The Bowdoin Orient

Recently, I checked the dinner menus and shrieked with delight, because the dessert offering for the evening was dirt cake. Dirt cake night is probably the most exciting night of my life, second only to the night of the Final Rose Ceremony on The Bachelor. I live for dirt cake. Seeing it on the menu is a stop, drop, and roll thing for me. So naturally, I sprinted to the nearest dining hall, bypassed the hot food line entirely, and shimmied over to the dessert bar. I was going to fill a massive, planet-sized bowl with dirt cake and eat it all. I deserved this. And that’s when my life came to a screeching halt.

There was no more dirt cake.

This was a DEFCON 1 situation, people. I blinked, pinched myself, and trembled. I checked the giant pan once more: empty. This simply couldn’t be. Dirt cake? My one true love? I fell to my knees and let out a bloodcurdling scream. My life was over. Images from my childhood flashed before my eyes. I would have to be buried under the dessert bar. I envisioned the headstone: Here lies Olivia, heart broken by dirt cake (or lack thereof).

As I writhed beneath the empty basin, it occurred to me: you know what? No. They don’t run out of dirt cake until I say they’ve run out of dirt cake. So, with a new fervor in my step, I planted my feet into the floor and began to wait. I grew roots. I would not budge. This was a stand-in, folks, and I wasn’t moving a single muscle until I was presented with a new bathtub quantity of dirt cake. My friend Faith massaged my back to keep my strength up. This was war...well maybe not war, but you know, a skirmish. 

A half hour passed in this way, and then, he appeared. An angel, if you will, bearing a brand new container of dirt cake. Someone in dining services had driven to Thorne, snatched one from those greedy bastards, and driven it back for me. I had half a mind to take the entire cake back to my table, but no. I am a martyr. I stood back and smiled, arms crossed, saying, “Oh, you’re welcome. Really. No need to thank me” to every soul who scooped a dollop of glorious dessert. I filled my bowl with a heaping portion of dirt cake, even though I wasn’t hungry anymore. I was high on adrenaline and full of victory. My friend approached me as I marched back to my table, bowing to the uproarious (okay, it might have been a smattering of) applause.

“Olivia,” he said, having witnessed the whole spectacle, “I cannot believe they just brought a pan of that stuff back for you. That’s impressive. You’re the kind of girl that those things just happen to.”

I maniacally giggled, licked my spoon, and dug in.

His words didn’t really kick in until a week later, as I sat in a dull economics lecture about consumer power or something with no relevance to my life, obviously, and I got to thinking: what did he mean, that those things just happen to me? Am I some kind of special person, who has the stamina to wait for hours on end? I mean, clearly we would all put our lives on hold in the name of dirt cake, but what more did this say about me?It feels like lately all I do is wait. I wait for class to be over. I wait for the light to change on Maine Street. I wait for that one boy to text me back. I have waited at the C-Store, at the printer, and in the crowded downstairs Smith Union bathroom by the mailboxes (people, that’s my bathroom. Please find other places to do your business). 

I don’t think the phrase “good things come to those who wait” is relevant anymore. Sure, it worked in the context of dirt cake, but I think it’s outdated, garbage, and a useless filler phrase that people throw around to condone laziness. And I’m sorry to say I think I’ve fallen victim to it. Not to mention that it seems to me like every time I wait around for something, it ends up being not so hot. I waited around in my house during a party, thinking some strange and attractive boy with a mysterious Scottish accent would round the bend, knock into me, and call me Lassie, but no, I ended up blow-drying pee off of someone’s sweatpants (long story). 

I waited to do my laundry but the one machine we have broke, so I had to haul my basket across the quad and do it in Coleman. A few weeks later, after complaining repeatedly about my lack of socks, I stumbled upon a collection of wet socks by the Chapel. They had fallen from my basket as I lugged it back to Helmreich from my Coleman laundry trip, and they had since been nibbled on by squirrels. Maybe if I had jumped on the opportunity to do my laundry earlier, I wouldn’t be sockless and widely known as the Weird Quad Laundry Girl. All I’m saying is, they tell us that patience is a virtue and that waiting is a good thing, but when you really think about it, they’re wrong.

I don’t want to be the girl who waits anymore. I want to stop biding my time. What are we all waiting for? If Jillian on The Bachelor would only just tell Farmer Chris she loves him, (and that she’s ambidextrous to boot!), maybe she wouldn’t still be waiting to get a rose (she could really help out with the crops with both her left and right hand, I think). It’s time to finish that dirt cake, to do our laundry, to get moving, to start farming, to jump in. I don’t really know what these metaphors mean, but it will give you something to think about the next time you’re waiting.

Just kidding. Because you’re not going to wait anymore. And neither am I.

-Olivia Atwood is a member of the Class of 2017

Ian Kline ’15 didn’t exactly follow a normal school schedule in high school. Sometimes his family jetted off to New Zealand for three weeks in November, just for fun. He learned about coral reefs, and then snorkeled in the Great Barrier Reefs. He studied opium production in Thailand, and then explored the Golden Triangle. But Kline wasn’t skipping school to go on these expeditions; he was in school. Kline is one of Bowdoin’s few home-schooled students.

“It was the best education ever,” he said.

Marina Marlens ’16 had a different home schooling experience. Marlens switched to a more traditional high school for her last two years after having been taught at home for freshman and sophomore years. Her family didn’t follow a strict curriculum, choosing the path of “unschooling,” a method of learning based on “customizing the academic experience to each individual,” instead. Her parents objected to the idea of “uniform compulsory education,” and with a large community of home schooling groups in Marlens’ then-home state of California, the choice to home school was obvious.“It was really good for [both my sister and I] when we were young,” said Marlens, “The culture that you are home schooled in is going to have a huge impact on the experience you have. In California, we were in this huge home schooling group, there were constantly events, like museum days or hikes.” Once the family moved to Colorado, however, things changed.

“Not as many people were home schooling for reasons similar to us. Most people were doing it for religious reasons. That definitely changed things,” said Marlens.

Kline’s family moved to Asia after his ninth grade year and instead of sending their children to a Singapore-American school, which cost 40,000 dollars per year, the family opted for home schooling, despite the cautions given out by Kline’s former Knoxville, Tennessee high school.

“Before I left, I asked my teachers, ‘Can you give me maybe a curriculum?’ They told me if you [homeschool], you’ll fail. You won’t get into colleges,” said Kline.

Marlens, too, was nervous when it came time to gather her materials and apply to college. “I think that it’s always sort of unpredictable how any kind of alternative application is going to be received,” she said. “I was definitely nervous.”For Marlens, having the two transcripts, one alternative and one more traditional was an added benefit because she felt the high school transcript gave her other transcript a frame of reference. This was a reference Kline did not have.Jumping into home schooling was a risk that the Kline family decided to take, but the transition wasn’t easy. Klein said that the first few months of home schooling were rocky. His mom found a curriculum online that had rave reviews, but it was incredibly Christian, and the first line of the curriculum’s Chemistry textbook was ‘Evolution is fake.” This curriculum wasn’t suited to Kline, who had been in AP Chemistry beforehand. Halfway through the year, Kline took it upon himself to find a new path of study, and ended up using an online resource called “Think Well” which consisted of online lectures.

“That first year was definitely about figuring it out,” he said. “What if those teachers were right, back in Knoxville? When we applied to colleges, it was really scary.”The warnings from the teachers back in Tennessee haunted the family, especially when Kline got rejected from the first three schools he applied to.

“Oh, no, we were thinking. We’ve ruined my future. We were crying,” recalled Kline. However, he was then accepted to three schools on the same day, one of which was Bowdoin.

“It was like, okay, breathe,” he said.

Kline and Marlens are members of the small and relatively unexplored home schooled population here at Bowdoin.Janet Lohmann, the dean of first-year students, noted that there have been home-schooled students on campus from time to time.

“I don’t necessarily see [home-schooled students] as having a collective or finding one another, but I would say that often times there are similar issues that they face,” said Lohmann, who has in the past been able to connect home-schooled students to one and other.

“I’ll say, you know, this might be a good person for you to talk to; they can help you figure out this place,” said Lohmann.Lohmann has noticed that sometimes the transition to Bowdoin can be difficult for home-schooled students.“I think there are certain articulated expectations here: how to meet deadlines, how to communicate with faculty,” explained Lohmann.

Lohmann described one occasion where a student did not realize that showing up for an exam at the time when it was scheduled was a requirement. It seems absurd, but the student explained that he had never had to show up to take an exam at a specified  time. For home-schooled students, a big part of the adjustment is learning expectations, like what it means to go to class, meet deadlines, ask for help and use resources.

“While lots of people think of this place as very small, for home- schooled students, this place can feel very big,” said Lohmann.

Kline said that he does not know of any other home schooled students at Bowdoin, which Lohmann also noted.“I don’t know what the critical mass is,” said Lohmann, “I certainly could talk with Admissions and say, how do we identify those students and how do we create sort of a [community]. There are so few of them that it becomes hard to get a critical mass.”

“It would definitely be cool to talk to other people about their experiences. It was obviously a huge part of my life, but it isn’t something I think about day to day,” said Marlens, who also is not aware of other home-schooled students on campus.

Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Scott Meiklejohn said that Bowdoin gets between 20 and 30 applicants from home schooled students each year.

“It’s like everything else,” Meiklejohn said, “It’s really hard no matter where you’re from or what you’ve done. Some years we’ve admitted some home schooled students, and some years we haven’t.”

Marlens said that when she applied, with her transcript mainly from her home schooling and partially from her high school, she felt that Bowdoin was accommodating.

The Bowdoin admissions website specifies that “Home school applicants are required to submit ACT test results or SAT test results with two or more SAT Subject Test results. SAT Subject Tests should include a science and Math Level 1 or Math Level 2.” Applicants from regular backgrounds are not required to submit test scores, since Bowdoin is test-optional.

Kline took six SAT subject tests and five AP tests. His mother felt comfortable grading his English assignments, but everything else was based off of his grade on the AP.

“If I got a five on the AP, I got an A. If I got a four, I got a B, and so on,” said Kline. “It was all based on that final grade.”Meiklejohn said that though home schooled students send in slightly different materials, Admissions reviews their applications like all others.

“We see academic achievement and talent and promise and personal qualities and ways to add to Bowdoin community. The review is not any different, but the contents of the application are sometimes different,” said Meiklejohn.Marlens does not regret the way she conducted her education. However, she does think the application process would have been easier had she switched to traditional schooling freshman year of high school.

“If I could do it again I would absolutely still home school up until that point,” said Marlens, adding that she “probably have decided to start going to school freshman year. It would have been less stressful.”

Lohmann said she thinks students who are admitted to Bowdoin are usually prepared to take on the challenge.“I think while every student has transitions, some students are fine with figuring this place out on their own. I think students find their way here,” she said. 

While Lohmann may have heard of some students struggling to adjust, Kline found the switch from homeschooling to Bowdoin relatively easy.

“I found it way easier academically here,” said Kline, “because I had people telling me what to read, when to read it, and what to write a paper on.” 

Back at home, Kline’s mom would have him pick a book that he liked, design a schedule around it, read it, discuss it and write a paper on whatever he wanted.

Marlens also enjoyed the switch from home schooling to the more traditional model, because she craved more structure.“I like a lot of structure. [Home schooling] works in different ways for different people,” said Marlens. “I am pretty self-motivated and I was able to get a lot done, but I wanted external requirements and guidelines.”

Kline felt similarly, saying, “I was very used to doing things independently, so when I came here, having other people structure things, it was very easy.”

Home schooling was never easy for Klein. He recalls handing in his first ever paper, and having his mom rip it up, declaring that they needed to work on his writing skills.

“She really made sure that when I made a point, I knew how to defend it,” said Kline, “I was able to write argumentative papers very well coming into college.”

Marlens said that her education was rigorous, but also incredibly untraditional. She just picked it up on her own.  “Kids want to figure it out,” said Marlens, “It depends on the person, but kids want to learn things. Kids are naturally curious, I think.”

The biggest benefit of Marlens’ home schooling was her time spent outdoors.

“I cannot emphasize enough how much time I spent outside as a child. An unbelievable amount of time...that’s the biggest thing I cannot imagine. I can’t imagine being inside for 8 hours a day my entire childhood,” she said.In terms of the social adjustment in coming to college, Kline and Marlens felt very well prepared, though they have both found that home schooling stereotypes still exist and often get surprised reactions when they mention their backgrounds. However, both feel that being home schooled enhanced their social abilities. 

According to Kline, the nice thing about home schooling is it did not limit him to talking to only people of his same age. With a family that traveled a lot, Kline got to talk to people who were anywhere between the ages of four and 87. “You get to meet people from all walks of life, and you learn how to talk to people from all walks of life,” said Kline. As a result, Kline has friends on campus from all over the world.

 “I’m really lucky because I’m friends with Allison [Voner] in the mail center, Sue  [O’Dell]from the science library, Guy Mark Foster, an English professor, Sandy, on the housekeeping staff,” said Klein. “I have a lot of people whom I consider really great friends who are not students here. And I feel like that’s because of home schooling.”Marlens too found herself in groups of people outside her own age range while being home schooled, noting that it feels almost unnatural to be kept alongside kids of only her age, as in the traditional school setting.Growing up, Kline initially felt forced to meet people outside his age range, but eventually, he started looking out for friends who were different than him. In Singapore at outdoor eating areas, Kline would strike up a conversation with the people cooking.

“I got whoever I could interact with,” said Kline.

Kline feels like the biggest transition for him was switching from spending his time with his family to living with roommates not related to him, but even that didn’t trip him up too much.

Home schooling worked for Kline. He found his way around Internet censorship in China, and smuggled educational resources into the country. He bought himself textbooks and watched biology experiments on YouTube. Each Sunday, he would write out a schedule for himself, and by the end of the week, he made sure everything had been accomplished, even if he had to scoot things around to accommodate for unexpected outings in Singapore, like  mid-day family hikes. Kline would write his own exams trying to trick himself.

“I’m very self motivated. Homeschooling works when you have that self-motivation,” said Kline, “It might not work for somebody else.”

“It’s so dependent on the individual. For some kids, [traditional] school is great, and for some kids, it’s destructive,” said Marlens.

Home schooling, according to both Kline and Marlens, gives students the opportunity to explore. Both studied what interested them and read what they enjoyed.

“There’s a difference in the work that you do when you have a consciousness that you are doing it of your own volition,” said Marlens. “Most kids don’t really think about school as something that is optional. I think I had a greater awareness, like, I don’t want to waste my time here.”

 “I feel that flexibility is really powerful in education,” said Kline, “I feel like you can’t learn something if you don’t feel motivated by it. And I felt motivated by what I was studying, so that got me to study more.” 

While teaching a class theorizing people, place and space at the Pratt Institute in New York City, Dr. Jen Jack Gieseking realized that she and her colleague, William Mangold, were rewriting the same, overdone syllabus that so many people had taught before them. So they decided to do something about it. 

That something evolved into “The People, Place, and Space Reader,” a new anthology dedicated to scholars writing about the ways in which people inhabit the space around them. 

Though it initially seemed an arduous task, Gieseking was excited by the idea of compiling all of her favorite works into one accessible reader.

“This is really great, fun material, and people think about it all the time,” explained Gieseking. 

Mangold and Gieseking, along with renowned researchers and scholars Cindi Katz, Setha Low, and Susan Saegert, dove to work set on assembling the best texts from geography, sociology, design, and other fields.

“Space is everywhere we go,” noted Gieseking. “We wanted to take this very unique interdisciplinary approach and get it out to the world.”

Gieseking approaches “space” in a broad sense.

“I mean the environment; I mean the landscape: I mean buildings, neighborhoods, cities. The global, the intimate, the body, the street. Everything from the Cartesian coordinates on a Google map to the experience of where your head is at. That sort of relative and relational space, all those kinds of spaces.”

Whether students are aware of it or not, space affects everything in their worlds, all of the time, Gieseking asserts. 

“How does the campus design affect how you feel about yourself? Here, we have these ‘teched-out’ classrooms and this beautiful view, and it really changes who we are and how we feel about ourselves,” Gieseking said as she gestured. “I’ve been obsessed with this since I was a child.” 

For years scholars have been experimenting with compiling readings in the discipline. “The People, Place, and Space Reader” contains texts from geography, anthropology, psychology, architecture, urban studies and even a piece by Virginia Woolf about not being allowed entrance to the Oxford Library. 

“It’s exciting. It’s compelling. There’s something for everyone,” she said. 

For her, this project has a special draw: “It’s a lot about power and empowerment,” she noted, “It’s a lot about examining limited access to space.” 

A huge part of this project was universal accessibility. Their website, peopleplacespace.org, provides the written introductions for each reading and a complete list of texts. 

According to Gieseking, a group of people in Colombia who do not have enough money to buy the “The People, Place, and Space Reader” have been using the website to read the introductions, locate the PDFs online, and then hold local reading groups about the material. 

“That is exactly what I want,” said Gieseking. “[The website] is an entry point that you can just jump into. You can do this on your own.”

Additionally, young scholars can add to the People Place Space website with recommendations of their own.

Added Gieseking, “I don’t want the book to end.” 

Studying geography as anundergraduate student and “making a lot of maps,” Gieseking has always loved space. Her own sexuality also played a role in her long-lasting obsession with space. Having gone to Mount Holyoke, a women’s college, Gieseking has thought quite a bit about women’s education and women’s spaces.

“I’m a lesbian, and trans, which wasn’t even a word until 1996. All of this led to a lot of thinking about women’s spaces and gay spaces. When people talk about LGBTQ spaces, they talk about neighborhoods, bars, and cities. I don’t know of a city of women; I don’t know of a neighborhood of women; and there are two lesbian bars in Manhattan for women, and 58 for men. So if that’s what LGBTQ spaces are, it doesn’t represent women’s experiences,” Giesking said. 

She is also working on an interactive online map of New York City. Gieseking has compiled 2,400 lesbian/queer places and events thus far, and visitors to the site can click on the marker dots and read about the stories that transpired at those locations. She is also expanding this project to be nation-wide, considering there is a queer mapping initiative in almost every city that could be incorporated into one large survey. 

For Gieseking, all of her projects this year have come to revolve around one concept.

“There needs to be access to knowledge,” she said. “That is key.”

After four years of jogging around Brunswick to get to art class and spending late nights in the studio, the 18 seniors in Senior Studio, Professor James Mullen’s capstone course for senior visual arts majors, will display their final semester’s work in the Robert H. and Blythe Bickel Edwards Center for Art and Dance today. 

The show is called “XIX” because the group is “a team of 19,” including Mullen, said James Boeding ’14. Each student has created a project independently, with the freedom to take it in whatever direction he or she desired.

“They came in and they had 18 different directions,” said Mullen. “That’s what’s very exciting about this—we have a very broad array of media and types of work that people are investigating.” 

This course, which is the culmination of their four years as student artists, pushed the students to take the materials with which they have grown familiar and “challenged them to become even more thematic and conceptual,” said Mullen. 

The show includes drawings, paintings, photographs, collages, videos, sculptures and mixed media projects.

“It’s an opportunity for people to deeply investigate a body of work. They drive the bus, instead of being given assignments by instructors. The work has their stamp on it,” said Mullen.

Boeding, who has concentrated on photography during his time at Bowdoin, decided to focus on working with film. He experimented using the popular short video app Vine and explored using segmented screens to show multiple video source outputs.

“I created a camera that holds nine video cameras at once and films nine different perspectives. I call it the nine-eye,” said Boeding.

For Boeding, this semester has been a new experience.

“It was fun to start something new. My videos have been described as disorientating and kind of trippy, cool, a different way of looking at world,” said Boeding. “It’s like the world became the subject.”

Mullen noted that some students entered the class already armed with an idea of what they wanted to do while others came in clueless. 

“They now know how to chart their own artistic course,” said Mullen.

Dana Hopkins ’14 said she changed her vision several times over the course of the semester. She said that it took her so long to settle on a project because of the freedom the class allowed.

“I didn’t really know how to paint yet, so I started trying to learn color and faces. I had to step back and start looking more deeply,” said Hopkins. 

She ended up exploring the faces of female Bowdoin students through close-up portraits.“They’re just face, no body, and mostly only hair,” said Hopkins. “They’re meant to take the context away, to see how much of someone’s identity comes through when all you’re presented with is a face.”

Those involved in the course noted how rewarding it has been to work alongside the other senior art majors in the class.

“The feedback is diverse and that’s fun,” Boeding said.

Hopkins noted that prior to the class she really didn’t know the other majors all too well.“It’s been really nice, being in one building, inspired by what other people are doing. Not to mention the late night sessions we would have in the studio,” she said. “It’s nice to have camaraderie, and to meet people who I should have met a long time ago. It’s nice to know we all still had to figure ourselves out.”

All the artists plan on continuing with art in some capacity in the future, though perhaps not in professional careers.

“They will all pursue aspects of a creative life,” Mullen agreed. “Art will penetrate and have a presence in any path they take now.”

Live, from Bowdoin College, it’s Tuesday night! Simon Brooks ’14 will unveil his independent study, Bowdoin Night Live, on Tuesday as part of Ivies week. Taking place in Kresge Auditorium at 9 p.m., the show will follow the classic Saturday Night Live format with a musical guest—campus band The NARPs—and celebrity cameos. Tickets for “Bowdoin Night Live” (“BNL”) are available at the Smith Union Information desk. 

“I love Saturday Night Live, it’s my dream to be a part of that writing team,” said Brooks.The project has been an independent study this semester. 

“I want to write sketches,” said Brooks, “I write sketches in my free time, so I figured, why not get credit for it?”

He has spent the semester pursuing the independent study under the guidance of Davis Robinson, a Theater professor. 

“We tried to make it as close to the timeline of the real SNL as possible,” said Clare DeSantis ’16, writer and cast member. “The difference is, writing sketches is their only job, and we have to go to classes too.” 

Brooks assembled a team of writers—though he had the final say on all sketches—and then assigned roles. 

The cast of eight includes Sam Chase ’16, Catalina Gallagher ’16, Chuck Rollins ’14, Liv King ’14, Clare DeSantis ’16, John Swords ’15, Leo Shaw ’15 and Brooks himself. The writing team created sketches with specific cast members in mind.

DeSantis said that prior to working with the group, she vaguely knew five of the eight, noting that Brooks did a good job of gathering people from different social groups on campus. 

“It is interesting to pick up on what different people think are the funny things about campus, the interesting quirks of Bowdoin,” she said. 

The sketches focus on humorous elements of life on campus. 

“The idea of SNL is social commentary on the world,” explained Brooks, “So rather than do what the professionals do, we decided to comment on our small world, with sketches and jokes about Bowdoin.”

Other than hinting at its structure, Brooks is tight-lipped about what else the show will include. “I don’t want to give away any of the sketches,” he said.

Brooks’ decision to stage the show at the onset of Ivies stems from his perceived lack of campus comedy shows during the festivities, which are overwhelmed by musical performances. The group has rehearsed almost every night this past week, and they have been filming the digital shorts—inspired by The Lonely Island—for over a month. However, most of the sketches will be live.

“People like laughing,” said Brooks. “There’s more of a demand than supply for comedy on campus.” 

DeSantis agreed. “Maybe this could start carving out a niche for more comedy on campus.”

Throughout the school year, students flock to campus venues to hear their favorite a cappella groups perform. Whether the event is the large holiday concert in Pickard or a more intimate, laidback gathering in Ladd House, the performances are well attended almost without exception. However, there is a lot more to the world of a cappella than belting out your favorite Macklemore song in the chapel. There are logistics involved: organizing auditions, obtaining recording funds and the ongoing effort to dispel the prevalent notion of tense rivalries between groups.

The A Cappella Council, spearheaded by Noah Gavil ’14, works to facilitate communication between the six groups to ensure that these logistics run as smoothly as possible. Although the groups perform together three times a year, their contact is otherwise fairly limited, and the Council has recently been working to change that.

“This year, for the first time that I remember, we had a big meeting between all the other groups to work through some of the kinks,” said Kevin Miao ’14 of the Longfellows. “In the past, it was much more fragmented and there wasn’t much communication.”

One of the most important aspects of this communication occurs during audition period. At the beginning of the year, each group goes around to the first year bricks to do “dorm sings,” making sure not to overlap too closely with anyone else. Interested students then sign up for auditions later in the week.

“People kind of do their own thing with auditions, but it’s mostly a variation of the same thing,” said Gavil, who added that after the first wave of auditions, leaders from each group consult to create a schedule for callbacks. This way, if someone gets a callback from two groups, they can attend both.

“There’s a big draft through all the groups where we talk about who wants whom,” said Erica Nangeroni ’14 of the coed group BOKA. “If we have someone we really can’t make a decision on we say, ‘Hey, you got into a couple groups; you have a few minutes to decide which one you want to be in.’ It’s a little high pressure.”

As a side note, Nangeroni added, “We tend to have more girls audition than guys. The general trend is that boys are pulled a little bit more towards all-male groups and girls are pulled more towards coed group.”

“There have been occasions where someone has been in two groups, but it is somewhat discouraged,” said Gavil. “They are always in one group first and then if they want to be in another group, they can audition in later years.”

The lack of overlap in groups could feed the idea of their being rivalries amongst them, but Gavil, a member of Ursus Verses, maintains that this is not the case.

“It’s all artificial to me—it’s sort of funny,” he said. “I think any rivalries are not real rivalries—they’re not like Seahawks and 49ers—and I think what is cool is that all the groups definitely have their own vibe, and their sort of type of repertoire and type of presentation.”

Meddiebempster Michael Yang ’14 agreed, highlighting the difference in presentation between the two all-male groups. Where the Meddiebempsters (Meddies) are more “barbershop and tongue-in-cheek,” according to Yang, the Longfellows have a slightly more modern style in terms of song choice, arrangement and choreography.

“We sing completely different things,” said Miao. “The kinds of kids who are attracted to the Longfellows aren’t necessarily attracted to what the Meddies bring to the table and [vice versa].”However, just because such rivalries do not exist does not mean that they never did.

“I know that my freshman year, some of the Meddie/Longfellow seniors—I don’t even know who—just personally didn’t like each other, and that grew into a group thing,” said Yang.

“We have been trying to get rid of the perception of rivalries. I’ve loved a lot of Longfellows…As long as both groups are good, then that is a great thing,” he added.

Nangeroni expressed similar sentiments.

“When I was younger, there were more rigid rivalries so to speak,” she said. “I think there was just a little bit more contention when I was an underclassman, and I can’t really say why.”

She added that Thursday night’s Bursurka­­—a joint concert with BOKA and Ursus Verses—is a good way to dissolve the notion of rivalries.

“I think the [idea] stems from the fact that there are two male groups, two female groups and two co-ed groups, and automatically people think that all of them are going to be butting heads,” she said. “Bursurka is a good opportunity for us to show the campus that the coed groups are here to work together and we’re just here to have fun with each other.”

“There’s always a friendly rivalry,” said Margaret Lindeman ’15 of Ursus Verses, “but I think it more comes from the fact that every group wants to make really good music. So we’re always pushing ourselves to perform better and be as good as we can be, not by putting other groups down, but by doing the best that we can.”

One aspect of the a cappella community that has always been strong is alumni relations, particularly with the Meddies and Longfellows, who hold frequent reunions.

“We have really tight alumni connections,” said Yang. “I know alums from ’06-’07 pretty well even though I never went to school with them, because they visited here sometimes. I’ve been added to the email thread list of recent alumni from 2001 on, and there’s a Facebook group too.”

Although the alumnae networks in the all-female groups may not be quite as established, the leaders say that their alumnae remain an important part of their identity. Over Spring Break, Miscellania did a weeklong tour of New England and New York, where they were able to touch base with several alumnae.

“We’ve done relatively informal reunions in the past, but I think it would be great to do a bigger, official reunion, too,” said Paige Gribb ’14 of Miscellania. “We’ll have our 45th anniversary in 2017, so that will definitely be cause for celebration.”

Above all else, the singers all seem to agree that a cappella has been a defining part of their Bowdoin experience, and many of them hope to continue singing after graduation.

“[A cappella] has helped me with my personal confidence in terms of singing,” said Nangeroni. “It’s honed my leadership skills but also my public speaking skills. After college, I know that I want to keep singing. I don’t know when or where, but I know that I need some sort of outlet, because it’s been a great way to just relieve stress and I enjoy it so much.”

Founded 2001  *  co-ed 

BEHIND THE NAME: Ursus means bear in Latin, and verse is a musical term for a line of words

Founded 1972  *  ALL WOMEN

BEHIND THE NAME: Created the year women were first admitted to Bowdoin; wanted the name to match the Meddiebempsters; looked in a dictionary and chose Miscellania

MUSICAL STYLE: Range of classical choral music and current pop

MOST POPULAR SONGS: Depends on the audience, but currently “Royals” by Lorde

TRADITION OR EVENT THEY’RE ASSOCIATED WITH: ValJam with the Longfellows and Meddielania with the Meddiebempsters

CLAIM TO FAME: They were on Maine Public Broadcasting Network with the Meddiebempsters a couple of years ago.

RECORDINGS: Several CDs are out, most recently Little Black Dress, and another in the works for this year or next 

SIGNATURE PERFORMANCE ATTIRE: Black dresses

IF THEY COULD PERFORM ANY SONG, WHAT WOULD IT BE:  “Scarborough Fair” by Simon and Garfunkel

Founded 2004  *  ALL men

BEHIND THE NAME: Named after Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, class of 1825

MUSICAL STYLE: Pop, contemporary a cappella and traditional American choral pieces

MOST POPULAR SONGS: “Hey Juliet” by LMNT

TRADITION OR EVENT THEY’RE ASSOCIATED WITH: ValJam with Miscellania

CLAIM TO FAME: Semi-finals at the International Championships of Collegiate A Cappella 3 years ago; made the Top 30 on the show Sing Off two seasons ago; sang the national anthem at a Celtics games 

RECORDINGS: A new EP is on the way, and they have previously recorded three CDs. 

SIGNATURE PERFORMANCE ATTIRE: Black suits

Founded 1994  *  co-ed

BEHIND THE NAME: It stood for Bowdoin’s Only Co-ed A Cappella, but the Best of College A Cappella CD acronym caused confusion, so the C was changed to a K

MUSICAL STYLE: Pop, with a little bit of indie

MOST POPULAR SONGS: A mashup of  “As Long As You Love Me” by Justin Bieber and “Wide Awake”  by Katy Perry

TRADITION OR EVENT THEY’RE ASSOCIATED WITH: Bursurka with Ursus Versus

CLAIM TO FAME: Low-key concerts for friends in college houses

RECORDINGS: The last CD was recorded 3 years ago, and another one is due this spring

SIGNATURE PERFORMANCE ATTIRE: Jewel tones

IF THEY COULD PERFORM ANY SONG, WHAT WOULD IT BE:  “No Scrubs” by TLC

Founded 2007  *  ALL WOMEN

BEHIND THE NAME: Randy Nichols said that the group was pretty in crime so they decided to incorporate it into the group’s name.

MUSICAL STYLE: Mostly folk with some higher energy music.

MOST POPULAR SONGS: A mashup of “Girl On Fire” by Alicia Keys and “Love the Way You Lie” by Eminem ft. Rihanna

TRADITION OR EVENT THEY’RE ASSOCIATED WITH: PrezJam with the Meddiebempsters

CLAIM TO FAME: They perform in many elderly homes in Brunswick and for the Portland Review.

RECORDINGS: One currently out, with another coming next year.

SIGNATURE PERFORMANCE ATTIRE: Seasonal. They wear sweaters and try to coordinate.

IF THEY COULD PERFORM ANY SONG, WHAT WOULD IT BE: “Elastic Heart” by Sia

Founded 1937  *  ALL men

BEHIND THE NAME: The original story is that someone was blindfolded while throwing darts at a map of Maine, and one dart struck Lake Meddybemps.

MUSICAL STYLE: Founded on barbershop, but they also do jazz arrangements and modern pop songs

MOST POPULAR SONGS: “Mood Indigo” by Duke Ellington and “Goodbye, My Coney Island Baby” by Les Applegate

TRADITION OR EVENT THEY’RE ASSOCIATED WITH: PrezJam with Bellamafia, and their annual tour

CLAIM TO FAME: They’ve sung at the White House, in Korea and in California

RECORDINGS: Decades of CDs, including Christmas with the Meddies

SIGNATURE PERFORMANCE ATTIRE: Khakis, white shirts, blue blazers, and Bowdoin polar bear ties

IF THEY COULD PERFORM ANY SONG, WHAT WOULD IT BE:  “Baby Got Back” by Sir Mix-a-Lot

At ValJam, the most recent Longfellow’s concert, audience members were thrilled to hear upbeat tunes like “Juliet” by LMNT and “Ignition Remix” by R. Kelly. This weekend, however, the Longfellows will be singing those pop songs alongside songs from years past, like “Sing me to Heaven” and “It is Well.”

This year marks the a cappella groups’ ten year anniversary and 20 former Longfellow members are coming to campus for a reunion.

The group, which started in 2004, has since become a core part of Bowdoin’s a cappella scene. It was founded by a member of the Class of 2007 who felt there was a need for another all-male group on campus. The Longfellows began as a barbershop quartet, called BBQ, but developed into the larger group they are today.

This weekend’s programming is  planned by Alumni Relations, and includes a casual dinner on Friday night, a presentation on Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and a formal dinner with dates and friends Saturday night.

Kevin Ma ’17, one of the newest members of the group, is particularly excited for the Saturday dinner.

“Where have they been for the past 10 years?” said Ma. “Ten years worth of Longfellows, I’ve heard a lot of stories about past Longfellows, and based on the stories, they all sound like real characters.”

Saturday night’s dinner will feature most of the singing. First, the original group, BBQ, will perform, followed by a middle group of alumni and finally the current group. To conclude, all the members will sing together for their families, friends and dates. 

“It’s very recent history, compared to the Meddies,” said Ma. The Meddiebempsters started in the 1930s and are the nation’s third-oldest a cappella group. However, the Longfellows consider their short history to be a unique and valuable quality.

“It’s what we treasure most,” said Shan Nagar ’16, who currently leads the group. “Since our group is so young, we’re privileged to be able to stay in close contact with the founding members. At any time throughout the year we can reach out for help and advice on life or music. Once we graduate, we’ll be able to reach out to members of the group.”

Ma said that he was looking forward to hearing the contrast between the old songs and the new.

“We’ll sing the songs of the Longfellows today, [and the alumni] will see what kinds of songs we do now. Then we’ll get together and sing the songs that all of us know. It’s like history through song,” said Ma.  

Nagar also noted how exciting it is to see just how far the new a cappella group has come since its conception in 2004. In 2011, the group made it to the Top 30 on NBC’s reality show “The Sing Off;” that same year the group made the semifinals of the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella. This year the group performed at a Celtics game, just as they did in 2010. 

“We’ve been fortunate to break out of the Bowdoin sphere,” said Nagar.

Additionally, Nagar said he appreciated the excuse to see the recent graduates this weekend:“I think that really the point of the weekend isn’t just celebrating the ten year anniversary, that just gives us an occasion to do this,” said Nagar. “It’s a chance to build unity between every member of the Longfellows, every generation.”

It all started when Antonio ’12 watched Manila Luzón, a television personality and runner-up in the third season of “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” a show that premiered in 2009 with the hope of finding America’s next drag superstar. 

“I was a huge fan,” said Antonio in a phone interview with the Orient. “I figured, I can learn from Manila.” 

(For personal reasons, Antonio prefers to be referred to by his first name only.)

After he began watching drag on television, Antonio began performing drag as Aurora Whorealis, the alter ego he adopted his senior year at Bowdoin.

“I didn’t know much about drag or drag queens. That was my first exposure to it. I had never been to a drag show before, but I wanted the campus to experience it,” said Antonio. 

“I actually had Manila [Luzón] come and teach me a workshop—me and maybe 12 other kids. We learned how to do drag makeup,” he said. “I’ve actually seen Manila a couple times since then and reconnected with her, and been able to show her that my drag has come so far.”

Antonio will be hosting the drag show sponsored by the Bowdoin Queer-Straight Alliance (BQSA) as Aurora Whorealis on Saturday night. 

“I thought it was a great idea to host the Drag Ball,” said Antonio, “I felt honored to be asked because I had so much to do with it my senior year. I think it’s a good opportunity to get to come back, since I’ve continued to do drag for two years, and it all started with the BQSA Drag Ball. That was formative in deciding that this was a hobby I really enjoyed.”

According to Antonio, regardless of sexual identity, drag’s main draw is its appeal to people who just want to have fun and experience something new.

“Some of my friends who had most fun my senior year were students who just decided they wanted to have fun and dress up in drag,” said Antonio. “They were students who identified as straight and non-straight, and there were some students who chose not to identify [as either]. You can be as big or as little as you want to be.”

Antonio was president of BQSA his senior year, and “wanted to make drag culture bigger” at Bowdoin. 

In 2012 he invited a drag queen to Maine to host Bowdoin’s first ever drag show. It was held in the basement of a College House, and it was there that Antonio performed for the first time. 

“I was really frantic that entire day,” recalled Antonio. “I was nervous about everything being in place. [Before performing] I always find an inner calm. It was nerve-wracking to dance around wearing high heels and ratty wigs, but it was really fun. I had a blast and got a really positive and supportive response from the audience.”  

However, Antonio noted that only a handful of people attended. The audience, he said, was “fantastic,” but he still wanted to find a way to make drag culture more visible at Bowdoin. 

Since Antonio’s tenure, BQSA has held events like the Drag Ball in Jack Magee’s Pub and Grill, which has increased awareness of them on campus. Being in the Pub (where Saturday’s performance will be)—under the lights and on a real stage—makes the show more of an experience. 

“It definitely will feel more like a real drag show. [The venue] is appropriate for the event and it’ll be a really good time. I’m glad the BQSA moved it out of a social house and into the Pub, because that’s one of the most central, public spaces on campus.”

For the past few years, Antonio has been living in Philadelphia—a bigger city with a bigger LGBTQIA population.

“There’s just a lot of people looking for outlets to express themselves,” said Antonio.

Antonio said he does not feel his alter ego is too much of a leap from his everyday personality.

“Aurora Whorealis...it isn’t too much of a persona,” said Antonio. “I don’t really act too differently. I put on some makeup, some tight fitting outfits, but I don’t really have a different performance identity. I don’t really draw a line of distinction between the two. I haven’t invested too much time in creating character. [Drag] is a hobby for me; it’s on the side.”

A typical drag show consists of several different performances, usually including a lip sync to a song or a mix of songs. According to Antonio, the experience is very theatrical.

“It takes a lot of guts to get in drag. You really share a part of your soul, your creative side,” he said.  

Since Antonio only began perfoming in 2012, he said he sympathizes with performers who are anxious about getting on stage and he has some advice. 

“Just have fun. Don’t take it too seriously,” he said. “The common thread seems to be to do it for the fun. The moment it becomes labored, it’s not worth it anymore.”

“A drag show is something different, something the grand majority of students have never seen,” Antonio added. “I’m excited to see who comes out and see what kinds of fun we can have.”

If students are having fun, Antonio said, there is a customary way of showing it. 

“At bars, people tip drag queens with dollar bills. It’s a really great way to show them you are having a really good time,” he said. “Drag performers love tips...though I don’t think you can tip in Polar Points.”

The 62 photos currently displayed in the Lamarche Gallery as part of the Office of Off-Campus Study’s “Exposure” exhibit range from professional shots to pictures snapped from a flip phone that are “barely Facebook worthy,” according to Kate Myall, assistant director of Off-Campus Study. However, these photos are not hanging because they are deemed excellent works of art, but because they tell unique stories of Bowdoin students abroad. 

Christine Wintersteen, director of Off-Campus Study, and Myall sent out prompts to students who were abroad in the past year, asking them to send in photographs and include a short caption explaining the image. 

“It was a way for the students to find a different means of processing their abroad experience and reflect back on it, trying to see whatever country they were in, in a different light,” said Abbie Geringer ’14, the curator of the exhibit.

Despite growing up in Philadelphia in a religious family of six that “encouraged self expression,” Zen Browne left home at age 17 after coming out as a gay woman. Decades later, Browne’s work is now on display at Bowdoin, documenting the painter’s journey of becoming a man.

“They couldn’t take it when I came out,” said Brown. “It wasn’t okay, to be gay or lesbian. But I don’t believe in sad stories. Pretty much everything that has occurred [in my life] has served as inspiration for me. It made sense that I couldn’t stay at home, because I needed to express myself and become who I am.”

A form of that same self-expression comes through in Browne’s artwork, a portion of which is now on display in the Blue Gallery of Smith Union, and will stay there until February 28. The show, entitled “Obscure Identities: A reflection on men of transsexual experience through painting,” displays paintings by Browne depicting both friends and people he has come to know since beginning the project, all of whom have undergone the sexual transitions from female to male and now consider themselves transmen. Browne’s work with these paintings directly parallels his own transition.

Upon entering the Robert H. and Blythe Bickel Edwards Center for Art and Dance, it is clear that it is a home for the arts—or at least that’s how dancer Adrienne Hanson ’14 feels. 

“You really feel the creativity when you walk in,” explained Hanson. “It’s incredible.”

Last year, walking to a painting class could take anywhere from 15 minutes to half an hour. Prior to the opening of the Edwards Center in August 2013, the visual arts and dance classes were spread out around campus and throughout the town of Brunswick, most notably at Maine Street’s Fort Andross Mill. The new center—a $6.5 million renovation of the former Longfellow Elementary School—has created a unified home for the visual art and dance departments. 

Last Saturday, the Meddiebempsters, Bowdoin’s oldest all-male a cappella group, performed at the 2nd Annual Smith College concert to benefit the Neil McManus Fund and the Beverley Pickering Alzheimer’s and Music Program. 

The concert was a benefit for dementia caregivers. While the concert provided audience members with music and laughs, the songs performed were recorded and will be used for another purpose: a music therapy study conducted by Johns Hopkins and Harvard University. 

The Meddies shared the stage with Smith College’s Smiffenpoofs, Mount Holyoke’s Victory Eights and Connecticut College’s CoCoBeaux. Recordings of the concert will be sold and proceeds will go towards the Neil McManus Memorial Fund created by Heather S. Craig, a former dementia caregiver, in memory of her late husband. 

It’s not every day you see a student and her professor lowering a 14-foot painting out of a third-story window, but that’s exactly what Lucy Walker ’14 and Mark Wethli, professor of art, did this summer with an oil paint mural of the Brunswick Town Green—the product of Walker’s years here at Bowdoin. It will be unveiled on November 16 in the waiting room of the Brunswick Mid Coast Primary Care and Walk-In Clinic.

“I came up with it the spring of my first year in a course called Public Art, and I was contacted that following summer asking if I wanted to actually make it,” said Walker.

“The Brunswick Downtown Association came to our class...and said that we could choose to work with any space in town. They were soliciting our ideas,” she added.

At the first Open Mic Night of the year, Esther Nunoo ’17 took the stage and silenced the audience with the words from her slam poetry piece, “Shalom.” Other than being “super nervous,” what she remembers most about the experience is what people commented on afterwards: her lack of shoes. 

“I don’t like to perform with shoes on,” explained Nunoo, “I feel like spitting—that’s what I call [speaking my poetry]—is very therapeutic. It’s kind of ritualistic. One artist put it perfectly, he said, ‘Performing poetry is kind of like performing open heart surgery, in front of an audience, with no anesthesia.’ That’s how I feel.” 

Nunoo has been performing her poetry for several years now. In eighth grade Nunoo starting doing rap battles with a friend, but it wasn’t until he introduced her to the Writer’s Collective in ninth grade that she truly began to take to slam poetry. The Writer’s Collective is a group of young people from New York City who gather on a weekly basis and write about social justice issues.  

This fall, Bowdoin Art Society, a new art interest group, entered the College’s art scene. For the past few years, Bowdoin has had two different art groups: Art Club, dedicated to the making of art, and the Student Museum Collaborative (SMC), devoted to bridging the gap between Bowdoin College Museum of Art and students. Art Society’s agenda, however, involves fostering conversations about visual arts and creating art shows composed of student work. 

“Art Society is about bringing together people who have an interest in the arts and forming a nucleus for the art community on campus,” said Tom Rosenblatt ’16, Art Society co-president. 

“Right now, there are a lot of other great art clubs, but we want to really centralize the artistic sphere on campus,” he added.

Dressed in maroon corduroys cuffed at the ankle, strappy suede sandals and an oversized sweater, Emily Hochman ’15 exudes the aura of an artist—as she rightly should. Hochman spent the summer living in rustic Canada as an artist-in-residence on Kent Island, a research outpost owned by the College. 

While most people go to Kent Island to pursue biology research, Hochman, set out to film a documentary. 

Hochman observed several other Bowdoin students doing field research projects based out of the Kent Island facility.  She is working this semester on an independent study with Sarah Childress, visiting assistant professor in film studies, to compile the footage she collected.