the libertine

the whip sheet of the liberal party

issue eleven / 14.04.2002

zero	a message from the secretary Thus the four liberal guests of the Yale Political Union have come and gone, and they were all smashingly cool. In case you weren’t there for them: A mayor encouraged lying to your opponents during debates to make them look stupid. A super-Botoxed feminist snapped at the right’s desk-banging with “Let’s hear it for secrets and shame!” A fetching environmentalist took on a strange boy in a stock-exchange-green blazer. And, best of all, a former presidential candidate shouted “Bitch, wake the fuck up!” Thank you, Steven and Gisèle, for putting together such a marvelous leftist wave. Now, some news: the Internal Revenue Service paid out over $30 million dollars for nonexistent “slavery tax credits.” People filed their taxes and asked for fictional returns—and they got them! The IRS is scrambling to get their money back, of course. Apparently, you don’t even need reparations to be legally enacted; ask, and ye shall receive. Wow, was it a beautiful weekend. –j.s.f.
one	goings on in the liberal party 15.04.2002 / Monday / 05.30 / Lib dinner Join us in Commons under the portrait of George H.W. Bush. 18.04.2002 / Thursday / 05.30 / JBB Dinner with Susan Rieger Our second dinner this week, and our second meeting of the Jonathan Brewster Bingham Forum this semester, will feature Susan Rieger, the dean of Stiles and an expert on capital punishment in America. If you’ve never been to a JBB dinner, I especially encourage you; you have the chance not only to hang out with me but also to talk to very intelligent leftists in an informal setting. Come hear her speak tonight in the Stiles Fellows Lounge. 21.04.2002 / Sunday / 07.30 / Bulldog Days Lib debate You, too, were once a pre-frosh. Join us tonight for a lively (and popular) debate on an rabble-rousing topic: “America is a terrorist state.” Does the current government and the capitalist system encourage terror? Have recent military coups been justified? What is the role of the United States in the world, and how does the country view itself? Just what is terrorism? We will be tackling these questions—and perhaps a few pre-frosh too—tonight in the Calhoun common room.
two	apply to be a dwight hall management fellow Lindsay Stradley asked me to forward this announcement to the Lib list. “APPLY TO BE A DWIGHT HALL MANAGEMENT FELLOW -- DEADLINE TOMORROW!!! Are you interested in management? In non-profits? In managing non-profits? Dwight Hall is seeking undergraduate applicants for a new fellowship program run in conjunction with the School of Management: DWIGHT HALL MANAGEMENT FELLOWS. Starting next semester, fellows will commit 6-8 hours each week to designated management and financial roles - including organizational strategy, development and grantwriting - within Dwight Hall while working with an SOM professor. Fellows will receive stipends or work study if eligible. Most importantly, we are also accepting applications for the (PAID) STUDENT COORDINATOR of the Management Fellows for those who are particularly interested in the program and have some prior experience with Dwight Hall. The application form can be found online at www.yale.edu/dwight. If you decide to apply to be a Management Fellow, please do the following: (A) Before this Tuesday, April 16, email David Pozen at david.pozen@yale.edu with all the times when you are free for an interview on Wednesday, April 17 and Sunday, April 21. Interview times will be sent out on Tuesday. Interviews will last approximately 20 minutes. (B) When you come to the interview, please bring along a completed application. (Candidates are also encouraged to bring resumes, but this is not required.) Thanks, and good luck!!!”
three	thomas krens at the architecture school If you enjoy reading my Artist of the Left column, then you might be interested in attending Monday night’s lecture at the School of Architecture. Thomas Krens, the director of the Guggenheim, is a relentless capitalist who has taken his venerable institution and transformed it into one giant store. (Krens has a business degree, not an art history one.) While he’s certainly put on a few good exhibitions, and while he spearheaded the construction of Frank Gehry’s marvelous Guggenheim Bilbao, Krens has done more to remove art from the art world than anyone working today. My socialist art history professor has encouraged me to hiss during his speech; if you’d like to join me, come to Hastings Hall Monday at 6:30.
four	artist of the left: jenny holzer, new media artist She is one part Wildean wit, one part Confucian epigrammatist, one part Orwellian Big Brother, one part Marxian provocateur—and yet she is totally original. Jenny Holzer, born in Ohio in 1950, studied painting in her home state and at RISD, where she began to incorporate text in her compositions. In 1977, however, she invented a new art form: her work Truisms, a sort of high-art graffiti, consisted of pithy, incisive statements printed on white paper that were anonymously plastered all over New York. Rising to prominence at such a young age, Holzer unsurprisingly thought big, and she pulled off some of the most startling and most memorable public art projects in recent memory. In 1982, the Public Art Fund gave her access to a huge LED display in Times Square, where she exhibited more of her left-leaning, always witty statements: “When something terrible happens people wake up.” “Abuse of power comes as no surprise.” “The old is soiled and disgusting by nature.” Since then she has worked primarily in the medium of public neon displays, using a trope of advertising—and thus capitalism—and subverting its intentions with art. In 1990 she won first prize at the Venice Biennale, the first such award for an American in a very long time. Using influences from Minimalism to Pop, Holzer has created an artistically and politically consistent oeuvre that has made her one of the most famous artists in the United States.
five	a final thought For o thing, sires, saufly dar I seye, That frendes everich other moot obeye, If they wol longe holden companye. Love wol not ben constreyned by maistrye. When maistrye comth, the God of Love anon Beteth hise winges, and farewel, he is gon! Love is a thing as any spirit free. —Geoffrey Chaucer