Second Winter Storm Coming Through -- Grinnell preparing for possibility of 72 hour power loss

icicles on bicycles after Saturday's storm (photo by Sidionie Straughn Morse '08)

I was sitting in a Younker dorm room yesterday when the phone rang. It definitely wasn't who I expected to be calling.

"This is a message from the Department of Homeland Security..." said a prerecorded voice on the other end of the line. Poweshiek County has been declared a disaster area and, the government voice urged, "If you are still without power, seek shelter immediately."

An ice storm ripped through campus these weekend, coating every blade of grass and abandoned bicycle with a solid layer of ice. The storm also downed trees and knocked out power to the campus and town for at least several hours.

While power has returned to all of campus, students, professors and college employees living in some parts of town -- and other cities -- are still in the dark. "Basically, living without power for five days, it feels like you haven't slept," says Mac Pohanka, of High Street, who has been sleeping on couches at friends houses and in lounges since the ice storm Saturday. His apartment still doesn't have heating or electricity. "Every day, you go to class and you're more tired and furious than the day before."

Even before Grinnell is entirely back on its feet, however, the town is bracing for another hit: a snow and ice storm rolling through tonight and Thursday. That means more ice and possibly more power outages.

Get prepared! If you're still without heat, find somewhere safe you can crash for a few days. Head out to the store while you still can -- it's not snowing here yet -- and stock up on supplies. Here's a shopping list, courtesy the Department of Homeland Security, of what you should have on hand:

matches
candles
canned food (week of tuna, anyone?)
extra water
blankets!!
extra hats, mittens and warm clothes
flashlights
extra batteries


also:
charge your cell phone and computer
park your car off the street

and
(for you nerdlings out there afraid you won't be able to finish your homework)
print off any Pioneerweb or e-reserve readings now

If anyone else has any preparation advice, feel free to add it in the comments. I'm from Southern California, I've got no experience with this "ice" thing.

We'll keep you updated here on the S&Blog, but check out major Iowa news sources for more info on the storm and where it's headed.

Song, dance and job interviews at ISO Cultural Evening

by Lawrence Sumulong

For students who know International Student Organization (ISO) mainly through their popular food bazaar, it is high time to add another item to the calendar: the Cultural Evening, ISO’s other major annual event.

Cultural Evening, which will take place on Sunday at 7 p.m. at Harris, showcases the cultural cornucopia at Grinnell through various student performances. It also serves as a get-together for international and domestic students, especially graduating seniors and students returning from abroad, and enhances dialogue between social and cultural groups.

“It’s extremely important because on the most basic level it encourages American students to learn more about different culture and different ways of life outside of the United States,” said ISO treasurer Hamza Hasan ’09. “But it’s not just specific to the students of the college—we usually get a good number of people from the town as well.”

The longstanding Cultural Evening is an open forum for students and groups. According to Hasan, ISO sends out an invitation to the various cultural organizations asking for anyone who might be interested in representing their country, organization, and culture through various artistic mediums. Emphasizing diversity, ISO shapes the final list of participants by making a concerted effort to represent as many different countries as possible.

The evening profits from performances by a medley of different student organizations, like the African Students’ Union, the Korean P’ungmul Percussion Ensemble and the Latin American Ensemble. And in the vein of offering new avenues of cultural insight, this year’s program will include a new segment: a short skit showing four students from differing social backgrounds in the setting of a job interview. The addition of the skit represents ISO’s continuing effort to disarm stereotypes, entertain and educate the public about the world outside of what they consider familiar.

Hasan said Cultural Evening’s strength lies in its capacity to unite students and groups, and said, “It’s a collaborative event that serves to bring together people of all nations and countries.”

The rules of chains

Everyone loves Harris parties. This is a documented scientific fact, supported by a wealth of empirical evidence. By which I mean, of course, that Harris has essentially no redeeming value. The loud music damages your hearing, any calories you burn off by dancing are immediately replaced by empty booze calories, and the all in-the-moment drunken excitement about hooking up with someone pales in comparison to the immense awkwardness of the day after. We all know this. Yet we all still go. Hell, you probably still have the stamp from the last Harris party on the back of your wrist, you dirty hippy. All of this irrational Harris-related excitement is quintessential to the atmosphere of Grinnell, and no party embodies the gratuitous sketchiness of Harris more than last weekend’s Chains of Love party.

The premise is simple. Pick two people you (for some reason) think need to spend more time together. E-mail these names to an account, see if they accept an anonymous chain, and if all goes well, they get handcuffed (“screwed”) together at the party. On the good end of the spectrum, this can lead to people being chained to their extra special super best friends and having adorable platonic dance parties, or to two individuals with tremendously obvious sexual tension finally getting over their insecurities and having a practice session for 100 days, as it were. On the more negative end, this leads to people being chained to their worst enemy or to some random person they may or may not have once had a History class with. These malicious chains tend to lead to excess drinking, or even worse, really awkward situations in which your chain is making out with someone else’s chain, leaving you unable to do anything but stand off to the side, making idle chit-chat with your chain’s make-out partner’s chain. And that connection is not nearly enough of a common bond to facilitate the creation of a real friendship. Seriously.

As such, perhaps it is time to make a series of rules of chaining etiquette, so as to save future generations the pain and humiliation of a really uncomfortable chain.

The first rule of proper chaining etiquette is to make sure you actually know who you are chaining together. Many people on campus have similar names. As such, it is never a bad idea to pull up Stalkernet to double-check your choices. Your friends will thank you when you manage to actually chain them to their crushes rather than to Rusty K or Darcy, the pizza lady.
The second rule is that unrequited affection is not sufficient grounds for a chain. Even if your friends are creepy people who don’t mind being exposed for the stalkers they are, it will still probably be really awkward if they get chained to that one guy who works in the dining hall who has really shiny hair. Not even the bounciest hair can substitute for a complete lack of conversational topics. Nor should you assume that, just because the girl down your hall is always talking about how hot a certain football player is, that they have any amount of common ground or basis for spending the evening together. Clues that such chains might be a bad idea often come in subtle signals, such as the fact that she only ever refers to the fellow by his jersey number or vaguely descriptive nicknames such as Buff-o or Sexy Rexy.

The third rule is that chains should not be a venue for proposing riddles to people. That is, do not chain people together who have never met simply because you happen to know of some really insignificant commonality they happen to have. No one wants to spend all night asking stupid questions in an effort to figure out whether they and their chain had a goldfish with the same name when they were seven, or whether their high schools had the same vaguely racist mascot.
And finally, the fourth, and most important, rule about chains etiquette is that these rules really only apply when you are considering chaining me to someone. Honestly, I would have a much better time at chains if I had the opportunity to see everyone else in really awkward situations.

Q&A with writer Stephen Kuusisto

by Lawrence Sumulong

The S&B did an e-mail interview with writer and disability activist Stephen Kuusisto, who will be on campus Tuesday as part of the Writers @ Grinnell series and Disability Awareness Week. Kuusisto, who has been blind since birth, is the author of the memoir Planet of the Blind and the poetry collection Only Bread, Only Light. He will read from his latest work, Eavesdropping: A Memoir of Blindness and Listening, on Tuesday, Feb. 20 at 8 p.m. Learn more about Kuusisto from this week's S&B article (PDF), Kuusisto's Web site and his blog.

In regards to your poetry and your prose, who are some of the writers that have helped hone your voice and in what ways have they influenced you?

I began reading poetry when I was a high school student. A friend loaned me a copy of an anthology of contemporary American poetry edited by Stephen Berg and Robert Mezey, called Naked Poetry. I discovered Kenneth Rexroth's poetry in that book, along with work by Robert Bly, Adrienne Rich, W.S. Merwin and James Wright, just to name a few of the amazing poets who were becoming important in American letters in the sixties and seventies. I was absolutely infatuated by the beauty and intelligence of contemporary poetry and I think that this discovery helped to save my life. I was anorexic and very depressed about my circumstances as a blind teenager attending a mediocre rural high school. Poetry dazzled, affirmed, insinuated and was politically and intellectually risky. I wanted to join the dialogue.

You have appeared in numerous anthologies, publications, and T.V. shows; are you conveying the same message across different media? To clarify, does a poem of yours appearing in The New York Times Magazine differ from your personal appearance on a show such as Oprah in regards to the convictions you are conveying? Furthermore, are there any concerns when you decide to involve yourself in various modes of public perception?

This is an excellent question. I try to remain the same thinker in all the various forms of communication one uses. On Oprah I talked at some length about the history of people with disabilities in the U.S.; in poetry I also talk about this history, as in the poem "Learning Braille at 39" or "Only Bread, Only Light." I've found lately that blogging has allowed me space to write editorials about disability and contemporary culture in a timely way, and I value that new freedom.

I was talking to Professor Ralph Savarese about your work, and he mentioned how your exquisite attention to language seemingly transforms, like a work of alchemy, prose into something closer to poetry. With that in mind, how has your background in poetry spilled into the structure of the memoir and creative nonfiction?

I learned how to write nonfiction largely from the point of view of a poet. In general, poets love language—its compression, imagery, sweetness, muscularity, energy and musicality. While prose writers often admire these things as well, very often a fiction or nonfiction writer will be thinking ahead about the narrative arc of her or his story. Poets tend to think word by word, line by line, like the old children's song about watering the garden: inch by inch, row by row. So I simply began writing true stories by using the poet's love of language as my essential building block. I tend to find out where I'm going with the story only after I've enjoyed putting the images and sounds on the page. As the poet Theodore Roethke said, "I learn by going where I have to go."

Between the walking tour of Grinnell College's campus, your reading and class visitations, your upcoming Writers @ Grinnell appearance seems to be one of the most involved and invested presentations to date. Dovetailing with Disability Awareness Week, what is the message that you are bringing to the college? How do you plan to convey it through each individual event?

I think that having a message is sometimes really a matter of being open to hearing the people in the local community. I've long been fascinated by the life and accomplishments of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who as you know was a coast to coast mover and shaker in the civil rights movement in the ’50s and ’60s. He would never give a talk in a city or town until he'd heard the local people either in a church or a community center. I think that's crucial. You may have some pre-formed and seemingly important ideas, but they can't be useful unless you take the time to know what the people around you are thinking. So at Grinnell I will endeavor to learn from students, faculty and staff, and I'll try to shape what I have to say about disability and higher education in accordance with local needs. Obviously talking about poetry and literature can be more from the world of the writer, though it can be argued that poetry is also a community activity.

Urban Bush Women mesmerizes crowd

by Sarah Mirk

Roberts Theatre is packed with people--students in the center rows and out toward the edges, where a few seats linger unfilled, older professors and trustee look-alikes sit talking and paging through programs. It’s a diverse crowd, and a rowdy one. Everyone is waiting, excited, for the Urban Bush Women dance troupe to raise the curtain for their one-night performance, Thursday, Feb. 8, at Grinnell. Right on schedule, the theater goes black. Slowly, the light fades up in a single circle onstage, where a dancer stands wearing a wide-brim hat. The audience cannot see her face, but from the light falling from above on the well-defined muscles of her arms and legs, it is obvious that she is incredibly strong. And sexy. These are recurring themes in the night’s performance.

Urban Bush Women hails from Brooklyn, but the women who make up the creative team are from all over and all use the theatrical style of modern dance to explore and express different ideas. Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, the buff, grey-haired founding artistic director of the 22-year-old group (who also choreographed three of the four pieces performed on Thursday) was raised in Missouri. Her pieces ranged from the outrageous ode to butt-shaking, “Bati Moves” (Bati is a Caribbean word for buttocks), in which five dancers rapped about being proud of their large bodies and large attitudes, to the moving solo dance, “Give Your Hands to Struggle,” which mixed a slow traditional spiritual song with powerful body movements laden with overtones of African-American/female empowerment. In this latter piece, the dancer, the strikingly gorgeous Paloma McGregor, is dressed in flowing white. Her movements are smooth and fluid, but her every muscle – including her face – is tensed and she pushes through the air like it’s lead. Zollar, offstage, reads the names of influential African Americans, filling the theater with their sound. As she reads “Malcolm X,” Dénécy’s hand forms a fist, thrusting upwards into the light and then exploding into five fingers. The audience was silent, enraptured.


Each piece, in its own way, expressed the strength of the female body. In the opening piece of the night, where the first dancer wore that wide-brimmed hat, the dancers moved quickly through very difficult moves. Their costumes, which can only be described as safari-chic, revealed their rippling muscles as each body moved through arabesques, pirouettes and handsprings. When one dancer spun the entire length of the stage, sweat flew from her body across the light, reminding the audience just how rigorous the simple moves of modern dance can be.

The S&B Online

We appreciate everyone's patience with the lack of S&B issues online. We're currently hiring a new web editor and will have the issues up as soon as possible. In the meantime, we're going to be uploading pdfs of each issue so you can view the issues that way. Last week's issue is available at http://web.grinnell.edu/sandb/. Thanks again for your patience!

Caitlin Carmody, Editor-in-chief

Rocking on Campus: Rehearsal Space in the Last 5 Years

The article “Bands search for space,” on the front page of this week’s S&B, describes the recent efforts of students and faculty to find adequate practice space for campus musicians. But the campus has faced this issue before. Check out the links to the S&B archives to trace practice space history though the years.

by Ari Anisfeld & Justin Erickson

Campus bands have struggled for years to find a space that meets their requirements for “rockability,” which include acoustics, availability, equipment security and acceptability to neighbors. From 1999 to 2004, the off-campus college-owned house at 1128 High Street was designated as Music House (a.k.a. Musik Haus or Freesound House). At least 9 bands practiced in the wooden-floored living room during the 2003-2004 academic year, according to former SGA Concerts Chair Brendan Baker ’06. Music House treated residents to consistent practice space, safe storage of instruments and a community of like-minded musicians.

But Music House also had its downsides. According to Music major Ioannis Loukakis ’07, it was often difficult to fill the house because many students were not willing to live with the noise level. He cited the case of a college athlete, who had no connection to music but did not mind the noise, living in a Music House single.

In 2004, Music House lost its spot at 1128 High St. to the now-defunct International Gourmet House. John Chavez ’05 and other campus band advocates went to Vice President for Student Services Tom Crady, and they worked together to make an accessible practice space available in Norris Pit. The large, graffiti-covered room had been used as a practice space from the 1960s to the 1980s. Crady appropriated funds for foam to line the space, which Baker said "contained noise in the room" but did not soundproof it. With the foam, the acoustics were "as all right as a concrete room could sound,” said Baker, but the noise was still bothersome to Norris residents. Freesound received funding from SGA to buy basic equipment for the space, including a guitar and a bass.

In the 2005-2006 year, Music House experienced a brief revival as Art and Music House, but this lasted only a year. Currently, 1128 High St. is home to Dag House.

The search for alternatives has led bands to unconventional spaces, including off-campus houses, dorm lounges and dorm rooms.

Movie review: La Dolce Vita

reviewed by Andrew Lippman

A masterpiece. Federico Fellini’s 1960 rumination on sex, love and miscommunication is as challenging and engrossing today as it was nearly fifty years ago. Seven days and nights in the life of playboy journalist Marcello Rubini (Marcello Mastrianni) seem an unending parade of socialites, celebrities, exhibitionists and “intellectuals,” all of who contribute to the empty decadence of 1960s Rome. Caught in the whirlwind are Marcello’s clinging girlfriend Emma (Yvonne Furneaux), the married academic Steiner (Alain Cuny), and Marcello himself, who earnestly seems to love both everyone and no one. Acknowledging the frivolity of his existence, Marcello intends to settle down and do some “serious” work. However, he finds a life of meaning more elusive than he anticipated.

La Dolce Vita is three hours long, but Fellini keeps the film going at a good pace and chocks it full of hot cars, trendy nightclubs, beautiful women and, of course, the circus. The sets and costumes are tremendous (the film won an Academy Award for Costume Design), as is the soundtrack. Mastroianni and Anouk Aimee (who plays heiress love interest Maddalena) are newcomers in their first collaboration with Fellini (they come together again for 8 ½). Watch for “American film star” Anita Ekberg’s famous fountain scene, as well as Valeria Ciangottini as the ingénue waitress Paola.

Showtime: Friday Feb. 9, 8:00 p.m. ARH 302


photo courtesy http://www.ledoux.be

Why am I so awkward?

Every time I leave the Grinnell campus for an extended period, I wind up being rudely slapped in the face with the realization that I have no idea how to conduct myself in the real world. I often spend several days confused by the prevalence of people not between the ages of 18 and 23, people who are offended by profanity and sexual references, and people who stare blankly at me when I use words like “opprobrium” in casual conversation. My tendency to dress like a hobo and my love-hate relationship with makeup and shaving suddenly qualify me as a weirdo, whereas my Grinnell self had always seemed so painfully mainstream. But one thing that really frightens me about my inability to pass as normal in actual American society is that I’m pretty sure I never actually learned how to legitimately flirt.

I know that sounds dreadfully shallow. Shouldn’t I be concerned about human rights, the destructiveness of capitalist consumer culture and the impending disaster of global warming? Sure, and I am. Really. My interests are many and varied. They just also happen to include occasionally hooking up with people.

Generally, this is less of a problem at Grinnell. Most people here are awkward enough to make me seem vaguely charismatic. As such, my stilted, bastardized version of flirtation actually seems to work. However, I often forget that the real world operates quite differently. This often leads to strange situations in which I give the impression of being mildly tweaked in the head.

One prime example of this occurred last week, when I was visiting a coffee shop in Des Moines with my good friend, Christy “not-awkward-enough-for-Grinnell” Boeckholt. I approached the counter first, hanging back briefly to decide what I wanted to order. As I was perusing the menu, the fellow behind the counter addressed me casually, trying to make conversation. At some point during this interaction, it dawned on me that this individual was flirting with me. This realization was bewildering for me. I specifically remember being agitated. I hadn’t entered the situation with the expectation that it would require any form of actual social skills, and as such I had not prepared myself. I had absolutely no idea what to say to this man. I made a half-assed effort to play along, not wanting to seem unfriendly.

The fellow seemed to have noticed my stilted mannerisms and attributed them to tiredness, saying, “Had a long day, huh?” I could easily have lied, pretended that I’d spent all day at some sort of legitimate job instead of sitting around reading Plans and crocheting earflap hats. But instead I decided to be unnecessarily honest, saying “No, not really. I’m actually just incredibly awkward.”

Had I made a similar comment to a Grinnellian, we probably could have shared a friendly laugh of commiseration at our mutual social ineptitude. However, outside of Grinnell, a statement such as this sends a pretty clear message of “I’m really freaking weird,” as evidenced by the relatively quiet manner in which the rest of our interaction panned out. I walked back to my table, confused and a bit embarrassed. Christy subsequently ordered, flirting casually and comfortably with the same man who had already written me off completely.

The encounter wasn’t a total loss, however. I got a delicious café mocha out of the transaction, and I managed not to trip while walking to or away from the counter. Also, I learned that flirting should not include blatant admissions of my own awkwardness. This just puts me one step closer to the day when I will finally be able to have comfortable social interactions with people I don’t really know. I’ve been making a lot of progress lately. At this rate, I should be pretty damn charismatic by the time I’m elderly.

Arseneault a finalist for Cousy Award

Point guard David Arseneault '09 has been named a finalist for the Bob Cousy award, given annually to the nation's top collegiate point guard by the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

Arseneault is one of only two Division III guards named to the list of 17 total finalists. Last year, Illinois' Dee Brown won the award, which is presented by the Hartford Financial Services Group.

The Grinnell native is averaging 19.2 points per game (3rd in the MWC) to go along with a league-leading 8.39 assists. He averages over three assists more per game than second-place David McMullen of Ripon College.