Libertas Corners Issue

LIBERTAS

V o l . 1 8 , n o . 1 t h e c o r n e r s i s s u e

E m i l y R o m e y n

LIBERTASe d i t o r i a l

CO-EDITORS IN CHIEFDesign Emily Romeyn | Managing Vincent Weir

POETRYLucia Stacey & Tim Rauen

FICTIONMadeleine Brown

NONFICTIONClaire Ittner

FILMRiley Ambrose

MUSICWill Stratford

CRITICISMColin Thomson

YOWLCharles Pennell

c o n t r i b u t o r sEmily Romeyn, Vincent Weir, Tim Raven, Edith Nicolaou-Griffin, Jacob Cole, Vera Shulman, Michael DeSimone, Will

Stratford, Riley Ambrose, Claire Ittner, Jordan Luebkemann, Lucia Stacey, Madeleine Brown, Molly Dolinger, Jessie Blount, Meg Mendenhall, Colin Thomson, Ben Wiley, Christine Noah, Drew Maurer, Norma Barksdale.

Libertas belongs to the students of Davidson College. Contact the editors at [email protected]

s p e c i a l t h a n k s t o . . .Faculty Advisors: Scott Denham, Zoran Kuzmanovich (emeritus), Ann Fox (emeritus)

Previous Editors: Mike Scarbo, Vic Brand, Ann Culp, Erin Smith, Scott Geiger, James Everett, Catherine Walker, Elizabeth Burkhead, Chris Cantanese, Kate Wiseman, Lila Allen, Jessica Malordy, Nina Hawley, Kate Kelly, Zoe

Balaconis, Rebecca Hawk, and Hannah WrightFounder: Zac Lacy

visit us online: sites.davidson.edu/libertas

LIBERTASF e b r u a r y 4 , 2 0 1 3

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234

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Cover456

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EDITORS’ NOTESAn Editor’s FarewellHelium

POETRYSolaceKoiDear Johnny

FICTIONGamblersForsakenFrom Other Eyes

FILMDjango UninhibitedNot Quite There, But Back Again: A Hobbit Review

YOWLGet to Know Your NonnerCommittee to Eliminate CornersYour Toughest Professor Assesses Non-Coursework

MUSICMichael’s #Relevant Music Picks

ART“How I See Me,” CollageGamblers CollagesMarionette Collage“ ; In a Box,” Collage“Mind,” CollageSolace IllustrationKoi IllustrationAd: The Conference for Digital College Media, February 8

Vincent WeirEmily Romeyn

Vera ShulmanLucia Stacey

Edith Nicolaou-Griffin

Meg MendenhallJacob Cole

Norma Barksdale

Riley AmbroseVincent Weir

Anonymous

Michael DeSimone

Emily Romeyn

Vera Shulman

Libertas

e d i t o r s ’ n o t e s .

1 LIBERTAS, Vol . 18 , No. 1

Who will replace us when we’re gone? The same question that corners college edi-tors before graduation haunts the magazine in the digital world. As a cicisbeo of

print culture, I tend to sympathize with the argument that lit mags, like plays, will sur-vive the recent onslaught of technology—not just in their most revered epicenters but also in small communities and schools. Perhaps digital literature will only ever supple-ment print, the way film supplements the stage. Perhaps the answer to what replaces us is nothing. Perhaps. But the other side of the argument looks convincing too. Literary maga-zines are, both historically and today, the product of a distinctly Modern print culture. They tend to pursue elite and limited audiences though auras of difficult content, single authorship and physical editions. They mature by increasing their quality control and cover prices. They are, in Oscar Wilde’s use of the word, “useless”—and they are proud of that identity. And yet, despite the fact that they continue to exist, these modern values sustain constant digital attack. Networks—the hero and buzzword of the Information Age—are postmodern. They are decentered, non-physical, and intuitive. They are useful and obsessed with becoming more useful. Against the bend of strictly controlled magazines, they are open access and (in the words of Kathleen Fitzpatrick) “content agnostic.” They give rise to viral, anonymous, and free art. At the end of these catalogues, the question is can modern institutions survive in a

postmodern age? Can the lit mag win or even tie against the network? Rather inappropriately, I think, the sentence that starts this essay suggests the an-swer can be yes. By asking “who” will replace us, it implies that some person will succeed the current editors effectively. Networks, by contrast, substitute collaborative solutions for personal ones. They replace as agents those who might have been heroes (Obama) or villains (Obama) with groups (Wall Street). They respond with movements instead of supermen. This week, Libertas is betting that a movement—and more precisely, an institution—comes next. On Friday, our Conference for Digital College Media will bring editors from schools across the nation here to discuss a distinctly postmodern approach to writing. We will attempt to create a consortium, or more appropriately, a network that can forge the future. Perhaps it’s ironic that this wistful farewell should take the form of an editor’s letter, that most Modern of exercises. Premised on the aura of the “great author” and indig-enous to the pages of print, editorials have no place in the de-centered network. For that reason I am glad that this is my last editorial. I am finally dying the author’s death I have read about for so long. Oh that this death could be a sacrifice. That something greater than a self could come from it. Surely there will be more editorials—but from what ori-gin? I hope that our question going forward will not be “who” comes next to write this page but “what.”

A n E d i t o r ’ s F a r e w e l lV i n c e n t W e i r


H e l i u m

LIBERTAS, Vol . 18 , No. 1 2

I am scared of being trappedBy scratchy turtlenecks that climb and squeeze my throatpeople that stand too close and breath out wetlysweaters that crawl into my armpits and make me too itchy to movejammed doorknobs pinning me into small bathrooms

when I was youngerwe played a gameI don’t know what the point of it was.

a child is lying on the floorquiet and unawareconsumed with their tasknose pickinghummingingesting text or tentatively printing itcomfortable in their solitude

a rambunctious little fucker smushes that childan additional kid climbs on himanother followsuntil a crowd formscrushing those underneathsuffocating and smotheringgiggling

I am the one on the floorOblivious to my peers’ intentionsMy mind immersed in a bookWondering how an ancient girl named PandoraCould be more curious than cautiousWith the world’s destiny beneath her palmsOr I’m focused on using red yellow greento make a not-too-lopsided bearded unicornprancing on the blank page

and some mischievous kids decideto play the gameone of them sees a conveniently lying girland then their activities spill overlike steam, escaping the bubbling pot and burning everything in its pathenveloping me, flooding my space

I try to be happyI’m part of the groupNo longer a dorky outsiderbut all I feel is panicfear of not having enough airof my belly pulverizingmy bladder explodingmy head getting trampledmy eyes gouged out by a stray elbowhotly crushedoverwhelmed by shriekstwisting sharp limbs and thrown pillowsI crawl out franticallyDesperately gulping in airShuddering it outtrying not to sob

I escape to the sunshine yellow bathroomcurl into a small impenetrable ballfind an enclosedquiet dark cornertoo small to fit anyone but me

S o l

V e r a S h u l m a n

ce

a

Vera Shulman

IIt’s summer

and the fish are dying.

The pond man has been out there since nine,

but each hour more water

putrid, grey, swimming with scales

spills from the hole under the plastic alligator,

and the fish keep dying.

III had painted my fingers different colors,

red, orange, yellow,

and at the bar that night –

large pine tables, flecked with circular beer stains, like scales –

I wore a different ring on every finger.

The silver and stones clinked together when I clenched my fingers,

laced them through yours,

a lattice of skin and bones,

when you got the phone call.

IIIIn a hospital in Brazil

your grandfather’s Alzheimer-speckled-mind

slumps into a coma,

after the nurse tells your grandmother to give him

some sleeping pills,

and he doesn’t wake up.

IVIt’s humid and the fish begin

to rot.

The sun bites chunks of white, feathery, flesh

and spits them

into the river your grandfather’s veins

pumping white and feathery

into his brain, wet with the condensation of

memories sweating

back into his blood,

keeping the heat in his fingers,

as years flake off like scales,

and now the fish are floating.

Red and orange clouds in a grey sky.

VIn the car on the way to the airport

I held your hand.

Our fingers, laced together like a corset,

done up with red and orange buttons,

shaping a slim figure.

K o iL u c i a S t a c e y

Vera Shulman


GAMB

LERS

M e g M e n d e n h a l l


Dear Johnny,

You taught me to Dance at the age of seventeenwithout my feet, without gravity– you didn’t even let me breathe –

You forced me into the Time of My LifeEven when I said no, you didn’t let goBallet is nothing but Control But at the age of seventeenBallet was all a girl could know – Both a game and a routine,a way to tell my daddy “Fuck No!”

Maybe to you I was just another girl to lift, But because of YouI can’t walk over bridges anymore without an urge to be kissedI can’t even sit next to a camp bonfirewithout knowing you would keep me warmer

Because of you, to this day I know,nobody will ever put me again in the Corner.

Love,

Baby

Dear Johnny,

E d i t h N i c o l a o u - G r i f f i n

“No,” she says, “I don’t like to acknowledge my mistakes.” It smothers you that you are no longer a child. Clutch all you want, you want to say to her. Wither as it pleases you. Those are the actions that comprise her, clutching her teacup and withering away, withering audaciously, determination as the engine of the wistful stare. But her spell of disappearance does not entrance you. There is the porch, it rains. “I don’t think anybody does,” you try. “If we’re not too proud to do it, at least we’re too proud to enjoy it.” I am not a child. I am not a child. She is your grandmother, but she raised you, you and your orphaned brother. This is her house, this rattling thing, shuddering on acres of wasted property. But she would not touch the family fortune, not even to educate you. You didn’t know about it until she realized she would die. But all this is beside the point. Why am I here? “Indulge an old woman,” she said. She turns the teacup in her hands. “I am not proud.” You came at her insistence. And all this silence, this staring and melancholy reflection. You know—you know—she wants to teach you something, because teach-ing was always her way. Every movement, every look a lesson. But your life outside of hers can’t afford this much time for lessons. You have your own children now, and you work very hard to—how do you like to say it? Raise them comfortably. To treat them as you felt you ought to have been treated. The rain begins to slow. She sets down her teacup, laboriously stands, takes the umbrella, which she’s hooked over the arm of the chair. “Will you walk with me?” she says. And you follow the old trail past the overgrown pastures, the labyrinth of trees, the rain-quickened stream. That was where you used to go with your brother, as children. He would always play such dangerous games, you remember. “I’m building a fortress here, with these pebbles,” he called to you from the middle of the stream. “Why?” “Because this is our place, it needs protecting.” “You’re going to slip and crack your head open.” “Come on! Where’s your sense of adventure?”You would not play his games then, just as you will not now, and just as you wouldn’t play your grandmother’s, if you could help it. Nor has your brother changed much. He is a life-gambler, his eyes are stars, their galaxy incredible and unreal. He has no family, no dependable job, but he laughs and laughs. From whatever mysterious parents, he was bequeathed all the beauty and ebullience, but you the success. You were better at holding on to your chips, though—so maybe it wasn’t bequest at all, not for you, anyway. You realize then that she is leading you to the old gardening shed, not that there is any garden to tend to. There are tangles of weeds, a slightly discernable path. There’s water in the fountain, but it’s from the rain. And in the shed is all dust and cobwebs, except where the wind has swept the rain through the open doorways. She crosses to the shed’s dirty window, and you struggle to close the umbrella.

“Look out there,” she says, not to you. You approach the window and follow her gaze. There’s a willow tree on the slope of the hill. “I see it.” “Your grandfather is buried there.” “What?” But you heard what she said. “But the funeral—the cemetery…” The tombstone I bought him. “He’s not there. It was empty. Bricks.” “Why?” “It was better this way.” She looks at you now for the first time, and you’re still staring, confounded, and she is still wistful. It irritates you. Why do you look so distant? You lied. “There’s something else.” “What is it?” She speaks again, but the rain has just picked up, and it shatters monstrously over the tin roof. “What?” She leans up to you, louder this time, right in your ear: “The money. I’m giving it all to your brother.”

FORSAKENJ a c o b C o l e

CHARLES. It’s awfully windy. Are you sure you should go through with this?

MARCUS. Yes, the wind is pretty bad. It could even change the head-lines from “Local Genius Revolutionizes Flight” to “Man Overcomes Overwhelming Odds to Defy Nature”! Charles, if this glider is going to get me recognition, the public needs to see that it can be used in any conditions. How else are those bastards down there going to acknowl-edge the sheer brilliance of what I’ve done?

CHARLES. I suppose you’re right (glances towards the drop stage right).

MARCUS. Or perhaps the headlines will say “Genius Inventor Laughs in the Face of God”! That oughta shut up the damned church ladies and their holier-than-thou rabble! All those people down there may worship their God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but I became my own God! I spat in the face of creation, of the limits He set on human possibility! I challenged the very idea of who we are and what we can do!

(MARCUS examines a part on the glider’s wing while CHARLES remains silent, seemingly lost in thought, his gaze fixed upon the cliff.)

CHARLES. (facing Marcus) You compare yourself to God?

MARCUS. (disdainfully) Think about it Charles, what did God ever do for me? He stuck me in a dusty Midwestern town hundreds of miles removed from anywhere significant, gave me a town drunk for a father who was dead before my seventh birthday, and then saw fit to take my mother in that fire three years after that. Oh, what a benevolent and lov-ing deity, who would heap the world’s troubles on a young boy! Yes, I’m sure that leaving me to complete my childhood as a ward of the state was an essential part of his master plan for the universe! Praise the Lord indeed! You know what I think? I think God is a sadistic bastard who plays favourites and doesn’t even have the courtesy to be discreet about it. You think David Culberson down there, with his beautiful wife, inherited wealth, and seat in Congress doesn’t have a higher power on his side? God’s made it clear that he doesn’t like me, so I’m putting my faith in what I can control: myself.

CHARLES. (meekly) The Lord works in mysterious ways. (pause) Marcus, I won’t stop you, but I don’t think you should go through with this. If it doesn’t work, you’ll certainly die from that fall, and then your memory will be held in the same esteem as your father’s. (pause) If you come back to town with me, I can get you a job at the foundry; you could lead a nice life. The world isn’t divided between David Culbersons and failures, there’s much satisfaction to be had in earning a decent, honest living. Why, I’ve lived out my days as a humble—

MARCUS. (now enraged) You know what the difference is between you and I, Charles? You’re content to take the hand God dealt you. You go through your simple existence, living in the same damn town with the same damn people your entire life, and you don’t see anything wrong with being a speck in the middle of the world. Well I reject the idea that I have to follow your template for an acceptable life, I reject your notions of respectability, and most importantly, I reject the course God has tried to set me on! Once I glide off this cliff and into worldwide notoriety, I will be the only one in charge of my own fate! I control my future!

CHARLES. (pause) The wind is picking up. Marcus, please think this through.

(As Charles speaks, MARCUS readies the glider and steps back in preparation to jump. The swirling of the wind is now audible to the audience.)

MARCUS. (shouting above the gusts) Who’s going to stop me? You and your God? The town full of my so-called betters who have looked down on me for years? It’s time I took a running start toward my destiny!

(Darkness. Transition the scene to a completely bare stage with plain white backdrop. Spotlights are all raised to their maximum levels on CHARLES, who is wearing a resplendent white robe to represent GOD Himself. MAR-CUS staggers in from stage right, looking confused but otherwise unharmed. He quickly takes stock of his surroundings and appears devastated by his own failure.)

MARCUS. (nearly speechless) But, but I had planned everything out! My design... my sketches... my fame! What could have possibly gone wrong? I don’t.... (suddenly, as if experiencing an epiphany) You! Why? Why did you do this to me?

GOD. (softly, paternally) Marcus, Marcus, oh Marcus...

MARCUS.: Why? Why would you create so much pain in my life? Why would you take this away from me after all this time I put in? I’m just a man, why do you work against me so? Why could I not have it all?

GOD. (speaking beneath Marcus’ diatribe) Oh Marcus, Marcus, Marcus...

MARCUS. Why do you reward some yet punish others? What is it that I did that was so wrong? Why was I always doomed to be just another failure like my father? (screaming) Answer me!

(Complete silence, save MARCUS’ heavy breathing. GOD merely looks on-ward passively for several moments)CURTAIN

Open on a rocky hillside on a blustery day. The year is 1876. CHARLES, a pale, diminutive, middle-aged man stands passively with his hands in the pockets of his three-piece suit. MARCUS, who is contrastingly filled with a perceptible ebullience, carries an elaborate glider, which is clearly covered with so many un-necessary additions as to render it entirely dysfunctional. He appears to be eyeing a (implied) cliff stage right with anticipation and is muttering to himself.



“ ; in a Box”E m i l y R o m e y nC o l l a g e1 / 2 8 / 1 3

N o r m a B a r k s d a l e

FROMOTHER EYES

Two people are having an insightful conversation about recent movie releases and have reached an impasse concerning Quentin Tarantino’s bloody slave-revenge narrative Django Unchained.

After careful consideration and a concerted attempt at open mindedness, one of them extends an olive branch to the other and says, “look, either you like it or you don’t.” Even though the partially deaf old man sitting to their right can’t figure out whether they are talking about a film, some shady deal, or a new haircut, the two interlocutors will understand that this banal compromise signifies something drastically more profound – namely, that they have seen Inglorious Basterds, Kill Bill, Reservoir Dogs and perhaps (if they are indeed culturally articulate) some of QT’s blow-outs (From Dusk till Dawn), which means almost nothing except that their ignorance is veiled by a reci-tation of these very titles. It is possible that these two moviegoers are trying to articulate a deep-seated understand-ing that Tarantino’s films are unlike other films of similar critical acclaim. Unlike Ridley Scott’s Gladiator where the heavy use of blood and violence represents an unaverted look at the barbarity of the Roman Empire, Django’s hyperbolic blood-thirst verges on sadistic nihilism (perhaps an inappropriate difference). The movie’s subject matter, of course, guarantees a minimum blood level equivalent in volume to a small baby pool; anything less would be viewed suspiciously as censor-ship. Tarantino, however, opted for Olympic proportions, diving pool included. With a nod to his movie’s angel-haired progenitors, Tarantino applied the tomato-red blood as an artist would red paint (in a painting of a tomato in the Gryffindor common room). Which isn’t to say that the application is necessarily “artistic,” though the frames in which the blood from a

headshot sprays out over brilliant white cotton certainly makes an abstract appeal. I adhere to the “like it” category; I found the movie extremely entertaining. It is a movie’s movie, a movie skillfully drawn from numerous other narratives (in whose hyperbolic world it still resides) and given life by none other than some of Hollywood’s nobility. As detestable as Calvin Candie is – the greasy, mossy-toothed antagonist of the movie –DiCaprio so expertly portrays that quality that the viewer, unconsciously aware of the dual identity, is filled with a kind of respect that can be very confusing. As much as I enjoyed the movie, I’m left with an undefined uncomfortable feeling. More than anything else, the movie served as a measure for my own level of desensitization, which it to say the extent to which I am willing to see blood as nothing more than one of the many symbolic elements to the movie: it is the liquid symbol of vengeance, anger, hatred, absolution, and even beauty, alternating according to the purposes of the scene. It is, by virtue of its use as symbol, essentially meaningless – which isn’t saying much, but is unsettling nonetheless. Coming from a culture where bloodshed is typically censored (and thus must mean something; why else would I not be able to watch Jurassic Park as a small child?), what is the particular significance of reducing it to just another liquid with a history of being blood? Losing 2.24 L of blood would usually kill a person; yet the Tarantinoan scale would put it at much more, depending on your narrative role and position. R i l e y A m b r o s e


TEDBIN HIN ODJA G U N I

He was hungry. He couldn’t remember the last time he had eaten. Weeks. The bones had turned into a ragged pile of sticks that lay in some corner of his filthy, dark home. They

had barely had enough meat on them to satisfy him in the first place. He thought more food, surely, would be coming soon. Whimpering, clinging to the walls, leading him by scent and echoes. His head swooned at the thought. It was always this way. The days piled onto another, forming one word: hunger. Until he would hear one stuttering cry and lurch towards the noise, dizzy with want of meat. Hours later, when he would drop the last, gnarled bone onto the ground, he would cry pitifully, shuddering against the wall. He knew the food did nothing that made it deserve to die. The food was always young and beautiful, thinking themselves martyrs and honorable, until the door shut behind them and they began their descent down to him, the air cold and silent around them. Then their bodies, their minds would betray them and their martyrdom vanish; their fists pound and pray upon the metal door for release, and then they would creep around the walls and corners, look-ing for somewhere to hide, crying, giving themselves away. Then he would find them and it would be over. How many times this had happened, he didn’t know. Over thirty, less than seventy. Perhaps more than seventy. He knew he was much taller now than when he himself had been shut into the twisting walls that had taken him years to learn. Now his horns scraped against the low, wet ceiling. His fur was long and musty, clinging to his body, releasing what he was sure must be an awful stench. He could remember the first time that he had been forced to hunt among the walls of this prison. It was his first memory. His horns were barely stubs, his fur was shorter and not yet matted, and his muscles were still developing. He was so scared, so alone, that he thought perhaps he had been put there to die. Until he had heard a noise more pitiful than himself and he had attacked and ripped and swallowed. Later, he had seen that he had eaten something that was so very close to himself, but less...animal. The bones had been small and delicate. There had been no real fight. Any satisfaction he had gotten from this meal dropped away, left him hollow and he had sworn that he would die rather than attack something that could have been his brother. Of course, this promise didn’t last once a month had passed, when he again ached with hunger, so that he was forced to lick the walls for water that dripped from above and imagine that it was food, that it was enough to fill him. And when the food was delivered again and had been devoured he moaned and roared at himself that he was nothing but a monster and

an animal and then he made the promise again. Again and again and again over the years he made it, breaking it always. The guilt grew greater each time, but so did the hunger, and the hunger always won. He stood slowly, his muscles sore. He was too big to fit comfortably within the narrow walls surrounding him. Lumbering towards an archway, he stooped his head so that he could pass through. Turning around the corner, he saw more doorways and dark halls. The one on the left, he knew, led to a large room where he had caught food three eatings ago. Straight ahead of him was a doorway that opened to a long, twisting passage which stretched to what he thought was the outer edge of his home. If he turned right he would head toward the stairway, the only stairway in the entire place, the one that had a metal door at the top that opened only once a month. Where the food came from. He never went to the stairs because he knew that if he did he would turn into a statue, saliva dripping from a hanging mouth, star-ing achingly at the door. Going through the doorway into the passage he headed straight, his massive feet drag-ging through stagnant puddles that had formed so long ago on the floor. He sniffed the air longingly, hoping, yearning for just a trace of food. Inhaling deeply, his nostrils flared as they combed the air. His eyes searched ahead, and he imagined what lay beyond the next corner, what lay hiding for him to find.

If we invert the first-line logic of Anna Karenina, we might say that all good films are reviewed differ-

ently while every bad one reviews alike. Deferring nuance to this rhetoric we note that The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is a bad film because all its reviews essentially reduce to one. These criticisms aren’t en-tirely negative, but they each touch on similar themes: the deplorable length; Gollum and Bilbo’s brilliance; the excessive computer-generated imagery (CGI); the similarities to Star Wars: The Phantom Menace; the irony of the subtitle. To be sure, The Hobbit has its fans and its merits, and even the harshest criticism finds room for blemish and for blandishment. But after nearly three hours of runtime we leave the theater overwhelmed by the movie’s span and underwhelmed by its fantasy. Whatever sense of awe we feel touring gold mines in 3-D or watching CGI eagles snatch dwarves from burning tree trunks, we temper with slight annoy-ance. Why did this less-serious and antecedent film come after the first trilogy? Why did such a small book (only half the length of The Two Towers) have to stretch across three films? Why does Jackson impose Radagast (an unnecessary plot supplement and per-haps the most undignified wizard ever) or Galadriel (dignified, but clearly the token female) on a narrative that doesn’t need them—and if he’s taking so much liberty, why do we wait 105 minutes to hear the first woman speak? The Lord of the Rings won us over because its ex-cess matched the scale of its drama; but the excess in The Hobbit seems contrived. As it attempts to repack-age the successful brand of the previous three movies, it fails because it lacks their majesty and gravitas. Even before reading the critics, we sense that Jack-son’s Hobbit is precariously similar to that other fan-tasy franchise set in a galaxy far, far away. Drawn alike from books, both Middle Earth and Star Wars found incredible success with their first trilogy—and sought to build on that brand with adequate, though less-suc-cessful prequels. “The result,” says L.A. Times critic Kenneth Turan, “Is a film that is solid and acceptable instead of soaring and exceptional, one unnecessarily hampered in its quest to reach the magical heights of the trilogy.” To be clear, The Hobbit is a trilogy too—for appar-ently no other reason than to make money. Also to be clear, it will make a lot of money. $84.8 million in the opening weekend alone made An Unexpected Journey Jackson’s highest-grossing film and set a box office re-cord for December. The brand found so much success that The Hobbit will certainly go down in history as a good idea. For every fan that deplores its shortcom-ings, two will love it tautologically.

But enough with the response and on to the film itself. Like that less-successful younger brother you meet at Christmas, The Hobbit introduces itself explicitly in the shadow of its predecessors. In the opening credits, almost identical leitmotifs from Howard Shore’s orchestra accompany the same gilded blade font of the original films. The story, too, picks up where Return of the King left off as a familiar Bilbo Baggins (played by the same Ian Holm) promises to narrate his tale to an equally familiar Frodo—both ap-parently returned from Elven adventures. Ian McKel-len soon reappears as Gandalph, Hugo Weaving as Elrond, New Zealand as Middle Earth, and a bril-liantly enhanced Andy Serkis as Gollum. The tangible items of the LOTR checklist check off. And those last two items are really worth watching, even if the rest of the film draws a question mark. It’s the less-tangible bits that go missing, of course. Most immediately, we detect a dissonance between the gravity of this and the previous films. Written in the tumultuous shadow of the First World War, The Lord of the Rings enacts a world war of its own and communicates that massive conflict in believ-able terms. Part history and part myth, Jackson’s previous films were able to succeed as fantasy because they presented such vividly categorical—and there-fore unfamiliar—battles between good and evil. The Hobbit achieves far less grandeur and therefore less fantasy because it doesn’t have such a looming conflict at its center. Keep in mind that—somber mountain chants aside—The Hobbit is about thirteen midgets subcontracting another midget to steal money from a dragon. That plot might work as the hook for another Oceans movie—and could have made a wonderfully lighthearted prequel to The Fellowship of the Ring—but it missteps when it tries to force the macabre of Mordor into a scaley dragon we’ve just met. As it is, the film indulges just a little too much melodrama. There are too many over-determined references to “dark powers” that should have been muted, the way they were in the book. This not to accuse Jackson of heretic-ing Tolkien’s holy scripture. Remember that Tolkien himself wrote novels by rewriting Norse myths. Every dwarf in The Hobbit, for instance, is a real character in the Norse poem “Völuspá” (and besides dwarves, Elves are Norse IP as well). No, the problem isn’t with embellishment in general, but with Jackson’s particular embellish-ments. Though this Hobbit trilogy may argue other-wise, fantasy doesn’t come about though sheer length. It’s the product of magic and folklore refined with internal coherence and consistency. In the end, The Hobbit’s problems reduce to a case of inconsistent aesthetics. Is this a children’s fairy tale

or not? If it is, we can accept its bias toward triumph and happy endings—but we need more archetypes. If this isn’t a fairy tale, we need more consistent realism. As it stands now, the Dwarves’ outlandish escapes and slaphappy facial hair will keep adults wondering anx-iously how to read it. This genre confusion finds awk-ward expression in Radagast (the wizard with a bird’s nest on his head) but also in the Dwarves—those dubitable protagonists who, comical at times, still fail to match the epic roles of previous films. Because they are ugly, sexless, and prone to vice, Dwarves make allies of goodness only in small amounts. In this film, we’re unsure what to make of them. Yes, they’re teamed up with Gandalf and yes they lost their home to a dragon. But we distrust their greediness, doubt their probity, and disapprove of their rudeness. It’s hard to pity guests who show up uninvited and eat all your food. And back to that point about being sexless. Re-member in The Two Towers when Gimli tells Eowyn that dwarf women “are so alike in voice and appear-ance, that they are often mistaken for dwarf men”? Well if you did, then join my confusion in seeing Richard Armitage portray “the young dwarf prince” Thorin Okenshield as a sort of truncated sex symbol. Perhaps you too find something inherently laughable in the phrase “young dwarf prince,” since, as Anthony Lane argues, the task of making a Dwarf seductive is “deemed impossible by every expert on Middle-Earth.” Or perhaps this intrigue was the “unexpected” part of the journey the subtitle told us about. If it wasn’t, however, there aren’t many other contenders. Like the Star Wars films that preceded it, An Unexpected Journey tries to create fantasy with computer graphics instead of consistent vision. The problem is we’ve seen tech-nology before—in any number of productions from Alice to Zombieland. Filled with familiar faces, scores, and landscapes, Peter Jackson’s newest movie feels similar to other box office hits—but ultimately es-tranged from the novelty those films gave us and the fantasy this one tries to recreate. Sadly, we don’t need the precision of 3D in forty-eight-frames-a-second to see how clearly The Hobbit misses the mark.

Not Quite There, But Back Again: A Hobbit ReviewV i n c e n t W e i r

“Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital. When critics disagree, the artist is in accord with himself.”

Oscar Wilde


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Y O W L

At its inaugural 2013 meeting last week, the SGA created the Committee for the Elimina-

tion of Corners (CEC), a group of professors, students, and community leaders tasked with finding a palatable solution to the problem of the corner culture on the Davidson campus. The CEC is a sub-committee of the Council for the Establishment of Forward-Looking, Open-Minded Architecture, Furniture, and Miscellany, which is itself a sub-committee of the Assembly on Shapes. While the chairman of the CEC was unable to meet with us due to an unfortunate belt-sander ac-cident, the undersecretary shared the group’s core beliefs with our Libertas investigative staff. “We feel that the proliferation of cornered objected is an inherently divisive and harmful process rooted in the close-minded institutions of the nineteenth century. We believe that the very idea of a corner,

in of itself, is destructive to the principles of prog-ress and universal inclusion that our institution strives for. Besides, have you ever banged your knee into the corner of a table? Yowch. ” The Committee has hosted a series of campus interface sessions and sent out a survey in order to gather data about students’ feelings and perceptions of corners, and have now appointed a Cutting Cor-ners Taskforce, who are charged with facilitating a list of nineteen recommendations to address the “corner menace,” including converting the cur-rent door-based status quo into “a Japanese style open-portway system,” issuing a daily, color-coded “corner threat level,” and “a general campaign of rounding, in our infrastructure, our discourse, and ultimately our minds.” The proposals pend approval.

YOWL: On a scale of “0” to “Athlete” how cool do you think the rest of the school thinks you are? KAITLYN LEWIS, NONNER: I’d say the rest of the school sees me as a good, solid 3. It’s hard to get much higher without a jersey or access to the real gym, but my occasional interaction with Athletes certainly boosts my coolness. YOWL: Which organization better describes you? Fellowship of Christian non-ners OR Student nonner Advisory Council (SnAC)? NONNER: I’m active in both (being a nonner takes a lot of psychological and spiritual support so as to not collapse in self-pity) but I’d have to say SNAC, because the acronym reminds me of one of my favorite nonner activities. YOWL: Has Manti Te’o (the Athlete) inspired you to make up your own girl-friend/boyfriend? Conversely, if you think making up a girlfriend is stupid, surely you, as a non-Athlete, have done something much stupider. Explain. NONNER: I think Manti Te’o has been a tremendous inspiration to the entirety of the nonner community, especially when it comes to relationships. The way he defies the laws of truth and reality is truly moving. To answer your question, he definitely has inspired me to make up a boyfriend. I had the idea of creating an imaginary boyfriend long before Manti Te’o entered the spotlight, but Te’o definitely gave me the confidence to go for it. I am currently working diligently on creating the perfect imaginary boyfriend. So far all I have decided is that he will be an Athlete, but that’s really the only important thing anyways. YOWL: Do you have any stuffed Athletes, fatheads, or Athletic memorabilia that you plan to give your children or an Athletic museum? NONNER: I have some chem notes from an Athlete. Does that count? They are obviously worthless from an academic perspective; you can’t expect Athletes to be good at anything academic or creative. It’s like men trying to cook, or women trying to do anything other than cook. Regardless, I found his attempt at aca-demics endearing. And to own something, anything, that an Athlete touched is very exciting. YOWL: Which Disney/Pixar Athlete do you most revere? NONNER: Well, Vince, I think this question highlights a very serious problem in our society today. I can’t think of a single Disney/Pixar character who was a

true Athlete. Sure, there are some slightly Athletic characters like Tarzan and that girl from Brave, but, let’s be honest here, if you aren’t wearing a jersey you aren’t an Athlete. It’s such a travesty. It would be much better if they made an inspirational children’s movie about real heroes like Lance Armstrong, Michael Vick, OJ Simpson, or Metta Worldpeace. YOWL: When you were little, what kind of Athlete did you dream about becom-ing? As soon as you realized that would never happen, what kind of Athlete did you try to settle for? NONNER: Unfortunately, I was delusional about Athletics until a late age. I played baseball, softball, basketball, swimming, running, and many other sports for years before I realized how truly worthless I was. Perhaps it was a pitiful form of self-comfort, but I managed to believe I was actually having fun! Need-less to say, as soon as I got to college I realized how pathetic little efforts meant nothing and finally accepted my destiny. YOWL: Would you rather sleep with an Athlete OR get life-time tickets to your favorite Athlete’s team OR tour your favorite Athletic team’s locker room OR be buried next to multiple Athletes? NONNER: Easy - I’d take the tickets. Does it get any better than worshipping Athletes from the safe distance of the bleachers? Plus that way I avoid any non-sport related interaction with Them! There seems to be this notion that Athletes can actually be kind, smart people who are good at other things besides Athlet-ics. What a stupid idea. And as for being buried next to Athletes, well, at that point it would simply be too late. I would have died a boring, unaccomplished nonner and there would be no hope for my non-Athletic soul. YOWL: What is your greatest “athletic” accomplishment? Feel free to not an-swer this question because you are too embarrassed to answer. NONNER: I hate to admit it, but I really have no Athletic accomplishments. One time sophomore year I ran all the way to the top floor of [a three-story build-ing] (pretty good for a nonner!), but for the most part I try to limit my activity to the occasional walk. This way I minimize the embarrassment of my own Ath-letic incompetence. Once a semester or so I visit the nonner “gym”, but that’s not saying much. I’ve heard the 20 lb weights in the real gym weigh almost twice as much as the 20 lb weights I use in the nonner “gym”.

Keg Stand: C- Did not seem to understand the basic premise of the as-signment.

Hooking Up: Check Minus The whole thing felt rushed. Ending was very abrupt.

Making Eye Contact with Approaching Acquaintance while 25 Yards Distant: B+ Pretending to be interested in root structure of nearby tree was he kind of creative move that I hope to inspire in all my students. However, opening was botched.

D A V I D S O N ’ S N E W S S O U R C E

YOUR TOUGHEST PROFESSOR ASSESSES NON-COURSEWORK

GET

TO K

NOW

YOU

R NO

NNER

!

Committee to Eliminate Corners


Chad Bundick’s little known side project has finally paid off. As Les Sins, Bundick produced a pair of house tracks in mid-2012 to minor acclaim. On their own, the two songs are great, especially considering that Bundick was outside his natural element, but lacked many of Toro y Moi’s staples, including Chad’s vocals (one of Toro y Moi’s universal appeals). “Say That” is both Sins and Moi as cool vocals entice the listener while finger snaps and a divine vocal sample pushes the track into a dance realm. This is one of the most energetic tracks Bundick has done and stands an outlier even on his newest album. While the leader of the Chillwave movement should not leave his hallowed ground, I hope Toro y Moi continues to make tracks that start parties instead of just cooling them down.

You would also enjoy: Fetch by Les Sins, Letter of Intent feat. Jessa Farkas, Daniel Lopatin, & Joel Ford by Duck-tails, Say Something by Fort Romeau

M i c h a e l D e S i m o n e


#relevantmich

ael’s

mus

ic

pick

s

Suit & TieJustin Timberlake, feat. Jay-Z

JT waits seven long years to begin a track with a Chopped and Screwed sound. Y’know, that Houston sound that is only capable of making one good remix for every thousand that are released. I, assumedly like everyone else with ears, heard this opening and promptly thought, “the fuck am I listening to.” Not only does it not match up with any Pop music of late but it doesn’t even sound remotely like Justin Tim-berlake. And this is the damn single. He has explored this genre before, specifically with “Chop Me Up” off of FutureSex/LoveSounds, but from an album rife with hits, “Chop Me Up” was never considered a Timberlake defining song. Even though the song later transforms into 70s style disco track that will be heard from weddings across the world, we learn a lot about Timberlake’s concept for the upcoming The 20/20 Experience from “Suit & Tie”’s first few seconds. Timberlake does not care about trends, appealing to any audience (including his own), or following any logical progression of artistic development. He wants to create simply on his own whim, and that is going to make his new album easily the most variable release of the year.

You would also enjoy: How Many Drinks? by Miguel, Heartbreak Hotel (Chopped & Screwed by OG Ron C) by Whitney Houston

Are you one of the members of Davidson’s many fraternities/eating houses? Have you gotten tired of playing Mercy/Clique yet at your parties? Here’s an alternative. “Higher” is everything you want in elec-tronic trap music. It is unabashedly dumb (there are few moments in the song when you are not hearing sampled handclaps or crowd gasps) but it is also too big to ignore. The synths blast to the point of almost becoming white noise and the commanding Jay-Z sample to “Turn that music higher” is a demand, not a request. This is music meant big, and it does big the best. Last year, I compared “Higher Ground,” another one of these electronic explosions, to Godzilla. If that was true, then “Higher” is Mechagodzilla, shooting missiles out of his fingers and shit.

You would also enjoy: Higher Ground by TNGHT, Harlem Shake by Bauuer, My Life feat. Waka Flocka Flame by Rich Kidz

HigherJust Blaze x Bauuer

Last ChanceBehling

Sorry folks. This came out a year ago and I didn’t hear it until early December. I hope you can understand how much I want this to be heard. I was in a big Boiler Room phase during finals week last semester, and when this came on during Jerome LOL’s set, it, for a small moment, was the only music I needed in my life. After about 10 listens, I regained enough focus to send this out to a few friends. I then played it 10 more times. I could not get over this sound. That build after the first minute. When the drums fall out and you are left with only bubbling synths and a vocal sample that transcends language only for the drums to jump back in and you begin to literally hear happiness out of your dorm room speakers. This is a song that needs to be shared and played. To be danced to by yourself and with friends. Dance music for the sake of dance music.

You would also enjoy: Au Seve by Julio Bashmore, Happyness (Second Edit) by MAM, New For U by Andrés

Say ThatToro y Moi

Truant- BurialLike Water- Capital STEEZ, Joey Bada$$ & Cj FlyIt’s You feat. Kilo Kish- Bondax

OTHER TRACKS YOU SHOULD BE CHECKING OUTBack To You (Pardis Remix)- Jaques RenaultPMW (All I Really Need) feat. Schoolboy Q- A$AP RockyIN2U- DreamsChained (Oneman 119 House Edit)- The xx

Dramaturging Sonia FlewC h r i s i n e N o a h

M i c h a e l D e S i m o n e


“DRAMA-WHAT?”If you were to ask ten theatre professionals what a

dramaturg does, you would probably get ten very different answers. If you were to look up “dramaturgy” in a dictionary, you would most likely find a definition like “the art of theatre.” The art of theatre? What does that even mean? (I mean, Department of Redundancy Department, am I right?) My work as dramaturg for the Davidson production of Sonia Flew, however, boils down to my role as “The Great Contextualizer.”

“I provide historical and cultural context to the play for the actors, the director, and the audience, allowing

the production to have the biggest im-pact possible.”

Sonia Flew, first performed in 2009, is a play that takes place in two locations and time periods. The first act is set in Minneapolis in December of 2001. When Sonia, a Cuban exile from the Revolutionary era, finds out that her nineteen-year-old son wants to drop out of college in order to join the Marines and fight in Afghanistan, her passionate condemnation leads to fam-ily turmoil that forces her to face her past. The second act takes us to that past in Revolutionary Cuba, 1961. Young Sonia’s parents try to protect her from the dangers that lurk behind every corner of this newly “liberated” country, but in the end they must make the decision that will forever change Sonia’s life. The play raises important questions about what it means to be free and how our past affects our future. As the dramaturg, then, I compiled a packet of documents for the actors before rehearsals began con-taining information about the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro, and Cuban exiles, as well as photographs of pre- and post-Revolutionary Cuba.

“Now that rehearsals have started, I answer any questions that the director

or actors might have.”

Would Young Sonia’s family have lived in a house or an apartment? What’s the process for enlisting in the Marines? What exactly does a public defender do? Would Young Sonia’s family have taken siestas? (Hey: napping, as I’m sure we all know, can be a vital issue.) These questions, and many more, give the actors clarity in rehearsals. For the audience, on the other hand, I will compile online resources and program notes. I will also host the post-show discussion on February 21st, which will provide the audience with additional context and hopefully enhance your enjoyment of the show. What does a dramaturg do? Well, in this case, a lot of close reading, strategic Googling, and library hunt-ing, with the hope that my work will enrich both the production and its reception. Sonia Flew opens Febru-ary 20th and runs through the 24th, so be sure to come see the show and let me know if I pulled off “the art of theatre.”

LI TAS last word


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