TALK LIKE AN EDITOR
Like any trade, the journalism world comes with
its own lingo. Sometimes EditorSpeak can sound
like a tribal dialect. Learning the tricks of the
tongue twisters is one reason that internships
(plural) are crucial. Here’s a quick rundown of
some of the most common jargon.
Abbrevs: Abbreviations.
BOB: �e last third of the magazine after the
“well” that has advertising surrounding it. �e
BOB usually consists of short, one-to-two-page
articles and columns.
Dek: A one-or-two-line summary of the story
that comes after the headline.
FOB: �e first third of the magazine before you
get to the “well.” �e FOB usually consists of
short, one-to-two-page articles and columns.
Hed: Short for “headline.” Usually accompanied
by a “dek.”
Illo’s: Illustrations accompanying a feature story.
Slug: �e name used to describe a regular
column or feature, usually at the top of a page.
For instance, Cosmo’s health column is slugged,
“Your Body.”
TK: An editing term that means “to come.”
(Courtesy of Ed2010.com)
09
IN FOCUS
screenwriter Evan Goldberg (Pineapple Express,
Superbad).
“Literally more than half of the summer interns
in Hollywood are not being paid. �ey’re just
trying to meet some people to get hired after they
graduate,” Bressman says. “If you want to be
working in media or entertainment, there’s a good
chance you’re going to spend your summer working in a mail room and not getting paid. It forces
you to make longer-term decisions before you
might like and puts financial aid students at a huge
disadvantage. It’s not like they’re going to live in
their office during the summer.”
E
ditors often refer to getting entry-level jobs
as “breaking into the industry.” �ough not
meant literally, getting employment in the
Hearst Tower or Condé Nast fortress can feel like
penetrating a brick wall.
Even with a Vogue internship under her belt,
Smith remains unemployed.
Having had five internships or three doesn’t
seem to matter when ad pages are dropping for
most magazines. �is year’s seniors look forward
to graduating in the recession economy. Smith
cites this as a potential factor for why she spends
her days job searching.
But magazine insiders are not convinced the
situation is as frenzied as it seems.
“It’s very early in this ‘recession’ to be able
to predict what’s going to happen to magazines.
I’m not thinking I’m going to hire less editorial
assistants or interns,” Turner says.
The HR rep also hasn’t noticed any downward
plunge. “It’s never the same year after year. It’s
possible another year is not as busy as in the
past,” she says.
In fact, one trend of the recession economy is
a boon for interns.
“The trend in downsizing editorial staff has
been a huge benefit to editorial assistants and
interns,” Turner says. “You used to have EA’s
who would just make coffee. When I worked at
Good Housekeeping in the mid-’90s, we had
eight to 10 editorial assistants. It’s a lot more
practical now.”
F
or every bright-eyed hopeful, there’s an
occasional Anne Hathaway who tells her
editor to fuck off in front of everyone
during Fashion Week. The intern-or-die mentality seems particularly bleak when looking
toward the future and realizing that no amount
of resumé-padding or connections can guarantee you a job. Only the strong—or, some would
say, delusional—survive.
I guess I would be considered the latter. My
parents will never understand why I’ve spent
the better part of my college career working for
free, and my friends think it’s hilarious that I
plan on waitressing to make rent after graduating with an Ivy League diploma. But anyone
who has pursued her passion understands that
sacrifices have to be made—even if that means
not being able to afford new underwear (never
mind the kick-ass outfits necessary to impress a
future editor).
For her part, Smith remains in unemployed
purgatory. She was turned down for a job at
Harper’s Bazaar as well as an entry-level opening at Paper. Her parents fund her Midtown
apartment, and she is “not living the high life.”
She wakes up every morning to e-mail her
contacts about interviews or follow-up with HR
reps for open positions. She spends her free time
catching up on TV or reading in the park. Sometimes she wishes she had gone to grad school.
Other times, she’s tempted to switch fields. But
she can’t even bring herself to lie on her cover
letter about how much she loves PR.
Especially since she genuinely loves working at glossies. And no high-paying law firm can
compare to being part of the exclusive world of
magazine journalism.
“I remember when I would go to showrooms
and pick up samples. There’s something that
feels great to say, ‘I’m picking up for Vogue.’ I
always get the sense that people looked at me
differently when I dropped that name. It’s a
cool thing to be a part of,” she says. And unlike
her I-banking friends, she lives for the work she
is doing.
“You have to pursue what you’re passionate
about. At the end of the day, if you’re passionate
about something, you’re going to excel at it. It’s
almost like it’s not an option.” a
10
Nix �is Chick Flick
BY LAURA TORRE
PHOTO BY PICTUREHOUSE
Recently, the industry of female film has
skyrocketed. With hits such as Sex and the City
making over $400 million worldwide, many
directors and studios have begun to see the buying power of women once again. The Women
is the latest installment in this growing trend,
addressing an audience dominated by females
who not only form part of the work force, but
also juggle the different and difficult roles of
mother, wife, and homemaker. But the women
represented by these films—women obsessed
with fashion and comparing the size of their
wallets with the size of their waists—often differ
from the women we see and with whom we deal
in everyday life. Many female spectators have
begun to ask themselves who, exactly, the film
industry thinks they are.
As its title implies, �e Women is all about
women—even down to the extras. But the type of
woman it deals with is not immediately clear. Is
it the modern glass-ceiling-breaking corporate
worker, or the dedicated do-it-all mother? �e
truth is, it’s both and neither at the same time.
Based on the play and movie made in 1939 by the
same name, �e Women has an all-female cast and
revolves around the lives of four New York socialites:
Mary Haines (Meg Ryan), Sylvia Fowler (Annette
Bening), Edie Cohen (Debra Messing), and Alex
Fisher (Jada Pinkett Smith). Although the cast is
extraordinary, the movie is far from it. While trying to promote empowering images of women and
of female friendship, �e Women fails at portraying
women as anything other than the stereotypes
frequently seen in previous female-centered films
like Sex and the City. Lacking in substance and
style, the film manages only to make ambiguous points about the real problems women face
for being women, belittling and dismissing their
concerns—and, in fact, adding to those concerns
through its erroneous portrayal.
Originally rejected by various studios, �e Women
was finally approved by Warner Bros. after the success of Sex and the City at the box office. Indeed, the
two movies share striking similarities, including the
characters’ great (and unrealistic) proclivity toward expensive fashion—a notion difficult for many
American women to understand, as one out of eight
American women lives under the poverty line. �is
portrayal of women as shopping-obsessed clothing
gluttons is emphasized throughout the film—particularly in the first scene, when Sylvia, a fashionmagazine editor, scans the first floor of Saks Fifth
Avenue. Represented as a shopping robot, her glasses
become a computer screen, a target running from
the latest “it-bag” to the women wearing fakes. �e
film’s attempt to make this stereotype humorous is
notable, but suggests that its audience identifies with
this behavior. Similarly, Sex and the City was widely
criticized for making its characters—who, if well
dressed, often paired high-end shoes with vintage
shirts—suddenly appear with closets full of Christian
Louboutin, Chanel and Prada. �e film reflects a
growing—and scary—marketing trend to advertise
such behavior as empowering or “feminist,” implying that buying designer outfits is a demonstration
of female power. �e truth is that while there are
many wealthy and powerful feminists, this behavior
reflects only the power of a wallet, not of a person.
Bening, Pinkett Smith, and Messing sport attitudes and style at Saks Fifth Avenue—the ostensible
Mecca of womanhood.
FILM
movies about women: harmless fun or institutional sexism?
While �e Women attempts to show the
compassionate ability of women to connect with
and help each other in difficult situations, such
as when Mary finds her husband cheating on her,
it nonetheless asserts that this is not the genuine
nature of women. One moment, Mary is being
held and comforted by her friend, the next, she is
being gossiped about. In fact, Sylvia finds it necessary to out her friend’s intimate situation in order
to keep her own job, depicting women as cold
backstabbers who care more about their personal
gain than a fellow female’s troubles. Eva Mendes’
character (the other woman) serves this purpose
especially well, as she fails to recognize Mary as a
fellow human being and woman. �e women of
�e Women don’t have one character, but instead
two faces that are flat, dull, and unrepresentative
of real women.
IS IT THE MODERN GLASSCEILING-BREAKING
CORPORATE WORKER, OR
THE DEDICATED DO-IT-ALL
MOTHER? THE TRUTH IS,
IT’S BOTH AND NEITHER AT
THE SAME TIME.
If anything, the film portrays women as spreaders of gossip who are able to succeed and get ahead
through cheating, lying, and scheming—reminiscent of richer, better-dressed, skinnier Medeas.
Debra Messing’s character, supposedly pregnant
throughout the film, looks stick-thin up until the
delivery of her fourth child. �e lack of diversity in
women’s body types is unsettling. Most extras are
high-heeled, trotting fashionistas. When Molly,
Mary’s 11-year-old daughter, asks why it can’t be
changed that models in magazines are so skinny,
the answer is just,“It’s complicated.” It would
appear to be so, since the film finds it necessary
to stick to such (pardon the pun) thin parameters
of the norm. While wanting to identify with “real
women,” it only portrays a minority of females.
�e film’s controversy is that is has good intentions. At the surface, �e Women certainly seems
to be just another film about how women can get
ahead in life with a little help from their friends.
But on a deeper level, the film commits many of
the sins that it condemns, defining women as
subjective (but not subjects), unpredictable, and
prone to having and hiding bad intentions. Rather
than dealing with the core situations that surround women today—such as the much-contested
issue of working mothers—the film simplifies
such problems to a level of absurdity, seeming to
recommend that women simply satisfy themselves
with doing less.
An unsuccessful remake, �e Women misses
an opportunity to make a statement about strong,
powerful women and the ways in which we can
and should work together to reach our goals.
Instead, it portrays women that hold each other’s
hands only if there is no “it-bag” for which they
can compete. a
11
ART
Point CountARTpoint
two contrasting definitions of art, one modern art museum
BY JULIA HALPERIN AND DIMA KISLOVSKIY
PHOTOS BY EMILY RAUBER
You know art has become complicated when
you go to an exhibition and can’t be sure if the fire
extinguisher is part of the installation or intended for
practical use.
Indeed, we live in an age and in a city that celebrate
the cutting edge, and nowhere is this celebration more
prescient than in the realm of art. But as students who
are trained not only to be cultured but also to be skeptical, what do we make of art that pushes beyond the
traditional definitions?
Two students—one a self-proclaimed lover of
modern and contemporary art, and the other a selfproclaimed skeptic—took to the Museum of Modern
Art to argue over these very issues. Each piece they
chose confronts a particular objection many might
have to modern, particularly nonrepresentational, art.
(“My kid could do that” and “I can’t tell what the hell
12
this is supposed to be” include some fairly familiar
protestations.)
One argued that a MoMA curator ought not to be
taken blindly as the ultimate authority on art, and the
other contended that these artworks had legitimate
artistic value. �ey flipped a coin in front of each piece
to decide who would address the artwork first.
Let the debate begin.
“My kid could do that.”
Ellsworth Kelly
Colors for a Large Wall
DK: �is work has no special technical skills to
show, and it doesn’t say anything to me. I guess
the tagline really says it all: What’s so special about
doing something anybody can do? You don’t see
concert pianists coming out and playing a scale to
thunderous applause, but that’s no different from
what’s happening here. How much could this sell for
at an auction? Probably a few million times the price
of a book of Sherwin-Williams paint swatches.
JH: You might be surprised to know that Kelly
probably had even more stringent requirements
“I can’t tell what the hell this is supposed to be.”
Jasper Johns
�e Diver
JH: To me, this work displays how affecting nonrepresentational art can be. If we were
hemmed into the confines of representation,
Johns would have had to display a man diving
into the sea. Instead, Johns displays the action and the motion associated with the dive.
Some consider this work a response to poet Hart
Crane’s suicidal dive in 1932. I think the motion captured on the canvas, coupled with the
brooding colors, conveys a much more complex
and moving version of the subject than a picture
ever could.
DK: I have to agree with you on this one. �e
passion and intensity are extraordinarily genuine. �e way Johns animates drowning as a linear
flipping in two dimensions is just staggering to
look at. �e Diver is beautifully done, shows off
some real technical prowess, and rocks you with
its emotion when seen in person—I think this is
definitely a great piece of art.
for what “good art” is than you do. He considered
himself more bricklayer than artist, explaining
that he thought the bricklayer’s work was more
valuable than that of all but a few artists. But in an
era in which the artist’s emotions were the driving
force behind almost all artwork, isn’t it cool and
kind of refreshing to see someone bucking that
trend? For Kelly, it’s all about the color relationships. And who’s to say that’s not just as critical an
element of art as all the rest?
“If I saw this on a trash heap, I would leave it
there.”
Barnett Newman
Vir Heroicus Sublimis
DK: �is is another work where the technique
makes me think a lot of things, but “�is belongs
in a premier art institution” definitely isn’t one of
them. I guess if you know art history you can put
Artists such as Jackson Pollack have forced even
casual onlookers to question the definition of art.
�e Diver provides a rare chance for agreement—both
skeptics and MoMA regulars value its skill and energy.
ART
this in context—maybe the last artist had six or
seven lines, and maybe they were horizontal, so
this guy is really pushing the limits. Vir Heroicus
Sublimis means “Man, Heroic and Sublime”—but
what does that have to do with heroism?
JH: Newman believed that by focusing only on
colors, planes, and lines, he could get to the essence
of art and prompt you to have a spiritual experience viewing his work. I think part of the challenge
of viewing modern art is getting away from what
you think art is supposed to look like. Who’s to say
that biting into the most perfect, ripe peach you’ve
ever tasted isn’t as positive a culinary experience as
eating some complicated peach cobbler concoction?
Newman skips figures and goes right to engulfing
the viewer with the elements of art themselves—he
creates rhythm with his lines and energy with his
colors. I think the canvas sort of buzzes with energy
as it sits there on the wall.
�e simplicity of Barnett Newman’s Vir Heroicus Sublimis leaves room for onlookers to formulate their own interpretations.
“�is is just a mess.”
Robert Morris
Untitled (1968)
DK: When we first walked into the room, I
thought we had accidentally wandered into a part
of the museum that was still under construction.
�e work is a big pile of yarn and glass on the
floor, so I kicked a loose piece of fabric about a foot
or two when the guard wasn’t looking. Because
the piece has no meaning of its own and makes
the viewer do all the work in coming up with one,
people will still look at this as art even after my
interference—which tells me it never really was
art in the first place.
JH: �is is one piece where my initial, gut
reaction is just completely different from yours.
I actually feel like Morris takes the turmoil Johns
felt in �e Diver one step further—he takes it off
the canvas and realizes it in our world, in three
dimensions. It’s a mess, but the reflective shards
of glass still make it beautiful in a heartbreaking
way. Morris, to me, seems to be representing a
particular state of mind. And you’re right, that
could be totally averse to what he was actually
thinking. But isn’t it sort of a gift to let me come
up with what I think it means on my own, instead
of thrusting a meaning upon me?
“Who got to decide this is art?”
Kazimir Malevich
Suprematist Composition: White on White
DK: �is is the piece that the whole discussion leads up to. �is could be a child’s drawing,
or something you find in a garbage heap, or an
unfinished mess, but now it hangs in a famous
museum because someone determined that it was
greater than the reactionary piece before it, and so
on back down the line. In the last 100 years, have
we seen the death of the kind of art that requires
an eye to inspect the world and the skill to present
us with the truth about it?
JH: I think that art reflects the values and
evolution of its age. You’re right, Malevich didn’t
render anything particularly beautiful, or even
recognizable. He was fascinated by technology—
particularly the airplane—and aerial photography.
White on White does evoke, I think, the weightlessness of flight and the power that comes from
AS STUDENTS WHO ARE
TRAINED NOT ONLY TO BE
CULTURED BUT ALSO TO BE
SKEPTICAL, WHAT DO WE MAKE
OF ART THAT PUSHES BEYOND
THE TRADITIONAL DEFINITIONS?
looking down. He’s reinforcing the connection between creativity, progress, and art—not destroying it. �e thing about this kind of art is that it
isn’t as simple as some fruit in a basket or farmers
in a field. �e modern world requires a bit more of
a complex gaze. We live in the photographic age,
we know what our world looks like—we want to
see what it means, and where it’s going. �is kind
of art gives us an opportunity to see someone else
look at the world in a way we could never have
imagined.
Standing in front of White on White, the two viewers struck up a conversation with the guard in the
gallery. “Could you do this?” Dima asked the guard.
�e guard paused.
“Drawing is a technical thing. �is is a concept,”
he said, and was silent for a moment. “Personally,
though, I prefer the Impressionists.” a
13
THEATER
Making the Political Palpable
happy sunshine kung fu flower shatters the wall surrounding socio-political debates
BY LAURA HEDLI
PHOTO COURTESY OF PETER ZELINSKY
We’re forced to have our meeting in the back
of a closed and darkened Zipper Factory Tavern.
Eight of us are squeezed around a single booth, the
lighting so low that I can’t see the words scribbled
on the pages of my reporter’s notebook. “�is is
how communism started,” quips writer-producer
Matthew-Lee Erlbach.
“WE HAVE A VERY BIG INFLATABLE
SLEDGEHAMMER THAT WE ARE
THROWING AT THE DAM OF
INFORMATION, HOPING THAT SOME
OF IT WILL SPILL OVER INTO OUR
PEERS’ MINDS AND EARS.”
Erlbach is the master creative force behind
Happy Sunshine Kung Fu Flower (HSKFF), and, if
you can get past the mouthful of a name, the show
defies both expectation and classification. �e
premise: a quartet of Japanese ninjas is outsourced
by the Chinese to infiltrate the American psyche.
�ese ninjas take on different personas in politics,
pop culture, and the media as they karate-chop
their way through an hour-long multimedia sociopolitical satire. Mixing a Jack Bauer-esque terrorist
interrogation with a show tune and displaying
violent images of global warming as someone
rattles off the weather in French—the dressing is
outrageous, but the issues are real. “We put not
only the lipstick on the pig, but a dress, and we
give it a tampon,” Erlbach says.
Serving as both HSKFF director and associate
director for the national tour of �e 25th Annual
Putnam County Spelling Bee, Darren Katz, CC ’96,
calls HSKFF progressive. Some productions are
reverting to the old hat-and-cane vaudeville days,
he explains, while others are using various entertainment outlets to reach a diverse audience. “�is
is actually something you should come to ideally as
an event,” says Katz, and the HSKFF crew promises to test the First Amendment.
“I can think of maybe one or two instances in
the rehearsal room where we’ve been like, ‘Oh
should we say that,’ or ‘Oh, that might offend
someone,’” says actor Lynn Andrews, Ninja #4,
who’s been with the show since its inception.
Nothing seems too over-the-top for these folks,
nor do they seem to mind making their audiences
uncomfortable.
14
Each theatrical segment is interrupted by
various public service announcements, similar to
commercials on TV. “It’s how you’re used to seeing
things,” explains general manager and marketing
director Wendy Harris, CC ’95. “You’re watching a
show, and then a commercial comes on, and that’s
what you’re sometimes really paying attention
to.” And while some announcements and a good
portion of the sketches are fresh each month, other
segments are staples in every show.
Channeling her inner Oprah, combined with
the childlike innocence of Dora the Explorer,
Brooke Ishibashi, Ninja #3, is Akiko, a song-tooting talk show host who interviews special guests
at each performance. Willie Geist, from MSNBC’s
Morning Joe, and Lizz Winstead, founder of Air
America Radio and co-creator of �e Daily Show,
will be her two notable interviewees on Sept. 27.
Erlbach says that he and fellow creative voices
Heath Calvert and Jeff Ashworth aren’t looking
to package a piece of liberal propaganda. Instead,
they try to act as an artistic filtering system, sifting
through the astronomical amounts of news and
sensationalism that the media churns out each
day, and electing to present what most interests
them. “Our country is on the valley side of the
dam right now. �ere’s an extraordinary amount
of information that’s piling up behind that dam,
and there’s a very large wall that’s only letting a
little bit of it filter through,” says musical supervisor and arranger Ian Wehrle. “We have a very big
inflatable sledgehammer that we are throwing at
the dam of information, hoping that some of it will
spill over into our peers’ minds and ears.”
Ideologies clash many times during the rehearsal process, but the end goal is always to foster
a working dialogue. �at’s why the entire cast and
crew stick around for a party after the show. “If
I can peg the Columbia student, and if they were
anything like they were when Darren and I went
there, they’re a fairly politically minded group,”
says Harris, believing that this type of forum for
discussion is ideal for students.
“Going to school there was about being at the
forefront of culture, or having access to what’s at
the forefront of culture,” Katz adds. “I feel like we
are in sync with that to some degree.”
�e HSKFF crew subscribes to Barack Obama’s
trickle-up theory, explains production manager
and associate producer Kelli Jo Claxton. “�ere is a
movement happening in this country, and it is rising from the underground and through education
... people are waking up,” Erlbach says. “I think
this is part of that voice.”
Two weeks ago today, Barack Obama concluded
his ServiceNation speech by saying that we need
to make politics and government cool again. By
merging content and quality, infusing America’s
political and social fabric with unabashed theatricality, Happy Sunshine Kung Fu Flower is
certainly a step in that direction. a
Happy Sunshine Kung Fu Flower is directed by
Darren Katz and plays at the Zipper Factory �eater
Saturday, Sept. 27, at 10:30 p.m. �e Zipper Factory
�eater is located at 336 W. 37th St. (between Eighth
and Ninth avenues). Tickets are $20.
Go to www.kungfuflower.com to learn more.
A new take on martial arts, Happy Sunshine Kung Fu Flower is a theatrical experience that locks into the
American psyche and dispels socio-political taboos.
Sartorially Speaking...
STYLE
an interview with scott schuman
BY MOIRA LYNCH
PHOTO COURTESY OF
CHRISTOPHER PETERSON
�is fashion week, the word “stalkorialist”
was coined to describe eager fans that follow Scott
Schuman around in hopes of being featured on his
blog. �e Fashion Week Daily made up the term to
poke fun at the hopes that many fashionistas cherish
of being featured on �e Sartorialist, a Web site
that is adored by fashion professionals and amateur
style-lovers alike. Schuman, a former menswear
director at Bergdorf Goodman, focused on male
style at the inception of his site in September
2005, and he proved equally adept at identifying
Scott Schuman’s popular Web site �e Sartorialist
features fashions from every nook and cranny of
the globe.
the subtleties of feminine garb when he began to
feature women in January 2006. His first posts
garnered about three comments each, while now,
many photos get over a hundred comments within
a day of posting.
Schuman does not shoot street style per
se—rather, he shoots a wide range of looks ranging
from the high-brow to the low-brow, the only
requirement being that they are interesting in
some way. He looks for “a person in a situation”
and never tries to alter what they are wearing.
Schuman leaves it to his readers to dissect the
looks—he only comments on what he likes about
his subjects’ outfits. He will not shoot a famous
person like Carine Roitfeld, the editor-in-chief
of French Vogue, “just because she is Carine.” He
shoots her because “she is really cool,” and his
readers can use her innovative combinations as
“abstract inspiration.”
Perhaps people responded so well to �e
Sartorialist because nowadays they have what
Schuman deems “the wrong relationship” with
magazines, the dominant form of styling inspiration pre-Internet. He sees magazines as “a
complement or a supplement” to his project and
thinks people should “relearn how to use them.”
Instead of taking the new fashions as a dictate,
readers should understand that magazines present
them as “dreamy, aspirational tools.” Schuman
says that “magazines had more balls” under
bygone editors like Diana Vreeland, the whimsical
head of Vogue in the late sixties. He postulates
that the business side of the magazine industry—
especially the expectations of the advertisers—has
dulled the originality of most magazines. He
nonetheless expresses his admiration for Teen
Vogue, “which does a great job mixing up looks.”
French Vogue is another favorite because its
editors, Emmanuelle Alt and Roitfeld, “clearly
represent their personalities styling-wise.”
Part of the allure of �e Sartorialist is that
Schuman travels around the world in search of chic.
He covers international fashion weeks for Style.com
and takes independent journeys to countries ranging from Sweden to India. His favorite city to shoot
in is Milan, because it provides a “mysterious and
romantic background” that is not overly familiar
or historically charged. Last year he went to New
Delhi right after shooting fashion weeks for Style.
com. An already exhausted Schuman found “ a lot
of poverty that was hard to see past.” He did not get
many shots for his blog, but he was “really happy”
with what he did find. Tokyo and Moscow are his
next intended destinations. At the author’s mention
of the lack of style in Beijing, Schuman responded
that this is “typical of a reemerging culture.” He
believes that the consumers of former communist cities, like Beijing or Moscow, “need to learn
subtly,” but that it “takes people time to return.”
Hopefully, the Chinese and Russian governments
do not block �e Sartorialist. a
Person of the Week:
Simon Doonan
BY SHIRLEY CHEN
PHOTO COURTESY OF
TIMOTHY GREENFIELD-SANDERS
�is week we offer our sincere congratulations
to Mr. Simon Doonan, creative director of fashion
Mecca Barneys New York. On �ursday, Sept.
18, Mr. Doonan finally sealed his 14-year-long
relationship with designer Jonathan Adler in
San Francisco.
�e always charming and wickedly witty
Doonan has much to celebrate. In addition to
his nuptials, he is a regular columnist for �e
New York Observer and the author of four
successful books, including
Simon Doonan has a
the self-help volume Eccentric
Glamour: Creating an Insanely
number of successes in
More Fabulous You.
which to revel, both in his
�is fall, his acclaimed
stellar career and in his
memoir �e Beautiful People
romantic life.
is set to become a BBC comedy
series. �e show will chronicle the growing
pains of a flamboyant teenager struggling with a
dysfunctional suburban life. It has already been
described as clever, honest, and ironic with biting
humor—much like Simon himself.
A window dresser who once worked on
a building site demolishing public toilets,
Doonan lifted himself out of obscurity with his
provocative displays and became the darling
of Vogue editor Diana Vreeland (whom he
calls his favorite New Yorker). If the immense
popularity of Barneys is any proof, Doonan
is a special talent and has continually offered
something refreshing to the fashion world.
Simon Doonan has always lived life his way,
inappropriate and naughty in an utterly chic
way. He has even done the impossible: gotten
the glum fashion crowd to laugh at themselves
(just a little bit). a
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