April Is The Cruellest Month

Everyone is now back from Spring Break, and I was certainly amused by my return to Santa Fe. Luckily it hasn’t snowed since Friday, but the weather is rather frigid. Most people are shocked or resigned that we have essentially returned to winter, as opposed to spring moving into summer. Fortunately, Santa Fe is notoriously changeable and will inevitably warm up soon. We can’t have softball season without warm weather! Every year after Spring Break, classes have the option of challenging each other to softball games instead of holding class. Challenges should be suitably dramatic and impressive, but we are not competitive about the game itself. The point of Johnnie softball is, like classes and the program, to enjoy ourselves in excellent company. I personally cannot play to save my life, but thankfully there are no strikeouts. I may also have someone else hit for me, or run for another person who can’t make it around the basepath. Once the weather stops dragging its feet, I am confident that we will have many games. What could be better than fresh air, sunshine, and watching friends hitting homeruns?

Elise Akie Kutsunai

Check It Out: The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, Bill Bryson

Mysterious E Factor

In senior lab this semester, we tackle with the Modern Synthesis (Darwin and Mendel’s theories of biology). We have been splitting time between readings on evolution and cells and practica on breeding Drosophila melanogaster, or common fruit flies. They are particularly attractive for genetics work because they breed true traits very quickly and require little care. We have also been studying slides of cells of various organisms in many stages of development. I took A.P. Biology as a high school senior and have done most of these experiments before, but they never fail to take my breath away. Our latest conundrum is about the cell itself. If cells are analogous to atoms as the unit or building block of life, how are they different? Every example of cells’ capabilities that my lab class could supply was matched by a counter-example of the same process in non-living organisms. The most obvious (and most troubling) is the idea that cells reproduce copies of themselves in a ordered fashion. Crystals do exactly the same thing! Unfortunately, however much I wish it were so, snowflakes are not alive. We have circled back to the elusive “E factor” from freshman lab, the élan vital that supplies the spark of life. We have no idea what this is, and neither do the authors we are currently reading. I am confident that we will progress and develop a better understanding, but life itself is such an intrinsically mysterious thing. Someday a scientist will pin it down, but then we’ll all rush forward with questions about the soul, and everything will start from the beginning. Oh, discovery!

Elise Akie Kutsunai

Check It Out: 28 Days Later, Danny Boyle (movie)

Look On My Works, Ye Mighty, And Despair!

Last week was the midnight opening of Watchmen. After pondering for a bit, I have decided that I like this movie. It was a riot to be at the opening, mostly because there were at least fifty Johnnies. Everyone had high expectations for the movie, especially since Alan Moore’s Watchmen is perhaps the most Johnnie piece of literature that I have ever read. It is stuffed with references and many moments of meta-thinking that demand a lot from the reader. The movie couldn’t be as seminal as the graphic novel, mostly because the graphic novel exploited and tested the boundaries of its art form to a masterful extent. The movie also left out the intervening segments between the graphic novel’s chapters (press releases, articles, essays, etc) for the sake of clarity. Many people were of course disappointed, but I am pleased nonetheless. The movie attempted to be as literally faithful to the graphic novel as possible (and thus of course missed many of the myriad subplots and subtleties of the original), and it succeeded admirably. There were people in costume and the trailers were particularly exciting. I am hopeful about the new Terminator and Star Trek movies that will open in May! Thankfully, Angels and Demons was met with extreme scepticism. At the very least, I am surrounded by people who are dubious about Dan Brown’s literary skill.

Elise Akie Kutsunai

Check It Out: Ozymandias, Percy Bysshe Shelley

Comedy of Manners and Errors

There were lots of exciting things outside of class this past week, so I will be bouncy about them and make it up next week. I’ve been involved with some aspect of performing arts since I was four, and here at St. John’s, I’ve been eaten by student theatre. Our organization is called Chrysostomos, or “silver-tongued” in Greek. It is entirely student-run; directors, technical staff and actors all come from the various levels of the college community. I’ve come a long way from knowing nothing about drama (except that everyone has a tenuous grip on sanity) and our last production went very well indeed. I was the assistant director for Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, with a mixed cast of undergraduates and graduate students. We had an excellent audience for each night, with a surprisingly number of Santa Fe residents as well. We’ve started doing more comedies this year, and I’m very pleased to see that we can properly put them on and that people really like them! Serious drama is marvellous (I’m a particular fan of tragedies myself), but sometimes lighter fare is just perfect—this show certainly came close.

Cheers,
Elise Akie Kutsunai

Check It Out: The Importance of Being Earnest (2002 film), Judi Dench, Colin Firth, Rupert Everett, Reese Witherspoon

Spring Weather Again

Surprise! I woke up with a delightful dusting of snow outside and am quite pleased with the world. I’ve yet to get over the novelty of seasons in general, and snow in particular has always been terribly exciting. We normally get bits of snow (which sadly melt the next day), but occasionally in the middle of winter we will get more than a few inches. I am less than happy about what this does to the roads and drivers in town, but on campus everything looks straight out of a picture book. When there’s a substantial snowfall that does stick around, we have epic snowball fights after seminar that range over the entire campus. There are also the requisite Johnnie snowmen that appear in courtyards with shades, a walkman and a cigarette—we have a disproportionate number of smokers on campus. My favorite part about this entire business is the opportunity to wear absurd clothes. Winter clothing is a riot! I’ve almost got the layers figured out, but somehow I’m too warm when I go back indoors. Central heating is going to remain as one of life’s mysteries for a while longer. Especially since outdoors is far too beautiful to not stomp around, leaving footprints and many happy thoughts.

Check It Out: The Snowman, Raymond Briggs

Spring is coming (I think)

I had a delightful experience in my lab class recently. We were having our final discussion on Darwin and ventured outside to sit by the fishpond. I had never had class outside, but it was a marvellous experience. The weather is flirting with the idea of spring (this weeks is expected to be in the 60s), and to sit in the sun and discuss the ramifications of evolution as opposed to creationism, with the waterfall and the wind making a racket in the background, was lovely. I adore the desert, particularly the high desert in Santa Fe, and there are times when the beauty of our campus takes me completely by surprise. I am convinced that we have the best sunsets and thunderstorms, but those are not subtle statements of beauty. To share an invigorating discussion in the sunshine is one of my more contented moments here. To be fair, anyone suffering from the slightest allergies is currently miserable. We have a lot of pollen here, with the additional burden of hulking juniper bushes all over campus (it takes time to develop an allergy to juniper; many upperclassmen are unhappy). I am fortunate to not be allergic to anything, and everyone who is currently taking Claritin has my sympathies, but I hope this inconvenience doesn’t get in the way of revelling in a fine spring day. The grassy knoll and the fishpond encourage contemplation, especially in the sunshine!

Check it out: A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson

If Music be the food of love, play on!

One of our seminars last week was on Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, an opera that we study at the end of sophomore music. We have two seminars on musical works: Mozart’s Don Giovanni for junior year, and Tristan for senior year. I have been very lucky with my experiences with the music program and thus have had a ball with both seminars, but I thought this would be a nice opportunity to ramble a bit about why we study music. Many people are confused why we spend sophomore year abruptly studying music theory and the bare bones of composition. One of the more unfortunate aspects of the program is that we have so much ground to cover that some things inevitably get left behind—for example, the now defunct visual arts tutorial. However, the wide compass of the program is one of my favorite things about being a student here. If I had gone to a traditional college for a B.A. in English, I would not have had the opportunity to spend a year studying music theory and would have missed out on the majesty of Beethoven and the overwhelming emotion of Wagner. I was in choir and concert band before entering the music tutorial and was familiar with music, but I had no idea about chord analysis or transposition. Now I am able to enjoy music from aesthetic and technical perspectives. It was very satisfying to discuss both the lyrics and the excruciating suspensions in Tristan, and I am happy with a good seminar.

Check it out: Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring

Masquerade! Every Face a Different Shade

This past Saturday was the Masquerade Ball! Which was mostly fun and very, very pretty. The official parties here at St. John’s are thrown by the Waltz Committee, Reality and the Student Events and Alumni Offices. I have been a part of Waltz Committee since freshman year, when I discovered the marvels of swing dancing and the terrors of organizing parties. All parties are split between swing dance and pop/hip-hop music and take place in the Great Hall, our multi-use lecture hall/performance space/dance and movie hall. This particular party was a Reality fundraiser, which meant a change from the usual ‘come on in!’ with an entry fee. Masks were provided with admission and I am certainly keeping mine. The decorations in the Great Hall were very impressive and perfectly complimented the dress code of formal black and white. The first hour was swing music and the dance floor was full! It is difficult to dance in a mask, since your peripheral vision completely disappears, but everyone managed quite well. There were delicious refreshments in the Common Room, including champagne for those of age who were so inclined, and plenty of chairs for people to sit and chat. The best part about this dance was seeing everyone dressed to the nines with outrageous masks. I have decided that my new goal in life is to become so cool that I too may wear a white suit and a white top hat, following the example of one particularly dapper guest. The next party will be color-themed as well and promises to be just as spectacular.