Our Digital Selves

Posted on 11. Mar, 2010 by Peter Katz in Debate

Who is Madison Johnson?

Now you’re with me, Dear Reader (it was a cruel narrative device, yes, but I regret it not one bit).  But who, indeed, is Madison Johnson?  Is she, in fact, less real than the rest of us on Facebook?

I am being a bit philosophical, here, but the Madison question is the essence of an article that was in the making even before the whole incident.  It is, in part, a question of the theoretical, a question of self-construction and culture, but unlike most of the philosophy that I do, it has direct, pragmatic effects on all of us.

Take “me,” for example.  I friend you on Facebook.  You may have seen me doing something for C2, or you at least know my name, so you accept.  What, now, do you know about “me”?  You know I am in Angwin, I’m from Redding, I’m 21 (after some math), engaged to Ariane Gregory, a socialist, and think that I’m amusing as far as religious views go.  I obviously have an obsession with poetry, and some sort of issue that compels me to declare an excessive amount of majors.  My stati tend to be snarky witticisms.  That’s me.

But is it?  There’s no law that says what I put on Facebook has to be empirically “true.”  My sister and one of my friends arbitrarily changed their stati to say that they were engaged to one another; both of them set off chain reactions of excited—and then rather irritated—friends and relatives.  People declare siblings at random.  I got incredibly excited that one of my friends was into Hitchhiker’s Guide, only to find out that it was in fact a different friend who had stolen her laptop and commented on one of my comments.

Moreover, we are defined by the medium.  The way we construct our digital selves depends entirely on the programming decisions of sun-starved computer techies who are far wealthier than any of us.  You know I’m a socialist because Facebook decided to include political views, and make them customizable.  We hold a “conversation” on Facebook via stati-and-comments, and every exchange is mediated by the medium of stati-and-comments.

The “Like” button is the epitome of this phenomenon.  Do any of us really know what it means to “Like” something?  Several of my friends immediately “Like” any of their own comments; others use it sarcastically; others seem to “Like” just about anything they read.  And yet, because of programming decisions, to “Like” something is an integral part of our interactions with one another.

Medium as controller goes beyond Facebook (yes, there are things beyond Facebook, I hear).  Twitter, for example: because of arbitrary decisions, one has one-hundred forty characters to construct a self.  A program called “DigitalLife” allows one to create an entire digital persona, down to physical appearance; many corporations use this program for meetings, to the point that there are corporate task-forces composed of people who have worked together for years, but never seen one another in person.  All the interactions that those people have, have been and will continue to be defined by programming decisions at DigitalLife.  Don’t even get me started on WoW.

We use digital selves to interact in other-constructed mediums, and thereby, our digital selves are not really “our” selves at all.  Our internet selves, though they do embody in part an extension of ourselves, are not our own constructions—but they are, to the fullest extent, constructions.

Forums, or gaming personae, demonstrate the façade of digital self.  For a year or so, I was a member of a martial arts forum, until internal forum politics got me banned; I created a new login, new persona, new self, and rejoined.  Very few people are terribly friendly when gaming online, particularly since, from what I can gather, the point seems to be killing one another, repeatedly.  The person who just put a hole through your character’s head, then messaged you, “u sux n00b,” may in fact be one of your closest “friends” in a forum, or on Facebook.  Identity is inconsistent, to say the least.  These interactions are essentially anonymous, even with names attached.

This relative anonymity is, in my opinion, the ugliest worm in the apple of internet interaction.  Youtube is a cesspit of inhumanity; a cursory look on the comments of any Youtube video will not only teach one new expletives and racial slurs, but also demonstrate the horrendous cruelty of anonymity.  Without a person attached to a name, people feel free to fling whatever they would like at whomever.  We would direct your attention to the debate on the “Student Suspended over Crude Video” article, with the additional information that we had to delete at least ten comments for content consisting almost entirely of baseless mud-slinging.  Juxtapose the ninety-something anonymous-but-hostile comments with the fifteen or so named, but very constructive comments on the “Madison Johnson” article.  A name, it seems, adds a least a bit more identity.

Herein lays the tension of the digital self.  In the nineties, the internet was an opportunity to reinvent the self, to “be anyone you want to be.”  Somewhere in the ’00s, with the rise of Myspace, Facebook, and other social networking sites, it became “be the real you”—which, as we’ve already discussed above, is highly problematic in itself.  Now, however, as we enter the teens, are we to be “our real selves, as we would want them to be”?  Do we still hold the illusion of our ability to construct, or do we hold the illusion of individuality, or both, or neither?

As far as I can tell from student reaction, most of us feel that Madison Johnson is an outrage.  But, why?  Is it an invasion of privacy?  Anyone who thinks that our digital selves are at all private has simply missed the entire notion of the internet.  Is it a violation of internet etiquette?  Internet custom is an etiquette in formation, a culture in transition, shaped by the medium that allows “friends” to browse one another’s photographs.  Is it a violation of ethics?

This last question is the crux of the entire issue.  The ethics of the internet are in their infancy.  Before, arguably, we had “public” and “private” selves.  Now, we have a “digital” self, a sort of grey area between.  We want our privacy, but our medium is public.  We want our public voice, but we want that voice to be respected as though it is spoken by an individual with private conceptions of self.

Now, don’t get me wrong.  I do not intend to preach gloom-and-doom, nor fire-and-brimstone.  Our “selves” are not falling apart, nor is internet culture evil.  It simply is.  But its existence is perhaps one of the most important lessons we can learn, one of the most important aspects of our society of which we need to be aware.  To simply assume that the digital self is, and operate within the constraints and constructions of the internet, is truly to give up any ability to define ourselves.  We must explore, we must be aware of the constructions, and we must constantly ask ourselves how, and why, we construct ourselves the way that we do.

I am more than an info box.  You are more than an info box.  But the existence of that box, in many ways, has come to define us.  It is an extension of me, an extension of you.  We live in a brave new world, and it is up to us, the academics of our generation, to explore to the fullest digital culture, and our digital selves.

Who is Madison Johnson?

Posted on 11. Mar, 2010 by Peter Katz in Campus, Feature

Madison Johnson is the coolest new girl in Angwin.

As far as anyone can tell, Madison is a faceless, twenty-three year old junior here at PUC.  She also seems to be hugely popular, though apparently, everyone who adds her wonders who she is (really, people?  Really?).  In a matter of three days, Madison managed to get 574 friends, which is rather impressive, given that in four years, I’ve managed only to acquire 226.  Obviously, Madison is the girl with which to hang.

Last night, a desk worker in Andre was called in to the dean’s office, where she was shown incriminating or questionable pictures of herself and others “from her facebook” involving alcohol.  According to the worker, she is “not friends with any RA” on facebook, and she said she had no idea from where these pictures had come.   A few days ago, however, this desk worker became friends with Madison.  The desk worker says that others have been called in, with similar stories.

One post on Madison’s wall alleged that she was “the deans.”  This post no longer exists.  Several facebook stati began announcing these rumors on Friday morning.  Madison has not posted anything on anyone’s facebook, yet.

Eager to figure out who this Madison person was, we gave her a call via Winning front desk, who redirected us to Plant Services, where we were told that Madison “had gone to class.”  When I called back an hour later, a different desk worker told me that, “There is no Madison Johnson.”  We checked our contact list on outlook.com, and the search engine did not find her.  She does not appear on phonebook.puc.edu when searched.  Records and Registration told us that, in fact, there is no Madison Johnson registered this quarter.  Either this means that Madison is taking classes for free, or something is up.

Dean Annette Reibe denied any knowledge of a secret facebook, saying that such an endeavor would “probably be illegal” along with noting that she certainly “does not have the time to sit up at night searching people’s facebooks.”  She did, however, confirm that several desk workers had been called in based on picture evidence emailed to her by a concerned student, whom she understandably refused to name.  This is consistent with information the C2 has been given over the last few weeks involving desk workers and RAs in Andre being called in based on alcohol offenses, and rumors of a “McCarthy-esque witch hunt”—as one former Andre employee put it—in Andre, in which workers have been asked, according to that former employee, “If anyone you knew were to drink, who would it be?”

As of now, there is no directly confirmed evidence that “Madison Johnson” is, in fact, a cover for judicial powers or otherwise investigative people searching for conviction.  If she is a real student, we apologize for the mixup.  If she is not, then this is another element indicative of a culture of fear and incrimination boiling over in Andre, and definite grounds for internal change, and a definite violation of ethics.  Either way, until Madison comes forward, it might be a good idea to “unfriend” her.

The People have Spoken: Election Results 2010-2011

Posted on 28. Feb, 2010 by Peter Katz in Campus, Culture

SA President: Warrie Layon

RVP: Mark Monterroso

EVP: Erin Truex

SVP: Chris David

CC Editor: Divya Joseph

VYB: Aaron Doyle (Although the No Box was actually written in quite a few times)

FB Editor: Amador Jaojoco

DL Editor: Loni Johnston

Peter Katz and Erika Kim would like to thank their myriad supporters who voted for them.  When the time comes, it just might make the difference for you.

Changes In PUC Student Government, PUC-Cast Dissolved

Posted on 08. Feb, 2010 by Peter Katz in Campus

On November 18, last quarter, SA Senate voted to remove the SA office of PUC-Cast from the ballot for this year.  The debate was surprisingly heated, especially given the relative disinterest in PUC-Cast over the last few years.  Several Senators, including Executive Vice President Warrie Layon, expressed a reticence to strike the office completely from existence.  “I’m just not sure that we’re ready to take this action,” the Vice President voiced in the Senate debate.  “I feel like there might be more options.”

President Scott Brizendine and Senator Christina Alba, on the other hand, were rather adamant.  “We’re not voting on anything for this year, and we’re not saying that it can’t come back,” Senator Alba told Senate, “we’re simply saying that in its current state, PUC-Cast is not working.”  Eventually, Brizendine, Alba, and their supporters won out.  PUC-Cast, founded in 2005 by Dustin Comm, is officially no more.

For many, including PUC-Cast editor Avery Lay, the debate was a bit more personal, and a bit more pressing.  Faced with impending charges of failure to uphold his duties, Lay could not seem to help but to project his current unsteady ground onto the debate for the next year. According to the PUC constitution, Lay was responsible for eight video podcast episodes each quarter; he had, as of the meeting, made one, and was arguing that his and Video Yearbook editor Anthony Lavine’s Fusion intro video counted as a second—still shy of the six or seven due by that point.  There had been immanent potential that the Senate meeting would address the potential of impeachment for Lay up until the day of the meeting.

In the end—or, at least, the end at that point—the conflict revolving around Lay was put to rest by off-the-record deals forged between Lay and a few administrative officers of the SA and some key Senators.

Ultimately, however, it matters little.  After one PUC-Cast video of the Christmas tree lighting, and three unproductive weeks of Winter Quarter, in the face of further pressure for impeachment, Avery Lay officially resigned his post as PUC-Cast editor on Monday, January 25.  So ends PUC-Cast.

The PUC-Cast budget was absorbed into the C2 budget, and Assistant Editor Craig Hickerson has been made official C2 Video Editor, with Editorial Director Erika Kim taking his position, and a position to assist him, as Omni-Assistant Editor—officially one of the coolest titles of any SA-affiliated officer.  We will be experimenting with video as a new medium on our website as both a news and an editorial mechanism; look especially for election coverage as we enter into The War for the Campus Center 2010.

This entire situation is wholly indicative of some of the primary issues with our student government as a whole.  America is a republic, and so we feel that any organization, from clubs to SA, should be a republic.  What we fail to realize is that republics are inefficient, bureaucratic, and overall only superficially representative of the desires of the student population.  Had the C2 not called attention to these goings-on, the student body would never know.  PUC-Cast and its convoluted end would have been a blip on an otherwise apathetic radar.

Furthermore, publication editors should not be SA officers.  We at the C2 have been crippled in covering this issue simply because of conflicts of interest, particularly the fact that we work with the other SA officers on a day-to-day basis.  Lay ran unopposed, and was in fact selected post-deadline last year to serve; if a publication is not functioning properly, it should not be mandated by the constitution that we sustain that publication.

We would say it does not ultimately matter, but in reality, it does.  As we have mentioned in previous issues, Senate is currently reconstructing the PUC SA Constitution.  If you find any of these events upsetting, or you want to ensure that things like this go differently, you have the power to do so.  Talk to your senator, email your Executive Vice President, or write to the C2.  If we insist on creating a republic, let us at least do our best to ensure that a republic is what we have created.

On a similar but unrelated note, Video Yearbook Editor Anthony Lavine has been resigned.  Details remain confidential.

Reprise: An Art Review

Posted on 20. Jan, 2010 by Peter Katz in Campus

Rasmussen Art Gallery is one of PUC’s most overlooked treasures.  For those of you who were unaware, we have a full-blown art gallery.  Free.  On campus.  Literally ten seconds away from the Campus Center.  With, like, real art inside.

The newest show at RAG is Reprise: 2010 Howell Mountain Juried Art Exhibition, featuring community artists.  If you have even fifteen minutes on your way from the library to the Campus Center, and the gallery is open (hours below), you should absolutely stop by.  If you need a preview, the C2 is at your service.

With apologies to all our photo-major readers, photography has never much moved me.  I will say, however, that several of the pieces in Reprise actually spoke to me.  Craig Philpott’s Bridges (first place, photography) and Engine 4 are brilliant industrial shots; Bridges especially is a brilliant amalgamation of a natural lake or river, an industrial bridge—it may be a railroad of some sort—and a more contemporary bridge that has that almost-pristine shimmer of sci-fi utopia, all intersecting in the center of the piece.  Several of the nature photos, particularly Robert Wilson and the Schooleys (doesn’t that sound like an awesome band name?) have fantastic play with light, and are definitely worth appreciating.

One of the most prominent pieces in the gallery is Deborah Kaye Marks’s oil painting Goth Cove Moonscape, the title of which is fairly self-explanatory—a gothic (in the early Romantic sense) moonscape over a tumultuous sea that would have made Byron and Shelly wet themselves with excitement.  Wilma Dobias’s western landscapes-plus-bear are vaguely Whistler-meets-Van-Gogh-somewhere-in-Oregon, and along with Gil Mance’s oil portraits Sunset, Howell Mountain and Spring Morning, Pope Valley (second place, photography), give a definite local, Northern California feel to the show.  While I honestly did not quite appreciate Gay Bell’s Chateau St. Jean (first place, painting) when I first looked at it, as I sat in the middle of the gallery writing this review, I realized that the colors and shading make it look positively three dimensional; make sure to view this piece from a reasonable distance to enjoy it to the fullest.

Generally, I find myself more of a painting or mostly-two-dimensional mixed-media person—and speaking of which, let me take this moment to point out that Thomas Morphis’s mixed-media Transformative is absolutely brilliant—but Reprise contains some absolutely phenomenal three-dimensional art.  William John Callnan III’s The Proposal, a chaotic piece that absolutely flings itself onto the viewer, is brimming with more intricacy than even two or three looks-over can comprehend.  John McDowell’s Reading the Bible Series: Alarm is rather what the name says, but I still want to save the surprise; sometimes simple compositions bear the most complex weight.  There is little doubt in my mind that McDowell’s sculpture Angel of Regret deserves its Best of Show award.  Up on its pedestal, it strikes an imposing, heart- and gut-wrenching image (though I do wish that the curator would have placed it so it could be better viewed from the seating in the center of the gallery).  I recommend sitting on the floor directly in front of the piece; people will only look at you funny until they try it.  While all of McDowell’s angel sculptures are moving and aesthetically brilliant, this is perhaps the best of them.

The exhibition opened January 9, and will run until February 4.  The gallery is open Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday from 1-5pm.  Go.  Now.  Unless it isn’t 1-5pm on the above dates, in which case, go later.  But go.  And thank you to the artists of Angwin, and the Rasmussen Art Gallery for providing us with culture at our fingertips.

TLDR: Too Long, Didn’t Read

Posted on 20. Jan, 2010 by Peter Katz in Editorial

It has recently come to our attention here at the C2 that some people have found our previous issues, or at least parts of our previous issues, a bit … excessive.  That is, in terms of verbiage (that means words).

In brief—and yes, I’m trying—there are basically two sides to this argument.  The first side, being the side that I have been on since about freshman year, is that this is an academic paper at an academic institution.  Therefore, this side would argue, the articles in the paper should be academic in nature.  And, of course, this generally means longer articles, bigger words, deeper ideas.  This paper is, as we have declared on many occasions, the forum for campus discussion.

The problem we have encountered, and the argument provided by the second side, is that this is an academic institution, and so frankly, nobody has the time or desire to leave class where they read academic articles, go the caf, and read … academic articles.  While I have a hard time wrapping my twisted mind around this concept, I do think that I vaguely understand; when we’re all busy, brain-dead, and worn out, we don’t feel much like doing further work.

We at the C2 hope to come to some sort of compromise on this issue.  I, as the editor, would like to apologize if we’ve missed our readership’s desire, but I would like to add to that apology a call of sorts: please talk to us!  We’ve received one whole letter-to-the-editor from a student this year, and that student ultimately requested that we discard the letter.  From our position, it seems as though no one is reading—which is dangerous.  Next thing you know, Issue #6 of the paper might be a series of articles on the narratology of textbooks.  At least then we would know that nobody was reading.

In an attempt to find compromise, we have zoomed in a bit, this issue.  We have student interviews, teacher interviews, department interviews, and artist interviews, so that you as PUC can meet more of your fellow PUC-ites.  We hope that by going micro, we might find a bit more interest; sort of an in-depth version of “Back-talk,” for those of you here last year.  If PUC  (being you) wants, we could keep this up all year.

But we don’t want to overcompensate.  We do feel that our deeper articles have struck a higher-quality tone, set a new standard for journalism with the SA paper.  In the end, though, it really is up to you—maybe.  If you want more of the heavy-hitting stuff, let us know.  If you prefer the lighter, more personal element, let us know.  If you don’t tell us anything, we will have to assume that nobody is reading, and we may just start printing pages with smiley faces scribbled on them.  Email us at editor.c2puc@gmail.com, drop a letter in our box (we’re in the back of the Campus Center), or even better, write something for us.  Get in touch with your paper.

And trust me, when I threaten to fill the next issue with narratology articles, I could do it.  If you don’t know what narratology is, or don’t want to know, talk to us!

YAF, or Why Conservatives are not Evil

Posted on 18. Nov, 2009 by Peter Katz in Campus

Americans have no concept of politics.

Dr. David Trim, a visiting professor from England, in explaining his political affiliation, told us, “In England, there are two parties.  There are the Whigs, who are like the Democrats, and the more conservative Tories, who are like the Democrats.”  In short, the American notion that Democrats are liberals and Republicans are conservatives—perhaps more importantly, that those equations can be reversed, yielding the notion that conservatives are Republican and liberals are Democrats—is unfortunately US-centric.

A quick political science lesson.  “Conservative” has nothing inherently to do with religion, having a lot of money, being from the South, or owning rifles.  “Liberal” has nothing inherently to do with global warming, health care, being from New York, or being anti-war.  Conservative philosophy, which is what concerns this article, has to do with retention of tradition and community through continuity.  Much of conservative philosophy has roots in Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France, in which he outlines a position claiming that society is the giving up of rights in order to protect from mob rule, and that the government gives back certain rights; he ridicules the French for throwing off tradition in favor of abstract rights he claims do not exist as natural givens.

One of the major players in modern conservatism was William Buckley, who constructed a conservatism based on principles the retention of American traditions such as free market, limited federal power, and social order.  These notions are, ironically enough, principles of political liberalism (absolutely not in the sense of American politics), which stresses individual freedom and free market; clearly, no definition is stable, since the definition of the modern conservative rings true with the early French Revolution and the policy makers following American Revolution—who were labeled as liberals by the rest of Europe.  Liberal and conservative, in practice, are not even necessarily opposites; our tradition was two centuries past’s liberalism.

Our campus recently started a chapter of Young Americans for Freedom, a national organization that supports a model similar to Buckley and Burke’s conservatism (but, of course, different; history, contrary to popular opinion, does not repeat itself so linearly as to make ideological clones).  YAF’s statement of purpose includes declarations that “political freedom cannot long exist without economic freedom,” that, “when government ventures beyond these rightful functions [internal order, national defense, justice], it accumulates power, which tends to diminish order and liberty,” and that “when government interferes with the work of the market economy, it tends to reduce the moral and physical strength of the nation.”  In short: free market, small central government, and personal liberty as perceived through economic agency.  In shorter: conservatism.

The primary problem with American politics, if I may be so bold as to declare such a ridiculous statement, is not partisanship, but rather, blind partisanship.  The notion that to be a conservative (and therefore, in the American mind, a Republican) to the American means that one must be anti-gay-marriage (and therefore a homophobe), anti-big-government (and therefore hate poor people), anti-abortion (and therefore a misogynist), and pro-social-order via morality (and therefore a religious nutcase).  Conservatism as an ideology says nothing explicitly about homophobia, nothing about abortion, nothing about religion, nothing about class.  But the American political mind feels that, since conservative = Republican, all of these assumptions must be true.

What makes this problem so virulent is the reactionary nature of American politics, and politics in general.  It is safe to assert that many Americans did not much appreciate George W. Bush’s administrative policies; it is unfortunately more accurate to assert that a good deal of Americans hated George W. Bush because it was the thing to do.  After Clinton, it was cool to be conservative; after Bush, it is cool to be liberal.  The war in Iraq and Afghanistan had little to do with conservative politics – except the notion of aggressive foreign policy – and more to do with the Bush administration.  One would note that there are still troops in both countries; clearly, the real world is a little more complicated than Republican and Democrat.  Nevertheless, because we are so reactionary, somehow, to be a Republican is to be closed minded, to hate humanity in general, particularly minorities and freedom (ironic, no?).

My point, therefore, is that conservative does not yield evil: Republican does not yield evil, and more importantly, conservative does not yield Republican.  American political parties are (supposedly) an amalgamation of stances on specific issues that may or may not have to do with conservatism or liberalism, and may even be contradictory (abortion and the death penalty being the pedantic examples).  YAF represents a modern conservative ideology regarding the market, the power of the federal government, and American tradition.  To claim that a conservative group is a hate group is to be blind to the greater questions of politics and the recognition that “Republican” and “Democrat” as we know them are recent inventions with only tangential correlation to the fundamentals of conservatism/democracy/liberalism.

YAF is an organization of students who believe in American tradition, free market, and limited federal government, not a hate group.  There is perhaps no one so closed-minded as the American alleged liberal who hates the very notion of conservatives (or Republicans) simply because they are not Democrats.  Such a person is neither liberal, nor conservative – simply ignorant.

Plane Crashes at Angwin Airport — Sort of

Posted on 29. Oct, 2009 by Peter Katz in Campus, Community

A private plane taxiing on the runway at the Angwin Airport miscalculated the direction of the runway and collided with a chain link fence near some empty metal containers adjacent to the runway.  No one was seriously injured.

Photo by Matthew Hardesty

Gallery Hopping on Main Street

Posted on 27. Oct, 2009 by Peter Katz in Community

Perhaps art galleries are only for snobby intellectuals, but I have bad news for all of you: simply by going to college, you are taking part in a long tradition of snobby intellectuals from the classical Mid-East to Charlemagne to Oxford and Cambridge. Own it.

Frankly, as far as art galleries go, St. Helena is one of the best places to hone your snobby intellectualism, or to begin to come to terms with it. On Main Street alone, there are no less than four formal art galleries, and several more if you expand your definition of gallery—and all of them are free.

Caldwell Snyder

My personal favorite as far as my taste in genre, Caldwell Snyder is about halfway down the first section of Main Street. The gallery has a contemporary leaning, with a movement toward emerging artists that makes it the most radical gallery in St. Helena. Caldwell Snyder is more than just a gallery; it is, according to according to gallery employee and PUC alumna Katie Hopgood, a “cultural epicenter,” featuring humanitarian and intellectual exhibits as well, such as an impending lecture series. The gallery tends to have a good deal of geometric and fluid abstraction with the vivid colors and busyness typical of the late twentieth century, as well as some decent neo-impressionism and simply phenomenal surrealist paintings. Current displays include sculptures by Greg Miller, and a series of fascinating absurdist—though, according to the artist, not surrealist, because all of the instances are potentially feasible, no matter the improbability—works by Ukrainian artist Ilya Zomb. The gallery has an upper-class feel, though its amicable employees make one feel comfortable. If modern art is your thing, then Caldwell Snyder is a must-visit; the exhibits tend to rotate with some frequency, so it is worth dropping by several times over the year.

I. Wok

Another favorite, the I. Wok gallery has a more “conservative” slant to its art, according to one of the employees. Works here tend to be representative or concrete, though generally via intriguing and novel methods. There remain a few paintings from an artist who does flowers with pictures from magazines (often shocking pictures, which makes it all the more interesting), and some of the impressionist paintings I have seen previously were obscure almost to the point of abstraction, yet profoundly concrete. There is also a good bit of sculpture—currently, a series of birds and fruit that appeal even to my preference for surrealism and abstraction, while still remaining definitely concrete. The ambiance sits somewhere between a formal museum and a small-town gallery, and the combination is both friendly and formal. This gallery is a safe and worthwhile stop on your journey into art galleries.

Art on Main

If the museum style of I Wok and Caldwell Snyder intimidate you, Art on Main is a brilliant starting point. While still very much an art gallery, the architecture of the gallery is such that it feels far more private, separating you from the front desk and other art-surveyors, and not like you need to be wearing a full suit or evening gown (though we do like formal wear). The gallery is “a little bit of everything” according to manager Suzanne Perkins, with a leaning toward “area” artists, though it includes national and international art as well. Currently, Art on Main has some outstanding impressionist paintings, and a good bit of pastoral—specifically Napa Vally-esque—representative painting and sculpture. The gallery is very focused on the experience of the viewer, with design and setting intentionally created to ensure an atmosphere of comfort and accessibility.

Christopher Hill

We will be frank: we intended to go to the Christopher Hill gallery, but we were running short on time, and it happens to be closed on Tuesdays, which is both when we went down, and the day before we need our final copy. Based on what I have seen before, once you get over the feeling of trespassing through the little door and stairwell, the gallery itself is well-worth visiting. The artwork lands nicely in the center between radical and conservative, with a little on both ends, and a solid mix of genre. Construction itself encourages something between a formal museum feel and a more intimate experience. The artists featured tend to be nationally and internationally renowned, and therefore of exceptional quality. Definitely worth your time; fear not the stairs.

Other galleries

Several stores on Main Street like Findings, Martin (M.), etc. are eclectic and set up with an eye for design and display. While they may not consider themselves galleries, or others may not consider them galleries, they most certainly could be. While on your tour of St. Helena’s art, I suggest dropping by some of these stores as well.
So get on your collared shirt or nice blouse, puff yourself up with intellectual confidence, and go forth to check out the culture St. Helena offers. With so much talent and beauty at our fingertips, it would be a shame for PUC-ites to miss these opportunities.

A Local Boutique with a Global Mission

Posted on 27. Oct, 2009 by Peter Katz in Community

Humanitarianism does not have to take place in the context of Amnesty International or Revo—it can be a part of daily consuming.

Baksheesh, on Main Street in St. Helena, is a Fair Trade store with an emphasis on humanity over consumption. Managed by Katie Schnable, a sociology graduate from Washington D.C., Baksheesh is dedicated to creating sustainability by purchasing from artisans across the globe via fair trade.

“Fair trade” is a mode of business in which artisans are paid a “livable wage in their community,” according to Schnable, an amount which may vary from country to country, but ensures education, health care, sustenance, and shelter for the workers. The store seeks to “partner with artisans on long term” said Schnable, in order to ensure consistency in funding for the workers. Within the Fair Trade Federation – a collective of vendors dedicated to fair trade – Baksheesh contacts fellow vendors, who then contract with the artisans in order to ensure sustainability on a global, marketable scale.

Schnable founded the store because, to her, fair trade “just makes sense.” It is her goal to raise social awareness about the way consumers take consumption for granted, and to reveal the facets of social justice embedded in spending and shopping. For example, when one purchases something from Baksheesh, one is given the choice between a bag and a piece of chocolate. “Eventually we want people to take neither, but right now, the reward system works,” Schnable explains, but the point is to get people to think about things like from where their grocery and shopping bags come, and the global effects of such mass consumerism.

A good part of Baksheesh and Schnable’s mission is to provide access to information that bestows a “different way to see the world,” from maps that call into question the Euro-centric tradition by demonstrating that such a view of geography is not a given, or a particularly fascinating map that proportions country size by population. In addition, one can purchase the “Better World Hand-guide” similar to the text sold by David Bastone from the Not-For-Sale campaign that made waves at PUC through Revo two years previous. The handbook lists major corporations and companies in various modes of production, rating them on a scale of fair trade, slave labor, and other humanitarianly-minded aspects.

On top of all of the good intentions, Baksheesh has an eclectic and fantastic array of clothing, decorations, and artwork, from scarves to items one may never have before seen, but will make one wish that one had. Items come from Nepal, Peru, Guatemala, Ecuador, Bolivia, India, Indonesia, South Africa, and Kenya, to name a few of the widespread locales. Pricing is quite affordable, and it always makes me feel better to know that, to quote Schnable, my money “is going to a family in Nepal for food, rather than a guy in Southern California for a Mercedes.”

As Christians, as intellectuals, as students of humanity at a liberal arts college, it is our duty to be conscious that, as Schnable puts it, “Where you spend your money is where you cast your vote.” Not only is this in part true in the bipartisan political sense, but more importantly, money spent for fair trade is a vote for humanity over consumption, for people over corporations, for sustainability over social stratification. So cast your vote for humanity through Baksheesh, and make some “good” purchases in every sense of the word.