by Sam Brasch, editor

“Excuse me, would you mind if we got ripped in here?”

The poor female near the entrance of the Tiger Pit, looking up from her power squats, had to hesitate before she responded. I couldn’t blame her. Here were two guys, one wearing short-shorts and knee-high socks, another clad in denim and a soiled sleeveless flannel, asking if they could gain access to a work out room full of sweaty women stuffed into spandex. In the words of the immortal Big Bird, “some of these things are not like the others.” “Yeah, sure, go right ahead, I guess,” she said, recovering from the initial shock. “You know, you guys aren’t the first boys ever to come in here.”

Maybe not the first, but we were among the few. Men on campus never know what to make of the Tiger Pit. We walk by the room on the way to our Worner Boxes, maybe sneaking a peak to see just what goes on behind that de facto gender boundary before shuffling away, just a little more aware of the tail already hanging between our legs. The Tiger Pit is a place where neither our presence nor our gaze belongs. This, we feel, is a world created by and for women.

The divide is something females on campus don’t deny. Ari Rocca, a junior who frequents the treadmills of the Worner basement, has even gone so far as to forsake the official name for the room. “I call it the Pussy Pit, not the Tiger Pit. You know why? Because it smells like pussy.”

Cara Greene, another woman who enjoys the room as a workout option, took the idea further. “Do we want to work out in Beaver Creek or Dick Pond [in El Pomar]? For me it’s an easy call. I’ve got a beaver, I am gonna be more comfortable working out with other beavers.” Maybe the Tiger Pit tilts towards females, she explained, but there are reasons behind the gender split. Stretching, straining, and sweating are all things women don’t always feel comfortable doing around men. Because the Pit is a women’s space, it is a place where shorts and a sports bra can be understood simply as the practical clothes for exercise, and not a sexual statement.

I am not another beaver, but I wanted to plunge into Beaver Creek like a thrown stone to see how the currents might shift around me. Taking the longest route possible around the room to flaunt my presence, I caught a few women taking stock of the outcasts from Dick Pond. I moved away from the exercise bikes (hunching in my short-shorts might be a little too much) and the ellipticals (I’d rather not look stupid) and found my place on a corner treadmill.

Of all the things that struck me once inside the forbidden world, nothing was more noticeable than the fierce level of concentration. This was not a social place. Plugged into iPods, eyes focused on their workout screens, the women quickly lost interest in my pale upper-thighs, not to mention one another.

I had a harder time focusing on my workout. All around the Pit hung memories of campus places long gone: a rhino statue in front of Cutler Hall, a CC marching band at a busy street corner in downtown Colorado Springs, a debate panel full of men with well cropped hair and horn-rimmed glasses. On the south wall hung a black and white picture of a dozen young CC students in sweaters and skirts around a dark wood bar. The bar appears twice on the walls, alluding to a time when the basement of the student center served glasses full of cold beer rather than paper towels soaked in sweat. Drinks in hand, the bar-goers leaned against the walls and each other, taking a quick swig and a deep breath after another long day of classes. Their smiles looked out in contrast to the grimaces of pain on the faces of the living.

The room we now know as the Tiger Pit was never a bar, as some campus rumors purport. When the college finished the construction of the Worner Center in 1986, mostly demolishing the old Rastall Student Center, they expanded the basement in answer to demand for extra space devoted to student activity. Student managers of the old CC Hub, a social bar that had operated on campus since the 1950s, had their eyes on the space that is now the Tiger Pit, but the same year the state of Colorado passed a law moving the drinking age from eighteen to twenty-one. The school first filled the room with pinball machines and pool tables before treadmills and dumbbells took over in the 1990s.

But despite the lack of a perfect historical parallel, the pictures struck me with nostalgia. How great would it be to come to a room full of great people, right on campus, and chat it up over a weak beer? It felt so much less satirical, and so much more honest, than stomping into a women’s workout room dressed like I belonged in a Castro Street leather bar.

But I might as well finish what I started, I thought. Taking up a medicine ball, I laid on my back and instructed my buddy to stand on my feet.

“Are you a man?!” he asked, more than loud enough for everyone to hear.

“Yes!” I replied, louder.

“Are you ready to do some sit ups?!”

“You’re damn fucking right!”

“Well then get on it, big guy!”

For all that effort, I only got a sideways glance from the girl doing power squats. She shook her head, and then turned back to her own reflection in the mirror.

Pacing the Cage (PDF)

by Jitu Varansi, guest writer

The Illuminati lurk. Look hard enough and you can see the signs of the nefarious group everywhere. The All-Seeing Eye embedded in a pyramid—long a symbol of Illuminati conspiracy—is printed on every American one-dollar bill. Everyone from George Bush to Barack Obama has proclaimed to be part of a “New World Order,” three words that have long underwritten the goals of this conspiring organization. They hide their presence in mathematical puzzles that can always be reduced to the same horrifying digits: 6—6—6! The Illuminati hide behind every major political and historic event, pulling the strings from behind a curtain of secrecy. They are the shrouded puppet masters of the world, and we their unknowing puppets, operating under an illusion of freedom.

Or so the conspiracy theorists who rage over the Internet would like you to believe. For them, minor images become the very proof of a worldwide plot that has spanned more than three centuries. All images, whether seen in Homer Simpson’s gut or the blue horse sculpture that greets travelers to Denver International Airport, become the representations of some hidden truth that can only be understood by the few informed.

Their claims have some basis beyond paranoia. Theorists claim that at the dawn of the Enlightenment the Illuminati split from the Freemasons, a society that can be connected to William Taft, Harry S. Truman, Andrew Jackson, Mark Twain and even Nat King Cole. These men met together as Freemasons to enjoy fraternity without the historically dividing boundaries of race and religion. According to those who faithfully believe in (and look to expose) the Illuminati, the motivations for becoming a Freemason vary. Some Masons wanted nothing more than a safe place to hang out and talk politics. Some wanted to control the world. Others were seeking a space to worship Satan.

The believers are hard at work, outing not just politicians as members of this evil order, but idols of popular culture as well. Below are some of their discoveries about people we thought we knew.

The world is not what it seems. Be afraid.

Be very afraid.

Lady Gaga:

A lot of people are probably shocked about this one. Be assured, it’s no false accusation. From what I’ve gathered, this “woman” is extremely tight with the demon lord. If you look at any of her videos you’ll see forces working to seduce young vulnerable minds with occult influence. She often wears horns and has one eye covered, alluding to the Illuminati All-Seeing Eye. She fills her videos and performances with highly seductive sexual imagery, luring us to submit to her power through her intoxicating spell. Most logically, this can all be interpreted as Gaga’s obsession with the corruption of youth or, as is far more likely, dedication to the antichrist. Ignorant people might try to convince you that these things are part of an “image” or simply for “entertainment” value—don’t buy into it. These people have most likely already been converted and are beyond hope.

Jay-Z:

The poster boy for celebrity occult status. If Lady Gaga is a terrier of the Illuminati, he’s a Rottweiler.  His iconic “Diamond” hand sign symbolizes the Illuminati’s All-Seeing Eye, and the logo for his clothing line contains it as well. His most recent videos are chock full of tongue-in-cheek demonic imagery, such as animal skulls, black crows, and a sinister clown. So far, this all points in one clear direction—down to hell. Another blatant example is a line from his hit song “Empire State of Mind,” in which he says, “If Jesus can’t save you / life starts where the church ends.” It practically screams, “Look, I’m in a secret cult, please arrest me.” In a recent song titled “Free Mason,” he denies everything: “I said I was amazing / I never said I was a mason.” Definitely sounds like overcompensation.

President Barack Obama:

That’s right, terrifying. But, if you think about it, it makes a heap of sense. Who better to fulfill the Illuminati goal of New World Order than the Commander-in-Chief himself? In the past, he’s been accused of being a Muslim terrorist, a socialist and more. I guess all of this has been distracting the public from the truth. His bandwagon popularity and appeal to the kids has certainly been part of a plan to control the minds of the public. (Maybe that’s why he’s in all those rap songs!) According to the eternally reliable rushlimbaughsites.com, Obama has stacked his cabinet with members of secret elite organizations. His master plan reportedly involves merging the United States, Mexico, and Canada into a North American empire. Now we know what he meant by “Yes, We Can.”

Kobe Bryant:

Even the world of sports entertainment has been infiltrated by the twisted Illuminati. Among those paving the way for the dark side of the league is Kobe himself. Not only is he a highly talented athlete, he is also one of the most well paid and respected people of our time. For any skeptics: there is plenty of proof for this one. Proof that involves numbers, so it’s certainly undeniable. For example, Kobe is 6’ 6” (surely an intended satanic reference) and was drafted in 1996. If you flip those two 9s upside down, it becomes “1-666”—I know—I couldn’t believe it either. On top of this, Kobe was the 13th overall pick (the number of Illuminati bloodlines) and scored 81 points during his 666th regular season game. 81 reversed is 18, which is 6 + 6 + 6. You’re not fooling anyone, Kobe.

Celebrinati (PDF)

words and illustrations by Andrea Tudhope, editor

“Everyone has a diagnosis,” local marriage and family therapist Laura Smith said as she pulled out a thick book, her hand dropping a bit as the weight shifted from the shelf to her arm. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is published by the American Psychiatric Association. The fifth and most recent 943-page volume, published in 2000, contains 365 identified diagnoses.

Has a friend ever told you that you are really moody when you are drunk? Diagnosis No. 291.89: Alcohol-Induced Mood Disorder. Has there ever been a day in which you really just didn’t want to see anyone? Diagnosis No. 301.7: Antisocial Personality Disorder. Have you ever been unable to sleep because of all that espresso you had while studying? Diagnosis No. 292.85: Caffeine-Induced Sleep Disorder. Have you ever fought with your sibling because he or she was being obnoxious? Diagnosis No. V61.8: Sibling Relational Problem. Do you ever feel sad or nostalgic about being away from your parents? Diagnosis No. 309.21: Separation Anxiety Disorder. If you answered yes to any of these questions, the DSM tells us you have a mental disorder.

Kristi Erdal, a CC psychology professor, believes that the DSM’s apparent over-inclusiveness has its pros and cons. “The con is that we are diagnosing everything. The pro . . . is that people who feel they need help can actually have their treatment reimbursed by health insurance. It may seem cynical, but it’s a little rough hearing ‘Oh, you’re not in the DSM? You can’t be treated.’” Despite the upside that Erdal acknowledges, the idea that everyone has a diagnosis could threaten the legitimacy of what some might consider more serious mental disorders. At the same time, perhaps it could establish that, hey—we are all different.

Regardless of whether you find the DSM helpful or harmful, the issue to consider is the stigma associated with a label of mental illness. American sociologist Howard S. Becker laid the foundation for labeling theory. Labeling theory deals with deviance, which is defined as the state of departing from usual or accepted standards that are set and shaped by culture, society, age, race, sexuality, etc. According to this theory, reactions to deviance, as opposed to the acts themselves, delineate what is deviant. In other words, “Deviance is not a quality of the act the person commits, but rather a consequence of the application by others of rules and sanctions to an ‘offender,’” as Becker states in his article “Relativism: Labeling Theory.” Let’s say, for example, that you are a student with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), and though you are intelligent, you have trouble working up to the speed of other students in your classes. Because you have ADD, your professors give you extra time on your exams, set aside a portion of their office hours specifically to work with you, and sometimes even give you a different homework schedule so you can work at your own pace. According to labeling theory, you are deviant not because you have this condition, but rather because society designates standards that you do not meet. In this case, you are considered deviant because your professors expect that everyone should work at the same pace, and that since you don’t, you need separate rules and separate standards.

Eight years ago, a friend of mine chose to disregard the diagnosis when the doctor told her that she was bipolar. After receiving the same diagnosis seven months ago from another doctor, however, my friend decided to accept it. Following this acceptance, things became worse than ever. She began experiencing intense ups and downs and severe manic episodes at night. Though she had always suffered from these afflictions, they had never been so severe or so frequent. Soon after the diagnosis, she began reading about bipolar disorder, and in the process seemed to pick up certain characteristics and behaviors as she read about them. This is not to say that she became bipolar when she was diagnosed; rather, it is to say that her initial behavior in the months following her diagnosis seemed a clear reflection and result of the label of her diagnosis. For some, it is easy to attribute everything—every flaw, every act of your own that you can’t understand—to the illness, and in the process, adopt certain aspects of the disorder that you didn’t exhibit or acknowledge before. According to Becker, “Being branded as deviant has important consequences for one’s further social participation and self-image.” Your understanding of yourself would change after being diagnosed with a mental illness. Upon diagnosis, the illness becomes a part of your identity; it can at times explain certain behaviors, feelings or emotions, and it can also explain others’ behavior toward you. “If you are concerned that that is your primary identity, you start to see the world through the lens of [the] mental illness,” Erdal said.

According to sociologist David L. Rosenhan in his article entitled “On Being Sane in Insane Places,” “the diagnosis acts . . . as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Eventually the patient himself accepts the diagnosis, with all of its surplus meanings and expectations and behaves accordingly.” In this article, Rosenhan questions the validity of insanity and the reliability of diagnoses. To address his doubts and concerns, he conducted an experiment in the 1970s. He sent eight pseudopatients to hospitals across the country complaining of false symptoms of hearing voices saying words like “empty” and “hollow.” Each of the eight pseudopatients were admitted to a psychiatric ward with a diagnosis of schizophrenia. Upon entering the psychiatric wards, each pseudopatient ceased all fake symptoms. Despite the fact that they no longer had any symptoms, they were still given medicine (which they did not take) each day, and all behavior was attributed to their “condition.” Eventually each pseudopatient was released with the diagnosis of schizophrenia “in remission.” This experiment clearly shows the power of the label of a diagnosis. Judging by his views and experiment as presented in this article, Rosenhan would likely believe that the DSM is dangerous. In his article, he states that “psychological categorization of mental illness is useless at best and downright harmful, misleading, and pejorative at worst. Psychiatric diagnoses, in this view, are in the minds of the observers and are not valid summaries of characteristics displayed by the observed.”

Once again, we return to the stigma of mental disorder, not only as attributed by society, but also as attributed by oneself. Despite the initial effects of the label, Erdal explains that the idea that the mental disorder is your primary identity “tends to dissipate as you remember that you are a mother, a wife, a friend, a runner. [The diagnosis] is always in that list, but it moves back over time.” Learning to accept your diagnosis without letting it define you is progress in the direction of defeating the label and minimizing its ramifications. But this progress is often limited to the individual. Society moves at an entirely different pace, especially when it comes to adjusting the way it defines or handles particular forms of deviance. “I thought that when the biological undertones were found, that mental illnesses would be more accepted. But no, the more biological evidence, the more stigma has been associated with it. I don’t anticipate the stigma issue improving anytime soon,” Erdal said.

It is unlikely that society will have a collective change of heart, suddenly accept mental disorders, and broaden the general understanding and definition of the term ‘normal.’ But, there is potential for progress for individuals who recognize something different about themselves, see a doctor, receive a diagnosis and, over time, come to terms with their disorder. Smith works on this individual level in her therapy sessions: “My job is to give them an experience, a time for healing . . . I don’t really give advice. That’s not what my job is. My job is to get the person to understand themselves.” Perhaps a diagnosed individual can, over time, come to terms with his or her diagnosis as my friend did.

Regardless of personal growth, society still brands your disorder to your forehead for all to see. That’s not productive or progressive. While reading books about her disorder, my friend found herself completely discouraged. Thoughts were flying through her mind—how could she ever function as a part of society, having this disorder and knowing what it entails? How would people perceive her? When a diagnosed individual who is doing well and receiving therapy and treatment still strongly believes she can’t be ‘normal’ again, there has to be something wrong. The whole point of a diagnosis is to help a person receive proper treatment and gain better understanding of his or her illness. While the diagnosis may be helping on that front, it is also tacking a label to the individual, which, consequently, is progress in the wrong direction.

Burdened with A Brand (PDF)

by Bridger Langfur, guest writer

I am a guy who has had many love affairs. Most of them could be described as passionate and heated. Some might earn the title of scorching, blazing, or even caliente. But I met my greatest, spiciest, love when I was eight years old at the home of my friend Kaushik. It was a romance I would never forget—a romance I could literally taste years afterward.

I can remember clearly the first time I went to her house. Her parents—recent immigrants from India—served a dish called Palak Paneer. Kaushik, smiling at me beneath big brown eyes, urged me to take a bite of the spinach entree. The burn began as a miniscule tingling in the back of my throat. After about a minute, the spark had bloomed into a full-fledged volcanic eruption. I tried to explain to the unsympathetic immigrant how much my mouth hurt. She did not understand, because everything that she ever made or ate blazed with equal heat. For some reason, after the conflagration smoldered to an end, I realized that I masochistically loved the intense sensation. That chili sauce introduced me to a life-long obsession with hot sauces. Ever since, I have been on a quest to find and test the most vicious sauce in the world.

Today my quest has led me to two superpowers of chili and spice. Let me first introduce David Ashley, the founder of Ashleyfoods in Brighton, Massachusetts. He began his fiery career as the sauce man in a barbecue joint, and has never forgotten his roots as he  pursues hotter and hotter sauces. He was quoted saying, “The perfect barbeque sauce tastes great, contains natural ingredients, doesn’t burn when you cook with it, and has a kick!” In his hot sauces, Ashley values flavor more than heat; he wants all of his sauces to have a “fresh out of the kettle taste.” To achieve this, he uses only the freshest of chilies and infuses the sauces with a touch of sticky sweet molasses, fresh garlic, and onions. Even though his sauces are undoubtedly delicious, they still pack enough fire to make you wonder if hell could be any worse.

The second hot sauce superpower is Blair Lazar. A spunky, stout, wide-eyed bar owner from New Jersey, Lazar has marketed his brand and his videos far and wide not through promises of taste, through an appeal to masochism. While Ashley’s website is artsy and decorated with cute chilies and articles that focus on the health benefits of hot pepper, Lazar’s site opens with an animated cover page that grabs the viewer’s attention with a flaming skull emblazoned with the slogan, “Don’t fear death; fear the consequences.”

Like Ashley, Lazar’s origins clearly influence the theory behind his sauces. “While [I was] in the bar business, Death Sauce was born. Demanding hot food and fun, the late night drunks never wanted to leave. So I made them a deal. If they could eat just four of my Death Wings, they could stay all night. To make a long story short, everyone always left.” From the very start, Lazar was making sauce not for taste, but as poison for bar rats. Since then, his sauces have pressed upwards against the limits of heat. He holds the Guinness World Record for the hottest food product ever made—his 16 Million Reserve Sauce. Lazar only ever created twenty bottles of the sauce, which is probably a good thing for the continued health and safety of humanity. The name refers to the sauce’s Scoville rating—a system that measures heat by dilution. That is, in order not to taste 16 Million Reserve, one would have to add 16 million teaspoons of water to one teaspoon of sauce. That’s a full 200 bathtubs of water.

To be faithful to my search for the hottest sauce, I bought a bottle from each of the moguls. Because I could not afford to spend 700 dollars on 16 Million Reserve, I tried Sudden Death, which is Blair’s second hottest sauce, ranking around 600,000 Scoville Heat Units (SHU). I was incapacitated for about thirty minutes, crippled from extreme acidic pain burning in my tongue and cheeks. The sauce began dull, but then  built into a crescendo of napalm-esque heat. The first time I tasted this sauce, I thought I needed to go to the hospital. I dried my tongue with paper towels to dampen the burn and finally, with teary eyes, returned to a semi-normal state. Lazar’s Sudden Death left me exhausted but clear-headed.

Ashley’s Mad Dog line of sauces is his hottest. One drop of Mad Dog 357 feels as though someone is using a magnifying glass to focus a sizzling ray of sunlight on your tongue. Ashley’s latest recipe—the one I tried—contains 1,001,304 SHU and is the current Scoville record holder. It is approximately 401 times hotter than Tabasco sauce. It also contains ghost peppers—the hottest chilis in the world, hidden in the alpine regions of Nepal. The chili’s primary use is in the development of pepper spray.

Ghost pepper is unlike anything I have ever experienced. Instead of a slow build, a venomous cobra strikes your tongue and then injects it with a blend of gasoline and hydrochloric acid. Be careful not to breathe in when tasting this sauce—it will leave you coughing. The best way to relieve the almost unbearable pain is to cradle a spoonful of yogurt in your mouth. This sauce’s instantaneous blast kindly subsides after about five minutes, in contrast to Blair’s sauces, which do a much better job sustaining pain. But for some, the quick strike of the ghost pepper proves disastrous. After my friend Blaire Colds* tried a cap full of the sauce, her stomach revolted. Without a toilet nearby she tore off her leather boot and puked right into it. Thanks a lot, Ashley. Thanks a whole lot.

Many would say my thirteen year love affair is a dysfunctional one. I would disagree. Among my friends, nothing holds more sway than the threat of the sauce. Think you can leg press more weight than I can? Great—put a drop of sauce on it. Want to send a flip-flop straight to my balls? Fine, but you are gonna get a hot sauce treat in your sleep.

It’s good, in my opinion, to have a mistress with a little bit of a kick.
*Name has been changed.

Heating Up (PDF)

by Sam Faktorow, guest writer; illustration by Eleanor Anderson, editor

It was about this time two years ago when I first set foot onto the Colorado College campus. A senior in high school, I knew I was somewhere between eight and nine months away from starting my freshman year at Somethingorother University, the College of Whatsitcalled, or perhaps Godknowswhat College. By the end of the tour, my uncertainty regarding the school at which I would like to spend four of the best years of my life evaporated into the cool, Colorado Springs air. “Colorado College is the one,” I thought to myself. By that time, I had already applied and checked the little box that said Early Action. “I’ll get in no sweat,” I told myself confidently. A month later, in January, I was deferred. Senioritis was beginning to set in. Fast forward two more months. Wait listed! (Maybe I shouldn’t have let senioritis kick in so hard so early on . . . ) Two months more pass, it’s early May. I received this note through e-mail (yes, through e-mail):

Dear Sam,

Congratulations! I am honored to invite you to be a member of the Winter Start Program in the Colorado College Class of 2013. You are one of the few selected from our waiting list to participate in this program. This program will allow you and as many as fifty of your classmates to enroll at Colorado College at the start of our second semester in January 2010.

Wait, what? So, I’ve been accepted. But I can’t come until January. Is that what you’re telling me, CC Admissions? After finishing my application and interviewing in October, prospie-ing in December, being deferred in January, getting wait listed in March, I’ve finally been in accepted in May, only to be told I can’t come until second semester? After a brief existensial crisis in which I reconsidered my desire to attend CC, I confirmed my acceptance, signed the papers, made my deposit, and began my journey as one of the least understood minorities at CC: a Winter Start.

According to the admissions website, the Winter Start Program was “established by the college to manage enrollment for the spring semester. While it is a practical program to utilize rooms left vacant by upperclass students studying abroad, it is also a way to increase the number of first year students we are able to admit in a given year.” Okay, that sounds reasonable enough. Students study abroad, drop out, etc., and a second wave of new students fill their places.

Despite the admissions website’s explanations of the program, it still seems to be vastly misunderstood, even by Winter Starts themselves. “I applied to CC Early Decision, but I didn’t know what I was going to do or what being a Winter Start really meant at the time,” said Snapper Tams.

Similarly, many Fall starts don’t know much about the program. “It seems like last year Winter Starts were very much defined by the fact that they were Winter Starts, but this year they’re much more integrated,” explained an anonymous student.

Some students request the Winter Start program, rather than having it choose them. “I applied to CC wanting to be a Winter Start; I wasn’t ready to start college in the fall,” explained Blaine Carper.

For others, entering college as a Winter Start is a more responsible alternative. Phoebe Kulasegram, for example, asked to be enrolled as a Winter Start. “I was taking time off anyway and couldn’t get financial aid for Fall Start,” she said.

Although CC prides itself on the accessibility of its extracurriculars and other programs, as well as its very open student community, the Winter Start experience is not always easy. Molly Moffet explained that “it was harder to get involved in school activities last year. I really had to make an effort to meet new people.” It’s quite difficult, in reality, to come in halfway through the year, when 500 other people in your grade have already spent a semester together getting to know each other. The advantage of the Winter Start experience, however, is the almost immediate built-in group of friends that it provides.

The Winter Start equivalent of NSO, known as Winter Start Orientation (WSO), is an extremely different beginning to school. Beyond the obvious contrasts (there are fewer people, everyone is bundled up in winter clothing instead of trying to cool down in summer wear, the rest of the student body has already started classes, etc.), there are some major differences between NSO and WSO.

The entire group of forty-something students ventures to Baca for five days and spends each night together doing some kind of bonding experience. Thus has its drawbacks. Winter Start Kathy Demmon explains that although “it was nice meeting everyone and knowing who they all were, I think that portions [of WSO] could be shortened, and CC should have Winter Starts go to different places with a small group of eight, just like normal NSO, because I felt I didn’t connect with any one person on a deep level.”

However, Moffet also noted that “after Baca, I could still go up and sit with any Winter Start in Rastall.” Fall starts seem to find their initial friends in their NSO group, their hall and their FYE, which do not always overlap. For Winter Starts, however, there is an instant group of forty people who enroll in a handful of FYEs, allowing this group of new students to continue spending a lot of time together post-WSO.

Beyond WSO, everything else about CC is just the same for Winter Starts. We still have to take an FYE, we still have the same all-college requirements, still live in one of the three big dorms upon arrival, and so on. The semester off, though, creates a vastly different freshman year experience for Winter Start students.

Rather than graduating from high school and beginning college a few months later, Winter Starts have half a year to experience the world in whatever way they wish. Some, like myself, spend that time working. It seemed the most practical option at the time, and I’m glad I chose to do so. It made me appreciate coming to CC all the more.

Others go abroad. Natalie Dupille explains that she spent her semester, “working as an assistant English teacher at a boarding school for indigenous students in Ecuador.” She says, “It was incredible, and I got to travel for a couple of weeks afterward.”

Still others acquire a new skill. During his semester off, Taylor Benz went to EMT School and got his pilot’s license. So, despite the initial disappointment that many Winter Starts felt upon being placed into the program, the semester off allowed a time for discovering the world in a limbo state.

A Winter Start’s first year at CC is vastly different from a Fall Start’s because of the way it is broken up. For a Winter Start, freshman year more or less matches up to an actual calendar year, beginning in January and finishing in December. The large break in the middle for summer, and jumping into things at the start of fifth block, leads to some odd experiences.

Our first block at school was not spent in warm weather with the senior calendar in mind each night, surrounded by 500 other students in the same situation. Instead, Winter Starts are greeted in January by cold weather, constant whispers of where people will be skiing the upcoming weekend, and only forty likeminded companions who are also trying to understand the ropes of college. And rather than finishing FYE, taking two more classes, going home for break and then returning for another semester after only a few weeks, the first year for a Winter Start is FYE, two blocks, many months of summer (at home or maybe at CC for Summer Session), and then second semester.

I find myself identifying with the Class of 2013 as the people with whom I will graduate, but the Class of 2014 as the people with whom I was introduced to college life (I was most certainly not fully adjusted by the time this academic year began). This strange position of standing somewhere between two grades has led me to have an equal number of friends in both classes. I’ve begun calling myself a “freshmore” when people ask me what grade I am in. I’m definitely not a freshman; orientation and FYE feel way too far away. On the flip side, I don’t feel quite like a sophomore; I don’t have enough credits and there’s still a ton of people in the class of 2013 I have yet to meet.

The Winter Start program, while fairly unique, can also be found at other top colleges around the country, including Colby, Middlebury, and UC-Berkeley. At CC, though, the Block plan sets it apart. In my own experience as a Winter Start, adjusting to the Block plan from the traditional semester plan employed at my high school had to be done at a much quicker pace than for Fall starts. On the one hand, both Fall and Winter Starts, as mentioned before, have to deal with the trials and tribulations of FYE. When Winter Starts arrive on campus, however, the rest of their graduating class has already adjusted to the Block plan and they are left to adapt on their own.

Time off lends itself to a different stance towards arriving at school. “I think I was more mature coming to school after being in Ireland,” notes Moffet.

Dupille explains, “I wouldn’t trade my Winter Start experience for anything . . . I had a great sense of independence coming to CC that a lot of incoming freshmen may not have. I think a lot of people come in directly from their high schools to college on their parents’ dollar, and it’s sort of like—well, what has changed? You don’t live with your parents anymore, but you still rely on them extremely heavily. There’s no real-world experience there at all.” Being out in the real world, beyond the CC bubble, gives Winter Starts time to develop a sense of self-efficacy at the very start of college that Fall starts may struggle with.

Despite all its difficulties and frustrations, being a Winter Start is definitely a fantastic experience. “I always mention I’m a Winter Start when we do introductions in class. It’s a point of pride,” explains Woogie Stabile. In that semester off that Fall starts do not get, Winter Starts experience the real world and perhaps, in the end, it is Winter Starts who are most prepared for the world outside the CC bubble. One thing is for certain: our orientation was quite cold.

The Freshmore Experience (PDF)

by Zoë Isabella, guest writer; illustrations by Becca Levi, staff artist

There are two man-made structures that can be seen from space: one is the Great Wall of China, and the other is the Fresh Kills Landfill of New York, USA. Americans generate 251 million tons of trash annually. 32.5 percent of that is recycled or composted and therefore diverted from the landfill. That leaves 196.2 million tons of trash added to our landfills every year—much of which could be diverted. But how? Recycling and composting—the act of intercepting waste materials destined for a landfill, changing their course, and adding to their lifespan by turning them into useful resources for our society—are our most important methods of waste diversion.

In 2008, during my freshman year, I began an internship for Colorado College’s Office of Sustainability. The other interns and I were responsible for turning CC’s Earth Tub once a day, and we found ourselves directly confronted with the everyday realities of composting (including my physical weakness —thankfully my friends helped me!). The Earth Tub is a high-capacity, cleverly designed container that mixes and aerates decomposing matter to speed up the process of decomposition. The compost is used to fertilize some of the flowerbeds on campus. The Earth Tub turns diverted waste into something beautiful for our campus.

You may be surprised to know that you and the Earth Tub have likely already met. It is the large bowl-looking thing outside the Arts & Crafts Center across from Honnen Hockey Rink. And despite its massive size, the tub is at its capacity.  It processes forty tons of food waste every year—food that would otherwise be headed straight to a landfill.

The CC community has recently made it clear that it wants a larger-scale composting program. For instance, shouldn’t students in residential halls be able to compost? What about classrooms, office buildings, and other dining facilities? We should attempt to keep as much food matter away from the landfill as we can, but how exactly can we make composting a campus-wide practice? This is no easy question to answer. If only composting were as simple as adding another receptacle next to the trash and recycling bins.

Compost is a value-added product; decomposing matter is usually wasted, but composting adds value to the material by developing waste into a substance that can be used to enrich future plant production. Similar to the concept of recycling, the concept of composting is based on the idea that there should be a circular rather than linear approach to how we deal with material. When thinking of how to implement a large scale composting system on the CC campus, one must consider where our outlet would be. Would we compost exclusively on our campus and use the compost for our own landscaping, or would we send our compost to a local farm? Could we contract a composting service, equivalent to our Bestway recycling service, to pick up our food waste? The latter would certainly require less effort from the CC community, but it is simply impossible at this time, as there are no companies in the area capable of such a service. That leaves us with the first two options, both of which require CC’s direct involvement in the composting process. Students would have to get down and dirty, a fact that might seem discouraging on some campuses, but actually makes me hopeful for the future of sustainability at CC.

Allow me to explain my sudden optimism. It wasn’t too long ago that CC did not have a recycling program. Institutionalized recycling for academic buildings started in 2003 and expanded to the residence halls two years later. Single stream recycling arrived in 2008. These college-funded changes came about because of students who took the initiative to collect and hand-sort the campus’s trash for years! Even in the three years that I have been at CC, I have witnessed an impressive display of enthusiasm towards waste minimization. Students get excited about sorting through the garbage on Trash Peak during the annual Recyclemania competition in the spring, and many upperclassmen that live off campus or in apartments have found ways to compost in the face of considerable inconvenience, bringing their own compost to the CC Farm or to Synergy House. Junior Alan Voeller is optimistic about his apartment’s endeavor to compost: “even if you don’t take out your compost as much as you should, it still takes a couple of days for a rotting, soggy, and leaking bag of food to start smelling.” It’s inspiring to see a group of students get things done, with or without institutional support.

Composting is by no means pretty: the practice requires us to let go of our comfort in throwing things away and never having to see or smell them again. But despite the odor, the rewards are innumerable. We can work together with friends to make composting a part of our daily lives. By sharing efforts and ideas for efficient composting, we can move the CC community forward so that institutional change can follow.

Refer to the instructions of Rebecca Levi, a CC Farm intern, to learn how to play a part in campus sustainability through composting in your house, apartment, or dorm room.

Break It Down Now (PDF)

by Meredith Mantik, guest writer

Students are worried about the future of film at Colorado College. They should be.

They see student films on the CC website and at the CC Film Fest, hear about the new filmmaking facilities and equipment, and even meet successful CC alums like director Marc Webb (500 Days of Summer), Academy-Award-nominated Tim Sexton (Children of Men), documentary filmmaker Doug Pray (Art & Copy), writer/producer Aaron Shure (The Office), and writer/producer Neal Baer (Law and Order: Special Victim’s Unit, ER). Still, filmmaking on campus remains veiled in obscurity. Not only that, but the program that CC was already struggling to solidify now faces complete dissolution.

Currently, there are two branches of the film program: theory/history and filmmaking. This dichotomy embodies what’s encoded on the CC seal: scientia et disciplina, or knowledge and discipline. But while knowledge is heavily emphasized in the film program, discipline is only tenuously supported. There are five tenure-track film theory and history positions, but a tenure-track filmmaking position has yet to exist. CC deserves a film program that complements the rest of the school, but in order for it to do so, it must allot a permanent tenure-track position for filmmaking.

You may have noticed the newest building on campus, the Edith Kinney Gaylord Cornerstone Arts Center. Whatever your opinions may be of its architecture, there is one thing we can all agree on: it’s a space specifically designed to cultivate students’ artistic endeavors. In its conception, Cornerstone aimed to create an ideal environment for both the theater department and the expanding film program. From the small side-room of Taylor Theater (where the printing press now resides), with few computers and outdated equipment, the film program has moved into its swanky new digs. With the move came not only a soundstage and screening room, but also an editing lab equipped with professional editing software programs Final Cut Pro and After Effects. The film program also acquired top-of-the-line gear such as HD cameras, a green screen, a dolly, C-stands, and a brand new crane. In addition, the CC Film Fest continues to be one of the most popular events on campus, and the student club that organizes Film Fest, Film Union, has more members than ever before. The school has provided the film program with facilities, equipment, and encouraged the participation of passionate students. But one essential missing ingredient stands in the way of the film program fulfilling its potential: a professor.

In the last two years, a series of visiting professors have taught the filmmaking classes, a system that the administration plans to continue in the years to come. The administration argues that the block plan was specifically designed in order to have visiting professors “enrich” the students’ experience the same way visiting writers enrich the creative writing program. But if the last two years have proven anything, it’s that students struggle when their only guidance comes from visiting professors.

Anyone who has taken a class from a visiting professor can attest that these newcomers often need a few days or more to orient themselves to the block plan. This is understandable. But often it’s not until the second week of the block that they find their bearings. Even then, the homework load and grading standards tend to be inconsistent with the CC norm. These downsides are amplified in the filmmaking major, where professors need to have a firm grasp not only on the block plan and grading protocol, but also on how to distribute and assign responsibility for equipment, how to teach the use of computer software and camera gear, and how to access and operate the screening room and other facilities. Most importantly, they need a grasp of how to integrate the discipline of filmmaking into the overall academic environment. This a lot to ask of a visiting professor, whose chance of failing far outweighs his or her chance of success.

These assertions aren’t based on ungrounded, hypothetical data; they’re based on the 2008-10 academic years. With a different professor for each filmmaking block, no student knew what he or she was going to get. Some professors emphasized editing over production, others cinematography over storytelling. Some professors gave assignments every night; others gave only one for the entire block. No two students who took Basic Filmmaking were equally prepared for Advanced Filmmaking.

Some visiting instructors would unexpectedly disappear in the afternoons, inadvertently denying students access to the facilities and equipment they needed to complete their assignments. Visitors also had a hard time keeping track of the camera gear, which resulted in the disappearance of several brand-new pieces of equipment. Simply put, visiting professors haven’t seemed invested in the future of CC’s film program.

One such professor-in-passing didn’t know his way around the editing program Final Cut Pro, and was forced to ask a student to teach it to him so he could explain it to his class. Several students even turned to online tutorials in order to learn the programs, compelled by the lack of guidance in class.

But things have been looking up since then.

Thanks to the persistent effort of several staunch English professors and the Film Union (CC’s student film club), the film program has hired two full-time artists-in-residence, Clay Haskell and Dylan Nelson, to take the helm of filmmaking for the 2010-11 academic year.

Serving as visiting professors at CC since 2003, Haskell and Nelson have both taught everything from “Basic Filmmaking” to “Documentary Filmmaking” to “Screenwriting” to “Directing the Fiction Film” to the ever-popular “On Location in Hollywood.” They have brought to the program everything that the other visiting professors couldn’t: consistency, knowledge, responsibility for the equipment, resourcefulness, a willingness to collaborate with other departments, and a genuine desire to help students in any way they can. A class with Haskell or Nelson brings students back for more film classes (unlike the other visitors’ classes, which so often end in students associating filmmaking with abhorrence and frustration). Haskell and Nelson’s presence as full-time faculty over last four blocks has improved the film program immensely.

Regardless of who fills the full-time filmmaking position, what matters most is that the position exists. At the end of the 2010-11 academic year, CC will be taking a step backward if it once again resorts to employing a series of visiting professors in lieu of establishing a full-time position.

No one is saying that having visiting professors is a bad idea. In fact, it’s one of the key elements that make CC a “unique intellectual adventure” and often influences students’ decisions to come here in the first place. Ideally, the film program would benefit from visiting professors who teach specialized classes in addition to a tenure-track position for the core requirement classes like Basic Filmmaking and Advanced Filmmaking. But the presence of visiting professors cannot be appreciated fully until there is a fundamental structure for the program to build on.

Not only would this permanent position give the film program stability; it would also ensure that the integrity of the gear is upheld, that seniors receive guidance with their filmmaking theses throughout the year, that film majors and minors have consistent advising throughout their CC careers, that collaboration with other departments and on-campus clubs is encouraged, and that visiting professors receive the help they need to orient themselves to the block plan.

We all know this is a tough time for the school financially and that it’s more expensive to have a full-time position than a series of visiting professors, but this is money that needs to be spent.

The deeper and more troubling truth is that the administration seems to fail to recognize filmmaking as an artistic medium. As senior English/Film track major Sarah White asserts, “The administration is giving the impression that all of the work and creative effort that students put into making films is not a legitimate means of artistic expression.” This argument yields a fundamental philosophical question: is film primarily a business or an art? This quandary is not limited to the film program at CC. In fact, the Supreme Court’s 1952 landmark decision of Joseph Burstyn, Inc v. Wilson (known among the film community as the “Miracle” decision) resolved this issue in ruling that film is an art and not a business.

This dilemma does not affect only the Film Department; many students report using film for classes far outside the arts and humanities’ scope, from Anthropology to Mathematics to Geology to Biology. Theater majors and Theater Workshop members are recurring characters in student films. In fact, eighty percent of the students who take “Basic Filmmaking,” the intro-level filmmaking class, are not English/Film majors.

As English/Film professor George Butte states, “Film at CC is a broad interest across many departments. English has carried the flag because we have the faculty members in critical mass who teach the film studies components. But film is deeply interdisciplinary here.” So even though film is stationed on the south side of campus under the English Department label (a decision that has left many students confused and hesitant in committing to the English/Film track major), it encompasses the whole campus.

Sophomore Film Union member Drew Kelly asserts that film is one of the most liberal art forms out there: “It’s storytelling with a combination of three other highly legitimate arts: music/sound, photography, and words/structure.”

Not only does filmmaking force you to draw from several different areas of study, but—as with any artistic endeavor—it also forces you to internalize what you’ve learned from all of these areas as well as from every aspect of your life. “In Basic Filmmaking second block I learned more than any other class,” says Kelly. “Film makes a person question his own self as well as the perspective of others—the audience and the world around them.”

Filmmaking forces students to engage in the principles learned in film history and theory classes. Again, it embodies the CC ideal of scientia et discplina, putting theory into practice. And even though filmmaking classes at CC do show you how to make a movie, the emphasis—to follow the CC quota—lies more in the philosophy of filmmaking than in filmmaking itself. It’s more about the why than the how. This school has the resources, the talent, and the potential to make something great out of our film program. Students want to make films. But in order to keep the enormous potential of our program from atrophying, CC needs to create a full-time filmmaking position.

The Future of Film (PDF)

by Kate Wihtol, editor; illustration by Teal Francis, staff artist

“It was the spring of 2007 and Emma Juniper* was becoming more and more excited about coming to Colorado College in the fall. On top of picking out her meal plan and bedspread color scheme, Emma had also made plans for the ultimate college companion: a pet of her own to ease the isolation and melancholy that come with a new and unfamiliar home. “People need something soft and warm and loving,” Juniper said. “It relaxes them, allows them to have a better college experience.”

Little did Emma know that her new rat, Valentine, would draw her into to one of the college’s most clandestine communities: the society of secret pets. In bringing a pet into her Loomis dorm room freshman year, Emma managed to dodge the college’s newly restrictive pet policy. “When I asked the college for permission, they still allowed pets,” said Juniper. “So [Valentine] kind of got grandfathered in.” While the rest of her hall mates yearned for a playmate of their own, Emma relished in the delight of her distinctive privilege. “Freshman and sophomore years I was the most visible person with an animal, so I got to know every other illegal animal in the building.” As it turns out, our little campus is thriving with all sorts of confidential critters.

Dogs, cats, rabbits, snakes, rats, ferrets, guinea pigs, hedgehogs, sugar gliders—you name it—CC students just want someone to play with. Upon visiting the Humane Society over second block break, freshmen Mipsy Jones* and Geraldine Smith* couldn’t resist the appeal of owning a cuddly creature. “We were just going to play with puppies, but we fell in love with this bunny.” Now Jones and Smith are the proud owners of Rime, a dwarf bunny named after the “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. “Some schools have programs where they bring in puppies and kittens during finals week to relieve the stress,” Mipsy said. “Now we have our own little thing to play with when we’re stressed . . . you just play with him and he makes you happy.”

As American universities face an increasingly competitive recruiting market for top students, several colleges are setting themselves apart by providing a pet-friendly atmosphere. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the State University of New York at Canton allow cats in some dorm rooms. Eckerd College in South Florida, Washington & Jefferson College in Pennsylvania, and Stephens College in Missouri each provide an entire dorm for pets and their student owners. Eckerd even allows snakes. But animals residing in Stephens’ “Pet Central” dorm may be the most pampered of all college pets. The college now provides amenities for all your animal’s needs: a fenced-in backyard, a doggie spa, a doggie daycare run by work-study students, and a Pet Council to handle questions related to the college’s pet policies.

At Colorado College, however, students’ pet options are strictly limited to “fish/crustaceans that live underwater,” as described in the Pathfinder. Though birds and small rodents were permitted under the college’s former policy, ensuing damage and allergy problems led to the policy change in 2007. “We see ruined carpet due to animal urine and chewed up baseboards in the apartments from rabbits and things,” explained Sara Burst, Area Coordinator for Residential Life and Housing. “We also have a lot of turnover in some of our rooms. If someone had a rabbit and someone allergic moves in, it’s hard to remove the scents and smells.”

Burst estimates that the college encounters less than ten pet-related incidents each year, typically resulting from a frustrated neighbor or a naïve pet sitting in the windowsill. “We ask what a reasonable time would be to remove the animal, often twenty-four to forty-eight hours. Then we’ll work with the student to ensure that the pet gets a good home. I’m not positive, but I assume the animals often go to friends off campus. That’s what I hear from most people.”

In response to this policy, many CC students go to great lengths to keep their treasured creatures a secret. After the initial hurdle of moving the animal’s cage and food inside the dorm, pet owners still have to cover up the smells and messes left by their furry friends.  When Mipsy and Geraldine take Rime for a stroll, they smuggle him “down the back stairwell, through the kitchen, into the lounge and out the back patio” of their freshman dorm in hopes of avoiding the RAs. “Luckily he doesn’t smell,” said Geraldine. “You can smell the ferrets downstairs from the hallway.” Emma Juniper, who has now housed two rats and two guinea pigs, always took the extra effort to conceal all evidence of their existence. “When I cleaned the cage I would dump the shavings at the bottom of the trash can, or go to another hall if I was super paranoid.”

As the unconditional love of a pet repeatedly outweighs students’ concern for damaging the college’s property or setting off the allergies of their neighbors, many residents are questioning the college’s policy. “It’s the dumbest policy because people are going to have pets anyway,” Juniper explained. “Obviously cats and dogs shouldn’t be allowed, but why not little caged animals?” Others propose a more tolerant policy of increased transparency and regulation, where pets are registered and their owners are held accountable. “As long as it’s not a sanitation issue I think it’s fine,” suggested Geraldine Smith. “You could have designated rooms for pets, and if you don’t have allergies you can stay in those.”

But is college really the best time to have a pet? Do our animals suffer as we hit the books and party hard? The typical college lifestyle is busy and erratic, leaving little time to attend to a pet’s well-being. Yet this same responsibility can teach students an invaluable life lesson: the amount of vigilance required when another being’s life is in their hands. The merits of pet ownership aside, Residential Life remains concerned with the nitty-gritty of the issue: our pets destroy the college’s property and make other students sneeze. So while animals at CC may never see the luxury treatment of doggie spas, pet-lovers still yearn for the acceptance and accommodation of their college companions.

*Names have been changed.

Confidential Critters (PDF)

This wheely chair is quite comfortable. I have found, in my experience, that the majority of wheely chairs are. I am perched on this one, hunched over my notebook in intense concentration as my friend completes her archeology homework at the table across from me. She is going abroad next semester, expanding her life’s boundaries to include the African continent. I can almost see the last grains of sand cascading to the bottom half of her hourglass and . . .

Here we go, the concept of time envelops my moment. How ephemeral time is. This moment here, that we have now, is transient. In a single millisecond, it will no longer be this moment. The seconds are flying by, we are speeding towards the inevitable annihilation of ourselves, and we are the sand tumbling within the confines of an impalpable hollow cage that is our life’s limits . . .

So, if impending termination lurks ever nearer, why in the hell am I not going abroad next semester, when I could trade in Pike’s Peak for Kilimanjaro? Carpe diem, baby! A simultaneous elicitation of sadness and hope—hope, because time’s limits have awarded me the choice of action! Sadness, because disregarding the theoretical appeal, I will never take that spontaneous course of action. There’s homework, commitments, my bed—I can’t just get up and leave.

But then again, why the hell not? It’s my only chance at life, after all. Come to think of it, would I even be in college if I had a choice? What would I be doing otherwise? Probably traveling the world, saving baby animals and mastering Sub-Saharan dialects. But traveling entails money. And a career breeds cash. Which means: I’m not going anywhere.

Maybe I’ll go get a muffin at the coffee shop . . .

No, forget the muffin—that’s just a subconscious distraction from finishing my paper, which pertains to the Great Mother archetype in Jungian psychology. The ocean is often symbolic of the Great Mother archetype, which time-warps me back to this summer, in Sicily, where I would fall asleep with the waves still churning inside me, pushing, pulsating to a primordial maternal rhythm that could infiltrate my dreams with limpid, disembodied images. Primordial rhythms are inherent in everything really, utmost in the desire for a muffin . . .

Which, quite virtually, is the center of the world. A muffin is the center of the world. I am ranting about all these existential, philosophical life questions, when at the center of my personal universe lies—ta da!—a muffin. At the end of the day, it’s the desire for a satisfying bite to eat that drives our most basic behavior. I live for my stomach. God, I cannot believe that the intellectual productiveness concerning the outcome of this paper hinges on my stomach’s hedonistic personal fulfillment. Maslow was so completely right. Forget the pinnacle, I’m condemned to the base.

I want to forget about the muffin and strive towards self-actualization. I really, really do! Sometimes I wake up at night, an ineffable paroxysm within my chest, as if the life unlived within me is composing a mass insurrection. The red blood cells assert themselves in revolt. All right, calm down already—there’s time, plenty of time, you’re still a kid. There’s time to read Kant and Spinoza and Locke and to write a novella and master the French subjunctive tense and partake in a romantic encounter with a high school crush and dispose of the muffin crumbs from the bottom of an ink-stained bag before Christmas break . . .

God, but who am I kidding? There is not enough time; will there ever be? It’s that sensation you get when you step into an enormous old library, the ones with spiral staircases and high, vaulted ceilings that open up into a convex stained-glass spasm of intellectual fervor and you run your bare fingers over the history of thought bound in leather, worn down by inquisitive hands from ages past and it dawns upon you, wrought with the wild, panicked sensation of attempting in vain to grasp the last scintillating vestiges of an unsalvageable sunset, that there is not enough time to digest every work put forth by this infinite banquet. How can I die without reading Les Miserables in its original version front to cover?! Can I possibly in my right mind be okay with that??

Breathe. You’ll just have to go with your top picks. Besides, who wants to sit in a library and read for the rest of their life when there’s a whole world out there to see and feel and experience? If I sort of tilt my hand in the light, like this, the membranous skin between the thumb and pointer finger radiates with a strikingly mortal, pellucid glow. This is real, this is human. I exist. This is a miracle! I wonder if there is someone near Mt. Kilimanjaro who is similarly examining their own webbish epidermis, pondering the exact same thought. That thought is his and his is mine. Do shared thoughts fly up into the atmosphere, flocculate in consciousness on some separate, transcendental plane, and morph into a single entity? Does this thought live out an eternal existence, fed by the multitude of contributions it receives daily from so many Earthly contemplations of existence?

And what parts of my brain (and yours) are lighting up at this very moment in time, employed in the generation of imagination? Sometimes, if you feel very hard, you can sense your own thinking process taking place. It reverberates throughout your skull, filling it with a bright, inspired hum . . . again I feel the Mediterranean—pulsing, churning within the neural crevices that house memory. Semaphore, that word again, those three little dipterous syllables bobbing up through my hippocampal folds, an obnoxious jack-in-the-box of Greek origin.

I love the phrase “optic semaphore.” I just made it up. But in all honesty, wouldn’t it just be better to say “communication via eye contact” and make things a lot simpler for everyone? Why why why am I caught up in the florid, meticulous beauty of deceptive verbal devices? Just take OFF the makeup and go for the natural look, kid, or you will forever lose yourself to the proclivity of superfluous, inconsequential over-expenditure . . .

Oh, it’s almost 2:30 am.

This could explain a lot.

Coffee shop’s closed.

A Rant on Muffins (PDF)

by Claire McKeever, guest writer

There’s a phantom station on my subway line.

As if there weren’t already enough to contend with each time I trudge down into the veins of Buenos Aires. In a city of thirteen million, it’s always rush hour. I get swept along by a tide of businessmen, students, and grandmothers. Salesmen hawk their wares: “Ladies and gentlemen! The best [socks, pens, chocolate, umbrella], yours for only a few tiny pesitos!” The omnipresent kioscos and newspaper stands mirror their surface counterparts, their slipshod shelves vending everything from pastries to used books. Ragged children tug my sleeve to offer slips of paper, begging for God’s mercy and my monedas.

And now there are ghosts, too.

I live on the A Line of the subte (short for subterraneo, or underground), which is marked by a thoroughly Argentine celestial blue. Its first circuit started running in 1913, making it the oldest subway system in Latin America and the third oldest in the world. The original cars, modeled after both British and Belgian trams, still lumber along daily to and from the Plaza de Mayo at the city’s heart. Despite the chipped paint and faded varnish, their wooden structures lend a workshop aroma to the entire network of tunnels. Anyone foolish enough to take note of the cars’ capacity—forty-two passengers, seated—forgets it immediately upon cramming in among several hundred fellow porteños.

At the time of the route’s construction, it offered quick passage between the congressional chambers and the president’s offices in the Casa Rosada. Rather than fighting common street traffic, the country’s elite could conduct their business with guaranteed promptness (a rare luxury in Argentina). Two of the stations, Pasco and Alberdi, were constructed a mere three blocks from one another. As the twentieth century barreled forward, the operators saw that the delay caused by the two stops weighed heavily on their time-pressed passengers. There was already enough wearing on the country: the prosperity of the early century faded, President Perón and his dear Evita turned the government’s eyes to the working masses, and a Northern Hemisphere locked in the hold of two world wars paid little mind to its distant cousin in the South. Eventually, in another uncommon nod to efficiency, Pasco and Alberdi each closed one platform. With half of a station on either side, the trains now stop at only one in either direction.

The operators may not have foreseen the peculiar effects of this closure. It severed the line, breaking the everyday continuity that had taken root in the subterranean world, and opened up a breeding ground for the supernatural. It is said that workers, their time well past for seeking a new office, report daily for duty somewhere between their former posts. They wait at a nebulous station, dangling their feet over the tracks, for a train that will never stop there again. In the evening, a distraught bride wanders the tracks, across which she sought an ultimate, desperate escape from her ill-fated marriage. Late at night, you can see the last passengers of the day, dressed in their antique finery. They stand patiently on the platform and watch the train pass them by.

And so these phantom dwellers join the rest of the city’s whirling bustle. On my own journey toward the city center, somewhere between Pasco and Alberdi, the lights shudder in their century-old sockets. I grip my bag to ward off probing pickpocket hands and crane my neck to catch the perdidos, the lost ones, at their haunts.

I don’t see them this time, but that does nothing to disprove their presence. After all, Buenos Aires is a city of layers. The tourist’s impression of tango, vino, Borges and cafés drapes loosely over the volatile economy and political unrest. A female president sits atop a deeply patriarchal society. Each new wave of immigrants—from the original Spanish explorers, to the British estancia owners, to the Italian laborers, to the present day flow of lower-class Peruvians, Bolivians and Paraguayans—sweeps in and settles over the rest, creating a new stratum in the bedrock of Argentine culture. With the haphazard way in which people tumble over one another, stack themselves into apartments, and shove into train cars, some souls are inevitably forgotten, heaped in among the rest.

As we jolt through the next stops, I remember a conversation I had with Jolie, my host family’s grandmother. Her husband passed away just over a year ago, and since then she has been trying to sell his treasured collection of books. The apartment where she lives alone, several blocks from ours, has shelves in every room filled with beautiful classics that should be worth a great deal. Yet she is struggling to find anyone willing to buy them. Those that express interest in purchasing the collection will offer only a fraction of their true value, leaving her no choice but to keep them as a reminder of her loss. She recently lent some to a grandson for the set of an antique-themed photo shoot—not to be read, not to be used, simply as a nod to another era. Jolie and her books remain suspended in the nostalgia that gave way to the hybrid jumble of modern Buenos Aires. No doubt she feels the phantoms of that past each time she travels her familiar routes.

We reach my stop, so I extract myself from a stranger’s lapel and maneuver through a tangle of limbs and bodies. I heave my weight against the handles to shove apart the manual doors. Stumbling onto the platform, I do a quick inventory of my belongings, take a breath, and reemerge, squinting into the sunlight. The subte screeches away to the next stop and I take off down Avenida de Mayo. Above, around, and below me, the city teems.

Ghosts on the Subterraneo (PDF)