Look me in the eye.How do you face

peers in the hallway?– page 8O

PIN

ION

S

New

S

Feat

ur

eS

Hea

LtH

Break-in news:Computers stolen from

Admissions Office-page 2

Come to your senses! Student Committee hosts

winter Festival 2010– page 4

Oh, no, it’s mono: Check out our inside look

at an annoying virus– page 9

February 2010 Volume 11, Issue 3the urban School of San Francisco

Visit The Urban School at this

time of year, walk through

our hallways, and chances are

you’ll stumble across some

relic of senior art mania: a

full-sized torso of a superhe-

ro hangs from the ceiling, jars

of honey glisten on the art

room’s glass shelves, beehives

hang from a hallway ceiling.

Hurrying to class, you may

pause to take a look ...

Urban students take their art to the walls for the Winter Annual Art Show.

Heart of the Art

tali Benattar (‘10) installs beehives made from

various collage materials for the w

inter art Show. photo by Isabel M

oore

see artSHOw page 5

Life on HaigHt street Don tanksley, a longtime resident of the Haight, walks to golden gate Park. tanksley, who struggles with homelessness, might have to change how he spends his days if a new sit-lie ordinance is passed. resident complaints have sparked political interest in a more aggressive homeless policy photo by Sonja Bartlett

Haiti Relief Immediately after the

devastating magnitude 7.0 earthquake in Haiti on Jan. 12, Urban jumped into ac-tion by planning a variety

of fundraisers. Community Outreach organized two bake sales. The proceeds

of the first bake sale went to Partners in Health and

the donations of the second went to Doctors Without

Borders. Also, the donations raised by the Valentine’s

Day candygrams were given to Partners in Health. Urban

raised a total of $920 from the three fundraisers. Great

job, Urban!

To get involved, check these websites:

Partners in Health: http://www.standwithhaiti.org/haiti

Doctors Without Borders: http://www.doctorswithoutborders.

org/

- Emily Wen

Urbanitemsa quick look at

what's happening in our community

What does “home” really mean to Urban students? On Jan. 15, Urban held its annual Month of Understanding assembly. The theme was Urban students’ ideas of home. The yearly assembly celebrates Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and raises awareness about multicultural issues. The assembly included student responses to a survey about the sub-ject of home. The survey included both visual and written responses. The MultiCulti Team received about 122 photos, 100 of which were used in the final slideshow. The MultiCulti Team, which planned the assembly as well as other cultural events, decided to examine the theme of “home” so as not to exclude any particular

group of people. Ken Garcia-Gonzales, Dean of Multicultural Life, said that the theme was developed by both student and faculty members of the MultiCulti Student and Co-Curricular Diversity Com-mittees. “We purposely tried to choose a universal theme so that all students could engage in the thematic questions and explora-tion,” he said. Sophie Lieberman, who represents the Gay Straight Al-liance (GSA) on the MultiCulti Team, believes that the assembly was fulfilling.“We did what we needed to do: Share our peers’ responses,” she said.

Larissa Parson, English teacher, found the theme of “home” reso-nated with her. “I’ve had a num-ber of different homes over many years,” she said, “so I have given a fair amount of thought to what makes a place feel like home.” Parson added however that “(some students) seemed to think the idea was silly, or that it wasn’t appropriate for school.” Mei Li Isaacson (’11) had mixed feelings about the assembly. “At first, I didn’t think people were paying attention, because they were laughing at what was being projected,” she said. “But now I think that people laughing just proves that people were attentive. It’s just not exactly the reaction I wanted.” Garcia-Gonzales was not sur-prised with the assembly’s mixed reviews. “With every assembly, you

We walk by them every day. We pointedly avoid their gazes when they ask us to spare some change. Occasionally, we give them our leftover food. For Urban students, the homeless population of the Haight is an integral part of the high school experience. Some find the neighborhood’s homeless population is an irritation. Others believe these people are a necessary part of the Haight experience. The issue of homelessness took on new force recently when Police Chief George Gascón proposed a sit-lie ordinance for the neighbor-hood. Such policies, which operate in cities such as Portland, Ore. and Palo Alto, give police more author-ity to move homeless off streets during business hours. According to Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi,in an interview with the Legend, “it would ... provide the police the discretion of assigning the law as an infraction or a mis-demeanor. If it’s a misdemeanor, you are going to jail.”

the Urban LegendnewsFebruary 2010

2urbanlegendstaff@gmail.com

Madeleine May and Jenna Waldman

staff writers

HoMe in a Jar a painting by Caroline Yopes shows her idea of home photo by Sonja Bartlett

thieves break into Urban, steal three computers

Unidentified thieves made a surprise visit to Urban on Feb. 17, breaking a window on the ground level of the school and stealing one desktop computer, one computer monitor, and one Mac mini-com-puter. Greg Monfils, 9th and 10th grade dean, entered school Wednesday morning to find a broken window and a missing monitor screen in the ground floor office belonging to Bobby Ramos, director of admis-sions. Monfils proceeded to the lobby, only to find Receptionist Andrea Scally’s computer missing as well, along with the Mac mini-computer connected to the public desktop computer. Monfils called Susan Munn,

director of finance and operations, at 7:30 a.m. Munn then called the police and filed a report. Monfils described himself as “quizzical” about the break in, saying that he does not see “how anyone could get through the win-dow” in Ramos’ office. The window is approximately 12’’ feet by 19.4 feet. According to Munn, the thieves entered the school by throwing a brick from a nearby planter through Ramos’s ground floor office win-dow. She added that police think the thieves “must have been working in a team, because one crawled through the window and let the other in through the front door.” The thieves may have taken computers, but they left evidence behind. Munn said the police found “good fingerprints, and

sCene of tHe CriMe Bobby Ramos’s office window after the break-in. Police took several fingerprints along with blood samples. photo by Sonja Bartlett

sabrina Werbystaff writer

Proposed sit-lie rule hits the Haight

Urban’s Month of Understanding dwells on homehope that what you present and develops resonates with the entire school community,” he said. “Obvi-ously, you can’t please everyone, but that is not the objective. The objective is to generate dialogue and create space to have conversa-tions that we may not otherwise have.” For the future, the MultiCulti Team is planning more events to continue the dialogue between stu-dents and teachers. Team members are reviewing student responses to the assembly so that they can make future assemblies more intriguing. The team also is in the process of creating new affinity clubs and scheduling guest speakers.

Editor’s Note: Emily Wen is a member of the MultiCulti Team, which is made up of 14 students in all four grades.

there were drops of blood on the cords that connected to Andrea’s computer.” As a result of the break-in, students, teachers, parents, and administrators alike are question-ing Urban’s security. Although the school has an alarm system, which is connected to an outside security system, Munn says that when an investigator ar-rived, “he could not see the broken window because it was behind a bush, so he reset the alarm and left.” Charlotte Worsley, assistant head for student life, says that the break-in is a reminder that safety at Urban is a community concern. “Our school is everyone’s school, and we all have to work together to report suspicious be-havior and keep it safe,” Worsley said.

emily Wenstaff writer

see HoMeLess page 10

�������The�human�race�descends�from�fish�that left the water, mutated over a few hundred million years, and developed a serious superiority complex along the way. I get ticked off when people say things�like,�“fish�aren’t�important”�or�“it’s�just�a�stupid�fish.”�That’s�like�saying,�“I’m�not�important”�or�“I’m�just�a�stupid�fish.”�Both�revised statements are probably much more truthful than the originals. Fish are important, and we need to start treating them with the respect they deserve. �������Fish�are�important�and�just�plain�cool.�Many�fish�are�keystone�species,�which�en-tire�ecosystems�rely�on.�Remove�fish�like�parrotfish,�sharks,�and�damselfish�from�their respective ecosystem, and the whole thing falls apart. Fish possess incredible adaptations,�from�the�wings�of�flying�fish�to�electric�rays'�ability�to�shock.�Beyond�being eaten (they are an important source of�protein�for�many�people),�fish�benefit�people in cool and bizarre ways. Watch-ing�fish�can�calm�people�down,�and�some�fish� are� used in s p a s to remove dead skin off peo-ple’s�feet.�I’d�go�for�a�fish�pedicure.�������I�love�all�fish,�but�the�one�really�after�my heart is the shark. I have spent the last two�years�diving�and�filming�sharks,�and�nothing�I’ve�ever�done�can�compare�to�

urbanlegendstaff@gmail.com

The Urban LegendFebruary 2010

Up in The air Sharp Park golf course is a source of conflict between golfers and environmentalists trying to restore habitat for endangered species

Sharp Park's future up in the air A dozen miles away from Urban lies Sharp�Park�Golf�Course.�The�Pacifica�pub-lic golf course, owned by the city of San Francisco, might seem to be a typical golf course. For conservationists and endangered species, however, it is an opportunity. The San Francisco garter snake is a gor-geous red and-blue-snake, endemic to the San Francisco peninsula. This local treasure is not well-known, and our incredible snake is�just�barely�holding�on�to�survival.�Destruc-tion of native habitat has put the snake onto the endangered species list. If it is to recover, we will have to bring back the habitat; this is where the golf course comes in.

�������Project�has�always�been�a�core�part�of the Urban curriculum. Students are asked to pick an organization that corresponds with a personal interest, to volunteer at for the duration of one trimester.�The�goal�of�project,�according�to Urban's website, is to “help Urban students become responsible, resource-ful citizens, often achieving a level of social and political awareness that is rare�among�teenagers.”� Urban Junior Cody Leff worked at the Conservatory of Flowers from September to November. He shared his experience with us.

The Conservatory of Flowers' mis-sion is to cultivate, conserve, interpret and�exhibit�a�tropical�collection�of�flow-ers and plants that will educate people about these specimens and their impor-tance to our planet while providing an outstanding visitor experience.

1. Did you work on a specific project? I basically worked on whatever Mario (the nursery specialist) wanted me to do, usually watering or cleaning, though I did do some transplanting and repotting, and worked on a moss sculpture for the train exhibit. 2. What was your typical day?(Mario)�would�give�me�some�job,�like�cutting the spines off of spiny bromeli-ads.��I�would�first�water�all�the�outside�plants,�then�I�would�do�the�job�he�gave�me. It was fun! If I came on days when I didn't have school I could stay for lunch, (which) was lots of fun, and the food was really good.

3. Do you plan on continuing your relationship with the Conservatory?Probably�not�for�next�project�-�though�I�loved�it�there,�I�think�project�is�a�great�way to do all kinds of things, so I'll probably want to do something new.

4. What did you learn there?I did learn a few things like how to transplant plants, how to clean al-gae from every pane of a giant glass greenhouse and how to correctly water plants, and Mario showed me a bunch of�really�awesome�plants�and�flowers,�which I'm not sure how to classify as learning�but�it�was�definitely�an�enrich-ing experience. 5. Fondest memory: There was a cacao plant in the main conservatory, but it wasn't making fruit so (Mario) took me into the back nursery and showed me one that was making fruit, and it was so cool and amazing!�The�orange�fruit�just�hung�from the wood of the tree, it was really neat. Something I couldn't have seen by�just�visiting...

More information at http://www.conserva-toryofflowers.org/support/donate

photo by Sonja Bartlett

this. I have developed a deep rever-ence for sharks, from whale sharks to mako sharks, and I am working on a film�to�educate�people�on�the�true�nature�of sharks. Unfortunately, the mainstream media

has been anything but kind (or truth-ful) when it comes to sharks. They are portrayed as evil eating machines. On the con-

trary, people are eating sharks to�extinction.�Because�of�horrific�

practices�like�shark�finning�and�general�overfishing,�many�shark�species�have�declined by more than 90 percent, accord-ing�to�a�study�published�in�the�scientific�journal,�Nature.�To�make�matters�worse,�high mercury levels in sharks can cause numerous health issues, including birth defects and even steril-ity in men. All of this applies to the popular shark�fin�soup,�which�involves slicing off the shark’s�fins�and�throwing�him�or�her�back�into the ocean to die. Somali pirates made a splash last year, and this violence all comes down to fish.�According�to�Time�Magazine,�most�of�the�pirates�were�fisherman,�but�indus-trial-fishing�boats,�mostly�from�Europe,�came into Somalian waters and dumped toxic waste from their countries and took away�tons�of�fish.�This�collapsed�fish�populations.�With�no�fish,�and�families�to support, many of these people became the pirates that make the news. We may think�of�illegal�fishing�as�a�petty�crime,�but illegal harvesting and transportation

of�animals,�including�fish,�is�behind�only�drugs�and�guns�in�the�world’s�top�black�market trades. Interestingly, the rise of piracy in Somalia�has�driven�out�the�foreign�fish-ing�boats,�and�subsequently�fish�stocks�appear to have improved tremendously. This�year,�fishermen�in�Somalia�and�sur-rounding countries are catching much more than before, and the main factor seems to be the retreat of the industrial-ized�foreign�fishing�boats.

The oceans are suffering from re-

lentless exploita-tion. A

study pub-lished in Science has warned that most�of�the�world’s�seafood�will�be�gone�by 2048. This is depressing, but we often underestimate the power we have. It is our�demand�for�fish�and�other�stuff�that�makes�this�exploitation�profitable.�We�can’t�afford�to�become�slaves�to�luxuries�and petty materialism, most certainly not at the grave expense of life. I believe that we can turn the tides if we support sus-tainable�fisheries,�avoid�eating�threatened�fish�like�sharks,�use�less�polluting�energy,�and implement other steps to ease our impact on the oceans. I do believe it is possible.�But�maybe�I’m�wrong;�after�all,�

I’m�just�a�fish.�

For more information, check out:http://endoftheline.com/film/http://www.elasmodiver.com/

http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/ http://www.montereybayaquari um.org/cr/seafoodwatch.aspxhttp://www.nwf.org/News-and-Magazines/National-Wildlife/Animals/Archives/2008/The-Most-Important-Fish-in-the-Sea.aspx

The first thing to know is, each person reading this is a fish.

� Before� development,� the� land� was� a�home for the San Francisco garter snake, red-legged frog, and numerous other native animals and plants. It was a home for life. The course has since overpowered upland areas, and has adversely affected the native wetland habitat. It was poorly designed with little foresight, and now suffers from many design�flaws,�including�flooding�during�the�winter�rains.�According�to�Wild�Equity�Insti-tute, between 2004 and 2008 the Sharp Park Golf Course cost the city of San Francisco be-tween�$30,000�and�$300,000�each�year.�Even�worse, water pumps threatened frog eggs, and at least one of the San Francisco garter snakes was butchered by a lawn mower. The externalities of keeping the course are ridiculous, especially with multiple other

golf courses around San Francisco. Groups such�as�Wild�Equity�Institute�and�The�Cen-ter�for�Biological�Diversity�are�advocating�for the city to hand the land over to the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which would restore it for the snakes and other native inhabitants, as well as hikers, bikers, and all lovers of the outdoors. There are�numerous�other�benefits�of�restoration�as�well,�from�protecting�the�inland�of�Pacifica�from rising sea levels, to outdoor education opportunities for students. We really need to seize these kinds of opportunities if we are going to achieve a sustainable future. Still, many golfers and golf advocates are fighting�to�leave�the�park�as�a�golf�course.�This has led to political debate and strife between golfers and conservationists. The city is currently still working out what it will do with Sharp Park. Its fate is going to be discussed in upcoming budget hearings in the coming months. Along with many other conservationists, I have issues with golf courses in general. They use a ton of pesticides, fertilizers, and way too much water. On the other hand, golf courses provide some useable habitat for birds and other adaptable animals. They get�people�outdoors,�and�are�definitely�a�better option than urban development. Many�people�enjoy�golf,�and�conservation-ists cannot afford to alienate them from the environmental cause. What bothers me the most is that while we are bickering about these issues, all sorts of lives are being hurt.

Green Planet

Cody Leff ('11) worked at the SF Conservatory of Flowers last fall

noah Schalger Staff writer

noah SchlagerStaff writer

UrbanProject

Editorial

Illustrations of endangered fish by Noah Schlager. Clockwise: bluefin tuna, Australian lungfish, damsel fish, mahi mahi, yellowfin tuna

Sara Brooks and Sarah Maccabee

Staff writers

see JUMp page 10 photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/people/airplane_journal/

3

Winterfest gets mixed reaction Winterfest, the annual one-day festival of fun and alternative learning that took place on Feb. 1, received mixed reviews this time around. One of Urban’s most dis-tinctive traditions, Winterfest has gone through several incarnations over the years, from a presentation on gender given by a hermaph-rodite; to “post-modern workout rooms,” where leg warmers, chocolate, and spangles abounded; to this year’s hypnosis assembly. Some of the changes have caused discontent among stu-dents. Lena Seagrave (’10), a member of Peer Resource, recounts with disappointment the switch in leadership from Peer Resource to Student Committee in 2008. “When a group with the goal of emotionally connecting the com-munity is running something,” Seagrave explained, “it's gonna be different then when it's run by a group that organizes the social events. Though Winterfest was never a super-serious thing,

I place it in the realm of school- sponsored events that encouraged a community engagement (which) I miss.” Charlotte Worsley, assistant head for student life, gave us a complete timeline of Winterfest’s history. “The tradition of having an all-school day in the winter started back in 1994 when we stopped having the All-School Trip,” she said. Winterfest changed lead-ership for the first time “in the late 1990s, (when) some students and I talked about the idea of spreading our work on diversity and inclu-sion across the school year instead of focusing it on one day.” At this point, Winterfest became part of Peer Resource’s annual calendar. “They did it for four or five years and then Kaern and I decided it was time for a change,” said Worsley. School Counselor and Peer

Resource leader Kaern Kreyling described her intentions in making this change. Winterfest, she said, used to be part of a larger tradition of spontaneous camping trips and diversity events, “which I think happened more often in the past at Urban, when there were…more alternative curricul(a).” “ I think, in the last decade, it’s come

down to do-ing these spe-cial days.” Krey-ling explained

that as the presence of alternative curriculum decreased, Winterfest “became known as a fun day, which …insulted me, to a point. I didn’t really want to be in charge of a fun day… I wanted to do something that had a kind of seri-ous curriculum underneath.” Worsley agrees that the inten-tions of Winterfest have morphed. “Student Committee has been running the Winterfest with the goal being to provide a day in the

winter for silly fun and school celebration,” she says. Despite the change in focus and leadership, Winterfest remains a favorite Urban event. Chris Har-vey, (’12) was very enthusiastic about his activity at the zoo, where he “saw bears slaughter a helpless fish ... it was a wonderful sight.” Student Committee President Jackson Goldberg (’10) thought “everyone had a lot of fun, so it was a success. "Honestly, the people who don't want to come don't have to," said Goldberg. "But it really was a grand old time this year, and I think the majority of the school is really into it.” While some are in favor of the day, other students were disap-pointed. Nicki Greenberg ('13), who visited a kindergarten class-room, appreciated a break from school. She admittedly "thought it was gonna be more fun."

Juniors Take Flight

Who: Griffin Snyder

Program: CITYterm

Where: New York City

Tuition: $22,210. One-half

of Urban tuition applies and

students pay remainder.

(Financial aid is available.)

What it is: CITYterm brings

together 30 intellectually

adventuresome juniors and

seniors together in a closely

knit community to explore,

wonder, watch, and learn on

the streets of New York City.

Length: 16 weeks

Griffin's opinion: "For one, this

may have been an expedition

of self-exploration. We (the

royal 'we') embarked across

the rocky waters of my soul,

to find that, as Aldous Huxley

states, 'bondage is the life of

personality, and for bondage

the personal self will fight with

tireless resourcefulness and the

most stubborn cunning."

Who: Sari Lesem and Celia Robertson

Program: Oxbow

Where: Napa, California

Tuition: $19,800. One-half of Urban

tuition applies, students pay remainder.

What it is: “(Oxbow is) an innovative,

interdisciplinary, semester program

combining visual arts with academics.”

Length: 16 weeks

What Celia has to say: "Oxbow is a

place where they pack you full of fresh

organic food, give you access to huge

studios filled with light and materials

and good company, and command you

to do what you love to do.

"There is no place quite like it.

It sounds corny, but it completely

changed the way i think, and I left

knowing way more about myself, what

is important to me, and where I'm

headed."

urbanlegendstaff@gmail.com

The Urban Legend

FeaturesFebruary 2010 4

IN A TRANCE Students are put to sleep by a guest hypnotist during all-school assembly photo by Isabel Moore

EXPLORING THE CITY Sophomores, juniors and seniors take a tour of Alcatraz for their Winterfest activity photo by Sarah Atkinson

Filling the whole on Haight StreetThe question: does Whole Foods belong on Haight?

The great clash is coming, Urban: Hippies against Yuppies, skateboards against minivans, homeless against homemakers. Four blocks west from Urban, at Haight and Stanyan, a Whole Foods supermarket is preparing to invade. But according to Ken Hines, Whole Foods Vice President of Development for Northern California, the Haight-Ashbury Whole Foods isn’t trying to invade, or even attract customers from outside the Haight. At an open meeting in the basement of the Park Branch Library on Page Street on Jan. 14, Hines explained that the new Whole Foods will be “a community store.” Hines assured the Haight-Ashbury Community Council that Whole Foods is “not looking to draw people from all over the city into the market.” Medina Clermont (’10) agrees that this could be a good thing for the neighborhood. “My family shops at Whole Foods all the time,” she said. Furthermore, she noted that the new market will take the place

of the Cala Foods market, which “has been empty for years. Now that whole end of Haight is just disgusting.” Clermont realizes that though the Whole Foods “might change

the culture of Haight, (making it) like hippie-dippie or hipster … it’s important not to have empty spaces like that.” Dawn, (who declined to give her last name), a Haight street resident who lives right next door

to the soon-to-be-construction site, isn’t sure that the Whole Foods is a good idea. She explained her reservations while shopping at the Haight Street Market, a grocery store on Haight between Ashbury and Clayton, which opened in 1981. “How is (the Whole Foods) gonna affect this store? It sounds like a good idea, but you gotta think about how it affects those around them, the mom and pop stores around here.” But she admitted that she wouldn’t mind a “real grocery store” in the neighborhood, since the Haight Street Market doesn’t sell meat. “You know, not everyone’s a vegetarian in San Francisco,” she laughed. Clarke Weatherspoon, Urban history teacher, said that the economic health of the Haight Street Market is his chief concern as well. "As a store, I like Whole Foods, I shop there often. But I’m a dedicated patron of the Haight Street Market and so because of

that, I will not be shopping at the Whole Foods (in the Haight),” he said, adding, “I think they have a lot of loyal customers who won’t go to Whole Foods.” Georgia Vardockastanis, co-

owner of the Haight Street Market, isn’t worried about competing with Whole Foods, and she won’t be changing her prices. “We’ll keep doing what we’ve been doing all these years,” Vard-ockastanis said. “It’s been a suc-cess. That’s all we can do, right?” In case Urban lunchers are won-dering, the “Urban discount” that is offered by many local stores isn’t in the cards. According to Hines, Whole Foods policy is “no specific discounts.” Construction on the new su-permarket is projected to begin in May, with opening day projected for sometime in December, though Joey Cain, President of the Haight-Ashbury Neighborhood Council, believes that “December is wishful thinking.”

see WINTER page 9

Whole Foods Facts-Founded in 1980

-51,100 employees worldwide

-More than 280 stores in North America and the U.K.

-As of May 2009, 68 leases for new stores signed

-Tenth largest food and drug store in the U.S.

-Number 369 on the FORTUNE 500 list

-$8.0 billion in sales (2008)

(From Whole Foods Market Press Room at http://whole-foodsmarket.com/pressroom/)

Sonja Bartlett and Hannah Gorman

Staff writers

Hannah GormanStaff writer

Some critique change in leadership, while others praise Student Committee efforts

photos by Isabel Moore

ASSASSIN THE GAME:

Everyone is given a target to assassinate.

You assassinate your target by being alone with them.

Once you have assassinated your target, you take on their target.

The game continues until that last assassin has killed the last

target.

PRESENTED BY: Student Committee

Be on the lookout starting spring term.

Jason CintiStaff writer

Going To Hell

I dove into the realm of fire, gore, and darkness: Starting Dante’s Inferno on the Xbox 360, Even the menu bar kindled fear in me. Images dripping in blood, punctuated by sharp cho-ral wails — the first breaths of hell came with a chill and fore-boding sense. At that moment, I saw the horror through Dante’s eyes...

Continued At www.urbanlegendnews.org

When Dante Alighieri wrote, cultures leapt from his pen. His style carved the Italian language, his commentary shook a

fractured state, and his subject immortalized the nine circles of hell.

In his predominant work, The Divine Comedy, Dante depicted himself as a quiet, cravenly, old man. Donning in a laurel

wreath, with a visage starkly pensive, the poet became an icon of Italian literature.

The Inferno, first in the Comedia’s series of three, depicts Dante’s walk through one Christian afterlife, incorporating

mythology, literature, and philosophy in an unprecedented way. His work changed the way we think.Yet Dante’s times are past. Now, 700 years after the poet’s death, something dark encroaches upon his legacy.

On Feb. 9, Electronic Arts and Visceral Games released “Dante’s Inferno: The Video Game.” This alone is enough to inspire fear in

the scholar’s

heart. But the video game has taken unimaginable liberties with Dante’s text.

Dante Alighieri, the peaceful man of deep contemplation, has become Dante the Crusader, a bulging, grossly masculine idol of violence. Alighieri’s

original Inferno describes his pilgrimage through hell, guided by the poet Virgil and taken at the behest of Dante’s unrequited love,

Beatrice, w

ho waits for him in Paradise. The pair comes to Satan frozen in the circle of Treachery, and climbs his body to Purgatory.EA serio

usly contorted the story. Satan steals Beatrice away at the game’s start, and Dante the Crusader follows in her wake, delving

to the deepest circle o

f hell to save his fiancé from the clutches of evil, choosing to slaughter or absolve sinners along his way.

Dante’s power in hell is the most egregious change made by EA, for the book presents Dante as a minor being in a larger

world, with little control over what divinity works around. Only by invitation does he walk alive in hell, and, while there, he

can but ask

questions of the tortured, having neither right nor will to cause further suffering.

Max Asencio (’11) thought the game “insulting…. It’s a really brute way to pigeon-hole that name because it’s a name that p

eople know… but not many people have actually read (the book).”

Rene Villacana, Lick-Wilmerding’s Dante Club adviser, noted that, “fundamentally, it’s a videogame, and (its)

producers... want the game to sell…. If there’s some destruction… some violence… some special effects, there’s going to be

Throughout the game, we see Dante confront progressively more obscene denizens of hell. an audience to play it…. It kind of has nothing to do with Dante.”

From the horribly malformed Cerberus in Gluttony, to the visually exaggerated prostitutes of Lust, EA has m

ade its best attempt to incite repulsion at our core.

Some say medieval society thought the book just as vulgar as we think the game now. Yet Dante

mourned the sins of man, whereas EA revels in them. Not only this, but he considered the deepest questio

ns we face as human beings: What is moral? What is evil? Why does man succumb to sin?Dante being such a rich character, why did EA choose to so warp his person?

“Real Dante was in Florence during a civil war – he was a politician,” noted Jonathan

Knight, executive producer and creative director for Dante’s Inferno. “We wanted something a littl

e bit more.” One EA press release said the crusader was “inspired by the real Dante Alighieri, but adapted for a new generation.” This begs the ques-tion: what does that say about our generation?

And what would Dante Alighieri himself think of EA’s hell? What exactly was his walk through fire and ice? Why does his story still brood at our core?

In Limbo, where “sighs, with lamentations and loud moans, / Resounded through the air pierced by no star… e’en (Dante) wept at entering. Various

book, and, lights and screams aflame, we “descend to the blind world”

tongues… outcries of woe, / accents of anger, voices deep and

hoarse… Made up a tumult, that forever whirls / Round through the air” (

Inferno, Canto III, lines 21-29).

As the Crusader swings his scythe, and players tap at their

controls, Dante Alighieri weeps. Thus greed stifles art, an age burns a (Inferno, Canto IV, line 12).

ArtsThe Urban Legend

urbanlegendstaff@gmail.com

5February 2010

Urban Art Show connects, excites and inspires

The Urban Winter Art Show, on Feb. 11, featured the work of 21 seniors, including media such as sculpture, painting, drawing, jewelry making and filmmaking. The show is an annual tra-dition, allowing only seniors to display and present their work to the rest of the Urban community. The art show consist-ed of browsing time around the school to look at art and to talk to the artists, refreshments and a presentation with all the artists explaining their thinking and processes behind their art. Senior artists are enrolled in the Ad-vanced Visual Art Seminar. The class consists of an independent project. The purpose of the class is to create a body of work and a specific art process for their lives outside of Urban. Kate Randall, one of Urban’s art teachers and art department head, says that the seniors who participated are “a tightly knit group, [and give] a lot of mutual support.” One of the benefits of being in the class are the many peer critiques, which help all of the students determine what they could be improv-ing in their work. Randall also said that there was “no particular theme,” but the show is “all seniors who have taken a number of art classes” during their time at Urban. The students each pick their own subject

matter, and it varies widely. The different subjects included brains, comic books, hands, and beehives. Evan Tomlinson Weintraub (’10) con-structed a sculpture of himself as he says in his artist statement, “frozen in outer space or floating in the deepest part of the ocean.” This sculpture was made out of paper mache and formed to his body. He hung the piece in the alcove next to the Independence room. The figure is suspended by string and small bells hang around it.spoke about how the most important part of the class was the process of making the art. This was a common remark from many of the artists that participated. Unlike the other artists, Martin Lindsey (’10) used the computer to create his work, including vectors, which are shapes in reference to one another, to cre-ate faces and shapes. He decided to create images of his friends, which produced colorful portraits with intriguing back-grounds. He said in his artist statement, “I want to characterize these people because they intrigue and fascinate me.” Another distinct medium that was ex-plored in the show was jewelry making. Dmitri Staszewski (’10) chose to produce jewelry because he enjoys making pieces during the summer and the art show was an excuse to go to his father’s jewelry studio to do what he enjoys. Through the class, he spent more time with his father, who was in the jewelry-making business, and also gained experience constructing

jewelry. As he wrote in his artist state-ment, “all of the pieces come from the structural beauty found in nature.” The Art Show is not only an event that incorporates the visual art classes. There were multiple seniors who were influenced by Urban classes. Becca Atkinson (’10) cited her Neurobiology course as an inspiration for her brain-related pieces. Caroline Yopes (’10) and Renee Donovan (’10) also both attribut-ed inspiration to LeRoy Votto’s Colonial History class. The Art Show not only

helps Urban artists connect their art to what they study, but also create lasting memories of their work. Yopes wrote about this in her artist statement about her jars of honey that she has preserved her memories in. “I have used this winter art show as a way of showing my own documen-tation, whether that be from taking pictures, drawing, or collecting objects. Each allows me to return to these memories whenever I wish.”

GeTTinG reAdy Lena Seagrave (‘10) puts up collages in preparation for the show.

Cassiel ChadwickStaff writer

Zoe PleasureStaff writer

. UNA SELVA ,

OscurA

Photo illustration by Cassiel ChadwickTop left: “Dante’s Inferno,” courtesy of Electronic Arts. Bottom right: Canto 1: Dante astray in the Dusky Wood, by Gustave Doré (Pantheon Book: 1948)

photo by Isabel Moore

2000 20012002

200720082009

“Gravity Rides Everything”Modest Mouse, The Moon and Antartica, Epic RecordsThe Moon and Antarctica wasn’t the best album released in 2000. Its 2004 re-release wasn’t the best album of 2004. In album-length dos-es, Isaac Brock’s voice makes me feel like dying, and not in a slow, Kurt Vonnegut-chain-smoking-Pall Malls kind of way. But his anthemic “gotta see, gotta know right now” marks a perfect start for a new decade, violently unique and completely inimitable in its tone and timbre. The distorted dozen guitar tracks layered on at the start are the product of an imagination run wild; the last “it all will fall, fall right into place” is an augury.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay: A NovelMichael Chabon, Random HouseMichael Chabon is special, and no two ways about it. Sometimes his writing is tear-jerkingly poetic (“A Yiddish Pale Fire”); sometimes it’s vast, epic, fantastic yet over-wrought (Summerland); sometimes it’s just obnoxious (Were-wolves in their Youth). But this novel’s tale of the American Dream and the superhero industry – one and the same – won its 2001 Pulitzer for good reason. In terms of craft, story, char-acter and, structure, it might be matched, but not surpassed;: the year Kavalier & Clay came out, I also read Catcher in the Rye for the first time. I liked Kavalier and Clay better. I still do.

PersepolisMarjane Satrapi, Pantheon BooksPersepolis deserves two mentions on this list — one for the four-part graphic novel which was first published in English two decades after the girlhood and the revolution it retells, and an-other for the delightful and unconventional animated feature made from it several years later. More than anything, the book is simple; clean lines, compelling authenticity and honesty, and an unadornedly confessional style make every page sing out.

The Royal TenenbaumsTouchstone Pictures, Gene Hackman, Ben StillerWith every Wes Anderson movie I watch, his precious way of tying loose ends to-gether appeals to me a little less. But with The Royal Tenenbaums, Anderson

struck gold, bringing to his cutesy, just-so filmmaking some genuine

emotional substance. Endear-ing quirks become a little

scary, amplify to the point of madness, take on ele-ments of tragedy. The Roy-al Tenenbaums is genius.

Is This ItThe Storkes, RCA Records

If The Royal Tenenbaums is a work of bright-eyed artistic whimsy, the Strokes’ Is This It is the product of machine-like, calculated brilliance: eight hours of band practice every day from 1998 to 2001, bringing to garage rock the kind of expertise usually reserved for string quartets. Julian Casa-blancas would write and arrange a track only if its melody stuck in his head; he exerted complete creative control over his band, and waited for success to come to him rather than chasing it down. It came. Every track on this album is memorable. Some are phenomenal.

Sea ChangeBeck, Geffen RecordsThe year 2002 was a great one for sad people. Beck’s Sea Change took aural inspiration from Blood on the Tracks and Serge Gainsbourg’s Histoire de Melody Nelson, and sounds much like Blood on the Tracks’ desolate guitars would if Bob Dy-lan could sing and arrange for an orchestra. Its lush sound is often at odds with Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, but it is equally moving, honest, sim-ple and direct in its writing. A real work of art.

Russian ArkAlexander Sokurov, Wellspring MediaThis movie is one unbroken hour-and-a-half long shot that moves through a living museum of Russian his-tory. The entire movie is one minute Steadicam shot. We travel in first person through the muse-um, curated by a Russian ghost, watching actors in period costume re-enact significant histori- c a l events. There is no plot in the traditional sense; rather, the film chronicles Russian history era by era, the scenes coming one by one to vividly enacted life.

Yankee Hotel FoxtrotWilco, Nonesuch RecordsWilco came into its own with 1999’s Summerteeth. In 2002, after firing bandmates and spiraling into a haze of drug abuse, Jeff Tweedy and his band produced an al-bum nobody wanted to release. That album was Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, less country, less pop, so experimental as to be ethereal in the way of a memory set to music. Its viscerally experimental production speaks to the band’s new approach; the sparse, wounded-sounding vocals are a perfect complement the heartbroken spirit that per-meates the record. Nonesuch Records, Wilco’s label, quickly realized its mistake.

BoxerThe National, Beggars Banquet Records

Even if you don’t think the National is one of the most musically rich acts of the last ten years, which they are, it’s hard to not step back and admire the fragile but insistent melodies of Boxer. Matt Berninger’s bari-tone, filtered through mighty doses of black coffee, bourbon and nicotine, tugs at the heartstrings through every single one of the melancholy anthems on this record. The tone is reflective, mournful, mature, with an eye to learning from loss; it moves seamlessly from personal intro-

spection to muted political commentary. The Obama campaign, in fact, used two

of its lead singles – primarily the sleeper hit “Fake Empire” – in various prominent

spots during the lead-up to the 2008 election.

PersepolisMarjane Satrapi, Vicent Paronnaud, writer and director; Chiara Mastroianna and Catherine Deneuve, voices Sony Pictures ClassicsA second mention for Persepolis – this time the movie – because the novel and the film adaptation are two radically different works of art. Up was fine. Wall-E was great. But the animated feature film needed a breath of fresh air, and along came Persepolis, like a nice Italian roast in a world of instant coffee.

The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as PossibleA.J. Jacobs, Simon & SchusterA.J. Jacobs, a staff writer for Esquire magazine, decided to obey ev-ery single biblical commandment for a year. If nothing else — if not for its unabashed silliness — read this book for the scene where, in line with Deuteronomy 22:23, he tries to stone an adulterer. With pebbles. In Central Park. Jerry Falwell would have been proud.

Adam Resurrected3L Filmverleith, directed by Paul Schrader, starring Jeff Goldblum, Derek Jacobi, Ayelet Zurer and William Dafoe, based on the novel by Yoram KaniukI can’t explain why no one has heard of this movie. The actors are A-list. The prem-ise – a charismatic and haunted Holocaust survivor in 1960s Israel has the run of a mental hospital where he is ostensibly a patient – is captivating. But it was never in wide release. I saw it by mistake in a tiny theater in Chelsea where I had gone to see Burn After Reading – when I showed up late, Adam Resurrected was my only op-tion. At the very least, with its first-rate acting, this is the finest of the many Israeli and handful of German movies I’ve seen. The cinematography, with its sweeping opening shots of the Negev Desert and dark, claustrophobic concentration-camp flashbacks, is some of the best from any country. Between that and the relentlessly bleak atmosphere, it is both the perfect arthouse film and the worst date movie ever.

John AdamsHBO, Tom Hooper, director, Paul GiamattiHBO produced this seven-part miniseries, an American answer to the un-

countable BBC period dramas and Merchant Ivory films, which are on PBS every minute of every day. Paul Giamatti’s understat-

ed but forceful performance as the title character, along with its subtle but trenchant commentary on the death of classi-cal statesmanship, won it a total of 13 Emmys – more than any other miniseries. Finally, someone recognizes quality.

Lady GagaThe fame, the fame monster, the fame behemoth, etc.

I know Lady Gaga is a person, and not, strict-ly speaking, art. But I’m convinced she’s the next Madonna, and I want to get that in writ-ing so I can prove I said it first when everyone

else is saying it in a few years. And her personal-ity, taken as a whole, is definitely performance art; my

mother thought her Golden Globes outfit was an homage to the Jetsons. As Madon-na’s star fades – this was the decade she turned 50 – someone else is making catchy songs and capturing public attention. Conspicuous superficiality is alive and well.

NetherlandHarper Perennial, Joseph O’NeillThis is a Great Work of fiction, destined for the canon in a few decades’ time. Netherland is cathartic in its exploration of New York City, post-September 11. Refreshing in its un-adorned prose, it is anything but a happy book. It is an honest book about a sad time, rare-ly easy to read, but always stark and unforgiving in its observation. It is cold and sharp throughout, frustrated and intermittently frustrating, dry and wry and cynical and keen-eyed and full of despair and the requisite ray of hope. It is one for the ages. It is New York’s primal scream, a cathartic attempt at re-alignment in a world spinning dizzyingly fast.

District 9TriStar Pictures, Neill Blomkamp, writer/director, Peter Jackson, producer, Sharlto CopleyDistrict 9 has has the three essential components for cinematic suc-cess: aliens, fiery explosions, and gripping allegorical undertones un-derlining the devastating social impact of apartheid on present-day South African society. (Invictus only had one of these things, which is why it wasn’t as good.) To some extent, District 9 really is the so-called “smart blockbuster” it was typed as — fun and gripping, but with a message. There’s superb depth here, though, not just in that there’s a message but in the relatively low-budget yet visually and t h e - matically convincing integration of aliens into

our world, in the cinéma-vérité Handicam shots, in the improvised dialogue. Neill

Blomkamp, its director, is one to watch.

MoonSony Pictures Classics, Duncan Jones, director Sam RockwellMoon has no aliens. Nothing bursts

into flames. It’s not even set in South Africa. But it’s set on the moon. From the

posters to the trailers to its indie-darling s t a r Sam Rockwell, Moon is militantly weird. Its clear-est inspiration is Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, another creepy, atmospheric movie about strange things happening to a lonely guy in space. But Moon really isn’t comparable to most science fiction; it had me at the space clones. Now that Obama is cutting NASA’s space exploration budget, space clones may be our only hope. Es-capist fantasy is a necessity in these economically trying times.

Middle CycloneNeko Case, ANTI-I wasn’t surprised at all when no 2009 album topped Neko Case’s Middle Cyclone. It holds up not only to the best music that year but the best music this decade – still, little surprise, if you’ve heard it. This album of pop-sensible, rock-tinged alt-country mu-sic is gorgeous from the opener, “People Got a Lotta Nerve,” to “Marais la Nuit,” the one-half hour of recorded night-time swamp noise that closes it out. As the crickets chirp and the frogs croak and the noise gently fades into nothingness, it’s easy to in-terpret it as a gentle close to the decade’s artistic achievements.

* * *

A Decade in Art: Music, Literature, Trends and MoviesMovies, Televison, Records, Nonfiction, Novels, Plays, and a Magazine

It’s been a long, hard decade: financial crises, terrorism, Facebook stalking, skinny jeans, global warming, and Dan Brown novels. What we all need now is closure. Emotionally, the Legend can’t provide that – it’s only a newspaper. But if we can’t be therapists, we can definitely be tastemakers. This spread is our list of notable artistic achievements from 2000 to 2009, a concise wrap-up of what was good (or at least what we liked) this decade. Full lists, including those of the Urban student body, are available at our website, http://legend.urbanschool.org.

—written by Daniel Moattar —illustrations by Daniel Moattar, Neena Holzman, Noah Schlager, Anne Vetter —spread design by Allegra Gordon

6February 2010

20022003

2004

2005

20062007

Sea ChangeBeck, Geffen RecordsThe year 2002 was a great one for sad people. Beck’s Sea Change took aural inspiration from Blood on the Tracks and Serge Gainsbourg’s Histoire de Melody Nelson, and sounds much like Blood on the Tracks’ desolate guitars would if Bob Dy-lan could sing and arrange for an orchestra. Its lush sound is often at odds with Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, but it is equally moving, honest, sim-ple and direct in its writing. A real work of art.

Russian ArkAlexander Sokurov, Wellspring MediaThis movie is one unbroken hour-and-a-half long shot that moves through a living museum of Russian his-tory. The entire movie is one minute Steadicam shot. We travel in first person through the muse-um, curated by a Russian ghost, watching actors in period costume re-enact significant histori- c a l events. There is no plot in the traditional sense; rather, the film chronicles Russian history era by era, the scenes coming one by one to vividly enacted life.

Yankee Hotel FoxtrotWilco, Nonesuch RecordsWilco came into its own with 1999’s Summerteeth. In 2002, after firing bandmates and spiraling into a haze of drug abuse, Jeff Tweedy and his band produced an al-bum nobody wanted to release. That album was Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, less country, less pop, so experimental as to be ethereal in the way of a memory set to music. Its viscerally experimental production speaks to the band’s new approach; the sparse, wounded-sounding vocals are a perfect complement the heartbroken spirit that per-meates the record. Nonesuch Records, Wilco’s label, quickly realized its mistake.

Love ActuallyUniversal Pictures, Alan Rickman, Bill Nighy, Hugh GrantEvery decade has one good romantic comedy. For the Sixties it was Charade; for the Eighties it was Gregory’s Girl, for the Nineties it was Titanic. It’s easy to make fun of the cutesy absurdity that is Love Actually. It’s also easy to watch Hugh Grant dance down a staircase to “Jump (For Your Love)” 65 times. I have done both these things and I have no regrets.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-timeMark Haddon, DoubledayThere is something incredibly compelling in the very structure of this book, in the chapters marked by prime numbers, in the way-ward storytelling; it transcends children’s literature. The protago-nist is completely relatable despite his quirks, despite his Asperg-er’s syndrome, despite his violently idiosyncratic approach to life – so much so that I questioned whether it was fiction. His story of a murdered dog, ultimately trivial, takes place inside a mind which is anything but.

Friday Night LightsNBC, Peter Berg, Kyle Chandler, Connie BrittenFriday Night Lights is essentially Dawson’s Creek, set in West Texas, with a focus on high-school football and its accompany-ing drama. It’s genius. The acting is the best on network televi-sion, and the writing among the sharpest. The show is only cliché and overwrought when being in high school is cliché and over-wrought; yet its mixture of unironic excitement about high school sports and unselfconscious emotionality – which thankfully never descends into melodrama – haven’t brought it the recognition it deserves. But the show, now in its fourth season, with improvised scenes in every episode and enormous freedom for actors to revise dialogue, still makes for television as atypical and as unprepos-sessingly fun as it was in its first year.

Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait Universal Inter-national, Doug-las Gordon and Philippe Parreno, with music by Mog-waiZidane is a documen-tary about soccer star Zin-edine Zidane, on one day, during o n e match, in real time, from 17 camera angles. Why does it work? Why is the cinematography perfect, the story clearly present and compelling even though it’s just a soccer match like any other? Because this movie is a biography, a phenomenally atypical one. It is a psychological profile, a life story in two hours, a portrait of a man who is soccer. I don’t care about soccer, but I love this movie. Zidane the man is a quiet enigma, brooding, a soccer machine. But he is far from peaceful: Toward the end of the 2005 match, as in the 2006 World Cup a year later, Zidane is sent off for fighting, and we see him fight as self-assuredly and unhesitatingly as he makes any other move on the field. The insight his actions, and this film, provide into the most basic parts of human nature are unshakable and chilling; this is a perfectly executed snapshot.

BoxerThe National, Beggars Banquet Records

Even if you don’t think the National is one of the most musically rich acts of the last ten years, which they are, it’s hard to not step back and admire the fragile but insistent melodies of Boxer. Matt Berninger’s bari-tone, filtered through mighty doses of black coffee, bourbon and nicotine, tugs at the heartstrings through every single one of the melancholy anthems on this record. The tone is reflective, mournful, mature, with an eye to learning from loss; it moves seamlessly from personal intro-

spection to muted political commentary. The Obama campaign, in fact, used two

of its lead singles – primarily the sleeper hit “Fake Empire” – in various prominent

spots during the lead-up to the 2008 election.

PersepolisMarjane Satrapi, Vicent Paronnaud, writer and director; Chiara Mastroianna and Catherine Deneuve, voices Sony Pictures ClassicsA second mention for Persepolis – this time the movie – because the novel and the film adaptation are two radically different works of art. Up was fine. Wall-E was great. But the animated feature film needed a breath of fresh air, and along came Persepolis, like a nice Italian roast in a world of instant coffee.

The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as PossibleA.J. Jacobs, Simon & SchusterA.J. Jacobs, a staff writer for Esquire magazine, decided to obey ev-ery single biblical commandment for a year. If nothing else — if not for its unabashed silliness — read this book for the scene where, in line with Deuteronomy 22:23, he tries to stone an adulterer. With pebbles. In Central Park. Jerry Falwell would have been proud.

30 St Mary Axe, “The Gherkin”Foster & Partners, ArchitectsThis is a six-hundred-foot London skyscraper which looks like a giant pickle. It is a miracle of architec-ture. If it was gaudier, it would resemble a Fabergé egg. Of all this decade’s significant buildings it is the most striking, so unusual it looks almost natural, unusual without being weird, without the over-wrought artificiality of a building like Dubai’s Burj Khalifa. In 50 years’ time, amid dozens of new buildings, the Gherkin will look utterly at home.

Aha Shake HeartbreakKings of Leon, RCAOut with the Strokes and in with good old-fashioned rock and roll: If Is This It was a breath of fresh air, Aha Shake Heartbreak is a little more raw, a little wicked, not quite as artfully composed or arranged; where Is This It spent hours in the mirror getting impeccably disheveled, this record didn’t care enough to dress up but looks good anyway. It’s a fast, bright-eyed, bruised and cocksure album with just enough of a Southern touch to be excitingly different. The first half of this decade was the domain of the new garage rockers, and this is one of its milestones.

America (The Book): A Citizen’s Guide to Democracy InactionWarner Books, Jon Stewart, Ben Karlin, David Javerbaum“Declaration of Independence Myth #2: John Hancock signed the Decla-ration extra-large ‘so King George would be able to read it.’ False: John Hancock was in fact 23 feet tall, and merely signed in his usual fashion.” The best decision the Daily Show’s writers ever made was to write a mock civics textbook, sending up Supreme Court overreach, Congressional mis-hap and Presidential foolishness. “Have your students hold a mock elec-tion,” they advise. “Can’t stage a mock election? Just mock a real election.”

The History BoysAlan Bennett, Lyttelton TheatreAlan Bennett wrote a stage play about growing up British, brilliant and confused about your future, your sexuality, your faith and your identity in the 1980s. The script is witty, often poignant, concise in some places and florid in others; he brings his students and teach-ers to life with real artistry. This was the best new stage play I’ve seen performed. The movie, made two years later, holds up well: the cin-ematography is never particularly inventive, but it feels like a sim-ply staged and truthfully presented version of the original play.

IllinoisSufjan Stevens, Asthmatic KittyLike Wes Anderson, Sufjan Stevens spends a lot of time wrapped up in a wispy, ethereal fantasyland where everything is just really great all the time and it’s all so moving that he needs to cry. Also like Wes Anderson, Sufjan really hits the nail on the head sometimes. Illinois was one of those times – a concept album about the state of Illinois and its history and characters from Lincoln to John Wayne Gacy. When it came out, this album was lauded maybe a little more than it deserved, but maybe just as much as it should have been. After five years, it certainly stands up to more listening.

MAKE MagazineO’Reilly MediaMAKE is a second home on paper for every DIY-er, a magazine filling a gap – better late than never – in the lives of everyone who spends quality time with hammers and nails and power-saws. MAKE is for anyone who has ever wanted to make any-thing, ever, full of illustrated guided and step-by-step pictorials for how to make cigar-box guitars and baking soda bottle rockets.

* * *

A Decade in Art: Music, Literature, Trends and MoviesMovies, Televison, Records, Nonfiction, Novels, Plays, and a Magazine

It’s been a long, hard decade: financial crises, terrorism, Facebook stalking, skinny jeans, global warming, and Dan Brown novels. What we all need now is closure. Emotionally, the Legend can’t provide that – it’s only a newspaper. But if we can’t be therapists, we can definitely be tastemakers. This spread is our list of notable artistic achievements from 2000 to 2009, a concise wrap-up of what was good (or at least what we liked) this decade. Full lists, including those of the Urban student body, are available at our website, http://legend.urbanschool.org.

—written by Daniel Moattar —illustrations by Daniel Moattar, Neena Holzman, Noah Schlager, Anne Vetter —spread design by Allegra Gordon

The Urban Legend7

Will everyone see me in my underwear? President Barack Obama and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) ordered new security measures after the Christmas Day attempt by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to detonate explosives on a trans-Atlantic flight to Detroit. The money, “for explosives detection systems and checkpoint screen-ing equipment," will now come at an increased pace, from the $1 billion provided by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. These changes were decided after Obama met with top security officials on Jan. 5 and concluded that, “when a suspected terrorist is able to board a plane with ex-plosives … the system has failed in a potentially disastrous way. And it's my responsibility to find out why, and to correct that failure.” I completely agree. In the past I have been forced to get to the air-port hours before my plane leaves and wait in endless security lines. I was willing to endure this ordeal because I believed it would ensure my and my family’s safety. With all of the cost, hassle and layers of security that passengers endure, the security should work. And it should work, not just most of the time, but all of the time. After the lapse in security, TSA imposed controversial and dra-matic changes, which,"mandat(ed)

that every individual flying into the U.S … who holds a passport issued by or is traveling from or through nations that are state spon-sors of terrorism or other countries of interest will be required to go through enhanced screening."

Fourteen nations meet the criteria for enhanced screening: Afghani-stan, Iran, Libya, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Algeria, Lebanon, Yemen, Cuba, Syria, and Sudan. This decision falsely assumes terrorists are only coming from specific countries. This mandated enhanced

screening also includes an increase in use of body scanning technolo-gy. There are two types of scanners in use: The first is called Millimeter wave technology, and it works by beaming wave radio frequency energy on the body, which is then

beamed back to create a 3D picture. The other type is Backscatter tech-nology, which creates a two-sided image with a low-level X-ray beam. While past concerns over privacy have hindered the expansion of the program, it is already used in 19 airports in the United States, including San Francisco Interna-

tional Airport (SFO). So, yes, when I go through one of these screenings, someone will see my underwear. But personally I would rather be scanned than have someone pat me down as I stand awkwardly with my arms out like a scarecrow. To try to help assuage fears for privacy, the image blurs the face and is viewed in a locked windowless room by an attendant who never meets the person being screened. In addition, the image cannot be saved or printed from the computer. But it no longer matters what I prefer because at this point I have lost the luxury of both secu-rity and privacy simultaneously. Terrorism continues to cost Americans more of our right to privacy. We have to make a choice between a minimal invasion of privacy from full-body scanning and possible death. Given these options, I choose the first. At SFO, enhanced screening was available before the Christ-mas bombing attempt. Michael C. McCarron, director of community affairs for SFO, said, “the airport does not anticipate any changes to or delays in passenger screening procedures. Frequent travelers may notice an increased presence of uniformed SFPD officers in the lobby areas, security checkpoints and in the gate areas.” This means that while you will not necessarily have to worry about new mandatory procedures, you will still, like I do, have to wait in the endless lines at SFO.

The World: Through DNA testing sci-entists discovered that the early death of King Tut was caused not by murder or falling off a chariot, but by malaria and a degenerative bone disease.

The United States: Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates's plan to wait a year and review the repeal of the army's "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy gained support from top officials in the Marine Corps and Navy.

The City of San Francisco: Fleet Management Ltd., the operating company in the San Francisco Bay 2007 Cosco Busan spill, was fined $10 million. The spill released 53,000 gallons of oil.

The Urban School: No more grades at Urban? On Feb. 11 in advisory, the whole school filled out a survey on grading policy.

Illustrations by Anne Vetter

I have been at this school for nearly two years and I still have not spoken to all 350 of you. We have communicated in another way. We have passed in the halls, met eyes, made the conscious decision to lock irises, and then cavalierly, or perhaps, in a state of paranoia, looked away. Although the delicate politics of eye contact in this school are not typically discussed, their existence is downright undeniable. When I talked to Urban stu-dents, they were well aware of this cultural phenomenon. Nico Kert (‘12) acknowledged that people look away because “they don’t feel like being honest and truth-ful.” The labyrinth of hallways we occupy puts a certain pressure on students to feel close to those with whom they share the space.

I agree with Laura Rothman (‘10) that, “at Urban it feels like you need to (make things less awk-ward). People at Urban really feel the need to act upon eye contact. I make eye contact, followed by a little tilt ... There's this (necessary) facade of awkward, an aesthetic awkward,” that is a part of the cul-ture. “Walking around, there are different kinds of contact. It feels good when it's the right kind." The phenomenon has also been observed by Kaern Kreyling, school counselor, who says, “the hallway is a space to reconnect with (people) you're already confident in, or it's a treacherous space and there's nowhere you're confident- sometimes it can be intermittent. There are all kinds of journeys people have.” Our school is large enough that we do not have to know whether such-and-such has a low tolerance for coffee, but it's small enough to

encounter the same person in the halls approximately four times on a typical Thursday. The hallways can become a surreal haze: There you are, mystery kid, coming around the corner on the second floor. Quick! What do I do? Duncan Magidson (‘12) has an idea. “I just look 10º to my left. Not far enough to know that you’re looking in one direction, but far enough so that people don’t know ... they’re not going to see you looking at them and they’re not going to see you looking away.” Being surrounded in a web of people who I only know by eye; it is sometimes overwhelming to remember how little I know. There are times when the distance between us is not only forced, but unwanted. It is a stifling distance. We are polite, but we are also unwilling to give that nervous-looking freshman the smile he clearly deserves. We

are afraid to say hello, to make that simple effort to get to know someone, when it is acceptable to just pass them by. Our choices are powerful. "People retreat into themselves," Kreyling says. "A lot of people don't realize how they contribute to the problem ... it's hard to know how it's so ingrained, this kind of deadpan face. The more sites in the community where (hallway culture) is talked about, where these ways of practicing and being are made visible,” the better off we will be. “These are revolutionary actions,” she says. And I agree. Identifying our daily polarization is our best bet for overcoming it because to recognize it means that it exists. Where can we look, Urbanites? It all depends on how much we are willing to give. I, for one, will still be looking you straight in the eyes. You are allowed to look away.

News to KNow:

Airport security means safety over privacy

who's looking at you? eye contact in the Urban labyrinth

Airport sCANNer An example of the new Millimeter wave technology used at sFo for primary screening photo from TSA gov

LegeNdthe

The Urban Legend is a vehicle of student freedom of expression and a public forum for The Urban School community. It is produced several times per year dur-ing the academic term by the journalism class. We also publish an online ver-sion of the Legend courtesy of the American Society of Newspaper Editors at myhighschooljournalism.org. We welcome feedback about our articles and we also encourage readers to contact us directly with tips or ideas concerning future coverage. The Legend publishes letters on topics of concern to the Urban community. Letters must be signed; re-quests for anonymity will be considered on a case-by-case basis. Letters may be sent electronically to urbanlegendstaff@gmail.com. Hard-copy letters may be sent to the Legend care of The Urban School. Guest opinion columns also may be submitted elec-tronically or in hard copy. We reserve the right to edit for space and language. Signed articles or opin-ion pieces represent the views of the writer only, Unsigned editorials reflect a consensus opinion of the newspaper staff.

Editors in Chief:Allegra Gordon (Design) Madeleine May (News)Editors:Managing Editor:Lizzie LoganOnline/Multimedia: Daniel Moattar Opinions:Adrienne von Schulthess Features:Sarah MaccabeeArt:Cassiel ChadwickSports:Jason CintiGreen:Sara BrooksPhoto:Isabel MooreSonja BartlettFolio Editor:Zoe PleasureStaff Writers:Hannah GormanSamantha LucasMegan MaddenNoah SchlagerAnne VetterJenna WaldmanSabrina WerbyEmily Wen

Adviser: Beatrice Motamedi

Adrienne Von schulthessopinions editor

Megan Maddenstaff editor

the Urban schoolurbanlegendstaff@gmail.com February 2010

8 opinions

“Hey, can I have a sip of your delicious Squat and Gobble coffee?” Unfortunately, if you were to ask me this question, the answer would be ”no.” Last fall, I contracted mononucleo-sis and missed school for most of November. My first symptom was fatigue. It did not matter how many hours I slept; I was always tired. I had swollen lymph nodes on the side of my neck that grew so big and uncom-fortable that I could not swallow, talk, or even move my head. Eventually, I developed a fever of about 101º that was resistant to normal fever medica-tions. Later, I experienced stomach flu-like symptoms. Finally, little bumps developed all over my body. Mono is very tricky to diagnose. For me, it took three separate mono blood tests and three weeks before I got the final diagnosis. While I was sick, I woke up every day expecting to feel better, but I al-ways felt worse. I just wanted to know what was wrong with me, so that the doctors could treat me. Nobody could give me any answers. I am not alone. Mononucleosis, commonly known as mono, is spread-ing through the Urban population. Charlotte Worsley, Head of Student Life, estimates the number of re-ported cases of mono at Urban this year at around eight. Worsley thinks the number of mono cases “are a lot higher this year compared to other recent years.” According to a survey of Urban students, conducted between Feb. 1 and Feb. 5, 63% of students think that Urban had a lot of mono cases this year. Jennifer Epstein, health teacher and faculty advisor for the Health Ini-tiative for Peer Education, describes mono as a little “Urbandemic.” The survey also showed that 20 students think they may have had mono this year. Urban Receptionist Andrea Scally, who takes and makes calls to parents when students are ill, said that when students have mono, “parents do not necessarily tell us.” Mono passes from person to per-son through saliva, hence its popular name, “the kissing disease.” However,

mono is not solely spread through kissing, but also by sharing drinks, food, or utensils. Urban has a culture of food sharing, which contributed to the spread of mono. “Yesterday I [ate] dinner on Haight Street” said Virgil Taylor (‘11). However, “I ended up having to eat a second dinner at home because I had to share my food with everyone.” Another unique characteristic of mono is the span of time dur-

ing which a person is contagious. According to The New York Times Health Guide, “Persons with mono-nucleosis may be contagious while they have symptoms and for up to a few months afterwards.” So while mono-infected students are feeling healthy enough to return to school, they can still spread the virus to other students. Every individual’s body re-sponds differently to mono. For

MONOlogue on Urban’s hard-to-detect virus

instance, David Werboff (’10) says he “never really showed symp-toms. I think I passed it to some people, and the whole time...I felt a little under the weather, but not anything close to the really intense symptoms that people have when they have mono.” Mono is especially tough on student athletes. One of the effects of the disease is an enlarged spleen, which makes it much more likely

urbanlegendstaff@gmail.comFebruary 2010

The Urban Legend

Health 9

As we went to press on Feb. 25, President Obama held his White House health care summit. One of the key issues likely to re-emerge during the second round of health care debate is the Stupak amendment, which was part of the House health bill and sought to prohibit federal funding for abortion. One who will be watching the upcom-ing debate is Sarah Weddington, who was on the front lines of the fight for reproductive rights in 1973 when she defended Norma McCorvey, the woman seeking an abortion in the landmark

Roe v. Wade Supreme Court case. We spoke to Weddington about the history of abortion in America, the Stupak amendment, and how if you had told her 37 years ago that she would still be talking about abortion rights today, she “never would have believed that.”

Question: How have American opinions changed since Roe v. Wade?

Answer: “Well, if you look at the majority of American citizens in 1973, when Roe v. Wade was de-cided, many thought it was not the government’s business to prohibit abortion…(T)here were so many horror stories of women who had traveled…for illegal abortions, who had done self abortions, (and) the number of women who died as a result of those efforts. Most major hospitals (including those) here in Texas... had ... “IOB wards,” (mean-ing) infected obstetrics ward, and there were places where the medi-cal schools...were trying to save women who had gone through those situations. So, there was much more (aware-ness)...in the American public’s mind of the tragedies for women that happened when abortion was

An interview withSarah Weddington, mother ofRoe v. Wade

by Sabrina Werby

&AQ

to rupture. “A person who has an enlarged spleen should abstain from sports,” Epstein says. Although there are many fright-ening concerns surrounding mono, Dean of Student Life Charlotte Worsley says, “One year… every-one was sick with strep throat. Obviously, any extended illness that affects a student’s academics is a concern. We all have a responsibil-ity to maintain good hygiene.”

photo by Isabel Moore; illustration by Lizzie Logan

illegal. Today, the polls would indi-cate that the majority of people are still in favor of Roe vs Wade, that the government should not decide what options women choose. How-ever, if you start, then, going down a list of restrictions on abortion (and) restrictions on access, it gets ... difficult and there it is sometimes closer. The polls I’ve seen lately still say most people don’t think it should be the government’s busi-ness to make decisions, but the polls are closer on access and restriction than they are on the basic (issue of) who should make the decision.”

Q: What was abortion like for women before Roe V. Wade?

A: “California abortion had become legal before Roe v. Wade was de-cided ... it was Ronald Reagan, the then-governor of California, who signed that bill into law. It was not until he ran for president that he became so opposed to abortion. (In Texas), there actually ... (were) about 10 seats on American airlines out of Dallas every Thursday, going to California for women to have ac-cess to legal abortion out there and then come back on Sunday.”

SaraH WeddiNgtON, pictured here in 1973 during her first term in the Texas legislature, was a law-yer in the landmark Roe v. Wade case

Sabrina WerbyHealth Writer

see WeddiNgtON page 10photo courtesy of www.weddingtoncenter.com

10

In written responses to questions submitted by the Legend, Gascón predicted that “such an ordinance here in San Francisco would be limited in scope, and crafted to target those individuals who are impairing the quality of life and inspiring fear in different areas of our city.” On March 1, Mirkarimi will hold a hear-ing to address the issue of a possible policy change in dealing with citywide homeless-ness. Mirkarimi has asked District Attorney Kamala Harris and City Attorney Dennis Herrera to attend, along with the Board of Supervisors and members of the Public Safety Committee. He has also asked Gas-con, who has proposed the sit-lie ordinance, to be present. Gascón said he was supporting the sit-lie ordinance because “existing laws do not give officers what the proposed ordinance would, specifically the ability to cite, when appropriate, those persons who are negatively impacting the public’s right to walk our city streets without interference or intimidation.” The homeless on Haight street differ greatly from other homeless people else-where in San Francisco, according to Kevin Fagan, staff writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. Fagan and his photographer-partner, Brant Ward, spent two years report-ing on San Francisco’s homeless for their “Shame of the City” series in 2003. The Haight, says Fagan, is home to “the most visible homeless problem in the coun-try. It’s right in your face.” According to Fagan, Haight Street is positioned centrally on the so-called “Hip-pie Trail,” which winds from Vancouver, British Columbia, to Seattle; Ashland, Ore.; San Francisco; Santa Cruz and eventually cities in New Mexico. “Some of the kids here (in the Haight) are pretend homeless,” Fagan said. “They are just sort of trying it on, seeing if it fits.” These “road warriors,” or “aggressive thugs” are the targeted group of the proposed sit-lie ordinance, according to Gascón. Residents of the Haight are asking for a

Homeless: Life a daily struggle

from page 2

Winterfest: A “chillaxing” respite

Algernon Allen (’10), thought it was “all right,” but “wished we could have had an assembly to share stuff at the end of the day.” Allen, as well as Harvey, agreed that although they enjoyed their activities, the options were limited compared to years past. Still, many students were enthusiastic about the day. Annakai Geshlider (’13) raved about baking “pretzels in Dan Matz’s homemade brick oven,” Julia Hankin (’11) loved making pasta and visiting the Wave Organ by Crissy Field, and Martin Lindsey (’10) “got coffee and walked around North Beach,” which he enjoyed because it was so “chillaxing.”

more aggressive way to deal with the area’s homeless. But Mirkarimi said that complaints don’t necessarily require a new sit-lie law. “These complaints are chronic,” says Mirka-rimi. The supervisor acknowledged that the Haight has a homeless problem, saying that the issue was “not uncommon, just different in the Haight.” The aesthetic presence of the homeless “undermines residents’ vision of what their ideal neighborhood looks like.“ As of now, San Francisco has a “High Pedestrian Traffic Area” ordinance. It states that homeless cannot sit or lie on a public sidewalk between 7 a.m. and 9 p.m. It also says that their animals must be kept leashed and that their belongings must be kept out of public walkways. The ordinance also prohib-its aggressive panhandling in public places. The current law allows for the police to act independently or to act on a civil complaint, says Mirkarimi. “What I want to know is, why aren’t the police enforcing current anti-loitering laws?” he asked. San Francisco is not the first city to propose a sit-lie ordinance. In fact, in 2007, Portland adopted a sit-lie ordinance to ban homeless

people in three neighborhoods between 7a.m. and 9 p.m., according to the Portland Busi-ness Journal. One year after the law passed, the results were controversial. In 2008, the Journal reported that “while Portland police officers primarily apply the rules against homeless persons, they ignore the political canvassers who regularly block downtown sidewalks.” According to Mirkarimi, San Francisco’s police department did not inform the Board of Supervisors about its decision to propoe sit-lie. “I don’t think it was appropriate for the police to unilaterally drum up legislation and then propose it in the press,” Mirkarimi said. “We didn’t even see or hear about the legislation until we read it about it in the Chronicle.” The sit-lie ordinance would not only have a big impact on the city, but it would also affect Urban students. Nicki Greenberg (’13) said, “I like (the homeless people) because they give a little culture and spirit to the Haight.” The freshman says taking away this culture would alter the Haight as we know it. Other students are looking for less homeless on the streets. “I’m sick of them,”

said Mikhael Porter (’10). Porter also said, “they should have another place to go.” Jordan Calhoun (’10) said that “besides the mentally ill, I have no sympathy for them.” It remains to be seen how the city deals with those who Mirkarimi says are “down and out but civil” and those who are “down and out and uncivil.” Don Tanksley, 60, has been living on and off Haight Street for his whole life. He stopped to talk as he was on his way to drum in nearby Golden Gate Park. Having lived around the Haight for so long, Tanksley has witnessed the evolu-tion of the neighbor-hood. “It’s like any

other place, with the tourists and all,” he says. “It’s changed quite a bit.” Tanksley recognizes the different kinds of homeless people living in the Haight. “A lot of people who don’t live here come (here),” he said. Tanksley looked worried when speaking about his living situation. “It’s a day-to-day struggle,” he said. “It’s pretty rough. I don’t usually have any place to go.” He also rec-ognized a recent increase in police force on Haight. “Police want to hassle you,” he said. “(They) are coming down harder now.” Tanksley is no supporter of sit-lie. “If a person has no place to go, they should be able to hang out on the street,” he said. “These people are tired, exhausted. They just need a rest.” According to Mirkarimi, solving the issue of homelessness is “a question of will … the laws need to be enforced.” Mirkarimi said that he “would like the police to be more proactive” by walking “street beats” or by pacing up and down areas like the Haight to keep a more vigilant eye on lawbreaking.

Although it has changed over the years, Winterfest has been a steady tradition for several years now. Despite its many changes, Winterfest remains a steady Urban tradi-tion. On the morning of WinterFest, students — weary from weeks of non-stop work — gathered, as always, around the tables in the student center. But on this morning, it was Fruit Loops and Apple Jacks, not incomplete science labs, which attracted their attention. Each year, perhaps because Winterfest is being constantly improved, students never know what to expect.

from page 4

Life on HAigHt street Little Hawk, one of many homeless persons living in the Haight, sits on the corner of Haight and Belvedere streets, asking passersby for money. photo by Isabel Moore

sharp Park: snakes are citizens The money that is being pumped into Sharp Park needs to be put into other city golf courses, so that Sharp Park can be restored for the snakes and other wildlife. We can leave the course the way it is, for a few hairless apes to enjoy while the San Francisco garter snake fades into oblivion, or we can restore Sharp Park for humans, snakes, and all life, while improving other golf courses. We have to realize that garter snakes are citizens of San Francisco and this world as much as we are. The Supreme Court just gave corporations personhood, but we have yet to give actual living beings per-

from page 3sonhood! We must become more responsi-ble members of our shared ecosystem, and ensure a place for all life within it. If you want to see this happen, please send a letter or email to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and Mayor Gavin Newsom, supporting the restoration of Sharp Park.

For more information please go to http://wild-equity.org/sections/5.

Gavin Newsom: gavin.newsom@sfgov.orgSF Board Of Supervisors: Board.

of.Supervisors@sfgov.org

Q: Do you think we are in danger of women being apathetic about their rights?

A: “I can’t help but feel — and sometimes I do think I’m such an optimist — but I do not think young women will ever give up the right to make their own decisions. I think the problem we have right now is getting them to focus on the number of people who oppose abortion and oppose women making their own decisions … the one good thing about the Stupak amendment is it kind of grabs young women and says, ‘Look, the right to make your own decisions and to have access to procedures is really in danger,

from page 9

and you better get active.’Q: Why do you think teen pregnancy rates went up this year for the first time in a decade?A. “George Bush, as president, and the people around him put so much money and effort into abstinence education, which was to ‘just say don’t.’ Well, that’s not realistic for a lot of younger people, and the result is the number of unplanned pregnancies and those are sometimes (happening to) teenagers…If all you do is say ‘no’ to young people, that is not going to work. It has not worked when their parents were their age. It doesn’t work now.“

Weddington: “no” doesn’t work

Corrections from December 2009 Legend IssueIn “Escape Velocity” (December 2009), Jeremy Harvey-Brown is (’12) not (’13). In “Escape Velocity” (December 2009), Sonja Bartlett’s name was spelled incorrectly. In “Escape Velocity” (December 2009), Karen Kreyling’s title was incorrect. She is the School Counselor. In “Girls Tennis Makes Sectionals” (December 2009), Catalina Gutierrez’s name was spelled incorrectly.

newsFebruary 2010 urbanlegendstaff@gmail.com

THE LEGEND IS ONLINE!Please visit for further news: www.urbanlegendnews.org

At Urban, fencing is not a sport we hear about often. In the last few years, however, Urban has pulled together a fencing team and class, including 13 players. Next year, Christopher Kho-shnevissan ('10) will join the highly competitive Pac-10 team at Stanford. We spoke to him about juggling fenc-ing and academics, and making plans for the future.

Q. Where did you first fence?A. “At (the) French-American school. I went there when I was younger and there was (a) fencing class they were teaching there. And me and my brother were really into sword fighting with plastic swords, and my brother got into the school class .... At (that) age, I just wanted to do whatever my brother did, so the next year I signed up for it, too.”

Q. What are your rankings? A. “I am still ranked nationally. After I got into Stanford in Sep-tember for fencing ... I knew I was going to Stanford so I have not competed since last April. I got burned out junior year, so I am just hanging back. Sophomore year, I was ranked 4th in the country for 16 and under. Junior year, I finished 7th in the 16 and under.”

Q. Do you love the sport or are you tired of playing all the time?A. “I don’t know. I have not done it in a while .... It’s not something I really, really love right now. I spend so much time training and competing. For the fall and winter term junior year, I competed ev-ery weekend. It’s really a job for me, and not something I enjoyed.

steroid use. Kobe Bryant, who has dominated the basketball court consistently, was charged with sexual assault in the summer of 2003; the charge was dropped. So, when the media revealed Tiger's cheating, why were we so surprised? So what if Tiger messed up? Why does it even matter? Why should anybody, especially some-one who does not even like golf, care? Tiger possesses a great deal of money, power, and bragging rights as the world's best golfer. Can’t he do anything he wants? The not-so-simple answer is: No. Not after he became a father. Not when millions of Americans follow him so closely. Not when he revolutionized the game of golf for young players. Not when he signed contracts with companies that rely on him and his image, including Nike, EA Sports, Gillette, and Golf Digest. Millions of people around the world view Tiger as a role model, and too many need him to be perfect. Like it or not, the price of fame is that you don’t have a personal life and a public life — it’s all one and the same. Despite Tiger’s mistakes, many

are willing to give him a second chance. Daniel Starr (’10), captain of the Urban golf team, believes that Tiger will “always be a re-spectable golfer.” Starr thinks that Tiger has “introduced golf to new generations, making it more of a popular sport that younger players can connect to (it).” Regardless of his affairs, Tiger should be ad-mired, Starr says. Scott Foster, a golfer as well as Urban’s jazz teacher, calls Tiger “a cultural icon.” But fans have seen cracks in the facade. Foster attended the Presidents Cup in San Francisco last October. During the trophy ceremony, Foster said, it seemed as if Tiger “wished he could get out of there and leave as soon as possible.” I also saw Tiger play at Harding Park. His tee shot on the 6th hole was absolute perfection. But his body language said that he wanted to get the job over with and go home. Foster believes that the media was waiting for something like this to happen. “Now that Tiger is down, the media thought they should just jump on him and kick him while they had the chance,”

Jason Cinti Staff Writer

Q. What is a typical practice?A. “It’s a lot of technical stuff ....We practice our leg stuff. We do foot work; we do a lot of drills .... I also

Chris Khosh fences his way to Stanford

You don’t have to know a thing about golf to realize that sports lost one of its all-time heroes when Tiger Woods crashed his SUV in Florida last November. Unfortunately, Tiger joins a long list of sports heroes whose off-field exploits have tarnished their success. On Feb. 19, Tiger apologized to the public for his actions. Accord-ing to a transcript published on ESPN, Tiger said, “I was unfaithful. I had affairs. I cheated. What I did was not acceptable, and I am the only one to blame.” Tiger made it clear to the public that must recover from his foolish ways. In January, the public found out that Mark McGwire had been using steroids most of his career. Giants pitcher Tim Lincecum, as well as eight-time gold medalist Michael Phelps both were caught for the possession of marijuana. Barry Bonds, the king of home runs and arguably, of baseball in general, completely disappeared, retreating from the public eye over

I traveled around the world to Madrid and I didn’t even get to see the Eiffel Tower, for example. I didn’t get to see any sites because I would fly out Friday and get

urbanlegendstaff@gmail.com

The Urban Legend

SportsFebruary 2010

took a lot of private lessons with my coach, which was probably the biggest help.”

Q. Were you nervous or anxious about applying to college?A. “I was nervous for sure junior year; I was pretty stressed out .... Since freshman year, (fencing) was going to be a huge, huge part. It was the only way. I guess I had okay grades, but I was not going to apply to small liberal arts schools. I always knew I wanted to be re-cruited by the big schools.”

Q. Have you met the team?A. “I have met one person because he came over to my practice and we fenced a little. No I have not really met the team.

Q. Why Stanford? A. “I think that I got the best vibe from Stanford. I felt the most comfortable (there). A lot of the schools seemed really uptight; just by talking to the coaches, the kids seemed really stressed out and were not having a good time. A lot has to do with my brother who goes there and my parents (who) are comfortable with the school .... And the coach … I was her number-one, she wanted to push for me. For other schools, I didn’t know if I was their number-one priority.”

Q. How do you feel about ac-complishing a goal that most athletes have?A. “I don’t really think it’s hit me. Fencing was always something I had to do. I mean, I had the decision to do it or not, but it was always like a job to me. I don’t think it (has) hit me yet. I think when I go there, it’s going to really hit me."

34.4%of Urban students wanted the New Orleans Saints to

win the Superbowl

35%of Urban

students don't even watch football

47-36Score of the girls varsity

victory against Marin Academy in the

BCL quarterfinals

26.9% of Urban

students wanted the Indianapolis Colts

to win the Superbowl

Samantha Lucas Staff Writer

there Saturday midday and then I would fence on Sunday and I would come back the next day. It was not something I thought was fun at all.”

Tiger Woods: Just another fallen hero?

DoUbLe Time: Chris Khoshnevissan ('10) juggles between academics and athletics, as most stu-dents do at Urban. Left: Chris in his fencing attire. Right: Chris in his everyday clothes photos by Isabel Moore; photo illustration by Daniel Moattar

21points Sam Cash ('10)

scored against University

93 pointers Harry

Krinksy ('13) made during the JV Basketball Jamboree against

Marin Academy

LoSing faCe Tiger Woods expresses frustration after missing a putt at the 2008 U.S. open photo courtesy of the guardian.

Foster said. I also think that the media trampled on Tiger. After years of praising him, it seems as if we wanted something that would bring him down. Golf fans around the country should forgive Tiger for what he has done. The man is human, it’s only natural to make mistakes. So don't view Tiger as a god. See

him as a man with faults, a well as enormous abilities in the game of golf. And watch, when Tiger comes back to golf, he will be stronger than ever. If Tiger returns in April for the Masters, he'll bring the spotlight back to golf and will continue his dominance on the course as if nothing happened. Even though it did.

11

CabooseThe Urban School of San Francisco

urbanlegendstaff@gmail.com February 2009

Question of the month:if you were reincarnated as a teacher, who would you be? why?

Urban Basketball Studsthe secret life of

a continuing series on urban life and people

photos by Isabel Moore

“Richard (Lautze): He knows exactly where the moon or sun will be at any time of day. That’s a really cool skill to have.” —Ivy Getty (‘13)

“I would return to this beloved earth as Ken Garcia-Gonzales because he rocks Kangols with unimaginable swagger.” —Gabe Ruimy (‘11)

“Suren (Tummala) because he is (still) God.” —Lola Less (‘11)

“Scott Foster: Coach, cajole, encourage, criticize, orchestrate — and get out of the way.” —Jonathan Howland, faculty

“Dan Murphy. Not only could I see the way he thinks (which is brilliantly with incredible wit), but I could also see the history of the school. I want to really know what is behind that bemused smile.” —Scott Nelson, faculty

did you know?? look below for some secret facts about the seniors on basketball team

favorite fairy tale is Sleeping Beauty

holds the best record with Henry Klingenstein (‘10)in videogame “Nazi Zom-bies”

favorite Be-yonce song, according to Anneli Eddy (‘10) is “If I Were a Boy”

Ifcould be a cartoon character, he would be Scooby Doo

according to Jordan Calhoun (‘10), is Urban’s biggest “Twilight” fan

photos by Isabel Moore; collage by Sam Lucas

Sam Cash’s

Noah Howland,

Leo Stroe

August Fischer’s

Mikhael Porter