On a train from IV

I wrote the following on the train ride up North, and I thought I was being petty and weird so I didn't show it to anyone until yesterday when I read it in class. It probably sounds better being read out loud in a hyper sarcastic tone, but they liked it so here it is:

The family sitting across from me have returned from dinner; Mom and Dad carrying a half empty bottle of red wine and a couple of half filled glasses, which is a good balance of optimism and pessimism I think. Mom has a drunk laugh.

Some guy was seated next to me early in the day. He's traveling with what I'm guessing are his golf buddies. He put his stuff down by the seat next to me and then informed me that he wouldn't be sitting there.
"Nothin' personal," was what he said.
Something about the way he said it makes me think I know things about him, like I have some insight into his character, even though it's likely bullshit. I get the sense that he's unmarried, or if he's married, he does most of the talking. He doesn't receive anything more than polite compliments from women, he only really receives them from men, and just the men from his own group of friends. This has never occurred to him as unusual. His group structure seems like a common male social dynamic, where the cheering/egging on/pumping up of friends can guide most of someone's actions if they secretly have no self confidence. (kind of a "You're not gonna get him get away with that are ya chief?" spirit)
The fact that he thought he had to reassure me is telling I think. Is it because he assumes that all women depend on offhand compliments from strange men to feel adequate and when there lies the threat that one won't receive any or worse, may interpret their actions as an insult or slight to their comeliness and/or chances for marriage that he must allay any woman's fears lest she be broken hearted and disillusioned with men forever? Oh thank you for telling me it wasn't personal, I might have thought your choice to deprive me of one more moment of your Herculean (albeit, antiquated) physique, heroically gird with your periwinkle Lands End sweater draped over your polo shirt clad frame was possibly a result of my hair, or my face or possibly in your infinite wisdom you had sniffed out that my chances of bearing you healthy young were inadequate! Thank you sir, THANK GOD.

So they disappeared and someone else was seated next to me. She's a student, my age and going to Davis en route to Woodland. She's been quite pleasant to talk to, but she left after a while for the lounge car to do some homework, and Mr. Lacoste returned from the depths and sat down next to me. I told him that the seat was taken, which I shouldn't have had to do considering all her stuff was there and his legs were bumping against everything. He stared ahead for a moment, and then slowly looked back at me.
"Why?"
Which is an odd question to ask when someone hears that their seat is taken. I chalked the dazed expression and slow reaction time to a half empty/half full bottle of wine somewhere.
"Because she was seated here."
"Wha?"
"Someone seated her here."
This did not seem to properly register, so his friends chimed in,
"You did say that you didn't want to sit there." They thought it was amusing to see their friend getting kicked out by some coed. He got up, moving slowly and with not a little indignation.

Mr. Lacoste and the Polo Boys got out at Salinas.

The Last White

Erin Johnson 4/15/07

“Albi” Photos Spark Heated Debate

“It’s disgusting, she’s standing there in her bikini holding him up like a trophy.”

“Who?”

“Albi. Check out the memorial page, it’s really sick.”

It’s true that “RIP Great White: An Albino IV Legend,” the memorial page for “Albi, the albino raccoon has taken on a decidedly tawdry tone of late. Many students were shocked and saddened by the front article of the Nexus announcing the legendary death of the animal earlier this week. “Albi” the albino raccoon or “Great White,” has long been an institution of Isla Vista. His career consisted mainly of confusing visitors and scaring drunken residents stumbling home from parties late at night. It seems an “Albi” sighting has become a facet of initiation into IV life, and stories of him are often coupled with student’ memories of some their wilder nights.

The main news flying around the halls these days is of the some three or four photos of an unidentified female “disposing” of the legend’s remains. The photo, posted on the Facebook memorial page, depicts a girl going in for a kiss on the deceased legend’s nose, and has sparked a page long line of posts along the lines of “Have respect for the dead” and “What the f*** do you think you’re doing.” The site administrator has refused to remove the photos saying that the woman pictured was drunk and “being a responsible pet owner,” since it was her dog that did the raccoon in. He then went on to blast reactionists for having not being able to take a joke. “Get a sense of humor or get out of IV.” He snarks at the end of his paragraph long tirade.

Yet more controversy has arisen due to the posts made by another Isla Vistan who claims his turtle was killed by Albi. “That racoon is not resting in peace, it’s resting in hell.” He crows. He then goes on to extol the virtues of Cody, the now infamous dog which brought Albi low. The site creator, Andrew Volkert, posted several pictures of his dog Cody on the page, as well as a somewhat one sided description the epic battle which ended the legendary raccoon’s life. As in the case of any great icon “some will mourn others will cheer,” hope, however, springs eternal in the human breast. And in true iconic fashion the most recent posts describe several albino raccoon sightings in the past weeks leading many people to excitedly state that “He’s not dead!” Others claim it is “the ghost of the Great White.” The less paranormally inclined excitedly chalk it up to the possibility of an entire family of Albino racoons in the area. Albi’s legacy most definitely lives on in more ways than one.

The ten best things to eat in Santa Barbara

A bowl of scrambled eggs and potatoes at the dining commons early in the morning when you’ve been working on a paper all night, and your friend sits down next to you – and you jump because you weren’t expecting anyone else to be awake, and you both laugh.

A cookiewich from the I.V. Drip, shared with a friend who let you pick the cookies and ice cream, and while you’re eating outside, a guy walking by says to his friends, “They know what’s up! Cookiewiches! Yeah!”

A bite stolen from the toasted bagel with cream cheese that you’re making for your boyfriend for breakfast in the afternoon at his apartment.

The bran muffins from Nicoletti’s after 9 pm because they’re 90 cents each and tasty and possibly healthy, and you’re hungry because you forgot to eat dinner and can’t stand going to late night at DLG again.

Half a bag of vegan chocolate-and-peanut-butter cookies bought from the IV food co-op, which you eat on the swings in the park on the afternoon of a bad day, and you almost give yourself a stomachache from too many cookies, but you feel better than you did before.

A tofu-ginger salad at the Sojourner Café, a mostly-vegetarian restaurant where your carnivorous friend has taken you, when you’re not sure whether he means it as a date until he kisses you afterward.

The rest of a bag of bulk candy bought impulsively from the UCen Corner Store that you offered to the prospective student who wandered into the CCS Computer Science computer lab, hoping that this leaves a good impression of CCS students on him.

A pizza full of cheese and broccoli and pesto from Woodstock’s at one in the morning, when there is no other good food available that your boyfriend likes – he disdains burritos in favor of piles of pineapple and Canadian bacon.

A veggie burger from Fresco in the La Cumbre plaza, anytime, because it is just that good.

The appetizer tapenade and bread at a restaurant that’s too expensive but you went to it anyway because you’ve been to all of downtown’s reasonably-priced restaurants far too many times.

What is Isla Vista?

In Spanish, Isla Vista means “Island View.” To outsiders, it means skimpy outfits, warm natural light beer, and the biggest party of the year: Halloween. But to residents, Isla Vista means home. It is an extension of UCSB lecture halls including both I.V. Theatre and Embarcadero Hall. It is a collection of local shops and establishments, including food ranging from Little Asia to Woodstock’s pizza to Naan Stop and Freebirds. More than anything, Isla Vista is a contrast between parks so quiet you can hear your ipod playing from the headphones you left on the bench and parties so loud that everyone’s conversations blend into a collection of Dionysian drunkenness and childlike laughter.

Isla Vista is a mix between alternative kids hanging out at Java Jones and antsy kids waiting to get out of their lecture hall so they can get their favorite butter and cinnamon “Sex on a Bagel” special from The Bagel Shop. I.V. is a bit of a time warp; bikes are the primary form of transportation, bad 70’s and 80’s music blasts outside of Sam’s to Go and Blenders, and everyone seems to be happy. Homeless people in other cities are hooked on meth, ours are hooked on smiling and telling stories from their past. Competition here seems to be limited to the sign outside of I.V. bakery advertising for the cheapest sandwich. In one of the nicest towns on the West Coast with the unbeatable weather, lies a small park outside of Embarcadero Hall with a small windmill and a little lake for ducks. If you’re sitting on the mound enjoying your smoothie, a duck might approach you, not out of curiosity, but want of that leftover honey wheat roll from Silvergreens- the only place I know of that gives nutrition information of the food you order on your receipt.

Then there’s the not so quiet side of I.V. Topless boys on balconies yelling down to the tan skinny girls. Groups of Frat Boys running into the Keg Bottle market which seems to have the largest collection of liquor in the world. There’s the time a mad woman outside of Isla Vista theatre shouted “I am the Queen of England’s daughter” to a crowd of spectators. Then there’s the Sports “Nutrition” store for “fat loss, muscle gain, and general health.” They used to have an Ephedra Before It Sells Out (or becomes illegal) sign outside of their door. Isla Vista: in a town entirely run by twenty-year olds, what else can you expect?

Shrek the Third review: Even Ogres Have Some Growing Pains

Shrek’s going through a mid-life crisis. What’s an ogre to do?

Shrek the Third tries to answer that question, addressing issues of fatherhood, friendship, and accepting ourselves for who we are [insert “aww” sound here].

After Shrek’s (Mike Meyers) froggie father in law (John Cleese) passes away, Shrek must be king of Far Far Away; that is, unless he can find Fiona’s (Cameron Diaz) cousin Artie (Justin Timberlake), and persuade him to take the crown.

Shrek, accompanied by pals Donkey (Eddie Murphy) and Puss in Boots (Antonio Banderas) sails into the sunset, determined to coerce Artie into becoming king. Yet as Shrek is departing, Fiona shouts from the pier that she is pregnant. As Shrek quickly attempts to come to terms with his soon to be fatherhood, Puss comforts him and says, “You are royally [sounds of blaring fog horn].”

Now far far away from Far Far Away, Shrek and company land in high school Hell as they search for Artie, a teen so nerdy even the nerds pick on him. As Shrek leads rebellious Artie to Far Far Away, the two learn from each other [tear]. Artie learns from Shrek that, strangely enough, it is okay to be different. And Shrek learns Parenting Skills 101 from his fast-growing relationship with Artie.

Meanwhile, in Far Far Away, the evil Prince Charming (Rupert Everett) leads a gang of evildoers, ranging from Captain Hook to the Headless Horseman, in a mutiny against the current do-gooders who rule the kingdom. Fiona must enlist the help of girlfriends Snow White (Amy Poehler), Cinderella (Amy Sedaris), Sleeping Beauty (Cheri Oteri), and Rapunzel (Maya Rudolph) to thwart Charming’s plans of a royal takeover.

Will Artie become king, or is Far Far Away doomed in the hands of Charming and his villainous crew? Even more important, will the audience be able to swallow this relatively thin storyline and huge serving of good morals

Yes. As didactic as this film seems to be, it’s also a lot of fun.

True, it doesn’t have that same “freshness” of the original Shrek. True, some of the jokes become a little old. True, Artie make us realize that Justin Timberlake’s voice is oddly feminine.

Yet the majority of the movie is filled with a lot of laughs, some of which (hopefully) only adults can appreciate (yay for dumb Hooters references in a kiddie kingdom), and even some good ole’ message of girl power that I haven’t seen since the Spice Girls (may they rest in peace).

Shrek the Third is what it is, with hopes of aiming to please its built in audience base with stupid – and not so stupid – laughs…and what better reason to go to the movies than that?

Q & A: English versus Literature Students

What do you think of the L&S English Department versus the CCS Literature Department? There were a few reasons why I chose to pose this question to English and Literature majors. Here are a few examples:

Example One: While studying in the L&S Honors Center, performing arts students were outside, waging a fake protest against the alphabet. An English major, also in the honors center, became quite aggravated… “Damn CCS Literature students, protesting grades!”

Example Two: During dinner with a Literature major, he stated, “I’m not saying that CCS Literature is better. All I’m saying is that if CCS sold shirts that said ‘I chose Literature because English wasn’t good enough,’ I’d buy it.”

Example Three: As I was tutoring a girl, she was shocked to learn I was a CCS Literature major as well as an L&S Film and Media Studies major – “Besides you, I’ve never talked to a CCS student, and I’ve hardly see them. Whenever I pass by the CCS building, there are students on the grass. Or at lunch, I’ll see someone eating alone, and I think he must be in CCS. Maybe it’s because you’re in both colleges…maybe that’s why you’re different.”

All in all, what some may think of CCS Literature students from these three examples are as follows: We are strange, pompous unicorns who like to lie in the grass.

There seems to be a feud between English and Literature students…one can only hope that someday, the twain shall meet…

What do you think of the L&S English Department versus the CCS Literature Department?

Irene Ward, L&S Art History Major and English Major (3^rd year)

I kind of thought that English students were more analytical and boring and CCS students were more creative and open-minded. English doesn’t have that same passion. It’s not that English students don’t care, but it’s not the same. I think CCS has a lot of perks as a smaller college.

Pamela Capalad, CCS Literature Major (4^th year)

I have to think about [it]…I’ve wondered about that myself. CCS Lit. kids are definitely weirder.

Annie Sterling, L&S Global Studies Major and English Major (4^th year)

CCS students seem more creative. They have a lot more freedom in how they formulate their essays. I think there’s a lot of stereotypes, and it’s true about CCS students being more like “hippies.” But they also have the courage to pursue what they want. English is more about how to analyze and respond. CCS attracts different people.

Mana Mostatabi, CCS Literature Major (3^rd Year)

There are a lot more historical courses in the English Department, as opposed to CCS Lit., where we read books and transcribe them. In English classes, they pick novels that have a shared theme. In Lit. classes, we pick one author and read six of their books. In CCS, there’s little incentive to work harder than you’ll need to.

Ronnie Choi, L&S Film and Media Studies Major and English Major (3^rd year)

Hmm, I’m not really sure because I don’t know many CCS Literature students, but I do know for the L&S English Department, there seems to be a focus on the history of the works we read. Although our understanding of the plot is important also, we need to learn about the historical context, the cultural context, and the development of the author in regards to how he or she got to the point of writing the work we’re reading. Also, we focus on the purpose of the work. Like, why is it written? What purpose does it serve? And, usually, it’s not a simple answer of entertaining the masses. Perhaps, with CCS Literature students, they focus more on the student’s own life to develop creativity? I’m not really sure!

Tyler Vickers, CCS Literature Major (3^rd Year)

I wouldn’t say that there are necessarily any intellectual distinctions between both types of English student, and any sort of comparison I might draw between the two would be in danger of becoming a biased generality. That being said, I think that those students who are exposed to CCS curriculum experience a greater degree of freedom in the work that they choose to do as well as come in direct contact with their professors which, depending on the strengths of the professor, allow them to take more responsibility in their education and better prepare themselves for theoretical understanding as well as creative expression. This experience, in turn, occasionally gives them a practical and useful foundation for success and innovation when they attend a class in L&S English or in any other discipline.

Michael Pecchio, CCS Literature (5^th year)

Since I haven’t actually taken classes in the English Department, I can’t say. I don’t think I could’ve learned as much about creative writing, or editing one’s own writing, in the English Dept.

Elana Wenocur, CCS Literature (4^th year)

I found [CCS Literature] to be a very mixed bag.

Jonathan Forbes, L&S Spanish Major and English Major (4^th year)

My understanding of the differences between CCS Literature and English Majors is that while English Majors just study American or British literature, CCS students can take literature courses from various foreign-language departments on campus. Also, the courses in literature that the College of Creative Studies offers seems to include a wide variety: from American and British literature, to literature in translation, to creative writing courses. Lastly, while in the English Department students usually write analytical papers, some CCS classes and students allow for the option to do less conventional forms of writing: journals, projects, stories, etc. And I suppose the most obvious thing is that English majors’ diplomas say “English” and CCS majors’ say “Creative Studies.”

Barry Spacks – Interview

How long have you taught?

I started teaching in 1952, at Indiana University. So I’ve been teaching for 55 years.

In CCS specifically?

I was off from teaching for six years, studying Buddhism at a Buddhist center in northern California. I came back in ‘96, and I think I’ve been teaching here for about nine years.

What prompted you to teach in CCS?

First off, the vitality and intelligence of the students. That reputation follows them all over campus. I was asked to do a mini course first. I did a couple of those while I was mainly still teaching in English. So I got an immediate close up taste of that quality. I think it’s really true what CCS claims, that it offers an undergraduate education that has the style of a graduate school education, and one of the characteristics of that of course is that you come much closer to being a colleague with your students rather than a schoolmaster…I really like that. The last thing I want to be is some sort of great authority figure. I want to release energies, I think that’s what I’m there for. It’s possible in CCS to be in a room full of folks in which there’s no fear on the part of the student, “Oh, what grade am I going to get?” No kind of class difference between the professor and the students. We’re all readers together, writers together, strivers together.

What is the difference between the students in the English Department and the Literature Department?

I was teaching a lot of large lecture courses there [in the English Department] and that was part of what made me feel a little bit starved for the immediate action of close up contact with students. I used to go up and down the aisles with my lavaliere and microphone and tried to get folks to do a little bit of discussion even though there were 300 in the room, tried to loosen up the lecture format…Folks in L&S have been trained to listen a lot more than folks in CCS who have been trained to respond and to come out with their style. There is obviously much more of a formal discipline involved in the English-Lit classes…the emphasis is less on direct creativity and more on study.

What do you think CCS students should ultimately get out of their education with the department? What skills should they leave college with?

It seems to me that all education in the arts and humanities has to do with developing maturity. Students these days are concerned a lot more with the bottom line than they were in my days as an undergraduate. We kind of took for granted that the rest of our lives would go swimmingly. People don’t have that luxury anymore so one can’t say “Oh, they should just concentrate on their studies, this is the most wonderful four years in their lives” without worrying too much about how there’s a payoff. I think in CCS there’s still this sense that the payoff is going to be in terms of taking on powers, intellectual, emotional, and in effect the word maturity sums it up. What we should talk about is a general education, basically getting what the Greeks used to call a Paideia, the sense of things, the sense of the way a particular culture works. And that’s what I think CCS students should look forward to, is that sense of the general education.

Interview – Monstrous Little Productions

Pam Capalad, Naomi Solomon, and Chelsea Sutton are Literature Majors in the College of Creative Studies who, in fall 2004, began their own theater company called Monstrous Little Productions. While they are graduating this June, their student run company has created an outlet for students who many not otherwise get theater experience for three years. A few of their productions include Madwoman of Chaillot, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, And Then There Were None, Twelve Angry Men, and Alice in Wonderland. Their current production, 99 Impossible Things, written by Chelsea Sutton, will be performed in June. All plays Monstrous Little Productions puts on are free and on-campus, so students have easy access to theater.

What is each of your jobs’ in the production company?
Naomi: Well, Chelsea and I sort of take turns directing. We co-directed a couple times. We all label ourselves producers, which basically means we get all the stuff done that needs to get done for the play to come off. Just in general, I work on getting donations and handling the money, Chelsea does set design and lights, and Pam does lights.

Why did you begin the theater company?

Pam: Robyn Bell!

N: It’s true!

P: Me and Naomi were in A Midsummer Night’s Dream freshman year, and we all put on the play, and we wanted to do more! The next quarter Graham Talley put on The Importance of Being Earnest, and Robyn Bell stopped me in the hall and said “Hey, you should keep doing this.” And I stopped Naomi in our room and said “Hey, Robyn Bell says we should keep doing this.” Robyn Bell’s a pretty inspiring person.

N: So it kind of had a lot of weight with us.

P: Yeah, she thought we were capable of it. So, we e-mailed the Drama Department, talked to them, Robyn Bell started talking to them, and they really didn’t want to have anything to do with us. So we figured the best way to do it was to start a club on campus, get Robyn as our advisor, and just see what happened. The first play we did under the name of Monstrous Little was in fall, 2004, and they were short plays by Steve Martin called WASP and Picasso at the Lapin Agile.

N: The first production we did that was just us, without directors, and not in the Old Little Theater was Madwoman of Chaillot.

P: When we were doing the David Ives one acts, All In The Timing, we also didn’t perform in the Old Little Theater. There was a mix up between us and the musical theater class, so we had to scramble for a room. We ended up performing in Room 136 in the CCS Building.

Chelsea: It was very much like Little Women in the attic doing plays. A lot of people really liked it.

P: Yeah, because the whole play was about breaking the fourth wall.

C: Besides those two, all the other plays we’ve done have been performed in the Old Little Theater.

N: And even there we had problems. One time, our lights went out just when on stage somebody died. The light board went out. But audience members were like, “Oh my God, how’d you do that?!” We said our guy accidentally unplugged the light board…but aren’t we brilliant?! Then we ad libbed in the play, and it worked out really well.

P: In Alice and Wonderland, a chair broke onstage.

N: But at a really dramatic moment.

P: And everyone asked “How did you get that chair to break?!” Basically, we’re amazing improvisers.

C: We do all sorts of plays. We don’t limit ourselves to a specific genre.

N: I mean, there’s always the usual theater problems. Always on closing night, almost like a tradition, lines are changed. Sometimes more than they should be. I guess that was only one question!

P: We interview ourselves!

What’s the hardest part about putting on a production? Funding, casting, talent?

C: It depends on what you’re doing. If you’re the director or the actor. From a director’s point of view, it’s getting everyone to come to rehearsal. There’s something about a rational human being when they get into a play if they’re an actor. Their IQ drops, and their ego elevates.

P: I think they just get more talkative.

C: The concept of a schedule loses all meaning.

N: It’s one of the side effects of being completely unofficial, and usually nobody gets units for our plays.

P: I think during Alice in Wonderland we had an easier time with scheduling. I don’t like to think it’s because people were getting units for it, but most likely. Getting money is hard too. And getting people to come. Picking the play! You need to consider how popular it is. If it’s a play people will recognize and think, “I want to go,” or if it’s completely unknown, how to sort of publicize it.

N: The toss up with that is if it’s a really known play, some people are attached to it. We’ve done several interpretations of plays. We changed the ending of the play version of And Then There Were None, to make it the same ending as the book version, because we thought the play version totally cheated the heroine of being a heroine basically. We gave her back what we thought she deserved. There were some people who, in the end they liked it, but when they heard what we were doing initially did not like it. I think it’s one of the best productions we’ve done. I think it went really well for such a complicated play.

P: We reinterpreted Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, and we experienced some backlash against it.

C: If there’s a dialogue about it, that’s fine. You’re not going to please everyone.

P: Every play there’s always a new different problem. We have a high retention rate. The crowd we get for auditions is very interesting. There are always girls who you can tell acted in high school.

N: One of the nice things about having a growing theater company in CCS is the dialogue between them. People from the Paperback Theater Company came to our auditions to say hi and to tell us if there was anybody we can’t cast, they could use extras. I wish there could be a non-musical theater company next year. As of now, it looks like we won’t continue next year.

C: Another reason we started the company was to allow non Drama Majors to perform. The Drama Department people kind of have their own culture.

P: And we wanted to provide something for people that aren’t in drama. And also, it’s a point of pride for us to do stuff on limited resources and to deal with problems in unconventional ways.

C: In high school I only did acting. But when I got here, I realized somebody needs to direct, somebody needs to find the couch that’s used in Scene Three.

P: It’s interesting to have a hand in all that.

C: No one’s gonna do it for us. The final result I am always really proud of.

P: Me too.

Is it supported by CCS? Or any other departments?

C: Robyn Bell has always been supportive, but she hasn’t necessarily gone out and found money for us.

N: But she totally lobbies and advocates for us. She’s the one who advocated having Alice and Wonderland as a class. She’s always been a big supporter in the background, and of course never takes credit for anything. And the Office of Student Life has always been very good to us. They make it relatively easy for us. They give us 200 – 500 dollars a quarter, and our plays cost 400 dollars on average, maybe a little less. Turns out making the programs is what costs the most money.

P: It has been interesting not having a department to back us though. Just all of us being Lit. Majors, it’s been interesting to dip in the Music Department and going to other emphases in the college and seeing what they can do for us.

N: And also how we can co-exist peacefully!

P: And Leslie Campbell has always been super nice to us.

ALL: Oh Leslie!

P: She’s always so nice to do us, and does as much as she’s able to do. Especially with scheduling.

C: Emily Parsons has also been really good about scheduling in the Old Little Theater.

N: We require a lot of hands on activity from our actors. With sets. And we network through them.

C: Some of the plays we’ve done don’t even require sets.

Do you want to pursue theater after college?

P: No. Chelsea probably. It was fun to do in college, but it’s not something I can see myself actively pursuing as a career. Having been an actor for the past four years has really helped for what I’m going to do after college. I have a job teaching kids about money and I have to basically be on all the time, and be comfortable on stage, comfortable improvising, and comfortable talking loudly.

C: You’re in charge. So it’s the experience that comes with that.

P: And I could put it on my resume. We ran this. And the satisfaction of having a play at the end. The sense of accomplishment. Look what we did!

N: And to meet people we wouldn’t encounter otherwise. Because it’s a small community […] You have to move into the community more, to publicize, and get businesses to give you things. It helped me get to know Santa Barbara a little better in a lot of ways.

P: I probably won’t do anything directly related to theater, but I know I’ll benefit from it.

N: Same here.

C: I kind of want to do theater. I’ve been doing a lot of playwriting. I’m been involved in the playwriting department since sophomore year. I’ve always wanted to be a writer, and I’ve found my voice playwriting. I’ve always loved theater. I did a lot of theater in high school […] I’m doing it on my own, understanding every part of what goes into theater makes you a better director, and makes you a better writer.

Interview: Ryan Kerr, CCS Music Major

What made you interested in pursuing a Music Major at CCS?

Well, I got into composition my senior year of high school. CCS just seemed like the best program for me. In terms of my personal experience, my high school was a very small high school. 600 students. It was an engineering high school on a college campus, so it was very advanced. They really pushed us to do more; it was very much the CCS philosophy. I remember coming here my junior year on our northern California college tours and they talked about CCS and, I remember my friend Jennifer saw my face light up when they were talking about CCS and right away she said, “Oh, I know where Ryan wants to go.” And, just kind of the intense atmosphere of CCS, the way they really make you go for things. The way they encourage you to go for things you wouldn’t normally be able to do at a college, that’s what I like. Over in the Music Department, it’s so structured. I mean it’s a great program, but I want to get my Masters in Musical Theater Writing, so the professors in CCS are really letting me focus on that. Every once in a while, there’s a class on making a musical. There’s just random classes like that in CCS where every once in a while they come up.

So the kind of music you’re mainly interested in is musical theater?

Yes. I mean, I do some of the more avant-garde stuff. But that’s not my thing. Every once in a while I get an idea, and I’ll just do something random. Like I’m writing a piece for the Storke Tower.

The Storke Tower?

The Storke Tower. The bells. The crazy stuff they play every weekend. Seriously, no one’s written for it since the seventies and I said it’s about time. But I write primarily for musical theater, and that’s why I’m so involved with Shrunken Head [an on- campus musical theater group], because it’s really intimate with my major, my studies.

Is Shrunken Head Productions your only experience with musical theater? And the CCS musical “Lovestruck?”

I did theater in high school. In college, I’ve done Shrunken Head. I’m in the pit orchestra right now for a musical in the New Plays Festival. And I was involved in the CCS musical last year.

Did you write for the New Plays Festival?

No, a friend of mine, Bobby Halvorson, another CCS composer, wrote the music for Tomorrowland, a musical at the New Plays Festival. The music’s very fun. It’s post-grunge. Very interesting. This is the kind of stuff I love about CCS. The professors don’t give you a structured curriculum. “I want to write a rock musical.” “Okay, go for it.” But the New Plays festival is through the Theater Department.

What has been your overall experience here at UCSB? And getting involved with musical theater?

It’s very difficult because the Music Department is very against musical theater. Not just that they don’t do it. They’re against musical theater. The voice teachers, a lot of people, the department in general, is just against it. The DA Department stopped doing musicals a few years ago, and that’s why Gina Intersimone and CJ Hayes [two CCS Literature alumni], started Shrunken Head Productions back in winter ’05. We do a musical every quarter, so it’s very intense. It’s interesting, because although we don’t have a lot of departmental support, we pull from a lot of places because there’s a lot of student talent that’s interested. It’s easy for us to get musicians and actors and singers. We have to do a bit of hunting, but you guys always come out of the woodwork and were always like, “Oh, we like you!”

What is the hardest part? Funding, casting, talent?

Just the resources in general, because it’s always hard to get performance space because the Music Department and Theater Department are so possessive of their majors. And naturally, as a student organization it’s hard to get funding. I mean, there’s plenty of grants, but the way things work out it’s kind of hard for us to get them. It’s just kind of the resources in general. The human resources, no, are never a problem. We always have all the talent we need.

Who’s your favorite composer?

I have two. One of them is Jason Robert Brown [writer of The Last Five Years and Songs for a New World]. He’s just so amazing, such a creative lyricist, very intimate lyrics, and the music is always so gorgeous and interesting. For falling within a kind of mainstream idiom, it’s very compositionally advanced work. I’ve taken some of his sheet music into my composition lessons just to show my professor once in a while, “This is the sound I’m going for, I like the way he does this, and is there another way that I can kind of go about the same thing.” And she said, “Wow, this is really cool stuff. Bring this back sometime.”

Who’s the second one?

The other one is the crazy Japanese guy. Mana. My big thing is bringing good music to a wider audience and I mean, okay, Beatles are good, all that kind of stuff is good, but just in terms of compositional style it’s very simple, and formulaic at times. And Jason Robert Brown brings very advanced twentieth century techniques to his writing, and that’s what I really like about him. And Mana, it really sounds like what you’d get if you gave Bach an electric guitar, because he fuses rock with some of the most interesting Baroque classical styles. It’s that kind of fusion and bringing of sound to a mainstream audience that I really like.

What do you feel you get out of the music program specifically at CCS?
Freedom to do whatever I want, and encouragement and training to pursue that. Like I said it’s very structured in the Music Department and in CCS, if you want to focus your degree in musical theater, you can do that. There are a lot of people who want to focus in film scoring, and you can do that, because the professors know so much about it. I mean, you can definitely get that from the Music Department but in CCS, the professors know so much about it, that it’s so easy to get advice on the specifics on everything that you’re doing and there’s always resources on campus. Like the random classes in CCS music that pop up. Like right now there’s a class and it’s called, “From Whole Notes to Bank Notes,” and they basically walk you through every step in the process from getting your music prepared to a professional publishable format, to starting your own publishing company, and it’s just the little things like that that really give you the extra advantage over regular music students…Right now I’m taking a vernacular harmony class, which is harmonies specific to jazz and musical theater styles. The professor is so knowledgeable about that. I’m actually thinking of pursuing an independent study with him over the next few quarters just because he knows so much about jazz and musical theater and opera. And just the way that CCS makes these resources available to you. Just every one in awhile, “Here’s a fun class: string quartets.” You take something that you normally wouldn’t study in depth, and have a whole quarter on just string quartets, and techniques and composers and the repertoire and everything.

Any professors you specifically want to mention?

Well, all of them are really strong in their various eras. I’ve really only worked with Leslie Hogan. She’s my advisor and I’ve been taking composition lessons with her for the last two years. I’m planning to study with Jeremy Haladyna next year. They teach the creative studies composition and instruction. But then there’s also the professors over in the Music Department who are available to us to take lessons from. The one I am talking about, who teaches the vernacular harmony class that I’m taking, his name is Earl Stewart. He’s in the Black Studies Department, but he’s taught in the Berklee School of Music. These professors are all really on top of their game.

So post-college, what do you want to do?

I have my heart set on going to NYU because I’ve done my research, and they’re the only one that I can find that offers a masters in musical theater writing. To my knowledge, their the only one in the nation, maybe the only one in the world that offers a program like this, and that is exactly what I want to do. I have my heart set on going there, if that’s the last I ever do.

And then you want to write for musical theater?

I want to write for musical theater. I don’t even know how I got into that. I was in math/science schools for ten years and then said, “I want to be a Music Composition Major.” It was really interesting.

Were your parents fine with it?

Oh yeah. They were like, “You might want to minor in something else, just in case.”

Campus Life According to Ty

I arrived at the Visitors’ Center at 2:00 on Tuesday, April 24^th, planning on joining a tour group incognito. Mission: Possible – discover what campus tour guides say (or do not say) about the College of Creative Studies. I did not wear my comfortable and oh so not fashionable UCSB sweatshirt for fear of being discovered. I turned my class ring around towards the inside of my hand so I could not be identified as a UCSB student.

Of course, I was dismayed when I checked in at the front desk and the receptionist immediately asked, “Aren’t you a student?”

“Yes,” I replied quite meekly, and sat beside a mother-daughter pair.

The receptionist sent our group of about ten people outside. The parents were atwitter with excitement, as the high schoolers and transfers were either too bored to move their mouths or too nervous to speak. The two transfers, two twenty something men, hung towards the back of the pack, and most obviously wanted this tour to be done quickly. The younger students clung to their parents like they were security blankets.

I firmly believe that the majority of the questions asked during the campus tour were merely posed so that parents’ could show off their kids’ intelligence. One father, whom I will call “USC Father,” immediately asked our tour guide, Ty, why his son should choose UCSB over USC.

After all, USC Father said, “My son got into USC.”

Then another parent, “UCSD Mother,” chimed in, “My daughter got into UCSD. Why should she choose UCSB?”

“Ah yes,” I thought to myself. “The tour hasn’t even begun. Lucky me.”

Our first stop: A view of the Recreational Center. Or as Ty described it, “My favorite place at UCSB.”

My entire group stared at the gym, bored, as Ty interrupted himself every twenty or so seconds with “I work at the Rec. Cen. ,” “I love the Rec. Cen.,” and adoringly “Look at the grass at the Rec. Cen. It’s water resistant. All weather.”

You’d think he expected “oohhs” and “aahhs” from the crowd, so I kind of felt bad for the guy.

“Any questions?” Ty asked, with the kind of excitement which is meant to conceal “Please, don’t ask questions.”

Another father, whom I shall call “Sergeant Father,” (he looked like he belonged in the military…arms crossed, no smile, and a buzz cut to boot) posed an observation: “There seem to be a lot of bike paths. Do a lot of people use bikes here?”

“Yes, but I’ll talk about that later,” Ty responded, because I am sure Sergeant Father was on pins and needles waiting for the answer.

Next stop: The bus stop. I didn’t learn anything new about the bus stop, except that it could be talked about for seven minutes.

Once again, Ty asked, “Any questions?”

Silence.

As Ty backed away from the bus stop, walking backwards in his flip flops, he lost a “flop.”

“It’s hard to walk backwards in sandals,” explained Ty, leaning to retrieve his footwear.

“It must be,” said UCSD Mother.

While we continued on our way, it was obvious that UCSD Mother was trying to become “buddy-buddy” with Ty, as she walked in front of the other tour members and beside him.

“How often does it rain in Santa Barbara?” she asked Ty.

“Hardly ever. It like rained once last year,” said Ty.

“That explains the dry weather,” said UCSD Mother.

Our group stopped in front of Cheadle Hall. Ty talked about huge lecture halls, and how the majority of students will rely on counselors at Cheadle Hall to get by at UCSB, unless you are one of the few at College of Engineering, or even fewer at College of Creative Studies.

One prospective student asked the very question that was on my mind – “What is the College of Creative Studies?”

Excited for an answer, I turned towards Ty.

“Uh, we’ll talk about it later.”

Pissed and expecting that he obviously had no clue what the College of Creative Studies was, we moved on to the quad area by Ellison Hall, then filed past the Davidson Library.

“We have two libraries on campus,” Ty said.

“Where’s the other library?” UCSD Mother asked.

“It’s the music and arts library, but nobody really uses it,” Ty responded.

Ty rambled statistics about the library, and a bunch of numbers. The 24 hour study room is open for 24 hours, there are seven floors in the library, it houses 8 million books, twenty four million if you count interlibrary loan, etc.

At last, we crossed the bike path that would soon lead us to the CCS Building. At this point, Ty answered Sergeant Father’s question with the revealing, “Yes, there are a lot of bikes here. Any they always have the right of way.”

UCSD Mother commented, “There don’t seem to be a lot of students outside.”

Ty said, “That’s because there’s a lot of students in classes right now. In an hour, you’ll see a lot of people outside.”

UCSD Mother grimaced, her suspicion obvious, “There are very few people outside.”

We came to the CCS Building. “Finally,” I thought to myself, “I’ll reveal him and his L&S employers for the frauds they are!”

Unfortunately (well, I guess fortunately) Ty was basically a poster child for CCS. He dubbed it “the graduate school for undergraduates,” saying it was a “unique” (take that word for what you will) experience. Ty also proceeded to say that it was a very competitive school to get into, only accepting 100 out of every 900 applicants (a statistic I would like to get confirmed…when Ty earlier said that it only rains once a year in Santa Barbara, that the dining commons food was “awesome,” and that Manzanita Village was built only four years ago, I knew I had some fact checking to do).

“Any questions?” Ty asked after he finished his CCS and housing spiel.

Pause.

“What are the bathrooms like in dorms?” someone asked.

The highlight of my hour and fifteen minute experience had to be the wrap-up at the end. As we weaved through the UCEN, the son of USC Father snuck up to Ty and whispered, “Is there a Weed Co-op in IV?”

“No,” Ty said. “There might be one in Santa Barbara, though.”

I believe this was a blatant lie on Ty’s part to preserve the reputation of our school, but I commend him for that.

As we neared the tour’s end, USC Father asked for directions to the nearest IV party.

“Are there any alternatives to the party scene?” asked UCSD Mother.

“Yes,” answered Ty, pointing to an Improvability sign. “Like Improvability. And movies.”

UCSD Mother nodded blankly.

“No one has asked me the question I get asked the most,” informed Ty, preparing for a blaze of glory, “And I’ll tell you what that question is. People ask me why I chose UCSB. And I’ll tell you…” he paused, preparing for his dénouement, “…It was my last choice.”

Though he tried to justify this statement by saying how much he enjoyed UCSB now, it still was a letdown.

A mother and daughter who had not spoken during the tour approached Ty, the mother practically pushing the girl forward.

“Go ahead,” Pushy Mother said, “ask your question.”

Then, UCSD Mother asked why she should choose UCSB over UCSD.

Then, USC Father asked why his son should choose UCSB over USC.

Then, I asked myself “Why,” and afterwards kicked myself for asking another question.

10 (Okay, 11) Things I'll Miss About UCSB

1. Having dinner with your friends without having to make plans first, because they’re a five minute walk away.
2. Being judged by professors and peers who care, rather than professionals who couldn’t care less.
3. Introducing yourself to others with a handshake rather than a resume.
4. Having my mother call and say, “I wish I owned beachfront property.”
5. Living in “Never Never Land,” where it seems that the world consists of people in their twenties.
6. Being happy that with the end of Finals, all life’s problems seem to temporarily fade away.
7. Leaving for class early so I could lie in the sun, and simply be.
8. When I need a shoulder to cry on, having a good friend who lives in the room below mine.
9. The excuse to eat carbohydrates nonstop for at least a one week period because they give me energy and increase my brainpower for Finals.
10. Learning for the sake of learning.
11. Oh and one more – seeing dolphins from my window! Better than looking at my Lassen print.

Random lists

(A few of) 20 Ways to Not Lose Your Soul in Isla Vista:

1. Wear clothes (and no, just wearing a pair of wings and saying you are an angel does not count)
2. Just stay drunk and numb yourself to the grime around you
3. Remember that there are people older and younger than us in this world
4. Remember that we do not live in “Never Never Land”
5. Remember that you do not really know the person whose party you were at last night
6. Remember that germs are spread when you drink from a random cup of beer previously used in a beer pong game

(A few) Bad Pickup Lines:

1. “Have I seen you at Hillel?” followed by “Are you sure?” (Especially when the “askee” has definitely never been to Hillel).
2. “Party at my place. And in my pants.”
3. The simple “You’re hot. Party at my place tonight.”

(A few of) 25 overheard conversations:

1. “Why did he break up with me? Did she give better head than I did?” “No.”
2. “Does the professor kind of remind you of Jesus?” “Yeah. A hot Jesus.” “What would Jesus do?”

(A few) Best Things to say when tour groups are near:

1. “The food at the dining commons sucks. I think it’s going to kill me.”
2. “These classes are so stressful I wish I’d never gone to college.”
3. “A random drunk guy broke into my room last night at three a.m.”
4. “Why doesn’t he love me anymore? Was the sex that bad?”
5. “I’m so happy I chose UCSB. University of Casual Sex and Beer, baby!”
6. “I can’t go to class today. I have a huge hangover.”

(A few of) 20 Misconceptions about CCS:

1. You can create your own major
2. The building will be redone
3. Only “arty” majors exist in CCS (apparently, people do not think we have majors in Biology, Chemistry, Math, Physics, and Computer Science).
4. All CCS students are insane
5. CCS students spend all their free time getting high
6. Those who have majors in CCS are way more intelligent than their L&S counterparts OR
7. vice versa

How Not to Lose your Soul in Isla Vista – 50 words or less:

Do not stay sober. If you are drunk, you will be less discouraged by the grotesque mess that constitutes the IV streets, the loose morals of its denizens, and the fog cloud that seems to hang only in Isla Vista while the rest of Goleta is sunny.

Book Arts

Wondering around the CCS building, you may have noticed books in a clear cabinet with pages sculpted and spiraled like ribbons for wrapping presents created in the book arts program. To find out more about “book arts,” I met with Linda Ekstrom, a CCS art professor. Noticing her bubble gum lipgloss, straight blonde hair and stylish black frames, I never thought this would be the Oz behind the creation and publication of books at CCS.

Book Arts is one of the three emphasis’s within the CCS Art Program and offers students the option to make their own short books or create art from already existing books. When I asked about book arts, she said, “You can think of book arts as one of the methods available to contemporary arts. Sometimes people think the idea of making books is not an art method. We think of a book as a cultural and symbolic object and a container of information.” Looking at one of the collaborative books the students made, it struck me how much detail they put into each one of the pages. Unique designs and styles add flavor to the pages and push the limit of the traditional black-font on white paper model. One student bound a book with thinly cut and delicately sliced bamboo pieces. She said that it might take one to three quarters to create a substantial hand-printed book. Still, many dedicated students, including 5 book arts majors, devote their free time into printing their own books.

Caitlin Macrae, a CCS student and a book arts major, opened a show on Thursday, May 24 in the CCS Art Gallery. Unlike most art galleries with signs that warn of consequences and possibly death, if you touch the pieces, she instructed to gallerygoers to “please touch everything.” By engaging the patrons with the text, she said that it “makes the art so much more tangible.” This is a way to make the words touchable. In the introduction to the gallery, she wrote that she was drawn to book arts because she felt “frustrated with and fascinated by that which wasn’t being conveyed by both the language itself and its visual display.” Her work is a response to language’s limits of expression. Her art aims to close the “spaces between what you want to say and what you can’t say” and express emotion. Her show displayed stuffed animal birds on shelves, handmade little books, and among other things, a spice rack. I asked whether she considered everything in her gallery a book and she told me, “I consider anything a book because I don’t think books [are confined to] shape, spine and pages.” “Books are amazing containers of time, space, and energy.”

Other students have toyed with the common definition of a book. Two sisters created a sort of paper doll book, inspired by their visit to their relatives as children. Others have designed books to showcase other writers poetry. However, it is not necessary to do letterpress printing. Professor Ekstrom creates sculptures from existing books. She showed me a book with a picture of a bible’s spilled out contents. It reminded me of a kid throwing up his lunch. She said that the program aims to take a cultural object, the book, and turn it into a sculptural form because “a book is already inherent with meaning.” By taking the book and altering it, spiraling its contents, it functions as a work of art. A book is unique in the sense that it has special qualities not found in other forms of art. For example, you can only see the pages of a book in time, whereas with painting or drawing, the work is available up-front in its entirety. They work with the uniqueness of this form of art to “build books based on the structures of books.”

Students in her classes have a variety of opportunities including making prints under their own press name, sending their books to shows in Chicago or Memphis, and selling their work to special collection libraries where book collectors might buy their work. The program teaches students to use their words sparingly and only when needed, like a cavemen drawing on a wall. Mrs. Macrae advises, “you don’t want to letterpress a word if it doesn’t mean something.” If you’re interested in sculpting or creating your own book, she said that the program “draws a lot of students from other majors,” especially students who “have a sense of what a book is about.” A beginning book arts class will be available in the fall for those interested.

Robin "Avatar" Carr

I’ve always believed you can tell a lot about a person by the type of bagel they order. You can tell even more if they get flavored cream cheese. In light of this, I suggested to meet with Robin at the Bagel Café on a lazy end-of-May day. Arriving a few minutes late because I needed my Starbucks, I sadly used my credit card for my three dollar and fifteen cent order. I knew I needed to save those 3 one dollar bills for my upcoming delicious bagel. Noticing his shaggy brown hair, non-commercialized t-shirt that I forgot to ask about, and towering height, at least compared to me, I asked, “so what bagel are you getting?” I thought he told me a blueberry bagel with plain cream cheese, but I would soon find out that I was mistaken. He suggested we sit outside at the nearby park; an excellent suggestion considering the Santa Barbara sunny weather and an unusual one considering most people suggest to sit on the chairs right outside.

Sitting across from one another at a nearby bench, he whipped out his bagel which to my surprise had bruisy colored cream cheese. As I mentioned before, it takes a particular sort of character to order flavored, particularly non-strawberry flavored, cream cheese. Usually strawberry cream cheese is just for girls. But blueberry? Who orders blueberry cream cheese? Apparently Robin does- which intrigued me more than I’d like to admit. Looking around, I couldn’t help but remark how beautiful it was outside, how much I love the parks around the area, and how there is a grave merely four feet away. He nodded and agreed about the first two, then seemed to ignore- probably for the better- the last comment. After finishing our bagels and, on my part breaking the remainder of mine up into pieces on top of my grande-americano-sweetened with no room for sugar drink, we started getting down to business. Somewhere along the way talking about theoretical physics, I started taking notes about black holes. He said that, “Black holes suck everything in.” He added that you would think that because they slowly suck everything in and get bigger and bigger, then they’d eventually take over the world. To the contrary, he said, “if nothing is next to a black hole, they start to lose mass because positive matter and antimatter cancel each other out.” I couldn’t help but thinking about how much money they could make on zit cream if, as the zit grows in size, the cream diminishes it more and more until it’s gone to “the point of no return.”

He also mentioned that if you get sucked into a black hole, it would stretch your body out like that stretching torture machine in The Princess Bride. Thinking that this might be the last time to ask space questions, I had to mention, “so why isn’t Pluto a planet anymore?” I’ve seen the facebook group, actually was part of it, but never summoned the ambition to wikipedia it. He laughed and informed me that it’s an astroid from the Kuplar belt. At this point I noticed that Robin made the space stuff interesting, but I was still curious about some of his guilty pleasures. He said that he’s addicted to t.v., especially the Nickelodeon show Avatar. Actually, he said that it is currently his favorite show. I looked at him skeptically, but he defended it by saying, “No, it’s really cool.” He explained that four classical elements earth, wind, water and fire attack everyone using real Chinese martial arts moves. Apparently the airbending uses Tai Chai. I asked him how he could possibly know this and he said that he used to do martial arts. I was still skeptical he could tell what moves the animated characters were using and he added, “I actually looked it up on Wikepedia.” Without Wikepedia, he would never know that the one blind character uses Southern praying mantis Kung Fu. He said that while he watches it which he got his “friend” hooked on too, he enjoys eating the Avator fruitsnacks. At this point, I decided that I really liked Robin. He wasn’t afraid to admit embarrassing things. Next I asked if he likes any other sort of activities and he said swingdancing. Seeing his laugh and hearing him talk so passionately about Avatar, I pictured him swing dancing in his room with a blue blueberry flavored fruit snack hanging out of his mouth. Also, Nickelodeon would be on in the background.

You might think that Robin has interesting and varied interests, but he had just begun. He started talking about Middle Eastern history and military robots. Apparently, a military robot can fly around in the sky and shoot people with advisement from humans. The military is currently working on allowing them to operate on its own. However, the problem is that it can recognize people, but not distinguish friends from enemies. The implication of these UVA’s in future wars is that, if they replace soldiers, there will be no cost to start wars because no one will lose their men. Somewhere along the way of discussing- or rather him introducing me to technological advances- he notices a man on a very tall 10-15 feet unicycle peddling around the street. We were distracted and then changed the topic to books. He said that the DaVinci code is like the Scooby Doo mystery show. I mentioned some embarrassing books I’ve read and we waged a bit of a war as to the most embarrassing. I’m not sure who won, but he said that over his summer when fellow lit majors were struggling to finish The Idiot, he made a contest with his friend to see who could read the entire series of Animorphs the fastest. Rivaled only by Goosebumps, Animorphs, if you don’t recall, are those books with a cat who turns into a lion or something on the cover. I also thought that they were the books where you could flip to different pages for alternate endings, but he assured me that he thought only a few of the books were like that. He lost the contest, by the way, which was probably for the best.

Expressing that I quit reading Harry Potter by the middle of the third book, he voiced some advice for the Harry Potter fans. If you want to get it the first night it’s available, then you face a dilemma. You need to find that line between being too tired to enjoy it fully and wanting to read it as soon as possible. I hope Robin finds that line as well as the other readers. Nearly two hours after the first bite of my bagel, he points out a crater covered by a bush and said “Is that a tree or did the bush just eat that?” Sensing the burn on my backside and my itchy skirt, I was a little bit sad that I had to continue on with my day after my interview with Robin. By far one of the sweetest, most complex interesting guys I’ve met so far, I wish him the best of luck with Harry Potter and everything else.

Mrs. Bit O Honey: A story in Joseph Mitchell Style

Lee Desser had straight mousy brown hair, a reserved complexion and very dirty shoes. “Shoe’s don’t say anything about a person,” she said. “And they certainly don’t say anything about me.” She came to Santa Barbara in 2007, expecting sunny days, rich friends and, above all, a tranquility that would be her excuse for her failure as a writer. She was born into a family consisting of her father, mother, and younger sister , which unbeknowengst to her sister, she held in the highest regard. As a primer expert on how to overcome psychological and behavioral problems in order to receive pets from her parents- one cat and one dog- she knew that her life would be in order. As a middle school material girl, Claire retained a dignity from prominent adults often lost with the application of makeup, addition of short skirts, and removal of nail-polish individuality. “Claire’s like one of those pretty magazine girls that you convince yourself is secretly suffering from low self-esteem in order to make yourself feel better,” she frequently brought up. “If you ask her ‘How are you today?’ you can’t help but shutter from the answer because when she replies ‘Just great,’ you can’t help but feel that she actually is, which just makes it all the more unbearable.”

In my time spent with Lee, she rarely referred to her father. When her sixth grade humanities teacher displayed charts of a rollercoaster and of a straight line and asked, “what are your relationships with people like?,” she thought ‘like a rollercoaster with the exception of my father.’ “My father would have the kind of funeral that others dream their lives for,” she said. People he had lost contact with would come to the podium and tell brief anecdotes about the time he treated their nineteen person table to an all-you-can eat brunch or how he took the role as the father figure for their son, they would say. He lived a kind, decent life; one Lee aspired both to live and avoid. His success as a person and failure as a freak intimidated and disinterested her like a solved Rubics cube. “We rarely fight, but the only time I reveal myself is when I’m having problems with my mom.”

Lee used to think that her mother secretly despised her because she gave up her career in order to have kids. “When I was little, it always seemed like my mom was pregnant, but no babies ever came out. I wonder if she was depressed or relieved,” she said. In recent years, she has accepted that when parents say they love their kids equally and couldn’t imagine their lives without them, they’re full of bull. “From what I can fathom, parents are a lot like kids, just older and less curious.” Her dream is to live in a Alzheimer’s retirement home on Ocean and Montana.

Lee loves her family and hopes that one day her kids will write a favorable short biography of herself. She hopes that she doesn’t die of type two diabetes from eating too much candy bit-o-honey which can be found at K-Mart.

Simon Says: An Interview with a Fourth Year CCS Math Student

To contact a fellow undergraduate, I did what any other college student would do: I searched for him on Facebook. Immediately, I noticed a peculiarity to his profile. Unlike most students who have a main photo of them laughing under the influence of one or another or many other illegal substances, his profile picture featured math formulas. His web page further confirmed my speculation: he loved math. A majority of students have quotes from Anchorman, Napolean Dynamite, or Old School under their “favorite quotes” section, but he had one from, gasp, not a teen comedy. The quote by Robert Heinlein reads, "Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe, and not make messes in the house." His personal philosophy reveals that “I don’t necessarily consider myself an optimist, but I always do math (and everything else, for that matter) in (fountain) pen. I can't bear to admit that mistakes are inevitable, so I strive for nothing short of perfection.” I thought, “Anyone who does their math homework in pen, I must meet.”

We planned to meet on the CCS lawn and, shortly before the interview, I momentarily feared we would miss each other’s tracks because, according to Simon, he does not use phones. Questions like “what if I got the time wrong,” or “what if my class gets out late and he thinks I ditched him” and “I hope I recognize who he is” flew in and out of my brain. Later, it occurred to me that if he doesn’t use phones, my thousand worries about missing an appointment probably never even occurred to him or at least, never bothered him. I spotted him sitting under the shade of a tree reading a book. Brown shaggy hair, blue eyes, Landsend sweater and jeans: this didn’t seem like a guy who, I would later found out, seriously considered dropping out of high school.

We relocated to a room inside a CCS Math class, one I didn’t know existed. I asked him the question I knew he, as well as many other CCS students had heard a million times before, “Why CCS?” He told me that Charles Ryavic used to hold a competition for high school students as a recruitment tool. “My sophomore year of high school, Charles Ryavic invited all the people that qualified. I met him and he started showing me problems and said all the problems were easy and I should be able to do them, but they were really hard and I didn’t know how do any of them. He had super geniuses [do the problems] and managed to think I was one of them.” Charles Ryavic became his mentor and eventually led him to choose CCS. During his orientation, Mr. Ryavic told him that “All of the undergraduate classes were useless. I figured he was probably crazy, but I followed his advice.” For Simon, choosing CCS turned out to be one of the best choices in his college life. “Honestly, it was one of exactly three good decisions I had in college.” He pauses for a moment, “I can’t remember any time after that I took anyone’s advice on anything.”

Next, I asked him about his high school experience and how it compared to college and he said that he came from a public high school that he didn’t, to say the least, particularly enjoy. Senior year, he came very close to dropping out at the advice of Mr. Ryavic. “When I was a junior, I won the advanced competition and he told me to not bother with my senior year of high school. I hated my high school and I seriously considered dropping out, but I decided I could probably tolerate it without any more degeneration.” When it finally came time to decide where to attend college, Simon faced two choices: CCS or Berkeley. “I had a choice between CCS and Berkeley. I wasn’t really looking forward to going to Berkeley and sitting through boring math classes. I thought I might be able to get around that by coming here.” I inquired, “Why not L and S then?” He said, “They don’t expect L and S students to take advanced classes; it’s not encouraged. I looked at the prerequisites and it was horrifying.”

Earning straight A’s freshman year wasn’t Simon’s primary concern. He started taking graduate level classes immediately upon his entrance to college. “I did horribly in the graduate classes, but I learned so much. I didn’t do a lot but study freshman year.” He then adds that you could argue that all four years he hasn’t done a lot but study. However, outside of classes, he is a member of the math and chess club and plays the piano and cello. In the future, he plans to attend Stanford Graduate school and become a mathematician possibly working on algebraic number theory, which he says, particularly interests him. Before the interview ended, I needed to ask one final question: does he really do his math homework in pen? He laughed and said, “I write everything in fountain pen or dip pen if I want to write something that looks nice.” But for math homework he uses TeX. “It’s a typesetting program that’s clearly text based [to make] things look professional.”

My Problems with UCSB

The Great Gatsby partying
The Dorian Grey hedonism
The absence of seasons which denote the passage of time
The realization that it is entirely possible to go for months without talking to a person of color
The fact that you could party before your finals and it will not drastically effect your performance
The lack of alternative scene
The truth that Freebirds is not that good (Am I the only one?)
The empty library
The lack of studying, researching, and overall learning
The large impersonal, anxiety ridden lecture halls
The people sleeping in the large impersonal anxiety ridden lecture halls
The fake tans
The schools “diversity” limited to small non-blonde groups
The eating disorders
The reporting in a town with no news
The sameness
The faint smell of marajuana always circulating in the halls
The professors who try so hard, but so few students appreciate it
The T.A’s eyeing you because they know you’re the only one who does the reading
The drunkenness
The pretend drunkenness
The larger selection of Paul Frank merchandise than books at the UCEN
The frequency of month-long relationships
The So-Cal/ Nor-Cal conflict
The provocatively posed Facebook pictures
The dining commons opening at 10:30 a.m. on weekends (Does no one wake up before that?)
The quarter filled lecture halls for a full class
The cry for a challenge

Short story about an IV party: Happy Just to Dance With You

George had decided to bring her to the dance floor when he caught sight of her dancing alone behind the basement bar. He rarely saw her dance when she was sober, and anytime she did, it was done with a distaste for the moves and the music that he’d found unattractive. But now as she was filling up shot glasses and tipsily singing along to Harry Belafonte playing on the boom box, she looked happy enough to try.

“Come on Dana,” he said cheerfully, and took her by the hand, leading her to the small patch of carpeted floor in front of the speakers that the other party guests designated for dancing. Already on the floor were four or five girls who held the promise of a dance no matter the song or the partner. Some of them were holding red cups over their heads so the contents wouldn’t spill, but the others who were freer with their arms practiced steps they learned in the ballroom dancing classes. Everyone sang along with the chorus,

“Shake, shake, shake, Senora, shake your bodyline / shake, shake, shake Senora, shake it all the time…”

Another girl placed one hand on George’s hip, keeping her drink hand in the air. George suggested that she put the drink down somewhere and when she left, George watched the rest of the group. Their dancing was not particularly inspired, he thought, just the average party girl steps, swaying and movement of the hips. Dana was moving her hips with each “shake” and her round face kept getting pinker. He felt the hands return to his hips, gently steering him closer to the crowd. The song ended then. Weak applause drifted around the room, and the dancers dispersed. The girl holding his George’s hips stood on her toes and murmured in his ear,

“I’m getting another beer. Do you want one?”

“Yeah sure,” he said. He wasn’t sure if he really did, since he’d had a decent amount already that night, and was becoming bleary eyed and slow. But as host, he felt obligated to lead by example. The girl kissed his neck and disappeared upstairs. Dana had returned to her chosen seat behind the bar and was reading the labels of the fancy liquor bottles. He approached the bar, swaggering and swinging his arms in a half serious show of authority.

“Do you want a drink?” she asked. She was looser than she was at the start of the party, George noticed. The reluctance she showed earlier at the flip cup game was beginning to fade. She grinned at him and spread her hands out on the bar like an old timey waitress.

“None of that,” he began. “You need a drink,”

“I don’t want one,” she said. Getting Dana to drink more than she planned could be like pulling teeth. She’d stopped caving in to peer pressure as readily as when she was new to the group. When she was new, she would have done anything to please them. Making Dana drink her first screwdriver was one of George’s proudest moments as host.

“I want a drink!” shouted Dana’s roommate Marissa, leaning unsteadily against the bar.

“What would you like?”

“Surprise me,” Dana turned back to George and shrugged.

“What does Marissa want?”

“She wants…a cosmo,” said George.

“Did he say cosmo?” shouted Marissa over the music. “I don’t like those.”

“She doesn’t like those. Could you make her a gimlet instead?” George felt a small wave of fatigue wash over him and he sighed.

“I’m kind of on my last legs here,” he said. Dana smiled and patted his shoulder.

“That’s okay, maybe you should sit down.”

“You need a drink,” he tried again.

“But I don’t want one,”

“You haven’t had nearly enough yet,”

“Didn’t you just say you were tired?” Dana buzzed. “Have a seat, I’ll get you some water,” He squinted at her suspiciously, then pointed at her and grinned, like the last one to get the joke. She’s a clever one, George thought.

“I see what you did there,” he slurred a little. “Well if you won’t drink, you have to dance with me,”

“Okay,” He was surprised when she let him take her by the hand and lead her back to the dance floor, now empty as John Mellencamp sang in the background. He took her waist, and she did the same because his shoulder was too high for her to rest her hand on.

“I didn’t know you liked dancing,” he said. She smiled, a little embarrassed.

They swayed from one foot to the other, making an aimless circuit around the room. John Mellencamp played on.

“Do you need a lover who won’t drive you crazy?” George asked.

“Not really,” said Dana.

“What about Jack?”

“Oh Jack never drove me crazy. Everything was so nice. Even breaking up was nice. There was almost no conflict,”

“So you need a lover who will drive you crazy,”

“Only a little. I’m tired of nice,” she said easily. She didn’t seem to mind being interrogated, so George kept going.

“What I can’t understand is why you like Alex,” Alex was Dana’ friend who had graduated the previous Fall. George would tolerate him when he was around, but he didn’t like listening to Alex talk about whatever protest he was arranging for the coming week, especially the ones that had so many causes smashed into one place. Hearing them all; US out of Iraq, Stop Global Warming, End Genocide in Darfur, Fight AIDS in Africa, made George feel very tired.

“What? He’s nice, he’s smart—”

“Yeah,” interrupted George, “But is he good?”

“Good at what?”

“I don’t know. Life?”

“I think so. He graduated early, he just moved out of his mom’s house and now he’s living the dream at some nonprofit organization. I think he’s happy,” They kept dancing.

“I don’t have any romantic feelings for him though,” she suddenly added.

“You don’t?”

“No. Did you think I did?”

“No!” he said, and then added, “Well, I thought maybe there was potential for that to happen,”

“Oh no,” she said, “That would be too weird. I can’t see myself doing it. We’re too good of friends. Do you ever have those friends that are so good that you can’t think of sleeping with them without feeling a little sick?”

“No, sounds great though,”

“You do, you feel sick because you imagine not being friends with them afterwards.”

What a crock, George thought. She just doesn’t find him attractive. The song ended and the pair separated from each other. Dana began to head back to the bar, but George grabbed her hand again.

“You want to dance for another song?” Dana shot a quick glance at the stairs.

“What about Lindsay?” She began to pull back. George grimaced and shook his head.

“That,” he began slowly, waving the idea away, “is not what this is about,”

“You sure?”

“Yeah,”

“Okay,”

Alone again on the floor, they danced for three more songs until a party guest came by and tapped George on the shoulder. She was sleepy and stumbling and wanted George to find her a place to sleep.

“I’ll be right back,” he said, “I’ve got to help Annie with the futon,” and he followed the young girl upstairs.

Sitting on the edge of the futon, Annie watched George unroll the sleeping bag and she asked,

“Did Lindsay already go to bed?”

“I don’t know, she just went to get a beer,”

“When?” George stopped unrolling the sleeping bag and stood up. It occurred to him then that Lindsay had left the floor a half hour ago. He ran to the front door and went into the driveway. Her car was still there, so he went around the side alley into the backyard, but he didn’t see her.

“I think she left,” the young party guest said when he came back inside, “I don’t see Marissa either.” Getting anxious now, he came back downstairs where Dana was waiting on the floor.

“I think something’s wrong,” he said to her, “Lindsay’s not outside,”

“Is she inside?”

“I don’t know, I looked outside and she wasn’t there,”

“Did she leave?”

“I don’t know, she wasn’t outside!” George was starting to sweat and he kept looking around the room hoping he’d find her with the other guests, but she wasn’t anywhere.

“Did I screw up? Did I do something wrong?” he kept repeating quietly to himself. Dana held his arms and made him look at her.

“We’re going to look for her, okay? We’re going to look around the house. Let’s go upstairs.”

There she goes again, being bossy because she’s the more sober one, George thought. While Dana ran upstairs and started going through the rooms of the house, George sat on the pull out and brooded. Annie had tried to call Lindsey on her cell phone, but she had hung up so now she was talking to Marissa and George eavesdropped on bits of the conversation.

“Where is she going?…well why did she leave?” There was a long pause as she listened to Marissa explain.

“Oh,” she said, smiling nervously. She looked at George, then looked down when he looked back.

“She isn’t driving is she? Oh good,” said Annie, and she hung up. Dana came back into the room and shrugged.

“She’s not here,”

“She left, she’s walking home with Marissa,” Annie said meekly.

“Why?” George almost shouted. Annie flinched a little.

“Marissa said that Lindsay was mad because you wouldn’t dance with her.”

“What?”

“She said she went to get a beer and when she came back you wouldn’t dance with her.”

“I don’t believe this,” said George, “This is horseshit!” He shot a panicked look at Dana, who looked like she was going to be sick.

"Hey, when we were dancing, it didn't mean--"
"No! I know! Not for me either!" Dana interrupted.
"It was just--"
"I know! I know!"
"I didn't do anything wrong did I?"
"I don't think so, but she probably thought what we were doing meant more than it did."
"That's horseshit!" George said again. He stared off at the wall, barely registering the hushed babbling between Dana and Annie. His mind was rushing, but his thoughts were drowning in alcohol. I can’t believe this, he thought. I can’t believe she would drive. Now I can’t dance with any girl besides her? Doesn’t she trust me? I’m so sick of this, I want to break the chair. But I can’t break the chair, because that would scare them, and that’s not being a good host. I didn’t know Dana liked to dance and so I danced with her. I like dancing with her. I wonder if I’ll ever get to dance with her now. She always does this, she always thinks I want to cheat on her. I’m so damn sick of it.

“Goddamnit!” he yelled.

“Calm down!” said Dana, “You’re not helping,”

“She’s just being irrational,” said Annie. “She’s a girl. And she was pretty drunk,”

“Did I screw up somehow? Is this my fault?”

“No, but I was worried that this would happen. We were dancing kind of close,” Dana admitted.

“I don’t believe this!”

“I’ll try calling them again,” said Annie with a yawn. She opened her cell phone and scrolled to the last number dialed. Suddenly the phone rang in her hand and she screamed and dropped it. Turning red, she picked it up and answered it.

“It’s Marissa,” she said after a moment, “she wants to talk to you,” Annie handed the phone to George.

“What the hell is going on?” The voice on the other line was serene.

“Calm down man. Everything’s cool, I called her a cab home. It should be here in like, five minutes,”

“Why don’t guys just come back here?”
“She’s not feeling it right now. Trust me, you want to wait for her to cool down before you two patch things up. She’s pretty pissed,”

“I didn’t do anything!”

“I know. This isn’t about you. She’s drunk, she’s stressed and she’s insecure. I know because so am I. She thinks you’re settling for her. I know it’s dumb, but try not to take it personally. And don’t try to see her until tomorrow,”

“I don’t want to see her,”

“Good, because you’ll just make it worse. You had more than she did,”

“This is horseshit,” George said, defeated. He felt Dana’s hand patting his wrist and looked down at her face. She was holding her hand to her ear like a phone and making the “gimme” gesture with her other hand. He gave it to her.

“Hi, Marissa? It’s Dana. How is she doing?” Listening to the faint voice on the other line, she closed her eyes and grimaced.

“Listen, tell her I’m sorry, tell her I’m so sorry. I didn’t know she’d be upset. I didn’t do it to hurt her,” George watched her go on, explaining, apologizing for things that weren’t her fault just so no one would be mad at her. He almost began blaming her because she was apologizing so much.

“I need a shot,” he said when she finally hung up.

“Yeah, me too,” she said, grabbing a small fistful of her hair. They went downstairs to the basement bar. George went through the liquor cabinet and pulled out an almost empty bottle of Captain Morgan and he poured out two shots. The rest of the party guests were quiet now, feeling the end of their buzz. George and Dana raised their glasses, nodded at each other, and drank them down.

“I liked dancing with you,” he said.

“I liked dancing with you too,”

“One more song,”

“Isn’t that what started this?”

“Trust me, it isn’t,” They were silent for a moment.

“I can’t,” she said.

“Okay, fine,” He got up to leave. “I won’t embarrass you by asking again,” He went upstairs.

“What was that?” said another guest at the bar.

“Nothing,” she said, “It’s a non-story,”

Gaucho Fencing

Sweat and Swords: An introduction to UCSB fencing culture

The second most common response I get when I tell people that I’m on the UCSB fencing team is, “Cool! I’ve always wanted to try that.” Then they may go on to tell me that they took the fencing class taught by team coach Tim Robinson, or that their roommate used to do it in highschool, or that ever since seeing Pirates of the Caribbean they just been dying to try it. This is all encouraging to hear, even that last one, because despite the allure, the UCSB fencing team is consistently quite small, and they’re always on the lookout for fresh blood, so to speak. Which unfortunately brings me to the most common response I get from people who learn that I fence for UCSB:

“Whoa, we have a fencing team?”

This is rarely said to us directly, but overheard in passing if one of us should be wearing a club T-shirt or jacket. Yes, in the wide range of Gaucho sports, one could say that the fencing team is stuck on the fringe. All but ignored by the Daily Nexus, with events attended only by other fencers and their families, and a cheerleading team that despite pleas from last year’s administration, would not “bring it on” for us, it would be easy to blame our obscurity on others. But the truth is most of the blame lies with the sport itself. Modern or Olympic fencing as some people call it, is a very strange thing. Your average Joe who wanders into a practice at the top floor at Robinson Gym looking for break dancing or tango lessons only to find a room full of white clad humanoids wildly motioning at each other with frail, metal rods, would not know what was going on.

This may be because people think of fencing in its original context, that is, young men of breeding settling their differences with a glove, repartee, and a duel. The action was probably easier to follow back when there was bleeding involved. Olympic fencing is very different and has distilled that facet of 17^th-19^th century European culture over the centuries to be a better reflection of the modern age. Today’s fencers are quick to adopt new technology to make the sport fairer, easier to judge and generally more manageable and consequently Modern fencing has become somewhat dependent on new technology to keep score, although many clubs still practice dry, or non-electric fencing. The result is a far cry from Errol Flynn, and better resembles something out of a science fiction novel. The fencing bout is restricted to a thin rectangular strip and limited to two opponents at a time and most bouts go up to five points. If it’s a dry bout, four hand judges will stand at the corners of the strip to help the director call the action. If it’s an electric bout, each fencer will literally be plugged into a box that calls the action. Each fencer wears a wire connected to that box that threads underneath their jackets, running through the armpit and sleeve and finally plugging into their weapon. Changing technology inevitably changes how people fence. For instance, a machine will usually recognize a touch better than a distractible hand judge, so electric fencing has more room to be subtle than dry fencing. Even the speed at which a box will recognize a touch can impact how someone will fence.

The Basics

Modern fencing has three different weapons that people have the option to train in, each one having different rules, techniques and target areas. The best way to explain them, once again, is in their original context, or rather, how they killed people.

The weapon that most people begin learning with is foil. Foil was originally designed for the quick, painless kill. Consequently the target area is the torso, where all of those important internal organs are, namely the heart. It’s a point weapon, which means that touches are made with the end of the blade instead of the side. Foil bouts are governed by a set of rules called “right of way” which, even after three years of fencing foil, I can’t understand or explain for the life of me. Suffice it then to say that they help the director decide who gets the point when two people stab each other at the same time.

Epee has a more mischievous air, being a traditional dueling weapon. The original point of an epee duel was to hurt and humiliate your opponent as much as possible. This means that everything is target area, including face and crotch and there are no rules of right of way. It is also a point weapon. Epee bouts are the easiest to follow, and epeeists usually get the most bruises.

The final weapon is saber, and was introduced last in the modern fencing repertoire. Sabre is a very different ballgame because it isn’t a point weapon but an edged weapon, meaning that saberists make attacks with the side of the blade and not necessarily with the point (though those count too). This is because the point of saber is to make your opponent bleed, so attacks are made on everything from the waist up, including wrists, neck and head. Saber also follows the rules of right of way, and seems to attract violent people.

Fencing Culture: Competitions, and Decorum Don’ts

Modern fencing can also be called Competitive Fencing because fencing clubs often compete in tournaments where they fence against other teams in their league. The spirit of these tournaments always depends on the people there, (and let me say now that most fencers are laid back, friendly and good sports) but it’s not uncommon to see a grudge match or two between a pair of rivals. A fencing rivalry can start pretty easily because tournaments can rub one’s emotions more raw than usual, especially if you’re having a bad day. All it might take is a wrong look, a snide tone or a violation of the many Decorum Don’ts listed below, and you could have a lifelong nemesis, at least on the fencing strip.

The Decorum Don’ts

Now, once again, to most fencers most of the time, these are no big deal. But during a big tournament where you feel like your sole purpose is to be someone else’s pincushion, or you get cheated out of a stunning victory by an incompetent director, the following quirks can get old REAL fast.

Screaming: Fencers from all weapons (but mostly saber and foil) love to do this. There are several reasons a fencer might scream, but usually it has to do with right of way. Because right of way is so freakishly complex at times, a fencer might employ screaming to convince a director that a touch was theirs. For some fencers however, screaming has become a reflex and they will let out a piercing shriek any time they do anything, making them really unpleasant to be around or worse, fence. Sometimes emotions are running so high, a normally quiet fencer may even do it without thinking about it when they’ve made a touch that they’re particularly proud of, but many people consider this justifiable behavior.

Being a sore loser/snobby winner: This can include mask throwing, refusing to shake hands, salute or make eye contact with an opponent, and cheering one’s own victory while still on the strip. Fencers who do this come off as immature, disrespectful and inconsiderate so naturally it’s pretty common. Usually the decent thing to do, win or lose is to salute, shake hands, make eye contact and maybe say “Thank you” or “Good bout,” (saberists, usually having more physically intense bouts, sometimes hug afterwards.) I for one get really irked when people don’t bother to look me in the eye after a bout, especially if they’ve won, so if I know that won’t, I just refuse to let go of a handshake until they do.

Talking to an opponent during a bout: Trying to psyche out your opponent during a bout is generally considered a tacky move, especially if it’s verbal. I once had an opponent silence my cheering teammates by saying, “Now watch me put her in her place,”. Sometimes fencers try to stimulate antediluvian dueling banter during a bout, such as “En garde, you whoreson rat!” and the like. This can be distracting.

Turning your back on an opponent during a bout: Not only is this bad manners, it’s against the rules for safety reasons because the fencing mask doesn’t protect the back of the head. This can lead to a black card penalty; an automatic win for the other person.

These are the main standout “don’ts” that I’ve learned about during my time as a fencer. There are also a lot of carding offenses that are too many to list in full like using malfunctioning equipment and accidentally/intentionally body slamming opponents.

The Other Side of the Coin

Now, the UCSB fencing club is not the only fencing related club on campus and people often confuse them with the Society for Creative Anachronism, or the SCA for short. The SCA has a completely different approach to fencing, despite sharing roots with Modern fencing. Where Modern fencing focuses on one aspect of their roots and continue to evolve with technology, the SCA endeavors to recreate the entire culture as accurately as Safety will allow.

Initially, my knowledge of the SCA was limited to what members of the fencing club would tell me about them, and since most of them were irritated at being confused with the SCA, some of the accounts were laced with a thinly veiled hostility. The harsher among them may criticize the SCA’s technique and accuse them of being theatrical. These people have led several pilgrimages to the SCA’s practice space, (the courtyard of the music building) to “kick some ass” but the accounts of said quests are mixed. More tolerant members of the club say it all depends on what individuals want to get out of the fencing experience.

I finally got a chance to see the SCA practice in their native habitat when a teammate invited me to come with her and visit one of her friends. I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to get some more background on this supposedly blistering rivalry.

Stay tuned for Part II: The Belly of the Beast…

Sweat and Swords Part II

You could say that the Society for Creative Anachronism, or SCA for short, has a higher profile than the UCSB fencing club by virtue of their obscurity. The school does not provide the SCA with their own space to practice like it does with the fencing team, so for the twenty years that the SCA have had a club at this campus, they have been forced to find their own grounds to fence on. For the past eight years, that space has been the courtyard of the music building, where any passer by can come in and observe. Consequently, people are likelier to see the SCA in all its glory than they are to see the more cloistered Gaucho fencers. Some people that the SCA encounter regularly are their hosts, the music students and faculty. Both parties have retained a tepid rapport over the years.

“They hate when we make too much noise during their concerts but they love that we chase the skateboarders away,” says coach Jonathan Getty.

When I arrived at the music building courtyard one Wednesday night, Jonathan Getty was giving a small group of students their fencing lesson. Around them were several pairs of people fencing their way across the courtyard. They weren’t operating strictly on a line, but moving in circles, up and down stairs and some of them were even on their knees.