Deeper than SKIN (3/20/05)

I knew this would be a tough assignment. What do I know about fashion? What would it have to do with the show's stated purpose of countering stereotypes about Asian-Pacific Americans? With these doubts I sat down to SKIN/InspirAsian last Saturday in the Levin Ballroom. It didn't matter that the audience was small. They connected.

Hillel Theater Group presents HAIR! (3/25/05)

"Your draft notice arrived today."

One of the more revealing lines that gave meaning to Hillel Theater Group's production of the musical HAIR! at Shapiro Theater last Tuesday. Let these words stew in the back of your mind as you read...

Gospel Extravaganza leaves some in tears (4/8/05)

Good news! You passed your midterm. Good news! She said yes. Good news! Your dad made it through surgery; he's going to be fine.

How did you feel when you last heard really good news? Try to remember. Don't even try to describe; just feel it. Now how about this:

Good news! You are saved.

Jump! The thrill of falling through the sky (4/15/05)

Would you jump from an airplane? I did...

Treasure hunt helps build understanding (4/15/05)

Last Sunday's Hillel- and BBSO-sponsored Treasure Hunt, with its 20-odd participants, was hardly the most crowd-drawing event of the year. Yet it stands out in its originality of purpose: To foster a link between the Black and Jewish communities on campus. For this reason, both its purpose and process merit respect and thoughtful consideration by next year's student leaders.

The Reckoning, Pt. 1 (9/6/05)

Editor's Note: Michael Sitzman wrote this as a personal remembrance of Sept. 11, 2001. He gave The Hoot permission to reprint it. This is part I of II.

The ship and the caravan (9/6/05)

The Intercultural Center (ICC) was a hotbed of activity last season with two farewell dinners. In April, the ICC and SASA (South Asian Students' Association) banquets featured speeches by outgoing seniors, and by other students and staff wishing them well. Additionally, a new canvas mural on the ICC staircase was dedicated in May.

Mercy (9/23/05)

Dear God, help us. Hear our prayers and have mercy...

The hurricane was summed up well in a newspaper quote as corpses floated down the street in the devastated Gulf Coast city: "The weak and staggered senses of mankind may gather fragments of the disaster, and may strive with inevitable incompleteness to convey the merest impression of the saddest story which ever engaged the efforts of a reporter..."

The Reckoning, Pt. 2 (9/23/05)

Editor's Note: Michael Sitzman wrote this as a personal remembrance of Sept. 11, 2001. He gave The Hoot permission to reprint it. This is part II of II.

Okapi! Lessons from the savanna (10/7/05)

So here's another week gone by, and I've just got this to say: Chill, Brandeis! It seems that controversy is in the air instead of the cooler days of fall I had been waiting for. Lately, the campus press has been abuzz with much fuss about allegedly stereotypical and pejorative statements. Insults are met with bigger insults; anger begets anger. Must be the humidity. Well, if we can't bring on cooler weather, maybe it's time for cooler heads; we'll need the energy for the midterms...

At the turning (10/12/05)

This is the story told at this time each year with a regularity as sure as the beating of a young heart. The day it would cease to be told: That indeed is the day my own heart would cease to be young, and I would wish then that it should beat no longer. Come now to the orchard, and witness the story with me as it is told once more...

In the beauty of the lilies (10/19/05)

This is for those who serve. It merits perennial reflection by all of us who enjoy a thing called freedom, something as vital as air itself, yet just as easy to overlook. For some among us, there exists something that causes them to put aside personal concerns in defense of that very freedom. Some are our fellow students. What would compel people to put themselves in peril for the sake of others? We have been asked to think about this many times; today, I challenge you to feel it, however you will.

Hazing, 'Deis-style (10/21/05)

The Hoot welcomes a new columnist to its ranks...

A cantar de nuevo (10/28/05)

Where is the point of contact? In what universe does Panama share a border with Jamaica? Where can you find the confluence of currents and the crossroads of journeys, where the conga and timbales flirt with the verse of Frost and Longfellow? Does there exist a doorway that can teleport us from Ireland to Cuba?

Grandpa's picture (11/8/05)

In Mr. Arnold's kindergarten art class we created pictures one day with a new technique. We drew in crayon, then painted over it in solid color. The paint covered the bare spots but ran off the crayon's marks so the drawing showed through -- a beautiful effect. I painted a house with an evergreen tree and clouds, in a child's typical style, and chose a deep, bright blue to cover it. I liked my picture. My mom did too. She often displayed my schoolwork on the kitchen icebox. Not this one...

A letter to Yalile in the year 2015 (11/11/05)

My Little Girl,
Even as I write this letter, you've not yet been born, nor am I certain that you ever will be. But no matter; as I merely wish, if indeed this letter finds you in this world, that it should find you well and happy. Hopefully I will be there at your side, your father: To protect and take good care of you; to calm and soothe you when you are distressed; and to somehow show you all that I have found in the beauty of the life that surrounds us...

Beanie Baby (11/18/05)

Author's Note: This is a true story; only the names have been changed. It is not meant to express an opinion; merely to present a glimpse into a human life.

My name is Mónica. Sometimes, when I look in the mirror, I hardly know myself. I've been through so much in my 19 years and I'm still a rebel. I've been in trouble with my mom, school, and the law; maybe, God willing, I can now leave it behind me...

What stories they will tell (12/2/05)

It was my privilege this semester to go with my Yiddish class to the National Yiddish Book Center in Amherst. Not a bad destination for my first Brandeis field-trip. It's hard to describe: Bookstore, lecture-hall, cinema, museum, library, bindery, and research center. And you'll hear young people speaking Yiddish there; you should go.

Stranger still is its location. My mind and heart expect anything Yiddish to be somewhere in orbit around New York or Eastern Europe, not rural Amherst, Massachusetts. Yet there it sits on a nondescript rural plot: A modern, unpainted wood building with a peaked roof, vaguely resembling a European shtetl. Its appearance is understated, sincere, definitely quirky, confident in purpose. Hey, that's us!

E pur si muove: The man who saw through the darkness (12/9/05)

First Light: It is the moment when a new telescope's lens is first exposed to the light of the heavens. Light, made of photons, particles that have no size, travels through space fast enough to travel in a second seven times around the world. It could reach the moon in under two seconds. The time it would take to reach us from Jupiter: Forty-five minutes. Thus, long ago, did photons travel from there to the eyes of a man in Italy, through a small tube he had fashioned and now held in his hands, gazing at the sky...

Qimmeq and the cafeteria caper (1/20/06)

Fall semester: Seems like only yesterday. Fear. Dysentery. Midterms. And none of us will ever forget the events of 12/11, the day that changed Brandeis forever...

Thus began a quest by some brave students, with the help of my faithful dog, Qimmeq, to solve the Mystery of the Cafeteria Caper.

The color of twilight (1/27/06)

She has always been Grandma to me, even though my dad's real mother, Martha, died before I was born. Long before my grandfather married either one, just as he was to go off to college, life intervened. The Great Depression forced him to leave New York for California to help his uncle in his shoe store. Things used to be like that, I'm told. But while in Los Angeles, he met my biological grandmother, and that's why you're reading this...

Before this dance is through (2/3/06)

There's something indescribable about the movement of dance. Watching someone who finds dance natural, the sublime, easy coordination is visual magic to the beholder. God knows how it must feel to the dancer; she couldn't imagine, as dancing never felt natural to her. Still, she longed to know that sensation of effortless movement, and the certainty that any random man would ask her to dance the moment she found herself unaccompanied. Imagine...

A Brandeis homecoming (2/10/06)

Friends, this week let me tell you a little about my life. This is really a story about us all, and the wonder of that circle when it finally closes...

Sunday night in Terminal B (3/3/06)

Once the planet's eighth-busiest airport, formerly boasting the world's highest control-tower, Boston's Logan International sits just a few miles from Lynn, Massachusetts, where General Electric invented the jet engine. But on this winter evening all the counters were closed, the ticket-agents long gone, the arrivals area all but deserted. Perhaps, were it at JFK or O'Hare, the American Airlines terminal might have been busier at this hour, as would befit a place with a history so marked by world records and ingenuity...

Kaselehlia! - A journey to the Pacific (3/10/06)

Friends, let me tell you about the weirdest trip I ever took. It was two-thousand miles past Hawai'i to the island of Ponape, a two-day flight over the turquoise side of our planet. For long crossings, no body of water even remotely compares to the Pacific Ocean. I took Continental Airlines' "island-hopper" shuttle between Hawai'i and Guam, a six-stop aerial "bus-ride" across the sea. People from the countless islands fly on it...

In the season of the peeper and the crocus (3/17/06)

There comes an indescribable sense of liberation when winter's grip finally breaks; a feeling of freedom that perhaps only people in cold climates can appreciate. The first hint of this great deliverance is some hearty chestful of outdoor air breathed in at just the right moment: A rush of earth, moss, decaying leaves, fungi, and dew, mixed in perfect proportion and aged. Yes, that's it! It's coming...

Mau ke aloha no Hawai`i (Love always for Hawai`i) (3/24/06)

It was one of those rare cultural treats on a Thursday night; not the kind packaged as an evening in paradise, as it often is for the tourist set. I think its sponsors, BAASA and the ICC, have every reason to be proud of last week's Hawaiian lu`au, part of the ongoing Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month festivities. There was something about it that attracted the passerby with an island-style welcome: E komo mai! Come on in...

Watching the dung-beetles: Notes from a student's semester in Africa (3/31/06)

In the dead of night, compound guards were knocking at the door. "Pardon us for waking you, Miss; we thought you might like to see the aardvark we've spotted outside..."

In the forest of our Creator (4/7/06)

Imagine a nice Jewish boy finishing his second year at Brandeis University. Since starting here, he's become connected as never before with his "people" and his roots; now he studies Yiddish and attends Shabbes dinners on Fridays because he wants to. So this same student sings in the Gospel choir at Protestant services, praying in Jesus' name with the rest. Friends, it's time for a story which I must tell in my own way. Gather 'round...

Hope from America: A letter to Papa in the old country (4/28/06)

New Haven: 18 April, 1943

Dear Papa,
Sholem alechem! I miss you much and hope this letter should find you safe and well. Please pardon my Yiddish; it has grown a bit rusty in America. We finally got our orders this morning, so I am writing to you aboard a troop train bound for New London; we ship out tomorrow to the European front...

Deep is the gulf (9/1/06)

Imagine, if you will, a city below sea-level. Every minute, every day, on the nearby Gulf of Mexico, waves roll and break above your head. Now picture a narrow portage of sunken land between Pontchartrain and the continent's mightiest river, the Mississippi. Imagine this is your home.

When surrounded by water, you had best look to God. And learn to laugh at death.

There once lived a hunter (9/8/06)

At lunchtime today, a certain columnist for The Hoot, who has been away for the weekend, learns that his hero, Steve Irwin, known the world over as the Crocodile Hunter, is dead. Dear readers, this is a shameless eulogy. No apologies are forthcoming.

Oh, be amazed... (9/15/06)

These are the "days of miracle and wonder," according to Paul Simon's lyrics. And so it was, with those words ringing in my head, that a random January day last year found me completely mute...

Welcome back overseas: A return to Daufuskie (9/22/06)

In his book, Pat Conroy called it Yamacraw Island to protect its anonymity, knowing that even a place seemingly forgotten by time would need protection from time's onslaught. Its true name is Daufuskie: An enchanting, heartbreaking corner of America where agriculture, slavery, history, faith, poverty, real estate, and culture collide.

The story of Lito (9/29/06)

All his life he longed for that scene. Or something like it. It came to him only in occasional dreams: That indescribably painful sweetness. Being one of the group, hanging out with friends, belonging. Years would pass, but still those rare dreams would haunt him with their bliss. He would always wake up crying. Some of you may know him. This is the story of Lito, and how he spent a lifetime searching for that sweet place we all seek. Come, let us walk the streets with him and hear their music. You may hear an oddly familiar tune...

Wisdom in shades of grey (10/6/06)

Out in the far-western Pacific lies a young nation of widely-scattered islands and coral atolls called the Federated States of Micronesia. It covers an area of ocean as large as the United States, but its total land area is no bigger than Rhode Island. Among the hundreds of flat, ring-shaped atolls are Pingelap and Mokil (Mwoakilloa)... These islands have been of interest to geneticists because of the occurrence of a distinct form of total colorblindness, or achromatopsia, among their small populations...

Breakin' it down at the Main Event (10/20/06)

What beams with the pride of flags waving, educates us in rhyme and verse, and pulses with tango's yearning? What commands with flamenco's exquisite urgency; rivals salsa's exuberant joy; and curses loudly with the desperation of the street? It is the struggle to break down the barriers that confine us, and it was the theme of this year's Main Event show.

Our new Brandeis fight-song (10/27/06)

Dear Alma Mater, we shall e'er be true to you
And we'll uphold the honor of the white and blue!
And after ev'ry time a vict'ry we have won
We'll know our Brandeis pride is what has spurred us on!
So hear our rallying cry as we declare as one:
For dear old Brandeis, on to greater heights! Fight on!

I knew that guy was sketchy! (11/10/06)

Alright, friends, we need to chill a bit; I sure do, at least. So, with this installation of Horseradish, I present these two true (and all-too-true) stories of Samoan Sally and The Texas Rubber Round-Up. Make of 'em what you will.

In the light of Thursday morning (11/13/06)

It's an ordinary evening as we sing at Positive Foundations' coffeehouse, helping fellow students in their efforts to raise money to fight extreme poverty worldwide. I'm performing with the gospel choir, Voices of Praise, and this is my first time singing at Chum's. I hear someone speak about how the actions we take today will have an effect on tomorrow's world. Taking a peek into the money-box, I swear I see it instead filled with random things: Some little bag of powder, a thin net, a handful of seeds, a pair of old shoes, and a used book. And I wonder how tomorrow came so fast...

The [n-y-c] files: When a nickel was magic (11/30/06)

    "Come find out what you can't know; see what's not there.
     It's no more, but it used to be -
     In humanity's hometown; you know where.
     These are the [n-y-c] files." (First in a series)

"Ottoman?" she asked.

"No, automat. Ever heard the word?" I must have asked six friends from the New York area, and only one knew what it meant -- after a hint. It's a sure sign of the times, I guess, when not even New York kids know about it, even though it was once as much a part of their city's daily landscape as the Empire State Building or Ebbets Field...

The [n-y-c] files: D train to Stillwell Avenue (12/2/06)

    "Come find out what you can't know; see what's not there.
     It's no more, but it used to be -
     In humanity's hometown; you know where.
     These are the [n-y-c] files." (Second in a series)

Most historians believe Dutch settlers first named it Conyne Eylandt (Rabbit Island) for the wild rabbits living there. Others attribute the name to the local Konoh tribe. Some claim the English named it for its cone-shaped hills. Whatever you think you know about Coney Island, its very beginnings illustrate how our view depends on the lens we choose to see it through...

What's Goin' On? BBSO stages a Kwanzaa coup (1/26/07)

What happens when students planning a celebration abandon the tried-and-true formula? What if ambition overreaches against long odds? What if it's staged two days before finals in a hall that's a little too large? And just what is Kwanzaa anyway?

It's the show that stole the semester...

The [n-y-c] files: The man who drove the bums out (1/28/07)

    "Come find out what you can't know; see what's not there.
     It's no more, but it used to be -
     In humanity's hometown; you know where.
     These are the [n-y-c] files." (Third in a series)

Picture, if you possibly can, a nation fallen on hard times such as our generation has never known, a quarter of its workforce unemployed. Imagine its largest city, home to millions of new Americans, their hard-won financial gains immeasurably set back in the worst economic cataclysm of the century. Suppose there lives a stocky man, barely five feet tall... Winning the hearts of millions and a permanent place in a city's history and collective consciousness, he becomes a figure whose very name remains a household word to New Yorkers, young and old alike, to this day. The name: LaGuardia.

When God played with matches (2/2/07)

They settled these atolls, finding their way by charts made of sticks tied together. The people of the Marshall Islands invented three kinds of stick-charts: The mattang and medo, depicting the wave patterns around island clusters; and the rebillit, showing the positions of islands relative to each other. They populated two parallel island chains, which they called Ratak and Ralik: Sunrise and sunset.

Bikini Atoll acquired notoriety far beyond becoming the namesake of the two-piece swimsuit when our nation, after relocating the local population to nearby Rongerik Atoll, began a long series of atomic tests in 1946. It would be temporary, the Bikinians were told, and for the benefit of mankind...

EAT ME! (Pardon my bad "taste") (2/9/07)

Suppose you are a cannibal. You're feeling real hungry one night when some random stranger appears at your door. Just what would this poor soul need to say to convince you not to eat him?

I live in a city: Pastel on green canvas (3/4/07)

     "I live in a city, yes I do, made by human hands."
     -- Malvina Reynolds

     Come witness remarkable moments in the great cities we call home...
     and the people who made them. First in a series.

How you see Miami just depends on when and where you choose to look...

I live in a city: Chronicles of a town in motion (3/9/07)

     "I live in a city, yes I do, made by human hands."
     -- Malvina Reynolds

     Come witness remarkable moments in the great cities we call home...
     and the people who made them. Second in a series.

Miracles and paradoxes abound in San Francisco: A city in constant motion, born in the confluence of events, challenged in tragedy, and re-conceived in fantasy and hope...

Letter to the Editor: 'Hoot' if you love Brandeis! (3/16/07)

To the Editor:

It is with some sadness that I read last week's letter to the editor ("Brandeis not so much a 'hoot' lately," 9 March 2007). May I offer a very biased insider's view:

We're a hoot indeed, and we've much to be proud of...

True Story Theater leaves identity at the checkpoint (3/16/07)

A bomb explodes in the street outside the museum.

The boy gazes out at the violence, then back at the exhibit: "The street looks just the same as this; my God, I can't get out...!" He is part of the exhibit now, trapped inside the glass.

"Stay in here," his father says. "Stay here behind the glass of fear and memory..."

I live in a city: No burden for shoulders so big (3/23/07)

     "I live in a city, yes I do, made by human hands."
     -- Malvina Reynolds

     Come witness remarkable moments in the great cities we call home...
     and the people who made them. Third in a series.

Pungent and loud in flavor, sprouting un-self-consciously from the plains, reaching and growing as high as it can: Chicago.

Oh, snap! You've got to be kidding me... (4/19/07)

What still gives you the giddy sense of wonder and excitement you had as a little kid? Hypersonic jets? Men on the moon? Ultra-fast trains levitated by magnets? How about flying cars? Not too many things, I'll bet.

Imagine what the view might be like from the 142nd floor of a glass skyscraper. Imagine taking the fastest elevator in the world to get there. Picture a needle-shaped structure with between 163 and 216 floors. The height: From 2600 to over 3000 feet; the exact figures are being kept secret. This is real...

Prayer for a millennium (4/20/07)

Come, friends, and, in the closing light of day,
take up the brick and set it while you may;
and thus, in laying brick on brick, assemble
the future now, and its foundation lay...

Never a time so sweet (4/28/07)

Well, friends, this is it. It's been a good run, but Horseradish now signs off for good. Before this school year even started, I had wondered many times how I would feel writing my last piece, and just what I would want to say to you when this occasion finally came. Let me assure you that, even after three prolific years of writing columns for The Hoot, I am very much at a loss for words. I hope the following will suffice...

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