THE LINK – The Marquette Tribune -

Marquette University took back an offer for the position of dean of their College of Arts & Sciences from Jodi O’Brien, a professor of sociology at Seattle University, who is a lesbian.Some believe that this was due to her academic research on homosexuality and gay-Christian identity, according to The Marquette Tribune.

http://marquettetribune.org/2010/05/06/news/arts-sciences-dean-search-ends-without-appointment/

By Robert Rossi, Assoc. Culture Editor – (Photography: Christina Drago)

On Monday, Chicago-based power-pop band Gold Motel came to Harper’s Ferry in Allston and delivered a high-energy, 11-song set. The Gavel caught up with lead singer and keyboardist Greta Morgan and guitarist Dan Duszynski before the show.

R: How did you guys form?

G: Well, Dan and I had known each other for a few years.

D: Our bands toured together.

G: Dan and our bass player Matt and our drummer Adam were all in a band from Chicago called “This Is Me Smiling,” and my old band the Hush Sound took them out to open for us on our first headlining tour.  And then before that, just as a part of the Chicago music scene, I followed other incarnations of their band.  And Matt and Dan went to the same high school as me but were five years older, still are five years older.  I sort of followed them from afar.  And everyone who plays in this band now is somebody I admired and always wanted to play with from before.

D: It’s all about respect at the Gold Motel.

G: I feel very lucky.

R: Who influences you musically?

G: George Washington, Martin Luther King (laughs).  No, I think musically as a whole we all like the Beatles, the Kinks, the Zombies, the Beach Boys, the Motown collection.

D: Everybody likes a lot of different kinds of music, we’re all pretty open-minded.  As long as it’s performed well, I think everybody’s into pretty much anything.

R: Do you find yourselves playing a lot with bands that are influenced by the 60’s or do you stand out more?

G: I think a lot of bands are heavily influenced by really good pop songs, and whether those are from 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, or 90’s, a lot them were influenced by music that was happening in the 50’s and 60’s.

D: They’re all indirectly influenced by it anyways.

G: Yeah, right, we’re not trying to do a kickback thing, but sometimes there is a nostalgic tinge to the music.  (Looking at guitarist Eric Hehr, who’s just walked by) Hey, wanna do an interview for Boston College?

D: (To Eric) Hop in. (to The Gavel) This is E-Rock, our guitar player.

E: Whatup.

R: Greta, you changed your stage name recently.

G: Oh yeah.

R: Why’d you do that?

G: Well, Morgan is my middle name, and my mom’s maiden name, and I just like the way it looks and sounds better, and I figured I’d rather change it now than five more years in my career.

R: Why’d it take so long then?

G:  Well, I just felt like it seemed arrogant to change my name, but I wanted to create a new identity musically and I wanted to create a new identity for myself.  So I just started now.

R: Where’d you get the name Gold Motel?

G: It was actually pulled out of a hat when I was with some friends a few months ago.  It was the first one that didn’t involve potty humor.  I won’t give the other potential names.

D: Gold Motel was the winner though.

R: So no meaning or anything, just random?

G: Yeah, pretty much just random.  It happened to be my initials though, GM, Greta Morgan.

D: I didn’t even notice that ‘til right now.

G: So when we pulled it out we were like, oh more reason than one.

D: The name chose us, we didn’t choose the name.

R: What’s it like when you guys are writing and rehearsing?  What is the process?

G: Well, it’s kinda been different from the beginning.  Dan and I started recording the songs that are on the EP together.

D: You had most of them written though.

G: Yeah, I had pretty much most of them written, I’d guess like seven songs on the album.  Dan and I sat down and recorded them.  And then a few other songs, Eric brought “Safe in L.A.” to the band, Dan and I wrote “Stealing the Moonlight” together, some of the last songs to finish the album.  And I think toward the end of the record we got into the flow of how we should be making albums.

D: Yeah, so we’re gonna be more collaborative.

G: Yeah, right.

R: Those songs on the EP, those are among the first seven?

G: Yeah, the EP’s five songs, and then the album we’re gonna put out on June 1^st, that album’s called Summer House, and that has ten songs.  Including the EP, so five new songs.

R: How long’s the tour been going on, and how long is it gonna last?

G: It’s about a two week tour and we’re about halfway through.  We’re with our friends Family of the Year from Los Angeles.  And it’s been really fun so far.

D: Yeah this is our second tour as a band and I think everybody gets along really well.  It’s nice, what was the last one three weeks?  Yeah, it’s like they’re not too long, it’s almost like we’re just kinda taking a trip and everybody’s got you know, been hanging out at home for awhile so we’re all just having a lot of fun.

R: So do you have any plans to come back to the area anytime soon?

G: We’d like to.  This is the East Coast tour, and then we’re doing a Midwest tour right when our album comes out in June.  And then hopefully when the full-length’s out we’ll be doing more.

D: Some time in the fall maybe.

R: You guys are currently unsigned.  Are you looking for a record deal or are you just doing your own thing?

G: We’re self-releasing Summer House and then if the right offer came up, I think we’d consider it.

D: We’re open to it.

R: Do you have anything else you wanna add for the BC community?

G: You can follow the band twitter.com/goldmotel.  We have a bunch of cool, funny Youtube videos up.  Youtube.com/thisisgoldmotel.  Our new music video’s up.  It’s all about our web site.  We just put out another music video for “We’re on the Run,” which is a song for the new album.  I think that’s about it….  We like Boston!

D: We have a lot of new content, every couple weeks there’s some new stuff up there, so keep checking back.

From among the numerous artistic groups and individuals at Boston College, Arts Festival this year featured performances by the Bostonians and several different dance groups. Both events took place Saturday afternoon under a packed tent on O’Neill Plaza, wowing the students and community members in attendance.

The Bostonians, BC’s oldest a cappella group, began their 30-minute showcase with a medley of works by Lady Gaga. After a few more songs, including “Bye, Bye”, “Where I Stood” and “Bullet and a Target”, the Bostonians ended their second-to-last show of the year with a rendition of James Taylor’s “Shower the People”. This year’s final Bostonians performance took place later on Saturday in Fulton Hall.

Next on the Arts Fest schedule for the afternoon was the dance showcase, which gave several groups the opportunity to perform for a large audience before the end of the year. Among the performers were BC Irish Dance, BC Pom Squad, Dance Ensemble, Dance Organization of Boston College, P.A.T.U., Sexual Chocolate and ALC Showdown winner Synergy.

The groups, representing genres ranging from hip-hop to swing to Irish step, provided spectators with a cross section of the presence of dance at BC, impressing many in the audience and often eliciting shouts of excitement.

“I want snazzy dance moves like Synergy or Fuego,” said Kelsey Wasserman, A&S ’13, in envy. “The cultural dances were so fresh.”

This was a sentiment echoed by Shannon Cogan, A&S ’13, who simply stated “I wish I could do that!”

For those looking to hone their dance skills or get involved for the first time, the Dance Organization of BC will be offering free studio classes next semester.

By Sue Byun, Assoc. News Editor -

This past weekend, Robsham Theater finished a titillating run of Bertol Brecht’s Threepenny Opera, with music by Kurt Weill and directed by Dr. Stuart J. Hecht.

The musical, is set in the seedy 1830s London Soho scene around the time of Queen Victoria’s coronation. By taking a dark look at the lives of prostituting and stealing low-lifes, antiheros, and incompetent law enforcers, its essential message is that middle-class morality is a luxury when one needs to make a living. Thus, in the musical, the ugliest of sinners win.

Based on John Gay’s eighteenth-century Beggar’s Opera, Threepenny Opera comments on the political corruption, poverty, and bourgeois society of the Weimar Republic, an era in post World War I Germany shortly before the ascent of Hitler. Announced as an opera “such as only a beggar can afford,” Brecht was bringing together elements of high culture with low culture. The musical deals with the idea that the lower class was very much at the mercy of those with money and power, as was very much the situation in Weimar, Germany.

The despairing tone of the time was certainly captured by the production’s dissonant music, foreboding organ notes, and expressive costumes. Film noir elements further set the mood of sex, cynicism, and criminal intrigue. Scene titles like “Concerning the insecurity of the human condition” cheaply announced themselves on the projector screen.

An abstract backdrop evoking a confusing industrial setting with doorways, jail bars, and deconstructed walls that came together at jagged angles. The stage was effective in creating an urban space in which sin ruled the streets and hopes were crushed.

With every arrogant turn of the head, tap of the foot, and his con artist smooth voice, Evan Cole, A&S ‘ was a charismatic presence indeed as Macheath, the rogue yet irresistible king of thieves.

Cythia Beckwith, CSOM ’12 sparkled as Polly Peachum, the daughter of a too worldly businessman who makes a living licensing beggars. She succumbs to the seduction of Macheath. Beckwith showed remarkable flexibility from one act to the next as flaxen-haired ingénue to surprisingly tough outlaw’s wife ready to take over her husband’s bandit empire as he ran from the law.

The musical’s pervading cynicism was punctured by hilarious comic relief. When Macheath’s ex-lover Lucy, played by Libby McKnight, A&S ’11, meets Polly, a catty argument bears out in Jealousy Duet, eliciting appreciative laughs from the audience as did Macheath’s motley gang’s crass antics.

Also hard to forget is Jenny, Macheath’s prostitute and ex-lover played by Lauren Tripolitis, A&S ’10. When fortune threw her lemons, Jenny slashed them to bits with her tough, life’s-a-bitch-and-then-you-die attitude – and Tripolitis captures this to great effect with her sulking, darkly erotic presence.

Yes, Threepenny Opera might have been publicized as a musical parable of sex, drugs, and lies, but it is also a parable of social commentary, that in a tough world where moral and economic concerns often pit against each other, it is sometimes the reality that you have to be a sinner to stay alive.

In a note from the director that appeared in the Threepenny program, Hecht wrote, “Brecht asks that we remember the poor and don’t romanticize them, for that is to ignore their realities; and do not judge their appetites and behaviors too harshly, for they are those desperately without.”

By Robert Rossi, Assoc. Culture Editor – (Photography: Eliza Duggan)

“Dancing with bOp!” brought together Boston College’s award-winning jazz ensemble and many of the University’s dance groups.   Inside the closed-off tent at O’Neill Plaza, BC bOp! took the stage to a near-capacity crowd.

The band opened with the instrumental “Sing Sing Sing,”written by Louis Prima and made famous in 1937 by Benny Goodman.  The performance featured solos by saxophonist Rachel Schmidt, CSOM ’12, and trumpeter Steve Bass, A&S ‘11.   Next was a rendition of the Eartha Kitt song “My Discarded Men,” accompanied by a dance performed by the Boston College Dance Ensemble.  The first vocal performance of the night was handled entirely by Jeanette Hall, A&S ’10, who half-sung, half-snarled her way through the song with the perfect amount of attitude.  The song also featured a trombone solo by Alex Stewart, A&S ’10.

The next piece was a medley of “Steppin’ Out” and “Puttin’ on the Ritz,” and featured all five of the bOp! vocalists beautifully harmonizing over the song’s various tempo changes.  “You Make It Real” was the next song, and featured Nathan Walkowicz, LSOE ’13, handling the vocals.  The Dance Organization of BC (DOBC) accompanied the acoustic-rock tune.

bOp! followed up with a masterful rendition of Sonny Rollins’ “Tenor Madness,” which featured a battle between Greg Fortunato, A&S ‘11, Patrick Andrea, CSOM ’13, and Bass, each logically on the tenor sax.  The song also boasted a jaw-dropping solo by pianist Matt Gibbons, CSOM ’11.  The Swing Kids joined the ensemble for the next tune, “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree.” After performing earlier in the day to Muse’s “Supermassive Black Hole,” the Swing Kids clearly enjoyed dancing to the live band.

The seventh piece was an instrumental entitled “Stoned Soul Picnic.”  The show hit one of its high moments (though there were certainly many) during Bill Withers’  “Ain’t No Sunshine,” which featured an accompanying tap dance by the DOBC.  Brendan Quinn, CSOM ’11, elicited wild reactions from the audience during his vocal performance, which outshone even Aaron Kelly’s rendition on this season’s  American Idol.

The next piece was another instrumental, Charles Mingus’ “Better Get Hit In Your Soul,” and featured another terrific solo from Gibbons.  The tenth piece was a medley of Indian tunes and supported a dance routine from four members of Masti, who gave one of the best performances of the night among the dancers.

After a performance of Rodgers and Hart’s “I Could Write a Book,” bOp! hit another high with a cover of Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode.” Playing on the most straight-up rock and roll song of the night, guitarist Chris Daley, A&S ’13, delivered three straight minutes of ear-splitting, remarkable guitar, all while the Swing Kids returned to the dance floor and one-upped their previous routine.

The next tune, the instrumental “Groove Merchant,” featured yet another solo from Bass and was followed by “Right as Rain,” which again had Hall and the DOBC taking center stage.  “Around the World” had the five bOp! vocalists once again sharing the spotlight, while “Trop C’est Trop/C’est Pas Complique” and “Drum Piece” both supported a dance by PATU.

Jon Tveit, A&S ’10, took on the vocals for “Ain’t Nothing Wrong…” while the DOBC gave its final performance of the night.  The instrumental “Roll ‘Em” followed, and then a performance of “Dance Above the Rainbow” with BC Irish Dance.  The instrumental “Los Gatos” was next, and featured another solo by Fortunato.

The last performance of the night was a medley of hip-hop and pop songs supporting the dance group PHAYMUS.  The five vocalists drew strong reactions from the crowd while donning sunglasses and delivering the lyrics to Lil Wayne’s “Lollipop”  and Ke$ha’s “Tik Tok” with straight faces.  PHAYMUS’ routine impressed the audience as well.

The one negative about the whole night was the location of the dance stage below the eye level of most of the audience.  Many audience members left their seats after the first dance performance to stand at the side of the tent in order to see the dancers for the rest of the night.  The dancers and musicians themselves, however, were terrific.  After the tour de force performance delivered by bOp!, it would be difficult to argue that the group is not the strongest collection of musicians currently at BC.

By Tue Tran, Editor-in-Chief – (Photography: Christina Rogers)

Some Boston College students woke up this morning, wondering if they should follow singer Ke$ha’s lead and brush their teeth with a bottle of Jack. Others forgot and brushed with contaminated water.

Ashley Francisque, A&S ‘10, quickly rinsed her mouth with Dasani water once she remembered the boil water order the state issued yesterday. This occurred after an aqueduct broke in Weston, Mass., causing millions of people to have to adapt to different guidelines for water usage.

Francisque then realized how much this would impact her daily routine.

“It’s very inconvenient because I have to brush my teeth and do these everyday things,” Francisque said. “It’s hard to remember because you’re so used to doing them.”

Francisque lives in St. Ignatius Gate, and does not have a stove with which to boil water – a BC Alert email stated that people without stoves can boil water  by placing it in a microwave safe container for 3 to 5 minutes in the microwave, depending on the microwave.

On the other hand, Tony Jennaro, A&S ‘10, did not find the water situation to be too troubling.”I started boiling water immediately,” Jennaro said. “I haven’t found it to be much of an inconvenience. You just boil some water.”

When she found out about the boil water order, Megan McGuire, A&S ‘11, was not fazed by the situation either, particularly because of the help of a roommate’s parent.

“My roommate’s mom had dropped off four huge cases of Poland Spring,” McGuire said, in an email. “So I guess I’m kind of lucky in that aspect. I tend to be unfazed by things like this, even though I should be [worried]. But my roommates are really on top of it. We have plastic silverware to avoid doing dishes, water by the sink in water bottles to brush our teeth, etc.”

Some people who are against bottled water had to make an exception for this situation. “I had to buy bottled water today,” Brian Tracz, A&S ‘12, who has not purchased a bottle of water since sometime last year.

Phil Seidl, LSOE ‘13, noticed, however, that other students did not hesitate to buy large numbers of bottled water from the dining halls. “Once the news started to spread, people were buying Smart Water by the case, and the dining hall is already sold out of water and has been for a while,” Seidl said, in an email.

While Governor Deval Patrick said that the problem should be solved in a few days if workers can successfully patch the leak, Francisque is still concerned that bottled water is nowhere to be found. “I just got the last bottle of water from [City Convenience] this morning, and I know there’s no water anywhere else.”

Other than a bottled water shortage, students gearing up to study today found out that their favorite places to get coffee were closed.

“I really didn’t think much of it until I realized there’s no coffee anywhere,” McGuire said. “Not very good for my productive day at the library.”

The situation shed light on how the community was able to react to the situation. “The civic response was great,” Tracz said. “The police were on top of it,” he said, referring to the officers driving around, notifying people of the situation with bullhorns. “The Chestnut Hill Reservoir was activated immediately … They’re testing the water hourly. The infrastructure that they have set up is excellent.”

Others, however, felt that BC’s notification system was too slow – no one interviewed had received a text, and the email from the Office of Residential Life, sent through the Office of the Dean for Student Development, was received by students sporadically.

“Aren’t we supposed to have a ‘state of emergency’ type of text message sent out to our phones?” Jack Lundy, A&S ’11 asked, in an email. “I never got anything … My brother who was visiting Boston for the weekend texted me, telling me to be wary of the water. He informed me before BC did.”

Some students also believe that they are sick from consuming contaminated water, with symptoms such as vomiting. “One of my friends I believe is sick from it,” Lundy said. “She is not sure if she has come down with something or not but she told me she can’t seem to keep anything down.

Overall, this situation allowed students to take a step back and reflect on how much of the world must boil their water in order for it to be safe to drink.

“It’s a wake up call to the BC community to see what much of the world goes through,” Scott Jelinek, A&S ‘10, said. “At least we have running water.”

“You take it for granted the fact that you can get water wherever,” Andrew Durkot, A&S ‘11, said. “And now when you’re about to do something, you stop and realize that you need water.”

Photography: Eliza Duggan

(Click on an image below to see the pictures up close, and click on the left arrow to proceed to the next image).

By Robert Rossi, Assoc. Culture Editor – (Photography: Eliza Duggan)

No Country For Dead Men, the spring performance by the Committee for Creative Enactments (CCE), was a hilarious exercise in Old West parody and the theater of the absurd.  Directed by Joseph Mahar, A&S ’10, and performed in the O’Connell House, the play’s plot centers on a string of murders in a gold mining town in Texas.  Every character that owns the right to the town’s gold mine is mysteriously found dead.  The deaths spark an investigation by all of the townspeople, not because murder is illegal, but because any murder committed must be obvious, and therefore cannot be mysterious.

The plot cannot be explained more because the plot was deliberately designed to make no sense.  The CCE is not concerned with storyline or character, and many of the audience members who were willing to abandon traditional expectations found the jokes (many of them improvised), hilarious.  The CCE’s brand of audience interaction also provides for a unique theater experience.  The cast members speak directly to specific audience members without breaking character, and the director and crew often interrupted the performance to address the audience as a whole or just to throw out cookies.  As with all CCE shows, No Country For Dead Men broke off from the main stage at points into various side rooms, each with different characters and a different scene.  Each audience member had to choose which side room to enter, and therefore could not see the entire play without going to multiple performances and watching each side scene.

The show’s best moments came not in the side scenes, however, but when all of the characters shared the main stage.  Stealing the show was Nicholas Vasiliades, A&S ’10, as Daniel Plainview (yes, the same Daniel Plainview from There Will Be Blood).  Vasiliades nailed all of the mannerisms Daniel Day-Lewis gave Plainview in the 2007 film, and successfully exaggerated them to bring his performance to the perfect point between imitation and caricature.  While there were many jokes that only audience members who’d seen There Will Be Blood would find funny, Vasiliades managed to pull off the biggest laugh off the night.  On trial for murder, Plainview was asked how he pleads.  He immediately responded with a shout of “GUILTY!”, then paused a moment to examine the shocked faces of the other characters, and then added “of being innocent!” He then pointed at the audience and said, “You fools, you look foolish, foolish!” The audience laughed so hard that the next three or four lines were inaudible from my seat.

Preceding the start of No Country For Dead Men was a short play entitled Deckard Kills Lenoy, a parody of the murder-mystery-comedies that the CCE puts on every ear.  Deckard, played by Noel Naczi, CSOM ’10, killed Lenoy, played by Kaz Filus, A&S ’10, in the most obvious manner possible.  Deckard entered Lenoy’s house, told Lenoy point blank he would kill him, and then pulled out a shotgun and murdered him.  The other characters feigned shocked at Lenoy’s death, and ask the audience to vote for who they believed to have killed Deckard.  The verdict, unsurprisingly, was not Deckard.  After the scene’s end, Naczi, still in character, approached Filus, still laying dead as Lenoy, and began whispering to him, inaudibly from the audience.  Watching Filus trying and failing to keep a straight face was one of the highlights of the night and a tribute to Naczi’s skill as an improvisational comedian.  The major knock that one could give No Country For Dead Men was the absence of both Naczi and Filus from major roles.

The show, or both of them if one were to look at it in that light, was a major success.  Sadly, it marked the last CCE performance for nearly half of the group, as seniors dominated the cast and crew list.  Many of the faces from the performance will be missing next year in the O’Connell House, and one cannot help thinking it will be difficult for the CCE to match the hilarity of No Country For Dead Men without them.

By Lea Freeman, Asst. Culture Editor – (Photography: Michelle Martinez, News Editor)

On Friday, the second annual “Slam Fashionation” runway show took place, featuring student-designed and modeled clothing, as well as original poetry.

Expectations were high, and Slam Fashionation did not disappoint, filling the main Arts Fest tent to overflowing with enthusiastic, excited, viewers. Expertly executed lighting and music made those lucky enough to ge

t a seat feel like a VIP at a very exclusive event.

The participants were not members of any specific group or club on campus. They were chosen instead from “open calls” for designers, models, and poets. The event’s theme was “elements,” with each creation

intended to exemplify one of the four classical elements, of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. The poetry was likewise written to portray this theme. Collaboration between poets ensured the prevalence of a strong “slam poetry” style.

Slam Fashionation is the brainchild of Kathie Chang. During her sophomore year of college, Chang became the UGBC Director of Fine Arts in the Department of Student Life. Her initial goal involved a huge collaborative event with every single arts group on campus. Although this proved impossible, Chang decided to do something through UGBC a

t Arts Fest. Along with Lauren Gomez, a member of Art Club, Chang planned a fashion show and an open mic poetry reading. Time constraints forced to two events to be melded together, resulting in Slam Fashionation as it is today.
The poetry component of Slam Fashionation was particularly well received. A total of 9 poets wrote and performed interesting and unique works setting the mood for the clothing on display. Poet Kevin Hall’s piece was even accompanied by Paul Yang’s improvised saxophone. Each of the 38 model’s outfits suited them perfectly, and each

model flawless preformed his or her runway strut.

Since the first Slam Fashionation last year, the event has grown substantially. The number of models and designers nearly doubled, with other additions to this year’s event including, the “elements” theme adding unity to the show, as well as a formal runway and professional spotlights. Chang expects a bright future for Slam Fashionation, though organization of next year’s performance will be conducted by Preston Landers and Jordan Mendoza. She hopes that this event will be a quintessential part of arts fest. In her own words, “I want Slam Fashionation to be at Artsfest when 10 years

from now when I come back to visit Boston College.”

- Select Gavel photos from the event.