SONDHEIM AT BRANDEIS: Jared Greenberg ‘12 (center) tackles love and marriage in “Company.”

V o l u m e I I I , N u m b e r X X I I C e l e b r a t i n g t h e P r e C i o u s h u m a n t a P e s t r y m a r C h 2 0 , 2 0 0 9

The Lydian String Quartet is one of those unfortunately overlooked cultural institutions among Brandeis undergradu-ates. Looking out across the sea of white heads on Saturday night in the Slosberg Music Center, one could easily forget that this was a university and not a senior citi-zen home. Yet the youthful vitality present in the performance itself suggested that classical music at Brandeis is geared as much toward students as older community members.

The quartet, founded in 1980, is an internationally acclaimed chamber ensem-ble dedicated to reinvigorating works from the classical canon while exploring con-temporary pieces. The group has won ensemble prizes at important festivals in France, England, Canada and the United States, given performances in prestigious American and European concert halls, and released more than twenty musical record-ings. Yet despite their worldly ambitions, the quartet feels most at home at Brandeis University, where all the members are part of the teaching faculty and regularly give performances.

Before the program began, the quartet announced that the university would be cutting back its position to half time for the following year, but that the ensemble would figure out a way to continue offering concerts to the Brandeis community and broader listening public. At a time when cut-ting back on the arts appears to define the university’s modus operandi, the announce-ment came as more troubling than shock-ing. Additionally, Boston based violinist Danielle Maddon would be filling in for

Lydian Quartet dazzles Brandeis on “world tour”

Phone rings, door chimes, in comes “Company”

LOL @ the internetz

Cynical Optimism

BY SAMANTHA SHOKINColumnist

Company. The word alone is enough to drive a person up a wall, at least when it comes to the kind of company that outlasts its welcome. But company takes many forms, and this show explores many of them.

The show centers around Bobby and the relationships he has with his friends, mostly married couples, and his three on-again-off-again girlfriends, Marta, Kathy, and April. At 35, Bobby is still single and, while his friends love him anyhow, all wonder when (if at all) he will settle down. Bobby, though, has been reluctant to com-mit to anyone because he’s been waiting

for the perfect girl – a woman with all the best qualities of his married female friends. Through a series of vignettes connected to each other around the framework of a birthday party they are holding for him, we see Bobby interact with each of the couples that make up “those good and crazy peo-ple, [his] married friends” and with each of his three girlfriends. Each scene depicts the trials and tribulations, the good and the bad, of marriage through the couples’ varied relationships.

This concept musical is often hard to put across well due to its lack of a plot driven narrative arc and its complex score, and director Justin Becker ’09 was only partly up to the challenge, putting together a cohesive production based around a concept all his own. Known in Brandeis’ theater circles for his strong direction of “The Last Five Years” and “Cabaret,” both of which are like “Company” in that they have non-traditional structures, Becker still shows some of the spark that has come to be expected. but this is certainly his most lackluster production to date. While his concept of loneliness in a big, scary world was an interesting one, there was nothing much to draw the audience into these characters' lives or care about what happened to them. Additionally, the cho-reography seemed overly showy and out of place in a musical that is as low key as

“I studied three hours for a test that just got cancelled. FML.”

Erm, I’m sorry—was that a typo? FM, what?It wasn’t until a good two weeks ago that I

noticed this newfangled internet meme began to inconspicuously trickle into my Facebook newsfeed. Curious, I explored further, and wound up at what is sure to be the source of many future hours of shameless hilarity and procrastination: www.fmylife.com .

The concept is quite simple, as most internet phenomena tend to be. Step 1- Anonymous posters submit short and embarrassing per-sonal anecdotes. Step 2- Users vote on the juic-iest ones, based on their levels of f ’edness. Step 3- The most humiliating stories make it to the front page, to the delight of thousands of users laughing at the expense of others’ humiliation. Oh, and what a sidesplitting-good time it is. Some of the stuff that ends up on this site is enough to make you grimace in pain or burst out in convulsive laughter, or both. I guess laughter really must be the best medicine in order for these brave souls to abandon their self-respect to become the laughing stocks of the entire web-browsing populace.

When you stop to think about the broad and often perplexing world of internet humor, however, this particular trend pales in com-parison to lol-fads of the past, if we’re judging solely based on their level of weird/quirkiness. In layman’s terms, let’s call this the “WTF?-Factor,” or WTFF.

The WTFF of internet memes are often off the charts—enough to make you question the sanity of the people that started them, as well as your own for finding them so inexplicably funny in the first place. Why, exactly, does an ungrammatical caption beneath a single can-did picture of a kitten harvest enough laughter to trigger an entire wave of lolcat-mania? Why must we feel the urge to click the forward button on an email, linking our friends to a viral video of some random dude lip-syncing to Romanian pop music? If we were to share these links with the comedic experts of the past—Charlie Chaplin, Groucho Marx, etc.—would they get the jokes?

Humor is something so subjective that it can never be “seriously” explained (obviously, if I have to explain the joke to you, it’s not funny anymore, now is it?) But once understood, it paints a vivid picture of the age it so whole-heartedly ridicules. That leaves me with one question: what statement does internet-humor make about our generation?

Err…perhaps that’s one best left unan-swered. Leave it to future historians to inter-pret the cultural significance of Engrish phraseology, or “All Your Base Are Belong To Us.” Until then, I’ll just sit back and appreciate the ludicrous products of my beloved web-obsessed generation. We’re a quirky bunch, the lot of us, and it brings joy to my heart to know that the future movers-and-shakers of America come from the same generation of people that contribute to such monumental outlets of intellectual exchange as 4chan.org. Let’s just hope that society doesn’t end up as absurd as our bizarre senses of humor, because if it does—FML.

BY MAXWELL PRICEEditor

See LYDIAN QUARTET, p. 10

See COMPANY, p. 9

BY SAM NEGINStaff

LYDIAN QUARTET CONCERT: This acclaimed ensemble in residence at Brandeis takes a global perspective.

PHOTO BY Yuan Yao/The Hoot

PHOTO BY Yuan Yao/The Hoot

March 20, 2009 Diverse City 9

VOICES

Prof. Wayne Marshall (AAAS and MUS) is a man of seemingly infinite identities: blogger, DJ, rapper, professor, author, researcher, and musician. Every Monday night, you can catch him spinning tunes at the Enormous Room club in Central Square, and every Tuesday afternoon he’ll be teaching about Music and Globalization.

Marshall seems to be consistently defy-ing the image of the professor as a fusty academic. He is as plugged-in to the digital culture as any web-savvy teen. On his blog, he often speaks in slang culled from the streets of Kingston or the latest hip-hop anthem, mixing scholarly discourse with samples and snippets from the cultures he studies.

The blog (www.wayneandwax.com), which he has been writing since 2003, is widely linked to and has been praised as one of the top musicology blogs on the internet. It’s a mixture of news stories, academic analysis, mp3s, YouTube clips, and baby photos (Marshall is a proud father, and has a second child on the way). Marshall says it keeps him from becoming sealed in an ivory tower, and allows him to have a much wider conversation with

people interested in his topics of study than he could otherwise.

Brandeis students, though, are most familiar with Marshall’s work in the class-room. Offering courses on electronic music, reggae, reggaeton, and hip-hop, Marshall’s work ties multiple musical forms together. His areas of study span the African-American Studies department and the Music department.

Many students come away from Marshall’s classes impressed. “Prof. Marshall is a per-fect example of the kind of professor who brings an international academic experi-ence to our school, and helps us apply global issues to our own lives,” says Noam Shuster ’11, who took Marshall’s Reggae, Race, Representation, and Nation course last semester. Indeed, the classes he offers are unique in their focus, applying a rig-orous academic approach to subjects that may traditionally have seemed unlikely to be studied in a classroom.

His teaching style can be unique, as well. Though he assigns plenty of read-ing, and his papers are reported to be tough, Marshall is known to play YouTube music videos in class, offering them for the group’s analysis and discussion. He has offered extra credit for students who edit the Wikipedia entries of the subject they are

studying, and film nights, spe-cial guests, or demonstrations of his disc jockeying skills are not unknown. Sara Miller ’11, who is currently in Marshall’s Music & Globalization class, says, “Professor Marshall is so innovative…we’ve seen every-thing from Italian opera to Filipino karaoke stars, and he’s managed to relate it all back to the topic we’re discussing.”

At Brandeis, Marshall is close to home. Raised in Cambridge, Marshall cites the ethnically diverse public schools he attended as an influ-ence on his musical interests. He began rapping at the age of 13, and fondly remembers old albums by Run-DMC and Boogie Down Productions. At Harvard, majoring in English, he played bass in a blues band called Whiskey Moan. Music has always been an essential

part of his existence, but the switch from Ivy League English major to DJ/rapper is nevertheless a fascinating one.

For Marshall, though, the transition was virtually seamless. He says he enjoyed studying English, but “[I] found that I was taking more and more music courses over the course of the four years, and spending a lot of my free time listening to and playing music.” He says that at some point during his undergraduate years, he had an epiph-any “where I realized that there was a field that would allow me to do an intellectual engagement with music, similar to what I was already doing with poetry and novels and so forth.” He sees no conflict between his dual role as professor and disc jockey. In fact, Marshall says he finds them “to be really complementary activities: studying music on an academic level and then actu-ally making it, practicing it.”

Marshall’s life has taken him from Madison, Wisconsin (where he earned his doctorate) to the Jamaican prison system (where he helped inmates learn to express themselves through music). But don’t get too excited about the possibility of taking a Marshall class. His contract expires at the end of the semester, and with budget cuts and a hiring freeze, the university is unlike-

ly to reappoint him. His departments have recommended that he stay, but prospects have been looking grim.

All may not yet be lost for Wayne Marshall, though. Brandeis alumnus Leor Galil ’08 has set up the website www.SaveWayne.com, as the beginning of a campaign to save Marshall’s job. Galil is also collecting signatures for a petition, which he plans to give to the administra-tion (students, faculty, parents, and alums can sign the petition on the Save Wayne website). Galil and others believe the loss of Marshall would leave a catastrophic void in Brandeis’ music department. Galil explained that Marshall “[has done more] in just under two years than some profes-sors could do in their entire career.”

Certainly, it is true that without Marshall, the study of world music would be all-but nonexistent at our school. Prof. Judith Eissenberg (MUS) notes that Marshall “is the kind of educator that brings Brandeis into the 21st century at a gallop,” and that his “savvy in the most cutting edge music technologies and conversations [is] much-needed.”

Although Marshall’s loss will be felt by many, his career prospects are bright, and he is well-recognized as one of the nation’s most up-and-coming ethnomusicologists. He is the co-editor of the first authoritative book on Reggaeton, which will be pub-lished soon by the Duke University Press. A visit to Marshall’s faculty webpage shows a plethora of papers on various musical topics, many of which can be read in their entirety on his blog. Plus, of course, he’ll keep spinning his brand of “experimental party music” at the Enormous Room on Mondays.

In addition, today and Saturday, Marshall (along with Prof. Eissenberg) will co-chair the next Brandeis Music Unites Us event, featuring music group Nettle. The project aims to bring top-level world musicians to campus for engaging forums and per-formances, and Marshall will give a pre-concert talk about world music at the Rose Art Museum on Saturday at 7:00pm.

No matter where Wayne Marshall teach-es, his students can expect an unforgettable academic experience. A Marshall class may not be typical, but as his Brandeis students (myself included) can attest, it’s absolutely worth the time.

this one. While the moves seen here might have looked fine in a big, splashy Broadway spectacle, they simply did not belong here.

That being said, Becker was able to draw out many fine performances from his cast – some of the best performances seen on any Brandeis stage in recent memory. One of the standout stars of this production was Ashley Sauerhof ’09 as Marta, the most neurotic of Bobby’s girlfriends, but also the most loveable. Sauerhof ’s obviously large personality and even larger heart were clearly on display throughout her entire performance, not to mention her talent as a singer. Possibly her most endearing trait, and the one that was most useful to her in this performance, though, was her sharp comic timing. When, as Marta, she talks about why she loves the city and how to tell true New Yorkers from the out-of-towners, it became clear that Sauerhof will always have a career to fall back on that will keep her wealthy for the rest of her life – making people laugh.

Another star performance in this show came from Gavi Young ’09 as Joanne, an older, alcoholic friend of Bobby’s who’s been married three times and is argu-

ably the most brutally honest person in Bobby’s life. For starters, Young has the strongest stage presence of any actress at Brandeis and, I would argue, of any actress her age currently working in the business. Before she walks on stage to play her part, it is immediately clear that she’s coming and magic can be expected ,which she never fails to provide. When she opens her mouth to sing, though, the real magic happens. Hearing her powerful, full, honey-coated voice has the power to cast her audience under her spell and willingly follow her lead.

Other performances of note came from Ariella Katz '09, whose cuteness was in abundance and was put to good use, and Jen Faber, '09 whose performance of “Getting Married Today” (a song which rivals “Flight of the Bumblebee” in required speed of delivery) was better than that of many professional actresses with much more experience than she.

As for the design elements of the show, the most impressive piece was the set. Going along with the directorial concept of Bobby auditioning couples for his model of a perfect marriage, Bryan Prywes’ '11 set was not only functional for the needs of the

concept and those of the show, but also visually gorgeous. The costumes also worked relatively well with the exception that too many hats got in the way of the ability to see the actors’ faces. Katherine Teeter’s '12 lighting design, her first, was the most middle of the road of the design elements. While clearly an early work in this designer’s cannon, there is definitely reason to believe that there is a future for Teeter should she decide to pur-sue this path further, as long as she has good guidance along the way. And guidance from our friends may be all the company we need in this world.

“Company”: Book by George Furth, music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim; directed and choreographed by Justin Becker; music direction by Ben Oehlkers; orchestrations by Katya Dreyer-Oren; sets by Bryan Prywes; costumes by Justin Becker; lights by Katherine Teeter; sound design by Dan Lincoln; stage management by Lisa Schwartz.

Produced by Lily Nagy-Deak and Tympanium Euphorium at the Shapiro

A tribute to Wayne Marshall, a professor remixed

BY NATHAN ROBINSONSpecial to Diverse City

PHOTO BY Nathan Robinson

PROF. DJ: Prof. Wayne Marshall spins records at his regular Monday gig at the Enormous Room in Central Square.

A portrait of loneliness amidst company

Theater, 415 South Street, Waltham MA 02453. March 12th through March 15th, 2009. Running time: 2 hours, 45 minutes.

COMPANY (from p. 8)

PHOTO BY Yuan Yaot/The Hoot

10 Diverse City

CHORUSMarch 20, 2009

The Brandeis Slam Team has just proven itself the ultimate dark horse candidate, becoming the only first year team to advance to the semi-finals of this year’s College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational. The competition, which took place last weekend at University of Pennsylvania, celebrates spoken word poetry as a force of a creative expression and democratic values.

The Brandeis team, which is only a few months old and consists of mostly novice slam poets, prevailed over many more experienced poetry groups on the strength of their original material and performance abilities. Jason Henry Simon-Bierenbaum ‘11, the most expe-rienced poet on the team, served as coach along with Dean Jamele Adams. The other members of the team include Nicole Izbicky ‘11, Kass Steinhouse ‘12, David Wayne ‘12, and Usman Hameedi ’12. I had a chance to sit down with Jason to discuss the team’s remarkable victory

Brandeis underdog slam team triumphs

BY MAXWELL PRICEEditor

MP: The Brandeis Slam Team has only been practicing for a few months togeth-er, and most have been slamming for less than six months. What the process of preparing everyone to compete?JHSB: We practiced for like a month and a half before going over. I’ve had some experience coaching before…and Dean Jamele Adams was a great help. We did some experimenting with writing prompts, and once the group had loos-ened up, we had more of an idea what everybody’s style was. Then the practices started to shift to, like, okay, you’ve got a new piece, do you want some feedback? Or they would perform it and we would time it…And then we would work on a piece part by part for the performance…We’d work on getting to capture emotion better. I think emotions are a big thing in poetry, especially when it’s performed.MP: You mentioned that over time, the members seemed to come into their own style, but how would characterize the Brandeis Slam Team as a group?JHSB: One of the advantages of being a young team is that we didn’t have an overall group style. I definitely think there was some cohesion…but overall each has a very different style of writing and performance, which was definitely a good thing for us. There’s another advan-tage of many people on the group not having seen many performance poets, [because] they could work on finding their own way.MP: What did you find the most chal-lenging part of the tournament?JHSB: I guess our second bout, there were three other teams all with similar styles, and the judges were really going for that, but they weren’t really going for ours. It was like, how do we win over the judges while still doing pieces we want to do and maintaining artistic integrity...We were in fourth place going into the third round, so we had to break out our group piece, the “Dork Diaries,” a very Brandeisian piece…and that piece got a 29.9 out of 30, and that put us from fourth place to first place, and we were able to ride out the victory and end up winning the bout that halfway through we were dead last in.

- Interview -

One week ago was the showdown cul-minating a week-long media-hyped feud between Jon Stewart and Jim Cramer, of CNBC’s loudest finance show, “ Mad Money.” To commemorate the occasion, “The Daily Show” dispensed with the stan-dard format, chose a self-mocking special introduction segment and spent the bulk of the show on the ‘interview’ of Cramer.

The conflict arose when Stewart and company aired a very pointed segment of CNBC’s financial advice that had subse-quently proven to be wrong and/or disas-trous in relation to the current financial crisis. Jim Cramer fired back that he had been unfairly maligned in that segment, leading Stewart to point out that Cramer had been touting, among other things, Bear Stearns as a worthy buy just a week before the firm collapsed and was liqui-dated in a Treasury-facilitated fire sale.

It all led to last Thursday’s show, where Cramer showed up, ostensibly to debate Stewart but more realistically to offer a mea culpa, while trying to diminish his own culpability.

The ratings stunt was hardly the most in-depth examination of the economy’s current dire straits, but it was an interest-ing watch that provided food for thought about the role of the media as fourth estate and a tool of the people, not power.

The entire interview was reminiscent of Stewart’s confrontation with Tucker Carlson of “Crossfire,” where he decried the network for airing “partisan hack-ery” instead of presenting honest political debate. Carlson responded that Stewart

had failed to meet the same standard, with the obvious retort being that it’s not Comedy Central’s job to meet the stan-dards of journalistic excellence.

Cramer was certain to mention the same thing on Thursday; no one, including Stewart had seen the crisis coming. Stewart was not to be deterred by claims that the “The Daily Show” should have been able to predict impending financial doom. He pointed out that, by many standards, finan-cial experts might reasonably be expected to look critically at untenable leverage situ-ations and the illogic of a system offering double-digit returns for years.

What’s not really received a lot of atten-tion in the interview is that Stewart found previously unaired clips of a Cramer inter-view in which he advocates illegal market manipulation through rumors, given that the SEC will be unable to adequately police it, and explains the precarious position of shorting stocks when managing a hedge fund. In other words, Cramer was well aware of market vulnerabilities and inti-mately familiar with the less-than-ethical dealings of hedge funds and finance man-agers.

Cramer, speechless, shrugged guiltily and put his hands in a supplicating gesture when he saw those clips, and was unable to explain away that resounding indictment. The rest of the interview was a show trial, a chance for Stewart to rant on a predeter-mined line of questioning and Cramer to apologize while pleading that he had been lied to and misled by the same bankers who had misled the American public.

The issues raised, though, aren’t really about CNBC’s role in the financial crisis (while the network did promote the finan-cial instruments on shaky ground, it has a small overall viewership). Nor do they have anything to do with Jim Cramer’s ridicu-lous television personality (though it is worth mentioning that, as Stewart pointed out, that does significantly detract from his credibility).

Instead, Stewart’s pandering populism ties into “The Daily Show” media absur-dity meme. In recent years, with journal-ism in crisis, there’s been a consistent effort on the part of Stewart and his fellow satirist Stephen Colbert to take journalism and news organizations to task for their trivialities and, more importantly, for their failures to substantively inform the public.

Really, then, it’s not about Jim Cramer at

all, though he did make the poor choice to involve himself. It’s about financial jour-nalism. It’s, as Stewart explained, the idea that everyone in the field never questioned thirty-five to one leverage ratios, the fun-damentals of a market producing absurd returns year after year, the underlying logic of subprime loans and credit-default swaps, or the intricacies of the bond insur-ance and ratings system.

Perhaps Cramer is right that he never could have seen a crisis coming. But there’s little sympathy to be had for someone who was part of an industry that never took the time to investigate any of these issues in boom times. Cramer’s lament that the CEOs on his program, or the former CEO of Bear Stearns, lied to him, was met with Stewart’s more than acerbic rejoinder, “A CEO lied to you!”

In other words, it’s not the job of a finan-cial analyst, or journalists on a network dedicated to finance, to unquestioningly accept the words of those in power as truth, just as we resent journalists for unquestion-ingly promoting the Bush administration’s claims of pre-war intelligence with respect to Iraq. And though watching Jon Stewart yell at Jim Cramer would have, on its own, been a pointless exercise in pandering, he ultimately succeeded in drawing attention to the media failure to investigate and to protect its constituents. As he explained, CNBC has the power to be a regulatory force, just as The Wall Street Journal or the New York Times Business Section does. The fact that they failed to exercise that power, Stewart asserted, has hurt all of us. After all, “’[finance is] not a game,” it’s all of our futures.

BY DANIELLE GEWURZEditor

Cramer vs. Stewart: the media and financial crisis

Judith Eissenberg.Yet from the noble, stately rhythms

of the first quartet to the resounding chords of the final, the ensemble showed that they are still a musical force to be reckoned with. The program served as part of a series entitled Around the World in a String Quartet, through which the group has tackled works from Azerbaijan, China, and Iran among oth-ers. Saturday’s program was not quite so exotic, featuring works from Germany and Hungary, two of the nations most represented in the standard repertoire. Nevertheless, the exquisitely nuanced renderings of the literature transported the audience to an extraordinary place that might just as easily have been half-way around the world.

The evening began with a tumultuous yet carefully articulated reading of Beethoven’s Quartet in C Minor, one of the great master’s first compositions for the genre despite his advanced age and experience. Strains of Haydn, his great mentor, could be heard in various motifs, but the pas-

sionate Sturm and Drang of the Menuetto: Allegretto was pure Romantic Beethoven. The Lydians applied the perfect mix of delicate restraint and percussive accenting to energize the piece without betraying its underlying courtly, aristocratic tendencies.

Perhaps the most pleasant surprise of the evening came in the form of Ernst von Dohnáyi’s Serenade in C Major, for String Trio. The Hungarian composer’s work was long neglected due to his sus-pected collaboration with the Nazis during World War II, but recent investigation has cleared his reputation and reinstated his importance among early modern compos-ers. Although many of his contemporaries worked in experimental modes with avant garde leanings, Dohnáyi’s work bears more resemblance to his late romantic predeces-sors. That said, the triumphant, dramatic work received an electrifying jolt from the quartet’s interpretation. The Scherzo fea-tured a wild, staggering solo violin passage that echoed in and intertwined with the other instruments in climactic intensity. And the gorgeous but troubled Tema con variazioni came to life with the ensemble’s

detailed attention to dynamic shaping.Finally, the true ode to youthfulness came

with Mendelssohn’s Quartet in A Minor, which the composer wrote at age 18. The piece was based on a love song the composer wrote, which the quartet played first along with Katherine Schram ’09. Although the tune featured a pretty melody, the song was a slight trifle compared to the piece it spawned. The flowing legato strokes of Adagio were like the musical embodiment of a rose lan-guishing in the moonlight. The Lydians employed their full expressive potential to unlock every ounce of emotion from the piece without making it overly sentimental. From extreme sadness to ecstasy, the phras-ing was just dramatic enough to move the audience’s hearts.

The Lydian String Quartet is a point of pride for Brandeis University. Though the cutting back of the members’ positions won’t be the hot topic that the closing of the Rose was, the student body should express its support for the group. They may be on a tour of the world, but as long as they stop by Slosberg, we ought to pay them the courtesy of a visit.

Lydian Quartet brings worldly flair to BrandeisLYDIAN QUARTET (from p. 8)

Graphics from Internet Source

END-NOTEMarch 20, 2009 Diverse City 11

If you were in Village B from 6-8pm this past Saturday, you may have noticed a group of students working furiously with sharp knives at one of the second floor kitchens. They were actually participat-ing in the Japanese Student Association’s

2nd annual Iron Chef competi-tion. This year, two teams went head-to-head in a battle for culinary glory and the chance to win a prize for their efforts.

Each team had one hour to cook a dish containing the secret ingredi-ent. Final dishes were tasted and rated by a panel of judges that includ-

ed Professors Fraleigh Sensei and Nakano Sensei, as well as ICC leaders Kevin Yim and Vrinda Shukla.

Last year’s winners, Team BC3 (Brandeis Chinese Club), confidently returned with a group of entirely new members. Their challenger, Team BFC (Brandeis Football Club), quickly became Team Charlie when that single member discovered that his

teammates couldn’t make it. Despite this handicap, Team Charlie decided to con-tinue competing.

All participants, judges, JSA e-board members and spectators gathered to watch the opening ceremonies. Acting as the chairman of this competition, JSA co-president Kenta Yamamoto briefly explained the rules, and then unveiled the secret ingredient: avocados. The teams were sent to work promptly after he bit into a yellow bell pepper, signaling the start of the competition.

Though on a tighter budget, this excit-ing, free event offered a far more authen-tic experience than the Student Events-run Iron Chef competition. Snacks and refreshments were provided for interested spectators, while a Skype video feed kept us all updated on the competitors’ prog-ress.

After an hour of careful preparation, the two teams were ready to unveil their dish-es. Team Charlie went first, presenting a 5-layer dip with tortilla chips. Along with the secret ingredient, the dip contained

BY KIM DELA CRUZSpecial to Diverse City

On St. Patrick’s Day, no type of music seems as fitting as Celtic-infused punk rock. The greatest of all Boston-based bands, the Dropkick Murphys, know this full well, which is why they have been put-ting on a string of shows around and on St. Patrick’s Day for nine years. It is basically impossible to get tickets for the St. Patrick’s Day show, but I was able to go to the next best thing, the Monday night show at the House of Blues in Boston.

Doors opened at 6:00, with first act Brian McPherson presenting a strange dichoto-my of rowdy Boston Irish words and lo-fi indie melodies. He was followed by an old friend of the band, Stigma. They were loud, hardcore and proud to be from New York. The only fitting opening seemed to be Black 47, with the tin whistles, and the pleasant brogues elevating the set. Yet it was fully evident that the crowd was only there to see Dropkick.

After a seemingly endless wait,

Gregorian chant-ing erupted around 9:45, when the stage was revealed to be decorated with ban-ners depicting archi-tectural elements of a Gothic church, not without a few sham-rocks. The chanting faded, only to have the band rush onstage and break, impas-sioned, into “Famous for Nothing,” possibly their track with the catchiest tune. The most enjoyable ele-ment of any Murphys’ song is the lyrical interplay between lead singer Al Barr and bassist/singer Ken Casey, and from the outset the men were in top form. From there it was on to “State of Massachusetts,” a song that managed to climb the Billboard 200, while being thor-oughly mired in Boston.

Nonsensical, easily repeatable phrases made “Johnny I Hardly Knew Ya” and “Captain Kelly’s Kitchen” so enjoyable. Young step dancers from a local school danced on the stage in their adorable costumes for a number of songs, serving as an interesting contrast to the moshing

The Dropkick Murphys rock out in their elementBY EMILY MASKAS

Special to Diverse City

Image from Internet Source

Brandeis chefs sharpen their knives (and skills) in JSA competition

PHOTO COURTESY OF Kim Dela Cruz

museums from the decades since the 1960s, and Greenblatt marveled at the absence of an institution like the Rose at Harvard.

Another major literary figure, Claire Messud, author of the novel, The Emperor’s Children, weighed in on the significance of the Rose’s threatened closure. She noted the irony of losing sight of the essential importance of art in a time when humani-ty needs its power the most. She compared the hubris of the Bush administration in its reaction to the looting of the Baghdad Museum with the Brandeis administra-tion’s willingness to disregard its cultural heritage. “When we see mistakes in the making, we must speak out,” she implored.

The Brandeis panelists represented diverse disciplines and included a student representative, contributing to the perva-sive feeling that the Rose has become a cause that transcends individual depart-ments or self-interests.

Prof. Andreas Teuber, chair of the phi-losophy department, related personal anecdotes about his art historian mother and his own discovery of art’s meaning. “Art, when I go to a museum,” he declared,

Rose panel offers diverse views on artROSE SYMPOSIUM (from p. 1)) “is life confirmed.”

Speaking in a tone of outrage and frustra-tion, Brian Friedberg (GRAD), a student in the Cultural Production Master's program, demanded that Brandeis figure out a way to solve its economic problems without com-promising its art programs. “This is a breach of trust for those who are involved in the Fine Arts programs,” he insisted.

One of the most moving moments of the night was an informal comment by a mem-ber of the Rose family, who discussed the importance of the museum for its found-ers, Edward and Bertha Rose. Since they had no children of their own, the museum was a monument that served as their legacy for successive generations.

Overall, responses to the symposium were positive. “I’m just mainly impressed with the steadfastness of this whole process,” said Rebeccah Ulm ’11, one of the planners of the first Rose sit-in. “I think it’s important to continue to show our opposition.”

Yet the program's focus on affirming the value of art rather than mourning its loss, showed that optimism remains. As long as people are willing to fight for the value of art, the Rose saga will continue.

PHOTO BY Barbara Stark/The Hoot

VOICES OF WISDOM: Novelist Claire Messud addresses the crowd on the value of art in difficult times.

refried beans, cheddar cheese, onions, and sour cream. The judges concluded that although his presentation could have been better, the avocado flavor was strong and complimented the other ingredients. Team BC3 presented an original dish they called Heavenly fried rice, which was served in a hollowed-out pineapple. The rice con-tained cashews, raisins, pineapple, mashed avocado, and various seasonings, the most prominent of which was curry. Judges agreed that the dish was very tasty, but were unable to detect the avocado flavor.

After ten minutes of deliberation, the judges delivered their verdict. The final scores were very close, but in the end, the Heavenly fried rice won over the judges with its presentation. Team BC3 was pro-claimed the winning team for the second consecutive year. Each member received a $10 gift certificate to a Japanese restaurant in Porter Square.

As an observer, I commend Team Charlie for forging on alone. Ultimately, both dish-es were quite delicious and quickly disap-peared during the post-judging clean-up.

and crowd surfing happening fervently on the floor below. Mickey Ward, the legendary inspiration for “The Warrior’s Code” was in the audience and was given a warm shout out. “Sunshine Highway” was merrily introduced by Casey as a rehab song, written before “that big-haired freak” made it popular. In the highlight of the evening, Liza Graves of Civet, joined the band onstage for my favorite song, “The Dirty Glass.” Of course, “Tessie,” and “The Fields of Athenry” made appearances, with the official show ended by “Kiss Me, I’m Sh*tfaced” and an invitation to all chubby, inebriated women to hop onstage. The encore featured a surprise cover of The Who’s “Baba O’Reilly” and the utterly inev-itable “I’m Shipping Up to Boston.”

Not every song can be a standout, but most were, and the overall quality of the show was stellar.

The crowd was insanely excited, and their enthusiasm never waned. Though it wasn’t the exact St. Patrick’s Day show, it was just intoxicating enough to fill the entire audience with Irish pride.