the
October 13, 2011 | Issue #247
y o u r. i n d y @ g m a i l . c o m editor-in-chief: Ri l ey Ken ny s mith
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
It’s actually autumn now and
layout editor: To m D au er writers: A l ex a Dillen b eck Ker i K l ick M atth ew Sek ellick M a da me Q u er y Ró i sí n McCarty print manager: To ny Pon tiu s cover photo by: D avi d Grimald i copy editor: To m my Roach artwork by: M a rg o t Allis on web design by: D a n i el l e Lemp p The Purchase Independent is a nonprofit news magazine, paid for by the Mandatory Student Activity fee. We welcome and encourage submissions from readers. The Indy is a forum for campus issues and events, to give students the voice they deserve. Letters, articles, comics, ads, event photography and event listings are welcomed. The deadline for submissions is every Friday before midnight, and accepted pieces will be published the following Thursday. Publication of submissions is not guaranteed, but subject to the discretion of the editors. No anonymous submissions will be considered, but we will accept use of pseudonyms on a caseby-case basis. Send all submissions and inquiries to your.indy@gmail.com. Send questions to Madame Query at formspring. me/madamequery. Back page quotes can be submitted to formspring.me/ indybackpage or put in the Back Page Box that hangs on the office door. Our office is located on the first floor of Campus Center North, room 1011. Staff meetings are held in the office every Monday night at 9:30; anyone is welcome to join.
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Sorry, I got distracted by a pile of crunchy leaves.
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LETTER TO THE EDITOR When I was young, I wanted a pet. Goldfish, cat, stray cat, I didn’t give a shit. I wanted a friend who would let me babble on about Aaron Carter, who would listen patiently as I read entire sections of The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson before bedtime, who would support my burgeoning career as a movie star no matter what the haters muttered behind my back. Unfortunately, my mother explained to me, owning a pet requires a lot of responsibility, and I had not yet proved to her that I was responsible enough to take care of an animal other than myself. She made the following proposition: “keep your room clean, get good grades, do your share around the house and prove to me that you are a responsible young lady.” I did as she said, and was rewarded with Fuzzy the guinea pig. Petco didn’t know if Fuzzy was a boy or a girl, but I really didn’t care. As my sweaty palms gripped the handle on the house-shaped box containing my newest gender androgynous friend, I couldn’t help but relish in the fact that I had earned this privilege: blood, sweat, and tears. I learned the importance of discipline and responsibility on that fateful afternoon. Cheesy as it may sound, I apply those principles to all aspects of my life. So this morning,
when I took the Fort Awesome elevator up to my room and saw remnants of the elevator’s control station sprinkled all over the floor, I was, to say the least, displeased. Why, Purchase students, do we keep giving the authorities that be substantial grounds for denying us nice things? The Fort’s only been around for about five years. It is easily the finest residence hall, not to mention the most expensive. I rewarded myself for my time served in Farside by splurging on the Fort, yet I cannot escape some “simple pleasures” of Farside life, be it the unidentifiable stains in hard-to-reach places or the day-old iced coffees perched on windowsills. I admit, such foul encounters are less frequent now than last semester. However, I don’t understand how the urge to key an elevator or draw on the walls with crayon is so beyond one’s conscious control. I’m not a prude. Crazy shit happens on the weekend, I get that. But still, people. If we can’t take care of something as trivial as an elevator, how are we entitled to convenience at all? You don’t just get a guinea pig for existing, Purchase. You’ve got to earn it.
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GET TO KNOW THE MAN BEHIND THE LEGEND:
NICHOLAS SHAPIRO BY Alexa Dillenbeck
I walked over to the Olde to meet with Nick Shapiro. I knocked on the apartment door three times. No answer. I thought this would maybe be some sort of joke, but after the third knock, his roommates opened the door and said, “Nick’s in his room.” I turned the corner and saw Nick, holding a plate of bacon. He offered me some, I denied it, and sat down on his bed in his surprisingly immaculate room. I have had a weird platonic obsession with him since reading his stories last spring in the Indy. We had briefly met twice before, apparently. We remember one time each; we were essentially strangers. This was our conversation. Alexa: I have to admit that I have an obsession with you.
Nick: Thanks. I’ll try my best to be weird back. A: I’ve read your stories and they’re kind of weird, so it makes me feel better about being weird.
N: That’s good. I don’t feel weird about this and hopefully you won’t either. A: It’s just weird admitting you have a weird platonic obsession with someone.
N: I know. I have a lot of secret ones, too. I have one on the editor of the Indy, actually. A: How did your obsession with Riley start?
N: It was freshman year and she stood out to me because I love redheads a lot and she’s like, an über-redhead. I obviously didn’t know her at all at the time, which made it even better, because I could project all of my wildest dreams, which weren’t even that wild, onto her. I didn’t take it very seriously though. Throughout the years I found out that she was a lesbian, so I tried flirting with her, just to see what would happen, but also because I thought it’d be funny to do. A: I follow your twitter. What kind of creepy obsession would it be without cyber stalking you?
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N: My twitter is dumb. I apologize to everyone who gives me a second’s attention of their day. But I appreciate you admitting that you do. A: You don’t have a Facebook account. What happened?
N: I got banned. I still have the email of listed complaints that the Facebook people issued me, which is funny to read off. But basically I got in trouble for posting too much hardcore porn and then wanting to talk about it further with my friends on their website. I think a few comments I wrote, as pointed out to me, were really psychotic and sexually alarming, too. A: I have to admit that I am a social networking fiend. I have Google+, a tumblr, twitter, all of that stuff. How does it feel to be off the grid?
N: It doesn’t feel like anything. I really like it. I never really cared about that stuff. I was a myspace freak though. A: Did you code?
N: I knew how to post pictures at best. I was very uncool on myspace. I had so many e-friends and it was ridiculous. I got birthday cards from strangers. A: What did your parents think?
your.indy@g mail .c o m N: They thought they were from real friends from my hometown, which was funny, because my real friends would never be that nice. I had to lie a bunch obviously and “be cool” about it. A: Did people in high school label you as a hipster?
N: No. I don’t even think that word was invented back then. But I guess I have different associations of what it means. I was surprisingly not a total loser in high school, if that’s what you meant. A: Are your glasses real?
N: Yeah. It’s funny you say that because I was talking about this the other day with a friend. Freshman year I used to have the plain black, square Wayfarers—and it’s gonna sound super lame, but that’s how people got to know me back then. No one really wore them in our class and people associated them with me. I obviously didn’t invent them or anything, but it became a ‘thing’ I guess. I never really knew until years later and I kind of want to die inside looking back on it, but it’s funny. I eventually sat on them and replaced them with something a bit less assuming. A: Riley said you might lie in this interview, but you’re pretty genuine.
N: I definitely thought about it. And I would have loved to. But I don’t think I could’ve actually done it. I’m not that cool. A: What’s your favorite prank?
N: Pancake Madness. I lived in third floor, Farside freshman year, so I overlooked a lot of stuff and had a good perspective of everything. My friend Erica and I went grocery shopping early on and bought little cupcakes and little firecrackers and brought them to my room. We also smuggled like 50 fudgcicles from the D-Hall, too. We went to Pancake Madness for like a second, and then we came back to my room. People were flowing out into the streets so we started to throw cupcakes and people had no idea where they would come from.
They’d look up and around like it was coming from God or something. We had shut off the lights and put the blinds down in my room, too, so I think that gave us better camouflage. After a little while, I dropped a fudge bar downwards without looking and heard some girls freak out. We were dying because it appeared to be a direct hit, but then they called the cops. So the cops came onto the scene and I threw a little firecracker out and they started flashing their lights all around trying to find out where it was coming from. Erica threw another one and they were going corner to corner trying to find the projected route and it was really funny. Then I saw them go into the building and then it wasn’t funny. This is kind of the cool part. There was a janitors’ closet on our floor that I had been aware of, so I took my more card and jimmied the lock. The door opened and there was a ladder leading up to the roof so we went on the roof. I told my suitemates to text me if the campus police came to our place so we would know when to go back. It was stupid, but it ended up working out. We hung out and threw the rest of the fudgcicles down and people were going nuts because the crowd had gotten bigger. Even after this prank, I would take friends up there for fun. But now there’s a lock on the door and I like to think it’s because of me. A: And you got away with it?
N: Yeah. I actually have a clean record at this school. I’ve been accused, but I’ve always gotten away with things, just by talking. I’d admit some things I’d do, but I never got in trouble. I like to be a dumbass everywhere, but you have to be smart about it afterwards. A: What fuels your Indy stories?
N: Nothing usually. But the first thing I wrote about was alpha females, that it was a taboo at this school that I thought would be worth exploring. (continued on page 11)
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HEARING THE WORLDBY Keri Klick The idea for The Global Sound Project came about after I took my first trip out of the U.S. in March of 2011. I had spent years imagining what it would be like to spend time in Italy, but the money to travel away from the east cost of the U.S. just wasn’t there. When I was 21, I finally had the opportunity to spend just over a week in Italy, dividing my time between Rome and Panicale, a small town in the province of Perugia. Immediately, I was struck by the unfamiliar sounds of the territory. In my hometown of Queens, NY, I could comfortably galavant through the borough with my eyes closed, relying solely on the aural environment—or what I refer to as the soundscape—to light my path. I could walk briskly through the streets of New York City while reading a magazine, writing a paper, texting... I could do this all simultaneously, and I I had an impeccable safety record. My lack of visual attentiveness never led to any accidents! I couldn’t do that in Rome, though. Each sound was just as startling as it was unfamiliar; I couldn’t recognize any of the sounds around me. The cars sounded different. The birds sounded different. The way the wind rustled through the leaves on the trees sounded different. The trains, the restaurants, the evening news—it all sounded different. Is it the language? I asked myself. I doubted it; I understand Italian quite well and the melody of the language sits comfortably with me. Am I just homesick? Nope… in fact, I don’t think I was ready to leave. Does the air really sound different here? Really? um… maybe? Do people
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who live here realize what it sounds like? Does everywhere in the world sound different? When I got home, I spent some time thinking about the unfamiliarity of the soundscapes I had experienced while in Italy, and I thought about ways to answer some of the questions I had asked myself during my trip. I decided the best way to answer the questions is to travel all over the world and just listen. Of course, I don’t have the resources to make that a reality. And listening isn’t permanent, a sound only happens once and then never again. The Global Sound Project is my way of traveling the world and listening. I will be spending next summer traveling through Europe and South America recording sounds of everyday life, posting them on a sound map. You may listen to them, download them, use them in your films, use them in your plays, manipulate them…. These sounds belong to all of us. You can browse the sound map in many ways. Search by location (for example, type in your hometown) or search by sound (how many places in the world have uploaded restaurant sounds? pub sounds? farm animal sounds?). Sounds may be streamed or downloaded and may be used for personal artistic works under a Creative Commons license. check out theglobalsoundproject.org after it launches in mid-October Facebook: facebook.com/theglobalsoundproject Twitter: @globalsoundproj
EVENTS Thursday, October 13th
Pumpkin Carving & Apple Cider @ the Stood every Thursday in October!
Addressing Transphobia and Homophobia on Campus Thursday, October 13th LGBTQU Lounge at 8:30pm
Fusion: CCN 0014B at 7pm Film: Humanities Theatre at 7pm RPGA: Hub Basement at 8pm Chess Club: comm. lounge at 8pm Cheese Club: Co-Op at 10pm Trans*Action: LGBTQU at 10pm
Monday, October 17th MSA Club: Sparks at 5pm
FALL FEST LINEUP ANNOUNCEMENT Thursday, October 13th the Stood Cinema at 10pm
FORTH meeting: Southside at 8pm Bible Talk: Starbucks at 9pm
Tuesday, October 18th CoCOaS: the Stood at 5:30pm Green Team: Co-Op at 6pm
RECORD FAIR!
DDR Club: the Stood at 7pm
the Stood at 8pm
PUSH: Hub basement at 9pm
Thursday, October 13th
Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night
proudly presented by the Purchase Reperatory Theatre’s senior company at the Performing Arts Center • 10/14, 8pm • 10/15, 2 & 8pm • 10/16, 2pm • 10/20, 8pm • 10/21, 8pm • 10/22, 2 & 8pm
Wednesday, October 19th Whitson’s at 8:30pm
• Memoryhouse • Invisiblehand • Morrison Brook • Hubble
Public Relations: Co-Op at 8pm SAC: PSGA Office at 9pm General Events: Stood at 9:30pm Complexuality: Co-Op at 10pm LU: Hub basement at 10pm
Wednesday, October 19th Hillel: Hub basement at noon Psych Club: NatSci1030 at noon Senate: Southside at 12:30pm Stood meeting: Stood at 2:30pm CBLA: commuter lounge at 7pm Anime: commuter lounge at 8pm SOCA: Hub basement at 8pm Hip Hop: Hub basement at 10pm LGBTQU: Red Room at 10pm
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NYSR: A CALL TO RISE BY MATTHEW SEKELLICK Campus residents woke up on Saturday to the sound of heavy machinery removing the last of the original trees from the plaza—the last remnants of an era now gone at Purchase College. As SUNY schools across the state are literally being rebuilt, we should pause to reflect on our foundations. Governor Cuomo, Chancellor Zimpher and others have called this process an economic engine for the State, and they’re right— education is essential to our futures. But an engine needs gas, and gas here comes in the form of taxpayer dollars. Yet the state has cut SUNY funding by 1.5 billion dollars in recent years, or nearly 35%—perhaps it’s little wonder that our economy is still sputtering, given that its engine is running on vapor. Instead our tuition has gone up, in a bill sneaked in over the summer, when students weren’t on on campuses. Starting this year our tuition is going up $300 annually, ending up $1500, or 34%, higher in 2015-16. So Cuomo is asking the students of New York State to take out more student loans to buy gas for its engine. But isn’t it debt that got us into this financial crisis to begin with? So the burden is shifting from us as taxpayers to us as private citizens, which I find as strangely alienating as the design of the new plaza. To be fair, the old plaza was alienating in a different way, and had major drainage problems, but the metaphor is more profound than that because trees take time to grow. It will take thirty years for the new trees to achieve splendor of the ones removed on Saturday, if they ever do. Likewise, it takes time to recover from cuts. We’ll be facing growing pains as the emergency funds run dry, as we adjust to changes in academic programs, and get used to having only two Deans. That growth will be stunted by the closure of the
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Humanities building next year. Although faculty and classrooms are being given places to relocate to, we’ll be at a net loss for at least 18 months. The Humanities Theatre, used for student performances and senior projects, a screening room and lecture hall, will be gone with no substitute until the building re-opens. Room 1064, one of the few large lecture halls on campus, will also leave large classes scrambling for space. Perhaps worst, the library has already lost space to make way for UPD’s new home, a space that was only recently given an expensive upgrade as the Digital Media Zone. We can raise questions about why a recently-renovated space should be renovated again, why unique spaces will be closed for two years with no substitutes, why the new plaza tiles can be stained by bubblegum, and should our tuition really be going up? But these questions pale in comparison to the larger one: where were students and faculty when these decisions were made? They were going about the business of college: teaching, studying, publishing, and learning. Administrators must take steps to reach out, engage with, and involve them in decision making. Because administrators support academics, not the other way around, and a selfselected group of students having input does not democracy make. As both students and taxpayers, we are stakeholders on this campus. So we call for a more participatory budget process, more participatory college governance, and more transparent committee and budget reports. If not, we shall continue to resist, because we know that legitimate authority derives from the people, the 99%. We will no longer sit idly by as our beautiful old trees and our public universities are cut down. New York students are rising.
PURCHASE NOIR
CHARLES GOES DOWN BY RÓISÍN MCCARTY “Oh, Charles!” That’s what I should have been hearing. Instead, I heard some muffled, polite moans and what I could have sworn was a disgruntled sigh. I gave up, pushing my weight back to my knees and wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. “I’m going to sleep.” “Chuck,” she said, tenderly resting a hand on my shoulder as I turned away from her. “Don’t call me that.” “You never mind any other time,” she muttered. I paused, inhaling, but instead of continuing I repeated, “I’m going to sleep.” “Do you have any cigarettes?” I said, glancing at Frankie, who was standing across the room at the filing cabinets. “Yeah.” He pulled the box out of his pocket and tossed them onto my desk. “What’s wrong?” I put my pen down and leaned back in my chair. “What makes you think something is wrong?” “It’s eleven o’clock in the morning and you’ve smoked seven cigarettes and already thought about pouring yourself a drink.” I didn’t say anything. “Are you having lady problems?” “Well that’s a little personal, don’t you think?” His cheeks turned pink, “I didn’t mean… I meant… when I said ‘lady problems’ I meant problems with a lady, not, uh, ‘lady problems,’ you know.” “Still personal,” I said, but with a smile. “Yes, there are lady problems.” He laughed awkwardly. I raised my eyebrows at him . “Oh, it’s just, you’re a very put-together and professional woman, and I just can’t imagine you
being vulnerable in any way, so I’m just surprised, you could say.” “You and me both. You’re engaged, right?” He nodded. “Yeah, I’ve known her since I was seventeen.” “So you’ve slept with one person steadily for the past nine years?” “Well, one and a half, really.” I took a drag from my cigarette. “Let’s just say I have slept with a much greater amount of people than you’ve slept with, and have never had a problem with it, but I am now.” “Is ‘The Problem of the Missing Clitoris’ your next case?” he asked as he sat down opposite me and lit a cigarette of his own. I laughed, “That seems to be the only option. I just don’t understand. I could have majored in Sasha Grey videos and lesbian sex in college. I’ve gotten people off in five minutes or less, but half an hour later with her, nothing.” “Then treat it like a case.” “Isn’t that a little strange?” “You like to pretend that your career doesn’t rate higher on your priority list than your love life, don’t you?” I hesitated. “Yes.” “Well, it doesn’t. Why don’t you try your double major in the bedroom?” I furrowed my brow. “You know, you said you majored in Sasha Grey and lesbian sex, so why not incorporate the two?” “Are you suggesting that I watch porn while having sex?” “Why not?”
to be continued....
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MADAME QUERY
HAS YOUR REMEDY
Dear Madame, I thought my friends were
Dear Madame Query, everyone on this
planning a surprise party for my 21st
campus looks so put-together. I feel like
birthday, but I went back to my suite in
such a slob while everyone struts through
Big Haus and they had all left for the
the mall, looking like a million bucks. How
weekend. It was lame, I thought I had
can I be like them?
friends. What should I do?
Madame Query feels your pain of an upsetting birthday. Sometimes we naturally set high standards for our birthdays, and the payout doesn’t add up. Even if it is your 21st birthday, you can’t expect to receive a gala thrown by Elton John. Also, how big of a party did you expect to get in a Big Haus suite? The space isn’t that big. Also it isn’t fun to throw a rager in a dorm suite because you never know what frantic RA is going to be on duty. It may seem as though Madame is trying to pick on you, but she is just going through the thought process behind your friends’ lack of surprise party. I think you have to realize you have friends, and these friends are only human. They forgot your birthday; maybe they have a lot going on? Midterms are happening now for a lot of people. It is only natural to stress out and think about that. Once the weekend hits and a lot of them have their work completed, then I think maybe you should suggest a night of booze and debauchery in celebration of the birthday that took place the previous week. And if they avoid you, it’s time to get new friends, Bud!
First of all, not everyone looks “puttogether” on this campus. In fact, I would argue that most appear disheveled. Everyone has his or her moments of appearance shame, please don’t let it ruin your confidence. I can understand why you would come to this conclusion. A lot of students at Purchase exude a confidence in themselves that you can’t find anywhere else. If you look closely, the clothes our fellow students wear aren’t always that swank, classy, or the norm. I have seen people with unwashed hair and sweat pants look better than someone draped with the latest designer. It was all because they didn’t walk around in a shlump. They dress like themselves. You can only be like them if you stop staring and start strutting.
SUBMIT YOUR QUESTIONS
TO MADAME QUERY http://www.formspring.me/madamequery
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A DV I C E Dear Madame, last night I was walking
(continued from page 9)
back from the library and I caught my
A: I think I read “Homework and You” first.
best friend’s boyfriend making out with some weird fugly-looking chick. What do I do? How should I break the news? Should I break the news?
YES. You have to break the news to your friend. She is your best friend, you can’t let her keep getting played like this. Do you realize how embarrassing this would be on her if she found out in a year that not only was he cheating on her, but that you knew this whole time!? You absolutely have to tell her. No one should ever be wasting their time on that crap. I mean c’mon, not only is he cheating on her, but he is cheating on her with a “weird fugly chick.” Call her up, see if she wants to come over. If she says she’s busy, tell her that you actually need her to come over, or better yet you go over to where she is. Whatever you do, don’t break the news in public. That would be even more embarrassing. The last thing I would want is for everyone at Starbucks to hear about my cheating boyfriend, and then subsequently watch me hysterically crying. When you talk to her, just spit it out. Don’t dance around the issue, it will make her nervous. You need to give the nice one sentence “you’re not going to like this, but” and then tell her exactly what you saw. You have to rip the Band-Aid off. Telling her the news fast doesn’t make you an asshole, you have to let her know so she can get over him faster. You would only be an asshole if you left immediately after telling her. She’ll probably cry a lot, but eventually she’ll realize she’s got to kiss a lot of frogs until she gets her prince. Boys come and go, but best friends are forever, she’ll appreciate you so much more.
N: That one was dumb, but you were one issue off then. The first one I wrote was about alpha females around the school and it was something I liked to talk about with close friends. I’m super unprofessional about my articles, but that particular time I was genuinely motivated to get people to acknowledge a topic I thought was legitimate and needed to be addressed, no matter how silly it was. A: Do you actually do your work though?
N: I have a 4.0 GPA. Before I enrolled in Purchase I got accepted into a bunch of prestigious schools, like Columbia and NYU. Way too expensive for me and my family but it’s fun to look back on. Missed opportunities! (on Scott Disick, his desktop background) A: Is that Scott?
N: I want to be him so bad. Why? Do you like him? A: He accepted Kourtney for having a bush and I really like that.
N: That’s gross but awesome. My favorite Scott moment I think was when he shoved a $100 bill into some chick’s mouth. I forget why he did it, but I think that’s everybody’s favorite Scott moment. A: Are you a reality show junkie?
N: I love pop culture and I try to keep up to date on it, but I only watch the Kardashians because of Scott. I hope I become something like him someday, that’d literally be the greatest thing. I had my assumptions about Nick. First, I thought his room would be a disaster area. Second, I thought my interview would be really weird and full of jokes. Third, I thought he’d be the stupidest kid I’ve ever met. And finally, I thought he’d lie through his teeth. The thing is, Nick Shapiro is a really genuine and sweet guy. I appreciate people like Nick and would like to see more of him this year.
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