Ephs Go to the Movies
The Williams Art Mafia is well known and justly celebrated. We pay less attention to a lesser but still remarkable phenomenon: The small but celebrated number of Williams alums who go on to have success in the movie industry. I was stricken by this when I watched John Sayles’ “Eight Men Out” the other night. Not only did Sayles direct and play a small role in the film, he also included Gordon Clapp and David Strathairn. I love movies as much as the next guy, but I am not a film buff, and I’m sure that others can fill in the blanks, but it seems to me that for a small liberal arts college with no film program, Williams has done remarkably well. Off the top of my head I can think of Sayles, Kazan (who, if his latest biographer is to be believed, did not much cherish his time in the Purple Valley), and Frankenheimer. And this does not take into account folks who have successfully written for the big screen — a more logical and expected accomplishment — such as Charles Webb, whose book was transformed into the screenplay for The Graduate. I would suppose that one possible explanation is both the most self-serving but also might be close to the truth: someone who graduates with a liberal arts degree from a place like Williams is likely to be able to succeed in just about any field of endeavor. Maybe a closer argument isa that Williams actors and directors tend to come from the theater, an art for which Williams is rightly well known. Still, it is striking that Williams has produced several innovative and brilliant filmmakers.
Photo ID, #41
This one is an easy one, but a nice one just the same. There are at least five notable buildings visible from this vantage point. Click for the extremely large version, if you want wallpaper or something.
The Eph Is Right
Bill McGrath ‘04 writes in:
I saw this story on Williams athletics page and thought it might be interesting to the ephblog readers. A senior on the softball team won almost 50k in prizes on “The Price Is Right” during their spring break trip. It is airing on April 7th.
The story also mentions that Christine “Twink” Williams ‘06 is 2 for 3 in stolen base attempts. Three stolen base attempts? I am no expert on softball, but one of the central points on Moneyball is that trying to steal bases is a bad idea. Does the same apply in softball? In college softball? In Division III college softball? There is a great senior thesis to be written about this.
Also, did Twing use her Eph brains in playing the game by, for example, strategically placing her guesses just above those of other contestants. (Is that the right strategy for the game? My memory is dim.) If you watch the show, let us know. Better yet, tape it and put it on the web. We need an Eph Tube. Calling WSO!
Director of Sports Information Dick Quinn was kind enough to mention both that article and an interesting interview with Matt Levine ‘74, founder of CityLax. Best part:
I also see it as a good vehicle to help the effort to reshape/improve New York City Public Schools. This is one baby step. Lots of hard work ahead, but we are off to a good start. If we can create a “pocket of greatness” in one NYC public school, I hope others will follow.
Great stuff.
EphBlog desperately needs a blogger with an interest in Eph sports to provide more links to stories like these. Jeff Zeeman does the best that he can, but he is only one man! Consider joining us.
Eph Diary: The Politics of Katrina
This entry will deviate a bit from a strict definition of “all things Eph,” but when David Kane wants Williams pictures, he gets pictures; when he wants an Eph Diary, he gets an Eph Diary, and when he wants more information about the political economy of the situation, he will most certainly get as much. While sorting books, we met the AmeriCorps team that is working in New Orleans (more on AmeriCorps below), so I am now a bit more qualified to talk about the politics of that area.
Hands On Gulf Coast — formerly run by Hands On USA and now by Hands On Network — has a core mission, which is to rebuild the community by rebuilding houses so that people can move back into them. You have doubtless heard of the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans, the poorest and most flooded area of the city. Hands On does not rebuild houses in the Lower Ninth Ward, because there is some probability that the whole area will be demolished in the end anyway, and my guess is that any other volunteer organizations in the city have the same policy. Thus, no one can move back into houses in the Lower Ninth Ward (unless they can pay for a contractor) and so there is no community there for people to return to, which is a bit of a self-propogating cycle (the government says the area might not be rebuilt, so the houses aren’t rebuilt, so there’s no community there, so there’s no reason to rebuild the area, etc.).
WAC
The Williams Art Collective seems like a great idea.
In short, the Williams Art Collective has two main concerns, exhibition of student art and funding/support for community art projects. We have already put on three shows, WA-BAM!, Old-Fangled, and On the Green. The first two were ongoing exhibitions in Schow Atrium and Dodd Living Room, respectively (at Williams College, Williamstown, MA, if you need a wider frame of reference). On the Green was an outside show and therefore had to be dismantled on the same day it was set up. But it was all kinds of cool too. This year, the WAC hopes to bring many more shows of student art to all corners of campus. You’ll know when a show’s coming up by our awesome posters.
We would love to have a WAC member as an author at EphBlog. We have hundreds of readers, many of whom would enjoy viewing a new art work by a Williams student/professor each week. WAC has students who want their art work viewed. Surely this is a match made in heaven . . .
Display your art here.
Class of ‘63
There is an amazing senior thesis to be written about the members of the Williams class of ‘63 — 1863, I mean. Start here. Although I have linked to this site before, I can’t help but click through the biographies. Could Charles McAllister be related to our fellow EphBlogger Professor James McAllister? Unlikely, but not impossible. What will my paragraph say at ny 40th reunion in 2028? What will yours say?
DJ Backside
Interesting story about one of the cooler (OK, definitely the coolest) Eph alums around. Here is her website:
http://www.djbackside.com/Main/
A Million Pieces
Marc Lynch often writes beautifully. Never more so than here.
Today is my daughter’s third birthday. She woke up early, singing “happy birthday” to herself, and when I made it into her room she was already out of bed, jumping up and down, with Mom and brother watching enraptured. When she opened her first present, a ballet tutu, I thought she would literally vibrate into a million pieces of pure joy. Me too.
Today I went to the funeral of Aidan Crane, son of my friend Sam Crane. Aidan died on March 19, fourteen and a half years old.
…
Sam loved his son. For fourteen and a half years, he and his wife and daughter nurtured Aidan’s body and spirit. They loved him and cared for him in ways which I can only dimly comprehend. A daily routine of the most basic physical care developed into true communication, a true communion, a love whose depth I can fathom, as a parent, but whose meaning I may never truly appreciate. To say that Sam handled his son’s disability with grace would be profoundly unfair: he accepted Aidan for who he was, and allowed Aidan to change his life in ways which make him the person he is today.
…
What I learned from Sam and from Aidan is to fully appreciate every moment with my children, the physical experiences, the nuance, the meaning of a slightly cocked head or the love found in a fleeting expression. When I hold my daughter tonight for her birthday, I know that I’ll cry thinking of Aidan and Sam. Sam never had such moments with Aidan. But he had something else.
Today I mourn Aidan’s death and revel in my daughter’s life. Both honor Aidan’s spirit.
As should we all.
Eph Diary: More Spring Break with Katrina!
Diana and a few other Williams students are off in Northern Louisiana sorting donated books and hanging out by a beautiful lake, but the rest of us are still here working in Biloxi. Today a group of us got to work with the Salvation army, preparing and serving lunches to 350 volunteers. We spiced up their lunch experience with some general silliness and dancing in the lunch line. It was great to meet some other volunteers and see how many people are donating their time to help out here on the gulf coast. We also absolutely loved working with the Salvation Army people, who are helping coordinate large-scale resource distribution in this area…we basically fell in love with them.
Some other members of the Williams team worked on the “Tree Crew,” which actually meant moving a lot of debris, as well as cutting up and removing fallen trees from people’s yards. They were awed by tree climbing and roping mastery of their crazy leaders and are now skilled in the art of avoiding these chainsaw-bearing hippies.
Also…drumroll…the Salvation Army had more bananas than they knew what to do with (we’re talking cases and cases), so we dropped some off at a local church; the rest we brought back and turned into scrumptious banana bread to feed the hungry masses at Hands On.
All in all, it was a wildly fabulous and wildly productive day.
–Katie Craig, Liz Gleason, Kim Taylor, Julia Sendor, Zoe Fonseca, and Whitney Leonard (all class of ‘08)
Math Less Travelled
Brent Yorgey ‘04 has a beautifully formatted blog “dedicated to exploring beautiful mathematics.” Brent notes that:
There is tons of beautiful mathematics out there which is accessible without an advanced degree in mathematics — but not much of it is taught in high school, either because teachers do not have a good grasp of the mathematics outside their set curriculum, or because it is deemed “irrelevant” or “not useful”. While I agree that one goal of education is to make sure students acquire useful skills, certainly another goal is to arouse students’ wonder and curiosity — and this is where current mathematical education (at least in the U.S.) seems to fail so miserably. I doubt this little blog can ever really make up for such a big hole in modern math curricula, but at least I hope that a few students might read it and be inspired to consider that maybe — just maybe — math isn’t quite so boring as they thought…
Great stuff. I hope to convince Brent to do some guest posting at EphBlog as well, both with math items and with thoughts on being a math teacher. There are scores of students at Williams right now considering teaching, either as a career or as a first job after college. Many would be eager to read about Brent’s experiences.
Central Asia Democracy Project
Alan Cordova’s ‘06 homepage is, uh, colorful but many of the links don’t work for me. His thesis involves some sort of Central Asia Democracy Project. Seems interesting. Alas, I couldn’t find any more information on it.
Writing Jerkshop
Evan Miller ‘06 has a fun pdf on how not to be a jerk as a writing tutor.
Marissa told you last week how the Workshop has had some problems with being seen as a bunch of jerks. Fortunately, one of those problems graduated in June. (It’s progress.) There is still work to be done to improve the Workshop’s public image. For example, one of my friends continues to call us the Writing Jerkshop. He is probably just bitter. In any event, Marissa doesn’t like this state of affairs, and so she called on me to explain to the workshop why and how not to be a jerk. Those of you who know me may be second-guessing her choice of speaker for this particular task. They say you learn best by teaching.
Indeed you do.
Hmmm. What writing-better-than-thou-elitists do we know who graduated in 2004? ;-)
Eph Diary: Spring break excitement on the Gulf Coast
Today I did surveying again, and this time we actually got to survey people, rather than just advertising a meeting! The survey is 52 questions with demographic information, and then questions on what the person liked about Biloxi before the hurricane, what they think the highest priorities should be after the hurricane, and what they think the most pressing issues for the city are. The idea of the surveys is that the Coordination and Relief Center will compile the information about what the citizens of East Biloxi want and give that information to the mayor and city planners, so that they will either have to take that information into account when they plan what will happen next, or they will have to knowingly go against what the city’s people want.
We first went to two trailer parks, which are not trailer parks in the traditional sense, but just fields full of FEMA trailers that have sprung up after the hurricane. This was to survey people who had lived in East Biloxi before the hurricane, but who were living elsewhere after the storm. Most of the people were not home — who would stay in a tiny trailer on a Saturday if they didn’t have to — but I surveyed one woman who was home. She was 20 and had two small children, both about two or three years old, and they were all home watching Saturday morning cartoons. She was African-American, and worked cleaning casinos before the hurricane. I realized later that I’m 20, too, so we were the same age, but living very different lives.
Where’s The Love for Love Notes?
The College’s love notes are leading to a great deal of anxiety on College Confidential.
As someone who has not gotten one an “early write,” I think it’s bad what they’re doing. I think the college admissions process – at least for those applying to schools like Williams – is too stressful as it is, and I think it is unfair they have anxious applicants running to the mailbox every day.
I also think that there is something wrong with the way that accepted applicants are essentially being ranked, especially at a school as small as Williams where if you choose to attend (after not receiving an early write) you might be one of only 100-200 in your class.
I don’t think there’s a problem with rolling admissions, but I think there is a problem with rolling acceptances. If they wanted to do this they should have been up front about it AND they should also have sent out each decision when they were ready, not just acceptances.
Discuss.
Eph Diary: Spring Break with Katrina, end of the first week
Today a group of 10 Williams students went to the local elementary school to do “tutoring.” Unfortunately for us, the most pressing need at the school today was sorting books, so we didn’t get to talk to individual children or do any tutoring. However, I love sorting, and I love books, so it was all right. This school had a lot of its books destroyed in the hurricane, which was terrible, and then it got a huge number of donated books from everywhere in the country, which is also overwhelming.
We went through perhaps 20 boxes of books, sorting them by type (picture book or chapter book) and genre (part of a series, has “God” in the title, Disney or television character books) and boxing them up again. The good thing is that the books are very well sorted. The bad thing is that we didn’t really accomplish anything tangible; we just moved books around.
Electronic Community
I truly miss the extended electronic community which sprang up around Williams and Tripod in the mid-90s, and which was just as abruptly cut short by the decision to terminate alumni accounts.
In those days, I could sit in Berkeley or Paris, and communicate with Williams friends and students, just as I often did while on campus. I’ll have to tell you about that later.
Another tale from that era emerged as I was chiding an young sysadmin who took an hour out of my day today:
Mail (POP) and web were offline for about 45 seconds, but ky.net was pingable the whole time.Some images on ky.net did not load the first time when back up, and gac.ky.net came up in the wrong fonts…
Being inside your own network can be a real pain when troubleshooting. Back in ‘94 for or so, someone hacked the SUMEX-AIM archive at Stanford (then the largest ’shareware’ archive) and uploaded a folder called “KIDDIEPORN” with just that inside.
Whoever did this was also bright enough to manipulate the servers so that, from inside the stanford.edu domain, you would see the original content of the site.
Stanford’s on-duty sysadmin was one embarrassed puppy when I called him up to let him know, and then reported the incident to CERT, with the footnote “Berkeley 1, Stanford 0.”
Photo ID, #40
Somewhere on campus, there is a white spiral staircase (outside, obviously). Where is it? Did you ever climb it? What makes the building against which it ascends special and unique?
Eph Diary: Spring Break with Katrina, part II
Today I did “animal rescue” with another volunteer and the long-term volunteer that does it every day. First, we organized the warehouse where they keep the cat and dog carriers and cages and everything that they can give out to people, including assembling a lot of cat and dog carriers. We really made the warehouse (which was the space under stadium bleachers, in a stadium owned by the Salvation Army) look much better.
Then the “animal rescue” began in earnest. We had a certain section of East Biloxi to cover, so we drove down every street, and every time we saw a dog or cat, we stopped. We asked the people nearby (because there were almost always people nearby) who owned the animal, to which the answer was usually “I do.” We asked them if they would like food for the animal, to which the answer was usually “oh, that would be great, thanks,” so we gave them cat or dog food — and a lot of it — from the supply in the warehouse. We also asked if the person wanted to keep the animal, and usually they did, but in a few cases they were just feeding it because it was a stray that hung out on their property, so we put them on a list to come get the animal next week. (At the end of March, they will drive a cargo van load of animals “up north” to be adopted.)
Eph Diary: Spring Break with Katrina
About 50 Ephs are or will be in the Gulf Coast this spring break, helping to clean up and rebuild after hurricane Katrina. I’m in Biloxi with about 15 current students and a few alums, and we’re demolishing houses, scraping mold, building things, and anything else that needs doing. I’ll be cross-posting my blog posts about my experience on EphBlog. I’ll start with my entry from yesterday. The other entries follow in reverse chronological order; I’ll post new ones as separate entries in the days ahead.
Building and surveying
Yesterday I worked on building a ramp for what will be a clinic in a town outside of Biloxi, near the border with Alabama. I painted some boards white, and then I cut strips of tar paper, and then for a very long time, I hammered “joist hangers,” which are these metal things that help to hold the joists up. The joists are the boards under the walkway that go perpendicular to the direction you walk, and the joist hangers help to hold them to the edges of the walkway. Each one had 10 nails, which I nailed in. This took me a very long time. Eventually that was the only thing left to do, so the two men and the other Williams student (a boy) hammered the rest of them in with me, which took only about 10 minutes (it took me a few hours to do the first half). My arm was kind of tired from hammering for a few hours.
Eph Music Video
See for yourself. But that’s just the trailer. Where is the whole video? And does Morty really make an appearence?
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