rVOLUME 15, ISSUE 6 OCTOBER 3, 2013

rrecessNasher’s chief

curator extends visionQ&A with Trevor Schoonmaker

pg. 5

LORDEPure Heroine album review, pg. 3

Alice Notley renowned poet comes to Duke, pg. 6

special to the chronicle

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FUZZFUZZDrag City

by Christina LanThe ChroniCle

Auckland’s best-kept secret is out. lorde, the mysterious effi gy that swept the summer charts with the bass-thumping single ‘royals’ projects an impressive array of lyrical and vocal prowess in her debut al-bum, “Pure heroine.” While most fi nd her 16-year-old maturity shocking, it should come as no surprise for a girl who has been writing and developing her sound since the age of 12. She’s a teen who grew up a little too fast and, like many other young misfi ts, she calls out all the faux glam and glory in today’s pop culture.

‘royals’ is a testament to that disillusion-ment and whether she likes it or not, her gritty, no lux-loving hit sits on the top of the charts. Although the content of the rest of the album remains cunningly rebellious, the other songs don’t live up to the pop-worthy elements in ‘royals.’ That isn’t to say that they aren’t praiseworthy—instead, they intimate a much more talented artist in the works.

‘Tennis Court’ is lyrically gripping. Whereas she rejected fame in ‘royals,’ she mocks it in ‘Tennis Court’ after, of course, having tasted it. lines like “how can i f**k with the fun again, when i’m known,” as

MUSIC

MUSIC

all reVieW imaGes special to the chronicle

LORDEPure HeroineUniversal Music

well as her sneering little laugh, reveal a youthful side to lorde. The song, with its minimal beats and fl ippant vocals, calls forth lana Del rey comparisons.

Whereas lana Del rey gained her regal status by purposefully lowering her register and using sex appeal, lorde assumes god-dess potential without any of lana’s bag-gage. ‘ribs’ is lorde’s crowning moment. The vocal layering accompanies lorde’s deep and almost chilling melodies bril-liantly. her producer, Joel little, captures a nearly fl awless vocal mix that fi lls in the spaces of a rather sparse arrangement. The panning of lorde’s vocals creates a rever-berating halo, and this simple yet powerful looping effect turns so many of her other songs into gold. ‘Buzzcut Season,’ an oth-erwise forlorn track, features gorgeous vocal loops. The vulnerability in her voice evokes fairytale-esque images that become increasingly melancholy as she repeats the line, “i’ll never go home again.”

Among other standouts is ‘Team,’ a fi st-pumping anthem for all who identify themselves as outsiders (in spite of her con-fession, “i’m kind of over getting told to throw my hands up in the air”). Consistent with this outcast perspective, lorde wraps up the album with a claim of being im-mune to or at least detached from today’s overriding pop culture. ‘A World Alone’ features a solid mix of beats that create a dizzying effect but nonetheless fall short of producing an effortless dance track.

lorde’s entrance into today’s market of overproduced pop hits is, without ques-tion, notable. While her preceding “love Club” eP suggested more potential chart-topping hits, “Pure heroine” is not without its merits. While a bit sluggish at fi rst, the album sheds light on a new layer of her gift-ed artistry with each listen. With so many years ahead of her, lorde is sure to deliver many more lyrical and melodic stunners.

by Gary HoffmanThe ChroniCle

After fi rst listen to Fuzz’s self-titled debut album, i wasn’t sure whether its head-banging intensity was a rebellion against the modern music scene or a rip-off of late ‘60s garage proto-metal. one thing was for certain, though; Fuzz couldn’t care less whether i liked the album or not.

Throughout “Fuzz,” frontman Ty Segall shows a marked departure from his previous work. The laid-back, hazy feel of projects like “Sleeper” is replaced by tight drumming, over-driven bass and heavy guitar to give a psychedelic and bluesy yet intense mood. The underwater stoner effect on the lead combines with hopelessly wailing vocals to create a dark quality reminiscent of Black Sabbath and The Stooges.

Fuzz’s greatest strength is that they are able to accomplish this bleak feel without sounding dated or cliché. Their manipulation of time signature, mostly seen in ‘Sleigh ride,’ helps make them sound original. Although i’d prefer a more raw sound, the rela-

tive cleanness of the album creates an ordered clarity with a distinctly mod-ern feel.

Guitarist Charles Moothart’s solo work plays a large role throughout the album. Although it can be a bit awk-ward and forcibly deliberate at times, Moothart’s style creates the feeling of dialogue within the band. The psyche-delic lines interspersed with aggressive chords keep the solos entertaining. one major problem with his playing is his overdone use of the tremolo bar. Yes, Fuzz is intense and edgy, but Moo-thart is skilled enough to convey this quality without having to use this effect as a crutch. his talent defi nitely shines through in the fi nal track, ‘one,’ a dirty, fast-paced instrumental.

lyrically the album is nothing spe-cial, mostly because Segall’s wailing is almost impossible to decipher. Still, upon close listening, part of ‘haze-maze’ can be made out to be, “You tell them the secrets of your mind / But the answer, still you cannot fi nd,” and in ‘earthen Gates,’ he’s pretty clearly screaming about conspiracy. it’s safe to say you can expect sardonic, anti-society themes throughout the album. Segall’s drumming makes up for the singing, though, and its controlled intensity keeps the band from ever sounding like complete chaos.

“Fuzz” sounds and feels like three friends getting together to pay tribute to a time when rock music took on the dark intensity that made it so vibrantly passionate. Musically, “Fuzz” doesn’t push any boundaries. it combines the heavy psychedelic blues and apocalyp-tic wailing of past masters with a mod-ern quirkiness and musicianship to put together a solid album that is no less—or more—than straight cool.

rrecess editors

would shut down for...

ess recessrecess rec

ss recess reditor’s

note

news alert: the government shut down on Tuesday. This upsets me on many levels, but mostly i can’t get over how my fall break eoS fi eld trip won’t be making it into Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons. And underlying that dis-tress is mostly my disappointment that i won’t be able to shoot killer rolls of fi lm photographs. Pics or it didn’t happen, as they say. And it’s all too literal for me right now.

i guess you could take this to be an elaborate metaphor on the government cramping society’s artistic style, but in-stead of discussing something so intel-lectual, i’m going to indulge myself. i’ll use my prime real estate in the paper to refl ect on my love for photography that has followed and evolved with me throughout my years at Duke.

My fi rst year i was gripped by a fear of forgetting things, and my photograph-ic pursuits were mostly an attempt to document my life. i would take photos of class (i was in the arts Focus, so no, i wasn’t taking pictures in a 300-person lecture hall), of meals, of friends doing 8-minute ab workouts in the hallway of Pegram, of anything and everything. Throughout the past three years, Duke has also taken me abroad to France, Jordan and Morocco, and i’ll admit that the photos really are kind of great.

i was extremely motivated to take pho-tos in these places, given my sense of constant discovery and the rich cultures surrounding me. While less psychotic about my photodocumentation these days, i still kick myself in the shins if i miss a great photo opportunity.

There are a variety of reasons be-hind a growing neglect of my cameras. They’re heavy. i’m no longer required to take photos for class. i feel really un-comfortable being perceived as an Asian tourist who takes pictures of everything. People get annoyed when they have to wait to take a bite of their maple bacon donut at Monuts while i take the perfect food shot. And each time i come home to Duke from abroad, i’m left feeling somewhat underwhelmed and unmoti-vated to take photos of familiar things. And so on. And i have to say that some-thing about digital photography lost its appeal for me while at Duke. The rea-sons aren’t entirely clear, but i suppose it has something to do with the lack of compelling subject matter. There’s also this occasional stress i feel of digital photography being way too competitive: some people will always just be ahead of me in the game.

i realized that this shift away from digital photography isn’t indicative of my “slacking off” artistically, though it kind of feels like that sometimes. While i’ve been taking fewer photos overall, i’ve also gravitated toward fi lm photog-raphy. What i do love about fi lm is that each photo taken on an analog camera is a process, and when a roll is fi nished, getting it developed is like opening gifts at Christmastime. Basically, i can have Christmas on demand. And of course there is just a certain je ne sais quoi about fi lm’s color and grain. There’s a good chance i’ll someday return to digi-tal photography, but only when it feels

recess

right again.i feel the need to say that i am not

a great photographer. if i take a great photo, i’m humbled because, honestly, i got lucky and my life was just beauti-ful in that moment. Why i’m drawn to photography at all, aside from the obvi-ous things like its beauty and ability to capture the unexpected, is that it has the power to arrest my full attention. Curat-ing photos for latent image, editing photos, fl ipping through “national Geo-graphic”—these are all things i could do to no end. (okay, sure, anyone can scroll through Pinterest and instagram for six hours straight and be fully engaged, but hopefully there’s a difference between that and the way i interact with photos.)

i’ve painted all these thoughts in large brushstrokes to demonstrate how jumbled my mind is when evaluating how i’ve grown at Duke. Things (the future, the meaning of life, why my government doesn’t work) are very un-clear for me right now as a senior. This month’s special issue of “national Geo-graphic” celebrates 125 years of photog-raphy, and after looking through some of the photos—aside from feeling pretty inadequate as a photographer—i feel this intense determination to one day live a life worth photographing. Pho-tography continues to inspire me to live well and be well, and to simply go about the art of living. Ultimately i try not to fetishize photography, especially in a day and age where everyone is hyperaware of how their life looks in pictures. it’s tempting for me to fall into a pics or it didn’t happen mentality, but i’ve come to terms with a new philosophy: life fi rst, photography second.

— Minshu Deng

Lauren Feilich..............................................................................................noccalula

Jamie Kessler ...................................................................................................grey’s

MC Bousquette ..................................................................................four more beers

Megan Rise........................................................................................................abba

Kathy Zhou........................................................................................four more bears

Eliza Bray ...................................................................................banana-nutella crepe

Minshu Deng...........................................................................................yellowstone

A black barrier encloses you in a small space. You run around frantically, confronted on all sides by this ominous obstruction. every time you approach the barrier you immediately run away, unable to cross it. eventually, you steel yourself and miraculously cross it. it wasn’t a physical obstacle after all.

This is the action of Surekha’s three-minute video “lines of Control,” but here, the protagonist is an ant and the barrier is a thick black line drawn at the be-ginning of the video. The piece poignantly examines one of the main themes of the nasher Museum of Art’s newest exhibition, “lines of Control: Partition as a Productive Space”—that the difference between physical boundaries and mental boundaries is not well-defi ned.

each of the pieces in the exhibition stands alone as an exploration of a single aspect of the tensions be-tween physical borders and social reality. Therefore, it seems fi tting that each piece has its own distinct space on the gallery’s walls or fl oor. A range of me-diums is represented in the exhibition—woodblock prints, photography, video, textile crafts, installa-tion—allowing a broad experience in content as well as technique. Viewed together, the pieces offer a criti-cal examination of the relationship between national identity, culture and borders.

A curving vein winds its way up the wall and branch-es into thinner rivulets, each made of stylized enamel

eyes, that are pointed and oval in shape with dark round pupils. “river/Disease” by Anita Dube takes the form of an aerial view of the rivers of the Pun-jab region,while also bringing to mind the veins of an eyeball. The piece reminds the viewer that not every-thing was ruptured and divided by the 1947 Partition of india; the fi ve rivers that give Punjab its name cross the country border, just as the cultural region does. The enamel eyes are manufactured for deity statues in hindu worship; their use in the piece connects the importance of the rivers to spirituality and to the eye-infecting disease the rivers often carry.

Several pieces feature traditional artisan crafts, making the link between identity and material culture even more evident. nalini Malani and iftihkar Dadi’s “Bloodlines” is made of square panels of overlapping gold sequins, severed by red lines marking the border created by Partition. The piece, recently refabricated, was created in collaboration with embroidery artisans that specialize in the traditional metal-wrapped em-bellishment of india and Pakistan. Another piece, “Afghan (black and red)” by Mona hatoum, is a rug, in the style that gave the afghan blankets their name, with threads strategically picked out to create a dis-torted projection of the continents. in both pieces, it would be nearly impossible for someone unfamiliar with the cultural signifi cance of the crafts to appreci-ate the nuances. luckily, the descriptions accompany-ing each work are exceptionally informative.

While the majority of the pieces in the exhibition focus on the india-Pakistan border, several other bor-der confl icts are examined. This not only highlights commonality in the experience of borders, but also reasserts that there are parallels in the origins of these, mostly arbitrary, borders. namely, the legacy of european empires and colonies, paired with to-day’s intense regulation over human movement, has caused, and continues to aggravate, many modern border confl icts.

For stateless nations or nations that have been dis-rupted, yearning for ancestral lands is common. Many are now barred from returning and able only to re-member. “hoMe” by Sophie ernst combines memo-ry, geography, visualization and language in an effort to immortalize homes of the past. Two installations are on display from the ongoing project that is based

on interviews with displaced Palestinians, iraqi Jews and indians. White architectural models are overlaid with video projections of sketches made during the interviews, while headphones relay memories of lost homes. The conversation and drawings center on the physical layout of the homes—the discussion of the toilet’s location versus the alley is particularly amus-ing. At times the sketches seem to match perfectly with the models, while at others they are completely disparate geographies, connected only by the memo-ry that is replayed in the viewer’s ear. Then, the sketch shifts and a new piece of paper is laid out, the discus-sion still trying to pin down the landscape of the past.

The reality of the indigenous, or native, peoples of north America exemplifi es the challenges creat-ed by boundaries and the limits of language. Jolene rickard’s “Fight for the line” overlays images of the onkwehonwe people’s different defi nitions and di-mensions of nationhood—geographical, cultural, lin-guistic. The onkwehonwe lay claim to ancestral lands divided by the U.S.-Canada border; they position themselves as a stateless nation who still has rights to its land. rickard’s piece pushes on the notion of what defi nes boundaries by combining imagery of maps, signage, protest and photographs.

“lines of Control: Partition as a Productive Space” critically examines the experience of human-made boundaries, both physical and social. it may be easy in Durham to feel distant from the stresses of border con-fl ict, but the reality is that there are boundaries every-where. The nasher invites Duke and UnC-Ch students to break down boundaries at a Beyond Blue Borders student mixer on november 7. Perhaps we can recon-cile our differences even though we are strangers, just as the fi nal piece in the exhibition invites us to do: “The Translator’s Silence,” by The raqs Media Collective, can be taken away. each piece of art is a translucent, tri-folded paper that features three poetry fragments, written in their original languages of english, Urdu/hindustani and Bengali. The english section reads, “Will you, Beloved Stranger, ever witness Shahid—two destinies at last reconciled by exiles?”

Lines of Control: Partition as a Productive Space is on view until February 2, 2014 at the Nasher Museum of Art. For more information, visit http://nasher.duke.edu/exhibi-tions/lines-of-control/.

ART

by Hannah Anderson-BarangerThe ChroniCle

LINES OF CONTROLNasher Museum of Art

4 | thursDAY, october 3, 2013 recess the chronicle the chronicle recess thursDAY, october 3, 2013 | 5

by Katie Fernelius The ChroniCle

“Stories create pathways. Stories open minds and inspire actions. Stories make change possible.” This is the belief of hidden Voic-es, a non-profit organization that uses both space and language to transform pertinent conversations and to inspire resonating messag-es. According to hidden Voices, stories are the avenues in which we best empathize with that which is unfamiliar and inspire actions. Quite simply, stories make us bear witness and obligate us into in-volvement.

This weekend, community mem-bers will have an opportunity to be a part of this story at the none of the Above exhibition and perfor-mance on Saturday, october 5.

The exhibition examines the intersection of race, poverty, edu-cation and incarceration present in the “school-to-prison pipeline” within north Carolina. however, the aim of the project is not mere-ly to portray the research out-comes, but to change the language of discussion to personal experi-ences. The multimedia exhibition not only features artistic interpre-tations of facts and figures, but also showcases personal narratives from students to educators to juve-nile justice officials.

“We started out with a classroom aesthetic,” said lynden harris, founder and director of hidden

Voices. “We did workshops with students and teachers around the state in order have their perspec-tive integrated into the exhibit in order to retain the personal ele-ment.”

The exhibit has many differ-ent features, such as interactive classroom furniture, photography of students and teachers imitat-ing each other, critical mapping of north Carolina, informational elementary school-style diagrams and a performance which will be staged as a live radio broadcast be-fore the audience.

“There are phone calls coming in from people, people speaking from the audience and a big panel of folks also contributing,” said harris. “All of those folks are shar-ing their own stories and not the stories of other people—they are all stakeholders in both the prob-lem of the pipeline and the solu-tion.”

The performance will feature individuals who are involved in some capacity in the school-to-prison pipeline and give them the opportunity to voice their perspec-tive before the community. The performance showcases these nar-ratives and provides an avenue of connection between the audience and stage members who share in the same community.

“reading an informational pa-per about this situation is one thing, but performance can influ-ence people to think about situ-

ations and ideas they otherwise might not have, and change the way they think about a given sub-ject, “ said imani ifedi, Trinity ‘15. “The emotionality actors can bring to their characters can distinguish the performance from just the sta-tistical and objective approach, thus prompting viewers toward ac-tion. This is especially true for this kind of performance that features many different perspectives.”

The collaborative element of the project already demands con-versation. Photographers must work with students and teachers alike to figure out the best way to demonstrate their relationship. researchers and artists must come together to figure out not only how to portray the school-to-pris-on pipeline, but also how to gal-vanize a meaningful conversation. however, the most pivotal collabo-ration is between those who create this exhibit and those who witness it. Familiar desks, a map of north Carolina and performed narratives evoke a call-to-action from those who attend.

“empowering people to take ac-tion, small or large, is what we all have to do now in our public and private lives,” said harris. “We do have the power to make change, and we actually have substantial opportunity to move towards a more compassionate and progres-sive agenda.”

Accordingly, none of the Above will feature a section called “Do

one Thing,” which will have a list of actions that any visitor can do during or after their time in the exhibition. The list includes many items that take no longer than one minute, like signing a petition or tweeting a statistic or story from the exhibition. other items demand more time, like writing a letter to the edi-tor, running for school board or tutoring and empowering a stu-dent.

“This show is important for people of all backgrounds, but especially for those who, for the most part, cannot relate to what is being discussed.” said ifedi. “For me, it has solidified the definition of ‘privilege’ and has reinforced the moral obligation i feel to use whatever privilege i have for the betterment of oth-ers who deserve just as much as i have been given.”

“i think people should be horrified and energized,” said harris. “i want people to under-stand that there are real alterna-tives; there are districts around the country who very effectively dismantled their own school to prison pipeline, and we can too.”

None of the Above will be in the Jameson Gallery in the Friedl Build-ing on October 5. The exhibition will finish with a performance at White Lecture Hall at 8 p.m. For more in-formation, visit http://www.http://hiddenvoices.org/.

Jessie Gladin-Kramer

The above portraits from None of the Above showcase students and teachers imitating each other. The exhibition also includes interactive classroom furniture, a performance and much more.

special to the chronicle

Trevor Schoonmaker studied art history at UNC before becoming the chief curator of the Nasher Museum of Art.

None of the Above exhibitionexamines school-to-prison pipeline

by Sid Gopinath The ChroniCle

Trevor Schoonmaker joined the nasher Museum of Art at Duke University as the founding contemporary curator in 2006. Prior to that, Schoonmaker worked as an independent cura-tor in new York. Schoonmaker was recently promoted to the newly-created position of chief curator at the nasher. recess’s Sid Gopinath sat down with Schoonmaker to discuss the transition from independent to museum curation and his vision for the future of the nasher.

R: To start off, what got you to this point?

TS: As an undergrad, i studied art history at the University of north Carolina-Chapel hill. i grew up in Winston-Salem. i went to University of Michigan-Ann Arbor for graduate school. There, i was work-ing on a Ph.D. in art history, focusing on contem-porary African art in the mid ‘90s. one thing that happened while i was there was that my advisor, who was from Ghana, did not get tenure after four years into my studies. That gave me an opportunity to re-think what i was trying to achieve. And i realized that a Ph.D. really wasn’t for me because i knew i wanted to curate. So i left!

i went to new York, and the first thing i did was i started working in commercial galleries in Chelsea. Working in the commercial gallery environment is a fantastic learning experience because everyone fil-ters through there. All the artists, all the collectors, all the curators, all the museum directors, the whole art world globally passes through. You can quickly learn who is who and how things work in the con-temporary art world ecosystem.

The gallery i worked for, Brent Sikkema, allowed me to curate my first show, which was in the summer of 2000. i’d been thinking about a show around Fela Kuti, this nigerian musician and activist who died in ’97, who was very prominent in the ‘70s and ‘80s. i pursued this show and basically naively quit my job at the gallery because i was trying to do this in the evenings and on weekends, and it just wasn’t enough time. The show turned out to be very successful, and some opportunities came my way because of that.

Then [the nasher] opportunity presented itself and turned out it was an amazing experience. To be here and to join the staff shortly after the museum opened, was really exciting.

R: Compared to being an independent cura-tor, what’s it like being a curator at a museum?

TS: it’s completely different. The analogy might be a writer who is at home, writing his or her novel. You know, you’re doing exactly what you want to do. You’re completely focused. As opposed to, say, a beat writer for a magazine or a newspaper. Your voice comes through, your idea comes through, but you’re part of a larger institution. You have a lot of administrative, managerial responsibilities. And so that’s been the larger challenge: finding time to do the research, the reading, the writing.

R: What did the contemporary curator posi-tion entail?

TS: Thinking about what shows we want to curate ourselves, what artists we want to put forth, what shows we might consider from other institutions and then building a collection. it’s really more about per-sonal relationships. if you know the artists, museum curators and directors and the gallery directors, then they will start to get an idea of what you’re interested in, and they will eventually start presenting things to you. it’s been a big benefit to us.

R: What is the difference now that you are chief curator?

TS: it’s really shifting to more managerial duties and being in charge of the department and division, rather than just being a significant player on the team. We have a new director, so it’s working very closely with her to determine our vision for the future.

R: What is your vision for the future of the Nasher?

TS: one thing we will see is a little bit more atten-tion on our collection. We’ve been very exhibition-focused, which has been great for me, because i love doing these shows. But, at the same time, we’ve been building a fantastic contemporary art collection. So we’re going to more frequently have the contempo-rary collection on view, which is good in a lot of ways. We’re paying attention to a lot of younger artists and artists who’ve been maybe a little overlooked by either

the marketplace or critics. one example would be Barkley hendricks. We organized his retrospective in 2008. now, he’s recognized as one of the great Ameri-can artists because people just hadn’t had [previous] access to see his work.

R: How does the Nasher fit into the Durham and the Duke community? Is it fitting the way you want it to?

TS: We always want to do more, and we always want to do better, but the engagement with students and faculty and the administration is tremendous, and we’re really thrilled. We also have a strong, robust program of teaching. not only professors teaching classes in the museum, but also bringing students to the museum’s storage. With the Durham community, we’re also very pleased. We’re really happy because we feel like we’ve brought in audiences that, prior to the nasher’s existence, maybe didn’t have much in-teraction with the university. The museum has a very university-focused mission, but it also has a public mis-sion. We do a lot of programs for the larger commu-nity, and we’ve become sort of the de facto regional museum just by virtue of being here and doing what we do.

Recess interviews Nasher’s new chief curator Trevor Schoonmaker

Q

A&

special to the chronicle

Schoonmaker poses alongside Wangechi Mutu, an artist and sculptor who previously had her works displayed at the Nasher last spring.

6 | thursDAY, october 3, 2013 recess the chronicle

“Art uses me for whatever it wants,” said Alice notley, a woman on the front lines of poetry whose work has constantly challenged poetic conventions. An esteemed poet, notley weaves critique, imag-ination and memory into one of the most dynamic collections of poetry for her generation.

This Monday, october 7 at 7 p.m., notley will give a reading in McClendon Commons as part of an event sponsored by the Black-burn Fund and the Duke english Department.

Among other notable awards, Alice notley has received the los Angeles Times Book Award for Po-etry and was a fi nalist for the Pulit-zer Prize.

She has written over 25 books of poetry as well as an autobiography, a play and a series of essays. “every book is incredible,” said Joseph Donahue, professor of the practice of english at Duke University. “it will be amazing to hear her voice work through these imagined ter-ritories.”

“She can do everything. lots of poets can make a career doing just one of the things that she does,” continued Donahue. notley’s po-ems range from personal narra-tives to “hair-raising” epics to politi-cal inquiries that fi ercely criticize the decisions of hegemonic struc-tures within our global society.

“There is a fearlessness about her and a trust in her imagina-

tion,” said Donahue. These allow her to do “things that others will be afraid to do.”

Joel Brouwer, Professor of eng-lish at the University of Alabama, described notley in an october 2007 new York Times review as a “poet who persistently exceeds, or eludes, the sum of her associa-tions.” Although notley is often described in terms of feminism, experimentalism and her family, she resists the need to use labels, which she deems restrictive.

notley is often quoted for her statement, “it is necessary to maintain a state of disobedience against...everything.” With this mindset, she has been able to craft her work in a manner that sev-ers ties with tradition. notley has delved masterfully into the world of epics, a historically man-dom-inated area, as a means to unveil narrative. She has, however, some-times had to face sexist pushback denouncing the legitimacy of her work. “i demand to be treated bet-ter and to be read better,” said not-ley.

in her essay, “The Poetics of Dis-obedience,” notley rejects the la-bels that lump people together and have been placed upon her, refus-ing to let them become “not only an infringement on my liberty but a veil over clear thinking.” There is a freshness to her tone that invites the audience to become “disobedi-ent” along with her, questioning the norms of the worlds in which people fi nd themselves and push-ing through any limitations placed

upon creative expression. The spaces that fall between her words allow for refl ection upon the reso-nance of sound, and the stream-of-consciousness style of many of her pieces develops ideas in a manner not far removed from the natural processing of the mind.

notley has lived in many dif-ferent places throughout her life, and the spaces themselves speak through her poetry. She was born in Bisbee, Arizona but grew up in needles, California and, after mov-ing around for a few years, settled in new York, informing her style as a second-generation new York School poet. She currently resides in Paris, her home of 21 years.

When asked about the ways in which her writing has been infl u-enced by the physical spaces of her lifetime, Alice replied, “When i write thinking about needles, my work becomes more hard-edged, as if it’s in a desert light—i’m talk-ing about the words themselves here, not necessarily about what my so-called subject might be. When i write out of a feeling for new York or Paris, the language becomes denser or more conver-sational. one’s writing grows to re-semble the place where one lives, though this is usually pretty subjec-tive in poetry.”

notley, as described by Dona-hue, is “incredibly prolifi c,” “fear-less,” and “always a surprise.” he continued, “it is a reading of a life-time...to hear a poet of this scale scope read. She’s one of the great ones.”

Visiting poet brings “imagined territories” to Dukeby Kaley Deal

The ChroniCle

special to the chronicle

Poet Alice Notley featured above has received the Los Angeles Times Book Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

notley will read both published and new work on Mon., october 7 at 7 p.m. in McClendon Commons. Admission is free. For more information, visit http://english.duke.edu/.

notley will read both published and new work on Mon., october 7 at 7 p.m. in McClendon Commons. Admission is free. For more information, visit http://english.duke.edu/.

DANNY BROWNOldFool’s Gold Records

MUSIC

special to the chronicle

by Derek SaffeThe ChroniCle

on “old,” Danny Brown responds with a vigorous “up yours” to his hat-ers, and confi rms that “XXX” was only the beginning of his reign at the helm of the hip-hop underground. Known as ‘The hybrid,’ Brown is perpetually striving to reimagine his style. But for some, his stylistic fl uctuation is unwanted. After his aforementioned iconoclastic mixtape “XXX,” Danny Brown has been beset with critiques of how he eschewed his musical roots and fl ung himself into rap’s avant-garde abyss.

infl uenced heavily by his house DJ father, Britain’s grime scene and ‘90s hip-hop greats like e-40 and ice Cube, Brown has never shied away from rev-eling in eclecticism. The Detroit na-tive can wax poetic about hometown hero J-Dilla and post-punk greats Joy Division alike. naturally, the gap-toothed and fl ippant rapper envelops himself in his art—a practice notori-ously entwined with his debaucher-ous lifestyle. An adderall apologist and cannabis connoisseur, Brown car-

ries himself with drug-addled exuber-ance on his recordings and live inter-views. This is seldom done, however, without a heavy dose of self-awareness and insight, infusing his work with a succulent emotional core fl eshed out by his virtuosic lyricism.

The album’s tracks work well in-dividually and meld together with robust thematic consistency when viewed as a whole. on Side A of his lP, Danny Brown unleashes his most nar-ratively evocative tracks and his sur-prisingly insightful musings on hood life and the dark side of his lifestyle. Side B of “old” answers the question “Where’s that old Danny Brown?” by painting himself as a serial consumer of molly off of your girlfriend’s der-riere—complete with a toothless grin and chemically induced jocularity.

old’s instrumental structure is con-structed from the immaculate taste of choice producers like Paul White, Sky-wlkr, Darq e Freaker and rustie. The South london-bred Paul White is the breakout star from the album’s pro-duction stable. White blends sitars, Krautrock riffs and disparate musi-cal infl uences (note the Andean fl ute section on the buoyantly trippy ‘Won-derbread’) to create a mass of sound that lends itself surprisingly well to Brown’s dynamic cadence and intro-spective subject matter.

‘Side A (old)’ leads off his fi rst barrage with Paul White’s immacu-late production sensibility and dis-pels his detractors with brisk literary fury: “now i’m in the rap game, verse worth a brick/fi ends linin’ up for a hit of this sh*t/and i reps that shit now and forever.”

‘The return’ follows up the opener with an effortless swagged-out aes-

thetic that includes a Freddie Gibbs feature matching Brown on the hype scale. Gibbs discharges blazing ver-biage over the suave g-funk referenc-ing beat. Another standout—‘Clean Up’—contains the most sobering verse of the record: “daughter send-ing me messages saying daddy i miss you/but in this condition i don’t think she need me.”

‘25 bucks’ featuring Purity ring is the only discernible sonic miss from his crop. his voice never truly meshes with the metallic sheen of the Cana-dian electro artists’ sound. But even though it may not merit repeated plays, the track still shines as an in-sightful effort to expand from Brown’s musical comfort zone.

‘Side B (Dope Song)’ marks the moment when Brown pops a molly (or three) and veers the album into the sweaty confi nes of grime and trap- infl ected party rap, gushing about ex-cess with eloquent vulgarity. ‘Dip’ and the Scrufi zzer featuring ‘Dubstep’ are the most resplendent from Side B and are assured warehouse party fi xtures. ‘Kush Coma’ sees him partnered up with fellow herbal enthusiast A$AP rocky and is one of the hardest hit-ting stoner anthems ever, pulverizing ThC-infused brains with pulsating snares and kick drums to delirious ef-fect.

By the time album closer “Float on” fades out and the listener is left to assess what just happened, there is one thing left clear. nobody in the American scene can match the hype levels of Danny Brown at the moment. As long as he doesn’t oD or return to prison, Brown will happily serve as our purveyor of dopeness for the time being.

vocalist in conjunction with his jazz chamber ensemble, a group for which he has written for 12 years.

“each new commission is always something different. i thought it was ap-propriate to take poetry that describes the whole situation of commemora-tion.” Childs said. “i took poetry and set it to music, [and] had Diane reeves par-ticipate and sing in it. She and i go way back.”

The poems that reeves will sing in “enlightened Souls” are Claude McKay’s “The White house,” Dianna DiPrima’s “revolutionary letter #20” and Walter Benton’s “This is My Beloved: entry April 28.”

Childs arranged, orchestrated and conducted reeves’s Grammy-winning album “The Calling: Celebrating Sarah Vaughan.” he has also served as her mu-sic director.

Childs was approached by Greenwald roughly a year ago about the concept of doing a project for Duke. “it sounded like an incredible idea once i found out what the whole thing was about,” he said. “i started getting down to the nuts and bolts of it a couple months ago. i can’t wait to perform this piece. it’s very ambitious.”

reese noted that, although the up-coming weekend is the 50th Anniversa-ry’s formal fi nale and includes the clos-ing gala, the nature of the celebration will live on.

“This is the formal ending, but we will continue to refl ect on the pres-ence of African-American students and continue to enhance and further a wonderful, world-class institution,” reese said.

CHILDS from News page 1