Vita Bella! Fall 2011

VB

VB

VITA BELLA!LIVING the

BEAUTIFUL LIFE at YALE

Editor-in-ChiefMcKay Nield

Managing EditorShira Telushkin

Artistic DirectorMeghan Uno

StylistsAnne Dailey

Cindy Lu

Feautures EditorsShira TelushkinOlivia Scicolone

Layout & DesignMeghan Uno

Photographic EditorMcKay Nield

Business and DistributionEden Ohayon

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Special Thanks to Creative and Performing Arts Award

Pierson College of Yale University

Spring 2012 2 VITA BELLA! 2

3 CLEMANTINEwith McKay Nield""e trail to salvation was paved by a smile."

6 MUSINGSwith Martina Crouch & Amanda Pierce"I promise lies."

7 ATOP A ROCKwith Vincent Tolentino"All of New Haven, sprawled beneath us, soaked momentarily red."

8 DAY DREAMSwith Adrien Broom & Shira Telushkin "Moss-covered welcoming mats of magic kingdoms."

13 BRIGHT & BEAUTIFULwith Demetra Kasimis and Shira Telushkin"I used to stand out in Greece."

15 THE STRANGERwith McKay Nield"And Joseph dreamed a dream."

24 SHOWER PORTRAIT with Ifeanyi Awachie"She painted herself tiger's eye."

25 SUDDENLY SPRINGwith Katherine McCormic & Meghan Uno"...scones, lemon curd, & vanilla cream..."

29 MUSINGSwith Mary Bolt and Jade Nicholson"Monet is sitting next to me, silently shaking his head."

Vita Bella!WELCOME TOthe CELEBRATION issue 3 Spring 2012

30 THE SARTORIALISTwith Murphy "omas Temple "I'm pretty sure that's why superheroes wear them."

31 DEADLINESwith Casey Sumner"Noon is about when panic begins."

33 TRIUMPH, A TALEwith Susannah Benjamin"But still, like dust, I'll rise."

33 MUSINGSwith Hodiah Nemes and Madeline Du#"A celestial spotlight shone through the treetops.."

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Letter from the Editor During a visit to the rain forests of Ecuador in March, a dear friend of mine asked: "McKay, when was the last time you cried?" I paused. "Last night. I cried last night." It wasn't a heavy cry--nothing more than a tear on my

sunburnt cheek. I had been laying in a patch of grass, staring up at a cheddar cheese moon poised high above me in the sky. Something about that moon--the way its warm orange light cut into the navy dark of night--stirred within me radical amazement. I was awake, I was alive, and in that peace-brilliant mo-ment, I was happy.

Welcome to the Spring Issue of Vita Bella! "e features in this issue are inspired by beauty in multiple forms; the arrest-ing beauty of a dreamer, the intriguing beauty of a stranger, the simple beauty of a picnic or a bow-tie, and the unshakable beauty of a survivor. Each of these pieces shares the common threads of celebration and triumph, the capacity of woman and man to overcome and love and laugh and live.

Today, I invite you to pause. Pause and re#ect on those mo-ments in life when you feel alert, at peace, overwhelmed or even consumed by the tangible reality of happiness. Yale is teeming with struggles, but there is no burden so heavy that it cannot be lightened by a quiet reminder of our world's splendor. Look around. Happiness, my friends, is real. It's alive; it's accessible; and it's ours!

Deep Strength and Vivid Love,

McKay Nield

Photographs and Story by McKAY NIELD

CLEMANTINE��


When Clemantine was a child, her grandmother told her a Rwandan folktale about a small girl who was sepa-rated from her mother. As the girl journeyed far from home, she realized something magical. "Whenever she smiled, beads magically appeared. Dozens and dozens of beads would fall to the ground around her. From town to town she wandered, leaving behind a trail of brightly col-ored beads. "ey fell into the streets of the towns and the valleys of every little mountain," Clemantine recounts. "ese beads, the story goes, delivered the traveling girl into the warm rapport of passersby and eventually the loving arms of her mourning mother. "e trail to salva-tion, then, was paved by a smile.

As the young Clemantine journeyed six years through refugee camps--often going days without water and nourishment, and witnessing heinous human atrocities--beads fueled her forward. "I thought if I smiled, beads would just #ow out of me. Every place I went, when I felt lost, I smiled." As Clemantine fought for survival, dream-ing of redemption in a world of relentless uncertainty, she knew one thing for sure: "If I wanted my parents to $nd me, I had to leave beads."

Despite her unfailing optimism, Clemantine's con$dence in her own magic would be tested time and time again. During our conversation, she hesitantly recalled the scathing sting of abandonment as a ten-year-old in the blistering desert of Mozambique, in what she described as one of the loneliest days of her life. "I'd been dropped o% by an angel, a man who'd agreed to carry me across the border from Zambia. And for the $rst time in my journey as a refugee, I was separated from

my sister." "e young Clemantine was instructed to stay where she'd been dropped o%--the desolate center of an uninhabited Mozambican desert--until the man could retrieve Claire from Zambia. "e hours passed, the sun rose higher in the sky, and Clemantine waited. "Seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven hours passed. I knew in my core: he wasn't coming back."

Her intuition was correct; the Mozambican angel never returned. Hungry, tired, alone and confused, she sought shelter in a tree. "I realized in that moment: I've disap-peared now. My beads can't spread here. "ere are no traces. Nobody can see me. I've absolutely disappeared."

Eventually, unwilling to accept invisibility, she wandered. "It was one of the lowest, most confusing moments in my journey," she recalls. "Not the ugliest, but de$nitely the loneliest." Trusting in tearful prayers to a god who could guide her footsteps through the night, she walked fatigued but alert toward any signs of life. Eventually, Clemantine encountered a group of men who drove her to a rural village. She remained with these strangers un-til $nally trekking back to the Zambia border. "ere, as she'd prayed for, Clemantine $nally found Claire.

Today, recalling that sweet reunion, Clemantine closes her eyes and turns her face upward. She smiles softly. "If I don't smile when all around me is dark and confus-ing and wrong, I don't know where I am. It's not a fake smile; I'm leaving traces. Today, if I have to leave traces by serving others, in sharing with others, that is what I'll do."

Clemantine Wamariya's life reads like a novel--an astonishing tale of tragedy, tribulation and triumph. Caught in the cross$re of Rwandan genocide in 1994, six-year-old Clemantine hid with her sister in a banana tree to escape the slaugh-ter of her village. "is led Clemantine and her sister, Claire, on a six-year voyage through nine African countries as child refugees. By the year 2000, the girls had successfully navigated their way to America, where four years later they would be reunited with surviving family members on Oprah. Now a junior at Yale, young activist, and Obama-appointed member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, Clemantine sits down with Vita Bella! to share glimpses of her story.


spaceThe $rst time I walked into the Mosque I stayed for half a day. "ere was so much space. "e space didn’t end, didn’t stop. It climbed the walls, stuck to the ceiling, curled uninterrupted around the room. I sat. Imagine being in the middle of a $eld. "ere are acres of wheat every way you look. Erect walls and a roof. Capture that space. You are in a domed Mosque, and it is unlike anything you’ve ever known. "e carpet is soft, the room soundless save still voices, praying. "e voices are far away, and you are connected to the prayers as two swimmers in an ocean, caught in the sea of space. You are contained. Your face is wrapped, covered. Your body not endless but every limb carefully marked. You are the $nite being in the room. "e light reaches so high that even if a group of the best dancers put on their most impressive act in the front you could ignore them. "ey could not compete with the amount of space. "at is how big the room is. I like that I am sitting barefoot on a carpet, legs stretched out, as though this were my house. "is room is greater than me by far, but this room loves me. "e wonder is good. We are told to read between the lines, to appreciate the gray. I did not know I could see space. We move on. "ere is the spice market, the Grand Bazaar. But every Mosque we pass I enter, for a little time, because I can-not leave. Ten minutes, $ve minutes, one minute, please, I’ll be right back. I promise lies. I will not be right back.

Amanda Pierce

night talksafter we hadconjoined inyour eveningedapartment(your eyesclosed tight this time,breath #oodingwith the helpless rushof a riverinto my ear)and after i'd at last jostled pastthe idea of myselfas another rivuletenteringinto your watery indiscrimination(a twig tumbling through the same tumultsas others,and others,and others before)you said"i think i wrote a love song todayin 15 minutesi was luckyit just sort ofcame out of me."ilistened to the silencesgathered between the basinsof your voiceand for the $rst time Iunbraided my chestwas not nervousdid not move.

Martina Crouch

MUSINGS

7 Spring 2012 2 VITA BELLA!

ATOP A ROCK Daydreams with Adrien Broom

Interview by SHIRA TELUSHKIN

By Vincent Tolentino

I found, as freshmen do, that there are some realities that every somewhat-serious student must face, some responsibili-ties that even a budding humanities-ish major can’t shirk. Nobody—nobody—can escape the numbing dirge, the sinking, sticking, unspeakable terror that is Sunday afternoon. Yes, that #eeting parody of daytime, that hollow vacuum of time and space whose only way out is a biting of the bullet—a doing of the homework. Truly, what good has ever come of a Sunday?"ere I found myself in the midst of one: yawning, pajama’d, hungry, and growing ever reluctant to face my ever-growing workload. Woe was me. I decided that, in the manner of great stymied students of days past, the wisest course of action was to speak, to air my grievances, to philosophize about my vicious conundrum. "at is, to complain. “Two essays and a bajillion pages of reading,” said I to anyone who would listen. "en the familiar chorus: “Yeah, problem set… application… photography… lab report… work…” Hang on—photography? “Yeah, I need a hundred $fty images by Wednesday for my photo class,” Claire explained. “But I’ve already been everywhere. I have no idea what to do.” How about, like, East Rock? Since it was one of those brilliant, if frigid, January afternoons, all it took to convince her was a look out the window. “We’ll make a picnic of it,” we seemed to think simultaneously, so, in a frenzy, we rounded up blankets, cheese and crackers, a couple of like-minded companions, and a guitar (for good measure). So it happened that by 4:00, we four balladeer-picnickers found ourselves trotting down Elm Street to beat the sunset. "e short drive up was quintessentially Connecticut, snowdrifts aglow, elm trees dappling the light on our faces. But by the time we reached the base of the mountain, the sun had already burned itself red, and the sky, too, was beginning to bleed around it. Even worse, with ice everywhere, the $nal road to the summit was closed to cars.But we had a mission. We had to move quickly. So we marched. I brought the guitar, Claire had her camera, and the others all too willingly carried the food and blan-kets. "at must have been around 4:15. By 4:18, none of us could feel our $ngers. By 4:20, the blankets had become head-shawls. By 4:30, we had all but lost the power of speech. And by 4:31, none of us remembered why we were even there. None of us but Claire, who dutifully snapped shots of us troubadours, of the paling blue forest, of the melting sky. As the feeling gradually left my extremities, I found that I wasn’t marching so much as I was #oating up the moun-tain. Walking felt satisfying and inevitable and weird. "e sun, in its slow descent, was pulling us along—dragging us over a mountain if it had to. At any given moment we could look up, and there it would be, sitting magically atop the path, this plaintive little golden orb pulling at the shivering cavemen in us. We were impossibly alone. "ere was this primal thrill in the assurance, the utter knowledge, that nobody—nobody—had ever done this, at least not for a thousand years. We hadn’t even reached the top when we paused to look out at the city. All of New Haven sprawled beneath us, soaked momentarily red. In the distance, little Harkness Tower pricked the frigid landscape. It was a small universe in the grand scheme of things, but for just a moment, we reigned over it. We, hunched like refugees in our head-shawls, reigned over it all. Claire, having gotten the pictures she needed, revised the plan: it now being too damn cold, she suggested that we take the picnic back to the car.What happened next was a rapturous tumble back down the path. "e same urgency that carried us up the road swept us back down. At half a run, we practically screamed. “My toes are really cold, they’re really cold, they’re so damn cold”—the screams became a chant, and with a frenetic strum or two on the guitar, the chants became a song. All of that somehow thawed the horrendous cold. Running and singing and screaming and running somehow broke the spell. It seemed that every verse and every stab at that guitar (and every hole that I broke in my gloves, strumming) was the only thing keeping us alive.Finally back in the car we sat and thawed for ten minutes, panting the inane words to our inane song. When we got back to campus, we parked and $nally had our picnic. We sat there sweating in our seatbelts, feasting, toasting, celebrating. And still we weren’t really sure what had happened. Just what we were celebrating, we couldn’t tell you."ere’s a shot of one of us standing under a tree, reaching his arm out. He looks ridiculous—more like a bundle of blan-ket and backpack than a human—and yet, the look on his face is one of supreme, almost cosmic, con$dence. His palm is downward. His gaze is direct. No one prompted him to do that, or to pose even, but he did. He must have known that this—yes, this—was the only thing to do at that moment. I can’t say why, but I’m convinced that he was right.We never actually reached the summit, and we didn’t completely $nish our homework, but there’s no doubt that we succeeded at something on that Sunday. Is there a lesson? It’s about the journey, life is #eeting, stop and smell the roses, et cetera. Sure, all of that’s $ne. But I think it’s simpler. I think it’s something to do with companionship. Something about dropping everything and climbing a rock. About reaching an elevated state and hating that you can’t remain there. And wondering what it would be like if you could. Or it could be wondering, then again, after all, why you can’t.

Grimm. Gender and sexuality in both myth and life compel her. A self-acknowledged “very feminine person,”Broom works mostly with female models and feminine themes, though she hopes to start including more male sub-jects in her work. "e original versions of most traditional myths, before the edits and cleanup of Disney, entice Broom because of their direct engagement with sexuality and often more explicit warnings against immorality. Such frank con-tent make them much more intriguing, she says. Broom sees her $nished creations as collaborative e%orts with her family and friends. Art was very much a part of her upbringing in Lyme, Connecticut. Her mother man-ages an art gallery, her father own a design and construction business, which built the set for the “Day Dreams” shoot, and her step-father is a professional artist as well. Even the name—Lyme—evokes the moss-covered welcoming mats of magic kingdoms, or the slippery creatures that populate Irish mythology, and the woods of Lyme still serve as inspi-ration for Broom. “I love shooting in the woods there” she gushes, and indeed many of her projects take place in woods and forests. She also frequently uses her friends as models, though she concedes that professional models are easier to work with. “You have to gauge the comfort level of your models—professional models move a lot, whereas your friends feel ri-diculous posing,” she laughs, before pausing to take a phone call from her sister, Margot Broom. Margot is the creator of Breathing Room Yoga, a studio in downtown New Haven. “Let me just tell her I’ll call her back,” she says apologeti-cally. When it comes to $nding models, beyond her friends and agencies, Broom can be impressively single-minded. She has been known to approach individuals on the street who have a look that interests her. “Sometimes, if I see someone on the street with an interesting face, I’ll approach them and given them my card. I tell them to look me up, and if they’re interested, call me. People are always so #attered when you want to photograph them.” Broom’s enthusiasm and determination is contagious. Her mounting success as a photographer, despite almost no formal training, lends her both an excitement and ease in discussing her work and career. Although she's moving to New York in the fall, she plans to maintain her studio in New Haven. When asked where she sees herself in ten years, Broom smiles. “I want to be doing the same thing, only bigger.”

Broom is a woman who can’t escape the world of build-ing. As an undergraduate she studied computer animation. “I’ve always loved building sets,” she explains, adding that eventually she found computer animation to be too lonely. For Broom both computer animation and photography are a means to build a world and tell a story. Photography, however, allows her to be a much more integrated part of the creation process and work in collaboration with other people. For someone who loves building, New Haven's Erec-tor Square is a pretty good place to work. "ree stories tall, square and plain, it is the former factory of Erector Set toys, a game invented by AC Gilbert in 1911 which consisted of building parts for children to playfully construct their own creations. Now it functions as a gathering and studio rental space for New Haven’s artists. With huge windows, reason-able prices, and more space than the average 5-person suite at Yale, the studio rental situation at Erector Square is pretty amazing. Broom keeps two couches and a table in one cor-ner of her studio, below her “inspiration wall,” where she hangs pictures of work from shows that particularly capti-vated her. In a back corner are setups of miniatures, a genre in photography she is currently exploring. We settle onto the couches. Friendly and relaxed, Broom is dressed casually in jeans and a gray cardigan adorned with horses. Animals are clear-ly a point of fascination. Rabbits, farm animals, turtles, rac-coons, birds, and even a taxidermy fox surface in many of her shoots. Her dog Niño, who plays and barks throughout our meeting, accompanies her to most shoots, and, she read-ily acknowledges, “pretty much everywhere.” When pho-tography equipment manufacturer PocketWizard gave her the chance to photograph an ideal shoot, as a promotional event that would showcase their equipment, she ended up at the Ray of Light Farm in East Haddam. Titled “Day Dreams,” the series from which two of our featured images belong, a whole host of exotic animals were used, including an unusual cross between a Zebra and a Donkey, informally referred to as a Zonkey, featured on page 11. “"e idea was a girl talking to her stu%ed animals,” she says of “Day Dreams.” “I’ve always been really drawn to old Greek mythology, stories you hear when you’re younger—you know, like how before the Brother’s Grim there was Giambattista Basile’s,” she says, referencing the 17th cen-tury collection of Italian fairytales, a copy of which sits on her co%ee table, known to have in#uenced the Brother’s

Adrien Broom is a 27 year old freelance photographer who splits her time between New Haven and New York City. Her work exists in the space between dreams, myth, and the enchanting world of childhood. Her photographs are replete with animals and forests, and her models tend towards beautiful women with %owing hair, all of which situate her images in the world of the fantastical. "ese haunting and beautiful photographs drew Vita Bella! to her studio space in Erector Square, in downtown New Haven, where we learned more about the woman behind the camera.

Stories You Hear When You’re Younger



Vita Bella!: Does clothing relate to how you feel?

Demetra Kasimis: Yes—sometimes I’ll plan to wear something, but then I just wake up that day in a dif-ferent mood. Bright colors keep me happy. I like to have fun with fashion. Dramatic silhouettes, geometric shapes, constructed designs. I like primary colors, arti-$cial looking colors.

VB!: Did you have fashion in#uences growing up?

DK: Well, my father started a women’s boutique cloth-ing store in Corinth. It’s something that interested him. We bond over clothes.

VB!: Was he interested in what you wore growing up?

DK: My father is very particular about his own cloth-ing, the cuts and the fabrics, and I think I picked that up from him. In high school I got into vintage clothes, and I still am completely drawn to 60’s fashion. He de$nitely had opinions about what I wore and how I looked growing up. "ere was a bit of a conservatism to it. He thought my bangs hid my face, and he didn’t want me to wear nail polish.

VB!: Your father grew up in Greece. What’s your rela-tionship with the country?

DK: Well, my brother and I were raised in Manhattan knowing the language. "at was important to us. We would visit our family in the summers, and I spent a year studying there after college. Everyone in Greece talks about politics constantly, and my father is an avid reader himself of political articles and journals. Aca-demically I now focus on ancient Greece, particularly immigration politics, though modern Greek issues still interest me. Sometimes I feel it’s almost too close to home for academic study.

VB!: Do you feel Greek culture in#uenced your fashion style?

DK: Not really—I used to stand out in Greece. Women in Greece tend to be very feminine, with long hair and $tted clothes, and they usually wear a lot of make-up. When I was living there on a Fulbright people didn’t understand my love of vintage clothing. "ings have certainly changed in Athens. Lots of vintage stores have opened up since then. But there was the strong sense that they were “used” clothes. "at was uncom-fortable.

VB!: How about growing up in Manhattan?

DK: Yes—I didn’t realize Manhattan was so special until I left! Growing up in New York, I didn’t think

BRIGHT AND

BEAUTIFUL��

about thinking about clothes as being interesting or not. I came late to the idea that I was dressing di%erently, because I grew up in a place where people took fashion seriously. Although I’ve been going to Greece since I was four, I didn’t take a domestic #ight until I was 23 and was looking at graduate schools. "at’s when I started to see strong regional dif-ferences in how people related to cloth-ing.

VB!: What about your mother?

DK: My mother is very stylish, and she saved a lot of her clothing from the 70s. What I love about my parents is how strongly they appreciate the emotional aspect of clothing and like to share it. So, for example, my mother’s wedding dress was kind of a disco toga that she let me wear to parties. When my mother went to London in 1968, she got her hair cut at Vidal Sassoon, so the $rst time I went to London, I did the same thing. Good haircuts were always important. When I was little, she had a Japanese hairdresser come to the apartment to cut our hair.

VB!: How do you cope fashionably with harsh winters?

DK: It’s de$nitely not easy. Again, play-ing with shapes help. I have this one winter coat with a high collar and bell-sleeves that I like a lot, and it keeps me warm.

VB!: So almost like what a Greek Or-thodox priest wears?

DK: Yes, that’s pretty accurate. [laughs]

VB!: Do you have a favorite season?

DK: Probably fall, because I always loved school. I guess that now that I’m a professor I’ll always have a new semes-ter. "at’s weird to think, isn’t it?

Native New Yorker Demetra Kasimis talks Greece, vintage, and her love of color. Kasimis is a postdoctoral associate in the Whitney Humanities Center, a lecturer for Directed Studies, and specializes in immigration in ancient Greece. In the fall she will be-gin as Assistant Professor of Political Science at California State University, Long Beach.


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"It's you my love, youwho are the Stranger."

All featured vintage clothing courtesy of :ENGLISH MARKET

839 Chapel StreetNew Haven, CT 06510

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photographshair & makeup

styling

feautured models

McKAY NIELDCINDY LUCAROLINE ROUSESHIRA TELUSHKINMEGHAN UNOANADA LAKRAZINAB KEITA

Models: Laurel Durning-Hammond, Olivia Scicolone, Cece Xie, Caroline Rouse, Madeline Ludwig-Leone, Bridget Hearst, Anne Dailey, Raymond Crouch, Gabriel DeLeon, Kenneth Crouch, Murat Dagli, Sho Matsuzaki, Patty Lu, Layann Masri, BJ White, and Christine Slomka.


"e di%erences between being naked and wanting to be nakedShe steps into the shower and pulls the curtain like a cell door Closes her brown eyes against sudsShe rubs the dead leaves and Niger mud into her skinScrubs the thick into her thighsCarves the wide into her waistBrown strands, weakened by chemicals, detach from her head and spread into chaos on the wallsEach strand a microcosm of the wilderness it came from "eir color reminds her of her bodyShe always paints her skin a shade too darkHer shape? She always gets it wrongShe’s never thin enoughHer hips are always too wideHer nose, too wideHer lips too wideEach strand of hair reminds her of why she hates this ritual She thinks of the two of themShe’s too shy to dream of their bodies, so she dreams of their hair Imagines the strands entwiningHis, straight, softHers, straight, too — on a good dayMaybe they will never blend, but at least these strands are willing to yield to each other’s coilsWhen she feels brave, she thinks of their skinHis is the sunrise casting everything in goldPale light she wants to bathe inHers, the shadow born in corners light rejects"e distance between dark and dawn is the de$nition of sunrise"e distance between dark and dawn is the de$nition of sunrise"e distance between them is necessary—NoIfeanyi doesn’t live there anymore"is morning, she shampooed herself out of her skinLying in all this brown called ebony, she re-baptized herself in soap sudsCleansed herself of mud and dead leaves Rinsed o% shadowShe painted herself wet sand between lovers’ tanned toesShe painted herself tiger’s eyeShe molded herself arms big Enough to hold you inCarved warm eyes deep as pools to drown your uncertainty inSculpted ears that could swallow your sadnessSpelled ’beautiful’ in the breakage on the wallsStepped out of the shower Saw the sun rise

Ifeanyi Awachie

SHOWER PORTRAIT


LEMON CURD5 egg yolks1 cup sugar

1/3 cup lemon juiceZest of 4 Lemons 1 stick of butter,

cut into pats and chilled To begin, make sure you have the right materials to con-struct a double-boiler: a medium pot/saucepan and a metal bowl that $ts on the saucepan but does not touch the bottom.

Add enough water to the saucepan so the water level comes up about 1-2 inches up the side of the saucepan. Bring water to a simmer. Meanwhile, in the metal bowl, combine egg yolks and sugar, whisk until smooth and evenly combined – this should take about 1 minute. Add lemon juice and zest to the egg and sugar mixture, whisk until smooth. When the water comes to simmer, reduce heat to low and place bowl on the saucepan. Whisk the mixture until thickened, about 10 minutes, or until the mixture is light yellow and coats the back of a spoon.

Remove from heat, stir in butter one piece at a time. Let each piece of butter melt completely before adding the next piece. Place lemon curd in a clean container, or serv-ing dish. Keeps in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks.

Place on a cookie sheet. Bake until golden brown for about 15-17 minutes. Remove from oven, let cool for 3-5 minutes, and enjoy!

S UDDENLY S PRING��

photographs by MEGHAN UNOdishes by KATHERINE McCOMIC

featuring ANNE DAILEY, ALLEGRA GORDON & ISAAC WASSERMAN

Spring is here. "e air smells jubilant, %owers are blooming, and the world could not possibly look more bright. Waiting for a bus, walking a few minutes out of your way, going for a run—so much of life gets easier with warm weather. In this season of renewal, why not stop, venture outdoors, $nd some sun and organize a picnic? For true spring celebration VB! brings you a perfect picnic menu of whole wheat scones, lemon curd, and vanilla cream. Go on: make yourself a delightful meal to enjoy with friends, a lover, or a lovely afternoon to yourself.

WHOLE WHEAT SCONES2 cups whole-wheat #our

1/3 cup sugar1 tsp baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda½ teaspoon salt

1 stick unsalted butter, cut into pats and frozen½ cup sour cream

1 large egg Preheat oven to 400. Adjust oven rack to middle posi-tion. In a large bowl, combine #our, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Cut cold butter into the dry mixture: take a fork and mill the butter into small pieces. Use your hands to crumble butter and mix with #our – end up with little pea-sized pieces of butter. In a separate bowl, whisk together sour cream and egg.

VANILLA CREAM1/3 cup heavy whipping cream, chilled

1 Tablespoon sour cream2 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract In a chilled metal bowl, whip cream until sti% peaks form. Gently fold in sour cream, sugar, and vanilla extract. Add sour cream and egg mixture to the dry ingredients. Mix well with you hands. Work until evenly combined and of regular consistency throughout. Lightly #our a #at surface. Place the scone dough down and #atten into a circle, about 1 inch thick. Sprinkle with sugar. Cut the disk into 8 triangles.


it does. She bandages our wounds from with-in the beautiful world that she built above water, and she tells us that everything will be all right, and it’s true. I believe her.

Jade Nicholson

Monet & MeI'm sitting on a bench in the Musee l'Orangerie and I feel as though Claude Monet is sit-ting next to me, silently shaking his head at the room's other occupants, telling me they don't understand; that this is not the way these canvases are supposed to be viewed. I want to scream out, "Stop your chattering and LOOK!" But even instructed, I'm sure many won't see his garden the way he wished it would be seen, and I could never shout out because I know that with most art, I don't always see as the artist envisioned I would.

Yet still, Monet speaks to me. Perhaps it's because his obsession with water lilies re-minds me of the way I feel when I look at a certain redwood forest in Northern Califor-nia, or maybe it's because his connection to one place, captured so beautifully in these vast canvases, is akin to something I have felt before.

Whatever it is I'm not sure, but I'll look back at this $gment of my imagination, Monsieur Claude Monet,and I will give a smile and a slight nod to show my agreement. "I under-stand," it will say. And maybe then, he'll be satis$ed. Mary Bolt

THE SARTORIALIST

CASSIUS CLAY, BK '13What are you wearing? Trousers, Lanvin. Bowtie, Hermès. Blazer, Brooks Brothers. Shirt and overcoat, Burberry Prorsum. Slippers, Christian Louboutin. What’s your fashion routine? I get dressed each day with a mind to what I want to wear in the evening and wake up in the next morning.

SIMON CHAFFETZ, MC '12Rubber boots? Yeah, they’re a little unusual for men, but I get fed up with the duck boots seen all over campus so I wanted to try something di#erent—and in high boots you feel invincible. I'm pretty sure that's why super heroes wear them.

Mother“Nothing is ever permanent.”

I think she truly, truly believes that. She be-lieves in choosing what she will and will not surrender, what she will $ght for, what she will give and what she will take. She makes the decision to be strong. She doesn’t let any-one else de$ne words for her; she uses them, and they become the mortar between the bricks she uses to build her own world.

“I’m $ne with just seeing you all happy. "is is my place for now. "e keeper.”

She looks beautiful in the home she built around herself, but I almost don’t believe her when she says she’s happy looking out the window at us playing in the rye. When we prick our $ngers on roses she bandages us up and sends us back outside into the world where anything is possible. "en she remains our keeper.

“Don’t you worry about this. All things pass, and in the end, it will all be $ne. Just be pa-tient.”

It’s so sincere when she says it. She knows. She’s been in the place at the very bottom of the ocean where there is no sun or rain. She’s been on that ground, breathing unwillingly in time to his stolen power. So when she says it gets better, she’s saying it because

MUSINGS 29 Spring 2012 2 VITA BELLA! Spring 2012 2 VITA BELLA! 30

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DEADLINESMidnight deadlines never seem so close!e day before, But when the day arrives, let me tell you,Noon is about when panic begins.One O’clock the blank screen says my ideas,Which seemed so thoughtful and promising not too long ago, are actu-allyA god-awful mess of poor planning, so that byTwo O’clock I’ve got nothing all to show for it, thankyouverymuch.!ree O’clock, or somewhere thereabout, begin plans to leave the coun-tryOr else escape this insu"erable prison of reality,Cooled soon by Four O’clock’s resignation To keep calm and carry on until, wait a moment,Five O’clock breakthrough!Just good enough is more than enough!Six, Seven, Eight O’clock disappear in the rhapsodic joy of composition,Nine, Ten O’clock in the cooler pleasure of revision untilEleven o’clock con#rms that passably mediocreIs of voluptuous beauty to a desperate man.Eleven forty-#ve Saves my ass yet again,So that after more than a few stomach ulcers, grey hairs, and fat soggy tears,I feel a rush of dear, sweet calm.

Casey Sumner

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VITA BELLA!LIVING the

BEAUTIFUL LIFE at YALE

spotted it from his bathroom window; but neither he nor the generals understood. A few Polish farmers saw it as they checked the lock on their barns, and a beggar boy emerging from a dumpster in London glimpsed it and nodded.And the inmates saw it in those camps whose names denote constellations of death:Buchenwald, Bergen-Belsen, Auschwitz – the many souls still awake at this hour, ill and cold, their eyes burning with the images of the previous day and the days that came before it, some squinting through the slit at the barracks top, whisper-ing to the moon that had vanished.In the lunar Sea of Tranquility, where in a quarter-century’s time two men would come in peace for all mankind, no eyes gazed back towards Earth. Yet Earth’s black shadow swept down all the same, $lling up the Sea of Tranquility, gliding silently across the dells and craters of the lunar surface. A co-rona of $re dominated the moon’s sky: a death star, the earth su%ocating the sun. And high above it all, far past the great Oort Cloud and the heliosphere, across untold leagues of in-terstellar space, the armies of the shining soldiers continued their ride through the vast darkness, rolling in peace across the unending expanse.

MUSINGS

At nightfall, the shells stopped exploding and the men re-turned to their tents and their bunkers and the pounding melted from the air. Frost swept down from the north and covered the tents and the tanks and the Kalashnikovs and the blanket of the man at the camp’s gate. He gazed down the road that unspooled into the steppes of the East, trying to discern the form of the shadows near the trees.Occasionally his eyes found the sky, upon which God had placed vast armies of shining soldiers – slowly rolling across the expanse, never overtaking one another, never engaging in combat, never lobbing shells, save for the irregular #are that raced harmlessly across the glittering cosmos, proclaim-ing the joy of creation. A celestial spotlight shone through the treetops, and the guard stared into it as though its light might wipe his vision clean of death or $ll his empty stomach. "e moonlight was strange tonight; almost red, as though the blood from the battle below had splattered so high that it covered the lens of the lunar spotlight. "e wind was in the grasses and the leaves of the trees; the whispers of millions of soldiers followed each gust."e guard glanced back at the moon and shivered. Something was happening, odd and impenetrable, that made his heart tingle. Someone had placed a black towel across the light -- the moon was vanishing. "e guard mumbled something, which carried along the breeze towards the enemy camp, where another soldier wrapped in a blanket was staring at the disappearing moon. "e Nazi generals saw it as they walked to their tents along the Eastern front and in Berlin, Himmler

Eclipse 1942

Spoonful of Sky

Hodiah Nemes

One night on my way back to my room, I met a woman who asked if I wanted to taste a spoonful of sky. I didn’t know her, but I liked the way she o%ered what she had to o%er. “What will I taste it with?” “Biggest spoon there is,” she said.Every night for the past week I’d seen it, arching fur-ther and further down behind the brick walls and green shutters that face the courtyard. “"e Big Dipper?” “Biggest spoon there is,” she told me. “Well, what do I owe you? I’ve only got a few dollars.”She laughed and the wind curled around us, behind my ears, and into my skin. “You’ve just got to give me one answer.” “I’ll try.” “How do you want the night sky to go down?”

I didn’t think and I didn’t think and I told her I wanted the stars to be tender and charred with the heat from the moon and riddled with rivets of velvet, incarnadine veins that would burst with particles of salt and hope and atmosphere in my mouth and they would be glitter-ing in their juices that dripped from dead tendrils that didn’t have any more light to shine except the light that was traveling into the dark tunnel of my throat; and the clouds would be celestial cream whipped with a glori-ous, blue-grey lyrical swirls that smoothed with gusto the way for the crunchy meteors caught at the bottom of that Big abysm of my spoon and those meteors would snap, crackle, pop and be the climax to this saporous spoonful of sky that I’d only know I’d really swallowed when I erupted in one Big blissful exhale.

I told her that’s how I wanted the night sky to go down and she let me have two spoonfuls.

37 Spring 2012 2 VITA BELLA! Madeline Du#

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Vita Bella! Fall 2011