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VOL. 7, ISSUE 7

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WEEKLY EDITORS

LODGE LURKERS LUST FOR LIQUORApparently Lodge’s Tuesday date

party was so exclusive, even their own members couldn’t get in. The event took place at O’Malley’s in Lincoln Park, where Northwestern’s Greek elite got to mesh the yuppie regulars ... not a big stretch, we’re guessing. But before they got their chance, they found out at the door that the event was 21 plus, a big problem for kids who want to just show up and sneak their f lasks in rather than dishing real world prices for watered-down booze. As most of the brothers in attendance were underage, only about 50 people were able to go in—those with fakes, we’re going to assume. However, older bros to the rescue—reportedly, some of the Lodges paid off the bounc-ers to let everyone in, and the rest of the party was a smashing success. One ec-static freshman says she “busted a move or two and it’s safe to say it was a solid, messy event. No one was without a hangover today.” We love the de-empha-sis on academic achievement. After all, what are you going to remember more—a night of studying or a fun night out? (Neither, we guess.) Said one junior in attendance: “Lodge was hands down the best date party I’ve ever been to. I don’t know if that’s because there was Candyland on the table or if it was be-

cause I watched a (sophomore boy) go home with an ugly TriDelt.” Well, I guess not everyone can feel the love.

THE JUBILANT JEWISH JERSEY SHOREFake tans and fist-pounding galore!

Snooki would be proud—Guidos and Guidettes united at AEPi to reportedly bring more people to the house on Lin-coln than had been seen in years. The freshmen on door duty turned away a snaking line of curious guests, monitor-ing the hair-sprayed poofs crawling through the door. “Don’t fall in love at the Jersey Shore,” a twist on their an-nual Kick it with Cupid Valentine’s Day registered party, brought legions doing their best impressions of the Jersey Shore crew, and the men of AEPi per-fected the Guido look with thick Heeb chest hair f lowing over unbuttoned shirts and lathered-on lotion tans. A se-ductively-dressed Alpha Phi won the costume contest, pairing Snooki’s trade-mark poof with JWoww’s low-cut (and now patented!) shirt and signature pout, but a confused girl handed the prize ($15 to Starbucks) off to the wrong girl and waved off the correction. “Doesn’t matter,” he said in his best Jersey ac-cent. He may have well been wearing sunglasses at night.

With backpacks encumbered by the weight of textbooks and late nights spent drowning in course packs, leisurely reading is a thing of the past. Like parentally imposed curfews and listening to New Found Glory, reading fiction for fun disappeared after high school graduation, though Northwestern stu-dents seem to make a point to try. The com-mon response was a sheepish “When I have time,” though one respondent pronounced unabashedly, “I don’t read.” Many attested to wanting to read more often but cited the cumbersome workload from preventing them from devouring the latest fiction novel. For those who said ‘no,’ we have a sneaking suspi-cion they simply aren’t counting their Twi-light fanfic consumption.

THE WEEKLY MEMO SURVEY IN NORRISNU’s illiteracy flare-up

JEREMY GORDON

Do you read fiction for fun?

2

58 42YES NO

let’s face it. it’s not like i’m reading for class.

not anymore.

weekly

EDITOR IN CHIEFjeremy gordon jeremygordon2007@u.northwestern.edu

MANAGING EDITORsara peck sarapeck@u.northwestern.edu

ASSISTANT EDITORScoco keevan cocok@u.northwestern.edumargaret rhodes margaret-rhodes@northwestern.edu

ART DIRECTORbrittney wong bwong@u.northwestern.edu

ASSISTANT ART DIRECTORjaimie vaillancourt j-vaillancourt@u.northwestern.edu

COPY EDITORjennifer haderspeck j-haderspeck@u.northwestern.edu

contact the weekly at 847.491.4901 l send confirmed and denied tips to the managing editor want to join our staff? e-mail our editor in chief l A weekly supplement to The Daily NorThwesTerN

the

the weekly02.18.10

“It was a dark and stormy night. The in-trepid editor paced the halls of the Daily of-fices, unsure of whether or not the articles would fit. Would they be too long? Would they be too short? Wracked with fear, he moved on…”

Are you feeling creative, even though I’ve clearly failed? We know it’s hard to do at North-western, but sometimes you just have to let those artistic muscles fly and get creating stuff. It may have been a long time since you’ve read a work of fiction—not since To Kill A Mockingbird in the eighth grade, right?—but if you’re tired of reading boring articles (and we always are), lighten up your day with what we have to offer.

This week, in lieu of a cover story we’ve so-licited original pieces of prose and poetry from Northwestern students. We’ve got work from Chris Adamson, Angela Mears, Maxwell Allison and Jack Neubauer, some of our campus’ best writers or at least the ones we like the most.

On the regular side of things, Christina Walker talks to Andrew McMahon of Jack’s Mannequin, Alyssa Meza jumps into a recent Ask Big Questions event and Jared Salisbury writes lovingly of his favorite elfin harpist, Jo-anna Newsom. There’s new stuff on our Web site and encourage you to join our Facebook fan page—we’ve almost got enough followers to fill up McCormick Auditorium! Stay lovely, y’all.

HEAD FIRSTOne writer asks her own big questions

ALYSSA MEZA

I was in the Great Room, impatiently await-ing Ask Big Questions, thinking more about the fact that I was hungry than the topic,

“How does our concept of God affect the world?” At the moment, sushi sounded more filling than spirituality. As a friend and I sat alone at a long table, I wondered if dinner and homework had taken precedence over a discussion about God.

I have not been a religious person in a very long time. Maybe I never was, but going to Cath-olic school your entire life makes it hard to con-template a religious identity outside of the one carved out for you five days a week, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. So I dutifully went to Mass on Tuesday mornings, sang in the church choir and received confirmation. Despite this, religion did not seem to have a place in my life, though it was a huge part of my daily activities. I thought there had to be something bigger than me, but the rules, the standards and the expectations seemed too re-straining to fit an idea I had no words for.

Then people came in, and soon we were sit-ting with 15 people. We headed to a classroom in Seabury-Western Theological Seminary and tried to enter the classroom building through the doors immediately outside the Great Room with no such luck. We tried another set. Again, no luck.

The Associate University Chaplain, Reverend Wendy Mathewson, who moderated the event, laughed and asked if this were a metaphor for or-ganized religion. I laughed. I thought it was.

Eventually the group made it to a small class-room where we sat in a poorly-shaped circle of desks. The windows were painted with a mural, and the chalkboard seemed unnaturally green for a classroom. On the left side, a sign was taped to the board that read, “Strongly Agree” and on the right, “Strongly Disagree.”

Mathewson began the evening with ques-tions, having us align ourselves along the chalk-board spectrum. Everyone, for the most part, congregated together.

“Do Americans’ concept of God affect our culture?” Shift to the left.

“Is there a correlation between religion and political views?” Some stray to the middle. Most don’t budge.

“Is there a correlation between my own reli-gion and my political views?” People spread out along the spectrum.

The crazy conservatives were the religious zealots. The lefty liberals were the atheists. But that obviously did not describe us. Judging from the disbursement of people, some did not see their religious and political views as completely related. I certainly did not see myself in the boxes I imposed on other people.

The conversation was intelligent, thoughtful … and completely tame. Religion is supposed to be this polarizing conversation, something we don’t talk about in polite society. When we do have these discussions, we tread lightly, cautious not to step on toes.

“Why is religion so taboo?” “Why is there a fear of dialogue?” One student responded that it’s easier to talk about these issues with people who already share your worldview. We want to avoid conflict. Another student suggested we don’t want to be proven wrong. But here we were, discussing God and religion in a respectful way, breaking the taboo.

Yet it’s one thing to just ask the big questions, and it’s another to try to answer them. There are no clear and exact answers, but there is no value in just asking the questions as passionately as you can. But this was not a theological debate. This was about God and religion as concepts and their effect on our interactions with the world. I guess I wanted some drama.

I do believe in intelligent and respectful dis-course, but to work out these tensions among be-lievers and non-believers, I think we have to be willing to get good and angry and put all our cards on the table before we can solve anything.

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social diary [A Medill sophomore bemoans Valentine’s Day and gets her mighty morphin’ hook up]

10 wednesday 11 thursday 12 friday 13 saturday 14 sunday 15 monday 16 tuesdayI head to Human Sex with everyone and their brother. Stay after for the chick who is BDSM—she apparently wants to use banjo picks to scratch the back of her lover? Answer my mom’s e-mail bugging me about who my date for a sorority formal tomor-row night will be. I finally have an answer for her as of last night, thank God. It’s not pathetic if I CHOSE to wait that long to find a date … right?

Formal time! My date and I are reunited as we pre-game in Bobb for the first time since our infamous freshman year write-up, so we’re both nervous about tempting fate and all. Solution? Shots! I’ve borrowed my friend’s flask for the bus ride so as to be covert. Cheap vodka never tasted so good. At the venue, the date and I amuse the pledges with our drunken stumble-dance—we look good!!!

Panera for dinner and then off to my guy friends’ apartment to watch the Olympic opening ceremo-nies. My friend and I so-lidify our sad little Friday night with a viewing of “Valentine’s Day.” Yes: it’s as bad as everyone says. I want to smack Emma Roberts every time her skinny behind shows up on screen, and why must Bradley and McSteamy—the two hottest men in the movie—be gay?!

Birthday dinner for a friend. I voraciously de-vour tapas, then head for a pregame to fill my second stomach—you know, the one for alcohol. At the ac-tual party, I flirt with one of the few attractive, sin-gle guys there. Get shot down, but so do the other two girls who try. We agree this means he must be asexual. Skip to the Keg for dancing but have to make a detour to take care of a fellow party-goer.

I’m 98.7 percent sure I’m still drunk when I wake up. A perfect way to start another Anna Howard Shaw Day (Thanks, Liz Lemon). I spend the eve-ning back at my guy friends’ apartment “work-ing” and eating copious amounts of Valentine’s Day chocolate my coupled friend got but is refusing to eat while watching pairs figure skating and wondering where my par-ents went wrong.

Class until the end of time, chapter and other boring crap. But, I’m go-ing out tonight! I head to a frat pregame up north, where I effectively corner myself when I run into a guy I know from class and spend the whole time talking with him. We’re just platonic, but drunk me doesn’t make that su-per obvious. Have you ever noticed how much better you sleep when you’re drunk?

Continue the Day From Hell at work, where I have an awkward run-in with a former hook-up. If the definition of good-looking means hair that hasn’t been brushed in hours, dark circles under the eyes and an ill-fitting sweatshirt, then hot damn I’m looking fine. My friend consoles me by pointing out that he was dressed like a Power Ranger. Great … I hooked up with a Power Ranger?

All things considered, it had the po-tential to be a really depressing Valentine’s Day.

This time last year, I was in a relation-ship and had been for about a month. My then-boyfriend and I had enjoyed a mod-est but very couple-y sort of day. We made a trip into Chicago to see the Shedd Aquarium, then took a freezing walk along Lake Michigan, admiring its grayness. We had dozed shoulder-to-shoulder on the El ride home, over-warm in our winter coats and pleasantly drained.

This year mid-afternoon on Valentine’s Day, my mother called. She was in the middle of making a Beef Wellington din-ner for her and my dad and hurriedly promised me that their card was in the mail. She asked what I had been up to.

“Not much. I went sledding with a friend; we got coffee …”

“You went sledding?” “Umm … yeah.” A pause. “Seriously, it’s

been kind of a nice day. Really relaxing.” “Okay … ” I don’t think she was even

trying to hide the fact that she was A) con-cerned and B) not buying a word I was saying.

I’m being a bit unfair. It’s likely that, if my day were miserable, I would have said the exact same things, in the same upbeat way, then hung up and slunk back under the covers to feel sorry for myself. My mother had some right to be suspicious. But I didn’t feel like I was lying—I had been awake several hours and had yet to

experience a jealous pang at the sight of a couple holding hands or to even consider binging on chocolate or pints of Häagen-Dazs. Was I just in denial? Why did it seem wrong to be okay, for the time being, with the fact that I was single?

A month or so before Winter Break, my friend ended a relationship that wasn’t working. Far from mourning the loss, he was, after what seemed like a few min-utes, buzzing with energy over his re-newed freedom. He was set to enter break and after, the new quarter, with a clean slate. But I got a phone call a week in. One family wedding later, he was done being single. He wanted a relationship again.

I tried to reassure him—I told him it would be better once he got back to Northwestern. He would be busy, sur-

rounded by people again, with less time to dwell. But he cut me off halfway through my speech.

“I don’t know if I want to be okay with being single—I just feel like if I get used to it, I’ ll stop trying to find someone, and I’ll stay that way.”

At the time, I wrote off the thought that it’s beneficial to be unhappy—why waste time feeling lonely if you can help it? Now, I have to wonder—he’s happily settled in another relationship, and I’m, well, still single.

I take this from that conversation: There’s something to be said against being complacent—about relationships, about anything. Complacency is a tricky thing.You don’t expect anything worse and don’t hope for anything better. Easy, but it

makes you lazy, in a way that when some-thing or someone intriguing stumbles into your path, you’re liable to just watch them pass.

I met my ex-boyfriend while in line at Lisa’s Cafe, waiting to order a sandwich. It was late, I was ravenous and I was still several people away from even being able to reach the chip rack. So to pass the time, I struck up a conversation with the guy in line next to me about something trivial, how cold it was getting, how slow the line was. Prospective majors came up, and I told him that I loved art history. Four months later, he took me to the Art Insti-tute of Chicago. A week after that, we were dating.

I happened into a relationship with my ex not because I was desperate or desir-ous. I was just engaged—I was paying at-tention to what was going on around me and willing to expend a little energy and talk to a stranger. I certainly wasn’t dwell-ing on what I didn’t have. Being single this Valentine’s Day, I essentially had two options—hole up in my room or brave the amorous world outside. Either way, I would be alone. So when I find myself naturally gravitating towards the latter option, I’m hardly going to resist. The way I see it, every time you step out your door is an opportunity. The times I’m too wrapped in my head to smile, to say hel-lo—that’s what’ll depress me and leave me single for next year.

TRUE LOVE WAYSThis Valentine’s Day, put yourself out

02.18.10the weekly 3

KERRY BICKFORD

“BEING SINGLE THIS VALENTINE’S DAY, I ESSENTIALLY HAD TWO OPTIONS—HOLE UP IN MY ROOM, OR BRAVE THE AMOROUS WORLD OUTSIDE. EITHER WAY I WOULD BE ALONE.’”

4 5

This…this is clearly a case in which the packaging is cooler than the actual gift,” my father says, holding up a Spider Man

hologram gift bag, twirling it in the dim light of our dining room so I can see the pictures change.

Christmas gift-wrap litters the long wooden table. It’s the evening of my father’s last day of class before the New Year. As usual he comes home with a trunk full of random gifts from his unusually generous ESL students. And as usual he has sprouted the jaunty step, the irritat-ing sun-shiny aspect, of a man who’s been too well tended and too well loved. He has already smoked some high-grade hashish tonight, a thoughtful gift from one of his Iranian students.

In his life in California, I realize, my father has surrounded himself with adoring immigrants.

In the few moments it takes us to tear through all the ribbon and paper, the wrapped gifts transform from a pile promising infinite possibility to a disappointing heap of Old Navy polo shirts, Dunkin Donuts coffee beans, and basketball shorts from Sears.

I lift a gold bow from the mess on the floor and stick the adhesive end to my forehead. “Bet-ter luck next year,” I say.

Dad is still spinning the Spider Man bag under the chandelier, letting it catch the light in a way that pleases him when Mother comes in to complain about the exuberant holiday-themed mess. If the bits of torn paper and ribbon looked festive before, everything seems a little stupid now under Mother’s stern gaze.

“Mamie, look!” he says, swinging the bag inches from her face.

“Black Spider Man,” she says, unimpressed. The tip of her nose grazes the glossy image. “I…hate…black Spider Man.”

I chuckle at this as she scans the offerings. “Why do they always have to give you all this…junk.”

She lifts an argyle print men’s sock from the table, polyester, too small, and trails it through the air. She swings it back and forth, keeping it always at arm’s length. She loves to tease this way, without a sound.

Mother once gave my father junk at Christ-mas, too, along with his other students. It was a red satin pillowcase with a dragon embroidered on it, a strange gift, and to the casual observer, maybe even a sexy one. My father always remembered that present, and never threw it away though he never used it, maybe because he ended up marrying the giver.

I wonder if Mother is thinking of this when she snaps her head up and commands us to clean. She walks into the kitchen and we hear her throw the sock in the trash.

A thin layer of moisture seeps across my forehead where I’ve attached the gold bow and it springs free and takes this meandering path to the floor, where it lands without a sound.

“Angela,” my father says, sorting through the mess. “Come here. Look at this girl. She looks just like you, doesn’t she?”

He hands me this Christmas card. It’s a Kinko’s card, the kind where the family takes a hammy photo in Santa hats in August, and sends it off to everyone they kind-of-half know. I don’t recognize the girl in the photo, but she has the wild brown hair I had at her age. And I can see why my father says she looks like me. Like me, she’s half white. Half…something else.

“Yep,” I say, handing the picture back to my father, “Also the product of race-mixing, I see.”

My father laughs and says, “Your mother and I like to keep the company of our fellow race trai-tors. It makes her feel more comfortable.”

“Mom’s not a race traitor,” I say, after a pause. “She’s a race opportunist.”

This is a variation on one of our favorite

“She put her hands up to Spade’s cheeks, put her open mouth hard against his mouth, her body flat against his body.

Spade’s arms went around her, hold-ing her to him, muscles bulging in his blue sleeves, a hand cradling her head, its fingers half lost among red hair, a hand moving groping fingers over her slim back. His eyes burned yellowly.”

— Dashiell hammett

Things I need discovered,things that hide like mothers:your baby food container,and that book we read last night, where is it?

The one with the detective, remember?The Maltese Falcon, we always read it,since before she left. You’re only an infant,are you paying attention? Shh shh.

It’s time to sleep now, Christian.Things I need discovered—to find them, find her again,I’ll write myself a detective—

Papa’s going to tell you a story.

To begin, close up—she is now, our detective,walking a tightrope between two skyscrapers,balancing a telephone on the flat of her head.She has a chin, a jutting vunder a more flexible vthat is her mouth. Her hair is red wiryin coils of copper but also liquid.She has a blonde secretaryand calls people names like sweetheart,sometimes she means it.Perhaps she is Julianne Moore,slim, slim-backed, sexy, butshe smokes, drinks, has a badhabit of pulling the trigger too damnsoon. In her windowed,silhouetted office of ceiling fan shadows,she gets a new case, a call from a small farmin the corn fields, where a daughter is missingand a prizewinning thoroughbredof dark-as-night complexionis gone as well—a kidnapping?The tightrope quiverswhen she’s not walking on it,a nerve in the city’s breath.

These are The facTs:

a pail of frozen water

with traces of soap,

a sponge for bathing a

horse,

several towels, blankets,

a short stool—

all found in the stable

where the girl and the

horse vanished.

“

Shh Christian shh, let sleep seize you like forgetting her, the one on whom we wait and dream,the one who left. Forget her.

We will follow our detective to her assignment,

clinging to the small of her back,because to let her go is to collapse her spine. We will grimace in the light

and brace ourselves in the small of her back,because I can’t forget the love you came from—we can’t let her go again.

Our detective has arrived at the farmwhere the girl has gone missing—as if passive as if missing acted miraculously upon her;is gone is more accurate,she is gone. The father is called Moloch.Every surface of his field is flatwith snow, static from the morning’s storm. Spring snow, fleeting but paired with a

cloudless skyof childless blue separating midland plains

from sky,repellent as the solution of oil and waterin the girl’s science fair experiment.Unbroken, unearthable.Moloch moans his daughter’s name,our detective puts her hand on his arm—Her name is Desiree, he says.She notes this in her notebook of detections.

Our detective chews thoughts like tobacco,but she doesn’t really chew tobacco.She is not Sam Spade, the night’s regulardetective from the book we regularly read

to put you to bed, the dream we shareof ceiling fans in black and white—she is not Julianne Moore.This story’s new and about us both.But I’m not doing a good job giving the facts.

These are the facts:a pail of frozen water with traces of soap,a sponge for bathing a horse,several towels, blankets, a short stool—all found in the stable where the girl and the

horse vanished.A Pompeii horse bath without ashbut still evidence preserved by barn straw.Our detective is examining strawfor signs of mishap, some blood perhaps,but finds none. …Did she run away? Rode away on her father’s horse?Did she choose to run?

Clearly I see that this girl is no surrogateadequate enough for my missing love,the young mother who using snowfor cover and white to mask her pale skin

left me with you, her child with black-as-night hair—

you were our child, we made you yellowly,but now are you only mine?You’re not crying now, you sleep.

Perhaps you have a surrogate for herin the windless bells that bring you sleep,or in the spoonful of rumI feed you with vanilla ice cream

to bring sleep on you.How easy to run away.

But our detective, seeing the fugitive pathin the straw move away from the barnmeeting a hoof-trail in the snow,she catches her big break,and she follows it.The trail is fast, thoroughbred,as I’ve said, making strong leapsin the white betrayal of snow.Our detective is walking the trail,sniffing Desiree or the horse’s hairs.She walks for miles and miles,but the body of the horse is there first by

miles,lying on the beach of the nearest lake.Ankles broken, back on the sand,horsebreath thick through its nose like

whipped cream—and the girl, where is the girl?There she is, a bouquet of splayed anglesin the sand, neck broken, dead,it’s clear, as our detective stands over her and passes the flamebefore her eyes—lids, balls, irises, and pupils—and they stay frozen, and onlyher own flicker comes back.

This story is not a surrogatefor a reason she mouthed red-lipped like a luminescent spider web of glass shattering over us,child we named Christian,together. Hello I would have said to her,

Hello come back you loved me onceI’m telling you you loved me once,

hello. Melodrama; narrative—

So what happens now?What is there left for our detectiveto detect, or now detected,now solved, what now?What is to know? The case is closed,the case of the runaway girl,but what is solved?Nothing, I’ll tell you that, Christian.

Our detective returnsto her office where suddenly I am sittingbehind her silhouetted desk.So you figured it out I say to her.

Listen, she says back, how was I supposed to know she’d leave you, pal? She even sounds like her.

She doesn’t see the loaded gunbeneath her desk, the gun I clutch.

Listen, and our detective’s secretaryis just outside and she hears the gun go off,as it must—

and after the secretary findsoverflowing red and sand,infinite possible endings

rotating in the fan,as small as ash and dust.I am whodunit, I say to you,

rocking your sleep, heavy but not opaqueinto the farthest reaches of your forgettingand the swollen pillows of your dreams.

I am whodunit.

illustration by margaret rhodes

THE LULLABY: A DETECTIVE STORYby christopher adamson

fATHERLAnDby angela mears

themes. My father and I believe that we are al-lowed to say these horrible things, as long as, for the most part, we’re saying them about ourselves. He laughs again, and resumes cleaning up the mess from before. It occurs to me, only later, when I think of my father’s fawning corps of im-migrants, his students, his wife, that my mother is not the only race opportunist in the family.

While helping him sort the torn paper from the reusable bags I find an unopened gift on the dining room table. It’s this porcelain statue of a white elephant the size of my father’s broad hand. Looking at it I intuit that it is exactly the kind of present he would fall in love with.

Some of his student gifts have a uniquely long shelf life, and find the wherewithal to stick around. Like the red embroidered pillowcase. Like the horrifying statue of a drunk Mexican with outstretched arms that has taken up perma-nent residence on our kitchen table. When he’s not holding the hot sauce he’s holding a bottle of cheap red wine. He stares vacant and smiling into the middle distance. He makes my father laugh.

But I’m wrong about the elephant. My father pulls the statue from its wrapping and the air around him is stale and underwhelmed. He tosses it lightly from one hand to the other, feel-ing its weight. “It’s hollow,” he says, and pauses, smiling. “Are…you thinking what I’m thinking?”

He’s thinking we can drill a hole in the trunk, and maybe one near the elephant’s asshole, and use it as a hash pipe. He hands the figure over to me. I flip it on its back and notice that three of the elephant’s legs already have holes in them. I peer into its empty torso. No drilling required.

With a small amount of resourcefulness and imagination, I have learned that almost any object can be transformed into a smoking device. Water bottles, coke cans, light bulbs, pen caps, plastic tubing, apples, watermelons, and, I hesitate to mention, tampons.

I show him how it might be done. Without delay he runs upstairs and begins to force a mesh screen into one of the creature’s hollow legs with the butt end of a yellow wooden pencil. He loads the device with the hash from the Iranian student. This particular strain is called Green Crack, he informs me, giggling in a way that is weirdly childlike.

Then he stands there for a moment as if posing for a picture, bent over the hash-pipe-slash-elephant, lighter in one hand, upside-down elephant in the other, elbows cocked, knees bent, and he flashes me this wicked smile before he flicks the lighter on and inhales.

And as is often the case with my father I can imagine what he looked like doing this exact same thing, in this exact same pose, forty years ago, only with a different implement. When he exhales the coughing spasms begin, and I pat him on his back as he hands the device over to me.

“Remember, Daddy,” I say, “Don’t cough. If you start you’ll never stop. Just…don’t do it.”

Some fifteen minutes later, Mother emerges from her shower and joins us in my father’s of-fice, the roomiest room in the house. It occupies the exact dimensions of the three-car garage directly beneath it. The hash smoke, which has a faint, flowery smell compared to straight pot, has completely cleared. My father is clicking through photos he recently took of a sunset, nod-ding his head, and giggling.

“Wow….Wow!” he keeps repeating to him-self, more or less quietly.

“Is he high?” Mother asks me, drawing out her final syllable, and after years of asking this question she still manages to sound surprised.

“I…think…so,” I say, slowly, neglecting to mention that I, too, am gloriously stoned.

“Yes I most certainly am!” my father chimes in exuberantly.

Mother shakes her head at me and gets up to leave. “Oh God, oh God,” she says, as she passes through the door, and it is a mournful repetition. “Oh God.”

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Calvin paid $2,000 for his wife and considered it a steal. He had to haggle the price down from $5,000,

which was no pleasant experience, regardless of the good result. Calvin’s motto was Ask a Fair Price and Stick to it. He ran his own busi-ness selling vacuum cleaners in Warrenton, Virginia. But that wasn’t the way with these Chinese. You had to haggle over everything if you didn’t want to get ripped off—clothes, food, and even wives.

His bride’s name was Joy. They met on the internet. At first Calvin didn’t like the idea of meeting women on the Internet. But he was 44 years old and living alone. He didn’t go much of anywhere besides work and the golf course, and those weren’t places you met women. He was starting to feel a bit restless. Maybe you could call it loneliness. So when he saw an advertisement in the newspaper for a Web Site called yourchineseprincess.com, he decided to check it out. He’d always thought there was something alluring about Chinese women. If nothing else, he told him-self, at least it’d be good for a laugh.

He and Joy e-mailed back and forth for three months. They exchanged photos, interests, and little bits of news. Joy was a nice, sensitive woman who would make a loyal wife. He could just tell. After three months they agreed that he’d fly out to China to meet her, and if all went according to plan they’d tie the knot.

He took a direct flight to Shanghai and then the train to Hangzhou, where Joy was from. They met up and he took her out to what his travel guide said was the finest restaurant in the city. Joy was the woman she’d made herself out to be, more or less.

She didn’t look exactly like her picture. She was, well, bigger. In the picture she looked small and dainty, the way Chinese women are. But in person Joy was no dainty little thing. She was about five foot seven with a sturdy frame. But Calvin didn’t mind. Big girls were OK by him.

Then there was the matter of her English. Judging from her e-mails, her English seemed pretty good. There were little things, spelling mostly, but her e-mails were long and they made good sense. But at dinner that night she hardly managed anything beyond “hello,” “yes,” and “no.” Calvin chalked it up to her being shy and nervous. She’d open up in time, he was sure.

All and all these were pretty minor discrepancies, certainly not deal-breakers. Besides, who was he to judge her for a few exaggerations here and there? He had sent her an old photograph from when he was quite a few years younger and many pounds lighter. When she asked what he did, he told her he was an entrepreneur. These weren’t lies, but they were something dif-ferent from the truth. That’s the Internet for you. And anyway, he knew that in this whole adventure—this life that they were about to start together back at his home in Virginia—she was the one who was really in for some surprises.

They got married in a large Catholic

church in Shanghai. Joy was a Catholic—baptized, confirmed, the whole shebang. It was one of the reasons Calvin was so sure he wanted to marry her.

It was a beautiful red brick church with twin spires that staked out a rightful place in the city’s magnificent sky line. They didn’t have guests at their wedding. Calvin thought Joy might invite her parents or some friends, but when he suggested it she just shook her head. The priest was a small, wrinkled Chi-nese man who seemed lost in his loose black robes. When he opened his mouth to pro-nounce the wedding vows, he spoke in Latin.

He’d seen some things, Calvin. He’d seen his first wife murder his pug with a vacuum cleaner for shedding all over their bed sheets. That was something. But this Chinese priest giving the vows in Latin was something else altogether.

Calvin couldn’t help it; he broke out laugh-ing in the middle of the vows. After a minute the laughing turned to crying. He sat down in the front row of the Church and cried. He couldn’t stop. He thought about the beautiful Church with its rows and rows of empty pews. He thought about what his father might say if he were alive to see him get married in an empty Church in a strange country where he knew not a single soul, not even the bride. He thought about Joy, standing silent and still at the altar while the man to whom she’d blindly entrusted her life bawled like a baby in the middle of their wedding.

Finally Calvin collected himself and re-turned to his place at the altar. Joy stared into his eyes and said nothing. Then the priest re-sumed his Latin chanting until he pronounced them man and wife.

lakefill in winterby maxwell allison

The land releases its last breath. The lakeFlows back from pale, still depths to windtorn shoresWhose rocks belie their brutishness, for eachGray, craggy face bears proudly painted signsOf “Alice” loving “Bob” forevermore,Or just enough to leap from the sturdy landAnd spill his heart in shaky letter. Now,A victim of this fever does his work! Another man just picked a rock still smeared,And “J” for Jason smothers Eli’s “E.”Can one love supersede another, ifA swath of paint blots, switching name for nameAnd color for color? The rocky risk of weakFootholds, the giddy wind emboldened byThe lake, the raw warpaint of our brave lad –Half like, or love, (or lust?) half chafe from cold – These things remain from years before and won’tErode until the lake swallows the shoreAnd buildings on the south horizon fall.Today, the winter wind still sears my faceAnd his the same, and in the summer backWhen all these rocks were blank, the first brave soul’sGelled hair came loose as breezes buffetedHis brush hand’s stroke and blew his lady’s sun-Dress up. Today, this pen bids me plant rootOn this expanse, and something love-like bidsHim sew his seed, his brush and coat flappingLike cold dove wings. Will I, one day,In name of love and spacelessness repaint A tinted rock, believing that my heart Deserves a testament and those who daredThe winds before had nothing to declare?No, sooner would I carve our names intoThe breathing green than paint my present tryst On what still stands. I know, as well, with soMany more loves than rocks, my paper canwithstand the wind far longer than this shore.

a Stealan excerpt, by jack neubauer

he Constitution is back in vogue. Well, not quite: I’m not sure that constitutional interpre-tation will ever be considered sexy. It is, how-

ever, enjoying a resurgence of meaningful discussion; something that hasn’t happened in quite a while.

A good deal of this conversation is motivated by the perception the U.S. is growing increasingly ungovern-able. An article in The New York Times recently de-

scribed our political system as one that has rarely “seemed more polarized and less able to solve big problems.”

Essentially it’s not looking good for American politics. Perhaps substantial change is needed: Is it time to see if we need to reorganize parts of our

political system? Given all this, perhaps the next time you and your friends are sitting around discussing the nature of American constitutional politics—this is Northwestern; I know it happens—consider the follow-ing proposals.

For starters there’s a flurry of recommendations re-garding Article I of the Constitution (I’m sure I don’t need to remind anyone that’s the section on Congress). One area that stands out takes issue with the Com-merce Clause, which states that Congress has the power to pass laws concerning commerce between the states. From this rather humble allowance, Congress has metastasized its power into areas that seem rather distant from interstate commerce: How, for instance, does the Commerce Clause really give Congress the power to pass anti-discrimination laws?

Given the nature of today’s economy, it’s impossible to really support a federal government that isn’t deeply involved in the economy and, really, society at large. Yet today’s Congress is hindered by the requirement that any piece of legislation must show some relation-ship to interstate commerce. And this requirement has consequences.

Bill Clinton’s Violence Against Women Act was passed in the early 1990’s as a way of providing federal

penalties against domestic abuse. Despite VAWA’s ad-mirable intentions, the legislation faced a number of constitutional challenges in its infancy. In 2000 a huge component was essentially gutted by the Supreme Court. Women are no longer able to sue their rapists in federal court because the legislation doesn’t have a strong enough relationship with interstate commerce. This non-sequitur of a requirement needs to be changed.

(An aside: As a result of the Supreme Court’s VAWA verdict, two men who were almost certainly responsi-ble for the vicious multiple rapes of a woman were able to walk free. Constitutional politics, while perhaps not the most glamorous of subjects, certainly has its conse-quences).

And what of the Senate? The Senate, as of now, is governed by a hodgepodge of customs and traditions only partially encoded into law. The arcane nature of Senate proceedings essentially turned the Democratic majority into an instrument for Joe Lieberman’s whims and wishes (He’s for Medicare expansion! Against it!). At the least, this suggests Congressional proceedings should have some structure imposed upon them by Constitutional stricture.

I would love to see an amendment regulating the use of the filibuster. In the past 10 years, two health-care reform attempts have been effectively obliterated by dedicated use of the filibuster. Bill Frist almost killed the filibuster with his nuclear option. Its use has become more frequent, its effect more toxic. The fili-buster needs to be reigned in. The fact is neither of these proposals are necessarily red or blue in nature. There should be a universal desire to ensure our country is governable. Civility is preferable to parti-sanship, regardless of what side of the aisle you sit.

And just the opposite has been true lately: The words “ungovernable,” “broken” and “gridlocked” have been increasingly popular ways to describe the nature of Washington, D.C. lately. Discussions about and hopefully action on constitutional ac-tivism might be the way out of what is an increas-ingly apparent faltering system.

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SIQI SUN

Revisiting the Constitution without Schoolhouse Rock Kvar Black, student entrepreneur

Close your eyes and think of a gradu-ate student in biomedical engineering. You might first imagine a stereotype: someone with protective goggles outside the already inch-thick glasses, who bur-ies himself in textbooks or in the lab 16 hours per day. But Kvar Black, a fourth-year graduate student in McCormick, does not think his career at Northwest-ern is doomed to be nerdy. At heart he is an entrepreneur who aims to apply technology to commercial production. As president of InNUvation, a multidis-ciplinary group that connects engineer-ing students with Kellogg and School of Law students at NU, Black finds such connections provide great resources for carrying out his ambitions.

Black does not define himself as a “libe or lab” kind of person. In high school, he worked for his father’s com-puter company and was intrigued by the huge profits produced when technology marries business. In 2007 Black at-tended the annual Applied Research Day, a interdisciplinary connection event organized by InNUvation that aimed at hooking researchers up with business majors. Since then he has been heavily involved in the club and says he uses InNUvation as a window to learn more about technology-related business.

“Apart from the hard-core technologi-cal and academic stuff I do at school, I feel InNUvation really branches me out from the technical graduates who are stuck in the lab all the time into business and entre-preneurship,” Black says. “I like working in the lab, but I do like other things as well.”

Last year, as president of InNUvation’s graduate school chapter, Black organized the Applied Research Day attended by lo-cal entrepreneurs and students from Mc-

Cormick, Kellogg and School of Law. At the event engineering students brought in their researches and got in touch with the entrepreneurs to sell their products and learn how to better fit the market. Law students participated in discussion about potential legal issues. Black says his great-est gain is that InNUvation connects him up with some prominent business figures, including Patrick Smith, a member of the Kellogg Venture Community.

“The network of people through the interdisciplinary interaction is unique to the club. I connected to Patrick Smith through InNUvation, and he really gives me knowledge about how innovations would apply in business. People coming to InNUvation can benefit from these con-nections, and I feel they can synergize pretty well with people like Patrick Smith,” Black said.

This year’s Applied Research Day approaches on Feb. 25—in a few years the participants may be joined by stu-dents from other disciplines as well. Black says it would be a great opportu-nity for even journalism or performing arts majors, as they could come and ex-plore how technological innovations could be applied in selling journalism or arts. It’s better than reading end-lessly about the death of print, right?

photo By SIQI SUN

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u It was kind of difficult (writing “The Glass Passenger”). You know, I think the thing about it is for the first time, not just in my career but in my life as a songwriter period, I think I really struggled with how to talk about what’s in my head. I found myself at times suffering from writer’s block during the making of the record and at times was extremely frustrated.u For me it’s really about being on the other side of (survival). I mean, in a lot of ways the past record was less about covering what hap-pened to me in the hospital but a lot of after the recovery process and reconciling some of the things that had happened in that past. This stuff that I’m writing now, I think, is sort of free from a lot of the burden of that. And in turn, I think

it comes a little bit more evenly and will be a record about being back amongst comfortable living and everyday, as opposed to maybe some of these extremely kind of heavy issues related to my illness and sort of moving on with it.u By the time (Dear Jack, a documentary about McMahon’s fight with leukemia) happened, I had kind of come to terms with the fact that we were doing it. The film at the time wasn’t really intended for the people’s media. It was a way for me to kind of get it out, whether it was frus-tration, or fears or whatever, you know where I wasn’t really in a position to write music in a journal because it was so hard physically to do a lot of that stuff. Facing the camera and kind of just saying what was on my mind became a very therapeutic way for me to handle the illness. Putting it out, I kind of got nervous that people would see such a chunk of my life, but at the same time, it seemed really relevant and an important enough story to tell. u (The Dear Jack Foundation) is a lot of people reaching out and trying to find a way to take up the cause of fighting cancer and to find ways to help contribute. There was sort of this overwhelming sense from my family for them to help, and I figured, rather than sort

of fragmenting them and playing them to the direction of a bunch of different charities, that we would create a charity where initially, if they wanted to donate or get involved, this would be a place that they could do that and know that their money was going to be in good hands with people who were doing great research, people of various organizations with outreach and awareness.u We start rehearsals on Friday (Jan. 29). We’re going to do the five day rehearsals. After this, we’re going to prepare some new material, kind of hammer out exactly what it’s going to be. But this will be the last big tour we’ll do before we put together a new record. I think it will be a lot of the popular songs mixed in with some classic B-sides that have gained favor over the years that we haven’t had the chance to play live. u There’s a lot of really cool bands that I’ve been digging lately. There’s another band called Say Hi I’ve been looking into a lot of. Some modern bands like Regina Spektor, things like that. But I think my biggest overall influences are just from listening for years and years to Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, the Counting Crows, Neil Young.

Kevin Rudolf ft. BiRdman, Jay Sean & lil Wayne“I Made It (Money Cash Heroes)”

Coming off the success of 2008’s “Let it Rock,” Kevin Rudolf’s latest single “I Made It” is probably what you would expect from the pop singer, and maybe a little less. With an unjustifiable number of guest appearances, and no modern rap cliché left unspared (Lil Wayne guest verse, Young Jeezy “Hey”s, abusive auto-tune use), it’s a little hard to stomach. The song’s fatal flaw may be its rags-to-riches theme, which is overused and pulled off badly. Rudolf opens his chorus with “I look up to the sky, and now the world is mine,” David Banner rhymes “hundreds” with “hundreds,” and even Lil Wayne resorts to recycling old lines. In the end, “I Made It” is a wholly tired hodgepodge of hip-hop-isms. But in today’s obtuse pop climate, it’s unlikely that its myriad flaws will prevent its success.

eRyKah Badu “Window Seat”

Erykah Badu is often at her best when she lets her eccentricities loose and gets funky, but “Window Seat” makes it clear that smooth, poignant R&B is the soul songstress’ prime element. From a stylistic standpoint, the song is far from revolutionary; Erykah has certainly utilized the song’s combina-tion of spare bass, subtle keys and calm, sultry vocals to great effect countless times before. But the song’s immaculate construc-tion makes it uniquely compelling—with its multiple parts’ unorthodox structure interweaving impeccably with Badu’s croon-ing rationale, it is clear that Erykah is an expert at what she does. Consequently, when she contemplates taking an impromptu solo plane ride to revitalize communication with her lover, the idea doesn’t sound ridiculous; it seems perfectly logical.

JapandRoidS“Art Czars”

Although “Art Czars” was recorded at the same sessions as Vancouver duo Japandroids’ vigorous 2009 debut Post-Nothing, it differs slightly and curiously from those tracks. Lyri-cally, instead of their usual subject matter of girls, spontaneity and the uncertain future, here Japandroids confront cynicism, anger and authenticity. Echoing these sentiments are the song’s melodies themselves, eschew-ing Post-Nothing’s awe-inspiring hooks for less immediate, minor-key punk arrange-ments. Some may take offense with the song’s production, which trades the group’s raw lo-fi fuzz for a faintly more conventional, vocal-centered sound. However, when viewing it in terms of the band’s often-stated goal—making a duo sound like a five-piece—the approach is a definite success.

It’s been awhile since we’ve heard anything new from harpist/singer/songwriter/sexy-ass elf Joanna Newsom. After watching her chill-inducing perfor-mance with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra two summers ago, I had assumed she was living in the seclusion of a giant tree in some remote enchanted forest, periodically emerging to date funniest-dude-on-SNL Andy Samberg and play a negligent MILF in the video for MGMT’s “Kids.” (Yeah, that’s her in the sunglasses at the beginning—lookin’ fine, am I right?)

Turns out she’s been writing songs. More precisely, she’s been writing a ton of songs. On Feb. 23, more than three years (or six elf-months) after the release of her critically slobbered-over Ys, Miss Newsom is dropping a TRIPLE-ALBUM (note: the phrase “TRIPLE-ALBUM” should never be in lowercase) entitled Have One On Me. I personally think it should be called Have Three On Me but I guess that’s her decision. Needless to say, I’m already stocking up on scented candles for the three-hour Jo-anna fest taking place in my apartment next Tuesday.

Based on its length, the upcoming TRIPLE-AL-BUM promises to be the next logical progression in Joanna’s evolution of epic-ness. Her first album, The Milk-Eyed Mender, for the most part took the form of a conventional folk-pop record, albeit unconvention-ally adorable. Trading in some catchiness for a whole lot of songwriting depth, the unparalleled Ys treated us to sprawling, meandering compositions, majestic string arrangements and lyrics about cosmological nomenclature and the challenges of interspecies relationships. With Have One On Me, Jo New clearly intends to outdo herself in terms of sheer quantity. Time will tell what new musical ground she will break, but rest assured it will be so. so magical.

For the uninitiated, now is as good a time as ever to finally get past that impossibly shrill voice (You’ll learn to love it, I swear!) or overcome any hang-ups you dudes might have about enjoying a harpist (No, it didn’t turn me gay!) to embrace one of the best lyricists since Bob Dylan. Start with some of the more accessible songs off The Milk-Eyed Mender, like “Bridges and Balloons” and “Sadie” before you dive into the River Ys. Newsom’s lyrics are intensely personal and often cryptic, but they’re imbued with a kind of magic that makes itself known even if you don’t quite understand what she means by “hydro-cephalitic listlessness” or “the plague of the greasy black engines.” As an added bonus, she will improve your GRE Verbal by 50 points or your money back!

Confirming my suspicions that you could write a book about Joanna Newsom songs, apparently some people have written a book about Joanna Newsom songs. It’s called “Visions of Joanna Newsom” (note the Dylan reference), and it’s got contributions from Dave Eggers, a specialist in medieval women’s writing, and some other folks nerding out hard on Jo New. Looks like I’m not the only one…

JARED SALISBURY

WHY WE LIKEJoanna Newsom

THE BROW

CHRISTINA WALKER

JOHN WARLICK

8 the weekly02.18.10

HIGH BROWMId BROWLOW BROW

ALMOST FAMOUSAndrew McMahon of Jack’s Mannequin