I just read an article that has been tossing around. Written by New Orleans writer Anna Shults on the cultural blog Nolavie, it is an open letter to New York residents in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. The letter is a lifeline from New Orleans to New York, an olive branch connecting two cities marred by disaster and each Know What It Is Like to begin the slow process of recovery.
The article is thoughtful and sincere, beautifully written. In it, Shults points to one of my favorite sayings that us Louisianans have (and yes, I consider myself one), which is “Be a New Orleanian, wherever you are.” Now, I’m not a bumper sticker person, but this is the phrase on the lone sticker that adorns my car—perhaps to atone for my New York license plates. I took a shine to this expression because it encapsulates the complicated relationship that so many New Orleans expatriates feel towards their city. The appeal of New Orleans is that is opens itself up to you, slowly invading your soul one beignet and late night at a time. Before you know it, New Orleans has become your hometown, regardless of where you were born or raised. New Orleans is sneaky like that. In fact, she’s a lot like New York.
******
I currently live in New York, but I’ve called New Orleans home for five glorious years in my life thus far. I say ‘thus far’ because, like anyone with any sort of taste who’s ever spent any real time in the city, I’m holding out hope I’ll make the move back someday. We’re not done with each other yet.
As much as I love New Orleans, she’s a temperamental mistress.
It’s a rather unfortunate occurrence to grow accustomed to fleeing the path of hurricanes, but after three evacuations, I suppose that I did. Like so many others, I evacuated for Hurricane Katrina with nothing more than a backpack and a pillow. I watched the footage of the storm’s aftermath unfold on a hotel room television with three other terrified college kids. I eventually sought refuge in New York indignant and heartbroken, and perhaps more than anything else, uncontrollably angry. Where was the help for these people, citizens of this country, dying in the streets of New Orleans? How could this happen? Did anybody care?
******
I write this from my childhood home on Long Island, where our small town was largely spared by the wrath of Hurricane Sandy. We are lucky, and we know it. After several days without power and relying solely on a little transistor radio for news, I logged on to Facebook for the first time in several days. One of the first things that I saw was a comment posted by an acquaintance from New Orleans expressing her annoyance about comparisons between Katrina and Sandy.
It is a response I first saw when I attended graduate school in northern New England during Hurricane Irene last year, in which a few similarly callous Facebook friends mocked the scope of Irene compared to Katrina. Roughly put, the sentiment seemed to be this: Irene—a storm that devastated many parts of rural Vermont—was no Katrina, and those Yankees up North should stop complaining.
This statement, while ugly, is not factually incorrect. Irene is no Sandy, and Sandy is no Katrina. Ratings-driven media outlets often point to graphs and statistics to compare tragedies, touting storm categories and body counts as a way to prove which disaster was bigger. By any such parameters, there is no scenario in which Katrina isn’t deemed the worst natural disaster in American history. Something tells me, however, that knowing Hurricane Katrina was worse is of little concern right now for people in places like Staten Island and Breezy Point who have lost everything—and in some sad cases, even more.
******
As a New Yorker personally affected by the terrorist attacks of September 11th and Hurricane Katrina, I’ve long heard parallels drawn between each event. On occasion, I have even been asked to contribute to this fruitless discussion. I remember specifically one right-leaning cable news show contacting me on the first anniversary of Katrina, wanting to know how I’d compare the two worst events in our country’s recent history, as someone who had ‘first-hand’ experience with each. It is a distinction that I never asked for, and one that no one really wants.
At the time, I was angry, as were most New Orleanians, because we all know that the reactions to 9/11 and Katrina were shamefully different. Once again, I find myself being asked to weigh in on sad comparisons, to serve as an impartial judge between hurricanes that have wrecked the homes and the lives of people and places that I love. I have as little to say then as I do now.
One thing that I do know, from ‘first hand’ experience, is that when you start to compare, you start to get angry. Anger can be a useful emotion, but when it turns to bitterness, you start to displace this anger on the wrong people. To acknowledge the severity of the destruction of other places and the suffering of others does not lessen your own—it shows true compassion and understanding. There isn’t a World Series of Suffering in which winners are crowned: there are only fellow human beings in pain.
Like the New Orleans residents who rebuilt their ruined homes on the very same plots ravaged by Katrina, becoming a New Yorker wasn’t really my choice—it was a decision made long before I came along. I live here because it is where my family lives, and where three generations of our history exists. New York is where I began, and where my roots will always be.
But I am also a New Orleanian. I’ve seen what hurricanes are like, and I’ve witnessed damage that goes far beyond the ravage of floodwaters and seeps into future generations. I know what it is like to watch life merrily go on for those fortune enough to be unaffected, and I’ve felt the overwhelming desire to scream at those concerned with trivialities when so many you know continue to struggle. I understand this frustration, because I felt it, too. Unfortunately, being a New Orleanian has taught me that you can’t make others give a damn. But it has also taught me to give a damn about others.
My experience as a New Yorker displaced by Hurricane Katrina seven years ago was characterized by extreme kindness. People wanted to help, went out of their way to be supportive, and offered tidbits of charity with open arms and hearts. It is the same love I felt after September 11th, and the same love that I have felt this past week following Hurricane Sandy.
I realize that other parts of the country and the world might grumble. New Yorkers sometimes fail to realize that there is a world outside of the tri-state area, and we often erroneously think that we’re the first to experience hardships like hurricanes and terrorist attacks that have long plagued other places. Believe me, I get this. I have also never known a more resilient, diverse, and generous group of people. So many New Yorkers were there for me throughout every New Orleans hurricane, understanding without question what it is like to love a city that you will never give up on. I am glad to be back in my beloved New York to return the favor now.
As the slow process of recovery begins in New York and New Jersey, I’d like to thank my dear friends and family spread across the world—and particularly in New Orleans—who have offered no comments this week beside concern, understanding, and love. Because really, what else matters right now?
Confusing Thompson’s subtlety with simplemindedness would be a mistake. The Alchemy of Design doesn’t push a political or cultural agenda as much as it whispers a tale of whimsy. With a few notable exceptions, Thompson’s work is largely non-referential, at least in the traditional sense, relying instead on texture, color and pattern to convey her point. It is the blurred space where man and the natural world collide, a space as indefinable as it is fleeting, that seems to preoccupy Thompson and the exhibit as a whole.
The organic changes in design elements that occur throughout the progression of the exhibit are palpable. Each piece reflects the creative influences that Thompson has encountered and surrounded herself with: a trip to Morocco, the Book of Kells, her beloved garden, 19th century artist Edouard Vuillard, Renaissance masters. Viewing her work conveys a sense of scrapbook of all that Thompson holds dear, or at least that inspires her.
If Thompson’s The Alchemy of Design doesn’t cause shock waves to reverberate throughout the art world, it certainly is not for lack of artistry. Thompson’s technical skills are on full display. Her work is so detailed that it is only upon close inspection that one realizes that much of her work is not assembled from fabric, but hand-painted. Examining each piece within The Alchemy of Design is a case study in patience. Meandering through the exhibit, one cannot help but imagine the number of pain-staking hours it took her to assemble the intricate individual components of each work.
She doesn’t work in miniature, either. Besides her love of bright colors, the grand scale of much of Thompson’s work is perhaps the only aggressive thing about it. She slips as easily between colors and mediums as a snake sheds its skin, an appropriate metaphor when referencing the wall art that dominates the latter portion of the collection. One amphibian-like piece, Djellaba, is the crown jewel of The Alchemy of Design. Situated dramatically at the back of the exhibit, the work is a three-dimensional installation comprised of 57 acrylic hand-painted metal pieces arranged in a symmetrical pattern across the entire back wall. Each piece is a stand-alone work of its own, with influences as varied as Egyptian motifs and flowers to cryptic ancient alphabets.
While Dartmouth itself might not be an overt inspiration for the collection, hints of its pervasive influence on Thompson’s life and career reveal themselves throughout the exhibit. Portal is an homage to the 17th century Ottoman ceramic panel that is one of the highlights of Dartmouth’s own permanent collection, and which represents a leap into ceramics for Thompson. The Alchemy of Design seems positioned as a magnum opus of sorts for Thompson, a testament to a professor who has taught at Dartmouth for over 30 years and spent a sizable portion of her adult life molding young students into artists. The exhibit is lovely on its own—no justification for such a tribute is necessary as its quality speaks for itself—but it is with the realization of Thompson’s contributions to Dartmouth that the exhibit truly comes alive.
Whether or not you appreciate Thompson’s thought process is a moot point. Perhaps the most refreshing thing about Esmé Thompson’s The Alchemy of Design is that it doesn’t attempt to be anything that it isn’t. Contextualized or not, the work is beautiful. And in an age where art increasingly reflects the dire situation of the world, sometimes it’s nice to look at something of beauty.
“I learned to be a writer typing on the back of buses that people threw things at...”
Calvin Trillin, writer for The New Yorker, from an article published in The Graduate News Forum.
Calvin Trillin, former staff writer at The New Yorker and current Montgomery Fellow, recently met with Dartmouth Arts and Sciences graduate students to discuss the state of writing in America, and the important role that food has played in both his writing and life.
As a Montgomery Fellow in residence, Trillin met with students, attended classes, and gave a public lecture to the Dartmouth community. Entitled “Eating with the Pilgrims,” Trillin talked about the traditions of food in America and detailed his desire for spaghetti carbonara to replace turkey as the traditional meal of Thanksgiving.
Over lunch at the Montgomery House on Occum Pond, Trillin spoke to graduate students about his experiences at The New Yorker as well as his career as a journalist, essayist, and novelist. He described his personal process of writing and editing professionally, along with his beginnings as a young writer. One of Trillin’s early assignments was to cover the Freedom Rides in the segregated South of the early 1960s, and he noted that this most likely influenced his lifelong ability to write in chaotic environments.
“I learned to be a writer typing on the back of buses that people threw things at,” Trillin said.
When composing a new piece, Trillin stated that in his first draft, he typically writes down all of his initial thoughts, reactions and comments. Upon completing this draft—which Trillin humorously termed “getting the throw-up out”—he then begins to compose the final piece. Switching from a typewriter to a computer a few years ago quickened the composition process, but Trillin insists that his writing approach has largely remained the same. After having worked under such noted editors as The New Yorker‘s William Shawn, Trillin notes that he welcomes input and revisions from all sources.
“If the office boy has a suggestion, I’ll listen to it,” says Trillin.
Author of American Fried, Alice, Let’s Eat, and Third Helpings, food has played an integral role in much of Trillin’s work. As a writer covering ‘the beat of America’, he was often on the road for weeks at a time, and would learn about places dining at the local restaurants. His latest piece in The New Yorker details his love of one particular family-run Italian restaurant forty minutes outside of New Orleans called Mosca’s. For Trillin, it is these types of off-the-beaten-path restaurants, filled with traditions that channel a bygone era, that he enjoys writing about the most.
Though many of his literary peers point to Trillin as one of the definitive voices of his generation, when one graduate student asked about becoming a writer, Trillin warned him of the perils of the profession.
“If your uncle has a venetian blinds business and offers you a job, I would think about taking that,” Trillin joked.
'Another Bad Dog Book': An Interview with Joni Cole
A version of this article was first published in The Graduate News Forum in December of 2011.
Vermont author Joni Cole’s latest book, Another Bad Dog Book: Tales of Life, Love, and Neurotic Human Behavior, was published in October by PublishingWorks. A collection of twenty-eight personal essays that deal with her daily interactions and past experiences, the book is described on her website as mixing “social awkwardness with social observation.”
Despite the title, Cole says, “the book isn’t all about dogs.” Instead, a scene of rejection in a bookstore inspired the title essay of the book.
“I went to Borders, and there was another ‘bad dog book’ sitting on the shelf,” says Cole. “I thought that there was a good story there about how jealous I am over all of these stupid, best-selling books about naughty dogs that fly off the shelf.” She wrote the title essay immediately.
Story in hand, Cole went to her publisher and sold her idea for the book on the spot. “I had never sold a piece half-written before,” says Cole. “It was exciting.” Since its publication, the book has received numerous positive reviews and accolades. One of Another Bad Dog Book’s essays, “Strangers on a Train,” was recently excerpted in the Dartmouth academic journal, The Quarterly, and was a 2011 Pushcart Prize nominee.
According to Cole, her experiences as graduate student in creative writing helped shape her work, as well as how she evaluates the writings of others. In addition to being a full-time author, Cole runs the Writer’s Center of White River Junction, Vermont, where she serves as a writing instructor–in her workshops, Cole emphasizes the importance of constructive feedback.
One of Cole’s books, Toxic Feedback: Helping Writers Survive and Thrive, deals with the current culture of creative writing feedback, in which “brutal honesty” is championed and ripping works apart is the norm. For Cole, this is a counter-productive measure that builds up a writer’s emotional walls instead of breaking them down, prematurely weeding out fledgling writers with promise.
“Toxic feedback is something that everyone has experienced,” says Cole. “I’m not trying to change a work into what I think it should be,” says Cole. “It needs to be what the writer wants it to be.”
Cole says that she is “all about positive feedback” in her workshops, as it gives writers confidence. According to Cole, the writers that come through her workshops often have to readjust themselves from the negative feedback that they have typically received in the past. While Cole insists that she “does not coddle by any means,” she maintains that pointing out positive elements of a writer’s work produces much better writing than harsher critiques tend to.
“There is always something working in a piece—even if it’s only a sentence, it’s still there,” says Cole. “These writers are trying. They’re putting something out there, and it’s not easy. I just love them. They’re trying to do something important.”
For Cole, this interaction with writers keeps her excited about her own work.
“I’m so passionate about this because I’m a writer myself,” she explains.
Dan Barber did not invent the concept of the “food to table movement,” but he has certainly contributed to its popularity. As the main chef and proprietor of two highly regarded restaurants in New York, Barber has become the poster boy of sustainable eating. Located on an estate in Westchester County, Stone Barns Farms supplies much of the food for both his restaurant at the farm, Blue Hill at Stone Barns, and his Manhattan mainstay, Blue Hill.
An intense advocate of understanding where our food comes from, Barber is a unique chef in that much of his culinary interests lie outside of the kitchen. In addition to his work at both restaurants, Barber has become a leading figure within the sustainability movement, speaking at the TED2010 Conference and serving on the President’s Council on Physical Fitness, Sports and Nutrition. As Barber is currently working with university researchers to determine how production methods affect the nutritional content of his food, much of the lunch’s discussion focused on scientific concepts.
“I wish that I had taken more biology and chemistry,” notes Barber.
The seasonal challenges that define growing regions greatly impact Barber’s menu selections at his New York restaurants. When asked about the difficulties that a harsh New England winter might pose to eating locally, Barber stresses that even small adjustments make a big impact. For example, choosing to eat “in-season” crops such as hearty root vegetables is not only a responsible choice, but also a healthy one.
“I don’t want the prevailing mentality to be that of just surviving winter, but instead looking at it as an opportunity to thrive,” explains Barber.
Though some balk at the expense of eating locally and organically, labeling the ‘slow food movement’ as an elitist fad, Barber maintains that this is not the case. Large grocery chains generally cost less than farmers markets, but according to Barber they do not accurately account for the ‘real costs’ of producing cheap food.
While ‘slow food’ still exists largely as a grassroots movement outside of the mainstream, Barber feels that it is rapidly growing in popularity.
“Ten years ago, we wouldn’t have been sitting here talking about these issues,” says Barber. “So many movements are about depriving yourself of something. This isn’t. It’s about indulgence and delicious food.”
Originally published in The Graduate News Forum as part of a Dartmouth Montgomery Fellow series on food writing.
Unlike other Wall Street films depicting the glamorous extracurricular lives that investment banking salaries can buy, MARGIN CALL takes place almost exclusively in the fictional firm’s office over a twenty-four-hour period. Moving the focus from a clear-cut tale of morality versus immorality towards a more nuanced version of events, the film provides insight into the various levels of decision-making rarely seen in the world of high-level finance.
The film, which premiered at Sundance this past January and went on to be nominated for the Golden Bear the 2011 Berlin Film Festival, marks writer/director J.C. Chandor’s feature film directorial debut. Having cut his teeth working on documentaries and commercials in the fifteen years preceding MARGIN CALL, Chandor wrote the film over a period of just four days following the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008. In an interview with Movieline last fall, Chandor explained his aim was to tell as timeless a story as possible, stripping away dates, times, and specific signifying details. “I always found it sort of interesting that, by the actual content in the movie, this could have taken place in 2006, or 2004, even,” says Chandor. “People were calling the end for many years.”
While the timing of MARGIN CALL’s release comes at the tail end of one the most significant financial crises of the modern era, Chandor is quick to point out that the film isn’t based on any one particular financial firm. Despite speculation that MARGIN CALL is a thinly veiled account of the fall of Lehman Brothers—and Chandor points out that the film is “certainly inspired by a true story of what's going on”—he insists it is merely an amalgamation of the standard practices and cultural norms that exist within the world of investment banking.
Even with a threadbare budget of approximately $3.5 million, Chandor was able to attract top talent to the project. For Zachary Quinto, whose rookie analyst character discovers the shortcomings of the firm’s financial model in place, the complicated moral issues brought forth in MARGIN CALL provided a rare look ‘behind the curtain’ few are privy to outside of the finance world. Referred to as a “rocket scientist” by Simon Baker’s character, Quinto’s MIT-educated character is instructed by Jeremy Irons’ fictional CEO to explain his explosive findings as if he is “speaking to a child.” The alarming notion that the complex mathematical formulations that dictate the actions of Wall Street firms are understood by only a few—even those at the very top—is one that permeates the entire film. Some might have ‘seen this coming’, but many, clearly, did not.
“A lot of what our film is really exploring is that it’s easy to vilify, it’s easy to moralize and judge and blame people for what happened,” Quinto told the New York Times in an interview this past fall. “And not inappropriately, completely! But there’s also a whole swath of people who were just doing their jobs, who weren’t complicit in the decision-making process that led to all of this.”
From the bundling and selling of assets that they knew to be of little to no value to the flippant discussion of money, MARGIN CALL depicts the internal struggles and power plays occurring within a typical financial firm. Chandor himself is fairly comfortable with the financial world, his own father having worked as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch for over thirty-five years. “I knew a lot about those characters -- not from a technical standpoint, but from an emotional standpoint,” he explains. “Why they make the decisions they do. Why do some people take the jobs they do? Why do people quit when they quit? Why do people get fired when they get fired? All of those things, I did have a very deep, deep understanding of, just from my own life.”
While MARGIN CALL paints a scathing portrait of the inordinate risk taken on by financial institutions, it also questions the culpability of the individuals and institutions that enabled banks to act without repercussions. Is a financial firm’s responsibility to itself, its employees and its shareholders, or to the general public? When does a investment bank acting in its own economic self-interest cross the line into unethical (or even illegal) actions? In a November 2011 interview with The Guardian, Chandor notes, "If there's one takeaway from the film it is that hiring and firing and compensation practices are responsible for the way that these companies take risks.” Despite the recent protests that have sprung up throughout the country expressing frustration with the current financial system, it has yet to be seen if Wall Street has been permanently marred from the events of the past few years. The irony of the timing of MARGIN CALL’s release against the backdrop of the Occupy Wall Street movement is not lost on Chandor, who describes himself as a “capitalist who believes in strong regulation.”
“When people are sleeping in the streets over an issue, it's a canary in the coalmine that all is not well," says Chandor.
THE SOCIAL NETWORK details the riveting beginnings of Facebook in the dorms and social clubs of Harvard University in 2003 and 2004, and is essentially a character study in obsessive and unwavering dedication as seen through the eyes of protagonist Mark Zuckerberg. The film centers on the premise that the idea for Facebook was stolen by Zuckerberg from fellow classmates who had hired him to help establish their own social website. For all of its emphasis on technology and the Internet, THE SOCIAL NETWORK plays like an Edith Wharton film adaption of social class antagonism: As a film character (and there should be a distinction), Mark Zuckerberg is maniacally driven in his quest for upward social mobility. Even as a student at the most elite academic institution in the United States, Zuckerberg is still an outsider. The film hints that it is Zuckerberg’s exclusion from the elite social clubs at Harvard along with his general lack of sociability that ironically spurred his creation of Facebook, the world’s largest social network.
It’s not a stretch to say that THE SOCIAL NETWORK does not portray Mark Zuckerberg in the most flattering light, but one must wonder how flattering a portrait could be painted of any CEO of a multi-billion dollar company. Most accounts of the real Mark Zuckerberg put him somewhere in the realm of slightly socially awkward, but still far removed from the callous Mark Zuckerberg depicted in the film. Notoriously press shy and devoted to his work at Facebook, Zuckerberg also appears to be unmotivated by money in real life: He lives an extremely modest existence, and has refused several offers to purchase Facebook, most famously the reported $1 billion dollar offer from Yahoo in 2006. In various media interviews, Zuckerberg has commented that the film is a highly dramatized and frequently inaccurate account of the early days of Facebook, and even screenwriter Aaron Sorkin has admitted to taking several liberties in adapting Ben Mezrich’s book, The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook: A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal.
However, not everyone depicted in the film has been critical of the accuracy of THE SOCIAL NETWORK. Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, the former Harvard classmates of Mark Zuckerberg whose lawsuit against Facebook is shown in the movie, insist that THE SOCIAL NETWORK is a fairly precise account of Zuckerberg’s deceit. The Winklevoss brothers are currently suing Facebook, as they maintain that Facebook stock value was purposefully undervalued when a settlement was finally reached. While many of Zuckerberg’s critics also questioned the timing of the announcement of his $100 million donation to the Newark, N.J. public school system the same week that THE SOCIAL NETWORK was released, Zuckerberg has stressed that it was unrelated to the movie. Despite his numerous character flaws depicted in the film, the visionary genius of Mark Zuckerberg is nonetheless evident and undeniable. As a 19-year-old college sophomore, he was able to see vast potential where few others saw any. This ability to recognize and tap into the essence of humanity is all the more uncanny given Zuckerberg’s own social shortcomings, and it is this juxtaposition that makes the film so thought-provoking and impressive.
Thus far into the midst of awards season, THE SOCIAL NETWORK has a made an almost clean sweep of all the major critics awards, and is expected to continue its streak when the Academy nominations are announced on January 25th. In a year where such traditional fare as the British drama THE KING’S SPEECH and the uplifting sports movie THE FIGHTER are also considered strong Best Picture contenders, many critics have speculated that the frenetically paced and technology-orientated THE SOCIAL NETWORK might fall by the wayside with the older-skewing Academy voters. However, the scope and significance of the film cannot be ignored.
Beyond its artistic value as a film, THE SOCIAL NETWORK depicts the dawn of a revolution that has wholly changed not only the face of the Internet, but the intrinsic way in which current and future generations will interact and communicate with each other. In the seven years since its founding, Facebook has proved itself to be a resilient Internet start-up in a technology sector characterized by meteoric rises and equally quick falls. By continually adapting and implementing successful formatting and content changes that serve to broaden its appeal and widen its user base, Facebook currently has over 550 million users all over the world. Time recently stated that one out of every four Internet page views in the US is a Facebook page, and if its total users were a country, it would be the world’s third largest population-wise. According to a report this week from The Wall Street Journal, Goldman Sachs’ recent $500 million dollar investment in a percentage of Facebook puts its current value at around $50 billion dollars.
Given that Facebook initially served as a tool to capture the social dynamics of college, it is interesting to note that no current undergraduates know of ‘the college experience’ described in the film without the omnipresence of Facebook as a tool to document it. THE SOCIAL NETWORK depicts the dark side of a world in which we can be constantly accessible and available to hundreds of others, and yet lack real human connection. This leads to the inherent question explored within THE SOCIAL NETWORK: Does Facebook serve as a way to remember life’s experiences, or is it the actual experience itself?
This review was originally published in The Dartmouth Film Society's FILM NOTES in January of 2011.
2087
turnnoffyourmind
pixelskylines
romaincrisis
blakekathryn
vaporwave
theartofmadeline
dailybridgerton