Ivy League Bunnies

when playboy came to brown

2
Editor-in-Chief Sam Knowles Managing Editor of Features Charles Pletcher Managing Editor of Arts & Culture Clayton Aldern Managing Editor of Lifestyle Jane Brendlinger Features Editor Zo Hoffman Arts & Culture Editors Anita Badejo Ben Resnik Lifestyle Editors Jen Harlan Alexa Trearchis Pencil Pusher Phil Lai Chief Layout Editor Clara Beyer Contributing Editor Emerita Kate Doyle Copy Chiefs Kristina Petersen Kathy Nguyen Copy Editors Lucas Huh Caroline Bologna Blake Cecil Chris Anderson Claire Luchette Staff Writers Lily Goodspeed Ben Wofford Ethan Beal-Brown Staff Illustrators Madeleine Denman Marissa Ilardi Kirby Lowenstein Sheila Sitaram Caroline Washburn Adela Wu Kah Yangni
Post- Magazine is published every Thursday in the Brown Daily Herald. It covers books, theater, music, film, food, art, and University culture around College Hill. Post- editors can be contacted at post. magazine@gmail.com. Letters are always welcome, and can be either e-mailed or sent to Post- Magazine, 195 Angell Street, Providence, RI 02906. We claim the right to edit letters for style, clarity, and length.

CONTENTS
gastro-economic recovery michael weinstein

NAKED PHOTO

3 upfront 4 feature

the art of capture anya ventura love thy catchiness seth kleinshmidt

6 arts & culture

ivy league bunnies natalie villacorta

7 lifestyle fakin it jane brendlinger

brewed maturity katherine james sexual miseducation the editors

8 lifestyle

These beautes have voices as fine as their bodies. Dont forget to see Brown Opera Productions staging of Don Pasquale! Concert version Friday at 8, full productions Sunday at 8 and Monday at 8. All in Alumnae Hall.
OUR ILLUSTRATORS

We want to see you naked! Email post.magazine@ gmail.com.

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

cover // sheila sitaram gastro-economic recovery // caroline washburn ivy league bunnies // sheila sitaram the art of capture // adela wu love thy catchiness // carolyn shasha sexual miseducation // marissa ilardi and phil lai

Ah, those first days of spring. You know theyve arrived when the student body, in complete and tacit unison, decides its finally warm and bright enough to descend upon on the Main Green. Watch as the pastel oxfords and floral-print dresses (or perhaps black denim cutoffs and deep cut bro-tanks) come out from dusty drawers. The Serious Problems of January and February now seem nothing more than distant memories. One begins to wonder what effect the weather has on our collective mental health. Is there something profound to say about that? Probably. But we at Post- have chosen not to be reflective at this juncture in time. We will not ponder the psychology of winter. We will not think about our dozen midterms next week. We will not accept that Spring Break marks the halfway point in a semester that, just a few weeks ago, we referred to as new. No, well have none of that. Come find us on the Green. Well be the ones with the aviators and the picnic blanket. Over and out,

sam

five

weekend

BEWARE THE IDES OF MARCH SING Leeds Breezeway Thurs 9PM

MAMA KIMS FIRST ANNIVERSARY! Mama Kims Fri

3 5

STARLA AND SONS Hunter Auditorium Fri 8PM

ARRR!!! PRESENTS: THE IRISH SHOW Wayland Arrrrch Sat 7:30PM

THE POLER BEARS: UNCAGED PW Upspace Sun 8PM

TOP TEN Things Not to Say or Do When Famous People Come to Salomon

THURSDAY, MARCH 15TH, 2012

upfront

1 2 3 4 5

Seth, will you please take off your shir t? Senator Fr anken, will you please take off your shir t? Talk about your self under the guise of asking a question. Drop trou. Sic semper tyr annis!

6 7 8 9 10

I think my fr iend knows your dad. Where can I score some f*cking cocaine? Rush the stage like an eightyear-old at a JBieber concer t. Ur inate . Ten points to Gr yffindor!

film is tv is

on a Michael Fassbenderbinge .

Gastro-Economic Recovery
food trucks drive growth
michael WEINSTEIN contributing writer
makes sense for the majority of Americans facing the current economy. While most options in our price range are pretty much limited to greasy pizza or granola bars, the myriad nomadic bistros all pay attention to the quality of ingredients used. Each Saturday, Shaffer peruses the farmers market in Pawtucket at Hope Artiste Village in search of local, organic treats to include on FanCheezicals specials menu. FanCheezical sources as many ingredients as possible from local suppliers, including soda from Rhode Islands Yacht Club Beverages, gum from Providences Glee Gum and bread from a Rhode Island bakery. These trucks arent serving your typical street foodthey are gourmet restaurants with engines. Like No Udder is an all-vegan soft service ice cream truck. Rocket Fine Street Food serves upscale variations on American comfort food. Mijos offers LA-style Mexican food from a Californian chef. Im not arguing that food trucks should be institutionalized and implemented on a national scale. And even if Obama did draft some sort of Mama Kims Act of 2012, I cant say for certain that the American economy would actually be restored. But for now lets focus on a more bite-sized economy with a concrete solution. The City of Providence is on course to literally run out of money this June. Lets start up the kitchens and take to the streets to help revitalize our Creative Capital. Or raise taxes on the top income-earners. But since thats not going to happen before June, give us our food trucks. Illustration by Caroline Washburn Most economists attribute Americas gradual financial turnaround to trivial things like fiscal policy, consumer confidence, or even the belated effects of Reaganomics, but thats only because most economists have never tried the sweet potato fries at Mama Kims. The advent of food trucks in Providence over the last few years has corresponded eerily with the recovery of the American economy. Im just sayingthat cant be coincidence. On a community scale, food trucks have the ability to boost local economies by providing reliable work for unemployed restaurateurs and inexpensive food for the rest of us. And in a certain near-bankrupt city with a $22 million deficit, no potential for economic stimulation should be overlooked. Thats right, it seems the solution to Americas economic woes is parked across from the SciLi. According to Guy Shaffer, cofounder of FanCheezical, a new local food truck that offers gourmet variations on the grilled cheese sandwich, the growth of the food truck culture came as a response to the 2008 recession. There were a lot of really talented restaurateurs, chefs, line cooks, these guys that were in the business that were now without jobs, he said. And this was something they could get into ... but not have to go through some of the finances that you need for an actual restaurant. In a city with 11.2 percent unemployment, these peripatetic eateries could be a channel for out-of-work food industry professionals to put their training to good use. Of course, unless your parents minivan came installed with a fully equipped kitchen, start-up costs can be high. But the overhead and expenses are significantly lower than they are for opening a storefront. Take Shaffer, for example, who wanted to open a grilled cheese bar that served exclusively grilled cheese and always offered a $1 beer. But the costs were just too high. So we thought we can make this mobile, and location isnt really an issue; we can take it where we want to, take it where the people are, where the people want us to be, Shaffer said. The success of food trucks like Mama Kims and FanCheezical (which had trouble not running out of bread its first few weeks) suggests that start-up costs can be more than covered in the long run. There are riskier business strategies than offering cheap, on-demand food to drunken college studentsjust ask the Girl Scouts selling cookies on Thayer. Of course, college students like anything inexpensive, but low-priced, quality food does not just benefit Brown students looking for a break from Cup Noodles. These days, everyone is living on the budget of a college studenta price that makes sense for students also

wishing Seth Meyer s would do Weekend Update shir tless.

music is

freaking out about Sixteen Saltines. Jack White , you are a gentleman and a scholar.

books is
an oper a buff(a) and str ippa.

finally getting around to NYT Books of the Year ... for 2008.

theatre is
food is
cor ned beef and boiled potatoesseems like the Ir ish ate better dur ing the Potato Famine .

booze is

Baileys Ir ish Cream, Ir ish Car Bombs, and Dublin Mudslides. Saturday night, were painting the town green.

feature
POST-

Ivy League
wrong. The editors of The Herald responded the next day, defending their decision. We do have a policy of rejecting ads that we consider harmful or misleading; we did not believe, however, that the Playboy advertisement posed such a threat. We felt that running the ad was particularly appropriate in an open academic community like Browna community whose members say they both tolerate and encourage differences of opinion. Several other students and community members submitted letters in support of The Herald in the following days. One student said that bodies are just bodies, and there is nothing offensive in displaying them. Another student brought up the fact The Herald had printed a Playboy ad seeking male models in the previous spring. Why did the womens groups not object then, he asked, claiming their concern for female students and indifference towards the males were sexist themselves. A female student also chided the womens groups for trying to take away the Brown womans right to know what options are available to her and therefore, her right to choose. Despite the outcry from some of their fellow sex and the chatter in the Ratty, 100 Brown women showed up for interviews, and five eventually posed in the Women of the Ivy League issue, which sold for $2.50 the following September. The spread was originally titled Girls of the Ivy League. But Chan heard from a colleague that the word girls was a source of growing controversy in the Ivy League. He decided to cross out the word girls in the title and scribbled women. The first large picture in the 11-page spread is of Eliana Lobo 80 from So Paolo, Brazil, in her bra and panties, standing at the window of what might be her dorm room. She is quoted as saying that she wanted to pose in the magazine because she wanted Brown to be able to show it has really pretty girls. She also said that she wants to be able to tell her grandchildren that she appeared in Playboy. On the adjacent page is a picture of Angela Stone 79, who was paid $400 to pose topless, her tan lines exposed under a collegiate cardigan. In the photo, she smiles confidently, pulling down the band of her gym shorts to reveal a hint of her pubic region, like shes daring critics to attack her. But interestingly, she does not go by her real name. The spread identifies her as Angela Ray, the only woman at Brown to live in a fraternity. The piece goes on to say that she handles the scoreboard chores for her baseball-playing frat brothers, but dates none of them seriously. In an interview with The Herald seven years later, she said she posed because she thought it would be fun. The shoot was a ball, and she had nothing but good feelings about Playboy. On the next page is a topless photo of Amy Petronis 81, who leans on the arm of a chair and gives the camera a sultry stare. The caption mentions that she is a National Merit Scholar and that she hopes to build spare parts for humans as a biomedical engineer. Petroniss grandmother was apparently so tickled that her granddaughter was appearing in Playboy that she bought a subscription for all of her friends. I changed my mind about posing semi-nude at least a hundred times, Hillary Clayson told Playboy at the time. Im not extremely modest, and anyway this isnt Town and Country. Sure, I have some

natalie VILLACORTA contributing writer

PLAYBOY is scanning the IVY LEAGUE for a cross section of women for the upcoming 1979 September issue, read a small advertisement in the lower left corner of page nine in the Brown Daily Herald. This relatively inconspicuous ad, printed on December 11, 1978, incited a campus-wide controversy. Playboy photographer David Chan was coming to Brown seeking models for the magazines Girls of the Ivy League issue after leaving Harvard, where his arrival had not been welcomed. The Harvard Crimson had refused to print the ad on the grounds that it was too offensive and grossly at odds with the papers stated policy of condemning sexism and the exploitation of women. Chan, in his 14 years as a Playboy photographer, had successfully placed ads in college newspapers across the country and had never before been refused. When Playboy eventually published the 11-page spread, it also ran an article along with it. Whatever the philosophical merits of the Crimsons argument, the journalistic navet of that conclusion will stand, in retrospect, as one of the most boneheaded editorial opinions of recent years, the Playboy writer noted. If Chans ad had run for four days, as planned, and produced no response at Harvard, Playboy would then have abandoned the entire Ivy League Project; but thanks to the Crimson, the case of David Chan was featured in every major Boston newspaper, on every Boston television news broadcast and in newspapers around the world. Fifty Harvard women and 30 impostors claiming to be Harvard students showed up for interviews. After hearing from staffers at Playboys Chicago headquarters that Brown was the most conservative school in the Ivy League, Chan was surprised when The Herald agreed to print his ad. But the paper received much criticism for this decision. Two days after the advertisements debut, The Herald received a letter from several campus womens groups: We, the undersigned, feel that even the decision to condone the Playboy ad is harmful to all people, especially women, and misleading about Brown. Though the advertisement merely stated where and when interviews for prospective models would be held, the authors of the letter claimed that Playboy would portray Brown as having admitted its female students for their bodies, not for their maturity, intelligence or creativity. Beyond slandering us as Brown students and as women, the idea behind the ad sets us all up as targets for sexual violence. In 1978, Brown had been co-ed for only eight years, and perhaps some women felt the need to prove they deserved to be on campus. One female student, Beth Castelli 79, even went on the Phil Donahue Show to debate with Chan. Feminist organizations were not the only ones upsetProvidence Police Chief Angelo Ricci threatened to arrest Chan for shooting pictures of Brown students because he thought it was morally

Bunnies
weird feelings knowing how many people will see the magazine. The way Browns feminists focused on this thing was much weirder, though; one told me this was a step up from prostitution. I hope this annoys them, so theyll know exactly where I stand. Lisa Cobb 79, who posed in a bathing suit, had a simi-

THURSDAY, MARCH 15TH, 2012

feature

when playboy came to brown

lar screw you attitude. She felt ostracized by other Brown women, like a fish out of water as one of the few blondes on campus. Nobody wore make up, and many rocked their fathers frayed shirts and uncombed hairdo, Cobb says now. Its almost like the women back then took 20 extra minutes in the morning to look as bad as they could because they wanted everybody to know how smart they were. Cobb had grown up in Mexico City, where she says it was the norm for women to dress up and pay more attention to their appearances. As a result, she says people often assumed she wasnt smart and was kind of a bitch. Since women on campus already judged her, she felt she had nothing to lose or be ashamed about, especially because she was graduating and she had her clothes on in the photo. You could hear the whispers, she says. But that wasnt anything new to me. My whole experience there had been like that. Cobb expected the hostile reaction. There were not as many girls on campus, and it still felt male dominated. According to her, female students wanted to prove that they belonged at Ivy League schools, and the prevailing thought was that someone who was academic would never do something like pose for Playboyyou have this education, but youre basically selling out. Barbara Tannenbaum, Senior Lecturer in Theater, Speech, and Dance, was director of the Sarah Doyle Womens Center at the time. She reflects, It wasnt highlighting the reason people were in school, which was to learn. She opposed the The Heralds decision to run the advertisement, saying that if a racist magazine wanted to advertise for the KKK member of the month, The Herald wouldnt advertise that. Tannenbaum says there was a lot of debate about womens issues on campus at the time. The advertisement and Brown womens decision to pose for Playboy contributed to the idea that were all bunnies, she says, quoting Gloria Steinem. Playboy returned to campus in the spring of 1986 to seek models for its second Ivy League issue. Again, the Crimson rejected the ad and The Herald chose to run it. This time the advertisement was big and bold: IVY LEAGUE WOMEN: Playboy WANTS YOU! above the recognizable Playboy bunny cartoon. Again, womens groups opposed the decision. The Rape and Incest Survivors Group submitted a letter that included personal testimonies about Playboys ability to harm. I was raped by a Brown football player who decorates his walls with Playboy centerfolds, one girl said. Another described being sexually abused by her babysitter when she was 7 years old. The boy brought pornographic pictures similar to those found in Playboy and molded and posed her body to match them. Student outcry against Playboy was louder than it was in 1978. Several students staged a protest outside of the hotel where David Chan was holding interviews. Twelve women dressed as dolls while a handful of male students pretended to take their photographs. We stand here today in outrage, and in mockery of Playboys mockery of women. We are not your Barbie dolls, they wrote in a flier distributed around campus. Another group of students assembled to publish Positions, a feminist pornography journal. The editors took issue with Playboy because of its maledominated production and readership. The journal looked no different from Playboy on the surface, but women took the photographs and did the production. Though the editors claimed the journal was feminisms response to pornography, some female students accused its editors of perpetuating the exploitation of women and the belief in female submissiveness. Women from all eight Ivy League schools joined forces to publish their own version of Women of the Ivy League magazine, which featured writing and artwork instead of pornographic images. The idea for the magazine came out of Yales Womens Center, which sent out letters to feminist organizations at the eight schools. We want to show that theres a lot more to women of the Ivy League women than breast size, said Rachael Sheinkin 89, one coordinator of the Brown effort. The goal was to question the ethic that defines all women as marginal beings, as mere entertainment for men. These Ivy League bunnies have now grown older. Their cheekbones and jaw lines have softened. They have lost their slender figures that they were once so eager to show off. Many of them are married and have families. Eliana Lobo now has children; perhaps one day she will tell them about the time she posed for Playboy in her underwear. Lisa Cobb is still keeping up her good looks through her own salon, called Luxury on Lovers. If Playboy came to Brown today, how would the campus react? The organization Feminists at Brown has recently revamped its mission of empowering campus feminists through effecting change in the real world. Members Lily Goodspeed 13 and Julia Dahlin 12 both say that the group would likely start a discussion rather than taking a unified stance. Both agree that the group would not criticize women who posed but rather the magazine itself. Playboy equates sexual liberation with a very specific kind of sexuality, Goodspeed says. A heterosexual and female bodybased sexuality. She would not pose in the magazine because it would be consumed as a sexual product by male buyers. Given current gender politics at Brown, it seems more likely that students would have a problem with the magazines limited view of sexuality and perpetuation of traditional gender roles than with its alleged objectification of women. Maybe boys dressed in drag would turn out for the interviews. For now, its just speculation. If BrownBares is any indication, though, Playboy would probably find plenty of volunteers. Illustration by Sheila Sitaram

arts & culture

POST-

The Art of Capture

imitation. Of course, unlike those of de Saussure, Finchs meditations on color exist on a purely symbolic plane rather than a scientific one. Lost is the fervent Enlightenment belief in the power of science to fully describe the world; Finch explores the labile nature of representation itselfthe very unsteadiness of the languages with which we portray visual phenomena. These languages may be verbal, visual, or physicalFinch makes use of all three in his sculptures, installations, paintings, and scrawled notationsyet all are characterized by an essential poverty: the inability to represent wholly and accurately what we see. Finch mines the depths of this lack, this irrecoverable distance between the thing and the thing represented, in a series of quasiscientific experiments representing imagery such as Brooklyns Gowanus Canal and the trademark pink hat worn by Jackie Onassis. In other works, he documents the color of the changing temperatures outside the window of his studio and attempts to find the exact place where yellow becomes green. He maps out the molecular structure of the color blue and records the colors of his dreams. A sense of futility permeates these endless repetitions, as if through the seriality of the gesture he exposes the impossibility of the whole endeavor. Yet reiteration is not only the province of the scientist in search of objective truth, but also the artist in search of beautyboth seek to harness the inexplicable wonder of the world through the act of observation. A certain romance grips the idea of the artist trying for years on end to represent such a simple

spencer finchs painting air

thing as the air we breathe. Finchs influence is Monet, whose landscapes he once copied as a graduate student at RISD in an attempt to capture how the master transposed the fickleness of water and air on canvas. This early influence informs the exhibits title. In the broken color of the Impressionists, who first subverted the illusionistic verity of traditional painting, Finch finds a model for his explorations of perception and change. In the gallery, what the artist and critic Brian ODoherty once called modernisms thinking bowl and a surrogate head, Finchs experiments cohere into a kind of larger thesis statement. The show reaches its apotheosis in a gallery wallpapered with overlapping colored squares in the cool tones of Monets landscapes. From the center of the space, shimmering rectangles of glass hang like metaphors for uncertainty, distorting the rooms colors. In this immersive, prismatic environment, the ultimate unpredictability of perception is writ largebut it is an overly grand and uncomplicated statement that slides too easily into spectacle. The brightlycolored room may make for good marketing material, but it lacks the delicacy of the earlier watercolors. Whats missing is the sense of the artists hand, grasping at capturing what is just out of reach. Better are the quieter works of paint and ink on paper. At the recent lecture, Color Effects, which united Finch with a photographer and a marine biologist to discuss their collective interest in color, the artist refer-

anya VENTURA contributing writer

The highest peak in the Alps is Mont Blanc, sometimes known as the White Lady, whose snow-covered heights first enticed the 18th-century scientist Horace-Benedict de Saussure in his specimen-collecting romps through the French countryside. These distant summits provoked description, and de Saussure was determined to be the first to reach the pinnacle and tell the tale. As a gifted scientist, de Saussure measured everything he saw, and for what he could not measure, he invented new instruments. These investigations of the natural world produced such contraptions as the horsehair hygrometer, a magnetometer, and a heliothermometer. So it seemed natural, then, that a device be created to answer the simple yet age-old question, Why is the sky blue? The cyanometer is a ring of blue in shades ranging from almost white to dark indigo. When held aloft in the air, the device frames a circle of sky to establish its precise degree of blueness. Through this litmus-like test, de Saussure reasoned, other inferences could then be made about the composition of our mercurial firmament. In the same venturesome spirit, artist Spencer Finch takes up the description of the natural world as his subject in the new exhibit, Painting Air, at the RISD Museum of Art. A few of Finchs watercolors bear resemblance to the look of the cyanometer in their methodic sequence of like colors, each tint slightly deviating from the ghost of the one preceding. It is this tradition of exactitude, this formal ordering of natures raw material, which Finch both adopts and debunks. In Finchs depictions, something always eludes

enced the influence of Wittgenstein. As an artist new to New York, he picked up a copy of the philosophers Remarks on Color, and took up some of the texts unanswerable questions: Why cant there be a reddish green? or Does it make sense to point to a color in the iris of a Rembrandt eye and ask for the walls of my room to be painted the same color? I like to think smaller poetic works reveal something of the inconclusive quality of this philosophical inquiry, the slightness of a particular angle of light while reading, and the happenstance of finding just the right book, the right words, at just the right time. Although Painting Air speaks to the insurmountable challenges of representation, what Finch shows is theres a certain hopefulness found in the act of representing itself, which is, after all, a form of communion with the world, part of an ongoing conversation. There is something beautiful in the imperfect attempt to capture what can never be captured, in the work of trying again and again to find just the exact color blue to match the sky. Illustration by Adela Wu

Love thy Catchiness

seth KLEINSCHMIDT contributing writer
In April of 2010, Sleigh Bells rolled into the Met in Pawtucket, touring to support their full-length debut, Treats. By the time the soundcheck was over and the forgettable opener had sidled on stage, I was already regretting not having brought earplugs. Sleigh Bells set was deafening, yet lasted a mere 34 minutes, prompting lead vocalist Alexis Krauss to tell a groaning crowd, quite truthfully, that they had exhausted their entire catalogue of music. No matterthe crowd was a mass of disciples after that night. Treats was a blast, but it set some strange expectations. It was ballsy to try to straddle the valley separating neon-shiny pop and crushingly heavy metal, and they pulled it offbut in such a seamless synthesis, it was difficult to imagine what Sleigh Bells would do next. The duo had succeeded in blowing out iPod docks the world over but hadnt given a lot of hints as to where sonic expansion would take them. Therein lies the source of my trepidation leading up to the recent release of Sleigh Bells second album, Reign of Terror. During an interview with Rolling Stone last May, guitarist Derek Miller said that emotionally, its a really heavy record, signaling that the band had decided to move beyond the party hysterics of their debut. Yet when your first release is joyous mosh material and nothing else, the promise of lyrical complexity and emotional

problems and promise in sleigh bells reign of terror

Comeback Kid is far and away the albums standout track (and its first real single a shrewd move on the labels part). The guitar trickery and hyperactive drum machine feel symbiotic rather than confrontational, and the result is Sleigh Bells most complete and aggressively filled-in track to date. It rocks fast and hard, with lighter choruses dropped in right when we start to feel a wall-of-sound overload. Listen to it carefully, because its the sound of what Sleigh Bells needs to become. If the band wants to keep their fans dancing, deafening yet playful needs to be their mantra. Comeback Kid delivers. It should be clear by now that Reign of Terror is very solidly a transitional album. It embodies the archetype of the sophomore outing, filled with polished yet eager tracks that seem to be jostling a bit too much for position. These are songs that, despite the high hopes set by their debut, Sleigh Bells was bound to write. The takeaway is that Alexis and Derek seem to have discovered that while they may not be able to rework the core of their music, theres room for moody expansion. D.O.A. closes out the album with an ominous drone, echoing Treats title track and showing us the door with the slowmotion prowl of a band that knows they still have far to go. Illustration by Carolyn Shasha

resonance is tough to take seriously. Such is the case with Reign of Terror. Does it sound ridiculous to say that after a dozen listens, only snatches of the lyrics spring to mind? The promised depth of pathos simply wont manifest itself. Sleigh Bells shouldnt be ashamed of writing kickass road trip music. When the music video for their albums first single prominently features grocery shopping, you know theyve already begun cultivating the rave band image, and it would help if they acknowledged that fact. Its important to remember that Reign of Terror preserves many of the bands brilliant, trademark elements. Present are the explosions, the gunshot guitar licks. Dereks tone is as caustically clean as ever, his hardcore roots serving him wellits doubtful the guy has ever so much as looked at a fuzz pedal. In terms of vocals, Alexis works a harder edge,

leaning a little lighter on her teen pop experience in order to capitalize on her signature sing-shouts. Structural problems, though, shake up what could have been a seamlessly flowing album. In an unfortunate choice of an album opener, the half-live, half-studio creation, True Shred Guitar, devotes half of its two-minute run time to a recording of Alexis shouting How the f*ck are you? at a New Orleans crowd. It delays the onset of the albums first pounding chords in an offkilter first step towards what Alexis hoped would be a really huge sound. Contentwise, End of the Line, upbeat and milder on the guitars, would have been a perfect album closer, allowing Alexis airy enunciation to take control. Road to Hell feels like another exit song, begging for a proper pause in its wake.

THURSDAY, MARCH 15TH, 2012

lifestyle

Fakin It
jane BRENDLINGER lifestyle editor
Im a level seven vegan. I dont eat anything that casts a shadowThe Simpsons For the past two years, Ive been in an on-again, off-again relationship with veganism. Im pretty susceptible to persuasive literature, so when those Skinny Bitches kept yelling at me from their book, Dont f*cking drink milk!, I drank it in like a dumbstruck kale eater. Id spout my newly memorized dogma to my friends: Did you know that they cut pigs teeth with wire cutters? That hens lay eggs in their own filth? That fish FEEL PAIN?? Though I felt guilty, I never did stop wearing my leather boots, and whenever I was drunk, pizza didnt seem that bad. After a year, though, I threw in the vegan dishtowel. With all the argumentshealth, environment, and animal crueltythis moral lifestyle had one major deficiency: cheese. You just cant make a cheese substitute. Ive tried them allDaiya, Vegan Slice, even You Cant Say Its Cheese. Guess what? You really cant. In the end, a life without cheese seemed not worth living. And yet, the idealism of the vegan diet haunts me to this day. Perhaps its my food-focused environmental studies class, where Ive been reading about bovine growth hormones and breast-pumped cattle (again, Im easily persuaded by literature), but recently Ive dallied back into

vegan lies
balk. Whats in it? Roasted banana breaks up the texture I tried to play it cool. I waited until everyone had finished their slice before I made my announcement. Youve all been part of a social experiment This was melodramatic. For a second everyone was sure Id laced the dessert with GHB. No, no, its vegan! Almost as terrifying. From this experience I learned how much our preconceived notions will affect our perceptions of taste. Without anticipation, no one could quite pinpoint the basis of the cheesecakes strangeness or call this dessert an impostor. I thought about how many times, over the course of my vegan life, I had manipulated my own perceptions, lying to myself: This seitan tastes JUST like chicken. When, really, the stringy gluten protein only just passes as a food substance, let alone something fleshy, tender, and once living. Eating vegan can be an adventure all its own, learning the ins and outs of food chemistry and discovering exotic vegetables and tastes, but Id rather not spend my life faking it. So for now, Im freely admitting: If cheesecake wanted to be vegan, it wouldnt have cheese in it, amirite? I also learned that I have very nice friends, who did their best to compliment a rather mediocre dessert. Now thats unconditional love.

vegan territory. Not for life; Ive planned the menu for my last meal on earth, and it includes lobster and a flourless chocolate cake. Im thinking of this ride on the V-train as a dietary vacation, returning to old recipes and trying new ones, and taking on a challenge. The first challenge: a bet with my roommate about vegan cheesecake. That would taste awful, she said, piquing the daredevil pastry chef inside of me. We shook hands on itId make the cheesecake, serve it to an unsuspecting audience, and if anyone cried vegan, Id lose. Winner got a free drink at Spats and her pick of a song for the loser to sing at karaoke. High stakes. Leafing through my favorite vegan cookbook, I picked a recipe, a roasted banana maple rum cheesecake with a spiced pecan crust. All went swimmingly until I tasted the Tofutti cream cheese substitute Id gotten for the base and gagged. The texture was fine, but it tasted horrible, synthetic, soy-y, and terribly salty. I was horrified, but there was no turning back I just had to suck it up and hope the other ingredients played their parts. So came the big reveal. I took out my over-salted, Tofutti-ed confection and doled out slices to my poor, unsuspecting friends. One bite, and I knew I was cooked. I looked at my roommate across the table, and she seemed smug, triumphant. But all was not lost. This is AMAZING, someone said, and I tried not to

Cashew Cream
Heres a recipe for my favorite vegan trick, Cashew Cream. Smooth, nutty, and sweet, its a remarkable substitute for heavy cream in soups and sauces. (Ive even made some phenomenal ice cream with it!) Recommended for vegans and omnivores alikethe flavor is unbeatable. Plus, you can literally make it in your sleep. 1. Soak cashews (about two cups) overnight in water. 2. Drain cashews. 3. Place in blender and cover with fresh water. Blend until smooth. Creamy deliciousness! For a liquid more akin to whole milk, add one additional inch of water to cover. Impor tant note: cashew cream does not, nor will it ever, whip. This knowledge will save you hours of frustration in a futile experiment with eggbeaters.

Brewed Maturity
growing up at rapunzels
katherine JAMES contributing writer
It used to be an apple-packing shed, but no one remembers when or how it became a coffee shop. On the sign outside, gigantic white letters spell out, ESPRESSO, ANTIQUES, BOOKS. The floor always sinks a little when you step insideIm afraid its going to cave one of these daysand the gritty combination of mothballs and espresso grinds fills your nose. The shelves are crammed with used science-fiction paperbacks, sexual theory, various editions of Robinson CrusoeI think Ive even seen some yoga tapes. Theres not a single matching chair in the place, just a collection of old church pews, musty couches, and rows of theater seats that have definitely seen better days. Rapunzels is the nightlife, the only place in Nelson County open past 9 p.m. (except the Food Lion and Ashleys gas station). Friday is Open Mic Night. All of Nelson County turns out to see the good and the bad, the poetry readers and the middle-aged blues guitarists and the 14-year-old banjo players. I know all of themMarian directed the middle school production of Macbeth (it was a comedy, but not on purpose) and Joe taught everyone and his nephew to play guitar. The kid on stage has a great look of concentration, but I cant hear his lyrics over the sound of the grinder. I was 13 and ready to be grown up, and being at Rapunzels on Friday night was all that mattered. Katie and I begged my mom for a rideand told her of course she couldnt stay. With the five bucks we bummed off our parents, we ordered mochas and raspberry chai tea lattes and plopped down into a sofa. Every cup was another taste of adulthood, and I felt my maturity level rise with each sip. By high school our tastes had changed. We tossed back bittersweet shots of espresso, quoting Walden and impressing one another with knowledge of Hendrix and Dylan. We thought we were grown up, and we were, well, getting there. We played chess and sat outside, smoking and talking until everyone else had gone home. We were comfortable in the familiarity, half-listening to the bluegrass in the background. Every musician and songwriter within a 50-mile radius hopes to play their first show on that stage, to sign the brick wall. Including me. Advertised as the Good Travelers, Katie and Katherine, we waited nervously backstage, hyped on caffeine and adrenaline. It was only one set, a few songs, but we had waited for this moment for years. I grinned at the wolf whistles in the backthats what friends are for and started to play. *** On Friday nights when Im home, I drive down to the old apple-packing shed, hoping to run into all of Nelson County. In the winter I can see my breath, and in the summer the scent of body odor is overwhelming. I order iced coffee and a root beer and try to keep the stifling Virginia humidity at bay. Cleo, the resident Welsh terrier, comes running to greet me and holds me hostage by falling asleep in my lap. The predictability is comforting. Rapunzels will always be there. Everything, from the wooden carving of a nude woman to the Christmas lights that frame the rafters, is blissfully unaware of passing time. The sleigh bells on the door jingle in the exact way as they did the last time I was here. Watching the preteen punks congregated in the corner, guitars out, eagerly drinking their mochas, I want to tell them to sip slowly. Enjoy the quirk of this place, the music, the coffeedont rush. Illustration by Phil Lai

lifestyle
POST-

Sexual Miseducation
looking back on sex ed
the EDITORS not sexperts
Peer Educators: students trained to teach sex ed. Peer Educator Day: the most awkward health class of your life. All the popular, sexually active kids signed up to teach, and as a freshman I was awkward and silent. Danika, with her low-cut cami and orange spray tan, seemed almost ethereal as she lectured about the Pill: It basically tricks your body into thinking its pregnant. I wasnt sure that was correct, but she seemed so knowledgeable. Then I watched a kid named Murphy Bug flip through color posters of STDs. Gonorrhea, he stated, holding up a grotesque photo. We all wanted him to change the pictureeven chlamydia would be betterbut he just kept holding it. He waited a couple minutes to let the image sink in. Yup. Its ugly. Finally, the condom challenge. More embarrassing than failing to put a condom on a banana in front of your teacher is failing to put a condom on a banana in front of your crush. Hold the reservoir tip and slide the rest down the shaft. My banana kept slipping, my face got redder, and this only fed the fire of my sexual fears. JB vaguely reminiscent of a responsible sexual health education experience. At the very least, there were multicolored condoms in a bag. The man went down in prehigh school history as the Man With The Condom Briefcase. Within seconds of the conclusion of his chat, the guest speaker and suitcase alike were engulfed by a wave of hyperactive hormones and tweeny bopper sexual frustration. Each student burrowed into the mans baggage, greedily rummaging for a rainbow of contraception. Our speaker was quickly forgotten; his message was thrown to the wind, mirroring the airplay of the condom-balloon wars that ensued in the locker commons. CA Sex ed in my high school was a component of mandatory 10th grade Ethics. One week, a friendly school administrator was helping us explore the drama of Schindlers List, and the next week, our 60-year-old, proud lesbian guidance counsellor was teaching us what parts were where. For two whole weeks, we were quizzed on the exact function of the fallopian tubes. (Let it be known that this is information that has never ever been useful to me. Nothing was said about the clitoris.) The topic that we explored in the most depth, interestingly, was the plight of transsexual people who had chosen to undergo sex-reassignment surgery. Ms. D, who insisted that we call her that, had spent some time volunteering for a transsexual support group so we all knew exactly what people are signing up for when they elect to take hormone therapy. I came out of that class every day feeling very lucky that I identified with the gender typically associated with my genitalia (fallopian tubes and all). We also spent one morning period learning how to put a condom on a banana, but my bus was late that day, and I missed it. I still dont know how. CB Freshman year sex ed (or, as they like to call it in Virginia, Family Life Education) was already guaranteed to be one of the most awkward class periods in a 14-year-olds life. Add one biology teacher with an unidentifiable foreign accent, set it in my science and technology high school, and youve found the holy grail of uncomfortable interactions. My teacher began our first lesson with a brainstorm. She proceeded to write SEX on the white board, circle it, and turn to us expectantly. We started off slowly, murmuring monosyllabic words like bed and girls under our breath. Once we realized our teacher would write down, quite literally, anything we said, our enthusiasm for sex ed suddenly skyrocketed. CHAINS! THREE! GAG! FIVE! Soon, the board was filled with as many unscientific, nonsensical ideas about sex that could fit. Had we learned anything new about sex? No. Did we learn that any word could be made sexual? Definitely. Our teacher seemed satisfied. ZH My Catholic high school did not offer sex education. It never came up, except in religion class when we were taught that we would regret having abortions for decades. When I was a senior, my macroeconomics teacher was Sister Therese. She was older than Moses and definitely more pious. While Sister never issued detentions for dress code violations, she always took time to point out girls collarboneexposing blouses and knee-baring skirts. She caught sight of a female peers hickey one day, and it was clear our lecture on GDP vs. GNP would take a backseat to the forthcoming discussion of virtue. Ladies, God has blessed you with a gift. And to defile that gift is to defile God. When you give yourself away, you destroy your chance at salvation. No one spoke. I was horrified for poor Hickey Girl. To be sex-shamed by an overweight lady in orthopaedic shoes must be downright scarring. Later that very day, I saw Sister behind me in the drive-thru at Portillos, a hot dog fast-food joint. Turns out girl does like a wiener in the mouth. CL Illustrations by Marissa Ilardi and Phil Lai We talk about sex a lot here at Post-, and we dont just mean the conversations we have while were editing Sexicon, Emily Post-, or Bad Sex. Were a close group of editors, and when the night progresses to the inevitable Spiritus run after the second round of copy edits ... well, you can imagine the rest. All joking aside, one of the best parts about being involved in a publication at Brown is that we, as editors and writers, and you, as readers, are all free to do just that: to imagine the rest, to talk about sex, to get excited about sex, even to post steamy pictures of ourselves online for our classmates to admire. We live in an open, sexually confident community. The thing is, we didnt always live in a place like this. We didnt always have FemSex and MSex and SexPowerGod and Sex Week. Before there was Brown, there was high school sex ed. We know theres a larger, more serious conversation to be had about the status of sexual education in the United States, but for now, weve rounded up some of our best (read: worst) memories from high school health class. It really is amazing how far weve cum. AT So my high school taught abstinenceonly sex education. My teacher was a young single woman who promised to practice what she preached. And preach she did. But wait, you ask, Are you from the Deep South? To which I respond, Dear reader, Im from Pennsyltucky, where we learn that the only surefire way not to get pregnant is not to have sex. They teach us that HIV can pass through the pores in condoms. Kissingheaven forbid kissing with tongueis a sort of gateway drug, according to their lesson plans. Birth control leads to promiscuity and so much sex that you inevitably beat the odds and get pregnant despite the hormone manipulation. Ironically, my sex ed teacher was pregnant by the end of that semester. So much for abstinence. CP Going to an all-boys Episcopal high school in Richmond, Virginia, I was expecting the worst when it came time for the school-sanctioned talk. Rather than call it sex ed, the school had decided to name it Forum and lump the discussion of sex, drugs, and presumably a little bit of rock n roll into a single, painful semester. On the first day, I found, to my pleasant surprise, that the class was less puritanical than I had feared. We opened discussion with a stimulating round of the penis game, which I totally won thanks to my theater-tested straight face and ability to project. But after a few weeks, class got a little bit too friendly. Things finally culminated in a screening of a live birth, we teenagers recoiling in horror while our proctor assured us that the whole thing would be beautiful if it was your own child. It convinced a lot of us to delay finding out as long as possiblerubber up, kids, or youll have some! BR

My sex ed was incorporated into the mandatory health course at my rural Arkansas high schoolthe high school where, in 10th grade, my biology teacher skipped over the chapter on evolution because we didnt have time for it this semester. Health was taught by the girls softball coach. I took it spring of my senior year and was able to get out of every other class period by saying I had something to do for cheerleading. (Yes, I was a cheerleader. No, I dont want to talk about it.) What I remember of it included spending the entire semester going through the textbook chapter by chapter and then taking a quiz after each unit. When we got to the chapter on reproduction and sex edwhich I happened to be in class forCoach P. (whose name has been shortened to protect the ignorant), sporting his usual royal-blue nylon athletic jacket, nervously cleared his throat. You know what to do. Dont have sex, he muttered. We then skipped the chapter and moved on to death and grieving. AB Junior high sex edwhich, quite literally, consisted of one 50-minute lecture delivered by a special guest speakerwas