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hampshire college december 11, 2009
volume Xii
Citing “broken system,” Qca
cancels Drag Ball
By emily drummer
Staff Writer
Hampshire’s Queer Community
Alliance (Qca) issued
a statement via Facebook on
December 2 announcing the cancellation
of its annual Drag Ball in
protest of what signer Mike Wolf
calls “a very broken system.” The
statement calls for more funding,
educational workshops, and safer
sex supplies. It also demands for
“Community Council (cc) to be
held accountable for their favoritism
and embezzlement”—accusations
that come only a month
after Committee on Community
Activities (coca) co-chair Sam
Light was found to have misused
Student Activities Funds (saF).
However, Wolf urges the community
that Drag Ball’s cancellation
is part of a much larger issue: the
administration’s failure to provide
adequate funding for identity-based
groups on campus while
simultaneously using the groups
to promote Hampshire as a queerfriendly
safe space.
Community Council approves stipends for officers
By henry parr
Managing Editor
Last tuesday, December 2, Community
Council voted and approved this semester’s
stipends for council officers. The
motion passed 8-2, with one abstention.
The final vote gave stipends of varying
amounts to the officers of the Committee
on Community Development (cocd), the
Committee on Community Activities (coca),
the Safety Committee (SafeCom), the
Financial Committee (FiCom), and Community
Council. Each committee internally
discussed their stipends and proposed a
final figure in the council meeting.
The largest stipends, at the amount
of $700, will be awarded to the Director
of FiCom and to the Co-Chairs of coca.
However, one of the coca chairs, Sam
Light, has already turned down his stipend.
$400 will be awarded to both the financial
director of coca and of FiCom. $250 will
be awarded to the Co-Chairs of cocd and
SafeCom and to the secretaries of coca
and FiCom. Community Council proposed
a flat stipend of $450 for all its members:
the Chair, Communications Officer, Facilitator,
and Secretary.
All stipends will come out of the Stu-
in
this
issue
the CLiMAX
Drag Ball is traditionally held
during spring semester as an act
of resistance to mainstream culture
and gender binaries, but some
believe the nature of the dance itself
to be problematic. Qca signer
Cyree Johnson contends that
“Drag Ball, in its current form, really
does more to exclude queer
people on this campus than it
does to include them.” Many feel
that the dance has been reduced
to a night of hyper-sexualized
partying, trivializing the nature
of drag and undermining its originally
subversive message.
Johnson believes that Drag Ball
should remain cancelled regardless
of funding. “I don’t think that
coca stepping in and funding us
or [President] Ralph Hexter stepping
in and funding us is going
to help queer people as a whole
because regardless of workshops,
they’re going to keep kicking
us around. If you can’t keep our
community safe, we’re not going
to put on this party for a bunch
of straight people to hangout and
dress in drag and sexually harass
dent Activities Fund; the total sum of the
stipends is $5,500 (if every officer took
their stripend).
After each committee presented their
stipend proposal, Catherine Craig, the Secretary
of Community Council, motioned
that the council approve the proposed stipend
amounts, and cocd Rep. Emily Ryan
seconded the motion. The motion was
blocked quickly by Community Council’s
Communications Officer, Ella Wind.
Some council members voiced concern
that stipend amounts differ by committee.
While the Co-Chairs of cocd will receive
a stipend of $250, the Director of FiCom
will receive $700.
After the meeting, Chair of Community
Council Dee Dee Desir said, “I think that
every position that has a similar title, as
far as a chair of the standing committee,
should have the same [stipend] because
all the standing committees are the same.”
Desir continued by saying that “giving different
individuals different amounts holds
certain standing committees to a different
level.”
During the meeting, however, members
argued that the different committees have
different responsibilities. SafeCom representative
Leanna Pohevitz said that there
us.”
Qca’s statement alleges that
certain groups are receiving priority
funding over others. Among
the groups mentioned was the
Cheese Club, who received nine
times more funding than the Qca
from FiCom last year, although
this number does not include
coca-funded events—for which
the Qca was granted thousands.
Johnson and Wolf said that a conflict
with the Cheese Club was
not intentional, and that “it’s not
like we hate the cheese club or we
hate cheese. We’re distinguishing
between recreation groups and
identity-based groups that are
used to represent the school.”
coca co-chair Kalei Sabaratnam
maintains, “Our job is not
to prioritize groups” and argues
that the Qca’s allegations of favoritism
are further complicated
by the fact that ten out of twelve
coca members identify as queer.
Additionally, Section F of the
committee’s bylaws, titled “Impartiality,”
states that “Officers
See IDENTITY-BASED, page 3
Winter graduates
is “absolutely merit in acknowledging that
there is a difference.” coca co-chair Sam
Light furthered this by saying that, “the
added responsibility warrants a higher
stipend.”
Craig highlighted this point in a conversation
held after the meeting, giving
the example that “[the] SafeCom Co-Chair
works a whole lot less than someone on
coca,” and that while she views SafeCom
as a valuable and important committee, the
question remains, “How do we compensate
people for their time and their energy?”
Ryan, who also spoke with The Climax,
said, “There are people who do a whole lot
more work than other people, they should
be compensated more.”
Desir also brought up the consistent increase
in stipends. “Last fall semester, there
were only three positions being funded in
coca. This spring semester, four positions
are being funded in coca. You just see
this steady adding of positions, adding of
amounts.”
This years stipends, however, are not a
significant increase to last years, and members
also argued that there are a number of
catches put in place to stop council from
unjustly raising stipends. Light pointed out
that the business office has the final call to
News: Qca calls off Drag Ball (1), Community Council stipends (1), Art Barn burglary (
OpiNiON: Queer Bowl viewpoints (3), Ornia and encryption (4)
Features: Basketball double-header (5), Richard Rushfield memoir review (5), February graduates (8)
arts & eNtertaiNmeNt: Sound Thoughts on holiday music (6), 41 shows reviewed (6), Benevento Trio tribute (7)
issue 6
photo by jo nguyen/the climaX
An example of some of the fine work done by students set to graduate in
February. See page 8 for full article.
award stipends and that “if it turned into a
pattern of cyclical corruption the business
office could just not award them.” Pohevitz
also noted that the council had also ensured
that officers weren’t being paid twice
when they “put in the bylaws that you
couldn’t be elected for two [positions].”
Certainly, however, the discussion over
stipends comes into new context with the
recent misuse of saF funds by coca Co-
Chair Sam Light and complaints made this
week by Qca over their being denied adequate
funding from coca and FiCom.
When it came to a vote for the first time,
the motion to approve stipends as initially
proposed by each committee failed
to pass, with a final count of 4-3, with 4
abstentions.
Desir then offered an alternative solution,
motioning that all officers be paid
the same amount, $450, which Wind seconded.
This was put to a vote after Pohevitz
blocked, and it found little support
throughout the discussion. Desir’s motion
to award all officers the same stipend
failed to pass 2-6, with 3 abstentions.
On November 16, Community Council
held an open event, the “Big Block of
Cheese Night.” Numerous students at
See STIPENDS, page 2

2 the climaX news
volume Xii, issue 6
Officers granted stipend; two of
them decline
Continued from front page
the event brought up the topic of stipends, some
of whom wondered whether they should even be
awarded at all.
Wind said of the open event that “it was pretty
unanimous. The vast majority of the students that
came said, ‘We don’t understand why you have stipends.’”
Wind cites this as a reason why she initially
voted against the motion. “For me, that’s a really big
factor, and that really influences my decision and
makes me more secure in saying that I don’t support
stipends.”
The “Big Block of Cheese Night,” however, was
not the first time that stipends have been called into
question by students or committee members.
Minutes from a FiCom meeting on November 17,
2008, state, “The issuance of stipends violates the
Student Activities Fee guidelines which clearly state
that no student shall receive payment in the form
of a salary, honorarium, or stipend for services rendered
at the college.” The minutes continue, “We believe
that the elimination of stipends would pave the
path for Community Council and the subcommittees
of Council to forge a stronger relationship with
the members of the student body.”
Early last fall, Council also created a Stipends
Task Force, which could not come to a clear consensus.
However, in a Community Council meeting on
December 2, 2008, minutes state that the task force
made “the verbal recommendation” that “Community
Council vote that the stipends remain the same as
they did last semester (s08).”
Ryan, who was present for part of the December
meeting said, this week, “I think its totally responsible
for a student body to compensate those who represent
them in the jobs that take up a lot of time, that
are really exhausting, and are not really all that much
fun.”
During last weeks meeting, council generally
avoided the larger discussion as to whether or not
stipends should be awarded at all. It wasn’t, however,
completely ignored. Ben Saucier, Facilitator of Community
Council, did state, “I think we should also
the CLiMAX
maNagiNg editOr
Henry Parr
editOrial BOard
Sam Butterfield
Dan Clarendon
Jordan DeBor
Ben Kudler
Molly Smith
layOut editOr
Dan Clarendon
head COpy editOr
Carolyn Madeo
COpy editOrs
Jessie Cass
Sami Diaz
Sarah Gordon
The views expressed in the climaX do not necessarily reflect those of the paper, its staff, or Hampshire College.
the climaX will gladly work with any interested writers and photographers and holds regular staff meetings
open to all Hampshire students and faculty. Please direct any comments, questions, corrections, letters to the
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The typeface family used in the climaX was designed by David Jonathan Ross (F03) as part of his Division iii
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Copyright 2009 the climaX, all rights reserved.
Hampshire College
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layOut staFF
Anike Arni
Elizabeth Berg
Jorge Cruz
Emily Drummer
Hanna Grieb
Sarah Gordon
Brittni Hayes
Jo Nguyen
Paul Yao
look into the ethical issue of paying ourselves out of
the saF (Student Activities Fund)” Wind also explicitly
voiced her opinion of stipends saying “I don’t really
support stipends for council, period.”
Saucier proposed holding an all-community meeting
about stipends but did not find support from the
council.
FiCom Director then Daniel Erickson motioned
that the stipends, initially proposed at the beginning
of the meeting, be approved, with the caveat that a
stipends meeting be held early next semester. Light
seconded. The motion passed as Wind changed her
vote, and three of the abstentions voted in support of
the proposed stipend amounts.
Wind stated that she felt pressured to compromise
because of the timing of the discussion. Having
conceded that getting rid of stipends was a “minority
and fringe idea” among council, she looked for
a compromise. However, when the discussion of
stipends finally came up, it was late in the semester.
“That meeting, we had to get the stipend money
to the business office, for Pam to approve it,” Wind
said, “if nothing passed we were just going to keep
talking about it, and we had already made motions,
and some kind of decision on the stipends had to be
made or we’d just keep extending the meeting.”
The officers who have been awarded stipends,
however, are not required to accept them. Both Desir
and Saucier remain uncertain as to whether or
not they will accept their stipends. Ryan stated that
while she has taken them in the past, she would not
this year, in order to fulfill her community service
requirement. Craig stated that she would take hers.
Wind seemed to have made her mind up long before
stipends came to a vote. Immediately after the motion
passed, she said to the council “I don’t want my
stipend money.”
While council has not reached a clear consensus
over stipends, most of the governing body does recognize
that there is an ethical issue at hand. That is
that they, the people being awarded stipends, are also
the ones determining how much their stipend is. ~tree~
staFF writers
Jessie Cass
Alejandra Cuellar
Gavi Davidson
Scotty Gillmer
Julian Feller-Cohen
Sarah Gordon
Brittni Hayes
Liz Looker
Carolyn Madeo
Ryan Mihaly
Eric Peterson
Daniel Scheer
Alex Vara
Kelly Wehrle
phOtOgraphers
Hannah Seaman
Duncan Sullivan
Alex Vara
Arts Barn burglarized,
student work stolen
By molly smith
News Editor
I n late september, six paintings vanished from the Hampshire
Arts Barn. In November, five more art pieces went
missing. It has been assumed that the pieces were stolen. The
president and Public Safety have been informed of the situation
and some preventative measures are now being taken in the
Arts Barn.
The first incident involved the disappearance of six oil paintings,
belonging to Division III student Claire Lau. The paintings
were removed from her studio space while she was away from
Hampshire for a weekend. The collection included work intended
for use in her Division II and Division III final portfolios.
In the second incident, work from three artists was taken: two
pieces by Alex Krales, one painting by Remy Zbel, and two (additional)
oil paintings by Lau. These are not the first incidences
of stolen artworks in the Arts Barn. A member of the Introduction
to Painting class had a partially painted canvas disappear
earlier in the semester. Also, art supplies such as turpentine, gesso,
brushes, and palate scrapers routinely go missing if left unattended
in communal spaces. Art supplies left in studio spaces
tend to be safer but artists have long since learned to keep their
most important supplies under lock and key.
“Student artwork has been stolen in the past. The surprising
thing about this case is that it was not a singular incident,” said
Matt Phillips, a Hampshire art professor.
“When I discovered the second set of paintings missing, I
wrote to everybody [in the administration who the matter was
of relevance to] and Pub Safety was actually the only one who
responded,” said Lau.
Lau was later informed that a meeting had taken place and it
had been decided that Arts Barn monitors would be instructed
to implement a new sign-in desk at the Arts Barn. Unfortunately,
the people in charge of Arts Barn security were not part of that
meeting and were not informed of this meeting until much later
so the idea was not implemented until earlier this month. Mixed
reactions have ensued. Artists have been overheard complaining
about the hassle of signing in, but some are also hopeful that
this will deter people from stealing.
“I’m confident that we’ll be able to come together and put an
end to the thefts. I think it’s largely a matter of the community
being aware,” said Phillips.
When asked how she felt about the new monitor system, Jessica
Hatchett, the head Arts Barn monitor, responded, “The administration
has put this system into place in order to solve the
theft problem. Truthfully, I’m not sure that it will, but we’ll see
how it goes in the next few weeks.”
Another suggestion was for a security camera to be installed,
but this idea was put on hold due to funding issues. “To me, putting
in a security camera would be a lot more comforting because
if it happens again, we will be able to find who did it,” said
Lau.
A meeting has been scheduled for next week in which Lau
hopes to discuss with members of the administration future
measures to be taken regarding the Arts Barn burglaries. ~tree~

december 11, 2009 opinions
the climaX 3
two points oF view: Queer Bowl
The following two articles were written in response to an event that took place on November 21. The Climax does not maintain
that either article gives a more accurate illustration of the event. Nor do the views of the authors represent those of
The Climax editorial board or staff. The articles are printed in the order that The Climax received them.
By matt burstein & julian
Feller-cohen
Staff Writer & Contributor
On a recent saturday
afternoon, we went to the
soccer field to join in a friendly
football game. We arrived at the
field near Greenwich first and
threw the ball around, waiting for
the game to begin. As everyone
appeared, the two-dozen players
warmed up together, tossing
a ball back and forth, and we
even showed a few people how to
properly hold the football. Once
By cyree johnson
Contributor
On november 21, the day after the
Qipoc, tsa, and Qca sponsored
Queertillion, a game of football was played
at a college whose running joke is that they
do not have, and have never had, a football
team. This game, planned by a group of
Queer students, was designed to be a safe
space for lgbtQ folks to come together
and play a football game, in spite of the
fact that the experience of homophobia
in sports and the activities that surround
them often render these types of activities
not safe for us to attend. We christened the
league and the event QFag (Queer Football
Athletics Gala), and with tongues firmly in
our cheeks, declared a football rivalry between
Team Butch and Team Tranny. As a
signer for the Qca, I registered the event,
and reserved the soccer fields, in addition
to signing up to be the coach to the home
team of my heart; Team Butch. This event
was not sponsored by the Qca, nor was it
funded by the Qca as there was little to no
overhead.
When I arrived at the soccer fields for
the game that afternoon, I saw many unfamiliar
faces. I was excited and pleased to
news, continued
Continued from front page
and members of the Committee
on Community Activities should
recuse themselves from voting on
any request for which they feel
they are unable to be impartial.”
Whether or not this stipulation is
being followed has been subject
to much debate.
Sabaratnam argues that while
the Qca and other identity-based
groups should receive more support
from the administration,
there is very little money available.
FiCom and coca operate
under the Student Activities
Fund (saF), an amount that must
be spent “in its entirety on activities
initiated by students through
the pre-game practice ended,
the group split into two teams:
Team Tranny and Team Butch.
We were slightly unsure which
team to choose and ended up in
Team Butch’s huddle. Two players
quickly took the “coach” aside
and we noticed sideward glances
being shot in our direction. They
returned to the huddle announcing
to the group, while staring at
us, “This is a queer-only game. If
you don’t identify as queer you’re
welcome to stay and cheer from
the sidelines or you can leave.”
We looked at each other, shocked,
see that so many people who had not expressed
interest in the game before were
here to support us, particularly in light of
the intended purpose of the game. I called
Team Butch into a huddle to explain why
we were playing to anyone who was new
to the group, and also to explain some basic
rules of the game (many of the people
on either team had never played a sport,
let alone football). “I’m glad to see you all
here at the first QFag football game!” I said
in my most coach-like voice “This game is
designed for Queer people to play against
one another, so if you are Queer, you are
welcome to play. If you do not identify as
Queer we ask that you respect the purpose
of this game, and support us as a spectator.”
I then attempted move on to issues more
relevant to the confusing game of American
football.
Before I got around to this, though,
two people who I perceived to be male assigned
and male identified left the huddle
for Team Butch. One asserted that if
the reverse had happened, it would have
amounted to discrimination. I found this
comment, to say the least, so obvious that
it was ridiculous. The reverse does happen,
in fact it is commonplace in sports to find
that no one on a 53-person football team
recognized student organizations.”
With Hampshire’s hundred-plus
student groups and organizations,
however, this fund is being
depleted with increasing rapidity.
For the fall semester, any coca
request made before the week of
October Break has been marked
as “pending” because “there is no
money left in the master account,”
says Light.
In their open letter to the community
released on December
8, FiCom distinguished between
themselves and coca as separate
student-run bodies operating under
Community Council. coca
is responsible solely for student
events, while FiCom funds ev-
in utter disbelief, that a group,
fiercely seeking equality, would
discriminate so blatantly on the
basis of sexual orientation.
We collected our things, having
done nothing wrong besides
simply showing up on a sunny
Saturday to play football, and
happening to be heterosexuals.
Why were we being ostracized?
Furious and confused we approached
the huddle again with
a question: “What if we decided
to have a straight-only football
game?” “Isn’t that what football
is?” Came the response, just as
erything else. The letter states, “It
has always been FiCom’s policy
to fund all requests that do not
violate the Student Activities
Fee guidelines and to actively cut
costs wherever possible. We want
to work with signers to get their
requests approved while making
sure there is enough money for
all of the student groups. This semester,
we saw an unprecedented
number of student groups making
an unprecedented number of
requests.”
Tension between the Qca and
coca emerged following a dispute
surrounding Queertillion, a
semi-formal dance designed as
an alternative to the ultra-casual
misguided as the decision to prevent
us from playing football because
we don’t identify as queer.
We can only imagine the possible
ramifications if we decided to
host a straight-only game. What if
before starting, we informed the
players -- our friends, neighbors
and classmates -- that if they happened
to identify as queer they
were welcome to stay, so long as
they rooted from the sidelines?
We would never dream of discriminating
against anyone like
this. We have played many football
games in our playground ca-
identifies as Queer or lgbt. The reverse of
what happened to these folks, assumedly a
sports game where only straight people feel
comfortable to play, a game where if you
play you are assumed to be heterosexual
occurs every Monday, Thursday, and Sunday
afternoon during this season; we call
this reversed game FOOTBALL (for more
information see also BASKETBALL, BASE-
BALL, SOCCER, HOCKEY, TENNIS, et al.)
Furthermore, no one asked anyone else
to leave. I would not, and did not, assume
that the folks who left the game that afternoon
were straight when they approached,
nor would I have asked if they have “queer
sex” while they were playing. By leaving
the game rather than examine that they
could both in fact be Queer, or may fall
under the very large and ever expanding
Queer umbrella is a token of their own
heterosexism and homophobia. Yes, you
read right, I am saying that if you cannot
align yourself with Queers, cannot be assumed
to be Queer for 4 hours while you
do something that subverts a homophobic
American custom, that you are indeed
a homophobe. If you cannot respect the
fact that your straight privilege may in
fact be oppressive enough that Queers
may not desire your company constantly,
Identity-based groups ask for better funding
Drag Ball. coca denied Qca’s
request for an additional $600 towards
the event on the basis that
their bylaws do not allow them to
approve additional requests. Despite
its denial, the request was
shown as “approved” online. This
error was changed soon after, but
it sparked confusion and discontent
within the Qca.
The Qca plans to meet with
signers of other identity-based
groups on campus to obtain a
clearer idea of their needs. Johnson
and Wolf admit that this will
take time, especially in light of
finals and winter break. Student
Activities and Services Coordinator
Pam Tinto expressed concern
reers and never once has the issue
of sexual orientation been raised.
Homosexuals, heterosexuals, the
excellent athletes and the least
coordinated kids in class were always
welcome.
To conquer discrimination we
thought equality would be the
first step. Instead, we were made
into the rejected, dejected, minority.
Were we supposed to suffer
judgment and exclusion based
on sexual preference? Is this how
the Queer community wants treat
to its allies and be represented on
campus? ~tree~
or plan events around your presence, you
are, in fact, homophobic. Many people who
played football that afternoon wouldn’t
align themselves with any particular letter
of the lgbtQQi acronym, but still felt as
though the assumption that they did identify
as such was not revolting enough for
them to not want to play the game.
I think of this conversation as yet another
in which Hampshire College tells
itself that it doesn’t have a problem with
discrimination. The sports that Hampshire
does offer are not (from my very limited
understanding, having never played one
here) populated with Queer faces. This
itself can sometimes be enough to keep
Queers at this school from playing on
these teams. I want the two people who
left that day to know that I do not think
that I owe them an apology, will not offer
them an apology, would not change my actions
were the game to happen again, and
that I regard their actions as both childish
and homophobic. Creating and maintaining
autonomous spaces for marginalized
groups is not discrimination, it is a necessary
response to a college community that,
despite its radical foundation, is not always
comfortable with difference. ~tree~
about the Qca’s lack of dialogue
with the cc, coca, and FiCom
surrounding these issues prior
to the Ball’s cancellation and believes
that they have missed an
opportunity for conversation.
She also expressed her desire
for the “opportunity to respond
to the specific concern that students
have.”
Ultimately, the future of Drag
Ball is in the hands of the Qca—
as it should be, argues Johnson.
Whether or not they will be successful
in uniting other identitybased
groups on campus remains
unknown. ~tree~

4 the climaX opinions
volume Xii, issue 6
a toast to encryption
Or, the never-ending tale of Hampshire College
By ben barson
Contibutor
Last year, potential Div III student
“Niko,” built a server more powerful
than any other computing device in the
school, one that is the basis of Hampedia
and the now-defunct Ornia with Jose Fuentes
and other students. Hampedia is a
Hampshire-wide version of Wikipedia
that has profoundly changed the ways in
which professors, students, and groups
communicate—Christoph Cox and Amy
Jordan, among others, use it for Office
Hours and to post areas of expertise. The
latter, Ornia, was a software that ran on
the Hampshire network and allowed for a
truly instantaneous exchange of any and
all digitized information—frequently used
for the exchange of high-density student
work such as films and music that required
collective collaboration, as well as
creating a truly open, decentralized, and
revolutionary way of exchanging data.
“Hampedia is the future of academic
education,” explains Bodhi Harnish, a
student of the sociology of open-source
software and the Internet more generally.
“And it’s one of the only like it in the
country.” However, it did not fulfill what
Niko had in mind in developing an autonomous
Hampshire server: “Niko was
trying create a blog that would be a powerful
social networking site that would
connect activism, art, and the politics of
the disparate sectors of the Hampshire
Community in a forum where they could
really communicate and hear each other.”
In this light, Hampedia was more of a
prototype than a finished product. “What
he was doing was cutting edge,” Bodhi
emphasizes—unprecedented at similar
shaped schools around the nation.
What happened to Ornia, the superfast,
streaming, decentralized network?
“It was shut down: the school found the
server was encrypted—meaning it was
coded differently—and didn’t know how
to process it, so they turned it off.” It
seems, too, that Niko was “encrypted” to
a school that did not know how to regulate
the energy of an individual who had
exceeded the capacity to be governed.
Recently, Mike Wolf, a signer for the
Qca, went to FiCom with two other signers.
When he noted that their marginalization
for funding contradicted the
demands of Action Awareness Week,
upon which the administration had gurglingly
signed off, a student on FiCom replied,
“We don’t have to respond to those
demands, as we are a governance body,
not the administration.” While FiCom
later issued a letter of clarity, indicating
the opposite, the fact that an institution
supposedly representative of student interests,
composed of students, sees itself
as independent of student interests—the
interests of a considerable and vital portion
of the community—could say such
things indicates the profound distance
they have from the student body at large.
But what’s even more striking about the
entire contemporary struggle is that, as
usual, the members of the Queer community
who have to educate the administration
on how to build support structure for
Queer community—and, as usual, are being
met with stubborn resistance instead
of open and humble ears, not dissimilar
to what unfolded during Action Awareness
Week.
Currently, Graham Jeffries, Mixed
Nuts, and the Local Food Systems class
are putting huge logistical effort into
creating a student-run cafe that could
provide a healthy and non-corporate alternative
to the beautiful food that Saga
and the Bridge produce. The Tavern is an
empty place, abandoned by Sodexo, so
it would make perfect sense for the administration
to be open to the idea. Some
of them are, in fact; Graham said he received
verbal and potentially financial
support from the Committee on Community
Development, which specifically
funds equipment purchases for long-term
community development projects.
Soon, though, these smiles blossomed
into empty promises. Pam Tinto was more
honest and repudiated the idea of financial
support, and said simply “we don’t
have the money at this time.” Where is
the money? “A huge portion goes to food
for student groups—we’re the only school
in the five colleges that funds students to
have meeting food—and the only qualification
to form a student group is they
have three signers—nothing more, nothing
less.” When I suggested perhaps a
community-wide meeting would be helpful
to discuss the priorities of the Student
Activities Fund, she agreed, but noted,
“It’s part of the culture here that we spend
a lot of money on food.”
And, for time’s sake, I will simply mention
the heartwarming story of Students
for Justice in Palestine and an administration
blissfully unaware of its own investments
until students, once again, took the
initiative.
What do these stories have to do with
one another? I am not simply suggesting
that the administration’s openness
to the students is problematic or broken.
What seems to be the case to me, consistently,
in a wide cross-array of fields and
types of activities, is that this school unleashes
creative, powerful energies in students
that inspire and reflect an ability
to transform the Hampshire communities
in positive and profound ways—and
that, ultimately, threatens the monopoly
of authority and legitimacy of the bureaucrats.
In other words, Hampshire College
will perpetually produce students more competent
than its Administration. So, while
within the school these energies which
are encouraged and unleashed, they can
no longer be contained within the realms
of acceptable action and discourse of the
existing power structure—they become
“encrypted”—and must be re-regulated, repressed,
or, if these fail, expelled. So, too,
are projects that the administration does
not trust students to be able to affectively
manage. Greenhouse mod, where are
you? What happened Ben Obriecht’s plan
to build a new timber frame toolshed in
the community garden?
Of course, no one hates on Hampshire
students like other Hampshire students.
The amount of apathy and disdain for students
not only doing work in different
fields but even the same work, the amount
of hate spilled on campus activism, on
“hippie bullshit,” could fill a book three
times that of the infamous diary in Mean
Girls. But I think this, and general Hampshire
flakiness, stems not from too much
freedom, but rather too little: students are
skeptical of activities and challenges to a
power structure that will co-opt and redirect
any challenge to its authority away
from that source itself. In other words,
we know we don’t have power, so why are
you pretending as though we do?
DeeDee Desir is the Chair of Community
Council and the student representative
for the Committee on Campus Life.
She acknowledges the profound problems
of accountability in student governance
and is one of the few voices to put that at
the forefront of her agenda: “There’s not
enough community outreach,” on the part
of Community Council, she tells me, and
“their perspective is limited to committee
perspectives.” In other words, we note together,
they really aren’t accountable to
anyone, least of all the students. Hence
the FiCom member’s smart comment to
Mike. Not only that, but representatives
on different Board of Trustee committees
do not even talk to each other to coordinate
a common voice with which to represent
the student body: “We had a meeting
in the beginning of the year,” to try to
map out that voice, DeeDee tells me, “and
that was wishful thinking, I would say, to
say the least.”
It would also be wishful thinking to
think that people fundamentally trust
student governance as it currently exists.
People are unaware of what is even in
their jurisdiction, not to mention who’s
on them—and for many, the system is
broken. “I would say there is strong discontent
with Council and its standing
committees in general among members
of the source community that I have
spoken to,” DeeDee tells me. Similarly,
Mike says, “The whole system is broken.
coca was able to misuse SAF funds because
there are no checks and balances.”
The answer is not less student governance,
in my opinion, but rather more. I
think the contradiction central to Hampshire—its
capacity to unleash these energies,
and its need to contain and regulate
them—can only be resolved by unfettered,
complete Direct Democracy on the part
of Students, Staff, and Faculty. Let the energies
flow.
Fortunately to all those who would
roll their eyes at such a proposition,
such models exist. Take School Within a
School (sws) in Brookline High School.
The students, faculty, and staff are entirely
responsible for the decisions made
regarding the curriculum, hiring of new
faculty, and even the attendance policy.
I spoke to Dan Bresman, the coordinator
of the school. I had to ask: Does it work?
Do students try to abuse these privileges?
How is attendance decided?
“Actually, students propose every year
to remove attendance minimums, but it is
immediately shut down by other students,”
he answers. “Students have a real interest
in keeping the quality of education high.”
I note to uniqueness of this school, its
success (it’s consistently ranked in the
top public schools in Boston) and he responds,
“There used to be tons of school
with a Direct Democracy model, coming
out of the 60s and 70s. We’re one of the
last ones now.” Hampshire, too, was born
out of the same graduating class-but it
had a different fate.
Of course, one question bogs my
mind—how do students with privilege in
racial and gendered power structures decide
the fate of others? “We communicate
through these things, we have a diversity
policy that has to match that of our corresponding
main school. Students and
faculty voted on the system, and it is always
up for renegotiating, if students feel
it is necessary, but because of it we have a
very diverse school.”
I wonder what that would like at Hampshire.
Yes, source and the Qca are identity-based
groups, so white, male-bodied
straight individuals, not experiencing racism
and homophobia while being actively
empowered by these systems, should not
make decisions on things such as funding
and programming for these communities.
However, that is something we
can and need to decide as a community,
in painful and open dialogue with each
other. While the activities, organizing,
and basic perspectives of white dominated
activist spaces, identity-based groups,
and student governance committees can
and do contradict each other, they have
much more in common than is emphasized.
Students for Justice in Palestine is
working to combat a system Archbishop
Desmond Tutu has called Apartheid in Israel
and the Occupied Territories—some
folks in Mixed Nuts see their work as
combating Sodexo, a large corporate food
distributor with deep ties to (and profits
from) a racialized prison-industrial complex,
while Building Awareness Behind
Bars actively challenges this complex and
the people it victimizes— and source
groups are still denied an active role in
shaping the administration’s policies
around issues of racism and how to institutionalize
anti-racism. Why are these
struggles so isolated and disconnected?
And aren’t student governance committees,
in theory if not in practice, working
towards student empowerment in the decision
making process of the school? Fundamentally,
there is little that can be done
with a disorganized, scattered student
body that knows little of what each other
is doing or standing for—we have to come
together learn from and strengthen each
others’ struggles to affect a real change in
the power structure of the school. Let’s
tear down these walls so the school can
no longer tear down our graffiti murals.
There are so many contradictions to this
process I am proposing and I know that it
will not be simple—but until, as students
and members of the Hampshire Community,
we can and do decide all aspects of
the school, down to the $400,000 salary
of the President, there is little that we
can accomplish that will not be actively
ignored the day after the administration
gives us a patronizing smile and a pacifying
handout~tree~.

december 11, 2009 feAt ures
the climaX 5
Hot dogs, milkshakes and basketball
By julian Feller-cohen
Staff Writer
Fans sipped milkshakes and
munched on hot dogs, supporting both
incarnations of the Black Sheep in a doubleheader
on December 1st in the Robert
Crown Center. An unusually large crowd
of Hampshire fans watched the teams
combine for a 1-1 record on the night. As
many as 50 people at a time, 200 over the
course of the evening, filled the portable
metal bleachers.
The first game of the double-dip featured
the lady Black Sheep against the Briarwood
College Wildcats, a team from a
private school with 650 students in Southington,
Connecticut. Only 15 silent fans
witnessed Hampshire win the tipoff and
both teams’ failure to score in the first two
minutes, on six missed shots.
LaRay Brison, the Black Sheep’s starting
point guard, scored the game’s first points,
blasting out of a double team with a crossover-dribble,
charging through the paint
and finishing with a right-handed finger
roll. The growing crowd, devouring hot
dogs, kielbasa and pulled pork, chugging
chocolate, strawberry, vanilla and coffee
milkshakes, let out a cheer in spite of full
mouths and hands.
The food, organized and prepared by the
Outdoors Program/Recreational Athletics
(OPRA) staff, is an annual tradition to encourage
fan support for the Black Sheep’s
players and coaches. OPRA Instructor
Karen Warren helped to scoop ice cream
and serve hot dogs and kielbasa. “We pick
a game and try to bring some more fans to
see the teams play,” she said. She pointed
to the group of around a half dozen servers,
“this is the OPRA staff right here. We also
support our colleagues.”
Regular Black Sheep basketball attendee,
Wei Jie Chen, a second year, would have
been at the game anyway but enjoyed the
The Supreme Dicks return to Hampshire campus
By josh schneider
Staff Writer
What Hampshire does that seems so
“radical” at the time, eventually becomes
mainstream and a part of the general
culture some years later. No wonder
this school has produced so many amazing
graduates.” -YouTube user jsoynbnj.
Richard Rushfield’s recent memoir Don’t
Follow Me I’m Lost, published by Gotham
Books, has admittedly stirred a bit of controversy
within the Hampshire community
as well as the greater literary memoir world.
Rushfield describes the latter as being comprised
of roughly 150 people. While many
students seem to have a strong opinion on
the subject, it seems as though the number
of people who have actually read the
damn thing is rather small. Approaching a
reading of his book with an accompanying
slideshow held at Franklin Patterson Hall
on Monday December 7, Rushfield halfjokingly
published a multiple choice question
to the book’s Facebook page. He asked
“When I go back to Hampshire…will I be
a) stoned to death, b) hissed at, c) given an
honorary expulsion, d) ignored… Please explain
your answer in 75 words or less.” This
is indicative of the kind of snide, sarcastic
additional concessions. “I’m just too excited.
They have milkshakes AND hot dogs! I
have lots of projects though, I can’t get too
excited,” he said.
With three minutes left in the first half,
Collete Dubose of the Wildcats took a hard
foul, crashing to the court. Hampshire
starters, center and forward, Captain Hazel
Wood and Allison Smart, both wearing
high black socks, reached down in unison
to pick up Dubose, receiving approval from
the crowd, now filling two of the three
bleachers. The Wildcats and the Black
Sheep traded three consecutive 3-pointers.
A Briarwood pass, perhaps looking for the
fourth, was intercepted by Brison and taken
coast-to-coast for an easy layup, energizing
the crowd before halftime in spite of a
10 point Wildcat lead, 29-19.
Briarwood head coach, John Foston,
dressed in a Bronco’s #53, Bill Romanowski,
jersey, drew the ire of the fans’ fashion sensibilities.
This time it wasn’t because his
sweater was wrinkled, but because he simply
wasn’t wearing one at all. Black Sheep
coach Troy Hill, donned gray slacks and a
black collared shirt with vertical stripes,
easily the more dapper coach.
The Black Sheep had many wasted opportunities
and stifled possessions in the
second half, resulting from traveling calls
and errant passes. Ending a six minute
and forty-three second, 10-1 Wildcat run,
Wood sank a 12-foot jump shot with defensive
hands scratching for the ball.
When players on opposite teams fight
for a loose ball and end up with unclear or
equal possession, the referee will whistle
for a jump ball. Rather than actually having
a tipoff, each team is alternately given
the ball to inbound. The second half saw
many scrambles resulting in struggles for
the ball on the floor. Although the Black
Sheep got the ball half of the time, the
breaks in rhythm prevented the team from
establishing a solid pace on the court. The
one off quips and barbs Rushfield’s memoir
is full of. And you can take that for what it’s
worth.
The actual response to his reading fell
somewhere around B and D. Although the
event was relatively well attended, with
prestigious non-fiction
faculty member
Michael Lesy in
attendance (apparently
having a ball)
as well as a large
support group of old
friends, many who
make an appearance in
the memoir, the expected
uproar was minimal.
There were few outright
jeers, although one student,
who prompted her
“question” with an admittance
of having not actual
read the book, argued that
“Hampshire is a really good
school,” and “I work really
hard, and I so do my friends,”
and asked, “don’t you realize
that your book, with such a title, will
obviously send a very negative message to
incoming students and applicants?” Else-
Wildcats led 49-22 with eight minutes remaining,
but the fans called on their sugar
highs to keep cheering as Smart scored a
3-pointer on a fast break.
In a game where even the referees noticed
the free food drew an unexpectedly
large crowd, Briarwood had the edge,
wining 57-33. The game’s leading scorer
Collette Dubose had 15 points and likely
would have scored more had she not been
in foul trouble. Brison led the Black Sheep
with 10 points.
Men’s Team Beat Simon’s Rock
Black Sheep starters David Donella,
Benny Shea, Sayer Wickham, Devin Kharpertian
and Henry Parr combined for 14
points, allowing only two on defense in
the first five minutes and fifty-two seconds.
Henry Parr, wearing number 33, led
the charge with four buckets. Wickham,
Kharpertian and Shea each added two
points, forcing Simon’s Rock to call a timeout
to regroup.
After the pause, Coach Hill, substituted
in a new set of five: Justin Moore, Josh
Nickell, Anthony Ji, Douglas Schatz and
Solomon St. John. The offensive effort
continued with Moore and Schatz doing
much of the scoring. Ten minutes into the
first half The Black Sheep had seven fouls,
a penalty, sending Simon’s Rock to freethrow
line after every foul. The fouls were
spread evenly among seven players, so Hill
did not have to adjust his lineup.
Points were hard earned for Hampshire.
Shea, 5 feet 8 inches, missed a short-range
jumper, followed his shot, jumped high
above the taller players on the floor and put
his rebound back in for a layup. Leading
36-14 at halftime, Wickham, Parr, Schatz
and Moore all had at least six points.
Opening the second half, Simon’s Rock’s
Robert Rourke scored a long 3-pointer followed
by a layup. Even though the crowd
had thinned considerably, the remaining
fans were entertained by another twenty-
where in the auditorium someone chimed,
“You haven’t even read the book! Show some
respect!” which prompted even louder applause
than the aforementioned defense of
Hampshire academics.
All this uproar basically
centers on Rushfield’s
supposed negative depiction
of Hampshire College
in the late 1980’s.
Rushfield responded at
his reading, “This is just
my experience at this
school some twenty
years ago. If this little
memoir is going to
hurt Hampshire’s
admittance rate,
they’ve got bigger
problems than me.”
While that may
be true, according
to Don’t Follow
Me it seems
that in 1986,
Rushfield was one of
this school’s biggest problems. The memoir
focuses on Rushfield’s first two years
at Hampshire, which only account for two
fifths of his academic career, and the basic
DuNcAN SullIvAN/ThE clImAx
minute offensive display by Hampshire.
Wickham heaved a full court pass to Moore
for a wide-open layup. Ji and St. John’s
work in practice proved effective, completing
two give-and-go’s: Ji passing to St. John
from the 3-point arc and then surging into
the paint to receive the return bounce pass,
finishing by rolling the ball smoothly off of
his left hand for the basket. The Simon’s
Rock team with only one substitute began
to show fatigue, slowing down on defense.
The Black Sheep took charge of the
game for the entire second half, ending
with a 20-6 run in the final seven minutes
and six seconds. Behind 15 points from
Moore and 14 points and 12 rebounds from
Parr, the Black Sheep defeated Simon’s
Rock 65-27. ~tree~
plot is mostly propelled by the various ways
in which Rushfield and his friends manage
to piss off a hypersensitive administration,
dallying occasionally into the fields of tepid
collegiate relationships and drug abuse.
The whole thing is set against a backdrop
of late 80’s pre-grunge post-punk. Rushfield,
who managed to be kicked out of 4 of the
5 Hampshire student houses before passing
Div I, a California transplant with his first
taste of winter and freedom, eventually succeeds
in telling a not so unusual college tale,
at a not so usual college.
While many people argue that Rushfield’s
depiction of Hampshire is negative, I have
to say that he is rather dead-on in his portrayal
of a hippie haven where teachers rival
students in their education-at-your-ownpace
approach, and a politically charged atmosphere
where problematized oppression
looms below the surface of every text and
cursory remark. Indeed, according to Rushfield,
after forming a satirical fraternity and
joking that they would be holding a wet tshirt
contest at a party, the faculty unanimously
voted for his expulsion. While this
may not reflect very well on Hampshire’s
“do your own thing” philosophy, I would say
that Rushfield’s story reflects more poorly
See RuShfIElD, page 7

6 the climaX Arts & entertAinMent
volume Xii, issue 6
sound thoughts
Thoughts on holiday music (a semi-memoir)
José Feliciano.
By ryan mihaly
Staff Writer
couRTESY of STgABBS.NET
it’s december. You know what that
means: dogs barking “Jingle Bells” on the
radio again. I know, it’s awful. This winter
41 shows reviewed in 140 characters or less
By dan clarendon
Layout Editor
am a student of television.
I Writing television scripts is my
Division III. So, I have no shame
in the fact that I watch all of the
shows below religiously. I study
the craft, folks. That’s a lie—I am
ashamed of some of them, but I’m
feeling forthright in my fourthyear-ness.
Anyway, I had only assumed
that I couldn’t review all
my shows for The Climax before I
graduated. And then it occurred
to me: I could review each in 140
characters or less. (An arbitrary
number, I swear.)
24 Some seasons fire on all cylinders,
and some make you want to
shoot yourself in the kneecap. But
I’m still a fan of the Bauer Power
Hour.
30 Rock Is Tina Fey God? Even if
not, this show is in my pantheon.
22 Emmy nominations this year
alone. What the what?
The Amazing Race A competition
show and a geography lesson all
in one. Plus, the race looks like
such a globetrotting thrill.
Breaking Bad Brilliance you’ve
likely never seen. Bryan Cranston
(as a reluctant meth dealer) and
Aaron Paul (as his witless lackey)
are a wondrous team.
Brothers & Sisters Created by
playwright Jon Robin Baitz, powerful
character drama pervades
this series about the virtues and
frustrations of family life.
Burn Notice Ex-spy Michael Westen
is a MacGyver for the new
century! And he narrates his creative
process! Plus Bruce Campbell
plays the sidekick!
Californication Man-child Hank
Moody is David Duchovny’s
break, don’t get stuck listening to the sameold-same-old
holiday music.
The first step to avoid the monotony is
to simply not turn on the radio. Buy yourself
Bob Dylan’s new Christmas album and
then go watch that bizarre music video he
made where he dances around with twenty-year-olds
in a Santa hat. Or go buy Tex
Beneke’s Christmas album, Big Band Christmas,
which has my favorite arrangement
of the holiday tune “Sleigh Bells.” This is
what Santa listens to while he pilots his
sleigh all night long. It keeps him motivated
and it gets his blood flowing. It’s explosive,
it’s jazzy, it’s got trombones, trumpets,
saxophones, pianos, xylophones, a walking
bassline, and this one part where the
trombone solo travels from the right stereo
channel to the left. It’s absolutely worth a
listen.
There are some holiday radio frequents
that aren’t so bad though. Take, for example,
the totally bizarre “Dominick the Donkey.”
Ah yes, the Italian Christmas donkey.
My mother’s entire family is Italian, and
(comedic) role of a lifetime. The
show also featured Hampshire
band Bubonic Souls last week.
Chuck Put a self-described nerd
in a world of government conspiracies
and sexy secret agents,
and hilarity ensues. Such a lovable
show.
Community A comedy about a
community college study group,
that’s not quite up to snuff but is
getting better each week.
Curb Your Enthusiasm Schadenfreude
at a fever pitch. Larry David
is such an incorrigible ass, but
you can’t help siding with him in
all of his curmudgeonliness.
Damages Vicious legal thriller
with Glenn Close and Rose Byrne.
Season 2’s powerhouse cast included
William Hurt, Marcia Gay
Harden, and Ted Danson.
Desperate Housewives What do
I have in common with middleaged,
lovelorn women? Uh, not
much. But this show is still a
fun look at the seediness of the
suburbs.
Dollhouse Engineered personalities,
ethical perversions, and
intense action made this (cancelled)
show radically different.
Well done, Joss Whedon.
Entourage Not the sharpest tool
in the shed, but still a comical insight
into the biz, and a testament
to lifelong friendship. (“Lloyd!”)
FlashForward An ambitious fatevs.-free-will
drama with a laudable
cast. But can its premise sustain it
for longer than this season?
Flashpoint This Canadian import
about a hostage negotiation team
in Toronto is edge-of-your-seat
tense. Plus Veronica Mars’s dad is
the lead!
Fringe Like The X-Files, only with
a more mind-warping mythology
and the addition of one rav-
ing-mad, madly-funny scientist.
Freaky good times had by all.
Glee This high school satire is so
much fun thanks to a stellar cast,
its show-stopping covers of pop
songs, and the incomparable Jane
Lynch.
The Good Wife What makes this
legal drama intriguing is that the
protagonist—played by Julianna
Margulies—is the jilted wife of an
adulterous politician.
Gossip Girl Used to be a salacious
indulgence, but they had to
match everyone up in an endless
cycle of hook-ups and break-ups.
What a mess.
Greek If Gossip Girl had a sharper,
wittier, more accessible, yet less
popular twin sister, her name
would be Greek.
Grey’s Anatomy Melodramatic,
yes, but the relationship drama is
sophisticated and smartly executed.
But it’s hard to watch if you’re
single, dammit!
Heroes Holy Hiro, what the hell
happened to this show? This
once-great serial has suffered
from bloated storylines and
botched mythology. Shut it down.
Lost The most revolutionary
show on this list, nay, of the decade.
Season 5 was a creative resurgence
that was so awesomely
challenging to watch.
Lie to Me An unconventional
procedural drama that’s proven
to be surprisingly un-formulaic.
And Tim Roth doesn’t even have
to use an American accent!
Mad Men If you’re not in love
with this elegant, introspective,
and smoldering drama, you just
haven’t seen enough of it.
Men of a Certain Age Three old
friends have midlife revelations.
This show just started, but I like
what I’ve seen. It’s like Garden
seeing my grandmother, Josephine (whose
name is sung during the tune) sing this one,
“hee-haw’s” and all, around the Christmas
tree, is truly a sight to behold. The idea of
a donkey helping Santa deliver presents to
children because reindeer can’t climb the
hills of Italy is also quite amusing. Whoever
wrote that dog barking Jingle Bells
song should take some advice from Lou
Monte, who wrote “Dominick.” If you have
to use animal noises in your Christmas
song, please, do so sparingly. This one will
always have a place in my heart.
Another holiday favorite is “Feliz Navidad”
– I guess I just love the ones that aren’t
completely sung in English. You just know
that when José Feliciano, who wrote the
song in 1970, sings the simple lyrics “Feliz
Navidad, próspero año y felicidad” and
then belts out, “I wanna wish you a merry
Christmas from the bottom of my heart!”,
he really means it. Excited trumpets continually
crescendo throughout the song,
bringing me such joy. The chorus never
gets old and, if my home state of Connecti-
Aaron Paul and Bryan Cranston of Breaking Bad.
State—plus twenty years.
Modern Family Funniest new
show of the season. Believe it.
Nip/Tuck Not as deeply cutting as
it was in its youth, but now it’s superficially
fun and bat-shit crazy.
Can’t complain too much.
The Office Just when I think it’s
lost its mojo, it pulls a “Koi Pond”
episode or “Subtle Sexuality” webisode
to remind us all of its wit.
Parks and Recreation Started off
as an Office clone but came back
roaring in its second season.
Now it rivals its predecessor for
laughs.
Private Practice A spectacular
cast and interesting storylines,
but I still wish Addison would go
back to Seattle Grace. Maybe everyone
can go along!
Project Runway I’m probably not
the right demographic for this
catty show, but who cares. I just
hope Tim Gunn would approve of
my wardrobe.
Smallville Never “super” but
never terrible, Smallville is reliable
entertainment even after
eight years. One of the only good
things the cw can offer.
So You Think You Can Dance?
cut should be known for one thing (we’re
not known for many), it should be this: 97.5
FM once played “Feliz Navidad” 24 hours
straight. The song is just that good.
Paul McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmastime”
and John Lennon’s “Happy Xmas
(War Is Over)” get honorable mentions. The
bouncing synth line in McCartney’s song
is so mouth-wateringly poppy (also check
out the music video – he’s got some great
holiday dance moves), whereas Lennon’s
song is darker, but nonetheless meaningful;
it’s more of a protest song that remains
relevant today.
Oh, and my favorite song by far about
playing wizard chess over winter break is
“Wizard Chess” by Harry and the Potters. I
empathize with Harry—sometimes I just
want to stay at Hogwarts/Hampshire and
play magical games with my best friend. But
I can’t, unless I wanted to pay $100 dollars
per night here. It’s probably not worth it.
Happy holidays. ~tree~
couRTESY of AmcTv.com
The most legit and diverse dance
competition. The talent gets more
absurd each season. YouTube “Ellenore
& Jakob - Contemporary”
for proof.
Top Chef In a world of hamburger
reality shows, Top Chef is a filet
mignon with escargot, grilled
ramps, chanterelle mushrooms
and yuzu—i.e. refined.
Top Chef Masters The nation’s
top chefs compete. Of course it’s
good.
True Blood I reviewed this show
already this semester! Suffice it to
say, it’s addictive.
Ugly Betty In this refreshing comedic
drama, Betty maintains
a beautiful can-do spirit as she
navigates the (hilariously) bitchy
world of fashion.
V This series about tensions between
humans and alien “Visitors”
is off to a promising start,
but lamely, we only get four episodes
this year.
Warehouse 13 Undecided about
this show. I dig the whole “America’s
attic” notion and the leads’
chemistry, but some of the episodes
have just been, uh, hokey. ~tree~

december 11, 2009 Arts &entertAinMent
the climaX 7
Meeting Marco Benevento’s left hand
By aleX vara
Staff Writer
First things First, I am not a journalist.
I’m a serious fan.
Last Thursday night the indie jazz pianist,
Marco Benevento and his trio played
at the Iron Horse Music Hall in Northampton.
From their rendition of the Knife’s
“Heartbeats,” to his heart wrenching “You
Are a Lion,” the Benevento Trio kept the
small audience well entertained. Wearing
suits, dreads, polos, black skinny jeans or
itchy old cardigans, audience members’
heads all bobbed, as their toes tapped and
hands drummed on well-worn wooden
tables.
Accompanying Benevento’s amplified
acoustic piano and circuit bent toys, were
drummer Andy Borger (Ani DiFranco) and
bassist Reed Mathis (Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey
and Tea Leaf Green). Mathis jumps
from touring with Benevento to Tea Leaf
Green. I have seen him play in both bands
since he joined Tea Leaf Green in 2007. So
of course I contacted Mathis for a possible
interview, after writing to Climax editor
Henry Parr, desperately begging, “Let me
do this article! Give me a reason to talk
to him!” Thankfully, both Parr and Mathis
kindly agreed.
I jumped at the chance to meet Reed
Mathis, because when it comes to Tea Leaf
Green (tlg) —the San Francisco based jam
band — I am as close to a groupie as one
can be without having actually had physical
contact with the band.
In high school I was in love with tlg.
I would regularly arrive early for shows
to secured “my spot” in the front, and I
would fill my car with live tlg recordings.
I dragged my father to a number of +21
shows from San Francisco to Berkley—one
including a weekend spent in a Reno Casino.
Once I stood on top of a flower planter
for hours, with my ear pressed to a glass
window, so that I could hear them play a
show I couldn’t get into. When looking at
colleges, I planned my East Coast college
visits around their East Coast tour dates. I
am the first to admit I’m a bit crazy. You’ll
be happy to hear that my obsession has
subsided. But old habits die hard, and old
loves die harder.
Continued from page 5
on himself and his own degenerate
behavior then the school for
allowing it to happen. Rushfield’s
memoir paints the portrait of a
young nihilist who falls in with a
crowd of the most loathed slackerscholars
of the time, The Supreme
Dicks. Barely attending any class
at all, Rushfield and his friends sit
around a Greenwich mod most of
the time ignoring their own squalor
and posturing indifference at
the risk of sounding enthusiastic
about anything and thus “uncool.”
Writing about a culture
that would later be described as
grunge, Rushfield does manage
to grasp the blistering lethargy of
a group of kids fresh out of high
school in the late 80’s, seeking to
define themselves with anything
Marco Benevento.
Walking into the Iron Horse two hours
before the show’s start time, I felt my throat
collapsing. I wasn’t sure if it was from the
continuous cold I’ve had since mid-semester
or from the realization that I was steps
away from meeting and “officially” talking
with the bassist of my favorite band of all
time. As I turned the corner, past the ticket
booth, I found a man with long red hair
sitting at a small table and staring intently
at an open laptop. Taking a deep breath, I
said out loud to no one in particular, “I
think that’s him.”
I made my way to his table. “You Alex?”
Mathis asked before shaking my hand, he
had a smile on his face. I couldn’t help but
think he knows my name!
Sitting across from the 33-year-old Tulsa,
Oklahoma native I immediately thought,
“whoa, he looks a lot older up close.” I got settled
in my seat and pulled out my page of
notes—facts and quotes from pervious Mathis
interviews—and questions that I had
hoped would keep me focused on the task
at hand.
Feeling a bit self-conscious, I asked,
“Where do you want to begin? What are
you doing right now?”
A seasoned interviewee, Mathis
launched into his various projects - finishing
up a record with tlg, recording with
but style and aplomp. Characterized
by a disheveled accumulation
of scarves and sweaters, and a
vague philosophy of Reichian inspired
celibacy and vegetarianism,
Rushfield’s memoir resounds with
that special nostalgia for inside
jokes and personal group politics.
While these echoes may ring as
loud as the Hampshire bell (which
the Dicks actually stole in one of
the greatest Hampshire pranks of
all time) the narrative occasionally
falls flat for those far removed
from Rushfield’s lifestyle. I found
the book an interesting and easy
read, but I wonder if it is only my
own experience at Hampshire
that fuels my interest, is this niche
non-fiction, or is there a greater
audience?
While Rushfield’s stories of
himself and the Supreme Dicks
eventually accumulate into a
scene of occasional cocaine
binges, cute girls who can’t seem
to make up their mind, and impromptu
noise shows to everyone’s
disdain, Rushfield does
manage to conceal the eventual
successes of him and his fellow
Dicks. For instance, in his final
three years at Hampshire Rushfield
did begin going to classes,
eventually graduating with a
concentration in Art History and
finding not just a book deal but
consistent work as a journalist
of all things! The Supreme Dicks,
who are painted as a roving gang
of thirty or so assholes who set up
amps and guitars only to disrupt
pointlessly repetitive Prescott
parties, were actually a relatively
Benevento in New York City earlier that
week, and hinting to a Reed Mathis album
in the works. Talking about his album of
arrangements of classical music compositions,
each song played with a different
group of musicians, Mathis explained,
“They are 200 year old songs and we play
them like how we play other things.”
Known for his versatility on the bass, he
admitted, “I’ll play with anyone…. If I like
them, I’ll play with them.”
He talked about the job of being on the
road, “I’m only going to see my wife two
days this month. But that’s the work part.”
and also about his role in the different
groups he plays with, from Jacob Fred Jazz
Odyssey to tlg to Benevento.
While Benevento was having a sound
check in the background, Mathis said, “almost
more than Tea Leaf Green, Marco is a
songwriter,” and that before Mathis joined
Benevento, “Marco’s left hand was the
bass,” said Mathis. “I don’t do a lot for his
band. But I’m his left hand so he can have
three hands.”
The thing about loving a band, or loving
anything, is that you honestly think that it
will love you back. I started losing my hope
in music loving me back—not physically—
until two summers ago, when I went back
stage after a show Mathias had played. In-
Richard Rushfield’s memoir reviewed
successful grunge band opening
for notable acts such as Neutral
Milk Hotel, and whose box set is
set to be released by a hell of a respectable
indie label Jagjaguar.
Ultimately I found Rushfield’s
story to be rather amusing, and
of historical note as he touches
on some famed legends as the
terribly unfortunate Intran televised
suicide. My biggest beef is
with Rushfield’s actual prose, besmirched
by metaphor and dialogue
with a tendency to fall just
short of edgy and fresh, unusual
of a writer known for his wit. Perhaps
his ability to objectify what
is so sentimental has impeded his
story-telling some, but the general
gist is entertaining enough and
highly consumable, even at 350
pages. ~tree~
AlEx vARA/ThE clImAx
troducing myself to Mathis, he said “I saw
you out there. You were feeding us tonight.”
All my embarrassing enthusiastic dancing
and smiling paid off.
As he talked, me throwing out questions
to keep the long silences from taking over,
all I wanted to do was tell him, “You’re the
reason I think its okay to being a goober fan.
You told me so.” Wanting, needing to be reassured
again, I asked “Don’t you ever get
those feelings?”
“What feelings?” answered Mathis. I had
lost my composure.
“When you’re connecting with the
audience?”
Mathis shot back, “Not really.” I was
heartbroken. “No, I use to think about that
stuff a lot. Why people go to shows. I think
it’s that people are looking for a good time
and expect the band to facilitate that good
time.”
Trying to hide the disbelief from my
face, I said in a cheery, a bit too cheery,
voice, “You’re the fun makers.”
“The fun havers,” he responded.
During the show I watched as one face
in a sea of faces. Benevento smiled at Mathis,
Mathis smiled at Benevento. “Playing
is fun,” said Reed. It’s true, and its fun to
watch. ~tree~
couRTESY of mEDIABISTRo.com

8 the climaX februAry gr AduAt e s
volume Xii, issue 6
The culmination of forty-three Hampshire educations
By liz looker
Staff Writer
There are Forty-three February
graduate this year at Hampshire College.
Students’ interests and journeys to
graduation vary greatly, but they all have
the common experience of leaving Hampshire
just as snow begins to blanket the
Valley. Ten students’ Division III work is
highlighted in no particular order.
Exploring pigmentation and behavior in
vertebrate animals, Sean Nunley designed
and carried out a year-long research project
that focused on a method to “domesticate
[a] wild animal using naturalistic means.”
Nunley began planning for his Divison III
research in October of his junior year, but
quickly realized that he would need an extra
semester to coordinate the use of a laboratory
and animal population, as there are
no exsisting facilities at Hampshire College.
Beginning his research in January 2009 ar a
laboratory at University of Massachusetts
at Amherst, and with a grant from Culture,
Brain, and Development (cbd) to support
animal care costs, Nunley began breeding
voles (field mice). With this change in
timeline, Nunley was able to work through
the spring semester, summer, and into Fall
2009. In a paper that further investigates
his research ideas on the theme of coloration,
he focused on the “potential for a
single genetic change to affect behavior
and pigmentation simultaneously”. After
graduating, Nunley plans to stay in the area
for about six months, in order to continue
his research, prepare his paper for publication,
and to collaborate with other Hampshire
students. Nunley also looks forward
to spending time in China to maintain language
fluency, and is applying to become a
Rhodes Scholar in Fall 2011.
John Chao exhibited his work this
month at Hampshire College, visually in the
Gallery and musically in the Recital Hall.
Exploring how to “install a poem” through
music, writing, video, and drawing, he has
focused on “lyrical progression” to guide
him through a “large-scale web” illustrating
a college experience. His work in the Gallery,
shown in combination with February
graduate Hayden King and Ben Obriecht,
is titled “The Lonely Pnuffer Fish: Windows
to the fall.” During Division II, Chao
focused on his long-time interests in music
and writing and enrolled in an art class
with professor Nat Cohen. While on leave
for the Fall 2008 semester, he drew the interior
of his Amherst apartment and thus the
process for the visual portion of his Division
III work began. Now, his creative work
has culminated in multiple forms of art that
represent the imagery in his song writing.
Chao plans to remain near Hampshire until
May, at which point he will join friends and
fellow graduates in Brooklyn, New York to
pursue music.
Originally studying archeology and anthropology
within Natural Science, Jesus
Colmenares is graduating from Hampshire
College as a neuroscience student. His Division
III work, titled “Memory in Schizotypy,”
is a cognitive science study that explores
“memory in schizophrenia through a preventative
model.” Finding interest in the
idea that individuals who are genetically
predisposed to schizophrenia “show some
form of less-than-normal semantic memory
retrieval,” Colmenares carried out an
Event-Related Potential (erp) study using
participants from Hampshire. Working
with professors Jane Couperus and Melissa
Burch, he performed the pilot study in the
spring of 2009, which was followed by his
research this semester. While at Hampshire,
Colmenares was also an active member and
captain of the Hampshire College Men’s
Soccer Team, citing the significance of his
“last game as a Hampshire soccer player” in
Fall 2009. Upon graduation, Colmenares
plans to work for two years in a research
capacity and then go on to graduate school
where he will study either Neuroscience or
Physical Anthropology.
Jonathan Kirschenbaum has created a
research paper in three chapters analyzing
“how urban size, policy, and design intersect
to produce exclusionary spaces” in White
Plains, New York. Focusing on Urban Studies
at Hampshire College, as well as in the
Five College system, Kirschenbaum has “always
been interested in architecture,” but
particularly appreciates how “interdisciplinary”
the field can be. At the beginning of his
research, he recognized the importance of
the knowing past events of a location and
began asking why White Plains had “gone
through so many transformations” in its
fairly young history. Now at the end of the
process, he has explored how a small city
that depends on a service economy (i.e. retail)
can exclude populations through urban
renewal projects. His Division III project is
titled “Not So Public Spaces: A Case Study
of White Plains, New York.” Kirschenbaum
plans to enroll in a masters program in City
Planning and continue to follow his interest
of how cities shape societies.
Loosely based on the 1983 John Carpenter
film ‘Christine’, Chris Byler has produced
a feature-length video titled ‘Saab Story’ for
his Division III project. He describes the
film, which is based on ‘Christine’ (about a
possessed Plymouth Fury, and its owner),
as an “experimental melodrama” that explores
the concept of “inheritance as a memorial.”
Setting Carpenter’s story in a “less
horrific and more domestic” atmosphere,
the driver of the car in Byler’s film also
“doesn’t see the stigma” associated with the
vehicle. While study at Goldsmiths College
in London during the Spring 2008 semester,
Byler was influenced by his coursework
in post-war French philosophy and screen
cultures. During that time, he also saw Michael
Haneke’s retrospective, which was a
significant influence to his work. Taking a
semester off from Hampshire College and
living in Berlin during Fall 2008, he began
“flushing out the screenplay” he wrote the
previous summer. The following semester
he returned to Hampshire for his last two
semesters, shooting the film from April to
September.
Taliesin Nyala’s Division III project,
called “The Soul Returns to Land it Knows,”
is a three-part collection of writings that explores
the affects of abuse and trauma on
children. Dividing her work into an analytic
paper on neurobiological and physiological
affects of trauma, creative fiction,
and religious narratives, Nyala’s “fascination
with stories” allowed her to explore the
experiences of children through a variety
of media. Nyala transferred to Hampshire
College in the beginning of her Division II
work, after a previously nomadic education
of attending multiple schools and traveling.
Her interest in child-centered advocacy, developmental
psychology, and resilience in
children then brought her to this Division
III project. Nyala plans to stay in the area
and work after graduating, and then attend
Divinity School where she will study Comparative
Literature and religious narratives
of trauma and abuse through storytelling.
Her desire for the future is to be a “peaceful
person,” perhaps working in peace and conflict
work, and to continue writing.
Lydia Broussard has studied cyborgs in
her Division III work, “A Story of Fourth
Space,” which discovers “how we think of
the body and how we think of technology.”
Exploring technology in a “prosthetic sense,”
Broussard’s work focuses on communication
between multiple parties, which ranges
from a voice over a cell phone to a credit
card trail, in addition to how the body is
interpreted through these technologies.
Broussard is graduating this semester because
of her decision in Fall 2006 to take
a break from attending Hampshire College
to live and work in Washington D.C. She
explains that the semester allowed her to
find perspective and that she “wouldn’t
have been able to survive Hampshire without
[the] time off.” Also finding expression
in dance and choreography, Broussard acknowledges
her “mtv-trained dance background”
that combines improvisation and
concepts of identity. Presenting “Femmeopticon”
in the 2008 Winter Dance Concert at
Hampshire, Broussard explored the “pecking
order” of middle school girls and the
concept that “people always feel watched.”
After Hampshire, Broussard plans to move
back to D.C. and to then attend graduate
school in order to continue Media Studies,
possibly outside of the United States.
For Maya Gounard’s Division III work,
she has “designed, constructed, programmed,
and tested three simple robots”
to be used for therapy in multiple settings.
The fuzzy creatures provide “comfort by responding
to human interaction” in a way
that could supplement or replace animal
therapy. Spending an extra semester in Division
II, Gounard was able to participate in
an undergraduate research over the summer
between Division III semesters and have
more time to work on her project. Through
working that summer, she learned how to
present aibo (a robotic dog from Sony) to
youth, which further formed her project
work. Gounard organized the Division III
presentation day and reception in Franklin
Paterson Hall on December 5 with assistance
from Campus Leadership and Activities
(cla) and Student Life. She explains
the need for “something more institutionalized”
at Hampshire to help create a space
for January graduates to present their work.
After graduation, Gounard plans to stay in
the Valley, work, and to then attend graduate
school later next year. About continuing
her Division III work, she says “I like
building robots, so I’ll probably keep building
[them] on my own time”.
Kate Abbey-Lambertz has written a
book titled “Selections from the Journals of
Wilma Belass, Edited & Annotated by Andrew
Fowler, on the subject of her research
on & travels to the Marquette Iron Range
of Michigan” for her Division III project.
Originally studying the history of the Iron
Industry in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula,
Abbey-Lambertz was “frustrated by the lack
of scholarship” on the topic. With a photography
background from Hampshire College
and while on leave for a semester during
Division II, Abbey-Lambertz photographed
Marquette, Michigan with a large-format
camera while she was interning at the Iron
Industry Museum during the 2009 summer.
Her explorations of history (including visual
artifacts and text) and new photography
have resulted in a book that she created in
InDesign and had published through Country
Press in Lakeville, MA. Her Division III
presentation and book release will be on
December 12 at 6pm in the Jerome Liebling
Center at Hampshire College, with February
graduate Dan Klein and Kendell Richmond.
Anika Martin explores theater and psychotherapy
through her Division III work,
“Drama Therapy for Child Survivors of
Trauma and Children on the Autism Spectrum.”
A number of experiences outside
of Hampshire College have contributed to
Martin’s work, including an internship in
India during Spring 2008 when she worked
with survivors of human trafficking and sex
work, interning at the New England Center
for Drama Therapy under the guidance
of co-director Becca Greene-Van Horn, and
teaching drama at Wediko Children’s Services
Summer Program. She explains that
she was “amazed at how writing and telling
stories through the distance of a character
provided an outlet” for individuals. For her
project, Martin supplements research with
fictional narratives and a fictional drama
therapy session to “illuminate” the science,
and sample activities for drama therapists
in the appendix. After graduation, Martin
will be getting married in March, moving to
Arizona to work, then after a year she plans
to enroll in a program in Social Work and
become a registered drama therapist. ~tree~
The following students intend on graduating in February. The Climax staff wishes them the best of luck with their future en-
deavors. Katherine Abbey-Lambertz, Dana Albertson, Morgan Bommer-Guinn, Lydia Broussard, Christopher Byler, Sara Carl-
isle, Dorothy Cashore, John Chao, Jesus Colmenares, Prima Cristofalo, Jose Fuentes, Allison Ginsberg, Maya Gounard, Crystal
Hodges, Hayden King, Jonathan Kirschenbaum, Daniel Klein, Donald Lagana, Hannah Lapuh, Tenzin Manell, Anika Martin,
Kenji Matsumoto, Shaniek McLeish, Freddy Mora, Wesley Newfarmer, Michael Nord, Sean Nunley, Taliesin Nyala, Benjamin
Obriecht, Patience Okpotor, Sadie Parrinello, Richard Pinnone, Keith Putnam, Kendell Richmond, Laura Sawyer, Julia Schroth,
Maxwell Schwartz, Anneliese Sharpe, Bradford Smith, Sarah Tundermann, Michael Turner, Bonnie Watt, Sonam Yangzom