Week SevenFall 29. Oct. 09

SectionsA. Inside the BubbleB. Outside of the BubbleC. Op-EdD. EventsF. Human Ecology EssaysG. Arts & Literature

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Ghost Tales From The Village

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John enJoys seCluded hike. Meanwhile,

News in Brief with Sasha ParisWorld peace emanated from Deering during Monday night’s poetry slam. Judging by Tuesday’s NPR headlines, it didn’t last long.

COA’s resident whale huggers were away for the week, leaving their friends to weep, wail, and (in some cases) drown our sorrows in Monty Python.

The Improv Club has been revived!

Next term, Phil Kunhardt IV will teach courses on Dungeons and Drag-ons, Pokémon biology, and performing Tolkien Ensemble songs.

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Alumna Wins United NationsAward-Donna Gold

“Every day I want you to wake up and know that you work for 6.7 billion real people, one person at a time. People with children, and dreams, and stories.”

With this moving message to world leaders, narrated over portraits shot in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, College of the Atlantic 2001 graduate Emily Troutman’s video became one of five winners of the United Nations’ international “Citizen Ambassadors” contest.

Launched in September to coincide with the start of the General Debate segment of the General Assembly, the campaign invited world citizens—youth in particular—to voice their opinions to heads of states by creating a video answer to the question: “If you had the opportunity to speak to world leaders, what would you say?”

Troutman’s response was to ask the leaders to consider each one of 6.7 billion people—one person at a time. A documentary artist, Troutman says that when she heard about the project she sat down and began writing, trying to discover for herself what was most important. “I found myself writing about how we can connect more with peo-ple and with ourselves as individuals, acknowledging our own dreams and passions and through that engage and transform.”

At COA Troutman studied literature, photography and performing arts. She later took a master’s degree in pub-lic policy at the University of Minnesota. COA, she says, gave her the sense that, “the answer can be a question,” as well as the importance of openness and what she calls “open space” in one’s thinking. Troutman was raised in Catonsville, MD.

Troutman’s approach combines words with still images in a powerful, rhythmic fashion, compelling viewers to think anew about what they are seeing. Her UN video comes on the heels of a popular creation timed to the inauguration of President Obama, and another after a month’s visit to the Congo. In that, she details the metrics of pain of a country in which 20 percent of the children do not reach age 5—and also offers metrics of hope: images of indi-viduals learning to read.

Her message to world leaders was chosen from more than 400 videos. The other winners were Maricarmen Ortega of Mexico, Kirsty Matthews of Canada, Breno Coelho of Brazil and Jeremy Walker of Canada. All have been desig-nated UN “Citizen Ambassadors” and have been invited to visit the UN Headquarters in New York, where they will meet high-ranking officials, take a special tour of the complex, and enjoy VIP seating at the UN Day concert held in the General Assembly Hall this week.

Troutman says she was compelled to submit a video be-cause “real change is only created by hope and empathy, by strength and commitment [and] by listening to oth-ers.” Her videos can be found at http://emilytroutman.blogspot.com/.

18th Biennial Marine Mammal Conference—Sean Todd

I wanted to report on the recent trip to Quebec to attend the 18th Biennial Conference on the Biology of Marine Mammals. The Marine Mammals class, as well as many members of Allied Whale got to go this conference, so the college was extremely well represented. My thanks to Jackie Bort for her assistance in the logistics for this feat.

Kathryn Scurci, Ginger Brooks and Jackie Bort presented some of their research as posters. Laura Howes 09 and Dominique Walk 09 presented work derived from their senior projects and drew much attention from federal and state managers attending the conference. Overall, 20 pre-sentations with COA affiliation were made at the meet-ing, a very strong presence indeed. Of special note, Sherri Eldridge, a Hancock County student who has been at-tending several COA classes, received honorable mention at the “most innovative study” award for her work propos-ing morphological ties between mysticete and pachyderm (elephant) sensory perception. Her work is based on a fi-nal project she completed for the Marine Mammals and Sound class here at COA in Fall 2008.

Student travel was supported by lab fees for the class, dis-cretionary funds from the Katona Chair, as well as general support from various coffers within the college (you know who you are and we are extremely grateful!).

I wanted to especially recognize Gordon Longsworth, who worked well beyond the call of duty to help get posters printed. Gordon, the posters looked great! I also wanted to thank faculty and supervisors who released stu-dents from classes so they could attend this international event.

I will close by mentioning that MANY of my colleagues came up to me and expressed admiration that the college could be so progressive in sending students at this level to a professional conference. In reaction to the plethora of the work we presented, a particu-lar col-league who is held in VERY high esteem within the profession was quoted as saying: “how come it’s always COA that comes up with these great ideas?”.

We are on the map!! Well done to all...

How come it’s always COA that comes up with

these great ideas?”“

InsIde the BuBBle

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Soup Bowls - Arwyn Sherman

Imagine this: it’s 3:30 in the morn-ing. There I am, standing in the mid-dle of the common room holding a box of soup and contem-plating if I should have a post mid-night snack, early morning munch (or slurp I guess since it is soup). Why it is 3:30 in the morning is beside the point (you could ask my roommate who rou-tinely sees me pro-crastinate my work until the last min-ute) but what I want you to really focus on is the soup. Yes. Tomato and basil. What does soup require generally?

Bowls.

Yes. Bowls, which for some rea-son seem to have eloped all together in a massive polygamous marriage and run off to Mexico. Or someone just kidnapped them. We do have our one solitary bowl (which I was somewhat hesitant to mention since I fear its disappearance will soon follow if I reveal its existence) but it was currently in the sink full of some-thing nasty and I mean for goodness sake its 3:30 in the morning, I just finished more worksheets than humanly possible. The last thing I want to be doing is dishes. And I could go for a cup but goddammit I want a freakin bowl. Call me too traditional but I feel as though soup out of a cup is. . . . I don’t know just wrong.

I nostalgically remembered back when I first arrived and met my lovely dorm mates in our nice, clean, common room. A stack of bowls were on the shelf, enough for all of us to go around. This of course was also before there was rotting food in the fridge, a perpetually filled sink of dirty dishes, and fruit flies that think they own the place.

But I digress. Perhaps it is because of the hour or the fact I had just completed a huge load of work. Perhaps I just really wanted soup. I’m not sure but I started thinking about who could have possibly wanted more bowls. I know my common room is not the only one with this problem. Last Sunday a somewhat distraught R.A. came in searching for some bowls since his bowls had disap-peared from his kitchen as well. What is this?! I mean,

“Call me too traditional but I feel as though soup out of a cup is. . . . I don’t know just wrong. “

really, who needs eight or more bowls to begin with? Is there some sort of massive dinner going on every night that needs a ton of bowls? (If this is the case I want in). Is someone preparing for the Armageddon of kitchen cut-lery by creating a stash of stolen bowls?

And honestly, I’m tired. I’m tired of sharing a bowl when more than one person wants some ice cream. Do you know how unsanitary that is? We have all these concerns about the swine flu and yet we must contend with this lack of bowls. What do you think is going to happen? We all huddle around, most definitely sharing saliva as we dip our spoons into the same bowl. Or we just eat ice cream out of cups, which I must say is somewhat difficult. And just plain wrong for the same reasons that eating soup out of a cup is wrong.

I have another theory. Gnomes. Our very own COA has a massive gnome problem. They steal our bowls for their own purposes which I can only imagine what those may be. If this is the case I wonder why they’ve spared our spoons.

Or maybe they did decide to elope to another country. And if that is the case, if they happen to be reading this right now, I implore you all to come home. I don’t per-sonally agree with polygamous relationships but I respect others choices. I just want some soup. And my own ice cream bowl. Also, your lone friend must miss you and I’m sure he is a little angry he was left out of this ménage a trois.(or huit but lets not get too technical here).

But if someone from another dorm did in fact take all our bowls, and all of the bowls from the other sections hit by this disaster of bowlessness, I beg you to return them. They have had their fun and they want to come home now.

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Without a Curtain--An Actor’s Account of Flotsam-Gina Sabatini

Wednesday, 14 October 2009. Otter Cove, Dress Rehearsal

A raft waits across the cove, its splintering wood wet and salty, the underside streaked with the slime of bladder-wrack seaweed. Two young women stand atop a large rock overlooking the cove, the sun sinking behind them, casting elongated shadows and crystalline sun drops that melt on the water. They laugh and hug each other around the waist, sisters enjoying the fading light and gentle shiv-er the oncoming night brings.

Below them, red and yellow flags snap to attention in the chill wind, warning of approaching shadows and fated endings. Above them, light and dark interplay to tell a story of a shipwreck, an event some claim was destiny, and others, an unfortunate accident. A cello can be heard. Two women dress for their vacation on the coast. These are the happenings and actors of Flotsam, a vision of Dru Colbert’s, finally tangible.

The cold sweeps over the group, ushering them into warm cars and, eventually, the Otter Creek Hall. All is not lost in this change of location—the story of the shipwreck can still be told. As frost settles on Otter Cove, a strange artis-tic warmth will envelope those witness to the play.

Friday, 16 October 2009, Otter Creek Hall, Opening Night

Outside the wind blows and chills the bones of those waiting to enter the Otter Creek Hall, swathed in scarves and thick coats. Opening night for Flotsam contains the excited hum of any performance, with final adjustments and fine-tuning accompanying the comfortable replay of movements, lines, and sound effects. Before the show, several women clad in sailor suits sign semaphores, spell-ing out words such as “Fate,” “Destiny,” “Human” and “Nonhuman.” They, along with twins who practiced a life-saving demo, ignore passerbys and audience members as they gawk and stare out their car windows, or hesi-tantly shuffle up the sidewalk. Sailors from another time cannot see or hear future Bar Harbor-ites.

And the show begins. Between slides and shadow pup-pets, live actors and video, elaborate head-gear and sound effects, the story of a Miss Mary E. Tazewell and Mary E. Haupt and their tragic voyage off the coast of Maine comes alive. The audience is entranced by the simplicity of the victim’s lives, and then unnerved by Miss Tazewell’s last dream, as she sinks to the bottom of the ocean and becomes part of the sea.

In about an hour and a half, the viewers are transformed. Although feeling eerie and somewhat mystified, a new ap-preciation for life and safety is gained at the conclusion of the play. And although the play is about a shipwreck, it certainly brings a new meaning to life. In Flotsam, the lives of two school teachers are not forgotten and lost to the sea, and neither are the effortless joys of our own.

New Face on Campus—Jay Friedlander

Please say hello to Kate Macko, formerly Kate Caivano, the new Sustainable Business Program Administrator. Kate has a long intertwined history with COA, her father Roc Caivano was on the faculty in the early days of the college and she ran about campus when she grew up in the area.

She attended Bates College in Lewiston, Maine where she graduated in 1998 with a BA in Classical & Medieval Studies. After graduating, she returned to Mount Desert Island where she began working in her field of interest: small business building. Over the past decade, Kate has enjoyed working with a number of small businesses start-ed by COA graduates, including Lunaform, the Morning Glory Bakery and Cafe This Way.

Kate lives in Seal Harbor, with her husband (COA graduate) Ben Macko, whom she married last weekend.

Kate will be helping coordinate all aspects of the business program, including the Sustainable Enterprise Hatchery, Ashoka partnership and a myriad of other tasks. Please join me in welcoming her to COA.

Todd Little-Siebold To Speak At The Human Ecology Forum—Donna Gold

As part of the ongoing Human Ecology Forum at Col-lege of the Atlantic Todd Little-Siebold, faculty member in history, speaks on the college’s approach to education. His talk, “Human Ecology @ COA: The Problem of Plu-ralistic Orthodoxy” is at 4:10 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 3 in the McCormick Lecture Hall.

Little-Siebold’s approach is to explore the college’s phi-losophy of education by examining how a pluralistic ap-proach to knowledge enhances both teaching and learn-ing. Over the last 30 years, members of the community have taken very different approaches to the teaching of human ecology at the college. Little-Siebold has looked into many of these ideas. Based on the college’s historical archive, he will explore diverse interpretations of COA’s pedagogical and philosophical approach to education. Ul-timately, says Little-Siebold, he will highlight the neces-sary conditions for intellectual pluralism to flourish in an academic setting.

Healthy Happiness ~ It’s all in the spicesDelicious recipes that don’t take forever and aren’t hard to make (trust me!).—Donna Gold

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Not your typical split pea and ham soup. Much lighter than usual – and a bit spicy. It does require a blender and a trip to your local market for spices (you probably all know this, but it’s much cheaper to purchase spices in bulk at say A&B or the Alternative Market than packaged spices at a supermarket chain).

East African Sweet Pea Soup (This one’s for Anna and Jane)Original recipe from Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant

Serves Six

2 cups chopped onion 1 tsp minced or pressed garlic (though I probably use a tablespoon)1 tbsp vegetable oil (I use olive oil)½ tsp grated fresh peeled ginger (I love ginger and probably use a tsp at least)1 tsp salt (or just ½ a tsp, then alter to taste when it’s done)½ tsp ground black pepper1/8 tsp cayenne (cayenne is really hot, just so you know, so there’s a bite to this soup)1 tsp ground coriander seeds1 tsp ground cumin seeds¼ tsp ground cardamom (another spice I sometimes increase)1/8 tsp cloves¼ tsp cinnamon1 tsp turmeric

2 tomatoes chopped1 sweet potato, diced (I’ve made it without, and its just fine)3.5 cups water3 cus. fresh green peas (I use a pound or so of frozen)

Saute the onions and garlic gently in oil in a covered pot, stirring frequently, for 5 to 10 minutes, until the onions are just translucent. Stir in the ginger, salt and all the spices. Saute for a few minutes, stirring often. Your kitchen will smell delicious. Add the tomatoes and sweet potato. Stir well. Add 1.5 cups of water and stir to dissolve the spices and deglaze the bottom of the pot. Bring the soup to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer, covered, for 5 minutes. Add 2 cups of the peas and simmer, covered, for another 10 minutes, or until the peas and sweet potatoes are tender.

Remove the soup from the heat and add the remaining 2 cups of water. Pu-ree the soup in a blender or food processor until smooth. (The water should cool it down, but be careful blending very hot liquids.) Return to the pot, add the remaining cup of peas and gently reheat.

Op-edC1

The other day I was in town running some errands, and I was in a bad mood. It was cloudy, town was full of tourists, and I should have been home working on the mountain of homework awaiting my attention. Instead I was elbowing my way through white-shoed old folks and grumping at the high prices of waterproof notebooks. As I emerged from Sherman’s and prepared to cross the street, a man stopped me, saying “Do you live in this town?” His tone of voice indicated that he already knew the answer was “yes”. He was nondescript, maybe even a little homely, with dark hair and crooked teeth, wear-ing a dark windbreaker and carrying something, maybe a clipboard or stack of papers; my memory fails me.

I admit, I was proud to be so easily recognized as a local, but suspicious too. Strangers scare me, and everybody knows that people who stop you on the street will try to get your mon-ey or your vote or hours of your time or worse yet all three.

“Yes,” I said warily, but hastened to add “but I’m not a registered Maine voter or anything.”

“Oh no, it’s not about that at all,” he said, and proceed-ed to tell me that he was spreading the word about The Good Day. He handed me a business card on the back of which, handwritten in ballpoint pen, were the words:

“The Good Day August 15 2010”

The Good Day, he explained, was being organized by a small non-profit organization, and aimed to create a day that was, well, good. A day where people did good things, and encouraged others to do the same. They could be little things, like smiling at people, or bigger things, like work-ing for a charity or homeless shelter. “It’s not for almost a year,” he told me, “so spread the word.” That was all. No plea for money, no signature needed, nothing. Just a vision for a day, a world, in which everyone tried to be a little better. I smiled and said I liked his idea. I took the busi-ness card, put it in my wallet, and waved goodbye. I was happy, even giddy. Was this even possible? Did this just happen? The bizarreness of the scenario flummoxed me.

Part of me said cynically that he was just a delusional creeper with crackpot ideas. Get a job, freak. But another, more deeper part, suddenly resonated with renewed hope for the world. Why shouldn’t there be people who just want a good day? I was suddenly reminded of a re-oc-curring daydream from my younger days in which the world experienced a day in which no one was killed. Maybe we’ve all had it, in wistful moments: a wish for a time when bad things just stop happening. It appeared that this man was trying to make daydreams a reality.

Walking away down the sidewalk, business card in hand,

The Short But True Story of Kaija and The Good DayorDoes Altruism Really Exist?—Kaija Klauder

still somewhat in shock, I thought back to my Animal Behavior class where we had been discussing the phe-nomena of altruism. For a long time it was thought that altruism could not have evolved through the selfish mechanism of natural selection on the individual, but Hamilton and Trivers showed how when inclusive fit-ness of an organism (that is, fitness of it’s genes, which are 100% represented in itself but also to a lesser extent in its relatives) is evaluated, it is of evolutionary benefit to act altruistically in certain scenarios. Of course, it is impossible to say if what seems like a conscious decision in humans is truly the result of our beloved free will, or if it is merely a subtle component of our genetics. I certainly don’t know. But as I looked around me at the strangers passing by, I suddenly saw them not as competitors for sidewalk space and planetary resources, but people, liv-ing people with their own dreams and hopes and loves.

I read the other side of the business card, which told me that Greater Purpose was a non-profit established in 2009 and run by Neal Newton out of San Jose, California. Who was this guy? Was he for reals? I would hardly let myself believe it. There had to be a catch, a trick, a dogma. Yet I could find none in either the words on the card or the memory of his smile. And as I sat listening to a man play-ing “Here Comes the Sun” on his guitar in a courtyard, I found myself happy and light, floating, smiling at old couples holding hands. I thought to myself that Neal didn’t need to plan a whole year ahead to create a good day.

Epilogue:

I still don’t know what to make of Neal and his Good Day. Maybe he’s wasting his time. Maybe he’s crazy, a drag on society. Maybe he’s my hero. At the risk of be-ing thought a fool by the world, I think I will choose to embrace the possibility that a person can simply de-cide to try and promote good in the most direct way possible. To learn more about Neal and The Good Day (like his year long road trip to 900 cities around the country to spread the word of The Good Day), go to www.greaterpurpose.org and see what you think.

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It was a cold and stormy morning. Individual bubbles of trepidation, slowly growing in separate locations across campus, collide and congeal within the Witch Cliff semi-nar room. The little light seeping through aged windows tickles the faces of uncomfortable core course students. How should they begin this conversation on the UN Declaration on Human Rights? Can they pierce through the self-induced spume of awkwardness? Thoughts of dumbfounded silence and ending class early creep into the edges of insecure brains (fueled only at this time of day by fragmented particles of caffeine and muffins).

Suddenly, a shadowed stranger appears, followed by two smaller accomplices (the drama increases). Lo and be-hold, two fall tour students and one intimidating parent squeeze into the room, expectant faces ready to be spoon-fed a spectacular performance, a make-or-break impres-sion of classes at COA; “Don’t bore us, we want action!”. The class glances at one other with eyes popping momen-tarily out of their sockets, bonding for their last moment of dignity before jumping into what might seem like one of the longest (and most difficult) classes yet encountered.

But the discussion does not drag; no dead silences fill the room. Whether sparked by the presence of external judges, or simply by the freedom of an uninhibited, undi-rected dialogue, the discussion flourishes. It wanders from topic to topic: some thoughts only roughly related, oth-ers deeply connected, all free-flowing. Heightened aware-ness seems to come with the act of creating one’s own agenda; all function as teachers, as ears and eyes with a purpose. The class quaffs exhilarating ideas from spewing and unmuzzled brains, leaving little room for silence to settle. One visitor (spurred undoubtedly by the scrump-tious dialogue) joins in, a stabilizing and reassuring act that, by proof of engagement, something is going right.

Conversation slows with a break of silence followed by a war-cry for lunchtime; a unanimous vote for food draws the crowd to physi-cal animation and the class to an end. Lunch can replenish and refuel the empty stomachs, but expelling entangled ideas relieves some pres-sure from the collective core course cranialgia: a stimulating brain-massage en mass. The building empties its able-bodied contents onto the lawn, creaking from the weight of a freshly completed discussion. But not for long...

TO BE CONTINUED.. (next week: the REAL reason not to drink from the Witch Cliff tap [and what it has to do with another land made of water]...)

John Enjoys Secluded Hike. Meanwhile, Core Conquers Consternation—Robin Owings

“Two fall tour students and one intimidating parent squeeze into the room, expectant faces ready to be spood-fed a spectacular performance...’Don’t bore us, we want action!’ ”

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The Thrill of the Dance—Colleen Courtney

You feel sweat dripping down your face, your muscle’s burning, your heart pumping. The music beats within you, surrounding your mind, blanking out all else. Your legs and arms move of their own accord, swinging and jerking, keeping time with the throb. The group synchro-nizes, twisting and shifting in perfect tandem. We feel each other moving. We see each other jerking. We em-body the zombie. We are one with the music. Suddenly, you miss a beat. Your hand swings into a warm body, and you jerk back, apologizing profusely while trying not to giggle. Too late. The line is disrupted, and you collapse together shaking with laughter. The rest of the dancers pause, shaking their heads. Some join you on the ground, sniggering uncontrollably. We revel in our joined under-standing. Different interests, different friends, different lives. Yet this dance brings us together. This dance con-nects us in only the way shared experiences can connect you. We stand up eventually, still laughing. We reform our lines, spaced four in the back, three in the front. We wait in suspense. The music pounds out quickly and we move into the beat. Once again, we click. Once again, we don’t have words to describe what we feel as we dance. We just know. At least until the beat is broken again.

Ghost Tales from the Village—Gina Sabatini

The flies aren’t the only strange things accumulating in Milliken.

My housemates might think I’m crazy, but I am con-vinced there is a ghost in my house. No word of a lie. Just because we live in new housing doesn’t mean a poltergeist couldn’t have inhabited the building. And it’s not the spirit of Halloween that is procuring ghoul-ish images and make-believe occurrences—this is real.

It all started on a Tuesday afternoon when I returned from lunch for a much needed nap before class. In a sort of half-sleep, I listened to a scratching on the wall and the creaking of a window opening and closing, open-ing and closing. When I was fully awake, the noises had vanished, and I chalked it up to being simply a figment of my imagination. Later that night, however, I experi-enced the same noises, only they were louder and more constant. No windows were open to make the noise, no varmint was trapped in the closet, itching to get out. There was no explanation, only an unsettling feeling.

Later, I returned to my room, hoping to dispel any crazy notions of ghosts from my mind. I settled in to do some homework with a cup of hot tea on my desk. Then, out of nowhere, a picture from the top shelf of my desk fell, knocking my flashlight (which proceeds to turn on mid-fall) onto the top of the desk, which pushes my mug of tea onto the floor.

The puddle proved that I wasn’t imagining things.

A few days later, doors began to drift open on their own. Thumb tacks from the cork boards were popping out of their homes in the wall. Three mugs were smashed, one without a witness to its destruction. Who was to blame for these incidents? Surely something paranormal was occurring.

Of course, the residents of Milliken didn’t want to upset the ghost, nor did they want to assume that this ghost, charmingly nicknamed “Frederick,” was a bad ghost. We put up fake spider webs to make him feel more at home. We talked to him occasionally, when things fell off shelves or socks went missing. We personified him in the form of a pillowcase and hid the puppet-version in various locations to freak each other out. We were beginning to like Frederick. He kept things interesting.

But maybe Frederick didn’t appreciate this sort of attention. Maybe he was enjoying the fear we (or at least I) initially displayed. When things got too lighthearted, Frederick decided to remind us who is boss of all things ghoulish.

I was standing at the stove, waiting for the rice pudding I was making to finally soften up. A housemate set up his coffee maker, a little metal contraption that boils and steeps the perfect amount of coffee. It was getting hotter. And for the first time in the coffee maker’s existence, it exploded.

Hot coffee sprayed across the room, bullets of ground beans splattering the walls, cabinets, and ceiling. Bits

of coffee could be found on the top of the refrigera-tor, all over the counters, and wedged between fork tines. My own face and shirt were dotted with the outburst. There could be only one culprit: Frederick.

I’m telling you, I’m not crazy. Real, unexplained events have been occurring in Milliken, and I don’t believe they are going to quit any time soon. Come on over if you want to experience it...you’re bound to have a frightful night.

If you have any ghost stories from wherever you live, submit them to Off the Wall!

A burn pile seems an odd thing to see at a sustainably focused school, especially when one looks closer and sees furniture with one broken board or stacks of insulation that surely release chemicals if burned. It seems like a huge waste.

The items in the burn pile consist of brush that was cleared from around campus and furniture that was purchased before the school focused on sustainability. The furniture was purchased because it was the least expensive that was available in mass quantities. They are mostly laminate products covered in plastic that never really served their purpose well. Some of the ones that end up in the burn pile have been fixed three or four times and aren’t safe anymore.

Anyone is welcome to take anything they want from the burn pile. Many items are taken for art projects.

Unfortunately, the pile will keep growing because, some-times faculty and staff buy products that aren’t good qual-ity, they break easily and are unsafe to fix so they have to go to the burn pile.

In addition, not everything is taken by students and staff so eventually it needs to be rid of. Untreated wood is burned on campus usually twice a year but, painted and laminated products are packed up and hauled off to South-west Harbor EMR (Eastern Maine Recycling) where they are taken to PERK to be burned for electricity, they can’t be burned on campus in case anyone has allergies to the particulates.

It uses a lot of gas to get the loads there. Not to mention all the energy used to burn them and all the emissions from both the trucks used for transportation and those emitted at the plant.

This is done once every year, or more if someone is going in the direction of Southwest Harbor.

Millard Dority, director of Campus Planning, Buildings and Public Safety, puts a lot of thought into the purchas-ing of furniture to make sure it is manufactured with certified sustain- able lumber and that it will last for a long time, but if others keep taking it upon themselves to save the s c h o o l money by b u y i n g cheap prod-ucts, all of our beliefs on environ- mentalism and sus- tainability will be up in flames.

Burning Our Beliefs—Casey Yanos

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This has been a big week for President Obama. Last Fri-day he became this years Nobel Peace Laureate. On Sat-urday he addressed the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) to discuss Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, an inclusive Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA), The Matthew Shepard Act (hate crimes legislation), and why he really lost a lot of his “fierce advocate” status when he actually got into office.

President Obama was the second sitting president to ad-dress the HRC. In 1997 President Clinton spoke as the keynote at an HRC dinner making many similar prom-ises. Twelve years later and it’s looking like we might, finally, get federal hate crimes legislation. It’s looking like a trans-inclusive ENDA may actually pass this year. And, recently, President Obama met with Senator Joe Li-eberman to discuss a bill to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

Obama has faced a lot of criticism. Many say he’s not working fast enough; he’s not fulfilling his promises, that he is putting LGBT rights on the back burner. During his speech to the HRC he said, “I think it’s important to re-member that there is not a single issue that my administra-tion deals with on a daily basis that does not touch on the lives of the LGBT community.” This is important. This is a president finally recognizing that LGBT Americans are, you know, people? Similarly to how many people are saying he has done nothing to serve the LGBT communi-ties since he took office, many more are saying that he did not deserve the Nobel. President Obama is not perfect. But because of his leadership it looks like we might finally be getting what many of us have been working for so long to attain – equal rights and protections under federal law. Obama has been in office, at the time of writing, 267 days. We gave George W. Bush 8 years to screw up Amer-ica. Let’s give Obama at least a year before we decide he has done, and will do, nothing. On the Friday epi-sode of The Rachel Maddow show she said, in reference to Obama’s Nobel and the negative reaction against it, “The American President just won the Nobel Peace Prize. By any reasonable measure Americans should be proud”.

Obama’s Big, Gay, Peace-ful Weekend—Andrew Coate

“Let’s give Obama at least a year...”

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“THE RIVALRY” Play on Lincoln-Douglas debates—Donna Gold

In 1858 Abraham Lincoln debated Stephen Douglas in a race for the Illinois State Senate. Sounds like ancient his-tory, but those debates are an essential part of our national fabric. The issues raised by the debates are absolutely vi-brant today, one year after our presidential election. At 7:30 p.m. on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 3, College of the Atlantic presents “The Rivalry,” Norwin Corwin’s play about these debates. It will be performed in Gates Com-munity Center. There is no charge.

The play is based on the Lincoln-Douglas debates as seen through the eyes of Adele Douglas, Stephen’s young and beautiful wife. The action moves from the debates them-selves to the three characters’ relationship to each other, on and off the debate platform. The play continues into the presidency of Lincoln, and the deaths of both men.

“The Rivalry” was commissioned in 1958 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the debates. Today, staged by the Irish director Vincent Dowling, it reflects contemporary politics. Dowling is lifetime associate director of the Ab-bey Theatre in Dublin, Ireland and a former artistic direc-tor of The Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival. He has per-formed on three state occasions at the White House and won an Emmy for directing and producing “The Playboy of the Western World” on PBS. His Vincent Dowling Theatre Company, based in western Massachusetts, is de-voted to presenting the issues of these debates to modern audiences.

Boston Globe reviewer Kevin Cullen saw “The Rivalry” on Abraham Lincoln’s 200th birthday and called it a “marvelous, thought-provoking production.” Wrote Cul-len, “The acting was exquisite, the themes relevant to this day, and the setting absolutely perfect.” According to New York Post reviewer Frank Scheck, “‘The Rivalry’ is a pow-erful reminder that politics matter.”

The play is touring the region in the hopes of addressing questions about the purpose of democracy and whether it is to satisfy the desires of the majority or to achieve a just and moral public order. In 1858, these questions led to the Civil War. They are no less contentious to-day.

Wilderness First Aid Course

Wilderness First Aid is the perfect course for the outdoor enthusiast or trip leader who wants a basic level of first aid training. Taught by the renowned wilderness medicine school SOLO, this course includes Response and Assess-ment, Musculoskeletal Injuries, Environmental Emergen-cies, Survival Skills, Wound Care, and Medical Condi-tions. Meets ACA guidelines and will recertify a WFR.

The course is in Newry, Maine, and runs from 8am on Nov. 7th to 4pm on Nov. 8th,, 2009. Cost is $215 and includes lodging and meals at Mahoosuc Mountain Lodge. $10 discount for Registered Maine Guides. CPR certification is $35 and WFR recertification is $15. Con-tact Kevin or Polly to register: (207) 824-2073 or info@mahoosuc.com

HALLOWEEN NIGHTStarting at 8pm the Adam Ezra Group will be performing in Gates Auditorium Oct. 31. Free to COA community members and $10 at the door for the outside commu-nity

OCT. 31Dance PARTY. In Gates. FREE. Get Your Groove On.

10 PM. Brought To You By DJ ILL Willis.

Costumes Crucial

IN MAINE’S BEAUTIFUL MAHOOSUC MOUNTAINS!Do you know how to hAnDle An emergency in the BAck-country?

F1Arts & lIterAture

Secondhand FriendsOne of my favorite coats I bought for about eight dollarsat the Bowdoin College Give & Go

-the end-of-the-year sale where students unburden themselves of worldly posessions in preparation for the lightness

of summer.The coat is slate blue and black,Mountain Hardware brand,the fleece a little pilled,and a small burn in the left sleeve.But it fits perfectly.

I have carried it to many places:through airports and around campfires, up mountains and to the grocery store.It has been frozen, soaked with rain, splashed with saltwater, encrusted in mud, slept on, wadded up, stretched out, and occasionally washed.

And that is only half the story.

I sometimes wonder about its life before me.Who owned it? What were they like?Where did it go, with them? How did it get that burn, anyways?I like to imagine it milking yaks in Tibet,snapping a photo of the Colusseum on a cool day, sitting in the firelight, hot sparks drifting down,absorbing the smell of smoke and the notes of songs I’ve never heard.

The list of my second-hand friends goes on:Faded pants with a small rip in the knee.A gorgeous red silk dress, lightly wrinkled.A heavy woolen rough-knit thing, with a tag saying “Made in Ecuador.”

Perhaps this is why I enjoy shopping at thrift stores and yard sales,bringing home cheap treasures:Feeling the thrill, the mystery, of clothing myselfin the stories the lives of others.

G1

Stumbling down the stairwell of apartment three Roy gags, his tongue caught in the back of his itching throat. The man suffers, momentarily hunching over; one veined, waxy hand cradling his swollen guts, the other sealed against his cracked lips, blocking the sickness that was slowly work-ing its way out of his beleaguered soul. Sweat beads on the bridge of his dark eyebrows, slides down his crooked nose, dripping off its bulbous end as a woman, laden with groceries, passes by cold-faced, hugging the opposite wall. “Alone, again,” Roy posits to himself out loud, scowling. Recovering enough to move, he steps slowly from stair to stair, sides quaking in search of the bottom.

The heavy steel door creaks open under the full weight of his whittled body. The winter air freezes the beads of sweat on his forehead, chilling him to the bone before the door behind him closes with a dull thud. Delirious, Roy stares down. The crunch of snow under his booted feet alter-nates slowly, reminding his tortured mind of his failure: Of the impending doom of a fix-less, desperate night. A fix to warm his aching muscles and straighten his broken back. His eyes droop, blurring his vision, confusing his unsteady steps across the park towards apartment four.

The quarter-mile walk across the park lays interrupted by a frozen fountain. Wind-blown snowdrifts fill the near side of the fountain, depicting a nude woman holding an olive branch. Her body turned slightly, one arm extended upwards, her eyes following its line towards the ether. Roy walks conscious of the cold settling into his gut and un-aware of the numbness in his extremities. He tires with each trudge forward. Coughing black vile into his lap, he sits on the cold ground to face the windswept woman’s marble front. Sputtering from loss of hope, he folds him-self onto the icy earth.

The sense of depravity takes over Roy’s sense of longing. He no longer cares for his fix. Her white marble being absolves his fixation, warming him from the inside out. He pursues the woman’s gentle curves, cold and frozen as they are. He stares, head bobbing in a delirium produced by abandonment. Snow falls from a razor grey sky. Slow, fat crystals, held aloft by a gentle nature, that whiten the sky. His eyes droop further and further. A white light rims her hourglass figure, emblazoned by his blurred eyes. The white marble sculpture glows against the grainy backdrop of swirling flakes and brick towers. He feels her close to him, feels her magnificence, her fine sculpture: her radiant beauty. A tear runs down his pink face, freezing before reaching his chapped, swollen lips. It’s a desperate remind-er of failure: of life come and gone. He submits himself to the white glow swirling downwards. Focusing on the angel afloat above him, his mind numb to the reality of his position. He no longer remembers the pursuit of his fix. He only knows the white crystals dancing with grace among the ethereal warmth of the marble woman.

Roy lays back; numb replaced by the warm white enwrap-ping his soul. He drifts away, his fix come at last.

Low-Joseph Layden

Rip Tide-Ashley Collier

i felt myself go undersomething pulled mesucked me downand crashing above methe waves were alli could inhale

i heard the beatingof my heart inside my headheard someone screamingmy name through the commotionand when i found the surfacei felt as though i weretrying to push my headup through plywood

and when finallymy lungs were emptiedand when finallymy body ditched its shocki wondered whyi had not been afraid

swallowing bits of the lakei just kept thinkingpatience, patiencetoday is not that dayand i kept reachingfor the surfacewhere someonefound my weight

G2

-Grace Cherubino

-Robin VanDyke

G3

Today I learned how a predatory snail fluted and ridgedwill mount upon the shell of a bivalveand drill slowlythrough the opalescent shield-leaving a clean, perfectly round, countersunk hole-until it reaches the salty flesh inside,at which time it secretes a digestive enzymeand slurps out the newly madechowder.

I held such a vacated shell in my hand,admiring is sheen of midnight and pearl,perfectbut for the one simple sign of death.And I wonder:

If I looked hard enoughat people in the mall, on the train, – stealing glances at the nape of the neck, the eyes, the hands, knees, small of the back the chests exposed by the latest fashions –would I ever seea small hole through which the soul – all that is soft within us –had been eaten?Could the rasping proboscus of television advertising, and fast foodhave slowly but surely made it way throughto rob us of our essence,leaving only a beautiful emptyshell?I do not have a moral to this story.

Everything has its predatorsand methods of defence.Shells and spines, masks and rules, even poetry…

something always gets you.

I walk along the beach,among the shells and scraps of kelp,feeling my soul bright and soft within me,listening to the wide ceaseless ocean.

ShellsI did an experimenton seeds,and while my containers were out in the field theoretically attracting rodents,a small spider got in one as well,and is now desperately trying to escapethe clear plastic bowl.

Again and Again

I place a piece of grass in front of the spider, that he might grab hold and so be lifted outand released.He is so little, so delicatethat were I to pick him up between thumb and forefin-ger,no matter how I tried,I would crush him.

Again and Again

he flees from my attempts at rescue,terrified, perhaps, of this giant apparition.Finally, he climbs aboard,and as I deposit him safely on the windowsill,I wonder how much time and energyI have wasted,scrabbling against the mysterious confines of others’ ques-tions,and running the other way

Again and Again

from enormous frightening benevolentoffers of freedom?

Spider

Secretary-Ashley Collier

she’s probably going to be a saintbut sometimes it’s hard to tellwhen her time comeswe shall either have todiscover the bodies she’shidden in her basementor have her canonized

G4

-Grace Cherubino

-Robin VanDyke

The Boundaries— Abigail Dunn

G5

Someone will have heard. The man repeated this to himself because he knew he must stay conscious or else he would slide down the wall onto the ground. Someone will have. His left fingers dug into the brick, and he was sure they would break from the pressure.

He could no longer feel his right arm. He could still see it hanging, useless, next to him; but he had stopped looking. Someone will have heard. Someone must have.

His leg shook and he slid down a few inches. No.

He dug his fingers in harder, pressing them into the rough surface of the brick, willing them to hold. The brick pressed back, pushing him away, fall, it said.

No. Someone is coming; I must stay standing.

I have stood here for years and years. I will be standing here long after no one has come for you, said the brick.

The man tried to yell, Someone will come! But he only coughed, and he could taste the blood as it seeped from his mouth, where they had hit him. He could feel it running down his chin. He could smell it. His right arm would not move. Convulsively, his left hand let go of the wall to wipe his mouth. His legs shook and gave out. He fell.

The man sat against the wall. His right arm was draped at his side. One leg sprawled out in front of him; the other was curled underneath. His left hand held his side, and the blood, which looked black in the darkness, trickled out between his fingers.

He was looking up, across the alley. The side of the build-ing glittered with windows. He could see all the lamps. The bright yellow glow reached almost down to him, but not quite. Little worlds. He could see the silhouettes of the people inside. They know. They are coming. The brick only laughed.

He wondered what the dancing lights would look like against his wall. He wanted to go to the oth-er side and look. He tried to move. His body shud-dered and he slammed back against the brick.

The man watched as the lights vanished. See they’re leaving right now. They’re coming for me. Shut off the lights before you go; you must conserve electricity. Let your heart beat in half time; save the energy. Don’t drive; take the T. Take half as many breaths. Don’t take a show-er every day; it wastes water. The lights were all out.

He stared up at the black wall. Where are the stars?

He fell sideways, as the sun came up. He lay on the ground and watched the light. Don’t look directly into the sun; you’ll hurt your eyes.

But look, I can do it.

He could feel his eyelids trembling like butterflies, but there was blinding white light beyond them, so he kept them shut. Noises floated around him, loud and quiet. He was breathing, in and out, in and out. There was a stab of pain. He moaned.

Suddenly there was movement and noise all around. Things made contact with his flesh. His eyelids fluttered again. There was light and shadow moving across them. He opened his eyes. White and dark, moving shapes.

There was another stab of pain. Ah, he said convulsively. He looked toward it. Down, across his chest. There were hands on his side, moving quickly. There were white ban-dages and red blood and hands moving and moving. Ah, he said again.

Someone pressed him back. Lie down, she said.

It smelled like clear medications in plastic bags. He opened his eyes. Right across from him was a rack with plastic gloves in it, small, medium and an empty slot. Where is large?

There was a curtain, half pulled, around his bed. I’m in the hospital, he thought. Someone came.

The next time he woke up, he opened his eyes and called out, Who came? But he had to shut them as people rushed towards him.

Do you need something? A woman’s voice asked.

Who came for me? He opened his eyes.

I don’t know dear, she put her hand on his shoulder, his good shoulder. Honey, she said, what’s your name?

Jesse.

And do you have anyone you’d like us to contact?

No. There isn’t anyone.

How about family? Friends? She looked concerned. She was talking slowly, like to a child. I’m not a child. 30 is not a child.

My work, Jesse said. I work at the library. She smiled. She was pushing down harder on his shoulder.

Ok then. She left. I am not a child, Jesse thought.

•

It was raining the morning they released me from the hospital. The nurse put her arm under my bad shoulder as we walked down the steps, even though I didn’t need it. She held the um-brella over our heads, but my good shoulder got wet anyway.

She drove me home and when we got to my apartment building, my shoulder and side were aching.

Cont. on G4

G6

Do you need me to walk you upstairs? she asked.

No, thank you, I said. She nodded and left.

I took the elevator. The doors opened on my floor. I leaned out of the elevator and looked down the hall toward my apartment. I pressed the “1” and rode down again.

Outside it was still raining. I was shivering by the time I got to the end of my block. Every time I shook, my shoul-der and side throbbed.

I thought about them.

How they’d asked me what I had. Nothing. I don’t have anything.

We have a gun.

I emptied my pockets. My key. Take it.

They knocked it from my hand. We want money!

I don’t have anything. One of them hit me. I staggered. Blood on my lips. He reached for my pocket. They wanted my nothing. It was mine. I hit him.

The sound seemed to echo forever. I could hear it in my shoulder, where it hit.

I felt something dive into my side. I crashed back against the wall. I couldn’t see, but they were gone.

It was a long way to the cemetery. I could feel the rain soak through my shirt and into my skin, but I kept walking.

If you walk long enough and listen you hear a rhythm.

Nothing. It’s mine. Nothing. It was mine. I have nothing. But I have it. I have it. I have something. My nothing. But…

When I could see the cemetery gates my rhythm broke. But they took it. They took my nothing…

I glanced up at the curling, wrought iron gates as I en-tered and a stream of water poured down on my upturned face. I wove my way in between the stones, and puddles, watching the raindrops dance and ripple in the little pools.

I wandered aimlessly, further and further into the cem-etery. Almost at the very back I found a magnificent maple tree. Its branches were so thick the ground under it was almost dry. I lay down on the graves underneath it and wondered why I wasn’t in them, and what hap-pened to the tree’s roots when they ran across a coffin.

I must have stayed there all day, watching the grey clouds swirl and change and the rain pour down just outside my shelter, wondering if I would simply vanish into the soil.

Looking up, I felt for a moment, as though the world had been turned upon itself and I was looking down into the grey, storm tossed ocean of the sky. If I let go

of the grass, I would fall down, down, down into the sea of clouds. I found myself holding on because suddenly I knew I didn’t want to fall. Then it passed and I was ly-ing on the grass, looking up through the pointed leaves of the tree, as if seeing that other world through a screen.

I didn’t see them approach; I was wondering about the tree. If it could talk, how many stories it could tell. It sat on the cusp of the worlds. Deep down it was with the dead, under the earth, but then it broke the surface, and rose high, high above the living and almost touched the sky. So, they were almost to the end of the row be-fore I noticed them: a man and woman, under an um-brella, talking and glancing at me. I’m lying on the grave they want to visit. He had his arm around her and they both held the umbrella, one hand just on top of the other.

I got up and nearly fell over. My stiff limbs ached. I began to brush off the leaves but my side and shoulder wouldn’t allow it. I shook myself and started walking back between the graves.

Wait, the woman called after me. Do you need an um-brella? We have an extra.

I turned to look at her. I stood there for a long time, while she held out the umbrella to me, from under her own. I watched her sleeve get wet, and felt the rain pour down on my back. I shivered and walked over to her.

She looked at my sling, Here, she said and opened it for me.

I took the umbrella. Her hand rested on mine for a mo-ment longer.

Thanks, I said.

The woman smiled, You’re welcome.

I almost smiled too. Then, I turned and walked away.

Walking home I clutched the umbrella to my chest to keep my arm from shaking.

I was already outside my apartment door when I realized I didn’t have the key. I sat in the hall, waiting for my neigh-bors to come home, when I would ask them to borrow their phone to call the apartment manager for a new key.

I didn’t know them well. Did they notice I was gone?

I twirled the umbrella in my good hand. Perhaps I was imagining it, but I thought I could still feel the warmth of the woman’s hand. But maybe it was my own.