fall 2013 - issue 3

O REDESIGNINGBIG CITIES

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A CASEFOR YELP

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ART FROMTHE STREETS

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TUFTS OBSERVEROCTOBER 21, 2013VOLUME CXXVII, ISSUE 3

CONTRIBUTORS

WIL

L VA

UG

HA

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ENGENDERING PROGRESS2

The Observer has been Tufts’ student publication of record since 1895. Our dedication to in-depth reporting, journalistic innovation, and honest dialogue has remained intact for over a century. Today, we offer insightful news analysis, cogent and diverse opinion pieces, creative writing, and lively reviews of current arts, entertainment, and culture. Through poignant writing and artistic elegance, we aim to entertain, inform, and above all challenge the Tufts community to effect positive change.

BERNITA LING

PIANO SQUARE by Sophia Grogan

ROBERT COLLINS

26

22PAINTING THE TOWN by Anastasiya Lobacheva

KNAR BEDIAN

PERSEID METEOR SHOWER, AUGUST 2012 by Anika Ades 17

8 MASS MIGRATION: CHINA AND THE URBAN ERA by Brett Fouss

EVA STRAU

SS

CREATIVE COMMONS

by Moira Lavelle

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featureEngendering Progress by Moira LavellecampusAlcohol & Amnesty by Claire SelvinnewsCity Roots by Tyler GreennewsMass Migration: China and the Urban Era by Brett FousscampusSound of Boston by Jenn Oetterpoetry & proseFantasize About You Please, Anything by Emma Turnerphoto insetCitiespoetry & prosePerseid Meteor Shower, August 2012 by Anika AdesopinionYelp & the City by Jamie MooreopinionNo Country for the Voiceless by Shobhita Narainarts & culturePainting the Town by Anastasiya Lobachevaarts & cultureThe Stakes of Space by Eric Shawoff campusPiano Square by Sophia Groganpolice blotterBy Moira Lavelle and Aaron Langerman

Dira DjayaVeronica FosterLily HerzanRachel IsonBecca LeibowitzAnnie LyeAlexis O’ConnelVishakha RamakrishnanCharlotte Rea

CONTRIBUTORS

EDITORSeditor-in-chiefMolly Mirhashemmanaging editorNicola Pardy

production directorBen Kurland

asst. production directorBernita Ling

section editorsAnika AdesJustin KimAaron LangermanMoira LavelleGracie McKenzieAlison PinkertonKumar RamanathanNader SalassEvan TarantinoFlo Wen

publicity directorStephen Wright

photography directorKnar Bedian

photography editorAlison Graham

art directorRobert Collins

lead artistsGriffin QuasebarthEva Strauss

lead copy editorsLiana AbbottSarah Perlman

copy editorsGeorge EsselstynEve FeldbergBrett MeleKatharine PongMT SnyderNate Williams

staff writersEllen Mayer

October 21st, 2013 Tufts Observer, since 1895

Volume CXXVII, Issue 3Tufts’ Student Magazine

O

TABLE OF CONTENTS

BERNITA LING

COVER BY: Ethan Chan

FEATURE

Engendering

Progress

Moira Lavelle

OCTOBER 21, 2013 TUFTS OBSERVER 32 TUFTS OBSERVER OCTOBER 21, 2013

FEATURE

I n 1999, the City of Vienna, Austria conducted a massive survey of its populace. The survey asked resi-dents how they interacted with the

city. How did they use public transpor-tation? Where did they walk? At which times were they out and about? What the survey revealed is that men and women use cities in drastically different ways. Men took public transportation largely for commuting to work. Women used public transportation for a myriad of reasons: to take children to the doc-tor or daycare, to visit relatives, to go to work, to go grocery shopping, and so forth. Women were more likely to have a stroller or wheelchair with them when walking on public sidewalks. Women and men visited cemeteries at different times of day. For women, many of these activities were difficult to accomplish—for a variety of reasons, including the layout of transportation, the accessibility of healthcare, and the location of cem-eteries. What Vienna learned was that its city was structurally sexist; it was built in ways that facilitated men’s lifestyles more than women’s.

Thus the Austrian government de-cided to change the very design of Vi-enna. The public transportation network was ameliorated, enabling smooth tran-sit between the neighborhoods on the outside of the city. The city oversaw the widening of sidewalks and the addition of ramps near important intersections. The overhaul also included the instal-lation of benches and better lighting in cemeteries. A new apartment complex built specifically for women implement-ed on-site doctors, and improved public transportation increased the commu-

nity’s accessibility to kindergartens. The city also rebuilt playgrounds to include small pockets of play space, instead of one large park, because boys had been bullying girls off the playground.

Today, Vienna is lauded for its ad-justments: it won the United Nations Public Service Award for its structural improvements and the United Nations Human Settlements Programme listed Vienna’s city planning as one of the best in the world. This process, in which pub-lic administrators create laws and regu-lations to enact changes that will benefit men and women equally, is called “gen-der mainstreaming.” Vienna is an oft-praised example of gender mainstream-ing, but the practice is implemented in countries around the world. The Euro-pean Equality Policy introduced gender mainstreaming as a procedural strategy to all European Union states in the early 2000s. Since then, a number of programs have put the concept into effect. For ex-ample Germany has worked on provid-ing more equal welfare housing for male and female children, and Italy has cre-ated more women’s shelters, endeavored to make internet access easier for all citi-zens, and mandated longer, more acces-sible pharmacy hours.

Similarly, the UN has been consis-tently working on gender mainstreaming since 1997—it has paired with organiza-tions like the World Health Organiza-tion and the World Bank to bring about a multitude of changes in both policies and structures worldwide. For instance, in India and Bangladesh, women often worry about their personal safety when traveling without men and will forgo a trip to the doctor or school in favor of

immediate safety. To combat this, the UN is working to make public transporta-tion more secure and to bring healthcare closer to people’s homes. The govern-ment recently introduced women-only train carriages to Mumbai to help female travelers feel safer.

The UN argues in its report on Gen-der and Urban Planning that most cities were built under the western assumption that each household consists of a nuclear family with one breadwinner and one homemaker—assuming the woman pri-marily stays home. Yet this paradigm is not applicable today in most societies from the western world to anywhere else. Gender mainstreaming focuses on in-corporating what women actually need into the structure of how society works. By structuring cities to cater to women as well as men, every demographic can reap the benefits. Men, children, and the elderly gain from improved welfare or public transportation. The theory, as Hil-ary Clinton said in 1995, is that “human rights are women’s rights, and women’s rights are human rights, once and for all.”

A focus on gender and gender mainstreaming is not the only way to improve equality in urban planning. Ju-lian Agyeman is a professor in the De-partment of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning (UEP) at Tufts. One of Agyeman’s specialties, is in as he puts it: “concepts of interculturalism, cultural competency, culturally inclusive practice and culturally inclusive spaces in urban planning.” Essentially, he looks at how the design of cities can be more cultur-ally inclusive. He looks specifically at the intersection of sustainability and jus-tice or equity, asking how we can create

urban planning to promote equality


BERNITA LING

OCTOBER 21, 2013 TUFTS OBSERVER 9

FEATURE

greener cities that simultaneously pro-mote equality.

Lately, Agyeman has focused on the green and organic food movement. There has been a burst of enthusiasm for local organic food in recent years, and many cities have started creating green roofs and rooftop gardens. Yet this local food movement assumes that urban dwellers are white and privileged. The foods are expensive and usually offer only west-ern options such as potatoes or lettuce, preventing many immigrants prepare-from preparing their familiar cultural foods. Agyeman explains that locally-grown does not mean that the food has to be sourced locally—if a Brazilian cook wants manioc root in Boston he should use it and be able to grow it locally. Addi-tionally, these locally-grown foods need to be more accessible to those of lower incomes who cannot afford to shop at Whole Foods. The best urban planning would be intersectional, mainstreaming these cultural needs and environmental needs at the same time and thus promot-ing equality across the board.

A number of intersectional projects of this sort have recently been adopted in the U.S. Peter Furth, a civil engineer-ing professor at Northeastern University, and Jeffrey Rosenblum, the transportation planner for the city of Cambridge. Furth and Rosenblum are working with North-eastern students to make bicycling a pre-ferred mode of transportation in Boston. The two are looking to the street design of the Netherlands to try and understand what makes cycling so easy in Amsterdam and so difficult here in Boston. The project has intersectional interests, as the planners hope to use cycling as a means to make Boston both healthy for the environment, and safer for families. Many Bostonians have expressed an interest in bike lanes and additional bike-centered structures but are fearful of the infamous Boston traf-

fic. In an interview with the Boston Globe last month, Furth stated, “For the first time, there are a lot of normal people who are showing an interest in cycling. It’s not that they’ve changed their minds so much, but now they see it’s possible and they want to be protected from cars.” A Bos-ton that biked like Amsterdam or Houten would use a fraction of the gasoline cur-rently consumed and have hundreds fewer car crashes per year. Bicycling is the pri-mary mode of transportation in Holland and with fewer cars on the street, there are fewer car crashes. Moreover, bikes are so common that they easily gain the right of way; families even bike around Dutch cities without any helmets.

Mainstreaming projects of this sort have popped up around the country, but the U.S. has yet to adopt this sort of equality-based plan-ning as public policy for urban planning. The slow integration into public policy may be partially because there are some detractors of gender-mainstreaming and cultural mainstreaming. NGOs have criticized the European Equality Policy for a lack of sustainability and many have cited the UN for poor implemen-tation of gender mainstreaming initia-tives. Both of these plans have been cited for having little structure for monitor-ing and follow-up. Additionally, many argue that officials run the risk of rein-forcing gendered or cultural stereotypes when looking to integrate mainstream-ing into public policy, and that many of these structural changes have not placed women into positions of power. Yet the UN argues that gender mainstreaming is an important tool for promoting equal-

ity in a world that is often structured in a western, gendered way.

Bureaucratic inertia may be an-other reason that mainstreaming has not become a legally-backed part of U.S. policy. In a democracy, getting a majority of the populace to agree on a large-scale shift can be a slow and fraught process. In a public meeting about potential bike lanes on West Broadway Street, the Bos-ton public fought back, arguing bike lanes would be much too dangerous and

do not belong in Boston. Similar outrage was seen in New York City when the new Citi bike share system was put in place this past summer. Politicians must think about their constituencies, and pushing for a change of this sort can be an exceed-ingly unpopular choice.

It is easy to look at a city like Vienna or Boston and see that there is room for improvement. These big hub cities have been around for centuries and often the very structure favors certain types of privileged persons—the transporta-tion is created for men commuting to work, and the food sources are centered around the middle and upper class. Not every city can overhaul its urban design and re-plan like Vienna did. But what the Vienna example illustrates best is how small changes can create a large dif-ference, promoting equality for a city’s entire population. O

4 TUFTS OBSERVER OCTOBER 21, 2013

Gender mainstreaming focuses on incorporating

what women actually need into the structure of

how society works.


CAMPUSALCOHOL & AMNESTYT

wo new provisions to Tufts’ drug and alcohol policy in the 2013-2014 Student Handbook make calling for

help in alcohol-related medical incidents a more viable option than in years past. The previous policy did not formally include the “Good Samaritan Policy” or the “Amnesty Approach.”

Dean of Campus Life and Leadership and acting Dean of Student Affairs Bruce Reitman explained that a task force of students and leaders in various departments “tweaked” the old policy in May and June of last year. The task force’s recommendations were considered, and some of them added to the official policy by a committee that Reitman chaired.

“We’ve formalized [the Good Samaritan Policy], even though in the past the RAs and the police wouldn’t write up anybody who happened to be present when someone called for help,” he said.

The Good Samaritan Policy states that “No one who seeks medical assistance for themselves or for others will be subject to disciplinary action specifically for their own use of alcohol or small amounts of marijuana.” The Amnesty Approach protects students who need medical assistance from “judicial sanctions.” Students who receive medical treatment must meet with a professional in the Alcohol and Health Education division of Health Services for “screening and substance use counseling.” A second incident resulting in medical treatment will warrant another meeting with a Health Services professional, as well as a meeting with a family member or guardian. A third episode will result in a medical leave for the student to “address the substance use.” Essentially, students who call for medical assistance, or require

it themselves, due to over-intoxication will not face probation or punishment as long as their actions do not violate the Code of Conduct. Such violations would include: public consumption of alcohol, and dealing or trafficking illegal drugs.

Reitman said that this new non-judicial “medical model” is kept separate from the Code of Conduct; that is, a student can receive medical treatment and face no punishments as a result, but there may be disciplinary action taken for his or her violations to the Code of Conduct.

“This community will always have between 90 and 150 cases each year, no matter the policy, because we are a caring community. If you’re a friend of somebody that you know is in trouble, people call to get help for that student. Is that a good thing? Yes, that’s a good thing. Is it ideal? I think no. Ideally, people would recognize that friendship includes stopping people from getting to the point of needing that hospitalization,” Reitman said.

Reitman explained that most people who need medical intervention once due to intoxication do not repeat their actions. “It seems that most people—once they have one of these embarrassing encounters and need medical intervention and have to explain to families—figure out that it’s not worth it because there’s not much glory in it and it’s dangerous,” he said.

Student reaction to the new policies has been generally positive. Sophomore Allie Wainer thinks that the new rules will increase the number of people calling for help. “I learned from high school health class to call the police or someone when there’s a problem, when someone’s feeling sick, so it just makes sense that there’s no academic punishment or probation,” she said.

She added that some of her friends “felt almost ashamed” last year when they needed TEMS assistance. “I don’t think the shame will completely go away but if your friend’s not going to get in trouble then people will definitely be more likely to call. I’ve heard about situations in which people were hesitant to call,” Wainer said.

Junior Dylan Pond was surprised when, as a freshman, he learned that the university did not have a formal, codified Good Samaritan Policy. “I believe that Tufts students always look out for each other, whether in the classroom, on a team, or in a club. Both policies make sure we can look out for our fellow Jumbos without the fear of repercussions,” Pond said.

Pond believes that now, Jumbos will bemore comfortable when seeking help. He said, “I have never witnessed a student hesitating to call. I have discussed the old policy a lot with friends and we all felt that it fostered a dangerous culture. I am proud that Tufts has written a new policy that prioritizes safety.”

The goal is for these new provisions to stop any hesitation students may have experienced previously in calling for help in emergency situations. Students seem to agree that the changes are a step in the right direction for students’ safety on campus.

Reitman does not feel that the policy is “indicative of success” because bystanders on campus still allow their peers and friends to reach a dangerous level of drunkenness. He said, “The most important message that I can get out is that it’s great to be a good friend and call for medical help, but you’d be a much better friend to avoid them needing that medical intervention. Medical intervention works, but part of it is luck, and I never want to lose a student from this campus.” O

Claire Selvin

ERIC WINK OCTOBER 21, 2013 TUFTS OBSERVER 5


NEWS

By the end of year, Central Park One, the world’s tallest vertical garden, will be completed. It will be the

first of 11 buildings of the most ambitious urban development projects in history in downtown Sydney, Australia. Peter Nouv-el’s revolutionary design calls for over half of the 1,800-unit apartment building to be covered with vines and plants. All of the rooftops are designed to capture rainwater, which can be converted into safe drinking water. Sewage output will also be sanitized and recycled into usable water on site. En-

ergy needs will be handled via a “precinct” approach: the development will have the capacity to focus energy supply to particu-lar regions of the complex during times of high demand in order to increase energy efficiency. The complex will also utilize a generator that heats and cools at the same site, decreasing waste and allowing the site to disperse excess energy to surrounding neighborhoods. Although an urban struc-ture covered in bushy foliage and seem-ingly devoid of any human maintenance may appear post-apocalyptic, the fusion

of natural and industrial materials carried out by botanist Patrick Blanc’s design is an indication of much needed progress in the 21st century challenge of environmental preservation.

In 1800, barely three percent of the world’s population lived in cities, and only three cities in the world boasted one mil-lion residents. Today, however, the human population has exploded to seven billion in about 200 years, and over half of the world’s population has settled in urban areas. The UN estimates that the global

city roots

by tyler green

CREATIVE COMMONS


urban population will continue to grow by 1.5 percent annually, or at a rate of 60 mil-lion new urban residents per year. More than 439 cities have already joined Lon-don, Beijing, and Tokyo at the once rare mark of one million inhabitants. By 2050, the share of people living in urban areas worldwide is expected to reach an aston-ishing 75 percent, which means 6.75 bil-lion people will be living on less than five percent of the earth’s surface.

As people continue to migrate to cit-ies, urban areas will become the most cru-cial battleground in the fight against en-vironmental destruction, climate change, and depletion of the ecosystem. The de-mand for resources such as food, clean water, energy, healthcare, employment, transportation, and housing will inevitably skyrocket as the population grows. Yet cit-ies may be the solution to many of these pressures, with the ability to mitigate po-tentially harmful effects on the environ-ment. Cities provide opportunities and potential environmental benefits that are not possible outside of urban centers.

In fact, cities are arguably the “green-est” invention in the history of mankind. Their very nature enables and promotes the widespread use of public transporta-tion, which decreases emission outputs. The close proximity of residents and busi-nesses in urban areas decreases the energy needed to conduct commercial movement of goods and services, thus reducing both the environmental impact and monetary cost of products. The prevalence of apart-ment buildings and skyscrapers found in cities minimizes both the overall human footprint and use of energy. As more people move into cities in search of employment, acts of financial desperation commonly found in developing countries (poaching of threatened and endangered animals, ille-gal logging, and forest clearing for charcoal production) will become less prevalent.

Now, city planners are consciously building with environmental intentions. Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification originated as an American barometer of a building’s green cred, but is growing more popular across the world. The famed Taipei 101 skyscraper and the Seoul Finance Center in South Ko-rea were recently granted LEED certifica-tion. China, United Arab Emirates, Brazil,

Canada, India, Mexico, and Germany are the leading countries outside the US in terms of LEED certifications and registrations. Analogous certifications have been created worldwide with the BRE Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) in Eng-land, which now covers over 50 countries worldwide, the German Sustainable Build-ing Council (DGNB) in Germany, and the Comprehensive Asessment System for Built Environment Efficiency (CASBEE) in Japan, which focuses specifically on earthquake re-sistance.

However, the most important factor in creating a green city is money. Many cities cannot afford the initial payments to make green changes. Cities in Asia are facing dif-

ficulties living up to green standards due to a lack of funds. New York started saving $6 million a year after switching to energy-effi-cient traffic lights and pedestrian signals in 2005, but the city had to put down $28 mil-lion up front to create the changes. For the cities that can afford it, there is incredible po-tential for the implementation of large-scale green initiatives, such as Sydney’s Central Park development. The execution of these projects is only possible in cities with tech-nologies that are reliant on the proximity that a city like Sydney provides. Suburban and rural regions are simply not capable of sup-porting programs of such magnitude and in-clusion. Around the world, cities are begin-ning to capitalize on their ability to promote efficiency by serving large numbers of people and drastically reducing the environmental impact of urban residents.

In 2007, the government of Abu Dha-bi announced its plans to build “the most sustainable city in the world.” Masdar City, built entirely from scratch, functions only on renewable energy and emits nearly zero waste. The city draws its power from a pho-tovoltaic solar farm and the vast majority

of residents use a Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) car that runs on a zero-emission electric motor. The buildings of Masdar City are organized so that a constant, cool-ing breeze is channeled into the city. The same organization pattern allows enough natural light to illuminate the streets, but not so much that the city overheats. All of these measures aimed to decrease the envi-ronmental impact of Masdar City can only be implemented in a large-scale setting.

Other planned cities such as the Sino-Singapore collaborative venture in China, Tianjin City, are also attempting to use organization as a means of minimizing environmental impact. Tianjin aims to be the most efficient of China’s eco-cities. The

streets are lit with solar photovoltaic lights and wind turbines line the city. The gov-ernment asserts that by 2020, 90 percent of Tianjin’s residents will exclusively travel by public transportation, foot, or bicycle. However, there has been criticism that the city is not as environmentally friendly as Chinese officials claim it is. Currently the streets are paved with thin bike lanes, the wind turbines do not supply power to the city, and critics cite the recycling system—with five different categories—as too com-plicated. It seems Tianjin faces the same problem that many Asian cities are facing in becoming green—a lack of money.

In the 21st century, as the propor-tion of people residing in cities increases exponentially, harnessing the potential of urban centers will become crucial. Cities are built to implement large-scale solu-tions, and key projects such as Masdar City will serve as innovative role models for ambitious problem-solvers across the world. Projects that can fulfill these strict environmental standards and fit under cities’ tight budgets will soon be the true eco-cities. O

NEWS

Around the world, cities are beginning to capitalize on their ability to promote efficiency by serving large numbers of people and drastically reducing the environmental impact of urban residents.


NEWS

by Brett Fouss

Mass Migration China and the Urban Era

EVA STRAUSS8 TUFTS OBSERVER OCTOBER 21, 2013


Within the next 12 to 15 years, the Chinese government plans to re-locate 250 million people from the

countryside into urban areas. Within the next 30 years, 70 percent of China’s 1.3 bil-lion citizens may reside in cities. This ambi-tious relocation of people, if successful, will be the largest migration in human history. Premier Li Keqiang, who was elected ear-lier this year largely based on his expertise in economics, has spearheaded this mas-sive urbanization project. Although Li has expressed that it is pivotal to China’s eco-nomic growth, the scale of the task raises many complicated questions.

While large cities such as Shanghai, Beijing, and Guangzhou naturally attract migrant workers with hopes of greater success in an urban environment, the ur-banization plan does not necessarily in-corporate these places. Rather, the Chinese government, working on a local level with provincial governments, is striving to increase the number of moderately-sized cities across the vast country. Previously rural areas such as Qiyan, a small town in Shaanxi Province, have been outfitted with scores of concrete apartment buildings, along with roads and other forms of urban infrastruc-ture.

Currently, the Chinese economy is largely based on of export and credit to foreign nations. While domestic busi-nesses are on the rise, much of China’s economy is still dependent on the United States, EU, and Japan among other nations. The purpose of this ur-banization project is to foster and de-velop China’s already burgeoning con-sumer culture. Tuned in and plugged in, the markets and products that city folk are exposed to are much more numerous than those that villagers are exposed to. China hopes that its new urban population will stimulate local economies by purchasing electronics, appliances and utilities. Resi-dents will naturally fill their modern apart-ments with modern items.

Furthermore, the government believes that concentrated urban populations will attract businesses to these areas. Already, both domestic and foreign firms flock to cities such as Shanghai and Guangzhou, looking to capitalize both on China’s work-

force and market. Dispersing firms across the country, according to Li, will create boundless new job opportunities.

Farmers in these transformed areas are moved to apartment living; the govern-ment offers them a subsidy for their new home, as well as a loan to help cover other costs. But this subsidy is rarely enough as many residents are left unemployed and without benefits following the move. It is clear that the government must put more effort into ensuring the quality of life of the new urban dwellers post-relocation. Many people have also reported difficulty finding jobs; while these urban areas have the potential to attract jobs, it is clear that it may take a while. Many critics have also expressed fiscal concerns; many prefecture level governments may fall into debt as a result of these ambitious building projects.

In order for the plan to be success-ful, it is clear that Li and those involved

in this effort must address the concerns of their critics. According to the China Daily, Li has met with 10 of his closest advisors and experts regarding smoothing out the urbanization effort. Li has stated that he intends to be “active and orderly in push-ing the process forward.” The National De-velopment and Reform Commission is due to present a fleshed out urbanization plan later this year.

China has seen much change since the twentieth century, perhaps more change than any other country in the world. Dur-ing the Great Leap Forward and the Cul-tural Revolution, Mao instigated a massive

ideological movement centered around the relocation of the population to the coun-tryside. The growth of a rural population, Mao believed, would help bolster China’s agricultural and industrial output, thereby making China more self-sufficient and centralized.

The induction of more moderate pol-icy into the government let China become deeply integrated into the globalized econ-omy. Largely thanks to its massive popula-tion, China has experienced GDP growth of 7–15% per year since the 1980’s. Since 1990, the urban population has doubled; Shanghai’s population has increased from 7 to 19 million, while Beijing’s has increased from 6 to 17 million. Since Mao’s time, de-velopment and progress has clearly shifted away from the countryside and into urban areas.

I grew up in China: between the northern Beijing and the southern Guang-

zhou. Throughout my time there, I witnessed much change and in a way, China was growing up as I was. When I arrived, the Chinese renminbi stood at 13 to the dollar; when I left, it hovered around 6.5. I saw the entire population of Beijing mobilize for the Olympics, and likewise, the population of Guang-zhou for the Asian Games. Modern, ur-ban, Chinese culture is an astounding phenomenon; the lives of urban Chi-nese middle class are centered around the city. Every night, the vast shopping streets, underground malls, and night-clubs explode into life as public trains and buses ferry passengers to and fro. Public parks fill with street vendors, roller-skaters, and crowds of senior cit-

izens performing coordinated dance work-outs. On the surface, cities like Beijing and Guangzhou exude positivity and progress. Modern urban China consists of an incred-ibly intimate relationship between citizens and their city. Together they work towards an even better future.

Given the economic success of China’s established cities, it is clear why Li and the current administration value urbanization so much. Time will reveal whether or not the government will make it valuable to those who are supposed to benefit in the first place. O

NEWS

by Brett Fouss

This ambitious relocation of people, if successful, will be the largest migration

in human history.

”

“



CAMPUS

SOUND

By Jenn Oetter

OFBOSTON

ROBERT COLLINS



CAMPUS

On most weekends, there is a group of Tufts students sporting their press passes at intimate music

venues around Boston to photograph and review shows. They focus on concerts in smaller venues that are likely to add some variety to your idea of a typical night out. The blog Sound of Boston, started by Jonah Ollman and Knar Bedian, covers local art-ists and performances with witty descrip-tions and in-your-face photos from the live shows. Although it only launched earlier this semester, Sounds of Boston is taking off and giving Tufts a lesson in what not to miss in the Boston music scene.

Jonah Ollman, a senior, was already writing about music and interviewing up-and-coming artists when he received an email from a man in Denmark, the creator of the website “Sounds of Aarhus.” He en-couraged Ollman to take the idea of profil-ing a city and the authentic aspects of its musical culture and apply it to Boston. Af-ter Ollman posted on TuftsLife to recruit writers and teamed up with Knar Bedian, Sound of Boston was launched. Already on mailing lists for several bands, Ollman knew how to score a press pass for a free show and urged the new writers to contact bands they liked to see what would hap-pen. While this blog is great for its readers, the writers also have major incentive to put in the legwork. Ollman says, “I haven’t paid for a show in a year and a half. If you email these people, they are usually into what you have to say.”

What goes into this blog is a genuine appreciation for music and an interest in discovering something new, whether it’s a cool new band or a venue that keeps drawing you back. As for the future, Oll-man hopes to move from Tumblr to a dot-com set up by the end of the semester. The blog is meant to appeal to a wide au-dience, which makes it more crucial that

they draw in a wider base of support. The overarching goal is to “try to find Boston’s sounds,” so bias and personal preferences must be secondary.

Ollman elaborated on the idea of Boston’s own sound, saying: “There are so many cities that do have a sound. Boston is no smaller than Nashville with country music, or Atlanta with a strong hip-hop culture. Why isn’t Boston music more well-known? The more attention it gets, the better it’s going to be.” Artists seem to agree, showing their thanks by sharing the Sound of Boston’s articles and acknowl-edging the efforts of the writers. Ollman, who has been writing about music on his personal blog Write to the Beat for four years, thinks this exposure is the best re-ward for the new writers.

Even with the initial success the blog has achieved, there is much more in store. They plan on putting a couple of themed features in place including one focusing on collegiate bands or campus venues at the many Boston-area schools, and one that highlights worthwhile records stores in the city. Their aim is to attract a wider range of music lovers and to give a more solid foundation to the blog. In the meantime, Ollman is proud of the initiative the writers are taking and the shows they’ve been able to attend. He says, “It’s satisfying to think that I’m at that level. I still kind of feel like I shouldn’t be there next to writers for Roll-ing Stone.”

After perusing Sound of Boston, the article I was most curious about pro-filed a modern living room concert se-ries called “Sofar Sounds.” Ollman men-tioned it in our conversation, and since he was the one who attended the concert, I had a ton of questions about his experi-ence. Ollman explained the concept as a network of concerts in cities all over the world that put four acoustic sets together

for a “pop up show.” You have to sign up if you are willing to hand over your liv-ing room for a night and welcome fifty strangers into your home. If you are on the mailing list, you will get an email a couple of days before the show letting you know where it is. Ollman attended the very first Sofar Boston, hosted at an apartment in Allston. He said, “It is sur-prisingly put together and some small bands have grown from this.” The next show in November is exactly the type of new experience Sound of Boston works to support—unique, engaging, and a lot of fun.

With so many students attending Tufts from out of state, the information on Sound of Boston gives everyone creative ways to explore Boston and get to know the city’s sound even better. Ollman said, “I’m curious as to why a sound, like Seattle and its indie scene, happens in one place. Bos-ton has everything it needs: venues, young people, culture, history. Why isn’t Boston a Seattle or a Nashville?” Sound of Boston is chipping away at this question with every show it reviews and every band it uncov-ers for its audience. Maybe Boston doesn’t have a singular musical identity like many other cities across the country, but Sound of Boston is looking to find its own Boston music scene that is equally as satisfying.

I urge you to check out Sound of Boston on Tumblr and like their Face-book page. It’s no surprise that our fel-low Jumbos are at it again, expressing their creativity and sharing something they are passionate about with the people around them. This project is something new that deserves the attention it’s get-ting. Whether you are looking for some-thing fun to do in the city or you’re in-terested in getting involved in Sound of Boston’s mission, it truly is something worth looking into. O

KNAR BEDIAN OCTOBER 21, 2013 TUFTS OBSERVER 11


POETRY

You brushed the sleeve of my sweaterin the poultry section of the supermarket.I tried to catch your pupils,but they were dark holes absent of my gravity.

The north wind didn’t want the traveler’s coat, he wanted the sun’s attention. They say when you trip acid, you need a spiritual guide,but that spiritual guide’s usually high too, a balloon guiding another balloon.

I found a social psychology book misplaced in the poetry section of borders and sweated when readingthat cherub faces cultivate trust. Your cheekbones scare me.

You left aisle four andI saw those fruit loops in your basket. It made me wonder if your sperm are strong, but you look normal enough and I still have that egg in the fridge.

Maybe we can’t be anything but a stagnant thought pool. We’d keep swimming laps probing for a secret drain that wouldrelease us, dripping boredom and naked.

Exhausted by our attempts to touch.

By Emma Turner

ROBERT COLLINS

Fantasize about you please, anything


ALISON GRAHAM

the big, windy, emerald, holy

of the kings, of wine, of brotherly love

C i t y

DIRA DJAYA

VISHAKHA RAMAKRISHNAN


MIDDLE: BECCA LEIBOWITZ< VERONICA FOSTER

LEFT TO RIGHT, BOTTOM: ALEXIS O’CONNEL,RACHEL ISON, CHARLOTTE REA

LEFT TO RIGHT, TOP: VERONICA FOSTER, BECCA LEIBOWITZ, ANNIE LYE


CLOCKWISE: LILY HERZAN, VISHAKHA RAMAKRISHNAN, BECCA LEIBOWITZBACKGROUND: DIRA DJAYA


That night was something. I took off my glassesand the yellow lines blurred and ran.

NPR was on as it usually was, and the gibbous moon

was centered where I crested the hill.Foreshadowing autumn. An uncommon quiet

nestled amongst the trees by the road.The oaks seemed impossibly lush. I knew better.

But in that instant I was an animalheaving from the sea.

I was clean and good, strange and free.And then the stop sign -

the brake was right there, by the clutch,and things stood as they had before.

Perseid Meteor Shower, August 2012By Anika Ades

POETRY

Inspired by Raymond Carver

Inspired by Raymond Carver

OCTOBER 21, 2013 TUFTS OBSERVER 17KNAR BEDIAN


OPINIO

N

The author Douglas Adams once jok-ingly broke down the development of civilization into three distinct phases:

Survival, Inquiry, and Sophistication, or the How, Why, and Where phases. Each phase could be summed up in the form of a question. In his words, “the first phase is characterized by the question, ‘How can we eat?’ The second by the question, ‘Why do we eat?’ And the third by the question, ‘Where shall we do lunch?’”

Luckily, we live in a civilization ad-vanced enough that when we ask that crucial third question, the answer can be found in our pockets. Mobile applications like Yelp, Urban Spoon, and TripAdvisor can tell us which restaurants or attrac-tions are nearby, give a star rating based on other users’ feedback, and then direct us via GPS to whichever ones we choose. That social aspect to Yelp and Yelp-alikes is part of their key appeal: the entire process of restaurant reviewing is democratized. With apologies to Douglas Adams, these applications may usher in a fourth age, characterized by the question, “Where is everyone else doing lunch?”

That fundamental issue of food and where to get it has always been central to city life. The very first cities were founded when agriculture advanced to the point at which surpluses were regularly available. This meant that a population could reli-

ably produce more food than rural citizens needed to survive, and that extra food could be brought into cities in exchange for trade goods produced by the city-dwellers. The city grows large and powerful, the art-ists and traders flourish, and, if all goes as planned, the city becomes one that every middle-schooler now learns about in his-tory class.

Unlike in Babylonia, today’s ques-tions surrounding food aren’t so much about eating or not eating. The mod-ern city-dweller is more concerned with what type of food they will be eating, how good it is, and the environment in which it’s consumed—the “where shall we do lunch”-type questions. Do you want Mex-ican food? Well then, do you want a bur-rito, served hot through the window of a food truck, a veritable food baby, delicious in that particular way of all street food? If food on a plate is more your speed, how about the casual Mexican place down the street, or perhaps even the high-end es-tablishment a few blocks over?

This process is, of course, repeatable for any style of cuisine you could possible desire, and, in a large city, the array of op-tions grows truly staggering. This is where the apps come in. Because I use Yelp most often, that’s what I’ll refer to, but the dif-ferences between Yelp and Yelp-alikes are negligible enough to make most of what

I’m saying translatable to other similar apps.

Yelp is designed to sort out the prob-lem of the availability of eating options getting in the way of actually eating. This is related to “choice paralysis,” a phenom-enon that may affect your life, for example, when an everyday grocery trip is inter-rupted by a decision between fifteen avail-able varieties of milk.

Choice paralysis refers to how the taxing effect of your over-analysis in what you expect to be a simple choice can lead to you make an irrational decision—say, choosing 2% with extra calcium before re-alizing, as you leave the store, that non-fat really would have been the better choice. Swap the grocery store for the city, the 2% for disappointing pizza, the forsaken non-fat for tantalizing Indian food, and you can see how choice paralysis comes into play when deciding on lunch.

Yelp sidesteps this experience in two ways: first, it only displays restaurants near you or within a pre-determined search area on a map, with star ratings based on the im-pressions of other Yelp users. Second, you can set specific search criteria; searching “Mexican” will bring up every establish-ment in the search area that serves Mexi-can food or some variation thereof. This initial map screen allows you to quickly rule out options based on distance and the

YELP & THE CITY

CREATIVE COMMONS


OPINION

all-important star rating. Yelp even has a color-coding system, with higher-rated restaurants displaying fiery red stars, and disappointing eateries displaying pale, tepid yellow stars. Prominent critics or official dining guides do not assign these star rat-ings—the rating you see on the map is the average of user reviews for the restaurant. Clicking on a potential restaurant takes you to more detailed information: price range, opening hours, other miscellaneous data, and, below that, the individual reviews. Even these little islands of individuality are summed up in a nice bar graph, rendering the results more quantitative.

That’s the hitch, though, at least for me: that idea that Yelp makes the ur-ban experience more quantitative. Going out to lunch doesn’t necessarily have to be some great adventure, and in fact, I’d prefer lunch not to be, most of the time. However, having statistics attached to my eating experience doesn’t quite mesh with the weird and wonderful hunter-gatherer notion of going out into the city and track-ing down the ideal meal.

There is something romantic about the idea of that meal being out there some-where, waiting for me to find it. With the perfect combination of luck and tenacity, I can sniff it out—perhaps literally—and achieve that perfect metropolitan food experience. Getting lunch probably won’t

be an adventure. But as much as the city is about food and where to get it, it’s also about the unexpected possibilities we en-counter on the way to food.

Of course, I have to reconcile this resis-tance with the fact that Yelp can be amaz-ingly helpful. Quantification of the urban experience isn’t pleasant for me, but being able to find what I want is. Most important-ly, there’s a promise with Yelp that one day, a restaurant will make me mad enough to want to write a scathing review, and I will be able to show that review to the world.

As more people start writing Yelp reviews, the amazing potential of the site will be realized. Now that every diner has the capacity to be an incognito reviewer, the sitcom cliché of the food critic visiting a restaurant in disguise while the hapless owner struts and frets may take on a ring of truth. This renders restaurants fully ac-countable at all times for the dining expe-rience they provide for their customers.

Of course, there are issues with this kind of anonymity: in September, CNN Money reported that many Yelp reviews masquerading as honest opinions have later turned out to be fabricated by writ-ers for pay. Despite the obstacle of false reviews, the fact remains that the fate of many restaurants can rest in the hands of the ordinary customer. Every slow kitchen, rude manager, or dirty plate can and will

be forced to undergo public scrutiny. Or, at least, the scrutiny of Yelp users.

I happily admit that I’m one of those Yelpers. And I’m not going to pretend I’ve struck a perfect balance of Yelp-like tech-nology and trusting my own luck to find quality food in big cities. There have been times when I’ve just wandered until my lunch dilemma was solved without a need to consult my phone, and at other times, Yelp is my crutch.

Yelp has proven most valuable when it categorizes my dining options based on price, or the availability of table service, or even other users’ feedback. Yelp keeps reel-ing me back in because of the way it sim-plifies the chaos of the city just enough for me to step in and make my own choices. It averts choice paralysis without averting choice itself. It resolves an unappetizing mess into an inviting mystery.

Yelp is useful in its empowerment of diners, demanding greater accountability on the part of eateries. Yelp is worthwhile when it allows me to see the unseen, by tell-ing me: “Hey, there’s another pretty good place around the corner.” Yelp is essential when it gives me information that is vague enough to be full of promise, but specific enough to get me back out into the city, back into that hunter-gatherer mindset, back out answering that final, critical essential ques-tion of where exactly we shall do lunch. O

The Quintessential Search for Lunchin the Modern AgeBY JAMIE MOORE

NO COUNTRY FOR THE VOICELESS

“At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom.”

The words of India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, on the dawn of India’s birth and her triumphant independence from the tyrannous British rule, now drift through the sands of time as feeble re-minders of the country India once strived to be. Today, it seems as if the dream of a democratic India has been sleeping all this while. The powerless in this nation are suppressed by a regime more debilitating than the British Empire—one of extreme corruption, misogyny, and crippling apa-thy. Above all, this oppression comes not by the hands of a colonial establishment, but rather from the very people that India has elected as representatives.

Because these elected officials are not standing up for their constituencies’ inter-ests, Indian democracy has grown increas-ingly dissonant from its people. The public’s discontentment with its governing class has spilled over as protests over two main issues: economic inequity and gender inequality. In both these cases there are pervasive cul-tural problems a culture of corruption and a rape culture. To begin solving these seem-ingly hopeless problems, India will have to reach deep into its roots and retrieve the promise of democracy.

At the core of popular discontent is the drastic slowing of India’s economic growth in the past few years, which is at a decade-low of 5 percent partially due to fu-tile government policies. The debt-to-GDP ratio has been increasing at a frightening rate and India’s fiscal policy has been inef-fectively managed, leading to exponential-ly accelerating inflation rates. The people who represent the people, however, have distanced themselves from the economic drama playing onstage—Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has spent the last two years publicly underplaying the gravity of the situation, while the Parliament has only sought stopgap solutions instead of addressing the roots of economic crises.

For example, amidst the crisis, the government passed an ordinance approv-ing a National Food Security Bill. The bill organizes an ambitious food aid program that will benefit two-thirds of the Indian population; once ratified by the Parlia-ment, it will entitle 800 million Indians to food grain subsidies. The opposition has denounced its high cost ($22 billion per year), while others have criticized its lack of ambition in addressing the root causes of hunger, and the ineffectiveness of and extensive corruption linked to most social redistribution in India. Several economists stressed that the distribution of grain food

nation-wide could threaten farmers’ in-come in the long run.

Politically, it seems evident that the food bill is a short-term attempt to shore up votes from the poorer classes ahead of in the 2014 national elections. As he left his position, former Reserve Bank of India head Duvvuri Subbarao captured the gov-ernment’s failure to address the problem: “Does history repeat itself,” he asked, “as if we learn nothing from one crisis to an-other?”

The roots of this economic crisis among India’s other past issues lie in a culture of corruption that has not only en-dured, but has even thrived throughout In-dian democracy. Paying bribes for the most basic services is commonplace in daily life in India—recent studies show that more than 47 percent of Indians have resorted to bribes and under-the-table influence to get through public offices. But while petty bribes have been routine throughout India’s history, corruption seems to have recently reached unprecedented levels. Mega scams involving billions of dollars are becoming mundane news headlines—the biggest of which,a scandal surrounding allocation of coal mining rights in 2012, involved top government officials, includ-ing cabinet members and even the Prime Minister himself.

NO COUNTRY FOR THE VOICELESS

BY SHOBHITA NARAIN

OPINIO

N

THEN: INTERNATIONAL RIVERS, CC NOW: RAMESH_LALWANI, CC OCTOBER 21, 2013 TUFTS OBSERVER 2120 TUFTS OBSERVER OCTOBER 21, 2013

OPINIONMiddle-class anger has periodically

erupted against this obscenely venal po-litical class that guards its privileges and bonuses. In recent years, it has sometimes even appeared to solidify briefly into mass political rebellions. First, Baba Ramdev, a yoga practitioner, enlisted tens of thou-sands to his anti-corruption movement. He was followed by Anna Hazare, a quasi-Gandhian activist, who managed to attract an eclectic crowd of celebrities, industri-alists, students, and urban yuppies to the cause. Both of these mass demonstrations were widely greeted as the herald of a po-litically awakened and empowered middle class, but came to little fruition.

In these cases and others, the govern-ment tried to suppress the voice of the peo-ple, even unleashing the police on Ramdev and his followers’ rallies in New Delhi. It was similarly ruthless with Hazare, ex-ploiting the divisions between the middle and lower classes that are affected by its corruption. For example, a study from the Center for Media Studies showed that the poorest in India face the most acute con-sequences of corruption as they are forced to pay exorbitant sums for basic ameni-ties such as electricity and clean water, but many in the middle class failed to recog-nize that corruption affects all but those at the very top. With the middle and lower classes unable to stand united, the pro-tests fell apart. Despite the initial promise of these mass anti-corruption protests, it seems the populace has little to look for-ward to, apart from the periodic rise and fall of ineffectual agitators such as Hazare and Ramdev.

In addition to growing discontent over economic inequity, mass protests have also mobilized against rape culture in India. A week after the nation’s Indepen-dence Day celebrations on August 15 this year, the country was slapped in the face with the news of yet another brutal gang rape of a female photojournalist in Mum-bai, India’s financial hub. After the death of the Delhi gang rape victim on Decem-ber 29, 2012, the people of India, or rather masses of middle and lower class citizens, spent long days protesting the ineffective judicial system, fighting for legal reforms in hopes of deterring sexual predators from repeating such heinous crimes. This time around, the rape almost appeared as

a perverse irony of the state of India’s pow-erlessness, in the country’s most powerful cities. It happened in an abandoned mill in Mahalaxmi—an upscale area lined with skyscrapers and glittering malls, where the richest of India’s rich reside, juxtaposed with Mumbai’s infamous, squalid slums. In an extra dose of irony, Mahalaxmi is the name of the Hindu goddess of wealth and prosperity. Against this setting, a middle class woman, chasing her aspirations and finding her place in a city and democracy that were supposed to foster the dreams of a diligent working class, was brutally vic-timized. The very people who drive the growth of the Indian economy, the deter-mined working class, are being targeted

again and again, right under the noses of the affluent and privileged.

It is truly lamentable that the head of the ruling Congress Party, Sonia Gandhi, has not personally taken up the cause of acute gender disparity and rape culture in India. For almost 18 years, moves to give women greater power at the national and state level through the Women’s Res-ervation Bill, which would guarantee 33 percent of seats to women at those levels, have been blocked by legislators, who are typically elderly men who rely on the sup-port of rural communities where deep-rooted patriarchal attitudes continue to persist. Some political parties have even allowed male legislators who themselves have faced rape charges and other crimes against women to represent them, as gender rights activists have consistently

pointed out. Time and time again, India’s politicians are turning a deaf ear to the voices of their people.

“I thought we lived in the world’s big-gest democracy where our voices counted and meant something. Politicians need to see that we need more than bijli, sadak, paani (power, roads, water),” Preeti Joshi, a 21-year-old social sciences student in Del-hi, told Reuters reporters in January 2013.

As the country drowns in a turbu-lent sea of hopelessness and resentment, the only way to bounce back is to rebuild the democratic ideals from India’s found-ing, and to empower the urban middle and lower classes of Indian society. In order to incentivize politicians to deliver on their promises to their electorate, the country needs an independent agency that will keep track of the positions, campaign pledges, and eventual delivery during offi-cials’ terms in power. At the deeper core of India’s disillusionment is its class of elected representatives, who act as a hostile, self-interested elite.

To combat this political elitism, India needs to change both its politi-cal culture and who its politicians are. If India’s youth are more involved long-term in political movements, as they al-ready have been in the anti-corruption and anti-rape campaigns, we can instill a sense of responsibility and activism in future generations. Large-scale educa-tion programs must promote democratic engagement among the youth and dispel the traditional notion of the political class being open only to a gang of apathetic, conservative fogies out-of-touch with In-dia’s modern needs as a nation. Women must also be encouraged to enter politics and become instrumental voices in the process of shaping the future of the young girls who are slowly navigating through a male-dominated workforce and educa-tion system, and realize their true role in sparking change within their own com-munities. The only way for the marginal-ized to hold the government accountable to them is to themselves become a new and more democratic government.

In the same speech that Nehru gave at the dawn of India’s independence, he add-ed, “A moment comes… when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance.” That time has come. O

To begin solving these seemingly

hopeless problems, India will have to

reach deep into its roots and retrieve

the promise of democracy.


“A rt in the Streets,” an exhibit re-cently featured in the Mu-seum of Contemporary Art

in Los Angeles, was one of the first major artistic surveys of graffiti and murals in the United States. Art lovers praised the bright, colorful, and obscure work from the streets. However, some critics, such as those who opposed the exhibit traveling to the Brooklyn Museum, felt that the display encouraged vandalism. While the com-munity that visits high-end art museums (and thus would be exposed to the exhibit’s message) is unlikely to overlap much with the community most likely to commit acts of vandalism, the issue is still impor-tant to consider. Ultimately, the “Art in the Streets” exhibit did not end up traveling to the Brooklyn Museum, and the cancellation was explained by financial hardships on the museum’s end. Despite this, in the world of graffiti, political pressures must always be taken into account.

Property makes for a very controversial canvas. A street artist rarely produces com-missioned work, so the resulting artwork is bound to affect the property owner’s life, whether she likes the piece or not. There’s a reason why graffiti is illegal; taxpayers have the right to keeping their property free of defacement.

However, one could argue that street art is not defacement, but in fact an aes-thetic enhancement of property. Street artists emphasize the difference between graffiti and street art, pointing out the stark contrast between gang members tagging to mark territory, and actual artwork on the street. While there may be a definitive way to tell the difference between careless tag-ging and a meaningful mural that makes a poignant socio-political statement, there is a point where the viewer of the work must determine the distinction between “good” graffiti and “bad” graffiti.

Graffiti opponents argue that be-cause aesthetic tastes vary, the property owner and the public should have a say in which art is posted on its walls. So is street art a form of vandalism or does its value as a progressive art movement hold precedence over its illegality? In order to answer this question, it’s key to consider whether or not the valuable aspects of street art can be expressed through any other form of art. Concerns about street art’s effect on property owners are justi-fied, but more formal exhibits and com-

Paintingthe Town

CULTURE


By Anastasiya Lobacheva

JULES ANTONIO, CC

The Controversy Over Street Art

CULTURE


munity outreach efforts could hold the key to compromise. Street art’s unique-ness earns it a legitimate place in the art world, controversy and all.

Street art’s distinction comes in its connection with the audience. Through this connection, it establishes a constant public dialogue. The “gallery” of street art is the setting of everyday life. Street art is especially powerful in poorer communities that may not have the time or financial re-sources to visit a galleries or art exhibitions. The form also enables a diversity of artists: a street artist does not need to attend art school or exercise networking skills in order to showcase her work. In this way, street art expands the audience for all art.

Street artists can play with space much more than other artists are able to. Murals and graffiti are in constant artis-tic conversation with their physical loca-tions. For example, an underground ex-hibition that opened this past summer in New York drew from over 100 street art-ists in an abandoned subway tunnel. This exhibition explored the idea of art in its own right, hidden from the rest of the art world. Famous street artists such as Ban-sky, Shepard Fairey, and JR have shown that the implications of space in street art lend themselves well to socio-political commentary. These spaces are frequented every day by a wide variety of people, helping to spread the political message, and reminding the people of their own power to initiate change.

However the question of infringement of community rights still lingers, regard-less of the important value of street art as a form of expression. There are ways to rec-oncile this problem. More formal exhibi-tions of street art, like “Art in the Streets,” could educate the community about the value of street art as an artistic medium,

while inspiring artists to create pieces that are more significant than territory markers.

That being said, while street art exhibi-tions may help to alleviate the problem of property rights violations, they take away some of the valuable aspects of art. Namely, the accessibility of artwork, and the loca-tion in an open, public space. Community outreach efforts, such as the annual Liv-ing Walls conference in Atlanta, designed to positively change the urban landscape of Atlanta while engaging the community in positive dialogue, seem to exemplify a healthy symbiotic relationship between the community and the street artist.

Though community outreach efforts could be the start of a healthy compro-mise between street artists and the pub-lic, these efforts also detract from the original message of street art. Street art is not valuable in spite of its illegality, but rather because of it. The fact that street art is illegal highlights the elements of it that remind us what art is in its funda-mental form. In movements stemming from impressionism to surrealism, the principal driving force of art has always been rebellion and departure from social convention. There is no better way to depart from the formal social constraint of law than to break it. The illegality of street art also reminds its audience that the purpose of art is not simply decora-tive. More often than not, art is meant to make people feel uncomfortable and question their surroundings. Street art shouts at you, jeers at you, and makes you look at it without consent. It is this state of generative uneasiness that street art produces that reminds us that what we feel, and not the aesthetic nature of what we look at, is most important in ap-preciating artwork.

The value of street art and the right of street artists to encroach on others’ prop-erty will always be hotly contested. How-ever, street art occupies a certain niche in the art world that would be difficult to fill with any other form of expression. If we question the value of street art we must also question the value of art in general—an issue that cannot be settled with a prop-erty dispute. Controversy and street art go hand in hand because of this perpetual reassessment of the value of art. This con-troversy may hinder art’s proliferation, but at the same time, it will always drive its progress. O

Street art is not valuable

in spite of its illegality, but rather

because of it.

ARTS

the stakesof space

G ravity, the new film by Alfonso Cuarón of Harry Potter and Children of Men fame, is one of the most terrifying movies in recent memory. This is

mostly due to the impenetrability and all-encompass-ing quality of the foe—Space. Somehow, dying alone drifting through nothingness is scarier than an insane being or creature could be. What has earned Gravity’s universal appraisal is Cuarón’s ability to manipulate the universal fear of helplessness. We like thinking we have power and agency to protect ourselves, but it’s hard to be anything but humbled in the vast nothingness of Space. While Cuarón capitalizes on a normal viewer’s fear of the dark side of space, entrepreneurs such as Elon Musk and Richard Branson have a different vision, explor-ing the possibility of “Space Cities” in the future. These bold plans for colonization serve to counteract our fear of helplessness, humbling Space in spite of its terrifying depiction in Cuarón’s Gravity.

Cuarón exploits the terror of space, forcing us to sacrifice our normal role as viewers and experience this harrowing journey with Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock). Despite the suffocating tension within much of the film, it cannot help but be beautiful. The space setting allows Cuarón to play with light and angles in unconventional ways, producing gorgeous shots of Earth, the Auro-ra, and the stars. Earth serves as a constant backdrop throughout the film and we see the Aurora from above as opposed to the below. Both Bullock’s and Clooney’s characters drift up or into the cosmos, centered against a view of the stars without light pollution. Poetic, slow, and peaceful shots are juxtaposed with the franticness and violence that is central to the entire movie.

Cuarón has perfected the use of single shots, never cutting away from the action and, subsequently, never giving us a chance to breathe. Particularly breathtaking is the opening scene; satellite debris rips through the Hubble telescope as Bullock is sent spinning around on what seems to be a tilt-a-whirl from hell. The mu-sic has a hint of the fear-inducing strings of a horror movie, producing an overwhelming sense of dread in the viewer. The pacing of the film is tight and danger springs out at any moment we feel safe. Sudden transi-tions of coming dread—rather than the “gotcha” mo-ments of horror films—puts us right back where we belong: on the edge of our seat. By mixing both the beautiful and the terrifying, Cuarón acknowledges how Space is full of serene awe in its cold and unsym-pathetic power.

Despite how daunting and overwhelming Space may seem, there is still a desire among some to explore beyond our little blue planet. Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic and Elon Musk’s SpaceX both have long-term missions of sending people to colonize space. Some 500 people across the globe, all presumably part of the 1 percent, have signed up to become private astronauts with Virgin Galactic. SpaceX deems it necessary for the human race to colonize space because eventually Earth will be uninhabitable. Where Cuarón uses the infinity of space for terror, these companies use the same infinity as an appeal for excursion. It’s laughing in the face of dan-ger. They take Cuarón’s pairing of terror and beauty and use it to show why it is worth it to explore, rather than to just survive. Only time will tell if humanity can summon the courage to conquer the vast nothingness of Space. O


ERIC SHAW

GRIFFIN QUASEBARTH

We like thinking we have power and agency to protect ourselves, but in the vast nothingness of Space, it’s hard to be anything but humbled.

ARTS



FEATURE

OFFCAMPUS

Picture this: it’s a busy autumn evening in Davis Square. Com-muters, families, and college

students lounge on park benches and enjoy pumpkin ice cream. It’s an aver-age night in Somerville’s heart with the exception of one new addition: a full-sized piano.

“Play me, I’m Yours” is an art in-stallation orchestrated by Luke Jerram, a British artist, who has brought this project to many urban areas across the globe. Jerram was inspired to conduct a public installation that would bring strangers together who share the same urban space after noticing how little neighbors interacted at his local laun-

dromat. “I saw the same people there each weekend and yet no one talked to one another. I suddenly realized that within a city, there must be hundreds of these invisible communities, regularly spending time with one another in si-lence. Placing a piano into the space was my solution to this problem, acting as a catalyst for conversation and changing the dynamics of a space,” he said.

Since its inception in 2008, the liv-ing art “street pianos” have reached over 30 cities worldwide. In the past, major urban areas such as Barcelona and Syd-ney have housed Jerram’s innovative project. As of September 2013, Boston has been captivated by its melodic pres-

ence. Regularly-maintained, functional pianos have been placed in outdoor lo-cations for anyone to use. From antique photos to graffiti-style graphics, each piano sports a unique visual experience for players and listeners alike. The only design that each instrument shares is the bold text: “Play Me, I’m Yours.”

These words call out to those who pass by. There is something incred-ibly magnetic about an instrument that, figuratively speaking, has no strings at-tached. Many people cannot spare the time, space, or money to own a piano, but will immediately take a second out of their schedule to sit down and let their creative intuition take hold. These

PIANO sQUARE• by Sophia Grogan •


FEATURE

OFFCAMPUS

pianos can belong to anyone, regardless of the range of personalities who end up sitting down on the bench.

If you sit by the Davis Square piano on a busy day for at least ten minutes, you can experience a show of wildly varying characters and styles. The pia-no’s bright blue paint and funky shapes set an inviting and lighthearted mood. The opening act might be a toddler’s chaotic interpretation of a song, while the next instrumentalist might deliver a complex Bach composition. The levels of experience vary from first-timers to professionals with decades of classical training, and everywhere in between.

“Concert pianists don’t get to play out on the streets,” says Patricia Abreu, an experienced pianist who lives in Somerville. “I really enjoyed this be-cause I got to collaborate with other mu-sicians and play classical music, which is generally not performed outside like this.”

The “Play Me, I’m Yours” project has undoubtedly allowed Ms. Abreu and others to leave their comfort zones and expand their musical horizons. In a

world that often puts a price on music, impromptu entertainment at no cost is a wonderful surprise.

Although the street pianos were removed from Boston on October 14th, it seems as though they have left a lasting impression on all of the loca-tions to which they were assigned.

“It’s really amazing how many people are musicians,” says Valentin Prince, a local guitarist, as he plays a gentle blues riff on a piano in Har-vard Square. “These unsuspecting and ordinary people will sit down and produce something beautiful for the entire community. Although it is an international project, it really feels like it was created just for us. In this moment we are all musicians and we are all listeners.”

The street piano installation cre-ates an unmistakable bond among Bostonians. It manifests in the gath-ering of banjo and harmonica players who circle around the piano. It is ap-parent in the way that strangers clap for one another at the end of each performance and the massive Jour-ney sing-a-longs that break out every weekend. In a society where it is easy to become isolated and consumed by technology or work, the “Play Me, I’m Yours” pianos remind us of the unify-ing power of music in our shared ur-ban space. O

PIANO sQUARE Ordinary people

will sit down and produce something beautiful for the entire community...

In this moment we are all musicians and we are all

listeners.

ROBERT COLLINS


EXTRASPOLICE BLOTTER

Officers were called to a residence on Boston Ave and were met by three Medford police officers. Medford of-ficers reported a Tufts student had taken a cab from Cambridge back to her residence. The student told the cabby that she was just going to run across the street to “pick up some pizza” from Pizza Days. Fresh pizza in hand, she proceeded to sprint into her house. The cabby waited 30 minutes before calling the police. Knocking on the door, the police discovered the girl and her pizza were nowhere to be found. The student’s roommates were contacted and kindly collected funds to pay the poor cab driver.

TUPD received a call from confused students reporting a person with a head injury at Carmichael Hall. It turns out the intoxicated student somehow tripped and hit his head. He was sent to Lawrence Memorial Hospital. At 10:40 am, officers received a call that the student left the hospital before he was cleared, IV still in his arm. Officers later found the student on College Ave and transported him back to the hos-pital. Despite the head injury, he still had the mind to try and hide the IV in his pocket and continue with his night.

Cops were called to South Hall to deal with a heavily intoxicated male. The cops first asked him what day it was. He said Sunday. It was Saturday. The next question was if he knew where he was. He said the football game. He was in South Hall. The third was how much he drank. He answered “tequila.” The police were unsatisfied with his answers. He was sent to the hospital.

September 27,1:47 am Tequila

TwistedPizza Days Charade

The Great Escape

September 29, 12:40 am

October 12, 8:24 pm

By Aaron Langerman and Moira Lavelle

Observer Cartoon Caption Contest Winner: “Hey lady you got the time? I don’t because I don’t have a watch because I have no where to keep a watch. You see, I’m just a head I have no body if I had a body with arms I could put a watch on one of them even a phone could tell me the time but I have nowhere to keep a phone because I don’t have pockets because I don’t have pants because I don’t have legs, I’m just a head. O.K.?” - Jimmy Bonish



ALEXIS O’CONNEL

TUFTS OBSERVER

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fall 2013 - issue 3

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