magazine - University of Pennsylvania · 2010. 4. 11. · FIRST CALL APRIL 12, 2010 3 LETTER FROM THE EDITORS EDITORIAL POLICY FIRST CALL ISegizing for Fling.We’re trying to forget

Volume 13, No. 5April 12, 2010

magazine

2 FIRST CALL APRIL 12, 2010

FIRSTLOOK

CONTACTFIRST CALL, KeLLy WRITeR’S HouSe

3805 LoCuST WALK, PHILAdeLPHIA, PA 19104HTTP://FIRSTCALLmAgAzIne.WoRdPReSS.Com/

[email protected]

CONTRIBUTORSEditor-in-ChiEf: Valeria TsygankoVa • Managing Editor: aVery Miller • assistant dEsign Editor: TRACy LIu, CARo-lyn goMberT, rebecca Hobble, kaTie siegel • ChiEf art Editor: Dan MarkowiTz • artists: dAn mARKoWITz, nATALIe graVier, Tenaya anue, auDe broos• CoMMuniCations ManagEr: Valeria TsygankoVa • BusinEss ManagEr: AndReW Jones • advErtising ManagEr: alyssa kaplan • distriBution ManagEr: syDney scoTT • Editors: ALySSA KAPLAn, syDney scoTT, racHel FisHer, MicHael FielD • ColuMnists: alyssa kaplan, cHarlie isaacs, sTeVe waye • WritErs: Leo AmIno, RIvKA FogeL, SAbRIne TRIbIÉ, moRgAn RoPeR, KATIe WynbRAndT, AmAndA JoHnSon, Joe PInSKeR, LAuRA boWeS

MEMORIES OF HAITI8

POETRY CONTEST6

SABRINE TRIBIÉSabrine remembers a “beautifully backwards country.”

Poems from the 1st and 2nd place winners. LEO AMINO AND RIVKA FOGEL

4 SEIZEMORGAN ROPER

7

AMANDA JOHNSON11

10

SEEING THROUGH THE RAPE MYTHALYSSA KAPLANAlyssa works through some societal misconceptions.

12

HELLO

GO TRIBEKATIE WYNBRANDT

THE GOD OF BASKIN ROBBINSJOE PINSKER

14 POETRY SPOTLIGHT: GOOD CONFIDENCECHARLIE ISAACS

STEVE WAYE

15

MONKEY BARS

COVER: SERGE, AUDE BROOS

15

ART SPOTLIGHT: TEDDY

16 POETRY SPOTLIGHT: PASSENGER SIDELAURA BOWES

TENAYA ANUE7

COMIC: OVERQUALIFIEDDAN MARKOWITZ

A short story.

Morgan experiences epilepsy.

Katie argues that Native American mascots uphold stereotypes.

A short story.

Amanda brings Southern friendliness to Penn.

3FIRST CALL APRIL 12, 2010

LETTER FROMTHE EDITORS

EDITORIALPOLICY

FIRST CALL IS The undeRgRAduATe mAgAzIne oF The unIveRSITy oF PennSyLvAnIA PubLIShed eveRy oTheR mondAy. ouR mISSIon IS To PRovIde membeRS oF The CommunITy An oPen FoRum FoR exPReSSIng IdeAS And oPInIonS. To ThIS end, we, The edIToRS oF FIRST CALL, ARe CommITTed To A PoLICy oF noT CenSoRIng oPIn-IonS. ARTICLeS ARe PRovIded by ReguLAR CoLumnISTS And wRIT-eRS. They ARe ChoSen FoR Pub-LICATIon bASed on The quALITy oF wRITIng, And, In The CASe oF CommenTARIeS, The quALITy oF ARgumenTATIon. ouTSIde oF The edIToRIAL And oTheR edIToRIAL ConTenT, no ARTICLe RePReSenTS The oPInIon oF FIRST CALL, ITS edIToRIAL boARd, oR IndIvIduAL membeRS oF FIRST CALL oTheR ThAn The AuThoR. no ConTenT In FIRST CALL unLeSS oTheRwISe STATed RePReSenTS The oFFICIAL PoSITIon oF The AdmInISTRA-TIon, FACuLTy, oR STudenT body AT LARge oF The unIveRSITy oF PennSyLvAnIA.

firstcallism

“Charlie, what’s the theme of Fling this year?” / “Drunk?”

SuPPoRTed by thE kElly WritEr’s

housE

Dear Pennonites,

Oh, April. Plants are blooming, fi-nals are looming, and we’re all busy strat-egizing for Fling. We’re trying to forget the What-the-hell-I’m-graduating/I’m-going-to-be-a-senior anxiety that gets conjured up by the herds of prospies me-andering around campus and taking up tables at Kiwi. We’re trying to forget that we have final papers and projects of all shapes and sizes due the week after Hey Day. We’re all taking a moment to forget.

Not to worry. Yes, the plants are spewing out pollen, but everyone’s eyes are just as red as yours. You’re lookin’ great. Since the weather has been so nice, maybe those prospies won’t even ap-ply here, considering they tend to only like the campus when it’s raining, says a recent Wharton study as reported by the DP. If no one accepts for the class of 2014, maybe we’ll all get to stay here for-ever. Wouldn’t that be nice?

Living in a fantasy world, of course, where all Flings come true, would be great. But there’s a thing called real-ity that we all have to face. Whether it’s graduation or just getting older, we need to be able to look things in the eyes and not be afraid.

Fortunately, we have a few pieces in this year’s last issue of First Call that will motivate all of us to consider a fear-less examination of our most deeply held misconceptions and fears.

Morgan writes about living and coming to terms with an “interesting” ailment that leaves her periodically un-conscious in her memoir piece “Seize,” with a truly inspiring audacity through-out. Sabrine describes her memories of

Haiti, writing after the January 12, 2010 earthquake about her trip to the country only a week before the catastrophe. Ex-pressing her surprise, pleasure and sor-row at what she sees there, she tries to keep an open mind and to find a connec-tion with the nation.

Katie Wynbrandt’s feature “Go Tribe” contends that as happy as our favorite sports teams tend to make us, there can be unresolved tension sur-rounding the very figures we think we love. The Chiefs’ “Chief Wahoo,” Katie argues, is an insult to Native Americans because the mascot implicitly supports hidden racist structures in our society.

New writer Joe Pinsker favors us with a tale of lust and ice cream, and col-umnist Steve Waye leaves aside his ha-bitual music reviews to give us an equally pristine work of flash fiction.

In addition, I personally want to thank all of the writers and judges who took part in our first-ever poetry contest. Congratulations to the winners, two ex-cellent writers – Leo Amino and Rivka Fogel. I also want to thank everyone who made this semester’s volume possible, from our brilliant contributors to our many many great editors and designers.

Happy Spring! Just remember not to scratch out your eyes, and I’ll see you in the Quad.

With love,

Valeria Tsygankova

Your editor


MORGAN ROPER

The moment before everything goes black, I feel it in my stomach. I

haven’t thrown up since 4th grade, when I ate barbecued chicken from Sizzler, but right before the lights turn off inside my brain, I feel like I’m going to projectile vomit. Nausea and mouth-watering, the normal precursors to upchuck are all pres-ent. There’s fear, too. Since I haven’t vom-ited since 1998, I’m terrified by the feeling that the contents of my stomach are go-ing to abandon me, that I have no control over the activity of my insides. I want to cry and yell, but I can’t. I get distracted. My vi-sion starts to spot. I see a smattering of lit-tle white flecks in my periphery, like Wile E. The Coyote who’s just had an anvil dropped on his Road-Runner-chasing head. I’m hot and cold, sweating and covered in goose bumps. The stars that were dancing in only the corners of my eyes start to multiply and close in, like dots of white noise. Then, black.

***I was 18, sitting

on an AirFrance flight to Paris.

“Do you want something to drink?” the stewardess asked in her clipped French accent.

“No, thank you,” I replied.“Are you sure? Not even water?

Don’t want you to get dehydrated.”I love how French people place ac-

SEIZE A PERSONAL ACCOUNT OF EPILEPSY

cents on the incorrect syllables.“No,” I responded, smiling, “I’m

fine.” The pilot on the flight had just

turned off the fluorescent cabin lights. Passengers around me pulled sleeping masks over their faces and AirFrance blankets around their shoulders. I gazed out of the oval window at the sprinkling

of orange lights over some dark city. The quiet, constant whir of the airplane soothed me. I love flying. Then, the nausea flew at me. My heart started to

pound. I shifted in my seat, planting the feet that I had curled up under me square on the ground, throwing my head in between my knees. I closed my eyes, opened them. Black spots twinkled in front of my eyes. I stood up, quickly, throwing my body into the middle of the aisle. Gripping the tops of other pas-senger’s cushy seats, I attempted to claw my way toward the middle of the plane, where a group of stewards were heating food or preparing to push silver, soda-can-filled carts through narrow aisles.

“Excuse me!” I yelled, “I’m going to pass out.”

When I awoke, I was on the floor. Too many frantic faces jabbering in French, stared down at me. A man who looked like Santa Claus, thick white beard and friendly smile, stood inches from my face.

“You have epi-lepsy!” one of the stewardesses yelled at me. “He is a doctor!” she said, referencing the Santa look-alike. Someone buzzed be-

hind me, attempted to place a cool, damp washcloth around my neck.

“Stop!” I yelled, flicking his hand away. I didn’t want to ruin my straight-ened hair, at the beginning of my vaca-


Morgan Roper is a senior in the College. You can write to her at roperma@sas.

FC

tion.“I don’t have epilepsy. I have this

weird condition…”Passengers stirred from their slum-

ber, sleepily eyeing the commotion.“Excuse me,” the doctor said, helping

me sit up. Apparently, he was the Italian Santa Claus. “My English is-a not very good. You feel okay?” Someone rushed over carrying a large bottle of water.

“Yes, I feel better.”“This happen before?”“Yes, it’s happened before, twice on

airplanes.” “Drink water,” he said, smiling. He

rubbed my back, like he knew me. All of the stewards and stewardesses

continued to stand over me, watching me glug water from the bottle and take deep breaths.

“I told you not to become dehy-drated,” the stewardess who had first of-fered me water said, laughing. They all eventually helped me back to my seat. I thanked my Italian Santa/Medic. Heads turned as I walked down the aisle. I was tired. A faint headache throbbed behind my eyes. Another “episode.” I just want-ed to land and begin my vacation.

***That was the fifth episode I’d had, a

few summers after the first one. I was 16. My best friend Sacha and I had just spent a month floating through the Mediterra-nean Sea on Altair, her family’s 130-foot sailing yacht, docking in picturesque Amalfi Coast towns, dancing on St. Tro-pez nightclub tables, swimming in clear water. We were headed back to land, to Milan. Her father wanted to see the op-era at La Scala.

Sacha and I were packing in the cab-in we shared, a cramped, immaculately decorated room of cherry-stained wood and white linen. The bed, the dresser, the ivory pedestal sink, and the closet were attached to wall and the remaining space they left in the middle was barely enough the both of us to maneuver. We fished around the room for our belong-ings, shoving each other out of the way to toss into duffle bags bikini tops that had found their way behind the sink. Our earrings, bracelets and necklaces laid in a tangle on top of the dresser. Sacha threw them all into her purse.

“Just put everything into a bag and we’ll separate our stuff in Milan.” We were late, as usual, holding up the rest of

Sacha’s family. I felt woozy, but I didn’t say anything. I just continued to scoop miniskirts and tank tops from the floor and toss them into the nearest suitcase. Sacha must have wondered why I was be-ing so quiet.

Then, I was on the floor. Sacha held me up, in a seated position. Her little sister, Arielle, and her best friend were crying in the other room. Two tanned, strapping Italian gentleman were stand-ing in the doorway of Sacha’s cabin. How did they get here?

“Here!” Sacha’s father’s personal as-sistant handed me a cell phone. It was my mother. I don’t know what we talk-ed about. Everything in my head was fuzzy. The gorgeous Italians, with their thick black hair walked into the cabin and helped me up off of the floor. Oooh, they’re paramedics.

“You passed out or something, Morge” Sacha said, she rarely calls me Morgan. She looked like she wanted to cry, I don’t know if from relief or from fear. “I caught you and I kept slapping you and screaming “Morge! Morgan! Morgan!” She said it a few more times. She and the paramedics helped me up the stairs, onto the deck. Arielle and Alie were still hiding in another room. “I swear, I think you were possessed.” Sacha grabbed a pair of flip flops for me from the floor of the cabin, hers, though mine couldn’t have been far. She stayed with me at the tiny Italian hospital, held my hand as they took my blood. The results were normal. To this day, Sacha thinks I was possessed by a demon.

*** My mother is a pediatrician who, like many doctors, refuses to believe that her own children can suffer from any medical ailment. “I think I have epilepsy,” I’d say to her each time I’d been rushed to the hospital or picked up off of an airplane floor by a foreign stewardess. “You don’t have epilepsy, Morgan.”

“You’ve never seen me have a sei-zure! And you aren’t a neurologist! I pass out. I shake. I think that’s a seizure.”

“Are you a doctor, Morgan? I don’t think so! Your MRI was normal. Your EEG was inconclusive. I don’t think you have epilepsy.”

One summer morning, I woke up, confused to see my mother sitting in my bed looking over me lovingly.

“I think you had an episode.” She doesn’t like to call them seizures.

She had heard me make a loud gur-gling noise in my sleep, as if I couldn’t breathe. When she came in, she couldn’t wake me. My arms were stiff and my eyes half-open, only revealing their whites. She made an appointment with the neurologist for that afternoon. See, Mom, I told you.

My mother and I were seated side-by-side in cushy leather chairs in a neu-rologist’s spacious Beverly Hills office. To our left, a floor-to-ceiling window re-vealed a sunny Los Angeles landscape, a mixture of sparkling office buildings and spiky palm trees. The Hollywood Hills squatted in the background, decorated in the ostentatious homes that are often featured on MTV’s “Cribs.”

“It’s not not epilepsy,” my neurolo-gist said, running spectacled eyes over the results of my brain scan. When Dr. Niparko spoke the word, “epilepsy,” tears began to collect in the sides of my moth-er’s eyes. She made sure they didn’t fall down her face, but I saw them. I guess she didn’t want me to have a chronic disease. She didn’t want me to have to ingest two orange and white capsules each morning for the rest of my life. It doesn’t particularly bother me; it’s more of a nuisance than anything. Ailments are interesting.

***When I wake up, it’s as if I’m dream-

ing, surrounded by those I know and sometimes those I don’t. My head hurts. The train between my brain and mouth seems to be running a bit behind sched-ule. Everyone around me is frantic, run-ning, screaming, talking slowly in my face, but I feel calm. I understand what’s going on; I know that everything is go-ing to be fine. I hate being babied, so I want to swat away the hands that attempt to force-feed me candy or funnel apple juice down my throat. I have epilepsy, not diabetes. However, I appreciate all of it, love the strangers who’ve rubbed my back as I sit, still confused, on an airplane floor. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the way my mother looked at me the morn-ing she saw me seize. She’d never looked happier to see me.


POETRY CONTEST WINNERSFIRST PLACE-- TWO IMAGES --LEO AMINO

often I am permitted to whisper a myth alongthe radio though always it encounters staircases

and a nose among the oranges a scene I’ve made it! up I useexclamation points I talk about silences I ponder

collage and. awkwardly. placed. periods asthe period of time the Nile when it

overflows as the teapot and instructions onGuadalajara oh boy I’ve done it now

America this has got to end I’ve runstraight out of wheels but there

is so much left I want to say I havesaid it yet the wild beestees they are

everywhere and I in love

SECOND PLACE-- SONNET 130 --RIVKA FOGEL

1.Blank exposure. Yelled a yell and it ate itself. Called in the receding corridor of the

darkroom. A neck was the anchor for this that ran and ran.

2.There is this requirement for a certain amount of extension before anything can be

done like a therapy. It is cast in the skein, a skin anyway to have it is to write all over it or to think about being vertical moving flatly and thinly curling and restless and arresting which never is still like a water being moved about a tinted glass about a slotted rail and the whole business making rows and holes and plastic labyrinth and burial space and starting always and un-starting always.

Leo Amino is a senior in the College. You can write to him at [email protected] Fogel is a junior in the College. You can write to her at rafogel@sas.

The third place winners are Jessica Rivo and Jungmin “Emily” Yoon. We would like to give a sincere thank you to the judges: Dr. Valerie Fox from Drexel and Ms. Kristina Baumli from

UPenn. We are very grateful for all your help!

FC


The bars were breathing so that they would take me in and wrap around

my head and not in and out like a bull-frog but warty like one, yes, and bub-bling. “So that,” as if with a purpose. Yo u hear bars and you think…a prison a drunkard a lawyer a crow. But it is none of those things. It is a child’s playground. There are bars, yes, to climb and to disen-gage and there are chutes, which are my favorite. Because for every several little Tom and Sally that climbs the rungs be-hind it greased with the sweat and sand and spittle and bloodtrickles of children’s play there is the boy, unnamed, who will climb that chute until it is a chute no lon-ger and then that little boy is the own-er of his language, which is to own the world. Once he figures to climb the other tra-la-las will join him in laughter until the grown-up says to get down, to stop before anyone gets hurt.

And what do you know! Then the pridehurt little king will go and climb higher than usual on the bars, he will yank redfaced up until his thin smooth

elbows are resting on the top rung and just his face peeks over like the red sun at day’s end but it is not setting it is ris-ing, slowly, or is the whole world drop-ping below him like the handle on a dy-namite plunger? And slowly still ruddy in the face with exertion he rises and the shoulders blossom and arms straighten and then the knees. First knee on the top rung and the second. And then with a chemist’s precision he will place the kneecaps on the subsequent rung, ankles hooking the one behind, and he will reach forward pushing himself up from the one that is further still. And the first points down will be the last to come off, and the last will be the first. The hands let go, and he is leaning back and kneeling, arms outstretched but he is higher than the rest hears none of the shouting knows in his own way that he is underneath no one but God.

Then the tottering upright, the hands are down again sliding backwards towards the ladder, stiffening first the legs and letting go then with the hands until

the boy is upright like the First Man. And oh! How he walks on those bars that so many have swung between below like animals and ignores the shouts and the fear that holds him like quicksand and gravity. The blissful unknowing of this the greatest accomplishment in his life is what makes it greatest and the falling will not matter or the breaking bones or the hospital or the painful nights wait-ing up and the therapy and wheelchairs and nurses, because it is all in the future, as is the applause from his young peers and the scolding of his parents, that to a young heart is the greatest of praises at his defiance. It is all the future and is all mist and legend and the glory and the fear intermingling create a dizzying stew of potentiality.

And this story is in these bars, a whole book of them in fact which I may or may not write. And one bar! The joy I feel at stories, the best of which are never lies. FC

Steve Waye is a senior in the College. You can write to him at waye@sas.

TEDDYTENAYA ANUE

Tenaya Anue is a sophomore in the Col-lege. You can write to her at tanue@sas.

MONKEY BARS

STEVE WAYE: HOOKED ON SONICS

FICTION


It is a l m o s t

impossible to talk about Haiti without

mention of the recent earthquake that devastated the

country. The rest of the world col-l e c t i v e l y responded to the disaster

with words of condolence and prayer, of hope for a brighter future, of guilt for overlooking an already broken na-tion long before the disaster, and of utter confusion as to why the earthquake hit one of the least prepared and able na-tions.

Whatever one’s response to this di-saster was, and however one tries to un-derstand it, measure it, and talk about it, is it possible to truly capture its sig-nificance with words? As someone di-rectly affected by the earthquake, I have struggled with my own reaction to the disaster—mainly my lack of response. I withdrew into myself and reflected on what happened and on my own memory of Haiti. My silence can be taken as an inappropriate reaction to such a large catastrophe or as extremely appropriate, as disasters speak for themselves and can often leave one speechless.

Although I have been directly af-fected by the earthquake, I feel removed from it, more connected to the country that I visited merely ten days before the earthquake, as opposed to what is left of that country now. I feel that the memory of my recent visit to Haiti is sufficient in coming to terms with the disaster, as best as I can, and that reflecting on, and re-counting my experience of Haiti is more appropriate than trying to represent the disaster directly. As noted by author

Maurice Blanchot, a disaster is “the limit of

writing.” Instead of focusing directly on the disaster that hit

Haiti, I am choosing to mourn the devastation by focusing on the country

I knew before. The memories I have of Haiti are

ones recounted to me by family members or ones from the two trips I took to Hai-ti—one when I was nine and one this past December. Though the memories I have of my first trip to Haiti are few, there are two in particular that stick out and that I feel are accurate reflections of the nation I know as a whole. The first memory is of a naked child, showering in what little water he could find on the street. The sec-ond is of my experience at the airport in Haiti while waiting for a delayed flight. Almost everyone around me broke out in song, dance, and laughter—occupying their time by coming together in a col-lective and joyous performance. These two memories sharply contrast, and they reflect a country of people stricken with poverty and fear, but who have resilience that has always given them strength in the face of adversity.

While the few memories of my first visit to Haiti are powerful, it was during my second visit that I was most moved. To say I was culture shocked would be a severe understatement. From the mo-ment I got off the plane, I understood how backwards this nation truly is. The airport was entirely out of control, with no sense of organization whatsoever. I quickly learned of the corruption in Haiti when I was told not to list a real address on my customs forms because of the likelihood that someone might show up at that address and rob my family. Leav-ing the airport, I learned how desperate Haitians are for any type of material thing and how “friendly” they can be. My sis-ter and I were immediately approached by strangers offering to “help carry our bags,” or in this case, people looking to take them. After finally leaving the air-port overwhelmed and confused, my drive back home told another story of

Haiti—in my opinion, the most devastat-ing one.

It was during the drives through the streets of Haiti when I truly felt the devastating effects of a neglected nation. What I saw on those streets that were too dangerous for me to even consider walking through, had a more power-ful and heartbreaking effect on me than anything I have witnessed in my life. Dilapidated infrastructure covered in barbed-wire, unfinished “homes” made out of sticks and stones, overpopulation, extreme poverty and unemployment, crime, fear, homelessness, neglected chil-dren, malnourished and stray animals roaming the streets, pollution, dirt roads, a lack of any type of rules, order, or con-trol—this is what I saw through the win-dow of a car. But during those moments when I would lower my window to give money or food to a begging child, I felt a certain connectedness to the streets of Haiti that possessed me with empathy for “my” people.

One particular aspect of Haitian cul-ture that I witnessed with a great sense of uneasiness was the severe class division. Haiti is a nation built entirely around class and the lines between those people on the streets of Haiti and the family that I visited were very clearly defined. Any-one who has money in Haiti has at least one maid – those maids sometimes even have other maids – and a yard boy. While there is often a friendly relationship be-tween house members and maids, the di-vision is always made clear, as the maids have their own separate place to eat and cannot often eat more than what they are given. I was shocked to see the extent to which my own family members, who have lived for some period of time in the States as well, were entangled in the Hai-tian cultural concept of class division. It was as if being in Haiti set them back and those same chores that they would gladly offer to perform in the States were now beneath them.

Aside from the maids and the yard boys, I felt that wherever I went I was being waited on. At the beach or a pool,

Remembering a Beautifully Backwards CountryBY Sabrine Tribié


workers would come up to my friends and family on the sand or the deck and take our orders as well as bring us our food. At the clubs, young men would wait outside, ready to walk you to your car that they were “watching” for you, and open your door for you. At the airport, aside from the “friendly” strangers ready to help you with your bags, there are countless numbers of porters competing to help you remove your bags from the car and carry them inside as well as oth-er strangers waiting at the check-in desk just to lift your bag for you and place it on a weighing scale. Almost anywhere you go in Haiti as a light-skinned person or person who appears to have money, you will be waited on.

Of course there is motive behind this attitude for many Haitians – they are desperate for money. With an unem-ployment rate of around 80% and more than half of Haitians living on less than a dollar a day, it is no wonder why there is so much crime and why Haitians are bold enough to lift your suitcase, put it on a scale, and stand with their hands out asking for money.

Driving through the streets of Hai-ti, one of the most striking images was that of the marketplace. The marketplace was a highly overpopulated strip along the street in which Haitians sold any-thing from food, to pills, to clothes, to live chickens, while sitting on the floor, surrounded by pollution. They often sat barefoot and in obviously donated cloth-ing (clothes with American phrases or symbols on them), and sometimes even roamed the marketplace with no cloth-ing at all. They transported their goods by foot, carrying extremely heavy items on their heads. The only hope they had for public transportation is what the Hai-tians call a “tap-tap”—a pick-up truck with a box frame in the back onto which they would pile, often sitting on top of the truck or holding onto its sides. I was told that these workers in the market-place are more or less the only people living on the streets of Haiti who have a chance of putting a child through el-ementary school.

A question that plagues the mind of any visitor is why the government or even other countries were not doing more to help Haiti. Within this ques-tion lies the heart of Haiti’s problems—a corrupt government. Virtually none of the money intended to help reconstruct

Haiti prior to the earthquake actually reached the people of Haiti. It is impossi-ble to help a country when that country’s government only wants to help itself. As for other forms of outside aid sent to help Haiti, you could not turn a street corner without seeing a United Nations building or truck. The United Nations was sent to Haiti to keep the peace and although conditions have become sig-nificantly safer, no one I asked had any idea how the UN was continuing to help. In asking my relatives about the over-whelming number of UN personnel oc-cupying Haiti, they responded with the same answer, saying that those people are simply on vacation.

Overcome with a sense of depres-sion from all of my observations during my trip, I asked myself why my relatives were always so excited to return. Asking myself if I would ever return, I came to the conclusion that there is something so humbling about being in Haiti. The e x p e r i e n c e truly opened my eyes and gave me a stronger appreciation for everything I always took for granted—things as basic as clean water, electricity, and shelter. Then I realized that there is also something so comforting and wel-coming about Haitians. Everyone you meet greets you with two kisses on the check and a hug as if they have known you for years. The people on the streets of Haiti still manage to get together and celebrate on Christmas and New Years, even while a foreigner would look at them, scratch their head, and wonder what these people have to celebrate. I ob-served life on the streets of Haiti, shocked and overwhelmed by what I saw. Yet to Haitians, this type of life is nothing out of the ordinary, and they observed me—with my light skin, car, and a camera per-manently glued to my hand—as if I were the unusual one.

The collective sense of identity that Haitians have is incredible. Seeing a group of strangers break out in song in the airport, or even hear-ing their collective sighs and groans when discover-ing the temperature in New York on my flight back home, it is evi-

dent that Haitians share a very strong bond and sense of identity. Finally, I reflect on my trip to the mountains of Haiti and the view looking down over the country. Standing on those moun-tains, you cannot see the dilapidated infrastructure or the overpopulated streets filled with poverty. The view is of a peaceful, beautiful country surrounded by lush mountains, and it is absolutely breathtaking. It is hard to appreciate the beauty of such a devastated nation, but once you are able to, you can understand why someone would want to return.

There is no need to put into words what kind of effect the recent natural di-saster has had on the nation. The vision of Haiti that I had before the earthquake was one of a backwards and broken na-tion that had already faced countless di-sasters. A nation of people who, although the only life they knew was one of con-stant struggle and pain, refused to let that overcome them and break their will. While I do not know the country in its current condition in the way that I knew the country before, I know the culture well enough to say that Haitians’ inextin-guishable resilience will prevail and that it is not necessary to linger in a state of pity or to dwell on the disaster. There is a limit to which words can capture a di-saster. While my reflections on the earth-quake might fade over time – and that is natural in any process of mourning – I will always preserve the memory of my beautifully backwards country. FC

Sabrine Tribié is a sopho-more in the College. You can write to her at stribie@sas.


GO TRIBEKATIE WYNBRANDT

HOW CHIEF WAHOO MARKS THE INDIANS

longed to lay eyes upon. I, on some level, desperately wished to have something in common with a father who rarely made it home from work in time to kiss me goodnight, and he, in turn, deeply de-sired to share something with a daugh-ter to whom he wasn’t quite sure how to relate. Chief Wahoo began to symbolize that “something.” His constant presence in our lives became a symbol through which we could always find common ground.

Years after the Chief and I were in-troduced, my United States History class learned about the devastation of Native Americans. After I became aware of the manipulation, degradation, and virtual genocide of the Native American people, the sight of Chief Wahoo began to make my stomach turn. What gives us, as a nation of immigrants, the right to nearly exterminate an entire people, to rob the survivors of their land, to drive them into poverty, and to further insult them by using a racist caricature as a form of entertainment? Not only was I ashamed of my own previous ignorance, but I also felt betrayed by my father’s hypocrisy; the implications of the passion we once shared directly contradicted the values for which I respected him most.

Supporters of the Chief are most likely to focus on offensive claims— those asserting that Chief Wahoo bene-fits Native Americans. More specifically, proponents contend that Chief Wahoo is a flattering depiction of American

Indians’ strength and bravery. But if Chief Wahoo were as flattering as

these proponents claim, one would expect that Native Americans

would actually feel flattered.Here, one should note that

Native Americans do not hon-or one another through the use of logos or caricatures precisely because this type of symbolism is not viewed as honorable in Indian cul-ture. In an article by Jo-seph J. Hemmer Jr. in The American Indian Quar-terly, Michael Yellow Bird,

an associate professor of social work at Arizona State University, suggests that “it is impossible to honor someone who does not feel honored.” In reference to the symbolism of Native American mas-cots, he adds, “We experience it as no less than a mockery of our cultures.”

For example, in authentic Native American culture, the type of eagle feather that sits atop Chief Wahoo’s head is customarily awarded to a person wounded in war, and feathers in general are reserved for the most revered chiefs and spiritual leaders. A feather of this kind is a symbol of deference; each one is bestowed upon only the most deserving members of the Native American com-munity and only “through a lifetime of service and sacrifice,” according to Hem-mer. By endowing Chief Wahoo with the feather, the Indians franchise draws an insulting comparison between war and a game of baseball. This comparison does more damage than merely strip the sym-bol of its meaning; it debases the individ-uals who subscribe to Native American culture.

In 2008, Basic & Applied Social Psychology published the results of four studies that examined the psychological consequences of mascots like Chief Wa-hoo on Native American high school and college students. These studies showed that when students are exposed to Na-tive American mascots they report lower self-esteem, picture themselves as lower-achieving individuals, and feel less valued in their community. From these results, the directors of one study concluded that Chief Wahoo “remind[s] American Indi-ans of the limited ways others see them and, in this way, constrain[s] how they can see themselves.”

A 1999 Department of Justice study also found that Indians were the Ameri-can racial group most likely to be victim-ized by violent crime (at two and a half times the national average). This data di-rectly contradicts the popular argument that Chief Wahoo represents a flattering and respectful depiction of American Indians; evidently, the Indians are not flattered, and all too often, they are not

My dad introduced me to Chief Wa-hoo, the first “Indian” I ever met.

For as long as I can remember, the Chief ’s flaming-red skin, jovial smile, and dis-proportionately large nose has adorned my family’s sweatshirts, key chains, and even birthday cakes. No, Chief Wahoo is not an actual Native American; he is the Cleveland Indians’ team mascot.

Since the day my father brought me to my first Indians game I took an imme-diate liking to the Chief. In retrospect, I’m not sure if it was Chief Wahoo’s smile, resembling many of the stuffed animals to which I was so attached at the time, or the smile that was sure to appear on my overworked, stressed-out father

at the start of each game

that I so


Katie Wynbrandt is a sophomore in the Col-lege. You can write to her at kwyn@sas.

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treated with respect. Yet, to remove the bonds that indi-

viduals like my father have formed with Chief Wahoo (and would have formed with nearly any mascot) is to threaten the franchise’s profits. It is estimated that the ballclub makes over $20 million each year from retaining Chief Wahoo as its icon. In exchange for such a level of profit, the team can afford to persist in its

One of my best friends shocked me the other day when he told me he

likes to make people feel uncomfortable on elevators by either talking to them or obviously listening to their whispered conversations.

This method of entertainment confused me. I thought, why wouldn’t people trapped in an 8 x 8 foot metal box converse? The ride up an elevator is thirty seconds that need not pass in ab-solute and uncomfortable silence; I be-lieve a short comment, about the weath-er, classes, or anything that the majority of the inhabitants of said elevator would be likely to share is not only normal but even called for.

And if you’re talking in an elevator next to me, you’re just silly to think I’m not listening or would never chime in.

To many readers here at Penn, it should not be surprising from my above comments that I am from the South. Only in the strange, mystical, foreign land south of the Mason-Dixon would anyone consider speaking to strangers while waiting around or perhaps even smiling at them on the street. Such a practice is frowned upon in all “normal” areas of the country. People here know it is best to keep to oneself and not bother others with any annoying pretense of friendliness.

Moving to Philadelphia involves a period of transition for all students, but moving from the South took some extra adjusting. I was savvy enough to know that greeting questionable looking men with a smile while walking down a dark alley late at night was not a good idea, but the lack of acknowledgment in other sit-uations puzzled me. Two Penn students pass each other in a hallway. One looks

refusal to bow to pressure. Those, like my father, who genuinely

respect Native American culture, who never participate in the dancing, drum-ming, or tomahawk chops that occur at sporting events with Native American mascots, but who unwaveringly support the team and sport its mascot do tacitly support a culturally and psychologically harmful institution. And although the

sight of Chief Wahoo on my father’s baseball cap will always incite nostalgia, the harm that Chief Wahoo causes Na-tive Americans significantly outweighs any pleasant experiences that I may as-sociate with the image. Chief Wahoo is a physical manifestation of a history of oppression and racism. He must be re-placed.

HELLOCONVERSATIONS IN AN ELEVATOR

up and gives a friendly “hello,” smiles, or casually bobs her head. The other speeds up and looks down at the floor. Guess which was me.

After getting over the initial shock, I went through what I guess can be termed a “honeymoon” period with this new custom. I felt the bliss of anonymity, having come from a small high school in which everyone knew my name, my par-ents, and my personal history, plus some fun fact I probably would have rather

not been universally shared. Here, no one knew me. I could wear whatever I wanted, act however pleased me, and it would not become a topic of discussion. Anonymity was in a certain sense liber-ating. However, I soon realized that my fellow students were not simply ignoring my presence – they were not acknowl-edging my existence.

After further reflection, I have re-verted back to my original stance, and I would like to pose the question: why wouldn’t two people, sharing the same space if only for a few seconds, not ac-

knowledge their mutual existence? The phenomenon particularly inter-

ests me at Penn, where the people that routinely ignore my “good mornings” and appear confused by my friendly smiles not only share my temporary lo-cation but are also students of my same age, living in the same city and attend-ing the same university. You can’t tell me we have nothing in common. I am not asking that complete strangers leave their comfort zone in acknowledging me; odds are our paths have crossed be-fore and will in the future. Also, there is no potential cost of a “hello”; I promise I will not follow a casual smile with a re-quest for your name and social security number.

The worst possible result of recipro-cating my nod would be getting involved in an unnecessarily long conversation with me, but that is a risk I would ex-pect most people to take in the name of friendliness and good manners. If you are in a hurry, by all means excuse your-self; otherwise there is nothing wrong with sharing an experience with a com-plete stranger. I do it all the time, or at least I used to. Since moving to Philly, I admit to smiling at strangers a little bit less and controlling myself in elevators more than I used to. But this does not mean I’m happy about it. Everyone gets discouraged, even us perpetually cheer-ful southerners.

I have not lost faith, however. My “y’all” has rubbed off on some of my friends – I only hope that this other “strange” tendency of acknowledging strangers does too.

AMANDA JOHNSON

Amanda Johnson is a sophomore in the Col-lege. You can write to her at amanj@sas.


FICTIONTHE GOD OF BASKIN ROBBINS

JOE PINSKER

The Laurel Street Baskin Robbins Ice Cream Store should have considered

renaming itself Gerald’s Ice Cream Store, or at least this is what Gerald thought.

Gerald was the dominating force behind the glass, a self-proclaimed god among scooping men (even if he only kept this to himself). Through some sort of inexplicable power, Gerald was the master of overtime, pushing shifts like any capitalizing typist. His stints were lengthy, span-ning occasionally into the double dig-its and demonstrat-ing an Olympian’s endurance. Through a complex system of managerial ap-peal, Gerald scored himself a schedule of solo shifts, which, while demanding a lot of the individual, afforded the scoo-per with unchecked power over Flavors 1 through 31 and the counter space behind them.

By the time Ger-ald de-robed on an average day, casting his apron on the hook marked with a golden plaque inscribed with his initials (none of the other hooks had any trace of person-alization or class), he strode across the threshold into reality (others called it the parking lot) toward “The Chariot” (others called it a ‘91 Camry) with a glowing pride in the pit stains beneath his sweatshirt. These same stains were the bane of his laundry-doing mother’s existence. Was he arrogant? Perhaps, but rightfully so.

Gerald’s shining ice cream scoop was a divining rod, always finding the sweet spot in any given case of ice cream

without fail. When he moved his arm, the scoop didn’t just move — it glided. It swooped downward, caressing the icy slopes in such a way that created only the most perfect spheres of sugary, creamy goodness. Once plopped on the canvas (others called it an ice cream cup), the scoop awaited its crowning touch and cherry on top— a pink spoon embedded three-quarters of an inch into the scoop, at a 15-degree angle to the vertical.

Sometimes, though, there was an actual cherry on top, freshly plucked from the Garden of Toppings. If you asked Ger-ald’s customers about the precision with which their ice cream was crafted, they probably would’ve noticed it. Gerald interpreted his customers’ bewildered

looks as the human reaction of awe (oth-ers called it disgust).

Gerald’s solo shift and obvious gift for scooping, aside from allowing him to singlehandedly uphold the honor of the names “Baskin” and “Robbins,” meant that Gerald could reward or punish ice cream patrons with pristine or sloppy scoops, respectively. No one was safe from Gerald’s watchful eye, whether they knew it or not. Not opening the door for

Grandma in the parking lot? One would pay in the form of approximately three few-er walnuts on one’s sundae (which, in Gerald’s opinion, was quite a hefty fee given the standard 10-walnut sundae). Speaking in a condescend-ing tone to your girlfriend? A drip (or two!) down the side of the cup was probably going to be in one’s future. Denying one’s child a Regu-lar Size cup? One shouldn’t have been surprised to find that the missing third scoop of one’s three-scoop banana split turned up in the child’s cup, “by accident.” Bully-ing a younger sister? Phew, I wouldn’t want to know, but a used spoon certainly wouldn’t be out of the ques-tion.

But Gerald could be benevolent as well. For ev-ery intentional drip, miss-ing scoop, even every used spoon, there was an unusu-ally large spoonful of rain-bow sprinkles or a large Oreo shake when only a regular had been paid for and was even printed on the receipt. Gerald worked in mysterious ways.

On one remarkably stormy day in mid-June (after all, Gerald didn’t control the weather, so who knew who could be responsible for such a seasonal oddity), enter stage front door quite possibly the most beautiful woman ever to set foot af-ter graceful foot on the linoleum of the


Joe Pinsker is a freshman in the College. You can write to him at jpinsker@sas.

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Laurel Street Baskin Robbins. Gerald was caught off guard by her entrance; never before had Gerald swiveled his head in response to the synthesized ding-dong that signaled an inbound customer to find a specimen so stunning. Her eyes were Jamoca Almond Fudge, almost Mississippi Mud. Her arms were slightly toned and appeared perfect for... could it be?... scooping. And her breasts, well, suffice it to say that Gerald saw before him two of the most perfectly spherical scoops plopped down right next to each other. Marvin Gaye started playing in Gerald’s head but he quickly hit the mute button. He knew instantly that she was a 31 out of 31.

After a labored swallow, Gerald stammered, “W-welcome to Baskin Rob-bins, what can I get for you today?” In his head, he continued, “... other than the erection I’m fortunately concealing be-hind this counter.”

Her first words were delivered in the most mellifluous, breathy voice Gerald had ever heard: “Uhhh... I think I need a minute, ok?”

“Sure, sure, whatever you need,” Gerald said, a little too quickly.

She scanned the flavor choices as he scanned her.

A minute passed. “Ok, I’ve decided. Can I get a Large

Sundae with cherries, hot fudge, and whipped cream, please? And for the ice cream, just chocolate is good,” she said.

“Say no more,” Gerald said with a slight elevation of his right eyebrow and a crease at the very left end of his lip. Gerald took a deep breath and mentally prepared for making the most important sundae he would ever make, the sundae that all past sundaes were building to-ward.

He nonchalantly walked over to the tower of Large sized cups. He tossed aside the uppermost cup, because, as any self-respecting scooper knew, of the possibility of dust accumulation. With a twitching hand and a hidden glance to make sure he was being watched (which he was!), Gerald approached the angled brown slopes that were Chocolate. Truly a classic. Gerald had to give it to her— the woman had taste. Tilting his head right and left to the point of cracking, Gerald knew that any flourish added in the topping section meant nothing with-out the proper ice cream base.

He fell back on his muscle memory,

watching his right hand dive tenderly into a sea of brown, fishing for the perfect scoop. What came back was astounding . He brought it up to the level of his solar plexus, positioning the cup under it with his left hand, taking on the starting posi-tion of an Olympic speed skater. A barely noticeable flick of the wrist, and the scoop slid down toward its new home. Gerald had no problem recreating the magic on the second and third scoops. What now lay in the cup could only be described as the Holy Trinity.

Gerald pirouetted over to the top-pings section, reaching first for the cher-ries. With his tongs, he extracted five of the choicest Maraschinos, drained them of their blood-red marinade, and de-posited them evenly on his mound of chocolate with the care of a child put-ting up Christmas ornaments. Switching utensils, he cautiously pressed his serv-ing spoon onto the gloopy surface of the cherry bowl until the spoon filled with liquid. Promptly, he blanketed the ice cream with a sheet of red syrup.

Gerald was so engaged in his sun-dae that he forgot about the customer. He glanced to his left, near the register, but didn’t see her. His peripheral vision, however, picked up on the fact that she had followed him to the toppings sta-tion. Doing his best to pretend he hadn’t registered this fact and failing miserably, Gerald felt the spoon slip through his hand as it tumbled abruptly into the pit of cherries with a gloopy swoosh. A mi-nor slip-up, but nothing that could derail this sundae on its path to perfection. Cri-sis averted.

Next up: hot fudge. It looked like conditions were perfect for the fudge that day. The temperature gauge read 141 degrees, which Gerald, of course, knew to be 5 degrees from bubbling. He plunged a fresh spoon into the fondueli-cious boiler, bringing back ribbon after ribbon of thick chocolate sauce to adorn the existing cherry coating. The ordered rows that resulted were more picturesque than even the photoshopped sundae that sat on the wall-mounted menu that hung behind the counter.

And so he arrived at the whipped cream with the knowledge that perfec-tion wasn’t guaranteed until a uniform white cone sprouted from the top of the ice cream. His concentration was briefly interrupted by a ding-dong, but of course his mind overrode his neck’s

reflex to turn toward the new customer. He stayed focused on the task at hand. A quick breath, and then a squirt.

The moment he took pressure off of the nozzle, four things happened in rapid succession. First, the sundae was completed. Second, he heard a man call from across the room, “Honey, what’s taking so long?” Third, in his high-strung, adrenaline-fueled state, his neck jerked violently toward the door, tak-ing his entire body, including his left hand, with it. Unfortunately for Gerald, the fourth thing was that the sundae, as was its destiny, fell from grace and onto the linoleum. All of its carefully-planted contents splattered across the floor in a rainbow of brown, red, and white. The ice cream had found a new canvas.

There was a moment of silence. Ger-ald’s silence was for his crushed fantasies, and the woman and the other customer’s silence was out of confusion.

Gerald looked at the floor, the wom-an, and then the floor again. His face didn’t know what face to make. His neck, though, guided his line of vision to the second customer, who turned out to be a massive, muscular man with a tank top, sunglasses, and a shaved head. “Honey?” the man asked.

Gerald looked to the woman as his mouth hung open a little.

“He was almost done,” she said, “and then... he just spilled it when you came in.”

“Let me make—” Gerald started, but the man cut him off: “Look, hon, we have to go pick up Jacob from his friend’s party. I don’t think we have time to make another.”

The woman shrugged, turned to-ward Gerald, and without protest said, “Sorry about the sundae. We’re gonna head out.”

“Bye” was all Gerald could manage. He bit his lip as he watched her strut over to the door and her husband. The door swung closed with its usual ding-dong. Gerald took a deep breath in and then out, sighed, and then walked towards the mop, knowing that he had truly spent time in the presence of the divine that day.


GOOD CONFIDENCECHARLIE ISAACS: CHARLEMAGNE IN CHARGE

PeaceFor we are home

Our journey is done but never finished The mind is fainting dizzy baulking back Taking back the dreadful from beforeThe storm dissipates Though never far from anywhere Grey dissolves into splendid blue

I leap And find your hand And I do not have to fall and watch you disappear above me as I return to earthBecause we fall together In every direction we choose

Battalions and battle guards Our mission is complete One expedition for anotherMarch to the sound of panting breath and beating chests And whispers and willful plunges Into our depthsEvery feeling in my vein, every word and every thought Twist and yelp and yearning callingCommanding cry of my captain heart And blessing faith

As always Peacetime soldiers of the great fervent following Maritime marshals of desire and wantBecause when my eyes meet yoursThey crashSounding a destruction of barricades The rescinding of walls and unlocking of doorsA rush of air that soothes and sets free these glass-jarred thoughts Of you

A moment here For us to turn back And spot your distant lights across a nighttime cityWe stand together on rooftops And glitter dazzle gaze into and out of heaps The grand world of searchOf strife and straw and heal and reach and flock flow go Slow to slip style into grace we go go go Trip and try againLessons upon lessons of chip check churn Lost enough to find ourselvesAnd youAcross a table Captivating meAnd I wonder how so much time Could pass Without you

Slap the walls of dusty secret concrete whisper lull Slick ride roses of the fainting cobblestone patchwork of silly-braveDistant old walks of pesky self-whatever Probably would have fought you off Razed roads like hell and slice away all hooksAnd leads But now with open arms Now learned and learning Here I am

Still absurd A master of my universe tossed into the deep end and I get smacked and toldTo keep my head above the water I turn to the child And say with honest promising eyes I am not his/my own let-downI am the mighty mammoth of wish-lists and child-dreams

I want to sit with you and watch it all fall away All enduring structures The mired and the yanking Let them crawl like adultsAs our lips graze

And breathe When I stop for a second To look back on my worldA fiasco of fingertips quiet down To run through liquid lush Sweet brisk And soft slide slide slide slide slideThe taste of hot sweet tearsRunningDown my face And yours And now

Onwards Good confidence Follow that glance Follow that view Follow that voice And go

I wish everyone the kind of journey Complete with torture and struggle And everlasting brilliance And trial and triumphThat I have had (Your eyes say it all)

Learn from it Grow from it Flow from it

PeaceFor we are home

Charlie Isaacs is a senior in the College.You can write to him at isaacscj@sas.

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POETRY


Alyssa Kaplan is a junior in Nursing. You can write to her at kaplanal@nursing.

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One out of every four college women is sexually assaulted. Think about

your friends, your roommates. It’s fright-ening to think that one of you could be raped, abused, or sexually violated in some way. We’ve heard throughout our time at Penn how to try to avoid this sit-uation: don’t walk alone at night, watch how much you’re drinking. But what we don’t know is what comes next.

Let’s say it happens. You, or your best friend, or your roommate has been sexually assaulted. The most important thing to do is to report it to the police. There are many negative consequences to just letting it go. Women who remain silent tend to have more psychological problems in the long run. It can also have many implications for daily life, such as constant fear and anxiety.

The main problem in our society, and the reason why the reporting rate is so low (38% for college women), is some-thing called “the rape myth.” It looks just like Law and Order SVU. There’s a girl walking down a dark, deserted street late at night, and all of a sudden a stranger comes out of nowhere, rapes her, and leaves her there, beaten and bruised. This is how society thinks a rape happens.

Consequently, victims who are not at-tacked in this manner often don’t report to the police because they feel they don’t have a real case or they won’t be taken seriously.

In a study where rape scenarios were set up, including a stranger attack and an attack beginning from a bar setting, the rape myth was pervasive in people’s per-ceptions of the victims. When a stranger attacked a woman, the respondents felt he was at fault and she was the victim. On the other hand, when the woman had been drinking and was dressed pro-vocatively, she was seen as partially re-sponsible for the attack. Not only does society as a whole struggle to acknowl-edge these women as victims, but the women themselves tend to embrace this mindset, making excuses for the attacker. Some say that boys are aggressive, or the attacker was drinking and didn’t know what he was doing. This illustrates how influential these false assumptions are, and how strongly our reactions can affect the victim’s feelings and actions.

There are many barriers that prevent victims from reporting. In many cases, people are being victimized by acquain-tances or significant others, and this pre-

vents many of them from seeking police help; they fear retaliation or believe to report would be disloyal. Moreover, if the person does not have any visible in-juries, they are reticent to report because it is harder to prove the attack occurred. Finally, there is the major problem of alcohol and drugs. If the victim was us-ing, they feel that the attack was partially their fault. Underage victims are espe-cially hesitant to approach the police. It is important for them to know that they won’t be arrested for alcohol in this case.

These are serious issues, and we need inform women and men that their fear should not stop them from report-ing. Education programs on college cam-puses have not only increased awareness of the issue but shown students where to go for help. Universities with a clearly defined policy, education for students about how to respond if someone tells them about a rape, and easy methods for reporting attacks have been success-ful in confronting the rape myth. As stu-dents, we need to encourage our friends to report sexual assaults to the police. We need to offer caring support and aid them in getting help.

Dan Markowitz is a junior in Engineering. You can write to him at idaniel@seas and visit his website at http://www.defectivity.com.

SEEING THROUGH THE RAPE MYTH

ALYSSA KAPLAN: A LEASE ON LIFE

WHY IT’S IMPORTANT TO REPORT


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PASSENGER SIDELAURA BOWES

Laura Bowes is a sophomore in the College. You can write to her at lbowes@sas.

So she sat.And he was seated. Away from each other,They looked. The taxis on the highway go round, and round,Speeding through Uptown to reach Downtown.So she looked,And he appeared,To stare through shop windows passing by.Back and forth go the windswept wipers,Desperate to keep up with the view.So she stopped,And he started,Forward in his seatbelt.The streetlights change to green, yellow, red.The intersections, without fail, criss but never cross.So she steers,And he unbuckles,Using curbside as a bench.Radio loud the memories flood,Through the glass on passenger-side. Then she smiles,And he sees her,Pull away from traffic rushing,She has stopped at,He has started,Towards the feeling they already knew.

magazine - University of Pennsylvania · 2010. 4. 11. · FIRST CALL APRIL 12, 2010 3 LETTER FROM THE EDITORS EDITORIAL POLICY FIRST CALL ISegizing for Fling.We’re trying to forget

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