Dear Reader,
At some point in our lives, we’ve all been yelled at for causing a ruckus by a parent or grandparent. Back in our more innocent days, a ruckus amounted to being too loud, too wild, or too disruptive at the dinner table or when company was present. But for college students, in the absence of those well-meaning authority figures, there’s another wild world out there, and “ruckus” takes on new meaning.
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by Giulio Brandi, staff writer; illustration by Claire Jencks, guest artist
The word “hallucinogenic” doesn’t do justice to the effects of ibogaine, a chemical derived from the Tabernanthe Iboga plant. The journey is far deeper, more dangerous, and certainly more useful than that time you ate brownies at a Phish concert and “felt really strange.”
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words and photos by Emma Calabrese, editor
Tshhhhht. Tshhhhht. Tshhhhhhhhht.
The sound of chalk on pavement is rhythmic, lulling. Every scratch scatters crumbled pink, blue, and yellow in the wake of arching lines. Gusts of wind and the harsh shadows of the setting sun don’t interrupt the rhythm. Tshhhhht. Tshhhhht.
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words and photos by Anais Gude and Amy Steinhoff, guest contributors
The term doppelgänger comes from the German doppelgaenger, literally meaning “double-goer.” Seeing one’s look-alike or “evil twin” has negative connotations, and is historically considered an omen of death in some traditions. The look-alikes we have observed on the CC campus are surely no sign of evil to come, but they do cause temporary embarrassment when we call out to someone who we believe to be another. With so many look-alikes composing a population as small as CC’s, we can only wonder how many each of us might have across space and time.
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by Kathleen Hallgren, editor
Sergeant Andrew “L.T.” Mahar graduated from Colorado College in 2007 with a Classics and Political Science double major, a yearning to serve his country, and ready military experience gained through his participation in the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC). Hoping to be deployed for combat in Afghanistan, Mahar enlisted in the United States Army for active duty in August of 2007. Instead of being sent into combat, however, Mahar was deployed to the United States Eighth Army, and spent a year serving as a correctional officer in the United States Eighth Army Confinement Facilities prison system in Korea.
From February 2008 until 2009, Mahar dealt with military personnel and U.S. citizens involved with the military who had gotten into trouble with Korean law, as well as military personnel who broke U.S. military law while on Korean soil. During that year, he was responsible for between eight and twenty-five military prisoners, and one to six civilians. The ratio of prisoners to guards fluctuated, the lowest being six to one, and highest being twelve to one.
Sergeant Mahar, a self-proclaimed beer, music and adrenaline junkie, offers an insider’s perspective of life in prisons and power structures, as well as helpful tips on how to survive if you ever find yourself behind bars.
The opinions stated within are his own, and do not reflect the views of the United States military or any other organization.
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by Andrea Tudhope, editor; illustration by Sarah Wool, editor
You all know about that house. You know, the one with a moat of urine around it? The one where the cops come only to ask you to squeeze inside? The one where you find yourself each drunken Wednesday night?
You stumble into the house. In the dim red lighting you see the couch that swallows your jackets and wallets. In the next room, you can make out a bar and a dancing stage in the new blue light. Green light seeps through the door to the third room, where a staircase leads to the one and only bathroom. Push your way into the fourth room, and you’ve finished your tour. Forget that you can’t see the floor, the mirror above the fireplace is fogged, and the temperature jumped thirty degrees when you walked in. It’s time to party.
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by Sam Brasch, editor; illustration by Sarah Wool, editor
On the floor in front of me lay a matching black set of women’s yoga clothes I had bought from the ARC in a rushed pre-Halloween haze. I started with the shirt, lifting the tiny velvet number over my head and arms. It screamed with tension, exposing my less-than-feminine midriff and pressing my shoulders together in front of me. Somehow, after more than fifteen minutes of grunting, the sparkling black pants managed to stretch over my lower half, though in such a way that my roommate expressed concern regarding my future children. Having proven that the clothes fit, I peeled them off and set to work cutting them to pieces. The left leg of the pants: gone. The right arm of the shirt: see ya. An especially awkward midsection around my stomach and lower back: outta’ there. Replacing the clothes across my body, I appeared as a compressed ball of pure sexual energy, save the sections of fat that protruded out from the areas absent of fabric. I was the He-Wolf, on the prowl.
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by Lauren Harvey, guest writer; illustration by Austin Turner, staff artist
Colorado College is a residential college, meaning that out of our (anticipated) four years of schooling here, we will spend three of them living “on campus.” We will apply for housing and pay the college rather than the landlord for our lodging assignments. For most of us, this will amount to the following: a year or two spent in the “big” dorms (Loomis, Slocum, or Mathias); a year in a language house, Jackson, McGregor, or some other mid-sized building; a year spent in the apartments; and, finally, a year living off-campus like real adults on Weber or Uintah. The reasoning behind a residential college environment is that living in close proximity to one another cultivates community, conversation, and a more cohesive student body. Continue reading
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Cipher 